The Municipal Election Campaign

Stalin’s article on the analysis of political parties. The work was successively published in Pravda issues No. 63, 64 and 66 on May 21, 24 and 26, of the year 1917. The Chinese translation is included in Vol. 3 of the Complete Works of Stalin.

Before the Duma elections in the Petrograd region, Stalin wrote this article in order to enlighten the people to grasp the nature of various parties and factions participating in the election campaign, explained the revolutionary political line of the Bolshevik party, and called masses to vote for Bolsheviks.

Stalin pointed out in his article that although there are various parties participating in the election campaign, the central issue of the election campaign is not municipal “reform” in itself, but the general political situation in the country. Stalin commented: Municipal reform is merely the background against which the principal political platforms of competing parties naturally unfold. In the case that the war has brought the country to the verge of disruption, when the interests of the majority of the population demand revolutionary intervention in the whole economic life of the country and advocated that the local questions, municipal issues, can only be understood and decided in inseparable connection with the general questions of war or peace, of revolution and counter-revolution. In the course of the campaign, two basic political lines would inevitably assert themselves: the line of developing the revolution further, and the line of counter-revolution. The sharper the campaign, the more trenchant would become the criticism against the Party criticism, and the more distinctly would these two lines stand out.

Stalin respectively analyzed the political opinions of the Party of “Popular Freedom”, the R.S.D.L.P. (B), the Defencist Bloc (Yedinstvo group) and the “Non-Party” Groups.

(1) The Party of “Popular Freedom”. The party of so-called “Popular Freedom” is a collection of the Rightists. They gathered around Milyukov and became the party of the most extreme right. And precisely for this reason that party is now the rallying center of the counter-revolutionary forces. Milyukov’s party is in favor of curbing the peasants, for it is in favor of suppressing the agrarian movement.

Milyukov’s party was in favor of curbing the workers, for it was opposed to the workers’ “excessive” demands— it labeled all their major demands “excessive”; Milyukov’s party was in favor of curbing the soldiers, for it was in favor of “iron discipline,” that is, of restoring the rule of the leading army officers over the soldiers. And this party was in favor of the war of world’s robbers which brought the country to the verge of disruption and ruin. It was in favor of “resolute measures” against the revolution. It “resolutely” opposed the freedom of people, even though it called itself the party of “Popular Freedom.” Stalin called on everyone to firmly resist Milyukov and reject to vote for the Party of “Popular Freedom”.

(2) Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party (B). R.S.D.L.P. was the Party of urban and rural revolutionary workers, and opposed to the present war because it was a war of imperialist robbery, a war of conquest, and advocated a general universal and democratic peace, so as to overcome economic crisis and severe food shortages. The Constitutional Democratic Party (Kadets) favored to prolong the war which aggravated the economic disruption and famine. They protected the profits of the capitalists, hinder the revolutionary intervention of the workers in the economic life of the country, and fought to prevent the Peasant Committees from confiscating the landed estates, start “business” with the withdrawal of the revolutionary troops from Petrograd, and proceeding now to withdraw the revolutionary workers dooming the revolution to impotence. The Kadets could not get the country out of the crisis at all.

The Social-Democratic Labor Party advocates that all political power should be transferred to the revolutionary workers, soldiers and peasants. Only these forces led by the R.S.D.L.P.(B) can put an end to the long-protracted robber war. Only such a power can lay hands on the profits of the capitalists and landlords for the purpose of advancing the revolution and saving the country from utter disruption. The Social-Democratic Labor party opposes the restoration of the police force, the old detested police force, which was divorced from the people and subordinated to “bigwigs” appointed from above, and it is in favor of a universal, elected and recallable militia; for only such a militia can serve as a buttress of the people’s interests. Stalin called on everyone to vote for those who are opposed to the war of conquest, opposed to the landlord and capitalist government, opposed to the restoration of the police force, for those who are in favor of a democratic peace, of the transfer of power to the people themselves, of a people’s militia, of genuine democratization of municipal affairs.

(3) The Defencist Bloc. These are a number of intermediate groups which vacillate between revolution and counter-revolution. These are the Yedinstvo group, the Bund, the Menshevik and Socialist-Revolutionary defencists, the Trudoviks, the Popular “Socialists.” In some districts they are putting up their candidates separately, but in others they have formed a bloc and have put up a joint list. This bloc is utterly unprincipled. This bloc is spearheaded not against the counter-revolutionary Constitutional Democrats, but against the revolutionary workers, against the bloc between Bolshevik Party, the Mezhrayontsi and the revolutionary Mensheviks. Stalin called on everyone not to vote for the Defencist Bloc.

(4) The “Non-Party” Groups. These are all bourgeois groups. For the most part they are comprised of merchants, manufacturers, house-owners, members of the “liberal professions,” and intellectuals. They have no set principles and they have no municipal platform. The electors will never know what reforms they demand in the sphere of municipal affairs. They have no past, and they have no future. Their aim is to get into the district Dumas somehow, and what happens after that they don’t care. Since the masses are growing in political enlightenment daily and even hourly, it is becoming extremely risky for the bourgeoisie to come out openly. To come out with a frankly bourgeois platform under such conditions is to court certain discredit in the eyes of the masses. The only way of “saving the situation” is to don a Non-Party mask and pretend to be an inoffensive group. There can be no doubt that pro-Cadet and near-Cadet bourgeois who fear to fight with open visor are trying to slip into the district Dumas under cover of Non-Party lists. It is characteristic that there is not a single proletarian group among them, that all these Non-Party groups are recruited from the ranks of the bourgeoisie, and from its ranks only. They will undoubtedly succeed in drawing quite a number of confiding and simple-minded electors into their net unless they meet with a proper rebuff from the revolutionary elements. Hence, the problem of “Non-Party” conduct is one of the most serious in the present municipal elections. Therefore, one of the most important tasks of the campaign of the Bolshevik Party is to tear the Non-Party mask from the faces of these gentry, to compel them to show their true countenance, so as to enable the masses to appraise them correctly.

Finally, the article calls on the masses to vote unanimously for the Bolshevik Party.

Stalin’s article provided a basis for the vast majority of voters to recognize the true faces of various factions in Russia at that time and made a positive contribution to the Bolshevik Party in winning the trust of voters.