V. I.

Lenin

When Marxists say that certain groups, are adventurist,
they have in mind the very definite and specific social and historical
features of a phenomenon, one that every class-conscious worker should be
familiar with.

The history of Russian Social-Democracy teems with tiny groups, which
sprang up for an hour, for several months, with no roots whatever among the
masses (and politics without the masses are adventurist politics), and with
no serious and stable principles. In a petty-bourgeois country, which is
passing through a historical period of bourgeois reconstruction, it is
inevitable that a motley assortment of intellectuals should join
the workers, and that these intellectuals should attempt to form all kinds
of groups, adventurist in character in the sense referred to above.

Workers who do not wish to be fooled should subject every group to the
closest scrutiny and ascertain how serious its principles are, and what
roots it has in the masses. Put no faith in words; subject everything to
the closest scrutiny—such is the motto of the Marxist workers.

Let us recall the struggle between Iskrism and Economism in
1895–1902. These were two trends of Social-Democratic thought. One of them
was proletarian and Marxist, which had stood the test of the three years’
campaign conducted by Iskra , and been tested by all advanced
workers, who recognised as their own the precisely and clearly formulated
decisions on Iskrist tactics and organisation. The other, Economism, was a
bourgeois , opportunist trend, which strove to subordinate the
workers to the liberals.

Besides these two important trends, there were a host of small and
rootless groups ( Svoboda , Borba , [1] the group that published the Berlin leaflets, and so forth). These have long been
forgotten. Though there were no few honest and conscientious
Social-Democrats in these groups, they proved adventurist in the
sense that they had no stable or serious principles, programme,
tactics, organisation, and no roots among the masses.

It is thus, and only thus—by studying the history of the movement, by
pondering over the ideological significance of definite theories, and by
putting phrases to the test of facts—that serious people should appraise
present-day trends and groups.

Only simpletons put faith in words.

Pravdism is a trend which has given precise Marxist answers and
resolutions (of 1908, 1910, 1912 and 1913—in February and in the summer)
on all questions of tactics, organisation and programme. The continuity of
these decisions since the time of the old Iskra (1901–03), let
alone the London (1907) Congress, has been of the strictest. The
correctness of these decisions has been proved by the five or six years’
(1908–14) experience of all the advanced workers, who have accepted these
decisions as their own . Pravdism has united four-fifths of the
class-conscious workers of Russia (5,300 Social-Democratic workers’ groups
out of 6,700 in two-and-a-half years).

Liquidationism is a trend with a history that goes back almost twenty
years, for it is the direct continuation of Economism (1895–1902) and the
offspring of Menshevism (1903–08). The liberal-bourgeois roots and the
liberal-bourgeois content of this trend have been recognised in official
decisions (1908 and 1910; small wonder that the liquidators are afraid even
to publish them in full!). The liquidators’ liberal ideas are all linked up
and of a piece:
down with the “underground”, down with the “pillars”, for an open
party, against the “strike craze”, against the higher forms of the
struggle, and so forth. In liberal-bourgeois “society” the liquidators
have long enjoyed the strong sympathy of the Cadets and of the non-Party
(and near-Party) intellectuals. Liquidationism is a serious trend, only not
a Marxist, not a proletarian trend, but a liberal-bourgeois one. Only
witless people can talk about “peace” with the liquidators.

Now take the other groups which pose as “trends”. We shall enumerate
them:
1) the Vperyod group plus Alexinsky;
2) ditto plus Bogdanov;
3) ditto plus Voinov;
4) the Plekhanovites;
5) the “pro-Party Bolsheviks” (actually conciliators: Mark Sommer and his
crowd);
6) the Trotskyists (i. e., Trotsky even minus Semkovsky);
7) the “Caucasians” (i. e., An minus the Caucasus).

We have enumerated the groups mentioned in the press . In
Russia and abroad they have stated that they want to be separate
“trends” and groups. We have tried to list all the Russian groups,
omitting the non-Russian.

All these groups, without exception, represent sheer adventurism.

“ Why? Where is the proof?” the reader will ask.

Proof is provided by the history of the last decade (1904–14), which
is most eventful and significant. During these ten years members of these
groups have displayed the most helpless, most pitiful, most ludicrous
vacillation on serious questions of tactics and organisation, and have
shown their utter inability to create trends with roots among the
masses.

Take Plekhanov, the best of them. The services he rendered in the past
were immense. During the twenty years between 1883 and 1903 he wrote a
large number of splendid essays, especially those against the opportunists,
Machists and Narodniks.

But since 1903 Plekhanov has been vacillating in the most ludicrous
manner on questions of tactics and organisation:
1) 1903, August—a Bolshevik;
2) 1903, November ( Iskra No. 52)—in favour of peace with the
“ opportunist ” Mensheviks;
3) 1903, December—a Menshevik, and an ardent one;
4) 1905, spring—after the victory of the Bolsheviks—in favour of
“unity” between “brothers at strife”;
5) the end of 1905 till mid-1906—a Menshevik;
6) mid-1906—started, on and off, to move away from the Mensheviks, and in
London, in 1907, censured them (Cherevanin’s admission) for their
“organisational anarchism”;
7) 1908—a break with the liquidators;
8) 1914—a new turn towards the liquidators.
Plekhanov advocates “unity” with them, without being able to utter an
intelligible word to explain on what terms this unity is to be
achieved, why unity with Mr . Potresov has become possible, and what guarantees there are that any terms agreed to
will be carried out.

After a decade of such experience we can safely say that Plekhanov is
capable of producing ripples, but he has not produced, nor will he ever
produce, a “trend”.

We quite understand the Pravdists, who willingly published Plekhanov’s
articles against the liquidators. They could not very well reject articles
which, in full accord with the decisions of 1908–10, were directed against
the liquidators. Now Plekhanov has begun to repeat—with the liquidators,
with Bogdanov and the rest—phrases about the unity of “all trends”. We
emphatically condemn this line, which should be relentlessly combated.

Nowhere in the world do the workers’ parties unite groups of
intellectuals and “trends”; they unite workers on the following
terms:
(1) recognition and application of definite Marxist decisions on questions
of tactics and organisation; (2) submission of the minority of class-conscious workers to the majority.

This unity, on the basis of absolute repudiation of the opponents of
the “underground”, was achieved by the Pravdists in the course of
two-and-a-half years (1912–14) to the extent of four-fifths. Witless
people may abuse the Pravdists and call them factionalists, splitters, and
so forth, but these phrases and abuse will not wipe out the unity of the
workers....

Plekhanov now threatens to destroy this unity of the majority. We
calmly and firmly say to the workers: put no faith in words. Put them to
the test of facts, and you will see that every step taken by every one of
the above-mentioned adventurist groups more and more glaringly reveals
their helpless and pitiful vacillation.