V. I. Lenin

In the present issue of Proletary we print one of the numerous letters we have received pointing out the tremendous
ideological discord among the Social-Democrats. Special attention is
merited by the ideas on the subject of the “German line” (i.e., the
prospect of Germany’s development after 1848 being duplicated in our own
country). In order to trace the sources of the mistaken opinions current in
this very important question, for without its clarification the workers’
party cannot devise correct tactics, we shall take the Mensheviks and
Golos Sotsial-Demokrata on the one hand and Comrade Trotsky’s
Polish article on the other.

I

The tactics of the Bolsheviks in the Revolution of 1905-07
were based on the principle that the complete victory of this revolution
was possible only as a dictatorship of the proletariat and the
peasantry. What are the economic grounds for this view? Beginning
with Two Tactics (1905) {1} and, continuing with numerous articles in newspapers and miscellanies of
1906 and 1907 we have consistently given the following grounds: the
bourgeois development of Russia is now a foregone conclusion but it is
possible in two forms—the so-called “Prussian” form (the retention of
the monarchy and landlordism, the creation of a strong, i. e,, bourgeois,
peasantry on the given, historical basis, etc.)

and the so-called “American” form (a bourgeois republic, the abolition of
landlordism, the creation of a farmer class, i. e., of a free bourgeois
peasantry, by means of a marked change of the given historical
situation). The proletariat must fight for the second path as offering the
greatest degree of freedom and speed of development of the productive
forces of capitalist Russia, and victory in this struggle is possible only
with a revolutionary alliance between the proletariat and the peasantry.

This is the view embodied in the resolution of the London Congress on
the Narodnik or Trudovik parties and on the attitude of the
Social-Democrats towards them. The Mensheviks, as we know, are hostile to
this resolution, particularly as regards the special question which we are
analysing here. But how shaky the economic basis of their case is
can be seen from the following words of a most influential Menshevik
authority on the agrarian question in Russia, Comrade Maslov. In the second
volume of his Agrarian Question , published in 1908 (the preface is
dated December 15, 1907), Maslov wrote:

“ As long as [Maslov’s italics] purely capitalistic relations have
not developed in the countryside, as long as subsistence rent
[Maslov wrongly uses this unfortunate expression instead of the term:
feudal bondage rent] persists, a solution of the agrarian question most
advantageous for democracy will still be possible. The past history of the
world shows two types of capitalist development: the type prevailing in
Western Europe (not counting Switzerland and some odd corners of other
European states), which is the result of a compromise between the nobility
and the bourgeoisie, and the type of agrarian relations which have been
established in Switzerland, the United States of America, and the British
and other colonies. The data which we cite on the status of the agrarian
question in Russia does not give us sufficient grounds to say for certain
which type of agrarian relations will become established in our country,
while our ‘scientific conscience’ does not allow us to draw subjective and
arbitrary conclusions...” (p. 457).

That is true. And it is a full recognition of the economic basis of
Bolshevik tactics. It is not a matter of “revolutionary intoxication” (as
the Vekhists and the Cherevanins think) but of objective , economic conditions, which would
allow the possibility of an “American” line of capitalist
development in Russia. In his history of the peasant movement in 1905-07
Maslov had to recognise our main premises. The agrarian “programme of the
Cadets”, he writes in the same place, “is the most utopian as there is no
broad social class interested in the question being solved in the way they
desire; either the interests of the landowners will prevail with impending
political concessions [Maslov means to say: with inevitable concessions to
the landowning bourgeoisie] or the interests of democracy” (p. 456).

And that too is true. Hence it follows that the tactics of proletarian
support for the Cadets in the revolution was “utopian”. Hence it follows
that the forces of “democracy”, i.e., of the democratic
revolution, are the forces of the proletariat and peasantry. Hence it
follows that there are two roads of bourgeois development: one is that of the “landowners, making concessions to the
bourgeoisie”, the other is that along which the workers and peasants want
to lead and can lead this development (cf. Maslov, p. 446: “If all the
landed estates were ceded gratis to the peasantry for their use, even
then... the process of the capitalisation of peasant farming would take
place, but less painfully...”).

We see that when Maslov argues as a Marxist he argues in a Bolshevik
way. But the following is an instance where, in attacking the Bolsheviks,
he argues just like a liberal. This instance, needless to say, is to be
found in the liquidationist book: The Social Movement in Russia at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century which is being published under the
editorship of Martov, Maslov and Potresov; in the section “Summing up”
(Vol. I) we find an article by Maslov: “The Development of the National
Economy and Its Influence on the Class Struggle in the Nineteenth
Century”. In this article, on page 661, we read:

“... some Social-Democrats have begun to regard the bourgeoisie as a hopelessly reactionary class and a negligible
quantity. Not only has the strength and importance of the bourgeoisie been
underestimated but the historic role of this class has been viewed out of
historical perspective: the participation of the middle and petty
bourgeoisie in the revolutionary movement and the sympathy towards it by
the big bourgeoisie in the first stage of the movement have been ignored;
while it is taken as a foregone conclusion that in the future, too, the bourgeoisie will play a reactionary role, and so on” (that’s just as he
has it: “and so on”!). “Hence was deduced the inevitability of the
dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry, which would
contradict the whole trend of economic development.”

This tirade is wholly Vekhist. This “Marxism” is all of the Brentano,
Sombart or Struve variety. {3} The standpoint of its author is the standpoint of a liberal
as distinct from a bourgeois democrat. For a liberal is a liberal precisely
because he does not visualise, his mind does not accept, any other course
of bourgeois development than the one already in process, i. e., the one
led by the landowners, who make “concessions” to the bourgeoisie. A
democrat is a democrat precisely because he sees another way and fights for
it, the way led by the “people”, i. e., the petty bourgeoisie, the
peasantry and the proletariat, but he does not see that this way too is
bourgeois. In the “Summing up” of this liquidationist book Maslov forgot
all about the two lines of bourgeois development, about the
strength of the bourgeoisie of the American type (in its Russian
equivalent:

a bourgeoisie that grows out of the peasantry, on a soil
swept clean of landlordism by revolutionary means), about the
weakness of the bourgeoisie of the Prussian type (enslaved by
“landowners”); he forgot that the Bolsheviks have never spoken of the
“inevitability” of “dictatorship”, but of its necessity for
the victory of the American path; he forgot that the Bolsheviks deduced
“dictatorship” not from the weakness of the bourgeoisie, but from the
objective , economic conditions making: possible two lines of
development of the bourgeoisie. In its theoretical aspect the tirade quoted
is a sheer mass of confusion (which Maslov himself repudiates in the second
volume of the Agrarian Question ); in its practical political
aspect it is liberalism, an ideological defence of extreme liquidationism.

Now see how an unsound position on the main economic question
leads to unsound political conclusions. Here is a quotation from Martov’s
article “Whither Next?” ( Golos Sotsial-Demokrata No. 13): “In
contemporary Russia no one can say definitely just now whether in a new
political crisis favourable objective conditions will be created for a
radical democratic revolution; we can only indicate the specific conditions
under which a revolution of this kind will become inevitable. Until history decides this question of the future
as it was decided for Germany in 1871, the Social-Democrats must not
relinquish the aim of meeting the inevitable political crisis with their
own revolutionary solution of the political, agrarian and national problem
(a democratic republic, the confiscation of landed estates, and the full
right of self-determination). But they must go forward to meet the
crisis which will settle once and for all the question of the ‘German’ or
‘French’ consummation of the revolution, not stand and wait for
the advent of the crisis.”

True. Splendid words paraphrasing the resolution of the Party
Conference of December 1908. This formulation is in full accord with
Maslov’s words in the second volume of the Agrarian Question and the tactics of the Bolsheviks. There is a decided
difference between this formulation and the standpoint expressed in the
famous exclamation that the “Bolsheviks at the Conference of December 1908
decided to push in where they had had one licking already.” {4} We can “go forward with our revolutionary solution of the
agrarian question” only together with the revolutionary sections
of the bourgeois democracy, i. e., only with the peasantry, not with the
liberals, who are satisfied with “concessions from the landowners”. To go
forward to confiscation together with the peasantry—there is nothing but
a verbal difference between this formulation and the principle:

to go forward to a dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry. But
Martov, who came so close to the standpoint of our Party in Golos
No. 13, does not hold to this position consistently but constantly deviates
towards Potresov and Cherevanin, not only in the liquidationist book
The Social Movement but in the same issue,. No. 13. In the same
article, for instance, he defines the task of the moment as the “struggle
for a legal labour movement, including one for winning the
legalisation of our own existence [of the Social-Democratic Party]”. To
say that means making a concession to the liquidators: we want to
strengthen the Social-Democratic Party, utilising all legal possibilities
and all opportunities of open action; the liquidators want to squeeze the
Party into the framework of a legal and open (under Stolypin) existence. We
are fighting for the revolutionary overthrow of the Stolypin autocracy, utilising for this struggle
every case of open action, widening the proletarian basis of the movement
for this purpose. The liquidators are fighting for the open existence of
the labour movement ... under Stolypin. Martov’s statement that it is our
duty to fight for a republic and the confiscation of the land is so
formulated that it precludes liquidationism; his statement about
fighting for the open existence of the Party is so formulated that it
does not preclude liquidationism. Here in the political field is
the same inconsistency as Maslov’s in the economic field. [2]

This inconsistency soars to Himalayan heights in Martynov’s article on
the agrarian question (No. 10–11). Martynov tries to carry on a biting
controversy against Proletary but, owing to his inability to
formulate the question, he flounders helplessly and clumsily. For
Proletary , you see, the result is as Tkachov has it: “Now, a
little bit later, or never!” {5} This is the “result” also for Maslov and Martov, dear
Comrade Martynov; it should be the result for any Marxist, since it is a
question not of a socialist , revolution (as in the case of
Tkachov) but of one of the two methods of consummating the
bourgeois revolution. Just think, Comrade Martynov: can Marxists
undertake in general to support the confiscation of large landed estates or
are they obliged to do so only “until” (whether “now, a little bit
later” or for quite a long time yet is more than you or I can say) the
bourgeois system is definitely “established?” Another example. The law of
November 9, 1906 {6} “threw the countryside into a great tumult, a state of
veritable internecine war, some times running to knife-play”, says
Martynov rightly. And his conclusion: “in the near future to expect any
unanimous and impressive revolutionary action of the peasantry, a peas ant
uprising, is quite impossible in view of this internecine war.” It is
ludicrous of you, dear Comrade Martynov, to counterpose an uprising, i.e.,
civil war, to “internecine war”. Furthermore, the question of the near
future does not enter here since it is not a question of practical
directives but of the line of the whole agrarian development. Another example. “The exodus from the village communes is proceeding at a forced
pace.” True. What is your conclusion?... “It is obvious that the break-up
by the landlords will be successfully completed and that in the course of a
few years, precisely in those extensive areas of Russia where quite
recently the agrarian movement was taking the most acute forms, the village
commune will be destroyed and with it the chief cradle of Trudovik ideology
will disappear. Thus one of Proletary’s two prospects, the
‘bright’ one, is eliminated.”

It is not a question of the village commune, dear Comrade Martynov, for
the Peasant Union in 1905 and the Trudoviks in 1906–07 demanded that the
land be transferred not to the village communes but to individuals or free
associations. The village commune is being destroyed both by the
landlords’ breaking up of the old system of land tenure under the
supervision of Stolypin and its breaking up by the peasants, i.e.,
confiscation for the creation of a new order on the land. Proletary’s “bright” prospect is not connected with the
village commune or with Trudovism as such, but with the
possibility of an “American” development, the creation of free
farmers. So by saying that the bright prospect is eliminated, and at the
same time declaring that “the slogan of expropriating the big landowners
will not go by the board” Comrade Martynov is making an unholy muddle. If
the “Prussian” type is established this slogan will go by the board and
the Marxists will say: we have done every thing in our power to bring
about, a more painless development of capitalism, now we must fight for the
destruction of capitalism itself. If, on the other hand, this slogan does
not go by the board it will mean that the objective conditions are
at hand for switching the “train” on to the American “line”. In that
case the Marxists, if they do not wish to become Struve-ists, will know how
to see, behind the reactionary “socialist” phraseology of the petty
bourgeois, expressing the latter’s subjective views, the objectively real
struggle of the masses for better conditions of capitalist development.

Let us sum up. Disputes over tactics are vain if they are not based on
a clear analysis of economic possibilities. The question of Russia’s
agrarian evolution taking a Prussian or American form has been raised by
the struggle of

1905–07, which proved its reality. Stolypin is taking another step further
along the Prussian path—it would be a ludicrous fear of the bitter truth
not to recognise this. We must go through a peculiar historical stage in
the conditions created by this new step. But it would be criminal as well
as ludicrous not to recognise the fact that Stolypin has so far
only complicated and aggravated the old state of affairs without creating
anything new. Stolypin is “putting his stake on the powerful” and asks
for “20 years of peace and tranquillity” for the “reformation” (read:
spoliation) of Russia by the landlords. The proletariat must put its stake
on democracy, without exaggerating the latter’s strength and without
limiting itself to merely “pinning hopes” on it, but steadily developing
the work of propaganda, agitation and organisation, mobilising all the
democratic forces—the peasants above all and before all—calling upon
them to ally themselves with the leading class, to achieve the
“dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry” for the purpose of a
full democratic victory and the creation of the best conditions for the
quickest and freest development of capitalism. Failure to fulfil this
democratic duty on the part of the proletariat will inevitably lead to
vacillations and objectively play into the hands of the
counter-revolutionary liberals outside the labour movement and the
liquidators within it.

---
Notes:
{1}
See present edition, Vol. 9, pp. 15–14O.— Ed .

[2]
We took as an example only one instance of the political
inconsistency of Martov, who in the same article, No. 13, speaks of the
coming crisis as a “constitutional” crisis, and so on. — Lenin

{3}
The “ Marxism ” of the Brentano, Sombart and Struve variety —a bourgeois-reformist “theory” that “recognises the
’school of capitalism’ but rejects the school of revolutionary class
struggle” ( Lenin ). The representatives of this variety of
bourgeois distortion of Marxism were:

Lujo Brentano —a German bourgeois economist, an adherent of
so-called “state socialism”; he tried to prove the possibility of
achieving social equality within the framework of capitalism by means of
reforms and reconciling the interests of capitalists and workers.

Werner Sombart —a German bourgeois economist, a falsifier of
Marxism. He tried to justify capitalism, depicting it as a harmonious
planned system.

Under cover of Marxist phraseology , Brentano, Sombart and their
successors in fact defended capitalism and tried to subordinate the
working-class movement to the interests of the bourgeoisie. The
“theories” of Brentano and Sombart were, and still are, extensively used
by enemies of Marxism.

P. B. Struve —a Russian bourgeois liberal, a legal Marxist in
the nineties and later one of the leaders of the Cadet Party. After the
Great October Revolution he was a whiteguard émigré, a bitter
enemy of Soviet power.

{4}
Lenin quotes the words of the Menshevik liquidator Dan, who at the
Fifth (All-Russian 1908) Conference of the R.S.D.L.P., during the
discussion of the question “The present moment and the tasks of the
Party”, declared that the Bolsheviks “decided to push in where they had
had one licking already”.

{5}
The quotation is from the pamphlet by the Russian Narodnik
P. N. Tkachov, Tasks of Revolutionary Propaganda in Russia , April
1874, p. 16.

{6}
The law of November 9, 1906 —Stolypin’s agrarian law allowing
the peasants to withdraw from the village communes and settle on
farmsteads. For a description and appraisal of Stolypin ’s land reform see
Lenin’s work “The Agrarian Programme of Social-Democracy in the First
Russian Revolution 1905–07” (see present edition, Vol. 13, pp. 217–431).