The Bulygin Duma¶
Core Argument¶
The chapter dissects the Bulygin Duma as a pivotal moment exposing the autocracy’s weakness and the naivety of bourgeois liberalism. The August 1905 Manifesto, promising a consultative parliament, initially drew elation from liberals—one declaring the Japanese would not enter the Kremlin but Russians would—only for the details to reveal a fraud. Bulygin, a creature of the autocracy, produced what Lenin termed “the most reactionary constitution in Europe,” enfranchising landowners, the bourgeoisie, propertied peasants, and the urban middle class while excluding workers, the rural poor, women, and servicemen—the overwhelming majority. The Duma’s consultative powers rendered it a sham, a façade for continued absolutism.
The Duma immediately became central to Social Democratic tactical debates. The Bolsheviks, led by Lenin, advocated an “active boycott,” while the Mensheviks were ambiguous: the backward, opportunist Caucasus wing openly called for participation, but the rank-and-file mood opposed it. The Bolsheviks proposed a united front with Mensheviks and national Social Democratic organisations for a boycott campaign, and at local level, Bolshevik and Menshevik workers acted together. The petty-bourgeois Social Revolutionaries also backed the boycott, and even the liberal ‘Union of Unions’ was compelled to voice opposition, at least rhetorically.
A seemingly secondary government measure—granting autonomy to universities—proved a major turning point. Lecture theatres, previously sites of a passive student strike, were thrown open, and masses poured in: workers in overalls alongside students. These campuses became arenas of heated debate, unmolested by police, drawing new layers into the struggle. This leftward swing, the chapter argues, determined the Bolsheviks’ boycott stance, though Lenin insisted at the Third Congress on keeping options open, understanding the need for tactical flexibility and avoiding ultra-left moods that would isolate advanced elements from the class majority.
The chapter polemicises against reformist illusions, arguing that the boycott was absolutely correct given the revolutionary wave’s gathering strength. The constitution fell so short of expectations that even sections of liberals opposed it. Democratic aspirations collided with the bureaucratic-police regime; only revolutionary overthrow of tsarism could clear ground for genuine democracy. The order of the day was not parliamentarianism but revolutionary general strike and armed insurrection—a perspective corroborated by the October strike in St. Petersburg and the December uprising in Moscow. The chapter thus positions the Bulygin Duma as a touchstone for the irreconcilable conflict between reformist compromise and revolutionary necessity.