From the debate that took place on this question, it became entirely clear that the various currents within Social Democracy are divided by major tactical disagreements. Who could have imagined that under such conditions we would be urged to remove all fundamental questions of principle from the congress agenda? And with what sophistic arguments was such removal of questions of principle defended here – in the name of what is supposedly practicality and businesslike conduct!

I remind you that the question of the tasks of the proletariat in the bourgeois-democratic revolution has long stood before Russian Social Democracy. As early as the beginning of 1905, before the revolution, this question was debated both at the III Congress of the RSDLP{165} – that is, its Bolshevik section – and at the simultaneous Geneva conference of the Mensheviks{166}. At that time the Mensheviks themselves placed fundamental questions of principle on the agenda of their congress.

At that time they themselves discussed the foundations of the proletariat's tactics in the bourgeois revolution and adopted reasoned resolutions on this matter. If now it is proposed to strike such questions from the agenda, this is the result of a defeatist mood, and we must fight against this mood rather than surrender to it!

They speak of the experience of West European Social Democratic parties with their "businesslike" congresses. But I say to you that the Germans at their congresses debated more than once questions far more abstract, more theoretical than those which touch upon the evaluation of the revolution occurring among us and the tasks of the proletariat in it. From the experience of other parties we ought to take not that which reduces us to the level of some period of grey, routine everyday life. We ought to take that which raises 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 from the worst.

They say: "one cannot resolve serious tactical questions by a majority of a dozen votes." But is this not sophistry? Is this not a helpless evasion from questions of principle toward unprincipledness?

A question is never resolved by voting. For several years now we have been resolving questions of Marxist evaluation of our revolution. For several years now we have been testing our theoretical views and general tactical resolutions through the experience of our revolution. And now we are being told that the time has still not come to sum up this party work! We should not, you see, determine the foundations of tactics – rather we should trail behind the course of events, resolving questions from case to case…

Recall the Stockholm Congress. The Mensheviks who prevailed there withdrew their own resolution on the evaluation of the moment, withdrew their own resolution on relations with the bourgeois parties. What came of this? What came of it was that the Central Committee had no principled foundations whatsoever for resolving the questions that arose before it. What came of it was that the Central Committee thrashed about all year without any policy. Today it was for a Constituent Assembly, tomorrow it threw itself into preaching a Duma ministry, the day after – "the Duma as an organ of power for convening the 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: "for the sake of party peace… for the sake of practical work let us bypass general questions." This is sophistry. Such questions cannot be bypassed. Peace does not result from bypassing them, 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 – we must make special haste in seeking allies from among the bourgeoisie. I assert that the foundations of this reasoning are erroneous. I assert that, without analyzing these foundations, you doom the party to a multitude of unnecessary practical errors.

Plekhanov said in that same speech that opportunism in Russian Social Democracy is weak. – Well, perhaps if we consider the works of Plekhanov himself to be weak! (Applause from the Bolshevik benches.) And I believe that opportunism manifests itself among us precisely in the fact that from the agenda of the first truly all-party congress they wish to remove general questions about the foundations of our tactics in the bourgeois revolution. It is not theoretical questions that we should remove – rather we should raise all our party practice to the height of theoretical illumination of the tasks of the workers' party. (Applause from the Bolsheviks.)