What Is To Be Done?

BURNING QUESTIONS of our MOVEMENT

V

The “Plan” For an All-Russia
Political Newspaper “The most serious blunder Iskra committed in this
connection” writes B. Krichevsky ( Rabocheye Dyelo, No. 10, p. 30), charging us with a tendency to “convert theory
into a lifeless doctrine by isolating it from practice”, “was
its ’plan’ for a general party organisation” (viz., the article
entitled “Where To Begin” [1] ).
Martynov echoes this idea in declaring that “ Iskra ’s tendency to belittle the
significance of the forward march of the drab everyday struggle
in comparison with the propaganda of brilliant and completed
ideas ... was crowned with the plan for the organisation of a
party which it sets forth in the article entitled ’Where To
Begin’ in issue No. 4” (ibid., p. 61). Finally, L. Nadezhdin has of late joined in the chorus of indignation against this “plan”
(the quotation marks were meant to express sarcasm). In his
pamphlet, which we have just received, entitled The Eve of the Revolution (published by the “Revolutionary-Socialist
Group” Svoboda , whose acquaintance we have made), he declares (p. 126): “To speak now of an organisation held
together by an all-Russia newspaper means propagating armchair
ideas and armchair work” and represents a manifestation of
“bookishness”, etc.

That our terrorist turns out to be in agreement with the
champions of the “forward march of the drab everyday struggle”
is not surprising, since we have traced the roots of this
intimacy between them in the chapters on politics and organisation. But must draw attention here to the fact that
Nadezhdin is the only one who has conscientiously tried to grasp
the train of thought in an article he disliked and has made an
attempt to reply to the point, whereas Rabocheye Dyelo ,
has said nothing that is material to the subject, but has tried
merely to confuse the question by a series of unseemly,
demagogic sallies. Unpleasant though the task may be, we must
first spend some time in cleansing this Augean stable.

A. Who Was Offended By the Article “Where To Begin”

Let us present a small selection of the expletives and exclamations that Rabocheye Dyelo hurled at us. “It is
not a newspaper that can create a party organisation, but vice
versa....” A newspaper, standing above the party, outside of
its control, and independent of it, thanks to its having its own
staff of agents. “By what miracle has Iskra forgotten about the actually existing Social-Democratic organisations of
the party to which it belongs?....” “Those who possess firm
principles and a corresponding plan are the supreme regulators
of the real struggle of the party and dictate to it their
plan....” “The plan drives our active and virile organisations into the kingdom of shadows and desires to call
into being a fantastic network of agents....” “Were
Iskra’s plan carried into effect, every trace of the
Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, which is taking shape,
would be obliterated....” “A propagandist organ becomes an
uncontrolled autocratic law-maker for the entire practical
revolutionary struggle....” “How should our Party react to
the suggestion that it be completely subordinated to an
autonomous editorial board?”, etc., etc.

As the reader can see from the contents and the tone of these
above quotations, Rabocheye Dyelo has taken offence. Offence, not for its own sake, but for the sake of
the organisations and committees of our Party which it alleges
Iskra desires to drive into the kingdom of shadows and whose very traces it would obliterate. How terrible! But a
curious thing should be noted. The article “Where To Begin”
appeared in May 1901. The articles in Rabocheye Dyelo appeared in September 1901. Now we are in mid-January
1902. During these five months (prior to and after September),
not a single committee and not a single organisation of the Party protested formally against this
monster that seeks to drive them into the kingdom of shadows;
and yet scores and hundreds of communications from all parts of
Russia have appeared during this period in Iskra , as well as in numerous local and non-local publications. How could
it happen that those who would be driven into the realm of
shadows are not aware of it and have not taken offence, though a
third party has?

The explanation is that the committees and other organisations
are engaged in real work and are not playing at “democracy”. The
committees read the article “Where To Begin”, saw that it
represented an attempt “to elaborate a definite plan for an
organisation, so that its formation may be undertaken from all aspects”; and since they knew and saw very well that
not one of these “sides” would dream of “setting about to build it” until it was convinced of its necessity, and of the
correctness of the architectural plan, it has naturally never
occurred to them to take offence at the boldness of the people
who said in Iskra : “In view of the pressing importance
of the question we, on our part, take the liberty of submitting
to the comrades a skeleton plan to be developed in greater
detail in a pamphlet now in preparation for the print.” With a
conscientious approach to the work, was it possible to view
things otherwise than that if the comrades accepted the
plan submitted to them, they would carry it out, not because they are “subordinate”, but because they would be convinced of
its necessity for our common cause, and that if they did not accept it , then the “skeleton” (a pretentious word, is it
not?) would remain merely a skeleton? Is it not demagogy to
fight against the skeleton of a plan, not only by “picking it to
pieces” and advising comrades to reject it, but by inciting
people inexperienced in revolutionary matters against its
authors merely on the grounds that they dare to “legislate” and come out as the “supreme regulators”,
i.e., because they dare to propose an outline of a plan? Can our Party develop and make progress if an attempt
to raise local functionaries to broader views, tasks, plans, etc., is objected to, not only with the claim that these
views are erroneous, but on the grounds that the very “desire”
to “ raise ” us gives “offence”? Nadezhdin, too, “picked” our plan “to pieces”, but he did not sink to such
demagogy as cannot be explained solely by naivete or by
primitiveness of political views. From the outset, he emphatically rejected the charge that we intended to establish
an “inspectorship over the Party”. That is why Nadezhdin’s
criticism of the plan can and should be answered on its merits,
while Rabocheye Dyelo deserves only to be treated with contempt.

But contempt for a writer who sinks so low as to shout about
autocracy and “subordination” does not relieve us of the duty
of disentangling the confusion that such people create in the
minds of their readers. Here we can clearly demonstrate to the
world the nature of catchwords like “broad democracy”. We are
accused of forgetting the committees, of desiring or attempting
to drive them into the kingdom of shadows, etc. How can we reply
to these charges when, out of considerations of secrecy, we can
give the reader almost no facts regarding our real relationships with the committees? Persons hurling vehement
accusations calculated to provoke the crowd prove to be ahead of
us because of their brazenness and their disregard of the duty
of a revolutionary to conceal carefully from the eyes of the
world the relationships and contacts which he maintains, which
he is establishing or trying to establish. Naturally, we refuse
once and for all to compete with such people in the field of
“democratism”. As to the reader who is not initiated in all
Party affairs, the only way in which we can discharge our duty
to him is to acquaint him, not with what is and what is im Werden but with a particle of what
has taken place and what may be told as a thing of the past.

The Bund hints that we are “impostors” [2] ; the Union Abroad
accuses us of attempting to obliterate all traces of the
Party. Gentlemen, you will get complete satisfaction when we
relate to the public four facts concerning the past.

First fact. [3] The members of one of the Leagues of Struggle, who took a
direct part in founding our Party and in sending a delegate to the Inaugural Party Congress, reached
agreement with a member of the Iskra group regarding the
publication of a series of books for workers that were to serve
the entire movement. The attempt to publish the series failed and
the pamphlets written for it, The Tasks of the Russian Social-Democrats and The New Factory Law , [4] by a circuitous
course and through the medium of third parties, found their way
abroad, where they were published. [14]

Second fact. Members of the Central Committee of the Bund
approached a member of the Iskra group with the proposal to organise what the Bund then described as a “literary
laboratory”. In making the proposal, they stated that unless
this was done, the movement would greatly retrogress. The result
of these negotiations was the appearance of the pamphlet The Working-Class Cause in Russia . [5]

Third fact. The Central Committee of the Bund, via a provincial
town, approached a member of the Iskra group with the proposal that he undertake the editing of the revived
Rabochaya Gazeta and, of course, obtained his consent. The offer was later modified: the comrade in question
was invited to act as a contributor, in view of a new plan for
the composition of the Editorial Board. Also this proposal, of course, obtained his consent. [15] Articles
were sent (which we managed to preserve): “Our Programme”
which was a direct protest against Bernsteinism, against the change
in the line of the legal literature and of Rabochaya Mysl ;
“Our Immediate Task” (“to publish a Party organ that shall appear regularly and
have close contacts with all the local groups”, the drawbacks of
the prevailing “amateurism”), “An Urgent Question” (an examination of the objection that it is necessary first
to develop the activities of local groups before undertaking the publication of a common organ; an insistence on
the paramount importance of a “revolutionary organisation” and
on the necessity of “developing organisation, discipline, and
the technique of secrecy to the highest degree of perfection”). [6] The proposal
to resume publication of Rabochaya Gazeta was not carried out,
and the articles were not published.

Fourth fact. A member of the committee that was organising the
second regular congress of our Party communicated to a member of
the Iskra group the programme of the congress and proposed that group as editorial board of the revived
Rabochaya Gazeta . This preliminary step, as it were, was later sanctioned by the committee to which this member
belonged, and by the Central Committee of the Bund. [16] The Iskra group was
notified of the place and time of the congress and (uncertain of being able, for certain reasons, to
send a delegate) drew up a written report for the congress. In
the report, the idea was suggested that the mere election of a
Central Committee would not only fail to solve the question of
unification at a time of such complete disorder as the present,
but would even compromise the grand idea of establishing a
party, in the event of an early, swift, and thorough police
round-up, which was more than likely in view of the prevailing
lack of secrecy; that therefore, a beginning should be made by
inviting all committees and all other organisations to support
the revived common organ, which would establish real contacts between all the committees and really
train a group of leaders for the entire movement; and that
the committees and the Party would very easily be able to transform such a group into a Central Committee as soon as the
group had grown and become strong. In consequence of a number of
police raids and arrests, however, the congress could not take
place. For security reasons the report was destroyed, having
been read only by a few comrades, including the representatives
of one committee.

Let the reader now judge for himself the character of the
methods employed by the Bund in hinting that we were impostors,
or by Rabocheye Dyelo , which accuses us of trying to relegate the committees to the kingdom of shadows and to
“substitute” for the organisation of a party an organisation
disseminating the ideas advocated by a single newspaper. It was
to the committees, on their repeated invitation , that we reported on the necessity for adopting a definite plan of
concerted activities. It was precisely for the Party organisation that we elaborated this plan, in articles sent to
Rabochaya Gazeta , and in the report to the Party congress, again on the invitation of those who held such an
influential position in the Party that they took the initiative
in its (actual) restoration. Only after the twice repeated attempts of the Party organisation, in conjunction with ourselves, officially to revive the
central organ of the Party had failed, did we consider it our
bounden duty to publish an unofficial organ, in order that with the third attempt the comrades might have
before them the results of experience and not merely conjectural proposals. Now certain results of this experience
are present for all to see, and all comrades may now judge
whether we properly understood our duties and what should be
thought of people that strive to mislead those unacquainted with
the immediate past, simply because they are piqued at our having
pointed out to some their inconsistency on the “national”
question, and to others the inadmissibility of their vacillation
in matters of principle.

B. Can A Newspaper Be A Collective Organiser?

The quintessence of the article “Where To Begin” consists
in the fact that it discusses precisely this question and gives an affirmative reply to it. As far as we know, the
only attempt to examine this question on its merits and to prove
that it must be answered in the negative was made by

L. Nadezhdin, whose argument we reproduce in full:

“... It pleased us greatly to see Iskra (No. 4) present the question of the need for an all-Russia
newspaper; but we cannot agree that this presentation bears
relevance to the title ’Where To Begin’. Undoubtedly this is an
extremely important matter, but neither a newspaper, nor a
series of popular leaflets, nor a mountain of manifestoes, can
serve as the basis for a militant organisation in revolutionary
times. We must set to work to build strong political organisations in the localities. We lack such organisations; we
have been carrying on our work mainly among enlightened workers,
while the masses have been engaged almost exclusively in the
economic struggle. If strong political organisations are not trained locally, what significance will even an excellently organised all-Russia newspaper have? It will be a burning
bush, burning without being consumed, but firing no one!
Iskra thinks that around it and in the activities in its behalf people will gather and organise. But they will find it far easier to gather and organise around activities that are more concrete . This something more concrete must and
should be the extensive organisation of local newspapers, the
immediate preparation of the workers’ forces for demonstrations,
the constant activity of local organisations among the unemployed (indefatigable distribution of pamphlets and
leaflets, convening of meetings, appeals to actions of protest
against the government, etc.). We must begin live political work
in the localities, and when the time comes to unite on this real
basis, it will not be an artificial, paper unity; not by means
of newspapers can such a unification of local work into an
all-Russia cause be achieved!” ( The Eve of the Revolution ,
p. 54.)

We have emphasised the passages in this eloquent tirade that
most clearly show the author’s incorrect judgement of our plan,
as well as the incorrectness of his point of view in general,
which is here contraposed to that of Iskra . Unless we train strong political organisations in the localities, even an
excellently organised all-Russia newspaper will be of no
avail. This is incontrovertible. But the whole point is that
there is no other way of training strong political organisations except through the medium of an
all-Russia newspaper. The author missed the most important
statement Iskra made before it proceeded to set forth its “plan”: that it was necessary “to call for the
formation of a revolutionary organisation, capable of uniting
all forces and guiding the movement in actual practice and
not in name alone , that is, an organisation ready at any time to support every protest and every outbrea’ and
use it to build up and consolidate the fighting forces suitable
for the decisive struggle”. But now after the February and March events, everyone will agree with this in principle, continues
Iskra . Yet what we need is not a solution of the question in principle, but its practical solution; we
must immediately advance a definite constructive plan through
which all may immediately set to work to build from every side . Now we are again being dragged away from the
practical solution towards something which in principle is
correct, indisputable, and great, but which is entirely
inadequate and incomprehensible to the broad masses of workers,
namely, “to rear strong political organisations”! This is not
the point at issue, most worthy author. The point is how to go
about the rearing and how to accomplish it.

It is not true to say that “we have been carrying on our work
mainly among enlightened workers, while the masses have been
engaged almost exclusively in the economic struggle”. Presented
in such a form, the thesis reduces itself to Svoboda ’s
usual but fundamentally false contraposition of the enlightened workers to the “masses”. In recent years, even the
enlightened workers have been “engaged almost exclusively in the
economic struggle”. That is the first point. On the other hand,
the masses will never learn to conduct the political struggle
until we help to train leaders for this struggle, both from among the enlightened workers and from among the
intellectuals. Such leaders can acquire training solely
by systematically evaluating all the everyday aspects of our political life, all attempts at protest
and struggle on the part of the various classes and on various
grounds. Therefore, to talk of “rearing political organisations”
and at the same time to contrast the “paper work” of a political newspaper to “live political work in the localities”
is plainly ridiculous. Iskra has adapted its “plan” for
a newspaper to the “plan” for creating a “militant preparedness”
to support the unemployed movement, peasant revolts, discontent
among, the Zemstvo people, “popular indignation against some
tsarist bashi-bazouk on the rampage”, etc. Anyone who is at all
acquainted with the movement knows full well that the vast
majority of local organisations have never even dreamed
of these things; that many of the prospects of “live political work” here indicated have never been realised
by a single organisation; that the attempt, for example, to call attention to the growth of discontent and protest among the
Zemstvo intelligentsia rouses feelings of consternation and
perplexity in Nadezhdin (“Good Lord, is this newspaper intended
for Zemstvo people?”—The Eve , p. 129), among the
Economists (Letter to Iskra , No. 12), and among many practical workers. Under these circumstances, it is possible to
“begin” only by inducing people to think about all these things, to summarise and generalise all the diverse
signs of ferment and active struggle. In our time, when
Social-Democratic tasks are being degraded, the only way
“live political work” can be begun is with live political agitation, which is impossible unless we have an
all-Russia newspaper, frequently issued and regularly distributed.

Those who regard the Iskra “plan” as a manifestation of “bookishness” have totally failed to understand its substance
and take for the goal that which is suggested as the most
suitable means for the present time. These people have not taken
the trouble to study the two comparisons that were drawn to
present a clear illustration of the plan. Iskra wrote:
The publication of an all-Russia political newspaper must be
the main line by which we may unswervingly develop, deepen, and expand the organisation (viz., the revolutionary
organisation that is ever ready to support every protest and
every outbreak). Pray tell me, when bricklayers lay bricks in,
various parts of an enormous, unprecedentedly large structure,
is it “paper” work to use a line to help them find the correct
place for the bricklaying; to indicate to them the ultimate goal
of the common work; to enable them to use, not only every brick,
but even every piece of brick which, cemented to the bricks laid
before and after it, forms a finished, continuous line? And are
we not now passing through precisely such a period in our Party
life when we have bricks and bricklayers, but lack the guide
line for all to see and follow? Let them shout that in stretching out the line, we want to command. Had we desired to
command, gentlemen, we would have written on the title page, not
“ Iskra , No. 1”, but “Rabochaya Gazeta , No. 3”, as we were invited to do by certain comrades, and as we would have had a perfect right to do after the events
described above. But we did not do that. We wished to have our
hands free to wage an irreconcilable struggle against all
pseudo-Social-Democrats; we wanted our line, if properly laid, to be respected because it was correct, and not because it had
been laid by an official organ.

“The question of uniting local activity in central bodies runs
in a vicious circle,” Nadezhdin lectures us; “unification
requires homogeneity of the elements, and the homogeneity can be
created only by something that unites; but the unifying element
may be the product of strong local organisations which at the
present time are by no means distinguished for their homogeneity.” This truth is as revered and as irrefutable as
that we must train strong political organisations. And it is
equally barren. Every question “runs in a vicious circle” because political life as a whole is an endless chain
consisting of an infinite number of links. The whole art of
politics lies in finding and taking as firm a grip as we can of
the link that is least likely to be struck from our hands, the
one that is most important at the given moment, the one that
most of all guarantees its possessor the possession of the whole
chain. [7] If we had a crew of experienced bricklayers who had learned to
work so well together that they could lay their bricks exactly
as required without a guide line (which, speaking abstractly, is
by no means impossible), then perhaps we might take hold of some
other link. But it is unfortunate that as yet we have no
experienced bricklayers trained for teamwork, that bricks are
often laid where they are not needed at all, that they are not
laid according to the general line, but are so scattered that
the enemy can shatter the structure as if it were made of sand
and not of bricks.

’Another comparison: “A newspaper is not only a collective
propagandist and a collective agitator, it is also a collective
organiser. In this respect it may be compared to the scaffolding erected round a building under construction; it
marks the contours of the structure and facilitates communication between the builders, permitting them to
distribute the work and to view the common results achieved by their organised labour.“ [8] Does
this sound anything like the attempt of an armchair author to exaggerate his role? The
scaffolding is not required at all for the dwelling; it is made
of cheaper material, is put up only temporarily, and is scrapped
for firewood as soon as the shell of the structure is completed. As for the building of revolutionary organisations,
experience shows that sometimes they may be built without
scaffolding, as the seventies showed. But at the present time we
cannot even imagine the possibility of erecting the building we
require without scaffolding.

Nadezhdin disagrees with this, saying: “ Iskra thinks that around it and in the activities in its behalf people will
gather and organise. But they will find it far easier to gather and organise around activities that are more concrete! ” Indeed, “far easier around activities that are
more concrete”. A Russian proverb holds: “Don’t spit into a
well, you may want to drink from it.” But there are people who
do not object to drinking from a well that has been spat
into. What despicable things our magnificent, legal “Critics of
Marxism” and illegal admirers of Rabochaya Mysl have said in the name of this something more concrete! How restricted
our movement is by our own narrowness, lack of initiative, and
hesitation, which are justified with the traditional argument
about finding it “far easier to gather around something more
concrete”! And Nadezhdin — who regards himself as possessing a
particularly keen sense of the “realities of life”, who so
severely condemns “armchair” authors and (with pretensions to
wit) accuses Iskra of a weakness for seeing Economism everywhere, and who sees himself standing far above the division
between the orthodox and the Critics — fails to see that with
his arguments he contributes to the narrowness that arouses his
indignation and that he is drinking from the most spat-in well!
The sincerest indignation against narrowness, the most passionate desire to raise its worshippers from their knees,
will not suffice if the indignant one is swept along without
sail or rudder and, as “spontaneously” as the revolutionaries of
the seventies, clutches at such things as “excitative terror”, “agrarian terror”, “sounding the tocsin etc. Let us take a
glance at these “more concrete” activities around which he
thinks it will be “far easier” to gather and organise: (1) local
newspapers; (2) preparations for demonstrations; (3) work among
the unemployed. It is immediately apparent that all these things
have been seized upon at random as a pretext for saying
something; for, however we may regard them, it would be absurd
to see in them anything especially suitable for “gathering and
organising”. The selfsame Nadezhdin says a few pages further:
“It is time we simply stated the fact that activity of a very
pitiable kind is being carried on in the localities, the
committees are not doing a tenth of what they could do ... the
coordinating centres we have at present are the purest fiction,
representing a sort of revolutionary bureaucracy, whose members
mutually grant generalships to one another; and so it will
continue until strong local organisations grow up.” These
remarks, though exaggerating the position somewhat, no doubt
contain many a bitter truth; but can it be said that Nadezhdin
does not perceive the connection between the pitiable activity
in the localities and the narrow mental outlook of the functionaries, the narrow scope of their activities, inevitable
in the circumstances of the lack of training of Party workers
confined to local organisations? Has he, like the author of the
article on organisation, published in Svoboda , forgotten how the transition to a broad local press (from
1898) was accompanied by a strong intensification of Economism
and “primitiveness”? Even if a “broad local press” could be
established at all satisfactorily (and we have shown this to be
impossible, save in very, exceptional cases) — even then the
local organs could not “gather and organise” all the revolutionary forces for a general attack upon the
autocracy and for leadership of the united struggle. Let us not forget that we are here discussing
only the “rallying”, organising significance of the newspaper, and we could put to Nadezhdin, who defends
fragmentation, the question he himself has ironically put: “Have
we been left a legacy of 200,000 revolutionary organisers?”
Furthermore, “preparations for demonstrations” cannot be
contraposed to Iskra ’s plan, for the very reason that this plan includes the organisation of the broadest
possible demonstrations as one of its aims ; the point under discussion is the selection of the practical means . On this point also Nadezhdin is confused, for he
has lost sight of the fact that only forces that are “gathered
and organised” can “prepare for” demonstrations (which hitherto,
in the overwhelming majority of cases, have taken place
spontaneously) and that we lack precisely the ability to rally and organise. “Work among the unemployed.”
Again the same confusion; for this too represents one of the
field operations of the mobilised forces and not a plan for
mobilising the forces. The extent to which Nadezhdin here too
underestimates the harm caused by our fragmentation, by our lack
of “200,000 organisers”, can be seen from the fact that: many
people (including Nadezhdin) have reproached Iskra for the paucity of the news it gives on unemployment and for the
casual nature of the correspondence it publishes about the most
common affairs of rural life. The reproach is justified; but
Iskra is “guilty without sin”. We strive “to stretch a line” through the countryside too, where there are hardly any
bricklayers anywhere, and we are obliged to encourage everyone who informs us even as regards the most common
facts, in the hope that this will increase the number of our
contributors in the given field and will ultimately train us all to select facts that are really the most
outstanding. But the material on which we can train is so scanty
that, unless we generalise it for the whole of Russia, we shall
have very little to train on at all. No doubt, one with at least
as much ability as an agitator and as much knowledge of the life
of the vagrant as Nadezhdin manifests could render priceless
service to the movement by carrying on agitation among the
unemployed; but such a person would be simply hiding his light
under a bushel if he failed to inform all comrades in Russia as
regards every step he took in his work, so that others, who, in
the mass, still lack the ability to undertake new kinds of work,
might learn from his example.

All without exception now talk of the importance of unity, of
the necessity for “gathering and organising”; but in the
majority of cases what is lacking is a definite idea of where to
begin and how to bring about this unity. Probably all will agree
that if we “unite”, say, the district circles in a given town,
it will be necessary to have for this purpose common institutions, i.e., not merely the common title of “League”, but genuinely common work, exchange of material, experience, and
forces, distribution of functions, not only by districts, but
through specialisation on a town-wide scale. All will agree that
a big secret apparatus will not pay its way (to use a commercial
expression) “with the resources” (in both money and manpower, of
course) of a single district, and that this narrow field will
not provide sufficient scope for a specialist to develop his
talents. But the same thing applies to the co-ordination of
activities of a number of towns, since even a specific locality
will be and, in the history of our Social-Democratic movement,
has proved to be, far too narrow a field; we have demonstrated
this above in detail with regard to political agitation and
organisational work. What we require foremost and imperatively
is to broaden the field, establish real contacts between the
towns on the basis of regular, common work; for fragmentation
weighs down on the people and they are “stuck in a hole” (to use
the expression employed by a correspondent to Iskra ), not knowing what is happening in the world, from whom to learn,
or how to acquire experience and satisfy their desire to engage
in broad activities. I continue to insist that we can start
establishing real contacts only with the aid of a common
newspaper, as the only regular, all-Russia enterprise, one which
will summarise the results of the most diverse forms of activity
and thereby stimulate people to march forward untiringly along
all the innumerable paths leading to revolution, in the same way
as all roads lead to Rome. If we do not want unity in name only,
we must arrange for all local study circles immediately to
assign, say, a fourth of their forces to active work for the
common cause, and the newspaper will immediately convey to
them [9]
[9] A reservation : that is, if a given study circle sympathises with the policy of the newspaper and considers it useful to become a collaborator, meaning by that, not only for literary collaboration, but for revolutionary collaboration generally. Note for Rabocheye Dyelo : Among revolutionaries who attach value to the cause and not to playing at democracy, who do not separate “sympathy” from the most active and lively participation, this reservation is taken for granted.— Lenin the general design, scope, and character of the cause; it will give
them a precise indication of the most keenly felt shortcomings
in the all-Russia activity, where agitation is lacking and
contacts are weak, and it will point out which little wheels in
the vast general mechanism a given study circle might repair or replace with better ones. A study circle that has not yet begun
to work, but which is only just seeking activity, could then
start, not like a craftsman in an isolated little workshop
unaware of the earlier development in “industry” or of the
general level of production methods prevailing in industry, but
as a participant in an extensive enterprise that reflects the
whole general revolutionary attack on the autocracy. The more
perfect the finish of each little wheel and the larger the
number of detail workers engaged in the common cause, the closer
will our network become and the less will be the disorder in the
ranks consequent on inevitable police, raids.

The mere function of distributing a newspaper would help to
establish actual contacts (if it is a newspaper worthy of the
name, i.e., if it is issued regularly, not once a month like a
magazine, but at least four times a month). At the present time,
communication between towns on revolutionary business is an
extreme rarity, and, at all events, is the exception rather than
the rule. If we had a newspaper, however, such communication
would become the rule and would secure, not only the distribution of the newspaper, of course, but (what is more
important) an exchange of experience, of material, of forces,
and of resources. Organisational work would immediately acquire
much greater scope, and the success of one locality would serve
as a standing encouragement to further perfection; it would
arouse the desire to utilise the experience gained by comrades
working in other parts of the country. Local work would become
far richer and more varied than it is at present. Political and
economic exposures gathered from all over Russia would provide
mental food for workers of all trades and all stages of
development ; they would provide material and occasion for talks and readings on the most diverse subjects, which
would, in addition, be suggested by hints in the legal press, by
talk among the people, and by “shamefaced” government statements. Every outbreak, every demonstration, would be
weighed and, discussed in its every aspect in all parts of
Russia and would thus stimulate a desire to keep up with, and
even surpass, the others (we socialists do not by any means
flatly reject all emulation or all “competition”!) and consciously prepare that which at first, as it were, sprang up
spontaneously, a desire to take advantage of the favourable
conditions in a given district or at a given moment for
modifying the plan of attack, etc. At the same time, this
revival of local work would obviate that desperate, “convulsive”
exertion of all efforts and risking of all forces which
every single demonstration or the publication of every single
issue of a local newspaper now frequently entails. On the one
hand, the police would find it much more difficult to get at the
“roots”, if they did not know in what district to dig down for
them. On the other hand, regular common work would train our
people to adjust the force of a given attack to the strength of the given contingent of the common army (at the
present time hardly anyone ever thinks of doing that, because in
nine cases out of ten these attacks occur spontaneously); such
regular common work would facilitate the “transportation” from
one place to another, not only of literature, but also of
revolutionary forces.

In a great many cases these forces are now being bled white on
restricted local work, but under the circumstances we are
discussing it would be possible to transfer a capable agitator
or organiser from one end of the country to the other, and the
occasion for doing this would constantly arise. Beginning with
short journeys on Party business at the Party’s expense, the
comrades would become accustomed to being maintained by the
Party, to becoming professional revolutionaries, and to training
themselves as real political leaders.

And if indeed we succeeded in reaching the point when all, or
at least a considerable majority, of the local committees local
groups, and study circles took up active work for the common
cause, we could, in the not distant future, establish a weekly
newspaper for regular distribution in tens of thousands of
copies throughout Russia. This newspaper would become part of an
enormous pair of smith’s bellows that would fan every spark of
the class struggle and of popular indignation into a general
conflagration. Around what is in itself still a very innocuous
and very small, but regular and common , effort, in the
full sense of the word, a regular army of tried fighters would
systematically gather and receive their training. On the ladders
and scaffolding of this general organisational structure there
would soon develop and come to the fore Social-Democratic

Zhelyabovs from among our revolutionaries and Russian Bebels
from among our workers, who would take their place at the head
of the mobilised army and rouse the whole people to settle
accounts with the shame and the curse of Russia.

That is what we should dream of!

*     * *
“We should dream!” I wrote these words and became alarmed. I
imagined myself sitting at a “unity conference” and opposite me
were the Rabocheye Dyelo editors and contributors. Comrade Martynov rises and, turning to me, says
sternly: “Permit me to ask you, has an autonomous editorial
board the right to dream without first soliciting the opinion of
the Party committees?” He is followed by Comrade Krichevsky; who
(philosophically deepening Comrade Martynov, who long ago
rendered Comrade Plekhanov more profound) continues even more
sternly: “I go further. I ask, has a Marxist any right at all to
dream, knowing that according to Marx, mankind always sets
itself the tasks it can solve and that tactics is a process of
the growth of Party tasks which grow together with the
Party?”

The very thought of these stern questions sends a cold shiver
down my spine and makes me wish for nothing but a place to hide
in. I shall try to hide behind the back of Pisarev.

“There are rifts and rifts,” wrote Pisarev of the rift between
dreams and reality. “My dream may run ahead of the natural march
of events or may fly off at a tangent in a direction in which no
natural march of events will ever proceed. In the first case my
dream will not cause any harm; it may even support and augment
the energy of the working men.... There is nothing in such
dreams that would distort or paralyse labour-power. On the
contrary, if man were completely deprived of the ability to
dream in this way, if he could not from time to time run ahead
and mentally conceive, in an entire and completed picture, the
product to which his hands are only just beginning to lend
shape, then I cannot at all imagine what stimulus there would be
to induce man to undertake and complete extensive and strenuous
work in the sphere of art, science, and practical endeavour.... The rift between dreams and reality causes no harm
if only the person dreaming believes seriously in his dream, if
he attentively observes life, compares his observations with his
castles in the air, and if, generally speaking, he works
conscientiously for the achievement of his fantasies. If there
is some connection between dreams and life then all is well.” [17]

Of this kind of dreaming there is unfortunately too little in
our movement. And the people most responsible for this are those
who boast of their sober views, their “closeness” to the
“concrete”, the representatives of legal criticism and of illegal
“tail-ism”.

C. What Type of Organisation Do We Require?

From what has been said the reader will see that our “tactics-as-plan” consists in rejecting an immediate
call for assault; in demanding “to lay effective siege to the enemy fortress”; or, in other words, in demanding that
all efforts be directed towards gathering, organising, and
mobilising a permanent army. When we ridiculed
Rabocheye Dyelo for its leap from Economism to shouting
for an assault (for which it clamoured in April 1901, in “Listok” Rabochego Dyela , 157 No. 6) it of
course came down on us with accusations of being “doctrinaire”,
of failing to understand our revolutionary duty, of calling for
caution, etc. Of course, we were not in the least surprised to
hear these accusations from those who totally lack principles
and who evade all arguments by references to a profound
“tactics-as-process”, any more than we were surprised by the
fact that these charges were repeated by Nadezhdin, who in
general has a supreme contempt for durable programmes and the
fundamentals of tactics.

It is said that history does not repeat itself. But Nadezhdin
exerts every effort to cause it to repeat itself and he
zealously imitates Tkachov [18] in strongly condemning “revolutionary
culturism”, in shouting about “sounding the tocsin” and about a
special “ eve-of-the-revolution point of view”, etc., Apparently, he has forgotten the well-known maxim that while an
original historical event represents a tragedy, its replica is
merely a farce. [19] The attempt to seize power, which was prepared by the preaching of Tkachov and carried out by means of the “terrifying” terror that did really
terrify, had grandeur, but the “excitative” terror of a Tkachov the Little is simply
ludicrous, particularly so when it is supplemented with the idea
of an organisation of average people.

“If Iskra would only emerge from its sphere of bookishness,” wrote Nadezhdin, “it would realise that these
(instances like the worker’s letter to Iskra , No. 7, etc.) are symptoms of the fact that soon, very soon, the
’assault’ will begin, and to speak now [sic!] of an organisation
linked with an all-Russia newspaper means to propagate armchair
ideas and armchair activity.” What an unimaginable muddle — on
the one hand, excitative terror and an “organisation of average
people”, along with the opinion that it is far “easier” to gather
around something “more concrete”, like a local newspaper, and, on
the other, the view that to talk “now” about an all-Russia
organisation means to propagate armchair thoughts, or, bluntly
put, “now” it is already too late! But what of the “extensive
organisation of local newspapers” — is it not too late for that,
my dear L. Nadezhdin? And compare with this Iskra ’s point
of view and tactical line: excitative terror is nonsense; to talk
of an organisation of average people and of the extensive
publication of local newspapers means to fling the door wide
open to Economism. We must speak of a single all-Russia
organisation of revolutionaries, and it will never be too
late to talk of that until the real, not a paper, assault
begins.

“Yes, as far as organisation is concerned the situation is anything but brilliant,” continues Nadezhdin. “Yes,
Iskra is entirely right in saying that the mass of our fighting forces consists of volunteers and insurgents.... You do
well to give such a sober picture of the state of our forces. But
why, at the same time, do you forget that the masses are not ours at all , and consequently, will not ask us when
to begin military operations; they will simply go and
’rebel’.... When the crowd itself breaks out with its elemental
destructive force it may overwhelm and sweep aside the
’regular troops’ among whom we prepared all the time to introduce
extremely systematic organisation, but never managed to
do so.” (Our italics.)

Astounding logic! For the very reason that the “masses are not ours” it is stupid and unseemly to shout about an
immediate “assault”, for assault means attack by regular troops
and not a spontaneous mass upsurge. For the very reason that the
masses may overwhelm and sweep aside the regular troops we must without fail “manage to keep up” with the spontaneous
upsurge by our work of “introducing extremely systematic
organisation” in the regular troops, for the more we “manage” to
introduce such organisation the more probably will the regular
troops not be overwhelmed by the masses, but will take their place
at their head. Nadezhdin is confused because he imagines that
troops in the course of systematic organisation are engaged in
something that isolates them from the masses, when in actuality
they are engaged exclusively in all-sided and all-embracing
political. agitation, i.e., precisely in work that brings closer and merges into a single whole the elemental
destructive force of the masses and the conscious destructive
force of the organisation of revolutionaries. You, gentlemen, wish
to lay the blame where it does not belong. For it is precisely the
Svoboda group that, by including terror in its programme , calls for an organisation of terrorists, and
such an organisation would indeed prevent our troops from
establishing closer contacts with the masses, which, unfortunately, are still not ours, and which, unfortunately, do
not yet ask us, or rarely ask us, when and how to launch their
military operations.

“We shall miss the revolution itself,” continues Nadezhdin in
his attempt to scare Iskra , “in the same way as we missed
..the recent events, which came upon us like a bolt from the
blue.” This sentence, taken in connection with what has been
quoted above, clearly demonstrates the absurdity of the
“eve-of-therevolution point of view” invented by
Svoboda . [10] Plainly put, this special “point of view” boils down to this
that it is too late “now” to discuss and prepare. If that is the
case, most worthy opponent of “bookishness”, what was the use of
writing a pamphlet of 132 pages on questions of theory [11]
[11] In his Review of Questions of Theory , Nadezhdin, by the way, made almost no contribution whatever to the discussion of questions of theory, apart, perhaps, from the following passage, a most peculiar one from the “eve-of-the-revolution point of view”: “Bernsteinism, on the whole, is losing its acuteness for us at the present moment, as is the question whether Mr. Adamovich will prove that Mr. Struve has already earned a lacing, or, on the contrary, whether Mr. Struve will refute Mr. Adamovich and will refuse to resign — it really makes no difference, because the hour of revolution has struck” (p. 110). One can hardly imagine a more glaring illustration of Nadezhdin’s infinite disregard for theory. We have proclaimed “the eve of the revolution”, therefore “it really makes no difference” whether or not the orthodox will succeed in finally driving the Critics from their positions! Our wiseacre fails to see that it is precisely during the revolution that we shall stand in need of the results of our theoretical battles with the Critics in order to be able resolutely to combat their practical positions!— Lenin and tactics”? Don’t you think it would have been more becoming for
the “eve-of-the-revolution point of view” to have issued
132,000 leaflets containing the summary call, “Bang them
— knock’em down!”?

Those who make nation-wide political agitation the cornerstone
of their programme, their tactics, and their organisational work , as Iskra does, stand the least risk of missing
the revolution. The people who are now engaged throughout Russia
in weaving the network of connections that spread from the
all-Russia newspaper not only did not miss the spring events, but,
on the contrary, gave us an opportunity to foretell them. Nor did
they miss the demonstrations that were described in Iskra ,
Nos. 13 and 14; on the contrary, they took part in them, clearly realising that it was their duty to come to the aid
of the spontaneously rising masses and, at the same time, through
the medium of the newspaper, help all the comrades in Russia to
inform themselves of the demonstrations and to make use of their
gathered experience. And if they live they will not miss
the revolution, which, first and foremost, will demand of us
experience in agitation, ability to support (in a
Social-Democratic manner) every protest, as well as direct the
spontaneous movement, while safeguarding it from the mistakes of
friends and the traps of enemies.

We have thus come to the last reason that compels us so
strongly to insist on the plan of an organisation centred round an
all-Russia newspaper, through the common work for the common
newspaper. Only such organisation will ensure the flexibility
required of a militant Social-Democratic organisation, viz.,
the ability to adapt itself immediately to the most diverse and
rapidly changing conditions of struggle, the ability, “on the one
hand, to avoid an open battle against an overwhelming enemy, when
the enemy has concentrated all his forces at one spot and yet, on
the other, to take advantage of his unwieldiness and to attack him when and where he least expects it”. [12] It would be a grievous error indeed
to build the Party organisation in anticipation only of outbreaks
and street fighting, or only upon the “forward march of the drab
everyday struggle”. We must always conduct our everyday
work and always be prepared for every situation, because very
frequently it is almost impossible to foresee when a period of
outbreak will give way to a period of calm. In the instances,
however, when it is possible to do so, we could not turn this
foresight to account for the purpose of reconstructing our
organisation; for in an autocratic country these changes take
place with astonishing rapidity, being sometimes connected with a
single night raid by the tsarist janizaries. [20] And the revolution itself must not by any means be regarded as a single act
(as the Nadezhdins apparently imagine), but as a series of more or less
powerful outbreaks rapidly alternating with periods of more or
less complete calm. For that reason, the principal content of the
activity of our Party organisation, the focus of this activity,
should be work that is both possible and essential in the period
of a most powerful outbreak as well as in the period of complete
calm, namely, work of political agitation, connected throughout
Russia, illuminating all aspects of life, and conducted among the
broadest possible strata of the masses. But this work is unthinkable in present-day Russia without an all-Russia
newspaper, issued very frequently. The organisation, which will
form round this newspaper, the organisation of its collaborators (in the broad sense of the word, i.e., all
those working for it), will be ready for everything , from
upholding the honour, the prestige, and the continuity of the
Party in periods of acute revolutionary “depression” to preparing
for, appointing the time for, and carrying out the nation-wide armed uprising.

Indeed, picture to yourselves a very ordinary occurrence in
Russia-the total round-up of our comrades in one or several
localities. In the absence of a single , common, regular
activity that combines all the local organisations, such round-ups
frequently result in the interruption of the work for many
months. If, however, all the local organisations had one common
activity, then, even in the event of a very serious round-up, two
or three energetic persons could in the course of a few weeks
establish contact between the common centre and new youth circles,
which, as we know, spring up very quickly even now. And when the
common activity, hampered by the arrests, is apparent to all, new
circles will be able to come into being and make connections with
the centre even more rapidly.

On the other hand, picture to yourselves a popular uprising. Probably everyone will now agree that we must think of
this and prepare for it. But how? Surely the Central Committee
cannot appoint agents to all localities for the purpose of
preparing the uprising. Even if we had a Central Committee, it
could achieve absolutely nothing by such appointments under
present-day Russian conditions. But a network of agents [13] that
would form in the course of establishing and distributing the
common newspaper would not have to “sit about and wait” for the
call for an uprising, but could carry on the regular activity that
would guarantee the highest probability of success in the event of an uprising. Such activity would strengthen our contacts with the
broadest strata of the working masses and with all social strata
that are discontented with the autocracy, which is of such
importance for an uprising. Precisely such activity would serve to
cultivate the ability to estimate correctly the general political
situation and, consequently, the ability to select the proper
moment for an uprising. Precisely such activity would train all
local organisations to respond simultaneously to the same
political questions, incidents, and events that agitate the whole
of Russia and to react to such “incidents” in the most vigorous,
uniform, and expedient manner possible; for an uprising is in
essence the most vigorous, most uniform, and most expedient
“answer” of the entire people to the government. Lastly, it is
precisely such activity that would train all revolutionary
organisations throughout Russia to maintain the most continuous,
and at the same time the most secret, contacts with one another,
thus creating real Party unity; for without such contacts
it will be impossible collectively to discuss’ the plan for the
uprising and to take the necessary preparatory measures on the
eve, measures that must be kept in the strictest secrecy.

In a word, the “plan for an all-Russia political newspaper”,
far from representing the fruits of the labour of armchair
workers, infected with dogmatism and bookishness (as it seemed to
those who gave but little thought to it), is the most practical
plan for immediate and all-round preparation of the uprising,
with, at the same time, no loss of sight for a moment of the
pressing day-to-day work.

---
Notes:
[1] See
Collected Works , Vol. 5, pp. 13-24 —Ed.

[2]
Iskra , No. 8.The reply of the
Central Committee of the General Jewish Union of Russia and Poland
to our article on the national question.— Lenin

[3] We
deliberately refrain from relating these facts [21] in the sequence of their occurrence.— Lenin

[4] See