NOTES
[133]
Otzovism (from the Russian word meaning "withdrawal") -- an opportunist trend which arose among the Bolsheviks after the defeat of the Revolution of 1905-07. The otzovists believed that under the prevailing conditions of reaction the Party should conduct only illegal activities. They demanded the withdrawal of the Social-Democratic deputies from the Duma, and refused to take part in the work of the trade unions and other mass legal and semi-legal organisations. The otzovists' policy tended towards divorcing the Party from the masses and turning in into a sectarian organisation.
[p. 266]
[134]
Pochin (Initiative ) -- a journal of the Narodnik-liquidationist trend run by a group of Socialist-Revolutionaries. Only a single issue was published in June 1912 in Paris.
[p. 266]
[135]
In the autumn of 1904 the editors of the Menshevik Iskra published a letter stating that the chief task of the Social-Democrats was to bring "organised pressure to bear on the bourgeois opposition" by presenting demands to the government through the bourgeois liberals and Zemstvo people. This "Zemstvo campaign plan" clearly revealed the Mensheviks' lack of faith in the proletariat's strength, in its ability to wage a political struggle and take independent revolutionary action. From organisational opportunism the Mensheviks passed on to tactical opportunism, the "Zemstvo campaign plan" being the first step in this direction. A detailed analysis and criticism of the Mensheviks' plan is given by Lenin in "The Zemstvo Campaign and Iskra's Plan". (See present edition Vol. 7, pp. 497-518.)
[p. 269]
[136]
The Bulygin Duma -- a consultative Duma, the law for the convocation of which was drafted by A. G. Bulygin, Minister of the Interior, on instructions from the tsar. The tsar's Manifesto introducing the State Duma and the regulations governing the elections to it was published on August 6 (19), 1905. Only landlords, capitalists and a limited number of peasant householders were granted the right to vote in the Duma elections. The Bolsheviks boycotted the Bulygin Duma. The government failed to convene it -- it was swept away by the October general political strike.
The Witte Duma -- the First Duma convened on April 27 (May 10), 1906, under the regulations drawn up by S. Y. Witte, Chairman of the Council of Ministers.
Four hundred and seventy-eight deputies were elected to the First Duma, of whom 179 were Cadets, 63 Autonomists (including members of the Polish kolo, and Ukrainian, Estonian, Lettish,
page 596
Lithuanian and other bourgeois-national groups), 16 Octobrists 105 non-party people, 97 Trudoviks and 18 Social-Democrats. Thus, over a third of the seats in the Duma were held by the Cadets.
The high point of the First Duma deliberations was the agrarian question. Two basic agrarian programmes were put forward in the Duma -- the Cadets' Bill signed by 42 deputies, and the Trudoviks' Bill known as the "Bill of the 104". In contrast with the Trudoviks, the Cadets wanted to preserve landlordism, allowing alienation with compensation "at a fair price" of only those landed estates which were chiefly cultivated by the peasants' implements or were rented out.
The First Duma was dissolved by the tsarist government on July 8 (21), 1906.
[p. 270]
[137]
Tovarishch (Comrade ) -- a bourgeois daily published in St. Petersburg from March 15 (28), 1906 to December 30, 1907 (January 12, 1908). Though formally the organ of no particular party it was in fact the mouthpiece of the Left Cadets. Mensheviks also contributed to the paper.
[p. 270]
[138]
Za Partiyu (For the Party ) -- a paper of the pro-Party Mensheviks and conciliators published non-periodically in Paris from April 16 (29), 1912, to February 1914. Five issues were published. Among the contributors were G. V. Plekhanov, S. A. Lozovsky, and A. I. Lyubimov. The paper, which was circulated chiefly abroad, expressed the views, in the main, of the Paris group of Plekhanovites.
[p. 271]
[139]
Buryanov, A. F. -- member of the Fourth Duma, and one of the Menshevik Seven.
[p. 271]
[140]
Vperyod groups -- see Lenin's article "The Vperyodists and the Vperyod group". (See pp. 487-93 of this volume.)
[p. 272]
[141]
See Note 33.
[Note 33: The three pillars -- a term used in the legal Bolshevik press and at open, legal meetings to denote the three basic ("uncurtailed") revolutionary slogans: a democratic republic; confiscation of all landed estates; an eight-hour day.]
[p. 273]