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

290V. I. LENINboth the economic and the political development of Russia.The autocracy reigns as before. Violence is still more brutal.Tyranny is still more powerful. Economic oppressionis still more brazen. But the autocracy can no longer maintainitself merely by the old methods. It is compelled to makea new attempt, an attempt at an open alliance with theBlack-Hundred feudal landlords and the Octobrist capitalists,an alliance in the Duma and through the Duma.The hopelessness of this attempt and the growth of a newrevolutionary crisis are obvious to anyone who is stillcapable of thought. But this revolutionary crisis is beingprepared in a new situation, in which classes and partiesare marked by immeasurably greater consciousness, solidarityand organisation than before the Revolution of1905. Russian liberalism has been converted from a wellmeaning,dreamy, fragile and immature opposition of benevolentaspirations into a strong, parliamentarily-disciplinedparty of bourgeois intellectuals, who are consciousenemies of the socialist proletariat and of a revolutionarysettlement of accounts with the feudal landlords by thepeasant masses. To beg for concessions from the monarchy,to threaten it with revolution (hateful and terrifying tothe liberals themselves), continually to betray the strugglefor emancipation and desert to the enemy—such is the inevitablelot of the liberal, Constitutional-Democratic Party,inevitable owing to its class nature. The Russian peasantryhas shown its capacity for mass revolutionary struggle ifthe latter is launched by the proletariat, and its capacityfor perpetually vacillating between the liberals and theSocial-Democrats. The Russian working class has shownthat it is the only class that is revolutionary to the end,the only leader in the struggle for freedom, even for bourgeoisfreedom. And now the great task of continuing thestruggle for freedom can and will be accomplished onlyby the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat, drawingwith it the working and exploited masses. Operating in thenew situation, among more conscious and united enemies,the working class must refashion also its own Party, theR.S.D.L.P. In place of leaders from the intelligentsia itis bringing to the fore leaders from among the workers.A new type of working-class member of the Social-Demo-