Date: 1905-01
Source: ru:LS/v16

Circles, private gatherings, banquets, mass meetings, demonstrations fill the channel of social life. An unprecedented amount of revolutionary literature awakens thought, excites, gives hope, calls for protest. All these are signs of an approaching revolution. But here is the question: how great must the number of these signs be so that we can say with certainty: "The hour of the last, decisive battle with the autocracy has come"? How great must the forces of the revolution be so that we can say: "yes, the hour has come"? No sage has yet been able to give the correct answer to this question, either in Russia or in those countries that have experienced more than one revolution.
It is impossible to foresee the hour of the revolution. That is why the Social-Democrats are not preparing anywhere for a specific hour. The basic rule of Social-Democratic tactics is to be ready for revolution at any hour, to prepare for revolution every hour, and never to forget, for the sake of a near revolution, [about the gray] about the basic, * daily work of deepening the class consciousness of the proletariat.
No matter how important, for example, the conquest of political freedom in Russia is, no matter how serious the current political moment is, we must not forget that our main task is the conquest of the socialist system. And in this struggle, the hour of the last, decisive battle is still very far off. And for the sake of the importance of the struggle against the autocracy, we must not forget about the struggle against capital, about the needs of the Social-Democratic movement as a whole, about the correct course of this movement. We must monitor our own activities and correct any errors without delay, (even if purely accidental) any one-sidedness and enthusiasms. An external indicator of the party's activity is, among other things, its literature. I want to focus the reader's attention on it.
In Iskra, in the From the Party section, information is published about leaflets published by local committees. This information is very brief and sometimes confusing. In addition, it is very incomplete. Not to mention the fact that letters from Russia do not always reach the editorial office, it must be remembered that the vast majority of committees have broken off all comradely communication with the Iskra editorial office. Therefore, a detailed elaboration of the information provided by this newspaper will not give a complete and accurate picture of local publishing. This will not be statistics, but a game of statistics. But some general conclusions can still be drawn without much risk of being mistaken.
According to Iskra (Nos. 53-75), in less than a year, local organizations, not counting student organizations, made 453 issues** of leaflets, local newspapers, and small brochures. Of these, 219 issues*** give a total of 558,525 copies, i.e., an average of 2,600 copies per issue. Multiplying 2,600 by 453, we get 1,177,800 copies. In terms of content, these publications are distributed as follows: 1) on the war, 173 issues, of which 96 give a total of 285,360 copies; 2) on other political topics (except war), 198, of which 86 give 182,585 copies: 3] on general economic topics, 20, of which 12 give 60,000 copies. 4; on local economic topics, 62, of which 25 give 29,580 copies. In total, according to Iskra, the St. Petersburg Committee published 40 leaflets, some in quantities of 10,000 copies; the Odessa Committee - 15, of which 11 give 95,000 copies: the Donetsk Committee 28, of which 27 give 55,900 copies; the Yekaterinoslav Committee 23, of which 12 give 60,175 copies. The Kiev Committee 30, of which 21 give 53,700 copies.
First of all, the significance of local publishing in general is striking in these figures. Even if, according to Iskra, which stands almost outside the party, the total number of copies exceeded a million, we have the right to assume that a total of not one, but several million copies were published. More than a third of the leaflets are devoted to the war, but even more space is occupied by publications on general political topics. Both leaflets on the war and leaflets on other political topics are sometimes related to the interests of a given locality. But still there remains the fact that local committees are to a large extent engaged in work that should have been performed by central institutions. Obviously, the activities of the centers did not meet the needs. This general conclusion is confirmed by specific examples. The Ural Committee received only two leaflets from the Central Committee in two months, in the amount of 2,000 copies - this is for three provinces with highly developed industry! (Iskra No. 78). The insufficient activity of the centers led to the development of handicraft production in the sphere where handicraft production is least appropriate.
Messages about the reprinting by local committees of leaflets originally published by the Central Committee and the editorial office of the Central Organ sound like a direct reproach to the Central Committee: obviously, these leaflets reached the localities in too insignificant quantities/*
The number of leaflets on economic topics is too insignificant. The St. Petersburg, Don, Crimean, Donetsk, Tver, and Yekaterinoslav committees were more attentive to the demands of economic life. It should also be noted that I have included in the number of local economic leaflets all those that are addressed to the workers of one factory, one production, or one locality - I had to distribute the leaflets by category only on the basis of their titles. Although the current year was unusually rich in political events, although local committees were forced to bear almost all the necessary printed agitation on these events on their shoulders - still, this weak attention to the everyday interests of the proletariat cannot be considered normal. And it can be feared that in this case an erroneous view of the means and tasks of Social-Democratic work played a certain role.
Two or three years ago, a fierce struggle was waged in the party against so-called Economism or the economic trend. This trend was closely connected with the form of organization that became known as democratism. The then Economism and democratism suffered a fundamental collapse and were rejected by the party. But then we gradually began to forget that the struggle was not generally against economic struggle and against democratism, but only against a special kind of these phenomena. Hence the strange phenomenon: the words "economic" and "democratic" began to be used in a negative, almost abusive sense by members of the Social-Democratic Party. Even some party leaders sometimes began to confuse concepts.
To conduct the struggle on economic grounds in one way or another - this began to seem equivalent to falling into the heresy of Economism. Is it necessary to prove that to avoid economic struggle means to fall into the very mistake that the Economists once fell into? In a letter to the old Iskra, one worker called the Economists stunted. But to ignore economic interests, to separate politics from economics means to be as stunted as the Economists were. Stuntedness is precisely the heresy that is common to both the former Economists and the politicians who are excessively carried away.
Social Democracy is the vanguard of the proletariat in its class struggle. But if every class struggle is a political struggle, it does not follow that in every political struggle classes are clearly and sharply opposed to each other. There are cases when the same political task is on the agenda for both the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. Then a harmful delusion may arise that the bourgeoisie and the proletariat have more common interests than is actually the case. Social Democrats must not forget about the danger of such a delusion. But how to avoid the danger? We may disagree in resolving this issue. The more or less stunted among us may begin to rush about in search of a special, purely proletarian line in the struggle for demands common to both the bourgeoisie and the proletariat; they may at the same time come to the project of butting the bourgeoisie and the proletarians head-on - with the condition, however, that the bump on the forehead of the bourgeoisie does not lead it into panic and does not serve as a lever for reaction.
But it is not by vaudeville head-butting that the purity of the class proletarian struggle is protected. It is protected by its completeness, by a constant, as deep as possible illumination of the contradiction of class interests. Both the everyday interests of the workers of a given factory or a given production and the political national tasks of the day must constantly be linked to the interests of the proletariat as a class - they must be illuminated from the point of view of the class. This illumination should be the basis for the propaganda of socialism. From this, of course, it does not follow that it is necessary to call for the overthrow of the autocracy on every trifle of factory life. Today a leaflet will appear from the party committee on a specific occasion of outrages at a separate factory, tomorrow a leaflet will be issued on behalf of the same committee on a more general economic topic, the day after tomorrow - on a purely political topic, then on an economic issue related to the general policy of the government as the protector of the class interests of the bourgeoisie - and all these leaflets together will form one whole, all of them together will clearly contrast the interests of the classes. In the matter of class self-education of the proletariat, the result of this agitational agitation is also important, that the workers themselves will be called to active literary activity. Let me remind you of what Lenin wrote about this in 1902:
- "The wide dissemination and strengthening of the economic struggle of Russian workers went hand in hand with the creation of a literature of economic (factory and professional) denunciations. The main content of the leaflets was denunciations of factory orders, and a real passion for denunciations soon flared up among the workers. As soon as the Social-Democratic circles saw that they wanted and could provide them with a new kind of leaflets, telling the whole truth about their beggarly life, immeasurably hard work, and disenfranchised position, they began, one might say, to flood them with correspondence from factories and plants. This denunciatory literature produced a tremendous sensation not only in the factory whose orders were scourged by this leaflet, but also in all the factories where they heard something about the exposed facts. And since the needs and misfortunes of workers in different institutions and different professions have much in common, the truth about working life delighted everyone. A real passion for printing developed among the most backward workers - a noble passion for this rudimentary form of war with the entire modern social order, built on robbery and oppression. And the leaflets in the vast majority of cases were really a declaration of war, because the exposure had a terribly exciting effect, caused a general demand from the workers to eliminate the most egregious outrages and a willingness to support these demands with strikes... In a word, economic (factory) denunciations were and still are an important lever of economic struggle. And this significance will remain with them as long as capitalism exists, which necessarily gives rise to the self-defense of workers. In the most advanced European countries, it can now be observed how the exposure of the outrages of some backwoods industry or some forgotten branch of homework serves as the starting point for awakening class consciousness, for the beginning of professional struggle and the spread of socialism" (Lenin. What is to be done? p. 40).
Deepen both the political and professional struggle with a class point of view, establish an inextricable link between the economic and political tasks of the struggle, point to the socialist system as the goal of the struggle - and then the political activity of the proletariat will be essentially class proletarian politics. It will remain class politics, even if, in appearance, for the outsider, it differs little at certain moments from the politics of the progressive part of the non-proletarian strata of the population. And vice versa, an exclusive enthusiasm for politics, even in such a hot time as now, will contribute to the creation of an illusion of common interests between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. And such an illusion should have a terribly harmful effect on the interests of the proletariat not only on the day after the revolution, but also during the revolution itself.
For more than a year, the most absurd accusations have been pouring from the pages of Iskra against the party (the so-called Bolsheviks), and many believed these accusations. Among the crimes of the Bolsheviks is a one-sided enthusiasm for politics. But the figures show that political issues were equally prevalent among both the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks, local leaflets serve as vivid proof that the accusation is slander. If we turn to the publications of the Menshevik center, then - if we judge only by appearance, it will be the editors of Iskra who can be accused of a one-sided enthusiasm for politics. For example, the section of the newspaper "Chronicle of the Labor Movement and Letters from Factories and Plants" sometimes disappears altogether, sometimes it is filled only with messages that do not correspond to the title (Iskra No. 80). The worker has almost disappeared from the pages of Iskra. But we are more inclined to think that the reasons for this lie not so much in a one-sided enthusiasm for politics, but in the fact that the vast majority of committees broke off all comradely communication with the editorial office.
Sometimes, however, even direct statements by editors can give rise to misunderstandings. For example, Axelrod, addressing the working-class Social Democrats, says:
"It is your duty, comrades, to exert the most energetic influence on our party in the sense that it should begin to mobilize the broad masses of the proletariat for their organized intervention in the course of the political life of their country. Only on this path... can working-class Social Democrats... become real leaders of our working class."
In the current hot time of the struggle against the autocracy, Axelrod's phrase may give rise to misunderstandings. It may be objected: "In order for Social Democrats to become leaders of the working class, their intervention is needed not only in the course of the political life of the country, but also comprehensive leadership of the class struggle of the proletariat." Axelrod's statement, among other things, forgets the resolution of the II Congress of the party on the need for leadership on the part of the party of the professional struggle of workers." In order to protect Axelrod from the accusation that he has fallen into one-sidedness, I must say the following. Something strange has happened to Axelrod, known as a good writer, lately. He made, for example, the discovery that the labor movement in Russia is a product of the product of the intelligentsia movement. This is like the reasoning of the man who claimed that the cause of all riots is instigators. Similarly, pointing to the complaints of the Rostov and Kiev comrades that the work is going badly and the literature is not being received, Axelrod adds: "But most striking was the fact that in the same era a whole series of committees"... sent resolutions expressing censure of the Iskra editorial office for violating discipline and principled inconsistency. Indeed, it is striking: things are bad in Kiev and Rostov, and in St. Petersburg and Tver they dare to say at the same time that the Iskra editorial office is printing bad articles. There is elderberry in the garden, and an uncle in Kiev! The literary misfortunes that have been haunting Axelrod lately give me reason to think that the threat of exclusive intervention in only one policy does not accurately express the opinion of Axelrod and the Iskra editorial office in general. Thus, people who are frightened of all disagreements can rest assured: on the issue of the importance of economic struggle in the tactics of Social Democrats, there is no fundamental disagreement between us and the Iskra editorial office. If anything can be reproached in this case to the editors of Iskra ([and the Bolsheviks../] and the party and its centers), it is only a small enthusiasm...