Progressive Politics

For Lenin, elections had two major functions. One was the opportunity to make propaganda for socialism: to put across arguments and ideas that could win adherents. This was a vision of elections and election campaigns as a platform. The other function was elections as a means of ‘counting our forces’, i.e. gauging levels of support for socialist ideas and assessing political progress. This could in turn influence what tactics to adopt in a range of areas of political work. Furthermore, if Bolsheviks were actually elected (which did happen) their role was to champion radical socialist ideas and demands. It was to use parliament, which was very limited in actual powers, as a megaphone; not to believe falsely that parliament would in fact bring about significant change. source