V. I.

Lenin

NOTES OF A PUBLICIST

I

Recently the Cadet deputies conferred again with local leaders of that
party.

As might have been expected, they discussed the features of the present
political situation. The liberals appraised the situation as follows:

“ Attention was drawn to the increasing discrepancy between the country’s requirements for basic legislation and the
impossibility of meeting them under the present system of legislative
institutions and in view of the present attitude of the authorities towards
popular representation.”

The style is as tangled as a ball of wool with which a kitten has been
playing for a long time. Our poor liberals—they have nowhere to express
their ideas clearly!

But take a closer look: the trouble is not so much that the liberals
have nowhere to talk as that they have nothing to say. The discrepancy is growing not only between the country’s requirements
and the hopelessness of the “present system”, etc., but also between the
country’s requirements and the liberals’ helplessness .

Why is it impossible for you, liberal politicians, to meet the
requirements of the country? The Cadets reply: because the present system
of legislative institutions and the present attitude of the authorities
towards popular representation hinder it.

Consequently, we need a different system and a different attitude of
the authorities. We shall see in what way they must be different when we analyse in subsequent articles the “four
theses” of the Cadet meeting.

But we must first put the main question: What is the reason for the
“present” “system and attitude”? Where could anything different come from? The Cadets did not even think of it! Their
reticence on this fundamental question amounts to hardened,
Asiatic philistinism, like saying that there were bad advisers but there
can be good advisers.

Is there no connection, Cadet gentlemen, between the “present” and
the interests of some class , such as the class of the big
landlords? Or the richest section of the bourgeoisie? Is not there complete
accord between the “present” and the interests of definite classes ? Is it not clear that any one who sets about discussing the
political situation without taking into account the relations between all
the classes engages in useless talk?

Alas! The Cadets have nothing but empty talk to cover up the
“increasing discrepancy” between their policy and the requirements of the
country.

II

Our liberals in general—and they are followed by the liberal labour
politicians (liquidators)—like to talk at length about the
“Europeanisation” of Russia. A tiny little truth serves here as a cover
for a big untruth.

There can be no doubt that Russia, speaking generally, is becoming
Europeanised, i.e., reorganised in the image of Europe (moreover, in
“Europe” we should now include Japan and China, in spite of
geography). But this Europeanisation has been going on since Alexander II,
or perhaps even since Peter the Great; it went on not only during the
upswing (1905), but also during reaction (1908–11); it has been
going on in the police and among the Markov-type landlords, who are
“Europeanising” their methods of fighting the democratic movement.

The catchword “Europeanisation” turns out to be so general that it
serves to obscure matters, to obscure urgent political issues.

The liberals want a Europeanised Russia. But the Council of the United
Nobility, too, sought Europeanisation by its law of November 9,
1906 (June 14, 1910).

The liberals want a European constitution. But the constitutions
established in various countries of Europe were the result of long and
strenuous class struggles between feudalism and absolutism, on the one
hand, and the bourgeoisie, the peasantry and the workers, on the
other. Written and unwritten constitutions, with which the liberals
“shame” our reactionaries, are merely a record of the results of
struggle obtained through a series of hard-won victories of the new over
the old and a series of defeats inflicted on the new by the old.

The liberals want the results to make their appearance in our country
without the sum total of advantages and disadvantages of which the
results consist! The liberal programme and liberal tactics amount to this:
let a European way of life take shape in our country without the
hard struggle which brought it into being in Europe!

It is understandable that our Kobylinskys greet the liberals’ wishes
and arguments with contemptuous sallies against “shopkeepers” and
“muzhiks”. “You want, liberal gentlemen,” say the Kobylinskys, “to
register on paper victories that you have not yet won in reality.”

III

The Cadet meeting approved four theses on tactics. The first reads:

“ The tactic of united action by the entire opposition front, while being a necessary condition for the execution of the
Duma’s current business, does not, however, guarantee either the securing
of a solid and lasting majority in the Duma for the Bills of the opposition
or the actual realisation of the Bills whose adoption in the Duma the
opposition could secure, with the aid of the Duma Centre.”

Translated into plain Russian, this gibberish means the following:

It is only with the Octobrists that the liberals can form a majority in
the Duma. Such a majority is not permanent and its decisions are not put
into effect.

Quite so. But this leads to the conclusion that to call those decisions
“necessary”, “current” and “business” (!??) is to deceive oneself and
the people.

In defeating the Rights by voting with the Octobrists, we must not
adopt the standpoint of legislating in the Fourth Duma, must not sow
constitutional illusions—that is what the Cadets should have said to the
people had they wanted to be democrats, not in words alone.

The first “thesis” of the Cadet meeting is strikingly illogical. It
describes as “business” the approval by an inconstant and unstable
majority in the Fourth Duma of Bills that are not put into effect!! The
Cadets themselves have on a hundred occasions described this as
“vermicelli” and a nuisance, and justly so.

But the Cadet tactics, extremely stupid from the stand point of logic,
become comprehensible from the standpoint of class interests. Let us recall
what the Social-Democrats have been saying in the Third and Fourth Dumas
ever since 1907. “There are two possible majorities in the Duma,” they
said, “a Right-wing and Octobrist and an Octobrist Cadet one. Both take a
counter-revolutionary stand” (cf. Prosveshcheniye , 1913, No. 1,

p. 13). [1]

The Cadets’ February 1913 meeting confirmed what we had been saying in
our official decisions since 1907.

“ The tactic of united action by the entire opposition front ... with
the aid of the Duma Centre” is indispensable to the Cadets
precisely because, like the Octobrists, they take a counter-revolutionary
stand. In view of the inner kinship of the Cadets and Octobrists, it is
understandable that they gravitate towards joint ‘business’, despite its
hopelessness today.

The Octobrists are always whimpering in their press, railing at the
revolution, railing at the government, the Rights and the Council of State,
but in the Duma they con fine themselves to a desire for reforms and follow
the government.

The Cadets whimper even more in their press, railing at the revolution,
railing at the government, the Rights, the

Council of State and the Octobrists, but in the Duma they confine
themselves to a desire for reforms and try to adapt their opposition to the
Octobrists.

IV

The second thesis of the Cadet meeting reads:

“ The Duma can be substantially strengthened as a legislative and political factor only by fulfilling three fundamental
conditions:
democratisation of the electoral law (universal suffrage), a radical reform
of the Council of State, and a responsible Ministry.”

The gist of the tactics set out here may be expressed by one word:
reformism.

Historical science tells us that the distinction between a reformist
and a non-reformist change in a given political form is, generally
speaking, that in the former case the old ruling class retains power, while
in the latter case power is transferred from the old class to a new
one. The Cadets do not understand the class basis of historical
changes. This is their basic error from the point of view of theory.

From the point of view of practice, the above theoretical distinction
depends on whether the particular is changed while the general and basic is
left unchanged, or whether it is the latter that is changed.

In different countries and in different periods of history, the
bourgeoisie has been reformist or has gone further than that. On the other
hand, the working class, which has never considered reforms capable of
bringing about radical changes, under certain conditions by no means
refrains from advancing immediate demands in the shape of reforms.

The point is, consequently, that the Cadets regard the retention of
power by the present ruling class, i.e., the big feudal-type landowners, as
indisputable. The Cadets persist in their standpoint of an opposition in
the possessive case, continuing to hold the view that “there is a
constitution in Russia, thank God”.

In other words, the Cadets’ “three basic conditions” are those
proposed by the liberal bourgeoisie for an amicable division of
economic and political privileges between the feudal landowners and the
capitalists.

The Octobrists have the same standpoint (“reconciliation of the
government and the country”, as phrased by Maklakov, who is half Octobrist
and half Cadet), except that the Octobrists propose conditions for division
that are more “ subservient ” with regard to the landowners.

The big subservience of the Octobrists has proved a fiasco. What
reasons are there for expecting a different result from the little
subservience of the Cadets? From the point of view of reformism, the
Octobrists are much more consistent, for those who adopt this point of view
must take into account the acceptability of reforms, and the
Octobrist “reforms” are much more “acceptable”.

The only conclusion to be drawn is that the discrepancy between liberal
reformism and the requirements of the country is growing.

V

The third thesis of the Cadet meeting reads:

“ Preparing these conditions should become the main tactical task
of the Constitutional-Democrats, and current legislative activity,
jointly with the other opposition groups and with the Centre, should be
utilised as far as it proves feasible but should not run counter to the
realisation of these main tasks” ( Rech No. 34, February 4).

The previous “thesis” was a concession to the Left Cadets, or rather
a bait for the democrats, as if to say: support us Cadets, for we are
“democrats” and are for universal suffrage!

After the nod to the left comes a serious turn to the right; the third
thesis, translated from gibberish into plain Russian reads: we Cadets
recognise joint current legislative activity with the Progressists and Octobrists !

But does not this “current” legislation produce unrealisable
Bills, as the first thesis admits? The Cadets make a little reservation:
“as far as feasible”. Speaking more plainly, this is equivalent to
saying: we shall busy ourselves with vermicelli, but the responsibility for
it falls on the Octobrists! Really, they are good jokers, are our Cadets.

To proceed. Neither the Progressists, nor the Octobrists, who are more
consistent than the Cadets in their adherence to the reformist point of view, agree to such
“excessively” liberal demands as universal suffrage, radical reform of
the Council of State, etc. That being so, how can the Cadets, who continue
to pose as democrats, proclaim joint current legislative activity
with these admitted opponents of democracy?

Here, too, the Cadets have a little reservation—to the effect that
they, the Cadets, are busy preparing for universal suffrage,
preparing, jointly with the Octobrists, for activity that “should
not run counter to the realisation” of universal suffrage!

It is a simple loophole—they declare Rodzyanko’s speech to be
“constitutional”, and they vote (not by mistake, as do the
Social-Democrats, but by conviction) for the Octobrist formula of procedure
with regard to the declaration of the Minister, for all this does not run counter to “preparing” for universal suffrage!!

Here we cannot say that the Cadets are good jokers. In this case we
should have to use a different word.

In all European countries, the counter-revolutionary liberal
bourgeoisie, which has turned its back on the democratic movement,
continues to assert that it is busy preparing (jointly with the
national-liberals in Prussia and with all the Progressists in France) for
“basic” democratic reforms.

The bourgeoisie which has definitely taken the reformist path is a
rotten bourgeoisie, impotent in its liberalism, hopeless in the matter of
democratic changes, and hostile to the workers, a bourgeoisie which has
deserted to the Rights from the people.

VI

The fourth, and last, thesis of the Cadet meeting reads:

“ This meeting considers it opportune, along with advancing the three slogans mentioned above, to raise the question of
adopting more active tactical measures of parliamentary struggle.”

Only parliamentary? And only “to raise the question”?

Just what is meant by “more active tactical measures of parliamentary
struggle”, Allah alone knows. One might think the Cadet meeting had deliberately formulated its theses in the most
incoherent terms.

In speaking of more active measures, the Cadets clearly want to show
that they are moving to the left. But it is nothing more than a
show , for nothing definite can be read into it.

What are the kind of “measures” of parliamentary struggle that can,
generally speaking, be called more active?

Refusal to vote for the Octobrist and Progressist formulas of
procedure.

Refusal to make speeches about “reconciliation of the government and
the country”.

Refusal to be silent whenever a Right-wing and Octobrist majority puts
through anti-democratic measures.

Refusal to agree to the closure or curtailment of general debates on
matters of principle.

We advise anyone who comes into contact with the Cadets to make a point
of asking them whether they have “raised” the question of more active
measures, how they have decided this question since they are going to raise
it, and how they actually adopt “more active measures”.

The country is moving to the left. The new democratic movement is
awakening to life. The Cadets’ show of a slight swing to the left has a
very definite political meaning, namely, to deceive this new democratic
movement, to impose its leadership upon it, to make themselves out to be
its spokesmen.

The urgent task of the democrats is to prevent this deceit. Anyone who
has not drawn from the hard lessons of the past the conclusion that even
partial leadership of the democratic elements by the Cadets inevitably
results in vacillation, betrayals, and inglorious defeats without struggle,
has learned nothing. He should he regarded as an enemy of democracy.

VII

Taken as a whole, the Cadet meeting was an interesting document of the
political activity of our “Centre”. Normally the press in our country
pays little attention to such documents, to the precise and formal
decisions of organised parties. It has a distaste for “resolutions”. It prefers interviews and
gossip.

But those who take a serious view of politics must care fully analyse
party decisions, and Marxists will do all in their power to make such an
analysis.

We have described the Cadets as the “Centre”. It is customary , however, to apply this term to the Octobrists, who
stand midway between the Rights and the opposition.

However, both from the point of view of the class basis of the
political parties and from that of the nature of contemporary
politics in general, we must not limit ourselves to the Duma in analysing
the parties, must not consider the Octobrists alone to be the “Centre”.

Look at the class basis of our parties—the Rights and nationalists,
in general, are semi-feudal landlords. They stand for the
preservation and “aggravation” of the present regime.

Among the Octobrists, Progressists and Cadets, we see landlords of an
undoubtedly more bourgeois type, and then the bulk of the big
bourgeoisie. All these parties want reforms . They all form a
real centre between the semi-feudal landlords and the democrats
(peasants and workers).

The bourgeoisie is more afraid of democracy than of reaction; this
applies both to the Progressists and to the Cadets. The oppositional nature
of these two parties has, of course, to be taken into account in the
practical tasks of everyday politics, but this oppositional nature should
not make us close our eyes to the class kinship of these par ties and the
Octobrists.

The semi-feudal landlords rule both by themselves and in a bloc with
the upper ranks of the bourgeoisie. The feudal landlords are against
reforms. The bourgeoisie in general is in favour of reforms, and it
confines itself to a reformist stand, which is more than we can say of the
peasant, let alone of the worker, democrats.

The Cadet meeting clearly showed us the Cadets’ reformism as
their exclusive tactics. The most important thing is to see the
connection between these tactics and the class interests of the
bourgeoisie, and the inadequacy of these tactics, the “increasing
discrepancy” between them and the requirements of the country. The most
important thing is to see the fundamental kinship of the Cadets and the Octobrists, and the
absolute impossibility of any democratic successes whatever under Cadet
leadership.

VIII

This article was finished when I received Golos Moskvy No. 30,
with an editorial under the heading “What Next?”, devoted to the Cadet
meeting.

Taken in conjunction with the Duma votings on February 6 (adoption of
the formula of procedure with regard to Kasso’s explanation [3] ), that editorial is so important and sheds so vivid a
light on the Cadets’ attitude to the Octobrists that it is absolutely
necessary to comment on those votings.

The official Octobrist organ, Golos Moskvy , represents the
Cadet meeting (for some reason the paper calls it a “conference”) as a
victory of the Left Cadets, headed by Milyukov, over the Right Cadets.

“ Legislative activity,” said Golos Moskvy , expounding the Cadet resolution, “can be utilised only insofar as it does
not run counter to these main tasks [i.e., universal suffrage, a reform of
the Council of State, and a responsible Ministry].

“ To put it more simply, the adoption of this formula is
tantamount to renouncing all legislative work within the bounds of what can
actually be accomplished, and the Cadet opposition is henceforward assuming
a frankly irresponsible character.”

Golos Moskvy infers that there is nothing for it but to
dissolve the Duma, for the Octobrists will never adopt the Cadets’
attitude, which is so “uncompromising” (don’t laugh!), there is no
majority in the Duma, things are “utterly hopeless”....

See how history is written!

That brings out remarkably well the profound kinship of the Cadets and
the Octobrists, and the true nature of their “quarrel”: a lovers’
quarrel.

On February 6, in Moscow, the official Octobrist organ announced, as we
have seen, the complete break-up of the Octobrist-Cadet bloc following the
Cadet meeting, which took place before February 4 (when
Rech reported the meeting).

On the very same day , February 6, the Octobrists and Cadets in
the Fourth Duma, in St. Petersburg, together adopted by 173 votes to 153 the Octobrist-Cadet formula of
procedure with regard to Kasso’s explanation, a formula subsequently
rejected by chance when a confirmatory vote was taken!!

That’s good, isn’t it?

We have here a classical example of how the Octobrists and the
Cadets fix their political “affairs”. They have nothing to do
with any “bloc”, God forbid! But they distribute the roles among
themselves—to fool the public—so “skilfully” that no formal bloc
could provide them with any thing so “convenient”. The Cadets see that
the country is moving to the left, that a new democratic movement is
arising, and so they play at leftism by putting in circulation, through
their meeting, several phrases which say absolutely nothing and are
completely meaningless, but which sound like Left phrases. The
Octobrists support this feeling or impression among the public
that the Cadets have gone left; they bolster it up by officially
declaring, in the Golos Moskvy editorial, that the Cadets’
attitude is uncompromising and that it is impossible to form a majority in
the Duma by an alliance of the Octobrists and Cadets; they fulminate
against the Cadets for their leftism, clamour for the dissolution of the
Duma, and so on and so forth.

But in reality under cover of this clamour they haggled with the
Cadets, and at the very time when they were making their sharpest attack on
the Cadets’ leftism they struck a bargain with them on a common
formula!!

“ The wolves had their fill and the sheep kept their skins.” The
democrats were hoodwinked, they were deceived and decoyed into the Cadet
fold (the Cadets are so Left-wing—see how the Octobrists rail at them for
their leftism!), and the Octobrist-Cadet bloc in the Black-Hundred Duma was
preserved, strengthened and expanded.

One feels very much like exclaiming: 0 God, when will the Russian
democrats see through this simple stratagem of liberal Cadet bamboozling!
For liberal bourgeois politicians in all European countries use, in one
form or another, the very same trick: when facing the people, they shout
and swear in their official election speeches that they are democrats and
radicals (the German “freethinkers”, Lloyd George and Co. in Britain),
and even socialists (the Radical

Socialists in France). But in reality , in their actual
policy, they make common cause with unquestionably anti-democratic
governments and parties, with the Octobrists of various shades and various
nationalities.

How old this story is and how infinitely often the Cadets repeat it!

IX

Golos Moskvy asserts that prior to the elections the Cadets “ carried on bitter polemics against the Lefts, trying to
prove the need for legislative work within the bounds of the actual
conditions. It was this that warranted the hope that agreement could be
reached between the Duma Centre and the opposition. But after the elections
the views of the leaders of the Cadet Party underwent an important
change. The resolution on Duma tactics proposed by Milyukov and adopted by
the conference is entirely at variance with all that was said during the
elections—evidently to win the votes of the big urban bourgeoisie. The
latter would scarcely have agreed to back the Cadets on the platform which
the conference has now put forward.”

In this specimen of reasoning, you wonder which is the more
astounding—its na\"ive cunning or naive ignorance.

The views of the Cadets have not changed in the least . The
Cadets have always been, and remain, a liberal party leading the democratic
movement by fraud. At the 1912 elections, too, they showed the big
bourgeoisie their “true” face, their “solidarity” of smart dealers,
their “sobriety” as servants of the capitalist class. But at the same
time, in front of the democratic voters, they took great pains to suggest
that they were democrats and that their Duma tactics did not differ in any
essential from Social-Democratic tactics.

These two aspects of the Cadet policy are an indispensable “adjunct of
the attire” of every liberal party in any civilised country. To be sure,
individual party members often specialise, some in playing at democracy,
others in sobering up the “over-zealous” and pursuing a “respectable”
bourgeois policy. But then this is true of all countries. For example,
Britain’s well-known liberal charlatan, Lloyd George, poses in his speeches
to the people as a regular revolutionary and all but a socialist, but in
reality this Minister follows the policy of his leader, Asquith, who is no
different from a Conservative.

The fact that the article in Golos Moskvy describes
Mr. Milyukov as a representative of the Left Cadets can only call forth a
smile. Mr. Milyukov in fact represents official Cadet diplomacy, which is
trying to reconcile the undemocratic nature of the party with democratic
phrase-mongering.

Golos Moskvy said:

“ This new ‘post-election’ attitude of Mr. Milyukov’s was
approved by the conference anything but unanimously. A considerable number
of participants insisted on the tactic of agreement with the Duma Centre
for the purpose of securing the adoption of various Bills and cultural
reforms. The advocates of this point of view argued that in discussing
various Bills the group should compromise, trying to have them adopted in a
liberal spirit, and by no means making them unacceptable.” There followed
a sally against “the famous Cadet discipline” and “unquestioning
submission” of the Cadets to Mr. Milyukov’s “autocratic will”.

The game is obvious. It is transparent. The Octobrists “tease” the
Right Cadets, whom they are trying to represent as defeated and provoke to
a more determined struggle against the Left Cadets. But this Octobrist game
(which would have been impossible had the Cadets and Octobrists not been
members of one and the same little family) does not eliminate the
indisputable fact that there are differences of shade between the Left and
the Right Cadets, between the Lloyd Georges and the Asquiths of our
liberalism.

Look at Russkaya Molva . This Progressist organ, which advocates a compromise between the Octobrists and the Cadets, is attracting
an increasing number of official members of the Cadet
Party. Mansyrev and Maklakov and Obolensky and Gredeskul and Alexandrov
proved to be contributors—not all at once, but gradually, following the
Vekhi leader, Struve. It is beyond doubt that these people urged
closer links with the Octobrists. Nor could it have been otherwise. But it
is just as doubtless that Milyukov is trying to reconcile them with the
“Left Cadets” on a platform with a democratic facade and an Octobrist
essence.

X

The various parties’ Duma formulas of procedure with regard to Kasso’s
explanation are very interesting. They supply us with accurate material for
political analysis, material officially confirmed by the deputies of the various parties. It is analysis
that this material usually lacks most of all. It gets lost amid the
comments of the daily press or in the pile of the Duma’s verbatim
reports. Yet it is well worth dwelling on if we want to understand the true
nature of the various parties.

A leading article in Rech declared on the day following the
adoption of the formula of no-confidence: “Thus Russian society has
obtained from the Duma what it was entitled to expect” (No. 37,
February 7). This sounds as though all that “society” had to know was
whether the Duma trusts Mr. Kasso!

That is not true. The people and the democrats have to know the
motives of no-confidence so as to understand the causes
of a development considered abnormal in politics, and be able to find a
way out to the normal. Unity of the Cadets, Octobrists and
Social-Democrats on just the phrase “we have no confidence” is too little
as far as these very serious issues are concerned.

Here is the Octobrists’ formula of procedure:

“ The Duma ... considers:
(1) all involvement of secondary school pupils in political struggles is
ruinous to the spiritual development of Russia’s young forces and harmful
to the normal course of the life of society; (2) it is necessary, whenever the authorities are informed in good time of
undesirable developments in secondary schools, to take preventive measures
and not to wait until developments assume an abnormal character [2]

;
(3) emphatically declares against the application to pupils of police
measures, such as were adopted on December 10, 1912, without the knowledge
of the school authorities, instead of natural educational influence;
(4) considers anti-educational the slowness with which the fate of pupils
removed from schools is decided on, and expecting this incident to be dealt
with immediately in a sense benevolent to the pupils, proceeds to the next
business.”

What are the political ideas of this vote?

Politics are harmful at school. The pupils are to blame. But it is
their teachers who should punish them and not the police. We are
dissatisfied with the government for its lack of “benevolence” and its
slowness.

These are anti-democratic ideas. This is liberal opposition, for it
implies: let the old system of authority remain, but it should be
applied more mildly. You may flog, but within reason, and without
publicity.

Look at the Progressist formula of procedure:

“ The Duma finds that (1) the Ministry of Education, being in formed of what had lately taken
place in the secondary schools of St. Petersburg, adopted an impassive
attitude to its duties and failed to protect the secondary schools against
incursion by the police; (2) the methods used by police officers, methods which were resorted to
without protest on the part of the Ministry of Education and consisted in
searching the schools, seizing children and holding them under arrest at
police-stations, and in applying impermissible methods of investigation,
were utterly unjustifiable, all the more since in this case it was a matter
not of safeguarding state security, but of restoring order in the secondary
schools; (3) the whole set of measures adopted by the Ministry of Education,
measures directed to wards estranging the school from the family, creates,
through its callous formalism which hampers the moral and intellectual
growth of the young generation, conditions favourable to developments that
are abnormal in school life. The Duma considers the explanation offered by
the Minister of Education to be unsatisfactory and proceeds to the next
business.”

This formula was introduced on January 30, and the Progressists
declared there and then that they would vote for the Octobrists provided
the latter added no-confidence. We have seen above the results of this
haggling.

On what basis could that haggling take place? On the basis of
agreement in the main.

The Progressists, too, consider politics in the schools abnormal and
they, too, call for “restoring order” (feudal order). They, too, are in
opposition in the possessive case—opposition not to the old system of
authority but to its application—“impassive, callous”, and so on. In
the 1860s Pirogov agreed that there must be flogging, but he insisted on
the flogging not being done impassively or callously. The
Progressists have no objection to the present social elements “restoring
order”, but they advise the latter to do it more “sympathetically”. What progress has been made in our country in
five decades!

The Cadets’ formula of procedure:

“ Having heard the explanation offered by the Minister of
Education and considering:
(1) that it shows a complete confusion of the educational point of view
with that of the police; (2) that this explanation is a complete denial of the normal foundations on
which relations of friendly co-operation can be established between school
and family; (3) that the policy of the Ministry, by giving rise to deep resentment
among the pupils and to legitimate annoyance in society, itself promotes
the creation of an atmosphere making for the early involvement of school
youth in political pursuits and hence itself creates conditions which it
should prevent from arising; (4) that treating pupils as being guilty of crimes against the state
cripples the lives of the most gifted among the rising generation, snatches
numerous victims from its ranks and constitutes a threat to the future of
Russia, the Duma considers the explanation offered by the Minister to be
unsatisfactory and proceeds to the next business.”

Here, too , “early” involvement in politics is condemned but
in much milder terms and in a form veiled by phrases. This is an
anti-democratic point of view. Octobrists and Cadets alike condemn police
measures only because they want prevention instead. The system
should prevent meetings, not disperse them. Obviously, such, a reform would
only embellish the system but not change it. “We are dissatisfied with the
policy of the Ministry,” say the Cadets, and from what they say it
follows, exactly as with the Octobrists, that it is possible to wish for a change in this policy without something much more radical.

The Cadets pronounce themselves against the government much more
sharply than the Octobrists, and because of the sharp language politically
immature elements overlook the complete identity of the liberal,
anti-democratic, presentation of the issue by the Cadets and the
Octobrists.

The Duma should earnestly teach the people politics. Those who learn
their politics from the Cadets are corrupting and not developing their
political consciousness.

It is not an accident that the Octobrists, Progressists and Cadets
haggled and struck a bargain on a common formula; it is a result of their
ideological and political solidarity in the main. Nothing could be more
paltry than the policy of the Cadets, who agree to a direct condemnation of politics in the schools for the sake of finding the explanation offered
unsatisfactory. But the Cadets agreed to this because they themselves
condemn “early” involvement.

The formula of the Trudovik group:

“ Whereas:
(1) the brute force used on December 9, 1912, against secondary school
pupils, which shocked society by the disgraceful participation of the
secret police in educational supervision over pupils of secondary schools,
was fully a p proved in the explanation offered by Mr. Kasso, the Minister
of Education, who sneered maliciously at public opinion;
(2) the system of secret police and spying, which is a result of the entire
policy of the combined Ministry, and in particular of Kasso, the Minister
of Education, leads to complete havoc, and threatens in the future to cause
a severe shock to the rising generation, the Duma insists that all those
discharged on December 9 should be immediately reinstated and, considering
the explanation offered by Kasso, the Minister of Education, to be
unsatisfactory, demands his immediate resignation, and proceeds to the next
business.”

This formula is, strictly speaking, a markedly liberal one; but it does
not contain what a democrat, as distinct from a liberal, should
have said. A liberal, too, may find it disgraceful to enlist the assistance
of the secret police in educational supervision, but a democrat should say
(and teach the people) that no “supervisors” have a right to
encroach on the free organisation of political circles and talks. A
liberal, too, may condemn “the entire policy of the combined Ministry”,
but a democrat in Russia should make clear that there are certain general
conditions by virtue of which any other Ministry would have had to pursue
practically the same policy.

The democracy of the Trudovik formula shows only in its tenor,
in the sentiment of its authors. There is no denying that sentiment is a
political symptom. But it would not be amiss to insist that the formula of
procedure should contain a well-thought-out idea and not merely
“heart-warming” sentiment.

The Social-Democrats’ formula of procedure:

“ Having heard the explanation offered by the Minister of
Education and considering that it indicates:
(1) a determination to combat the natural and encouraging desire of school
youth to extend their mental horizons through self-education and to hold
comradely intercourse;
2) a justification of the system of official formalism, spying and police
investigation that is being implanted in the higher, secondary and elementary schools, a system which cripples youth mentally
and morally, ruthlessly stamps out all signs of independence of thought and
character, and results in an epidemic of suicides among pupils, the Duma
considers the explanation unsatisfactory. Considering, at the same time,
that (1) there is an inseparable connection between the domination of the police
standpoint in the matter of public education and the domination of the
secret police over the whole of Russian life, the suppression of all forms
of organised and independent activity by the citizens, and the latter’s
lack of rights, and that (2) only a radical change in the political organisation and the system of
state administration can free the citizens from police fetters and also
free the school from them, the Duma proceeds to the next business.”

This formula, too, can hardly be considered impeccable. One cannot help
wishing it bad presented the matter in more popular language and in greater
detail and regretting that it does not stress the legitimacy of engaging in
politics, and so on and so forth.

However, our criticism of all the formulas is by no means
aimed at details of formulation, but exclusively at the fundamental political ideas of their authors. A democrat should have said the
important thing, namely, that political circles and talks are natural and to be welcomed . That is the point. All condemnation of involvement
in politics, even if only of “early” involvement, is hypocrisy and
obscurantism. A democrat should have raised the level of the question
from the “combined Ministry” to the political system. He should have pointed out the “inseparable connection”, firstly,
with the “domination of the secret police” and, secondly, with the
domination of the class of big land lords of the feudal type in the
economic sphere.

---
Notes:
[1]
See pp. 496–97 of this volume.— Ed .

[2]
This text was introduced at the January 25 sitting. At the sitting of
February 1, Clause 2 was edited as follows: “It is noted with reference
to this particular case that a formal and indifferent attitude to pupils
prevails in secondary schools, that teaching staffs are estranged from
the families, and that it is necessary to establish a general benevolent
view on the rising generation.” — Lenin

[3]
The explanation offered by Kasso, the Minister of Education, in the
Duma was prompted by a question of forty-four members of the Duma tabled on
December 14 (27), 1912, regarding the arrest of thirty-four
secondary-school pupils in St. Petersburg during a meeting at Witmer’s
private gymnasium. The pupils were suspect ed by the secret police of being
members of an illegal political group. The question was discussed at five
sittings of the Duma. On February 6 (19), 1913, the majority voted for a
formula of procedure to the next business that considered the tsarist
Minister’s explanation unsatisfactory.