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Special pages :
I. G. Tsereteli and the Class Struggle
All the papers have published, in full or in part, the speech which I. G. Tsereteli delivered on April 27 at the ceremonial session of the deputies of all the Dumas, past and present.
It was quite a ministerial speech. The speech of a minister without a portfolio. Still, we think there is no harm, even when ministers without portfolios make ministerial speeches, in sparing a thought for socialism, Marxism and the class struggle. To each his own. It behooves the bourgeoisie to shun all talk about the class struggle, to avoid analysing it, studying it, and making it a basis for determining policies. It behooves the bourgeoisie to dismiss these âdisagreeableâ and âtactlessâ subjectsâas they say in parloursâand to sing the praises of âunityâ of âall friends of freedomâ. It behooves the proletarian party not to forget the class struggle.
To each his own.
Two basic political ideas underlie I. G. Tsereteliâs speech. First, that a line can and should be drawn between two âsectionsâ of the bourgeoisie. One section âhas come to an agreement with the democratsâ; the position of this bourgeoisie insecure. The other consists of âirresponsible elements of the bourgeoisie who are provoking civil warâ, or, as Tsereteli describes them, âmany people from among the moderate elements of the property-ownersâ.
The speakerâs second political idea is this: âAny attempt right now to proclaim [!?] the dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantryâ would be a âdesperateâ attempt, and he, Tsereteli, would agree to such a desperate attempt only if he could believe for one minute that Shulginâs ideas were really âshared by all the property-owning bourgeoisieâ.
Let us examine these two political ideas of I. G. Tsereteli, who, as befits a minister without a portfolio or a candidate for the ministry, has taken a middle-of-the-road standâneither for reaction nor for revolution, neither with Shulgin nor with the adherents of âdesperate attemptsâ.
What class distinctions between the two indicated sections of the bourgeoisie did Tsereteli make? None at all. It did not even occur to Tsereteli that there would be no harm in shaping policies on the basis of the class struggle. Both âSectionsâ of the bourgeoisie, in class substance, are landowners and capitalists. Tsereteli did not mention a word about Shulgin not representing the same classes or sub-classes as Guchkov representsâthe latter a member of the Provisional Government and an important one at that. Tsereteli singles out the ideas of Shulgin from those of the âentireâ property-owning bourgeoisie, but gives no reasons for doing so. Nor could he give any. Shulgin stands for the undivided power of the Provisional Government; he is against supervision of that government by the armed soldiers; he is against âanti-British propagandaâ, against the soldiers being âset onâ the âofficer classâ, against the propaganda of Petrogradskaya Storona,[1] etc. These ideas are to be found every day in the columns of Rech, in the speeches and manifestos of the ministers with portfolios, etc.
The only difference is that Shulgin speaks more âgliblyâ, while the Provisional Government, being a government, speaks more discreetly; Shulgin speaks in a deep voice, Milyukov in a falsetto. Milyukov is for an agreement with the Soviet, and Shulgin, too, has nothing against such an agreement. Both Shulgin and Milyukov are for âother methods of controlâ (not control by armed soldiers).
Tsereteli has thrown overboard all ideas of the class struggle. He has made no mention of class distinctions or any serious political distinctions between âthe two sectionsâ of the bourgeoisie, nor did he think of mentioning them.
By âdemocratsâ, referred to in his speech. Tsereteli meant âthe proletariat and the revolutionary peasantryâ. Let us examine this class definition. The bourgeoisie has entered into an agreement with these democrats. One is entitled to ask, what forms the basis of this agreement, by what class interests is it upheld?
Not a word about this in Tsereteliâs speech. All he speaks about is a âcommon democratic platform which has now proved acceptable to the whole countryâ, i.e., evidently to the proletarians and the peasants, since the âcountryâ is really the workers and peasants minus the property-owners.
Does this platform exclude, say, the question of the land? It does not. The platform side-steps it. Do class interests and their conflicts disappear by being side-stepped in diplomatic documents, deeds of âagreementâ, and the speeches and statements of ministers?
Tsereteli âforgotâ to raise this question, forgot a âtrivial detailââhe âmerelyâ forgot the class interests and the class struggle....
âAll the problems of the Russian revolution,â expatiates I. G. Tsereteli, âthe very crux of it [!?] depend on whether the propertied classes [i.e., the landowners and capitalists] will understand that this is a national platform and not a specially proletarian platform.â
Poor landowners and capitalists! They are so slow-witted. They âdo not understandâ. They need a special minister of the democracy to teach them whatâs what.
Maybe this spokesman of the âdemocratsâ has forgotten the class struggle, has adopted the stand of Louis Blanc, and is dismissing the conflict of class interests with mere phrases?
Is it Shulgin and Guchkov with Milyukov who âdo not understandâ that the peasant can be reconciled with the landowner on a platform that side-steps the land question? Or is it I. G. Tsereteli who âdoes not understandâ that this cannot be done?
The workers and peasants must confine themselves to what is âacceptableâ to the landowners and capitalistsâthat is the real gist (the class, not the verbal, gist) of the Shulgin Milyukov-Plekhanov position. And they âunderstandâ it better than Tsereteli does.
This brings us to Tsereteliâs second political ideaâthat the dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry (a dictator ship, by the way, is won, not âproclaimedâ) would be a desperate attempt. In the first place, to speak so simply of this dictatorship nowadays is likely to land Tsereteli in the archives of the âold Bolsheviksâ.[2] Secondly, and most important of all, the workers and peasants constitute the vast majority of the population. And does not âdemocracyâ mean carrying out the will of the majority?
How then can one be a democrat, and yet be opposed to the âdictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantryâ? flow can one fear âcivil warâ from it? (What kind of civil war? That of a handful of landowners and capitalists against the workers and peasants? That of an insignificant minority against an overwhelming majority?)
I. G. Tsereteli is hopelessly muddled. He has even forgotten that Lvov and Co. carry out their promise to convene the Constituent Assembly, the latter would become a âdictatorshipâ of the majority. Or must the workers and peasants, even in the Constituent Assembly, confine them selves to what is âacceptableâ to the landowners and the capitalists?
The workers and peasants are the vast majority. All power to this majority is, if you please, a âdesperate attemptâ....
Tsereteli is in a muddle because he has completely over looked the class struggle. lie has abandoned the standpoint of Marxism for that of Louis Blanc, who talked himself out of the class struggle.
The task of a proletarian leader is to clarify the difference in class interests and persuade certain sections of the petty bourgeoisie (namely, the poor peasants) to choose between the workers and the capitalists, to take sides with the workers.
The task of petty-bourgeois Louis Blancs is to play down the difference in class interests and persuade certain sections of the bourgeoisie (mainly the intellectuals and parliamentarians) to âagreeâ with the workers, to persuade the workers to âagreeâ with the capitalists, and the peasants to âagreeâ with the landowners.
Louis Blanc tried hard to persuade the Paris bourgeoisie, and, as we know, all but persuaded it to refrain from the mass shootings of 1848 and 1871.
- â [PLACEHOLDER.]
- â See my "Letters on Tacticsâ. (See pp. 45â46 of this volume.âEd.) âLenin