V. I.

Lenin

Aswe know, the Unity Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour
Party evaded the task of making a class analysis of the political parties
in Russia and of defining the proletarian attitude to these parties. Its
general endorsement of the Amsterdam Resolution was nothing more than a
form of evasion. And yet the revolution more and more insistently demands
that we apply the Marxist method and Marxist theory to throw light on the
profound and highly interesting process of the formation of parties, which
for obvious reasons is more rapid and intense in Russia than anywhere
else.

Thisprocess, of course, has not come to an end by a long, long way, and
has not yet produced fully stable results. But such a process can
never come to an end in capitalist society, and its results can
become “stable” only if the revolution, as the drastic demolition of the whole of the old political superstructure, reaches a
state of stagnation. Therefore we cannot under any circumstances postpone
our analysis of the bourgeois parties, the more so, because the period of
the October liberties, on the one hand, and the period of the First Duma,
on the other, have undoubtedly already produced important results
which must not be ignored. The open revolutionary struggle by means of
strikes, uprisings, etc., and the new election campaign will demand from
our Party a clear and precise definition of its attitude to the various
parties, and this is possible only on the basis of a scientific, i.e., a
class analysis.

Letus start with the enumeration of the more or less important political
parties (or, perhaps, types [1] of parties) in their order from “Right” to “Left”.

1) The Union of the Russian People, the monarchists, etc.;

2) the Party of Law and Order;

3) the Octobrists;

4) the Party of Peaceful Renovation;

5) the Party of Democratic Reforms;

6) the Cadets;

7) the free-thinkers, the radicals, the Bezzaglavtsi , etc.;

8) the Toilers’ Popular Socialists;

9) the Socialist-Revolutionaries;

10) the Maximalists;

11) the Social-Democrats—Mensheviks and Bolsheviks, We do not
count the anarchists, for it would be too risky to call them (and,
perhaps, the Maximalists) a political party.

Inthis motley series of parties, we can clearly distinguish five main
types :

1) the Black Hundreds;

2) the Octobrists;

3) the Cadets;

4) the Trudoviks, and

5) the Social-Democrats. The soundness of this classification is
proved by the analysis of the class nature of each particular party.

Therecan be no doubt about the need to single out the Social-Democratic Party
as a distinct type. It is a type common to the whole of Europe. In Russia it is
the only workers ’ party, the party of the proletariat , both in
composition and in its strictly consistent proletarian point of view.

Further,it is equally obvious that the Trudoviks must also be singled
out as a distinct type. They include: the Toilers’ Popular Socialist Party, the
Socialist-Revolutionaries proper, and, lastly, the Maximalists. They all base
their theoretical standpoint on the “labour principle”. They all
strive to unite and merge the proletarians with the small producers in a single
“toilers’ group”. They strive mainly for the support of the
peasantry. The State Duma, where the majority of the peasant deputies formed a
separate “Trudovik Group”, proved in fact that the above-mentioned
trends have succeeded (more or less) in actually laying the foundation of a political· organisation of the peasants.

True,the political parties of this type have a far less definite and finished
form than that of the Social-Democratic Party. Nominally, the Party of the
Maximalists does not exist, although their split from the
Socialist-Revolutionaries is an accomplished fact, certified by their
independent actions, both literary and terrorist. In the State Duma, the Socialist-Revolutionaries did not
form their own group, but acted behind the backs of a section of the
Trudoviks. The Toilers’ Popular Socialist Party, likewise, is still only about
to be born, although its literary activity is already conducted not only in
alliance with the Socialist-Revolutionaries proper, but sometimes quite
independently of them. Its leaders in the Duma also acted partly in unison with
the Socialist-Revolutionaries and partly independently of them. The Minutes of the First Congress of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party (Paris 1906)
also show the Toilers’ Popular Socialists as a distinct
“ group ”, which behaves independently of the
Socialist-Revolutionary Party. In short, we find in this camp:

(1) a secret party (the Socialist-Revolutionaries) quite incapable of creating anything like
a stable, mass organisation, and incapable of acting independently under its
own flag, whether in the State Duma or in the literature of the period of
liberties; (2) a nascent legal party (the Toilers’ Popular Socialists)
which acted as a group at the Congress of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party
(December 1905), but which hitherto has been unable even to begin the formation
of a mass organisation and which in its literature and in the State Duma acts
mostly in alliance with the Socialist-Revolutionaries.

Thefact that after two periods of relative freedom (the “October”
and the “Duma” periods) the Trudoviks still remain a politically
amorphous body cannot, of course, be attributed to chance. Undoubtedly, this to
some extent is due to the fact that the petty bourgeoisie (especially in the
rural districts) is less capable of organising than the
proletariat. Undoubtedly, the ideological confusion of the Trudoviks also reflects
the extremely precarious position of the small producer in present-day society:
the extreme Right wing of the Trudoviks (the Toilers’ Popular Socialist Party, led by Peshekhonov & Co.) differs very little from the Cadets, for it
deletes from its programme both republicanism and the demand for all the
land; the extreme Left of the Trudoviks, the Maximalists, differs very
little from the anarchists.

Thesetwo extremes indicate the amplitude, so to speak, of the political
oscillations of the toiling petty bourgeoisie. That the petty bourgeoisie
should display such instability is quite explicable from the economic point
of view. Undoubtedly, the immediate future of the Russian revolution will
increase rather than diminish this instability. But, while noting and
explaining this instability, we must not lose sight of the enormous political
importance of the parties of the Trudovik type. Real political liberty will
strengthen these parties most of all , because in the absence of
political liberty their ability to organise is less than that of the
bourgeoisie, and also less than that of the proletariat. On the other hand, in a
predominantly petty-bourgeois and peasant country like Russia, the formation of
ideologically vacillating and politically unstable but exceedingly large
petty-bourgeois or “Trudovik” parties is inevitable.

Ina country like Russia, the outcome of the bourgeois revolution depends most
of all on the political conduct of the small producers. That the big bourgeoisie
will be tray the revolution is beyond doubt (they have already betrayed it
two-thirds). After October and December, no further proof is required that, as
far as the Russian workers are concerned, the proletariat will be the most
reliable fighter. The petty bourgeoisie, however, is the variable quantity which
will determine the outcome. Social-Democrats must therefore watch very carefully
its present political oscillations between abject Cadet loyalty and bold,
ruthless, revolutionary struggle; and not only watch that process, of course, but as
far as possible bring proletarian influence to bear upon it.

Toproceed. Undoubtedly, the Cadets must be singled out as a separate type. The
Party of Democratic Reforms to the right of them, and the free-thinkers,
radicals, etc., to the left, are not more than quite insignificant offshoots. In
the present political period the Cadets are an independent political type. What
distinguishes them from the Trudoviks is clear. The typical Trudovik is a politically conscious peasant. He is
not averse to a compromise with the monarchy, to settling down quietly on his
own plot of land under the bourgeois system; but at the present time
his main efforts are concentrated on the fight against the land lords for land,
on the fight against the feudal State and for democracy. His ideal is to abolish
exploitation; but he conceives this abolition in a petty-bourgeois fashion, and
therefore, in fact , his strivings are converted into a struggle, not
against all exploitation, but only against the exploitation practised by the
landlords and the big financiers. The Cadet, however, is a typical bourgeois
intellectual and sometimes even a liberal landlord. To compromise with the
monarchy, to put a stop to the revolution is his main striving. Totally
incapable of fighting, the Cadet is a typical stockbroker. His ideal is to
perpetuate bourgeois exploitation in respectable, civilised, parliamentary
forms. His political strength lies in the amalgamation of an enormous mass of
bourgeois intellectuals, who are indispensable in every capitalist society, but,
of course, absolutely incapable of seriously influencing a real change of the
social system in this society.

Thetypical Octobrist is not a bourgeois intellectual, but a big bourgeois. He
is not the ideologist of bourgeois society, he is its real master. Being
directly interested in capitalist exploitation, he has a contempt for all
theories, despises the intelligentsia, and, unlike the Cadets, repudiates all
claims to “democracy”. He is a bourgeois businessman. Like the
Cadet, he is also striving for a deal with the monarchy, but his idea of such a
deal is not some particular political system, or parliamentarism, but an
agreement between a few persons, or chiefs, with the Court camarilla with a view
to directly subordinating the clumsy, dull-witted and Asiatically corrupt
Russian officials to the ruling bourgeoisie. An Octobrist is a Cadet who
applies his bourgeois theories in business. A Cadet is an Octobrist who, when
not busy robbing the workers and peasants, dreams of an ideal bourgeois
society. The Octobrist has still to learn something of parliamentary etiquette
and of political hypocrisy coupled with flirting with democracy. The Cadet has
still to learn something of the art of bourgeois business trickery—and then they will undoubtedly and inevitably merge, quite irrespective of whether
this fusion will be brought about at the present time and by the present
“Peaceful Renovators”.

Butlet us not discuss the future. Our business is to learn to understand the
present. With full power remaining in the hands of the scoundrelly Court gang,
it is quite natural that the mere utterance of democratic phrases by the Cadets
and their “parliamentary” opposition were in fact of greater service to the elements on their lift. It is also natural that the
Octobrist, who is directly hostile to these elements, angrily turned away from
the Cadets and supported (in the elections to the First Duma) the government
Black Hundreds.

The Black Hundreds are the last type of our political parties. Unlike Guchkov
& Co., they do not want the “Constitution of October 17th”, but
the preservation and formal restoration of the autocracy. It is in their
interests to perpetuate the filth, ignorance and corruption that flourish under
the sceptre of the adored monarch. They are united by the frantic struggle for
the privileges of the Court camarilla, for the opportunity, as of old, to rob,
oppress and muzzle the whole of Russia. Their determination to defend the
present tsar’s government at all costs very often unites them with the
Octobrists, and that is why it is so difficult to tell of some members of the
Party of Law and Order where the Black Hundred begins and where the Octobrist
ends.

Thus,the Russian revolution has in an extremely short period revealed the major
types of political parties that correspond to all the main classes of Russian
society. We have a party of the class-conscious socialist proletariat; parties
of the radical, or radically inclined, petty bourgeoisie, mainly of the rural
petty bourgeoisie, i.e., of the peasantry; liberal-bourgeois parties; and
reactionary bourgeois parties. The political formations fail to correspond to
the economic, class divisions only in that the two last-named groups correspond
not to two, but to three groups of political parties: the Cadets, the
Octobrists, and the Black Hundreds. This discrepancy, however, is fully
explained by the transient peculiarities of the present situation, when the
revolutionary struggle has become extraordinarily acute, when it is very
difficult to separate defence of the autocracy from out-and-out defence of the monarchy, when the economic classification (for
progressive and for reactionary capitalism) naturally cuts across the political
classification (for or against the present government). However, the kinship
between the Cadets and the Octobrists is too obvious, and hardly any one can
deny that the formation of a big, “business”, liberal-bourgeois
party is inevitable.

Tosum up: the process of formation of political parties in Russia strikingly
confirms the soundness of the theory of Marxism.

P.S. This article was written before the split in the Union of October
Seventeenth. Shipov’s resignation and the forth coming formation of a moderate
liberal party (the Left Octobrists, the Party of Peaceful Renovation, and the
Right Cadets) now definitely promise to reduce all the Russian political parties
to the four main types that we see in every capitalist country.

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Notes:
[1]
We say types of parties, firstly, because it is impossible to
keep track of all the small divisions, nor are they important (e.g., the
difference between, say, the Progressive Industrial Party, or the
Disc, [2] and the Party of Law and Order is quite negligible); secondly, it would be
wrong to take into account only those parties which have formally appeared
in the political arena and to ignore clearly defined political trends. A
very slight change in the political atmosphere would suffice to convert
these trends into regular parties within a few weeks.— Lenin

[2]
“ Disc ”—the “Democratic Union of
Constitutionalists”, a counter revolutionary organisation which arose in
the autumn of 1905; it united representatives from the big nobility,
conservative sections of the industrial bourgeoisie and the upper
bureaucracy. At the end of 1905 the Disc was merged in the Octobrist Party.