V. I.

Lenin

Among Newspapers and Periodicals (May 9) [1]

In an article entitled “Liberal Praises”, in Nevskaya Gazeta , No. 6, Comrade L. M. tries to prove that the bourgeoisie is
praising the Right Social-Democrats for being genuine Social-Democrats, and is
abusing the Left Social- Democrats for being anarchists. He suggests that the
bourgeoisie is particularly afraid of anarchism, because of its crude methods
of fighting, bomb-throwing, etc.

This opinion is a downright mockery of the truth.

Does not Comrade L. M. know that the bourgeoisie praised the Bernsteinians in
Germany and Millerandists [2] in France precisely for their
opportunism, for their attempts to blunt antagonisms in the midst of an intense
struggle? Has L. M. become so much “wiser” that he is prone to
regard the Bernsteinians and Millerandists as genuine Social-Democrats?

Or let Comrade L. M. think at least about the attitude the Russian liberal
bourgeoisie adopted until recently to wards the terrorism of the Narodnaya Volya
and of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, and about their present attitude towards
the December forms of struggle. The liberal bourgeoisie after all praised the
Socialist-Revolutionaries more than the Social-Democrats, when the terrorism of
the former was directed against the hated autocracy. Isn’t that so, Comrade
L. M.? But what do you think, Comrade L. M., would the liberal bourgeoisie
praise the Right Social-Democrats if they were to abandon their
present position and adopt that of pure parliamentarism? In that case,
Comrade L. M., would you say that the liberal bourgeoisie simply did not realise
that the pure parliamentarism of the Social- Democrats would at the present time be far more harmful for it, and much more useful for the proletariat,
than the present position of the Right Social-Democrats?

---
Notes:
[1]
The legal Bolshevik newspapers published in the spring and
sum mer of 1906—Volna, Vperyod and Ekho (The Echo)—had a section headed “Among Newspapers and
Periodicals”, to which Lenin contributed a number of articles.

In this particular item, Lenin criticises L. Martov’s article.

[2]
Millerandists—exponents of Millerandism, an opportunist trend in Social-Democracy, so named after the French
social-reformist

Alexandre Millerand, who in 1899 entered the reactionary bourgeois government
of France and backed its anti-popular policy. That move of Millerand’s was
a striking manifestation of the policy of class co-operation between
opportunist Social-Democratic leaders and the bourgeoisie. It indicated
those leaders’ renunciation of the revolutionary struggle, and constituted
a betrayal of the interests of he working classes. Lenin described
Millerandism as revisionism and renegacy; he stressed that
social-reformists who entered a bourgeois government invariably turned out
to be puppets of the capitalists, and a tool which that government used
for deceiving the masses.