V. I.

Lenin

Vekhi Contributors and Nationalism (BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE)

A boring magazine, that Russkaya Mysl [1] There is only one interesting thing about it. Among its
writers there are liberals who contribute to and support
Vekhi , [2] the notorious renegade book in which yesterday’s
champions of liberty poured mud and filth on the struggle of the masses for liberty , a book in which, furthermore, the democratic masses of
workers and peasants were depicted as a herd led by “intellectuals”—an
old trick used by all Black-Hundred supporters.

It was not mere chance that Russian liberal “educated society” turned
against the revolution and against democracy; this was inevitable after
1905. The bourgeoisie was frightened by the independent action of the
workers and the awakening of the peasants. The bourgeoisie, especially its
richer section, anxious to preserve its position as exploiter, decided that
reaction was better than revolution.

It was these selfish class interests of the money-bags that gave rise
to the extensive and deep-going counter-revolutionary trend among
the liberals, a trend against democracy, in defence of any kind of
imperialism, nationalism and chauvinism, in defence of all obscurantism.

Class-conscious workers are not surprised at this apostasy, this
defection, because the workers never did have a very high opinion of the
liberals. It is, however, worth while examining what the liberal renegades
are preaching, with what ideas they hope to fight democracy in
general and Social-Democracy in particular.

“ Russian intellectual society,” writes Mr. Izgoyev in Russkaya Mysl “was, and, in the mass, still is convinced
that the fundamental question of European life is the proletariat’s struggle for socialism
against the bourgeoisie....”

Mr. Izgoyev says that this idea is “preconceived and erroneous”; he
points out that among the Poles in Germany struggling to maintain their
nationality, a new middle stratum has been created and is growing up—“a
democratic middle class”.

When Izgoyev speaks of “intellectuals” he actually means socialists
and democrats. The liberal is not pleased that the struggle of the
proletariat against the bourgeoisie is regarded as the fundamental
question. The liberal strives to ignite and fan the flames of national
struggle in order to divert attention from the serious questions
of democracy and socialism.

Socialism actually does take first place among the “questions of
European life” and the national struggle takes ninth place and becomes,
furthermore, the weaker and less harmful the more consistently democracy
functions. It is ridiculous even to compare the struggle of the proletariat
for socialism, a world phenomenon, with the struggle of one of the
oppressed nations of Eastern Europe against the reactionary bourgeoisie
that oppresses it (and the Polish bourgeoisie willingly joins
forces with the German bourgeoisie against the proletariat on
every convenient occasion).