V.I. Lenin

“...Party struggles lend a party strength and vitality; the greatest
proof of a party’s weakness is its diffuseness and the blurring of clear demarcations; a party becomes stronger by
purging itself...”

(From a letter of Lassalle to Marx, of June 24, 1852)

## Preface

According to the author’s original plan, the present pamphlet
was to have been devoted to a detailed development of the ideas
expressed in the article “Where To Begin”, ( Iskra , No. 4, May 1901). [1] We must first apologise to the reader
for the delay in fulfilling the promise made in that article (and
repeated in response to many private inquiries and letters). One
of the reasons for this delay was the attempt, undertaken in June
of the past year (1901), to unite all the Social-Democratic
organisations abroad. It was natural to wait for the results of
this attempt, for, had the effort proved successful, it would
perhaps have been necessary to expound Iskra’s conceptions of organisation from a somewhat different
approach; in any case, such a success promised to put an end very
quickly to the existence of the two trends in the Russian
Social-Democratic movement. As the reader knows, the attempt
failed,  and, as we propose to show, was bound to fail after the
new swing, of Rabocheye Dyelo , in its issue No. 10, towards Economism. It was found to be absolutely essential to
begin a determined struggle against this trend, diffuse and
ill-defined, but for that reason the more persistent, the more
capable of reasserting itself in diverse forms. Accordingly, the
original plan of the pamphlet was altered and considerably
enlarged.

Its main theme was to have been the three questions raised in
the article “Where To Begin” – the character and main content of
our political agitation; our organisational tasks; and the plan
for building, simultaneously and from various sides, a militant,
all-Russia organisation. These questions have long engaged the
mind of the author, who tried to raise them in Rabochaya
Gazeta [3] during one of the unsuccessful attempts to revive that
paper (see Chapter V). But the original plan to confine the
pamphlet to an analysis of only these three questions and to set
forth our views as far as possible in a positive form, without, or
almost without, entering into polemics, proved wholly impracticable, for two reasons. On the one hand, Economism proved
to be much more tenacious than we had supposed (we employ the term
Economism in the broad sense, as explained in Iskra , No. 12 (December 1901), in the article entitled “A Talk With
Defenders of Economism”, which was a synopsis, so to speak, of the
present pamphlet [2] ).
It became clear beyond doubt that the differences regarding the solution of the three questions
mentioned were explainable to a far greater degree by the basic
antithesis between the two trends in the Russian Social-Democratic
movement than by differences over details. On the other hand, the
perplexity of the Economists over the practical application of our
views in Iskra clearly revealed that we often speak literally in different tongues and therefore cannot arrive at an understanding without beginning ab ovo ,
and that an attempt must be made, in the simplest possible
style, illustrated by numerous and concrete examples, systematically to “clarify” all our basic points of
difference with all the Economists. I resolved to make such an attempt at “clarification”, fully realising that it would
greatly increase the size of the pamphlet and delay its
publication; I saw no other way of meeting my pledge I had made in the article “Where To Begin”. Thus, to the apologies
for the delay, I must add others for the serious literary
shortcomings of the pamphlet. I had to work in great haste ,
with frequent interruptions by a variety of other tasks.

The examination of the above three questions still constitutes
the main theme of this pamphlet, but I found it necessary to begin
with two questions of a more general nature – why such an
“innocent” and “natural” slogan as “freedom of criticism” should be for us a veritable war-cry, and why we cannot
come to an understanding even on the fundamental question of the role of
Social-Democrats in relation to the spontaneous mass movement. Further, the exposition of our views on the character
and substance of political agitation developed into an explanation
of the difference between trade-unionist politics and
Social-Democratic politics, while the exposition of our views on
organisational tasks developed into an explanation of the
difference between the amateurish methods which satisfy the
Economists, and the organisation of revolutionaries which we hold
to be indispensable. Further, I advance the “plan” for an
all-Russia political newspaper with all the more insistence
because the objections raised against it are untenable, and
because no real answer has been given to the question I raised in
the article “Where To Begin” as to how we can set to work from
all sides simultaneously to create the organisation we need. Finally, in the concluding part, I hope to show that we did
all we could to prevent a decisive break with the Economists, a
break which nevertheless proved inevitable; that Rabocheye
Dyelo acquired a special significance, a “historical” significance, if you will, because it expressed fully and
strikingly, not consistent Economism, but the confusion and
vacillation which constitute the distinguishing feature of an
entire period in the history of Russian Social-Democracy; and
that therefore the polemic with Rabocheye Dyelo , which
may upon first view seem excessively detailed, also acquires
significance, for we can make no progress until we have completely
put an end to this period.

N. Lenin

February 1902

## Notes

[3] Rabochaya Gazeta ( Workers’ Gazette )—an illegal
newspaper issued by the Kiev group of Social-Democrats. Two issues
appeared—No. 1 in August and No. 2 in December (dated November) 1897. The
First Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. adopted Rabochaya Gazeta as the
official organ of the Party, but the newspaper discontinued publication
shortly after the Congress, as a result of a police raid on the
printing-press and the arrest of the Central Committee.




### I

## Dogmatism And “Freedom of Criticism”

### A. What Does “Freedom of Criticism” Mean?

“Freedom of criticism” is undoubtedly the most fashionable
slogan at the present time, and the one most frequently employed
in the controversies between socialists and democrats in all
countries. At first sight, nothing would appear to be more
strange than the solemn appeals to freedom of criticism made by
one of the parties to the dispute. Have voices been raised in
the advanced parties against the constitutional law of the
majority of European countries which guarantees freedom to
science and scientific investigation? “Something must be wrong
here,” will be the comment of the onlooker who has heard this
fashionable slogan repeated at every turn but has not yet
penetrated the essence of the disagreement among the disputants;
evidently this slogan is one of the conventional phrases which,
like nicknames, become legitimised by use, and become almost
generic terms.”

In fact, it is no secret for anyone that two trends have taken
form in present-day international [1] [1] Incidentally, in the history of modern socialism this is a
phenomenon, perhaps unique and in its way very consoling,
namely, that the strife of the various trends within the
socialist movement has from national become international. Formerly, the disputes between Lassalleans and

Eisenachers, [24] between Guesdists and

Possibilists, [25] between Fabians and Social-Democrats, and between Narodnaya Volya adherents and
Social-Democrats, remained confined within purely national
frameworks, reflecting purely national features, and proceeding,
as it were, on different planes. At the present time (as is now
evident), the English Fabians, the French Ministerialists, the German Bernsteinians, and the Russian Critics – all belong to
the same family, all extol each other, learn from each other,
and together take up arms against “dogmatic” Marxism. In this
first really international battle with socialist opportunism,
international revolutionary Social-Democracy will perhaps become
sufficiently strengthened to put an end to the political
reaction that has long reigned in Europe?
— Lenin Social-Democracy. The conflict between these trends now flares up in a bright flame and now
dies down and smoulders under the ashes of imposing “truce
resolutions”. The essence of the “new” trend, which adopts a
“critical” attitude towards “obsolete dogmatic” Marxism, has
been clearly enough presented by Bernstein and demonstrated by Millerand.

Social-Democracy must change from a party of social revolution
into a democratic party of social reforms. Bernstein has
surrounded this political demand with a whole battery of
well-attuned “new” arguments and reasonings. Denied was the
possibility of putting socialism on a scientific basis and of
demonstrating its necessity and inevitability from the point of
view of the materialist conception of history. Denied was the
fact of growing impoverishment, the process of proletarisation,
and the intensification of capitalist contradictions; the very
concept, “ ultimate aim ”, was declared to be unsound, and the idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat was
completely rejected. Denied was the antithesis in principle
between liberalism and socialism. Denied was the theory of
the class struggle, on the alleged grounds that it could
not be applied to a strictly democratic society governed
according to the will of the majority, etc.

Thus, the demand for a decisive turn from revolutionary
Social-Democracy to bourgeois social-reformism was accompanied
by a no less decisive turn towards bourgeois criticism of all
the fundamental ideas of Marxism. In view of the fact that this
criticism of Marxism has long been directed from the political
platform, from university chairs, in numerous pamphlets and in a
series of learned treatises, in view of the fact that the entire
younger generation of the educated classes has been systematically reared for decades on this criticism, it is not
surprising that the “new critical” trend in Social-Democracy
should spring up, all complete, like Minerva from the head of
Jove. The content of this new trend did not have to grow and
take shape, it was transferred bodily from bourgeois to
socialist literature.

To proceed. If Bernstein’s theoretical criticism and political
yearnings were still unclear to anyone, the French took the
trouble strikingly to demonstrate the “new method”. In this
instance, too, France has justified its old reputation of being
“the land where, more than anywhere else, the historical class
struggles were each time fought out to a decision...” (Engels,
Introduction to Marx’s Der 18

Brumaire ). [12] The French socialists have begun, not to theorise, but to act. The
democratically more highly developed political conditions in
France have permitted them to put “Bernsteinism into practice”
immediately, with all its consequences. Millerand has furnished
an excellent example of practical Bernsteinism; not without
reason did Bernstein and Vollmar rush so zealously to defend and
laud him. Indeed, if Social-Democracy, in essence, is merely a
party of reform and must be bold enough to admit this openly,
then not only has a socialist the right to join a bourgeois
cabinet, but he must always strive to do so. If democracy, in
essence, means the abolition of class domination, then why
should not a socialist minister charm the whole bourgeois world
by orations on class collaboration? Why should he not remain in
the cabinet even after the shooting-down of workers by gendarmes
has exposed, for the hundredth and thousandth time, the real
nature of the democratic collaboration of classes? Why should he
not personally take part in greeting the tsar, for whom the
French socialists now have no other name than hero of the
gallows, knout, and exile ( knouteur, pendeur et deportateur) ? And the reward for this utter humiliation and
self-degradation of socialism in the face of the whole world,
for the corruption of the socialist consciousness of the working
masses – the only basis that can guarantee our victory – the
reward for this is pompous projects for miserable reforms, so miserable in fact that much more has been obtained
from bourgeois governments!

He who does not deliberately close his eyes cannot fail to see
that the new “critical” trend in socialism is nothing more nor
less than a new variety of opportunism . And if we judge
people, not by the glittering uniforms they don or by the highsounding appellations they give themselves, but by their
actions and by what they actually advocate, it will be clear
that “freedom of criticism” means’ freedom for an opportunist
trend in Social-Democracy, freedom to convert Social-Democracy
into a democratic party of reform, freedom to introduce
bourgeois ideas and bourgeois elements into socialism.

“Freedom” is a grand word, but under the banner of freedom for
industry the most predatory wars were waged, under the banner of
freedom of labour, the working people were robbed. The modern
use of the term “freedom of criticism” contains the same
inherent falsehood. Those who are really convinced that they
have made progress in science would not demand freedom for the
new views to continue side by side with the old, but the
substitution of the new views for the old. The cry heard today,
“Long live freedom of criticism”, is too strongly reminiscent of
the fable of the empty barrel.

We are marching in a compact group along a precipitous and
difficult path, firmly holding each other by the hand. We are
surrounded on all sides by enemies, and we have to advance
almost constantly under their fire. We have combined, by a
freely adopted decision, for the purpose of fighting the enemy,
and not of retreating into the neighbouring marsh, the inhabitants of which, from the very outset, have reproached us
with having separated ourselves into an exclusive group and with
having chosen the path of struggle instead of the path of
conciliation. And now some among us begin to cry out: Let us go
into the marsh! And when we begin to shame them, they retort:
What backward people you are! Are you not ashamed to deny us the
liberty to invite you to take a better road! Oh, yes, gentlemen!
You are free not only to invite us, but to go yourselves
wherever you will, even into the marsh. In fact, we think that
the marsh is your proper place, and we are prepared to render
you every assistance to get there. Only let go of our hands,
don’t clutch at us and don’t besmirch the grand word freedom,
for we too are “free” to go where we please, free to fight not
only against the marsh, but also against those who are turning
towards the marsh!

### B. The New Advocates of “Freedom of Criticism”

Now, this slogan (“freedom of criticism”) has in recent times
been solemnly advanced by Rabocheye Dyelo (No. 10), organ of the Union of Russian Social-Democrats Abroad, not as a
theoretical postulate, but as a political demand, as a reply to
the question, “Is it possible to unite the Social-Democratic
organisations operating abroad?”: “For a durable unity, there
must be freedom of criticism” (p. 36).

From this statement two definite conclusions follow: (1) that Rabocheye Dyelo has taken under its wing the
opportunist trend in international Social-Democracy in general,
and (2) that Rabocheye Dyelo demands freedom for opportunism in Russian Social-Democracy. Let us examine these
conclusions.

Rabocheye Dyelo is “particularly” displeased with the “inclination of Iskra and Zarya to predict a
rupture between the Mountain and the Gironde in international Social-Democracy”. [2] “Generally speaking,” writes B. Krichevsky, editor of Rabocheye Dyelo , “this talk of the Mountain and the Gironde heard in the ranks of
Social-Democracy represents a shallow historical analogy, a
strange thing to come from the pen of a Marxist. The Mountain
and the Gironde did not represent different temperaments-, or
intellectual trends, as the historians of social thought may
think, but different classes or strata – the middle bourgeoisie, on the one hand, and the petty bourgeoisie and the
proletariat, on the other. In the modern socialist movement,
however, there is no conflict of class interests; the socialist
movement in its entirety, in all of its diverse forms (Krichevsky’s italics), including the most pronounced
Bernsteinians, stands on the basis of the class interests of the
proletariat and its class struggle for political and economic
emancipation” (pp. 32-33).

“Generally speaking,” writes B. Krichevsky, editor of Rabocheye Dyelo , “this talk of the Mountain and the Gironde heard in the ranks of
Social-Democracy represents a shallow historical analogy, a
strange thing to come from the pen of a Marxist. The Mountain
and the Gironde did not represent different temperaments-, or
intellectual trends, as the historians of social thought may
think, but different classes or strata – the middle bourgeoisie, on the one hand, and the petty bourgeoisie and the
proletariat, on the other. In the modern socialist movement,
however, there is no conflict of class interests; the socialist
movement in its entirety, in all of its diverse forms (Krichevsky’s italics), including the most pronounced
Bernsteinians, stands on the basis of the class interests of the
proletariat and its class struggle for political and economic
emancipation” (pp. 32-33).

A bold assertion! Has not Krichevsky heard of the fact, long ago
noted, that it is precisely the extensive participation of an
“academic” stratum in the socialist movement in recent years that has promoted such a rapid spread of Bernsteinism? And
what is most important – on what does our author found his
opinion that even “the most pronounced Bernsteinians” stand on
the basis of the class struggle for the political and economic
emancipation of the proletariat? No one knows. This determined
defence of the most pronounced Bernsteinians is not supported by
any argument or reasoning whatever. Apparently, the author
believes that if he repeats what the most pronounced
Bernsteinians say about themselves his assertion requires no
proof. But can anything more “shallow” be imagined than this
judgement of an entire trend based on nothing more than what the
representatives of that trend say about themselves? Can anything
more shallow be imagined than the subsequent “homily” on the two
different and even diametrically opposite types, or paths, of
party development? ( Rabocheye Dyelo , pp. 34-35.) The
German Social-Democrats, in other words, recognise complete
freedom  of criticism, but the French do not, and it is
precisely their example that demonstrates the “bane of intolerance”.

To this we can only say that the very example B. Krichevsky
affords us attests to the fact that the name Marxists is at
times assumed by people who conceive history literally in the
“Ilovaisky manner”. [13] To explain the unity of the German Socialist
Party and the disunity of the French Socialist Party, there is
no need whatever to go into the special features in the history
of these countries, to contrast the conditions of military
semiabsolutism in the one with republican parliamentarism in the
other, to analyse the effects of the Paris Commune and the
effects of the Exceptional Law Against the Socialists, to
compare the economic life and economic development of the two
countries, or to recall that “the unexampled growth of German
Social-Democracy” was accompanied by a strenuous struggle,
unique in the history of socialism, not only against erroneous
theories (Mühlberger, Dühring, [3] the Katheder -Socialists [14] ), but also against erroneous
tactics (Lassalle), etc., etc. All that is superfluous! The
French quarrel among themselves because they are intolerant; the
Germans are united because they are good boys.

And observe, this piece of matchless profundity is designed to
“refute” the fact that puts to rout the defence of the
Bernsteinians. The question whether or not the Bernsteinians stand on the basis of the class struggle of the
proletariat is one that can be completely and irrevocably
answered only by historical experience. Consequently, the
example of France holds greatest significance in this respect,
because France is the only country in which the Bernsteinians
attempted to stand independently, on their own feet, with the warm approval of their German colleagues (and partly
also of the Russian opportunists; cf. Rabocheye Dyelo ,
No. 2-3, pp. 83-84). The reference to the “intolerance” of the
French, apart from its “historical” significance (in the

Nozdryov [15] sense), turns out to be merely an attempt to –hush up
very unpleasant facts with angry invectives.

Nor are we inclined to make a present of the Germans to
Krichevsky and the numerous other champions of “freedom of
criticism”. If the “most pronounced Bernsteinians” are still
tolerated in the ranks of the German party, it is only to the
extent that they submit to the Hanover resolution, [16] which emphatically rejected Bernstein’s “amendments”, and to the
Lubeck resolution, which (notwithstanding the diplomatic terms
in which it is couched) contains a direct warning to
Bernstein. It is debatable, from the standpoint of the interests
of the German party, whether diplomacy was appropriate and
whether, in this case, a bad peace is better than a good
quarrel; in short, opinions may differ as to the expediency of
any one of the methods employed to reject Bernsteinism,
but that the German party did reject Bernsteinism on two occasions, is a fact no one can fail to see. Therefore, to
think that the German example confirms the thesis that “the most
pronounced Bernsteinians stand on the basis of the class
struggle of the proletariat, for political and economic
emancipation”, means to fail completely to understand what is
going on under our very eyes. [4]

Nor is that all. As we have seen, Rabocheye Dyelo demands “freedom of criticism” and defends Bernsteinism before Russian Social-Democracy. Apparently it convinced
itself that we were unfair to our “Critics” and
Bernsteinians. But to which ones? who? where? when? What did the
unfairness represent? About this, not a word. Rabocheye
Dyelo does not name a single Russian Critic or
Bernsteinian!  We are left with but one of two possible
suppositions. Either the unfairly treated party is none
other than Rabocheye Dyelo itself (this is confirmed by
the fact that in the two articles in No. 10 reference is made
only to the wrongs suffered by Rabocheye Dyelo at the hands of Zarya and Iskra ). If that is the case, how is the strange fact to be explained that Rabocheye
Dyelo , which always vehemently dissociated itself from all
solidarity with Bernsteinism, could not defend itself without
putting in a word in defence of the “most pronounced
Bernsteinians” and of freedom of criticism? Or some third
persons have been treated unfairly. if this is the case, then
what reasons may there be for not naming them?

We see, therefore, that Rabocheye Dyelo is continuing to play the game of hide-and-seek it has played (as we shall
show below) ever since its founding. And let us note further
this first practical application of the vaunted “freedom of criticism”. In actual fact, not only was it
forthwith reduced to abstention from all criticism, but also to
abstention from expressing independent views altogether. The
very Rabocheye Dyelo , which avoids mentioning Russian
Bernsteinism as if it were a shameful disease (to use

Starover’s [17] apt expression), proposes, for the treatment of this disease, to
copy word for word the latest German prescription for the German
variety of the malady! Instead of freedom of criticism slavish
(worse: apish) imitation! The very same social and political
content of modern international opportunism reveals itself in a
variety of ways according to national peculiarities. In one
country the opportunists have long ago come out under a separate
flag; in another, they have ignored theory and in fact pursued
the policy of the Radicals-Socialists; in a third, some members
of the revolutionary party have deserted to the camp of
opportunism and strive to achieve their aims, not in open
struggle for principles and for new tactics, but by gradual,
imperceptible, and, if one may so put it, unpunishable corruption of their party; in a fourth country, similar
deserters employ the same methods in the gloom of political
slavery, and with a completely original combination of “legal”
and “illegal” activity, etc. To talk of freedom of criticism and
of Bernsteinism as a condition for uniting the Russian Social Democrats and not to explain how Russian Bernsteinism has manifested itself and what particular
fruits it has borne, amounts to talking with the aim of saying
nothing.

Let us ourselves try, if only in a  few words, to say what Rabocheye Dyelo did not want to say (or which was,
perhaps, beyond its comprehension).

### C. Criticism in Russia

The chief distinguishing feature of Russia in regard to the
point we are examining is that the very beginning of the spontaneous working-class movement, on the one hand, and of
the turn of progressive public opinion towards Marxism, on the
other, was marked by the combination of manifestly heterogeneous
elements under a common flag to fight the common enemy (the
obsolete social and political world outlook). We refer to the
heyday of “legal Marxism”. Speaking generally, this was an
altogether curious phenomenon that no one in the eighties or the
beginning of the nineties would have believed possible. In a
country ruled by an autocracy, with a completely enslaved press,
in a period of desperate political reaction in which even the
tiniest outgrowth of political discontent and protest is
persecuted, the theory of revolutionary Marxism suddenly forces
its way into the censored literature and, though expounded in Aesopian language, is understood by all the
“interested”. The government had accustomed itself to regarding
only the theory of the (revolutionary) Narodnaya Volya as
dangerous, without, as is usual, observing its internal
evolution, and rejoicing at any criticism levelled against
it. Quite a considerable time elapsed (by our Russian standards)
before the government realised what had happened and the
unwieldy army of censors and gendarmes discovered the new enemy
and flung itself upon him. Meanwhile, Marxist books were
published one after another, Marxist journals and newspapers
were founded, nearly everyone became a Marxist, Marxists were
flattered, Marxists were courted, and the book publishers
rejoiced at the extraordinary, ready sale of Marxist literature.
It was quite natural, therefore, that among the Marxian
neophytes who were caught up in this atmosphere, there should be
more than one “author who got a swelled head...” [18]

We can now speak calmly of this period as of an event of the
past. It is no secret that the brief period in which Marxism
blossomed on the surface of our literature was called forth by
an alliance between people of extreme and of very moderate
views. In point of fact, the latter were bourgeois democrats;
this conclusion (so markedly confirmed by their subsequent
“critical” development) suggested itself to some even when the
“alliance” was still intact. [5]

That being the case, are not the revolutionary Social-Democrats
who entered into the alliance with the future “Critics” mainly
responsible for the subsequent “confusion”? This question,
together with a reply in the affirmative, is sometimes heard
from people with too rigid a view. But such people are entirely
in the wrong. Only those who are not sure of themselves can fear
to enter into temporary alliances even with unreliable people;
not a single political party could exist without such alliances. The combination with the legal Marxists was in its
way the first really political alliance entered into by Russian
Social -Democrats. Thanks to this alliance, an astonishingly
rapid victory was obtained over Narodism, and Marxist ideas
(even though in a vulgarised form) became very widespread. Moreover, the alliance was not concluded altogether
without  “conditions”. Evidence of this is the burning by the
censor, in 1895, of the Marxist collection Material on the
Question of the Economic Development of Russia . [19] If the literary agreement with the legal Marxists can be compared with
a political alliance, then that book can be compared with a
political treaty.

The rupture, of course, did not occur because the “allies”
proved to be bourgeois democrats. On the contrary, the representatives of the latter trend are natural and desirable
allies of Social-Democracy insofar as its democratic tasks,
brought to the fore by the prevailing situation in Russia, are
concerned. But an essential condition for such an alliance must
be the full opportunity for the socialists to reveal to the
working class that its interests are diametrically opposed to
the interests of the bourgeoisie. However, the Bernsteinian and
“critical” trend, to which the majority of the legal Marxists
turned, deprived the socialists of this opportunity and
demoralised the socialist consciousness by vulgarising Marxism,
by advocating the theory of the blunting of social contradictions, by declaring the idea of the social revolution
and of the dictatorship of the proletariat  to be absurd, by
reducing the working-class movement and the class struggle to
narrow trade-unionism and to a “realistic” struggle for petty,
gradual reforms. This was synonymous with bourgeois democracy’s
denial of socialism’s right to independence and, consequently,
of its right to existence; in practice it meant a striving to
convert the nascent working-class movement into an appendage of
the liberals.

Naturally, under such circumstances the rupture was necessary. But the “peculiar” feature of Russia manifested
itself in the fact that this rupture simply meant the elimination of the Social-Democrats from the most accessible and
widespread “legal” literature. The “ex-Marxists”, who took up
the flag of “criticism” and who obtained almost a monopoly to
"demolish Marxism, entrenched themselves in this literature. Catchwords like “Against orthodoxy” and “Long live
freedom of criticism” (now repeated by Rabocheye Dyelo )
forthwith became the vogue, and the fact that neither the censor
nor the gendarmes could resist this vogue is apparent from the
publication of three Russian editions of the work of the celebrated Bernstein (celebrated in the Herostratean sense)
and from the fact that the works of Bernstein, Mr. Prokopovich,
and others were recommended by Zubatov ( Iskra , No. 10). A task now devolved upon the Social Democrats that was
difficult in itself and was made incredibly more difficult by
purely external obstacles – the task of combating the new
trend. This trend did not confine itself to the sphere of
literature. The turn towards “criticism” was accompanied by an
infatuation for Economism among Social-Democratic practical
workers.

The manner in which the connection between, and interdependence
of, legal criticism and illegal Economism arose and grew is in
itself an interesting subject, one that could serve as the theme
of a special article. We need only note here that this connection undoubtedly existed. The notoriety deservedly
acquired by the Credo was due precisely to the frankness with which it formulated this connection and blurted
out the fundamental political tendency of Economism – let the
workers carry on the economic struggle (it would be more correct
to say the trade unionist struggle, because the latter also
embraces specifically working class politics) and let the
Marxist intelligentsia merge with the liberals for the political
“struggle.” Thus, trade-unionist work “among the people” meant
fulfilling the first part of this task, while legal criticism
meant fulfilling the second. This statement was such an
excellent weapon against Economism that, had there been no Credo , it would have been worth inventing one.

The Credo was not invented, but it was published without the
consent and perhaps even against the will of its authors.  At
all events, the present writer, who took part in dragging this
new “programme” into the light of day, [6] has heard complaints
and reproaches to the effect that copies of the resume of the
speakers’ views were distributed, dubbed the Credo , and
even published in the press together with the protest! We refer
to this episode because it reveals a very peculiar feature of
our Economism – fear of publicity. This is a feature of
Economism generally, and not of the authors of the Credo alone. It was revealed by that most outspoken and honest
advocate of Economism, Rabochaya Mysl , and by Rabocheye Dyelo (which was indignant over the
publication of “Economist” documents in the

Vademecum [20] ), as well as by the Kiev Committee, which two years ago refused to permit
the publication of its profession de foi , [7] together with a repudiation of it, [8] and by many other individual
representatives of Economism.

This fear of criticism displayed by the advocates of freedom of
criticism cannot be attributed solely to craftiness (although,
on occasion, no doubt craftiness is brought into play: it would
be improvident to expose the young and as yet frail shoots of
the new trend. to attacks by opponents). No, the majority of the
Economists look with sincere resentment (as by the very nature
of Economism they must) upon all theoretical controversies,
factional disagreements, broad political questions, plans for
organising revolutionaries, etc. “Leave all that to the people
abroad!” said a fairly consistent Economist to me one day,
thereby expressing a very widespread (and again purely trade-unionist) view; our concern is the working-class movement,
the workers, organisations here, in our localities; all the rest
is merely the invention of doctrinaires, “the overrating of
ideology”, as the authors of the letter, published in Iskra , No. 12, expressed it, in unison with Rabocheye Dyelo , No. 10.

The question now arises: such being the peculiar features of
Russian “criticism” and Russian Bernsteinism, what should have
been the task of those who sought to oppose opportunism in deeds
and not merely in words? First, they should have made efforts to
resume the theoretical work that had barely begun in the period
of legal Marxism and that fell anew on the shoulders of the
comrades working underground. Without such work the successful
growth of the movement was impossible. Secondly, they should
have actively combated the legal “criticism” that was perverting
people’s minds on a considerable scale. Thirdly, they should
have actively opposed confusion and vacillation in the practical
movement, exposing and repudiating every conscious or unconscious attempt to degrade our programme and our tactics.

That Rabocheye Dyelo did none of these things is well known; we shall have occasion below to deal with this well-known
fact in detail and from various aspects. At the moment, however,
we desire merely to show the glaring contradiction that exists
between the demand for “freedom of criticism” and the specific
features of our native criticism and Russian Economism. It
suffices but to glance at the text of the resolution in which
the Union of Russian Social Democrats Abroad endorsed the point
of view of Rabocheye Dyelo .

“In the interests of the further ideological development of
Social-Democracy, we recognise the freedom of criticism of
Social-Democratic theory in Party literature to be absolutely
necessary insofar as the criticism does not run counter to the
class and revolutionary character of this theory” ( Two
Conferences , p. 10).

“In the interests of the further ideological development of
Social-Democracy, we recognise the freedom of criticism of
Social-Democratic theory in Party literature to be absolutely
necessary insofar as the criticism does not run counter to the
class and revolutionary character of this theory” ( Two
Conferences , p. 10).

And the motivation? The resolution “in its first part coincides
with the resolution of the Lubeck Party Congress on
Bernstein”. . . . In the simplicity of their souls the “Unionists” failed to observe what a testimonium
paupertatis (attestation of poverty) they betray with this
copying. . .. “But ... in its second part, it restricts freedom
of criticism much more than did the Lubeck Party Congress.”

The resolution of the Union Abroad, then, is directed against
the Russian Bernsteinians? If it is not, then the reference to
Lubeck would be utterly absurd. But it is not true to say that
it “restricts freedom of criticism”. In adopting their Hanover
resolution, the Germans, point by point, rejected precisely the amendments proposed by Bernstein, while in their Lubeck
resolution they cautioned Bernstein personally , by naming him. Our “free” imitators, however, make not a single
allusion to a single manifestation of specifically
Russian “criticism” and Russian Economism. In view of this
omission, the bare reference to the class and revolutionary
character of the theory leaves far wider scope for misinterpretation, particularly when the Union Abroad refuses to
identify “so-called Economism” with opportunism ( Two
Conferences , p. 8, Paragraph 1). But all this, in passing. The main thing to note is that the positions of the
opportunists in relation to the revolutionary Social-Democrats
in Russia are diametrically opposed to those in Germany. In that
country, as we know, the revolutionary Social-Democrats are in
favour of preserving that which exists – the old programme and
the tactics, which are universally known and have been elucidated in all their details by many decades of
experience. But the “Critics” desire to introduce changes, and
since these Critics represent an insignificant minority, and
since they are very timid in their revisionist efforts, one can
understand the motives of the majority in confining themselves
to the dry rejection of “innovations”. In Russia, however, it is
the Critics and the Economists who are in favour of preserving
that which exists: the “Critics” want us to go on regarding them
as Marxists and to guarantee them the “freedom of criticism”
they enjoyed to the full (for, in fact, they never recognised
any kind of party ties, [9] [9] The fact alone of the absence of public party ties and party
traditions, representing as it does a cardinal difference
between Russia and Germany, should have warned all sensible
socialists against blind imitation. But here is an instance of
the lengths to which “freedom of criticism” goes in
Russia. Mr. Bulgakov, the Russian Critic, utters the following
reprimand to the Austrian Critic, Hertz: “Notwithstanding the
independence of his conclusions, Hertz on this point on the
question of co-operative societies) apparently remains excessively bound by the opinions of his party, and although he
disagrees with it in details, he dare not reject the common
principle” ( Capitalism and Agriculture , Vol. II,
p. 287). The subject of a politically enslaved state, in which
nine hundred and ninety-nine out of a thousand of the population
are corrupted to the marrow by political subservience and
completely lack the conception of party honour and party ties,
superciliously reproves a citizen of a constitutional state for
being excessively “bound by the opinions of his party”! Our
illegal organisations have nothing else to do, of course, but
draw up resolutions on freedom of criticism....
— Lenin and, moreover, we never had a generally recognised party body that could “restrict” freedom of
criticism, if only by counsel); the Economists want the
revolutionaries to recognise the sovereign character of the
present movement" ( Rabocheye Dyelo , No. 10, p. 25), i.e., to recognise the “legitimacy” of that which exists; they
want the “ideologists” not to try to “divert” the movement from
the path that “is determined by the interaction of material. elements and material environment” (“Letter” in Iskra , No. 12); they want to have that struggle
recognised as desirable “which it is possible for the workers to
wage under the present conditions”, and as the only possible
struggle, that “which they are actually waging at the present
time” (“ Separate Supplement ” to Rabochaya
Mysl , p. 14). We revolutionary Social-Democrats, on the
contrary, are dissatisfied with this worship of spontaneity,
i.e., of that which exists “at the present moment”. We demand
that the tactics that have prevailed in recent years he changed;
we declare that “before we can unite, and in order that we may
unite, we must first of all draw firm and definite lines of
demarcation” (see announcement of the publication of Iskra ). [10] In a word, the Germans stand for that
which exists and reject changes; we demand a change of that
which exists, and reject subservience thereto and reconciliation
to it.

This “slight” difference our “free” copyists of German resolutions failed to notice.

### D. Engels On the Importance of the Theoretical Struggle

“Dogmatism, doctrinairism”, “ossification of the party – the
inevitable retribution that follows the violent strait-lacing of
thought” – these are the enemies against which the knightly
champions of “freedom of criticism” in Rabocheye Dyelo rise up in arms. We are very glad that this question has been
placed on the order of the day and we would only propose to add
to it one other:

And who are the judges?

We have before us two publishers’ announcements. One, “The
Programme of the Periodical Organ of the Union of Russian Social
Democrats Abroad – Rabocheye Dyelo ” (reprint from
No. 1 of Rabocheye Dyelo ), and the other, the “Announcement of the Resumption of the Publications of the
Emancipation of Labour Group”. Both are dated 1899, when the
“crisis of Marxism” had long been under discussion. And what do
we find? We would seek in vain in the first announcement for any
reference to this phenomenon, or a definite statement of the
position the new organ intends to adopt on this question. Not a
word is said about theoretical work and the urgent tasks that
now confront it, either in this programme or in the supplements
to it that were adopted by the Third Congress of the Union
Abroad in 1901 ( Two Conferences , pp. 15-18). During this entire time the Editorial Board of Rabocheye Dyelo ignored theoretical questions, in spite of the fact that these
were questions that disturbed the minds of all Social-Democrats
the world over.

The other announcement, on the contrary, points first of all to
the declining interest in theory in recent years, imperatively
demands “vigilant attention to the theoretical aspect of the
revolutionary movement of the proletariat”, and calls for
“ruthless criticism of the Bernsteinian and other anti-revolutionary tendencies” in our movement. The issues of Zarya to date show how this programme has been carried
out.

Thus, we see that high-sounding phrases against the ossification
of thought, etc., conceal unconcern and helplessness with regard
to the development of theoretical thought. The case of the
Russian Social-Democrats manifestly illustrates the general
European phenomenon (long ago noted also by the German Marxists)
that the much vaunted freedom of criticism does not imply
substitution of one theory for another, but freedom from all
integral and pondered theory; it implies eclecticism and lack of
principle. Those who have the slightest acquaintance with the
actual state of our movement cannot but see that the wide spread
of Marxism was accompanied by a certain lowering of the
theoretical level. Quite a number of people with very little,
and even a total lack of theoretical training joined the
movement because of its practical significance and its practical
successes. We can judge from that how tactless Rabocheye
Dyelo is when, with an air of triumph, it quotes Marx’s
statement: “Every step of real movement is more important than a
dozen programmes.” [21] To repeat these words in a period of
theoretical disorder is like wishing mourners at a funeral many
happy returns of the day. Moreover, these words of Marx are
taken from his letter on the Gotha

Programme, [22] in which he sharply condemns eclecticism in the formulation of
principles. If you must unite, Marx wrote to the party leaders,
then enter into agreements to satisfy the practical aims of the
movement, but do not allow any bargaining over principles, do
not make theoretical “concessions”. This was Marx’s idea, and yet there are people among us who seek—in his name—to belittle the significance of theory!

Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary
movement. This idea cannot be insisted upon too strongly at a
time when the fashionable preaching of opportunism goes hand in
hand with an infatuation for the narrowest forms of practical
activity. Yet, for Russian Social-Democrats the importance of
theory is enhanced by three other circumstances, which are often
forgotten: first, by the fact that our Party is only in process
of formation, its features are only just becoming defined, and
it has as yet far from settled accounts with the other trends of
revolutionary thought that threaten to divert the movement from
the correct path. On the contrary, precisely the very recent
past was marked by a revival of non-Social-Democratic revolutionary trends (an eventuation regarding which Axelrod
long ago warned the Economists). Under these circumstances, what
at first sight appears to be an “unimportant” error may lead to
most deplorable consequences, and only short-sighted people can
consider factional disputes and a strict differentiation between
shades of opinion inopportune or superfluous. The fate of
Russian Social-Democracy for very many years to come may depend
on the strengthening of one or the other “shade”.

Secondly, the Social-Democratic movement is in its very essence
an international movement. This means, not only that we must
combat national chauvinism, but that an incipient movement in a
young country can be successful only if it makes use of the
experiences of other countries. In order to make use of these
experiences it is not enough merely to be acquainted with them,
or simply to copy out the latest resolutions. What is required
is the ability to treat these experiences critically and to test
them independently. He who realises how enormously the modern
working-class movement has grown and branched out will understand what a reserve of theoretical forces and political
(as well as revolutionary) experience is required to carry out
this task.

Thirdly, the national tasks of Russian Social-Democracy are such
as have never confronted any other socialist party in the
world. We shall have occasion further on to deal with the
political and organisational duties which the task of emancipating the whole people from the yoke of autocracy imposes
upon us.  At this point, we wish to state only that the role
of vanguard fighter can be fulfilled only by a party that is
guided by the most advanced theory. To have a concrete understanding of what this means, let the reader recall such
predecessors of Russian Social Democracy as Herzen, Belinsky,
Chernyshevsky, and the brilliant galaxy of revolutionaries of
the seventies; let him ponder over the world significance which
Russian literature is now acquiring; let him. . . but be that
enough!

Let us quote what Engels said in 1874 concerning the significance of theory in the Social-Democratic movement. Engels
recognizes, not two forms of the great struggle of
Social Democracy (political and economic), as is the fashion
among us, but three, placing the theoretical struggle on a
par with the first two . His recommendations to the German
working-class movement, which had become strong, practically and
politically, are so instructive from the standpoint of present-day problems and controversies, that we hope the reader
will not be vexed with us for quoting a long passage from his
prefatory note to Der deutsche Bauernkrieg , [11] which has long become a great bibliographical rarity:

“The German workers have two important advantages over those of
the rest of Europe. First, they belong to the most theoretical
people of Europe; and they have retained that sense of theory
which the so-called ’educated’ classes of Germany have almost
completely lost. Without German philosophy, which preceded it,
particularly that of Hegel, German scientific socialism – the
only scientific socialism that has ever existed – would never
have come into being. Without a sense of theory among the
workers, this scientific socialism would never have entered
their flesh and blood as much as is the case. What an immeasurable advantage this is may be seen, on the one hand,
from the indifference towards all theory, which is one of the
main reasons why the English working-class movement crawls along
so slowly in spite of the splendid organisation of the individual unions; on the other hand, from the mischief and
confusion wrought by Proudhonism, in its original form, among
the French and Belgians, and, in the form further caricatured by
Bakunin, among the Spaniards and Italians.

“The second advantage is that, chronologically speaking, the
Germans were about the last to come into the workers’ movement. Just as German theoretical socialism will never forget
that it rests on the shoulders of Saint-Simon, Fourier, and Owen
– three men who, in spite of all their fantastic notions and
all their utopianism, have their place among the most eminent
thinkers of all times, and whose genius anticipated innumerable
things, the correctness of which is now being scientifically
proved by us – so the practical workers’ movement in Germany
ought never to forget that it has developed on the shoulders of
the English and French movements, that it was able simply to
utilise their dearly bought experience, and could now avoid
their mistakes, which in their time were mostly unavoidable. Without the precedent of the English trade unions
and French workers’ political struggles, without the gigantic
impulse given especially by the Paris Commune, where would we be
now?

“It must be said to the credit of the German workers that they
have exploited the advantages of their situation with rare
understanding. For the first time since a workers’ movement has
existed, the struggle is being conducted pursuant to its three
sides – the. theoretical, the political, and the practical-economic (resistance to the capitalists) – in harmony
and in its interconnections, and in a systematic way. It is
precisely in this, as it were, concentric attack, that the
strength and invincibility of the German movement lies.

“Due to this advantageous situation, on the one hand, and to the
insular peculiarities of the English and the forcible suppression  of the French movement, on the other, the German
workers have for the moment been placed in the vanguard of the
proletarian struggle. How long events will allow them to occupy
this post of honour cannot be foretold. But let us hope that as
long as they occupy it, they will fill it fittingly. This
demands redoubled efforts in every field of struggle and
agitation. In particular, it will be the duty of the leaders to
gain an ever clearer insight into all theoretical questions, to
free themselves more and more from the influence of traditional
phrases inherited from the old world outlook, and constantly to
keep in mind that socialism, since it has become a science,
demands that it be pursued as a science, i.e., that it be
studied. The task will be to spread with increased zeal among
the masses of the workers the ever more clarified understanding
thus acquired, to knit together ever more firmly the organisation both of the party and of the trade unions....

“If the German workers progress in this way, they will not. be
marching exactly at the head of the movement – it is not at all
in the interest of this movement that the workers of any
particular country should march at its head – but they will
occupy an honourable place in the battle line; and they will
stand armed for battle when either unexpectedly grave trials or
momentous events demand of them increased courage, increased
determination and energy.” [23]

Engels’s words proved prophetic. Within a few years the German
workers were subjected to unexpectedly grave trials in the form
of the Exceptional Law Against the Socialists. And they met those trials armed for battle and succeeded in emerging from
them victorious.

The Russian proletariat will have to undergo trials immeasurably
graver; it will have to fight a monster compared with which an
antisocialist law in a constitutional country seems but a
dwarf. History has now confronted us with an immediate task
which is the most revolutionary of all the immediate tasks confronting the proletariat of any
country. The fulfilment of this task, the destruction of the
most powerful bulwark, not only of European, but (it may now be
said) of Asiatic reaction, would make the Russian proletariat
the vanguard of the international revolutionary proletariat. And
we have the right to count upon acquiring this honourable title,
already earned by our predecessors, the revolutionaries of the
seventies, if we succeed in inspiring our movement, which is a
thousand times broader and deeper, with the same devoted
determination and vigour.

## Notes

[2] A comparison of the two trends within the revolutionary
proletariat (the revolutionary and the opportunist), and the two
trends within the revolutionary bourgeoisie in the eighteenth
century (the Jacobin, known as the Mountain, and the Girondist)
was made in the leading article in No. 2 of Iskra (February 1901). The article was written by Plekhanov. The

Cadets, [26] the
Bezzaglavtsi, [27] and the Mensheviks to this day love to
refer to Jacobinism in Russian Social-Democracy. But how
Plekhanov came to apply this concept for the first time against
the Right wing of Social-Democracy – about this they prefer to
keep silent or to forget. (Author’s note to the 1907 edition – Ed. ) — Lenin

[3] At the
time Engels dealt his blows at Duhring, many representatives of
German Social-Democracy inclined towards the latter’s views, and
accusations of acerbity, intolerance, uncomradely polemics,
etc., were hurled at Engels even publicly at a Party
Congress. At the Congress of 1877,  Most, and his supporters,
introduced a resolution to prohibit the publication of Engels’s
articles in Vorwarts because “they do not interest the overwhelming majority of the readers”, and Vahlteich declared
that their publication had caused great damage to the Party,
that Duhring too had rendered services to Social-Democracy: “We
must utilise everyone in the interests of the Party; let the
professors engage in polemics if they care to do so, but Vorwarts is not the place in which to conduct them”
( Vorwarts , No. 65, June 6, 1877). Here we have another
example of the defence of “freedom of criticism”, and our legal
critics and illegal opportunists, who love so much to cite the
example of the Germans, would do well to ponder it!
— Lenin

[4] It should be observed that Rabocheye Dyelo has always
confined itself to a bare statement of facts concerning
Bernsteinism in the German party and completely “refrained” from
expressing its own opinion. See, for instance, the reports of
the Stuttgart

Congress [28] in No. 2-3 (p. 66), in which all the disagreements are reduced to “tactics” and the statement is
merely made that the overwhelming majority remain true to the
previous revolutionary tactics. Or, No. 4-5 (p. 25, et seq.), in
which we have nothing but a paraphrasing of the speeches
delivered at the Hanover Congress, with a reprint of Bebel’s
resolution. An exposition and a criticism of Bernstein’s views
are again put olf (as was the case in No. 2-8) to be dealt with
in a “special article”. Curiously enough, in No. 4-5 (p. 33), we
read the following: “...the views expounded by Bebel have the
support of the vast majority of the Congress,” and a few lines
thereafter:  “ ..David defended Bernstein’s views.... First of
all, he tried to show that ... Bernstein and his friends, after
all is said and done (sic!), stand on the basis of the class
struggle...” This was written in December 1899, and in September
1901 Rabocheye Dyelo, apparently no longer believing that Bebel was right, repeats David’s views as its own!
— Lenin

[5] The reference is to an article by K. Tulin directed against
Struve. (See Collected Works , Vol. 1, pp. 333-507. – Ed .) The article was based on an essay entitled “The
Reflection of Marxism in Bourgeois Literature”. (Author’s note
to the 1907 edition – Ed. )
— Lenin

[6] The reference is to the Protest of the Seventeen against the
Credo. The present writer took part in drawing up this protest (the end of
1899). [29] The Protest and the Credo were published abroad
in the spring of 1900. (See “A Protest of Russian
Social-Democrats”, Collected Works , Vol. 4, pp. 167-82 –Ed .) It is now known from the article written by
Madame Kuskova (I think in Byloye [30] ) that she was the
author of the Credo and that Mr. Prokopovich was very prominent among the Economists abroad at the time. (Author’s
note to the 1907 edition – Ed .)
— Lenin

[7] Confession of faith. [31] — Lenin

[8] As far as our information goes, the composition of the Kiev Committee
has changed since then.
— Lenin

[10] See present edition, Vol. 4, p. 354.— Ed .

[11] Dritter Abdruck, Leipzig, 1875. Verlag der
Genossenschaftsbuchdruckerei. ( The Peasant War in
Germany . Third impression. Co-operative Publishers, Leipzig, 1875.— Ed .)
— Lenin

[24] Lassalleans and Eisenachers —two parties in the German
working-class movement in the sixties and early seventies of the nineteenth
century.

Lassalleans —supporters of Ferdinand Lassalle (1825–1864)
and adherents of his theories; Lassalle was a German petty-bourgeois socialist who played an active part in organising (in 1863) the General
Association of German Workers, a political organisation that existed up to
1875. The programmatic demands of the Association were formulated by
Lassalle in a number of articles and speeches. Lassalle regarded the state
as a supra-class organisation and, in conformity with that philosophically
idealist view, believed that the Prussian state could be utilised to solve
the social problem through the setting up of producers’ co-operatives with
its aid. Marx said that Lassalle advocated a “Royal-Prussian state
socialism”. Lassalle directed the workers towards peaceful, parliamentary
forms of struggle, believing that the introduction of universal suffrage
would make Prussia a “free people’s state”. To obtain universal suffrage
he promised Bismarck the support of his Association against the liberal
opposition and also in the implementation of Bismarck’s plan to reunite
Germany “from above” under the hegemony of Prussia. Lassalle repudiated
the revolutionary class struggle, denied the importance of trade unions and
of strike action, ignored the international tasks of the working class, and
infected the German workers with nationalist ideas. His contemptuous
attitude towards the peasantry, which he regarded as a reactionary force,
did much damage to the German working-class movement. Marx and Engels
fought his harmful utopian dogmatism and his reformist views. Their
criticism helped free the German workers from the influence of Lassallean
opportunism.

Eisenachers —members of the Social-Democratic Workers’ Party
of Germany, founded in 1869 at the Eisenach Congress. The leaders of the
Eisenachers were August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht, who were under the
ideological influence of Marx and Engels. The Eisenach programme stated
that the Social-Democratic Workers’ Party of Germany considered itself “a
section of the International Working Men’s Association and shared its
aspirations”. Thanks to the regular advice and criticism of Marx and
Engels, the Eisenachers pursued a more consistent revolutionary policy than
did Lassalle’s General Association of German Workers; in particular, on the
question of German reunification, they followed “the democratic and
proletarian road, struggling against the slightest concession to
Prussianism, Bismarckism, and nationalism” (see present edition, Vol. 19,
“August Bebel”). Under the influence of the growing working-class
movement and of increased government repressions, the two parties united at
the Gotha Congress in 1875 to form the Socialist Workers’ Party of Germany,
of which the Lassalleans formed the opportunist wing.

[25] Guesdists and Possibilists —two trends in the French
socialist movement arising out of the split in the French Workers’ Party in
1882.

Guesdists —followers of Jules Guesde, constituted the Marxist
wing of the movement and advocated an independent revolutionary policy of
the proletariat. In 1901 they formed the Socialist Party of France.

Possibilists —a petty-bourgeois, reformist trend that sought
to divert the proletariat from revolutionary methods of struggle. The
Possibilists advocated the restriction of working-class activity to what is
“possible” under capitalism. In 1902, in conjunction with other reformist
groups, the Possibilists organised the French Socialist Party.

In 1905 the Socialist Party of France and the French Socialist Party
united to form a single party. During the imperialist war of 1944–18,
Jules Guesde, together with the entire leadership of the French Socialist
Party, went over to the camp of social-chauvinism.

[12] Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte , Marx
and Engels, Selected Works , Vol. I, Moscow, 1959, p. 245.

[26] Cadets —the Constitutional-Democratic Party, the principal
bourgeois party in Russia, representing the liberal-monarchist
bourgeoisie. It was formed in October 1905. Parading as democrats and
calling themselves the party of “people’s freedom”, the Cadets tried to
win the following of the peasantry. Their aim was to preserve tsarism in
the form of a constitutional monarchy. After the victory of the October
Socialist Revolution, the Cadets organised counter-revolutionary
conspiracies and revolts against the Soviet Republic.

[27] Bezzaglavtsi —from the title of the journal Bes
Zaglaviya ( Without a Title )—were organisers of, and contributors to, the journal published in St. Petersburg in 1906 by
S. N. Prokopovich, Y. D. Kuskova, V. Y. Bogucharsky, and others. The
journal openly advocated revisionism, supported the Mensheviks and
liberals, and opposed an independent proletarian policy. Lenin called the
group “pro-Menshevik Cadets or pro-Cadet Mensheviks”.

[13] Ilovaisky, D. I. (1832–1920)—historian; author of numerous
official textbooks of history that were extensively used in primary and
secondary schools in pre-revolutionary Russia. In Ilovaisky’s texts history
was reduced mainly to acts of kings and generals; the historical process
was explained through secondary and fortuitous circumstances.

[14] Katheder-Socialism —a trend in bourgeois political economy
that emerged in Germany in the seventies and eighties of the nineteenth
century. Under the guise of socialism the Katheder-Socialists preached
bourgeois-liberal reformism from university chairs ( Katheder ).
They maintained that the bourgeois state was above classes, that it was
capable of reconciling hostile classes and gradually introducing
“socialism”, without affecting the interests of the capitalists, while,
at the same time, taking the demands of the workers as far as possible into
consideration. In Russia the views of the Katheder-Socialists were disseminated by the “legal
Marxists”.

[15] Nozdryov —a character In Gogol’s Dead Souls whom the
author called “an historical personage” for the reason that wherever he
went he left behind him a scandalous “history”.

[16] The Hanover resolution—resolution on “Attacks on the
Fundamental Views and Tactics of the Party”, adopted by the German
Social-Democratic Party Congress at Hanover, September 27–October 2
(October 9–14), 1899. A discussion of this question at the Congress and
the adoption of a special resolution were necessitated by the fact that the
opportunists, led by Bernstein, launched a revisionist attack on Marxist
theory and demanded a reconsideration of Social-Democratic revolutionary
policy and tactics. The resolution adopted by the Congress rejected the
demands of the revisionists, but failed to criticise and expose
Bernsteinism. Bernstein’s supporters also voted for the resolution.

[28] The Stuttgart Congress of the German Social-Democratic Party
held on September 21–26 (October 3–8), 1898, was the first congress to
discuss the question of revisionism in the German Social-Democratic
Party. A statement from Bernstein (who did not attend) was read to the
Congress; it amplified and defended the opportunist views he had previously
set forth in a number of articles. There was, however, no unity among his
opponents at the Congress. Some (Bebel, Kautsky, and others) called for an
ideological struggle and a criticism of Bernstein’s errors, but opposed the
adoption of organisational measures toward him. The others, led by Rosa
Luxemburg—the minority—urged a more vigorous struggle against
Bernsteinism.

[17] Starover (Old Believer)—the pseudonym of A. N. Potresov, a
member of the Iskra Editorial Board; he subsequently became a
Menshevik.

[18] “ The Author Who Got a Swelled Head ”—the title of one of
Maxim Gorky’s early stories.

[19] The reference is to the collection Material for a Characterisation
of Our Economic Development , printed legally in an edition of 2,000
copies in April 1895. The collection included Lenin’s article (signed K. Tulin ) “The Economic Content of Narodism and the Criticism of
It in Mr. Struve’s Book ( The Reflection of Marxism in Bourgeois
Literature )”, directed against the “legal Marxists” (see present
edition, Vol. 1, pp. 333–507).

[29] “ A Protest by Russian Social-Democrats ” was written by Lenin
in 1899, in exile. It was a reply to the Credo of a group of
“Economists” (S. N. Prokopovich, Y. D. Kuskova, and others, who subsequently became
Cadets). On receiving a copy of the Credo from his sister,
A. I. Yelizarova, Lenin wrote a sharp protest in which be exposed the real
nature of the declaration.

The Protest was discussed and unanimously endorsed by a meeting of 17
exiled Marxists convened by Lenin in the village of Yermakovskoye,
Minusinsk District (Siberia). Exiles in Turukhansk District (Siberia) and
Orlovo (Vyatka Gubernia) subsequently associated themselves with the
Protest.

Lenin forwarded a copy of the Protest abroad to the Emancipation of
Labour group; Plekhanov published it in his Vademecum ( Handbook — Ed .) for the Editors of Rabocheye
Dyelo .

[30] Byloye ( The Past )—a monthly journal on historical
problems published in St. Petersburg in 1906–07; in 1908 it changed its
name to Minuvshiye Cody ( Years Past ). It was banned by
the tsarist government in 1908, but resumed publication in Petrograd in
July 1917 and continued in existence until 1926.

[20] Vademecum for the Editors of Rabocheye Dyelo —a collection of
articles and documents compiled and prefaced by G. V. Plekhanov and
published by the Emancipation of Labour group in Geneva in 1900; it exposed
the opportunist views of the Union of Russian Social-Democrats Abroad and
of the Editorial Board of its periodical, Rabocheye Dyelo .

[31] Profession de foi —a manifesto setting forth the opportunist
views of the Kiev Committee, issued at the end of 1899. It was identical
with the “Economist” Credo on many points. Lenin criticised the
document in his article “Apropos of the Profession de foi ” (see
present edition, Vol. 4, pp. 286–96).

[21] See Marx and Engels, Selected Works , Vol. II, Moscow, 1958,
p. 16.

[22] The Gotha Programme —the programme adopted by the German
Social-Democratic Party at the Gotha Congress in 1875 when the Eisenachers
and Lassalleans united. The programme suffered from eclecticism and
opportunism, since the Eisenachers made concessions to the Lassalleans on
the most important points and accepted their formulations. Marx and Engels
subjected the Gotha Programme to scathing criticism and characterised it as
a retrograde step as compared with the Eisenach Programme of 1869 (See Karl
Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme , Marx and Engels, Selected Works , Vol. II, Moscow, 1958, pp. 13–48).

[23] See Marx and Engels, Selected Works , Vol. I, Moscow, 1958,
pp. 652-54.




### II

## The Spontaneity of the Masses and the Consciousness of the Social-Democrats

We have said that our movement, much more extensive and deep
than the movement of the seventies, must be inspired with the
same devoted determination and energy that inspired the movement
at that time. Indeed, no one, we think, has until now doubted
that the strength of the present-day movement lies in the
awakening of the masses (principally, the industrial proletariat) and that its weakness lies in the lack of
consciousness and initiative among the revolutionary leaders.

However, of late a staggering discovery has been made, which
threatens to disestablish all hitherto prevailing views on this
question. This discovery was made by Rabocheye Dyelo , which in its polemic with Iskra and Zarya did
not confine itself to making objections on separate points, but
tried to ascribe “general disagreements” to a more profound
cause — to the “different appraisals of the relative importance of the spontaneous and consciously ‘methodical’
element”. Rabocheye Dyelo formulated its indictment as a “ belittling of the significance of the objective or the
spontaneous element of development ”. [1] To this we say: Had
the polemics with Iskra and Zarya resulted in nothing more than causing Rabocheye Dyelo to hit upon
these “general disagreements”, that alone would give us
considerable satisfaction, so significant is this thesis and so
clear is the light it sheds on the quintessence of the present-day theoretical and political differences that exist
among Russian Social-Democrats.

For this reason the question of the relation between consciousness and spontaneity is of such enormous general
interest, and for this reason the question must be dealt with in
great detail.

### A. The Beginning of the Spontaneous Upsurge

In the previous chapter we pointed out how universally absorbed the educated youth of Russia was in the theories
of Marxism in the middle of the nineties. In the same period the
strikes that followed the famous St. Petersburg industrial war
of 1896 assumed a similar general character. Their spread over
the whole of Russia clearly showed the depth of the newly
awakening popular movement, and if we are to speak of the
“spontaneous element” then, of course, it is this strike
movement which, first and foremost, must be regarded as
spontaneous. But there is spontaneity and spontaneity. Strikes
occurred in Russia in the seventies and sixties (and even in the
first half of the nineteenth century), and they were accompanied
by the “spontaneous” destruction of machinery, etc. Compared
with these “revolts”, the strikes of the nineties might even be
described as “conscious”, to such an extent do they mark the
progress which the working-class movement made in that period. This shows that the “spontaneous element”, in essence,
represents nothing more nor less than. consciousness in an embryonic form . Even the primitive revolts expressed
the awakening of consciousness to a certain extent. The workers
were losing their age-long faith in the permanence of the system
which oppressed them and began... I shall not say to understand,
but to sense the necessity for collective resistance, definitely
abandoning their slavish submission to the authorities. But this
was, nevertheless, more in the nature of outbursts of desperation and vengeance than of struggle . The strikes
of the nineties revealed far greater flashes of consciousness;
definite demands were advanced, the strike was carefully timed,
known cases and instances in other places were discussed,
etc. The revolts were simply the resistance of the oppressed,
whereas the systematic strikes represented the class struggle in
embryo, but only in embryo. Taken by themselves, these strikes
were simply trade union struggles, not yet Social Democratic
struggles. They marked the awakening antagonisms between workers
and employers; but the workers, were not, and could not be,
conscious of the irreconcilable antagonism of their interests to
the whole of the modern political and social system, i.e.,
theirs was not yet Social-Democratic consciousness. In this
sense, the strikes of the nineties, despite the enormous
progress they represented as compared with the “revolts”,
remained a purely spontaneous movement.

We have said that there could not have been Social-Democratic consciousness among the workers. It would have
to be brought to them from without. The history of all countries
shows that the working class, exclusively by its own effort, is
able to develop only trade union consciousness, i.e., the
conviction that it is necessary to combine in unions, fight the
employers, and strive to compel the government to pass necessary
labour legislation, etc. [2] The theory of socialism, however,
grew out of the philosophic, historical, and economic theories
elaborated by educated representatives of the propertied
classes, by intellectuals. By their social status the founders
of modern scientific socialism, Marx and Engels, themselves
belonged to the bourgeois intelligentsia. In the very same way,
in Russia, the theoretical doctrine of Social-Democracy arose
altogether independently of the spontaneous growth of the
working-class movement; it arose as a natural and inevitable
outcome of the development of thought among the revolutionary
socialist intelligentsia. In the period under discussion, the
middle nineties, this doctrine not only represented the
completely formulated programme of the Emancipation of Labour
group, but had already won over to its side the majority of the
revolutionary youth in Russia.

Hence, we had both the spontaneous awakening of the working
masses, their awakening to conscious life and conscious
struggle, and a revolutionary youth, armed with
Social-Democratic theory and straining towards the workers. In
this connection it is particularly important to state the
oft-forgotten (and comparatively little-known) fact that,
although the early Social-Democrats of that period zealously carried on economic agitation (being guided
in this activity by the truly useful indications contained in
the pamphlet On Agitation , [27] then still in manuscript),
they did not regard this as their sole task. On the contrary, from the very beginning they set for Russian
Social-Democracy the most far-reaching historical tasks, in
general, and the task of overthrowing the autocracy, in
particular. Thus, towards the end of 1895, the St. Petersburg
group of Social-Democrats, which founded the League of Struggle
for the Emancipation of the Working Class, prepared the first
issue of a newspaper called Rabocheye Dyelo . This issue
was ready to go to press when it was seized by the gendarmes, on
the night of December 8, 1895, in a raid on the house of one of
the members of the group, Anatoly Alexeyevich Vaneyey, [3] so that
the first edition of Rabocheye Dyelo was not destined to see the light of day. The leading article in this issue
(which perhaps thirty years hence some Russkaya
Starina [28] will unearth in the archives of the Department of Police)
outlined the historical tasks of the working class in Russia and
placed the achievement of political liberty at their head. The
issue also contained an article entitled “What Are Our Ministers
Thinking About?” [4] which dealt with the crushing of the elementary education committees by the police. In addition,
there was some correspondence from St. Petersburg, and from
other parts of Russia (e.g., a letter on the massacre of the
workers in Yaroslavl Gubernia). This, “first effort”, if we are
not mistaken, of the Russian Social-Democrats of the nineties
was not a purely local, or less still, “Economic”, newspaper,
but one that aimed to unite the strike movement with the
revolutionary movement against the autocracy, and to win over to
the side of Social-Democracy all who were oppressed by the
policy of reactionary obscurantism. No one in the slightest
degree acquainted with the state of the movement at that period
could doubt that such a paper would have met with warm response
among the workers of the capital and the revolutionary intelligentsia and would have had a wide circulation. The
failure of the enterprise merely showed that the
Social-Democrats of that period were unable to meet the
immediate requirements of the time owing to their lack of
revolutionary experience and practical training. This must be
said, too, with regard to the S. Peterburgsky Rabochy
Listok [29] and particularly with regard to Rabochaya Gazeta and
the Manifesto of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour
Party, founded in the spring of 1898. Of course, we would not
dream of blaming the Social Democrats of that time for this
unpreparedness. But in order to profit from the experience of
that movement, and to draw practical lessons from it, we must
thoroughly understand the causes and significance of this or
that shortcoming. It is therefore highly important to establish
the fact that a part (perhaps even a majority) of the
Social-Democrats, active in the period of 1895-98, justly
considered it possible even then, at the very beginning of the
“spontaneous” movement, to come forward with a most extensive
programme and a militant tactical line. [5] Lack of training of
the majority of the revolutionaries, an entirely natural
phenomenon, could not have roused any particular fears. Once the
tasks were correctly defined, once the energy existed for
repeated attempts to fulfil them, temporary failures represented
only part misfortune. Revolutionary experience and organisational skill are things that can be acquired, provided
the desire is there to acquire them, provided the shortcomings
are recognised, which in revolutionary activity is more than
half-way towards their removal.

But what was only part misfortune became full misfortune when
this consciousness began to grow dim (it was very much alive
among the members of the groups mentioned), when there appeared
people—and even Social -Democratic organs—that were prepared to regard shortcomings as virtues, that even tried to
invent a theoretical basis for their slavish cringing before spontaneity . It is time to draw conclusions
from this trend, the content of which is incorrectly and too
narrowly characterised as Economism.

### B. Bowing to Spontaneity. Rabochaya Mysl

Before dealing with the literary manifestation of this subservience to spontaneity, we should like to note the
following characteristic fact (communicated to us from the
above-mentioned source), which throws light on the conditions in
which the two future conflicting trends in Russian
Social-Democracy arose and grew among the comrades working in
St. Petersburg. In the beginning of 1897, just prior to their
banishment, A. A. Vaneyev and several of his comrades attended a
private meeting [30] at which “old” and “young” members of the League
of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class gathered. The conversation centred chiefly about the question of
organisation, particularly about the “rules for the workers’
mutual benefit fund”, which, in their final form, were published in “Listok”
Rabotnika , [31] No. 9-10, p. 46. Sharp differences immediately showed themselves between the  “old”
members (“Decembrists”, as the St. Petersburg Social Democrats
jestingly called them) and several the “young” members (who
subsequently took an active part in the work of Rabochaya
Mysl ), with a heated discussion ensuing. The “young” members defended the main principles of the rules in the form in
which they were published. The “old” members contended that the
prime necessity was not this, but the consolidation of the
League of Struggle into an organisation of revolutionaries to
which all the various workers’ mutual benefit funds, students’
propaganda circles, etc., should be subordinated. It goes
without saying that the disputing sides far from realised at the
time that these disagreements were the beginning of a cleavage;
on the contrary, they regarded them as something isolated and
casual. But this fact shows that in Russia, too, Economism did
not arise and spread without a struggle against the “old”
Social-Democrats (which the Economists of today are apt to
forget). And if, in the main, this struggle has not left
“documentary” traces behind it, it is solely because the membership of the circles then functioning underwent such
constant change that no continuity was established and,
consequently, differences in point of view were not recorded in
any documents.

The founding of Rabochaya Mysl brought Economism to the
light of day, but not at one stroke. We must picture to
ourselves concretely the conditions for activity and the
short-lived character of the majority of the Russian study
circles (a thing that is possible only for those who have
themselves experienced it) in order to understand how much there
was of the fortuitous in the successes and failures of the new
trend in various towns, and the length of time during which
neither the advocates nor the opponents of the “new” could make
up their minds — and literally had no opportunity of so doing
— as to whether this really expressed a distinct trend or
merely the lack of training of certain individuals. For example,
the first mimeographed copies of Rabochaya Mysl never reached the great majority of Social-Democrats, and if we are
able to refer to the leading article in the first number, it is
only because it was reproduced in an article by V. I. [32] ( “Listok” Rabotnika , No. 9-10, p. 47, et seq.),
who, of course, did not fail to extol with more zeal than reason
the new paper, which was so different from the papers and
projects for papers mentioned above. [6] It is well worth
dwelling on this leading article because it brings out in bold
relief the entire spirit of Rabochaya Mysl and
Economism generally.

After stating that the arm of the “blue-coats” [7] could never halt
the progress of the working-class movement, the leading article
goes on to say: “. . . The virility of the working-class
movement is due to the fact that the workers themselves are at
last taking their fate into their own hands, and out of the
hands of the leaders”; this fundamental thesis is then developed
in greater detail. Actually, the leaders (i.e., the
Social-Democrats, the organisers of the League of Struggle)
were, one might say, torn out of the hands of the workers [8] by the
police; yet it is made to appear that the workers were fighting
against the leaders and liberated themselves from their yoke!
Instead of sounding the call to go forward towards the consolidation of the revolutionary organisation and the
expansion of political activity, the call was issued for a retreat to the purely trade union struggle. It was
announced that “the economic basis of the movement is eclipsed
by the effort never to forget the political ideal”, and that the
watchword for the working-class movement was “Struggle for
economic conditions” (!) or, better still, “The workers for the
workers”. It was declared that strike funds “are more valuable
to the movement than a hundred other Organisations” (compare
this statement made in October 1897, with the polemic between
the “Decembrists” and the young members in the beginning of
1897), etc. Catchwords like “We must concentrate, not on the
’cream’ of the workers, but on the ’average’, mass worker”;
“Politics always obediently follows economics”, [9] etc., etc., became
the fashion, exercising an irresistible influence upon the
masses of the youth who were attracted to the movement but who,
in the majority of cases, were acquainted only with such
fragments of Marxism as were expounded in legally appearing
publications.

Political consciousness was completely overwhelmed by spontaneity — the spontaneity of the “Social-Democrats” who
repeated Mr. V. V.’s “ideas”, the spontaneity of those workers
who were carried away by the arguments that a kopek added to a
ruble was worth more than any socialism or politics, and that
they must “fight, knowing that they are fighting, not for the
sake of some future generation, but for themselves and their
children” (leader in Rabochaya Mysl , No. 1). Phrases like these have always been a favourite weapon of the
West-European bourgeois, who, in their hatred for socialism,
strove (like the German “ Sozial-Politiker ” Hirsch) to
transplant English trade-unionism to their native soil and to
preach to the workers that by engaging in the purely trade union
struggle [10] they would be fighting for themselves and for their
children, and not for some future generations with some future
socialism. And now the “V. V.s of Russian Social-Democracy” have
set about repeating these bourgeois phrases. It is important at
this point to note three circumstances that will be useful to
our further analysis of contemporary differences. [11] [11] We emphasise the word contemporary for the benefit of
those who may pharisaically shrug their shoulders and say: It is
easy enough to attack Rabochaya Mysl now, but is not all this ancient history? Mutato nomine de te fabula
narratur (change the name and the tale is about you— Ed .)
is our answer to such contemporary Pharisees, whose complete
subjection to the ideas of Rabochaya Mysl will be proved further on. — Lenin

In the first place, the overwhelming of political consciousness
by spontaneity, to which we referred above, also took place spontaneously . This may sound like a pun, but, alas, it
is the bitter truth. It did not take place as a result of an
open struggle between two diametrically opposed points of view,
in which one triumphed over the other; it occurred because of
the fact that an increasing number of “old” revolutionaries were
“torn away” by the gendarmes and increasing numbers of “young”
“V. V.s of Russian Social Democracy” appeared on the scene. Everyone, who has, I shall not say participated in, but
at least breathed the atmosphere of, the present-day Russian movement, knows perfectly well that this is precisely
the case. And if, nevertheless, we insist strongly that the
reader be fully clear on this generally known fact, if we cite,
for explicitness, as it were, the facts of the first edition of Rabocheye Dyelo and of the polemic between the “old”
and the “young” at the beginning of 1897, we do this because the
people who vaunt their “democracy” speculate on the ignorance of
these facts on the part of the broad public (or of the very
young generation). We shall return to this point further on.

Secondly, in the very first literary expression of Economism we
observe the exceedingly curious phenomenon — highly characteristic for an understanding of all the differences
prevailing among presentday Social Democrats — that the
adherents of the “labour movement pure and simple”, worshippers
of the closest “organic” contacts ( Rabocheye Dyelo ’s term) with the proletarian struggle, opponents of any non-worker
intelligentsia (even a socialist intelligentsia), are compelled,
in order to defend their positions, to resort to the arguments
of the bourgeois “pure trade-unionists”. This shows that from the very outset Rabochaya Mysl began —
unconsciously — to implement the programme of the Credo . This shows (something Rabocheye Dyelo cannot grasp) that all worship of the spontaneity of
the working class movement, all belittling of the role of “the
conscious element”, of the role of Social-Democracy, means,
quite independently of whether he who belittles that role
desires it or not, a strengthening of the influence of bourgeois
ideology upon the workers. All those who talk about “overrating the importance of ideology”, [12] about exaggerating
the role of the conscious element, [13] etc., imagine that
the labour movement pure and simple can elaborate, and will
elaborate, an independent ideology for itself, if only the
workers “wrest their fate from the hands of the leaders”. But
this is a profound mistake. To supplement what has been said
above, we shall quote the following profoundly true and
important words of Karl. Kautsky on the new draft programme of
the Austrian Social-Democratic Party: [14] “Many of our revisionist critics believe that Marx asserted that
economic development and the class struggle create, not only the
conditions for socialist production, but also, and directly, the consciousness [K. K.’s italics] of its necessity. And
these critics assert that England, the country most highly
developed capitalistically, is more remote than any other from
this consciousness Judging by the draft, one might assume that
this allegedly orthodox Marxist view, which is thus refuted, was
shared by the committee that drafted the Austrian programme. In
the draft programme it is stated: ‘The more capitalist development increases the numbers of the proletariat, the more
the proletariat is compelled and becomes fit to fight against
capitalism. The proletariat becomes conscious of the possibility
and of the necessity for socialism.’ In this connection socialist
consciousness appears to be a necessary and direct result of the
proletarian class struggle. But this is absolutely untrue. Of
course, socialism, as a doctrine, has its roots in modern
economic relationships just as the class struggle of the
proletariat has, and, like the latter, emerges from the struggle
against the capitalist-created poverty and misery of the
masses. But socialism and the class struggle arise side by side
and not one out of the other; each arises under different
conditions. Modern socialist consciousness can arise only on the
basis of profound scientific knowledge. Indeed, modern economic
science is as much a condition for socialist production as, say,
modern technology, and the proletariat can create neither the
one nor the other, no matter how much it may desire to do so;
both arise out of the modern social process. The vehicle of
science is not the proletariat, but the bourgeois intelligentsia [K. K.’s italics]: it was in the minds of
individual members of this stratum that modern socialism
originated, and it was they who communicated it to the more
intellectually developed proletarians who, in their turn,
introduce it into the proletarian class struggle where conditions allow that to be done. Thus, socialist consciousness
is something introduced into the proletarian class struggle from
without [ von Aussen Hineingetragenes ] and not something
that arose within it spontaneously
[ urwüchsig ]. Accordingly, the old Hainfeld programme quite rightly stated that the task of Social-Democracy
is to imbue the proletariat (literally: saturate the proletariat) with the consciousness of its position and
the consciousness of its task. There would be no need for this
if consciousness arose of itself from the class struggle. The
new draft copied this proposition from the old programme, and
attached it to the proposition mentioned above. But this
completely broke the line of thought...”

“Many of our revisionist critics believe that Marx asserted that
economic development and the class struggle create, not only the
conditions for socialist production, but also, and directly, the consciousness [K. K.’s italics] of its necessity. And
these critics assert that England, the country most highly
developed capitalistically, is more remote than any other from
this consciousness Judging by the draft, one might assume that
this allegedly orthodox Marxist view, which is thus refuted, was
shared by the committee that drafted the Austrian programme. In
the draft programme it is stated: ‘The more capitalist development increases the numbers of the proletariat, the more
the proletariat is compelled and becomes fit to fight against
capitalism. The proletariat becomes conscious of the possibility
and of the necessity for socialism.’ In this connection socialist
consciousness appears to be a necessary and direct result of the
proletarian class struggle. But this is absolutely untrue. Of
course, socialism, as a doctrine, has its roots in modern
economic relationships just as the class struggle of the
proletariat has, and, like the latter, emerges from the struggle
against the capitalist-created poverty and misery of the
masses. But socialism and the class struggle arise side by side
and not one out of the other; each arises under different
conditions. Modern socialist consciousness can arise only on the
basis of profound scientific knowledge. Indeed, modern economic
science is as much a condition for socialist production as, say,
modern technology, and the proletariat can create neither the
one nor the other, no matter how much it may desire to do so;
both arise out of the modern social process. The vehicle of
science is not the proletariat, but the bourgeois intelligentsia [K. K.’s italics]: it was in the minds of
individual members of this stratum that modern socialism
originated, and it was they who communicated it to the more
intellectually developed proletarians who, in their turn,
introduce it into the proletarian class struggle where conditions allow that to be done. Thus, socialist consciousness
is something introduced into the proletarian class struggle from
without [ von Aussen Hineingetragenes ] and not something
that arose within it spontaneously
[ urwüchsig ]. Accordingly, the old Hainfeld programme quite rightly stated that the task of Social-Democracy
is to imbue the proletariat (literally: saturate the proletariat) with the consciousness of its position and
the consciousness of its task. There would be no need for this
if consciousness arose of itself from the class struggle. The
new draft copied this proposition from the old programme, and
attached it to the proposition mentioned above. But this
completely broke the line of thought...”

Since there can be no talk of an independent ideology formulated
by the working masses themselves in the process of their
movement, [15] [15] This does not mean, of course, that the workers have no part in
creating such an ideology. They take part, however, not as
workers, but as socialist theoreticians, as Proudhons and
Weitlings; in other words, they take part only when they are
able, and to the extent that they are able, more or less, to
acquire the knowledge of their age and develop that knowledge. But in order that working men may succeed in this
more often , every effort must be made to raise the level of
the consciousness of the workers in general; it is necessary
that the workers do not confine themselves to the artificially
restricted limits of  “ literature for workers ” but that
they learn to an increasing degree to master general literature . It would be even truer to say “are not
confined”, instead of “do not confine themselves”, because the
workers themselves wish to read and do read all that is written
for the intelligentsia, and only a few (bad) intellectuals
believe that it is enough “for workers” to be told a few things
about factory conditions and to have repeated to them over and
over again what has long been known. — Lenin the only choice is — either
bourgeois or socialist ideology. There is no middle course (for
mankind has not created a “third” ideology, and, moreover, in a
society torn by class antagonisms there can never be a non-class
or an above-class ideology). Hence, to belittle the socialist
ideology in any way, to turn aside from it in the slightest
degree means to strengthen bourgeois ideology. There is
much talk of spontaneity. But the spontaneous development of the working-class movement leads to its
subordination to bourgeois ideology, to its development
along the lines of the Credo programme; for the spontaneous
working-class movement is trade-unionism, is Nur-Gewerkschaftlerei , and trade unionism means the
ideological enslavement of the workers by the bourgeoisie. Hence, our task, the task of Social-Democracy, is to combat spontaneity, to divert the working-class
movement from this spontaneous, trade-unionist striving to come under the wing of the bourgeoisie, and to bring it under the
wing of revolutionary Social Democracy. The sentence employed by
the authors of the Economist letter published in Iskra ,
No. 12, that the efforts of the most inspired ideologists fail
to divert the working-class movement from the path that is
determined by the interaction of the material elements and the
material environment is therefore tantamount to renouncing
socialism . If these authors were capable of fearlessly,
consistently, and thoroughly considering what they say, as
everyone who enters the arena of literary and public activity
should be, there would be nothing left for them but to “fold
their useless arms over their empty breasts” and surrender the
field of action to the Struves and Prokopoviches, who are
dragging the working-class movement “along the line of least
resistance”, i.e., along the line of bourgeois trade-unionism,
or to the Zubatovs, who are dragging it along the line of
clerical and gendarme “ideology”.

Let us recall the example of Germany. What was the historic
service Lassalle rendered to the German working-class movement?
It was that he diverted that movement from the path of progressionist trade-unionism and co-operativism towards which
it had been spontaneously moving ( with the benign assistance
of Schulze-Delitzsch and his like ). To fulfil such a task
it was necessary to do something quite different from talking of
underrating the spontaneous element, of tactics-as-process, of
the interaction between elements and environment, etc. A
fierce struggle against spontaneity was necessary, and only
after such a struggle, extending over many years, was it
possible, for instance, to convert the working population of
Berlin from a bulwark of the progressionist party into one of
the finest strongholds of Social-Democracy. This struggle is by
no means over even today (as might seem to those who learn the
history of the German movement from Prokopovich, and its
philosophy from Struve). Even now the German working class is,
so to speak, split up among a number of ideologies. A section of
the workers is organised in Catholic and monarchist trade
unions; another section is organised in the
Hirsch-Duncker [33] unions, founded by the bourgeois worshippers of English
trade-unionism; the third is organised in Social-Democratic
trade unions. The last-named group is immeasurably more numerous
than the rest, but the Social-Democratic ideology was able to
achieve this superiority, and will be able to maintain it, only
in an unswerving struggle against all other ideologies.

But why, the reader will ask, does the spontaneous movement, the
movement along the line of least resistance, lead to the
domination of bourgeois ideology? For the simple reason that
bourgeois ideology is far older in origin than socialist
ideology, that it is more fully developed, and that it has at
its disposal immeasurably more means of dissemination. [16] [16] It is often said that the working class spontaneously gravitates towards socialism. This is perfectly true in the
sense that socialist theory reveals the causes of the misery of
the working class more profoundly and more correctly than any
other theory, and for that reason the workers are able to
assimilate it so easily, provided , however, this theory
does not itself yield to spontaneity, provided it subordinates spontaneity to itself. Usually this is taken for
granted, but it is precisely this which Rabocheye Dyelo forgets or distorts. The working class spontaneously gravitates
towards socialism; nevertheless, most widespread (and continuously and diversely revived) bourgeois ideology
spontaneously imposes itself upon the working class to a still
greater degree. — Lenin And the younger the socialist movement in any given country, the more vigorously it must
struggle against all attempts to entrench non-socialist
ideology, and the more resolutely the workers must be warned
against the bad counsellors who shout against “overrating the
conscious element”, etc. The authors of the Economist letter, in
unison with Rabocheye Dyelo , inveigh against the intolerance that is characteristic of the infancy of the
movement. To this we reply: Yes, our movement is indeed in its
infancy, and in order that it may grow up faster, it must become
imbued with intolerance against those who retard its growth by
their subservience to spontaneity. Nothing is so ridiculous and
harmful as pretending that we are “old hands” who have long
ago experienced all the decisive stages of the struggle.

Thirdly, the first issue of Rabochaya Mysl shows that the term
“Economism” (which, of course, we do not propose to abandon,
since, in one way or another, this designation has already
established itself) does not adequately convey the real
character of the new trend. Rabochaya Mysl does not altogether repudiate the political struggle; the rules for a
workers’ mutual benefit fund published in its first issue
contain a reference to combating the government. Rabochaya
Mysl believes, however, that “politics always obediently
follows economics” ( Rabocheye Dyelo varies this thesis
when it asserts in its programme that “in Russia more than in
any other country, the economic struggle is inseparable from the political struggle”). If by politics is meant
Social-Democratic politics, then the theses of Rabochaya
Mysl and Rabocheye Dyelo are utterly incorrect. The economic struggle of the workers is very often connected
(although not inseparably) with bourgeois politics, clerical
politics, etc., as we have seen. Rabocheye Dyelo ’s theses are correct, if by politics is meant trade union
politics, viz., the common striving of all workers to secure
from the government measures for alleviating the distress to
which their condition gives rise, but which do not abolish that
condition, i.e., which do not remove the subjection of labour to
capital. That striving indeed is common to the English trade-unionists, who are hostile to socialism, to the Catholic
workers, to the “Zubatov” workers, etc. There is politics and
politics. Thus, we see that Rabochaya Mysl does not so much deny the political struggle, as it bows to its spontaneity , to its unconsciousness. While fully
recognising the political struggle (better: the political
desires and demands of the workers), which arises spontaneously
from the working-class movement itself, it absolutely refuses independently to work out a specifically Social-Democratic politics corresponding to the general
tasks of socialism and to present-day conditions in
Russia. Further on we shall show that Rabocheye Dyelo commits the same error.

### C. The Self-Emancipation Group [34] and Rabocheye Dyelo

We have dealt at such length with the little-known and now
almost forgotten leading article in the first issue of Rabochaya
Mysl because it was the first and most striking expression of
that general stream of thought which afterwards emerged into the
light of day in innumerable streamlets. V. I. was perfectly
right when, in praising the first issue and the leading article
of Rabochaya Mysl , he said that the article had been written in a “sharp and fervent” manner ( “Listok”
Rabotnika , No. 9-10, p. 49). Every man with convictions who thinks he has something new to say writes “fervently” and in
such a way as to make his views stand out in bold relief. Only
those who are accustomed to sitting between two stools lack
“fervour”; only such people are able to praise the fervour of Rabochaya Mysl one day and attack the “fervent
polemics” of its opponents the next.

We shall not dwell on the “Separate Supplement” to
Rabochaya Mysl (below we shall have occasion, on various
points, to refer to this work, which expresses the ideas of the
Economists more consistently than any other) but shall briefly
mention the “Appeal of the Self-Emancipation of the Workers
Group” (March 1899, reprinted in the London Nakanune , [35] No. 7, July 1899). The authors of the “Appeal” rightly say that
“the workers of Russia are only just awakening, are just beginning to look about them, and are instinctively
clutching at the first available means of struggle” . Yet
they draw from this the same false conclusion as that drawn by Rabochaya Mysl , forgetting that the instinctive is the
unconscious (the spontaneous) to the aid of which socialists
must come; that the “first available means of struggle” will
always be, in modern society, the trade union means of struggle,
and the “first available” ideology the bourgeois (trade union)
ideology. Similarly, these authors do not  “repudiate” politics,
they merely (merely!) echo Mr. V. V. that politics is the
superstructure, and therefore, “political agitation must be the
superstructure to the agitation carried on in favour of the
economic struggle; it must arise on the basis of this struggle
and follow in its wake”.

As for Rabocheye Dyelo , it began its activity with the
“defence” of the Economists. It stated a downright untruth in its opening issue (No. 1, pp. 141-42) in
claiming that it “does not know to which young comrades Axelrod
referred” when he warned the Economists in his well-known
pamphlet. [17] In the polemic that flared up with Axelrod and Plekhanov over this untruth, Rabocheye Dyelo had to admit that “in form of perplexity,
it sought to defend all the younger Social-Democrats abroad from
this unjust accusation” (the charge of narrowness levelled by
Axelrod at the Economists). In reality this accusation was completely justified, and Rabocheye Dyelo knew
perfectly well that, among others, it applied also to V. I., a
member of its Editorial Board. Let me note in passing that in
this polemic Axelrod was entirely right and Rabocheye
Dyelo entirely wrong in their respective interpretations of
my pamphlet The Tasks of the Russian
Social-Democrats . [18] The pamphlet was written in 1897, before the appearance of Rabochaya Mysl ,
when I thought, rightly, that the original tendency of the St. Petersburg League of Struggle, which I characterised
above, was dominant. And this tendency was dominant at least
until the middle of 1898. Consequently, Rabocheye Dyelo had no right whatever, in its attempt to deny the existence and
danger of Economism, to refer to a pamphlet that expressed views forced out by Economist views in St. Petersburg in
1897-98. [19]

But Rabocheye Dyelo not only “defended” the Economists,
it itself constantly fell into their fundamental errors. The
source of this confusion is to be found in the ambiguity of the
interpretation given to the following thesis of the Rabocheye Dyelo programme: “We consider that the most
important phenomenon of Russian life, the one that will mainly determine the tasks [our italics] and the character of
the publication activity of the Union, is the mass working-class movement [ Rabocheye Dyelo ’s italics]
which has arisen in recent years.” That the mass movement is a
most important phenomenon is a fact not to be disputed. But the
crux of the matter is, how is one to understand the statement
that the mass working class movement will “determine the tasks”? It may be interpreted in one of two ways. Either it means bowing to the
spontaneity of this movement, i.e., reducing the role of Social-Democracy
to mere subservience to the working-class movement as such (the
interpretation of Rabochaya Mysl , the Self-Emancipation Group,
and other Economists), or it means that the mass movement places before us
new theoretical, political, and organisational tasks, far more complicated
than those that might have satisfied us in the period before the rise of
the mass movement. Rabocheye Dyelo inclined and still inclines
towards the first interpretation, for it has said nothing definite about
any new tasks, but has argued constantly as though the “mass movement” relieves us of the necessity of clearly understanding and
fulfilling the tasks it sets before us. We need only point out that Rabocheye Dyelo considered that it was impossible to set the
overthrow of the autocracy as the first task of the mass
working-class movement, and that it degraded this task (in the name of the
mass movement) to that of a struggle for immediate political demands
(Reply, p. 25).

We shall pass over the article by B. Krichevsky, editor of Rabocheye Dyelo , entitled “The Economic and the
Political Struggle in the Russian Movement”, published in No. 7
of that paper, in which these very mistakes [20] are repeated, and proceed directly to Rabocheye Dyelo , No. 10. We shall
not, of course, enter in detail into the various objections
raised by Krichevsky and Martynov against Zarya and Iskra . We are here interested solely in the basis of
principles on which Rabocheye Dyelo , in its tenth issue, took its stand. Thus, we shall not examine the strange
fact that Rabocheye Dyelo saw a “diametrical contradiction” between the proposition:

“Social-Democracy does not, tie its hands, it does not restrict
its activities to some one preconceived plan or method of
political struggle; it recognises all means of struggle  as long
as they correspond to the forces at-the disposal of the Party,”
etc. ( Iskra , No. 1) [21] .

“Social-Democracy does not, tie its hands, it does not restrict
its activities to some one preconceived plan or method of
political struggle; it recognises all means of struggle  as long
as they correspond to the forces at-the disposal of the Party,”
etc. ( Iskra , No. 1) [21] .

and the proposition:

“Without a strong organisation skilled in waging political
struggle under all circumstances and at all times, there can be
no question of that systematic plan of action, illumined by firm
principles and steadfastly carried out, which alone is worthy of
the name of tactics” ( Iskra , No. 4). [22] “Without a strong organisation skilled in waging political
struggle under all circumstances and at all times, there can be
no question of that systematic plan of action, illumined by firm
principles and steadfastly carried out, which alone is worthy of
the name of tactics” ( Iskra , No. 4). [22]

To confound recognition, in principle , of all means of
struggle, of all plans and methods, provided they are expedient,
with the demand at a given political moment to be guided by a strictly observed plan is tantamount, if we are to
talk of tactics, to confounding the recognition by medical
science of various methods of treating diseases with the
necessity for adopting a certain definite method of treatment
for a given disease. The point is, however, that Rabocheye
Dyelo , itself the victim of a disease which we have called
bowing to spontaneity, refuses to recognise any “method of
treatment” for that disease. Hence, it has made the remarkable
discovery that “tactics-as-plan contradicts the fundamental
spirit of Marxism” (No. 10, p. 18), that tactics are “ a
process of growth of Party tasks, which grow together with the
Party ” (p. 11, Rabocheye Dyelo ’s italics). This remark has every chance of becoming a celebrated maxim, a
permanent monument to the Rabocheye Dyelo “trend”. To the question, whither? the leading organ replies: Movement is a
process of changing the distance between the starting-point and
subsequent points of the movement. This matchless example of
profundity is not merely a curiosity (were it that, it would not
be worth dealing with at length), but the programme of a
whole trend , the very programme which R. M. (in the “ Separate Supplement ” to Rabochaya Mysl )
expressed in the words: That struggle is desirable which is
possible, and the struggle which is possible is that which is
going on at the given moment. This is precisely the trend of
unbounded opportunism, which passively adapts itself to
spontaneity.

“Tactics-as-plan contradicts the essence of Marxism!” But this
is a slander of Marxism; it means turning Marxism into the
caricature held up by the Narodniks in their struggle against
us. It means belittling the initiative and energy of class-conscious fighters, whereas Marxism, on the contrary,
gives a gigantic impetus to the initiative and energy of the
Social-Democrat, opens up for him the widest perspectives, and
(if one may so express it) places at his disposal the mighty
force of many millions of workers “spontaneously” rising for the
struggle. The entire history of international Social-Democracy
teems with plans advanced now by one, now by another political
leader, some confirming the far-sightedness and the correct
political and organisational views of their authors and others
revealing their short-sightedness and their political errors. At
the time when Germany was at one of the crucial turning-points
in its history — the formation of the Empire, the opening of
the Reichstag, and the granting of universal suffrage —
Liebknecht had one plan for Social-Democratic politics and work
in general, and Schweitzer had another. When the anti-socialist
law came down on the heads of the German socialists, Most and
Hasselmann had one plan — they were prepared then and there to
call for violence and terror; Hochbert, Schramm, and (partly)
Bernstein had another — they began to preach to the
Social-Democrats that they themselves had provoked the enactment
of the law by being unreasonably bitter and revolutionary, and
must now earn forgiveness by their exemplary conduct. There was yet a third plan, proposed by those who prepared and carried out
the publication of an illegal organ. It is easy, of course, with
hindsight, many years after the struggle over the selection of
the path to be followed, and after history has pronounced its
verdict as to the expediency of the path selected, to utter
profound maxims about the growth of Party tasks, which grow
together with the Party. But at a time of confusion, [23] when
the Russian “Critics” and Economists are degrading
Social-Democracy to the level of trade-unionism, and when the
terrorists are strongly advocating the adoption of “tactics-as-plan” that repeats the old mistakes, at such a time,
to confine oneself to profundities of this kind, means simply to
issue to oneself a “certificate of poverty”. At a time when many
Russian Social-Democrats suffer from a lack of initiative and
energy, from an inadequate “scope of political propaganda,
agitation, and organisation,” [24] from a lack of “plans” for a
broader organisation of revolutionary work, at such a time, to
declare that “tactics-as-plan” contradicts the essence of
Marxism means not only to vulgarise Marxism in the realm of
theory, but to drag the Party backward in practice.

Rabocheye Dyelo goes on to sermonise:

“The task of the revolutionary Social-Democrat is only to
accelerate objective development by his conscious work, not to
obviate it or substitute his own subjective plans for this
development. Iskra knows all this in theory; but the enormous importance which Marxism justly attaches to conscious
revolutionary work causes it in practice, owing to its doctrinaire view of tactics, to belittle the significance of
the objective or the spontaneous element of development” (p. 18).

“The task of the revolutionary Social-Democrat is only to
accelerate objective development by his conscious work, not to
obviate it or substitute his own subjective plans for this
development. Iskra knows all this in theory; but the enormous importance which Marxism justly attaches to conscious
revolutionary work causes it in practice, owing to its doctrinaire view of tactics, to belittle the significance of
the objective or the spontaneous element of development” (p. 18).

Another example of the extraordinary theoretical confusion
worthy of Mr. V. V. and his fraternity. We would ask our
philosopher: how may a designer of subjective plans “belittle”
objective development? Obviously by losing sight of the fact
that this objective development creates or strengthens, destroys or weakens certain classes, strata, or groups, certain nations
or groups of nations, etc., and in this way serves to determine
a given international political alignment of forces, or the
position adopted by revolutionary parties, etc. If the designer
of plans did that, his guilt would not be that he belittled the
spontaneous element, but, on the contrary, that he belittled the conscious element, for he would then show that he
lacked the “consciousness” properly to understand objective
development. Hence, the very talk of “estimating the relative significance” ( Rabocheye Dyelo ’s
italics) of spontaneity and consciousness itself reveals a
complete lack of “consciousness”. If certain “spontaneous
elements of development” can be grasped at all by human
understanding, then an incorrect estimation of them will be
tantamount to “belittling the conscious element”. But if they
cannot be grasped, then we do not know them, and therefore
cannot speak of them. What then is Krichevsky discussing? If he
thinks that Iskra ’s  “subjective plans” are erroneous (as he in fact declares them to be), he should have shown what
objective facts they ignore, and only then charged Iskra with lacking political consciousness for
ignoring them, with “belittling the conscious element”, to use
his own words. If, however, displeased with subjective plans, he
can bring forward no argument other than that of “belittling the
spontaneous element” (!), he merely shows: (1) that, theoretically, he understands Marxism a la Kareyev and
Mikhailovsky, who have been sufficiently ridiculed by
Beltov; [36] and (2) that, practically, he is quite satisfied with the
“spontaneous elements of development” that have drawn our legal
Marxists towards Bernsteinism and our Social-Democrats towards
Economism, and that he is “full of wrath” against those who have
determined at all costs to divert Russian
Social-Democracy from the path of “spontaneous” development.

Further, there follow things that are positively droll. “Just as
human beings will reproduce in the old-fashioned way despite all
the discoveries of natural science, so the birth of a new social
order will come about, in the future too, mainly as a result of elemental outbursts, despite all the discoveries of
social science and the increase in the number of conscious
fighters” (p. 19). Just as our grandfathers in their old-fashioned wisdom used to say, Anyone can
bring children into the world, so today the “modern socialists” ( a la Nartsis
Tuporylov) [37] say in their wisdom, Anyone can participate in the spontaneous birth of
a new social order. We too hold that anyone can. All that is
required for participation of that kind is to yield to
Economism when Economism reigns and to terrorism when terrorism
arises. Thus, in the spring of this year, when it was so
important to utter a note of warning against infatuation with
terrorism, Rabocheye Dyelo stood in amazement, confronted by a problem that was “new” to it. And now, six
months after, when the problem has become less topical, it
presents us at one and the same time with the declaration: “We
think that it is not and should not be the task of
Social-Democracy to counteract the rise of terroristic sentiments” ( Rabocheye Dyelo , No. 10, p. 23), and with
the Conference resolution: “The Conference regards systematic
and aggressive terror as being inopportune” ( Two
Conferences , p. 18). How beautifully clear and coherent
this is! Not to counteract, but to declare inopportune, and to
declare it in such a way that unsystematic and defensive terror
does not come within the scope of the “resolution”. It must be
admitted that such a resolution is extremely safe and is fully
insured against error, just as a man who talks, but says
nothing, insures himself against error. All that is needed to
frame such a resolution is  an ability to keep at the tail
end of the movement. When Iskra ridiculed Rabocheye Dyelo for declaring the question of terror to
be new, [25] the latter angrily accused Iskra of “having the incredible effrontery to impose
upon the Party organisation solutions of tactical questions
proposed by a group of emigrant writers more than fifteen years
ago” (p. 24). Effrontery. indeed, and what an overestimation of
the conscious element — first to resolve questions theoretically beforehand, and then to try to convince the
organisation, the Party, and the masses of the correctness of
this solution! [26] How much better it would be to repeat the elements and, without “imposing”
anything upon anybody, swing with every “turn” — whether in the direction of
Economism or in the direction of terrorism. Rabocheye
Dyelo even generalises this great precept of worldly wisdom
and accuses Iskra and Zarya of  “setting up their programme against the movement, like a spirit hovering
over the formless chaos” (p. 29). But what else is the function
of Social-Democracy if not to be a “spirit” that not only hovers
over the spontaneous movement, but also raises this movement to the level of “its programme”? Surely, it is
not its function to drag at the tail of the movement. At best, this would be of no service to the movement;
at worst, it would be exceedingly harmful. Rabocheye
Dyelo , however, not only follows this “tactics-as-process”,
but elevates it to a principle, so that it would be more correct
to describe its tendency not as opportunism, but as tail-ism (from the word tail ). And it must be
admitted that those who are determined always to follow behind
the movement and be its tail are absolutely and forever
guaranteed against “belittling the spontaneous element of
development”.

And so, we have become convinced that the fundamental error
committed by the “new trend” in Russian Social-Democracy is its
bowing to spontaneity and its failure to understand that the
spontaneity of the masses demands a high degree of consciousness
from us Social-Democrats. The greater the spontaneous upsurge of
the masses and the more widespread the movement, the more rapid,
incomparably so, the demand for greater consciousness in the
theoretical, political and organisational work of
Social-Democracy.

The spontaneous upsurge of the masses in Russia proceeded (and
continues) with such rapidity that the young Social Democrats
proved unprepared to meet these gigantic tasks. This unpreparedness is our common misfortune, the misfortune of all Russian Social-Democrats. The upsurge of the masses
proceeded and spread with uninterrupted continuity; it not only
continued in the places where it began, but spread to new
localities and to new strata of the population (under the
influence of the working class movement, there was a renewed
ferment among the student youth, among the intellectuals
generally, and even among the peasantry). Revolutionaries, however, lagged behind this upsurge, both in their
“theories” and in their activity; they failed to establish a
constant and continuous organisation capable of leading the whole movement.

In Chapter I, we established that Rabocheye Dyelo belittled our theoretical tasks and that it “spontaneously”
repeated the fashionable catchword “freedom of criticism”; those
who repeated this catchword lacked the “consciousness” to
understand that the positions of the opportunist “Critics” and
those of the revolutionaries in Germany and in Russia are
diametrically opposed.

In the following chapters, we shall show how this bowing to
spontaneity found expression in the sphere of the political
tasks and in the organisational work of Social-Democracy.

## Notes

[1] Rabocheye Dyelo , No. 10, September 1901,
pp. 17-18. Rabocheye Dyelo ’s italics.— Lenin

[2] Trade-unionism does not exclude “politics” altogether, as some
imagine. Trade unions have always conducted some political (but
not Social-Democratic) agitation and struggle. We shall deal
with the difference between trade union politics and
Social-Democratic politics in the next chapter.— Lenin

[3] A. A. Vaneyev died in Eastern Siberia in 1899 from consumption,
which he contracted during solitary confinement in prison prior
to his banishment. That is why we considered it possible to
publish the above information, the authenticity of which we
guarantee, for it comes from persons who were closely and
directly acquainted with A. A. Vaneyev.— Lenin

[4] See present edition, Vol. 2, pp. 87-92.— Ed .

[5] “In
adopting a hostile attitude towards the activities of the
Social-Democrats of the late nineties, Iskra ignores the absence at that time of conditions for any work other than
the struggle for petty demands,” declare the Economists in their
“Letter to Russian Social-Democratic Organs” ( Iskra No. 12). The facts given above show that the assertion about
“absence of conditions” is diametrically opposed to the
truth. Not only at the end, but even in the mid-nineties,
all the conditions existed for other work, besides the struggle
for petty demands — all the conditions except adequate training
of leaders. Instead of frankly admitting that we, the ideologists, the leaders, lacked sufficient training — the
Economists seek to shift the blame entirely upon the “absence of
conditions”, upon the effect of material environment that
determines the road from which no ideologist will be able to
divert the movement. What is this but slavish cringing before
spontaneity, what but the infatuation of the “ideologists” with
their own shortcomings?— Lenin

[6] It should be stated in passing that the praise of Rabochaya
Mysl in November 1898, when Economism had become fully defined, especially abroad, emanated from the selfsame V. I, who
very soon after became one of the editors of Rabocheye
Dyelo . And yet Rabocheye Dyelo denied that there were two trends in Russian Social-Democracy, and continues to
deny It to this day!— Lenin

[7] The tsarist gendarmes wore blue uniforms.— Tr .

[8] That this simile is a correct one is shown by the following
characteristic fact. When, after the arrest of the “Decembrists”, the news spread among the workers of the
Schlüsselburg Highway that the discovery and arrest were
facilitated by an agent provocateur , N. N. Mikhailov, a
dentist, who had been in contact with a group associated with
the “Decembrists”, the workers were so enraged that they decided
to kill him.— Lenin

[9] These quotations are taken from the same leading article in the first
number of Rabochaya Mysl . One can judge from this the degree of theoretical training possessed by these “V. V.s of
Russian Social-Democracy”, [38] who kept repeating the crude
vulgarisation of “economic materialism” at a time when the
Marxists were carrying on a literary war against the real
Mr. V. V., who had long ago been dubbed “a past master of
reactionary deeds” for holding similar views on the relations
between politics and economics!— Lenin

[10] The Germans even have a special expression, Nur-Gewerkschaftler , which means an advocate of the
“pure trade union” struggle.— Lenin

[12] Letter of the Economists, in Iskra , No. 12.— Lenin

[13] Rabocheye Dyelo , No. 10.— Lenin

[14] Neue Zeit , 1901-02, XX, I, No. 3, p. 79. The
committee’s draft to which Kautsky refers was adopted by the
Vienna Congress (at the end of last year) in a slightly amended
form.— Lenin

[17] Present Tasks and Tactics of the Russian
Social-Democracy , Geneva, 1898. Two letters to Rabochaya Gazeta , written in 1897.— Lenin

[18] See present edition, Vol. 2, pp. 323—51.— Ed .

[19] In defending its first untruth (“we do not know to which young
comrades Axelrod referred”), Rabocheye Dyelo added a second, when it wrote in its Reply : “Since the review
of The Tasks was published, tendencies have arisen, or become more or less clearly defined, among certain Russian
Social-Democrats, towards economic one-sidedness, which
represent a step backwards from the state of our movement as
described in The Tasks ” (p. 9). This, in the Reply , published in 1900 . But the first issue
of Rabocheye Dyelo (containing the review) appeared in April 1899 . Did Economism really arise only in 1899?
No. The year 1899 saw the first protest of the Russian Social-Democrats against Economism (the protest against the Credo ). Economism arose in 1897, as Rabocheye
Dyelo very well knows, for already in November
1898 , V. I. was praising Rabochaya Mysl (see “Listok”
Rabotnika , No. 9-10).— Lenin

[20] The “stages theory”, or the theory of “timid zigzags”, in the
political struggle is expressed, for example, in this article,
in the following way: “Political demands, which in their
character are common to the whole of Russia, should, however, at
first (this was written in August 1900!) correspond to the
experience gained by the given stratum ( sic !) of workers in the economic struggle. Only [!] on the basis of this
experience can and should political agitation be taken up,”
etc. (p. 11). On page 4, the author, protesting against what he
regards as the absolutely unfounded charge of Economist heresy,
pathetically exclaims: “What Social-Democrat does not know that
according to the theories of Marx and Engels the economic
interests of certain classes play a decisive role in history,
and, consequently , that particularly the proletariat’s
struggle for its economic interests must be of paramount
importance in its class development and struggle for emancipation?” (Our italics.) The word “consequently” is
completely irrelevant. The fact that economic interests play a
decisive role does not in the least imply that the economic (i.e., trade union) struggle is of prime importance;
for the most essential, the “decisive” interests of classes can
be satisfied only by radical political changes in general. In particular the fundamental economic interests of
the proletariat can be satisfied only by a political revolution
that will replace the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie by the
dictatorship of the proletariat. Krichevsky repeats the
arguments of the “V. V.’s of Russian Social-Democracy” (viz.,
that politics follows economics, etc.) and of the Bernsteinians
of German Social-Democracy (e.g., by similar arguments Woltmann
sought to prove that the workers must first of all acquire
“economic power” before they can think about political revolution).— Lenin

[21] See present edition, Vol. 4, pp. 370—71.— Ed .

[22] See present edition, Vol. 5, p. 18.— Ed .

[23] “ Ein Jahr der Verwirrung ” (“A Year of Confusion”) is
the title Mehring gave to the chapter of his History of
German Social-Democracy in which he describes the hesitancy
and lack of determination displayed at first by the socialists in selecting
the “tactics-as-plan” for the new situation.— Lenin

[24] Leading article in Iskra , No. 1. (See Collected
Works , Vol. 4, p. 369 —Ed.)— Lenin

[25] See Collected Works , Vol. 5, pp. 18-20.— Ed .

[26] Nor must it be forgotten that in solving “theoretically” the
problem of terror, the Emancipation of Labour group generalised the experience of the antecedent revolutionary movement.— Lenin

[27] The pamphlet On Agitation was written by A. Kremer (later an
organiser of the Bund) and edited by Y. 0. Tsederbaum (Martov) in Vilno in
1894; it was at first circulated in handwritten and hectographed copies,
but at the end of 1897 it was printed in Geneva and supplied with a preface
and a concluding piece by P. B. Axelrod. The pamphlet summarised the
experiences gained in Social-Democratic work in Vilno and exerted a great
influence on Russian Social-Democrats, since it called on them to reject
narrow study-circle propaganda and to go over to mass agitation among the
workers on issues of their everyday needs and demands. It exaggerated the
role of the purely economic struggle, however, to the detriment of
political agitation on issues of general democratic demands, and was the
embryo of the future “Economism”. P. B. Axelrod not ed the one-sidedness
of the “Vilno Economism” in his concluding piece to the Geneva edition;
G. V. Plekhanov made a critical analysis of the pamphlet On
Agitation in his Once More on Socialism and the Political
Struggle .

[28] Russkaya Starina ( The Russian Antiquary )—a monthly
magazine dealing with historical problems published in St. Petersburg from
1870 to 1918.

[29] S. Peterburgsky Rabochy Listok ( St.Petersburg Workers’
Paper )—an illegal newspaper, organ of the St. Petersburg League of
Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class. Two issues appeared:
No. 1 in February 1897 (dated January and mimeographed in Russia in an
edition of 300—400 copies) and No. 2 in September 1897 in Geneva.

[30] A private meeting referred to here was held in St. Petersburg
between February 14 and 17 (February 26 and March 1), 1897. It was attended
by V. I. Lenin, A. A. Vaneyev, G. M. Krzhizhanovsky, and other members of
the St. Petersburg League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working
Class, that is, by the “veterans” who had been released from prison for
three days before being sent into exile to Siberia, as well as by the
“young” leaders of the League of Struggle who had taken over the
leadership of the League after Lenin’s arrest in December 1895.

[31] “ Listok ” Rabotnika ( The Workingman’s
Paper )—published in Geneva by the Union of Russian Social-Democrats
Abroad from 1896 to 1899; altogether there appeared 10 issues. Issues 1—8
were edited by the Emancipation of Labour group. But after the majority of
the Union Abroad went over to “Economism”, the Emancipation of Labour
group refused to continue editing the paper. Nos. 9 and 10 were issued by a
new editorial board set up by the Union of Russian Social-Democrats Abroad.

[32] The “ article by V. I. ”—an article by V. P. Ivanshin.

[38] V. V. —pseudonym of V. P. Vorontsov, an ideologist of liberal
Narodism in the eighties and nineties of the nineteenth century. By the
“ V. V.’s of Russian Social-Democracy ” Lenin understands the
“Economists” who represented the opportunist trend in the Russian
Social-Democratic movement.

[33] The Hirsch-Duncker Unions were established in Germany in 1868
by Hirsch and Duncker, two bourgeois liberals. They preached the “harmony
of class interests”, drew the workers away from the revolutionary class
struggle against the bourgeoisie, and restricted the role of the trade
unions to that of mutual benefit societies and educational bodies.

[34] The Self-Emancipation of the Workers Group —a small group of
“Economists” formed in St. Petersburg in the autumn of 1898; it existed
for only a few months and published a manifesto setting forth its aims
[published in Nakanune ( On the Eve ) in London], a set of
rules and several leaflets addressed to the workers.

[35] Nakanune ( On the Eve )—a journal expressing Narodnik
views. It was published in Russian in London from January 1899 to February
1902—altogether 37 issues. The journal was a rallying point for
representatives of various petty-bourgeois parties.

[36] G. V. Plekhanov published his well-known work The Development of
the Monist View of History legally in St. Petersburg in 1895 under the
pseudonym of N. Beltov .

[37] Nartsis Tuporylov ( Narcissus Blunt-Snout ) was the
pseudonym under which Y. O. Martov published his satirical poem “Hymn of
the Contemporary Russian Socialist” in Zarya , No. 1, April 1901. The “Hymn” ridiculed the “Economists”
and their adaptations to spontaneous events.




### III

## Trade-Unionist Politics And Social-Democratic Politics

We shall again begin by praising Rabocheye Dyelo .
“Literature of Exposure and the Proletarian Struggle” is the
title Martynov gave the article on his differences with Iskra published in Rabocheye Dyelo , No. 10. He
formulated the substance of the differences as follows: “We
cannot confine ourselves solely to exposing the system that
stands in its (the working-class party’s) path of development. We must also react to the immediate and current
interests of the proletariat.... Iskra . . . is in fact
an organ of revolutionary opposition that exposes the state of
affairs in our country, particularly the political state of
affairs.... We, however, work and shall continue to work for the
cause of the working class in close organic contact with the
proletarian struggle” (p. 63). One cannot help being grateful to
Martynov for this formula. It is of outstanding general
interest, because substantially it embraces not only our
disagreements with Rabocheye Dyelo , but the general disagreement between ourselves and the Economists on the
political struggle. We have shown that the Economists do not
altogether repudiate “politics”, but that they are constantly
straying from the Social-Democratic to the trade-unionist
conception of politics. Martynov strays in precisely this way, and we shall therefore take his views as a model of
Economist error on this question. As we shall endeavour to
prove, neither the authors of the “ Separate Supplement ”
to Rabochaya Mysl nor the authors of the manifesto issued by the Self-Emancipation Group, nor the authors of the
Economist letter published in Iskra , No. 12, will have
any right to complain against this choice.

### A. Political Agitation And Its Restriction By the Economists

Everyone knows that the economic [1] [1] To avoid misunderstanding, we must point out that here, and
throughout this pamphlet, by economic struggle, we imply (in
keeping with the accepted usage among us) the “practical
economic struggle”, which Engels, in the passage quoted above,
described as  “resistance to the capitalists”, and which in free
countries is known as the organised-labour syndical, or trade
union struggle.— Lenin struggle of the Russian workers underwent widespread development and consolidation
simultaneously with the production of “literature” exposing
economic (factory and occupational) conditions. The “leaflets”
were devoted mainly to the exposure of the factory system, and
very soon a veritable passion for exposures was roused among the
workers. As soon as the workers realised that the
Social-Democratic study circles desired to, and could, supply
them with a new kind of leaflet that told the whole truth about
their miserable existence, about their unbearably hard toil, and
their lack of rights, they began to send in, actually flood us
with, correspondence from the factories and workshops. This
“exposure literature” created a tremendous sensation, not only
in the particular factory exposed in the given leaflet, but in
all the factories to which news of the, revealed facts spread. And since the poverty and want among the workers in the
various enterprises and in the various trades are much the same,
the “truth about the life of the workers” stirred everyone. Even
among the most backward workers, a veritable passion arose to
“get into print” — a noble passion for this rudimentary form of
war against the whole of the present social system which is
based upon robbery and oppression. And in the overwhelming
majority of cases these “leaflets” were in truth a declaration of war, because the exposures served greatly to agitate the
workers; they evoked among them common demands for the removal
of the most glaring outrages and roused in them a readiness to
support the demands with strikes. Finally, the employers
themselves were compelled to recognise the significance of these
leaflets as a declaration of war, so much so that in a large
number of cases they did not even wait for the outbreak of
hostilities. As is always the case, the mere publication of
these exposures made them effective, and they acquired the
significance of a strong moral influence. On more than one
occasion, the mere appearance of a leaflet proved sufficient to
secure the satisfaction of all or part of the demands put
forward. In a word, economic (factory) exposures were and remain
an important lever in the economic struggle. And they will
continue to retain this significance as long as there is
capitalism, which makes it necessary for the workers to defend
themselves. Even in the most advanced countries of Europe it can
still be seen that the exposure of abuses in some backward
trade, or in some forgotten branch of domestic industry, serves
as a starting-point for the awakening of class-consciousness,
for the beginning of a trade union struggle, and for the spread
of socialism. [2]

The overwhelming majority of Russian Social-Democrats have of
late been almost entirely absorbed by this work of organising
the exposure of factory conditions. Suffice it to recall
Rabochaya Mysl to see the extent to which they have been
absorbed by it — so much so, indeed, that they have lost sight of the fact that this, taken by itself , is in essence
still not Social-Democratic work, but merely trade union
work. As a matter of fact, the exposures merely dealt with the
relations between the workers in a given trade and their employers, and all they achieved was that the sellers of
labour power learned to sell their “commodity” on better terms
and to fight the purchasers over a purely commercial deal. These
exposures could have served (if properly utilised by an
organisation of revolutionaries) as a beginning and a component
part of Social-Democratic activity; but they could also have led
(and, given a worshipful attitude towards spontaneity, were
bound to lead) to a “purely trade union” struggle and to a
non-Social-Democratic working-class movement. Social-Democracy
leads the struggle of the working class, not only for better
terms for the sale of labour-power, but for the abolition of the
social system that compels the propertyless to sell themselves
to the rich. Social-Democracy represents the working class, not
in its relation to a given group of employers alone, but in its
relation to all classes of modern society and to the state as an
organised political force. Hence, it follows that not only must
Social-Democrats not confine themselves exclusively to the
economic struggle, but that they must not allow the organisation
of economic exposures to become the predominant part of their
activities. We must take up actively the political education of
the working class and the development of its political consciousness. Now that Zarya and Iskra have made the first attack upon Economism, “all
are agreed” on this (although some agree only in words, as we
shall soon see).

The question arises, what should political education consist in?
Can it be confined to the propaganda of working-class hostility
to the autocracy? Of course not. It is not enough to explain to the workers that they are politically oppressed
(any more than it is to explain to them that their interests are antagonistic to the interests of the
employers). Agitation must be conducted with regard to every
concrete example of this oppression (as we have begun to carry on agitation round concrete examples of economic
oppression). Inasmuch as this oppression affects the most
diverse classes of society, inasmuch as it manifests itself in
the most varied spheres of life and activity — vocational,
civic, personal, family, religious, scientific, etc., etc. — is
it not evident that we shall not be fulfilling our task of developing the political consciousness of the workers if we
do not undertake the organisation of the political exposure of the autocracy in all its aspects? In order to
carry on agitation round concrete instances of oppression, these
instances must be exposed (as it is necessary to expose factory
abuses in order to carry on economic agitation).

One might think this to be clear enough. It turns out, however,
that it is only in words that “all” are agreed on the need to
develop political consciousness, in all its aspects . It
turns out that Rabocheye Dyelo , for example, far from tackling the task of organising (or making a start in
organising) comprehensive political exposure, is even trying to drag Iskra , which has undertaken this task, away
from it . Listen to the following: “The political struggle
of the working class is merely [it is certainly not ‘merely’]
the most developed, wide, and effective form of economic
struggle” (programme of Rabocheye Dyelo , published in issue No. 1, p. 3). “The Social-Democrats are now confronted
with the task of lending the economic struggle itself, as far as
possible, a political character” (Martynov, Rabocheye
Dyelo , No. 10, p. 42). “The economic struggle is the most
widely applicable means of drawing the masses into active
political struggle” (resolution adopted by the Conference of the
Union Abroad and “amendments” thereto, Two Conferences ,
pp. 11 and 17). As the reader will observe, all these theses
permeate Rabocheye Dyelo from its very first number to the latest “Instructions to the Editors”, and all of them
evidently express a single view regarding political agitation
and struggle. Let us examine this view from the standpoint of
the opinion prevailing among all Economists, that political
agitation must follow economic agitation. Is it true that, in general, [3] the
economic struggle “is the most widely applicable means” of drawing the masses into the
political struggle? It is entirely untrue. Any and every manifestation of police tyranny and autocratic
outrage, not only in connection with the economic struggle, is
not one whit less “widely applicable” as a means of “drawing in” the masses. The rural superintendents and the
flogging of peasants, the corruption of the officials and the police
treatment of the “common people” in the cities, the fight against the famine-stricken and the
suppression of the popular striving towards enlightenment and
knowledge, the extortion of taxes and the persecution of the
religious sects, the humiliating treatment of soldiers and the
barrack methods in the treatment of the students and liberal
intellectuals — do all these and a thousand other similar
manifestations of tyranny, though not directly connected with
the “economic” struggle, represent, in general, less “widely applicable” means and occasions for political
agitation and for drawing the masses into the political
struggle? The very opposite is true. Of the sum total of cases
in which the workers suffer (either on their own account or on
account of those closely connected with them) from tyranny,
violence, and the lack of rights, undoubtedly only a small
minority represent cases of police tyranny in the trade union
struggle as such. Why then should we, beforehand, restrict the scope of political agitation by declaring only one of the means to be “the most widely applicable”, when
Social-Democrats must have, in addition, other, generally
speaking, no less “widely applicable” means?

In the dim and distant past (a full year ago! Rabocheye
Dyelo wrote: “The masses begin to understand immediate political demands after one strike, or at all events, after
several”,  “as soon as the government sets the police and
gendarmerie against them” [ August (No. 7) 1900,
p. 15]. This opportunist theory of stages has now been rejected
by the Union Abroad, which makes a concession to us by declaring: “There is no need whatever to conduct political agitation right from the beginning, exclusively on an economic
basis” ( Two Conferences , p. 11). The Union’s repudiation of part of its former errors will show the future
historian of Russian Social-Democracy better than any number of
lengthy arguments the depths to which our Economists have
degraded socialism! But the Union Abroad must be very naive
indeed to imagine that the abandonment of one form of restricting politics will induce us to agree to another
form. Would it not be more logical to say, in this case too,
that the economic struggle should be conducted on the widest
possible basis, that it should always be utilised for political
agitation, but that “there is no need whatever” to regard the
economic struggle as the most widely applicable means of drawing the masses into active political struggle?

The Union Abroad attaches significance to the fact that it has
substituted the phrase “most widely applicable means” for the
phrase “the best means” contained in one of the resolutions of
the Fourth Congress of the Jewish Workers’ Union (Bund). We
confess that we find it difficult to say which of these
resolutions is the better one. In our opinion they are both
worse . Both the Union Abroad and the Bund fall into the
error (partly, perhaps unconsciously, under the influence of
tradition) of giving an Economist, trade-unionist interpretation
to politics. Whether this is done by employing the word “best”
or the words “most widely applicable” makes no essential
difference whatever. Had the Union Abroad said that “political
agitation on an economic basis” is the most widely applied (not
“applicable”) means,  it would have been right in regard to a
certain period in the development of our Social-Democratic
movement. It would have been right in regard to the Economists and to many (if not the majority) of the
practical workers of 1898-1901; for these practical Economists applied political agitation (to the extent that they
applied it at all) almost exclusively on an economic basis . Political agitation on such lines was recognised
and, as we have seen, even recommended by Rabochaya Mysl and the
Self-Emancipation Group. Rabocheye Dyelo should have strongly condemned the fact that the useful work of
economic agitation was accompanied by the harmful restriction of
the political struggle; instead, it declares the means most
widely applied (by the Economists) to be the most widely applicable ! It is not surprising that when we
call these people Economists, they can do nothing but pour every
manner of abuse upon us; call us “mystifiers”, “disrupters”, “papal nuncios”, and “slanderers” [4] go complaining to the whole world
that we have mortally offended them; and declare almost on oath
that “not a single Social-Democratic organisation is now tinged
with Economism”. [5] Oh, those evil, slanderous politicians! They must have deliberately invented this
Economism, out of sheer hatred of mankind, in order mortally to
offend other people.

What concrete, real meaning attaches to Martynov’s words when he
sets before Social-Democracy the task of “lending the economic
struggle itself a political character”? The economic struggle is
the collective struggle of the workers against their employers
for better terms in the sale of their labour-power , for
better living and working conditions. This struggle is necessarily a trade union struggle, because working conditions
differ greatly in different trades, and, consequently, the
struggle to improve them can only be conducted on the basis of trade organisations (in the Western countries, through
trade unions; in Russia, through temporary trade associations
and through leaflets, etc.). Lending “the economic struggle
itself a political character” means, therefore, striving to
secure satisfaction of these trade demands, the improvement of working conditions in each separate
trade by means of “legislative and administrative measures” (as
Martynov puts it on the ensuing page of his article,
p. 43). This is precisely what all workers’ trade unions do and
always have done. Read the works of the soundly scientific (and
“soundly” opportunist) Mr. and Mrs. Webb and you will see that
the British trade unions long ago recognised, and have long been
carrying out, the task of “lending the economic struggle itself
a political character”; they have long been fighting for the
right to strike, for the removal of all legal hindrances to the
co-operative and trade union movements, for laws to protect
women and children, for the improvement of labour conditions by
means of health and factory legislation, etc.

Thus, the pompous phrase about “lending the economic struggle itself a political character”, which sounds so
“terrifically” profound and revolutionary, serves as a screen to
conceal what is in fact the traditional striving to degrade Social-Democratic politics to the level of trade
union politics. Under the guise of rectifying the onesidedness
of Iskra , which, it is alleged, places “the revolutionising of dogma higher than the revolutionising of
life”, [6] we are presented with the struggle for economic reforms as if it were something entirely new. In point of fact, the
phrase “lending the economic struggle itself a political
character” means nothing more than the struggle for economic
reforms. Martynov himself might have come to this simple
conclusion, had he pondered over the significance of his own
words. “Our Party,” he says, training his heaviest guns on Iskra , “could and should have presented concrete
demands to the government for legislative and administrative
measures against economic exploitation, unemployment, famine,
etc.” ( Rabocheye Dyelo , No. 10, pp. 42-43). Concrete demands for measures — does not this mean demands for social
reforms? Again we ask the impartial reader: Are we slandering
the Rabocheye Dyelo -ites (may I be forgiven for this awkward, currently used designation!) by calling them concealed
Bernsteinians when, as their point of disagreement with
Iskra , they advance their thesis on the necessity of struggling for economic reforms?

Revolutionary Social-Democracy has always included the struggle
for reforms as part of its activities. But it utilises “economic” agitation for the purpose of presenting to the
government, not only demands for all sorts of measures, but also
(and primarily) the demand that it cease to be an autocratic
government. Moreover, it considers it its duty to present this
demand to the government on the basis, not of the economic
struggle alone , but of all manifestations in general of
public and political life. In a word, it subordinates the struggle for reforms, as the part to the whole, to the
revolutionary struggle for freedom and for socialism.  Martynov,
however, resuscitates the theory of stages in a new form and
strives to prescribe, as it were, an exclusively economic path
of development for the political struggle. By advancing at this
moment, when the revolutionary movement is on the upgrade, an
alleged special “task” of struggling for reforms, he is dragging
the Party backwards and is playing into the hands of both
“Economist” and liberal opportunism.

To proceed. Shamefacedly hiding the struggle for reforms behind
the pompous thesis of “lending the economic struggle itself a
political character”, Martynov advanced, as if it were a special
point, exclusively economic (indeed, exclusively factory) reforms . As to the reason for his doing that,
we do not know it. Carelessness, perhaps? Yet if he had in mind
something else besides “factory” reforms, then the whole of his
thesis, which we have cited, loses all sense. Perhaps he did it
because he considers it possible and probable that the government will make “concessions” only in the economic
sphere? [7] If so, then it is a strange delusion. Concessions are also possible and
are made in the sphere of legislation concerning flogging,
passports, land redemption payments, religious sects, the
censorship, etc., etc. “Economic” concessions (or pseudo-concessions) are, of course, the cheapest and most
advantageous from the government’s point of view, because by
these means it hopes to win the confidence of the working
masses. For this very reason, we Social-Democrats must not under any circumstances or in any way whatever create
grounds for the belief (or the misunderstanding) that we attach
greater value to economic reforms, or that we regard them as
being particularly important, etc. “Such demands,” writes
Martynov, speaking of the concrete demands for legislative and
administrative measures referred to above, “would not be merely
a hollow sound, because, promising certain palpable results,
they might be actively supported by the working masses....” We
are not Economists, oh no! We only cringe as slavishly before
the “palpableness” of concrete results as do the Bernsteins, the
Prokopoviches, the Struves, the R.M.s, and tutti quanti! We only wish to make it understood (together with
Nartsis Tuporylov) that all which “does not promise palpable
results” is merely a “hollow sound”! We are only trying to argue
as if the working masses were incapable (and had not already
proved their capabilities, notwithstanding those who ascribe
their own philistinism to them) of actively supporting every protest against the autocracy, even if it promises
absolutely no palpable results whatever!

Let us take, for example, the very “measures” for the relief of
unemployment and the famine that Martynov himself advances. Rabocheye Dyelo is engaged, judging by what
it has promised, in drawing up and elaborating a programme of
“concrete [in the form of bills?] demands for legislative and
administrative measures”, “promising palpable results”, while Iskra , which “constantly places the revolutionising of
dogma higher than the revolutionising of life”, has tried to
explain the inseparable connection between unemployment and the
whole capitalist system, has given warning that “famine is
coming”, has exposed the police “fight against the famine-stricken”, and the outrageous “provisional penal
servitude regulations”; and Zarya has published a special reprint, in the form of an agitational pamphlet, of a
section of its “Review of Home Affairs”, dealing with the
famine. [8] But good God! How “onesided” were these incorrigibly narrow and
orthodox doctrinaires, how deaf to the calls of “life itself”!
Their articles contained — oh horror! — not a single , can you imagine it? not a single “concrete demand” “promising
palpable results”! Poor doctrinaires! They ought to be sent to
Krichevsky and Martynov to be taught that tactics are a process
of growth, of that which grows, etc., and that the economic
struggle itself should be given a political character!

“In addition to its immediate revolutionary significance, the
economic struggle of the workers against the employers and the
government [“ economic struggle against the government”!] has also this significance: it constantly brings
home to the workers the fact that they have no political rights”
(Martynov, p. 44). We quote this passage, not in order to repeat
for the hundredth and thousandth time what has been said above,
but in order to express particular thanks to Martynov for this
excellent new formula: “the economic struggle of the workers
against the employers and the government”. What a gem! With what
inimitable skill and mastery in eliminating all partial
disagreements and shades of differences among Economists this
clear and concise proposition expresses the quintessence of Economism, from summoning the workers “to the political
struggle, which they carry on in the general interest, for the
improvement of the conditions of all the workers”, [9] continuing through
the theory of stages, and ending in the resolution of the
Conference on the “most widely applicable”, etc. “Economic
struggle against the government” is precisely trade-unionist
politics, which is still very far from being Social-Democratic
politics.

### B. How Martynov Rendered Plekhanov More Profound

“What a large number of Social-Democratic Lomonosovs have
appeared among us lately!” observed a comrade one day, having in
mind the astonishing propensity of many who are inclined toward
Economism to, arrive, “necessarily, by their own under standing”, at great truths (e.g., that the economic struggle
stimulates the workers to ponder over their lack of rights) and
in doing so to ignore, with the supreme contempt of born
geniuses, all that has been produced by the antecedent development of revolutionary thought and of the revolutionary
movement. Lomonosov-Martynov is precisely such a born genius. We
need but glance at his article “Urgent Questions” to see how by
“his own understanding” he arrives at what was long ago
said by Axelrod (of whom our Lomonosov, naturally, says not a
word); how, for instance, he is beginning to understand
that we cannot ignore the opposition of such or such strata of
the bourgeoisie ( Rabocheye Dyelo , No. 9, pp. 61, 62, 71; compare this with Rabocheye Dyelo’s Reply to Axelrod,
pp. 22, 23-24), etc. But alas, he is only “arriving” and is only
“beginning”, not more than that, for so little has he understood
Axelrod’s ideas, that hetalks about “the economic struggle
against the employers and the government”. For three years
(1898-1901) Rabocheye Dyelo has tried hard to understand Axelrod, but has so far not understood him! Can one
of the reasons be that Social-Democracy, “like mankind”, always
sets itself only tasks that can be achieved?

But the Lomonosovs are distinguished not only by their ignorance
of many things (that would be but half misfortune!), but also by
their unawareness of their own ignorance. Now this is a real
misfortune; and it is this misfortune that prompts them without
further ado to attempt to render Plekhanov “more profound”.

“Much water,” Lomonosov-Martynov says, “has flowed under the bridge since Plekhanov wrote his book ( Tasks of the
Socialists in the Fight Against the Famine in Russia ). The
Social-Democrats who for a decade led the economic struggle of
the working class ... have failed as yet to lay down a broad
theoretical basis for Party tactics. This question has now come
to a head, and if we should wish to lay down such a theoretical
basis, we should certainly have to deepen considerably the
principles of tactics developed at one time by Plekhanov.... Our
present definition of the distinction between propaganda and
agitation would have to be different from Plekhanov’s (Martynov
has just quoted PIekhanov’s words: “A propagandist presents many
ideas to one or a few persons; an agitator presents only one or
a few ideas, but he presents them to a mass of people.”) By
propaganda we would understand the revolutionary explanation of
the present social system, entire or in its partial manifestations, whether that be done in a form intelligible to
individuals or to broad masses. By agitation, in the strict
sense of the word ( sic !), we would understand the call
upon the masses to undertake definite, concrete actions and the
promotion of the direct revolutionary intervention of the
proletariat in social life.”

“Much water,” Lomonosov-Martynov says, “has flowed under the bridge since Plekhanov wrote his book ( Tasks of the
Socialists in the Fight Against the Famine in Russia ). The
Social-Democrats who for a decade led the economic struggle of
the working class ... have failed as yet to lay down a broad
theoretical basis for Party tactics. This question has now come
to a head, and if we should wish to lay down such a theoretical
basis, we should certainly have to deepen considerably the
principles of tactics developed at one time by Plekhanov.... Our
present definition of the distinction between propaganda and
agitation would have to be different from Plekhanov’s (Martynov
has just quoted PIekhanov’s words: “A propagandist presents many
ideas to one or a few persons; an agitator presents only one or
a few ideas, but he presents them to a mass of people.”) By
propaganda we would understand the revolutionary explanation of
the present social system, entire or in its partial manifestations, whether that be done in a form intelligible to
individuals or to broad masses. By agitation, in the strict
sense of the word ( sic !), we would understand the call
upon the masses to undertake definite, concrete actions and the
promotion of the direct revolutionary intervention of the
proletariat in social life.”

We congratulate Russian-and international-Social-Democracy on
having found, thanks to Martynov, a new terminology, more strict
and more profound. Hitherto we thought (with Plekhanov, and with
all the leaders of the international working class movement)
that the propagandist, dealing with, say, the question of
unemployment, must explain the capitalistic nature of crises,
the cause of their inevitability in modern society, the
necessity for the transformation of this society into a
socialist society, etc. In a word, he must present “many ideas”,
so many, indeed, that they will be understood as an integral whole only by a (comparatively) few persons. The agitator,
however, speaking on the same subject, will take as an illustration a fact that is most glaring and most widely known
to his audience, say, the death of an unemployed worker’s family
from starvation, the growing impoverishment, etc., and,
utilising this fact, known to all, will direct his efforts to
presenting a single idea to the “masses”, e.g., the senselessness of the contradiction between the increase of
wealth and the increase of poverty; he will strive to rouse discontent and indignation among the masses against
this crying injustice, leaving a more complete explanation of
this contradiction to the propagandist. Consequently, the
propagandist operates chiefly by means of the printed word; the agitator by means of the spoken word.
The propagandist requires qualities different from those of the agitator. Kautsky and Lafargue, for example, we
term propagandists; Bebel and Guesde we term agitators. To
single out a third sphere, or third function, of practical
activity, and to include in this function “the call upon the
masses to undertake definite concrete actions”, is sheer
nonsense, because the “call”, as a single act, either naturally
and inevitably supplements the theoretical treatise, propagandist pamphlet, and agitational speech, or represents a
purely executive function. Let us take, for example, the
struggle the German Social-Democrats are now waging against the
corn duties. The theoreticians write research works on tariff
policy, with the “call”, say, to struggle for commercial
treaties and for Free Trade. The propagandist does the same
thing in the periodical press, and the agitator in public
speeches. At the present time, the “concrete action” of the
masses takes the form of signing petitions to the Reichstag
against raising the corn duties. The call for this action comes
indirectly from the theoreticians, the propagandists, and the
agitators, and, directly, from the workers who take the petition
lists to the factories and to private homes for the gathering of
signatures. According to the “Martynov terminology”, Kautsky and
Bebel are both propagandists, while those who solicit the
signatures are agitators. Isn’t it clear?

The German example recalled to my mind the German word which,
literally translated, means “Ballhorning”. Johann Ballhorn, a Leipzig publisher of the sixteenth century, published a child’s
reader in which, as was the custom, he introduced a drawing of a
cock, but a cock without spurs and with a couple of eggs lying
near it. On the cover he printed the legend, “ Revised edition by Johann Ballhorn”. Ever since then, the Germans
describe any “revision” that is really a worsening as “ballhorning”. And one cannot help recalling Ballhorn upon
seeing how the Martynovs try to render Plekhanov “more profound”.

Why did our Lomonosov “invent” this confusion? In order to
illustrate how Iskra “devotes attention only to one side of the case, just as Pleklianov did a decade and a half
ago” (39). “With Iskra , propagandist tasks force agitational tasks into the background, at least for the present”
(52). If we translate this last proposition from the language of
Martynov into ordinary human language (because mankind has not
yet managed to learn the newly-invented terminology), we shall
get the following: with Iskra , the tasks of political propaganda and political agitation force into the background the
task of “presenting to the government concrete demands for
legislative and administrative measures” that “promise certain
palpable results” (or demands for social reforms, that is, if we
are permitted once again to employ the old terminology of the
old mankind not yet grown to Martynov’s level). We suggest that
the reader compare this thesis with the following tirade:

“What also astonishes us in these programmes [the programmes
advanced by revolutionary Social-Democrats] is their constant
stress upon the benefits of workers’ activity in parliament
(non-existent in Russia), though they completely ignore (thanks
to their revolutionary nihilism) the importance of workers’
participation in the legislative manufacturers’ assemblies on
factory affairs [which do exist in Russia] ... or at least the
importance of workers’ participation in municipal bodies....”

“What also astonishes us in these programmes [the programmes
advanced by revolutionary Social-Democrats] is their constant
stress upon the benefits of workers’ activity in parliament
(non-existent in Russia), though they completely ignore (thanks
to their revolutionary nihilism) the importance of workers’
participation in the legislative manufacturers’ assemblies on
factory affairs [which do exist in Russia] ... or at least the
importance of workers’ participation in municipal bodies....”

The author of this tirade expresses in a somewhat more forthright and clearer manner the very idea which
Lomonosov-Martynov discovered by his own understanding. The
author is R. M., in the “ Separate Supplement” to Rabochaya
Mysl (p. 15).

### C. Political Exposures And “Training In Revolutionary Activity”

In advancing against Iskra his theory of “raising the activity of the working masses”, Martynov actually betrayed an
urge to belittle that activity, for he declared the very economic struggle before which all economists grovel to be
the preferable, particularly important, and “most widely
applicable” means of rousing this activity and its broadest
field. This error is characteristic, precisely in that it is by
no means peculiar to Martynov. In reality, it is possible to
“raise the activity of the working masses” only when this activity is not restricted to “political agitation
on an economic basis”. A basic condition for the necessary
expansion of political agitation is the organisation of comprehensive political exposure. In no way except by means of such exposures can the masses be
trained in political consciousness and revolutionary activity. Hence, activity of this kind is one of the most
important functions of international Social-Democracy as a
whole, for even political freedom does not in any way eliminate
exposures; it merely shifts somewhat their sphere of direction. Thus, the German party is especially strengthening
its positions and spreading its influence, thanks particularly
to the untiring energy with which it is conducting its campaign
of political exposure. Working-class consciousness cannot be
genuine political consciousness unless the workers are trained
to respond to all cases of tyranny, oppression, violence, and abuse, no matter what class is affected
— unless they are trained, moreover, to respond from a
Social-Democratic point of view and no other. The consciousness
of the working masses cannot be genuine class-consciousness,
unless the workers learn, from concrete, and above all from
topical, political facts and events to observe every other social class in all the manifestations of
its intellectual, ethical, and political life; unless they learn
to apply in practice the materialist analysis and the materialist estimate of all aspects of the life and
activity of all classes, strata, and groups of the population. Those who concentrate the attention, observation,
and consciousness of the working class exclusively, or even
mainly, upon itself alone are not Social-Democrats; for the
self-knowledge of the working class is indissolubly bound up,
not solely with a fully clear theoretical understanding — or rather, not so much with the theoretical, as with the practical,
understanding — of the relationships between all the various classes of modern society, acquired through the
experience of political life. For this reason the conception of
the economic struggle as the most widely applicable means of
drawing the masses into the political movement, which our
Economists preach, is so extremely harmful and reactionary in
its practical significance. In order to become a
Social-Democrat, the worker must have a clear picture in his
mind of the economic nature and the social and political
features of the landlord and the priest, the high state official
and the peasant, the student and the vagabond; he must know
their strong and weak points; he must grasp the meaning of all
the catchwords and sophisms by which each class and each stratum camouflages its selfish strivings and its real “inner
workings”; he must understand what interests are reflected by
certain institutions and certain laws and how they are reflected. But this “clear picture” cannot be obtained from any
book. It can be obtained only from living examples and from
exposures that follow close upon what is going on about us at a
given moment; upon what is being discussed, in whispers perhaps,
by each one in his own way; upon what finds expression in such
and such events, in such and such statistics, in such and such
court sentences, etc., etc. These comprehensive political
exposures are an essential and fundamental condition for training the masses in revolutionary activity.

Why do the Russian workers still manifest little revolutionary
activity in response to the brutal treatment of the people by
the police, the persecution of religious sects, the flogging of
peasants, the outrageous censorship, the torture of soldiers,
the persecution of the most innocent cultural undertakings, etc.? Is it
because the “economic struggle” does not “stimulate” them to this, because such activity does not “promise palpable
results”, because it produces little that is “positive”? To
adopt such an opinion, we repeat, is merely to direct the charge
where it does not belong, to blame the working masses for one’s
own philistinism (or Bernsteinism). We must blame ourselves, our
lagging behind the mass movement, for still being unable to
organise sufficiently wide, striking, and rapid exposures of all
the shameful outrages. When we do that (and we must and can do
it), the most backward worker will understand, or will feel , that the students and religious sects, the peasants
and the authors are being abused and outraged by those same dark
forces that are oppressing and crushing him at every step of his
life. Feeling that, he himself will be filled with an irresistible desire to react, and he will know how to hoot the
censors one day, on another day to demonstrate outside the house
of a governor who has brutally suppressed a peasant uprising, on
still another day to teach a lesson to the gendarmes in
surplices who are doing the work of the Holy Inquisition,
etc. As yet we have done very little, almost nothing, to
bring before the working masses prompt exposures on all
possible issues. Many of us as yet do not recognise this as our bounden duty but trail spontaneously in the wake of the
“drab everyday struggle”, in the narrow confines of factory
life. Under such circumstances to say that “ Iskra displays a tendency to minimise the significance of the forward
march of the drab everyday struggle in comparison with the
propaganda of brilliant and complete ideas” (Martynov, op. cit.,
p. 61), means to drag the Party back, to defend and glorify our
unpreparedness and backwardness.

As for calling the masses to action, that will come of itself as
soon as energetic political agitation, live and striking
exposures come into play. To catch some criminal red-handed and
immediately to brand him publicly in all places is of itself far
more effective than any number of “calls”; the effect very often
is such as will make it impossible to tell exactly who it was
that “called” upon the masses and who suggested this or that
plan of demonstration, etc. Calls for action, not in the
general, but in the concrete, sense of the term can be made only
at the place of action; only those who themselves go into
action, and do so immediately, can sound such calls. Our
business as Social-Democratic publicists is to deepen, expand,
and intensify political exposures and political agitation.

A word in passing about “calls to action”. The only newspaper which prior to the spring events called upon the workers to intervene actively in a
matter that certainly did not promise any palpable results whatever for the workers, i.e., the drafting of the
students into the army, was Iskra . Immediately after the publication of the order of January 11, on “drafting the 183
students into the army”, Iskra published an article on the matter (in its February issue, No. 2), [10] and, before any demonstration was begun, forthwith called upon “the workers to go to the aid of the students”, called upon the
“people” openly to take up the government’s arrogant challenge. We ask: how is the remarkable fact to be explained
that although Martynov talks so much about “calls to action”,
and even suggests “calls to action” as a special form of
activity, he said not a word about this call? After this, was it not sheer philistinism on Martynov’s part to allege
that Iskra was one-sided because it did not issue sufficient “calls” to struggle for demands “promising
palpable results”?

Our Economists, including Rabocheye Dyelo , were successful because they adapted themselves to the backward
workers. But the Social-Democratic worker, the revolutionary
worker (and the number of such workers is growing) will
indignantly reject all this talk about struggle for demands
“promising palpable results”, etc., because he will understand
that this is only a variation of the old song about adding a
kopek to the ruble.  Such a worker will say to his counsellors
from Rabochaya Mysl and Rabocheye Dyelo : you are busying yourselves in vain, gentlemen, and shirking your
proper duties, by meddling with such excessive zeal in a job
that we can very well manage ourselves. There is nothing clever
in your assertion that the Social-Democrats’ task is to lend the
economic struggle itself a political character; that is only the
beginning, it is not the main task of the Social-Democrats. For
all over the world, including Russia, the police themselves
often take the initiative in lending the economic struggle
a political character, and the workers themselves learn to
understand whom the government supports. [11] [11] The demand “to lend the economic struggle itself a political
character” most strikingly expresses subservience to spontaneity in the sphere of political activity. Very often
the economic struggle spontaneously assumes a political
character, that is to say, without the intervention of the
“revolutionary bacilli — the intelligentsia”, without the intervention of the class-conscious Social-Democrats. The
economic struggle of the English workers, for instance, also
assumed a political character without any intervention on the
part of the socialists. The task of the Social-Democrats,
however, is not exhausted by political agitation on an economic
basis; their task is to convert trade-unionist politics
into Social-Democratic political struggle, to utilise the sparks of political consciousness which the economic
struggle generates among the workers, for the purpose of raising the workers to the level of Social-Democratic political consciousness. The
Martynovs, however, instead of raising and stimulating the
spontaneously awakening political consciousness of the workers, bow to spontaneity and repeat over and over ad
nauseam , that the economic struggle “Impels” the workers to
realise their own lack of political rights. It is unfortunate,
gentlemen, that the spontaneously awakening trade-unionist
political consciousness does not “ impel ” you to an understanding of your Social-Democratic tasks.— Lenin The “economic struggle of the workers against the employers and the government”, about which you make as much fuss as if you had
discovered a new America, is being waged in all parts of Russia,
even the most remote, by the workers themselves who have heard
about strikes, but who have heard almost nothing about socialism. The “activity” you want to stimulate among us
workers, by advancing concrete demands that promise palpable
results, we are already displaying and in our everyday, limited
trade union work we put forward these concrete demands, very
often without any assistance whatever from the intellectuals. But such activity is not enough for us;
we are not children to be fed on the thin gruel of “economic”
politics alone; we want to know everything that others know, we
want to learn the details of all aspects of political life and to take part actively in every single
political event. In order that we may do this, the intellectuals
must talk to us less of what we already know. [12] and tell us more
about what we do not yet know and what we can never learn from our factory and “economic” experience, namely, political
knowledge. You intellectuals can acquire this knowledge, and it
is your duty to bring it to us in a hundred- and a thousand-fold greater measure than you have done up to now; and
you must bring it to us, not only in the form of discussions,
pamphlets, and articles (which very often —  pardon our
frankness — are rather dull), but precisely in the form of
vivid exposures of what our government and our governing classes are doing at this very moment in all spheres
of life. Devote more zeal to carrying out this duty and talk
less about “ raising the activity of the working masses ”. We are far more active than you think, and we are
quite able to support, by open street fighting, even demands
that do not promise any “palpable results” whatever. It is not
for you to “raise” our activity, because activity is precisely the thing you yourselves lack. Bow less in
subservience to spontaneity, and think more about raising your
own activity, gentlemen!

### D. What Is There In Common Between Economism and Terrorism?

In the last footnote we cited the opinion of an Economist and of
a non-Social -Democratic terrorist, who showed themselves to be
accidentally in agreement. Speaking generally, however, there is
not an accidental, but a necessary, inherent connection between
the two, of which we shall have need to speak later, and which
must be mentioned here in connection with the question of education for revolutionary activity. The Economists and the
root, namely, subservience to spontaneity , with which we dealt in the preceding chapter as a general phenomenon and
which we shall now examine in relation to its effect upon
political activity and the political struggle. At first sight,
our assertion may appear paradoxical, so great is the difference
between those who stress the “drab everyday struggle” and those
who call for the most self sacrificing struggle of individuals. But this is no paradox. The Economists and the
terrorists merely bow to different poles of spontaneity; the
Economists bow to the spontaneity of “the labour movement pure
and simple”, while the terrorists bow to the spontaneity of the
passionate indignation of intellectuals, who lack the ability or
opportunity to connect the revolutionary struggle and the
working-class movement into an integral whole. It is difficult
indeed for those who have lost their belief, or who have never
believed, that this is possible, to find some outlet for their
indignation and revolutionary energy other than terror. Thus,
both forms of subservience to spontaneity we have mentioned are
nothing but the beginning of the implementation of the notorious Credo programme: Let the workers wage their
“economic struggle against the employers and the government” (we
apologise to the author of the Credo for expressing her
views in Martynov’s words. We think we have a right to do so
since the Credo , too, says that in the economic struggle the workers "come up against the political regime and
let the intellectuals conduct the political struggle by their
own efforts — with the aid of terror, of course! This is an
absolutely logical and inevitable conclusion which must
be insisted on — even though those who are beginning to carry out this programme do not themselves realise that it is inevitable. Political activity has its logic quite
apart from the consciousness of those who, with the best
intentions, call either for terror or for lending the economic
struggle itself a political character. The road to hell is paved
with good intentions, and, in this case, good intentions cannot
save one from being spontaneously drawn “along the line of least
resistance”, along the line of the purely bourgeois
Credo programme. Surely it is no accident either that many Russian liberals — avowed liberals and liberals that wear the
mask of Marxism — whole-heartedly sympathise with terror and
try to foster the terrorist moods that have surged up in the
present time.

The formation of the Revolutionary-Socialist Svoboda Group which set itself the aim of helping the working-class
movement in every possible way, but which included in its programme terror, and emancipation, so to speak, from
Social-Democracy — once again confirmed the remarkable perspicacity of P. B. Axelrod, who literally foretold these results of Social-Democratic waverings as far back as
the end of 1897 (Present Tasks and Tactics) , when he outlined his famous “two perspectives”. All the subsequent
disputes and disagreements among Russian Social-Democrats are
contained, like a plant in the seed, in these two perspectives. [13]

From this point of view it also becomes clear why Rabocheye
Dyelo , unable to withstand the spontaneity of Economism,
has likewise been unable to withstand the spontaneity of
terrorism. It is highly interesting to note here the specific
arguments that Svoboda has advanced in defence of terrorism. It “completely denies” the deterrent role of
terrorism ( The Regeneration of Revolutionism , p. 64),
but instead stresses its “excitative significance”. This is
characteristic, first, as representing one of the stages of the
breakup and decline of the traditional (pre-Social-Democratic)
cycle of ideas which insisted upon terrorism. The admission that the government cannot now be “terrified” and hence disrupted, by
terror, is tantamount to a complete condemnation of terror as a
system of struggle, as a sphere of activity sanctioned by the
programme. Secondly, it is still more characteristic as an
example of the failure to understand our immediate tasks in
regard to “education for revolutionary activity”. Svoboda advocates terror as a means of “exciting” the working-class
movement and of giving it a “strong impetus”. It is difficult to
imagine an argument that more thoroughly disproves itself. Are
there not enough outrages committed in Russian life without
special “excitants” having to be invented? On the other hand, is
it not obvious that those who are not, and cannot be, roused to
excitement even by Russian tyranny will stand by “twiddling
their thumbs” and watch a handful of terrorists engaged in
single combat with the government? The fact is that the working
masses are roused to a high pitch of excitement by the social
evils in Russian life, but we are unable to gather, if one may
so put it, and concentrate all these drops and streamlets of
popular resentment that are brought forth to a far larger extent
than we imagine by the conditions of Russian life, and that must
be combined into a single gigantic torrent. That this can be
accomplished is irrefutably proved by the enormous growth of the
working-class movement and the eagerness, noted above, with
which the workers clamour for political literature. On the other
hand, calls for terror and calls to lend the economic struggle
itself a political character are merely two different forms of evading the most pressing duty now resting upon Russian
revolutionaries, namely, the organisation of comprehensive
political agitation. Svoboda desires to substitute terror for agitation, openly admitting that “as soon as
intensified and strenuous agitation is begun among the masses
the excitative function of terror will be ended” ( The
Regeneration of Revolutionism , p. 68). This proves precisely that both the terrorists and the Economists underestimate the revolutionary activity of the masses,
despite the striking evidence of the events that took place in
the spring, [14] and whereas the one group goes out in search of artificial “excitants”, the other talks about
“concrete demands”. But both fail to devote sufficient attention
to the development of their own activity in political agitation and in the organisation of political exposures. And no
other work can serve as a substitute for this task either at the present time or at any other.

### E. The Working Class As Vanguard Fighter For Democracy

We have seen that the conduct of the broadest political
agitation and, consequently, of all-sided political exposures is
an absolutely necessary and a paramount task of our activity, if this activity is to be truly
Social-Democratic. However, we arrived at this conclusion solely
on the grounds of the pressing needs of the working class for
political knowledge and political training. But such a presentation of the question is too narrow, for it ignores the
general democratic tasks of Social-Democracy, in particular of
present-day Russian Social-Democracy. In order to explain the
point more concretely we shall approach the subject from an
aspect that is “nearest” to the Economist, namely, from the
practical aspect. “Everyone agrees” that it is necessary to
develop the political consciousness of the working class. The
question is, how that is to be done and what is required to do it. The economic struggle merely “impels” the
workers to realise the government’s attitude towards the working
class.  Consequently, however much we may try to “lend the economic, struggle itself a political character”, we
shall never be able to develop the political consciousness
of the workers (to the level of Social-Democratic political
consciousness) by keeping within the framework of the economic
struggle, for that framework is too narrow. The
Martynov formula has some value for us, not because it illustrates Martynov’s aptitude for confusing things, but
because it pointedly expresses the basic error that all the
Economists commit, namely, their conviction that it is possible
to develop the class political consciousness of the workers from within , so to speak, from their economic struggle,
i.e., by making this struggle the exclusive (or, at least, the main) starting-point, by making it the exclusive (or, at least,
the main) basis. Such a view is radically wrong. Piqued by our
polemics against them, the Economists refuse to ponder deeply
over the origins of these disagreements, with the result that we
simply cannot understand one another.  It is as if we spoke in
different tongues.

Class political consciousness can be brought to the workers only from without , that is, only from outside the
economic struggle, from outside the sphere of relations between
workers and employers. The sphere from which alone it is
possible to obtain this knowledge is the sphere of relationships
of all classes and strata to the state and the government, the sphere of the interrelations between all classes. For that reason, the reply to the question as to
what must be done to bring political knowledge to the workers
cannot be merely the answer with which, in the majority of
cases, the practical workers, especially those inclined towards
Economism, mostly content themselves, namely: “To go among the
workers.” To bring political knowledge to the workers the Social Democrats must go among all classes of the
population ; they must dispatch units of their army in all directions .

We deliberately select this blunt formula, we deliberately
express ourselves in this sharply simplified manner, not because
we desire to indulge in paradoxes, but in order to “impel” the
Economists to a realisation of their tasks which they unpardonably ignore, to suggest to them strongly the difference
between trade-unionist and Social-Democratic politics, which
they refuse to understand. We therefore beg the reader not to
get wrought up, but to hear us patiently to the end.

Let us take the type of Social-Democratic study circle that has
become most widespread in the past few years and examine its
work. It has “contacts with the workers” and rests content with
this, issuing leaflets in which abuses in the factories, the
government’s partiality towards the capitalists, and the tyranny
of the police are strongly condemned. At workers’ meetings the
discussions never, or rarely ever, go beyond the limits of these
subjects. Extremely rare are the lectures and discussions held
on the history of the revolutionary movement, on questions of
the government’s home and foreign policy, on questions of the
economic evolution of Russia and of Europe, on the position of the various classes in modern society, etc. As to systematically
acquiring and extending contact with other classes of society,
no one even dreams of that. In fact, the ideal leader, as the
majority of the members of such circles picture him, is
something far more in the nature of a trade union secretary than
a socialist political leader. For the secretary of any, say
English, trade union always helps the workers to carry on the
economic struggle, he helps them to expose factory abuses,
explains the injustice of the laws and of measures that hamper
the freedom to strike and to picket (i. e., to warn all and
sundry that a strike is proceeding at a certain factory),
explains the partiality of arbitration court judges who belong
to the bourgeois classes, etc., etc. In a word, every trade
union secretary conducts and helps to conduct “the economic
struggle against the employers and the government”. It cannot be
too strongly maintained that this is still not Social-Democracy, that the Social-Democrat’s ideal should not be
the trade union secretary, but the tribune of the people , who is able to react to every manifestation of
tyranny and oppression, no matter where it appears, no matter
what stratum or class of the people it affects; who is able to
generalise all these manifestations and produce a single picture
of police violence and capitalist exploitation; who is able to
take advantage of every event, however small, in order to set
forth before all his socialist convictions and his democratic demands, in order to clarify for all and
everyone the world-historic significance of the struggle for the
emancipation of the proletariat. Compare, for example, a leader
like Robert Knight (the well-known secretary and leader of the
Boiler-Makers’ Society, one of the most powerful trade unions in
England), with Wilhelm Liebknecht, and try to apply to them the
contrasts that Martynov draws in his controversy with Iskra . You will see — I am running through Martynov’s
article — that Robert Knight engaged more in “calling the
masses to certain concrete actions” (Martynov, op. cit., p. 39),
while Willielin Liebknecht engaged more in “the revolutionary
elucidation of the whole of the present system or partial
manifestations of it” (38-39); that Robert Knight “formulated
the immediate demands of the proletariat and indicated the means by which they can be achieved” (41), whereas Wilhelm Liebknecht,
while doing this, did not hold back from “simultaneously guiding
the activities of various opposition strata”, “dictating a
positive programme of action for them” [15] (41); that Robert
Knight strove “as far as possible to lend the economic struggle
itself a political character” (42) and was excellently able “to
submit to the government concrete demands promising certain
palpable results” (43), whereas Liebknecht engaged to a much
greater degree in “one-sided” “exposures” (40); that Robert
Knight attached more significance to the “forward march of the
drab everyday struggle” (61), whereas Liebknecht attached more
significance to the “propaganda of brilliant and completed
ideas” (61); that Liebknecht converted the paper he was
directing into “an organ of revolutionary opposition that
exposed the state of affairs in our country, particularly the
political state of affairs, insofar as it affected the interests
of the most varied strata of the population” (63), whereas
Robert Knight “worked for the cause of the working class in
close organic connection with the proletarian struggle” (63) —
if by “close and organic connection” is meant the subservience
to spontaneity which we examined above, by taking the examples
of Krichevsky and Martynov — and “restricted the sphere of his
influence”, convinced, of course, as is Martynov, that “by doing
so he deepened that influence” (63). In a word, you will see
that de facto Martynov reduces Social-Democracy to the level of trade-unionism, though he does so, of course, not
because he does not desire the good of Social-Democracy, but
simply because he is a little too much in a hurry to render
Plekhanov more profound, instead of taking the trouble to
understand him.

Let us return, however, to our theses. We said that a Social
Democrat, if he really believes it necessary to develop
comprehensively the political consciousness of the proletariat,
must “go among all classes of the population”. This gives rise
to the questions: how is this to be done? have we enough forces
to do this? is there a basis for such work among all the other
classes?  will this not mean a retreat, or lead to a retreat, from the class point of view? Let us deal with these questions.

We must “go among all classes of the population” as theoreticians, as proagandists, as agitators, and as
organisers. Noone doubts that the theoretical work of
Social-Democrats should aim at studying all the specific
features of the social and political condition of the various
classes. But extremely little is done in this direction as
compared with the work that is done in studying the specific
features of factory life. In the committees and study circles,
one can meet people who are immersed in the study even of some
special branch of the metal industry; but one can hardly ever
find members of organisations (obliged, as often happens, for
some reason or other to give up practical work) who are
especially engaged in gathering material on some pressing
question of social and political life in our country which could
serve as a means for conducting Social-Democratic work among
other strata of the population. In dwelling upon the fact that
the majority of the present-day leaders of the working-class
movement lack training, we cannot refrain from mentioning
training in this respect also, for it too is bound up with the
Economist conception of “close organic connection with the
proletarian struggle”. The principal thing, of course, is propaganda and agitation among all strata of
the people. The work of the West European Social-Democrat is in
this respect facilitated by the public meetings and rallies
which all are free to attend, and by the fact that in parliament he addresses the representatives of all classes. We have neither a parliament nor freedom of
assembly; nevertheless, we are able to arrange meetings of
workers who desire to listen to a Social-Democrat . We must also find ways and means of calling meetings of
representatives of all social classes that desire to listen to a democrat ; for he is no Social-Democrat who forgets in
practice that “the Communists support every revolutionary
movement”, that we are obliged for that reason to expound and
emphasise general democratic tasks before the whole people , without for a moment concealing our socialist
convictions. He is no Social-Democrat who forgets in practice
his obligation to be ahead of all in raising, accentuating, and solving every general democratic
question.

“But everyone agrees with this!” the impatient reader will
exclaim, and the new instructions adopted by the last conference
of the Union Abroad for the Editorial Board of Rabocheye
Dyelo definitely say: “All events of social and political
life that affect the proletariat either directly as a special
class or as the vanguard of all the revolutionary forces in
the struggle for freedom should serve as subjects for political propaganda and agitation” ( Two Conferences ,
p. 17, our italics). Yes, these are very true and very good
words, and we would be fully satisfied if Rabocheye
Dyelo understood them and if it refrained from saying in the next breath things that contradict them . For it is
not enough to call ourselves the “vanguard”, the advanced
contingent; we must act in such a way that all the other
contingents recognise and are obliged to admit that we are
marching in the vanguard. And we ask the reader: Are the
representatives of the other “contingents” such fools as to take
our word for it when we say that we are the “vanguard”? just
picture to yourselves the following: a Social-Democrat comes to
the “contingent” of Russian educated radicals, or liberal
constitutionalists, and says, We are the vanguard; “the task
confronting us now is, as far as possible, to lend the economic
struggle itself a political character”. The radical, or
constitutionalist, if he is at all intelligent (and there are
many intelligent men among Russian radicals and constitutionalists), would only smile at such a speech and would
say (to himself, of course, for in the majority of cases he is
an experienced diplomat): “Your ’vanguard’ must be made up of
simpletons. They do not even understand that it is our task, the
task of the progressive representatives of bourgeois democracy
to lend the workers’ economic struggle itself a political character. Why, we too, like the West-European
bourgeois, want to draw the workers into politics, but only
into trade-unionist, not into Social-Democratic politics. Trade-unionist politics of the working class is precisely bourgeois politics of the working class, and this
‘vanguard’s’ formulation of its task is the formulation of
trade-unionist politics! Let them call themselves
Social-Democrats to their heart’s content, I am not a child to
get excited over a label. But they must not fall under the
influence of those pernicious orthodox doctrinaires, let them
allow ’freedom of criticism’ to those who unconsciously are driving Social-Democracy into trade-unionist channels.”

And the faint  smile of our constitutionalist will turn into
Homeric laughter when he learns that the Social-Democrats who
talk of Social-Democracy as the vanguard, today, when spontaneity almost completely dominates our movement, fear
nothing so much as “belittling the spontaneous element”, as
“underestimating the significance of the forward movement of the
drab everyday struggle, as compared with the propaganda of
brilliant and completed ideas”, etc., etc.! A “vanguard” which
fears that consciousness will outstrip spontaneity, which fears
to put forward a bold “plan” that would compel general recognition even among those who differ with us. Are they not
confusing “vanguard” with “rearguard”?

Indeed, let us examine the following piece of reasoning by
Martynov. On page 40 he says that Iskra is one-sided in
its tactics of exposing abuses, that “however much we may spread
distrust and hatred of the government, we shall not achieve our
aim until we have succeeded in developing sufficient active
social energy for its overthrow”. This, it may be said parenthetically, is the familiar solicitude for the activation
of the masses, with a simultaneous striving to restrict one’s
own activity. But that is not the main point at the moment. Martynov speaks here, accordingly, of revolutionary energy (“for overthrowing”). And what conclusion does he
arrive at? Since in ordinary times various social strata
inevitably march separately, “it is therefore, clear that we
Social-Democrats cannot simultaneously guide the activities of
various opposition strata, we cannot dictate to them a positive
programme of action, we cannot point out to them in what manner
they should wage a day-to-day struggle for their interests.... The liberal strata will themselves take care of
the active struggle for their immediate interests, the struggle
that will bring them face to face with our political regime”
(p. 41). Thus, having begun with talk about revolutionary
energy, about the active struggle for the overthrow of the
autocracy, Martynov immediately turns toward trade union energy
and active struggle for immediate interests! It goes without
saying that we cannot guide the struggle of the students,
liberals, etc., for their “immediate interests”; but this was
not the point at issue, most worthy Economist! The point we were
discussing was the possible and necessary participation of
various social strata in the overthrow of the autocracy; and not
only are we able , but it is our bounden duty, to guide these “activities of the various opposition strata”, if
we desire to be the “vanguard”. Not only will our students and
liberals, etc., themselves take care of “the struggle that
brings them face to face with our political regime”; the police
and the officials of the autocratic government will see to this
first and foremost. But if “we” desire to be front-rank
democrats, we must make it our concern to direct the thoughts of those who are dissatisfied only with conditions at
the university, or in the Zemstvo, etc., to the idea that the
entire political system is worthless. We must take upon
ourselves the task of organising an all-round political struggle
under the leadership of our Party in such a manner as to make it
possible for all oppositional strata to render their fullest
support to the struggle and to our Party. We must train
our Social-Democratic practical workers to become political
leaders, able to guide all the manifestations of this all-round
struggle, able at the right time to “dictate a positive
programme of action” for the aroused students, the discontented
Zemstvo people, the incensed religious sects, the offended
elementary schoolteachers, etc., etc. For that reason, Martynov’s assertion that “with regard to these, we can function merely in the negative role of exposers of abuses... we
can only dissipate their hopes in various government commissions” is completely false (our italics). By
saying this, Martynov shows that he absolutely fails to
understand the role that the revolutionary “vanguard” must
really play. If the reader bears this in mind, he will be clear
as to the real meaning of Martynov’s concluding remarks: “ Iskra is the organ of the revolutionary
opposition which exposes the state of affairs in our country,
particularly the political state of affairs, insofar as it
affects the interests of the most varied strata of the population. We, however, work and will continue to work for the
cause of the working class in close organic contact with the
proletarian struggle. By restricting the sphere of our active
influence we deepen that influence” (63). The true sense of this
conclusion is as follows: Iskra desires to elevate the trade-unionist politics of the working class (to which, through misconception, through lack of training, or
through conviction, our practical workers frequently confine
themselves) to the level of Social-Democratic politics. Rabocheye Dyelo , however, desires to
degrade Social-Democratic politics to trade-unionist politics. Moreover, it assures the world that the two positions
are “entirely compatible within the common cause” (63). 0, sancta simplicitas!

To proceed. Have we sufficient forces to direct our propaganda
and agitation among all social classes? Most certainly. Our Economists, who are frequently inclined to deny
this, lose sight of the gigantic progress our movement has made
from (approximately) 1894 to 1901. Like real “tail-enders” they
often go on living in the bygone stages of the movement’s
inception. In the earlier period , indeed, we had astonishingly
few forces, and it was perfectly natural and legitimate then to
devote ourselves exclusively to activities among the workers and
to condemn severely any deviation from this course. The entire
task then was to consolidate our position in the working
class. At the present time, however, gigantic forces have been
attracted to the movement. The best representatives of the
younger generation of the educated classes are coming over to
us. Everywhere in the provinces there are people, resident there
by dint of circumstance, who have taken part in the movement in
the past or who desire to do so now and who, are gravitating
towards Social-Democracy (whereas in 1894 one could count the
Social-Democrats on the fingers of one’s hand). A basic
political and organisational shortcoming of our movement is our inability to utilise all these forces and give them
appropriate work (we shall deal with this more fully in the next
chapter).  The overwhelming majority of these forces entirely
lack the opportunity of “going among the workers”, so that there
are no grounds for fearing that we shall divert forces from our
main work. In order to be able to provide the workers with real,
comprehensive, and live political knowledge, we must have “our
own people”, Social-Democrats, everywhere, among all social
strata, and in all positions from which we can learn the inner
springs of our state mechanism. Such people are required, not
only for propaganda and agitation, but in a still larger measure
for organisation.

Is there a basis for activity among all classes of the population? Whoever doubts this lags in his consciousness behind
the spontaneous awakening of the masses. The working-class
movement has aroused and is continuing to arouse discontent in
some, hopes of support for the opposition in others, and in
still others the realisation that the autocracy is unbearable
and must inevitably fall. We would be “politicians” and
Social-Democrats in name only (as all too often happens in
reality), if we failed to realise that our task is to utilise
every manifestation of discontent, and to gather and turn to the
best account every protest, however small. This is quite apart
from the fact that the millions of the labouring peasantry,
handicraftsmen, petty artisans, etc., would always listen
eagerly to the speech of any Social-Democrat who is at all
qualified. Indeed, is there a single social class in which there
are no individuals, groups, or circles that are discontented
with the lack of rights and with tyranny and, therefore,
accessible to the propaganda of Social-Democrats as the
spokesmen of the most pressing general democratic needs? To
those who desire to have a clear idea of what the political
agitation of a Social-Democrat among all classes and strata of the population should be like, we would point to political exposures in the broad sense of the word as
the principal (but, of course, not the sole) form of this
agitation.

“We must arouse in every section of the population that is at
all politically conscious a passion for political exposure,” I wrote in my article “Where To Begin”
[ Iskra , May (No. 4), 1901], with which I shall deal in
greater detail later. “We must not be discouraged by the fact
that the voice of political exposure is today so feeble, timid,
and infrequent. This is not because of a wholesale submission to
police despotism, but because those who are able and ready to
make exposures have no tribune from which to speak, no eager and
encouraging audience, they do not see anywhere among the people
that force to which it would be worth while directing their
complaint against the ’omnipotent’ Russian Government.... We are
now in a position to provide a tribune for the nation-wide
exposure of the tsarist government, and it is our duty to do
this. That tribune must be a Social-Democratic newspaper.” [16] “We must arouse in every section of the population that is at
all politically conscious a passion for political exposure,” I wrote in my article “Where To Begin”
[ Iskra , May (No. 4), 1901], with which I shall deal in
greater detail later. “We must not be discouraged by the fact
that the voice of political exposure is today so feeble, timid,
and infrequent. This is not because of a wholesale submission to
police despotism, but because those who are able and ready to
make exposures have no tribune from which to speak, no eager and
encouraging audience, they do not see anywhere among the people
that force to which it would be worth while directing their
complaint against the ’omnipotent’ Russian Government.... We are
now in a position to provide a tribune for the nation-wide
exposure of the tsarist government, and it is our duty to do
this. That tribune must be a Social-Democratic newspaper.” [16]

The ideal audience for political exposure is the working class,
which is first and foremost in need of all-round and live political knowledge, and is most capable of converting this
knowledge into active struggle, even when that struggle does not
promise “palpable results”. A tribune for nation-wide exposures can be only an all-Russia newspaper. “Without a
political organ, a political movement deserving that name is
inconceivable in the Europe of today”; in this respect Russia
must undoubtedly be included in present-day Europe. The press
long ago became a power in our country, otherwise the government
would not spend tens of thousands of rubles to bribe it and to
subsidise the Katkovs and Meshcherskys. And it is no novelty in
autocratic Russia for the underground press to break through the
wall of censorship and compel the legal and conservative press to speak openly of it. This was the case in
the seventies and even in the fifties. How much broader and
deeper are now the sections of the people willing to read the
illegal underground press, and to learn from it “how to live and
how to die”, to use the expression of a worker who sent a
letter to Iskra (No. 7). [25] Political exposures are as
much a declaration of war against the government as economic exposures are a declaration of war against the factory
owners. The moral significance of this declaration of war will
be all the greater, the wider and more powerful the campaign of
exposure will be and the more numerous and determined the social class that has declared war in order to begin the
war . Hence, political exposures in themselves serve as a
powerful instrument for disintegrating the system we oppose, as a means for diverting from the enemy his casual or
temporary allies, as a means for spreading hostility and
distrust among the permanent partners of the autocracy.

In our time only a party that will organise really nation-wide exposures can become the vanguard of the
revolutionary forces. The word “nation-wide” has a very profound
meaning. The overwhelming majority of the non-working- class
exposers (be it remembered that in order to become the vanguard,
we must attract other classes) are sober politicians and
level-headed men of affairs. They know perfectly well how
dangerous it is to “complain” even against a minor official, let
alone against the “omnipotent” Russian Government. And they will
come to us with their complaints only when they see that these complaints can really have effect, and that we represent a political force . In order to become such a
force in the eyes of outsiders, much persistent and stubborn
work is required to raise our own consciousness, initiative, and energy.. To accomplish this it is not enough to
attach a “vanguard” label to rearguard theory and practice.

But if we have to undertake the organisation of a really
nationwide exposure of the government, in what way will then the
class character of our movement be expressed? — the overzealous
advocate of “close organic contact with the proletarian
struggle” will ask us, as indeed he does. The reply is manifold:
we Social-Democrats will organise these nation-wide exposures;
all questions raised by the agitation will he explained in a
consistently Social-Democratic spirit, without any concessions
to deliberate or undeliberate distortions of Marxism; the
all-round political agitation will be conducted by a party which
unites into one inseparable whole the assault on the government
in the name of the entire people, the revolutionary training of
the proletariat, and the safeguarding of its political independence, the guidance of the economic struggle of the
working class, and the utilisation of all its spontaneous
conflicts with its exploiters which rouse and bring into our
camp increasing numbers of the proletariat.

But a most characteristic feature of Economism is its failure to
understand this connection, more, this identity of the most
pressing need of the proletariat (a comprehensive political
education through the medium of political agitation and
political exposures) with the need of the general democratic
movement. This lack of understanding is expressed, not only in
“Martynovite” phrases, but in the references to a supposedly
class point of view identical in meaning with these phrases. Thus, the authors of the Economist letter in Iskra , No. 12, state: [17] [17] Lack of space has prevented us from replying in detail, in Iskra , to this letter, which is highly characteristic
of the Economists. We were very glad at its appearance, for the
allegations that Iskra did not maintain a consistent class point of view had reached us long before that from various
sources, and we were waiting for an appropriate occasion, or for
a formulated expression of this fashionable charge, to give our
reply. Moreover, it is our habit to reply to attacks, not by
defence, but by counter-attack.— Lenin “This basic drawback of Iskra (overestimation of ideology) is also the cause of
its inconsistency on the question of the attitude of
Social-Democracy to the various social classes and tendencies. By theoretical reasoning (not by “the growth of
Party tasks, which grow together with the Party”), Iskra solved the problem of the immediate transition to
the struggle against absolutism. In all probability it senses
the difficulty of such a task for the workers under the present
state of affairs (not only senses, but knows full well that this
task appears less difficult to the workers than to the Economist
intellectuals with their nursemaid concern, for the workers are
prepared to fight even for demands which, to use the language of
the never-to-be-forgotten Martynov, do not “promise palpable
results”) but lacking the patience to wait until the workers
will have gathered sufficient forces for this struggle, Iskra begins to seek allies in the ranks of the
liberals and intellectuals”. . . .

Yes, we have indeed lost all “patience” “waiting” for the
blessed time, long promised us by diverse “conciliators”, when
the Economists will have stopped charging the workers with their
own backwardness and justifying their own lack of energy with
allegations that the workers lack strength. We ask our
Economists: What do they mean by “the gathering of workingclass
strength for the struggle”? Is it not evident that this means
the political training of the workers, so that all the aspects
of our vile autocracy are revealed to them? And is it not clear
that precisely for this work we need “allies in the ranks of the liberals and intellectuals”, who are prepared to
join us in the exposure of the political attack on the Zemstvos,
on the teachers, on the statisticians, on the students, etc.? Is
this surprisingly “intricate mechanism” really so difficult to
understand? Has not P. B. Axelrod constantly repeated since 1897
that “the task before the Russian Social-Democrats of acquiring
adherents and direct and indirect allies among the non-proletarian classes will be solved principally and primarily
by the character of the propagandist activities conducted among
the proletariat itself”? But the Martynovs and the other
Economists continue to imagine that “by economic struggle
against the employers and the government” the workers must first gather strength (for trade-unionist politics) and then “go over” — we presume from trade-unionist
“training for activity” to Social-Democratic activity!

“...In this quest,” continue the Economists, “ Iskra not infrequently departs from the class point of view, obscures
class antagonisms, and puts into the forefront the common nature
of the discontent with the government, although the causes and
the degree of the discontent vary considerably among the
’allies’. Such, for example, is Iskra ’s attitude towards the Zemstvo . . .” Iskra , it is alleged,
“promises the nobles that are dissatisfied with the government’s
sops the assistance of the working class, but it does not say a
word about the class antagonism that exists between these social
strata.” If the reader will turn to the article “The Autocracy
and the Zemstvo” ( Iskra , Nos. 2 and 4), to which, in all probability , the authors of the letter refer, he
will find that they [18] deal with the attitude of the government towards the “mild agitation of the
bureaucratic Zemstvo, which is based on the social-estates”, and
towards the “independent activity of even the propertied
classes”. The article states that the workers cannot look on
indifferently while the government is waging a struggle against
the Zemstvo, and the Zemstvos are called upon to stop making
mild speeches and to speak firmly and resolutely when revolutionary Social-Democracy confronts the government in all
its strength. What the authors of the letter do not agree with
here is not clear. Do they think that the workers will “not
understand” the phrases “propertied classes” and “bureaucratic Zemstvo based on the social-estates”? Do they
think that urging the Zemstvo to abandon mild speeches and to
speak firmly is  “overestimating ideology”? Do they imagine the
workers can “gather strength” for the struggle against the
autocracy if they know nothing about the attitude of the
autocracy towards the Zemstvo as well? All this too remains unknown. One thing alone is clear and that is that the
authors of the letter have a very vague idea of what the
political tasks of Social-Democracy are. This is revealed still
more clearly by their remark: “Such, too, is Iskra ’s attitude towards the student movement” (i.e., it also “obscures
the class antagonisms”). Instead of calling on the workers to
declare by means of public demonstrations that the real
breeding-place of unbridled violence, disorder, and outrage is
not the university youth but the Russian Government ( Iskra , No. 2 [19] )
we ought probably to have inserted arguments in the spirit of Rabochaya Mysl ! Such ideas
were expressed by Social-Democrats in the autumn of 1901, after
the events of February and March, on the eve of a fresh upsurge
of the student movement, which reveals that even in this sphere
the “spontaneous” protest against the autocracy is outstripping the conscious Social-Democratic leadership
of the movement. The spontaneous striving of the workers to
defend the students who are being assaulted by the police and
the Cossacks surpasses the conscious activity of the
Social-Democratic organisation!

“And yet in other articles,” continue the authors of the letter,
“ Iskra sharply condemns all compromise and defends, for
instance, the intolerant conduct of the Guesdists.” We would
advise those who are wont so conceitedly and frivolously to
declare that the present disagreements among the
Social-Democrats are unessential and do not justify a split, to
ponder these words. Is it possible for people to work together
in the same organisation, when some among them contend that we
have done extremely little to explain the hostility of the
autocracy to the various classes and to inform the workers of
the opposition displayed by the various social strata to the
autocracy, while others among them see in this clarification a
“compromise” — evidently a compromise with the theory of
“economic struggle against the employers and the government”?

We urged the necessity of carrying the class struggle into the
rural districts in connection with the fortieth anniversary of
the emancipation of the peasantry (issue No. 3 [20] and spoke of the
irreconcilability of the local government bodies and the
autocracy in relation to Witte’s secret Memorandum (No. 4). In
connection with the new law we attacked the feudal landlords and
the government which serves them (No. 8 [21] )
and we welcomed the illegal Zemstvo congress. We urged the Zemstvo to pass over from abject petitions
(No. 8 [22] )
to struggle. We encouraged the students, who had begun to understand the need for the political
struggle, and to undertake this struggle (No. 3), while, at the
same time, we lashed out at the “outrageous incomprehension”
revealed by the adherents of the “purely student” movement, who
called upon the students to abstain from participating in the
street demonstrations (No. 3, in connection with the manifesto
issued by the Executive Committee of the Moscow students on
February 25). We exposed the “senseless dreams” and the “lying
hypocrisy” of the cunning liberals of Rossiya [26] (No. 5),
while pointing to the violent fury with which the government-gaoler persecuted “peaceful writers, aged professors,
scientists, and well-known liberal Zemstvo members” (No. 5,
“Police Raid on Literature”). We exposed the real significance
of the programme of “state protection for the welfare of the
workers” and welcomed the “valuable admission” that “it is
better, by granting reforms from above, to forestall the demand
for such reforms from below than to wait for those demands to be
put forward” (No. 6 [23] ).
We encouraged the protesting statisticians (No. 7) and censured the strike-breaking
statisticians (No. 9). He who sees in these tactics an obscuring
of the class-consciousness of the proletariat and a compromise with liberalism reveals his utter failure to
understand the true significance of the programme of the Credo and carries out that programme de facto ,
however much he may repudiate it. For by such an approach he drags Social-Democracy towards the “economic
struggle against the employers and the government” and yields to liberalism , abandons the task of actively
intervening in every “liberal” issue and of determining his
own , Social-Democratic, attitude towards this question.

### F. Once More “Slanderers”, Once More “Mystifiers”

These polite expressions, as the reader will recall, belong to Rabocheye Dyelo , which in this way answers our charge
that it “is indirectly preparing the ground for converting the working-class movement into an instrument of bourgeois
democracy”. In its simplicity of heart Rabocheye Dyelo decided that this accusation was nothing more than a polemical
sally: these malicious doctrinaires are bent on saying all sorts
of unpleasant things about us, and, what can be more unpleasant
than being an instrument of bourgeois democracy? And so they
print in bold type a “refutation”: “Nothing but downright
slander”, “mystification”, “mummery” ( Two Conferences , pp. 30, 31, 33). Like Jove, Rabocheye Dyelo (although bearing little resemblance to that deity) is wrathful because it
is wrong, and proves by its hasty abuse that it is incapable of
understanding its opponents’ mode of reasoning. And yet, with
only a little reflection it would have understood why any subservience to the spontaneity of the mass movement and any degrading of Social-Democratic politics to the
level of trade-unionist politics mean preparing the ground for
converting the working-class movement into an instrument of
bourgeois democracy. The spontaneous working-class movement is
by itself able to create (and inevitably does create) only
trade-unionism, and working-class trade-unionist politics is
precisely working-class bourgeois politics. The fact that the
working class participates in the political struggle, and even
in the political revolution, does not in itself make its
politics Social-Democratic politics. Will Rabocheye
Dyelo make bold to deny this? Will it, at long last, publicly, plainly, and without equivocation explain how it
understands the urgent questions of international and of Russian
Social-Democracy? Hardly. It will never do anything of the kind,
because it holds fast to the trick, which might be described as
the “not here” method — “It’s not me, it’s not my horse, I’m
not the driver. We are not Economists; Rabochaya Mysl does not stand for E’conomism; there is no Economism at all in
Russia.” This is a remarkably adroit and “political” trick,
which suffers from the slight defect, however, that the
publications practising it are usually nicknamed, “At your
service, sir”.

Rabocheye Dyelo imagines that bourgeois democracy in
Russia is, in general, merely a “phantom” ( Two
Conferences , p. 32). [24] [24] There follows a reference to the “concrete Russian conditions
which fatalistically impel the working-class movement on to the
revolutionary path”. But these people refuse to understand that
the revolutionary path of the working-class movement might not
be a Social-Democratic path. When absolutism reigned, the entire
West-European bourgeoisie “impelled”, deliberately impelled, the
workers on to the path of revolution. We Social-Democrats,
however, cannot be satisfied with that. And if we, by any means
whatever, degrade Social-Democratic politics to the level of
spontaneous trade-unionist politics, we thereby play into the
hands of bourgeois democracy.— Lenin Happy people! Ostrich-like, they bury their heads in the sand and imagine that everything around
has disappeared. Liberal publicists who month after month
proclaim to the world their triumph over the collapse and even
the disappearance of Marxism; liberal newspapers ( S. Peterburgskiye
Vedomosti , [27] Russkiye Vedomosti , and many others) which encourage the liberals who bring to the
workers the Brentano [28] conception of the class struggle and the trade-unionist conception of politics; the
galaxy of critics of Marxism, whose real tendencies were so very well
disclosed by the Credo and whose literary products alone circulate
in Russia without let or hindrance; the revival of revolutionary non -Social-Democratic tendencies, particularly after
the February and March events — all these, apparently, are just
phantoms! All these have nothing at all to do with bourgeois
democracy!

Rabocheye Dyelo and the authors of the Economist letter
published in Iskra , No. 12, should “ponder over the reason why the events of the spring brought about such a revival
of revolutionary non-Social-Democratic tendencies instead of
increasing the authority and the prestige of Social-Democracy”.

The reason lies in the fact that we failed to cope with our
tasks. The masses of the workers proved to be more active than
we. We lacked adequately trained revolutionary leaders and
organisers possessed of a thorough knowledge of the mood
prevailing among all the opposition strata and able to head the
movement, to turn a spontaneous demonstration into a political
one, broaden its political character, etc. Under such circumstances, our backwardness will inevitably be utilised by the
more mobile and more energetic non-Social-Democratic revolutionaries, and the workers, however energetically and
self-sacrificingly they may fight the police and the troops,
however revolutionary their actions may be, will prove to be
merely a force supporting those revolutionaries, the rearguard of
bourgeois democracy, and not the Social-Democratic vanguard. Let
us take, for example, the German Social-Democrats, whose weak
aspects alone our Economists desire to emulate. Why is there not a single political event in Germany that does not add
to the authority and prestige  of Social-Democracy? Because
Social-Democracy is always found to be in advance of all others in
furnishing the most revolutionary appraisal of every given event
and in championing every protest against tyranny. It does not lull
itself with arguments that the economic struggle brings the
workers to realise that they have no political rights and that the
concrete conditions unavoidably impel the working-class movement
on to the path of revolution. It intervenes in every sphere and in
every question of social and political life; in the matter of
Wilhelm’s refusal to endorse a bourgeois progressist as city mayor
(our Economists have not yet managed to educate. the Germans to
the understanding that such an act is, in fact, a compromise with
liberalism!); in the matter of the law against “obscene”
publications and pictures; in the matter of governmental influence
on the election of professors, etc., etc. Everywhere the
Social-Democrats are found in the forefront, rousing political
discontent among all classes, rousing the sluggards, stimulating
the laggards, and providing a wealth of material for the
development of the political consciousness and the political
activity of the proletariat. As a result, even the avowed enemies
of socialism are filled with respect for this advanced political
fighter, and not infrequently an important document from
bourgeois, and even from bureaucratic and Court circles, makes its
way by some miraculous means into the editorial office of Vorwarts.

This, then, is the resolution of the seeming “contradiction”
that surpasses Rabocheye Dyelo ’s powers of understanding
to such an extent that it can only throw up its hands and cry,
“Mummery!” Indeed, just think of it: We, Rabocheye Dyelo ,
regard the mass working-class movement as the corner-stone (and say so in bold type!); we warn all and
sundry against belittling the significance of the element of
spontaneity; we desire to lend the economic struggle itself — itself — a political character; we desire to maintain
close and organic contact with the proletarian struggle. And yet
we are told that we are preparing the ground for the conversion of
the working-class movement into an instrument of bourgeois
democracy! And who are they that presume to say this? People who
“compromise” with liberalism by intervening in every “liberal”
issue (what a gross misunderstanding of “organic contact with the
proletarian struggle”!), by devoting so much attention to the
students and even (oh horror!) to the Zemstvos! People who in
general wish to devote a greater percentage (compared with the
Economists) of their efforts to activity among non-proletarian
classes of the population! What is this but “mummery”?

Poor Rabocheye Dyelo! Will it ever find the solution to this perplexing puzzle?

## Notes

[2] In the
present chapter we deal only with the political struggle, in its
broader or narrower meaning. Therefore, we note only in passing,
merely as a curiosity, Rabocheye Dyelo ’s charge that Iskra is “too restrained” in regard to the economic
struggle ( Two Conferences , p. 27, rehashed by Martynov
in his pamphlet, Social-Democracy and the Working
Class ). If the accusers computed by the hundredweights or
reams (as they are so fond of doing) any given year’s discussion
of the economic struggle in the industrial section of Iskra , in comparison with the corresponding sections of Rabocheye Dyelo and Rabochaya Mysl combined,
they would easily see that the latter lag behind even in this
respect. Apparently, the realisation of this simple truth
compels them to resort to arguments that clearly reveal their
confusion. “ Iskra ,” they write, “willy-nilly [!] is compelled [!] to reckon with the imperative demands of life and
to publish at least [!!] correspondence about the working-class
movement” ( Two Conferences , p. 27). Now this is really
a crushing argument!— Lenin

[3] We say “in general”, because Rabocheye Dyelo speaks
of general principles and of the general tasks of the Party as a
whole. Undoubtedly, cases occur in practice when politics really must follow economics, but only Economists can speak of
this in a resolution intended to apply to the whole of
Russia. Cases do occur when it is possible “right from the beginning” to carry on political agitation “exclusively on
an economic basis”; yet Rabocheye Dyelo came in the end to the conclusion that “there is no need for this whatever”
( Two Conferences , p. 11). In the following chapter, we
shall show that the tactics of the “politicians” and revolutionaries not only do not ignore the trade union tasks of
Social-Democracy, but that, on the contrary, they alone can
secure their consistent fulfilment.— Lenin

[4] These are the precise expressions used in Two Conferences ,
pp. 31, 32, 28 and 80.— Lenin

[5] Two Conferences , p. 32.— Lenin

[6] Rabocheye Dyelo , No. 10, p. 60. This is the Martynov
variation of the application, which we have characterised above,
of the thesis “every step of real movement is more important
than a dozen programmes” to the present chaotic state of our
movement. In fact, this is merely a translation into Russian of
the notorious Bernsteinian sentence: “The movement is everything, the final aim is nothing.”— Lenin

[7] P. 43. “Of course, when we advise the workers to present certain
economic demands to the government, we do so because in the economic sphere the autocratic government is, of
necessity, prepared to make certain concessions!”— Lenin

[8] See Collected Works , Vol 5, pp. 253—74.— Ed .

[9] Rabochaya Mysl,
“Separate Supplement” , p. 14.— Lenin

[10] See Collected
Works , Vol. 4, pp. 414-19— Ed.

[12] To
prove that this imaginary speech of a worker to an Economist is
based on fact, we shall refer to two witnesses who undoubtedly
have direct knowledge of the working-class movement and who are
least of all inclined to be partial towards us “doctrinaires”;
for one witness is an Economist (who regards even Rabocheye
Dyelo as a political organ!), and the other is a terrorist. The first witness is the author of a remarkably
truthful and vivid article entitled “The St. Petersburg
Working-Class Movement and the Practical Tasks of
Social-Democracy”, published in Rabocheye Dyelo No. 6. He divides the workers into the following categories: (1)
class-conscious revolutionaries; (2) intermediate stratum; (3)
the remaining masses. The intermediate stratum, he says, “is
often more interested in questions of political life than in its
own immediate economic interests, the connection between which and the general social conditions it has long understood” ... Rabochaya Mysl “is sharply criticised”: “It keeps on
repeating the same thing over and over again, things we have
long known, read long ago.” “Again nothing in the political
review!” (pp. 30-31). But even the third stratum, “the younger
and more sensitive section of the workers, less corrupted by the
tavern and the church, who hardly ever have the opportunity of
getting hold of political literature, discuss political events
in a rambling way and ponder over the fragmentary news they get
about student riots”, etc. The terrorist writes as follows: They
read over once or twice the petty details of factory life in
other towns, not their own, and then they read no more ... dull,
they find it.... To say nothing in a workers’ paper about the
government ...  is to regard the workers as being little
children.... The workers are not little children" ( Svoboda , published by the Revolutionary-Socialist
Group,.  pp. 69-70).— Lenin

[13] Martynov “conceives of another, more realistic [?] dilemma”
( Social-Democracy and the Working Class, p. 19):
“Either Social-Democracy takes over the direct leadership of the
economic struggle of the proletariat and by that [!] transforms
it into a revolutionary class struggle....” “By that”, i.e.,
apparently by the direct leadership of the economic struggle. Can Martynov cite an instance in which leading the
trade-union struggle alone has succeeded in transforming a
trade-unionist movement into a revolutionary class movement? Can
he not understand that in order to bring about this “transformation” we must actively take up the “direct
leadership” of all-sided political agitation?... “Or the other
perspective: Social-Democracy refrains from assuming the
leadership of the economic struggle of the workers and so
... clips  its own wings ... ” In Rabocheye Dyelo ’s opinion, quoted above, it is Iskra that “refrains”. We
have seen, however, that the latter does far more than
Rabocheye Dyelo to lead the economic struggle, but that,
moreover, it does not confine itself thereto and does not
narrow down its political tasks for its sake.— Lenin

[14] The
big street demonstrations which began in the spring of 1901. (Author’s
note to the 1907 edition.— Ed .)— Lenin

[15] For
example, during the Franco-Prussian War, Liebknecht dictated a
programme of action for the whole of democracy; to an even greater extent Marx and Engels did this in 1848.— Lenin

[16] See Collected Works , Vol. 5, pp. 21-22 —Ed .

[18] In
the interval between these articles there was one ( Iskra , No. 3), which dealt especially with class
antagonisms in the countryside. (See Collected Works , Vol. 4, pp. 420-28 —Ed .)— Lenin

[19] See Collected Works , Vol. 4, pp. 414-19 —Ed .

[20] Ibid ., pp. 420-28 —Ed .

[21] Ibid .,
Vol. 5, pp. 95-100 —Ed .

[22] Ibid. , pp. 101-02 —Ed .

[23] See Collected Works , Vol. 5, pp. 87-88 —Ed .

[25] The letter in Iskra , No. 7 (August 1901), was from a
weaver. It was published in the section “Workers’ Movement and Letters
from the Factories”. The letter testified to the great influence of
Lenin’s Iskra among the advanced workers.

The letter reads in part:

“...I showed Iskra to many fellow-workers and the copy was
read to tatters; but we treasure it.... Iskra writes about our
cause, about the All-Russian cause which cannot be evaluated in kopeks or
measured in hours; when you read the paper you understand why the gendarmes
and the police are afraid of us workers and of the intellectuals whom we
follow. It is a fact that they are a threat, not only to the bosses’
pockets, but to the tsar, the employers, and all the rest.... It will not
take much now to set the working people aflame. All that is wanted is a
spark, and the fire will break out. How true are the words ‘The Spark will
kindle a flame!’ (The motto of Iskra .— Ed. )
In the past every strike was an important event, but today everyone sees that strikes alone are not enough and that
we must now fight for freedom, gain it through struggle. Today everyone,
old and young, is eager to read but the sad thing is that there are no
books. Last Sunday I gathered eleven people and read to them ‘Where To
Begin’. We discussed it until late in the evening. How well it expressed
everything, how it gets to the very heart of things.... And we would like
to write a letter to your Iskra and ask you to teach us, not only
how to begin, but how to live and how to die.”

[26] Rossiya ( Russia )—a moderate liberal newspaper
published in St. Petersburg from 1899 to 1902.

[27] S. Peterburgskiye Vedomosti ( St. Petersburg
Recorder )—a newspaper that began publication in St. Petersburg in
1728 as a continuation of the first Russian newspaper Vedomosti ,
founded in 1703. From 1728 to 1874 the S. Peterburgskiye Vedomosti was published by the Academy of Sciences and from 1875 onwards by the
Ministry of Education; it continued publication until the end of 1917.

[28] L. Brentano —a German bourgeois economist, a champion of
so-called “state socialism”, who tried to prove the possibility of
achieving social equality within the framework of capitalism by reforms and
through the reconciliation of the interests of the capitalists and of the
workers. Using Marxist phraseology as a cover, Brentano and his followers
tried to subordinate the working-class movement to the interests of the
bourgeoisie.




### 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.”

“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).

“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).

“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).

“ 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?”

“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.

## Notes

[1] Rabochaya Mysl and Rabocheye Dyelo , especially the Reply to Plekhanov.— Lenin

[2] See
“Who Will Bring About the Political Revolution?” in the
collection published in Russia, entitled The Proletarian
Struggle. Re-issued by the Kiev Committee.— Lenin

[3] Regeneration of Revolutionism and the journal Svoboda .— Lenin

[5] German “loose”.— Ed .

[6] Iskra ’s
campaign against the tares evoked the following angry outburst from Rabocheye Dyelo : “For Iskra , the signs of the
times lie not so much in great events [of the spring], as in the
miserable attempts of the agents of Zubatov to ’legalise’ the
working-class movement. It fails to see that these facts tell
against it; for they testify that the working-class movement has
assumed menacing proportions in the eyes of the government”
( Two Conferences , p. 27). For all this we have to blame
the “dogmatism” of the orthodox who “turn a deaf ear to the
imperative demands of life”. They obstinately refuse to see the
yard-high wheat and are combating inch-high tares! Does this not
reveal a “distorted sense of perspective in regard to the Russian
working-class movement” ( ibid ., p. 27)?— Lenin

[7] Of wages earned.— Tr .

[8] For the
moment let us observe merely that our remarks on “pushing on
from outside” and Svoboda’s other disquisitions on organisation apply in their entirety to all the
Economists, including the adherents of Rabocheye Dyelo ;
for some of them have actively preached and defended such views
on organisation, while others among them have drifted into them.— Lenin

[9] This
term is perhaps more applicable to Svoboda than the former, for in an article entitled “The Regeneration of
Revolutionisin” the publication defends terrorism, while in the
article at present under review it defends Economism. One might
say of Svoboda that “it would if it could, but it can’t”. Its wishes and intentions are of the very best — but
the result is utter confusion; this is chiefly due to the fact
that, while Svoboda advocates continuity of organisation, it refuses to recognise continuity of
revolutionary thought and Social-Democratic theory. It wants to
revive the professional revolutionary (“The Regeneration of Revolutionism”), and to that end proposes, first, excitative
terrorism, and, secondly, — an organisation of average workers"
( Svoboda , No. 1, p. 66, et seq.), as less likely to be
“pushed on from outside”. In other words, it proposes to pull
the house down to use the timber for heating it.— Lenin

[12] Svoboda , No. 1, p. 66, in the article “Organisation”:
“The heavy tread of the army of workers will reinforce all the
demands that will be advanced in behalf of Russian Labour” —
Labour with a capital L, of course. And the author exclaims: “I
am not in the least hostile towards the intelligentsia, but [but
— the word that Shchedrin translated as meaning: The ears never
grow higher than the forehead!] — but I always get frightfully
annoyed when a man comes to me uttering beautiful and charming
words and demands that they be accepted for their [his?]  beauty
and other virtues” (p. 62). Yes, I always get “frightfully
annoyed”, too.— Lenin

[13] Cf . The Tasks of the Russian Social-Democrats, p. 21, polemics against P. L. Lavrov. (See Collected Works, Vol. 2,
pp. 340-41. —Ed.)— Lenin

[14] The Tasks of the Russian Social-Democrats, p. 23. (See Collected Works, Vol. 2, p. 342. —Ed.) Apropos, we
shall give another illustration of the fact that Rabocheye Dyelo either does not understand what it is
talking about or changes its views “with the wind”. In No. 1 of Rabocheye Dyelo , we find the following passage in
italics: “ The substance set forth in the pamphlet accords
entirely with the editorial programme of ’Rabocheye Dyelo’”
(p. 142). Really? Does the view that the overthrow of the
autocracy must not be set as the first task of the mass
movement accord with the views expressed in The Tasks of the
Russian Social-Democrats? Do the theory of “the economic struggle against the employers and the government” and
the stages theory accord with the views expressed in that
pamphlet? We leave it to the reader to judge whether a periodical that understands the meaning of “accordance in
opinion” in this peculiar manner can have firm principles.— Lenin

[15] See Report to the Paris
Congress , [24] p. 14. From that time (1897) to the spring of 1900, thirty issues of various papers
were published in various places.... On an average, over one
issue per month was published".— Lenin

[17] That is why even examples of exceptionally good local newspapers
fully confirm our point of view. For example, Yuzhny
Rabochy [25] is an excellent newspaper, entirely free of
instability of principle. But it has been unable to provide what it desired for the local movement, owing to the infrequency of
its publication and to extensive police raids. Principled
presentation of the fundamental questions of the movement and
wide political agitation, which our Party most urgently requires
at the present time, has proved too big a job for the local
newspaper. The material of particular value it has published,
like the articles on the mine owners’ convention and on
unemployment, was not strictly local material, it was required for the whole of Russia , not for the South
alone. No such articles have appeared in any of our
Social-Democratic newspapers.— Lenin

[18] Legal material is particularly important in this connection, and
we are particularly behind in our ability to gather and utilise
it systematically. It would not be an exaggeration to say that
one could somehow compile a trade union pamphlet on the basis solely of legal material, but it could not be done on the basis
of illegal material alone. In gathering illegal material from
Workers oil questions like those dealt with in the publications
of Rabochaya Mysl , we waste a great deal of the efforts
of revolutionaries (whose place in this work could very easily
be taken by legal workers), and yet we never obtain good
material. The reason is that a worker who very often knows only
a single department of a large factory and almost always the
economic results, but not the general conditions and standards
of his work, cannot acquire the knowledge which is possessed by
the office staff of a factory, by inspectors, doctors, etc., and
which is scattered in petty newspaper reports and in special
industrial, medical, Zemstvo, and other publications.

I vividly recall my “first experiment”, which I would never like
to repeat.  I spent many weeks “examining” a worker, who would
often visit me, regarding every aspect of the conditions
prevailing in the enormous factory at which he was employed. True, after great effort, I managed to obtain material
for a description (of the one single factory!), but at the end
of the interview the worker would wipe the sweat from his brow,
and say to me smilingly: ’I find it easier to work overtime than
to answer your questions.”

The more energetically we carry on our revolutionary struggle,
the more the government will be compelled to legalise part of
the “trade union” work, thereby relieving us of part of our
burden.— Lenin

[19] The full name of this small organisation was Workers’ Group for the
Struggle Against Capital ; its views were close to those of the
“Economists”. The group was formed in St. Petersburg in the spring of
1899; it prepared a mimeographed leaflet, “Our Programme”, which was
never circulated, owing to the arrest of the group.

[20] N. N. —pseudonym of S. N. Prokopovich, an active
“Economist” who later became a Cadet.

[21] Vasilyev, N. V. —Colonel of the Gendarmes, supporter of the
Zubatov “police socialism”.

Ozerov, I. Kh. and Worms, A. E. —professors at Moscow
University, spokesmen for the “police socialism” of Zubatov.

[22] Afanasy Ivanovich and Pulkheria Ivanovna —a patriarchal
family of petty provincial landlords in Gogol’s Old-Time
Landowners .

[23] Lenin refers here to his own revolutionary activity in St. Petersburg
in 1893-95.

[24] The reference is to the pamphlet Report on the Russian
Social-Democratic Movement to International Socialist Congress in Paris,
1900 . The Report was submitted to the Congress by the Editorial Board
of Rabocheye Dyelo on behalf of the Union of Russian
Social-Democrats Abroad and was published as a separate pamphlet in Geneva
in 1901; the pamphlet also contained the report of the Bund (“The History
of the Jewish Working-Class Movement in Russia and Poland”).

[25] Yuzhny Rabochy ( The Southern Worker )—a
Social-Democratic newspaper, illegally published from January 1900 to
April 1903 by a group of that name; twelve issues appeared.




### V

## The “Plan” For an All-Russia Political Newspaper

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

### B. Can A Newspaper Be A Collective Organiser?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That is what we should dream of!

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

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

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

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

### C. What Type of Organisation Do We Require?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

## Notes

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

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

[4] See Collected Works, Vol. 2, pp. 323-51 and 267-315 —Ed.

[5] The
author requests me to state that, like his previous pamphlets,
this one was sent to the Union Abroad on the assumption that its
publications were edited by the Emancipation of Labour group
(owing to certain circumstances, he could not then — February
1899 — know of the change in editorship). The pamphlet will be
republished by the League [22] at an early date.— Lenin

[6] See Collected Works, Vol. 4, pp. 210-14, 215-20, 221-26 —Ed .

[7] Comrade
Krichevsky and Comrade Martynov! I call your attention to this
outrageous manifestation of “autocracy”, “uncontrolled authority”, “supreme regulating”, etc. just think of it: a
desire to possess the whole chain!! Send in a complaint
at once. Here you have a ready-made topic for two leading
articles for No. 12 of Rabocheye Dyelo! — Lenin

[8] Martynov, in quoting the first sentence of this passage in Rabocheye Dyelo (No. 10, p. 62), omitted the second, as
if desiring to emphasise either his unwillingness to discuss the
essentials of the question or his inability to understand them.— Lenin

[10] The Eve
of the Revolution, p. 62. — Lenin

[12] Iskra , No. 4, “Where To Begin”. “Revolutionary
culturists, who do not accept the eve-of-the-revolution point of
view, are not in the least perturbed by the prospect of working
for a long period of time,” writes Nadezhdin (p. 62). This
brings us to observe: Unless we are able to devise political
tactics and an organisational plan for work over a very long
period , while ensuring, in the very process of this work , our Party’s readiness to be at its post and fulfil
its duty in every contingency whenever the march of events is
accelerated — unless we succeed in doing this, we shall prove
to he but miserable political adventurers. Only Nadezhdin, who
began but yesterday to describe himself as a Social-Democrat,
can forget that the aim of Social-Democracy is to transform
radically the conditions of life of the whole of mankind and
that for this reason it is not permissible for a Social-Democrat to be
“perturbed” by the question of the duration of the work.— Lenin

[13] Alas, alas! Again I have let slip that awful word “agents”,
which jars so much on the democratic cars of the Martynovs! I
wonder why this word did not offend the heroes of the seventies
and yet off ends the amateurs of the nineties? I like the word,
because it clearly and trenchantly indicates the common
cause to which all the agents bend their thoughts and actions, and if I had to replace this word by another, the only
word I might select would be the word “collaborator”, if it did
not suggest a certain bookishness and vagueness. The thing we
need is a military organisation of agents. However, the numerous
Martynovs (particularly abroad), whose favourite pastime is
“mutual grants of generalships to one another”, may instead of
saying “passport agent” prefer to say, “Chief of the Special
Department for Supplying Revolutionaries with
Passports”. etc.— Lenin

[21] Lenin added this footnote for purposes of secrecy. The facts are
enumerated in the order in which they actually took place.

[14] The reference is to the negotiations between the St. Petersburg League
of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class and Lenin who, in the
second half of 1897, wrote the two pamphlets mentioned.

[22] The reference is to the League of Russian Revolutionary
Social-Democracy Abroad.

[15] The reference is to the negotiations between Lenin and the Central
Committee of the Bund.

[16] The “ fourth fact ” of which Lenin speaks was the
attempt of the Union of Russian Social-Democrats Abroad and the Bund to
convene the Second Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. in the spring of 1900. The
“ member of the committee ” referred to was I. H. Lalayants (a
member of the Ekaterinoslav Social-Democratic Committee) who came to Moscow
in February 1900 for talks with Lenin.

[17] Lenin cites the article by D. I. Pisarev “Blunders of Immature
Thinking”.

[18] Tkachov, P. N. (1844-1885)—one of the ideologists of
revolutionary Narodism, a follower of the Auguste Blanqui.

[19] Lenin refers to the following passage from Marx’s The Eighteenth
Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte : “Hegel remarks somewhere that all facts
and personages of great importance in world history occur, as it were,
twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce”
(see Marx and Engels, Selected Works , Vol. 1, Moscow, 1958,
p. 247).

[20] Janizaries —privileged Turkish infantry, abolished in
1826. The janizaries plundered the population and were known for their
unusual brutality. Lenin called the tsarist police “janizaries”.




## Conclusion

The history of Russian Social-Democracy can be distinctly
divided into three periods:

The first period embraces about ten years, approximately from
1884 to 1894. This was the period of the rise and consolidation of
the theory and programme of Social-Democracy. The adherents of the
new trend in Russia were very few in number. Social-Democracy
existed without a working-class movement, and as a political party
it was at the embryonic stage of development.

The second period embraces three or four years—1894-98, In
this period Social-Democracy appeared on the scene as a social
movement, as the upsurge of the masses of the people, as a
political party. This is the period of its childhood and
adolescence. The intelligentsia was fired with a vast and general
zeal for struggle against Narodism and for going among the
workers; the workers displayed a general enthusiasm for strike
action. The movement made enormous strides. The majority of the
leaders were young people who had not reached “the age of
thirty-five” which to Mr. N. Mikhailovsky appeared to be a sort of
natural border-line. Owing to their youth, they proved to be
untrained for practical work and they left the scene with
astonishing rapidity. But in the majority of cases the scope of
their activity was very wide. Many of them had begun their
revolutionary thinking as adherents of Narodnaya Volya. Nearly all
had in their early youth enthusiastically worshipped the terrorist
heroes. It required a struggle to abandon the captivating
impressions of those heroic traditions, and the struggle was
accompanied by the breaking off of personal relations with people
who were determined to remain loyal to the Narodnaya Volya and for
whom the young Social-Democrats had profound respect. The struggle
compelled the youthful leaders to educate themselves to read
illegal literature of every trend, and to study closely the
questions of legal Narodism. Trained in this struggle, Social-Democrats went into the working-class movement without “for
a moment” forgetting either the theory of Marxism, which brightly
illumined their path, or the task of overthrowing the autocracy. The formation of the Party in the spring of 1898 was
the most striking and at the same time the last act of the
Social-Democrats of this period.

The third period, as we have seen, was prepared in 1897 and it
definitely cut off the second period in 1898 (1898-?). This was a
period of disunity, dissolution, and vacillation. During
adolescence a youth’s voice breaks. And so, in this period, the
voice of Russian Social-Democracy began to break, to strike a
false note — on the one hand, in the writings of Messrs. Struve
and Prokopovich, of Bulgakov and Berdyaev, and on the other, in
those of V. l-n and R. M., of B. Krichevsky and Martynov. But it
was only the leaders who wandered about separately and drew back;
the movement itself continued to grow, and it advanced with
enormous strides. The proletarian struggle spread to new strata of
the workers and extended to the whole of Russia, at the same time
indirectly stimulating the revival of the democratic spirit among
the students and among other sections of the population. The
political consciousness of the leaders, however, capitulated
before the breadth and power of the spontaneous upsurge; among the
Social-Democrats, another type had become dominant — the type of
functionaries, trained almost exclusively on “legal Marxist”
literature, which proved to be all the more inadequate the more
the spontaneity of the masses demanded political consciousness on
the part of the leaders. The leaders not only lagged behind in
regard to theory (“freedom of criticism”) and practice (“primitiveness”), but they sought to justify their backwardness
by all manner of high-flown arguments. Social-Democracy was
degraded to the level of trade-unionism by the Brentano adherents
in legal literature, and by the tail-enders in illegal literature. The Credo programme began to be put into
operation, especially when the “primitive methods” of the
Social-Democrats caused a revival of revolutionary non-Social-Democratic
tendencies.

If the reader should feel critical that I have dealt at too
great length with a certain Rabocheye Dyelo , I can say
only that Rabocheye Dyelo acquired “historical” significance because it most notably reflected the
“spirit” of this third period. [1] It was not the consistent R. M., but
the weathercock Krichevskys and Martynovs who were able properly
to express the disunity and vacillation, the readiness to make
concessions to “criticism” to “Economism”, and to terrorism. Not the lofty contempt for practical work displayed by some
worshipper of the “absolute” is characteristic of this period,
but the combination of pettifogging practice and utter disregard for
theory. It was not so much in the direct rejection of “grandiose
phrases” that the heroes of this period engaged as in their
vulgarisation. Scientific socialism ceased to be an integral
revolutionary theory and became a hodgepodge “freely” diluted with
the content of every new German textbook that appeared; the slogan
“class struggle” did not impel to broader and more energetic
activity but served as a balm, since “the economic struggle is
inseparably linked with the political struggle”; the idea of a
party did not serve as a call for the creation of a militant
organisation of revolutionaries, but was used to justify some sort
of “revolutionary bureaucracy” and infantile playing at
“democratic” forms.

When the third period will come to an end and the fourth (now
heralded by many portents) will begin we do not know. We are
passing from the sphere of history to the sphere of the present
and, partly, of the future. But we firmly believe that the fourth
period will lead to the consolidation of militant Marxism, that
Russian Social-Democracy will emerge from the crisis in the full
flower of manhood, that the opportunist rearguard will be “replaced” by the genuine vanguard of the most
revolutionary class.

In the sense of calling for such a “replacement” and by way of
summing up what has been expounded above, we may meet the
question, What is to be done? with the brief reply:

Put an End to the Third Period.

## Notes

[1] I could also reply with the German proverb: Den Sack schlägt man,
den Esel meint man (you beat the sack, but you mean the
donkey). Not Rabocheye Dyelo alone, but also the broad mass of practical workers and theoreticians was carried away by the “criticism” a la mode , becoming
confused in regard to the question of spontaneity and lapsing
from the Social-Democratic to the trade-unionist conception of
our political and organisational tasks.
— Lenin


Is To Be Done?


### Appendix [8]

### The Attempt to Unite Iskra With Rabocheye Dyelo

It remains for us to describe the tactics adopted and consistently pursued by Iskra in its organisational
relations with Rabocheye Dyelo . These tactics were fully
expressed in Iskra , No. 1, in the article entitled “The
Split in the Union of Russian Social-Democrats
Abroad”. [1] From the outset we adopted the point of view that the real Union
of Russian Social-Democrats Abroad, which at the First Congress
of our Party was recognised as its representative abroad, had
split into two organisations; that the question of the
Party’s representation remained an open one, having been settled
only temporarily and conditionally by the election, at the
International Congress in Paris, of two members to represent
Russia on the International Socialist Bureau, [9] one from each of the two sections of the divided Union Abroad. We declared that
fundamentally Rabocheye Dyelo was wrong; in principle we
emphatically took the side of the Emancipation of Labour group, at
the same time refusing to enter into the details of the split and
noting the services rendered by the Union Abroad in the sphere of
purely practical work. [2]

Consequently, ours was, to a certain extent, a waiting policy. We made a concession to the opinions prevailing among the
majority of the Russian Social-Democrats that the most determined
opponents of Economism could work hand in hand with the Union
Abroad because it had repeatedly declared its agreement in
principle with the Emancipation of Labour group, without,
allegedly, taking an independent position on fundamental
questions of theory and tactics. The correctness of our position was indirectly proved by the fact that
almost simultaneously with the appearance of the first issue of Iskra (December 1900) three members separated from the
Union, formed the so-called “Initiators’ Group”, and offered their
services: (1) to the foreign section of the Iskra organisation, (2) to the revolutionary Sotsial-Demokrat organisation, and (3) to the Union Abroad, as mediators in
negotiations for reconciliation. The first two organisations at
once announced their agreement; the third turned down the
offer. True, when a speaker related these facts at the “Unity”
Conference last year, a member of the Administrative Committee of
the Union Abroad declared the rejection of the offer to have been
due entirely to the fact that the Union Abroad was dissatisfied with the composition of the Initiators’ Group. While
I consider it my duty to cite this explanation, I cannot, however,
refrain from observing that it is an unsatisfactory one; for,
knowing that two organisations had agreed to enter into
negotiations, the Union Abroad could have approached them through
another intermediary or directly.

In the spring of 1901 both Zarya (No. 1, April) and Iskra (No. 4, May) [3] entered into open polemics with Rabocheye Dyelo. Iskra particularly attacked the article
“A Historic Turn” in Rabocheye Dyelo , which, in its April supplement, that is, after the spring events,
revealed instability on the question of terror and the calls for
“blood”, with which many had been carried away at the time. Notwithstanding the polemics, the Union Abroad agreed to
resume negotiations for reconciliation through the instrumentality
of a new group of “conciliators”  A preliminary conference of
representatives of the three cited organisations, held in June,
framed a draft agreement on the basis of a very detailed “accord
on principles”, which the Union Abroad published in the pamphlet Two Conferences , and the League Abroad in the pamphlet Documents of the “Unity” Conference .

The contents of this accord on principles (more frequently
named the Resolutions of the June Conference) make it perfectly
clear that we put forward as an absolute condition for unity the most emphatic repudiation of any and every
manifestation of opportunism generally, and of Russian opportunism
in particular. Paragraph 1 reads: “We repudiate all attempts to
introduce opportunism into the proletarian class struggle —
attempts that have found expression in the so-called Economism,
Bernsteinism, Millerandism, etc.” “The sphere of Social-Democratic
activities includes ... ideological struggle against all opponents
of revolutionary Marxism” (4, c); “In every sphere of organisational and agitational activity Social-Democracy must
never for a moment forget that the immediate task of the Russian
proletariat is the overthrow of the autocracy” (5, a); “agitation
… not only on the basis of the everyday struggle between
wage-labour and capital” (5, b); “. . . we do not recognise. . . a
stage of purely economic struggle and of struggle for partial
political demands” (5, c); “. . we consider it important for
the movement to criticise tendencies that make a principle of the
elementariness and narrowness of the lower forms ofthe movement” (5, d). Even a complete outsider, having read these
resolutions at all attentively, will have realised from their
very formulations that they are directed against people who
were opportunists and Economists, who, even for a moment, forgot
the task of overthrowing the autocracy, who recognised the
theory of stages, who elevated narrowness to a principle,
etc. Anyone who has the least acquaintance with the polemics
conducted by the Emancipation of Labour group, Zarya ,and Iskra against Rabocheye Dyelo cannot doubt for a single moment that these resolutions
repudiate, point by point, the very errors into which Rabocheye Dyelo strayed. Hence, when a member of the
Union Abroad declared at the “Unity” Conference that the articles
in No. 10 of Rabocheye Dyelo had been prompted, not by a new “historic turn” on the part of the Union Abroad, but
by the excessive “abstractness” of the resolution, [4] the assertion was justly ridiculed by one of the speakers. Farfrom being
abstract, he said, the resolutions were incredibly concrete: one
could see at a glance that they were “trying to catch somebody”.

This remark occasioned a characteristic incident at the
Conference. On the one hand, Krichevsky, seizing upon the word
“catch” in the belief that this was a slip of the tongue which
betrayed our evil intentions (“to set a trap”), pathetically
exclaimed: “Whom are they out to catch?” “Whom indeed?” rejoined
Plekhanov sarcastically. “Let me come to the aid of Comrade
Plekhanov’s lack of perspicacity,” replied Krichevsky. “Let me
explain to him that the trap was set for the Editorial Board
of Rabocheye Dyelo [general laughter] but we have not allowed
ourselves to be caught!” (A remark from the left: “All the worse
for you!”) On the other hand, a member of the Borba group (a group
of conciliators), opposing the amendments of the Union Abroad to
the resolutions and desiring to defend our speaker, declared that
obviously the word “catch” was dropped by chance in the heat of
polemics.

For my part, I think the speaker responsible for uttering the
word will hardly be pleased with this “defence”. I think the words
“trying to catch somebody” were “true words spoken in jest”; we
have always accused Rabocheye Dyelo of instability and vacillation, and, naturally, we had to try to catch it in order to put a stop to the
vacillation. There is not the slightest suggestion of evil intent
in this, for we were discussing instability of principles And we
succeeded in “catching” the Union Abroad in such comradely
manner [5] that Krichevsky himself and one other member of the Administrative
Committee of the Union signed the June resolutions.

The articles in Rabocheye Dyelo , No. 10 (our comrades saw the issue for the first time when they arrived at the
Conference, a few days before the meetings started) clearly showed
that a new turn had taken place in the Union Abroad in the period
between the summer and the autumn: the Economists had once more
gained the upper hand, and the Editorial Board, which veered with
every “wind”, again set out to defend “the most pronounced
Berristeinians” and “freedom of criticism”, to defend “spontaneity”, and through the lips of Martynov to preach the
“theory of restricting” the sphere of our political influence (for
the alleged purpose of rendering this influence more complex). Once again Parvus’ apt observation that it is difficult
to catch an opportunist with a formula has been proved correct. An
opportunist will readily put his name to any formula and
as readily abandon it, because opportunism means precisely a lack
of definite and firm principles. Today, the opportunists have
repudiated all attempts to introduce opportunism, repudiated all narrowness, solemnly promised “never for a
moment to forget about the task of overthrowing the autocracy” and
to carry on “agitation not only on the basis of the everyday
struggle between wage-labour and capital”, etc., etc. But tomorrow
they will change their form of expression and revert to their old
tricks on the pretext of defending spontaneity and the forward
march of the drab everyday struggle, of extolling demands
promising palpable results, etc. By continuing to assert that in
the articles in No. 10 “the Union Abroad did not and does not now
see any heretical departure from the general principles of the
draft adopted at the conference” ( Two Conferences , p. 26),
the Union Abroad merely reveals a complete lack of ability,
or of desire, to understand the essential points of the
disagreements.

After the tenth issue of Rabocheye Dyelo , we could make one effort: open a general discussion in order to ascertain
whether all the members of the Union Abroad agreed with the
articles and with the Editorial Board. The Union Abroad is
particularly displeased with us because of this and accuses us of
trying to sow discord in its ranks, of interfering in other
people’s business, etc. These accusations are obviously unfounded,
since with an elected editorial board that “veers” with every
wind, however light, everything depends upon the direction of the
wind, and we defined the direction at private meetings at which no
one was present, except members of the organisations intending to
unite. The amendments to the June resolutions submitted in the
name of the Union Abroad have removed the last shadow of hope of
arriving at agreement. The amendments are documentary evidence of
the new turn towards Economism and of the fact that the majority
of the Union members are in agreement with Rabocheye Dyelo ,
No. 10. It was moved to delete the words “so-called
Economism” from the reference to manifestations of opportunism (on
the plea that “the meaning” of these words “was vague”;
but if that were so, all that was required was a more precise definition
of the nature of the widespread error), and to delete “Millerandism” (although Krichevsky had defended it in Rabocheye Dyelo , No. 2-3 , pp. 83-84, and still
more openly in Vorwarts [6] ).

Notwithstanding the fact that the June resolutions definitely indicated that the task of Social-Democracy
is “to guide every manifestation of the proletarian struggle against all forms of political, economic , and
social oppression”, thereby calling for the introduction of system
and unity in all these manifestations of the struggle, the Union
Abroad added the wholly superfluous words that “the economic
struggle is a powerful stimulus to the mass movement” (taken by
itself, this assertion cannot be disputed, but with the existence
of narrow Economism it could not but give occasion for false
interpretations). Moreover, even the direct constriction of “politics” was suggested for the June resolutions, both by
the deletion of the words “not for a moment” (to forget the aim of
overthrowing the autocracy) and by the addition of the words “the
economic struggle is the most widely applicable means of drawing
the masses into active political struggle”. Naturally, upon the
submission of such amendments, the speakers on our side refused,
one after another, to take the floor, considering it hopeless to
continue negotiations with people who were again turning towards
Economism and were striving to secure for themselves freedom to
vacillate.

It was precisely the preservation of the independent features
and the autonomy of Rabocheye Dyelo , considered by the
Union to be the sine qua non of the durability of our future agreement, that Iskra regarded as the
stumbling-block to agreement" (Two Conferences,
p. 25). This is most inexact. We never had any designs
against Rabocheye Dyelo’s autonomy. [7] We did indeed absolutely refuse to recognise the independence of its
features, if by “independent features” is meant independence on
questions of principle in theory and tactics. The June resolutions
contain an utter repudiation of such independence of features, because, in practice, such “independence of features”
has always meant, as we have pointed out, all manner of
vacillations fostering the disunity which prevails among us and
which is intolerable from the Party point of view. Rabocheye
Dyelo’s articles in its tenth issue, together with its “amendments” clearly revealed its desire to preserve this kind of
independence of features, and such a desire naturally and
inevitably led to a rupture and a declaration of war. But all of
us were ready to recognise Rabocheye Dyelo’s “independence of features” in the sense that it should
concentrate on definite literary functions. A proper distribution
of these functions naturally called for: (1) a theoretical
magazine, (2) a political newspaper, and (3) popular collections
of articles and popular pamphlets. Only by agreeing to such a
distribution of functions would Rabocheye Dyelo have proved that it sincerely desired to abandon once and for
all its errors, against which the June resolutions were
directed. Only such a distribution of functions would have removed
all possibility of friction, effectively guaranteed a durable
agreement, and, at the same time, served as a basis for a revival
and for new successes of our movement.

At present not a single Russian Social-Democrat can have any
doubts that the final rupture between the revolutionary and the
opportunist tendencies was caused, not by any “organisational”
circumstances, but by the desire of the opportunists to
consolidate the independent features of opportunism and to
continue to cause confusion of mind by the disquisitions of the
Krichevskys and Martynovs.

## Notes