The one is irrevocable, the other temporary in character. The main attention is directed to the internal relations of Social Democracy: the war against the "critics" and the "demarcation" from the "Economists".

This moment, it seems, is drawing to a close. (Demarcation from Legal Marxism, and also from Economism.)

* See Works, 4th ed., Vol. 5, pp. 319–494. Ed.

** The near future. Ed.

*** – Millerand. Ed.

**** See this volume, pp. 450–451. Ed.

* Thoroughbred. Ed.

**Unfinished draft of the preface to the second edition of the pamphlet "The Tasks of the Russian Social-Democrats"**

Almost five years have passed since the pamphlet offered to the reader was written. During this time our revolutionary, and especially the Social-Democratic working-class movement, has grown, spread and strengthened gigantically, with almost incredible rapidity; the internal and external position of Russian Social-Democracy has changed very substantially; these years have given the author personally much in the way of party (both theoretical and practical) experience. It may therefore seem strange that a second edition of a small pamphlet on the tasks should appear without any changes compared with the first edition. Have the "tasks" really not advanced a single iota since that time, either from the standpoint of the objective "data" of party life, or subjectively from the standpoint of the author?

The answer to this naturally arising question is contained in my pamphlet "What Is To Be Done?" (Stuttgart, Verlag Dietz, 1902 [292]), which sets forth the author's present views on the present "tasks" of the party [293]. This latter pamphlet, on the one hand, explains why additions and changes in the offered pamphlet proved superfluous (indeed, perhaps even impossible). On the other hand, it also explains why a need could arise for a reprint of the old (and in many respects, of course, outdated) pamphlet – apart from practical agitational purposes. It is precisely in the pamphlet "What Is To Be Done?" that I attempted to cast a retrospective glance at the history of Russian Social-Democracy and to establish three periods in its development. At the present time, according to this view, we are living through the end of the third and the beginning of the fourth period, the third period being an epoch of disintegration and vacillation caused by the unusually rapid growth of the movement in breadth, with insufficient growth in depth. The correctness of such an assessment obviously depends on whether there was in the second period something more or less stable, something that was "shaken" in the following moment [294].

Written in 1902, not later than August

Published for the first time, from the manuscript