Two Tactics of Social-Democracy in the Democratic Revolution

3.

What Is A “Decisive Victory of the Revolution
Over Tsarism”?

The resolution of the “Conference” is devoted to the question:
“ The conquest of power and participation in a provisional government .” [1]

As we have already pointed out, the very manner in which the question is presented betrays confusion. On
the one hand, the question is presented in a narrow way: it
deals only with our participation in a provisional government
and not with the Party’s tasks in regard to a provisional
revolutionary government in general. On the other hand, two
totally different questions are confused, viz., the question of
our participation at one of the stages of the democratic revolution, and the question of the
socialist revolution. Indeed, the “conquest of power” by Social-Democracy is a socialist revolution, nor can it be
anything else if we use these words in their direct and usually
accepted sense. If, however, we are to understand these words to
mean the conquest of power for a democratic revolution and not
for a socialist revolution, then what is the point in talking
not only about participation in a provisional revolutionary
government but also about the “conquest of power” in general?
Obviously our “Conferencers” were not very clear themselves as
to what they should talk about: the democratic or the socialist
revolution. Those who have followed the literature on this
question know that it was Comrade Martynov, in his notorious
Two Dictatorships ; the new-Iskrists are reluctant to recall the manner in which this question was presented (even
before

January 9) [6]
[the date of Bloody Sunday] in that model of tail-ender
writing. Nevertheless, there can be no doubt that it exerted an
ideological influence on the Conference.

But let us leave the title of the resolution. Its contents
reveal mistakes incomparably more profound and serious. Here is
the first part:

“A decisive victory of the revolution over tsarism may be marked
either by the establishment of a provisional government, which
will emerge from a victorious popular insurrection, or by the
revolutionary initiative of a representative institution of one
kind or another, which, under direct revolutionary pressure of
the people, decides to set up a popular constituent assembly.”

Thus, we are told that a decisive victory of the revolution over
tsarism may be marked either by a victorious insurrection, or
... by a decision of a representative institution to set up a
constituent assembly! What does this mean? How are we to
understand it? A decisive victory may be marked by a “decision”
to set up a constituent assembly?? And such a “victory” is put
side by side with the establishment of a provisional government
which will “emerge from a victorious popular insurrection”!! The
Conference failed to note that a victorious popular insurrection and the establishment of a provisional
government would signify the victory of the revolution in actual fact , whereas a “decision” to set up a constituent
assembly would signify a victory of the revolution in words
only.

The Conference of the Mensheviks, or new- Iskra, fell into the very same error that the liberals, the
Osvobozhdeniye are constantly committing. The Osvobozhdeniye group prattle about a “constituent”
assembly and bashfully shut their eyes to the fact that power
and authority remain in the hands of the tsar, forgetting that
in order to “constitute” one must possess the power to do so. The Conference also forgot that it is a far cry from a
“decision” adopted by representatives—no matter who they
are—to the fulfilment of that decision. The Conference further forgot that so long as power remained in the hands of
the tsar, all decisions passed by any representatives whatsoever
would remain empty and miserable prattle, as was the case with
the “decisions” of the Frankfurt Parliament , famous in the history of the German Revolution
of 1848. In his Neue Rheinische Zeitung [7]

Marx, the representative of the revolutionary proletariat, castigated the
Frankfurt liberal Osvobozhdentsi with merciless sarcasm
precisely because they uttered fine words, adopted all sorts of
democratic “decisions,” “constituted” all kinds of liberties,
while actually they left power in the hands of the king and
failed to organise an armed struggle against the military forces
at the disposal of the king. And while the

Frankfurt

Osvobozbdentsi were prattling—the king bided his time, consolidated his military forces, and the
counterrevolution, relying on real force, utterly routed the
democrats with all their fine “decisions.”

The Conference put on a par with a decisive victory the very
thing that lacks the essential condition of victory. How was it
possible for Social-Democrats who recognise the republican
program of our Party to commit such an error? In order to
understand this strange phenomenon we must turn to the resolution of the Third Congress on the section which has
seceded from the

Party. [2]

This resolution refers to the fact that various trends “akin to Economism” have survived in our
Party. Our “Conferencers” (it is not for nothing that they are
under the ideological guidance of Martynov) talk of the
revolution in exactly the same way as the Economists talked of
the political struggle or the eight hour day. The Economists
immediately gave currency to the “theory of stages”:

1) the struggle

for rights,

2) political agitation,

3) political struggle; or, 1) a ten-hour day,

2) a nine-hour day,

3) an eight-hour day. The results of this
“tactics-as-a-process” are sufficiently well known to all. Now
we are invited nicely to divide the revolution too in advance
into the following stages:

1) the tsar
convenes a representative body;

2) this
representative body “decides” under pressure of the “people” to
set up a constituent assembly;

3) ... the Mensheviks have not yet agreed among themselves as to the
third stage; they have forgotten that the revolutionary pressure
of the people will meet with the counter-revolutionary pressure
of tsarism and that, therefore, either the “decision” will
remain unfulfilled or the issue will be decided after all by the
victory or the defeat of the popular insurrection. The resolution of the Conference is an exact reproduction of the
following reasoning of the Economists: a decisive victory of the
workers may be marked either by the realisation of the eight-hour day in a revolutionary way, or by the grant of a
ten-hour day and a “decision” to go over to a nine-hour
day.... the duplication is perfect.

The objection may be made to us that the authors of the
resolution did not mean to place on a par the victory of an insurrection with the “decision” of a representative
institution convened by the tsar, that they only wanted to
provide for the Party’s tactics in either case. To this our
answer would be:

1) The text of the resolution plainly and unambiguously
describes the decision of a representative institution as “a decisive victory of the revolution over
tsarism.” Perhaps that is the result of careless wording,
perhaps it could be corrected after consulting the minutes,
but, so long as it is not corrected, the present wording can
have only one meaning, and this meaning is entirely in keeping with the Osvobozhdeniye line of
reasoning.

2) The Osvobozbdeniye line of
reasoning, into which the authors of the resolution have drifted,
stands out in incomparably greater relief in other literary
productions of the new Iskra -ists. For instance, the organ of the Tiflis Committee, (in the Georgian language; praised
by the Iskra in No. 100), in the article “The Zemsky

Sobor [3] and Our Tactics,”

Sotsial-Demokrat , [8] organ of the Tiflis Committee (published in the Georgian language;
praised by Iskra in No. 100) goes so far as to say that the “Tactics” “which make the Zemsky Sobor the centre of our
activities” (about the convocation of which, we may add, nothing
definite is known as yet!) “ are more advantageous for us ”
than the “tactics” of armed insurrection and the establishment of
a provisional revolutionary government. We shall refer to this
article again further on.

3) No objection can be made to a preliminary
discussion of what tactics the Party should adopt in the event of
the victory of the revolution as well as in the event of its
defeat, in the event of a successful insurrection as well as in
the event of the insurrection failing to develop into a serious
force. It is possible that the tsarist government will succeed in
convening a representative assembly for the purpose of coming to
terms with the liberal bourgeoisie; providing for that eventuality, the resolution of the Third Congress speaks plainly
about “hypocritical policy,” “pseudo democracy,” “a travesty of
popular representation, something like the so-called Zemsky

Sobor.” [4]

But the whole point is that this is not said in the resolution
on a provisional revolutionary government, for it has nothing to
do with a provisional revolutionary government. This eventuality
defers the problem of the insurrection and of the establishment of a provisional revolutionary government; it alters this
problem, etc. The point in question now is not that all kinds of
combinations are possible, that both victory and defeat are
possible, that there may be direct or circuitous paths; the
point is that it is impermissible for a Social-Democrat to cause
confusion in the minds of the workers concerning the genuinely
revolutionary path, that it is impermissible, to describe in the
Osvobozhdeniye manner, as a decisive victory that which
lacks the main requisite for victory. It is possible that we shall win even the eight-hour day, not at one stroke, but only by a
long and roundabout way; but what would you say of a man who
calls such impotence, such weakness as renders the proletariat
incapable of counteracting procrastination, delays, haggling, treachery and reaction, a victory for the workers? It
is possible that the Russian revolution will end in an “abortive
constitution,” as was once stated in the

Vperyod , [5] but can this justify a Social-Democrat, who on the eve of a decisive struggle
would call this abortion a “decisive victory over tsarism”? It
is possible that, at the worst, not only will we not win a
republic, but that even the constitution we will get will be an
illusory one, a constitution “ à la

Shipov”, [9] but would it be pardonable for a Social-Democrat to obscure our slogan of a
republic?

Of course the new-Iskraists have not as yet gone so far as to obscure it. But the degree to
which the revolutionary spirit has fled from them, the degree to which lifeless pedantry has
blinded them to the militant tasks of the moment is most vividly
shown by the fact that in their resolution they, of all things,
forgot to say a word about the republic. It is incredible, but
it is a fact. All the slogans of Social-Democracy were endorsed,
repeated, explained and presented in detail in the various
resolutions of the Conference—even the election of shop
stewards and deputies by the workers was not forgotten, but in a
resolution on a provisional revolutionary government they simply
did not find occasion to mention the republic. To talk of the
“victory” of the people’s insurrection, of the establishment of
a provisional government, and not to indicate what relation
these “steps” and acts have to the winning of a republic—means writing a resolution not for the guidance of
the proletarian struggle, but for the purpose of hobbling along
at the tail end of the proletarian movement.

To sum up: the first part of the resolution

1) gave no explanation whatever of the
significance of a provisional revolutionary government from the
standpoint of the struggle for a republic and of securing a
genuinely popular and genuinely constituent assembly;

2) confused the democratic consciousness of the
proletariat by placing on a par with a decisive victory of the
revolution over tsarism a state of affairs in which precisely
the main requisite for a real victory is lacking.

---
Notes:
[1]
The full text of this resolution can be reconstructed by the reader
from the quotations given on pp. 400, 403, 407, 431, and 433 of the
pamphlet. (Author’s note to the 1907 edition. See pp. 32-33, 38-39, 44, 78,
82 of this volume.–Ed.) — Lenin

[2]
We cite this resolution in full.

“The Congress places on record that since the time of the Party’s fight
against Economism, certain trends have survived in the R.S.D.L.P. which, in
various degrees and respects, are akin to Economism and which betray a
common tendency to belittle the importance of the elements of consciousness
in the proletarian struggle, and to subordinate it to the element of
spontaneity. On questions of organisation, the representatives of these
trends put forward, in theory, the organisation-as-a-process principle,
which is out of harmony with methodical Party work, while in practice they
systematically deviate from Party discipline in very many cases, and in
other cases preach to the least enlightened section of the Party the idea
of a wide application of the elective principle, without taking into
consideration the objective conditions of Russian life, and so strive to
undermine the only basis for Party ties that is possible at the present
time. In tactical questions they betray a striving to narrow the scope of
Party work, declaring their opposition to the Party pursuing completely
independent tactics in relation to the liberal-bourgeois parties, denying
that it is possible and desirable for our Party to assume the role of
organiser in the people’s insurrection and opposing the participation of
the Party in a provisional democratic revolutionary government under any
conditions whatsoever.

“The Congress instructs all Party members everywhere to conduct an
energetic ideological struggle against such partial deviations from the
principles of revolutionary Social-Democracy; at the same time, however, it
is of the opinion that persons who share such views to any degree may
belong to Party organisations on the indispensable condition that they
recognise the Party congresses and the Party Rules and wholly submit to
Party discipline.” (Author’s note to the 1907 edition.–Ed.)
— Lenin

[3]
National Assembly.–Ed.— Lenin

[4]
The following is the text of this resolution on the attitude towards
the tactics of the government on the eve of the revolution:

“Whereas for purposes of self-preservation the government during
the present revolutionary period, while intensifying the usual
measures of repression directed mainly against the class-conscious
elements of the proletariat, at the same time

1) tries by means of concessions and promises of reform to corrupt
the working class politically and thereby to divert it from the
revolutionary struggle;

2) with the same object clothes its hypocritical policy of
concessions in pseudo-democratic forms, beginning with an invitation
to the workers to elect their representatives to commissions and
conferences and ending with the establishment of a travesty of
popular representation, something like the so-called Zemsky Sobor;

3) organises the so-called

Black Hundreds [10] and incites against the revolution all those elements of the people
in general who are reactionary, ignorant or blinded by racial or
religious hatred:

“The Third Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. resolves to call on all Party
organisations:

“a) while exposing the reactionary purpose of the government’s concessions, to emphasise in their propaganda and
agitation the fact that, on the one hand, these concessions were
granted under compulsion, and, on the other, that it is absolutely
impossible for the autocracy to grant reforms satisfactory to the
proletariat; “b) taking advantage of the election campaign, to
explain to the workers the real significance of the government’s measures and to
show that it is necessary for the proletariat to convene by
revolutionary means a constituent assembly on the basis of universal
and equal suffrage, direct elections and secret ballot; “c) to organise the proletariat for the immediate
realisation, in a revolutionary way, of the eight-hour working day
and of the other immediate demands of the working class; “d) to organise armed resistance to the actions of
the Black Hundreds , and generally, of all reactionary elements led by the
government.” (Author’s note to the 1907 edition.–Ed.) — Lenin

[5]
The newspaper Vperyod , published in Geneva, began to appear in
January 1905 as the organ of the Bolshevik section of the Party. From
January to May, eighteen issues appeared. After May, by virtue of the
decision of the Third Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour
Party, the Proletary was issued in place of the Vperyod
as the central organ of the R.S.D.L.P. (This Congress took place in London
May, the Mensheviks did not appear; they organised their own “Conference”
in Geneva.) (Author’s note to the 1907 edition.–Ed.) — Lenin

[6]
PLACEHOLDER

[7]
PLACEHOLDER

[8]
PLACEHOLDER

[10]
PLACEHOLDER

[9]
A constitution à La Shipov — Lenin’s name for the draft of state structure drawn up by D. Shipov, a moderate
liberal leader of the Zemstvo s’
Right wing. In an attempt to curb the sweep of the revolution
and also to obtain certain concessions from the tsarist
government in favour of the Zemstvos, Shipov proposed the
creation of an advisory representative body under the tsar. By a
deal of this kind the moderate liberals wanted to preserve the
monarchy, while winning certain political rights for themselves.

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