Date: 1905
Source: ru:LS/v5

Lenin’s Collected Works (Vol. 1)
* On the Blurring of Politics and Pedagogy.
We have no shortage of social democrats who, in the wake of every defeat suffered by the workers in their individual clashes with capitalists or with the government, fall into pessimism and dismiss all talk of the higher, more momentous aims of the workers’ movement, citing as their excuse the supposed inadequacy of our influence over the masses.
“What can we possibly hope to achieve?”
“Where on earth could we possibly make a difference?” such people ask.
“There’s no point even discussing the role of social democracy as the vanguard of the revolution—how can we when we don’t even truly understand the mood of the masses, fail to know how to merge with them, to lift up the working masses!”
The setbacks experienced by social democrats on May 1st of this year significantly intensified this very sentiment. The Mensheviks—or, rather, the New-Iskra faction—naturally hastened to seize upon it, once again raising, as a special slogan, the call: “To the masses!”—a direct challenge to certain others, a deliberate response to the growing discussions and speculations about a provisional revolutionary government, about a revolutionary-democratic dictatorship, and the like.
It must be admitted that there is one particularly dangerous tendency in this pessimism—and in the conclusions drawn from it by the hasty New-Iskra publicists—that has the potential to inflict serious harm upon the social democratic movement.
There is no denying that self-criticism is absolutely essential for any living, vital party.
There is nothing more vulgar than self-satisfied optimism.
There is nothing more legitimate than the constant, unwavering imperative to deepen and broaden, to expand and intensify our influence over the masses; to pursue our strictly Marxist propaganda and agitation; to draw ever closer to the economic struggles of the working class, and so forth. But precisely because such imperatives are always and everywhere legitimate, under all conditions and circumstances, they must not be turned into special slogans; they cannot justify attempts to construct some particular “line” within social democracy based upon them.
There is a fine line here: cross it, and you risk transforming these unquestionable imperatives into a narrowing of our movement’s tasks and scope, into a dogmatic neglect of the pressing, forward‑looking political tasks of the moment.

On the Blurring of Politics and Pedagogy
We must always deepen and expand our work—and our influence—among the masses. Without this, a social democrat is no longer a social democrat. [Without this] No organization, no group, no circle can rightly be called a social democratic organization if they do not consistently and regularly engage in this very work.
To a large extent, the entire purpose of our strict separation into an independent, autonomous party of the proletariat lies in our commitment to carrying out this Marxist work at all times, relentlessly striving to raise the consciousness of the entire working class to the level of conscious social democracy, while resolutely refusing to allow any—even the most dramatic—political storms, let alone superficial political changes or mere shifts in the political landscape, to distract us from this urgent task.
Without this work, political activity would inevitably degenerate into a mere game, for—
it is only when and to the extent that political activity raises the consciousness of a given class, engages it, and motivates it to take an active, leading role in the unfolding events that it acquires true significance for the proletariat.
As we have already said, this work is needed at all times: after every defeat, we must—and we should—remind people of its importance, emphasizing its crucial role, for weakness in this area is always one of the root causes of proletarian defeats.
After every victory, too, we must always remind people of this work and underscore its significance, for otherwise the victory will prove illusory, its fruits will remain insecure, and the real value of that victory, from the standpoint of our great struggle toward our ultimate goal, will be negligible—and may even turn out to be negative (especially if a partial victory lulls our vigilance, weakens our distrust of unreliable allies, [and] allows us to miss the critical moment for launching a further, more decisive offensive against the enemy).
But precisely because this work of deepening and expanding our influence over the masses is equally necessary at all times—after every victory as well as after every defeat, in periods of political stagnation as well as in the most turbulent revolutionary moments—it follows that we must never turn our attention to it into a special slogan, nor build a distinct “line” around it, lest we risk falling into demagoguery and belittling the tasks of the vanguard—the sole truly revolutionary class.
In the political activities of the social democratic party, there is—and always will be—a certain element of pedagogy: we must educate the entire class of wage‑workers to assume the role of fighters for the liberation of all humanity from

all forms of oppression; we must continually train new and ever‑new layers
of this class; we must learn to approach even the most unpolished, the least developed, the most marginalized among the representatives of this class—those whom neither our science nor the science of life has yet fully reached—so that we may speak to them, so that we may draw close to them, so that we may patiently and persistently guide them toward social democratic consciousness, without turning our teachings into dry dogma, but rather by engaging them not only through books, but also through participation in the everyday struggles of those very grayest, most underdeveloped strata of the proletariat.
In this daily activity, we repeat, there is a certain element of pedagogy. A social democrat who were to forget this aspect of his work would cease to be a social democrat. That is true. Yet all too often today we forget that a social democrat who reduces the tasks of politics to pedagogy—though for a different reason—would likewise cease to be a social democrat.
Whoever seeks to make of this “pedagogy” a special slogan, to set it off against “politics,” to build a distinct line on this opposition, to appeal to the masses in the name of this slogan against the “politicians” of social democracy—such a person would inevitably and immediately descend into demagoguery.
Every comparison is flawed; that much has long been known. Every comparison tends to emphasize only one side—or only certain aspects—of the objects or concepts being compared, temporarily and conditionally abstracting away the other sides.
Let us remind our readers of this well‑known—but all too often forgotten—truth, and let us compare the social democratic party with a great school—elementary, middle, and high school—all at once.
Never, under any circumstances, can this great school afford to forget the task of teaching the alphabet, of imparting the rudiments of knowledge and the beginnings of independent thought.
But if someone were to try to evade questions of higher learning by citing the alphabet as a substitute, if someone were to contrast the fragile, uncertain, “narrow” results of this higher learning—accessible to a far smaller circle than the circle that masters the alphabet—with the solid, profound, broad, and substantial achievements of elementary school, that person would reveal an astonishing myopia. Indeed, such a person might even contribute to a complete distortion of the very meaning of the great school, for by ignoring questions of higher learning, one would only make it easier for charlatans, demagogues, and reactionaries to confuse those who have mastered nothing beyond the alphabet.
Or again,

On the Blurring of Politics and Pedagogy
Let us compare the party with the army.
Whether in times of peace or in wartime, we must never forget the training of recruits, the science of marksmanship, the need to spread the fundamentals of military affairs far and wide throughout the masses.
But what if the commanders of maneuvers or actual battles *)
*) In No. 235 of “Latest News,” dated June 12 (May 30), 1905, an article by the well‑known advocate of “economism,” Vl. Akimov, was published, devoted to an analysis of the reasons behind the failure of the May Day demonstration. “Latest News” was a periodical publication of the Foreign Committee of the Bund.
) The manuscript ends abruptly here.
Ed.