V. I.

Lenin

Thepresent-day constitutional movement among the propertied classes in our
country differs sharply from former movements of the same type at the end of
the fifties and seventies. The constitutional demands of the liberals are
essentially the same. The speeches of the radical orators reiterate the
familiar propositions of Zemstvo liberalism. The proletariat’s participation in
the movement provides a significant and very important new factor. The Russian
working class, whose movement was the pivot of the entire revolutionary movement
of the past decade, has long since reached the stage of open struggle, of street
demonstrations, of popular mass meetings in defiance of the police, and of
head-on clashes with the enemy in the streets of the southern cities.

Andthe liberal-bourgeois movement is at this moment marked by the bold,
determined, incomparably sharper and more daring entry of the proletariat upon
the scene. We would mention, first, the demonstration in St. Petersburg, in
which the workers’ participation was unfortunately weak, owing to the
disorganising activity of the “Mensheviks”, and the demonstration
in Moscow. Next we would mention the presence of workers at a liberal-bourgeois
banquet in Smolensk; at a meeting of the Educational Society in Nizhni-Novgorod;
and at conferences of scientific, medical, and other societies in various
cities. Further, there were the large meeting of workers in Saratov, the
demonstration of November 6 in the Kharkov Law Society, that of November 20 in
the Ekaterinodar Municipal Council, that of November 18 in the Odessa Health
Protection Society, and, again in Odessa, somewhat later, in the Regional Law
Court. We would add that both demonstrations in Odessa and the one in Kharkov were accompanied by street demonstrations
of workers, by processions with banners through the streets, by the
singing of revolutionary songs, and so forth.

Thelast four demonstrations are described, incidentally, in Iskra ,
No. 79, [1] under the heading “Proletarian Demonstrations”, to which
descriptions I should like to draw the reader’s attention. First, I shall
indicate the facts according to Iskra , following which I shall give
Iskra’s comments.

Kharkov. The Committee organises the participation of workers in a meeting of
the Law Society. Over two hundred workers are present; some of the workers felt
embarrassed about attending such an august assembly, while others could not
enter because “muzhiks were not admitted”. The liberal chairman
takes to his heels after the first revolutionary speech. Then follows the
speech of a Social-Democrat, leaflets are tossed into the air, the
Marseillaise is sung, and the participants pour out into the street,
and together with a crowd of close on 500 workers march along with a red flag,
singing labour songs. Towards the end some are beaten up and arrested.

Ekaterinodar.A large crowd flocks to the hall of the municipal council
(attracted by rumours of liberals’ speeches to be delivered there). The
telephone is cut off. A speaker from the committee makes his way into the hall
with 30 or 40 workers and delivers a short, fully revolutionary
Social-Democratic speech. Applause. Leaflets. consternation among the councillors. The Mayor protests unavailingly. At the conclusion, the demonstrators
leave the hall calmly. That night—numerous house searches by the police.

Odessa. First demonstration. A meeting attended by about two thousand people,
the mass of them workers. A number of revolutionary speeches
(Social-Democratic and Socialist-Revolutionary), thunderous applause,
revolutionary outcries, leaflets. Marching through the streets with
revolutionary songs. Dispersing without a clash.

Odessa. Second demonstration. A gathering of several thousand. A similarly vast
revolutionary public rally and march through the streets as in the previous
demonstration. A clash. Many hurt, some seriously. One woman worker dies. Sixty
arrests.

Suchare the facts of the case. Such are the demonstrations of the Russian
proletarians.

Now,as to the line of reasoning of certain Social-Democratic intellectuals. It
relates to the demonstration in Ekaterinodar, to which an entire article has
been devoted. Read attentively: “In this demonstration for the first time
the organised Russian proletariat came face to face with our liberal-minded
bourgeoisie!”... The demonstration “is a further step in the development
of forms of political struggle”; it is, “when all is said and done,
a really new method of political struggle which yields very evident fruitful
results”; the workers in such demonstrations “feel that they are
acting as definite political units”, they acquire “a sense of
competence to act as the political fighters of the party”. We see
spreading “in the broadest social circles the idea of the party as of some
thing quite definite, something that has taken shape, and, what is most
important, something that has the right to put forth demands”.
People are beginning to look upon the whole party “as an active, fighting
political force which states its demands clearly and definitely”. It is
necessary “to make wider use of the new method of struggle—in the
councils, in the Zemstvos, and at every kind of assembly of public
figures”. And the editors of Iskra , in unison with the author of
these views, speak of “the idea of demonstrations of a new type”, of
the fact that “in Ekaterinodar in particular our comrades were able to
show ’society’ that they were acting as an independent party which feels capable
of influencing the course of events and endeavours to do so”.

Well,well. “In Ekaterinodar in particular.” ... A new step, a new method,
a new practice, face to face for the first time, very evident fruitful results,
definite political units, a sense of political competence, the right to put
forth demands.... To me these pompous attempts at profound reasoning smacked of
something stale, passé , and almost forgotten. But be fore accounting to
myself how I sensed the staleness, I involuntarily asked: Pardon me, gentlemen,
but why “in Ekaterinodar in particular”? Why indeed is it a new method?
Why is it that the Kharkov and Odessa comrades do not brag (excuse the vulgar
expression) about the newness of the method and the evident fruitful results,
about meeting face to face for the first time, and a sense of political
competence?

Why are the results of a meeting of a few dozen workers together with several
hundred liberals within the four walls of a council hall more evident and
fruitful than the meetings of thousands of workers, not only in medical
and law societies, but in the streets? Can it really be that
street meetings (in Odessa, as well as those previously held in
Rostov-on-Don and other cities) are less likely to develop a sense of
political competence and the right to put forth demands then meetings in
municipal councils?... True, I must admit that I feel rather uncomfortable
in quoting this last expression (the right to put forth demands); it is so stupid. But you can’t throw the words out of a
song.

Inone instance, however, this expression acquires some meaning, and not only
this expression, but Iskra’s entire line of reasoning, namely, if we
presume the existence of parliamentarism, if we visualise for a moment that the
Ekaterinodar Municipal Council has been transplanted to the banks of the
Thames, next to Westminster Abbey. On this slight assumption it becomes clear
why, within the four walls of a delegates’ meeting hall one can have more
“right to put forth demands” than in the streets; why struggle
against a Prime Minister, that is, the Mayor of Ekaterinodar, is more fruitful
than struggle against a policeman; why the sense of political competence and the
knowledge of oneself as a definite political unit is heightened precisely in
the hall of a parliament or in the hall of a Zemstvo Assembly. Indeed, why not
play at parliamentarism for lack of a real parliament? One can obtain here such
a vivid mental picture of “a meeting face to face”, of “a new
method”, and all the rest of it. True, these mental pictures will
inevitably divert our thoughts from the issues of a real mass struggle
for parliamentarism, instead of playing at parliamentarism; that,
however, is a trifle. But then what evident, tangible results....

Tangibleresults.... The expression immediately reminds me of Comrade Martynov
and Rabocheye Dyelo . [2]

Without reverting to the latter it is impossible to appraise the new Iskra correctly. The arguments about
“a new method of struggle” in connection with the Ekaterinodar
demonstration are a repetition of the arguments used by the editors in their
“Letter to Party Organisations” (incidentally, is it wise to keep
the original a secret, stacked away, and to circulate only a copy openly for general information?). The editors’ arguments follow
Rabocheye Dyelo’s usual trend of thought, but in another connection.

Whereinlay the error and the harmfulness of the Rabocheye Dyelo
“theory” of imparting a political character to the economic
struggle itself, the “theory” of the economic struggle of the
workers against the employers and the government, of the need to present to the
government concrete demands which promise certain tangible results? Should we
not impart a political character to the economic struggle? We certainly
should. But when Rabocheye Dyelo deduced the political aims of a
revolutionary party of the proletariat from the “economic”
(trade-unionist) struggle, it unjustifiably narrowed and vulgarised the
Social-Democratic conception, it detracted from the tasks of the proletariat’s
all-round political struggle.

Whereinlie the error and the harmfulness of the new Iskra ’s theory
of a new method, of a higher type of mobilisation of the proletarian forces, of
a new way of developing the sense of political competence among the workers,
their “right to put forth demands”, and so on, and so forth? Should
we not organise workers’ demonstrations both in the Zemstvo Assemblies and on
the occasion of these assemblies? We certainly should. But in speaking of good
proletarian demonstrations we should not talk highbrow nonsense. We shall only
demoralise the class-consciousness of the proletariat, we shall only divert the
proletariat from the tasks, increasingly pressing, of the real, serious, open
struggle, if we extol as a new method those very features of our ordinary
demonstrations which least resemble active struggle and which it would be
ludicrous to declare as productive of excellent results or as heightening the
sense of political competence, etc.

Bothour old acquaintance, Comrade Martynov, and the new Iskra are
guilty of the sin peculiar to the intelligentsia— lack of faith in the
strength of the proletariat; in its ability to organise, in general, and to
create a party organisation, in particular; in its ability to conduct the
political struggle. Rabocheye Dyelo believed that the proletariat was
still incapable, and would be incapable for a long time to come, of conducting
the political struggle that goes beyond the limits of the economic struggle
against the employers and the government.

The new Iskra believes that the proletariat is still incapable, and will be incapable for a long time to come, of independent
revolutionary action, and so it calls a demonstration of a few dozen workers
before the Zemstvo people a new method of struggle. Both the old
Rabocheye Dyelo and the new Iskra religiously repeat the
phrases about the independent activity and self-education of the proletariat only because this religious fervour screens the intellectualist
incomprehension of the real forces of the proletariat and of the urgent
tasks that confront it. Both the old Rabocheye Dyelo and the new
Iskra talk absolute nonsense with an air of profundity about the
special significance of tangible and evident results, and about a concrete
contraposition of bourgeoisie and proletariat, thereby diverting the
attention of the proletariat from the increasingly pressing task of a direct
onset upon the autocracy, at the head of a popular uprising, towards playing
at parliamentarism. In undertaking to revise the old organisational
and tactical principles of revolutionary Social-Democracy and fussily
searching for new formulas and “new methods”, both the old
Rabocheye Dyelo and the new Iskra are in fact dragging the
Party back, proposing superseded, at times even downright reactionary,
slogans.

Wehave had enough of this new revision that leads to the old rubbish! It is
time to go forward and stop covering up disorganisation with the notorious
organisation-as-process theory; it is time, in workers’ demonstrations, to
accentuate and advance to the foreground those features that tend to bring them
closer to the real, open struggle for freedom.

---
Notes:
[1]
Iskra (The Spark ) was the first all-Russian underground Marxist newspaper; it was founded by Lenin in 1900.

Iskra became the centre for the unification of Party forces, for the
rallying and training of Party workers. It played a decisive role in the
struggle for a Marxist party, in the defeat of the “Economists”,
and in the unification of the scattered Social-Democratic circles.

Onthe initiative and with the direct participation of Lenin, the Iskra
Editorial Board drew up a draft programme of the Party and prepared the Second
Congress of the R.S.D.L.P., held in July-August 1903. After the Second Congress
the Mensheviks, with the aid of Plekhanov, seized control of Iskra.
Beginning with November 1903 (with issue No. 52), Iskra became the
organ of the Mensheviks and was published up to October 1905. Since then Lenin’s
Iskra be came known as the old Iskra and the Menshevik opportunist organ as the new Iskra. The reference here is to the new,
Menshevik Iskra .

[2]
Rabocheye Dyelo (The Workers’
Cause)—publication of the “Economists”, appeared irregularly
in Geneva between April 1899 and February 1902 as organ of the Union of Russian
Social-Democrats Abroad. It was edited by B. N. Krichevsky, P.F. Teplov
(Sibiryak), and V.P. Ivanshin and subsequently by A. S. Martynov. Twelve
numbers appeared (in nine issues).

Tile

Editorial Board was the centre abroad of the “Economists” ( Rabocheye Dyelo-ists). Rabocheye Dyelo
supported the Bernsteinian slogan of “freedom to criticise” Marxism
and took an opportunist stand on the questions of the tactics and organisational
tasks of Russian Social-Democracy; it rejected the revolutionary potentialities
of the peasantry, etc. The Rabocheye Dyelo-ists propagated opportunist
ideas of the subordination of the political struggle to the economic struggle;
they bowed to the spontaneity of the labour movement and denied the leading role
of the Party. At the Second Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. the Rabocheye Dyelo -ists represented the extreme Right, opportunist, Wing of the
Party. A critique of the views of the Rabocheye Dyelo group is to be
found in Lenin’s work What Is To Be Done? (See present edition,
Vol. 5, pp. 347-529.)