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

AGAINST BOYCOTT35elections, but ignoring the elections for the sake of theaim of a direct assault. The boycott, in this sense, inevitablyamounts to a call for the most energetic and decisiveoffensive. Does such a broad and general upswing exist atthe present moment, an upswing without which such a callwould be meaningless? Of course not.Generally speaking, as far as “calls” are concerned, thedifference in this respect between the present state of affairsand that of the autumn of 1905 is a very striking one. Atthat time, as we have already pointed out, there wereno calls throughout the previous year to which the masseswould not have responded. The impetus of the mass offensivetook place in advance of the calls of the organisations.Now we are at a period of a lull in the revolution when awhole series of calls systematically met with no response amongthe masses. That is what happened with the call to sweepaway the Witte Duma (at the beginning of 1906), with thecall for an uprising after the dissolution of the First Duma(in the summer of 1906), with the call for struggle in answerto the dissolution of the Second Duma and the coup d’étatof June 3, 1907. Take the leaflet of our Central Committeeon these last acts. 15 You will find there a direct call tostruggle in the form possible under local conditions (demonstrations,strikes, and an open struggle against the armedforce of absolutism). It was a verbal appeal. The mutiniesof June 1907 in Kiev and the Black Sea Fleet were callsthrough action. Neither of these calls evoked a mass response.If the most striking and direct manifestations of reactionaryassault upon the revolution—the dissolution ofthe two Dumas and the coup d’état—evoked no upswingat the time, what ground is there for immediately repeatingthe call in the form of proclaiming a boycott? Is itnot clear that the objective state of affairs is such that the“proclamation” is in danger of being just an empty shout?When the struggle is on, when it is spreading, growing,coming up from all sides, then such a “proclamation” is legitimateand necessary; then it is the duty of the revolutionaryproletariat to sound such a war-cry. But it is impossibleto invent that struggle or to call it into being merelyby a war-cry. And when a whole series of fighting calls,tested by us on more direct occasions, has proved to be una-