V. I.

Lenin

In Russia political education of the people and the intelligentsia
hardly exists as yet. Clear political convictions and firm party opinions have
as yet scarcely developed in our country. People in Russia are too ready to give
credence to any protest against the autocracy and frown upon. any criticism of
the character and substance of that protest, regarding such criticism as
something that maliciously disunites the movement for emancipation. It is not
surprising, therefore, that under this general flag of emancipation the

Osvobozhdeniye [1] too, which is published under the editorship of
Mr. Struve, has a wide circulation among all and sundry free-thinking
intellectuals who resent any analysis of the class content of
Osvobozhdeniye liberalism.

Andyet, Osvobozhdeniye liberalism is merely a more systematic,
uncensored expression of the fundamental features of Russian liberalism as a
whole. The farther the revolution advances, the more that liberalism exposes
itself, and the more unpardonable is the fear of looking the truth full in the
face and understanding the real essence of that liberalism. The “Political
Letters” of the well-known historian Mr. Pavel Vinogradov, published in
Russkiye Vedomosti (August 5), the well-known liberal organ, are highly
characteristic in this respect. No less characteristic is the fact that other
liberal newspapers, like Nasha Zhizn , quoted excerpts from this
admirable piece of writing, without a single word of indignation or
protest. Mr. Pavel

Vinogradov has expressed in bold relief, in a way rarely to be met, the
interests, tactics, and psychology of. the self- seeking bourgeoisie; his
outspokenness might, perhaps, be considered inappropriate by certain of
the shrewder liberals, but then that makes it all the more valuable to
class-conscious workers. Here are the concluding words of
Mr. Vinogradov’s article, which express its very quintessence:

" Ido not know whether Russia will succeed in reaching the new
system along a road close to that taken by Germany in 1848, but I
have no doubt that every effort must be exerted to enter upon this
road, and not upon the one chosen by France in 1789.

" Alongthe latter path Russian society—raw, poorly organised, and
torn by internecine strife—will encounter tremendous dangers, if not its
doom. To wait until we get object lessons on the subject of power, order,
national unity, and social organisation is undesirable the more so since these
object lessons will be given either by the police sergeant, who will have gained
new strength, or by the German corporal, whom anarchy in Russia will provide
with a providential mission

Thatis what the Russian bourgeois is thinking of most of all: the tremendous
dangers of the “road” of 1789! The bourgeois has no objection to the
path taken by Germany in 1848, but he will exert “every effort” to
avoid the path taken by France. An instructive pronouncement, one
which provides much food for thought.

Whatis the radical difference between the two roads? It is that the
bourgeois-democratic revolution carried out by France in 1789, and by Germany in
1848, was brought to its consummation in the first case, but not in the
second. The first ended in a republic and complete liberty, whereas the second
stopped short without smashing the monarchy and reaction. The second proceeded
under the leadership mainly of the liberal bourgeoisie, which took the
unsufficiently mature working class in tow, whereas the first was carried out,
at least to a certain extent, by the revolutionarily active mass of the people,
the workers and peasants, who, for a time at least, pushed the respectable and
moderate bourgeoisie aside. The second led rapidly to the
“pacification” of the country, i.e., the suppression of the
revolutionary people and the triumph of “the police sergeant and the
corporal”; whereas for a certain period the first placed power in the
hands of the revolutionary people which crushed the resistance of “the police sergeants and the
corporals”.

Andnow a learned lackey of the Russian bourgeoisie comes out in a “highly
respectable” liberal organ with a warning against the first road, the
“French”. The learned historian wants the “German” road,
and is quite outspoken about it. He knows perfectly well that the German road
did not escape an armed uprising of the people. In 1848 and 1849 there were a
number of uprisings and even provisional revolutionary governments in
Germany. But none of these uprisings was fully victorious. The most
successful of them, the Berlin uprising of March 18, 1848, terminated not in the
overthrow of the royal power, but in concessions granted by the king,
who remained in power and very soon managed to recover from his partial defeat
and withdraw all these concessions.

Andso, the learned historian of the bourgeoisie does not fear an uprising of
the people. He fears the victory of the people . He is not afraid of the
people administering a slight lesson to the reactionaries and the bureaucracy,
the bureaucracy which he hates so much. He is afraid of the people overthrowing the reactionary government . He hates the autocracy and
desires its overthrow with all his heart; it is not from the preservation of the
autocracy, not from the poisoning of the people’s organism by the slow
putrefaction of the still living parasite of monarchist rule that he expects the
doom of Russia, but from the complete victory of the people .

Thisman of cheap-jack scholarship knows that a time of revolution is a time of
object lessons for the people, but he does not want object lessons on the
destruction of reaction , and tries to scare us with object lessons on
the destruction of the revolution . He is scared to death of the road
which has led to the. complete victory of the revolution, even for a short
time, and yearns with all his heart for an outcome like the German, in which
reaction secured complete victory for a long, long time.

Hedoes not welcome revolution in Russia, but merely tries to find extenuating
circumstances for it. He desires not a victorious revolution, but an
unsuccessful revolution. He considers reaction a phenomenon that is in order and
legitimate, natural and durable, reliable and reasonable.

He regards revolution as a phenomenon that is illegitimate, fantastic, and
unnatural, one that can at best be justified to a certain degree on the
grounds of the instability, the “weakness”, the “unsoundness” of the autocratic government. This
“objective” historian regards revolution not as the most lawful
right of the people, but merely as a sinful and dangerous method of correcting
the extremes of reaction. In his opinion a revolution which has been completely
victorious is “anarchy”, whereas completely victorious reaction is
not anarchy, but merely a slight exaggeration of certain necessary functions of
the state. He knows of no other “rule” but a monarchy, no other
“system” and no other “social organisation” but those of
the bourgeoisie. Of the European forces which revolution in Russia will
“provide with a providential mission” he knows only the
“German corporal”, but he neither knows nor cares to know the German Social-Democratic worker . He detests most of all the
“presumption” of those who “are preparing to outstrip the
Western bourgeoisie” (the Professor writes the word bourgeoisie in
ironical quotation marks as if to say: what a stupid term to apply to

European—En-ro-pe-an—civilisation!).

This “objective historian” smugly closes his eyes to the fact that it is precisely because
of the old abomination of the Russian autocracy that Europe has for decades and
decades been marking time and even retrogressing politically. He fears the
object lesson of the “police sergeant who will have gained new
strength” and therefore—O leader of the people!
0 statesman!—he utters a warning above all against resolutely smashing all
the “forces” of the contemporary police sergeant. What contemptible
servility! What a despicable betrayal of the revolution, dished up with the
sauce of a pseudo-scholarly and pseudo-objective analysis of the question!
Scratch a Russian and you will find a Tartar, said Napoleon. We say, scratch a
Russian liberal bourgeois and you will find a police sergeant in a brand-new
uniform, who is permitted to retain nine-tenths of his old strength for
the very profound, “scholarly”, and “objective” reason that otherwise, he may, perhaps, want to “gain new strength”!
Every bourgeois ideologist has the soul of a thoroughgoing huckster; he does not
think of destroying the forces of reaction and of the “police
sergeant”, but of bribing this police sergeant, of greasing his palm and appeasing him by
striking a bargain with him as quickly as possible.

Howinimitably this most learned ideologist of the bourgeoisie corroborates all
that we have so often said in Proletary about the nature and character
of Russian liberalism! Unlike the European bourgeoisie, which was revolutionary
in its time and went over to the side of reaction decades later, our home-grown
wiseacres immediately skip revolution, or want to do so, and arrive at the
moderate and tidy rule of the reactionary bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie does not
and, because of its class position, cannot want revolution. It merely wants to
strike a bargain with the monarchy against the revolutionary people; it merely
wants to steal to power behind the backs of that people.

Andwhat an instructive lesson this liberal bourgeois sage teaches those
doctrinaire Social-Democrats who have gone as far as the following resolution,
which was adopted by the Caucasian supporters of the new Iskra and
specially approved by the Editorial Board of Iskra in a
special supplement. This resolution (together with Iskra’s approval) is
given in full in N. Lenin’s Two Tactics (pp.

68-69), [2] but since many comrades in Russia are not acquainted with this
resolution, and since the Iskra Editorial Board refused to publish
this, in their opinion, so “very apt” resolution, we reproduce it
here in full so as to edify all Social- Democrats and put Iskra to
shame:

" Whereaswe consider it to be our task to take advantage of the
revolutionary situation so as to deepen Social- Democratic consciousness in the
proletariat, and in order to secure for the Party complete freedom to criticise
the nascent bourgeois-state system, the Conference” (the Caucasian
new-Iskra Conference) “declares itself against the formation of a
Social-Democratic provisional government, and entering such a government, and
considers it to be the most expedient course to exercise pressure from without
upon the bourgeois provisional government in order to secure a feasible measure
of democratisation of the state system. The Conference believes that the
formation of a provisional government by

Social-Democrats, or their entering such a government, would lead, on the one
hand, to the masses of the proletariat becoming disappointed in the
Social-Democratic Party and abandoning it, because the Social-Democrats, despite
the seizure of power, would not be able to satisfy the pressing needs of the
working class, including the establishment of socialism, and, on the other hand,
would cause the bourgeois classes to recoil from the revolution and thus diminish its sweep .”

Thisis a shameful resolution, for (against the will and mind of its authors,
who have stepped on to the inclined plane of opportunism) it expresses a
betrayal of the interests of the working class to the bourgeoisie. This
resolution sanctifies the conversion of the proletariat into the tail-end of
the bourgeoisie for the duration of the democratic revolution. One need but
place this resolution side by side with the passage from Mr. Vinogradov’s
article quoted above (and anybody will find hundreds and thousands of similar
passages in the writings of the liberal publicists) to realise what a marsh the
new-Iskrists have got into. Mr. Vinogradov, this typical ideologist of the
bourgeoisie, has already recoiled from the cause of the revolution. Has
he not thereby diminished the “sweep of the revolution”, gentlemen
of the new

Iskra?

Should you not go penitently to the Vinogradovs and beg them, at the price of your refraining from leading the revolution ,
not “to recoil from the revolution”?

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Notes:
[1]
Osvobozhdeniye —Russian for “emancipation, liberation”.— Tr .

[2]
See pp. 93-94 of this volume— Ed .