The Third Congress of the party adopted a resolution on the question of the temporary revolutionary government. This resolution expresses precisely the position we took in the newspaper *Vperiod*. We intend now to proceed to a detailed examination of all objections against our position and to elucidate from all sides the true principled meaning and practical significance of the Congress resolution. Let us begin with Plekhanov's attempt to place this question on a strictly principled basis. Plekhanov titled his article: "On the Question of the Seizure of Power." He criticizes "the tactic directed (obviously by *Vperiod*) toward the seizure of political power by the proletariat." In reality, as anyone familiar with *Vperiod* knows perfectly well, *Vperiod* never raised the question of the seizure of power and never directed any "tactic toward seizure." Plekhanov seeks to substitute a fictitious question for the one actually being discussed; one need only recall the course of the dispute to be convinced of this.

Martynov first put the question forward in his famous "Two Dictatorships." He argued that if our party took leading participation in the insurrection, then, in case of success, this would necessarily entail its participation in a temporary revolutionary government, and such participation was in principle impermissible and could lead to nothing but a ruinous and compromising outcome. *Iskra* defended this position. *Vperiod* objected that, on the contrary, such an outcome would be most desirable, that the participation of social-democracy in a temporary revolutionary government, equivalent to the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry, was permissible, and that without such a dictatorship it would be impossible to defend the republic. Thus, both disputing sides, answering the question put forward by Martynov, accepted two premises and disagreed in their conclusions from them: both accepted 1) the leading participation of the proletarian party in the insurrection; 2) the victory of the insurrection and the complete overthrow of the autocracy; they disagreed in their evaluation of the tactical conclusions from these premises. Does this resemble "a tactic directed (!!) toward the seizure (??) of power"? Is it not clear that Plekhanov seeks to evade the Martynovian formulation of the question, discussed by both *Iskra* and *Vperiod*? We disputed whether it was dangerous, ruinous to conduct victorious insurrection if it could lead to the necessity of participation in a temporary revolutionary government. Plekhanov expresses a desire to dispute whether one should direct tactic toward the seizure of power. We fear that Plekhanov's wish (comprehensible only from the perspective of obscuring the Martynovian formulation of the question) will remain an innocent desire, for no one has disputed or disputes this topic.

What significance this substitution of the question has in Plekhanov's entire argumentation becomes especially evident from the episode with "virtuosos of philistinism." Plekhanov is troubled by this expression used by *Vperiod*. Plekhanov returns to it about seven times, threateningly and angrily assuring his readers that *Vperiod* dared to call Marx and Engels by this not-too-flattering epithet, that *Vperiod* undertakes to "criticize" Marx, and so on and so forth. We understand perfectly well that Plekhanov, who set himself the task of rehabilitating Martynov and of "tearing apart" *Vperiod*, would be most pleased if *Vperiod* had said something resembling the absurdity attributed to it by Plekhanov. But the matter is that *Vperiod* said nothing of the sort, and any attentive reader will easily expose Plekhanov, who has entangled an interesting principled question in complete triviality and petty quibbling.

However tedious it is to answer quibbles, one must explain in detail what this episode with the notorious "virtuosos of philistinism" actually consisted of. *Vperiod* reasoned as follows. We all speak of the conquest of a republic. To conquer it in fact, it is necessary that we begin to "strike together" at the autocracy – we, that is, the revolutionary people, the proletariat and peasantry. But this is still not enough. It is not enough even to "finish off the autocracy together," that is, completely to overthrow the autocratic government. It is necessary also to "beat back together" the inevitable forthcoming desperate attempts to restore the overthrown autocracy. This "beat back together," applied to the revolutionary epoch, is nothing other than the revolutionary democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry, is the participation of the proletariat in the revolutionary government. Therefore, people who frighten the working class with the possible prospect of this dictatorship, that is, such people as Martynov and L. Martov in the new *Iskra*, fall into contradiction with their own slogan of struggle for a republic and bringing the revolution to completion. These people, in essence, reason as if they want to limit, curtail their struggle for freedom – precisely to measure out for themselves in advance the most modest bit of conquests, some truncated constitution instead of a republic. Such people, *Vperiod* said, philistinely vulgarize a certain Marxist proposition about the three main forces of the revolution of the XIX (and XX) centuries and three basic stages of it. This proposition consists in this: the first stage of the revolution is the limitation of absolutism, satisfying the bourgeoisie; the second is the conquest of a republic, satisfying "the people," that is, the peasantry and petty bourgeoisie generally; the third is the socialist overturn, which alone is capable of satisfying the proletariat. "*This picture is true in general and as a whole,*" wrote *Vperiod*. Before us is indeed an ascent up these three different schematic steps, different in that different classes can at best accompany us in this ascent. But if we understand this correct Marxist schema of three steps in such a way that before each ascent one must measure out for oneself in advance a modest measure, for example, no more than one step, if according to this schema we, before each ascent, "compose for ourselves a plan of activity in the revolutionary epoch," then we shall be virtuosos of philistinism.

Such was the reasoning of *Vperiod* in No. 14[81]. And it was precisely to these last emphasized words that Plekhanov thought to carp. *Vperiod*, he declares triumphantly, thereby called Marx a philistine, for Marx himself composed for himself a plan of activity according to this very schema in the most revolutionary epoch!

The proof? The proof consists in this: in 1850, when the revolutionary people of Germany suffered defeat in the struggle of 1848–1849, unable to finish off the autocracy, when the liberal bourgeoisie had already obtained a truncated constitution and gone over to reaction – in a word, when the German democratic-revolutionary movement had risen only to the first step and stopped, powerless to rise higher – then… then Marx said that the new revolutionary upsurge would be an ascent to the second step.

Are you smiling, reader? Plekhanov's syllogism turns out, in truth, somewhat… how shall we put it more gently?… "dialectical." Since Marx at the appropriate concrete moment of a concrete democratic revolution said that after the ascent to the first step that had occurred, an ascent to the second step was forthcoming – therefore only "critics" of Marx can call philistines people who before the ascent to the first step frighten us with the terrible prospect of a leap (in case of an especially well-organized and successfully conducted insurrection) of two steps at once.

Yes, yes, "criticism" of Marx is a bad thing… and not a very good thing either – an unsuccessful reference to Marx. Martynov unsuccessfully interpreted Marx. Plekhanov unsuccessfully defended Martynov.

And let no carping reader draw from our words the conclusion that we preach "a tactic directed" toward obligatory leaps over steps, regardless of the correlation of social forces. No, we preach no such tactic. We struggle only against the influence on the proletariat of people capable of speaking about a republic and of bringing the revolution to completion and at the same time frightening themselves and others with the possibility of participation in a democratic dictatorship. We already noted in No. 14 of *Vperiod* that after the present revolutionary upsurge, reaction will of course be inevitable, but it will deprive us of freedom all the less the more we conquer now and the more mercilessly we crush and destroy counter-revolutionary forces in the epoch of possible (and desirable) democratic dictatorship. We also noted in No. 14 of *Vperiod* that the question itself about this dictatorship makes sense only with the assumption of such a course of events when the democratic revolution reaches the complete overthrow of absolutism, the republic, and does not stop halfway.

Let us now move on from the episode of the "virtuosos of philistinism" to the content of the famous "Address" (of the Central Committee of the League of Communists to the members of the League, in March 1850), quoted by Plekhanov. In this extremely interesting and instructive "Address" (which would be worth translating in full into Russian), Marx examines the concrete political situation in Germany in 1850, points to the probability of a new political explosion, states the inevitability of the transition of power, in case of revolution, to the republican, petty-bourgeois democratic party, and analyzes the tactic of the proletariat. Examining separately the tactic before the revolution, at its moment, and after the victory of petty-bourgeois democracy, Marx insists on the necessity of creating "an independent secret and open organization of the workers' party," struggles with all his might against "reducing it to the role of an appendage of official bourgeois democracy," emphasizes the importance of arming the workers, forming an independent proletarian guard, strict supervision by proletarians over the treacherous petty-bourgeois democracy, and so on.

Throughout the entire "Address," not a word is said either about the participation of the workers' party in a temporary revolutionary government or about the revolutionary democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry. From this, Plekhanov concludes that Marx "apparently did not even admit the thought that the political representatives of the revolutionary proletariat could together with the representatives of the petty bourgeoisie labor over the creation of a new social order." The logic of this conclusion limps. Marx does not raise the question of the participation of the workers' party in a temporary revolutionary government, and Plekhanov concludes that Marx decides this question in general and in principle in an unconditionally negative sense. Marx speaks only of the concrete situation; Plekhanov draws a general conclusion without examining the question in its concreteness at all. And yet, it suffices to look at some passages of the "Address" omitted by Plekhanov to see the complete incorrectness of his conclusions.

The "Address" was written on the basis of the experience of two years of revolutionary epoch, 1848 and 1849. Marx formulates the results of this experience thus: "At the same time (that is, precisely in 1848–1849) the former strong organization of the League of Communists was considerably weakened. The greater part of the members directly participating in the revolutionary movement thought that the time of secret societies had passed and that open activity alone would suffice. Individual districts and communes (Gemeinden) began to neglect their relations with the Central Committee and gradually cut them off entirely. Thus, at the time when the democratic party, the party of the petty bourgeoisie, was becoming ever more organized in Germany, the workers' party lost its only firm support, preserved itself in organized form at most in isolated localities for local purposes, and as a result fell entirely under the dominion and guidance of the petty-bourgeois democrats."[82] And on the next page of the "Address" Marx declares: "At present, when a new revolution is impending, it is extremely important that the workers' party appears as organized, as united, and as independent as possible, if it does not want again, as in 1848, to be exploited by the bourgeoisie and to be dragged along in its wake."

Think carefully about the significance of these categorical assertions! After two years of open revolution, after the victory of the people's insurrection in Berlin, after the convocation of a revolutionary parliament, after part of the country was in open insurrection and power temporarily passed into the hands of revolutionary governments – Marx states the defeat of the revolutionary people and, with respect to party organization, the gain of the petty-bourgeois democracy, the loss of the workers' party. Does this not indicate more clearly than clearly such a political situation when there was no point in raising the question of the workers' party's participation in government? After two years of revolutionary epoch, when Marx for nine months published openly the most revolutionary newspaper of the workers' party, one must state the complete disorganization of this party, the complete absence of any sharply expressed proletarian current in the general flow (the workers' brotherhoods of Stephan Born{105} were too insignificant), the complete subjection of the proletariat not only to the dominion but also to the guidance of the bourgeoisie! It is evident that economic relations were still extremely undeveloped, large industry was almost absent, there was no independent workers' movement of any serious scale, the petty bourgeoisie reigned supreme. It is understandable that under such conditions a writer examining the concrete situation could not even admit the thought of the possibility of the workers' party's participation in a temporary government. It is understandable that Marx had to drill (forgive the expression) into the heads of members of the League of Communists such truths as now seem to us elementary. Marx had to prove the necessity of workers putting forward their own candidates at elections independently of bourgeois democracy. Marx had to refute the democratic phrases that, they said, the separation of workers "splits" (note this! one can split only what was yesterday still united and what continues to be ideologically unified!) the democratic party. Marx had to warn the members of the League of Communists against being seduced by these phrases. Marx had to, on behalf of the CC of the League, promise at the first opportunity to convoke a congress of the workers' party for the centralization of workers' clubs – during the revolutionary years 1848–1849 the conditions did not yet exist to admit the thought of the possibility of a special congress of the workers' party!

The conclusion from this is clear: in the famous "Address," Marx does not at all touch upon the question of the principled permissibility of the proletariat's participation in a temporary revolutionary government. Marx examines exclusively the concrete situation of Germany in 1850. Marx says not a word about the participation of the League of Communists in the revolutionary government because under the conditions then existing there could not have arisen even the thought of such participation on behalf of the workers' party for the sake of a democratic dictatorship.

Marx's thought consisted in this: we, German social-democrats of 1850, are not organized, we suffered defeat in the first period of revolution, we have entirely gone in tow behind the bourgeoisie; we must organize ourselves independently, necessarily, unconditionally, at all costs independently – otherwise even at the forthcoming victory of the strengthened and mighty petty-bourgeois party, we too will be dragging along at its tail.

Martynov's thought consisted in this: we, Russian social-democrats of 1905, are organized in an independent party and want to undertake the first storm against the fortress of tsarism, to go at the head of the petty-bourgeois people. But if we organize the storm very well and, heaven forbid, conduct it victoriously, then we shall have to participate, perhaps, in a temporary revolutionary government or even in a democratic dictatorship. And this participation is in principle impermissible.

And Plekhanov seriously wants to convince someone that one can defend Martynov by Marx? Plekhanov must consider the readers of *Iskra* to be children. We will say only: one thing is Marxism, another thing is Martynovism.

In order to finish with the "Address," it is necessary to clarify one more incorrect opinion of Plekhanov's. He points out, correctly, that in March 1850, when the "Address" was written, Marx believed in the decrepitude of capitalism, and socialist revolution seemed to him "quite imminent." Very soon Marx corrected his error: already on September 15, 1850, he parted ways with Schapper (Schapper, along with Willich, remained in the minority of the League and withdrew from it), who had succumbed to bourgeois-democratic revolutionarism or utopianism to such a degree that he said: "we must at once achieve power or else we can go to sleep." Marx objected to Schapper that one cannot consider only one's own will as the motive force of revolution instead of actual conditions. The proletariat might perhaps have to endure yet another 15, 20, or 50 years of civil wars and international conflicts "not only in order to change these conditions, but also in order to change themselves, the proletarians, and make themselves capable of political rule"{106}. Plekhanov relates briefly this change in Marx's views and concludes:

"The political tasks of the proletariat would have been determined by them" (by Marx and Engels after this "change") "already on the assumption that the democratic system would remain dominant for a rather prolonged period. But it is precisely for this reason that they would have condemned even more decisively the participation of socialists in a petty-bourgeois government" (*Iskra* No. 96).

This conclusion of Plekhanov's is completely incorrect. It amounts precisely to that confusion of socialist and democratic dictatorship for which we have more than once reproached L. Martov and Martynov. Marx and Engels in 1850 did not distinguish between democratic and socialist dictatorship, or more accurately did not speak of the former at all, for capitalism seemed to them decrepit and socialism near. They did not therefore distinguish at that time between a minimum program and a maximum program either. But if one makes this distinction (as all we Marxists do now, fighting against the misunderstanding of it with the bourgeois-democratic revolutionarism of the "socialist-revolutionaries"), then one must specially examine the question of socialist and democratic dictatorship. By not doing this, Plekhanov acts inconsistently. By choosing an evasive formulation, speaking in general of "the participation of socialists in a petty-bourgeois government," he thereby precisely introduces the question of socialist dictatorship in place of the clearly, definitely, and precisely formulated question of democratic dictatorship. He confuses (using the comparison of *Vperiod*[83]) the participation of Millerand in the ministry alongside Galliffet on the eve of a socialist overturn with the participation of Varlain in a revolutionary government alongside petty-bourgeois democrats who defended and had defended the republic.

Marx and Engels in 1850 considered socialism imminent and therefore underestimated the democratic conquests, which seemed to them fully secure in view of the indubitable victory of the petty-bourgeois democratic party{107}. Twenty-five years later, in 1875, Marx pointed to the undemocratic system of Germany – "absolutism dressed in parliamentary forms"{108}. Thirty-five years later, in 1885, Engels predicted the transition of power in Germany to the petty-bourgeois democracy during the forthcoming European upheaval{109}. From this follows precisely the opposite of what Plekhanov wants to prove: if Marx and Engels understood the inevitability of a comparatively prolonged dominion of the democratic system, they would have attached all the more significance to the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry for the purpose of consolidating the republic, the complete destruction of all traces of absolutism, and the complete clearing of the arena for the struggle for socialism. They would have condemned all the more those tailists, capable on the eve of a democratic overturn of frightening the proletariat with the possibility of a revolutionary-democratic dictatorship.

Plekhanov himself feels the weakness of his position, based on a distortion of the "Address." He cautiously reserves, therefore, that his reference does not pretend to finally exhaust the question – although he draws conclusions of an "exhaustive" categoricalness, having brought forth nothing whatsoever except an irrelevant reference, and not even attempting to examine the concrete formulation of the question given by *Vperiod*. Plekhanov seeks to attribute to *Vperiod* both the desire to "criticize" Marx and the point of view of Mach and Avenarius. This attempt of his provokes only a smile from us: Plekhanov's position must be poor if he cannot find a target from the actual assertions of *Vperiod* and must invent one from subjects completely foreign both to the newspaper *Vperiod* and to the question under discussion. Finally, Plekhanov cites still one more proof, which seems to him "irrefutable." In fact, this proof (Engels's letter to Turati from 1894) is altogether shamefully weak.

As is evident from Plekhanov's exposition of this letter (unfortunately, Plekhanov does not cite the letter in full and does not indicate whether it was printed and where exactly), Engels must have been proving to Turati the distinction between socialist and petty-bourgeois revolution. That is all there is to it, comrade Plekhanov! Turati is the Italian Millerand, a Bernsteinian, to whom Giolitti offered a portfolio in his ministry. Turati apparently confused two transformations of entirely different class content. Turati imagined he would promote the interests of the dominion of the proletariat, and Engels explained to him that, given the situation in Italy in 1894 (that is, some decades after Italy's ascent to the "first step," after the conquest of political freedom that allowed the proletariat to organize openly, broadly, and independently!), he, Turati, in the ministry of the victorious petty-bourgeois party would defend and carry out in fact the interests of an alien class, the petty bourgeoisie. We have, consequently, before us one of the cases of Millerandism; against the confusion of Millerandism with democratic dictatorship *Vperiod* directly rebelled, and Plekhanov did not even touch on *Vperiod*'s arguments. We have before us a characteristic example of the false position against which Engels long ago warned the leaders of extreme parties, namely when they do not understand the true character of the transformation and unconsciously carry out the interests of an "alien" class. For heaven's sake, comrade Plekhanov, does this have the slightest relation to the question raised by Martynov and examined by *Vperiod*? Can the danger of confusion of the second and third steps by people who have risen to the first step serve as justification for frightening us before the ascent to the first step with the prospect of a possible ascent of two steps at once??

No, Plekhanov's "modest historical reference" proves absolutely nothing. His principled conclusion: "to participate in a revolutionary government together with representatives of the petty bourgeoisie means to betray the proletariat" is not in the least confirmed by references to the situations that existed in Germany in 1850 and Italy in 1894, which differ radically from the Russian situation in January and May of 1905. These references give nothing on the question of democratic dictatorship and the temporary revolutionary government. And if Plekhanov wants to apply his conclusion to this question, if he considers the proletariat's every participation in a revolutionary government in the struggle for a republic, in a democratic overturn, to be in principle impermissible, then we undertake to prove to him that this is a "principle" of anarchism, condemned by Engels in the most unmistakable manner. We shall provide this proof in the next article.