Date: 1909-08-30
Source: ru:PSS/v47

To the Students of the Capri School – August 30, 1909
TO THE STUDENTS OF THE CAPRI SCHOOL. AUGUST 30, 1909. 197 To share responsibility for a school whose direction has already been predetermined by the composition of its lecturers—especially when that direction is hostile.

Source: PSS, Volume 47

Now consider the composition of the lecturers, which has already sealed the character and orientation of the school. You, comrades, signed your letter to me—but your letter to the Central Committee (a copy of which I received along with the school’s program), while purporting to represent both the students and the lecturers of the school, bears no signatures from the lecturers themselves. Consequently, I cannot know the full composition of the lecturing staff with absolute precision. Yet even what I do know is sufficient to form a clear judgment about the lecturers’ ranks.

Local organizations in the Central Industrial Region had written to us from Russia, reporting that the most energetic—and perhaps the only—agitator in favor of the Capri School was Comrade Stanislav, who had already been elected as a lecturer by several Social-Democratic circles after they had heard his lecture. This Comrade Stanislav is one of the most resolute “renegades” and “critics” of Marxism in the field of philosophy. It suffices to recall: (1) how he tore apart Kautsky in his well-known philosophical treatise; (2) how, at the Party Conference in December 1908, he broke away from the rest of the party to form a distinct faction of renegades, together with V.S., the renegade from St. Petersburg; (3) how the very journal “Workers’ Banner,” in its No. 5 issue, acknowledged that an article on the Workers’ Movement, edited by him and penned by a renegade, was permeated with anarchist tendencies.

Look now at those lecturers whom you see before you on Capri.

There are no Bolsheviks among them. On the contrary, nearly all of the supporters of the new faction—namely, the faction of defenders of renegatism and “God-building”—are represented. I would hardly be far off the mark if I said that among the Capri lecturers you will find Comrades Maximov, Lunacharsky, Lyadov, and Aleksinsky. These are precisely the comrades who, since the spring of 1908, had formed the opposition to “Proletariat,” conducting agitation against it both in Russia and abroad, breaking away into a separate faction—or, rather, supporting it—at the Party Conference in December 1908, and finally emerging once and for all as a distinct faction.

To deny that this entire group of comrades is engaged in agitation against “Proletariat,” while simultaneously supporting and defending the renegates, would be to mock facts universally known within the Party. To claim that the island of Capri had already gained renown—even in mainstream Russian literature—as a literary center of God-building would be to deride the very facts themselves. The entire Russian press had long pointed out that Lunacharsky, from the island of Capri, had begun to preach the doctrine of God-building. He was assisted in Russia by Bazharov. Bogdanov, too, had defended similar philosophical views in a dozen legal Russian books and articles, as well as in a score of foreign lectures. I visited Capri in April 1908 and made it clear to all three of these comrades that I fundamentally disagreed with them on philosophical grounds—indeed, I proposed that they join forces and pool their resources in support of a Bolshevik history of the revolution, as opposed to the Menshevik–liquidationist account of the revolution; but the Caprians rejected my proposal, choosing instead to pursue not a broadly Bolshevik cause, but rather the propagation of their own distinctive philosophical views. Among your Capri lecturers, the majority are writers—and not a single one of these writers has ever attacked, in print, the God-building propaganda of Lunacharsky and Bazharov!

If, despite all this, you write to me, comrades, claiming that to regard the school as connected with God-building and renegatism is merely a “misunderstanding”—and moreover, a “wholly unfounded” one on my part, since “such aims were never set here in the school, nor could they possibly have been discussed”—then I can only marvel at your extreme naiveté. Let me repeat: the true character and direction of the school are determined not by the good intentions of local organizations, not by the resolutions of the “Student Council,” not by “programmes,” and so forth—but by the composition of the lecturers. And if the lecturers’ ranks are entirely—and have always been—shaped by the circle of members of the new faction, then to deny the factional nature of the school is nothing short of absurd.

To settle once and for all the question of the lecturers’ composition, let me present you with another fact, related to me by Comrade Innokenty, which shows just how far—

TO THE STUDENTS OF THE CAPRI SCHOOL. AUGUST 30, 1909.

It should be obvious to everyone in the Party that what you are trying to deny is, in fact, the distinctly factional character of the Capri School. Shortly before the final meeting of the expanded editorial board of “Proletariat,” Comrade Maximov, in Paris, approached Trotsky, inviting him to become a lecturer at the Capri School. Trotsky recounted this to Comrade Innokenty and declared to him: “If this is a Party matter, I would gladly take part; but if it is a private enterprise of Capri’s literary figures—Maximov, Lunacharsky, and Co.—then I shall not participate.”

Innokenty replied: “Wait for the decisions of the ‘Proletariat’ editorial board; I will send you those decisions.” Thus, even the non-factional Comrade Trotsky immediately understood—just as any Party worker with even a modicum of experience would understand—that to establish a school on the island of Capri meant to hide the school from the Party, to bind the school in advance to a particular faction—and, indeed, to the new faction.

Now let us turn to the question of Paris. I wrote to you that if you truly wish to hear lectures delivered by me and my like-minded comrades, then you ought to come to Paris. You reply to me: “Given the costs involved, a trip to Paris would simply be impractical.”

Let us examine, then, who among us is truly speaking impractically.

You arrived on the island of Capri via Vienna. If you return by the same route, you will have to head from northern Italy toward Paris, and from there proceed directly to Vienna. This will add to the cost of your journey—probably by no more than 60 francs per person (judging by the fact that, from Geneva, where I lived for a long time, a ticket to Paris costs 30 francs). Your letter is signed by eight names, one of whom has announced that he “reserves the right to discontinue further correspondence”—meaning, quite evidently, that he does not even wish to listen to my talks. That leaves seven comrades.

Total expenses = 7 × 60 = 420 francs.

You invited four lecturers from Paris—Lev, myself, Grigory, and Innokenty.

The cost of traveling from Paris to Capri and back again is roughly 140 francs. Total: 4 × 140 = 560 francs.

For eight students to visit Paris is cheaper than sending four lecturers to Capri.

But as I already told you in my previous letter*, the financial question is far from the most important. Consider: is it easier for visiting students or for local lecturers to choose a venue? You came abroad specifically to study at the school. Therefore, you should have no difficulty in coming to a place where there are many lecturers—and where the work can truly be carried out in a Party-oriented manner.

Yet lecturers cannot travel from the Party’s central headquarters to the island of Capri. Let me speak for myself: I cannot abandon the editorial board of “Proletariat”—I cannot abandon the Central Organizing Committee—I cannot abandon the Commission for Assistance to the Duma Social-Democratic Faction, established in Paris—I must continue to speak at the “Proletariat” Club in the working-class districts of Paris, where hundreds and thousands of Russian workers live, and so on. A trip by Party literati from Paris to Capri is utterly impossible.

But for a school—as for any Party undertaking—it is not only Bolshevik lecturers who matter. Paris is the largest emigrant center, where public lectures are held regularly by all factions, where debates take place, where diverse study groups flourish, where there are two or three respectable Russian libraries, where dozens of Social-Democratic organizers have long been active within the Party, and so forth. Three Russian Social-Democratic newspapers are published in Paris. In short, for anyone even slightly familiar with conditions abroad, it is as clear as daylight: whoever goes to Paris to study Social-Democracy is truly studying Social-Democracy. Whoever goes to Capri is studying a peculiar factional “science.”

Whoever establishes a school in Paris is establishing a genuinely Party-oriented school.

Whoever establishes a school on the island of Capri is hiding the school from the Party.

* See this volume, pp. 183–184. Ed.

TO THE STUDENTS OF THE CAPRI SCHOOL. AUGUST 30, 1909.

The school on Capri is a school deliberately hidden from the Party.

No oversight, no “ideological guidance” regarding the Capri School is possible—not from the Central Committee, to which you now turn, nor from the editorial board of “Proletariat,” to which you turned yesterday. To speak of oversight or ideological guidance here is mere empty rhetoric. No one would ever think to send Party “inspectors” to Capri to oversee the school; nor could truly Party-affiliated lecturers ever be dispatched to Capri—except in the most trivial of cases. If the local Russian organizations did not know this, then the school’s organizers knew it all too well. It was precisely for this reason that they established the school on Capri—to conceal its factional character, to hide the school from the Party.

Take the non-factional Russian Social-Democrats who are renowned for their familiarity with the international labor movement: Parvus and Rosa Luxemburg (Germany), Sh. Rappoport (France), Rotstein (England). Take the non-factional Social-Democratic writers such as Ryazanov—you will see at once (unless you choose to close your eyes so as not to see)—that in Paris, with some effort on the part of the Party, they can usually deliver lectures, whereas on Capri they are absolutely unable to make the journey. The funds that the school’s organizers spent on sending students and lecturers to the most remote foreign destination—Capri—would have been more than sufficient to arrange readings by at least some of these lecturers in Paris.

Furthermore, consider the new groupings within the Social-Democratic movement—groupings with which it is especially important for Russian comrades to become acquainted (the struggle between Party and liquidationist elements within the Bund; the conflict between the Bolshevik wing of Latvian Social-Democrats and the Menshevik wing; the R.S.D.* versus the left-wing P.P.S.**; the split within Menshevism, Plekhanov’s intervention

* - P.S.D. – Polish Social-Democracy. Ed.

** - P.P.S. – Polish Socialist Party. Ed.

with the “Diary,” exposing Potresov’s and the official Mensheviks’ liquidationist tendencies; attempts to forge a “revolutionary Menshevism,” and so on). On Capri, it is impossible to gain a proper understanding of these Party‑important phenomena. In Paris, however, there is every opportunity to learn about the state of affairs firsthand—not merely secondhand.

Finally, consider the curriculum of the Capri School. Of the four sections, one—Section III—is titled “The Philosophy of Proletarian Struggle.” In international Social-Democracy, there are dozens, even hundreds—if not thousands—of curricula for propagandistic courses of a similar kind. But nowhere will you find “The Philosophy of Proletarian Struggle.” There is Marx and Engels’ philosophical materialism, but nowhere is there “The Philosophy of Proletarian Struggle.” And no European Social-Democrat will understand what that means. Only those familiar with the works of philosophers such as Stanislav (A. Volsky), Bogdanov, Lunacharsky, and Bazharov will grasp it. Before one can teach “The Philosophy of Proletarian Struggle,” one must first invent such a philosophy. And it is precisely this special philosophy—whose name is all the more frequently accompanied by the word “proletarian” the further it strays from proletarian world‑view—that has been—and continues to be—cultivated exclusively by the aforementioned group of members of the new faction.

In conclusion: if you, comrades, persist in your refusal to come to Paris (while at the same time assuring me of your desire to hear my lectures), then you will ultimately prove that not only the lecturers, but also certain students of the Capri School, have been infected by the narrow, clique‑oriented politics of the new God‑building–renegade faction.

With socialist greetings, N. Lenin

---

Sent from Bombon (France)

to the island of Capri (Italy)

First published in 1926

in the journal

“Proletarian Revolution,” No. 2

Printed from manuscript