In the situation of the revolutionary fight that has been shaking the tsarist empire already for seven months, a new fact of paramount importance has occurred in recent weeks, a fact about which the class-conscious proletariat must be very aware. It is that the tsar has “granted” the Bułygin “Constitution.”
Bludgeoned by the uprising of the workers in Petersburg, followed by a continuous series of blows, absolutism was forced to seemingly make concessions. The Bułygin “constitution” is the result of the powerful revolutionary turbulence that has shaken society in Russia and in Poland since the days of the Petersburg carnage in January. It finds ever-new expression in ongoing strikes and demonstrations by the workers in violent explosions, like the uprisings in Łódź and Odessa, in some disturbances among the army and especially in the navy (such as on the battleship Potemkin), in the opposition movement of the Russian intelligentsia, strikes in schools etc., etc. The machinery of the despotic state has totally ceased to function in its normal manner. Despotism can maintain itself only by force, by incessant murders, individual and on a mass scale.
And now despotism has decided to try and avert the storm, that perpetual revolutionary storm, by seemingly granting a concession. The domination of the knout is threatened, and so it tries to hide behind a “constitution.”
That the Bułygin “Constitution”† is nothing but a terrible comedy, a hideous mockery of the political freedom for which thousands of proletarians throughout the country sacrificed their blood and their lives—that is obvious at the very first glance. With their typical cynicism, the creators of this “constitution” point out loud and clear at the very outset that autocracy still remains the basis of the political system in the country. That is, the omnipotent reign of the tsarist knout that dominates over the life of 130 million people. But this “constitution,” this monstrous brainchild of the tsarist chinovniks, is amazingly intricate and perhaps the only example in the world of despotic rule disguised in constitutional form.
The core of political freedom, as it is understood today all over the world, is the legislative authority of representatives chosen by the people. The tsar’s representative body, called by this “constitution” the “State Duma,” has no power to legislate, has only a consultative voice. It can give its opinions, but the whole power stays with the tsar and his ministers. The law expresses not the will of the chosen representatives, but the will of the despot, with the representatives who were chosen by the population gathering around just to talk to the wind.
The main guarantee of the influence and importance of popular representation is the responsibility of ministers and the government to the parliament. In the tsarist “constitution” it happens the other way around. The ministers do not have any responsibility toward the chosen representatives and can trample on the still-existing laws as they wish. Also, at a single word from the senate, the representatives of the public may lose their mandate and their seat in the “Duma”;* at a single word from a minister, they may lose the opportunity to speak in the “Duma” to the public, to the people; at a single word from the tsar, any draft law, considered in a parliamentary session, can be removed out from under their nose and taken off the agenda. Lastly, one word from the tsar is enough at any moment to dissolve the entire “Duma” and send home the deputies for as long as the tsar wishes. At the same time, it is guaranteed that representatives of the people cannot open their mouths or discuss any draft laws that would “undermine the foundations of the governmental order”—that is, that would undermine the basis of despotism.
In this way, the parliament that is alleged to be an expression of the supreme will of the people, and which is supposed to be the law that controls the actions of the government, is in reality a gathering of humble lackeys, talking or being silent at the command of the tsarist ministers—no power, no strength, no significance, and no influence; like a Chinese screen covering the omnipotent reign of the knout.
And even those lackeys—deputies ready to follow any order of the tsar—will be elected by a small handful of the privileged nobility and the wealthy bourgeoisie. The entire multimillion proletariat, all the petty bourgeoisie, all the not-so-wealthy urban intelligentsia, the entire mass of poor, landless peasants, is excluded from participating in the elections.
Out of a population of 140 million,† nearly 139-and-a-half million will remain completely behind the fence of that “constitution” and can only watch through the gap in the fence as a couple of hundred thousand of the richest parasitic exploiters will be choosing from among themselves the representatives who will be bowing before the tsar—the despot and his gang of chinovniks. And, even within these “political rights” given to a handful of oppressors of the people, absolutism succeeded with real artistry in maintaining its basic principles of rule and domination—to generate discord among different nationalities, and to encourage ignorance and superstition among the backward masses to set them against the progressive and revolutionary part of the population.
Poland, the Caucasus, and Finland are excluded from the general electoral law and are kept isolated from “the native peoples of Russia.” In order to impose discord and hatred between nationalities, the chinovniks even propose to fabricate a separate and special election law for the “foreign nationalities.” At the same time, across the country, a handful of representatives from the big cities—that is, from the centers of big industry, the intelligentsia, and the fighting workers—will be overwhelmed completely by a giant majority of deputies from rural areas [characterized by their] backwardness, disorganization, and political passivity. In Russia alone, out of 412 deputies in the Duma there will be only twenty-eight deputies from the cities, and from the villages 384!
The same policy of absolutism that throws the rogue gang of Caucasus Tatars* against the Armenian labor movement, or which in Chișinău instigates the scum of society against the revolutionary Jewish proletariat†—that [divide-and-rule] policy now finds its expression in this “constitutional” electoral law establishing the “Duma.”
And, as a supplement to this “constitutional” cracking of the tsarist whip, the elections are to be held without freedom of assembly and speech, without freedom to form unions or freedom of the press. None of the basic, elementary constitutional rights and political freedoms prevailing today throughout the civilized world were announced. Instead, in a number of towns the symbol for celebration of this “constitution”—martial law with military courts as the triumphal gates at the entranceway to tsarist “political freedom”—will be the gallows.
On the surface, even this comedy seems to be too monstrous, too obvious, to have any practical purpose for absolutism, but it does have a purpose and even one that is very carefully designed. With such a constitution, despotism does not give up its position, not even one inch or pinch of its power. The knout remains above the legislature. But, at the same time, the knout is dressed up in a new costume. It appears that a new reality is created, along with a desire for new relationships—but all this is calculated only to cause upset and confusion in the revolutionary camp.
First of all, the tsarist government gains totally by getting on its side the wealthiest elements of the nobility and the bourgeoisie, to whom it gives the right to vote. In Russia so far, and even more so in our country,* these elements have been faithful to the bloody throne of the autocracy, but hostile in their soul toward the fighting proletariat. It is they who are getting a new privilege in the form of these new “constitutional” rights. And although these rights are a shameful comedy, they are a true gift and grace for those who do not even have any aspiration to claim such rights, except for the right to fatten themselves further with the blood and sweat of the working people. Therefore, this most reactionary part of the propertied classes, which so far has stood in silence on the sidelines in this turbulent revolution (in part out of fear of the revolution), is now calling for active and open support to the crumbling throne.
Secondly, part of the Russian nobility and bourgeoisie (as of now representing the liberal opposition) aims to overcome these [revolutionary] elements by arousing false hopes that the present monstrous parody of a constitution is an embryo that with patience and calmness could develop over time into something better. Bourgeois liberalism even in Western Europe—where it was once a giant in comparison with today’s haggard liberalism of the Russian nobility—always fell into the trap set by the reactionary governments of eagerly seizing upon a sloppy, miserable “concession,” [on the grounds that] one finger must be caught in order to catch the whole hand. The Russian liberal nobility will do just about anything to get out of this period of workers’ revolution. It will probably agree with that “constitution” for the time being in order to satisfy and delude itself and others that from there will slowly grow true political freedom.
Absolutism expects to fool the entire mass of the politically still-unconscious rural and urban populations with this pretense of a constitution, even with the sound of that word, whose correct value they cannot yet assess. Meanwhile, millions of people in Russia and in our country do not yet understand the importance and need for universal, direct, equal, and secret voting rights. They do not know what a parliament is, what a real constitution is, what the word “republic” means, and what genuine political freedom is. Hence it is easy for the tsarist government to create the illusion that this “constitutional” mask of the knout-ocracy is actually some sort of political freedom.
Therefore, these half-conscious masses of the petty bourgeoisie, peasants, and even the masses of the workers in the cities, which today are partly ready to follow the conscious revolutionary proletariat into the fight, will tomorrow—after the beginning of the constitutional comedy—most likely rather stop and passively look forward to see what this new arrangement will bring. That is what the tsarist government is speculating on to save itself from the workers’ revolution. To make an open alliance with the big bourgeoisie and nobility, to overpower the liberal opposition, to deceive the uneducated parts of the public with the pretense of a constitution with the purpose of removing them from the influence of the fighting proletariat—that is the intention of the government of Nicholas the Last, a new trick to avoid its oncoming death. As soon as this monstrosity conceived in the offices of the tsarist regime comes to life, and the comedy starts for real—then there will be heard lots of loud shouting from many directions against the fighting proletariat: “That is enough of strikes for now, enough of demonstrations and bloodshed! Now is the time to stay calm and wait to see what is possible to win in a new way, with the constitution, which we just received!” To sum up, the aim of this constitutional deception is to create disorder and confusion in the ranks of the fighters, and at the same time, to make use of this visible and loud, although illusory symbol to interrupt and put an end to this revolutionary period and to return to “normal times,” that is, to a quiet reign of the old knout in his new costume.
Ending the string of military defeats in the Far East by concluding a peace treaty with Japan, and ending the political defeats of the internal revolution by introducing a “constitution”—those are the two tools that dying absolutism is trying to use to save its criminal life at this moment.
But these policies also visibly indicate—and this is self-evident in the present era—what should be the goal of the conscious part of the Social Democratic working class. While the goal of despotism is to end the revolutionary turbulence and restore the “peace,” the main duty of the conscious proletariat must be to maintain a state of perpetual revolution, to keep it boiling. For this purpose, nullify all speculation by the tsarist regime aimed at deceiving and demoralizing the people with this constitutional comedy. While tsarism wants to start the “normal” and quiet course of social life by using the Bułygin “Constitution,” the task of the revolutionary proletariat in Russia and Poland is to demolish this entire “constitution,” and to discredit it just as it deserves.
Therefore, the plans of some Russian comrades* miss the mark completely. They are proposing that the workers take part in the electoral puppet show being organized by absolutism—even though the tsarist “constitution” does not give them any right or possibility to do that. They are creating this [illusion] for themselves, as if universal suffrage is in force—and at the same time they [imagine] that the strongest and most pronounced supporters of the revolution and the overthrow of tsarism would be elected to the “State Duma.” Such a tactic might in fact either promote adaptation [to the regime] or cause the greatest confusion among the circles of less-conscious working people. To try to put into effect the universal right of voting by the people when such a voting right is non-existent, and the voting would be for a non-existent parliament—that is an impracticable chimera.
The broad mass of the people would never take part in such fictitious elections. We are talking about obtaining the power to exercise real political rights, and not about making a trial run to try out fictitious rights. Thus, if the workers took part in elections to the “Bułygin Duma”—even if they supported excellent radical candidates to this “Duma”—they would only increase the political and moral importance of this chess game of despotism, [thereby] arousing illusory hopes and expectations in the mass of the people. They would only be bringing grist to the mill of the tsarist government.
On the contrary, the task of Social Democracy, in Russia and in Poland, can only be this—to completely destroy any and all importance of both the elections and the “Duma,” which is to be elected by a handful of bourgeois and noble bloodsuckers. For this purpose, [we need] scathing criticism of this “constitutional” monstrosity in order to illuminate for the broadest masses the difference between the constitutional masquerade of tsarism and real political freedom—the latter being our primary method of struggle. But that is not enough. Already the Russian democratic intelligentsia—lawyers, doctors, engineers, and so forth, organized in the so-called Union of Unions*—have called for a boycott of the tsarist “constitution.” In other words, their slogan is that every honest and sincere supporter of political freedom in Russia should not take part at all in the elections, even when it is a question of a handful of the highly privileged who have been granted the right to vote. Anyone who takes part in the elections to this “Duma” dreamed up by the tsar’s chief bureaucrats would be helping absolutism realize its plans, and therefore would be a traitor in regard to universal, direct, and equal suffrage and to real freedom in the state of Russia.
That slogan† is the one put forward by the advanced intelligentsia in Russia. But the fighting proletariat cannot be satisfied with that. The proletariat must always, as well in this case, seek to go further in its politics than the democratic elements of the bourgeoisie. For the workers, the slogan cannot be “boycott,” that is, abstaining from the elections, when the workers (together with the mass of the petty bourgeoisie and the landless peasantry) have already been excluded from voting rights. But the conscious workers also cannot just sit by and look on as the electoral puppet show takes place before their eyes, after which will come the puppet show of “Duma” consultations by the tsar’s flunkeys from among the nobility and bourgeoisie. Therefore, the workers must at all costs prevent this comedy from being performed.
While the more advanced intelligentsia are trying in their characteristic way to prevent the bourgeoisie and nobility from participating in this “constitutional” farce by appealing to their conscience and warning them against betrayal of the people and of freedom, the revolutionary working class must prevent this betrayal by taking the road of open mass struggle. Every electoral gathering arranged under the protection, supervision, and direction of the chinoviks and the tsarist police ought to become an arena into which the mass of workers, who are excluded from the right to vote, should gain access by storm through an all-out assault. [It should do so] in order to make the following slogans heard: “Down with the comedy of elections with no voters from the people! Down with the farce of a constitution of the knout! Long live universal, direct, and equal suffrage, with the secret ballot, and long live the democratic republic!”
Every voting place ought to be denounced as an outpost of absolutism, and ought to be besieged by the mass of workers, so as not to permit the privileged voters to complete their intended action of betraying the people. To disperse electoral gatherings everywhere, to prevent the elections, to render impossible the deliberations of the “State Duma” itself, to disrupt, at every step, any scheme being tried by the government and the bourgeoisie in partnership to make a reality of their joint operation of a “constitutional” comedy—that is the only plan of action corresponding to the interests of the revolutionary working class.
It is obvious that a constitution born from the knout will be guarded by the gendarmes, police, and troops. To protect those who are allowed to vote by the kindness of the tsar and the “Duma” [made up of] loyal pillars of the tsar, bullets and bayonets will be “on alert,” and all attempts to prevent the “constitutional” puppet show will be accompanied by unceasing clashes between the government’s thugs and the revolutionary masses of workers. But, precisely in that way, the goal and task of Social Democracy will be realized. If the entire “constitution” from the very beginning must be placed under guard by bayonets, if the “elections” can be held only to the accompaniment of loud rifle fire, if the “deputies” elected to the “Duma” are forced to crawl [to their seats] like evil doers under the protection of Cossack patrols, in that case the “constitution” will be exposed as the obvious farce that it is, as a miserable mask worn by absolutism, by that same old hated absolutism. The comedy will be defeated, illusions dispersed, the deception of the people rendered impossible. And if, in this way, the “constitution” causes a series of mass confrontations by the people against the government, then the revolution will in fact triumph over this miserable duplicity of absolutism.
Despotism wants to make use of this diplomatic maneuver precisely to put out the revolutionary fire, to initiate a phase of “peace and quiet” and normal life, [but] this will be turned into a point of departure for a new series of revolutionary outbursts. Instead of putting out the fire of the workers’ revolution, this “constitution” can start it burning again with renewed force. It can add new fuel to the fire by creating disruption and spreading chaos in the reigning non-government,* [thereby] consolidating the revolutionary energy and political consciousness on the side of the working class.
By means of mass revolutionary struggle that does not permit the tsar’s constitutional farce to be played out, but to convert this farce into a new, higher stage of the revolution—that is, in a nutshell, the battle tactic of the conscious proletariat against the tsarist government’s tactic of fraud and swindle.