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

485DECEPTION OF THE PEOPLE BY THE LIBERALSAt the last, London, congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party the question of the attitude towardsbourgeois parties was discussed and a resolutionadopted on the subject. Controversy was particularly arousedat the Congress by the passage in this resolution whichspeaks of deception of the people by the liberals.* The Social-Democrats of the Right wing of our Party thought this passageto be highly incorrect. They even declared that it wasnot Marxist to speak in the resolution about the liberals’“deception” of the people, i.e., to account for certain sectionsof the population joining a given party (in this casethe Cadet Party) not by the class interests of these sections,but by the “immoral” political practices of one or anothergroup of parliamentarians, lawyers, journalists, and so on.As a matter of fact, these specious arguments, arrayed inostensibly Marxist garb, concealed a policy of weakeningthe class independence of the proletariat and subordinatingit (in effect) to the liberal bourgeoisie. For these gentlemendo not seriously defend the interests of the democratic pettybourgeoisie who follow the Cadets, but betray them by theirpolicy of intrigues and deals with the government, withthe Octobrists, with the “historic authority” of the tsaristautocracy.Extremely interesting material throwing new light onthis question—one of the fundamental questions of Social-Democratic tactics in all capitalist countries—is affordedby the present struggle for universal suffrage in the PrussianLandtag (Diet). German Social-Democracy raised the bannerof that struggle. The proletariat of Berlin, followed by all* See present edition, Vol. 12, pp. 501-02.—Ed.