V. I.

Lenin

The Executive Committee of the Soviet of Workers’ Dep aties decided yesterday,
November 23, to reject the applica tion of the anarchists for representation on
the Executive Committee and on the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies. The Executive
Committee itself has given the following reasons for this decision:

“(1) In the whole of international practice,congresses and socialist conferences have
never included representatives of the anarchists, since they do not recognise
the political struggle as a means for the achievement of their
ideals;

(2) only parties can be represented, and the anarchists are not a party.”

We consider the decision of the Executive Committee to be in the highest degree
correct, and of enormous importance from the point of view both of principle
and of practical politics. If we were to regard the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies
as a workers’ parliament or as an organ of proletarian self-government, then of
course it would have been wrong to reject the application of the
anarchists. However insignificant (fortunately) the influence of the anarchists
among our workers may be, nevertheless, a certain number of workers undoubtedly
support them. The question whether the anarchists constitute a party, an
organisation, a group, or a voluntary association of like-minded people, is a
formal question, and not of major importance in terms of principle. Lastly, if
the anarchists, while rejecting the political struggle, apply for
representation in an institution which is con ducting such a struggle, this
crying inconsistency merely goes to show once again how utterly unstable are the
philosophy and tactics of the anarchists. But, of course, instability is no
reason for excluding anyone from a “parliament”, or an “organ
of self-government”.

We regard the decision of the Executive Committee as absolutely correct and in
no way contradicting the functions, the character and the composition of
this body. The Soviet of Workers’ Deputies is not a labour parliament and
not an organ of proletarian self-government, nor an organ of
self-government at all, but a fighting organisation for the achievement of
definite aims.

This fighting organisation includes, on the basis of a temporary, unwritten
fighting agreement, representatives of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour
Party (the party of proletarian socialism), of the “Socialist-Revolutionary” Party (the representatives of
petty-bourgeois socialism, or the extreme Left wing of revolutionary bourgeois
democrats), and finally many “non-party” workers. The latter,
however, are not non-party in general, but are non-party revolutionaries, their
sympathies being entirely on the side of the revolution, for the victory of
which they are fighting with boundless enthusiasm, energy and
self-sacrifice. For that reason it will be quite natural to include
representatives of the revolutionary peasantry in the Executive Committee.

For all practical purposes, the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies is an inchoate,
broad fighting alliance of socialists and revolutionary democrats, the term
“non-p arty revolutionary”, of course, representing a series of
transitional stages between the former and the latter. Such an alliance is
obviously necessary for the purpose of conducting political strikes and other,
more active forms of struggle, for the urgent democratic demands which have been
accepted and approved by the over whelming majority of the population. In an
alliance of this sort, the anarchists will not be an asset, but a liability;
they will merely bring disorganisation and thus weaken the force of the joint
assault; to them it is still “debatable” whether political reform is
urgent and important. The exclusion of anarchists from the fighting alliance
which is carrying out, as it were, our democratic revolution, is quite nec
essary from the point of view of this revolution and is in its interests. There
can be a place in a fighting alliance only for those who fight for the aim of
that alliance. If, for example, the “Cadets” or the “Party of
Law and Order” [1] had man aged to recruit at least several hundred workers into
their St. Petersburg branches, the Executive Committee of the

Soviet of Workers’ Deputies would hardly have opened its doors to the
representatives of such organisations.

In explaining its decision, the Executive Committee re fers to the practice of
international socialist congresses. We warmly welcome this statement, this
recognition by the executive body of the St. Petersburg Soviet of Workers’
Deputies of the ideological leadership of the international Social-Democratic
movement. The Russian revolution has already acquired international
significance. The enemies of the revolution in Russia are already conspiring
with Wilhelm II and with all sorts of reactionaries, tyrants, militarists and
exploiters in Europe against free Russia. Neither shall we forget that the
complete victory of our revolution demands an alliance of the revolutionary
proletariat of Russia with the socialist workers of all countries.

It is not for nothing that international socialist congresses adopted the
decision not to admit the anarchists. A wide gulf separates socialism from
anarchism, and it is in vain that the agents-provocateurs of the secret
police and the news paper lackeys of reactionary governments pretend that this
gulf does not exist. The philosophy of the anarchists is bourgeois philosophy
turned inside out. Their individualistic theories and their individualistic
ideal are the very opposite of socialism. Their views express, not the future of
bourgeois society, which is striding with irresistible force towards the
socialisation of labour, but the present and even the past of that society, the
domination of blind chance over the scattered and isolated small,
producer. Their tactics, which amount to a repudiation of the political
struggle, disunite the proletarians and convert them in fact into passive
participators in one bourgeois policy or another, since it is impossible and
unrealisable for the workers really to dissociate themselves from politics.

In the present Russian revolution, the task of rallying the forces of the
proletariat, of organising it, of politically educating and training the working
class, is more impera tive than ever. The more outrageous the conduct of the
Black Hundred government, the more zealously its agents-provocateurs
strive to fan base passions among the ignorant masses and the more desperately
the defenders of the autocracy, which is rotting alive? clutch at every
opportunity to discredit the revolution by organising hold-ups, pogroms and assassinations,
and by fuddling lumpen proletarians with drink, the more important is the
task of organisation that falls primarily to the party of the socialist
proletariat. And we shall therefore resort to every means of ideological
struggle to keep the influence of the anarchists over the Russian workers
just as negligible as it has been so far.

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Notes:
[1]
The Party of Law and Order—a counter-revolutionary organisation
of the big commercial and industrial bourgeoisie, the land lords and the top
ranks of the bureaucracy, founded in the autumn of 1905. It fully supported the
tsarist regime, and welcomed the dissolution of the First Duma. During the
elections to the Second Duma It formed a bloc with the Black-Hundred Union of
True Russians.
It fell apart in 1907.