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    The recent Teachers' Congress,[2] which the majority was influenced by the Socialist-Revolutionaries,[3] adopted a resolution calling for a boycott of the Third Duma. The resolution was adopted with the direct participation of a prominent representative of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party. The Social-Democratic teachers and the representative of the R.S.D.L.P. abstained from voting, as they considered that this question should be decided by a Party congress or conference, and not by a non-Party professional and political association.

    The question of boycotting the Third Duma thus arises as a current question of revolutionary tactics. Judging by the speech of its spokesman at the Congress, the Socialist-Revolutionary Party had already decided that question, although we do not yet have any official decisions of the Party or any literary documents from among its members. Among the Social-Democrats this question has been raised and is being debated.

    What arguments do the Socialist-Revolutionaries use to support their decision? The resolution of the Teachers' Congress speaks, in effect, about the utter uselessness of the Third Duma, about the reactionary and counter-revolutionary nature of the government that effected the coup d'état of June 3,[4] about the new electoral law being weighted in favour of the landlords, etc., etc.* The case is presented

 
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in such a manner as if the ultra-reactionary nature of the Third Duma by itself makes such a method of stuggle or such a slogan as the boycott necessary and legitimate. The impropriety of such an argument is absolutely clear to any Social-Democrat, since there is no attempt here whatever to examine the historical conditions of the boycott's applicability. The Social-Democrat who takes a Marxist stand draws his conclusions about the boycott not from the degree of reactionariness of one or another institution, but from the existence of those special conditions of struggle that, as the experience of the Russian revolution has now shown, make it possible to apply the specific method known as boycott. If anyone were to start discussing the boycott without taking into consideration the two years' experience of our revolution, without studying that experience, we would have to say of him that he had forgotten a lot and learned nothing. In dealing with the question of boycott we shall start with an attempt to analyse that experience.

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NOTES



  ^[1] The article "Against Boycott " was published at the end of July 1907 in a pamphlet entitled Concerning the Boycott of the Third Duma printed by the illegal Social-Democratic press in St. Petersburg. Its cover bore the fictitious inscription: "Moscow, 1907, Gorizontov Press, 40, Tverskaya". The pamphlet was confiscated in September 1907.    [p. 15]

  ^[2] This refers to the Fourth Delegate Congress of the All-Russian Teachers' Union, held June 19-24 (July 2-7), 1907, in Finland. It was attended by 50 Socialist-Revolutionary, 23 Social-Democrat and 18 non-party delegates, representing nearly two thousand organised teachers of Russia. The following questions were on the agenda: adoption of the Union Rules, elections to the Third Duma, attitude towards other trade unions, attitude towards the modern Zemstvo, boycott of discharged teachers' posts, mutual benefit societies, and other items. The Congress was held in an atmosphere of tense ideological struggle between the Social-Democrats and the Socialist-Revolutionaries.
    In calling the Teachers' Union a "professional and political" union, Lenin had in mind that under Clause I of the Rules it fought for a free school while at the same time endeavouring to improve the material conditions of the teachers; it was, at one and the same time, a teachers' trade union and a political league of struggle for a free school.    [p. 17]

  ^[3] Socialist-Revolutionaries (S.R.'s) -- a petty-bourgeois party formed in Russia at the end of 1901 and beginning of 1902 through the amalgamation of various Narodnik groups and circles (The "Union of Socialist-Revolutionaries", "Party of Socialist-Revolutionaries", and others). Its official organs were the newspaper Revolutsionnaya Rossiya (Revolutionary Russia ) (1900-05) and the magazines Vestnik Russkoi Revolutsii (Herald of the Russian Revolution ) (1901-05) and Znamya Truda (Banner of Labour ) (1907-14). The S.R.'s failed to perceive the class distinctions between the proletariat and petty proprietors; they glossed over the class differentiation and antagonisms within the peasantry, and rejected the leading role of the proletariat in the revolution. The views of the S.R.'s were an eclectic medley of Narodism and revisionism; they tried, as Lenin put it, to "patch up the rents in the Narodnik ideas with bits of fashionable opportunist 'criticism' of Marxism"

 
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(see present edition, Vol. 9, p. 310  [Transcriber's Note: See Lenin's "Socialism and the Peasantry". -- DJR]). The tactics of individual terrorism which the S.R.'s advocated as the principal method of struggle against the autocracy caused great harm to the revolutionary movement, since it made it difficult to organise the masses for the revolutionary struggle.

    The agrarian programme of the S.R.'s envisaged the abolition of private ownership of the land and its transfer to the village communes on the basis of the "labour principle" and "equalised" land tenure, as well as the development of co-operatives of all kinds. The S.R.'s called this programme "socialisation of the land", but there was nothing socialist about it. Lenin's analysis of it showed that the preservation of commodity production and private farming on the common land does not eliminate the domination of capital, does not save the toiling peasants from exploitation and ruin nor can co-operation be a saving remedy for the small peasants under capitalism, since it serves to enrich the rural bourgeoisie. At the same time Lenin pointed out that the demand for equalised land tenure while not socialist, was of a historically progressive revolutionary-democratic nature, since it was aimed against reactionary landlordism.

    The Bolshevik Party exposed the S.R.'s attempts to masquerade as socialists, waged an unremitting struggle against the S.R.'s for influence on the peasantry, and revealed the harm their tactics of individual terrorism were causing the labour movement. At the same time the Bolsheviks were prepared, on definite terms, to come to temporary agreements with the S.R.'s in the struggle against tsarism.
    The heterogeneous class character of the peasantry determined the political and ideological instability and organisational disunity of the S.R. Party, and its members' continual vacillation between the liberal bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Already during the first Russian revolution of 1905-07 its Right wing split away from the party and formed the legal "Trudovik Popular Socialist Party" (Popular Socialists), whose views were close to those of the Constitutional-Democrats; the Left wing organised itself into the semi-anarchist League of "Maximalists". During the Stolypin reaction the S.R. Party was in a state of complete collapse ideologically and organisationally. The First World War found most of the S.R.'s taking a social-chauvinist stand.
    After the victory of the bourgeois-democratic revolution of February 1917, the S.R.'s, together with the Mensheviks and Cadets were the mainstay of the counter-revolutionary Provisional Government of the bourgeoisie and landlords, and the leaders of the party (Kerensky, Avksentyev, Chernov) were members of that government. The S.R. Party refused to support the peasants' demands for the abolition of landlordism and stood for private ownership of the land; the S.R. ministers in the Provisional Government sent punitive expeditions against the peasants who had seized the landlords' estates.
    At the end of November 1917 the Left wing of the party founded a separate Left Socialist-Revolutionary Party. In an endeavour to

 
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maintain their influence among the peasant masses, the Left S.R.'s formally recognised the Soviet government and entered into an agreement with the Bolsheviks, but very soon turned against the Soviet power.
    During the years of foreign military intervention and civil war the S.R.'s engaged in counter-revolutionary subversive activities, zealously supported the interventionists and whiteguard generals, took part in counter-revolutionary plots, and organised terrorist acts against leaders of the Soviet state and Communist Party. After the civil war they continued their anti-Soviet activities within the country and as whiteguard émigrés abroad.    [p. 17]

  ^[4] Coup d'état of June 3 (16), 1907 -- a counter-revolutionary act by which the government dissolved the Second Duma and altered the electoral law. On the basis of a trumped-up charge framed by the Okhranka (the secret police) against the Social-Democratic members of the Duma, accusing them of being connected with a military organisation and preparing an armed uprising, Stolypin, on June 1907, demanded that these members be banned from taking part in the Duma sittings, sixteen members of the Social-Democratic group in the Duma were to be arrested. A committee was set up by the Duma to verify the charge. Without waiting for the results of this committee's investigations, the government, on the night of June 3 (16) had the Social-Democratic group arrested. On June 3 the tsar's manifesto dissolved the Duma and announced modifications in the electoral law, which greatly increased representation of the landlords and the commercial and industrial bourgeoisie in the Duma and considerably reduced the already meagre representation of the workers and peasants. This was a gross violation of the Manifesto of October 17, 1905 and the Fundamental Law of 1906 under which no laws could be issued by the government without the approval of the Duma.
    Under the new electoral law one elector was elected to the landowners' curia from 230 people, to the urban curia of the first degree from 1,000 people, to the urban curia of the second degree from 15,000 people, to the peasants' curia from 60,000 people, and to the workers' curia from 125,000 people. The landlords and bourgeoisie were able to elect 65 per cent of all the electors, the peasants 22 per cent (formerly 42 per cent), and the workers 2 per cent (formerly 4 per cent). The law deprived the indigenous population of Asiatic Russia and the Turkic peoples of the Astrakhan and Stavropol gubernias of the franchise, and reduced the number of deputies returned by Poland and the Caucasus by half. All persons throughout Russia who did not know the Russian language were deprived of the franchise. The Third Duma elected on the basis of this law, which assembled on November 1, 1907, was a Duma of Black-Hundred and Octobrist deputies.
    The coup d'état of June 3 was, in Lenin's words, "a turning-point in the history of our revolution" (see present edition, Vol. 15, "The Straight Road"), which ushered in the period of Stolypin reaction.    [p. 17]

 
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  ^[5] The Bulygin Duma -- the consultative "representative body" which the tsarist government had promised to convene in 1905. The tsar's manifesto the law providing for the establishment of the Duma, and regulations governing elections to it were promulgated on August 6 (19),1905. It came to be known as the Bulygin Duma because the Bill inaugurating it was drafted on the tsar's instructions by A. G. Bulygin the Minister of the Interior. Electoral rights were granted only to the landlords, the big capitalists, and a small number of peasant householders. The peasants were given only 51 out of the 412 seats established by the law. The majority of the population -- the workers, poor peasants, farm-labourers, and democratic intelligentsia -- were deprived of the franchise. Women, servicemen, students, persons under twenty-five, and a number of subject nationalities were not allowed to vote. The Duma had no right to pass laws and could merely discuss certain questions in the capacity of a consultative body under the tsar. Lenin described the Bulygin Duma as "the most barefaced mockery of 'popular representation'" (see present edition, Vol. 9, p. 194  [Transcriber's Note: See Lenin's "'Oneness of the Tsar and the People, and of the People and the Tsar'". -- DJR]).
    The Bolsheviks called upon the workers and peasants to actively boycott the Bulygin Duma, and concentrated their agitational campaign around the slogans of an armed uprising, a revolutionary army, and a provisional revolutionary government. The Mensheviks considered it possible to take part in the elections to the Duma and stood for co-operation with the liberal bourgeoisie.
    The Bulygin Duma boycott campaign was used by the Bolsheviks to rally all the revolutionary forces, to organise mass political strikes, and to prepare for an armed uprising. The elections to the Bulygin Duma did not take place, and the government failed to convene it. It was swept away by the mounting wave of revolution and the All-Russian political strike of October 1905. On the subject of the Bulygin Duma, see Lenin's articles "The Constitutional Market-Place", "The Boycott of the Bulygin Duma, and Insurrection", "Oneness of the Tsar and the People, and of the People and the Tsar", "In the Wake of the Monarchist Bourgeoisie, Or in the Van of the Revolutionary Proletariat and Peasantry?" and others (see present edition, Vol. 8, pp. 351-55; Vol. 9, pp. 179-87, 191-99, 212-23).    [p. 18]

  ^[6] The Ninth of January 1905 -- "Bloody Sunday", the day on which by order of the tsar, a peaceful procession of St. Petersburg workers was shot down. The workers were marching to the Winter Palace to present a petition to the tsar.
    This cold-blooded massacre of unarmed workers started a wave of mass political strikes and demonstrations all over Russia under the slogan of "Down with the Autocracy!".
    The events of January 9 precipitated the revolution of 1905-07.    [p. 19]

  ^[7] Potemkin -- armoured cruiser of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, the crew of which mutinied on June 14-24, 1905. The revolutionary outbreak on the Potemkin was of great political importance, since

 
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it was the first time that any big tsarist military unit had joined the revolution.    [p. 19]

  ^[8] The Witte Duma -- Russia's First Duma, convened on April 27 (May 10), 1906 on a franchise drafted by the Prime Minister Witte. Although the electoral law governing elections to the First Duma was anti-democratic, the tsar did not succeed in convening a wholly docile Duma. The majority in the Duma were Cadets, who tried to win the confidence of the peasantry with false promises of reforms, including an agrarian reform.

    The tsarist government dissolved the Duma on July 8 (21), 1906.    [p. 21]

  ^[9] The man in the muffler -- the chief character in Chekhov's story of the same name, typifying the narrow-minded philistine, who fights shy of all innovations and display of initiative.    [p. 22]

  ^[10] See Friedrich Engels, Flüchtlingsliteratur, Internationales aus dem Volksstaat, Berlin, 1957.    [p. 23]

  ^[11] The Fourth (Unity ) Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. was held in Stockholm, April 10-25 (April 23-May 8), 1906.
    It was attended by 112 delegates with the right to vote, representing 57 local organisations, and 22 consultative delegates. In addition, there were representatives from the non-Russian Social-Democratic parties: three each from those of Poland and Lithuania, the Bund, the Lettish Social-Democratic Labour Party, and one each from the Ukrainian Social-Democratic Labour Party and the Labour Party of Finland, and a representative of the Bulgarian Social-Democratic Labour Party. The Bolshevik delegates included F. A. Artyom (Sergeyev), M. F. Frunze, M. I. Kalinin, V. I. Lenin, S. G. Shaumyan, and V. V. Vorovsky. The Congress discussed the agrarian question, the current situation and the class tasks of the proletariat, the attitude towards the Duma, and organisational questions. There was a sharp struggle between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks on all issues. Lenin delivered reports and made speeches at the Congress on the agrarian question, on the current situation, on the tactics to be assumed in regard to the elections to the Duma on the armed uprising, and other questions.
    The Mensheviks' numerical preponderance at the Congress, though slight, determined the character of the Congress decisions. On a number of questions the Congress adopted Menshevik resolutions the agrarian programme, the attitude towards the Duma, etc.). The Congress adopted Lenin's formulation of Paragraph One of the Party Rules. The Congress admitted into the R.S.D.L.P. the non-Russian Social-Democratic organisations: the Social-Democratic Party of Poland and Lithuania, and the Lettish Social-Democratic Labour Party and adopted a draft laying down the conditions on which the Bund could join the R.S.D.L.P.
    The Central Committee elected at the Congress consisted of three Bolsheviks and seven Mensheviks. Only Mensheviks were elected to the Editorial Board of the Central Organ.

 
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    An analysis of the Congress is given in Lenin's pamphlet Report on the Unity Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. (See present edition, Vol. 10, pp. 317-82.)    [p. 27]

  ^[12] Dubasov -- the Governor-General of Moscow who suppressed the Moscow armed uprising in December 1905.

    Stolypin -- Russian Prime Minister.    [p. 29]

  ^[13] Cadets -- (abbreviated) members of the Constitutional-Democratic Party, the chief party of the liberal-monarchist bourgeoisie in Russia. Founded in October 1905, its membership was made up of representatives of the bourgeoisie, Zemstvo leaders of the landowning class, and bourgeois intellectuals. Leading personalities of the party were P. N. Milyukov, S. A. Muromtsev, V. A. Maklakov, A. I. Shingarev, P. B. Struve, and F. I. Rodichev, among others. To hoodwink the working people the Cadets called themselves the "Party of People's Freedom". Actually, they did not go beyond the demand for a constitutional monarchy. They considered it their chief aim to combat the revolutionary movement, and sought to share the power with the tsar and the feudal landlords. During the First World War the Cadets actively supported the tsarist government's aggressive foreign policy. During the bourgeois-democratic revolution of February 1917 they tried their hardest to save the monarchy. They used their key positions in the bourgeois Provisional Government to pursue a counter-revolutionary policy opposed to the interests of the people, but favouring the U.S., British, and French imperialists. After the victory of the October Revolution the Cadets came out as implacable enemies of the Soviet power. They took part in all the counter-revolutionary armed actions and campaigns of the interventionists. Living abroad as émigrés after the defeat of the interventionists and whiteguards, the Cadets did not cease their anti-Soviet counter-revolutionary activities.    [p. 30]

  ^[14] Tovarishch (The Comrade ) -- a bourgeois daily published in St. Petersburg from March 15 (28), 1906 to December 30, 1907 (January 12, 1908). Though formally not the organ of any particular party it was in fact the mouthpiece of the Left Cadets. Active contributors were S. N. Prokopovich and Y. D. Kuskova. The newspaper also published contributions from Mensheviks.    [p. 31]

  ^[15] Leaflet of the C.C. -- "Letter to Party Organisations" No. 1 written in connection with the coup d'état of June 3. "The proletariat and its spokesman -- revolutionary Social-Democracy," the letter states, "cannot leave the government's act of violence unanswered and unprotested. Social-Democracy does not give up the idea of continuing and developing the revolution." Without calling for immediate action the C.C. of the R.S.D.L.P. appealed to the Party organisations to "support and go the whole way in developing mass movements as they arise, and in cases where the active and decisive support of the broad masses can be counted on, to immediately take upon themselves the initiative in the movement and notify the C.C. about it".    [p. 35]

 
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  ^[16] See Marx's letter to Kugelmann of March 3. 1869. (K. Marx and F. Engels, Selected Correspondence, Moscow, p. 263).    [p. 37]

  ^[17] Balalaikin -- a character in Saltykov-Shchedrin's Modern Idyll ; a liberal windbag, adventurer, and humbug, who places his selfish interests above all else.
    Molchalin -- a character in Griboyedov's play Wit Works Woe typifying an unprincipled climber and toady.    [p. 39]

  ^[18] K. Marx and F. Engels, Selected Works, Vol. I, 1958, p. 497.  [Transcriber's Note: See Marx's The Civil War in France. -- DJR]    [p. 40]

  ^[19] Black Hundreds -- monarchist gangs formed by the tsarist police to combat the revolutionary movement. They assassinated revolutionaries, assaulted progressive intellectuals, and organised anti-Jewish pogroms.    [p. 41]

  ^[20] Octobrists -- members of the Octobrist party (or Union of October Seventeenth), founded in Russia after the promulgation of the tsar's Manifesto of October 17 (30), 1905. It was a counter-revolutionary party representing and defending the interests of the big bourgeoisie and landlords who engaged in capitalist farming. Its leaders were the well-known industrialist and Moscow houseowner A. I. Guchkov and the big landowner M. V. Rodzyanko. The Octobrists unreservedly supported the home and foreign policies of the tsarist government.    [p. 41]

  ^[21] Proletary (The Proletarian ) (Geneva issue) -- an illegal Bolshevik weekly, central organ of the R.S.D.L.P., founded in accordance with a resolution of the Third Congress of the Party. By a decision of a plenary meeting of the Party's Central Committee on April 7 (May 10), 1905, Lenin was appointed Editor-in-Chief of the paper. It was published in Geneva from May 14 (27) to November 12 (25), 1905. Altogether twenty-six issues were brought out. Proletary followed tbe line of the old, Lenin Iskra, and maintained full continuity of policy with the Bolshevik newspaper Vperyod.
    Lenin wrote about 90 articles and items for Proletary, whose political character, ideological content, and Bolshevik angle they determined. Lenin performed a tremendous job as the paper's manager and editor. V. V. Vorovsky, A. V. Lunacharsky and M. S. Olminsky regularly took part in the work of the editorial board. Important work was also done by N. K. Krupskaya, V. M. Velichkina, and V. A. Karpinsky. The paper had close ties with the labour movement in Russia, publishing articles and items written by workers who participated directly in the revolutionary movement. The collection of correspondence locally and its delivery to Geneva were organised by V. D. Bonch-Bruyevich, S. I. Gusev, and A. I. Ulyanova-Yelizarova. The editors' correspondence with the local Party organisations and readers was handled by N. K. Krupskaya and L. A. Fotieva.
    Proletary reacted immediately to all important events in the Russian and international labour movement and waged an irreconcilable struggle against the Mensheviks and other opportunist

 
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revisionist elements. The newspaper carried out a great deal of work in propaganda for the decisions of the Third Congress of the Party and played an important part in organising and ideologically uniting the Bolsheviks. It consistently defended revolutionary Marxism and worked out all the fundamental issues of the revolution which was developing in Russia. By highlighting the events of 1905 Proletary helped to rouse the broad masses of the working people to the struggle for the victory of the revolution.
    Proletary exercised great influence on the local Social-Democratic organisations. Some of Lenin's articles in the paper were reprinted in local Bolshevik papers and circulated in leaflet form. Publication of Proletary was discontinued shortly after Lenin's departure for Russia at the beginning of November 1905. The last two issues (Nos. 25 and 26) were edited by V. V. Vorovsky, but for them too Lenin wrote several articles, which were published after his departure from Geneva.    [p. 42]

  ^[22] Proletary (The Proletarian ) (Russian issue) -- an illegal Bolshevik newspaper published from August 21 (September 3), 1906 to November 8 (December 11), 1909 under the editorship of Lenin. Altogether 50 issues were put out. An active part in the work of the Editorial Board was taken by M. F. Vladimirsky, V. V. Vorovsky, A. V. Lunacharsky, and I. F. Dubrovinsky. The technical work was handled by Y. S. Schlichter, A. G. Schlichter, and others. The first twenty issues were prepared for the press and set up in Vyborg (printing from the matrices sent was organised in St. Petersburg for purposes of secrecy the newspaper carried the statement that it was published in Moscow). Eventually, owing to the extremely difficult conditions created for the publication of an illegal organ in Russia, the Editorial Board of Proletary, in accordance with a decision of the St. Petersburg and Moscow committees of the R.S.D.L.P. arranged to have the paper published abroad (Nos. 21-40 were issued in Geneva, and Nos. 41-50 in Paris).
    Proletary was in fact the Central Organ of the Bolsheviks. The bulk of the work on the Editorial Board was done by Lenin. Most of the issues carried several articles by him. Altogether over 100 articles and items by Lenin on all vital issues of the revolutionary struggle of the working class were published in Proletary. The paper devoted a good deal of space to tactical and general political questions, and published reports on the activities of the C.C of the R.S.D.L.P., the decisions of conferences and C.C. plenary meetings, C.C. letters on various questions of Party activity, and a number of other documents. The paper was in close touch with the local Party organisations.

    During the years of the Stolypin reaction Proletary played an important role in preserving and strengthening the Bolshevik organisations and combating the liquidators, otzovists, ultimatists and god-builders. At the plenary meeting of the Party's Central Committee in January 1910 the Mensheviks, with the help of the conciliators, succeeded in obtaining a decision to close down the paper on the pretext of fighting factionalism.    [p. 42]

 
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  ^[22a] Boyevism -- from the Russian word boyevik, a member of the revolutionary fighting squads, who, during the revolutionary struggle, used the tactics of armed action, helped political prisoners to escape, expropriated state-owned funds for the needs of the revolution, removed spies and agent provocateurs, etc. During the revolution of 1905-07 the Bolsheviks had special fighting squads.    [p. 43]