V. I.

Lenin

“ The Tactical Platform for the Coming Congress , prepared by
Martov, Dan, Starover, Martynov and others, with the participation of a group of
Menshevik practicians” has been issued as a separate leaflet.

The relation between this platform and the resolution on the State Duma, drawn
up by the same Menshevik leaders and published in Russkaya Zhizn , No.
47, is not yet known. The leaflet we are speaking of does not say a single word
as to whether it is proposed to work out in greater detail the tactical
opinions expressed in it, in the form of draft resolutions, precisely on which
questions, etc. This lack of clarity is regrettable because the “Tactical
Platform” itself is worded very diffusely and indefinitely. To show this we are
giving in full the last three theses of the platform; these outline the
“current tasks of Social-Democracy in the immediate future”; we
shall begin with the third thesis.

(3) The development of the independent political and organisational activities
of the working-class masses on the basis of the defence of their interests
as a class of wage-workers. Assistance by Party groups for the
organisations that are being built up among wide sections of the
proletariat on the basis of the struggle to satisfy their immediate trade,
political and cultural needs, on the basis of struggle to retain and extend
the concessions they have wrested from the old system.”

Could you possibly imagine anything more diffuse, vague and empty? Is this a
“tactical platform” for the 1907 congress, or is it an excerpt from
a popular article on the tasks of the working class in general?

As we know, the agenda for the congress includes items on trades unions, a labour congress and councils of delegates—these are all concrete questions of today, of the present stage of development of
the working-class movement. And we are treated to platitudes and empty
phrases about “independent activities”, as though there were a deliberate
desire to conceal their ideas concerning the questions that have
been presented by reality and by the Party! This is not a platform,
comrades, but a pro forma statement . There already exists
considerable Party literature on such questions as a labour congress,
ranging from articles in the Party’s official paper

Sotsial-Demokrat [6] to a number of pamphlets. A platform is
drawn up to provide an answer that is to the point, and not to evade the
issue.

“...(2) A determined ideological struggle against all attempts to limit
the class independence of the proletariat, against inculcation of
reactionary petty-bourgeois illusions in proletarian consciousness, and
against all tendencies leading to the substitution of anarchic terror and
adventurous plotting for the organised class struggle.”

Wrathfully put. Clearly the authors wanted to give vent to their ire. That, of
course, is their right, and we would be the last to complain of sharpness in a
polemic. Polemise as trenchantly as you like; only say plainly what you
mean. Your second point, however, says absolutely nothing definite. It “is
aimed”, as one may guess, at the Bolsheviks, but it misses the mark on account of its diffuse wording. All Bolsheviks would, of course,
agree to subscribe in full to the condemnation of anarchic terror,
“adventurous plotting”, “reactionary petty-bourgeois illusions” and “at tempts to limit class independence”.

Let us give the Menshevik comrades some good advice. If you want to engage in
sharper polemics with the Bolsheviks, comrades, and want to “wound”
them more seriously, then please compile resolutions that will be
unacceptable to us. You must open all the parentheses and not
cast a new veil over questions presented long ago! Take an example from us: our
draft resolution on non-party political organisations says outright
that we are against certain definite proposals of Axelrod’s,
against certain definite trends expressed in certain literary works by
members of the Party. Whatever you may blame us for in our draft resolution, it
will certainly not be for lack of clarity, or for avoiding the
substance of the dispute.

“...(1) The awakening of the political initiative of the proletarian masses by
the organisation of their planned intervention in political life in all its
manifestations.

“In pursuance of this, Social-Democracy, while calling on the proletariat
to support all progressive classes in their joint struggle against reaction,
rejects all lasting alliances with any part of the non-proletarian classes,
and, wherever sections of these classes differ among themselves, supports in
each individual case those actions that are in conformity with social
progress. Social-Democracy directs its revolutionary criticism both against the
counter-revolutionary strivings of the liberal bourgeoisie and against the
utopian and reactionary prejudices of agrarian petty-bourgeois socialism.”

We deliberately left this point until last, it alone, relatively speaking,
having some content, since it touches on the fundamental principles of
the differences between the Bolshevik and Menshevik tactics. But then, again, it
only “touches upon” them, again far too much padding and not enough
concrete material! The first two sentences are truisms that might well have been
discussed in the press in 1894-95, but it is really awkward to speak of such
things in 1907. And even these truisms are worded very carelessly, for instance,
Social-Democracy rejects all “alliances” in general with other
classes, and not only “lasting” ones.

The third sentence is the only one dealing with fundamentals of tactics. Only
here the veil is at least raised sufficiently to reveal the outlines of the
concrete phenomena of our times.

Here Social-Democracy is contrasted to:

(1) the counter revolutionary strivings of the liberal bourgeoisie; (2) the utopian and reactionary prejudices of agrarian petty-bourgeois
socialism. The instruction offered to the Party consists in criticism of them
both in equal measure .

Let us examine these two comparisons and the significance of this instruction.

It is not quite clear what the comrades mean by the “counter-revolutionary
strivings of the liberal bourgeoisie”. It would have been proper
to speak of the liberal bourgeoisie, without any further definition, in 1897
but not in 1907. The Menshevik comrades are astonishingly belated; we now have
political parties in Russia that have revealed themselves in the First
Duma, and partly in the Second! What sort of “tactical platform” is
this that still does not even notice these definite parties in Russia?

It is difficult to believe that the Octobrists are referred to as liberal
bourgeois. The comrades obviously have a party of the
Constitutional-Democrat type in mind (the Party of Democratic
Reform, perhaps the Party of Peaceful Renovation, as a phenomenon of the
same type). We are convinced of this also by the use of the word
“strivings”, because we do not see any strivings in the spirit
of counter-revolution on the part of the Octobrists—their entire
policy has now become counter-revolutionary.

And so the matter is one of Cadet counter-revolutionary “strivings ”, i.e., that the Cadets are already beginning to conduct practical politics in a
counter-revolutionary spirit.

This fact is undoubtedly true. A frank and definite ad mission of it would
undoubtedly bring closer together the two now hostile trends in Russian
Social-Democracy. The need for a “revolutionary criticism’ of such
strivings is also beyond dispute.

To continue. The reactionary strivings of the liberals are contrasted
with the reactionary “prejudices of agrarian petty-bourgeois
socialism”.

We are completely at a loss. How can classes (liberal bourgeoisie) be
compared and contrasted with theories (socialism), or practical politics (strivings) with views (prejudices)?? This is illogical
in the highest degree. In a tactical platform , if it is to hold
together, the contrasting should be of (1) one class with another—for example, the liberal bourgeoisie with the
democratic (or reactionary?) peasantry; (2) one policy with another—for example, counter-revolutionary with
revolutionary; (3) one set of theories, views and prejudices with another. This is so
absolutely obvious, so extremely elementary, that one cannot but wonder whether
this lack of logic in the Mensheviks is accidental, or whether lack of logical
clarity reflects unclear political thinking.

It is beyond doubt that the “socialism” of the
Socialist-Revolutionaries, the Trudoviks and the Popular Socialists is full of
utopian and reactionary prejudices. This, of course, has to be said when these parties are
being assessed, as it was said by the Bolsheviks in their draft resolutions for
the Fourth and Fifth congresses. By repeating this indubitable concept in such an illogical combination, the Mensheviks were
apparently seizing on the first argument that came their way, in order to
justify their policy of support for the Cadets. Actually they could
not avoid giving a motive for this policy and attempting to justify it in the
text of the platform under examination. The liberal bourgeoisie’s
attitude to the peasantry in the Russian bourgeois revolution has now been
touched upon by the Mensheviks. This is great progress, of
course. After the experience of the First and (partly) the Second Duma, one can
no longer limit oneself to merely referring to the notorious “Black
Hundred danger” fiction as an argument in defence of election agreements
with the Constitutional-Democrats, voting for a Cadet chairman, and supporting
Cadet slogans. The general question, already presented by the Bolsheviks in the
pamphlet Two Tactics (July 1905) [1] must be raised— the
question of the attitude of the liberal bourgeoisie and the peasantry to the
Russian revolution. What is it that the Mensheviks now say, in substance, on
this question?

“Urban bourgeois democrats in Russia have not subordinated the entire
economy to themselves and are, therefore, not capable of independent
revolutionary initiative, as was the case in bourgeois revolutions in previous
centuries; at the same time the peasantry, who constitute the overwhelming
majority of the small producers, are only just beginning to emerge from the
economic and social conditions of pre-bourgeois production, and are, therefore,
still less suited for the role of an independent leader of the revolution.”

This is the sole attempt to base the Menshevik policy towards the
liberals and the peasantry on an economic analysis ! “The
peasantry are still less suitable than the urban bourgeois
democrats..."—and these words “still less” are supposed
to justify the policy of supporting the Cadets.

Why “still less”? Because the peasantry “are only just beginning to
emerge from the economic and social conditions of pre-bourgeois
production”. A motive that is obviously unsatisfactory. If the peasantry
are “only just beginning to emerge” it is “the survivals of the feudal system that are a heavy burden borne directly by the peasantry” which prevent them from emerging. These words are from the
first

paragraph of our Party’s agrarian programme. The circumstance
that the heavy burden of the survivals of serfdom is borne directly by the
peasants makes a more profound , extensive and acute revolutionary
movement against the existing system necessary and inevitable among the
peasantry than among the liberal bourgeoisie. There can be no question of
either the liberal bourgeoisie or the peasantry being suitable leaders of
the

revolution [2]

;

the relative ability of the liberals and the peasants to
display “independent revolutionary initiative”, or, to be more
exact, independently to participate in the further development of
the revolution has been assessed quite incorrectly by the
Mensheviks.

The Menshevik point of view on the political role of the peasantry contradicts
those basic postulates of our agrarian programme that are agreed upon by the
whole party, Bolsheviks and Mensheviks alike.

First: as we have said “the survivals of the feudal system are a heavy
burden borne directly by the peasantry”. Consequently, in the present
bourgeois-democratic revolution in Russia, the peasantry must be more
revolutionary than the liberal bourgeoisie, because the strength, durability,
viability and acuteness of the revolutionary movement depend on the force of the
oppressive conditions of the old order, of that which has outlived itself.

Secondly: in our agrarian programme we demand “the confiscation of private
landed properties”. We do not demand anything of the sort, anything that
even remotely approximates such a radical economic measure, for the liberal
bourgeoisie. Why? Because no objective conditions exist that would call forth a
struggle among the liberal bourgeoisie for the confiscation of a very
considerable part of the property that is “legitimate” from the
standpoint of the old order. We all recognise the existence of these
objective conditions among the peasantry, because the Marxists do not demand
confiscation out of sheer love for ultra-revolutionary measures, but because
they are conscious of the hopeless position of the peasant masses. The
incomparably greater depth of the peasantry’s bourgeois-democratic
revolutionary spirit follows inevitably from this premise in our agrarian
programme.

Thirdly: our agrarian programme speaks of “support for the revolutionary
acts by the peasantry up to and including the confiscation of the landlords’
lands”. This is a clear recognition of the need for a definite attitude to
the direct revolutionary struggle of the peasants, to “acts” of a
mass character that cover a huge area and involve a tremendous section of the
country’s population. Nothing similar to these revolutionary acts
is to be found among the urban bourgeoisie, not only among the
“liberal”, i.e., the middle and some of the big bourgeoisie, but
also among the democratic petty bourgeoisie. The Social-Democratic Labour Party
has never promised, and could never have promised, any “support” for
any sort of “confiscation” plans made by the urban bourgeoisie. From
this, it can be seen how erroneous is the usual Menshevik argument
about the “progressive urban” and “backward rural” bourgeoisie, an argument that is hinted at in the platform under
review. The argument is based on a misunderstanding of our programme’s
fundamental ideas on the question of the struggle against the survivals of
serfdom, a struggle that constitutes the economic content of the bourgeois
revolution in Russia.

Fourthly: the political history of Russia for the past year, especially the
First Duma and the elections to the Second Duma, has shown clearly that the
peasantry, despite all their lack of development, their lack of unity, etc.,
were able to lay down immediately the beginnings of the formation of
political parties (the “Trudovik” Group, etc.) that are
undoubtedly more democratic than the liberal-bourgeois parties (the Constitutional-Democrats among them). This is borne out by a
comparison of the Constitutional-Democrats’ bill on the agrarian question
with that of the “104", or a comparison of the attitude of the Cadets
and the Trudoviks towards freedom of assembly and the composition of local
land committees, or a comparison of the Cadet press, which is calming the
people and quenching the revolutionary movement with the water of
constitutional phrases, and the Trudovik press ( Izvestia Krestyanskikh Deputatov , [7] etc.), which is revolutionising , in the
democratic sense, fresh sections of the urban and rural petty
bourgeoisie.

In short, however we approach the question, it must be recognised that the
Mensheviks’ comparative assessment of the liberals and the Trudoviks is
absolutely wrong .

The source of this error is a failure to understand the bourgeois revolution
that is taking place in Russia’s agriculture. This revolution may have
two forms—either the retention of landed proprietorship by ridding it of
its feudal features and of the bondage of peasant labourers, or the abolition of
landed proprietorship through confiscation of that property and transfer of the
land to the peasants (in the form of nationalisation, division,
“municipalisation”, etc., etc.). [3]

A bourgeois revolution in Russian agriculture is inevitable. And that
revolution will remain bourgeois (contrary to the teachings of the Narodniks)
even in the second case. However, the revolution may occur either in the first
or the second form, depending on whether the democratic revolution is victorious
or whether it remains unfinished— whether the peasant masses or the
liberal landlords and factory owners will decide the course and outcome of the
revolution.

A bourgeois revolution for the purpose of preserving landed proprietorship is
being carried out by Stolypin and the liberals (the Constitutional-Democratic Party)—by Stolypin in the
crudest Asiatic forms that a well able to fan the flames of struggle in the
countryside and stimulate the revolution. The liberals are afraid of this and,
as they do not wish to risk everything, are in favour of concessions, but of
such concessions as would preserve landed proprietorship; it is
sufficient to recall compensation for the land and, most important of all, the
formation of local laud committees from landlords and peasants in equal number , with agents of the government as chairmen! Local land
committees of such composition mean preservation of landlord
domination . Compensation payments for the land mean the strengthening
of the peasant bourgeoisie and the enslavement of the peasant proletariat. It is
this basic, economic solidarity between the Stolypin agrarian reform
and that of the Cadets that the Mensheviks fail to understand.

Stolypin and the Cadets disagree on the extent of the concessions and
on the method (crude or with finesse) of conducting the reform. Stolypin and the
Cadets are both for the reform , that is, they are for the preservation
of land lord domination through concessions to the peasants .

The proletariat and the peasantry are for the revolution , for the
abolition not only of landlord domination but of all landed
proprietorship.

We can put an end to the revolution by means of insignificant concessions made
by the landlords, says Stolypin.

We can put an end to the revolution only by means of more substantial
concessions made by the landlords, say the liberals (the Cadets included).

We want to carry the revolution through to the end, and abolish landed
proprietorship, say the peasants and workers.

To deny that the agrarian programmes are thus related means to deny our own
agrarian programme, which speaks of “the confiscation of privately-owned
land” and “support for the revolutionary acts by the peasantry up to
and including the confiscation of the landlords’ lands”.

To recognise this relationship is to recognise the tactical line of
Social-Democracy—the proletariat must carry the democratic peasantry with
it, against the autocracy and against the liberals.

It is, therefore, no accident that the Mensheviks are wavering in all their
tactics; they are inevitably doomed to vacillation as long as they
recognise the present agrarian programme. Some of them would like to
change the word “confiscation” for “alienation”, thereby quite consistently expressing the next stage in
opportunism, since they realise the necessity to make their Cadet
policy conform to the Cadet formulation of the agrarian programme.

This, however, has not yet taken place. It is something that influential
Menshevik leaders do not even risk pro posing in advance, openly and
directly. For them, vacillation in policy is the inevitable outcome.

They have to conduct a policy of support for the Cadets, without daring to
announce it openly! Support for the demand for a “Duma ministry”,
and blocs with the Cadets on account of a fictitious Black-Hundred danger, and
voting for a Cadet chairman in the Duma—all these are only individual
manifestations of the policy of support for the Cadets, the policy of
subordinating the proletariat to the hegemony of the liberals.

But the Mensheviks do not risk defending this policy openly. And the false
position they occupy compels them, against their will and consciousness, to
“invent” fictitious arguments, such as the “Black-Hundred
danger” at the elections, or the fiction that a “Duma ministry” is not a half-way pseudo-reform concealing an attempt at a deal
between the Black-Hundred camarilla and the Cadets, or that by taking our 60 or
70 votes away from Golovin (who obtained 356 against 102) we
“risked” sinking the Cadets, etc., etc.

This false position compels them to paint the Cadets in bright colours . They avoid giving this party a direct characteristic in
accordance with its class composition and its class backing . They avoid
an assessment of Russian bourgeois parties by the congress. Instead of
“liberal bourgeoisie” they speak of “urban bourgeois democracy”.

This absolutely incorrect description of the

Cadets [4] is defended by one argument, very plausible at first sight—the election statistics show it is from the big towns that the majority of
Cadet electors come. This argument is groundless: in the first place, the
elections to the Second Duma in the twenty-two big towns where, according to Rech , there was a Left bloc gave the Cadets 74,000 votes and the Lefts
41,000. And so, despite the Lefts’ amazing weakness in legal propaganda (the
complete absence of a daily press, the complete absence of open offices, etc.),
the Trudoviks and Social-Democrats won more than a third of the votes from the
Cadets! Consequently the Constitutional-Democrats represent the upper stratum of the urban bourgeoisie, i.e., the liberal bourgeoisie in
particular, and not urban “democrats” in general. Secondly:
for a long time the liberal bourgeoisie of all countries carried with them numerous
elements from the lower strata of the urban and rural petty bourgeoisie, but
that did not by any means make them a democratic party, a party of the
masses . The struggle between the socialists and the liberals for
democratic leadership of the mass of the impoverished urban petty
bourgeoisie is a long and difficult one. To declare forthwith that the Cadets
are “urban democrats” is to reject that struggle, to reject
the cause of the proletariat , and to hand it over to the
liberals. Thirdly, to deny that the liberal landowners constitute yet
another of the class supports of the Cadet Party means distorting
generally known political and economic facts—both the composition of the
Cadet group in the Duma and, especially, the close connection between the
bourgeois intelligentsia, lawyers, etc., and the landowners, and the dependence
of the former on the latter. The Cadet agrarian policy is the policy of
the liberal landowner. The fewer the liberals among the landowners, the more
rapidly does the Cadet agrarian policy turn into the pious wishes for
“social peace” expressed by the impotent bourgeois intellectual. The
Cadets do not turn “democratic” by continuing to dream of conciliation and an
amicable agreement between the Octobrist landowner and the Trudovik peasant. [5]

*     * *
The fundamental error in determining the relations between the liberal
bourgeoisie and the peasantry runs like a scarlet thread through the entire
Menshevik “tactical platform”. Here is another of their
formulations of this erroneous idea:

“The proletariat, left entirely to itself and insufficiently supported
[!!] by urban democrats, was inclined [after the October-December period] to
minimise the progressive role that, in general, falls to the lot of
those democrats in the present revolution, and, in conformity with this, adopted
a one-sided, hostile stand towards it.... In consequence of this incorrect
understanding by the proletariat of the historic role of the urban bourgeoisie,
the proletariat has begun one-sidedly to place all its revolutionary hopes on
the movement of the peasantry which is appearing on the stage of history.”

This is a wonderful passage that deserves to go down in history as a description
of the “self-forgetfulness” of part of Russian Social-Democrats in
1907.

This is, in effect, an avowal of contrition made by Social-Democrats to the
liberals—neither more nor less! Just think of it—at the time of the
Second Duma, when there is a clearly expressed sharpening of political extremes
between the Black Hundreds and the Left wing of the

Duma, when there is a revolutionary crisis, the maturing of which nobody will
risk denying, when there is an obvious swing to the Right of the weakened
liberal “Centre” (Cadets), when the liberals have been shouldered
aside by the democratic peasants at the elections—Social-Democrats are to
be found who publicly repent to the liberals of their “one-sided hostility” to them, repent of minimising their
progressive role! What is this, eh? Is it a tactical platform, carefully thought
out and weighed prior to the congress by eminent leaders of the
Social-Democratic Labour Party, or the whining of petty-bourgeois intellectuals
who are getting nostalgic in the proletarian surroundings so uncongenial to
them?

“The proletariat adopted a one-sided, hostile stand to wards urban
democracy....” What was this expressed in? Let us go over the
political events of the last year in our minds. In the boycott? But that was,
firstly, prior to the Unity Congress, and the authors of the platform are re
viewing events that followed it. And, secondly, what have “urban
democrats” to do with it? No, apparently the boycott is not meant. It
must be the question of support for the demand for a Duma ministry and of blocs
with the Cadets. Here, of course, the proletariat displayed a hostile
attitude towards the Cadets but not by any means towards urban
democracy.

And who, within the Party, gave expression to this hostile attitude of the
proletariat? The Bolsheviks....

The authors of the platform have accidentally told a great truth—in their
war against support for the “Duma” ministry demand and against blocs
with the Cadets, the Bolsheviks were expressing the policy of the
proletariat . This is true. It is only the petty-bourgeois section of
the workers’ party that dreams of softening the hostile attitude to the
liberals.

The proletariat is “insufficiently supported by urban democrats...”.

First: here the error in confusing the liberals (Cadets) with urban democracy
stands out with particular clarity. According to Rech figures, there
was a “Left election bloc” in twenty-two cities—these also
including Menshevik organisations. In these cities the proletariat was undoubtedly supported to a considerable extent, by urban democrats , against
the Cadets (41,000 votes for the Left bloc, 74,000 for the Cadets). The
conclusion to be drawn from this is certainly not in favour of the
Mensheviks; the proletariat can and must attract to its side urban (and
rural) petty-bourgeois democrats, against the liberal bourgeoisie.

Secondly: when the Mensheviks speak of insufficient liberal
support for the proletariat, do they understand the value of
liberal support for the proletariat? Their platform is being written in 1907,
and not altogether outside of time and space, no matter how much they try to
give it the least concrete and most aerial character. Between 1902 and 1904 and
even 1905, until the month of October, both Mr. Struve and the liberals in
general frequently announced their support for the proletariat, and actually did
give their support in the onslaught on the autocracy.

But after October 1905? The Mensheviks cannot but know that in December and after December the liberals turned their backs on the proletariat and
ceased giving support to its revolutionary struggle.

We may well ask: By whom and towards whom was a one-sided hostility displayed?

By the proletariat towards the liberals?

Or by the liberals towards the proletariat and towards the revolution?

Or by the Mensheviks towards the tactics of the proletarian class struggle?

*     * *
When the Mensheviks go so far as to speak of “one-sided hostility”,
they are contraposing, as clearly as possible, two views on the Russian
revolution after October 1905. The liberal view—the view of the Russian
followers of those German

Treitschkes [8] who announced that 1848 was “a year of madness”—is
that the proletariat assumed a one-sided, hostile stand towards liberalism,
towards constitutional legality, towards the monarchist constitution,
towards compensation for the land, etc.

The view of the proletariat —similar to the view of all European
socialists on European bourgeois revolutions—is that the liberal bourgeoisie assumed a one-sided, hostile stand towards the
revolution, towards freedom, towards democracy, etc.

The Mensheviks are trying to divert the working-class party from the second view
to the first.

The working-class party will parry every such attempt on the part of the
Mensheviks by trying to divert the Mensheviks from the working-class party to
the liberals.

*     * *
We do not by any means wish to say that the Mensheviks are, in general, trying
to turn the working-class party into an appendage to the liberals. The
difference between the opportunists inside the workers’ party and the liberals
outside its ranks is this: the former continue to serve their party sincerely
but in so doing adopt an unstable and incorrect tactical stand that
leads to the political subordination of the proletariat to liberalism.

The “unfortunate” quality possessed by this stand is that the
Mensheviks, in their desire to attack the Bolsheviks, actually attack the
proletariat and the proletarian attitude to the revolution. This happens each
time the attacks of the Mensheviks are really grounded in principle, i.e., when
they deal with the reasons for the two different sets of tactics. Attacks that
are not grounded in principle are another matter; they have only to be briefly
mentioned for the reader to be confronted by the question: Is this a platform we
have before us or a polemical article by a liberal?

We read in the “platform”, for example, that the “proletarian
masses [ sic !] are inclined to believe in the forthcoming political
miracle of a sudden [!!] insurrection that will come about irrespective [!!] of
the internal development of the proletariat itself and with one blow [!!] will
replace the autocracy by the political rule of the working classes”.

Up to now only the liberal newspapers have attributed such things in
such a form to the “proletarian masses”. What made the
Mensheviks speak about an uprising at all, is something we cannot understand. But such talk of an uprising in a tactical
platform that does not contain an other word about an uprising except the
sentence quoted cannot but evoke the question: instead of “Menshevik
platform”, should we not say hereafter “liberal platform”?

---
Notes:
[1]
See present edition, Vol. 9, pp. 15-140.— Ed .

[2]
Generally speaking, we heartily welcome the fact that in their platform
the Mensheviks have raised the question of the proletariat’s
role as the leader , of the revolution. It is extremely desirable
that this question should be discussed at the congress and a resolution
adopt ed on it. The Mensheviks give a feeble explanation of the peasantry
being unsuitable as leader of the revolution. It is not because the
peasantry are only “just beginning to emerge” from serfdom, but because
the main conditions of petty production (in agriculture and
industry) compel the petty producer to vacillate between “order”
and “property” on the one hand, and the struggle against-the old order on
the other. In the same way, the Mensheviks have missed the main reason for
the liberal bourgeoisie being unreliable—fear of the proletariat, the
need to rely on the old order’s instruments of power to defend them
selves against the “encroachments of the proletariat”, as the Bolshevik
resolution says.— Lenin

[3]
I draw readers’ attention in particular to the fact that I have
deliberately avoided touching on the disputed questions of the
Social-Democratic agrarian programme (division, nationalisation,
municipalisation), and have taken only that which has been formally adopted
by the Party Congress, arid which does not, in effect, give rise to
disputes or group divisions among Social-Democrats.— Lenin

[4]
The platform under discussion does not say outright that the
Cadets are a party of urban bourgeois democrats, but this is the sense of the whole text and of all the conclusions. The “explanations” of the
Menshevik press are identical. What has remained unsaid in the platform
only stresses again and again how very essential it is to place before the
congress the question of the class content of the various bourgeois parties
and our attitude to them. There can he no consistent tactics unless this is
done.— Lenin

[5]
It will be remembered that the Right-wing Cadets, Mr. Struve among
them, proposed electing the Octobrist Kapustin and the Trudovik Berezin
vice-chairmen of the Second Duma. I am ready to call this plan a
“masterly” manifestation of liberal “wit”. And this Is how matters
actually stand objectively : it is the historic mission of
the Cadet to reconcile the Octobrist landowner with the Trudovik
peasant. The Left-wing Cadets did not want a demonstration of this because
of their fear of the Lefts. This is, however, an indisputable fact. The
objective state of affairs makes it the historic mission of the Cadets to
put an end to the revolution through the reconciliation of the Octobrist
landowners and the Trudovik peasants. And vice versa—the Russian
revolution can remain uncompleted, not brought to its final stage, only if
it were found possible jointly “to satisfy” the basic economic interests
of both the Octobrist landlords and the Trudovik peasants.— Lenin

[6]
Sotsial-Demokrat ( Social-Democrat )— organ of the Central Commit tee of the R.S.D.L.P. published illegally in St. Petersburg
from September 17 (30) to November 18 (December 1), 1906; only seven issues
appeared. The Editorial Board, elected at the Fourth (Unity) Congress of the
R.S.D.L.P., consisted entirely of Mensheviks (F. I. Dan, L. Martov,
A. S. Martynov, P. P. Maslov, and A. N. Potresov). In point of fact the
newspaper was the factional organ of the Mensheviks.

[7]
Izvestia Krestyanskikh Deputatov ( Peasant Deputies’ News )—organ of the Trudovik Group in the First State Duma; appeared
daily in St. Petersburg in May 1906.

[8]
Treitschke, Heinrich (1834-1896)—German historian and journalist, ideologist and propagandist of Prussianism,
chauvinism, and racism.