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

AGAINST BOYCOTT29The October struggle of 1905 was indeed a struggle toprevent the revolution from being switched to monarchistconstitutionallines. The October-December period wasindeed a period which saw the realisation of a proletarian,truly democratic, broad, bold, and free constitutionalismthat really expressed the will of the people as opposed tothe pseudo-constitutionalism of the Dubasov and Stolypin 12constitution. The revolutionary struggle for a truly democraticconstitutionalism (that is, one built on ground completelycleared of the old regime and all the abominationsassociated with it) called for the most determined fightagainst the police-monarchist constitution being used as abait for the people. This simple thing the Social-Democraticopponents of the boycott absolutely failed to understand.Two phases in the development of the Russian revolutionnow stand out before us in all their clarity: the phaseof upswing (1905) and the phase of decline (1906-07). Thephase of maximum development of the people’s activity, offree and broad organisations of all classes of the population,the phase of maximum freedom of the press and maximumignoring by the people of the old authority, itsinstitutions and commands—and all this without any constitutionalismbureaucratically endorsed and expressedin formal rules and regulations. And after that the phaseof least development and steady decline of popular activity,organisation, freedom of the press, etc., under a (Godforgive us!) “constitution” concocted, sanctioned, andsafeguarded by the Dubasovs and Stolypins.Now, when everything behind looks so plain and clear,you would hardly find a single pedant who would dare todeny the legitimacy and necessity of the revolutionarystruggle of the proletariat to prevent events from takinga constitutional-monarchist turn, the legitimacy and necessityof the fight against constitutional illusions.Now you will hardly find a sensible historian worthyof the name who would not divide the course of the Russianrevolution between 1905 and the autumn of 1907 intothese two periods: the “anti-constitutional” period (if Imay be allowed that expression) of upswing and the periodof “constitutional” decline, the period of conquest andachievement of freedom by the people without police (mon-