Date: 1900-10-26
Source: ru:PSS/v46


Source: CW vol 46

Of course, I cannot believe these "rumors" about a turn, which are not confirmed by anything on your part.

Once again, I will say it straight (even at the risk of incurring new reproaches) - being in full solidarity with my friend (to whom you write), I join his words: "We will have to fight" - if there is no turn. But if there is, we must clarify in detail what exactly this turn is.

You write to your friend: "fight, if it is not shameful." He will, of course, answer you himself, but I also ask permission to respond to this. There is nothing shameful about fighting - once disagreements have touched upon the most fundamental issues, and an atmosphere of mutual misunderstanding, mutual distrust, and complete discord has been created (I am not talking only about "Rabochaya Mysl": I am talking about everything I have seen and heard, and moreover, not so much here as at home), and since a number of "splits" have already arisen on this ground.

To get rid of this stifling stuffiness, one can (and should) even welcome a furious storm, let alone a polemic in literature.

There is no need to be particularly afraid of the struggle: the struggle may cause irritation for a few individuals, but it will clear the air, define relationships clearly and directly - it will determine which disagreements are essential and which are secondary, it will determine where people who are truly going a completely different way are, and where party comrades, who differ on minor points, are.

You write that there were mistakes in "Rabochaya Mysl." Of course, we all make mistakes. But how can one, without a struggle, separate these individual errors from the direction that is clearly outlined in "Rabochaya Mysl" and reaches its climax in the "Credo"*? Without

* Note. For example, in your letter to your friend, there is both a misunderstanding and an "economic" direction. You are right in emphasizing the need for economic struggle, the ability to use legal societies, the necessity of all kinds of responses, etc., and that one should not turn one's back on society. All this is legitimate and correct. And if you think that revolutionaries view it differently, then this is a misunderstanding. Revolutionaries only say that all efforts must be applied so that legal societies, etc., do not separate the workers' movement from social democracy and revolutionary political struggle, but, on the contrary, link them as closely and inseparably as possible. But in your letter, there is not only no desire to link, but a desire to separate, i.e., there is "economism" or "Bernsteinism," for example, in the statement: "The workers' question in Russia, as it actually stands, was first posed by 'Rabochaya Mysl'" - in the discussion about legal struggle, etc.

I apologize if my reference to your letter to your friend is not to your liking: I only wanted to illustrate my point.

* - hypocrisy. Ed.

struggle, there can be no sorting out, and without sorting out, there can be no successful forward movement, no lasting unity. Those who begin the struggle now are by no means destroying unity. Unity is already non-existent; it has already been destroyed, destroyed along the entire line. Russian Marxism and Russian Social-Democracy are scattered ruins, and open, direct struggle is one of the necessary conditions for the restoration of unity.

Yes, restoration! Such "unity," when we hide "economic" documents from our comrades as if they were a secret disease, when we take offense at the publication of the views preached under the banner of social democracy - such "unity" is not worth a brass farthing, such "unity" is real cant*, it only leads to the deepening of the disease, to its transition into a chronic, malignant form. And that open, direct, and honest struggle will cure this disease and create a truly united, vigorous, and strong Social-Democracy - in this, I do not doubt for a moment.

Perhaps it is very inappropriate to speak so often about struggle (literary) in a letter to you. But I think that our old friendship obliges us above all to be completely straightforward.

Yours, Petroff

P.S. In about two weeks, I will have a different address: Herrn Philipp Rogner, Cigarrenhandlung. Neue Gasse, Nurnberg (only for letters and also in 2 copies).