V. I. Lenin

Exactly a year ago, in February 1909, in Sotsial Demokrat No. 2, we characterised the work of the Party Conference of
the R.S.D.L.P. as putting the Party “on the right path” after “a year of
disintegration, a year of ideological and political disunity, a year of
Party driftage” (article: “On the

Road”). {1}

We pointed out that the severe crisis affecting our Party was undoubtedly
not only organisational but also ideological and political. We saw the
guarantee of a successful struggle of the Party organisation against the
disintegrating influences of the counter revolutionary period primarily in
the fact that the tactical decisions of the conference correctly solved the
fundamental task: the full confirmation by the workers’ party of its
revolutionary aims derived from the recent period of storm and stress, and
of its revolutionary Social-Democratic tactics confirmed by the experience
of the immediate mass struggle, and at the same time the taking into
account of the vast economic and political changes occurring before our
eyes, the attempts of the autocracy to adapt itself to the bourgeois
conditions of the era, to organise itself as a bourgeois monarchy and to
safeguard the interests of tsarism and the Black-Hundred landlords by means
of an open alliance, extensively and systematically carried out, with the
bourgeois top sections in the countryside and with the bosses of commercial
and industrial capitalism. We outlined the Party’s organisational task
associated with the new historical period—the task of the utilisation of
all possible legal institutions by the illegal party, including the
Social-Democratic group in the Duma, so as to create strongpoints for
revolutionary Social-Democratic activity among the masses. Pointing out the resemblance between this
organisational task and that solved by our German comrades at the time of
the Anti-Socialist Law, we spoke about an “unfortunate deviation from
persistent proletarian work” in the shape of rejecting Social-Democratic
activity in the Duma or refraining from frank and open criticism of the
policy of our Duma group, in the shape of rejecting or belittling
the illegal Social-Democratic Party, of attempts to replace it by an
amorphous legal organisation, to curtail our revolutionary slogans, and so
forth.

By taking this backward glance we can more correctly appraise the
significance of the recently held plenary session of the Central Committee
of our

Party. {2} The text of the most important resolutions adopted by the
plenary session will be found elsewhere in this issue. Their significance
is that they are a big step towards actual unity of the Party, towards the
union of all Party forces, towards unanimous recognition of those
basic propositions on the tactics of the Party and its organisation that
decide the path of Social-Democracy in our difficult period. This
path was correctly indicated a year ago and it is now being taken
by the whole Party, all factions of which have become convinced of its correctness. The past year was a year of new factional
divisions, of new factional struggle, a year in which the danger of a
break-down of the Party was accentuated. But the conditions of
work in the localities, the difficult position of the Social-Democratic
organisation, the urgent tasks of the economic and political struggle of
the proletariat, impelled all the factions to unite the Social-Democratic
forces. The more powerful, insolent and rampant the counter-revolution
became, the more widely foul renegacy and repudiation of the revolution
spread among the liberal and petty-bourgeois democratic strata, the more
powerfully were all Social-Democrats drawn towards the Party . It
is highly characteristic that in the second half of 1909, under the
influence of this whole combination of circumstances, such widely divergent
members of our Party as the Menshevik Comrade Plekhanov, on the one hand,
and the Vperyod group (a group of Bolsheviks who had departed from
orthodox Bolshevism), on the other, pronounced in favour of the Party
principle. In August 1909 the former came out vigorously against a split and the policy of splitting the Party under the slogan: “The
struggle for influence in the Party.” The latter group put forward a
platform which, it is true, at the beginning speaks of a “struggle for
restoring the unity of Bolshevism” but at the end emphatically condemns
factionalism, “a party within the Party”, “the isolation and
exclusiveness of factions”, and vigorously demands their “merging” in
the Party, their “fusion”, and the conversion of the factional centres
into centres that are “in actual fact only ideological and literary”
(pp. 18 and 19 of the pamphlet: The Present Situation and the Tasks of the Party ).

The path clearly indicated by the majority of the Party has now been
accepted unanimously—not in every detail, of course, but in the main—by all the factions. A year of acute factional struggle has led
to a decisive step being taken in favour of abolishing all
factions and every kind of factionalism, in favour of the unity of
the Party. It was decided to unite all forces for the urgent tasks of the
economic and political struggle of the proletariat; the closing down of the
factional organ of the Bolsheviks was announced; a decision was adopted
unanimously on the need to close down Golos Sotsial-Demokrata ,
i.e., the factional organ of the Mensheviks. A number of resolutions were
passed unanimously, among which we should specially mention here as the
most important that on the state of affairs in the Party and that on the
convocation of the next Party Conference. The first of these two
resolutions merits particularly detailed examination as being, so to speak,
the platform for uniting the factions.

It begins with the words: “In furtherance of the basic propositions of
the resolutions of the 1908 Party Conference....” We have cited above
these basic propositions of the three chief resolutions of this Conference
of December 1908:

on the appraisal of the present moment and the political tasks of the
proletariat, on the organisational policy of the Party and on its attitude
to the Social-Democratic group in the Duma. There cannot be the slightest
doubt that there is no unanimity in the Party in regard to every detail,
each item of these resolutions, that the Party press must open its doors
widely for their criticism and revision in accordance with the dictates of
experience and the lessons of the increasingly complex economic and political struggle, that this work of
criticism, application and improvement must henceforth be regarded by
all factions, or more correctly all trends , in the Party
as a matter of their own self-determination, as a matter of elucidating
their own policy. But the work of criticism and correction of the Party
line must not prevent unity in Party activity , which cannot cease
for a single moment, which cannot waver, which must be guided in
everything by the basic propositions of the above-mentioned
resolutions.

In furtherance of these propositions, the first point of the decision
of the Central Committee recalls the “basic principles” of
Social-Democratic tactics, which, in accordance with the method of the
whole of international Social-Democracy, cannot be calculated—especially
in a period such as we are passing through—“merely for the given
concrete circumstances of the immediate future”, but must take into
account various paths and all possible situations, both the possibility of
a “rapid break-up” and the possibility of a “relatively unchanging
situation”. For the first time the possibility arises for the proletariat
to apply this method in a planned and consistent fashion. At one and the
same time, in one and the same action of the proletariat, in one and the
same network of organisational units, our Party’s tactics must “prepare
the proletariat for a new open revolutionary struggle” (without this we
should lose the right to belong to revolutionary Social-Democracy, we
should not be carrying out our fundamental task, bequeathed to us by the
period of 1905 and dictated. by every feature of the con temporary economic
and political situation) and “afford the proletariat the possibility of
utilising for itself all the contradictions of the unstable regime
of counter-revolution” (with out this our revolutionary character would
become a mere phrase, the repetition of revolutionary words
instead of the application of the sum-total of the revolutionary
experience, knowledge and lessons of international Social-Democracy to
each practical activity, to the utilisation of each contradiction and vacillation of tsarism, its allies and all bourgeois
parties).

The second point of the resolution characterises the change which the
workers’ movement in Russia is undergoing.

Let us unite and go to the aid of the new generation of Social-Democratic
workers, so that they can salve their historical task, renew the Party
organisation, and work out new forms of struggle, while in no way
renouncing the “tasks of the revolution and its methods” but, on the
contrary, upholding them and preparing a wider and firmer basis for a more
victorious application of these methods in the coming new revolution.

The third point of the resolution describes the conditions which have
evoked among politically conscious workers everywhere an “urge towards
concentration of pro-Party Social-Democratic forces, towards the
strengthening of Party unity”. The chief of these conditions is the strong
counter-revolutionary current. The enemy is uniting and attacking. The old
enemies—tsarism, the tyranny and violence of officialdom, the oppression
and shameless outrages of the feudal landlords—are being joined by a new
enemy:

the bourgeoisie, which is becoming increasingly united in conscious enmity
to the proletariat, an enmity reinforced by its own experience. The
revolutionaries are being harassed, tortured and exterminated as never
before. Efforts are being made to vilify and defame the revolution, to
erase it from the memory of the people. But in no country has the working
class ever yet allowed its enemies to take from it the chief attainment of
every revolution at all worthy of this name, viz., the experience of mass
struggle, the conviction of millions of working and exploited people that
this struggle is essential for any serious improvement of their
position. And through all its trials the working class of Russia will
preserve the readiness for revolutionary struggle, the mass heroism, by
which it conquered in 1905 and which will enable it to be victorious more
than once in the future.

It is not merely the oppression of counter-revolution and the raging of
counter-revolutionary sentiments that unite us. We are being united too by
each step taken in modest, daily practical work. The work of the
Social-Democrats in the Duma makes steady progress, becoming free from the
mistakes that were inevitable at the outset, overcoming scepticism and
indifference, forging the weapon of revolutionary propaganda and agitation
of organised class struggle, so valued by all Social-Democrats. And every
legal congress in which workers participate, every legal institution into which
proletarians penetrate and introduce their class-consciousness, the open
defence of labour interests and democratic demands, conduces to the union
of forces and the development of the movement as a whole. No persecution by
the government, no devices resorted to by its Black-Hundred and bourgeois
allies, can put an end to the manifestations of the proletarian struggle in
the most varied and sometimes unexpected forms, for capitalism itself at
each step of its development teaches and unites its grave-diggers,
multiplying their ranks and intensifying their wrath.

The divided character of the Social-Democratic groups and the
“parochialism” in their work, from which our movement has suffered so
much during the last one-and-a-half to two years, acts in the same
direction (the urge towards partyism). It has become impossible to raise
the level of practical work without concentrating our forces, without
creating a guiding centre. The Central Committee adopted a number of
decisions on the organisation and functioning of this centre, on enlarging
it by the addition of practical workers, on uniting its work more closely
with that in the localities, etc. The theoretical interests that inevitably
come to the fore during a period of stagnation likewise require to be
united for the defence of socialism in general and of Marxism, as the only
scientific socialism, especially in view of the bourgeois
counter-revolution, which is mobilising all its forces to combat the ideas
of revolutionary Social-Democracy.

Finally, the last point of the resolution speaks of the ideological and
political aims of the Social-Democratic movement. The acute development
occurring within the Social-Democratic movement in 1908–09 has led to
these problems being raised until now in an extraordinarily sharp form and
settled by a most intense factional struggle. This was no accident, but an
inevitable phenomenon in the circumstances of the crisis and break-down of
the Party organisations. But it was inevitable, and the unanimous
adoption of the resolution we have examined has clearly demonstrated the
general effort to go forward, to pass from fighting for disputed basic
propositions to acknowledging them to be indisputable and to intensified co-operative work on the basis of this acknowledgement.

The resolution notes that two kinds of deviations from the correct path
are inevitably engendered by the present historical situation and by
bourgeois influence on the proletariat. The characteristic features of one
of these deviations are essentially the following: “Rejection of the
illegal Social-Democratic Party, belittling of its role and significance,
attempts to curtail the programmatic and tactical tasks and slogans of
revolutionary Social-Democracy, etc.” The connection between these errors
within the Social-Democratic movement and the counter-revolutionary
bourgeois current outside it is obvious. Nothing is so hateful to the
bourgeoisie and tsarism as the illegal Social-Democratic Party, which
proves by its work its loyalty to the behests of the revolution, its
unswerving readiness to wage a relentless struggle against the foundations
of Stolypin’s “legality”. Nothing is so hateful to the bourgeoisie and
the servitors of tsarism as the revolutionary aims and slogans of
Social-Democracy. It is our imperative task to defend both the one and the
other and it is the combination of illegal and legal work that especially
demands from us that we combat every “belittling of the role and
significance” of the illegal Party. It is just the need to defend the
Party position on minor matters, in more modest measures, in particular
instances, in the legal framework, that especially requires us to see to it
that these aims and slogans are not curtailed , that the changed
form of the struggle does not destroy its content, does not make it less
irreconcilable, does not distort the historical perspective and historical
aim of the proletariat, viz., through a series of bourgeois revolutions
that achieve a democratic republic to lead all working and exploited
people, the whole mass of the people, to the proletarian revolution which
overthrows capitalism itself.

On the other hand—and here we proceed to characterise the other
deviation—it is impossible to carry out in practice daily revolutionary
Social-Democratic work without learning how to change its forms, adapting
them to the specific character of each new historical period. “Rejection
of Social-Democratic work in the Duma and of utilising legal opportunities,
a failure to understand the importance of both of them” is just the kind of deviation which makes it impossible in
practice to pursue a class Social-Democratic policy. The new stage of the
historical development of Russia confronts us with new tasks. This does not
mean that the old tasks’ have already been solved, that it is permissible
to abandon them; it means that it is necessary to take account of these new
tasks, to find new forms of struggle, to work out the tactics and
organisation appropriate to them.

Once agreement has begun to be established in the Party on these basic
questions, an agreement on the need to over come both of the
above-mentioned deviations, chiefly by extending and deepening
Social-Democratic work—the chief requirement (for correctly determining
the “ideological and political tasks of the Social-Democratic movement”)
has been achieved. We must now systematically put this achievement into
effect, ensure a full and clear understanding of these tasks by all Party
circles, by all local Party workers, carry to its logical conclusion the
explanation of the danger of both deviations in all fields of
activity, and put the work on such a footing as to make impossible
any vacillation to one side or the other. Practical steps in implementing
the decisions adopted and the needs of the economic and political struggle
itself will then themselves show what remains to be done here ’and how to
do it.

Among these needs is one that forms part of the ordinary course of
Party life (when this “ordinary course” exists). We are referring to a
Party conference, which would bring together from, all parts of Russia
representatives of pro-Party Social-Democratic organisations and groups
actually en gaged in local work . This task may be a modest one but
the present break-down has made it terribly difficult. The resolution of
the Central Committee takes into account the new difficulties (the election
of regional delegates by individual local Party units and not by regional
conferences, if the latter, cannot be convened) and the new tasks (the
participation with a conultative voice of Party functionaries from the legal movement).

The objective conditions require that the basis of the Party’s
organisation should consist of illegal workers’ units that are modest as
regards size and present forms of work. Much more initiative and
independent activity than previously, however, is required of them in order to learn to carry out revolutionary
Social-Democratic work systematically, undeviatingly and in a planned way
in the present difficult situation, and the more so because in very many
cases they cannot expect assistance from old, experienced comrades. And
these primary units cannot solve the tasks of constant influence on the
masses and interaction with the masses without establishing, firstly, firm
connections with one another and, secondly, without strongpoints in the
form of all possible kinds of legal institutions. Hence the necessity for a
conference of delegates of these illegal primary units—first of all,
immediately and at all costs. Hence the need to draw in pro-Party
Social-Democrats from the legal movement, representatives “of
Social-Democratic groups in the legal movement that are ready to establish
a firm organisational connection with the local Party centres”. Who among our legal Social-Democrats is really pro-Party, in
deeds and not merely in words, who among them has really understood the new
conditions of work outlined above and how to combine with them the old aims
of revolutionary Social-Democracy, who is sincerely prepared to work for
the fulfilment of these aims, which groups are really prepared to establish
a firm organisational connection with the Party—this is something that
can only, be ascertained in the localities, in the actual course of daily
illegal work.

Let us hope that all Social-Democratic forces will unite for this work,
that Party functionaries at the centre and in the localities will set about
preparing the conference with the utmost vigour, that this conference will
help definitively to reinforce our Party unity and vigorously promote the
creation of a broader, more stable and more flexible proletarian basis for
the future revolutionary battles.

---
Notes:
{1}
See present edition, Vol. 15, pp. 343–53.— Ed .

{2}
The Plenary Session of the Central Committee of the R.S.D.L.P.
known as the “Unity” plenum, was held January 2–23 (January 15–February
5), 1910 in Paris. The plenum was convened in spite of Lenin with the
assistance of Trotsky’s hidden allies: Zinoviev, Kamenev and Rykov. Present
at it, in addition to the Bolsheviks, were representatives of all factions
and factional groupings, as well as representatives of national
Social-Democratic organisations. The conciliators, hidden Trotskyists,
countered Lenin’s plan of a rapprochement with the pro-Party Mensheviks
(Plekhanovites) for combating liquidationism by demanding the dissolution
of all factions and the union of the Bolsheviks with the liquidators and Trotskyists. The conciliators got the upper hand at the plenum and
Lenin was among the minority. Only on Lenin’s insistent demand did the
plenum adopt a decision condemning liquidationism and otzovism. In spite of
Lenin, the plenum adopted decisions to close down the Bolshevik organ
Proletary and to dissolve the Bolshevik Centre. Lenin succeeded in
securing the inclusion of a. condition in the plenum’s decision that the
factional centres of the Golosists and Vperyodists should be abolished
simultaneously with the dissolution of the Bolshevik Centre. The plenum
adopted a decision to give financial support to Trotsky’s Viennese
Pravda , which Trotsky’s agents, Zinoviev and Kamenev, were trying
to have made the organ of the Central Committee. Despite Lenin ’s protest,
Menshevik liquidators were elected to the central bodies.

For Lenin’s fight at the plenum against the liquidators, Trotskyists
and conciliators, see his “Notes of a Publicist” (pp. 195–259 of this
volume).