V. I.

Lenin

The Zemstvo Campaign and Iskra’s Plan [3]

FOR PARTY MEMBERS ONLY

Theeditorial board of Iskra has just issued (“for Party
members”) a letter addressed to the Party organisations. Russia has
never been within such close distance of a constitution, say the
editors; and they expound a complete plan for a “political
campaign”, a complete plan for influencing our liberal
Zemstvo-ist petitioners for a constitution.

Beforeanalysing this exceedingly instructive plan of the new
Iskra’s , let us recall how the Russian Social-Democrats
have regarded the question of their attitude towards the
liberal Zemstvo-ists since a mass working-class movement
arose. Everyone knows that, practically from the inception of
the mass working-class movement, a struggle went on between the
“Economists” and the revolutionaries over this question too. The former went so far as directly to deny the
existence of a bourgeois-democratic element in Russia and ignore
the proletariat’s task of influencing the opposition strata of
society; at the same time, by narrowing the scope of the
political struggle of the proletariat, they consciously or
unconsciously left the role of political leadership to the
liberal elements of society, assigning to the workers “the
economic struggle against the employers and the government”. The adherents of revolutionary
Social-Democracy fought in the old Iskra against this trend. This struggle may be divided into two main periods: the
period before the appearance of a liberal organ—Osvobozhdeniye—and the period after
it appeared. During the first period we directed our attack
mainly against the narrowness of the Economists; we tried to
“wake them up” to the fact, which they failed to perceive, of the existence of a bourgeois-democratic element in
Russia; we emphasised the need for political activity by the
proletariat in every sphere, we stressed that the proletariat must influence all sections of society, that it must become the
vanguard in the battle for freedom. It is the more fitting and
necessary to recall this period and its main features now because the
adherents of the new Iskra grossly falsify it (see Trotsky’s
Our Political Tasks , published under the editorship of
Iskra ), banking on the unfamiliarity of the younger generation with the recent history of our movement.

Fromthe time of the appearance of Osvobozhdeniye , the second period in the old Iskra’s fight began. When the
liberals came out with an organ and political programme of their
own, the proletariat’s task of influencing “society” naturally underwent a modification: working-class democrats
could no longer confine themselves to “shaking up” the liberal democrats and rousing their opposition spirit; they
had to put the emphasis on revolutionary criticism of the
half-heartedness so clearly exhibited in the political position
of liberalism. The influence we brought to bear on the liberal
strata now took the form of constantly pointing out the
inconsistency and inadequacy of the liberals’ political protest
(it is sufficient to mention Zarya , which criticised
Mr. Struve’s preface to the Witte

Memorandum, [1] also numerous articles in Iskra ).

Bythe time of the Second Party Congress this new attitude of
the Social-Democrats towards the now articulate liberals was
already so well-defined and established that there was no
question in anyone’s mind about whether a bourgeois-democratic
element existed in Russia and whether the opposition movement
ought to receive support (and what kind of support) from the
proletariat. The only question was how to formulate the Party’s
views on the subject; and I need only point out here that the
views o  the old Iskra were much better expressed in
Plekhanov’s resolution, which emphasised the anti-revolutionary and anti-proletarian character of the liberal
Osvobozhdeniye , than in the con fused resolution tabled
by Starover, which, on the one hand, aimed (quite inopportunely)
at an “agreement” with the liberals, and, on the other, stipulated for it conditions that were manifestly unreal,
being altogether impossible for the liberals to fulfil.

I

Nowlet us examine the new Iskra’s plan. The editors acknowledge that we must make full use of all material showing
the irresolution and half-heartedness of the liberal democrats
and the antagonism of interests between the liberal bourgeoisie
and the proletariat, must do so “in accordance with the
fundamental demands of our programme”. “But," the editors continue, “but within the framework of
the struggle with absolutism, notably in its present phase, our
attitude towards the liberal bourgeoisie is determined by the task of spurring it to greater boldness and inducing it
to join in the demands which the proletariat, led by the
Social-Democrats, will put forward [? has put forward?
I." We have italicised the particularly strange words in this
strange tirade. For what is it if not strange to contrast
criticism of half-heartedness and analysis of antagonistic
interests, on the one hand, and the task of spurring these
people to greater boldness and inducing them to join, on the
other? How can we spur the liberal democrats to greater boldness
except by relentless analysis and devastating criticism of the
half-heartedness of their democracy? Insofar as the bourgeois
(liberal) democrats intend to act as democrats, and are forced
to act as democrats, they necessarily seek the support of the
widest possible sections of the people. This inevitably produces
the following contradiction. The wider these sections of the
people, the more representatives are there among them of the
proletarian and semi-proletarian strata, who demand the complete
democratisation of the political and social system—such
complete democratisation as would threaten to undermine very
important pillars of all bourgeois rule (the monarchy, the
standing army, the bureaucracy). Bourgeois democrats are by
their very nature incapable of satisfying these demands, and are
therefore, by their very nature, doomed to irresolution and
half-heartedness. By criticising this half-heartedness, the
Social-Democrats keep prodding the liberals on and winning more
and more proletarians and semi-proletarians, and partly petty
bourgeois too, from liberal democracy to working-class democracy. How then is it possible to say: we must criticise the
half-heartedness of the liberal bourgeoisie, bat (but!) our attitude towards it is determined by the task of spurring it to greater
boldness? Why, that is plain muddle-headedness, which shows that its
authors are either marching backward, reverting to the days when the
liberals did not come forward openly at all, when they had still to be
roused, stirred, induced to open their mouths—or else are
slipping into the idea that one can “spur” the liberals to
greater boldness by subtracting from the boldness of the proletarians.

Preposterousas this idea is, we find it again, even more
clearly expressed, in the very next passage of the editors’
letter: “But”—again that editorial reservation—“but we should be making a fatal mistake if we
tried by strong measures of intimidation to force the Zemstvos or other organs of the bourgeois
opposition to give here and now, under the influence of
panic , a formal promise to present our demands to the government. Such a tactic would discredit the Social- Democrats,
because it would make our entire political campaign a lever for
reaction.” (Editors’ italics.)

Sothat’s how it is, is it? Before the revolutionary proletariat
has dealt the tsarist autocracy a single serious blow, at
a time when that autocracy is so visibly shaken and when a
serious blow is so imperative, would be so useful, and might
prove decisive, there are Social-Democrats who go about mumbling
about levers for reaction. This is not just muddle headedness,
it is sheer inanity. This is what the editors have come to with
their terrible bogey, invented specially to start this talk
about becoming a lever for reaction. Just think of it: that
people should talk in all seriousness, in a letter to the
Social-Democratic Party organisations, of tactics of intimidating the Zemstvo-ists and forcing them to give formal
promises under the influence of panic! Even among Russian
officialdom, even among our

Ugryum-Burcheyevs, [4] it would not be easy to find a political
infant who would believe in such a bogey. We have among our revolutionists
hotheaded terrorists, desperate bomb-throwers; but even the most
hare-brained of the hare-brained defenders of bomb-throwing
have yet, I believe, to propose intimidating the Zemstvo-ists and striking panic into ... the opposition. Cannot
the editors see that the inevitable effect of their ridiculous bogeys
and inane phrases is to perplex and mislead, to befog and confuse the
minds of the fighting proletarians?

After all, these catchwords about levers for reaction and the
discrediting tactics of intimidation do not fly into empty space; they
fall upon the specific soil of police-ridden Russia, so eminently
suited for the sprouting of weeds. Talk about levers for reaction is
indeed to be heard at every street corner nowadays, but it comes from
the Novoye Vremya gentry. [5] The story about the discrediting tactics of intimidation has indeed been
repeated ad nauseam—by the cowardly leaders of the bourgeois opposition.

Take Prof. Prince E. N. Trubetskoy. A sufficiently “enlightened” and—for a legal Russian
personality—a sufficiently “bold” liberal, one would think. Yet how fatuously he discourses in the liberal
Pravo (No. 39) on the “internal danger”, namely, the danger from the extreme parties! There you have a
live example of who really is close to panic; a graphic instance
of what really does have an intimidating effect on real
liberals. What they are afraid of, it need hardly be said, is
not the plan conjured up by the Iskra editors, the plan
of extorting from the Zemstvo-ists formal promises to the
revolutionaries (Mr. Trubetskoy would only roar with laughter if
told of such a plan); they are afraid of the revolutionary
socialist aims of the “extreme” parties, they are afraid of leaflets, those first harbingers of independent
revolutionary action by the proletariat, which will not stop,
will not lay down its arms until it has over thrown the rule of
the bourgeoisie. This fear is not inspired by ludicrous bogeys,
but by the actual nature of the working- class movement; and it
is a fear ineradicable from the hearts of the bourgeoisie (not
counting a few individuals and groups, of course). And that is
why the new Iskra’s talk about the discrediting tactics of intimidating the Zemstvo-ists and representatives of
the bourgeois opposition rings so false. Afraid of leaflets,
afraid of anything that goes beyond a qualified- franchise
constitution, the liberal gentry will always stand in fear of
the slogan “a democratic republic” and of the call for an armed uprising of the people. But the class- conscious
proletariat will indignantly reject the very idea that we could
renounce this slogan and this call, or could in general be
guided in our activity by the panic and fears of the bourgeoisie.

Take Novoye Vremya. What dulcet melodies it weaves about the
lever-for-reaction theme! “The youth and reaction,” we read in
the “Notes” in No. 10285 (October 18).
“...The words go ill together, and yet unconsidered actions, impulsive
ardour, and the desire at all costs to share immediately in shaping
the nation’s fortunes may bring the youth to this hopeless
impasse. The demonstration a few days ago in front of the Vyborg
prison; then the attempt at some sort of demonstration in the heart of
the capital; in Moscow, the procession of 200 students with banners
and protests against the war.... All this explains the reaction.... Student disturbances, youth demonstrations—why,
they are a real god send, a trump card, an unexpected ace of trumps in
the hands of the reactionaries. Truly a welcome present for them,
which they will know how to make the most of. We should not make them
these presents, should not go about smashing imaginary [!!!]
window-bars; the very doors are open now [the doors of the Vyborg and
other prisons?], wide open!”

Thisdisquisition requires no comment. One has only to quote it
to see how tactless it is to talk about a lever for reaction
now—now , when not one door of the all-Russia prison has opened a hair’s breath for the struggling workers;
when the tsarist autocracy has not yet made a single con cession
that would affect the proletariat in the slightest; when all
attention and efforts should be centred on preparing for a real
and decisive battle with the Russian people’s enemy. Of course,
the very thought of such a battle strikes fear and panic into
the Trubetskoys and the thousands of less “enlightened” liberal gentlemen. But we should be
fools if we took their panic into consideration. What we should
take into consideration is the state of our forces, the growth
of popular ferment and indignation, the moment when the
proletariat’s direct onslaught on the autocracy will link up
with one of the spontaneous and spontaneously growing movements.

II

Inspeaking above of the bogey our editors conjured up, we did not
mention another characteristic little point in their argument. The
editors denounce the discrediting tactics of seeking to extort from
the Zemstvo-ists “a formal promise to present our demands to the government”. Over
and above the absurdities already noted, the very idea that
“our” demands, the demands of working-class democrats, should be presented to the government by liberal
democrats is a peculiar one. On the one hand, the liberal
democrats, being bourgeois democrats, can never identify
themselves with “our” demands, can never uphold them sincerely, consistently, and resolutely. Even if the liberals
gave, and gave “voluntarily”, a formal promise to present our demands, it is a foregone conclusion that they would
fail to keep that promise, would betray the proletariat. On the
other hand, if we should be strong enough to exert-serious
influence on the bourgeois democrats generally and the Zemstvo
gentlemen in particular, we should be quite strong enough to
present our demands to the government ourselves.

Theeditors’ peculiar idea is no slip of the pen, but an
inevitable product of their general confused position on this
issue. Listen to this: “As our focal point and guiding thread ... we must take the practical task ... of exerting
powerful organised pressure upon the bourgeois opposition”;
“the draft of the workers’ statement to the liberal opposition organ in question” must “explain why the
workers are not approaching the government, but an assembly of
representatives of that opposition”. To put the thing in
this way is a fundamental mistake. We, the party of the
proletariat, should, of course, “go to all classes of the
population”, openly and vigorously championing our programme and our immediate demands before the people at large;
we should seek to present these demands to the Zemstvo gentlemen
too; but our focal point and guiding thread must be pressure on
the government, not on the Zemstvo-ists. The editors of
Iskra have turned this question of the focal point completely upside down. The bourgeois opposition is merely
bourgeois and merely an opposition because it does not itself
fight, because it has no programme of its own that it unconditionally upholds, because it stands between the two
actual combatants (the government and the revolutionary proletariat
with its handful of intellectual supporters) and hopes to turn
the outcome of this struggle to its own advantage. Accordingly,
the more heated the struggle becomes, the nearer the moment of
the decisive battle, the more must we focus our attention and bring our pressure to bear on our actual
enemy, and not on a notoriously conditional, problematic, unreliable, half-hearted ally. It would be foolish
to
ignore this ally, and absurd to try to intimidate and fright en
him—all that is so self-evident that it is strange even to
talk about it. But, I repeat, the focal point and guiding thread
in our agitation must not be pressure on this ally, but
preparation for the decisive battle with the enemy. For while it
has been flirting with the Zemstvos and has granted them some
paltry concessions, the government has not, in actual fact,
conceded anything whatever to the people; it may still well
revert to (or rather continue) its reactionary course, as has
happened in Russia tens and hundreds of times after a momentary
flash of liberalism from one autocrat or another. At a moment
like this, when the government is flirting with the Zemstvos and
the people are being hood winked and lulled with empty words, we
must particularly beware of the fox’s cunning, must be particularly insistent in
pointing out that the enemy has yet to be defeated, must call with
particular vigour for continuing and intensifying the fight against
the enemy, and not shift the emphasis from “approaching”
the government to approaching the Zemstvos. None other than the
notorious cream-skimmers and betrayers of freedom are hard at work
at this moment to put the Zemstvos in the focus of public and
popular attention and to inspire confidence in them, when actually
they do not in the least deserve the confidence of genuine
democrats. Take Novoye Vremya : in the article we have already quoted you will find the following argument: “Anyone
can see that once all our failings and shortcomings can be boldly
and candidly discussed and there is freedom for the activity of
every public personality, it should not be long before we see the
last of these shortcomings and Russia is able to set foot
confidently on the path of the progress and improvement she so
sorely needs. We do not even have to invent the organisation to
serve as the instrument of this progress: it is already to hand in
the form of the Zemstvos, which only II! II need to be given the
freedom to grow; therein lies the earnest of genuinely national, not
borrowed, progress.” This kind of talk not only “conceals a
desire for a limited monarchy and a qualified-franchise
constitution” (as the editors put it elsewhere in their letter); it directly prepares the
ground for reducing the whole business to a bestowal of smiles on the
Zemstvos, without even any limitation of the monarchy.

Makingpressure on the Zemstvos instead of on the government
the focal point leads naturally to the unfortunate idea that
underlay Starover’s resolution—the idea of trying to find,
now at once, a basis for some sort of “agreements” with the liberals. “As regards the present Zemstvos,” the
editors say in their letter, “our task reduces itself [!!
I to presenting to them those political demands of the revolutionary proletariat which they must support if they are
to have any right to speak in the name of the people and count
on the energetic support of the worker masses.” A fine definition of the tasks of the workers’ party, I must say! At
a. time when an alliance of the moderate Zemstvo-ists and the
government to fight the revolutionary proletariat is only too
clearly possible and probable (the editors them selves admit the
possibility of such an alliance), we are to “reduce” our task, not to redoubling our efforts in the struggle against
the government, but to drawing up casuistic conditions for
agreements with the liberals on mutual sup port. If I put before
someone demands which he must undertake to support to have me
support him, what I am doing is concluding an agreement. And we
ask all and sundry:

what has become of the “conditions” for agreements with
the liberals which were prescribed in Starover’s resolution [2] (signed
also by Axelrod and Martov), and which our press has already predicted
could never be fulfilled? The editors’ letter does not say a word
about these conditions. The editors advocated the resolution at the
Congress only to throw it into the waste-paper basket afterwards. At the very first attempt
to tackle the matter in practice it became apparent that presenting
Starover’s “conditions” would only provoke Homeric laughter from the Zemstvo liberals.

Letus proceed. Can it in general be acknowledged correct in principle to set the workers’ party the task of
presenting to the liberal democrats or the Zemstvo-ists
political demands “which they must support if they are to have any right to speak in the name of the people”? No,
such an approach is wrong in principle and can only obscure
the class consciousness of the proletariat and lead to the
most futile casuistry. To speak in the name of the people is
what speaking as a democrat means. Any democrat (the bourgeois
democrat included) has a right to speak in the name of the
people, but he has this right only insofar as he champions
democracy consistently, resolutely, going all the way. Consequently, every bourgeois democrat
“has some right to speak in the name of the people” (for every
bourgeois democrat, so long as he remains a democrat, champions some democratic demand); but at the same time no
bourgeois democrat has a right to speak in the name of the
people all along the line (for no bourgeois democrat is
capable today of championing democracy resolutely and all the
way). Mr. Struve has a right to speak in the name of the
people insofar as Osvobozhdeniye fights against the autocracy; but Mr. Struve has no right to speak in the name of
the people insofar as Osvobozhdeniye turns and twists, stops short at a qualified- franchise constitution,
equates Zemstvo opposition with struggle, and will not commit
itself to a clear and consistent democratic programme. The
German National-Liberals had a right to speak in the name of
the people insofar as they fought for freedom of movement. The
German National- Liberals had no right to speak in the name of
the people insofar as they supported the reactionary policy of
Bismarck.

Therefore,to set the workers’ party the task of presenting to the
liberal bourgeois demands which they must support in order to have any
right to speak in the name of the people is an absurd and nonsensical
proceeding. There is no need for us to invent any special democratic
demands over and above those contained in our programme. In the name of that programme we must support every democrat (including the
bourgeois democrat) insofar as he champions democracy, and must
relentlessly expose every democrat (including the
Socialist-Revolutionary) insofar as he deviates from democracy (as,
for instance, in such questions as the freedom of the peasant to leave
the commune or to sell his land). As for trying to establish in
advance the permissible degree of turpitude, so to speak, to determine
beforehand what deviations from democracy a democrat can permit
himself and still have some right to speak as a democrat, that is such
a clever idea that one can’t help wondering whether Comrade Martynov
or Comrade Dan did not lend our editors a hand in inventing it.

III

After setting forth their guiding political considerations, the
editors’ letter proceeds to expound the details of their great plan.

The Gubernia Zemstvo Assemblies are petitioning for a constitution. In the towns of X, Y, Z, our committeemen plus the
enlightened workers draw up a plan of political campaign
“according to Axelrod”. The focal point in their agitation is pressure on the bourgeois opposition. An organising
group is elected. The organising group elects an executive
committee. The executive committee elects a special spokesman. Efforts are made “to bring the masses into
direct contact with the Zemstvo Assembly, to concentrate the
demonstration before the actual premises where the Zemstvo
assemblymen are in session. Some of the demonstrators penetrate
into the session hail, and at a suitable moment, through the
spokesman specially authorised for the purpose, they ask the
permission of the Assembly F? of the Marshal of the Nobility,
who presides at the Assembly?] to read out a statement on behalf
of the workers. If this is not granted, the spokesman enters a
loud protest against the refusal of an Assembly which speaks in
the name of the people to hear the voice of the people’s genuine
representatives”.

Suchis the new Iskra’s new plan. We shall see in a moment
how modest is the editors’ opinion of it; but first let us quote their highly profound explanations as to the functions of the
executive committee:

“...The executive committee must take measures in advance
to ensure that the appearance of several thousand workers
outside the building where the Zemstvo assemblymen are in
session, and of several score or hundred in the building itself,
shall not plunge the Zemstvo-ists into panic fear U!] ,
under the impact of which they might throw themselves 1!] under
the shameful protection of the police and Cossacks, thus
transforming a peaceful demonstration into an ugly fight and
brutal battering, distorting its whole meaning....” (The editors
themselves seem to have been taken in by the bogey of their own
making. Taking the sentence in its literal, grammatical sense,
they even seem to be saying that it is the Zemstvo-ists who
would be transforming the demonstration into a brutal battering
and distorting its meaning. We have a very low opinion of the
Zemstvo liberals, but even so the editors’ panic fear that the
liberals in a Zemstvo Assembly might call in the police and
Cossacks seems to us quite nonsensical. Anyone who has ever
attend ed a Zemstvo Assembly will know that, in the event of
so-called disorder, the police would be sent for either by the
presiding Marshal of the Nobility or by the police officer
unofficially present in an adjoining room. Or perhaps the
members of the executive committee are to explain to this police
officer that it is no part of the new Iskra’s “plan” to have a peaceful demonstration transformed
into a brutal battering?)

“Toobviate such a surprise, the executive committee must
inform the liberal assemblymen beforehand [so that they may give
a “formal promise” not to send for the Cossacks?] of the forthcoming demonstration and its true purpose Ii.e.,
inform them that our true purpose does not consist in being
brutally battered and so having the meaning of Axelrod’s plan
distorted]. Furthermore, it must try to reach some agreement
[mark this!] with the representatives of the Left wing of the
bourgeois opposition and secure, if not their active support, at
any rate their sympathy with our political action. Its negotiations with them must, it need hardly be said, be
conducted in the name of the Party and on the instructions of
the workers’ circles and meetings, which should not only discuss the general plan of the political
campaign but hear reports of its progress—the rules of secrecy
being, of course, strictly observed.”

Yes,yes, we can well see that Starover’s great idea of an
agreement with the liberals on the basis of exactly prescribed
conditions is gaining strength and substance daily and hourly. To be sure, all these exactly prescribed conditions have
been shelved “for the time being” (we are no formalists!); but, on the other hand, an agreement is being
reached in practice, now, at once, viz., an agreement not to cause panic fear .

Whicheverway one reads the editors’ letter, no other meaning of
its famous “agreement” with the liberals can be found than that we have indicated: either it is an agreement
about the conditions on which the liberals would have a right to
speak in the name of the people (and in that case the very idea
of it very seriously discredits the Social- Democrats who
advance it); or else it is an agreement about not causing panic
fear, an agreement about sympathising with a peaceful demonstration—in which case it is just non sense that can
hardly be discussed seriously. Nor could the absurd idea of the
paramount importance of pressure on the bourgeois opposition,
instead of on the government, have resulted in anything but an
absurdity. If we are in a position to organise an imposing mass
demonstration of workers in the hall of a Zemstvo Assembly, we
shall, of course, do so (though if we have forces enough for a
mass demonstration it would be much better to “concentrate” them “before the premises”
not of the Zemstvo, but of the police, the gendarmerie, or the
censorship). But to be swayed when doing so by considerations
like the Zemstvo-ists’ panic fears, and to engage in negotiations on that score, would be the height of ineptitude,
the height of absurdity. Among a good proportion, most likely
the majority, of Russia’s Zemstvo-ists, the very content of a speech by a consistent Social-Democrat
will always and inevitably arouse panic fear. To parley with the
Zemstvo-ists beforehand about the undesirability of that sort of panic fear would place one in the falsest
and most undignified kind of position. A brutal battering, or
the prospect of one, will just as inevitably arouse panic fear
of another sort. To engage in negotiations with the Zemstvo-ists concerning this panic fear would
be very foolish, because not even the most moderate liberal will ever
bring about such a battering or sympathise with it—but the thing does not depend upon him.
What is needed here is not “negotiations”, but the actual
mustering of force; not pressure on the Zemstvo-ists, but pressure on
the government and its agents. If we have no force behind us, better
not to hold forth about great plans; and if we do have it, then it is
force we must oppose to the Cossacks and police, we must try to gather
a crowd of such size and in such a spot that it should be able to
repel, or at least to check, the onslaught of the Cossacks and
police. And if we are indeed capable of exerting “powerful
organised pressure upon the bourgeois opposition”, it is
assuredly not by silly “negotiations” about not causing
panic fear, but by force and force alone, the force of mass resistance
to the Cossacks and the tsarist police, the force of a mass onslaught
capable of growing into a popular uprising.

Theeditors of the new Iskra see things differently. They are
so pleased with their plan for an agreement and negotiations that
they cannot admire it enough, cannot find praise enough to lavish on
it.

...Theactive demonstrators must be “imbued with an understanding
of the fundamental difference between an ordinary demonstration
against the police or the government in general, and a demonstration
immediately designed to further the struggle against absolutism,
through direct pressure by the revolutionary proletariat on the
political tactics [indeed! I of the liberal elements at the
present [italicised by the editors] moment.... To organise
demonstrations of the ordinary, so to speak, general-democratic [!! I
type, not aiming directly at a concrete counterposing of the
revolutionary proletariat and the liberal bourgeois opposition
as two independent political forces, the mere existence of strong political
ferment among the masses is sufficient.... Our Party must utilise this
mood of the masses even for such, so to say, a lower type [note that!]
of their mobilisation against absolutism.... We are taking our first
I!] steps on a new [!I path of political activity, the path of
organising planned intervention by the worker masses

[N. B.] in public life with the direct aim of counterposing them to
the bourgeois opposition as an independent force, which has opposite
class interests, but which at the same time offers it conditions
[what conditions? I for waging a vigorous joint struggle against the
common enemy.”

Itis not given to everyone to appreciate all the profundity of this
remarkable disquisition. The Rostov demonstration, [6] where thousands and thousands of workers were made familiar with the aims of socialism and the demands of working-class
democracy, is a “lower type of mobilisation”, the ordinary, general-democratic type; here there is no
concrete counterposing of the revolutionary proletariat and the
bourgeois opposition. But when a specially authorised spokesman
appointed by an executive committee, which has been elected by
an organising group, which has been set up by the committeemen
and active workers—when that spokesman, after first negotiating with the Zemstvo ists, enters a loud protest in the
Zemstvo Assembly because it declines to hear him—that will
be a “concrete” and “direct” counterposing of two independent forces, that will be
“direct” pressure on the tactics of the liberals, that will be “a first step on a new path”. For
heaven’s sake, gentlemen! Why, even Martynov in the worst days
of Rabochege Dyelo hardly sank quite so low as this!

Themass meetings of workers in the streets of the southern
towns, dozens of worker speakers, direct clashes with the real,
tangible force of the tsarist autocracy—all that is a “lower type of mobilisation”. Agreements with the
Zemstvo-ists about a peaceful statement by our spokesman who
will undertake not to cause panic among Messrs. the liberals—that is a “new path”. There you have
the new tactical tasks, the new tactical views of the new
Iskra , of which the world was informed with such pomp by the editorial

Balalaikin. [7] On one point, though, this Balalaikin happened to speak the truth: between the
old Iskra and the new there is indeed a yawning gulf. The old Iskra had only contempt and derision for
people who could admire, as a “new path”, a theatrically staged agreement between classes. This new
path is one we have long known, from the record of those French
and German Socialist “statesmen” who similarly regard the old revolutionary tactics as a “lower type” and never weary of praising “planned and
direct intervention in public life” in the form of agreements to allow
the workers’ spokesmen to make peaceful and modest statements after
negotiations with the Left wing of the bourgeois opposition.

Theeditors are in such panic fear of the panic fear of the
Zemstvo liberals that they insistently enjoin “particular
caution” on those who take part in their “new” plan. “As an extreme case of external caution in the way
the action is actually carried out,” says the letter, “we
can envisage mailing the workers’ statement to the assemblymen’s
homes and scattering a considerable number of copies in
the Zemstvo Assembly hall. Only people affected with bourgeois
revolutionism [sic!] , for which the external effect is
everything and the process of the systematic development of the
class-consciousness and initiative of the proletariat Is
nothing, could have any objection to this.”

Well,we are not wont to object to the mailing or scattering of
leaflets, but we shall certainly always object to pompous and
hollow phrase-mongering. To make the mailing and scattering of
leaflets the occasion for talking with serious mien about the
process of the systematic development of the class-consciousness
and initiative of the proletariat, one must be a veritable
paragon of complacent banality. To clamour from the housetops
about new tactical tasks and then reduce the whole thing to the
mailing and scattering of leaflets is really priceless; and
nothing could be more characteristic of the exponents of the
intellectualist trend in our Party, who, now that their new
words in organisation have proved a fiasco, rush about frantically in search of a new word in tactics. And then they
talk, with their usual modesty, about the vanity of external
effect! Can’t you see, my good sirs, that at best, even
supposing your so-called new plan were entirely successful,
having a workingman address the Zemstvo gentry would only
achieve an external effect, and that to talk of its really
exerting “powerful” pressure on “the tactics of the liberal elements” is nothing but a joke? Is it not
rather the other way round—that what has really exerted
powerful pressure on the tactics of the liberal elements is
those mass workers’ demonstrations which to you are of the
“ordinary, general-democratic, lower type”?

And if the Russian proletariat is destined again to exert effective
pressure on the tactics of the liberals, it will, I assure you, be by
a mass onslaught against the government, not by an agreement with the
Zemstvo-ists.

IV

The Zemstvo campaign, launched with the gracious permission of
the police; the blandishments of Svyatopolk

Mirsky [8] and the government press; the rising tone of the liberal press; the animation in what is known as educated
society—all this faces the workers’ party with very serious tasks indeed. But these tasks are quite wrongly
formulated in the letter of the Iskra editors. At this of all times, the political activity of the proletariat must be
focused on organising powerful pressure on the government, not
on the liberal opposition. Particularly now, agreements between
the workers and the Zemstvo-ists about peaceful demonstrations—agreements which would inevitably boil down
to the staging of musical-comedy effects—are utterly out
of place; what is needed is to rally the advanced, revolutionary elements of the proletariat in preparation for a
decisive struggle for freedom. Particularly now,when our
constitutional movement is beginning conspicuously to display
the original sins of all bourgeois liberalism, and notably the
Russian variety—phrase-mongering, inconsistency of word
and action, a sheerly philistine disposition to trust the
government and every adroit politician—talk about the undesirability of frightening and panicking the Zemstvo gentry,
about levers for reaction, etc., etc., is especially out of
place. Particularly now, it is vital to build up in the
revolutionary proletariat the firm conviction that the present
“emancipation movement in society” will necessarily and inevitably prove a bubble like all the others before it
unless the force of the worker masses, capable of and ready for
an uprising, intervenes.

Thepolitical unrest among all sections of the people— that
essential condition for an uprising and earnest of its success, an
earnest that the initiative of the proletariat will meet with
support—is spreading, growing, becoming more intense all the
time. It would therefore be very poor judgement if at this moment- anyone were to start shouting again for
immediate launching of the assault, for forming at once into assault battalions, [9]
etc. The whole course of events goes to show that the tsarist government, will very soon find itself in a
still worse tangle and faced with an even more formidable
resentment. The game it has started with the Zemstvo constitutionalists is bound to get it into a tangle: whether it makes
some paltry concessions or whether it makes no concessions at all,
discontent and exasperation will inevitably spread still wider. And it
is likewise bound to get into a tangle with its shameful and criminal
Manchurian adventure, which spells a political crisis in either event:
decisive military defeat, or the pro traction of a war so hopeless for
Russia.

Whatthe working class must do is to broaden and strengthen its
organisation and redouble its agitation among the masses, making
the most of every vacillation of the government, propagating
the idea of an uprising, demonstrating the necessity for it from
the example of all those half hearted and foredoomed “steps” about which so much fuss is now being
made. It need hardly be said that the workers’ response to the
Zemstvo petitions must be to call meetings, scatter leaflets,
and—where there are forces enough—organise demonstrations to present all the Social-Democratic demands,
regardless of the “panic” of Mr. Trubetskoy and his like or of the philistines’ cries about levers for reaction. And
if one is really to risk talking in advance, and from abroad at
that, about a possible and desirable higher type of mass demonstration (because demonstrations not of a
mass nature are altogether without significance); if one is
really to discuss before what particular premises the demonstrators’ forces should be concentrated—we would
point to the premises where the business of police persecution of the
working-class movement is carried on, to the police, gendarmerie,
censorship headquarters, to the places where political “offenders” are confined. The way for the workers to
give serious support to the Zemstvo petitions is not by
concluding agreements about the conditions on which the
Zemstvo-ists would have a right to speak in the name of the
people, but by striking a blow at the people’s enemies. And
there need be little doubt that the idea of such a demonstration
will

meet with the sympathy of the proletariat. The workers nowadays
hear

magniloquent phrases and lofty promises on every hand, they
see a real—infinitesimal but nonetheless real— extension of freedom for “society” (a slackening of
the curb on the Zemstvos, the return of banished Zemstvo-ists,
an abatement of the ferocity against the liberal press); but
they see nothing whatever that gives their political struggle more freedom. Under pressure of the revolutionary
onslaught of the proletariat the government has allowed
the liberals t-o talk a little about freedom! The condition of the slaves of capital, downtrodden and deprived of
rights, now comes home to the proletarians more clearly than
ever. The workers do not have any regular widespread organisations for the relatively free (by Russian standards)
discussion of political matters; nor halls to hold meetings in;
nor newspapers of their own; and their exiled and imprisoned
comrades are not coming back. The workers see now that the
liberal bourgeois gentry are setting about dividing the
bearskin, the skin of the bear which the workers have not yet
killed, but which they, and they alone, -have seriously
wounded. They see that, at the very start of dividing the skin
in anticipation, these liberal bourgeois gentry already snap
and snarl at the “extreme parties”, at the “enemies at home”— the relentless enemies of
bourgeois rule and bourgeois law and order. And the workers will
rise still more fearlessly, in still greater numbers, to finish
off the bear, to win by force for themselves what is promised as charity to the liberal bourgeois
gentry—freedom of assembly, freedom of the workers’ press,
full political freedom for a broad and open struggle for the
complete victory of socialism.

Weare issuing this pamphlet with the superscription “For Party
Members Only” inasmuch as the Iskra editors’ “letter” was issued with that superscription. Actually, to
stage “secrecy precautions” in regard to a plan that is to
be circulated to dozens of towns, discussed in hundreds of workers’
circles, and explained in agitation leaflets and appeals is nothing
short of ridiculous. It is an instance of the bureaucratic
mystification which Comrade Galyorka, in “On the New
Road”, has already noted to be a practice of the editors and the Council. There is just one angle from which one
might justify concealing the editorial letter from the public in
general and the liberals in particular: a letter like that is
altogether too discreditable to our Party....

Weare cancelling the superscription restricting the readership of
this pamphlet, since our so-called Party editonal board has issued a
reply to it that is supposedly for the Party membership but is in fact
circulated only to gatherings of the minority and withheld from Party
members known to belong to the majority.

If Iskra has decided not to consider us Party members (while
at the same time fearing to say so openly), we can only resign
ourselves to our sad fate and draw the appropriate conclusions from
that decision.

December 22, 1904

---
Notes:
[1]
See present edition, Vol. 5, pp. 31-80.— Ed .

[2]
The reader will recall that Starover’s resolution, which was passed by the Congress (in spite of Plekhanov’s opinion and
mine), lays down three conditions for temporary agreements with the
liberals: 1) the liberals “shall clearly and unambiguously
declare that in their struggle against the autocratic government they
will resolutely side with the Social-Democrats”; 2) “they
shall not include in their programmes any demands running counter to
the interests of the working class or the democracy generally, or
obscuring their political consciousness”; 3) “they shall
make universal, equal, secret, and direct suffrage the slogan of
their struggle”.
— Lenin

[3]
The Zemstvo Campaign and “Iskra’s” Plan is a criticism of a letter to the Party organisations issued by the editors of the
Menshevik Iskra in November 1904. It evoked a reply from the
editors, in the form of a second letter; both letters bore the
superscription “For Party Members Only”. The second letter was,
however, circulated exclusively among Mensheviks, and this caused Lenin to
add a postscript to his pamphlet (last two paragraphs on p. 518). As the
pamphlet had already been printed and circulated to the committees, the
postscript was printed separately and pasted into the copies still on
hand. The date “December 22, 1904” relates to the post script only.

The Zemstvo Campaign and “Iskra’s” Plan had a wide circulation among the local Party organisations: during house-searches and
arrests copies were discovered in Smolensk, Batum, Riga, Saratov, Suvalki,
and elsewhere.

[4]
Ugryum-Burcheyev—the type of the stolid, narrow-minded dignitary, depicted by Saltykov-Shchedrin in his History of a Town.
By “our Ugryum-Burcheyevs” Lenin meant the palace clique of
Nicholas II.

[5]
Nova ye Vremya ( New Times )—a paper published in St. Petersburg
from 1868 to October 1917. Originally moderately liberal, after 1876 it
became the organ of the reactionary nobility and bureauc racy, fighting not
only the revolutionary, but also the liberal-bourgeois movement. Starting
with 1905 it was one of the mouthpieces of the Black Hundred
arch-reactionaries.

[6]
The Rostov demonstration—the great political demonstration, with 30,000
workers taking part, which grew out of the strike in Rostov in November
1902. The strike, which began on November 2 (15) as an economic one, was led
by the Iskra -ist Don Committee of the R.S.D.L.P. Lenin discussed
the Rostov strike in his article “New Events and Old Questions”
(present edition, Vol. 6, pp. 278-83).

[7]
Balalaikin —a character in Saltykov-Shchedrin’s “Modern
Idyll”, a liberal windbag, adventurer, and liar. By the
“editorial Balalai kin” of the Menshevik Iskra Lenin meant Trotsky.

[8]
Svyatopolk-Mirsky—Minister of the Interior in the latter half
of 1904, whose tenure of the post was marked by a brief “liberal season” of minor concessions by the autocracy to the liberal
bourgeoisie.

[9]
Lenin is referring to the adventurist calls of the Economists (Rabocheye Dyelo -ists) in the spring of 1901 for an immediate assault on
“the fortress of despotism”.