V. I.

Lenin

Letter to the Secretary of the Socialist Propaganda League [2]

Dear
Comrades! [1]

We are extremely glad to get your leaflet. Your appeal to the members of
the Socialist Party to struggle for a new International, for clear-cut
revolutionary socialism as taught by Marx and Engels, and against the
opportunism, especially against those who are in favor of working class
participation in a war of defence, corresponds fully with the position our
party (Social-Democratic Labor Party of Russia, Central Committee )
has taken from the beginning of this war and has always taken during more
than ten years.

We send you our sincerest greetings & best wishes of success in our fight
for true internationalism.

In our press & in our propaganda we differ from your programme in several
points & we think it is quite necessary that we expose you briefly these
points in order to make immediate & serious steps for the coordination of
the international strife of the incompromisingly revolutionary Socialists
especially Marxists in all countries.

We criticise in the most severe manner the old, Second (1889-1914)
International, we declare it dead & not worth to be restored on old
basis. But we never say in our press that too great emphasis has been
heretofore placed upon so-called “Immediate Demands”, and that
thereby the socialism can be diluted  we say & we prove that all bourgeois
parties, all parties except the working-class revolutionary Party, are liars
& hypocrites when they speak about reforms. We try to help the working class
to get the smallest possible but real improvement (economic & political) in
their situation & we add always that no reform can be durable, sincere,
serious if not seconded by revolutionary methods of struggle of the
masses. We preach always that a socialist party not uniting this struggle
for reforms with the revolutionary methods of working-class movement can
become a sect, can be severed from the masses, & that that is the most
pernicious menace to the success of the clear-cut revolutionary
socialism.

We defend always in our press the democracy in the party. But we never
speak against the centralization of the party. We are for the democratic
centralism. We say that the centralization of the German Labor movement is
not a feeble but a strong and good feature of it. The vice of the present
Social-Democratic Party of Germany consists not in the centralization but in
the preponderance of the opportunists, which should be excluded from the
party especially now after their treacherous conduct in the war. If in any
given crisis the small group (for instance our Central Committee is a small
group) can act for directing the mighty mass in a revolutionary direction , it would be very good. And in all crises the masses
can not act immediately, the masses want to be helped by the small groups of
the central institutions of the parties. Our Central Committee quite at the
beginning of this war, in September 1914, has directed the masses not to
accept the lie about “the war of defence” & to break off with the
opportunists & the “would-be-socialists jingoes” (we call so the
“Socialists” who are now in favor of the war of defence). We think that this centralistic measure of our Central Committee
was useful & necessary.

We agree with you that we must be against craft Unionism & in favor of
industrial Unionism, i.e. of big, centralized Trade Unions & in favor of the
most active participation of all members of party in all economic
struggles & in all trade union & cooperative organizations of the
working class. But we consider that such people as Mr. Legien in Germany &
Mr. Gompers in the U. S. are bourgeois and that their policy is not a
socialist but a nationalistic, middle class policy. Mr. Legien, Mr. Gompers
& similar persons are not the representatives of working class, they
represent the aristocracy & bureaucracy of the working class.

We entirely sympathize with you when in political action you claim the
“mass action” of the workers. The German revolutionary &
internationalist Socialists claim it also. In our press we try to define
with more details what must be understood by political mass action, as
f. i. political strikes (very usual in Russia), street demonstrations and
civil war prepared by the present imperialist war between nations.

We do not preach unity in the present (prevailing in the Second
International) socialist parties. On the contrary we preach
secession with the opportunists. The war is the best object-lesson. In all countries the opportunists, their leaders,
their most influential dailies & reviews are for the war, in other
words, they have in reality united with “their” national
bourgeoisie (middle class, capitalists) against the proletarian masses. You
say, that in America there are also Socialists who have expressed themselves
in favor of the participation in a war of defence. We are convinced, that
unity with such men is an evil. Such unity is unity with the
national middle class & capitalists, and a division with the international
revolutionary working class. And we are for secession with nationalistic
opportunists and unity with international revolutionary Marxists &
working-class parties.

We never object in our press to the unity of S. P. & S.L.P. in
America. [3] We always quote letters from Marx & Engels (especially to Sorge, active member
of American socialist movement), where both condemn the sectarian character
of the S.L.P.

We fully agree with you in your criticism of the old International. We
have participated in the conference of Zimmerwald (Switzerland)
5-8.IX. 1915. We have formed there a left wing , and have proposed
our resolution & our draught of a manifesto. We have just published
these documents in German & I send them to you (with the German translation
of our small book about “Socialism & War”), hoping that in your
League there are probably comrades, that know German. If you could help us
to publish these things in English (it is possible only in America and later
on we should send it to England), we would gladly accept your help.

In our struggle for true internationalism & against “jingo-socialism” we always quote in our press the example of the
opportunist leaders of the S.P. in America, who are in favor of restrictions
of the immigration of Chinese and Japanese workers (especially after the
Congress of Stuttgart, 1907, & against the decisions of
Stuttgart). We think that one can not be internationalist & be at the same
time in favor of such restrictions. And we assert that Socialists in
America, especially English Socialists, belonging to the ruling, and
oppressing nation, who are not against any restrictions of
immigration, against the possession of colonies (Hawaii) and for the entire
freedom of colonies, that such Socialists are in reality jingoes.

For conclusion I repeat once more best greetings & wishes for your
League. We should be very glad to have a further information from you & to
unite our struggle against opportunism & for the true internationalism.

Yours N. Lenin

N. B. There are two Soc.-Dem. parties in Russia. Our party
(“ Central Committee”) is against opportunism. The other
party (“ Organization Committee”) is opportunist. We are
against the unity with them.

You can write to our official address (Bibliothèque russe. For the
C. K. 7 rue Hugo de Senger. 7. Genève. Switzerland). But better write
to my personal address: Wl. Ulianow. Seidenweg 4a, III Berne.
Switzerland.

---
Notes:
[1]
This letter was written by Lenin in English.— Ed .

[2]
The letter is a reply to the league’s leaflet received by Lenin in November
1915. The letter is published in full for the first time.

[3]
The Socialist Party of America was formed in July 1901 at the congress in
Indianapolis as a result of a merger of groups that had broken away from the
Socialist Labour Party and the Social-Democratic Party in the U.S.A., among
whose founders was Eugene Debs, the popular American labour leader. He was
one of the founders of the new party. The social composition of the party
was motley: native-born and immigrant workers, small farmers, and people
with a petty-bourgeois background. The Centrist and Right-opportunist
leaders of the party (V.-L. Berger, Morris Hillquit and others) denied the
necessity of the dictatorship of the proletariat, refrained from
revolutionary methods of struggle and confined the Party’s activities
to participation in elections. During World War I three trends formed within
the Socialist Party: the social-chauvinists, who supported the
government’s imperialist policy, the Centrists, who opposed the
imperialist war only in word, and the revolutionary minority, who held an
internationalist stand and fought against the war. Led by Charles
Ruthenberg, William Foster, Bill Haywood and others and with the support of
proletarian elements, the Left wing of the Socialist Party waged a struggle
against the opportunist leadership of the party, for the workers’
independent political activity, and for the formation of industrial trade
unions based on the principles of the class struggle. In 1919 the Left-wing
split away from the S.P., initiated the formation of the American Communist
Party, and became its core.

At present the Socialist Party is a small sectarian organisation.

The Socialist Labour Party of America was formed in 1876 at a congress in Philadelphia, as a result of a merger of the
American Sections of the First International and other socialist
organisations. The work of the congress was guided by F. A. Sorge, an
associate of Marx and Engels. Most of the Party’s members were
immigrants who had weak links with the American workers. During the first
years its leadership was dominated by Lassalleans, who made mistakes of a
sectarian and dogmatic nature. Some of the party’s leaders considered
parliamentary activity the main party task, and underestimated the
significance of party guidance of the economic struggle of the masses, while
others fell into trade-unionism and anarchism. The ideological and tactical
vacillations of its leader ship resulted in a number of groups splitting
away from the party. Marx and Engels severely criticised the sectarian
tactics of American socialists.

In the nineties the leadership of the S.L.P. was taken over by its Left wing under D. De Leon who committed anarcho-syndicalist
errors. The S.L.P. refused to fight for working-class partial demands,
refused to work in the reformist trade unions, and continued losing its ties
with the mass working-class movement, weak as they were. During World War I
the Socialist Labour Party inclined towards internationalism. Under the
influence of the Great October Socialist Revolution its more revolutionary
section actively participated in forming the Communist Party of the
U.S.A. At present the S.L.P. is a small organisation without any influence
on the U.S. labour movement in the U.S.A.

From:
Date: Thu, 7 Jul 2005 16:40:51 EDT
Subject: Re: [MIA] LENIN & SOCIALIST PROPAGANDA LEAGUE
To:
Reply-To: MIA Steering Committee
`
This is a Lenin scholarship question dealing with the MIA document:
`
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1915/nov/09.htm
`
Transcription was by David Walters and Robert Cymbala and I would be
particularly interested in hearing their views.
`
This document, a letter to C.W. Fitzgerald of the (American) Socialist
Propaganda League reprinted from the MECW (v. 21, pp. 423-428) states that it was
written "before Nov. 9 (22), 1915." I am curious what, if any, contextual
reasons would lead to this particular date attribution by the Marx-Engels-Lenin
Institute.
`
I've just come across (and transcribed much of) a first issue of the organ of
the SPLA, which indicates the manifesto was adopted in Boston at a meeting
held "Nov. 26, 1916." The issue, dated Jan. 6, 1917, contains an organizational
constitution and provisional list of officers of what is clearly a new group.
I find it a touch hard to believe that an organization by the same name with
the same provisional National Secretary was in existence and issuing leaflets
for a full year prior to that date.
`
I suspect an error in dating of the Lenin document by MEL Institute, which
was probably arrived at based upon the mailing address which Lenin provided, or
some such.
`
Any alternate theories -- or support of the date listed in MECW -- would also
be appreciated.
`
`
Tim Davenport
Corvallis, OR
`
`
`
From:
Date: Thu, 7 Jul 2005 18:17:11 EDT
Subject: Re: [MIA] LENIN & SOCIALIST PROPAGANDA LEAGUE
To:
Reply-To: MIA Steering Committee
`
{{ It could also be that the MELI, which assembled these documents well
after Lenin's death, got a smudged copy, retranscribed incorrectly,
etc. It would also make sense that the copy recieved by Lenin in Zurich
(I think he as there then) took months and months to get there, and the
letter/magazine was marked *by Lenin* from the date he received it,
thus providing the MELI, 10 years or more later, with a false
indication of the date. }}
`
It's something of a puzzle. Lenin speaks of the Sept. 1915 Zimmerwald
congress as an event in the recent past, which lends some weight to the Nov. 1915
attribution for the letter. I pulled the Russian Lenin PSS (v. 27, pp. 69-75 and
footnotes on pp. 496-498) which indicates Lenin is replying to a letter of
Nov. 13, 1915, and lists a range of dates for the Lenin letter of "Nov. 13-22,
1915." (NS). The footnotes speak of the emergence of the Socialist Propaganda
League as a membership organization within the Socialist Party as an event
which took place in 1915. My belief is that this actually happened in the waning
days of 1916, not 1915.
`
This MEL date still strikes me as wrong by a year, but it's really hard to
put my gut feeling against the microscopic Lenin study which took place in the
USSR from the first publication of the letter in 1924... On the other hand, at
no point in either the 4th English or the 5th Russian edition is C.W.
Fitzgerald mentioned as Lenin's correspondent in question, even though the published
facsimile of the first page of the letter makes this abundantly clear. So the
scholarship isn't flawless here; sloppy even.
`
I think a close reading of International Socialist Review (Kerr) for the
second half of 1915 and all of 1916 might hold the answer. I think I have many but
not all of those issues around, I will dig a little. (If anyone has 1916
complete, please let me know.)
`
This isn't merely an academic exercise, the Socialist Propaganda League of
America was the direct, lineal forerunner of the Left Wing Section of the
Socialist Party, which emerged as the two Communist Parties in 1919. At issue is at
exactly what historical moment the American communist movement gained
organizational consciousness. In the ideological realm revolutionary socialism
always existed as an opposition movement within the SPA, but at a certain moment --
either HERE or THERE -- it began formally organizing itself and collecting
dues. That's what I'm trying to suss out, it's a fairly gigantic question of
history...
`
tim