Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
13.
Conclusion. Dare We Win?
People who are superficially acquainted with the state of
affairs in Russian Social-Democracy, or who judge as mere
onlookers without knowing the whole history of our internal
Party struggle since the days of Economism, very often also
dismiss the disagreements on tactics which have now become
crystallised, especially after the Third Congress, with the
simple argument that there are two natural, inevitable and quite
reconcilable trends in every Social-Democratic movement. One
side, they say, lays special emphasis on the ordinary, current,
everyday work, on the necessity of developing propaganda and
agitation, of preparing forces, deepening the movement, etc.,
while the other side lays emphasis on the militant, general
political, revolutionary tasks of the movement, points to the
necessity of armed insurrection, advances the slogans: for a
revolutionary-democratic dictatorship, for a provisional
revolutionary government. Neither one side nor the other should
exaggerate, they say; extremes are bad, both here and there
(and, generally speaking, everywhere in the world), etc., etc.
The cheap truisms of worldly (and “political” in quotation
marks) wisdom, which such arguments undoubtedly contain, too
often cover up a failure to understand the urgent and acute
needs of the Party. Take the differences on tactics that now
exist among the Russian Social-Democrats. of course, the special
emphasis laid on the everyday, routine aspect of the work, such
as we observe in the new Iskra-ist arguments about
tactics, could not in itself present any danger and could not
give rise to any divergence of opinion regarding tactical
slogans. But the moment you compare the resolutions of the Third
Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party with the
resolutions of the Conference this divergence becomes strikingly
obvious.
What, then, is the trouble? The trouble is that, in the first
place, it is not enough to point abstractly to the two currents
in the movement and to the harmfulness of extremes. One must
know concretely what the given movement is suffering from at the
given time,
what constitutes the real political danger to the
Party at the present time. Secondly, one must know what real
political forces are profiting by this or that tactical
slogan—or perhaps by the absence of this or that slogan. To
listen to the new Iskra-ists, one would arrive at the
conclusion that the Social-Democratic Party is threatened with
the danger of throwing overboard propaganda and agitation, the
economic struggle and criticism of bourgeois democracy, of
becoming inordinately absorbed in military preparations, armed
attacks, the seizure of power, etc. Actually, however, real
danger is threatening the Party from an entirely different
quarter. Anyone who is at all closely familiar with the state of
the movement, anyone who follows it carefully and thoughtfully,
cannot fail to see the ridiculous side of the new
Iskra’s fears. The entire work
of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party has already been
fully moulded into firm, immutable forms which absolutely
guarantee that our main attention will be fixed on propaganda
and agitation, impromptu and mass meetings, on the distribution
of leaflets and pamphlets, assisting in the economic struggle
and championing the slogans of that struggle. There is not a
single Party committee, not a single district committee, not a
single central delegates’ meeting or a single factory group
where ninety-nine per cent of all the attention, energy and time
are not always and constantly devoted to these functions, which
have become firmly established ever since the middle of the
’nineties. Only those who are entirely unfamiliar with the
movement are ignorant of this. Only very naïve or
ill-informed people can be taken in by the new
Iskra-ists’ repetition of stated truths when it is done
with an air of great importance.
The fact is that not only is no excessive zeal displayed among
us with regard to the tasks of insurrection, to the general
political slogans and to the matter of leading the entire
popular revolution, but, on the contrary, it is
backwardness in this very respect that stands out most
strikingly, constitutes our weakest spot and a real danger to
the movement, which may degenerate, and in some places is
degenerating, from one that is revolutionary in deeds into one
that is revolutionary in words. Among the many, many hundreds of
organisations, groups and circles that are conducting the work
of the Party you will not find a single one which has not from
its
very inception conducted the kind of everyday work about
which the wiseacres of the new Iskra now talk with the
air of people who have discovered new truths. On the other hand,
you will find only an insignificant percentage of groups and
circles that have
understood the tasks an armed insurrection entails, which have
begun to carry them out, and have realised the necessity of
leading the entire popular revolution against tsarism, the
necessity of advancing for that purpose certain definite
progressive slogans and no other.
We are incredibly behind in our progressive and genuinely
revolutionary tasks, in very many instances we have not even
become conscious of them; here and there we have failed to
notice the strengthening of revolutionary bourgeois democracy
owing to our backwardness in this respect. But the writers in
the new Iskra, turning their backs on the course of
events and on the requirements of the times, keep repeating
insistently: Don’t forget the old! Don’t let yourselves be
carried away by the new! This is the principal and unvarying
leitmotif of all the important resolutions of the Conference;
whereas in the Congress resolutions you just as unvaryingly
read: while confirming the old (and without stopping to chew it
over and over, for the very reason that it is old and has
already been settled and recorded in literature, in resolutions
and by experience), we put forward a new task, draw attention to
it, issue a new slogan, and demand that the genuinely
revolutionary Social-Democrats immediately set to work to put it
into effect.
That is how matters really stand with regard to the question of
the two trends in Social-Democratic tactics. The revolutionary
period has called forth new tasks, which only the totally blind
can fail to see. And some Social-Democrats unhesitatingly
recognise these tasks and place them on the order of the day,
declaring: the armed insurrection brooks no delay, prepare
yourselves for it immediately and energetically, remember that
it is indispensable for a decisive victory, issue the slogans of
a republic, of a provisional government, of a
revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the
peasantry. Others, however, draw back, mark time, write prefaces
instead of giving slogans; instead of pointing to the new while
confirming the old, they chew this old tediously and at great
length, inventing pretexts to avoid the new, unable to determine
the conditions for a decisive victory or to issue the slogans
which alone are in line with the striving to attain complete
victory.
The political result of this khvostism stares us in the
face. The fable about a rapprochement between the “majority” of
the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party and the revolutionary
bourgeois democracy remains a fable which has not been confirmed
by a single political fact, by a single important resolution of
the “Bolsheviks” or a single act of the Third Congress of the
Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party. On the other hand, the
opportunist, monarchist bourgeoisie, as represented by the
Osvobozhdeniye, has long been welcoming the
trends of the “principles” of new Iskra-ism and now it
is actually running its mill with their grist, is adopting their
catchwords and “ideas” directed against “secrecy” and “riots,”
against exaggerating the “technical” side of the revolution,
against openly proclaiming the slogan of armed insurrection,
against the “revolutionism” of extreme demands, etc., etc. The
resolution of a whole conference of “Menshevik” Social-Democrats
in the Caucasus, and the endorsement of that resolution by the
editors of the new Iskra, sums it all up politically in
an unmistakable way: lest the bourgeoisie recoil if the
proletariat takes part in a revolutionary-democratic
dictatorship! This puts it in a nutshell. This gives the
finishing touch to the transformation of the proletariat into an
appendage of the monarchist bourgeoisie. The political
meaning of the khvostism of the new Iskra
is thereby proved in fact, not by a casual declaration of some
individual, but by a resolution especially endorsed by a whole
trend.
Anyone who ponders over these facts will understand the real
significance of the stock reference to the two sides and the two
trends in the Social-Democratic movement. For a study of these
trends on a large scale, take Bernsteinism. The Bernsteinians
have been dinning into our ears in exactly the same way that it
is they who understand the true needs of the proletariat, the
tasks connected with the growth of its forces, with rendering
the entire activity more profound, with preparing the elements
of a new society, with propaganda and agitation! Bernstein says:
we demand a frank recognition of what is, thus sanctifying
a “movement” without “final aims,” sanctifying defensive
tactics only, preaching the tactics of fear “lest the
bourgeoisie recoil.” The Bernsteinians also raised an outcry
against the “Jacobinism” of the revolutionary Social-Democrats,
against the “publicists” who fail to understand the “initiative
of the workers,” etc., etc. In reality, as everyone knows, the
revolutionary Social-Democrats have never even thought of
abandoning the everyday, petty work, the mustering of forces,
etc., etc. All they demanded was a clear understanding of the
final aim, a clear presentation of the revolutionary tasks; they
wanted to raise the semi-proletarian and semi-petty-bourgeois
strata to the revolutionary level of the proletariat, not to
reduce this level to that of opportunist considerations such as
“lest the bourgeoisie recoil.” Perhaps the most vivid expression
of this rift between the intellectual opportunist wing and the
proletarian revolutionary wing of the Party was the question:
durfen wir siegen? “Dare we win?” Is it permissible for
us to win? Would it not be dangerous for us to win? Ought we to
win? This question, which seems so strange at first sight, was
raised, however, and had to be raised, because the opportunists
were afraid of victory, were frightening the proletariat away
from it, were predicting that trouble would come of it, were
ridiculing the slogans that straightforwardly called for it.
The same fundamental division into an intellectual-opportunist
and proletarian-revolutionary trend exists also among us, with
the very material difference, however, that here we are faced
with the question of a democratic revolution, and not of a
socialist revolution. The question “dare we win?” which seems so
absurd at first sight, has been raised among us also. It was
raised by Martynov in his Two Dictatorships, in which
he prophesied dire misfortune if we prepare well for and carry
out an insurrection quite successfully. The question has been
raised in all the new Iskra literature dealing with a
provisional revolutionary government, and all the time
persistent though futile efforts have been made to liken
Millerand’s participation in a bourgeois-opportunist government
to
Varlin’s[1]
participation in a petty-bourgeois revolutionary government. It
is embodied in a resolution: “lest the bourgeoisie recoil.” And
although Kautsky, for instance, now tries to wax ironical and
says that our dispute about a
provisional revolutionary
government is like dividing the skin of a bear before the bear
has been killed, this irony only proves that even clever and
revolutionary Social-Democrats are liable to put their foot in
it when they talk about something they know of only by
hearsay. German Social-Democracy is not yet so near to killing
its bear (carrying out a socialist revolution), but the dispute
as to whether we “dare” kill the bear was of enormous importance
from the point of view of principles and of practical
politics. Russian Social-Democrats are not yet so near to being
strong enough to “kill their bear” (to carry out a democratic
revolution), but the question as to whether we “dare” kill it is
of extreme importance for the whole future of Russia and for the
future of Russian Social-Democracy. An army cannot be
energetically and successfully mustered and led unless we are
sure that we “dare” win.
Take our old Economists. They too howled that their opponents
were conspirators, Jacobins (see the Rabocheye Dyelyo,
especially No. 10, and Martynov’s speech in the debate on the
program at the Second Congress), that by plunging into politics
they were divorcing themselves from the masses, that they were
losing sight of the fundamentals of the working-class movement,
ignoring the initiative of the workers, etc., etc. In reality
these supporters of the “initiative of the workers” were
opportunist intellectuals who tried to foist on the workers
their own narrow and philistine conception of the tasks of the
proletariat. In reality the opponents of Economism, as everyone
can see from the old Iskra, did not neglect or push
into the background any of the aspects of Social-Democratic
work, nor did they in the least forget the economic struggle;
but they were able at the same time to present the urgent and
immediate political tasks in their full scope and they opposed
the transformation of the workers’ party into an “economic”
appendage of the liberal bourgeoisie.
The Economists had learned by rote that politics are based on
economics and “understood” this to mean that the political
struggle should be reduced to the level of the economic
struggle. The new-Iskraists have learned by rote that the
economic basis of the democratic revolution is the bourgeois
revolution, and “understood” this to mean that the democratic
aims of the proletariat should be degraded to the level of
bourgeois moderation, to the limits beyond which “the
bourgeoisie
will recoil.” On the pretext of rendering their work
more profound, on the pretext of rousing the initiative of the
workers and pursuing a purely class policy, the Economists were
actually delivering the working class into the hands of the
liberal-bourgeois politicians, i.e., were leading the Party
along a path which objectively meant exactly that. On the same
pretexts, the new-Iskraists are actually betraying the interests
of the proletariat in the democratic revolution to the
bourgeoisie, i.e., are leading the Party along a path which
objectively means exactly that. The Economists thought that
leadership in the political struggle was no concern of the
Social-Democrats but properly the business of the liberals. The
new-Iskraists think that the active conduct of the democratic
revolution is no concern of the Social-Democrats but properly
the business of the democratic bourgeoisie, for, they argue, if
the proletariat takes the leading and pre-eminent part it will
“diminish the sweep” of the revolution.
In short, the new-Iskraists are the epigones of Economism, not
only in their origin at the Second Party Congress, but also in
the manner in which they now present the tactical tasks of the
proletariat in the democratic revolution. They, too, constitute
an intellectual-opportunist wing of the Party. In the sphere of
organisation they made their debut with the anarchist
individualism of intellectuals and finished with
“disorganisation-as-a-process,” fixing in the
“Rules”[2]
[The “Rules of Organisation”
adopted at the Geneva Menshevik Conference in 1905]
adopted by the Conference the separation of the Party’s publishing activities
from the Party organisation, an indirect and practically
four-stage system of elections, a system of Bonapartist
plebiscites instead of democratic representation, and finally
the principle of “agreements” between the part and the whole. In
Party tactics they continued to slide down the same inclined
plane. In the “plan of the Zemstvo campaign” they declared that
speeches to Zemstvo-ists were “the highest type of
demonstration,” finding only two active forces on the political
scene (on the eve of January 9!)—the government and the
democratic bourgeoisie. They made the pressing problem of arming
“more profound” by substituting for the direct and practical
slogan of an appeal to arm, the slogan: arm the people with a
burning desire to arm themselves. The tasks connected with an
armed insurrection, with the establishment of a provisional
government and with a revolutionary-democratic dictatorship have
now been distorted and blunted
by them in their official resolutions. “Lest the bourgeoisie
recoil”—this final chord of their last resolution throws a
glaring light on the question of where their path is leading the
Party.
The democratic revolution in Russia is a bourgeois revolution by
reason of its social and economic content. But a mere repetition
of this correct Marxian proposition is not enough. It must be
properly understood and properly applied in political
slogans. In general, all political liberties that are founded on
present-day, i.e., capitalist, relations of production are
bourgeois liberties. The demand for liberty expresses primarily
the interests of the bourgeoisie. Its representatives were the
first to raise this demand. Its supporters have everywhere used
the liberty they acquired like masters, reducing it to moderate
and meticulous bourgeois doses, combining it with the most
subtle methods of suppressing the revolutionary proletariat in
peaceful times and with brutally cruel methods in stormy times.
But only the rebel Narodniks, the anarchists and the
“Economists” could deduce from this that the struggle for
liberty should be rejected or disparaged. These
intellectual-philistine doctrines could be foisted on the
proletariat only for a time and against its will. The
proletariat always realised instinctively that it needed
political liberty, needed it more than anyone else, despite the
fact that its immediate effect would be to strengthen and to
organise the bourgeoisie. The proletariat expects to find its
salvation not by avoiding the class struggle but by developing
it, by widening it, increasing its consciousness, its
organisation and determination. Whoever degrades the tasks of
the political struggle transforms the Social-Democrat from a
tribune of the people into a trade union secretary. Whoever
degrades the proletarian tasks in a democratic bourgeois
revolution transforms the Social-Democrat from a leader of the
people’s revolution into a leader of a free labour union.
Yes, the people’s revolution. Social-Democracy has
fought, and is quite rightly fighting against the
bourgeois-democratic abuse of the word “people.” It demands that
this word shall not be used to cover up failure to understand
the class antagonisms within the people. It insists
categorically on the need for complete class independence for
the party of the proletariat. But it divides the “people” into
“classes,” not in order that the advanced class may become shut
up within itself, confine itself to narrow aims and emasculate
its activity for fear that the economic rulers of the world will
recoil, but in order that the advanced class, which does not
suffer from the halfheartedness, vacillation and indecision of
the intermediate classes, may with all the greater energy and
enthusiasm fight for the cause of the whole of the people, at
the head of the whole of the people.
That is what the present-day new-Iskraists so often fail to
understand and why they substitute for active political slogans
in the democratic revolution a mere pedantic repetition of the
word “class,” parsed in all genders and cases!
The democratic revolution is a bourgeois revolution. The slogan
of a Black Redistribution, or “land and liberty”—this most
widespread slogan of the peasant masses, down trodden and
ignorant, yet passionately yearning for light and
happiness—is a bourgeois slogan. But we Marxists should
know that there is not, nor can there be, any other path to real
freedom for the proletariat and the peasantry, than the path of
bourgeois freedom and bourgeois progress. We must not forget
that there is not, nor can there be, at the present time, any
other means of bringing Socialism nearer, than complete
political liberty, than a democratic republic, than the
revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the
peasantry. As the representatives of the advanced and only
revolutionary class, revolutionary without reservations, doubts
or looking back, we must present to the whole of the people, as
widely, as boldly and with the utmost initiative possible, the
tasks of the democratic revolution. To degrade these tasks in
theory means making a travesty of Marxism, distorting it in
philistine fashion, while in practical politics it means
delivering the cause of the revolution into the hands of the
bourgeoisie, which will inevitably recoil from the task of
consistently carrying out the revolution. The difficulties that
lie on the road to the complete victory of the revolution are
very great. No one will be able
to blame the representatives of
the proletariat if, having done everything in their power, their
efforts are defeated by the resistance of the reaction, the
treachery of the bourgeoisie and the ignorance of the
masses. But everybody and the class-conscious proletariat above
all, will condemn Social-Democracy if it curtails the
revolutionary energy of the democratic revolution and dampens
revolutionary ardour because it is afraid to win, because it is
actuated by the consideration: lest the bourgeoisie recoil.
Revolutions are the locomotives of history, said
Marx.[3] [In
The Class Struggles in France]
Revolutions are the festivals of
the oppressed and the exploited. At no other time are the masses
of the people in a position to come forward so actively as
creators of a new social order as at a time of revolution. At
such times the people are capable of performing miracles, if
judged by the narrow, philistine scale of gradual progress. But
the leaders of the revolutionary parties must also make their
aims more comprehensive and bold at such a time, so that their
slogans shall always be in advance of the revolutionary
initiative of the masses, serve as a beacon, reveal to them our
democratic and socialist ideal in all its magnitude and
splendour and show them the shortest and most direct route to
complete, absolute and decisive victory. Let us leave to the
opportunists of the Osvobozhdeniye bourgeoisie the task
of inventing roundabout, circuitous paths of compromise out of
fear of the revolution and of the direct path. If we are
compelled by force to drag ourselves along such paths, we shall
be able to fulfil our duty in petty, everyday work also. But let
ruthless struggle first decide the choice of the path. We shall
be traitors to and betrayers of the revolution if we do not use
this festive energy of the masses and their revolutionary ardour
to wage a ruthless and self-sacrificing struggle for the direct
and decisive path. Let the bourgeois opportunists contemplate
the future reaction with craven fear. The workers will not be
frightened either by the thought that the reaction promises to
be terrible or by the thought that the bourgeoisie proposes to
recoil. The workers are not looking forward to striking
bargains, are not asking for sops; they are striving to crush
the reactionary forces without mercy, i.e., to set up the
revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and
the peasantry.
Of course, greater dangers threaten the ship of our Party in
stormy times than in periods of the smooth “sailing” of liberal
progress, which means the painfully slow sweating of the working
class by its exploiters. of course, the tasks of the
revolutionary-democratic dictatorship are a thousand times more
difficult and more complicated than the tasks of an “extreme
opposition” or of the exclusively parliamentary struggle. But
whoever can deliberately prefer smooth sailing and the path of
safe “opposition” in the present revolutionary situation had
better abandon Social-Democratic work for a while, had better
wait until the revolution is over, until the festive days have
passed, when humdrum everyday life starts again and his narrow
routine standards no longer strike such an abominably discordant
note, or constitute such an ugly distortion of the tasks of the
advanced class.
At the head of the whole of the people, and particularly of the
peasantry—for complete freedom, for a consistent democratic
revolution, for a republic! At the head of all the toilers and
the exploited—for Socialism! Such must in practice be the
policy of the revolutionary proletariat, such is the class
slogan which must permeate and determine the solution of every
tactical problem, every practical step of the workers’ party
during the revolution.
* *
*
Notes
[1]
PLACEHOLDER
[2]
PLACEHOLDER
[3]
PLACEHOLDER
simple argument that there are two natural, inevitable and quite
reconcilable trends in every Social-Democratic movement. One
side, they say, lays special emphasis on the ordinary, current,
everyday work, on the necessity of developing propaganda and
agitation, of preparing forces, deepening the movement, etc.,
while the other side lays emphasis on the militant, general
political, revolutionary tasks of the movement, points to the
necessity of armed insurrection, advances the slogans: for a
revolutionary-democratic dictatorship, for a provisional
revolutionary government. Neither one side nor the other should
exaggerate, they say; extremes are bad, both here and there
(and, generally speaking, everywhere in the world), etc., etc.