One Step Forward, Two Steps Back (THE CRISIS IN OUR PARTY)

D. Dissolution of the Yuzhny Rabochy Group

The alignment of the delegates over the Organising Committee
question may perhaps seem accidental. But such an opinion would
be wrong, and in order to dispel it we shall depart from the
chronological order and at once examine an incident which
occurred at the end of the Congress, but which was very closely
connected with the one just discussed. This incident was the
dissolution of the Yuzhny Rabochy group. The organisational trend of Iskra —complete
amalgamation of the Party forces and removal of the chaos
dividing them—came into conflict here with the interests of
one of the groups, which had done useful work when there was no
real party, but which had become superfluous now that the work
was being centralised. From the standpoint of circle interests,
the Yuzhny Rabochy group was entitled no less than the old Iskra editorial board to lay claim to “continuity”
and inviolability. But in the interests of the Party, it was its
duty to submit to the transfer of its forces to “the appropriate
Party organisations” (p. 313, end of resolution adopted by the
Congress). From the standpoint of circle interests and “philistinism”, the dissolution of a useful group, which no more
desired it than did the old Iskra editorial board, could not but seem a “ticklish matter” (the expression used by
Comrade Rusov and Comrade Deutsch). But from the standpoint of
the interests of the Party, its dissolution, its “assimilation”
in the Party (Gusev’s expression), was essential. The Yuzhny Rabochy group bluntly declared that it “did not deem it
necessary” to proclaim itself dissolved and demanded that “the
Congress definitely pronounce its opinion”, and pronounce it
“immediately: yes or no”. The Yuzhny Rabochy group openly invoked the same “continuity” as the old Iskra
editorial board began to invoke . . . after it was dissolved!
“Although we are all individually members of one Party,” Comrade
Egorov said, “it nevertheless consists of a number of organisations, with which we have to reckon as historical entities .... If such an organisation is not detrimental to the Party , there is no need to dissolve it .”

Thus an important question of principle was quite definitely raised, and all the Iskra -ists—inasmuch
as their own circle interests had not yet come to the forefront—took a decisive stand against the unstable
elements (the Bundists and two of the Rabocheye Dyelo -ists had already withdrawn from the Congress; they
would undoubtedly have been heart and soul in favour of
“reckoning with historical entities”). The result of the vote
was thirty-one for, five against and five abstentions (the four votes of .the members of the Yuzhny Rabochy
group and one other, that of Byelov, most likely, judging by his
earlier pronouncements, p. 308). A group of ten votes distinctly opposed to Iskra ’s consistent organisational
plan and defending the circle spirit as against the party spirit
can be quite definitely discerned here. During the debate the
Iskra -ists presented the question precisely from the standpoint of principle (see Lange’s speech, p. 315), opposing
parochial amateurishness and disunity, refusing to pay heed to
the “sympathies” of individual organisations, and plainly
declaring that “if the comrades of Yuzhny Rabochy had adhered more strictly to principle earlier, a year or two ago,
the unity of the Party and the triumph of the programme
principles we have sanctioned here would have been achieved
sooner”. Orlov, Gusev, Lyadov, Muravyov, Rusov, Pavlovich,
Glebov, and Gorin all spoke in this strain. And far from
protesting against these definite and repeated references made
at the Congress to the lack of principle in the policy and
“line” of Yuzhny Rabochy , of Makhov and of others, far
from making any reservation on this score, the
Iskra -ists of the “minority”, in the person of Deutsch,
vigorously associated themselves with these views, condemned
“chaos”, and welcomed the “blunt way the question was put”
(p. 315) by that very same Comrade Rusov who, at this same sitting , had the audacity—oh, horror!—to “bluntly
put” the question of the old editorial board too on a purely
Party basis (p. 325).

On the part of the Yuzhny Rabochy group the proposal to
dissolve it evoked violent indignation, traces of which are to
be found in the minutes (it should not be forgotten that the
minutes offer only a pale reflection of the debates, for they do
not give the full speeches, but only very condensed summaries
and extracts). Comrade Egorov even described as a “lie” the bare
mention of the Rabochaya Mysl [1] group alongside of
Yuzhny Rabochy —a characteristic sample of the attitude that prevailed at the Congress towards consistent
Economism. Even much later, at the 37th sitting, Egorov spoke of
the dissolution of Yuzhny Rabochy with the utmost irritation (p. 356), requesting to have it recorded in the
minutes that during the discussion on Yuzhny Rabochy the members of the group had not been asked either about
publication funds or about control by the Central Organ and the
Central Committee. Comrade Popov hinted, during the debate on
Yuzhny Rabochy , at a compact majority having predetermined the fate of the group. “Now,” he said (p. 316),
“ after the speeches of Comrades Gusev and Orlov, everything is clear .” The meaning of these words is unmistakable: now,
after the Iskra -ists had stated their opinion and moved
a resolution, everything was clear, i.e., it was clear that
Yuzhny Rabochy would be dissolved, against its own wishes. Here the Yuzhny Rabochy spokesman himself drew
a distinction between the Iskra -ists (and, moreover, Iskra -ists like Gusev and Orlov) and his own
supporters, as representing different “lines” of organisational
policy. And when the present-day Iskra represents the
Yuzhny Rabochy group (and Makhov too, most likely?) as “typical Iskra -ists”, it only demonstrates that the new
editorial board has forgotten the most important (from this
group’s standpoint) events of the Congress and is anxious to
cover up the evidence showing what elements went to form what is
known as the “minority”.

Unfortunately, the question of a popular periodical was not
discussed at the Congress. It was very actively discussed by all
the Iskra -ists both before the Congress and during the
Congress itself, outside the sittings, and they agreed that it
would be highly irrational at this moment in the

Party’s life to launch such a publication or convert any of the existing ones
for the purpose. The anti- Iskra -ists expressed the opposite opinion at the Congress; so did the Yuzhny Rabochy group in their report; and the fact that a motion
to this effect, with ten signatures, was not tabled can only be
attributed to chance, or to a disinclination to raise a
“hopeless” issue.

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Notes:
[1]
Rabochaya Mysl (Worker’s Thought ) was an Economist group which
published a paper under this name. The paper, edited by K. M. Takhtarev and
others, appeared from October 1897 to December 1902; 16 issues were
published altogether.

Rabochaya Mysl advocated frankly opportunist views. It opposed the
political struggle and restricted the tasks of the working-class movement to
“the interests of the moment”, to pressing for individual
partial reforms, chiefly of an economic nature. Glorifying
“spontaneity” in the movement, it opposed the creation of an
independent proletarian party and belittled the importance of revolutionary
theory and consciousness, maintaining that the socialist ideology could grow
out of the spontaneous movement.

The views expounded by Rabochaya Mysl , as the Russian variety of
international opportunism, were criticised by Lenin in the article “A
Retrograde Trend in Russian Social-Democracy” (present edition, Vol. 4,
pp. 255-85), in his Iskra articles, and in What Is To Be Done?