Date: 1906
Source: ru:PSS/v13

In the article “Liberal Praise,” published in No. 6 of the Nevskaya Gazeta, Comrade L. M. seeks to demonstrate that the bourgeoisie praises the right-wing Social Democrats as true Social Democrats, while denigrating the left-wing Social Democrats as anarchists. According to him, the bourgeoisie is especially wary of anarchism—of its crude methods of struggle, of bombs and the like.

This view is a direct mockery of the truth.

Does Comrade L. M. really not know that in Germany the Bernsteinians, and in France the Millerandists{47}, were praised by the bourgeoisie precisely for their opportunism, for their tendency to blunt the contradictions in the heat of struggle? Has L. M. already “grown so wise” that he is inclined to regard the Bernsteinians and the Millerandists as genuine Social Democrats?

Or let Comrade L. M. reflect, at least, on the attitude of the Russian liberal bourgeoisie toward Narodnik and Socialist-Revolutionary terrorism up until very recently—and toward the December forms of struggle today. After all, when terrorist acts were directed against the autocracy that the liberal bourgeoisie so deeply despised, it praised the Socialist-Revolutionaries more than it praised the Social Democrats. Isn’t that so, Comrade L. M.? And what do you think, Comrade L. M.—would the liberal bourgeoisie have praised the right-wing Social Democrats if they had abandoned their current stance and adopted a purely parliamentary position? And then, Comrade L. M., would you still claim that the liberal bourgeoisie simply fails to grasp that, at this particular moment, pure parliamentary Social Democracy is far more harmful to it and far more beneficial to the proletariat than the right-wing Social Democrats’ present position?

“Volna,” No. 12, May 9, 1906

Printed according to the text of the newspaper “Volna.”