p It may seem strange for you to see at this workers’ congress representatives of Russia—a country where the working-class movement is still unfortunately extremely weak. We think that revolutionary Russia must not in any case remain aloof from the modern socialist movement in Europe, but that, on the contrary, her present closer contact with it will be of great advantage to the cause of the world proletariat. You all know the role played by Russian absolutism in the history of Western Europe. The Russian tsars have been crowned gendarmes who regarded it as their sacred duty to defend and support European reaction from Prussia to Italy and Spain. It would be wasting words to speak here of the role which Nicholas, for example, played in 1848 and 1849; it is as clear as daylight that the fall of Russian absolutism would mean the triumph of the international revolutionary movement in the whole of Europe. The only question is: what conditions are necessary for the revolutionary movement in Russia to be victorious over Russian absolutism?

Certain writers, who have more imagination than knowledge of social and economic matters, depict Russia as a country similar to China and whose economic structure has nothing in common with that of the West. That is completely false. The old economic foundations of Russia are undergoing a process of complete disintegration. Our village commune, once so dear even to certain socialists, but which in reality has been the main buttress of Russian absolutism, is becoming more and more an instrument in the hands of the rural bourgeoisie for the exploitation of the majority of the agrarian population. The poorer peasantry are forced to move to the towns and industrial centres, and simultaneously with this, big manufacturing industry is growing and absorbing the once flourishing handicrafts industry in the villages. Incited by the need for money our autocratic government is devoting all its energies to the development of capitalism in Russia. We socialists can only be satisfied with this aspect of its activity, because it is thus digging its own grave. The proletariat 405 which is being formed as a result of the disintegration of the village commune will strike a mortal blow at the autocracy. If, in spite of the heroic efforts of the Russian revolutionaries, the autocracy is not yet defeated in Russia, the explanation is that the revolutionaries are isolated from the masses of the people. The forces and the self-sacrifice of our revolutionary ideologists may be sufficient for the fight against the tsar as an individual, but they are insufficient for a victory over tsarism as a political system. The task of our revolutionary intelligentsia therefore comes, in the opinion of the Russian Social-Democrats, to the following: they must adopt the views of modern scientific socialism, spread them among the workers, and with the help of the workers, storm the stronghold of autocracy. The revolutionary movement in Russia can triumph only as the revolutionary movement of the workers. There is not and cannot be any other way out for us!