ON ASCENDING HIGH MOUNTAINS, ON THE HARM OF DESPAIR, ON THE BENEFITS OF TRADE, ON OUR ATTITUDE TOWARD THE MENSHVIKS, AND SO ON.
I

BY WAY OF AN EXAMPLE
Imagine a person attempting to climb an exceedingly high, steep, and as yet unexplored mountain. Suppose that, despite unimaginable hardships and perils, he has managed to ascend far higher than any of his predecessors—yet still falls short of the summit. He finds himself in a position where continuing forward along his chosen path is not merely difficult and dangerous; it has become downright impossible. He must turn back, descend, and seek alternative routes—albeit longer ones—but routes that nonetheless hold promise of eventually reaching the peak. Descending at such unprecedented altitudes, where our hypothetical traveler now finds himself, presents dangers and difficulties perhaps even greater than those encountered during the ascent: it is easier to stumble; one’s footing is less secure; the sense of exhilaration that comes from moving directly upward toward the goal is absent—and so on. One must belay oneself with ropes, spend entire hours chipping away at ledges or creating footholds where a rope can be firmly anchored; one moves with tortoise-like slowness, and moreover, moves backward, downward, farther from the goal—still without knowing whether this desperately perilous, agonizing descent will ever end, or whether there exists even a reliable detour by which one might once again advance, more boldly, more swiftly, more directly, upward toward the summit.
It would hardly be unnatural to suppose that, despite having climbed to such astonishing heights, the person in this situation would experience moments of despondency. And these moments would likely be more frequent, more intense, and more prolonged if he could hear certain voices from below—voices that, from a safe distance, watch through telescopes as he undertakes this most perilous descent. One cannot even call it, following the “Smenovekhov” model, a “descent under controlled braking,” for braking implies a well-calculated, thoroughly tested vehicle, a road meticulously prepared in advance, mechanisms that have already been rigorously tested. But here there is no vehicle, no road—indeed, nothing at all that has been tried and tested before!
The voices from below are filled with malicious glee. Some openly revel in his misfortune, howling and shouting: “He’s going to fall—just as he deserves! What a fool—he should’ve known better!” Others strive to conceal their malice, acting much like Yudushka Golovlev: they feign sorrow, lifting their eyes heavenward in mock lamentation. To our dismay, our fears are confirmed! Were we not the ones who had spent a lifetime crafting a rational plan for ascending this very mountain, who had urged that the ascent be postponed until our plan was fully developed? And if we fought so passionately against the very path now being taken—even by the madman himself (look, look—he’s turned back, he’s descending, spending hour after hour preparing some tiny step forward—while he hurled the vilest insults at us when we systematically called for moderation and precision!), if we so vehemently condemned the madman and warned everyone against imitating him or lending him aid, then we did so solely out of love for the great plan of ascending this mountain—to avoid compromising that great plan altogether!
Fortunately, in the scenario we have imagined, our hypothetical traveler cannot hear the voices of these “true friends” of the idea of ascent,

NOTES BY A PUBLICIST
or else he might well feel nauseated. As they say, nausea does little to clear the mind or steady the legs—especially at such extreme altitudes.
II

WITHOUT METAPHOR
An example is not proof. Every comparison is flawed. These are truths that are both undeniable and widely known—but it does no harm to reiterate them, in order to make more vividly apparent the limits of any comparison whatsoever.
The Russian proletariat has risen to towering heights in its revolution—not only compared to 1789 and 1793, but also compared to 1871. We must assess, as soberly, clearly, and concretely as possible, what exactly we have “completed” and what we have left unfinished—only then will our minds remain clear, free from nausea, illusion, or despair.
We have completed the bourgeois-democratic revolution with a degree of purity never before seen in the world. This is the greatest achievement that no force in history can ever undo.
We brought about an exit from the most reactionary imperialist war through revolutionary means. This too is an achievement that no power in the world can ever reverse—and it is all the more precious because, if capitalism persists, reactionary imperialist slaughter is inevitable in the near future. For the people of the twentieth century will not easily settle for a second round of “Basel Manifestos,” with which renegades of the Second and Second and a Half Internationals deluded themselves and the workers in 1912 and again in 1914–1918.
We have created the Soviet form of state, thereby inaugurating a new era in world history—an era of proletarian political rule, replacing the age of bourgeois domination. This, too, cannot be undone, although the “completion” of the Soviet form of state will ultimately depend on the practical experience of the working class in several countries.

But we have not even completed the foundation of the socialist economy. These forces—hostile to us, remnants of dying capitalism—may yet seize it back from us. We must recognize this clearly and acknowledge it openly, for there is nothing more dangerous than illusions—and especially when one soars to great heights. Yet there is absolutely nothing “frightening,” nothing that should give even the slightest cause for discouragement in facing this bitter truth, for we have always upheld and reiterated that fundamental Marxist principle: that the victory of socialism requires the united efforts of workers in several advanced countries. And we are still alone—for now—and in a backward country, a nation more devastated than most, we have nonetheless accomplished an extraordinary amount. What’s more, we have preserved the “army” of revolutionary proletarian forces; we have maintained its “maneuverability”; we have kept our minds clear, enabling us to soberly assess where, when, and to what extent we must retreat (in order to leap forward with greater force)—and where, when, and precisely how we must set about remaking what remains unfinished. Those communists who imagine that it is possible, without error, without retreat, without countless revisions of what is incomplete or poorly done, to bring to a successful conclusion such a world‑historical “undertaking” as the completion of the foundations of the socialist economy—especially in a country of small peasants—must surely be counted among the lost. But those communists who refuse to fall into either illusion or despair, who preserve the strength and flexibility of their bodies so that they may once again “begin anew” in approaching this most arduous task—those communists are not lost, and most likely never will be.

All the more reason, then, that we must not allow ourselves even the slightest trace of discouragement—and all the more reason why we have no grounds for it—since, despite all our ruin, poverty, backwardness, and famine, we have begun to make progress in the realm of the pre‑socialist economy, while around us, across the globe, more advanced nations—thousands of times richer and militarily more powerful than we—are still moving backward in the domain of “their” economy, the capitalist economy that they have long celebrated, that they know so well, and that has been tested over centuries.

NOTES OF A PUBLICIST
III

ON THE HUNT FOR FOXES; ON LEVI; ON SERRATI
It is said that the most reliable method for hunting foxes is as follows: one traces the fox’s path and then encircles it at a fixed distance with a rope bearing red flags placed just above the snow; fearing what appears to be an artificial, “human-made” structure, the fox emerges only where and when the “fence” of flags slightly parts—and there, the hunter waits. One might think that such caution—a quality highly prized in a creature hunted by all—would be a positive trait. Yet even here, the very “persistence of virtue” proves to be a drawback. For it is precisely the fox’s excessive caution that makes it vulnerable to capture.
I must confess to a mistake I made at the Third Congress of the Comintern, also born of excessive caution. At that congress, I stood on the far right wing. I am convinced that this was the only truly correct position, for a large—and “influential”—group of delegates, led by many German, Hungarian, and Italian comrades, had adopted an immoderately “leftist,” indeed wrongly leftist, stance, too often substituting a fervent waving of red flags for the sober assessment of a situation that was far from favorable for immediate, direct revolutionary action. Out of concern that this undeniably wrong drift toward the left might lead the Comintern’s entire tactical line astray, I defended Levi in every way possible, suggesting that he had lost his head—not denying that he had, in fact, lost his head—perhaps out of an overwrought fear of the errors committed by the left, and pointing out that there were instances in which communists who had lost their heads later “found” them again. Even conceding—before the onslaught of the “left”—that Levi might be a Menshevik, I emphasized that even such a concession did not settle the matter. For example, the entire history of the 15‑year struggle between Mensheviks and Bolsheviks in Russia (1903–1917), as confirmed by the three Russian revolutions, demonstrates that the Mensheviks were, by and large, utterly wrong—and that in reality, they were agents of the bourgeoisie within the workers’ movement. This is an undeniable fact. Yet this indisputable fact does not negate the fact that, in certain cases, the Mensheviks were right against the Bolsheviks—for instance, when it came to boycotting the Stolypin Duma in 1907.
Eight months have passed since the Third Congress of the Comintern. It seems our earlier dispute with the “left” has already grown old; life itself has settled the matter. I was mistaken about Levi, for he successfully proved that his descent onto the Menshevik path was neither accidental nor temporary—nor merely a case of “overcompensating” against the most dangerous errors of the “left,” but rather a long-term, deeply rooted tendency inherent in his very nature. Instead of honestly acknowledging, after the Third Congress of the Comintern, the need to once again seek admission into the Party—as any person who has temporarily lost their head in frustration over certain errors committed by the left ought to have done—Levi began to petty‑mindedly sabotage the Party and, from behind the scenes, to trip it up—that is, to render actual services to the agents of the bourgeoisie within the Second and Second-and-a-Half Internationals. Naturally, the German communists were entirely justified in responding to this by recently expelling several more gentlemen from their ranks who had secretly supported Paul Levi in this noble endeavor.
The development of the German and Italian Communist Parties after the Third Congress of the Comintern proves that the errors committed by the “left” at that congress have been recognized and are being corrected—slowly, gradually, but steadily; the resolutions of the Third Congress of the Communist International are being faithfully put into practice. Transforming the old type of European parliamentary party—reformist in practice, merely lightly tinted with revolutionary color—into a new kind of party, into a truly revolutionary, genuinely communist party, is an exceedingly difficult task. The example of France perhaps illustrates this difficulty most vividly. In everyday life, to overhaul the very nature of party work, to transform routine practices, to ensure that the Party becomes the vanguard of the revolutionary proletariat—without distancing itself from the masses, but instead drawing ever closer to them…

Notes from a Publicist and, by drawing ever closer to them, elevating them toward revolutionary consciousness and revolutionary struggle—this is the most arduous, yet also the most vital task. If European communists fail to harness this crucial, internal, deeply transformative period—the brief interval, perhaps, between the phases of heightened revolutionary combat that many capitalist countries in Europe and America experienced in 1921 and early 1922—to fundamentally overhaul the entire structure and all aspects of their parties’ work, then such negligence would amount to the gravest of sins on their part. Fortunately, there is no reason to fear this outcome. The quiet, unassuming, unostentatious, slow-paced—but profoundly consequential—effort to forge genuine communist parties in Europe and America has already begun, and it is steadily progressing.
Even the most commonplace observations—such as those gleaned from the simple act of fox hunting—can yield valuable political lessons: on the one hand, excessive caution can lead to error; on the other, we must never forget that if we replace sober, fact-based assessment with mere “mood” or the frantic waving of red flags, we risk committing errors that may prove irreparable; under such circumstances, though difficulties may be great, death is by no means inevitable—even if only by the slimmest of margins.
Paul Levi now seeks to curry favor with the bourgeoisie—and, by extension, with the Second and Second-and-a-Half Internationals, its agents—by reissuing precisely those works of Rosa Luxemburg in which she had erred. To this, we might respond with two lines from a fine Russian fable: eagles may sometimes descend lower than chickens, but chickens can never soar as high as eagles. Rosa Luxemburg was mistaken about Poland’s independence; she misjudged the Mensheviks in 1903; she erred in her theory of capital accumulation; she was wrong when, in July 1914, alongside Plekhanov, Vandervelde, Kautsky, and others, she advocated for the merger of Bolsheviks and Mensheviks; and she made mistakes in her prison writings of 1918—though, upon her release from prison in late 1918 and early 1919, she herself corrected many of those errors.

Yet despite these missteps, she remained—and continues to be—an eagle. Not only will her memory always hold great value for communists around the globe, but her biography and the complete collection of her works (a legacy that German communists have long been tardy in embracing—though they are excused only in part by the unprecedented toll exacted in their bitter struggle) will serve as an invaluable lesson for generations of communists worldwide. “German social democracy after August 4, 1914—a stinking corpse”—it is with this pronouncement that Rosa Luxemburg’s name will enter the annals of the global workers’ movement. And in the backyard of the workers’ movement, amid the dung heaps, chickens like Paul Levi, Scheidemann, Kautsky, and the entire cohort of such figures will, of course, take particular delight in the errors of this great communist. To each his own.
As for Serrati, he is best compared to a rotten egg—bursting open with a loud crack and emitting a particularly… piquant odor. To pass a resolution at his own party congress affirming readiness to abide by the decision of the Comintern Congress, then send old Lazzari to that very congress, and finally deceive the workers with the brazen insolence of a horse trader—such is the height of cynicism. Italian communists, as they strive to build a truly revolutionary proletarian party in Italy, will now have before their eyes a stark example of political chicanery and Menshevism, vividly displayed to the working masses. It may not happen overnight—not without many repeated, concrete lessons—but the salutary, repelling effect of this example will surely be felt. We must remain firmly rooted in the masses, never lose patience in the arduous task of exposing, through practical, everyday experience, all of Serrati’s deceitful maneuvers to the rank-and-file worker; we must resist the temptation to settle too easily—or worse, to succumb to the most dangerous course of action: where Serrati says “a,” we must say “minus a”; we must steadfastly nurture the masses toward a revolutionary worldview and revolutionary action; and we must draw practical, pragmatic lessons from the magnificent—and costly—visual lessons offered by fascism—and victory for Italian communism is assured.

Notes from a Publicist
Levi and Serrati are not significant in themselves, but rather as modern exemplars of the far-left wing of petty-bourgeois democracy—their camp, the camp of international capitalists, opposed to our own. From Gompers to Serrati, the “their” camp rejoices, exults, or sheds crocodile tears—all in one grand display—over our retreat, our “descent,” our New Economic Policy. Let them rejoice. Let them indulge in their clownish antics. To each his own. But we will not allow ourselves to fall under the sway of either illusions or despair. We must not shy away from acknowledging our own mistakes, nor fear the labor—often repeated—that it takes to correct them—and then we shall stand at the very pinnacle. The cause of the international bloc stretching from Gompers to Serrati is a lost cause.
Written in late February 1922.
First published, in incomplete form, in 1924 in the journal Communist International, No. 2.
First published in full on April 16, 1924, in the newspapers Pravda, No. 87, and Izvestia VTsIK, No. 88.

Printed from manuscript.

NOTES ON THE ARTICLE “”

Notes from a Publicist
Page 10 now reads: 1) The Leftists were entirely correct to exclude the Levites. 2) The Left in Germany and Italy developed splendidly, having learned from their mistakes at the Third Congress. 3) ΣΣ * = the lessons of the fox. 4) Levi and R. Luxemburg. 5) Serrati = merely a fox—a small, cunning creature. 6) 2 and 2½.
Written in late February 1922.
First published in 1959 in Volume XXXVI of the Lenin Collection.

Printed from manuscript.

* Summa summaram – the ultimate sum. Ed.