# Among Newspapers and Journals

Comrade N. Rakhmetov discusses in *Golos Truda*{105} the "political tasks of Russian Social-Democracy." Four columns of a feuilleton are devoted to proving that

"for the proletariat, as one of the classes active in Russia, it is by no means advantageous to leave the Duma to its own devices: this would mean striking itself off the list of living political forces, this would lead solely to the proletariat far from utilizing the Russian bourgeois revolution in all the fullness accessible to it."

"One need only pose the question thus," declares N. Rakhmetov, "to see that there can be no two answers to it." Quite true, Comrade Rakhmetov, but the whole trouble is that this is not a "posing of the question," but simply a hackneyed commonplace.

The "question," after all, was never posed in this way. How exactly the question was posed—and is posed—Comrade Rakhmetov, meanwhile, evidently knows, when from the above tirade he draws the following completely unexpected conclusion:

"The proletariat is obliged—both before itself and before the whole country—not only not to support passive neutrality in the struggle of the Duma against autocracy, but boldly and resolutely to take the side of the Duma against the government in this struggle."

Here already begins the "question." And Comrade Rakhmetov himself understands this, for he foresees that

"the newspaper *Svetoch*[48] will probably treat such tactics with great skepticism. This newspaper writes: 'The irreproachable dialectical scheme of "revolution through the Duma" suffers from the neglect of just one mundane, prosaic fact: the fact that the existing Duma is an institution consisting in the majority of bourgeois elements that fear revolution and, by virtue of this, are hostile to it.' Such arguments can serve as the best indicator of how a Social-Democrat should never, under any circumstances, argue. A Social-Democrat must know that the political tactics of the proletariat are dictated not by the mood of other social groups, but by that objective historical process which will compel these groups to definite actions. A Social-Democrat must know and take into account what those classes with which he has to deal will be obliged to do. And by posing the question in this way, he becomes convinced of the following: by expressing readiness to revolutionarily support the Duma against tsarism, the proletariat thereby compels the Duma to greater revolutionary activity. A significant dose of political immaturity is needed not to understand this simple 'truth.'"

A strange argument! According to Comrade Rakhmetov, it turns out that even if our bourgeoisie is counter-revolutionary in mood, it can still be compelled to become revolutionary.

For this, it appears, it is necessary to "encircle the Duma with a fiery ring of revolutionary pressure." Then the Duma will face the "question": "either burn or merge with the general flame," "a question of life or death."

We are very fearful for Comrade Rakhmetov; lest Comrade Plekhanov catch him out for a metaphysical "posing of the question," for an inability to pose the most important political question dialectically. After all, the former Mensheviks and Comrade Plekhanov so often protested against such "either-or" in political questions. Why necessarily "either burn or merge with the general flame"? Does Comrade Rakhmetov really think that for the faction of Messrs. Gertsenstein and Nabokov there is no third way out? Well, why should they not, in alliance with more "respectable" bureaucrats, attempt, for example, to break through this "fiery ring of revolutionary pressure"?

We, for example, think that if the victoriously rising wave of revolution does compel the leading elements of the Kadet party to anything, it is precisely to this third way out, i.e., simply to a deal with the bureaucrats.

That the "Party of People's Freedom" in its present form may "burn" in this enterprise—that is entirely probable, but when will the Comrade Rakhmetovs finally understand that all the hullabaloo of people's freedom was for the Kadets a mere stepping-stone to ministerial portfolios, and by no means to that "struggle against tsarism" which the Comrade Rakhmetovs so unsuccessfully try to impose on them. And in general: the masters of the Duma—for the time being—are the Kadet center; you want to "encircle this Duma with a fiery belt of revolutionary pressure." This is very good, this is unconditionally important and necessary. But should one not, in doing so, tirelessly warn those "pressing" that by their pressure they will inevitably... squeeze the present masters of the Duma into the embrace of the bureaucrats? Should one not, Comrade Rakhmetov?

Written June 22 (July 5), 1906

Printed June 23, 1906, in the newspaper *Ekho* No. 2

Printed according to the newspaper text