Lenin and the Old Iskra

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“The split of 1903 was, so to speak, an anticipation ...” (Lenin’s words in a speech in 1910.)

Undoubtedly the period of the old Iskra (1900 to 1903) will be of exceptional psychological interest to the future great biographer of Lenin, but at the same time will present great difficulties: for in just these short years Lenin was precisely Lenin. That does not mean that he did not grow more. On the contrary he grew—and in what proportions!—just as much before “October” as after October. But it is a more organic growth. Great indeed was the leap from illegality to power on October 25th, 1917; but this was the outward so-called material leap of a man who had weighed and measured all that a man can weigh and measure. But in the growth that preceded the split at the Second Party Congress lies an inner leap, imperceptible to the outer eye, but so much the more definite.

These recollections offer the future biographer material about this extraordinarily noteworthy and significant period in the mental development of Vladimir Ilyich. From that time to the moment these lines were written more than two decades have passed, and decades moreover that are an unusual burden to human memory. That may evoke the natural anxiety as to what degree what is told here presents correctly the events of the past. I confess that I am not free from this anxiety myself and shall not be so long as I am at work at this book; besides, there are more than enough of incorrect recollections and inexact testimony! While writing this sketch I had no documents, memoranda, nor material of any kind at band. However, I believe this was an advantage. I had to depend entirely on my memory and hope that its independent work in these conditions is spared from involuntary retrospective touchings-up that are so difficult to avoid even in the most critical self-examination. The future investigator too will find the work easier when he takes up this book after he has had in his hand the documents and all the material connected with this period.

In some places I present the conversations and discussions of the time in dialogue form. As a matter of course, after more than two decades, one can scarcely claim to give an exact repetition of the dialogues. 'But I believe that I present the substance of them correctly and many particularly impressive expressions word for word.

As it is a question of material for a life of Lenin, consequently a matter of exceeding importance, I may be permitted to say a few words about certain peculiarities of my faculty of remembrance. I have a very bad memory for the topography of cities and even of houses. In London, for example, I have lost my way more than once on the comparatively short stretch between Lenin’s home and my own. For a long time I had a very bad memory for faces but in this respect I have made important progress. But I used to have, and still have today, a particularly good memory for ideas, their combination, and for conversations about ideological themes. I could often prove that this estimation is not subjective: other people, who heard the same conversations as I, often repeated them less accurately than I and acknowledged my corrections to be right. Moreover, I had come to London as a young provincial with the most ardent desire to understand everything as quickly as possible. Therefore it is natural if the conversations with Lenin and the other members of the Iskra staff are firmly impressed on my memory. These are considerations that the biographer cannot disregard in estimating the trustworthiness of the recollections that follow.

I arrived in London in the autumn of 1902. It must have been in October and early in the morning. A cab that I engaged because I saw others doing so took me to an address jotted down on a scrap of paper, my destination. This was Vladimir Ilyich’s home. Before this (it must have been in Zurich) I had been taught to knock at a door in a certain definite way. As far as I remember Nadezda Constantinovna opened the door for me; I had gotten her out of bed with my knocking, as one can imagine. It was early in the morning, and any sensible man, more familiar with the ordinary conventions of life, would have waited an hour or two at the station, instead of knocking at strange doors at dawn. But I was still completely under the influence of my flight from Vercholensk. I had already roused Axelrod’s household in Zurich in the same way, only not at dawn but in the middle of the night.

Vladimir Ilyich was still in bed and he greeted me with justifiable surprise. Under such conditions our first meeting and our first conversation took place. Vladimir Ilyich and Nadezda Constantinovna knew me already through a letter from Claire (M.G. Krchichanovsky), who had officially introduced me in Samara to the organization of Iskra under the name of “Pen.” So I was greeted thus: “Hello, ‘Pen’ has come ...“

They gave me tea in the kitchen, I believe. In the meantime Lenin dressed. I told them about my flight and cqmplained about the bad condition of “Iskra’s” frontier organization: it was in the hands of a social revolutionary grammar-school teacher who was not in great sympathy with the Iskra people on account of a highly inflamed polemic; besides the smugglers had plundered me mercilessly and had raised all the tariffs and rates.

I gave to Nadezda Constantinovna my modest pack of addresses and news or, to be more exact, data about the necessary liquidation of some useless publications. By order of the Samara group (Claire and others) I had visited Kharkof, Poltava, and Kief and had to establish everywhere, at any rate in Kharkof and Poltava, very weak organizing connections.

I no longer remember whether it was this morning or another day that I took a long walk with Vladimir Ilyich through London. He showed me Westminster Abbey (from outside) and some other famous buildings. I no longer know how he expressed himself but the meaning was: that is “their famous Westminster.” The “their” meant, naturally, not the English, but the enemy. Not emphatic at all, rather deeply organic and revealed by the pitch of his voice, this meaning was always obvious when he spoke of any kind of cultural values or new conquests, whether it were about the edification of the British Museum or the richness of information of the Times or, many years later, German artillery or French aviation: They understand or they have, they have accomplished or succeeded—but always as enemies! The invisible shadow of the shareholders of society lay, as it were, in his eyes on all human culture, and this shadow he felt as incontestably as the daylight.

As far as I remember I paid little attention then to the architecture of London. Transported from Vercholensk abroad for the very first time, I accepted Vienna, Paris, and London rather summarily, and did not care for “details” such as Westminster. And naturally Vladimir Ilyich had not invited me to take that long walk for that reason. His purpose was to get to know me and examine me. And the examination in reality covered “the whole course.” In answer to his questions I gave him details of exile on the Lena and its inner groupings. The attitude towards active political struggle, to the central organization and to the terror, formed the chief line of division at that time.

“Well, but were there not differences of opinion in connection with Bernstein’s policy?” asked Vladimir Ilyich.

I told him how we had read Bernstein’s book and Kautsky’s in the Moscow prison and then in exile. Not one of the Marxists among us raised his voice for Bernstein. We looked upon it as a matter of course, so to speak, that Kautaky was right. But we did not draw any lines of communication between the theoretical struggle that was developing on an international scale and our own organizing political discussions, did not even think of them, not at least before we had read on the Lena the first numbers of Iskra and Lenin’s pamphlet: What Is to Be Done? I told him, moreover, how we had read with great interest Bogdanof’s philosophical pamphlets and I remember very clearly the import of Vladimir Ilyich’s remark: to him too the pamphlet about the historical way of contemplation of nature seemed very valuable, but Plechanof did not agree with it, and declared it was not materialistic. Vladimir Ilyich had then no views of his own about this question and only repeated Plechanof’s opinion, with esteem for his philosophical authority, but also with uneasiness. Plechanof’s views amazed me then very much.

Lenin examined me also on economics. I told him how we had studied in common in the Moscow prison his book The Development of Capitalism in Russia and in exile were working through Capital but had stopped at the second volume. I mentioned the enormous amount of statistical material worked out in The Development of Capitalism.

“In the Moscow prison we have often spoken with astonishment of this colossal work.”

“Yes, indeed, it was not done all at once,” Lenin answered.

It evidently pleased him that the young comrades studied carefully his most important economic work.

We spoke then of Michailisky’s appearance, of the impression that he had made on us in exile and to which many succumbed. I told him that the first hectographed number of Michailisky that reached us “up there” on the Lena made a strong impression on the majority of us as a sharp critique of social democratic opportunism and in this sense corresponded with the train of thought aroused by the polemic between Kautsky and Bernstein. The second number in which Michailisky “tears away the mask” from the Marxist formulas of reproduction and presents it as a theoretical justification of profit-sharing of the proletariat through the intelligence, aroused theoretical indignation in us. The third number, finally, which we received later, with its positive program in which the residue of economics is connected with the germ of syndicalism had the effect upon us of complete bankruptcy.

My further work was only touched upon in general in this conversation. I wanted to familiarize myself first of all with the literature that had appeared, and then I suggested going back to Russia illegally. It was decided that I should first “look round” a little.

Nadezda Constantinovna found me lodgings some distance away in the house where Sasulich, Martof and Blumenfeld lived, the latter the man who published Iskra. There was a vacant room there for me. The house was of the usual English form of construction and did not spread out horizontally but vertically: on the lower floor the owner lived, and then came the tenants one above the other. The common room, that Plechanof had named “the den” on his first visit, was still free. Not without fault on the part of Vera Ivanovna Sasulich, but also not without Martof’s assistance, great disorder reigned in this room. Here we drank coffee, had long talks here, smoked, etc. Hence the name.

Thus began the short London period of my life. I devoured hungrily the back numbers of Iskra and the pamphlets of Saria (Dawn). At this time also I began my work on the Iskra.

I wrote a short article on the 200 years jubilee of the Schlüsselburg fortress. I believe it was my first work for the Iskra. The article closed. with the words of Homer, or, to be exact, the words of Homer’s translator, Gnedich. I quoted the “invincible hands” that the revolution was laying on Czarism. (On the journey from Siberia I had read the Iliad in the train.) The article pleased Lenin. But he had justifiable doubts about “invincible hands” and expressed them to me with good natured banter. “But that is a verse of Homer,” I said to justify myself, but admitted gladly that the classical quotation was not necessary. The article is to be found in Iskra, but without the “invincible hands.”

I then went with my first reports to Whitechapel where I went about with the “old” Tchaikovsky (he was already an old man) and with the anarchist Tcherkesof, who was also no longer young. Finally I was genuinely astonished that well-known, gray-bearded exiles could utter such downright nonsense ... London’s “old citizen,” Alexief, was the go-between with Whitechapel, an exile and Marxist, who was connected with the Iskra. He initiated me into English life and was in general the source of all my knowledge. I remember that after a detailed conversation with him on the way to Whitechapel and back I told Vladimir Ilyich of two of Alexief’s opinions. The one concerned the breaking up of the political regime in Russia, the other Kautsky’s last pamphlet. “This breaking up will not come gradually,” said Alexief, “but very abruptly, on account of the crudity of the autocracy.” The word crudity (cruelty, severity, obstinacy) I noticed particularly.

“Well, he may be right,” said Lenin when he had heard my story to the end.

Alexief’s second declaration of opinion was about Kautsky’s pamphlet: The Day after the Social Revolution. I knew Lenin was much interested in the little book, that, in his own words, he had read it twice, and was reading it for the third time; I believe also that he edited the Russian translation. I had just studied the pamphlet carefully at Vladimir Ilyich’s suggestion. Alexief thought the work opportunist.

“Blockhead,” said Lenin unexpectedly, and puckered his lips angrily, which was always a sign of dissatisfaction in him.

Alexief himself had the greatest regard for Lenin: “I believe he is more important for the revolution than Plechanof.” Naturally I said nothing about this to Lenin, but I told it to Martof. He made no reply.

The editorial staff of Iskra and Saria consisted of six persons: three “old” people, Plechanof, Sasulich, and Axelrod, and three young ones: Lenin, Martof, and Potresof. Plechanof and Axelrod lived in Switzerland, Sasulich in London with the young people. Potresof was then somewhere on the continent. This local separation involved many technical inconveniences which, however, did not trouble Lenin, but rather the contrary. Before my journey to the continent he initiated me cautiously in the internal relations of the staff and said that Plechanof urged the removal of the entire staff to Switzerland, but that he, Lenin, was opposed to it as it would make the work more difficult. Then I understood for the first time, but still quite dimly, that the staff’s remaining in London did not depend only on police regulations but also on the organizing personnel.

In the organizing political work Lenin wanted to be as independent as possible of the old men, of Plechanof above all, with whom he had already had sharp conflicts, especially in perfecting the draft of the party program. Sasulich and Martof were the mediators in such cases: Sasulich as Plechanof’s second, Martof in the same position for Lenin. The two mediators were of a very forgiving nature and, besides, very friendly with each other. I only learned gradually of the sharp clashes between Lenin and Plechanof in the management of the theoretical part of the program. I remember that Vladimir Ilyich asked me what I thought of the program that had just appeared in Iskra, in Number 25, I believe. I had, however, taken in the program too much as a whole to be able to answer the internal questions that interested Lenin. The differences of opinion concerned the policy of greater sharpness and exactitude in characterizing the chief tendencies of capitalism, the concentration of production, the disintegration of the intermediate ranks, the class differences, etc.—on Lenin’s side, and on greater consideration of conditions and caution on the part of Plechanof.

The program, as is well known, abounds in the words “more or less”: that is due to Plechanof. As far as I remember Martof’s and Sasulich’s accounts, Lenin’s original draft, which he offered in contrast with Plechanof’s, met with very sharp criticism on the part of the latter, in that haughty ironical tone that marked George Valentinovich in such cases. But Lenin was naturally neither intimidated nor discouraged by that. The struggle assumed a very dramatic form.

Vera Ivanovna said to Lenin, as she told the story: “George (Plechanof) is a greyhound. He shakes and shakes the adversary and lets him go, but you are a bulldog: you have a deadly bite.”

I remember this sentence very exactly as also Sasulich’s final remark: “That pleased him (Lenin) greatly. ‘The deadly bite?’ he repeated with delight.” And Vera Ivanovna imitated good-naturedly the tone of the question.

During my stay in London Plechanof came for a short Visit, I saw him then for the first time. He came to our common lodgings, was in the “den,” too, but I was not at home.

“George has arrived,” said Vera Ivanovna. “He wants to see you. Go to him.”

“What George is that?” I asked in surprise, for I took for granted it was a famous name that I did not know.

“Plechanof ... we call him George.”

I went to him that evening. In the little room, besides Plechanof, sat the fairly well-known German writer and Social Democrat, Bar, and the Englishman Askew. As there were no more chairs I did not know where I ought to sit down and Plechanof suggested—not without hesitation—that I sit on the bed. I found this quite natural, and had no idea that a European from head to toe like Plechanof resorted to such an unusual measure only in extreme necessity. The conversation was in German which Plechanof knew but slightly; so he limited himself to very short remarks. Bar spoke first of how the English bourgeoisie had understood how to ensnare the progressive workmen and then the conversation changed to the English forerunners of French materialism. Bar and Askew soon went away. George Valentinovich expected, and with reason, that I would go with them, as it was late, and in order not to disturb the landlady by talking. But I, on the contrary, was of the opinion that it was only really beginning now.

“Bar said some very interesting things,” I said.

“Yes, what he said about English politics is interesting, but what he said about philosophy is nonsense,” Plechanof answered.

When he saw that I made no preparations to go he suggested that we go to drink beer in the neighborhood. He asked me some casual questions and was gracious, but back of this graciousness was a tinge of hidden impatience. I felt that he was absent-minded. Possibly he was only tired from his day, but I went away with a dissatisfied and irritated feeling.

In the London period, as in Geneva later, I met Sasulich and Martof more frequently than Lenin. In London I lived in the same house with them, and in Geneva we generally ate dinner and supper in the same restaurant, so that I met Martof and Sasulich several times a day, while every encounter with Lenin, who lived with his family, with the exception of official meetings, was a little event.

Sasulich was a curious person and a curiously attractive one. She wrote very slowly and suffered actual tortures of creation. “Vera Ivanovna does —not write, she puts mosaic together,” Vladimir Ilyich said tome at that time, And in fact she put down each sentence separately, walked up and down the room slowly, shuffled about in her slippers, smoked constantly hand-made cigarettes and threw the stubs and half-smoked cigarettes in every direction on all the window seats and tables, and scattered ashes over her jacket, hands, manuscripts, tea in the glass, and incidentally her visitor. She remained to the end the old radical intellectual on whom fate grafted Marxism. Sasulich’s articles show that she had adopted to a remarkable degree the theoretic elements of Marxism. But the moral political foundations of the Russian radicals of the ’70’s remained untouched in her until her death. In intimate conversations she permitted herself to rail against recognized methods or deductions of Marxism. The idea #8220;revolutionary” had for her an independent meaning, apart from its class purport. I recall a conversation with her about her Revolutionaries from a Bourgeois Milieu. I used the expression bourgeois democratic revolutionaries. “But no,” Vera Ivanovna interrupted with a touch of annoyance or rather of vexation. “Not bourgeois and not proletarian, but simply revolutionary. Naturally one can say small bourgeois revolutionaries,” she added, if you attribute to the small bourgeoisie everything you cannot otherwise dispose of ...”

The ideological rallying-point of Social Democracy was then Germany and we followed with close attention the struggle of the orthodox with the revisionists in German Social Democracy. Vera Ivanovna did not do this, she even said: “It is always the same. They will also finish with revision, will restore Marx, obtain the majority and still get along with the Kaiser.”

“Whom do you mean by ‘they,’ Vera Ivanovna?”

“The German Social Democrats.”

In this connection Vera Ivanovna was not so wrong as it then seemed, even though everything took a different course and for different reasons than she thought ... Sasulich looked with skepticism at the program of the division of land; she did not turn it aside but she joked good-naturedly about it. I recall an episode of this kind. Shortly before the Congress Constantin Constantinovich Bauer came to Geneva. He was an old Marxist but an extremely unbalanced and changeable man who was friendly with Struve for a time and then hesitated between the Iskra and Osvobochdenje (Liberation). In Geneva he began to turn towards the Iskra but he did not want to recognize the division of land. He went to Lenin, with whom he had evidently been acquainted in the past. He came away from him without having been convinced, no doubt because Vladimir Ilyich, who knew his Hamlet nature, had not taken the trouble to convince him. I had a long conversation with Bauer, whom I had known in exile, about the unlucky divisions of land. In the sweat of my brow I set forth all the arguments I had gathered together in six months of endless debates with Social Revolutionaries and all the other adversaries of the agrarian program of Iskra. And actually, the evening of that very day, Martof (at least I believe it was he) told us at an editorial meeting at which I was present, that Bauer had come to him and had finally declared himself an “Iskraer.” Trotzky had scattered all his doubts.

“About the divisions too?” Sasulich asked frightened.

“Yes, especially that.”

“The p-o-or fellow,” Ivanovna exclaimed with such an inimitable expression that we all laughed in a friendly way.

“In Vera Ivanovna much is based on ethics and feeling,” Lenin once said to me, and told me how she and Martof had been inclined to individual terror on account of the flogging by Wal, the governor of Vilna, of workmen who were making a demonstration. The traces of this temporary “tendency,” as we then called it, can be found in one of the numbers of Iskra. It seems to me the matter stands thus: Martof and Sasulich published the number in question without Lenin who was on the continent. The news of the floggings in Vilna reached London through a telegraph agency. In Vera Ivanovna there awoke the heroic radical who had shot at Trepof on account of the scourging of political prisoners. Martof supported her. When Lenin received the new number of Iskra he was greatly excited: “That is the first step towards capitulation to the social revolutionary doctrine.” At the same time there came a letter of protest from Plechanof. This episode had occurred before my arrival in London and so my description may contain a few inaccuracies about the course of events but I remember very well the essence of the affair. “Naturally,” Vera Ivanovna declared in a conversation with me, “it is not a question here of the terror, but of the system, and I believe that one can wean them away from scourging by the terror ...”

Sasulich could not carry on a real discussion, still less did she understand how to come forward openly. She never answered directly the arguments of her opponents, but pondered over them quietly until finally she burst forth in a whole train of sentences in which she turned, not to the one whom the reply concerned, but to the one she thought would understand her. When the debates were formal, with a president, Vera Ivanovna never entered the list of speakers, as, to say anything, she would have had to burst forth explosively. In such a case, she entirely ignored the list of speakers, treated them with absolute disrespect, interrupted constantly the speaker and the president, and said to the very end what she wanted to say. To understand her you had to follow her train of thought closely. And her thoughts were—whether they were false or right—always interesting and exclusively her own. It is not difficult to imagine what a contrast, Vera Ivanovna, with her indefinite radicalism, her subjectivity, and her confusion presented to Vladimir Ilyich. Not only was there no sympathy between them but they had the feeling of deep organic difference. But as a clever psychologist Sasulich felt Lenin’s force, perhaps also not without a touch of envy. She showed this also in her expression about the deadly bite.

The complicated relations that existed among the members of the staff were gradually made clear to me, but not without some difficulty. As I have already said I came to London a real provincial. This was true in every respect; at that time I had not only not been abroad, but had not been in Petersburg. In Moscow as well as in Kiev I had only been in political prisons. The Marxist publicists I knew exclusively from their articles. In Siberia I had read a few numbers of Iskra and Lenin’s What Is to Be Done? I had heard obscurely of Ilin, the author of The Development of Capitalism in the Moscow prison (I believe from Vanovsky) as the rising star of Social Democracy. I knew little of Martof, nothing of Potresof. In London I studied with zeal Iskra and Saria and especially what had happened abroad, and thus in one of the numbers of Saria I came upon a brilliant article aimed at Propokovich about the rôle and the meaning of the mining-Companies unions.

“Who is this Molotof?” I asked Martof.

“Parvus.”

But I knew nothing of Parvus. I accepted Iskra as a whole and in those months I had no desire, indeed I had even a kind of inner aversion, to look in it or its staff for any weakening tendencies, shades of feeling, influences, or similar things.

I recall that I noticed that many editorials and feuilletons in Iskra although not signed, contained the pronoun “I”: “In such and such a number I said,” “I have already written such and such a thing,” etc. I asked who wrote these articles. It turned out that they were all by Lenin. In talking with him I remarked that I thought it wrong to use the pronoun “I” in unsigned articles. “Why wrong?” he asked interestedly, assuming that I was saying something here that was not casual and not only my personal opinion.

“Because it is,” I answered vaguely, for I had no particular views about it.

“I don’t think so,” said Lenin and laughed ambiguously.

At that time one might have perceived a breath of “egotism” in this literary custom. In fact1 however, the prominence given his articles, even when they were not signed, gives a strong position to his policy because of his mistrust of the firm policy of his nearest colleagues. Here we see already on a small scale that persistent, stubborn directness of purpose, that made use of all circumstances, stopped at no formality, and was the characteristic of Lenin as a leader.

Lenin was the political guide of Iskra but as a publicist Martof was its head. He wrote easily and unceasingly, exactly as he spoke. Lenin passed much time in the library of the British Museum, where he was busy with theoretical studies. I remember that Lenin wrote an article in the library against Nadjeschdin, who at that time had his own little publication in Switzerland, and chanced to be hesitating between the Social Democrats and the Social Revolutionaries. But the night before (he usually worked at night), Martof had already written a long article about Nadjeschdin and given it to Lenin.

“Have you read Julian’s article?” Vladimir Ilyich asked me in the Museum.

“Yes, I have read it.”

“What do you think of it?”

“I think it is good.”

“Yes, it is very good, but not definite enough.

The results are lacking. Here I have written out something, but I do not know yet what ought to be done with it; perhaps add it to Julian’s article as a supplementary note.”

He gave me a small sheet of paper written closely with pencil, and in the next number of Iskra Martof’s article appeared with Lenin’s note added. I do not know if this note is used in the collected works of Lenin. But I can vouch that he wrote it.

Some months later, it was in the weeks before the Congress, a new difference of opinion flared up in passing between Lenin and Martof and that about a tactical question in connection with the street demonstrations, that is, to be more exact, about the armed struggle with the police. Lenin said we must form small armed groups and instruct the workmen accustomed to fight to struggle with the police. Martof was against it. The strike reached the editorial office.

“Won’t this cause something like a group terror?” I said in regard to Lenin’s proposal. (I remember that at this time the struggle with the terrorist tactics of the Social Revolutionaries played a large rôle in our work.) Martof took up the discussion and developed the idea that we must give instructions to protect the mass demonstrations from the police, but without training separate groups to struggle with them. Plechanof, to whom the others and I looked expectantly, avoided the answer and suggested to Martof to put the resolution in writing so that we could consider the points of controversy with the text in hand. The episode, however, was swallowed up in the events connected with the Congress.

Not only in assemblies and meetings, but in private conversations, I had very little opportunity to observe Lenin and Martof together. Long discussions, formless conversations, which generally changed to exiles’ chat and disputes, to which Martof was much inclined, Lenin did not care for at all. This most powerful machinist of the revolution, not only in politics but also in his theoretical works, in his philosophical and linguistic studies, was irrevocably controlled by one and the same idea, the goal. He was probably the most extreme utilitarian whom the laboratory of history has produced. But his utilitarianism was of the broadest historical scope. His personality did not grow flat or poor thereby, but on the contrary developed and enriched itself in extent, as his experience of life and sphere of activity grew ...

Side by side with Lenin, Martof, who was then his closest comrade in the struggle, did not feel very comfortable. They still used the familiar “thou” but there was already a certain coolness noticeable in their relations. Martof lived far more for today, and its concerns, for the current literary work, publicist writings, polemics, for news and conversation. Lenin left today behind him and forced himself into tomorrow in his thoughts. Martof had numberless and often brilliant combinations, hypotheses, propositions, which he himself quickly forgot, while Lenin found what he needed and when he needed it. The venturesomeness and brittleness of Martof’s thoughts made Lenin frequently shake his head in alarm. Any differences in the political policy were not yet fixed, and had not yet made their appearance; only subsequently they could be detected by intimations.

Later at the time of the split at the Second Congress the Iskra people were divided into hard and soft. This designation was naturally very useful at first, and demonstrates that when there was no exact line of division, the difference lay in comprehension, resolution, and readiness to go to the end. When we turn to the relations between Lenin and Martof it must be said that, before the split and before the Congress, Lenin was “hard” and Martof “soft.” And both knew this. Lenin looked critically and almost mistrustfully at Martof, whom otherwise he valued very highly, and Martof, who was conscious of that, felt oppressed and nervously shrugged his thin shoulders. When they talked with each other on meeting, the lack of the friendly tone and of any joking was noticeable, at least as far as I could see. When Lenin spoke he looked past Martof, and Martof’s eyes on the other hand looked out rigidly from behind the drooping glasses that were never cleaned. Even when Vladimir Ilyich spoke with me about Martof his voice had a peculiar tinge: “Did Julian say that?” in which he laid special stress on the name, slightly emphasized and at the same time warning: “Fine and good, even noteworthy, but very weak.” Martof was doubtless also influenced by Vera Ivanovna, who forced him away from Lenin, not politically to be sure, but psychologically. Naturally all this is more of a general psychological characterization than data material, and it is in addition a characterization that is made twenty-one years later. Since this time my memory has been much burdened and in the presentation of imponderable motives in the sphere of personal relations, mistakes as well as changes in perspective may indeed be mingled. What is here recollection and what unconscious supplementary reconstruction? I believe, however, that my memory brings back to me that which then was, and as it was.

After my so-called “trial appearance” in Whitechapel, which Alexief reported to the staff, I was sent with an official report to the continent—to Brussels, Lüttich, Paris. The theme was: “What is historical materialism and how do the Social Revolutionaries comprehend it?” Vladimir Ilyich was very much interested in this theme. I gave him a full draft of it with quotations, etc., to look through. He advised me to work up the report into an article for the next number of “Saria,” but I did not attempt it.

From Paris a telegram soon called me back to London. They were considering sending me to Russia illegally. Vladimir Ilyich’s train of thought was: complaints came from there about the break-up of the organization, the lack of people, and, I believe, Claire had demanded my return. But I had not yet reached London when the plan was abandoned. L. G. Deutsch, who then lived in London and was very friendly with me, told me subsequently how he had “stood up” for me by pointing out that the “youth”—he never called me anything else—ought to live and study abroad for some time yet, and that, after some discussion, Lenin agreed with him. It would have been very interesting to work in the Russian organization of Iskra, but nevertheless I was glad to remain abroad for some time.

One Sunday I went with Vladimir Ilyich and Nadezda Constantinovna to a London Socialist Church, where a Social Democratic meeting alternated with the singing of God-fearing, revolutionary psalms. The speaker was, I think, a printer,, who had come back to his home from Australia. Vladimir translated his speech for us in a whisper, a speech that sounded quite revolutionary for that period at least. Then everybody stood up and sang: “Almighty God, put an end to kings and rich men ...“ or something similar. “Among the English proletariat there are many revolutionary and socialist elements,” said Vladimir Ilyich, as we left the church, “but it is all so intertwined with conservatism, religion, and prejudices, that it cannot reach the surface and become the property of all ...“ It is not without interest to state here that Sasulich and Martof lived quite apart from the English workingmen’s activity and were completely absorbed in the Iskra and what surrounded it. Lenin occasionally made independent excursions in the field of the English workingmen’s activity.

It remains to be said that Vladimir Ilyich and Nadezda Constantinovna and her mother lived more than simply. On our return from the Social Democratic church we ate together in the little kitchen of their two-room dwelling. I remember as though it were yesterday the roast meat served in a casserole. Then we drank tea and joked as usual as to whether I could find my way home alone; it was difficult for me to find my way in the streets, and as I was inclined to systematize I called this peculiarity “topographical cretinism.” The date of the Congress approached and finally it was decided to transfer the headquarters of Iskra to Switzerland, to Geneva; living there was much cheaper and the connection with Russia easier. Lenin concealed his annoyance and agreed. I was sent to Paris in order to go to Geneva with Martof. The preparatory work for the Congress went on with more vigor.

---

A short time after that Lenin came to Paris, too. He was to give three lectures on the agrarian question in the so-called Russian High School that had been organized in Paris by exiled Russian university professors. After Tchernof had appeared in the school the Marxist section of the student body had insisted on the invitation to Lenin. The professors were alarmed and begged the lecturer, if possible, not to venture into polemics. But Lenin made no binding promises and opened the first lecture thus: that Marxism is a revolutionary and consequently, in its essence, a polemical theory, but that this polemical nature in no way contradicts its scientific character. I recall that Vladimir Ilyich was much excited before his first lecture. At the speaker’s desk, however, he controlled himself at once, at least outwardly. Professor Gambarof, who had come to hear him, formulated his impression to Deutsch as follows: “A true professor!” The delightful man thought he was praising him highly.

Although polemical through and through – against the Narodniki and the social agrarian reformer David, whom Lenin compared and connected – the lectures proceeded in the framework of economic theory and left untouched the political struggle of the moment, the agrarian program of Social Democracy, of the Social Revolutionaries, etc. This limitation was imposed upon the lecturer on account of the academic character of the chair. But at the end of the third lecture Lenin gave a political report on the agrarian question. I think it was at Rue Choisy 110, arranged by the Paris group of Iskra, and no longer by the High School. The hall was crowded. The whole student body of the High School had come to hear the practical consequences of the theoretical lectures. The speech dealt with the agrarian program of Iskra at the time and particularly the indemnity for the division of land. I no longer remember who opposed it, but I do remember that Vladimir Ilyich was splendid in his concluding words. One of the Parisian Iskra people said to me on leaving: “Lenin surpassed himself to-day.”

Afterwards the Iskra people went with the speaker to a cafe. All were very gratified and the lecturer himself in a happy mood. The cashier of the group told us of the entrance receipts that the meeting had brought to the Iskra cash box, – evidently between 75 and 100 francs; a sum not to be despised.

This all happened in the beginning of 1903; for the moment I cannot tell the date more accurately, but I think it would not be hard to do so, if it has not been done already.

During this visit of Lenin it was decided to take him to the opera. N.I. Sedovaja, a member of the Iskra staff, was appointed to arrange the affair. Vladimir Ilyich came to the theater – it was the Opera Comique – and left the theater with the same map that had taken him to his lecture at the High School. The opera was Louise by Massenet, and its subject is very democratic. We sat in a group in the gallery. Besides Lenin, Sedovaja, and myself, Martof was there; the others I no longer remember. There is a little circumstance, quite unmusical, connected with this visit to the opera, that has made a deep impression on me. Lenin had bought himself boots in Paris. They proved to be too narrow. He worried himself over them a few hours until he decided to take them off. As ill-luck would have it, my shoes left much to be desired. I received these boots, and in my delight they seemed to fit splendidly at first. I wanted to initiate them on our visit to the opera. The walk there passed off happily. But in the theater I felt that things were not going well. Probably that is the reason I no longer remember what impression the opera made on Lenin and myself. I only know that he was roused up, joked and laughed. On the way home I suffered terribly and Vladimir Ilyich teased me unmercifully the whole time. Back of his joking, however, there was real fellow-feeling: he had himself suffered some hours of torture in these boots, as I have said.

I mentioned above Lenin’s excitement before his Paris lectures. I must dwell on this. This kind of excitement showed itself in him also much later, and in a stronger form the less the audience was “his,” the more formal the occasion of the meeting. Outwardly Lenin always spoke convincingly, impetuously and, quickly, so that his speeches were a bitter affliction for the stenographers. But when he did not feel in his element his voice sounded somewhat strange, impersonal, and resounded like an echo. When, on the contrary, Lenin detected that this very audience needed what he had to say, his voice became very animated and softly convincing, without becoming “oratorical” in the real sense of the word, rather kept up a conversational tone, on a platform scale.

This was not rhetorical art, but something greater than oratory. You can naturally say that every orator speaks best before “his own” audience. In this general form that is of course right. But the question is what audience the orator feels to be his and under what circumstances. The European orators of the type of Vanderveld, who are trained by parliamentary models, need ceremonious surroundings and formal occasions for pathos. At jubilee gatherings and on gala occasions they feel in their element. For Lenin any meeting of this kind was a little personal misfortune. He was at his best and most convincing always over matters of controversy. The best examples of his public appearances are probably his speeches in the Central Committee before October.

Before the Paris reports I had heard Lenin only once, I think, in London, about the end of December, 1902. Strange to say, I have not the slightest recollection of it, neither the reason for his appearance nor the theme. I almost doubt if there really was a report by him. But apparently it happened thus: the occasion was, under the conditions in London, a large Russian gathering, and Lenin was present; if he did not have to make a report he scarcely ever appeared. I show the deficiencies in my memory by saying that his report probably treated as usual the same theme that was in the current number of Iskra. I had already read Lenin’s article and so the report contained nothing new for me. There was no discussion; the weak London opponents could not make up their minds to come out against Lenin. The audience, which consisted in part of unionists, and in part of anarchists, was not a very grateful one – consequently it was a tame affair. I only remember that towards the end of the meeting, the B.’s, husband and wife, of the former Petersburg group of the Rabotschaja Mysl (Workman’s Thought), who had lived in London for some time, came to me and gave me the invitation: “Come to us on New Year’s Eve” (that is why I remember that the meeting took place the end of December).

“What for?” I asked in barbaric narrow-mindedness.

“To pass the time in a circle of comrades. Ulianof will be there and Krupskaja.”

I know that she said Ulianof and not Lenin, and that I did not understand at once whom they were talking about. Sasulich and Martof were invited, too. The next day we talked about it in the “den” and asked Lenin if he were going. I think no one went. It is a pity: it would have been the one occasion of its kind to have seen Lenin with Sasulich and Martof in the setting of New Year’s Eve.

Before my departure for Geneva from Paris I was invited to Plechanof’s with Sasulich and Martof. I think Vladimir Ilyich was there too. But I have only a very dim recollection of that evening. In any event it did not have a political character, but a “worldly” one, if not a bourgeois one. I remember that I sat there helpless and depressed, and if the host or hostess did not show me any special attention, did not know what to do. Plechanof’s daughters passed tea and cakes. There was a certain tenseness among us all, and evidently I was not the only one who did not feel at ease. Perhaps it was due to my youth that I felt the coolness more than the others. This visit was my first and last. My impressions of this “visit” were very fleeting and probably purely accidental, as in general all my meetings with Plechanof were fleeting and accidental. The brilliant figure of Russia’s Marxist old master I have tried to characterize briefly elsewhere. Here I limit myself to the scrappy impressions of the first meetings in which I had no luck at all. Sasulich, who was much distressed at such things, said to me: “I know, George can be unbearable, but in reality he is an awfully dear beast.” (A favorite eulogy of hers.)

I must remark here, that in contrast to this, in Axelrod’s family there was always an atmosphere of simplicity and sincere comrade-like sympathy. I still remember gratefully the hours I spent at Axelrod’s hospitable table during my frequent visits in Zurich. Vladimir Ilyich, too, spent much time here and, so far as I know from what the family told me, he felt much at home in their midst. I did not happen to meet him at Axelrod’s.

As far as Sasulich is concerned her frankness and goodness to the young comrades is quite unique. If you cannot speak of hospitality in her in the real sense of the word, it is only because she herself had more need of it than she was able to show. She lodged, dressed, and supported herself like the simplest of students. Of material things her chief joys were tobacco and mustard. The one as xvell as the other she consumed in large quantities. When she put a thick layer of mustard on a very thin slice of ham we said: “Vera Ivanovna is extravagant ...”

The fourth member of the “Group for Liberation of Labor,” L. G. Deutsch, was very kind and attentive to the young comrades. I do not remember, however, that as the administrator of Iskra he ever took part as an advisor at the meetings of the staff. Deutsch generally went about with Plechanof and had more than moderate views on questions of revolutionary tactics. Once he said, to my great astonishment: “It will never come to an armed uprising, my boy, and it is not necessary. We had fighting-cocks in our prison who started fighting at the slightest provocation and so perished. I have, on the contrary, always taken the stand: not to give in and to let the ad-ministration understand that it will come to a big fight, but not to allow it to come to that. I gained thereby the respect of the administration and – a modification of the régime. We must use the same kind of tactics to Czarism, otherwise it will fight and destroy us without any benefit to the cause.”

I was so surprised by this tactical speech that I told it in turn to Martof, Sasulich, and Lenin. I no longer remember how Martof reacted. Vera Ivanovna said: “Eugene (Deutsch’s old nickname) was always like that: personally an exceptionally brave man, but politically extremely prudent and restrained.” When Lenin heard it he said something like: “Hm, hm ... yes, yes,” and then we both laughed without any further comment.

In Geneva the first delegates for the coming Second Congress arrived, and there were sessions with them constantly. In this preparatory work Lenin unquestionably played the leading role, although not always perceptibly. Meetings of Iskra’s editorial staff, meetings of Iskra’s organization, separate meetings with delegates, in groups and together, alternated with each other. A number of the delegates came with doubts, with objections, or with demands of definite groups. The preparatory work took up much time. At the Congress there were three workmen present. Lenin talked with each of them very definitely and won all three. One of them was Schotman from Petersburg. He was still very young but cautious and deliberate. I remember how he came back after his conversation with Lenin (we were in the same lodgings) and constantly repeated:

“And how his eyes glitter; he looks right through one ...” The delegate from Nicolaief was Kalafati. Vladimir Ilyich questioned me in detail about him – I knew him in Nicolaief – and then he added, with a sly smile: “He says he has known you as a kind of Tolstoian.”

“What nonsense that is!” I said almost angrily.

“What is the matter?” Lenin replied, half to calm me, half to tease me. “You were then probably eighteen years old, and men are certainly not born Marxists.”

“That may be,” I said, “but I had nothing in common with Tolstojanism.”

A main point in the deliberations was the statute whereby, in the organization schemes and discussions, the correlations between the central organ and the Central Committee formed one of the most important points. I had come abroad with the idea that the central organ must “subordinate” itself to the Central Committee. That was also the attitude of the majority of the Russian Iskra people – to be sure without being very emphatic and definite.

“That won’t do,” Vladimir Ilyich replied; “that is contrary to the relative strength. How can they direct us from Russia? It won’t do ... We are the stable center and shall direct from here.”

In one of the drafts it reads that the central organ was under the obligation of bringing out the articles of the members of the Central Committee.

“Also those against the central organ?” Lenin asked.

“Naturally.”

“What is that for? It leads to nothing. A polemic between two members of the central organ may be useful under certain conditions, but a polemic of ‘Russian’ members of the Central Committee against the central organ is inadmissible.”

“But that means complete dictatorship of the central organ?” I asked.

“What is there bad about that?” Lenin answered. “In the present situation it cannot be otherwise.”

There was much friction at that time about the so-called right of extension. At one of the conferences we, the young people, led the discussion to positive and negative extension.

“Yes, negative extension; that means in Russian ‘cast out’,” Vladimir Ilyich said laughingly to me the next morning. “That is not so simple! Just try for once – ha, ha, ha, – to put through negative extension in the staff of the Iskra.”

The most important question for Lenin was the future organization of the central organ, which in reality had to play the role of the Central Committee at the same time. Lenin considered it impossible to retain the old committee of six any longer. Sasulich and Martof were almost invariably on the side of Plechanof in any matter of dispute, so that, at best, it meant three against three. Neither one nor the other team of three wanted to dispense with any one of the commission. There remained the opposite course: the enlargement of the commission. Lenin wanted to introduce me as the seventh, in order to separate from the commission of seven, as also from the enlarged staff, a closer staff group consisting of Lenin, Plechanof, and Martof. Vladimir Ilyich gradually initiated me in this plan without mentioning at all that he had already proposed me as the seventh member of the staff, and that this motion bad been accepted by all, with the exception of Plechanof, who decidedly opposed it. The entrance of a seventh, in Plechanof’s eyes, meant in itself a majority of the group “Liberation of Labor”: four “young” against three “old” men.

I believe this plan was the main source of the extreme malevolence that George Valentinovich showed me. Unfortunately there were also smaller open clashes between us in the presence of the delegates. I think it began with the question of the popular newspaper. Some delegates emphasized the necessity of publishing a popular organ at the same time as Iskra, if possible in Russia. This was particularly the idea of the group “Juschni Rabotschi” (workmen of the south). Lenin was a decided opponent His deliberations were of a varied nature, but the main reason was the fear that a special grouping might be formed on the basis of a “popular” simplification of Social Democratic ideas, before the picked men of the party had settled themselves properly. Plechanof stood decidedly for the creation of a popular organ, opposed Lenin openly, and sought the support of the local delegates. I supported Lenin. At one of the sessions I developed the idea – if it were right or not is a matter of indifference to me now – that we did not need a popular organ but a series of propagandist pamphlets and handbills that should assist in raising the progressive workman to the level of the Iskra, that moreover a popular organ would narrow the Iskra and blur the political physiognomy of the party while lowering it to the standards of the Economists and Social Revolutionaries.

Plechanof objected: “What do you mean by blur? Naturally we cannot say everything in a popular organ. We shall present challenges and solutions, but not occupy ourselves with questions of tactics. We say to the workman that we must fight with capitalism, but naturally we shall not theorize with him as to ‘how.’ I took up this argument: “But the ‘Economists’ and Social Revolutionaries too say that we must fight with capitalism. The divergence begins with that very point, how the struggle is to be carried on. If we do not answer this question in the popular organ we put aside the difference between us and the Social Revolutionaries.”

This reply had something very triumphant about it and Plechanof was embarrassed. This episode did not improve his relations with me. There was a second conflict soon after this, at a staff meeting, that indeed passed the resolution to admit me to the councils until the Congress had decided on the composition of the editorial staff. Plechanof opposed it categorically. But Vera Ivanovna said to him: “But I shall bring him into it” And she really “brought” me into the session. I myself learned of this act behind the scenes considerably later and went to the meeting without misgivings. George Valentinovich greeted me with that special coolness in which he so excelled. And unfortunately at this very session the staff had to consider a matter of dispute between Deutsch and the above-mentioned Blumenfeld. Deutsch was the administrator of the Iskra. Blumenfeld had charge of the printing. On this basis a question of jurisdiction arose. Blumenfeld complained about Deutsch’s interference in the affairs of the printing office. Plechanof supported Deutsch through old friendship and proposed that Blumen-feld limit himself to the printing technique. I made the objection that it was impossible to conduct the printing office only on a technical plane, as there were, in addition, organizing and administrative affairs to settle and that Blumenfeld must be independent in all these questions. I remember Plechanof’s malicious reply: “If Comrade Trotzky is right that the manifold superstructure of an administrative and other nature develops from technique, as the theory of historical materialism teaches, then ...” etc.

Lenin and Martof, however, supported me discreetly and carried through the decision as needed. That was the finishing stroke. In both cases Vladimir Ilyich’s sympathy was on my side. At the same time he saw with alarm that my relations with Plechanof grew much worse, which threatened to spoil his plan for reorganizing the staff. At one of the next conferences with the newly arrived delegates Lenin took me to one side and said: “On this question of a popular organ you had better leave it to Martof to answer Plechanof. Martof will cement what you break. It is better for him to cement it.” These expressions break and cement I remember exactly.

After one of the staff meetings in the “Cafe Landolt,” I believe it was after the same meeting I have just mentioned, Sasulich began, in that timid impressive voice peculiar to her in such cases, to complain that we attacked the Liberals “too much.” That was her sorest spot.

“Look how you overexert yourselves,” she said and looked past Lenin, though she had him in mind above all. “In the last number of Osvoboschdenje, Struve presents Jaurés as an example to our Liberals and claims that the Russian

Liberals should not break with Socialism, because otherwise the lamentable fate of German Liberalism threatens them, but should take the French Radical Socialists as an example.”

Lenin stood by the table. He had pushed back his soft hat high on his forehead; the meeting had ended and he was about to go.

“So much the more must we attack them,” he said smiling contentedly and as if to tease Vera Ivanovna.

“But look,” she cried in absolute despair, “they come to meet us and we strike at them!”

“Yes, naturally, Struve says to his Liberals, ‘You must not use coarse German methods to our Socialism, but the finer French ones; you must coquette, attract, deceive and corrupt, in the style of the Left French Radicals, who are ogling Jaurésism.’

Naturally I cannot give this important speech word for word. Its meaning and substance, how-ever have been sharply impressed on my memory. I have not at the moment anything at hand to prove it, but it would not be difficult; one would have only to look over the early numbers of Osvoboschdenje of 1903 for Struve’s article about the relation of the Liberals to Democratic Socialism in general and to Jaurésism in particular. I reember this article on account of Vera Ivanovna’s words during the scene mentioned above. If you add to the date of appearance of the copy of Osvoboschdenje in question the time required for it to reach Geneva and Vera Ivanovna’s bands and be read by her, that is, three or four days, one can settle pretty closely the date of this dispute in Cafe Landolt. I recall that it was a spring day – perhaps already early summer – the sun was shining brightly and Lenin’s deep laugh was also bright. I remember clearly his quietly ironical, confident and “sturdy” appearance, I say this intentionally, although Vladimir Ilyich was then more slender than in the last part of his life. Vera Ivanovna turned hastily from one to another, as she always did. But I believe no one interfered in the dispute, which took place as we were leaving and did not last long.

I went home with her. Sasulich was depressed; she felt that Struve’s card had failed. I could not give her any consolation. However, not one of us suspected then to what degree the card of Russian Liberalism had been beaten in this little dialogue by the door of Café Landolt.

I perceive now the total inadequacy ‘of the episodes I have told above: they are too pale. But I have carefully gathered everything my memory had preserved at the beginning of this work, even what was of little importance, because there is almost no one left now, who could speak in more detail of this period. Plechanof is dead. Sasuich is dead. Martof is dead. And Lenin is dead. It is hardly possible that any one of them has left memoirs. Vera Ivanovna perhaps? Nothing has been heard of them. Of Iskra’s former staff only Axelrod and Potresof are living. Without mentioning all other considerations, they both had but a small part in the editorial work and were rarely present at the staff meetings. Deutsch could tell some things, but he only came abroad shortly before the close of the period described, a short time before me, besides did not share in the editorial work immediately. Nadezda Constantinovna can, and, we hope, will give priceless information. She stood then in the very center of the entire work of organization, received the comrades arriving, gave instructions to and dismissed those departing, arranged connections, gave information, wrote letters, ciphered and deciphered. The odor of burnt paper was almost always noticeable in her room. She often complained in her gently energetic way that comrades over there wrote little, that they had confused the cipher, and that the lines written in chemical ink were very indistinct, etc. It is of still more importance that Nadezda Constantinovna, hand in hand with Lenin every day in this organizing work, could observe what went on in him and around him. None the less, I hope these pages will not be superfluous as, in my time, at least, Nadezda Constantinovna was rarely present at the staff meeting. But above all, the fresh eye of some one not immediately concerned now and then notices what the familiar eye no longer sees. Be that as it may, let that be told that I can tell. Now I will give some general opinions as to why, at the time of the Iskra a definite change in Lenin’s political self-consciousness had to take place, in his self-estimation, so to speak, why this change was inevitable, and how it was necessary.

Lenin went abroad as a mature man of thirty. In. Russia, in the student unions, in the first Social Democratic groups, in the colonies of exiles, he held the highest position. He could not but perceive his strength, already unique, for all with whom he came in contact and with whom he worked recognized it. He went abroad with much theoretical luggage, with an important political experience, and completely obsessed by the purpose of working for a definite goal which determined his intellectual nature. Abroad there awaited him work as a collaborator in the “Group for the Liberation of Labor,” especially with Plechanof, the profound and brilliant commentator of Marx, the teacher of entire generations, the theorist, politician, publicist, and orator of European fame and European connections. At Plechanof’s side stood two of the greatest authorities: Sasulich and Axelrod. It was not only her heroic past that had put Vera Ivanovna in the foreground. No, it was rather her keen intellect, with its comprehensive, historically inclined cultivation and its rare psychological intuition. In his time the “Group” was also connected with old Engels. In opposition to Plechanof and Sasulich, who above all were connected with Romanic Socialism, Axelrod represented in the “Group” the ideas and experiences of German Social Democracy. This difference in the “spheres of influence” was expressed also in their places of residence. Plechanof and Sasulich lived generally in Geneva, Axelrod in Zurich. Axelrod concentrated on questions of tactics. He has not written a single theoretical or historical book, as is well known. He wrote very little, and what he wrote almost always concerned tactical questions of Socialism. In this sphere Axelrod showed independence and acuteness. From numerous conversations with him – I was very friendly with him and Sasulich for some time – I have a clear impression that much of what Plechanof has written on questions of tactics is a fruit of collective work, and that Axelrod’s part in it is considerably more important than one can prove from the printed documents alone. Axeirod said more than once to Plechanof, the undisputed and beloved leader of the “Group” (before the break in 1903) “George, you have a long snout, and take from everywhere what you need.”

As is well known, Axelrod wrote the introduction to Lenin’s manuscript sent from Russia, The Tasks of the Russian Social Democrats. By this act the “Group” adopted the talented young Russian party worker, but at the same time made it known that he was to be looked upon as a pupil. And so with this reputation Lenin and two other pupils arrived in a foreign land. I was not present at the first meetings of pupils and teachers, at those conferences where the policy of Iskra was worked out. Moreover, the observations of the half year described above and particularly of the Second Party Congress make it easy to understand that the reason for the extreme sharpness of the conflict, besides the question of principles just indicated, lay in the bad judgment of the old men in estimating Lenin’s development and significance.

In the course of the Second Congress and immediately after it, Axelrod’s displeasure and that of the other members of the staff at Lenin’s behavior joined in the surprise: “How does he do it?” This surprise increased when Lenin, after the break with Plechanof, who soon afterward entered the Congress, continued the fight none the less. Axeirod’s state of mind and that of the others can perhaps be best expressed in the words:

“What kind of fly has stung him?”

“He only came abroad not a very long time ago,” the old man said; “he came as a pupil and his behavior was what was expected.’ (Axelrod emphasized this above all in his descriptions of the first months of the Iskra.) Whence this sudden self-confidence? How does he do it?” etc.

The conclusion was: he prepared the ground in advance in Russia. Not in vain were all the connections in Nadezda Constantinovna’s hands; there too the work of the Russian comrades against the “Group for the Liberation of Labor” went on quietly ... Sasulich was indeed not less indignant than the others, but perhaps she under-stood more than the others. Not in vain had she said to Lenin, long before the split, in contrast with Plechanof that he had “a deadly bite.” And who knows what effect these words had upon him? Whether Lenin did not repeat to himself: “Yes, that is right: who, if not Sasulich, can know Plechanof? He shakes and shakes his opponent, and lets him go, while our task demands something quite different ... Here it requires the deadly bite.”

To what degree and in what sense the words about a preparatory “work” of the Russian comrades are right, Nadezda Constantinovna can best tell. But in the broader sense of the word one can say without further examination of the facts, that such a preparation took place. Lenin always prepared the day to follow while he affirmed and improved today. His creative mind never stiffened and his vigilance never tired. And when he came to the conclusion that the “Group for Liberation of Labor,” because of the approaching revolution, was not in a position to assume the immediate direction of the organization for the struggle of the proletarian vanguard, he drew for himself all the practical inferences. The old men had made a mistake; and not the old men alone; this was no longer the young, capable party worker whom Axelrod had favored by a friendly patronizing foreword; this was rather a leader, fully cognizant of his goal, who, in my opinion, already felt himself destined to be a leader, after he had worked side by side with the old men, the teachers, and convinced himself that he was stronger and more necessary than they. It is true that in Russia too Lenin had been the first among equals, according to Martof’s expression. But there, after all, it bad only been a question of the first Social Democratic groups, of young organizations. The Russian standards still bore the stamp of provincialism: how many Russian Lasalles and Russian Bebels there then! It was a different matter with the “Group for the Liberation of Labor”: Plechanof, Axelrod and Sasulich were in the same rank with Kautsky, Lafargue, Guesde, and Bebel, the real, German Bebel! When Lenin measured his strength in work with them, he had, at the same time, measured himself with the great European standard. Especially in his conflicts with Plechanof, when the staff grouped itself about the two poles, Lenin’s self-consciousness must have gone through that steeling without which he would not have been Lenin later on.

And the conflicts with the old men were inevitable. Not because there had been two different conceptions of revolutionary movement. No, this was not yet the case at this time, but the manner of approaching political events, in organizing and, particularly, in handling practical problems, consequently too the position towards the approaching revolution, were fundamentally different. The old men of the party had twenty years of exile back of them. For them the Iskra and Saria was a literary undertaking above everything else. For Lenin, on the contrary, they meant the immediate instrument of revolutionary activity. In Plechanof the revolutionary skeptic was deeply rooted, as was proved a few years later (1905-1906) and more tragically still in the imperialist war: he looked upon Lenin’s directness of purpose haughtily, and only had a malicious, condescending witty remark to make about it. Axelrod, as I have already said, was closer to the tactical problems, but his train of thoughts refused stubbornly to consider the questions of preparation for preparation. Axelrod analyzed with the greatest skill the tendencies and shadings of the different groupings of the revolutionary Intellectuals. He was a homeopath of the pre-revolutionary politics. His methods and mediums had something of the character of the apothecary shop, of the laboratory. The quantities with which he worked were always very small; the societies with which he had to do he could measure with the finest scales. Not without reason did Deutsch consider Axelrod like Spinoza, and not in vain was Spinoza a diamond cutter; a work that requires a magnifying glass. Lenin, on the contrary, looked upon the events and conditions as a whole and understood how to grasp the social complex in his thought; so he wagered on the approaching revolution, which burst upon Plechanof, as well as Axelrod, all of a sudden.

Probably Vera Ivanovna Sasulich felt most directly of the old people the approach of the revolution. Her strong character, free from all pedantry, intuitively historical, helped her in this. But she felt the revolution as an old radical. In the depths of her soul she was convinced that all the elements of revolution already existed among us, especially the “actual” self-confident liberalism that would take the leadership, and that we Marxists by our hasty criticism and “pursuit” only frightened the Liberals and thereby played fundamentally a counter-revolutionary role. Vera Ivanovna did not say all this in the press, of course. In personal conversations too she did not express it so fully. None the less it was her deep conviction and thence came the opposition between her and Axelrod, whom she considered a doctrinaire. In reality, within the limits of tactical homeopathy, Axelrod emphasized unconditionally the revolutionary hegemony of Social Democracy. He only refused to carry over this view-point from the language of groups and unions to the language of the classes when they entered the movement. Here too the abyss be-tween him and Lenin was revealed.

Lenin did not go abroad as a Marxist “in general,” not for publicist revolutionary work “in general,” not simply to continue the work of twenty years of the “Group for the Liberation of Labor”; no, he went as the potential leader, and not as a leader “in general,” but as the leader of that revolution that was growing and that he palpably perceived. He went to create within the shortest time the ideological tools and the organizing apparatus for the revolution. I speak of Lenin’s impetuous and yet at the same time disciplined characteristic of striving for his goal, not in the sense that he had only tried to assist in the victory of the “final aim,” no, that is too universal and shallow, but in the concrete, direct and immediate sense, that he had put up a practical goal, to hasten the beginning of the revolution and to assure its victory. As Lenin worked abroad shoulder to shoulder with Plechanof, and as what the Germans call “the pathos of distance” vanished, it must have become physically clear to the “pupil” that he not only had nothing more to learn from the teacher about the question which he then considered fundamental, but that the skeptical critical teacher, thanks to his authority, was in a position to hinder his rescue work and to separate him from the younger colleagues. This is the basis of Lenin’s far-seeing anxiety about the staff’s formation, hence the combinations of “The committees of seven and three, “hence the striving to separate Plechanof from the “Group of Liberation of Labor,” to form a leading commission of three in which Lenin would always have had for himself Plechanof in questions of revolutionary theory and Martof in questions of revolutionary policies. The personal combinations were changed; but the “anticipation” that remained unchanged in the man finally became blood, flesh, and bones.

At the Second Congress Lenin won Plechanof, but he was an unreliable confederate. At the same time he lost Martof and lost him forever. Plechanof had evidently noticed something at the Second Congress; at least he then said to Axelrod, as the latter reproached him in bitterness and surprise on account of his alliance with Lenin:

“From this dough come Robespierres.” I do not know if this important sentence ever got into the press and if it is generally known in the party; but I vouch for its correctness. “From this dough come Robespierres! and even something much greater, George Valentinovich,” history replies. But apparently this historic revelation grew dim in Plechanof’s consciousness. He broke with Lenin and returned to skepticism and his biting sarcasm, which, as time went on, lost their sharpness.

But in the anticipation of the “break” it was not only a question of Plechanof and the old men of the party. At the Second Congress a certain commencement stage of the preparatory period came to an end. The circumstance that the “Iskra organization” split up quite unexpectedly into two almost even parts proved in itself and for itself that in this commencement stage much had happened that was not known. Class party had just broken through the shell of intellectual radicalism. The stream of Intelligentsia to Marxism was not exhausted. The student movement with its left wing inclined towards the Iskra. Among the intellectual youth, particularly abroad, there were numerous groups that supported the Iskra. All this was youthfully green and for the most part hesitating. Women students who belonged to the Iskra put such questions to the chairman:

“Can an Iskra adherent marry a navy officer?”

There were only three workmen at the Second Congress and that was only accomplished with trouble. The Iskra brought together and trained numbers of professional Revolutionaries and drew the young and heroically minded workmen under their banner. On the other hand, important intellectual groups passed through the Iskra only to turn aside soon afterward to the people connected with Osvoboschdenje. The Iskra was successful, not only as the Marxist organ of the proletarian party which was being formed, but also as the extreme left political combative publicist that would not let itself be bullied. The more radical elements among the Intelligentsia were zealously ready to fight for freedom under Iskra’s banner. Along with this, the pedagogic disbelief in the strength of the proletariat, that had found its expression earlier in economics, had now succeeded, and rather openly, in changing its color under the protection of Iskra, without thereby changing its nature. For in the long run Iskra’s brilliant victory was much greater than its actual conquests. I shall not undertake to pass judgment here to what degree Lenin accounted to himself clearly and completely for this before the Second Congress, but at any rate more clearly and completely than any one else. Those rather motley currents that were grouped under “Iskra’s” standard were reflected in the staff itself. Lenin alone represented the coming day with its difficult problems, its fearful conflicts and unnumbered sacrifices. Hence his foresight and his combative mistrust. Hence his careful treatment of questions of organization that have their symbolic expression in paragraph I of the law about the membership of the party.

It is quite natural that when the Second Congress began to destroy the fruits of Iskra’s ideological victory, Lenin began a new arrangement, a new, more pretentious and stronger selection. To make up his mind to such a step, in which he had only an unreliable partial ally in Plechanof, while he had half the Congress and all the other members of the staff as open and decided opponents, under such circumstances to make up his mind to a new selection, he had to have a strong faith, not only in the thing itself, but in his own powers. This faith grew out of his practically controlled self-estimation that sprang from his common work with the “teachers” and the first stormy conflicts which preceded the coming thunder and lightning of the split. Lenin’s entire, forceful directness of purpose was requisite to begin such an undertaking and carry it to its conclusion. Incessantly Lenin strained the bow string to the utmost, to the snapping point, while at the same time he carefully tested it with his finger to see if it slackened anywhere, or if it threatened to break.

“You cannot strain your bow like that; it will break,” they called to him from every side.

“It will not break,” the master answered; “our bow is made of unbreakable proletarian material, and one must strain the party string more and more, for the heavy arrow has far to fly!”