V. I.

Lenin

The last two issues of Kuryer contain Comrade Plekhanov’s first letter
“On Tactics and Tactlessness”. The liberal-bourgeois press has
already quite rightly observed that Comrade Plekhanov is going far more to the
right than Kuryer . The whole of this press is praising Comrade
Plekhanov to the skies, and holding him up as a model for all other
Social-Democrats.

Let us, then, examine Comrade Plekhanov’s arguments as calmly as we can.

Comrade Plekhanov is arguing with the Poltava Social-Democratic
newspaper Kolokol , [8] and quotes the following passages from it:

“ The mere adoption of a Social-Democratic programme does not in itself make
a single individual, or even a whole group, Social-Democratic. To become a
Social-Democrat, one must also adopt in their entirety the principles of
Social-Democratic tactics.

“ The feature that sharply distinguishes the Social-Democratic Party from
all other parties is, in addition to its programme, its unrelenting class
position in relation to all other, bourgeois parties.”

Comrade Plekhanov is very severe in his “strictures” of this
passage. First, he demands that the word “opposition” be substituted
for the word “position”. In our opinion, this change would not
improve the original wording in the least: if anything, it would worsen
it. Secondly, Comrade Plekhanov undertakes the functions of a proof-reader. In
the original there was no comma after the word “other”. Unpretentious proof-readers usually correct such mistakes
without making a fuss about it. Pretentious proof-readers write a
feuilleton nearly half a column long about it!

But let us get down to the subject. What is Comrade Plekhanov’s
objection on the point at issue? He says: “The author depicts all the other [1] bourgeois parties as one reactionary mass.”

This is not true . There is not a hint of anything like it in the
passage we have quoted. And in the ensuing lines, which Plekhanov himself
quotes, the author clearly distinguishes between two types of bourgeois
party:

(1) “Cadet opposition” parties and (2) “Bight” parties. Comrade Plekhanov’s attempt to ascribe to the author the idea of
“one reactionary mass is not only unfair, but positively unworthy of a
socialist who wants to discuss a real issue.

“ Different bourgeois parties wear different colours”, says Comrade
Plekhanov. We have already demonstrated that this correct idea is by no means
alien to the author of the article in Kolokol , for he distinguishes
between the Cadet opposition “colour” and the Right “colour”. Hence the author has not transgressed against the
“principles” of Social-Democratic tactics, in spite of the opinion
of the carping; but clumsy, critic. But for the purpose of defining
Russian Social-Democratic tactics in the period of revolution
it is not enough to distinguish between these two “colours”
of the bourgeois parties. Here indeed there is a gap in the ideas, or in the way
they are set forth, in Kolokol , but Comrade Plekhanov did not notice it. While inventing non-existent gaps, he overlooked the real
gap.

If Comrade Plekhanov had wanted to debate real issues with the

Bolsheviks [2] and not argue for the pleasure and entertainment of the Cadet newspapers, he could
not but have mentioned that it is the Bolsheviks who have long insisted that it
is necessary to distinguish at least three main “colours”
among the bourgeois parties. Herein lies one of the main differences between the
two tactics ; and Comrade

Plekhanov’s hopes of being able to obscure this difference in political tactics
by sighing like a philistine petty bourgeois over “tactlessness” are vain.

A year ago the Bolshevik pamphlet Two Tactics [3] appeared abroad, and
was subsequently republished in Russia. Its author maintained that the main
fallacy of Menshevism as a whole was the fact that it did not understand which
elements of the bourgeoisie can, together with the proletariat, carry through
to the end the bourgeois-democratic revolution in Russia. The Mensheviks even
now go astray by thinking that the bourgeois revolution must be made by the
“bourgeoisie” (bourgeoisie in general, irrespective of “colour”!), while it is the function of the proletariat to help
it. That explains why the Mensheviks (including Plekhanov) have never been able to define, in
anything like a Marxist way, what the “decisive victory of the
present revolution” will be in the light of the political regrouping of
classes, although they did not mind talking about the decisive victory, even in
resolutions. The Bolsheviks’ assertion that decisive victory can mean only the
dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry was repugnant to them, but
they have been unable to refute, correct, or modify it.

The Bolsheviks have asserted, and still do. that the only firm and reliable ally
the proletariat can have in the epoch of the bourgeois-democratic revolution
(until that revolution wins) is the peasantry. The peasants are also
“bourgeois democrats”, but entirely different in “colour” from the Cadets or Octobrists. Before these
bourgeois democrats, irrespective of what they themselves want, history has set aims that are genuinely revolutionary as regards the “old
order” in Russia. These bourgeois democrats are compelled to fight against the very foundations of landlord
power and the old state authority connected with it. These bourgeois
democrats are not “compelled” by objective conditions to do their
utmost to preserve the old authorities and to complete the revolution by
striking a bargain with the old authorities. Therefore in their
tendencies—which are determined by what they are compelled to
do— these bourgeois democrats are revolutionary democrats . And the Bolsheviks defined the tactics of the socialist proletariat during the bourgeois-democratic
revolution as follows: the proletariat must lead the peasantry, without merging
with it, against the old authorities and the old order, paralysing the
instability and inconsistency of the liberal bourgeoisie, which wavers between
people’s freedom and the old authorities.

It is exactly these principles of the tactics of the Russian Social-Democratic
proletariat in the present period that the Mensheviks have not understood. Nor
has Comrade Plekhanov understood them. And it is this concrete question
of our tactics that he is trying to evade, obscure and cover up by his arguments
about slips and misprints, by his irrelevant quotations, and so forth.

Judge for yourselves. In Kuryer , No. 5, Plekhanov goes to the length of
ascribing to the Bolsheviks the idea that “the proletariat cannot march by
the side of the bourgeoisie

... this would be opportunism”.

We are not dead yet, Comrade Plekhanov! Anyone who invents legends about us as
if we were dead makes himself ridiculous. Even those who are only slightly
familiar with Vperyod, Proletary, Two Tactics, The Victory of the Cadets , and other Bolshevik pamphlets, will see at once that Plekhanov is
not speaking the truth.

For eighteen months already the Bolsheviks have been asserting that the
Mensheviks’ mistakes are due to their inability to distinguish between the
revolutionary bourgeois democrats and all those bourgeois democrats who
precisely at the present time are rapidly shedding their revolutionism. For
eighteen months already the Bolsheviks have been asserting that owing to their
ludicrous dread of “coming close” to the Socialist-Revolutionaries,
the Mensheviks are coming far too close to the Cadets, and are
underrating the importance of the bourgeois democrats of the revolutionary colour . The Bolsheviks assert that the opportunism of the
Mensheviks consists in their forgetting the basic interests of democracy, and
consequently of socialism , because it cannot achieve real successes in
an era of bourgeois revolution unless democracy is successful — on account
of the temporary successes of liberalism, and in blind awe at the tawdry
triumphs of the Zemstvo people or the Cadets.

This is what constitutes your opportunism , Comrade Plekhanov!

Marx taught us, exclaims Plekhanov, “to inquire what the bourgeoisie is
compelled to do, and not what it wants to do”.

Quite so, Comrade Plekhanov. But it is this lesson of Marx’s that you forget
when you take his name in vain, just as Bernstein did while undermining
Marxism. You forget that the Cadets are “compelled” to seek
a bargain with the old authorities, while the peasant or revolutionary democrats are “compelled” to wage a resolute
struggle against it; or at any rate, that the Cadets are only capable of
striking a bargain, whereas the peasants are also capable of waging a serious
struggle. By means of general phrases about what the “bourgeoisie” in general is compelled to do, Comrade
Plekhanov obscures the concrete issue, namely, what the
“bourgeoisie” of the Cadet colour and the bourgeoisie of
the revolutionary-democratic colour are compelled to do.

Now judge who is actually incapable of distinguishing the different
colours among the Russian bourgeoisie in our day. Who treats the
workers to scholastics, pedantry and “mummified truth”, instead of
pointing to the differences within bourgeois democracy that are essential
precisely today?

Readers who are seriously interested in this problem should solve it not on the
basis of casual impressions, hut by seriously studying Social-Democratic
literature and congress decisions. Compare the resolution on the State Duma
adopted b the Congress with the resolution proposed by the

Bolsheviks. [4]

You will find that it is the Congress (Menshevik) resolution that is unable to draw a clear distinction between the peasant democrats and the
Cadet democrats. On the other hand, it is just the Bolshevik resolution that
stresses this distinction. The Congress resolution merely advises us to expose
the inconsistency of all the bourgeois parties, whereas our resolution
refers to the in stability of the Cadets, and states that we must unite the
peasant democrats against the Cadets. The Congress resolution is quite worthless in this respect, for to expose all bourgeois
parties is the duty of the socialists in all countries at all
times. Whoever confines himself to this merely repeats Marxist
phrases—like a schoolboy learning a lesson by heart—without being
able to digest them and apply them to Russia. It is in the period of a bourgeois
revolution that to say “expose all bourgeois parties” means saying
nothing, and indeed, saying what is not true; for bourgeois parties can be
seriously and thoroughly exposed only when particular bourgeois
parties step into the foreground of history . Our resolution, on the
other hand, distinguishes those particular “colours” that are of
political importance today . And that is why the very first steps taken
by the Duma con firmed the correctness of our resolution, for they
clearly revealed to all the instability of the Cadets and the more revolutionary
nature of the “Trudoviks”.

Another example: the attitude to be taken towards the bourgeois parties. How did
the Mensheviks decide this question before the Congress? With general
phrases—see their draft resolution. And the Bolsheviks? They pointed to
three types of bourgeois opposition: the Octobrists, the Cadets and the
revolutionary democrats (see the Bolsheviks’ draft resolution). [5]

How did the
Congress decide this question? The Mensheviks did not dare to submit
their resolution, and endorsed the Amsterdam resolution ! The Russian
Social-Democrats in the period of a bourgeois revolution have nothing to say
about the Russian bourgeoisie of different colours except to repeat what is
being said in all European countries a hundred years after a bourgeois
revolution!!

Is it not obvious that our esteemed Plekhanov is laying the blame at someone
else’s door?

Take Comrade Plekhanov’s arguments about “true social ism” in
Germany in the 1840s. What was the essence of this “true socialism”?
First, incomprehension of the class struggle and the significance of political
liberty. Second, inability to see the relative importance of the different
strata of the bourgeoisie in the political struggle then being waged. Is it not
ridiculous for Comrade Plekhanov to accuse us of this, when it is he, at the head of the Mensheviks, who is obscuring
the fundamental—because of present conditions—difference
between the Cadet oppositionist bourgeoisie and the revolutionary-democratic bourgeoisie?

This accusation that there is an affinity between the Bolsheviks and
“true socialism” in any case deserves a good laugh. Just think of
it. We have always heard a chorus of accusation that we were too inflexible and
ossified, too adamant. And yet our opponents call us “Blanquists”,
“anarchists” and “true socialists”. The Blanquists are conspirators (they have never been in favour of the general strike), they
exaggerate the importance of revolutionary govern ment. The anarchists
completely repudiate all government, revolutionary or otherwise, and as against
the strict organ isation of the Blanquists, they advocate complete licence to
disorganise. The “true socialists” are something like peaceful Lavrovists, [9] semi-uplifters, non-revolutionaries, heroes of abstruse thought
and abstract sermonising. The Mensheviks could not have found a better stick
with which to beat themselves than these mutually exclusive accusations
against the Bolsheviks. Our best answer to their charges is to point to this
confusion in the Mensheviks’ minds.

We, on the other hand, have always said, and say, that the Mensheviks
constitute the Social-Democratic Right wing, inclining towards opportunism,
i.e., towards forgetting the permanent, important and fundamental interests of
the proletariat for the sake of momentary interests, for the sake of seeming
possibilities of “adjusting” oneself to momentary moods, situations
and relations.

What do Comrade Plekhanov’s present tactics come down to? To grovelling before
the Cadets’ successes, forgetting the very shady sides of their present conduct,
disguising their reactionary character compared with the
revolutionary bourgeois democrats, and befogging the minds of those workers and
peasants who are prone to believe in “petitions” and in a toy
parliament.

The Cadets are doing their utmost to appear like ordinary bourgeois democrats,
to hide their disagreement with the Trudovik Group, to cover up their
disagreements with the peasant democrats and to obtain support for precisely the
Right, unreliable wing of the bourgeois democrats.

No matter what Comrade Plekhanov’s intentions may be, all he achieves is that he
is in practice supporting these reactionary strivings of the
Cadets. And that is why they are so lavish in their praise of him.

Comrade Plekhanov says that as far back as 1903 (Second Congress of the
R.S.D.L.P.) he, in controversy with the then Right wing of the Party (Akimov,
Martynov and others), urged that it was necessary to support every
opposition movement against the autocracy. Marx held the same opinion in
1847. And Plekhanov wants to assure his readers that the Bolsheviks have
forgotten this axiom.

Comrade Plekhanov is mistaken. The general thesis that oppositions must be
supported is not rejected by those who answer the concrete question whether
a particular section of the opposition and revolutionary bourgeoisie
should be supported at a given moment. The mistake Comrade Plekhanov
makes is, first, that he substitutes an abstract consideration for a
concrete historical question. And secondly, his views on bourgeois
democracy in Russia are totally unhistorical . He forgets that the
position of the different strata of these bourgeois democrats changes as the
revolution advances. The higher the revolution rises, the faster do the least
revolutionary strata of the bourgeoisie desert it. Those who do not understand
this cannot explain any thing at all in the course of the bourgeois revolution.

We will take two examples to illustrate the foregoing.

In 1847 Marx supported the most timid opposition of the German bourgeoisie to
the German government. [10]

In 1848, he ruthlessly, furiously denounced and lashed the extremely radical German Cadets—much more to the left than
our Cadets—who were carrying on “constructive work” in the
Frankfurt Parliament, assuring the world that this constructive work was of the
greatest agitational importance, and being unable to understand that the
struggle for real power was inevitable. [11]

Had Marx been false to himself? Had he changed his mind? Had he slipped into Blanquism (as the
Bernsteinians and the German liberal professors think)? Not in the
least. The revolution had advanced . Not only the German
“Shipovites” of 1847, but the German “Cadets” of 1848 as
well had fallen behind . As the true guardian of the interests of the
advanced class, Marx ruthlessly flayed the stragglers, particularly the more influential among them.

In quoting Marx, Plekhanov misrepresents him.

Second example.

In 1903, and even earlier, in 1901-02, the old Iskra supported the
“Shipovites”, i.e., the timid liberal Zemstvo people of that time
who, together with Mr. Struve, issued the slogan of “Bights, and an
Authoritative Zemstvo”. The revolution advanced, and the Social-Democrats
descended, as ii; were, from the opposition upper ranks of the bourgeoisie to
its revolutionary lower ranks. They “badgered” the Shipovites for
their vague demands for a constitution; the constitutionalists, for ignoring
universal, etc., suffrage; those who accepted the latter, for not accepting the
revolution, etc., always in proportion to the development, expansion and
deepening of the whole democratic movement. Did the revolutionary
Social-Democrats contradict themselves, if from support of the oppositionist
“Shipovites” in 1901-02 they went over to support of the
revolutionary peasants in 1905-06? Not in the least. They were quite consistent.

It is Comrade Plekhanov who is inconsistent, in allowing the momentary successes
of the Cadets to obscure from him the loftier democratic tasks that experience
is already bringing to the front.

To proceed. Here is a particularly striking example of Plekhanov’s exceedingly
uncritical attitude towards the Cadet Duma.

Comrade Plekhanov quotes the following passage from
Kolokol :

“ Applying these general propositions to the parliamentary workers’ group,
we may say that this group will express the real aspirations of the more
militant and class-conscious section of the Russian proletariat, in other words,
will deserve to he called a Social-Democratic group insofar as it bases its
activities in the Duma on the fundamental tactical principles of
Social-Democracy.

“ Not to sink in the general Cadet-opposition marsh in the Duma, not to
trail behind the Cadet majority in it, but to oppose this majority, and to
expose the narrowness of its aspirations, its leanings to wards compromise with
the ’Right’ parties and with the government— these are the only tactics
worthy of representatives of the proletariat, the truly Social-Democratic
tactics that we must strongly recommend to the representatives of the workers in
the Duma. If they pursue any other tactics, tactics that obscure the class-consciousness of the proletariat
whose representatives the members of this group consider them selves to be in
the Duma, they will become hangers-on of the bourgeois parties, tools with which
to hinder the proletariat in fulfilling its in dependent tasks in the general
course of the Russian revolution.”

Plekhanov comments on this, as follows:

“ If our Poltava comrade had to apply his general propositions to the
Socialist Party in France he would not have to make any serious changes in the
last lines of his article. He could merely substitute the word ’radical’ for the
word ’Cadet’, ’Chamber of Deputies’ for ’Duma’, and lastly, the phrase
’social-historical movement’ for ’Russian revolution’. That is amazingly
convenient.”

We invite our reader, to go over this passage from Kolokol and
Plekhanov’s comment once again. The latter reveals to us with rare clarity one
of the causes of Plekhanov’s turn towards Bernstein.

Just think. “Kolokol” could merely substitute, in the last
lines of its article, the word “radical” for “Cadet” and
the phrase “Chamber of Deputies” for “Duma”.

This argument nails Comrade Plekhanov’s fallacies to the counter. It shows how
very far he is from understanding what constitutional illusions are, and hence
from under standing the present situation in the Russian bourgeois revolution.

Plekhanov has lost sight of the fundamental difference between the
Russian Cadets and the Russian Duma, and the French radicals and the French
Chamber of Deputies, between the relations of the former and those of the
latter. He has overlooked a very short phrase in the Kolokol
article, a very short but very characteristic and notable one. That phrase is:
“compromise with the government ”.

Think of it, Comrade Plekhanov. Can there be any talk in France about a
“compromise” between the Chamber of Deputies and the government?
No. Why? Because in France, in all things that matter, the government is
subordinate to’ the Chamber. The majority in the Chamber is itself the actual
government , for it appoints to the Ministry the men it
desires. By securing a majority in the Chamber, the radicals
become the government. Today the alignment of parliamentary forces
corresponds, more or less, to the align ment of real forces among the people,
and to the attitude of the state to the people. Today the written Constitution does not to any
extent diverge from the actual Constitution, from the alignment of
forces.

In Russia there can and mast be talk about an, agreement between the
majority in the Duma. and the government. Why? Because in our country real power
belongs, in law and in fact, not at all to the Duma , but to the old
autocratic government. Unlike the Chamber of Deputies, the Duma is not an
organ of state power, but merely an instrument for the presentation of the
petitions, requests and demands of a section of the people to the old
authorities. Therefore the majority in the Duma can “enter into an
agreement” with the government; for France this would be an absurdity. The
alignment of parliamentary forces does not in the least correspond either to the
alignment of real forces in the country or to the relations between the state
and the people.

In France the actual class struggle is being waged between the forces that are
represented in the Chamber, and even the proportion in which these forces are
represented corresponds, more or less, to their present relative
“fighting strength”.

In Russia the actual struggle is not being waged at all between the forces that are represented in the Duma, and their representation in the
Duma is just now very distinctly and fundamentally out of proportion to their
present relative “fighting strength”. The real government of Russia
is hardly represented in the Duma at all: it has other “institutions”. The proletariat, too, is hardly
represented, while the peasantry is very poorly represented in proportion to its numbers.

Comrade Plekhanov’s attempt to draw a parallel between Russia and France shows
that he is entirely immersed in constitutional illusions. He takes the name
(parliament, chamber) for the object; the label for the contents. That is why he
completely loses sight of all the more important special features of the
present. situation in Russia, when a struggle is maturing between the
“people”—which is least represented in the

Duma—.–and the old authorities, and the role of the “compromisers”, of deserters in
this struggle, is becoming particularly important and particularly
dangerous .

Just as Bernstein in 1899 did an enormous amount of harm to the German
proletariat by taking the petty-bourgeois intellectual “compromisers” (the social-liberals who were trying to reconcile the
proletariat with the bourgeoisie) for the actual bourgeoisie that was wielding
real power, so Plekhanov in 1906 is doing enormous harm to the Russian
proletariat by taking the semi-reactionary bourgeois “compromisers”
(the Cadets, who are trying to reconcile people’s freedom with the old
authorities) for an independent political force in the state, for an authority
which it is possible and worth while to support.

Bernstein, in appealing for “tactfulness” towards the social-liberals, in appealing for support for them and pleading that they should
not be pushed into the camp of reaction, appealed for support for a
fiction . He was chasing the shadow of social peace and was
oblivious of the fundamental tasks of the struggle for power.

Plekhanov, in appealing for “tactfulness” towards the Cadets, in
appealing for support for them and pleading that they should not be pushed into
the camp of reaction, is appealing for support for a fiction . He is
chasing the shadow of parliamentarism (in the period of a bourgeois,
not a socialist revolution) and is oblivious of the fundamental tasks of the struggle for power .

The social-liberal, Cadet bourgeoisie is carrying both Bernstein and Plekhanov
shoulder-high, praising them to the skies, advertising them, reprinting their
writings for the services they are rendering it in its struggle against
the proletariat.

Make no mistake about it, workers. These phrases about Social-Democrats having
to be “tactful” and about “supporting” the Cadets have a specific meaning in real politics, a meaning that is determined
by the actual alignment of forces and not by Plekhanov’s good
intentions. It may not have been Plekhanov’s intention to allay or blunt
political and social antagonisms between the classes, and between the people and
the old authorities; he may assure other people that he had no such intention;
but in the present political situation this is precisely the effect of
his arguments, whether he wanted it or not.

Bernstein was not striving for social peace (or so he said); but the bourgeoisie rightly understood that this is what his arguments
implied. And look at the Cadet press here in Russia. It is praising
Plekhanov and, regardless of his wishes, is drawing its own deductions from what he says. In yesterday’s Duma
(No. 22), Mr. Kotlyarevsky argued that all “class struggle
and class hatred” were an obstacle to the cause of national
liberation. He drew a parallel between the struggle that Volna is
conducting and the struggle of the Guesdists against the
Jaurèsists, of Fern against Turati, and of Kautsky against Bernstein. He expressed fear that
“this preaching of class hatred that is now making itself heard in
Russia, by undermining the solidarity of the various social groups that is
so essential for joint political action, may cut away

[mark this! I the ground for the activities of any sort of properly constituted popular
representative body”. “Is not this [class hatred] sapping the
very spirit of constitutionalism?”

In today’s Svoboda i Kultura [12] (No. 7), Mr. Struve be wails
the fact that the Social-Democrats “are throwing liberty to be rent
asunder by the furies of class strife” , that they have “a
biassed and morbid craze for the ideas of the class struggle”
(p. 458), that “political peace [recall the words “social
peace” uttered by the European bourgeoisie!] is making entirely new claims
upon us” (p. 514). The bourgeoisie understands perfectly well that
Plekhanov’s ideas foster false hopes of “political peace” and in
practice serve to blunt all class strife and all class struggle. Like the bird
in the fable, Comrade Plekhanov was caught in the snare by only one tiny claw,
but the whole “birdie” now finds itself entirely in Mr. Struve’s
cage, so far as present-day politics are concerned.

“ Abuse is not criticism,” writes Comrade Plekhanov. “Criticism really
develops the mind, whereas abuse obscures it. Take the abusive term
’treachery’. We shout so often about the treachery of the bourgeoisie that when
it does ’betray’, that is, when it makes peace with the bureaucracy, and it
becomes really necessary for us to shout about this from the house-tops, our
cries will no longer have the desired effect, and we shall meet with the same
fate as the boy who shouted, ’Wolf! Wolf!’, when there was no wolf.”

What a beautiful specimen of Russian Bernsteinianism is this little fragment of
Plekhanov’s reasoning!

First, see how clear it is that Comrade Plekhanov has not a leg to stand on. In
November 1905, he wrote in Dnevnik , No. 3: “...we have had a
lot of shouting lately about the bourgeoisie having betrayed something or other [!]. But what can the bourgeoisie have betrayed? At all events, not
the revolution, for it has never served the idea of revolution.”

As you see, in November 1905 Comrade Plekhanov did not even understand what the
bourgeoisie could betray. Now he does. He not only believes that the
bourgeoisie can betray something, but holds that it actually will betray . Within six months Comrade Plekhanov has changed his mind. First he
said that the bourgeoisie could not betray anything. Now he says that it
actually will betray, that is, will make peace with the bureaucracy.

We should have been very pleased with Comrade Plekhanov’s progress, had his
views in other respects not remained just as changeable. Treachery is an abusive
term, he says. This opinion is not new. It is the opinion held by every liberal
bourgeois. The Cadets are dinning into the ears of the Russian public in
thousands of newspaper articles that this talk about the “treachery”
of the bourgeoisie is merely the abusive language of the “wild”
Bolsheviks. Now the bourgeoisie has found a new ally on this issue. Comrade
Plekhanov has also become convinced that “treachery” is an
“abusive term”.

Just as it was necessary at one time to repeat and reiterate the ABC of Marxism
to counter Bernstein, so it is necessary to do so now to counter Plekhanov. He
is greatly mistaken. “Treachery” is not “an abusive term”; it is the only scientifically and politically correct term with
which to express the actual facts about, and the actual aspirations of, the
bourgeoisie. The word “treachery” expresses the same idea as the
phrase “striking a bargain”. Plekhanov himself cannot help admitting
this, for he identifies treachery with reconciliation with the bureaucracy. And
now see what the “wild” Volna has said about the phrase
“striking a bargain”.

“ But what, in substance, are the bargains struck by the Cadets?” we read in
Volna , No. 13. “ Not personal acts of treachery, of course . Such a crude opinion is utterly alien to Marxism .
The substance of the bargains is (and is only) that the Cadets don’t
abandon, and don’t want to abandon, their stand for preserving the old
regime and for obeying the commands of this regime.” [6]

Thus the essence of treachery, or of striking bargains, is not personal acts of
treachery. Treachery, or striking bargains, only means that the party
of “people’s” (read “bourgeois”) freedom is striving to keep
the old autocracy in power, to induce it to share power with the
bourgeoisie.

The party of “people’s freedom” is betraying people’s freedom just
because it is surrendering a large share of the people’s rights and the people’s
power to the representatives of the old authorities. Comrade
Plekhanov’s unwillingness to understand this simple truth is quite
monstrous. He is making out that the bourgeoisie in Russia has not yet
betrayed anything, that it will do so only in the future.

This is total incomprehension of the very essence of treachery and bargains.

The bourgeoisie and the Cadets have betrayed freedom and made peace with the bureaucracy a thousand times. What is the programme of
the Constitutional-Democratic Party? Does it represent a certain political step
taken by the bourgeoisie? Undoubtedly it does. But this programme is precisely a
programme of treachery, of striking bargains! And every political step
the Cadets take is, in one way or another, a step in the fulfilment of
this programme. Trubetskoi’s [13] speech in the summer of 1905, the Cadets’ hedging on the issue of the four-point system and the
Draconian Freedom of the Press Bill, are all steps taken by the liberal
bourgeoisie in fulfilment of this programme of treachery.

As Comrade Plekhanov sees it, the bourgeoisie cannot be accused of treachery
unless it takes some new special step. This is not true. If the
bourgeoisie, and the Cadets in particular, continue doing what they have been
doing so far, the sum-total of all their actions will produce the most complete picture of treachery. The essence of present-day

Social-Democratic opportunism is precisely failure to understand this.

If the philistine dreams of the Cadets come true, if the “peaceful
pressure” of the Duma and of “public opinion” compels the
government to make minor concessions, if the Council of State is prepared to
yield a little—as it is advised to do by Mr. Khomyakov, a member of the
Council, whose plans the Cadet newspaper Duma reported yesterday—if the old government reorganises the Ministry and gives several
comfortable seats in it to the Right Cadets, and so forth, the result, in the
long run, will be precisely “reconciliation” between the
Cadets and the bureaucracy. The sum and substance of Plekhanov’s mistake is that
he thinks that the path of “treachery” is, or will be, a
“new” path for our bourgeoisie, whereas it is really a continuation
of its old path that constitutes the “corpus delicti” of
its treachery, to use a legal term.

When the bourgeoisie does “actually” betray, says Plekhanov, nobody
will believe us when we raise a cry about it, because everybody will have become
too accustomed to the word “treachery”.

What infinite political naïveté! The whole policy of
Social-Democracy is to light up the path that lies ahead before the masses of the
people. We hold aloft the torch of Marxism and show, by every step the various
classes take, by every political and economic event, that life confirms
our doctrines. As capitalism develops, and as the political struggle becomes
more acute, larger and larger sections of the people become convinced by what
we say and by this factual (or historical) confirmation of what we
say. At present, let us say, hundreds of thousands of men and women in Russia
are convinced that our appraisal of the Cadets is correct. If the revolution
develops fast, or takes a sharp turn towards an important deal between the
Cadets and the autocracy, millions and even tens of millions will be convinced
that we are right.

Therefore it is the greatest absurdity to say that later on people will not
believe us when we raise a cry about treachery, because we are shouting about
it too often now. Comrade Plekhanov is vainly trying to cover up this
absurdity by arguments that elderly spinsters, dames de classe and the like, usually produce for the benefit of high-school girls. “Criticism
must be well founded,” he tells us for our edification.

Both new and clever. Your criticism too, Comrade Plekhanov, should be well
founded. As it happens, you do not quote a single fact, or a single
important example, to prove that our criticism of the Cadets is unfounded; by
your general arguments, however, you have sown a number of unfounded
opinions in the minds of your readers! Lust imagine, you are reducing the
concept of “treachery” to that of a term of abuse!

Then there is this sentence. “In our ranks, the realisation of this
antithesis [the antithesis of the interests of the bourgeoisie and the
proletariat] has acquired, one may say, the rigidity of a prejudice .”
What do you mean by our ranks”, Comrade Plekhanov? The ranks of the
Russian philistines in Geneva? Or of the members of our Party, in general? But
should not the broad ranks of the masses of the people also be borne in mind?

As a worker aptly remarked in Prizyv , [14]

Plekhanov judges “from afar ”. The masses of proletarians and
semi-proletarians have as yet no idea of either this general antithesis or the
bourgeois character of the Cadets. The Cadet press just now is probably ten
times as large as the Social-Democratic press. The Cadets are also steadily
corrupting the minds of the people through the Cadet Duma and through all sorts
of liberal institutions. One must indeed have lost all sense of reality to
imagine that we are running ahead of events and of the needs of the
masses by exposing the instability and treachery of the Cadets. On the contrary,
in this matter we are lagging behind events and the needs of the
masses! It would be far better, Comrade Plekhanov, if you wrote a popular and
“well-founded” criticism of the Cadets: that would be more useful.

Let us now examine Plekhanov’s deductions concerning the Duma.

“ Our government has already committed many unpardonable blunders,” he
writes. “These blunders have brought it to the brink of an abyss, but they
have not yet pushed it into the abyss. It will fall into the abyss when the Duma is dispersed .... The Duma is rousing even the most somnolent; it is pushing forward even the most backward; it is dispelling from the minds
of the masses the last political illusions bequeathed by history.... The organic
work of the Duma will have the most agitational effect.”

Examine these arguments closely. The government will fall when the Duma is
dispersed. Let us admit this for argument’s sake. But why assume that the Duma
will be dispersed if it engages solely in organic work? What is organic work?
The work the Duma does within the law. The Duma submits Bills to the Council of
State and interpellates the Ministers. The Council of State and the Ministers
procrastinate and, as far as possible, smooth out all the conflicts that
arise. Russkoye Gosudarstvo , the mouth piece of the Russian
Government, long ago said: let the Duma be an opposition Duma, but not a
revolutionary one. In other words: you may engage in organic work, but not a
single step beyond that!

What sense would there be in dissolving the Duma for doing organic work??
And it never will be dissolved if it never takes a revolutionary, quite
non-organic step, or if no movement flares up outside the Duma
that will convert even a Cadet Duma into an obstacle to the govern ment.

We
think that there are far more reasons for such an assumption than for the bare
statement that “the Duma will be dispersed”.

The dissolution of the Duma is not the only cause likely to bring about the fall
of the government. The government may fall for other reasons; for the Duma is by
no means the chief factor, nor the surest index of the movement. It
will not fall of itself, but as a result of the vigorous action— of a
third force (neither the government, nor the Duma). It is the duty of the
Social-Democrats to explain that this action is inevitable; to explain the forms
it is likely to assume, the character and class composition of the forces
capable of carrying out such an “action”; to explain the conditions
under which it can be successful, and so on and so forth. It is the Cadets,
however, who are relentlessly fighting the Social-Democrats for doing
this. Therefore one of the conditions for success in this work, and a guarantee
that the masses will sympathise with it, is that the Cadets must be
discredited.

Whoever talks about the government “falling” into the abyss and yet
says that it is inopportune to criticise the Cadets and to accuse them of
treachery, is utterly inconsistent. If I wanted to copy Plekhanov’s
style, I would say:

falling “into the abyss” is merely a figure of speech, it is a
revolutionary phrase . Into whose hands will power pass? Can the workers
and peasants permit power to pass to the Cadets, who would at once share it with
the old autocracy? Is it not, therefore, particularly necessary to
warn the people against the Cadets?

We think it is. We think that Plekhanov’s opportunism, his absolutely groundless
opposition to tactics which expose the true nature of the
Constitutional-Democratic Party, is hampering and damaging this necessary work
of enlightening the masses about the Cadets.

In saying that constructive work in the Duma will have the must agitational
effect, Plekhanov shows that he takes an extremely one-sided view of things. As
we have already pointed out in Volna , the Mensheviks themselves put
Plekhanov right on this point when they quite justifiably ridicule the prospect of
the Duma “piling up a heap of laws”. [7]

So far Russia has been the country with the largest number of paper police laws. If the Duma spends all its
time on “constructive” work, Russia will soon become the country
with the largest number of paper radical laws. It is the greatest pedantry to
imagine that the agitational effect of these laws or Bills will be in direct
proportion to their length and number. To think so, one must have forgotten the
example of the Frankfurt Parliament, which very zealously engaged in
“constructive work” and, as Plekhanov does now, imagined that it
was constructive work that had the most agitational effect. To think so, one
must he blind to what is already going on in Russia: one must be blind to the
signs that the public is growing weary of the endless blather of Cadet speeches
in the Duma, blind to the impression that is being created by the Cadets’
“Draconian” Bills and their lame excuses in justifying themselves
for introducing them; one must be blind to the Cadets’ infinitely loathsome,
philistine fear of the new wave that is approaching, of the inevitable new struggle, of what Plekhanov has called “falling into the
abyss”. Exposing the Cadets, Comrade Plekhanov, means preparing the minds
of the masses of the people for this fall, preparing them to take an active part
in bringing it about, to keep the Cadets away from the government
“pie” when the fall comes; it means making bold and vigorous preparations
for it.

The Duma is rousing the people; the Duma is dispelling the last illusions, we
are told. True. But the “Duma” is doing this only to the extent that
we are exposing the timidity and instability of the Cadet
Duma, only to the extent that we are explaining the facts about the
Duma that indicate the dispelling of illusions. The Cadets are not doing
this. They are trying to counteract it. They are spreading constitutional
illusions. Zubatovism also roused the workers, also exposed illusions; but it
did this only to the extent that we combated the corruption of the minds of the
people by Zubatovism. And let no one try to attempt to refute this argument by
stating that the Duma is not Zubatovism. Comparing things does not mean
identifying them. Show me a Cadet newspaper, or an important political
statement by the Cadets, which does not contain elements of the political
corruption of the minds of the people.

That is what Comrade Plekhanov forgets when he declares majestically and
portentously: “This is the meaning of all philosophy: all that contributes
to the political education of the people is good; all that hinders it is bad.”
Every thing else is prejudice, scholasticism.

Yes, yes, a certain wing of Social-Democracy is indeed slipping into hopeless
scholasticism. But which wing, the Right or the Left? Can one imagine anything
more pedantic, lifeless and truly scholastic than reducing the tactics of the
proletariat in a period of revolution to the task of politically educating the
people? Where, then, is the border line between the Social-Democratic class
struggle and the struggle of a common or garden bourgeois “uplifter”?
Revolution is in full swing, different classes are coming to the forefront, the
masses have set about making history, bourgeois parties of different shades are
arising, the complicated political crisis is becoming more acute, the struggle
is entering a new stage for which the ground was prepared by the unusually rich crop of events and experience of 1905— and all this is
reduced to one thing: the political education of the people! Truly, our
dame de classe has made a brilliant discovery, Truly, a wonderful
“key” to all the concrete problems of politics and, moreover, a
key that any Cadet, and even the Party of Democratic Reforms, and
even Heyden, would accept in full, would clutch at with both
hands. Yes, this is exactly the “broad” criterion we need, this is what will rally
and unite the classes, and not sow hatred and strife. Precisely! Bravo,
Plekhanov—say all these good people. This is the “solution” that will certainly obscure, or force into the
background, that new “period of madness”, the new “whirlwind” which the bourgeois dreads so much. No
whirlwinds—then no cataclysms, Comrade Plekhanov, be consistent: no
abysses either! The political education of the people—that is our
banner, that is the meaning of all philosophy!

Comrade Plekhanov has wholly and completely taken on the likeness of that
average German Cadet in the Frankfurt Parliament. Oh, how many matchless
speeches these windbags delivered on the political consciousness of the people!
How many magnificent “constructive” laws they drafted for this
purpose! And how nobly they protested when they were dispersed after
they had bored the people to death and had lost all revolutionary importance.

We are told that the Russian revolution goes deeper, its tide is rising, it will
not be stopped at the dam of the Cadet Duma, Cadet phrase-mongering, Cadet
timidity, and Cadet Draconian Bills. Yes, gentlemen, that is absolutely true:
the Russian revolution is broader, mightier and deeper. Its tide is rising. It
is sweeping on over the Cadets. And we revolutionary Social-Democrats express
this deeper movement, we are striving to explain this loftier task to the
workers and peasants, we are helping them, as best we can, to rise above the
Cadet dam.

---
Notes:
[1]
Comrade Plekhanov also forgets to put a comma here, or to
leave out time word “other”, i.e., he himself makes the same
slip that he so sternly admonishes our comrade for!— Lenin

[2]
We know neither the author of the article in Kolokol , nor the
editors, nor the trend of this Social-Democratic newspaper. We are here
concerned with the general ideas underlying Plekhanov’s “criticism” and
not specifically with his polemics with Kolokol .— Lenin

[3]
See present edition, Vol. 9 , pp. 15-140.— Ed .

[4]
See pp. 292-93 of this volume— Ed .

[5]
See pp. 157-58 of this volume.— Ed .

[6]
See p. 405 of this volume.— Ed .

[7]
See pp. 450-51 of this volume.— Ed .

[8]
Kolokol ( The Bell )—a legal Social-Democratic daily published in Poltava, Ukraine, from January 18 (31) to June 8 (21),
1906. Most of its contributors were Mensheviks.

[9]
Lavrov, P. L. (1823-1900)—Russian sociologist and publicist,
noted ideologist of Narodism.

[10]
See Karl Marx’s article “The Communism of the
Paper Rheinischer Beobachter ” (Marx and Engels, On Religion , Moscow, 1957,
pp. 81-86).

[11]
See Frederick Engels, “Marx and the Neue Rheinisehe Zeitung ”
(Marx and Engels, Selected Works , Vol. II, Moscow, 1958,
pp. 328-37); Frederick Engels, “Revolution and Counter-Revolution in
Germany”. VII. “The Frankfort National
Assembly”. New York

Daily Tribune , 1852; Articles from the Neue Rheinische Zeitung
(Marx, Engels, Werke , Bd. 5, Berlin, 1959).

[12]
See Note 108.

[13]
Prince Trubetskoi, S. N. (1862-1905)—a liberal advocating a moderate constitution. In June 1905, be addressed a policy
speech to Nicholas II as a member of a Zemstvo deputation sent to the
tsar.

[14]
Prizyv ( The Call )—a popular newspaper published in St: Peters burg from January 15 (28) to June 15 (28), 1906. From
the end of March onwards its contributors included Bolsheviks.