Date: 1909
Source: ru:PSS/v25

It is well known that, when it comes to questions of tactics and organization, Plékhanov has repeatedly found himself in awkward predicaments—tragic ones, at that. Over the past eleven years (since the autumn of 1903, when he defected from the Bolsheviks to the Mensheviks), he has tangled himself up in these matters time and again, often in a rather comical fashion.

Now he is once again beginning to lose his way—and we are compelled to present this sobering picture to our readers. Let us first recall Plékhanov’s significant contributions during the dark years of 1909–1911. He lauded the underground movement and resolutely upheld the Party’s decisions to combat liquidationism. He exposed the opportunism of the liquidators and their revival of “Economism” (a bourgeois current within Marxism that flourished from 1894 to 1902). He demonstrated that by denying the existence of the underground, the liquidators had betrayed the Party. He rightly explained that “Mr. Potrésov” was no different from Judas—and that, without Judas, the apostles were stronger than they were with him.

These were clear, precise, and coherent ideas, fully consistent with the resolutions adopted in 1908 and 1910.

Now look at Plékhanov’s latest “turn.” In the newspaper “Edinstvo,”{81} he now inveighs against the Pravdists, accusing them of “factionalism” and “usurpation” (illegally seizing power, posing as legitimate leaders), claiming that we do not have “just one workers’ press, but two whole presses.”

This may not be particularly articulate—but it is, at least, comprehensible. The liquidationist newspaper has been declared a workers’ paper!! Well, isn’t that a surprise! Yet Plékhanov himself had previously defended the correctness of the resolution that branded liquidationism as a bourgeois influence on the proletariat.

Plékhanov’s attempts to forget this are in vain; the workers will only laugh at such forgetfulness.

The liquidationist press is not a workers’ press—it is a publication that perpetuates bourgeois influence over the proletariat. This was stated clearly and unequivocally in the resolution of the “whole”{82}. To this day, the liquidators themselves provide ample, visible proof: just look, for example, at the conciliatory speeches delivered by Bulkin and Martov against the underground in “Nasha Zarya,” No. 3, 1914.

So what, then, is the point of Plékhanov’s call for unity with the liquidators? Unity with a group of literary figures who, in a thoroughly Potrésovian manner, deny the very existence of the underground? To defend such unity, one must first defend the abandonment of the underground!

Plékhanov has become so muddled that he can no longer distinguish between right and wrong.

After all, the liquidators made it abundantly clear—both in “Nasha Zarya” and in “Novaya Rabochaya Gazeta” (edited by F. D. and L. M., its leading figures), and through the words of Chkheidze and Ko—that they stand firm in their position, defending Potrésov and allowing the underground to be dismantled. They champion the idea of an open workers’ party.

And yet Plékhanov simultaneously denounces liquidationism as a crime against the Party while advocating “unity” with the liquidators.

One can only smile at such contradictions.

The Pravdists welcome with open arms all workers who genuinely seek to embrace the “form” rejected by Potrésov—while dismissing empty rhetoric about “unity” with opponents of the underground as nothing more than the vacuous pronouncements of those who do not even know what they truly desire.

When accused of “usurpation,” the Pravdists respond calmly: Is not the one who loves grandiloquent rhetoric and empty phrases, yet shies away from facts, the very embodiment of usurpation and imposture? Plékhanov lives abroad—so why does he remain silent about the fact that, from August 1912 to May 1914, the liquidators did not publish a single issue of their foreign-based newspaper? Not a single concrete instance of those “organizations” that Plékhanov himself had once championed?

In contrast, the opponents of liquidationism possess a wealth of concrete evidence, spanning every corner of Russia—and documented in numerous issues of their publications.

Plékhanov remains silent about the facts, for the facts refute his empty rhetoric.

Let us turn to the data published in Russia, which are open to public scrutiny. Over the full two-year period of 1912 and 1913, the Pravdists united (and proved this through mass gatherings) 2,801 workers’ groups, while the liquidators managed to unite only 750. Adding in 1914—from February 1st to May 6th (according to preliminary counts), we find 5,302 groups versus 1,382.

The Pravdists account for roughly four-fifths of the total!

It is only natural that those who fear the truth are left clinging to mere words and empty phrases.

Around the precise and clear resolutions—three times revised and verified by representatives of the working class (in January 1912, and again in February and summer of 1913)—the Pravdists united four-fifths of Russia’s conscious workers. These resolutions were elaborated into hundreds of articles and brought to life.

These are not empty words, not fables, not anecdotes about gourmands or savages (Plékhanov keeps regurgitating old jokes!), but hard facts. Here is unity in practice—the unity of workers who have tested their tactics through experience.

If we were to dismiss this tactic, endorsed by thousands of workers, as merely “Leninist”—that would only serve as a compliment to Lenin; the 5,000 workers’ groups would not vanish, nor would their unity, nor their Party.

The terms “factionalism,” “fragmentation,” “disintegration,” and the like—these are precisely the labels that stick to Plékhanov and his current allies. Look at the list of contributors printed on the front page of Plékhanov’s “Edinstvo,” a journal associated with the intellectual Narodnik milieu. Before us are Gimmer and Co., preaching anti‑Marxist ideas; Plékhanov was right when he labeled these ideas the doctrines of “reactionary socialists.” Before us are the seekers of God and the Machists: Bogdanov, Bazárov, Lunacharsky. Before us are the liquidators: Dan, Martov, Cherévanin (for some reason, Potrésov, mentioned in No. 66 of “Severnaya Rabochaya Gazeta,” has disappeared). And here too is the liberal Bogucharский, and others besides.

Even in this “Sovremennik,” where there is not a whiff of the working class in sight, Mr. Gimmer openly boasts that Plékhanov supports unity with him!! And Plékhanov remains silent.

Isn’t it time to remove the mask—before the workers, perhaps, take it off for him in a rather impolite manner? The intellectual, anti‑Marxist circles, the remnants of bourgeois democracy—this is where poor Plékhanov inadvertently found himself; here is chaos, fragmentation, and petty factionalism, pitted against the unity forged over two years by thousands of workers’ groups aligned with the Pravdists.

Let us have pity on Plékhanov—he deserved better, having fought tirelessly against opportunists, Narodniks, Machists, and liquidators. Let us continue to build upon the foundation already laid—for four-fifths of the way—uniting workers’ groups that have adopted a precise, empirically tested tactic.

We leave the door wide open for anyone who renounces liquidationism.

And through the examples of Trotsky’s “Borba” and Plékhanov’s “Edinstvo,” let us reveal the tragic—and often comical—fluctuations of intellectual cliques that have broken away from the workers’ movement, wavering endlessly, shifting today in one direction, tomorrow in another, drifting from the intellectual world of Potrésov to the intellectual sphere of Gimmer.

It is a sad spectacle—but an inevitable one in a petty-bourgeois country during the era of bourgeois-democratic transformations.

“Rabochiy,” No. 4, May 25, 1914

Printed according to the text of the newspaper “Rabochiy.”