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

NOTES OF A PUBLICIST201there can be no question of utilising the transition periodwithout utilising the Duma tribune. The peculiar tacticsof using the very tribune from which the counter-revolutionariesspeak for the purpose of preparing the revolutionthus becomes a duty dictated by the specific character ofthe entire historical situation. If, however, the Duma ismerely the “phantom” of a constitution “devoid of powerand importance”, then there is really no new stage in thedevelopment of bourgeois Russia, of the bourgeois monarchy,or in the development of the form of rule of the upperclasses, etc.; and in that case the otzovists are, of course,correct in principle!Do not imagine that the passage we quoted from theplatform was a slip of the pen. In a special chapter, “Onthe State Duma” (pp. 25-28), we read at the very beginning:“All the State Dumas have hitherto been institutionsdevoid of real power and authority, and did not expressthe real relation of social forces in the country. The governmentconvened them under the pressure of the popularmovement in order, on the one hand, to turn the indignationof the masses from the path of direct struggle into peacefulelectoral channels, and, on the other hand, in order tocome to terms in these Dumas with those social groupswhich could support the government in its struggle againstthe revolution.” This is a sheer tangle of confused ideas orfragments of ideas. If the government convened the Dumasin order to come to terms with the counter-revolutionaryclasses, it follows at once that the First and Second Dumashad no “power and authority” (to help the revolution), whereasthe Third Duma possessed and possesses power andauthority (to help the counter-revolution). The revolutionariescould have (and in certain circumstances shouldhave) refrained from participating in an institution whichwas powerless to help the revolution. This is indisputable.By bracketing together such institutions of the revolutionaryperiod with the Duma of the “inter-revolutionary period”,which has power to help the counter-revolution, theauthors of the platform commit a monstrous error. Theyapply correct Bolshevik arguments to those very cases towhich they are really inapplicable! This is indeed to makea caricature of Bolshevism.