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

500 NOTES5The Bulygin Duma—the consultative “representative body” whichthe tsarist government had promised to convene in 1905. Thetsar’s manifesto the law providing for the establishment of theDuma, and regulations governing elections to it were promulgatedon August 6 (19),1905. It came to be known as the Bulygin Dumabecause the Bill inaugurating it was drafted on the tsar’s instructionsby A. G. Bulygin the Minister of the Interior. Electoral rightswere granted only to the landlords, the big capitalists, and a smallnumber of peasant householders. The peasants were given only 51out of the 412 seats established by the law. The majority of thepopulation—the workers, poor peasants, farm-labourers, anddemocratic intelligentsia—were deprived of the franchise. Women,servicemen, students, persons under twenty-five, and a number ofsubject nationalities were not allowed to vote. The Duma had noright to pass laws and could merely discuss certain questions in thecapacity of a consultative body under the tsar. Lenin described theBulygin Duma as “the most barefaced mockery of ‘popularrepresentation’” (see present edition, Vol. 9, p. 194).The Bolsheviks called upon the workers and peasants toactively boycott the Bulygin Duma, and concentrated theiragitational campaign around the slogans of an armed uprising, arevolutionary army, and a provisional revolutionary government.The Mensheviks considered it possible to take part in the electionsto the Duma and stood for co-operation with the liberal bourgeoisie.The Bulygin Duma boycott campaign was used by theBolsheviks to rally all the revolutionary forces, to organise masspolitical strikes, and to prepare for an armed uprising. The electionsto the Bulygin Duma did not take place, and the government failedto convene it. It was swept away by the mounting wave ofrevolution and the All-Russian political strike of October 1905. Onthe subject of the Bulygin Duma, see Lenin’s articles “TheConstitutional Market-Place”, “The Boycott of the Bulygin Duma,and Insurrection”, “Oneness of the Tsar and the People, and of thePeople and the Tsar”, “In the Wake of the Monarchist Bourgeoisie,Or in the Van of the Revolutionary Proletariat and Peasantry?” andothers (see present edition, Vol. 8, pp. 352-56; Vol. 9, pp. 179-87,191-99, 212-23). p. 186The Ninth of January 1905—“Bloody Sunday”, the day on which,by order of the tsar, a peaceful procession of St. Petersburgworkers was shot down. The workers were marching to the WinterPalace to present a petition to the tsar.This cold-blooded massacre of unarmed workers started awave of mass political strikes and demonstrations all over Russiaunder the slogan of “Down with the Autocracy!”. The events ofJanuary 9 precipitated the revolution of 1905-07. p. 197Potemkin—armoured cruiser of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, thecrew of which mutinied on June 14-24, 1905. The revolutionaryoutbreak on the Potemkin was of great political importance, since