separate action of the classes in the Revolution, and of the manner in
which the proletariat had forced the economic struggle to the front during
the political struggle. In the vanguard of the fight for the Duma were the
Constitutional Democrats, led by Miliukov, Prince Lvov, and many prominent
leaders of the zemstvos. The divorce between the classes represented by
these men and the proletariat represented by the Social Democrats was
absolute. It was not surprising that the leaders of the Social Democratic
party should be suspicious and distrustful of the Constitutional Democrats
and refuse to co-operate with them.

But many of the Social Democrats went much farther than this, and, in the
name of Socialism and proletarian class consciousness, adopted the same
attitude toward the Duma itself as that which the agents of the Black
Hundreds were urging upon the people. Among the Socialist leaders who took
this position was Vladimir Ulyanov, the great propagandist whom the world
knows to-day as Nikolai Lenine, Bolshevik Prime Minister and Dictator.
Lenine urged the workers to boycott the Duma and to refuse to participate
in the elections in any manner whatever. At a time when only a united
effort by all classes could be expected to accomplish anything, and when
such a victory of the people over the autocratic régime as might have been
secured by united action would have meant the triumph of the Revolution,
Lenine preached separatism. Unfortunately, his influence, even at that
time, was very great and his counsels prevailed with a great many Socialist
groups over the wiser counsels of Plechanov and others.

It may be said, in explanation and extenuation of Lenine's course, that the
boycotting of the elections was the logical outcome of the class antagonism
and separatism, and that the bourgeois leaders were just as much
responsible for the separatism as the leaders of the proletariat were. All
this is true. It is quite true to say that wiser leadership of the