Everyone knows that the broad spread and consolidation of the economic[41] struggle of the Russian workers went hand in hand with the creation of “literature” of economic (factory and trade) exposures. The main content of the “leaflets” was the exposure of factory conditions, and a veritable passion for exposures soon flared up among the workers. As soon as the workers saw that Social-Democratic circles were willing and able to provide them with a new kind of leaflet that told the whole truth about their miserable lives, their excessively hard labour, and their lack of rights, they began, one might say, to inundate the circles with correspondence from factories and mills. This “exposure literature” produced a tremendous sensation not only at the factory whose practices were castigated in a particular leaflet, but at all the factories where anything was heard about the revealed facts. And since the needs and hardships of workers at different enterprises and in different trades have much in common, “the truth about working-class life” gladdened everyone. Among the most backward workers a genuine passion for “getting into print” developed—a noble passion for this embryonic form of war against the entire present-day social order, which is built on robbery and oppression. And in the overwhelming majority of cases the “leaflets” were indeed a declaration of war, because the exposure had a tremendously stimulating effect, evoking from the workers a general demand that the most glaring abuses be eliminated and a readiness to support these demands with strikes. In the long run, the factory owners themselves were compelled to recognise the significance of these leaflets as a declaration of war, so much so that they frequently did not even care to wait for the war itself. Exposures, as always, became powerful by the mere fact of their appearance and acquired the force of a mighty moral pressure. More than once the appearance of a single leaflet proved enough to satisfy all or part of the demands. In a word, economic (factory) exposures were, and still remain, an important lever of the economic struggle. And they will retain this significance as long as capitalism exists, which by its very nature makes necessary the self-defence of the workers. Even in the most advanced European countries one can observe today how the exposure of abuses in some forgotten “trade” or some forgotten branch of domestic work serves as the starting point for awakening class-consciousness, for the beginning of a trade struggle, and the spread of socialism.[42]

The overwhelming majority of Russian Social-Democrats of the recent period were absorbed almost entirely in this work of organising factory exposures. Suffice it to recall *Rabochaya Mysl* to see the extent to which this absorption went, and how they forgot that this activity, in itself, is essentially not yet Social-Democratic but only trade-unionist. The exposures, in fact, concerned only the relations of the workers of a given trade to their employers, and achieved merely that the sellers of labour-power learned to sell this “commodity” on more advantageous terms and to fight the buyer on the ground of a purely commercial transaction. These exposures might (given a certain utilisation of them by an organisation of revolutionaries) become the beginning and a component part of Social-Democratic activity, but they might also (and given a worship of spontaneity, were bound to) lead to a “purely trade” struggle and to a non-Social-Democratic labour movement. Social-Democracy leads the struggle of the working class not only for favourable terms for the sale of labour-power, but also for the abolition of the social system that compels the propertyless to sell themselves to the rich. Social-Democracy represents the working class not in its relation to a given group of employers alone, but in its relation to all classes of modern society, to the state as an organised political force. It is understandable, therefore, that Social-Democrats not only must not confine themselves to the economic struggle, but must also not permit the organisation of economic exposures to constitute their predominant activity. We must actively take up the political education of the working class, the development of its political consciousness. With this, now, after the first onslaught on “Economism” by *Zarya* and *Iskra*, “all are agreed” (although some only in words, as we shall see presently).

The question arises: what should this political education consist of? Can we confine ourselves to propaganda of the idea that the working class is hostile to the autocracy? Of course not. It is not enough to *explain* the political oppression of the workers (just as it was not enough to explain to them the antagonism between their interests and those of the employers). It is necessary to agitate in connection with every concrete manifestation of this oppression (just as we began to agitate in connection with concrete manifestations of economic oppression). And since this oppression falls upon the most diverse classes of society, since it manifests itself in the most diverse spheres of life and activity—professional, civic, personal, family, religious, scientific, etc., etc.—is it not obvious that we shall not fulfil our task of developing the political consciousness of the workers unless we undertake the organisation of an *all-round political exposure* of the autocracy? Indeed, in order to agitate in connection with concrete manifestations of oppression, must we not *expose* these manifestations (just as we had to expose factory abuses in order to conduct economic agitation)?

That would seem clear. But it is precisely here that it turns out that with the necessity of all-round development of political consciousness “all” agree only in words. Here it turns out that *Rabocheye Dyelo*, for example, not only did not undertake the task of organising (or making a start in organising) all-round political exposures, but even began to drag back *Iskra*, which had taken up this task. Listen: “The political struggle of the working class is *only*” (precisely not only) “the most developed, broad, and effective form of the economic struggle” (programme of *Rabocheye Dyelo*, *R.D.* No. 1, p. 3). “The task confronting the Social-Democrats is now: how to lend the economic struggle itself a political character insofar as possible” (Martynov in No. 10, p. 42). “The economic struggle is the most broadly applicable means of drawing the masses into active political struggle” (resolution of the Union congress and the “amendments”: *Two Congresses*, pp. 11 and 17). All these propositions permeate *Rabocheye Dyelo*, as the reader sees, from its very inception right down to the latest “Editorial Instructions,” and they all express, obviously, one view of political agitation and struggle. Look at this view from the standpoint of the opinion prevailing among all “Economists” that political agitation *must follow* economic agitation. Is it true that the economic struggle is in general[43] “the most broadly applicable means” of drawing the masses into political struggle? It is utterly false. By no means less “broadly applicable” means of such “drawing in” are all and every manifestation of police oppression and autocratic outrage, and by no means only such manifestations as are connected with the economic struggle. Land captains and corporal punishment of the peasants, the bribe-taking of officials, the treatment of the urban “common people” by the police, the struggle against the famine-stricken and the persecution of the people’s striving for light and knowledge, the squeezing-out of taxes and the persecution of the sectarians, the drilling of soldiers and the barrack-room treatment of students and the liberal intelligentsia—why are all these and thousands of other similar manifestations of oppression, not directly connected with the “economic” struggle, in general *less* “broadly applicable” means and occasions for political agitation, for drawing the masses into political struggle? Quite the contrary: in the sum total of those real-life cases in which the worker suffers (for himself or for those close to him) from lawlessness, arbitrariness, and violence, only a small minority are undoubtedly cases of police oppression precisely in the trade struggle. Why, then, narrow in advance the scope of political agitation by declaring only *one* of the means “the most broadly applicable,” while alongside it for a Social-Democrat there should stand other means which, generally speaking, are no less “broadly applicable”?

In the days long, long past (a year ago!..) *Rabocheye Dyelo* wrote: “The immediate political demands become accessible to the masses after one, or at most, several strikes,” “as soon as the government sets the police and gendarmerie into motion” (No. 7, p. 15, August 1900). This opportunist theory of stages has now already been rejected by the Union, which makes a concession to us by declaring: “there is no necessity whatever to conduct political agitation from the very outset solely on the economic basis” (*Two Congresses*, p. 11). The future historian of Russian Social-Democracy will see, from this one repudiation by the “Union” of a part of its old errors, better than from any lengthy arguments, to what degradation our “Economists” brought socialism! But what naïveté it was on the part of the Union to imagine that at the price of this renunciation of one form of narrowing politics we could be induced to agree to another form of narrowing! Would it not have been more logical to say here, too, that the economic struggle should be conducted as broadly as possible, that it should always be used for political agitation, but that “there is no necessity whatever” to consider the economic struggle the most broadly applicable means for drawing the masses into active political struggle?

The Union attaches significance to the fact that it replaced the expression “the best means,” which appears in the corresponding resolution of the Fourth Congress of the Jewish Workers’ Union (Bund)[43], with the expression “the most broadly applicable means.” We would have difficulty, really, in saying which of these resolutions is the better: in our opinion, both are worse. Both the Union and the Bund slip here (partly, perhaps, even unconsciously, under the influence of tradition) into the economic, trade-unionist interpretation of politics. The matter, in essence, does not change at all whether it is done by the little word “best” or by the little word “most broadly applicable.” If the Union had said that “political agitation on the economic basis” is the most broadly applied (and not “applicable”) means, it would have been right in relation to a certain period in the development of our Social-Democratic movement. It would have been right precisely in relation to the “Economists,” in relation to many practical workers (if not to the majority of them) of 1898–1901, for these “Economist” practical workers, indeed, applied political agitation (insofar as they applied it at all!) almost exclusively on the economic basis. Such political agitation was recognised and even recommended, as we have seen, by both *Rabochaya Mysl* and the “Self-Emancipation Group”! *Rabocheye Dyelo* should have resolutely condemned the fact that the useful work of economic agitation was accompanied by a harmful narrowing of the political struggle, but instead it declares the most broadly applied (by the “Economists”) means to be the most broadly applicable! It is not surprising that when we call these people “Economists,” they have no choice but to curse us up and down as “mystifiers,” “disorganisers,” “papal nuncios,” and “slanderers”[44] ; to lament before everyone and sundry that a mortal insult has been inflicted upon them; to declare, almost with oaths: “not a single Social-Democratic organisation is now guilty of ‘Economism’”[45] . Ah, these slanderers, these wicked—politicians! Have they not deliberately invented the whole of “Economism” in order, out of sheer misanthropy, to inflict mortal insults on people?

What concrete, real meaning does Martynov’s posing of the Social-Democratic task—“to lend the economic struggle itself a political character”—have on his lips? The economic struggle is the collective struggle of the workers against the employers for favourable terms for the sale of labour-power, for the improvement of the conditions of labour and life of the workers. This struggle is necessarily a trade struggle because the conditions of labour are extremely diverse in different trades, and, consequently, the struggle for the improvement of these conditions cannot but be conducted by trades (by trade unions in the West, by temporary trade associations and leaflets in Russia, etc.). To lend “the economic struggle itself a political character” means, therefore, to strive to achieve the very same trade demands, the very same trade improvement in the conditions of labour, by means of “legislative and administrative measures” (as Martynov puts it on the very next page, p. 43, of his article). That is exactly what all trade unions have always done and do. Look into the works of the thorough scholars (and “thorough” opportunists) Mr. and Mrs. Webb, and you will see that the British trade unions long, long ago recognised and are carrying out the task of “lending the economic struggle itself a political character”; they have long been fighting for the freedom to strike, for the removal of all legal obstacles to the co-operative and trade-union movement, for laws protecting women and children, for the improvement of conditions of labour by means of sanitary and factory legislation, etc.

Thus, behind the pompous phrase: “to lend the economic struggle itself a political character,” which sounds “terribly” profound and revolutionary, there hides, in essence, the traditional striving to *degrade Social-Democratic politics to the level of trade-unionist politics*! Under the guise of correcting the one-sidedness of *Iskra*, which puts—so it seems—“the revolutionising of dogma above the revolutionising of life”[46] , they present us with the struggle for economic reforms as something new. In fact, absolutely nothing else but the struggle for economic reforms is contained in the phrase: “to lend the economic struggle itself a political character.” And Martynov himself might have arrived at this simple conclusion had he properly reflected on the meaning of his own words. “Our Party,” he says, bringing his heaviest weapon to bear against *Iskra*, “might and should present the government with concrete demands for legislative and administrative measures against economic exploitation, against unemployment, against famine, etc.” (pp. 42–43 in No. 10 of *R.D.*). Concrete demands for measures—is not that the demand for social reforms? And we ask impartial readers once more, are we slandering the *Rabocheye Dyelo*-ites (may I be forgiven this clumsy, current little word!) when we call them disguised Bernsteinians, as they present, as their point of disagreement with *Iskra*, the thesis of the necessity of a struggle for economic reforms?

Revolutionary Social-Democracy has always included, and includes, the struggle for reforms in its activity. But it uses “economic” agitation to present to the government not only the demand for all sorts of measures, but also (and first of all) the demand that it cease to be an autocratic government. Moreover, it considers it its duty to present this demand to the government not only on the basis of the economic struggle, but on the basis of *all* manifestations of social and political life, in general. In a word, it subordinates the struggle for reforms, as a part of the whole, to the revolutionary struggle for freedom and socialism. Martynov, however, resurrects the theory of stages in a different form, trying to prescribe an exclusively economic, so to speak, path of development for political struggle. Coming forward at a moment of revolutionary upsurge with a supposedly special “task” of the struggle for reforms, he thereby pulls the Party back and plays into the hands of both “economic” and liberal opportunism.

Further. Having shamefacedly hidden the struggle for reforms behind the bombastic thesis: “to lend the economic struggle itself a political character,” Martynov put forward as something special only economic (and even only factory) reforms. Why he did this, we do not know. Perhaps by oversight? But if he had in mind not only “factory” reforms, then the entire thesis he just presented would lose all meaning. Perhaps because he considers “concessions” on the part of the government possible and probable only in the economic sphere?[47] If so, that is a strange delusion: concessions are possible and do occur also in the sphere of legislation on flogging, on passports, on redemption payments, on sectarianism, on the censorship, etc., etc. “Economic” concessions (or pseudo-concessions) are, of course, cheapest and most advantageous for the government, because it hopes thereby to inspire the working masses with confidence in itself. But precisely for this reason we, Social-Democrats, must under no circumstances and absolutely in no way give ground for the opinion (or misunderstanding) that we value economic reforms more, that we consider these particularly important, etc. “Such demands,” says Martynov of the concrete demands for legislative and administrative measures put forward by him above, “would not be a hollow phrase, because, promising certain tangible results, they could be actively supported by the working masses”... We are not “Economists,” oh no! We merely grovel just as slavishly before the “tangibility” of concrete results as do Messrs. Bernstein, Prokopovich, Struve, R.M. and *tutti quanti*[48]! We only give to understand (together with Narcissus Tuporylov) that everything that “does not promise tangible results” is a “hollow phrase”! We only express ourselves as though the working masses are incapable (and have not already shown, despite those who saddle them with their own philistinism, their capacity) of actively supporting every protest against the autocracy, even one promising them absolutely no tangible results whatsoever!

Take, for instance, the very examples Martynov cites of “measures” against unemployment and famine. While *Rabocheye Dyelo*, to judge by its promise, is busy working out and elaborating “concrete (in the form of bills?) demands for legislative and administrative measures,” “promising tangible results,” while this is going on, *Iskra*, “which invariably puts the revolutionising of dogma above the revolutionising of life,” tried to explain the indissoluble connection between unemployment and the whole capitalist system, warned that “famine is coming,” exposed the police “struggle against the famine-stricken” and the outrageous “temporary penal-servitude regulations”; while *Zarya* published, as a separate printed copy, an agitational pamphlet, a part of its “Review of Home Affairs” devoted to the famine.[49] But, my God, how “one-sided” the incorrigibly narrow orthodox, the dogmatists deaf to the dictates of “life itself” were in this! Not one of their articles contained—oh horror!—a single one, now can you imagine it: absolutely not a single “concrete demand” “promising tangible results”! Unhappy dogmatists! They should be handed over to Krichevsky and Martynov for instruction, to learn that tactics are a process of growth, growing, etc., and that it is necessary to lend the economic struggle itself a political character!

“The economic struggle of the workers against the employers and against the government (‘economic struggle against the government’!!), apart from its direct revolutionary significance, also has this significance, that it continually confronts the workers with the question of their political lack of rights” (Martynov, p. 44). We have quoted this passage not in order to repeat for the hundredth and thousandth time what has already been said above, but in order to thank Martynov particularly for this new and excellent formulation: “The economic struggle of the workers against the employers and against the government.” What charm! With what inimitable talent, with what masterful elimination[50] of all particular disagreements and differences in shades among the “Economists” is the whole essence of “Economism” expressed here in a concise and clear proposition, beginning with the call to the workers to “the political struggle they wage in the interests of all, having in view the improvement of the condition of all workers”[51] , continuing with the theory of stages, and ending with the congress resolution on “the most broad applicability,” and so forth. “Economic struggle against the government” is precisely trade-unionist politics, from which Social-Democratic politics is still very, very far removed.