I shall begin with the question raised here about the position of the Polish delegation. The Polish comrades were reproached—especially by the Bundists—for being inconsistent in agreeing to our resolution, which they themselves declared in the commission to be unsatisfactory. Such reproaches are based on a very simple trick: on evasion of the substance of the questions confronting the congress under this item on the agenda. Whoever does not wish to evade the substance of the question will readily see that we, the Bolsheviks, have constantly agreed and now agree with the Poles on two most fundamental questions. First, we agree that, in the name of the socialist tasks of the proletariat, its class isolation in relation to all other, bourgeois parties is absolutely necessary, no matter how revolutionary those parties may be, no matter what democratic republic they may defend. Second, we agree in recognising the right and the duty of the workers’ party to lead into the struggle not only against the autocracy, but also against the treacherous liberal bourgeoisie, the petty-bourgeois democratic parties, including the peasant parties.

In the resolution on the report of the Social-Democratic Duma group submitted to the congress by the Polish comrades, these ideas or propositions are expressed with utter clarity. There it is plainly stated that class isolation from all parties, the Socialist-Revolutionaries included, is necessary. There it is plainly stated that joint actions by the Social-Democrats with the Trudovik groups against the liberals are possible and necessary. This is precisely what in Russia we call the Left bloc or the policy of the Left bloc.

From this it is clear that what unites us with the Poles is genuine solidarity on the fundamental points of the question of the attitude toward the bourgeois parties. To deny this and to speak of the contradictory nature of the Poles’ conduct is to evade a direct formulation of the principled disagreement.

Socialist isolation of the proletariat from all, even the most revolutionary and republican parties—then, leadership by the proletariat of the struggle of all revolutionary democracy in the given revolution. Can it really be denied that these are precisely the basic and guiding ideas of both the Polish and the Bolshevik resolution?

A few words about Trotsky. I have no time here to dwell on our disagreements with him. I will merely note that Trotsky, in his pamphlet *In Defence of the Party*, expressed in print his solidarity with Kautsky, who wrote about the economic community of interests of the proletariat and the peasantry in the present revolution in Russia. Trotsky acknowledged the permissibility and expediency of the Left bloc against the liberal bourgeoisie. For me, these facts suffice to recognise that Trotsky is drawing closer to our views. Regardless of the question of “uninterrupted revolution,” here there is solidarity on the fundamental points of the question of the attitude toward the bourgeois parties.

Comrade Lieber very energetically reproached me for striking even the Trudoviks from the list of the bourgeois-democratic allies of the proletariat. Here again Lieber was carried away by phrases, treating the core of the dispute inattentively. I was not speaking about ruling out joint actions with the Trudoviks, but about the necessity of separating ourselves from the waverings of the Trudoviks. We must not fear “isolating” ourselves from them when they are inclined to trail after the Cadets. We must mercilessly expose the Trudoviks when they fail to stand on the consistent standpoint of a revolutionary democrat. One of two things, Comrade Lieber: either the workers’ party pursues a genuinely independent proletarian policy—in which case we permit joint actions with a section of the bourgeoisie only when that section accepts our policy, and not the other way around. Or else our words about the independence of the class struggle of the proletariat will remain empty words.

Along with Lieber, Plekhanov too evaded the core of the dispute, only in a different manner. Plekhanov spoke of Rosa Luxemburg, depicting her as a Madonna seated upon the clouds. What can be said! A refined polemic—gallant—striking… But all the same I would ask Plekhanov: Madonna or no Madonna, what do you actually think on the substance of the question? (Applause from the Centre and the Bolsheviks.) It is rather a poor thing if the Madonna was needed in order to evade an examination of the question on its merits. Madonna or no Madonna, what are we to do about the “plenipotentiary Duma”? What is that? Does it resemble Marxism or an independent policy of the proletariat?

“Agreements from case to case”—Lieber and Plekhanov alike tell us this, in various keys. That is a very convenient formula. But it is entirely unprincipled. It is entirely devoid of content. After all, we, too, comrades, permit in specific instances agreements with the Trudoviks, also only from case to case, exclusively from case to case. We shall gladly insert these words into our resolution as well.

That, after all, is not the question. The question is: what kind of joint actions from case to case are permissible, with whom, for the sake of what goal! These essential questions were slurred over, obscured, both by Plekhanov with his gallant witticisms and by Lieber with his empty pathos. Yet this is not a theoretical question, but a most living, practical one. From experience we have seen what the Mensheviks’ notorious agreements from case to case, the notorious “technical” agreements, mean! They mean a policy of dependence of the working class on the liberals—nothing more. “From case to case” is a poor cover for this opportunist policy.

Plekhanov cited quotations from Marx’s works about the necessity of supporting the bourgeoisie. It is a pity he did not cite quotations from the *Neue Rheinische Zeitung*; it is a pity he forgot the manner in which Marx “supported” the liberals at the height of the bourgeois revolution in Germany. And indeed there is no need to go so far for proof of what is indisputable. Even the old *Iskra* wrote more than once about the necessity of supporting the liberals—even the marshals of the nobility—by the Social-Democratic workers’ party. In the period before the bourgeois revolution, when Social-Democracy still had to awaken the people to political life, this was fully legitimate. Now, when various classes have already appeared on the scene, when the peasant revolutionary movement has shown itself, on the one hand, and liberal treachery, on the other—now there can no longer be any talk of us supporting the liberals. We are all agreed that the Social-Democrats must now demand the confiscation of the landed estates; and what is the attitude of the liberals toward this?

Plekhanov said: all the more or less progressive classes must become an instrument in the hands of the proletariat. I have no doubt that such is Plekhanov’s wish. But I assert that in practice what emerges from Menshevik policy is not this at all, but something quite the opposite. In practice, in all instances over the past year, during the so-called support of the Cadets by the Mensheviks, it was precisely the Mensheviks who were an instrument of the Cadets. That held true in the support of the demand for a Duma ministry, and during the electoral blocs with the Cadets. Experience has shown that the instrument in these instances turned out to be precisely the proletariat, contrary to the “wishes” of Plekhanov and other Mensheviks. Not to mention the “plenipotentiary Duma” and the vote for Golovin.

It is necessary to acknowledge with the utmost definiteness that the liberal bourgeoisie has taken the counter-revolutionary path, and to wage a struggle against it. Only then will the policy of the workers’ party become independent and not merely in words a revolutionary policy. Only then shall we systematically influence both the petty bourgeoisie and the peasantry, which waver between liberalism and revolutionary struggle.

It was in vain that objections were raised here against the correctness of our premise regarding the deception of the petty bourgeoisie by the liberals. Not only our revolution, but also the experience of other countries, has shown that it is precisely by deception that the influence of liberalism is maintained among many strata of the population. The struggle for the liberation of these strata from the influence of the liberals is our direct task. The German Social-Democrats for decades undermined and have destroyed, for example in Berlin, the influence of the liberals over the broad masses of the population. We can and must achieve the same and deprive the Cadets of their democratic supporters.

I shall show by example what Menshevik policy of supporting the Cadets led to. In the Menshevik newspaper *Russkaya Zhizn* of February 22, 1907 (No. 45), in an unsigned—i.e., editorial—article, it was stated apropos of Golovin’s election and his speech: “The Chairman of the State Duma took upon himself a great and responsible task—to utter a word in which the chief demands and needs of the 140-million-strong people would be crystallised… Mr. Golovin could not, even for a single moment, rise above being a member of the Cadet party, become the spokesman of the will of the entire Duma.” You see what an instructive result this yields? From a simple support by voting, the Mensheviks derive the responsible task of a liberal—to speak on behalf of “the people.” That is a direct transfer of ideological and political leadership to liberalism. That is a complete renunciation of the class standpoint. And I shall say: if, in a Left bloc, any Social-Democrat took it into his head to write about the responsible task of a Trudovik to express the needs of “labour”—I would wholeheartedly subscribe to the resolute condemnation of such a Social-Democrat. That is an ideological bloc with the Cadets on the part of the Mensheviks, and we must not permit with anyone, not even with the Socialist-Revolutionaries, any such blocs.

Incidentally, Martynov said that we supposedly descend to such a bloc when we speak of all the land and all freedom. That is untrue. Let me remind you of the Menshevik *Sotsial-Demokrat*. There, in the draft electoral platform drawn up by the Central Committee, we encounter the same slogans of land and freedom! Martynov’s words are nothing more than captiousness.

In conclusion, I would like to say a few words addressed to the Polish comrades. Perhaps to some of them a precise characterisation of the petty-bourgeois parties might seem unnecessary. The more sharply acute class struggle in Poland perhaps renders it superfluous. But for the Russian Social-Democrats it is necessary. A precise indication of the class character of the Trudovik parties is extraordinarily important for guiding the entire propaganda and agitation. Only by proceeding from a class analysis of the parties can we pose before the entire working class with full definiteness our tactical task: the socialist class isolation of the proletariat, and the struggle under its leadership both against the autocracy and against the treacherous bourgeoisie. (Applause from the Bolsheviks and the Centre.)