The election campaign is of outstanding interest to every conscious political figure for this reason, that it provides objective material on the question of the views, sentiments, and consequently, interests of different 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 may be good (with universal, etc. suffrage), and they may be bad (elections to our – pardon the expression – parliament); of course, this statistics, like any other, must be learned to be criticized and used critically. Of course, finally, this statistics must be taken in connection with all social statistics in general, and, for example, strike statistics for those who are not infected with the disease of parliamentary cretinism will often prove a hundred times more serious and profound than election statistics.

But after all these reservations, it remains undoubted that elections provide objective material. The verification of subjective wishes, sentiments, views by reckoning the vote of the population masses belonging to different classes must always be valuable for a political figure in any somewhat serious sense of the word. The struggle of parties in practice, before the electorate, with the counting of results – always yields material that verifies our understanding of what the correlation of social forces in the country is, and what the significance of these or those “slogans” is.

From this point of view, let us try to look at the election results.

On the question of political statistics, the main thing that must be said here is the obvious worthlessness of the greater part of it on account of the most shameless application of “measures” of the administration: “explanations”, pressure, arrests, deportations, etc., etc., without end. Mr. Cherevanin, for example, summing up in *Nasha Zarya* No. 9–10 the results from data on several hundred electors of different curiae, is forced to admit that the decrease in the percentage of opposition electors (compared to the elections to the Third Duma) in the second urban curia and in the peasant one “it would be ridiculous” to take as proof of a shift to the right. The only curia regarding which the Mymretsovs, Khvostovs, Tolmachevs, Muratovs and Co. could not carry out a falsification is the first urban curia. And it showed an increase in the number of “opposition” electors from 56% to 67%, with a decline of the Octobrists from 20% to 12%, and of the right from 24% to 21%.

But if the “explanations” nullified the significance of the election statistics with regard to the electors, and if the democratic classes, generally excluded from the privileged Third-June men, experienced all the delights of these explanations, then the attitude of liberalism to democracy nevertheless manifested itself in the elections. On this point, objective material was nonetheless obtained, making it possible to verify through experience what various “trends” had thought and said before the elections.

The question of the attitude of liberalism to democracy is by no means a “purely party” question, i.e., one that is significant only from the standpoint of one of the strict party lines. No. This question is the most essential one for anyone striving for political freedom in Russia. It is precisely the question of how to achieve that which is the object of the common aspirations of all that is decent and honest in Russia.

When beginning the election campaign in 1912, the Marxists placed precisely at the forefront the slogans of consistent democracy, as opposed to the liberal labour policy. These slogans could be verified in two ways: firstly, by reasoning and by the experience of other countries; secondly, by the experience of the 1912 campaign. Whether the Marxists’ slogans were correct or not should now be seen from the actual relations that developed between liberals and democrats. The objectivity of this verification of the slogans lies 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 the liberals and democracy in the elections and as a result of the elections turn out as the Marxists expected? Or as the liberals expected? Or as the liquidators expected?

In order to examine this question, let us first recall these “expectations.” At the very beginning of 1912, when the question of elections had just arisen, and when the C.D. (at their conference) unfurled the banner of a united opposition (i.e., of two camps) and the admissibility of blocs with the Left Octobrists, the labour press raised the question of slogans in articles by Martov and Dan in Zhivoye Dyelo, by F. L—ko and others in Zvezda (Nos. 11 (47) and 24 (60), and Zhivoye Dyelo Nos. 2, 3, and 8).

Martov put forward the slogan: “drive the reaction out of its Duma positions”; Dan — “tear the Duma out of the hands of reaction.” Martov and Dan reproached Zvezda for threatening the liberals and striving to extort seats in the Duma from the liberals.

Three positions emerged clearly:

1) The C.D. were for a united opposition (i.e., for two camps) and for the admissibility of blocs with the Left Octobrists.

2) The liquidators favour the slogan: “wrest the Duma from the hands of the reaction,” to facilitate the “advance to power” of the Cadets and Progressists (Martov in No. 2 of Zhivoye Dyelo). Not to extort seats for democrats from the liberals.

3) The Marxists are against the slogan: “wrest the Duma from the hands of the reaction,” for this means wresting the landowner from the hands of the reaction. “Our practical task in the elections is not at all ‘driving the reaction out of its Duma positions,’ but strengthening democracy in general, and working-class 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 fear of intimidation by cries about the Black-Hundred danger (the same in No. 24 (60)[44]). The liberals “advance to power” only when democracy wins in spite of the vacillations of liberalism.

The divergence between the Marxists and the liquidators is extremely profound and irreconcilable, no matter how easy verbal reconciliation of the irreconcilable may seem to various kind souls. “Wrest the Duma from the hands of the reaction”—this is a whole set of ideas, a whole 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 democracy that has emerged from dependence on the liberals is capable of effectively undermining the reaction.

Now look at what actually came of the battle, about which so much was judged and argued before it began.

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

Here is how this witness defines the results of the battle for the Second Urban Curia—as is known, the only curia in which there was even a remote semblance of “European” elections and in which there is at least the slightest possibility of summing up the “encounters” between liberalism and democracy.

The witness counted 63 Social-Democratic contests, of which in 5 cases there was a forced withdrawal of candidacy, in 5 an agreement with other parties, and 53 independent contests. Of these 53 cases, 4 were in 4 major cities and 49 in the election of electors.

Of these 49 cases, in 9 it is unknown whom the Social-Democrats fought; in 3 cases—with the Right (all 3 Social-Democratic victories); in 1 case with the Trudoviks (Social-Democratic victory); in the remaining 36 cases—with the liberals (21 Social-Democratic victories; 15 defeats).

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

* Progressists and Cadets, together with Progressists or Trudoviks.

Thus, the main opponent of the S.D.’s were the liberals (36 cases against 3); the main defeats to the Social-Democrats were inflicted by the Cadets.

Furthermore, out of 5 cases of agreements, in two there was a general agreement of the opposition against the Right; in three “it is a question of a left bloc against the C.-D.” (italics mine; p. 98 of Nasha Zarya, No. 9–10). Thus, the number of agreements is less than 1/10 of the number of cases of appearances in general. Of the agreements, 60% are agreements against the C.-D.

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

Thus, in all 4 large cities the S.D. fight against the Cadets, while in 1 case the C.-D. win on a second ballot with the help of the Octobrists (including among them the candidate of the “Baltic Constitutional Party”).

Conclusions of the witness himself:

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