LENIN
about the press
[1]
__SERIES__
JOURNALIST
PRAGUE 1972
INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATION OF JOURNALISTS
[3]Publishers' Note
The present volume has been prepared by the Union of Soviet Journalists and the Union of German Journalists (G.D.R.) at the request of the International Organisation of Journalists. From the major articles, speeches, reports, notes, letters and extracts thereform, presented here, the reader will gain an idea of Lenin's views on the periodical press in Russia and other countries and on basic problems of the press. The collection is divided into sections according to subjects and is supplied with reference materials.
The translations come from Progress Publishers' edition of V. I, Lenin's Collected Works in 45 volumes.
Editorial Board: A. F. Berezhnoi, B. D. Datsyuk, E. Duziska, Y. N. Zassoursky, A. Z. Okorokov, B. Yanel
Compiled by G. A. Golovanova, L. P. Yevseyeva, R. P. Ovsepyan English edition compiled by A. N. Burmistenko Edited by M. Saifulin
[4] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Section I __ALPHA_LVL1__ TRADITIONS OF THE DEMOCRATICThe history of the workers' press in Russia is indissolubly linked up with the history of the democratic and socialist movement. Hence, only by knowing the chief stages of the movement for emancipation is it possible to understand why the preparation and rise of the workers' press has proceeded in a certain way, and in no other.
The emancipation movement in Russia has passed through three main stages, corresponding to the three main classes of Russian society, which have left their impress on the movement: (1) the period of the nobility, roughly from 1825 to 1861; (2) the raznochintsi or bourgeois-democratic period, approximately from 1861 to 1895; and (3) the proletarian period, from 1895 to the present time.
The most outstanding figures of the nobility period were the Decembrists and Herzen. At that time, under the serf-owning system, there could be no question of differentiating a working class from among the general mass of serfs, the disfranchised "lower orders", "the ruck". In those days the illegal general democratic press, headed by Herzen's Kolokol, was the forerunner of the workers' (proletarian-democratic or Social-Democratic) press.
Just as the Decembrists roused Herzen, so Herzen and his Kolokol helped to rouse the raznochintsi---the educated representatives of the liberal and democratic bourgeoisie who belonged, not to the nobility but to the civil servants, urban petty bourgeois, merchant and peasant classes. It was V. G. Belinsky who, even before the abolition of serfdom, was a forerunner of the raznochintsi who were to completely oust the nobility from our 5 emancipation movement. The famous Letter to Gogol, which summed up Belinsky's literary activities, was one of the finest productions of the illegal democratic press, which has to this day lost none of its great and vital significance.
With the fall of the serf-owning system, the raznochintsi emerged as the chief actor from among the masses in the movement for emancipation in general, and in the democratic illegal press in particular. Narodism, which corresponded to the raznochintsi point of view, became the dominant trend. As a social trend, it never succeeded in dissociating itself from liberalism on the right and from anarchism on the left. But Chernyshevsky, who, after Herzen, developed the Narodnik views, made a great stride forward as compared with Herzen. Chernyshevsky was a far more consistent and militant democrat, his writings breathing the spirit of the class struggle. He resolutely pursued the line of exposing the treachery of liberalism, a line which to this day is hateful to the Cadets and liquidators. He was a remarkably profound critic of capitalism despite his Utopian socialism.
The sixties and seventies saw quite a number of illegal publications, militant-democratic and Utopian-socialist in content, which had started to circulate among the ``masses''. Very prominent among the personalities of that epoch were the workers Pyotr Alexeyev, Stepan Khalturin, and others. The proletarian-democratic current, however, was unable to free itself from the main stream of Narodism; this became possible only after Russian Marxism took ideological shape (the Emancipation of Labour group, 1883), and a steady workers' movement, linked with Social-Democracy, began (the St. Petersburg strikes of 1895-96).
But before passing to this period, from which the appearance of the workers' press in Russia really dates, we shall quote figures which strikingly illustrate the class differences between the movements of the three periods referred to. These figures show the classification of persons charged with state (political) crimes according to social estate or calling (class). For every 100 such persons there were:
Nobles Urban petty " Peasants Workers Intellectuals~
In 1827-46.......... 76
In 1884-90..........
30.6
In 1901-03..........
10.7
In 1905-08..........
9.1
bourgeois and peasants
23 46.6 80.9 87.7
7.1
9.0
24.2
15.1 46.1 47.4
73.2 36.7 28.4
In the nobility or feudal period (1827---46), the nobles, who __ were an insignificant minority of the population, accounted for the vast majority of the ``politicals'' (76 %). In the Narodnik, raznochintsi period (1884---90; unfortunately,, figures for the sixties and seventies are not available), the nobles dropped to second place, but still provided quite a high percentage (30.6 %). Intellectuals accounted for the overwhelming majority (73.2 %) of participants in the democratic movement.
6In the 1901-03 period, which happened to be the period of the first political Marxist newspaper, the old Iskra, workers (46.1 %) predominated over intellectuals (36.7 %) and the movement became wholly democratised (10.7 % nobles and 80.9 % ``non-privileged'' people).
Running ahead, we see that in the period of the first mass movement (1905-08) the only change was that the intellectuals (28.4 % as against 36.7 %) were displaced by peasants (24.2 % as against 9.0 %).
Social-Democracy in Russia was founded by the Emancipation of Labour group, which was formed abroad in 1883. The writings of this group, which were printed abroad and uncensored, were the first systematically to expound and draw all the practical conclusions from the ideas of Marxism, which, as the experience of the entire world has shown, alone express the true essence of the working-class movement and its aims. For the twelve years between 1883 and 1895, practically the only attempt to establish a Social-Democratic workers' press in Russia was the publication in St. Petersburg in 1885 of the Social-Democratic newspaper Rabochy; it was of course illegal, but only two issues appeared. Owing to the absence of a mass working-class movement, there was no scope for the wide development of a workers' press.
The inception of a mass working-class movement, with the participation of Social-Democrats, dates from 1895-96, the time of the famous St. Petersburg strikes. It was then that a workers' press, in the real sense of the term, appeared in Russia. The chief publications in those days were illegal leaflets, most of them hectographed and devoted to ``economic'' (as well as non-economic) agitation, that is, to the needs and demands of the workers in different factories and industries. Obviously, this literature could not have existed without the advanced workers' most active participation in the task of compiling and circulating it. Among St. Petersburg workers active at the time mention should be made of Vasily Andreyevich Shelgunov, who later became blind and was unable to carry on with his former vigour, and Ivan Vasilyevich Babushkin, an ardent Iskrist (1900---03) and Bolshevik (1903-05), who was shot for taking part in an uprising in Siberia late in 1905 or early in 1906.
Leaflets were published by Social-Democratic groups, circles and organisations, most of which, after the end of 1895, became known as "Leagues of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class". The "Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party" was founded in 1898 at a congress of representatives of local Social-Democratic organisations.
After the leaflets, illegal working-class newspapers began to appear; for example, in 1897 St. Petersburg Rabochy Listok appeared in St. Petersburg, followed by Rabochaya My si, which was shortly afterwards transferred abroad. Since then, almost right up to the revolution, local Social-Democratic newspapers came out illegally; true, they were regularly suppressed, but reappeared again and again all over Russia.
All in all, the workers' leaflets and Social-Democratic newspapers of the time---i.e., twenty years ago---were the direct forerunners of the present-day 7 working-class press: the same factory ``exposures'', the same reports on the ``economic'' struggle, the same treatment of the tasks of the working-class movement from the standpoint of Marxist principles and consistent democracy, and finally, the same two main trends---the Marxist and the opportunist---in the working-class press.
It is a remarkable fact, one that has not been duly appreciated to this day, that as soon as the mass working-class movement arose in Russia (1895-96), there at once appeared the division into Marxist and opportunist trends---a division which has changed in form and features, etc., but which has remained essentially the same from 1894 to 1914. Apparently, this particular kind of division and inner struggle among Social-Democrats has deep social and class roots.
The Rabochaya Mysl, mentioned above, represented the opportunist trend of the day, known as Economism. This trend became apparent in the disputes among the local leaders of the working-class movement as early as 1894-95. And abroad, where the awakening of the Russian workers led to an efflorescence of Social-Democratic literature as early as 1896, the appearance and rallying of the Economists ended in a split in the spring of 1900 (that is, prior to the appearance of Iskra, the first issue of which came off the press at the very end of 1900).
The history of the working-class press during the twenty years 1894-1914 is the history of the two trends in Russian Marxism and Russian (or rather all-Russia) Social-Democracy. To understand the history of the.working-class press in Russia, one must know, not only and not so much the names of the various organs of the press---names which convey nothing to the present-day reader and simply confuse him---as the content, nature and ideological line of the different sections of Social-Democracy.
The chief organs of the Economists were Rabochaya Mysl (1897-1900) and Rabockeye Dyelo (1898-1901). Rabocheye Dyelo was edited by B. Krichevsky, who later went over to the syndicalists, A. Martynov, a prominent Menshevik and now a liquidator, and Akimov, now an "independent Social-Democrat" who in all essentials agrees with the liquidators.
At first only Plekhanov and the whole Emancipation of Labour group (the journal Rabotnik, etc.) fought the Economists, and then Iskra joined the fight (from 1900 to August 1903, up to the time of the Second Congress of the R.S.D.L.P.). What, exactly, was the essence of Economism?
In word, the Economists were all for a mass type of working-class movement and independent action by the workers, emphasising the paramount significance of ``economic'' agitation and urging moderation of gradualness in passing over to political agitation. As the reader sees, these are exactly the same catchwords that the liquidators flaunt today. In practice, however, the Economists pursued a liberal-labour policy, the gist of which was tersely expressed by S. N. Prokopovich, one of the Economist leaders at that time, in the words: "economic struggle is for the workers, political struggle is for the 8 liberals". The Economists, who made the most noise about the workers' independent activity and the mass movement, were in practice an opportunist and petty-bourgeois intellectual wing of the working-class movement.
The overwhelming majority of the class-conscious workers, who in!901-03 accounted for 46 out of every 100 persons charged with state crimes, as against 37 for the intelligentsia, sided with the old Iskra, against the opportunists. Iskra's three years of activity (1901-03) saw the elaboration of the Social-Democratic Party's Programme, its main tactics, and the forms in which the workers' economic and political struggle could be combined on the basis of consistent Marxism. During the pre-revolutionary years, the growth of theworkers' press around Iskra and under its ideological leadership assumed enormous proportions. The number of illegal leaflets and unlicensed printing-presses was exceedingly great, and increased rapidly all over Russia.
Iskra's complete victory over Economism, the victory of consistent proletarian tactics over opportunist-intellectualist tactics in 1903, still further stimulated the influx of ``fellow-travellers'' into the ranks of Social-Democracy; and opportunism revived on the soil of Iskrism, as part of it, in the form of ``Menshevism''.
Menshevism took shape at the Second Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. (August 1903), originating from the minority of the Iskrists (hence the name Menshevism^^*^^) and from all the opportunist opponents of Iskra. The Mensheviks reverted to Economism in a slightly renovated form, of course; headed by A. Martynov, all the Economists who had remained in the movement flocked to the ranks of the Mensheviks.
The new Iskra, which from November 1903 appeared under a new editorial board, became the chief organ of Menshevism. "Between the old Iskra and the new lies a gulf", Trotsky, then an ardent Menshevik, frankly declared. Vperyod and Proletary (1905) were the chief Bolshevik newspapers, which upheld the tactics of consistent Marxism and remained faithful to the old Iskra.
From the point of view of real contact with the masses and as an expression of the tactics of the proletarian masses, 1905-07, the years of revolution, were a test of the two main trends in Social-Democracy and in the working-class press---the Menshevik and Bolshevik trends. A legal Social-Democratic press could not have appeared all at once in the autumn of 1905 had the way not been paved by the activities of the advanced workers, who were closely connected with the masses. The fact that the legal Social-Democratic press of 1905, 1906 and 1907 was a press of two trends, of two groups, can only be accounted for by the different lines in the working-class movement at the time---the petty-bourgeois and the proletarian.
The workers' legal press appeared in all three periods of the upswing and of relative ``freedom'', namely, in the autumn of 1905 (the Bolsheviks' Novaya _-_-_
^^*^^ The Russian word Menshevism is derived from menshinstvo, the English for which is minority.---Ed.
9 Zhizn, and the Mensheviks' Nachalo-vte name only the chief of the many publications); in the spring of 1906 (Volna, Ekho, etc., issued by the Bolsheviks, Narodnaya Duma and others, issued by the Mensheviks); and in the spring of 1907.The essence of the Menshevik tactics of the time was recently expressed by L. Martov in these words: "The Mensheviks saw no other way by which the proletariat could take a useful part in that crisis except by assisting the bourgeois liberal democrats in their attempts to eject the reactionary section of the propertied classes from political power---but, while rendering this assistance, the proletariat was to maintain its complete political independence". (Among Books by Rubakin, Vol. II, p. 772.) In practice, these tactics of `` assisting'' the liberals amounted to making the workers dependent on them; in practice they were liberal-labour tactics. The Bolsheviks' tactics, on the contrary, ensured the independence of the proletariat in the bourgeois crisis, by fighting to bring that crisis to a head, by exposing the treachery of liberalism, by enlightening and rallying the petty bourgeoisie (especially in the countryside) to counteract that treachery.
It is a fact---and the Mensheviks themselves, including the present-day liquidators, Koltsov, Levitsky, and others, have repeatedly admitted it---that in those years (1905-07) the masses of the workers followed the lead of the Bolsheviks. Bolshevism expressed the proletarian essence of the movement, Menshevism was its opportunist, petty-bourgeois intellectual wing.
We cannot here give a more detailed characterisation of the content and significance of the tactics of the two trends in the workers' press. We can do no more than accurately establish the main facts and define the main lines of historical development.
The working-class press in Russia has almost a century of history behind it; first, the pre-history, i.e., the history, not of the labour, not of the proletarian, but of the "general democratic", i.e., bourgeois-democratic movement for emancipation, followed by its own twenty-year history of the proletarian movement, proletarian democracy or Social-Democracy.
Nowhere in the world has the proletarian movement come into being, nor could it have come into being, "all at once", in a pure class form, ready-made, like Minerva from the head of Jupiter. Only through long struggle and hard work on the part of the most advanced workers, of all class-conscious workers, was it possible to build up and strengthen the class movement of the proletariat, ridding it of all petty-bourgeois admixtures, restrictions, narrowness and distortions. The working class lives side by side with the petty bourgeoisie, which, as it becomes ruined, provides increasing numbers of new recruits to the ranks of the proletariat. And Russia is the most petty-bourgeois, the most philistine of capitalist countries, which only now is passing through the period of bourgeois revolutions which Britain, for example, passed through in the seventeenth century, and France in the eighteenth and early ninetteenth centuries.
The class-conscious workers, who are now tackling a job that is near and 10 dear to them, that of running the working-class press, putting it on a sound basis and strengthening and developing it, will not forget the twenty-year history of Marxism and the Social-Democratic press in Russia.
A disservice is being done to the workers' movement by those of its weak-nerved friends among the intelligentsia who fight shy of the internal struggle among the Social-Democrats, and who fill the air with cries and calls to have nothing to do with it. They are well-meaning but futile people, and their outcries are futile.
Only by studying the history of Marxism's struggle against opportunism, only by making a thorough and detailed study of the manner in which independent proletarian democracy emerged from the petty-bourgeois hodge-podge can the advanced workers decisively strengthen their own classconsciousness and their workers' press.
Rabochy No. 1, April 22, 1914
Collected Works, Moscow. Vol. 20, pp. 245-253
__--_--_--__ __ALPHA_LVL2__ Our TasksWe have given a brief review of the history of the working-class press in Russia and of the origin ofPravda. We have tried to show how the age-long history of democratic movements in Russia led to the formation of an independent working-class democratic movement under the ideological banner of Marxism--- and how the twenty years' history of Marxism and the working-class movement in Russia, as a result of the long struggle of the workers' vanguard against petty-bourgeois opportunist trends, led to the rallying of the vast majority of classconscious workers around Pravda, which was created by the famous upsurge of the working-class movement in the spring of 1912.
We have seen how, during the paper's two years, classconscious Pravdist workers united ideologically, and to a certain extent also organisationally, by their efforts creating and supporting, strengthening and developing a consistently Marxist workers' press. Strictly insisting on their continuity with the organised Marxists of the preceding historical epoch, not breaking any of their decisions, building the new on the foundations of the old, and going systematically, unswervingly ahead to the firmly and precisely stated aim of consistent Marxism, the Pravdist workers have begun the solution of an unusually difficult historic task.
A whole host of enemies, a whole mass of difficulties, both external and internal, arose in the way of the labour movement in the 1908-11 epoch. In no country in the world has the working-class movement hitherto succeeded 11 in emerging from such crises while maintaining its continuity, its organised character, its loyalty to the old decisions, programme and tactics.
But the Russian workers---or more exactly the workers of Russia---succeeded in this; they succeeded in emerging with flying colours from an incredibly painful crisis, remaining loyal to the past and maintaining continuity of organisation, while mastering new forms of training for their forces, new methods of education and mobilisation of fresh generations of the proletariat for the solution by old methods of old but still outstanding historic problems.
Of all the classes of Russian society, the working class of Russia alone succeeded in this---not, of course, because it stood higher than the workers of other countries: on the contrary, it is still far behind them in organisation and class-consciousness. It succeeded "in this because it relied at once on the experience of the workers of the whole world, both on their theoretical experience, on the achievements of their class-consciousness, their science and experience summed up by Marxism and on the practical experience of the proletarians of neighbouring countries, with their magnificent workers' press and their mass organisations.
The Pravdist workers, having safeguarded their own line in the most difficult and painful of periods against persecution from without and against despondency, scepticism, timidity and betrayal within, can now say to themselves, with full awareness and resolution: we know that we are on the right path, but we are taking only the first steps along that path, and the principal difficulties still lie ahead of us, we still have to do a great deal to consolidate our own position completely, and to raise to conscious activity millions of backward, dormant and downtrodden proletarians.
Let the petty-bourgeois ``fellow-travellers'' of the proletariat, slavishly following the liberals, hold forth contemptuously against "the underground", against "advertising the illegal press"; let them cherish illusions about the June Third ``legality''. We know the fragile nature of that ``legality'', we shall not forget the historic lessons of the importance of an illegal press.
Developing further our ``Pravdist'' work, we shall push ahead with the purely newspaper side hand in hand with all sides of the workers' cause.
Put Pravdy must be circulated in three, four and five times as many copies as today. We must put out a trade union supplement, and have representatives of all trade unions and groups on the editorial board. Our paper must have regional (Moscow, Urals, Caucasian, Baltic, Ukrainian) supplements. We must consolidate---despite all the bourgeois and petty-bourgeois nationalists of all nations without exception---the unity of the workers of all the nationalities of Russia, and for this purpose, incidentally, start supplements in our paper devoted to the workers' movement of the various nationalities of Russia.
Both the foreign department of Put Pravdy and the chronicle of the organisational, ideological and political life of the class-conscious workers should be expanded many times over.
We must create a kopek Vechernaya Pravda. Put Pravdy in its present 12 shape is essential for the class-conscious worker and should be still further enlarged, but it is too dear, too difficult, too big for the worker in the street, for the rank-and-filer, for any of the millions not yet drawn into the movement. The advanced worker will never forget about them, for he knows that craft isolation, the emergence of a labour aristocracy and its separation from the masses mean degradation and brutalisation of the proletarian and his transformation into a miserable philistine, a pitiful flunkey; it means loss of all hope of his emancipation.
There is need to start a kopek Vechernaya Pravda, with a circulation of 200,000 or 300,000 copies in the very thick of the proletarian and semi-proletarian masses, showing them the light of the world-wide working-class movement, inspiring them with faith in their strength, impelling them towards unity and helping them to rise to full class-consciousness.
We must secure a much greater degree of organisation on the part of the readers of Put Pravdy than there is now, in their various factories, districts, etc., and more active participation in correspondence and running and circulating the paper. We must get the workers to take a regular part in editorial work.
We must have---there is in fact a great deal more that we must have! We cannot list here everything that we need; we would even be ridiculous (and worse) if we attempted here to enumerate all spheres, or even the principal fields of our work!
We know that we are on the right path. We know that we are marching hand in hand with the forward-looking workers of all countries. We know that this field of our work is only a small part of the whole, and that we are still at the beginning of our great road to emancipation. But we also know that nothing on earth can stop us on that road.
Rabochy No. 1, April 22, 1914
Collected Works, Vol. 36, pp. 281-284
__ALPHA_LVL2__ In Memory of HerzenOne hundred years have elapsed since Herzen's birth. The whole of liberal Russia is paying homage to him, studiously evading, however, the serious questions of socialism, and taking pains to conceal that which distinguished Herzen the revolutionary from a liberal. The Right-wing press, too, is commemorating the Herzen centenary, falsely asserting that in his last years Herzen renounced revolution. And in the orations on Herzen that are made by the liberals and Narodniks abroad, phrase-mongering reigns supreme.
The working-class party should commemorate the Herzen centenary, not for the sake of philistine glorification, but for the purpose of making clear its 13 own tasks and ascertaining the place actually held in history by this writer who played a great part in paving the way for the Russian revolution.
Herzen belonged to the generation of revolutionaries among the nobility and landlords of the first half of the last century. The nobility gave Russia the Birons and Arakcheyevs, innumerable "drunken officers, bullies, gamblers, heroes of fairs, masters of hounds, roisterers, floggers, pimps", as well as amiable Manilovs. ``But'', wrote Herzen, "among them developed the men of December 14, a phalanx of heroes reared, like Romulus and Remus, on the milk of a wild beast... They were veritable titans, hammered out of pure steel from head to foot, comrades-in-arms who deliberately went to certain death in order to awaken the young generation to a new life and to purify the children born in an environment of tyranny and servility.''
Herzen was one of those children. The uprising of the Decembrists awakened and ``purified'' him. In the feudal Russia of the forties of the nineteenth century, he rose to a height which placed him on a level with the greatest thinkers of his time. He assimilated Hegel's dialectics. He realised that it was "the algebra of revolution". He went further than Hegel, following Feuerbach to materialism. The first of his Letters on the Study of Nature, "Empiricism and Idealism", written in 1844, reveals to us a thinker who even now stands head and shoulders above the multitude of modern empiricist natural scientists and the host of present-day idealist and semi-idealist philosophers. Herzen came right up to dialectical materialism, and halted---before historical materialism.
It was this ``halt'' that caused Herzen's spiritual shipwreck after the defeat of the revolution of 1848. Herzen had left Russia, and observed this revolution at close range. He was at that time a democrat, a revolutionary, a socialist. But his ``socialism'' was one of the countless forms and varieties of bourgeois and petty-bourgeois socialism of the period of 1848, which were dealt their death-blow in the June days of that year. In point of fact, it was not socialism at all, but so many sentimental phrases, benevolent visions, which were the expression at that time of the revolutionary character of the bourgeois democrats, as well as of the proletariat, which had not yet freed itself from the influence of those democrats.
Herzen's spiritual shipwreck, his deep scepticism and pessimism after 1848, was a shipwreck of the bourgeois illusions of socialism. Herzen's spiritual drama was a product and reflection of that epoch in world history when the revolutionary character of the bourgeois democrats was already passing away (in Europe), while the revolutionary character of the socialist proletariat had not yet matured. This is something the Russian knights of liberal verbiage, who are now covering up their counter-revolutionary nature by florid phrases about Herzen's scepticism, did not and could not understand. With these knights, who betrayed the Russian revolution of 1905, and have even forgotten to think of the great name of revolutionary, scepticism is a form of transition from democracy to Liberalism, to that toadying, vile, foul and brutal liberalism which 14 shot down the workers in 1848, restored the shattered thrones and applauded Napoleon III, and which Herzen cursed, unable to understand its class nature.
With Herzen, scepticism was a form of transition from the illusion of a bourgeois democracy that is "above classes" to the grim, inexorable and invincible class struggle of the proletariat. The proof: the Letters to an Old Comrade---to Bakunin---written by Herzen in 1869, a year before his death. In them Herzen breaks with the anarchist Bakunin. True, Herzen still sees this break as a mere disagreement on tactics and not as a gulf between the world outlook of the proletarian who is confident of the victory of his class and that of the petty bourgeois who has despaired of his salvation. True enough, in these letters as well, Herzen repeats the old bourgeois-democratic phrases to the effect that socialism must preach "a sermon addressed equally to workman and master, to farmer and townsman". Nevertheless, in breaking with Bakunin, Herzen turned his gaze, not to liberalism, but to the International---to the International led by Marx, to the International which had begun to "rally the legions" of the proletariat, to unite "the world of labour", which is " abandoning the world of those who enjoy without working''.
__b_b_b__Failing as he did to understand the bourgeois-democratic character of the entire movement of 1848 and of all the forms of pre-Marxian socialism, Herzen was still less able to understand the bourgeois nature of the Russian revolution. Herzen is the founder of ``Russian'' socialism, of ``Narodism''. He saw `` socialism'' in the emancipation of the peasants with land, in community land tenure and in the peasant idea of "the right to land". He set forth his pet ideas on this subject an untold number of times.
Actually, there is not a grain of socialism in this doctrine of Herzen's, as, indeed, in the whole of Russian Narodism, including the faded Narodism of the present-day Socialist-Revolutionaries. Like the various forms of "the socialism of 1848" in the West, this is the same sort of sentimental phrases, of benevolent visions, in which is expressed the revolutionism of the bourgeois peasant democracy in Russia. The more land the peasants would have received in 1861 and the less they would have had to pay for it, the more would the power of the feudal landlords have been undermined and the more rapidly, freely and widely would capitalism have developed in Russia. The idea of the "right to land" and of "equalised division of the land" is nothing but a formulation of the revolutionary aspiration for equality cherished by the peasants who are fighting for the complete overthrow of the power of the landlords, for the complete abolition of landlordism.
This was fully proved by the revolution of 1905: on the one hand, the proletariat came out quite independently at the head of the revolutionary struggle, having founded the Social-Democratic Labour Party; on the other hand, the revolutionary peasants (the Trudoviks and the Peasant Union) 15 fought for every form of the abolition of landlordism even to "the abolition of private landownership", fought precisely as proprietors, as small entrepreneurs.
Today, the controversy over the "socialist nature" of the right to land, and so on, serves only to obscure and cover up the really important and serious historical question concerning the difference of interests of the liberal bourgeoisie and the revolutionary peasantry in the Russian bourgeois revolution; in other words, the question of the liberal and the democratic, the ``compromising'' (monarchist) and the republican trends manifested in that revolution. This is exactly the question posed by Herzen's Kolokol., if we turn our attention to the essence of the matter and not to the words, if we investigate the class struggle as the basis of ``theories'' and doctrines and not vice versa.
Herzen founded a free Russian press abroad, and that is the great service rendered by him. Polyarnaya Zvezda took up the tradition of the Decembrists. Kolokol (1857-67) championed the emancipation of the peasants with might and main. The slavish silence was broken.
But Herzen came from a landlord, aristocratic milieu. He had left Russia in 1847; he had not seen the revolutionary people and could have no faith in it. Hence his liberal appeal to the "upper ranks". Hence his innumerable sugary letters in Kolokol addressed to Alexander II the Hangman, which today one cannot read without revulsion. Chernyshevsky, Dobrolyubov and SernoSolovyevich, who represented the new generation of revolutionary raznochintsi, were a thousand times right when they reproached Herzen for these departures from democracy to liberalism. However, it must be said in fairness to Herzen that, much as he vacillated between democracy and liberalism, the democrat in him gained the upper hand nonetheless.
When Kavelin, one of the most repulsive exponents of liberal servility--- who at one time was enthusiastic about Kolokol precisely because of its liberal tendencies- rose in arms against a constitution, attacked revolutionary agitation, rose against ``violence'' and appeals for it, and began to preach tolerance, Herzen broke with that liberal sage. Herzen turned upon Kavelin's "meagre, absurd, harmful pamphlet" written "for the private guidance of a government pretending to be liberal"; he denounced Kavelin's "sentimental political maxims" which represented "the Russian people as cattle and the government as an embodiment of intelligence". Kolokol printed an article entitled `` Epitaph'', which lashed out against "professors weaving the rotten cobweb of their superciliously paltry ideas, ex-professors, once open-hearted and subsequently embittered because they saw that the healthy youth could not sympathise with their scrofulous thinking". Kavelin at once recognised himself in this portrait.
When Chernyshevsky was arrested, the vile liberal Kavelin wrote: "I see nothing shocking in the arrests ... the revolutionary party considers all means fair to overthrow the government, and the latter defends itself by its own means" As if in retort to this Cadet, Herzen wrote concerning Chernyshevsky's trial: 16 ``And here are wretches, weed-like people, jellyfish, who say that we must not reprove the gang of robbers and scoundrels that is governing us.''
When the liberal Turgenev wrote a private letter to Alexander II assuring him of his loyalty, and donated two goldpieces for the soldiers wounded during the suppression of the Polish insurrection, Kolokol wrote of "the grey-haired Magdalen (of the mesculine gender) who wrote to the tsar to tell him that she knew no sleep because she was tormented by the thought that the tsar was not aware of the repentance that had overcome her". And Turgenev at once recognised himself.
When the whole band of Russian liberals scurried away from Herzen for his defence of Poland, when the whole of "educated society" turned its back on Kolokol, Herzen was not dismayed. He went on championing the freedom of Poland and lashing the suppressors, the butchers, the hangmen in the service of Alexander II. Herzen saved the honour of Russian democracy. "We have saved the honour of the Russian name," he wrote to Turgenev, "and for doing so we have suffered at the hands of the slavish majority.''
When it was reported that a serf peasant had killed a landlord for an attempt to dishonour the serf's betrothed, Herzen commented in Kolokol: "Well done!" When it was reported that army officers would be appointed to supervise the ``peaceable'' progress of ``emancipation'', Herzen wrote: "The first wise colonel who with his unit joins the peasants instead of crushing them, will ascend the throne of the Romanovs." When Colonel Reitern shot himself in Warsaw (1860) because he did not want to be a helper of hangmen, Herzen wrote: "If there is to be any shooting, the ones to be shot should be the generals who give orders to fire upon unarmed people." When fifty peasants were massacred in Bezdna, and their leader, Anton Petrov, was executed (April 12, 1861), Herzen wrote in Kolokol:
``If only my words could reach you, toiler and sufferer of the land of Russia! ... How well I would teach you to despise your spiritual shepherds, placed over you by the St. Petersburg Synod and a German tsar. . . You hate the landlord, you hate the official, you fear them, and rightly so; but you still believe in the tsar and the bishop ... do not believe them. The tsar is with them, and they are his men. It is him you now see---you, the father of a youth murdered in Bezdna, and you, the son of a father murdered in Penza . . . Your shepherds are as ignorant as you, and as poor . . . Such was another Anthony (not Bishop Anthony, but Anton of Bezdna) who suffered for you in Kazan . . . The dead bodies of your martyrs will not perform forty-eight miracles, and praying to them will not cure a toothache; but their living memory may produce one miracle---your emancipation.''
This shows how infamously and vilely Herzen is being slandered by our liberals entrenched in the slavish ``legal'' press, who magnify Herzen's weak points and say nothing about his strong points. It was not Herzen's fault but his misfortune that he could not see the revolutionary people in Russia itself in the 1840s. When in the sixties he came to see the revolutionary people, he 17 sided fearlessly with the revolutionary democracy against liberalism. He fought for a victory of the people over tsarism, not for a deal between the liberal bourgeoisie and the landlords' tsar. He raised aloft the banner of revolution.
__b_b_b__In commemorating Herzen, we clearly see the three generations, the three classes, that were active in the Russian revolution. At first it was nobles and landlords, the Decembrists and Herzen. These revolutionaries formed but a narrow group. They were very far removed from the people. But their eifort was not in vain. The Decembrists awakened Herzen. Herzen began the work of revolutionary agitation.
This work was taken up, extended, strengthened, and tempered by the revolutionary raznochintsi---from Chernyshevsky to the heroes of Narodnaya Volya. The range of fighters widened; their contact with the people became closer. "The young helmsmen of the gathering storm" is what Herzen called them. But it was not yet the storm itself.
The storm is the movement of the masses themselves. The proletariat, the only class that is thoroughly revolutionary, rose at the head of the masses and for the first time aroused millions of peasants to open revolutionary struggle. The first onslaught in this storm took place in 1905. The next is beginning to develop under our very eyes.
In commemorating Herzen, the proletariat is learning from his example to appreciate the great importance of revolutionary theory. It is learning that selfless devotion to the revolution and revolutionary propaganda among the people are not wasted even if long decades divide the sowing from the harvest. It is learning to ascertain the role of the various classes in the Russian and in the international revolution. Enriched by these lessons, the proletariat will fight its way to a free alliance with the socialist workers of all lands, having crushed that loathsome monster, the tsarist monarchy, against which Herzen was the first to raise the great banner of struggle by addressing his free Russian word to the masses.
Sotsial-Demokrat No. 26, May 8 (April 25), 1912
Collected Works, Vol. 18, pp. 25-31
__--_--_--__ __ALPHA_LVL2__ On BolshevismThe origin of Bolshevism is inseparably linked with the struggle of what is known as Economism (opportunism which rejected the political struggle of the working class and denied the latter's leading role) against revolutionary Social-- 18 -Democracy in 1897-1902. Economism, supported by the Bund, was defeated and eliminated by the well-known campaign of the old Iskra (Munich, London and Geneva, 1900-03), which restored the Social-Democratic Party (founded in 1898 but later destroyed by arrests) on the basis of Marxism and revolutionary Social-Democratic principles. At the Second Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. (August 1903), the Iskrists split: the majority stood for the principles and tactics of the old Iskra, while the minority turned to opportunism, and was backed by the one-time enemies of Iskra, The Economists and the Bundists. Hence the terms Bolshevism and Menshevism (Bolsheviks and Mensheviks). In 1903-04 the struggle was mainly over the Mensheviks' opportunism in questions of organisation. From the end of 1904 on, tactical differences became the most important. The "plan for the Zemstvo campaign" put forward (autumn 1904) by the new Iskra, which had deserted to the Mensheviks, took up the defence of the tactics of "not intimidating the liberals". The year 1905 saw the tactical differences take final shape (the Bolshevik Congress, Third Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. in London, May 1905, and the Menshevik `` conference'' held in Geneva at the same time). The Mensheviks strove to adapt working-class tactics to liberalism. The Bolsheviks, however, put forward as the aim of the working class in the bourgeois-democratic revolution: to carry it through to the end and to lead the democratic peasantry despite the treachery of the liberals. The main practical divergencies between the two trends in the autumn of 1905 were over the fact that the Bolsheviks stood for boycotting the Bulygin Duma while the Mensheviks favoured participation. In the spring of 1906, the same thing happened with regard to the Witte Duma. First Duma: the Mensheviks stood for the slogan of a Duma (Cadet) Ministry; the Bolsheviks, for the slogan of a Left (Social-Democratic and Trudovik) Executive Committee that would organise the actual struggle of the masses, etc. This could be set forth in greater detail only in the press abroad. At the Stockholm Congress (1906) the Mensheviks won the upper hand, and at the London Congress (1907), the Bolsheviks. In 1908-09 the Vperyod group (Machism in philosophy and otzovism, or boycotting the Third Duma, in politics--- Bogdanov, Alexinsky, Lunacharsky and others) broke away from the Bolsheviks. In 1909-11, in fighting against them (cf. V. Ilyin, Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, Moscow, 1909), as well as against the liquidators (Mensheviks who denied the need for an illegal Party), Bolshevism came close to the pro-Party Mensheviks (Plekhanov and others), who had declared a resolute war on liquidationism. The Bolshevik organs were: Vperyod and Proletary (Geneva, 1905), Novaya ZUzn (St. Petersburg, 1905), Volna, Ekho, etc. (St. Petersburg, 1906), Proletary in Finland (1906-07), Geneva (1908) and Paris (1909), Sotsial-Demokrat in Paris (1909-12). Some of the principal writings of Bolshevism are collected in V. Ilyin's Twelve Years, St. Petersburg, 1908, which also gives a more detailed bibliography. The main Bolshevik writers: G. Zinoviev, V. Ilyin, Y. Kamenev, P. Orlovsky and others. In recent years Bolsheviks have been the main contributors to the newspapers Zvezda (1910-12), Pravda 19 (1912), St. Petersburg, and to the periodicals Mysl (1910), Moscow, and Prosveshcheniye (1911-13), St. Petersburg.
Written before January 12 (25), 1913 First published in 1913, in the book: N. A. Rubakin, Among Books, Vol. II, Second Ed., Moscow
Collected Works, Vol. 18, p. 485-486
__ALPHA_LVL2__ On The Tenth Anniversary of PravdaIt is ten years since Pravda, the legal---legal even under tsarist law---Bolshevik daily paper, was founded. This decade was preceded by, approximately, another decade: nine years (1903-12) since the emergence of Bolshevism, or thirteen years (1900-12), if we count from the founding in 1900 of the `` Bolshevikoriented'' old Iskra.
The tenth anniversary of a Bolshevik daily published in Russia ... Only ten years have elapsed! But measured in terms of our struggle and movement they are equal to a hundred years. For the pace of social development in the past five years has been positively staggering if we apply the old yardstick of European philistines like the heroes of the Second and Two-and-a-Half Internationals. These civilised philistines are accustomed to regard as ``natural'' a situation in which hundreds of millions of people (over a thousand million, to be exact) in the colonies and in semi-dependent and poor countries tolerate the treatment meted out to Indians or Chinese, tolerate incredible exploitation, and outright depredation, and hunger, and violence, and humiliation, all in order that ``civilised'' men might ``freely'', ``democratically'', according to "parliamentary procedure", decide whether the booty should be divided up peacefully, or whether ten million or so must be done to death in this division of the imperialist booty, yesterday between Germany and Britain, tomorrow between Japan and the U.S.A. (with France and Britain participating in one form or another).
The basic reason for this tremendous acceleration of world development is that new hundreds of millions of people have been drawn into it. The old bourgeois and imperialist Europe, which was accustomed to look upon itself as the centre of the universe, rotted and burst like a putrid ulcer in the first imperialist holocaust. No matter how the Spenglers and all the enlightened philistines, who are capable of admiring (or even studying) Spengler, may lament it, this decline of the old Europe is but an episode in the history of the downfall of the world bourgeoisie, oversatiated by imperialist rapine and the oppression of the majority of the world's population.
That majority has now awakened and has begun a movement which even 20 the ``mightiest'' powers cannot stem. They stand no chance. For the present ``victors'' in the first imperialist slaughter have not the strength to defeat small--- tiny, I might say---Ireland, nor can they emerge victorious from the confusion in currency and finance issues that reigns in their own midst. Meanwhile, India and China are seething. They represent over 700 million people, and together with the neighbouring Asian countries, that are in all ways similar to them, over half of the world's inhabitants. Inexorably and with mounting momentum they are approaching their 1905, with the essential and important difference that in 1905 the revolution in Russia could still proceed (at any rate at the beginning) in isolation, that is, without other countries being immediately drawn in. But the revolutions that are maturing in India and China are being drawn into---have already been drawn into---the revolutionary struggle, the revolutionary movement, the world revolution.
The tenth anniversary of Pravda, the legal Bolshevik daily, is a clearly defined marker of this great acceleration of the greatest world revolution. In 1906-07, it seemed that the tsarist government had completely crushed the revolution. A few years later the Bolshevik Party was able---in a different form, by a different method---to penetrate into the very citadel of the enemy and daily, ``legally'', proceed with its work of undermining the accursed tsarist and landowner autocracy from within. A few more years passed, and the proletarian revolution, organised by Bolshevism, triumphed.
Some ten or so revolutionaries shared in the founding of the old Iskra in 1900, and only about forty attended the birth of Bolshevism at the illegal congresses in Brussels and London in 1903.
In 1912-13, when the legal Bolshevik Pravda came into being it had the support of hundreds of thousands of workers, who by their modest contributions were able to overcome both the oppression of tsarism and the competition of the Mensheviks, those petty-bourgeois traitors to socialism.
In November 1917, nine million electors out of a total of thirty-six million voted for the Bolsheviks in the elections to the Constituent Assembly. But if we take the actual struggle, and not merely the elections, at the close of October and in November 1917, the Bolsheviks had the support of the majority of the proletariat and class-conscious peasantry, as represented by the majority of the delegates at the Second All-Russia Congress of Soviets, and by the majority of the most active and politically conscious section of the working people, namely, the twelve-million-strong army of that day.
These few figures illustrating the ``acceleration'' of the world revolutionary movement in the past twenty years give a very small and very incomplete picture. They afford only a very approximate idea of the history of no more than 150 million people, whereas in these twenty years the revolution has developed into an invincible force in countries with a total population of over a thousand million (the whole of Asia, not to forget South Africa, which recently reminded the world of its claim to human and not slavish existence, and by methods which were not altogether ``parliamentary'').
21Some infant Spenglers---I apologise" for the expression---may conclude (every variety of nonsense can be expected from the ``clever'' leaders of the Second and Two-and-a-Half Internationals) that this estimate of the revolutionary forces fails to take into account the European and American proletariat. These ``clever'' leaders always argue as if the fact that birth comes nine months after conception necessarily means that the exact hour and minute of birth can be defined beforehand, also the position of the infant during delivery, the condition of the mother and the exact degree of pain and danger both will suffer. Very ``clever''! These gentry cannot for the life of them understand that from the point of view of the development of the international revolution the transition from Chartism to Henderson's servility to the bourgeoisie, or the transition from Varlin to Renaudel, from Wilhelm Liebknecht and Bebel to Sudekum, Scheidemann and Noske, can only be likened to an automobile passing from a smooth highway stretching for hundreds of miles to a dirty stinking puddle of a few yards in length on that highway.
Men are the makers of history. But the Chartists, the Varlins and the Liebknechts applied their minds and hearts to it. The leaders of the Second and Two-and-a-Half Internationals apply other parts of the anatomy: they fertilise the ground for the appearance of new Chartists, new Varlins and new Liebknechts.
At this most difficult moment it would be most harmful for revolutionaries to indulge in self-deception. Though Bolshevism has become an international force, though in all the civilised and advanced countries new Chartists, new Varlins, new Liebknechts have been born, and are growing up as legal (just as legal as our Pravda was under the tsars ten years ago) Communist Parties, nonetheless, for the time being, the international bourgeoisie still remains incomparably stronger than its class enemy. This bourgeoisie, which has done everything in its power to hamper the birth of proletarian power in Russia and to multiply tenfold the dangers and suffering attending its birth, is still in a position to condemn millions and tens of millions to torment and death through its whiteguard and imperialist wars, etc. .That is something we must not forget. And we must skilfully adapt our tactics to this specific situation. The bourgeoisie is still able freely to torment, torture and kUl. But it cannot halt the inevitable and---from the standpoint of world history---not far distant triumph of the revolutionary proletariat.
May 2, 1922
Pravda No. 98, May 5, 1922 Signed: N. Lenin
Collected Works, Vol. 33, p. 349-352
22 __ALPHA_LVL2__ Karl MarxMarx, Karl, was born on May 5,1818 (New Style), in the city of Trier (Rhenish Prussia). His father was a lawyer, a Jew, who in 1824 adopted Protestantism. The family was well-to-do, cultured, but not revolutionary. After graduating from a Gymnasium in Trier, Marx entered the university, first at Bonn and later in Berlin, where he read law, majoring in history and philosophy. He concluded his university course in 1841, submitting a doctoral thesis on the philosophy of Epicurus. At the time Marx was a Hegelian idealist in his views. In Berlin, he belonged to the circle of "Left Hegelians" (Bruno Bauer and others) who sought to draw atheistic and revolutionary conclusions from Hegel's philosophy.
After graduating, Marx moved to Bonn, hoping to become a professor. However, the reactionary policy of the government, which deprived Ludwig Feuerbach of his chair in 1832, refused to allow him to return to the university in 1836, and in 1841 forbade young Professor Bruno Bauer to lecture at Bonn, made Marx abandon the idea of an academic career. Left Hegelian views were making rapid headway in Germany at the time. Ludwig Feuerbach began to criticise theology, particularly after 1836, and turn to materialism, which in 1841 gained the ascendancy in his philosophy (The Essence of Christianity). The year 1843 saw the appearance of his Principles of the Philosophy of the Future. "One must oneself have experienced the liberating effect" of these books, Engels subsequently wrote of these works of Feuerbach. "We [i.e., the Left Hegelians, including Marx] all became at once Feuerbachians." At that time, some radical bourgeois in the Rhineland, who were in touch with the Left Hegelians, founded, in Cologne, an opposition paper called Rheinische Zeitung (the first issue appeared on January 1, 1842). Marx and Bruno Bauer were invited to be the chief contributors, and in October 1842 Marx became editor-in-chief and moved from Bonn to Cologne. The newspaper's revolutionary-democratic trend became more and more pronounced under Marx's editorship, and the government first imposed double and triple censorship on the paper, and then on January 1, 1843, decided to suppress it. Marx had to resign the editorship before that date, but his resignation did not save the paper, which suspended publication in March 1843. Of the major articles Marx contributed to Rheinische Zeitung, Engels notes ... an article on the condition of peasant vinegrowers in the Moselle Valley. Marx's journalistic 23 activities convinced him that he was insufficiently acquainted with political economy, and he zealously set out to study'it.
In 1843, Marx married, at Kreuznach, Jenny von Westphalen, a childhood friend he had become engaged to while still a student. His wife came of a reactionary family of the Prussian nobility, her elder brother being Prussia's Minister of the Interior during a most reactionary period---1850-58. In the autumn of 1843, Marx went to Paris in order to publish a radical journal abroad together with Arnold Ruge (1802-1880; Left Hegelian; in prison in 1825-30; a political exile following 1848, and a Bismarckian after 1866-70). Only one issue of this journal, Deutsche-Franzosische Jahrbucher, appeared; publication was discontinued owing to the difficulty of secretly distributing it in Germany, and to disagreement with Ruge. Marx's articles in this journal showed that he was already a revolutionary, who advocated "merciless criticism of everything existing", and in particular the "criticism by weapon", and appealed to the masses and to the proletariat.
In September 1844 Frederick Engels came to Paris for a few days, and from that time on became Marx's closest friend. They both took a most active part in the then seething life of the revolutionary groups in Paris (of particular importance at the time was Proudhon's doctrine, which Marx pulled to pieces in his Poverty of Philosophy, 1847); waging a vigorous struggle against the various doctrines of petty-bourgeois socialism, they worked out the theory and tactics of revolutionary proletarian socialism, or communism (Marxism)... At the insistent request of the Prussian Government, Marx was banished from Paris in 1845, as a dangerous revolutionary. He went to Brussels. In the spring of 1847 Marx and Engels joined a secret propaganda society called the Communist League; they took a prominent part in the League's Second Conggress (London, November 1847), at whose request they drew up the celebrated Communist Manifesto, which appeared in February 1848. With the clarity and brilliance of genius, this work outlines a new world-conception, consistent materialism, which also embraces the realm of social life; dialectics, as the most comprehensive and profound doctrine of development; the theory of the class struggle and of the world-historic revolutionary role of the proletariat---the creator of a new, communist society.
On the outbreak of the Revolution of February 1848, Marx was banished from Belgium. He returned to Paris, whence, after the March Revolution, he went to Cologne, Germany, where Neue Rheinische Zeitung was published from June 1, 1848 to May 19, 1849, with Marx as editor-in-chief. The new theory was splendidly confirmed by the course of the revolutionary events of 1848-49, just as it has been subsequently confirmed by all proletarian and democratic movements in all countries of the world. The victorious counter-revolutionaries first instigated court proceedings against Marx (he was acquitted on February 9, 1849), and then banished him from Germany (May 16, 1849). First Marx went to Paris, was again banished after the demonstration of June 13, 1849, and then went to London, where he lived till his death.
24His life as a political exile was a very hard one, as the correspondence between Marx and Engels (published in 1913) clearly reveals. Poverty weighed heavily on Marx and his family; had it not been for Engels's constant and selfless financial aid, Marx would not only have been unable to complete Capital but would have inevitably been crushed by want. Moreover, the prevailing doctrines and trends of petty-bourgeois socialism, and of non-proletarian socialism in general, forced Marx to wage a continuous and merciless struggle and sometimes to repel the most savage and monstrous personal attacks (Hen Vogi). Marx, who stood aloof from circles of political exiles, developed his materialist theory in a number of historical works ... devoting himself mainly to a study of political economy. Marx revolutionised this science... in his Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859) and Capital (Vol. 1,1867).
The revival of the democratic movements in the late fifties and in the sixties recalled Marx to practical activity. In 1864 (September 28) the International Workingmen's Association---the celebrated First International---was founded in London. Marx was the heart and soul of this organisation, and author of its first Address and of a host of resolutions, declarations and manifestos. In uniting the labour movement of various countries, striving to channel into joint activity the various forms of non-proletarian, pre-Marxist socialism (Mazzini, Proudhon, Bakunin, liberal trade-unionism in Britain, Lassallean vacillations to the right in Germany, etc.), and in combating the theories of all these sects and schools, Marx hammered out a uniform tactic for the proletarian struggle of the working class in the various countries. Following the downfall of the Paris Commune (1871)---of which Marx gave such a profound, clear-cut, brilliant, effective and revolutionary analysis (The Civil War in France, 1871)---and the Bakuninist-caused cleavage in the International, the latter organisation could no longer exist in Europe. After the Hague Congress of the International (1872), Marx had the General Council of the International transferred to New York. The First International had played its historical part, and now made way for a period of a far greater development of the labour movement in all countries in the world, a period in which the movement grew in scope, and mass socialist working-class parties in individual national states were formed.
Written in July-November 1914 First published in 1915 in the Granat Encyclopaedia, Seventh Edition, Vol. 28, over the signature of V. Ilyin
Collected Works, Vol. 21, pp. 46-49
25 __ALPHA_LVL2__ From the Economic Life of RussiaUnder this general heading we intend to publish from time to time, as the material accumulates, articles and commentaries in which all aspects of Russia's economic life and economic development will be described from the Marxist point of view. Now that Iskra has begun to appear fortnightly, the absence of such a section is most keenly felt. However, we must call the most earnest attention of all comrades and sympathisers of our publications to the fact that to conduct this section (at all properly) we need an abundance of material and in this respect our editors find themselves in an exceptionally unfavourable position. The contributor to the legal press cannot even imagine the most elementary obstacles that sometimes frustrate the intentions and endeavours of the ``underground'' writer. Do not forget, gentlemen, that we cannot use the Imperial National Library, where tens and hundreds of special publications and local newspapers are at the service of the journalist. Material for an economics section at all befitting a ``newspaper'', i.e., material that is at all brisk, topical, and interesting to both reader and writer, is scattered in small local newspapers and in special publications which are mostly either too expensive or are not at all on sale (government, Zemstvo, medical publications, etc.). That is why it will be possible to run an economics section tolerably well only if all readers of the illegal newspaper act in accordance with the proverb: "Many a little makes a mickle." Putting aside all false modesty, the Editorial Board of Iskra must admit that in this respect they are very poorly supplied. We are sure that most of our readers are able to read the most various special and local publications, and actually do read them "for themselves". Only when every such reader asks himself each time he comes across some interesting item: "Is this material available to the editors of our paper? What have I done to acquaint them with this material?"---only tlien shall we succeed in having all the outstanding developments in Russia's economic life appraised, not only from the standpoint of the official, Novoye Vremya, Witte panegyrics, not only for the sake of the traditional liberal-Narodnik plaints, but also from the standpoint of revolutionary Social-Democracy.
Iskra, No. 17, February 15, 1902
Collected Works, Vol. 6, p. 86-87
26 __ALPHA_LVL2__ Letter to the Moscow CommitteeDear Comrades,
__NOTE__ Footnote "*" used by mistake in original where "**" belongs.We have received your letter expressing your gratitude to the author of What Is To Be Done? and informing us of the decision to allocate 20 per cent^^*^^ to Iskra. I thank you heartily for this expression of sympathy and solidarity. It is all the more valuable for an author of illegal publications because of the fact that in his work he is completely cut off from his readers. Each exchange of ideas, each report of the impression any article or pamphlet produces on the various groups of readers is of particular importance to us, and we shall be very grateful, not only for letters dealing with the work in the strict sense of the word, not only for contributions to the press, but also for letters which make the author feel that he is not cut off from the reader.
We published your decision to credit 20 per cent to Iskra in^No. 22 of Iskra. However, we did not venture to publish your thanks to Lenin, since for one thing you mentioned that separately, without saying that you would like to see it in print. And for another, the wording of your message of thanks did not seem suitable for the press. But please do not think we attach no importance to publication of the committees' declarations on their solidarity with certain views. On the contrary, this is of special importance, particularly now when all of us are thinking of the unification of revolutionary Social-Democracy. It would be highly desirable for the Moscow Committee to express its solidarity with my book in the form of a statement, which would immediately appear in Iskra. It is high time that the committees came out with an open announcement of their Party stand, breaking with those tactics of tacit agreement which prevailed in the "third period". This is the general argument in favour of an open declaration. In particular, I, for example, have been accused in the press (by the Borba group, in its Listok^^**^^} of wanting to turn the Editorial Board of Iskra into the Russian Central Committee, of wanting to ``order'' ``agents'' about, etc. This is downright distortion of what is said in What Is To Be Done?, but I have no desire to keep on reiterating in the press: "you are distorting". Those who should begin to speak up are, I think, the functionaries in Russia, who know very well that the ``orders'' of Iskra go no further than advice and an expression of opinion, and who see that the organisational ideas propounded in What Is To Be Done? reflect the vitally urgent and burning question of the actual movement. I think that these functionaries _-_-_
^^*^^ I.e., of the Moscow Party Committee's fund.---Ed.
^^**^^ Literally, a one-sheet newspaper.---Ed.
27 should themselves demand to be heard and loudly declare how they regard this question, how their experience in work leads them to agree with our views on the organisational tasks.We understand, and naturally could understand, your expression of gratitude for What Is To Be Done? only in the sense that this book has provided you with answers to your own questions, that through first-hand acquaintance with the movement you have yourselves arrived at the conviction that bolder, more widespread, more unified, and more centralised work is needed, more closely consolidated about a single, central newspaper---a conviction which is also set forth in this book. And this being so, once you have really become convinced of this, it is desirable that the committee should say so openly and emphatically, urging the other committees to work together with it in the same direction, following the same ``line'', setting itself the same immediate tasks with regard to Party organisation.
We hope, comrades, that you will find impossible to read this letter to a general meeting of the whole committee, and will inform us of your decision on the questions indicated. (In parenthesis, let me add that the St. Petersburg Committee has also sent us an expression of solidarity, and is now considering a similar statement.)
Did you have enough copies of What Is To Be Done?? Have the workers read it, and what is their reaction?
Yours,
Lenin
Written on August 11 (24), 1902
Sent from London.
First published in 1922
in P. N. Lepeshinsky's book
At the Turning-Point, Petrograd.
Collected Works, Vol. 6, p. 208-210
__--_--_--__ __ALPHA_LVL2__ To I. V. BabushkinAs regards the ``examination'', I must say that it is impossible to propose an examination programme from here. Let all the propagandists write about the programme on which they are lecturing or wish to lecture, and I shall answer in detail. You ask for more questions to be put to you. Very well, only mind you answer them all: 1) What are the present Rules of the St. Petersburg 28 Committee? 2) Is there ``discussion''? 3) What is its position in relation to the Central Committee and the Workers' Organisation? 4) The attitude of the C.C. to the district organisation and to the workers' groups ? 5) Why did the Iskrist workers tacitly permit Bouncer workers to call themselves a ``Workers' Organisation Committee"? 6) Have measures been taken to keep track of every step of the St. Petersburg Zubatov organisation ? 7) Are regular lectures read (or talks arranged) in the workers' circles on the subject of organisation, on the significance of an "organisation of revolutionaries" ? 8) Is propaganda widely conducted among the workers to the effect that it is they who should pass to an illegal position as frequently and extensively as possible ? 9) Have measures been taken to ensure ten times as many letters from St. Petersburg, the flow of which has been held up for a disgracefully long time? 10) Is the idea being inculcated among all workers that it is they who ought to organise a printing-press for leaflets and the proper distribution of the latter?
There are ten questions for you. I send you warm greetings and await your reply. Mind you disappear at the first sign that you are being spied on.
Written on January 6, 1903
Sent from London to St. Petersburg~
First published in 1928
in Lenin Miscellany VIII
Collected Works, Vol. 34, pp. 129-130
__ALPHA_LVL2__ To the Kharkov Committee of the R.S.D.L.P.January 15
(From Lenin.) Dear comrades, many thanks for your detailed letter on the state of affairs; such letters are rarely written to us although we are in very great need of them and ten times as many are essential if we really want to establish a living connection between the editorial board abroad and the local Party workers, and make Iskra a full reflection of our working-class movement, both as a whole and as regards particular features of it. We therefore beg you to continue on the same lines, and at least sometimes to give us straight pictures of talks with workers (what do they talk about in the circles ? What are their complaints ? perplexities ? requirements ? the subjects of the talks ? and so on and so forth).
The plan of your organisation, apparently, is suitable for a rational organisation of revolutionaries, insofar as it is possible to say ``rational'' when there is such a lack of people, and insofar as we can judge of the plan from a brief account of it.
Give us more details about the independents. Further questions: Are there no workers of the ``Ivanovo-Voznesensk'' school and tradition left in 29 Kharkov ? Are there any persons who once directly belonged to this Economist and ``anti-intellectualist'' company or only their successors ? Why, don't you write anything about the "leaflet of workers' mutual aid societies", and why don't you send it to us ? We here have seen only a handwritten copy of No. 2 of this leaflet. What sort of group is issuing it ? Are they out-and-out Economists or merely green youths? Is it a purely working-class organisation or is it under the influence of Economist intellectuals ?
Are any traces left of the Kharkovsky Proletary group ?
Is Iskra read in the workers' circles ? With explanations of the articles ? Which articles are more eagerly read and what kind of explanations are required?
Is propaganda of secrecy methods and transition to an illegal position conducted among the workers on a large scale ?
Try to make more use of the St. Petersburg Zubatov organisation and go on sending workers' letters.
Yours,
Lenin
Written on January 15, 1903
Sent from London~
First published in Proletarskaya Revolutsiya,
No. 3, 1924
Collected Works, Vol. 34, pp. 133-134
__--_--_--__ __ALPHA_LVL2__ To Yelena StasovaWhy don't you reply to No. 16 of Rabochaya Mysl, published in Geneva, apparently by Nadezhdin? Are you really going to let this pass too without a protest? What a scandal that leaflet No. 1 of Rabochaya Mysl was burned: of course, there were some things in it that needed correcting, and drastically at that. But then why wasn't it done? It's quite incomprehensible what is going on at your end! Why has the printed leaflet on the 200th anniversary of the press been delayed? Send us immediately every leaflet, your own and other people's, workers' and students', all without exception, with a note saying whether they may be quoted and whether they were distributed---two copies of each to two addresses, either simply in envelopes or wrapped up inside a legal newspaper sent by book-post, only with a strong wrapper crosswise. Why don't you send to Iskra the St. Petersburg Committee reports of the money you collect ? Be sure to do this. There is great need of workers' letters from St. Petersburg; please do your best to get some, especially about unemployment, and then about the impression created by our literature.
30Correct leaflet No. 1 of Rabochaya Mysl, rewriting it in a more restrained and more business-like tone, and be sure to publish the story of the split within the Committee. Nadezhdin's Rabochaya Mysl cannot, I emphasise, cannot be let off without a public protest.
Written on January 28, 1903 Sent from London to St. Petersburg First published in 1928 in Lenin Miscellany VIII
Collected Works, Vol. 36, p. 127
__ALPHA_LVL2__ Second Congress of the R.S.D.L.P.The Congress recognises the absolute and urgent necessity for a wide production of popular Social-Democratic literature for all sections of the population, and for the working-class masses in particular.
The Congress considers it necessary in the first place to compile a series of pamphlets (each ranging from one to five signatures in size) dealing with each (theoretical and practical) point of our Party programme and giving a detailed exposition and explanation of that point; and then a number of leaflets (ranging from one to eight printed pages each) on the same subjects to be scattered or distributed in town and country. The Congress instructs the editorial board of the Central Organ to immediately take all steps to fulfil this task.
As regards publication of a special popular newspaper for the people or for the broad sections of the working class, the Congress, though it does not reject this project in principle, considers it untimely at the immediate moment.
Written in June-July 1903 First published in 1927 in Lenin Miscellany VI
Collected Works, Vol. 6, p. 472
__ALPHA_LVL2__ From the Editorial Board of the Central Organ of theComrades,
We wish to draw your attention to one of the methods of co-operation between the Central Organ and the press of the various localities, in the matter of agitation. The Central Organ is very often accused of being out of touch 31 with the movement, being couched in unpopular language, etc., etc. There is of course some truth in these reproaches, and we are fully aware that our work, which is conducted from afar, is inadequate in such an eventful period. However, our isolation is in part due to the infrequent and irregular communications between the Central Organ and the masses of local Social-Democrats, and to insufficient co-operation between the two. We quite agree that we are not helping you sufficiently, but then, neither are you giving us enough help. We now want to draw your attention in a comradely way to the elimination of one of these shortcomings.
The comrades on the spot do not make sufficient use of the Central Organ for purposes of agitation. The Central Organ arrives late, and the number of copies received is small. It is therefore necessary more frequently: 1) to have articles and items reprinted in local bulletins; 2) more often to adapt or paraphrase in more popular language the slogans (and articles) of the Central Organ, in local bulletins, in doing which you may complement, alter, abridge them, etc., since you, who are on the spot, can see what is best, and all Party publications belong to the Party as a whole; 3) to quote the Central Organ in local bulletins more often, so as to familiarise the masses with the title of the Central Organ, with the idea of having their own permanent paper, the idea of having their own ideological centre, of always being able to turn to it, etc., etc. You should on all occasions endeavour to indicate in your bulletins that the very same idea was propounded in such and such an article in Proletary, or that news to the same effect is contained in such and such of the letters it has published, etc., etc. This is most important for the purpose of familiarising the masses with our Central Organ, and widening our entire sphere of influence.
The local committees have often republished articles, selecting whatever appealed to them most. What is particularly important now is to have uniform slogans (on the attitude towards the liberals, the Osvobozhdeniye League, their "theory of agreement", their draft constitution, etc.; on the question of a revolutionary army and the programme of a revolutionary government; on the boycott of the State Duma, etc., etc.). You should try to make every possible use of the Central Organ in your local agitation, not only by republishing but also by paraphrasing its ideas and slogans in your bulletins, developing or amending them to confrom with the local conditions, etc. This is extremely important for establishing actual co-operation between us, for exchanging opinions, correcting our slogans and acquainting the masses of the workers with the fact that we have a permanent Central Organ of the Party.
We earnestly request that this letter be read and discussed in absolutely all organisations and study circles of the Party, down to the very lowest.
The Editorial Board of Proletary
Rabochy, No. 2, September 1905
Collected Works, Vol. 9, pp. 288-289
32 __ALPHA_LVL2__ Ivan Vasilyevich BabushkinWe are living in accursed conditions when it is possible for such things as the following to happen: a prominent Party worker, the pride of the Party, a comrade who unselfishly devoted his life to the cause of the working class, disappears without a trace. Even his nearest relatives, like his wife or his mother, his most intimate comrades do not know for years what has become of him: whether he is pining somewhere in penal servitude, whether he is perished in some prison or has died the death of a hero in battle with the enemy. Such was the case with Ivan Vasilyevich, who was shot by Rennenkampf. We learned about his death only quite recently.
The name of Ivan Vasilyevich is near and dear not only to Social-- Democcrats. All who knew him loved and respected him for his energy, his avoidance of phrase-mongering, his profound and staunch revolutionary spirit and fervent devotion to the cause. A St. Petersburg worker, in 1895 with a group of other class-conscious workers, he was very active in the district beyond the Nevskaya Zastava among the workers of the Semyannikov and Alexandrov factories and the Glass Works, forming circles, organising libraries and studying very hard himself all the time.
All his thoughts were fixed on one thing---how to widen the scope of the work. He took an active part in drawing up the first agitational leaflet put out in St. Petersburg in the autumn of 1894, a leaflet addressed to the Semyannikov workers, and he distributed it himself. When the League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class was formed in St. Petersburg, Ivan Vasilyevich became one of its most active members and worked in it until he was arrested. The idea of starting a political newspaper abroad to promote the unification and consolidation of the Social-Democratic Party was discussed with him by his old comrades who had worked with him in St. Petersburg, the founders of Iskra, and received his warmest support. While Ivan Vasilyevich was at liberty Iskra never went short of genuine workers' correspondence. Look through the first twenty issues of Iskra, all these letters from Shuya, Ivanovo-Voznesensk, Orekhovo-Zuyevo and other places in Central Russia: they nearly all passed through the hands of Ivan Vasilyevich, who made every effort to establish the closest contact between Iskra and the workers. Ivan Vasilyevich was Iskra's most assiduous correspondent and its ardent supporter. From the central region Babushkin made his way to the south, where he was arrested in Ekaterinoslav and imprisoned in Alexandrovsk. From Alexandrovsk he escaped with another comrade by sawing through the window-bars of his cell. Without knowing a single foreign language he made his way to London, 33 where the Iskra editorial office was at the time. A lot of things were talked over there, a lot of questions were discussed with him. But Ivan Vasilyevich did not get the chance to attend the Second Party Congress ... imprisonment and exile put him out of active service for a long time. The revolutionary wave that arose brought new functionaries, new Party leaders to the fore, but Babushkin at this time was living in the Far North, in Verkhoyansk, cut off from Party life. But the time was not wasted for him, he studied, he equipped himself for the struggle, he was active among the workers who were his comrades in exile, trying to make them class-conscious Social-Democrats and Bolsheviks. In 1905 came the amnesty and Babushkin set out for Russia. But Siberia too was seething with struggle and people like Babushkin were needed there. He joined the Irkutsk Committee and plunged headlong into the work. He had to speak at meetings, carry on Social-Democratic agitation and organise an uprising. While Babushkin and five other comrades---whose names we have not learned---were taking a large consignment of arms from Chita in a separate railway car the train was held up by one of Rennenkampf's punitive expeditions and all six, without the slightest pretence of a trial were lined up on the edge of a common grave hastily dug on the spot and shot. They died like heroes. The story of their death was told by soldiers who saw it and railwaymen who were in the same train. Babushkin fell a victim to the bestial savagery of the tsarist myrmidon but, in dying, he knew that the cause to which he had devoted his life would not die, that it would be continued by tens, hundreds of thousands, millions of other hands, that other working-class comrades would die for the same cause, that they would fight until they were victorious ...
__b_b_b__Some people have concocted and are spreading a fairy-tale to the effect that the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party is a party of ``intellectuals'', that the workers are isolated from it, that the workers in Russia are Social-Democrats without a Social-Democratic party, that this was the case particularly before the revolution and, to a considerable "extent, during the revolution. The liberals are spreading this lie out of hatred for the revolutionary mass struggle which the R.S.D.L.P. led in 1905, and some socialists have been repeating this lying theory either out of ignorance or irresponsibility. The life history of Ivan Vasilyevich Babushkin, the ten years' Social-Democratic activity of this worker-Iskrist is a striking refutation of this liberal lie. I. V. Babushkin is one of those working-class militants who 10 years before the revolution began to create the workers' Social-Democratic Party. Had it not been for the tireless, heroically presistent work of such militants among the proletarian masses the R.S.D.L.P. could not have existed ten months let alone ten years. Thanks only to the activities of such militants, thanks only to their support, the R.S.D.L.P. developed by 1905 into a Party which became inseparably fused with the proletariat in the great days of October and December, 34 which maintained this connection in the person of the workers' deputies not only in the Second, but even in the Third, Black-Hundred Duma.
The liberals (Cadets) want to make a national hero out of the late S. A. Muromtsev who was the Chairman of the First Duma. We, the Social-Democrats, must not let the opportunity slip of expressing our contempt and hatred of the tsarist government, which persecuted even such moderate and inoffensive officials as Muromtsev. Muromtsev was only a liberal official. He was not even a democrat. He was afraid of the revolutionary struggle of the masses. He expected the liberation of Russia to come not from this struggle, but from the good will of the tsarist autocracy, from an agreement with this malicious and ruthless enemy of the Russian people. It is ridiculous to regard such people as national heroes of the Russian revolution.
But there are such national heroes. They are people like Babushkin. They are people who, not for a year or two but for a whole decade before the revolution, whole-heartedly devoted themselves to the struggle for the emancipation of the working class. They are people who did not dissipate their energies on the futile terrorist acts of individuals, but who worked persistently and unswervingly among the proletarian masses, helping to develop their consciousness, their organisation and their revolutionary initiative. They are people who stood at the head of the armed mass struggle against the tsarist autocracy when the crisis began, when the revolution broke out and when millions and millions were stirred into action. Everything won from the tsarist autocracy was won exclusively by the struggle of the masses led by such people as Babushkin.
Without such men the Russian people would remain for ever a people of slaves and serfs. With such men the Russian people will win complete emancipation from all exploitation.
The fifth anniversary of the December uprising of 1905 has already passed. Let us honour this anniversary by remembering the militant workers who fell in the fight against the enemy. We request our worker comrades to collect and send us reminiscences of the struggle of that period and additional information about Babushkin and also about other Social-Democratic workers who fell in the uprising of 1905. We intend to publish a pamphlet on the lives of such workers. Such a pamphlet will be the best answer to all sceptics and disparagers of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party. Such a pamphlet will be excellent reading matter for young workers, who will learn from it how every class-conscious worker should live and act.
Rabochaya Gazeta No. 2, December 18 (31), 1910
Collected Works, Vol. 16, pp. 361-364
35 __--_--_--__ __ALPHA_LVL2__ The Results of Six Months' Work __ALPHA_LVL3__ [introduction.]By founding a workers' daily newspaper, the workers of St. Petersburg have accomplished a major feat, one that without exaggeration can be called historic. The workers' democratic movement has rallied together and consolidated itself in incredibly difficult conditions. Of course, it is not possible to talk of the stability of the workers' democratic press in our country. Everyone knows very well the persecution to which working-class newspapers are subjected.
For all that, the founding ofPravda is an outstanding proof of the political consciousness, energy and unity of the Russian workers.
It is useful to look back and note some results of the six months' work of the Russian workers for founding a press of their own. Since January of this year the interest shown by working-class circles of St. Petersburg in their press has become fully evident and a number of articles dealing with a workers' daily has appeared in newspapers of all shades that come into contact with the world of labour.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ IData on who founded a daily working-class press in Russia and how it was founded are, fortunately, available in a comparatively full form. They are the data on the collection of funds for a workers' daily newspaper.
Let us begin with the funds with which Pravda was brought into being. We have the accounts of Zvezda, Nevskaya Zvezda and Pravda for the period from January 1 to June 30, or exactly six months. Publicity ensured the absolute accuracy of the accounts, accidental errors being corrected immediately on indications from those concerned.
What is of the greatest importance and interest to us is not the sum total of the funds collected, but the composition of the givers. When, for example, Nevskaya Zvezda No. 3 gave the total contributions for a workers' daily newspaper as 4,288 rubles 84 kopeks (from January to May 5, exclusive of the donations which from April 22, the day when Pravda first appeared, came directly to that newspaper), we were at once prompted to ask: what was the role which the workers themselves and groups of workers played in collecting this sum ? Does it consist of large donations by sympathisers ? Or did the workers themselves show in this case a personal and active concern for the working-class press and make up a large sum out of donations from a large number of workers' groups ?
From the point of view of the initiative and energy of the workers themselves, it is much more important to have 100 rubles collected by, say, 30 groups of workers than 1,000 rubles collected by some dozens of ``sympathisers''. A newspaper founded on the basis of five-kopek pieces collected by small factory 36 circles of workers is a far more dependable, solid and serious undertaking (both financially and, most important of all, from the standpoint of the development of the workers' democratic movement) than a newspaper founded with tens and hundreds of rubles contributed by sympathising intellectuals.
To obtain exact data on this fundamental and most important matter, we have performed the following operation with regard to the figures on collections published in the three newspapers mentioned. We have singled out only the donations stated to have been made by groups of factory or office workers.
What we are interested in at the moment is the contributions made by the workers themselves---moreover, not by individual ones, who may have come across a collector by chance, not being linked with him ideologically, i.e., in terms of their views and convictions; we mean groups of workers, who must no doubt have discussed beforehand whether they should donate any money, whom they should give it to and for what purpose.
Each report by Zvezda, Nevskaya Zvezda or Pravda which indicated that the money contributed for a workers' daily came from a group of factory or office workers, we assumed to be a group contribution by the workers themselves.
How many such group contributions by workers were there in the first half of 1912?
Five hundred and four group contributions!
More than five hundred times, groups of workers made contributions for the founding and maintenance of their paper, either donating what they had earned in one day, or making a single contribution, or contributing repeatedly from time to time. In addition to individual workers and sympathisers, 504 groups of workers took a most active part in founding their newspaper. This figure is an unquestionable indication that a deep and conscious interest in a workers' newspaper has been aroused among the mass of the workers---and not just in any workers' paper, but in a workers' democratic paper. Since the masses are so politically conscious and active, no difficulties or obstacles can frighten us. There are not, and cannot be, difficulties or obstacles which the political consciousness, activity and interest of the mass of the workers would be unable to overcome in some way or another.
Those 504 group contributions break down by months as follows:
January 1912.............14
February 1912.............18
March 1912.............76
April 1912.............227
May 1912.............135
June 1912.............34
Six-month total..........504
This little table makes clear, incidentally, the great importance of April and May as a. period of radical change. From darkness to light, from passivity to activity, from action by individuals to action by the masses.
37In January and February group contributions by the workers were as yet quite insignificant. Obviously, the activity was only just beginning. March showed a noticeable and substantial rise. Seventy-six group contributions by workers in one month---this indicates at all events a serious movement among the workers, a tenacious effort by the masses to have their way at all costs, undeterred by having to make donations. This speaks of the workers' deep confidence in their own strength and in the undertaking as a whole, in the trend of the projected newspaper, and so on. In March there was as yet no workers' daily, which means that groups of workers were collecting money and giving it to Zvezda, as it were, on credit.
April brought an enormous leap that decided the~matter. Two hundred and twenty-seven group contributions by workers in one month/an average of over seven contributions a day! The dam had been broken, and the founding of a workers' daily paper was assured. Every group contribution means not merely the sum of five-kopek and ten-kopek pieces, but something far more important---the sum of combined, massed energy, the determination of groups to support a workers' newspaper, to disseminate and guide it, to bring it into being through their own participation.
The question may arise: were not the April contributions greatest after the 22nd, i.e., after Pravda had appeared? No, they were not. Before April 22, Zvezda reported 188 group contributions. Between the 22nd and the end of April, Pravda reported 39 group contributions. This means that during21 days of April, before Pravda had appeared, there was an average of nine contributions a day, while the last nine days of April saw only four contributions a day by groups.
Two important conclusions follow from this:
Firstly, the workers were particularly active before the appearance of Pravda. By giving money "on credit", showing their confidence in Zvezda., the workers expressed their determination to have their way.
Secondly, it is seen that it was the April effort of the workers that brought the workers' newspaper, Pravda, into being. There can be no doubt as to the closest connection between the general upswing of the working-class movement (not in a narrow guild, narrow trade union sense, but with a scope affecting all the people} and the founding of the daily newspaper of the St. Petersburg worker democrats. We need something more than trade union publications, we need a political newspaper of our own---this is what the masses realised more and more in April; what we need is not just any political workers' newspaper, but a newspaper of the foremost worker democrats; we need a newspaper not only to promote our working-class struggle, but also to provide a model and a beacon for the whole people.
In May the upswing was still very marked. Group contributions averaged more than four a day. On the one hand, it was an indication of the general upswing in April-May. On the other, the mass of the workers realised that, although the publication of a daily newspaper had already begun, its position would be particularly difficult at first and group support particularly necessary.
38In June the number of group contributions fell below the March figure. Of course, the fact has to be taken into consideration that after the workers' daily newspaper had begun to appear another form of assistance to the newspaper arose and acquired decisive significance, namely, subscription to it and its circulation among fellow-workers, acquaintances, countrymen, etc. The politically-conscious friends of Pravda do not limit themselves to subscribing to the paper but pass it on or send it to others as a sample, to make it known at other factories, in neighbouring flats or houses, in the countryside and so on. Unfortunately, we have no way of obtaining complete statistics on this kind of group assistance.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ IIIt will be most instructive to see how those 504 contributions by groups of workers are distributed among towns and factory localities. In what parts of Russia and how readily did the workers respond to the appeal to help in founding a workers' daily newspaper ?
Fortunately, data on this are available for all of the workers' group contributions reported by Zvezda, Nevskaya Zvezda and Pravda.
In summing up these data, we must first of all single out St. Petersburg, which naturally has taken the lead in the matter of founding a workers' newspaper, then fourteen towns and factory localities which sent in contributions from more than one group of workers, and lastly, all the other towns, thirty-five in all, which sent in only one group contribution each during the six months. This is the picture we obtain:
St. Petersburg...............
14 towns with 2 to 12 group contributions each 35 towns with 1 group contribution each . . .
Total of group contributions
421 57 35
Total for 50 towns........... 504
This shows that almost the whole of Russia took an active part, to someextent or another, in founding a workers' daily. Considering the difficulties which the circulation of the workers' democratic press encounters in the provinces, it is amazing that so large a number of towns should have responded within six months to the appeal of the St. Petersburg workers.
Ninety-two group contributions by workers in forty-nine towns of Russia,^^*^^ _-_-_
^^*^^ Here is a complete list of the towns and localities: Vicinity of St. Petersburg: Kronstadt, Kolpino and Sestroretsk. South: Kharkov, 4 group contributions; Yekaterinoslavj 8; Ananyev, 2; Lugansk, 3; Kherson, Rostov-on-Don, Pavlograd, Poltava; Kiev, 12; Astrakhan, 4; Chernigov; Yuzovka, 3; Minakovo, Shcherba Mine, RykovMine, Belgorod, Yelisavetgrad, Yekaterinodar; Mariupol, 2; Nizhne-Dneprovsk and Nakhichevan. Moscow area: Rodniki, 2; Ryazan; Tula, 2; Bezhetsk, 2, North: Archangel, 5; Vologda. West: Dvinsk, Vilna, Gomel, Riga, Lepayaand Muhlgraben. Urals: Perm, Kyshtym, Minyar and Orenburg. Volga region: Sormovo and Balakovo Village. Caucasus: Baku, 2; Grozny and Tiflis. Siberia: Tyumen and Blagoveshchensk. Finland: Helsingfors.
39 besides the capital, is a very impressive figure, at least for a beginning. There can be no question here of chance, indifferent, passive givers; these are undoubtedly representatives of the proletarian masses, people united by conscious sympathy for the workers' democratic movement although scattered throughout Russia.We note that the list of provincial towns is headed by Kiev with 12 group contributions, then comes Yekaterinoslav with 8, while Moscow with 6 is only in the fourth place. This lag of Moscow and its entire area can be seen still more clearly from the following summary data on all the areas of Russia:
Number of group contributions by workers for a workers' daily newspaper during six months---January to June 1912
St. Petersburg and vicinity............ 415
South..................... 51
Moscow and its area............... 13
North and West ................ 12
Urals and Volga region ............. 6
Caucasus, Siberia and Finland.......... 7
Total for Russia ..............504
These data may be interpreted as follows:
In terms of renewed activity of the worker democrats in Russia, proletarian St. Petersburg has already awakened and is at its glorious post. The South is awakening. Mother Moscow, however, and the rest of Russia are still asleep. It is time she awoke too.
The lag of the entire Moscow area becomes obvious when that area is compared with the other provincial areas. The South is farther from St. Petersburg, much farther away than Moscow. Nevertheless, the South, which has fewer industrial workers than the Moscow area, exceeds that area almost fourfold in the number of group contributions by workers.
Moscow seems to be lagging behind even the Urals and the Volga region, for the number of workers in Moscow and its area exceeds their number in the Urals and the Volga region not twice, but many times over. Yet Moscow and its area made only 13 group contributions against 6 in the Urals and the Volga region.
There are probably two special reasons for the lag of Moscow and its area. Firstly, the dominant industry here is the textile industry, in which the economic situation, i.e., market conditions and conditions for a more or less considerable increase in production, has been worse than, say, in metallurgy. That is why textile workers participated less in strikes and showed less interest in politics and in the workers' democratic movement. Secondly, in the Moscow area there are more factories scattered over out-of-the-way localities and therefore less accessible to newspapers than in the big city.
In any case, we must undoubtedly draw a lesson from the data cited above. The closest attention must be paid to the circulation of the workers' newspaper 40 in Moscow. We cannot put up with the lag of Moscow. Every politically-conscious worker realises that St. Petersburg without Moscow is like one hand without the other.
The bulk of Russia's factory workers is concentrated in Moscow and its area. In 1905, for instance, according to government statistics, there were 567,000 factory workers here, i.e., more than one-third of Russia's total (1,660,000), and many more than in the St. Petersburg area (298,000). The Moscow area is therefore destined to take the first place for the number of readers and friends of a workers' newspaper, for the number of politically-conscious representatives of the workers' democratic movement. Moscow will, of course, have to have a workers' daily newspaper of its own.
Meanwhile St. Petersburg must help it. Every morning the readers of Pravda should tell themselves and their friends: "Workers, remember the Muscovites!''
__ALPHA_LVL3__ IIIThe above data should draw our attention from yet another standpoint, one that is very important and urgent as regards our practical tasks. Everyone realises that a political newspaper is one of the basic conditions for the participation of any class of modern society in the political affairs of the country in general and in an election campaign in particular.
Thus, a newspaper is required by the workers in general, and for carrying out elections to the Fourth Duma in particluar. The workers know very well that they can expect no good either from the Third or from the Fourth Duma. But we must take part in the elections, firstly, to rally and politically enlighten the mass of the workers during the elections, when party struggles and the entire political life will be stimulated and when the masses will learn politics in one way or other; and, secondly, to get our worker deputies into the Duma. Even in the most reactionary Duma, in a purely landlord one, worker deputies have done, and can do, a great deal for the working-class cause, provided they are true worker democrats, provided they are connected with the masses and the masses learn to direct them and check on their activity.
In the first half of 1912 all the political parties in Russia began, and virtually completed, what is known as the pre-election mobilisation of the party forces. Mobilisation is a military term. It means putting the army in a state of readiness for action: Just as an army is put in a state of readiness before a war, the reserves being called up and arms and ammunition distributed, so, before an election, all parties sum up their work, reaffirm their decisions on party views and slogans, rally their forces and prepare to fight all the other parties.
This work, we repeat, is virtually completed. The elections are only a few weeks off. During this time we can and must bend our energies to increase our 41 influence on the voters, on the masses, but if a party (the party of any class) has not got ready in six months, nothing can help it any longer, for it is already a zero in the elections.
That is why the six months which our statistics cover are six months of decisive mobilisation of the workers' forces prior to the Fourth Duma elections. They have been six months of mobilisation of all the forces of the worker democrats---of course, not only with regard to the Duma campaign, but we are for the moment devoting our attention to the latter.
A question arises at this point, a question raised recently by Nevskaya Zvezda No. 16, and Pravda No. 61. It concerns the so-called liquidators, who since January 1912 have been publishing the newspapers Zhivoye Dyelo and Nevsky Golos in St. Petersburg. The liquidators, who have their own separate newspapers, say that ``agreement'' has to be reached with them, the liquidators, if there is to be ``unity'' of the worker democrats in the elections, otherwise they try to frighten us with the prospect of "duplicate candidates''.
It seems that these attempts at intimidation have so far had very little success.
And this is quite understandable. How could anyone seriously take into account people who have rightly earned the name of liquidators and advocates of a liberal labour policy ?
But perhaps there are, nevertheless, many workers who follow the erroneous, un-Social-Democratic views of this group of intellectuals? If so, ought we not to pay special attention to these workers ? We now have objective, open and quite precise data for an answer to this question. As we know, throughout the first half of 1912 the liquidators showed particular vigour in attacking Pravda, Nevskaya Zvezda, Zvezda, and all opponents of liquidationism in general.
How successful were the liquidators among the workers? We can judge this from the contributions for a workers' daily newspaper published in the liquidationist newspapers Zhivoye Dyelo and Nevsky Golos. The liquidators recognised the need for a daily very long ago---in 1911 or perhaps even 1910--- and advocated the idea most energetically among their supporters. In February 1912 Zhivoye Dyelo, which was first issued on January 20, began to carry reports on the contributions it received for this purpose.
Let us single out from those contributions (which totalled 139.27 rubles in the first half of 1912) group contributions by workers, just as we did in the case of the non-liquidationist papers. Let us sum up all the sixteen issues of Zhivoye Dyelo and the five issues of Nevsky Golos (its issue No. 6 appeared in July), and even add contributions for the benefit of Zhivoye Dyelo itself (although we did not take data on such contributions from the non-liquidationist papers). We obtain the following data on the total of group contributions by workers in six months:
42Number of group contributions by workers for a workers' daily newspaper during the first half of 1912
Non--
liquidationist
newspapers newspapers
...... 14
0...... 18
0.March .......
...... 76
7...... 227
8Alay ....... .
...... 135
0..... 34
0Total
504 15And so, by dint of frantic effort, the group of liquidationist intellectuals succeeded in enlisting the support of 15 groups of workers in all!
Could one imagine a more shattering defeat of the liquidators since January 1912? Could one imagine a more specific proof of the fact that we are in the presence of a group of liquidationist intellectuals who are capable of publishing a semi-liberal magazine and newspaper, but totally lack any serious support among the proletarian masses ?
Here, in addition, are data on the territorial distribution of the donations sent to the liquidators by groups of workers:
Number of group contributions by workers for a workers' daily newspaper during the first half of 1912
St Petersburg and vicinity . . . .
415 10South .............
51 1 13 2North and West
12 1 6 0Caucasus, Siberia and Finland . .
7 1Total ...........
50415^^*^^
And so, the liquidators' defeat in the South during the six-month period is even worse than in St. Petersburg.
These exact workers' statistics, which were published openly for as long as six months in newspapers of opposed trends, definitely settle the question of ``liquidationism''. One may revile the opponents of liquidationism and slander them as much as one pleases, but these exact data on group contributions by workers are irrefutable.
It is quite understandable now why neither Nevskaya Zvezda nor Pravda took the liquidators' threat of "duplicate candidates" seriously. It would be ridiculous to take seriously threats from people who in six months of open struggle revealed that they amount to little more than zero. All the defenders _-_-_
^^*^^ Moscow, 2; Nakhichevan, Novonikolayevsk and Archangel, 1 each.
43 of liquidationism have united in Zhivoye Dyelo and Nevsky Golos. And it took all. of them together six months to win over fifteen groups of workers!Liquidationism amounts to nil in the working-class movement; it is only strong among the liberal intelligentsia.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ IVThe data in Pravda on all kinds of workers' contributions are, generally speaking, extremely interesting. They provide us, for the first time, with highly accurate data on the most diverse aspects of the working-class movement and the life of Russian worker democrats. We hope to return to the analysis of these data more than once.
At the moment, however, before we finish our survey of data on the contributions made by groups of workers for a daily newspaper, we must point out one practical conclusion.
Workers' groups made 504 contributions to their press, to Zvezda and Pravda. The workers had absolutely no other aim in view except the founding and maintenance of their workers' press. That is precisely why a simple truthful Summary of these data for six months provides a most valuable picture of the life of worker democrats in Russia. The five- and ten-kopek pieces collected and marked "from a group of workers of such-and-such a factory" have made it possible also to appraise the workers' sentiments, their class-consciousness, their unity, and their readiness to promote the working-class cause.
That is why this custom of group collections by the workers, brought into being by the upswing in April and May, should by all means be continued, developed and expanded, and it goes without saying that accounts of the collections are necessary too, such as have always been published in Pravda.
This custom is of vast importance from the standpoint of both the stability of the working-class press and the common interests of the worker democrats.
The working-class press needs to be developed and strengthened. And this requires money. Workers' newspapers in Russia can be satisfactorily organised through persevering effort only on condition that the workers constantly arrange massive collections. There is a workers' paper in America (Appeal to Reason) which has over half a million subscribers. That Russian worker, we would say, paraphrasing a well-known saying, is a poor worker indeed if he does not hope to overtake and surpass his American fellowworkers.
What is very much more important, however, is not the financial aspect of the matter, but something else. Let us assume that a hundred workers in different shops of a factory contribute one kopek each on pay-day to the workers' newspaper. That will add up to two rubles a month. Let us assume, on the other hand, that ten well-paid workers meeting by chance collect ten rubles at once.
44The former two rubles are worth more than the latter ten. This is so obvious to any worker that it does not have to be explained at length.
It should be made a custom for every worker to contribute one kopek to the workers' newspaper every pay-day. Let subscriptions to the paper be taken as usual, and let those who can contribute more do so, as they have done in the past. It is very important, besides, to establish and spread the custom of "a kopek for the workers' newspaper".
The significance of such collections will depend above all on their being regularly held every pay-day, without interruption, and on an ever greater number of workers taking part in these regular collections. Accounts could be published in a simple form: "so-and-so many kopeks" would imply that so many workers at the given factory had contributed to the workers' paper, and if there were any larger contributions, they could be stated as follows: "In addition, so-and-so many workers contributed so-and-so much.''
If this custom of a kopek for the workers' newspaper becomes established, the workers of Russia will soon raise their papers to the proper standard. Workers' papers should give more information, and of a more varied nature; they should have Sunday supplements and so on, and should have their correspondents in the Duma, in all Russia's towns and in the major cities abroad. The workers' newspaper should develop and improve steadily, which cannot be done unless the greatest possible number of workers regularly collect money for their press.
Monthly reports on the workers' kopek will show everyone how the workers throughout Russia are shaking off their indifference and drowsiness, how they are awakening to an intelligent and cultured life---not in the official nor in the liberal sense of the term. It will be possible to see clearly how interest in the workers' democratic movement is growing, and how the time is drawing near when Moscow and the other big cities will have workers' papers of their own.
We have had enough of the domination of the bourgeois Kopeika! That unscrupulous, huckster-minded newspaper has reigned long enough. In a matter of six months, the workers of St. Petersburg have shown how tremendously successful joint collections by the workers can be. May their example and their initiative not be in vain. May the custom of a workers' kopek for the workers' newspaper develop and gain strength!
Written on July 12-14 (25-27), 1912
Published in Pravda Nos. 78, 79, 80, 81, July 29 and 31, and August 1 and 2, 1912 Signed: A Statistician
Collected Works, Vol. 18, pp. 187-202
45 __--_--_--__ __ALPHA_LVL2__ Before and NowEighteen years ago, in 1894, the working-class movement in St. Petersburg was just being born in its modern, mass form illumined by the light of the Marxist teaching.
The seventies had affected a quite insignificant top section of the working class. The foremost representatives of the working class revealed themselves even then as great leaders of the workers' democratic movement, but the masses were still slumbering. Only in the early nineties did they begin to awaken, and at the same time there began a new and more glorious period in the history of the entire democratic movement in Russia.
Unfortunately, we must confine ourselves here, in our small parallel, to one aspect of one manifestation of the working-class movement, namely, the economic struggle and economic ``exposures''.
At that time, in 1894, a very few circles of the foremost workers were heatedly discussing plans for organising factory exposures. A weighty statement by the workers themselves, addressed to their fellow-workers and pointing out the more glaring abuses of power by capital, was an exceedingly rare occurrence at the time. Speaking of such things publicly was out of the question.
But the awakening mass of the workers was able to take up the factory exposures addressed to it, despite all difficulties and in the face of all obstacles. The strike movement was growing, and the connection between the economic struggle of the working class and other, higher forms of struggle was developing irresistibly. The vanguard of Russia's democratic movement was awakening, and ten years later it showed itself in its full stature. It is to this force alone that Russia owes the rupture of the old shell.
Those who recall the first factory exposures which the advanced workers of St. Petersburg addressed to the masses in 1894 will find it most interesting and instructive to compare them with the factory exposures made by Pravda. This little comparison of one manifestation of the workers' struggle clearly shows the growth of its entire scope, its breadth and depth, its strength, etc.
At that time there were a mere five or six factory exposures, secretly circulated by workers in several dozen copies.
Today there are tens of thousands of copies of the daily Pravda, each making several exposures relating to the most diverse fields of labour.
At that time there were a mere five or six so-called ``circles'', which discussed---in secret, of course---the state of affairs in the factories, with some Marxist intellectual or other participating, and decided on the subject of the points to be ``published''.
Today there are hundreds and thousands of workers' groups springing up spontaneously, discussing their vital needs and taking their letters, their exposures, their appeals for resistance and unity, to Pravda of their own accord.
46In a matter of eighteen years, the workers have advanced from the first signs of activity, from a most timid beginning, to a movement that is a mass movement in the most exact sense of the term.
We must unfortunately limit ourselves only to parallels of factory exposures. But they, too, show the great path travelled, and the goal to which this path leads.
Eighteen years are a short span in the history of a whole class which is destined to accomplish the greatest task in the world---the emancipation of mankind.
The greater part of this path has been travelled in the dark. But now the road has been reached. Forward with courage and determination!
Pravda No. 104, August 30, 1912
Collected Works, Vol. 18, pp. 302-303
__--_--_--__ __ALPHA_LVL2__ The Journal SvobodaSvoboda is a worthless little rag. Its author---indeed, this is precisely the impression it creates, that one person has written it all, from beginning to end--- claims to write popularly "for the workers". But what we have here is not popularisation, but talking down in the worst sense of the term. There is not one simple word, everything is twisted... The author cannot write a single phrase without embellishments, without ``popular'' similes and ``popular'' catchwords such as ``theirs''. Outworn socialist ideas are chewed over in this ugly language without any new data, any new examples, any new analysis, and the whole thing is deliberately vulgarised. Popularisation, we should like to inform the author, is a long way from vulgarisation, from talking down. The popular writer leads his reader towards profound thoughts, towards profound study, proceeding from simple and generally known facts; with the aid of simple arguments or striking examples he shows the main conclusions to be drawn from those facts and arouses in the mind of the thinking reader ever newer questions. The popular writer does not presuppose a reader that does not think, that cannot or does not wish to think: on the contrary, he assumes in the undeveloped reader a serious intention to use his head and aids him in his serious and difficult work, leads him, helps him over his first steps, and teaches him to go forward independently. The vulgar writer assumes that his reader does not think and is incapable of thinking; he does not lead him in his first steps towards serious knowledge, but in a distortedly simplified form, interlarded with jokes and facetiousness, hands out ``ready-made'' all the conclusions of a known theory, so that the reader does not even have to chew but merely to swallow what he is given.
Written in the autumn of 1901 First published in the magazine Bolshevik, No. 2, 1936
Collected Works, Vol. 5, pp. 311-312
47 __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Section II __ALPHA_LVL1__ FUNCTIONS AND TASKSThe Russian working-class movement is today going through a period of transition. The splendid beginning achieved by the Social-Democratic workers' organisations in the Western area, St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kiev, and other cities was consummated by the formation of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party (spring 1898). Russian Social-Democracy seems to have exhausted, for the time being, all its strength in making this tremendous step forward and has gone back to the former isolated functioning of separate local organisations. The Party has not ceased to exist, it has only withdrawn into itself in order to gather strength and put the unification of all Russian Social-Democrats on a sound footing. To effect this unification, to evolve a suitable form for it and to get rid completely of narrow local isolation---such is the immediate and most urgent task of the Russian Social-Democrats.
We are all agreed that our task is that of the organisation of the proletarian class struggle. But what is this class struggle ? When the workers of a single factory or of a single branch of industry engage in struggle against their employer or employers, is this class struggle? No, this is only a weak embryo of it. The struggle of the workers becomes a class struggle only when all the foremost representatives of the entire working class of the whole country are conscious of themselves as a single working class and launch a struggle that is directed, not against individual employers, but against the entire class of capitalists and against the government that supports that class. Only when the individual worker realises that he is a member of the entire working class, only when he recognises the fact that his petty day-to-day struggle against individual employers 48 and individual government officials is a struggle against the entire bourgeoisie and the entire goverment, does his struggle become a class struggle. "Every class struggle is a political struggle"---these famous words of Marx are not to be understood to mean that any struggle of workers against employers must always be a political struggle. They must be understood to mean that the struggle of the workers against the capitalists inevitably becomes a political struggle insofar as it becomes a class struggle. It is the task of the Social-- Democrats, by organising the workers, by conducting propaganda and agitation among them, to turn their spontaneous struggle against their oppressors into the struggle of the whole class, into the struggle of a definite polittical party for definite political and socialist ideals. This is something that cannot be achieved by local activity alone.
Local Social-Democratic activity has attained a fairly high level in our country. The seeds of Social-Democratic ideas have been broadcast throughout Russia; workers' leaflets---the earliest form of Social-Democratic literature---are known to all Russian workers from St. Petersburg to Krasnoyarsk, from the Caucasus to the Urals. All that is now lacking it the unification of all this local work into the work of a single party. Our chief drawback, to the overcoming of which we must devote all our energy, is the narrow `` amateurish'' character of local work. Because of this amateurish character many manifestations of the working-class movement in Russia remain purely local events and lose a great deal of their significance as examples for the whole of Russian Social-Democracy, as a stage of the whole Russian working-class movement. Because of this amateurishness, the consciousness of their community of interests throughout Russia is insufficiently inculcated in the workers, they do not link up their struggle sufficiently with the idea of Russian socialism and Russian democracy. Because of this amateurishness the comrades' varying views on theoretical and practical problems are not openly discussed in a central newspaper, they do not serve the purpose of elaborating a common programme and devising common tactics for the Party, they are lost in narrow study-circle life or they lead to the inordinate exaggeration of local and chance peculiarities. Enough of our amateurishness! We have attained sufficient maturity to go over to common action, to the elaboration of a common Party programme, to the joint discussion of our Party tactics and organisation.
Russian Social-Democracy has done a great deal in criticising old revolutionary and socialist theories; it has not limited itself to criticism and theorising alone; it has shown that its programme is not hanging in the air but is meeting the extensive spontaneous movement among the people, that is, among the factory proletariat. It has now to make the following, very difficult, but very important, step---to elaborate an organisation of the movement adapted to our conditions. Social-Democracy is not confined to simple service to the working-class movement: it represents "the combination of socialism and the working-class movement" (to use Karl Kautsky's definition which repeats the basic ideas of the Communist Manifesto); the task of Social-Democracy is 49 to bring definite socialist ideals to the spontaneous working-class movement, to connect this movement with socialist convictions that should attain the level of contemporary science, to connect it with the regular political struggle for democracy as a means of achieving socialism---in a word, to fuse this spontaneous movement into one indestructible whole with the activity of the revolutionary party. The history of socialism and democracy in Western Europe, the history of the Russian revolutionary movement, the experience of our working-class movement---such is the material we must master to elaborate a purposeful organisation and purposeful tactics for our Party. "The analysis" of this material must, however, be done independently, since there are no ready-made models to be found anywhere. On the one hand, the Russian working-class movement exists under conditions that are quite different from those of Western Europe. It would be most dangerous to have any illusions on this score. On the other hand, Russian Social-Democracy differs very substantially from former revolutionary parties in Russia, so that the necessity of learning revolutionary technique and secret organisation from the old Russian masters (we do not in the least hesitate to admit this necessity) does not in any way relieve us of the duty of assessing them critically and elaborating our own organisation independently.
In the presentation of such a task there are two main questions that come to the fore with particular insistence: 1) How is the need for the complete liberty of local Social-Democratic activity to be combined with the need for establishing a single---and, consequently, a centralist---party ? Social-Democracy draws its strength from the spontaneous working-class movement that manifests itself differently and at different times in the various industiral centres; the activity of the local Social-Democratic organisations is the basis of all party activity. If, however, this is to be the activity of isolated "amateurs," then it cannot, strictly speaking, be called Social-Democratic, since it will not be the organisation and leadership of the class struggle of the proletariat. 2) How can we combine the striving of Social-Democracy to become a revolutionary party that makes the struggle for political liberty its chief purpose with the determined refusal of Social-Democracy to organise political conspiracies, its emphatic refusal to "call the workers to the barricades" (as correctly noted by P. B. Axelrod), or, in general, to impose on the workers this or that ``plan'' for an attack on the government, which has been thought up by a company of revolutionaries ?
Russian Social-Democracy has every right to believe that it has provided the theoretical solution to these questions; to dwell on this would mean to repeat what has been said in the article, "Our Programme". It is now a matter of the practical solution to these questions. This is not a solution that can be made by a single person or a single group; it can be provided only by the organised activity of Social-Democracy as a whole. We believe that the most urgent task of the moment consists in undertaking the solution of these questions, for which purpose we must have as our immediate aim the founding of 50 a Party organ that will appear regularly and be closely connected with all the local groups. We believe that all the activity of the Social-Democrats should be directed to this end throughout the whole of the forthcoming period. Without such an organ, local work will remain narrowly ``amateurish''. The formation of the Party---if the correct representation of that Party in a certain newspaper is not organised---will to a considerable extent remain bare words. An economic struggle that is not united by a central organ cannot become the class struggle of the entire Russian proletariat. It is impossible to conduct a political struggle if the Party as a whole fails to make statements on all questions of policy and to give direction to the various manifestations of the struggle. The organisation and disciplining of the revolutionary forces and the development of revolutionary technique are impossible without the discussion of all these questions in a central organ, without the collective elaboration of certain forms and rules for the conduct of affairs, without the establishment---through the central organ---of every Party member's responsibility to the entire Party.
In speaking of the necessity to concentrate all Party forces---all literary forces, all organisational abilities, all material resources, etc.---on the foundation and correct conduct of the organ of the whole Party, we do not for a moment think of pushing other forms of activity into the background---e.g., local agitation, demonstrations, boycott, the persecution of spies, the bitter campaigns against individual representatives of the bourgeoisie and the government, protest strikes, etc., etc. On the contrary, we are convinced that all these forms of activity constitute the basis of the Party's activity, but, without their unification through an organ of the whole Party, these forms of revolutionary struggle lose nine-tenths of their significance; they do not lead to the creation of common Party experience, to the creation of Party traditions and continuity. The Party organ, far from competing with such activity, will exercise tremendous influence on its extension, consolidation, and systematisation.
The necessity to concentrate all forces on establishing a regularly appearing and regularly delivered organ arises out of the peculiar situation of Russian Social-Democracy as compared with that of Social-Democracy in other European countries and with that of the old Russian revolutionary parties. Apart from newspapers, the workers of Germany, France etc., have numerous other means for the public manifestation of their activity, for organising the movement---parliamentary activity, election agitation, public meetings, participation in local public bodies (rural and urban), the open conduct of trade unions (professional, guild), etc., etc. In place of all of that, yes, all of that, we must be served---until we have won political liberty---by a revolutionary newspaper, without which no broad organisation of the entire working-class movement is possible. We do not believe in conspiracies, we renounce individual revolutionary ventures to destroy the government; the words of Liebknecht, veteran of German Social-Democracy, serve as the watchword of our activities: "Studieren, propagandieren, organisieren"--- Learn, propagandise, organise--- and the pivot of this activity can and must be only the organ of the Party.
51But is the regular and more or less stable establishment of such an organ possible, and under what circumstances is it possible ? We shall deal with this matter next time.
Written in the second half of 1899 First published in 1925 in Lenin Miscellany III
Collected WorkSi Vol. 4, pp. 215-220
__--_--_--__ __ALPHA_LVL2__ An Urgent QuestionIn the previous article we said that our immediate task is to establish a Party organ, one that appears and can be delivered regularly, and we raised the question of whether and under what circumstances it is possible to achieve this aim. Let us examine the more important aspects of this question.
The main objection that may be raised is that the achievement of this purpose first requires the development of local group activity. We consider this fairly widespread opinion to be fallacious. We can and must immediately set about founding the Party organ---and, it follows, the Party itself---and putting them on a sound footing. The conditions essential to such a step already exist: local Party work is being carried on and obviously has struck deep roots; for the destructive police attacks that are growing more frequent lead to only short interruptions; fresh forces rapidly replace those that have fallen in battle. The Party has resources for publishing and literary forces, not only abroad, but in Russia as well. The question, therefore, is whether the work that is already being conducted should be continued in ``amateur'' fashion or whether it should be organised into the work of one party and in such a way that it is reflected in its entirety in one common organ.
Here we come to the most urgent question of our movement, to its sore point---organisation. The improvement of revolutionary organisation and discipline, the perfection of our underground technique are an absolute necessity. We must openly admit that in this respect we are lagging behind the old Russian revolutionary parties and must bend all our efforts to overtake and surpass them. Without improved organisation there can be no progress of our working-class movement in general, and no establishment of an active party with a properly functioning organ, in particular. That is on the one hand. On the other, the existing Party organs (organs in the sense of institutions and groups, as well as newspapers) must pay greater attention to questions of organisation and exert an influence in this respect on local groups.
Local, amateurish work always leads to a great excess of personal connections, to study-circle methods, and we have grown out of the study-circle stage which has become too narrow for our present-day work and which leads 52 to an over-expenditure of forces. Only fusion into a single party will enable us strictly to observ e the principles of division of labour and economy of forces, which must be achieved in order to reduce the losses and build as reliable a bulwark as possible against the oppression of the autocratic government and against its frantic persecutions. Against us, against the tiny groups of socialists hidden in the expanses of the Russian ``underground'', there stands the huge machine of a most powerful modern state that is exerting all its forces to crush socialism and democracy. We are convinced that we shall, in the end, smash that police state, because all the sound and developing sections of our society are in favour of democracy and socialism; but, in order to conduct a systematic struggle against the government, we must raise revolutionary organisation, discipline, and the technique of underground work to the highest degree of perfection. It is essential for individual Party members or separate groups of members to specialise in the diiferent aspects of Party work---some in the duplication of literature, others in its transport across the frontier, a third category in its distribution inside Russia, a fourth in its distribution in the cities, a fifth in the arrangement of secret meeting places, a sixth in the collection of funds, a seventh in the delivery of correspondence and all information about the movement, an eighth in maintaining relations, etc., etc. We know that this sort of specialisation requires much greater self-restraint, much greater ability to concentrate on modest, unseen, everyday work, much greater real heroism than the usual work in study circles.
The Russian socialists and the Russian working class, however, have shown their heroic qualities and, in general, it would be a sin to complain of a shortage of people. There is to be observed among the working youth an impassioned, uncontrollable enthusiasm for the ideas of democracy and socialism, and helpers for the workers still continue to arrive from among the intellectuals, despite the fact that the prisons and places of exile are overcrowded. If the idea of the necessity for a stricter organisation is made widely known among all these recruits to the revolutionary cause, the plan for the organisation of a regularly published and delivered Party newspaper will cease to be a dream. Let us take one of the conditions for the success of this plan---that the newspaper be assured a regular supply of correspondence and other material from everywhere. Has not history shown that at all times when there has been a resurgence of our revolutionary movement such a purpose has proved possible of achievement even in respect of papers published abroad ? If Social-Democrats working in various localities come to regard the Party newspaper as their own and consider the maintenance of regular contact with it, the discussion of their problems and the reflection of the whole movement in it to be their main task, it will be quite possible to ensure the supply to the paper of full information abour the movement, provided methods of maintaining secrecy, not very complicated ones, are observed. The other aspect of the question, that of delivering the newspaper regularly to all parts of Russia, is much more difficult, more difficult than the similar task under previous forms of revolutionary 53 movement in Russia when newspapers were not, to such an extent, intended for the masses of the people. The purpose of Social-Democratic newspapers, however, facilitates their distribution. The chief places to which the newspaper must be delivered regularly and in large numbers are the industrial centres, factory villages and towns, the factory districts of big cities, etc. In such centres the population is almost entirely working class; in actual fact the worker in such places is master of the situation and has hundreds of ways of outwitting the police; relations with neighbouring factory centres are distinguished by their extraordinary activity. At the time of the Exceptional Law against the Socialists (1878-90) the German political police did not function worse, but probably better, than the Russian police; nevertheless, the German workers, thanks to their organisation and discipline, were able to ensure the regular transport across the frontiers of a weekly illegal newspaper and to deliver it to the houses of all subscribers, so that even the ministers could not refrain from admiring the Social-Democratic post ("the red mail"). We do not, of course, dream of such successes, but we can, if we bend our efforts towards it, ensure that our Party newspaper appears no less than twelve times a year and is regularly delivered in all the main centres of the movement ot all groups of workers that can be reached by socialism.
To return to the question of specialisation, we must also point out that its insufficiency is due partially to the dominance of ``amateur'' work and partially to the fact that our Social-Democratic newspapers usually devote far too little attention to questions of organisation.
Only the establishment of a common Party organ can give the "worker in a given field" of revolutionary activity the consciousness that he is marching with the "rank and file", the consciousness that his work is directly essential to the Party, that he is one of the links in the chain that will form a noose to strangle the most evil enemy of the Russian proletariat and of the whole Russian people---the Russian autocratic government. Only strict adherence to this type of specialisation can economise our forces; not only will every aspect of revolutionary work be carried out by a smaller number of people, but there will be an opportunity to make a number of aspects of present-day activities legal affairs. This legalisation of activity, its conduct within the framework of the law, has long been advised for Russian socialists by Vorwarts (Forward), the chief organ of the German Social-Democrats. At first sight one is astonished at such advice, but in actual fact it merits careful attention. Almost everyone who has worked in a local study circle in some city will easily remember that among the numerous and diverse affairs in which the circle engaged some were, in themselves, legal (e. g. the gathering of information on the workers' conditions; the study of legal literature on many questions; consultation and reviewing of certain types of foreign literature; maintenance of certain kinds of relations; aid to workers in obtaining a general education, in studying factory laws, etc.). Making affairs of this sort the specific function of a special contingent of people would reduce the strength of the revolutionary army "in 54 the firing line" (without any reduction of its "fighting potential") and increase the strength of the reserve, those who replace the "killed and wounded". This will be possible only when both the active members and the reserve see their activities reflected in the common organ of the Party and sense their connection with it. Local meetings of workers and local groups will, of course, always be necessity, no matter to what extent we carry out our specialisation; but, on the one hand, the number of mass revolutionary meetings (particularly dangerous from the standpoint of police action and often having results far from commensurate with the danger involved) will become considerably less and, on the other hand, the selection of various aspects of revolutionary work as special functions will provide greater opportunities to screen such meetings behind legal forms of assembly: entertainments, meetings of societies sanctioned by law, etc. Were not the French workers under Napoleon III and the German workers at the time of the Exceptional Law against the Socialists able to devise all possible ways to cover up their political and socialist meetings? Russian workers will be able to do likewise.
Further: only by better organisation and the establishment of a common Party organ will it be possible to extend and deepen the very content of Social-Democratic propaganda and agitation. We stand in great need of this. Local work must almost inevitably lead to the exaggeration of local particularities,
to....................^^*^^ this is impossible without a central organ which will, at the same time, be an advanced democratic organ. Only then will our urge to convert Social-Democracy into a leading fighter for democracy become reality. Only then, too, shall we be able to work out definite political tactics. Social-Democracy has renounced the fallacious theory of the "one reactionary mass". It regards utilisation of the support of the progressive classes against the reactionary classes to be one of the most important political tasks. As long as the organisations and publications are local in character, this task can hardly be carried out at all: matters do not go farther than relations with individual ``liberals'' and the extraction of various ``services'' from them. Only a common Party organ, consistently implementing the principles of political struggle and holding high the banner of democracy will be able to win over to its side all militant democratic elements and use all Russia's progressive forces in the struggle for political freedom. Only then shall we be able to convert the workers' smouldering hatred of the police and the authorities into conscious hatred of the autocratic government and into determination to conduct a desperate struggle for the rights of the working class and of the entire Russian people! In modern Russia, a strictly organised revolutionary party built up on this foundation will prove the greatest political force!
Written in the second half of 1899 First published in 1925 in Lenin Miscellany III
Collected Works, Vol. 4, pp. 221-226
_-_-_^^*^^ Part of the manuscript is not extant.---Ed.
55 __ALPHA_LVL2__ Draft of a Declaration of the Editorial Board of IskraIn undertaking the publication of two Social-Democratic organs---a scientific and political magazine and an all-Russian working-class newspaper---we consider it necessary to say a few words concerning our programme, the objects for which we are striving, and the understanding we have of our tasks.
We are passing through an extremely important period in the history of the Russian working-class movement and Russian Social-Democracy. All evidence goes to show that our movement has reached a critical stage. It has spread so widely and has brought forth so many strong shoots in the most diverse parts of Russia that it is now striving with unrestrained vigour to consolidate itself, assume a higher form, and develop a definite shape and organisation. Indeed, the past few years have been marked by an astonishingly rapid spread of Social-Democratic ideas among our intelligentsia; and meeting this trend in social ideas is the spontaneous, completely independent movement of the industrial proletariat, which is beginning to unite and struggle against its oppressors and is manifesting an eager striving for socialism. Study circles of workers and Social-Democratic intellectuals are springing up everywhere, local agitation leaflets are beginning to appear, the demand for Social-Democratic literature is increasing and is far outstripping the supply, and intensified government persecution is powerless to restrain the movement.
The prisons and places of exile are filled to overflowing. Hardly a month goes by without our hearing of socialists "caught in dragnets" in all parts of Russia, of the capture of underground couriers, of the arrest of agitators, and the confiscation of literature and printing-presses; but the movement goes on and is growing, it is spreading to ever wider regions, it is penetrating more and more deeply into the working class and is attracting public attention to an everincreasing degree. The entire economic development of Russia and the history of social thought and of the revolutionary movement in Russia serve as a guarantee that the Social-Democratic working-class movement will grow and surmount all the obstacles that confront it.
The principal feature of our movement, which has become particularly marked in recent times, is its state of disunity and its amateur character, if one may so express it. Local study circles spring up and function in almost complete isolation from circles in other districts and---what is particularly important----from circles that have functioned and now function simultaneously in the same districts. Traditions are not established and continuity is not maintained; local publications fully reflect this disunity and the lack of contact 56 with what Russian Social-Democracy has already achieved. The present period, therefore, seems to us to be critical precisely for the reason that the movement is outgrowing this amateur stage and this disunity, is insistently demanding a transition to a higher, more united, better and more organised form, which we consider it our duty to promote. It goes without saying that at a certain stage of the movement, at its inception, this disunity is entirely inevitable; the absence of continuity is natural in view of the astonishingly rapid and universal growth of the movement after a long period of revolutionary calm. Undoubtedly, too, there will always be diversity in local conditions; there will always be differences in the conditions of the working class in one district as compared with those in another; and, lastly, there will always be the particular aspect in the points of view among the active local workers; this very diversity is evidence of the virility of the movement and of its sound growth. All this is true, yet disunity and lack of organisation are not a necessary consequence of this diversity. The maintenance of continuity and the unity of the movement do not by any means exclude diversity, but, on the contrary, create for it a much broader arena and a freer field of action. In the present period of the movement, however, disunity is beginning to show a definitely harmful effect and is threatening to divert the movement to a false path: narrow practicalism, detached from the theoretical clarification of the movement as a whole, may destroy the contact between socialism and the revolutionary movement in Russia, on the one hand, and the spontaneous working-class movement, on the other... The following practical conslusion is to be drawn from the foregoing: we Russian Social-Democrats must unite and direct all our efforts towards the formation of a single, strong party, which must struggle under the banner of a revolutionary Social-Democratic programme, which must maintain the continuity of the movement and systematically support its organisation. This conclusion is not a new one. The Russian Social-Democrats reached it two years ago when the representatives of the largest Social-Democratic organisations in Russia gathered at a congress in the spring of 1898, formed the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, published the Manifesto of the Party, and recognised Rabochaya Gazeta as the official Party organ. Regarding ourselves as members of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, we agree entirely with the fundamental ideas contained in the Manifesto and attach extreme importance to it as the open and public declaration of the aims towards which our Party should strive. Consequently, we, as members of the Party, present the question of our immediate and direct tasks as follows: What plan of activity must we adopt to revive the Party on the firmest possible basis ? Some comrades (even some groups and organisations) are of the opinion that in order to achieve this we must resume the practice of electing the central Party body and instruct it to resume the publication of the Party organ. We consider such a plan to be a false one or, at all events, a hazardous one. To establish and consolidate the Party means to establish and consolidate unity among all Russian Social-Democrats; such unity cannot be decreed, it cannot be brought about by 57 a decision, say, of a meeting of representatives; it must be worked for. In the first place, it is necessary to develop a common Party literature---common, not only in the sense that it must serve the whole of the Russian movement rather than separate districts, that it must discuss the questions of the movement as a whole and assist the class-conscious proletarians in their struggle instead of dealing merely with local questions, but common also in the sense that it must unite all the available literary forces, that it must express all shades of opinion and views prevailing among Russian Social-Democrats, not as isolated workers, but as comrades united in the ranks of a single organisation by a common programme and a common struggle. Secondly, we must work to achieve an organisation especially for the purpose of establishing and maintaining contact among all the centres of the movement, of supplying complete and timely information about the movement, and of delivering our newspapers and periodicals regularly to all parts of Russia. Only when such an organisation has been founded, only when a Russian socialist post has been established, will the Party possess a sound foundation, only then will it become a real fact and, therefore, a mighty political force. We intend to devote our efforts to the first half of this task, i.e., to creating a common literature, since we regard this as the pressing demand of the movement today, and a necessary preliminary measure towards the resumption of Party activity.
The character of our task naturally determines the programme for conducting our publications. They must devote considerable space to theoretical questions, i.e., to the general theory of Social-Democracy and its application to Russian conditions. The urgent need to promote a wide discussion of these questions at the present time in particular is beyond all doubt and requires no further explanation after what has been said above. It goes without saying that questions of general theory are inseparably connected with the need to supply information about the history and the present state of the working-class movement in the West. Furthermore, we propose systematically to discuss all political questions---the Social-Democratic Labour Party must respond to all questions that arise in all spheres of our daily life, to all guestions of home and foreign politics, and we must see to it that every Social-Democrat and every class-conscious worker has definite views on all important questions. Unless this condition is fulfilled, it will be impossible to carry on wide and systematic propaganda and agitation. The discussion of questions of theory and policy will be connected with the drafting of a Party programme, the necessity for which was recognised at the congress in 1898. In the near future we intend to publish a draft programme; a comprehensive discussion of it should provide sufficient material for the forthcoming congress that will have to adopt a programme. A further vital task, in bur opinion, is the discussion of questions of organisation and practical methods of conducting our work. The lack of continuity and the disunity, to which reference has been made above, have a particularly harmful effect upon the present state of Party discipline, organisaton, and the technique of secrecy. It must be publicly and frankly 58 owned that in this respect we Social-Democrats lag behind the old workers in the Russian revolutionary movement and behind other organisations functioning in Russia, and we must exert all our efforts to come abreast of the tasks. The attraction of large numbers of working-class and intellectual young people to the movement, the increasing failures and the cunningness of governmental persecution make the propaganda of the principles and methods of Party organisation, discipline, and the technique of secrecy an urgent necessity. Such propaganda, if supported by all the various groups and by all the more experienced comrades, can and must result in the training of young socialists and workers as able leaders of the revolutionary movement, capable of overcoming all obstacles placed in the way of our work by the tyranny of the autocratic police state and capable of serving air the requirements of the working masses, who are spontaneously striving towards socialism and political struggle. Finally, one of the principal tasks arising out of the above-mentioned issues must be the analysis of this spontaneous movement (among the working masses, as well as among our intelligentsia). We must try to understand the social movement of the intelligentsia which marked the late nineties in Russia and combined various, and sometimes conflicting, tendencies. We must carefully study the conditions of the working class in all spheres of economic life, study the forms and conditions of the workers' awakening, and of the struggles now setting in, in order that we may unite the Russian working-class movement and Marxist socialism, which has already begun to take root in Russian soil, into one integral whole, in order that we may combine the Russian revolutionary movement with the spontaneous upsurge of the masses of the people. Only when this contact has been established can a Social-Democratic working-class party be formed in Russia; for Social-Democracy does not exist merely to serve the spontaneous working-class movement (as some of our present-day "practical workers" are sometimes inclined to think), but to combine socialism with the working-class movement. And it is only this combination that will enable the Russian proletariat to fulfil its immediate political task---to liberate Russia from the tyranny of the autocracy.
The distribution of these themes and questions between the magazine and the newspaper will be determined exclusively by differences in the size and character of the two publications---the magazine should serve mainly for propaganda, the newspaper mainly for agitation. But all aspects of the movement should be reflected in both the magazine and the newspaper, and we wish particularly to emphasise our opposition to the view that a workers' newspaper should devote its pages exclusively to matters that immediately and directly concern the spontaneous working-class movement, and leave everything pertaining to the theory of socialism, science, politics, questions of Party organisation, etc., to a periodical for the intelligentsia. On the contrary, it is necessary to combine all the concrete facts and manifestations of the working-class movement with the indicated questions; the light of theory must be cast upon every separate fact; propaganda on questions of politics and Party 59 organisation must be carried on among the broad masses of the working class; and these questions must be dealt with in the work of agitation. The type of agitation which has hitherto prevailed almost without exception---agitation by means of locally published leaflets---is now inadequate; it is narrow, it deals only with local and mainly economic questions. We must try to create a higher form of agitation by means of the newspaper, which must contain a regular record of workers' grievances, workers' strikes, and other forms of proletarian struggle, as well as all manifestations of political tyranny in the whole of Russia; which must draw definite conclusions from each of these manifestations in accordance with the ultimate aim of socialism and the political tasks of the Russian proletariat. "Extend the bounds and broaden the content of our propagandist, agitational, and organisational activity"---this statement by P. B. Axelrod must serve as a slogan defining the activities of Russian Social-- Democrats in the immediate future, and we adopt this slogan in the programme of our publications.
Here the question naturally arises: if the proposed publications are to serve the purpose of uniting all Russian Social-Democrats and mustering them into a single party, they must reflect all shades of opinion, all local specific features, and all the various practical methods. How can we combine the varying points of view with the maintenance of a uniform editorial policy for these publications ? Should these publications be merely a jumble of various views, or should they have an independent and quite definite tendency ?
We hold to the second view and hope that an organ having a definite tendency will prove quite suitable (as we shall show below), both for the purpose of expressing various viewpoints, and for comradely polemics between contributors. Our views are in complete accord with the fundamental ideas- of Marxism (as expressed in the Communist Manifesto, and in the programmes of Social-Democrats in Western Europe); we stand for the consistent development of these ideas in the spirit of Marx and Engels and emphatically reject the equivocating and opportunist corrections a la Bernstein which have now become so fashionable. As we see it, the task of Social-Democracy is to organise the class struggle of the proletariat, to promote that struggle, to point out its essential ultimate aim, and to analyse the conditions that determine the methods by which this struggle should be conducted. "The emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes themselves." But while we do not separate Social-Democracy from the working-class movement, we must not forget that the task of the former is to represent the interests of this movement in all countries as a whole, that it must not blindly worship any particular phase of the movement at any particular time or place. We think that it is the duty of Social-Democracy to support every revolutionary movement against the existing political and social system, and we regard its aim to be the conquest of political power by the working class, the expropriation of the expropriators, and the establishment of a socialist society. We strongly repudiate every attempt to weaken or tone down the revolutionary character of 60 Social-Democracy, which is the party of social revolution, ruthlessly hostile to all classes standing for the present social system. We believe the historical task of Russian Social-Democracy is, in particular, to overthrow the autocracy: Russian Social-Democracy is destined to become the vanguard fighter in the ranks of Russian democracy; it is destined to achieve the aim which the whole social development of Russia sets before it and which it has inherited from the glorious fighters in the Russian revolutionary movement. Only by inseparably connecting the economic and political struggles, only by spreading political propaganda and agitation among wider and wider strata of the working class, can Social-Democracy fulfil its mission ...
... Although we carry out our literary work from the standpoint of a definite tendency, we do not in the least intend to present all our views on partial questions as those of all Russian Social-Democrats; we do not deny that differences exist, nor shall we attempt to conceal or obliterate them. On the contrary, we desire our publications to become organs for the discussion of all questions by all Russian Social-Democrats of the most diverse shades of opinion. We do not reject polemics between comrades, but, on the contrary, are prepared to give them considerable space in our columns. Open polemics, conducted in full view of all Russian Social-Democrats and class-conscious workers, are necessary and desirable in order to clarify the depth of existing differences, in order to afford discussion of disputed questions from all angles, in order to combat the extremes into which representatives of various views, various localities, or various ``specialities'' of the revolutionary movement inevitably fall. Indeed, we regard one of the drawbacks of the present-day movement to be the absence of open polemics between avowedly differing views, the effort to conceal differences on fundamental questions.
Moreover, while recognising the Russian working class and Russian Social-Democracy as the vanguard in the struggle for democracy and for political liberty, we think it necessary to strive to make our publications general-democratic organs, not in the sense that we would for a single moment agree to forget the class antagonism between the proletariat and other classes, nor in the sense that we would consent to the slightest toning-down of the class struggle, but in the sense that we would bring forward and discuss all democratic questions, not confining ourselves merely to narrowly proletarian questions; in the sense that we would bring forward and discuss all instances and manifestations of political oppression, show the connection between the working-class movement and the political struggle in all its forms, attract all honest fighters against the autocracy, regardless of their views or the class they belong to, and induce them to support the working class as the only revolutionary force irrevocably hostile to absolutism. Consequently, although we appeal primarily to the Russian socialists and class-conscious workers, we do not appeal to them alone. We also call upon all who are oppressed by the present political system in Russia, on all who strive for the emancipation of the Russian people from their political slavery to support the publications which will be devoted to 61 organising the working-class movement into a revolutionary political party; we place the columns of our publications at their disposal in order that they may expose all the abominations and crimes of the Russian autocracy. We make this appeal in the conviction that the banner of the political struggle raised by Russian Social-Democracy can and will become the banner of the whole people.
The tasks we set ourselves are extremely broad and all-embracing, and we would not have dared to take them up, were we not absolutely convinced from the whole of our past experience that these are the most urgent tasks of the whole movement, were we not assured of the sympathy and of promises of generous and constant support on the part of: 1. several organisations of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party and of separate groups of Russian Social-Democrats working in various towns; 2. the Emancipation of Labour group, which founded Russian Social-Democracy and has always been in the lead of its theoreticians and literary representatives; 3. a number of persons who are unaffiliated with any organisation, but who sympathise with the Social-Democratic working-class movement, and have proved of no little service to it. We will exert every effort to carry out properly the part of the general revolutionary work which we have selected, and will do our best to bring every Russian comrade to regard our publications as his own, to which all groups would communicate every kind of information concerning the movement, in which they would express their views, indicate their needs for political literature, relate their experiences, and voice their opinions concerning Social-Democratic editions; in a word, the medium through which they would thereby share whatever contribution they make to the movement and whatever they draw from it. Only in this way will it be possible to establish a genuinely ail-Russian Social-Democratic organ. Russian Social-Democracy is already finding itself constricted in the underground conditions in which the various groups and isolated study circles carry on their work. It is time to come out on the road of open advocacy of socialism, on the road of open political struggle, The establishment of an ail-Russian organ of Social-Democracy must be the first step on this road.
Written in the spring of 1900 First published in 1925 in Lenin Miscellany IV
Collected Works, Vol. 4, pp. 320-330
62 __--_--_--__ __ALPHA_LVL2__ Declaration of the Editorial Board of IskraIn undertaking the publication of a political newspaper, Iskra, we consider it necessary to say a few words concerning the objects for which we are striving and the understanding we have of our tasks.
We are passing through an extremely important period in the history of the Russian working-class movement and Russian Social-Democracy. The past few years have been marked by an astonishingly rapid spread of Social-Democratic ideas among our intelligentsia, and meeting this trend in social ideas is an independent movement of the industrial proletariat, which is beginning to unite and struggle against its oppressors, and to strive eagerly towards socialism. Study circles of workers and Social-Democratic intellectuals are springing up everywhere, local agitation leaflets are being widely distributed, the demand for Social-Democratic literature is increasing and is far outstripping the supply, and intensified government persecution is powerless to restrain the movement. The prisons and places of exile are filled to overflowing. Hardly a month goes by without our hearing of socialists "caught in dragnets" in all part of Russia, of the capture of underground couriers, of the confiscation of literature and printing-presses. But the movement is growing, it is spreading to ever wider regions, it is penetrating more and more deeply into the working class and is attracting public attention to an ever-increasing degree. The entire economic development of Russia and the history of social thought and of the revolutionary movement in Russia serve as a guarantee that the Social-- Democratic working-class movement will grow and will, in the end, surmount all the obstacles that confront it.
On the other hand, the principal feature of our movement, which has become particularly marked in recent times, is its state of disunity and its amateur character, if one may so express it. Local study circles spring up and function independently of one another and---what is particularly important--- of circles that have functioned and still function in the same districts. Traditions are not established and continuity is not maintained; local publications fully reflect this disunity and the lack of contact with what Russian Social-Democracy has already achieved.
Such a state of disunity is not in keeping with the demands posed by the movement in its present strength and breadth, and creates, in our opinion, a critical moment in its development. The need for consolidation and for a definite form and organisation is felt with irresistible force in the movement itself; yet among Social-Democrats active in the practical field this need for a transition to a higher form of the movement is not everywhere realised. On the contrary, among wide circles an ideological wavering is to be seen, an 63 infatuation with the fashionable' 'criticism of Marxism'' and with ``Bernsteinism'', the spread of the views of the so-called ``economist'' trend, and what is inseparably connected with it---an effort to keep the movement at its lower level, to push into the background the task of forming a revolutionary party that heads the struggle of the entire people. It is a fact that such an ideological wavering is to be observed among Russian Social-Democrats; that narrow practicalism, detached from the theoretical clarification of the movement as a whole, threatens to divert the movement to a false path. No one who has direct knowledge of the state of affairs in the majority of our organisations has any doubt whatever on that score. Moreover, literary productions exist which confirm this. It is sufficient to mention the Credo, which has already called forth legitimate protest; the Separate Supplement to "Rabochaya Mysl" ( September 1899), which brought out so markedly the trend that permeates the whole of Rabochaya Mysl; and, finally, the manifesto of the St. Petersburg Self-Emancipation of the Working Class group, also drawn up in the spirit of ``economism''. And completely untrue are the assertions of Rabocheye Dyelo to the effect that the Credo merely represents the opinions of individuals, that the trend represented by Rabochaya Mysl expresses merely the confusion of mind and the tactlessness of its editors, and not a special tendency in the progress of the Russian working-class movement.
Simultaneously with this, the works of authors whom the reading public has hitherto, with more or less reason, regarded as prominent representatives of ``legal'' Marxism are increasingly revealing a change of views in a direction approximating that of bourgeois apologetics. As a result of all this, we have the confusion and anarchy which has enabled the ex-Marxist, or, more precisely, the ex-socialist, Bernstein, in recounting his successes, to declares unchallenged, in the press that the majority of Social-Democrats active in Russia are his followers.
We do not desire to exaggerate the gravity of the situation, but it would be immeasurably more harmful to. close our eyes to it. For this reason we heartily welcome the decision of the Emancipation of Labour group to resume its literary activity and begin a systematic struggle against the attempts to distort and vulgarise Social-Democracy.
The following practical conclusion is to be drawn from the foregoing: we Russian Social-Democrats must unite and direct all our efforts towards the formation of a strong party which must struggle under the single banner of revolutionary Social-Democracy. This is precisely the task laid down by the congress in 1898 at which the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party was formed, and which published its Manifesto.
We regard ourselves as members of this Party; we agree entirely with the fundamental ideas contained in the Manifesto and attach extreme importance to it as a public declaration of its aims. Consequently, we*, as members of the Party, present the question of our immediate and direct tasks as follows: What plan of activity must we adopt to revive the Party on the firmest possible basis ?
64The reply usually made to this question is that it is necessary to elect anew a central Party body and instruct it to resume the publication of the Party organ. But, in the period of confusion through which we are now passing, such a simple method is hardly expedient.
To establish and consolidate the Party means to establish and consolidate unity among all Russian Social-Democrats, and, for the reasons indicated above, such unity cannot be decreed, it cannot be brought about by a decision, say, of a meeting of representatives; it must be worked for. In the first place, it is necessary to work for solid ideological unity which should eliminate discordance and confusion that---let us be frank!---reign among Russian Social-Democrats at the present time. This ideological unity must be consolidated by a Party programme. Secondly, we must work to achieve an organisation especially for the purpose of establishing and maintaining contact among all the centres of the movement, of supplying complete and timely information about the movement, and of delivering our newspapers and periodicals regularly to all parts of Russia. Only when such an organisation has been founded, only when a Russian socialist post has been established, will the Party possess a sound foundation and become a real fact, and, therefore, a mighty political force. We intend to devote our efforts to the first half of this task, i.e., to creating a common literature, consistent in principle and capable of ideologically uniting revolutionary Social-Democracy, since we regard this as the pressing demand of the movement today and a necessary preliminary measure towards the resumption of Party activity.
As we have said, the ideological unity of Russian Social-Democrats has still to be created, and to this end it is, in our opinion, necessary to have an open and all-embracing discussion of the fundamental questions of principle and tactics raised by the present-day "economists," Bernsteinians, and ``critics''. Before we can unite, and in order that we may unite, we must first of all draw firm and definite lines of demarcation. Otherwise, our unity will be purely fictitious, it will conceal the prevailing confusion and hinder its radical elimination. It is understandable, therefore, that we do not intend to make our publication a mere storehouse of various views. On the contrary, we shall conduct it in the spirit of a strictly defined tendency. This tendency can be expressed by the word Marxism, and there is hardly need to add that we stand for the consistent development of the ideas of Marx and Engels and emphatically reject the equivocating, vague, and opportunist ``corrections'' for which Eduard Bernstein, P. Struve, and many others have set the fashion. But although we shall discuss all questions from our own definite point of view, we shall give space in our columms to polemics between comrades. Open polemics, conducted in full view of all Russian Social-Democrats and class-conscious workers, are necessary and desirable in order to clarify the depth of existing differences, in order to afford discussion of disputed questions from all angles, in order to combat the extremes into which representatives, not only of various views, but even of various localities, or various "specialities" 65 of the revolutionary movement, inevitably fall. Indeed, as noted above, we regard one of the drawbacks of the present-day movement to be the absence of open polemics between avowedly differing views, the effort to conceal differences on fundamental questions.
We shall not enumerate in detail all questions and points of subject-matter included in the programme of our publication, for this programme derives automatically from the general conception of what a political newspaper, published under present conditions, should be.
We will exert our efforts to bring every Russian comrade to regard our publication as his own, to which all groups would communicate every kind of information concerning the movement, in which they would relate their experiences, express their views, indicate their needs for political literature, and voice their opinions concerning Social-Democratic editions: in a word, they would thereby share whatever contribution they make to the movement and whatever they draw from it. Only in this way will it be possible to establish a genuinely all-Russian Social-Democratic organ. Only such a publication will be capable of leading the movement on to the high road of political struggle. "Extend the bounds and broaden the content of our propagandist, agitational, and organisational activity"---these words of P. B. Axelrod must serve as a slogan denning the activities of Russian Social-Democrats in the immediate future, and we adopt this slogan in the programme of our publication.
We appeal not only to socialists and class-conscious workers, we also call upon all who are oppressed by the present political system; we place the columns of our publications at their disposal in order that they may expose all the abominations of the Russian autocracy.
Those who regard Social-Democracy as an organisation serving exclusively the spontaneous struggle of the proletariat may be content with merely local agitation and working-class literature "pure and simple". We do not understand Social-Democracy in this way; we regard it as a revolutionary party, inseparably connected with the working-class movement and directed against absolutism. Only when organised in such a party will the proletariat---the most revolutionary class in Russia today---be in a position to fulfil the historical task that confronts it---to unite under its banner all the democratic elements in the country and to crown the tenacious struggle in which so many generations have fallen with the final triumph over the hated regime.
__b_b_b__The size of the newspaper will range from one to two printed signatures.
In view of the conditions under which the Russian underground press has to work, there will be no regular date of publication.
We have been promised contributions by a number of prominent representatives of international Social-Democracy, the close co-operation of the Emancipation of Labour group (G. V. Plekhanov, P. B. Axelrod, and V. I. Zasulich), 66 and the support of several organisations of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, as well as of separate groups of Russian Social-Democrats.
Written in September 1900
Collected Works, Vol. 43 pp. 351-356
Published in 1900 by Iskra as a separate leaflet
__--_--_--__ __ALPHA_LVL2__ Where To BeginIn recent years the question of "what is to be done" has confronted Russian Social-Democrats with particular insistence. It is not a question of what path we must choose (as was the case in the late eighties and early nineties), but of what practical steps we must take upon the known path and how they shall be taken. It is a question of a system and plan of practical work. And it must be admitted that we have not yet solved this question of the character and the methods of struggle, fundamental for a party of practical activity, that it still gives rise to serious differences of opinion which reveal a deplorable ideological instability and vacillation. On the one hand, the ``Economist'' trend, far from being dead, is endeavouring to clip and narrow the work of political organisation and agitation. On the other, unprincipled eclecticism is again rearing its head, aping every new ``trend'', and is incapable of distinguishing immediate demands from the main tasks and permanent needs of the movement as a whole. This trend, as we know, has ensconced itself in Rabocheye Dyelo. This journal's latest statement of ``programme'', a bombastic article under the bombastic title "A Historic Turn" (``Listok'' Rabochego Dyela, No. 6), bears out with special emphasis the characterisation we have given. Only yesterday there was a flirtation with ``Economism'', a fury over the resolute condemnation of Rabochaya Mysl, and Plekhanov's presentation of the question of the struggle against autocracy was being toned down. But today Liebknecht's words are being quoted: "If the circumstances change within twenty-four hours, then tactics must be changed within twenty-four hours." There is talk of a "strong fighting organisation" for direct attack, for storming the autocracy; of "broad revolutionary political agitation among the masses" (how energetic we are now---both revolutionary and political!); of "ceaseless calls for street protests"; of "street demonstrations of a pronounced [sic!] political character"; and so on, and so forth.
We might perhaps declare ourselves happy at Rabocheye Dyelo's quick grasp of the programme we put forward in the first issue of Iskra, calling for the formation of a strong well-organised party, whose aim is not only to win isolated concessions but to storm the fortress of the autocracy itself; but the lack of any set point of view in these individuals can only dampen our happiness.
67Rabocheye Dyelo, of course, mentions Liebknecht's name in vain. The tactics of agitation in relation to some special question, or the tactics with regard to some detail of party organisation may be changed in twenty-four hours; but only people devoid of all principle are capable of changing, in twenty-four hours, or, for that matter, in twenty-four months, their view on the necessity---in general, constantly, and absolutely---of an organisation of struggle and of political agitation among the masses. It is ridiculous to plead different circumstances and a change of periods: the building of a fighting organisation and the conduct of political agitation are essential under any "drab, peaceful" circumstances, in any period, no matter how marked by a "declining revolutionary spirit"; moreover, it is precisely in such periods and under such circumstances that work of this kind is particularly necessary, since it is too late to form the organisation in times of explosion and outbursts; the party must be in a state of readiness to launch activity at a moment's notice. "Change the tactics within twently-four hours"! But in order to change tactics it is first necessary to have tactics; without a strong organisation skilled in waging political struggle under all circumstances and at all times, there can be no question of that systematic plan of action, illumined by firm principles and steadfastly carried out, which alone is worthy of the name of tactics. Let us, indeed, consider the matter; we are now being told that the "historic moment" has presented our Party with a "completely new" question---the question of terror. Yesterday the "completely new" question was political organisation and agitation; today it is terror. Is it not strange to hear people who have so grossly forgotten their principles holding forth on a radical change in tactics ?
Fortunately, Rabocheye Dyelo is in error. The question of terror is not a new question at all; it will suffice to recall briefly the established views of Russian Social-Democracy on the subject.
In principle we have never rejected, and cannot reject, terror. Terror is one of the forms of military action that may be perfectly suitable and even essential at a definite juncture in the battle, given a definite state of the troops and the existence of definite conditions. But the important point is that terror, at the present time, is by no means suggested as an operation for the army in the field, an operation closely connected with and integrated into the entire system of struggle, but as an independent form of occasional attack unrelated to any army. Without a central body and with the weakness of local revolutionary organisations, this, in fact,' is all that terror can be. We, therefore, declare emphatically that under the present conditions such a means of struggle is inopportune and unsuitable; that it diverts the most active fighters from their real task, the task which is most important from the standpoint of the interests of the movement as a whole; and that it disorganises the forces, not of the government, but of the revolution. We need but recall the recent events. With our own eyes we saw that the mass of workers and "common people" of the towns pressed forward in struggle, while the revolutionaries lacked a staff 68 of leaders and organisers. Under such conditions, is there not the danger that, as the most energetic revolutionaries go over to terror, the fighting contingents, in whom alone it is possible to place serious reliance, will be weakened ? Is there not the danger of rupturing the contact between the revolutionary organisations and the disunited masses of the discontented, the protesting, and the disposed to struggle, who are weak precisely because they are disunited ? Yet it is this contact that is the sole guarantee of our success. Far be it from us to deny the significance of heroic individual blows, but it is our duty to sound a vigorous warning against becoming infatuated with terror, against taking it to be the chief and basic means of struggle, as so many people strongly incline to do at present. Terror can never be a regular military operation; at best it can only serve as one of the methods employed in a decisive assault. But can we issue the call for such a decisive assault at the present moment ? Rabocheye Dyelo apparently thinks we can. At any rate, it exclaims: "Form assault columns!" But this, again, is more zeal than reason. The main body of our military forces consists of volunteers and insurgents. We possess only a few small units of regular troops, and these are not even mobilised; they are not connected with one another, nor have they been trained to form columns of any sort, let alone assault columns. In view of all this, it must be clear to anyone who is capable of appreciating the general conditions of our struggle and who is mindful of them at every ``turn'' in the historical course of events that at the present moment our slogan cannot be "To the assault", but has to be, "Lay siege to the enemy fortress". In other words, the immediate task of our Party is not to summon all available forces for the attack right now, but to call for the formation of a revolutionary organisation capable of uniting all forces and guiding the movement in actual practice and not in name alone, that is, an organisation ready at any time to support every protest and every outbreak and use it to build up and consolidate the fighting forces suitable for the decisive struggle.
The lesson of the February and March events has been so impressive that no disagreement in principle with this conclusion is now likely to be encountered. What we need at the present moment, however, is not a solution of the problem in 'principle but a practical solution. We should not only be clear on the nature of the organisation that is needed and its precise purpose, but we must elaborate a definite plan for an organisation, so that its formation may be undertaken from all aspects. In view of the pressing importance of the question, we, on our part, take the liberty of submitting to the comrades a skeleton plan to be developed in greater detail in a pamphlet now in preparation for print.
In our opinion, the starting-point of our activities, the first step towards creating the desired organisation, or, let us say, the main thread which, if followed, would enable us steadily to develop, deepen, and extend that organisation, should be the founding of an all-Russian political newspaper. A newspaper is what we most of all need; without it we cannot conduct that systematic, all-round propaganda and agitation, consistent in principle, which is the chief 69 and permanent task of Social-Democracy in general and, in particular, the pressing task of the moment, when interest in politics and in questions of socialism has been aroused among the broadest strata of the population. Never has the need been felt so acutely as today for reinforcing dispersed agitation in the form of individual action, local leaflets, pamphlets, etc., by means of generalised and systematic agitation that can only be conducted with the aid of the periodical press. It may be said without exaggeration that the frequency and regularity with which a newspaper is printed (and distributed) can serve as a precise criterion of how well this cardinal and most essential sector of our militant activities is built up. Furthermore, our newspaper must be all-Russian. If we fail, and as long as we fail, to combine our efforts to influence the people and the government by means of the printed word, it will be Utopian to think of combining other means more complex, more difficult, but also more decisive, for exerting influence. Our movement suffers in the first place, ideologically, as well as in practidal and organisational respects, from its state of fragmentation, from the almost complete immersion of the overwhelming majority of Social-Democrats in local work, which narrows their outlook, the scope of their activities, and their skill in the maintenance of secrecy and their preparedness. It is precisely in this state of fragmentation that one must look for the deepest roots of the instability and the waverings noted above. The first step towards eliminating this shortcoming, towards transforming divers local movements into a single, all-Russian movement, must be the founding of an ail-Russian newspaper. Lastly, what we need is definitely a political newspaper. Without a political organ, a political movement deserving that name is inconceivable in the Europe of today. Without such a newspaper we cannot possibly fulfil our task---that of concentrating all the elements of political discontent and protest, of vitalising thereby the revolutionary movement of the proletariat. We have taken the first step, we have aroused in the working class a passion for ``economic'', factory exposures; we must now take the next step, that of arousing in every section of the population that is at all politically conscious a passion for political exposure. We must not be discouraged by the fact that the voice of political exposure is today so feeble, timid, and infrequent. This is not because of a wholesale submission to police despotism, but because those who are able and ready to make exposures have no tribune from which to speak, no eager and encouraging audience, they do not see anywhere among the people that force to which it would be worth while directing their complaint against the ``omnipotent'' Russian Government. But today all this is rapidly changing. There is such a force---it is the revolutionary proletariat, which has demonstrated its readiness, not only to listen to and support the summons to political struggle, but boldly to engage in battle. We are now in a position to provide a tribune for the nationwide exposure of the tsarist government, and it is our duty to do this. That tribune must be a Social-Democratic newspaper. The Russian working class, as distinct from the other classes and strata of Russian society, displays a constant interest in political knowledge andmanifests 70 a constant and extensive demand (not only in periods of intensive unrest) for illegal literature. When such a mass demand is evident, when the training of experienced revolutionary leaders has already begun, and when the concentration of the working class makes it virtual master in the working-class districts of the big cities and in the factory settlements and communities, it is quite feasible for the proletariat to found a political newspaper. Through the proletariat the newspaper will reach the urban petty bourgeoisie, the rural handicraftsmen, and the peasants, thereby becoming a real people's political newspaper.
The role of a newspaper, however, is not limited solely to the dissemination of ideas, to political education, and to the enlistment of political allies. A newspaper is not only a collective propagandist and a collective agitator, it is also a collective organiser. In this last respect it may be likened to the scaffolding round a building under construction, which marks the contours of the structure and facilitates communication between the builders, enabling them to distribute the work and to view the common results achieved by their organised labour. With the aid of the newspaper, and through it, a permanent organisation will naturally take shape that will engage, not only in local activities, but in regular general work, and will train its members to follow political events carefully, appraise their significance and their effect on the various strata of the population, and develop effective means for the revolutionary party to influence those events. The mere technical task of regularly supplying the newspaper with copy and of promoting regular distribution will necessitate a network of local agents of the united party, who will maintain constant contact with one another, know the general state of affairs, get accustomed to performing regularly their detailed functions in the all-Russian work, and test their strength in the organisation of various revolutionary actions. This network of agents^^*^^ will form the skeleton of precisely the kind of organisation we needone that is sufficiently large to embrace the whole country; sufficiently broad and many-sided to effect a strict and detailed division of labour; sufficiently well tempered to be able to conduct steadily its own work under any circumstances, at all "sudden turns", and in face of all contingencies; sufficiently flexible to be able, on the one hand, to avoid an open battle against an overwhelming enemy, when the enemy has concentrated all his forces at one spot, and yet, on the other, to take advantage of his unwieldiness and to attack him when and where he least expects it. Today we are faced with the relatively easy task of supporting student demonstrations in the streets of big cities; tomorrow we may, perhaps, have the more difficult task of supporting, for example, the _-_-_
^^*^^ It will be understood, of course, that these agents could work successfully only in the closest contact with the local committees (groups, study circles) of our Party. .In general, the entire plan we,:project can, of course, be implemented only with the most active support of-the committees which have on repeated occasions attempted to unite the Party and which, we are sure, will achieve this unification---if not today, then tomorrow, if riot in one way, tiien in another.
71 unemployed movement in some particular area, and the day after to be at our posts in order to play a revolutionary part in a peasant uprising. Today we must take advantage of the tense political situation arising out of the government's campaign against the Zemstvo; tomorrow we may have to support popular indignation against some tsarist bashi-bazouk on the rampage and help, by means of boycott, indictment demonstrations, etc., to make things so hot for him as to force him into open retreat. Such a degree of combat readiness can be developed only through the constant activity of regular troops. If we join forces to produce a common newspaper, this work will train and bring into the foreground, not only the most skilful propagandists, but the most capable organisers, the most talented political party leaders capable, at the right moment, of releasing the slogan for the decisive struggle and of taking the lead in that struggle.In conclusion, a few words to avoid possible misunderstanding. We have spoken continuously of systematic, planned preparation, yet it is by no means our intention to imply that the autocracy can be overthrown only by a regular siege or by organised assault. Such a view would be absurd and doctrinaire. On the contrary, it is quite possible, and historically much more probable, that the autocracy will collapse under the impact of one of the spontaneous outbursts or unforeseen political complications which constantly threaten it from all sides. But no political party that wishes to avoid adventurous gambles can base its activities on the anticipation of such outbursts and complications. We must go our own way, and we must steadfastly carry on our regular work, and the less our reliance on the unexpected, the less the chance of our being caught unawares by any "historic turns''.
Written in May 1901
Published in Iskra, No. 4, May 1901
Collected Works, Vol. 5, pp. 17-24
__--_--_--__ __ALPHA_LVL2__ What Is To Be done?In this connection it is particularly important to state the oft-forgotten (and comparatively little-known) fact that, although the early Social-Democrats of that period zealously carried on economic agitation (being guided in this activity 72 by the truly useful indications contained in the pamphlet On Agitation, then still in manuscript), they did not regard this as their sole task. On the contrary, from the very beginning they set for Russian Social-Democracy the most far-reaching historical tasks, in general, and the task of overthrowing the autocracy, in particular. Thus, towards the end of 1895, the St. Petersburg group of Social-Democrats, which founded the League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class, prepared the first issue of a newspaper called Rabocheye Dyelo. This issue was ready to go to press when it was seized by the gendarmes, on the night of December 8,1895, in a raid on the house of one of the members of the group, Anatoly Alexeyevich Vaneyev,^^*^^ so that the first edition of Rabocheye Dyelo was not destined to see the light of day. The leading article in this issue (which perhaps thirty years hence some Russkaya Starina will unearth in the archives of the Department of Police) outlined the historical tasks of the working class in Russia and placed the achievement of political liberty at their head. The issue also contained an article entitled "What Are Our Ministers Thinking About?" which dealt with the crushing of the elementary education committees by the police. In addition, there was some correspondence from St. Petersburg, and from other parts of Russia (e.g., a letter on the massacre of the workers in Yaroslavl Gubernia). This, "first effort", if we are not mistaken, of the Russian Social-Democrats of the nineties was not a purely local, or less still, ``Economic'', newspaper, but one that aimed to unite the strike movement with the revolutionary movement against the autocracy, and to win over to the side of Social-Democracy all who were oppressed by the policy of reactionary obscurantism. No one in the slightest degree acquainted with the state of the movement at that period could doubt that such a paper would have met with warm response among the workers of the capital and the revolutionary intelligentsia and would have had a wide circulation.
_-_-_^^*^^ A. A. Vaneyev died in Eastern Siberia in 1899 from consumption, which he contracted during solitary confinement in prison prior to his banishment. That is why we considered it possible to publish the above information, the authenticity of which we guarantee, for it comes from persons who were closely and directly acquainted with A. A. Vaneyev.
73 __ALPHA_LVL3__ III TRADE-UNIONIST POLITICS AND SOCIAL-DEMOCRATIC POLITICSEveryone knows that the economic^^*^^ struggle of the Russian workers underwent widespread development and consolidation simultaneously with the production of ``literature'' exposing economic (factory and occupational) conditions. The ``leaflets'' were devoted mainly to the exposure of the factory system, and very soon a veritable passion for exposures was roused among the workers. As soon as the workers realised that the Social-Democratic study circles desired to, and could, supply them with a new kind of leaflet that told the whole truth about their miserable existence, about their unbearably hard toil, and their lack of rights, they began to send in, actually flood us with, correspondence from the factories and workshops. This "exposure literature" created a tremendous sensation, not only in the particular factory exposed in the given leaflet, but in all the factories to which news of the revealed facts spread. And since the poverty and want among the workers in the various enterprises and in the various trades are much the same, the "truth about the life of the workers" stirred everyone. Even among the most backward workers, a veritable passion arose to "get into print"---a noble passion for this rudimentary form of war against the whole of the present social system which is based upon robbery and oppression. And in the overwhelming majority of cases these ``leaflets'' were in truth a declaration of war, because the exposures served greatly to agitate the workers; they evoked among them common demands for the removal of the most glaring outrages and roused in them a readiness to support the demands with strikes. Finally, the employers themselves were compelled to recognise the significance of these leaflets as a declaration of war, so much so that in a large number of cases they did not even wait for the outbreak of hostilities. As is always the case, the mere publication of these exposures made them effective, and they acquired the significance of a strong moral influence. On more than one occasion, the mere appearance of a leaflet proved sufficient to secure the satisfaction of all or part of the demands put forward. In a word, economic (factory) exposures were and remain an important lever in the economic struggle. And they will continue to retain this significance as long sa there is capitalism, which makes it necessary for the workers to defend themselves. Even in the most advanced countries of Europe it can still be seen that the exposure of abuses in some backward trade, or in some forgotten branch of _-_-_
^^*^^ To avoid misunderstanding, we must point out that here, and throughout this pamphlet, by economic struggle, we imply (in keeping with the accepted usage among us) the "practical economic struggle", which Engels, in the passage quoted above, described as r'resistance to the capitalists", and which in free countries is known as the organised-labour, syndical, or trade-union struggle.
74 domestic industry, serves as a starting-point for the awakening of class-- consciousness, for the beginning of a trade-union struggle, and for the spread of socialism.^^*^^The overwhelming majority of Russian Social-Democrats have of late been almost entirely absorbed by this work of organising the exposure of factory conditions. Suffice it to recall Rabochaya Mysl to see the extent to which they have been absorbed by it---so much so, indeed, that they have lost sight of the fact that this, taken by itself, is in essence still not Social-Democratic work, but merely trade-union work. As a matter of fact, the exposures merely dealt with the relations between the workers in a given trade and their employers, and all they achieved was that the sellers of labour-power learned to sell their ``commodity'' on better terms and to fight the purchasers over a purely commercial deal. These exposures could have served (if properly utilised by an organisation of revolutionaries) as a beginning and a component part of Social-Democratic activity; but they could also have led (and, given a worshipful attitude towards spontaneity, were bound to lead) to a "purely trade-union" struggle and to a non-Social-Democratic working-class movement. Social-Democracy leads the struggle of the working class, not only for better terms for the sale of labour-power, but for the abolition of the social system that compels the propertyless to sell themselves to the rich. Social-Democracy represents the working class, not in its relation to a given group of employers alone, but in its relation to all classes of modern society and to the state as an organised political force. Hence, it follows that not only must Social-Democrats not confine themselves exclusively to the economic struggle, but that they must not allow the organisation of economic exposures to become the predominant part of their activities. We must take up actively the political education of the working class and the development of its political consciousness. Now that Zarya and Iskra have made the first attack upon Economism, "all are agreed" on this (although some agree only in words, as we shall soon see).
The question arises, what should political education consist in? Can it be confined to the propaganda of working-class hostility to the autocracy? Of course not. It is not enough to explain to the workers that they are politically _-_-_
^^*^^ In the present chapter we deal only with the political struggle, in its broader or narrower meaning. Therefore, we note only in passing, merely as a curiosity, Rabocheye Dyelo's charge that Iskra is "too restrained" in regard to the economic struggle (Two Conferences, p. 27, rehashed by Martynov in his pamphlet, Social-Democracy and. the Working Class"). If the accusers computed by the hundredweights or reams (as they are so fond of doing) any given year's discussion of the economic struggle in the industrial section of Iskra, in comparison with the corresponding sections of Rabocheye Dyelo and Rabochaya Mysl combined, they would easily see that the latter lag behind even in this respect. Apparently, the realisation fo this simple truth compels them to resort to arguments that clearly reveal their confusion. "Iskra", they write, "willy-nilly [!] is compelled[!] to reckon with the imperative demands of life and to publish at least [!!] correspondence about the working-class movement" (Two Conferences, p. 27). Now this is really a crushing argument!
75 oppressed (any more than it is to explain to them that their interests are antagonistic to the interests of the employers). Agitation must be conducted with regard to every concrete example of this oppression (as we have begun to carry on agitation round concrete examples of economic oppression). Inasmuch as this oppression affects the most diverse classes of society, inasmuch as it manifests itself in the most varied spheres of life and activity---vocational, civic, personal, family, religious, scientific, etc., etc.---is it not evident that we shall not be fulfilling our task of developing the political consciousness of the workers if we do not undertake the organisation of the political exposure of the autocracy in all its aspects? In order to carry on agitation round concrete instances of oppression, these instances must be exposed (as it is necessary to expose factory abuses in order to carry on economic agitation).The propagandist, dealing with, say, the question of unemployment, must explain the capitalistic nature .of crises, the cause of their inevitability in modern society, the necessity for the transformation of this society into a socialist society, etc. In a word, he must present "many ideas", so many, indeed, that they will be understood as an integral whole only by a (comparatively) few persons. The agitator, however, speaking on the same subject, will take as an illustration a fact that is most glaring and most widely known to his audience, say, the death of an unemployed worker's family from starvation, the growing impoverishment, etc., and, utilising this fact, known to all, will direct his efforts to presenting a single idea to the ``masses'', e.g., the senselessness of the contradiction between the increase of wealth and the increase of poverty; he will strive to rouse discontent and indignation among the masses against this crying injustice, leaving a more complete explanation of this contradiction to the propagandist. Consequently, the propagandist operates chiefly by means of the printed word; the agitator by means of the spoken word. The propagandist requires qualities different from those of the agitator.
In advancing against Iskra his theory of "raising the activity of the working masses", Martynov actually betrayed an urge to belittle that activity, for he declared the very economic struggle before which all economists grovel to be the preferable, particularly important, and "most widely applicable" means of rousing this activity and its broadest field. This error is characteristic, precisely in that it is by no means peculiar to Martynov. In reality, it is possible to "raise the activity of the working masses" only when this activity is not restricted to "political agitation on an economic basis". A basic condition for the necessary expansion of political agitation is the organisation of comprehensive 76 political exposure. In no way except by means of such exposures can the masses be trained in political consciousness and revolutionary activity. Hence, activity of this kind is one of the most important functions of international Social-Democracy as a whole, for even political freedom does not in any way eliminate exposures; it merely shifts somewhat their sphere of direction. Thus, the German party is especially strengthening its positions and spreading its influence, thanks particularly to the untiring energy with which it is conducting its campaign of political exposure. Working-class consciousness cannot be genuine political consciousness unless the workers are trained to respond to all cases of tyranny, oppression, violence, and abuse, no matter what class is affected--- unless they are trained, moreover, to respond from a Social-Democratic point of view and no other. The consciousness of the working masses cannot be genuine class-consciousness, unless the workers learn, from concrete, and above all from topical, political facts and events to observe every other social class in all the manifestations of its intellectual, ethical, and political life; unless they learn to apply in practice the materialist analysis and the materialist estimate of all aspects of the life and activity of all classes, strata, and groups of the population. Those who concentrate the attention, observation, and consciousness of the working class exclusively, or even mainly, upon itself alone are not Social-Democrats; for the self-knowledge of the working class is indissolubly bound up, not solely with a fully clear theoretical understanding---it would be even truer to say, not so much with the theoretical as with the practical, understanding---of the relationships between all the various classes of modern society, acquired through the experience of political life. For this reason the conception of the economic struggle as the most widely applicable means of drawing the masses into the political movement, which our Economists preach, is so extremely harmful and reactionary in its practical significance. In order to become a Social-Democrat, the worker must have a clear picture in his mind of the economic nature and the social and political features of the landlord and the priest, the high state official and the peasant, the student and the vagabond; he must know their strong and weak points; he must grasp the meaning of all the catchwords and sophisms by which each class and each stratum camouflages its selfish strivings and its real "inner workings"; he must understand what interests are reflected by certain institutions and certain laws and how they are reflected. But this "clear picture" cannot be obtained from any book. It can be obtained only from living examples and from exposures that follow close upon what is going on about us at a given moment; upon what is being discussed, in whispers perhaps, by each one in his own way; upon what finds expression in such and such events, in such and such statistics, in such and such court sentences, etc., etc. These comprehensive political exposures are an essential and fundamental condition for training the masses in revolutionary activity.
Why do the Russian workers still manifest little revolutionary activity in response to the brutal treatment of the people by the police, the persecution 77 of religious sects, the flogging of peasants, the outrageous censorship, the torture of soldiers, the persecution of the most innocent cultural undertakings, etc? Is it because the "economic struggle" does not ``stimulate'' them to this, because such activity does not "promise palpable results", because it produces little that is ``positive''? To adopt such an opinion, we repeat, is merely to direct the charge where it does not belong, to blame the working masses for one's own philistinism (or Bernsteinism). We must blame ourselves, our lagging behind the mass movement, for still being unable to organise sufficiently wide, striking, and rapid exposures of all the shameful outrages. When we do that (and we must and can do it), the most backward worker will understand, or will feel, that the students and religious sects, the peasants and the authors are being abused and outraged by those same dark forces that are oppressing and crushing him at every step of his life. Feeling that, he himself will be filled with an irresistible desire to react, and he will know how to hoot the censors one day, on another day to demonstrate outside the house of a governor who has brutally suppressed a peasant uprising, on still another day to teach a lesson to the gendarmes in surplices who are doing the work of the Holy Inquisition, etc. As yet we have done very little, almost nothing, to bring before the working masses prompt exposures on all possible issues. Many of us as yet do not recognise this as our bounden duty but trail spontaneously in the wake of the "drab everyday struggle", in the narrow confines of factory life. Under such circumstances to say that "Iskra displays a tendency to minimise the significance of the forward march of the drab everyday struggle in comparison with the propaganda of brilliant and complete ideas" (Martynov, op. cit, p. 61), means to drag the Party back, to defend and glorify our unpreparedness and backwardness.
As for calling the masses to action, that will come of itself as soon as energetic political agitation, live and striking exposures come into play. To catch some criminal red-handed and immediately to brand him publicly in all places is of itself far more eifective than any number of ``calls''; the effect very often is such as will make it impossible to tell exactly who it was that ``called'' upon the masses and who suggested this or that plan of demonstration, etc. Calls for action, not in the general, but in the concrete, sense of the term can be made only at the place of action; only those who themselves go into action, and do so immediately, can sound such calls. Our business as Social-Democratic publicists is to deepen, expand, and intensify political exposures and political agitation.
A word in passing about "calls to action". The only newspaper which prior to the spring events called upon the workers to intervene actively in a matter that certainly did not promise any palpable results whatever for the workers, i.e., the drafting of the students into the army, was Iskra. Immediately after the publication of the order of January 11, on "drafting the 183 students into the army", Iskra published an article on the matter (in its February issue, No. 2), and, before any demonstration was begun, forthwith called upon "the workers to go to the aid of the students", called upon the ``people'' openly 78 to take up the government's arrogant challenge. We ask: how is the remarkable fact to be explained that although Martynov talks so much about "calls to action", and even suggests "calls to action" as a special form of activity, he said not a word about this call? After this, was it not sheer philistinism on Martynov's part to allege that Iskra was one-sided because it did not issue sufficient ``calls'' to struggle for demands "promising palpable results" ?
Our Economists, including Rabocheye Dyelo, were successful because they adapted themselves to the backward workers. But the Social-Democratic worker, the revolutionary worker (and the number of such workers is growing) will indignantly reject all this talk about struggle for demands "promising palpable results", etc., because he will understand that this is only a variation of the old song about adding a kopek to the ruble. Such a worker will say to his counsellors from Rabochaya My si and Rabocheye Dyelo: you are busying yourselves in vain, gentlemen, and shirking your proper duties, by meddling with such excessive zeal in a job that we can very well manage ourselves. There is nothing clever in your assertion that the Social-Democrat's task is to lend the economic struggle itself a political character; that is only the beginning, it is not the main task of the Social-Democrats. For all over the world, including Russia, the police themselves often take the initiative in lending the economic struggle a political character, and the workers themselves learn to understand whom the government supports.^^*^^ The "economic struggle of the workers against the employers and the government", about which you make as much fuss as if you had discovered a new America, is being waged in all parts of Russia, even the most remote, by the workers themselves who have heard about strikes, but who have heard almost nothing about socialism. The ``activity'' you want to stimulate among us workers, by advancing concrete demands that promise palpable results, we are already displaying and in our everyday, limited trade-union work we put forward these concrete demands, very often without any assistance whatever from the intellectuals. But such activity is not _-_-_
^^*^^ The demand "to lend the economic struggle itself a political character" most strikingly expresses subservience to spontaneity in the sphere of political activity. Very often the economic struggle spontaneously assumes a political character, that is to say, without the intervention of the "revolutionary bacilli---the intelligentsia", without the intervention fo the class-conscious Social-Democrats. The economic struggle of the English workers, for instance, also assumed a political character without any intervention on the part of the socialists. The task of the Social-Democrats, however, is not exhausted by political agitation on an economic basis; their task is to convert trade-unionist politics into Social-Democratic political struggle, to utilise the sparks of political consciousness which the economic struggle generates among the workers, for the purpose of raising the workers to the level of Social-Democratic political consciousness. The Martynovs, however, instead of raising and stimulating the spontaneously awakening political consciousness of the workers, bow to spontaneity and repeat over and over ad nauseam, that the economic struggle ``impels'' the workers to realise their own lack of political rights. It is unfortunate, gentlemen, that the spontaneously awakening trade=unionist political consciousness does not "impel" you to an understanding of your Social-- Democratic tasks.
79 enough for us; we are not children to be fed on the thin gruel of ``economic'' politics alone; we want to know everything that others know, we want to learn the details of all aspects of political life and to take part actively in every single political event. In order that we may do this, the intellectuals must talk to us less of what we already know^^*^^ and tell us more about what we do not yet know and what we can never learn from our factory and ``economic'' experience, namely, political knowledge. You intellectuals can acquire this knowledge, and it is your duty to bring it to us in a hundred- and a thousand-fold greater measure than you have done up to now; and you must bring it to us, not only in the form of discussions, pamphlets, and articles (which very often---pardon our frankness---are rather dull), but precisely in the form of vivid exposures of what our government and our governing classes are doing at this very moment in all spheres of life. Devote more zeal to carrying out this duty and talk less about "raising the activity of the working masses". We are far more active than you think, and we are quite able to support, by open street fighting, even demands that do not promise any "palpable results" whatever. It is not for you to ``raise'' our activity, because activity is precisely the thing you yourselves lack. Bow less in subservience to spontaneity, and think more about raising your own activity, gentlemen!The press long ago became a power in our country, otherwise the government would not spend tens of thousands of rubles to bribe it and to subsidise the Katkovs and Meshcherskys. And it is no novelty in autocratic Russia for the underground press to break through the wall of censorship and compel the legal and conservative press to speak openly of it. This was the case in the seventies and even in the fifties. How much broader and deeper are now the sections of the people willing to read the illegal underground press, and to learn from it "how to live and how to die", to use the expression of a worker who sent a letter to Iskra (No. 7). Political exposures are as much a declaration of war against the government as economic exposures are a declaration of war _-_-_
^^*^^ To prove that this imaginary speech of a worker to an Economist is based on fact, we shall refer to two witnesses who undoubtedly have direct knowledge of the working-class movement and who are least of all inclined to be partial towards us `` doctrinaires''; for one witness is an Economist (who regards even Rabocheye Dyelo as a political organ!), and the other is a terrorist. The first witness is the author of a remarkably truthful and vivid article entitled "The St. Petersburg Working-Class Movement and the Practical Tasks of Social-Democracy", published in Rabocheye Dyelo, No. 6. He divides the workers into the following categories: (1) class-conscious revolutionaries; (2) intermediate stratum; (3) the remaining masses. The intermediate stratum, he says, "is often more interested in questions of political life than in its own immediate economic interests, the connection between which and the general social conditions it has long __NOTE__ Footnote cont. on page 81. 80 against the factory owners. The moral significance of this declaration of war sure will be and the more numerous and determined the social class that has declared war in order to begin the war. Hence, political exposures in themselves serve as a powerful instrument for disintegrating the system we oppose, as a means for diverting from the enemy his casual or temporary allies, as a means for spreading hostility and distrust among the permanent partners of the autocracy.
In our time only a party that will organise really nation-wide exposures can become the vanguard of the revolutionary forces. The word ``nation-wide'' has a very profound meaning. The overwhelming majority of the non-- working-class exposers (be it remembered that in order to become the vanguard, we must attract other classes) are sober politicians and level-headed men of affairs. They know perfectly well how dangerous it is to ``complain'' even against a minor official, let alone against the ``omnipotent'' Russian Government. And they will come to us with their complaints only when they see that these complaints can really have eifect, and that we represent a political force. In order to become such a force in the eyes of outsiders, much persistent and stubborn work is required to raise our own consciousness, initiative, and energy. To accomplish this it is not enough to attach a ``vanguard'' label to rearguard theory and practice.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ IV THE PRIMITIVENESS OF THE ECONOMISTSThe objections raised against the plan of organisation here outlined on the grounds that it is undemocratic and conspiratorial are totally unsound. Nevertheless, there remains a question which is frequently put and which deserves detailed examination. This is the question of the relations between local work and all-Russian work. Fears are expressed that the formation of a centralised _-_-_ __NOTE__ Footnote cont. from page 80. understood"___Rabochaya Mysl "is sharply criticised": "It keeps on repeating the same thing over and over again, things we have long known, read long ago." "Again nothing in the political review!" (pp. 30-31). But even the third stratum, "the younger and more sensitive section of the workers, less corrupted by the tavern and the church, who hardly ever have the opportunity of getting hold of political literature, discuss political events in a rambling way and ponder over the fragmentary news they get about student riots", etc. The terrorist writes as follows: "... They read over once or twice the petty details of factory life in other towns, not their own, and then they read no more ... dull, they find it----To say nothing in a workers' paper about the government ... is to regard the workers as being little children.... The workers are not little children" (Svoboda, published by the Revolutionary-Socialist Group, pp. 69-70).
81 organisation may shift the centre of gravity from the former to the latter, damage the movement through weakening our contacts with the working masses and the continuity of local agitation generally. To these fears we reply that our movement in the past few years has suffered precisely from the fact that local workers have been too absorbed in local work; that therefore it is absolutely necessary to shift the centre of gravity somewhat to national work; and that, far from weakening, this would strengthen our ties and the continuity of our local agitation. Let us take the question of central and local newspapers. I would ask the reader not to forget that we cite the publication of newspapers only as an example illustrating an immeasurably broader and more varied revolutionary activity in general.In the first period of the mass movement (1896-98), an attempt was made by local revolutionary workers to publish an ail-Russian paper---Rabochaya Gazeta. In the next period (1898-1900), the movement made an enormous stride forward, but the attention of the leaders was wholly absorbed by local publications. If we compute the total number of the local papers that were published, we shall find that on the average one issue per month was published.^^*^^ Does this not clearly illustrate our amateurism ? Does this not clearly show that our revolutionary organisation lags behind the spontaneous growth of the movement? If the same number of issues had been published, not by scattered local groups, but by a single organisation, we would not only have saved an enormous amount of effort, but we would have secured immeasurably greater stability and continuity in our work. This simple point is frequently lost sight of by those practical workers who work actively and almost exclusively on local publications (unofortunately this is true even now in the overwhelming majority of cases), as well as by the publicists who display an astonishing quixotism on this question. The practical workers usually rest content with the argument that "it is difficult"^^**^^ for local workers to engage in the organisation of an all-Russian newspaper, and that local newspapers are better than no newspapers at all. This argument is, of course, perfectly just, and we, no less than any practical worker, appreciate the enormous importance and usefulness of local newspapers in general. But not this is the point. The point is, can we not overcome the fragmentation and primitiveness that are so glaringly expressed in the thirty issues of local newspapers that have been published throughout Russia in the course of two and a half years ? Do not restrict yourselves to the indisputable, but too general, statement about the usefulness of local newspapers generally; have the courage frankly to admit their negative aspects revealed by the experience of two and a half years. This experience has shown that _-_-_
^^*^^ See Report to the Paris Congress, p. 14. "From that time (1897) to the spring of 1900, thirty issues of various papers were published in,various places . .. On an average, over one issue per month was published.''
^^**^^ This difficulty is more apparent than real. In fact, there is not a single local study circle that lacks the opportunity of taking up some function or other in connection with all-Russian work. ``Don't say, I can't; say, I won't.''
82 under the conditions in which we work, these local newspapers prove, in the majority of cases, to be unstable in their principles, devoid of political significance, extremely costly in regard to expenditure of revolutionary forces, and totally unsatisfactory from a technical point of view (I have in mind, of course, not the technique of printing, but the frequency and regularity of publication). These defects are not accidental; they are the inevitable outcome of the fragmentation which, on the one hand, explains the predominance of local newspapers in the period under review, and, on the other, is fostered by this predominance. It is positively beyond the strength of a separate local organisation to raise its newspaper to the level of a political organ maintaining stability of principles; it is beyond its strength to collect and utilise sufficient material to shed light on the whole of our political life. The argument usually advanced to support the need for numerous local newspapers in free countries that the cost of printing by local workers is low and that the people can be kept more fully and quickly informed---this argument, as experience has shown, speaks against local newspapers in Russia. They turn out to be excessively costly in regard to the expenditure of revolutionary forces, and appear very rarely, for the simple reason that the publication of an illegal newspaper, however small its size, requires an extensive secret apparatus, such as is possible with large-scale factory production; for this apparatus cannot be created in a small, handicraft workshop. Very frequently, the primitiveness of the secret apparatus (every practical worker can cite numerous cases) enables the police to take advantage of the publication and distribution of one or two issues to make mass arrests, which result in such a clean sweep that it becomes necessary to start all over again. A well-organised secret apparatus requires professionally well-trained revolutionaries and a division of labour applied with the greatest consistency, but both these requirements are beyond the strength of a separate local organisation, however strong it may be at any given moment. Not only the general interests of our movement as a whole (training of the workers in consistent socialist and political principles) but also specifically local interests are better served by non-local newspapers. This may seem paradoxical at first sight, but it has been proved to the hilt by the two and a half years of experience referred to. Everyone will agree that had all the local forces that were engaged in the publication of the thirty issues of newspapers worked on a single newspaper, sixty, if not a hundred, issues could easily have been published, with a fuller expression, in consequence, of all the specifically local features of the movement. True, it is no easy matter to attain such a degree of organisation, but we must realise the need for it. Every local study circle must think about it and work actively to achieve it, without waiting for an impetus from outside, without being tempted by the popularity and closer proximity of a local newspaper which, as our revolutionary experience has shown, proves to a large extent to be illusory.And it is a bad service indeed those publicists render to the practical work who, thinking themselves particularly close to the practical workers, fail 83 to see this illusoriness, and make shift with the astoundingly hollow and cheap argument that we must have local newspapers, we must have district newspapers, and we must have all-Russsian newspapers. Generally speaking, of course, all these are necessary, but once the solution of a concrete organisational problem is undertaken, surely time and circumstances must be taken into consideration. Is it not quixotic for Svoboda (No. 1, p. 68) to write in a special article "dealing with the question of a newspaper": "It seems to us that every locality, with any appreciable number of workers, should have its own workers' newspaper; not a newspaper imported from somewhere, but its very own." If the publicist who wrote these words refuses to think of their meaning, then at least the reader may do it for him. How many scores, if not hundreds, of "localities with any appreciable number of workers" there are in Russia, and what a perpetuation of our amateurish methods this would mean if indeed every local organisation set about publishing its own newspaper! How this diffusion would facilitate the gendarmerie's task of netting---and without "any appreciable" effort---the local revolutionary workers at the very outset of their activity and of preventing them from developing into real revolutionaries. A reader of an all-Russian newspaper, continues the author, would find little interest in the descriptions of the malpractices of the factory owners and the "details of factory life in various towns not his own". But "an inhabitant of Orel would not find Orel affairs dull reading. In every issue he would learn who had been 'picked for a lambasting' and who had been `flayed', and he would be in high spirits" (p. 69). Certainly, the Orel reader is in high spirits, but our publicist's flights of imagination are also high---too high. He should have asked himself whether such concern with trivialities is tactically in order. We are second to none in appreciating the importance and necessity of factory exposures, but it must be borne in mind that we have reached a stage when St. Petersburg folk find it dull reading the St. Petersburg correspondence of the St. Petersburg Rabochaya Mysl. Leaflets are the medium through which local factory exposures have always been and must continue to be made, but we must raise the level of the newspaper, not lower it to the level of a factory leaflet. What we ask of a newspaper is not so much ``petty'' exposures, as exposures of the major, typical evils of factory life, exposures based on especially striking facts and capable, therefore, of arousing the interest of all workers and all leaders of the movement, of really enriching their knowledge, broadening their outlook, and serving as a starting-point for awakening new districts and workers from ever-newer trade areas.
``Moreover, in a local newspaper, all the malpractices of the factory administration and other authorities may be denounced then and there. In the case of a general, distant newspaper, however, by the time the news reaches it the facts will have been forgotten in the source localities. The reader, on getting the paper, will exclaim: 'When was that---who remembers it?"' (ibid.). Precisely---who remembers it! From the same source we learn that the 30 issues of newspapers which appeared in the course of two and a half years were 84 published in six cities. This averrages one issue per city per half-year! And even if our frivoulous publicist trebled his estimate of the productivity of local work (which would be wrong in the case of an average town, since it is impossible to increase productivity to any considerable extent by our rule-of-thumb methods), we would still get only one issue every two months, i.e., nothing at all like "denouncing then and there". It would suffice, however, for ten local organisations to combine and send their delegates to take an active part in organising a general newspaper, to enable us every fortnight to ``denounce'', over the whole of Russia, not petty, but really outstanding and typical evils. No one who knows the state of affairs in our organisations can have the slightest doubt on that score. As for catching the enemy red-handed---if we mean it seriously and not merely as a pretty phrase---that is quite beyond the ability of an illegal paper generally. It can be done only by a leaflet, because the time limit for exposures of that nature can be a day or two at the most (e.g., the usual brief strikes, violent factory clashes, demonstrations, etc.).
``The workers live not only at the factory, but also in the city," continues our author, rising from the particular to the general, with a strict consistency that would have done honour to Boris Krichevsky himself; and he refers to matters like municipal councils, municipal hospitals, municipal schools, and demands that workers' newspapers should not ignore municipal affairs in general.
This demand---excellent in itself---serves as a particularly vivid illustration of the empty abstraction to which discussions of local newspapers are all too frequently limited. In the first place, if indeed newspapers appeared "in every locality with any appreciable number of workers" with such detailed information on municipal affairs as Svoboda desires, this would, under our Russian conditions, inevitably degenerate into actual concern with trivialities, lead to a weakening of the consciousness of the importance of an all-Russian revolutionary assault upon the tsarist autocracy, and strengthen the extremely virile shoots---not uprooted but rather hidden or temporarily suppressed---of the tendency that has become noted as a result of the famous remark about revolutionaries who talk a great deal about non-existent parliaments and too little about existent municipal councils. We say ``inevitably'', in order to emphasise that Svoboda obviously does not desire this, but the contrary, to come about. But good intentions are not enough. For municipal affairs to be dealt with in their proper perspective, in relation to our entire work, this perspective must first be clearly conceived, firmly established, not only by argument, but by numerous examples, so that it may acquire the stability of a tradition. This is still far from being the case with us. Yet this must be done first, before we can allow ourselves to think and talk about an extensive local press.
Secondly, to write really well and interestingly about municipal affairs, one must have first-hand knowledge, not book knowledge, of the issues. But there are hardly any Social-Democrats anywhere in Russia who possess such 85 knowledge. To be able to write in newspapers (not in popular pamphlets) about municipal and state affairs, one must have fresh and varied material gathered and written up by able people. And in order to be able to gather and write up such material, we must have something more than the "primitive democracy" of a primitive circle, in which everybody does everything and all entertain themselves by playing at referendums. It is necessary to have a staff of expert writers and correspondents, an army of Social-Democratic reporters who establish contacts far and wide, who are able to fathom all sorts of "state secrets" (the knowledge of which makes the Russian government official so puffed up, but the blabbing of which is such an easy matter to him), who are able to penetrate "behind the scenes"---an army of people who must, as their "official duty" be ubiquitous and omniscient. And we, the Party that fights against all economic, political, social, and national oppression, can and must find, gather, train, mobilise, and set into motion such an army of omniscient people---all of which requires still to be done. Not only has not a single step in this direction been taken in the overwhelming majority of localities, but even the recognition of its necessity is very often lacking. One will search in vain in our Social-Democratic press for lively and interesting articles, correspondence, and exposures dealing with our big and little affairs---diplomatic, military, ecclesiastical, municipal, financial, etc., etc., There is almost nothing, or very little, about these matters.^^*^^ That is why "it always annoys me frightfully when a man comes to me, utters beautiful and charming words" about the need for newspapers in "every locality with any appreciable number of workers" that will expose factory, municipal, and government evils.
The predominance of the local papers over a central press may be a sign of either poverty or luxury. Of poverty, when the movement has not yet developed the forces for largescale production, continues to flounder in amateurism, and is all but swamped with "the petty details of factory life". Of luxury, when the movement has fully mastered the task of comprehensive exposure and comprehensive agitation, and it becomes necessary to publish numerous local newspapers in addition to the central organ. Let each decide for himself what the predominance of local newspapers implies in present-day Russia. I shall limit myself to a precise formulation of my own conclusion, to leave no grounds for misunderstanding. Hitherto, the majority of our local organisations have thought almost exclusively in terms of local newspapers, _-_-_
^^*^^ That is why even examples of exceptionally good local newspapers fully con firm our point of view. For example, Yuzhny Rabochy is an excellent newspaper, entirely free of instability of principle. But it has been unable to provide what it desired for the local movement, owing to the infrequency of its publication and to extensive police raids. Principled presentation of the fundamental questions of the movement and wide political agitation, which our Party most urgently requires at the present time, has proved too big a job for the local newpaper. The material of particular value it has published, like the articles on the mine owners' convention and on unemployment, was not strictly local material, it was required for the whole of Russia, not for the South alone. No such articles have appeared in any of our Social-Democratic newspapers.
86 and have devoted almost all their activities to this work. This is abnormal; the very opposite should have been the case. The majority of the local organisations should think principally of the publication of an all-Russian newspaper and devote their activities chiefly to it. Until this is done, we shall not be able to establish a single newspaper capable, to any degree, of serving the movement with comprehensive press agitation. When this is done, however, normal relations between the necessary central newspaper and the necessary local newspapers will be established automatically.It would seem at first glance that the conclusion on the necessity for shifting the centre of gravity from local to ail-Russian work does not apply to the sphere of the specifically economic struggle. In this struggle, the immediate enemies of the workers are the individual employers or groups of employers, who are not bound by any organisation having even the remotest resemblance to the purely military, strictly centralised organisation of the Russian Government---our immediate enemy in the political struggle---which is led in all its minutest details by a single will.
But that is not the case. As we have repeatedly pointed out, the economic struggle is a trade struggle, and for that reason it requires that the workers be organised according to trades, not only according to place of employment. Organisation by trades becomes all the more urgently necessary, the more rapidly our employers organise in all sorts of companies and syndicates. Our fragmentation and our amateurism are an outright hindrance to this work of organisation which requires the existence of a single, all-Russian body of revolutionaries capable of giving leadership to the all-Russian trade unions. We have described above the type of organisation that is needed for this purpose; we shall now add but a few words on the question of our press in this connection.
Hardly anyone will doubt the necessity for every Social-Democratic newspaper to have a special department devoted to the trade-union (economic) struggle. But the growth of the trade-union movement compels us to think about the creation of a trade-union press. It seems to us, however, that with rare exceptions, there can be no question of trade-union newspapers in Russia at the present time; they would be a luxury, and many a time we lack even our daily bread. The form of trade-union press that would suit the conditions of our illegal work and is already required at the present time is trade-union pamphlets. In these pamphlets, legal^^*^^ and illegal material should be _-_-_
^^*^^ Legal material is particularly important in this connection, and we are particularly behind in our ability to gather and utilise it systematically. It would not be an exaggeration to say that one could somehow compile a trade-union pamphlet on the basis solely of legal material, but it could not be done on the basis of illegal material alone. In gathering illegal material from workers on questions like those dealt with in the publications of Rabochaya My si, we waste a great deal of the efforts of revolutionaries (whose place in this work could very easily be taken by legal workers), and yet we never obtain good material. The reason is that a worker who very often knows only a single department of a large factory and almost always the economic results, but not the __NOTE__ Footnote cont. on page 88. 87 gathered and grouped systematically, on the working conditions in a given trade, on the differences in this respect in the various parts of Russia; on the main demands advanced by the workers in the given trade; on the inadequacies of legislation affecting that trade; on outstanding instances of economic struggle by the workers in the trade; on the beginnings, the present state, and the requirements of their trade-union organisation, etc. Such pamphlets would, in the first place, relieve our Social-Democratic press of a mass of trade details that are of interest only to workers in the given trade. Secondly, they would record the results of our experience in the trade-union struggle, they would preserve the gathered material, which now literally gets lost in a mass of leaflets and fragmentary correspondence; and they would summarise this material. Thirdly, they could serve as guides for agitators, because working conditions change relatively slowly and the main demands of the workers in a given trade are extremely stable (cf. for example, the demands advanced by the weavers in the Moscow district in 1885 and in the St. Petersburg district in 1896). A compilation of such demands and needs might serve for years as an excellent handbook for agitators on economic questions in backward localities or among the backward strata of the workers. Examples of successful strikes in a given region, information on higher living standards, of improved working conditions, in one locality, would encourage the workers in other localities to take up the fight again and again. Fourthly, having made a start in generalising the trade-union struggle and in this way strengthening the link between the Russian trade-union movement and socialism, the Social-Democrats would at the same time see to it that our trade-union work occupied neither too small nor too large a place in our Social-Democratic work as a whole. A local organisation that is cut off from organisations in other towns finds it very difficult, sometimes almost impossible, to maintain a correct sense of proportion (the example of Rabochaya My si shows what a monstrous exaggeration can be made in the direction of trade-unionism). But an all-Russian organisation of revolutionaries that stands undeviatingly on the basis of Marxism, that leads the entire political struggle and possesses a staff of professional agitators, will never find it difficult to determine the proper proportion.
_-_-_ __NOTE__ Footnote cont. from page 87. general conditions and standards of his work, cannot acquire the knowledge which is possessed by the office staff of a factory, by inspectors, doctors, etc., and which is scattered in petty newspaper reports and in special industrial, medical, Zemstvo, and other publications.I vividly recall my "first experiment", which I would never like to repeat. I spent many weeks ``examining'' a worker, who would often visit me, regarding every aspect of the conditions prevailing in the enormous factory at which he was employed. True, after great effort, I managed to obtain material for a description (of the one single factory!), but at the end of the interview the worker would wipe the sweat from his brow, and say to me smilingly: "I find it easier to work overtime than to answer your questions.''
The more energetically we carry on our revolutionary struggle, the more the government will be compelled to legalise part of the ``trade-union'' work, thereby relieving us of part of our burden.
88 __ALPHA_LVL3__ V THE ``PLAN'' FOR AN ALL-RUSSIAN POLITICAL NEWSPAPER``The most serious blunder Iskra committed in this connection," writes B. Krichevsky (Rabocheye Dyelo, No. 10, p. 30), charging us with a tendency to "convert theory into a lifeless doctrine by isolating it from practice", "was its `plan' for a general party organisation" (viz., the article entitled "Where To Begin". Martynov echoes this idea in declaring that "Iskra's tendency to belittle the significance of the forward march of the drab everyday struggle in comparison with the propaganda of brilliant and completed ideas ... was crowned with the plan for the organisation of a party which it sets forth in the article entitled 'Where To Begin' in issue No. 4" (ibid., p. 61). Finally, L. Nadezhdin has of late joined in the chorus of indignation against this ``plan'' (the quotation marks were meant to express sarcasm). In his pamphlet, which we have just received, entitled The Eve of the Revolution (published by the "Revolutionary-Socialist Group" Svoboda, whose acquaintance we have made), he declares (p. 126): "To speak now of an organisation held together by an ail-Russian newspaper means propagating armchair ideas and armchair work" and represents a manifestation of ``bookishness'', etc.
That our terrorist turns out to be in agreement with the champions of the "forward march of the drab everyday struggle" is not surprising, since we have traced the roots of this intimacy between them in the chapters on politics and organisation. But we must draw attention here to the fact that Nadezhdin is the only one who has conscientiously tried to grasp the train of thought in an article he disliked and has made an attempt to reply to the point, whereas Rabocheye Dyelo has said nothing that is material to the subject, but has tried merely to confuse the question by a series of unseemly, demagogic sallies. Unpleasant though the task may be, we must first spend some time in cleansing this Augean stable.
Let us present a small selection of the expletives and exclamations that Rabocheye Dyelo hurled at us. "It is not a newspaper that can create a party organisation, but vice versa..." "A newspaper, standing above the party, outside of its control, and independent of it, thanks to its having its own staff of agents ..." "By what miracle has Iskra forgotten about the actually existing Social-Democratic organisations of the party to which it belongs ? ,.." "Those who possess firm principles and a corresponding plan are the supreme regulators of the real struggle of the party and dictate to it their plan .. ." "The plan drives our active and virile organisations into the kingdom of shadows and desires to call into being a fantastic network of agents..." "Were Iskra's plan carried into effect, every trace of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, which is taking shape, would be obliterated...," "A propagandist organ becomes an uncontrolled autocratic law-maker for the entire practical 89 revolutionary struggle..." "How should our Party react to the suggestion that it be completely subordinated to an autonomous editorial board ?", etc., etc.
As the reader can see from the contents and the tone of these above quotations, Rabocheye Dyelo has taken offence. Offence, not for its own sake, but for the sake of the organisations and committees of our Party which it alleges Iskra desires to drive into the kingdom of shadows and whose very traces it would obliterate. How terrible! But a curious thing should be noted. The article "Where To Begin" appeared in May 1901. The articles in Rabocheye Dyelo appeared in September 1901. Now we are in mid-January 1902. During these five months (prior to and after September), not a single committee and not a single organisation of the Party protested formally against this monster that seeks to drive them into the kingdom of shadows; and yet scores and hundreds of communications from all parts of Russia have appeared during this period in Iskra, as well as in numerous local and non-local publications. How could it happen that those who would be driven into the realm of shadows are not aware of it and have not taken offence, though a third party has ?
The explanation is that the committees and other organisations are engaged in real work and are not playing at ``democracy''. The committees read the article "Where To Begin", saw that it represented an attempt "to elaborate a definite plan for an organisation, so that its formation may be undertaken from all aspects"; and since they knew and saw very well that not one of these ``sides'' would dream of "setting about to build it" until it was convinced of its necessity, and of the correctness of the architectural plan, it has naturally never occurred to them to take offence at the boldness of the people who said in Iskra: "In view of the pressing importance of the question, we, on our part, take the liberty of submitting to the comrades a skeleton plan to be developed in greater detail in a pamphlet now in preparation for the print". With a conscientious approach to the work, was it possible to view things otherwise than that if the comrades accepted the plan submitted to them, they would carry it out, not because they are ``subordinate'', but because they would be convinced of its necessity for our common cause, and that if they did not accept it, then the ``skeleton'' (a pretentious word, is it not?) would remain merely a skeleton? Is it not demagogy to fight against the skeleton of a plan, not only by "picking it to pieces" and advising comrades to reject it, but by inciting people inexperienced in revolutionary matters against its authors merely on the grounds that they dare to ``legislate'' and come out as the "supreme regulators", i.e., because they dare to propose an outline of a plan ? Can our Party develop and make progress if an attempt to raise local functionaries to broader views, tasks, plans, etc., is objected to, not only with the claim that these views are erroneous, but on the grounds that the very ``desire'' to "raise" us gives ``offense'' ? Nadezhdin, too, ``picked'' our plan "to pieces", but he did not sink to such demagogy as cannot be explained solely by naivete or by primitiveness of political views. From the outset, he emphatically rejected the charge that we intended to establish an "inspectorship over the Party". That is why Nadezhdin's criticism 90 of the plan can and should be answered on its merits, while Rabocheye Dyelo deserves only to be treated with contempt.
But contempt for a writer who sinks so low as to shout about ``autocracy'' and ``subordination'' does not relieve us of the duty of disentangling the confusion that such people create in the minds of their readers. Here we can clearly demonstrate to the world the nature of catchwords like "broad democracy". We are accused of forgetting the committees, of desiring or attempting to drive them into the kingdom of shadows, etc. How can we reply to these charges when, out of considerations of secrecy, we can give the reader almost no facts regarding our real relationships with the committees? Persons hurling vehement accusations calculated to provoke the crowd prove to be ahead of us because of their brazenness and their disregard of the duty of a revolutionary to conceal carefully from the eyes of the world the relationships and contacts which he maintains, which he is establishing or trying to establish. Naturally, we refuse once and for all to compete with such people in the field of `` democratism''. As to the reader who is not initiated in all Party affairs, the only way in which we can discharge our duty to him is to acquaint him, not with what is and what is im Werden but with a particle of what has taken place and what may be told as a thing of the past.
The Bund hints that we are ``impostors''^^*^^; the Union Abroad accuses us of attempting to obliterate all traces of the Party. Gentlemen, you will get complete satisfaction when we relate to the public four facts concerning the past.
First fact.^^**^^ The members of one of the Leagues of Struggle, who took a direct part in founding our Party and in sending a delegate to the Inaugural Party Congress, reached agreement with a member of the Iskra group regarding the publication of a series of books for workers that were to serve the entire movement. The attempt to publish the series failed, and the pamphlets written for it, The Tasks of the Russian Social-Democrats and The New Factory Law, by a circuitous course and through the medium of third parties, found their way abroad, where they were published.
Second fact. Members of the Central Committee of the Bund approached a member of the Iskra group with the proposal to organise what the Bund then described as a "literary laboratory". In making the proposal, they stated that unless this was done, the movement would greatly retrogress. The result of these negotiations was the appearance of the pamphlet The Working-Plass Cause in Russia^^***^^
_-_-_^^*^^ Iskra, No. 8. The reply of the Central Committee of the General Jewish Union of Russia and Poland to our article on the national question.
^^**^^ We deliberately refrain from relating these facts in the sequence of their occurrence.
^^***^^ The author requests me to state that, like his previous pamphlets, this one was sent to the Union Abroad on the assumption that its publications were edited by the Emancipation of Labour group (owing to certain circumstances, he could not then--- February 1899---know of the change in editorship). The pamphlet will be republished by the League at an early date.
91Third fact. The Central Committee of the Bund, via a provincial town, approached a member of the Iskra group with the proposal that he undertake the editing of the revived Rabochaya Gazeta and, of course, obtained his consent. The offer was later modified: the comrade in question was invited to act as a contributor, in view of a new plan for the composition of the Editorial Board. Also this proposal, of course, obtained his consent. Articles were sent (which we managed to preserve): "Our Programme", which was a direct protest against Bernsteinism, against the change in the line of the legal literature and of Rabochaya Mysl; "Our Immediate Task" ("to publish a Party organ that shall appear regularly and have close contacts with all the local groups"; the drawbacks of the prevailing ``amateurism''); "An Urgent Question" (an examination of the objection that it is necessary first to develop the activities of local groups before undertaking the publication of a common organ; an insistence on the paramount importance of a "revolutionary organisation" and on the necessity of "developing organisation, discipline, and the technique of secrecy to the highest degree of perfection"). The proposal to resume publication of Rabochaya Gazeta was not carried out, and the articles were not published.
Fourth fact. A member of the committee that was organising the second regular congress of our Party communicated to a member of the Iskra group the programme of the congress and proposed that group as editorial board of the revived Rabochaya Gazeta. This preliminary step, as it were, was later sanctioned by the committee to which this member belonged, and by the Central Committee of the Bund. The Iskra group was notified of the place and time of the congress and (uncertain of being able, for certain reasons, to send a delegate) drew up a written report for the congress. In the report, the idea was suggested that the mere election of a Central Committee would not only fail to solve the question of unification at a time of such complete disorder as the present, but would even compromise the grand idea of establishing a party in the event of an early, switf, and thorough police round-up, which was more than likely in view of the prevailing lack of secrecy; that therefore, a beginning should be made by inviting all committees and all other organisations to support the revived common organ, which would establish real contacts between all the committees and really train a group of leaders for the entire movement; and that the committees and the Party would very easily be able to transform such a group into a Central Committee as soon as the group had grown and become strong. In consequence of a number of police raids and arrests, however, the congress could not take place. For security reasons the report was destroyed, having been read only by a few comrades, including the representatives of one committee.
Let the reader now judge for himself the character of the methods employed by the Bund in hinting that we were impostors, or by Rabocheye Dyelo, which accuses us of trying to relegate the committees to the kingdom of shadows and to ``substitute'' for the organisation of a party an organisation disseminating 92 the ideas advocated by a single newspaper. It was to the committees, on their repeated invitation, that we reported on the necessity for adopting a definite plan of concerted activities. It was precisely for the Party organisation that we elaborated this plan, in articles sent to Rabochaya Gazeta, and in the report to the Party congress, again on the invitation of those who held such an influential position in the Party that they took the initiative in its (actual) restoration. Only after the twice repeated attempts of the Party organisation, in conjunction with ourselves, officially to revive the central organ of the Party had failed, did we consider it our bounden duty to publish an unofficial organ, in order that with the third attempt the comrades might have before them the results of experience and not merely conjectural proposals. Now certain results of this experience are present for all to see, and all comrades may now judge whether we properly understood our duties and what should be thought of people that strive to mislead those unacquainted with the immediate past, simply because they are piqued at our having pointed out to some their inconsistency on the ``national'' question, and to others the inadmissibility of their vacillation in matters of principle.
The quintessence of the article "Where To Begin" consists in the fact that it discusses precisely this question and gives an affirmative reply to it. As far as we know, the only attempt to examine this question on its merits and to prove that it must be answered in the negative was made by L. Nadezhdin, whose argument we reproduce in full:
93``. . . It pleased us greatly to see Iskra (No. 4) present the question of the need for an ail-Russian newspaper; but we cannot agree that this presentation bears relevance to the title 'Where To Begin'. Undoubtedly this is an extremely important matter, but neither a newspaper, nor a series of popular leaflets, nor a mountain of manifestos, can serve as the basis for a militant organisation in revolutionary times. We must set to work to build strong political organisations in the localities. We lack such organisations; we have been carrying on our work mainly among enlightened workers, while the masses have been engaged almost exclusively in the economic struggle. // strong political organisations are not trained locally, what significance will even an excellently organised all-Russian newspaper have? It will be a burning bush, burning without being consumed, but firing no one! Iskra thinks that round it and in the activities in its behalf people will gather and organise. But they will find it far easier to gather and organise round activities that are more concrete. This something more concrete must and should be the extensive organisation of local newspapers, the immediate preparation of the workers' forces for demonstrations, the constant activity of local organisations among the unemployed (indefatigable distribution of pamphlets and leaflets, convening of meetings, appeals to actions of protest against the government, etc.). We must begin live political work in the localities, and when the time comes to unite on this real basis, it will not be an artificial, paper unity; not by means of newspapers can such a unification of local work into an all-Russian cause be achieved!" (The Eve of the Revolution, p. 54.)
We have emphasised the passages in this eloquent tirade that most clearly show the author's incorrect judgement of our plan, as well as the incorrectness of his point of view in general, which is here contraposed to that of Iskra. Unless we train strong political organisations in the localities, even an excellently organised all-Russian newspaper will be of no avail. This is incontrovertible. But the whole point is that there is no other way of training strong political organisations except through the medium of an ail-Russian newspaper. The author missed the most important statement Iskra made before it proceeded to set forth its ``plan'': that it was necessary "to call for the formation of a revolutionary organisation, capable of uniting all forces and guiding the movement in actual practice and not in name alone, that is, an organisation ready at any time to support every protest and every outbreak and use it to build up and consolidate the fighting forces suitable for the decisive struggle". But now after the February and March events, everyone will agree with this in principle, continues Iskra. Yet what we need is not a solution of the question in principle, but its practical solution; we must immediately advance a definite constructive plan through which all may immediately set to work to build from every side. Now we are again being dragged away'from the practical solution towards something which in principle is correct, indisputable, and great, but which is entirely inadequate and incomprehensible to the broad masses of workers, namely, "to rear strong political organisations"! This is not the point at issue, most worthy author. The point is how to go about the rearing and how to accomplish it.
It is not true to say that "we have been carrying on our work mainly among enlightened workers, while the masses have been engaged almost exclusively in the economic struggle". Presented in such a form, the thesis reduces itself to Svoboda's usual but fundamentally false contraposition of the enlightened workers to the ``masses''. In recent years, even the enlightened workers have been "engaged almost exclusively in the economic struggle". That is the first point. On the other hand, the masses will never learn to conduct the political struggle until we help to train leaders for this struggle, both from among the enlightened workers and from among the intellectuals. Such leaders can acquire training solely by systematically evaluating all the everyday aspects of our political life, all attempts at protest and struggle on the part of the various classes and on various grounds. Therefore, to talk of "rearing political organisations" and at the same time to contrast the "paper work" of a political newspaper to "live political work in the localities" is plainly ridiculous. Iskra has adapted its ``plan'' for a newspaper to the ``plan'' for creating a "militant preparedness" to support the unemployed movement, peasant revolts, discontent among the Zemstvo people, "popular indignation against some tsarist bashi-bazouk on the rampage", etc. Any one who is at all acquainted with the movement knows fully well that the vast majority of local organisations have never even dreamed of these things; that many of the prospects of "live political work" here indicated have never been realised by a single organisation; 94 that the attempt, for example, to call attention to the growth of discontent and protest among the Zemstvo intelligentsia rouses feelings of consternation and perplexity in Nadezhdin ("Good Lord, is this newspaper intended for Zemstvo people?"---The Eve, p. 129), among the Economists (Letter to Iskra, No. 12), and among many practical workers. Under these circumstances, it is possible to ``begin'' only by inducing people to think about all these things, to summarise and generalise all the divers signs of ferment and active struggle. In our time, when Social-Democratic tasks are being degraded, the only way "live political work" can be begun is with live political agitation, which is impossible unless we have an all-Russian newspaper, frequently issued and regularly distributed.
Those who regard the Iskra ``plan'' as a manifestation of ``bookishness'' have totally failed to understand its substance and take for the goal that which is suggested as the most suitable means for the present time. These people have not taken the trouble to study the two comparisons that were drawn to present a clear illustration of the plan. Iskra wrote: The publication of an all-Russian political newspaper must be the main line by which we may unswervingly develop, deepen, and expand the organisation (viz., the revolutionary organisation that is ever ready to support every protest and every outbreak). Pray tell me, when bricklayers lay bricks in various parts of an enormous, unprecedentedly large structure, is it ``paper'' work to use a line to help them find the correct place for the bricklaying; to indicate to them the ultimate goal of the common work; to enable them to use, not only every brick, but even every piece of brick which, cemented to the bricks laid before and after it, forms a finished, continuous line ? And are we not now passing through precisely such a period in our Party life when we have bricks and bricklayers, but lack the guide line for all to see and follow? Let them shout that in stretching out the line, we want to command. Had we desired to command, gentlemen, we would have written on the tide page, not "Iskra. No. 1", but "Rabochaya Gazeta, No. 3", as we were invited to do by certain comrades, and as we would have had a perfect right to do after the events described above. But we did not do that. We wished to have our hands free to wage an irreconcilable struggle against all pseudo-Social-Democrats; we wanted our line, if properly laid, to be respected because it was correct, and not because it had been laid by an official organ.
``The question of uniting local activity in central bodies runs in a vicious circle," Nadezhdin lectures us; "unification requires homogeneity of the elements, and the homogeneity can be created only by something that unites; but the unifying element may be the product of strong local organisations which at the present time are by no means distinguished for their homogeneity." This truth is as revered and as irrefutable as that we must train strong political organisations. And it is equally barren. Every question "runs in a vicious circle" because political life as a whole is an endless chain consisting of an infinite number of links. The whole art of politics lies in finding and taking as firm a grip as we can of the link that is least likely to be struck from our hands, the one that is most important at the given moment, the one that most of all 95 guarantees its possessor the possession of the whole chain.^^*^^ If we had a crew of experienced bricklayers who had learned to work so well together that they could lay their bricks exactly as required without a guide line (which, speaking abstractly, is by no means impossible), then perhaps we might take hold of some other link. But it is unfortunate that as yet we have no experienced bricklayers trained for teamwork, that bricks are often laid where they are not needed at all, that they are not laid according to the general line, but are so scattered that the enemy can shatter the structure as if it were made of sand and not of bricks.
__NOTE__ Again, footnote markers are "*" and "*" in original.Another comparison: "A newspaper is not only a collective propagandist and a collective agitator, it is also a collective organiser. In this respect it may be compared to the scaffolding erected round a building under construction; it marks the contours of the structure and facilitates communication between the builders, permitting them to distribute the work and to view the common results achieved by their organised labour.''^^**^^ Does this sound anything like the attempt of an armchair author to exaggerate his role ? The scaffolding is not required at all for the dwelling; it is made of cheaper material, is put up only temporarily, and is scrapped for firewood as soon as the shell of the structure is completed. As for the building of revolutionary organisations, experience shows that sometimes they may be built without scaffolding, as the seventies showed. But at the present time we cannot even imagine the possibility of erecting the building we require without scaffolding.
Nadezhdin disagrees with this, saying: "Iskra thinks that around it and in the activities in its behalf people will gather and organise. But they will find it far easier to gather and organise around activities that are more concrete!" Indeed, "far easier around activities that are more concrete". A Russian proverb holds:: ``Don't spit into a well, you may want to drink from it." But there are people who do not object to drinking from a well that has been spat into. What despicable things our magnificent, legal "Critic of Marxism" and illegal admirers of Rabochaya Mysl have said in the name of this something more concrete! How restricted our movement is by our own narrowness, lack of initiative, and hesitation, which are justified with the traditional argument about finding it "far easier to gather around something more concrete"! And Nadezhdin---who regards himself as possessing a particularly keen sense of the "realities of life", who so severely condemns ``armchair'' authors and (with pretensions to wit) accuses Iskra of a weakness for seeing Economism everywhere, and who sees himself standing far above the division between _-_-_
^^*^^ Comrade Krichevsky and Comrade Martynov! I call your attention to this outrageous manifestation of ``autocracy'', "uncontrolled authority", "supreme regulating", etc. Just think of it: a desire to possess the whole chain!! Send in a complaint at once. Sere you have a ready-made topic for two leading articles for No. 12 of Rabocheye Dyelo!
^^**^^ Martynov, in quoting the first sentence of this passage in Rabocheye Dyelo (No. 10, p. 62), omitted the second, as if desiring to emphasise either his unwillingness to discuss the essentials of the question or his inability to understand them.
96 the orthodox and the Critics---fails to see that with his arguments he contributes to the narrowness that arouses his indignation and that he is drinking from the most spat-in well! The sincerest indignation against narrowness, the most passionate desire to raise its worshippers from their knees, will not suffice if the indignant one is swept along without sail or rudder and, as ``spontaneously'' as the revolutionaries of the seventies, clutches at such things as "excitative terror", "agrarian terror", "sounding the tocsin", etc. Let us take a glance at these "more concrete" activities around which he thinks it will be "far easier" to gather and organise: (1) local newspapers; (2) preparations for demonstrations; (3) work among the unemployed. It is immediately apparent that all these things have been seized upon at random as a pretext for saying something; for, however we may regard them, it would be absurd to see in them anything especially suitable for "gathering and organising". The self-same Nadezhdin says a few pages further: "It is time we simply stated the fact that activity of a very pitiable kind is being carried on in the localities, the committees are not doing a tenth of what they could do ... the co-ordinating centres we have at present are the purest fiction, representing a sort of revolutionary bureaucracy, whose members mutually grant generalships to one another; and so it will continue until strong local organisations grow up." These remarks, though exaggerating the position somewhat, no doubt contain many a bitter truth; but can it be said that Nadezhdin does not perceive the connection between the pitiable activity in the localities and the narrow mental outlook of the functionaries, the narrow scope of their activities, inevitable in the circumstance of the lack of training of Party workers confined to local organisations? Has he, like the author of the article on organisation, published in Svoboda, forgotten how the transition to a broad local press (from 1898) was accompanied by a strong intensification of Economism and ``primitiveness'' ? Even if a "broad local press" could be established at all satisfactorily (and we have shown this to be impossible, save in very exceptional cases)---even then the local organs could not "gather and organise" all the revolutionary forces for a general attack upon the autocracy and for leadership of the united struggle. Let us not forget that we are here discussing only the ``rallying'', organising significance of the newspaper, and we could put to Nadezdhin, who defends fragmentation, the question he himself has ironically put: "Have we been left a legacy of 200,000 revolutionary organisers?/ Furthermore, "preparations for demonstrations cannot be contraposed to Iskra's plan, for the very reason that this plan includes the organisation of the broadest possible demonstrations ax one of its aims; the point under discussion is the selection of the practical means. On this point also Nadezhdin is confused, for he has lost sight of the fact that only forces that are "gathered and organised" can "prepare for" demonstrations (which hitherto, in the overwhelming majority of cases, have taken place spontaneously) and that we lack precisely the ability to rally and organise. "Work among the unemployed." Again the same confusion; for this too represents one of the field operations of the mobilised forces and not a plan for mobilising the forces. 97 The extent to which Nadezhdin here too underestimates the harm caused by our fragmentation, by our lack of "200,000 organisers", can be seen from the fact that: many people (including Nadezhdin) have reproached hkra for the paucity of the news it gives on unemployment and for the casual nature of the correspondence it publishes about the most common aifairs of rural life. The reproach is justified; but hkra is "guilty without sin". We strive "to stretch a line" through the countryside too, where there are hardly any bricklayers anywhere, and we are obliged to encourage everyone who informs us even as regards the most common facts, in the hope that this will increase the number of our contributors in the given field and will ultimately train us all to select facts that are really the most outstanding. But the material on which we can train is so scanty that, unless we generalise it for the whole of Russia, we shall have very little to train on at all. No doubt, one with at least as much ability as an agitator and as much knowledge of the life of the vagrant as Nadezhdin manifests could render priceless service to the movement by carrying on agitation among the unemployed; but such a person would be simply hiding his light under a bushel if he failed to inform all comrades in Russia as regards every step he took in his work, so that others, who, in the mass, still lack the ability to undertake new kinds of work, might learn from his example.All without exception now talk of the importance of unity, of the necessity for "gatherig and organising"; but in the majority of cases what is lacking is a definite idea of where to begin and how to bring about this unity. Probably all will agree that if we ``unite'', say, the district circles in a given town, it will be necessary to have for this purpose common institutions, i.e, not merely the common tide of ``League'', but genuinely common work, exchange of material, experience, and forces, distribution of functions, not only by districts, but through specialisation on a town- wide scale. All will agree that a big secret apparatus will not pay its way (to use a commercial expression) "with the resources" (in both money and manpower, of course) of a single district, and that this narrow field will not provide sufficient scope for a specialist to develop his talents. But the same thing applies to the co-ordination of activities of a number of towns, since even a specific locality will be and, in the history of our Social-Democratic movement, has proved to be, far too narrow a field; we have demonstrated this above in detail with regard to political agitation and organisational work. What we require foremost and imperatively is to broaden the field, establish real contacts between the towns on the basis of regular, common work; for fragmentation weighs down on the people and they are "stuck in a hole" (to use the expression employed by a correspondent to hkra}, not knowing what is happening in the world, from whom to learn, or how to acquire experience and satisfy their desire to engage in broad activities. I continue to insist that we can start establishing real contacts only with the aid of a common newspaper, as the only regular. Ail-Russian enterprise, one which will summarise the results of the most divers forms of activity and thereby stimulate people to march forward untiringly along all the innumerable paths 98 leading to revolution, in the same way as all roads lead to Rome. If we do not want unity in name only, we must arrange for all local study circles immediately to assign, say, a fourth of their forces to active work for the common cause, and the newspaper will immediately convey to them^^*^^ the general design, scope, and character of the cause; it will give them a precise indication of the most keenly felt shortcomings in the ail-Russian activity, where agitation is lacking and contacts are weak, and it will point out which little wheels in the vast general mechanism a given study circle might repair or replace with better ones. A study circle that has not yet begun to work, but which is only just seeking activity, could then start, no like a craftsman in an isolated little workshop unaware of the earlier development in ``industry'' or of the general level of production methods prevailing in industry, but as a participant in an extensive enterprise that reflects the whole general revolutionary attack on the autocracy. The more perfect the finish of each little wheel and the larger the number of detail workers engaged in the common cause, the closer will our network become and the less will be the disorder in the ranks consequent on inevitable police raids.
The mere function of distributing a newspaper would help to establish actual contacts (if it is a newspaper worthy of the name, i.e., if it is issued regularly, not once a month like a magazine, but at least four times a month). At the present time, communication between towns on revolutionary business is an extreme rarity, and, at all events, is the exception rather than the rule. If we had a newspaper, however, such communication would become the rule and would secure, not only the distribution of the newspaper, of course, but (what is more important) an exchange of experience, of material, of forces, and of resources. Organisational work would immediately acquire much greater scope, and the success of one locality would serve as a standing encouragement to further perfection; it would arouse the desire to utilise the experience gained by comrades working in other parts of the country. Local work would become far richer and more varied than it is at present. Political and economic exposures gathered from all over Russia would provide mental food for workers of all trades and all stages of development; they would provide material and occasion for talks and readings on the most divers subjects, which would, in addition, be suggested by hints in the legal press, by talk among the people, and by ``shamefaced'' government statements. Every outbreak, every demonstration, would be weighed and discussed in its every aspect in all parts of Russia and would thus stimulate a desire to keep up with, and even surpass, the others (we socialists do not by any means flatly reject all emulation or all "compet- _-_-_
^^*^^ A reservation: that is, if a given study circle sympathises with the policy of the newspaper and considers it useful to become a collaborator, meaning by that, not only for literary collaboration, but for revolutionary collaboration generally. Note for Rabocheye Dyelo: Among revolutionaries who attach value to the cause and not to playing at democracy, who do not separate ``sympathy'' from the most active and lively participation, this reservation is taken for granted.
99 __ALPHA_LVL0__ The End. [END] Emacs-File-stamp: "/home/ysverdlov/leninist.biz/en/1972/LAP474/20100107/199.tx" __EMAIL__ webmaster@leninist.biz __OCR__ ABBYY 6 Professional (2010.01.07) __WHERE_PAGE_NUMBERS__ bottom __FOOTNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [*]+ __ENDNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [0-9]+ition"!) and consciously prepare that which at first, as it were, sprang up spontaneously, a desire to take advantage of the favourable conditions in a given district or at a given moment for modifying the plan of attack, etc. At the same time, this revival of local work would obviate that desperate, ``convulsive'' exertion of all efforts and risking of all forces which every single demonstration or the publication of every single issue of a local newspaper now frequently entails. On the one hand, the police would find it much more difficult to get at the ``roots'', if they did not know in what district to dig down for them. On the other hand, regular common work would train our people to adjust the force of a given attack to the strength of the given contingent of the common army (at the present time hardly anyone ever thinks of doing that, because in nine cases out often these attacks occur spontaneously); such regular common work would facilitate the ``transportation'' from one place to another, not only of literature, but also of revolutionary forces.
In a great many cases these forces are now being bled white on restricted local work, but under the circumstances we are discussing it would be possible to transfer a capable agitator or organiser from one end of the country to the other, and the occasion for doing this would constantly arise. Beginning with short journeys on Party business at the Party's expense, the comrades would become accustomed to being maintained by the Party, to becoming professional revolutionaries, and to training themselves as real political leaders.
And if indeed we succeeded in reaching the point when all, or at least a considerable majority, of the local committees, local groups, and study circles took up active work for the common cause, we could, in the not distant future, establish a weekly newspaper for regular distribution in tens of thousands of copies throughout Russia. This newspaper would become part of an enormous pair of smith's bellows that would fan every spark of the class struggle and of popular indignation into a general conflagration. Around what is in itself still a very innocuous and very small, but regular and common, effort, in the full sense of the word, a regular army of tried fighters would systematically gather and receive their training. On the ladders and scaffolding of this general organisational structure there would soon develop and come to the fore Social-Democratic Zhelyabovs from among our revolutionaries and Russian Bebels from among our workers, who would take their place at the head of the mobilised army and rouse the whole people to settle accounts with the shame and the curse of Russia.
That is what we should dream of!
He is followed by Comrade Krichevsky, who (philosophically deepening Comrade Martynov, who long ago rendered Comrade Plekhanov more profound) continues even more sternly: "I go further. I ask, has a Marxist any right at all to dream, knowing that according to Marx mankind always sets itself the tasks it can solve and that tactics is a process of the growth of Party tasks which grow together with the Party?''
The very thought of these stern questions sends a cold shiver down my spine and makes me wish for nothing but a place to hide in. I shall try to hide behind the back of Pisarev.
``There are rifts and rifts," wrote Pisarev of the rift between dreams and reality. "My dream may run ahead of the natural march of events or may fly off at a tangent in a direction in which no natural march of events will ever proceed. In the first case my dream will not cause any harm; it may even support and augment the energy of the working men... There is nothing in such dreams that would distort or paralyse labour-power. On the contrary, if man were completely deprived of the ability to dream in this way, if he could not from time to time run ahead and mentally conceive, in an entire and completed picture, the product to which his hands are only just beginning to lend shape, then I cannot at all imagine what stimulus there would be to induce man to undertake and complete extensive and strenuous work in the sphere of art, science, and practical endeavour ... The rift between dreams and reality causes no harm if only the person dreaming believes seriously in his dream, if he attentively observes life, compares his observations with his castles in the air, and if, generally speaking, he works conscientiously for the achievement of his fantasies. If there is some connection between dreams and life then all is well.''
Of this kind of dreaming there is unfortunately too little in our movement. And the people most responsible for this are those who boast of their sober views, their ``closeness'' to the ``concrete'', the representatives of legal criticism and of illegal ``tail-ism''.
From what has been said the reader will see that our ``tactics-as-plan'' consists in rejecting an immediate call for assault; in demanding "to lay effective siege to the enemy fortress"; or, in other words, in demanding that all efforts be directed towards gathering, organising, and mobilising a permanent army. When we ridiculed Rabocheye Dyelo for its leap from Economism to shouting for an assault (for which it clamoured in April 1901, in ``Listok'' Rabochego Dyela, No. 6), it of course came down on us with accusations of being "doctrinaire." of failing to understand our revolutionary duty, of calling for caution, etc. Of course, we were not in the least surprised to hear these accusations from those who totally lack principles and who evade all arguments by references to a profound ``tactics-as-process'', any more than we were surprised by the fact
101``We should dream!" I wrote these words and became alarmed. I imagined myself sitting at a "unity conference" and opposite me were the Rabocheye Dyelo editors and contributors. Comrade Martynov rises and, turning to me, says sternly: "Permit me to ask you, has an autonomous editorial board the right to dream without first soliciting the opinion of the Party committees ?''
100that these charges were repeated by Nadezhdin, who in general has a supreme contempt for durable programmes and the fundamentals of tactics.
It is said that history does not repeat itself. But Nadezhdin exerts every effort to cause it to repeat itself and he zealously imitates Tkachov in strongly condemning "revolutionary culturism", in shouting about "sounding the tocsin" and about a special "eve-of-the-revolution point of view", etc. Apparently, he has forgotten the well-known maxim that while an original historical event represents a tragedy, its replica is merely a farce. The attempt to seize power, which was prepared by the preaching of Tkachov and carried out by means of the ``terrifying'' terror that did really terrify, had grandeur, but the ``excitative'' terror of a Tkachov the Little is simply ludicrous, particularly so when it is supplemented with the idea of an organisation of average people.
``If Iskra would only emerge from its sphere of bookishness," wrote Nadezhdin, "it would realise that these [instances like the worker's letter to Iskra, No. 7, etc.] are symptoms of the fact that soon, very soon, the `assault' will begin, and to speak now (sic!) of an organisation linked with an ailRussian newspaper means to propagate armchair ideas and armchair activity." What an unimaginable muddle---on the one hand, excitative terror and an "organisation of average people", along with the opinion that it is far ``easier'' to gather around something "more concrete", like a local newspaper, and, on the other, the view that to talk ``now'' about an all-Russian organisation means to propagate armchair thoughts, or, bluntly put, ``now'' it is already too late! But what of the "extensive organisation of local newspapers"---is it not too late for that, my dear L. Nadezhdin? And compare with this Iskra's point of view and tactical line: excitative terror is nonsense; to talk of an organisation of average people and of the extensive publication of local newspapers means to fling the door wide open to Economism. We must speak of a single all-Russian organisation of revolutionaries, and it will never be too late to talk of that until the real, not a paper, assault begins.
``Yes, as far as organisation is concerned the situation is anything but brilliant", continues Nadezhdin. "Yes, Iskra is entirely right in saying that the mass of our fighting forces consists of volunteers and insurgents . . . You do well to give such a sober picture of the state of our forces. But why, at the same time, do you forget that the masses are not ours at all, and consequently, will not ask us when to begin military operations] they will simply go and `rebel' . .. When the crowd itself breaks out with its elemental destructive force it may overwhelm and sweep aside the 'regular troops' among whom we prepared all the time to introduce extremely systematic organisation, but never managed to do so." (Our italics.)
Astounding logic! For the very reason that the "masses are not ours" it is stupid and unseemly to shout about an immediate ``assault'', for assault means attack by regular troops and not a spontaneous mass upsurge. For the very reason that the masses may overwhelm and sweep aside the regular troops we must without fail "manage to keep up" with the spontaneous upsurge by our work of "introducing extremely systematic organisation" in the regular troops,
for the more we ``manage'' to introduce such organisation the more probably will the regular troops not be overwhelmed by the masses, but will take their place at their head. Nadezhdin is confused because he imagines that troops in the course of systematic organisation are engaged in something that isolates them from the masses, when in actuality they are engaged exclusively in all-sided and all-embracing political agitation, i.e., precisely in work that brings closer and merges into a single whole the elemental destructive force of the organisation of revolutionaries. You, gentlemen, wish to lay the blame where it does not belong. For it is precisely the Svoboda group that, by including terror in its programme, calls for an organisation of terrorists, and such an organisation would indeed prevent our troops from establishing closer contacts with the masses, which, unfortunately, are still not ours, and which, unfortunately, do not yet ask us, when and how to launch their military operations.
``We shall miss the revolution itself", continues Nadezhdin in his attempt to scare Iskra, "in the same way as we missed the recent events, which came upon us like a bolt from the blue". This sentence taken in connection with what has been quoted above, clearly demonstrates the absurdity of the " eve-of-the-revolution point of view" invented by Svoboda* Plainly put, this special "point of view" boils down to this that it is too late ``now'' to discuss and prepare. If that is the case, most worthy opponent of ``bookishness'', what was the use of writing a pamphlet of 132 pages on "questions of theory** and tactics"? Don't you think it would have been more becoming for the "eve-of-the-revolution point of view" to have issued 132,000 leaflets containing the summary call, "Bang them---knock 'em down!" ?
Those who make nation-wide political agitation the corner-stone of their programme, their tactics, and their organisational work, as Iskra does, stand the least risk of mising the revolution. The people who are now engaged throughout Russia in weaving the network of connections that spread from the all-Russian newspaper not only did not miss the spring events, but, on the contrary, gave us an opportunity to foretell them. Nor did they miss the demonstrations that were described in Iskra, Nos. 13 and 14; on the contrary, they took part in them, clearly realising that it was their duty to come to the aid
* The Eye of the Revolution, p. 62.
** In his Review of Questions of Theory, Nadezhdin, by the way, made almost no contribution whatever to the discussion of questions of theory, aparat, perhaps, from the following passage, a most peculiar one from the "eve-of-the-revolution point of view": "Bersteinism, on the whole, is losing its acuteness for us at the present moment, as is the question whether Mr. Adamovich will prove that Mr. Struve has already earned a lacing, or, on the contrary, whether Mr. Struve will refute Mr. Adamovich and will refuse to resign---it really makes no difference, because the hour of revolution has struck" (p. 110). One can hardly imagine a more glaring illustration of Nadezhdin's infinite disregard for theory. We have proclaimed "the eve of the revolution", therefore "it really makes no difference" whether or not the orthodox will succeed in finally driving the Critics from their positions! Our wiseacre fails to see that it is precisely during the revolution that we shall stand in need of the results of our theoretical battles with the Critics in order to be able resolutely to combat their practical positions!
102 103of the spontaneously rising masses and, at the same time, through the medium of the newspaper, help all the comrades in Russia to inform themselves of the demonstrations and to make use of their gathered experience. And if they live they will not miss the revolution, which, first and foremost, will demand of us experience in agitation, ability to support (in a Social-Democratic manner) every protest, as well as direct the spontaneous movement, while safeguarding it from the mistakes of friends and the traps of enemies.
We have thus come to the last reason that compels us so strongly to insist on the plan of an organisation centred round an all-Russian newspaper, through the common work for the common newspaper. Only such organisation will ensure the flexibility required of a militant Social-Democratic organisation, viz., the ability to adapt itself immediately to the most divers and rapidly changing conditions of struggle, the ability, "on the one hand, to avoid an open battle against an overwhelming enemy, when the enemy has concentrated all his forces at one spot and yet, on the other, to take advantage of his unwieldiness and to attack him when and where he least expects it".* It would be a grievous error indeed to build the Party organisation in anticipation only of outbreaks and street fighting, or only upon the "forward march of the drab everyday struggle". We must always conduct our everyday work and always be prepared for every situation, because very frequently it is almost impossible to foresee when a period of outbreak will give way to a period of calm. In the instances, however, when it is possible to do so, we could not turn this foresight to account for the purpose of reconstructing our organisation; for in an autocratic country these changes take place with astonishing rapidity, being sometimes connected with a single night raid by the tsarist janizaries. And the revolution itself must not by any means be regarded as a single act (as the Nadezhdins apparently imagine), but as a series of more or less powerful outbreaks rapidly alternating with periods of more or less complete calm. For that reason, the principal content of the activity of our Party organisation, the focus of this activity, should be work that is both possible and essential in the period of a most powerful outbreak as well as in the period of complete calm, namely, work of political agitation, connected throughout Russia, illuminating all aspects of life, and conducted among the broadest possible strata of the masses.But this work is unthinkable in present-day Russia without an all-Russian newspaper,
issued very frequently. The organisation, which will form round this newspaper, the organisation of its collaborators (in the broad sense of the word, i.e., all those working for it), will be ready for everything, from upholding the honour, the prestige, and the continuity of the Party in periods of acute revolutionary ``depression'' to preparing for, appointing the time for, and carrying out the nation-wide armed uprising.
Indeed, picture to yourselves a very ordinary occurrence in Russia---the total round-up of our comrades in one or several localities. In the absence of a single, common, regular activity that combines all the local organisations, such round-ups frequently result in the interruption of the work for many months. If, however, all the local organisations had one common activity, then, even in the event of a very serious round-up, two or three energetic persons could in the course of a few weeks establish contact between the common centre and new youth circles, which, as we know, spring up very quickly even now. And when the common activity, hampered by the arrests, is apparent to all, new circles will be able to come into being and make connections with the centre even more rapidly.
On the other hand, picture to yourselves a popular uprising. Probably everyone will now agree that we must think of this and prepare for it. But how ? Surely the Central Committee cannot appoint agents to all localities for the purpose of preparing the uprising. Even if we had a Central Committee, it could achieve absolutely nothing by such appointments under present-day Russian conditions. But a network of agents* that would form in the course of establishing and distributing the common newspaper would not have to "sit about and wait" for the call for an uprising, but could carry on the regular activity that would guarantee the highest probability of success in the event of an uprising. Such activity would strengthen our contacts with the broadest strata of the working masses and with all social strata that are discontented with the autocracy, which is of such importance for an uprising. Presicely such activity would serve to cultivate the ability to estimate correctly the general political situation and, consequently, the ability to select the proper moment for an uprising. Precisely such activity would train all local organisations to respond simultaneously to the same political questions, incidents, and events that agitate the whole of Russia and to react to such ``incidents'' in the most vigorous,
* Iskra, No. 4, "Where To Begin". "Revolutionary culmrists who do not accept, the eve-of-the-revolution point of view, are not in the least perturbed by the prospect of working for a long period of time," writes Nadezhdin (p. 62). This brings us to observe: Unless we are able to devise political tactics and an organisational plan for work over a very long period, while ensuring, in the very process of this work, our Party's readiness to be at its post and fulfil its duty in every contingency whenever the march of events is accelerated---unless we succeed in doing this, we shall prove to be but miserable political adventurers. Only Nadezhdin, who began but yesterday to describe himself as a Social-Democrat, can forget that the aim of Social-Democracy is to transform radically the conditions of life of the whole of mankind and that for this reason it is not permissible for a Social-Democrat to be ``perturbed'' by the question of the duration of the work.
* Alas, alas! Again I have let slip that awful word ``agents'', which jars so much on the democratic ears of the Martynovs! I wonder why this word did not offend the heroes of the seventies and yet offends the amateurs of the nineties ? I like the word, because it clearly and trenchantly indicates the common cause to which all the agents bend their thoughts and actions, and if I had to replace this word by another, the only word I might select would be the word ``collaborator'', if it did not suggest a certain bookishness and vagueness. The thing we need is a military organisation of agents. However, the numerous Martynovs (particularly abroad), whose favourite pastime is "mutual grants of generalships to one another", may instead of saying "passport agent" prefer to say, "Chief of the Special Department for Supplying Revolutionaries with Passports", etc.
104 105uniform, and expedient manner possible; for an uprising is in essence the most vigorous, most uniform, and most expedient ``answer'' of the entire people to the government. Lastly, it is precisely such activity that would train all revolutionary organisations throughout Russia to maintain the most continuous, and at the same time the most secret, contacts with one another, thus creating real Party unity; for without such contacts it will be impossible collectively to discuss the plan for the uprising and to take the necessary preparatory measures on the eve, measures that must be kept in the strictest secrecy.
In a word, the "plan for an all-Russian political newspaper", far from representing the fruits of the labour of armchair workers, infected with dogmatism and bookishness (as it seemed to those who gave but little thougth to it), is the most practical plan for immediate and all-round preparation of the uprising, with, at the same time, no loss of sight for a moment of the pressing day-to-day work.
be absolutely essential---on this point the "Southern Workers" and Iskra are in full accord. But they are also agreed that this type of literature is not sufficient. If we speak of good housing for the workers and at the same time say that good food is not enough for them, that would hardly be taken to mean that we are "against "good food. The question is----which is the highest form of agitational literature ? The "Southern Workers" did not say a word about the newspaper when they raised this question. Their silence could, of course, have been due to local circumstances, but we, although we did not in the least wish to enter into ``disputes'' with our correspondents, naturally could not refrain from reminding them that the proletariat should also organise its own newspaper just as the other classes of the population have done, that fragmentary work alone is not enough, and that the regular, active, and general work of all localities, for a revolutionary organ is essential.
As far as the three- or four-page pamphlets are concerned, we did not speak ``against'' them in the least, but merely doubted the practicability of a plan to develop them into regular literature distributed "simultaneously throughout Russia". If they consist of three or four pages, they will be, essentially, only proclamations. In all parts of Russia we have many very good proclamations that are not in the least heavy reading, both student and workers' proclamations, that sometimes run to six or eight small pages. A really popular pamphlet, capable of explaining even one single question to a completely unprepared worker, would probably be much bigger in size and there would be no need and no possibility of distributing it "simultaneously throughout Russia" (since it is not only of topical significance.) Fully recognising, as we do, every variety of political literature, old and new, so long as it is really good political literature, we would advise working, not upon an invention of a midway type of agitational medium---something between leaflet and popular pamphlet, but for a revolutionary organ that really deserves the name of periodical (appearing, not once, but at least two or four times, a month) and which is an a//-Russian organ.
Written between the autumn of 1901 and February 1902 First published as a separate work in March 1902
Collected Works, Vol. 5, pp. 376-377; 398-401; 410, 412-417; 431-432; 482-516
__--_--_--__ __ALPHA_LVL2__ Reply to ,,A Reader"The following letter has been received by the Editorial Board:
``In dealing with the question of agitation (if I am not mistaken, in No. 13) Iskra opposes agitational leaflets (pamphlets of two or three pages) on political subjects. In the opinion of the editors, newspapers can successfully replace such literature. Newspapers are, of course, a fine thing. Nobody would dream of disputing that. But can they replace leaflets that are specially intended for widespread distribution among the masses ? The editors have received a letter from Russia in which a group of workers-agitators gave their opinion on this subject. hkra's reply is obviously due to a misunderstanding. The question of agitation is as important today as the question of demonstrations. It is, therefore, to be desired that the editors raise this question once again and on this occasion devote to it greater attention.
"A Reader"
Anyone who takes the trouble to read our reply to the letter from "Southern Workers" in No. 13 of Iskra together with this letter will easily convince himself that it is precisely the author of the letter who labours under an obvious misunderstanding. There was no question of Iskra's "opposing agitational leaflets"; it never entered anyone's head that a newspaper could "replace leaflets". Our correspondent did not notice that leaflets are in fact proclamations. Such literature as proclamations cannot be replaced by anything and will always
Iskra, No. 16, February 1, 1902
Collected Works, Vol. 5, pp. 344-345
__--_--_--__ __ALPHA_LVL2__ The Zemstvo Campaign and Iskra's PlanThe editorial board of Iskra has just issued ("for Party members") a letter addressed to the Party organisations. Russia has never been within such close distance of a constitution, say^. the editors; and they expound a complete plan for a "political campaign", a complete plan for influencing our liberal Zemstvo-ist petitioners for a constitution.
107Before analysing this exceedingly instructive plan of the new Iskra's, let us recall how the Russian Social-Democrats have regarded the question of their attitude towards the liberal Zemstvo-ists since a mass working-class movement arose. Everyone knows that, practically from the inception of the mass working-class movement, a struggle went on between the ``Economists'' and the revolutionaries over this question too. The former went so far as directly to deny the existence of a bourgeois-democratic element in Russia and ignore the proletariat's task of influencing the opposition strata of society; at the same time, by narrowing the scope of the political struggle of the proletariat, they consciously or unconsciously left the role of political leadership to the liberal elements of society, assigning to the workers "the economic struggle against the employers and the government". The adherents of revolutionary Social-Democracy fought in the old Iskra against this trend. This struggle may be divided into two main periods: the period before the appearance of a liberal organ---Osvobozhdeniye---and the period after it appeared. During the first period we directed our attack mainly against the narrowness of the Economists; we tried to "wake them up" to the fact, which they failed to perceive, of the existence of a bourgeois-democratic element in Russia; we emphasised the need for political activity by the proletariat in every sphere, we stressed that the proletariat must influence all sections of society, that it must become the vanguard in the battle for freedom. It is the more fitting and necessary to recall this period and its main features now because the adherents of the new Iskra grossly falsify it (see Trotsky's Our Political Tasks, published under the editorship of Iskra), banking on the unfamiliarity of the younger generation with the recent history of our movement.
From the time of the appearance of Osvobozhdeniye, the second period in the old Iskra's fight began. When the liberals came out with an organ and political programme of their own, the proletariat's task of influencing ``society'' naturally underwent a modification: working-class democrats could no longer confine themselves to "shaking up" the liberal democrats and rousing their opposition spirit; they had to put the emphasis on revolutionary criticism of the half-heartedness so clearly exhibited in the political position of liberalism. The influence we brought to bear on the liberal strata now took the form of constantly pointing out the inconsistency and inadequacy of the liberals' political protest (it is sufficient to mention Zarya, which criticised Mr. Struve's preface to the Witte Memorandum, also numerous articles in Iskra).
By the time of the Second Party Congress this new attitude of the Social-Democrats towards the now articulate liberals was already so well-defined and established that there was no question in anyone's mind about whether a bourgeois-democratic element existed in Russia and whether the opposition movement ought to receive support (and what kind of support) from the proletariat. The only question was how to formulate the Party's views on the subject; and I need only point out here that the views of the old Iskra were much better expressed in Plekhanov's resolution, which emphasised the
108anti-revolutionary and anti-proletarian character of the liberal Osvobozhdeniye, than in the confused resolution tabled by Starover, which, on the one hand, aimed (quite inopportunely) at an ``agreement'' with the liberals, and, on the other, stipulated for it conditions that were manifestly unreal, being altogether impossible for the liberals to fulfil.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ INow let us examine the new Iskra's plan. The editors acknowledge that we must make full use of all material showing the irresolution and half-heartedness of the liberal democrats and the antagonism of interests between the liberal bourgeoisie and the proletariat, must do so "in accordance with the fundamental demands of our programme". "But," the editors continue, "but within the framework of the struggle with absolutism, notably in its present phase, our attitude towards the liberal bourgeoisie is determined by the task of spurring it to greater boldness and inducing it to join in the demands which the proletariat, led by the Social-Democrats, will put forward [? has put forward?]." We have italicised the particularly strange words in this strange tirade. For what is it if not strange to contrast criticism of half-heartedness and analysis of antagonistic interests, on the one hand, and the task of spurring these people to greater boldness and inducing them to join, on the other? How can we spur the liberal democrats to greater boldness except by relentless analysis and devastating criticism of the half-heartedness of their democracy? Insofar as the bourgeois (liberal) democrats intend to act as democrats, and are forced to act as democrats, they necessarily seek the support of the widest possible sections of the people. This inevitably produces the following contradiction. The wider these sections of the people, the more representatives are there among them of the proletarian and semi-proletarian strata, who demand the complete democratisation of the political and social system---such complete democratisation as would threaten to undermine very important pillars of all bourgeois rule (the monarchy, the standing army, the bureaucracy). Bourgeois democrats are by their very nature incapable of satisfying these demands, and are therefore, by their very nature, doomed to irresolution and half-heartedness. By criticising this half-heartedness, the Social-Democrats keep prodding the liberals on and winning more and more proletarians and semi-proletarians, and partly petty bourgeois too, from liberal democracy to working-class democracy. How then is it possible to say: we must criticise the half-heartedness of the liberal bourgeoisie, but (but!) our attitude towards it is determined by the task of spurring it to greater boldness ? Why, that is plain muddle-- headedness, which shows that its authors are either marching backward, reverting to the days when the liberals did not come forward openly at all, when they had still to be roused, stirred, induced to open their mouths---or else are slipping into the idea that one can ``spur'' the liberals to greater boldness by subtracting from the boldness of the proletarians.
109Preposterous as this idea is, we find it again, even more clearly expressed, in the very next passage of the editors' letter: ``But''---again that editorial reservation---"but we should be making a fatal mistake if we tried by strong measures of intimidation to force the Zemstvos or other organs of the bourgeois opposition to give here and now, under the influence of panic, a formal promise to present our demands to the government. Such a tactic would discredit the Social-Democrats, because it would make our entire political campaign a lever for reaction." (Editors' italics.)
So that's how it is, is it ? Before the revolutionary proletariat has dealt the tsarist autocracy a single serious blow, at a time when that autocracy is so visibly shaken and when a serious blow is so imperative, would be so useful, and might prove decisive, there are Social-Democrats who go about mumbling about levers for reaction. This is not just muddleheadedness, it is sheer inanity. This is what the editors have come to with their terrible bogey, invented specially to start this talk about becoming a lever for reaction. Just think of it: that people should talk in all seriousness, in a letter to the Social-Democratic Party organisations, of tactics of intimidating the Zemstvo-ists and forcing them to give formal promises under the influence of panic! Even among Russian officialdom, even among our Ugryum-Burcheyevs, it would not be easy to find a political infant who would believe in such a bogey. We have among our revolutionists hotheaded terrorists, desperate bomb-throwers; but even the most hare-brained of the hare-brained defenders of bombthrowing have yet, I believe, to propose intimidating ... the Zemstvo-ists and striking panic into... the opposition. Cannot the editors see that the inevitable effect of their ridiculous bogeys and inane phrases is to perplex and mislead, to befog and confuse the minds of the fighting proletarians ? After all, these catchwords about levers for reaction and the discrediting tactics of intimidation do not fly into empty space; they fall upon the specific soil of police-ridden Russia, so eminently suited for the sprouting of weeds. Talk about levers for reaction is indeed to be heard at every street corner nowadays, but it comes from the Novoye Vremya gentry. The story about the discrediting tactics of intimidation has indeed been repeated ad nauseam---by the cowardly leaders of the bourgeois • opposition.
Take Prof. Prince E. N. Trubetskoy. A sufficiently ``enlightened'' and--- for a legal Russian personality---a sufficiently ``bold'' liberal, one would think. Yet how fatuously he discourses in the liberal Pravo (No. 39) on the "internal danger", namely, the danger from the extreme parties! There you have a live example of who really is close to panic; a graphic instance of what really does have an intimidating effect on real liberals. What they are afraid of, in need hardly be said, is not the plan conjured up by the Iskra editors, the plan of extorting from the Zemstvo-ists formal promises to the revolutionaries (Mr. Trubetskoy would only roar with laughter if told of such a plan); they are afraid of the revolutionary socialist aims of the ``extreme'' parties, they are afraid of leaflets, those first harbingers of independent revolutionary action by
110the proletariat, which will not stop, will not lay down its arms unitl it has overthrown the rule of the bourgeoisie. This fear is not inspired by ludicrous bogeys, but by the actual nature of the working-class movement; and it is a fear ineradicable from the hearts of the bourgeoisie (not counting a few individuals and groups, of course). And that is why the new Iskra's talk about the discrediting tactics of intimidating the Zemstvo-ists and representatives of the bourgeois opposition rings so false. Afraid of leaflets, afraid of anything that goes beyond a qualified-franchise constitution, the liberal gentry will always stand in fear of the slogan "a democratic republic" and of the call for an armed uprising of the people. But the class-conscious proletariat will indignantly reject the very idea that we could renounce this slogan and this call, or could in general be guided in our activity by the panic and fears of the bourgeoisie.
Take Novoye Vremya. What dulcet melodies it weaves about the lever-- for-reaction theme! "The youth and reaction," we read in the ``Notes'' in No. 10285 (October 18). "... The words go ill together, and yet unconsidered actions, impulsive ardour, and the desire at all costs to share immediately in shaping the nation's fortunes may bring the youth to this hopeless impasse. The demonstration a few days ago in front of the Vyborg prison; then the attempt at some sort of demonstration in the heart of the capital; in Moscow, the procession of 200 students with banners and protests against the war .. . All this explains the reaction ... Student disturbances, youth demonstrations--- why, they are a real godsend, a trump card, an unexpected ace of trumps in the hands of the reactionaries. Truly a welcome present for them, which they will know how to make the most of. We should not make them these presents, should not go about smashing imaginary [!!!] window-bars; the very doors are open now [the doors of the Vyborg and other prisons?], wide open!''
This disquisition requires no comment. One has only to quote it to see how tactless it is to talk about a lever for reaction now---now, when not one door of the all-Russia prison has opened a hair's breath for the struggling workers; when the tsarist autocracy has not yet made a single concession that would affect the proletariat in the slightest; when all attention and efforts should be centred on preparing for a real and decisive battle with the Russian people's enemy. Of course, the very thought of such a battle strikes fear and panic into the Trubetskoys and the thousands of less ``enlightened'' liberal gentlemen. But we should be fools if we took their panic into consideration. What we should take into consideration is the state of our forces, the growth of popular ferment and indignation, the moment when the proletariat's direct onslaught on the autocracy will link up with one of the spontaneous and spontaneously growing movements.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ IIIn speaking above of the bogey our editors conjured up, we did not mention another characteristic little point in their argument. The editors denounce the
111discrediting tactics of seeking to extort from the Zemstvo-ists "a formal promise to present our demands to the government". Over and above the absurdities already noted, the very idea that ``our'' demands, the demands of working-class democrats, should be presented to the government by liberal democrats is a peculiar one. On the one hand, the liberal democrats, being bourgeois democrats, can never identify themselves with ``our'' demands, can never uphold them sincerely, consistently, and resolutely. Even if the liberals gave, and gave ``voluntarily'', a formal promise to present our demands, it is a foregone conclusion that they would fail to keep that promise, would betray the proletariat. On the other hand, if we should be strong enough to exert serious influence on the bourgeois democrats generally and the Zemstvo gentlemen in particular, we should be quite strong enough to present our demands to the government ourselves.
The editors' peculiar idea is no slip of the pen, but an inevitable product of their general confused position on this issue. Listen to this: "As our focal point and guiding thread ... we must take the practical task ... of exerting powerful organised pressure upon the bourgeois opposition"; "the draft of the workers' statement to the liberal opposition organ in question" must "explain why the workers are not approaching the government, but an assembly of representatives of that opposition". To put the thing in this way is a fundamental mistake. We, the party of the proletariat, should, of course," go to all classes of the population", openly and vigorously championing our programme and our immediate demands before the people at large; we should seek to present these demands to the Zemstvo gentlemen too; but our focal point and guiding thread must be pressure on the government, not on the Zemstvo-ists. The editors of Iskra have turned this question of the focal point completely upside down. The bourgeois opposition is merely bourgeois and merely an opposition because it does not itself fight, because it has no programme of its own that it unconditionally upholds, because it stands between the two actual combatants (the government and the revolutionary proletariat with its handful of intellectual supporters) and hopes to turn the outcome of this struggle to its own advantage. Accordingly, the more heated the struggle becomes, the nearer the moment of the decisive battle, the more must we focus our attention and bring our pressure to bear on our actual enemy, and not on a notoriously conditional, problematic, unreliable, half-hearted ally. It would be foolish to ignore this ally, and absurd to try to intimidate and frighten him---all that is so self-evident that it is strange even to talk about it. But, I repeat, the focal point and guiding thread in our agitation must not be pressure on this ally, but preparation for the decisive battle with the enemy. For while it has been flirting with the Zemstvos and has granted them some paltry concessions, the government has not, in actual fact, conceded anything whatever to the people; it may still well revert to (or rather continue) its reactionary course, as has happened in Russia tens and hundreds of times after a momentary flash of liberalism from one autocrat or another. At a moment like this, when the government is flirting with
the Zemstvos and the people are being hoodwinked and lulled with empty words, we must particularly beware of the fox's cunning, must be particularly insistent in pointing out that the enemy has yet to be defeated, must call with particular vigour for continuing and intensifying the fight against the enemy, and not shift the emphasis from ``approaching'' the government to approaching the Zemstvos. None other than the notorious cream-skimmers and betrayers of freedom are hard at work at this moment to put the Zemstvos in the focus of public and popular attention and to inspire confidence in them, when actually they do not in the least deserve the confidence of genuine democrats. Take Novoye Vremya: in the article we have already quoted you will find the following argument: "Anyone can see that once all our failings and shortcomings can be boldly and candidly discussed and there is freedom for the activity of every public personality, it should not be long before we see the last of these shortcomings and Russia is able to set foot confidently on the path of the progress and improvement she so sorely needs. We do not even have to invent the organisation to serve as the instrument of this progress: it is already to hand in the form of the Zemstvos, which only [!!] need to be given the freedom to grow; therein lies the earnest of genuinely national, not borrowed, progress." This kind of talk not only "conceals a desire for a limited monarchy and a qualified-franchise constitution" (as the editors put it elsewhere in their letter); it directly prepares the ground for reducing the whole business to a bestowal of smiles on the Zemstvos, without even any limitation of the monarchy.
Making pressure on the Zemstvos instead of on the government the focal point leads naturally to the unfortunate idea that underlay Starover's resolution---the idea of trying to find, now at once, a basis for some sort of `` agreements'' with the liberals. "As regards the present Zemstvos," the editors say in their letter, "our task reduces itself [!!] to presenting to them those policital demands of the revolutionary proletariat which they must support if they are to have any right to speak in the name of the people and count on the energetic support of the worker masses." A fine definition of the tasks of the workers' party, I must say! At a time when an alliance of the moderate Zemstvo-ists and the government to fight the revolutionary proletariat is only too clearly possible and probable (the editors themselves admit the possibility of such an alliance), we are to ``reduce'' our task, not to redoubling our efforts in the struggle against the government, but to drawing up casuistic conditions for agreements with the liberals on mutual support. If I put before someone demands which he must undertake to support to have me support him, what I am doing is concluding an agreement. And we ask all and sundry: what has become of the ``conditions'' for agreements with the liberals which were prescribed in Starover's resolution* (signed also by Axelrod and Martov), and which our press has already predicted could never be fulfilled? The editors' letter
* The reader will recall that Starover's resolution, which was passed by the Congress (in spite of Plekhanov's opinion and mine), lays down three conditions for temporary agreements with the liberals: 1) the liberals "shall clearly and unambiguously
112 113does not say a word about these conditions. The editors advocated the resolution at the Congress only to throw it into the waste-paper basket afterwards. At the very first attempt to tackle the matter in practice it became apparent that presenting Starover's ``conditions'' would only provoke Homeric laughter from the Zemstvo liberals.
Let us proceed. Can it in general be acknowledged correct in principle to set the workers' party the task of presenting to the liberal democrats or the Zemstvo-ists political demands "which they must support if they are to have any right to speak in the name of the people" ? No, such an approach is wrong in principle and can only obscure the class consciousness of the proletariat and lead to the most futile casuistry. To speak in the name of the people is what speaking as a democrat means. Any democrat (the bourgeois democrat included) has a right to speak in the name of the people, but he has this right only insofar as he champions democracy consistently, resolutely, going all the way. Consequently, every bourgeois democrat "has some right to speak in the name of the people" (for every bourgeois democrat, so long as he remains a democrat, champions some democratic demand); but at the same time no bourgeois democrat has a right to speak in the name of the people all along the line (for no bourgeois democrat is capable today of championing democracy resolutely and all the way). Mr. Struve has a right to speak in the name of the people insofar as Osvobozhdeniye fights against the autocracy; but Mr. Struve has no right to speak in the name of the people insofar as Osvobozhdeniye turns and twists, stops short at a qualified-franchise constitution, equates Zemstvo opposition with struggle, and will not commit itself to a clear and consistent democratic programme. The German National-Liberals had a right to speak in the name of the people insofar as they fought for freedom of movement. The German National-Liberals had no right to speak in the name of the people insofar as they supported the reactionary policy of Bismarck.
Therefore, to set the workers' party the task of presenting to the liberal bourgeois demands which they must support in order to have any right to speak in the name of the people is an absurd and nonsensical proceeding. There is no need for us to invent any special democratic demands over and above those contained in our programme. In the name of that programme we must support every democrat (including the bourgeois democrat) insofar as he champions democracy, and must relentlessly expose every democrat ( including the Socialist-Revolutionary) insofar as he deviates from democracy (as, for instance, in such questions as the freedom of the peasant to leave the commune or to sell his land). As for trying to establish in advance the permissible degree of turpitude, so to speak, to determine beforehand what deviations
from democracy a democrat can permit himself and still have some right to speak as a democrat, that is such a clever idea that one can't help wondering whether Comrade Martynov or Comrade Dan did not lend our editors a hand in inventing it.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ IIIAfter setting forth their guiding political considerations, the editors' letter proceeds to expound the details of their great plan.
The Gubernia Zemstvo Assemblies are petitioning for a constitution. In the towns of X, Y, Z, our committeemen plus the enlightened workers draw up a plan of political campaign "according to Axelrod". The focal point in their agitation is pressure on the bourgeois opposition. An organising group is elected. The organising group elects an executive committee. The executive committee elects a special spokesman. Eiforts are made "to bring the masses into direct contact with the Zemstvo Assembly, to concentrate the demonstration before the actual premises where the Zemstvo assemblymen are in session. Some of the demonstrators penetrate into the session hall, and at a suitable moment, through the spokesman specially authorised for the purpose, they ask the permission of the Assembly [of the Marshal of the Nobility, who presides at the Assembly ?] to read out a statement on behalf of the workers. If this is not granted, the spokesman enters a loud protest against the refusal of an Assembly which speaks in the name of the people to hear the voice of the people's genuine representatives''.
Such is the new Iskra's new plan. We shall see in a moment how modest is the editors' opinion of it; but first let us quote their highly profound explanations as to the functions of the executive committee:
``... The executive committee must take measures in advance to ensure that the appearance of several thousand workers outside the building where the Zemstvo assemblymen are in session, and of several score or hundred in the building itself, shall not plunge the Zemstvo-ists into panic fear [!!], under the impact of which they might throw themselves [!] under the shameful protection of the police and Cossacks, thus transforming a peaceful demonstration into an ugly fight and brutal battering, distorting its whole meaning..." (The editors themselves seem to have been taken in by the bogey of their own making. Taking the sentence in its literal, grammatical sense, they even seem to be saying that it is the Zemstvo-ists who would be transforming the demonstration into a brutal battering and distorting its meaning. We have a very low opinion of the Zemstvo liberals, but even so the editors' panic fear that the liberals in a Zemstvo Assembly might call in the police and Cossacks seems to us quite nonsensical. Anyone who has ever attended a Zemstvo Assembly will know that, in the event of so-called disorder, the police would be sent for either by the presiding Marshal of the Nobility or by the police officer unofficially present in an adjoining room. Or perhaps the members of
declare that in^their struggle against the autocratic government they will resolutely side with the Social-Democrats"; 2) "they shall not include in their programmes any demands running counter to the interests of the working class or the democracy generally, or obscuring their political consciousness"; 3) "they shall make universal, equal, secret, and direct suffrage the slogan of their struggle''.
114 115the executive committee are to explain to this police officer that it is no part of the new Iskra's ``plan'' to have a peaceful demonstration transformed into a brutal battering?)
``To obviate such a surprise, the executive committee must inform the liberal assemblymen beforehand [so that they may give a "formal promise" not to send for the Cossacks ?] of the forthcoming demonstration and its true purpose (i.e., inform them that our true purpose does not consist in being brutally battered and so having the meaning of Axelrod's plan distorted]. Furthermore, it must try to reach some agreement [mark this!] with the representatives of the Left wing of the bourgeois opposition and secure, if not their active support, at any rate their sympathy with our political action. Its negotiations with them must, it need hardly be said, be conducted in the name of the Party and on the instructions of the workers' circles and meetings, in negotiations with the Zemstvo-ists concerning this panic fear would be very foolish, because not even the most moderate liberal will ever bring about such a battering or sympathise with it---but the thing does not depend upon him. What is needed here is not ``negotiations'', but the actual mustering of force; not pressure on the Zemstvo-ists, but pressure on the government and its agents. If we have no force behind us, better not to hold forth about great plans; and if we do have it, then it is force we must oppose to the Cossacks and police, we must try to gather a crowd of such size and in such a spot that it should be able to repel, or at least to check, the onslaught of the Cossacks and police. And if we are indeed capable of exerting "powerful organised pressure upon the bourgeois opposition", it is assuredly not by silly `` negotiations'' about not causing panic fear, but by force and force alone, the force of mass resistance to the Cossacks and the tsarist police, the force of a mass onslaught capable of growing into a popular uprising.
The editors of the new Iskra see things differently. They are so pleased with their plan for an agreement and negotiations that they cannot admire it enough, cannot find praise enough to lavish on it.
... The active demonstrators must be "imbued with an understanding of the fundamental difference between an ordinary demonstration against the police or the government in general, and a demonstration immediately designed to further the struggle against absolutism, through direct pressure by the revolutionary proletariat on the political tactics [indeed!] of the liberal elements at the present [italicised by the editors] moment... To organise demonstrations of the ordinary, so to speak, general-democratic [!!] type, not aiming directly at a concrete counterposing of the revolutionary proletariat and the liberal bourgeois opposition as two independent political forces, the mere existence of strong political ferment among the masses is sufficient... Our Party must utilise this mood of the masses even for such, so to say, a lower type [note that!] of their mobilisation against absolutism... We are taking our first [!] steps on a new [!] path of political activity, the path of organising planned intervention by the worker masses which should not only discuss the general plan of the
116political campaign but hear reports of its progress---the rules of secrecy being, of course, strictly observed.''
Yes, yes, we can well see that Starover's great idea of an agreement with the liberals on the basis of exactly prescribed conditions is gaining strength and substance daily and hourly. To be sure, all these exactly prescribed conditions have been shelved "for the time being" (we are no formalists!); but, on the other hand, an agreement is being reached in practice, now, at once, viz., an agreement not to cause panic fear.
Whichever way one reads the editors' letter, no other meaning of its famous ``agreement'' with the liberals can be found than that we have indicated: either it is an agreement about the conditions on which the liberals would have a right to speak in the name of the people (and in that case the very idea of it very seriously discredits the Social-Democrats who advance it); or else it is an agreement about not causing panic fear, an agreement about sympathising with a peaceful demonstration---in which case it is just nonsense that can hardly be discussed seriously. Nor could the absurd idea of the paramount importance of pressure on the bourgeois opposition, instead of on the government, have resulted in anything but an absurdity. If we are in a position to organise an imposing mass demonstration of workers in the hall of a Zemstvo Assembly, we shall, of course, do so (though if we have forces enough for a mass demonstration it would be much better to ``concentrate'' them "before the premises" not of the Zemstvo, but of the police, the gendarmerie, or the censorship). But to be swayed when doing so by considerations like the Zemstvo-ists' panic fears, and to engage in negotiations on that score, would be the height of ineptitude, the height of absurdity. Among a good proportion, most likely the majority, of Russia's Zemstvo-ists, the very content of a speech by a consistent Social-Democrat will always and inevitably arouse panic fear. To parley with the Zemstvo-ists beforehand about the undesirability of that sort of panic fear would place one in the falsest and most undignified kind of position. A brutal battering, or the prospect of one, will just as inevitably arouse panic fear of another sort. To engage [N. B.] in public life with the direct aim of counterposing them to the bourgeois opposition as an independent force, which has opposite class interests, but which at the same time offers it conditions [what conditions ?] for waging a vigorous joint struggle against the common enemy.''
It is not given to everyone to appreciate all the profundity of this remarkable disquisition. The Rostov demonstration, where thousands and thousands of workers were made familiar with the aims of socialism and the demands of working-class democracy, is a "lower type of mobilisation", the ordinary, general-democratic type; here there is no concrete counterposing of the revolutionary proletariat and the bourgeois opposition. But when a specially authorised spokesman appointed by an executive committee, which has been elected by an organising group, which has been set up by the committeemen and active workers---when that spokesman, after first negotiating with the Zemstvo-ists, enters a loud protest in the Zemstvo Assembly because it declines
117to hear him---that will be a ``concrete'' and ``direct'' counterposing of two independent forces, that will be ``direct'' pressure on the tactics of the liberals, that will be "a first step on a new path". For heaven's sake, gentlemen! Why, even Martynov in the worst days of Rabocheye Dyelo hardly sank quite so low as this!
The mass meetings of workers in the streets of the southern towns, dozens of worker speakers, direct clashes with the real, tangible force of the tsarist autocracy---all that is a "lower type of mobilisation". Agreements with the Zemstvo-ists about a peaceful statement by our spokesman who will undertake not to cause panic among Messrs, the liberals---that is a "new path". There you have the new tactical tasks, the new tactical views of the new Iskra, of which the world was informed with such pomp by the editorial Balalaikin. On one point, though, this Balalaikin happened to speak the truth: between the old Iskra and the new there is indeed a yawning gulf. The old Iskra had only contempt and derision for people who could admire, as a "new path", a theatrically staged agreement between classes. This new path is one we have long known, from the record of those French and German Socialist ``statesmen'' who similarly regard the old revolutionary tactics as a "lower type" and never weary of praising "planned and direct intervention in public life" in the form of agreements to allow the workers' spokesmen to make peaceful and modest statements after negotiations with the Left wing of the bourgeois opposition.
The editors are in such panic fear of the panic fear of the Zemstvo liberals that they insistently enjoin "particular caution" on those who take part in their ``new'' plan. "As an extreme case of external caution in the way the action is actually carried out," says the letter, "we can envisage mailing the workers' statement to the assemblymen's homes and scattering a considerable number of copies in the Zemstvo Assembly hall. Only people affected with bourgeois revolutionism [sic!], for which the external effect is everything and the process of the systematic development of the class-consciousness and initiative of the proletariat is nothing, could have any objection to this.''
Well, we are not wont to object to the mailing or scattering of leafles, but we shall certainly always object to pompous and hollow phrase-mongering. To make the mailing and scattering of leaflets the occasion for talking with serious mien about the process of the systematic development of the class-- consciousness and initiative of the proletariat, one must be a veritable paragon of complacent banality. To clamour from the housetops about new tactical tasks and then reduce the whole thing to the mailing and scattering of leaflets is really priceless; and nothing could be more characteristic of the exponents of the intellectualist trend in our Party, who, now that their new words in organisation have proved a fiasco, rush about frantically in search of a new word in tactics. And then they talk, with their usual modesty, about the vanity of external eifect! Can't you see, my good sirs, that at best, even supposing your so-called new plan were entirely successful, having a workingman address the Zemstvo gentry would only achieve an external effect, and that to talk of
118its really exerting ``powerful'' pressure on "the tactics of the liberal elements" is nothing but a joke? Is it not rather the other way round---that what has really exerted powerful pressure on the tactics of the liberal elements is those mass workers' demonstrations which to you are of the "ordinary, general-democratic, lower type" ? And if the Russian proletariat is destined again to exert effective pressure on the tactics of the liberals, it will, I assure you, be by a mass onslaught against the government, not by an agreement with the Zemstvo-ists.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ IVThe Zemstvo campaign, launched with the gracious permission of the police; the blandishments of Svyatopolk-Mirsky and the government press; the rising tone of the liberal press; the animation in what is known as educated society--- all this faces the workers' party with very serious tasks indeed. But these tasks are quite wrongly formulated in the letter of the Iskra editors. At this of all times, the political activity of the proletariat must be focused on organising powerful pressure on the government, not on the liberal opposition. Particularly now, agreements between the workers and the Zemstvo-ists about peaceful demonstrations---agreements which would inevitably boil down to the staging of musical-comedy effects---are utterly out of place; what,is needed is to rally the advanced, revolutionary elements of the proletariat in preparation for a decisive struggle for freedom. Particularly now, when our constitutional movement is beginning conspicuously to display the original sins of all bourgeois liberalism, and notably the Russian variety---phrase-mongering, inconsistency of word and action, a sheerly philistine disposition to trust the government and every adroit politician---talk about the undesirability of frightening and panicking the Zemstvo gentry, about levers for reaction, etc., etc., is especially out of place. Particularly now, it is vital to build up in the revolutionary proletariat the firm conviction that the present "emancipation movement in society" will necessarily and inevitably prove a bubble like all the others before it unless the force of the worker masses, capable of and ready for an uprising, intervenes.
The political unrest among all sections of the people---that essential condition for an uprising and earnest of its success, an earnest that the initiative of the proletariat will meet with support---is spreading, growing, becoming more intense all the time. It would therefore be very poor judgement if at this moment anyone were to start shouting again for immediate launching of the assault, for forming at once into assault battalions, etc. The whole course of events goes to show that the tsarist government will very soon find itself in a still worse tangle and faced with an even more formidable resentment. The game it has started with the Zemstvo constitutionalists is bound to get it into a tangle: whether it makes some paltry concessions or whether it makes no concessions at all, discontent and exasperation will inevitably spread still wider. And it is likewise bound to get into a tangle with its shameful and crimi-
119nal Manchurian adventure, which spells a political crisis in either event: decisive military defeat, or the protraction of a war so hopeless for Russia.
What the working class must do is to broaden and strengthen its organisation and redouble its agitation among the masses, making the most of every vacillation of the government, propagating the idea of an uprising, demonstrating the necessity for it from the example of all those half-hearted and foredoomed ``steps'' about which so much fuss, is now being made. It need hardly be said that the workers' response to the Zemstvo petitions must be to call meetings, scatter leaflets, and---where there are forces enough---organise demonstrations to present all the Social-Democratic demands, regardless of the ``panic'' of Mr. Trubetskoy and his like or of the philistines' cries about levers for reaction. And if one is really to risk talking in advance, and from abroad at that, about a possible and desirable higher type of mass demonstration (because demonstrations not of a mass nature are altogether without significance); if one is really to discuss before what particular premises the demonstrators' forces should be concentrated---we would point to the premises where the business of police persecution of the working-class movement is carried on, to the police, gendarmerie, censorship headquarters, to the places where political ``offenders'' are confined. The way for the workers to give serious support to the Zemstvo petitions is not by concluding agreements about the conditions on which the Zemstvo-ists would have a right to speak in the name of the people, but by striking a blow at the people's enemies. And there need be little doubt that the idea of such a demonstration will meet with the sympathy of the proletariat. The workers nowadays hear magniloquent phrases and lofty promises on every hand, they see a real---infinitesimal but nonetheless real---extension of freedom for ``society'' (a slackening of the curb on the Zemstvos, the return of banished Zemstvo-ists, an abatement of the ferocity against the liberal press); but they see nothing whatever that gives their political struggle more freedom. Under pressure of the revolutionary onslaught of the proletariat the government has allowed the liberals to talk a little about freedom! The condition of the slaves of capital, downtrodden and deprived of rights, now comes home to the proletarians more clearly than ever. The workers do not have any regular widespread organisations for the relatively free (by Russian standards) discussion of political matters; nor halls to hold meetings in; nor newspapers of their own; and their exiled and imprisoned comrades are not coming back. The workers see now that the liberal bourgeois gentry are setting about dividing the bearskin, the skin of the bear which the workers have not yet killed, but which they, and they alone, have seriously wounded. They see that, at the very start of dividing the skin in anticipation, these liberal bourgeois gentry already snap and snarl at the "extreme parties", at the "enemies at home"---the relentless enemies of bourgeois rule and bourgeois law and order. And the workers will rise still more fearlessly, in still greater numbers, to finish off the bear, to win by force for themselves what is promised as charity to the liberal bourgeois gentry---
freedom of assembly, freedom of the workers' press, full political freedom for a broad and open struggle for the complete victory of socialism.
We are issuing this pamphlet with the superscription "For Party Members Only" inasmuch as the Iskra editors' ``letter'' was issued with that superscripttion. Actually, to stage "secrecy precautions" in regard to a plan that is to be circulated to dozens of towns, discussed in hundreds of workers' circles, and explained in agitation leaflets and appeals is nothing short of ridiculous. It is an instance of the bureaucratic mystification which Comrade Galyorka, in "On the New Road", has already noted to be a practice of the editors and the Council. There is just one angle from which one might justify concealing the editorial letter from the public in general and the liberals in particular: a letter like that is altogether too discreditable to our Party ...
We are cancelling the superscription restricting the readership of this pamphlet, since our so-called Party editorial board has issued a reply to it that is supposedly for the Party membership but is in fact circulated only to gatherings of the minority and withheld from Party members known to belong to the majority.
If Iskra has decided not to consider us Party members (while at the same time fearing to say so openly), we can only resign ourselves to our sad fate and draw the appropriate conclusions from that decision.
December 22, 1904*
Written in November 1904 Published in pamphlet form in Geneva in November 1904
Collected Works, Vol. 7, pp. 499-518
__--_--_--__ __ALPHA_LVL2__ Revolutionary DaysRevolt or revolution? This is the question that European journalists and reporters have been asking themselves in connection with the events in St. Petersburg, which they are reporting to the whole world and attempting to evaluate. Are they rebels or insurgents---the tens of thousands of proletarians against whom the tsarist army successfully took the field? And the foreign papers, though sooner in a position to view the events with ``detachment'', with the impartiality of chroniclers, find it difficult to answer the question. They are constantly getting their terms mixed. And small wonder. It is not
* The date relates to the postscript only---Ed.
121without reason that a revolution is said to be a successful revolt, and a revolt an unsuccessful revolution. People who witness the beginning of great and momentous events, who can obtain only very incomplete, inexact, and third-hand information of what is taking place, will not, of course, hazard a definite opinion until a timelier moment comes. The bourgeois papers, which continue as of old to speak of revolt, rioting, and disturbances, cannot help seeing the truly national, nay, international, significance of these events. Yet it is this significance which invests events with the character of revolution. And those who have been writing of the last days of the rioting find themselves involuntarily referring to them as the first days of the revolution. A turning-point in Russia's history has been reached. This is not denied even by the most hidebound of European conservatives, however enthusiastic and sentimental they may wax over the mighty, unrestricted power of the all-Russian autocracy. Peace between the autocracy and the people is unthinkable. Revolution is not only in the mouths of a few fearless souls, not only of ``nihilists''---as Europe persists in calling the Russian revolutionaries---but of every person capable of taking any interest in world politics.
The Russian working-class movement has risen to a higher level in the last few days. It is developing before our very eyes into a national uprising. Naturally, here in Geneva, so damnably far away, we find it exceedingly difficult to keep pace with events. But so long as we have to linger at such an accursed distance, we must try to keep pace with events, to sum them up, to draw conclusions, to draw from the experience of today's happenings lessons that will be useful tomorrow, in another place, where today "the people are still mute" and where in the near future, in some form or other, a revolutionary conflagration will break out. We must make it the constant job of publicists to write the history of the present day, and to try to write it in such a way that our chronicles will give the greatest possible help to the direct participants in the movement and to the heroic proletarians there, on the scene of action---to write it in such a way as to promote the spread of the movement, the conscious selection of the means, ways, and methods of struggle that, with the least expenditure of effort, will yield the most substantial and permanent results.
In the history of revolutions there come to light contradictions that have ripened for decades and centuries. Life becomes unusually eventful. The masses, which have always stood in the shade and have therefore often been ignored and even despised by superficial observers, enter the political arena as active combatants. These masses are learning in practice, and before the eyes of the world are taking their first tentative steps, feeling their way, defining their objectives, testing themselves and the theories of all their ideologists. These masses are making heroic efforts to rise to the occasion and cope with the gigantic tasks of world significance imposed upon them by history; and however great individual defeats may be, however shattering to us the rivers of blood and the thousands of victims, nothing will ever compare in importance with this direct training that the masses and the classes receive in the course
of the revolutionary struggle itself. The history of this struggle is measured in days. And for good reason some foreign newspapers have already started a "diary of the Russian revolution". Let us, too, start one.
published in Vperyod, No. 4, January 31 (18), 1905
Collected Works, Vol. 8, pp. 103-104
__--_--_--__ __ALPHA_LVL2__ To the Central Committee of the R.S.D.L.P.July 11, 1905 Dear friends,
A number of letters from all over Russia, Alexandrov's news, a talk with Kleshch and several other new arrivals---all this strengthens my conviction that there is some internal defect in the work of the C.C., a defect of organisation, in the way the work is arranged. The general opinion is that there is no Central Committee, that it does not make itself felt, that no one notices it. And the facts confirm this. There is no evidence of the C.C.'s political guidance of the Party. Yet all the C.C. members are working themselves to death! What's the matter ?
In my opinion, one of the principal causes of it is that there are no regular C.C. leaflets. Leadership by means of talks and personal contacts at a time of revolution is sheer utopianism. Leadership must be public. All other forms of work must be wholly and unconditionally subordinated to this form. A responsible C.C. litterateur should concern himself first of all with writing (or obtaining from contributors---though the editor himself should always be prepared to write) a leaflet twice a week on Party and political topics (the liberals, the Socialist-Revolutionaries, the Minority, the split, the Zemstvo delegation, the trade unions, etc., etc.) and republishing it in every way, immediately mimeographing in 50 copies (if there is no printing-press) and circulating it to the committees for republication. Articles in Proletary could, perhaps, sometimes be used for such leaflets---after a certain amount of revision. I cannot understand why this is not being done! Can Schmidt and Werner have forgotten our talks on this ? Surely it is possible to write and circulate at least one leaflet a week? The Report on the Third Congress has not been reprinted in full anywhere in Russia all this time. It is so outrageous, such a fiasco for all the C.C.'s famous ``techniques'' that I simply cannot understand what Winter was thinking about, what Sommer and the others are thinking about! After all, are there not committee print-shops in existence?
122 123Apparently, the C.C. members completely fail to understand the tasks of "keeping in the public eye". Yet without that there is no centre, there is no Party! They are working themselves to the bone, but they are working like moles, at secret rendezvous, at meetings, with agents, etc., etc. It is a sheer waste of strength! If you are short-handed, then put third-rate forces on the job, even tenth-rate ones, but attend to the political leadership yourselves, issue leaflets first and foremost. And then---personal appearances and speeches at district meetings (in Polesye no one attended the meeting. A scandal. They all but broke away!), at conferences, etc. Something like a C.C. diary should be published, a C.C. bulletin, and every important question should be dealt with in a leaflet issued twice a week. It is not difficult to publish one: 50 copies can be run off on a hectograph and circulated, one of the committees can print it and have copies sent to us. The thing is to act, to act all the time openly, to stop being dumb. Otherwise we here, too, are completely cut off.
Failing to understand the theory of class struggle and accustomed to seeing in the political arena the petty squabbling of the various bourgeois circles and coteries, the bourgeois understands by dictatorship the annulment of all liberties and guarantees of democracy, arbitrariness of every kind, and every sort of abuse of power in a dictator's personal interests. In fact, it is precisely this vulgar bourgeois view that is manifested in the writings of our Martynov, who winds up his "new campaign" in the new Iskra by attributing the partiality of Vperyod and Proletary for the slogan of dictatorship to Lenin's "passionate desire to try his luck" (Iskra, No. 103, p. 3, col. 2). In order to explain to Martynov the meaning of the term class dictatorship, as distinct from personal dictatorship, and the tasks of a democratic dictatorship, as distinct from those of a socialist dictatorship, it would not be amiss to dwell on the views of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung.
``After a revolution", wrote the Neue Rheinische Zeitung on September 14, 1848, "every provisional organisation of the state requires a dictatorship and an energetic dictatorship at that. From the very beginning we have reproached Camphausen" (the head of the Ministry after March 18, 1848) "for not acting dictatorially, for not having immediately smashed up and eliminated the remnants of the old institutions. And while Herr Camphausen was lulling himself with constitutional illusions the defeated party (i. e., the party of reaction) strengthened its positions in the bureaucracy and in the army, and here and there even began to venture upon open struggle.''
These words, Mehring justly remarks, sum up in a few propositions all that was propounded in detail in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung in long articles on the Camphausen Ministry. What do these words of Marx tell us?That a provisional revolutionary government must act dictatorially (a proposition which Iskra was totally unable to grasp since it was fighting shy of the slogan of dictatorship), and that the task of such a dictatorship is to destroy the remnants of the old institutions (which is precisely what was clearly stated in the resolution of the Third Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party on the struggle against counter-revolution and was omitted in the resolution of the Conference, as shown above). Thirdly, and lastly, it follows from these words that Marx castigated the bourgeois democrats for entertaining "constitutional illusions" in a period of revolution and open civil war. The meaning of these words becomes particularly obvious from the article in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung of June 6, 1848. "A constituent national assembly," Marx wrote, "must first of all be an active, revolutionary-active assembly. The Frankfurt Assembly, however, is busying itself with school exercises in parliamentarianism while allowing the government to act. Let us assume that this learned assembly succeeds, after mature consideration, in evolving the best possible agenda and the best constitution, but what is the use of the best possible agenda and of the best possible constitution, if the German governments have in the meantime placed the bayonet on the agenda?''
That is the meaning of the slogan: dictatorship. We can judge from this
Sent from Geneva to Russia First published in 1926
Collected Works, Vol. 34, pp. 314-315
__--_--_--__ __ALPHA_LVL2__ Two Tactics of Social-Democracy in the DemocraticVperyod and Proletary use the concepts of dictatorship and revolution `` interchangeably''. Iskra does not want such ``interchangeability''. Just so, most esteemed Comrade Martynov! You have unwittingly stated a great truth. With this new formulation you have confirmed our contention that Iskra is lagging behind the revolution and straying into an Osvobozhdeniye formulation of its tasks, whereas Vperyod and Proletary are issuing slogans that advance the democratic revolution.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ III THE VULGAR BOURGEOIS AND THE MARXIST VIEWSIn his notes to Marx's articles from the Neue Rheinische Zeitung of 1848, which he published, Mehring tells us that one of the reproaches levelled at this newspaper by bourgeois publications was that it had allegedly demanded "the immediate introduction of a dictatorship as the sole means of achieving democracy" (Marx, Nachlass, Vol. Ill, p. 53). From the vulgar bourgeois standpoint the terms dictatorship and democracy are mutually exclusive.
125what Marx's attitude would have been towards resolutions which call a "decision to organise a constituent assembly" a decisive victory, or which invite us to "remain the party of extreme revolutionary opposition''!
Major questions in the life of nations are settled only by force. The reactionary classes themselves are usually the first to resort to violence, to civil war; they are the first to "place the bayonet on the agenda", as the Russian autocracy has systematically and unswervingly been doing everywhere ever since January 9. And since such a situation has arisen, since the bayonet has really become the main point on the political agenda, since insurrection has proved imperative and urgent---constitutional illusions and school exercises in parliamentarianism become merely a screen for the bourgeois betrayal of the revolution, a screen to conceal the fact that the bourgeoisie is ``recoiling'' from the revolution. It is precisely the slogan of dictatorship that the genuinely revolutionary class must advance, in that case.
On the question of the tasks of this dictatorship Marx wrote in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung: "The National Assembly should have acted dictatorially against the reactionary attempts of the obsolete governments; and thus gain for itself the power of public opinion against which all bayonets and rifle butts would be shattered ... But this Assembly bores the German people instead of carrying them with it or being carried away by them." In Marx's opinion, the National Assembly should have "eliminated from the regime actually existing in Germany everything that contradicted the principle of the sovereignty of the people", and then it should have "established the revolutionary ground on which it stands in order to make the sovereignty of the people, won by the revolution, secure against all attacks''.
Consequently, in their content the tasks which Marx set a revolutionary government or dictatorship in 1848 amounted first and foremost to a democratic revolution: defence against counter-revolution and the actual elimination of everything that contradicted the sovereignty of the people. That is nothing else than a revolutionary-democratic dictatorship.
To proceed: which classes, in Marx's opinion, could and should have achieved this task (to fully exercise in deed the principle of the people's sovereignty and beat off the attacks of the counter-revolution) ? Marx speaks of the ``people''. But we know that he always fought ruthlessly against petty-bourgeois illusions about the unity of the ``people'' and the absence of a class struggle within the people. In using the word ``people'' Marx did not thereby gloss over class distinctions, but united definite elements capable of bringing the revolution to completion.
After the victory of the Berlin proletariat on March 18, the Neue Rheinische Zeitung wrote, the results of the revolution proved twofold: "On the one hand, the arming of the people, the right of association, the actual achievement of the sovereignty of the people; on the other hand, the retention of the monarchy and the Camphausen-Hansemann Ministry, i.e., the government of representatives of the big bourgeoisie. Thus, the revolution had two series of
126results, which had inevitably to diverge. The people had achieved victory; they had won liberties of a decisively democratic nature, but immediate power did not pass into their hands, but into the hands of the big bourgeoisie. In short, the revolution was not consummated. The people let representatives of the big bourgeoisie form a ministry, and these representatives of the big bourgeoisie at once showed what they were after by offering an alliance to the old Prussian nobility and bureaucracy. Arnim, Canitx, and Schwerin joined the ministry.
"The upper bourgeoisie, ever anti-revolutionary, concluded a defensive and offensive alliance with the reactionaries for fear of the people, that is to say, the •workers and the democratic bourgeoisie." (Italics ours.)
Thus, not only a "decision to organise a constituent assembly", but even its actual convocation is insufficient for a decisive victory of the revolution! Even after a partial victory in an armed struggle (the victory of the Berlin workers over the troops on March 18, 1848) an ``incomplete'' revolution, a revolution "that has not been carried to completion", is possible. On what, then, does its completion depend ? It depends on whose hands immediate power passes into, into the hands of the Petrunkeviches and Rodichevs, that is to say, the Camphausens and the Hansemanns, or into the hands of the people, i.e., the workers and the democratic bourgeoisie. In the first instance, the bourgeoisie will possess power, and the proletariat---"freedom of criticism", freedom to "remain the party of extreme revolutionary opposition". Immediately after the victory the bourgeoisie will conclude an alliance with the reactionaries (this would inevitably happen in Russia too, if, for example, the St. Petersburg workers gained only a partial victory in street fighting with the troops and left it to Messrs. Petrunkeviches and Co. to form a government). In the second instance, a revolutionary-democratic dictatorship, i.e., the complete victory of the revolution, would be possible.
It now remains to define more precisely what Marx really meant by "democratic bourgeoisie" (demokratische Burgerschaff), which, together with the workers, he called the people, in contradistinction to the big bourgeoisie.
A clear answer to this question is supplied by the following passage from an article in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung of July 29, 1848: "... The German Revolution of 1848 is only a parody of the French Revolution of 1789.
``On August 4, 1789, three weeks after the storming of the Bastille, the French people in a single day prevailed over all feudal burdens.
``On July 11, 1848, four months after the March barricades, the feudal burdens prevailed over the German people. Teste Gierke cum Hansemanno*
``The French bourgeoisie of 1789 did not for a moment leave its allies,
* "Witnesses: Herr Gierke together with Herr Hansemann." Hansemann was a Minister who represented the party of the big borgeoisie (Russian counterpart: Trubetskoy or Rodichev, and the like); Gierke was Minister of Agriculture in the Hansemann Cabinet, who drew up a plan, a ``bold'' plan for "abolishing feudal burdens", professedly "without compensation", but in fact for abolishing only the minor and unimportant
127the peasants, in the lurch. It knew that its rule was grounded in the destruction of feudalism in the countryside, the creation of a free landowning ( grundbesitzenderi) peasant class.
``The German bourgeoisie of 1848 is, without the least compunction, betraying the peasants, who are its most natural allies, the flesh of its flesh, and without whom it is powerless against the aristocracy.''
``The continuance of feudal rights, their sanction under the guise of (illusory) redemption---such is the result of the German Revolution of 1848. The mountain brought forth a mouse.''
. This is a very instructive passage, which provides us with four important propositions: 1) The uncompleted German revolution differs from the completed French revolution in that the German bourgeoisie betrayed not only democracy in general, but also the peasantry in particular. 2) The creation of a free class of peasants is the foundation for the consummation of a democratic revolution. 3) The creation of such a class means the abolition of feudal services, the destruction of feudalism, but does not yet mean a socialist revolution. 4) The peasants are the "most natural" allies of the bourgeoisie, that is to say, of the democratic bourgeoisie, which without them is ``powerless'' against reaction.
With the proper allowances for concrete national peculiarities and with serfdom substituted for feudalism, all these propositions are fully applicable to the Russia of 1905. There is no doubt that by learning from the experience of Germany as elucidated by Marx, we can arrive at no other slogan for a decisive victory of the revolution than: a revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry. There is no doubt that the proletariat and the peasantry are the chief components of the ``people'' as contrasted by Marx in 1848 to the resisting reactionaries and the treacherous bourgeoisie. There is no doubt that in Russia, too, the liberal bourgeoisie and the gentlemen of the Osvobozhdeniye League are betraying and will betray the peasantry, i.e., will confine themselves to a pseudoreform and take the side of the landlords in the decisive battle between them and the peasantry. In this struggle only the proletariat is capable of supporting the peasantry to the end. There is no doubt, finally, that in Russia, too, the success of the peasants' struggle, i.e., the transfer of the whole of the land to the peasantry, will signify a complete democratic revolution, and constitute the social basis of the revolution carried through to its completion, but this will by no means be a socialist revolution, or the ``socialisation'' that the ideologists of the petty bourgeoisie, the Socialist-Revolutionaries, talk about. The success of the peasant insurrection, the victory of the democratic revolution will merely clear the way for a genuine and decisive struggle for socialism, on the basis of a democratic republic.
burdens, while preserving or granting compensation for the more essential ones. Herr Gierke was something like the Russian Kablukovs, Manuilovs, Hertzensteins, and similar bourgeois liberal friends of the muzhikj who desire the "extension of peasant landownership" but do not wish to offend the landlords.
128In this struggle the peasantry, as a landowning class, will play the same treacherous, unstable part as is now being played by the bourgeoisie in the struggle for democracy. To forget this is to forget socialism, to deceive oneself and others, regarding the real interests and tasks of the proletariat.
In order to leave no gaps in the presentation of the views held by Marx in 1848, it is necessary to note one essential difference between German Social-Democracy of that time (or the Communist Party of the proletariat, to use the language of that period) and present-day Russian Social-Democracy. Here is what Mehring says:
``The Neue Rheinische Zeitung appeared in the political arena as the 'organ of democracy'. There is no mistaking the trend running through all its articles. But in the direct sense it championed the interests of the bourgeois revolution against absolutism and feudalism more than the interests of the proletariat against those of the bourgeoisie. Very little is to be found in its columns about an independent working-class movement during the years of the revolution, although one should not forget that along with it there appeared, twice a week, under the editorship of Moll and Schapper, a special organ of the Cologne Workers' League. At any rate, the present-day reader will be struck by the little attention the Neue Rheinische Zeitung paid to the German working-class movement of its day, although Stephan Born, its most capable mind, was a pupil of Marx and Engels in Paris and Brussels, and in 1848 was their newspaper's Berlin correspondent, In his Memoirs Born says that Marx and Engels never expressed a single word in disapproval of his agitation among the workers. However, subsequent statements by Engels make it appear quite probable that they were at least dissatisfied with the methods of this agitation. Their dissatisfaction was justified inasmuch as Born was obliged to make many concessions to the as yet totally undeveloped class-consciousness of the proletariat in the greater part of Germany, concessions which do not stand the test of criticism from the viewpoint of the Communist Manifesto. Their dissatisfaction was unjustified inasmuch as Born managed nonetheless to maintain his agitation on a relatively high plane... Without doubt, Marx and Engels were historically and politically right in thinking that the primary interest of the working class was to drive the bourgeois revolution as far forward as possible ... Nevertheless, remarkable proof of how the elementary instinct of the working-class movement is able to correct conceptions of the most brilliant thinkers is provided by the fact that in April 1849 they declared in favour of a specific workers' organisation and decided to participate in a workers'congress which was being prepared especially by the East Elbe (Eastern Prussia) proletariat.''
Thus, it was only in April 1849, after a revolutionary newspaper had been appearing for almost a year (the Neue Rheinische Zeitung began publication on June 1, 1848) that Marx and Engels declared in favour of a special workers' organisation! Until then they were merely running an "organ of democracy" unlinked by any organisational ties with an independent workers' party. This
129fact, monstrous and improbable as it may appear from our present-day standpoint, clearly shows us the enormous difference between the German Social-Democratic Party of those days and the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party of today. This fact shows how much less the proletarian features of the movement, the proletarian current within it, were in evidence in the German democratic revolution (because of the backwardness of Germany in 1848 both economically and politically---her disunity as a state). This should not be forgotten in appraising Marx's repeated declarations during this period and somewhat later about the need for organising an independent proletarian party. Marx arrived at this practical conclusion only as a result of the experience of the democratic revolution, almost a year later---so philistine, so petty-bourgeois was the whole atmosphere in Germany at the time. To us this conclusion is the well-known and solid gain of half a century's experience of international Social-Democracy---a gain on the basis of which we began to organise the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party. In our case there can be no question, for instance, of revolutionary proletarian newspapers standing outside the Social-Democratic Party of the proletariat, or of their appearing even for a moment simply as "organs of democracy''.
Written in June-July 1905
Collected Works, Vol. 9, pp. 123-124;
First published as a pamphlet
130---138
in Geneva, July 1905
as possible, without the least boasting and literary bombast, without falling into gossip and private allusions which cannot stand the light of publicity.
Proletary, No. 15, September 5 (August 23), 1905
Collected Works, Vol. 9, pp. 227---228
__ALPHA_LVL3__ To the Central Committee of the R.S.D.L.P.September 15,1905 Dear Comrades,
I have received the money, 1,000 rubles---2,640 francs---and the first issue of Rabochy. It makes an excellent impression. Let us hope that it will largely solve the difficult problem of providing a popular exposition which is not boring. There is something fresh in the tone and character of the exposition. A splendid fighting spirit. In short, let me congratulate you on this success with all my heart, and wish for more. So far, I have the following minor remarks: (1) a little more should be said about socialism, in view of the ``explanatory'' nature of the organ, and (2) the fighting political slogans should be more closely and directly tied in with the resolutions of the Third Congress, and with the general spirit of our revolutionary Social-Democratic tactics...
... III. About money. We were all thunderstruck by your statement that the C.O. must be published "on resources from abroad", and that the bankruptcy of the C.C. must begin with the C.O. You write that this is not irritation and not a rebuke. Give me leave not to believe you. To say this calmly, coolly and in all seriousness is to proclaim a rupture between the C.O. and the Party, and this is something you could not wish. It is something unheard of to have the Party's C.O. published not with the Party's resources, but on funds abroad, and to decide that the bankruptcy of the Party must begin (rather than end) with the C.O. If we were to take this seriously, instead of regarding it merely as a sign of nervousness on account of temporary difficulties (for in general your turnover is a ``fat'' one, and your prospects both of the 60,000 and the ``undertaking'' are three times ``fatter''), we should have to take immediate steps to start publication "on resources from abroad" of an organ of the Committee of the Organisation Abroad. But, I repeat, I regard this monstrous outburst on your part only as a state of nerves, and will await our personal meeting, since, in my opinion, it is not the beginning of a break, but a misunderstanding.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ Keeping International Social-Democracy Informed of OurIn doing so we must constantly expose the indecency of the Khlestakov-like new Iskra. The latter has not published, either in French or in German, the full text of its Conference resolutions (which reveals its usurping arrogation of the title of Central Organ). Iskra has published in the European Social-- Democratic press such ``statistics'' about organised labour that evoke nothing but laughter (suffice it to say that the new Iskra has not yet made so bold as to make these ``statistics'' public in Russian, for fear of disgracing itself, but we have printed these statistics in full in No. 9 of Proletary). Iskra is now circulating among all colonies abroad a letter over the Editorial Board's signature containing the same brand of amusing Khlestakovian claims regarding the Minority's forces, claims which have been shamefacedly withheld from Russian readers of our Social-Democratic newspapers. Publicity-mongers should be fought against to the utmost, but that struggle should be conducted in a dignified way, so as to get the public fully informed, and make matters as clear
130Best wishes.
Written in Geneva First published in 1926 in Lenin Miscellany V
N. Lenin
Collected Works,Vol. 36, pp. 149; 152-153
131 __--_--_--__ __ALPHA_LVL2__ Preface to the CollectionWhat Is To Be Done? is a summary of Iskra tactics and Iskra organisational policy in 1901 and 1902. Precisely a ``summary''., no more and no less. That will be clear to anyone who takes the trouble to go through the file of Iskra for 1901 and 1902. But to pass judgement on that summary without knowing Iskra's struggle against the then dominant trend of Economism, without understanding that struggle, is sheer idle talk. Iskra fought for an organisation of professional revolutionaries. It fought with especial vigour in 1901 and 1902, vanquished Economism, the then dominant trend, and finally created this organisation in 1903. It preserved it in face of the subsequent split in the Iskrist ranks and all the convulsions of the period of storm and stress; it preserved it throughout the Russian revolution; it preserved it intact from 1901-02 to 1907.
matter for the Party; the lack of any statement on the interpellation of the government on October 15, 1908; the lack of any clear criticism of the Cadets, etc.). To hush up these mistakes as the Mensheviks do---they find everything for the best, with the sole exception of Chilikin's speech---is simply disgusting. We should not hush up these mistakes but thrash them out publicly, in our local and non-local press, at every meeting, in agitational leaflets spread among the masses after every speech. We have done very little as yet in the way of practical criticism of the group, and acquainting the proletarian masses with such criticism. We must, all of us everywhere, set to work in this respect.
Proletary, No. 39, November 13 (26), 1908 Collected Works, Vol. 15, pp. 298-299
__--_--_--__ __ALPHA_LVL2__ Announcement on the Publication of Rabochaya GazetaThe deep crisis of the workers' movement and the Social-Democratic Party in Russia still continues. Disintegration of the Party organisations, an almost universal exodus of the intellectuals from them, confusion and wavering among the Social-Democrats who have remained loyal, dejection and apathy among fairly wide sections of the advanced proletariat, uncertainty as to the way out of this situation---such are the distinguishing features of the present position. Among the Social-Democrats there are not a few who are faint-hearted and of little faith, who are ready to despair of finding their bearings in the prevailing confusion, to despair of restoring and strengthening the Party, the R.S.D.L.P., with its revolutionary aims and traditions, who are ready to stand aloof and to isolate themselves in narrow, petty circles concerned only with ``cultural'' work and so forth.
The crisis continues, but its end is already clearly visible, the way out has been fully indicated and tested by the Party, the confusion and wavering has already been channelled into fairly definite tendencies, trends and factions a very clear-cut appraisal of which has been made by the Party---while the assumption of definite shape by the anti-Party tendencies and the clear appraisal of them are already half-way towards getting rid of confusion and wavering.
In order not to give way to despair and disillusion it is necessary only to understand the full depth of the sources of the crisis. One cannot skip over or avoid this crisis, one can only survive it by means of persistent struggle, for it is not accidental but engendered by the special stage of both the economic and the political development of Russia. The autocracy reigns as before. Violence is still more brutal. Tyranny is still more powerful. Economic oppression is still more brazen. But the autocracy can no longer maintain itself merely by the old methods. It is compelled to make a new attempt, an attempt at an
133Published in November 1907 in the collection Twelve Years, St. Petersburg
Collected Works, Vol. 13, p. 102
__--_--_--__ __ALPHA_LVL2__ Two LettersWe have not as yet a central organ appearing regularly, following every step of the group on behalf of the whole Party and giving it direction. Our local organisations have done still very, very little in that field of work---agitation among the masses on the subject of every speech of a Social-Democrat in the Duma, explaining every mistake in this or that speech. Yet we are being asked to give it all up, to declare the struggle hopeless, to renounce use of the Duma rostrum at times like the present of 1908. Once again, that is not politics but bad nerves.
No striking acts, you say. About these "striking acts" one must distinguish two things: first, the poor state of information in the Party and, secondly, a most serious mistake of principle in the way the very question of striking acts is put.
On the first question it should be said that so far all who wanted to criticise the group in a business-like way have pointed out a number of unquestionably serious mistakes (the declaration; the voting of millions to Schwartz; the consultation with the Popular Democrats; the recognition of religion as a private
133open alliance with the Black-Hundred feudal landlords and the Octobrist capitalists, an alliance in the Duma and through the Duma. The hopelessness of this attempt and the growth of a new revolutionary crisis are obvious to anyone who is still capable of thought. But this revolutionary crisis is being prepared in a new situation, in which classes and parties are marked by immeasurably greater consciousness, solidarity and organisation than before the Revolution of 1905. Russian liberalism has been converted from a well-meaning, dreamy, fragile and immature opposition of benevolent aspirations into a strong, parliamentarily-disciplined party of bourgeois intellectuals, who are conscious enemies of the socialist proletariat and of a revolutionary settlement of accounts with the feudal landlords by the peasant masses. To beg for concessions from the monarchy, to threaten it with revolution (hateful and terrifying to the liberals themselves), continually to betray the struggle for emancipation "and desert to the enemy---such is the inevitable lot of the liberal, Constitutional-Democratic Party, inevitable owing to its class nature. The Russian peasantry has shown its capacity for mass revolutionary struggle if the latter is launched by the proletariat, and its capacity for perpetually vacillating between the liberals and the Social-Democrats. The Russian working class has shown that it is the only class that is revolutionary to the end, the only leader in the struggle for freedom, even for bourgeois freedom. And now the great task of continuing the struggle for freedom can and will be accomplished only by the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat, drawing with it the working and exploited masses. Operating in the new situation, among more conscious and united enemies, the working class must refashion also its own Party, the R.S.D.L.P. In place of leaders from the intelligentsia it is bringing to the fore leaders from among the workers. A new type of working-class member of the Social-Democratic Party is arising, independently carrying on all the activities of the Party and, compared with the previous type, capable of rallying, uniting and organising masses of the proletariat ten times and a hundred times as great as before.
It is to this new worker in the first place that we address our Rabochaya Gazeta. This worker has grown out of the stage of wanting to be talked to in childish language or fed with pap. He needs to know all about the political aims of the Party, how it is built, its inner-Party struggle. He is not daunted by the unvarnished truth about the Party on whose strengthening, revival and rebuilding he is engaged. He is not helped, but rather harmed, by those revolutionary phrases in general terms and those sugary conciliatory appeals which he finds in the symposia of Vperyod or in Trotsky's newspaper Pravda, without obtaining from either the one or the other a clear, precise, straightforward exposition of the Party's policy and the Party's position.
The Party's position is a very difficult one, but the chief difficulty is not that the Party has been terribly weakened and its organisations often completely shattered, nor that inner-Party factional struggle has become acute, but that the advanced section of Social-Democratic workers has not realised clearly enough the nature and significance of this struggle, has not rallied sufficiently
for waging it successfully, has not intervened in it with sufficient independence and energy for creating, supporting and consolidating that core of the Party which is leading the R.S.D.L.P. from disorder, collapse and wavering on to a solidly based road.
This road has been fully pointed out by the decisions of the December Conference of 1908, which were further developed in the decisions of the plenary session of the Central Committee in 1910. This Party core consists of that union of orthodox Bolsheviks (opponents of otzovism and bourgeois philosophy) and pro-Party Mensheviks (opponents of liquidationism) which at the present lime is carrying out in practice, and not by virtue of a merely formal attitude, the main work of the R.S.D.L.P.
The workers are being told that this union only intensifies and accentuates factional struggle, a struggle against the liquidators and otzovists "instead of" a fight against liquidationism and otzovism. This is sheer phrase-mongering, mere childish talk that assumes the worker is not an adult but a child. It is an unpleasant truth that, given the weakness of the Party, the shattered state of its organisations and the inevitability of a base abroad, every trend easily becomes a faction abroad that is virtually independent of the Party, but it is ludicrous (or criminal) to hide this truth from the Social-Democratic worker who has to rebuild his Party on the basis of a definite, precise and clear Party line. There is no doubt that the most undesirable forms of factional struggle prevail among us at present, but precisely in order to refashion the forms of this struggle the advanced worker should not dismiss with a phrase or contemptuously turn up his nose at the unpleasant (unpleasant for a dilettante, a guest in the Party) task of refashioning unpleasant forms of unpleasant struggle, but should understand the essence and significance of this struggle and arrange the work in the localities in such a way that for each question of socialist propaganda, political agitation, the trade union movement, co-operative work, etc., etc., the boundary is defined beyond which begins the deviation from Social-Democracy to liberal liquidationism or semianarchist otzovism, ultimatumism, etc., and should conduct Party affairs along the correct line defined by these boundaries. We make it one of the main tasks of Rabochaya Gazeta to help the workers to fix these boundaries for each of the most important concrete problems of contemporary Russian life.
The workers are being told: it was the attempt at unity made by the plenary session of the Central Committee in January 1910, which proved the sterility and hopelessness of the inner-Party factional struggle that ``disrupted'' unity. People who talk like that are either uninformed or quite incapable of thought, or they are concealing their real aims by means of some sort of resonant phrases that sound well but mean nothing. The plenary session ``disillusioned'' only those who were afraid to face the truth and buoyed themselves up with illusions. However great at times the "conciliatory hotchpotch" at the plenum, the outcome was exactly that unity which alone is possible and necessary. If the liquidators and otzovists signed the resolution on the fight against liquida-
134 135tionism and otzovism, and the next day still more ``zealously'' stuck tothe past, this only proved how impossible it is for the Party to count on non-Party elements, it only showed more clearly what these elements are like. The Party is a voluntary association and unity is possible and useful only when people unite who are desirous and capable of carrying out a common Party policy with at least some degree of conscientiousness, or rather: who are interested (through their ideas or tendencies) in carrying out a common Party policy. Unity is impossible and harmful when it attempts to muddle and obscure the consciousness of this policy, when it attempts to bind by a fictitious tie those who are definitely pulling the Party in an anti-Party direction- And unity between the main groups of Bolshevism and Menshevism was achieved by the plenum and consolidated, if not thanks to the plenum, at least through the plenum.
A worker who does not want to be spoken to in childish tones cannot fail to understand that liquidationism and otzovism are just as much non-accidental, deep-rooted trends as Bolshevism and Menshevism. Only inventors of fairy-tales "for workers" explain the difference between these two last factions as due to disputes between ``intellectuals''. In reality these two trends, which have left their mark on the whole history of the Russian revolution, on all the first years (in many respects the most important years) of the mass workers' movement in Russia, were produced by the very process of the economic and political reconstruction of Russia from a feudal into a bourgeois country, were produced by the influences exerted on the proletariat by various bourgeois classes, or, mote correctly, were produced by the situation of various strata of the bourgeoisie within which the proletariat acted. It follows that Social-Democratic unity in Russia is not possible through the destruction of one of the two trends which took shape in the period of the most open, most extensive, mass, free and historically important actions of the working class during the revolution. But it follows also that the foundations for a real rapprochement between the two factions are not to be found in well-meaning phrases about unity, about the abolition of factions, etc. but only in the internal development of the factions. It is such a rapprochement that the party of the working class has been experiencing since we Bolsheviks in the spring of 1909 finally ``buried'' otzovism, while the pro-Party Mensheviks, headed by Plekhanov, began a no less determined struggle against liquidationism. There is no doubt that the overwhelming majority of the class-conscious workers of both factions side with the opponents of otzovism and liquidationism. Therefore, however harsh the inner-Party struggle on this basis, a struggle which is at times difficult and always unpleasant, we must not forget the essence of the phenomenon on account of its form. He who does not see underlying this struggle (which in the present state of the Party inevitably takes the form of a struggle of factions) the process of the consolidation of a basic Party core of class-conscious Social-rDemocratic workers is like one who fails to see the wood for the trees.
It is the aims of such a consolidation of a genuine Social-Democratic core
that will be served also by Rabochaya Gazeta, which we Bolsheviks are founding, having secured that the pro-Party Mensheviks (headed by Plekhanov) agree to support our publication. It necessarily makes its appearance as a factional publication, as a factional enterprise of the Bolsheviks. Here, too, perhaps, persons will be found who cannot see the wood for the trees and who will raise an outcry about going "back" to factionalism. By setting out in detail our view of the nature and significance of the Party unity that is really coming about and is really important and essential we have already exposed the value of such objections, which would in fact signify only confusing the problem of unity and concealing certain factional aims. We desire above all that Rabochaya Gazeta should help the workers to understand quite clearly from beginning to end the entire Party position and all the Party aims.
In embarking on the publication of Rabochaya Gazeta we are counting on the assistance both of the Central Committee of our Party and of the local organisations, as well as of individual groups of class-conscious workers at present cut off from the Party. We are counting on the assistance of the Central Committee, knowing that for a number of months past it has not succeeded in arranging its work correctly in Russia, its failure being due to the fact that, apart from the Bolsheviks and pro-Party Mensheviks, it has not found help anywhere and has frequently encountered the direct opposition of the other factions. This painful phase in the life of the Central Committee will pass, and in order that this should happen the sooner we must not simply ``wait'' until the Central Committee is re-established, until it has gathered strength, etc., but immediately, on the initiative of individual groups and local organisation, start---even if on the most modest scale at first---that work of strengthening the Party line and real Party unity on which the Central Committee too is primarily engaged. We count on the assistance of the local organisations and individual groups of workers, for it is only their active work on the newspaper, only their support, their reactions, their.articles, materials, information and comments that can put Rabochaya Gazeta on a firm basis and ensure its continuance.
Written October 1910
First published May 5, 1937,
in the newspaper Pravda No. 122
Collected Works, Vol. 16, pp. 289-295
136 137 __ALPHA_LVL2__ To Maxim GorkyI think that a political and economic monthly with the exclusive participation of Amfiteatrov is something many times worse than a special Machist-otzovist faction. What was and still is bad about this faction is that the ideological trend deviated and still deviates from Marxism, from Social-Democracy, without, however, going so far as a break with Marxism, and only creating confusion.
Amfiteatrov's journal (his Krasnoye Znamya did well to die when it did!) is a political act, a political enterprise in which there is not even a realisation that a general ``leftism'' is not enough for a policy, that after 1905 to talk seriously about politics without making clear one's attitude towards Marxism and Social-Democracy is out of the question, impossible, inconceivable.
Things are turning out bad. It's saddening.
Yours,
November 22, 1910
Dear A. M.,
I wrote you a few days ago when sending Rabochaya Gazeta, and asked what had come of the journal we talked about in the summer and about which you promised to write to me.
I see in Rech today a notice about Sovremennik, published "with the closest and exclusive [that is what is printed! illiterately, but so much the more pretentiously and significantly] participation of Amfiteatrov" and with you as a regular contributor.
What is this ? How does it happen ? A "large monthly" journal, with sections on "politics, science, history, social life"---why, this is something quite different from symposia aiming at a concentration of the best forces of belleslettres. Such a journal should either have a perfectly definite, serious and consistent trend, or it will inevitably disgrace itself and those'taking part in it. Vestnik Yevropy has a trend---a poor, watery, worthless trend---but one which serves a definite element, certain sections of the bourgeoisie, and which also unites definite circles of the professorate and officialdom, and the so-called intelligentsia from among the ``respectable'' (or rather, would-be respectable) liberals. Russkaya My si has a trend, an odious trend, but one which performs a very good service for the counter-revolutionary liberal bourgeoisie. Russkoye Bogatstvo has a trend---a Narodnik, Narodnik-Cadet trend---but one which has kept its line for scores of years, and which serves definite sections of the population. Sovremenny Mir has a trend---often Menshevik-Cadet trend (at present with a leaning towards pro-Party Menshevism)---but a trend. A journal without a trend is an absurdity, a ridiculous, scandalous and harmful thing. And what sort of trend can there be with the "exclusive participation" of Amfiteatrov ? One cannot expect G. Lopatin to provide a trend, and if the talk (said also to have got into the newspapers) is true about Kachorovsky's participation, then that is a ``trend'', but a trend of the blockheads, a S.R. trend.
During our talk in the summer when I told you that I had all but written you a disappointed letter about Confessions but did not send it because of the split with the Machists which had begun at that time, you replied: "it's a pity you did not send it". Then you went on to reproach me for not going to the Capri school, and you said that, if matters had taken a different course, the breakaway of the Machists and otzovists might have cost you less nervous strain, less waste of energy. Recalling these talks, I have now decided to write to you without putting it off and without waiting for any verification, while the impression the news has made is still fresh,
138To M.F.---salut etfraternite.
Sent from Paris to the Isle of Capri (Italy) First published in 1924
Lenin
Collected Works, Vol. 34, pp. 434-435
__ALPHA_LVL2__ To the Editor of Nevskaya ZvezdaDear Colleague,
I have received your long letter, and I see that you and I must most certainly have it out.
First of all, a detail. You won't find correspondents at two kopeks a line. So long as you have no money, you will have to make dp with our articles about affairs abroad.
Now for the main thing. You complain of monotony. But this will always be the case if you don't print polemics---if, in particular, you cut down Kamenev (he writes in a different tone)---if you reduce everything to "positive liquidationism". And in addition you will lose all your contributors if you don't print them, and don't even reply and don't send back articles (for example, mine: the reply to Blank---important! "Unquenchable Hopes" and a number of others!!}.
Just look at Nevsky Golos: it's more lively. It is not afraid of polemics. It attacks. It boldly makes its point to the bitter end.
By avoiding "painful questions", Zvezda and Pravda make themselves dry and monotonous, uninteresting, uncombative organs. A socialist paper must carry on polemics: our times are times of desperate confusion, and we can't do without polemics. The question is whether they are to be carried on
139in a lively way, attacking, putting forward questions independently, or only on the defensive, in dry and boring fashion.
For example, the "Supporter of Zvezda" in No. 15 gave a good reply. Clearly he is a man of principle. But all the same he did not dissipate the terrible fears aroused everywhere (I have a series of letters) by No. 6 of Nevsky Golos. What did happen, after all? Was there a conference? Called by whom? What for? None of this is clear! And until this is cleared up no one wants to work. Everyone is saying: haven't I the right to know who I am working for, whom I am helping to get elected to the Duma? Maybe it's a liquidator? Maybe it's some muddled Trotskyist conciliator? Perhaps I am taking part (indirectly) in drawing up a "common platform"??
Such questions paralyse energy and introduce demoralisation.
Meanwhile Nevsky Golos is attacking briskly and takes a more challenging line. You can't hide differences from the workers (as Pravda is doing): it's harmful, fatal, ridiculous. You can't leave it to the adversary, to Nevsky Golos, to open up discussion of differences. Pravda will perish if it is only a ``popular'', ``positive'' organ, that is certain.
It would certainly be victorious if it were not afraid of polemics, talked straight about the liquidators, became lively through argument, by an article against Axelrod, etc. Such articles as Axelrod's attract: all the workers hear about the differences and are attracted to Axelrod's open explanations, because he says things straight out a hundred times more boldly than we do. All the workers hear the talk about a united platform, all the leading workers know Axelrod's article---and if you are silent, you have fallen behind! And the paper which falls behind is lost. A paper must be a step ahead of everyone, and that goes for both Nevskaya Zvezda and for Pravda. Side by side with the two ``positive'' little articles, Pravda must provide polemics---Kamenev's literary note---a feature article ridiculing the liquidators---and so forth. Monotony and lateness are incompatible with the newspaper business. And Pravda has in addition a special and exceptionally important duty: "whom is it going to had"--- this is what everyone is asking, what everyone is trying to read between the lines. It would be important to have a meeting (once in four years, before the elections)---you can't carry on the paper without even infrequent meetings with your constant contributors. Think over this well and quickly, for time won't bear delay.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ The Significance of the St. Petersburg ElectionsOnly in St. Petersburg is there a tolerably well organised working-class press, one which, for all the fierce persecution it is subjected to, for all the fines and the arrests of its editors, for all the instability of its position, and for all that it is kept down by the censorship, is able to reflect, to some little degree, the views of worker democrats.
In the absence of a daily press, the elections remain an obscure matter, and their significance in terms of the political enlightenment of the masses is reduced by half, if not more.
Nevskaya Zvezda No. 15, July 1, 1912
Collected Works, Vol. 18, p. 136
Signed: P. P.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ The Workers and PravdaThe chronicle of workers' life is only just beginning to develop into a permanent feature of Pravda. There can be no doubt that subseqently, in addition to letters about abuses in factories, about the awakening of a new section of the proletariat, about collections for one or another field of the workers' cause, the workers' newspaper will receive reports about the views and sentiments of the workers, election campaigns, the election of workers' delegates, what the workers read, the questions of particular interest to them, and so on.
The workers' newspaper is a workers' forum. Before the whole of Russia the workers should raise here, one after another, the various questions of workers' life in general and of working-class democracy in particular. The workers of St. Petersburg have made a beginning. It is to their energy that the proletariat of Russia owes the workers' first daily newspaper after the grim years of social stagnation. Let us, then, carry their cause forward, unitedly supporting and developing the workers' paper of the capital, the harbinger of the spring to come, when the whole of Russia will be covered by a network of workers' organisations with workers' newspapers.
We, the workers, have yet to build this Russia, and we shall build it.
Written on July 24, 1912
Sent from Cracow to St. Petersburg
First published in 1923 in the book Iz epokhi
``Zvezdy'' i ``Pravdy'' (1911-14), Part III
Best wishes,
Ulyanov Collected Works, Vol. 35, pp. 42-44
Pravda No. 103, August 29, 1912 Signed: St.
Collected Works, Vol. 18, pp. 300-301
141 __ALPHA_LVL2__ For the Attention of Luch and Pravda Readersand to the "struggle for power" in the Party. And an underhand rumour, worthy of the official press, is slipped in to suggest that certain "master-hands at revolution" are to blame for it all because they are afraid of losing their influence if the broad masses of the workers enter into the dispute.
What the author and the newspaper that published his article are aiming at is to pack people's heads with gossip, squabbles and personalities, and thus avoid the necessity of explaining their point of view. It would not be half as bad if it were merely gossip. But this is the gossip of an embittered renegade, that is the trouble. Read what he writes at the beginning of the second part of his article about "provoked and provoking acts", about "the dictatorship in the Party of supermen with a cynical attitude to the masses"; read how he abuses the devoted people of 1905 by calling them "master-hands at revolution" who have behaved in a way that would be quite "impermissible in an environment with any degree of culture". All that, of course, is lifted straight from Zyemshchina, or from Vekhi!
This appeared not in Novoye Vremya but in a paper that calls itself a workers' newspaper, it is offered as a reply to working men's demands for a serious explanation of the paper's point of view! And even after that Luch dares protest against sharper forms of polemic and set itself up as a model of decorum that wants to put Pravda to shame.
We most insistently advise those workers who still believe that Luch, unlike Pravda, is a newspaper that stands for unification and the cessation of internal squabbles, to read the above-mentioned article and compare it with the way Pravda discusses the same questions.
Both Luch and Pravda have on a number of occasions published letters from workers demanding that the editors of these newspapers give them a calm and clear exposition of the substance of their differences. This is a legitimate and natural demand., and it is worth while seeing how the two editorial boards have complied with it.
Under the heading "Controversial Issues" Pravda published the explanatory articles that had been asked for. What were they about? Those articles outlined and explained Party decisions on disputed questions. Through the author of those articles Pravda stated that to decide who is right in the dispute, where the truth lies, one must examine the facts and documents of Party history, try to put aside everything personal, everything extraneous and understand the social roots of the dispute. The dispute with the liquidators, said Pravda, "is not a matter of the evil will of certain individuals, but of the historical situation of the working-class movement". Those who seriously want to get at the bottom of the dispute must take the trouble to understand that historical situation.
``It is necessary to understand," says Pravda, "the class origin of the discord and disintegration, to understand what class interests emanating from a non-proletarian environment foster confusion among the friends of the proletariat.''
This is a serious presentation of the question. It is a direct response to the workers' demand that they be helped to understand the serious dispute between Pravda and Luch. In this way the workers will get to know the facts of Party life and will learn to distinguish what in this dispute is true and a matter of principle, and what is shallow and fortuitous; they will seek the class roots of the discord.
It is possible that a worker, having learned the facts, having read through the documents, etc., will in the end not agree with Pravda---that is a matter of his own convictions and his experience. But in any case, if he follows Pravda's advice he will learn a lot and will realise what the whole dispute is about.
Such is Pravda's reply to the workers' demand to make them familiar with the existing differences. How did Luch act?
At the same time as Pravda published its articles on "controversial issues", Luch printed a lengthy article on the same subject. Not a single fact is cited in the article, the author does not attach any social significance at all to the dispute and does not call the reader's attention to a single document.
This enormous article, spread over two issues of the paper, is packed with gossip and allusions to personalities. The working-class reader is informed of the ``touchiness'' and "charming witticisms" of one Marxist, the ``superman'' pretensions of a second and the ``cynicism'' of a third. All disputes are attributed to "the settling of personal accounts", to "discontent over matters of seniority"
142Pravda No. 102, May 5, 1913 Signed: Reader of Pravda and Luch
Collected Works, Vol. 19, pp. 76-78
__ALPHA_LVL2__ The National Programme of the R.S.D.L.P.In the national question the old Iskra which in 1901-03 worked on and completed a programme for the R.S.D.L.P. as well as laying the first and fundamental basis of Marxism in the theory and practice of the Russian working-class movement, had to struggle, in the same way as on other questions, against petty-bourgeois opportunism. This opportunism was expressed, first and foremost, in the nationalist tendencies and waverings of the Bund. The old Iskra conducted a stubborn struggle against Bund nationalism, and to forget
143 this is tantamount to becoming a Forgetful John again, and cutting oneself off from the historical and ideological roots of the whole Social-Democratic workers' movement in Russia. __ALPHA_LVL2__ To A. G. ShlyapnikovOctober 17, 1914
Dear Friend,
In my view the most important thing now is a consistent and organised struggle against the chauvinism which has seized upon the whole bourgeoisie and the majority of the opportunist socialists (and those making their peace with opportunism---like Mr. Kautsky!). And to perform the tasks imposed by this struggle it is first of all necessary to combat the chauvinism of one's own country ---specifically, in Russia the gentry a la Maslov and Smirnov (see Russkiye Vedomosti and Russkoye Slovd) whose ``works'' I have read, or Messrs. Sokolov, Meshkovsky, Nikitin and others whom you have seen or heard. Plekhanov, as I think you have already been told, has become a French chauvinist. Among the liquidators there is evidently confusion.^^*^^ Alexinsky, they say, is a Francophil, Kosovsky (the Bundist, a Rightwinger, I heard his lecture) is a Germanophil.^^**^^ It seems as though the middle course of the whole "Brussels bloc" of the liquidator gentry with Alexinsky and Plekhanov will be adapting themselves to Kautsky, who now is more harmful than anyone else. How dangerous and scoundrelly his sophistry is, covering up the dirty tricks of the opportunists with the most smooth and facile phrases (in Neue Zeif). The opportunists are an obvious evil. The German ``Centre'' headed by Kautsky is a concealed evil, diplomatically coloured over, contaminating the eyes, the mind and the conscience of the workers, and more dangerous than anything else. Our task now is the unconditional and open struggle against international opportunism and those who screen it (Kautsky). And this is what we shall do in the Central Organ, which we shall shortly issue (probably two little pages). We must with all our strength now support the legitimate hatred of the class-conscious workers _-_-_
^^*^^ Our intellectuals in Paris (outvoted in the section by the workers) have gone as volunteers (Nik. Vas., Antonov and others) and have issued a stupid non-Party appeal jointly with the S.R.s. It has been sent to you.
^^**^^ Martov is behaving most decently of all in Golos. But will Martov hold out ? / don't believe it.
144 for the rotten behaviour of the Germans, and draw from this hatred a political conclusion against opportunism and any concession to it. This is an international task. It devolves on us, there is no one else.Sotsial-Demokrat No. 32, December 15 (28), 1913
Collected Works, Vol. 19, p. 540
Sent from Berne to Stockholm First published in 1924 in Lenin Miscellany II
Collected Works, Vol. 35, pp. 161-162
__ALPHA_LVL2__ Initial Variant of R.S.D.L.P. C.C. Proposals to the SecondIf there have been street demonstrations in Germany, if there have been many letters from the front calling on the people not to subscribe to the war loan in France, if there have been mass strikes in Britain, to say nothing of Russia, then in order to aid this struggle, to unify it on an international scale, it is unquestionably necessary to report every step along this road in a free, i.e., illegal, press, analysing the successes, assessing their conditions, and building up and developing the struggle. Without an illegal organisation and an illegal press the acceptance of "mass action" will remain an empty phrase (as is the case in-Switzerland).
Written in late February and March 1916 First published in Pravda No. 255, November 6-7, 1927
Collected Works, Vol. 36, p. 384
145 __--_--_--__ __ALPHA_LVL2__ Speech Delivered at a Non-Party Conference of WorkersThe whiteguards keep saying in their sheets that the Bolsheviks are doing fine propaganda and are sparing no money for the purpose. But the people have heard all sorts of propaganda---they have heard the propaganda of the whiteguards and the propaganda of the Constituent Assembly supporters. It is absurd to think that they have followed the Bolsheviks because their propaganda was the more skilful. No, the point is that their propaganda was truthful.
We must concentrate the whole force of our Communist propaganda, with the help of which we defeated the foreign enemy, on the restoration of the railways.
Pravda No. 18, January 28, 1920
Collected Works, Vol. 30, pp. 304-305
146 __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Section III __ALPHA_LVL1__ BASIC PRINCIPLESThe new conditions for Social-Democratic work in Russia which have arisen since the October revolution have brought the question of party literature to the fore. The distinction between the illegal and the legal press, that melancholy heritage of the epoch of feudal, autocratic Russia, is beginning to disappear. It is not yet dead, by a long way. The hypocritical government of our Prime Minister is still running amuck, so much so that Izvestia Soveta Rdbochikh Deputatov is printed ``illegally''; but apart from bringing disgrace on the government, apart from striking further moral blows at it, nothing comes of the stupid attempts to ``prohibit'' that which the government is powerless to thwart.
So long as there was a distinction between the illegal and the legal press, the question of the party and non-party press was decided extremely simply and in an extemely false and abnormal way. The entire illegal press was a party press, being published by organisations and run by groups which in one way or another were linked with groups of practical party workers. The entire legal press was non-party---since parties were banned---but it ``gravitated'' towards one party or another. Unnatural alliances, strange ``bed-fellows'' and false coverdevices were inevitable. The forced reserve of those who wished to express party views merged with the immature thinking or mental cowardice of those who had not risen to these views and who were not, in effect, party people.
An accursed period of Aesopian language, literary bondage, slavish speech, and ideological serfdom! The proletariat has put an end to this foul atmosphere which stifled everything living and fresh in Russia. But so far the proletariat has won only half freedom for Russia.
147The revolution is not yet completed. While tsarism is no longer strong enough to defeat the revolution, the revolution is not yet strong enough to defeat tsarism. And we are living in times when everywhere and in everything there operates this unnatural combination of open, forthright, direct and consistent party spirit with an underground, covert, ``diplomatic'' and dodgy ``legality''. This unnatural combination makes itself felt even in our newspaper: for all Mr. Guchkov's witticisms about Social-Democratic tyranny forbidding the publication of moderate liberal-bourgeois newspapers, the fact remains that Proletary, the Central Organ of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, still remains outside the locked doors of autocratic, police-ridden Russia. Be that as it may, the half-way revolution compels all of us to set to work at once organising the whole thing on new lines. Today literature, even that published ``legally'', can be nine-tenths party literature. It must become party literature. In contradistinction to bourgeois customs, to the profit-making, commercialised bourgeois press, to bourgeois literary careerism and individualism, "aristocratic anarchism" and drive for profit, the socialist proletariat must put forward the principle of party literature, must develop this principle and put it into practice as fully and completely as possible.
What is this principle of party literature? It is not simply that, for the socialist proletariat, literature cannot be a means of enriching individuals or groups: it cannot, in fact, be an individual undertaking, independent of the common cause of the proletariat. Down with non-partisan writers! Down with literary supermen! Literature must become pan of the common cause of the proletariat, "a cog anda screw" of one single great Social-Democratic mechanism set in motion by the entire politically-conscious vanguard of the entire working class. Literature must become a component of organised, planned and integrated Social-Democratic Party work.
``All comparisons are lame," says a German proverb. So is my comparison of literature with a cog, of a living movement with a mechanism. And I daresay there will ever be hysterical intellectuals to raise a howl about such a comparison, which degrades, deadens, ``bureaucratises'' the free battle of ideas, freedom of criticism, freedom of literary creation, etc., etc. Such outcries, in point of fact, would be nothing more than an expression of bourgeois-intellectual individualism. There is no question that literature is least of all subject to mechanical adjustment or levelling, to the rule of the majority over the minority. There is no question, either, that in this field greater scope must undoubtedly be allowed for personal initiative, individual inclination, thought and fantasy, form and content. All this is undeniable; but all this simply shows that the literary side of the proletarian party cause cannot be mechanically identified with its other sides. This, however, does not in the least refute the proposition, alien and strange to the bourgeoisie and bourgeois democracy, that literature must by all means and necessarily become an element of Social-Democratic Party work, inseparably bound up with the other elements. Newspapers must become the organs of the various party organisations, and their writers must by all means
148become members of these organisations. Publishing and distributing centres, bookshops and reading-rooms, libraries and similar establishments---must all be under party control. The organised socialist proletariat must keep an eye on all this work, supervise it in its entirety, and, from beginning to end, without any exception, infuse into it the life-stream of the living proletarian cause, thereby cutting the ground from under the old, semi-Oblomov, semi-shopkeeper Russian principle: the writer does the writing, the reader does the reading.
We are not suggesting, of course, that this transformation of literary work, which has been defiled by the Asiatic censorship and the European bourgeoisie, can be accomplished all at once. Far be it from us to advocate any kind of standardised system, or a solution .by means of a few decrees. Cut-and-dried schemes are least of all applicable here. What is needed is that the whole of our Party, and the entire politically-conscious Social-Democratic proletariat throughout Russia, should become aware of this new problem, specify it clearly and everywhere set about solving it. Emerging from the captivity of the feudal censorship, we have no desire to become, and shall not become, prisoners of bourgeois-shopkeeper literary relations. We want to establish, and we shall establish, a free press, free not simply from the police, but also from capital, from careerism, and what is more, free from bourgeois-anarchist individualism.
These last words may sound paradoxical, or an affront to the reader. What! some intellectual, an ardent champion of liberty, may shout. What, you want to impose collective control on such a delicate, individual matter as literary work! You want workmen to decide questions of science, philosophy, or aesthetics by a majority of votes! You deny the absolute freedom of absolutely individual ideological work!
Calm yourselves, gentlemen! First of all, we are discussing party literature and its subordination to party control. Everyone is free to write and say whatever he likes, without any restrictions. But every voluntary association (including the party) is also free to expel members who use the name of the party to advocate anti-party views. Freedom of speech and the press must be complete. But then freedom of association must be complete too. I am bound to accord you, in the name of free speech, the full right to shout, lie and write to your heart's content. But you are bound to grant me, in the name of freedom of association, the right to enter into, or withdraw from, association with people advocating this or that view. The party is a voluntary association, which would inevitably break up, first ideologically and then physically, if it did not cleanse itself of people advocating anti-party views. And to define the border-line between party and anti-party there is the party programme, the party's resolutions on tactics and its rules and, lastly, the entire experience of international Social-Democracy, the voluntary international associations of the proletariat, which has constantly brought into its parties individual elements and trends not fully consistent, not completely Marxist and not altogether correct and which, on the other hand, has constantly conducted periodical ``cleansings'' of its ranks.
149So it will be with us too, supporters of bourgeois "freedom of criticism", within the Party. We are now becoming a mass party all at once, changing abruptly to an open organisation, and it is inevitable that we shall be joined by many who are inconsistent (from the Marxist standpoint), perhaps we shall be joined even by some Christian elements, and even by some mystics. We have sound stomachs and we are rock-like Marxists. We shall digest those inconsistent elements. Freedom of thought and freedom of criticism within the Party will never make us forget about the freedom of organising people into those voluntary associations known as parties.
Secondly, we must say to you bourgeois individualists that your talk about absolute freedom is sheer hypocrisy. There can be no real and effective ``freedom'' in a society based on the power of money, in a society in which the masses of working people live in poverty and the handful of rich live like parasites. Are you free in relation to your bourgeois publisher, Mr. Writer, in relation to your bourgeois public, which demands that you provide it with pornography in frames* and paintings, and prostitution as a `` supplement'' to ``sacred'' scenic art? This absolute freedom is a bourgeois or an anarchist phrase (since, as a world outlook, anarchism is bourgeois philosophy turned inside out). One cannot live in society and be free from society. The freedom of the bourgeois writer, artist or actress is simply masked (or hypocritically masked) dependence on the money-bag, on corruption, on prostitution. And we socialists expose this hypocrisy and rip off the false labels, not in order to arrive at a non-class literature and art (that will be possible only in a socialist extraclass society), but to contrast this hypocritically free literature, which is in reality linked to the bourgeoisie, with a really free one that will be openly linked to the proletariat.
It will be a free literature, because the idea of socialism and sympathy with the working people, and not greed or careerism, will bring ever new forces to its ranks. It will be a free literature, because it will serve, not some satiated heroine, not the bored "upper ten thousand" suffering from fatty degeneration, but the millions and tens of millions of working people---the flower of the country, its strength and its future. It will be a free literature, enriching the last word in the revolutionary thought of mankind with the experience and living work of the socialist proletariat, bringing about permanent interaction between the experience of the past (scientific socialism, the completion of the development of socialism from its primitive, Utopian forms) and the experience of the present (the present struggle of the worker comrades). To work, then, comrades! We are faced with a new and difficult task. But it is a noble and grateful one---to organise a broad, multiform and varied literature inseparably linked with the Social-Democratic working-class movement. All Social-Democratic literature must become Party literature. Every
newspaper, journal, publishing house, etc., must immediately set about reorganising its work, leading up to a situation in which it will, in one form or another, be integrated into one Party organisation or another. Only then will " SocialDemocratic literature really become worthy of that name, only then will it be able to fulfil its duty and, even within the framework of bourgeois society, break out of bourgeois slavery and merge with the movement of the really advanced and thoroughly revolutionary class.
Novaya Zhizn, No. 12, November 13, 1905 Signed: N. Lenin
Collected Works, Vol. 10, pp. 44---49
__ALPHA_LVL2__ An Unissued StatementThe Central Committee of the R.S.D.L.P., meeting in Geneva on November 27, 1903, unanimously adopted the following decision.
Comrade Plekhanov's co-optation of the Martovites to the editorial board constitutes outright defection on his part to the side of the Party Congress minority, a minority that Plekhanov himself more than once publicly characterised as inclining towards opportunism and anarchism. From the minutes of the Party Congress and the Congress of the League this will be seen quite cJearly. This defection is a direct violation of the will of the Party Congress under the influence of the League Abroad and in defiance of the emphatically stated decision of the majority of the Party committees in Russia. The Central Committee cannot allow such a violation of the will of the Congress, particularly since in taking advantage of Comrade Lenin's resignation to commit this act, Comrade Plekhanov was guilty of a direct breach of trust; for Comrade Lenin resigned on certain conditions, in the interests of peace and good will in the Party, whereas the Martovites, by turning down the Central Committee's ultimatum of November 25, rejected peace and thereby declared war.
The Central Committee therefore, by revolutionary action, takes the Party Central Organ into its own hands and declares that it will do everything in its power to secure that the will of the Party as a whole, not the will of the League Abroad or the treachery of an individual, shall determine the Party's future.
Written on November 14 (27), 1903 First published in 1928 in Lenin Miscellany VII
Central Committee Collected Works, Vol. 7, p. 114
*There must be a misprint in the source, which says ramkakh (frames), while the context suggests romanakh (novels).---Ed.
151 __ALPHA_LVL2__ One Step Forward, Two Steps BackFrom the programme, the Congress passed to the Party Rules (we leave out the question of the Central Organ, already touched on above, and the delegates' reports, which the majority of the delegates were unfortunately unable to present in a satisfactory form). Needless to say, the question of the Rules was of tremendous importance to all of us. After all, Iskra had acted from the very outset not only as a press organ but also as an organisational nucleus. In an editorial in its fourth issue ("Where To Begin") Iskra had put forward a whole plan of organisation,^^*^^ which it pursued systematically and steadily over a period of three years. When the Second Party Congress adopted Iskra as the Central Organ, two of the three points of the preamble of the resolution on the subject (p. 147) were devoted precisely to this organisational plan and to "Iskra`s'' organisational ideas: its role in directing the practical work of the Party and the leading part it had played in the work of attaining unity. It is quite natural, therefore, that the work of Iskra and the entire work of organising the Party, the entire work of actually restoring the Party, could not be regarded as finished until definite ideas of organisation had been adopted by the whole Party and formally enacted. This task was to be performed by the Party's Rules of Organisation.
The principal ideas which Iskra strove to make the basis of the Party's organisation amounted essentially to the following two: first, the idea of centralism, which defined in principle the method of deciding all particular and detail questions of organisation; second, the special function of an organ, a newspaper, for ideological leadership---an idea which took into account the temporary and special requirements of the Russian Social-Democratic working-class movement in the existing conditions of political slavery, with the initial base of operations for the revolutionary assault being set up abroad. The first idea, as the one matter of principle, had to pervade the entire Rules; the second, _-_-_
^^*^^ In his speech on the adoption of Iskra as the Central Organ, Comrade Popov said, inter alia: "I recall the article 'Where To Begin' in No. 3 or No. 4 of Iskra. Many of the comrades active in Russia found it a tactless article; others thought this plan was fantastic, and the majority [?---probably the majority around Comrade Popov] attributed it solely to ambition" (p. 140). As the reader sees, it is no new thing for me to hear my political views attributed to ambition---an explanation now being rehashed by Comrade Axelrod and Comrade Martov.
152 being a particular idea necessitated by temporary circumstances of place and mode of action, took the form of a seeming departure from centralism in the proposal to set up two centres, a Central Organ and a Central Committee. Both these principal Iskra ideas of Party organisation had been developed by me in the Iskra editorial (No. 4) "Where To Begin" and in What Is To Be Done? and, finally, had been explained in detail, in a form that was practically a finished set of Rules, in A Letter to a Comrade. Actually, all that remained was the work of formulating the paragraphs of the Rules, which were to embody just those ideas if the recognition of Iskra was not to be merely nominal, a mere conventional phrase. In the preface to the new edition of my Letter to a Comrade I have already pointed out that a simple comparison of the Party Rules with that pamphlet is enough to establish the complete identity of the ideas of organisation contained in the two.By carefully studying the minutes, Comrade Martov would have found in the delegates' speeches a whole series of arguments against the board of six. Here is a selection from these speeches: firstly, that dissonances, in the sense of different shades of principle, were clearly apparent in the old six; secondly, that a technical simplification of the editorial work was desirable; thirdly, that the interests of the work came before philistine sentimentality, and only election could ensure that the persons chosen were suited for their posts; fourthly, that the right of the Congress to choose must not be restricted; fifthly, that the Party now needed something more than a literary group on the Central Organ, that the Central Organ needed not only writers, but administrators as well; sixthly, that the Central Organ must consist of quite definite persons, persons known to the Congress; seventhly, that a board of six was often ineffectual, and the board's work had been accomplished not thanks to its abnormal constitution, but in spite of it; eighthly, that the conduct of a newspaper was a party (not a circle) affair, etc. Let Comrade Martov, if he is so interested in the reasons for the non-election of these persons, penetrate into the meaning of each of these considerations and refute a single one of them.
The old Iskra taught the truths of revolutionary struggle. The new Iskra teaches the worldly wisdom of yielding and getting on with everyone. The old Iskra was the organ of militant orthodoxy. The new Iskra treats us to a recrudescence of opportunism---chiefly on questions of organisation. The old Iskra earned the honour of being detested by the opportunists, both Russian and West-European. The new Iskra has "grown wise" and will soon cease to be ashamed of the praises lavished on it by the extreme opportunists. The old Iskra marched unswervingly towards its goal, and there was no discrepancy between its word and its deed. The inherent falsity of the new Iskra's position inevitably leads---independently even of anyone's will or intention---to political hypocrisy. It inveighs against the circle spirit in order to conceal the victory of the circle spirit over the party spirit. It hypocritically condemns splits, as if one can imagine any way of avoiding splits in any at all organised party except by the subordination of the minority to the majority. It says that heed must be paid to revolutionary public opinion, yet, while concealing the praises of the
153Akimovs, indulges in petty scandal-mongering about the committees of the revolutionary wing of the Party. How shameful! How they have disgraced our old Iskra!
Central Committee, and not from the local committee. Lastly, you yourself had to admit in your letter to me that the meeting of the three Central Committee members was informed that Comrade Osipov's resignation was a disputed matter. That this disputed matter should have been decided by three Central Committee members in the absence of Osipov, and without even hearing his opinion, was a patent and outrageous piece of lawlessness. Of course, the three Central Committee members could count on the support of he Party Council, which is controlled by the editors; of course, the there Central Committee members could rely on their formal or tacit compact with the minority adherents on the Council. But that does not make their action lawful; on the contrary, it aggravates its unlawfulness by elements of political bad faith. Similarly, it was unlawful for the three Central Committee members to accept the resignation of Comrade Travinsky, of which all members of the Central Committee had not been informed prior to the meeting. To this day you have not been able to tell me exactly when this resignation was tendered, and to whom. You disposed of the matter with a reply that sounded like a sneer: "Make inquiries of the collegium in Russia"---that is, the ``collegium'' (that very same collegium of three!) from which you had just come and with which I have no means of communicating except through you!!
Hence, I challenge the lawfulness of the composition of the Central Committee and of its last meeting (at which the ``declaration'' was adopted). I should therefore be fully entitled to leave unanswered your proposal that I join the editorial board of the Central Organ. But I regard this proposal as coming not from the Central Committee but from three members of the Party, and consider it my duty to give a reasoned reply, the more so since you say it is the wish of the editors of the Central Organ, stated to you in writing, to have me on the editorial board.
You suggest that my joining the editorial board of the Central Organ "would secure almost complete peace in the Party, which you are so anxious to have". This ``almost'' of yours is highly significant! Yes, I am anxious to have peace in the Party. I made an offer of peace in printed form in December 1903, in my "Letter to the Editors of Iskra (Why I Resigned from the Editorial Board)". I made another offer of peace, officially, in the Party Council in January 1904. Peace was not accepted on the terms I offered then on behalf of the majority. I may remark that, contrary to the present fashion of mouthing hypocritical phrases about ``peace'', when by peace is meant complete surrender to the minority, complete ignoring of the majority, and complete oblivion of the Congress, I said quite definitely in the Council what I understood by peace in the Party. With my then fellow delegate from the Central Committee on the Council, I plainly stated that by peace I meant purging the ideological struggle of all contention over post and place, of all squabbling and underhand methods of fighting. Let the minority have the Central Organ and the majority the Central Committee, I proposed then, let us call on everyone to stop all boycotts and all squabbling over posts and cooptation and argue out our dif-
155Written in February-May 1904 Published in book form in Geneva, May 1904
Collected Works, Vol. 7, pp. 241-242, 316, 413-414
__ALPHA_LVL2__ Letter to Glebov (V. A. Noskov)Dear Comrade,
September 11, 1904
You again repeat that the wish that I join the editorial board of the Central Organ was expressed "by the Central Committee". And I for my part must repeat that this is, to say the least, inaccurate. When you formally stated that the Central Committee's declaration had been adopted unanimously by a meeting of all its members but one, I replied immediately (August 18, 1904) that this was not true. The declaration was signed by three Central Committee members out of the recent total of nine; and these three quite unlawfully proclaimed Comrade Osipov no longer a member of the Central Committee, whereas he informed me in writing that he still considered himself a member. It was unlawful to declare that a comrade had resigned without having discussed the matter with him. Both the arguments with which you and your two colleagues tried to justify this unlawful act are patently unsound. You said that Comrade Osipov had formally announced his resignation at the preceding regular meeting of the Central Committee. That is not true, for at the end of May (that is, months after that meeting, which took place in February or March) the Central Committee still counted nine members, as is certified by the agreement of May 26, 1904, signed by three members of the Central Committee, and the letter appended to that agreement. You said that after that Central Committee meeting Comrade Osipov had joined one of the local committees, which a member of the Central Committee would have had no right to do. Comrade Osipov had already written to me on this point, stating that he had gone to take part in the local work in the district in question on the instructions of those very members of the Central Committee who now declare that he has resigned, and that he had not worked as a formal member of the committee. Besides, even if it were a fact that a member of the Central Committee had irregularly and in contravention of the Rules joined a local committee, it does not at all follow that to correct this irregularity he had necessarily to resign from the
154ferences and the causes of our divergence at the Congress in a comradely manner, let us train the Party to discuss its internal disagreements in an honest and dignified way. My appeal was ridiculed by Plekhanov and Martov. I am not surprised that they took the disgraceful decision to withhold publication of the Council minutes (in spite of the insistence of the minority of the Council, namely, the two representatives of the Central Committee), or that the three Central Committee members have now (clandestinely) endorsed that decision. People who would arrange a hypocritical peace, taking advantage of the accidents unavoidable in the lives of Russian revolutionaries and ousting from the Central Committee those who think differently from themselves,* are bound to want to conceal from the Party membership a timely attempt to achieve an honest peace. Fortunately, I have reason to believe that this miserable trick to deceive the Party will not succeed and that the Council minutes will see the light after all.
When the editors who had usurped control of the Council scornfully rejected my offer of peace, I declared then and there that I considered a congress the only honest way out. The tactics of the minority (including Plekhanov)---to keep control of the editorial board of the Central Organ and the Council and claim to represent on these central bodies the interests of the Party as a whole while in fact trying to secure, without a congress, a remodelling of the Central Committee in the interests of the minority---such tactics I cannot regard as honest fighting. I have never entered, and do not deem it possible to enter, into any bargains with people who follow such tactics. Besides, since January the complexion of the new Iskra has become quite clear; it is a central organ of tittle-tattle and squabbling, of muddled thinking and of flirting with the opportunists, of settling personal scores and searching out points of difference. That the new Iskra is the organ of a circle, the organ of a new ``trend'', is now clear to everyone, even to the editors themselves, who initially set themselves up as champions of ``continuity'' and now systematically drag the old Iskra through the mire. And so, in what sense can one now speak of peace ? If by peace is meant purging the ideological struggle of squabbles over co-optation, I am still quite ready to agree to peace and to renew the proposal I made in the Council. But if by peace is meant cessation of the ideological struggle, conciliation with the line, or rather with the complexion of the new Iskra, for it has no such thing as a line, then such a ``peace'' can only be proposed by unprincipled or hypocritical people, or by people for whom the organs of the Party are so much newsprint (Druckerschwarze, printer's ink, as one of the ``conciliators'' called the writings of the new Iskra}. If the editors of the new Iskra, whose position of ``principle'' has amounted almost entirely to personal attacks on me, to a hue and cry against what they have dubbed "Le-
ninism", and to a searching out of differences with me, now express the wish to have me on the editorial board, they are only admitting thereby that they do not take their own writings seriously, that they invented the whole controversy just "for the sake of co-optation" and are prepared to throw all their new ``principles'' overboard once co-optation has been secured. As for me, I reject as unworthy the very suggestion that the majority could give up a Party struggle for its position, for the consistent line, against the circle spirit. In common with all principled supporters of the majority, whose numbers in Russia are growing, I consider it my inalienable right and duty to carry on this struggle. And it should, in my view, be carried on openly, for nine-tenths of the history of the conflict is already public knowledge and any further attempts to conceal it from the eyes of the world would only be a petty and senseless prolonging of the crisis.
You write that "numerous committees, too, undoubtedly wish" to see me join the present Iskra editorial board. I note with regret that here too you are uttering a deliberate untruth. In the present circumstances of the struggle, not one committee has up to now expressed any such wish. It has only been expressed by the editorial circle of the Central Organ and by three members of the Central Committee, who consider it the acme of political wisdom to join the minority in abusing the majority and the majority in abusing the minority. I make bold to believe that my duty is to heed, not the will of any group of politicians, but the will of the entire Party, which has also laid down the method of giving formal expression to that will viz., the congress. I make bold to believe that a leader who adopts a certain line at the congress and leads a section of the Party along that line forfeits every claim to respect or even to having his words taken seriously if the then deserts to the side of his opponents.
Your reference to "numerous committees" is very instructive and significant, in spite of its... divergence from the truth. It points to a shred of Party conscience, to some little recognition of the fact that official institutions appointed by the Party must take cognisance of the Party's will when they undertake to revise the composition and line of the central bodies. If this recognition were not obscured in you by the confused position you have adopted, you would have no difficulty in seeing that there is no other way of really ascertaining the real wishes of really numerous committees than by convening a congress. But while your reference to "numerous committees" betrays a shred of Party conscience, it also points very clearly to an uneasy conscience. You fear a congress like the plague because you realise that your policy of adventures glaringly conflicts with the will of the Party.
My general views as to the hypocrisy of your peace-making are fully borne out by a number of additional facts. The three Central Committee members now admire the "high standard" of the Central Organ, while in March these very same three members of the Central Committee drew up a statement expressing regret that certain Party writers (the majority of the present editorial board of the Central Organ) should have lapsed into opportunism. While
157* This applies in the first place to Comrade Osipov, and secondly to me too, of course, for to propose that I join the editorial board of the Central Organ amounts to proposing that I resign from die Central Committee.
156talking about ``peace'', these three Central Committee members dissolve the Southern Bureau (an agent body of the Central Committee) because majority adherents have been working on it and have had the audacity to agitate for a congress. While talking about reconciling the two contending sides, the three Central Committee members arrange a conference with representatives of one side, ignoring the other. What demoralisation is brought into the Party by these private, hole-and-corner transactions, which affect the whole Party's vital interests and which are so carefully kept from its knowledge, when there is absolutely no necessity for secrecy precautions! How much mutual distrust and suspicion is brought into the Party's whole life by these tricks behind the back of the Party! Only today I received a letter from a comrade in Russia describing the rumours that are circulating in connection with these transactions : it is said in Party circles that three sections have developed among the minority; one insists on the co-optation of Dan and Trotsky to the Central Committee, and will not hear of anything else; the second agrees to a conference; the third contents itself with the Central Committee's declaration, and this section includes the Yuzhny Rabochy-ists (who quite rightly interpret the starting of a popular organ as nothing but a masked reestablishment of Yuzhny Rabochy, which the Congress closed down). I do not know what truth there is in this Party gossip. But that the minority consists of heterogeneous groups, that Comrade Brouckere, for example, probably takes no part at all in the minority's ``ultimatums'' or the co-optation squabble generally, and that the Yuzhny Rabochy group represents quite a distinct shade---these are all generally known facts, with which everyone who has studied our Party Congress is familiar. Can you really not see how degrading is all this huckstering of various groups behind the back of the Party! Is it surprising that the hypocrisy of the three Central Committee members is earning them the utter distrust of the majority,, which stands aloof from all his trickery? Is it surprising that a ``peace'' inaugurated by dismissing people who agitate for a congress should be regarded as a prelude to the systematic faking of Party opinion? Is it surprising that the majority should suspect a deal between the Central Committee and the Central Organ (and, consequently, the Council) to force minority adherents upon the committees, to withhold publication of majority resolutions (the St. Petersburg and Ekaterinoslav resolutions have been withheld for months already), etc., etc.?
I hope you will now understand why, with the present situation in the Party, there can be no thought of my joining the editorial board of the Central Organ.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ Letter to A Group of ComradesDear Comrades,
Today, at a meeting of a close circle of Bolsheviks abroad, a final decision was taken on a question that in principle has long been decided: the publication of a Party periodical that will uphold and develop the principles of the majority against the organisational and tactical discord brought into the Party by the minority, and will serve the needs of the positive work of the organisations in Russia, against whom such a bitter fight is now being carried on by minority agents practically all over the country---a fight that terribly disorganises the Party at this vital historical juncture, and one that is carried on throughout by the most shameless splitting methods and tactics, amid hypocritical deploring of the split by the so-called Central Organ of the Party. We have done everything in our power to steer the struggle into a Party channel; ever since January we have been fighting for a congress, as the only worthy Party way to end this impossible situation. By now it is perfectly clear that the activities of the Central Committee following its desertion to the minority consist almost entirely in desperately resisting a congress, and that the Council is resorting to the most outrageous and unpardonable tricks to put off convening it. The Council is directly sabotaging a congress; whoever has still to be convinced of that after its latest decisions, printed in the supplement to Nos. 73-74 of Iskra, will see it from Orlovsky's pamphlet The Council Against the Party, which we published the other day. It is perfectly clear now that unless they unite and resist our so-called central institutions, the majority will not be able to uphold their position, to uphold the party spirit in its struggle against the circle spirit. Union of the Bolsheviks in Russia has long been put forward by them as an urgent need. Recall the tremendous sympathetic response to the programmatic resolution of the twenty=two (programmatic for our struggle within the Party); recall the proclamation of the nineteen, issued in printed form by the Moscow Committee (October 1904); lastly, nearly all Party committees are aware that a number of private conferences of majority committees have lately been held, and in part are still being held, and that the most vigorous and definite efforts are being made to solidly unite the majority committees for resistance to the overweening Bonapartists on the Council, Central Organ, and Central Committee.
We hope that these efforts (or rather steps) will be made generally known
159Published in slightly abridged form in the pamphlet The Fight for a Congress, by N. Shakhov, Geneva, 1904
Collected Works, Vol. 7, pp. 466-472
158in the very near future, when the results will allow of a definite statement of what has already been achieved. It need hardly be said that the majority would have been quite unable to conduct their self-defence without a publishing house of their own. As you may already know from our Party literature, the new Central Committee simply ejected our pamphlets (and even the covers of pamphlets already set up) from the Party printing office, thus turning the latter into the printing office of a circle, and refused the direct request of the majority members abroad and of committees in Russia---the Riga Committee, for instance---to have majority literature delivered to Russia. It became quite evident that falsification of Party opinion was a systematic tactic of the new Central Committee. We found ourselves faced unavoidably with the necessity of expanding our publishing activities and setting up our own transport arrangements. The committees that had broken off comradely relations with the editorial board of the Central Organ (see Dan's admission in his account ot the Geneva meeting of September 2, 1904---an interesting pamphlet) could not and cannot do without a periodical organ. A party without an organ, an organ without a party! This tragic formulation put forward by the majority as far back as August inexorably decreed the one solution---the starting of our own organ. The young literary forces that have been coming abroad to uphold the vital cause of the majority of the comrades in Russia need a field for their energies. A number of Party writers in Russia likewise call insistently for an organ. In starting this organ, which will probably be called Vperyod, we are acting in full agreement with the mass of the Bolsheviks in Russia, and in full harmony with our conduct in the Party struggle. We are resorting to this weapon after a whole year spent in trying every, absolutely every way that is simpler, more economical for the Party, more perfectly in accordance with the interests of the working-class movement. We are by no means abandoning the struggle for a congress; on the contrary, we want to extend, co-ordinate and support this struggle, want to help the committees to decide the new question now facing them---that of arranging a congress without the Council and Central Committee, and against the wishes of the Council and Central Committee---a question that requires the fullest and most serious discussion. We openly champion views and aims that have long since been stated, in a number of pamphlets, before the whole Party. We are fighting and will continue to fight for the consistent revolutionary line, against discord and wabbling in matters of both organisation and tactics (see the monstrously muddled letter of the new Iskra to the Party organisations, printed for Party members only and concealed from the eyes of the world). The announcement about the new organ will probably appear in a week or so, and the first issue somewhere between January 1 and 10, New Style. The editorial board will include all the majority writers that have so far come to the fore (Ryadovoy, Galyorka, Lenin, Orlovsky, who contributed regularly to Iskra from its 46th to 51st issue, when it was conducted by Lenin and Plekhanov, and also very valuable younger forces). The body practically directing and organising the
160complex business of distribution, agencies, etc., etc., will be formed (has already been formed in part) through direct assignment of definite functions to definite comrades by a number of Russian committees (the Odessa, Ekaterinoslav, and Nikolayev committees, the four Caucasian committees, and several northern ones, more particulars of which you will receive shortly). We now appeal to all comrades to give us all the support they can. We shall conduct the organ on the understanding that it is the organ of the movement in Russia, not of any emigre circle. This requires, first and foremost, the most vigorous "literary" support, or rather literary participation, from Russia. I have put the word ``literary'' in italics and inverted commas in order to draw attention from the first to its special sense and caution against a misconception that is very common and highly detrimental to the work. It is a misconception that writers and only writers (in the professional sense of the term) can successfully contribute to a publication; on the contrary, it will be vital and alive only if for five leading and regularly contributing writers there are five hundred or five thousand contributors who are not writers. One of the shortcomings of the old Iskra, one which I always tried to rid it of (and which has grown to monstrous proportions in the new Iskra) was that too little was done for it from Russia. We always used to print everything, practically without exception, that we received from Russia. A really live organ should print only a tenth of what it receives, using the rest as material for the information and guidance of the journalists. We must have as many Party workers as possible correspond with us, correspond in the ordinary, not the journalistic sense of the term.
Isolation from Russia, the engulfing atmosphere of the accursed emigre slough, weighs so heavily on one here that living contact with Russia is our only salvation. Let all remember that we want in fact, and not just in word, to consider (and to make} our organ the organ of the entire ``majority'', the organ of the mass of Russian comrades. Let everyone who regards this organ as his own and who is conscious of the duties of a Social-Democratic Party member abandon once and for all the bourgeois habit of thinking and acting as is customary towards legally published papers---the habit of feeling: it is their business to write and ours to read. All Social-Democrats must work for the Social-Democratic paper. We ask everyone to contribute, and especially the workers. Give the workers the widest opportunity to write for our paper, to write about positively everything, to write as much as they possibly can about their daily lives, interests, and work---without such material a Social-Democratic organ will not be worth a brass farthing and will not deserve the name. In addition, please send us private letters, not intended as contributions to the paper, i.e., not for publication, but by way of comradely intercourse with the editors and to keep them informed, and not only about facts and incidents, but about the prevailing sentiment and the everyday, ``uninteresting'', humdrum, routine side of the movement. People who have not lived abroad cannot imagnine how much we need such letters (there is absolutely nothing secret about them either, and to write such an uncoded
161letter once or twice a week is really something the busiest person can do). So write to us about the discussions at the workers' study circles, the nature of these discussions, the subjects of study, and the things the workers ask about; about the state of propaganda and agitational work, and about contacts among the general public, in the army, and among the youth; above all write about any dissatisfaction the workers feel with us Social-Democrats, about the things that trouble them, about their suggestions, criticisms, etc. Matters relating to the practical organisation of the work are particularly interesting now, and there is no way of acquainting the editors with them except by a lively correspondence not of a journalistic nature, but simply of a comradely kind. Of course, not everyone has the ability or inclination to write, but... don't say "I can`t'', say "I don't want to"; given the desire, one or two comrades who could write can be found in any circle, any group, even the smallest, even the most minor (the minor groups are often especially interesting, for they sometimes do the most important, though inconspicuous, part of the work). We here have from the start placed the secretarial work on a broad footing, drewing on the experience of the old Iskra; and you for your part should know that anybody, absolutely anybody who sets about it with patience and determination can without much difficulty make sure that all his letters, or nine-tenths of them, reach their destination. I say this on the basis of the three years' experience of the old Iskra, which had many such an informal correspondent (often unacquainted with any of the editors) who wrote with the utmost regularity. The police have long been quite unequal to the task of intercepting all foreign correspondence (they only seize a letter occasionally, if the writer has been unusually careless); and the great bulk of the old Iskra's material always used to arrive in the most usual way, in ordinary letters sent to our addresses. A special word of warning against the practice of concentrating correspondence only in the hands of the committee and the secretaries. Nothing could be more harmful than such a monopoly. Essential as unity is in actions and decisions, in the matter of general information, of correspondence, it is quite wrong. It very often happens that the most interesting letters are from comparative ``outsiders'' (people more remote from the committees), who perceive more freshly much that old experienced workers overlook because they are too used to it. Give every opportunity to the younger people to write to us---to the youth, to Party workers, to ``centralists'', to organisers, and to ordinary rank-and-filers at impromptu meetings and mass rallies.
Only given such a wide correspondence can we, by our joint efforts, make our paper a real organ of the working-class movement in Russia. We earnestly request, to have this letter read to every kind of meeting, study circle, subgroup, etc., etc.---as widely as possible---and to be informed how the workers receive this appeal. As to the idea of publishing a separate workers' (``popular'') organ and a general---guiding---intelectual organ, we are very sceptical about it; we should like to see the Social-Democratic newspaper the organ of the whole movement, to see the workers' paper and the Social-Democra-
162tic paper fused in one. This can be achieved only if we have the most active support of the working class.
With comradely greetings, N. Lenin
Written on November 29
(December 12), 1904
Published in leaflet form in December 1904
Collected Works, Vol. 7, pp. 523-528
__ALPHA_LVL2__ A Third Step BackFinally, the most astonishing thing about the ``Rules'' of the Minority is the omission of all reference to Party organs and to Party literature in general. Organs there are (Iskra, Sotsial-Demokrat) and will be, but the ``Rules'' adopted by the Conference establish no connection between them and the Party. This is incredible, but it is a fact. The publicists are outside the Party, above the Party. No control, no reports, no material dependence. Something reminiscent of the worst days of opportunism among the French socialists: the Party unto itself, and the publicists unto themselves. From this point of view the following decision of the Conference, viz., the resolution on Party (?) literature, should perhaps not seem accidental: "The Conference deems it necessary: (1) that the Organisation Committee take measures to furnish the Party publicists greater possibilities to wage a struggle in the legal press for the theoretical principles of the Party". A kind of prototype of Menshevik organisation: a group of "Party publicists", non-responsible and ``independent'', indispensable and irreplaceable. And attached to them---a committee to have charge of the work of... legal publication!
It is difficult to discuss this type of organisation with the necessary seriousness. The nearer the revolution and the nearer the opportunity for Social-Democrats to write openly in the ``legal'' press, the more strictly should the party of the proletariat adhere to the principle of the unconditional responsibility of "Party publicists" to the Party, of their dependence on the Party.
Proletary, No. 6, July 3 (June 20), 1905 Collected Works, Vol. 8, p. 548
163 __ALPHA_LVL2__ Report on the Unity Congress of the R.S.D.L.P.The second point on which there was disagreement was the relation between the Central Committee and the Central Organ. The Mensheviks carried the point that the editorial board of the Central Organ is to be elected by the Congress and that the members of the editorial board are to act as members of the Central Committee when questions of policy are discussed (a vague point which will probably give rise to misunderstanding). The Bolsheviks, referring to the melancholy conflicts between writers in the Russian and German* party press, advocated the appointment of the editorial board of the Central Organ by the Central Committee, the latter to have the right to dismiss the editors. In my opinion, the decision of the Mensheviks undoubtedly shows that there is something abnormal in the relations between the writers and the practical-political leaders in the Right wing of our Party.
question came up for discussion at a recent congress of the German SocialDemocrats. We know that our German comrades severely condemn the idea of Social-Democrats contributing to the bourgeois press and resolutely fight for the principle that the party of the revolutionary proletariat shall tolerate no blocs or agreements in this field either, but maintain its independence; that journalist members of the workers' party should be organised and controlled, not only in name but in deed; in other words, should be party men in the strict sense of the term.
Have we any right to depart from these rules here in Russia ? Some might retort: there is an exception to every rule. That is quite true. It would be wrong to condemn a person in banishment for writing to any newspaper. It is sometimes hard to condemn a Social-Democrat who is working in a minor department of a bourgeois newspaper to earn a living. One can justify the publication of an urgent and business-like refutation, etc., etc. But see what will happen here. Under the pretext of refuting `` misunderstandings'' caused by the Social-Democratic "Nashe Dyelo", L. Martov writes almost two columns in a Cadet newspaper, calmly expounding the views of some Social-Democrats, arguing against other Social-Democrats and misrepresenting the views of Social-Democrats he disagrees with, without caring in the least what pleasure his literary ``bloc'' with the Cadets gives to all the enemies of the proletariat. The Cadet newspapers seize on L. Martov's article in the Cadet press, give it wide publicity, add a thing or two of their own to the lie which he has put into circulation about the revolutionary Social-- Democrats, pat him on the back (see Reck), and so on and so forth. Cherevanin is tempted. If Martov could write to Tovarishch to refute Cherevanin's `` misunderstandings'' and bring in thousands of other things at the same time, why should not Cherevanin also write to Tovarishch to refute L. Martov's `` misunderstandings'' ? And, while he is about it, why not take advantage of the opportunity to start in the Cadet press (after all, it would be improper to do so in the Social-Democratic press!) a discussion on the question whether socialists should vote for bourgeois candidates even without an agreement ?*
And so a special feature has been inaugurated in Cadet newspapers: a family-literary correspondence between Social-Democratic opportunists. Since its subject is the permissibility of blocs with the Cadets, and even of voting for the Cadets, the Cadets readily give shelter to the homeless `` progressive'' Social-Democrats who are departing from the ``conservative'' rules of revolutionary Social-Democracy.
The Menshevik literary bigwigs dwell in two abodes. In the respectable quarter they talk to fine gentlemen about blocs with the Cadets and incidentally retail anecdotes about the revolutionary Social-Democrats. In the grimy quarter, in some workers' newspaper or Social-Democratic periodical, or a
* F. Dan has migrated to Tovarishch even without the object of refuting `` misunderstandings'', but merely for company's sake.
Written early in May 1906
Published in pamphlet form in June 1906
by Vperyod Publishers, Moscow
Collected Works, Vol. 10, p. 373
__ALPHA_LVL2__ Martov's and Cherevanin's Pronouncements in theIs it permissible for a Social-Democrat to contribute to bourgeois newspapers ? Certainly not. Theoretical considerations, political etiquette and the practice of the European Social-Democrats are all against it. As is well known, this
* The recent ``affair'' of the six editors of Vorwarts who made quite a fuss because they had been dismissed by the Executive Committee of the German Social-Democratic Party.
164 165leaflet, they offer the workers a "non-party labour congress' and enlighten them on the absurdity and folly of fighting for a constituent assembly. Let the workers be patient and wait a little: when the Social-Democratic discussion in the Cadet Tovarishch on blocs between socialists and the bourgeoisie comes to an end, the workers, too, will learn something .... And so, following the homely rule of one of Turgenev's characters, our advocates of a labour congress write letter after letter to Tovarishch, murmuring the while: our Party is a party of the intelligentsia ....
Will not the Social-Democratic workers intervene to put a stop to this outrage ? Is it a matter of indifference to the members of our Party ?
What does this mean ? It means that, whether we like it or not, and in spite of the wishes of the better sort of Mensheviks, political life absorbs their Cadet deeds and rejects their revolutionary phrases.
The Cadet coolly accepts the help of the Mensheviks, slaps Plekhanov on the back for his advocacy of blocs, and at the same time shouts contemptuously and rudely, like a merchant who has grown fat on ill-gotten gains: Not enough, Menshevik gentlemen! There must also be an ideological understanding! (See the article in Tovarishch on Plekhanov's letter.) Not enough, Menshevik gentlemen, you must also stop your polemic, or at any rate change its tone! (See the leading article in the Left-Cadet Vek on the resolutions of our Conference.) Not to mention Rech, which simply snubbed the Mensheviks who are yearning for the Cadets by bluntly declaring: "We shall go into the Duma to legislate", not to make a revolution!
Poor Mensheviks, poor Plekhanov! Their love letters to the Cadets were read with pleasure, but so far they are not being admitted further than the antechamber.
Read Plekhanov's letter in the bourgeois-Cadet newspaper Tovarishch. How joyfully he was greeted by Mr. Prokopovich and Madame Kuskova, the very people whom Plekhanov, in 1900, drove out of the Social-Democratic Party for attempting its bourgeois corruption. Now Plekhanov has accepted the tactics of the famous Credo of Prokopovich and Kuskova; and these followers of Bernstein are impudently blowing kisses to him and shouting: We bourgeois democrats have always said this!
And in order to be admitted to the antechamber of the Cadets, Plekhanov had publicly to withdraw the statements he made but yesterday. Here are the facts.
In Dnevnik, No. 6, of July 1906, after the dissolution of the Duma, Plekhanov wrote that the parties that are participating in the movement must come to an understanding. To be able to strike together, they must first come to an agreement. "The parties hostile to our old regime must... come to an agreement about what is to be the main idea in this propaganda. After the dissolution of the Duma the only idea that can serve this purpose is the idea of a constituent assembly ... .''
... "Only" the idea of a constituent assembly. Such was Plekhanov's plan for a political bloc and for a fighting agreement in July 1906.
Five months later, in November 1906, Plekhanov changes his policy on agreements. Why? Has there been any change since then in the relations between the parties which demand a constituent assembly and those which do not?
It is generally admitted that since then the Cadets have shifted still further to the right. And Plekhanov goes to the Cadet press but says nothing about the constituent assembly; for it is forbidden to speak about this in liberal antechambers.
Is it not clear that this Social-Democrat has slipped ?
Written October 1906
Published in pamphlet form in October 1906
by Proletarskoye Dyelo Publishers
Collected Works, Vol. 11, pp. 262-263
__ALPHA_LVL2__ Blocs with the CadetsAnd the Cadet press has perfectly understood the political significance of Menshevik-Cadet blocs. We said above: either in the rear of the liberals or in front of the revolutionaries. In support of this we shall cite our political
press.
Can you find any serious or mass confirmation of the assertion that the Bolsheviks are following in the wake of the bourgeois revolutionaries and are dependent on them ? It is ridiculous even to speak of such a thing. The whole Russian press clearly shows, and all the enemies of the revolutionaries admit, that it is the Bolsheviks who are pursuing an independent political line, and are winning over various groups and the best elements of the bourgeois revolutionaries.
But what about the bourgeois opportunists ? They own a press the times larger than that of the Social-Democrats and the Socialist-Revolutionaries put together. And they are pursuing an independent political line, converting the Mensheviks and Popular Socialists into mere yes-men.
The whole Cadet press quotes only those parts of the Menshevik resolutions which refer to blocs; it omits "the impotence of the Duma", "the organisation of the forces of the revolution in the Duma", and other things. The Cadets not only omit these things, they openly rail against them, now talking about the ``phrase-mongering'' or the ``inconsistency'' of the Mensheviks, now about the "inconsistency of the Menshevik slogans", and at another time about "the baneful influence of the Bolsheviks over the Mensheviks''.
166 167But this is not all. In the same No. 6 of Dnevnik, Plekhanov referred directly to the Cadets. At that time (that was such a long time ago!) Plekhanov explained the selfish class character of the Cadets' distrust towards the idea of a constituent assembly. Plekhanov at that time wrote about the Cadets literally as follows:
``Whoever renounces the propaganda of this idea fa constituent assembly] on whatever pretext will clearly indicate that he is not really seeking a worthy answer to the actions of Stolypin & Co., that he, though reluctantly, is becoming reconciled to these actions, that he is rebelling against them only in words, only for the sake of appearances" (italics ours).
Having now gone over to a Cadet newspaper, Plekhanov began his advocacy of an election bloc by establishing an ideological bloc. In the Cadet newspaper Plekhanov did not want to tell the people that the Cadets are becoming reconciled to the Stolypin gang, that they are rebelling only for the sake of appearances.
Why did Plekhanov not want to repeat in November 1906 what he said in July 1906?
Social-Democratic Party. The orthodoxes at the Dresden Parteitag agreed to the formula that it was permissible to participate in the press that was not hostile to Social-Democracy, on the grounds that in practice this was tantamount to a complete ban, since in present-day developed capitalist society there were no bourgeois newspapers that were not hostile to Social-Democracy. The speaker took the stand that political participation in the bourgeois press, especially the supposedly non-party press, is absolutely inadmissible. Such newspapers as Tovarishch, by their hypocritically disguised fight against Social-Democracy, cause it much greater harm than the bourgeois party newspapers which are frankly hostile to Social-Democracy. This is best illustrated by the contributions to Tovarishch made by Plekhanov, Martov, Gorn, Kogan, etc. All their utterances are directed against the Party, and in actual fact it was not the Social-Democratic comrades who made use of the bourgeois newspaper Tovarishch, but this newspaper that made use of these comrades against the hateful R.S.D.L.P. Not a single article by a Social-Democrat has so far appeared which the editors of Tovarishch would not have approved of.
This, then, is what ``technical'' blocs with the Cadets mean, and that is why we are waging a relentless struggle against Social-Democrats who sanction such blocs.
Is not your joy premature, gentlemen of the Cadet Party ? Social-Democrats will vote in the elections without blocs in the Caucasus, in the Urals, in Poland, in the Lettish Territory, in the Moscow Central Region, and probably in St. Petersburg.
No blocs with the Cadets! No conciliation with those who are becoming reconciled to the Stolypin gang!
Proletary, No. 20, November 19, 1907
Collected Works, Vol. 13, p. 140
__ALPHA_LVL2__ To P. YushkevichSir,
I do not agree to diluting Marxism nor to a free tribune in publications I know nothing of.
N. Lenin
Proletary, No. 8, November 23, 1906
Collected Works, Vol. 11, pp. 316-319
Written November 10, 1908
Sent from Geneva to St. Petersburg
First published in 1933
Collected Works, Vol. 34, p. 396
__ALPHA_LVL2__ Conference of the St. Petersburg Organisation of theComrade Lenin's second report concerned the question of Social-Democratic participation in the bourgeois press. The speaker set forth the point of view of the two wings of international Social-Democracy on this score and particularly the views of the orthodox members and of the revisionists in the German
168 169 __ALPHA_LVL2__ The Sixth (Prague) All-Russia Conference of the R.S.D.L.P.(2) To pay the necessary attention to the strengthening and broadening of the legally existing workers' press;
The Central Organ
Having heard and discussed the report of the representative of the Central Organ, the Conference approves of the Central Organ's line in principle and expresses the wish that more space be devoted to articles of a propagandist nature, and that the articles be written in a more popular style, so as to make them more intelligible to the workers.
Rabochaya Gazeta
Whereas:
Rabochaya Gazeta has resolutely and consistently championed the Party and its principles, and enjoys the full sympathy of Party functionaries in local Party branches, irrespective of factional affiliation.
The Conference:
(1) calls upon all comrades in the localities to support Rabochaya Gazeta in every way;
(2) recognises Rabochaya Gazeta as an official organ of the Central Committee of the Party.
Newspaper Pravda
The Conference annuls the agreement with the editors of Pravda concluded by the Plenary Meeting of the Central Committee in January 1910.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ Resolutions of the Summer, 1913, Joint Conference of the1. This Conference points to the vast importance of the legal press for Social-Democratic agitation and organisation, and therefore calls upon Party bodies and upon all class-conscious workers to increase their assistance to the legal press by securing for it the widest possible circulation, and by organising mass collective subscriptions and regular collections of contributions. The Conference reaffirms that such contributions are counted as Party membership dues.
2. Special efforts must be made to consolidate the legal workers' newspaper in Moscow and to issue a workers' newspaper in the South at the earliest possible date.
3. This Conference expresses the desire that the closest possible contact be established between the existing legal working-class periodicals by means of an exchange of information, arrangement of conferences, etc.
4. Recognising the importance of a theoretical organ of Marxism and the need for one, this Conference expresses the desire that all the organs of the Party and trade union press should make the workers familiar with the magazine Prosveshcheniye, and urge them to subscribe to it regularly and to render it their systematic support.
5. This Conference draws the attention of Party publishing houses to the great need to publish an extensive series of popular, Social-Democratic agitation and propaganda pamphlets.
6. In view of the recent intensification of the revolutionary mass struggle, and of the need to report on it in the fullest detail (which the legal press cannot do), this Conference calls special attention to the need to stimulate in every way the development of underground Party publishing activities; in addition to publishing illegal leaflets, pamphlets, etc., it is absolutely essential to secure the more frequent and regular issue of the illegal Party organ (the Central Organ).
Written in January 1912
Published in February 1912 in a pamphlet
All-Russian Conference of the R.S.D.L.P.
Central Committee Publishing House,
Paris
Collected Works, Vol. 17, pp. 470, 482
Written September 1913 Published in 1913 in the pamphlet Notification and Resolutions of the Summer, 1913, Joint Conference of the Central Committee of the R.S.D.L.P. and Party Officials. Issued by the Central Committee
Collected Works, Vol. 19, pp. 423-424
171 __ALPHA_LVL2__ Letter to the Editor 172 __ALPHA_LVL2__ Concerning A. BogdanovWhy has it become impossible to have A. Bogdanov as a contributor to workers' newspapers and journals that adhere to a stand of consistent Marxism? Because A. Bogdanov is not a Marxist.
The question of a writer's contributions to the workers' press should be approached from the political angle, i. e., not from the point of view of the writer's style, wit, or popularising talent, but from that of his general trend, from the point of view of what he is bringing into the working masses by his theories. The Marxists are convinced that the sum of A. Bogdanov's literary activities amounts to attempts to instil into the consciousness of the proletariat the touched-up idealistic conceptions of the bourgeois philosophers.
In his letter, published in Novaya Rabochaya Gazeta No. 16, A. Bogdanov concealed the main reason for his disagreement with Pravda.
That reason is that A. Bogdanov has for many years been opposing the philosophy of Marxism and upholding bourgeois idealist views against the materialism of Marx and Engels.
For that reason, the Marxist Bolsheviks several years ago considered it their duty to come out against Bogdanov. For the same reason the Marxist Mensheviks, in the person of G. V. Plekhanov, are conducting a literary struggle against Bogdanov. And lastly, for the very same reason, even the so-called Vperyod group has broken with Bogdanov.
True, ever since Bogdanov began to contribute to Pravda, we doubted whether he would refrain from carrying his fight against the philosophy of Marxism into the columns of the workers' newspaper. Unfortunately, A. Bogdanov hastened to confirm our fears. After getting several small popular articles on innocuous subjects, published in Pravda, he shortly submitted an article entitled ``Ideolog'', in which, in the most ``popular'' manner, he launched an attack upon the philosophy of Marxism. The editors refused to publish that anti-Marxist article. This was the cause of the conflict.
We advise A. Bogdanov, instead of complaining about "family rows", to get that article entitled ``Ideology'' published (the liquidationist newspaper will not, of course, refuse hospitality to an anti-Marxist article). All Marxists will then be able to see the real reason for our disagreement with Bogdanov, concerning which he said not a word in his lengthy letter.
We believe that the workers have set up a newspaper of their own in order that it should advocate Marxism, and not have its columns used to distort Marxism in the spirit of bourgeois ``scholars''.
We are also very glad that A. Bogdanov has once again raised the question of the article on the Vperyod group, which he sent to Pravda last summer. Since A. Bogdanov desires it, he will receive (in Prosveshcheniye) a detailed statement about the number of untruths that article contained, and about the immense harm that adventurist group has caused the working-class movement in Russia.
Put Pravdy No. 21, February 25, 1914
Collected Works, Vol. 20, pp. 121, 122
__ALPHA_LVL2__ To V. B. StonkevichCracow, March 24, 1914 Dear V. B.,
Since I do not in the main agree with the programme of your journal as you have set it forth, I must decline to be a contributor.
Yours faithfully,
V. Ilyin
Wl. Uljanow. 51. Ulica Lubomirskiego. Krakow.
Sent to St. Petersburg
Collected Works, Vol. 36, p. 276
First published in 1930 in Lenin Miscellany XIII
Put Pravdy No. 9, January 31, 1914
Collected Works, Vol. 20, pp. 93-94
172 173T
__ALPHA_LVL2__ To A. G. ShlyapnikovDear Alexander,
I wrote to you briefly yesterday. Today I want to have a further talk.
I am revolted by the ``conditions'' laid down by the Japanese. That two editors should have the right to decide on inserting an article written for discussion purposes by a contributor! Not even three, but only two: in other words, the publishers ``depend'' on no one but themselves.
The meaning of this clause is clear: they want to hide behind Radek and inflame our differences with him and with the P.S.D. This is not discussion, but the height of intrigue, the utmost cravenness. It's just as it was in Paris in 1911, when we were ``dragged'' into a discussion with Rappoport, or Lyova, or Viktoryonok, or Bogdanov! I have written to you that the Polish Gazeta Robotnicza (February 1916} is attacking us just like those Parisians did then.
In no circumstances will I join an editorial board which is intriguing in this way, under the guise of discussion. If you, Japanese, want to help to disorganise our Party, do it on your own responsibility. Your purse is full. Go ahead and publish the ``discussion'' by Radek or Gazeta Robotnicza: then the Russian workers will see at once that you are intriguers, and will kick you out. But you want to play this mean trick under cover of a "collective board". Sorry, but I won't accept this and will expose you. That is my reply to the Japanese on this question.
The same goes for "equal rights" (the elimination of the seventh member, or voting on him). This is a continuation of the old ``game''. What has Party membership got to do with it ? The point is that we are to give "equal rights" to people who have shown themselves in the negative! Why should we ? Equal rights =the right to spoil the work! In the name of what? For what purpose? To make dissension permanent?
No. If they want to make a new experiment, we shall take a new journal, or more precisely miscellany, and try (the old confidence has been undermined) to issue one with an editorial board of seven. We shall make the experiment: this is the maximum concession which I can conscientiously allow. If the experiment fails, the intriguers and the capitalists lose nothing, because the ``purse'' can always be withdrawn. And we shall then issue our own miscellany. One that is simple, clear and without intrigue.
I wish you all the best, and ask you to be patient.
Yours,
__ALPHA_LVL2__ Meeting of the Petrograd Committee of the R.S.D.L.P.The desire of the Petrograd Committee to have a press organ of its own is something new as far as the Central Committee is concerned. It is difficult to understand how such a question could have arisen at a time when arrangements are being made for a printing-press of our own and an agreement is about to be reached with the Inter-District group for getting Comrade Trotsky to edit a popular organ.
In the West, in the capitals or big industrial centres, there is no divison of the press into local and central organs. Such a division is wasteful and harmful. It is not advisable to have a Petrograd Committee organ apart from the Central Organ. Petrograd, as a separate locality, does not exist. Petrograd is the geographical, political and revolutionary centre of all Russia. The life of Petrograd is being followed by the whole of Russia. Every step of Petrograd's is a guideline for whole of Russia. In view of this the life of the Petrograd Committee cannot be treated as a local affair.
Why not accept the Central Committee's suggestion that a Press Committee be formed ? In the history of the press in the West, where such committees have existed, there have of course been occasional misunderstandings between the editorial board and the committee, but these were due entirely to disagreements on policy. What grounds are there for any disagreements on policy between the Petrograd Committee and the Central Committee? Whether we want it or not the organ of the Petrograd Committee will always be the leading organ of the Party.
The experience gained in establishing an organ of its own would quickly convince the Petrograd Committee that it is impossible to confine the paper to local affairs. The Central Committee does not deny the need for giving more space to the Petrograd branch in the newspapers. The Central Committee does not deny the need for a popular organ that would bring our slogans home to the masses. But the establishment of a popular newspaper is a difficult job that calls for considerable experience. That is why the Central Committee is enlisting the services of Comrade Trotsky, who has succeeded in establishing his own popular ogran---Russkaya Gazeta.
In the history of the West the question of a popular organ has never been so acute as it is with us. The level of the masses there rose more evenly as a result of the cultural and educational work done by the Liberals. In countries
Lenin
Written after June 4,1916 Sent from Zurich to Christiania First published in 1929 in the journal Proletarskaya Revolutsia No. 7
Collected Works, Vol. 36, pp. 401-402
174 175like Bohemia there are such popular organs. The purpose of a popular organ is to elevate the reader to an understanding of the leading party organ. If we do not establish a popular organ other parties will win the masses and use them to speculate with. The popular organ should not be of a local type, but owing to postal difficulties it is bound primarily to serve the needs of Petrograd. In order that local needs be adequately served the Petrograd Committee should secure proper representation on the editorial board of the paper.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ 2. DRAFT RESOLUTIONS INTRODUCED AT THE MEETING OF THEFirst Resolution
The Central Committee is to issue two newspapers in Petrograd---the Central Organ and a popular paper with a single editorial board. The Petrograd Committee is to receive a consultative voice on the editorial board of the Central Organ, and a vote in the popular organ. The Central Committee is to devote a definite number of columns in both papers to items of local interest.
Second Resolution
The Petrograd Committee resolves to co-operate in both papers published by the Central Committee on the conditions proposed by the latter, and to make every effort to serve the needs of local activities more fully and widely and to work out in greater detail the general line of the Party. Having reason to fear that the Central Committee or the editorial board appointed by it may place too much trust in the internationalist comrades who have disagreed with Bolshevism in the past, that the Central Committee may cramp the freedom and independence of action of the local comrades, that the Central Committee may not give them the influence they are entitled to as leaders of local activities, the Petrograd Committee is to elect a committee to formulate precise guarantees of the rights of the Petrograd Committee in the local department of both papers.
at a meeting of the P.C. held on Tuesday, May 30. Will you please discuss these three resolutions and give us your well-considered opinion on them in the fullest possible detail.
On the question as to whether a separate paper for the Petrograd organisation is needed or not, the P.C. and the C.C. hold conflicting views. It is essential and desirable that the greatest possible number of Party members in Petrograd should take an active part in the discussion of this growing conflict and help, by their decision, to settle it.
The Executive of the P.C. has expressed itself unanimously in favour of a separate press organ for the Petrograd Committee, despite the C.C.'s decision to establish two newspapers in place of Pravda, the size of which is obviousy, inadequate. These two papers are: the old Pravda, as the Party's Central Organ, and a small Narodnaya Pravda (the names of the two papers have not yet been definitely decided upon), as a popular organ for the masses. The two papers, according to the decision of the C.C., are to have a single editorial board, and the P.C. is to have a representative on each paper (one with a consultative voice on the Central Organ, and a voting representative on the popular organ). A Press Committee is to be set up (consisting of workers from the districts who are in close touch with the masses) and a definite number of columns in both papers are to be set aside for the needs of the local labour movement.
That is the plan of the C.C.
The Executive of the P.C., on the other hand, wants a special paper of its own. The Executive has decided upon this unanimously.
At the meeting of the P.C. held on May 30, after the report by Comrade M. Tomsky and his speech winding up the debate, after my own speech and the discussion in which many comrades participated, there was an equal division of votes---fourteen in favour of the Executive and fourteen against it. My motion was rejected by sixteen votes to twelve.
My own view is that there is no fundamental need for a special organ of the P.C. In view of the capital's leading role and country-wide influence, only one organ of the Party is needed there, namely, the Central Organ, and a popular paper to be put out in a specially popular form by the same editorial board.
A special organ of the P.C. is bound to create obstacles towards harmonious work and may even give rise to different lines (or shadings) of policy, which would be extremely harmful, especially at a time of revolution.
Why should we split up our forces ?
We are all terribly overworked and have few people to do the work; the party writers are siding more and more with the defencists. Under the circumstances we cannot afford any dispersion of efforts.
We must concentrate our efforts, not disperse them.
Are there any grounds for mistrusting the C.C., for believing that it will not select the editorial board properly, or not give sufficient space in both
177First published in 1928 in the journal Krasnaya Letopis (Red Annals) No. 3 (14)
Collected Works, Vol. 24 pp. 543-545
__ALPHA_LVL2__ Letter to the District Committees of the PetrogradDear comrades,
I enclose a resolution of the Petrograd Committee concerning the establishment of a paper of its own, and two resolutions introduced by me on behalf of the Central Committee of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party
176papers to local activities, or that it will ``bully'' the P.C.'s editors, who will be in the minority, and so on?
In my second draft resolution I specially listed some of these arguments (which I heard mentioned at the P.C. meeting on May 30) in order to put the issue frankly before all members of the Party so as to make them weigh each of the two arguments carefully and arrive at a well-considered decision.
If you, comrades, have weighty and serious reasons for not trusting the C.C., then say so openly. It is the duty of every member of our democratically organised Party to do so, and then it would be the duty of our Party's C.C. to give special consideration to this distrust of yours, report it to the Party congress and enter into special negotiations with a view to overcoming this deplorable lack of confidence in the C.C. on the part of the local organisation.
If there is no such lack of confidence, then it is unfair and wrong to challenge the C.C.'s right, vested in it by the Party congress, to direct the activities of the Party in general and its activities in the capital in particular.
Is our C.C. asking too much in wanting to direct the Petrograd papers ? It is not. In the German Social-Democratic Party, in its best days, when Wilhelm Liebknecht stood at the head of the party for scores of years, he was the editor of the party's Central Organ. The C.O. was published in Berlin. The Berlin organisation never had a special Berlin paper of its own. There was a Press Committee of workers, and there was a local section in the party's Central Organ. Why should we depart from this good example which our comrades in other countries have set us ?
If you, comrades, desire special guarantees from the C.C., if you want changes made in one or another point of the C.C.'s plan for the establishment of two papers, I would ask you on behalf of the C.C. to carefully consider the matter and present your views.
I believe that the decision of the P.C.'s Executive to establish a special newspaper in Petrograd is utterly wrong and undesirable, because it splits up our forces and introduces into our Party the elements of conflict. In my opinion ---and on this point I merely voice the view of the C.C.---it is desirable that the Petrograd organisation should support the decision of the C.C., give itself time to check results from the experience of the two papers working according to the C.C.'s plan, and then, if need be, pass a special decision on the results of that experiment.
With comradely Social-Democratic greetings,
May 31, 1917
N. Lenin
__NUMERIC_LVL1__ Section IV __ALPHA_LVL1__ FREEDOM OF THE PRESS __ALPHA_LVL2__ Lecture on the 1905 RevolutionOctober and December 1905 marked the highest point in the rising tide of the Russian revolution. All the wellsprings of the people's revolutionary strength flowed in a wider stream than ever before. The number of strikers---which in January 1905, as I have already told you, was 440,000---reached over half a million in October 1905 (in a single month!). To this number,which applies only to factory workers, must be added several hundred thousand railway workers, postal and telegraph employees, etc.
The general railway strike stopped all rail traffic and paralysed the power of the government in the most effective manner. The doors of the universities were flung wide open, and the lecture halls, which in peace time were used solely to befuddle youthful minds with pedantic professorial wisdom and to turn the students into docile servants of the bourgeoisie and tsarism, now became the scene of public meetings at which thousands of workers, artisans and office workers openly and freely discussed political issues.
Freedom of the press was won. The censorship was simply ignored. No publisher dared send the obligatory censorcopy to the authorities, and the authorities did not dare take any measure against this. For the first time in Russian history, revolutionary newspapers appeared freely in St. Petersburg and other towns. In St. Petersburg alone, three Social-Democratic daily papers were published, with circulations ranging from 50,000 to 100,000.
The proletariat marched at the head of the movement. It set out to win the eight-hour day by revolutionary action. "An Eight-Hour Day and Arms!" was the fighting slogan of the St. Petersburg proletariat. That the fate of the
First published in 1925
in the journal Krasnaya Letopis
No. 3 (14)
Collected Works, Vol. 31, pp. 552-555
178 179revolution could, and would, be decided only by armed struggle was becoming obvious to an ever-increasing mass of workers.
In the fire of battle, a peculiar mass organisation was formed, the famous Soviets of Workers' Deputies, comprising delegates from all factories. In several cities these Soviets of Workers' Deputies began more and more to play the part of a provisional revolutionary government, the part of organs and leaders of the uprising. Attempts were made to organise Soviets of Soldiers' and Sailors' Deputies and to combine them with the Soviets of Workers' Deputies.
For a time several cities in Russia became something in the nature of small local ``republics''. The government authorities were deposed and the Soviet of Workers' Deputies actually functioned as the new government. Unfortunately, these periods were all too brief, the ``victories'' were too weak, too isolated.
The peasant movement in the autumn of 1905 reached still greater dimensions. Over one-third of all the uyezds were affected by the so-called "peasant disorders" and regular peasant uprisings. The peasants burned down no less than two thousand estates and distributed among themselves the food stocks of which the predatory nobility had robbed the people.
Unfortunately, this work was not thorough enough! Unfortunately, the peasants destroyed only one-fifteenth of the total number of landed estates, only one-fifteenth part of what they should have destroyed in order to wipe the shame of large feudal landownership from the face of the Russian earth. Unfortunately, the peasants were too scattered, too isolated from each other in their actions; they were not organised enough, not aggressive enough, and therein lies one of the fundamental reasons for the defeat of the revolution.
Skobelevs, are working in an organised manner for their own good. And they don't have to be silenced.
All we have is the right of speech.
And of this right they want to deprive us.
Pravda is barred from the front. The ICiev ``agents'' have decided not to distribute Pravda. The Zemstvo Union is not selling Pravda in its newspaper stands. And now we are promised a "systematic fight against the preaching of Leninism" (Izvestia). On the other hand, every spontaneous protest, every excess, wherever it comes from, is blamed on us.
This, too, is a method for combating Bolshevism.
A well-tried method.
Unable as they are to get clear guidelines, aware instinctively how false and unsatisfactory is the position of the official leaders of democracy, the masses are compelled to grope a way out for themselves.
The result is that every dissatisfied, class-conscious revolutionary, every angered fighter who yearns for his village home and sees no end to the war, and sometimes simply men who are out to save their own skins, rally to the banner of Bolshevism.
Where Bolshevism has a chance to air its views openly, there we find no disorganisation.
Where there are no Bolsheviks or where they are not allowed to speak, there we find excesses, demoralisation, and pseudo-Bolsheviks.
And that is just what our enemies need.
They need a pretext for saying: ,,The Bolsheviks are demoralising the army" and then shutting the Bolsheviks' mouths.
To dispose once for all of ``enemy'' slander and the ridiculous distortions of Bolshevism, we quote the concluding part of a leaflet distributed in the army by one of our delegates on the eve of the All-Russia Congress.
Here it is:
"Comrades, you must have your say.
"Do not let us have any agreements with the bourgeoisie!
"All power to the Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies!
``This does not mean that we must immediately overthrow the present government or disobey it. So long as the majority of the people support it and believe that five socialists can cope with all the rest, we cannot afford to fritter away our forces in desultory uprisings.
``Never!
``Husband your strength! Get together at meetings! Pass resolutions! Demand that all power be handed over to the Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies! Convince those who disagree with us! Send your resolution to me at the Congress inPetrograd in the name of your regiment, so that I can quote your voice there!
``But beware of those who, posing as Bolsheviks, will try to provoke you to riots and disturbances as a screen for their own cowardice! Know that though they are with you now, they will sell you out to the old regime at the first hint of danger.
``The real Bolsheviks call you to conscious revolutionary struggle, and not to riots.
Written in German before
January 9 (22), 1917
First published in Pravda No. 18,
January 22, 1925
Signed: N. Lenin
Collected Works, Vol. 23, pp. 247-249
__ALPHA_LVL2__ Bolshevism and ``Demoralisation'' of the ArmyEverybody is screaming for "strong government". The only salvation is in a dictatorship, in "iron discipline", in silencing and reducing to obedience all the refractory members of the Right and Left. We know whom they wish to silence. The Rights are making no noise, they are working. Some of them in the government, others at the factories, all of them with threats of lockouts, orders for the disbanding of regiments, and the threat of penal servitude. The Konovalovs and the Tereshchenkos, with the help of the Kerenskys and the
180 181``Comrades! The All-Russia Congress will elect representatives, to whom, pending the convocation of the Constituent Assembly, the Provisional Government will be accountable.
``Comrades! At that Congress I shall demand:
``First, that all power be handed over to the Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies.
``Second, that a proposal for peace without annexations or indemnities be made immediately in the name of our people to the peoples and governments of all the belligerent nations, both our Allies andour enemies. If any government tries to turn it down it will be overthrown by its own people.
``Third, that the money which people have made out of the war should be converted to state needs by way of confiscation of the capitalists' war profits.
``Comrades! Only by the transfer of power to the democracy in Russia, Germany, and France, only by the overthrow of the bourgeois governments in all countries, can the war be ended.
"Our revolution has started this, and it is our task now to give a further impetus to the world revolution by having a fully authorised popular Russian government make an offer of peace to all the governments of Europe and by strengthening our alliance with the revolutionary democrats of Western Europe.
"Woe betide the bourgeois government that will persist in continuing the war after this.
"Together with its people we shall make revolutionary war upon that government.
``It is to say all this to our government in Petrograd in your name that I have been elected to the Congress in Petrograd.
``Member of the Army Committee of the llth Army, Delegate of the Central Committee of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks) to the Congress of the South-Western Front, Ensign Krylenko."
No one who has taken the trouble to read our Party's resolutions can fail to see that the gist of them has been correctly expressed by Comrade Krylenko.
The Bolsheviks are calling the proletariat, the poor peasants and all the toiling and exploited people to a conscious revolutionary struggle, and not to riots and disturbances.
Only a genuine government of the people, a government belonging to the majority of the nation, is capable of following the right path leading mankind to the overthrow of the capitalist yoke, to deliverance from the horrors and misery of the imperialist war, and to a just and lasting peace.
Pravda No. 72,
Collected Works, Vol. 24, pp. 570-572
June 16 (3), 1917
and real power. That is one of the chief characteristics of every revolutionary period. It was not clear in March and April 1917 whether real power was in the hands of the government or the Soviet.
Now, however, it is particularly important for class-conscious workers to soberly face the fundamental issue of revolution, namely, who holds state power at the moment? Consider its material manifestations, do not mistake words for deeds, and you will have no difficulty in finding the answer.
Frederick Engels once wrote the state is primarily contingents of armed men with material adjuncts, such as prisons. Now it is the military cadets and the reactionary Cossacks, who have been specially brought to Petrograd, those who are keeping Kamenev and the others in prison, who closed down Pravda, who disarmed the workers and a certain section of the soldiers, who are shooting down an equally certain section of the soldiers, who are shooting down an equally certain section of troops in the army. These butchers are the real power. The Tseretelis and Chernovs are ministers without power, puppet Ministers, leaders of parties that support the butchery. That is a fact. And the fact is no less true because Tsereteli and Chernov themselves probably "do not approve" of the butchery, or because their papers timidly dissociate themselves from it. Such changes of political garb change nothing in substance.
The newspaper of 150,000 Petrograd voters has been closed down. The military cadets on July 6 killed the worker Voinov for carrying Listok "Pravdy" out of the printers'. Isn't that butchery ? Isn't that the handiwork of Cavaignacs ? But neither the government nor the Soviets are to ``blame'' for this, they may tell us.
So much the worse for the government and the Soviets, we reply; for that means that they are mere figureheads, puppets, and that real power is not in their hands.
Primarily, and above all, the people must know the truth--- they must know who actually wields state power. The people must be told the whole truth, namely, that power is in the hands of a military clique of Cavaignacs (Kerensky, certain generals, officers, etc.), who are supported by the bourgeois class headed by the Cadet Party, and by all the monarchists, acting through the Black Hundred papers, Novoye Vremya, Zhivoye Slovo, etc., etc.
That power must be overthrown. Unless this is done, all talk of fighting the counter-revolution is so much phrase-mongering, "self-deception and deception of the people''.
That power now has the support both of the Tseretelis and Chernovs in the Cabinet and of their parties. We must explain to the people the butcher's role they are playing and the fact that such a ``finale'' for these parties was inevitable after their ``errors'' of April 21, May 5, June 9 and July 4 and after their approval of the policy of an offensive, a policy which went nine-tenths of the way to predetermining the victory of the Cavaignacs in July.
All agitational work among the people must be reorganised to ensure that it takes account of the specific experience of the present revolution, and particul-
__ALPHA_LVL2__ On SlogansWe said that the fundamental issue of revolution is the issue of power. We must add that it is revolutions that show us at every step how the question of where actual power lies is obscured, and reveal the divergence between formal
182 183arly of the July days, i. e., that it clearly points to the real enemy of the people, the military clique, the Cadets and the Black Hundreds, and that it definitely unmasks the petty-bourgeois parties, the Socialist-Revolutionary and Menshevik parties, which played and are playing the part of butcher's aides.
All agitational work among the people must be reorganised so as to make clear that it is absolutely hopeless to expect the peasants to obtain land as long as the power of the military clique has not been overthrown, and as long as the Socialist-Revolutionary and Menshevik parties have not been exposed and deprived of the people's trust. That would be a very long and arduous process under the ``normal'' condition of capitalist development, but both the war and economic disruption will tremendously accelerate it. These are ``accelerators'' that may make a mouth or oven a week equal to a year.
The substitution of the abstract for the concrete is one of the greatest and most dangerous sins in a revolution. The present Soviets have failed, have suffered complete defeat, because they are dominated by the Socialist-- Revolutionary and Menshevik parties. At the moment these Soviets are like sheep brought to the slaughterhouse and bleating pitifully under the knife. The Soviets at present are powerless and helpless against the triumphant and triumphing counter-revolution. The slogan calling for the transfer of power to the Soviets might be construed as a ``simple'' appeal for the transfer of power to the present Soviets, and to say that, to appeal for it, would now mean deceiving the people. Nothing is more dangerous than deceit.
The cycle of development of the class and party struggle in Russia from February 27 to July 4 is complete. A new cycle is beginning, one that involves not the old classes, not the old parties, not the old Soviets, but classes, parties and Soviets rejuvenated in the fire of struggle, tempered, schooled and refashioned by the process of the struggle. We must look forward, not backward. We must operate not with the old, but with the new, post-July, class and party categories. We must, at the beginning of the new cycle, proceed from the triumphant bourgeois counter-revolution, which triumphed because the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks compromised with it, and which can be defeated only by the revolutionary proletariat. Of course, in this new cycle there will be many and various stages, both before the complete victory of the counter-revolution and the complete defeat (without a struggle) of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, and before a new upsurge of a new revolution. But it will only be possible to speak of this later, as each of these stages is reached.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ Our Thanks to Prince G. Y. LvovThe proletariat will never resort to slander. They will close down the bourgeoisie's newspapers after openly declaring by law, by government decree, that the capitalists and their defenders are enemies of the people. The bourgeoisie, in the shape of our enemy, the government, and the petty bourgeoisie, in the shape of the Soviets, are afraid to say a single open and frank word about the ban on Pravda, about the reason for closing it down. The proletariat will tell the truth instead of resorting to slander. They will tell the peasants and everyone else the truth about the bourgeois newspapers and why they must be closed down.
Proletarskoye Dyelo No. 5, August 1 (July 19), 1917
Collected Works, Vol. 25, p. 193
__ALPHA_LVL2__ How to Guarantee the Success of the ConstituentIn early April, setting out the Bolsheviks' attitude to the question of whether the Constituent Assembly should be convened, I wrote:
``Yes, and as soon as possible. But there is only one way to assure its convocation and success, and that is by increasing the number and strength of the Soviets and organising and arming the working-class masses. This is the only guarantee" (Political Parties in Russia and the Tasks of the Proletariat, Cheap Library of Zhizn i Znaniye, Book III, pp. 9 and 29).
Five months have passed since then and these words have been proved correct by several delays in and postponements of the convocation through the fault of the Cadets. And they have been well borne out by the Kornilov affair.
Now, in connection with the calling of the Democratic Conference on September 12, I should like to dwell on another aspect of the matter.
Both the Menshevik Rabochaya Gazeta and Dyelo Naroda have deplored the fact that very little is being done for campaigning among the peasants to enlighten this real mass of the Russian people, their real majority. Everyone realises and admits that the success of the Constituent Assembly depends on
Written in mid-July 1917 Published in pamphlet form in 1917 by the Kronstadt Committee of the R.S.D.L.P. (B.)
Collected Works, Vol. 25, pp. 187-190
184 185the enlightenment of the peasants, but ridiculously little is being done about it. The peasants are being deceived, fooled and intimidated by the utterly deceitful and counter-revolutionary bourgeois and ``yellow'' press, in comparison with which the press of the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries (not to speak of the Bolsheviks) is very, very weak.
Why is that so?
Because the ruling S.R. and Menshevik parties are weak, hesitant and inactive, because, disagreeing that all power should be taken over by the Soviets, they leave the peasants in ignorance and solitude, a prey to the capitalists, to their press and their propaganda.
While boastfully calling our revolution great and shouting to the right and left high-sounding, bombastic phrases about "revolutionary democracy", the Mensheviks and S.R.s in effect leave Russia in the conditions of a most ordinary, most petty-bourgeois revolution which, having overthrown the tsar, leaves everything else unchanged and does nothing, absolutely nothing, effective to enlighten the peasants politically and to end the peasants' ignorance, that last (and strongest) bulwark, the bulwark of the exploiters and oppressors of the people.
This is the time to recall that. It is now, with the Democratic Conference before us, two months ahead of the ``appointed'' convocation of the Constituent Assembly (to be further postponed), that we must show how easily matters could be put right, how much could be done for the political education of the peasants, if only---if only our "revolutionary democrats" in inverted commas were really revolutionary, i.e., capable of acting in a revolutionary way, and really democratic, i.e., reckoning with the will and interests of the majority of the people, and not of the capitalist minority, which continues to hold power (the Kerensky government) and with which, either directly or indirectly, in a new or old form, the S.R.s and Mensheviks are still eager to compromise.
The capitalists (followed, either from stupidity of from inertia, by many S.R.s and Mensheviks) call "freedom of the press" a situation in which censorship has been abolished and all parties freely publish all kinds of papers.
In reality it is not freedom of the press, but freedom for the rich, for the bourgeoisie, to deceive the oppressed and exploited mass of the people.
Indeed, take, say, the Petrograd and Moscow newspapers. You will see at once that it is the bourgeois papers---Rech, Birzhevka, Novoye Vremya, Russkoye Slovo, and so on, and so forth (for there are a great many papers of this sort)---that have by far the largest circulation. What makes for this prevalence? Not at all the will of the majority, for the elections have shown that in both capitals the majority (a gigantic majority, too) favours the democrats, i.e., the S.R.s, Mensheviks and Bolsheviks. These three parties command from three-quarters to four-fifths of the votes, while the circulation of the newspapers they publish is certainly less than a quarter, or even less than one-fifth, that of the whole bourgeois press (which, as we know and see now, supported the Kornilov affair directly and indirectly).
186Why is that so?
Everyone knows very well why. Because the publication of a newspaper is a big and profitable capitalist undertaking in which the rich invest millions upon millions of rubles. "Freedom of the press" in bourgeois society means freedom for the rich systematically, unremittingly, daily, in millions of copies, to deceive, corrupt and fool the exploited and oppressed mass of the people, the poor.
This is the simple, generally known, obvious truth which everyone sees and realises but which "almost everyone" ``bashfully'' passes over in silence, timidly evades.
The question is whether and how this crying evil can be fought.
First of all, there is a very simple, good and lawful means which I pointed out in Pravda long ago, which it is particularly opportune to recall now, before September 12, and which workers should always bear in mind, for they will hardly be able to do without it when they have won political power.
That means is a state monopoly on private press advertising.
Look at Russkoye Slovo, Novoye Vremya, Birzhevka, Rech, etc.---you will see a multitude of private advertisements, which yield a tremendous income, in fact the principal income, to their capitalist publishers. This is how bourgeois papers hold sway, how they get rich, and how they deal in poison for the people all over the world.
In Europe there are newspapers which have a circulation as large as onethird the number of inhabitants of the town (for instance, 12,000 copies in a town with a population of 40,000) and are delivered free to every home, and yet yield their owners a sizable income. These papers live by advertisements paid by private people, while the free delivery of the paper to every home ensures the best circulation of the advertisements.
Then why cannot democrats who call themselves revolutionary carry out a measure like declaring private press advertising a state monopoly, or banning advertisements anywhere outside the newspapers published by the Soviets in the provincial towns and cities and by the central Soviet in Petrograd for the whole of Russia ? Why must ``revolutionary'' democrats tolerate such a thing as the enrichment, through private advertising, of rich men, Kornilov backers, and spreaders of lies and slander against the Soviets?
Such a measure would be absolutely just. It would greatly benefit both those who published private advertisements and the whole people, particularly the most oppressed and ignorant class, the peasants, who would be able to have Soviet papers, with supplements for the peasants, at a very low price or even free of charge.
Why not do that? Only because private property and hereditary rights (to profits from advertising) are sacred to the capitalist gentlemen. But how can anyone calling himself a revolutionary democrat in the twentieth century, in the second Russian revolution, recognise such rights as ``sacred'' ?!
Some may say it would mean infringing freedom of the press.
187That is not true. It would mean extending and restoring freedom of the press, for freedom of the press means that all opinions of all citizens may be freely published.
What do we have now ? Now, the rich alone have this monopoly, and also the big parties. Yet if large Soviet newspapers were to be published, with all advertisements, it would be perfectly feasible to guarantee the expression of their opinion to a much greater number of citizens---say, to every group having collected a certain number of signatures. Freedom of the press would in practice become much more democratic, would become incomparably more complete as a result.
But some may ask: where would we get printing presses and newsprint?
There we have it!!! The issue is not "freedom of the press" but the exploiters' sacrosanct ownership of the printing presses and stocks of newsprint they have seized!
Just why should we workers and peasants recognise that sacred right? How is that ``right'' to publish false information better than the ``right'' to own serfs ?
Why is it that in war-time all sorts of requisitioning---of houses, flats, vehicles, horses, grain and metals---are allowed and practised everywhere, while the reguisitioning of printing presses and newsprint is impermissible ?
The workers and peasants may in fact be deceived for a while if such measures are made out to be unjust or hard to realise, but the truth will win through in the end.
State power in the shape of the Soviets takes all the printing presses and all the newsprint and distributes them equitably: the state should come first---in the interests of the majority of the people, the majority of the poor, particularly the majority of the peasants, who for centuries have been tormented, crushed and stultified by the landowners and capitalists.
The big parties should come second---say, those that have polled one or two hundred thousand votes in both capitals.
The smaller parties should come third, and then any group of citizens which has a certain number of members or has collected a certain number of signatures.
This is the distribution of newsprint and printing presses that would be just and, with the Soviets in power, could be effected easily enough.
Then, two months before the Constituent Assembly, we could really help the peasants by ensuring the delivery to every village of half a dozen pamphlets (or newspaper issues, or special supplements) in millions of copies from every big party.
That would truly be a "revolutionary-democratic" preparation for the elections to the Constituent Assembly; it would be aid to the countryside on the part of the advanced workers and soldiers. It would be state aid to the people's enlightenment, and not to their stultification and deception; it would be real freedom of the press for all, and not for the rich. It would be a break
188with that accursed, slavish past which compels us to suffer the usurpation by the rich of the great cause of informing and teaching the peasants.
Rabochy Put No. 11, September 28 (15), 1917 Signed: N. Lenin
Collected Works, Vol. 25, pp. 374-379
__ALPHA_LVL2__ The Tasks of the Revolution6. The Kornilov and Kaledin revolt was supported by the entire class of the landowners and capitalists, with the party of the Cadets ("people's freedom" party) at their head. This has already been fully proved by the facts published in Izvestia of the Central Executive Committee.
However, nothing has been done either to suppress this counter-revolution completely or even to investigate it, and nothing serious can be done without the transfer of power to the Soviets. No commission can conduct a full investigation, or arrest the guilty, etc., unless it holds state power. Only a Soviet government can do this, and must do it. Only a Soviet government can make Russia secure against the otherwise inevitable repetition of ``Kornilov'' attempts by arresting the Kornilovite generals and the ringleaders of the bourgeois counter-revolution (Guchkov, Milyukov, Ryabushinsky, Maklakov and Co.), by disbanding the counter-revolutionary associations (the State Duma, the officers' unions, etc.), by placing their members under the surveillance of the local Soviets and by disbanding counter-revolutionary armed units.
This government alone can set up a commission to make a full and public investigation of the Kornilov case and all the other cases, even those started by the bourgeoisie; and the party of the Bolsheviks, in its turn, would appeal to the workers to give full co-operation and to submit only to such a commission.
Only a Soviet government could successfully combat such a flagrant injustice as the capitalists' seizure of the largest printing presses and most of the papers with the aid of millions squeezed out of the people. It is necessary to suppress the bourgeois counter-revolutionary papers (Rech, Russkoye Slovo, etc.), to confiscate their printing presses, to declare private advertisements in the papers a state monopoly, to transfer them to the paper published by the Soviets, the paper that tells the peasants the truth. Only in this way can and must
189the bourgeoisie be deprived of its powerful weapon of lying and slandering, deceiving the people with impunity, misleading the peasantry, and preparing a counter-revolution.
newspapers were closed down after the overthrow of tsarism. Now we have thrown off the bourgeois yoke. We did not invent the social revolution: it was proclaimed by the Congress of the Soviets---no one protested, all adopted the decree proclaiming it. The bourgeoisie proclaimed liberty, equality and fraternity. The workers say: "We want something else." We are told that we are retreating. No, comrades, it is the Socialist-Revolutionaries who are returning to Kerensky. We are told that there are new elements in our resolution. Of course there are, because we are advancing to socialism. When the Socialist-Revolutionaries made speeches in the First and the Second Duma, they were also ridiculed for saying something new.
There should be a monopoly of private advertisements. The members of the printers' union look at them from the point of view of income. They will get it, but in another form. We cannot provide the bourgeoisie with an opportunity for slandering us. We must appoint a commission right away to probe the ties between the banks and the bourgeois newspapers. What kind of freedom do these newspapers want? Isn't it freedom to buy rolls of newsprint and hire crowds of penpushers ? We must escape from the freedom of a press dependent on capital. This is a matter of principle. If we are to advance to socialism we cannot allow Kaledin's bombs to be reinforced by the bombs of falsehood.
Of course, our draft law is not perfect. But it will be applied everywhere by the Soviets in accordance with their local conditions. We are not bureaucrats and do not want to insist on the letter of the law everywhere, as was the practice in the old government offices. I recall the Socialist-Revolutionaries saying that people in the countryside knew so,very little. They were getting their information from Russkoye Slovo. We should blame ourselves for leaving the newspapers in the hands of the bourgeoisie. We must go forward, to a new society, and take the same attitude to the bourgeois newspapers as we did to the ultra-reactionary papers in February and March.
Izvestia No. 218,
Collected Works, Vol. 26, pp. 284---286
November 7, 1917
Rabochy Put Nos. 20-21, October 9 and 10 (September 26 and 27), 1917 Signed: N. K.
Collected Works, Vol. 26, pp. 66-67
__ALPHA_LVL2__ Meeting of the All-Russia Central Executive CommitteeComrade Karelin assured us that the way he was taking led to socialism, but I am afraid this would be marching to socialism backwards. Trotsky was right: the officer cadets staged their uprising, and war was declared in Petrograd and Moscow for freedom of the press. This time the Socialist-Revolutionaries did not act at all like socialists or revolutionaries. This week all the telegraph offices were in Kerensky's hands. The Vikzhel was on their side. But they had no troops. It turned out that the army was on our side. The civil war was started by a handful of men. It is not over. Kaledin's troops are approaching Moscow, and the shock troops are approaching Petrograd. We do not want a civil war. Our troops have shown great restraint. They held their fire, and it all began when three of our men were killed. Krasnov was given soft treatment. He was only placed under house arrest. We are against civil war. But if it nevertheless goes on what are we to do? Trotsky was right in asking in whose behalf you spoke? We asked Krasnov whether he could sign on behalf of Kaledin that the latter would not continue the war. He naturally replied that he could not. How can we stop retaliative measures against an enemy who has not stopped his hostile operations ?
We shall negotiate when peace terms are offered to us. But so far peace is being offered to us by those on whom it does not depend. These are only fine words. After all, Rech is an organ of the Kaledinites. We can well allow that the Socialist-Revolutionaries are sincere, but it is, after all, a fact that Kaledin and Milyukov are behind them.
The firmer your stand, soldiers and workers, the more we shall gain. Otherwise they will say to us: "If they've let out Milyukov, they can't be strong." Earlier on we said that if we took power, we intended to close down the bourgeois newspapers. To tolerate the existence of these papers is to cease being a socialist. Those who say: "Open the bourgeois newspapers", fail to understand that we are moving at full speed to socialism. After all, tsarist
190 __ALPHA_LVL2__ Extraordinary Seventh Congress of the R.C.P.(B.)The chief stress is shifted from formal recognition of liberties (such as existed under bourgeois parliamentarism) to actually ensuring the enjoyment of liberties by the working people who are overthrowing the exploiters, e.g., from recogni-
191tion of freedom of assembly to the handing over of all the best halls and premises to the workers, from recognition of freedom of speech to the handing over of all the best printing presses to the workers, and so forth.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ Theses on the Present Political SituationIt is essential to wage a ruthless struggle against the bourgeoisie, which on account of the above circumstances has raised its head during the past few days, and to declare a state of emergency, close newspapers, arrest the leaders and so on. These measures are as necessary as the military campaign against the rural bourgeoisie, who are holding back grain surpluses and infringing the grain monopoly. There will be no salvation either from the counter-- revolution or from famine without iron discipline on the part of the proletariat.
Kommunist No. 5, March 9, 1918
Collected Works, Vol. 27, p. 155
__ALPHA_LVL2__ Extraordinary Fourth All-Russia Congress of SovietsI realise full well that the Russian bourgeoisie are today urging us on towards a revolutionary war when it is absolutely impossible for us to have such a war. This is essential to the class interests of the bourgeoisie.
When they shout about an obscene peace and do not say a word about who brought the army to its present state, I realise quite well that it is the bourgeoisie together with the Dyelo Naroda people, the Tsereteli and Chernov Mensheviks and their yes-men (applause)---I know quite well that it is the bourgeoisie who are bawling for a revolutionary war. Their class interests demand it, their anxiety to see Soviet power make a false move demands it. It is not surprising that this comes from people who, on the one hand, fill the pages of their newspapers with counter-revolutionary scribbling .... (Voices: ``They've all been suppressed!") Unfortunately, not yet all of them, but we will close them all down. (Applause.} I should like to see the proletariat that would allow the counter-revolutionaries, those who support the bourgeoisie and collaborate with them, to continue using the monopoly of wealth to drug the people with their bourgeois opium. There is no such proletariat. (Applause.)
Written May 12 or 13, 1918 First published in 1929 in Lenin Miscellany XI
Collected Works, Vol. 27, p. 363-364
__ALPHA_LVL2__ The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade KautskyProletarian democracy suppresses the exploiters, the bourgeoisie---and is therefore not hypocritical, does not promise them freedom and democracy---and gives the working people genuine democracy. Only Soviet Russia has given the proletariat and the whole vast labouring majority of Russia a. freedom and democracy unprecedented, impossible and inconceivable in any bourgeois democratic republic, by, for example, taking the palaces and mansions away from the bourgeoisie (without which freedom of assembly is sheer hypocrisy), by taking the print-shops and stocks of paper away from the capitalists (without which freedom of the press for the nation's labouring majority is a lie), and by replacing bourgeois parliamentarism by the democratic organisation of the Soviets, which are a thousand times nearer to the people and more democratic than the most democratic bourgeois parliament.
Pravda No. 47 and No. 48, March 16 and 17, 1918
Collected Works, Vol. 27, p. 179
Pravda No. 219, October 11, 1918 Signed: N. Lenin
Collected Works, Vol. 28, p. 108
192 193 __ALPHA_LVL2__ The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade KautskyThe Soviets are the direct organisation of the working and exploited people themselves, which helps them to organise and administer their own state in every possible way. And in this it is the vanguard of the working and exploited people, the urban proletariat, that enjoys the advantage of being best united by the large enterprises; it is easier for it than for all others to elect and exercise control over those elected. The Soviet form of organisation automatically helps to unite all the working and exploited people around their vanguard, the proletariat. The old bourgeois apparatus---the bureaucracy, the privileges of wealth, of bourgeois education, of social connections, etc.(these real privileges are the more varied the more highly bourgeois democracy is developed)---all this disappears under the Soviet form of organisation. Freedom of the press ceases to be hypocrisy, because the printing-plants and stocks of paper are taken away from the bourgeoisie. The same thing applies to the best buildings, the palaces, the mansions and manorhouses. Soviet power took thousands upon thousands of these best buildings from the exploiters at one stroke, and in this way made the right of assembly---without which democracy is a fraud---a million times more democratic for the people. Indirect elections to non-local Soviets make it easier to hold congresses of Soviets, they make the entire apparatus less costly, more flexible, more accessible to the workers and peasants at a time when life is seething and it is necessary to be able very quickly to recall one's local deputy or to delegate him to a general congress of Soviets. Proletarian democracy is a million times more democratic than any bourgeois democracy; Soviet power is a million time more democratic than the most democratic bourgeois republic.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ First Congress of the Communist International8. "Freedom of the press" is another of the principal slogans of "pure democracy". And here, too, the workers know---and socialists everywhere have admitted it millions of times---that this freedom is a deception while the best printing-presses and the biggest stocks of paper are appropriated by the capitalists, and while capitalist rule over the press remains, a rule that is manifested throughout the world all the more strikingly, sharply and cynically the more democracy and the republican system are developed, as in America for example. The first thing to do to win real equality and genuine democracy for the working people, for the workers and peasants, is to deprive capital of the possibility of hiring writers, buying up publishing houses and bribing newspapers. And to do that the capitalists and exploiters have to be overthrown and their resistance suppressed. The capitalists have always used the term ``freedom'' to mean freedom for the rich to get richer and for the workers to starve to death. In capitalist usage, freedom of the press means freedom of the rich to bribe the press, freedom to use their wealth to shape and fabricate so-called public opinion. In this respect, too, the defenders of "pure democracy" prove to be defenders of an utterly foul and venal system that gives the rich control over the mass media. They prove to be deceivers of the people, who, with the aid of plausible, fine-sounding, but thoroughly false phrases, divert them from the concrete historical task of liberating the press from capitalist enslavement. Genuine freedom and equality will be embodied in the system which the Communists are building, and in which there will be no opportunity for amassing wealth at the expense of others, no objective opportunities for putting the press under the' direct or indirect power of money, and no impediments in the way of any workingman (or groups of workingmen, in any numbers) for enjoying and practising equal rights in the use of public printing-presses and public stocks of paper.
Written October-November 1918 Published in pamphlet form in 1918 by Kommunist Publishers, Moscow
Collected Works, Vol. 28, pp. 247-248
Theses published March 6,1919 in Pravda No. 51; report first published in 1920 in the German and in 1921 in the Russian editions of the minutes of the First Congress of the Communist International
Collected Works, Vol. 28, pp. 460-461
194 195 __ALPHA_LVL2__ Eighth Congress of the R.C.P.(B.)We have here a detailed financial report. Of the various items, the largest is in connection with workers' book publishing and with newspapers: 1,000,000, again 1,000,000 and again 1,000,000---3,000,000; Party organisations, 2,800,000; editorial expenses, 3,600,000. More detailed figures are given in this report, which will be duplicated and distributed to all the delegates. Meanwhile the comrades can get their information from the representatives of the groups. Permit me not to read these figures. The comrades who submitted the reports gave in them what is most important and illustrative---the general results of the propaganda work performed in the sphere of publication. The Kommunist Publishing House released sixty-two books. A net profit of 2,000,000 in 1918 was earned by the newspaper Pravda, 25,000,000 copies of which were issued during the year. The newspaper Bednota earned a net profit of 2,370,000 and 33,000,000 copies were issued. The comrades of the Organising Bureau of the Central Committee have promised to rearrange the detailed figures they possess in such a way as to give at least two comparable criteria. It will then be clear what vast educational work is being performed by the Party, which for the first time in history is using modern large-scale capitalist printing equipment in the interests of the workers and peasants and not in the interests of the bourgeoisie. We have been accused thousands and millions of times of having violated the freedom of the press and of having renounced democracy. Our accusers call it democracy when the capitalists can buy out the press and the rich can use the press in their own interests. We call that plutocracy and not democracy. Everything that bourgeois culture has created for the purpose of deceiving the people and defending the capitalists we have taken from them in order to satisfy the political needs of the workers and peasants. And in this respect we have done more than any socialist party has done in a quarter of a century, or in half a century.
Published in Pravda, March-April 1919 Collected Works, Vol. 29, pp. 162-163
__ALPHA_LVL2__ Draft Third Clause of the General Political Section ofBourgeois democracy confined itself to proclaiming formal rights equally applicable to all citizens, e.g., the right of assembly, of association, of the press. At best all legislative restrictions on these points were abolished in the most democratic bourgeois republics. But, in reality, both administrative practices and particularly the economic bondage of the working people always made it impossible for them, under bourgeois democracy, to make any wide use of these rights and liberties.
By contrast, proletarian or Soviet democracy, instead of the formal proclamation of rights and liberties, guarantees them in practice first and foremost to those classes of the population who were oppressed by capitalism, i.e., the proletariat and the peasantry. For this purpose, the Soviet power expropriates from the bourgeoisie premises, printing presses and stocks of paper, and places them at the entire disposal of the working people and their organisations.
The task of the Russian Communist Party is to draw ever wider masses of working people into the exercise of their democratic rights and liberties, and to extend the material possibilities for this.
Written not later than
March 20, 1919
First published on April 22, 1956
in Pravda No. 113
Collected Works, Vol. 36, p. 505
__ALPHA_LVL2__ Speech at the First All-Russia Congress of Workers inFreedom of the press in capitalist society means freedom to trade in publications and in their influence on the masses. Freedom of the press means that the press, a powerful medium for influencing the masses, is maintained at the expense of the capitalists. Such is the freedom of the press that the Bolsheviks violated
196 197and they are proud of having produced the first press free of the capitalists, that in a gigantic country they have for the first time set up a press that does not depend on a handful of rich men and millionaires---a press that is devoted entirely to the struggle against capital, the struggle to which we must subordinate everything. Only the factory proletariat that is capable of leading the peasant masses that are not class-conscious can be the leader, the vanguard, of the working people in this struggle.
We have been, performing this function of "freedom of the press" better than anyone else in the world.
All over the world, wherever there are capitalists, freedom of the press means freedom to buy up newspapers, to buy writers, to bribe, buy and fake "public opinion" for the benefit of the bourgeoisie.
This is a fact.
No one will ever be able to refute it.
And what about us ?
Can anyone deny that the bourgeoisie in this country has been defeated, but not destroyed? That it has gone into hiding? Nobody can deny it.
Freedom of the press in the R.S.F.S.R., which is surrounded by the bourgeois enemies of the whole world, means freedom of political organisation for the bourgeoisie and its most loyal servants, the Mensheviks and SocialistRevolutionaries.
This is an irrefutable fact.
The bourgeoisie (all over the world) is still very much stronger than we are. To place in its hands yet another weapon like freedom of political organisation (= freedom of the press, for the press is the core and foundation of political organisation) means facilitating the enemy's task, means helping the class enemy.
We have no wish to commit suicide, and therefore, we will not do this.
We clearly see this fact: "freedom of the press" means in practice that the international bourgeoisie will immediately buy up hundreds and thousands of Cadet Socialist-Revolutionary and Menshevik writers, and will organise their propaganda and fight against us.
That is a fact. ``They'' are richer than we are and will buy a ``force'' ten times larger than we have, to fight us.
No, we will not do it; we will not help the international bourgeoisie.
How could you descend from a class appraisal---from the appraisal of the relations between all classes---to the sentimental, philistine appraisal? This is a mystery to me.
On the question: "civil peace or civil war", on the question of how we have won over, and will continue to "win over", the peasantry (to the side of the proletariat), on these two key world questions (= questions that affect the very substance of world politics), on these questions (which are dealt with in both your articles), you were able to take the Marxist standpoint, instead of the philistine, sentimental standpoint. You did take account of the relationships of all classes in a practical, sober way.
And suddenly you slide down into the abyss of sentimentalism!
``Outrage and abuses are rife in this country: freedom of the press will expose them.''
That, as far as I can judge from your two articles, is where you slipped up. You have allowed yourself to be depressed by certain sad and deplorable facts, and lost the ability soberly to appraise the forces.
199Pravda No. 170, August 3, 1919
Collected Works, Vol. 29, pp. 534-535
__ALPHA_LVL2__ Letter to G. MyasnikovAugust 5, 1921 Comrade Myasnikov,
I have only just managed to read both your articles. I am unaware of the nature of the speeches you made in the Perm (I think it was Perm) organisation and of your conflict with it. I can say nothing about that; it will be dealt with by the Organisation Bureau, which, I hear, has appointed a special commission.
My object is a different one: it is to appraise your articles as literary and political documents.
They are interesting documents.
Your main mistake is, I think, most clearly revealed in the article "Vexed Questions". And I consider it my duty to do all I can to tryi to convince you
At the beginning of the article you make a correct applicatslon of dialectic. Indeed, whoever fails to understand the substitution of the cogan of "civil, peace" for the slogan of "civil war" lays himself open to ridiule, if nothings worse. In this, you are right.
But presicely because you are right on this point, I am surprised that in drawing your conclusions, you should have forgotten the dialectics which you yourself had properly applied.
``Freedom of the press, from the monarchists to the anarchists, inclusively" .... Very good! But just a minute: every Marxist and every worker who ponders over the four years' experience of our revolution will say, "Let's look into this---what sort of freedom of the press? What for? For which class?"
We do not believe in ``absolutes''. We laugh at "pure democracy''.
The "freedom of the press" slogan became a great world slogan at the close of the Middle Ages and remained so up to the nineteenth century. Why? Because it expressed the ideas of the progressive bourgeoisie, i.e., its struggle against kings and priests, feudal lords and landowners.
No country in the world has done as much to liberate the masses from the^ influence of priests and landowners as the R.S.F.S.R. has done, and is doing.
198