The election campaign for the Fourth Duma confirmed the assessment of the historical moment that Marxists had been giving since 1911. This assessment boiled down to the fact that the first phase in the history of the Russian counter-revolution had ended. A second phase had begun, characterized by the awakening of the "light detachments" of bourgeois democracy (the student movement), an offensive economic and even more non-economic workers' movement, etc.

Economic depression, a decisive offensive by the counter-revolution, the retreat and disintegration of the forces of democracy, the rampant spread of renegade, "Vekhi" and liquidationist ideas in the "progressive camp" – these are what distinguish the first phase (1907–1911). The second phase (1911–1912), however, is distinguished by opposite features in economic, political, and ideological respects: an upswing in industry, the inability of the counter-revolution to continue its previous offensive with the same strength or energy, etc., and the awakening of democracy, which forced Vekhi, renegade, and liquidationist sentiments into hiding.

Such is the general background of the picture, which must be kept in mind for a correct evaluation of the 1912 election campaign.

I. The "Making" of the Elections

The most striking distinguishing feature of the elections to the Fourth Duma is the systematic falsification of these elections by the government. We do not aim here to sum up the results of the "making of the elections"; the entire liberal and democratic press has spoken of this more than enough; the detailed interpellation by the Cadets in the Fourth Duma also speaks of it; we will probably be able to devote a special article to this question when the extensive and ever-growing documentary data have been compiled.

At the present time, however, let us note only the main results of the making of the elections and the chief political significance of this "making."

The mobilization of the clergy against liberal and Octobrist landowners; a tenfold increase in repressions and the most unceremonious violation of the law, directed against bourgeois democracy in the cities and villages; attempts, by the same means, to wrest the workers' curia from Social-Democracy – these are the main methods of the making of the elections in 1912. The aim of all this policy, reminiscent of the policy of Bonapartism, was to form a Right-Nationalist majority in the Duma, and this aim, as is known, was not achieved. But we shall see below that the government succeeded in "upholding" the former, Third Duma, situation in our, pardon the expression, parliament: in the Fourth Duma, two majorities remain, the Right-Octobrist and the Octobrist-Cadet.

The electoral law of June 3, 1907, “built” the state system of administration—and not only of administration—upon the bloc of the feudal landlords with the upper crust of the bourgeoisie, the first social element in this bloc retaining a gigantic preponderance, while the old power, in fact uncircumscribed, stood above both elements. There is no need now to discuss what the specific nature of this power was and remains, created by the centuries-long history of serfdom, etc. In any case, the shift of 1905, the collapse of the old, the open and mighty actions of the masses and classes compelled a search for an alliance with one or another social force.

The hopes placed in 1905–1906 on the “grey fellow,” on the peasant (the Bulygin and Witte electoral laws), were shattered. The June Third system “staked on the strong,” on the landlords and the bigwigs of the bourgeoisie. And now the experience of the Third Duma, in the course of only some five years, had already begun to undermine even this “stake”! It is impossible to imagine greater subservience than that of the Octobrists in 1907–1912, yet even the Octobrists “failed to please.” Even with them the old power (the so-called “bureaucracy”), deeply akin to them in nature, could not get along. Bourgeois policy in the countryside (the law of November 9) and every kind of promotion of capitalism—all this was directed by those same Purishkeviches, and the results proved lamentable. Purishkevichism, refurbished, repaired, freshened by the new agrarian policy, the new system of representative institutions, continued to crush everything and everyone, impeding development.

A crack appeared in the June Third system. The “making” of elections became inevitable, just as historically inevitable are the methods of Bonapartism when there is no firm, stable, tested, integral social support, when one has to tack between heterogeneous elements. If the democratic classes are powerless or particularly weakened by temporary causes, such methods may be accompanied by “successes” over a number of years. Yet even the “classical” examples of Bismarck in the 1860s or Napoleon III testify that the matter cannot be managed without the sharpest upheavals (in Prussia this was a “revolution from above” and several exceptionally fortunate wars).

II. THE NEW DUMA

To determine the results of the elections, let us take the official data on the party composition of the Fourth Duma and compare them with the Third Duma not only at the end of its existence (1912) but also at the beginning (1908). We obtain the following instructive picture[40]:

The first conclusion from these data is that the two former majorities have remained in the Fourth Duma: the Right-Octobrist majority of 283 votes (65 + 120 + 98) and the Octobrist-Cadet majority of 226 votes (98 + 48 + 59 + 21).

For the autocratic government, what is practically most important is “its own” majority in the Duma. The difference between the Third and Fourth Dumas in this respect is negligible. In the Third Duma, the Right-Octobrist majority amounted to 292 votes at the beginning and 268 at the end. Now we have an average between these figures: 283.

But the decline of the Right majority from the beginning to the end of the Third Duma was so considerable that the government, while remaining an autocratic government, could not avoid resorting to extraordinary measures in the making of elections. This making is not an accident or a departure from the system, as the Meyendorffs, Maklakovs and Co. like to portray the matter, but a necessity for maintaining the “system.”

You speak of “conciliation between the government and the country” (i.e., with the bourgeoisie), gentlemen liberals, headed by Maklakov? But if so, it is one thing or the other. Either your talk of conciliation is not empty words—then you must also accept the “making” of elections, for such is the real condition for conciliation with the real government. You are such lovers of “real politics”! Or your protests against the “making” of elections are not empty words—and then you must speak not of conciliation, but of something that does not resemble conciliation at all....

The second majority of the June Third system: the Octobrist-liberal majority amounted to 252 votes at the beginning of the Third Duma, 235 at the end of it, and fell to 226 in the Fourth Duma. In substance, therefore, the government’s “electoral campaign” succeeded; the government achieved its aim, confirming again and again in practice its autocracy. For the cries about a Right-Nationalist majority were merely bargaining with a high asking price. In reality, the government needs both majorities, which both stand on counter-revolutionary ground.

It is impossible to insist enough on this last circumstance, which the liberals obscure in order to lead democracy by the nose, and which the liberal worker politicians (liquidators) do out of thoughtlessness. The bloc of the Cadets with the Octobrists, which was so strikingly manifested in the election of Rodzyanko (and even more strikingly, perhaps, was expressed in the indecent, servile phrases of Rech apropos of Rodzyanko’s speech)—this bloc is not merely a “technical” matter. This bloc expresses the unity of counter-revolutionary sentiments of the bourgeoisie in general, from Guchkov to Milyukov; this bloc is possible only thanks to these sentiments.

On the other hand, the government also needs a liberal-Octobrist majority from the standpoint of the entire system of the June Third regime. For the Third (and Fourth) Duma is by no means a “cardboard” institution, as is often prattled by “Left” Narodniks, hopelessly mired in the swamp of Ropshin-esque moods{172} and “otzovist” phrase-mongering. No. The Third and Fourth Dumas are a stage in the development of autocracy and in the development of the bourgeoisie—a necessary attempt, after the victories and defeats of 1905, to bring them closer together in practice. And the fiasco of this attempt will be a fiasco not only for Stolypin and Makarov, not only for Markov II and Purishkevich, but also for the “conciliator” Maklakov & Co.!

The government needs a liberal-Octobrist majority in order to try to lead Russia forward while preserving the absolute power of the Purishkeviches. And the government has no shortage of means for curbing and moderating the extraordinarily rapid, overly zealous liberal-Octobrist “progressivism”: the State Council, and much else besides…

III. Changes within the June Third system

The data presented above offer interesting material on the question of the evolution of political parties, groupings, and tendencies among the landowners and the bourgeoisie in the era of counter-revolution. The composition of the Third and Fourth Dumas says almost nothing about democracy, both bourgeois (peasant) and workers’, for the simple reason that the June Third system was purposely constructed to exclude democracy. Equally, the “national” parties, i.e., those not belonging to the “dominant” nationality, are specially oppressed and stifled by June 3rd.

Therefore, we will single out only the Right, the Octobrists, and the Russian liberals—the parties solidly ensconced in the June Third system and shielded by it from democracy—and examine the changes within these parties.

From this, it is clearly visible how the so-called “center” among the privileged strata is melting away, and how their right and liberal wings are strengthening. It is interesting that the increase of liberals among the landowners and bourgeoisie proceeds more quickly than the growth of the Right, despite the most extraordinary measures taken by the government to rig the elections in favor of the Right.

There are people who, bearing these facts in mind, readily utter grand phrases about the intensification of the contradictions of the June Third system, about the impending triumph of moderate-bourgeois progressivism, and the like. These people forget, first, that if the number of liberals among the landowners and especially the bourgeoisie is growing, it is the right wing of the liberals that is growing most rapidly, the wing that bases its entire policy wholly on “conciliation” with the Right. We shall speak of this in detail presently. Second, these people forget that the notorious “leftward shift of the bourgeoisie” is merely a symptom of the real leftward shift of democracy, which alone is capable of providing the motive forces for a serious change in the regime. Third, these people forget that the June Third system is specially designed to utilize, on a very broad scale, the antagonism between the liberal bourgeoisie and the reactionary landowners against the background of a much deeper common antagonism of both to the whole of democracy and to the working class in particular.

Further. Our liberals like to depict the matter as if the rout of the Octobrists was caused by “election-making,” which deprived this, forsooth, “party of the latest government order” of support, and so forth. The liberals themselves, needless to say, pose as an honest opposition, as independent people, even as “democrats,” whereas in reality the difference between some Maklakov and the Octobrists is purely phantasmal.

Look at the changes that occurred between the Third and Fourth Dumas, compared with the changes that occurred between the beginning and the end of the Third Duma. You will see that within the Third Duma the Octobrist party lost a larger number of its members (28) than in the elections to the Fourth Duma (22). This does not mean, of course, that there was no “election-making”; it was conducted on the most reckless scale, especially against democracy. But it does mean that, apart from all election-making, apart even from government pressure and “politics” in general, a process of party demarcation is going on among the propertied classes of Russia, a process of delimitation of the right, feudal-reactionary wing of the counter-revolution from the liberal-bourgeois wing of the same counter-revolution.

The differences between individual groups and factions of the Right-Octobrist Duma majority (rightists, nationalists, moderate-rights, the “center,” right Octobrists, etc.) are just as unstable, undefined, accidental, and often artificially rigged as the differences within the Octobrist-liberal majority (left Octobrists, Progressists, Kadets). What is characteristic of the epoch we are living through is not at all that the government-dependent Octobrists are supposedly being displaced by an independent (that’s Maklakov for you!) Constitutional Democrat. That is a stupid liberal fable.

What is characteristic is that a process of the formation of genuine class parties is underway and, in particular, that behind the clamor of loudly oppositional exclamations and sweet little speeches about “reconciling the government with the country,” the consolidation of the party of counter-revolutionary liberalism is proceeding.

The most widespread liberal press in Russia is making every effort to obscure this process. That is why we will once again turn to the precise data of Duma statistics. Let us remember that parties, like individuals, must be judged not by their words but by their deeds. In fact, the K.D.s and the Progressists act together in all the most important matters, and both the former and the latter have acted with the Octobrists, in both the Third and Fourth Dumas and in the recently concluded elections (the Ekaterinoslav Gubernia: a bloc of Rodzianko with the K.D.s!), on a whole range of issues.

Let us then look at the data on these three parties:

We see an enormous and steady decline among the Octobrists; – a negligible decline, then a small increase among the K.D.s; – an enormous and steady rise among the Progressists, who have nearly doubled in number over 5 years.

If we were to take for 1908 the data provided by Mr. Miliukov in the *Ezhegodnik Rechi* for 1912, p. 77, the picture would emerge even more starkly. Mr. Miliukov estimates that in the Third Duma in 1908 there were 154 Octobrists, 23 Progressists, and 56 Kadets. In comparison to the Fourth Duma, this yields an entirely negligible increase in the number of Kadets and more than a doubling of the number of Progressists.

In 1908, the Progressists were more than twice as weak as the Kadets. Now the number of Progressists constitutes over 80% of the number of Kadets.

This, consequently, yields the indisputable fact that what is most characteristic in Russian liberalism during the period of counter-revolution (1908–1912) is the enormous growth of Progressism.

And what are the Progressists?

Both in their composition and in their ideology, they are a cross between Octobrists and Kadets.

The Progressists in the Third Duma were still called Peaceful Renovationists{173}, and one of their leaders, the counter-revolutionary petty noble Lvov, had been a Cadet in the First Duma. In the Third Duma the number of Progressists, as we have seen, increased from 25 to 36, i.e., by 11 persons; of these 11 deputies, 9 went over to the Progressists from other parties, namely: 1 from the Cadets, 2 from the Moderate Rights, 1 from the Nationalists, and 5 from the Octobrists.

The rapid growth of the Progressists among the political representatives of Russian liberalism and the success of *Vekhi* among “society”—these are two sides of the same coin. The Progressists were implementing in practical politics what *Vekhi* preached in theory, spitting upon the revolution, renouncing democracy, glorifying the filthy enrichment of the bourgeoisie as God’s work on earth, and so on and so forth.

When the Cadet Maklakov holds forth about reconciliation between the government and the country, he is merely singing the praises of what the Progressists are doing.

The further we move away from 1905 and 1906, the clearer it becomes how right the Bolsheviks were at that time, when they exposed the Cadets at the moment of the greatest intoxication with their “victories”, showing the real essence of their party[41], which is now being revealed more and more plainly by the whole course of events.

Russian democracy will not be able to win a single victory unless it decisively undermines the “prestige” of the Cadets among the masses. And, conversely, the virtual merger of the Cadets with the *Vekhi* people and the Progressists is one of the conditions and one of the symptoms of the rallying and strengthening of democracy under the leadership of the proletariat.

IV. What Was the Struggle at the Elections About?

This question is most often pushed into the background in the overwhelming majority of arguments and articles about the elections, or even completely obscured. Yet this is the question of the ideological and political content of the election campaign, the most important question, without the clarification of which all other questions, all the usual data about “percentages of the opposition”, etc., utterly lose their value.

The most widespread answer to this question is that the struggle was about whether or not there should be a constitution. That is the view of the Right. That is the view of the liberals. The entire Right and the entire liberal press is permeated with the view that what was essentially at issue was a struggle between two camps, one for and the other against the constitution. The leader of the Cadet Party, Mr. Milyukov, and the official organ of that party, *Rech*, directly advanced this theory of two camps, and did so on behalf of the Cadet Party conference.

Look, then, at this “theory” from the standpoint of the election results. How has it stood the test of reality?

The first step of the new Duma was marked by a bloc of the Cadets with the Octobrists (and even with part of the Right) on the “constitutional” candidacy of Rodzyanko, whose speech, containing a supposedly constitutional programme, the Cadets enthusiastically welcomed[42].

The leader of the Octobrists, Rodzyanko, who is known to be counted among the Right Octobrists, considers himself a constitutionalist, as does Krupensky, the leader of the “centre faction” or conservative constitutionalists.

To say that the struggle was over the constitution means to say nothing, for the question immediately arises: what constitution is being talked about? A constitution in the spirit of Krupensky? Or Rodzyanko? Or Efremov–Lvov? Or Maklakov–Milyukov? And then comes an even more important question, not about wishes, declarations, programmes – which remain on paper – but about the actual means of achieving what is desired.

On this most important (and only serious) point, the statement by Mr. Gredeskul, reprinted in 1912 (No. 117) by Rech, remains unrefuted and irrefutably correct: that a new revolution is unnecessary, that only “constitutional work” is needed. This statement, ideologically and politically, unites the Cadets with the Octobrists far more firmly and deeply than a thousand assurances of devotion to the constitution and even... to democracy supposedly divide them.

Of all the newspapers read in Russia, probably about 90% are Octobrist and liberal publications. By instilling in their readers the idea of two camps, one of which is for the constitution, all this press has a tremendous corrupting effect on the political consciousness of the masses. Just think that this whole campaign ends with Rodzyanko’s “constitutional” declaration, which Milyukov accepts!

In view of this state of affairs, one cannot insist enough on repeating the old – and by many forgotten – truths of political science. What is a constitution? – that is the burning question in Russia.

A constitution is a bargain between the historical forces of the old (noble, serf-owning, feudal, absolutist) society and the liberal bourgeoisie. The real terms of this bargain, the extent of the concessions of the old or the victories of the liberal bourgeoisie, are determined by the successes of the victories of democracy, of the broad masses of the people (and the workers first and foremost) over the forces of the old.

Our election campaign could find its completion only in Milyukov’s acceptance of Rodzyanko’s “declaration” because in reality liberalism seeks not the abolition of the privileges of the old (economic, political, etc.) but their sharing between (speaking shortly) the landowners and the bourgeoisie. Liberalism fears the popular, mass movement of democracy more than reaction: hence the astonishing, from the standpoint of the economic strength of capital, impotence of liberalism in politics.

Under the system of June 3rd, liberalism has a monopoly of tolerated, semi-legal opposition, and the beginning of a new political revival (we are using too weak and imprecise a word) places broad strata of the new, rising, democracy under the influence of these monopolists. Hence the whole essence of the question of political freedom in Russia now boils down precisely to clarifying that not two, but three camps are struggling, for only this last camp, which the liberals hush up, really has the power to bring about political freedom.

In the elections of 1912, the struggle was by no means “over the constitution,” for the Cadets, the main liberal party, which mainly attacked the Octobrists and beat them, united with Rodzyanko’s declaration. The struggle, squeezed in the police vice of the June 3rd system, was over the awakening, strengthening, and rallying of an independent democracy, free from the vacillations and “Octobrist sympathies” of liberalism.

That is why to examine the present ideological-political content of the election campaign from a merely “parliamentary” point of view is a fundamental mistake. A hundred times more real than all the “constitutional” programs and platforms is the question of how the different parties and groups related to the political strike movement that marked the year 1912.

To separate the bourgeois parties of any country from the proletarian parties, one of the best testing methods is: their attitude toward economic strikes. If a given party, in its press, in its organizations, in its parliamentary speeches, does not fight alongside the workers in economic strikes—that party is a bourgeois party, no matter how much it swears by its “national character,” its “radical socialism,” and so forth. In Russia, *mutatis mutandis* (with appropriate changes), the same must be said about parties wishing to be considered democratic: do not swear by the fact that you have written a constitution, universal suffrage, freedom of coalition, equality of nationalities, etc., on a certain piece of paper—those words are not worth a penny; show me your deeds in relation to the political strike movement of 1912! And this criterion is still not complete, but it is nevertheless a practical criterion, and not an empty promise.

V. Verification of Electoral Slogans by Life

An election campaign is of outstanding interest to every conscious political figure because it provides objective material on the views, moods, and consequently, the interests of the various classes of society. Elections to a representative institution can be compared in this respect to a population census: elections yield political statistics. Of course, these statistics can be good (with universal suffrage, etc.) or bad (elections to our—pardon the expression—parliament); of course, like any other statistics, these must be learned to be criticized and used with criticism. Of course, finally, these statistics must be taken in connection with all social statistics in general, and, for example, strike statistics will often prove a hundred times more serious and profound than election statistics for those not infected with the disease of parliamentary cretinism.

But with all these reservations, it remains indisputable that elections provide objective material. Verification of subjective wishes, moods, and views by a tally of the votes of masses of the population belonging to different classes must always be valuable for a politician in any even somewhat serious sense of the word. The actual struggle of parties before the electorate, with a count of the results, always provides material that verifies our understanding of the correlation of social forces in the country and the significance of various “slogans.”

It is from this point of view that we shall attempt to examine the election results.

Regarding political statistics, the main point to be made here is the manifest worthlessness of most of them, owing to the most shameless application of administrative "measures": "clarifications," pressure, arrests, deportations, etc., etc., without end. Mr. Cherevanin, for instance, summing up in Nos. 9–10 of Nasha Zarya the figures on several hundred electors from different curiae, is compelled to admit that the decline in the percentage of opposition electors (as compared to the elections to the Third Duma) in the second urban curia and the peasant curia "would be ridiculous" to take as proof of a rightward shift. The only curia in which the Mymretsovs, Khvostovs, Tolmachevs, Muratovs and Co. could not manage to rig the figures is the first urban curia. And this curia showed a growth in the number of "opposition" electors from 56% to 67%, with a decline of Octobrists from 20% to 12%, and of Rights from 24% to 21%.

But if the "clarifications" nullified the significance of electoral statistics regarding electors, and if the democratic classes, altogether excluded by the privileged June-Thirdists, experienced the full charm of these clarifications, the attitude of liberalism toward democracy nevertheless manifested itself in the elections. On this point, after all, objective material was obtained, making it possible to verify, through life's experience, what various "trends" had thought and said before the elections.

The question of liberalism's attitude toward democracy is by no means a "merely party" question, i.e., one that is important only from the standpoint of one of the strictly party lines. No. This question is the most essential one for anyone who strives for political freedom in Rus'. This question is precisely about how to achieve the object of the common aspirations of all that is decent and honest in Russia.

When they began the election campaign in 1912, the Marxists placed precisely the slogans of consistent democracy at the forefront, as a counterweight to liberal labour policy. A twofold verification of these slogans is possible: first, by reasoning and by the experience of other countries; second, by the experience of the 1912 campaign. Whether the Marxists' slogans were correct or incorrect should now be evident from the actual relationship that developed between liberals and democrats. The objectivism of this verification of the slogans consists precisely in the fact that it was not we ourselves who verified them, but the masses, and not only the masses in general, but our opponents in particular.

Did the relations between liberals and democracy take shape in the elections and in the election results as the Marxists expected? Or as the liberals expected? Or as the liquidators expected?

In order to grasp this question, let us first recall these "expectations." At the very beginning of 1912, when the election issue had just been raised, when the Cadets (at their conference) had unfurled the banner of a united opposition (i.e., of two camps) and the permissibility of blocs with the Left Octobrists, the workers' press raised the question of slogans in articles by Martov and Dan in *Zhyvoye Delo*, F. L-ko and others in *Zvezda* (Nos. 11 (47) and 24 (60), and *Zhyvoye Delo* Nos. 2, 3, and 8).

Martov advanced the slogan: "drive the reaction out of its Duma positions"; Dan — "wrest the Duma from the hands of the reaction." Martov and Dan reproached *Zvezda* for threatening the liberals and striving to extort Duma seats from the liberals.

Three positions took clear shape:

1) The Cadets favored a united opposition (i.e., two camps) and the admission of blocs with the Left Octobrists.

2) The liquidators favored the slogan: "wrest the Duma from the hands of the reaction," to facilitate "the assumption of power" by the Cadets and Progressists (Martov in No. 2 of *Zhyvoye Delo*). Not to extort seats for the democrats from the liberals.

3) The Marxists opposed the slogan: "wrest the Duma from the hands of the reaction," because this means wresting the landowner from the hands of the reaction. "Our practical task in the elections is not at all 'to drive the reaction out of its Duma positions,' but to strengthen democracy in general, and the workers' democracy in particular" (F. L-ko in No. 11 (47) of *Zvezda*)[43]. The liberals must be threatened, seats must be extorted from them, battle must be joined with them, without fearing the intimidation of shouts about the Black-Hundred danger (same author in No. 24 (60)[44]). The liberals "assume power" only when democracy is victorious despite the vacillations of liberalism.

The divergence between the Marxists and the liquidators is extremely deep and irreconcilable, however easy verbal reconciliation of the irreconcilable may seem to various well-meaning individuals. "Wrest the Duma from the hands of the reaction" — this is an entire circle of ideas, an entire system of politics, objectively signifying the transfer of hegemony to the liberals. "Wrest democracy from the hands of the liberals" — the opposite system of politics, based on the fact that only a democracy freed from its dependence on the liberals is capable of actually undermining the reaction.

Now look at what actually resulted from the battle about which so much was judged and discussed before it began.

Let us take as a witness defining the results of the battle, Mr. V. Levitsky from *Nasha Zarya* (No. 9–10) — surely no one will suspect this witness of partiality to the line of *Zvezda* and *Pravda*.

Here is how this witness defines the results of the contest in the second urban curia—as is well known, the only curia in which there was any remote semblance of “European” elections and in which there is at least the slightest possibility of summing up the results of the “encounters” between liberalism and democracy.

The witness counted 63 S.-D. interventions, of which in 5 cases there was a forced withdrawal of the candidacy, in 5 an agreement with other parties, and 53 independent interventions. Of these 53 cases—4 in 4 large cities and 49 in the selection of electors.

Of these 49 cases, in 9 it is unknown whom the S.-D. fought against; in 3 cases—against the Rights (all 3 S.-D. victories); in 1 case against Trudoviks (S.-D. victory); in the remaining 36 cases—against liberals (21 S.-D. victories; 15 defeats).

Singling out the Russian liberals, we get 21 cases of S.-D. struggle against them. Here are the results:

| | S.-D. Victories | S.-D. Defeats |
| :--- | :---: | :---: |
| Progressists and Cadets, together with Progressists or Trudoviks | 4 | 5 |
| Cadets | 7 | 5 |
| **Total** | **11** | **10** |

Thus, the main opponents of the S.-D. were the liberals (36 cases as against 3); the main defeats were inflicted on the Social-Democrats by the Cadets.

Furthermore, of the 5 cases of agreements, in two there was a general agreement of the opposition against the Rights; in three “the question may be one of a left bloc against the Cadets” (my italics; p. 98 of *Nasha Zarya* No. 9–10). Thus, the number of agreements is less than 1/10 of the number of interventions in general. Of the agreements, 60% are agreements against the Cadets.

Finally, for the 4 large cities, the totals are as follows:

| | S.-D. Victories | S.-D. Defeats |
| :--- | :---: | :---: |
| Cadets | 1 | — |
| Cadets + Octobrists (??) | — | 1 |
| “Non-party” Octobrists | 1 | — |
| Peaceful renovationists | 1 | — |
| Unsuccessful (??) | — | — |
| **Total** | **3** | **1** |

Thus, in all 4 large cities the S.-D. are fighting against the Cadets, and in 1 case the Cadets win on the re-balloting with the help of Octobrists (counting among them the candidate of the “Baltic Constitutional Party”).

The witness’s own conclusions:

“The Cadet monopoly on representing the urban democracy is coming to an end. The immediate task of the S.-D. in this field is to wrest from liberalism the representation in all 5 cities with independent representation. The ‘psychological’” (??) “and historical” (and economic?) “prerequisites for this—the ‘leftward shift’ of the democratic voter, the bankruptcy of Cadet policy, and a new awakening of proletarian independent activity are already at hand” (*Nasha Zarya*, cited book, p. 97).

VI. An “End” to Illusions Regarding the Cadet Party

1. The facts have proven that the real significance of the Cadet slogan of a "united opposition" or of "two camps" consisted in duping the democracy, in the liberals' fraudulently appropriating the fruits of the democratic awakening, in the liberals' curtailing, blunting, and enervating this awakening of the sole force capable of moving Russia forward.

2. The facts have proven that the only electoral struggle in any way resembling an "open", a "European" struggle consisted precisely in wresting the democracy out of the hands of the liberals. This slogan was living life, this slogan expressed the actually ongoing awakening of a new democracy to a new movement. Whereas the liquidators' slogan of "wresting the Duma from the hands of the reaction" was a rotten fabrication of a liberal-intellectual circle.

3. The facts have proven that only that "furious" struggle against the Cadets, only that "Cadet-crunching" for which the characterless servants of the liberals, the liquidators, reproached us, expressed the real need of a real mass campaign, for the Cadets proved in practice to be even worse than we had depicted them. The Cadets proved to be direct allies of the Black Hundreds against the Social-Democrat Perekalna, against the Social-Democrat Pokrovsky!{174}

This is indeed a historic turning point in Russia: the Black Hundreds, who had been driven to blindness in their hatred of the Cadets, who saw the Cadets as their main enemy, have been led by the course of events to push the Cadets through against the Social-Democrats. This seemingly small fact expresses a tremendous shift in party alignments, showing how superficial, in essence, were the Black Hundreds' attacks on the Cadets and vice versa—how easily, in essence, Purishkevich and Milyukov found themselves, found their unity against the Social-Democrats.

Life has shown that we Bolsheviks not only did not minimize the possible blocs with the Cadets (at the second stage, and so on), but rather still exaggerated them, for in practice a whole series of cases occurred of the Cadets blocing with the Octobrists against us! This does not mean, of course, that we renounce (as some yesterday's otzovists, zealots not according to reason, and their friends desired) taking advantage, in a number of cases, in the gubernia electoral assemblies, for example, of our blocs with the Cadets against the Right. It means that our general line (3 camps; the democracy against the Cadets) has been confirmed and even further strengthened by life.

By the way. Messrs. Levitsky, Cherevanin and other contributors to *Nashe Zarya*, with praiseworthy zeal and diligence, have gathered valuable material for our election statistics. It is a pity they did not collate the materials—evidently in their possession—on the number of cases of direct and indirect blocs of the Cadets with the Octobrists and the Right against the Social-Democrats.

Predekaln and Pokrovsky are not alone; in the gubernia electoral assemblies there were many more similar cases. They must not be forgotten. They deserve more attention.

Further. Our “witness,” compelled to draw the above conclusions about the Cadets, did not at all think about what assessment of the Cadet Party these conclusions confirmed. Who called the Cadets a party of urban democracy? And who, from March 1906, or even earlier, argued that this liberal party relies on deceiving the democratic voter?

Now the liquidators, like Ivans who remember not their kinship, are singing: “the Cadet monopoly is coming to an end”... Consequently, there was a “monopoly”? What does that mean? Monopoly is the elimination of competition. Was the competition of the Social-Democrats against the Cadets more eliminated in 1906–1907 than in 1912??

Mr. V. Levitsky repeats a vulgar phrase without thinking about the meaning of the words he utters. He understands monopoly “simply” in the sense that the Cadets predominated, and now that is over. But if you pretend to Marxism, gentlemen, you should at least reflect a little on the question of the class character of parties and not treat your yesterday’s declarations so carelessly.

If the Cadet Party is a party of urban democracy, then their predominance is not a “monopoly,” but a result of the class interests of urban democracy! If, however, their predominance turned out, after a couple of years, to be a “monopoly,” i.e., something accidental and abnormal from the standpoint of the general and fundamental laws of capitalism and the correlation of classes in capitalist society, then it follows that those people who took the Cadets for a party of urban democracy were opportunists, succumbing to a momentary success, bowing before the fashionable glitter of Cadetism, departing from Marxist criticism of the Cadets to the side of liberal servility before them.

Comrade V. Levitsky's conclusion wholly, word for word, confirms that London decision of the Bolsheviks in 1907 on the class nature of the Cadet party, which the Mensheviks furiously disputed. If the urban democracy followed the Cadets "by force of tradition and being directly deceived by the liberals," as that decision states, then it is perfectly understandable that the harsh lessons of 1908–1911 dispelled the "constitutional illusions," undermined the "tradition," exposed the "deception," and thereby brought an end to the "monopoly."

In our time, voluntary and involuntary oblivion of the past is too widespread, along with an extremely frivolous attitude toward precise, direct, clear answers to all important political questions and toward verifying these answers against the rich experience of 1905–1907 and 1908–1912. There is nothing so ruinous for an awakening democracy as such oblivion and such an attitude.

VII. On One "Enormous Danger to Noble Landownership"

Summing up the results of the electoral struggle, Mr. Cherevanin calculates that the opposition had "49 seats wrested purely artificially, solely by completely exceptional measures." Adding these seats to those actually won yields, in his opinion, a total of 207, i.e., only 15 short of an absolute majority. The author's conclusion: "on the soil of the June Third system, without extraordinary artificial measures, the noble-feudal reaction would have suffered complete and decisive (??!) defeat at the elections."

"In the face of this," the author continues, "enormous danger to noble landownership..." the clashes between priests and landowners are unimportant (p. 85 of the cited book).

Such are the consequences of the slogan about wresting the Duma from the hands of reaction! Cherevanin has cruelly punished Martov by taking his slogan to the point of absurdity and, so to speak, cementing, together with the "results of the electoral struggle," the results of liquidator illusions.

A progressive-Cadet majority in the Fourth Duma would represent a "pogrom danger to noble landownership"! This is a sheer gem.

But this is not a slip of the tongue, but the inevitable result of the entire ideological content that the liberals and liquidators endeavored to inject into the electoral campaign.

The gigantic increase in the role of the Progressists compared to the Cadets, – the embodiment by these Progressists in politics of the entire renegacy (Vekhism) of the Cadets, – the actual transition, silently and secretly, of the Cadets themselves to the position of Progressism, – all this the liquidators did not wish to see and all this led them to Cherevanin’s “gem.” “One should not speak too much about the counter-revolutionary nature of the Cadets” – thus, or approximately thus, wrote the Trudovik (Narodnik-liquidator) Mr. Vodovozov on one occasion. Our liquidators looked at things in exactly the same way.

They even forgot the lesson of the III Duma, where the Cadet Beryozovsky, in an official speech, “explained” the agrarian programme of the C.D.’s and proved that it is advantageous to the noble landowners. And now, in 1912, to expect “an enormous danger for noble landownership” from the “oppositional” gentry Duma, from the Progressists, these Octobrists of minor re-tailoring…

Listen, Mr. Cherevanin… indulge in fantasy, but know when to stop!

We have an excellent illustration of the election results in connection with Cherevanin’s result of liquidator tactics. The IV Duma adopted, by 132 votes against 78, the Progressist transition formula.

It was none other than the Octobrist Antonov who officially declared his complete satisfaction with this most vulgar, emptiest formula, as an Octobrist formula! Of course, Mr. Antonov is right. The Progressists introduced a purely Octobrist formula. The Progressists played their role of conciliators between the Octobrists and the Cadets.

Octobrism is smashed, long live Octobrism! The Tuchkov brand Octobrism is “smashed,” long live the Efremov-Lvov brand Octobrism[45].

**VIII. Covering Up Defeat**

It remains for us to examine the election results for the most important curia, the workers’ curia.

That this curia is on the side of the S.D.’s, no one had or has any doubt about. The struggle here no longer proceeded against the Narodniks: no resistance was found among them to Narodnik liquidationism (Pochin{175} in Paris and the Eneses in Petersburg) and to Narodnik otzovism, and this absence of resistance to decadent trends made the Left Narodniks a cipher.

The struggle in the workers’ curia proceeded only between the Marxists and the liberal worker politicians, the liquidators. The Marxists directly and clearly, openly and without despicable subterfuges, proclaimed in January 1912 the inadmissibility of agreements in the workers’ curia (and only in it) with the destroyers of the workers’ party[46].

This fact is well-known. It is also well-known that the August Conference of the liquidators was even called by the conciliator Plekhanov “pitiful,” liquidator (contrary to the oaths of “Our Dawn”), and its resolutions “diplomacy,” i.e., more plainly speaking, deception.

What did the election results show?

Did they provide, or not, objective material on the question of what relation the January and August statements bore to reality? Who did the elected representatives of the working class turn out to be for?

There exists the most exact statistical material on this matter, which the liquidators try (in vain!) to obscure, cover up, drown out with shouts and abuse.

Starting from the Second Duma (the majority of Social-Democrats boycotted the First), we have an exact count of the Duma deputies from the workers’ curia, distributed among the different “trends” in the Social-Democratic party. Here are these data:

Deputies of the State Duma returned from the workers’ curia:

These figures speak for themselves!

In 1907, the Bolsheviks had a majority in the party, officially counted (105 Bolshevik delegates and 97 Menshevik delegates). Thus, 47% in the workers’ curia (the entire faction had 18 B. + 36 M. = 54) constituted about 52% in the workers’ party.

In 1912, for the first time, all six curial deputies were Bolsheviks. It is known that these 6 provinces are the main industrial provinces. It is known that an incomparably larger part of the proletariat is concentrated in them than in other provinces. It is understandable therefore, — and fully proven by comparison with 1907, — that 67% in the workers’ curia means over 70% in the workers’ party.

During the time of the Third Duma, when the intelligentsia fled from the workers’ party, and the liquidators justified this, the workers were fleeing from the liquidators. The flight of the liquidator Belousov from the Social-Democratic faction of the Third Duma{176} and the turn of that entire faction (3/4 Menshevik) from Menshevism to anti-liquidatorism[47] were symptoms and faithful indicators that the same process was going on among the workers. And the elections to the Fourth Duma proved this.

In “Our Dawn” Oskarov, Martov, Cherevanin, Levitsky, etc., are therefore incredibly angry, hurling hundreds of the most Purishkevich-type “compliments” at the supposedly sectarian, supposedly Leninist, supposedly circle-like group.

A fine circle and fine sectarianism, on whose side there is the steady growth of the workers’ curia in 1908–1912, up to 67% of this curia in the Fourth Duma! Clumsy polemicists — the liquidators. They abuse us[48] with everything under the sun, but it turns out to be the very best compliment for us.

To settle disputed questions with an abundance of shouting, abuse, and unsubstantiated assertions is precisely the usual manner of intellectual circles. Workers prefer something else: objective data. And in Russia, given its present political situation, there is not and cannot be any other objective measure of the strength and influence of this or that trend among the worker masses than the worker press and the worker curia in the Duma.

Therefore, Messrs. Liquidators, the more you make a racket and sling abuse in *Nasha Zarya* and *Luch*, the more calmly we shall put the question to the workers: point to any other objective criterion of contact with the masses besides the worker press and the worker curia in the Duma.

Let the readers, who are being deafened by cries about the “sectarian” “Lenin circle” and the like, calmly reflect upon these objective data concerning the worker press and the worker curia in the Duma. These objective data show that the liquidators are shouting in order to cover up their utter defeat.

But it is particularly instructive to compare the emergence of *Luch*—which appeared on election day thanks to private initiative—and the emergence of *Pravda*. The April wave of the worker movement is one of the greatest historical waves of the mass worker movement in Russia. Hundreds of thousands of workers, even according to the estimates of the factory owners, took part in this movement. And this movement itself, as its by-product, created *Pravda*—first by strengthening *Zvezda*, transforming it from a weekly into a bi-weekly, then by raising the worker collections for *Pravda* to 76 in March and to 227 in April (counting only group worker collections).

Here we have one of the classic examples of how a movement, completely alien to a reformist character, yields as a by-product either reforms, or concessions, or a broadening of the framework, etc.

The reformists commit treason against the worker movement when they counterpose reformist slogans to its great sweep (as our liquidators do). Whereas the opponents of reformism not only remain true to the unabridged slogans of the proletariat, they also prove to be the better “practicians”: it is precisely the broad sweep, precisely the unabridged slogans, that secure the strength which yields as a by-product either a concession, or a reform, or a broadening of the framework, or at least a temporary necessity for the upper strata to put up with the unpleasant revival of the lower strata.

While the liquidators, in 1908–1912, cursed the “underground,” justified “flight” from it, chattered about an “open party” – the entire workers’ curia left them, and they failed to take advantage of the first great upsurge of the April-May wave!

Mr. Martov in “Nasha Zarya” acknowledges this circumstance, which is sad for him, clothing the acknowledgment in an especially amusing form. He scolds and declares to be zero the groups of Plekhanovites and Vperyodists, whom the liquidators themselves yesterday depicted as “centres” and tendencies, contrary to our demand to take into account only Russian organizations. And Martov acknowledges with bitterness, with malice, with an abyss of venomous (Burenin-style venomous) little words, that the “Leninist” “sectarian circle” “held its ground” and “is even going over to the offensive,” “having consolidated itself in arenas that have nothing in common with the underground” (“Nasha Zarya,” cited work, p. 74).

But all this acknowledgment by Martov evokes a smile. Human nature is such that when the enemy makes a mistake, we gloat, – and when he takes a correct step, we sometimes get childishly angry.

Thank you for the compliment that you were forced to pay us, liberal liquidator! Since the end of 1908 we have insisted on using open forms of movement; in the spring of 1909 we broke over this with a number of friends.{177} And if we proved to be a force in these “arenas,” it was only because we did not sacrifice the spirit for the sake of form. In order to take advantage of the form in time, to catch the April upsurge, to gain the sympathy of the workers’ curia, so precious for a Marxist, it was necessary not to renounce the old, not to treat it like a renegade, but to firmly uphold its ideas, its traditions, its material substrata. It was precisely these ideas that permeated the April upsurge, it was precisely them that predominated in the workers’ curia of 1912, and only those who were faithful to them in all arenas and in all forms could keep pace with both this upsurge and this curia.

Prosveshcheniye No. 1, January 1913. Signed: V. Ilyin.

Printed according to the text of the journal “Prosveshcheniye.”