LENINIST COLLECTION
places them in equal necessity. The commission, stylistically altering the original text somewhat, finds them "equally necessary." The word "equally" is struck out by the conference...
In resolving the question of the interrelationship of political, trade union, and cooperative organizations, we must reckon with the solutions already available: either we adhere to one of them, or we must develop and substantiate a new one of our own...
We, the Socialist-Revolutionaries, disagree with any of these points of view*. In contrast to all of them, we put forward, if one may say so, a synthetic program of activity for the working people on the path to liberation. Neither the exclusively party organization, nor the trade union, nor the cooperative, neither this one, nor that one, nor the third one separately, but all together, each in its own way, with the help of its own methods, lead the working class forward. A harmonious combination of all of them, a harmonious development guarantees the victory of integral socialism...
Indeed. All three organizations are necessary. But wouldn't the Social Democrats subscribe to this? Do they deny the necessity of trade unions or cooperatives? Not at all. And their difference from us lies not only in the fact that they are against their "autonomous development" or "equal rights." What is essential is not only that they demand the organizational-ideological hegemony of the party over the union. What is much more essential is that they see the fighter for socialism only in the party, they recognize the educational role in the spirit of socialism only for the party...
[ί*®]
. . . Let it be*' simply the most extreme of the democratic parties, let it, within the framework of this system, and only here, try to help, as much as it can, the socialist movement of the proletariat, which has poured itself into the only adequate form of organization for the goal — into the syndicate. Then the party will be useful, even in a certain sense necessary...
Concluding my note, I would like to draw attention to one more
f circumstance that slipped into the very brief, generally speaking,
NB
debates on this matter at the conference. The comrades who defended the amendment were, apparently, especially shocked, as we have already indicated above, by the placement "on a par" of party work and "cooperative shops." ., Cooperation is a necessary and extremely important link in
our conception of the economic evolution of the peasantry on the path to socialism. Denying the possibility of mechanical socialization of agriculture, i.e., the point of view of the Social Democrats, revolutionary syndicalists,
and Mr. Posse. Ed.
** We are talking about a socialist political party. In this
place in the article, the point of view of the syndicalists is presented. Ed.

NOTES ON BOOKS, NEWSPAPERS, AND OTHER MATERIALS

denying all concentrations, differentiations, and proletarianizations in this area, finding that the creative and positive role of capitalism here is reduced to a minimum, we outline a different path of development for the village from the present to socialism: we imagine a spontaneous, from below, so to speak, production association of direct producers on the basis of common land use built on the labor principle. Therefore, with the land reform we propose — the socialization of land — cooperation in all its forms is inevitably and inextricably linked, as a second extremely important factor in socializing consciousness and production. The socialization of land will give a material basis for the construction of solidary labor, it will take away the possibility of productive exploitation of the direct producer, it will destroy the possibility of cultivating the proprietary instinct...
N. D.
425 E
ARTICLE: "MORE ON THE CURRENT MOMENT AND PARTY TACTICS."
"ZNAMYA TRUDA" No. 13, NOVEMBER 1908.
[November—December 1908. Geneva.]
MORE ON THE CURRENT MOMENT AND ON PARTY TACTICS.
More than once "Z. T." has had to speak on the question of how to understand the current moment: are we experiencing a complete collapse of the revolution, which will be followed by a long period of reaction, perhaps longer than the reaction of the 80s and 90s that followed the defeat of "Narodnaya Volya," or are we experiencing a temporary, albeit severe, crisis of the revolution, which will inevitably be followed by a new upsurge of the revolutionary movement at the first favorable opportunity? At present, we have to return to this cardinal question of revolutionary tactics in connection with the recently completed all-party conference.
. . . The Russian people still stand before a deaf wall . . . The first
onslaught of the working people has been repelled, but the people cannot but renew
attacks on the existing order . . .
Proceeding from this point of view, the Central Committee also drafted its draft resolution for the upcoming conference. In this draft, the Central Committee noted "a noticeable strengthening of the government's positions," thanks to the organization around it of all the reactionary forces of the country, frightened by the social aspirations
of the Russian revolution. . . .

This draft resolution served as the canvas for extensive
debates at the conference. A comrade who is the ideological representative
of the "Revolutionary Thought" group and who attended the conference
at the invitation of the Central Committee sharply disagreed with the draft resolution in assessing
the current moment. He reproached the Central Committee for glossing over
the seriousness of the situation, for speaking too softly, even gently, about
"a noticeable strengthening of the government's positions," when one should speak of
a catastrophe. We are experiencing not an episode of revolutionary struggle, but a
catastrophe of the revolution — a catastrophe more severe than the catastrophe of "Narodnaya
Volya" in the early 80s. Revolutionary parties have been defeated, and the
only means to save the revolution and avert a long-term reaction from the country
is central terror and a revision of the entire worldview
of the party in the sense of emphasizing the role of the initiative minority
in the revolution, since, in the opinion of the comrade, forgetting this role and excessive enthusiasm for the idea of a general uprising was the main source
of the mistakes made by the party in the last 2 years.
So, what are we experiencing: an episode or a catastrophe?. . .
. . . Changes of catastrophes and anti-catastrophes are good and appropriate in ancient
myths and the struggle of giants. But transferring these images to the depiction of
modern history is hardly scientific, even for a theorist of the initiative
minority.
[12]
The representative of "Revolutionary Thought" sees salvation for the Russian revolution in only one thing: in the Socialist-Revolutionaries revising their worldview
in the spirit of emphasizing the role of the initiative minority and in central
terror. No matter how pleasant such a role of the Socialist-Revolutionary worldview in the fate of the Russian revolution is for party self-esteem, we cannot
recognize such a decisive significance for the proposed revision.
X We had to talk about it in the previous issue, and here we will not
return to this topic. . . It is impossible to propose recognizing the need
( for revision on credit alone on the grounds
that heterogeneous elements are allegedly mechanically mixed in our official worldview. . .
However, of all the factors that could change the political situation
in Russia in a direction favorable to the revolution, only one to a certain extent lies within the power of the party. This is central terror___
In addition to central terror, put forward by the Central Committee in its draft resolution, another recipe for
changing the political conjuncture in a direction desirable for the party
was proposed at the conference, and it was also proposed by a "pessimist" who reproached the Central Committee for excessive optimism.
In his opinion, we are still rolling down towards reaction.
But according to this comrade as well. . . the situation is not hopeless and can
be fundamentally corrected. The means is a holy war against the landowners, who are currently the masters of the situation and the inspirers of reaction. The comrade is not an agrarian terrorist; he is against arson

ΠΟΜΕΓΚΙΙ ПА КНИГАХ, ГАЗЕТАХ И ДРУГИХ МАТЕРИАЛАХ

and destruction of property. But he is for the extermination of individuals. Not for the total
extermination of all landowners — oh, no! Just 3 or 4 people per district —
this will be enough to enlighten the local nobility and turn it onto the path of progress ...
... Physical impact against such abusers cannot meet
with any principled objections on our part. But to introduce
this impact into a system, to see in it a means for changing the political behavior of an entire class — this is already too much. Terror against
a class can only lead to an increase in reaction and repression, but in no way
to their weakening.
To give up in such a purely physical struggle would mean for him to admit that his cause is hopelessly lost, would mean giving way to a social revolution. And this moment will come,
the exploiters will have to surrender, but they will be forced to do so not by a system
of murders organized by a relatively small party, but by a widely
spreading active struggle of the entire working people...
... Undoubtedly, the hand of a "wild landowner" is at work in the Union of the Russian People. But it is just as certain that, along with the "wild landowner," the landed gentry has also produced an enlightened landowner, who formed the core of the Cadets and "Peaceful Renewal." And if we had
statistics on the class composition of political parties, then the question would still be:
wouldn't the average political mood of our bourgeoisie be
lower (more reactionary) than the average of the landed gentry. At least
the entire history of urban and zemstvo self-government speaks for this.
The conference by an overwhelming majority adopted the point of view of the Central Committee
and the tactics stemming from it. It recognized that the present time is not
favorable for any mass revolutionary attempts. . . Thanks to the destruction of the free press, thanks to the fragmentation
of revolutionary organizations and some disappointment of the working
people in revolutionary methods of action, the country has become significantly
more deaf to the exciting influence of this kind of partial outbreaks.
In such a situation, these outbreaks are a fruitless waste of forces
and should be prevented by our organizations, as far as it is in their power. Our work in the working masses should continue to proceed
from the idea of an armed uprising . . .
The question of combat training caused extensive and heated debates at
the conference; it even divided the Central Committee. Those who argued were in agreement in the general
assessment of the moment. But while one part of the comrades insisted on conducting
combat training of the masses, the other part demanded the exclusion of combat
training from the current tasks of the party, since — it seemed to them — any
attempt to conduct it on any significant scale inevitably, by the very
logic of things, pushes the masses to partial actions, which
#
[13]
X

the party considers a fruitless waste of forces for the present moment. Some were directly frightened by combat training, evoking in them heavy
memories of combat squads that made combatism their special
and exclusive profession. . . Finally, against the introduction of combat training
into the circle of current party tasks, the consideration was also adduced
that it would deprive party directives of any definite orientation
and would allow immature party organizations to build
their work according to their inclinations; for example, completely abandoning
serious socialist work in the masses and conducting it in the spirit
^ of the most unpardonable combatism, giving nothing but soap bubbles
. . . Any of these tasks can be turned into a monstrous one-sidedness, but this circumstance cannot serve as an objection against its recognition. We have repeatedly had to warn comrades
that the training of party masses in revolutionary-combat technique should by no means
be associated with any specific plans for actions . . . Likewise, we have constantly emphasized, according to the decision of the 3rd
Council of the Party, that combat training should by no means lead to the division
of the party into specially civilian and military elements, lead to the formation
of specially combat squads, alien to any other party
work.. .
All the less expedient is it to strike out combat training of the masses from
I I the circle of current party tasks, that central terror has been introduced
|| into their number by the conference without any disputes and placed in a prominent place.
In an excited and tense political atmosphere — and it is undoubtedly so at present — any act of central terror can easily
77------------------------------------------------------------
cause both revolutionary attempts and counter-revolutionary convulsions and pogroms ...
150 k
ARTICLE BY A-VOSH "WHAT IS NEEDED NOW"?
"IZVESTIA OF THE REGIONAL FOREIGN COMMITTEE" ΛΪ 10, MARCH 1909*
[March 1909. Paris.]
[I]
WHAT IS NEEDED NOW? *
* Giving space to this article, which touches on a number of interesting questions, in the columns of its discussion organ, the editors consider it necessary
to note that they completely disagree with the main provisions and conclusions of the author. Ed. [of "Izvestia of the Regional Foreign Committee."]
[13]
Organization of the masses? Is it really necessary, after everything that has been experienced, to return to the dream of broad organizations with combat tasks, to play

NOTES ON BOOKS, NEWSPAPERS, AND OTHER MATERIALS

the tale of the white bull? Moreover, the experience of at least the Voronezh
province showed that creating such organizations for the future, just in case,
means either provoking the most valuable elements of the masses to aimless
outbreaks, or, restraining them from action, demoralizing and, ultimately,
disappointing them and weakening them . . .
To regret especially the impossibility of mass organizations? We have already
seen in 1905 how quickly they are formed when the wave
of movement rises.
If we are only talking about the organization of party cadres, then we will have to
state that this matter, for all understandable reasons, is experiencing
a severe crisis in all parties.
There remains the question of economic organizations. But they ne I
are of great importance, as far as the destructive side is concerned I
of the revolution, and we will talk about them below.
................................................................................. [14—15]
We have approached the fateful question: what is capable of causing such I
a heroic psychosis?
I
The excitability of peoples is different. . .
But there is a spiritual string that belongs to all peoples to
the most responsive ones«. This is national feeling. This is not the place to talk
---------------------------------------------------------— ——
^%уж/х/х/т^/%у^х,'х^ух,'х^ух,'х^ух,'х^ух, about the reasons for this phenomenon and to enter into its assessment. One only has to
recognize that one of the most rewarding tasks is propaganda on the basis
of nationalism — be it militant chauvinism or culture-defending
nationalism. . .
Perhaps I will be objected to that we should not strive for such [16]
semi-conscious penetration of our ideas, that we expect
to achieve more. Well, in that case, we will have to postpone
our hopes until the entire mass reaches the level of
development of its advanced detachments. . .
. . . Wasn't it the need for national defense that brought the great
French Revolution to the highest tension? And with us — didn't
foreigners, whose sense of national protest had heated up their
political and social slogans with their heat, go ahead of the revolution, and ahead — sometimes to tragic isolation from it? Yes, what! It is enough to recall
the revolutionizing influence of the Japanese war — not its difficulties,
but precisely its national failures.
. . . Sectarianism lives and seeks in its own way. All attempts to instill in it [16]
an alien ideology from the outside have remained, in the end, fruitless.
Let us note, by the way, that the elements of the petty bourgeoisie, the peasantry, and
a significant part of the workers, religiously less developed than the sectarians,
and remaining within the limits of the dominant church, still allocate a very large place to religion in their

lives, much more than we are used to I
to think this.
Here again, a strongly vibrating
string passes through the mass thickness, here is a place of great excitability. I do not want to evaluate this
fact, but only to look it straight in the face, not brushing it aside with dogmatic
formulas.
It is time to recognize that there is a broad grassroots stream of national life,
which passes by us, only touching our streams with its edges.
But religion is not limited in its content: it could
embrace, absorb social and political ideals, it could renew them
with them and raise them on its crest. I am talking, of course, not about the
artificial processing "under religion" of some party program:
for the party, a lie is a completely unsuitable foundation; for advanced
working strata, such a program would be an unnecessary violation of habits
of thought; for the broad amorphous mass, it would be the most artificial and difficult
to assimilate of the products of intellectual thought.
No, a religion that could create a broad movement; that
would serve as a center of attraction, a center of fusion of all kinds
of Russian sects; that would be understandable to all of Russia, worn out to stupefaction;
that would speak to the mind through feeling, and, therefore, would possess the
ability of mass infection — such a religion should organically grow
from the roots of traditional Christian beliefs; should have with them,
to a certain extent, a common ground, a common language; should be just as revolutionary and refreshing from the purely religious side as from the
social-political side; should, finally, be preached
by people of genuine fanatical faith.
Whether the seeds of such a religious teaching exist now in Russia
and whether they are capable of giving powerful shoots, I do not presume to judge. Some
of the socialist intelligentsia, whose sincerity is undoubted,
asserts that they do — that they see them in the people and feel them in themselves.
In any case, attempts at new religious propaganda will probably
be made.
Such a movement lies in a completely different plane than party
activity, and in essence we, as Socialist-Revolutionaries, would not have to
say our word in it. But it is necessary to clarify in advance how we should relate to
it.
Orthodox tradition dictates fighting against such a deviation of
popular consciousness from the "straight paths." But the straight paths are unfamiliar, narrow
and strict. Not all the working people can pass along them. Now, he,
for good, will fall on his crooked, bumpy, but wide, well-trodden
roads. He is in a hurry.
Are we really going to stand across his path and shout, waving
our hands: "back, back! Even if you are going in that direction, it is not the right road!

NOTES ON BOOKS, NEWSPAPERS, AND OTHER MATERIALS

We have laid out a new one for you, according to all the rules of science." It is still good
if the mass simply crushes us and goes somewhere forward — out of
this hell. Only faster, faster! Otherwise it will be too late. . .
One of two things — either the goal — freedom — is infinitely dear to us, or we
have fallen in love with our "time-honored" paths. Are we really more afraid
of a religious-social upsurge than of ingrained, ingrained
slavery? And only because most of us are alien to the feeling of faith . . .
That's how some peasant scolds poets and
artists as idlers and madmen.
I will probably be objected to that the paths are not indifferent: that the path of religious enthusiasm will predetermine in part the content of the culture of the future. But what about it? We have nothing to share with him, we are not competitors. Socialism does not undertake, it cannot and should not undertake to fill with its content new, free forms of a solidary society. It will undoubtedly have a healing effect on the psyche of people, but it will not put new spiritual values before them — the goal of new aspirations and achievements. We, as socialists, are only defenders and servants of man, but not his prophets: we will help him to knock off his chains, to dress in a comfortable and beautiful outfit, we will give him flowers and weapons in his hands. — and where he will go — to what holiday, to what battle — we do not know...
So, in the event of such a religious movement, we should not compete with it, not hinder it, but openly recognize its positive significance, coordinate our actions with it as much as possible, and, if necessary, provide it with technical services.
We move on to the last, it seems, of the conceivable ways out of the impasse of reaction.
There is something capable of inspiring the masses, pushing them to fight, filling them with faith in the possibility of victory and contempt for the enemy. This is success.
Here, the stimulus does not increase, the ideal does not become more vivid and dear.
Here, the idea of an obstacle weakens, the charm of the enemy's
strength falls. The close gaze of enemy guns, which paralyzed the will of the people,
begins to fade and seem to move away.
But, without falling into contradiction with everything said above, we cannot
expect a major success from a mass movement. We can only talk
about successful combat operations of small closed groups or loners.
Let their victory testify only to their own strength and
not increase the chances of a mass victory in itself; let it even
be accidental: all the same — success hypnotizes; success is involuntarily generalized;
success is felt by everyone as his own. And the opposite side, which suffered from an accurate blow, also experiences its psychological
effect, far from proportional to the real damage inflicted on it:
defeat paralyzes its will, knocks it out of its rut.
But all this — on the condition that the blow is directed at the node that pulls together
the threads of countless associations of feeling and thought of the people, if it immediately,
without comments, acquires for everyone the meaning of a symbol, a winged
legend permeates the life of the people. Then the mass can come to that

state of increased excitability, when in the pre-storm atmosphere
electric currents of an irreplaceable
social-psychic infection pass between the army and the people. Then the preparedness of the popular consciousness will also play its role, facilitating mutual understanding between its various
layers.
NB
Such is the significance that a central strike might have.
I say — might be, because in this case all hopes are built
on considerations of a socio-psychological nature, and in this
enticing, but dark forest, one can only move by groping. . .
... I will only note that it is better not to take into account hopes for
the direct disorganization of the government caused by the strike.
Given its current preparedness for it, one can strongly doubt
such an action.
... Covert combat activity naturally absorbs
only a small part of the party forces. What should the entire party do
as a whole?
First of all — not what it has done so far: not everything at once.
After all, now the activity of each committee tries to embrace all branches:
the workers' cause, if possible — with a department for professional struggle;
the peasants' cause — somewhere with a department for managing cooperatives;
the intelligentsia, military, and printing affairs. . . according to the results, if we
look at them from the side, having broken out of the hypnosis of the stupefying spinning
in the wheel, all this activity resembles — may my comrades forgive me —
a storm in a teacup. How little one must understand the complexity of life,
how little one must respect the people to hope — with the current forces of the party,
under the conditions of underground work, in the absence of objective data
for a revolutionary upsurge — to direct the historical process in the desired direction. For, if they did not hope, then why would they try?
Is it — out of habit and unsuitability for another job . . .
. . . it is better for us not to engage in self-indulgence and, in the sphere of spreading
our views, to concentrate all efforts on creating and storing
good literature. I am only talking about creation and storage, because,
I think, the time has come when the mass itself
seeks and finds ways to distribute literature. And, in fact, there will be no great trouble in the fact that the amorphous
mass will rarely encounter Socialist-Revolutionaries; let it even get used to us
as a party: we have already seen how easily we can
win its trust at the moment of the upsurge. Finally, if only our
NB ideas were absorbed into the mass: our "Firm" can then perish . . .
[19]
.............................................................................................................................................
But, of course, the covert organization cannot accommodate the mass. Yes,
and it has nothing to do there: we will not learn self-government in a centralistic
organization (and under modern conditions and the modern formulation
of party tasks, it cannot be otherwise). The initiative of the mass could

NOTES ON BOOKS, NEWSPAPERS, AND OTHER MATERIALS

develop in it in part only in the sphere of defense
from the police.
As for moral and intellectual education — there is nothing to think about there,
where the poisonous underground fumes of adventurism, dilettantism, and provocation can poison, and not strengthen, weak souls. Let the party have been
previously a brotherhood of pure ascetics, let them flicker in it even now, — in the general state of affairs for the present time this changes nothing.
As for the coverage of the advanced elements of the mass by the party organization, then it
is not actually carried out: those workers and NB peasants who have now retained official ties with the party are far
from always being the most revolutionary, the most conscious, the most loved by the mass, the most organic Socialist-Revolutionaries. The thirst of the best
for tireless activity and creative intervention in the surrounding
life, in this politically dead era, often repels from
the exotic party world. And to tell the truth, since such
people are drawn into the vortex of our fictitious-synthetic work,
one can only regret that they are distracted from those life-giving
streams with which national life breaks through — flows forward —
almost spontaneously.
And it flows. Despite all the persecution, there are a number
of economic organizations — trade unions, consumer societies, partnerships for purchasing, selling, and finally — production NB
artels. . .
True, their tasks are not broad. But they are understandable and dear to the entire
thickness of the working people, the results are visible to all. . .
True, the work of their members is not heroic. But it is connected by many threads
with their ordinary, everyday life, it merges with it and introduces into
it new social and mental habits, new cultural needs, re-educates
those captured in its circle, while party-political
activity for most non-professionals will always remain
more or less outside of life, even if above it. It is something
like Sunday mass, and Friday fasting for a traditionally religious
person.
True, economic organizations are subjected to all sorts
of restrictions by the government. But partly these persecutions are inflicted,
it seems, for the sake of honor, by the "ideological leaders" of the economic movement
through declarations and declamations about principles that have long become Q r o j
alphabetical for everyone and completely do not need their protection.
Will the revolution reach the limits provided for by our ι [20]
Program-minimum, or will it fly into the "labor republic" of the maximalists |

[21]
to a greater or lesser extent, the economic life of the country
will be rebuilt, and a huge role falls to the share of the economic organizations
of the working people in its new building.
I will remind you, by the way, that our ranks objected to the maximalists not
so much against the possibility of seizing factories as against the desirability
of this. But the logic of movement does not always adhere to the sequence
that the logic of ideas outlines for it. And this becomes all the more true in this case, the more the litigation of two worlds is delayed...
... Instead of randomly throwing our organizational
loops into the immensity of the amorphous mass, it is better for us to strengthen ourselves at those
nodes to which it spontaneously gravitates, which promise to become
centers of its crystallization . . .
We must serve economic organizations with theoretical
knowledge of their business, to acquaint them with not yet tested forms of association *.
We must fight in trade unions against the desire
of the Social Democrats to stick a party label on the unions and fundamentally narrow their tasks.
We must observe, try to understand all the shades of the movement,
must learn business acumen in its flow, and most importantly — develop in ourselves
a sense of life. Ah, this irreplaceable gift is a sense of life. And it is with all of us,
if it has not disappeared, then it has been greatly dulled by imprisonment in the underground. . .
* For example, I will mention the zemlyachestvo organizations, intended
to establish an exchange of services between the city and the village, the idea of which
was thrown, but, it seems, not at all picked up in our environment.
[22]
. . . I will be told, of course, that forces cannot be accumulated in inaction.
NB
And walking around an empty space — is that a business? ...
This natural liquidation of the organization, caused by a change in tactics,
NB will present us with an irreplaceable opportunity to simply and radically
cleanse our ranks of adventurers and provocateurs.
I will make a reservation: there is no principled denial here of a covert
NB NB political party with comprehensive tasks. There is only a recognition
of its inappropriateness under the given circumstances, for the given moment. . .
[23]
. . . the following ways out of the
current situation objectively seem possible:
1) The government, which has emerged from the struggle relatively strengthened,
under the influence of the European social upheaval, may falter,
losing international support — and then the working people will finish it off.
2) The working people, who have emerged from the struggle relatively weakened,
under the influence of new stimuli more closely connected with his feeling — national,
or religious — in a spontaneous impulse, captivating the troops, a storm
can rush in and tear out the poisonous tree of autocracy by the roots.

NOTES ON BOOKS, NEWSPAPERS, AND OTHER MATERIALS

3)
A successful strike at the center, breaking the spell of fear, can
break a hole in the wall of tsarism, and the waves of the people's sea, unexpectedly easily
pouring through it, will flood it, stunned.
We must support everything that is favorable for these possibilities,
shunning all dogmatism.
For the most productive use of the small forces
that we possess, we must, in this period, limit ourselves to one literature for communication with the amorphous
mass; direct the main forces to work among the elements that have already organized themselves for economic
struggle and on its basis.
... Undoubtedly, there will be enough screamers and, in part, very sincere
and honest ones who accuse us of betraying ourselves and our cause. Well,
jj
time will come and show whether we have forgotten our goals, whether we have unlearned how to fight.
! j
Let even the popularity of the party temporarily fall. Is this more important
j 1 than the interests of the cause that the party has always served?
| j ||
. . . I am not chasing after the novelty of views, for I am proposing not a theory, but
a line of behavior. And I do not disclaim influences. As far as one can impartially trace the process of one's own thought, I think that none
of these major trends of recent years has passed for me without a trace.
But I do not put this as a reproach to myself. Bad is the one who has nothing to learn, nothing
to supplement his worldview, and bad is the worldview that fences off
its bearer from the flow of general cultural thought, suspecting itself
of fragility . . .
I
About relig[ion] — p. 4 6, 428 K article: "crisis of Bolshevism."
"ZNAMYA TRUDA" No. 25—24, DECEMBER 1909.
[December 1909 — January 1910. Paris.]
CRISIS OF BOLSHEVISM.
. . . Everywhere we see relapses of the old, pre-revolutionary psycho-
^
logy. From the darkness of time threatens to rise the damp haze of foreign inter-
factional squabbles, with its best techniques of Khlestakovian familiarity,
passed off as wit, and crude abusiveness, passed off as sharp
principledness. As if some dam has broken again. . . the field
flew, whirled in small whirlpools, cheerfully jumped on the surface . . . And indeed, what a comforting picture!
How all this fits the tragic seriousness of the moment being experienced!. . .
. . . We do not at all want to deny the major role that Lenin [2]
played in the creation and development of "Bolshevism"; we will not deny either
that personalities and personal scores have always played a significant role in the history
of Social Democratic splits. What to do! These are the usual childhood
diseases of every party. But to reduce everything to personalities with their whims,
fancies, and pretensions — this, it seems, is already too much.

It is true, of course, that in the initial emergence of Bolshevism
the role of the personal element was predominant. But in the histories of parties
it always happens that discords and the formation of purely personal centers
are only the form into which life then gradually pours more
; impersonal content. Leaders can quarrel with each other over
I anything, but the grouping around them will go according to the chemical affinity
of elements, the crystallization that has begun will go further, and the created
retinue, school, audience will lead their
leaders after a while. "Teachers" and "leaders," if they understand their position, will have to remember the words of Mephistopheles: "Du glaubst zu schieben, und du
wirst geschoben" *. . .
[3]
The events of the end of 1905 found both factions already defined...
?
. . . The Bolsheviks advocated rapprochement with the Socialist-Revolutionary and Narodnik elements
against the Cadets, while the Mensheviks rejected such
rapprochement and wanted to support the Cadets . . .
... All this proves nothing except that "soft," opportunistic
elements of all times ιΓ peoples turn out to be especially
1 sensitive to changes in circumstances. . .
[4 ]
. . . It cannot, of course, be said that the personal qualities of these
leaders were "not involved" in the development of disagreements and splits. But these
qualities were even more cultivated, cultivated in
the leaders by the audience than they determined the audience and its composition.
In particular, immoderate worship on the part of their own and equally immoderate, emphasized, exaggeratedly contemptuous and mocking
attitude of others could not but develop a morbid self-esteem, dressing
in the toga of Olympian arrogance and at the same time sensitive
to the smallest pinpricks. Only because and insofar as these persons turned out to be leaders, that their personal qualities were in unison
with the psychology of the group, corresponded to its special needs
to complete fusion. The Bolsheviks needed an imperious, even if stubborn and
crude, but absolutely rounded, monolithically integral "revolutionary orthodox"; the Mensheviks needed an equally elastic and
flexible, even to the point of lack of character, to the point of impressionism, a lawyer of "broad
practicalism." If Lenin and Martov did not exist, they would have to be
invented___
.. . When, before the elections to the Third Duma, the Bolsheviks tried
to defend the boycott position, — the defection of Lenin and his transition, in
( 7 ) this particular issue, to the side of the Mensheviks, of course, was for his
faction an unpleasant surprise... But there is no need to hypnotize oneself with this appearance of "betrayal of the leader"; this would mean sliding on the surface and not noticing a deeper correspondence. By the time of the elections
to the Third Duma, the Bolsheviks had already accepted a number of prerequisites for
refusing the boycott; Lenin, before others, drew a logical conclusion from these prerequisites. The preservation of the boycott position would have made sense only
insofar as the Bolsheviks were conducting or were going to conduct
an offensive tactic. But in what could it be expressed? Terror
they never recognized, and the forms of mass combatism were
almost completely liquidated by the time of the Third Duma.............. But
then why preserve one boycottism? It was, of course, difficult for the mass of Bolsheviks to immediately abandon this familiar slogan; ou
saved the appearance of revolutionism, without resurrecting its essence. The mass of Bolsheviks could only slowly reconcile itself with the Third
Duma and the faction. This is happening, — to a large extent it has already happened, — before
our eyes. All of Lenin's personal influence turned out to be insufficient to