612
NOTES
36
37
38
39
wards a moderate monarchist and nobleman’s Constitution, . . . was
repelled by the muzhik democracy of Dobrolyubov and Cherny-
shevsky” (see present edition, Vol. 27, “The Immediate Tasks of
the Soviet Government”).
p. 29
Narodnaya Volya (
People’
s Will)—an illegal organisation of the
revolutionary-minded intelligentsia, the Narodniks, founded in
1879 to combat the tsarist regime. It was active until the second
half of the 1880s.
p. 31
Zvezda (The Star)—a Bolshevik legal newspaper published in St.
Petersburg from December 16 (29), 1910, to April 22 (May 5), 1912,
at first once a week, from January 1912 twice weekly, and from
March onwards three times a week. Among its contributors were
N. N. Baturin, K. S. Yeremeyev, M. S. Olminsky and N. G. Pole-
tayev, as well as Maxim Gorky. The pro-Party Mensheviks (Ple-
khanovites) were associated with Zvezda until the autumn of 1911.
Ideologically the newspaper was led (from abroad) by Lenin, who
contributed about 30 articles to it. Thanks to his guidance, it was
a militant Bolshevik organ upholding the programme and tactics
of the illegal Party. It had an extensive section for workers’ corre-
spondence, and kept in constant close touch with the workers. The
circulation of some issues was between 50,000 and 60,000 copies.
The authorities were constantly taking repressive measures
against Zvezda; they confiscated 30 and fined 8 out of a total of 69
issues. Zvezda prepared the way for the publication of the Bolshe-
vik daily, Pravda; it was closed down by the government on the
day the first issue of Pravda appeared.
p. 36
The Trudovik conference met in St. Petersburg in March 1912. It
dealt chiefly with the Fourth Duma election campaign. Lenin as-
sessed its decisions in his article “Liberalism and Democracy” (see
present edition, Vol. 17, pp. 569-78).
p. 41
Vekhi (
Landmarks)—a Cadet symposium published in Moscow in
the spring of 1909. It contained articles by N. Berdayev, S. Bulga-
kov, P. Struve, M. Herschensohn and other spokesmen of the
counter-revolutionary liberal bourgeoisie. In their articles on the
Russian intelligentsia the Vekhi writers calumniated the revolution-
ary-democratic traditions of the foremost representatives of the
Russian people, including V. G. Belinsky and N. G. Chernyshev-
sky. They smeared the revolutionary movement of 1905 and thanked
the tsarist government for having with “its bayonets and jails”
saved the bourgeoisie “from the fury of the people”. Vekhi called
on the intelligentsia to serve the autocracy. Lenin compared its
programme both in philosophy and in political writing with the
programme of the Black-Hundred newspaper, Moskovskiye Vedo-
mosti. He called the collection “an encyclopaedia of liberal rene-
gacy” and “a sheer torrent of reactionary mud turned upon the
democratic movement” (see present edition, Vol. 16, pp. 123-31). p. 41
613
NOTES
40
41
42
43
This refers to the unification of Germany which the German ruling
classes undertook “from above” by means of the policy of “blood
and iron”, and through diplomatic intrigue and wars. The Prusso-
Austrian war of 1866 resulted in the formation of the North-Ger-
man Union, and the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71 led to the
formation of the German Reich.
p. 45
Svet (
Light)—a bourgeois nationalist daily published in St. Peters-
burg from 1882 to 1917.
Golos Moskvy (
Voice of Moscow)—a daily newspaper published
by the Octobrist Party, a counter-revolutionary party of the big
industrial bourgeoisie and big landlords. It was published in Mos-
cow from 1906 to 1915.
p. 47
Council of the United Nobility—a counter-revolutionary organisa-
tion of the feudal landlords founded in May 1906 at the first con-
gress of the delegates of the gubernia societies of the nobility. It
functioned till October 1917. Its main objective was to defend the
autocratic system, the big landed estates and the privileges of the
nobility. The Council was headed by Count A. A. Bobrinsky, Prince
N. F. Kasatkin-Rostovsky, Count D. A. Olsufyev, V. M. Purish-
kevich and others. Lenin called it the “council of united serf-
owners”.
The Council virtually became a semi-governmental agency
which dictated to the government legislation designed to uphold
the interests of the feudal landlords. A considerable number of its
members were also members of the Council of State and the leading
centres of Black-Hundred organisations.
p. 47
This refers to the tsar’s Manifesto of June 3 (16), 1907, dissolving
the Second Duma and amending the electoral law. The new law
greatly increased the proportion of members of the Duma repre-
senting the landlords and the commercial and industrial bourgeoi-
sie, while reducing several times over the proportion of peasant and
workers’ deputies, already small. It was a gross violation of the
Manifesto of October 17 (30), 1905, and the Fundamental Law of
1906, under which all legislation introduced by the government
was subject to approval by the Duma.
The new Regulations entitled the landowner curia to elect one
elector for every 230 persons, the first urban curia one for every
1,000 and the second urban curia for 15,000, the peasant curia for
every 60,000 and the worker curia for 125,000. The landlords and
the bourgeoisie elected 65 per cent of the electors, the peasants
22 per cent (instead of the former 42) and the workers 2 per cent
(as against 4 per cent in the past). The law disfranchised the indi-
genous population of Asian Russia and the Turkic peoples of the
Astrakhan and Stavropol gubernias, and cut by half the propor-
tion of representatives of the population of Poland and the
Caucasus. All those who did not speak Russian were disfranchised
throughout Russia. The Third Duma elected under this law was