Date: 1902
Source: ru:PSS/v2

Nearly five years have passed since the pamphlet now offered to readers was written. During this time, our revolutionary movement—and especially the Social-Democratic workers’ movement—has grown, spread, and strengthened with astonishing, almost unbelievable rapidity. The internal and external circumstances of the Russian Social-Democratic Party have undergone profound changes, and these years have also enriched the author’s own experience, both in terms of party work and in theoretical as well as practical matters. It may therefore seem rather strange that a second edition of this small pamphlet on “Tasks” should appear without any alterations whatsoever compared to the first edition. Have “tasks,” after all, not advanced a single iota since then—neither from the standpoint of the objective “facts” of party life nor, subjectively, from the author’s own perspective?

The answer to this naturally arising question is to be found in my pamphlet “What Is to Be Done?” (Stuttgart, Verlag Dietz, 1902 [292]), where I set forth the author’s current views on the party’s present “tasks” [293]. On the one hand, this latest pamphlet explains why additions and revisions to the proposed pamphlet have proved superfluous—and indeed, perhaps even impossible. On the other hand, it also clarifies why there arose a need to republish the old pamphlet—now, in many respects, of course, somewhat outdated—beyond mere practical-agitational purposes. It was precisely in “What Is to Be Done?” that I attempted to take a retrospective look at the history of the Russian Social-Democratic Party and to delineate three distinct periods in its development. According to this view, we are currently witnessing the end of the third period and the beginning of the fourth; the third period was an era of fragmentation and instability, brought about by the extraordinarily rapid expansion of the movement outward, while growth inward remained insufficient. The accuracy of this assessment, of course, hinges on whether there existed, during the second period, something more or less enduring—something that would later “waver” in the very next moment [294].

Written in 1902, no later than August

First published here, from the manuscript