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

204V. I. LENINis not over”? Because the objective conditions were suchthat the consummation of the revolution in the narrowsense of the word was out of the question. Take, for instance,the period of the Second Duma—the most revolutionaryparliament in the world and probably the most reactionary,autocratic government. There was no direct way out ofthis except by a coup d’état from above, or by an uprisingfrom below. And however much the sapient pedants may nowshake their heads, no one could say beforehand whetherthe government’s coup d’état would be successful, whetherit would pass off smoothly, or whether Nicholas II wouldbreak his neck in the attempt. The slogan, “the revolutionis not over”, had a most vital, immediately important,practically palpable significance, for it alone correctlyexpressed things as they really were and whither they weretending by virtue of the objective logic of events. Andnow that the otzovists themselves recognise the presentsituation as “inter-revolutionary”, is not the attempt torepresent otzovism as a “legitimate shade of the revolutionarywing”, “prior to the consummation of the revolution”,a hopeless muddle?In order to extricate oneself from this vicious circle ofcontradictions, one must not use diplomacy towards otzovism,but must cut the ideological ground from under it;one must adopt the point of view of the December resolutionand think out all its implications. The present inter-revolutionaryperiod cannot be explained away as a mere accident.There is no doubt now that we are confronted by aspecial stage in the development of the autocracy, in thedevelopment of the bourgeois monarchy, bourgeois Black-Hundred parliamentarism and the bourgeois policy of tsarismin the countryside, and that the counter-revolutionarybourgeoisie is supporting all this. The present period isundoubtedly a transitional period “between two waves of therevolution”, but in order to prepare for the second revolutionwe must master the peculiarities of this transition, wemust be able to adapt our tactics and organisation to thisdifficult, hard, sombre transition forced on us by the wholetrend of the “campaign”. Using the Duma tribune, as wellas all other legal opportunities, is one of the humble methodsof struggle which do not result in anything “spectacu-