V. I.

Lenin

In
Prizyv [1] (No. 3), Mr. Plekhanov attempts to present the
fundamental theoretical prohlem of the impending revolution in Russia. He
quotes a passage from Marx to the effect that the 1789 Revolution in France
followed an ascending line, whereas the 1848 Revolution followed a
descending line. In the first instance, power passed gradually from the
moderate party to the more radical—the Constitutionalists, the
Girondists, the Jacobins. In the second instance, the reverse took
place—the proletariat, the petty-bourgeois democrats, the bourgeois
republicans, Napoleon III. “It is desirable,” our author infers,
“that the Russian revolution should be directed along an ascending
line”, i.e., that power should first pass to the Cadets and
Octobrists, then to the Trudoviks, and then to the socialists. The
conclusion to be drawn from this reasoning is, of course, that the Left wing
in Russia is unwise in not wishing to support the Cadets and in prematurely
discrediting them.

Mr. Plekhanov’s “theoretical” reasoning is another example of the substitution of liberalism for Marxism. Mr. Plekhanov reduces
the matter to the question of whether the “strategic conceptions” of the advanced elements were “right” or
wrong. Marx’s reasoning was different. He noted a fact: in each case
the revolution proceeded in a different fashion; he did not however
seek the explanation of this difference in “strategic conceptions”. From the Marxist point of view it is ridiculous to seek
it in conceptions. It should be sought in the difference in the
alignment of classes . Marx himself wrote that in 1789 the French
bourgeoisie united with the peasantry and that in 1848 petty-bourgeois
democracy betrayed the proletariat. Mr. Plekhanov knows Marx’s opinion
on the matter, but he does not mention it, because he wants to depict Marx
as looking like Struve. In the France of 1789, it was a question of
overthrowing absolutism and the nobility. At the then prevalent level of
economic and political development, the bourgeoisie believed in a harmony of
interests; it had no fears about the stability of its rule and was prepared
to enter into an alliance with the peasantry. That alliance secured the
complete victory of the revolution. In 1848 it was a question of the
proletariat overthrowing the bourgeoisie. The proletariat was unable to win
over the petty bourgeoisie, whose treachery led to the defeat of the
revolution. The ascending line of 1789 was a form of revolution in which the
mass of the people defeated absolutism. The descending line of 1848 was a
form of revolution in which the betrayal of the proletariat by the mass of
the petty bourgeoisie led to the defeat of the revolution.

Mr. Plekhanov is substituting vulgar idealism for Marxism when he reduces
the question to one of “strategic conceptions”, not of the
alignment of classes.

The experience of the 1905 Revolution and of the subsequent
counter-revolutionary period in Russia teaches us that in our country
two lines of revolution could be observed, in the sense that there
was a struggle between two classes—the proletariat and the liberal
bourgeoisie—for leadership of the masses. The proletariat advanced in
a revolutionary fashion, and was leading the democratic peasantry towards
the overthrow of the monarchy and the landowners. That the peasantry
revealed revolutionary tendencies in the democratic sense was proved on a
mass scale by all the great political events: the peasant
insurrections of 1905-06, the unrest in the army in the same years, the
“Peasants’ Union” of 1905, and the first two Dumas, in which the peasant Trudoviks stood not only “to the left of
the Cadets”, but were also more revolutionary than the intellectual Social-Revolutionaries and Trudoviks. Unfortunately,
this is often forgotten, but still it is a fact. Both in the Third and in
the Fourth Dumas the peasant Trudoviks, despite their weakness, showed that
the peasant masses were opposed to the landed proprietors.

The first line of the Russian bourgeois-democratic revolution, as deduced
from the facts and not from “strategic” prattle, was marked by a
reso]ute struggle of the proletariat, which was irresolutely followed by the
peasantry. Both these classes fought against the monarchy and the
landowners. The lack of strength and resolution in these classes led to
their defeat (although a partial breach was made in the edifice of the
autocracy).

The behaviour of the liberal bourgeoisie was the second line. We
Bolsheviks have always affirmed, especially since the spring of 1906, that
this line was represented by the Cadets and Octobrists as a single
force. The 1905-15 decade has proved the correctness of our view. At the
decisive moments of the struggle, the Cadets, together with the Octobrists,
betrayed democracy and went to the aid of the tsar and the landowners. The
“liberal” line of the Russian revolution was marked by the
“pacification” and the fragmentary character of the masses’ struggle so as to enable the bourgeoisie to make peace with
the monarchy. The international background to the Russian revolution and the
strength of the Russian proletariat rendered this behaviour of the liberals
inevitable.

The Bolsheviks helped the proletariat consciously to follow the first
line, to fight with supreme courage and to lead the peasants. The Mensheviks
were constantly slipping into the second line; they demoralised the
proletariat by adapting its movement to the liberals—from the
invitation to enter the Bulygin Duma (August 1905), to the Cadet Cabinet in
1906 and the bloc with the Cadets against democracy in 1907. (From
Mr. Plekhanov’s point of view, we will observe parenthetically, the
“correct strategic conceptions” of the Cadets and the Mensheviks
suffered A defeat at the time. Why was that? Why did the masses not pay heed
to the wise counsels of Mr. Plekhanov and the Cadets, which were publicised
a hundred times more extensively than the advice from the Bolsheviks?)

Only these trends—the Bolshevik and the Menshevik—manifested
themselves in the politics of the masses in 1904-08, and later, in
1908-14. Why was that? It was because only these trends had firm class
roots—the former in the proletariat, the latter in the liberal
bourgeoisie.

Today we are again advancing towards a revolution. Everybody sees
that. Khvostov himself says that the mood of the peasants is
reminiscent of 1905–06. And again we see the same two lines in the
revolution, the same alignment of classes, only modified by a changed
international situation. In 1905, the entire European bourgeoisie supported
tsarism and helped it either with their thousands of millions (the French),
or by training a counter-revolutionary army (the Germans). In 1914 the
European war flared up. Everywhere the bourgeoisie vanquished the
proletariat for a time, and swept them into the turbid spate of nationalism
and chauvinism. In Russia, as hitherto, the petty-bourgeois masses of the
people, primarily the peasantry, form the majority of the population. They
are oppressed first and foremost by the landowners. Politically, part of the
peasantry are dormant, and part vacillate between chauvinism (“the
defeat of Germany”, “defence of the fatherland”) and revolutionary spirit. The political spokesmen of these masses—and of
their vacillation—are, on the one hand, the Narodniks (the Trudoviks
and Social-Revolutionaries), and on the other hand, the opportunist
Social-Democrats ( Nashe Dyelo , Plekhanov, the Chkheidze group, the
Organising Committee), who since 1910, have been determinedly following the
road of liberal-labour politics, and in 1915 have achieved the
social-chauvinism of Potresov, Cherevanin, Levitsky, and Maslov, or have
demanded “unity” with them.

This state of affairs patently indicates the task of the
proletariat. That task is the waging of a supremely courageous revolutionary
struggle against the monarchy (utilising the slogans of the January
Conference of 1912, the “three pillars”), a struggle that will
sweep along in its wake all the democratic masses, i.e., mainly the
peasantry. At the same time. the proletariat must wage a ruthless struggle
against chauvinism, a struggle in alliance with the European
proletariat for the socialist revolution in Europe. The vacillation of the
petty bourgeoisie is no accident; it is inevitable, for it logically follows
from their class stand. The war crisis has strengthened the
economic and political factors that are impelling the petty hourgeoisie,
including the peasantry, to the left. Herein lies the objective foundation
of the full possibility of victory for the democratic revolution in
Russia. There is no need here for us to prove that the objective conditions
in Western Europe are ripe for a socialist revolution; this was admitted
before the war by all influential socialists in all advanced countries.

To bring clarity into the alignment of classes in the impending
revolution is the main task of a revolutionary party. This task is being
shirked by the Organising Committee, which within Russia remains a faithful
ally to Nashe Dyelo , and abroad utters meaningless “Left” phrases. This task is being wrongly tackled in Nashe Slovo by Trotsky, who is repeating his “original” 1905
theory and refuses to give some thought to the reason why, in the course of
ten years, life has been bypassing this splendid theory.

From the Bolsheviks Trotsky’s original theory has borrowed their
call for a decisive proletarian revolutionary struggle and for the conquest
of political power by the proletariat, while from the Mensheviks it has
borrowed “repudiation” of the peasantry’s role. The peasantry, he asserts, are divided into strata, have become differentiated;
their potential revolutionary role has dwindled more and more; in Russia a
“national” revolution is impossible; “we are living in the
era of imperialisnu,” says Trotsky, and “imperialism does not
contrapose the bourgeois nation to the old regime, but the proletariat to
the bourgeois nation.”

Here we have an amusing example of playing with the word
“imperialism”. If, in Russia , the proletariat already stands contraposed to the “bourgeois nation”, then Russia is
facing a socialist revolution (!), and the slogan “Confiscate
the landed estates ” (repeated by Trotsky in 1915, following
the January Conference of 1912), is incorrect; in that case we must speak,
not of a “revolutionary workers’” government, but of a “workers’ socialist ” government! The length
Trotsky’s muddled thinking goes to is evident from his phrase that by
their resoluteness the proletariat will attract the “non-proletarian
[!] popular masses” as well (No. 217)! Trotsky has not realised that
if the proletariat induce the non-proletarian masses to confiscate the
landed estates and overthrow the monarchy, then that will be the
consummation of the “national bourgeois revolution” in Russia;
it will be a revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and
the peasantry!

A whole decade—the great decade of 1905-15—has shown the
existence of two and only two class lines in the Russian revolution. The
differentiation of the peasantry has enhanced the class struggle within
them; it has aroused very many hitherto politically dormant elements. It has
drawn the rural proletariat closer to the urban proletariat (the Bolsheviks
have insisted ever since 1906 that the former should be separately
organised, and they included this demand in the resolution of the Menshevik
congress in Stockholm). However, the antagonism between the peasantry, on
the one hand, and the Markovs, Romanovs and Khvostovs, on the other, has
become stronger and more acute. This is such an obvious truth that not
even the thousands of phrases in scores of Trotsky’s Paris
articles will “refute” it. Trotsky is in fact helping the
liberal-labour politicians in Russia, who by “repudiation” of
the role of the peasantry understand a refusal to raise up the
peasants for the revolution!

That is the crux of the matter today. The proletariat are fighting, and
will fight valiantly, to win power, for a republic, for the confiscation of
the land, i.e. to win over the peasantry, make full use of
their revolutionary powers, and get the “ non -proletarian
masses of the people” to take part in liberating bourgeois
Russia from military-feudal “imperialism” (tsarism). The proletariat will at once utilise this ridding of bourgeois
Russia of tsarism and the rule of the landowners, not to aid the rich
peasants in their struggle against the rural workers, but to bring about the
socialist revolution in alliance with the proletarians of Europe.

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