A revolutionary situation was created in the country by the defeat of the army and navy in the Russo-Japanese War, the shooting of the workers on Jan. 9 (22) in 1905, by agrarian dis turbances and political strikes. Lenin's programme was the prep aration of an armed rising of the masses against Tsarism, and the creation of a provisional Government to organize the revolu tionary democratic dictatorship of the workmen and peasants for the deliverance of the country from Tsarism and serfdom. The third congress of the party, consisting exclusively of Bol sheviks (May 1905), passed a new agrarian programme which included the confiscation of the domains of landowners. In Oct. 1905 the All-Russian strike began. On the 17th of the month the Tsar issued his manifesto about the "Constitution." In the be ginning of Nov. Lenin returned to Russia from Geneva, and appealed to the Bolsheviks to bring into the party wider circles of workers, but to retain their illegal apparatus in anticipation of counter-revolutionary blows.
In the events of 1905 Lenin distinguished three main features —(I) the temporary seizure by the people of real political free dom, (2) the creation of new if only potential revolutionary power in the shape of soviets of workers', soldiers' and peasants' deputies; (3) the use of force by the people against those who had employed it against them. Those conclusions, from the events of 1905, became the guiding principles of Lenin's policy in 1917 and led to the dictatorship of the proletariat in the form of the Soviet State.
The rising in Moscow at the end of Dec., lacking as it did the support of the army, without simultaneous risings in other towns and sufficient response in the country districts, was quickly sup pressed. The Liberal bourgeoisie came to the front. The epoch of the first two Dumas began. At this time, Lenin formulated the principles of the revolutionary exploitation of parliamentary methods as a means of fresh attack. In Dec. 1907 Lenin left Russia, to return only in 1917. Now (in 1907) began the epoch of victorious counter-revolution, prosecutions, exile, executions and emigration. Lenin led the struggle against the Mensheviks, the advocates of the liquidation of the "underground" party— hence those known as "liquidators"—and of the change of their methods into legal ones within the framework of the existing regime; against the "conciliators" who tried to take up an inter mediate position between Bolshevism and Menshevism—against the Socialist revolutionaries who tried to make up for the inertia of the masses by personal terrorism; finally, against those Bolshe viks, the so-called "callers-off," who demanded the recall of the Social Democratic deputies from the Duma in the name of im mediate revolutionary activity.
At the same time, Lenin carried on an extensive campaign against the attempt to revise the theoretic basis of Marxism on which his whole policy was founded. In 1908 he wrote a major treatise directed against the essentially idealistic philosophy of Mach, Avenarius and their Russian followers, who tried to unite empiric criticism with Marxism. Lenin proved that the methods
of dialectical materialism as formulated by Marx and Engels were confirmed by the development of scientific thought in general and natural science in particular. Thus Lenin's constant revolu tionary struggle went hand in hand with his theoretical contro versies.
The years 1912-14 were marked in Russia by a fresh outburst of activity in the workers' movement. Breaches made their ap pearance in the counter-revolutionary regime. At the beginning of 1912 Lenin summoned a secret conference of the Russian Bolshevik organizations in Prague. The "liquidators" were de clared to be outside the party. The split with the Mensheviks be came final. A new central committee was elected. Lenin organized from abroad the publication in St. Petersburg of a legal news paper, Pravda, which in its constant conflict with the censorship and the police exercised a guiding influence on the vanguard of the working class. In July 1912 Lenin, together with his closest colleagues, moved from Paris to Cracow in order to be in closer touch. The revolutionary movement in Russia was growing, and was thereby giving the Bolsheviks the preponderance. Lenin sent articles under different pseudonyms almost every day to the Bolshevik legal newspapers, drawing the inevitable inferences from them in the illegal ("underground") Press. At this time, as well as before and after it, N. K. Krupskaya was the centre of the organizing work. She received comrades from Russia, gave instructions to others on their way there, set up "underground" connections, wrote, coded and decoded letters. It was in the small town of Poronin in Galicia that the declaration of war found Lenin. The Austrian police suspected him of being a Russian spy and arrested him; he was, after a fortnight, expelled to Switzer land.
Internationalism.—A new and international phase of Lenin's work now opened. His manifesto, published in the name of the party on Nov. 1, 1914, denounced the imperialistic character of the War and the war guilt of all the great powers, who had long been preparing a sanguinary struggle for the purpose of widening their markets and destroying their rivals. The patriotic agitation of the bourgeoisie on both sides, who threw the blame each upon the other, was shown to be a manoeuvre to deceive the workers. The manifesto points out that the majority of Social Democratic leaders were on the side of the bourgeoisie of their own country, thus violating the resolutions of the International Socialist con gresses and bringing about the downfall of the Second Inter national. The defeat of their "own" governments should be the slogan of the Social Democrats of all countries. Lenin subjects to a merciless criticism not only Socialist patriotism, but that pacifism which, while occupied with platonic protests, withdraws from the revolutionary struggle with Imperialism. The struggle with pacifism develops into a great struggle with those elements of the working class movement which are midway between the Social Democrats and the Communists, supporting the former in actual practice.