V. I.

Lenin

The profound ideological change that has taken place among
the opposition , or progressive, sections of the people is an
extremely important and distinctive feature of post-revolutionary
Russia. To forget this distinctive feature is to prevent oneself from
understanding the Russian revolution and its character, as well as the
tasks of the working class in our time.

The ideological change among the liberal bourgeoisie is expressed in
the rise of an anti-democratic trend (Struve, Izgoyev and V. Maklakov
openly, the rest of the Cadets secretly, “bashfully”).

Among the democrats this change is expressed in the utter ideological
confusion and vacillation that prevail among both the Social-Democrats
(proletarian democrats) and the Socialist-Revolutionaries (bourgeois
democrats). Even the best representatives of democracy confine themselves
to bewailing this confusion, vacillation and back sliding. The
Marxists, however, look for the class roots of this social phenomenon.

The chief symptom of this break-down is liquidationism, which as far
back as 1908 was officially defined as “an attempt by a certain part of
the intelligentsia to liquidate” the “underground”, and to
“substitute” for it a legal workers’ party, a definition that was
endorsed by “the entire Marxist body”. [2] At the last official meeting of leading Marxists held in
January 1910, which was attended by representatives of all
“trends” and groups, there was not a single person who protested
against the condemnation of liquidationism as a manifestation of bourgeois influence on the proletariat . This condemnation, which was
also an

explanation of the class roots of liquidationism, was adopted
unanimously .

Over four years have passed since then, and the vast experience of the
mass working-class movement has provided a thousand proofs that this
appraisal of liquidationism is correct.

The facts have shown that, between them, the theory of Marxism and the
practical experience of the mass working-class movement have killed
liquidationism, which is a bourgeois and anti-workers’ trend. It is
sufficient to recall how, in a single month, March 1914, Severnaya Rabochaya Gazeta vilified the “illegal press” (issue of March 13),
and demonstrations (Mr. Gorsky in the issue of April 11), and how Bulkin,
in perfect imitation of the liberals, vilified the “underground”
( Nasha Zarya No. 3), how the notorious L. M. , on behalf
of the editors of Nasha Zarya , fully supported Bulkin on this
point and argued the case for “building a legal workers’ party”—it is
sufficient to recall all this to understand why the attitude of the
class-conscious workers towards liquidationism cannot be anything
else than that of ruthless condemnation and complete boycott of the
liquidators.

But here a very important question crops up: How did this trend arise
historically?

It arose in the course of the twenty years ’ history of
Marxism’s ties with the mass working-class movement in Russia. Up to
1894–95 there were no such ties. The Emancipation of Labour group only
laid the theoretical foundations for the Social-Democratic movement and
took the first step towards the working-class movement.

It was only the propaganda of 1894–95 and the strikes of 1895–96 that
established firm and inseverable ties between Social-Democracy and the mass
working-class movement. And immediately an ideological struggle
commenced between the two trends of Marxism: the struggle between the
Economists and the consistent Marxists or (later) Iskrists (1895–1902),
the struggle between the Mensheviks and Bolsheviks (1903–08), and the
struggle between the liquidators and the Marxists (1908–14).

Economism and liquidationism are two different forms of the same
petty-bourgeois, intellectualist opportunism that has existed for twenty years. That there is a personal as well as
ideological connection between all these forms of opportunism is an
undoubted fact. It is sufficient to mention the name of the leader of the
Economists, A. Martynov, who subsequently became a Menshevik and is now a
liquidator. It is sufficient to call a witness like G. V. Plekhanov, who,
on very many points, [1] stood close to the Mensheviks, but nevertheless openly admitted that the
Mensheviks absorbed intellectualist opportunist elements into their ranks,
and that the liquidators continued the errors of Economism and were
disrupters of the workers’ party.

People who (like the liquidators and Trotsky) ignore or falsify this
twenty years’ history of the ideological struggle in the working-class
movement do tremendous harm to the workers.

A worker who takes an anythingarian attitude towards the history of his
own movement cannot be considered class-conscious. Of all the capitalist
countries, Russia is one of the most backward and most petty
bourgeois. That is why the mass working-class movement gave rise
to a petty-bourgeois, opportunist wing in that movement, not by
chance, but inevitably.

The progress made during these twenty years in ridding the
working-class movement of the influence of the bourgeoisie, of the
influence of Economism and of liquidationism, has been tremendous . For the first time, a real, proletarian foundation for
a real Marxist party is being securely laid. It is generally admitted, even
the opponents of the Pravdists are compelled to admit—the facts compel them to admit it!—that among
class-conscious workers the Pravdists constitute the overwhelming
majority. What the Marxist “plenum” of January 1910 recognised
theoretically (that liquidationism is “bourgeois influence on the
proletariat”), the class-conscious workers have been putting into practice
during the past four years; they have secured practical recognition of it
by weakening the liquidators, by removing them from office, by reducing
liquidationism to a group of legal, opportunist publicists standing outside
the mass working-class movement.

During this twenty-year-old conflict of ideas the working-class
movement in Russia has been growing in scope and strength and steadily
maturing. It has defeated Economism; the flower of the class-conscious
proletariat have sided with the Iskrists. At every decisive stage in the
revolution they have left the Mensheviks in the minority: even
Levitsky himself has had to admit that the masses of the workers
sided with the Bolsheviks.

And, finally, it has now defeated liquidationism and, as a result, has
taken the correct road of the broad struggle—illumined by Marxist theory
and summed up in uncurtailed slogans—of the advanced class for the
advanced historical aims of mankind.

---
Notes:
[1]
Why do we say “on very many points”? Because Plekhanov occupied a
special position, and departed from Menshevism many times:
(1) at the 1903 Congress Plekhanov fought the opportunism of the
Mensheviks; (2) after the Congress Plekhanov edited Nos. 46–51 of Iskra , also
in opposition to the Mensheviks; (3) in 1904 Plekhanov defended Axelrod’s plan for a Zemstvo campaign in
such a way that he passed over its chief mistakes in silence;
(4) in the spring of 1905 Plekhanov left the Mensheviks;
(5) in 1906, after the dissolution of the First Duma, the stand Plekhanov
took was not at all a Menshevik one (see
Proletary , [3] August 1906); (present edition, Vol. 11,
pp. 179–83.— Ed .); (6) at the London Congress in 1907—as Cherevanin relates—Plekhanov
opposed the “organisational anarchism” of the Mensheviks. One must know
these facts in order to understand why the Menshevik Plekhanov so long and
so resolutely fought liquidationism and denounced it. — Lenin

[2]
This refers to the Fifth Conference of the R.S.D.L.P. (the All-Russia
Conference 1908). (See Note 52.)

[3]
Proletary ( The Proletarian )—a Bolshevik illegal newspaper, published from August 21 (September 3), 1906 to November 28
(December 11), 1909 under the editorship of Lenin. Fifty issues were
published. Active collaborators on the paper were M. F. Vladimirsky,
V. V. Vorovsky, I. F. Dubrovinsky, A. V. Lunacharsky and others. The first
twenty issues were prepared for the press and set up in Vyborg, but as
conditions for the publication of an illegal organ in Russia became
extremely difficult, further publication was transferred abroad (Geneva and
Paris).

Proletary was virtually the Central Organ of the
Bolsheviks. Most of the work on the paper was done by Lenin, several of
whose articles appeared in a most every issue. Proletary published
over a hundred articles and paragraphs by Lenin an the most important
issues of the revolutionary struggle of the working class. The paper dealt
with tactical and political questions of general interest and carried
reports on the activities of the Central Committee of the R.S.D.L.P., the
decisions of conferences and plenary meetings of the C.C., letters of the
C.C. on various questions of Party activities, and a number of other
documents. A supplement to No. 46 of the newspaper published a report on
the conference of the extended Editorial Board of Proletary , as
well as the resolutions of that meeting, which was held in Paris on June
8--17 (21–30), 1909. The newspaper was in close touch with the local Party
organisations.

During the years of the Stolypin reaction Proletary played an
outstanding role in safeguarding and strengthening the Bolshevik
organisations, in fighting the liquidators, otzovists, ultimatumists and
god-builders.

Publication of the newspaper ceased in 1910 in accordance with the
decision of the January Plenum of the C.C. of the R.S.D.L.P.