[Part 1/2] # V Congress of the RSDLP{163}. April 30 – May 19 (May 13 – June 1) 1907
Source: PSS vol 15

First published in 1909 in the book: "London Congress of the RSDLP (held in 1907). Complete Text of Proceedings." Paris, ed. Central Committee

Printed according to manuscripts, collated with the text of the book; objections to Lieber's amendment and speeches – according to the text of the book

1. Speech Against the Proposal to Cease Debate on the Question of the Congress Agenda{164}. May 1 (14)

I categorically speak out against cessation of debate. One cannot resolve questions of principled importance through simple mechanical voting.

2. Speech During Debate on the Question of the Congress Agenda. May 2 (15)

From the debate that was conducted on this question, it became completely clear that the various currents among the S.D.s divide over major tactical disagreements. Who could have thought that under such conditions we would be proposed to remove all general questions of principle from the congress agenda? And what sophistical arguments were used here – in the name of alleged practicality and businesslike conduct – to justify such removal of principled questions!

I will remind you that the question of the tasks of the proletariat in the bourgeois-democratic revolution has long since arisen before Russian social-democracy. Already in the beginning of 1905, before the revolution, this question was discussed both at the III Congress of the RSDLP{165}, i.e., the Bolshevik part of it, and at the simultaneous Geneva conference of Mensheviks{166}. Then the Mensheviks themselves placed general questions of principle on the agenda of their congress.

At that time they themselves discussed the foundations of the tactics of the proletariat in a bourgeois revolution and adopted reasoned resolutions on this matter. If now they propose to throw out such questions, this is the result of a defeatist mood, and we must fight against this mood, not succumb to it!

They speak about the experience of West European S.D. parties with their "businesslike" congresses. But I will tell you that among the Germans, at their congresses, there were discussed more than once more abstract, more theoretical questions than those which concern the evaluation of the revolution occurring in our country and the tasks of the proletariat in it. From the experience of other parties we must take not that which debases us to the level of some period of gray, routine everyday life. We must take that which elevates us to general questions, to the tasks of the entire revolutionary struggle of the proletariat as a whole. We must learn from the best examples, not the worst.

They say: "one cannot decide serious tactical questions by a majority of a dozen votes." Well, is this not a sophism? Is this not a helpless evasion from principlededness toward unprincipled conduct?

Decision on a question is never achieved by voting. For several years already we have been deciding questions of Marxist evaluation of our revolution. For several years already we have been testing through the experience of our revolution our theoretical views and general tactical resolutions. But now they are telling us that it is still not time to sum up this party work! One should not, you see, determine the foundations of tactics, but rather plod along behind the course of events, deciding from case to case…

Recall the Stockholm Congress. The Mensheviks who won there removed their own resolution on evaluation of the moment, removed their own resolution on the relationship to bourgeois parties. What resulted from this? What resulted was that the Central Committee had no principled foundations whatsoever for deciding the questions that arose before it. What resulted was that the Central Committee floundered all year round, having no policy whatsoever. Today it was in favor of a constituent assembly, tomorrow it rushed to preach a responsible ministry, the day after – "the Duma as an organ of power for convening a constituent assembly," then an all-powerful Duma, then blocs with the Kadets… Will you call this a consistent proletarian policy? (Applause from the center and from the Bolshevik benches.)

They say: "in the name of party unity… in the name of practical work let us bypass general questions." This is a sophism. Such questions cannot be bypassed. Bypassing them does not produce unity, but rather only a more blind and therefore more embittered, less fruitful party struggle.

Such questions cannot be bypassed. They break through in everything. Recall Plekhanov's speech at the opening of the congress. Since our revolution is bourgeois, he reasoned, then we must especially hasten in finding allies from the bourgeoisie. I assert that the foundations of this reasoning are erroneous. I assert that, without analyzing these foundations, you condemn the party to an abyss of unnecessary practical mistakes.

Plekhanov said in that same speech that opportunism in Russian social-democracy is weak. – Perhaps, if we count Plekhanov's own works as weak! (Applause from Bolshevik benches.) But I think opportunism manifests itself among us precisely in the fact that from the discussion of the first truly all-party congress they want to remove general questions about the foundations of our tactics in a bourgeois revolution. We should not remove theoretical questions, but rather raise our entire party practice to the heights of theoretical illumination of the tasks of a workers' party. (Applause from Bolsheviks.)

3. Speech in Defense of the Method of Voting by Secret Ballot{167}. May 2 (15)

Together with the representative of the Latvian delegation, we are defending the preservation of the method of voting by ballot that has been used up to now. It is the most democratic, saves time, provides clarity. There can be no talk of falsification. Those proposing to vote by roll call only want to lengthen the secret voting and thereby make its application impossible.

4. Speeches in the Capacity of Chairman at the 6th Session of the Congress. May 3 (16)

1

I propose that we express gratitude to representatives of the English S.D. Federation for services in organizing the congress. (Applause.)

2

I propose that we discuss in what order to place the items: report of the Central Committee, report of the Duma faction, relationship to bourgeois parties and the State Duma.

Concerning the remaining questions, there was a unanimous decision of representatives of all factions to place them in the following order:

5) workers' congress, 6) trade unions and the party, 7) partisan actions, 8) unemployment, crisis and lockouts, 9) organizational questions, 10) Stuttgart Congress, 11) work in the army, 12) miscellaneous.

5. Speech on the Report of the Activity of the Central Committee. May 4 (17)

I would like to speak exclusively on the political side of the question. But the last speech by comrade Abramovich compels me to briefly address his remarks. When comrade Abramovich spoke of the "besieged" Menshevik Central Committee, I thought to myself: "Poor Mensheviks! Once again they are in a besieged position. They are 'besieged' not only when they are in the minority, but also when they are in the majority!"

Are there not such internal causes, rooted in the very character of Menshevik policy, that force the Mensheviks to eternally complain of their being besieged by the proletarian party?

What are the facts concerning the siege of the Menshevik Central Committee presented by comrade Abramovich? There are three: agitation for an extraordinary congress, a conference of military and combat organizations, and finally, "other organizational questions," as comrade Abramovich put it.

Let us examine these three facts.

Agitation for an extraordinary congress unfolded widely when it became clear that the policy of the Central Committee went absolutely contrary to the will of the majority of the party. I will remind you that this was after the lozung for support of a responsible ministry that was advanced by the Central Committee. At that time the Bund had not yet entered our party, but the Poles and Latvians had already entered. Both decisively rejected the policy of the Central Committee. Thus the fact is completely undeniable that the Central Committee had then parted ways with the enormous majority of the party. Who then was besieging whom: was the majority of the party besieging the party's Central Committee, demanding that it report to the congress? Or was the Central Committee, going against the party, besieging the party? Recall what Plekhanov came to. His letter against the congress was officially reprinted in the "Social-Democrat" issued by the Central Committee. And in this letter Plekhanov answered the call for a congress with suspicions of the motives of the agitation and tirades about workers' kopecks! Consider: was Plekhanov not wrong in allowing himself such things against the majority of the party demanding a congress?

And I will say only this: after the decision of the November All-Russian Conference of the RSDLP, agitation for an extraordinary congress ceased.

The second fact: a conference of military and combat organizations. Two conferences took place. This is sad, of course, but to see a "siege" of the Central Committee in this is strange. Would it not have been better to explain what was bad about the resolutions of the conference held apart from the Central Committee, rather than get away with complaints about a siege? I will remind you that at both conferences there were representatives of both the Moscow Committee and the Petersburg Committee – which means that no faction of the party bound itself as a faction to either conference. And the resolutions of the Bolshevik conference of military and combat organizations, printed in November 1906, have up to now encountered no serious criticism.

The third fact: "other organizational questions." What is this? What concrete content is put into this? Is it not the split in Petersburg, engineered by the Mensheviks with the help of the Central Committee during the elections? But on this subject to speak of a siege of the Central Committee would be simply ridiculous.

I move to the political side of the question. Our main task consists in examining how the Central Committee led the class struggle of the proletariat, how it applied in practice the tactics adopted at the Unification Congress.

The first lozung taught to the party by the Central Committee was the lozung of support for the demand for a "Duma" or "responsible" ministry. Comrade Martov said here before us that this lozung was advanced in order to expand and deepen the conflict between the Duma and the government.

Is this so? What should proletarian expansion and deepening of the conflict consist in? Of course, in pointing out the true arena of struggle and collisions that provoked the conflict – the arena of class struggle in general, and in this case – the struggle of the people against the old power. To expand and deepen the Duma conflict, one had to understand oneself and explain to the people that the Duma conflict only very incompletely and distortedly reflects the conflict of the people with the old power, that the struggle in the Duma is a weak echo of revolutionary struggle outside the Duma. To expand and deepen, one had to raise political consciousness and political demands from Duma slogans to the level of slogans of general revolutionary struggle. The Central Committee did the opposite. It dulled and narrowed the slogans of revolutionary struggle down to the lozung of a Duma ministry. It called the people not to struggle for power, although this struggle flowed from the entire objective situation of affairs, but to struggle for a deal between liberals and power. Voluntarily or involuntarily, the Central Committee called the party to accept the lozengs of a parliamentary "peaceful" path at a time when, in fact, from objective conditions there flowed a revolutionary extra-parliamentary struggle. In fact, there was no serious social movement whatsoever for a "responsible ministry" and there could not be. Even the Menshevik Duma S.D. faction (of the 1st Duma) did not accept this lozung of the Central Committee. (Martov: "Not true!") No, it is true, comrade Martov, and a simple check of the Central Committee's resolution and the stenographic reports of the 1st Duma will show that this is true.

The Central Committee's lozung was in fact, regardless of the desires and motives of the Central Committee, an adaptation to liberal policy. And nothing could come from this adaptation, for liberal policy expressed not the real social movement of that time, but the dream of stopping the revolution, although it had not stopped at all. The course of events proved that this whole business with a "responsible ministry" was an attempt with unsuitable means.

The second lozung of the Central Committee relates to the epoch of the July strike{168}. One cannot reproach the Central Committee for the failure of the action at that time. This is not a reproach, but rather almost praise for such a Central Committee as the Menshevik one, that it nonetheless went to meet the revolution at that time. It is not the fault of the Central Committee that, sitting in Petersburg, it did not know about the mood of the proletariat throughout all of Russia. Nor can it be declared an error that we believed then in an uprising and awaited it. The uprising did indeed occur, and our preliminary lozengs, our policy before the uprising were one of the elements of the success or failure of this uprising.

I see the Central Committee's error in the fact that revolutionary struggle, having reached the level of uprising, it sought to confine within the framework of non-revolutionary or truncated revolutionary lozengs. This expressed itself in the Central Committee's lozung: "partial mass actions." It expressed itself even more in the lozung: "for the Duma as an organ of power for convening a constituent assembly." To cast such lifeless lozengs meant adapting proletarian policy to the policy of liberal bourgeoisie. And again, events showed the full futility and all the impotence of attempts at such adaptation. We often hear complaints and whining about the impotence of the workers' party. But I will say: the reason you are impotent is that you dull your lozengs! (Applause from Bolshevik benches.)

Let us go further. Let us look at the question of blocs with the Kadets in the elections to the II Duma. Martov, in his reading of the Central Committee's report, disposed of this question with astonishing bland formalism: supposedly, the Central Committee decreed that blocs are permissible, and blocs, on the precise basis of the Central Committee's directive, were permitted! (Laughter.) In a political report of the Central Committee it would not be amiss to refer not to the formal legality of resolutions, but to verification by life of the correctness of the given policy in its essence. We Bolsheviks asserted all the time that the notorious Black Hundred danger in fact boils down to liberal defense against danger from the left, that by guiding our policy by fear of the Black Hundred danger, we actually fall into the trap of the liberals. The election results proved that we were right. In a whole series of cities, election statistics refuted the tales of liberals and Mensheviks. (Voices: "But Kiev, Poland, Vilna!") I have no time to deal with individual localities; I will speak about general political results. The statistician Smirnov calculated for 22 cities the number of votes for the left bloc – 41 thousand, for the Kadets – 74 thousand, for the Octobrists – 34½ thousand, and for the Monarchists – 17 thousand. For another 16 of the 72 cities with a total of 72 thousand votes, 58.7% were cast for the opposition and 21% for reaction. The elections exposed the fictitiousness of the Black Hundred danger, and the policy of "permissible" blocs, as it were by way of exception, with the Kadets turned out to be a policy of dependence of the proletariat on liberal bourgeoisie.

And I will tell you: do not neglect theoretical disputes, do not wave your hand dismissively at factional conjectures about disagreements. Our old disputes, our theoretical and especially tactical disagreements constantly transform in the course of revolution into the most immediate practical disagreements. One cannot take a single step in practical policy without running into the same fundamental questions about the evaluation of the bourgeois revolution, about the relationship between Kadets and Trudoviks, etc. Practical life does not erase disagreements, but rather sharpens and enlivens them. And it is not accidental that such prominent Mensheviks as Plekhanov brought the policy of blocs with the Kadets to absurdity. Plekhanov, by advancing his notorious "all-powerful Duma," preached a common lozung for the proletariat and for liberal bourgeoisie. Plekhanov only expresses more sharply, more powerfully than others the internal essence, the basic tendency of all Menshevik policy: the replacement of an independent line of the working class with adaptation to liberal bourgeoisie. The bankruptcy of our Central Committee was first and foremost the bankruptcy of this policy of opportunism. (Applause from part of the center and from the Bolsheviks.)

6. Speech on the Report of the Activity of the Duma Faction. May 8 (21)

I would like to return the debate once again to a principled evaluation of the policy of the Duma faction. Comrade Tsereteli said: "we had errors, but there were no waverings." I think that it would be completely incorrect to reproach a young, beginning Duma faction for errors. But the essence is precisely that there were undoubtedly waverings in the very policy of the faction. And not in order to reproach individuals, but in order to educate the proletarian party as a whole, we must directly acknowledge these waverings and make it our task to eliminate them.

Comrade Tsereteli referred to the history of Europe. The year '48, he said, taught us not only that conditions for socialism have not yet matured, but also that one cannot struggle for freedom without some kind of alliance with bourgeois democracy. This conclusion of comrade Tsereteli is the purest revisionism. On the contrary, both the revolution of 1848 and subsequent historical experience taught international social-democracy precisely the opposite, namely: that bourgeois democracy increasingly turns against the proletariat, that the struggle for freedom is waged consistently only there where the proletariat leads it. It is not alliances with bourgeois democracy that the year '48 teaches, but the necessity of liberating the less developed strata of the popular masses from the influence of bourgeois democracy, incapable of struggling even for democracy itself. Comrade Tsereteli, by his reference to the experience of '48 in the spirit of Bernsteinism, revealed the very same revisionism about which Plekhanov unfoundedly said is weak in our party.

Characteristic also of all the wavering in the principled position of comrade Tsereteli was his declaration concerning the food commission. We did not sufficiently emphasize the legality of our proposal to conduct an investigation locally, Tsereteli said. We got carried away by general arguments, missing the chance to convince others by arguments about the legality of our plan. Next time we will correct this error.

In this posing of the question, the whole wavering of the position of our faction is reflected with remarkable vividness. Just think: people are grieved by the insufficiency of their argumentation in favor of legality! Do they not see that the matter is not at all in the arguments, not in references to legality, not in "convincing" Kadets or anyone else? Is it not clear to them that the government could not on the basis of the matter itself allow and would not have allowed investigation locally, seeing in this (and correctly seeing) an appeal to the masses?

No matter what references to legality might have been put into circulation, the essence of the matter would not have changed from this. And instead of looking downward – to convince the popular masses, to show them the truth – Tsereteli looks upward, wishing to convince the liberals, to attract them with legality… This is true bourgeois parliamentarism. And the fruitlessness of such petty, pathetic, pitiful politicking strikes one in the eye, for it is clear that no parliamentary tricks of either the Mensheviks or the Kadets could deflect Stolypin from his policy. Isolation from the masses – this is a fact in evidence; benefits from legal persuasion of Stolypin and the Kadets – these are idle dreams of an idle intellectual.

I see the same idle strivings of opportunism in the negotiations with the Populists; their defense by reference to Bebel is quite weak. Bebel, supposedly, said: if the matter requires it, we will even enter into relations with the devil's grandmother. Bebel is right, comrades: if the matter requires it, of course one can even then. Well, but for what matter did your relations with the Populists prove necessary? For no matter. The benefit from them – zero. And it turns out that Bebel spoke well, but you understand him poorly.

And the going to the Populists, and voting for Golovin, and the attempt to throw out confiscation – all this is separate parts of one incorrect line. All this – manifestations not of inexperience, but precisely of political wavering. And from this point of view the invitation of Mr. Prokopovich is not a trifle. We were told here: Mr. Prokopovich is absent, without him one cannot condemn his entry. This is like us being sent from Pontius to Pilate. In Petersburg at a conference we were told: let us postpone it until the congress, one cannot discuss it without the congress. Now at the congress they say: one cannot without Prokopovich, let us postpone and transfer it to the Petersburg organization. This is sophistry.

Prokopovich is a writer, and his works are known to all. Prokopovich is a type of bourgeois intellectual trying to penetrate our party for definite, opportunistic purposes. His entry into the railroad district – this is obvious mockery. This is a cover for work in Duma circles. And the fault of our Central Committee is that it used such a cover. The fault of our Duma faction is that it facilitated the entry into our party from the Duma ladder of precisely those who do not work in the party and are in principle hostile to the party – liberal writers collaborating in the "Tovarisch."

Cherevanin defended here the policy of the Duma faction, saying: suppose the Kadets are now lagging behind, now reactionary. But this is not forever. One should not fix this. The Kadets are bad in epochs of decline, they may come in handy in epochs of rise, when they rapidly shift left.

This is the usual Menshevik reasoning, only expressed particularly directly and sharply. From this the falsity of it becomes even more visible. Take two major mile markers of the revolution: October 1905 – the greatest rise, and spring 1907 – the greatest decline. Were the Kadets any good for democracy in 1905? No. The Mensheviks themselves admitted this in the "Beginning." Witte – an agent of the stock exchange, Struve – an agent of Witte, thus wrote the Mensheviks then, and wrote correctly. Then the Mensheviks agreed with us that we should not support the Kadets, but expose them, undermine their prestige among the democracy.

Now, in spring 1907, all of you begin to agree with us that the Kadets are worthless democrats. And it turns out that neither in an epoch of rise nor in an epoch of decline are the Kadets any good. And the interval between these epochs any historian will call precisely a period of wavering, when a part of the S.D.s wavered in the direction of petty-bourgeois policy, when this part futilely tried to "support" the Kadets, brought harm only to the workers' party, and in the end saw its error.

A few words about Trotsky. He spoke from the "center"; he expressed the views of the Bund. He attacked us for putting forward an "unacceptable" resolution. He directly threatened a split, the departure of the Duma faction, supposedly offended by our resolution. I emphasize these words. I call upon you to reread carefully our resolution.

To see an insult in the calm recognition of errors, without any reproach in sharp form, to speak on this subject of a split – is this not monstrous?? Does this not show an illness of our party – fear of acknowledging errors, fear of criticism of the Duma faction?

The very possibility of such a posing of the question shows that there is something un-party-like in our party. This un-party-like element – in the relations of the Duma faction to the party. The Duma faction should be more party-minded, more closely bound to the party, more subordinated to the entire proletarian work. Then the cries of insult and threats of split would disappear.

When Trotsky said: your unacceptable resolution prevents us from carrying through your correct ideas – I shouted to him: "Then give us your resolution!" Trotsky answered: no, first remove yours.

Is not this a fine position for the "center"? For our error (in Trotsky's opinion, our "tactlessness"), he punishes the entire party, depriving it of his "tactful" exposition of the same principles! Why did you not pass your resolution? they will ask us in the localities. Because the center took offense and refused out of offense to expound its principles!! (Applause from the Bolsheviks and part of the center.) This is not a principled position, but the unprincipled conduct of the center.

We came to the congress with two long-known tactical lines to the party. It is unwise and unworthy of a workers' party to hide disagreements and conceal them. Let us compare the two points of view more clearly. Let us express them in application to all questions of our policy. Let us draw clear conclusions for the party's experience. Only thus will we fulfill our duty and put an end to waverings in the policy of the proletariat. (Applause from the Bolsheviks and part of the center.)

7. Factual Declaration. May 10 (23)

Comrade Martov, citing from "L'Humanité" an interview with me (signed Etienne Avenard)[63], incorrectly presented certain passages.

In the interview it is stated that the Central Committee (that is, of course, its Menshevik part) secretly and underground informed the Kadets. My statement has now been confirmed by the debate at the congress. At the congress it became clear that as early as November 1906 Dan was privately "over a cup of tea" with Milyukov, Nabokov, with the leaders of the Socialist Revolutionaries and the National Socialists. Dan did not see fit to report on this either to the Central Committee or to the Petersburg Committee.

This meeting with the Kadets, without informing either the Central Committee or the Petersburg Committee, was precisely secret and underground informing of the Kadets.

Further, in the interview it is said that the Mensheviks did not refute the shameful Kadet proposal to give the Mensheviks seats of workers in exchange for help to the Kadets from the Mensheviks. Comrade Martov proves that the Mensheviks refuted this by words. I declare factually that the deeds of the Mensheviks contradicted their verbal refutation: 1) verbally the Mensheviks promised to give all seats to the workers' curia. In fact, when all the workers' delegates, having gathered together, called on the Mensheviks (by a majority of 220–230 votes against 10–20) to refuse "hidden support" of the Kadets, the Mensheviks refused to obey; 2) after January 25, after the conclusion of the left bloc, the Mensheviks set in print as a condition of their help to it: freedom of action for Menshevik electors at the 2nd stage. This condition could only objectively mean one thing – readiness to support the Kadets against the S.D.s at the 2nd stage.

8. Declaration. May 11 (24){169}

The Bureau was right (voice: "Of course!") when it explained that cancellation of yesterday's decision is impermissible. To cancel it requires a special resolution of the congress on the admissibility of putting such a proposal to a vote. In this case no one proposes to cancel yesterday's decision. It remains in force. Is postponement admissible? Abramovich missed the most essential moment, namely that the question of postponement was caused by a new circumstance (the motivation of the Latvians), arising after yesterday's voting on the directives. This is a new motif, which Abramovich did not take into account. Werner's proposal is thus formally correct.

9. Report on the Relationship to Bourgeois Parties. May 12 (25)

The question of the relationship to bourgeois parties stands at the center of the principled disagreements that long ago divided Russian social-democracy into two camps. Already before the first major successes of the revolution, or even before the revolution – if one can speak thus about the first half of 1905 – there were already two fully formed points of view on this question. The disputes were connected with the evaluation of the bourgeois revolution in Russia. Both directions among the S.D.s agreed that this revolution was bourgeois. But they diverged in understanding this category and in evaluating the practical-political conclusions from it. One wing of social-democracy – the Mensheviks – interpreted this concept in such a way that in the bourgeois revolution the bourgeoisie is the principal motive force of it, while the proletariat is capable only of occupying the position of the "extreme opposition." To take upon itself the task of independently conducting this revolution, of leading it, it cannot. These disagreements manifested themselves especially sharply in the disputes about a provisional government (more precisely: about the participation of S.D.s in a provisional government) – disputes that were conducted in 1905. The Mensheviks denied the admissibility of S.D. participation in a provisional revolutionary government first and foremost precisely because they considered the bourgeoisie to be the principal motive force or leader of the bourgeois revolution. This view manifested itself with full starkness in the resolution of the Caucasian Mensheviks (1905){170}, approved by the new "Iskra." In this resolution it was said directly that S.D. participation in a provisional government could frighten away the bourgeoisie and thereby weaken the scope of the revolution. Here it is clearly acknowledged that the proletariat cannot and should not go further than the bourgeoisie in a bourgeois revolution.

The Bolsheviks held the opposite view. They unconditionally maintained that our revolution is bourgeois in the sense of its social-economic content. This means the following: the tasks of the present upheaval occurring now in Russia do not go beyond the framework of bourgeois society. Even the most complete victory of the current revolution, i.e., the conquest of the most democratic republic and the confiscation of all landlord land by the peasantry, does not touch the foundations of the bourgeois social order in the slightest. Private property in the means of production (or private farming on land, whoever is its juridical owner) and commodity economy remain. The contradictions of capitalist society, and the chief among them – the contradiction between wage labor and capital – not only do not become erased, but, on the contrary, become even more acute and deepened, developing more widely and in a purer form.

All of this for any Marxist must be completely undisputable. But from this there does not at all follow the conclusion that the bourgeoisie is the principal motive force or leader of the revolution. Such a conclusion would be a vulgarization of Marxism, would be a failure to understand the class struggle between proletariat and bourgeoisie. The matter is that our revolution occurs at such a time when the proletariat has already begun to become aware of itself as a separate class and to unite into an independent, class organization. Under such conditions, the proletariat uses every conquest of democracy, uses every step of freedom, in order to strengthen its class organization against the bourgeoisie. From this there inevitably follows the striving of the bourgeoisie to dull the sharp angles of the revolution, not to allow it to be carried through to completion, not to give the proletariat the possibility of conducting its class struggle with full freedom. The antagonism between bourgeoisie and proletariat forces the bourgeoisie to strive to preserve certain instruments and institutions of the old power, in order to apply these instruments against the proletariat.

Therefore, in the best case, in epochs of the greatest rise of the revolution, the bourgeoisie represents (and represents not accidentally, but necessarily, by virtue of its economic interests) an element wavering between revolution and reaction. Thus the bourgeoisie cannot be the leader of our revolution.

The greatest peculiarity of this revolution is the acuteness of the agrarian question. It is sharpened in Russia far more than it was under corresponding conditions in any other country. The so-called peasant reform of 1861 was carried out so inconsistently and undemocratically that the greatest foundations of serf landlord domination remained unshaken. Therefore, the agrarian question, i.e., the struggle of the peasants for land against the landlords, turned out to be one of the whetstone of the true revolution. This struggle for land inevitably pushes enormous masses of peasantry toward a democratic upheaval, for only democracy can give them land, giving them dominion in the state. The condition of the victory of the peasantry is the complete destruction of landlord landownership.

From such a correlation of social forces there follows an inevitable conclusion: the bourgeoisie cannot be either the principal motive force or the leader of the revolution. To carry it through to completion, i.e., to total victory, is within the capacity only of the proletariat. But this victory can be achieved only on the condition that the proletariat succeeds in bringing along with it the greater part of the peasantry. Victory of the current revolution in Russia is possible only as the revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry.

This posing of the question, given already in the beginning of 1905 – I speak of the III Congress of the RSDLP in the spring of 1905 – found its full confirmation in the events of all the major stages of the Russian revolution. Our theoretical conclusions were confirmed in fact, in the course of revolutionary struggle. During the greatest rise, in October 1905, the proletariat went ahead, the bourgeoisie wavered and hedged, and the peasants smashed up the landlords' estates. In the embryonic organs of revolutionary power (Soviets of Workers' Deputies, Soviets of Peasants' and Soldiers' Deputies, etc.), there participated, principally, representatives of the proletariat, and then the vanguards of the risen peasantry. During the first Duma, the peasants immediately gave a democratic "Labor" group, more left, i.e., more revolutionary, than the liberals – the Kadets. During the elections to the second Duma, the peasants directly defeated the liberals. The proletariat went ahead, the peasantry, more or less decisively, moved behind it against the autocracy and against the wavering liberals.

I move to the draft resolutions before us. The distinction in views I described is fully expressed in the opposition between the Bolshevik and Menshevik resolutions. The Bolshevik draft is constructed on the basis that the class content of the basic types of bourgeois parties is defined. Such a construction was given already in our resolution for the Unification, Stockholm Congress. We outlined there three basic types of bourgeois parties: Octobrists, liberals, and peasant democrats (at that time they had not yet come into relief, and the word "Trudovik" did not exist in Russian political lexicon){164}. Our present resolution retained the same construction. It is merely a modification of the Stockholm resolution. The course of events confirmed its basic positions so completely that only the smallest modifications were required to account for the experience of the first and second Duma.

The Menshevik resolution for the Unification Congress gave no analysis either of the type of parties or of their class content. The resolution helplessly says "that bourgeois-democratic parties are only just forming in Russia and therefore have not yet had time to acquire the character of stable parties," and "that at the present historical moment in Russia there are no such parties which would now combine at the same time both consistent democracy and revolutionariness." Are these not helpless statements? Is this not an evasion of the Marxist task? Complete stability of parties will never exist, just as there will never exist fully "consistent" democracy outside of the proletariat. But our obligation is to uncover the class roots of all parties that appear on the historical stage. And that this is an achievable task was shown by our resolution. The three types of parties it outlined proved sufficiently "stable" during an entire year of revolution, as I have already shown by the example of the first and second Duma.

Unstable proved to be the views of the Mensheviks. Their present resolution is a huge step backward even compared to their last year's draft. Let us examine this resolution, printed in No. 12 of "Narodnaya Duma" (of March 24, 1907). In the preamble, it is pointed out, firstly, at "a series of tasks common" to the proletariat with bourgeois democracy; secondly, at the necessity for the proletariat to "combine its actions with the actions of other social classes and groups"; thirdly, that in a country of predominant peasantry and weak urban democracy, the proletariat "by its own movement moves forward"… "the entire bourgeois democracy of the country"; fourthly, "that in the present grouping of bourgeois parties the democratic movement of the country has not yet found its finished expression," reflecting on one pole the "realism" and unpreparedness for struggle of the urban bourgeoisie, and on the other pole – peasant "illusions of petty-bourgeois revolutionariness and agrarian utopias." Such is the preamble. Now let us look at the conclusions: the first conclusion consists in the fact that, conducting an independent policy, the proletariat must struggle both with the opportunism and constitutional illusions of some, and with the revolutionary illusions and economically-reactionary projects of others. The second conclusion: it is necessary to "combine its actions with the actions of these parties."

Such a resolution does not answer a single question of those that every Marxist must put to himself if he wishes to define the relationship of the workers' party to bourgeois parties. What are these general questions? First of all, it is necessary to define the class character of the parties. Then one must make clear to oneself the basic correlation of the different classes in the given revolution in general, i.e., how the interests of these classes relate to the continuation or development of the revolution. Further, from classes in general one must move to the present role of the different parties or groups of parties. Finally, one must give practical indications concerning the policy of the workers' party on this question.

None of this exists in the Menshevik resolution. It is some kind of evasion of the question, an evasion by means of general phrases about "combining" the policy of the proletariat with the policy of the bourgeoisie. How exactly to "combine" and with which exactly bourgeois-democratic parties – on this not a word is said. It is a resolution about parties without parties. It is a resolution for defining our relationship – which defines our relationship to the different parties by nothing whatsoever. One cannot be guided by such a resolution, for it leaves complete freedom to "combine" anything and in any way. Such a resolution constrains no one; it is the most "liberal" resolution in the full sense of the word. It can be interpreted any which way. But there is not a grain of Marxism in it. The basic positions of Marxism are forgotten here so thoroughly that any left Cadet would sign such a resolution. Take its main points: "common tasks" of the proletariat and bourgeois democracy… Is this not what all the liberal press cries out about?.. – The necessity of "combining" – this is precisely what the Kadets demand… Struggle with opportunism on the right and with revolutionariness on the left – why, this is the very favorite word of left Kadets who wish supposedly to sit between the Trudoviks and bourgeois liberals! This is not the position of a workers' party standing separately and independently outside bourgeois democracy, this is the position of a liberal wishing to occupy the "center" among bourgeois democracy!

Consider in substance the position of the Mensheviks: the proletariat by its movement "moves forward" the "entire bourgeois democracy of the country." Is this true? Absolutely not. Recall the greatest events of our revolution. Take the Bulygin Duma. When the tsar called for taking the legal path, for accepting his, the tsar's, conditions for convening the first people's representation, the proletariat answered with a decisive refusal. The proletariat called the people to sweep away this institution, not allow it to come into being. The proletariat called all revolutionary classes to struggle for better conditions for convening people's representation. This in no way prejudged the question of using even a bad institution, had it actually entered into life contrary to all our efforts. This was a struggle against the implementation of precisely the worst conditions for convening people's representation. In evaluating the boycott, one too often makes that logical and historical error of confusing the struggle on the basis of a given institution with the struggle against the implementation of this institution.

How did the liberal bourgeoisie answer the call of the proletariat? It answered with universal cries against the boycott. It called for the Bulygin Duma. Liberal professors called on students to study instead of organizing strikes. To the call of the proletariat for struggle, the bourgeoisie answered with struggle against the proletariat. The antagonism of these classes even in a democratic revolution showed itself at that very time with complete definiteness. The bourgeoisie wanted to narrow the scope of the struggle of the proletariat, not allow it to go beyond the framework of the Bulygin Duma institution.

Professor Vinogradov, a star of liberal science, wrote precisely at that time: it would be happy fortune for Russia if our revolution followed the path of 1848–1849, it would be misfortune if it followed the path of the 1789–1793 revolution. This "democrat" called happy fortune the path of an unfinished revolution, the path of a defeated uprising! If our revolution had dealt with its enemies as ruthlessly as the French revolution in 1793, then, in the opinion of this "liberal," it would be necessary to call in a Prussian sergeant-major to restore order. The Mensheviks speak of the "unpreparedness for struggle" of our bourgeoisie. But in fact already at that time the bourgeoisie was prepared for struggle, precisely for struggle against the proletariat, for struggle against the "excessive" victories of the revolution.

Let us go further. Take October – December 1905. That in this epoch of the greatest rise of our revolution the bourgeoisie manifested "preparedness for struggle" against the proletariat – there is no need to prove this. This was fully recognized by the Menshevik press at that time. The bourgeoisie, Kadets included, sought in every way to blacken the revolution, to present it as blind and wild anarchy. The bourgeoisie not only did not support the organs of revolt created by the people – all these Soviets of Workers' Deputies, Soviets of Peasants' and Soldiers' Deputies, etc. – the bourgeoisie was afraid of these institutions and fought against them. Recall Struve, who called these institutions a spectacle that was shameful. The bourgeoisie saw in them a revolution that had gone too far forward. Liberal bourgeoisie sought to channel the energy of the revolutionary struggle of the people into the narrow channel of a police-constitutional reaction.

Concerning the conduct of the liberals in the first and second Duma there is no need to speak at length. Even the Mensheviks acknowledged that in the first Duma the Kadets hindered the revolutionary policy of the social-democrats and partly of the Trudoviks, impeded their activity. And in the second Duma the Kadets directly joined with the Black Hundred, directly supported the government.

To say now that the proletariat by its movement "moves forward the entire bourgeois democracy of the country" – means to mock the facts. To remain silent at present about the counter-revolutionary character of our bourgeoisie means to completely abandon the Marxist point of view, to completely forget the point of view of class struggle.

The Mensheviks speak in their resolution of the "realism" of the urban bourgeois classes. Strange terminology, which betrays them against their will. We are accustomed at the right wing of S.D.s to encounter a special significance given to the word realism. For example, Plekhanov's "Contemporary Life" opposed the "realism" of the right-wing S.D.s to the "revolutionary romanticism" of the left-wing S.D.s. What does the Menshevik resolution have in mind when speaking of realism? It turns out that it praises the bourgeoisie for moderation and propriety!

These reasonings of the Mensheviks about the "realism" of the bourgeoisie, about its "unpreparedness" for struggle – in connection with their direct declaration in their tactical platform about the "one-sided hostility" of S.D.s toward the liberals – all of this means one and only one thing. In fact, all this signifies that the independent policy of the workers' party is being substituted by the policy of dependence on liberal bourgeoisie. And this essence of Menshevism was not invented by us, not derived only from their theoretical reasonings: it manifested itself in all the major steps of their policy over the past year. Take the "responsible ministry," the blocs with the Kadets, voting for Golovin, etc. In fact this was precisely the policy of dependence on the liberals.

But what do the Mensheviks say about peasant democracy? The resolution places alongside and opposes, as equivalent or at any rate wholly homogeneous things, the "realism" of the bourgeoisie and the "agrarian utopias" of the peasantry. One must struggle, say the Mensheviks, equally with the opportunism of the bourgeoisie and with the utopianism, with the "petty-bourgeois revolutionariness" of the peasantry. This is a typical Menshevik reasoning. And one must stop here to consider it, for it is fundamentally incorrect. From it there inevitably flows a whole series of erroneous conclusions in practical policy. Hidden under the criticism of peasant utopias is a failure to understand the tasks of the proletariat to push forward the peasantry toward complete victory in the democratic revolution.

# SECTION 2

Indeed, look closely at the significance of agrarian utopias of the peasantry in the present revolution. What does its principal utopia consist of? Undoubtedly, in the idea of equality, in the conviction that the abolition of private property in land and the division of land (or land-use) equally can eliminate the sources of need, poverty, unemployment, and exploitation.

There is no dispute that from the point of view of socialism this is a utopia—the utopia of a petty bourgeois. From the point of view of socialism this is a reactionary prejudice, for proletarian socialism sees its ideal not in the equality of small proprietors, but in large-scale socialized production. But do not forget that we are now evaluating the significance of peasant ideals not in the socialist movement, but in this, the bourgeois-democratic revolution. Is it utopian, is it reactionary in this revolution, that all lands be seized from the landlords and distributed or divided equally among the peasants?! No! This is not only not reactionary, but, on the contrary, it expresses in the most decisive, most consistent manner the strivings for the most complete destruction of the entire old order, all remnants of serfdom. Utopian is the thought that "equality" can persist under commodity production and even serve as the beginning of semi-socialism. Not utopian, but revolutionary in the fullest, strictest, scientific sense of the word are the peasants' strivings now to seize lands from the landlords and divide them equally. Such seizure and such division would create the foundation for the most rapid, most extensive, most free development of capitalism.

Objectively, not from the point of view of our desires, but from the point of view of Russia's given economic development, the fundamental question of our revolution reduces precisely to this: will it ensure the development of capitalism through the complete victory of the peasants over the landlords, or through the victory of the landlords over the peasants? A bourgeois-democratic transformation in Russia's economy is absolutely inevitable. No force in the world can prevent it. But this transformation is possible in twofold form: in the so-called Prussian, or in the American type. This means the following: the landlords may triumph, impose redemption on the peasants or other pitiful concessions, unite with a handful of rich men, completely ruin the masses, and transform their holdings into junker, capitalist enterprises. Such a transformation will be bourgeois-democratic, but it will be the least advantageous for the peasants—the least advantageous from the point of view of the rapidity of capitalism's development. On the contrary, the complete victory of peasant uprising, the confiscation of all landlord land, its division equally mean the most rapid development of capitalism, the most advantageous form of bourgeois-democratic transformation for the peasants.

And not only for the peasants is this more advantageous. It is the same for the proletariat. Conscious proletariat knows that there is and cannot be any other path to socialism except through bourgeois-democratic transformation.

This means that the less complete and the less decisive this transformation, the longer and more strongly will non-socialist tasks, not purely class, proletarian tasks, but general-democratic ones, weigh upon the proletariat. The more complete the victory of the peasantry, the sooner will the proletariat separate itself finally as a class, the more clearly will it advance its purely socialist tasks and aims.

From this you see that peasant ideas about equality—reactionary and utopian from the point of view of socialism—are revolutionary from the point of view of bourgeois democratism. Therefore, to compare the reactionary nature of liberals in this revolution with the reactionary utopianism of peasants in ideas about a socialist revolution means committing a glaring logical and historical error. To place on one level the strivings of liberals to mutilate this revolution down to redemption, down to constitutional monarchy, down to Cadet agrarian programs, etc., and the peasants' attempts to utopianism-idolize in a reactionary spirit their strivings to immediately smash the landlords, seize all the land, put all of it up for division—to place this on one level means completely abandoning not only the point of view of the proletariat, but even the point of view of a consistent revolutionary democrat. To write a resolution about the struggle against the opportunism of liberals and the revolutionism of peasants in this revolution means to write a resolution that is not Social-Democratic. It is not a Social-Democrat writing, but an intellectual sitting between the liberal and the peasant in the camp of bourgeois democracy.

I cannot stop here in the detail that would be necessary on the famous tactical platform of the Mensheviks with their notorious slogan of struggle against the "one-sided hostility of the proletariat toward liberalism." The non-Marxist and non-proletarian character of such a slogan is more than obvious.

I will stop, in conclusion, on one objection frequently made, ostensibly against us. "Your" Laborites, they tell us, time and again go with the Cadets against us. This is true. But this is not an objection against our point of view and our resolution, for we have recognized this with complete clarity and decisiveness.

The Laborites, undoubtedly, do not represent fully consistent democrats. The Laborites (and the Socialist-Revolutionaries as well), undoubtedly, waver between liberals and revolutionary proletariat. This is said by us and this must be said. Such wavering is not at all accidental. It is inevitable as a consequence of the very essence of the economic position of the petty producer. On one hand, he is oppressed, he is subjected to exploitation. He is involuntarily pushed toward struggle against such a position, toward struggle for democracy, toward ideas about the elimination of exploitation. On the other hand, he is a petty proprietor. In the peasant lives the instinct of a proprietor—if not today's, then tomorrow's proprietor. This proprietorial, possessive instinct repels the peasant from the proletariat, gives rise in the peasant to dreams and strivings to rise in the world, himself to become a bourgeois, to shut himself off against all society on his small plot of land, on his, as Marx spitefully said, heap of manure.

The wavering of peasantry and peasant democratic parties is inevitable. And therefore Social-Democracy should not for a moment be troubled by the fear of isolating itself from such wavering. Every time the Laborites display fainthearted­ness and drag along behind the liberals, we must fearlessly and with full firmness come out against the Laborites, expose and scourge the petty-bourgeois lack of principle and flabbiness.

Our revolution is living through difficult times. There is needed all the force of will, all the steadfastness and firmness of a unified proletarian party to know how to resist moods of disbelief, weakness, indifference, renunciation of struggle. The petty bourgeoisie will always and inevitably be most readily subject to such moods, show lack of character, betray the revolutionary path, whine and repent. And in all such cases the workers' party will isolate itself from the wavering petty-bourgeois democracy. In all such cases we must be able even from the Duma tribune to openly expose the unstable democrats. "Peasants! We must say in the Duma under such circumstances, "Peasants! know that your representatives are betraying you, going in the wake of liberal landlords. Your Duma deputies are betraying the cause of peasantry to liberal windbags and advocates." Let the peasants know—we must prove this to them by facts—that only the workers' party is the truly reliable, fully faithful defender of the interests not only of socialism, but of democracy, not only of all the exploited and toilers, but of the entire peasant mass struggling against feudal exploitation.

If we steadily and unswervingly conduct such a policy, we will extract from our revolution enormous material for the cause of the class development of the proletariat, we will extract, in any case, whatever vicissitudes of fortune we may have to live through, whatever defeats of the revolution (under especially unfavorable circumstances) may fall to our lot. Firm proletarian policy will give the entire working class such a store of ideas, such clarity of understanding and steadfastness in struggle, which nothing in the world will be able to take from Social-Democracy. Even if the revolution suffered defeats, the proletariat will learn first of all to understand economically and in terms of class the basis of both liberal and democratic parties, and then it will learn to hate the betrayals of the bourgeoisie and despise the flabbiness and vacillations of the petty bourgeoisie.

And it is precisely with such a store of knowledge, precisely with such habits of thought that the proletariat will go more unitedly and boldly to a new, socialist, revolution. (Applause from Bolsheviks and the center.)

10. CLOSING REMARKS ON THE REPORT ON RELATIONS WITH BOURGEOIS PARTIES. May 14 (27)

I will begin with the question raised here about the position of the Polish delegation. Polish comrades were reproached—especially by Bundists—with being inconsistent in agreeing to our resolution, which they themselves had declared unsatisfactory in the commission. Such reproaches are based on a very simple trick: on the evasion of the essence of the questions that stand before the congress on this agenda item. Whoever does not wish to evade this essence of the question will easily see that we, Bolsheviks, have been in agreement and now are in agreement with the Poles on the two most fundamental questions. First, we agree that for the sake of the socialist tasks of the proletariat it is absolutely necessary for it to achieve class separation in relation to all other bourgeois parties, no matter how revolutionary they may be, no matter what democratic republic they may defend. Second, we agree that we recognize the right and the obligation of the workers' party to lead petty-bourgeois democratic parties, including peasant ones, in the struggle not only against autocracy, but against the treacherous liberal bourgeoisie.

In the resolution proposed to the congress by the Polish comrades on the report of the Duma Social-Democratic faction, these thoughts and positions are expressed with complete clarity. There it is said directly about class separation from all parties, including the Socialist-Revolutionaries. There it is said directly about the possibility and necessity of joint action by Social-Democrats with labor groups against liberals. This is precisely what is called in our Russia the left bloc or left-bloc policy.

From this it is clear that we are united with the Poles by genuine solidarity on the fundamental points of the question of relations with bourgeois parties. To deny this and to speak of the contradictoriness of the Poles' conduct means to evade the direct exposition of principled disagreement.

Socialist separation of the proletariat from all, even the most revolutionary and republican, parties, and then the guidance by the proletariat of the struggle of all revolutionary democracy in this revolution. Can one deny that these are precisely the fundamental and guiding ideas both of the Polish and of the Bolshevik resolution?

A few words about Trotsky. I have no time to dwell here on our disagreements with him. I will only note that Trotsky in the pamphlet "In Defense of the Party" publicly expressed his solidarity with Kautsky, who wrote about the economic community of interests of proletariat and peasantry in the contemporary revolution in Russia. Trotsky acknowledged the permissibility and expediency of a left bloc against liberal bourgeoisie. For me it is enough of these facts to recognize Trotsky's approximation to our views. Independently of the question of "permanent revolution" there is solidarity here on the fundamental points of the question of relations with bourgeois parties.

Comrade Liber reproached me very energetically for excluding even the Laborites from the number of bourgeois-democratic allies of the proletariat. Liber again became carried away by a phrase here, treating the substance of the dispute inattentively. I was not speaking of excluding joint action with Laborites, but of the necessity of separating ourselves from the waverings of Laborites. One must not fear to "isolate" oneself from them when they are inclined to drag behind the Cadets. One must mercilessly expose the Laborites when they do not stand on the consistent point of view of a revolutionary democrat. It is one or the other, Comrade Liber: either the workers' party conducts genuinely independent proletarian policy, and then we permit joint action with a section of the bourgeoisie only when that section accepts our policy, not vice versa. Or our words about the independence of the proletariat's class struggle will remain empty words.

Together with Liber, Plekhanov also evaded the substance of the dispute, only in another way. Plekhanov spoke of Rosa Luxemburg, depicting her in the manner of a Madonna sitting on clouds. What can one say! Elegant polemic, gallant, striking… But I would still ask Plekhanov: Madonna is Madonna, but how do you think on the substance of the question? (Applause from the center and Bolsheviks.) It is bad indeed if a Madonna was needed to evade analysis of the question on its substance. Madonna is Madonna, but what are we to do with the "omnipotent Duma"? What is that? Does it resemble Marxism or independent proletarian policy?

"Agreements from case to case," both Liber and Plekhanov tell us in various ways. This is a very convenient formula. But it is utterly unprincipled. It is utterly empty. After all, we too, comrades, allow in definite cases agreements with Laborites only from case to case, exclusively from case to case. We willingly insert these words into our own resolution.

That is not the question, though. The question is what joint actions from case to case are permissible, with whom, for what aim! These essential questions were obscured, darkened both by Plekhanov with his gallant witticisms and by Liber with his empty pathos. And this is not a theoretical but a most vital practical question. We have seen from experience what the Mensheviks' notorious agreements from case to case mean, their notorious "technical" agreements! They mean a policy of dependence of the working class on liberals, nothing more. "From case to case" is poor camouflage for this opportunist policy.

Plekhanov cited quotations from Marx's works about the necessity of supporting the bourgeoisie. It was not for nothing that he did not cite quotations from the *Neue Rheinische Zeitung*, it was not for nothing that he forgot how Marx "supported" liberals in the epoch of the full force of bourgeois revolution in Germany. And there is no need to go so far for proof of what is undisputed. The old *Iskra* itself more than once wrote about the necessity of supporting liberals—even leaders of the nobility—by the Social-Democratic workers' party. In the period before bourgeois revolution, when Social-Democracy still had to awaken the people to political life, this was entirely legitimate. Now, when various classes have already come onto the scene, when peasant revolutionary movement has shown itself, on one hand, and liberal betrayals on the other, now there can be no question of our supporting liberals. We all agree that Social-Democrats must now demand confiscation of landlord land, but how do the liberals regard this?

Plekhanov said: all classes that are to any degree progressive must become an instrument in the hands of the proletariat. I do not doubt that such is Plekhanov's desire. But I assert that in fact from Menshevik policy results something quite different, something opposite. In fact in all cases throughout the past year, during the so-called support of the Cadets by Mensheviks, it was precisely the Mensheviks who were the instrument of the Cadets. So it was both during the support of the demand for a Duma ministry and during electoral blocs with the Cadets. Experience has shown that it was precisely the proletariat that turned out to be the instrument in these cases, contrary to the "desires" of Plekhanov and other Mensheviks. I need not speak of the "omnipotent Duma" and of voting for Golovin.

It is necessary to recognize with complete clarity that liberal bourgeoisie has taken the counterrevolutionary path, and to conduct struggle against it. Only then will the policy of the workers' party become independent and revolutionary not in words only. Only then will we systematically influence both the petty bourgeoisie and the peasantry, which waver between liberalism and revolutionary struggle.

It was not without cause that complaints were made here about the incorrectness of our premise about the deception of petty bourgeoisie by liberals. Not only our revolution, but the experience of other countries has shown that it is precisely by deception that the influence of liberalism is maintained among many strata of the population. The struggle to liberate these strata from under the influence of liberals is our direct task. German Social-Democrats over decades destroyed and have destroyed, for instance, in Berlin the influence of liberals on the broad masses of the population. We can and must achieve the same and deprive the Cadets of their democratic supporters.

I will show by example where Menshevik policy of support for the Cadets led. In the Menshevik newspaper *Russkaya Zhizn'* of February 22, 1907 (No. 45), in an unsigned, that is editorial, article, it was said concerning the election of Golovin and his speech: "The Chairman of the State Duma has taken upon himself a great responsible task—to say such a word in which the chief demands and needs of a 140-million people would crystallize… Mr. Golovin could not for even one moment rise above being a member of the Cadet party, become the expresser of the will of the entire Duma." Do you see how instructive this turns out? From simple voting support the Mensheviks derive a responsible task for the liberal—to speak on behalf of "the people." This is direct transfer of ideological-political leadership to liberalism. This is complete abandonment of the class point of view. And I will say: if at the time of a left bloc some Social-Democrat should think to write about the responsible task of a Laborite, to express the needs of "labor," I would wholly subscribe to decisive condemnation of such a Social-Democrat. This is an ideological bloc with the Cadets among the Mensheviks, and we must not allow any such blocs with anyone, not even with Socialist-Revolutionaries.

Incidentally, Martynov said that we descend to such a bloc when we speak of all the land and all the power. This is false. Let me remind you of the Menshevik *Sotsial-Demokrat*. There, in a draft electoral platform compiled by the Central Committee, we encounter the same slogans of land and power! Martynov's words are nothing more than carping.

In conclusion I would like to say a few words to the Polish comrades. Perhaps some of them would find unnecessary the precise characterization of petty-bourgeois parties. The more acute class struggle in Poland perhaps makes this superfluous. But for Russian Social-Democrats this is necessary. Precise indication of the class character of labor parties is extremely important for the guidance of all propaganda and agitation. Only proceeding from class analysis of parties can we with complete clarity pose before the entire working class our tactical task: socialist class separation of the proletariat and struggle under its leadership both against autocracy and against the treacherous bourgeoisie. (Applause from Bolsheviks and the center.)

11. SPEECH ON THE RELATION TO THE POLISH DRAFT RESOLUTION ON BOURGEOIS PARTIES. May 15 (28)

From my preceding speech you could see how justified were the words of Comrade Popov about the fruitlessness of the present debate. You have convinced yourselves of the complete unprincipled nature of Liber's speech. I will only remind you that in our unsuccessful commission, voting for the Polish draft as the basis, against us were 4 Mensheviks, 1 Bundist, and 2 Poles, and also the Latvians.

So the Polish draft was taken as the basis in the commission by those people who were in principle farthest from the Poles. They did this in order to introduce amendments into the draft in the Menshevik spirit, in order to make the resolution unacceptable to its authors! Liber himself voted with the Mensheviks in this case too (Liber: "That's false!") and at the vote on the permissibility of blocs with the Cadets. After this his pathetic speeches about principles are simply ridiculous.

I fully understand the Poles when they sought to take their draft as the basis. Detailed points of our resolution seemed unnecessary to them. They wished to confine themselves to two fundamental principles that really unite us with them: 1) class separation of the proletariat in everything concerning socialism, from all bourgeois parties; 2) the connection of joint action by Social-Democrats and petty-bourgeois democracy against treacherous liberalism. Both these ideas run like a red thread through the Bolshevik draft as well. But the brevity of the Polish draft left too much room for Menshevik evasions. By their amendments they forced the very authors to vote against their draft as a whole. And at the same time neither the Mensheviks nor the Bundists dared to defend the Polish draft "corrected" by them in such a manner. The result was a complete collapse of the entire commission's work.

Now what remains for all of us, and especially for our Polish comrades, is one thing: to attempt to take the Bolshevik draft as a basis. If unacceptable amendments are made to it as well, then the congress will have to recognize itself as incapable of functioning. But it is possible that on the basis of this draft, which precisely analyzes all the principal types of parties, we will succeed in achieving a resolution sufficiently definite in the spirit of revolutionary Social-Democracy.

It is objected against our draft that it depicts parties too minutely. Parties may split, regroup, it is said, and the entire resolution will become useless.

This objection is extremely untenable. What we have outlined are not small groups and not even individual parties, but large groups of parties. These groups are so large that rapid change in their mutual relationships is far less possible than a complete change from revolutionary decline to upsurge or vice versa. Take these groups and look at them closely. Reactionary and more or less progressive bourgeoisie are invariant types in all capitalist countries. To these two invariant types we have added only two more types: Octobrists (a middle ground between Black Hundreds and liberals) and labor groups. Can these types change rapidly? They cannot, unless our revolution makes such a radical turn as would in any case compel us to radically revise not only our congress resolutions, but even our program.

Think about our program demand for confiscation of all landlord land. In no other country could Social-Democrats ever have supported the confiscatory aspirations of petty bourgeoisie. This would be charlatanism in an ordinary capitalist country. For us, in the epoch of bourgeois-democratic revolution, this is a necessity. And we can vouch that the fundamental questions in the evaluation of labor parties will have to be reviewed no sooner than our program demand for confiscation.

I will further note that, to avoid any misunderstandings and false interpretations of the left bloc, we define precisely the content of the struggle of labor parties. In fact they struggle not against exploitation in general (as appears to themselves) and certainly not against capitalist exploitation (as their ideologists represent it), but only against the feudal state and landlord land-ownership. And precise indication of this actual content of struggle at once puts an end to all false thoughts about the possibility of joint action of the workers' party and peasantry in the struggle for socialism, in the struggle against capitalism.

Besides this, we in our resolution speak clearly about the "pseudo-socialist character" of labor parties, we call for decisive struggle against the obscuring of class antagonism between proprietor and proletarian. We call to expose the murky socialist ideology of petty bourgeois. This absolutely must be said of petty-bourgeois parties. But this is all that need be said. The Mensheviks are deeply wrong when they add to this struggle against the revolutionism and utopianism of peasantry in the contemporary revolution. This is precisely what emerges from their resolution. And such a thought objectively reduces to calling for struggle against the confiscation of landlord land. The matter reduces to this because the most influential and widespread ideological-political currents of liberalism precisely declare confiscation to be revolutionism, utopianism, etc. It is not by chance, but necessarily, that the Mensheviks have slipped away over the past year from such principles to practical renunciation of defense of confiscation.

You must not permit this, comrades! Dan remarked in one of his speeches, in jest: our critics are poor if they criticize us most of all for what we have not done. We only wanted to renounce confiscation, but we haven't!

To which I will reply: if you had renounced it, we would no longer have a united party. We must not allow matters to come to such renunciations. If we permit even the shadow of a thought of such a policy, we will shake the entire revolutionary foundation of independent class struggle of the proletariat in the bourgeois-democratic revolution. (Applause from Poles, Latvians, and Caucasians.)

12. OBJECTION TO LIBER'S AMENDMENT TO THE RESOLUTION ON RELATIONS WITH BOURGEOIS PARTIES ADOPTED BY THE CONGRESS. May 15 (28)

Liber is wrong. From this alone you can see the character of Liber's amendments. His statement is schoolboyish, and this is characteristic of his unprincipled nature.

13. OBJECTIONS TO TROTSKY'S AMENDMENTS TO THE RESOLUTION ON RELATIONS WITH BOURGEOIS PARTIES ADOPTED BY THE CONGRESS. May 15 and 16 (28 and 29)

1

Two points here are important. They cannot be deleted. The first point is the indication of the economically more progressive strata of the bourgeoisie. This is essential. Even more essential is the indication of bourgeois intelligentsia. In bourgeois parties the number of bourgeois intelligentsia increases, those who attempt to reconcile serf-owning landlords with laboring peasantry and stand for the preservation of all remnants and survivals of autocracy.

2

That Trotsky's amendment is not Menshevik, that it expresses "the same," that is, Bolshevik thought, this cannot be denied. But this thought is expressed by Trotsky hardly better. When we say "simultaneously," we express the general character of contemporary policy. This general character, undoubtedly, is such that circumstances force us to go simultaneously both against Stolypin and against the Cadets. The same holds concerning the treacherous policy of the Cadets. Trotsky's insertion is superfluous because we are not catching individual cases in the resolution, but determining the fundamental line of Social-Democracy in bourgeois Russian revolution.

14. OBJECTIONS TO MARTOV'S AMENDMENTS TO THE BOLSHEVIK RESOLUTION ON RELATIONS WITH BOURGEOIS PARTIES. May 16 (29)

1

2

When Martov goes so far as to say that we refuse to introduce into our resolution any mention of our antagonism with revolutionary Populists, then with this evident, glaring falsehood he defeats himself, showing the fabricated nature of his amendment. No, it is not we who renounced struggle with the pseudo-socialism of the Populists, but you, Menshevik comrades, who renounced support of revolutionary democracy and preferred the liberals (Cadets). The majority of the Populist factions (People's Socialists and Laborites) not only did not specifically adhere to Socialist-Revolutionary terrorism, but, on the contrary, sinned by susceptibility to liberals. The actual revolutionism of all Populists is the striving toward the destruction of landlord land-ownership. In this alone do liberals see "adventurism and utopianism." In fact Martov helps the liberals.

15. OBJECTIONS TO MARTYNOV'S AMENDMENTS TO THE RESOLUTION ON RELATIONS WITH BOURGEOIS PARTIES. May 16 (29)

1

Martynov's amendment again attempts to advance the Menshevik view that peasants are more reactionary (or may be more reactionary) in the present revolution than the Cadets, inasmuch as the Mensheviks say nothing whatever about the reactionary nature of the Cadets. Martynov's argumentation becomes confused: the duplicity is not in that peasants waver between revolution and reaction, but in that they waver between Cadets and Social-Democrats. Under "anarchical tendencies," of which Martynov speaks, the Mensheviks will inevitably and necessarily insert their favorite idea about the reactionary nature of confiscation of landlord land and the progressiveness of redemption. The "anarchical tendencies" of peasants is a phrase of liberal landlords. And as for the subjection of the proletarian movement to the peasant movement, it is absurd to speak of this after we have declared the opposite dozens of times and expressed this in resolutions.

2

Undoubtedly, it would be a laughing-stock for Social-Democracy were we to accept Martynov's amendment. About decisive struggle against the feudal state we have already said at the beginning of the resolution. Now we must draw political conclusions from this socio-economic condition. Our task is to tear away from the influence of those bourgeoisie who are incapable of this decisive struggle (away from the influence of liberal landlords, the Cadets) that part of the bourgeoisie which its economic position pushes toward struggle (that is, peasantry). Martynov proposes to repeat at the end what was said at the beginning, in order to blur the clear political conclusion.

16. REPORT OF THE COMMISSION ON WORKING OUT A RESOLUTION ON THE STATE DUMA. May 18 (31)

Our commission did not reach agreement. For the Bolshevik draft 6 voted for and 6 against. For the Menshevik draft—5 for and 5 against. One abstained. It falls to me to briefly defend before you our Bolshevik draft, on which the Polish Social-Democrats and the Latvians came to agreement.

We proceeded from the fact that everything already said in the resolution on bourgeois parties should be removed from the resolution on the State Duma, since Duma struggle is only one part, and not the principal part, of our entire struggle against bourgeois parties and autocracy.

In the present resolution we speak only about what our policy in the Duma should be. As for the evaluation of how we came to be in the Duma, that section of the resolution—the point about boycott—we removed for the following reasons. It seems to me personally, as it does to all Bolsheviks, that in view of the position taken by the entire liberal press, we should give an evaluation of how we came to the Duma. Against the entire liberal bourgeoisie the workers' party is obliged to declare that precisely bourgeois betrayals are guilty of the fact that for a time we must reckon with such a deformed institution. But the Latvian comrades were against this point, and in order not to hinder the rapid conclusion of the work (and we must hurry to close the congress tomorrow, as decided), we removed this point. The will of the congress is clear in any case, and lack of time does not permit us to conduct principled debates.

I will dwell on the fundamental thoughts of our resolution. In essence this is all a repetition of what was said in our draft resolution at the Stockholm congress. In the first point is emphasized the complete unsuitability of the Duma as such. This is a necessary thought because very broad strata of peasantry and petty bourgeoisie in general continue to harbor the most naive hopes in the Duma. To expose these naive illusions, supported by liberals for their own class-egoistic purposes, is our direct duty.

The second part of the first point speaks about the unsuita­bility of the parliamentary path in general and about the clarification of the inevitability of open struggle of the masses. Here we clarify our positive views on the means of exit from the present situation. We must emphasize this and clearly repeat our revolutionary slogans, because vacillations and waverings, even among Social-Democrats, on such a question are not rare. Let all know that Social-Democracy remains on its old, revolutionary path.

The second point is devoted to clarification of the relation between directly "legislative" work in the Duma and agitation, criticism, propaganda, organization. The workers' party looks at the connection between Duma and non-Duma work in a way completely different from that of liberal bourgeoisie. This fundamental difference of views must be emphasized. On one side are bourgeois politicians intoxicated by parliamentary games behind the back of the people. On the other side is one of the detachments of organized proletariat, sent into the enemy camp and conducting coordinated work in connection with the entire struggle of the proletariat. For us there is only one, unified and inseparable, workers' movement, the class struggle of the proletariat. To this struggle we must subordinate completely all its separate particular forms, including the parliamentary. The extra-parliamentary struggle of the proletariat is for us the determining factor. It would be insufficient to say that we reckon with the economic interests and needs of the masses, etc. Such phrases (in the spirit of the old Menshevik resolution) are murky and can be signed by any liberal. Any liberal is ready to talk about the economic needs of the people in general. But no liberal will subordinate Duma activity to class struggle, and it is precisely this view that we, Social-Democrats, must express with complete clarity. We are distinguished from all and every kind of bourgeois democracy precisely by this principle.

It is sometimes indicated (especially by Bundists—allegedly conciliators) that one should also note the opposite: the connection of extra-parliamentary Social-Democratic struggle with the work of the Social-Democratic Duma fraction. I assert that this is incorrect and could only sow the most harmful parliamentary illusions. The part must conform to the whole, not the opposite. The Duma can be temporarily one of the arenas of class struggle as a whole, but only if this whole is not lost from sight, if the revolutionary tasks of class struggle are not obscured.

The following point of our resolution is devoted to liberal policy in the Duma. The slogan of this policy—"preserve the Duma"—merely covers the union of liberals with Black Hundreds. This must be stated directly and explained to the people. The liberal slogan systematically corrupts the political and class consciousness of the masses. Merciless struggle with this liberal fog is our duty. To tear the mask from liberalism, to show that behind the phrase about democracy hides voting hand in hand with Black Hundreds—this means to tear the remnants of democracy away from bourgeois betrayers of freedom.

What should guide us in determining our Duma policy? Our resolution, while avoiding any thought of provoking conflicts for the sake of conflict, gives a positive definition of "timeliness" in the Social-Democratic sense: we must reckon with the revolutionary crisis developing outside the Duma, by virtue of objective conditions.

The last point is devoted to the notorious "responsible ministry." This slogan was advanced not by chance, but inevitably by liberal bourgeoisie, in order to use moments of lull for its own purposes to weaken the revolutionary consciousness of the masses. This slogan was supported by Mensheviks in both the first and second Duma, and Plekhanov directly wrote in the Menshevik newspaper during the second Duma that Social-Democrats should "make their own" this demand. Thus this slogan played a quite definite role in the history of our revolution. To define our relation to this slogan is necessary for the workers' party. One cannot be guided by the fact that liberals are not now raising it: they have temporarily dropped it for opportunistic reasons, but in essence they strive for a deal with tsarism even more strongly. And the slogan of "Duma ministry" most distinctly expresses these immanent tendencies of liberalism toward a deal.

We do not deny, and cannot deny, either that a Duma ministry could turn out to be an episode of revolution, or that circumstances could force us to utilize it. That is not the point. Social-Democracy utilizes reforms as a side product of the revolutionary class struggle of the proletariat, but it is not our business to call the people to half-measures, measures which are unrealizable without revolutionary struggle. Social-Democracy must expose the entire inconsistency of such slogans even from the purely democratic point of view. Social-Democracy must clarify to the proletariat the conditions of its victory, not bind its own policy in advance to the possibility of incomplete victory, to the possibility of partial defeat—for such are the conditions of the problematic realization of the "Duma ministry."

Let liberals squander democracy for kopecks and throw away the whole for the sake of shabby and impotent, pitiful dreams of a pitiful pittance. Social-Democracy must revive in the people consciousness of the wholeness of democratic tasks and lead the proletariat toward clearly conscious revolutionary aims. We must enlighten the consciousness of the worker masses and develop their readiness for struggle, not darken consciousness by dulling contradictions, dulling the tasks of struggle. (Applause.)

17. SPEECH ON THE QUESTION OF THE NAME OF THE CONGRESS. May 19 (June 1)

I am surprised that the Mensheviks fear to name the congress the Fifth. Is our history a secret to someone?

18. REMARKS DURING THE DEBATE ON THE REBALLOTING OF THOSE ELECTED TO THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE. May 19 (June 1)

1

A reballoting must be conducted. Liber is wrong. All his arguments are ridiculous sophism. After all, who will decide on the lottery drawing? We will! We represent the final session of the congress. There can be no agreements. For this is a congress, not a gathering of factions. You say that we were authorized to decide only technical and formal questions, but we have just adopted a political resolution on the loan.

2

You wanted to frighten us with terrible words about seizure of power. But after all, we are authorized to select candidates for the Central Committee at this session. (Noise.) Calm down, comrades, you won't outshout me in any case! We are reproached for wanting to exploit our single vote. I find this both possible and necessary. We are deciding here a political, a principled question. To leave the decision of this question to a lottery drawing—to blind chance—this means to conduct a gambling game. One cannot condemn a party to a year of gambling. I warn you that if—in case of an equal vote—our party decides this question by lottery, the responsibility falls on you. Therefore this assembly must conduct a reballoting.