V. I.

Lenin

Theattitude of the Menshevik Social-Democratic press towards Plekhanov’s
well-known Herostratian articles in Tovarishch deserves the attention
of the whole party of the working class. The most prominent representative of
the Menshevik trend, the leader of the Mensheviks, as all the liberal newspapers
openly and constantly call him, is publicly proposing a joint platform
for the Social-Democrats and Cadets.

Andthe Mensheviks are silent!

Onewould think that they had no newspapers, magazines, leaflets, institutions,
collegiums, not a single Party organisation. One would think that they were not
in the least concerned by what their leader says about their
policy in the hearing of all Russia....

Butwe are all perfectly aware that the Mensheviks possess both
organisations—even such influential ones as the Central
Committee—and organs of every type. Their silence, therefore, is only
another proof of the utter falsity of their position. The Bundists alone stand
out among the mass of the Mensheviks. They have protested against the slogan of
“a Duma with full power” in their Volkszeitung , which unfortunately is almost unknown among the Russians. They have poured ridicule on
Plekhanov in their Nasha Tribuna , published in the Russian
language. They have thus proved, at any rate, that they have the courage of
their convictions, the courage to recognise in deed and not only in words their
own Party organisation, whose obligation it is openly and
straightforwardly to express its opinion on all political questions, and to
place its political duty to the proletariat above all considerations of personal sympathy, friendship and respect of persons.... [1]

Whata disgraceful thing to happen in a workers’ party! The trend which
predominates in the Party and controls the Central Committee does not dare to
mention the mistakes of one of its members. At all meetings, at all
debates at which workers are present, at all discussions with the Bolsheviks,
the Mensheviks solemnly avow that they disagree with Plekhanov. But they are
silent about it in their press: not a single official declaration from
any Party unit. What is this? Repudiation in secret and confirmation by official
silence? Abuse the master ... behind his back and be silent in his
presence. Such things are done only by .. well, gentlemen, we’ll leave you to
guess who does such things.

Butto the workers and the whole Party membership we say: You cannot trust
political leaders who disappear, bag and baggage, at the first surprise attack
from whatever quarter. They are not to be trusted. Whenever any final decision
is to be taken, all these “leaders” will act not as they
say but as some third person says for them .

Bythe way, the behaviour of Plekhanov and the Mensheviks in the present
incident is a good illustration of the current talk about the
“intellectualist” character of our Party. Yes, it is true that the
non-proletarian intelligentsia has far too much influence on the proletariat in
our Party. If that were not the case, would the proletarian party tolerate

Plekhanov’s antics and the Mensheviks’ attitude towards them even for a week?
How clearly this reveals the true nature of the talk about a non-party
labour congress. If only our Party were superseded by a legal labour (simply
labour, not Social-Democratic) party, as Larin and the publicists of Nashe Dyelo and Sovremennaya Zhizn desire, there would be a wide field
for actions like Plekhanov’s. Write for any newspapers you please, enter into
any literary or political blocs with anyone you please, propose your
own slogans in your own name, completely ignoring any Party
organisation! Complete freedom for intellectualist individualism, while the mass
of non-party workers remains an amorphous mass. Is this not the ideal of the old
Prokopovich Credo (for which Plekhanov and I, in 1899-1900, attacked
Prokopovich and drove him and all his fraternity out of the Social-Democratic
Party)? The Credo—that quintessence of Social-Democratic
opportunism—advocated non-political, non-party labour unions for the
economic struggle, and political struggle through liberal channels. Blocs with
the Cadets and a non-party labour congress are nothing but a 1906-07 edition of
the Credo of 1899.

Plekhanov’sarticles in Tovarishch are simply Larin’s proposal put into
practice: free propagandist societies for all and sundry
“socialists”—if they can be called socialists— against a
background of non-party labour organisations. In actual fact , Plekhanov
wrote in Tovarishch not as a member of the Party, not as a member of
one of the Party organisations. This is a fact which cannot be explained away
by any sophistry; and no “hushing up” of this fact by the Menshevik
Central Committee can save a certain faction in our Party. In fact, Plekhanov
wrote exactly as Larin wrote, as a non-party socialist in a non-party
“socialist” organ; and he put forward a non-party, non-socialist and
even anti- socialist proposal.

Vasilyevhas followed in Plekhanov’s footsteps. Switzerland, owing to its
freedom from the traditions of the Russian revolutionary proletariat, is
supplying us with more and more “advanced” opportunists.

Vasilyevis a prominent Menshevik. He has worked with Mensheviks; not with
Mensheviks casually met in some remote provincial town, but with the most
prominent and most responsible Mensheviks. Hence, the Mensheviks have no right to treat
Vasilyev with disdain.

And Vasilyev directly refers to Plekhanov. More than that, he refers to him
in support of his own case. He calls Plekhanov’s disgraceful (for the
Social-Democratic Party) article in the Cadet press prop:sing a joint platform
with the Cadets “a courageous call”. He “regrets” that “there are no Plekhanovs in the other parties”.

Vasilyevdisplays much zeal but little intelligence. He wanted to praise
Plekhanov, and in praise of him he blurt ed out: “Unfortunately there are
no Plekhanovs in the other parties.” This is matchless! Good Vasilyev was the
first to use the word “Plekhanovs” as a generic term for
politicians who act on their own account, and independently of their party. From
now on people xviii probably begin to speak of:

“the Plekhanovs in the Vasilyev sense of the word....”

Slapping“the Plekhanovs” on the back, the Vasilyevs dot the i’s and
cross the t’s. In 1899, the authors of the Credo , Prokopovich &
Co., spoke of a pure labour movement free from the germs of revolution. The
Vasilyevs talk of a revolution which must give birth to a
“constitution” and nothing more, and give birth to it without the aid of mid wives, without revolutionaries. No
midwives, no revolutionaries, no revolutionary people—such is Vasilyev’s
slogan.

Shchedrinonce poured classic ridicule on the France that was shooting the
Communards, the France of the bankers who were cringing before the Russian
tyrants. He called her a republic without republicans. [2]

It is time a new Shchedrin was born to ridicule Vasilyev and the Mensheviks, who are
advocating revolution with the slogan of “no” revolutionaries,
“no” revolution.

Arewe right in interpreting Vasilyev’s “pronouncement” in this way? Are we right in putting him on a par with the Mensheviks?

Ofcourse, we are! Vasilyev’s whole article, all his ideas, all his proposals
are imbued with the “plan” to facilitate the birth of a constitution
by killing the revolution. To “temporarily relinquish” all
programmes, to merge all Social-Democrats, Socialist-Revolutionaries, and
suchlike with the Cadets in one liberal party, to unite them all for the
struggle for a “political constitution” “without the simultaneous solution of economic programmes"(this is exactly what the letter
says—“without solution of programmes”. The Swiss advisers of the
Russian proletariat are not always able to express themselves in good
Russian)—does not all this evince a desire to save the constitution by
renouncing the revolution?

Arevolution in the real, serious sense is inconceivable without
“solution of economic programmes”. A revolution can only be made by
the masses, actuated by profound economic needs. The fall of
absolutism in Russia, its real fall, would inevitably mean an
economic revolution. Only those who are virginally innocent of
socialism can fail to under stand this. To abandon economic programme means
abandoning the fundamental economic causes of revolution, abandoning the economic
interests which impel the masses of downtrodden, cowed, ignorant people to wage
a great and unprecedentedly selfless struggle. It means abandoning the masses,
leaving only a gang of intellectual spouters, and substituting liberal spouting
for socialist policy.

“Whatbenefit was it to the peasants that their cause was espoused by the
Duma that was dissolved mainly on account of the agrarian question?” Does not
this argument entitle Vasilyev to have a monument erected to him in his lifetime
for socialist opportunism unsurpassed in the world?

Andis this not (we now pass to the second of the two questions raised above) a
Menshevik argument?

Ridein the same compartment with the Cadets as far as Tver without disturbing
each other, says Plekhanov. Ride with the Cadets to the Duma, allying ourselves
with a non-revolutionary party (for a time! “for a short time!” says
Vasilyev, supplementing the Menshevik formula) for revolutionary
objects—say the Mensheviks. Ride together as far as a Cadet Cabinet, said
our Central Committee recently.

Yes,let’s ride, agrees Vasilyev, “without jostling or frightening each other”. “Now, at this moment, it [the struggle of classes
and groups] is fatal and criminal.”

Towage the class struggle is criminal; to jeopardise the constitution by
revolutionary demands (such as: a Duma with full power, a constituent assembly,
etc.) is criminal. however much the Mensheviks may repudiate Vasilyev (they have
not done so yet, by the by) they will never be able to obliterate the fact that it is this idea that underlies blocs with the
Cadets, support for the demand for a Duma Cabinet, and all these joint trips
as far as Tver, etc., etc.

Vasilyev,of course, is unique. But even unique phenomena of nature occur only
in a definite environment and spring only from definite conditions. Vasilyev. of
course, is the Mont Blanc of opportunism. But one does not find Mont Blancs in
the steppes. They exist only among Alpine peaks. Vasilyevs can only appear in
company with the “Plekhanovs”, Cherevanins, and tutti quanti down to Prokopovich.

Andthanks to “the Plekhanovs in the Vasilyev sense” Mr. Struve is
able to say, as be did at a meeting in Solyanoi Gorodok on December 27
( Tovarishch of December 28) that “all the present opponents of
the Cadets will in the near future become Cadets themselves. Tovarishch is already being called a Cadet paper. The
Popular Socialists are being called Social-Cadets, the
Mensheviks—semi-Cadets. Many people regard G. V. Plekhanov as a Cadet, and
indeed, many of his present utterances can be welcomed by the Cadets. It is a
pity only that he did not say these things when the Cadets stood alone. The
Bolsheviks alone may prove incorrigible, hence their fate will be to end up in a
museum of history.”

Thankyou for the compliment, clumsy Mr. Struve! Yes, we shall end up in the
museum of history that is called “the history of the revolution in
Russia”. Our Bolshevik slogans, the Bolshevik boycott of the Bulygin Duma,
the Bolshevik calls for a mass strike and uprising (as early as the Third
Congress) will be inseparably and forever associated with the October
Revolution in Russia. And we shall use our place in this museum even
during long years or (if it comes to the worst) decades of reaction to teach the
proletariat to hate the treacherous Octobrist-Cadet bourgeoisie, to despise
intellectualist phrases and petty-bourgeois sentimentality. We shall use our
place in this museum under all political conditions, even the worst,
to preach relentless class struggle to the workers, to teach them how to prepare
for a new revolution—one that will be more independent of the
half-hearted and flabby bourgeoisie, and closer to the socialist revolution of
the proletariat.

Andyour place in the museum, worthy Mr. Struve, will be the place assigned to
those who rejoice and make fine speeches when counter-revolution triumphs. You
will always be able to rejoice at such times over the fact that the
revolutionaries have fallen in battle and the stage is occupied by the liberals, who
lay down voluntarily, lay down at the enemy’s feet, so as to “crawl into
infamy”.

If,contrary to our expectations, the revolution is not destined to rise again
and wrest power from the tsar and his gang, you will long remain the hero of the
counter-revolution. We will have a “place in the museum”, but a
good place—that of the October struggle of the people . If,
however, the revolution rises again, as we believe it will, every trace of the
miserable Cadets will disappear within a week, and the struggle of the masses of
the proletariat and the ruined peasantry will once again go forward under
Bolshevik slogans. Under the hegemony of the Cadets, the revolution can only
lie in the dust. It can be victorious only under the hegemony of the Bolshevik
Social-Democrats.

---
Notes:
[1]
We have just received an extract from the Georgian Social-Democratic
organ of the Tiflis Mensheviks , “ Tsin ” (“ Forward ”), of December 8. The Tiflis Mensheviks
emphatically challenge Plekhanov’s views and declare that his arguments in
favour of the slogan: “a Duma with full power” are erroneous, that the
Social-Democrats cannot take this slogan to mean a constituent
assembly. The slogan of “a Duma with full power”, they write, “would
mean the curtailing of our programme”. Further on they argue that this
slogan is also unacceptable to the Cadets, and that in general a joint
platform for the Social-Democrats and Cadets is quite out of the
question. A joint platform means “clipping the wings of our Party’s
independence, blurring the differences between the views of the
Social-Democrats and those of the bourgeois parties”.

Youare right, Tiflis Menshevik comrades! We note with satisfaction
that in spite of the Central Committee and the majority of Russian
Mensheviks, the Bundists and the Caucasians have not swerved from their
duty to state plainly that Plekhanov’s view and his whole statement are
wrong. — Lenin

[2]
Lenin is referring to N. Shchedrin’s sketches From Abroad printed in the January issue of Otechestvenniye Zapiski
( Fatherland Notes )
for 1881.