V. I.

Lenin

Recently there has been a lively discussion in the news
papers about collections made by St. Petersburg workers for the
working-class press. It must be admitted that a most detailed and serious
discussion of this question is essential since it is one of tremendous
importance from the point of view of political principles.

How does the matter stand? The liquidators ( Novaya Rabochaya Gazeta ) insist on the equal division of funds collected. The Marxists
( Severnaya Pravda ) demand division according to the wishes of the
workers who contribute their pence. The workers must themselves decide, by
a discussion on the trend represented by each newspaper, for whom
they have made their contributions.

The resolution of twenty-two Vyborg supporters of the liquidators, the
first document on the question, said simply (see Novaya Rabochaya Gazeta No. 2, August 9): “Take collections for the benefit
of working-class newspapers on a parity basis.” Then the resolutions of
some of the workers of the Nobel Works and the Putilov Works (ibid.,
Nos. 6, 8, 9, 10) upheld and actually put into practice the division of
collections into three equal parts—one part each for the
Marxists, liquidators and Narodniks. The Novaya Rabochaya Gazeta
editors tacitly approved and defended it in an article by
G. R. [2] (No. 9).

Severnaya Pravda , on the contrary, showed that equal division
is an incorrect method and one that does not correspond to the aims and
purposes of Marxism.

Every class-conscious worker, we repeat, must study this question with
care and quite independently.

What are the arguments in favour of equal division? Reference is made
to the “sacred slogan of Marxist workers—Workers of all countries,
unite!”

The question arises—does this slogan demand the alliance of Marxist
workers, who are members, say, of a Marxist party, with those who support
bourgeois parties? Any worker who gives this a little thought will
agree that it does not.

In all countries, even in the most advanced, there are workers who
support bourgeois parties—they are for the Liberals in Britain, for the
Radical-Socialists in France, for the Catholics, and the liberal
“people’s” party in Germany, for the Reform (petty-bourgeois) Party in
Italy, etc., including the petty-bourgeois P. S. P. (Polish Socialist
Party) in neighbouring Poland.

The great slogan calls upon workers to unite in a proletarian,
independent, class party, and not one of the parties mentioned
above is proletarian.

Take the basic principle of our Narodniks. From the Narodnik point of
view, the abolition of the private ownership of land and its equalitarian
division is socialism or “socialisation”, but it is an erroneous and
bourgeois point of view. Marx long ago showed that the more daring
bourgeois economists can and do demand the abolition of private
property in land. [3] It is a bourgeois reform that extends
capitalism’s field of action. We support the peas ants as
bourgeois democrats in their struggle for land and freedom against
the feudal-minded landowners.

However, unity between a proletarian organisation of wage-workers and
petty-bourgeois peasant, democrats is a flagrant violation of the great
Marxist slogan. Attempts at such unity would do great damage to the
working-class movement and always end in an early collapse.

The history of Russia (in the years 1905, 1906 and 1907) has
demonstrated that there is not and cannot be any mass, class support for
the Narodniks, except that of the Left-wing peasantry.

The liquidators and the workers who follow them, there fore, have
retreated from Marxism, have left the class path and entered on
the path of non-party unity between wage-workers and a petty-bourgeois
party. For it is, indeed, a non-party alliance when the worker is told: don’t try to find out
which is the proletarian and which is the petty-bourgeois party, fork out
equally for both! [1]

The masses “cannot get at the root of things”, wrote G. R. in
Novaya Rabochaya Gazeta No. 9. That is precisely why we need an
old, tried and tested Marxist newspaper to develop the political consciousness of the masses who “cannot get at the root of things”,
to help them get at that root and understand it.

The reference made by G. R. and similar writers who oppose
organised, Marxist unity (but never raise the question of uniting the two
parties!)—their reference to “masses who cannot get at the root of
things” is nothing but the preaching of non-party tendencies, is
a retreat from Marxism, is the underhanded pursuit of petty-bourgeois views and policies.

By such a policy the liquidators justify their name, i.e., they are
deserters from the Marxist organisation, its destroyers.

Another argument (see G. R.’s article and the discussion by the editors
of Novaya Rabochaya Gazeta in No. 6) is that collections taken in
accordance with political trends would disrupt “unanimous opposition to
the reactionaries”, who persecute workers’ newspapers.

When a politically conscious worker has thought this over he will see
that it is the old liberal argument about disrupting “unanimity against
reaction” by the separation of the democrats from the liberals. It is a
bourgeois argument and is profoundly erroneous.

The non-party masses “who cannot”, as G. R. asserts, “get at the
root of things”, learn splendidly from examples. One who is still ignorant
and not politically conscious, who cannot think or is too lazy to think and
“get at the root of things” will wave his hand and say “I also protest,
give them all an equal share”. But one who begins to think and
“get at the root of things”, will also go to listen to a
discussion on platforms , to the defence of the views of each
trend, and, by listening to those who are more politically
conscious, will himself gradually learn, and his indifference and his broad
sympathy for all will change to a definite, thoughtful attitude to the
newspapers.

The liquidators have forgotten all these elementary truths that “every
worker should know and remember”. They have proved by their plan
to “divide equally” that they are correctly regarded as the
vehicle of the non-party spirit, as renegades from Marxism and advocates of
the “bourgeois influence over the proletariat” (see the unanimous
decision of the Marxists, January 1910).

The Marxist organisation unites politically conscious workers
by its common programme, common tactics, common decisions on the attitude
to reaction, capitalists, bourgeois democrats (Narodniks), etc. All these
common decisions—among others, the decisions of 1908, 1912 and
1913 on the absurdity and harmfulness of reformism —are upheld
and are persistently implemented by the Marxists.

Discussions (talks, debates, disputes) about parties and about common
tactics are essential; without them the masses are disunited; without them
common decisions are impossible and, therefore, unity of action is
also impossible. Without them the Marxist organisation of those
workers “who can get at the root of things” would disintegrate and the influence of the bourgeoisie on the unenlightened
would thereby be facilitated.

In advocating collections in accordance with political trends,
collections accompanied by a discussion on platforms, the best St. Petersburg workers are struggling for Marxism
against the champions of a non-party spirit.

We are confident that the workers will always and every where bend all
their efforts to uphold only the Marxist system of collections and
discussions, which educate the masses.