What Is To Be Done?

BURNING QUESTIONS of our MOVEMENT

IV

The Primitiveness of the Economists and the Organization of the Revolutionaries

Rabocheye Dyelo’s assertions, which we have analyzed, that the economic struggle is the most widely applicable means
of political agitation and that our task now is to lend the
economic struggle itself a political character, etc., express a
narrow view, not only of our political, but also of our
organizational tasks. The “economic struggle against the
employers and the government” does not at all require an
all-Russia centralized organization, and hence this struggle can
never give rise to such an organization as will combine, in one
general assault, all the manifestations of political opposition,
protest, and indignation, an organization that will consist of
professional revolutionaries and be led by the real political
leaders of the entire people. This stands to reason. The
character of any organization is naturally and inevitably
determined by the content of its activity. Consequently,
Rabocheye Dyelo , by the assertions analyzed above, sanctifies and legitimizes not only narrowness of political
activity, but also of organizational work. In this case,
Rabocheye Dyelo , as always, proves itself an organ whose consciousness yields to spontaneity. Yet subservience to
spontaneously developing forms of organisation, failure to realise the narrowness and primitiveness of our organisational
work, of our “handicraft” methods in this most important sphere,
failure to realise this, I say, is a veritable ailment from
which our movement suffers. It is not an ailment that comes with
decline, but one, of course, that comes with growth. It is
however at the present time, when the wave of spontaneous
indignation, as it were, is sweeping over us, leaders and
organisers of the movement, that an irreconcilable struggle must
be waged against all defence of backwardness, against any
legitimation of narrowness in this matter. It is particularly
necessary to arouse in all who participate in practical work, or
are preparing to take up that work, discontent with the
amateurism prevailing among us and an unshakable determination to rid ourselves of it.

A. WHAT IS PRIMITIVENESS?

We shall try to answer this question by giving a brief description of the activity of a typical Social-Democratic study
circle of the period 1894-1901. We have noted that the entire
student youth of the period was absorbed in Marxism. Of course,
these students were not only, or even not so much, interested in
Marxism as a theory; they were interested in it as an answer to
the question, “What is to be done?”, as a call to take the field
against the enemy. These new warriors marched to battle with
astonishingly primitive equipment and training. In a vast number
of cases they had almost no equipment and absolutely no
training. They marched to war like peasants from the plough,
armed only with clubs. A students’ circle establishes contacts
with workers and sets to work, without any connection with the
old members of the movement, without any connection with study
circles in other districts, or even in other parts of the same
city (or in other educational institutions), without any
organisation of the various divisions of revolutionary work,
without any systematic plan of activity covering any length of
time. The circle gradually expands its propaganda and agitation;
by its activities it wins the sympathies of fairly large
sections of workers and of a certain section of the educated
strata, which provide it with money and from among whom the “committee” recruits new groups of young people. The attractive
power of the committee (or League of Struggle) grows, its sphere
of activity becomes wider, and the committee expands this
activity quite spontaneously; the very people who a year or a
few months previously spoke at the students’ circle gatherings
and discussed the question, “Whither?”, who established and
maintained contacts with the workers and wrote and published
leaflets, now, establish contacts with other groups of revolutionaries, procure literature, set to work to publish a
local newspaper, begin to talk of organising a demonstration,
and finally turn to open warfare (which may, according to
circumstances, take the form of issuing the first agitational
leaflet or the first issue of a newspaper, or of organising the
first demonstration). Usually the initiation of such actions
ends in an immediate and complete fiasco. Immediate and
complete, because this open warfare was not the result of a
systematic and carefully thought-out and gradually prepared plan
for a prolonged and stubborn struggle, but simply the result of
the spontaneous growth of traditional study circle work;
because, naturally, the police, in almost every case, knew the
principal leaders of the local movement, since they had already
“gained a reputation” for themselves in their student days, and
the police waited only for the right moment to make their
raid. They deliberately allowed the study circle sufficient time
to develop its work so that they might, obtain a palpable
corpus delicti , and they always permitted several of the persons known to them to remain at liberty “for breeding”
(which, as far as I know, is the technical term used both by our
people and by the gendarmes). One cannot help comparing this
kind of warfare with that conducted by a mass of peasants, armed
with clubs, against modern troops. And one can only wonder at
the vitality of the movement which expanded, grew, and scored
victories despite the total lack of training on the part of the
fighters. True, from the historical point of view, the primitiveness of equipment was not only inevitable at first, but
even legitimate as one of the conditions for the wide recruiting of fighters, but as soon as serious war operations
began (and they began in fact with the strikes in the summer of
1896), the defects in our fighting organisations made themselves
felt to an ever-increasing degree. The government, at first
thrown into confusion and committing a number of blunders (e.g.,
its appeal to the public describing the misdeeds of the
socialists, or the banishment of workers from the capitals to
provincial industrial centres), very soon adapted itself to the
new conditions of the struggle and managed to deploy well its
perfectly equipped detachments of agents provocateurs ,
spies, and gendarmes. Raids became so frequent, affected such a
vast number of people, and cleared out the local study circles
so thoroughly that the masses of the workers lost literally all
their leaders, the movement assumed an amazingly sporadic
character, and it became utterly impossible to establish
continuity and coherence in the work. The terrible dispersion of
the local leaders; the fortuitous character of the study circle
memberships; the lack of training in, and the narrow outlook on,
theoretical, political, and organisational questions were all
the inevitable result of the conditions described above. Things
have reached such a pass that in several places the workers,
because of our lack of self-restraint and the inability to
maintain secrecy, begin to lose faith in the intellectuals and
to avoid them; the intellectuals, they say, are much too
careless and cause police raids!

Anyone who has the slightest knowledge of the movement is aware
that all thinking Social-Democrats have at last begun to regard
these amateurish methods as a disease. In order that the reader
who is not acquainted with the movement may have no grounds for
thinking that we are “inventing” a special stage or special
disease of the movement, we shall refer once again to the
witness we have quoted. We trust we shall be forgiven for the
length of the passage:

“While the gradual transition to more extensive practical
activity,” writes B-v in Rabocheye Dyelo , No. 6, “a transition that is directly dependent on the general
transitional period through which the Russian working-class
movement is now passing, is a characteristic feature, . . . there is, however, another, no less interesting feature in
the general mechanism of the Russian workers’ revolution. We refer to the general lack of revolutionary forces fit for action , [all italics ours — Lenin] which is felt not only
in St. Petersburg, but throughout Russia. With the general
revival of the working-class movement, with the general
development of the working masses, with the growing frequency of
strikes, with the increasingly open mass struggle of the workers, and with the intensified government persecution, arrests,
deportation, and exile, this lack of highly skilled revolutionary forces is becoming more and more marked and,
without a doubt, cannot but affect the depth and the general character of the movement. Many strikes take place without
any strong and direct influence upon them by the revolutionary
organisations.... A shortage of agitational leaflets and illegal
literature Is felt.... The workers’ study circles are left
without agitators.... In addition, there is a constant dearth of
funds. In a word, the growth of the working class movement is outstripping the growth and development of the revolutionary organisations. The numerical strength of the active
revolutionaries is too small to enable them to concentrate in
their own hands the influence exercised upon the whole mass of
discontented workers, or to give this discontent even a shadow
of coherence and organisation.... The separate study circles,
the separate revolutionaries, scattered, uncombined, do not
represent a single, strong, and disciplined organisation with
proportionately developed parts. . . .” Admitting that the
immediate organization of fresh study circles to replace those
that have been broken up merely proves the vitality of the
movement ... but does not prove the existence of an adequate
number of adequately prepared revolutionary workers, the author
concludes: “The lack of practical training among the
St. Petershurg revolutionaries is seen in the results of their
work. The recent trials, especially that of the
Self-Emancipation Group and the Labour-against-Capital group, [19]
clearly showed that the young agitator, lacking a detailed
knowledge of working class conditions and, consequently, of the
conditions under which agitation can be carried on in a given
factory, ignorant of the principles of secrecy, and understanding only the general principles of Social-Democracy
[if he does], is able to carry on his work for perhaps four,
five, or six months. Then come arrests, which frequently lead to
the break-up of the entire organisation, or at all events, of
part of it. The question arises, therefore, can the group
conduct successful activity if its existence is measured by
months?... Obviously, the defects of the existing organisations
cannot be wholly ascribed to the transitional period.... Obviously, the numerical, and above all the
qualitative, make-up of the functioning organisations is no
small factor, and the first task our Social-Democrats must
undertake ... is that of effectively combining the organisations and making a strict selection of their membership.”

B. Primitiveness and Economism

We must now deal with a question that has undoubtedly come to
the mind of every reader. Can a connection be established
between primitiveness as growing pains that affect the whole
movement, and Economism, which is one of the currents in Russian Social-Democracy? We think that it can. Lack
of practical training, of ability to carry on organisational
work is certainly common to us all , including those who have from the very outset unswervingly stood for revolutionary
Marxism. Of course, were it only lack of practical training, no
one could blame the practical workers. But the term “primitiveness” embraces something more than lack of training;
it denotes a narrow scope of revolutionary work generally,
failure to understand that a good organisation of revolutionaries cannot be built on the basis of such narrow
activity, and lastly — and this is the main thing — attempts
to justify this narrowness and to elevate it to a special
“theory”, i.e., subservience to spontaneity on this question
too. Once such attempts were revealed, it became clear that
primitiveness is connected with Economism and that we shall
never rid ourselves of this narrowness of our organisational
activity until we rid ourselves of Economism generally (i.e.,
the narrow conception of Marxist theory, as well as of the role
of Social-Democracy and of its political tasks). These attempts
manifested themselves in a twofold direction. Some began to say
that the working masses themselves have not yet advanced the
broad and militant political tasks which the revolutionaries are
attempting to “impose” on them; that they must continue to
struggle for immediate political demands, to conduct “the economic struggle against the employers and the
government” [1] (and, naturally, corresponding to this struggle which is “accessible”
to the mass movement there must be an organisation that will be
“accessible” to the most untrained youth). Others, far removed
from any theory of “gradualness”, said that it is possible and
necessary to “bring about a political revolution”, but that this
does not require building a strong organisation of revolutionaries to train the proletariat in steadfast and
stubborn struggle. All we need do is to snatch up our old
friend, the “accessible” cudgel. To drop metaphor, it means that
we must organise a general strike, [2] or that we must stimulate the
“spiritless” progress of the working-class movement by means of
“excitative terror”. [3]

Both these trends, the opportunists and the “revolutionists”, bow to the prevailing amateurism;
neither believes that it can be eliminated, neither understands
our primary and imperative practical task to establish an organisation of revolutionaries capable of lending energy,
stability, and continuity to the political struggle.

We have quoted the words of B-v: “The growth of the working-class movement is outstripping the growth and
development of the revolutionary organisations.” This “valuable
remark of a close observer” ( Rabocheye Dyelo ’s comment
on B-v’s article) has a twofold value for us. It shows that we
were right in our opinion that the principal cause of the
present crisis in Russian Social-Democracy is the lag of the leaders (“ideologists”, revolutionaries, Social-Democrats)
behind the spontaneous upsurge of the masses . It shows
that all the arguments advanced by the authors of the Economist
letter (in Iskra , No. 12), by Krichevsky and by
Martynov, as to the danger of belittling the significance of the
spontaneous element, of the drab everyday struggle, as to
tactics-as-process, etc., are nothing more than a glorification
and a defence of primitiveness. These people who cannot
pronounce the word “theoretician” without a sneer, who describe
their genuflections to common lack of training and backwardness
as a “sense for the realities of life”, reveal in practice a
failure to understand our most imperative practical tasks. To laggards they shout: Keep in step! Don’t run ahead! To
people suffering from a lack of energy and initiative in
organisational work, from a lack of “plans” for wide and bold
activity, they prate about “tactics-as-process”! The worst sin
we commit is that we degrade our political and organisational tasks to the level of the immediate,
“palpable”, “concrete” interests of the everyday economic
struggle; yet they keep singing to us the same refrain: Lend the
economic struggle itself a political character! We repeat: this
kind of thing displays as much “sense for the realities of life”
as was displayed by the hero in the popular fable who cried out
to a passing funeral procession, “Many happy returns of the
day!”

Recall the matchless, truly “Narcissus-like” superciliousness
with which these wiseacres lectured Plekhanov on the “workers’
circles generally” (sic!) being “unable to cope with political tasks in the real and practical sense of the
word, i.e., in the sense of the expedient and successful
practical struggle for political demands” ( Rabocheye Dyelo’s Reply, p. 24). There are circles and
circles, gentlemen! Circles of “amateurs” are not, of course,
capable of coping with political tasks so long as they have not
become aware of their amateurism and do not abandon it. If,
besides this, these amateurs are enamoured of their primitive
methods, and insist on writing the word “practical” in italics,
and imagine that being practical demands that one’s tasks be
reduced to the level of understanding of the most backward
strata of the masses, then they are hopeless amateurs and, of
course, certainly cannot in general cope with any political tasks . But a circle of leaders, of the type of Alexeyev and
Myshkin, of Khalturin and Zhelyabov, is capable of coping with
political tasks in the genuine and most practical sense of the
term, for the reason and to the extent that their impassioned
propaganda meets with response among the spontaneously awakening
masses, and their sparkling energy is answered and supported by
the energy of the revolutionary class. Plekhanov was profoundly
right, not only in pointing to this revolutionary class and
proving that its spontaneous awakening was inevitable, but in
setting even the “workers’ circles” a great and lofty political
task. But you refer to the mass movement that has sprung up
since that time in order to degrade this task, to curtail the energy and scope of activity of the
“workers’ circles”. If you are not amateurs enamoured of your
primitive methods, what are you then? You boast that you are
practical, but you fail to see what every Russian practical
worker knows, namely, the miracles that the energy, not only of
a circle, but even of an individual person is able to perform in
the revolutionary cause. Or do you think that our movement
cannot produce leaders like those of the seventies? If so, why
do you think so? Because we lack training? But we are training
ourselves, we will go on training ourselves, and we will be
trained! Unfortunately it is true that the surface of the
stagnant waters of the “economic struggle against the employers
and the government” is overgrown with fungus; people have
appeared among us who kneel in prayer to spontaneity, gazing
with awe (to take an expression from Plekhanov) upon the “posterior” of the Russian proletariat. But we will get rid of
this fungus. The time has come when Russian revolutionaries,
guided by a genuinely revolutionary theory, relying upon the
genuinely revolutionary and spontaneously awakening class, can
at last — at long last! — rise to full stature in all their
giant strength. All that is required is for the masses of our
practical workers, and the still larger masses of those who
dreamed of practical work when they were still at school, to
pour scorn and ridicule upon any suggestion that may be made to
degrade our political tasks and to restrict the scope of our
organisational work. And we will achieve that, rest assured,
gentlemen!

In the article “Where To Begin”, I wrote in opposition to
Rabocheye Dyelo : “The tactics of agitation in relation
to some special question, or the tactics with regard to some
detail of party organisation may be changed in twenty-four
hours; but only people devoid of all principle are capable of
changing, in twenty-four hours, or, for that matter, in
twenty-four months, their view on the necessity — in general,
constantly, and absolutely — of an organisation of struggle and
of political agitation among the masses.” [4] To this
Rabocheye Dyelo replied: “This, the only one of
Iskra ’s charges that makes a pretence of being based on
facts, is totally without foundation. Readers of Rabocheye Dyelo know very well that from the outset we not only
called for political agitation, without waiting for the
appearance of Iskra ... [saying at the same time that not only the workers’ study circles, “but also the mass
working-class movement could not regard as its first political
task the overthrow of absolutism”, but only the struggle for
immediate political demands, and that “the masses begin to
understand immediate political demands after one, or at all
events, after several strikes”], . . . but that with our
publications which we furnished from abroad for the comrades
working in Russia, we provided the only
Social-Democratic political and agitational material ... [and in
this sole material you not only based the widest political
agitation exclusively on the economic struggle, but you even
went to the extent of claiming that this restricted agitation
was the “most widely applicable”. And do you not observe,
gentlemen, that your own argument — that this was the only material provided — proves the necessity for
Iskra ’s appearance, and its struggle against
Rabocheye Dyelo ?].... On the other hand, our publishing
activity actually prepared the ground for the tactical unity of
the Party... [unity in the conviction that tactics is a process
of growth of Party tasks that grow together with the Party? A
precious unity indeed!]... and by that rendered possible the
creation of a ’militant organisation’ for which the Union Abroad
did all that an organisation abroad could do” ( Rabocheye Dyelo , No. 10, p. 15). A vain attempt at evasion! I would
never dream of denying that you did all you possibly could. I
have asserted and assert now that the limits of what is
“possible” for you to do are restricted by the narrowness of
your outlook. It is ridiculous to talk of a “militant organisation” to fight for “immediate political demands”, or to
conduct the economic struggle against the employers and the
government”.

But if the reader wishes to see the pearls of “Economist”
infatuation with amateurism, he must, of course, turn from the
eclectic and vacillating Rabocheye Dyelo to the consistent and determined Rabochaya Mysl . In its
Separate Supplement , p. 13, R. M. wrote: “Now two words
about the so-called revolutionary intelligentsia proper. True,
on more than one occasion it has proved itself prepared ’to
enter into determined battle with tsarism’. The unfortunate
thing, however, is that our revolutionary intelligentsia,
ruthlessly persecuted by the political police, imagined the
struggle against the political police to be the political
struggle against the autocracy. That is why, to this day, it
cannot understand ’where the forces for the struggle against the
autocracy are to be obtained’.”

Truly matchless is the lofty contempt for the struggle against
the police displayed by this worshipper (in the worst sense of
the word) of the spontaneous movement! He is prepared to justify our inability to organise secret activity by
the argument that with the spontaneous mass movement it is not
at all important for us to struggle against the political
police! Very few people indeed would subscribe to this appalling
conclusion; to such an extent have our deficiencies in revolutionary organisations become a matter of acute importance. But if Martynov, for example, refuses to subscribe
to this, it will only be because he is unable, or lacks the
courage, to think out his ideas to their logical conclusion. Indeed, does the “task” of advancing concrete
demands by the masses, demands that promise palpable results,
call for special efforts to create a stable, centralised,
militant organisation of revolutionaries? Cannot such a “task”
be carried out even by masses that do not “struggle against the
political police” at all? Could this task, moreover, be
fulfilled if, in addition to the few leaders, it were not
undertaken by such workers (the overwhelming majority) as are
quite incapable of “struggling against the political police”? Such workers, average people of the masses, are capable
of displaying enormous energy and selfsacrifice in strikes and
in street, battles with the police and the troops, and are
capable (in fact, are alone capable) of determining the
outcome of our entire movement — but the struggle against the
political police requires special qualities; it requires professional revolutionaries. And we must see
to it, not only that the masses “advance” concrete demands, but
that the masses of the workers “advance” an increasing number of
such professional revolutionaries. Thus, we have reached the
question of the relation between an organisation of professional
revolutionaries and the labour movement pure and simple. Although this question has found little reflection in
literature, it has greatly engaged us “politicians” in conversations and polemics with comrades who gravitate more or
less towards Economism. It is a question meriting special
treatment. But before taking it up, let us offer one further
quotation by way of illustrating our thesis on the connection
between primitiveness and Economism.

In his Reply , Mr. N. N. [20] wrote: “The Emancipation of
Labour group demands direct struggle against the government
without first considering where the material forces for this
struggle are to be obtained, and without indicating the path of the struggle .” Emphasising the last words, the author
adds the following footnote to the word “Path”: “This cannot be
explained by purposes of secrecy, because the programme does not
refer to a plot but to a mass movement. And the masses cannot proceed by secret paths. Can we conceive of a secret
strike? Can we conceive of secret demonstrations and petitions?”

( Vademecum , p. 59.) Thus, the author comes quite close
to the question of the “material forces” (organisers of strikes
and demonstrations) and to the “paths” of the struggle, but,
nevertheless, is still in a state of consternation, because he
“worships” the mass movement, i.e., he regards it as something
that relieves us of the necessity of conducting revolutionary activity and not as something that should
encourage us and stimulate our revolutionary activity. It is impossible for a strike to remain a secret to
those participating in it and to those immediately associated
with it, but it may (and in the majority of cases does) remain a
“secret” to the masses of the Russian workers, because the
government takes care to cut all communication with the
strikers, to prevent all news of strikes from spreading. Here
indeed is where a special “struggle against the political
police” is required, a struggle that can never be conducted
actively by such large masses as take part in strikes. This
struggle must be organised, according to “all the rules of the
art”, by people who are professionally engaged in revolutionary
activity. The fact that the masses are spontaneously being drawn
into the movement does not make the organisation of this
struggle less necessary . On the contrary, it makes it more necessary; for we socialists would be failing in
our direct duty to the masses if we did not prevent the police
from making a secret of every strike and every demonstration
(and if we did not ourselves from time to time secretly prepare
strikes and demonstrations). And we will succeed in doing this , because the spontaneously awakening masses will
also produce increasing, numbers of “professional revolutionaries” from their own ranks (that is, if we
do not take it into our heads to advise the workers to keep on
marking time).

C. Organisation of Workers and Organisation of Revolutionaries

It is only natural to expect that for a Social-Democrat whose
conception of the political struggle coincides with the
conception of the “economic struggle against the employers and
the government”, the “organisation of revolutionaries” will more
or less coincide with the “organisation of workers”. This, in fact, is what actually happens; so that when we speak of
organisation, we literally speak in different tongues. I vividly
recall, for example, a conversation I once had with a fairly
consistent Economist, with whom I had not been previously
acquainted. We were discussing the pamphlet, Who Will Bring About the Political Revolution? and were soon of a mind
that its principal defect was its ignoring of the question of
organisation. We had begun to assume full agreement between us;
but, as the conversation proceeded, it became evident that we
were talking of different things. My interlocutor accused the
author of ignoring strike funds, mutual benefit societies, etc.,
whereas I had in mind an organisation of revolutionaries as an
essential factor in “bringing about” the political revolution. As soon as the disagreement became clear, there was
hardly, as I remember, a single question of principle upon which
I was in agreement with the Economist!

What was the source of our disagreement? It was the fact that on
questions both of organisation and of politics the Economists
are forever lapsing from Social-Democracy into trade-unionism. The political struggle of Social-Democracy is
far more extensive and complex than the economic struggle of the
workers against the employers and the government. Similarly
(indeed for that reason), the organisation of the revolutionary
Social-Democratic Party must inevitably be of a kind different from the organisation of the workers designed for
this struggle. The workers’ organisation must in the first place
be a trade union organisation; secondly, it must be as broad as
possible; and thirdly, it must be as public as conditions will
allow (here, and further on, of course, I refer only to
absolutist Russia). On the other hand, the organisation of the
revolutionaries must consist first and foremost of people who
make revolutionary activity their profession (for which reason I
speak of the organisation of revolutionaries , meaning revolutionary Social-Democrats). In view of this common
characteristic of the members of such an organisation, all distinctions as between workers and intellectuals , not to
speak of distinctions of trade and profession, in both categories, must be effaced . Such an organisation must
perforce not be very extensive and must be as secret as possible. Let us examine this threefold distinction.

In countries where political liberty exists the distinction
between a trade union and a political organisation is clear
enough, as is the distinction between trade unions and
Social-Democracy. The relations between the latter and the
former will naturally vary in each country according to
historical, legal, and other conditions; they may be more or
less close, complex, etc. (in our opinion they should be as
close and as little complicated as possible); but there can be
no question in free countries of the organisation of trade
unions coinciding with the organisation of the Social-Democratic
Party. In Russia, however, the yoke of the autocracy appears at
first glance to obliterate all distinctions between the
Social-Democratic organisation and the workers’ associations,
since all workers’ associations and all study circles are prohibited, and since the principal manifestation
and weapon of the workers’ economic struggle — the strike — is
regarded as a criminal (and sometimes even as a political!)
offence. Conditions in our country, therefore, on the one hand,
strongly “impel” the workers engaged in economic struggle to
concern themselves with political questions, and, on the other,
they “impel” Social-Democrats to confound trade-unionism with
Social-Democracy (and our Krichevskys, Martynoys, and Co., while
diligently discussing the first kind of “impulsion”, fail to
notice the second). Indeed, picture to yourselves people who
are immersed ninety-nine per cent in “the economic struggle
against the employers and the government”. Some of them will
never, during the entire course of their activity (from
four to six months), be impelled to think of the need for a more
complex organisation of revolutionaries. Others, perhaps, will
come across the fairly widely distributed Bernsteinian literature, from which they will become convinced of the
profound importance of the forward movement of “the drab
everyday struggle”. Still others will be carried away, perhaps,
by the seductive idea of showing the world a new example of
“close and organic contact with the proletarian struggle” —
contact between the trade union and the Social Democratic
movements. Such people may argue that the later a country enters
the arena of capitalism and, consequently, of the working-class movement, the more the socialists in that country may take part
in, and support, the trade union movement, and the less the
reason for the existence of non-Social-Democratic trade
unions. So far the argument is fully correct; unfortunately,
however, some go beyond that and dream of a complete fusion of
Social-Democracy with trade-unionism. We shall soon see, from
the example of the Rules of the St. Petersburg League of
Struggle, what a harmful effect such dreams have upon our plans
of organisation.

The workers’ organisations for the economic struggle should be
trade union organisations. Every Social-Democratic worker should
as far as possible assist and actively work in these organisations. But, while this is true, it is certainly not in
our interest to demand that only Social-Democrats should be
eligible for membership in the “trade” unions, since that would
only narrow the scope of our influence upon the masses. Let
every worker who understands the need to unite for the struggle
against the employers and the government join the trade
unions. The very aim of the trade unions would be impossible of
achievement, if they did not unite all who have attained at
least this elementary degree of understanding, if they were not
very broad organisations. The broader these organisations, the broader will be our influence over them — an
influence due, not only to the “spontaneous” development of the
economic struggle, but to the direct and conscious effort of the
socialist trade union members to influence their comrades. But a
broad organisation cannot apply methods of strict secrecy (since
this demands far greater training than is required for the
economic struggle). How is the contradiction between the need
for a large membership and the need for strictly secret methods
to be reconciled? How are we to make the trade unions as public
as possible? Generally speaking, there can be only two ways to
this end: either the trade unions become legalised (in some
countries this preceded the legalisation of the socialist and
political unions), or the organisation is kept secret, but so
“free” and amorphous, lose [5] as the Germans say, that the need for secret
methods becomes almost negligible as far as the bulk of the
members is concerned.

The legalisation of non-socialist and non-political labour
unions in Russia has begun, and there is no doubt that every
advance made by our rapidly growing Social-Democratic working-class movement will multiply and encourage attempts at
legalisation — attempts proceeding for the most part from
supporters of the existing order, but partly also from the
workers themselves and from liberal intellectuals. The banner of
legality has already been hoisted by the Vasilyevs and the
Zubatovs. Support has been promised and rendered by the Ozerovs
and the Wormses, [21] and followers of the new tendency are now to be
found among the workers. Henceforth, we cannot but reckon with
this tendency. How we are to reckon with it, on this there can
be no two opinions among Social-Democrats. We must steadfastly
expose any part played in this movement by the Zubatovs and the
Vasilyeys, the gendarmes and the priests, and explain their real
intentions to the workers. We must also expose all the conciliatory, “harmonious” notes that will be heard in the
speeches of liberal politicians at legal meetings of the
workers, irrespective of whether the speeches are motivated by
an earnest conviction of the desirability of peaceful class
collaboration, by a desire to curry favour with the powers that
be, or whether they are simply the result of clumsiness. Lastly,
we must warn the workers against the traps often set by the
police, who at such open meetings and permitted societies spy
out the “fiery ones” and try to make use of legal organisations
to plant their agents provocateurs in the illegal organisations.

Doing all this does not at all mean forgetting that in the long run the legalisation of the working-class movement
will be, to our advantage, and not to that of the Zubatovs. On
the contrary, it is precisely our campaign of exposure that will
help us to separate the tares from the wheat. What the tares
are, we have already indicated. By the wheat we mean attracting
the attention of ever larger numbers, including the most
backward sections, of the workers to social and political
questions, and freeing ourselves, the revolutionaries, from
functions that are essentially legal (the distribution of legal
books, mutual aid, etc.), the development of which will
inevitably provide us with an increasing quantity of material
for agitation. In this sense, we may, and should, say to the

Zubatovs and the Ozerovs: Keep at it, gentlemen, do your best!
Whenever you place a trap in the path of the workers (either by
way of direct provocation, or by the “honest” demoralisation of
the workers with the aid of “Struvism”) we will see to it that
you are exposed. But whenever you take a real step forward,
though it be the most “timid zigzag”, we will say: Please
continue! And the only step that can be a real step forward is a
real, if small, extension of the workers’ field of action. Every
such extension will be to our advantage and will help to hasten
the advent of legal societies of the kind in which it will not
be agents provocateurs who are detecting socialists, but socialists who are gaining adherents. in a word, our task is
to fight the tares. It is not our business to grow wheat in
flower-pots. By pulling up the tares, we clear the soil for the
wheat. And while the Afanasy Ivanoviches and Pulkheria
Ivanovnas [22] are tending their flower-pot crops, we must prepare
the reapers, not only to cut down the tares of today, but to
reap the wheat of tomorrow. [6]

Thus, we cannot by means of legalisation solve the problem of creating a trade union organisation that will be as
little secret and as extensive as possible (but we should be
extremely glad if the Zubatovs and the Ozerovs disclosed to us
even a partial opportunity for such a solution — to this end,
however, we must strenuously combat them). There remain
secret trade union organisations, and we must give all possible
assistance to the workers who (as we definitely know) are
adopting this course. Trade union organisations, not only can be
of tremendous value in developing and consolidating the economic
struggle, but can also become a very important auxiliary to political agitation and revolutionary organisation. In order to
achieve this purpose, and in order to guide the nascent trade
union movement in the channels desired by Social-Democracy, we
must first understand clearly the absurdity of the plan of
organisation the St. Petersburg Economists have been nursing for
nearly five years. That plan is set forth in the “Rules for a
Workers’ Mutual Benefit Fund” of July 1897 (“ Listok ”
Rabotnika , No. 9-10, p. 46, taken from Rabochaya Mysl , No. 1), as well as in the “Rules for a Trade Union
Workers’ Organisation” of October 1900 (special leaflet printed
in St. Petersburg and referred to in Iskra , No. 1). Both these sets of rules have one main shortcoming: they
set up the broad workers’ organisation in a rigidly specified
structure and confound it with the organisation of revolutionaries. Let us take the last-mentioned set of rules,
since it is drawn up in greater detail. The body consists of
fifty-two paragraphs. Twenty-three deal with the structure, the method of functioning, and the competence of the
“workers’ circles”, which are to be organised in every factory
(“a maximum of ten persons”) and which elect “central (factory)
groups”. “The central group,” says paragraph 2, “observes all
that goes on in its factory or workshop and keeps a record of
events.” “The central group presents to subscribers a monthly
financial account” (par. 17), etc. Ten paragraphs are devoted to
the “district organisation”, and nineteen to the highly complex
interconnection between the Committee of the Workers’
Organisation and the Committee of the St. Petersburg League of
Struggle (elected representatives of each district and of the
“executive groups” — “groups of propagandists, groups for
maintaining contact with the provinces, and with the organisation abroad, groups for managing stores; publications,
and funds”).

Social-Democracy = “executive groups” in relation to the
economic struggle of the workers! It would be difficult to show
more glaringly how the Economists’ ideas deviate from
Social-Democracy to trade-unionism, and how alien to them is any
idea that a Social-Democrat must concern himself first and
foremost with an organisation of revolutionaries capable of
guiding the entire proletarian struggle for emancipation. To talk of “the political emancipation of the working class” and of the struggle against “tsarist despotism”,
and at the same time to draft rules like these, means to have no
idea whatsoever of the real political tasks of
Social-Democracy. Not one of the fifty or so paragraphs reveals
even a glimmer of understanding that it is necessary to conduct
the widest possible political agitation among the masses, an
agitation highlighting every aspect of Russian absolutism and
the specific features of the various social classes in
Russia. Rules like these are of no use even for the achievement
of trade union, let alone political, aims, since trade unions
are organised by trades , of which no mention is made.

But most characteristic, perhaps, is the amazing top-heaviness
of the whole “system”, which attempts to bind each single
factory and its “committee” by a permanent string of uniform and
ludicrously petty rules and a three-stage system of election. Hemmed in by the narrow outlook of Economism, the mind
is lost in details that positively reek of red tape and
bureaucracy. In practice, of course, three-fourths of the
clauses are never applied; on the other hand, a “secret”
organisation of this kind, with its central group in each
factory, makes it very easy for the gendarmes to carry out raids
on a vast scale. The Polish cornrades have passed through a
similar phase in their movement, with everybody enthusiastic
about the extensive organisation of workers’ benefit funds; but
they very quickly abandoned this idea when they saw that such
organisations only provided rich harvests for the gendarmes. If
we have in mind broad workers’ organisations, and not widespread
arrests, if we do not want to provide satisfaction to the
gendarmes, we must see to it that these organisations remain
without any rigid formal structure. But will they be able to
function in that case?

Let us see what the functions are: “. . . To observe all that
goes on in the factory and keep a record of events” (par. 2 of
the Rules). Do we really require a formally established group
for this purpose? Could not the purpose be better served by
correspondence conducted in the illegal papers without the
setting up of special groups? “. . . To lead the struggles of
the workers for the improvement of their workshop conditions”
(par. 3). This, too, requires no set organisational form. Any sensible agitator can in the course of ordinary conversation
gather what the demands of the workers are and transmit them to
a narrow — not a broad — organisation of revolutionaries for
expression in a leaflet. “ ... To organise a fund ... to which
subscriptions of two kopeks per ruble [7] should be made” (par. 9) — and then to present to subscribers a
monthly financial account (par. 17), to expel members who fail
to pay their contributions (par. 10), and so forth. Why, this is
a very paradise for the police; for nothing would be easier for
them than to penetrate into such a secrecy of a “central factory
fund”, confiscate the money, and arrest the best people. Would
it not be simpler to issue one-kopek or two-kopek coupons
bearing the official stamp of a well-known (very narrow and very
secret) organisation, or to make collections without coupons of
any kind and to print reports in a certain agreed code in an
illegal paper? The object would thereby be attained, but it
would be a hundred times more difficult for the gendarmes to
pick up clues.

I could go on analysing the Rules, but I think that what has
been said will suffice. A small, compact core of the most
reliable, experienced, and hardened workers, with responsible
representatives in the principal districts and connected by all
the rules of strict secrecy with the organisation of revolutionaries, can, with the widest support of the masses and
without any formal organisation, perform all the functions of a trade union organisation, in a manner, moreover,
desirable to Social-Democracy. Only in this way can we secure
the consolidation and development of a
Social-Democratic trade union movement, despite all the
gendarmes.

It may be objected that an organisation which is so lose that it is not even definitely formed, and which
has not even an enrolled and registered membership, cannot be
called an organisation at all. Perhaps so. Not the name is
important. What is important is that this “organisation without
members” shall do everything that is required, and from the very
outset ensure a solid connection between our future trade unions
and socialism. Only an incorrigible utopian would have a
broad organisation of workers, with elections, reports,
universal suffrage, etc., under the autocracy.

The moral to be drawn from this is simple. If we begin with the
solid foundation of a strong organisation of revolutionaries, we
can ensure the stability of the movement as a whole and carry
out the aims both of Social-Democracy and of trade unions
proper. If, however, we begin with a broad workers’ organisation, which is supposedly most “accessible” to the
masses (but which is actually most accessible to the gendarmes
and makes revolutionaries most accessible to the police), we
shall achieve neither the one aim nor the other; we shall not
eliminate our rule-of-thumb methods, and, because we remain
scattered and our forces are constantly broken up by the police,
we shall only make trade unions of the Zubatov and Ozerov type
the more accessible to the masses.

What, properly speaking, should be the functions of the
organisation of revolutionaries? We shall deal with this
question in detail. First, however, let us examine a very
typical argument advanced by our terrorist, who (sad fate!) in
this matter also is a next-door neighbour to the
Economist. Svoboda , a journal published for workers, contains in its first issue an article entitled “Organisation”,
the author of which tries to defend his friends, the Economist
workers of Ivanovo-Voznesensk. He writes:

“It is bad when the masses are mute and unenlightened, when the
movement does not come from the rank and file. For instance, the
students of a university town leave for their homes during the
summer and other holidays, and immediately the workers’ movement
comes to a standstill. Can a workers’ movement which has to be
pushed on from outside be a real force? No, indeed.... It has
not yet learned to walk, it is still in leading-strings. So it
is in all matters. The students go off, and everything comes to
a standstill. The most capable are seized; the cream is skimmed
and the milk turns sour. If the ’committee’ is arrested,
everything comes to a standstill until a new one can he
formed. And one never knows what sort of committee will be set
up next — it may be nothing like the former. The first said one
thing, the second may say the very opposite. Continuity between
yesterday and tomorrow is broken, the experience of the past
does not serve as a guide for the future. And all because no
roots have been struck in depth, in the masses; the work is
carried on not by a hundred fools, but by a dozen wise men. A
dozen wise men can be wiped out at a snap, but when the
organisation embraces masses, everything proceeds from them, and
nobody, however he tries, can wreck the cause” (p. 63).

The facts are described correctly. The picture of our amateurism
is well drawn. But the conclusions are worthy of Rabochaya Mysl , both as regards their stupidity and their lack of
political tact. They represent the height of stupidity, because
the author confuses the philosophical and social-historical
question of the “depth” of the “roots” of the movement with the
technical and organisational question of the best method in
combating the gendarmes. They represent the height of political
tactlessness, because, instead of appealing from bad leaders to
good leaders, the author appeals from the leaders in general to
the “masses” . This is as much an attempt to drag us back
organisationally as the idea of substituting excitative
terrorism for political agitation drags us back politically. Indeed, I am experiencing a veritable embarras de richesses , and hardly know where to begin to disentangle
the jumble offered up by Svoboda . For clarity, let me begin by citing an example. Take the Germans. It will not be
denied, I hope, that theirs is a mass organisation, that in
Germany everything proceeds from the masses, that the working-class movement there has learned to walk. Yet observe
how these millions value their “dozen” tried political leaders,
how firmly they cling to them. Members of the hostile parties in
parliament have often taunted the socialists by exclaiming:
“Fine democrats you are indeed! Yours is a working-class
movement only in name; in actual fact the same clique of leaders
is always in evidence, the same Bebel and the same Liebknecht,
year in and year out, and that goes on for decades. Your
supposedly elected workers’ deputies are more permanent than the
officials appointed by the Emperor!” But the Germans only smile
with contempt at these demagogic attempts to set the “masses”
against the “leaders”, to arouse bad and ambitious instincts in
the former, and to rob the movement of its solidity and
stability by undermining the confidence of the masses in their
“dozen wise men”. Political thinking is sufficiently developed
among the Germans, and they have accumulated sufficient
political experience to understand that without the “dozen”
tried and talented leaders (and talented men are not born by the
hundreds), professionally trained, schooled by long experience,
and working in perfect harmony, no class in modern society can
wage a determined struggle. The Germans too have had demagogues
in their ranks who have flattered the “hundred fools”, exalted
them above the “dozen wise men”, extolled the “horny hand” of
the masses, and (like Most and Hasselmann) have spurred them on
to reckless “revolutionary” action and sown distrust towards the
firm and steadfast leaders. It was only by stubbornly and
relentlessly combating all demagogic elements within the
socialist movement that German socialism has managed to grow and
become as strong as it is. Our wiseacres, however, at a time
when Russian Social-Democracy is passing through a crisis
entirely due to the lack of sufficiently trained, developed, and
experienced leaders to guide the spontaneously awakening masses,
cry out ,with the profundity of fools: “It is a bad business
when the movement does not proceed from the rank and file.”

“A committee of students is of no use; it is not stable.” Quite
true. But the conclusion to be drawn from this is that we must
have a committee of professional revolutionaries , and it is immaterial whether a student or a worker is capable of
becoming a professional revolutionary. The conclusion you draw,
how. ever, is that the working-class movement must not be pushed
on from outside! In your political innocence you fail to notice
that you are playing into the hands of our Economists and
fostering our amateurism. Wherein, may I ask, did our students
“push on” our workers? In the sense that the student brought to the worker the fragments of political knowledge he
himself possesses, the crumbs of socialist ideas he has managed
to acquire (for the principal intellectual diet of the present-day student, legal Marxism, could furnish only the
rudiments, only scraps of knowledge). There has never been too
much of such “pushing on from outside”; on the contrary, there has so far been all too little of it in our
movement, for we have been stewing too assiduously in our own
juice; we have bowed far too slavishly to the elementary
“economic struggle of the workers against the employers and the
government”. We professional revolutionaries must and will make
it our business to engage in this kind of “pushing on” a hundred times more forcibly than we have done hitherto. But
the very fact that you select so hideous a phrase as “pushing on
from outside” — a phrase which cannot but rouse in the workers
(at least in the workers who are as unenlightened as you
yourselves) a sense of distrust towards all who bring them political knowledge and revolutionary experience from
outside, which cannot but rouse in them an instinctive desire to
resist all such people — proves you to be demagogues, and demagogues are the worst enemies of the working
class.

And, please — don’t hasten howling about my “uncomradely
methods” of debating. I have not the least desire to doubt the
purity of your intentions. As I have said, one may become a
demagogue out of sheer political innocence. But I have shown
that you have descended to demagogy, and I will never tire of
repeating that demagogues are the worst enemies of the working
class. The worst enemies, because they arouse base instincts in
the masses, because the unenlightened worker is unable to
recognise his enemies in men who represent themselves, and
sometimes sincerely so, as his friends. The worst enemies,
because in the period of disunity and vacillation, when our
movement is just beginning to take shape, nothing is easier than
to employ demagogic methods to mislead the masses, who can
realise their error only later by bitter experience. That is why
the slogan of the day for the Russian Social-Democrat must be —
resolute struggle against Svoboda and Rabocheye Dyelo ,
both of which have sunk to the level of demagogy. We shall deal
with this further in greater detail. [8] “A dozen wise men can be more easily wiped out than a hundred
fools.” This wonderful truth (for which the hundred fools will
always applaud you) appears obvious only because in the very
midst of the argument you have skipped from one question to
another. You began by talking and continued to talk of the
unearthing of a “committee”, of the unearthing of an “organisation”, and now you skip to the question of unearthing
the movement’s “roots” in their “depths”. The fact is, of
course, that our movement cannot be unearthed, for the very
reason that it has countless thousands of roots deep down among
the masses; but that is not the point at issue. As far as “deep
roots” are concerned, we cannot be “unearthed” even now, despite
all our amateurism, and yet we all complain, and cannot but
complain, that the “ organisations ” are being unearthed
and as a result it is impossible to maintain continuity in the
movement. But since you raise the question of organisations being unearthed and persist in your
opinion, I assert that it is far more difficult to unearth a
dozen wise men than a hundred fools. This position I will
defend, no matter how much you instigate the masses against me
for my “anti-democratic” views, etc. As I have stated repeatedly, by “wise men”, in connection with organisation, I
mean professional revolutionaries , irrespective of whether they have developed from among students or working
men. I assert: (1) that no revolutionary movement can endure
without a stable organisation of leaders maintaining continuity;
(2) that the broader the popular mass drawn spontaneously into
the struggle, which forms the basis of the movement and
participates in it, the more urgent the need for such an
organisation, and the more solid this organisation must be (for
it is much easier for all sorts of demagogues to side-track the
more backward sections of the masses); (3) that such an
organisation must consist chiefly of people professionally
engaged in revolutionary activity; (4) that in an autocratic
state, the more we confine the membership of such an organisation to people who are professionally engaged in
revolutionary activity and who have been professionally trained
in the art of combating the political police, the more difficult
will it be to unearth the organisation; and (5) the greater will be the number of people from the working
class and from the other social classes who will be able to join
the movement and perform active work in it.

I invite our Economists, terrorists, and “Economists-terrorists” [9] to
confute these propositions. At the moment, I shall deal only with the last two points. The question as to whether it is
easier to wipe out “a dozen wisemen” or “a hundred fools”
reduces itself to the question, above considered, whether it is
possible to have a mass organisation when the maintenance of strict secrecy is essential. We can never give a
mass organisation that degree of secrecy without which there can
be no question of persistent and continuous struggle against the
government. To concentrate all secret functions in the hands of
as small a number of professional revolutionaries as possible
does not mean that the latter will “do the thinking for all” and
that the rank and file will not take an active part in the
movement . On the contrary, the membership will promote
increasing numbers of the professional revolutionaries from its
ranks; for it will know that it is not enough for a few students
and for a few working men waging the economic struggle to gather
in order to form a “committee”, but that it takes years to train
oneself to be a professional revolutionary; and the rank and
file will “think”, not only of amateurish methods, but of such
training. Centralisation of the secret functions of the
organisation by no means implies centralisation of all the functions of the movement . Active participation of
the widest masses in the illegal press will not diminish because
a “dozen” professional revolutionaries centralise the secret
functions connected with this work; on the contrary, it will
increase tenfold. In this way, and in this way alone, shall we ensure that reading the illegal press, writing for it,
and to some extent even distributing it, will almost cease to be secret work , for the police will soon come to realise
the folly and impossibility of judicial and administrative
red-tape procedure over every copy of a publication that is
being distributed in the thousands. This holds not only for the
press, but for every function of the movement, even for
demonstrations. The active and widespread participation of the
masses will not suffer; on the contrary, it will benefit by the
fact that a “dozen” experienced revolutionaries, trained professionally no less than the police, will centralise all the
secret aspects of the work — the drawing up of leaflets, the
working out of approximate plans; and the appointing of bodies
of leaders for each urban district, for each institution,
etc. (I know that exception will be taken to my “undemocratic”
views, but I shall reply below fully to this anything but
intelligent objection.) Centralisation of the most secret
functions in an organisation of revolutionaries will not
diminish, but rather increase the extent and enhance the quality
of the activity of a large number of other organisations that
are intended for a broad public and are therefore as loose and
as non-secret as possible, such as workers’ trade unions;
workers’ self-education circles and circles for reading illegal
literature; and socialist, as well as democratic, circles among
all other sections of the population; etc., etc. We must have such circles, trade unions, and organisations
everywhere in as large a number as possible and with the widest variety of functions; but it would be absurd and
harmful to confound them with the organisation of revolutionaries , to efface the border-line between
them, to make still more hazy the all too faint recognition of
the fact that in order to “serve” the mass movement we must have
people who will devote themselves exclusively to
Social-Democratic activities, and that such people must
train themselves patiently and steadfastly to be professional revolutionaries.

Yes, this recognition is incredibly dim. Our worst sin with
regard to organisation consists in the fact that by our primitiveness we have lowered the prestige of revolutionaries in Russia . A person who is flabby and shaky on questions of
theory, who has a narrow outlook, who pleads the spontaneity of
the masses as an excuse for his own sluggishness, who resembles
a trade union secretary more than a spokesman of the people, who
is unable to conceive of a broad and bold plan that would
command the respect even of opponents, and who is inexperienced
and clumsy in his own professional art — the art of combating
the political police — such a man is not a revolutionary, but a
wretched amateur!

Let no active worker take offence at these frank remarks, for as
far as insufficient training is concerned, I apply them first
and foremost to myself. I used to work in a study circle [23] that set itself very broad, all-embracing tasks; and all of us,
members of that circle, suffered painfully and acutely from the
realisation that we were acting as amateurs at a moment in
history when we might have been able to say, varying a well-known statement: “Give us an organisation of
revolutionaries, and we will overturn Russia” The more I recall
the burning sense of shame I then experienced, the bitterer
become my feelings towards those pseudo-Social-Democrats whose
preachings “bring disgrace on the calling of a revolutionary”,
who fail to understand that our task is not to champion the
degrading of the revolutionary to the level of an amateur, but
to raise the amateurs to the level of revolutionaries.

D. The Scope of Organisational Work

We have heard B-v tell us about “the lack of revolutionary
forces fit for action which is felt not only in St. Petersburg,
but throughout Russia”. Hardly anyone will dispute this
fact. But the question is, how is it to be explained? B-v
writes:

“We shall not go into an explanation of the historical causes of
this phenomenon; we shall merely state that a society, demoralised by prolonged political reaction and split by past
and present economic changes, promotes from its own ranks an
extremely small number of persons fit for revolutionary work ; that the working class does produce revolutionary
workers who to some extent reinforce the ranks of the illegal
organisations, but that the number of such revolutionaries is
inadequate to meet the requirements of the times. This is all
the more so because the worker who spends eleven and a half
hours a day in the factory is in such a position that he can, in
the main, perform only the functions of an agitator; but
propaganda and organisation, the delivery and reproduction of
illegal literature, the issuance of leaflets, etc., are duties
which must necessarily fall mainly upon the shoulders of an
extremely small force of intellectuals” ( Rabocheye Dyelo , No. 6, pp. 38-39).

On many points we disagree with B-v, particularly with those we
have emphasised, which most saliently reveal that, although
weary of our amateurism (as is every thinking practical worker),
B-v cannot find the way out of this intolerable situation
because he is weighted down by Economism. The fact is that
society produces very many persons fit for “the cause”, but we are unable to make use of them all. The critical,
transitional state of our movement in this respect may be
formulated as follows: There are no people — yet there is a mass of people . There is a mass of people, because the
working class and increasingly varied social strata, year after
year, produce from their ranks an increasing number of discontented people who desire to protest, who are ready to
render all the assistance they can in the struggle against
absolutism, the intolerableness of which, though not yet
recognised by all, is more and more acutely sensed by increasing
masses of the people. At the same time, we have no people,
because we have no leaders, no political leaders, no talented
organisers capable of arranging. extensive and at the same time
uniform and harmonious work that would employ all forces, even
the most inconsiderable. “The growth and development of the
revolutionary organisations” lag, not only behind the growth of
the working-class movement, which even B-v admits, but behind
that of the general democratic movement among all strata of the
people. (In passing, probably B-V would now regard this as
supplementing his conclusion.) The scope of revolutionary work
is too narrow, as compared with the breadth of the spontaneous
basis of the movement. It is too hemmed in by the wretched
theory of “economic struggle against the employers and the
government”. Yet, at the present time, not only
Social-Democratic political agitators, but Social-Democratic
organisers must “go among all classes of the population”. [10]
[10] Thus, an undoubted revival of the democratic spirit has recently been observed among persons in military service, partly as a consequence of the more frequent street battles with “enemies” like workers and students. As soon as our available forces permit, we must without fail devote the most serious attention to propaganda and agitation among soldiers and officers, and to the creation of “military organisations” affiliated to our Party.— Lenin

There is hardly a single practical worker who will doubt that the
Social-Democrats could distribute the thousand and one minute
functions of their organisational work among individual
representatives of the most varied classes. Lack of specialisation is one of the most serious defects of our
technique, about which B-v justly and bitterly complains. The
smaller each separate “operation” in our common cause the more people we can find capable of carrying out such operations
(people who, in the majority of cases, are completely incapable
of becoming professional revolutionaries); more difficult will
it be for the police to “net” all these “detail workers”, and
the more difficult will it be for them to frame up, out of an
arrest for some petty affair, a “case” that would justify the
government’s expenditure on “security”. As for the number of
people ready to help us, we referred in the preceding chapter to
the gigantic change that has taken place in this respect in the
last five years or so. On the other hand, in order to unite all
these tiny fractions into one whole, in order not to break up
the movement while breaking up its functions, and in order to
imbue the people who carry out the minute functions with the
conviction that their work is necessary and important, without
which conviction they will never do the work, [11]
[11] I recall that once a comrade told me of a factory inspector who wanted to help the Social-Democrats, and actually did, but complained bitterly that he did not know whether his “information” reached the proper revolutionary centre, how much his help was really required, and what possibilities there were for utilising his small and petty services. Every practical worker can, of course, cite many similar instances in which our primitiveness deprived us of allies. These services, each “small” in itself, but invaluable when taken in the mass, could and would be rendered to us by office employees and officials, not only in factories, but in the postal service, on the railways, in the Customs, among the nobility, among the clergy, and in every other walk of life, including even the police and the Court! Had we a real party, a real militant organisation of revolutionaries, we would not make undue demands on every one of these “aides”, we would not hasten always and invariably to bring them right into the very heart of our “illegality”, but, on the contrary, we would husband them most carefully and would even train people especially for such functions, bearing in mind that many students could be of much greater service to the Party as “aides” holding some official post than as “short-term” revolutionaries. But, I repeat, only an organisation that is firmly established and has no lack of active forces would have the right to apply such tactics.— Lenin it is necessary to
have a strong organisation of tried revolutionaries. The more
secret such an organisation is, the stronger and more widespread
will be the confidence in the Party. As we know, in time of war,
it is not only of the utmost importance to imbue one’s own army
with confidence in its strength, but it is important also to
convince the enemy and all neutral elements of this strength; friendly neutrality may sometimes decide the issue. If
such an organisation existed, one built up on a firm theoretical
foundation and possessing a Social-Democratic organ, we should
have no reason to fear that the movement might be diverted from
its path by the numerous “outside” elements that are attracted
to it. (On the contrary, it is precisely at the present time,
with amateurism prevalent, that we see many Social-Democrats
leaning towards the Credo and only imagining that they are Social Democrats.) In a word, specialisation necessarily
presupposes centralisation, and in turn imperatively calls for
it.

But B-v himself, who has so excellently described the necessity
for specialisation, underestimates its importance, in our
opinion, in the second part of the argument we have quoted. The
number of working-class revolutionaries is inadequate, he says.
This is perfectly true, and once again we stress that the “valuable
communication of a close observer” fully confirms our view of the causes of the present crisis in Social-Democracy,
and, consequently, of the means required to overcome it. Not
only are revolutionaries in general lagging behind the spontaneous awakening of the masses, but even
worker-revolutionaries are lagging behind the spontaneous
awakening of the working-class masses. This fact confirms with clear evidence, from the “practical” point of
view, too, not only the absurdity but even the politically reactionary nature of the “pedagogics” to which we are so
often treated in the discussion of our duties to the workers. This fact proves that our very first and most pressing
duty is to help to train working-class revolutionaries who will
he on the same level in regard to Party activity as the
revolutionaries from amongst the intellectuals (we emphasise the
words “in regard to Party activity”, for, although necessary, it
is neither so easy nor so pressingly necessary to bring the
workers up to the level of intellectuals in other respects). Attention, therefore, must be devoted principally to raising the workers to the level of revolutionaries; it
is not at all our task to descend to the level of the “working masses” as the Economists wish to do, or to the level
of the “average worker” as Svoboda desires to do (and by this ascends to the second grade of Economist
“pedagogics”). I am far from denying the necessity for popular literature for the workers, and especially popular (of course,
not vulgar) literature for the especially backward workers. But
what annoys me is this constant confusion of pedagogics with
questions of politics and organisation. You, gentlemen, who are
so much concerned about the “average worker”, as a matter of
fact, rather insult the workers by your desire to talk down to them when discussing working-class politics and
working-class organisation. Talk about serious things in a
serious manner; leave pedagogics to the pedagogues, and not to
politicians and organisers! Are there not advanced people,
“average people”, and “masses” among the intelligentsia too?
Does not everyone recognise that popular literature is also
required for the intelligentsia, and is not such literature
written? Imagine someone, in an article on organising college or
high-school students, repeating over and over again, as if he
had made a new discovery, that first of all we must have an
organisation of “average students”. The author of such an
article would be ridiculed, and rightly so. Give us your ideas
on organisation, if you have any, he would be told, and we
ourselves will decide who is “average”, who above average, and
who below. But if you have no organisational ideas of your own , then all your exertions in behalf of the “masses” and
“average people” will be simply boring. You must realise that
these questions of “politics” and “organisation” are so serious
in themselves that they cannot be dealt with in any other but a
serious way. We can and must educate workers (and university and Gymnasium students) so that we may be able to discuss these questions with them. But once you do bring up
these questions, you must give real replies to them; do not
fall back on the “average”, or on the “masses”; do not try to
dispose of the matter with facetious remarks and mere phrases. [12]

To be fully prepared for his task, the worker-revolutionary must
likewise become a professional revolutionary. Hence B-v is wrong
in saying that since the worker spends eleven and a half hours
in the factory, the brunt of all other revolutionary functions
(apart from agitation) “ must necessarily fall mainly upon the shoulders of an extremely small force of
intellectuals”. But this condition does not obtain out of sheer
“necessity”. It obtains because we are backward, because we do
not recognise our duty to assist every capable worker to become
a professional agitator, organiser, propagandist, literature distributor, etc., etc. In this respect, we waste our
strength in a positively shameful manner; we lack the ability to
husband that which should be tended and reared with special
care. Look at the Germans: their forces are a hundredfold
greater than ours. But they understand perfectly well that
really capable agitators, etc., are not often promoted from the
ranks of the “average”. For this reason they immediately try to
place every capable working man in conditions that will enable
him to develop and apply his abilities to the fullest: he is
made a professional agitator, he is encouraged to widen the
field of his activity, to spread it from one factory to the
whole of the industry, from a single locality to the whole
country. He acquires experience and dexterity in his profession;
he broadens his outlook and increases his knowledge; he observes
at close quarters the prominent political leaders from other
localities and of other parties; he strives to rise to their
level and combine in himself the knowledge of the working-class
environment and the freshness of socialist convictions with
professional skill, without which. the proletariat cannot
wage a stubborn struggle against its excellently trained
enemies. In this way alone do the working masses produce men of
the stamp of Bebel and Auer. But what is to a great extent
automatic in a politically free country must in Russia be done
deliberately and systematically by our organisations. A
worker-agitator who is at all gifted and “promising” must not be left to work eleven hours a day in a factory. We
must arrange that he be maintained by the Party; that he may go
underground in good time; that he change the place of his
activity, if he is to enlarge his experience, widen his outlook, and be able to hold out for at least a few years in the struggle
against the gendarmes. As the spontaneous rise of their movement
becomes broader and deeper, the working-class masses promote
from their ranks not only an increasing number of talented
agitators, but also talented organisers, propagandists, and
“practical workers” in the best sense of the term (of whom there
are so few among our intellectuals who, for the most part, in
the Russian manner, are somewhat careless and sluggish in their
habits). When we have forces of specially trained worker-revolutionaries who have gone through extensive
preparation (and, of course, revolutionaries “of all arms of the
service”), no political police in the world will then be able to
contend with them, for these forces, boundlessly devoted to the
revolution, will enjoy the boundless confidence of the widest
masses of the workers. We are directly to blame for doing too little to “stimulate” the workers to take this path,
common to them and to the “intellectuals”, of professional
revolutionary training, and for all too often dragging them back
by our silly speeches about what is “accessible” to the masses
of the workers, to the “average workers”, etc.

In this, as in other respects, the narrow scope of our organisational work is without a doubt due directly to the fact
(although the overwhelming majority of the “Economists” and the
novices in practical work do not perceive it) that we restrict
our theories and our political tasks to a narrow field. Subservience to spontaneity seems to inspire a fear of
taking even one step away from what is “accessible” to the
masses, a fear of rising too high above mere attendance on the
immediate and direct requirements of the masses. Have no fear,
gentlemen! Remember that we stand so low on the plane of
organisation that the very idea that we could rise too high is absurd!

E. “Conspiratorial” Organisation
and “Democratism”

Yet there are many people among us who are so sensitive to the
“voice of life” that they fear it more than anything in the world
and charge the adherents of the views here expounded with
following a Narodnaya Volya line, with failing to understand
“democratism”, etc. These accusations, which, of course, have been
echoed by Rabocheye Dyelo , need to be dealt with.

The writer of these lines knows very well that the
St. Petersburg Economists levelled the charge of Narodnaya Volya
tendencies also against Rabochaya Gazeta (which is quite understandable when one compares it with Rabochaya Mysl ). We were not in the least surprised, therefore, when,
soon after the appearance of Iskra , a comrade informed
us that the Soclal-Democrats in the town of X describe
Iskra as a Narodnaya Volya organ. We, of course, were flattered by this accusation; for what decent Social-Democrat
has not been accused by the Economists of being a Narodnaya
Volya sympathiser?

These accusations are the result of a twofold misunderstanding. First, the history of the revolutionary movement
is so little known among us that the name “Narodnaya Volya” is
used to denote any idea of a militant centralised organisation
which declares determined war upon tsarism. But the magnificent
organisation that the revolutionaries had in the seventies, and
that should serve us as a model, was not established by the
Narodnaya Volya, but by the Zemlya i Volya , which split
up into the Chorny Peredel and the Narodnaya Volya. Consequently,
to regard a militant revolutionary organisation as something
specifically Narodnaya Volya in character is absurd both
historically and logically; for no revolutionary trend,
if it seriously thinks of struggle, can dispense with such an
organisation. The mistake the Narodnaya Volya committed was not in
striving to enlist all the discontented in the organisation and to
direct this organisation to resolute struggle against the
autocracy; on the contrary, that was its great historical
merit. The mistake was in relying on a theory which in substance
was not a revolutionary theory at all, and the Narodnaya Volya
members either did not know how, or were unable, to link their
movement inseparably with the class struggle in the developing
capitalist society. Only a gross failure to understand Marxism (or
an “understanding” of it in the spirit of “Struveism”) could
prompt the opinion that the rise of a mass, spontaneous
working-class movement relieves us of the duty of creating as good an organisation of revolutionaries as the Zemlya i Volya had, or, indeed, an incomparably better one. On the
contrary, this movement imposes the duty upon us; for the
spontaneous struggle of the proletariat will not become its
genuine “class struggle” until this struggle is led by a strong
organisation of revolutionaries.

Secondly, many people, including apparently B. Krichevsky
( Rabocheye Dyelo , No. 10, p. 18), misunderstand the polemics that Social-Democrats have always waged against the
“conspiratorial” view of the political struggle. We have always
protested, and will, of course, continue to protest against
confining the political struggle to conspiracy. [13] But this
does not, of course, mean that we deny the need for a strong
revolutionary organisation. Thus, in the pamphlet mentioned in the
preceding footnote, after the polemics against reducing the
political struggle to a conspiracy, a description is given (as a
Social-Democratic ideal) of an organisation so strong as to be
able to “resort to. . .rebellion” and to every other form of
attack, in order to “deliver a smashing blow against absolutism”. [14] In form
such a strong revolutionary organisation in an autocratic country may also be
described as a “conspiratorial” organisation, because the French
word “conspiration” is the equivalent of the Russian word
“ zagovar ” (“conspiracy”), and such an organisation must
have the utmost secrecy. Secrecy is such a necessary condition for
this kind of organisation that all the other conditions (number
and selection of members, functions, etc.) must be made to conform to it. It would be extremely naive indeed, therefore, to fear the
charge that we Social-Democrats desire to create a conspiratorial
organisation. Such a charge should be as flattering to every
opponent of Economism as the charge of following a Narodnaya Volya
line.

The objection may be raised that such a powerful and strictly
secret organisation, which concentrates in its hands all the
threads of secret activities, an organisation which of necessity
is centralised, may too easily rush into a premature attack, may
thoughtlessly intensify the movement before the growth of
political discontent, the intensity of the ferment and anger of
the working class, etc., have made such an attack possible and
necessary. Our reply to this is: Speaking abstractly, it cannot
be denied, of course, that a militant organisation may thoughtlessly engage in battle, which may end in a
defeat entirely avoidable under other conditions. But we cannot
confine ourselves to abstract reasoning on such a question,
because every battle bears within itself the abstract possibility of defeat, and there is no way of reducing
this possibility except by organised preparation for battle. If, however, we proceed from the concrete conditions at
present obtaining in Russia, we must come to the positive
conclusion that a strong revolutionary organisation is absolutely necessary precisely for the purpose of giving
stability to the movement and of safeguarding it against the possibility of making thoughtless attacks. Precisely
at the present time, when no such organisation yet exists, and
when the revolutionary movement is rapidly and spontaneously
growing, we already observe two opposite extremes (which, as is to be expected, “meet”). These are: the utterly
unsound Economism and the preaching of moderation, and the
equally unsound “excitative terror”, which strives “artificially
to call forth symptoms of the end of the movement, which is
developing and strengthening itself, when this movement is as
yet nearer to the start than to the end” (V. Zasulich, in
Zarya , No. 2-3, p. 353). And the instance of
Rabocheye Dyelo shows that there exist
Social-Democrats who give way to both these extremes. This is not surprising, for, apart from other reasons,
the “economic struggle against the employers and the government” can never satisfy revolutionaries, and opposite
extremes will therefore always appear here and there. Only a
centralised, militant organisation that consistently carries out
a Social-Democratic policy, that satisfies, so to speak, all
revolutionary instincts and strivings, can safeguard the
movement against making thoughtless attacks and prepare attacks
that hold out the promise of success.

A further objection may be raised, that the views on organisation here expounded contradict the “democratic
principle”. Now, while the earlier accusation was specifically
Russian in origin, this one is specifically foreign in character. And only an organisation abroad (the Union of Russian
Social-Democrats Abroad) was capable of giving its Editorial Board
instructions like the following:

“ Organisational Principle. In order to secure the successful development and unification of Social-Democracy, the
broad democratic principle of Party organisation must be
emphasised, developed, and fought for; this is particularly
necessary in view of the anti-democratic tendencies that have
revealed themselves in the ranks of our Party” ( Two Conferences , p. 18).

We shall see in the next chapter how Rabocheye Dyelo combats Iskra ’s “anti-democratic tendencies”. For the
present, we shall examine more closely the “principle” that the
Economists advance. Everyone will probably agree that “the broad
democratic principle” presupposes the two following conditions:
first, full publicity, and secondly, election to all offices. It
would be absurd to speak of democracy without publicity,
moreover, without a publicity that is not limited to the
membership of the organisation. We call the German Socialist
Party a democratic organisation because all its activities are
carried out publicly; even its party congresses are held in
public. But no one would call an organisation democratic that is
hidden from every one but its members by a veil of secrecy. What
is the use, then, of advancing “the broad democratic principle” when the fundamental condition for this principle
cannot be fulfilled by a secret organisation? “The broad principle” proves itself simply to be a resounding but
hollow phrase. Moreover, it reveals a total lack of understanding of the urgent tasks of the moment in regard to
organisation. Everyone knows how great the lack of secrecy is
among the “broad” masses of our revolutionaries. We have heard
the bitter complaints of B-v on this score and his absolutely
just demand for a “strict selection of members” ( Rabocheye Dyelo , No. 6, p. 42). Yet, persons who boast a keen “sense
of realities” urge , in a situation like this, not the strictest secrecy and the strictest (consequently, more
restricted) selection, of members, but “ the broad democratic principle”! This is what you call being wide of
the mark.

Nor is the situation any better with regard to the second
attribute of democracy, the principle of election. In politically free countries, this condition is taken for
granted. “They are members of the Party who accept the principles of the Party programme and render the Party all
possible support,” reads Clause 1 of the Rules of the German
Social-Democratic Party. Since the entire political arena is as
open to the public view as is a theatre stage to the audience,
this acceptance or non-acceptance, support or opposition, is
known to all from the press and from public meetings. Everyone
knows that a certain political figure began in such and such a
way, passed through such and such an evolution, behaved in a
trying moment in such and such a manner, and possesses such and
such qualities; consequently, all party members, knowing all the facts, can elect or refuse to elect this person
to a particular party office. The general control (in the
literal sense of the term) exercised over every act of a party
man in the political field brings into existence an automatically operating mechanism which produces what in biology
is called the “survival of the fittest”. “Natural selection” by
full publicity, election, and general control provides the
assurance that, in the last analysis, every political figure
will be “in his proper place”, do the work for which lie is best
fitted by his powers and abilities, feel the effects of his
mistakes on himself, and prove before all the world his ability
to recognise mistakes and to avoid them.

Try to fit this picture into the frame of our autocracy! Is it
conceivable in Russia for all who accept the principles of the
Party programme and render the Party all possible support to
control every action of the revolutionary working in secret? Is
it possible for all to elect one of these revolutionaries to any
particular office, when, in the very interests of the work, the
revolutionary must conceal his identity from nine out of ten of these “all”? Reflect somewhat over the real meaning of the
high-sounding phrases to which Rabocheye Dyelo gives utterance, and you will realise that “broad democracy” in Party
organisation, amidst the gloom of the autocracy and the
domination of gendarmerie, is nothing more than a useless and harmful toy. It is a useless toy because, in point of
fact, no revolutionary organisation has ever practiced, or could
practice, broad democracy, however much it may have desired to do so. It is a harmful toy because any attempt to
practise “the broad democratic principle” will simply facilitate
the work of the police in carrying out large-scale raids, will
perpetuate the prevailing primitiveness, and will divert the
thoughts of the practical workers from the serious and pressing
task of training themselves to become professional revolutionaries to that of drawing up detailed “paper” rules for
election systems. Only abroad, where very often people with no
opportunity for conducting really active work gather, could this
“playing at democracy” develop here and there, especially in
small groups.

To show the unseemliness of Rabocheye Dyelo ’s favourite trick of advancing the plausible “principle” of
democracy in revolutionary affairs, we shall again summon a
witness. This witness, Y. Serebryakov, editor of the London
magazine, Nakanune , has a soft spot for Rabocheye Dyelo and is filled with a great hatred for Plekhanov and the
“Plekhanovites”. In its articles on the split in the Union of
Russian Social-Democrats Abroad, Nakanune definitely sided with Rabocheye Dyelo and poured a stream of petty
abuse upon Plekhanov. All the more valuable, therefore, is this
witness in the question at issue. In Nakanune for July (No. 7) 1899, an article entitled “Concerning the Manifesto of the
Self-Emancipation of the Workers Group”, Serebryakov argued that
it was “indecent” to talk about such things as “self-deception,
leadership, and the so-called Areopagus in a serious revolutionary
movement” and, inter alia , wrote:

“Myshkin, Rogachov, Zhelyabov, Mikhailov, Perovskaya, Figner, and others never regarded themselves as
leaders, and no one ever elected or appointed them as such,
although in actuality, they were leaders, because, in the
propaganda period, as well as in the period of the struggle
against the government, they took the brunt of the work upon
themselves, they went into the most dangerous places, and their activities were the most fruitful. They became leaders, not
because they wished it, but because the comrades surrounding them
had confidence in their wisdom, in their energy, in their
loyalty. To be afraid of some kind of Areopagus (if it is not
feared, why write about it?) that would arbitrarily govern the
movement is far too naive. Who would pay heed to it?”

We ask the reader, in what way does the “Areopagus” differ from
“anti  democratic tendencies”? And is it not evident that
Rabocheye Dyelo ’s “plausible” organisational principle is
equally naive and indecent; naive, because no one would pay heed
to the “Areopagus”, or people with “anti- democratic tendencies”,
if “the comrades surrounding them had” no “confidence in their
wisdom, energy, and loyalty”; indecent, because it is a demagogic
sally calculated to play on the conceit of some, on the ignorance
of others regarding the actual state of our movement, and on the
lack of training and the ignorance of the history of the
revolutionary movement on the part of still others. The only
serious organisational principle for the active workers of our
movement should he the strictest secrecy, the strictest selection
of members, and the training of professional revolutionaries. Given these qualities, something even more than
“democratism” would be guaranteed to us, namely, complete,
comradely, mutual confidence among revolutionaries. This is
absolutely essential for us, because there can be no question of
replacing it by general democratic control in Russia. It would be
a great mistake to believe that the impossibility of establishing
real “democratic” control renders the members of the revolutionary
organisation beyond control altogether. They have not the time to
think about toy forms of democratism (democratism within a close
and compact body of comrades in which complete, mutual confidence
prevails), but they have a lively sense of their responsibility , knowing as they do from experience that
an organisation of real revolutionaries will stop at nothing to
rid itself of an unworthy member. Moreover, there is a fairly
well-developed public opinion in Russian (and international)
revolutionary circles which has a long history behind it, and
which sternly and ruthlessly punishes every departure from the
duties of comradeship (and “democratism”, real and not toy
democratism, certainly forms a component part of the conception of comradeship). Take all this into consideration and you will
realise that this talk and these resolutions about “anti-democratic tendencies” have the musty odour of the playing
at generals which is indulged in abroad.

It must be observed also that the other source of this talk,
viz., naivete is likewise fostered by the confusion of ideas
concerning the meaning of democracy. In Mr. and Mrs. Webb’s book
on the English trade unions there is an interesting chapter
entitled “Primitive Democracy”. In it the authors relate how the
English workers, in the first period of existence of their unions,
considered it an indispensable sign of democracy for all the
members to do all the work of managing the unions; not only were
all questions decided by the vote of all the members, but all
official duties were fulfilled by all the members in turn. A long
period of historical experience was required for worker’s to
realise the absurdity of such a conception of democracy and to
make them understand the necessity for representative institutions, on the one hand, and for full-time officials, on the
other. Only after a number of cases of financial bankruptcy of
trade union treasuries had occurred did the workers realise that
the rates of contributions and benefits cannot be decided merely
by a democratic vote, but that this requires also the advice of
insurance experts. Let us take also Kautsky’s book on parliamentarism and legislation by the people. There we find that
the conclusions drawn by the Marxist theoretician coincide with
the lessons learned from many years of practical experience by the
workers who organised “spontaneously”. Kautsky strongly protests
against Rittinghausen’s primitive conception of democracy; he
ridicules those who in the name of democracy demand that “popular
newspapers shall be edited directly by the people”; he shows the’
need for professional journalists, parliamentarians, etc., for the Social-Democratic leadership of the proletarian
class struggle; he attacks the socialism of anarchists and
litterateurs who in their “striving for effect” extol direct legislation by the whole people, completely failing to
understand that this idea can be applied only relatively in modern
society.

Those who have performed practical work in our movement know
how widespread the “primitive” conception of democracy is among the masses of the students and workers. It is not surprising that
this conception penetrates also into rules of organisations and
into literature. The Economists of the Bernsteinian persuasion
included in their rules the following: “§ 10. All affairs
affecting the interests of the whole of the union organisation
shall be decided by a majority vote of all its members.” The
Economists of the terrorist persuasion repeat after them. “The
decisions of the committee shall become effective only after they
have been referred to all the circles” (Svoboda , No. 1,
p. 67). Observe that this proposal for a widely applied referendum
is advanced in addition to the demand that the whole of the organisation be built on an elective basis! We would
not, of course, on this account condemn practical workers who have
had too few opportunities for studying the theory and practice of
real democratic organisations. But when Rabocheye Dyelo ,
which lays claim to leadership, confines itself, under such
conditions, to a resolution on broad democratic principles, can
this be described as anything but a mere “striving for effect”?

F. Local and All-Russia Work

The objections raised against the plan of organisation here
outlined on the grounds that it is undemocratic and conspiratorial
are totally unsound. Nevertheless, there remains a question which
is frequently put and which deserves detailed examination. This is
the question of the relations between local work and all-Russia
work. Fears are expressed that the formation of a centralised
organisation may shift the centre of gravity from the former to
the latter, damage the movement through weakening our contacts
with the working masses and the continuity of local agitation
generally. To these fears we reply that our movement in the past
few years has suffered precisely from the fact that local workers
have been too absorbed in local work; that therefore it is
absolutely necessary to shift the centre of gravity somewhat to
national work; and that, far from weakening this would strengthen
our ties and the continuity of our local agitation. Let us take
the question of central and local newspapers. I would ask the
reader not to forget that we cite the publication of newspapers
only as an example illustrating an immeasurably broader and more varied revolutionary activity in general.

In the first period of the mass movement (1896-98), an attempt
was made by local revolutionary workers to publish an all-Russia
paper — Rabochaya Gazeta . In the next period (1898-1900), the movement made an enormous stride forward, but the
attention of the leaders was wholly absorbed by local publications. If we compute the total number of the local papers
that were published, we shall find that on the average one issue
per month was published. [15] Does this not clearly illustrate our
amateurism? Does this not clearly show that our revolutionary
organisation lags behind the spontaneous growth of the movement?
If the same number of issues had been published, not by
scattered local groups, but by a single organisation, we would not
only have saved an enormous amount of effort, but we would have
secured immeasurably greater stability and continuity in our
work. This simple point is frequently lost sight of by those
practical workers who work actively and almost exclusively on local publications (unfortunately this is true even
now in the overwhelming majority of cases), as well as by the
publicists who display an astonishing quixotism on this
question. The practical workers usually rest content with the
argument that “it is difficult” [16]
[16] This difficulty is more apparent than real. In fact, there is not a single local study circle that lacks the opportunity of taking up some function or other in connection with all-Russia work. “Don’t say, I can’t; say, I won’t.”— Lenin for local workers to engage in the
organisation of an all-Russia newspaper, and that local newspapers
are better than no newspapers at all. This argument is, of course,
perfectly just, and we, no less than any practical worker,
appreciate the enormous importance and usefulness of local
newspapers in general. But not this is the point. The point is, can we not overcome the fragmentation and primitiveness
that are so glaringly expressed in the thirty issues of local
newspapers that have been published throughout Russia in the
course of two and a half years? Do not restrict yourselves to the
indisputable, but too general, statement about the usefulness of local newspapers generally; have the courage frankly to admit
their negative aspects revealed by the experience of two and a
half years. This experience has shown that under the conditions in
which we work, these local newspapers prove, in the majority of
cases, to be unstable in their principles, devoid of political
significance, extremely costly in regard to expenditure of
revolutionary forces, and totally unsatisfactory from a technical
point of view (I have in mind, of course, not the technique of
printing, but the frequency and regularity of publication). These
defects are riot accidental; they are the inevitable outcome of
the fragmentation which, on the one hand, explains the predominance of local newspapers in the period under review, and,
on the other, is fostered by this predominance. It is positively beyond the strength of a separate local organisation to
raise its newspaper to the level of a political organ maintaining
stability of principles; it is beyond its strength to collect and utilise sufficient material to shed light on the whole
of our political life. The argument usually advanced to support
the need for numerous local newspapers in free countries that the
cost of printing by local workers is low and that the people can
be kept more fully and quickly informed — this argument as
experience has shown, speaks against local newspapers in
Russia. They turn out to be excessively costly in regard to the
expenditure of revolutionary forces, and appear very rarely, for
the simple reason that the publication of an illegal newspaper, however small its size, requires an extensive secret
apparatus, such as is possible with large-scale factory
production; for this apparatus cannot be created in a small,
handicraft workshop. Very frequently, the primitiveness of the
secret apparatus (every practical worker can cite numerous cases)
enables the police to take advantage of the publication and
distribution of one or two issues to make mass arrests,
which result in such a clean sweep that it becomes necessary to
start all over again. A well-organised secret apparatus requires
professionally well-trained revolutionaries and a division of
labour applied with the greatest consistency, but both these
requirements are beyond the strength of a separate local
organisation, however strong it may be at any given moment. Not only the general interests of our movement as a whole (training of
the workers in consistent socialist and political principles) but
also specifically local interests are better served by non-local newspapers . This may seem paradoxical at first
sight, but it has been proved to the hilt by the two and a half
years of experience referred to. Everyone will agree that had all
the local forces that were engaged in the publication of the
thirty issues of newspapers worked on a single newspaper, sixty,
if not a hundred, issues could easily have been published, with a
fuller expression, in consequence, of all the specifically local
features of the movement. True, it is no easy matter to attain
such a degree of organisation, but we must realise the need for
it. Every local study circle must think about it and work actively to achieve it, without waiting for an impetus from
outside, without being tempted by the popularity and closer
proximity of a local newspaper which, as our revolutionary
experience has shown, proves to a large extent to be illusory.

And it is a bad service indeed those publicists render to the
practical work who, thinking themselves particularly (close to
the practical workers, fail to see this illusoriness, and make
shift with the astoundingly hollow and cheap argument that we
must have local newspapers, we must have district newspapers,
and we must have all-Russia newspapers. Generally speaking, of
course, all these are necessary, but once the solution of a
concrete organisational problem is undertaken, surely time and
circumstances must be taken into consideration. Is it not
quixotic for Svoboda (No. 1, p. 68) to write in a special article “dealing with the question of a newspaper ”: “It seems to us that every locality, with any
appreciable number of workers, should have its own workers’
newspaper; not a newspaper imported from somewhere, but its very
own.” If the publicist who wrote these words refuses to think of
their meaning, then at least the reader may do it for him. How
many scores, if not hundreds, of “localities” with any appreciable number of workers there are in Russia, and what a
perpetuation of our amateurish methods this would mean if indeed
every local organisation set about publishing its own. newspaper! How this diffusion would facilitate the
gendarmerie’s task of netting — and without “any appreciable”
effort — the local revolutionary workers at the very outset of their activity and of preventing them from developing into real
revolutionaries. A reader of an all-Russia newspaper, continues
the author, would find little interest in the descriptions of
the. malpractices of the factory owners and the “details of
factory life in various towns not his own”. But “an inhabitant
of Orel would not find Orel affairs dull reading. In every issue
he would learn who had been ’picked for a lambasting’ and who
had been ’flayed’, and he would be in high spirits” (p. 69). Certainly, the Orel reader is in high spirits, but our
publicist’s flights of imagination are also high — too high. He
should have asked himself whether such concern with trivialities
is tactically in order. We are second to none in appreciating
the importance and necessity of factory exposures, but it must
be borne in mind that we have reached a stage when
St. Petersburg folk find it dull reading the St. Petersburg
correspondence of the St. Petersburg Rabochaya Mysl . Leaflets are the medium through which local factory
exposures have always been and must continue to be made, but we must raise the level of the newspaper , not
lower it to the level of a factory leaflet. What we ask of a
newspaper is not so much “petty” exposures, as exposures of the
major, typical evils of factory life, exposures based on
especially striking facts and capable, therefore, of arousing
the interest of all workers and all leaders of the movement, of
really enriching their knowledge, broadening their outlook, and
serving as a starting-point for awakening new districts and
workers from ever-newer trade areas.

“Moreover, in a local newspaper, all the malpractices of the
factory administration and other authorities may he denounced
then and there. In the case of a general, distant newspaper,
however, by the time the news reaches it the facts will have
been forgotten in the source localities. The reader, on getting
the paper, will exclaim: ’When was that-who remembers it?’”
( ibid .). Precisely — who remembers it! From the same source we learn that the 30 issues of newspapers which appeared
in the course of two and a half years were published in six
cities. This averages one issue per city per half-year !
And even if our frivolous publicist trebled his estimate of the productivity of local work (which would be wrong
in the case of an average town, since it is impossible to increase productivity to any considerable extent by our
rule-of-thumb methods), we would still get only one issue every
two months, i.e., nothing at all like “denouncing then and
there”. It would suffice, however, for ten local organisations
to combine and send their delegates to take an active part in
organising a general newspaper, to enable us every fortnight to
“denounce”, over the whole of Russia , not petty, but really outstanding and typical evils. No one who knows the state
of affairs in our organisations can have the slightest doubt on
that score. As for catching the enemy red-handed — if we mean
it seriously and not merely as a pretty phrase — that is quite
beyond the ability of an illegal paper generally. It can be done
only by a leaflet, because the time limit for exposures of that
nature can be a day or two at the most (e.g., the usual brief
strikes, violent factory clashes, demonstrations, etc.).

“The workers live not only at the factory, but also in the
city,” continues our author, rising from the particular to the
general, with a strict consistency that would have done honour
to Boris Krichevsky himself; and he refers to matters like
municipal councils, municipal hospitals, municipal schools, and
demands that workers’ newspapers should not ignore municipal
affairs in general.

This demand — excellent in itself — serves as a particularly
vivid illustration of the empty abstraction to which discussions
of local newspapers are all too frequently limited. In the first
place, if indeed newspapers appeared “in every locality with any
appreciable number of workers” with such detailed information on
municipal affairs as Svoboda desires, this would, under
our Russian conditions, inevitably degenerate into actual
concern with trivialities, lead to a weakening of the consciousness of the importance of an all-Russia revolutionary
assault upon the tsarist autocracy, and strengthen the extremely
virile shoots — not uprooted but rather hidden or temporarily
suppressed — of the tendency that has become noted as a result
of the famous remark about revolutionaries who talk a great deal
about non-existent parliaments and too little about existent
municipal councils. We say “inevitably”, in order to emphasise
that Svoboda obviously does not desire this, but the contrary, to come about. But good intentions are not enough. For
municipal affairs to be dealt with in their proper perspective, in relation to our entire work, this perspective must
first be clearly conceived, firmly established, not only by argument, but by numerous examples, so that it may
acquire the stability of a tradition . This is still far
from being the case with us. Yet this must be done first , before we can allow ourselves to think and talk
about an extensive local press.

Secondly, to write really well and interestingly about municipal
affairs, one must have first-hand knowledge, not book knowledge,
of the issues. But there are hardly any Social-Democrats
anywhere in Russia who possess such knowledge. To be able to write in newspapers (not in popular pamphlets) about
municipal and state affairs, one must have fresh and varied
material gathered and written up by able people. And in order to
be able to gather and write up such material, we must have
something more than the “primitive democracy” of a primitive
circle, in which everybody does everything and all entertain
themselves by playing at referendums. It is necessary to have a
staff of expert writers and correspondents, an army of
Social-Democratic reporters who establish contacts far and wide,
who are able to fathom all sorts of “state secrets” (the
knowledge of which makes the Russian government official so
puffed up, but the blabbing of which is such an easy matter to
him), who are able to penetrate “behind the scenes” — an army
of’ people who must, as their “official duty”, be ubiquitous and
omniscient. And we, the Party that fights against all economic,
political, social, and national oppression, can and must find,
gather, train, mobilise, and set into motion such an army of
omniscient people — all of which requires still to be done. Not
only has not a single step in this direction been taken in the
overwhelming majority of localities, but even the recognition of
its necessity is very often lacking. One will search in vain in
our Social-Democratic press for lively and interesting articles,
correspondence, and exposures dealing with our big and little
affairs — diplomatic, military, ecclesiastical, municipal,
financial, etc., etc. There is almost nothing , or very
little, about these matters. [17] That is why “it always annoys me frightfully when a man comes to me, utters beautiful and
charming words” about the need for newspapers in “every locality
with any appreciable number of workers” that will expose
factory, municipal, and government evils.

The predominance of the local papers over a central press may be
a sign of either poverty or luxury. Of poverty, when the
movement has not yet developed the forces for large-scale
production, continues to flounder in amateurism, and is all but
swamped with “the petty details of factory life”. Of luxury,
when the movement has fully mastered the task of comprehensive exposure and comprehensive agitation, and it
becomes necessary to publish numerous local newspapers in
addition to the central organ. Let each decide for himself what
the predominance of local newspapers implies in present-day
Russia. I shall limit myself to a precise formulation of my own
conclusion, to leave no grounds for misunderstanding. Hitherto,
the majority of our local organisations have thought almost
exclusively in terms of local newspapers, and have devoted
almost all their activities to this work. This is abnormal; the
very opposite should have been the case. The majority of the
local organisations should think principally of the publication
of an all-Russia newspaper and devote their activities chiefly
to it. Until this is done, we shall not be able to establish a
single newspaper capable, to any degree, of serving the
movement with comprehensive press agitation. When this is done, however, normal relations between the necessary central
newspaper and the necessary local newspapers will be established
automatically.

*     * *
It would seem at first glance that the conclusion on the
necessity for shifting the centre of gravity from local to
all-Russia work does not apply to the sphere of the specifically
economic struggle. In this struggle, the immediate enemies of
the workers are the individual employers or groups of employers, who are not bound by any organisation having even the
remotest resemblance to the purely military, strictly centralised organisation of the Russian Government — our
immediate enemy in the political struggle — which is led in all
its minutest details by a single will.

But that is not the case. As we have repeatedly pointed out, the
economic struggle is a trade struggle, and for that reason it
requires that the workers be organised according to trades, not
only according to place of employment. Organisation by trades
becomes all the more urgently necessary, the more rapidly our
employers organise in all sorts of companies and syndicates. Our
fragmentation and our amateurism are an outright hindrance to
this work of organisation which requires the existence of a
single, all-Russia body of revolutionaries capable of giving
leadership to the all-Russia trade unions. We have described
above the type of organisation that is needed for this purpose;
we shall now add but a few words on the question of our press in
this connection.

Hardly anyone will doubt the necessity for every
Social-Democratic newspaper to have a special department devoted to the trade union (economic)
struggle. But the growth of the trade union movement compels us
to think about the creation of a trade union press. It seems to
us, however, that with rare exceptions, there can be no question
of trade union newspapers in Russia at the present time; they
would be a luxury, and many a time we lack even our daily
bread. The form of trade union press that would suit the
conditions of our illegal work and is already required at the
present time is trade union pamphlets. In these pamphlets, legal [18] and illegal material should be
gathered and grouped systematically, on the working conditions
in a given trade, on the differences in this respect in the
various parts of, Russia; on the main demands advanced by the
workers in the given trade; on the inadequacies of legislation
affecting that trade; on outstanding instances of economic
struggle by the workers in the trade; on the beginnings, the
present state, and the requirements of their trade union
organisation, etc. Such pamphlets would, in the first place,
relieve our Social-Democratic press of a mass of trade details
that are of interest only to workers in the given trade. Secondly, they would record the results of our experience
in the trade union struggle, they would preserve the gathered
material, which now literally gets lost in a mass of leaflets
and fragmentary correspondence; and they would summarise this
material. Thirdly, they could serve as guides for agitators,
because working conditions change relatively slow ly and the
main demands of the workers in a given trade are extremely
stable (cf., for example, the demands advanced by the weavers in
the Moscow district in 1885 and in the St. Petersburg district
in 1896). A compilation of such demands and needs might serve
for years as an excellent handbook for agitators on economic questions in backward localities or among the backward strata of
the workers. Examples of successful strikes in a given region,
information on higher living standards, on improved working
conditions, in one locality, would encourage the workers in
other localities to take up the fight again and again. Fourthly,
having made a start in generalising the trade union struggle and
in this way strengthening the link between the Russian trade
union movement and socialism, the Social-Democrats would at the
same time see to it that our trade union work occupied neither
too small nor too large a place in our Social-Democratic work as
a whole. A local organisation that is cut off from organisations
in other towns finds it very difficult, sometimes almost
impossible, to maintain a correct sense of pro portion (the
example of Rabochaya Mysl shows what a monstrous exaggeration can be made in the direction of trade-unionism) But
an all-Russia organisation of revolutionaries that stands
undeviatingly on the basis of Marxism, that leads the entire
political struggle and possesses a staff of professional
agitators, will never find it difficult to determine the proper
proportion.