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

AGAINST BOYCOTT31that they alone were not taken in by the bourgeois hoax,that they alone in the epoch of constitutional illusionsalways kept unfurled the banner of struggle against constitutionalillusions.Why then, the question now arises, was the boycott aspecific means of struggle against constitutional illusions?There is a feature about the boycott which, at first sight,involuntarily repels every Marxist. Boycott of electionsis a renunciation of parliamentarism, something that looksvery much like passive rejection, abstention, evasion.So Parvus regarded it (he only had German models to goby) when, in the autumn of 1905, he stormed and raged,angrily but unsuccessfully, attempting to prove that activeboycott was all the same a bad thing because it was stilla boycott.... And so also is it regarded by Martov, who tothis day has learned nothing from the revolution and ismore and more turning into a liberal. By his last articlein Tovarishch 14 he has shown that he is unable even to raisethe problem in a way that befits a revolutionary Social-Democrat.But this most objectionable, so to speak, feature ofthe boycott as far as a Marxist is concerned is fully explainedby the specific features of the period that gave rise tosuch a method of struggle. The First monarchist Duma,the Bulygin Duma, was a bait designed to draw the peopleaway from the revolution. The bait was a dummy clothedin a dress of constitutionalism. One and all were temptedto swallow the bait. Some through selfish class interests,others through ignorance, were inclined to snatch at thedummy of the Bulygin Duma, and later at that of the WitteDuma. Everyone was enthusiastic, everyone sincerely believedin it. Participation in the elections was not justa matter-of-fact, simple performance of one’s usual civicduties: It was the solemn inauguration of a monarchistconstitution. It was a turn from the direct revolutionarypath to the monarchist-constitutional path.The Social-Democrats were bound at such a time to unfurltheir banner of protest and warning with the utmostvigour, with the utmost demonstrativeness. And that meantrefusing to take part, abstaining oneself and holding the