The Shidlovsky Commission¶
Core Argument¶
The Shidlovsky Commission chapter dissects a classic ruling-class stratagem: the tsarist government, reeling from the revolutionary upsurge following Bloody Sunday, established a commission under Senator Shidlovsky ostensibly to investigate workers’ grievances. This manoeuvre was a calculated attempt to defuse the mass movement, divert workers from revolutionary action, and split their ranks by offering the unprecedented concession of elected worker delegates. The chapter’s core argument is that such pseudo-concessions present Marxists with a tactical dilemma—boycott or participate—and that the correct approach, as demonstrated by the Bolsheviks, is to engage in the electoral process to reach wider layers of workers while refusing to be co-opted into the commission itself until fundamental democratic demands are met.
The text provides rich evidence of the workers’ radicalisation during this period. Demands escalated from hot water and polite treatment—workers at Putilov demanded the abolition of the familiar ‘ty’ form of address, insisting managers treat them “like people and not like an object”—to the eight-hour day and a constituent assembly. Workers seized unpopular foremen and cast them out of factories in literal “sackings,” with over twenty such incidents recorded by March. The chapter notes that 400 candidates stood in the elections, with Social Democrats constituting only 20 per cent, yet Bolshevik delegates set the tone, delivering an ultimatum to Shidlovsky demanding freedom of speech, assembly, and the release of arrested comrades. When the government refused these demands, the boycott proceeded with enhanced credibility, having demonstrated the commission’s fraudulent character through shared struggle.
The chapter draws heavily on the theoretical framework of Lenin’s political genius for separating essential from inessential. Lenin understood that time was of the essence: either the working class would gather the oppressed masses—poor peasants and national minorities—under revolutionary leadership and smash tsarism through armed uprising, or black reaction would exact bloody revenge. This “either… or” formulation is the chapter’s theoretical kernel. The polemic is directed against two fronts: the liberal bourgeoisie, whose illusions in peaceful constitutional reform Lenin “poured scorn” upon, and the Mensheviks, whose opportunist tendencies led them to exaggerate the liberal bourgeoisie’s role and to separate the “technical” from the “political” preparation for uprising—a distinction Lenin dismissed as “the greatest twaddle.”
The chapter also addresses the tactical question of united fronts. Lenin welcomed Gapon’s leftward shift and his open letter calling for armed uprising, advocating a “march separately, strike together” approach while insisting on the “complete independence of the Social Democratic Party” and “complete intransigence of our ideology.” Practical cooperation with other socialist organisations against pogroms was necessary, but agreements with bourgeois liberals were virtually non-existent, as they sought a deal with tsarism, not insurrection. The Shidlovsky experience set an important precedent for the election of workers’ deputies, anticipating the Petersburg Soviet later in 1905.