Page:Boris Zakharovich Shumyatsky - The Aims of the Bolsheviki (1919).djvu/10

 ment, as outlined by the Revolution of 1905! They fought the Duma and other Czarist devices quite openly; but when the political "mise en scène" underwent a change, and the boycott ceased to be an echo of the December risings in Moscow, in the Urals and in Siberia (Krasnoiarsk, Tchita and Vladivostock), then the Bolsheviki decided to take part in the elections to the second Imperial Duma.

But why did they call the people to participate in the Duma elections? Was it in order to pass legislation there against the people, in concert with the Czar, the landowners and bourgeoisie? By no means. We are not interested, said they, in the legislative work of the capitalistic, landowning talking shop, nor in parliamentarianism for the sake of parliamentary reforms: but we want to explain to the people from the rostrum of the Duma that only in revolutionary struggle, in armed rising and in the general political strike lies their hope of emancipation from Czarist autocracy and of the establishment of a true People's Government (see Lenin's pamphlet: "Social Democracy and Election Compromises,' page 5. Published 1905).

For this reason, the Bolsheviki, having entered the second, third and fourth Duma, repudiated the necessity of their participation in the elaboration and passing of legislation, declaring that every measure signed by the landowners' and Capitalists' Imperial Duma would necessarily be a measure against the people. Their participation thus took the form of a watching brief over the activities of Czarism and its ally, the bourgeoisie. By their fiery speeches they dragged into the light every attempt of these powers of darkness to deceive the masses by laws introduced in the Duma, such, for example, as the community law, the laws on partial insurance of the workers, on the Press, on the administration of justice and on the Zemstvos or county councils.