The foregoing lines were already written when I received the resolutions of the February (1907) conference of the "Union of the Estonian Region" of the RSDLP {66}.

At this conference, comrades Mensheviks M. and A. spoke (presumably as delegates from the Central Committee). In discussing the question of the State Duma, they apparently introduced the very resolution that I analyzed above. And it is extremely instructive to see what changes the Estonian Social-Democrats made to this resolution. We present the resolution adopted by the conference in its entirety:

On the Attitude towards the State Duma "The State Duma has no power or strength to satisfy the needs of the people, since all power remains as before in the hands of the enemies of the people – the tsarist autocracy, the bureaucracy, and a handful of landowners. Therefore, Social-Democracy must ruthlessly destroy illusory hopes in the legislative power of the current State Duma and explain to the people that only a plenipotentiary all-national constituent assembly, freely elected after the destruction of the tsarist autocracy by the people themselves, is capable of satisfying the demands of the people.

For the purpose of developing the class self-consciousness of the proletariat, the political education of the popular masses, and the development and organization of revolutionary forces, Social-Democracy must also use this powerless, feeble State Duma. In view of this, Social-Democracy participates in the activities of the State Duma on the following grounds:

I. Social-Democracy, proceeding from the interests of the urban and rural proletariat and from the principles of consistent democracy, criticizes all proposals and draft laws of the government and bourgeois parties and the state budget, and opposes them with its own demands and draft laws, constantly proceeding from the demands and needs of the broad popular masses, thereby exposing the unsuitability of the existing system and the class contradictions of bourgeois society.

II. Social-Democracy uses the right of interpellation in order to expose the essence and nature of the current government and to show the people that all its activities are directed directly against the interests of the people, to clarify the disenfranchised position of the working class, and to shed light on the role played by the government and the ruling classes and the parties that rely on them in relation to the working class. Among other things, Social-Democracy must fight against the compromising and treacherous party of the Cadets, exposing their half-heartedness and hypocritical democratism, in order to liberate the revolutionary petty bourgeoisie from their hegemony and influence, forcing it to follow the proletariat.

III. As the party of the proletarian class, Social-Democracy must always act independently in the State Duma. Social-Democracy must not conclude any permanent agreements or treaties that restrict the freedom of action of Social-Democracy with other revolutionary and opposition parties in the State Duma. In individual cases, when the tasks and steps of other parties coincide with the tasks and steps of Social-Democracy, the S.-D. can and should enter into negotiations with other parties regarding these steps.

IV. Since the people cannot have any agreements with the current serf-owning government, and only a plenipotentiary constituent assembly is capable of satisfying the people's demands and needs, the conference does not consider it the task of the proletariat to fight for a ministry responsible to the current powerless Duma. The proletariat must fight not under the banner of a responsible ministry, but under the banner of a constituent assembly.

V. Fighting in this way, the Social-Democratic faction in the State Duma must bind itself in the closest way to the proletarian and broad popular masses outside the Duma and, by contributing to the organization of these masses, create a revolutionary army for the overthrow of the autocracy."

No comment is needed. In my article, I tried to show how resolutions like the one analyzed should not be written. In their resolution, the Estonian revolutionary Social-Democrats showed how unsuitable resolutions should be corrected.