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

40V. I. LENINconditions which gave rise to it and which ensured its successand to apply it to essentially different conditions.Marx himself, who so highly valued revolutionary traditionsand unsparingly castigated a renegade or philistineattitude towards them, at the same time demanded thatrevolutionaries should be able to think, should be able toanalyse the conditions under which old methods of strugglecould be used, and not simply to repeat certain slogans.The “national” traditions of 1792 in France will perhapsforever remain a model of certain revolutionary methodsof struggle; but this did not prevent Marx in 1870 in thefamous Address of the International from warning theFrench proletariat against the mistake of applying thosetraditions to the conditions of a different period. 18This holds good for Russia as well. We must study theconditions for the application of the boycott; we mustinstil in the masses the idea that the boycott is a quitelegitimate and sometimes essential method at momentswhen the revolution is on the upswing (whatever the pedantswho take the name of Marx in vain may say). But whetherrevolution is really on the upswing—and this is the fundamentalcondition for proclaiming a boycott—is a questionwhich one must be able to raise independently and to decideon the basis of a serious analysis of the facts. It isour duty to prepare the way for such an upswing, as far as itlies within our power, and not to reject the boycott atthe proper moment; but to regard the boycott slogan asbeing generally applicable to every bad or very bad representativeinstitution would be an absolute mistake.Take the reasoning that was used to defend and supportthe boycott in the “days of freedom”, and you will see atonce that it is impossible simply to apply such argumentsto present-day conditions.When advocating the boycott in 1905 and the beginningof 1906 we said that participation in the elections wouldtend to lower the temper, to surrender the position to theenemy, to lead the revolutionary people astray, to make iteasier for tsarism to come to an agreement with the counter-revolutionarybourgeoisie, and so on. What was thefundamental premise underlying these arguments, a premisenot always specified but always assumed as something