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

176THEY ARE NERVOUS ABOUT THE ARMYThe debate in the Duma on the interpellation of the Social-Democratsand Trudoviks concerning the tsarist government’sviolation of Article 96 of the fundamental laws isnot over yet. But it has already given such a picture of thestate of affairs and the papers have made such a noise aboutStolypin’s notorious “declaration of March 31” that it willbe quite in place to dwell upon this instructive episode inthe history of the June 3 regime.Our group in the Duma was quite right in interpellatingthe government about its violation of Article 96 of thefundamental laws and in speaking to such an extent as if“in defence” of law, “in defence of justice”, “in defence ofJune 3 legality”, and so on and so forth. We say “to such anextent” because here the Social-Democrats unquestionablyundertook a complicated task requiring able handling; theywere undoubtedly wielding a double-edged weapon whichwith the slightest mistake or even awkward usage mightwound the bearer. To speak without metaphors, it mightimperceptibly lead the Social-Democrats astray from thepolicy of class struggle to the policy of liberalism.The Social-Democrats would have made such a mistakeif they had spoken purely and simply of “defending” thesefundamental laws, without explaining the special characterof this “defence”. They would have made an even greatermistake had they turned the defence of the fundamentallaws or legality in general into some sort of slogan such as“fight for legality”—that would have been in the style ofthe Cadets.Fortunately, our comrades in the Duma did neither theone nor the other. The first speaker on the interpellation,Gegechkori, opened expressly with an explanation of the spe-