V. I.

Lenin

The Vperyodists and the Vperyod Group

The St. Petersburg liquidators’ newspaper has published an
article by A. Bogdanov containing the sharpest accusations against
Pravda and Pravdism. The journal run by Trotsky, who yesterday was
the dose friend of the liquidators and today has half deserted them, has
now published a letter (No. 4, p. 56) from the Paris and Geneva circles of
the Vperyod ideological and Marxist group.

In Russia only a single group—in the Caucasus—has come out in
defence of this Paris-Geneva group, which has been in existence since 1909,
i. e., for about five years. In view of this, it would seem a waste of time
to add anything to the explanations already given in Put Pravdy . [1]

However, the persistence of the liquidators and their quondam friend
Trotsky in defending the Vperyod group impels us to reply to them
once again, the more so that the accumulating evidence of an actual
alliance between the liquidators, Trotsky and the Vperyod people
affords an opportunity of explaining to the workers in Russia the political
significance of this alliance from the standpoint of principle.

The Vperyod group broke away from the Bolsheviks abroad in
1909. At the end of that year it issued a pamphlet entitled: The Present Moment and the Tasks of the Party , in which the “platform”
of this group was expounded.

“ In the work of drafting this platform,” we read on page 32 of this pamphlet, “fifteen Party members participated, of whom
seven were workers and eight intellectuals. The major part of the platform
was adopted unanimously. Only on the question of the Duma did three abstain
(two otzovists and one ‘anti-boycottist’).”

This platform (p. 17 and others) defended “proletarian philosophy”.

Of the names of Vperyodists whom the latter themselves have mentioned
in the press, we shall mention the following:
N. Maximov, Voinov, Alexinsky, Lunacharsky, Lyadov, S. A. Volsky, Domov and
=

A. Bogdanov. [2]

What has become of these Vperyodists?

N. Maximov has left the Vperyod group.

Voinov and Alexinsky remained in the group, but later fell out with
each other and now belong to two different Vperyod groups. This was officially announced in Paris.

A. Lunacharsky has fallen out with Alexinsky.

Lyadov has evidently left the group; nothing is known of his attitude
towards the new split in the Vperyod group.

S. A. Volsky has gone over to the Left Narodniks, judging from his
regular contributions to the latter’s publications (see Zavety ).

Domov published, in Vperyod No. 3 (May 1911), a statement that
“he was no longer taking any part whatever in the publications of the
Vperyod group” (p. 78).

A. Bogdanov has announced in the press that he has left the
Vperyod group.

Such are the facts.

And now compare these facts with the statement of the Paris and Geneva
Vperyodists published by Trotsky:

“ The assertion by Put Pravdy that, from the moment it came into being, the Vperyod group consisted of
heterogeneous anti-Marxist elements loosely stuck together, and fell to
pieces with the revival of the working-class movement, does not correspond
to the facts.”

The reader will see from this that the Vperyodists’ statement published
by Trotsky, who is perfectly familiar with all the names we have mentioned
and with the entire history of the Vperyod group, which he has
assisted on more than one occasion, is an outrageous and glaring falsehood,
and that what Put Pravdy said was the absolute truth.

We shall also recall the following fact. Sovremenny Mir , in
1910 or 1911 I think, published a review by G. A. Alexinsky of a book by
A. A. Bogdanov, in which the latter was referred to as a “gentleman” who
had nothing in common with Marxism.

How is this to be explained?

It is to be explained by the fact that the Vperyodists were really a
group of heterogeneous, anti-Marxist elements, loosely stuck together. As regards ideological trend, there were
two such elements there, Machism and otzovism, which, incidentally, is evident from the passages quoted above.

Machism is the philosophy of Mach and Avenarius, modified by
Bogdanov. It is advocated by Bogdanov, Lunacharsky and Volsky, and is concealed in the Vperyod platform under the pseudonym of
“proletarian philosophy”. In effect, this philosophy is a species of
philosophical idealism, i. e., a subtle defence of religion, and it was no
accident that Lunacharsky has slipped from this philosophy into advocating
a blending of scientific socialism with religion. Even today, A. Bogdanov,
in a number of “new” books, defends this utterly anti-Marxist and utterly
reactionary philosophy, which both the Menshevik G. V. Plekhanov and the
Bolshevik
V. Ilyin [3] have strongly opposed.

We now ask all and sundry whether the liquidators A. Bogdanov, Trotsky
and the Paris-Geneva Vperyodists acted honestly when, in publishing
statements by Vperyod and about Vperyod , they concealed from the Russian workers:

1)
the fact that the Vperyod group itself included “proletarian
philosophy”, i. e., “Machism”, in its platform; 2)
the fact that Marxists belonging to different groups waged a long and
persistent struggle against “Machism” as an out-and-out reactionary
philosophy; 3)
the fact that even Alexinsky, that ardent Vperyodist, who signed this
platform jointly with the Machists, was some time later compelled to
protest in the sharpest possible terms against Machism.

We shall now deal with otzovism.

We have seen above that the otzovists belonged to the Vperyod
group. This group’s platform—as was pointed out immediately it appeared
in the press abroad—contained a veiled form of otzovism and unpardonable
concessions to it, for example, in point d), on p. 16 of the platform,
where it says that (for a certain period)

“ none of the semi-legal and legal ways and means of struggle of the working class, including participation in the Duma, can be
of independent and decisive importance”.

This is the same old otzovism, only veiled, vague and confused. Both
the Party Bolsheviks, i. e., those opposed to liquidationism, and the pro-Party Mensheviks have repeatedly explained
that such a platform is unacceptable to Social-Democrats, that it is a
defence of otzovism, utterly fallacious and most harmful.

The otzovists were opposed to going into the Third Duma, but events
clearly showed that they were mistaken, and that, in fact , their
point of view led to anarchism.

The veiled and modified defence of otzovism that we have quoted could
not, in practice , have resulted in the line which Pravda
successfully pursued, and which led the Pravdists to victory over the
disruptors of the Party, the liquidators, in the vast majority of the legal
and ultra-legal working-class organisations.

That is why, when the Vperyodists to this day talk of “uncurtailed
Left Marxism”, it is our duty to speak up and warn the workers; it is our
duty to declare that these fine words contain an anti-Marxist doctrine
which will cause immense harm to the working-class movement, and is
absolutely incompatible with the latter.

This Vperyodist species of “uncurtailed Left Marxism” is a travesty
of Bolshevism, as the Bolsheviks said and proved long back, over five years
ago. Even if the Vperyodists have failed to realise it, we virtually have
here a deviation from Marxism towards anarchism.

The Plenum of January 1910—the very Plenum which the Vperyodists
refer to in Trotsky’s journal as having endorsed their group— unanimously condemned this deviation as being just as
harmful as the liquidators’ deviation. Throughout 1910 the leading bodies
set up by the Plenum to carry out its decisions, for example, the Editorial
Board of the Central
Organ, [4] repeatedly and at great length point ed out in the
columns of their publications that the Vperyodists, like the liquidators,
were violating the decisions of the Plenum, and that, like the
liquidators, they were in fact vehicles of bourgeois influence on the proletariat .

Since, in Trotsky’s journal, the Vperyodists now refer to the “first
and second Vperyod schools”, we feel bound to recall the
facts. Half the workers left the first school because experience
had convinced them of its anti-Marxist and disruptive character. As regards
the second school, the Central Organ, in pursuance of the decisions of the
Plenum,

made a point of warning the workers against it and explained that it bore
the character just mentioned.

But who helped this second school?

Only the liquidators and Trotsky, notwithstanding the official
warning given by the Party’s official organ.

In this second school we plainly see a bloc, an alliance, between the
liquidators, the Vperyodists and Trotsky’s group exactly like the one we
now see in the columns of the St. Petersburg liquidationist newspaper and
in Trotsky’s Borba .

This is an alliance of anti-Marxist and disruptive groups, which detest
Pravda’s Marxism and the comradely Party discipline which rallies
the vast majority of the class-conscious workers of Russia around
Pravda .

We cannot but call “adventurism” this alliance, like the
Vperyod group itself, and Vperyodism as a whole, for nothing can
come of Vperyodism and of its “bloc” with Trotsky and the liquidators
except disregard of principles, the encouragement of anti-Marxist ideas
(without openly preaching them), and the disruption of the working-class
movement.

But while being basically and unswervingly opposed to Vperyod
and Vperyodism, we have never, and never shall, shut the door against those
Vperyodists who (like the majority of the founders of Vperyod ) are
leaving that group and intend to help the majority of Russia’s
class-conscious workers, organised and united by Pravdism. No leniency what
ever must be shown towards the defence of Machism (from which,
unfortunately, Bogdanov won’t budge), or of Vperyodism; but no obstacles
should be put in the way of comrades who have conscientiously recognised
Vperyod’s mistake and are turning from Vperyod back to the Party.

As regards the attacks and abuse to which “those writers Ilyin,
Zinoviev and Kamenev” are subjected by Bogdanov in the liquidators’
newspaper and by the Vperyodists in Trotsky’s journal, we shall state
briefly that these writers have always carried out the decisions
of the organised Marxist workers, who have demonstrated to all the world by
their solidarity with Pravdism or by their votes in the election of the
Metropolitan and All-Russia Insurance Boards, that they constitute the
overwhelming majority of the organised and class-conscious workers of
Russia.

Acting in accordance with these decisions and in keeping with their
spirit, these writers have every reason to consider that their activities
are in harmony with the will of the majority of the Marxist workers, and
they will not of course be deterred from their activities by abuse coming
from the Vperyodists, Trotsky and the liquidators.

The history of the Vperyod group, of its break-up, and its
repeated blocs with Trotsky and the liquidators, is a matter of some
general interest to the workers, and even of some public interest, for it
represents a typical case of isolated groups of intellectuals being formed
in the period of break down and disintegration. Anybody is at liberty to
form a separate ideological group and to point out a different road to the
proletariat, but much will be expected of any founder of a new group. It
goes without saying that nobody can be blamed for making mistakes, but to
persist in mistakes that have been explained both by the theory
and the practice of a movement of over five years is tantamount to waging
war against Marxism, against the organised and united majority of the
workers.

The vacillations and deviations of the liquidators and Vperyodists are
no accident; they have been engendered by the period of break-down and
disintegration. We see these bourgeois deviations on both sides of the road
of the class struggle of the Marxist workers, and these serve as a warning
to every class-conscious worker.

P. S. The above lines were already written when we received a copy of
Trotsky’s Borba containing another letter from “the Geneva, Paris
and Tiflis Vperyod Marxist circles and from St. Petersburg
fellow-thinkers”.

From the signatures to this letter we see that during these four and a
half years the Vperyodists, who issued “ their own ” platform at
the very end of 1909, have acquired in Russia one “Tiflis
circle” and probably two “St. Petersburg fellow thinkers”
(three would no doubt have constituted a St. Petersburg, or metropolitan,
or all-Russia, Marxist ideological circle!). To anyone more or less
seriously interested in politics, this result of Vperyod’s four
years of “activity” should suffice to serve as a criterion of this
group. Let

Trotsky amuse himself by uniting with it in the columns of his
“ own ” sheet; let the Vperyodists and Trotskyists play at being
“powers”, “trends”, and contracting parties. This is simply the
childish make-believe of people who, by uttering pompous phrases, want to
conceal the fact that their “groups” are mere bubbles.

It is amusing to read how these groups vociferate about unity and
splits! Don’t you understand, gentlemen, that there can only be a question
of the unity of the mass working-class movement, the unity of the workers’
party; as for unity with groups of intellectuals, who in the course of four
years have found no support among the workers of Russia, you and Trotsky
can chatter to your heart’s content about that! That is not worth arguing
about.