541

Russia Heading Towards Revolution

p Since the Paris Commune of 1871 there had been no mass revolutionary outbreaks in Western Europe. In Russia, however, the tide of mass protest both among the workers and the peasants was mounting rapidly with every decade.

p The imperialist stage of development aggravated still further the contradictions already pertaining in tsarist Russia. Side by side with modern industry and finance capital there still existed mediaeval forms of landownership with the resulting semi-feudal relations in rural areas.

p In no other large European country were such stark social contrasts to be found. The Russia of that period knew both welllit modern cities with enormous factories and luxurious residences of bankers and industrial magnates and tiny remote villages where people dressed in bast shoes and homespun cultivated their land with obsolete ploughs and harvested their crops by hand with sickles, giving up nearly half of their produce to the landowners. Monopoly capital not only chose not to interfere with these remnants of serfdom, but in order to ensure maximum profits even took action to make sure they did not disappear. The country’s general backwardness and the abject poverty of the bulk of the population provided still further opportunities for intensifying the exploitation of the working people.

p The popular masses in Russia suffered not merely as a result of capitalist oppression but also from arbitrary treatment at the hands of the landowners and the despotic tsarist state machinery. This led to an increasingly tense political atmosphere. A nationwide revolution of the popular masses was imminent. It was to be led and organised by the working class, which by this time 542 had gained much useful experience in the strike movement and had been steeled by the class battles of the preceding decades.

p With the industrial crisis at the turn of the century the revolutionary activities of the workers and the peasantry gathered momentum. Workers started striking for political reasons instead of purely economic ones and organising street demonstrations which often gave rise to skirmishes with the police and the tsarist troops. The peasants started to go in for more active foims of protest attacking the landowners, ransacking their estates and seizing their lands by force instead of merely presenting petitions and refusing to carry out traditional labour services. This mounting tide of revolutionary activity also caught up the democratic strata of the intelligentsia, and student protests took place in many university towns.

p In the summer of 1903, what at first had been a series of isolated strikes in the industrial towns of the South developed into an enormous general strike that spread from Odessa and Rostovon-Don as far as Baku and Batumi. It involved two hundred thousand workers of various nationalities—Russians, Ukrainians, Armenians, Georgians and Azerbaijanians.

Strikes of such a size and such cohesion between workers of different nationalities had not yet been seen in any other country at that period. The Russian proletariat was clearly becoming the avant-garde of the international revolutionary movement.

The Founding
of a Revolutionary Marxist Party in Russia

p In order to carry out its historic role successfully, it was imperative that the Russian working class should set up a revolutionary Marxist party. Russian Social-Democrats, ever since the time of the Emancipation of Labour Group, were constantly drawing attention to this fact. The first nucleus of such a party was the League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class, which Lenin had founded in 1895 in St. Petersburg, and which had been suppressed by the police soon afterwards. Three years later, in 1898, representatives of a number of SocialDemocratic organisations held an illegal meeting in Minsk where they announced the founding of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party. Yet this initiative was also nipped in the bud, since those present at the Party’s First Congress were soon arrested, leaving the underground committees and groups scattered all over the country without any central leadership once again.

p In 1900, on the initiative of Lenin, who had recently returned from exile in Siberia, Russian Marxist revolutionaries began 543 publication in Stuttgart of a newspaper called hkra (The Spark). The editorial of the first copy entitled "The Urgent Tasks of Our Movement" was by Lenin.

p In tsarist Russia where there was no freedom of speech, of assembly or association this underground newspaper was the only means of carrying out wide-scale political agitation and organising the ranks of the progressive workers. Copies of Iskra printed abroad were smuggled into Russia through Rumania, Iran, Finland, Germany and other countries. The Editorial Board appointed a number of agents, mainly experienced professional revolutionaries, who distributed the newspaper to all corners of Russia and set up close links with local Social-Democratic committees. Underground printing presses in Kishinev and Baku also helped to ensure hkra a wide circulation. The paper did not only print propaganda articles but also quickly responded to all current developments, printing reports from its correspondents all over Russia.

p Iskra played a leading role in the preparatory work for the Second Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party which took place in 1903. At this congress Lenin and his fellow 544 “hard-line Iskraists" consistently defended the principles they had evolved for a party of a new type in the face of attack from various opportunist elements. During the elections to the Party’s leading bodies Lenin and his supporters secured a majority of votes, from which time onwards they came to be known as Bolsheviks (from the Russian bolshinstvo—majority) and their opponents Mensheviks (from menshinstvo—minority).

The most important event at this Second Congress was the adoption of the Party programme. It consisted of two parts: a minimum and a maximum programme. The minimum programme clearly defined the Party’s immediate tasks—the overthrow of tsarist autocracy, the establishment of a republic, the guarantee of equal rights for all nationalities and their right to self-determination, the introduction of an 8-hour working day and the abolition of feudal practices in rural life. The maximum programme laid down the Party’s ultimate goal—socialist revolution and the construction of a socialist society. In no other country at that time was there a workers’ party with such a fundamentally revolutionary programme. The drafting of such a programme by the Russian Marxist revolutionaries was thus an important event not only for the Russian working class but for the international labour movement as a whole. The setting up of a Russian revolutionary Marxist party was the most important result of the Second Congress of Russian Social-Democrats.

The First Russian Revolution

p Meanwhile the revolutionary movement in Russia continued to grow. Discontent mounted rapidly, particularly after the defeats in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905.

p In January 1905, the workers of many of St. Petersburg’s leading factories went on strike. In an effort to dissuade the workers from engaging in revolutionary activity and encouraged by the police, the priest Father Georgi Gapon persuaded the workers of the capital to submit a petition listing their demands to the Tsar. Many of the workers still preserved a naive faith in the Tsar as the "father of the people”, and believed that he was unaware of their true plight. So on Sunday January 9th, an enormous crowd of almost 150,000 workers gathered from all corners of the city and marched in procession to the Winter Palace carrying icons and portraits of the Tsar to deliver their petition. Nicholas II, far from meeting the workers, left for his country residence leaving the military High Command in charge of the capital. The marchers were met with bullets, and more than a thousand people were killed and twice that number wounded.

545

p This day was to go down in history as "Bloody Sunday”. The Tsar’s cruel reprisals against a peaceful demonstration caused widespread indignation and served to finally convince the people that the Tsar was not their father but their bitter enemy. That same evening in some districts of St. Petersburg workers started to collect arms and build barricades. In the days that followed a mighty wave of protest was to spread to the fringes of the empire.

p After a brief lull in May, the revolutionary movement gathered new momentum. Textile workers on strike in Ivanovo-Voznesensk elected a special council or Soviet to lead the strike. This Council and those elected in several other cities were the first Soviets of Workers’ Deputies that were later to become organs of revolutionary power in Russia.

p In June the crew of the battleship Potemkin mutinied. Never before had the revolutionary flag been hoisted on so large a war vessel. Under this flag the Potemkin sailed into Odessa where a general strike was on. The special squadron sent out to seize the rebel ship did not fire a single shot, since the sailors refused to carry out their officers’ orders and showed open sympathy to their fellows. Although the crew of the Potemkin failed to establish the necessary contact with the proletariat of the Black Sea towns and was later obliged to call in at a Rumanian port and there abandon their ship, the impact of this historic mutiny was tremendous. The tsarist government had now been shown that it could not even rely on its armed forces for support.

p The strike of the Moscow printers opened a new stage in the revolutionary upsurge, which culminated in October 1905 in a nation-wide political strike, involving some two million industrial and railway workers. Industrial centres and railways were paralysed. The history of the international labour movement had never before witnessed a strike on so wide a scale.

p This unprecedented unity in the ranks of the workers and groups of low-ranking white-collar workers, teachers and students that joined their cause reduced government circles to absolute panic. After some hesitation, Nicholas II realised that is was no use relying exclusively on repression to crush this growing revolutionary movement, and on October 17th he published a manifesto promising the people democratic freedoms and the convocation of a legislative State Duma.

p Lenin and the Bolsheviks exposed the manoeuvres of the Tsar for what they were worth, calling upon the proletariat to prepare to carry out a nation-wide armed uprising aimed at overthrowing tsarist autocracy. Back in the days of the October strike Soviets of Workers’ Deputies had started springing up in a number of industrial centres. Lenin pointed out that these councils for 546 organising strikes must become organs capable of leading an uprising and eventually organs of new, revolutionary government.

p The climax of this revolutionary upsurge was the armed uprising organised in December 1905 by the workers of Moscow backed up by those of Rostov-on-Don, Novorossiisk, Sormovo and other industrial centres. In all these towns the Bolsheviks were to be found in the forefront of the insurgents, rallying the workers and encouraging them in the battles with the tsarist forces. At this period, however, the Bolsheviks had little experience in the organisation of street fighting and armed revolt in general. These uprisings were not timed to start simultaneously and lacked central organisation which greatly reduced the chances of their developing into a nation-wide revolution. The conciliatory tactics of the Mensheviks had a negative effect on the insurgent workers’ morale, which finally allowed the tsarist government first to isolate the centres of revolt and then set about their methodical suppression.

p The revolutionary ferment continued in 1906 and 1907 but by this time the tide was on the ebb. The lack of a firm alliance between the proletariat and the peasantry made itself very clearly felt. Peasant revolts in various parts of the country obliged the 547 Tsar to abolish the redemption payments for the land which the peasants had been given in 1861. However, these outbreaks remained sporadic and isolated. The peasants still entertained the illusion that their lot might be improved and they might gain more land from the Tsar’s bounty or by a resolution of the Duma Vacillation, so common among the peasantry, was also to be found among the soldiers. Despite mutinies in various regiments and on certain ships, the army and navy as a whole did not come over to the side of the revolution and were instead used by the Tsar to crush it.

p The tsarist regime stood its ground in face of this revolutionary onslaught and in this it was helped by the Western capitalist countries which granted the tsarist government a large loan at the most critical moment. The government also had the backing of the big bourgeoisie which was alarmed at the scale of this people’s revolution and helped the tsarist authorities "enforce law and order".

p The first Russian revolution was defeated, but useful lessons were learned from it. It furthered the working people’s political education and helped them to free themselves of illusions as to the patriarchal role of the Tsar. Events had shown that it was the proletariat that was destined to play the leading role in the revolutionary movement. They also made clear the vital need for a firm alliance between the proletariat and the peasantry, and for winning over the army to the side of the revolution.

p In the course of 1905-1907 the significance of methods of struggle such as political strikes and armed revolt and of the role of organs such as the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies made itself clearly felt. Experience had shown that the only consistent revolutionary party was that of the followers of Marx and Lenin, the Party of the Bolsheviks.

With regard to the historical significance of the first Russian revolution, Lenin was later to write: "Without the ’dress rehearsal’ of 1905, the victory of the October Revolution in 1917 would have been impossible.”

The Influence of the Russian Revolution
on the International Labour Movement

p The revolutionary struggle of the Russian working class acted as a stimulus to the labour movement in various countries of Western Europe. News of "Bloody Sunday" aroused a wave of bitter indignation among the workers of Europe, who voiced their solidarity with the working people of Russia at special meetings and rallies. "Count on us! You can be sure of our help! Down 548 with the Tsar! Long live social revolution!"—wrote the leaders of the French trade unions in a special address to the Russian workers.

p The newspaper brought out by the German Left Social-Democrats Leipziger Volkszeitung pointed out that in the victory over the tsarist regime which the Russian working class was destined to achieve, the international labour movement saw the vital precondition for their own victory over capitalism. In 1905 the strike movement gained new momentum throughout Europe. Western Europe had not seen class battles on such a scale for many years. The events which were taking place in Russia, convinced workers in the West of the effectiveness of mass political strikes, which they started to refer to as "Russian tactics”. In September Budapest workers organised a general political strike. In October and November the workers of Vienna, Prague and Cracow rallied to take part in political strikes. Powerful demonstrations of Austrian and Czech workers culminated in the erection of barricades and skirmishes with the police and troops.

p “What happened in Russia, must happen here!" was the slogan which expressed the aspirations of the workers abroad to follow the example of the heroic Russian working class. In December 1905 a second political strike was organised in Budapest and a month later the first general political strike in the history of the German labour movement was organised in Hamburg.

p The experience of the revolution in Russia pointed to the need for the mobilisation and cohesion of all revolutionary elements. In the context of the mounting strike movement in the spring of 1905, the French socialists united their ranks to form a single party.

p The solidarity campaign in support of the Russian people in their struggle against tsarist despotism was supported by progressives throughout Europe. The well-known French writer, Anatole France, who headed the "Society of Friends of the Russian People”, wrote at the time: "The Russian revolution is a world revolution. It has shown the world proletariat its methods of struggle and its goals, its power and its destiny. . . . The fate of the new Europe and mankind’s future is now being decided on the banks of the Neva, the Vistula and the Volga.”

The first Russian revolution showed quite clearly that Russia had become the centre of the world revolutionary movement.

The Awakening of Asia

p At the turn of the century in the majority of the countries of Asia and North Africa the seeds of future national liberation movements had already been sown. New forms of exploitation 549 of colonial and dependent countries not only involved more extensive exploitation of these countries’ natural resources and their peoples in the interests of European and North American capital, but were also accompanied by the development of capitalist relations.

p The export of capital which distinguishes the imperialist stage of capitalist development led to the setting up of capitalist industrial enterprises, large plantations and mines in the countries of Asia where limitless quantities of cheap raw material and labour were available. The need to export raw materials and sell European manufactured goods and the growth of towns in these countries promoted the construction of railways, roads, ports and public amenities. In the plantations and factories set up by the Europeans a working class started to grow up. In many colonial countries its emergence preceded that of a local industrial bourgeoisie.

p These workers, many of them former craftsmen who had been ruined by the influx of European manufactured goods, were subjected to cruel exploitation by their European employers and, the latter’s numerous overseers and recruiting agents. The workers were almost all illiterate, and generally maintaining close contact with the villages they had originally come from remained very much under the influence of mediaeval religious and caste traditions. The class consciousness of these workers was only at the formative stage, yet the appalling conditions in which they lived and worked gave rise to various spontaneous protests in demand of their basic economic rights.

p The domination of the imperialist monopolies held back the growth of the local industrial bourgeoisie, which found it more or less impossible to compete with the commodities sold by the advanced capitalist countries, whose representatives enjoyed positions of great privilege. In these circumstances the emergent local bourgeoisie was obliged to content itself with trading and smallscale industrial undertakings which did not require large-scale capital investment, and was confined to the home market. The imperialists, who had a vested interest in retaining the colonial and dependent countries as their sources of agricultural produce and industrial raw materials, placed insuperable barriers in the path of industrialisation in these countries, that is of the production of the means of production.

p The main bastion of support for the imperialist powers in their colonies and the nominally independent countries was the reactionary landowner class, and the compradors, who thrived as middlemen in trade between the latter and the foreign entrepreneurs. The fact that much of the land was concentrated in the hands of big landowners made it easy to exploit the land-hungry 550 and landless peasants by means of crippling rents, which had been typical of the feudal era. By various means the landowners succeeded in robbing the peasants of most of their produce and showed no desire to introduce capitalist farming methods. It was only for the production of some industrial crops that hired labour and large-scale undertakings proved more advantageous to the landowners and prosperous peasants.

p The stratification of the peasantry intensified, but only a small section was to be in a position to prosper in the new conditions. The vast mass of the peasants were hit by ruin, lost their holdings and became virtual debt slaves of the powerful landowners.

p Not only the working masses but also the national bourgeoisie in these countries were denied any part in administration and were subjected to constant oppression and discrimination. Political, administrative and legal power were all in the hands of the colonialists and their henchmen from among the local reactionary classes. All these factors gave rise to irreconcilable contradictions between the colonial peoples and the imperialists.

p In the semi-colonial countries the working people and the national bourgeoisie were directly opposed by the big landowners and the bureaucracy headed by the corrupt despotic dynasties. However, although these rulers were little more than obedient tools in the hands of foreign powers whose interests were served by preserving the economic and political backwardness of the semi-colonial countries, the role of the imperialists as the main prop of obsolete feudal regimes was not yet clearly grasped even by many of the progressives in these countries.

p By the beginning of the twentieth century, in all countries of Asia and North Africa the struggle against feudalism and domination of foreign imperialists had become a task of paramount importance, essential to the achievement of independent national development. The emergence of closer links between the various regions of these countries and the development of an internal market, albeit slow and uneven, promoted the emergence of nations. In many colonial and dependent countries the population consisted of numerous different peoples and ethnic groups. The emergence of nations in these areas was therefore of necessity an extremely complicated process. In the Ottoman Empire, for example, the emergence of nations among the various nonTurkish subject peoples was far in advance of the parallel process in Turkey itself. Arabs, Macedonians and Albanians struggled to free themselves from the yoke of Turkish absolutism and set up their own independent states.

p In India, Indonesia, the Philippines and other colonial countries two parallel processes were to be observed in the emergence of 551 nations: some nations emerged on the basis of the development of one particular nationality—as was the case with the Gujarati, Bengalis and Marathas in India, the Javanese in Indonesia and the Tagalogs in the Philippines, while other nations emerged as a result of the fusing of various nationalities. The common interests of peoples of various nationalities in the colonial countries in the struggle against foreign imperialist domination paved the way for their closer unity on a national scale and lent a united character to the nascent bourgeois nationalist movements. The local intelligentsia in these countries was to become the spokesman of this mounting anti-feudal and anti-imperialist struggle.

p The first representatives of this intelligentsia were members of the privileged and prosperous classes. Many of them had had the opportunity to receive their education abroad. Yet at the same time modern secular education was making advances in the semicolonial countries. The colonialists started setting up schools, special training establishments and even universities in order to train the junior personnel required by government bodies and private establishments and to provide doctors and lawyers.

p The introduction of European education on a limited scale was also designed to mould the opinions and attitudes of the local population and foster recognition of the superiority of the imperialist masters and their culture. Nevertheless, the imperialists were no longer in a position to prevent the infiltration of progressive ideas among the youth of these countries and above all among the intelligentsia from among the non-privileged classes.

p As early as the end of the nineteenth century the British masters of India grew concerned at the growing spirit of protest and the influence of revolutionary ideas and nationalist sentiment among the student body. Vice-Roy Lord Curzon introduced a special university reform designed to make university places more difficult of access for those with democratic sympathies.

p The intelligentsia from among the bourgeoisie and the landowners which criticised the existing order in these countries, demanded participation in the administration and pressed for economic reforms, upholding first and foremost the interests of the classes from which they themselves came. It was only a small minority of representatives of the privileged strata of society who, together with the revolutionary petty-bourgeois intelligentsia, effectively came out in support of the oppressed working masses.

The struggle of the emergent national bourgeoisie to uphold its class interests was at the time still a struggle of a national, general democratic nature, directed against imperialism and feudalism, and was of immediate concern to all classes of society. In all these countries there existed by this time the necessary preconditions for national unity and cohesion.

552

p Thus, by the beginning of the twentieth century conditions were ripe for bourgeois revolution in many countries of Asia. The opportunities for carrying out such revolutions, their scale and probable outcome varied a great deal from country to country, depending on a large number of internal and external factors.

p The defeat of what had once seemed the invincible might of tsarist Russia in the war with Japan and especially the Russian revolution of 1905 were to have an enormous influence on the awakening national consciousness of the peoples of Asia and their antiimperialist and anti-feudal struggle. "World capitalism and the 1905 movement in Russia have finally aroused Asia,” Lenin remarked at the time.

p The Russian revolution of 1905 was the first bourgeois-democratic revolution to have been carried out under the leadership of the working class. Unlike any of the bourgeois revolutions that preceded it, the Russian revolution had set itself the task of implementing far-reaching democratic transformations in society. This made it an example and model for many countries, but particularly, as was only natural, for those countries of the East which were still faced with problems calling for bourgeois revolution, a stage through which the majority of Western countries had long since passed.

553

p Events in Russia had an especially strong impact in the Asian countries bordering on the Russian Empire, which had been objects of tsarist imperialist expansion but which had for many years also proved fertile soil for the sowing of progressive ideas by the democratic strata of Russian society.

Numerous immigrants from the Asian countries that bordered on Russia—Iranians in Baku and Central Asia, Koreans in the Far East of the Empire, and Chinese working on the Chinese Eastern Railway—took part in the 1905 revolution against the tsarist regime alongside the Russians. They were later to bring revolutionary ideas and experience to their native countries.

The Persian Revolution—1905-1911

p The crisis of feudal society in Persia was aggravated by the large influx of foreign capital. The onerous loans which Persia had run up with Britain and Russia obliged the government to grant still further trade concessions and privileges to these two imperialist powers. In 1901 a British businessman by the name of d’Arcy gained a concession for oil extraction in the whole of Persia with the exception of the Northern provinces. Later this concession was to provide the basis of the Anglo-Persion Oil Company—one of the main instruments of imperialism in the colonial enslavement of Persia. The Imperial Bank of Persia complete with its numerous branches and possessed of the right of issue dominated the country’s financial system. In the North it was the Russo-Persian Bank which held sway. Customs and excise were in the hands of Belgians headed by Naus. A Cossack brigade was set up with the help of Russian officers and under their command at the special request of the Shah so as to create a particularly loyal unit.

p The feudal ruling class headed by Shah Muzaffar ed-Din intensified their exploitation of the working people. Most of the money in the state treasury and that obtained via foreign loans was spent at the Shah’s court and by his minions—a state of affairs which gave rise to increasing discontent. Spontaneous revolts were continually breaking out in various parts of the country, and in the army where the soldiers were often not paid for months on end. Ever wider sections of the urban population came to appreciate the need to restrict the absolute powers of the Shah and his henchmen.

p The weak Persian bourgeoisie which had no political party or organisation, part of the landowning class, whose estates by this time were run on a commercial basis, and even the religious leaders, whose economic and political privileges were being encroached on by the Shah’s government all supported the reform movement. 554 In this tense atmosphere the influence of the Russian revolution was to prove electrifying. The slightest pretext would suffice to set in motion a wide revolutionary movement.

p On December 12, 1905, the arrest and maltreatment in Tehran of a number of merchants who had protested against the extortionate taxes and the greed of one of the Shah’s ruthless favourites, aroused sharp indignation throughout the country. Bazaars and workshops were closed and at a special rally held in a mosque a demand was put forward for the dismissal of a number of hated government officials and the setting up of a special commission for the survey of the people’s grievances. The meeting was disbanded by force, which aroused still greater popular indignation. As a sign of protest a number of religious leaders left the capital 555 to take bast (or sanctuary) in a mosque not far from the capital. There they were joined by about two thousand merchants and craftsmen. These bastis sent a group of spokesmen to the Shah and also to other towns to seek support. Unrest started in Shiraz and Meshed and continued in the capital, where a part of the city garrison was involved.

p Alarmed by the spread of this popular movement the Shah decided to make a number of concessions and promised to comply with the demands that had been put to him. He replaced the particularly unpopular governors of Tehran and Kerman and issued a decree establishing a House of Justice (Adalat Khane). At this the bastis returned to the capital. However, the Shah’s government was in no haste to fulfil the promises made in the hope that it would be able to get the movement under control. Meanwhile the tide of discontent rose. In the summer of 1906 the dispersal by force of arms of a group of demonstrators in the capital who had freed a popular champion of reforms was the signal for mass action. Once again bazaars and shops were shut down and the streets of Tehran were soon crowded with demonstrators, against whom the Shah’s troops opened fire. On July 15th 200 religious leaders set out from the capital for Qum. The next day a group of leading merchants took bast in the garden of the British Embassy. Within a short space of time the bastis numbered 13,000. Their demands were drawn up in a petition which was handed to the Shah and sent to Qum and other towns. These demands were taken up as a programme of revolutionary struggle. On this occasion, along with the former demands was a new one for the introduction of a constitution and the opening of a parliament (majlis}. This new demand met with support in a large number of towns. The imams and mullahs in Qum declared that if the Shah did not comply with the bastis requests they would leave the country. Once again the Shah made various concessions: he dismissed the hated Prime Minister and appointed a new, more liberal successor Mushiru’d Daulah. At the beginning of August elections were announced for the convocation of a majlis. The bastis then dispersed and the bazaars were opened once more.

p Despite the undemocratic nature of the two-stage elections introduced, in which the peasants and hired workers were denied any part, these elections, the first ever in Persian history, caused great excitement among the popular masses, particularly in the towns.

p Particularly keen reaction was to be observed in the capital of Persian Azerbaijan, ruled over by the Shah’s extremely reactionary son and heir, Mohammed Ali. His attempts to obstruct the elections stirred up the population of Tabriz and the surrounding area. It was in these parts that the first mass social-cum-political 556 organisations known as anjunmans were set up. Soon similar organisations started to spring up all over the country. Merchants, craftsmen, the urban poor and even certain members of the reactionary classes joined them. The actual nature of their activity depended largely on their composition and the proportion of democratic elements. Among the numerous anjunmans in the capital there was even one that had been set up by the Kajar princes. However, in the majority of cases these organisations reflected the antifeudal aspirations of the masses. In many towns the anjunmans gained virtual control of local administration.

p The influence of the Russian revolution in the Northern provinces was to lead to the emergence, both in these provinces and among the Persians who had left their country for Transcaucasia, of the first secret democratic political organisations—the societies of mujtahids (champions of justice). They were joined by traders, craftsmen, peasants, the urban poor, workers and the lower echelons of the religious orders. The mujtahids put forward demands for radical bourgeois-democratic reform. Petty-bourgeois elements were to play the leading role in these societies.

p In October 1906 the first majlis was opened. Despite the undemocratic leanings of the majority of its members, its meetings, which were open to the public, were clearly influenced by the temper of the masses and the activities of the anjunmans in the capital. The main task before it was the drawing up of a constitution. At the end of December, shortly before his death, Muzaffar ed-Din ratified the Basic Law drawn up by the majlis, which defined its rights and powers.

p When the reactionary Shah Mohammed Ali came to the throne he had no desire to heed the majlis and still less to ratify amendments to the Basic Law which would have completed the transformation of Persia into a constitutional state. Meanwhile, however, the popular unrest increased in Tabriz and other towns, including the capital. The working masses still in a spontaneous manner tried to present their demands. In the Northern provinces peasant action against the khans and landowners was becoming more and more frequent. In Tehran the electricity and printing workers came out on strike and attempted to set up trade unions.

p The conclusion of the Anglo-Russian agreement in August 1907 which divided Persia into two spheres of influence gave still further impetus to the national movement. The majlis refused to recognise the agreement and the wave of mass protest grew apace.

p Mohammed Ali found himself obliged to ratify the amendments to the Basic Law, although he secretly still had hopes for a counterrevolutionary coup. The Persian constitution introduced bourgeois freedoms and limited the Shah’s power by means of the majlis, which was given legislative rights, the right to ratify the budget, 557 foreign loans and concessions. The constitution legalised the anjunmans as popularly elected organs empowered to control the activity of the district and provincial authorities. The religious leaders, who had been able to enhance their influence in the country by virtue of their active participation in the revolution at its early stages, secured themselves important privileges via this constitution. A special commission of ulema (Moslem theologians, learned men) was granted the right to lay down whether individual laws were compatible with Islam or not.

p The transformation of Persia into a constitutional monarchy was a progressive step, yet it did not mean that the Shah and the reactionary nobility were prepared to surrender their former power and privileges.

p Once the constitution had been adopted the bourgeoisie, liberal landowners and religious leaders considered that the revolution was over. They were ready to co-operate with a constitutional monarch. However, the Shah, who had brought his loyal forces near the capital, in the autumn of 1907 made his first attempt to carry out a counter-revolutionary coup. The people’s anjunmans drawn up on the initiative of the mujtahid organisations and the fiday units (fidays—those willing to sacrifice) came out in defence of the constitution. The Tabriz anjunmans called for the overthrow of the Shah. The attempt at counter-revolution was defeated. In the meantime the growing activity of the masses was starting to alarm the liberals who were in the majority in the majlis. They made a deal with the Shah, who hypocritically swore on the Koran to observe the constitution. By the beginning of June 1908 it became quite clear that another counter-revolutionary coup was being prepared.

p While the democratic forces rallied to defend the constitution, the liberal majlis called for order and once more tried to come to terms with the Shah. On June 22nd a state of emergency was declared in the capital and on the following day the Cossack brigade, commanded by a Russian colonel by the name of Lyakhov, dissolved the majlis. The fiday units who rallied to the defence of the majlis were crushed by means of artillery. A wave of terror began in Tehran. Left-wing deputies to the majlis, numerous leaders of the city’s democratic anjunmans who had been bold enough to hail the revolution and criticise the Shah, and various journalists and poets were seized and tortured to death or executed.

p Yet this coup in Tehran did not signify the end of the revolution. Its main centre was now the insurgent city of Tabriz, which the reactionary forces failed to capture after the June events in the capital. Power in Tabriz was in the hands of the anjunmans. Most of the liberals withdrew their support but the anjunmans 558 were reinforced by representatives of the craftsmen, peasants and revolutionary bourgeois elements.

The anjunmans relied on the fiday units, which had a total strength of about 20,000. The commanders, former peasants and mujtahid leaders Sattar and Bagir, organised the defence of the city. Revolutionary order was set up and severe measures were introduced to counter speculation. The Tabriz uprising was of a distinctly revolutionary democratic character.

Revolutionary Developments in China

p The awakening of political consciousness and the spread of revolutionary activity to be observed in many countries of the East at this period was to assume particularly impressive proportions in China. National consciousness and patriotism paved the way for the spread of revolutionary ideas not merely among the ranks of the intelligentsia and the students but also among other strata of the population (the national bourgeoisie, progressive workers, etc.). An important role in the propaganda of the ideas of freedom and independence and in the formation of revolutionary organisations was played by Sun Yat-sen (1866-1925).

p The spread of revolutionary ideas among Chinese emigres and students, news of the revolution that had broken out in Russia and numerous outbreaks in China itself made Sun Yat-sen aware of the need to unite all the anti-Manchu organisations in a new mass revolutionary organisation—China Revival Society.

p In the spring of 1905, at a meeting of revolutionary Chinese students in Brussels, Sun Yat-sen expounded his famous theory of the Three Principles of the People—Nationalism, Democracy and Livelihood. In the conditions obtaining in China at that time these principles implied the overthrow of the Manchu dynasty, the institution of a democratic republic and the introduction of equal rights of landownership. These principles provided the platform on which the various Chinese revolutionary organisations set up the Chinese Revolutionary League. This party was joined not only by bourgeois-democratic elements, but also by representatives of the national bourgeoisie, some sectors of the more progressive landowners and the revolutionary students, united in their determination to put an end to Manchurian rule in China. Sun Yat-sen was elected President of the Chinese Revolutionary League and at once started preparations for a revolutionary uprising. The Chinese Revolutionary League founded a newspaper called The’ People, which was printed in Tokyo. Lenin welcomed Sun Yatsen’s programme, remarking: "Every line of Sun Yat-sen’s platform breathes a spirit of militant and sincere democracy.”

559

p The Chinese Revolutionary League started work at a time when the country was already in the grip of revolutionary ferment. In the south and south-west of the country a number of popular uprisings took place in the period 1906-1911. In 1906 the first workers’ uprising in the history of China broke out (in the town of Pingsiang, in the province of Kiangsi). In 1907-1908 there were uprisings of peasants, craftsmen and petty-bourgeois elements in the provinces of Kwangtung, Kwangsi, Yunnan and Anhwei. In 1910 peasant uprisings broke out in the Changsha and Shantung provinces. These uprisings all proved unsuccessful due to poor organisation and insufficient liaison with the army and with the masses in other parts of the country.

p Sun Yat-sen and the League which he led, took an active part in the organisation of all this revolutionary activity, sending out its representatives to the scene of all such outbreaks and organising supplies of arms and money, etc. Drawing on the experience of the recent setbacks, the League stepped up its propaganda among the soldiers of the "modern troops" (units organised on the European model). In response to an appeal by Sun Yat-sen most of the members of the League, and in particular its student members, joined the army in order to spread revolutionary propaganda among the soldiers.

p A soldiers’ uprising in Kwangchow in 1910 failed, however, since the League had not yet learned to abandon conspiratorial tactics. On April 28, 1911, another uprising was organised by the soldiers who had proved receptive to the revolutionaries’ propaganda. The insurgents seized the residence of the local Manchurian governor, but the government troops were too strong for them, and after putting up a heroic resistance against overwhelming odds the insurgents were crushed. All prisoners were summarily executed. The bodies of 72 soldiers who had been killed in the fighting or executed were gathered by the local population and buried on the Huanghuakang hill just outside Kwangchow. Later an obelisk was erected on this common grave in memory of that heroic exploit. "After that last defeat of the Kwangtung uprising,” wrote Sun Yat-sen, "the number of supporters for the revolution started to grow from day to day.”

p At the end of 1908 Emperor Kuang-Hsu and his consort Empress died almost simultaneously, and Kuang-Hsu’s two-year-old nephew Pu-yi was proclaimed Emperor. Power was now in the hands of the Manchurian nobles led by princes Chin and Ch’un (Pu-yi’s father). Chinese nobles were denied all high offices of state.

This aroused deep discontent among the Chinese bourgeoisie and landowners. Subterfuge and manoeuvring on the part of the government, which introduced certain reforms (the setting up of provincial consultative committees, reorganisation of the education 560 system, etc.), and promised that in time a constitutional monarchy would be set up, did not prove sufficient to keep this discontent in check this time. The government kept putting off the convocation of a parliament and revolution drew nearer and nearer.

The Hsin Hai Revolution of 1911-1913

p On May 9, 1911, the government issued a decree nationalising existing railways and the construction of new ones in the provinces of Hupeh, Hunan and Kwangtung. This was a hard blow for the Chinese bourgeoisie who had been organising its own railway construction projects. On May 20 the construction of railways was handed over to a banking consortium backed up by US, British, French and German capital. This step in open defiance of Chinese national interests aroused indignation throughout the country. On September 7, 1911, the governor of the province of Zechwan, Chao Erh-feng, reacted by arresting the leaders of the movement set up to uphold the interests of the shareholders who had been severely hit by the nationalisation of the railway construction. This action was the last straw and in Chengtu, the provincial centre, a large-scale uprising broke out. The governor was killed and his head was impaled on a pole which bore the inscription "While alive you enjoyed looking down on people—now you may continue to do so dead.”

p The Chinese Revolutionary League sent its representatives to Zechwan to co-ordinate the activities of the insurgents. In October 1911, an engineers battalion mutinied in Wuchang, where representatives of the League and other underground revolutionary organisations had been active.

p On October 11, 1911, the consultative committee in the province of Hupeh collaborated with the insurgents and proclaimed China a republic. After these events in Wuchang, revolutionary power was also set up in Hankow and Hanyang. A provisional revolutionary government was set up and a revolutionary army formed, which workers, peasants and former soldiers flocked to join. The revolutionary army was widely supported throughout the country. The example of Wuchang inspired other towns and regions to follow suit.

It was the workers and peasants and the poorer and middle sections of the bourgeoisie who formed the core of this revolutionary movement. However it was mainly landowners and members of the comprador bourgeoisie posing as revolutionaries who seized’ power in the provinces. They went out of their way to check the revolutionary activity of the masses so as to confine the revolution to the overthrow of the Manchu dynasty.

561

p In December 1911, after long years in exile Sun Yat-sen returned to China and was given an ecstatic welcome in Shanghai. On December 29, 1911, the representatives of 17 provinces elected him President of the Republic in Nanking. The republic was eventually proclaimed on January 1, 1912. In his manifesto to the people, Sun Yat-sen wrote: "I vow to root out the poisonous remnants of autocracy, to set up a republic, to act in the interests of the people’s welfare in order to carry out the main aim of the revolution and to translate into reality the aspirations and hopes of the people.” However in this proclamation a number of points contained in the original programme of the Chinese Revolutionary League were conspicuous by their absence, in particular the demand for equal rights of landownership. Sun Yat-sen still lacked sufficient confidence in the strength of the popular masses and had not drawn up a clear programme of democratic reforms. A lack of consistency was also to be observed in his foreign policy programme. While stressing in his appeal to the foreign powers that China henceforth was to be independent and strong and enjoy the same rights and privileges as the imperialist powers, Sun Yat-sen asked 562 the latter to help China achieve this goal. Sun Yat-sen’s government represented a bloc of bourgeois revolutionaries, officials of the old bureaucracy and liberals, in which the liberals predominated.

p The predominance of the liberals moulded the subsequent policies of the new government. No measures to change the basis of the country’s socio-economic structure or to do away with feudalism and imperialist domination were introduced, so that the demands of the popular masses remained unsatisfied. The government was set on confining the revolution within a strictly bourgeois framework.

p Meanwhile the bourgeoisie and the landowners in Peking, also set on checking the revolutionary tide, took steps to liquidate the monarchy: Pu-yi abdicated and the other members of the royal house then followed suit. The liberal landowners and the bourgeoisie, alarmed by the scale and power of the revolutionary movement, started rallying to the support of the political schemer Yuan Shih-k’ai who was appointed commander-in-chief of all the counter-revolutionary forces. The imperialist powers were putting more and more pressure on the Chinese government, threatening direct intervention.

p The imperialists came out in open support of Yuan Shih-k’ai. In order to avert civil war and foreign intervention on February 14, 1912 Sun Yat-sen resigned the presidency in favour of Yuan Shih-k’ai.

p Yuan Shih-k’ai moved the seat of the government from Nanking in the revolutionary south to Peking, where the forces of reaction had large bodies of troops at their disposal. The peasants, whose position had not improved as a result of this revolution, started to revolt against the landowners, demanding land and more moderate rents. The working class also took up arms once again. However, these isolated outbreaks were soon crushed by Yuan Shih-k’ai’s troops. His policies met with the approval of the imperialists, and the international banking consortium granted him a large loan. On August 25, 1912, Sun Yat-sen and a number of other former leaders of the Chinese Revolutionary League together with some of the liberals founded a new party, the Kuomintang ( National Party). Their programme contained no reference to the principle of equal rights of landownership, and the other principles of the programme of the League were formulated in less resolute and less revolutionary terms; so the new programme represented a step backwards. Yet even this modified version was not to the liking of Yuan Shih-k’ai and he started to subject the members of the Kuomintang to bitter persecution.

p In July 1913, Sun Yat-sen appealed to the people to start a "second revolution”. The troops in some southern provinces rallied 563 to his call, but the people, disillusioned after the outcome of the first revolution, did not come to the support of the insurgent soldiers, who were soon routed by Yuan Shih-k’ai’s army. The Kuomintang was then banned and Sun Yat-sen and other leaders were obliged to emigrate. Thus reaction had won the day.

p It was the Chinese landowners and the comprador bourgeoisie that benefitted from the fruits of the revolution. The masses, and in particular the peasantry, gained no land or liberties, which they had fought for so selflessly for years.

Nevertheless, the revolution did serve to inject new life into the struggle of the Chinese people for national independence and social emancipation. The Prague Conference of the Bolsheviks in 1912 called attention to the "world-wide importance of the revolutionary struggle of the Chinese people, which is bringing emancipation of Asia and is undermining the rule of the European bourgeoisie".

The Liberation Struggle
of the Peoples of Latin America

p The dawn of imperialism brought in its wake a new wave of expansion of foreign capital in the countries of Latin America. By that time the Latin American countries had made significant advances and in some of them a national bourgeoisie and a working class had emerged. In several countries (such as Argentina, Mexico, Brazil and Chile) capitalist patterns in agriculture were making rapid headway, and a stratum of capitalist landowners emerged. However, this process of progressive national development was held back by vestiges of feudalism and the penetration of foreign capital. The imperialist monopolies sought to make of these countries convenient sources of raw materials and spheres of capital investment. This led to the distortion of the economy of the Latin American countries so that they soon became one-crop countries. Cuba became South America’s major sugar producer, Brazil provided coffee, Argentina meat, Bolivia tin and Mexico silver and oil. The imperialist countries supported the reactionary bourgeois-landowner cliques that held sway in the countries of Latin America.

p Yet neither the rule of local oligarchies, nor the domination of foreign capital were able to stop the clock of history and hold up progress. Despite the efforts of the foreign monopolists national capitalism started to make small beginnings and new classes and social forces emerged. Among the progressive sectors of the national bourgeoisie and the capitalist landowners the conviction gained ground that without the liquidation of semi-feudal oligarchies and the uprooting of the domination of foreign capital it 564 would be impossible to ensure untrammelled and rapid economic and political development.

At the turn of the century the tasks of liquidating feudal patterns on the one hand and foreign domination on the other became interdependent and the national liberation movements of the Latin American peoples assumed an anti-feudal and anti-imperialist character.

The Mexican Revolution—1910-1917

p The most dramatic manifestation of these developments was the Mexican revolution of 1910-1917, which was the most momentous event in the history of the whole of Latin America since the Wars of Liberation. This was the first Latin American revolution in the course of which the people tried to put an end to obsolete feudal practices and imperialist domination.

p As a result of the policies pursued by the dictator General Porfirio Diaz, which were quite incompatible with the national interests, by the beginning of the twentieth century Mexico had been turned into a semi-colony of Britain and the USA. Porfirio Diaz and his followers maintained that Mexico could only become a developed country with the help of wide-scale foreign investment. British and American companies had acquired concessions on preferential terms for the construction of railways and the opening of mines. Vast territories by this time were in the hands of the foreign companies and the local latifundists.

p When enormous oil deposits were discovered at the beginning of the twentieth century, British and American oil companies went all out to gain possession of them.

p Peasants were robbed of their land to such an extent that soon in some states 98-99% of them were without any land at all. The popular masses found themselves exposed not only to the exploitation of the local oligarchy led by the dictator Diaz but to that of the foreign monopolies as well.

p Class contradictions had become extremely acute by the autumn of 1910, when a peasant guerilla movement started up in order to fight for land. It was led by the legendary champions of the peasants’ cause Emiliano Zapata (c. 1877-1919) and Pancho ( Francisco) Villa (1877-1923). The newly born Mexican proletariat also came out in protest against the unbridled exploitation to which they were subjected. The national bourgeoisie and the capitalist landowners tried to overthrow the Diaz clique which was consistently selling the country’s resources to foreign imperialists.

p The revolution began in October 1910. In May 1911, the dictatorship was overthrown and a new government was set up under the leadership of the popular liberal leader, Francisco Madero. In 565 February 1913, Madero was murdered and it emerged that the US Ambassador had had a hand in the plot. Power was seized by a reactionary clique led by General Victoriano Huerta. In July 1914, however the people succeeded in overthrowing this usurper.

p The revolution entered a new phase. The broad masses now entered the struggle, determining its course and giving it a democratic character. In the course of the struggle, the peasant armies together with the peasants from the regions caught up in the revolutionary tide were carrying out an agrarian revolution. The initiative and activity of the people alarmed the liberals whose interests were upheld by their leader Venustiano Carranza who set about the task of liquidating the peasant armies led by Zapata and Villa. The revolution also threatened the interests of the foreign monopolies, and on two separate occasions (in 1914 and 1917) the United States organised armed intervention aimed at crushing the Mexican revolution, which failed due to the determined resistance of the Mexican people. The aggressive policy of the United States with regard to revolutionary Mexico aroused the anger and indignation of the peoples of Latin America who declared their solidarity with the Mexican revolutionaries.

p The Mexican revolution was an anti-feudal and anti-imperialist revolution and this lent it a bourgeois-democratic character. The masses did not emerge victorious from the struggle due to the failure of the proletariat and the peasantry to ally with one another. The proletariat was not yet in a position to lead the revolutionary movement, and the bourgeoisie assumed the leading role instead. Side by side with the people the bourgeoisie defied the Diaz dictatorship and the oligarchy of the bishops, powerful landowners and foreign imperialists. Yet once it became evident that its class interests clashed with those of the peasantry and the proletariat, it came out resolutely against the popular masses. As a result, in the course of the civil war which lasted from 1915 to 1917, the alliance of the bourgeoisie and the landowners eventually succeeded in crushing the peasant armies and then suppressing the uprisings of the proletariat.

The Mexican revolution did away with the reactionary Diaz dictatorship, dealt a serious blow at the power of the church and weakened the hold of foreign capital on the country. By doing so it consolidated a new bourgeois order, paved the way for more rapid capitalist development and enhanced Mexico’s national sovereignty. In the eyes of the peoples of Latin America, Mexico had become the symbol of the struggle against imperialism. Another outcome of the revolution was the Constitution of 1917, which reflected the anti-feudal and anti-imperialist aspirations of the revolutionary movement. This constitution was the most democratic of all the bourgeois constitutions the world had yet seen. However, 566 it must be borne in mind that it did not represent actual revolutionary gains but was rather a programme of what the people had still to struggle to achieve. Moreover, since it was the alliance of the bourgeoisie and the landowning class that had taken over the government of the country and was to implement this constitution, many of its articles have not been carried out to this day. The Mexican revolution marked the end of an important stage in the national liberation movement in Latin America, a stage distinguished by the fact that while it was people who bore the brunt of the fighting, made the most sacrifices and endured the severest privations it was not they, but the ruling classes which enjoyed the fruits of the struggle. The basic tasks—to smash imperialist domination, do away with the latifundias and overthrow reactionary regimes—had not yet been completed.

Revolutionary and Opportunist Trends
in the International Labour Movement

p The first Russian revolution of 1905-1907 was the first of a whole series of violent class battles that took place in almost all the large capitalist states of Europe.

p Mass strikes characterised by a high degree of militancy, took place in Sweden in 1909, in Britain in 1912, and in Belgium in 1913. At times the struggle of the proletariat assumed a particularly determined character, as was the case with the anti-militarist workers’ demonstrations in Spain in 1909, when barricades were set up in the streets of Barcelona. In the summer of 1914 there were barricades and street battles in Milan, Venice and other towns of Italy. The peasants rallied to the help of the workers, ransacking arsenals and police barracks. For a whole week the country was paralysed by a general strike, that later came to be known as "Red Week".

p The proletariat of Russia still provided the main inspiration for the international labour movement as it had done ever since 1905. Now that they had recovered from reactionary reprisals, the Russian workers started after 1910 to organise offensive strikes instead of defensive ones. The massacre of strikers at the Lena goldfields in Eastern Siberia in 1912 led to a great wave of protest throughout the country. A new wave of revolutionary fervour found its expression in a rapid growth of the strike movement in all the main industrial centres of the country. Rallies and street demonstrations organised by the strikers became common occurrences. In the summer of 1914 barricades appeared on the streets of St. Petersburg and fighting between workers and the police became more and more frequent. Russia was again on the threshold of a nation-wide political strike.

567

p Thus it can be seen the deepening class contradictions in the capitalist countries during the imperialist era resulted in increasing revolutionary activity on the part of the masses. This in its turn fostered the revolutionary trend in the international socialist movement. At the beginning of the twentieth century, prior to the First World War it was to come to play an increasingly important role in all the European countries.

p In Russia a party of a new type was founded that differed from the other parties of the Second International in its unmistakable revolutionary essence. In Germany the Left wing of the SocialDemocratic Party led by Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg consolidated its ranks and in Bulgaria a separate party of Left or Tesnyaki socialists was formed under the leadership of Dimitr Blagoev. In the ranks of the French socialists the number of those who were opposed to collaboration with bourgeois parties also grew apace.

p Yet at the same time another, opportunist trend was growing up within the international socialist movement. The social basis of this trend was provided by the so-called workers’ aristocracy. This upper stratum of the European proletariat was bought over by the capitalists prepared to sacrifice to this end a fraction of their superprofits acquired by means of colonial plunder. It goes without saying that the workers belonging to this particular group corrupted by sops from their masters had no vested interest in the disappearance of the capitalist order. They tried to wrest partial concessions from the bourgeoisie not by struggling against this class but by collaborating with it. Moreover, as socialist ideas gained increasing popularity, the international socialist movement was to acquire fellow-travellers from the ranks of the petty bourgeoisie. These latter additions to the socialist parties gave rise to antiproletarian deviations and also helped the opportunist leaders to consolidate their influence in the movement.

p As far back as the close of the nineteenth century, soon after the death of Frederick Engels (1895), one of the leading German Social-Democrats, Eduard Bernstein, came out in favour of the revision of allegedly outdated Marxism, proposing that the idea of socialist revolution should be replaced by that of peaceful reformist activity. During the first Russian revolution many leaders of the Second International were unwilling to recognise its international significance and showed no eagerness to study and adapt the experience of the struggle waged by the Russian proletariat.

p The defeat of the revolution in Russia was made use of by the opportunists to pour scorn and condemnation on the very principle of proletarian revolutionary struggle and to point to the superiority of reformist methods.

568

The growing opportunist influence in the Second International found its expression in the refusal of some of its leaders to take up the struggle against militarism and the threat of imperialist war, which had been increasingly evident ever since about 1905. At the congresses of the Second International opportunists from the ranks of the German and Belgian Social-Democrats openly assumed the role of apologists of colonialism, advocating the need for colonies not only under capitalism but under socialism as well. Dutch and British opportunist leaders also joined them in extolling the "civilising mission" of the imperialist powers.

The Bolsheviks’ Struggle Against Opportunism

p Being convinced revolutionary Marxists active in a country on the threshold of revolution, the Russian Bolsheviks did not hesitate to condemn the revisionist principles put forward by Bernstein. In his exposure of reformist illusions with regard to the gradual smoothing out of the contradictions inherent in capitalism, Lenin upheld the basic principles of Marx’s economic theory and his theory of socialist revolution. At the same time he laid emphasis on the creative essence of Marxism and the need to develop this theory still further in the light of the new conditions pertaining to the era of imperialism.

p A bitter battle against opportunism was waged by Lenin and his supporters in Russia itself. In their efforts to set up a united proletarian party the Russian revolutionary Marxists came up against opposition from the Economists, who denied the need for an independent political party of the proletariat, strictly confining the latter’s tasks to trade union, economic struggle against the capitalists.

p While in exile in Siberia (1897-1900) Lenin had condemned Economism as a form of revisionism, hkra, a Party paper founded by Lenin, untiringly exposed the opportunist essence of Economism. Lenin’s What Is To Be Done? published in 1902 was to play a decisive role in the ideological defeat of the Economists.

p After the Second Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, the Bolsheviks were obliged to wage a long fight against the opportunist policies pursued by the Mensheviks, who held that the main role in the revolution that was about to break out in Russia should be played by the bourgeoisie and who therefore called upon the proletariat to come to terms with the bourgeoisie.

p In the difficult conditions that obtained after the defeat of the 1905 revolution when reaction held sway, the Bolsheviks had had to consolidate the existing underground revolutionary 569 organisations in the face of Menshevik attempts to do away with the illegal party. In 1912, at a Party conference held in Prague the Menshevik liquidators were expelled from the Party, and a Central Committee headed by Lenin was elected.

p The Russian revolutionary Marxists fought with similar determination against opportunist trends in the Second International. At international socialist congresses Lenin levelled severe criticism at the opportunist leaders, particularly as regards their stand on the approaching imperialist war. During these congresses Lenin organised special meetings of Left Social-Democrats, sparing no effort to unite their ranks in the struggle against opportunism.

The Bolshevik Party was the only large-scale workers’ party in the world which never compromised the principles of proletarian internationalism. From 1912-1914 Lenin frequently spoke out in defence of the Party’s revolutionary programme with regard to the nationalities’ question, which held aloft the right of nations to self-determination including the right to secession. Fiercely condemning attempts by the opportunists to justify the colonial policies of the imperialist powers, Lenin pointed out the tremendous significance for the proletarian cause of the national liberation movement in the colonial and dependent countries.