Pages: 186-189

---

Λ* 2 "PROLETARY," JUNE 3 (MAY 21), 1905.
[Martynov, Marx, and Plekhanov.]
A Feeble Reference to Marx.
The Provisional Revolutionary Government.
Article One: Plekhanov's Historical Account.
[In the leading article of Iskra Λ5 96, Plekhanov tries to defend the tactics of Iskra on the question of the Social-Democrats' participation in the provisional revolutionary government and to show the incorrectness of the tactics we defended in Vperyod. Unfortunately, 1) Plekhanov gave absolutely no account of his views on this deeply interesting and important question; 2) he presented the views of Iskra and Vperyod quite incorrectly and inaccurately; 8) the quotations from Marx, to which Plekhanov's article essentially boils down, are given completely out of place, since they do not relate to the question disputed between Iskra and Vperyod.
Let us begin with Plekhanov's presentation of the essence of the dispute. Plekhanov entitled his article: "On the Question of the Seizure of Power." He criticizes the tactics directed (obviously, by Vperyod)]
The Third Party Congress [discussed] adopted a resolution on the question
of the provisional revolutionary government [and adopted a special resolution on this issue, known to our readers]. This RESOLUTION expresses
precisely the position occupied [the organ] by us in the newspaper Vperyod... Plekhanov tries to substitute [the issue that actually emerged and] the
issue that was actually discussed with another, contrived one...
Martynov was the first to raise the issue in his famous
"Two Dictatorships," [Martynov directly] He argued that if our
party takes [the most energetic and] leading participation in the insur-
rection, then from this, in the event of success [of the insurrection], the necessity of
its participation in the provisional revolutionary government will arise, and such
participation is fundamentally inadmissible and can lead to nothing but

CORRECTIONS IN THE MANUSCRIPT OF THE ARTICLE "ON THE PROVISIONAL REVOLUTION-
ARY GOVERNMENT" \
* Coll. Works, VII, 314 — 329. Ed.

ON THE PROVISIONAL REVOLUTIONARY GOVERNMENT

a disastrous and compromising outcome.
Iskra defended this position. Vperyod [disputed] objected, [saying
that] that such an outcome, on the contrary, is the most desirable....
The significance of this substitution of the question in all of Plekhanov's argumentation
can be seen especially clearly in the episode with the "virtuosos of Philistinism." Plekhanov cannot let go of this expression used
by Vperyod. Plekhanov returns to it about seven times, threateningly and angrily assuring his readers that Vperyod dared to call Marx
and Engels by this not-too-flattering epithet, [deducing
"from this the desire] that Vperyod is beginning to "criticize" Marx and
so on. etc....
...We also note in [the same] No. 14 of Vperyod that the very
question of this dictatorship has meaning only on the assumption
of such a course of events, [of the type of 1789 — 1793, and not 1848 — 50.] when the demo-
cratic revolution reaches the complete overthrow of absolutism, to a republic, and does not stop halfway.
Let us now move from the episode with the "virtuosos of Philistinism"
to the content of the famous "Address" (of the Central Committee
of the Communist League to the members of the League, in March 1850),
quoted by Plekhanov. In this extremely interesting and instructive "Address" (which would be worth translating in its entirety
into Russian) Marx considers the concrete political situation in Germany in 1850, indicates the probability
of a NEW POLITICAL explosion [(this view turned out to be erroneous,
and Marx corrected his mistake already in September 1850)], states the inevitability of the transfer of power, in the event of a revolution, to the republican,
[or] petty-bourgeois democratic party and analyzes the tactics of the proletariat...
The Address was written on the basis of the experience of two years of the revolutionary
era, 1848 and 1849. Marx formulates the results of this experience
thus: "At the same time (i.e., precisely in 1848 — 9)
the former strong organization of the Communist League weakened significantly. The majority of members who directly participated
in the revolutionary movement thought that the time of secret
societies had passed and that one open activity was sufficient.
Individual circles and [communities] organizations (Gemeinden)
began to neglect their relations with the Central Committee and
gradually ceased them altogether. Thus, at a time when the democratic party, the party of the petty bourgeoisie, was becoming
increasingly organized in Germany, the workers' party lost its only solid support
(Halt), it remained in organized form at most in individual localities for
LOCAL Purposes AND IN CONSEQUENCE Fell in the general [movement (in der
allgemeinen Bewegung)]
ALL TOGETHER
UNDER
the dominance
AND
the leadership of the petty-bourgeois democrats" (Ansprache der Zentralbehörde an
den Bund, von März 1850, — K. Marx: ((Enthüllungen über den Кош-
munistenprocess zu Köln», 1885, Anfang IX, S. 75. Emphasis in quotes
is always ours). And on the next page of the "Address," Marx
[no less categorically] declares: "At the present time, when a new revolution is impending,... it is extremely important that the workers' party come
forward as organized as possible, as unanimous as possible,
and as independent as possible, if it does not want to be exploited again, as
in 1848, by the bourgeoisie and [drag] go after them [in the tail] in tow" [(ins Schleppten genommen)].
...after part of the country was in open rebellion and power temporarily passed into the hands of [temporary] revolutionary
governments, — Marx states the defeat of the revolutionary
people... It is clear that under such conditions [for the]
writer analyzing the concrete situation, it was impossible
even to allow the thought of the possibility of the workers' party's
participation in the provisional government....
Martynov's idea was this: we, Russian Social-Democrats,
of 1905, are organized into an independent party and want
to go to the first assault against the fortress of tsarism, to go at the head
of the petty-bourgeois people. But if we organize the assault too well
and, God forbid, [successfully] victoriously carry it out,
then we will have to participate, perhaps, in the provisional revolutionary
government or even [(God forbid!)] in the democratic dictatorship. And this participation is fundamentally inadmissible.
And Plekhanov seriously wants to assure someone that it is possible
to defend Martynov according to Marx?...
To finish with the "Address," it is also necessary to clarify
the following incorrect opinion of Plekhanov. He points out,
correctly, that in March 1850, when the Address was written,
Marx believed in the decrepitude of capitalism, and the socialist [(note
this)] revolution seemed to him "quite close." Very soon
Marx corrected his mistake; already on September 15, 1850, he parted
ways with Schapper [who together] (Schapper with Willich remained
in the minority of the League and left it), who succumbed
to bourgeois-democratic revolutionism or utopianism to

ON THE PROVISIONAL REVOLUTIONARY GOVERNMENT

that which he said: “we must immediately achieve power, or else we can go to sleep.” Marx objected to Schapper that [one should] cannot consider one's own WILL alone as the engine of revolution instead of the actual conditions [, which can force the proletariat to undergo]. The proletariat may have to endure another 15, 20, 50 years of civil wars and international clashes "not only in order to change these conditions, but also to change themselves, the proletarians, and make themselves capable of political domination"...
...Plekhanov is trying to impose on Vpered both the desire to "criticize" Marx and the point of view of Mach and Avenarius, [(on the question of the provisional government?)] This [undertaking] ATTEMPT evokes in us only a [contented] smile: Plekhanov's position must be bad if he cannot find a target for himself from the real statements of Vpered and has to invent a target from subjects completely extraneous both to the Vpered newspaper and to the question under consideration...
...Engels explained to him* that, given the situation in Italy in 1894 (i.e. [almost half a century] several decades after Italy's rise to the "first stage", after the conquest of political freedom, which allowed the proletariat to organize openly, widely and independently!), he, Turati, in the ministry of the victorious petty bourgeois party, would defend and implement in practice the interests of an alien class, the petty bourgeoisie... For heaven's sake, Comrade Plekhanov, does this have any relation whatsoever to the question [raised] agitated by Martynov and analyzed by Vpered?...

* I.e. Turati. Ed.