“Legal and Illegal Work”

Abstract

Unlike its two predecessors, the Third duma completed its full term, from its convening in November 1907 to its scheduled dissolution in June 1912. It proved to be prerevolutionary Russia’s longest uninterrupted experience with parliamentary government and thus Russian social democracy’s as well. Also, unlike its predecessors, it was the product of the revolution’s defeat. That fact more than any other determined its origins and its course. Lenin had to mount an even more vigorous campaign to convince his Bolshevik comrades to participate in a body that offered even fewer possibilities for revolutionary work. Contrary to the claims of a vocal minority, the choice wasn’t either/or—either parliamentary or illegal work. Both, Lenin argued, not only could be done but indeed had to be done in order to make effective the work in each sphere of activity. What Lenin had to do to win the skeptics to his position is the subject of this chapter.