V. I.

Lenin

In a special supplement to the present issue of
Proletary the reader will find a report on the conference of the
Bolsheviks and the text of the resolutions adopted there. [1]

Our purpose in the present article is to assess the importance of this
conference and the breakaway of a small group of the Bolsheviks which took
place there, from the standpoint both of our wing and of the
R.S.D.L.P. as a whole.

The last two years, roughly from the coup d’état of June 3,
1907, up to the present time, have been a period of drastic change, of
grave crisis in the history of the Russian revolution and in the
development of the working-class movement in Russia and of the Russian
Social-Democratic Labour Party. The All-Russian Conference of the
R.S.D.L.P. held in December 1908 reviewed the present political situation,
the condition and prospects of the revolutionary movement and the tasks of
the party of the working class in Ike present period. The resolutions
passed by the conference are a permanent asset to the Party, and the
Menshevik opportunists who sought to criticise them at all costs, only
succeeded in betraying the glaring futility of their “criticism” which
was unable to offer any intelligent, integral and systematic solution of
the problems as an alternative to the one given in the resolutions.

But that was not all. The conference played an important role in the
life of our Party by indicating the existence of new ideological groupings in both wings—the, Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks. The
struggle between these sections can be said without exaggeration to have filled the whole history of the
Party, both on the eve of the revolution and during the
revolution. Therefore the new ideological groupings are an event of great
importance in the life of the Party, an event whose lessons all
Social-Democrats should study, understand and digest, if they are to take
an intelligent, stand on the new issues which this new situation raises.

These new ideological groupings may be briefly described as the
appearance of liquidationism on both the extreme flanks of the Party and as
the struggle being waged against it. By December 1908 liquidationism stood
fully revealed among the Mensheviks, but at that time the fight against it
was conducted almost exclusively by others (the Bolsheviks, the Polish and
Lettish Social-Democrats, a section of the Bundists). The pro-Party
Mensheviks, Mensheviks who were opposed to liquidationism, had barely begun
to emerge as a trend at that time, and were not at all united or open in
their criticism. Among the Bolsheviks both sections were clearly defined
and acted openly, namely, the overwhelming majority of orthodox Bolsheviks,
who were firmly opposed to otzovism and secured the adoption of their point
of view in all the resolutions of the conference, and the otzovist minority
who advocated their views as a separate group, and received frequent
support from the ultimatumists who wavered between them and the orthodox
Bolsheviks. That the otzovists (and the ultimatumists, too, insofar as they
are coming round to the otzovist viewpoint) are Mensheviks inside out,
liquidators of a new type, has been repeatedly asserted and demonstrated in
Proletary (see especially issues Nos. 39, 42, and

44 [2]

).

Thus among the Mensheviks the overwhelming majority were liquidators, and
the protest and struggle of the pro-Party men against them were barely
beginning to manifest themselves; while among the Bolsheviks the orthodox
elements were completely dominant, but an otzovist minority were acting
openly. Such was the situation within the Party at the December All-Russian
Conference of the R.S.D.L.P.

What is this liquidationism, then? What brought it into being? Why is
it that the otzovists (and the god-builders, of whom we shall say a few
words later) are also liquidators, Mensheviks inside out? In a word, what
is the social meaning and the social significance of the new ideological
grouping within our Party?

Liquidationism in the narrow sense of the word, the liquidationism of
the Mensheviks, consists ideologically in negation of the revolutionary
class struggle of the socialist proletariat in general, and denial of the
hegemony of the proletariat in our bourgeois-democratic revolution in
particular. This denial of course takes various forms, and occurs more or
less consciously, sharply and consistently. As an example we might mention
Cherevanin and Potresov. The former gave such an assessment of the role of
the proletariat in the revolution that the whole editorial board
of Golos Sotsial-Demokrata , even before the split that took place
in it (i. e., both Plekhanov and Martov-Dan-Axelrod-Martynov) had to
repudiate Cherevanin, although it did so in a very discreditable form. It
repudiated the consistent liquidator in Vorwärts to the
Germans without publishing its statement in “Golos Sotsial-Demokrata” for the benefit of Russian readers ! In the article which he
contributed to the Social Movement in Russia at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century , Potresov liquidated the idea of the hegemony of the
proletariat in the Russian revolution so successfully that Plekhanov Left
the liquidationist editorial board.

In respect of organisation, liquidationism means denying the necessity
for an illegal Social-Democratic Party, and consequently renouncing the
Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, leaving its ranks. It means
fighting the Party in the columns of the legal press, in legal workers’
organisations, in the trade unions and co-operative societies, at
congresses attended by working-class delegates, etc. The history of any
Party organisation in Russia during the last two years teems with examples
of liquidationism on the part of the Mensheviks. As a particularly glaring
example of liquidationism, we have already referred ( Proletary ,
No. 42, reprinted in the pamphlet The All-Russian Conference of the R. S. D. L. P. in December 1908 ) to the case where the

Menshevik members of the Central Committee made a deliberate attempt to
wreck the Central Committee of the Party , and stop the functioning
of this institution. The almost complete breakdown of the illegal Menshevik
organisations in Russia is borne out by the fact that the “Caucasian
delegation” at the recent Party conference consisted entirely of residents
abroad, while the editorial board of Golos Sotsial Demokrata was
confirmed (at the beginning of 1908) by the Central Committee of the Party
as a separate literary group, totally unconnected with any organisation
functioning in Russia.

The Mensheviks do not weigh up the implications of all these
manifestations of liquidationism. They either conceal them or are baffled
by them, at a loss to understand the significance of certain facts,
floundering in minutiae, vagaries and personalities, unable to draw general
conclusions, unable to grasp the meaning of what is going on.

And the meaning of it is that, in a period of bourgeois revolution, the
opportunist wing of the workers’ party, at times of crisis, disintegration
and collapse, is bound to be either out-and-out liquidationist or
liquidator-ridden. In a period of bourgeois revolution the proletarian
party is bound to have a following of petty-bourgeois fellow-travellers (what is known as Mitläufer in
German) who are least capable of digesting proletarian theory and tactics,
least capable of holding their own in time of collapse, most likely to
carry opportunism to its extreme. Disintegration has set in—and the mass
of Menshevik intellectuals, Menshevik writers, have virtually turned
liberal. The intelligentsia has swung away from the Party—and
consequently disintegration has been most complete in the
Menshevik organisations˜ Those Mensheviks who sincerely sympathised
with the proletariat and the proletarian class struggle, with proletarian
revolutionary theory (and there have always been such Mensheviks who
justify their opportunism in the revolution on the grounds that they are
anxious to miss no changes in the situation, no convolutions in the complex
historical process) found themselves “in the minority once more”, in a
minority among the Mensheviks, without the determination to fight the
liquidators and without the strength to succeed if they tried. But the
opportunist fellow-travellers move further and further to liberalism. Plekhanov becomes exasperated with Potresov,
Golos Sotsial-Demokrata with Cherevanin, the Moscow Menshevik
workingmen with the Menshevik intellectuals, and so forth . The
pro—Party Mensheviks, the orthodox Marxists among the Mensheviks, are
beginning to break away and, by the logic of things, by becoming pro- Party , they draw nearer to the Bolsheviks. And it is our duty to
understand this situation, everywhere and in every way to separate the
liquidators from the pro-Party Mensheviks, to make closer contact with the
latter, not by glossing over differences in principle, but by building up a
really united workers’ party in which differences of opinion should not
stand in the way of the common effort, the common drive, the common
struggle.

But are petty-bourgeois fellow-travellers of the proletariat the
exclusive property of the Menshevik wing? No. We have already pointed out
in Proletary , No. 39, [3] that they are to be found also among the Bolsheviks, as testified by
the entire mode of argument of the consistent otzovists, the whole
character of their attempts to justify “new” tactics. No sizable section
of a mass workers’ party could, by the nature of things, avoid during a
time of bourgeois revolution taking on a certain number of
“fellow-travellers” of diverse shadings. This is inevitable even in the
most highly developed capitalist countries, after the completion of a
bourgeois revolution, for the proletariat is ever in contact with the most
varied sections of the petty bourgeoisie and is constantly being
recruited. and replenished from them. There is nothing abnormal or terrible
in this, if the proletarian party is able thoroughly to absorb
these foreign bodies, to control and not be controlled by them, and is able
to see in good time that some of these elements really are foreign bodies,
and that in certain conditions one must clearly and openly dissociate
oneself from them. In this respect the difference between the two wings of
the R. S. D. L. P. is that the Mensheviks turned out to be in thrall to the
liquidators (i. e., the “fellow-travellers”), proof of which is to be
found among the Mensheviks themselves, being supplied both by their Moscow adherents in Russia, and abroad by Plekhanov’s repudiation
of Potresov and Golos Sotsial-Demokrata; while in the case of the
Bolsheviks the liquidationist elements—the otzovists and
god-builders—proved to be a small minority from the outset, were rendered
harmless from the outset, and were ultimately pushed aside.

That otzovism is Menshevism inside out, that it also leads inevitably
to liquidationism, only of a slightly different kind, there can be no
doubt. It is not, of course, a matter of personalities or particular
groups, but of an objective general tendency—to the extent that otzovism
ceases to be a mere state of mind and seeks to evolve into a separate
trend. The Bolsheviks stated quite definitely before the revolution, first,
that their aim was not to create a separate trend in socialism but to apply
to the new conditions of our revolution the basic principles of
international revolutionary orthodox Marxist Social-Democracy; secondly,
they would do their duty even should it consist in an onerous, slow,
humdrum daily grind, if history, after the issue of the struggle and after
all opportunities for revolutionary action were exhausted, should condemn
us to plod along the by-paths of an “autocratic constitution”. The least
attentive reader will find these statements in the Social-Democratic
literature of i905. They are of immense importance as a solemn obligation
of the whole Bolshevik wing of the Party, a deliberate choice of path. In
order to fulfil this obligation to the proletariat, it was necessary to
take patiently in hand and re-educate those who had been attracted to
Social-Democracy by the days of liberty (there even appeared a type of
“Social-Democrat of the days of liberty”), who were attracted chiefly by
the vehemence, revolutionary spirit and “vividness” of our slogans, but,
who, though militant enough to fight on revolutionary holidays, lacked the
stamina for worka-day struggle under the reign of counter-revolution. Some
of these elements were gradually drawn into proletarian activities and
assimilated the Marxist world-outlook. The others only memorised a few
slogans without grasping their meaning, could only repeat old phrases and
were unable to adapt the old principles of revolutionary Social-Democratic
tactics to the changed conditions. Their several destinies are graphically
illustrated by the evolution of those who wanted to boycott the Third Duma. In June 1907 they were the majority among
the Bolsheviks. But Proletary campaigned continuously against the
boycott. Events verified this policy and a year later the otzovists were
in the minority among the Bolsheviks (14 votes against 18 in the
summer of 1908) in the Moscow organisation, which had been the strong hold
of “boycottism”. A year later, when the error of otzovism had been
abundantly and repeatedly demonstrated, the Bolshevik wing—and here lies
the significance of the recent Bolshevik conference—finally liquidated
otzovism and ultimatumism, the thin end of otzovism, finally liquidated
this peculiar form of liquidationism.

So let none accuse us of causing a “new split”. In the Re port on our
conference we explain our aims and our attitude in detail. We did
everything possible, we left nothing untried, to persuade the dissenting
comrades: we were at it for over eighteen months. But as a wing, i. e., a
union of like-minded people in the Party, we cannot work without unanimity
on fundamental issues. To break away from a wing is not the same as
breaking away from the Party. The people who have broken away from our wing
in no way lose the possibility of working in the Party. Either they will
remain “free lances”, i. e., outside any wing, and the general
environment of Party work ’will draw them in. Or they will try to form a
new group—as is their legitimate right, if they wish to advocate and
develop their own special shade of opinion and tactics—in which case the
whole Party will very soon see the practical manifestation of
those tendencies , the ideological implications of which we have
tried to assess above.

The Bolsheviks have to lead the Party. To do so they must know their
course, they must stop hesitating, they must stop wasting time on
persuading waverers, and fighting dissentients in their own ranks. Otzovism
and ultimatumism, the thin end of otzovism, are incompatible with the work
which the present circumstances require of revolutionary
Social-Democrats. During the revolution we learned to “speak French”,
i. e., to introduce into the movement the greatest number of rousing
slogans, to raise the energy of the direct struggle of the masses and
extend its scope. Now, in this time of stagnation, reaction and
disintegration, we must learn to “speak German”, i. e., to work slowly (there is nothing
else for it, until things revive), systematically, steadily, advancing step
by step, winning inch by inch. Whoever finds this work tedious, whoever
does not under stand the need for preserving and developing the
revolutionary principles of Social-Democratic tactics in this phase too, on this bend of the road , is taking the name of Marxist in vain.

Our Party can make no headway unless it decisively liquidates
liquidationism. And liquidationism does not only mean the direct
liquidationism of the Mensheviks and their opportunist tactics. It also
includes Menshevism inside out. It includes otzovism and ultimatumism, that
are impeding the Party in the fulfilment of its immediate task, in which
lie all the unique peculiarities of the present time, the task of utilising
the Duma rostrum and turning all the semi-legal and legal organisations of
the working class into coigns of vantage. The same goes for god-building
and the defence of god-building tendencies which are radically at variance
with the principles of Marxism. And the same applies to incomprehension of
the Party tasks of the Bolsheviks, which in 1906 and 1907 consisted in
overthrowing the Menshevik Central Committee, as a body which
lacked the support of the majority of the Party (not only the
Poles and Letts, but even the Bundists were against the Central Committee,
which was purely Menshevik at the time)—and which now consist in
patiently training up partyist elements and knitting them together, in
building up a really united and. strong proletarian party. The Bolsheviks
prepared the ground for partyism by their implacable struggle against the
anti-Party elements in 1903–05 and in 1906–07. Now the Bolsheviks
must build the Party , build the Party out of their wing, build up
the Party by utilising the vantag-ground gained in the inner-Party struggle.

Such are the tasks of our wing of the Party in the present political
situation and the general position of the B. S.D. L. P. as a whole. They
are set forth once more and developed in particular detail in the
resolutions of the recent Bolshevik Conference. The ranks have been re-formed for a new struggle. The changed conditions have been taken into
account.

The road has been chosen. Let us go forward along it, and the
revolutionary Social-Democratic Labour Party of Russia will begin rapidly
to build up into a force which no reaction will shake, and which will stand
at the head of all the fighting classes of the people in the next round of
our

revolution. [4]

---
Notes:
[1]
See pp. 425–51 of this volume.— Ed .

[2]
See pp. 286–302, 356–59 and 383–94 of this volume.— Ed

[3]
See pp. 286–302 of this volume.— Ed .

[4]
Golos Sotsial-Demokrata , No. 15, and Otkliki Bunda , No. 2, [5] have recently appeared. In these publications there is once
again piled up a heap of choice specimens of liquidationism, which will
need analysing and evaluating in a separate article in the next issue of
Proletary . — Lenin

[5]
Otkliki Bunda ( Echoes of the Bund )—a non-periodical organ of the Bund’s Committee Abroad, published in Geneva from March
1909 to February 1911. Five issues were put out.