V. I.

Lenin

The Unity Congress of the R.S.D.L.P.

April 10 (23)-April 25 (May 8), 1906

2

Speech in Reply to the Debate on the Present Situation and the
Class Tasks of the Proletariat

I shall try to keep to the most important points. Comrade
Ptitsyn [1] reminded me of the saying: the ball comes to the player. He asked:
“What makes the Bolsheviks think that the main form of the struggle now is
breaking the laws, etc.?” Do take your Cadet spectacles off, Comrade Ptitsyn! It
seems to you that parliamentarism is the main form of the struggle. Look at the
unemployed movement, the movement among the armed forces, the peasant
movement. The main form of the movement is not in the Duma; it can only play an
indirect role. Comrade Plekhanov said that Hegel would have turned in his grave
twice over had he heard my reference to him. But Comrade Plekhanov spoke
before Comrade Ptitsyn, and it is to him that this remark applies. Comrade
Ptitsyn worships the present; he sees only things that lie on the surface; he
does not notice what is going on deep below the surface. He does not study
things in their process of development. He thinks that talk about the head and
the tail, about whether the proletariat should play the part of vanguard or
rearguard, is mere phrase-mongering. This brought out all the more vividly the
fundamental mistake of the Mensheviks. They do not see that the bourgeoisie is
counter-revolutionary, that it is deliberately striving for a deal. They refer
to the Jacobins, and say that they were naive monarchists and yet became
republicans. The Cadets, however, are not naive, but deliberate
monarchists. This is what the Mensheviks forget.

Our formidable Comrade Leonov [2] said: “Look, the ’Bolsheviks’ talk about
the revolutionary people; but so do the ’Mensheviks’, in their
resolution.” Comrade Leonov mentioned Marx, who in his Class Struggles in France said that a republic is the supreme political form of the
rule of the bourgeoisie. Comrade Leonov should have read on. He would have
found that the republic was imposed on the bourgeoisie by a temporary
situation and that, having broken up into two factions—Legitimists and Orleanists [3] — it endured the republic against its will. [4]

Dan said: “The ’Bolsheviks’ ignore the importance of political
organisation.” That is not true; but it would be merely a truism to talk about
the importance of organisation in general. The point is, what particular forms
of political organisation are necessary today? We must say on what ground we are
building a political organisation. The “Mensheviks” take as their
premise an upsurge of the revolution, and yet recommend tactics that would be
suitable for a decline, and not for an upsurge, of the revolution. In this way
they play into the hands of the Cadets, who are doing every thing to discredit
the period of October-December. The “Mensheviks” talk about an
explosion. Put that word into the resolution. If you do, the present form of the
movement—the elections to the State Duma, and so forth—will appear only as
a transitory form.

Comrade Dan said: “The slogans of the ’Minority’ have been
confirmed”; and he referred to revolutionary local self-government bodies,
to the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies. But take Plekhanov’s Dnevnik ,
No. 5. There Plekhanov says that revolutionary local self-government
“misleads people”. But whom has this slogan misled, and when? We
have never repudiated this slogan; but we regarded it as inadequate. It is
half-hearted; it is not a slogan of victorious revolution. The reference to the
Soviets of Workers’ Deputies is beside the point. We have not yet discussed
them.

Plekhanov’s mistake is that he does not at all analyse the forms of the movement
in October. He said: “Soviets of Workers’ Deputies are desirable and
necessary.” But he has not taken the trouble to investigate what Soviets of
Workers’ Deputies are. What are they? Organs of revolutionary local
self-government, or rudimentary organs of authority? I assert, and this thesis cannot be refuted, that they represent a struggle by
means of revolutionary authority. This, and this alone, is the characteristic
that distinguishes the struggle in October-December from the present struggle;
we cannot impose any particular form of struggle on the movement.

Plekhanov said: “Bernstein was praised for his theory, for having
abandoned theoretical Marxism, whereas I was praised for my tactics.” “The
situation is different now,” said Comrade Plekhanov. To this Comrade Varshavsky
rightly answered that Bernstein was praised for his tactics, for trying to
blunt antagonisms, as the Cadets are doing. Bern stein tried to blunt social
contradictions on the eve of the socialist revolution. Plekhanov is trying to
blunt. political contradictions at the height of the bourgeois-democratic
revolution. That is why the Cadets are praising Plekhanov and the Mensheviks.

Comrade Plekhanov said: “We do not reject the seizure of power, but we
want it to be seized in the way it was done in the period of the
Convention, [5] and not by conspirators.” Well, put that into your
resolution, “Menshevik” comrades. Reject Leninism, denounce the
Socialist-Revolutionary conspirators, and so on, and so forth; that doesn’t
frighten me in the least. But put in a clause about seizing power on the lines
of the Convention, and we will sign that resolution with both hands. But
remember, Comrade Plekhanov:

as soon as you do that, the Cadets will stop praising you—they
really will.