V. I.

Lenin

Put Your Cards on the Table [1]

Our nobility, ministers, members of the Council of State,
etc., are well acquainted with the language of the Duchy of

Monaco. [2] It is well known who introduced this language to our Council
of State! That is why we were somewhat surprised when we came across the
expression which heads this article, in Zhivoye Dyelo , No. 8.

But the important thing is not the mode of expression. The prestige
among the liquidators of the writer using this expression (L. Martov), the
importance of the subject touched on (“put your cards on the table” in
relation to the election campaign, its principles, tactics, etc.), all this
compels us to take up this slogan, irrespective of how it has been
expressed.

“ Put your cards on the table” is an excellent slogan. And in the
first place, we should like to see it applied to the paper Zhivoye Dyelo . Put your cards on the table, gentlemen!

People who are experienced in literary affairs can immediately gauge
the character of a publication by its contributors, even by isolated
expressions which indicate the trend of the publication if that
trend belongs to those in any degree established and well-known. Such
people only need to take one glance at Zhivoye Dyelo to realise
its adherence to the liquidationist trend.

But it is not so easy for the general public to understand the trend
followed by newspapers, particularly when the subjects in question are not
theoretical principles, but cur rent politics. It is here that it is very
important and appropriate to remember the extremely apt slogan put forward
by L. Martov—“Put your cards on the table”. For it so happens that in
Zhivoye Dyelo the cards are under the table!

Those ideas which Zhivoye Dyelo is beginning to pro pound have
been worked out at all systematically and consistently only in the
course of the past two years in Nasha Zarya , Zhizn , Vozrozhdeniye , and Dyelo Zhizni . A considerable amount of
material has accumulated in this period. What is lacking are
summaries , particularly those produced by the people who for two
years have been en gaged in the elaboration of those ideas. What is lacking
is an open exposition, by those holding liquidationist views, of
the conclusions they have drawn from two years of “work” by Nasha Zarya .

It is precisely at this point that the lovers of talks about an
“open workers’ party” turn out to be lovers of a game with
hidden cards. You read, for instance, in the leader appearing in
No. 8, that “the path of the struggle for the general, for general
improvement and basic change in working and living conditions”
lies through “the defence of partial [author’s italics]
rights”. You read in the same issue about some “Petersburg leaders of the
open labour movement”, that they “ as previously ” will
... “popularise among Social-Democrats those methods for the revival and
creation of a proletarian Social-Democratic party which they have hitherto
defended”.

Put your cards on the table[ What is this theory of the defence of
partial rights? This theory has not been stated in any properly formulated,
official, openly announced postulates, recognised by groups, or
representatives of groups of workers. Is it, for instance, the theory
propounded to us by V. Levitsky in Nasha Zarya , No. 11 for 1911?
And then, how can the paper’s readers know what methods were
advocated by some unnamed leaders of the open movement, for the “revival
and creation of the party”, which apparently has not been
created, i.e., does not exist? Why not name those leaders, if they are
indeed leaders of an “open” movement, if these words are not merely a
conventional phrase?

The question of “methods of revival and creation of the
party” is not some incidental question, which can be touched on and
resolved in passing among other political questions of interest to any
newspaper. On the contrary, this is a basic question, It is impossible to
talk about a Party election campaign, about the election tactics of the Party, about Party
candidates, until this question has been resolved; and resolved it must be,
in the most unambiguous, positive manner, for apart from a clear-cut
theoretical answer, a practical decision is required.

The arguments which we frequently meet with to the effect that during
an election campaign the elements of revival and creation of the Party,
etc., etc., will emerge or rally, are sophistry, and sophistry of the worst
kind. It is sophistry because a party is something organised !
There is not and cannot be an election campaign for the working
class , without decisions, tactics , a platform, and candidates common to the whole class, or at any rate to its
advanced section.

Sophistry of this kind, obscure statements made in the name of
anonymous, unknown, and— for the proletariat —elusive open
leaders (who does not call himself a “leader of the open labour
movement”? How many bourgeois shelter behind this name?)—all this
represents a great danger which the worker must be warned against. The
danger is that all this talk about “open action” is meant merely as a blind while in reality, the worst form of hidden dictatorship
of a group results.

They inveigh against the “underground” although it is there we see
open decisions which have now become pretty well known thanks to the
bourgeois press ( Golos Zemii , Kievskaya Mysl , Russkoye Slovo , Golos Moskvy , Novoye Vremya —how many hundreds of thousands of readers have now
been openly informed of quite definite decisions, which mean
genuine unity in the election campaign). It is those who cry out
against the underground or for “open political activity” who provide an example of people leaving one shore and not
landing on the other. The “old” has been abandoned, but there is only
talk of the “new”.

We know, and all openly know, that “the methods of revival
and creation” spoken of by Zhivoye Dyelo are merely those which
have been developed and defended in Nasha Zarya . We know of no
others, either stated openly or in any other form. There has been no
attempt whatsoever to discuss these methods, openly or otherwise, by
representatives of the groups, nor has any formal and properly
formulated, official exposition of these methods been made. They use the
words “open”, “openly” in a hundred ways to cover what is
really something completely closed in the full meaning of the word,
something emanating from a circle, from a coterie of writers.

We know some writers, who are responsible to no one, and are
indistinguishable from the free-lances of the bourgeois press. We know
their speeches about “methods”, about the liquidation of the
“old”.

We know nothing more, and nobody knows anything more about
open political activity. Here you have a paradox—it seems to be
a paradox, but in reality it is a direct and natural product of
all the conditions of Russian life—that through the above-mentioned series of the most widespread bourgeois papers, the masses
were informed more accurately, swiftly and directly about “underground”
political activities, decisions, slogans, tactics, etc., than about the
non-existent decisions of “the leaders of the open movement”!

Or maybe someone will assert that an election campaign can be carried
out without formulated decisions? That it is possible for tens and hundreds
of thousands of voters scattered all over the country to determine tactics,
platform, agreements and candidacies without formulated decisions?

In speaking of “putting cards on the table” Martov touched the
liquidators’ raw spot, and it is impossible to over estimate the effort
that must be made to warn the workers. The masses are offered ... the
thoughts and projects of “leaders of the open movement”, who are not openly named , that is, the Potresovs, Levitskys, Chatskys, Yezhovs,
and Larins, without formulated decisions, without any definite replies to
practical questions, without the participation of at least tens or hundreds
of advanced workers in the discussion of every sentence, every word of the
important decisions.

They keep their cards hidden because any attempt to turn them face up
would reveal quite clearly to the workers that all this has nothing to do
with a working-class party or a working-class policy, that it is preaching
by liberal publicists who take a liberal’s attitude to the
workers, who liquidate the old and are powerless to provide any thing new
to replace it.

The danger is great. Under cover of phrases about the “open”
tomorrow, the workers are left not only without an “open”
decision, but without any decision at all on the urgent
practical problems of the present election campaign, of present-day Party
life.

Let class-conscious workers give some thought to this dangerous
situation.

P. S.

(1) Please send immediately books on the electoral law of June 3, 1907, or
another copy of the handbook of

1910. [3] Also the electoral law with the comments of a
lawyer . Consult “your people” and send them promptly. Unless I
get them I cannot work on the voter’s handbook. [4] (2) I am again receiving Zvezda irregularly. Speak about it again
in your dispatch department. Give my (old) address. It mustn’t be sent so
irregularly.

(3) The article “Fundamentals of a Platform” does not require
the approval of the Editorial Board; publish it with the signature and with
the subheading “An Essay in Comment”; the Board, must not
approve any platform; remember, one clumsy step and a squabble is
unavoidable. Let the Board refrain and keep silent. The approval of the
platform is the job of quite another body.

(4) Send me newspapers, journals, books. It is impossible to work without
them.

(5) Write and tell me exactly when a daily newspaper is likely to come out,
its size, etc.

(6) Fight against Zhivoye Dyelo more energetically—then victory
is guaranteed. Otherwise things will be bad. Don’t be afraid of
polemics. Two or three polemical articles a week are imperative.

---
Notes:
[1]

“ Put Your Cards on the Table ” was written in Paris in
March 1912 for publication in the Bolshevik newspaper Zvezda , but
was not

printed at the time. It was sent to the Editorial Board with a covering
letter intended as a postscript.

[2]
The language of the Duchy of Monaco —the language of gambling.

[3]
This refers to the book The State Duma, Third Convocation. Handbook , 1910.

[4]
The pamphlet Voter’s Handbook ( Our Election Law ) was published in St. Petersburg in 1912.

Lenin attached peat importance to the publication of the Voter’s Handbook and compiled and edited the material for this book. In a
letter to the Editorial Board of Zvezda dated April 9 (22), 1912,
he recommended that the 2nd and 3rd chapters of his article “The Campaign
for the Elections to the Fourth Duma” be included

He urged that they issue a “serious work” which “would be of value as an
effective guide to the elections”. However, the Zvezda editors
were able to issue only the first part of the book which dealt with the
electoral law and the regulations concerning the elections to the Duma.