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

THE LESSONS OF THE REVOLUTION303The bourgeois liberals too took part in the revolution,i.e., the liberal landlords, industrialists, lawyers, professors,etc. They constitute the party of “people’s freedom”(the Constitutional-Democrats or Cadets). They promisedthe people a whole lot of things and made a lot of noiseabout freedom in their newspapers. They had a majorityin the First and Second Dumas. They held out a promise ofgaining freedom by “peaceful means”, they condemned therevolutionary struggle of the workers and peasants. Thepeasants and many of the peasant deputies (“Trudoviks”)believed these promises and followed humbly and obedientlyat the heels of the liberals, standing aside from the revolutionarystruggle of the proletariat. This was the greatestmistake committed by the peasants (and many townfolk)during the revolution. With one hand, and at that very,very rarely, the liberals assisted the struggle for freedom,while they kept offering the other hand to the tsar, promisingto preserve and strengthen his power, to make peace betweenthe peasants and the landlords, to “pacify” the “turbulent”workers.When the revolution came to the point of a pitched battlewith the tsar, the December uprising of 1905, the liberalsin a body basely betrayed the freedom of the peopleand recoiled from the struggle. The tsarist autocracy tookadvantage of this betrayal of the people’s freedom by theliberals, took advantage of the ignorance of the peasants,who to a large extent believed the liberals, and defeatedthe insurgent workers. And when the proletariat was defeated,no Dumas, no honeyed speeches and promises on thepart of the Cadets, could hold back the tsar from abolishingall the vestiges of freedom and restoring the autocracy andthe despotic power of the feudal landlords.The liberals found themselves deceived. The peasantshave received a severe but useful lesson. There will be nofreedom in Russia as long as the broad masses of the peoplebelieve in the liberals, believe in the possibility of“peace” with the tsarist regime and stand aloof from therevolutionary struggle of the workers. No power on earthcan hold back the advent of freedom in Russia when themass of the urban proletariat rises in struggle, brushesaside the wavering and treacherous liberals, and enlists