p Incidentally, we can partly guess what his opinion will be. The honourable editor probably does not approve of the circumstance that Mr. Tikhomirov "sometimes speaks of the seizure of power by the revolutionaries as the starting-point of the revolution”. P. N. Tkachov was also accustomed to "speak sometimes" of such a seizure of power and thus courted severe censure from Mr. Lavrov. The editor of Vperyod even thought it necessary to warn our revolutionary youth against an alliance with false friends. "There are revolutionary groups,” he wrote, "who say that they wish the good of the people, that they intend to achieve that good by a revolution, but not a popular one.” For such groups all the philosophy of the revolution is naturally limited to seizing power. "Others wish the dictatorship to be only temporary, merely in order to disband the army, to remove the uppermost section of their opponents and disappear from the 302 stage, leaving the people to decide their own future. Others again dream of handing over this dictatorship, when they have accomplished their business, to a Zemsky Sobor consisting of representatives of the people or to local assemblies, and so on and so forth. What is common to all revolutionaries of this kind is a revolution carried out by a minority, with a more or less lasting dictatorship of that minority.” In his capacity as editor Mr. Lavrov stated that his journal "would never consider it possible to allow the theory of the revolutionary dictatorship of a minority—the so-called Jacobin dictatorship—being voiced in it without objecting". The theory mentioned was ostracised for the following fairly valid reasons.

p “History has shown, and psychology convinces us, that any unlimited power, any dictatorship, spoils even the best people and that even men of genius who wished to confer blessings on the people by means of decrees could not do so. Every dictatorship must surround itself with coercive force, blindly obedient tools; every dictatorship has had to suppress by force not only reactionaries, but also people who simply did not agree with its methods; every dictatorship seized by force has had to spend more time, efforts and energy fighting its rivals for power than carrying out its programme by means of that power. But dreams of the termination of a dictatorship seized violently by any party" (i.e., a dictatorship serving only as "the starting-point of the revolution”, you mean, do you not, dear Editor? ) "can be entertained only before the seizure; in the parties’ struggle for power, in the agitation of overt and covert intrigues, every minute brings new necessity for maintaining power and reveals new impossibility of abandoning it. The dictatorship can be wrenched from the hands of the dictators only by a new revolution....” "Does our revolutionary youth indeed agree to be the base of the throne of a few dictators who, even with most selfless intentions, can be only new sources of social calamities , and who, most probably, will not even be selfless fanatics, but men of passionate ambition thirsting for power for power’s sake, craving for power for themselves? ..."

p “If, indeed, a section of our youth favour a dictatorship, the seizure of power by a minority,” the honourable editor continues, "Vperyod will never be the organ of that section ... let the Russian Jacobins fight the governement, we will not hinder them, but the party of the popular social revolution will always become their enemy, directly one of them reaches out for power, which belongs to the people and nobody else."  [302•* 

p P. L. Lavrov’s prophecy was fulfilled to the letter. The journal Vperyod "was never" the organ of the Russian Jacobins. It is true 303 that P. L. Lavrov himself became editor of the organ of "that section of youth”. But that is a different matter with which we are not concerned here.

p Our interest at present is in the following considerations. The author of Historical Letters has nowhere stated that he has changed his views on the seizure of power; hence we can say with assurance that one of the editors of Vestnik Narodnoi Fo/z has an extremely negative attitude to such a seizure. We are glad of that assurance, it is pleasant to agree in opinion with a well-known and respected writer and we can say that we completely share his opinion on the seizure of power, although we arrived at our conviction by a somewhat different path. We have always tried to direct our main attention not to the subjective, but the objective side of the matter, not to the thoughts and feelings of individual personalities—even if they had the title of dictator—but to the social conditions which they have to take account of, to the inner meaning of the social problems which they undertake to solve. We speak against the seizure of power not because "any dictatorship spoils even the best people”, for that question has hardly been finally settled by "history and psychology”. But we think that if "the emancipation of the workers must be conquered by the workers themselves”, there is nothing any dictatorship can do when the working class "in town and country" has not been prepared for the socialist revolution. And that preparation generally proceeds parallel to the development of the productive forces and of the organisation of production corresponding to them. That is why we posed the question to what extent contemporary economic relations in Russia justify the programme of those who aim at seizing power and who promise to work, by means of that power, a whole series of social and political miracles. Have these people any greater physical possibility to fulfil their promises than a tomtit has to set the sea on fire? ^^207^^ The answer we arrived at was negative. In the pamphlet Socialism and the Political Struggle we explained in detail why we considered such an answer the only possible one at present. Without directly analysing our arguments, Mr. Tikhomirov also touched on this question in the article we are analysing, and in doing so he flung at "a certain section of the socialists" a number of expressions used by us. But, as usual, our author’s line of argument is not very convincing; he does not even always aim at being convincing. Sometimes he almost stops proving altogether and simply states, decrees, so to speak, some propositions or others, as though he had already "seized power" over the minds of his readers. Thus, shouting to those who consider the seizure of power by the present revolutionary party as physically impossible and accusing them of "confusing concepts" he opposes their arguments with the following ... statement: "It 304 cannot be doubted that the question of the seizure of power by any revolutionary force is determined first and foremost by whether the existing government is sufficiently disorganised, shaken and unpopular; and if all these conditions are to hand a state upheaval is by no means impossible or even particularly difficult."  [304•*  Without dwelling any more on this interesting question, he immediately goes on to discuss our revolutionaries’ chances of "holding power”. Willy-nilly, all “dissenters” will have to be reconciled to the author’s not quite customary laconicism. Let us be reconciled to it too, all the more as the truth of some of his propositions really "cannot be doubted" this time. But even so it will be quite opposite to ask: Who is "confusing concepts"—Mr. Tikhomirov or his opponents? Firstly, a "state upheaval" is far from being the same thing as "the seizure of power by any revolutionary force”. Where "the existing government is disorganised, shaken and unpopular" a state upheaval is not only "by no means impossible”, it is simply almost inevitable and consequently it is naturally not " particularly" difficult. But that still does not mean that "any revolutionary force" can take the place of the overthrown government and seize the power lost by that government. A state upheaval can be effected by the aggregate actions of many “forces” which, though hostile to one another, are nevertheless revolutionary in their attitude to the existing system. Then “power”, too, will go not to one of those forces, but to the resultant of them all, which will be embodied in a new provisional or permanent government. But for each of them singly "the question of the seizure of power" far from being solved will be still more complicated by such an outcome; they will have to fight for power not against a weak and unpopular adversary, but against fresh, hale and hearty rivals who have not yet been exhausted by struggle and have the support of a certain section of the nation. All that is as clear as daylight. And if that is the case, can we mike the question of the seizure of power by the " Narodnaya Volya party" in which we are interested depend exclusively on the instability of the existing government and on the probability of a state upheaval? Can one thus confuse concepts which differ entirely in meaning and content?

p But, we may be told, you impute to the "state upheaval" quite a different meaning from the one in which Mr. Tikhomirov uses it. By it he understands not only the fall of the existing government and the organisation of a new one; he presumes that the whole of this revolution will take place by a successful conspiracy within a certain definite revolutionary party which has his sympathy. A 305 conspiracy is a secret undertaking which begins without the knowledge of any of those who could enter into rivalry with the conspirators after the state upheaval. When Little Napoleon thought out his "coup d’etat”, it did not occur to him to reveal his intentions to the Orleanists or the Legitimists; still less would he have brought himself to ask for their help and collaboration. The success which the Bonapartists achieved by their own efforts alone remained wholly and entirely theirs; all that was left for their rivals was to bear malice and to be sorry that they had not thought of or undertaken that daring action. What the infamous nephew did sincere revolutionaries can do too. Or is success a privilege of evil? Will an instrument which has proved its worth in the hands of political adventurers refuse to serve people sincerely devoted to the good of their country?

p If Mr. Tikhomirov does understand a "state upheaval" in this last sense, he is resorting to a still grosser "confusion of concepts" than we formerly thought. What right has he so unexpectedly and unscrupulously to replace a general, abstract possibility by a particular, concrete actuality? Does not that which is possible in a general sense prove in many and many an instance to be impossible as regards some particular case? And, therefore, is it permissible, when recommending to the Russian revolutionary party the path of conspiracy, to confine oneself to general phrases about it not being "particularly difficult" to organise a successful conspiracy where the government is disorganised and unpopular? Are the Russian revolutionaries conspirators in the abstract, without flesh or bones, not coming within the pale of all the conditions which make what is possible for some fantastic and impossible for others? Are not the chances of success for a conspiracy determined by the qualities of that section of society to which its members belong, and do not the qualities of that section influence the desires and aims of the conspirators? One has only to cast a glance at our revolutionary section from this point of view for general phrases about a successful conspiracy not being " particularly difficult" to lose all meaning.

p To what class, to what strata of society have the overwhelming majority of our revolutionaries belonged so far and do they still belong? To what is called the thinking proletariat. We already spoke in detail of the political qualities of this strata in Socialism and the Political Struggle and we greatly regret that Mr. Tikhomirov did not consider it necessary to refute our ideas. "Our thinking proletariat,” we wrote, "has already done much for the emancipation of its motherland. It has shaken absolutism, aroused political interest among society, sown the seed of socialist propaganda among our working class. It is intermediary between the higher classes of society and the lower, having the education of the 306 former and the democratic instincts of the latter. This position has eased for it the diversified work of propaganda and agitation. But this same position gives it very little hope of success in a conspiracy to seize power. For such a conspiracy talent, energy and education are not enough: the conspirators need connections, wealth and an influential position in society. And that is what our revolutionary intelligentsia lacks. It can make good these deficiencies only by allying itself with other dissatisfied elements of Russian society. Let us suppose that its plans actually meet with the sympathy of those elements, that rich landowners, officials, staff and senior officers join in the conspiracy. There will then be more probability of the conspiracy being a success, although that probability will still be very small—just remember the outcome of most of the famous conspiracies in history. But the main danger to the socialist conspiracy will come not from the existing government, but from the members of the conspiracy itself. The influential and high-placed personages who have joined it may be sincere socialists only by a ’fortunate coincidence’. But as regards the majority of them, there can be no guarantee that they will not wish to use the power they have seized for purposes having nothing in common with the interests of the working class.... Thus, the more sympathy a conspiracy of the socialist intelligentsia to seize power in the immediate future meets among influential spheres, i.e., the greater the probability of its outward success, the more open to doubt its results will be; contrariwise, the more such a conspiracy is confined to our socialist intelligentsia, i.e., the less the probability of its success, the less doubt there will be about its results, as far as the conspirators’ intentions are concerned."^^208^^ Is that comprehensible? Were we right when we said that our nihilist renegade, though very useful as a revolutionary ferment in the social sphere, will not seize power because he will be prevented from doing so by his social position? Bonaparte was not a nihilist, but for his coup d’etat he, too, needed at first to become no more and no less than the head of the executive authority in the republic. Further. Is it probable that if the nihilist does draw over to his side a sufficient number of persons having influence and a high position, and if he is followed by all sorts of "white generals”, he will not profit by their social position but they will avail themselves of his selfabnegation and transform the conspiracy into an instrument for their personal aims? Perhaps we will be told that a high situation in society does not always irremediably spoil man and that a heart full of devotion to its people can beat even under a general’s uniform. We perfectly concede that, but still continue to fear the Greeks. ^^209^^ What guarantees will the revolutionaries have of the loyalty and sincerity of high-placed members of the conspiracy? The central committee’s personal knowledge of those gentlemen? 307 But how will the committee assure us of the infallibility of its choice? Can one be satisfied with such guarantees in a matter as important as the fate of the working class of a whole country? It is here that the difference between the standpoints of the SocialDemocrats on one side and of the Blanquists on the other is revealed. The former demand objective guarantees of success for their cause, guarantees which they see in the development of consciousness, initiative and organisation in the working class; the latter are satisfied with guarantees of a purely subjective nature; they abandon the cause of the working class to individuals and committees, they make the triumph of the ideas they hold dear depend on faith in the personal qualities of some or other members of the conspiracy. If the conspirators are honest, brave and experienced, socialism will triumph; if they are not resolute or capable enough, the victory of socialism will be postponed, perhaps for a short time if new and more capable conspirators are found, but for an infinitely long time if there are no such conspirators. All is here reduced to hazard, to the intelligence, ability and will of individuals.  [307•* 

Let it not be said that the Russian Blanquists of today do not deny the importance of preparatory work among the working class. No doubt whatsoever is possible on this score after Kalendar Narodnoi Volt has declared that the working population in the towns is of "particularly great importance for the revolution" (p. 130). But is there even a single party in the world which does not acknowledge that the working class can greatly help it to achieve 308 its aims? The present-day policy of the Iron Chancellor clearly shows that even the Prussian junkers do not lack such awareness. Now all appeal to the workers, but they do not all speak to them in the same tone; they do not all allot them the same role in their political programmes. This difference is noticeable even among the socialists. For the democrat Jacobi the foundation of one workers’ union was of more importance socially and historically than the Battle of Sadowa. ^^21^^° The Blanquist will of course perfectly agree with that opinion. But he will agree only because it is not battles but revolutionary conspiracies that he sees as the main motive forces of progress. If you were to suggest that he choose between a workers’ union and a "repentant nobleman"^^211^^ in the person of some divisional general, he would prefer the latter to the former almost without thinking. And that is understandable. No matter how important the workers are "for the revolution”, highplaced conspirators are still more important, for not a step can be made without them and the whole outcome of the conspiracy can often depend on the conduct of some “Excellency”.  [308•*  From the standpoint of the Social-Democrat a true revolutionary movement at the present time is possible only among the working class; from the standpoint of the Blanquist the revolution relies only partly upon the workers, who have an “important” but not the main significance in it. The former assumes that the revolution is of "particular importance" for the workers, while in the opinion of the latter the workers, as we know, are of particular importance for the revolution. The Social-Democrat wants the worker himself to make his revolution; the Blanquist demands that the worker should support the revolution which has been begun and led for him and in his name by others, for instance by officers if we imagine something in the nature of the Decembrists’ conspiracy. Accordingly the character of the activity and the distribution of forces also vary. Some appeal mainly to the workers, others deal with them only incidentally and when they are not prevented from doing so by numerous complicated and unpredictable ever-growing needs of the conspiracy which has begun without the workers. This difference is of immense practical importance and it is precisely what explains the hostile attitude of the Social-Democrats to the conspiratorial fantasies of the Blanquists.