No. 11 “Vpered,” March 23 (10), 1905.

The split in the party, started by the Mensheviks [several months ago along the whole line] after the Second Congress, took on distinctive forms in Nizhny-Novgorod…

In view of this, it is best to turn to the very pamphlet “What Is to Be Done?” and see how well-founded [they are well-founded] [and] the credulity [and general practical conclusions] of the Sormovo [Social-Democrats] “workers” (?), who have spoken in the style of Iskra editorials.

…Indeed, “What Is to Be Done?” was a polemical pamphlet, [intended for the practical needs of party workers. But a politician, a practitioner, takes a completely different point of view than a sociologist, a theoretician. While the latter studies the origin and cause of phenomena, the former accepts these phenomena as a historical fact, as the starting point of his reasoning and conclusions.] entirely devoted to criticizing the tail-ist wing in the Social-Democracy of that time, pointing out and refuting the specific mistakes of that wing. It would be ridiculous if, in a pamphlet dealing with “the burning questions of our movement,” Lenin began to prove that the development of ideas, particularly scientific socialism, has taken place and is taking place in close historical connection with the development of the productive forces, [including the greatest of them — the proletariat.] in close connection with the growth of the working-class movement in general. For him [the politician] it was important to establish the fact that nowhere yet had the working class independently worked its way up to socialist ideology, that this ideology, [this class consciousness] the doctrine of scientific socialism, had always been introduced [by the Social-Democratic intelligentsia] by Social-Democracy, [and where such consciousness] [doctrine] was not introduced “from outside,” there the proletariat did not work its way beyond the demands of economic struggle, beyond trade-unionist consciousness. And this historical fact was taken by Lenin in [the pamphlet] [entirely devoted to criticizing the tail-ist wing in the Social-Democracy of that time, pointing out and refuting the specific mistakes of that wing], that therefore people who belittled the importance of our consciousness, our dogma (specifically the Rabocheye Dyelo adherents), must necessarily be reminded of the socialist’s duty to bring in consciousness from outside. To what extent Plekhanov clearly understood this simple thing before the co-optation, when he had no need to embark on literary raiding, is best seen from his following words…

…Marx naturally [adopts the standpoint of a politician, a practitioner, and] takes into account the slow spontaneous growth of the mass and counterposes to [it] this spontaneity the consciousness of Social-Democracy [as two social forces, the relation between which must be established, as two major factors of the historical process].

…It is not for nothing that Plekhanov wrote, more than a year after reading Lenin’s pamphlet, that Lenin was “a comrade-like-minded person” [a member of the Emancipation of Labor group], “who understood no worse than we did the great importance of correct theory in our cause” (Iskra No. 41). And if later, in issues 70 and 71 of “Iskra,” Plekhanov tries to convince the reader that he always considered Lenin “incapable of dialectical thinking,” then anyone will easily notice that — [to use Plekhanov’s favorite expression] — Plekhanov “had another intent here”…

…the proclamation of the [notorious] Rabocheye Dyelo (if not Zubatov) slogan of “independent activity”… the proclamation of the [principle] Rabocheye Dyelo phrase about the “independent activity” of the proletariat…