632
NOTES
Lenin’s theses “
Concerning Certain Speeches by Workers’
Deputies”
formed the basis of a declaration by the Social-Democratic group
in the Fourth Duma. The manuscript has survived only in part.
The adoption of the declaration was preceded by a bitter fight
of the Bolshevik deputies against the seven Menshevik members
of the group. A. Y. Badayev, a Bolshevik member of the group,
wrote in his recollections: “Our group devoted a number of meet-
ings to the declaration, which it began to discuss before the Duma
opened. The debate was exceedingly heated and often lasted till
late into the night. On either side not only deputies but also Party
functionaries then in St. Petersburg took part in drafting the dec-
laration.... After a long and stubborn struggle and a number of
heated clashes with the Mensheviks we at last had all the funda-
mental demands of the Bolsheviks incorporated in the declara-
tion.” (A. Badayev, The Bolsheviks in the Duma. Recollections,
Moscow, 1954, p. 67, Russ. ed.)
In accordance with Lenin’s directives, the declaration included
nearly all the main provisions of the minimum programme. Never-
theless, the Mensheviks succeeded in getting the demand for cul-
tural national autonomy included in the declaration. On Decem-
ber 7 (20), 1912, the declaration was read in the Duma.
On December 8 (21), 1912, Pravda carried a verbatim report of
the Duma sitting together with the text of the declaration. This
Pravda issue was confiscated for publishing the declaration, and
its editor brought to trial.
p. 413
The Extraordinary International Socialist Congress of the Second
International took place in Basle on November 24-25, 1912. On the
opening day there was a large anti-war demonstration and an
international protest meeting against the war. On November 25
the Congress unanimously adopted a manifesto calling on the
workers to use the organisation and might of the proletariat for a
revolutionary struggle against the war danger.
p. 414
This refers to the unrest among the political prisoners in the Ku-
tomara and Algachi prisons. It began in August 1912 owing to the
Transbaikal Military Governor’s order introducing military rules
of treatment of political prisoners in Nerchinsk penal-servitude
prisons. In protest, the political prisoners at Kutomara declared a
fifteen-day hunger strike. The prison administration retaliated by
mass torture. Some of the prisoners, driven to despair, committed
suicide. Similar events took place in Algachi prison. The summer
and autumn of 1912 saw unrest among political prisoners elsewhere
in Russia. In response to these developments there were protest
strikes of workers in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Warsaw and Riga.
On behalf of the Social-Democratic and the Trudovik groups in the
Fourth Duma, an interpellation was made concerning the outrages
against the prisoners. Discussion was postponed by a majority
vote but was never resumed.
p. 417
152
153
154
633
NOTES
This refers to the land Bill which was introduced by (non-party and
Right-wing) peasant deputies in the Third Duma on May 10 (23),
1908. The Bill provided for the compulsory alienation, at average
market prices, of landed estates not tilled by their owners them-
selves. For carrying out the land reform, it was proposed that local
land committees should be set up to be elected by a general vote.
Lenin appraised the Bill in his article “The Agrarian Debates in
p. 418
The document “
Concerning the Workers’
Deputies to the Duma and
Their Declaration” was the draft of a declaration of the Social-
Democratic group. It was copied by N. K. Krupskaya and sent to
the Bolshevik members of the Duma from Cracow on November 13
(26), 1912. The draft was intercepted by the tsar’s police.
p. 420
The demonstration was organised on the initiative of the Bolshe-
vik representatives of various districts and factories of St. Peters-
burg. A few days prior to the opening of the Fourth Duma a leaflet
was distributed in the factories calling on the workers to organise
a one-day political strike on November 15 (28), 1912, and to march
to the Taurida Palace. The liquidators, writing in Luch, opposed
the idea of a march. On November 13 (26) the Social-Democratic
group called a meeting of representatives of the St. Petersburg
Committee, the Editorial Board of Pravda, the liquidators’ leading
centre—the Organising Committee, and the liquidationist Luch.
At the meeting the Bolsheviks supported the workers’ proposal
to mark the opening day of the Black-Hundred Duma by a strike
and demonstration. The liquidators emphatically opposed it. After
the meeting the Social-Democratic group published in the press a
politically erroneous statement in which they took a negative stand
on the proposal for a strike. Despite the opposition of the liqui-
dators and the political error of the Social-Democratic group, tens
of thousands of workers struck on the day the Duma opened. In a
number of factories short meetings were held at which the workers
decided to boycott Luch.
After the demonstration the Bolshevik members of the Duma
admitted their error at workers’ meetings.
p. 424
Lenin is referring to the speech which Rodzyanko made upon his
election to the chair of the Fourth Duma. Rodzyanko signified his
“unshakable devotion” to the tsar and his support of a repre-
sentative constitutional system.
p. 424
Lenin’s letter was sent from Cracow to Stalin in St. Petersburg on
November 28 (December 11), 1912. It had been copied by N. K.
Krupskaya in invisible ink. On the way the letter was intercepted,
decoded and copied on a typewriter by the police. The copy of the
letter was found in the Police Department archives. Some of the
words could not be decoded and there are omissions in the
text.
p. 427
155
156
157
158
159
the Third Duma” (see present edition, Vol. 15, pp. 303-17).