V. I.

Lenin

The tsarist government has already begun to “prepare” for
the elections to the Fourth Duma. The rural superintendents, prodded by the
circulars of the governors and the minister, are trying to do their bit,
the police and the Black Hundreds are showing their zeal, the “holy
fathers”, who have been ordered to do their level best for the “Right”
parties, are not letting the grass grow under their feet. It is high time
the peasants also began to think of the elections.

The elections are of particular importance for the peas ants, but their
position in the elections is a very, difficult one. The peasants are the
least politically organised—both as compared with the workers and as
compared with the liberal, Cadet Party. Without political organisation, the
peasants, who, owing to the conditions under which they live, are the most
disunited section of the population, will be absolutely unable to offer
resistance to the landowners and officials who are now persecuting and
ill-treating them worse than ever before. A group of peasant deputies to
the Fourth Duma, really devoted to the cause of the peasantry,
politically-conscious and capable of defending all its interests,
politically organised and working steadily to extend and strengthen their
ties with the peasants in the villages—such a group could be of immense
service in helping to unite the peasant masses in their struggle for
freedom and for life.

Can such a group be formed in the Fourth Duma? In the Third Duma, there
was a group of 14 Trudoviks , who championed the democratic
interests of peasants; unfortunately, they all too often became dependent
on the liberals, the Cadets, who are leading the peasants by the nose,
deceiving them with the illusion of “peace” between peasants and landowners, between the peasants and the landowning tsarist
monarchy. Besides, it is a known fact that even the “ Right ”
peasants in the Third Duma took a more democratic stand than the Cadets on
the question of land. The agrarian bill introduced by forty-three peasant
deputies in the Third Duma proves this incontrovertibly; and the recent
“sally” of Purishkevich against the Right peasant deputies shows that the
Black Hundreds have, in general, every reason to be dissatisfied with these
“Right” peasant deputies.

Thus the mood of the peasantry, which during the period of the Third
Duma has been taught the cruel lessons of the new agrarian policy,
of the “land misregulation” and of that most terrible calamity—the
famine—warrants the belief that it is fully capable of sending
democratic representatives to the Fourth Duma. The main drawback
is the electoral law! Framed by the landowners for their benefit, and
endorsed by the landowners’ tsar, it provides that the deputies who are to
represent the peasants in the Duma shall be elected not by the peasant electors bat by the landowners . The landowners can choose which
peasant electors they like to represent the peasants in the Duma! It is
obvious that the landowners will always choose peasants who follow the
Black Hundreds.

Hence, if the peasants are to elect their own deputies to the
Duma, if they are to elect truly reliable and staunch champions of their
interests, they have only one means . That is to follow the example
of the workers and choose as electors only Party members, class-conscious
and reliable men thoroughly devoted to the peasantry, and no others.

The working-class Social-Democratic Party resolved at its conference
that already at the meetings of the delegates (who elect the
electors) the workers must decide who is to be elected to
represent them in the Duma. All the other electors must stand down in their
favour, on pain of being boycotted and branded as traitors .

Let the peasants do the same. Preparations for the elections must be
started at once, and in this connection it is necessary to make their
condition clear to the peasants and wherever possible form village groups,
even if only small ones, of politically-conscious peasants, to conduct the
election campaign. At the meetings of their delegates , before electing the electors, the peasants must decide who is to
be elected to the Duma from the peasants, and all the other peasant
electors must be requested, on pain of being boycotted and branded as
traitors, to turn down any offers made them by the landowners, and
categorically to decline their nomination in favour of the
candidate decided on by the peasants .

All class-conscious workers, all Social-Democrats, and all true
democrats in general, must lend the peasantry a helping hand in the
elections to the Fourth Duma. May the severe lessons of the famine and of
the plunder of the peasants’ land not have been in vain. May there be a
stronger and more solid group of peasant deputies in the Fourth Duma, a
group of real democrats loyal to the peasantry.

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