Collected Works of V. I. Lenin - Vol. 16 - From Marx to Mao

128V. I. LENINothers, the general Cadet psychology, he has voiced thecherished thoughts of the whole Cadet Party.That for a liberal the distinction between Narodism andMarxism is obliterated is not accidental, but inevitable. Itis not the “trick” of the writer (who is perfectly aware of thedistinction) but a logical expression of the present natureof liberalism. At the present time what the liberal bourgeoisiein Russia dreads and abominates is not so much the socialistmovement of the working class in Russia as the democraticmovement both of the workers and the peasants, i.e.,it dreads and abominates what Narodism and Marxism havein common, their defence of democracy by appealing to themasses. It is characteristic of the present period that liberalismin Russia has decisively turned against democracy;quite naturally it is not concerned either with the distinctionswithin democracy or with the further aims, vistasand prospects which will be unfolded when democracy isachieved.Vekhi simply teems with catchwords like “idolisation ofthe people”. This is not surprising, for the liberal bourgeoisie,which has become frightened of the people, has no alternativebut to shout about the democrats’ “idolisation of thepeople”. The retreat cannot but be covered by an extra loudroll of the drums. In point of fact, it is impossible to denyoutright that it was in the shape of the workers’ and peasants’deputies that the first two Dumas expressed the realinterests, demands and views of the mass of the workersand peasants. Yet it was just these “intellectualist”* deputieswho infected the Cadets with their abysmal hatred ofthe “Lefts” because of the exposure of the Cadets’ everlastingretreats from democracy. In point of fact, it is impossibleto deny outright the justice of the “four-point electoralsystem” demand 69 ; yet no political leader who is at allhonest has the slightest doubt that in contemporary Russiaelections on the “four-point” system, really democratic elec-* Vekhi’s distortion of the ordinary meaning of the word “intellectual”is really laughable. We have only to look through the listof deputies in the first two Dumas to see at once the overwhelmingmajority of peasants among the Trudoviks, the predominance of workersamong the Social-Democrats and the concentration of the massof the bourgeois intelligentsia among the Cadets.