V. I. Lenin

Fiveyears have elapsed since the working class of Russia,
in October 1905, dealt the first mighty blow to the tsarist autocracy. In
those greet days the proletariat aroused millions of the working people to
struggle against their oppressors. In the space of a few months of that
year the proletariat won improvements which during decades the workers had
been vainly waiting from the “superior authorities”. The proletariat won
for the whole Russian people, if only for a short time, something that
Russia had never known before—freedom of the press, assembly and
association. It swept Bulygin’s fake Duma from its path, extracted from the
tsar a manifesto declaring a constitution and made it impossible once and
for all for Russia to be ruled without representative institutions.

Butthe great victories of the proletariat proved to be only
semi-victories because the tsarist regime was not overthrown. The December
insurrection ended in defeat and the tsarist autocracy began to take back
the gains of the working class one by one as the latter’s offensive
weakened, as the struggle of the masses declined. In 1906 workers’ strikes,
peasants’ and soldiers’ outbreaks were much weaker than they had been in
1905 but were still very formidable nonetheless. The tsar dispersed the
First Duma, during which the militancy of the people had begun to mount
again, but did not dare to change the electoral law all at once. In 1907
the struggle of the workers grew weaker still, and the tsar, having
dispersed the Second Duma, staged a coup d’état (June 3, 1907). He
broke all the most solemn promises that he had made not to promulgate laws
without the consent of the Duma and changed the electoral law in such a way
that the landlords and the capitalists, the party of the Black-Hundred elements and their servitors were assured of
a majority in the Duma.

Boththe victories and the defeats of the revolution taught the Russian
people some great historical lessons. In honouring the fifth anniversary of
1905, let us try to ascertain the main substance of these lessons.

Thefirst and main lesson is that only the revolutionary struggle of the masses can bring about worth-while
improvements in the lives of the workers and in the administration of the
state. No “sympathy” for the workers on the part of educated people, no
struggle of lone terrorists, however heroic, could do anything to undermine
the tsarist autocracy and the omnipotence of the capitalists. This could be
achieved only by the struggle of the workers them selves, only by the
combined struggle of millions, and when this struggle grew weaker
the workers immediately began to be deprived of what they had won. The
Russian revolution was confirmation of the sentiments expressed in the
international hymn of labour:

Nosaviours from on high deliver , No trust have we in prince or peer ; Our own right hand the chains must shiver , Chains of hatred, greed and fear!

Thesecond lesson is that it is not enough to undermine and
restrict the power of the tsar. It must be destroyed . Until the
tsarist regime is destroyed concessions won from the tsar will never be
lasting.

Thetsar made concessions when the tide of the revolutionary offensive
was rising. When it ebbed, he took them all back. Only the Winning of a
democratic republic, the over throw of the tsarist regime, the passage of
power into the hands of the people, can deliver Russia from the violence,
and tyranny of officialdom, from the Black-Hundred-Octobrist Duma, from the
despotic power which the landlords and their servitors wield over the
countryside. If the miseries of the peasants and the workers have become
even harder to bear now , after the revolution, this is the price
they are paying for the fact that the revolution was weak, that the tsarist
regime was not overthrown. The year 1905, then the first two Dumas, and
their dissolution, taught the people a great deal, taught them above all to fight in common for political demands. At
first, upon awakening to political life, the people demanded concessions
from the autocracy: that the tsar should convene a Duma, that he should
appoint new ministers in place of the old, that die tsar should “grant”
universal suffrage. But the autocracy did not and could not agree to such
concessions. The autocracy answered the re quests for concessions with
bayonets. And then the people began to realise that they would have to
fight against the autocratic regime. Now, we may say, this understanding is
being driven even more drastically into the heads of the peasants by
Stolypin and the reactionary noblemen’s Duma. Yes, they are driving it in
and they’ll drive it right home.

Thetsarist autocracy has also learned a lesson from the revolution. It
has seen that it cannot rely on the faith of the peasants in the tsar. It
is now strengthening its power by forming an alliance with the
Black-Hundred landlords and the Octobrist industrialists. To overthrow the
tsarist autocracy will now require a much more powerful offensive of the
revolutionary mass struggle than in 1905.

Issuch a much more powerful offensive possible? The reply to this
question brings us to the third and cardinal lesson of the
revolution. This lesson consists in our having seen how the
various classes of the Russian people act. Prior to 1905 many thought that
the whole people aspired to freedom in the same way and wanted the same
freedom; at least the great majority had no clear understanding of the fact
that the different classes of the Russian people had different views on the
struggle for freedom and were not striving for the same freedom. The
revolution dispelled the mist. At the end of 1905, then later during the
First and Second Dumas, all classes of Russian society came out
openly. They showed themselves in action, revealing what their true
ambitions were, what they could fight for and how strongly, persistently
and vigorously they were able to fight.

Thefactory workers, the industrial proletariat, waged a most resolute
and strenuous struggle against the autocracy. The proletariat began the
revolution with the Ninth of January and mass strikes. The proletariat
carried this struggle to its uttermost limit, rising in armed uprising in December 1905 in defence of the bullet-riddled, knouted and tormented
peasantry. The number of workers who went on strike in 1905 was about
three million (and with the railwaymen, post-office employees,
etc., probably reached four million), in 1906—one million, in
1907—three-quarters of a million. The world had never yet seen a strike
movement raised to such a pitch. The Russian proletariat showed what untold
forces there are in the masses of the workers when a real revolutionary
crisis matures. The strike wave of 1905, the greatest in the world, did not
exhaust all the militant forces of the proletariat by a long way. For
instance, in the Moscow factory region there were 567,000 factory workers
and the number of strikers was 540,000, while in the St. Petersburg factory
region, which had 300,000 factory workers, there were a million
strikers. This means that the workers in the Moscow area were still far
from developing the same stubbornness in the struggle as the St. Petersburg
workers. In Livonian Gubernia (city of Riga) there were 250,000 strikers to
the 50,000 workers employed there. In other words, each worker on the
average struck more than five times in 1905. Now, in all parts of Russia,
there cannot be less than three million factory, mining and railway workers
and this number is growing year by year. With a movement as strong as in
Riga in 1905 they could turn out an army of 15 million strikers .

Notsarist regime could withstand such an onslaught. But everyone
understands that such an offensive cannot be evoked artificially in
accordance with the desires of the socialists or militant workers. It is
possible only when the whole country is convulsed by a crisis, mass
indignation and revolution. In order to prepare such an onslaught we must
draw the most backward sections of the workers into the struggle, we must
devote years and years to persistent, widespread, unflagging propaganda,
agitation and organisational work, building up and reinforcing all forms of
proletarian unions and organisations.

Inmilitancy the working class of Russia was in advance of all the
other classes of the Russian people. The very conditions of their lives
make the workers capable of struggle and impel them to struggle. Capital
collects the workers in great masses in big cities, uniting them, teaching them to act in
unison. At every step the workers come face to face with their main
enemy—the capitalist class. In combat with this enemy the worker becomes
a socialist , comes to realise the necessity of a complete
reconstruction of the whole of society, the complete abolition of all
poverty and all oppression. Becoming socialists, the workers fight with
self-abnegating courage against everything that stands in their path, first
and foremost the tsarist regime and the feudal landlords.

Thepeasants too during the revolution went into action against the
landlords and against the government, but their struggle was much
weaker. It has been calculated that a majority of the factory workers
(about three-fifths) took part in the revolutionary struggle, in strikes,
while undoubtedly only a minority of the peasants took part: in all
probability not more than one-fifth or one-fourth. The peasants fought less
persistently, more disconnectedly, with less political understanding, at
times still pinning their hopes on the benevolence of our Father, the
Tsar. In 1905 and 1906 the peasants, properly speaking, only gave the tsar
and the landlords a bit of a fright. But frightening them is no use. They
must be destroyed, their government—the tsarist government—must be wiped off the face of the earth. Now Stolypin and the
Black-Hundred, land lord Duma are trying to create new landlord farmers
from the ranks of the rich peasants, to be the allies of the tsar and the
Black Hundreds. But the more the tsar and the Duma help the rich peasants
to ruin the mass of the peasantry, the more politically conscious does this
mass become, the less faith will it preserve in the tsar, the faith of
feudal slaves, the faith of downtrodden and ignorant people. Each year that
passes swells the ranks of the agricultural labourers in the countryside,
they have nowhere to seek salvation except in an alliance with the urban
workers for joint struggle. Each year that passes fills the countryside
with more ruined peasants, utterly destitute, driven to desperation by
hunger. When the urban proletariat rises again, mil lions upon millions of
these peasants will throw them selves into the struggle against the tsar
and the landlords with greater determination and solidarity.

Thebourgeois liberals too took part in the revolution, i.e., the
liberal landlords, industrialists, lawyers, professors, etc. They
constitute the party of “people’s freedom” (the Constitutional-Democrats
or Cadets). They promised the people a whole lot of things and made a lot
of noise about freedom in their newspapers. They had a majority in the
First and Second Dumas. They held out a promise of gaining freedom by
“peaceful means”, they condemned the revolutionary struggle of the
workers and peasants. The peasants and many of the peasant deputies
(“Trudoviks”) believed these promises and followed humbly and obediently
at the heels of the liberals, standing aside from the revolutionary
struggle of the proletariat. This was the greatest mistake committed by the
peasants (and many townfolk) during the revolution. With one hand, and at
that very, very rarely, the liberals assisted the struggle for freedom,
while they kept offering the other hand to the tsar, promising to preserve
and strengthen his power, to make peace between the peasants and the
landlords, to “pacify” the “turbulent” workers.

Whenthe revolution came to the point of a pitched battle with the
tsar, the December uprising of 1905, the liberals in a body basely betrayed
the freedom of the people and recoiled from the struggle. The tsarist
autocracy took advantage of this betrayal of the people’s freedom by the
liberals, took advantage of the ignorance of the peasants, who to a large
extent believed the liberals, and defeated the insurgent workers. And when
the proletariat was defeat ed, no Dumas, no honeyed speeches and promises
on the part of the Cadets, could hold back the tsar from abolishing all the
vestiges of freedom and restoring the autocracy and the despotic power of
the feudal landlords.

Theliberals found themselves deceived. The peasants have received a
severe but useful lesson. There will be no freedom in Russia as long as the
broad masses of the people believe in the liberals, believe in the
possibility of “peace” with the tsarist regime and stand aloof from the
revolutionary struggle of the workers. No power on earth can hold back the
advent of freedom in Russia when the mass of the urban proletariat rises in
struggle, brushes aside the wavering and treacherous liberals, and enlists under its banner the rural labourers and impoverished peasantry

Andthat the proletariat of Russia will rise in such a struggle, that
it will take the lead in the revolution again, is warranted by the whole
economic situation of Russia, all the experience of the revolutionary
years.

Fiveyears ago the proletariat dealt the first blow to the tsarist
autocracy. The first rays of freedom gleamed for the Russian people. Now
the tsarist autocracy has been restored, the feudal lords are reigning and
ruling again, the workers and peasants are everywhere being crushed down
again, everywhere the Asiatic despotism of the authorities and infamous
maltreatment of the people prevails. But these hard lessons will not have
been in vain. The Russian people are not what they were prior to 1905. The
proletariat has taught them to fight. The proletariat will bring them to
victory.

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