Date: 1909
Source: ru:PSS/v17

The year of collapse, the year of ideological and political disarray, the year of party-related drift—these are now behind us. Party organizations have all seen their membership shrink; some, particularly those composed least of proletarians, have disintegrated entirely. The semi‑open party institutions established by the revolution have suffered one failure after another. It has come to the point where, for certain elements within the party that have succumbed to the forces of dissolution, the question has arisen: Should we preserve the old Social‑Democratic Party? Should we continue its work? Should we once again go underground—and if so, how should we go about it? To this question, the far right responded by advocating legalization at all costs, even if it meant openly abandoning the party’s program, tactics, and organizational structure (the so‑called “liquidationist” current). The crisis was, without a doubt, not only organizational but also ideological and political.

The recently held All‑Russian Conference of the RSDLP is setting the party on a new path and appears to mark a turning point in the development of the Russian workers’ movement following the victory of the counterrevolution. The resolutions of the conference, published in a special “Notice” issued by the Central Committee of our party, have been endorsed by the CC and are, therefore, the decisions of the entire party until the next congress. These resolutions provide a clear and definitive answer to the question of the causes and significance of the crisis, as well as to the means of overcoming it. By working in accordance with the conference resolutions and striving to ensure that all party members fully and clearly understand the party’s contemporary tasks, our organizations will be able to strengthen and consolidate their forces for united, vigorous revolutionary‑social‑democratic work.

First Page of the Central Organ of the RSDLP – the newspaper “Social‑Democrat,” No. 2, January 28 (February 10), 1909, featuring V. I. Lenin’s article “On the Road” (Reduced)

The primary cause of the party’s crisis is set forth in the rationale behind the organizational resolution. This fundamental cause lies in purging the workers’ party of wavering intellectual and petty‑bourgeois elements who had joined the workers’ movement primarily in the hope of an imminent triumph of the bourgeois‑democratic revolution—and who could not withstand the period of reaction. This instability manifested itself both in theory (“deviations from revolutionary Marxism”: the resolution on the present moment) and in tactics (“shortening of slogans”), as well as in the party’s organizational policies. Conscious workers resisted this instability, resolutely opposed liquidationism, and began to take control of the management and leadership of party organizations. While this core group within our party was initially unable to overcome the elements of disintegration and crisis, this was not only because the task was immense and arduous under conditions of counterrevolutionary triumph—but also because a certain degree of indifference toward the party had emerged among those workers who were politically revolutionary yet lacked sufficient socialist consciousness. It is precisely to the conscious workers of Russia that the conference resolutions are addressed in the first instance, as they represent the social‑democratic consensus on the means of combating disarray and vacillation.

A Marxist analysis of the contemporary class relations and of the Tsarist regime’s new policies; an indication of the immediate goal of the struggle that our party still sets for itself; an assessment of the lessons of the revolution regarding the correctness of revolutionary‑social‑democratic tactics; an elucidation of the causes of the party’s crisis and a clarification of the role played by the proletarian element within the party in confronting it; a resolution of the question concerning the relationship between illegal and legal organizations; a recognition of the necessity to make use of the Duma platform and the formulation of precise guiding directives for our Duma faction in light of direct criticism of its errors—such is the main content of the conference resolutions, which provide a comprehensive answer to the question of how the workers’ party can choose a firm path forward in these difficult times. Let us examine this answer more closely.

The relationships among classes, in their political alignments, remain the same as they were during the previous period of direct revolutionary struggle by the masses. The vast majority of the peasantry cannot help but strive for an agrarian revolution that would abolish semi‑serfdom in landholding—a transformation that is impossible without the overthrow of tsarist power. The triumph of reaction has weighed especially heavily upon the democratic elements of the peasantry, which lack the capacity for solid organization; yet despite all the oppression, despite the Black-Hundred Duma, despite the extreme instability of the Trudoviks, the revolutionary character of the peasant masses is evident even in the debates of the Third Duma. The proletariat’s basic stance toward the tasks of the bourgeois‑democratic revolution in Russia remains unchanged: to lead the democratic peasantry, to wrest it from the influence of liberal bourgeoisie—the Kadet Party, which, despite minor private quarrels, continues to draw closer to the Octobrists and, most recently, seeks to create a national‑liberal movement that supports the tsarist regime and reaction through chauvinistic agitation. The struggle, the resolution states, continues to be waged—for the complete abolition of monarchy and for the conquest of political power by the proletariat and the revolutionary peasantry.

Autocracy still stands as the principal enemy of the proletariat and of all democracy. But it would be a mistake to think that it remains unchanged. Stolypin’s “constitution” and Stolypin’s agrarian policy mark a new stage in the decay of the old, semi‑patriarchal, semi‑serfdom-based tsarist regime—a new step toward transforming it into a bourgeois monarchy. The delegates from the Caucasus, who sought either to eliminate this characterization of the moment altogether or to replace “bourgeois” with “plutocratic,” were operating from a mistaken standpoint. Autocracy had long been plutocratic; it became bourgeois—not only in its agrarian policies, but also in its direct, nationally organized alliance with certain strata of the bourgeoisie—only after the first phase of the revolution, under the impact of its blows. Autocracy had long nurtured the bourgeoisie; the bourgeoisie had long used money to secure access to the “upper echelons,” to exert influence over legislation and administration, and to gain positions alongside the noble aristocracy. Yet what makes the present moment unique is that autocracy was compelled to establish representative institutions for specific segments of the bourgeoisie, to balance between them and the serfholders, to forge alliances among these groups within the Duma, and to abandon any hope of preserving the patriarchal way of life of the peasant and instead seek support against the rural masses from the wealthy landowners who were bankrupting the commune.

Autocracy cloaks itself in ostensibly constitutional institutions, yet in practice it is subjected to an unprecedented exposure of its class nature—thanks to the alliance between the Tsar and Purishkevich and Guchkov, and with them alone. Autocracy attempts to assume responsibility for the objectively necessary tasks of the bourgeois revolution: the establishment of a popular representation truly charged with managing the affairs of bourgeois society, and the cleansing of medieval, convoluted, and decaying agrarian relations in the countryside; but the practical outcome of these new steps taken by autocracy has so far amounted to zero—and this only serves to highlight more clearly the need for different forces and different means to resolve the historical task. Until now, in the minds of millions of people unversed in politics, autocracy had always been opposed to popular representation in general; now the struggle narrows its focus, defining its task more concretely—as a struggle for power within the state, a struggle that determines the very character and significance of representation itself. That is why the Third Duma marks a distinct stage in the decay of the old tsarist regime, in the intensification of its adventurist tendencies, in the deepening of old revolutionary tasks, and in the broadening of the arena of struggle—and of the number of participants in that struggle—for these tasks.

This stage must be overcome; the new conditions of the moment demand new forms of struggle; the utilization of the Duma platform becomes an absolute necessity; the long-term work of educating and organizing the masses of the proletariat moves to the forefront; the combination of illegal and legal organizations presents the party with special challenges; the popularization and clarification of the experience of the revolution—discredited by liberals and liquidationist intellectuals—is essential both in theoretical and in practical terms. Yet the party’s tactical line, which must be able to take into account the new conditions in its methods and means of struggle, remains unchanged. The correctness of revolutionary‑social‑democratic tactics—so states one of the conference resolutions—is confirmed by the experience of mass struggle in 1905–1907. The defeat of the revolution in the aftermath of that first campaign revealed not the fallacy of the tasks themselves, not the “utopian” nature of the immediate goals, nor the errorfulness of the means and methods employed—but rather the insufficient preparedness of the forces, the inadequate depth and breadth of the revolutionary crisis—and Stolypin and his colleagues are working with the utmost diligence to deepen and expand that crisis! Let the liberals and the bewildered intellectuals, after the first truly mass battle for freedom, lose heart and timidly repeat: “Do not go back to where you were once defeated; do not return to that fateful path.” The conscious proletariat will reply to them: Great wars in history, great revolutionary tasks have been resolved only because the vanguard classes repeatedly pressed their attack—and achieved victory, learning from the experience of defeat. Defeated armies learn well. The revolutionary classes of Russia were defeated in the first campaign, but the revolutionary situation persists. In new forms and by other means—sometimes much more slowly than we would wish—another revolutionary crisis is once again looming, brewing anew. We must carry out the long-term work of preparing broader masses for it, of preparing more serious efforts that take into account higher and more concrete tasks—and the more successfully we carry out this work, the more certain we are of victory in the new struggle. The Russian proletariat can take pride in the fact that in 1905, under its leadership, the nation of slaves was transformed for the first time into a force of millions attacking tsarism, into an army of revolution. And that same proletariat will now be able to carry out, with steadfastness, resilience, and patience, the work of educating and preparing new cadres for an even more powerful revolutionary force.

The utilization of the Duma platform, as we have already noted, is an indispensable component of this work of education and preparation. The conference resolution on the Duma faction points our party toward the path that, if we look to history for examples, comes closest to the experience of the German Social Democrats under the Emergency Law. The illegal party must be able to utilize—and must learn to utilize—the legal Duma faction; it must cultivate from the latter a party organization that rises to the height of its tasks. The most misguided tactic, the most lamentable deviation from the steadfast proletarian work prescribed by the conditions of the moment, would be to raise the question of recalling the faction (at the conference there were two “recallists” who did not explicitly pose this question) or to refrain from directly and openly criticizing its errors, from listing them in the resolution (some delegates at the conference sought to do just that). The resolution fully acknowledges that the faction did indeed commit certain errors for which it is not solely responsible—and that these errors are quite similar to the inevitable mistakes made by all of our party organizations. But there are other errors—departures from the party’s political line. Since these departures occurred, since they were committed by an organization that spoke openly in the name of the entire party—then the party was obliged to state clearly and precisely that these were deviations. Throughout the history of Western European socialist parties, there have been numerous instances of abnormal relations between parliamentary factions and the party; even today, in the Romance countries, these relations are often far from normal, with factions lacking sufficient party spirit. We must immediately approach the task of building social‑democratic parliamentarism in Russia differently, immediately begin working together in this field—so that every Social‑Democrat deputy truly feels that the party stands behind him, shares in his mistakes, cares about correcting his path—so that every party worker participates in the party’s overall Duma work, learns from the pragmatic, Marxist critique of its actions, feels his duty to assist it, and strives to subordinate the faction’s specialized work to the party’s broader propaganda and agitation activities.

The conference was the first authoritative gathering of delegates from the party’s largest organizations to discuss the activities of the Duma Social‑Democrat faction over an entire session. And the conference resolution clearly shows how our party will conduct its Duma work, what strict requirements it imposes on itself and on the faction in this area, and how steadily and consistently it intends to work toward cultivating truly social‑democratic parliamentarism.

The question of relations with the Duma faction has both a tactical and an organizational dimension. In this latter respect, the resolution on the Duma faction is merely a further application of the general principles of organizational policy—established by the conference in its resolution on organizational directives—to a particular case. The conference identified two main currents within the RSDLP on this issue: one that shifts the center of gravity toward the illegal party organization, and another—more or less akin to liquidationism—that shifts the center of gravity toward legal and semi‑legal organizations. As we have already pointed out, the present moment is characterized by the departure of a certain number of party workers from the party, especially from the intelligentsia, but also in part from the working class. The liquidationist current asks: Are the best, most active elements leaving the party and choosing legal organizations as their sphere of activity, or are it the “wavering intellectual and petty‑bourgeois elements” who are leaving the party? Needless to say, having firmly rejected and condemned liquidationism, the conference answered in the latter sense. The most proletarian elements of the party, the most principled and the most socially‑democratic elements of the intelligentsia, remained true to the RSDLP. Leaving the party is a process of purification—of freeing the party from its least stable, least reliable friends, from “fellow travelers” (Mitläufer) who have always temporarily aligned themselves with the proletariat, recruiting from the petty bourgeoisie or from among the “declassed”—that is, people who have been cast off from the orbit of one or another specific class.

From this assessment of the party‑organizational principle, the organizational policy adopted by the conference naturally follows. Strengthening the illegal party organization, establishing party cells in all spheres of work, creating above all “purely party-based, albeit small, workers’ committees in every industrial enterprise,” concentrating leadership functions in the hands of social‑democratic leaders drawn from among the workers themselves—this is the task of the day. And of course, the task of these cells and committees must be to utilize all semi‑legal and, where possible, legal organizations, to maintain “close ties with the masses,” and to direct their work in such a way that social‑democracy responds to all the demands of the masses. Each cell and each party workers’ committee must become “a focal point for agitation, propaganda, and practical organizational work among the masses”—that is, they must invariably go where the masses go, and strive at every step to push the masses’ consciousness in the direction of socialism, to link every particular question with the overarching tasks of the proletariat, to transform every organizational initiative into a matter of class solidarity, to win for themselves, through their energy and their ideological influence (and certainly not through titles or ranks), the leading role in all proletarian legal organizations. Even if these cells and committees are sometimes very small, let there be between them a bond of party tradition and party organization, a defined class program—and then two or three party social‑democrats will not dissolve into formless legal organizations, but will, under all conditions, in all circumstances, in every possible situation, uphold their party line, influencing the environment in the spirit of the whole party, rather than allowing the environment to absorb them.

One may disband mass organizations of one kind or another, one may harass legal trade unions, one may ruin every open initiative of the workers through police harassment under a counterrevolutionary regime—but no force in the world can eliminate the mass concentration of workers in a capitalist country—and Russia has already become such a country. Whether legally or semi‑legally, openly or covertly, the working class will find its own points of unity—wherever and whenever, conscious party Social‑Democrats will move ahead of the masses, and wherever and whenever they will unite among themselves to influence the masses in a party spirit. And social‑democracy, which proved in the open revolution that it is the party of the class—having led millions into strikes, into uprisings in 1905, and into elections in 1906–1907—will now also be able to remain the party of the class, the party of the masses, to stay the vanguard that, even in the most difficult times, never breaks away from the entire army, that can help it overcome these hard times, to re‑unite its ranks, and to prepare new and new fighters.

Let the Black-Hundred bison roar and howl in the Duma and beyond the Duma, in the capital and in the remote provinces; let reaction rage—yet not a single step can the wise Mr. Stolypin take without bringing the precarious autocracy ever closer to collapse, without entangling itself further in a new tangle of political impossibilities and absurdities, without adding fresh, new forces to the ranks of the proletariat, to the ranks of the revolutionary elements within the peasant masses. The party that can strengthen itself for sustained work in close connection with the masses—the party of the vanguard class that can organize its own avant‑garde, that can direct its energies so as to influence every manifestation of proletarian life in a social‑democratic spirit—this party will prevail at all costs.

“Social‑Democrat,” No. 2, January 28 (February 10), 1909

Printed according to the text of the newspaper “Social‑Democrat”