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

{{{{HISTORICAL MEANING OF INNER-PARTY STRUGGLE IN RUSSIA381of the struggle of liberalism against the proletariat. The entireliberal press of that time showed that the liberals fearedthe development of the revolution and directed all theirefforts towards reaching an “agreement” with tsarism.What were the objective conditions for an immediate massstruggle? The best answer to this is supplied by the statisticsof strikes (subdivided into economic and politicalstrikes) and of the peasant movement. We cite here theprincipal data, which will serve to illustrate the whole ofour subsequent exposition.Number of Persons Involved in Strikes per Quarter* (in thousands)1905 1906 1907«’‘’»«’‘’»I II III IV I II III IV I II III IVTotal 810 481 294 1,277 269 479 296 63 146 323 77 193Economic Strikes 411 190 143 275 73 222 125 37 52 52 66 30Political Strikes 399 291 151 1,002 196 257 171 26 94 271 11 163Per cent of uyezdsaffected by the 14.2% 36.9% 49.2% 21.1%peasant movement«’‘’»These figures reveal what enormous energy the proletariatis capable of displaying during a revolution. In the entiredecade preceding the revolution the number of strikers inRussia was only 431,000, i.e., an average of 43,000 per year,while in 1905 the total number of strikers was 2,863,000—ata time when the total number of factory workers was only1,661,000! The world has never witnessed a strike movementlike it. In the third quarter of 1905, when the question of theboycott arose for the first time, we observe the transition toa new and much more powerful wave of the strike movement* The periods which are of special importance are enclosed inboxes: 1905, I—Jan. 9; 1905, IV—the climax of the revolution, Octoberand December; 1906, II—the First Duma; 1907, II—theSecond Duma. The figures are from the official statistics of strikes, 141which I am working on in detail for the outline of the history of theRussian revolution that I am now preparing for the press (see pp.393-421 of this volume.—Ed.