PLEKHANOV AND THE NEW ISKRA
I.
Organizational lie
7.
Takshichescal fog[ - and tactical truth??
moan37).
I II. Opportunistic] wing of the party??
IV.
How, when and why Plekhanov rewrote history in the new Iskra?
1. What to do. Fabrications. Cfompare Karl Kautsky38).
2. — Fruits of demagogy 39).
3. Program. "Not Lenin". Document40).
4. Promise given in Vpered.

main points in the program.
5. Letter about "Proletarian]" and "Martynovism".
6. EE = Lie.
V. Conclusion.
A few words against exaggerating] disagreements.
1. Repetition] from Steps about Axelrod41).
2. Small mistakes and big people.
3. Confer42) Bebel and 1895 "Breslauer Debatten43).
4. Bebel in Breslau and Karl Kautsky contra his
"tone".
5. Until Plekhanov] frees himself from the legacy
of the new
Iskra, he will confuse and falsify.

d.
PLEKHANOV AND THE NEW ISKRA.
I.
Instead of a preface.
A small addition to the analysis of intellectual supermen *).
II. The question of the participation of socialdemocracy in the provisional
revolutionary government.
III.
How, when and why did comrade Plekhanov get confused?
*) Vladimir Ilyich left three variants of the ending of the last two
words.
One can also read: "intellectual - superman" and "intellectual superman".
Ed.

Plan of the Zemstvo Campaign
1.
2.
3.
"I am not a marxist".
"Dialectics".
"Steps".
Organizational vagueness].
4. Connection
of organizational views with tactical.
Amendment
# 85.
Brochure of Trotsky]
On the Liberation of E.
IV. How did comrade Plekhanov write history in the new Iskra?
1. What to do.
II. Program.
V.
Conclusion. A few words against exaggerating disagreements.
|
Confer about Axelrod in Shags.
Small mistakes of great people.
Bebel und Agrardatte in Breslau43).
A party of turncoats, a faction of the same. "Got smarter"*1
Ad. I.
Political unethicalness. Fashion. Tushino flights. Turncoats. "Darling". Boastfulness.
A super-man is lonely and thinks that this is because he is above everyone else. Sometimes he also hypocritically covers up desertions.
Ad. II.
(a) Unnecessary obstacles to clarifying the issue.
1. Philosophy. — 2. Marty-
nov and
What to do.
3. Where
were
Engels's letters printed?— 4. Lenin alone. Dialectics? ad. III.
(β) References to Marx (αα) and references to
Engels (β(β).
(γ) How is this question being posed *) in Russia in 1905?
*) The word "posed" is written above "being placed" in the manuscript.
Ed.

,

PLEKHANOV AND THE NEW ISKRA
Maybe d[emokrati-
____________________________ cal] dictato-
1789— 1848— 50------------?
rship? or or
1873, 1871, 1894 etc.
no? Mixing------------------------------------------ with
socialistical].
Lenin "invented" dictatorship in the mensheviks? Resolution of Congresses and polemics
Equally? In bolshe- superman.
shevism?
("Relationship of forces")
in the resolution].
Petty bourgeoisie revolutionary and reactionary] democracy.
Connection of the question with the uprising.
"Organ" of the uprising.
In
bolshevism and socialist] revolution.
Revolutionary communes and seizure of cities.
Principle (treason, Blanquism etc.) or expediency? ! # 74 and Zarya
21)
"The leader is dead".
Course and outcome of the revolution.
"Admissible" or not?
Karl Kautsky: useless "dispute" 44). Compare his also about the rule of the proletariat.
Ad. III. 1) I session. Moral responsibility.
2) Ibidem § 1.
3) Letter 7 X 03.
4) What not do.
5) Inside out = dialectics.
6) Contra: Steps.
7) Zemstvo plan.
8) # 85.

"Two Congresses" "Steps"

Needed
Vpered # 14
Proletary] # 2
Iskra Da 74

*) About the "intellectual superman" in Plekhanov's "Diary"
No. 2 (article "Brothers Feuding with Each Other", p. 41). All references to
Plekhanov's "Diary" here refer to 2 articles published in
XIII vol. Works of G. V. Plekhanov, pp. 273 - 319.
2) See "Diary" No. 2, p. 34.
3) So - so!
4) Bretter - a professional duelist, a bully.
5) See "Social Democratic Darling", p. 372.
6) In the manuscript of Lenin's article "Playing at Parliamentarism" there is such
place: "These supermen imagine themselves above both the "majority"
and the "minority": in fact, they are lower than both, for
to all the shortcomings of the majority, they have managed to add all the shortcomings of the minority and all the shortcomings of the turncoat. In the text
of the article published in "Proletarian" # 18, dated 26 (13) September 1905,
the quoted words are omitted.
The cited words should have followed directly after the following words of the article: "our, standing
outside both parts of the party, supermen, like Parvus and Plekhanov,
majestically ignore the very resolutions of the new-Iskraists, for which they are morally and politically responsible." (Works, vol. VIII, p. 227.)
7) See documents for the article "On the Provisional Revolutionary Government". (Pp. 300 - 306.)
8) In his article, Plekhanov accused Lenin of "carelessness" towards philosophy in connection, among other things, with the circumstance that
the Machist A. A. Bogdanov was close to the editorial board of Vpered.
This reproach
Plekhanov Lenin, apparently, was going to parry with a reference to the fact that
it was he (Lenin) who, back in mid-1903, suggested that L. I. Axelrod
(Orthodox) to speak out in Iskra against the philosophical writings of Bogdanov.
An indication of this is contained in the article by L. I. Axelrod "A New Variety
of Opportunism.
("Iskra" # 77, dated 18 (5) November 1904.)
That is exactly it seems to us, the meaning of Lenin's note: "Contra Orthodox".
9) Plekhanov characterizes Lenin's polemical methods as his tendency to "coarseness of expression", contrasting it with his "sharpness
of judgments". ("Diary", p. 10.)
10) Lenin has in mind Engels's letter to Turati in 1894, which figured in the polemic between him and
Plekhanov. (See note 16.)
11) Refers to Plekhanov's defense of Lenin's "What Is To Be Done?"
from Martynov's attacks at the ninth session of the 2nd Congress.
(Minutes of the 2nd Congress, pp. IZ — 114.)
12) These words refer to the following passage from Plekhanov's article (p. 48
"Diary"): "the man who combined in himself all the organizational powers,
assures that he has freed the party from the yoke of the "foreigners"; in fact,
it is precisely now that the "party"—i.e. one of its parts—has fallen under the yoke of the foreign-

PLEKHANOV AND THE NEW ISKRA

nik, who,—in his capacity as a "foreigner,"—will be incomparably more
durable than all his other comrades on the Central Committee."
13) Marx's words "I am not a Marxist" ("je ne suis pas marxist") are quoted in Engels' letter to P. Lafargue of October 27, 1890.
14) In the article "The Revolutionary Democratic Dictatorship of the Proletariat and the Peasantry" (Works, vol. VII, p. 199), Lenin called Martynov a "virtuoso of Philistinism."
Plekhanov tries to portray the matter as if
Lenin's argumentation also affects Marx. ("Diary," pp. 17-18).
15) Lenin pointed out in the article "On the Provisional Revolutionary Government" Plekhanov's substitution of Marx's position in 1848 on the question
of the provisional government.
"Marx does not raise the question of the participation of the workers' party in the provisional revolutionary government, but Plekhanov
concludes that Marx decides this question generally and in principle in
an absolutely negative spirit." (Works, vol. VII, p. 318.)
Plekhanov continued to insist that Marx "did not even allow the thought of the possibility"
of such participation. ("Diary" No. 2, pp. 21-22.)
16) Vladimir Ilyich is referring to the point of his dispute with Plekhanov, which concerned Engels' letter to Turati of *1894.
Lenin insisted that this letter should be interpreted in connection with the given "situation."
Plekhanov believed that it contained a general principle, in no way
connected with the "situation" at the time it was written.
Plekhanov wrote:
"This letter was written in 1894, i.e., in a 'situation' that was significantly
different from the 'situation' of 1848; at the same time, the idea of the inadmissibility
of the proletariat's participation in a petty-bourgeois government is expressed there
in the form of a general tactical principle, equally applicable to all
those countries in which the working class has not yet matured for its dictatorship.
...Immediately after Engels' death, his letter to Turati was published
in "Critica Sociale," then it appeared as an appendix to the brochure "Economica politica," containing a translation of Engels' famous article
"Umrisse zu einer Kritik der politischen Oekonomie," then it was
cited by Kautsky in "Neue Zeit" during the polemic caused by the "crisis in socialism." ("Diary" No. 2, pp. 21, 23-24.) (See also note 7
on p. 306 and doc. "g" on p. 317.)
17) Plekhanov wrote: "It turned out that in the polemic, he (Lenin) ... resorted to the most impermissible methods... There is nowhere further to go:
he makes me out to be something like a literary sharper."
("Diary"
No. 2, p. 10.)
18) "Martynov tried to bring the views of the revolutionary
Social Democrats to the point of absurdity, frightening them with the fact that in the event of successful work on
organizing the revolution, in the event of the armed people's
uprising being led by our party, we would have to participate in the provisional revolutionary government. And such participation is an inadmissible
'seizure of power,' is an impermissible, for a class Social-Democratic party, 'vulgar Jauresism'...
'Subjectively, Jaurès wanted to save the republic by entering into an alliance with bourgeois democracy for this purpose.
The objective conditions of this 'experience' consisted in the fact that the republic in
France was already a fait accompli and was in no serious danger'... 'The objective conditions differ from the French ones as heaven from earth'...
'Since Jaurès in France bowed down before bourgeois social reform, incorrectly covering himself with the subjective goal
of fighting for the republic, therefore we, the Russian Social Democrats, must
refuse to seriously fight for the republic!
After all, this is precisely what the wisdom of the new-Iskra-ites boils down to.' (Works, vol. VII, pp. 196-199.)
19) On p. 28 of "Diary" No. 2, Plekhanov writes: "Have we ever asserted that the creation of a revolutionary government is
a deception of the workers and a betrayal of their cause?"
20) Lenin is referring to Martov's words: "to defile one's lips with the combination
of words 'long live' and 'government'." "Iskra" No. 93, of March 30 (17)
1905. Article "Next in Line."
21) Lenin points out that Plekhanov "got confused" by posing the question of participation in the government either as a question of "principle" or as a question of "expediency."
Further, Lenin illustrates this by comparing what Plekhanov says in No. 2 of "Diary," where the question of participation
in the rev. government is treated as "unthinkable" and "impermissible,"
with what Plekhanov wrote on the question of the participation of socialists in the bourgeois government in No. 1 of "Zarya" and in Nos. 74 and 75 of "Iskra."
22) In "Zarya" No. 1, in the article "A Few Words About the Last International
Socialist Congress," Plekhanov, after quoting the text of the resolution prohibiting "any
participation of a socialist in a bourgeois government, in relation to which socialists must be in constant opposition," adds: "I could not absolutely approve this decision, since it completely
prohibits the participation of a socialist in a bourgeois ministry, and I thought and
think,—like Kautsky,—that in some exceptional cases such participation may be necessary to protect the vital interests
of the working class.
The whole point is only that the socialist who entered a bourgeois ministry, by his subsequent behavior and by his
speeches, should contribute not to the obscuring of the class consciousness of the workers,—
as Millerand does,—but to its deepening and development."
s
23) In the article "Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends" Plekhanov
said: "I assert that ... the participation of socialists, as a minority, in a bourgeois revolutionary government is not only ridiculous and
pointless, but directly impermissible, because it gives the bourgeoisie
the opportunity to politically exploit the representatives of the proletariat." ("Diary" No. 2, p. 27.)
In his Feuilleton "In Amsterdam" he wrote:
"Just as in literature all genres are good except the boring one, so in politics all tactical methods are permissible except the inexpedient ones. And the participation of a socialist in a bourgeois ministry cannot be declared once and for all
incompatible with our goal." ("Iskra" No. 75, of 18/5 October 1904.)
24) In the article "Brothers Feuding with Each Other" Plekhanov says:
"Among tactical disagreements, the most place is occupied, of course, by the dictatorship invented by the editors of the newspaper "Vperyod," the striving
for which threatens to turn Lenin's piece of the party into a society of conspirators à la Blanqui et blanquistes." ("Diary" No. 2, p. 50.)
2b)
In the note "Prince Potemkin of Tauride," in the same 2nd No.
of "Diary" Plekhanov wrote:
"As soon as "Potemkin came to Odessa,

PLEKHANOV AND THE NEW ISKRA
it was necessary to land, under the cover of his guns, a significant part of
his men ashore and bring there all the cold and firearms
weapons that could possibly be brought. The sailors would quickly show
the workers how to handle these weapons, would instill in them some
concepts of combat discipline and, dividing them into squads, would stand in the center
of these squads as their military leaders. Thanks to this,
the struggle of the workers with the Tsar's army would become incomparably more successful, and the bloody Odessa days would constitute an epoch in the history of our revolutionary movement." ("Diary" No. 2, p. 52.)
26) These words seem to repeat similar marks on p. 352.
27) The period from the 2nd Party Congress to Lenin's departure from the editorial board of
"Iskra".
28) The party crisis before the declaration of the "22 hardliners".
20) The period of struggle for the Third Congress.
30) The 3rd Congress.
31) Now — at the present time.
32) Letter from Lenin and Plekhanov of October 6, 1903, to the 4 former
editors of "Iskra" and Trotsky. (See Works, vol. VI, p. 280.)
33) Plekhanov's words at the 2nd Congress of the League: "I have no doubt that
Comrade Deich knows how to read, although he has never abused this skill. But*
I did not know that he knows how to read hearts." (Minutes of the 2nd regular Congress of the League, p. 102.)
34) Plekhanov's article "What Not to Do" — in No. 52 of "Iskra".
35) Lenin has in mind Plekhanov's defense of the Iskra plan for the zemstvo campaign in the pamphlet "On Our Tactics." Lenin calls it conspiratorial
because the title of Plekhanov's pamphlet reads:
"For party members only." (See present collection, p. 61.)
36) In "Iskra" No. 85, dated February 9 (January 27), 1905, there are two
articles that Lenin could have had in mind: 1) L. Martov's "The Ninth of January,"
which spoke of the burning need for self-arming and the unleashing of
revolution, and 2) Parvus's "Results and Perspectives," in which he defends
the slogan "organize the revolution."
Trotsky's pamphlet: "Before the Ninth of January" with a preface by Parvus
37) Speaking of the vagueness of the Mensheviks' organizational ideas, Plekhanov notes: "The organization of the Mensheviks has now reached the
same decentralized state that is characteristic of vague
masses." ("Diary" No. 2, p. 49, also p. 20.)
38) Here, as in the following points, Vladimir Ilyich has in mind
Plekhanov's article "The Working Class and the Social-Democratic Intelligentsia," printed
in Nos. 70-71 of "Iskra," dated July 25-August 1, 1904. In this article, directed specifically against "What Is To Be Done?," Plekhanov also presented—and presented
incorrectly—the history of the relationship in the editorial board of "Iskra," touched on disputes
about the program within the editorial board, and so on. A refutation of Plekhanov's account is also planned in this section by Lenin. The first point was to
concern the pamphlet "What Is To Be Done?," his disagreement with which Plekhanov
put forward as the reason for the disagreement with Lenin, while the real reason was the disputes about the program, which has now been documented
by materials published in "Lenin's Collections" III and IV.
Lenin Collection, V

But on the substance of Plekhanov's criticism of "What Is To Be Done?" (the question of "consciousness
and spontaneity"), Lenin was apparently going to rely also on K. Kautsky, whose views on this issue he quoted both in "What Is To Be Done?"
and even earlier in the article "Our Immediate Task" (1899).
80) The title of V. Vorovsky's article in JM5 11 "Vpered" of March 23 (10),
1905, criticizing Plekhanov's article.
40) Vladimir Ilyich intended to use this polemic to tell the real story of the development of the party program
adopted at the 2nd Congress. This story and Plekhanov's role in it
remained at that time completely unknown to broad circles of the party. Since the article about Plekhanov remained unwritten, Vladimir Ilyich's intention to tell the story of the
program also remained unfulfilled. It became known only in connection with the publication in "Lenin's Collections" III and IV of the corresponding documents from Vladimir Ilyich's archive. Lenin briefly touched on the question of the history of disputes about the program
in a note to Vorovsky's article "The Fruits of Demagogy," published in No. 11 of "Vpered" of March 23 (10), 1905. This note
contains the "promise" that Lenin speaks of in the text under number 4.
We give this note in full: "By emphasizing that the draft program was not written by me, Plekhanov first brings to the public
in the form of a hint, reproach and reproach, our disputes about the draft program.
Unfortunately, he does not tell about these disputes, but limits himself to
gossip, i.e., an assertion that is piquant, but unclear and unverified.
I must therefore add to my colleague's article against Plekhanov
that I have documentary data on our disputes during the discussion of
the draft program, and I will publish this data when the occasion arises. Readers
will then see: 1) that Plekhanov's assertion that the cooling of relations between us was due to "What Is To Be Done?" is completely untrue. It was because of
the division of the six in half during disputes about the program: 2) that I defended
and secured the inclusion in the program of the thesis on the displacement of small production by large production. Plekhanov wanted to limit himself to a vague expression
in the spirit of the famous "more or less"; 3) that I defended and secured
the replacement of the term "working and exploited mass" with the term "proletariat" in the place where the class character of our
party was discussed; 4) that Plekhanov, when I and my supporters in the six reproached
him for the insufficiently expressed proletarian character of the party in his
draft program, defended himself with a counter-accusation that I "understand the proletarian character of the party in the Martynov manner."
41) The lines devoted to Axelrod in the chapter "Opportunism in Organizational Matters" in the pamphlet "One Step Forward, Two Steps
Back" are meant. (Works, vol. VI, pp. 300-319.)
42) Confer — compare, juxtapose.
48) The polemic between Bebel and Kautsky on the agrarian question
at the Congress of the German Social Democracy in Breslau, held on 6-
12 October 1895 is meant.
Bebel und Agrardebatle in Breslau — Bebel and the agrarian debates
in Breslau.

PLEKHANOV AND THE NEW ISKRA
44) In the article "The Split in Russian Social Democracy" Kautsky wrote:
"___ a foreign observer has to spend no little effort to discover at least some difference between the two factions.
The main question that divides them at the present moment is whether
or not party members should participate in the future revolutionary government. But discussing the division of this skin of a bear that has not yet been killed could, of course, be done in the calmest manner also
within a single party, whereby the dispute remains completely pointless as long as nothing at all is known about what the revolutionary government in which we must participate will look like."
("Iskra" No. 102, dated June 28 (15), 1905.) Lenin dwells on this quote from Kautsky's article in detail in the pamphlet "Two Tactics" (Works, vol. VIII,
p. 101.)