V. I.

Lenin

A Fool’s Haste Is No Speed

A recent issue of Der Kampf , [2] the Austrian
Social-Democratic monthly, contained a sensational paragraph signed F. A.,
stating that Eduard Bernstein, leader of the German opportunists, had
renounced his revisionist, opportunist views and returned to Marxism.

Revisionism—revision of Marxism—is today one of the chief
manifestations, if not the chief, of bourgeois influence on the proletariat
and bourgeois corruption of the workers. That is why Eduard Bernstein, the
opportunist leader, has won such world-wide notoriety.

And now we are told that Bernstein has returned to Marxism. This piece
of news should seem strange to anyone at all familiar with German
Social-Democratic literature. Sozialistische Monatshefte , [1] the principal organ of the opportunists, is still published and continues
to preach purely bourgeois views which, in effect, amount to a complete
betrayal of socialism. And Bernstein continues to be a leading contributor
to the journal. What can the matter be?

It appears that Bernstein gave a lecture in Budapest in which,
according to a local paper, he renounced revisionism.

F. A., the Austrian author, has proved exceedingly gullible and
imprudent in hastening to proclaim to the world that Bernstein has revised
his views. But the liquidator V. Levitsky, one of the leading opportunist
contributors to the opportunist journal Alaska Zarya (the
Menshevik Plekhanov has dubbed it the Russian “ Socialist Monthly ”) has proved more imprudent still: in Severnaya Rabochaya Gazeta (April 3, No. 46) he published a lengthy article under the
resonant title of “From Revisionism to Marxism”, based wholly on
F. A.’s report.

Mr. Levitsky did not even wait for Bernstein’s lecture to appear in the
press. A fool’s haste is no speed.

On learning what world-wide “fame” his Budapest lecture had won,
Bernstein wrote a letter to the Brussels Social-Democratic paper
Le Peuple [3] on April 11 (new style) in which he bluntly
declared: “The report in Der Kampf is absolutely without
foundation. I said nothing new in Budapest and did not recant any of the
views expressed in Premises of Socialism [Bernstein’s chief
opportunist work]. The report of my lecture in the Budapest paper simply
confused my words with the remarks of the reporter!”

The whole affair proved an ordinary newspaper hoax.

It did, however, reveal the deplorable proneness of some Austrian (only
Austrian?) Social-Democrats to disguise opportunism and proclaim
its disappearance.

Excessive zeal has carried Mr. Levitsky to preposterous lengths. He
writes in Severnaya Rabochaya Gazeta : “With the reversion [?] to
Marxism of the father [?] of revisionism, Bernstein, revisionism within the
German Social-Democratic movement has been killed for good [!?].”

Every word here is a gem: there has been no reversion, Bernstein is no
father, revisionism has not been killed.

“ In Russia,” the zealous Mr. Levitsky writes, “revisionism has ceased to be a modish doctrine even among the Left
Narodniks, who at one time were inclined to fall back on it in their fight
against Marxism. Within the Russian Social-Democratic movement revisionism
had no influence whatever, despite the attempts of some writers to
transplant it to Russian soil.”

Every word here is an untruth. On all major issues the Left
Narodniks even now “fall back on” the revisionist “doctrines”. That is
proved by every issue of Russkoye Bogatstvo and Zavety ,
by every issue of Stoikaya Mysl . Glossing over the opportunism of
the Left Narodniks can only cause harm.

There has been some revisionist influence within Russian
Social-Democracy since the very beginning of the mass working-class and mass Social-Democratic movement in 1895–96. Does
Mr. Levitsky mean to say he has not heard of the struggle which consistent
Marxists and adherents of the old Iskra waged for many years
against the Economists? Does he mean to say he has not heard of the Party
resolutions and the numerous articles written during that period, affirming, proving and
explaining that Economism was the Russian form of revisionism and
opportunism? Does Mr. Levitsky mean to say he has forgotten about
Mr. A. Martynov, a leading liquidator of today, and a leading Economist of
yesterday?

Mr. Levitsky denies revisionism in order to disguise his own
revisionism. We would remind him only of the four following facts:
1) Was it not the Menshevik Plekhanov who declared in the press in 1909–10
that the Mensheviks had absorbed into their ranks quite a number of
opportunist elements?
2) Was it not the same Plekhanov who demonstrated the opportunist nature of
the liquidationist “light-for-legality” slogan?
3) Was it not several anti-liquidationist Mensheviks who
demonstrated the connection between liquidationism and Economism?
=

4) Is it not opportunism to renounce, as Koltsov does, “two pillars” (out
of the three) as unsuitable for agitation?

These four facts alone—and forty-four more could be cited—are clear
proof that the Economism of 1895–1902, the Menshevism of 1903–08 and the
liquidationism of 1908–14, all represent the Russian form or species of
opportunism and revisionism, no more and no less.

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Notes:
[1]
Socialist Monthly — Ed .

[2]
Der Kampf —monthly organ of the Austrian Social-Democrats,
published in Vienna from 1907 to 1934. Took an opportunist, centrist stand
under the guise of Left-wing phrases.

F. A. —Friedrich Adler, leader of the Austrian
Social-Democrats.

[3]
Le Peuple —a daily, central organ of the Belgian Labour
Party, published in Brussels since 1885; at present the mouthpiece of the
Belgian Socialist Party.