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

42V. I. LENINis imbued with a spirit of philistine jubilation over themarriage of Social-Democracy and constitutionalism (“thenew power from the midst of the people”, and so on and soforth in this same spirit of official falsehood). The secondresolution can be paraphrased approximately as follows:since the accursed counter-revolution has driven us intothis accursed pigsty, we shall work there too for the benefitof the revolution, without whining, but also without boasting.By defending the Duma against boycott when we werestill in the period of direct revolutionary struggle, theMensheviks, so to speak, gave their pledge to the peoplethat the Duma would be something in the nature of a weaponof revolution. And they completely failed to honourthis pledge. But if we Bolsheviks gave any pledge at all, itwas only by our assurance that the Duma was the spawnof counter-revolution and that no real good could be expectedfrom it. Our view has been borne out splendidly sofar, and it can safely be said that it will be borne out byfuture events as well. Unless the October-December strategyis “corrected” and repeated on the basis of the new data,there will never be freedom in Russia.Therefore, when I am told that the Third Duma cannotbe utilised as the Second Duma was, that the masses cannotbe made to understand that it is necessary to take part init, I would reply: if by “utilise” is meant some Menshevikbombast about it being a weapon of the revolution, etc.,then it certainly cannot. But then even the first two Dumasproved in fact to be only steps to the Octobrist Duma, yetwe utilised them for the simple and modest* purpose (propagandaand agitation, criticism and explaining to themasses what is taking place) for which we shall always* Cf. the article in Proletary (Geneva), 1905, 21 “The Boycott ofthe Bulygin Duma” (see present edition, Vol. 9, pp. 179-87.—Ed.)where it was pointed out that we do not renounce the use of the Dumagenerally, but that we are now dealing with another issue confrontingus, namely, that of fighting for a direct revolutionary path. See alsothe article in Proletary (Russian issue), 1906, 22 No. 1, “The Boycott”(see present edition, Vol. 11, pp. 141-49.—Ed.), where stressis laid on the modest extent of the benefits to be derived from workin the Duma.