V. I.

Lenin

The answer given by Rech to the semi-official organ of the Cabinet on the question of the “slogan” for the elections to
the Fourth Duma and on the present-day political alignment represents an
interesting and significant phenomenon.

Rech agrees with Russkiye Vedomosti [1] that “the elections to the Fourth Duma will be a
contest between two camps only: the Progressists and the Rights”. “Votes
will have to be cast not for parties, nor for individual candidates, but
for or against the consolidation of the constitutional system in
Russia. [“Consolidation” is a very charming way of putting it!] The
political meaning of this slogan ... is an objective acknowledgement of the
indisputable fact that the line pursued by the government has again united
the entire opposition, both to the right and to the left of the Cadets.”
The Cadets will constitute “the centre of this politically heterogeneous
group”, and, although they form part of it, “will renounce their former
programme and tactics just as little as did the Social-Democrats when they
joined the pre-October alliances” (the editorial, January 21).

“ Gentlemen, we can say in reply to the semi-official and official
press, it is you yourselves who have been instrumental in uniting us.... At
present political trends in Russia are merging to an ever greater extent in
two big camps—for and against the Constitution.... Our task at present is
the same, again the same, just as it was before October 17...” (ibid.).

In assessing these observations we must distinguish between the
conditions attending the elections to the Fourth Duma and the social and
political meaning of the changes under discussion (the “slogan” and the
alignments). The circumstances of the elections in general, in the provinces in particular,
will certainly compel the “opposition” to resort to the vague non-party
term

“Progressists” [2] on an even wider scale than before. The refusal to
legalise even such parties as the Cadets will inevitably lead to this, and
the bewilderment of the semi-official organ of the Cabinet on this score
is, of course, nothing but sheer hypocrisy. In the big cities, for
instance, as the Cadets themselves admit in that very same editorial,
independent candidates of “groups more to the left” (to use the
expression of Russkiye Vedomosti ) will stand for election. This
alone shows that there can be no question of just two camps.

Further, Rech thought it best completely to forget the existence of a worker curia, as provided by the present election
laws. Finally, with regard to the elections in the villages (the peasant
curia) it must be said that here even the word “Progressists”
will undoubtedly be avoided; but it will probably not be the Cadets who
will constitute the actual “centre” of the “politically
heterogeneous” or politically undefinable groups.

What, then, does the talk about two camps amount to? To the
fact that it pleases the Cadets, in speaking of the present political
situation, to narrow down their field of vision to include only
those elements that constitute the majority in the Third Duma. The Cadet
gentlemen are willing to recognise as political “camps” only that
insignificant section of the population represented by these
elements. Hitherto the main division in this small corner created
by the coup d’état of June 3 has been: the Rights, the Octobrists,
the Cadets. (It is well known that the character of the Third Duma was
determined, in the final analysis, by two majorities: the Rights with the
Octobrists and the Octobrists with the Cadets.) Now (according to the
forecast of Russkiye Vedomosti , with which Rech is in agreement) these three elements will be divided into two
“camps”: the Rights and Progressists.

We fully admit that these predictions of the liberals are based not on
the wishes of the liberals alone, but on objective facts as well—on the
changes in the political situation and in the political sentiments of the
Russian bourgeoisie. It would be impermissible, however, to forget that one can speak of two camps only when the field of observation is
limited to the majority in the Third Duma. It would be impermissible to
forget that the actual meaning of all this talk is nothing more
than the tendency on the part of the Octobrist and the Cadet “camps” to
draw closer together, merge and unite in the Progressist “camp” (with the
tacit understanding, of course, that a more or less consider able section
of the Octobrist camp will defect to the camp of the Rights). When the
Cadets say: “we” have been united, again “we” have one task, etc.,
these words “we”, “us”, “our” actually mean nothing more
than the Octobrists and the Cadets.

Now, what has united “them”? What is “their” task? What is
“their” slogan for the elections to the Fourth Duma? “The consolidation
of the Constitution”, reply Russkiye Vedomosti and
Rech . This reply is only seemingly definite; actually, it defines
absolutely nothing; it amounts to the same, absolutely meaningless,
reference to some indefinite “mean” between the Octobrists and the
Cadets. For both Milyukov and Guchkov agree that “Thank God, we have a
Constitution”, but when they dream of making common cause, it is for the
purpose of “consolidating”, not what “we” have , but what we
have not. It is also a dream, and not a very sensible one at that, that
Milyukov and Guchkov, the Cadets and the Octobrists of today, and the
“Progressists” of tomorrow, could agree on a definition of what should be
included in the desired Constitution. They would be unable to agree either
on the legal formulations expressing the Constitution, or on defining what
real interests of what actual classes this Constitution should meet and
safeguard. Hence, the real meaning of this joint slogan amounts to
this: while they are being drawn more closely together by “a
negative aim—that of the struggle against the common enemy” (as
Rech puts it in the same editorial), the Octobrists and the Cadets
cannot define their positive tasks, cannot find in their camps the forces
that would be capable of emerging from the deadlock.

The observations of Rech on the subject of a “sensible compromise” in connection with another matter ore a very clearly expressed
admission that they are indeed in a state of deadlock, that it is necessary
to emerge from this state, that this is necessary for both the Octobrists and the Cadets, and that,
after they have emerged, both will be absolutely impotent by themselves.

“ During the debate in the Duma on the St. Petersburg sewerage
system,” we read in an editorial in Rech of January 20, “the
unhealthy undercurrent of the controversy was somewhat lessened, and even
the Centre [i.e., the Octobrists] found it possible to accept the sensible
compromise which the people’s freedom group proposed and the municipality
accepted; but the interference of P. A. Stolypin rudely tore away the veil
[you, Messrs. Cadets, would like vexed questions to remain hidden under a
veil, wouldn’t you?] and revealed the same old background, with which
everyone has been disgusted for some time—that of the political
struggle of the state against the municipality.”

The liberal bourgeoisie in the guise of an innocent—oh, how
innocent!—person dreaming of “sensible compromises” on a businesslike,
non-political basis, and the representatives of the old,
“non-constitutional”, principles in the role of political educators who
tear down the veils and reveal the class background! A sensible compromise,
the liberal muses, means that what the Cadets, the Octobrists and the
non-party bigwigs of capital (the St. Petersburg municipality) have agreed
upon may be conceded. There is nothing sensible in the idea of our yielding
to you, the government replies; the only sensible thing is that you yield
to us.

The minor question of the sanitation of St. Petersburg, of the
distribution of the responsibilities and rights between local
self-government and autocratic government, became the occasion for the
elucidation of truths of no mean importance. What, indeed, is more
“sensible”—the wishes, dreams and demands of the whole bourgeoisie, or
the power of, say, the Council of the United

Nobility [3] ?

In the eyes of Rech , as well as of the whole Cadet Party, the
criterion of the “wisdom” of a compromise is in its approval by men of
affairs, businessmen, bigwigs, the Octobrists themselves, the wire-pullers
of the St. Petersburg municipality themselves. But the actual
state of affairs—no matter how it is furbished up with phrases like
“Thank God, we have a Constitution”—unmasks these compromises and tears
away these veils rather rudely.

To sum up: “You have been instrumental in uniting us”, Rech
says to the semi-official organ of the Cabinet. Who do they mean by “us”?
It appears that they mean the Octobrists and the Cadets. What have they
united for? For a common task, the consolidation of the Constitution. And
what are we to understand by the Constitution and its consolidation? A
sensible compromise between the Octobrists and the Cadets. What is the
criterion of the wisdom of compromises of this kind? Their approval by the
worst representatives of Russian “Kolupayev” capitalism, [4] such as the St. Petersburg municipal councillors. And
what is the practical result of these sensible compromises? The result is
that P. A. Stolypin, or the Council of State, or

Tolmachov, [5] etc., “rudely unmask” these compromises.... Oh, these
practical politicians!

But will there not be a third camp at the elections to the Fourth
Duma—one that realises how senseless, ridiculous and naïve is the
Cadet policy of “sensible compromise”? What do you think of that,
gentlemen of Rech and Russkiye Vedomosti ?

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Notes:
[1]
Russkiye Vedomosti ( Russian Recorder) —a daily newspaper published in Moscow from 1863 by liberal professors of the Moscow
University and Zemstvo personalities; it expressed the views of the liberal
landlords and bourgeoisie. From 1905 it was an organ of the Right Cadets,
and was closed down after the 1917 October Revolution.

[2]
Progressists —chiefly representatives of the urban petty
bourgeoisie, and to some extent of the peasantry, who stood for election to
the Second and Third Dumas.

[3]
Council of the United Nobility —a counter-revolutionary
landlord organisation formed in May 1906, which exercised great influence
on government policy. During the period of the Third State Duma a
considerable number of its members were in the Council of State and leading
centres of the Black-Hundred organisations.

[4]

“ Kolupayev ” capitalism . Kolupayev is the name of a kulak in M. Y. Saltykov-Shchedrin’s The Mon Repos Retreat . Lenin
described this type of capitalism in “The Agrarian Programme of
Social-Democracy in the First Russian Revolution, 1905–07”

[5]
Tolmachov, I. N. —Governor of Odessa, an extreme reactionary.