was whole-heartedly in favour of participating in the elections and supporting the Cadets. Yesterday (August 11) he wrote in Tovarishch [62] that the Cadets "wanted to be a parliamentary party in a country that has no parliament and a constitutional party in a country that has no constitution"; that "the whole character of the Cadet Party has been determined by the fundamental contradiction be-
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tween a radical programme and quite non-radical tactics".
The Bolsheviks could not desire a greater triumph than this admission on the part of a Left Cadet or Right-wing Plekhanovite.
However, while absolutely rejecting faint-hearted and short-sighted speeches of repentance, as well as the silly explanation of the boycott as "youthful impetuousness", we do not by any means reject the new lessons of the Cadet Duma. It would be pedantic obstinacy to be afraid of frankly admitting these new lessons and taking them into account. History has shown that when the Duma assembles opportunities arise for carrying on useful agitation both from within the Duma and around it; that the tactics of joining forces with the revolutionary peasantry against the Cadets can be applied in the Duma. This may seem paradoxical, but such, undoubtedly, is the irony of history: it was the Cadet Duma that clearly demonstrated to the masses the correctness of what we might briefly describe as "anti-Cadet" tactics. History has ruthlessly confuted all constitutional illusions and all "faith in the Duma"; but history has undoubtedly proved that that institution is of some, although modest, use to the revolution as a platform for agitation, for exposing the true "inner nature" of the political parties, etc.
Hence the conclusion: it would be ridiculous to shut our eyes to realities. The time has now come when the revolutionary Social-Democrats must cease to be boycottists. We shall not refuse to go into the Second Duma when (or "if") it is convened. We shall not refuse to utilise this arena, but we shall not exaggerate its modest importance; on the contrary, guided by the experience already provided by history, we shall entirely subordinate the struggle we wage in the Duma to another form of struggle, namely, strikes, uprisings, etc. We shall convene the Fifth Party Congress; there we shall resolve that in the event of elections taking place, it will be necessary to enter into an electoral agreement, for a few weeks, with the Trudoviks (unless the Fifth Party Congress is convened it will be impossible to conduct a united election campaign; and "blocs with other parties" are absolutely prohibited by the decision of the Fourth Congress). And then we shall utterly rout the Cadets.
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This conclusion, however, does not by any means reveal the whole complexity of the task that confronts us. We deliberately emphasised the words "in the event of elections taking place", etc. We do not know yet whether the Second Duma will be convened, when the elections will take place, what the electoral laws will be like, or what the situation will be at that time. Hence our conclusion suffers from being extremely general: we need it to enable us to sum up past experience, to take note of the lessons of the past, to put the forthcoming questions of tactics on a proper basis; but it is totally inadequate for solving the concrete problems of immediate tactics.
Only Cadets and the "Cadet-like" people of all sorts can be satisfied with such a conclusion at the present time, can create a "slogan" for themselves out of the yearnings for a new Duma and try to persuade the government of the desirability of convening it as quickly as possible, etc. Only conscious or unconscious traitors to the revolution would at the present time exert all efforts to divert the inevitable new rise of temper and excitement into the channel of an election and not into that of a fight waged by means of a general strike and uprising.
This brings us to the crux of the question of present-day Social-Democratic tactics. The issue now is not whether we should take part in the elections. To say "yes" or "no" in this case means saying nothing at all about the fundamental problem of the moment. Outwardly, the political situation in August 1906 is similar to that in August 1905, but enormous progress has been made during this period: the forces that are fighting on the respective sides, the forms of the struggle, and the time required for carrying out this or that strategic move -- if we may so express it -- have all become more exactly defined.
The government's plan is clear. It was absolutely right in its calculations when it fixed the date of the convocation of the Duma and did not fix -- contrary to the law -- the date of the elections. The government does not want to tie its hands or show its cards. Firstly, it is gaining time in which to consider an amendment of the electoral law. Secondly -- and this is the most important -- it is keeping the date of the elections in reserve until the character and intensity of
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the new rise of temper can be fully gauged. The government wishes to fix the date of the elections at the particular time (and perhaps in the particular form, i.e., the form of elections) when it can split and paralyse the incipient uprising. The government's reasoning is correct: if things remain quiet, perhaps we shall not convene the Duma at all, or revert to the Bulygin laws. If, however, a strong movement arises, then we can try to split it by fixing a date for the elections for the time being and in this way entice certain cowards and simpletons away from the direct revolutionary struggle.
Liberal blockheads (see Tovarishch and Rech ) so utterly fail to understand the situation that they are of their own accord crawling into the net set by the government. They are trying with might and main "to prove" the need for the Duma and the desirability of diverting the rising tide into the channel of an election. But even they cannot deny that the question of what form the impending struggle will assume is still an open one. Today's issue of Rech (August 12) admits: "What the peasants will say in the autumn . . . is still unknown." . . . "It will be difficult to make any general forecasts until September-October, when the temper of the peasantry is definitely revealed."
The liberal bourgeois remain true to their nature. They do not want to assist actively in choosing the form of the struggle and in moulding the temper of the peasants one way or another, nor are they capable of doing so. The interests of the bourgeoisie demand that the old regime be not overthrown, but merely weakened, and that a liberal Cabinet be formed.
The interests of the proletariat demand the complete overthrow of the old, tsarist regime and the convocation of a constituent assembly with full power. Its interests demand the most active intervention in moulding the temper of the peasants, in choosing the most resolute forms of struggle as well as the best moment for it. On no account must we with draw, or obscure, the slogan: convocation of a constituent assembly by revolutionary means, i.e., through the medium of a provisional revolutionary government. We must concentrate all efforts on explaining the conditions for an uprising: that it must be combined with the strike movement;
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that all the revolutionary forces must be rallied and prepared for it, etc. We must resolutely take the path that was indicated in the well-known manifestoes: "To the Army and Navy" and "To All the Peasants", which were signed by the "bloc" of all revolutionary organisations, including the Trudovik Group. Lastly, we must take special care that the government does not under any circumstances succeed in splitting, stopping, or weakening the incipient uprising by ordering elections. In this respect the lessons of the Cadet Duma must be absolutely binding for us, viz., the lessons that the Duma campaign is a subordinate and secondary form of struggle, and that, owing to the objective conditions of the moment, direct revolutionary actions by the broad mass of the people still remain the principal form of struggle.
Of course, subordinating the Duma campaign to the main struggle, assigning a secondary role to this campaign for the contingency of an unfavourable outcome of the battle, or postponing the battle until experience of the Second Duma is obtained -- such tactics may, if you like, be described as the old boycott tactics. On formal grounds this description might be justified, because, apart from the work of agitation and propaganda, which is always obligatory, "preparation for elections" consists of minute technical arrangements, which can very rarely be made a long time before the elections. We do not want to argue about words; in substance these tactics are the logical development of the old tactics, but not a repetition of them; they are a deduction drawn from the last boycott, but not the last boycott itself.
To sum up. We must take into account the experience of the Cadet Duma and spread its lessons among the masses. We must prove to them that the Duma is "useless", that a constituent assembly is essential, that the Cadets are wavering; we must demand that the Trudoviks throw off the yoke of the Cadets, and we must support the former against the latter. We must recognise at once the need for an electoral agreement between the Social-Democrats and the Trudoviks in the event of new elections taking place. We must exert all our efforts to counteract the government's plan to split the uprising by ordering elections. Advocating their tried revolutionary slogans with greater energy than ever, Social-
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Democrats must exert every effort to unite all the revolutionary elements and classes more closely, to convert the upsurge that is probable in the near future into an armed uprising of the whole people against the tsarist government.