Mandate to the Social-Democratic Deputies in the Third State Duma
Adopted at a Meeting of the Delegates of the Workers' Curia in the City of Baku,
September 22, 1907
J. V. Stalin
The Social-Democratic deputies in the State Duma must form a separate group which, as a Party organisation, must be most closely connected with the Party, and must submit to its guidance and to the directives of the Central Committee of the Party.
The main task of the Social-Democratic group in the State Duma is to facilitate the proletariat's class education and class struggle both for the emancipation of the working people from capitalist exploitation and for the fulfilment of the part of political leader which it is called upon to play in the present bourgeois-democratic revolution in Russia.
For this purpose, the group must under all circumstances pursue its own proletarian class policy, which distinguishes Social-Democracy from all other organisations and revolutionary parties, from the Cadets to the Socialist-Revolutionaries. It must not under any circumstances sacrifice this task to the aim of conducting joint oppositional action with any other political parties or groups in the Duma.
Our deputies must systematically expose in the Duma the entire counter-revolutionary nature both of the Black-Hundred landlord parties and of the treacherous, liberal-monarchist, bourgeois, Cadet Party. On the other hand, they must strive to wrest the peasant petty-bourgeois parties (Socialist-Revolutionaries, Popular Socialists and Trudoviks) from the liberals, push them on to the path of consistent democratic-revolutionary policy, and lead them in the struggle both against the Black Hundreds and against the Cadet bourgeoisie. At the same time, the Social-Democratic group must combat the reactionary, pseudo-socialist utopias in which the Socialist-Revolutionaries, Popular Socialists and others clothe what are in fact petty-bourgeois demands, and with the aid of which they obscure the purely proletarian, socialist class consciousness of the working class. From the floor of the Duma our group must tell the entire people the whole truth about the revolution through which we are passing. It must loudly proclaim to the people that in Russia their emancipation cannot be achieved by peaceful means, that the only path to freedom is the path of a nation-wide struggle against the tsarist regime.
The slogan which Social-Democracy advances, and for which it must call upon the masses to launch another open struggle, is for a Constituent Assembly freely elected by the whole people on the basis of universal, direct, equal and secret suffrage, an assembly which will put an end to the tsarist autocracy and establish a democratic republic in Russia. No other slogans, such as a responsible ministry, etc., advanced by the liberal bourgeoisie in opposition to the proletarian slogans, can be accepted and supported by the Social-Democratic group.
In taking part in the daily legislative and other activities of the State Duma, the Social-Democratic group must pursue its constant tasks of criticism and agitation and not pursue the object of direct legislation; and it must explain to the people that such legislation is ephemeral and futile so long as real power remains entirely in the hands of the autocratic government.
By working in the Third State Duma in this way, the Social-Democratic group will facilitate the revolutionary struggle which the proletariat, and the peasantry along with it, are at present waging against the tsarist autocracy outside the Duma.
Notes
1. In the autumn of 1907 the Baku Committee, under the direction of Comrade Stalin, conducted the election campaign for the Third State Duma. The meeting of voters' delegates representing the Baku workers held on September 22 elected Bolsheviks as electors who were finally to choose the workers' deputy for the Duma. The "Mandate," which was drawn up by J. V. Stalin, was adopted at this meeting and printed in leaflet form at the printing plant of the Balakhany District Committee of the R.S.D.L.P.
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