The Cadets and the Big Bourgeoisie

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The Cadet victories in the first city curias of Moscow and St. Petersburg, then in the elections to the Council of State from the industries, and lastly, the reactionaries’ aid to the Cadets against the Social-Democrats—a fact established beyond question—are all signs of a very interesting political development of all the classes of our society.

Let us recall the Social-Democrats’ main decision on the nature of the Cadet Party, adopted in 1907: “The parties of the liberal-monarchist bourgeoisie, and the most important of them—the Cadet Party—have already turned definitely away from the revolution and aim at stopping it through a deal with the counter-revolution; the social basis of these parties is made up of the economically more progressive sections of the bourgeoisie, above all the bourgeois intelligentsia, while a section of the urban and rural petty bourgeoisie is still following these parties only by force of tradition [blind habit] and because it is simply deceived by the liberals.”

The correctness of this description has been fully borne out by events. The democrats are ousting the Cadets from the second city curia (where there are many democratic voters). The Cadets are ousting the Octobrists from the first urban curia.

The more the reaction rages and the more openly the elections are rigged, the more big capital goes over to the side of liberalism. The class nature of the Cadet Party, indicated by the Marxists in 1906 and 1907, is now being revealed clearly before the masses.

The error of those who considered the Cadets a party of urban democrats is becoming obvious. The alliance of the Cadets and the reactionaries is gradually turning from a secret into an open one: it is the reactionaries who are voting the Cadet Mansyrev in against the Social-Democrat Priedkalns, and the Cadet Nikolayev against the Social-Democrat Pokrovsky.

The strength of Social-Democratic policy, the invincibility of this policy, is due to the fact that the entire development of capitalist society is increasingly proving it correct. The Cadets are rallying to the big bourgeoisie, which cannot be content for all that it is counter-revolutionary. The democrats are moving to the left, away from the Cadets.