V. I.

Lenin

Exactly five years have passed since the writing of the present pamphlet,
which is now appearing in its second edition to meet our agitational
requirements. In this brief period such tremendous progress has been made
by our young working-class movement and such profound changes have taken
place in the position of Russian Social-Democracy and in its strength that
it may perhaps appear strange that the need should arise for an old
pamphlet simply to be republished. Can it be that in 1902 the “tasks
of the Russian Social-Democrats” have not changed in the least as
compared with 1897? Has, then, the author himself, who at that time
summed up what was still the “first experience of his Party
activity, gone no step further in his views on this score?

These (or similar) questions will probably arise in the mind of many a
reader, and to answer them we must refer to the pamphlet, What Is to Be Done? , and supplement some of the remarks made there. This
reference is necessary so as to show how the author presented his views on
Social-Democracy’s present-day tasks, and supplement what is said
there (pp. 31-32, 121, 138[ See present edition, Vol. 5.— Ed . ])

about conditions obtaining when the pamphlet, which is now republished,
was being written, and about its relation to that particular
“period” in the development of Russian Social-Democracy. In all, I named four such
periods in the above-mentioned pamphlet ( What Is to Be Done? ),
the last of which referred “to the sphere of the present and,
partly, of the future”; the third period was termed that of the
domination (or, at least, the wide spread) of the “economist”
trend, beginning with 1897-98; the second period was the name given to the
years 1894-98, and the first to the years 1884-94. In the second period,
in contrast to the third, we see no disagreements among the
Social-Democrats themselves. At that time Social-Democracy was
ideologically united, and it was then that an attempt was made to achieve
the same unity in practice, in organisation (the formation of the Russian
Social-Democratic Labour Party). At that time the main attention of the
Social-Democrats was centred not on clearing up and deciding various
internal Party questions (as was the case in the third period), but on the
ideological struggle against the opponents of Social-Democracy, on the one
hand, and on the development of practical Party work, on the other.

There was no such antagonism between the theory and the practice of the
Social-Democrats as existed in the period of “economism”.

The pamphlet in question reflects the specific features of the then
situation and “tasks” of Social-Democracy. It calls for deeper
and more widespread practical work, seeing no obstacles” whatever to
this in lack of clarity on any of the general views, principles, or
theories, seeing no difficulty (at that time there was none) in combining
the political struggle with the economic. It addresses its explanations of
principles to adherents of the Narodnaya Volya and the Narodnoye

Pravo, [1] who are opposed to Social-Democracy, in an endeavour to dispel the
misunderstandings and prejudices which keep them away from the new
movement.

So, at the present time, when the “economist” period is
evidently coming to an end, the Social-Democrats’ stand is again the same
as it was five years ago. Of course, the tasks now confronting us are
incomparably more complicated, as a result of the immense growth of the
movement during this time, but the principal features of the present
reproduce, on a broader base and on a larger scale, the specific features of the “second” period. The variance between
our theory, programme, tactical tasks, and practical activities is
disappearing in proportion to the disappearance of “economism.” We
can and must boldly call again for deeper and more widespread practical
work, since the theoretical premises for this work have already been
created to a large extent. We must again devote particular attention to
non-Social-Democratic illegal trends in Russia, and here we are again
confronted with trends which in essence are the very same as those of the
first half of the 1890s—only much more developed, organised, and
“mature.”

While discarding their old vestments, the adherents of the Narodnaya Volya
have transformed themselves into “Socialist-Revolutionaries,”
indicating, as it were, by this very name that they have stopped in
mid-stream. They have broken away from the old (“Russian”
socialism), but have not yet adhered to the new (Social-Democracy). The
only theory of revolutionary socialism known to contemporary mankind,
i.e., Marxism, has been relegated by them to the archives on the basis of
bourgeois (“Socialists”!) and opportunist (-"Revolutionaries"!)
criticism. In practice an absence of ideology and principles leads them to
“revolutionary adventurism,” which finds expression in a number of
ways; their endeavours to place on a par such social sections and classes
as the intelligentsia, the proletariat, and the peasantry; their noisy
advocacy of “systematic” terrorism; their remarkable agrarian
minimum programme (socialisation of the land, co-operatives, and
attachment to the allotment. See Iskra , Nos. 23 and

24[ See pp. 186-207 of this volume.— Ed . ]); their attitude towards the liberals (see Revolutsionnaya Rossiya ,
No. 9, and. Mr. Zhitlovsky’s review of

Osvobozhdeniye [2] in No. 9 of Sozialistische Monatshefte [3] ),
and much else with which we shall most probably have to deal more than
once. In Russia there are still so many social elements and conditions
fostering the instability of the intellectuals, evoking in
radically-minded individuals a desire to combine the outmoded and outworn
with the lifeless vogue of the day, and hindering their making common
cause with the proletariat and its class struggle, that the Russian
Social-Democrats will have yet to reckon with a trend or trends similar to that of the
“Socialist-Revolutionaries” until the time comes when capitalist evolution and the sharpening of class contradictions will cut
the ground from under their feet.

The Narodnoye Pravo followers, who in 1897 were at least just as vague
(see below, pp.

2O-22[ See present edition, Vol. 2, pp. 344-45.— Ed . ])

as the present-day Socialist-Revolutionaries, very quickly disappeared
from the scene as a consequence of this. But their “sober”
idea— that of completely separating from socialism the demand for
political liberty—has not died, and could not have died, for in
Russia liberal democratic trends are very strong and are constantly
becoming stronger among the most diverse sections of the big and petty
bourgeoisie. For this reason the liberal Osvobozhdeniye , which
wants to group around itself the representatives of the bourgeois
opposition in Russia, has become the legitimate heir of the Narodnoye
Pravo, and its definite, consistent, and mature continuator. And just as
the withering and decay of the old, pre-Reform Russia, the patriarchal
peasantry, and the old type of intelligentsia, who can be equally
enthusiastic over the village commune, agricultural co-operatives, and
“elusive” terrorism, are inevitable, so too is it inevitable
for the propertied classes of capitalist Russia, the bourgeoisie, and the
petty bourgeoisie, to grow and mature, with their sober liberalism, which
is beginning to realise that it does not pay to maintain a dull-witted,
barbarian, and costly autocratic government that offers no defence against
socialism—with their demand for European forms of class struggle and
class domination, with their innate (in the period of the awakening and
growth of the proletariat) ambition to conceal their bourgeois class
interests by denying the class struggle in general.

We thus have reason to be grateful to the liberal land-owning gentry who
are endeavouring to found a “Zemstvo constitutional party.” Let us
first begin with the least important thing: we are grateful to them for
removing Mr. Struve from Russian Social-Democracy, completing his
metamorphosis from a quasi-Marxist into a liberal, helping us by a living
example to demonstrate to one and all the real meaning of Bernsteinism in general and of Russian Bernsteinism in
particular. Secondly, by striving to turn diverse sections of the Russian
bourgeoisie into conscious liberals, Osvobozhdeniye will help us
to hasten the conversion of more and more masses of workers into conscious
socialists. There has been so much rambling, liberal-Narodnik
quasi-socialism in our country that the new liberal trend is clearly a
step forward in comparison. It will now be a simple matter to give the
workers a vivid demonstration of the Russian liberal and democratic
bourgeoisie, to show the need for an independent political party of the
working class that would be part of international Social-Democracy; it
will now be a simple matter to call on the intellectuals to make their
stand absolutely clear: liberalism or Social-Democracy; half-way theories
and trends will very quickly be ground down between the mill stones of
these two growing and mounting “opposites.” Thirdly, and this of
course is most important, we shall be grateful to the liberals if
through their opposition they will undermine the alliance between the
autocracy and certain sections of the bourgeoisie and intelligentsia. We
say “if” because by flirting with the autocracy, extolling
peaceful cultural work, and by their war against “tendentious”
revolutionaries, etc., the liberals are undermining not so much the
autocracy, as the struggle against the autocracy. By steadily and
uncompromisingly exposing all the half-heartedness of the liberals, all
their attempts to flirt with the government, we shall be nullifying the
effects of this treacherous aspect of the liberal-bourgeois gentle men’s
political activity and paralysing their left hands while ensuring the
greatest results from the work of their right hands.

Thus, both the Narodnaya Volyn and the Narodnoye Pravo have made great
strides in developing, defining, and giving shape to their actual
aspirations and their actual nature. The struggle which in the first half
of the 1890s took place among narrow circles of revolutionary youth is now
reviving as a decisive struggle of mature political trends and real
political parties.

In view of this, the new edition of the Tasks may perhaps prove useful
also because it will remind the Party’s young members of its recent past, will show how the Social-Democrats came
to occupy that position among the other trends which has only now become
fully defined, and will help give a clearer and more distinct picture of
the essentially identical but more complex “tasks” of the
present.

The Social-Democrats are now faced with the urgent task of putting an end
to all dissension and wavering in their midst, of closing their ranks, and
merging organisationally under the banner of revolutionary Marxism, of
concentrating all their efforts so as to unite all Social-Democrats
engaged in practical work, extend and deepen their activity, while at the
same time devoting serious attention to explaining to the broadest
possible masses of intellectuals and workers the real significance of the
two above-mentioned trends, with which Social-Democracy has long had to
reckon.

August 1902.

---
Notes:
[1]
Narodnoye Pravo (People’s Right)—an illegal organisation of
Russian democratic intellectuals founded in the summer of 1893, its
initiators including 0. V. Aptekman, A. I. Bogdanovich,

A. V. Gedeonovsky, M. A. Natanson, and N. S. Tyutchev who had formerly
belonged to the Narodnaya Volya. The members of the Narodnoye Pravo set
themselves the aim of uniting all opposition forces to fight for political
reforms. The organisation issued two programme documents,
“Manifesto,” and “An Urgent Question.” In the spring of 1894
it was smashed by the tsarist government. Lenin’s estimation of the
Narodnoye Pravo as a political party is to be found in his “What the
’Friends of the People’ Are and How They Fight the Social-Democrats”
(see present edition, Vol. 1, pp. 129-332), and “The Tasks of the
Russian Social-Democrats” (see present edition, Vol. 2,
pp. 323-51). Most of the members of the Narodnoye Pravo subsequently
joined the Socialist-Revolutionary Party.

[2]
Osvobozhdeniye (Emancipation )—a fortnightly magazine published abroad from June 18 (July 1), 1902, to October 18 (31), 1905,
under the editorship of P. B. Struve. Arising out of the opposition
Zemstvo movement, Osvobozhdeniye was in fact the illegal organ of
the Russian liberal bourgeoisie and consistently advocated the ideas of
moderate-monarchist liberalism. In 1903 the League of Emancipation
developed around the magazine (taking definite shape in January 1904), and
continued to exist until October 1905. Together with the
Zemstvo-constitutionalists, the Osvobozhdeniye group formed the
nucleus of the Cadet Party—the chief bourgeois party in
Russia—which was formed in October 1905.

[3]
Sozialistische Monatshefte (Socialist Monthly)—a magazine,
which was the chief organ of the opportunists of German Social-Democracy
and one of the organs of international opportunism. During the 1914-18
imperialist world war, it took the stand of social-chauvinism. It was
published in Berlin from 1897 to 1933.