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

24THE ELECTION IN ST. PETERSBURG 14A COMMENTThe election in St. Petersburg has been fixed for September21. The conditions which the workers’ party has to contendwith in this election are extraordinarily difficult. Butit is an event of the highest importance and all Social-Democrats must exert every effort in the forthcoming electioncampaign, which in some respects has already begun.The election is taking place in an atmosphere of the mostrabid reaction, with the counter-revolutionary fury of thetsarist government gang raging in full force. All the moreimportant then is it that this reaction should be opposedby the nomination put forward by the Social-DemocraticParty, the only party which even from the platform of theBlack-Hundred Third Duma has succeeded in raising itsvoice, declaring its unshakable socialist convictions, reiteratingthe slogans of the glorious revolutionary struggle,and unfurling the republican banner in the face of the Octobrist-Black-Hundred15heroes of counter-revolution and theliberal (Cadet) 16 ideologists and defenders of counter-revolution.The election is taking place in conditions which entirelypreclude the participation of the broad mass of the workingclass: the workers are excluded from the voters’ lists, theranks of the voters have been decimated by the triumphantaristocratic gang who carried out the coup d’état of June 3,1907. 17 All the more important is it that there should comeout before this audience, least capable of sympathising ingeneral with the ideas of Social-Democracy, a party whichcombines the fight for socialism with the fight for a consistentand drastic democratic revolution in a bourgeoiscountry. However restricted, however hampered the work