V. I.

Lenin

Report on the Unity Congress of the R.S.D.L.P.

A Letter to the St. Petersburg Workers

IV

Appraisal of the Revolutionary Situation and of the
Class Tasks of the Proletariat

The question mentioned in the above heading was the second item on the agenda
of the Congress. The reporters were Martynov and I. Strictly speaking, Comrade
Martynov in his report did not defend the Menshevik draft resolution, printed in
Partiiniye Izvestia , No. 2. He preferred to give a “general
outline” of his views and a general criticism of what the Mensheviks call
Bolshevik views.

He spoke of the Duma as a political centre, of the harmfulness of the idea of
seizing power, and of the importance of the country’s constitutional development
in a revolutionary period. He criticised the December uprising, called upon us
openly to admit our defeat, and condemned our resolution for its
“technical” presentation of the question of strike and insurrection. He said that “the Cadets, although they are anti-revolutionary,
are erecting the scaffolding for the further development of the
revolution”. (Then why do you not say so in your resolutions, we asked.)
He said that “we are on the eve of a revolutionary explosion”. [1] (Why isn’t that in your resolution, we asked again.) Incidentally, he said:
“Objectively, the Cadets will play a more important role than the
Socialist-Revolutionaries.” The idea of seizing power is akin to the ideas of
Tkachov; the Duma must be put into the foreground as the first step in the
country’s “constitutional development”, as the corner-stone of the edifice of “representative
institutions”—such was the gist of Comrade Martynov’s report. Like all
Mensheviks, he passively adjusted our tactics to the slightest turn in the
course of events, subordinated them to fleeting interests, to momentary (or
apparent) needs, and involuntarily belittled the main and fundamental tasks of
the proletariat as the vanguard fighter in the bourgeois democratic revolution.

I based my report on a precise comparison of the two resolutions before the
Congress. I said that both resolutions admit that the revolution is on the rise
again, that our task is to strive to carry the revolution to the end, and
lastly, that only the proletariat together with the revolutionary peasantry can
accomplish this. One would think that these three propositions should lead to
complete unanimity on the tactical course to be adopted. But which of the two
resolutions more consistently upholds this main point of view, more correctly
motivates it, and more accurately indicates the conclusions to be drawn from
it?

And I went on to show that the argument of the Menshevik resolution was utterly
untenable, that it was a mere collection of phrases and not an argument
(“the struggle has left the government no choice”. This is a splendid
specimen of sheer phrase-mongering! It is the very thing that has to be proved,
but not in this form. The Mensheviks, however, start out from unproved and
unprovable premises). I said that whoever really admits that an upswing
of the revolution is inevitable must draw the proper conclusion as to the
main form of the movement. For this is the fundamental scientific and
political problem that we have to solve, and which the Mensheviks are
dodging. They argue as follows. When there is a Duma, we will support the Duma;
when there is a strike and insurrection, we will support the strike and
insurrection. But they are unwilling, or unable, to deter mine whether the one
or the other form of the movement is inevitable. They do not dare tell the
proletariat, and the whole people, which is the main form of the
movement. That being the case, all those phrases about the upswing of the
revolution and about its completion (the Mensheviks very ineptly said: its
logical completion) are so many platitudes. They imply that the
proletariat—whose conception of the revolution is the deepest and broadest, and whose tactics are prompted by the
general and fundamental interests of democracy—must not be elevated
to the position of foremost leader of the revolution, but must be
degraded to the position of a passive participant and humble
“labourer” in the bourgeois-democratic revolution.

The Mensheviks, I said, accept only the first half of Hegel’s celebrated
proposition: “All that is real is rational, and all that is rational is
real.” The Duma is real; therefore the Duma is reasonable, they say, and rest
content with that. We say:

the fight outside the Duma is “reasonable”. It is the objectively
inevitable result of the whole of the present situation. Therefore it is
“real”, although it is held down for the moment. We must not
slavishly follow the fleeting moment; that would be opportunism. We must ponder
over the more pro found causes of events and over the more far-reaching
implications of our tactics.

The Mensheviks in their resolution admit that the revolution is on the rise and
that the proletariat jointly with the peasantry must carry it to completion. But
whoever seriously takes that view must also be able to draw the necessary
conclusions. If you say: jointly with the peasantry, it shows that you think
that the liberal-monarchist bourgeoisie (Cadets, etc.) is unreliable. Why,
then, don’t you say so, as we do in our resolution? How is it that you do not
say a single word about the necessity of combating constitutional illusions,
that is, belief in the promises and laws of the old autocratic government? It is
habitual for the Cadets to forget about this; they themselves spread
constitutional illusions. But a Social-Democrat who at a moment of revolution
forgets the task of combating constitutional illusions, politically
puts himself on a footing with the Cadets. What is the use of phrases like
“upswing of the revolution”, “carrying it to completion”, or
“a new revolutionary explosion”, if the Social-Democrats do nothing
to dispel the constitutional illusions that are widespread among the people?

At the present time the question of constitutional illusions is the best and
surest criterion by which to distinguish the opportunist from those who want the
revolution to develop further. The opportunist shirks the task of dispelling
these illusions. The advocate of revolution ruthlessly exposes their deceptive character. And yet the Menshevik Social-Democrats are silent on
a question like this!

Not daring to say openly and frankly that the October-December forms of
struggle are unfit and undesirable, the Mensheviks say it in the worst, covert,
indirect and evasive way. This is quite unbecoming for Social-Democrats.

Such were the main points of my report.

As regards the debate on these reports, the following characteristic incidents
are worth mentioning. A comrade who at the Congress was known as Boris
Nikolayevich [2] gave me occasion to exclaim in my reply to the debate:
“The ball comes to the player!” It would be difficult to express the
“sum and substance” of Menshevism more vividly than he did. He said
that it was “curious” that the Bolsheviks should regard the
revolutionary movements of the broad masses of the people, and not the legal or
constitutional form, as the “main form of the movement”. He
said this was “ridiculous”, for there were no such movements,
whereas there was a Duma. All this talk about the proletariat being the
“head”, or “leader”, about the possibility of it becoming the “tail”, and so forth, was “metaphysics” and
“phrase-mongering”.

Take off your Cadet spectacles, I said in reply to this consistent
Menshevik. You will then see a peasant movement in Russia, and unrest among the
armed forces, and the move ment of the unemployed: you will see forms of
struggle that at the moment are “lying low”, but the existence of
which even bourgeois moderates do not dare to deny. They openly say that these
forms are harmful and needless; but the Menshevik Social-Democrats
scoff at them. This is the difference between the bourgeoisie and the
Menshevik Social-Democrats. This was exactly the case with Bernstein, the
German Menshevik, the German Right Social-Democrat. The bourgeoisie in Germany
at the end of the nineteenth century held, and openly declared, that
revolutionary forms of struggle were harmful. Bernstein scoffed at
them.

Being raised at the Congress, the question of Bernstein naturally led to the
question, why was the bourgeoisie praising Plekhanov? The fact that all the
numerous liberal-bourgeois newspapers and other publications in Russia,
including even the Octobrist Slovo , were most zealously praising
Plekhanov could not pass unnoticed at the Congress.

Plekhanov picked up the gauntlet. He said that the bourgeoisie was not praising
him for what it had praised Bernstein for. Bernstein was praised for
surrendering to the bourgeoisie our theoretical weapon, Marxism. He
(Plekhanov) was being praised for his tactics. The situation was
different.

Plekhanov was answered by the representative of the Polish Social-Democratic
Party and by myself. We both point ed out that Plekhanov was wrong . The
bourgeoisie praised Bernstein not only for theory, and, in fact, not for theory
at all. The bourgeoisie doesn’t care a pin for any theory. The bourgeoisie
praised the German Right Social-Democrats because they advocated different
tactics . They were praised for their tactics, for their reformist
tactics as distinct from revolutionary tactics; for regarding the legal,
parliamentary, reformist struggle as the main, or almost the sole, form of
struggle; for striving to convert the Social-Democratic Party into one of
democratic social reforms. That is why Bernstein was praised. The bourgeoisie
praised him for trying to blunt the antagonisms between labour and
capital in the period preceding socialist revolution. The bourgeoisie is
praising Plekhanov for trying to blunt the antagonisms between the
revolutionary people and the autocracy in the period of the bourgeois-democratic
revolution. Plekhanov is being praised for regarding the
“parliamentary” struggle as the main form of struggle; for
condemning the October-December struggle, and particularly the armed
uprising. Plekhanov is being praised because on the question of present-day
tactics he has become the leader of the Right Social-Democrats.

I have forgotten to add what stand the Mensheviks took in the debate on
constitutional illusions. Theirs was not a firm stand. Some of them said that it
was always the task of the Social-Democrats to combat constitutional illusions,
and that this was not the special task of the present moment. Others (Plekhanov)
declared that to combat constitutional illusions was anarchism. These two
extreme and opposite opinions on constitutional illusions glaringly revealed
the utter helplessness of the Mensheviks’ position. When a constitutional
system has become firmly established, when, for a certain period, the
constitutional struggle becomes the main form of the class struggle and of the
political struggle generally, the task of dispelling constitutional illusions is not the special task of the
Social-Democrats, not the task of the moment. Why? Because at such times affairs
in constitutional states are administered in the very way that
parliament decides. By constitutional illusions we mean deceptive faith in a
constitution. Constitutional illusions prevail when a constitution seems to
exist, but actually does not: in other words, when affairs of state are
not administered in the way parliament decides. When actual
political life diverges from its reflection in the parliamentary
struggle, then, and only then , does the task of combating
constitutional illusions be come the immediate task of the advanced
revolutionary class, the proletariat. The liberal bourgeois, dreading the extraparliamentary struggle, spreads constitutional illusions even when parliaments
are impotent. The anarchists flatly reject participation in parliament under all
circumstances. Social-Democrats stand for utilising the parliamentary struggle,
for participating in parliament; but they ruthlessly expose “parliamentary
cretinism”, that is, the belief that the parliamentary struggle is the
sole or under all circumstances the main form of the political
struggle.

Are the political realities of Russia at variance with the decisions of, and
speeches made in, the Duma? Are affairs of state in our country administered in
the way the Duma decides? Do the “Duma” parties reflect with any
degree of accuracy the real political forces in the present state of
the revolution? One has only to put these questions to understand the
Mensheviks’ helpless confusion on the question of constitutional illusions.

This confusion was revealed with uncommon vividness at the Congress when,
although in the majority, the Mensheviks dared not put their resolution
appraising the present situation to the vote. They withdrew their resolution!
The Bolsheviks had a good laugh over this at the Congress. The victors are
withdrawing their victorious resolution—that is what was said about the
extraordinary behaviour of the Mensheviks, unprecedented in the history of
congresses. A vote by roll-call was demanded and secured on this question,
although, curiously enough, the Mensheviks were angry over this and submitted to
the Bureau a written statement which said that “Lenin is collecting
material for agitation against the decisions of the Congress”. As if the right to collect material were
not the right and duty of every opposition! And as if our victors were
not, by their chagrin, accentuating the impossibly awkward predicament
into which they had put themselves by withdrawing their own resolution!
The vanquished insist on the victors accepting their own victorious
resolution! We could not wish for a more outspoken confirmation of the
moral victory we had achieved.

The Mensheviks said, of course, that they did not wish to impose upon us
something we did not agree with, that they did not want to resort to coercion,
and so forth. Naturally, these excuses only raised a smile, and led to more
demands for a vote by roll-call. For on those questions, on which the Mensheviks
were convinced they were right, they did not hesitate to “impose”
their opinion upon us, and to resort to “coercion” (why this
terrible word, I wonder?), and so forth. The resolution appraising the present
situation did not commit the Party to any particular action. But without it,
the Party could not understand the principles and motives
under lying all the tactics adopted by the Congress.

In this respect, the withdrawal of the resolution was a supreme manifestation
of practical opportunism. Our business is to be in the Duma when there is a
Duma, and we don’t want to hear anything like general arguments, general
appraisals or well-considered tactics—this, in effect, is what the
Mensheviks said to the proletariat by withdrawing their resolution.

Undoubtedly the Mensheviks had convinced themselves that their resolution was
wrong and worthless. It is quite out of the question that people who are
convinced that their views are correct should refuse to express them openly and
definitely. But the crux of the matter was that the Mensheviks could not even
propose any amendments to their resolution. This suggests that they could not
agree among them selves on a single important point concerning the appraisal of
the situation and of the class tasks of the proletariat in general. They could
agree only on a negative decision:

to withdraw the resolution altogether. They had a vague presentiment that if
their resolution defining principles were adopted, it would undermine
their practical resolutions. But they did not gain anything
thereby. The resolutions of the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks on the appraisal of the present situation can
and must be discussed and compared by the whole Party, by all
Party organisations. The question was left open. But it must be settled. And a
comparison of these two resolutions with the experience of political life, with
the lessons taught by, say, the Cadet Duma, will splendidly confirm the
correctness of the Bolshevik views on the present state of the Russian
revolution and on the class tasks of the proletariat.

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Notes:
[1]
I have put in inverted commas the words that I have found in my
notes.— Lenin

[2]
Boris Nikolayevich —the Menshevik B. I. Soloveichik.