Lenine and his friends, the Bolsheviki, bitterly opposed all this reasoning and took a diametrically opposite position upon every one of the questions involved.  They absolutely opposed any sort of co-operation with bourgeois parties of any kind, for any purpose whatever.  No matter how progressive a particular bourgeois party might be, nor how important the reform aimed at, they believed that Social Democrats should remain in “splendid isolation,” refusing to make any distinction between more liberal and less liberal, progressive and reactionary, groups in the bourgeoisie.  Trotzky, who did not at first formally join the Bolsheviki, but was a true Bolshevik in his intellectual convictions and sympathies, fully shared this view.

Now, Lenine and Trotzky were dogmatic Marxists, and as such they could not deny the contention that capitalism must attain a certain development before Socialism could be attained in Russia.  Nor could they deny that Absolutism was an obstacle to the development both of capitalist industry and of Socialism.  They contended, however, that the peculiar conditions in Russia, resulting from the retardation of her economic development for so long, made it both possible and necessary to create a revolutionary movement which would, at one and the same time, overthrow both autocracy and capitalism.  Necessarily, therefore, their warfare must be directed equally against autocracy and all political parties of the landlord and capitalist classes.  They were guided throughout by this fundamental conviction.  The policy of absolute and unqualified isolation in the Duma, which they insisted the Social Democrats ought to pursue, was based upon that conviction.

VI

All this is quite clear and easily intelligible.  Granted the premise, the logic is admirable.  It is not so easy, however, to see why, even granting the soundness of their opposition to co-operation with bourgeois parties and groups in the Duma, there should be no political competition with them—­which would seem to be logically implied in the boycott of the Duma elections.  Non-participation in the elections, consistently pursued as a proletarian policy, would leave the proletariat unrepresented in the legislative body, without one representative to fight its battles on what the world universally regards as one of the most important battle-fields of civilization.  And yet, here, too, they were entirely logical and consistent—­they did not believe in parliamentary government.  As yet, they were not disposed to emphasize this overmuch, not, apparently, because of any lack of candor and good faith, but rather because the substitute for parliamentary government had not sufficiently shaped itself in their minds.  The desire not to be confused with the Anarchists was another reason.  Because the Bolsheviki and the Anarchists both oppose parliamentary government and the political state, it has been concluded by many writers on the subject that Bolshevism is simply Anarchism in another guise.  This is a mistake.  Bolshevism is quite different from and opposed to Anarchism.  It requires strongly centralized government, which Anarchism abhors.