V. I.

Lenin

The development of a mass working-class movement in Russia in connection with
the development of Social-Democracy is marked by three notable transitions. The
first was the transition from narrow propagandist circles to wide economic
agitation among the masses; the second was the transition to political agitation
on a large scale and to open street demonstrations; the third was the
transition. to actual civil war, to direct revolutionary struggle, to the armed
popular uprising. Each of these transitions was prepared, on the one hand, by
socialist thought working mainly in one direction, and on the other, by the
profound changes that had taken place in the conditions of life and in the whole
mentality of the working class, as well as by the fact that increasingly wider
strata of the working class were roused to more conscious and active
struggle. Sometimes these changes took place imperceptibly, the proletariat
rallying its forces behind the scenes in an unsensational way, so that the
intellectuals often doubted the lasting quality and the vital power of the mass
movement. There would then be a turning-point, and the whole revolutionary
movement would, suddenly, as it were, rise to a new and higher stage. The
proletariat and its vanguard, Social-Democracy, would be confronted with new
practical tasks, to deal with which, new forces would spring up,
seemingly out of the ground, forces whose existence no one had suspected shortly
before the turning-point. But all this did not take place at once, without
vacillations, with out a struggle of currents within the Social-Democratic
movement, without relapses to outworn views long since thought dead and buried.

Social-Democracy in Russia is once again passing through such a period of
vacillation. There was a time when political agitation had to break its
way through opportunist theories, when it was feared that we would not be
equal to the new tasks, when excessive repetition of the adjective
“class”, or a tail-ender’s interpretation of the Party’s
attitude to the class, was used to justify the fact that the Social-Democrats lagged behind the demands of the proletariat. The course of the
movement has swept aside all these short-sighted fears and backward
views. The new upsurge now is attended once more, although in a somewhat
different form, by a struggle against obsolete circles and tendencies. The
Rabocheye Dyelo -ists have come to life again in the new-Iskrists. To adapt our tactics and our organisation to the new tasks, we
have to overcome the resistance of opportunist theories of “a higher
type of demonstration” (the plan of the Zemstvo campaign), or of the
“organisation-as-process”; we have to combat the reactionary
fear of “timing” the uprising, or the fear of the revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the
peasantry. Once again, excessive (and very often foolish) repetition of the
word “class” and belittlement of the Party’s tasks in regard to
the class are used to justify the fact that Social-Democracy is lagging
behind the urgent needs of the proletariat. The slogan “workers’
independent activity” is again being misused by people who worship the
lower forms of activity and ignore the higher forms of really
Social-Democratic independent activity, the really revolutionary initiative
of the proletariat itself.

There is not the slightest doubt that the movement, in its course, will once
again sweep aside these survivals of obsolete and lifeless views. Such sweeping
aside, however, should not be reduced to mere rejection of the old errors, but,
what is incomparably more important, it should take the form of constructive
revolutionary work towards fulfilling the new tasks, towards attracting into our
Party and utilising the new forces that are now coming into the revolutionary
field in such vast masses. It is these questions of constructive revolutionary
work that should be the main subject in the deliberations of the forthcoming
Third Congress; upon these questions all our Party members should concentrate
in their local and general work. As to the new tasks that confront us, of this we have spoken in general terms on more than one
occasion. They are: to extend our agitation to new strata of the urban and rural
poor; to build up a broader, more flexible, and stronger organisation; to
prepare the uprising and to arm the people; and, to these ends, to conclude
agreements with the revolutionary democrats. That new forces have arisen for
the fulfilment of these tasks is eloquently borne out by the reports of general
strikes all over Russia, of the strikes and the revolutionary mood among the
youth, among the democratic intelligentsia generally, and even among many
sections of the bourgeoisie. The existence of these tremendous fresh forces and
the positive assurance that only a small portion of the whole vast stock of
inflammable material among the working class and the peasantry has so far been
affected by the present unprecedented revolutionary ferment in Russia are a
reliable pledge that the new tasks can and will be unfailingly fulfilled. The
practical question confronting us now is, first, how to utilise,
direct, unite, and organise these new forces; how to focus
Social-Democratic work on the new, higher tasks of the day without for a moment
forgetting the old, ordinary run of tasks that confront us, and will continue to
confront us, so long as the world of capitalist exploitation continues to exist.

To indicate several methods for dealing with this practical question we shall
begin with an individual, but to our mind very characteristic, instance. A
short time ago, on the very eve of the outbreak of the revolution, the liberal-bourgeois Osvobozhdeniye (No. 63) touched on the question of the
organisational work of the Social-Democrats. Closely following the struggle
between the two trends in Social-Democracy, Osvobozhdeniye lost no
opportunity again and again to take advantage of the new Iskra’s
reversion to Economism, in order to emphasise (in connection with the demagogic
pamphlet by “A Worker”) its own profound sympathy with the principles of
Economism. This liberal publication correctly pointed out that the pamphlet (see
Vperyod , No. 2, on the subject [1]

)

implies inevitable negation, or belittlement, of the role of revolutionary Social-Democracy. Referring to “A Worker’s” absolutely incorrect assertions that since the victory
of the orthodox Marxists the economic struggle has been ignored,
Osvobozhdeniye says:

“The illusion of present-day Russian Social-Democracy lies in its fear of
educational work, of legal ways, of Economism, of so-called non-political forms
of the labour movement, and in its failure to understand that only educational
work, legal and non-political forms, can create a sufficiently strong and broad
foundation for a working-class movement that will really be worthy of the name
revolutionary.” Osvobozhdeniye urges its adherents “to take upon
themselves the initiative in building a trade union movement”, not in
opposition to Social-Democracy, but hand in hand with it; and it draws a
parallel between this situation and that which prevailed in the German labour
movement during the operation of the Exceptional Law Against the
Socialists. [5]

This is not the place to deal with this analogy, a totally erroneous one. In the
first place, it is necessary to reassert the truth about the attitude of the
Social-Democrats towards the legal forms of the working-class
movement. “The legalisation of non-socialist and non-political labour
unions in Russia has begun,” we wrote in 1902 in What Is To Be Done ? [2] “Henceforth, we cannot but reckon with this tendency.” How shall we
reckon with it?—the question is raised there and answered by a reference
to the need of exposing, not only the Zubatov theories, but also all liberal
harmony speeches about “class collaboration”. (In inviting the
collaboration of the Social-Democrats, Osvobozhdeniye fully
acknowledges the first task, but ignores the second.) “Doing
this,” the pamphlet goes on to say, “does not at all mean forgetting that in the long
run the legalisation of the working-class movement will be to our advantage,
and not to that of the Zubatovs.” In exposing Zubatovism and liberalism at
legal meetings we are separating the tares from the wheat. “By the wheat
we mean attracting the attention of ever larger numbers, including the most
backward sections, of the workers to social and political questions, and freeing
ourselves, the revolutionaries, from functions that are essentially legal (the
distribution of legal books, mutual aid, etc.), the development of which will inevitably provide us with an increasing
quantity of material for agitation.”

It follows clearly from this that if anyone is suffering from an
“illusion” with regard to the question of “fearing” the legal forms of the movement, it is
Osvobozhdeniye . Far from fearing these forms, the revolutionary
Social-Democrats clearly point to the existence within them of tares as
well as wheat . Osvobozhdeniye’s arguments, consequently, only cover up
the liberals’ real (and founded) fear that revolutionary
Social-Democracy will expose the class essence of liberalism .

But what interests us most, from the point of view of present-day tasks, is the
question of relieving the revolutionaries of some of their functions. The very
fact that we are now experiencing the beginning of the revolution makes this a
particularly topical and widely significant question. “The more
energetically we carry on our revolutionary struggle, the more the government
will be compelled to legalise part of the trade union work, thereby relieving
us of part of our burden,” we said in What Is To Be Done ? [3]

But the energetic revolutionary struggle relieves us of “part of our burden”
in many other ways besides this. The present situation has done more than merely
“legalise” much of what was formerly banned. It has widened the
movement to such an extent that, regardless of government legalisation, many
things that were considered and actually were within reach only of
revolutionaries have now entered the sphere of practice, have become customary
and accessible to the masses. The whole course of Social-Democracy’s historical
development is characterised by the fact that in face of all obstacles it has
been winning for itself increased freedom of action, despite tsarist laws and
police measures. The revolutionary proletariat surrounds itself, as it were,
with a certain atmosphere, unthinkable for the government, of sympathy and sup
port both within the working class and within other classes (which, of course,
agree with only a small part of the demands of the working-class democrats). In
the initial stages of the movement a Social-Democrat had to carry on a great
deal of what almost amounted to cultural work, or to concentrate almost exclusively on economic agitation. Now these functions, one after
another, are passing into the hands of new forces, of wider sections that
are being enlisted in the movement. The revolutionary organisations have
concentrated more and more on carrying out the function of real
political leadership, the function of’ drawing
Social-Democratic conclusions from the workers’ protest and the
popular discontent. In the beginning we had to teach the workers the ABC,
both in the literal and in the figurative senses. Now the standard of
political literacy has risen so gigantically that we can and should
concentrate all our efforts on the more direct Social-Democratic objectives
aimed at giving an organised direction to the revolutionary stream. Now the
liberals and the legal press are doing a great deal of the
“preparatory” work upon which we have hitherto had to expend so
much effort. Now the open propaganda of democratic ideas and demands, no
longer persecuted by the weakened government; has spread so widely that we
must learn to adjust ourselves to this entirely new scope of the
movement. Naturally, in this preparatory work there are both tares and
wheat. Naturally, Social-Democrats will now have to pay greater attention to
combating the influence of the bourgeois democrats on the workers. But this
very work will have much more real Social-Democratic content than our
former activity, which aimed mainly at rousing the politically unconscious
masses.

The more the popular movement spreads, the more clearly will the true nature of
the different classes stand revealed and the more pressing will the
Party’s task be in leading the class, in becoming its organiser,
instead of dragging at the tail-end of events. The more the revolutionary
independent activity of all kinds develops everywhere, the more obvious will
be the hollowness and inanity of the Rabocheye Dyelo catchwords, so
eagerly taken up by the new-Iskrists, about independent activity in general, the
more significant will become the meaning of Social-Democratic
independent activity, and the greater will be the demands which events make on
our revolutionary initiative. The wider the new streams of the social
movement become, the greater becomes the importance of a strong
Social-Democratic organisation capable of creating new channels for these
streams. The more the democratic propaganda and agitation conducted in dependently of us
works to our advantage, the greater be comes the importance of an organised
Social-Democratic leadership to safeguard the independence of the working class
from the bourgeois democrats.

A revolutionary epoch is to the Social-Democrats what war-time is to an army. We
must broaden the cadres of our army, we must advance them from peace strength to
war strength, we must mobilise the reservists, recall the furloughed, and form
new auxiliary corps, units, and services. We must not forget that in war we
necessarily and inevitably have to put up with less trained replacements, very
often to replace officers with rank-and-file soldiers, and to speed up and
simplify the promotion of soldiers to officers’ rank.

To drop metaphor, we must considerably increase the membership of all Party and
Party-connected organisations in order to be able to keep up to some extent with
the stream of popular revolutionary energy which has been a hundred fold
strengthened. This, it goes without saying, does not mean that consistent
training and systematic instruction in the Marxist truths are to be left in the
shade. We must, how ever, remember that at the present time far greater significance in the
matter of training and education attaches to the military
operations, which teach the untrained precisely and entirely in
our sense. We must remember that our “doctrinaire” faithfulness to Marxism is now being reinforced by the march of revolutionary
events, which is everywhere furnishing object lessons to the masses and
that all these lessons confirm precisely our dogma. Hence, we do not speak
about abandoning the dogma, or relaxing our distrustful and suspicious attitude
towards the woolly intellectuals and the arid-minded revolutionaries. Quite the
contrary. We speak about new methods of teaching dogma, which it would be
unpardonable for a Social-Democrat to forget. We speak of the importance for our
day of using the object lessons of the great revolutionary events in order to
convey—not to study circles, as in the past, but to the masses—our
old, “dogmatic” lessons that, for example, it is necessary in
practice to combine terror with the uprising of the masses, or that behind the
liberalism of the educated Russian society one must be able to discern the
class interests of our bourgeoisie (cf. our polemics with the Socialists-Revolutionaries on this
question in Vperyod , No. 3 [4]

).

Thus, it is not a question of relaxing our Social-Democratic exactingness and
our orthodox intransigence, but of strengthening both in new ways, by
new methods of training. In war-time, recruits should get their training lessons
directly from military operations. So tackle the new methods of training more
boldly, comrades! Forward, and organise more and more squads, send them into
battle, recruit more young workers, extend the normal framework of all Party
organisations, from committees to factory groups, craft unions, and student
circles! Remember that every moment of delay in this task will play into the
hands of the enemies of Social-Democracy; for the new streams are seeking an
immediate outlet, and if they do not find a Social-Democratic channel they will
rush into a non-Social-Democratic channel. Remember that every practical step in
the revolutionary movement will decidedly, inevitably give the young recruits a
lesson in Social-Democratic science; for this science is based on an objectively
correct estimation of the forces and tendencies of the various classes, while
the revolution itself is nothing but the break-up of old superstructures and the
independent action of the various classes, each striving to erect the new
superstructure in its own way. But do not debase our revolutionary science to
the level of mere book dogma, do not vulgarise it with wretched phrases about
tactics-as-process and organisation-as-process, with phrases that seek to
justify confusion, vacillation, and lack of initiative. Give more scope to all
the diverse kinds of enterprise on the part of the most varied groups and
circles, bearing in mind that, apart from our counsel and regardless of it, the
relentless exigencies of the march of revolutionary events will keep them upon
the correct course. It is an old maxim that in politics one often has to learn
from the enemy. And at revolutionary moments the enemy always forces correct
conclusions upon us in a particularly instructive and speedy manner.

To sum up, we must reckon with the growing movement, which has increased a
hundredfold, with the new tempo of the work, with the freer atmosphere and the wider field of activity. The work
must be given an entirely different scope. Methods of training should be
refocussed from peaceful instruction to military operations. Young fighters
should be recruited more boldly, widely, and rapidly into the ranks of all and every kind of our organisations. Hundreds of new organisations
should be set up for the purpose without a moment’s delay. Yes, hundreds; this
is no hyperbole, and let no one tell me that it is “too late” now to
tackle such a broad organisational job. No, it is never too late to organise. We
must use the freedom we are getting by law and the freedom we are taking
despite the law to strengthen and multiply the number of Party organisations of
all varieties. Whatever the course or the outcome of the revolution may be,
however early it may be checked by one or other circumstance, all its
real gains will be rendered secure and reliable only insofar as the proletariat
is organised.

The slogan “Organise!" which the adherents of the majority wanted to
issue, fully formulated, at the Second Congress must now be put into effect
immediately. If we fail to show bold initiative in setting up new organisations,
we shall have to give up as groundless all pretensions to the role of
vanguard. If we stop helplessly at the achieved boundaries, forms, and confines
of the committees, groups, meetings, and circles, we shall merely prove our own
incapacity. Thou sands of circles are now springing up everywhere without our
aid, without any definite programme or aim, simply under the impact of
events. The Social-Democrats must make it their task to establish and strengthen
direct contacts with the greatest possible number of these circles, to assist
them, to give them the benefit of their own knowledge and experience, to
stimulate them with their own revolutionary initiative. Let all such circles,
except those that are avowedly non-Social-Democratic, either directly join the
Party or align themselves with the Party. In the latter event we must
not demand that they accept our programme or that they necessarily enter into
organisational relations with us. Their mood of protest and their sympathy for
the cause of international revolutionary Social-Democracy in themselves suffice,
provided the Social-Democrats work effectively among them, for these circles of
sympathisers under the impact of events to be transformed at first into democratic assistants and then
into convinced members of the Social-Democratic working-class party.

There are masses of people, and we are short of people; this contradictory
formula has long expressed the contradictions between the organisational life
and the organisational needs of the Social-Democratic Party. Today
this contradiction is more salient than ever before; we often hear
from all sides passionate appeals for new forces, complaints about the shortage of forces in
the organisations, while at the same time we have everywhere countless offers of
service, a growth of young forces, especially among the working class. The
practical organiser who complains of a shortage of people under such
circumstances becomes the victim of the illusion from which Madame Roland
suffered, when she wrote in 1793, at the peak of the Great French Revolution,
that France had no men, that there were only dwarfs. People who talk in this
manner do not see the wood for the trees; they admit that they are blinded by
events, that it is not they, the revolutionaries, who control events in mind
and deed, but events that control them and have overwhelmed them. Such
organisers had better retire and leave the field clear for younger
forces who often make up with verve what they lack in experience.

There is no dearth of people; never has revolutionary Russia had such a
multitude of people as now. Never has a revolutionary class been so well off
for temporary allies, conscious friends, and unconscious supporters as the
Russian proletariat is today. There are masses of people; all we need do is get
rid of tail-ist ideas and precepts, give full scope to initiative and
enterprise, to “plans” and “undertakings”, and thus show
ourselves to be worthy representatives of the great revolutionary class. Then
the proletariat of Russia will carry through the whole great Russian revolution as heroically as it has begun it.

---
Notes:
[1]
See pp. 56-62 of this volume.— Ed .

[2]
See present edition, Vol. 5, p. 455.— Ed .

[3]
See present edition, Vol. 5, p. 491.— Ed .

[4]
See pp. 83-89 of this volume.—Ed.

[5]
The Exceptional Law Against the Socialists was promulgated in Germany in 1878. The law suppressed all organisations of the
Social-Democratic Party, mass working-class organisations, and the labour
press; socialist literature was confiscated; and the banishing of socialists
began. The law was annulled in 1890 under pressure of the mass working-class movement.