Collected Works of V. I. Lenin - Vol. 13 - From Marx to Mao

126V. I. LENINZemstvos and municipal councils, but in the centre there hasto be a “constitution”, even if a docktailed one that isfictitious as far as the masses are concerned.Not for nothing does Russkoye Znamya 72 revile theOctobrists, while Golos Moskvy, 73 in turn, finds thatthere are more members of the Right in the Third Dumathan are needed.Thus, the objective course of events compels the Octobriststo seek allies in this respect. They could have foundthem long ago in the Left (Cadet) Centre, which has longbeen declaring its unhypocritical devotion to the constitution,but the trouble is that the young Russian bourgeoisieof the period of capitalist accumulation now representedby the Cadets has preserved from the past some veryinconvenient friends and certain unpleasant traditions. Itwas found, however, that traditions in the political spherecould easily be dispensed with: the Cadets had declaredthemselves monarchists long ago, even before the FirstDuma; they had tacitly refused to form a responsible ministryin the Second Duma; and Cadet schemes for various“freedoms” are hedged in with so many stumbling-blocks,barbed wire entanglements, and pitfalls that there is everyhope of further progress in this respect. The Cadets’ attitudetowards uprisings and strikes had always been oneof reproach—at first in a mild, then in a melancholy way;after December 1905 the reproach became half disdain,and after the dissolution of the First Duma flat rejectionand condemnation. Diplomacy, deals, bargaining with thepowers that be—that is the basis of Cadet tactics. As toinconvenient friends, they have long been called simply“neighbours” and recently have been publicly declared tobe “enemies”.An agreement, then, is possible, and so we have anothermajority, a counter-revolutionary one again—the Octobrist-Cadetmajority. To be sure, it is somewhat less thanhalf the number of deputies elected so far—214 out of 432—but, first, some if not all of the non-party deputies willundoubtedly join it, and, secondly, there is every reasonto believe that it will increase during the further elections,since the towns and most of the gubernia electoral conferencesin which elections have not yet taken place will re-