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

66V. I. LENINthe First and especially to the Second Dumas) of the vastmasses who did not take part directly in the revolutionarystruggle.In speaking about “forcing the movement of the avowedlyrevolutionary minority”, Mr. Gorn is guilty of a verywidespread exaggeration of a purely Burenin type. WhenBurenin’s newspaper 35 warred with Alexinsky duringthe period of the Second Duma, it always tried to makeout that its hostility towards him was due not to hisfight for political freedom, but to the fact that he wantedfreedom in order to ... smash windows, climb lampposts,and so on. The same Black-Hundred preparations are madeby the publicist of Tovarishch. He tries to make out thatthe only thing that prevents an agreement between thesocialists and the liberals is not that the socialists havealways stood and will continue to stand for the developmentof the revolutionary consciousness and revolutionaryactivity of the masses in general, but the fact that the socialistsare forcing, that is precipitating, artificially whippingup the movement, that they are fomenting movementswhich are avowedly hopeless.Our reply to these tricks will be brief. The whole socialistpress, Menshevik as well as Bolshevik, during theperiod of both the First and Second Dumas condemnedthe “forcing” of the movement in any way.... It is not onaccount of the forcing of the movement that the Cadetsfought the Social-Democrats during both the First and theSecond Dumas, but because the Social-Democrats developthe revolutionary consciousness of the masses, their readinessto put forward demands, and expose the reactionarynature of the Cadets and the mirage of constitutional illusions.These well-known historical facts cannot be disposedof by any newspaper acrobatics. As regards the formof Mr. Gorn’s statement, it is highly characteristic of ourtimes, when “educated society” turns away from the revolutionand seizes upon pornography. A person who considershimself a Social-Democrat betakes himself to a non-Party newspaper in order to address the public at large inthe manner of Novoye Vremya on the subject of the workers’party “forcing” the movement of the “avowed” minority!Renegade moods among us create also renegade morals.