V. I.

Lenin

The Fifth Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party

April 30-May 19 (May 13-June 1), 1907

9

Objections to Trotsky’s Amendments to the
Bolshevik Resolution on the Attitude Towards Bourgeois Parties, Adopted by
the Congress

May 15-16 (28-29) [1]

I

Twopoints are important here. They must not be deleted.
The first point indicates the economically more progressive
strata of the bourgeoisie. This is essential. Even more essential is the point
on the bourgeois intelligentsia. In the bourgeois parties there are an
increasing number of bourgeois intellectuals who are attempting to reconcile the
feudal-minded landlords with the toiling peasantry, and who stand for the
preservation of all sorts of remnants and survivals of the autocracy.

II

Itmust be agreed that Trotsky’s amendment is not Menshevik, that it
expresses the “very same”, that is, Bolshevik, idea. But Trotsky has
expressed this idea in a way that is scarcely better. When we say
“simultaneously” we are expressing the general character
of present-day politics. This general character is undoubtedly of such a nature
that conditions force us to come out simultaneously both against Stolypin and
against the Cadets. The same is true with regard to the treacherous
policy of the Cadets. Trotsky’s insertion is redundant, for we
are not fishing for unique cases in the resolution, but are laying down the
basic line of Social-Democracy in the bourgeois Russian revolution.

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Notes:
[1]
At the twenty-seventh session of the Congress, when the Bolshevik resolution
on the attitude towards bourgeois parties was being discussed, Trotsky proposed
the removal from the resolution of the characterisation of the social basis of
the liberal-monarchist parties and of the most important of them, the
Cadets. The proposal was rejected after Lenin’s speech.