V. I.

Lenin

On January 6 a St. Petersburg general conference was held. The conference was to
decide whether or not there were to be agreements in the capital with the
Cadets.

Notwithstanding Plekhanov’s appeals to “worker comrades”,
published in Tovarishch; notwithstanding Madame
E. Kuskova’s hysterical articles; notwithstanding Plekhanov’s
threat to list the workers among the “enemies of freedom” if they
insist on maintaining an independent Social-Democratic position, and
notwithstanding the Cadets’ more or less alluring promises, the organised and
class-conscious proletariat of St. Petersburg proved so politically mature that,
after the discussions and the voting, the majority declared against agreements
of any kind with the Cadets. It was clear that the conference, elected by
organised workers after discussions and voting in accordance with platforms, [1] would declare itself to the same effect.

Spaceprevents us from dealing in Proletary with the proceedings of the
conference in detail; besides, consider able literature has been published on
this subject. It is important to note here, however, that our opportunists have
gone so far in their policy of bourgeois compromise that they cannot accept the
conference’s decision. It was obvious from the very outset of the
conference that, sup ported by the Central Committee, the
St. Petersburg Mensheviks would not submit to the conference
decision. The friends of the Cadets were only seeking for a pretext to break with
revolutionary Social-Democracy. A pretext had to be found, no matter what
kind it would be. As the question of the credentials failed to provide
this pretext, the Mensheviks took advantage of the recommendation
of the Central Committee that questions of election tactics be decided by
the electoral units directly concerned, and walked out of the conference on
the issue of dividing the conference into two parts, one especially for the
city and one for the suburbs. They wanted to substitute the territorial
administrative units of the police for Party organisational units. If the
Mensheviks’ advice had been taken, we should not only have had to keep the
suburban districts out of the conference, but we should also have had to
split up hitherto integral districts, such as the Neva, Moscow and
Narva districts, and reorganise the Party to suit the authorities, not the
Party.

Itwas also obvious that, whichever way the question of dividing the conference
was decided, the majority would declare against agreements with the Cadets. The
Mensheviks walked out and, to the delight of the entire bourgeois press,
decided to conduct an independent campaign in St. Petersburg, wage a struggle
against their own Party comrades, split the St. Petersburg proletariat for the
sake of an agreement with the bourgeois and monarchist party—the
“people’s freedom” party.

Thebourgeois press has every reason to rejoice! The gutter newspaper
Sevodnya has solemnly declared in a special Leading article that, by
taking this decision, the Mensheviks have saved Russia ; and
Rech , the official organ of the Cadets, has promised to reward the
Mensheviks by ceding one seat in the worker curia to a “Menshevik”,
but under no circumstances to a “Bolshevik”.

Thefirst result of Menshevik independent action is that the bourgeoisie has
begun to dictate its will to the worker curia.

Continuingits proceedings after the Mensheviks had walked out, the conference
decided (hat, since there is no Black-Hundred danger in St. Petersburg, and in
order to undermine the hegemony of the Cadets and free the democratic petty
bourgeoisie from their influence, an agreement should be entered into, on
definite terms, with the Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Trudoviks for the distribution of seats
(two to the worker curia, two to the Social-Democrats, one to the
Socialist-Revolutionaries and one to the Trudoviks).

Thebourgeois press is jubilant: the Trudoviks and the Socialist-Revolutionaries
have formed a bloc with the Popular Socialists, which is gravitating to the
Cadets; the Mensheviks have broken away—the Bolsheviks are isolated!
Revolutionary tactics are condemned, “peaceful methods” are
triumphant, hurrah for an agreement with the monarchy, and down with the method
of popular mass struggle!

Havingsplit the Social-Democrats and enfeebled the proletariat, the hydra of
revolution, the Cadets shamelessly strike a bargain—with Mr. Stolypin. The
newspapers report that the prime minister has granted Milyukov an audience to
take place in a day or two, and that the prime minister’s condition for
the legalisation of the Cadet Party is—no blocs with the Left. The Cadets
are willing to con cede to the entire “Left”—actually, to the
petty-bourgeois — bloc (the Popular Socialists, Socialist-Revolutionaries, Trudoviks, and Mensheviks) only two out of the six
seats in St. Petersburg. To pacify the gallery the Cadets are prepared
to throw two seats to the importunate petty-bourgeois bloc. As they are certain
the Left bloc will not accept this, the Cadets are negotiating with Stolypin,
the head of the Black Hundreds.

Thescene changes. The election campaign begins. Election meetings are being
held. The Mensheviks, who very, very rarely speak at these meetings, blather
timidly about agreements with the Cadets. The Bolsheviks, who speak at all
meetings, call upon proletarians and semi-proletarians to join a united
workers’ party—the Social-Democratic Party; they call upon all
revolutionary and democratic voters to form a united revolutionary bloc against
the Black Hundreds and the Cadets. The Cadets are shouted down, while the
Bolsheviks are applauded. The democrats in the city—the workers and the
petty bourgeoisie—are swinging towards the Left and shaking off the Cadet
yoke.

Thescene changes: the “compromisers” are in a tearing rage. It is
with foaming mouth that they speak of the Bolsheviks.

Down with the Bolsheviks! In moving unity Novoye Vremya [2] and Tovarishch , the Octobrists and the Cadets,
the Vodovozovs and the Gromans launch a crusade against the red spectre of
Bolshevism. If Bolshevism ever needed justification for its revolutionary
and class tactics, it has now found it in the fury with which it is being
at tacked by the entire bourgeois press. If the petty-bourgeois
revolutionary democrats, sincerely striving to carry out their slogans,
needed an object lesson, they are getting it now in the contempt with which
they have been treated by the big and middle bourgeoisie, in the policy of
compromise (with the government) which the Cadets are pursuing behind the
backs of the people.

Therevolutionary Social-Democrats say to all democrats among the urban and
rural poor, only in alliance with the proletariat, only by throwing off the
tutelage of the Cadets, only in a determined and consistent struggle against the
autocracy will you find salvation. If you are mature enough for this, you will
follow the proletariat. If not, you will remain under the tutelage of the
Cadets; and, whatever the upshot of the election campaign, whatever the result
of your bargaining among yourselves for seats, the proletariat will continue to
pursue its own class revolutionary road.

Menshevismis now undergoing a severe test. The election campaign has become
the corner-stone of its opportunist tactics. Part of the Social-Democrats have
fallen under the hegemony of the bourgeois ideologists. Bourgeois ideologists
are jeering scathingly at the Mensheviks, whom they call “moderate
socialists” (the term Rech uses), who can always be depended
on. Their friends from the Right do not take them into consideration ... they
only count on their loyal service to the Cadets. A section of Social-Democrats
have sunk so low that the liberal bourgeoisie regard them merely as
subservient tools, and the revolutionary-minded proletariat prefers to vote for
the Socialist-Revolutionaries (as was the case in the elections of delegates in
the Menshevik stronghold—the Vyborg District) rather than vote for
such Social-Democrats.

Thecrisis of opportunism is approaching. Menshevism is being dealt a decisive
blow by the agreement with the “compromisers”. The Vasilyevs, Malishevskys and Larins have paved the
way to ... the cemetery. Confusion and mutual expulsion reign in the ranks of
the Mensheviks. Martov is expelling the Vasilyevs and the Malishevskys from the
Party. Let the workers expel the very spirit of Menshevism from the Party!

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Notes:
[1]
Except in the Menshevik Vyborg District and Franco-Russian Subdistrict,
where the platforms were not voted on.— Lenin

[2]
Novoye Vremya ( New Times )—a daily newspaper published in
St. Petersburg from 1868 to October 1917. It began as a Moderate liberal
paper but by the end of the seventies of the nineteenth century had become the
organ of reactionary circles of the nobility and the bureaucracy. The newspaper
waged a struggle, not only against the revolutionary but also against the
bourgeois-liberal movement. From 1905 onwards it was one of the organs of the
Black Hundreds. Lenin called Novoye Vremya a “specimen of the
venal press”.