Date: 1914
Source: ru:PSS/v25

In the newspaper of the St. Petersburg liquidators, A. Bogdanov leveled the most scathing accusations against “Pravda” and “Pravdism.” Now, in Trotsky’s journal—which yesterday was entirely aligned with the liquidators, but today has already partially distanced itself from them—a letter has been published from the Parisian and Geneva circles of the ideological and Marxist group “Vpered” (No. 4, p. 56).

In defense of this Paris–Geneva group, which has existed since 1909—roughly five years—only a single group in Russia has emerged on the Caucasus. In light of this, perhaps it would have been better not to waste time on further explanations after what had already been laid out in “The Path of Truth”? [57]

But the tenacity with which the liquidators—and their erstwhile friend, Trotsky—have defended the “Vpered” members compels us to respond to them once more, especially since the increasingly evident, recurring alliance between the liquidators, Trotsky, and the Vpered members offers us an opportunity to explain to workers in Russia just what the principled and political significance of this alliance truly is.

The “Vpered” group broke away from the Bolsheviks abroad in 1909. By the end of that year, it had issued a printed pamphlet outlining its “platform,” titled “The Current Situation and the Tasks of the Party.”

“In working on the platform,” we read on page 32 of this pamphlet, “fifteen party members took part: seven workers and eight intellectuals. The majority of the platform was adopted unanimously. Only on the question of the State Duma did three members abstain—two ‘recallists’ and one ‘anti-boycottist.’”

The platform (pp. 17 et seq.) championed a “proletarian philosophy.”

Among the names of the “Vpered” members who were publicly identified by themselves, we may mention: N. Maksimova, Voynov, Aleksinsky, Lunacharsky, Lyadov, S. A. Volsky, Domov, A. Bogdanov.

So what became of these “Vpered” members?

N. Maksimova withdrew from the “Vpered” group.

Voynov and Aleksinsky remained within the group, but they split apart and now belong to two distinct “Vpered” factions—officially announced as such in Paris.

A. Lunacharsky parted ways with Aleksinsky.

Lyadov, it seems, has also withdrawn; nothing is known about his position in the new schism within “Vpered.”

S. A. Volsky joined the Left Narodniks, judging by his systematic participation in the organs of the latter (see “Zavety”).

Domov published a statement in No. 3 of the “Vpered” collection (May 1911) declaring that “he no longer takes any part in the publications of the ‘Vpered’ group” (p. 78).

A. Bogdanov stated in print that he had withdrawn from the “Vpered” group.

Such are the facts.

Now compare these facts with the statement recently published by Trotsky on behalf of the Parisian and Geneva “Vpered” members:

“The claim made by ‘The Path of Truth’ that the ‘Vpered’ group, from the very beginning of its existence, was cobbled together from disparate anti‑Marxist elements that dissolved with the resurgence of the workers’ movement does not correspond to reality.”

From this, the reader can see that Trotsky—well acquainted with all the names mentioned and with the entire history of the “Vpered” group, which he had helped nurture on numerous occasions—has nonetheless printed a shocking, flagrant falsehood on behalf of the “Vpered” members, while “The Path of Truth” spoke the plain truth.

Let us recall another fact: in “The Contemporary World,” apparently in 1910 or 1911, a review by G. A. Aleksinsky appeared on a work by A. A. Bogdanov, in which the latter was portrayed by the author as a “gentleman” utterly devoid of any connection to Marxism.

So what is the matter?

The matter is that the Vpered members were indeed cobbled together from disparate anti‑Marxist elements. In terms of ideological currents, there were two such elements: “Machism” and “Recallism”—a fact that becomes clear, among other things, from the quotations we have already cited.

“Machism” is the philosophy of Mach and Avenarius, refined by Bogdanov, which was championed by the latter, Lunacharsky, Volsky, and which hides within the “Vpered” platform under the pseudonym ‘proletarian philosophy.’ In reality, this philosophy is a variety of philosophical idealism—indeed, a sophisticated form of religious apologetics—and it is no accident that Lunacharsky eventually drifted from this philosophy to the advocacy of combining scientific socialism with religion. Even today, A. Bogdanov continues to defend, in a series of “new” books, this deeply anti‑Marxist and profoundly reactionary philosophy—against which both the Menshevik G. V. Plekhanov and the Bolshevik V. Ilyin waged resolute struggle.

We ask each and every one: Is it honest for the liquidators, A. Bogdanov, Trotsky, and the Paris–Geneva Vpered members to conceal from Russian workers—when publishing statements about “Vpered” and “Vpered” itself—

1) that the “Vpered” group itself enshrined in its platform a “proletarian philosophy,” namely, “Machism”;

2) that among Marxists of various factions there had long been fierce and persistent struggles against “Machism” as a deeply reactionary philosophy;

3) that even the ardent Vpered member Aleksinsky, who had signed the platform alongside the Machists, was soon compelled to rise up against Machism in the most vehement terms.

Let us turn now to Recallism.

As we saw above, the “Recallists” participated in the “Vpered” group. As was pointed out immediately upon the platform’s appearance in foreign print, the platform itself contains a veiled form of Recallism—unacceptable concessions to it, for example, in paragraph d) on page 16 of the platform, where it is stated that (for a certain period of time)

“all semi‑legal and legal methods and paths of struggle for the working class—including participation in the State Duma—cannot possess independent or decisive significance.”

This is Recallism itself, only disguised, obscure, and muddled. Both party-oriented Bolsheviks—those hostile to liquidationism—and party-oriented Mensheviks constantly explained, again and again, that such a platform was unacceptable for the Social Democrats; that it was a defense of Recallism—a profoundly mistaken and deeply harmful stance.

The Recallists opposed participation in the Third Duma, and events clearly showed that they were wrong—that in fact their viewpoint led to anarchism.

The veiled, watered-down defense of Recallism that we have presented could never have sustained the line that “Pravda” successfully pursued—and which brought the Pravdist faction victory over the destroyers of the party, the liquidators, in the vast majority of legal and quasi‑legal workers’ organizations.

That is why, when the Vpered members still speak today of “unabridged, left‑wing Marxism,” we are obliged to take up the word and warn the workers—we must declare that behind these grandiose words lies an anti‑Marxist, counter‑Marxist doctrine that inflicts the greatest harm on the workers’ movement and is utterly irreconcilable with it.

This Vpered variant of “unabridged, left‑wing Marxism” is a caricature of Bolshevism—as the Bolsheviks long ago, more than five years ago, had already said and demonstrated; in reality, even if the Vpered members were not fully aware of it, we are witnessing here a drift away from Marxism toward anarchism.

The Plenum of January 1910—the very Plenum to which the Vpered members refer in Trotsky’s journal, claiming that it had endorsed their group—unanimously condemned this kind of deviation, which was as harmful as the liquidator tendency. Throughout 1910, the leading bodies established by the Plenum to implement its resolutions—for example, the editorial board of the Central Organ{136}—repeatedly and thoroughly demonstrated on the pages of their publications that the Vpered members, like the liquidators, had violated the Plenum’s decisions; that, like the liquidators, they were in fact conduits of bourgeois influence upon the proletariat.

If the Vpered members now cite “the first and second Vpered schools” in Trotsky’s journal, we are obliged to recall the facts: half of the workers in the first school had left, having come to realize through experience the anti‑Marxist and disorganizing character of that school. With regard to the second school, the Central Organ, charged with implementing the Plenum’s resolutions, specifically warned the workers, explaining precisely the significance of that school as we have just noted.

And who was helping this second school?

Only the liquidators and Trotsky, in defiance of the official warnings issued by the party’s official organ.

In this second school, just as we now observe on the pages of the St. Petersburg liquidator newspaper and in Trotsky’s “Borba,” we witness firsthand a de facto bloc—an alliance between the liquidators, the Vpered members, and Trotsky’s little group.

This is an alliance of anti‑Marxist, disorganizing groups, whose hatred for the Marxism of “Pravda” runs deep—and for the discipline, the comradely, party discipline that unites the vast majority of conscious workers in Russia around “Pravda.”

We cannot help but call this alliance—and the “Vpered” group itself, and all of “Vperedism”—an “adventure,” in the sense that nothing but a lack of principle, the encouragement of anti‑Marxist ideas (without directly defending them), and the disorganization of the workers’ movement can ever come from “Vperedism” or from its “bloc” with Trotsky and the liquidators.

But while we remain fundamentally and irrevocably hostile to “Vpered” and to Vperedism, we have never closed—and will never close—the door to those Vpered members who are breaking away (as most of the founders of “Vpered” did) from that group and who intend to support the united, consolidated majority of conscious workers in Russia who are organized around “Pravdism.” There will be no indulgence granted to the defense of “Machism” (on which, unfortunately, Bogdanov has finally “staked his claim”) or of “Vperedism”—and no obstacles placed in the way of comrades who have honestly recognized the errors of “Vpered” and are returning from “Vpered” to the party.

Regarding Bogdanov’s attacks and insults in the liquidator newspaper and in the Vpered members’ journal directed at the “literary figures Ilyin, Zinoviev, and Kamenev,” let us briefly note: these literary figures have always upheld the resolutions of the united Marxist workers, who have openly demonstrated to the whole world—through their unity around “Pravdism” or through their election to the capital’s and all‑Russia insurance institution—that they constitute the overwhelming majority of organized, conscious workers in Russia.

Acting in accordance with these resolutions and in their spirit, the aforementioned literary figures have every reason to consider their activities consistent with the will of the majority of Marxist workers—and certainly not to allow the reckless outbursts of the Vpered members, Trotsky, and the liquidators to divert them from their work.

The history of the “Vpered” group, its dissolution, its constant alliances with Trotsky and the liquidators, holds a certain general interest for workers—and even a certain public interest—because here we see a typical phenomenon: the formation of specialized groups among intellectuals during an era of breakdown and disintegration. Anyone is free to establish a special ideological group and to point a particular path toward the proletariat—but every founder of a new group will be held accountable for much. Mistakes are not excused; words are meaningless—but to persist in clinging to errors that have been clarified both by theory and by more than five years of practical experience means to wage open war against Marxism, against the united, consolidated majority of workers.

Liquidator and Vpered wavering—or deviation—is not a mere accident, but a product of the era of breakdown and disintegration. On either side of the path of class struggle for Marxist workers, we see these bourgeois deviations, serving as a warning to every conscious worker.

P.S. The preceding lines had already been written when we received No. “Borba” by Trotsky, along with a new letter from the “Geneva, Paris, Tbilisi Marxist circles of ‘Vpered’ and… St. Petersburg like‑minded comrades.”

From the letter’s signature, we see that the Vpered members—who had put forth “their own” platform at the very end of 1909—had acquired, over four and a half years in Russia, only one “Tbilisi circle” and, presumably, two “St. Petersburg like‑minded comrades” (for three would surely have formed a St. Petersburg, or capital‑city, or all‑Russia Marxist ideological circle!). For people who think seriously about politics, even this single result of four years of “activity” by “Vpered” is more than sufficient to assess this group. Let Trotsky amuse himself by joining forces with them on the pages of “his” little journal; let the Vpered members and the Trotskyists play their game of “powers,” of “trends,” of agreements with one another! This is merely a childish pastime for people who seek to mask the utter emptiness and lack of substance in their “little groups” with lofty-sounding words.

It is laughable to read how these groups cry out about unity and division! Dear friends, understand: we may speak of unity in the mass workers’ movement, of unity within the workers’ party—but as for unity with intellectual circles that, in four years, have failed to win the sympathy of Russian workers, go ahead and chatter with Trotsky! There is no need even to argue about that.

“Prosvetlenie” No. 6, June 1914. Signed: V. Ilyin

Printed according to the text of the journal “Prosvetlenie.”