Five years have passed since October 1905, when the Russian working class dealt the first mighty blow against tsarist autocracy. The proletariat raised millions of toilers to struggle against their oppressors in those great days. In the course of several months of 1905, it won for itself such improvements as workers had vainly awaited from "the authorities" for decades. The proletariat won for the entire Russian people, though for a brief time, a freedom of press, assembly, and association unprecedented in Russia. It swept away the spurious Bulygin Duma from its path, wrested from the tsar a manifesto on a constitution, and made it forever impossible to govern Russia without representative institutions.

The proletariat's great victories turned out to be half-victories, because tsarist power was not overthrown. The December uprising ended in defeat, and tsarist autocracy began to take back one after another the conquests of the working class as its offensive weakened, as the struggle of the masses weakened. In 1906 the workers' strikes, peasant and soldier unrest were much weaker than in 1905, but were still very strong nonetheless. The tsar dissolved the first Duma, during which the people's struggle began to develop again, but did not dare immediately to alter the electoral law. In 1907 the workers' struggle weakened even further, and the tsar, having dissolved the second Duma, carried out a coup d'état (June 3, 1907); he violated all his most solemn promises not to enact laws without the consent of the Duma and altered the electoral law so that a majority in the Duma was assured to the landowners and capitalists, the Black Hundreds party and their hangers-on.

Both the victories and the defeats of the revolution gave great historical lessons to the Russian people. In commemorating the fifth anniversary of 1905, let us endeavor to clarify for ourselves the main substance of these lessons.

The first and principal lesson is this: only the revolutionary struggle of the masses is capable of achieving any serious improvements in the lives of workers and in the governance of the state. No "sympathy" for the workers from educated people, no heroic struggle of individual terrorists could undermine tsarist autocracy and the omnipotence of capitalists. Only the struggle of the workers themselves, only the joint struggle of millions could do this, and when such struggle weakened, the taking back of what the workers had conquered immediately commenced. The Russian Revolution confirmed what is sung in the international workers' song:

The second lesson is this: it is not enough to undermine or limit tsarist power. It must be destroyed. As long as tsarist power is not destroyed, the tsar's concessions will always be unstable. The tsar granted concessions when the pressure of revolution intensified, and took back all concessions when the pressure weakened. Only the conquest of a democratic republic, the overthrow of tsarist power, the transfer of power into the hands of the people can deliver Russia from violence and the arbitrariness of officials, from the Black Hundreds-Octobrist Duma, from the omnipotence of landowners and their servants in the countryside. If the calamities of peasants and workers have now, after the revolution, become even more severe than before, this is the price paid for the fact that the revolution was weak, that tsarist power was not overthrown. The year 1905, and then the first two Dumas and their dissolution, taught the people a great deal—taught them above all the collective struggle for political demands. The people, awakening to political life, at first demanded concessions from autocracy: that the tsar convene a Duma, that the tsar replace old ministers with new ones, that the tsar "grant" universal suffrage. But autocracy did not go and could not go along with such concessions. To requests for concessions, autocracy answered with bayonets. And then the people began to arrive at an understanding of the necessity to struggle against autocratic power. Now Stolypin and the black, aristocratic Duma are driving this understanding, one might say, into the heads of peasants with even greater force. They are driving it in and they will drive it in.

Tsarist autocracy itself drew a lesson from the revolution. It saw that it could not rely on the faith of peasants in the tsar. It is now strengthening its power through an alliance with Black Hundreds landowners and Octobrist factory owners. To overthrow tsarist autocracy, a far more powerful offensive of revolutionary mass struggle is now needed than in 1905.

Is such a far more powerful offensive possible? The answer to this question brings us to the third and most important lesson of the revolution. This lesson consists in the fact that we saw how different classes of the Russian people acted. Before 1905, it seemed to many that all the people equally strived for freedom and desired the same freedom; in any case, the overwhelming majority had no clear understanding that the different classes of the Russian people related differently to the struggle for freedom and sought unequal freedoms. The revolution dispersed the fog. At the end of 1905, and then also during the first and second Dumas, all classes of Russian society came forward openly. They showed themselves in deed, revealed their true aspirations, what they could struggle for and how strong, stubborn, and energetic they were capable of struggling.

The factory workers, the industrial proletariat waged the most decisive and most stubborn struggle against autocracy. The proletariat began the revolution on January Ninth and through mass strikes. The proletariat carried the struggle through to the end, rising to armed uprising in December 1905, in defense of peasants being shot, beaten, and tortured. The number of striking workers in 1905 was approximately three million (or certainly up to four million with railway workers, postal employees, etc.), in 1906—one million, in 1907—three-quarters of a million. The world had never seen strike activity of such force. The Russian proletariat showed what untapped forces lie dormant in working-class masses when a genuinely revolutionary crisis matures. The greatest strike wave in the world in 1905 was far from exhausting all the combat forces of the proletariat. For example, in the Moscow factory district there were 567 thousand factory workers and 540 thousand strikers, while in Petersburg—300 thousand factory workers and 1 million strikers. This means the workers of the Moscow region had far from displayed such persistence in struggle as the Petersburg workers. And in the province of Livonia (the city of Riga), among 50 thousand workers there were 250 thousand strikers—that is, each worker struck, on average, more than five times in 1905. Now in all of Russia there are certainly no fewer than three million factory, mining, and railway workers, and this number grows each year; with a movement of such force as in Riga in 1905, they could have fielded an army of 15 million strikers.

No tsarist power could have withstood such an offensive. But everyone understands that such an offensive cannot be provoked artificially, at the desire of socialists or advanced workers. Such an offensive is possible only when a crisis, indignation, and revolution grip the entire country. To prepare such an offensive, one must draw the most backward layers of workers into the struggle; one must conduct years and years of stubborn, broad, and unwavering propagandistic, agitational, and organizational work, creating and strengthening all types of associations and organizations of the proletariat.

In the force of struggle, the Russian working class stood ahead of all other classes of the Russian people. The very conditions of workers' lives make them capable of struggle and push them toward struggle. Capital gathers workers in large masses in major cities, unites them, trains them in joint action. At every turn workers come face to face with their principal enemy—the class of capitalists. In struggling against this enemy, the worker becomes a socialist, comes to an understanding of the necessity of the complete reconstruction of all society, the complete destruction of all poverty and all oppression. In becoming socialists, workers struggle with utter devotion against everything that stands in their path, and first of all against tsarist power and serf-owning landowners.

The peasants also came forward to struggle against landowners and against the government in the revolution, but their struggle was far weaker. It has been calculated that of factory workers, the majority (up to three-fifths) participated in revolutionary struggle and strikes, but of peasants, certainly only a minority: certainly no more than one-fifth or one-quarter. Peasants struggled less stubbornly, more in isolation, less consciously, still often hoping in the kindness of the tsar-father. In 1905 and 1906, the peasants really only frightened the tsar and landowners. But they must not be frightened—they must be destroyed, their government—the tsarist government—must be wiped off the face of the earth. Now Stolypin and the black, landowner Duma are trying to create from wealthy peasants new landowner-farmers, allies of the tsar and the Black Hundreds. But the more the tsar and Duma help wealthy peasants ruin the mass of peasants, the more conscious this mass becomes, the less it will retain faith in the tsar, the faith of serfs, the faith of beaten-down and ignorant people. With each year there are more rural workers in the countryside—they have nowhere to seek salvation except in alliance with urban workers for joint struggle. With each year there are more ruined, impoverished to the uttermost, starving peasants in the countryside—millions and millions of them will go, when the urban proletariat rises, toward a more decisive and more consolidated struggle against the tsar and landowners.

The liberal bourgeoisie also took part in the revolution—that is, liberal landowners, factory owners, lawyers, professors, and the like. They constitute the "People's Freedom" party (the Cadets). They promised much to the people and made much noise about freedom in their newspapers. They had a majority of deputies in the first and second Dumas. They promised to achieve freedom by "peaceful means"; they condemned the revolutionary struggle of workers and peasants. Peasants and many of the peasant deputies (the "Trudoviks") believed these promises and followed the liberals meekly and obediently, keeping themselves apart from the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat. This was the peasants' and many townspeople's greatest mistake during the revolution. The liberals with one hand, and even that very, very rarely, helped the struggle for freedom, while with the other hand they always extended themselves to the tsar, promising him to preserve and strengthen his power, to reconcile peasants with landowners, to "pacify" the "unruly" workers.

When the revolution came to decisive struggle with the tsar, to the December uprising of 1905, the liberals in their entirety basely betrayed the people's freedom, recoiled from the struggle. Tsarist autocracy made use of this betrayal of the people's freedom by liberals, made use of the ignorance of peasants, many of whom believed the liberals, and defeated the rebel workers. And when the proletariat was defeated, no Dumas, no sweet speeches of the Cadets, no promises of theirs could restrain the tsar from destroying all remnants of freedom, from restoring autocracy and the omnipotence of serf-owning landowners.

The liberals turned out to be deceived. The peasants received a harsh but useful lesson. There will be no freedom in Russia as long as the broad masses of the people believe in liberals, believe in the possibility of "peace" with tsarist power, keep themselves apart from the revolutionary struggle of workers. No force on earth will hold back the advance of freedom in Russia when the mass of the urban proletariat rises to struggle, pushes aside the wavering and traitorous liberals, and leads after itself the rural workers and ruined peasantry.

And that the Russian proletariat will rise to such struggle, that it will again stand at the head of the revolution—for this all of Russia's economic situation answers, all the experience of the revolutionary years answers.

Five years ago the proletariat dealt the first blow against tsarist autocracy. The first rays of freedom shone forth for the Russian people. Now autocracy is restored again, now serf-owning landowners reign and rule again, now everywhere there is violence against workers and peasants, everywhere the Asian despotism of the authorities, base desecration of the people. But the harsh lessons will not go to waste. The Russian people are not what they were before 1905. The proletariat has taught them to struggle. The proletariat will lead them to victory.

*Rabochaya Gazeta* No. 1, October 30 (November 12), 1910

Printed from the text of *Rabochaya Gazeta*