ALLIANCE
Marxist-Leninist (North America) Number 36: September
2000
LEADING UP TO THE "STORM"
- THE RUSSIAN MOVEMENT BEFORE THE BOLSHEVIKS
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Preface
- Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevskii
- The First Generation - From
The Decembrists to Herzen
- Slavophiles versus Westerners
- Alexander II’s "Emancipation"
Of the Serfs
- The Second Generation: From
Chernyshevsky to Narodnaya Volya: "Go To The Countryside!"
-Chernyshevsky, Marx, Engles
and the Russian Peasant Commune - the Mir or Obschina
-Marx And Engels On the Mir
- the Peasant Communes for The Russian Revolution
-Marx & Engels On The Russian
Prospects of Revolution
-Plekhanov and his Struggle
against Narodism, The First Marxist Grouping In Russia
-Vladimir Illyich Lenin’s Early
Political Development
-Lenin's Attacks on The Narodniks
- "What the ‘Friends of The People’
-Lenin’s Alliance With Plekhanov
-The Founding Of Iskra –"The
Spark"
-Lenin’s "What Is To Be Done
Now?" – The Antecedents
- "Where to Begin?"
- "What Is To Be Done? - Burning
Questions of Our Movement" - Party-making - Making of the "Storm" Centre
Preface
"We, in the heat
in the frost strained our sinews
Toiled with our shoulders eternally bent
Lived in mud hovels, were sodden and frozen
Fought with starvation, with scurvy were spent
Cheated we were by the quick witted foremen
Flogged by the masters and ground in the soil
All we endured and were patient, God’s legions
Peaceable children of toil
Brethren, you now reap the fruit of our struggle
We have been fated to perish and rot
Do you still think of us sometimes with kindness
Do you remember or not?"
Nekrasov "The Railroad";
"Poems of Nekrasov"; trans. Juliet Soskice;
London 1929; p. 190.
We draw this essay, from a larger work
in progress. We should therefore apologize, if it scans even poorer than
the rest of our normal fare. It was drawn together hastily since we were
alerted to some continuing manifestations of Narodnik
thought. It is axiomatic that old controversies
die hard. The Narodnik-Bolshevik controversy is one of those.
The theories of Narodnism received
dagger blows from Marx, Engels, Plekhanov - and most fatally of all - from
Lenin. But.... it breathes still. It lived on under a host of differing
names. The Narodniks, planted many dragon's teeth, and today - their fruit
is still growing in different shapes.
Some pay homage to Che-ism,
some to Maoism, some to more specific forms such as in Naxalbari etc. In
our view, they all have a common theme, despite their differing outward
shapes. They all counter-pose Firstly
the peasant to the worker; and Secondly
individual 'heroism' - with individual 'terrorism' - to that of mass actions
and mass-class revolution. The exact weights of the
two counter-positions do vary in each form. But we submit, that they all
have elements of the two counter-positions.
As a prelude to examining the modern
day Narodnik 'dragon-teeth' progeny in detail in a forthcoming piece, Alliance
felt it would be useful to give a very brief historical overview of the
path through the thicket of Narodnik thought - cleared by Marx, Engels,
Plekhanov and Lenin.
In addition, in writing of this historical
period of writing enables us to remind the movement of the contributions
that Marx and Engels made to the Russian movement. References are still
heard (despite this canard of the bourgeoisie having been shot dead repeatedly
before!) that Marx and Engels got it wrong - that they did not anticipate
revolution in Russia. This is of course, incorrect as we remind the movement.
All these topics can be handily covered,
in a summary up to the period of the formation of Lenin's concept of the
revolutionary party, since all of them
embrace the history of the struggle with, and the defeat of Narodnism.
Lenin defined the key concepts of Narodism
in a work written just prior to "What is To Be Done?", called "The heritage
We Renounce" :
"By Narodism we mean a system of views, which comprises
the following three
features:
1) Belief that capitalism in Russia represents a deterioration,
a retrogression. Hence the urge and desire to "retard"", "halt", "stop
the break-up" of the age-old foundations by capitalism, and similar reactionary
cries.
2) Belief in the exceptional character of the Russian
economic system in general, and of the peasantry, with its village commune,
artel, etc. in particular. It is not considered
necessary to apply to Russian economic relationships the concepts elaborated
by
modern science concerning the different social classes and their conflicts.
The
village-commune peasantry is regarded as something higher and better than
capitalism; there is a disposition to idealise the "foundations". The existence
among the peasantry of contradictions characteristic of every commodity
and capitalist economy is denied or slurred over; it is denied that any
connection exists between these contradictions and their more developed
form in capitalist industry and capitalist agriculture.
3) Disregard of the connection between the "intelligentsia"
and the country's legal and political institutions, on the one hand, and
the material interests of definite social classes, on the other. Denial
of this connection, lack of a materialist explanation of these social factors,
induces the belief that they represent a force capable of "dragging history
along another line, of "diversion from the path"…… and so on.
"The Heritage We Renounce"; written 1897; In Select
Works, Moscow 1977; p. 74; or Collected Works; volume 2; Moscow;
1977; pp.491-534
The title of this issue of Alliance, refers
to a phrase that Lenin borrowed from Alexander
Herzen - "the storm" - that Lenin used to describe the 1905
and 1917 events.
"We clearly see the three generations, the three classes,
that were active in the Russian revolution. At first it was nobles and
landlords, the Decembrists and Herzen. These revolutionaries formed but
a narrow group. .. very far removed from the people. ..The Decembrists
awakened Herzen. Herzen began the work of revolutionary agitation. This
work was taken up, extended, strengthened, and tempered by the revolutionary
raznochinsti - from Chernyshevsky to the heroes of Narodnaya Volya. ...
their contact with the people became closer. ‘The young helmsmen of the
gathering storm," is what Herzen called them. But it was not yet the storm
itself. The storm is the movement of the masses themselves.
The proletariat the only class that is thoroughly revolutionary rose at
the head of the masses and for the first time aroused millions of peasants
to open revolutionary struggles. The first onslaught in this storm took
place in 1905. The next is beginning to develop under our very eyes."
Lenin Vladimir I., : "In Memory of Herzen"; Collected
works; Volume 18: written May 1912; pp25-26.
Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevskii
Both Marx and Engels said that they
had taught themselves Russian, mainly in order to understand important
thinkers such as Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevskii
(1828-1889). Chernyshevskii (or Chernyshevsky) was a famous
polymath Russian revolutionary democrat and utopian socialist; who also
was a scientist, and novelist. His novel which was published openly "What
is To be Done?" – educated a generation of progressives including Lenin
himself in some of the problems facing the revolutionary movement. It is
true that Liberals such as Sir Isiah Berlin
trash this novel, nonetheless, it influenced a whole generation. Indeed
Chernyshevskii was one of the outstanding forerunners of Russian Social
democracy. Lenin described his famous novel as follows:
"I declare that it is inadmissible to call "What Is
To be Done?" primitive and untalented. Under its influence hundreds of
people became revolutionaries….. It also captivated me. It ploughed me
over again completely…. It is a work which gives one a charge for a whole
life. Untalented works cannot have such influence."
Cited: Theen, Rolf, "Lenin: Genesis And Development of
a Revolutionary"; New York; Lippincott 1973; p.59.
But in what lay Chernyshevskii’s greatness
for the Russian socialist movement? To answer we will briefly examine the
futile struggles of his Russian predecessors struggling for progressive
changes.
The main general
theme that runs through the history of the pre-Bolshevik progressive periods,
is a progress towards the active involvement and leadership by the proletarian
and peasant masses. Lenin illustrated this from statistics published in
a legal journal on "crimes against the state in Russia".
Lenin divided the data into various
time periods. These were as follows: 1827-46 (the epoch of serfdom); 1884-90
(the epoch of the raznochinsti movement
(i.e., the "professional class not drawn from the nobility many of whom
took part in the revolutionary democratic movement"); the merging of the
bourgeois-liberal and liberal Narodnik movements). Lastly there is the
epoch preceding the revolution (1901-3) and the revolutionary epoch (1905-08),
that is the epochs of the bourgeois democratic and proletarian movements.
He presented the following figures, drawn from police
records, of the percentages of the fighters for freedom, broken down by
their class of origin:
PERIOD
NOBILITY URBAN PETTY
CLERGY MERCHANTS
BOURGEOIS & PEASANTS
1827-46
76
23
?
?
1884-90
30.6
46.6
6.4 12.1
1901-08
10.7
80.9
1.6
4.1
1905-1908
9.1
87.7
?
?
Data From: Lenin Vladimir I, : "The Role of Social Estates
And Classes In the Liberation Movement"; Collected Works; Volume 19; Moscow;
1968; Written August 1913; p. 328.
Lenin commented:
"It can be seen how rapidly the nineteenth-century liberation
movement became democratized and how sharply its class composition changed."
Data From: Vladimir I Lenin: "The Role of Social Estates
And Classes In the Liberation Movement"; Collected Works; Volume 19; Moscow;
1968; Written August 1913; p. 328.
In a further analysis of the data, Lenin
showed the occupational backgrounds of those arrested. This verified that
between 1884-90 and 190-03 and later – there was an astonishing rise in
those arrested, who had been employed in industry and commerce (from 1.5%
to 17% in the later epochs) and peasants (from 7% to 245 % by 1905). Lenin
ironically praised the government for its repressions as it was "arousing
the peasantry":
"Third (Stolypin) agrarian policy that is very successfully
rapidly and energetically arousing the (peasantry)" ;
Vladimir I Lenin: "The Role of Social Estates And Classes
In the Liberation Movement"; Collected Works; Volume 19; Moscow; 1968;
Written August 1913; p. 331.
Elsewhere, Lenin describes the same process
in rather more graphic language, using Alexander
Herzen’s poetic descriptions of the "storm".
When in 1912, Lenin honoured the memory of Herzen, Lenin characterised
three generations of the Russian revolution, and three classes who had
fought for progressive-revolutionary changes in Russia:
"We clearly see the three generations, the three classes,
that were active in the Russian revolution. At first it was nobles and
landlords, the Decembrists and Herzen. These revolutionaries formed but
a narrow group. They were very far removed from the people. But their effort
was not in vein. The Decembrists awakened Herzen. Herzen began the work
of revolutionary agitation. This work was taken up, extended, strengthened,
and tempered by the revolutionary raznochinsti - from Chernyshevsky to
the heroes of Narodnaya Volya. The range of fighters widened; their contact
with the people became closer. ‘The young helmsmen of the gathering storm,"
is what Herzen called them. But it was not yet the storm itself.
The storm is the movement of the masses themselves. The
proletariat the only class that is thoroughly revolutionary rose at the
head of the masses and for the first time aroused millions of peasants
to open revolutionary struggles. The first onslaught in this storm took
place in 1905. The next is beginning to develop under our very eyes."
Lenin Vladimir I., : "In Memory of Herzen"; Collected
works; Volume 18: written May 1912; pp25-26.
The First Generation - From
The Decembrists to Herzen
The first Russian movement against the
Tsar and the absolutist despotic state of Russia involved disgruntled sections
of the privileged army elite. These formed the secret society known as
The Decembrists – a formation of the
officer corps, whose outlook was influenced by the Napoleonic wars. These
wars led to Russia’s defeat of the French invasion led by Emperor
Napoleon in 1812.
Although Russia had won, the lack of
democratic rights inside Russia, gave sections of the progressive elements
of the nobility a sense of the suffering of the Russian peasantry. They
saw the self-sacrifice of many serfs, who had volunteered for war. But
the serfs had often done so believing they would be set free. They were
bitter upon finding upon victory, that this was not to be so. It was often
the soldiers returning home who raised the alarm against absolutism, and
called for rebellion:
"As Alexsandr Bestuzhev told Nicholas I during the investigation
of the Decembrist upspring:
"We spilt our blood, but once again we are forced to
sweat at forced labour. We delivered our homeland from the tyrant, yet
now the lord tyrannizes us again";
Cited; "Geoffrey Hosking: "Russia - People And Empire
1552-1917"; London; 1998; p. 172.
In this climate, a group of influential
officers of the army set up the Union of Salvation.
This was later renamed the Society of True and
Loyal Sons of the Fatherland; and an even later successor was
named the Union of Welfare. This decided
to work for "the welfare of Russia", and to abolish serfdom and transform
the autocracy into at least a constitutional monarchy, and preferably into
a republic. It adopted a secret organization, using precedents like the
Free Masonic lodges, and they rapidly spread in influence.
The bulk of the secret movements split
into two factions – the Northern and Southern
Societies. Pavel Pestel’
led the Southern Society and produced a document know as Russkaia pravda
(Russian Law) – being a codified set of law for a transitional government.
A similar project was carried out for the Northern Society by Nikita
Murav’ev.
That the best of them recognised the
central question of land reform to be critical is shown by Pestel’s Russian
Law. The question had been framed as whether the peasants should
be freed with or without land. Pestel was heavily influenced by Sisimondi
and initially felt that giving land to the peasant was incorrect. Some
years later, when framing his Russian Law, he insisted upon equal distribution
and agrarian collectivism. This was to be done by dividing land in each
district into two parts a common land part and private land part. Rights
in each part differed considerably:
"The first of these will be the common land, the other
private land. Common land will belong collectively to the entire community
of each district and will be inalienable. It may be neither sold nor pawned;
it will be used to obtain the necessities of life for all citizens without
exception, and will belong to each and all. Private land on the other,
will belong either to the State or to private person who will own it in
complete freedom and will have the right to do with it what they think
best. These lands will be thus used as private property and to create plenty."
Pestel Cited by Venturi, Franco: "Roots of Revolution";
London; 1960; p.5
In advocating this, Pestel wished to avoid
the pauperisation of the peasant masses
who would be free – but would not have the wherewithal to live. The spectacle
of the Western pauperisation that had led to a enforced proletarianisation
was what he wished to avoid. To further advocate his line, he pointed to
the obschina as a mark of security and stability:
"Each action of a single man within them is guided by
the spirit of the entire community";
Pestel Cited by Franco Venturi: "Roots of Revolution";
London; 1960; p. 6.
This germ of this idea of Pestel and the
Decembrists, would not die with the failure of their revolt. The Decembrists
were ill organised when the crisis came in December 1825, following the
death of Tsar Alexander I on 19 November 1825. The next in line was Alexander’s
brother, Grand Duke Konstantin. But Konstantin had refused to serve and
declared that Nicholas – another brother was to be next-in-line. Nicholas
accepted but hesitantly, knowing of his unpopularity. The Decembrists like
all reformists in Russia preferred, and declared for Konstantin. But he
refused the succession. In the resulting vacuum a crisis developed.
But before the secret societies could
finalise their plans, the conspiracy was discovered. Therefore on December
14th, the Decembrists tried to pre-empt their ruin. They mustered
regiments in St.Petersburg on Senate Square, and they declared for Konstantin.
But they were irresolute at the beginning, but were dispersed by Nicholas’s
artillery only after much blood shed.
As Lenin commented of this era (See
table of Statistics above):
"The epoch of serfdom (1827-46) saw the absolute predominance
of the nobility. That is the epoch from the Decembrists to Herzen. Feudal
Russia is downtrodden and motionless. An insignificant minority of the
nobility, helpless without the support of the people, protested. But these
the best of the nobility helped to awaken the people";
Vladimir I. Lenin: "The Role of Social Estates And Classes
In the Liberation Movement"; Collected Works; Volume 19; Moscow; 1968;
Written August 1913; p. 329
The Decembrists had fought for a Republican
state. This aim later became unfashionable among Russian progressives,
so much so that Lenin was to remind the evolving movement of the aims of
the Decembrists:
"It has fallen to our lot (if we leave out of account
the long forgotten republican ideas of the Decembrists) to the lot of Social-democrats,
to popularise the demand for a republic among the masses, and to create
a republican traditions among the Russian revolutionaries."
Lenin Vladimir I, : "Agrarian Programme of Russian Social-democracy";
In Collected Works; Volume 6; 1985; Written February 1902; p.120. or
at: http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/APSD02.html
"Has the central Committee lost its elementary revolutionary
instinct to such an extent that it no longer sees the difference between
the aristocratic revolutionary spirit of the Decembrists, the raznochintsi’s
revolutionary spirit of the of the army officers in the Narodnaya Volya
– and the profoundly democratic, proletarian and peasant revolutionary
spirit of the soldiers and sailors in twentieth century Russia? Has it
never been struck by the fundamental difference between the revolutionary
spirit of the army officers in the days of the Narodnaya Volya when almost
complete apathy reigned in the ranks of the soldiers, and the reactionary
spirit of the army officers today, when there is almighty movement precisely
among rank-and-file soldiers?"
Vladimir I. Lenin: "Political Crisis, Bankruptcy of Opportunist
Tactics;"; Collected Works; Volume 11; Moscow 1986; Written August 21,
1906; p. 158.
There can be little doubt that Lenin loved
both the literary and the political forebears of the Bolsheviks. Indeed
he is passionate about the work of the "Radischev’s, the Decembrists and
Chernyshevsky":
"Is a sense of national pride alien to us, Great-Russian
class conscious proletarians? Certainly not! We love our language and our
country, and we are doing the utmost to raise her toiling masses (i.e.
nine-tenths of her populations) to the level of a democratic and socialist
consciousness. To us it is most painful to see and feel the outrages, the
oppression and the humiliation our fair country suffers at the hands of
the tsar’s butchers the nobles and the capitalists. We take pride in the
resistance to these outrages put up from our midst, from the Great Russians;
in that midst having produced Radischev, the Decembrists, and the revolutionary
commoners of the seventies; in the Great-Russian working class having created
in 1905, a mighty revolutionary party of the masses…. We remember that
Chernyshevsky, the Great-Russian democrat who dedicated his life to the
cause of revolution said half a century ago: "A wretched nation, a nation
of slaves from top to bottom - all slaves."
Lenin Vladimir I, : "On the National Pride of the Great
Russians"; Collected Works; Volume 21; Moscow; 1980; written December 1914;
p. 103. Or at: http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/NPGR14.html
In Lenin’s categorisation of this particular
epoch, he ended with the name of Alexander Herzen
(1812-1870), who was a boy during the repression of the Decembrists.
Herzen vividly remembered the arrests and the massacres. Lenin described
him as a "child of the Decembrists", citing Herzen’s own words of the historic
role of the "Titans":
"The nobility gave Russia the Birons and the Arakacheyevs,
innumerable "drunken officers, bullies, gamblers, heroes of fairs, masters
of hounds, roisterers, floggers, pimps", But wrote Herzen , "among them
developed the men of December 14th, a phalanx of heroes. . .veritable
Titans, . .. . comrades-in-arms who deliberately went to certain death
in order to awaken the young generation to a new life and to purify the
children born in an environment of tyranny and servility."
Vladimir I. Lenin: "In Memory of Herzen"; Collected works;
Volume 18: written May 1912; pp25-26. Contained in "Lenin On The Intelligentsia";
Moscow 1983; p.106-108.
Lenin’s praise of Herzen was high:
"The uprising of the Decembrists awakened and "purified
him". . . In the feudal Russia of the forties of the nineteenth century,
he rose to a height, which placed him on a level with the greatest thinkers
of his time. He assimilated Hegel’s dialectics. He realised that it was
the "algebra of revolution". He went further than Hegel, following Feuerbach
to materialism. The first of his letter on the Study of nature, "Empiricism
And Idealism", written in 1844 reveals to us a thinker who even now stands
head and shoulder above the multitude of modern empiricist natural scientists
and the host of present day idealists and semi-idealist philosophers. Herzen
came right up to dialectical materialism and halted before historical materialism.
.. . . Herzen is the founder of "Russian" socialism,
of Narodism". He saw "socialism" in the emancipation of the peasants with
land, in community land tenure and in the peasant idea of the "right to
land". . . . Actually there is not a grain of socialism in this doctrine
of Herzen’s, as indeed in the whole of Russian Narodism including the faded
Narodism of the present-day Socialist Revolutionaries.
. . . Chernyshevsky, Dobrolyubov and Serno-Solovyevich,
who represented the new generation of revolutionary ranochintsi, were a
thousand times right when they reproached Herzen for these departures from
democracy to liberalism… . However it must be said that in fairness to
Herzen that, much as he vacillated between democracy and liberalism the
democrat in him gained the upper hand nonetheless."
Lenin, Vladimir I: "In Memory of Herzen"; Collected Works;
Volume 18: written May 1912; pp25-26; 27, 28-29.
Slavophiles versus Westerners
But still Lenin placed Vissarion
G. Belinsky – not Herzen - as a "forerunner" of the raznochinsti.
He wrote of Belinsky that his "Letter to Gogol", was "one of the finest
productions of the illegal democratic press, which has to this day lost
none of its great and vital significance." Gogol had in his last work "Dead
Souls" posed a question: "Rus – whither art thou speeding?" But he had
not answered this, and in fact in some despair had burnt the final parts
of "Dead Souls". Having laid bare the iniquity of religion and the old
order for the Russian serf and peasant, in a series of mystical letters
collected in "Sleeted Excerpts from Correspondence with Friends", just
prior to his death, Gogol returned to religion. In his "Letter to Gogol",
Belinsky roundly chastised him. In the same article, Lenin described of
Belinksy’s historic place:
"It was V.G.Belinsky who, even before the abolition
of serfdom, was a forerunner to of the raznochinsti, who were to completely
oust the nobility from the our emancipation movement."
Lenin Vladimir I; "The History of the Workers Press in
Russia"; "Collected Works"; Moscow; Vol 26: pp. 109-110.
Part of the higher place that Lenin gave
to Belinsky over Herzen, depended on the consistency of their stands against
a Slavophil position.
In the progressive
movement following the Decembrist revolt, there had been two diametrically
opposed positions taken.
The Slavophiles
had taken the point of view that Peter The Great
had created a dichotomy between people of the land (zemskie
lisudi) and the state servants (sluzhilye lidudi). The main representatives
of this view were Ivan Kireevskii and
Alexsei Khomiakov, and later on Mikhail
Bakunin. They identified "sobornost’"
(congregationalism, or conciliatory-ness) as a Russian-Slavic phenomena
-–in contrast to the alienation of Western individualism. The movement
also gave prominence to the word Narodnost (i.e. derived from "narod" (meaning
both "people and nation").
Their opponents were the Westerners
– who despite their name retained a severely critical attitude to an idealisation
of the West. They owed an allegiance to German idealism and then to French
socialism, and together from this background they created so called Russian
socialist thought. Some of these formed the core of later revolutionary
thought in Russia.
Early on Herzen had criticised the
Slavophil positions of Mikhail Bakunin.
This anarchistic charismatic man was to wreak havoc on the First International.
In the current context, it is adequate to remark that he was of Russian
origin, coming from a family of wealthy landowners. He was convinced of
the Hegelian view that the "Absolute Spirit" would set all right in an
upheaval. He adopted the view that for Russia the scourge was the West.
Bakunin believed that the Slavs were unique in having a solidarity, one
bred of an anti-rational, Germanized State bureaucracy:
"By their very nature and in their very being, the Slavs
are absolutely not a political, that is state-minded people….. the Slavs
are predominantly peaceable and agricultural. . . Living in their separate
and independent communes, governed according to patriarchal custom by elders,
but on an elective basis, and all making equal use of the commune’s land,
they. . . . put into practice the idea of human brotherhood."
Mikhail Bakunin, Cited by Geoffrey Hosking "Russia- People
And Empire 1552-1917"; Ibid; p. 283.
But although Herzen initially had critiqued
Bakunin’s Slavophil position, this changed. Herzen had suffered intense
personal and political disappointment during his Western exile, and he
retreated from a Westerner position to a mystical and exalted view of Russian
exceptionalism:
"The commune saved the Russian people from Mongolian
barbarism and from imperialist civilization, from the gentry with its European
veneer and from the German bureaucracy. Communal organizations, though
strongly shaken, withstood the interference of the state; it has survived,
fortunately, until the development of socialism in Europe….
….To return to the village, to the working man’s artel,
to the mir assembly, to Cossackdom, but not in order to freeze them in
lifeless Asiatic crystallization’s, but to develop them to set free the
principles on which they are based … - that is our mission."
Herzen Cited by Geoffrey Hosking "Russia- People And
Empire 1552-1917"; Ibid; p. 283.
Marx and Engels
did not hold Herzen in high regard, contrary to Lenin. This is probably
at least in part, because of Herzen's repeated liaisons with Bakunin -
who was actively disrupting the work of the First
International. Bakunin had chauvinistically used the Slav
Congress of 1848 at Prague to promote his version of anarchist-revolution.
But also Marx and Engels probably found Herzen’s constant lapses into pious
hopes of the nobility difficult to stomach. Despite these constant lapses,
finally Herzen broke with all other classes but the peasant masses – the
people. It was Herzen’s journal produced in his London exile "Kolokol"
(The Bell) that first announced the end of any hopes for a top-down reform
led by the nobility.
But it was also differences over the
question of the Mir, that distinguished
Marx and Engels from Bakunin and Herzen. The Russian "mir" and peasant
communes were to be a subject of continuing debate between Marx and Engels,
Chernyshevsky and Vera Zasulich. The legacy of the Slavophiles (here including
Herzen and Bakunin) mystical views was bequeathed to the later Socialist-revolutionary
party.
Alexander II’s "Emancipation"
Of the Serfs
As acknowledged by most historians, the
central problem of the serfs pressed on Russia, and impeded development.
Even the barbaric Nicholas I, and his
Tsarist government recognized this. In fact even under Nicholas I, the
implications of Pestel’s Russian Law were appreciated. It was therefore
banned. In an attempt to inoculate against future Decembrists – the tsar
initiated a in 1826 a committee to investigate. As early as 1834 the chief
inspector of police Bekendorf wrote:
"Every year the idea of freedom spreads and grows stronger
among the peasants owned by the nobles. In 1934 there have been many examples
of peasants’ insubordination to their masters."
Cited Franco Venturi; "Roots Of Revolution"; Ibid; p.
65.
"Between 1826 and 1829 there had been 88 disturbances;
between 1830 and 1834 there had been 60; between 1835-1839, 79; between
1840-1844 128; between 1845-1849 207…… On an average 7 landowners were
murdered by the peasants every year. Yet between 1835 and 1843, 416 people
were deported to Siberia for attempts on the lives of the landlords."
Venturi; "Roots of Revolution"; Ibid; p. 64-65.
The problem for the ruling class, was
that whatever reform the tsar would introduce was fraught with the possibility
of further igniting the torch of revolution. So Nicholas and his ministers
(especially notable were P.D.Kisalev
– an ex-Decembrist who had hidden his background and found himself in the
center of government attempts at agrarian reform, and Speransky
the former reforming minister of Alexander I) hesitated. They were well
aware of the peasant’s desire and belief that they owned the land. The
Prussian authority on Russia’s agrarian situation Baron
Haxthausen, summarised it as follows:
"Serfdom has become unnatural, and it will soon be impossible
to maintain, still less to retain for the future. Intelligent people recognise
this. But the most important problem is to dissolve the relationship without
unleashing a social revolution."
Cited by Franco Venturi "The Roots of Revolution"; Ibid.;
p. 73.
But a slight state inspired reformism
did take place under Nicholas’s successor, his son Alexander
II. He himself was just as reactionary, but the increasingly
clear need for reform had made itself clear. He therefore proclaimed an
Edict of Emancipation – aimed at the
serfs in February 1861. Even then it was opposed bitterly by most of the
nobility and the officials. Thus the Council of State weakened it considerably
by the time of enactment. It:
"Gave the peasants less land and imposed upon them heavier
redemption payments than had been hoped for by the intelligentsia and by
the tsar’s own liberal ministers. But… it constituted… – the creation of
the zemstva (district and provincial organs of rural self–government) and
city assemblies, the changes in the judicial system and in the military
establishment."
Haimson, Leopold.H. "The Russian Marxists And The Origins
of Bolshevism"; Cambridge USA; 1955; p.9-10.
"The rescript of 20th November 1857 had determined
the fundamental points….. The nobles were to continue holding all the land,
the peasants would be given their houses only in return for a fee, and
would be allowed to hire land in return for a rent either in money or work.,
All peasants organised in rural societies would be subject to the landlords’
police."
Franco Venturi; "The Roots of Revolution"; Ibid; p. 147.
The Second Generation:
From Chernyshevsky to Narodnaya Volya: "Go To The Countryside!"
The half-heartedness of the reform was clear
to Chernyshevsky and Engels amongst others. Chernyshevsky at the time of
the reforms, had ridiculed Herzen’s naivete in thinking that the Tsar would
correct the peasants plight. Chernyshevsky pointed out also, that the enforced
payment for "emancipation" would be crippling and a recipe for continued
enslavement. Engels pointed out that later on, in 1875 that the "Emancipation"
so- called, had put the peasants "into a most miserable and wholly untenable
position":
"The lands of the nobles are on average twice as fertile
as those of the peasants because during the settlement for the redemption
of the corvee, the state not only took the greater part , but also the
best part of the land from the peasants and had to pay the nobility the
price of their best. . . . . so that in all the fertile parts of the empire,
the peasant land is far too small- under Russian agricultural conditions
– for them to be able to male a living for it. Not only were they charged
an excessive price for it, which was advanced to them by the state and
for which they now have to pay interest and installments on the principal
to the state. Not only is the almost the whole burden of the land tax thrown
upon them, while the nobility escapes scot-free, so that the land tax alone
consumes the entire ground rent values of the peasant land and more and
are further payments which the peasant has to manage… are direct deductions
from that part of his income which represents his wages. Such a situation
is as if specially created for the usurer. . . When taxes are about to
fall due, the usurer the kulak- frequently a rich peasant of same community-
comes along and offers his ready cash. The peasant is . . . obliged to
accept the conditions of the usurer without demur. But this only gets him
into a tighter fix.. At harvest time, the grain dealer arrives; the need
for money forces the peasant to sell part of the grain which he and his
family require for their subsistence…. The grain dealer. . lowers prices.
. ."
Engels, Frederick,: "Refugee Literature – V. ‘On Social
relations In Russia"; in "Collected Works"; Volume 24; Moscow 1989; p.
41-42; published in Der Volksstaat April 1875; reprinted as separate pamphlet
July 1875.
As Engels pointed out, the peasantry had
been plundered for the well-being of the capitalists. It was this that
ultimately lay behind the measures of the so-called Emancipation:
"The big bourgeois of Petersburg, Moscow, and Odessa
which has developed with unprecedented rapidity over the last decade, chiefly
owing to the railways , and which cheerfully "went smash" along with the
rest during the last swindle years, the grain, hemp, flax, and tallow exporters,
whose whole businesses is built of the misery of the peasants, the entire
large scale industry which only exists thanks to the protective tariffs
granted to it by the state".
Frederick Engels, in: "Refugee Literature – V. ‘On Social
relations In Russia"; in "Collected Works"; Volume 24; Moscow 1989; ; p.
48-49; Written-published in Der Volksstaat April 1875; reprinted as separate
pamphlet July 1875.
At first Herzen had been well disposed
to the reforms, but by June even Herzen in his journal, the "Kolokol",
had attacked the half measures of the Government:
"A new serfdom. The Tsar has cheated the people."
Cited Franco Venturi "Roots of Revolution" Ibid; p. 109.
It was at this point that Herzen finally
realised the futility of hopes in the nobility and the Tsar. He now was
ready to agree with Chernyshevsky who together with Nekrasov (a poet) had
forewarned of the futility of Alexander II’s reforms. Herzen now raised
the cry: "Go to The People!" in autumn
1861.
This became the direction of the Populists
over the next period. Without Herzen who was in London, this cry resulted
in the formation of the Zemlya I Volya ("Land
and Freedom") by N.A.Serno-Selovich in 1876. Its members aimed
at setting up permanent communes in the countryside to work towards revolution.
They believed in the "inevitability"
of peasant led revolution.
N.G.Chernysevsky was at the centre
of this movement also. It did not survive long, but its Populist views
lived on. Many of the young radicals at this stage were declassed elements
of the clergy and lower nobility- sons and daughters who were inspired
to "go to the people" (khozhdeniue
v narod"). Led by Serno-Selovich and Petr Lavrov,
many young people adopted peasant dress and set up study circles known
as kruzhok. In about 1874, these young radicals more or less spontaneously
began to simply "go to the countryside".
They went often with no trade at their disposal and tried to fit into the
villages with a view to subverting the people. Often however, they were
regarded with suspicion and very often were handed over to the authorities
as "troublemakers". By 1876, Zemlya I Volya, had been formed.
In both the spontaneous surge to the
countryside, and the Zemlya I Voglia, the views of Mikhail
Bakunin predominated. These views were based on the peasant
as the mainspring of revolution, one that needed to be released. But this
image did not conform to reality, as observers have noted:
"Bakunin’s image of the peasant as natural revolutionist,
who could be aroused to action if only the right words were spoke, bore
little resemblance to peasants in real life."
Baron, Samuel ; "Plekhanov"; Stanford 1963; p.30.
One of the disciples of Bakunin, Peter
Tkachov opened polemics upon Engels,
and in this he showed Bakunin’s view of insurrection. Engels had in the
course of reviewing refugee literature, pointed out that a Russian journal
named "Vperyod" edited by Peter Lavrov in England, had been compelled to
attack the Bakuninist manner of work in Russia. (Volume 24; III: Refugee
Literature"; in Marx And Engels; Volume 24; pp 19- 38). Tkachov then launched
a furious attack upon Engels. Engels cited this attack in his rebuttal:
"The Russian people, Mr.Tkachov relates, "protest incessantly"
against its enslavement. . . "incendiarism, revolts. . . and hence the
Russian people may be termed an instinctive revolutionist. Therefore Mr.
Tkachov is convinced that "It is only necessary to evoke an outburst in
a number of places at the same time of all the accumulated bitterness and
discontent, which. . . is always seething in the breast of our people …
Then.. "the union of the revolutionary forces will come about of itself,
and the fight . . . must end favorably for the people’s cause. Practical
necessity, the instinct of self-preservation", will then achieve , quite
of themselves, " a firm and indissoluble alliance among the protesting
village communities. . . . Our people . . . its great majority is permeated
with the principles of common ownership; it is as if. . . . instinctively
communist. . . It is clear that our people despite its ignorance,
is much nearer to socialism than the peoples of Western Europe although
the latter are more educated."
Tkachov Cited in: Engels, Frederick "Refugee Literature
– V. ‘On Social relations In Russia"; in "Collected Works"; Volume 24;
Moscow 1989; ; p. 48-49, 45; Written-published in Der Volksstaat April
1875; reprinted as separate pamphlet July 1875.(Emphasis-Editor
Alliance).
As Engels comments, this "instinctive
communist" philosophy is childish, and besides as a strategy that had been
actually applied by Bakunin in the Spanish revolt of 1873, had already
been shown not to work:
"It is impossible to conceive of a revolution on easier
and more pleasant terms. One starts shooting, at three or four places simultaneously,
and the "instinctive revolutionist", "practical necessity"; and the "instinct
of self-preservations" do the rest "of themselves". Being so dead easy,
it is simply incomprehensible why the revolution has not been carried out
long ago, the people liberated and Russia transformed into a the model
socialist country. Actually matters are quite different. The Russian people,
this instinctive revolutionist has true enough, made numerous isolated
peasant revolts against the nobility and against individual officials,
but never against the tsar, except when a false tsar put himself at its
head and claimed the throne. The last great peasant uprising. . . was only
possible because Yemelyan Pugachov claimed to be . . Peter III. . . . .
if the mass of the Russian peasants were ever so instinctively revolutionary,
even if we imagined that revolutions could be made to order just one asks
for flowered calico or a tea-kettle - even then is it permissible for anyone
over the age of twelve years of age to imagine the course of revolution
in such an utterly childish manner as is the case here? And remember further,
that this was written after the first revolution made on this Bakuninist
model – the Spanish one of 1873-had so brilliantly failed."
Frederick Engels, Citing Tkachov in: "Refugee Literature
– V. ‘On Social relations In Russia"; in "Collected Works"; Volume 24;
Moscow 1989; ; p. 48-49; Written-published in Der Volksstaat April 1875;
reprinted as separate pamphlet July 1875.
It is important to note that Engels did
not criticize the Bakuninist tactics, on any moral grounds of
anti-violence. This is shown by his comment on the actions of Vera
Zasulich, who had attempted the assassination of St. Petersburg’s
Governor Trepov on January 24 after his order to lash the revolutionary
Bogolyubov. Vera Zasulich was acquitted by a jury, and her trial was followed
avidly by the European press:
"Russia - The struggle between the government and the
secret societies had taken on so violent a character there that is cannot
last. … The government agents are committing incredible atrocities. Against
such wild animals one must defend oneself as one can, with power and lead.
Political assassination is the only means by which men of intelligence,
dignity and character possess to defend themselves against the agents of
an unprecedented despotism."
Engels, Frederick" "The Anti-Socialist Law in Germany
– The Situation in Russia"; In "Collected Works" Volume 24; Moscow; 1989;
p. 252.
Many of the young radicals and students
were arrested when they entered the villages and tried to inflame the masses
to revolt. As Baron points out, in two months of 1874 alone, 770 were arrested
(See Samuel Baron "Plekhanov"; Stanford 1963; p.14). There was a drift
between 1878-1879, towards an individual terrorist "inspiration" to the
otherwise supposedly inert peasants. Factional strife between those prompting
individual terror (like Morozov and Kravchinsky) and those who saw the
need for a mass terror (like Plekhanov) grew.
This was irreconcilable, and it led
to a split. One section decided it was necessary to become a conspiratorial
organization, aiming at the assassination of the Tsar as the signal to
prepare for a political struggle. In 1879, a majority at a secret congress
supported this view. This majority went on to form Narodnya
Volnya ("People’s will"). Dissension was in the minority, but
it was led by Georgii Plekhanov.
Chernyshevsky, Marx, Engels
and the Russian Peasant Commune - the Mir or Obschina
Both Marx and Engels thought very highly
of Chernyshevsky. This is obvious from a number of references, including
one where they credit their desire to learn Russian as stemming from the
need to read Chernyshevsky:
"At the beginning of 1870 I began to study Russian which
I now read fairly fluently. This came about because Flerovsky’s very important
work on the Condition of the Working Class (especially the peasants) In
Russia had been sent to me from Petersburg, and because I also wanted to
familiarize myself with the excellent economic works of Chernyshevsky (who
was as a reward was sentenced to the Siberian mines where he has been serving
for the past seven years). The result was worth the effort… The intellectual
movement now taking place in Russia testifies to the fact that fermentation
is going on deep below the surface., Minds are always connected by invisible
threads with the body of the people."
Marx , Karl, "Letter to Sigfrid Meyer in New York";.
In "Marx-Engels: Selected Correspondence"; Moscow; 1982; p.241 Written
London January 21, 1871.
And in response to the complaints of Eugenie
Papritz about the llow level of her country-folk’s development,
Engels would not hear of it. He instead berated her for not considering
the value of Chernyshevsky :
"Are you not being somewhat unjust to your fellow-countrymen?
The two of us – Marx and I had no grounds for complaint against them. If
certain schools were more notable for their revolutionary ardor than for
their scientific study, if there was and still is a certain groping here
and there, on the other hand a critical spirit has evinced itself there
and a devotion to research even in pure theory worthy of the nation that
produced a Dobrolyubov and a Chernyshevsky. I am not speaking only of active
revolutionary Socialists, but also of the historical and critical school
in Russian literature, which is greatly surpassing anything produced in
this line in Germany or France by official historical science. And even
among active revolutionaries our ideas and the science of political economy
recast by Marx have always met with sympathetic understanding."
Engels to Eugenie Papritz in London. Written London June
26th, 1884; In: "Marx-Engels: Selected Correspondence"; Moscow;
1982; p.354.
It is true that Chernyshevsky owed Herzen
an intellectual debt. But the former overcame the major limitations of
Herzen, in especial he developed a more consistently militant line. Even
this was not however free of liberal trends nor of anarchist trends. But,
Chernyshevsky developed towards socialism, albeit it was a brand of "Utopian
Socialism":
"With the fall of the serf-owning system, the raznochinsti
emerged as the chief actor from among the masses in the movement for emancipation
in general and in the democratic illegal press in particular. Narodism,
which correspond to the raznochinsti point of view, becomes the dominant
trend. As a social trend it never succeeded in dissociating itself from
liberalism on the right and from anarchism on the left. But Chernyshevsky,
who after Herzen, developed the Narodnik views, made a great stride forward
as compared with Herzen. Chernyshevsky was a far more consistent and militant
democrat, his writings breathing the spirit of the class struggle. He resolutely
pursued the line of exposing the treachery of liberalism, a line which
to this day is hateful to the Cadets and liquidators. He was a remarkably
profound critic of capitalism despite his utopian socialism."
Lenin, Vladimir I; "The History of the Workers Press
in Russia"; "Collected Works"; Moscow; Vol 26: pp109-110.
Chernyshevsky took up the basic
argument of Herzen – that somehow the "mir", or "obschina", could overcome
the penurious transition of the peasant into the proletariat.
The terms Obschina
and mir are virtually interchangeable, and stand for peasant
community, one that was essentially a "self-governing" community.
Engels both explains the derivation, and draws from it the conclusion of
the linkage between the Russian
form of property and the Oriental Despotic form of property ownership:
"The Russian peasant lives and has his being only in
his village community; the rest of the world exists for him only in so
far as it interferes with his community. This is so much the case, that
in so far as it interferes with his community. This is so much the case
the case that, in Russian the word "mir" means on the one hand "world"
and on the other "peasant community". . . .. Such a complete isolation
of individual communities form one another, which creates throughout the
country similar but the very opposite of common, interests, is the natural
basis for oriental despotism; and form India to Russia, this form of society,
wherever it has prevailed, has always produced and always found its complement
in it." Frederick Engels, in:
"Refugee Literature – V. ‘On Social relations In Russia";
in "Collected Works"; Volume 24; Ibid; p.46.
The mir were first described in the Kievan
‘Rus law code the Russkia pravda' (See
Geoffrey Hosking "Russia People And Empire"; Ibid; p. 198). These laws
implied that:
‘The community as a whole was responsible for the discharge
of dues and taxes: if one household fell short on its contribution, the
others were expected to make up the difference. That usage was strengthened
under Mongol overlordship, and became universal during the 15th-17th
centuries, when the Grand Princes were transferring previously ‘black lands’-owned
by the state or by nobody – to service nobles and it as juridically fixed
in the Law Code (Ulozhenie) of 1649, as a convenient way for landlords
and the state to ensure that dues were paid promptly and in full."
Geoffrey Hosking "Russia People and Empire"; Ibid p.
198.
This communal form remained a feature
of Russian peasant life even after the "Emancipation" of Alexander II.
To further minimise the risks attached to the peasantry, the communes evolved
a strip system of land-tenure to share out the risk:
"The strip system of land tenure. . . ensured that each
household had a share in land of different types, near and far away, dry
and marshy, fertile and less fertile, and access to different kinds of
cultivation. "Mutual responsibility" had the same function, it not only
suited the landlord, but also ensured minimal subsistence for each household
even in times of difficulty".
Geoffrey Hosking "Russia People And Empire"; Ibid p.
201.
A related form of development that fell
into the same category was the "artel",
which was a:
"a widespread form of association, the simplest form
of free co-operation, such as is found for instance among hunting tribes,
Word and content are not of Slavic but Tatar origin. Both are to be found
among the Kirghiz, Yakuts etc on the one hand, and among the Lapps, Samoyeds
and other Finnish peoples on the other. That is why the artel originally
developed in the North and East. . . The severe climate necessitates industrial
activity of various kinds and so the lack of urban development and of capital,
is replaced as far as possible by this form of cooperation.. ."
Frederick Engels, in: "Refugee Literature – V. ‘On Social
relations In Russia"; in "Collected Works"; Volume 24; Moscow 1989; p.
43; Written-published in Der Volksstaat April 1875; reprinted as separate
pamphlet July 1875.
In the poor soil of the peasant holdings,
they had to supplement their income. When they did so, they would form
associations that were historically based on this artel form. As the Russian
populist Stepniak used the term, they
meant:
"A free union of people who combine for the mutual advantages
of cooperation in labour or consumption or both";
Cited Geoffrey Hosking "Russia People And Empire"; Ibid;
p. 203.
"the artel then had the same function as the mir: in the
absence of a secure legal basis for contracts, to provide a framework for
collective economic activity, and at the same time to spared the risks
and share the difficulties of such activity."
Geoffrey Hosking "Russia People And Empire"; Ibid; p.
205-206.
"Moreover in Russia the word artel is used for every form,
not only of collective activity but also of collective institution."
Frederick Engels, in: "Refugee Literature – V. ‘On Social
relations In Russia"; in "Collected Works"; Volume 24; Moscow 1989; p.43;
Written-published in Der Volksstaat April 1875; reprinted as separate pamphlet
July 1875.
The essential features of the mir-artel-obschina
was then the :
"Collective responsibility of its members for one another
to third parties, was originally based on blood relationship".
Frederick Engels, in: "Refugee Literature – V. ‘On Social
relations In Russia"; in "Collected Works"; Ibid; p.43;
Marx and Engels defined the features of
the "archaic" "rural commune" as Marx called it, or the communal artel-mir
in the following manner:
"An elder (starosta, starshina) is always chosen who
fulfils the functions of treatment, etc, and of manager as far as necessary
and receives a special salary"..."They are established by a contract signed
by all the members".... the artel is a collective society that has arisen
spontaneously and is therefore, still very undeveloped".
From Frederick Engels "Refugee Literature – V. ‘On Social
Relations In Russia"; in "Collected Works"; Ibid; p. 44.
A further series of clarifications by
Marx showed that the mir rural communes required:
1) Relations that are not based on blood lines; it is
the "first social grouping of free men not held together by blood-ties";
2) That there is a complex mix of individual and common
property such that, for instance, the "house and its complement the courtyard
belonged to the agricultural producer as an individual". This was private,
and distinguished the "communal house and collective dwelling" of the "more
primitive communities, long before the introduction of the pastoral or
agrarian way of life".
3) That the arable land "inalienable and communal property",
is periodically re-divided between members of the commune so tha: "everyone
tills the fields assigned to him on his own account and appropriates the
fruits thereof as an individual."
Marx, Karl: "Third Draft of letter to Vera Zasulich";
In "Collected Works" Volume 24; Moscow 1989; p. 366.
This all meant that the artel could function
not only in the countryside, but also in various other occupations e.g.
fishing, lumber, tar distillers etc. But just as in the case of the peasant,
as the necessary capital cannot be brought together to fulfil a contract
(e.g. in the fisheries to get nets etc; or the cheeseries to get equipment)
the artel falls prey to the usurer. This allows the usurer to exploit the
labour of the artel. Since some artels actually hired themselves out en
bloc to an employer, the artel then is obliged to live in a truck system
with the employer. All this, as Engels pointed out:
"Facilitates considerably the exploitation of the wage
worker by the capitalist."
Frederick Engels "Refugee Literature – V. ‘On Social
relations In Russia"; in "Collected Works"; Ibid, p. 44.
This type of artel arrangement was not
however unique to Russia:
"Like the mutual liability (Gewere) of the ancient Germans,
blood vengeance etc. . . .It is thus seen that the artel is a co-operative
society that has arisen spontaneously and is therefore still very underdeveloped
and as such neither exclusively Russian, nor even Slavic. Such societies
are formed wherever there is a need for them…. Switzerland…. England….
Silesian navvies….."
Frederick Engels, in: "Refugee Literature – V. ‘On Social
relations In Russia"; in "Collected Works"; Ibid; p.43;
The whole controversy of the mir
arose, as the Narodniks claimed that this formation would allow the Russian
peasant to leap into socialism from their current stage, not having to
go throguh capitalism.
But as Engels points out, the situation
did not "naturally" and ineluctably lead to socialism, without certain
further key developments:
"True the predominance of this form in Russia proves
the existence in the Russian people of a strong impulse to jump, with the
aid of this impulse, from the artel straight into the socialist order of
society. For that, it is necessary above all that the artel sites should
be capable of development, that it shed its primitive form, in which as
we saw, it serves the workers less than it does capital, and rise at least
to they level of the West European co-operatives."
Frederick Engels, in: "Refugee Literature – V. ‘On Social
relations In Russia"; in "Collected Works"; Ibid; p. 45.
Why were these "developments" noted by
Engels, needed? Because the inequities in the system meant that there was
a growing inequality:
"Further development of Russia in a bourgeois direction
would here also destroy communal ownership little by little. . . . . And
this especially since the communally owned land is not cultivated by the
peasants in common, so that the product may then be divided as is still
the case in some districts in India on the contrary from time to time,
the land is divided up among the various heads of families, and each cultivate
his allotment for himself. Consequently very great differences in degree
of prosperity are possible and actually exist among the members of the
community. Almost everywhere there are a few rich peasants among them -
here and there millionaires - who play the usurer and suck the blood of
the mass of the peasants. . . . . No one knows this better than Mr.Tkachov.
. . who writes. . . . "among the peasants a class of usurers (kulakov)
is making its way, a class of people who buy up and rent the land of peasants
and nobles a- muzhik aristocracy."
Frederick Engels, in: "Refugee Literature – V. ‘On Social
relations In Russia"; in "Collected Works"; Ibid;
But Chernyshevsky
hinged his social analysis upon the mir.
He insisted that the serf’s emancipation
should be accompanied with land in the form of obschina land just as before.
He thought this would prove to be a short cut to socialism, and that capitalism
was developing so fast that the socialist revolution was not far off:
"The rapid movement of modern economic history promotes
us to say that that we won’t have long to wait for this third period."
Cited Franco Venturi "Roots Of Revolution"; Ibid; p.
150.
He hoped that Russia could jump to socialism
without going through capital, that she could:
"Skip all the intermediate states of development or
at least enormously reduce them of their length and deprive them of their
power."
Cited Franco Venturi "Roots Of Revolution"; Ibid; p.
152
Chernyshevsky became the leading light
of the journal Souvremenik (The Contemporary),
taking over from the social-critic and poet Vissarion Belinsky. In doing
so, Chernyshevsky drew it away from a belle lettre mode, towards a more
overtly politically radical line. This became the line of the Zemlya I
Volya. Even this need for a new radical organisation, was only realised
after painful polemic and bitter experiences. During the course of this
polemic, Chernyshevsky exposed Herzen’s error in trusting to Alexander
II’s reforms. During the extended polemic, Chernyshevsky bitterly attacked
the Slavophiles, saying:
"Their eyes are so strangely constructed that whatever
filth they see, they regard as something marvelous . . . And so they consider
that our habit of submitting to all oppression is an excellent one, and
that Western Europe is dying through lack of this laudable custom, and
that it will only be saved by us when it learns such humility."
Cited Venturi, "Roots of Revolution" Ibid; p. 160
And yet, Chernyshevsky agreed with Herzen
that the peasant communes, were an important point of difference between
Russia and Western Europe, one which might yet be of progressive significance.
As Chernyshevsky commented upon the battle between the Slavophiles and
the Westerners over the route that Russia was to take, the support for
the "communal utilization of the land"
– meant that for him in one crucial respect, the Slavophiles were right:
"The Slavophiles read aright the meaning of the fate
of the English and French farmers, and are anxious to ensure that we make
good use of this lesson. They consider the communal utilization of this
land as the most important guarantee, the essential precondition of the
welfare of the agricultural class. In this respect they are greatly superior
to the many of the so-called Westernizers, who base their opinions on obsolete
systems which are spiritually part of the bygone epoch, with its one sided
emphasis on the personal rights of each single individual, and who are
prepared to inveigh thoughtlessly against these valuable old customs of
ours on the grounds that they are incompatible with the postulates of systems
that both science and the experience of the Western European nations have
already proved to be invalid."
Chernyshevsky, As cited by Walicki, Andrej in: "The Slavophil
Controversy"; Oxford; 1975; p.465;
"the unlimited extension of the rights of the individual
makes it extremely difficult to introduce a better social structure in
Western Europe.. people do not easily relinquish even a small part of what
they sued to enjoy. The individual in Western Europe is already accustomed
to unlimited personal rights. . . . But something that seems utopian there
exists as an actual fact here. . habits whose inculcation in the life of
the people seems to the English and French immensely difficult , already
exists in the life of the Russian people.."
Chernyshevsky from Works; Geneva edition; Vol 5; Cited
by Frederick Engels; in: "Afterword to Soziales Aus Russland"; in Marx
& Engels: "Precapitalist Socio-Economic Formations"; Moscow; 1979;
p.476; written 1894.
Marx and Engels had perfectly understood
Chernyshevsky’s intent in adopting this road:
"But the Russian (peasant) community has gained the
attention and approval of men who stand infinitely higher than a Herzen
or Tkachov. Among them is Nikolai Chernyshevsky, the outstanding thinker
to whom Russia is so greatly indebted and whose slow murder caused by many
years of exile among Siberian Yakuts will for ever remain a stigma on the
reputation of Alexander II. . .. . . Chernyshevsky too regards the Russian
peasant community as a means of advancing from the existing social system
to a new stage of development which will be higher than the Russian community
on the one hand, and West-European capitalist society with its class contradictions
on the other:
"Marx summarised it thus:
"Must Russia destroy the peasant community first, as
the Liberals demand, so as to advance to the capitalist system, or can
she on the contrary, by developing further her own historically given preconditions,
acquire the results of this system without experiencing the suffering it
causes?"
Engels Frederick; in: "Afterword to Soziales Aus Russland";
in Marx & Engels: "Precapitalist Socio-Economic Formations"; Moscow;
1979; p.476; written 1894.
Everyone recognised, certainly Marx, Engels
and Lenin did – that Chernyshevsky was in no position to assess all the
evidence because he was rotting away, during his final incarceration in
Tsarist prison. In any case, all this did not mean that Chernyshevsky was
supported by, or could be identifiable with the Slavophiles or vice-versa.
As Lenin identified it, Chernyshevsky was well aware, that nothing could
prevent class struggle. Lenin wished to make it clear that Chernyshevsky
had been quite explicit about class struggle:
"Chernyshevsky understood that the Russian feudal bureaucratic
state was incapable of emancipating the peasants, that, of overthrowing
the feudal serf owners, that it was only capable of something "vile", of
a miserable compromise between the interests of the liberals … and the
landlords... And he protested, execrated the Reform, wanted it to fail,
wanted the government to…. Crash to… bring Russia out on the high road
of open class struggle."
Lenin, Vladimir. I.: "What The Friends of The People
Are"; in Collected Works"; Moscow; 1977; Volume 1; p. 282; written Spring
1894.
Marx And Engels On the Mir
- the Peasant Communes
Although both Marx and Engels admired
Chernyshevsky, the question of the mir would prove to be a recurrent and
problematic one. As already seen, their first systematic review of this
question had been prompted by an attack launched upon Frederick Engels
by a disciple of Mikhail Bakunin, Peter Tkachov. The counter-attack by
Engels, was entitled: "On Social Relations In Russia", and was discussed
above in relation to Bakunin’s views of insurrection. But the article is
also relevant in its discussion of the mir-artel-obschina.
Although Tkachov accuses Engels of
possessing "not even a little knowledge" of Russia – Engels demonstrated
his mastery of the problems. Engels fully realised
the role that the artel and mir had taken on for the Russian movement:
"The artel which Tkachov mentions only incidentally,
but with which we deal here because , since the time of Herzen, it has
played a mysterious role with many Russians."
Frederick Engels, in: "Refugee Literature – V. ‘On Social
relations In Russia"; in "Collected Works"; Volume 24; Moscow 1989; p.43;
Written-published in Der Volksstaat April 1875; reprinted as separate pamphlet
July 1875.
Later Russian interpreters of Marx would
not cavil at distorting him to 'prove' their own biases on the implications
of Marxism for the future revolutionary course in Russia.
On the one hand, both Marx and Engels
were well aware that they did not have the full details of the Russian
social development. But equally, they were well aware that the pro-Slav
tendency of many of the previous generation of Russian progressives and
socialists had been over-optimistic on the matter of the mir and the Russian
exceptional path of development. Marx was also well aware that the most
simplistic of the "Western" school had pronounced that Marx’s "Capital",
put view of a "historical inevitability" to go through capitalism, before
arriving at socialism. As Vera Zasulich put it to Marx:
"Recently we have often heard the opinion that the rural
commune is an archaic form which history, scientific socialism - in a word
all that is indisputable- condemns to death. The people preaching this
call themselves your disciples par excellence: "Marxists". Their strongest
argument is often "Marx says so". But how do you deduce this from his Capital?
In it he does not deal with the agrarian question and he does not speak
about Russia.’ The objection is put to them. "He would have said this if
he had spoken about your country," our disciples reply, possibly just a
bit too boldly."
Zasulich, Vera; "Letter to Karl Marx"; In "Collected
Works Volume 24"; Moscow 1989; See as footnote #342; p. 642.
But the ‘bold disciples’ had distorted
Marx’s view. Marx recognized as his explicitly Marxist comrades in Russia,
to be Pytor Lavrov, Hermann Lopatin and Nikolai
Danielson – none of whom, said Marx, would have put the views
of these "disciples" that Zasulich had cited:
"The Russian "Marxists" of whom you speak are quite
unknown to me. To the best of my knowledge, the Russians with whom I am
in personal contact hold diametrically opposed views."
Karl Marx: Second Draft Reply to Vera Zasulich; In "Collected
Works Volume 24"; Moscow 1989; p. 361.
In the final version of his famous letter
to the Russian revolutionary Vera Zasulich, Marx laid out his views:
"In analyzing the genesis of capitalist production I
say:
"At the core of the capitalist system, therefore lies
the complete separation of the producer from the means of production……
The basis of this whole development is the expropriation of the agricultural
producer. To date this had not been accomplished in a radical fashion anywhere
except in England. . . But all the other countries of Western Europe are
undergoing the same process (Cites Capital, French edition; p.315).
Hence the "historical inevitability" of this process
is expressly limited to the countries of Western Europe. The cause of that
limitation is indicated in the following passage from Chapter XXXII:
"Private property, based on personal labor . . . will
be supplanted by capitalist private property, based on the exploitation
of the labour of others on wage labour.. (l.c.; p.341).
In this Western movement therefore what is taking place
is the transformation of one form of private property into another form
of private property. In the case of Russian peasants, their communal property
would on the contrary, have to be transformed into private property."
Marx, Karl; "Letter to Vera Zasulich"; "Collected Works
Volume 24"; Moscow 1989; p. 370; Written March 1881.
Marx was careful to point out that he
was not in a position to be dogmatic and say there was only one way forward.
Instead he acknowledged the special features of Russia’s retention of the
artel-peasant commune (mir or obschina) form of production into the late
1880’s and even agreed with the view that the peasant commune might be:
"The fulcrum of social regeneration". However he insisted that if it were
to do so, it would be in the context of the deletion of "deleterious influences
which are assailing it form all sides":
"Hence the analysis provided in "Capital" does not adduce
reasons either for or against the viability of the peasant commune, but
the special study I have made of it, and the material for which I drew
from original sources has convinced me that this commune is the fulcrum
of social regeneration in Russia, but in order that it may function as
such, it would first be necessary to eliminate the deleterious influences
which are assailing it from all sides, and then ensure for it the normal
conditions of spontaneous development."
Marx’s Letter to Vera Zasulich; "Collected Works Volume
24"; Moscow 1989; p. 371; Written March 1881.
The nature of these "deleterious influences"
is made clear in the drafts of Marx’s letters to Vera Zasulich. He had
obviously decided that a concise, brief answer to Zasulich would prove
more productive. However the longer drafts provide us with his inner thinking.
He essentially identifies therein, the "duality" between the individual
aspects of peasant life within the communal environs of the mir. This was
the "duality" at the heart of the matter:
"One can understand the duality inherent in the condition
of the agricultural commune is able to endow it with vigorous life, Freed
from the strong but tight bonds of natural kinship, communal ownership
of the land and the social relations stemming from it guarantee it a solid
foundation, at the same time as the house and the courtyard, the exclusive
domain of the individual family, parcel farming and the private appropriation
of its fruits give a scope to individuals incompatible with the organism
of more primitive communities.
But it no less evident that in time this very dualism
might turn into the germ of decomposition. Apart form the all the malign
influences from without, the commune carries the elements of corruption
in its own bosom. A private landed property had already slipped into in
the guise of house with its rural courtyard. . . . But the vital thing
is parcel labour as a source of private appropriation. It gives way to
the accumulation of personal chattels, for example cattle, money, and sometimes
even slaves or serfs, This movable property, beyond the control of the
commune, subject to individual exchanges in which guile and accident have
their chance will weight more and more on the entire rural economy.. .
there we have the destroyer of primitive economic and social equality";
Marx, Karl; "Third Draft of Letter to Vera Zasulich";
Collected Works; Volume 24; Ibid; p. 367.
Added to this inner "duality" was the
external forces of capital:
"You know perfectly well that today the very existence
of the Russian commune has been jeopardized by a conspiracy of the powerful
interests; crushed by the direct extortions of the State, fraudulently
exploited by the "capitalist" intruders, merchants, etc and the land "owners";
it is undermined into the bargain , by the village usurers by conflicts
of interests provoked in its very heart by the very situation perpetrated
for it. . . "
Marx In Draft One: Volume 24; Ibid; p. 359;
"Leaving aside any more or less theoretical question,
I need not tell you that the today the very existence of the Russian commune
is threatened by a conspiracy of powerful interests. A certain kind of
capitalism, nourished at the expense of the peasants through the agency
of the State, has risen up in opposition to the commune; it is in its interest
to crush the commune. It is also in the interest of the landed proprietors
to set up the more or less well-off peasants as an intermediate agrarian
class and to turn the poor peasants –that is to say the majority- into
simple wage earners. This will mean cheap labour! And how would a commune
be able to resist, crushed by the extortions of the state, robbed by business,
exploited by the landowners, undermined from within by usury?"
Second Draft of Letter To Vera Zasulich"; Ibid; Volume
24; p. 364.
In this, Marx was clearly in agreement
with Engels whose views on the mir have been already partly discussed in
the previous section. It is important to note that in the Foreword to the
Second Russian edition of the "Manifesto of the Communist Party", both
Marx and Engels endorsed the view that if the capitalist step was to be
avoided in the Russian development to socialism, it was necessary for there
to be some safeguard in the form of the Western proletarian revolution.
They put it this way:
"Today. . . Russia forms the vanguard of revolutionary
action in Europe. The "Communist Manifesto" had as its object the proclamation
of the inevitably impending dissolution of modern bourgeois property. But
in Russia we find, face to face with the rapidly developing capitalist
swindle and bourgeois landed property, which is just beginning to develop,
more than half the land owned in common by the peasants. Now the question
is: Can the Russian obschina (village community), a form of primeval common
ownership of land, even if greatly undermined, pass directly to the higher
form of communist common ownership? Or must it, conversely, first pass
through the same process of dissolution as constitutes the historical development
of the West? The only possible answer is this: If the Russian revolution
becomes the signal for a proletarian revolution in the West, so that the
two complement each other, the present Russian common ownership of land
may serve as the starting point for communist development."
Marx, Karl And Frederick Engels, "Preface to the Second
Russian Edition of the Manifesto of the Communist Party";’ in "Collected
Works"; Volume 24; Moscow 1989; Written January 1882; p. 426.
This view no doubt conditioned some of
the later initial responses of the Bolshevik leaders including Lenin
and Stalin. However, they as scientists, they would interpret
dogma according to the concrete circumstances of the 1920’s. There is little
doubt that Lenin endorsed these views of Marx and Engels. As Lenin identified
it, the essential question was whether Russia had to go through a stage
of capitalism or not? He pointed out that Marxism
was no simple recipe, but that it provided a method by which to concretely
analyse facts:
"The question is whether Russia is tending to become
a capitalist nation, whether the ruin of her peasants was the process of
the creation of a capitalist system, of a capitalist proletariat; and Marx
says that "if" she was so tending she would have to transform a good part
of her peasants into proletarians… Marx’s theory is to investigate and
explain the evolution of the economic system of certain countries and its
"application" to Russia can be only the INVESTIGATION of Russian production
relations and their evolution, EMPLOYING the established practices of the
MATERIALIST method and of THEORETICAL political economy."
Lenin, Vladimir I; "What The Friends of The People Are";
"Collected Works"; Volume 1; Moscow 1977; Ibid; p. 266-267.
This question had already it’s own long
prior history. As seen, Marx and Engels were well aware of the central
importance placed on the "mir" by the Russian socialists. Although they
had relatively little respect for Herzen, they certainly respected Chernyshevsky.
They therefore carefully considered his view. Although expressed only in
private correspondence, they took the view that they could not know whether
the Russian path would be through the "western" route (i.e. through first
an un-trammeled capitalism to socialism) or whether the socialist step
would come first. They said that it was possible that Chernyshevsky was
right, that capitalism possibly could be avoided.
In a letter from Marx to the Editorial
board of "Otechestvessnie Zapiski", dated approximately October 1877, a
letter that was never actually sent, and only then found by Engels after
the death of Marx in his papers, Marx refers to this debate, and how Russian
Narodniks were distorting his views. Engels later sent the letter to Vera
Zasulich, when she asked his views on the matter of the mir (See letter
to Zasulich from Engels; April 23 1885; See Selected Correspondence; Moscow;
p.361-363).
Marx had said this:
"I speak of a great Russian scholar and critic (Chernyshevsky)
with the high consideration he deserves. In his remarkable articles this
writer had dealt with the question whether, as her liberal economists maintain,
Russia must begin by destroying the village community in order to pass
to the capitalist regime, or whether, on the contrary, she can without
experiencing the tortures of the regime appropriate all its fruits by developing
the historical conditions specifically her own . . . . . I have arrived
at this conclusion: If Russia continues to pursue the path she has followed
since 1861, she will lose the finest chance ever offered by history to
a people and undergo all the fatal vicissitudes of the capitalist regime."
Marx, Karl; "Letter to the editorial Board of the Otechestvenniye
Zapiski"; In Marx Engels: "Marx & Engels: Selected Correspondence";
Moscow; 1975; p.292;
The central point Marx and Engels both
made, was that any such judgement on the actual path being followed, depends
upon a concrete analysis of the actual conditions in the country being
examined. They eschewed an abstractionist "theorizing" – favouring instead
a political analysis grounded on facts. Lenin later made the same point,
when the Narodniks tried to obfuscate the Marx’s carefully phrased reply
to the editorial Board of Otechestvenniye Zapiski in 1877.
Marx’s reply corrected the distortions
in Mr. Mikhailovsky’s article entitled: "Karl Marx Before the Tribunal
Of Mr.Y.Zhukovsky". The Narodnik journal had taken Marx’s "Capital", and
argued Marx held these viewpoints, as a universal prescription of development.
In his correction, Marx first briefly outlined his core historical materialist
theory of development. He then rebutted the general distortion as follows:
"Now what application to Russia could my critic make
of this historical sketch? Only this – if Russia is tending to become a
capitalist nation after the example of the West-European countries- and
during the last few years she has been taking a lot of trouble in this
direction - she will not succeed without first having transformed a good
part of her peasants into proletarians’ and after that, once taken to the
bosom of the capitalist regime, she will experience its pitiless laws like
any other profane peoples. That is all. But that is too little for my critic.
He feels he absolutely must metamorphose my historical sketch of the genesis
of capitalism in Western Europe into an historico-philosophic theory of
the general path every people is fated to tread, whatever the historical
circumstances in which it finds itself, in order that it may ultimately
arrive at the form of economy which ensures, together with the greatest
expansion of the productive powers of social labour, the most complete
development of man. But I beg his pardon. He is both honoring and shaming
me too much."
Karl Marx; "Marx ‘s Letter To Editorial Board Otechestvenniye
Zapiski"; written late 1877"; Letter not sent by Marx; but found by Engels
and made available to Zasulich who with "Emancipation of Labour" published
it in Geneva in 1886; In "Pre-capitalist Socio Economic Formations’; Moscow
1979; p.273.
Because of its failure in divorcing the
socialist movement from both liberalism and anarchism (a typically petty
bourgeois form of struggle), Lenin summarized
this period of the Narodnaya Volya, as the era of the "bourgeois liberal
epoch". This indicates that:
"In the epoch of the raznochinsti or the bourgeois-liberal
epoch (1884-90), the nobility were already a smaller group in the liberation
movement. If however we add … the clergy and the merchants we get 49 %,
i.e. almost a half. The movement still remains half a movement of the privileged
classes- of the nobility and the top-level bourgeoisie, hence the importance
of the movement, despite the heroism of the individuals."
Lenin Vladimir I; : "The Role of Social Estates And Classes
In the Liberation Movement"; Collected Works; Volume 19; Moscow; 1968;
Written August 1913; p. 329
Marx & Engels On The Russian
Prospects of Revolution
From the above, it is apparent that Marx
and Engels were extremely well informed about the position of the Russian
movement and of Russian society in general. A bourgeois canard is still
about that Marx and Engels "Got it wrong because they did not foresee that
revolution would being FIRST in a backward
country like Russia, and not in a fully developed capitalist country, like
Britain or Germany."
It is certainly true that early on
in their writing, both Marx & Engels not only hoped for, but thought
it most likely - that revolution would break out in countries where capitalism
was fully developed. But by the middle, and especially the end of their
lives and careers, they had both correctly predicted that the weak link
was likely to be Russia:
"Apart from Germany and Austria the country on which
we should focus our attention remains Russia., The government there, just
as in this country is the chief ally of the movement. But a much better
one that our Bismarck, Stieber and Tessendorf. The Russian court party,
which is now firmly in the saddle, tries to take back all its concessions
made during the years of the "new era" that was ushered in 1861, and with
genuinely Russian methods at that. So now again, only "sons of the upper
classes" are to be allowed to study, and in order to carry this policy
out all others are made to fail in the graduation examinations. In 1873
alone this was the fate that awaited 24,000 young people whose entire careers
were blocked, as they were expressly forbidden to become even elementary
school-teachers. And yet people are suprised at the spread of "nihilism"
in Russia. … It almost looks like the next dance is going to start in Russia.
And if this happens while the inevitable war between the German-Prussian
empire and Russia is in progress- which is very likely-repercussions in
Germany are also inevitable." Written London October 15th, 1875;
Engels, Frederick; "Letter to August Bebel in Leipzig; In: "Marx-Engels:
Selected Correspondence"; Moscow; 1982; p.282.
On the timing of the formation of the
Second New International, Engels wanted to keep the powder dry until the
battle began. Again – he believed that this battle would begin in Russia,
and give the signal for the International’s "official" re-birth, in an
action orientated and not theoretical manifestation:
"We think that the time for … a new formally reorganised
International would only call forth new persecution in Germany, Austria,
Hungary, Italy and Spain… On the other hand the International actually
continues to exist. There is a connection between the revolutionary workers
in all countries, as far as that is feasible. Every socialist journal is
an international center…. When the time for rallying of forces arrives
it will therefore be a matter of but a moment and require no lengthy preparation…
The names of the champions of the people in any country are well known
in all the others and a manifesto signed and endorsed by all of them would
create an immense impression… for that very reason such a demonstration
must kept for the moment when it can have a decisive effect, i.e.; when
events in Europe make it necessary. Otherwise the effect in the future
will be spoiled and the whole thing will be only a shot in the air. Such
events are however maturing in Russia where the vanguard of the battle
will engage in battle. This and its inevitable impact on Germany is what
one must in our opinion wait for., and then will also come the time for
a grand demonstration and the establishment of an official, formal International
which however can no longer be a propaganda society but only a society
for action".
Written London February 10th, 1882; Engels,
Frederick; "Letter to Johann Phillip Becker in Geneva; In: "Marx-Engels:
Selected Correspondence"; Moscow; 1982; p.328-329.
But perhaps the best illustration again
comes from correspondence with Vera Zasulich, this time in a response from
Engels. Engels clearly displays an exuberant optimism in the Russian revolution.
Now it may be true that he was some 20 years too early. But after all,
he had clearly identified the motive forces of the "Old Mole" in Russia.
He even made clear that so serious was the situation in Russia, that in
a "certain" sense this might be a relatively unique situation – one where
some degree of Blanquist theory might
be relevant.
"I am proud to know that there is a party among the
youth of Russia which frankly and without equivocation accepts the great
economic and historical theories of Marx and has definitely broken with
all the anarchist and also the few existing Slavophil tendencies of its
predecessors…. What I know or believe I know about the situation in Russia
makes me think that the Russians are fast approaching their 1789. The revolution
must break out any day. In these circumstances the country is like a charged
mine which only needs a single match to be applied to it. Especially since
March 13 (Editor- the assassination of Tsar Alexander 3rd) This
is one of the exceptional cases where it is possible for handful of people
to make a revolution, i.e., by giving a small impetus to cause a whole
system (to use a metaphor of Plekhanov’s) is in more than labile equilibrium,
to come crashing down, and by an action insignificant of itself to release
explosive forces that afterwards becomes uncontrollable. Well, if ever
Blanquism – the fantastic idea of overturning an entire society by the
action of a small group of conspirators – had a certain raison d’être,
that is certainly so now in St.Petersburg. Once the spark has been put
to the powder… the people who laid the spark to the mine will be swept
along by the explosion …. Suppose these people imagine they can seize power,
what harm does it do? .. To me the important thing is the impulse in Russia
should be given, that the revolution should break out. Whether this or
that faction gives the signal, whether it happens under this flag or that
is a matter of complete indifference to me. If it were a palace conspiracy
it would be swept away tomorrow. In a country where the situation is so
strained, where the revolutionary elements have accumulated to such a degree,
where the economic conditions of the people become daily more impossible,
where every stage of social development is represented, from the primitive
commune to the modern large scale industry and high finance, where all
these contradictions are arbitrarily held in check by an unexampled despotism,
a despotism which is becoming more and more unbearable to the a youth in
whom the dignity and intelligence of such a nation are united-when 1789
has once been launched in such a country, 1793 will not be far away." Written
London April 23 1885;
Engels, Frederick; "Letter to Vera Ivanovna Zasulich
in Geneva"; In: "Marx-Engels: Selected Correspondence"; Moscow; 1982; pp.361-363.
Lenin made a particular study of the views
of Marx and Engels upon Russia. Here are some notes in his famous encyclopaedic
"Notebooks on Imperialism" – and are drawn from two articles of Engels.
A Postscript to the Engels article "On Social Relations In Russia" (1894)
- ends with this:
"It - the revolution in Russia – will not only rescue
the great mass of the nation, the peasants, from the isolation of their
villages, which constitute their ‘mir’, their world, and lead them to the
big stage, where they will get to know the outside world and thereby themselves,
their own position and the means of salvation from their present state
of want, but it will also give a new impetus and new, better conditions
of struggle for the workers’ movement of the West, and hasten the victory
of the modern industrial proletariat, with out which present day Russia
cannot find her way, whether through the village commune or through capitalism,
to a socialist transformation of society."
Lenin, Vladimir.I ; "Notes on Engels’ ‘On Social relations
In Russia’; Cited Lenin; "Collected Works"; ‘Notebooks on Imperialism’;
Volume 39; Moscow; 1968; p.506.
"VI. The internal situation of Russia is "almost desperate"…
"This European China" (21)… the ruin of the peasants after 1861… "This
path of (of economic & social revolution = capitalism-in Russia) "is
for the time being predominantly a destructive path" (21). Impoverishment
of the soil, deforestation etc; in Russia. Russia’s credit falling. "It
is not France that needs Russia, but rather Russia that needs France… If
she had a little sense France could obtain from France whatever she liked.
Instead, France crawls on her belly before the tsar.. (23). Russia lives
by exporting rye-mainly to Germany. "As soon as Germany begins to eat white
bread instead of black, the represent official Tsarist and big-bourgeois
Russia will at once be bankrupt".
Lenin’s Notes on Engels’ article: Cited Lenin; "Collected
Works"; ‘Notebooks on Imperialism’; Volume 39; Moscow; 1968; "Can Europe
Disarm?" pp.501-502.
And it was necessary for Lenin in other
places, to point out in contrast to those who argued in 1905, that the
Bolsheviks should not harbor "Jacobin" prospects for the 1905 revolution,
that Marx and Engels had argued otherwise:
"Take Marx’s letter of September 27 1877. He is quite
enthusiastic about the Eastern crisis:
"Russia has long been standing on the threshold of an
upheaval, all the elements of it are prepared……. The gallant Turks have
hastened the explosion by years with the thrashing they have inflicted….
The upheaval will begin secundum artem (according to the rules of the art)
with some playing at constitutionalism et puis il ya aura un beau taupage
(and then there will be a fine row). If Mother Nature is not particularly
unfavorable to us, we shall yet live to see the fun!" (Marx was then fifty-nine
years)."
Lenin, Vladimir.I.; "Preface to The Russian Translation of
Letters By Johanne Becker, Joseph Dietzgen, Frederick Engels, Marl Marx
and others to Friedrich Sorge and Others"; (April 1907); In Collected Works";
Volume 12; Moscow; 1962; p.376.
"Or take Marx’s letter of November 5th 1880.
He was delighted with the success of Capital in Russia, and took the parts
of the members of the Narodnaya Volya organization against the newly arisen
General Redistribution Group. Marx correctly perceived the anarchistic
elements in their views. Not knowing the future evolution of the General-Redistribution
Narodniks into Social-Democrats, Marx attacked them with all his trenchant
sarcasm:
"These gentlemen are against all political-revolutionary
action. Russia is to make a somersault into the anarchist-communist-atheist
millenium! Meanwhile, they are preparing for this leap with the most tedious
doctrinarism, whose so-called "principes cournat la rue depuis le feu Bakounine".
We can gather from this how Marx would have appreciated the
significance for Russia of 1905 and the succeeding years of Social-Democracy’s
"political-revolutionary" action".
Lenin V.I: "Preface to The Russian Translation of Letters
By Johanne Becker, Joseph Dietzgen, Frederick Engels, Marl Marx and others
to Friedrich Sorge and Others"; (April 1907); In Collected Works"; Volume
12; Moscow; 1962; p.376.
"There is a letter by Engels dated April 6th
1887: "On the other hand it seems as if a crisis is impending in Russia.
The recent attentates rather upset the apple cart. "The army is full of
discontented conspiring officers (Lenin adds: Engels at that time was impressed
by the revolutionary struggle of the Narodnaya Volya organization; he set
his hopes on the officers and did not yet see the revolutionary spirit
of the Russian soldiers and sailors, which was manifested so magnificently
eighteen years later..) I do not think things will last another year; and
once it (the revolution breaks out in Russia, then hurrah!" A letter of
April 23 1887: "in Germany there is persecution after persecution of socialist.
It looks as if Bismarck wants to have everything ready so that the moment
the revolution breaks out in Russia, which is now only a question of months,
Germany could immediately follow her example."
Lenin V.I: "Preface to The Russian Translation of Letters
By Johanne Becker, Joseph Dietzgen, Frederick Engels, Marl Marx and others
to Friedrich Sorge and Others"; (April 1907); In Collected Works"; Volume
12; Moscow; 1962; p.377. http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/PRTL07.html
"Yes Marx and Engels made many and frequent mistakes in
determining the proximity of revolution in their hopes in the victory of
revolution (e.g. in 1848 in Germany), in their faith in the imminence of
a German "republic" (to die for the republic" wrote Engels of that period
recalling his sentiments as a participant in the military campaign for
a Reich constitution in 1848-9)…..But such errors – the errors of the giant
of revolutionary thought , who sought to raise, and did raise, the proletariat
of the whole world above the level of petty commonplace and trivial tasks-
are a thousand times more noble and magnificent and historically more valuable
and true than the trite wisdom of official liberalism, which lauds, shouts,
appeals and holds forth about the vanity of revolutionary vanities, the
futility of the revolutionary struggle and the charms of the counter-revolutionary
"constitutional" fantasies."
Lenin V.I: "Preface to The Russian Translation of Letters
By Johanne Becker, Joseph Dietzgen, Frederick Engels, Marl Marx and others
to Friedrich Sorge and Others"; (April 1907); In Collected Works"; Volume
12; Moscow; 1962; p.377-378.
http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/PRTL07.html
There is therefore no justification for
the view that Marx and Engels got it wrong by not foreseeing the Russian
revolution.
Plekhanov and his Struggle
against Narodism, The First Marxist Grouping In Russia
As sketched above, in Russia the earliest harbingers of the
new era of socialism were the Narodniks
(From the word "narod" = the people). But finally a Marxist grouping, (Gruppa
Osvobozhdenie Truda, "Emancipation of Labour"), was established
in 1883, by Georgii Valentin Plekhanov
(1856-1917)
"Prior to the appearance of the Marxist groups revolutionary
work in Russia was carried on by the Narodniks (populists) who were opponents
of Marxism. The first Russian Marxist group arose in 1883. This was the
"Emancipation of Labour" group formed by G.V.Plekhanov abroad in Geneva,
where he had been obliged to take refuge from the persecution of the Tsarist
government for his revolutionary activities."
"History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks)-
Short Course"; edited by a commission of the CC of the CPSU (B); Foreign
Languages Publishing House; Moscow; 1939; p.8.
http://www.marx2mao.org//Other/HCPSU39i.html
Plekhanov had been himself a Narodnik
once, but his experience of the Narodniks, and the writings of Marx and
Engels had convinced him of the need for a revolutionary change based upon
the proletariat and not the peasantry. The Narodniks never understood this
need:
"But the leading role of the working class was not understood
by the Narodniks. The Russian Narodniks erroneously held that the principal
revolutionary force was not the working class but the peasantry and that
the rule of the tsar and the landlords could be overthrown by means of
peasant revolts alone. The Narodniks did not know the working class…… The
Narodniks first endeavored to rouse the peasants for a struggle against
the Tsarist government. With this purpose in view, young revolutionary
intellectuals donned peasant garb and flocked to the countryside - "to
the people" as it used to e called. . . . A secret Narodnik society known
as "Narodnaya Volya ("Peoples' Will") began to plot the assassination of
the tsar.. . . . .. The method of combating tsardom chosen by the Narodniks
namely by the assassination of individuals , by individual terrorism was
wrong and detrimental to the revolution. The policy of individual terrorism
was based on the erroneous Narodnik theory of active "heroes" and a passive
"mob", which awaited exploits from the heroes".
"Short History of the CPSU(B); Ibid; p. 10.
http://www.marx2mao.org//Other/HCPSU39i.html
The Narodniks based themselves upon a
conception of the peasant commune, the mir,
that they considered the fundamental aspect of Socialism. But irrespective
of the views of the petit bourgeois Narodniks, both the working class and
its nemesis capitalism, was both growing. The working class was beginning
to organize itself.
So by the seventies and the eighties,
significant strikes of factory workers took place (Short History Ibid;
pp 6-9). The first workers organization in Russia was the South
Russian Workers' Union of Odessa, formed in 1875. Although Tsarist
police broke it up within nine months, others followed it. In 1885, a key
strike occurred in the Morozo Mill in Orekhovo-Zuevo involving 8,0000 workers.
Armed state force suppressed the strike, and taught the workers the need
for organised struggle. This new reality forced itself on the progressive
movement.
Plekhanov a member of the Narodniks,
broke with them over their adoption of terrorist tactics. The split in
the Zemlia I Volia at the Vonronezh conference
in 1879, where the majority adopted an individual terrorist
line, left Plekhanov no choice but to set up in opposition, the Chernyi
Peredel (The General Redivision, or Redistribution). But a bare
three months after its formation came its death under the pressure of Tsarist
police raids.
Plekhanov escaped abroad to exile in
Geneva, in 1880, along with Vera Zasulich and
Lev Deutsch, and Pavel Axelrod. Although Peredel placed a primacy
upon the factory workers, it was only later that Plekhanov would come to
a full Marxism. Now, he intensely studied Marx, and came to the understanding
that the proletariat and not the peasantry was the fulcrum of the socialist
revolution. In this he was assisted by a statistical work by Orlov, entitled
"Communal Property in the Moscow District" (See Samuel Baron; "Plekhanov";
Stanford 1963; p.55). Orlov’s figures provided irrefutable proof that the
commune was dying – just as Marx and Engels had predicted the encroachment
of capitalism was inexorable. Alongside this, the rich section of the peasantry
was exploiting the poorer section. In Geneva, he formed the "Emancipation
of Labour" group.
"Prior to the appearance of the Marxist groups revolutionary
work in Russia was carried out by the Narodniks (Populists) who were opponents
of Marxism. The first Russian Marxist group arose in 1883. This was the
"Emancipation of Labor" group formed by G.V.Plekhanov abroad in Geneva,
where he had been obliged to take refuge form the persecutions of the Tsarist
government for his revolutionary activities. Previously Plekhanov had been
himself a Narodnik. But having studied Marxism while abroad, he broke with
Narodism and became an outstanding propagandist of Marxism."
"A Short History"; Ibid; p.8.
http://www.marx2mao.org//Other/HCPSU39i.html
What this meant was related to the same
underlying question of the route for Russian revolution. As Vera Zasulich
put it in another letter to Marx in 1881:
"If . . . the commune is fated to perish, the socialist
has no alternative but to devote himself to more or less ill-founded calculations,
in order to find out in how many decades the land of the Russian peasant
will pass from his hands into those of the bourgeoisie and in how many
centuries Russian capitalism will perhaps attain a development similar
to that in Western Europe";
Cited Baron; "Plekhanov"; Ibid; p. 73.
It was finally, only while preparing Marx
and Engels’ "Communist Manifesto" for translation into Russian in 1882,
that Plekhanov finally came to understanding that :
"In Russian history there are no essential differences
from the history of Western Europe..’ He was now ready to make of Marx’s
Das Kapital a "Procrustean bed" for Russia’s revolutionary leaders".
Cited Baron "Plekhanov" Ibid; p.77.
Plekhanov went on to write some key works,
of which Lenin said it was "essential" for Marxists to study carefully.
Plekhanov first however tried to pay accounts with Narodnik politics. On
the basis of data from V.E.Postnikov, he established the penetration of
capitalism into Russia’s countryside. Plekhanov also showed that the Reforms
of Alexander had driven towards capitalist’s development. This, and Pavel
Axelrod’s insistence, pointed him towards the formation of a Russian workers
party (See Robert Service, "Lenin: A Political Life, Volume 1"; London
1985; p.42) and the "Emancipation of Labour" group published the émigré
journal "Social-Democrat".
But this group was quite isolated,
and rather aloof from the daily struggle. In a rather ‘intellectual’ approach
they would often begin from a "theoretically correct" Marxist position,
deriving what their position "should be". As will be seen, this had limitations,
and was in contrast to both Marx and Engels’s own approach, and that of
Lenin. We see this when we discuss Lenin’s first major theoretical foray
– "Who the "friends of The People" are".
Despite the most pressing poverty and
miserable travails, the group had little impact for many years. But they
did eventually provide the continuity to the break throughs that were later
to be made by Lenin. By 1885, Plekhanov’s "Our Differences" finally made
headway in the Narodniks against whom it had been aimed. (Baron ‘Plekhanov"
Ibid; p. 136). In this climate, a new generation of progressives was won
over by Marxism, as represented by the Plekhanov Emancipation of Labour
writings. These included the so-called "Legal
Marxists" such as Petr Struve, and such as Iurri Martov and A.N.Potresov.
Lastly, Lenin was amongst those influenced by Plekhanov.
In the midst of this ideological rout,
some die-hard Narodniks were even reduced to negotiating with the tsarist
authorities, to relieve the 1891 famine effects, in the countryside, and
to preserve the mir (Baron, "Plekhanov"; Ibid; p. 144). This latter flurry
of Narodnik activity prompted Plekhanov to respond with another theoretical
explanation of Marxism. In a major broadside against the Narodniks, Plekhanov
published his masterpiece "On the Question of
the Development of the Monistic View of History," under the pseudonym Bel’tov
in 1894. He had already written to Frederick Engels:
"You see that if in Marx’s time, the Russian revolutionaries
could draw a certain energy from the idea that Russia would bypass capitalism,
in our time this idea is a dangerous utopia. Now it is indispensable to
fight it".
Cited Baron, "Plekhanov"; Ibid; p. 145.
This work created a storm, and it assisted
the study circles ("kruzhkovschina" to develop Marxist roots. In May 1895,
Lenin made contact with the Emancipation of Labour group. By 1887, the
group’s second programme allowed for the foundation of the programme of
Social Democracy in Russia.
Using Lenin’s classification of Russian
progressive movements, this period directly led to the epochs he called
"of the peasant and the proletarian democrats":
"The third (1903-03) and fourth (1905-08) epochs are
those of the peasant and proletarian democrats. The role of the nobility
is a very small one. The urban petty bourgeois and the peasantry make up
eight-tenths of the wholes before the revolution and nine-tenths during
the revolution. The masses have awakened. Hence the two results: 1) The
possibility of obtaining something of a serious nature and (2) the liberals
hatred of the movement (the appearance of counter-revolutionary liberalism)."
Vladimir I Lenin: "The Role of Social Estates And Classes
In the Liberation Movement"; Collected Works; Volume 19; Moscow; 1968;
Written August 1913; p. 329.
It was in this epoch that the major development
of the forces of the working class took place. Steadily the growth of the
proletariat made the prior discussions of the relevance of the preservation
of the ‘mir’ an irrelevance. The new class had developed, it was still
small but its significance out-weighed its smaller size. A progressive
resolution would have to be found that could account for this new Russian
class. As the "Short History" put it, Lenin showed that five-sixths of
the population were still peasant based:
"In his celebrated work, "The
Development of Capitalism in Russia", Lenin cited significant
figures from the general census of the population of 1897 which showed
that about five-sixths of the total population were engaged in agriculture
and only one-sixth of the total population were engaged in large and small
scale industry, trade, on the railways and waterways, in building works,
lumbering and so on. This shows that although capitalism was developing
in Russia, she was still an agrarian, economically backward country, a
petty-bourgeois country, that a country in which low-productive individual
peasant farming based on small owners still predominated."
"Short History of the CPSU(B)"; Ibid; p.5.
http://www.marx2mao.org//Other/HCPSU39i.html
Vladimir Illyich Lenin’s Early
Political Development
As we have seen, Plekhanov drew away from
Narodism to Marxism. During this phase he attracted the best of the Russian
progressive youth. Among these was Vladimir Illicit Lenin. Lenin was born
in 1870, in Simbirsk (later known as Ulyanovsk), the son of a school inspector
and a doctor’s daughter. The family was ranked in the Table of Ranks as
minor nobles, at the rank of "general". As late as 1900 when he ended his
Siberian term of exile, Lenin signed himself as "hereditary nobleman Vladimir
Ulyanov", in order to allow his wife Nadezda Krupskaya
leave to forgo her further exile in Siberia (Volkogonov, Dimitri; "Lenin";
New York; 1994; p.6).
His father died in 1886. A mere year
later, his elder brother Alexander was arrested because of his involvement
with the Narodnik plot of assassination of the Tsar Alexander III. But
Alexander refused to plead for his own clemency, and was hung in 1887.
Alexander Ulyanov was of Narodnik persuasion, but had already himself studied
Marx and "Capital", and he had named Russian Marxists as "comrades" while
writing a new draft programme for People’s Freedom in 1887 ( Robert Service;
"Lenin: A Political Life Volume 1" Ibid; p. 39). Naturally, all this had
a profound effect on Lenin, who began to actively study politics. The earliest
political intellectual influences on him were Chernyshevsky and Plekhanov.
Although he entered Kazan University
in 1887, Lenin was quickly arrested and expelled for his activity in demonstrations.
Naturally the fact that he was the brother of the executed Narodnik Alexander
Ulyanov was a factor. He was banished from university to the family estate
in Kokushino, but still continued to court police attention, and made contact
with the group of M.P.Chetvergova. In order to protect him, his mother
moved the family moved to newly purchased estates near Samara, and merely
a few months later Chetvergova and her group was arrested. His mother later
sold these estates. In these years, Lenin was twice denied permission to
go overseas; and he began to organise workers circles in Kazan. Many of
these groups were arrested in July 1889.
In May 1890 he was allowed to sit for
Law final examinations as an external student at St.Petersburg. In 1892
he received First Class Honours graduation form St Petersburg University,
and in July he was granted rights to practice law. But he practiced law
only briefly, first in Samara, and then in St. Petersburg.
While still in Samara, Lenin continued
to contact revolutionaries, and when associated with the group around A.P.Sklyarenko
he established himself as the group’s polemicist. He organised youth circles,
and h now translated "The Communist Manifesto" of Marx and Engels for illegal
use in Samara.
By 1892-1893, he was a fully-fledged
Marxist who had overcome his prior attachments to Narodnaya Volga, and
its adherents known as the Narodovolets . Since his brother had been executed
for his revolutionary affiliations with this organisation, Lenin had made
a close and difficult study of this movement. Krupskaya, in her work "Reminiscences
of Lenin", commented that a passage in the later seminal work,
"What Is To be Done" (1902) was a part of Lenin’s own personal history:
"Vladimir Illyich spent two days in Ufa, … All I remember
of those two days was our visit to Chetvergova, an old Narodovolets, whom
Vladimir Illyich had known in Kazan. She had a bookshop in Ufa. Vladimir
Illyich went to see her the very first day, and there was a peculiar gentleness
in his voice and face when he spoke to her. When, later, I read what Vladimir
Illyich had written at the end of his What Is To Be Done? I recalled that
visit.
"Many of them" (meaning the young Social-Democrat leaders
of the workers' Movement of whom Vladimir Illyich wrote in "What Is To
Be Done?")
"Began their revolutionary thinking as adherents of Narodnaya
Volya. Nearly all of them in their early youth enthusiastically worshipped
the terrorist heroes. It required a struggle to abandon the captivating
impressions of these heroic traditions, and it was accompanied by the break
of personal relations with people who were determined to remain loyal to
the Narodnaya Volya and for whom the young Social-Democrats had profound
respect."
This passage is a piece of Vladimir Illyich's own biography."
http://www.marxists.org/subject/women/authors/krup/rol/rol02.htm
He started reading Marx and Capital avidly
in 1889. A N.E.Fedoseev into reading more systematically influenced Lenin.
By 1893 he had written his first critique of Narodism entitled "New Economic
Developments in Peasant Life", that used the statistics on Zemstov farming
accumulated by V.Y.Postnikov. Although not printed, it was preparatory
to his more definitive later works. In these early writings up to even
as late as 1895, Lenin was still only 25. Yet he had already grasped with
a genius, the core of Russian social needs. He was moreover already surpassing
Plekhanov, in understanding the real data of daily life.
After all Plekhanov had used the same
data of Postnikov. But Lenin was able to interpret the data more fully.
He showed that if the raw data was reorganised, according to land holding
by acreage, the peasant households that were larger were revealed to have
a higher agricultural productivity (see Vladimir I Lenin "New Economic
Developments in Peasant Life"; Volume 1; Collected Works; Moscow; 1977;
pp 42-69; or at http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/NED93.html
). This corroborated the intensification of the class division
in the countryside, an intensification that the Narodniks denied was taking
place.
In August 1893, Lenin came to St.Petersburg
and by the autumn was part of a Marxist study group of Technological Institute
leaders around S.I.Radchenko. A group of the Brusnev circle had already
been arrested in St.Petersburg in 1892. This kruzhki remained open however.
Lenin now established links with progressives in the factories (V.A.Shelgunov
I.V.Babushkin), and effectively and quickly become recognized as the leader
of the St.Petersburg Marxists. He and Babushkin together wrote and distributed
the very first Russian Marxist leaflet to workers – to the Semyabnbikov
factory – in December 1894.
In 1895 he was imprisoned and there
he wrote a draft programme for the Social Democrats which has not survived.
Lenin’s second critique of Narodism, was also written in 1893, and it was
"The Question of Markets". It was also not printed until later, but it
was circulated in hand written forms. In it, Lenin reproduces a mechanistic
diagram, from a Narodnik author, consisting of two spheres labeled as one
of the capitalists, and one of the "direct producers". Here the world of
the capitalist was depicted as divorced from the world of the workers.
Lenin pointedly said of this idealistic and mechanical view, that it was
a typical example of the Narodnik failure to grasp the reality of the world:
"The only thing we can agree with . . .is that this
is complete accordance with the Narodnik view. . . The "current conception"
always regarded capitalism in our country as something isolated from the
"people’s system", standing apart from it, exactly as depicted in the diagram
from which it is quite impossible to see what connection there is between
the two "spheres", the capitalist sphere and the peoples’ sphere."
Lenin, Vladimir I; "On the So Called Market Question";
Volume 1; Moscow 1960; p.91.
The heart of the article was a refutation
of the Narodnik views regarding the alleged "impossibility of capitalist
development in Russia". Having seen an increasing number of progressives
adopting Marxism, the Narodniks attempted to "prove" that the Marxist route
was blocked for Russia. They still used their previous argument upon the
immorality of allowing the impoverishment of the peasantry. But they also
now utilized a new "theoretical argument". The Narodniks asserted that
capitalism could not develop in Russia, because the poverty of the people
prevented a market developing:
"Can capitalism develop in Russia and reach full development
when the masses of the people are poor and are becoming still poorer? The
development of capitalism certainly needs an extensive home market; but
the ruin of the peasantry undermines this market, threatens to close it
altogether and make the organization of the capitalist order impossible.
True it is said, that by transforming the natural economy of our direct
producers into a commodity economy, capitalism is creating a market for
itself but is it conceivable that the miserable remnants of indigent peasants
can form the basis for the development in our country of the mighty capitalist
production that we see in the West? Is it not evident that the one fact
of the masses being impoverished already makes our capitalism something
impotent and without foundation, incapable of embracing the entire production
of the country and of becoming the basis of our social economy? Such are
the questions that are constantly being advanced in our literature in opposition
to the Russian Marxists."
Vladimir I Lenin, "On the So Called Market Question";
Volume 1; Moscow 1960; p. 79.
Against these ill-founded views, Lenin
demonstrated first empirically in a table, that as specialisation of labor
occurred, production expands and an inevitable rise of competition leads
to the concentration of productive forces. Having showed it in a theoretical
form, he had to now show this had happened in practice in Russia. Using
data from published sources, he did show that market development was indeed
related to the social division of labour and commodity production. This
in turn had led in Russia to the development of an ever-growing market
based on the specialisation of productive forces. Lenin charged the Narodnik
fear of the "limits" of the Russian market, as being the naive parroting
of the capitalists’ predatory wish for more markets.
Since the "pivot of the table" referred to above, was:
"The transition from commodity to capitalist economy,
the differentiation of the commodity producers into capitalist and proletarians",
Vladimir I Lenin, "On the So Called Market Question";
Ibid; p. 108
It was necessary for Lenin to show that
this differentiation had and was occurring on the ground. This was easy
for him to show, using the data readily available. Indeed he noted that
the peasants themselves used the word "de-peasantising",
in order to describe the process:
"If we turn to the phenomena of the contemporary social
economy of Russia we shall see that the foremost of them is precisely the
differentiation of our small producers. If we take the peasant agriculturists,
we shall find that on the one hand, masses of peasants are giving up the
land, losing economic independence, turning into proletarians, and on the
other hand, peasants are continually enlarging their crop areas and adopting
improved farming methods. On the one hand peasants are losing farm property
(livestock and implements) and on the other hand peasants are acquiring
improved implements, are beginning to procure machines and so forth (Citing
VV, ‘Progressive Trends in Peasant Farming"). On the one hand peasants
are giving up the land or selling or leasing their allotments, and on the
other hand peasants are renting allotments are greedily buying privately-owned
land. All these are commonly known facts (The peasants themselves very
aptly call the process "de-peasantising" (See
Agricultural Survey of Nizhni-Novgorod Gubernia for 1829, Nizhni-Novgorod,
1893, Volume III pp.186-87). . . the only explanation of which lies in
the laws of commodity economy which splits our "community" peasants, too,
into a bourgeoisie and a proletariat. If we take the village handicraftsmen.
.. . not only have new industries emerged and the old ones developed more
rapidly, but in addition the mass of handicraftsmen have been growing poorer
and poorer sinking into dire poverty and losing economic independence,
while an insignificant minority have been growing rich at the expense of
that masses, accumulating vast amounts of capitals, and turning into buyers-up,
monopolizing the market, and in the overwhelming majority of our handicraft
industries, have in the end, organized a completely capitalist domestic
system of large-scale production."
Vladimir I Lenin, "On the So Called Market Question";
Ibid; p. 108-109.
In this article, Lenin again transcended
Plekhanov and took further the Emancipation of Labor’s pioneer steps in
applying Marxism in Russia. But although Lenin had begun to pay off Narodism,
it was not until 1894 that Lenin’s fuller and systematic critique of Narodism
was complete.
Lenin's Attacks on The Narodniks
- "What the ‘Friends of The People’
Lenin had begun his attacks on the
Narodniks from a close scrutiny of the real developments in the Russian
countryside. Having arrived at the central question of the relations between
the workers and the peasants, Lenin's work was now to bring his understanding
to the practical plane of the movement.
Lenin first did this in a work called
"What the ‘Friends of The People’ are And How They Fight The Social Democrats
(A Reply to Articles in Russkoye Bogatstvo Opposing the Marxists)". In
this work, the full breadth of Lenin’s revolutionary vision, of how Marxism
was to be practically applied to the Russian reality, became clear to the
workers and progressive movement. Krupsakaya described it as:
"Thrilling us all. . . (and) hectographed copies of
it circulated from hand to hand under the name of "The yellow Books". They
were unsigned, Fairly widely read, they undoubtedly had a strong influence
on the Marxist youth at the time";
Krupaskaya, Nadezhda S; "Reminiscences of Lenin", Moscow;
1959; p.15.
Together the works had an enormous impact
upon the movement in Russia. The first article took the form of a rebuttal
to one Mr. M.N.Mikhailovsky’s attacks
upon Marx and his Russian followers. This article marked a boundary, one
in which much of Lenin’s later work was anticipated. It should be remembered
that Lenin wrote this, just before he was to meet Plekhanov.
Although Lenin buildt on points
already made by Plekhanov, he was going beyond him. Although the Plekhanov
had recognised the penetration of capital, and the entry of the class struggle
into the countryside, Lenin was now repeating them on the basis of a deeper
interpretation of the data. Moreover, Lenin transcended Plekhanov in calling
for political organisational forms that could implement a Marxist programme.
In this latter point, Lenin was especially novel in the Russian progressive
movement.
Lenin ‘s fundamental points, in this
work are summarised below.
1) Lenin Insists
Upon the Primacy of Data Upon Russian path – not abstract theory:
Everywhere in this early work, Lenin
insists that the Marxist method entail finding a path forward from a concrete
reality, from data analysis. He expressly pointed out repeatedly that this
applied to the question as to whether Russia was ‘ordained" to enter the
capitalist path of development.
The Narodniks had asserted that the
Marxist method consisted of mechanically applying the "Hegelian Triad"
in reasoning. Lenin argued that Engels had already shown this fallacy in
his polemics with Eugene Duhring. Even more, Lenin showed in practice that
this was untrue. Because to buttress his analysis, Lenin unleashed a torrent
of data to show that indeed capitalism had arrived in Russia. Some of this
data has already been discussed. More was provided in this work. Moreover
as Lenin said, allying himself clearly with Plekhanov, the Narodniks had
posed the question in an incorrect manner. The Marxists need only respond
by simply pointing out the reality of life:
"No Marxist has ever argued anywhere that there "must
be" capitalism in Russia "because" there was capitalism in the West and
so forth. No Marxist has ever regarded Marx’s theory as some universally
compulsory philosophical scheme. . Plekhanov… (Asked): "Must Russia pass
through the capitalist path of development?". . . And how did Plekhanov
answer it? In the only way a Marxist could. He left aside entirely the
question of the "must" as being an idle one . . . And that is why gave
no direct answer to this wrongly formulated question, but instead replied:
"Russia has entered the capitalist path."
Vladimir I Lenin, "What the ‘Friends of The People’ are
And How They Fight The Social Democrats"; Collected Works; Volume 1; Moscow
1977; p.192-4. http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/FP94NB.html
There was a painful reality that the Narodniks were simply
ignoring, for the benefit of their own theories:
"Or to put it plainly, there is no exploitation of the
mass of the people by a handful of capitalists, there is no ruin of the
vast majority of the population and the enrichment of the few? The Muzhik
has still to be separated from the land? But what is the entire post-Reform
history of Russia if not the whole scale expropriation of the peasantry,
proceeding with unparalleled intensity?"
Vladimir I Lenin, "What the ‘Friends of The People’ are
And How They Fight The Social Democrats"; Ibid; p. 195; or at: http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/FP94NB.html
It was the Narodniks who erected an unreal shibboleth:
"Listen to what comes next: "Our task is not to rear
out of our own national depths, a civilisation that is positively ‘original’;
but neither is it to transplant Western civilisation to our own country
in toto; together with all the contradictions that are tearing it apart;
we must take what is good from whatever we can";
Cited by Vladimir I Lenin, "What the ‘Friends of The
People’ are And How They Fight The Social Democrats"; Ibid; p. 188.
or at: http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/FP94NB.html
In making this point, Lenin was following
Marx and Engels. Lenin’s insistence on the use of real data marked him
out as the most practical and thorough of the followers of Marx in Russia.
This would later mark Lenin out from Plekhanov, who could not follow Lenin
into the application of Marxist principles. It is why Lenin - and not Plekhanov
- could later write "The Development of Capitalism in Russia", a work that
breathed fire into dusty statistics of the development of industry.
In showing the need for real data,
Lenin emphasized that Marx’s own views on the Russian mir should not be
mis-represented. As discussed above, owing to Marx’s high esteem for Chernyshevsky,
Marx allowed there was a possible different development path in Russia,
from Western Europe. But, only if the data would indicate this to be possible.
This was mis-used by the Narodniks to suggest that Marx had believed in
a different path for Russia. As Lenin pointed out in correction of the
Narodnik distortion of Marx:
"What Marx actually said was this: "And my honorable
critic (i.e. N.K.Mikhailovsky-Editor) would have had at least as much reason
for inferring from my esteem for this ‘great Russian scholar and critic’
(i.e. Chernyshevsky-Editor) that I shared his views on the question, as
for concluding from my polemic against the Russian literary man’ and Pan-Slavist
that I rejected them". . This reply very clearly shows that Marx avoided
answering the question as such, avoided examining Russian data, which alone
could answer the question: "If Russia " he replied, "is tending to became
a capitalist nation on the pattern of the West European countries- and
during the last yeas she has been taking much trouble in this respect-
she will not succeed without first having transformed a good part of her
peasants into proletarians." . . . In other words, Marx’s theory is to
investigate and explain the revolution of the economic system of certain
countries and its "application" to Russia can be only the INVESTIGATION
of Russian production relations and their evolution, EMPLOYING the established
practice of the MATERIALIST method and of THEORETICAL political economy";
Vladimir I Lenin, "What the ‘Friends of The People’ are
And How They Fight The Social Democrats"; Ibid; p. 266-267 or
at: http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/FP94NB.html
2) Class Division of the peasantry
was rapidly taking place
The de facto division of the peasantry
into an impoverished force and a richer force, was linked to both taking
part in commodity production. Therefore both were thereby a part of capitalist
development; and inexorably there ensued a differentiation in the countryside.
This Lenin was able to illustrate from several sources of detailed statistical
analysis of the Zemstov. The process of splitting in the peasantry, had
led to the conclusion of a "complete differentiation":
"It is quite clear that what we have here is a process
of the complete differentiation of the small producers, the upper groups
of which are being turned into a bourgeoisie, the lower into a proletariat";
Vladimir I Lenin, "What the ‘Friends of The People’ are
And How They Fight The Social Democrats"; Ibid; p.223; or
at: http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/FP94NB.html
"The system of commodity economy stands out distinctly
as the main background of the economic life of the country in general and
of the "community" "peasantry" in particular; the fact also stands
out that this commodity economy, and it alone, is splitting the
"people" and the "peasantry’ into a proletariat (they become ruined, enter
the ranks of the farm laborers - and a bourgeoisie (blood suckers) i.e.
it is turning into capitalist economy."
Vladimir I Lenin, "What the ‘Friends of The People’ are
And How They Fight The Social Democrats"; Ibid; p.230; or
at: http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/FP94NB.html
3) That domestic industrial development
was equal to capitalist development;
"It goes without saying that the domestic system of large-scale
production is a capitalist form of industry: here we all have all its features-
the concentration of the means of production in the hands of individuals
and the expropriation of the mass of workers, who have no means of production
of their own and therefore apply their labor to those of others, working
not for themselves but for the capitalist. Obviously in its organisation,
handicraft industry is pure capitalism it differs from large-scale machine
industry in being technically backward (chiefly because of the preposterously
low wages) and in the fact that the workers retain diminutive farms. This
latter circumstance confuses the ‘friends of the people’. . . If the workers
have no land- there is capitalism; if they have land-there is no capitalism
. . .. They do not know that capitalism, while still at a comparatively
low level of development, was nowhere able to completely separate the worker
form the land. For Western Europe Marx established the law that only large-scale
machine industry expropriates the worker once and for all. As to large
scale machine industry in Russia – and this form is being rapidly assumed
by the biggest and most important branches of our industry…. It possesses
the same property as everywhere in the capitalist West- namely it absolutely
will not tolerate the retention of the workers’ tie with the land."
Vladimir I Lenin, "What the ‘Friends of The People’ are
And How They Fight The Social Democrats"; Ibid; p.209-210; or at:
http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/FP94NB.html
At one time this was a fairly being process, but rapidly
this "dream" became very sour:
"The point is that the transition from the feudal to
the capitalist mode of production in Russia gave rise , and to some extent
still gives rise , to a situation for the working people in which the peasant,
being unable to obtain a livelihood from the land and to pay dues from
it to the landlord (and he pays them to this very day), was compelled to
resort to "outside employments", which at first in the good old days, took
the form of either independent occupations (e.g. carting, or labor which
was not independent, but, owing to the poor development of these types
of employment was comparatively well paid. . . This dream has long since
ceased to exist, has long been destroyed by capitalism, which has given
rise to the wholesale expropriation of the peasant farmers and turned the
former "employments" into the unbridled exploitation of abundantly offered
"hands"."
Vladimir I Lenin, "What the ‘Friends of The People’ are
And How They Fight The Social Democrats"; p.242; or
at: http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/FP94NB.html
"In his pamphlet "The Housing Question" Engels speaks of
German industry and points out that in not other country- he is referring
to Western Europe- does there exist so many wage-workers who own a garden
or a plot of land. "Rural domestic industry carried on in conjunction with
kitchen-gardening or.. . . agriculture, " he says; " Forms the broad basis
of Germany’s new large-scale industry". This industry grows increasingly
as is the case with Russia let us add) but the COMBINATION of industry
with agriculture is the basis not of the WELL-BEING of the domestic producer,
the handicraftsman, but on the contrary, of his greater OPPRESSION. Being
tied to his locality, he is compelled to accept any price, and therefore
surrenders to the capitalist not only surplus-value but a large part of
his wages as well (as is the case in Russia with her cast development of
large-scale production)."
Vladimir I Lenin, "What the ‘Friends of The People’ are
And How They Fight The Social Democrats"; p.317; or at: http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/FP94NB.html
4) The Objective Position of
the Later Narodniks Was ‘Liberal’
Lenin explained that there was a difference
between the older generation of Narodniks, and their descendants. He pointed
out that the Narodniks had become shallow pro-liberal bourgeois apologists.
The Narodniks had originally had a "well-knit theory" that started from
the "communist instincts", and they had taken this in two directions: One
theoretical and one a practical direction. The theoretical path had drowned
in details, in the absence of adequate methods:
"When it first arose Narodism, in its original form,
was a fairly well knit theory: Starting from the view of a specific way
of life of the people, it believed in the communist instincts of the "communal"
peasant and for that reason regarded the peasant as a natural fighter for
socialism. But it lacked theoretical elaboration and confirmation in the
facts of Russian life, on the one hand, and experience in applying a political
programme . . . . . The development of the theory therefore developed along
the two lines theoretical and practical, The theoretical work was directed
mainly towards studying that form of landownership in which they wanted
to see the rudiments of communism. . . But this material. . . . completely
obscured the economics of the countryside from the investigators eyes,
, the collected factual material furnished direct evidence of the immediate
needs of the peasantry. . . the naïve investigators were completely
submerged in the details. . . . the result naturally was the defence of
the interests of an economy crushed by land poverty etc; turned out to
be a defense of the interest of the class that held the economy in its
hands, that alone could endure and develop under the given social-economic
relations within the community. . . Theoretical work . . led to a programme
being drawn up which expresses the interests of the petty bourgeoisie i.e.
the very class upon which this system of exploitation rests!"
Vladimir I Lenin, "What the ‘Friends of The People’ are
And How They Fight The Social Democrats"; Ibid; p. 276-77. or
at: http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/FP94NB.html
And at the same time, the direction of
practical work had also foundered, this time against reality:
"At the same time practical revolutionary work also
developed in quite an unexpected direction. Belief in the communist instincts
of the muzhik naturally demanded of the socialists that they set politics
aside and "go among the people". A host of extremely energetic and talented
persons set about fulfilling that programme, but practice convinced them
of the naivete of this the idea of the muzhik’s instincts being communist.
. . The entire activity was then concentrated upon a fight against the
government, a fight then waged by the intellectuals alone; they were sometimes
joined by workers. At first this fight was waged in the name of socialism,
and that it would be possible merely by seizing power, to effect no only
a political, but also a social revolution,. Latterly this theory is . .
. utterly discredited, and the struggle. . . is becoming a struggle of
the radicals for political liberty. . . there emerged a programme of radical
bourgeois democracy. . . . peasant socialism turned into radical-democratic
representation of the petty bourgeois peasantry".
Vladimir I Lenin, "What the ‘Friends of The People’ are
And How They Fight The Social Democrats"; Ibid; p. 282-6; or
at: http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/FP94NB.html
And this led Lenin to analyze the material basis of the
handicraft and peasant societal change, which reflected the Narodnik social
material base of the petty bourgeoisie:
"One must …demonstrate the Narodnik MATERIAL basis… They
demonstrate the bourgeois character of our rural economy and thus confirm
the correctness of classifying the ‘friends of the people’ as ideologists
of the petty bourgeoisie. . . They show that there is the closest connection
between the ideas of and programs of our radicals and the interests of
the petty bourgeoisie . . .. . It explains then political servility of
the "friends of the people’ and their willingness to compromise";
Vladimir I Lenin, "What the ‘Friends of The People’ are
And How They Fight The Social Democrats"; Ibid; p. 234. or
at: http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/FP94NB.html
and which fervently try to find solutions to shore up
the wall.
5) The division between WORKING
CLASS SOCIALISM and the old peasant socialism;
"The break-up , the depeasantisation of our peasants and
handicraftsmen, which can be depicted accurately thanks to . . . Zemstov
statistics, furnishes factual proof of the correctness of precisely
the Social-Democratic conception of Russian reality, the conception that
the peasant and the handicraftsman are petty producers in the "categorical"
meaning of the term, that is, are petty bourgeois. This these may
be called the central point of the theory of WORKING-CLASS SOCIALISM as
against the old peasant socialism, which understood neither the conditions
of commodity economy in which the petty producers live, nor their capitalist
differentiation due to these conditions."
Vladimir I Lenin, "What the ‘Friends of The People’ are
And How They Fight The Social Democrats"; p. 233 or
at: http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/FP94NB.html
6) The need to organize a revolutionary
party
"How can one accept Marx’s economic theory and its corollary
– the revolutionary role of the proletariat as the organizer of communism
by way of capitalism- if people in our country try to find ways to communism
other than through the medium of capitalism and the proletariat it creates?
Obviously under such conditions, to call upon the workers to fight for
political liberty would be equivalent to calling upon him to pull the chestnuts
out of the fire for the progressive bourgeois, for it cannot be denied....
That political liberty will primarily serve the interests of the bourgeoisie
and will not ease the position of the workers, but . . . will ease on the
conditions for their struggle . . . against these very bourgeoisie . .
. Socialists who, while they do not accept the theory of the Social-Democrats,
carry on their agitation among the workers, ... the theory of these socialist
contradicts their practice, and they make a very serious mistake by distracting
the workers from their direct task of ORGANISING A SOCIALIST WORKERS PARTY."
Vladimir I Lenin, "What the ‘Friends of The People’ are
And How They Fight The Social Democrats"; p.294, or
at: http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/FP94NB.html
"The period of Russia’s social development, when democracy
and socialism were merged into one inseparable and indissoluble whole (as
was the case for example in Chernyshevsky’s day), has gone for never to
return. Today, there is absolutely no grounds for the idea, which Russian
social-democrats here and there still cling to . . . that there is no profound
qualitative difference in Russia between the ideas of the democrats and
the socialists. Quite the contrary; a wide gulf divides these ideas, and
it is high time the Russian socialists understood this, understood that
a COMPLETE and FINAL RUPTURE with the ideas of the democrats is INEVITABLE
AND IMPERATIVE!"
Vladimir I Lenin, "What the ‘Friends of The People’ are
And How They Fight The Social Democrats"; 271; or at: http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/FP94NB.html
7) The Unity of Theory and Practice
"The socialist intelligentsia can expect to perform
fruitful work only when they abandon their illusions... the THEORETICAL
work must be directed toward the concrete study of all forms of economic
antagonisms in Russia, the study of their connections and successive development….
This theory based on a detailed study of Russian realities and history
must furnish an answer to the demands of the proletariat-and. . guide this
thought into the channels of Social Democracy… I by no means want to say
that this (theoretical) work should take precedence over PRACTICAL work,
- still less that the latter should be postponed until the former is completed,
. . . . Theoretical and practical work merge into one aptly described by
the veteran German social-democrat, Liebknecht as:
"Studieren, propagandieren, Organisieren" (Study, Propaganda,
organisation".
Vladimir I Lenin, "What the ‘Friends of The People’ are
And How They Fight The Social Democrats"; p.297-8; or at: http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/FP94NB.html
8) The recognition that such a party
in Russia would take account of the democratic revolution as well as move
it towards the socialist revolution.
"What should be the attitude of the working class towards
the petty bourgeois and its programmes? And this question cannot be
answered unless the dual character of this class is taken into consideration.
. . . It is progressive in so far as it puts forward general democratic
demands, i.e. it fights against all survivals of the medieval epoch and
of serfdom; it is reactionary insofar as it fights to preserve its position
as a petty bourgeois and tries to retard , to turn back the general development
of the country along bourgeois lines. . .. Although the Marxists completely
repudiate petty-bourgeois theories, this does not prevent them from including
democracy in their programme, but, on the contrary, calls for still stronger
insistence on it. . . . . . (e.g.) Take land poverty, high payments, and
the tyranny of the authorities. . There is absolutely nothing socialist
in the demand for the abolition of these evils. . . But their elimination
will free this oppression of the mediaeval rubbish that aggravates it,
and will facilitate the worker’s struggle against capital. . . In general
the Russian communist’s adherents of Marxism, should more than any others
call themselves SOCIAL-DEMOCRATS, and in their activities should never
forget the enormous importance of DEMOCRACY. . . . it is the direct duty
of the working class to fight side-by-side with the radical democracy against
absolutism and the reactionary social estates and institutions…"
Vladimir I Lenin, "What the ‘Friends of The People’ are
And How They Fight The Social Democrats"; P.288, 289, 290, 291; or at:
http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/FP94NB.html
This detailed exposure of the Narodniks,
was soon supplemented by Lenin’s attack on the "Legal
Marxists" and their half-baked and reluctant exposure of Narodism.
Lenin showed that only the fully developed revolutionary Marxists could
explain what was happening in Russia and how to combat it. This became
his first legally printed work (under the name of K.Tulin) and was called:
"The Economic Content of Narodism and the Criticism of it in Mr.Struve’s
Book (The reflection of Marxism in Bourgeois Literature). P.Struve’s Critical
Remarks on the Subject of Russia’s Economic Development". Of this work,
the official tsarist censor said it contained "the most outspoken and complete
programme of the Marxists". (See foot-note 105; Volume 1 Lenin; Collected
Works; Moscow 1977; p.532). The Legal Marxists role
was explained succinctly by the later "Short History of the CPSU(B):
"Of immense significance too was Lenin’s struggle against
"legal Marxism". It usually happens with big socialist movements in history,
that transient "fellow-travelers" fasten on them. The ‘legal Marxists"
as they were called were such fellow travelers. Marxism began to spread
widely throughout Russia; and so we find bourgeois intellectuals decking
themselves out in a Marxist garb. They published their articles in newspapers
and periodicals that were legal, that is , allowed by the tsarist government.
That is why the came to be called "legal Marxists".
"A Short History of the CPSU(B)"; Ibid; p. 20-21.
http://www.marx2mao.org//Other/HCPSU39i.html
But it was at this very time that Lenin
first met Plekhanov, and it was over tactics towards the "Legal Marxists"
that they were to have their first disagreement.
Lenin’s Alliance With Plekhanov
While Lenin had openly attacked the
views of Petr Struve and his associates like M.I.Tugan-Baranovski,
S.N.Bulgakov, and N.A.Berdyaev, he had also approached them
to form a united front. All were well know economic analysts and claimed
some Marxist allegiance. Already Plekhanov and the Emancipation of Labor
Group had corresponded with them, in the hopes of joint publishing ventures.
The views of Struve et al, on the continuing necessity of capitalist changes
in Russia appealed to Lenin. But the key differences came down to whether
or not the workers’ road entailed revolution or evolution.
Struve chose evolution, and he made
his choice clear in a work called "Critical remarks". Struve argued that
when economic ruin faced the capitalist as a consequence of its chaotic
organization of society, only then could the workers seize control. Although
disagreeing with this, Plekhanov did not break relations with Struve. However
as noted above, Lenin wrote in an open polemic about the incompleteness
of Struve’s analysis.
Shortly after Lenin met Nadezhda
Konstantinova Krupskaya in the St.Petersburg Marxist circle.
In March 1895, he was allowed leave by the Tsarist regime, to go abroad.
His primary intent was to visit Plekhanov and the Emancipation of Labour
(EL) group in Geneva. Lenin looked upon Plekhanov as second only to Engels
amongst living Marxists, and Engels was to die later that August. Lenin
had been given a task by the St.Petersburg Marxists of the St.Petersburg
League for the Emancipation of Labour – to establish support to the EL
émigrés. When Lenin met Plekhanov and Alexlrod, it was quickly
agreed that a paper would be launched. But even at this first meeting,
it was clear that Lenin’s directness of attack upon Struve did not meet
with Plekhanov and Alexrod’s approved of (See Baron, "Plekhanov"; Ibid;
p. 155).
But an agreement upon united work between
the émigrés and those within Russia had been reached. The
numerous small groups in the Russian left, were united under the umbrella
of the Russian Social Democratic Union. The EL and their new adherents
in St Petersburg around Ulyanov and Radchenko were to work within the Union,
but with allegiance to the EL. Locally, the Marxists led by Y.O.Martov
and those of Radchenko had
united into the St Petersburg Union of Struggle for the Emancipation of
the Working Class. They had started a local news-sheet as an expression
of this unity, named Rabochee Delo (Workers
Cause), with Ulyanov as the editor.
The all-Russian paper was launched
as "Rabotnik" (The Worker). Both monies,
information from within Russia, articles and technical aid – were expressly
provided to assist Plekhanov and the E.L. The editors were Plekhanov and
Axelrod in Geneva and Ulyanov in St.Petersburg. The paper was a success
with regular materials becoming available to the Russian movement for the
first time. The Marxists fueled the growing strike movements in Russia,
armed with the Rabotnik; and Rabochee Delo
Unknown to him however, the tsarist
police had carefully monitored Ulyanov’s mission to Geneva, and watched
him after his return to Russia. Having organised the publishing, in December
1895, Lenin was arrested. Shortly after Martov was also arrested. Lenin
was transferred to exile in Siberia, forbidding his mother and any other
family member to accompany him. While in exile in Shusehskoe village, Lenin
was to write the seminal "Development of Capitalism
in Russia". However he also continued to work for a unity in
the social-democratic circles on the basis of ideological clarity. Krupskaya
herself was arrested in 1897. Ulyanov agitated for her place of exile to
be in his locality, as his fiancée, this was granted on the condition
of marriage, which took place in July 1898. The wedding ring was forged
from a piece of copper, by a factory-worker also in exile.
Naturally the outbreaks of labour unrest
continued. In early 1897, many workers joined the Union of Struggle. During
the process many inexperienced progressives and militants joined, and took
issue with the broader political goals of the Union of Struggle. But this
became converted into a confrontation between the intellectuals and the
workers. A struggle between the older intellectual "Veterans"
(Radchenko) and the newer worker "Youngsters"
led by K.M.Takhtarev. During February 1897, Ulyanov was allowed
three weeks to prepare for exile from St Petersburg. He thus entered the
debate on the side of the Veterans who retained the political goals. But
he welcomed workers into leading positions as long as they had the necessary
skills and education. He left for exile before firm decision was reached.
Internationally the development of
the Plekhanov inspired Russian Marxist movement was becoming well known.
Plekhanov was invited to the Fourth Congress of the Second International.
But the international movement was soon riven by Bernsteins’ revisionism,
one adopting class peace. Bernstein had announced these views in articles
of the German Marxist journal "Die Neue Zeit", in January 1898. He then
in 1899 published his revisionist book, "The Preconditions of Socialism
and The Tasks of Social Democracy". It was to be Plekhanov who attacked
Bernstein vigorously, even while the editor of the German journal Karl
Kautsky was silent. It is noticeable that while Plekhanov exposed Bernstein,
neither Kautsky nor the other leaders of the German party – Bebel and Liebnicht
– attacked Bernsteins’ revisionism as deeply (See Baron, Ibid; p. 177).
International Bernstein revisionism
was accompanied by reflections in trends in the Russian movement, the main
one being called "Economist". By 1897
a rival journal called "Rabochaia Mysl’"
(Workers Thought) had begun to appear in St.Petersburg, dominated by S.N.Prokopvich
and his wife Kusokova. They
effectively led a movement from the Union that ensured its’ take-over of
the Union, away from the leading role of the E.L.
The organ Rabochaia Mysl became a
leading organ of the Union, and it called for the primary task to be purely
economic. Soon after Lenin and Martov were arrested, Rabotnik had been
discontinued, and Rabochee Delo became edited by representatives of the
"Youngsters" who adopted an Economist
line, led by the new editors B.N.Krichevsky, V.P.Ivan’shin,
and Teplova. Effectively therefore, the E.L. group had been
hijacked.
However the EL was still formally part
of the Russian Social Democratic Union, of which the E.L. of Plekhanov
was sole representative outside of Russia. The need for unity was becoming
ever clearer to all trends and factions. It was decided to proceed towards
the formation of a single party in Russia, and delegates from the El, the
Bund to the economists of Petr Struve were invited.
The Founding
Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Party (RSDLP) was
held in March 1898 in Minsk, was held in secret. Since Lenin, Martov and
Potresov were all in exile, and Plekhanov was correctly unwilling to risk
arrest, the leading lights of the movement were not present. The conference
adopted a manifesto by Petr Struve, but failed to produce a constitution
or program. Virtually all of the delegates and the Central Committee (two
out of three) were then arrested by the police. A further 500 social-democrats
were arrested.
The Conference ran into conflict over
key issues such as economism. But it was at least a Russian recognition
of the need for one party. As the "Short History of the CPSU(B) puts it,
the most important outcome was the ‘formal’ founding of the party:
"In 1898 several of the Leagues of Struggle – those
of St Petersburg, Moscow, Kiev and Ekaterinoslav- together with the Bund,
made the first attempt to unite and form a Social-democratic party. .The
First Congress was attended by only nine persons. . . The manifesto published
in the name of the congress was in many respects unsatisfactory. It evaded
the question of the conquest of political power by the proletariat, it
made no mention of the hegemony of the proletariat, and said nothing about
the allies of the proletariat in its struggle against tsardom and the bourgeoisie.
In its decisions and in its Manifesto, the congress announced the formation
of the Russian Social-Democratic Party. It is this formal act, which played
a great revolutionary propagandist role that constituted the significance
of the Fist Congress of the RSDLP. But although the First Congress had
been held, in reality no Marxist Social Democratic party was yet formed
in Russia. The congress did not succeed in uniting the separate Marxist
circles and organizations and welding them together organisationally."
Short History Of the CPSU (B); Ibid; p. 21-22; or at
http://www.marx2mao.org//Other/HCPSU39i.html
The conference also established a new
paper called "Rabochaya Gazeta" (Workers
Gazette); and Lenin had been invited to the editorial board. Though Lenin
was imprisoned, he was well aware of the problems facing the movement,
and he had continued working on a party programme. He wrote
"Our Immediate Tasks", and "Our Programme"
as well as a "Draft Programme"
– all of which he sent to the editors, though none were then published,
as the paper never saw the light of day.
In his draft Programme, Lenin in essence
paid respect to the work of the Emancipation of Labour (E.L.) group, whose
draft programme was printed in 1885 and revised in 1889. Lenin said that
it should serve as the "draft requiring editorial changes, corrections
and additions only in respect of details" (A Draft Programme of Our Party";
Volume 4 Moscow; 1960; p. 232), but he did add considerable discussion
and one new feature.
This latter was the addition of demand
to seize "cut off lands". The whole
discussion of the peasantry showed that while Lenin attacked the Narodniks
for their blind obeisance before an image of the peasantry, Lenin also
saw the need to combat mediaevalism in peasant relation. This was a key
element in the strategy of the October revolution, in distinction to the
one offered by Trotsky. In the section on the peasantry, Lenin concretized
the analysis of the E.L. into clear demands:
"In the programme of the E.L. group we find only one
demand pertaining to (the peasant question) – the demand for a "radical
revision of our agrarian relations, i.e. a revision of the conditions of
the land redemption and the allotment of the land to the village communes;
the granting of the right to refuse an allotment and to leave the village
commune to those peasants who find it convenient do so," certain amendments
are desirable . . . .We take the liberty of offering our comrades for discussion
the following approximate formulation…… :
Proceeding from these principles, the Russian Social-Democratic
working class party demands:
1) The abrogation of land redemption and quit rent payments
and of all duties at present obligatory for the peasantry as a tax-paying
social-estate.
2) The return to the people of the sums of which the
government and the landed proprietors have robbed the peasants in the form
of redemption payments;
3) The abolition of collective liability and of all laws
that hamper the peasant in disposing of his land;
4) The abolition of all remnants of the peasants’ feudal
dependence on the landlord, whether they are due to special laws and intuitions,
, , or to the fact that the land of the peasants and the landlords has
not yet been demarcated, or to the fact that the cutting-off of the peasant
land by the landlords has left the pianist in what is in actual fact the
hopeless position of former corvee peasants;
5) That peasants be granted the right to demand in court
the reduction of excessively high rents and to prosecute for usury landlord
and in general all persons who take advantage to the inception condition
of the peasants to conclude with them shackling agreements";
Lenin, Vladimir. I; "A Draft Programme of Our Party";
Collected Works, Volume 4; Moscow 1969; p.241, pp.244-45;
or at: http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/DPOP99.html
In these articles sent from Siberia to
Rabochaya Gazeta, he had already defined for himself the principles of
a single tight professional organization, that was regularly producing
a journal were already clear to Lenin:
"Local Social-Democratic activity has attained a fairly
high level in our country, The seeds of Social Democracy have been broadcast
throughout Russia. ..All that is now lacking is the unification of all
this local work into the work of single party. Our chief drawback. . .
is the narrow "amateurish" character of local work. . . . The most urgent
task of the moment consists in . . . the founding of a party organs that
will appear regularly and be closely connected with all the local groups."
Lenin, Vladimir I; "Our Immediate Task"; Collected Works
Volume 4; Moscow 1969; pp 217-218.
Meanwhile, the arrest of Lenin, Martov
and Potresov had ensured the temporary victory of the Economists. In 1899
Rabochee Delo published an open attack upon Axelrod’s foreword to an article
of Lenin’s published by the Emancipation of Labour. Also In 1899 Rabochaia
mysl printed Berstein’s call for "evolutionary"
and not "revolutionary" socialism. The Emancipation of Labour now started
to counter-attack, by re-publishing out of Geneva. However they were somewhat
slow. Kuskova now wrote the "Credo",
where she argued that revolutionary workers should exclusively work on
goals aimed to improve the economic well being of the workers:
"In Russia the line of least resistance will never tend
towards political activity. The incredible political oppression will never
tend towards political activity. . In Russia. . workers are confronted
with a wall of political oppression. . .The economic struggle too is hard.
. but it is possible to wage it. . By learning in this struggle to organise,
and coming into constant conflict with the political regime in the course
of its, The Russian workers will at last create what may be called a form
of the labour movement. . .For the Russian Marxist there is only one course:
participation in i.e. assistance to the economic struggle of the proletariat,
and participation in liberal opposition activity."
Kuskova; Cited by Valdimir Lenin in "A Protest By Russian
Social Democrats"; Volume 4; London 1960; p.173-174. or at: http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/PRSD99.html
Lenin had followed events, and he organised
a declaration of "Protest" against Kuskova’s Credo. This was signed by
17 social-democratic exiles in the locality, with whom Lenin had especially
close ties with Martov and Alexander Potresov. Naturally this challenged
each of the false claims made by Kuskova. This precipitated the first serious
division in the Social-Democratic circles of Russia, the first Line of
Demarcation. By March 1900, Plekhanov’s counter-attack in the form of the
book "Vedemecum" was published. And in April 1900, at the Second Congress
the Emancipation of Labour severed ties with the Union.
In exile, the bonds between Lenin,
Martov and Alexsandr Potresov deepened, and they effectively became welded
into a "troika". Lenin had by now determined to form a single national
Social-Democratic paper to engage and form "lines of Demarcation". They
agreed to this and agreed to be co-editors. But the plan could not be launched
from within Russia. They were all released in January 1900. Lenin left
Krupskaya in Siberia to complete her term of exile; to expedite the paper’s
publishing.
The Founding Of Iskra –"The
Spark".
When they were released from exile, many
Economists and "Legal Marxists" like Struve, approached the "troika", asking
to be involved in future party building. Lenin in a non-sectarian manner
agreed to involve them in future work. At this stage, Lenin and the Troika
were forced into exile by police raids; Lenin was again arrested for a
brief period this time. Lenin had already sided with Plekhanov in the "Vade
mecum" (See Baron; Ibid. p. 211). Lenin in fact states in a document only
published in 1924, that he and the other young members of the Marxists
were "infatuated" with Plekhanov (Lenin,
Vladimir I; "How The Spark Was Nearly Extinguished"; Volume 4; Collected
Works; Moscow 1960; p. 333; or at http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/SNE00.html).
But when Lenin, accompanied by Potresov,
arrived in Geneva, Plekhanov was quite unwilling to compromise on any issue,
and he roundly attacked Lenin for conciliation to Struve. But even worse,
Plekhanov evidently resented the notion of an equality that the younger
troika adopted. He was so cold to the views of Lenin, that Lenin said that
it looked as though "Iskra had been extinguished".
Plekhanov started a major series of
battles for editorial control, up to threatening his resignation. Only
by adroit diplomacy did Potresov and Lenin avert Plekhanov’s obstacles.
Finally, Lenin ensured the publication of a "collection of articles", from
Munich and not from Geneva, with himself and Potresov as chief editors.
This led to a distancing of Plekhanov’s dictatorship. It also directly
established Iskra. Naturally Lenin lost a lot of respect for Plekhanov
during this process.
But the journal
Iskra (The Spark) did therefore appear. The name was based on
the epigraph "The Spark Will Kindle a Flame", a quote from the reply of
the exiled Decembrists to the greetings of the poet Pushkin. It quickly
established the principle that Lenin was later to make both his, and that
of the Bolsheviks, very own hallmark:
"Before we can unite, and in order that we may united,
we must first of all firmly and definitely draw the lines of demarcation
between the various groups."
Lenin Vladimir I.; "Declaration of the Editorial Board
of Iskra"; written 1900; In "Collected Works", Volume 4; Moscow 1960; p.
354; or at: http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/DDIZ00.html
In 1900, this article contained the key
points of what later came to be included within the tenets of Leninism:
Consistent struggle against ideological confusion (here represented by
the Economists, the Legal Marxists, Bernsteinism etc); the need for principled
unity; the need for a single party; the need for a paper to at as the organizer
of the party; the need for the proletariat to play the leading role of
all other progressive classes in the Russian revolution. Over the next
two years, Ulyanov put out 29 issues of Iskra. During this period, Plekhanov
and Axelrod became more accommodating to Struve’s liberalism than Lenin,
who correspondingly became much harsher did. (See Baron, "Plekhanov"; Ibid;
p.218). The new Journal quickly bore fruit. The other groups of the Union
began to join together with Iskra organizationally.
It was at this juncture, in 1902, that
he wrote "What Is To Be Done?" , under the nom-de-guerre Lenin. Under this
name, he had eve no, been recognised by the entire movement as one of the
acknowledged leaders of the Russian Marxists.
The work was critical in the history
of the movement. We summarise first its general antecedents, then its direct
predecessor "Where to Begin?"; and finally the book’s main conclusions.
Lenin’s "What Is To Be Done
Now?" – The Antecedents
The First "Russian
Jacobin" – Petr Tchakov - On Secrecy
The era of the Narodniks, and the autocracy
with its secret police, undoubtedly left vestiges of a necessity for secret
organisation. The Iskra-ites understood this and organised accordingly.
Krupskaya was in charge of communications and courier services between
the émigré Iskra-ites and the internal all-Russian organisation.
The ‘art" and methods of revolutionary organizations – from secret codes,
to invisible inks to smuggling of monies and literature – were all mastered
eventually, after amateurish beginnings by the Iskra folk.
In this the influences of the older
generation of revolutionists was not forgotten, including Petr Tachev or
Tkachov. The ideas for a secret and centralised undertaking were very much
in line with the Narodnik spirit of revolution. Earlier we discussed Engels’
critique of the Bakuninist views of Petr Tchakov who in 1876 was publishing
a journal in Geneva called Nabat ("The
Tocsin"). The criticisms we dealt with concerned the Bakuninist anarchist
views. We did not there discuss Tchakov’s stress on the conspiratorial
aspects of organisation. Engels cites him as follows:
"Why do you reproach us with conspiracies? If we were
to renounce conspiratorial, secret underground activities, we would have
to renounce all revolutionary activity. But you also castigate us for not
wanting to depart from our conspiratorial ways here in the European West
and thus disturbing the great international layout movement."
Polemic Tchakov to Engels; Cited Frederick Engels, "Refugee
Literature-IV"; Ibid; Volume 24; p. 36.
Engels replied to Tchakov’s complaints,
that a truly revolutionary conspiracy as the basis for organisation was
not what the Narodniks had always practiced. He cited the dishonest and
treacherous actions of Sergei Nechayev,
an acolyte of Mikhail Bakunin. Bakunin
and Nechayev living as an émigré in Geneva, had swindled
the monetary legacy of Herzen from his family, and had built the disruptive
Bakuninist "international".
During this time, Nechayev in 1869
returned to Russia. There, working in Narodnaya
rasprava (Peoples’ Judgement) he enrolled many students. But
one Ivan Ivanov had objected to the dishonesty of Nechayev’s methods. He
was therefore murdered by Nechayev, who then escaped to the West, where
only Bakunin and Pyotr Tchakov refused to condemn him. All other trends
in the Russian liberation movement disowned Nechayev.
"First it is untrue that the Russian revolutionaries
have no other means at their disposal than pure conspiracy. Mr.Tchakov
himself has just stressed the importance of literary propaganda from abroad
into Russia! Even within Russia oral propaganda can never be excluded…..
in the latest mass arrests in Russia, it was not the educated nor the students
but the workers who were in the majority. . . .Second I undertake to fly
to the moon, even before Tkachov liberates Russia, as soon as he proves
that I have ever, anywhere , at any time in my political career , declared
that conspiracies were to be universally condemned in all circumstances.
. . . If only instead of fraudulent conspiracies based on lies and deceit
against their co-conspirators . . . like that of Sergei Nechayev. . . if
only they the "doers" would, at least, perform a deed proving that they
really possess an organistion and that they are concerned with something
else apart from the attempt to form a dozen! Instead they cry out loud
to all and sundry: We conspire, we conspire!- just like operatic conspirators
roaring in four parts: "Silence! Silence! Make not a sound!"
Frederick Engels, "Refugee Literature-IV" Ibid; Volume
24; p. 36.
As was commonly accepted in the Russian
movement at that time, Tchakov was:
"The leading exponent of Russian Jacobinism (or Blanquism)
which held that in view of the political apathy of the masses the intellectual
elite was obliged to create a tightly centralised, conspiratorial organisation
for the violent overthrow of the existing order."
Asher, Abraham; "Pavel Axelrod and The Development of
Menshevism"; Harvard 1972; p. 32.
Given the nature of the Russian autocratic
regime, this aspect of Nardonism lived on until the time of the RSDLP.
It is not surprising then, that the need for a tight and welded secret
organisation was "in the air". Isaac Deutscher speaks of Martov’s avowal
of the need for this. As he says:
"Martov describes how much the concept of a centralised
organisation was then ‘in the air’. The idea was first formulated not by
Lenin, but by an underground workers in Petersburg who wrote a letter to
Lenin about this, and after the split joined the Mensheviks. In the year
before the congress a scheme of organisation similar to Lenin’s was proposed
to Iskra by Savinkov, who later left the Social Democrats to form the Social
Revolutionary party."
Martov Cited by Isaac Deutscher; "The Prophet Armed:
Trotsky: 1879-1921"; London 1954; p.77.
It is therefore, not very surprising that
the young Trotsky-Bronstein, especially given his own Narodnik background
- should have come up with a similar notion:
"Bronstein set down his views in an essay which circulated
in the Siberian colonies. . . ‘The central committee will cut off its relations
with the (undisciplined organisation) and it will thereby cut off that
organisation from the entire world of revolution. The central committee
will stop the flow of literature and of wherewithal to that organisation.
It will send into the field. . . its own detachment and having endowed
it with the necessary resources, the Central Committee will proclaim that
this detachment is the local committee".
Isaac Deutscher; "The Prophet Armed: Trotsky: 1879-1921";
London 1954; p.45.
As Deutscher comments this was:
"In a nutshell, the whole procedure of purge, expulsion
and excommunication by which he himself was to be cut off from the entire
world of revolution";
Deutscher, Isaac; "The Prophet Armed: Trotsky: 1879-1921";
London 1954; p.45;
But Deutscher wishes to make more of this
than is warranted. He wishes to make it clear that as early as 1901, Trotsky
was capable of independent Marxist analysis; and that as early as 1901
Trotsky’s thoughts were if not prior to Lenin’s, then at least parallel
to Lenin’s!
This viewpoint
is highly questionable, given events in Trotsky’s life.
This view of a "centralised organisation",
was not only a common sense, practical and organisational matter, but "was
in the air". It had a direct lineage to the practice of the Narodniks.
But Lenin transcended any simplistic reliance on a secret organisation.
In what way did Lenin propose anything
different from "what was in the air?" In "What is To be Done?", Lenin was
to extend his work of having already established Iskra. But Lenin had already
elaborated the bones of "What is To be Done", in his earlier article "Where
to Begin?" That article was published in issue no 5 of Iskra, in June 1901.
"Where to Begin?"
In contrast to "What Is To be Done",
this work was a short focused piece, on purely organisational matters.
In this article Lenin made the following points:
1) Practical Steps
Lenin argued that a primary aim for the
R.S.D.L.P., should now no longer be: "What path to take?", but instead
it should be "What are the practical steps along that path?" This implied
quite a different approach:
"It is not a question of what path we must choose (as
was the case in the late 80’s and 90’s) but of what practical steps we
must take upon the known path and how they shall be taken. It is questions
of a system and plan of practical work";
Lenin, Vladimir I; "Where to Begin?"; Collected Works;
Volume 5; Moscow 1986; p.17; or at http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/WTB01.html
2) There was An Invigoration
of Revisionism
That the older revisionisms were not only
not dead, but they were taking on new forms. So that for instance, Economism
was now accompanied by "unprincipled eclecticism’. These were further confusing
the way forward.
"Serious differences of opinion.. reveal a deplorable
ideological instability and vacillation. …. The "economist" trend, far
from being dead, is … narrowing the work… Unprincipled eclecticism is again
rearing its head."
Vladimir Lenin, "Where to Begin?"; Ibid; p. 17;
or at http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/WTB01.html
3) Advocates of Individual Terror Had Reappeared
This was manifested by a cry from the
Economists for "flexibility", urging that it was necessary to change tactics.
This urged a return to the strategy and tactics of individual
terror. The old Narodniks had been resurrected into the Social
Revolutionary party, and this had fueled some of the Economist
cries.
In Lenin’s
rebuttal, he pointed out that this was not the time for the military tactic
of terror.
That military tactic, was a necessary part of the revolutionary
strategy, but that it could only be used at the time of a decisive
assault. That moreover this was not the time of that decisive
assault, it was the time for a "siege";
and that a decisive assault was impossible now at least in part - because
the groundwork had not been done. There were no "revolutionary organizations"
at the present time, the task was to build them:
"In principle we have never rejected and cannot reject
terror. Terror is one of the forms of military action that may be perfectly
suitable and even essential at a definite juncture, in the battle, given
a definite state of the troops and the existence of definite conditions.
But the important point is that terror, at the present time, is by no means
suggested as an operation for the army in the filed, an operation closely
connected with and integrated into the entire system of struggle ,m but
as an independent form of occasional attack unrelated to any army. Without
a central body and with the weakness of local revolutionary organisation
, this , in fact , is all that terror can be. We therefore, declare emphatically
that under the present conditions such a means of struggle is inopportune
and unsuitable; that it diverts the active fighters from their real tasks….it
disorganises the forces not of the government but of the revolution…..
Far be it from us to deny the significance of heroic individual blows,
but it is our duty to sound a vigorous warning against becoming infatuated
with terror, against taking it to be the chief and basic means of struggle,
as so many people strongly incline to do at present.. Terror can never
be a regular military operation; at best it can serve only as one of the
methods employed in a decisive attack. But can we issue the call for such
a decisive assault at the present moment? … Our slogan cannot be "To the
assault", but has to be "Lay siege to the enemy fortress". In other words
the immediate task of our Party is not to summon all available forces for
the attack right now, but to call for the formation of a revolutionary
organisation capable of uniting all forces and guiding the movement…..(to)
consolidate the fighting forces suitable for the decisive struggle."
Vladimir Lenin, "Where to Begin?"; Ibid; p. 19.
or at http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/WTB01.html
4) The need for an All Russian Newspaper
In total, all of this demanded an All-Russian
political newspaper. This was not a new call from Lenin, but his sense
of urgency had increased:
"Our movement suffers … ideologically as well as in
practical and organisational respects , from its state of fragmentation,
from the almost complete immersion of Social-Democrats in local work, which
narrows their outlook, the scope of their activities and their skill in
the maintenance of secrecy and their preparedness….. the First step towards
eliminating this shortcoming, towards transforming divers local movements
into a single, All-Russian movement must the founding of an All-Russian
newspaper. Lastly what we need is a political newspaper."
Vladimir Lenin, "Where to Begin?"; Ibid; p. 21; or at
http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/WTB01.html
There was a large demand for such a paper
that would "arouse" the latently politically conscious:
"We must arouse in every section of the population that
is at all politically conscious a passion for political exposure.
… those who are able and ready to make exposures have no tribune from which
to speak, no eager and encouraging audience, they do not see anywhere among
the people that force to which it would be worth while directing their
complaint against the 'omnipotent' Russian Government.... We are now in
a position to provide a tribune for the nation-wide exposure of the tsarist
government, and it is our duty to do this. That tribune must be a Social-Democratic
newspaper."
Vladimir Lenin, "Where to Begin?"; Ibid; p. 21-22; or
at http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/WTB01.html
5) The Role of the Newspaper
The newspaper must become more than
just the conveyer of good information and Social-Democratic propaganda.
It was the organiser of the party:
"The role of a newspaper however, is not limited solely
to the dissemination of ideas, to political education, and to the enlistment
of political allies. A newspaper is not only a collective propagandist
and a collective agitator, it is also a collective organiser. In this last
respect it may be likened to the scaffolding round a building under construction";
Vladimir Lenin, "Where to Begin?"; Ibid; p.22.
or at http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/WTB01.html
Lenin promised to amplify this article,
but this was delayed, and in the process his amplification took on the
features of an extended critique of Economism. "Where to Begin" was published
in June 1901. The promised further analysis only came in Lenin’s famous
and defining work, published in March 1902, after both the Bialystok Conference
of March 1902 described below, and the Zurich Unity conference of October
1901 attended by Lenin. Both were failed attempts at unity.
It had always been the intent of Iskra
to create a welded single party. But just as preparations for the Second
Congress of the RSDLP were on going, the
Bund and the Yuzhny Rabochy (Southern Worker) Editorial board, joined with
the League of Social Democrats Abroad, in an attempt to pre-empt
the Iskra meeting. This called for a conference that met in Bialystok in
1902. At the conference, the organizers tried to make an attempt to transform
the conference into the Second Congress. But the Iskra representative strongly
objected and thwarted this maneuver.
In any case, very few groups from within
Russia were present. And finally, most of the organisers were arrested,
including Fedor Dan sent by Iskra.
This disruption from the Tsarist Okhrana police, meant that only one of
the original organisers was free – a member of the Bund named K.Portnoi.
A further attempted conference was
held, this time with Lenin’s encouragement, in Pskov
in November 1902. But it was further compromised, again because of on going
arrests. However it resulted in a committee to organise the Second Congress
in summer 1903. The organising committee consisted of Russian organization
of Iskra, the St.Petersburg Committees, and Yuzhny Rabochy (See Lenin Vladimir
I.; "Announcement of the Formation of an Organising Committee"; Collected
Works; Volume 6; Ibid; p.305. January 1903).
"What Is To Be Done? - Burning
Questions of Our Movement" - Party-making - Making of the "Storm" Centre
The essence of this work, was captured
in both in the sub-title, and the foreword chosen by Lenin. The foreword
highlights the central role of theory for the Marxist movement, and the
need to make clear demarcations for continual strengthening of the Marxist
Party. Drawn from a quotation from a letter sent by Ferdinand Lassalle
to Karl Marx on June 24th, 1852, it reads:
"Party struggles lend a party strength and vitality,
the greatest proof of a party’s weakness is its diffuse-ness and the blurring
of clear demarcations; a party becomes stronger by purging itself…"
Letter of June 24th 1852; Cited Lenin, Vladimir
I.; "What Is To Be Done?-Burning Questions of Our Movement"; Volume 5;
Moscow 1986; p.347; or at http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/WD02NB.html
At the outset of this work, published
in 1902, Lenin noted the delay in his intended amplification of "Where
to Begin?" He explains that this was due to the ill-fated unity conference
of 1901. Lenin would have written in a different manner had it been successful.
But in the new situation of failed unity, Lenin no longer found it acceptable
to limit this article to the purely practical and organisational level.
He argued that it was necessary to return to this, but only after an extended
polemic with the Economists. This was because in the interim their "tenacity"
had proven disruptive, leading him to address the issue of "freedom of
criticism", and the origin of this misleading slogan. The slogan was a
"war cry", and it impeded fundamental positive movement:
"Why such an innocent and natural slogan as: freedom
of criticism: should be for us a veritable war-cry, and why we cannot come
to an understanding even on the fundamental question of the role of Social-Democrats
in relation to the spontaneous mass movement."
Lenin, Vladimir I.; "What Is To Be Done?"; "Collected
Works"; Volume 6; Moscow; 1985; p. 350; or at http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/WD02NB.html
The work analyses party building in the
concrete situation facing the Russian proletariat in 1902. But it also
makes a strong case that these tenets are not purely of a national character,
that they are pertinent to all Marxist parties. It is sufficiently important
to detail, since it laid the basis for the CPSU (B); and it served as the
dividing line between the true Marxists and those who were Marxists in
words only. We will have occasion to refer to it, in the debates between
Lenin and Trotsky on the one hand; and Trotsky and Stalin on the other
hand. The rather long work makes the following main points.
1) There was a link between
the Russian Economists and the international revisionists – the followers
of Bernstein.
In a very new way, Bernstein’s revisionism
had become more than just a local debate for the German movement, it had
acquired the character of an international phenomenon. Previously debates
within parties had a local character. The debate around Berstein’s revisionism
was international in character. Lenin recognized this as unique:
"In .. modern socialism … this phenomenon .. is unique
. . . the strife of the various trends within the socialist movement has
from national become international. Formerly the disputes between Lassalleans
and Eisenachers, between Guesdists and Possibilists, between Fabians and
Social-Democrats, and between Narodnya Volya adherents and Social-Democrats,
remained confined within purely national frameworks…. At the present time…
the English Fabians, the French Ministerialists, the German Bernsteins
and the Russian Critics – all; belong to the same family, all extol each
other, learn from each other, and together take up arms against "dogmatic"
Marxism."
Lenin, Vladimir I.; "What Is To Be Done?"; Ibid; p. 352.
or at http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/WD02NB.html
Lenin argued that the slogan "Freedom
of Criticism" that had become so fashionable, and that was used
against Iskra, was a cover under which the battle between two dominant
trends in international Social Democracy were engaging for dominance:
"Freedom of criticism" is .. the most fashionable slogan
at the present time, and the one most frequently employed in the controversies
between socialists and democrats in all countries. . . . In fact, it is
no secret for anyone that two trends have taken form in present-day international
Social-Democracy. . . The essence of the "new" trend, which adopts a "critical"
attitude towards "obsolete dogmatic" Marxism, has been clearly enough presented
by Bernstein and demonstrated by Millerand."
Lenin, Vladimir I.; "What Is To Be Done?"; Ibid; p.352-352.
or at http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/WD02NB.html
What is or was
Bernsteinism?
The use of two tenses here, is deliberate,
since Bernsteinism has essentially taken over all the left-reformist parties
throughout the world. It is usually known now under the simpler term of
"reformism". Lenin defines the essence
of it as being:
"Social-Democracy must change from a party of social
revolution into a democratic party of social reforms. Bernstein .. denied
.. the possibility of putting socialism on a scientific basis and of demonstrating
its necessity and inevitability from the point of view of the materialist
conception of history. Denied was the fact of growing .. proletarisation,
and the intensification of capitalist contradictions; the very concept,
"ultimate aim", was declared to be unsound, and the idea of the
dictatorship of the proletariat was completely rejected. Denied was the
antithesis in principle between liberalism and socialism. Denied was
the theory of the class struggle, on the alleged grounds that it could
not be applied to a strictly democratic society governed according to the
will of the majority, etc."
Lenin, Vladimir I.; "What Is To Be Done?"; Ibid; p. 353.
or at http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/WD02NB.html
Lenin continued that if Bernsteinism was
to be accepted, the inevitable corollary was that of class collaboration
in bourgeois cabinets. This he argued, could only result in "miserable
reforms":
"If Social-Democracy, .. is merely a party of reform
.. then not only has a socialist the right to join a bourgeois cabinet,
but he must always strive to do so. If democracy, in essence, means the
abolition of class domination, then why should not a socialist minister
charm the whole bourgeois world by orations on class collaboration? Why
should he not remain in the cabinet even after the shooting-down of workers
by gendarmes has exposed, for the hundredth and thousandth time, the real
nature of the democratic collaboration of classes? Why should he not personally
take part in greeting the tsar, for whom the French socialists now have
no other name than hero of the gallows, knout, and exile? And the reward
for this utter humiliation and self-degradation of socialism . . is pompous
projects for miserable reforms, so miserable in fact that much more
has been obtained from bourgeois governments!"
Lenin, Vladimir I.; "What Is To Be Done?"; Ibid; p.354.
or at http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/WD02NB.html
Lest there was any confusion about any
identity between the views of the Economists of Russia and those
of Bernstein, Lenin explicitly cited from Rabocheye Delo their support
of "freedom of criticism", and the link this carried for them – to the
question of "unity":
"It will be clear that "freedom of criticism" means'
freedom for an opportunist trend in Social-Democracy, freedom to convert
Social-Democracy into a democratic party of reform, freedom to introduce
bourgeois ideas and bourgeois elements into socialism.. . Now, this slogan
("freedom of criticism") has in recent times been solemnly advanced by
Rabocheye Dyelo (No. 10), organ of the Union of Russian Social-Democrats
Abroad, not as a theoretical postulate, but as a political demand, as a
reply to the question, "Is it possible to unite the Social-Democratic organisations
operating abroad?": "For a durable unity, there must be freedom of criticism".
Lenin, Vladimir I.; "What Is To Be Done?"; Ibid; p.355;
p.356. or at http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/WD02NB.html
A frequent taunt to Iskra, and to Lenin
in particular, had been the labels Jacobin,
and "Robespierre"- both intended as epithets. This was later to be hurled
at Lenin by Trotsky also. But Lenin reminded readers, that the parallel
between the French movements and the modern Russian movements, had a specific
context. Plekhanov had first contrasted the consistent revolutionary trend,
with a compromising section during a revolution. It was the connotations
of "bloody Jacobins", that had motivated the opportunists to use that term
as an insult. But the historical parallels (albeit for the French Jacobin
and Gironde – it referred to trends in the bourgeois class, while in the
Russian movement it referred to trends within the working class movement)
regarding revolutionary constancy , was ignored by the opportunists:
"A comparison of the two trends within the revolutionary
proletariat (the revolutionary and the opportunist), and the two trends
within the revolutionary bourgeoisie in the eighteenth century (the Jacobin,
known as the Mountain, and the Girondist) was made in the leading article
in No. 2 of Iskra (February 1901). The article was written by Plekhanov.
The Cadets, the Bezzaglavtsi, and the Mensheviks to this day love to refer
to Jacobinism in Russian Social-Democracy. But how Plekhanov came to apply
this concept for the first time against the Right wing of Social-Democracy
-- about this they prefer to keep silent or to forget."
Lenin, Vladimir I.; "What Is To Be Done?"; Ibid; p.356.
or at http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/WD02NB.html
The Economists explicitly rejected any charge
that Bernsteinism was anti- working class in its’ interests:
"Writes B. Krichevsky, editor of Rabocheye Dyelo
…In the modern socialist movement, .. there is no conflict of class interests;
the socialist movement in its entirety, in all of its diverse forms
(Krichevsky's italics), including the most pronounced Bernsteinians, stands
on the basis of the class interests of the proletariat and its class struggle
for political and economic emancipation"
Lenin, Vladimir I.; "What Is To Be Done?"; Ibid; p. 356;
or at http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/WD02NB.html
2) Historically, the Russian
movement had of necessity joined Marxists and "Legal" Marxists in An Alliance.
Lenin points out that in the fight against
autocracy, that the various Russian progressive forces had of necessity,
banded together as "manifestly heterogeneous elements" under a "Common
flag" – "Marxism":
"The chief distinguishing feature of Russia in regard
to the point we are examining is that the very beginning of the
spontaneous working-class movement, on the one hand, and of the turn of
progressive public opinion towards Marxism, on the other, was marked by
the combination of manifestly heterogeneous elements under a common flag
to fight the common enemy (the obsolete social and political world outlook).
We refer to the heyday of "legal Marxism".
Lenin, Vladimir I.; "What Is To Be Done?"; Ibid; p. 361,
or at http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/WD02NB.html
This was because the autocracy had only
slowly recognised the dangers of Marxism as opposed to its main enemy -
Nardonism, which it was primarily combating.
In that hiatus, for a brief period Marxist thought and books proliferated.
This was in the period of an alliance between people "of extreme and of
very moderate views":
"The government had accustomed itself to regarding only
the theory of the (revolutionary) Narodnaya Volya as dangerous, …. Quite
a considerable time elapsed .. before the government realised what had
happened and the unwieldy army of censors and gendarmes discovered the
new enemy and flung itself upon him. Meanwhile, Marxist books were published
one after another, Marxist journals and newspapers were founded, nearly
everyone became a Marxist, .. This period (was) an event of the past. It
is no secret that the brief period in which Marxism blossomed on the surface
of our literature was called forth by an alliance between people of extreme
and of very moderate views. In point of fact, the latter were bourgeois
democrats; this conclusion (so markedly confirmed by their subsequent "critical"
development) suggested itself to some even when the "alliance" was still
intact."
Lenin, Vladimir I.; "What Is To Be Done?"; Ibid; p361-362;
or at http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/WD02NB.html
Since that time, because of the later
confusion and ‘intermingling’, criticism had been leveled at Social-Democracy
for this "alliance". But Lenin justified the alliance as having been completely
necessary. The need for flexible tactics
was defended by Lenin, who pointed out that the victory over some incorrect
strategies was achieved quicker in that way:
"Are not the revolutionary Social-Democrats who entered
into the alliance with the future "Critics" mainly responsible for the
subsequent "confusion"? This question, together with a reply in the affirmative,
is sometimes heard from people with too rigid a view. But such people are
entirely in the wrong. Only those who are not sure of themselves can fear
to enter into temporary alliances even with unreliable people; not a single
political party could exist without such alliances. The combination with
the legal Marxists was in its way the first really political alliance entered
into by Russian Social -Democrats. Thanks to this alliance, an astonishingly
rapid victory was obtained over Narodism, and Marxist ideas (even though
in a vulgarised form) became very widespread."
Lenin, Vladimir I.; "What Is To Be Done?"; Ibid; p.362;
or at http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/WD02NB.html
But as always, an essential condition
of any alliance for principled Marxists, was to demand the full rights
of open criticism and exposure of the temporary ally. But unfortunately,
this had not been taken up, as the Bernsteinians had temporarily "demoralised"
the socialists. The working class movement had been taken over by the liberals,
assisted by the State who naturally saw Bernsteinism as an ideology in
its own interests. So the movement was then faced with the penetration
of its own ranks by "Economists":
"An essential condition for such an alliance must be
the full opportunity for the socialists to reveal to the working class
that its interests are diametrically opposed to the interests of the bourgeoisie.
However, the Bernsteinian and "critical" trend, to which the majority of
the legal Marxists turned, deprived the socialists of this opportunity
and demoralised the socialist consciousness by vulgarising Marxism, ...in
practice it meant a striving to convert the nascent working-class movement
into an appendage of the liberals. … the rupture was necessary. But the
"peculiar" feature of Russia manifested itself in the fact that this rupture
simply meant the elimination of the Social-Democrats from the most accessible
and widespread "legal" literature. The "ex-Marxists".. entrenched themselves
in this literature. Catchwords like "Against orthodoxy" and "Long live
freedom of criticism" …. became the vogue, and the fact that neither the
censor nor the gendarmes could resist this vogue is apparent from the publication
of three Russian editions of the work of the celebrated Bernstein
… and from the fact that the works of Bernstein, Mr. Prokopovich, and others
were recommended by Zubatov. A task now devolved upon the Social Democrats
that was difficult in itself and was made incredibly more difficult by
purely external obstacles -- the task of combating the new trend. This
trend did not confine itself to the sphere of literature. The turn towards
"criticism" was accompanied by an infatuation for Economism among Social-Democratic
practical workers."
Lenin, Vladimir I.; "What Is To Be Done?"; Ibid; p.362-3;
or at http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/WD02NB.html
Lenin pointed out that the Credo (as was
discussed above) had signposted a need for combat. Lenin asked now explicitly
what were the tasks that the Marxists should have taken up over this time?
He answered: to resume theoretical work, and to propagandise amongst the
workers against "Legal Marxism". But the Economists had not done this:
"What should have been the task of those who sought
to oppose opportunism in deeds and not merely in words? First, they should
have made efforts to resume the theoretical work that had barely begun
in the period of legal Marxism and that fell anew on the shoulders of the
comrades working underground. Without such work the successful growth of
the movement was impossible. Secondly, they should have actively combated
the legal "criticism" that was perverting people's minds on a considerable
scale. Thirdly, they should have actively opposed confusion and vacillation
in the practical movement, exposing and repudiating every conscious or
unconscious attempt to degrade our programme and our tactics. That Rabocheye
Dyelo did none of these things is well known;"
Lenin, Vladimir I.; "What Is To Be Done?"; Ibid; p.365;
or at http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/WD02NB.html
Lenin points out that previously, the
Economists had found it easy to dilute the movement, because there were
no binding rules, or any "recognised party body that could "restrict" freedom
of criticism". He pointed out that the Economists wanted to preserve this
"spontaneity", but that such a state of affairs was no longer acceptable.
Hence the famous slogan of Lenin’s, that:
"Before we can unite, and in order that we may unite,
we must first of all draw firm and definite lines of demarcation"
Lenin, Vladimir I.; "What Is To Be Done?"; Ibid; p.367;
or at http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/WD02NB.html
3) The importance of revolutionary
theory was especially important in the Russian movement.
A common attack on Iskra was that it
was "dogmatic", and that it "ossified
thought". Lenin rejected this, replying that these complaints masked a
theoretical inability, and worse, an indifference to theory. He could easily
show this, by contrasting the output of Zarya with that of Rabochee Delo.
He also pointed to the views of Marx and Engels on the primary role of
theory. This allowed him to proclaim: "Without revolutionary theory there
can be no revolutionary movement":
"High-sounding phrases against the ossification of thought,
etc., conceal unconcern and helplessness with regard to the development
of theoretical thought. The case of the Russian Social-Democrats manifestly
illustrates the general European phenomenon (long ago noted also by the
German Marxists) that the much vaunted freedom of criticism does not imply
substitution of one theory for another, but freedom from all integral and
pondered theory; it implies eclecticism and lack of principle. . . Marx
.. (in) his letter on the Gotha Programme, in which he sharply condemns
eclecticism in the formulation of principles. If you must unite, Marx wrote
to the party leaders, then enter into agreements to satisfy the practical
aims of the movement, but do not allow any bargaining over principles,
do not make theoretical "concessions". This was Marx's idea, and yet there
are people among us who seek-in his name to belittle the significance of
theory! Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement."
Lenin, Vladimir I.; "What Is To Be Done?"; Ibid; p.368-9;
or at http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/WD02NB.html
Lenin adduced three
reasons in particular why this was an especially important consideration
for Russia. These boil down to the unique youth of the Social-Democratic
movement of Russia, and its’ unique tasks:
"Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary
movement.
…For Russian Social-Democrats the importance of theory
is enhanced by three other circumstances ..:
First, .. our Party is only in process of formation,
its features are only just becoming defined, and it has as yet far from
settled accounts with the other trends of revolutionary thought that… divert
the movement from the correct path..
Secondly, the Social-Democratic movement is in its very
essence an international movement. This means, not only that we must combat
national chauvinism, but that an incipient movement in a young country
can be successful only if it makes use of the experiences of other countries.
… it is not enough merely to be acquainted with them, or simply to copy
out the latest resolutions. What is required is the ability to treat these
experiences critically and to test them independently. A reserve of theoretical
forces and political (as well as revolutionary) experience is required
to carry out this task.
Thirdly, the national tasks of Russian Social-Democracy
are such as have never confronted any other socialist party in the world.
..(Autocracy imposes on us) .. political and organisational duties.. to
emancipate the whole people .. the role of vanguard fighter can be fulfilled
only by a party that is guided by the most advanced theory. "
Lenin, Vladimir I.; "What Is To Be Done?"; Ibid; p.369-70;
or at http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/WD02NB.html
4) The spontaneous form of class
struggle – trade union consciousness - alone could not achieve Socialism.
Various of the Russian Economists had
particularly objected to the contrast drawn by Iskra and Zaraya, between
a "spontaneous" versus a "methodical" form of struggle. Lenin cited a phrase
from the Economists that encapsulated this objection:
"Rabocheye Dyelo formulated its indictment
as a "belittling of the significance of the objective or the spontaneous
element of development". "
Lenin, Vladimir I.; "What Is To Be Done?"; Ibid; p.373;
or at http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/WD02NB.html
In order to show the difference between
firstly the spontaneous elements of the class struggle, and secondly a
conscious Social-Democratic attack on the pinnacle of state power, Lenin
again traced out the early history of the Russian movement. He recalled
the strike movement of 1896 in St.Petersburg as a spontaneous series of
events. But he pointed out that in comparison to the earlier strike waves
of the seventies and eighties, that the waves of the nineties had progressed
to being to some extent ‘conscious’, but they still remained ultimately
at the level of spontaneous struggles:
"Strikes .. in the seventies and sixties (and even in
the first half of the nineteenth century), .. were accompanied by the "spontaneous"
destruction of machinery, etc. Compared with these "revolts", the strikes
of the nineties might even be described as "conscious" .. the "spontaneous
element", in essence, represents nothing more nor less than consciousness
in an embryonic form. Even the primitive revolts expressed the awakening
of consciousness to a certain extent. The workers were losing their age-long
faith in the permanence of the system which oppressed them and began….
to … abandon their slavish submission to the authorities. But this was,
nevertheless, more in the nature of outbursts of desperation and vengeance
than of struggle. The strikes of the nineties revealed far greater
flashes of consciousness; .. the strike was carefully timed.. etc. . ..
these strikes .. not yet Social Democratic struggles. They marked the awakening
antagonisms between workers and employers; but the workers, were not, and
could not be, conscious of the irreconcilable antagonism of their interests
to the whole of the modern political and social system, i.e. ..not yet
Social-Democratic consciousness. .. strikes of the nineties ..remained
a purely spontaneous movement."
Lenin, Vladimir I.; "What Is To Be Done?"; Ibid; p. 375;
or at http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/WD02NB.html
Lenin showed that it was a universal property
of the oppressed working class movements, to "spontaneously" show only
a trade unionist consciousness, not a Social Democratic" one. This latter
could only be elaborated by those with the leisure, education and the ability
to fully comprehend the realities of daily life, those such as Marx and
Engels:
"We have said that there could not have been
Social-Democratic consciousness among the workers. It would have to be
brought to them from without. The history of all countries shows that the
working class, exclusively by its own effort, is able to develop only trade
union consciousness, i.e., the conviction that it is necessary to combine
in unions, fight the employers, and strive to compel the government to
pass necessary labour legislation, etc. The theory of socialism, however,
grew out of the philosophic, historical, and economic theories elaborated
by educated representatives of the propertied classes, by intellectuals.
By their social status the founders of modern scientific socialism, Marx
and Engels, themselves belonged to the bourgeois intelligentsia. In the
very same way, in Russia, the theoretical doctrine of Social-Democracy
arose altogether independently of the spontaneous growth of the working-class
movement; it arose as a natural and inevitable outcome of the development
of thought among the revolutionary socialist intelligentsia. In the period
under discussion, the middle nineties, this doctrine not only represented
the completely formulated programme of the Emancipation of Labour group,
but had already won over to its side the majority of the revolutionary
youth in Russia."
Lenin, Vladimir I.; "What Is To Be Done?"; Ibid; p. 375;
or at http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/WD02NB.html
All belittling of the ‘conscious’ element
carries with it the strengthening of the ideology of the bourgeoisie:
"In the very first literary expression of Economism
we observe .. that the adherents of the "labour movement pure and simple",
worshippers of the closest "organic" contacts (Rabocheye Dyelo's
term) with the proletarian struggle, opponents of any non-worker intelligentsia
(even a socialist intelligentsia), are compelled, .. to resort to the arguments
of the bourgeois "pure trade-unionists". . . This shows (something
Rabocheye Dyelo cannot grasp) that all worship of the spontaneity
of the working class movement, all belittling of the role of "the conscious
element", of the role of Social-Democracy, means, quite independently
of whether he who belittles that role desires it or not, a strengthening
of the influence of bourgeois ideology upon the workers. All those
who talk about "overrating the importance of ideology", about exaggerating
the role of the conscious element, .. imagine that the labour movement
pure and simple can elaborate, and will elaborate, an independent ideology
for itself, if only the workers "wrest their fate from the hands of the
leaders". But this is a profound mistake."
Lenin, Vladimir I.; "What Is To Be Done?"; Ibid; p. 375;
or at http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/WD02NB.html
Lenin was not making an original point.
He may have been making it with a renewed urgency, but it had already been
made before. In his haste to write the pamphlet Lenin did not cite his
predecessors regarding this point, in this article, although elsewhere
he certainly did. We will address briefly these precedents that further
butress Lenin’s view. Marx and Engels, had said
in the Communist Manifesto:
"In what relation do the Communists stand to the proletarians
as a whole? .. . The Communists do not form a separate party opposed to
other working class parties…. The Communists therefore are on the one hand,
practically the most advanced and resolute section of the working class
parties of every country; that section which pushes forward all others;
on the other hand, theoretically, they have over the great mass of the
proletariat the advantage of clearly understanding the line of march, the
conditions and the ultimate general results of the proletarian movement";
Marx, Karl and Engels, Frederick; "The Communist Manifesto";
In "Collected Works" Volume 6: London 1976; p.497; or at: http://www.marx2mao.org//index.html#Collections
Furthermore, in his instructions for the
delegates of Provisional General Council of the
International Working Men's Association (IWMA), Marx indicated
very similar thoughts to those of Lenin. In point number 6, "6. Trade Unions,
Their Past, Present And Future", Marx outlined the history of the trade
unions and their limitations. These he specified had to be transcended
by moving towards the abolition of the "very system of wages, labour and
capital" Aug 1866:
"(a) Their past….Trade unions originally sprang up from
the spontaneous attempts of workingmen at removing or at least checking
that competition (among themselves), in order to conquer such terms of
contract as might raise them at least above the conditon of mere slaves.
The immediate object of Trades’ Unions was therefore confined to everyday
necessities.… This activity of the Trades Unions is not only legitimate,
it is necessary. . . . . (b) Their present…. Too exclusively bent upon
the local and immediate struggles with capitals… They therefore kept too
much aloof from general social and political movements. . . . (c) Their
Future:. .They must now learn to act deliberately as organising centres
of the working class in the broad interest of its complete emancipation.
. . "
Marx Karl, "Instructions for the Delegates of Provisional
General Council of the International Working Men's Association (IWMA) "Collected
Works", Volume 20, Moscow 1984; pp.191-192.
Again in relation to the IWMA, a proposition
was raised that the General Council be removed of its direct responsibility
for England, and that like in all the other countries, a separate Federal
Council be created for England. This was prompted by the reformist English
trade unionists in alliance with Bakunin, and the move was opposed by Marx.
Marx’s reasoning was that the General
Council could ensure the revolutionary development of the English trade
unions. These, by virtue of their country of orgin, were in the center
of the world revolutionary ferment; but without the "push" of the General
Council would relapse into the "English spirit" – one without revolutionary
ardor and the spirit of generalisation". The parallels with Lenin’s viewpoint
are obvious:
"4) Question of Separating The General Council from
the Federal Council for England.
. . Although revolutionary initiative will probably come
from France, England alone can act as the lever for a serious economic
Revolution. It is the only country where there are no more peasants and
where landed property is concentrated in a few hands. It is the only country
where the capitalist form, that is to say combined labour on large scale
under capitalist masters ,embraces virtually the whole of production. It
is the only country where the great majority of the populations consists
of WAGE-LABOURERS. It is the only country where the class struggle and
the organisation of the working class by the TRADES UNIONS have acquired
a certain degree of maturity and universality. . . .The general Council
is now being in the happy position of having its hand directly on this
great lever of the proletarian revolution, what folly we might even say
what a crime to let this lever fall into purely English hands! The English
have all the material necessary for the social revolution., What they lack
is the sprit of generalization and revolutionary ardor. It is only the
general Council that can provide them with this, that can thus accelerate
the truly revolutionary movement in this country and consequently everywhere.
. . . The (English press) accuse us of having poisoned and almost extinguished
the English sprit of the working class and of having pushed it into revolutionary
socialism.. . .If a Federal Council were formed apart from the General
Council. . . . the General Council of the International would lose control
of the great lever.. . . England cannot be treated simply as a country
along with other countries. It must be treated as the metropolis of capital."
January 1870;
Marx, Karl; "Letter on Behalf of The General Council
to The Federal Council of Romance Switzerland;" "Collected Works", Volume
21; Moscow 1985; p. 86-87.
Finally, Engels outlined in a series of
articles, the history of the Trades Unions, focusing on those of England
as exemplars. He pointed out how they had been critical in the development
of a resistance to the capitalists. But that they were now part of the
capitalist machinery, and were:
"acknowledged institutions and their action as one of
the regulators of wages is recognized quite as much as the action of the
Factories and Workshops Acts as regulators of the hours of work."
Engels Frederick; "Trades Unions"; In "Marx and Engels:
Articles On Britain"; Moscow; 1971; p. 378.
But Engels pointed out that their activity
was only "a vicious circle" and he asked of them :
"Is this to remain the highest aim of British workingmen?
Or is the working class of this country at last to attempt breaking through
this vicious circle, and to find an issue of it in a movement for the ABOLITION
of the WAGE SYSTEM ALTOGETHER?"
Engels Frederick; "Trades Unions"; In "Marx and Engels:
Articles On Britain"; Moscow; 1971; p. 376.
Engels described a way forward which was
exactly analogous to that described by Lenin:
"Now in a political struggle of class against class,
organisation is the most important weapon. And in the same measure as the
merely political or Chartist Organisation fell to pieces, in the same measure
the Trades Union Organisation grew stronger and stronger. . . . According
to the traditions of their origin and development in this country, these
same organisations hitherto limited themselves almost strictly to their
function of sharing in the regulation of wages and working hours. . . .
the Trades Union forgot their duty as the advanced guard of the working
class… They cannot continue to hold the position they now occupy unless
they really march in the van of the working class. .. . They will no longer
enjoy the privilege of being the only organisation of the working class.
At the side of , or above the Unions of special trades there must spring
up a general Union, a political organisation of the working class. . .
the sooner this is done the better. There is no power in the works which
could for a day resist the British working class organised as a body."
Engels Frederick; "Trades Unions"; In "Marx and Engels:
Articles On Britain"; Moscow; 1971; pp. 378-379.
We point out these historical precedents,
since just as the revisionists and Trotskyites try to prove a "divide between
Lenin and Stalin"; so another section tries to divide "Lenin from Marx
and Engels". Somehow Marx and Engels are "acceptable’ to bourgeois academics
in a way that neither Lenin nor of course Stalin, are.
Lenin did cite in his work, another
Marxist. Lenin’s point reiterated that of Karl
Kautsky, who had already objected to similar Economist tendencies
in the Austrian party. Kautsky wrote:
"Many of our revisionist critics believe that Marx asserted
that economic development and the class struggle create, not only the conditions
for socialist production, but also, and directly, the consciousness
[K.K.'s italics] of its necessity. . . But this is absolutely untrue.
Of course, socialism, as a doctrine, has its roots in modern economic relationships
just as the class struggle of the proletariat has, and, like the latter,
emerges from the struggle against the capitalist-created poverty and misery
of the masses. But socialism and the class struggle arise side by side
and not one out of the other; each arises under different conditions. Modern
socialist consciousness can arise only on the basis of profound scientific
knowledge. Indeed, modern economic science is as much a condition for socialist
production as, say, modern technology, and the proletariat can create neither
the one nor the other, no matter how much it may desire to do so; both
arise out of the modern social process. The vehicle of science is not the
proletariat, but the bourgeois intelligentsia [K.K.'s italics]:
Kautsky from Neue Zeit, 1901-1902, XX, I, No.3, p.79;
Cited by Lenin, Vladimir I.; "What Is To Be Done?"; Ibid; p. 375; or at
http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/WD02NB.html
Lenin specifically says there can be no
middle ground – either one or the other: Either Social-Democracy or bourgeois
thought:
"Since there can be no talk of an independent ideology
formulated by the working masses themselves in the process of their movement,
the only choice is -- either bourgeois or socialist ideology. There is
no middle course (for mankind has not created a "third" ideology, and,
moreover, in a society torn by class antagonisms there can never be a non-class
or an above-class ideology). Hence, to belittle the socialist ideology
in any way, to turn aside from it in the slightest degree means to
strengthen bourgeois ideology. There is much talk of spontaneity. But the
spontaneous development of the working-class movement leads to its
subordination to bourgeois ideology, to its development along the lines
of the Credo programme; for the spontaneous working-class movement
is trade-unionism, ..and trade unionism means the ideological enslavement
of the workers by the bourgeoisie. Hence, our task, the task of Social-Democracy,
is to combat spontaneity, to divert the working-class movement from
this spontaneous, trade-unionist striving to come under the wing of the
bourgeoisie, and to bring it under the wing of revolutionary Social Democracy.
"Lenin, Vladimir I.; "What Is To Be Done?"; Ibid; p. 384; or at http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/WD02NB.html
Lenin specifically points out that workers
do take part in the creation of ideology. But this is only possible, after
they have adopted Social Democratic principles when they become in effect,
"socialist theoreticians":
"This does not mean, of course, that the workers have
no part in creating such an ideology. They take part, however, not as workers,
but as socialist theoreticians, as Proudhons and Weitlings; in other words,
they take part only when they are able, and to the extent that they are
able, more or less, to acquire the knowledge of their age and develop that
knowledge. But in order that working men may succeed in this more often,
every effort must be made to raise the level of the consciousness of the
workers in general; it is necessary that the workers do not confine themselves
to the artificially restricted limits of "literature for workers"
but that they learn to an increasing degree to master general literature.
It would be even truer to say "are not confined", instead of "do not confine
themselves", because the workers themselves wish to read and do read all
that is written for the intelligentsia, and only a few (bad) intellectuals
believe that it is enough "for workers" to be told a few things about factory
conditions and to have repeated to them over and over again what has long
been known."
Lenin, Vladimir I.; "What Is To Be Done?"; Ibid; p. 384;
or at http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/WD02NB.html
"It is often said that the working class spontaneously
gravitates towards socialism. This is perfectly true in the sense that
socialist theory reveals the causes of the misery of the working class
more profoundly and more correctly than any other theory, and for that
reason the workers are able to assimilate it so easily, provided,
however, this theory does not itself yield to spontaneity, provided
it subordinates spontaneity to itself. Usually this is taken for granted,
but it is precisely this which Rabocheye Dyelo forgets or distorts.
The working class spontaneously gravitates towards socialism; nevertheless,
most widespread (and continuously and diversely revived) bourgeois ideology
spontaneously imposes itself upon the working class to a still greater
degree."
Lenin, Vladimir I.; "What Is To Be Done?"; Ibid; p. 386;
or at http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/WD02NB.html
As to why the "spontaneous" flow leads
inevitably to bourgeois domination, the obvious answer for Lenin was the
widespread nature of bourgeois ideology and its experienced and more sophisticated
dissemination:
"But why, the reader will ask, does the spontaneous
movement, the movement along the line of least resistance, lead to the
domination of bourgeois ideology? For the simple reason that bourgeois
ideology is far older in origin than socialist ideology, that it is more
fully developed, and that it has at its disposal immeasurably more
means of dissemination."
Lenin, Vladimir I.; "What Is To Be Done?"; Ibid; p. 386;
or at http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/WD02NB.html
5) Workers themselves
recognise the need for a political journal and actively support it.
Far from being the "backward workers",
workers were in advance of those who said that their current demands must
be restricted to the purely economic, avoiding the political. Lenin cited
examples where the workers themselves had flooded the Social-Democrats
with information about their political struggles, and the effects this
had on building an "exposure literature", that assisted the working class
struggle::
"Everyone knows that the economic struggle of the Russian
workers underwent widespread development and consolidation simultaneously
with the production of "literature" exposing economic (factory and occupational)
conditions. .. very soon a veritable passion for exposures was roused among
the workers. As soon as the workers realised that the Social-Democratic
study circles desired to, and could, supply them with a new kind of leaflet
that told the whole truth about their miserable existence, about their
unbearably hard toil, and their lack of rights, they began to send in,
actually flood us with, correspondence from the factories and workshops.
This "exposure literature" created a tremendous sensation…. these "leaflets"
were in truth a declaration of war, because the exposures served greatly
to agitate the workers; Finally, the employers themselves were compelled
to recognise the significance of these leaflets as a declaration of war,
... On more than one occasion, the mere appearance of a leaflet proved
sufficient to secure the satisfaction of all or part of the demands put
forward. In a word, economic (factory) exposures were and remain an important
lever in the economic struggle."
Lenin, Vladimir I.; "What Is To Be Done?"; Ibid; p.398;
or at http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/WD02NB.html
6) Lenin argued that counter-posing
economic demands to political demands, as the opportunists did, inhibited
the political training of the proletarian – impeded making them "tribunes"
Lenin’s ideal of the Social Democrat was
far more than a trade union secretary, it was to be tribune of the people
able to react against all oppressions:
"Everyone agrees" that it is necessary to develop the
political consciousness of the working class. The question is, how
…."the Social-Democrat's ideal should not be the trade union secretary,
but the tribune of the people, who is able to react to every manifestation
of tyranny and oppression, no matter where it appears, no matter what stratum
or class of the people it affects; who is able to generalise all these
manifestations and produce a single picture of police violence and capitalist
exploitation; who is able to take advantage of every event, however small,
in order to set forth before all his socialist convictions and his
democratic demands, in order to clarify for all and everyone the
world-historic significance of the struggle for the emancipation of the
proletariat."
Lenin, Vladimir I.; "What Is To Be Done?"; Ibid; p.423;
or at http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/WD02NB.html
The "exposure literature" was not a Social-Democratic
political education of itself. The latter went beyond the confines of the
wage labour nexus, in order to show the depths of societal oppression.
What was then a "political education"?
"This, taken by itself, is in essence still not
Social-Democratic work, but merely trade union work. … all they achieved
was that the sellers of labour power learned to sell their "commodity"
on better terms … The question arises, what should political education
consist in? Can it be confined to the propaganda of working-class hostility
to the autocracy? Of course not. It is not enough to explain to
the workers that they are politically oppressed ..Agitation must be conducted
with regard to every concrete example of this oppression .. Inasmuch
as this oppression affects the most diverse classes of society, inasmuch
as it manifests itself in the most varied spheres of life and activity
-- vocational, civic, personal, family, religious, scientific, etc., etc.
-- is it not evident that we shall not be fulfilling our task of
developing the political consciousness of the workers if we do not undertake
the organisation of the political exposure of the autocracy in all
its aspects? In order to carry on agitation round concrete instances
of oppression, these instances must be exposed (as it is necessary to expose
factory abuses in order to carry on economic agitation)."
Lenin, Vladimir I.; "What Is To Be Done?"; Ibid; p.400-401;
or at http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/WD02NB.html
In contrast to the Economists viewpoint
that the economic struggle would "draw in more" workers into the political
struggle than a wider ranging propaganda, Lenin argued the opposite:
"Any and every manifestation of police tyranny
and autocratic outrage, not only in connection with the economic struggle,
is not one whit less "widely applicable" as a means of "drawing in" the
masses. The rural superintendents and the flogging of peasants, the corruption
of the officials and the police treatment of the "common people" in the
cities, the fight against the famine-stricken and the suppression of the
popular striving towards enlightenment and knowledge, the extortion of
taxes and the persecution of the religious sects, the humiliating treatment
of soldiers and the barrack methods in the treatment of the students and
liberal intellectuals -- all these and a thousand other similar manifestations
of tyranny, … Of the sum total of cases in which the workers suffer (either
on their own account or on account of those closely connected with them)
from tyranny, violence, and the lack of rights, undoubtedly only a small
minority represent cases of police tyranny in the trade union struggle
as such. Why then should we, beforehand, restrict the scope of political
agitation by declaring only one of the means to be "the most widely
applicable", when Social-Democrats must have, in addition, other, generally
speaking, no less "widely applicable" means?"
Lenin, Vladimir I.; "What Is To Be Done?"; Ibid; p.401-402;
or at http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/WD02NB.html
The Economists eschewed the Iskra approach,
claiming that it denied the role of reforms. Lenin vigorously rebuts this,
pointing out that the reforms have a political component that must be exposed;
it was necessary to "subordinate" the reform for the "revolutionary struggle":
"Revolutionary Social-Democracy has always included
the struggle for reforms as part of its activities. But it utilises "economic"
agitation for the purpose of presenting to the government, not only demands
for all sorts of measures, but also (and primarily) the demand that it
cease to be an autocratic government. Moreover, it considers it its duty
to present this demand to the government on the basis, not of the economic
struggle alone, but of all manifestations in general of public and
political life. In a word, it subordinates the struggle for reforms, as
the part to the whole, to the revolutionary struggle for freedom and for
socialism."
Lenin, Vladimir I.; "What Is To Be Done?"; Ibid; p.405-6;
or at http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/WD02NB.html
In fact the training of the proletarian
moving to Social Democracy required the broadening of scope to beyond every
day concerns, to appreciate the problems of all classes. The Social Democrat
responds to all aspects of oppression, affecting all classes. To be restricted
only to aspects of oppression of the working class, was not Marxist in
Lenin’s view. But this un-restricted vision, would require a broad political
education. To achieve that, it was impossible to restrict the propaganda
to only the economic aspects:
"Working-class consciousness cannot be genuine political
consciousness unless the workers are trained to respond to all cases
of tyranny, oppression, violence, and abuse, no matter what class
is affected -- unless they are trained, moreover, to respond from a Social-Democratic
point of view and no other. The consciousness of the working masses cannot
be genuine class-consciousness, unless the workers learn, from concrete,
and above all from topical, political facts and events to observe every
other social class in all the manifestations of its intellectual,
ethical, and political life; unless they learn to apply in practice the
materialist analysis and the materialist estimate of all aspects
of the life and activity of all classes, strata, and groups of the
population. Those who concentrate the attention, observation, and consciousness
of the working class exclusively, or even mainly, upon itself alone are
not Social-Democrats; for the self-knowledge of the working class is indissolubly
bound up, not solely with a fully clear theoretical understanding .. as
with the practical, understanding -- of the relationships between all
the various classes of modern society, acquired through the experience
of political life. For this reason the conception of the economic struggle
as the most widely applicable means of drawing the masses into the political
movement, which our Economists preach, is so extremely harmful and reactionary
in its practical significance. In order to become a Social-Democrat, the
worker must have a clear picture in his mind of the economic nature and
the social and political features of the landlord and the priest, the high
state official and the peasant, the student and the vagabond; he must know
their strong and weak points; he must grasp the meaning of all the catchwords
and sophisms by which each class and each stratum camouflages its
selfish strivings and its real "inner workings"; he must understand what
interests are reflected by certain institutions and certain laws and how
they are reflected. But this "clear picture" cannot be obtained from any
book. It can be obtained only from living examples and from exposures that
follow close upon what is going on about us at a given moment; upon what
is being discussed, in whispers perhaps, by each one in his own way; upon
what finds expression in such and such events, in such and such statistics,
in such and such court sentences, etc., etc. These comprehensive political
exposures are an essential and fundamental condition for training
the masses in revolutionary activity."
Lenin, Vladimir I.; "What Is To Be Done?"; Ibid; p.412;
or at http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/WD02NB.html
This type of education was not only important
in autocratic Russia, but even in states where there was political freedom.
It was an essential and universal feature of the Social-Democratic training:
"In reality, it is possible to "raise the activity of
the working masses" only when this activity is not restricted
to "political agitation on an economic basis". A basic condition for the
necessary expansion of political agitation is the organisation of comprehensive
political exposure. In no way except by means of such exposures
can the masses be trained in political consciousness and revolutionary
activity. Hence, activity of this kind is one of the most important functions
of international Social-Democracy as a whole, for even political freedom
does not in any way eliminate exposures; it merely shifts somewhat their
sphere of direction."
Lenin, Vladimir I.; "What Is To Be Done?"; Ibid; p.412
7) Lenin asked; "Why had there not been a successful revolution till this
time? "
Since daily life and the realities
of the police state incited to revolution, it was pertinent to ask why
this had not yet happened. Lenin’s answer was that the social democrats
had been operating in a very amateurish manner. It was not the workers
who should be blamed, but the social democrats who, in reality were "lagging
behind" the workers development:
"Why do the Russian workers still manifest little revolutionary
activity in response to the brutal treatment of the people by the police,
the persecution of religious sects, the flogging of peasants, the outrageous
censorship, the torture of soldiers, the persecution of the most innocent
cultural undertakings, etc.? Is it because the "economic struggle" does
not "stimulate" them to this, because such activity does not "promise palpable
results", because it produces little that is "positive"? To adopt such
an opinion, we repeat, is merely to direct the charge where it does not
belong, to blame the working masses for one's own philistinism (or Bernsteinism).
We must blame ourselves, our lagging behind the mass movement, for still
being unable to organise sufficiently wide, striking, and rapid exposures
of all the shameful outrages. When we do that (and we must and can do it),
the most backward worker will understand, or will feel, that the
students and religious sects, the peasants and the authors are being abused
and outraged by those same dark forces that are oppressing and crushing
him at every step of his life. Feeling that, he himself will be filled
with an irresistible desire to react, and he will know how to hoot the
censors one day, on another day to demonstrate outside the house of a governor
who has brutally suppressed a peasant uprising, on still another day to
teach a lesson to the gendarmes in surplices who are doing the work of
the Holy Inquisition, etc. As yet we have done very little, almost nothing,
to bring before the working masses prompt exposures on all possible
issues. Many of us as yet do not recognise this as our bounden duty
but trail spontaneously in the wake of the "drab everyday struggle", in
the narrow confines of factory life.. ….Our business as Social-Democratic
publicists is to deepen, expand, and intensify political exposures and
political agitation."
Lenin, Vladimir I.; "What Is To Be Done?"; Ibid; p.413-414;
or at http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/WD02NB.html
The goal then of the Social Democratic
worker will perhaps take longer, and be less quickly evident. But the wider
goal is essential. Moreover, the workers themselves were demanding higher
levels of education and a broader understanding of their political situation:
"Our Economists, .. adapted themselves to the backward
workers. But .. the revolutionary worker .. will indignantly reject all
this talk about.. "palpable results", etc., .. Such a worker will say to
.. Rabochaya Mysl: you . . shirk your proper duties, .. the police
themselves often take the initiative in lending the economic struggle
a political character, and the workers themselves learn to understand whom
the government supports. .. we are already displaying .. in our everyday,
limited trade union work ... But such activity is not enough for
us; we are not children to be fed on the thin gruel of "economic" politics
alone; we want to know everything that others know, we want to learn the
details of all aspects of political life and to take part actively
in every single political event. .. the intellectuals must talk to us less
of what we already know, and tell us more about what we do not yet know
and what we can never learn from our factory and "economic" experience,
namely, political knowledge. You intellectuals can acquire this knowledge,
and it is your duty to bring it to us in a hundred- and a thousand-fold
greater measure than you have done up to now; and you must bring it to
us, not only in the form of discussions, pamphlets, and articles (which
very often -- pardon our frankness -- are rather dull), but precisely in
the form of vivid exposures of what our government and our governing
classes are doing at this very moment in all spheres of life. "
Lenin, Vladimir I.; "What Is To Be Done?"; Ibid; p.415-417;
or at http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/WD02NB.html
8) Lenin pointed out the close
connection between Economism and Terrorism
Lenin credited this point to Pavel
.B.Axelrod, who had warned of the end-results of "Social-Democratic
wavering", in a work of 1897 (Present Tasks and Tactics). Lenin
would later develop these thoughts more fully and into a new direction,
in "Left Wing Communism-An Infantile Disorder".
But at this juncture, Lenin linked the degeneration of the Economists away
from Marxism, with the renewed emphasis of individual Terrorism in a section
of the Russian left.
This was resurrected by the descendants
of the old Narodniks, re-born as the Social-Revolutionaries,
exemplified by the journal Svoboda.
The link between the two was simply their obeisance to the god of "spontaneity".
The herald of Russian revisionism, the Credo, had cited both Economism
and individual terrorism. The writers of the Credo had proposed that Economism
would serve the "workers", and Terror was proposed to serve the ‘intellectuals’:
"The Economists and the present-day terrorists have
one common root, namely, subservience to spontaneity,.. At first
sight, our assertion may appear paradoxical, so great is the difference
between those who stress the "drab everyday struggle" and those who call
for the most self sacrificing struggle of individuals. But this is no paradox.
The Economists and the terrorists merely bow to different poles of spontaneity;
the Economists bow to the spontaneity of "the labour movement pure and
simple", while the terrorists bow to the spontaneity of the passionate
indignation of intellectuals, who lack the ability or opportunity to connect
the revolutionary struggle and the working-class movement into an integral
whole. It is difficult indeed for those who have lost their belief, or
who have never believed, that this is possible, to find some outlet for
their indignation and revolutionary energy other than terror. …the notorious
Credo programme: …says that in the economic struggle the workers
"come up against the political regime and let the intellectuals conduct
the political struggle by their own efforts -- with the aid of terror,
of course! This is an absolutely logical and inevitable conclusion
which must be insisted on …..calls for terror and calls to lend the economic
struggle itself a political character are merely two different forms of
evading the most pressing duty now resting upon Russian revolutionaries,
namely, the organisation of comprehensive political agitation. Svoboda
desires to substitute terror for agitation, openly admitting
that "as soon as intensified and strenuous agitation is begun among the
masses the excitative function of terror will be ended" (The Regeneration
of Revolutionism, p. 68). This proves precisely that both the terrorists
and the Economists underestimate the revolutionary activity of the
masses. ..and whereas the one group goes out in search of artificial "excitants",
the other talks about "concrete demands". But both fail to devote sufficient
attention to the development of their own activity in political
agitation and in the organisation of political exposures. And no other
work can serve as a substitute for this task either at the present
time or at any other."
Lenin, Vladimir I.; "What Is To Be Done?"; Ibid; p.418-419;
420; or at http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/WD02NB.html
Lenin mocked the fragility of the Terrorist
view of the value of such "excitations" as individual
terror. He also notes the Social-Revolutionaries implicitly
acknowledge that they cannot '‘terrorise"" the government, by dropping
of the old Narodnik claim.
9) The Practical Tasks
Here, Lenin‘s prior article "Where to Begin?"
is amplified and expressed even more vociferously than before. This was
on the urgent need for a professional organisation of revolutionaries;
and a nation-wide, an All-Russian paper – to become the "Tribune of the
People". The term "nation wide", meant that the paper did not neglect any
oppressed classes of the nation. The paper should aim to "expose" all inequity,
and the working class would be the "ideal audience" for this, but if the
paper were really an organiser, it would become the vanguard. As the vanguard
it would draw to itself, even non-working-class exposers:
"The ideal audience for political exposure is the working
class, which is first and foremost in need of all-round and live political
knowledge, and is most capable of converting this knowledge into active
struggle, even when that struggle does not promise "palpable results".
A tribune for nation-wide exposures can be only an all-Russia newspaper.
. . In our time only a party that will organise really nation-wide
exposures can become the vanguard of the revolutionary forces.
The word "nation-wide" has a very profound meaning. The overwhelming majority
of the non-working- class exposers (be it remembered that in order to become
the vanguard, we must attract other classes) are sober politicians and
level-headed men of affairs. They know perfectly well how dangerous it
is to "complain" even against a minor official, let alone against the "omnipotent"
Russian Government. And they will come to us with their complaints
only when they see that these complaints can really have effect, and that
we represent a political force. In order to become such a force
in the eyes of outsiders, much persistent and stubborn work is required
to raise our own consciousness, initiative, and energy.. To accomplish
this it is not enough to attach a "vanguard" label to rearguard theory
and practice."
Lenin, Vladimir I.; "What Is To Be Done?"; Ibid; p.430-431;
or at http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/WD02NB.html
The role of the Social Democrat Tribune
embraced "theoretician, propagandist and agitator. Moreover to be a vanguardist
– intense knowledge and study was required:
"We must "go among all classes of the population" as
theoreticians, as propagandists, as agitators, and as organisers. No one
doubts that the theoretical work of Social-Democrats should aim at studying
all the specific features of the social and political condition of the
various classes. .. He is no Social-Democrat who forgets in practice his
obligation to be ahead of all in raising, accentuating, and solving
every general democratic question.. . For it is not enough to call
ourselves the "vanguard", the advanced contingent; we must act in such
a way that all the other contingents recognise and are obliged to admit
that we are marching in the vanguard. ….A "vanguard" which fears that consciousness
will outstrip spontaneity, which fears to put forward a bold "plan" that
would compel general recognition even among those who differ with us. Are
they not confusing "vanguard" with "rearguard" ?"
Lenin, Vladimir I.; "What Is To Be Done?"; Ibid; p.p.425,
427; or at http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/WD02NB.html
The Social Democrats had more than enough
forces at that time. The question was how to draw them in and how to enable
them to be "our own people":
"Have we sufficient forces to direct our propaganda
and agitation among all social classes? Most certainly. … .gigantic
forces have been attracted to the movement. … A basic political and organisational
shortcoming of our movement is our inability to utilise all these
forces and give them appropriate work (we shall deal with this more fully
in the next chapter).The overwhelming majority of these forces entirely
lack the opportunity of "going among the workers", so that there are no
grounds for fearing that we shall divert forces from our main work. In
order to be able to provide the workers with real, comprehensive, and live
political knowledge, we must have "our own people", Social-Democrats, everywhere,
among all social strata, and in all positions from which we can learn the
inner springs of our state mechanism. Such people are required, not only
for propaganda and agitation, but in a still larger measure for organisation."
Lenin, Vladimir I.; "What Is To Be Done?"; Ibid; p.429.or
at http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/WD02NB.html
Marxists should not be concerned that
this would dilute the class content of the party, since the "nation-wide
exposures" were to be performed with "no concessions or distortions"; it
was to be coordinated and interpreted by a revolutionary party:
"But if we have to undertake the organisation of a really
nationwide exposure of the government, in what way will then the class
character of our movement be expressed? .. we Social-Democrats will organise
these nation-wide exposures; all questions raised by the agitation will
he explained in a consistently Social-Democratic spirit, without any concessions
to deliberate or un-deliberate distortions of Marxism; the all-round political
agitation will be conducted by a party which unites into one inseparable
whole the assault on the government in the name of the entire people, the
revolutionary training of the proletariat, and the safeguarding of its
political independence, the guidance of the economic struggle of the working
class, and the utilisation of all its spontaneous conflicts with its exploiters
which rouse and bring into our camp increasing numbers of the proletariat."
Lenin, Vladimir I.; "What Is To Be Done?"; Ibid; p.432;
or at http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/WD02NB.html
Lenin shows the
link between Economism and what he calls "primitiveness". In
a memorable metaphor, he likens the current amateurishness of practical
work, pitched against a highly organised police force amongst other enemies
as a warfare of "clubs" against "modern troops". Even workers were contemptuous
of the activity of the "intellectuals":
One cannot help comparing this kind of warfare with
that conducted by a mass of peasants, armed with clubs, against modern
troops. And one can only wonder at the vitality of the movement which expanded,
grew, and scored victories despite the total lack of training on the part
of the fighters. …Things have reached such a pass that in several places
the workers, because of our lack of self-restraint and the inability to
maintain secrecy, begin to lose faith in the intellectuals and to avoid
them; the intellectuals, they say, are much too careless and cause police
raids! Anyone who has the slightest knowledge of the movement is aware
that all thinking Social-Democrats have at last begun to regard these amateurish
methods as a disease." Lenin, Vladimir I.; "What Is To Be Done?"; Ibid;
p.442-443; or at http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/WD02NB.html
The keynotes of this "primitiveness" were
the refusal to take seriously the matter of professionally organizing .
Pretexts such as "the workers had not advance
enough" were coupled with ‘theories of "excitative terror" or of unleashing
a "general strike". But :
"Both these trends, the opportunists and the "revolutionists",
bow to the prevailing amateurism; neither believes that it can be eliminated,
neither understands our primary and imperative practical task to establish
an organisation of revolutionaries capable of lending energy, stability,
and continuity to the political struggle."
Lenin, Vladimir I.; "What Is To Be Done?"; Ibid; p.446;
or at http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/WD02NB.html
The essence of what was needed to counter
act "amateurishness", was "professionalism", in trained revolutionaries
who could match and outwit the political police. It again boiled down to
the relations between conscious revolutionaries to the labour movement:
"Workers, average people of the masses, are capable
of displaying enormous energy and self sacrifice in strikes and in street,
battles with the police and the troops, and are capable (in fact, are alone
capable) of determining the outcome of our entire movement -- but
the struggle against the political police requires special qualities;
it requires professional revolutionaries. And we must see to it,
not only that the masses "advance" concrete demands, but that the masses
of the workers "advance" an increasing number of such professional revolutionaries.
Thus, we have reached the question of the relation between an organisation
of professional revolutionaries and the labour movement pure and simple."
Lenin, Vladimir I.; "What Is To Be Done?"; Ibid; p.450;or
at http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/WD02NB.html
But what are
the characteristics of such a professional organisation? Lenin
identifies them in simple terms and lists them as follows. The reference
to a "dozen wise men" was to rebut the claims by the Social-revolutionaries
that any professional cadre was likely to be picked up by the police and
thereby risk wiping out the movement. Lenin refutes this argument, saying
that the movement cannot be wiped out because of its tap roots in the class:
"A dozen wise men can be more easily wiped out than
a hundred fools." …(But).. The fact is, of course, that our movement cannot
be unearthed, for the very reason that it has countless thousands of roots
deep down among the masses; but that is not the point at issue. As far
as "deep roots" are concerned, we cannot be "unearthed" even now, despite
all our amateurism, . . . I assert that it is far more difficult to unearth
a dozen wise men than a hundred fools. . . by "wise men", in connection
with organisation, I mean professional revolutionaries, irrespective
of whether they have developed from among students or working men. I assert:
(1) that no revolutionary movement can endure without a stable organisation
of leaders maintaining continuity; (2) that the broader the popular mass
drawn spontaneously into the struggle, which forms the basis of the movement
and participates in it, the more urgent the need for such an organisation,
and the more solid this organisation must be (for it is much easier for
all sorts of demagogues to side-track the more backward sections of the
masses); (3) that such an organisation must consist chiefly of people professionally
engaged in revolutionary activity; (4) that in an autocratic state, the
more we confine the membership of such an organisation to people
who are professionally engaged in revolutionary activity and who have been
professionally trained in the art of combating the political police, the
more difficult will it be to unearth the organisation; and (5) the greater
will be the number of people from the working class and from the other
social classes who will be able to join the movement and perform active
work in it."
Vladimir I.; "What Is To Be Done?"; Ibid; p.462; or at
http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/WD02NB.html
The astonishing breadth of Lenin’s views
is shown by the meticulous detail in which he now outlines what the relationship
between a "smaller secretive body" is to the larger mass of workers and
oppressed peoples. Here he directly challenges the stereotype that this
‘secretive’ professional body will narrow the scope of work. Lenin argues
that it will do exactly the opposite and broaden the revolution, and he
shows how this will occur. The trained professionals will enable the broadening
of work to all circles of society. Lenin recognises that this view will
be labeled as ""undemocratic". Indeed this charge, as the one of being
a "Robespierre" was soon to be hurled at him and his followers. Here, Lenin
simply wishes to drive home the necessity for professional organisations:
"We can never give a mass organisation that degree of
secrecy without which there can be no question of persistent and continuous
struggle against the government. To concentrate all secret functions in
the hands of as small a number of professional revolutionaries as possible
does not mean that the latter will "do the thinking for all" and that the
rank and file will not take an active part in the movement. On the
contrary, the membership will promote increasing numbers of the professional
revolutionaries from its ranks; for it will know that it is not enough
for a few students and for a few working men waging the economic struggle
to gather in order to form a "committee", but that it takes years to train
oneself to be a professional revolutionary; and the rank and file will
"think", not only of amateurish methods, but of such training. Centralisation
of the secret functions of the organisation by no means implies
centralisation of all the functions of the movement. Active participation
of the widest masses in the illegal press will not diminish because a "dozen"
professional revolutionaries centralise the secret functions connected
with this work; on the contrary, it will increase tenfold. In this
way, and in this way alone, shall we ensure that reading the illegal press,
writing for it, and to some extent even distributing it, will almost
cease to be secret work, for the police will soon come to realise the
folly and impossibility of judicial and administrative red-tape procedure
over every copy of a publication that is being distributed in the thousands.
This holds not only for the press, but for every function of the movement,
even for demonstrations. The active and widespread participation of the
masses will not suffer; on the contrary, it will benefit by the fact that
a "dozen" experienced revolutionaries, trained professionally no less than
the police, will centralise all the secret aspects of the work -- the drawing
up of leaflets, the working out of approximate plans; and the appointing
of bodies of leaders for each urban district, for each institution, etc.
(I know that exception will be taken to my "undemocratic" views, but I
shall reply below fully to this anything but intelligent objection.) Centralisation
of the most secret functions in an organisation of revolutionaries will
not diminish, but rather increase the extent and enhance the quality of
the activity of a large number of other organisations that are intended
for a broad public and are therefore as loose and as non-secret as possible,
such as workers' trade unions; workers' self-education circles and circles
for reading illegal literature; and socialist, as well as democratic, circles
among all other sections of the population; etc., etc."
Vladimir I.; "What Is To Be Done?"; Ibid; p.465-466;
or at http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/WD02NB.html
10) Lenin rebuts the charge that
adopting this strategy of professionalism, is to repeat the old Narodnik
mistakes.
Since all of this was much more serious
about the ultimate goal – revolution – than were the Economists, the charge
kept surfacing that the model being proposed by Lenin was simply Nardonism.
Lenin firstly did not view this as a shameful charge – he pointed to the
large honorable section of the Narodniks struggles, just as Marx and Engels
had done before him.
He pointed
out there was a confusion about the catch all title of the term "Narodnya
Volya" owing to the ignorance of even the Social-Democrats.
He also pointed out that the main error
of the Narodniks had been to have an incorrect theory. Finally he said
that to reject a confining of the struggle for "conspiracy’ – did not mean
that one should reject "the need for a strong revolutionary organisation":
"We were not in the least surprised, therefore, when,
soon after the appearance of Iskra, a comrade informed us that the
Social-Democrats in the town of X describe Iskra as a Narodnaya
Volya organ. We, of course, were flattered by this accusation; for what
decent Social-Democrat has not been accused by the Economists of being
a Narodnaya Volya sympathiser? These accusations are the result of a twofold
misunderstanding. First, the history of the revolutionary movement is so
little known among us that the name "Narodnaya Volya" is used to denote
any idea of a militant centralised organisation which declares determined
war upon tsarism. But the magnificent organisation that the revolutionaries
had in the seventies, and that should serve us as a model, was not established
by the Narodnaya Volya, but by the Zemlya i Volya, which split up
into the Chorny Peredel and the Narodnaya Volya. Consequently, to regard
a militant revolutionary organisation as something specifically Narodnaya
Volya in character is absurd both historically and logically; for no
revolutionary trend, if it seriously thinks of struggle, can dispense
with such an organisation. The mistake the Narodnaya Volya committed was
not in striving to enlist all the discontented in the organisation and
to direct this organisation to resolute struggle against the autocracy;
on the contrary, that was its great historical merit. The mistake was in
relying on a theory which in substance was not a revolutionary theory at
all, and the Narodnaya Volya members either did not know how, or were unable,
to link their movement inseparably with the class struggle in the developing
capitalist society. . . . Secondly, many people, including apparently B.
Krichevsky (Rabocheye Dyelo, No. 10, p. 18), misunderstand the polemics
that Social-Democrats have always waged against the "conspiratorial" view
of the political struggle. We have always protested, and will, of course,
continue to protest against confining the political struggle to
conspiracy. But this does not, of course, mean that we deny the need for
a strong revolutionary organisation."
Vladimir I.; "What Is To Be Done?"; Ibid; p.474-475;
or at http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/WD02NB.html
11) There is no inherent Lack of Democratic control.
in such a party
The fear of "loss of democratic control"
Lenin replaced with honest comradely relations. Indeed it was later to
be supplemented by the notion of Democratic centralism.
"The only serious organisational principle for the active
workers of our movement should be the strictest secrecy, the strictest
selection of members, and the training of professional revolutionaries.
Given these qualities, something even more than "democratism" would be
guaranteed to us, namely, complete, comradely, mutual confidence among
revolutionaries. This is absolutely essential for us, because there can
be no question of replacing it by general democratic control in Russia.
It would be a great mistake to believe that the impossibility of establishing
real "democratic" control renders the members of the revolutionary organisation
beyond control altogether. … they have a lively sense of their responsibility,
knowing as they do from experience that an organisation of real revolutionaries
will stop at nothing to rid itself of an unworthy member. Moreover, there
is a fairly well-developed public opinion in Russian (and international)
revolutionary circles which ..sternly and ruthlessly punishes every departure
from the duties of comradeship ... Take all this into consideration and
you will realise that this talk and these resolutions about "anti-democratic
tendencies" have the musty odour of the playing at generals which is indulged
in abroad."
Vladimir I.; "What Is To Be Done?"; Ibid; p.. 480; or
at http://www.marx2mao.org//Lenin/WD02NB.html
Lenin also pointed out the example from
Mrs.Webb’s history of Trade Unionism,
where ‘primitive democracy’, where all workers did everything – simply
had to be abandoned due to the need for specialised skills.
In response to a letter from a reader
written in 1902, Lenin clarified the exact organisational structure, in
a publication of September 1902. It is here he used the term "Central
Committee," and defined its way of relating to the committees of the local
organisation:
"Only a special central group (let us call it the Central
Committee, say) can be the direct practical leader of the movement, maintaining
personal connections with all the committees, embracing all the best revolutionary
forces among the Russian Social-Democrats, and managing all the general
affairs of the Party, such as the distribution of literature, the issuing
of leaflets, the allocation of forces, the appointment of individuals and
groups to take charge of special undertakings, the preparation of demonstrations
and an uprising on an all-Russian scale, etc. Since the strictest secrecy
of organisation and preservation of continuity of the movement is essential,
our Party can and should have two leading centres: a C.O. (Central
Organ) and a C. C. (Central Committee). The former should be responsible
for ideological leadership, and the latter for direct and practical leadership.
Unity of action and the necessary solidarity between these groups should
be ensured, not only by a single Party programme, but also by the composition
of the two groups (both groups, the C.O. and the C.C., should be made up
of people who are in complete harmony with one another), and by the institution
of regular and systematic joint conferences. Only then will the C.O., on
the one hand, be placed beyond the reach of the Russian gendarmes and assured
of consistency and continuity, while, on the other hand, the C.C. will
always be at one with the C.O. on all essential matters and have sufficient
freedom to take direct charge of all the practical aspects of the
movement."
Lenin, Vladimir I.; "A Letter To A Comrade On Our Organisational
Tasks"; Collected Works, Moscow, 1964; Vol. 6, pp. 234-235; also at: http://gate.cruzio.com/~marx2mao/Lenin/LC02.html
Lenin stressed here that workers were to especially trained
to become part of the committees:
"There should be only one committee of the Russian Social-Democratic
Labour Party, and it should consist of fully convinced Social-Democrats
who devote themselves entirely to Social-Democratic activities. We should
particularly see to it that, as many workers as possible become fully class-conscious
and professional revolutionaries and members of the committee. (NB. We
must try to get on the committee revolutionary workers who have the greatest
contacts and the best "reputation" among the mass of the workers.) Once
there is a single and not a dual committee, the matter of the committee
members personally knowing many workers is of particular importance. "Lenin,
Vladimir I.; "A Letter To A Comrade On Our Organisational Tasks"; Collected
Works, Moscow, 1964; Vol. 6, p.236; also at: http://gate.cruzio.com/~marx2mao/Lenin/LC02.html
In conclusion,
Lenin strongly argued for the party that would
revolutionise the world. It remained to be seen, who would support this
vision, and who would attack it in practice? The Storm was coming.
FOR
FURTHER ARTICLES ON THE EARLY RUSSIAN MOVEMENT SEE:
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