Fifth Congress of the RSDLP, 1907 (1)

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The Fifth Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party— held in London between April 30 and May 19 (May 13-June 1), 1907. The Congress was attended by 336 delegates with a vote and with consultative voice; of these 105 were Bolsheviks, 97 were Mensheviks, 57 were Bund members, 44 were Polish Social-Democrats, 29 were Latvian Social-Democrats and 4 were “non-factional”. The Bolsheviks were supported by the Poles and Latvians and had a stable majority at the Congress.

The Congress discussed: (1) the report of the Central Committee; (2) the report of the Duma group and its organisation; (3) the attitude to bourgeois parties; (4) the State Duma; (5) the labour congress and non-party labour organisations; (6) trade unions and the Party; (7) partisan actions; (8) unemployment, the economic crisis and lock-outs; (9) organisational questions; (10) the International Congress at Stuttgart (May 1, militarism); (11) work in the army; (12) miscellaneous. The most important point on the agenda was Lenin’s report on the attitude towards bourgeois parties. Bolshevik resolutions were adopted on all questions of principle. The Central Committee elected by the Congress consisted of 5 Bolsheviks, 4 Mensheviks, 1 Latvian and 2 Polish Social-Democrats. Alternate members of the CC were also elected: 10 Bolsheviks, 7 Mensheviks, 3 Polish and 2 Latvian Social-Democrats.

The Congress ended in the complete victory of Bolshevism over the opportunist wing of the Party, the Mensheviks. For further material on the Fifth Congress of the B.S.D.L.P. see Lenin s article “The Attitude Towards Bourgeois Parties” (see present volume, pp. 489-509).

April 30-May 19 (May 13-June 1), 1907

1. Speech During the Discussion on the Congress Agenda. May 2 (15)

From the discussion on this question it has become quite clear that major differences of opinion on tactics divide the various trends within the Social-Democratic Party. Who would have thought that, under such circumstances, the proposal would be made to remove all questions of principle from the Congress agenda? And what sophistic arguments were indulged in here in defence of removing these questions of principle—allegedly for the sake of being practical and business-like!

Let me remind you that the RSDLP was long ago confronted with the question of the tasks of the proletariat in the bourgeois-democratic revolution. This question was discussed as far back as the beginning of 1905, before the revolution, both at the Third Congress of the RSDLP, that is, of its Bolshevik section, and at the Geneva Conference of the Mensheviks, which was held simultaneously. At the time, the Mensheviks themselves placed questions involving general principles on the agenda of their congress.

At the time, they themselves discussed the principles underlying the tactics of the proletariat in the bourgeois revolution, and adopted studied decisions on this score. The fact that it is now proposed to throw out such questions is the result of a sense of despondency, and we must fight against this frame of mind, not succumb to it!

Mention was made of the experience of the West-European Social-Democratic parties and their business-like congresses, but I must tell you that at their congresses the Germans frequently discussed questions that were more abstract and more theoretical than those dealing with an appraisal of the revolution taking place in our country, and the tasks of the proletariat in this revolution. We must not take from the experience of other parties things that bring us down to the level of some period of everyday routine. We must take that which brings us up to the level of general questions, of the tasks of the entire revolutionary struggle of the entire proletariat. We must learn from the best examples, and not from the worst.

We are told—“Serious tactical questions cannot be decided by the majority vote of a dozen”. What is this but sophistry? What is this but a helpless shift from adherence to principle to lack of principle?

A solution of the problem is never achieved through voting. For several years now we have been deciding questions of the Marxist appraisal of our revolution. For several years now we have been putting our theoretical views and general tactical decisions to the acid test of experience of our revolution. And we are now being told that it is not yet time to sum up this Party activity! It is not right, they say, to decide on the fundamental principles underlying our tactics; instead it is necessary to follow in the wake of events, making decisions from occasion to occasion....

Just recall the Stockholm Congress. At that congress the Mensheviks, who had gained the upper hand, withdrew their own resolution appraising the given period, withdrew their own resolution on the attitude towards the bourgeois parties. What was the outcome? It led to the Central Committee having no grounds of principle for the solution of problems confronting it; it led to the Central Committee being at a loss for a whole year, with no policy whatever. One day it was in favour of a constituent assembly, the next day it hurriedly advocated a Duma ministry, and the following day “the Duma as an organ of power for the convocation of a constituent assembly”; now it was a Duma with full legislative authority, then blocs with the Cadets.... Is this what you call a consistent proletarian policy? (Applause from the Centre and from the Bolshevik benches.)

We are told: “For the sake of peace in the Party, for the sake of practical work let us avoid general questions”. This is sophistry. Such questions must not be evaded; such evasion will not result in peace, but only in blinder and hence more irate and less fruitful Party strife.

Such questions cannot be evaded. They force their way into everything. Recall Plekhanov’s words at the opening of the congress: ... Since our revolution was bourgeois, he reasoned, we had to make particular haste to attract allies from among the bourgeoisie. I maintain that the principles underlying this line of reasoning are erroneous. I maintain that unless you analyse these principles you are condemning the Party to endless practical mistakes.

In this same speech Plekhanov stated that opportunism was feeble in the Russian Social-Democratic Party. This may be so if one considers the works of Plekhanov himself feeble! (Applause from the Bolshevik benches.) But I am of the opinion that opportunism manifests itself in our Party in the very fact that, at the first really general Party congress, the desire is expressed that general questions concerning the principles underlying our tactics in the bourgeois revolution should be removed from the agenda. We must not remove theoretical questions from the agenda, but raise all the practical work of our Party, to the level of theoretical clarification of the tasks of a workers’ party. (Applause from the Bolsheviks.)

2. Speech on the Report on the Activities of the Central Committee. May 4 (17)

I should have liked to speak solely on the political aspect of the question. But Comrade Abramovich’s last speech compels me to deal briefly with his remarks. When Comrade Abramovich spoke about the “besieged” Menshevik Central Committee, I thought to myself: “Poor Mensheviks! Again they are in a state of siege. They are ’besieged’ not only when they are in the minority, but even when they are in the majority I”

Are there not certain inner reasons stemming from the very nature of Menshevik policy, which impel the Mensheviks to complain eternally about being besieged by the proletarian party?

What are the facts adduced by Comrade Abramovich regarding the siege of the Menshevik Central Committee? There were three—the agitation for an extraordinary congress, the conference of military and combat organisations, and finally “other organisational questions”, as Comrade Abramovich put it.

Let us examine these three facts.

Agitation for an extraordinary congress became wide spread when it emerged that the Central Committee was indisputably running counter to the will of the majority of the Party. Let me remind you that this was after the Central Committee had launched a slogan calling for support of a responsible ministry. At that time, the Bund had not joined our Party, but the Poles and the Latvians had. Both the former and the latter quite definitely rejected the policy of the CC Hence, it is an absolutely indisputable fact that the CC was at the time at variance with the vast majority of the Party. Who, then, was besieging whom—was it the majority of the Party that besieged the Party CC when it demanded that the latter render an account of its activities to the congress? Or was it the CC that besieged the Party by going counter to it? Call to mind how far Plekhanov went at the time. His letter against the congress was published in Sotsial-Demokrat, official publication of the CC In this letter Plekhanov reacted to the call for a congress with suspicions concerning the motives behind the agitation, and tirades about the workers’ mites. Give this thought: was it not Plekhanov who was wrong to permit himself to do such things against the majority of the Party, which was demanding a congress?

I will say only this—after the decision of the November All-Russian Conference of the RSDLP the agitation for an extraordinary congress ceased.

The second fact—the conference of military and combat organisations. There were two conferences. This, of course, is unfortunate, but it is strange to see in this anything like a “siege” of the CC Would it not have been better to explain what was wrong with the decisions of the conference which took place independently of the CC, rather than to dismiss the matter by complaining about a siege? Let me remind you that representatives of the Moscow and St. Petersburg committees were present at both conferences—hence no Party group as such was linked up with either conference. The resolutions of the Bolshevik conference of military and combat organisations, published in November 1906, have not so far encountered any serious criticism.

The third fact—“other organisational questions”. Just what does this mean? Concretely, what is included in this. Is it the St. Petersburg split at the time of the elections, engineered by the Mensheviks with the help of the CC? But it would be simply ridiculous to speak about a siege of the CC in this connection.

I shall now proceed to the political aspect of the question. Our main task is to examine how the CC guided the class struggle of the proletariat, how it applied in practice the tactics adopted at the Unity Congress.

The first slogan which the Central Committee offered the Party was that of support for the demand for a “Duma” or “responsible” ministry. Comrade Martov has stated to us here that this slogan was put out for the purpose of extending and intensifying the conflict between the Duma and the government.

Is that the case? What should the proletarian extension and intensification of the conflict consist in? It should, of course, consist in pointing out the real field of struggle and clashes giving rise to the conflict—the field of the class struggle in general, and, in this particular case, the struggle of the people against the old regime. To extend and intensify the Duma conflict, we ourselves should have understood and explained to the people that the Duma conflict was simply an incomplete and distorted reflection of the conflict between the people and the old regime, that the struggle in the Duma was a faint echo of the revolutionary struggle outside the Duma. To extend and intensify the conflict, we should have raised political consciousness and political demands from the level of Duma slogans to the level of those calling for a general revolutionary struggle. The CC acted in the opposite way. It blunted and narrowed down the slogans calling for a revolutionary struggle to the dimensions of those calling for a Duma ministry. It did not call on the people to fight for power, even though this struggle stemmed from the entire objective situation, but to struggle for a deal between the liberals and the government. Whether deliberately or not, the CC called upon the Party to adopt the slogans of the parliamentary “peaceful” path at a time when actually objective conditions demanded a revolutionary struggle outside of parliament. Actually there was no serious social movement whatever for a “responsible minis try”, nor could there have been one. Even the Menshevik Social-Democratic group in the Duma (the First Duma) did not adopt this slogan of the CC (Martov: “That’s not true!”) Yes, it is true, Comrade Martov, and a simple reference to the resolution of the CC and to the verbatim reports of the First Duma will show that it is true.

Irrespective of the desires and motives of the CC, its slogan was actually an adaptation to liberal policy. And this adaptation could not have yielded any results, because liberal policy did not reflect the genuine social movement of the time but was merely a dream of halting the revolution, although it has by no means halted yet. The course of events showed that this entire business with the “responsible ministry” was an attack with ineffective weapons.

The second slogan of the CC dates back to the period of the July strike. We must not blame the CC for the failure of the strike at the time. It is not to the discredit, but rather to the credit, of a central committee like that of the Mensheviks that it on that occasion nevertheless went to meet the revolution half-way. It is not the fault of the CC that, from its St. Petersburg purview, it did not know the sentiments of the proletariat throughout Russia. Nor can we declare it to be a mistake for us to have been confident of an uprising at the time, and to have expected it. The uprising actually took place, and our preliminary slogans, our policy prior to the uprising, were among the elements which made for the success or failure of this uprising.

The mistake of the Central Committee was, as I see it, in endeavouring, once the revolutionary struggle reached the stage of an uprising, to confine that struggle to non-revolutionary or curtailed revolutionary slogans. This was reflected in the CC slogan—“Partial mass expressions of protest”. This was reflected still more vividly in the slogan—“For the Duma as an organ of power for the convocation of a constituent assembly”. The issue of such lifeless slogans was tantamount to adapting proletarian policy to the policy of the liberal bourgeoisie. And once again events showed how utterly vain and impotent were the attempts to effect such an adaptation. Complaints and whining about the helplessness of the workers’ party are frequently heard among us. But let me tell you that you are helpless precisely because you dull the edge of your slogans. (Applause from the Bolshevik benches.)

To proceed. Let us examine the question of the bloc with the Cadets during the elections to the Second Duma. In his report on behalf, of the CC Martov washed his hands of this question with amazingly complacent formalism. You see, he says, the CC agreed that blocs are permissible, and in strict accordance with the CC directive blocs were permitted! (Laughter.) It would not be at all amiss if, in a political report of the CC, one were to base oneself not on the formal legitimacy of a decision but on the essential correctness of the given policy as tested in practice. We Bolsheviks constantly asserted that the notorious Black-Hundred danger was nothing but liberal defence against the danger from the Left, and that if we were guided in our policy by fear of the Black-Hundred danger, we should actually be rising to the liberal bait. The election results showed that we were right. In a number of cities the election returns refuted the tales of the liberals and Mensheviks. (Voices: “What about Kiev, Poland, and Wilno!”) I haven’t the time to go into individual localities, but I shall deal with the political results in general. Statistician Smirnov calculated the election returns for 22 cities as follows: 41,000 for the Left bloc; 74,000 for the Cadets; 34,500 for the Octobrists, and 17,000 for the monarchists. Of the 72,000 votes cast in 16 other cities, 58.7 per cent went to the opposition and 21 per cent went to the reactionaries. The elections revealed the fictitiousness of the Black-Hundred danger, while the policy of the “permissibility” of blocs with the Cadets, allegedly by way of exception, proved to be a policy of proletarian dependence on the liberal bourgeoisie.

Let me tell you that you should not scorn theoretical disputes, or contemptuously dismiss differences in opinion as factional inventions. Our old disputes, our theoretical, and especially our tactical, differences are constantly being converted, in the course of the revolution, into the most downright practical differences. It is impossible to take a single step in practical politics without coming up against the very same fundamental problems underlying an appraisal of the bourgeois revolution, the relations between the Cadets and Trudoviks, and so forth. Practical experience does not erase differences of opinion; it sharpens and vitalises them. And it was not by chance that such prominent Mensheviks as Plekhanov reduced to the absurd the policy of blocs with the Cadets. In advancing his celebrated “Duma with full powers”, Plekhanov advocated a common slogan for the proletariat and the liberal bourgeoisie. Plekhanov only reflects more saliently and more forcibly than others the quintessence, the basic tendency, of the entire Menshevik policy—replacing the independent line of the working class with adaptation to the liberal bourgeoisie. The bankruptcy of our CC was primarily and above all the bankruptcy of this policy of opportunism. (Applause from the Bolsheviks and part of the Centre.)

3. Speech on the Report on the Activities of the Duma Group. May 8 (21)

I should like once again to bring the discussion back to an appraisal, from the standpoint of principle, of the policy of the Duma group. Comrade Tsereteli stated: “Even though we may have made blunders, we were not guilty of political vacillation”. I believe that it would be absolutely wrong to blame a young Duma group, which is only just beginning to function, for its mistakes. But the fact of the matter is that there was vacillation in the very policy of the group. And we must frankly admit this vacillation, and make it our business to get rid of it, not for the purpose of condemning individuals, but in order to educate the proletarian party as a whole.

Comrade Tsereteli referred to the history of Europe. “The year ’48,” he said, “not only taught us that the conditions for socialism were not yet ripe, but also that it is impossible to fight for freedom without some sort of alliance with bourgeois democracy.” Comrade Tsereteli’s argument is revisionism of the first water. On the contrary, both the revolution of 1848 and subsequent historical experience have taught international Social-Democracy the very opposite, namely, that bourgeois democracy takes its stand more and more against the proletariat, that the fight for freedom is waged consistently only where it is led by the proletariat. The year 1848 does not teach us to make alliances with bourgeois democrats, but rather the need to free the least developed sections of the masses from the influence of bourgeois democracy, which is incapable of fighting even for democracy. When Comrade Tsereteli referred to the experience of 1848 in the spirit of Bernsteinism, he was demonstrating the very revisionism that Plekhanov had without good reason assured us was weak in our Party. Comrade Tsereteli’s statement about the food relief commission was also typical of his wavering on matters of principle. “We have not sufficiently stressed the legality of our proposal to investigate the case on the spot,” stated Tsereteli. “We were distracted by general discussions and missed the chance to convince others with arguments on the legality of our plan. The next time we shall correct this error.”

This presentation of the question throws vivid light on the whole shakiness of our group’s position. Just imagine — people are saddened by the insufficiency of their reasoning in favour of legality! Can they really not see that the point at issue is not one of reasons for or references to legality, or “convincing” the Cadets or anyone else? Surely it must be clear to them that by the very nature of things, the government could not and would not have allowed investigation on the spot, since it saw in it (and justly so) a direct appeal to the masses.

No matter how many references to legality we might make, it would not change the essence of things. And in stead of looking down—convincing the masses of the people, showing them the truth—Tsereteli looks up, desiring to convince the liberals, to attract them with legality.... That is real bourgeois parliamentarianism. And the fruitlessness of such petty, miserly, wretched playing at politics strikes one immediately, for it is clear that neither the Mensheviks nor the Cadets can budge Stolypin from his policy, by any parliamentary ruses. Isolation from the masses is a self-evident, fact; advantages to be derived from legal persuasion of the Stolypins and the Cadets are but idle dreams of an idle intellectual.

I see the same vain opportunist efforts in the negotiations with the Narodowci; reference to Bebel as a defence of them is most feeble. Bebel, they say, stated: If the cause requires it, we will have dealings with the devil’s own grandmother. Bebel was right, comrades: if the cause requires it, then, of course, you may have dealings even with the devil’s grandmother. But can you tell me for what cause your dealings with the Narodowci were necessary? For none whatever. The advantages of such relations are nil. And so it seems that what Bebel said was correct, but you understand him incorrectly.

All this going to the Narodowci, votes for Golovin, attempts to delete the demand for confiscation are simply component parts of a single incorrect line. They are not manifestations of inexperience, but manifestations of political vacillation. And from this point of view inviting Mr Prokopovich was likewise no trifle. We have been told here that Mr. Prokopovich is not present and that without him we cannot condemn his action. This is merely sending us from Pontius to Pilate. At the St. Petersburg conference we were told that we should put it off until the congress, that we could not get to the bottom of it without a congress. Now at the congress we are told that we cannot do anything without Prokopovich—let us put it off and refer it to the St. Petersburg organisation. That is sophistry.

Prokopovich is a man of letters whose works are known to everyone. He is the type of bourgeois intellectual who has penetrated into our Party with definite, opportunist aims. His joining the Party in the Railway District was sheer hypocrisy. It was a screen for work in the Duma milieu. And our CC is to blame for his having used such a screen. Our Duma group is to blame for having made it easy for liberal writers collaborating with Tovarishch, who do not work in the Party and who are hostile in principle to the Party, to enter our Party by the back door, making use of the Duma.

Cherevanin has here defended the policy of the Duma group; granted the Cadets are backward at present, that they are reactionary at present, he says. But that is not for ever. There is no need to regard it as permanent. The Cadets are no good in a period of decline, but they may be of use during a period of upsurge when they will rapidly swing to the Left.

This is the usual Menshevik line of reasoning, only expressed with particular directness and sharpness. As a result, its falsity becomes more obvious. Take two major land marks of the revolution—October 1905, when the peak was reached, and the spring of 1907, the period of greatest decline. Were the Cadets of any use to democracy in 1905? No. The Mensheviks themselves admitted this in Nachalo. Witte is an agent of the stock exchange, and Struve is Witte’s agent—that is what the Mensheviks wrote at the time, and correctly so. At that time the Mensheviks agreed with us that we should not support the Cadets, but expose them and lower their prestige among the democrats.

Now, in the spring of 1907, once again you are all beginning to agree with us that the Cadets are worthless democrats? And so it seems that the Cadets are no good either in the period of upsurge or in the period of decline. Any historian would call the interval between these periods a period of wavering, when even a section of the Social-Democratic movement veered towards a petty-bourgeois policy, when that section, vainly endeavouring to “support” the Cadets, brought nothing but harm to the workers’ party, and in the end realised its mistake.

A few words about Trotsky. He spoke on behalf of the “Centre”, and expressed the views of the Bund. He fulminated against us for introducing our “unacceptable” resolution. He threatened an outright split, the withdrawal of the Duma group, which is supposedly offended by our resolution. I emphasise these words. I urge you to reread our resolution attentively.

Is it not monstrous to see something offensive in a calm acknowledgement of mistakes, unaccompanied by any sharply expressed censure, to speak of a split in connection with it? Does this not show the sickness in our Party, a fear of admitting mistakes, a fear of criticising the Duma group?

The very possibility that the question can be presented in this way shows that there is something non-partisan in our Party. This non-partisan something is the Duma group’s relations with the Party. The Duma group must be more of a Party group, must have closer connections with the Party, must be more subordinate to all proletarian work. Then wailings about insults and threats of a split will disappear.

When Trotsky stated: “Your unacceptable resolution prevents your right ideas being put into effect,” I called out to him: “Give us your resolution!” Trotsky replied: “No, first withdraw yours.”

A fine position indeed for the “Centre” to take, isn’t it? Because of our (in Trotsky’s opinion) mistake (“tactlessness”), he punishes the whole Party, depriving it of his “tactful” exposition of the very same principles! Why did you not get your resolution passed, we shall be asked in the localities. Because the Centre took umbrage at it, and in a huff refused to set forth its own principles! (Applause from the Bolsheviks and part of the Centre.) That is a position based not on principle, but on the Centre’s lack of principle.

We came to the Congress with two tactical lines which have long been known to the Party. It would be stupid and unworthy of a workers’ party to cover up differences of opinion and conceal them. We must compare the two points of view more clearly. We must express them in their application to all questions of our policy. We must sum up our Party experience clearly. Only in this way shall we be doing our duty and put an end to vacillation in the policy of the proletariat. (Applause from the Bolsheviks and part of the Centre.)

4. Statement of Fact, May 10 (23)

Comrade Martov, quoting from the interview I gave L’Humanite (signed Étienne Avenard), has interpreted several passages incorrectly.

The interview said that the CC (its Menshevik part, of course) secretly and stealthily gave information to the Cadets. This statement of mine has now been confirmed by the discussions at the Congress. It has transpired at this Congress that, as far back as November 1906, Dan went privately to Milyukov and “took tea” with him, Nabokov, and leaders of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Popular Socialists. Dan did not consider it necessary to report this either to the CC or to the St. Petersburg Committee.

It was this meeting with the Cadets, which was not reported either to the CC or to the St. Petersburg Committee, that constituted secretly and stealthily giving information to the Cadets.

Further, the interview states that the Mensheviks did not reject the Cadets’ disgraceful proposal to give the workers’ seats to the Mensheviks in exchange for Menshevik assistance to the Cadets. Comrade Martov points out that the Mensheviks rejected this verbally. I assert that the Mensheviks’ deeds contradicted their verbal rejection; (1) verbally the Mensheviks promised to give all the seats to the worker curia. Actually, when all the workers’ delegates, in a body, called on the Mensheviks (by a majority of 220-230 votes against 10-20) to abandon their “covert support” of the Cadets, the Mensheviks refused to obey them; (2) after January 25, after the conclusion of the Left bloc, the Mensheviks stated in print the condition on which they would assist it—freedom of action for the Menshevik electors at the second stage of the elections. Objectively, this condition could mean only one thing—their readiness to support the Cadets against the Social-Democrats at the second stage.

N. Lenin

5. Statement of May 11 (24)

The bureau was right (Voice: “Of course it was!”) when it explained that it was impermissible to revoke yesterday’s decision. In order to revoke it, there must be a special decision of the Congress with regard to the permissibility of putting such a proposal to the vote. In the present case no one proposed revoking yesterday’s decision. It still remains in force. Is deferment permissible? Abramovich lost sight of the most important thing, namely, that the question of tabling the decision was the result of new circumstances (the motive given by the Latvians), which arose after yesterday’s voting on the directives. This is the new motive which Abramovich failed to take into account. Hence Werner’s proposal is formally correct.

6. Speech on the Attitude Towards Bourgeois Parties. May 12 (25)

The question of our attitude to the bourgeois parties is the nub of the differences in matters of principle that have long divided Russian Social-Democracy into two camps. Even before the first major successes of the revolution, or even before the revolution—if it is permissible to express oneself in this way about the first half of 1905— two distinct points of view on this question already existed. The disputes were over the appraisal of the bourgeois revolution in Russia. The two trends in the Social-Democracy agreed that this revolution was a bourgeois revolution. But they parted company in their understanding of this category, and in their appraisal of the practical and political conclusions to be drawn from it. One wing of the Social-Democracy—the Mensheviks—interpreted this concept to mean that the bourgeoisie was the motive force in the bourgeois revolution, and that the proletariat could occupy only the position of the “extreme opposition”. The proletariat could not undertake the task of conducting the revolution independently or of leading it. These differences of opinion stood out in particularly high relief during the disputes on the question of a provisional government (to be more exact, whether the Social-Democrats should participate in a provisional government)—disputes which raged in 1905. The Mensheviks denied that the Social-Democrats could be permitted to participate in a provisional revolutionary government, primarily because they considered the bourgeoisie the motive force or leader in the bourgeois revolution. This view found most clear expression in the resolution of the Caucasian Mensheviks (1905), approved by the new Iskra. This resolution state.d forth right that Social-Democratic participation in a provisional government might frighten the bourgeoisie away, and thereby reduce the scope of the revolution. We have here a clear admission that the proletariat cannot and should not go further than the bourgeoisie in the bourgeois revolution.

The Bolsheviks held the opposite view. They maintained unequivocally that in its social and economic content our revolution was a bourgeois revolution. This means that the aims of the revolution that is now taking place in Russia do not exceed the bounds of bourgeois society. Even the fullest possible victory of the present revolution— in other words, the achievement of the most democratic republic possible, and the confiscation of all landed estates by the peasantry—would not in any way affect the foundations of the bourgeois social system. Private ownership of the means of production (or private farming on the land, irrespective of its juridical owner) and commodity economy will remain. The contradictions of capitalist society—and the most important of them is the contradiction between wage-labour and capital—will not only remain, but become even more acute and profound, developing in a more extensive and purer form.

All this should be absolutely beyond doubt to any Marxist. But from this it does not at all follow that the bourgeoisie is the motive force or leader in the revolution. Such a conclusion would be a vulgarisation of Marxism, would be a failure to understand the class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. The fact of the matter is that our revolution is taking place at a time when the proletariat has already begun to recognise itself as distinct class and to unite in an independent, class organisation. Under such circumstances the proletariat makes use of all the achievements of democracy, makes use of every step towards freedom, to strengthen its class organisation against the bourgeoisie. Hence the inevitable endeavour of the bourgeoisie to smooth off the sharp corners of the revolution, not to allow it to reach its culmination, not to give the proletariat the opportunity of carrying on its class struggle unhampered. The antagonism between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat forces the bourgeoisie to strive to preserve certain instruments and institutions of the old regime in order to use them against the proletariat.

At the very best, therefore, the bourgeoisie, in the period of greatest revolutionary upsurge, still constitutes an element that wavers between revolution and reaction (and does not do so fortuitously, but of necessity, by force of its economic interests). Hence the bourgeoisie cannot be the leader in our revolution.

The major distinguishing feature of this revolution is the acuteness of the agrarian question. It is much more acute in Russia than in any other country in similar conditions. The so-called peasant reform of 1861 was carried out so inconsistently and so undemocratically that the principal foundations of feudal landlord domination remained unshaken. For this reason, the agrarian question, that is, the struggle of the peasants against the landowners for the land, proved one of the touchstones of the present revolution. This struggle for the land inevitably forces enormous masses of the peasantry into the democratic revolution, for only democracy can give them land by giving them supremacy in the state. The victory of the peasantry presupposes the complete destruction of landlordism.

Such an alignment of social forces inevitably leads to the conclusion that the bourgeoisie can be neither the motive force nor the leader in the revolution. Only the proletariat is capable of consummating the revolution, that is, of achieving a complete victory. But this victory can be achieved only provided the proletariat succeeds in getting a large section of the peasantry to follow its lead. The victory of the present revolution in Russia is possible only as the revolutionary democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry.

The correctness of this presentation of the question, which dates back to the beginning of 1905—I am referring to the Third Congress of the RSDLP in the spring of 1905— found full confirmation in events at all the most important stages of the Russian revolution. Our theoretical conclusions were confirmed in practice in the course of the revolutionary struggle. In October 1905, at the very height of the revolution, the proletariat was at the head, the bourgeoisie wavered and vacillated, and the peasantry wrecked the landed estates. In all the embryonic organs of revolutionary power (the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies, the Soviets of Peasants’ and Soldiers’ Deputies, etc.) representatives of the proletariat were the main participants, followed by the most advanced of the insurgent peasantry. At the time of the First Duma, the peasants immediately formed a democratic “Trudovik” group, which was more to the Left, in other words, more revolutionary, than the liberals—the Cadets. In the elections to the Second Duma, the peasants defeated the liberals outright. The proletariat marched ahead, the peasantry more or less resolutely following it against the autocracy and against the vacillating liberals.

I shall now pass to the draft resolutions we have before us. The difference in points of view I have described is fully reflected in the antithesis between the Bolshevik and Menshevik resolutions. The Bolshevik draft is based on a definition of the class content of the principal types of bourgeois parties. We drew up our resolution in the same way for the Unity Congress in Stockholm. There we noted three principal types of bourgeois parties: the Octobrists, the liberals and the peasant democrats (at that time they were not yet fully delineated, and the word “Trudovik” did not exist in the Russian political vocabulary). Our resolution of today retains that same structure. It is simply a modification of the Stockholm resolution. The course of events has confirmed its basic postulates to such an extent that only very small changes were required for due consideration to be paid to experience acquired in the First and Second Dumas.

The Menshevik resolution for the Unity Congress gave no analysis whatever either of types of parties or their class content. The resolution states helplessly that “bourgeois-democratic parties are only just forming in Russia and therefore have not yet had the time to acquire the character of stable parties”, and that “at the present historical moment in Russia there are no parties in existence that could simultaneously blend within themselves a consistent democracy and a revolutionary character”. Is this not a helpless declaration? Is this not a deviation from Marxist tasks? Outside the ranks of the proletariat there will never be absolute stability of parties or fully “consistent” democracy. It is, however, our duty to lay bare the class roots of all parties that appear on the historical scene. And our resolution shows that this is something quite feasible. The three types of parties outlined in this resolution have proved sufficiently “stable” throughout a whole year of revolution, as I have already shown by the example of the First and Second Dumas.

What has proved unstable is the views of the Mensheviks. Their present resolution is a tremendous step backward in comparison with their draft of last year. Let us examine this resolution, which was published in Narodnaya Duma, No. 12 (March 24, 1907). The preamble to this resolution points first to a “number of tasks common” to the proletariat and to bourgeois democracy; secondly, it says that the proletariat must “combine its activities with those of other social classes and groups”; thirdly, it says that in a country where the peasantry predominates and urban democracy is weak, the proletariat “by its own movement impels forward”... “the entire bourgeois democracy of the country”; fourthly, “that the democratic movement of the country has not yet found its ultimate expression in the present grouping of bourgeois parties”, which reflects the “realism” and unpreparedness to fight on the part of the urban bourgeoisie at one extreme, and at the other, peasant “illusions of petty-bourgeois revolutionism and agrarian utopias”. Such is the preamble. Now let us look at the conclusions; the first conclusion is that, while pursuing an independent policy, the proletariat must fight both against the opportunism and constitutional illusions of the one, and the revolutionary illusions and reactionary economic projects of the other. The second conclusion is that it is necessary to “combine our activities with the activities of the other parties”.

A resolution like this does not answer any one of the questions that every Marxist is obliged to ask himself, if he wants to define the attitude of the workers’ party to the bourgeois parties. What are these general questions? First of all, it is necessary to define the class nature of the parties. Then it is necessary to make clear to oneself the basic alignment of the various classes in the present revolution in general, that is, in what relation the interests of these classes stand to the continuation or development of the revolution. Further, it is necessary to pass over from classes in general to the present-day role of the various parties, or various groups of parties. Finally, it is necessary to furnish practical directives concerning the policy of the workers’ party on this question.

There is nothing of this in the Menshevik resolution. It is simply an evasion of these questions, evasion by means of general phrase-mongering about “combining” the policy of the proletariat with the policy of the bourgeoisie. Not a word is said about how to “combine”, and with precisely which bourgeois-democratic parties. This is a resolution about parties, but without parties. This is a resolution to define our attitude, which does nothing to define our attitude towards the various parties. It is impossible to take such a resolution as a guide, for it provides the greatest freedom to “combine” anything you like and in any way you like. Such a resolution does not restrict anyone; it is a most “liberal” resolution in the fullest sense of that word. It can be interpreted backwards and forwards. But of Marxism— not a grain. The fundamental propositions of Marxism have been so thoroughly forgotten here that any Left Cadet could have subscribed to such a resolution. Take its main points— “tasks in common” for the proletariat and bourgeois democracy—is that not the very thing the entire liberal press is vociferating about?... The need to “combine”—the very thing the Cadets are demanding.... The struggle against opportunism on the Right and revolutionism on the Left— but that is the pet slogan of the Left Cadets, who say they want to sit between the Trudoviks and bourgeois liberals! This is not the position of a workers’ party distinct from and independent of bourgeois democracy; it is the position of a liberal who wants to occupy the “centre” in the midst of the bourgeois democrats.

Let us examine the gist of the Mensheviks’ proposition: by its own movement the proletariat “impels forward” “the entire bourgeois democracy of the country”. Is this true? Absolutely not. Just recall the major events in our revolution. Take the Bulygin Duma. In reply to the tsar’s appeal to take the legal path, to adopt his, the tsar’s, conditions for convening the first popular representative body, the proletariat answered with a resolute refusal. The proletariat called on the people to wipe out this institution, to prevent its birth. The proletariat called on all the revolutionary classes to fight for better conditions for the convocation of a popular representative body. This in no way ruled out the question of utilising even bad institutions if they actually came into being despite all our efforts. This was a fight against allowing the implementation of worse conditions for convening a popular representative body. In appraising the boycott, the logical and historical mistake is often made of confusing the fight on the basis of the given institution, with the fight against the establishment of that institution.

What reply did the liberal bourgeoisie make to the proletariat’s appeal? It replied with a general outcry against the boycott. It invited us to the Bulygin Duma. The liberal professors urged the students to go on with their studies, instead of organising strikes. In reply to the proletariat’s appeal to fight, the bourgeoisie answered by fighting against the proletariat. As far back as that, the antagonism between these classes, even in a democratic revolution, manifested itself fully and definitely. The bourgeoisie wanted to narrow the scope of the proletariat’s struggle, to prevent it going beyond the bounds of the convocation of the Bulygin Duma.

Professor Vinogradov, the shining light of liberal science, wrote just at that time: “It would be the good fortune of Russia if our revolution proceeded along the road of 1848-49, and its misfortune if it proceeded along the road taken by the revolution of 1789-93.” What this “democrat” called good. fortune was the road of an unconsummated revolution, the road of a defeated uprising! If our revolution were to deal as ruthlessly with its enemies as the French revolution did in 1793, then, according to this “liberal”, it would be necessary to call upon the Prussian drill sergeant to re-establish law and order. The Mensheviks say that our bourgeoisie are “unprepared to fight”. Actually, however, the bourgeoisie were prepared to fight, prepared to fight against the proletariat, to fight against the “excessive” victories of the revolution.

To proceed. Take October to December 1905. There is no need to prove that during this period of the high tide of our revolution, the bourgeoisie displayed “preparedness to fight” against the proletariat. This was fully acknowledged by the Menshevik press of that day. The bourgeoisie, including the Cadets, tried in every way to denigrate the revolution, to picture it as blind and savage anarchy. The bourgeoisie not only failed to support the organs of insurrection set up by the people—all the various Soviets of Workers’ Deputies, Soviets of Peasants’ and Soldiers’ Deputies, etc.—but it feared these institutions and fought against them. Call to mind Struve, who termed these institutions a degrading spectacle. In them the bourgeoisie saw a revolution that had gone too far ahead. The liberal bourgeoisie wanted to divert the energy of the popular revolutionary struggle into the narrow channel of police-controlled constitutional reaction.

There is no need to dwell at length on the behaviour of the liberals in the First and the Second Dumas. Even the Mensheviks acknowledged that,, in the First Duma, the Cadets hindered the revolutionary policy of the Social-Democrats and, to some extent, of the Trudoviks, that they hampered their activity. And in the Second Duma the Cadets openly joined up with the Black Hundreds, gave outright support to the government.

To say at present that the movement of the proletariat “impels the entire bourgeois democracy of the country forward” means scorning facts. To maintain silence at the present time about the counter-revolutionary nature of our bourgeoisie means departing entirely from the Marxist point of view, means completely forgetting the viewpoint of the class struggle.

In their resolution, the Mensheviks speak of the “realism” of the urban bourgeois classes. Strange terminology this, which betrays them, against their will. We are accustomed to seeing a special meaning attached to the word realism, among the Right-wing Social-Democrats. For instance, Plekhanov’s Sovremennaya Zhizn contrasted the “realism” of the Right Social-Democrats with the “revolutionary romanticism” of the Left Social-Democrats. What then does the Menshevik resolution have in view when it speaks of realism? It appears that the resolution praises the bourgeoisie for its moderation and punctiliousness!

These arguments of the Mensheviks about the “realism” of the bourgeoisie, about its “unpreparedness” to fight— taken in conjunction with the open declaration of their tactical platform on the “one-sided hostility” of the Social-Democrats towards the liberals—speak of one thing, and of one thing only. In point of fact, it all means that the independent policy of the workers’ party is replaced by a policy of dependence on the liberal bourgeoisie. And this, the substance of Menshevism, is not something that we have invented or have drawn solely from their theoretical arguments—it has manifested itself in all the major steps of their policy throughout the past year. Take the “responsible ministry”, blocs with the Cadets, voting for Golovin, etc. This is what has actually constituted the policy of dependence on the liberals.

And what do the Mensheviks say about peasant democracy? The resolution puts the “realism” of the bourgeoisie and the “agrarian utopias” of the peasantry on a par, off setting the one by the other as being of equal significance or at any rate wholly analogous. We must fight, say the Mensheviks, equally against the opportunism of the bourgeoisie and against the utopianism, the “petty-bourgeois revolutionism”, of the peasantry. This is typical of the Menshevik line of reasoning. And it is worth while dwelling on this, for it is radically wrong. From it inevitably ensue a number of mistaken conclusions in practical policy. This criticism of peasant utopias harbours a lack of understanding of the proletariat’s task—to urge the peasantry on ward to complete victory in the democratic revolution.

Just look carefully at what is behind the agrarian utopias of the peasantry in the present revolution. What is their main utopia? Undoubtedly, it is the idea of equalitarianism, the conviction that the abolition of the private property in land and the equal division of the land (or of land tenure) are able to destroy the roots of want, poverty, unemployment and exploitation.

No one disputes the fact that, from the point of view of socialism, this is a utopia, a utopia of the petty bourgeois. From the point of view of socialism, this is a reactionary prejudice, for proletarian socialism sees its ideal, not in the equality of small proprietors, but in large-scale socialised production. But do not forget that what we are now appraising is the significance of the peasants’ ideals, not in the socialist movement, but in the present, bourgeois-democratic revolution. Can we say that it is utopian or reactionary in the present revolution for all the land to be taken away from the landlords and be handed over to, or divided up equally among, the peasants?! No! Not only is this non-reactionary, but, on the contrary, it reflects most conclusively and most consistently the desire for the most thorough abolition of the entire old regime, of all the remnants of serfdom. The idea that “equality” can exist under commodity production and even serve as a foundation for semi-socialism is utopian. The peasants’ desire to take the land away from the landlords at once and divide it up on an equalitarian basis is not utopian, but revolutionary in the fullest, strictest, scientific meaning of the word. Such confiscation and such division would lay the foundation for the speediest, broadest and freest development of capitalism.

Speaking objectively, from the point of view not of our desires, but of the present economic development of Russia, the basic question of our revolution is whether it will secure the development of capitalism through the peasants’ complete victory over the landowners or through the landowners’ victory over the peasants. A bourgeois-democratic revolution in Russia’s economy is absolutely inevitable. No power on earth can hinder it. But this revolution is possible in either of two ways: in the Prussian, if one might say so, or in the American way. This means the following; the land lords may win, may foist compensation payments or other petty concessions on the peasants, may unite with a handful of the wealthy, pauperise the masses, and convert their own farms into Junker-type, capitalist, farms. Such a revolution will be bourgeois-democratic but it will be to the least advantage of the peasants—to their least advantage from the angle of the rapidity of capitalist development. Or, on the contrary, the complete victory of the peasant uprising, the confiscation of all landed estates and their equal division will signify the most rapid development of capitalism, the form of bourgeois-democratic revolution most advantageous to the peasants.

Nor is this most advantageous to the peasants alone. It is just as advantageous to the proletariat. The class conscious proletariat knows that there is, and there can be, no path leading to socialism otherwise than through a bourgeois-democratic revolution.

Hence the more incomplete and irresolute this revolution, the longer and the more heavily will general democratic tasks, and not socialist, not purely class, proletarian tasks, weigh upon the proletariat. The more complete the victory of the peasantry, the sooner will the proletariat stand out as a distinct class, and the more clearly will it put forward its purely socialist tasks and aims.

From this, you see that the peasants’ ideas on equality, reactionary and utopian from the standpoint of socialism, are revolutionary from the standpoint of bourgeois democracy. That is why the equating of the liberals’ reactionary nature in the present revolution and the reactionary utopianism of the peasants in their ideas of the socialist revolution is a glaring logical and historical error. To put on a par the liberals’ endeavours to cut the present revolution off short at compensation for land, a constitutional monarchy, at the level of the Cadet agrarian programme, etc., and the peasants’ attempts at utopian idealisation, in a reactionary spirit, of their endeavours to crush the landlords immediately, to confiscate all the land, to divide it all up—to attempt to equate these things is to abandon completely, not only the standpoint of the proletariat, but also the standpoint of a consistent revolutionary democrat. To write a resolution on the struggle against liberal opportunism and muzhik revolutionism in the present revolution is to write a resolution that is not Social-Democratic. This is not a Social-Democrat writing, but an intellectual who sits between the liberal and the muzhik in the camp of bourgeois democracy.

I cannot deal here in as great detail as I should on the famous tactical platform of the Mensheviks with their much vaunted slogan of struggle against the “one-sided hostility of the proletariat towards liberalism”. The non-Marxist and non-proletarian nature of such a slogan is more than obvious.

In conclusion, I shall deal with a frequent objection that is raised against us. In the majority of cases, we are told, “your” Trudoviks follow the Cadets against us. That is true, but it is no objection against our point of view and our resolution, since we have quite definitely and outspokenly admitted it.

The Trudoviks are definitely not fully consistent democrats. The Trudoviks (including the Socialist-Revolutionaries) undoubtedly vacillate between the liberals and the revolutionary proletariat. We have said this, and it had to be said. Such vacillation is by no means fortuitous. It is an inevitable consequence of the very nature of the economic condition of the small producer. On the one hand, he is oppressed and subject to exploitation. He is unconsciously impelled into the fight against this position, into the fight for democracy, for the ideas of abolishing exploitation. On the other hand, he is a petty proprietor. In the peasant lives the instinct of a proprietor—if not of today, then of tomorrow. It is the proprietor’s, the owner’s instinct that repels the peasant from the proletariat, engendering in him an aspiration to become someone in the world, to become a bourgeois, to hem himself in against all society on his own plot of land, on his own dung-heap, as Marx irately remarked.

Vacillation in the peasantry and the peasant democratic parties is inevitable. And the Social-Democratic Party, therefore, must not for a moment be embarrassed at the fear of isolating itself from such vacillation. Every time the Trudoviks display lack of courage, and drag along in the wake of the liberals, we must fearlessly and quite firmly oppose the Trudoviks, expose and castigate their petty-bourgeois inconsistency and flaccidity.

Our revolution is passing through difficult times. We need all the will-power, all the endurance and fortitude of the organised proletarian party, in order to be capable of resisting sentiments of distrust, despondency, indifference, and denial of the struggle. The petty bourgeoisie will always and inevitably succumb most easily to such sentiments, display irresolution, betray the revolutionary path, whine and repent. And in all such cases, the workers’ party will isolate itself from the vacillating petty-bourgeois democrats. In all such cases we must be able to unmask the irresolute democrats openly, even from the Duma platform. “Peasants!” we must say in the Duma in such circumstances, “peasants! You should know that your representatives are betraying you by following in the wake of the liberal landlords. Your Duma deputies are betraying the cause of the peasantry to the liberal windbags and advocates.” Let the peasants know— we must demonstrate this to them by facts—that only the workers’ party is the genuinely reliable and thoroughly faithful defender of the interests, not only of socialism but also of democracy, not only of all working and exploited people, but also of the entire peasant masses, who are fighting against feudal exploitation.

If we pursue this policy persistently and undeviatingly, we shall derive from our revolution enormous material for the class development of the proletariat; we shall achieve this under all circumstances, whatever vicissitudes may be in store for us, whatever setbacks for the revolution (under particularly unfavourable circumstances) may fall to our lot. A firm proletarian policy will give the entire working class such a wealth of ideas, such clarity of understanding and such endurance in the struggle that no one on earth will be able to win them away from Social-Democracy. Even if the revolution suffers defeat, the proletariat will learn, first and foremost, to understand the economic class foundations of both the liberal and the democratic parties; then it will learn to hate the bourgeoisie’s treacheries and to despise the petty bourgeoisie’s infirmity of purpose and its vacillations.

And it is only with such a fund of knowledge, with such habits of thinking, that the proletariat will be able to approach the new, the socialist revolution more unitedly and more boldly. (Applause from the Bolsheviks and the Centre.)

7. Concluding Remarks on the Report on the Attitude Towards Bourgeois Parties. May 14 (27)

I shall begin with the question of the stand taken by the Polish delegation, which has been touched on here. The Polish comrades were accused—particularly by the Bundists—of being inconsistent in agreeing to our resolution, having themselves declared it unsatisfactory at the commission. Such accusations are founded on a very simple subterfuge—an evasion of the substance of those questions that confront the Congress on the given item of the agenda. Those who do not want to evade any discussion on the substance of the question will easily see that we Bolsheviks have always seen eye to eye with the Poles on two fundamental questions. First of all we agree on the fact that, for the sake of its socialist tasks, the proletariat must categorically retain its class individuality with respect to all the other (bourgeois) parties, however revolutionary they may be, however democratic the republic they advocate. Secondly, we agree that it is the right and duty of the workers’ party to assume leadership of the petty-bourgeois democratic parties, including the peasant parties, not only in the struggle against the autocracy, but also against the treacherous liberal bourgeoisie.

In the resolution on the report of the Social-Democratic group in the Duma, which the Polish comrades have presented to the Congress, these ideas and propositions are expressed with the utmost clarity. The resolution speaks forthrightly of the need for Social-Democracy to preserve its class character distinct from all other parties, down to the Socialist- Revolutionaries. It speaks openly of the possibility and necessity of joint action by the Social-Democrats and the Trudovik groups against the liberals. This is what we in Russia call a Left bloc, or a Left bloc policy.

From this it is clear that we are united with the Poles by genuine solidarity on the fundamental points in the question of the attitude towards bourgeois parties. To deny this or to speak of the contradictory behaviour of the Poles would be to evade a straightforward presentation of differences of opinion in principle.

The socialist aims of the proletariat keep it distinct from all parties, even the most revolutionary and republican; then there is the proletariat’s leadership in the struggle of all revolutionary democrats in the present revolution—can it be denied that these are the fundamental and guiding ideas in both the Polish and Bolshevik resolutions?

A few words about Trotsky. I have no time to dwell here on our differences with him. I shall only note that in his book In Defence of the Party Trotsky expressed, in print, his solidarity with Kautsky, who wrote about the economic community of interests between the proletariat and the peasantry in the present revolution in Russia. Trotsky acknowledged the permissibility and usefulness of a Left bloc against the liberal bourgeoisie. These facts are sufficient for me to acknowledge that Trotsky has come closer to our views. Quite apart from the question of “uninterrupted revolution”, we have here solidarity on fundamental points in the question of the attitude towards bourgeois parties.

Comrade Lieber has most energetically accused me of excluding even the Trudoviks from the bourgeois-democratic allies of the proletariat. Lieber has again been carried away by phrases, and has paid insufficient attention to the substance of the dispute. I did not speak of excluding joint action with the Trudoviks, but of the need to cut ourselves off from the Trudoviks’ vacillation. We must not fear to “isolate” ourselves from them when they are inclined to drag along in the wake of the Cadets. We must ruthlessly expose the Trudoviks when they fail to take the consistent stand of revolutionary democrats. One of two things, Comrade Lieber—either the workers’ party will pursue a genuinely independent proletarian policy, in which case we allow of joint action with part of the bourgeoisie only when it, this section, accepts our policy, and not vice versa; or our talk about the independence of the proletariat’s class struggle remains nothing but idle talk.

Like Lieber, Plekhanov too evaded the substance of the dispute, only in another way. Plekhanov spoke about Rosa Luxemburg, picturing her as a Madonna reclining on clouds. What could be finer! Elegant, gallant and effective polemics.... But I would nevertheless like to ask Plekhanov: Madonna or not,—but what do you think about the substance of the question? (Applause from the Centre and the Bolsheviks.) After all, it is a pretty bad thing to have to resort to a Madonna in order to avoid analysing the point at issue. Madonna or not—what must our attitude be towards “a Duma with full powers”? What is this? Does this resemble Marxism, does it resemble the independent policy of the proletariat?

“Agreements from occasion to occasion”, both Lieber and Plekhanov reiterate to us in all sorts of ways. An extremely convenient formula this, but utterly lacking in principle. It is absolutely devoid of content. After all, comrades, we too permit of agreements with the Trudoviks under certain conditions and also only from occasion to occasion, absolutely from occasion to occasion. We shall willingly include these words in our resolution as well.

But that is not the question. The question is what joint actions are permissible from occasion to occasion, with whom, and for what purposes! Both Plekhanov, with his gallant witticisms, and Lieber with his empty pathetics, have slurred over and obscured these significant questions. And this question is not a theoretical one, but an extremely vital and practical issue. We have seen from experience what the famous agreements from occasion to occasion, the famous “technical” agreements, mean among the Mensheviks! They mean a policy of the dependence of the working class on the liberals, and nothing else. “From occasion to occasion” is a poor cloak for this opportunist policy.

Plekhanov quoted passages from the works of Marx, on the need to support the bourgeoisie. It is a pity that he did not quote from the Neue Rheinische Zeitung. A pity that he forgot how Marx “supported” the liberals during the period when the bourgeois revolution in Germany was at its height. Nor is it necessary to go so far to prove something that is indisputable. The old Iskra, too, frequently spoke of the necessity for the Social-Democratic Labour Party to support the liberals—even the Marshals of the Nobility. In the period preceding the bourgeois revolution, when Social-Democracy still had to rouse the people to political life, this was quite legitimate. Today, when various classes have already appeared on the scene, when, on the one hand, a peasant revolutionary movement has revealed itself, and there have been liberal betrayals on the other—today there can be no question of our supporting the liberals. We are all agreed that the Social-Democrats must now demand the confiscation of landed estates. And what is the attitude of the liberals towards this?

Plekhanov said: all classes that are in the least progressive must become tools in the hands of the proletariat. I do not doubt that this is Plekhanov’s desire. But I assert that in practice the Menshevik policy leads, not to this, but to something quite different. In every case during the past year, when the Mensheviks were supposedly supporting the Cadets, the Mensheviks themselves were actually tools in the hands of the Cadets. The same was true of the support for the demand for a Duma ministry and at the time of the election blocs with the Cadets. Experience has shown that in these cases the proletariat proved to be the tool, despite the “desires” of Plekhanov and other Mensheviks. This is quite apart from the “Duma with full powers” and the voting for Golovin.

We must realise in all seriousness that the liberal bourgeoisie has entered upon the counter-revolutionary path, and we must struggle against them. Only then will the policy of the workers’ party become an independent revolutionary policy, not one in word alone. Only then shall we systematically exert our influence on both the petty bourgeoisie and the peasantry, who are hesitating between liberalism and revolutionary struggle.

There was no point to the complaint made here about the incorrectness of our thesis on the liberals’ deception of the petty bourgeoisie. Not only our revolution, but the experience of other countries, too, has shown that it is by deceit that liberalism maintains its influence in many sections of the population. It is our plain duty to fight to free those sections from the influence of the liberals. In the course of decades the German Social-Democratic Party has fought to destroy—and has destroyed, in Berlin, for instance—the liberals’ influence on broad sections of the population. We can and must achieve the same, and deprive the Cadets of their democratic adherents.

Let me give you an example of what the Menshevik policy of supporting the Cadets has led to. In the Menshevik news paper Russkaya Zhizn of February 22, 1907 (No. 45), an unsigned, that is, an editorial, article said the following about Golovin’s election and his speech: “The Chairman of the State Duma has undertaken a great and responsible task—to say such words as will embody the principal demands and needs of our 140 million people.... Not for a moment could Mr. Golovin rise above the level of a member of the Cadet Party, and become the exponent of the will of the en tire Duma”. Don’t you see how edifying this is? The Mensheviks derive the responsible task of the liberal—to speak on behalf of the “people”—simply from their having support ed him with their votes. This is just handing over ideological and political leadership to liberalism. This is complete abandonment of the class point of view. And I say: if under a Left bloc any Social-Democrat would dream of writing about the responsible task of a Trudovik to reflect the needs of “labour”, I would whole-heartedly support the most resolute censure of such a Social-Democrat. The Mensheviks have here an ideological bloc with the Cadets, and we must permit no such blocs with anyone, even with the Socialist-Revolutionaries.

Incidentally, Martynov stated that we are descending to such a bloc when we speak of all the land and full freedom. This is not true. Let me remind you of the Menshevik Sotsial Demokrat. In the draft electoral platform compiled by the CC, published in that paper, we encounter the very same slogans of land and freedom! Martynov’s words are mere hole-picking.

In conclusion I would like to say a few words in regard to the Polish comrades. A precise characterisation of the petty-bourgeois parties may have seemed needless to some of them. Perhaps the more acute class struggle in Poland makes it unnecessary. But to Russian Social-Democrats it is indispensable. An exact indication of the class nature of the Trudovik parties is most necessary as a guide for all our propaganda and agitation. It is only on the basis of a class analysis of these parties that we can quite definitely place before the working class our tactical tasks—the socialist class distinction of the proletariat, and the struggle under its leadership both against the autocracy and the treacherous bourgeoisie. (Applause from the Bolsheviks and the Centre.)

8. Speech on the Attitude to the Polish Draft Resolution on Bourgeois Parties. May 15 (28)

From the preceding speech you could see how just Comrade Popov’s remarks were about the fruitlessness of the present discussion. You have yourselves seen how thoroughly unprincipled Lieber’s speech was. I should merely like to remind you that, in our abortive commission, four Mensheviks, one member of the Bund, and two Poles voted against us and the Latvians on the question of adopting the Polish draft as a basis for the resolution.

Thus the Polish draft was taken as a basis in the commission by those people who in principle were farthest removed from the Poles. They did this in order to introduce into the draft amendments in a Menshevik spirit—in order to render the resolution unacceptable to its authors! Lieber himself voted with the Mensheviks both in this case (Lieber: “That is not true!”) and in voting on the permissibility of blocs with the Cadets. After this his pathetic speeches about principles are simply ridiculous.

I quite understand the Poles’ trying to get their draft adopted as a basis. To them our resolution seemed to go into unnecessary details. They wanted to limit themselves to the two basic principles which truly unite us—(f) the class distinction of the proletariat from all bourgeois parties, in everything that concerns socialism; (2) the combination of joint action by Social-Democracy and petty-bourgeois democracy against liberal treachery. Both these ideas run like a scarlet thread through the Bolshevik draft as well. But the brevity of the Polish draft left too much room for Menshevik juggling. Their amendments compelled even the authors to vote against their own draft as a whole. And at the same time, neither the Mensheviks nor the Bund members undertook to defend the Polish draft they had thus “amended” The result was the collapse of the work of the entire commission.

There is now one thing left for all of us in general, and the Polish comrades in particular, to do—to endeavour to have the Bolshevik draft accepted as a basis. If un acceptable amendments are made to the latter too, then we shall have to acknowledge that the Congress is incompetent. It is, however, possible that on the basis of this draft, which gives a precise analysis of all the fundamental types of parties, we shall be able to reach a decision sufficiently definite in the spirit of revolutionary Social-Democracy.

The objection is raised against our draft that it describes parties in too great detail. Parties, they say, can break up, realign themselves—and then the entire resolution will be useless.

This objection is quite groundless. It is not small groups or even individual parties that we describe in our resolution, but large groups of parties. These groups are so large that rapid changes in their mutual relations are far less possible than a complete change from revolutionary decline to upsurge or vice versa. Take these groups and examine them. A reactionary and a more or less progressive bourgeoisie are unvarying types in all capitalist countries. We have added only two more to these two unvarying types: the Octobrists (intermediate between the Black Hundreds and the liberals) and the Trudovik groups. Can these types change rapidly? They cannot, unless our revolution takes so radical a turn that we shall, in any way, be obliged to radically reconsider, not only our Congress resolutions, but even our Programme.

Give thought to our programme demand for the confiscation of all landed estates. In no other country could the Social-Democrats ever support the confiscatory aspirations of the petty bourgeoisie. That would be a fraud in an ordinary capitalist country. But in our country, it is essential in the period of the bourgeois-democratic revolution. We can, therefore, be sure that fundamental questions in the appraisal of the Trudovik parties will not have to be revised any sooner than our programme demand for confiscation.

Let me furthermore point out that to avoid all misunderstanding and false interpretation of the Left bloc, we have given a precise definition of the content of the Trudovik parties’ struggle. Actually they are not fighting against exploitation in general (as it seems to them), and certainly not against capitalist exploitation (in the way their ideologists assert); they are fighting only against the feudal state and landlordism. And an exact description of this true content of the struggle will at once put an end to all false conceptions of possible joint action by the workers’ party and the peasantry in the struggle for socialism, in the struggle against capitalism.

In our resolution we also speak clearly of the “pseudo socialist nature” of the Trudovik parties, and call for a resolute struggle against any glossing over of the class conflict between petty proprietors and the proletariat. We call for an exposure of the hazy socialist ideology of the petty bourgeoisie. This is something that must be said about petty-bourgeois parties, but it is all that need be said. The Mensheviks are profoundly mistaken when they add to this the struggle against the revolutionism and the utopianism of the peasantry in the present revolution, which is what follows from their resolution. Objectively such an idea amounts to a call to fight against the confiscation of landed estates, and does so because the most influential and widespread ideological and political trends of liberalism declare that confiscation is revolutionism, utopianism, and so forth. It is not accidental, but inevitable, that during the past year the Mensheviks have wandered from such principles towards a renunciation in practice of support for confiscation.

We must not allow things to go so far, comrades! In one of his speeches Dan said jokingly: “We have poor critics if they criticise us mostly for what we have not done. We only wanted to renounce confiscation, but we have not renounced it!”

To this I should like to reply—if you had done so we would not now be a united party. We must not let things go so far as such renunciations. If we permit even the shadow of an idea of such a policy we shall be shaking all the revolutionary foundations of the independent class struggle of the proletariat in a bourgeois-democratic revolution. (Applause from the Bolsheviks. Poles and Latvians.)

9. Objections to Trotsky’s Amendments to the Bolshevik Resolution on the Attitude Towards Bourgeois Parties, Adopted by the Congress. May 15-16 (28-29)

I

Two points are important here. They must not be deleted. The first point indicates the economically more progressive strata of the bourgeoisie. This is essential. Even more essential is the point on the bourgeois intelligentsia. In the bourgeois parties there are an increasing number of bourgeois intellectuals who are attempting to reconcile the feudal-minded landlords with the toiling peasantry, and who stand for the preservation of all sorts of remnants and survivals of the autocracy.

II

It must be agreed that Trotsky’s amendment is not Menshevik, that it expresses the “very same”, that is, Bolshevism, idea. But Trotsky has expressed this idea in a way that is scarcely better. When we say “simultaneously” we are expressing the general character of present-day politics. This general character is undoubtedly of such a nature that conditions force us to come out simultaneously both against Stolypin and against the Cadets. The same is true with regard to the treacherous policy of the Cadets. Trotsky’s insertion is redundant, for we are not fishing for unique cases in the resolution, but are laying down the basic line of Social-Democracy in the bourgeois Russian revolution.

10. Objections to Martov’s Amendments to the Bolshevik Resolution on the Attitude to Bourgeois Parties. May 16 (29)

Amendments to the resolution on the attitude towards bourgeois parties proposed by the Mensheviks Martov and Martynov were rejected by the Congress.

I

Everyone realises that Martov’s amendment is highly important. “Technical agreements” is an extremely elastic conception. It seems that under “technical”, a “Duma with full powers” is also included. If Martov thinks that our agreements with the Trudoviks are anything but technical, he is mistaken. Our resolution does not say that technical agreements with the liberal bourgeoisie are impermissible. There should be no place for sanctions or interdictions in a resolution; it should indicate an ideological political line. If, however, you are dissatisfied with this absence of inter diction and introduce your notes about “sanction”, you are thereby destroying the entire spirit, the entire sense, behind our resolution. And if such an amendment were accepted, we could do nothing but withdraw our resolution.

II

When Martov goes so far as to say that we are refusing to introduce into our resolution any mention of our antagonism towards the revolutionary Narodniks, he is by this open and glaring untruth defeating his own purpose and showing that his own amendment is pure invention. No, it is not we who are refusing to fight against the ’pseudo-socialist nature of the Narodniks, but you Menshevik comrades, who have refused to support revolutionary democracy, and prefer the liberals (the Cadets). The majority of the Narodnik groups (Popular Socialists and Trudoviks) have not only failed to adhere in any special way to the terrorism of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, but, on the contrary, have erred on the side of pliancy in dealing with the liberals. The genuine revolutionism of all Narodniks is expressed in the endeavour to destroy landlordism. In this alone do the liberals see “adventurous gambles and utopianism”. Martov is, in point of fact, helping the liberals.

11. Objections to Martynov’s Amendments to the Resolution on the Attitude Towards Bourgeois Parties. May 16 (29)

I

Martynov’s amendment is another attempt to introduce the Menshevik view that the peasants are more reactionary (or may be more reactionary) in the present revolution than the Cadets, since the Mensheviks do not say a single word about the reactionary nature of the Cadets. Martynov’s argument is all mixed up—the dualism is not due to the peasants’ wavering between revolution and reaction but to their wavering between the Cadets and the Social-Democrats. The Mensheviks will inevitably and unavoidably include their favourite idea of the reactionary nature of the confiscation of landed estates and the progressiveness of compensation in the anarchist tendencies of which Martynov speaks. “Anarchist tendencies” in the peasants is a liberal landlord phrase. As to the subjugation of the proletarian movement to the peasant movement—it is ridiculous to speak of this after having declared the reverse, and expressed it scores of times in resolutions.

II

Our acceptance of Martynov’s amendment would undoubtedly make a laughing-stock of Social-Democracy. At the beginning of the resolution, we spoke about a decisive struggle against the feudal state. Now we must draw a political conclusion from this social-economic proposition. Our task is to win that section of the bourgeoisie whose economic position impels it into struggle (the peasantry) away from the influence of the section of the bourgeoisie that is in capable of joining this decisive struggle (from the influence of the liberal landlords, the Cadets). It is in order to confuse a clear political conclusion that Martynov proposes that what is said at the beginning be repeated at the end.

12. Report of the Commission Formed to Draft a Resolution on the State Duma. May 18 (31)

Our commission has not come to any agreement. Six voted for the Bolshevik draft and six against. Five voted for the Menshevik draft and five against. One abstained. I must now briefly defend our Bolshevik draft to you, since the Polish Social-Democrats and the Latvians are in agreement with it.

We proceeded from the proposition that everything already stated in the resolution on the bourgeois parties must be deleted from the resolution on the State Duma, since the Duma struggle is only a part, and not the principal part, of our struggle against the bourgeois parties and the autocracy.

In the present resolution we speak only of what our policy in the Duma must be. As to an assessment of how we managed to get into the Duma, we deleted this part of the resolution— the point on the boycott—for the following reasons. It seems to me personally, and to all the Bolsheviks, that in view of the stand taken by all the liberal press we should have given an appraisal of how we got into the Duma. In opposition to the entire liberal bourgeoisie, the workers’ party must declare that, for the time being, we must reckon with such an ugly institution because of the treachery of the bourgeoisie. But the Latvian comrades were opposed to this point, and in order not to hinder the rapid completion of our work (and we must hurry if we are to end the Congress tomorrow as we decided) we withdrew this point. What the Congress wants is clear in any case, and lack of time makes it impossible to conduct debates on matters of principle.

I shall dwell on the basic ideas expressed in our resolution. In essence, all this is a repetition of what was said in our draft resolution at the Stockholm Congress. The first point stresses the complete uselessness of the Duma as such. This is a necessary idea, for extremely broad sections of the peasantry and the petty bourgeoisie in general still place the most naïve hopes on the Duma. It is our plain duty to dispel these naïve illusions, which are sustained by the liberals for their own selfish class ends.

The second part of the first point speaks of the uselessness of the parliamentary path in general, and about explaining the inevitability of an open struggle of the masses. Here we give an explanation of our positive views on ways of getting out of the present situation. We absolutely must emphasise it, and clearly repeat our revolutionary slogans, since wavering and vacillation, even among the Social-Democrats, is no rare thing in such a question. Let everyone know that Social-Democracy sticks to its old, revolutionary path.

The second point is devoted to an explanation of the relation between direct “legislative” activity in the Duma, and agitation, criticism, propaganda, organisation. The workers’ party regards the connection between work within and without the Duma very differently from the way the liberal bourgeoisie regards it. It is necessary to stress this radical difference of views. On the one hand, there are the bourgeois politicians, enraptured by their parliamentary games behind the backs of the people. On the other hand, there is a contingent of the organised proletariat that has been sent into the enemy camp and is carrying on work closely connected with the struggle of the proletariat as a whole. For us there is only one, single and indivisible, workers’ movement—the class struggle of the proletariat. All its separate, partial forms, including the parliamentary struggle, must be fully subordinated to it. For us it is the extra-Duma struggle of the proletariat that is decisive. It would not be sufficient for us to say that we take into account the economic interests and needs of the masses, etc. Such phrases (in the spirit of the old Menshevik resolution) are hazy and can be subscribed to by any liberal. Every liberal is ready to chatter about, the economic needs of the people in general. But no liberal would be willing to subordinate Duma activity to the class struggle; it is, however, precisely this view that we Social-Democrats must express with the utmost clarity. It is only by reason of this principle that we really distinguish ourselves from all possible varieties of bourgeois democracy.

It is sometimes pointed out (especially by the members of the Bund—alleged conciliators) that it is also necessary to note the contrary—the links between the extra-Duma Social-Democratic struggle and the work of the Social-Democratic Duma group. I maintain that this is false, and can only serve to sow the most harmful parliamentary illusions. The part must conform to the whole, and not vice versa. The Duma may temporarily serve as an arena of the class struggle as a whole, but only if that whole is never lost sight of, and if the revolutionary tasks of the class struggle are not concealed.

The next point in our resolution is devoted to the liberal policy in the Duma. The slogan of this policy—“save the Duma”—merely serves to conceal the liberals’ alliance with the Black Hundreds. We must frankly tell the people this, and explain it to them. The liberal slogan systematically corrupts the political and class consciousness of the masses. It is our duty to wage a ruthless struggle against this liberal haziness. By tearing the mask from liberalism, by showing that, behind the talk about democracy, there lurks voting hand in glove with the Black Hundreds, we shall be wresting the remnants of democracy from the bourgeois betrayers of freedom.

What must guide us in determining our Duma policy? Leaving aside all thought of engendering conflicts for their own sake, our resolution gives a positive definition of “timeliness” in the Social-Democratic sense of the word—we must take into account the revolutionary crisis developing outside the Duma, by force of objective circumstances.

The last point is devoted to the famous “responsible ministry”. It was not fortuitous, but inevitable, that the liberal bourgeoisie should advance this slogan to utilise the period of lull in its own interests, and weaken the revolutionary consciousness of the masses. This slogan was sup ported by the Mensheviks both in the First and Second Dumas, and during the period of the Second Duma Plekhanov said forthright in the Menshevik newspaper that the Social-Democrats should make this demand “their own”. Hence this slogan played a very definite role in the history of our revolution. It is absolutely essential for the workers’ party to define its attitude towards the slogan. We must not be guided by the fact that the liberals are not advancing this slogan at the moment: they have temporarily withdrawn it for opportunist reasons, but actually they are striving even more earnestly to come to terms with tsarism. And the slogan “a Duma ministry” most graphically expresses this innate tendency of liberalism towards a deal with tsarism.

We do not and cannot deny that a Duma ministry may prove a stage in the revolution, or that circumstances may force us to utilise it. That is not the point. The Social-Democrats utilise reforms as a by-product of the revolutionary class struggle of the proletariat, but it is not our business to mobilise the people for half-hearted reforms that are not feasible without a revolutionary struggle. The Social-Democrats must expose all the inconsistency of such slogans even from the purely democratic point of view. The Social-Democrats must explain to the proletariat the conditions for its victory, and not link up its policy in advance with the possibility of an incomplete victory, the possibility of a partial defeat—yet such are the conditions for the problematic establishment of a “Duma ministry”.

Let the liberals give democracy away for a few pennies and throw away the whole for the sake of banal and feeble, paltry dreams of doles. Social-Democracy must rouse among the people consciousness of integral democratic tasks, and imbue the proletariat with a clear understanding of revolutionary aims. We must enlighten the minds of the masses of workers and develop their readiness to struggle, not befog their minds by toning down contradictions, by toning down the aims of the struggle. (Applause.)

13. Remarks During the Discussion on the Re-Voting on Those Elected to the CC May 19 (June 1)

It was decided at the Congress to elect a Central Committee of 15 members—12 at the Congress and 3 to be delegated by national organisations after the Congress. The counting of the votes in the elections to the Central Committee was made at a meeting with a curtailed number of delegates—one representative to every four delegates. Seventy-five delegates attended this meeting—22 Bolsheviks, 21 Mensheviks, 14 Bund members, 11 Poles and 7 Latvians. In the voting for the candidates, 9 obtained a majority of votes and 5 obtained an equal number of votes each. The Bolsheviks proposed taking a new vote, but the Mensheviks proposed that the 5 candidates draw lots. The Bolshevik proposal was adopted.

I

We must vote again. Lieber is wrong. His entire line of argument is ridiculous sophistry. After all, who is to decide on this lottery? We are to! We constitute the final session of the Congress. There can be no compromise. This is a congress, not a meeting of factions. You say that we have been empowered to decide only technical and formal questions, yet we have only just adopted a political resolution on a loan.

II

It was intended to intimidate you with terrifying words about the seizure of power. But after all we are empowered to elect candidates to the CC at this meeting. (Stir.) Keep calm, comrades; anyway, you won’t shout me down! We are accused of wanting to take advantage of a single vote. I am of the opinion that this can and should be done. What we are deciding here is a political question, a matter of principle. To let this question be decided by lottery—by blind chance—would be nothing but gambling. We cannot condemn the Party to a year of gambling. I warn you that if—given an equal vote—our Party decides this question by drawing lots, the responsibility will rest with you. That is why this assembly must vote again.