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

POLICE-PATRIOTIC DEMONSTRATION MADE TO ORDER481Judas Golovlyov 172 falls far short in comparison withthis parliamentarian! A professor at the Duma rostrumgoing into raptures over the splendid example set by thehighest dignitaries.... But why talk of an Octobrist whenthe liberals and bourgeois democrats are not far removedfrom this toadyism.Let us pass to the speech made by Mr. Izvolsky, the Ministerfor Foreign Affairs. All he needed, of course, was a pegof the kind which Kapustin so obligingly offered. And theMinister dilated on the need for retrenchment—or for revisingthe staff lists in order to help ambassadors “who haveno independent means”. Izvolsky stressed that he was speakingwith the permission of Nicholas II, and sang praisesto “the strength, intelligence, and patriotism of the Russianpeople”, who would “exert all their energies, both materialand spiritual, for consolidating Russia’s present Asiaticpossessions and developing them to the utmost”.The Minister said what the camarilla told him to say.Then Mr. Milyukov, the leader of the opposition, spoke.He declared straightaway: “The Party of People’s Freedom,represented by the Duma group present here, has listenedto the words of the Foreign Minister with profound satisfaction,and considers it its duty to applaud his first publicstatement made before the country’s representative assemblyclarifying questions concerning Russian foreign policy.Without a doubt, at the present moment ... the Russian Governmentneeds ... to have the backing of Russian public opinionfor its views.”Indeed, there is no doubt about that at all. For theirintentions the government of the counter-revolution needsthe backing of what abroad could be taken for (or be passedoff as) Russian public opinion. This is particularly necessaryin order to receive a loan, without which the whole Stolypinpolicy of tsarism, planned with a view to long-rangemeasures of systematic and mass violence against the people,is faced with the threat of bankruptcy and ruin.Mr. Milyukov quite understood the true significance ofthis ceremonial entrance of Izvolsky, Guchkov, and Co.This entrance was arranged by the Black-Hundred gang ofNicholas II. Every little detail of this police-patrioticdemonstration was planned in advance. The Duma puppets