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Written on February 6-9 |
Published according |
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From V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, 4th English Edition,
Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1968
First printing 1963
Second printing 1968
Translated from the Russian by Stepan Apresyan
Edited by Clemens Dutt
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AN INCREASING DISCREPANCY. NOTES OF A PUBLICIST. . . . . |
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562 |
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page 562
NOTES OF A PUBLICIST
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
page 563
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.
page 640
[209] 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 suspected 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. [p. 571]