Comrade workers and all citizens of Russia!

In the very near future, elections to the Fourth State Duma will take place. Various political parties and the government itself are making every effort to prepare for the elections. The Party of conscious proletariat, whose glorious struggle in 1905 dealt the first serious blow to tsarism and wrested from it representative institutions, the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, calls upon all and each—both those possessing electoral rights and the vast majority of the "disenfranchised"—to take the most energetic part in the elections. All those who strive for the liberation of the working class from wage slavery, all those to whom the cause of Russian freedom is dear, must set to work immediately to unite and consolidate on the elections to the fourth, landlords' Duma the fighters for freedom, to advance the consciousness and organization of Russian democracy.

Five years have passed since the coup d'état of June 3rd, 1907, when Nicholas the Bloody, the tsar of Khodynka, the "victor and destroyer" of the first and second Duma, cast aside his oaths, promises and manifestoes in order, together with the Black Hundred of landlords and with the Octobrist merchants, to wreak vengeance upon the working class and all revolutionary elements of Russia—that is, upon the vast majority of the people—for the year of revolution.

Revenge for the revolution has marked the entire epoch of the Third Duma. Never before has Russia witnessed such an outburst of persecutions by tsarism. The gallows in these five years have broken the record of three centuries of Russian history. Places of exile, hard labour and prisons have been filled with politicals as never before, and never have such tortures and brutalities been applied to the defeated as under Nicholas II. Never has there been such an outburst of embezzlement of state funds, such outrage and arbitrary rule by officials—to whom everything goes unpunished for their zeal in the struggle with "sedition"—such mockery of the citizen in general and of the peasant in particular on the part of any representative of authority. Never have they persecuted with such relish, with such malice, with such recklessness the Jews, and following them other nationalities not belonging to the dominant nation.

Antisemitism and the crudest nationalism have become the sole political platform of the government parties, while the figure of Purishkevich has become the sole complete, integral, accurate expression of all the methods of administration of the present tsarist monarchy.

And what is the result of these rages of counter-revolution?

Even into the "higher," exploiting classes of society, consciousness is penetrating that life cannot continue thus. The Octobrists themselves, the ruling party in the Third Duma, the party of landlord and merchant frightened by revolution and cringing before the authorities, are expressing more and more in their own press the conviction that the tsar and the nobility, whom the Octobrists served with faith and truth, have driven Russia into a blind alley.

There was a time when tsarist monarchy was the European gendarme, protecting reaction in Russia and helping to violently suppress every movement toward freedom in Europe. Nicholas II has brought things to such a pass that the tsar is now not only a European but also an Asiatic gendarme, who through intrigues, money and the most brutal violence strives to suppress every movement toward freedom in Turkey, Persia, China.

But no atrocities of tsarism can stop the development of Russia. However much Purishkevich, the Romanovs, the Markovs—these last remnants of serfdom—may mutilate and maim Russia, she still moves forward. And with each step of her development, the demand for political freedom becomes ever more urgent. Without political freedom Russia cannot live, nor can any country in the twentieth century. But is it conceivable to expect political reforms from tsarist monarchy, when the tsar has dispersed both the first Duma and trampled underfoot his own Manifesto of October 17th, 1905? Are political reforms conceivable in contemporary Russia, when over all laws mocks a bureaucratic gang, knowing that the tsar and his kin will cover everything? Don't we see how, making use of the protection of the tsar himself or his relatives, yesterday Iliodor, today Rasputin, yesterday Tolmachev, today Khvostov, yesterday Stolypin, today Makarov—trample underfoot all and every law? Don't we see that even petty, absurdly trifling "reforms" of the landlords' Duma, reforms aimed at renovating and strengthening tsarist power, are rejected and distorted by the State Council or by a personal decree of Nicholas the Bloody? Don't we know that the Black Hundred gang of murderers, shooting from the corner at deputies unwelcome to the authorities, throwing socialists-democrats from the Second Duma into hard labour, always preparing pogroms, everywhere brazenly plundering the treasury—enjoys the special favor of the tsar and receives from him poorly disguised assistance, direction, guidance? Look at what has become under Nicholas Romanov of the fundamental political demands of the Russian people, in the name of which for more than three-quarters of a century the best representatives of the people went to heroic struggle, in the name of which in the year of revolution millions rose up. Is universal, equal, direct suffrage compatible with Romanov monarchy, when even non-universal, unequal, indirect suffrage for the first and second Duma was trampled by tsarism? Is freedom of unions, coalitions, strikes compatible with the tsar's monarchy, when even the reactionary, deformed law of March 4th, 1906{79} has been entirely nullified by governors and ministers? Do not the words of the Manifesto of October 17th, 1905 about "inviolable foundations of civil freedom," about "genuine inviolability of the person," about "freedom of conscience, speech, assembly, unions" sound like mockery? Every day every "subject" of the tsar observes this mockery.

No! Enough of liberal lies, that it is possible to combine freedom with old power, that political reforms are conceivable under tsarist monarchy. The Russian people have paid dearly in hard lessons of counter-revolution for these childish illusions! Whoever seriously and sincerely desires political freedom must proudly and boldly raise the banner of the republic, and under this banner the politics of the tsar-landlord gang will inevitably draw all living forces of Russian democracy.

There was a time—and not so long ago—when the cry: Down with autocracy! seemed too advanced for Russia. But the RSDLP threw out this cry, workers of the advanced detachments took it up and spread it throughout the country; in two or three years this cry had become a "popular saying." To work then, comrade workers and all citizens of Russia, who do not wish our country to sink finally into stagnation, savagery, lack of rights and the murderous want of tens of millions! Russian social-democrats, Russian workers will achieve that the popular saying throughout Rus shall be: Down with tsarist monarchy! Long live the Russian democratic republic!

Workers! Remember the year of revolution: through strike struggle you raised to new life, to consciousness, to freedom millions of the working people. And decades of the tsar's reforms have not given, cannot give a tenth of the improvements in your life that you achieved then through the struggle of the masses. The fate of the draft law on workers' insurance, mutilated—with the participation of the Cadets—by the landlords' Duma, once again showed what workers can expect "from above."

Counter-revolution has taken from us almost all our conquests, but it has not taken and cannot take the strength, vigor, faith in their cause from working youth, from the growing and strengthening all-Russian proletariat.

Long live the new struggle for the improvement of the lives of workers, who do not wish to remain slaves in the hard labour camps of factories and mills! Long live the eight-hour working day! Whoever desires freedom in Rus must help that class which dug the grave of tsarist monarchy in 1905 and which will cast into that grave the greatest enemy of all the peoples of Russia in the coming Russian revolution.

Peasants! You sent your deputies, the Trudoviks, to the First and Second Duma, believing in the tsar and hoping to persuade him to agree to the transfer of landlords' lands to the people. You can now convince yourselves that the tsar—the greatest landlord in Russia—in the defense of landlords and officials stops at no oath-breaking, at no lawlessness, at no violence and bloodshed. Should you endure the yoke of these remnants of serfdom, suffer in silence the mockery and outrage of officials and die by hundreds of thousands and millions from the torments of hunger, from diseases born of hunger and extreme poverty—or die in struggle against tsarist monarchy and the tsar-landlord Duma, so as to conquer a tolerable and human life for our children?

This is the question that is bearing down upon the Russian peasants. And the workers' social-democratic party calls upon the peasants to struggle for complete freedom, for the transfer of all landlords' lands to the peasants without any redemption. Alms will not cure peasant poverty, will not save peasants from hunger. Peasants do not ask for charity, but for that land which for centuries they have watered with their sweat and blood. Peasants need not solicitude from authorities and tsar, but freedom from officials and from tsar, freedom to arrange their own affairs themselves.

Let the elections to the Fourth Duma serve to clarify the political consciousness of the masses, to draw them once again into decisive struggle. Three main parties are fighting in the elections: 1) Black Hundreds, 2) Liberals, and 3) Social-Democrats.

The Black Hundreds include the Rights, the "Nationalists," and the Octobrists. They all stand for the government—therefore the differences between them can have no serious significance whatsoever. Merciless struggle against all these Black Hundred parties—that is our slogan!

Liberals—this is the party of the Cadets (the "Constitutional-Democratic" or "People's Freedom" party). It is the party of liberal bourgeoisie, which wishes to share power with the tsar and serf-owning landlords in such a way as not to destroy their power to its foundations, so as not to give power to the people. Hating the government which shoves them aside from power, helping to expose it, introducing vacillation and decomposition into its ranks, the liberals hate revolution still incomparably more, fear any struggle of the masses, relate with still greater vacillation and irresolution to the liberation struggle of the people, traitorously going over to the side of monarchy in decisive moments. During the period of counter-revolution, the liberals, humming along with the "Slavic" dreams of tsarism, playing the part of "responsible opposition," cringing before the tsar as "opposition to his majesty" and pouring filth upon revolutionaries and the revolutionary struggle of the masses, turned more and more away from the struggle for freedom.

The Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party even in the dark Third Duma managed to raise the banner of revolution, managed to help from there the cause of organization and revolutionary education of workers, the cause of peasant struggle against landlords. The party of the proletariat is the sole party of the advanced class capable of conquering freedom for Russia. And now our party goes into the Duma not in order to play there "at reforms," not in order to "defend the constitution," to "persuade" the Octobrists or "drive out reaction" from the Duma, as the liberals deluding the people say, but in order from the Duma tribune to call the masses to struggle, to expound the doctrine of socialism, to expose all governmental and liberal deception, to unmask the monarchical prejudices of the backward strata of the people and the class roots of bourgeois parties—in a word, in order to prepare the army of conscious fighters of the new Russian revolution.

The tsarist government and the Black Hundred landlords fully appreciated what force of revolution was represented by the S-D faction in the Duma. All the efforts of the police and the Ministry of Internal Affairs are now directed toward preventing the S-Ds from entering the Fourth Duma. Unite then, workers and citizens! rally around the RSDLP, which at its recent conference, recovering from the collapse of years of turmoil, again gathered its forces and raised its banner! Let all and each take part in the elections and in election agitation—and the efforts of the government will be shattered, the red banner of revolutionary social-democracy will be hoisted from the Duma tribune even in police-ridden, disenfranchised, blood-soaked, crushed and hungry Russia!

Long live the Russian democratic republic!

Long live the eight-hour working day!

Long live the confiscation of landlords' lands!

Workers and citizens! Support the election agitation of the RSDLP! Vote for the candidates of the RSDLP!

Written in early March 1912.

Published in March 1912 in Tiflis as a separate leaflet.

Printed according to the text of the leaflet, collated with the text of a manuscript copy with corrections by V. I. Lenin.

First page of the manuscript by V. I. Lenin "Cards on the Table." March 1912. (Reduced)