V. I.

Lenin

Russian Social-Democracy has repeatedly declared the immediate political
task of a Russian working-class party to be the overthrow of the
autocracy, the achievement of political liberty. This was enunciated over
fifteen years ago by the representatives of Russian
Social-Democracy— the members of the Emancipation of Labour
group. It was affirmed two and a half years ago by the representatives of
the Russian Social-Democratic organisations that, in the spring of 1898,
founded the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party. Despite these repeated
declarations, however, the question of the political tasks of
Social-Democracy in Russia is prominent again today. Many representatives
of our movement express doubt as to the correctness of the above-mentioned
solution of the question. It is claimed that the economic struggle is of
predominant importance; the political tasks of the proletariat are pushed
into the background, narrowed down, and restricted, and it is even said
that to speak of forming an independent working-class party in Russia is
merely to repeat somebody else’s words, that the workers should carry on
only the economic struggle and leave politics to the intelligentsia in
alliance with the liberals. The latest profession of the new faith (the
notorious Credo ) amounts to a declaration that the Russian
proletariat has not yet come of age and to a complete rejection of the
Social-Democratic programme. Rabochaya Mysl (particularly in its
Separate Supplement ) takes practically the same attitude. Russian
Social-Democracy is passing through a period of vacillation and doubt
bordering on self-negation. On the one hand, the working-class movement is being
sundered from socialism, the workers are being helped to carry on the
economic struggle, but nothing, or next to nothing, is done to explain to
them the socialist aims and the political tasks of the movement as a
whole. On the other hand, socialism is being sundered from the labour
movement; Russian socialists are again beginning to talk more and more
about the struggle against the government having to be carried on entirely
by the intelligentsia because the workers confine themselves to the
economic struggle.

Inour opinion the ground has been prepared for this sad state of affairs
by three circumstances. First, in their early activity, Russian
Social-Democrats restricted them selves merely to work in propaganda
circles. When we took up agitation among the masses we were not always
able to restrain ourselves from going to the other extreme. Secondly, in
our early activity we often had to struggle for our right to existence
against the Narodnaya Volya adherents, who understood by
“politics” an activity isolated from the working-class movement and who reduced politics purely to conspiratorial struggle. In
rejecting this sort of politics, the Social-Democrats went to the extreme
of pushing politics entirely into the background. Thirdly, working in the
isolation of small local workers’ circles, the Social-Democrats did not
devote sufficient attention to the necessity of organising a revolutionary
party which would combine all the activities of the local groups and make
it possible to organise the revolutionary work on correct lines. The
predominance of isolated work is naturally connected with the predominance
of the economic struggle.

Thesecircumstances resulted in concentration on one side of the movement
only. The “economist” trend (that is, if we can speak of it as
a “trend”) has attempted to elevate this narrowness to the rank of a
special theory and has tried to utilise for this purpose the fashionable
Bernsteinism and the fashionable “criticism of Marxism,” which
peddles old bourgeois ideas under a new label. These attempts alone have
given rise to the danger of a weakening of connection between the Russian
working-class movement and Russian Social-Democracy, the vanguard in the
struggle for political liberty. The most urgent task of our movement is to strengthen
this connection.

Social-Democracyis the combination of the working-class movement and
socialism. Its task is not to serve the working-class movement passively
at each of its separate stages, but to represent the interests of the
movement as a whole, to point out to this movement its ultimate aim and
its political tasks, and to safeguard its political and ideological
independence. Isolated from Social-Democracy, the working-class movement
becomes petty and inevitably be comes bourgeois. In waging only the
economic struggle, the working class loses its political independence; it
becomes the tail of other parties and betrays the great principle:

“The emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working
classes

themselves.” [1]
In every country there has been a period in which the working-class
movement existed apart from socialism, each going its own way; and in
every country this isolation has weakened both socialism and the
working-class movement. Only the fusion of socialism with the
working-class movement has in all countries created a durable basis for
both. But in every country this combination of socialism and the
working-class movement was evolved historically, in unique ways, in
accordance with the prevailing conditions of time and place. In Russia,
the necessity for combining socialism and the working-class movement was
in theory long ago proclaimed, but it is only now being carried into
practice. It is a very difficult process and there is, therefore, nothing
surprising in the fact that it is accompanied by vacillations and doubts.

Whatlesson can be learned from the past?

Theentire history of Russian socialism has led to the condition in which
the most urgent task is the struggle against the autocratic government and
the achievement of political liberty. Our socialist movement concentrated
itself, so to speak, upon the struggle against the autocracy. On the other
hand, history has shown that the isolation of socialist thought from the
vanguard of the working classes is greater in Russia than in other
countries, and that if this state of affairs continues, the revolutionary
movement in Russia is doomed to impotence. From this condition emerges the
task which the Russian Social-Democracy is called upon to fulfil—to imbue the masses of the proletariat with
the ideas of socialism and political consciousness, and to organise a
revolutionary party inseparably connected with the spontaneous
working-class movement. Russian Social-Democracy has done much in this
direction, but much more still remains to be done. With the growth of the
movement, the field of activity for Social-Democrats becomes wider; the
work becomes more varied, and an increasing number of activists in the
movement will concentrate their efforts upon the fulfilment of various
special tasks which the daily needs of propaganda and agitation bring to
the fore. This phenomenon is quite natural and is inevitable, but it
causes us to be particularly concerned with preventing these special
activities and methods of struggle from be coming ends in themselves and
with preventing preparatory work from being regarded as the main and sole
activity.

Ourprincipal and fundamental task is to facilitate the political
development and the political organisation of the working class. Those who
push this task into the back ground, who refuse to subordinate to it all
the special tasks and particular methods of struggle, are following a
false path and causing serious harm to the movement. And it is being
pushed into the background, firstly, by those who call upon
revolutionaries to employ only the forces of isolated conspiratorial
circles cut off from the working-class movement in the struggle against
the government. It is being pushed into the background, secondly, by those
who restrict the content and scope of political propaganda, agitation, and
organisation; who think it fit and proper to treat the workers to
“politics” only at exceptional moments in their lives, only on
festive occasions; who too solicitously substitute demands for partial
concessions from the autocracy for the political struggle against the
autocracy; and who do not go to sufficient lengths to ensure that these
demands for partial concessions are raised to the status of a systematic,
implacable struggle of a revolutionary, working-class party against the
autocracy.

“Organise!” Rabochaya Mysl keeps repeating to the workers in
all keys, and all the adherents of the “economist” trend echo
the cry. We, of course, wholly endorse this appeal, but we will not fail to add: organise, but not only in mutual
benefit societies, strike funds, and workers’ circles; organise also in a
political party; organise for the determined struggle against the
autocratic government and against the whole of capitalist society. Without
such organisation the proletariat will never rise to the class- conscious
struggle; without such organisation the working-class movement is doomed
to impotency. With the aid of nothing but funds and study circles and
mutual benefit societies the working class will never be able to fulfil
its great historical mission—to emancipate itself and the whole of
the Russian people from political and economic slavery. Not a single class
in history has achieved power without producing its political leaders, its
prominent representatives able to organise a movement and lead it. And the
Russian working class has already shown that it can produce such men and
women. The struggle which has developed so widely during the past five or
six years has revealed the great potential revolutionary power of the
working class; it has shown that the most ruthless government persecution
does not diminish, but, on the contrary, increases the number of workers
who strive towards socialism, towards political consciousness, and towards
the political struggle. The congress which our comrades held in 1898
correctly defined our tasks and did not merely repeat other people’s
words, did not merely express the enthusiasm of “intellectuals.”... We must set to work resolutely to fulfil these
tasks, placing the question of the Party’s programme, organisation, and
tactics on the order of the day. We have already set forth our views on
the fundamental postulates of our programme, and, of course, this is not
the place to develop them in detail. We propose to devote a series of
articles in forthcoming issues to questions of organisation, which are
among the most burning problems confronting us. In this respect we lag
considerably behind the old workers in the Russian revolutionary
movement. We must frankly admit this defect and exert all our efforts to
devise methods of greater secrecy in our work, to propagate systematically
the proper methods of work, the proper methods of deluding the gendarmes
and of evading the snares of the police. We must train people who will
devote the whole of their lives, not only their spare evenings, to the revolution; we must
build up an organisation large enough to permit the introduction of a
strict division of labour in the various forms of our work. Finally, with
regard to questions of tactics, we shall confine ourselves to the
following: Social-Democracy does not tie its hands, it does not restrict
its activities to some one preconceived plan or method of political
struggle; it recognises all methods of struggle, provided they correspond
to the forces at the disposal of the Party and facilitate the achievement
of the best results possible under the given conditions. If we have a
strongly organised party, a single strike may turn into a political
demonstration, into a political victory over the government. If we have a
strongly organised party, a re volt in a single locality may grow into a
victorious revolution. We must bear in mind that the struggles with the
government for partial demands and the gain of certain concessions are
merely light skirmishes with the enemy, en counters between outposts,
whereas the decisive battle is still to come. Before us, in all its
strength, towers the enemy fortress which is raining shot and shell upon
us, mowing down our best fighters. We must capture this fortress, and we
will capture it, if we unite all the forces of the awakening proletariat
with all the forces of the Russian revolutionaries into one party which
will attract all that is vital and’ honest in Russia. Only then will the
great prophecy of the Russian worker-revolutionary, Pyotr Alexeyev, be
fulfilled: “The muscular arm of the working mil lions will be
lifted, and the yoke of despotism, guarded by the soldiers’ bayonets, will
be smashed to atoms!” [2]

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Notes:
[1]
See Note 125.

[2]
Pyotr Alexeyev —a worker-revolutionary in the seventies of
the last century whose speech, made before a tsarist court on March 10
(22), 1877, in St. Petersburg, was first printed in London in the
irregularly appearing collection Vperyod !
( Forward !). The speech was afterwards repeatedly published
illegally and was very popular among Russian workers.