V. I.

Lenin

Preface to the Pamphlet, May Days in Kharkov

Thepresent pamphlet contains a description of the celebrated May Day
demonstrations in Kharkov in 1900; it was drawn up by the Kharkov
Committee of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party on the basis of
descriptions sent in by the workers themselves. It was sent to us as a
newspaper report, but we consider it necessary to publish it as a
separate pamphlet because of its size, as well as because in this way it
will be possible to secure wider distribution. In another six months, the
Russian workers will celebrate the First of May of the first year of the
new century, and it is time we set to work organising the celebrations in
as large a number of centres as possible, and on a scale as imposing as
possible. They must be imposing, not only in the numbers of participants,
but in the organised character and the class-consciousness the
participants will display, in their determination to launch a resolute
struggle for the political liberation of the Russian people and,
consequently, for a free opportunity for the class development of the
proletariat and its open struggle for socialism. It is time to prepare for
the forthcoming May Day celebrations, and one of the most important
preparation measures must consist in learning what the Social-Democratic
movement in Russia has already achieved, in examining the short comings of
our movement in general and of the May Day movement in particular, in
devising means to eliminate these shortcomings and achieve better results.

May Day in Kharkov showed what a great political demonstration a
working-class festival can become and what we lack to make these celebrations a really great all-Russian
manifestation of the class-conscious proletariat. What made the May Day
celebrations in Kharkov an event of outstanding importance? The
large-scale participation of the workers in the strike, the huge mass
meetings in the streets, the unfurling of red flags, the presentation of
demands put forth in proclamations and the revolutionary character of
these demands: the eight-hour day and political liberty. The legend that
the Russian workers have not yet matured for the political struggle, that
their principal concern should be the purely economic struggle, which they
should only little by little and very slowly supplement with partial
political agitation for partial political reforms and not for the struggle
against the entire political system of Russia—that legend has been
totally refuted by the Kharkov May Day celebrations. But here we want to
draw attention to another aspect of the matter. Although the May Day
celebrations in Kharkov have once more demonstrated the political
capacities of the Russian workers, they have, at the same time, revealed
what we lack for the full development of these capacities.

The Kharkov Social-Democrats tried to prepare for the May Day celebrations
by distributing pamphlets and leaflets in advance, and the workers drew up
a plan for the general demonstration and for the speeches to be delivered
in Konnaya Square. Why did the plan not succeed? The Kharkov comrades say
because the “general staff” of the class-conscious socialist
workers did not distribute its forces evenly, there having been many in
one factory, and in another few; and, further, because the workers’ plan
“was known to the authorities,” who, of course, took all steps to
split the workers. The conclusion to be drawn is obvious: we lack
organisation . The masses of the workers were roused and ready to
follow the socialist leaders; but the “general staff” failed
to organise a strong nucleus able to distribute properly all the available
forces of class-conscious workers and so ensure the necessary secrecy that
the drawn-up plans of action should remain unknown, not only to the
authorities, but to all individuals outside the organisation. This
organisation must be a revolutionary organisation. It must be
composed of men and women who clearly understand the tasks of the
Social-Democratic working-class movement and who have resolved to engage in a
determined struggle against the present political system. It must combine
within itself the socialist knowledge and revolutionary experience
acquired from many decades of activity by the Russian revolutionary
intelligentsia with the knowledge of working-class life and conditions and
the ability to agitate among the masses and lead them which is
characteristic of the advanced workers. It should be our primary concern
not to set up an artificial partition between the intellectual and the
worker, not to form a “purely workers’" organisation, but to strive,
above all, to achieve the above-stated combination. We permit ourselves in
this connection to quote the following words of G. Plekhanov:

“Anecessary condition for this activity [agitation] is the
consolidation of the already existing revolutionary forces. Propaganda in
the study circles can be conducted by men and women who have no mutual
contact whatever with one another and who do not even suspect one
another’s existence; it goes without saying that the lack of organisation
always affects propaganda, too, but it does not make it
impossible. However, in a period of great social turmoil, when the
political atmosphere is charged with electricity, when now here and now
there, from the most varied and unforeseen causes, outbreaks occur with
increasing frequency, heralding the approaching revolutionary
storm—in a word, when it is necessary either to agitate or remain in
the rear, at such a time only organised revolutionary forces can
seriously influence the progress of events. The individual then becomes
powerless; the revolutionary cause can then be carried forward only on the
shoulders of units of a higher order—by revolutionary organisations” (G. Plekhanov, The Tasks of the Socialists in the Fight Against the Famine , p. 83).

Preciselysuch a period is approaching in the history of the Russian
working-class movement, a period of turmoil and of outbreaks precipitated
by the most varied causes, and if we do not wish to remain “in the
rear,” we must direct all our efforts towards establishing an all-Russian
organisation capable of guiding all the separate outbreaks and ensuring in
this way that the approaching storm (to which the Kharkov worker also
refers at the end of the pamphlet) is not an elemental outburst, but a
conscious movement of the proletariat standing at the head of the entire people in revolt against the
autocratic government.

Inaddition to manifesting the insufficient unity and preparedness of our
revolutionary organisations, the Kharkov May Day celebrations also furnish
another and no less important practical indication. “The May Day
festival and demonstration,” we read in the pamphlet, “were
unexpectedly interconnected with various practical demands presented
without relevant preparation and, consequently, in general doomed to
failure.” Let us take, for example, the demands put forward by the
railway-workshop employees. Of the fourteen demands, eleven have to do
with minor improvements, which can quite easily be achieved even under the
present political system—wage increases, reduction of hours, removal
of abuses. Included among these demands, as though identical with them,
are the following three: 4) introduction of an eight-hour day, 7)
guarantee against victimisation of workers after the May First events, and
10) establishment of a joint committee of workers and employers for
settling disputes between the two parties. The first of these demands
(point 4) is a general demand advanced by the world proletariat; the fact
that this demand was put forward seems to indicate that the advanced
workers of Kharkov realise their solidarity with the world socialist
working-class movement. But precisely for this reason it should not have
been included among minor demands like better treatment by foremen, or a
ten per cent increase in wages. Demands for wage increases and better
treatment can (and should) be presented by the workers to their employers
in each separate trade; these are trade demands, put forward by separate
categories of workers. The demand for an eight-hour day, however, is the
demand of the whole proletariat, presented, not to individual employers,
but to the state authorities as the representative of the entire
present-day social and political system, to the capitalist class as a
whole, the owners of all the means of production. The demand for an
eight-hour day has assumed special significance. It is a declaration of
solidarity with the international socialist movement. We need to make the
workers understand this difference, so that they do not reduce the demand
for the eight-hour day to the level of demands like free railway tickets,
or the dismissal of a watchman. Throughout the year the workers, first in one place and then in
another, continuously present a variety of partial demands to their
employers and fight for their achievement. In assisting the workers in
this struggle, socialists must always explain its connection with the
proletarian struggle for emancipation in all countries. And the First of
May must be the day on which the workers solemnly declare that they
realise this connection and resolutely join in the struggle.

Letus take the tenth demand which calls for the establishment of a
committee for the settlement of disputes. Such a committee composed of
representatives of the workers and the employers could, of course, be very
useful, but only if the elections were absolutely free and the elected
representatives enjoyed complete independence. What purpose would such a
committee serve, if the workers, who wage a struggle against the election
of creatures of the management or who strongly attack the management and
expose its tyranny, end by being discharged? Such workers would not only
be discharged, they would be arrested. Consequently, for such a committee
to be of service to the workers, the delegates must, first, be absolutely
independent of the factory management; this can be achieved only when
there are free labour unions embracing many factories, unions that have
their own resources and are prepared to protect their delegates. Such a
committee can be useful only if many factories, if possible all the
factories in the given trade, are organised. Secondly, it is necessary to
secure guarantees of the inviolability of the person of the workers, i.e.,
that they will not be arrested arbitrarily by the police or the
gendarmerie. This demand to guarantee the workers against victimisation
was put forward (point 7). But from whom can the workers demand guarantees
of the inviolability of the person and freedom of association (which, as
we have seen, is a necessary condition for the success of the committees)?
Only from the state authorities, because the absence of a guarantee of
inviolability of the person and freedom of association is due to the
fundamental laws of the Russian state. Mere than that, it is due to the
very form of government in Russia. The form of government in Russia is
that of an absolute monarchy. The tsar is an autocrat, he alone decrees
the laws and appoints all the higher officials without any participation of the people, without participation
of the people’s representatives. Under such a state system there can be no
inviolability of the person; citizens’ associations, and particularly
working-class associations, cannot be free. For that reason, it is
senseless to demand guarantees of the inviolability of the person (and
freedom of association) from an autocratic government; for such a demand
is synonymous with demanding political rights for the people, and an
autocratic government is termed autocratic precisely because it implies
negation of political rights for the people. It will be possible to obtain
a guarantee of the inviolability of the person (and freedom of
association) only when representatives of the people take part in
legislation and in the entire administration of the state. So long as a
body of people’s representatives does not exist, the autocratic
government, upon making certain petty concessions to the workers, will
always take away with one hand what it gives with the other. The May Day
celebrations in Kharkov were another vivid proof that this is so—the
governor con ceded to the demands of the working masses and released those
who had been arrested, but within a day or two, on orders’ from
St. Petersburg, scores of workers were again rounded up. The gubernia and
factory officials “guarantee” immunity to delegates, while the
gendarmes seize them and fling them into prison in solitary confinement or
banish them from the city! Of what use are such guarantees to the people?

Hence,the workers must demand from the tsar the con vocation of an
assembly of the representatives of the people, the convocation of a Zemsky
Sobor. The manifesto distributed in Kharkov on the eve of the First of May
this year raised this demand, and we have seen that a section of the
advanced workers fully appreciated its significance. We must make sure
that all advanced workers understand clearly the necessity for
this demand and spread it, not only among the masses of the workers, but
among all strata of the people who come into contact with the workers and
who eagerly desire to know what the socialists and the “urban”
workers are fighting for. This year when a factory inspector asked a group
of workers precisely what they wanted, only one voice shouted, “A
constitution!”; and this voice sounded so isolated that the correspondent reported somewhat mockingly:

“One proletarian blurted out ....” Another correspondent put
it, “Under the circumstances,” this reply was “semi-comical” (see Labour Movement in Kharkov ,
Report of the Kharkov Committee of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour
Party, published by Rabocheye Dyelo , Geneva, September 1900,
p. 14). As a matter of fact, there was nothing comical in the reply at
all. What may have seemed comical was the incongruity between the demand
of this lone voice for a change in the whole state system and the demands
for a half-hour reduction in the working day and for payment of wages
during working hours. There is, however, an indubitable connection between
these demands and the demand for a constitution; and if we can get the
masses to understand this connection (and we undoubtedly will), then the
cry “A constitution!” will not be an isolated one, but will come
from the throats of thousands and hundreds of thousands, when it will no
longer be comical, but menacing. It is related that a certain person
driving through the streets of Kharkov during the May Day celebrations
asked the cabby what the workers wanted, and he replied: “They want
an eight-hour day and their own newspaper.” That cabby understood that
the workers were no longer satisfied with mere doles, but that they wanted
to be free men, that they wanted to be able to express their needs freely
and openly and to fight for them. But that reply did not yet reveal the
consciousness that the workers are fighting for the liberty of the whole
people and for their right to take part in the administration of the
state. When the demand that the tsar convene an assembly of people’s
representatives is repeated with full consciousness and indomitable
determination by the working masses in all industrial cities and factory
districts in Russia; when the workers have reached the stage at which the
entire urban population, and all the rural people who come into the towns,
understand what the socialists want and what the workers are fighting for,
then the great day of the people’s liberation from police tyranny will not
be far off!