*Pravda* Nos. 85, 95, 110, 122, 124 and 126; April 12, 26, May 15, 29, 31 and June 2, 1913. Signed: V. I.

Published according to the text of the newspaper *Pravda*, collated with the text of the collection *Marxism and Liquidationism*, Part II, St. Petersburg, 1914

I. The 1908 Decision

To many workers the struggle that is going on between *Pravda* and *Luch* seems unnecessary and rather incomprehensible. It is natural that polemical articles in separate issues of the newspaper, on separate, sometimes quite particular, questions do not give a full picture of the subjects and content of the struggle. Hence the legitimate dissatisfaction of the workers.

Meanwhile, the question of liquidationism, over which the struggle is taking place, is at the present moment one of the most important and most urgent questions of the working-class movement. One cannot be a class-conscious worker without acquainting oneself thoroughly with this question, without forming a definite opinion about it. A worker who wants to decide the fate of his party independently will not wave aside polemics, even if it is not entirely clear at first glance, but will seriously seek and find the truth.

How is one to seek the truth? How is one to sort oneself out among opinions and assertions that contradict each other?

Every reasonable person understands that if a heated struggle is going on over some subject or other, then to establish the truth it is necessary not to limit oneself to the statements of the disputants, but to verify the facts and documents oneself, to examine for oneself whether there are witness testimonies and whether these testimonies are reliable.

There is no argument, it is not always easy to do this. It is “easier” to take on faith whatever one comes across, whatever one happens to hear, whatever is most “openly” shouted about, and so on. But only those who are satisfied with this are called “lightweight”, frivolous people, and nobody takes them seriously. Without a certain amount of independent labour, truth cannot be found on any serious question, and whoever fears labour deprives himself of the possibility of finding the truth.

Therefore, we address ourselves only to those workers who do not fear this labour, who have resolved to examine things independently and to try to find facts, documents, witness testimonies.

First of all, the question arises, what is liquidationism? Where did this word come from, what does it mean?

*Luch* says that the liquidationism of the party, i.e., the dissolution, destruction of the party, renunciation of the party, is simply a wicked invention. This, they say, was concocted by the “factionalist” Bolsheviks against the Mensheviks!

"Pravda" says that the entire party has been condemning liquidationism and struggling against it for over four years.

Who is right? How can the truth be found?

Obviously, the only way: to search for facts and documents from the party's history over the last 4 years, from 1908 to 1912, when the liquidators definitively split from the party.

It is precisely these four years, when the present liquidators were still within the party, that constitute the most important period for verifying whence and how the concept of liquidationism arose.

Hence the first and fundamental conclusion: whoever speaks about liquidationism while bypassing the facts and documents of the party from 1908–1911 is concealing the truth from the workers.

What, then, are these facts and documents of the party?

First and foremost, the party resolution adopted in December 1908{37}. Workers, if they do not want to be treated like children who are fed fairy tales and fables, must ask their advisers, leaders, or representatives: was there a party resolution on the question of liquidationism in December 1908, and what does it consist of?

This resolution provides a condemnation of liquidationism and an explanation of what it consists of.

Liquidationism is the "attempts of a certain part of the party intelligentsia to liquidate" (i.e., dissolve, destroy, abolish, terminate) "the existing organization of the party and to replace it with an amorphous association within the framework of legality" (i.e., lawfulness, "open" existence) "at all costs, even if the latter were to be purchased at the price of an overt renunciation of the programme, tactics, and traditions" (i.e., past experience) "of the party."

That was the party's resolution on liquidationism over four years ago.

From this resolution, it is clearly seen what the essence of liquidationism is and why it is condemned. The essence lies in the renunciation of the "underground," in its liquidation, in replacing it with an amorphous association within the framework of legality at all costs. Consequently, the party does not at all condemn legal (lawful) work, nor does it condemn the highlighting of its necessity. The party condemns – and condemns unconditionally – the replacement of the old party with something amorphous, "open," something that cannot be called a party.

The party cannot exist without defending its existence, without struggling unconditionally against those who liquidate it, destroy it, do not recognize it, who renounce it. This is self-evident.

Whoever renounces the existing party in the name of some new one must be told: try to build a new party, but you cannot remain a member of the old, current, existing party. That is the meaning of the party decision adopted in December 1908, and it is obvious that no other decision on the question of the party's existence could have been made.

Liquidationism is, of course, ideologically linked with renegacy, with renunciation of the program and tactics, with opportunism. This is indicated by the end of the above-cited decision. But liquidationism is not merely opportunism. Opportunists lead the party onto an incorrect, bourgeois path, onto the path of a liberal labour policy, but they do not renounce the party itself, do not liquidate it. Liquidationism is opportunism that goes as far as renouncing the party. It is self-evident that the party cannot exist while including those who do not recognise its existence. No less obvious is the fact that renunciation of the underground, under existing conditions, is renunciation of the old party.

The question arises: what is the attitude of the liquidators to this party decision of 1908?

Here lies the crux of the matter, here is the test of the liquidators' sincerity and political honesty.

Not one of them, unless out of his mind, will deny the fact that such a party decision was taken and has not been rescinded.

And so the liquidators dodge, either by evading the question and keeping silent before the workers about the 1908 party decision, or by exclaiming (often accompanied by abuse) that this decision was pushed through by the Bolsheviks.

But abuse only betrays the weakness of the liquidators. There are party decisions that were pushed through by the Mensheviks – for example, the decision on municipalisation adopted in Stockholm in 1906{38}. This is common knowledge. Many Bolsheviks do not share this decision. But none of them denies that it is a party decision. In exactly the same way, the 1908 decision on liquidationism is also a party decision. Any quibbling on this question merely signifies a desire to mislead the workers.

Anyone who wants to recognise the party not only in words will not tolerate any quibbling here and will get to the truth about the party's decision on the question of liquidationism. All the party-minded Mensheviks, headed by Plekhanov, who both in his publication *Dnevnik*{39} and in a whole number of other Marxist publications repeatedly and quite definitely explained that a person who liquidates the party cannot be in the party, adhered to this decision from 1909.

Plekhanov was and will remain a Menshevik. This means that the liquidators’ usual references to the “Bolshevik” nature of the party’s decision in 1908 are doubly incorrect.

The more abusive words against Plekhanov we encounter from the liquidators in *Luch* or in *Nasha Zarya*{40}, the more clearly this proves the liquidators’ wrongness, their attempts to obscure the truth with noise, shouting, and scandal. Sometimes, a novice may be momentarily stunned by such methods, but the workers will sort it out themselves and will soon wave aside the abuse.

Is the unity of the workers necessary? It is necessary.

Is the unity of the workers possible without the unity of the workers’ organization? Clearly, it is impossible.

What hinders the unity of the workers’ party? Disputes over liquidationism.

Therefore, the workers must sort out these disputes in order to decide for themselves the fate of their party and defend it.

The first step toward this is to become acquainted with the party’s first decision on liquidationism. The workers must firmly know this decision and carefully reflect on it, brushing aside all attempts to evade the question or divert it. Having pondered this decision, every worker will begin to understand the essence of the liquidationism question, why this question is so important and so “sore,” why this question has stood before the party for more than four years of the era of reaction.

In the next article, we will examine another important party decision on liquidationism, adopted about three and a half years ago, and then we will move on to the facts and documents that define the current state of the question.

II. The Decision of 1910

In the first article (*Pravda* No. 289), we cited the first and fundamental document that workers wishing to get to the truth in contemporary disputes must become acquainted with, namely: the party’s decision on the question of liquidationism from December 1908.

Now we will cite and examine another, no less important, party decision on the same question, adopted three and a half years ago, in January 1910{41}. This decision is particularly significant because it was adopted unanimously: all Bolsheviks without exception, then all the so-called Vperyodists, and finally (this is most important) all Mensheviks without exception, including the present-day liquidators, as well as all the “national” (i.e., Jewish, Polish, and Latvian) Marxists adopted this decision.

We cite in full the most important passage from this decision:

"The historical situation of the Social-Democratic movement in the epoch of bourgeois counter-revolution inevitably engenders, as a manifestation of bourgeois influence on the proletariat, on the one hand, a denial of the illegal Social-Democratic Party, a belittling of its role and significance, attempts to curtail the programmatic and tactical tasks and slogans of consistent Social-Democracy, etc.; on the other hand, a denial of the Duma work of Social-Democracy and of the utilization of legal opportunities, a failure to understand the importance of both, an inability to adapt consistent Social-Democratic tactics to the peculiar historical conditions of the present moment, etc.

An inalienable element of Social-Democratic tactics under these conditions is the overcoming of both deviations by broadening and deepening Social-Democratic work in all spheres of the class struggle of the proletariat and explaining the danger of these deviations."{42}

From this decision it is clearly seen that three and a half years ago all Marxists unanimously, in the person of all currents without exception, were obliged to recognize two deviations from Marxist tactics. Both deviations were recognized as dangerous. Both deviations were explained not by chance, not by the evil will of individuals, but by "the historical situation" of the working-class movement in the epoch we are living through.

Moreover. In the unanimous decision of the Party, the class origin and significance of these deviations are indicated. For Marxists do not confine themselves to a bare and meaningless indication of disintegration and collapse. Everyone sees that in the minds of many supporters of democracy and socialism there reigns disintegration, lack of faith, despondency, and bewilderment. It is not enough to recognize this. It is necessary to understand what is the class origin of the confusion and disintegration, what class interests from the non-proletarian milieu nourish the "disturbance" among friends of the proletariat.

And the Party's decision three and a half years ago gave an answer to this important question: the deviations from Marxism are engendered by "bourgeois counter-revolution," they are engendered by "bourgeois influence on the proletariat."

What, then, are these deviations that threaten to subject the proletariat to the influence of the bourgeoisie? One of these deviations, linked with "Vperyodism"{43} and consisting in denial of the Duma work of the Social-Democrats and of the utilization of legal opportunities, has vanished almost completely. In Russia, no Social-Democrat preaches these erroneous, non-Marxist views any longer. The "Vperyodists" (including Alexinsky and others) have begun to work in Pravda alongside the Party Mensheviks.

The other deviation indicated in the Party resolution is precisely liquidationism. This is clear from the references to the "denial" of the underground and the "belittling" of its role and significance. Finally, we have a most precise document, published three years ago and refuted by no one, a document coming from all the "national" Marxists and from Trotsky (witnesses better than whom the liquidators could not even imagine); this document states directly that "in essence it would be desirable to call the tendency indicated in the resolution, against which it is necessary to struggle, liquidationism…"

And so, this is the basic and most important fact, with which anyone wishing to understand the contemporary disputes must be familiar: three and a half years ago the Party unanimously recognized liquidationism as a "dangerous" deviation from Marxism, a deviation against which it is necessary to struggle, which expresses "bourgeois influence upon the proletariat."

The interests of the bourgeoisie, which is opposed to democracy and counter-revolutionary in general, demand the liquidation, the dissolution of the old party of the proletariat. The bourgeoisie spreads and supports in every way all ideas directed toward the liquidationism of the working-class party. The bourgeoisie strives to sow a renunciation of the old tasks, to "shorten," trim, curtail, emasculate them, to replace the decisive elimination of the foundations of the power of the Purishkeviches and Co. with reconciliation or agreement with them.

Liquidationism is precisely the introduction of these bourgeois ideas of renunciation and renegadism into the midst of the proletariat.

Such is the class significance of liquidationism, pointed out by the unanimous decision of the Party three and a half years ago. Herein the entire Party sees the profoundest harm and danger of liquidationism, its ruinous effect on the workers' movement, on the consolidation of an independent (in deed, not merely in word) party of the working class.

Liquidationism is not only the liquidation (i.e., dissolution, destruction) of the old party of the working class, it is also the destruction of the class independence of the proletariat, the corruption of its consciousness by bourgeois ideas.

We will clearly explain this assessment of liquidationism in the following article, in which the most important arguments of the liquidator “Ray” will be presented in full. And now let us sum up what has been said. The attempts of the Ray-ists in general, and of Messrs. F. Dan and Potresov in particular, to present the matter as if all “liquidationism” is a fabrication, are evasions astonishing in their mendacity, calculated on the utter ignorance of the readers of “Ray”. In fact, apart from the party decision of 1908, there is the unanimous party decision of 1910, giving a full assessment of liquidationism as a bourgeois deviation from the proletarian path, dangerous and ruinous for the working class. Only enemies of the working class can conceal or circumvent this party assessment.

III. The Attitude of the Liquidators to the Decisions of 1908 and 1910

In the previous article (*Pravda* No. 95 (299)) we cited the exact words of the unanimous party decision regarding liquidationism as a manifestation of bourgeois influence on the proletariat.

This decision, as we pointed out, was adopted in January 1910. Let us now look at the behavior of those liquidators who have the audacity now to assert that there never was and is no liquidationism at all.

In February 1910, in issue No. 2 of the journal *Nasha Zarya*, which had just begun publication, Mr. Potresov wrote outright that “there is no party as an integral and organized hierarchy” (i.e., a ladder or system of “institutions”), and that one cannot liquidate what “in fact no longer exists as an organized whole” (see p. 61 of *Nasha Zarya* No. 2, 1910).

This was said a month or less after the unanimous decision of the party!!

And in March 1910, another liquidator journal with the same contributors—Potresov, Dan, Martynov, Yezhov, Martov, Levitsky and Co.—namely the journal *Vozrozhdenie*{44}, emphasized and explained in popular form Mr. Potresov’s words:

“There is nothing to liquidate, and,” we (i.e., the editors of *Vozrozhdenie*) add on our own, “the dream of restoring this hierarchy in its old, underground form is simply a harmful, reactionary utopia, signifying a loss of political sense on the part of the representatives of what was once a most realistic party” (*Vozrozhdenie*, 1910, No. 5, p. 51).

There is no party, and to restore it is a harmful utopia—such are clear, definite words. Such is a clear and direct repudiation of the party. Those who repudiated it (and invited the workers to repudiate it) were people who had abandoned the underground and “dreamed” of an open party.

This departure from the underground was further quite definitely and openly supported by P. B. Axelrod in 1912, both in Nevsky Golos{45} (1912, No. 6) and in Nasha Zarya (No. 6, 1912).

"To talk, in such a situation, of non-factionalism," wrote P. B. Axelrod, "is to behave like an ostrich, to deceive oneself and others." "Factional formalisation and consolidation is the direct duty and urgent obligation of the supporters of party reform, or rather, of revolution."

Thus, P. B. Axelrod directly advocates party revolution, i.e., the destruction of the old party and the founding of a new party.

In 1913, in No. 101 of Luch, an unsigned editorial leader stated outright that "here and there in working-class circles sympathies for the underground are even reviving and taking root," and that this was "a deplorable fact." The author of that article, L. Sedov, himself admitted that the article "aroused displeasure" even among supporters of Luch's tactics (Nasha Zarya, 1913, No. 3, p. 49). L. Sedov's own explanations, moreover, were such that they provoked fresh displeasure, again from a supporter of Luch, namely An, who writes against Sedov in No. 181 of Luch. An protests against Sedov's assumption that "the underground is an obstacle to the political shaping of our movement, to the building of a working-class Social-Democratic party." An ridicules L. Sedov, finding in him "ambiguity" as to whether the underground is desirable.

The editors of Luch appended a lengthy afterword to An's article, in which they spoke out for Sedov, finding An "incorrect in his criticism of L. Sedov."

We shall examine both the arguments of the Luch editorial board and An's own liquidationist errors in their proper place. For the moment that is not what we are discussing. Right now we must carefully assess the fundamental and principal conclusion to be drawn from the documents we have cited[7].

The whole Party, both in 1908 and 1910, condemns and rejects liquidationism, explaining in detail and lucidly what the class source and what the danger of this trend is. All the liquidationist newspapers and magazines—both Vozrozhdeniye (1909–1910), Nasha Zarya (1910–1913), Nevsky Golos (1912) and Luch (1912–1913)[8]—all, after the most definite and even unanimous decisions of the Party, repeat thoughts and arguments that contain overt liquidationism.

Even the supporters of *Luch* are forced to declare their disagreement with these arguments, with this preaching. This is a fact. Consequently, to shout about the “persecution” of the Liquidators, as Trotsky, Semkovsky, and many other patrons of Liquidationism do, is downright dishonest, for it is a flagrant distortion of the truth.

The truth, proved by the documents I have cited covering more than five years (1908–1913), is that the Liquidators, in mockery of all the Party’s decisions, continue to revile and persecute the Party, i.e., the “underground.”

Every worker who wishes to examine with all seriousness the controversial and painful questions of the Party and decide these questions for himself—such a worker must above all grasp this truth, and for that purpose take independent measures to study and verify the Party decisions cited and the arguments of the Liquidators. Only he deserves the name of Party member and builder of the workers’ party who carefully studies, ponders, and independently decides the questions and destiny of his Party. One cannot be indifferent to the question of whether it is the Party that is “guilty” of the “persecution” (i.e., of excessively sharp and incorrect attacks) of the Liquidators, or whether the Liquidators are guilty of directly violating the Party’s resolutions and stubbornly preaching liquidation, i.e., the destruction of the Party.

It is clear that the Party cannot exist unless it fights with all its might against those who are destroying the Party.

Having presented documents on this fundamental question, we will proceed, in the next article, to an appraisal of the ideological content of the preaching of an “open party.”

IV. The Class Significance of Liquidationism

In the preceding articles (*Pravda* Nos. 289, 299, and 314) we have shown that all Marxists, both in 1908 and in 1910, unconditionally condemned Liquidationism as a renunciation of the past. The Marxists explained to the working class that Liquidationism is the dissemination of bourgeois influence among the proletariat. Yet all the Liquidators’ publications, from 1909 to 1913, have flagrantly violated and continue to violate the Marxists’ decisions.

Let us examine the slogan “an open workers’ party” or “the struggle for an open party,” which the Liquidators in *Luch* and *Nasha Zarya* continue to defend to this day.

Is this slogan a Marxist, proletarian one, or a liberal, bourgeois one?

The answer to this question must be sought not in the moods or plans of the Liquidators or other groups, but in an analysis of the alignment of social forces in Russia in the epoch we are experiencing. The significance of slogans is determined not by the intentions of their authors, but precisely by the alignment of the forces of all the classes in the country.

The serf-owning landlords and their "bureaucracy" are hostile to any changes in the spirit of political freedom. This is understandable. The bourgeoisie, by its economic position in a backward and semi-serf country, cannot but strive for freedom. But the bourgeoisie fears popular activity more than reaction. This truth was especially vividly demonstrated by the year 1905; the working class grasped it perfectly; only opportunist and semi-liberal intellectuals failed to understand it.

The bourgeoisie is liberal and counter-revolutionary. Hence its ridiculously impotent and pitiful reformism. Dreams of reforms—and fear of seriously reckoning with the serf-owners, who not only grant no reforms, but even take back those already granted. Preaching reforms—and fear of the popular movement. Striving to push aside the serf-owners—and fear of losing their aid, fear of losing its own privileges. On this alignment of classes is built the June 3 system, which gives absolute power to the serf-owners and privileges to the bourgeoisie.

The class position of the proletariat absolutely precludes any possibility for it of "sharing" privileges or fearing their loss by anyone. Therefore, the narrowly self-interested, wretched, and dull-witted reformism is completely alien to the proletariat. As for the peasant mass—on the one hand, immeasurably oppressed and, instead of privileges, seeing famines, and on the other hand, indisputably petty-bourgeois—it inevitably vacillates between the liberals and the workers.

Such is the objective situation.

From this situation it follows with obvious clarity that the slogan of an open workers' party, by its class origin, is a slogan of the counter-revolutionary liberals. In it there is nothing but reformism;—not even a hint that the proletariat, the only thoroughly democratic class, is conscious of its task of struggling against the liberals for influence over the whole democracy;—no thought of eliminating the very basis of any privileges whatever of the serf-owners, the "bureaucracy," etc.;—no thought of the general foundations of political freedom and a democratic constitution;—instead, there is a tacit renunciation of the old, and consequently, renegacy and the dissolution (liquidation) of the workers' party.

In short: this slogan carries into the working-class milieu, in an era of counter-revolution, precisely the preaching that the liberal bourgeoisie carries on in its own milieu. Therefore, if there were no liquidators, the clever bourgeois-progressists would have to seek out or hire intellectuals to bring such preaching into the working class!

Only brainless people can compare the words of the liquidators with their motives. One must compare their words with the deeds of the liberal bourgeoisie and with its objective position.

Look at these deeds. In 1902, the bourgeoisie was in favour of the underground. It sent Struve to publish the underground *Osvobozhdenie*.{46} When the workers' movement leads to October 17,{47} the liberals and Cadets abandon the underground and then renounce it, declaring it unnecessary, madness, a sin, and godlessness (*Vekhi*{48})[9]. In place of the underground, the liberal bourgeoisie adopts the struggle for an open party. This is a historical fact, confirmed by the incessant attempts to legalise the Cadets (1905–1907) and the Progressists (1913).

In the Cadets we see "open work and a secret organisation for it"; the good-natured, i.e., unconscious, liquidator A. Vlasov merely recounted the Cadets' deeds "in his own words."

Why did the liberals renounce the underground and adopt the slogan of the "struggle for an open party"? Was it because Struve is a traitor? No. Quite the contrary. Struve switched sides because the entire bourgeoisie turned. And it turned, 1) because it received the privileges of December 11, 1905,{49} and even on June 3, 1907, it gained the position of a tolerated opposition; 2) because it was itself mortally frightened by the popular movement. The slogan "struggle for an open party," translated from "high politics" into plain and graphic language, means the following:

– Gentlemen, the landlords! Do not think that we wish to drive you from the face of the earth. No. Move aside a little, so that we, the bourgeoisie, may also have a seat (an open party), – and we shall then defend you five times more "intelligently," more cunningly, more "scientifically" than Timoshkin and the Sablerite priests.{50}

Imitating the Cadets, the petty bourgeoisie, the Narodniks, adopted the slogan of the "struggle for an open party." In August 1906, Mr. Peshekhonov and the company around *Russkoe Bogatstvo* renounce the underground, proclaim the "struggle for an open party," and pare down the consistently democratic, "underground," slogans from their programme.

As a result of the reformist chatter of these philistines about a "broad and open party," it became obvious to all that they were left without any party, without any connection with the masses, and the Cadets even gave up dreaming of such a connection.

Only in this way, and only by analysing the alignment of classes and the general history of the counter-revolution, can we arrive at an understanding of liquidationism. The liquidators are petty-bourgeois intellectuals, sent by the bourgeoisie to introduce liberal corruption into the working-class milieu. The liquidators are betrayers of Marxism and betrayers of democracy. Their slogan of the “struggle for an open party” (like that of the liberals and the Narodniks) is a screen for renouncing the past and breaking with the working class. This is a fact proved both by the elections to the Fourth Duma in the worker curia and by the history of the appearance of the workers’ newspaper Pravda. Connection with the masses has manifestly been maintained only by those who have not renounced the past and who have been able to use “open work” and all kinds of “opportunities” exclusively in the spirit of that past, for its strengthening, consolidation and development.

In the epoch of the Third-of-June system, it could not have been otherwise.

We shall discuss the “curtailment” of the programme and tactics by the liquidators (i.e., the liberals) in the following article.

V. The Slogan of the “Struggle for an Open Party”

In the previous article (Pravda No. 122) we examined the objective, i.e., determined by the alignment of classes, meaning of the slogan “open party” or “struggle for an open party”. This slogan is a slavish repetition of the tactics of the bourgeoisie, for whom it is a correct expression of their renunciation of the revolution or of their counter-revolutionary nature.

Let us examine some of the attempts, especially current among the liquidators, to defend the slogan of the “struggle for an open party”. Mayevsky, Sedov, Dan, and all the “Luchists” try to confuse the open party with open work or activity. Such confusion is sheer sophistry, a game, a deception of the reader.

Firstly, open activity of the S.D.s for the period 1904–1913 is a fact. The open party is a phrase of the intellectuals, covering up renunciation of the party. Secondly, the party has repeatedly condemned liquidationism, i.e., the slogan of the open party. But the party not only did not condemn open activity, but, on the contrary, condemned those who abandoned it or renounced it. Thirdly, in 1904–1907, open activity was especially developed among all S.D.s. But no trend, no faction of the S.D.s then advanced the slogan of the “struggle for an open party”!

This is a historical fact. Those who want to understand liquidationism must ponder over it.

Did the absence of the slogan of the “struggle for an open party” in 1904–1907 hinder open activity? Not in the slightest.

Why did the S.-D. not then come up with such a slogan? Precisely because at that time there was still no rampant counter-revolution that swept part of the S.-D. into opportunism of an extreme degree. It was then too clear that the slogan “struggle for an open party” is an opportunist phrase, a renunciation of the “underground.”

Do grasp, gentlemen, the meaning of this historical turn: in the era of 1905, with the brilliant development of open activity, there is no slogan “struggle for an open party”; in the era of counter-revolution, with a weaker development of open activity, there appears among part of the S.-D. (following the bourgeoisie) the slogan of renunciation of the “underground” and “struggle for an open party.”

Can the meaning and class significance of such a turn still be unclear?

Finally, the fourth and most important circumstance. Open activity is possible (and observable) in two ways, in two diametrically opposite directions: that which is conducted in defence of the old and wholly in its spirit, in the name of its slogans and tactics, and that which is conducted against the old, in the name of renouncing it, diminishing its role, its slogans, and so on.

The existence of these two fundamentally hostile and irreconcilable types of open activity is the most indisputable historical fact for the era from 1906 (the Cadets and Mr. Peshekhonov & Co.) to 1913 (Luch, Nasha Zarya). Can one therefore hear without a smile a simpleton (or a person who for a time pretends to be a simpleton) when he says: what is there to argue about if both do open activity? Precisely about that, my dear fellow: is this activity to be conducted in defence of the “underground” and in its spirit, or to diminish it, against it, not in its spirit? The dispute is only – only “only”! – about whether the given open work is being conducted in a liberal or in a consistently democratic spirit. The dispute is “only” about whether it is possible to limit oneself to open work: recall the liberal Mr. Struve, who did not limit himself to it in 1902 and fully “limited himself” in 1906–1913!

Our liquidators from Luch simply cannot understand that the slogan “struggle for an open party” is the introduction into the working-class milieu of liberal (Struvean) ideas, dressed up in tatters of “almost Marxist” phrases.

Or take the argument of the Luch editorial board itself in its reply to An (No. 181):

...The Social-Democratic Party is not exhausted by those few comrades whom reality compels to work in the underground. For if the party were exhausted by the underground, how many members would it number? 2–3 hundred? And where would those thousands, if not tens of thousands, of workers go who actually bear the entire Social-Democratic work on their shoulders?

For a thinking person, this argument alone is enough to recognize its authors as liberals. Firstly, they tell a deliberate untruth about the “underground”: it is far from being “hundreds”. Secondly, everywhere in the world the number of party members is “narrow” compared to the number of workers conducting Social-Democratic work. For example, in Germany the Social-Democratic Party has only 1 million members, while about 5 million vote for the Social-Democrats, and there are about 15 million proletarians. The proportion of the number of party members to the number of Social-Democrats is determined in different countries by differences in historical conditions. Thirdly, we have nothing else to replace the “underground”. Thus, Luch, in opposing the party, refers to non-party or outside-party workers. This is the usual trick of a liberal trying to separate the mass from its conscious vanguard. Luch does not understand the relationship of the party to the class, just as the “Economists” of 1895–1901 did not understand this. Fourthly, “Social-Democratic work” among us is only then really Social-Democratic work when it is conducted in the spirit of the old, in the name of its slogans.

The arguments of Luch are the arguments of liberal intellectuals who, not wishing to join the actually existing party organization, try to destroy this organization by inciting against it the non-party, scattered, poorly conscious crowd. German liberals act in the same way, saying that the Social-Democrats are not representatives of the proletariat, because they have “only” a fifteenth part in the “party”!

Take an even more common argument of Luch: “we” stand for an open party, “as in Europe”. The liberals and liquidators want a constitution and an open party, “as in Europe” today; but they do not want the path by which Europe arrived at this today.

The liquidator and Bundist Kosovsky in *Luch* teaches us by the example of the Austrians. He only forgets that the Austrians have had a constitution since 1867, and it could not have come about without: 1) the movement of 1848, 2) a profound state crisis of 1859–1866, when the weakness of the working class allowed Bismarck and Co. to extricate themselves by means of the famous “revolution from above.” What then follows from the teachings of Kosovsky, Dan, Larin and all the “Luchists”?

Only that they help to resolve our crisis in the spirit of an inevitable “revolution from above”! But such work of theirs is precisely the “work” of the Stolypin labor party.

Wherever you look, we see among the liquidators a renunciation of both Marxism and democracy.

In the next article we shall examine in detail their argument about the necessity of curtailing our, Social-Democratic, slogans.

VI

We are to examine the curtailment of Marxist slogans by the liquidators. It would be best to take for this purpose the resolutions of their August conference, but for understandable reasons an analysis of these resolutions is possible only in the foreign press. Here, we are obliged to take *Luch*, which in an article by L. S. (No. 108 (194)) gave a remarkably precise exposition of the whole essence, the whole spirit of liquidationism. Mr. L. S. writes:

"…Deputy Muranov, for the time being, recognizes only three partial demands, those three pillars upon which, as is well known, the electoral platform of the Leninists was based: the full democratization of the state system, an eight-hour working day, and the transfer of land to the peasants. *Pravda* continues to stand on this same point of view. Meanwhile we, like all European Social-Democracy" (read: "we, like Milyukov, who assures us that we have, thank God, a constitution"), "see in the advancement of partial demands a means of agitation which can only be successful when it reckons with the day-to-day struggle of the working masses. Only that which, on the one hand, has principled significance for the further development of the working-class movement, and on the other, can become a matter of topical urgency for the masses – this is what we consider possible to advance as precisely the partial demand which, at the given moment, should concentrate the attention of Social-Democracy upon itself. Of the three demands advanced by *Pravda*, only one – the eight-hour working day – plays and can play a role in the day-to-day struggle of the workers. The other two demands, at the present moment, can serve as a subject of propaganda, but not as a subject of agitation. On the difference between propaganda and agitation, see the brilliant pages in G. V. Plekhanov's pamphlet *The Struggle Against Famine*" (L. S. has hit the wrong target: it is "painful" for him to recall Plekhanov's polemic in 1899–1902 with the "Economists," whom L. S. is copying!).

"Apart from the eight-hour working day, such a partial demand, advanced both by the needs of the working-class movement and by the entire course of Russian life, is the demand for freedom of coalition, freedom of all kinds of organization, together with the related freedom of assembly and freedom of speech, oral and printed."

Here you have the tactics of the liquidators. "A matter of topical urgency for the masses," if you please, is neither what L. S. describes with the words "full democratization, etc.," nor what he calls "the transfer of land to the peasants"!! How old these arguments are, and how familiar they are to those who remember the history of Russian Marxist practice, its many years of struggle against the "Economists," who renounced the tasks of democracy! How talentedly *Luch* is copying the views of Prokopovich and Kuskova, who tried at that time to entice the workers onto the liberal path!

But let us examine the reasoning of *Luch* more closely. From the standpoint of common sense, this reasoning is simply insane. Is it really possible, without going mad, to claim that the aforementioned "peasant" (i.e., directed in favour of the peasants) demand is not "a burning issue for the masses"? that it is not "brought forward by the needs of the labour movement and by the entire course of Russian life"? This is not just untrue, it is a glaring absurdity. The entire history of nineteenth-century Russia, the entire "course of Russian life," brought this question forward, made it a burning issue, the most burning of all, and this was reflected in the entire legislation of Russia. How could *Luch* arrive at such a monstrous untruth?

It was bound to arrive at it, because *Luch* is enslaved by liberal politics, and the liberals are true to themselves when they reject (or postpones — like *Luch*) the peasant demand. The liberal bourgeoisie does this because its class position compels it to accommodate itself to the landlords and to oppose the popular movement.

*Luch* carries the ideas of the liberal landlords to the workers and commits an act of betrayal towards the democratic peasantry.

Further. Is it really true that only freedom of association is "a burning issue"? and not the inviolability of the person? and not the abolition of discretion and arbitrariness? and not universal, etc., suffrage? and not a single chamber? etc.? Every literate worker, everyone who remembers the recent past, knows perfectly well that all of this is a burning issue. In thousands of articles and speeches, all liberals recognise that all of this is a burning issue. Why, then, did *Luch* declare only one of the freedoms — though indeed the most important one — to be a burning issue, while crossing out, postponing, consigning to the archive of "propaganda," and removing from agitation the fundamental conditions of political freedom, democracy, and a constitutional system?

For the sole and only reason that *Luch* does not accept what is unacceptable to the liberals.

From the standpoint of how burning an issue it is for the masses, of the needs of the labour movement, and of the course of Russian life, there is no difference between the three demands of Muranov and *Pravda* (let us say this for brevity: the demands of consistent Marxists). The workers' demands, the peasant demands, and the general political demands are equally burning issues for the masses, equally brought forward by the needs of the labour movement and by "the entire course of Russian life." From the standpoint of their "partiality," so dear to our admirer of moderation and exactness, all three demands are likewise identical: they are "partial" in relation to the ultimate goal, but they are very far-reaching in relation, for example, to "Europe" in general.

Why, then, does *Luch* accept the 8-hour workday and reject the rest? Why did it decide for the workers that the 8-hour workday "plays a role" in their daily struggle, while the general political and peasant demands do not play such a role? Facts tell us, on the one hand, that the workers, in their daily struggle, do advance both the general political and the peasant demands – and, on the other hand, that they often fight for more modest reductions of the workday.

What, then, is the matter?

The matter is the reformism of *Luch*, which, as is its custom, shifts this, its own liberal narrowness, onto the "masses," the "course of history," and so on.

Reformism in general consists in the fact that people limit themselves to agitation for changes that do not require the elimination of the main foundations of the old, ruling class – changes that are compatible with the preservation of these foundations. The eight-hour workday is compatible with the preservation of the power of capital. Russian liberals, in order to attract the workers, are themselves ready to endorse ("as far as possible") this demand. Yet the very demands for which *Luch* does not wish to "agitate" are incompatible with the preservation of the foundations of pre-capitalist, serf-owning times.

*Luch* expels from agitation precisely that which is unacceptable to the liberals, who do not desire the elimination of landowner power, but only desire a division of power and privileges. *Luch* expels precisely that which is incompatible with the viewpoint of reformism.

Here lies the crux of the matter.

Neither Muranov, nor *Pravda*, nor all Marxists reject partial demands. This is nonsense. An example is insurance. We reject the deception of the people through chatter about partial demands, through reformism. We reject, as utopian, selfishly-false, built on constitutional illusions, full of the spirit of servility before the landowners, liberal reformism in contemporary Russia. That is the gist of the matter, which *Luch* muddles and conceals with phrases about "partial demands" in general, although it itself admits that both Muranov and *Pravda* do not reject certain "partial demands."

*Luch* curtails Marxist slogans, tailors them to a narrow, reformist, liberal yardstick, thus introducing bourgeois ideas into the working-class milieu.

The struggle of the Marxists against the liquidators is nothing other than the expression of the struggle of the advanced workers against the liberal bourgeois over influence on the popular masses, over their political enlightenment and education.