One of the favorite devices of the Black Hundreds was to send agents among the workers in the cities and among the peasants to discredit the Duma in advance, and to spread the idea that it would only represent the bourgeoisie.  Many of the most influential Socialist leaders unfortunately preached the same doctrine.  This was the natural and logical outcome of the 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 regime 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 manufacturing class in the critical days of 1905 would have made concessions and granted many of the demands of the striking workmen.  By so doing they might have maintained unity in the political struggle.  But, even if so much be granted, it is poor justification and defense of a Socialist policy to say that it was neither better nor worse, neither more stupid nor more wise, than that of the bourgeoisie!  In the circumstances, Lenine’s policy was most disastrous for Russia.  It is not necessary to believe the charge that was made at the time and afterward that Lenine was in the pay of the government and a tool of the Black Hundreds.  Subsequent incidents served to fasten grave suspicion upon him, but no one ever offered proof of corruption.  In all probability, he was then, and throughout the later years, honest and sincere—­a fanatic, often playing a dangerous game, unmoral rather than immoral, believing that the end he sought justified any means.