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

380V. I. LENINIIMartov’s arguments on the Russian revolution and Trotsky’sarguments on the present state of Russian Social-Democracydefinitely confirm the incorrectness of their fundamentalviews.We shall start with the boycott. Martov calls the boycott“abstention from politics”, the method of the “anarchistsand syndicalists”, and he refers only to 1906. Trotsky saysthat the “boycottist tendency runs through the whole historyof Bolshevism—boycott of the trade unions, of the StateDuma, of local self-government bodies, etc.”, that it is theFROM MARXTO MAOresult of sectarian fear of being swamped by the masses, theradicalism of irreconcilable abstention”, etc. As regards⋆boycotting the trade unions and the local self-governmentbodies, what Trotsky says is absolutely untrue. It is equallyuntrue to say that boycottism runs through the whole historyof Bolshevism; Bolshevism as a tendency took definite shapein the spring and summer of 1905, before the question of theboycott first came up. In August 1906, in the official organof the faction, Bolshevism declared that the historical conditionswhich made the boycott necessary had passed.*Trotsky distorts Bolshevism, because he has never beenable to form any definite NOT views FOR on the role of the proletariatin the Russian bourgeois revolution.But far worse is the distortion of the history of this revolution.If we areCOMMERCIALto speak of the boycott we must start fromthe beginning, not from the end. The first (and only) victoryin the revolution DISTRIBUTIONwas wrested by the mass movement,which proceeded under the slogan of the boycott. It is only tothe advantage of the liberals to forget this.The law of August 6 (19), 1905 created the Bulygin Dumaas a consultative body. The liberals, even the most radicalof them, decided to participate in this Duma. The Social-Democrats, by an enormous majority (against the Mensheviks),decided to boycott it and to call upon the masses fora direct onslaught on tsarism, for a mass strike and an uprising.Hence, the question of the boycott was not a questionwithin Social-Democracy alone. It was a question* See present edition, Vol. 11, pp. 141-49.—Ed.