Published:Rabochy No. 7, June 9, 1914. Signed:V. Ilyin. Published according to the text inRabochy.
Source:Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers,1972, Moscow,Volume 20, pages 356-359.
Translated: Bernard Isaacs and The Late Joe Fineberg
Transcription\Markup:R. Cymbala
Public Domain: Lenin Internet Archive (2004).You may freely copy, distribute,display and perform this work; as well as make derivative andcommercial works. Please credit “Marxists InternetArchive” as your source.•README
When Marxists say that certain groups, are adventurist,they have in mind the very definite and specific social and historicalfeatures of a phenomenon, one that every class-conscious worker should befamiliar with.
The history of Russian Social-Democracy teems with tiny groups, whichsprang up for an hour, for several months, with no roots whatever among themasses (and politics without the masses are adventurist politics), and withno serious and stable principles. In a petty-bourgeois country, which ispassing through a historical period of bourgeois reconstruction, it isinevitable that a motley assortment of intellectuals should jointhe workers, and that these intellectuals should attempt to form all kindsof groups, adventurist in character in the sense referred to above.
Workers who do not wish to be fooled should subject every group to theclosest scrutiny and ascertain how serious its principles are, and whatroots it has in the masses. Put no faith in words; subject everything tothe closest scrutiny—such is the motto of the Marxist workers.
Let us recall the struggle between Iskrism and Economism in1895–1902. These were two trends of Social-Democratic thought. One of themwas proletarian and Marxist, which had stood the test of the three years’campaign conducted byIskra, and been tested by all advancedworkers, who recognised as their own the precisely and clearly formulateddecisions on Iskrist tactics and organisation. The other, Economism, was abourgeois, opportunist trend, which strove to subordinate theworkers to the liberals.
Besides these two important trends, there were a host of small androotless groups (Svoboda,Borba,[1] the group that published the Berlin leaflets, and so forth). These have long beenforgotten. Though there were no few honest and conscientiousSocial-Democrats in these groups, theyproved adventurist in thesense that theyhad no stable or serious principles, programme,tactics, organisation, and no roots among the masses.
It is thus, and only thus—by studying the history of the movement, bypondering over the ideological significance of definite theories, and byputting phrases to the test of facts—that serious people should appraisepresent-day trends and groups.
Only simpletons put faith in words.
Pravdism is a trend which has given precise Marxist answers andresolutions (of 1908, 1910, 1912 and 1913—in February and in the summer)on all questions of tactics, organisation and programme. The continuity ofthese decisions since the time of the oldIskra (1901–03), letalone the London (1907) Congress, has been of the strictest. Thecorrectness of these decisions has been proved by the five or six years’(1908–14) experience of all the advanced workers, who have accepted thesedecisionsas their own. Pravdism has united four-fifths of theclass-conscious workers of Russia (5,300 Social-Democratic workers’ groupsout of 6,700 in two-and-a-half years).
Liquidationism is a trend with a history that goes back almost twentyyears, for it is the direct continuation of Economism (1895–1902) and theoffspring of Menshevism (1903–08). The liberal-bourgeois roots and theliberal-bourgeois content of this trend have been recognised in officialdecisions (1908 and 1910; small wonder that the liquidators are afraid evento publish them in full!). The liquidators’ liberal ideas are all linked upand of a piece:down with the “underground”, down with the “pillars”, for an openparty, against the “strike craze”, against the higher forms of thestruggle, and so forth. In liberal-bourgeois “society” the liquidatorshave long enjoyed the strong sympathy of the Cadets and of the non-Party(and near-Party) intellectuals. Liquidationism is a serious trend, only nota Marxist, not a proletarian trend, but a liberal-bourgeois one. Onlywitless people can talk about “peace” with the liquidators.
Now take the other groups which pose as “trends”. We shall enumeratethem:1) theVperyod group plus Alexinsky;2) ditto plus Bogdanov;3) ditto plus Voinov;4) the Plekhanovites;5) the “pro-Party Bolsheviks” (actually conciliators: Mark Sommer and hiscrowd);6) the Trotskyists (i. e., Trotsky even minus Semkovsky);7) the “Caucasians” (i. e., An minus the Caucasus).
We have enumerated the groups mentionedin the press. InRussia and abroad they have stated that they want to beseparate“trends” and groups. We have tried to list all the Russian groups,omitting the non-Russian.
All these groups, without exception, represent sheer adventurism.
“Why? Where is the proof?” the reader will ask.
Proof is provided by the history of the last decade (1904–14), whichis most eventful and significant. During these ten years members of thesegroups have displayed the most helpless, most pitiful, most ludicrousvacillation on serious questions of tactics and organisation, and haveshown theirutter inability to create trends with roots among themasses.
Take Plekhanov, the best of them. The services he rendered in the pastwere immense. During the twenty years between 1883 and 1903 he wrote alarge number of splendid essays, especially those against the opportunists,Machists and Narodniks.
But since 1903 Plekhanov has been vacillating in the most ludicrousmanner on questions of tactics and organisation:1) 1903, August—a Bolshevik;2) 1903, November (Iskra No. 52)—in favour of peace with the“opportunist” Mensheviks;3) 1903, December—a Menshevik, and an ardent one;4) 1905, spring—after the victory of the Bolsheviks—in favour of“unity” between “brothers at strife”;5) the end of 1905 till mid-1906—a Menshevik;6) mid-1906—started, on and off, to move away from the Mensheviks, and inLondon, in 1907, censured them (Cherevanin’s admission) for their“organisational anarchism”;7) 1908—a break with the liquidators;8) 1914—a new turn towards the liquidators.Plekhanov advocates “unity” with them, without being able to utter anintelligible word to explain on whatterms this unity is to beachieved, why unity withMr. Potresov has become possible, and what guarantees there are that any terms agreed towill be carried out.
After a decade of such experience we can safely say that Plekhanov iscapable of producing ripples, but he has not produced, nor will he everproduce, a “trend”.
We quite understand the Pravdists, who willingly published Plekhanov’sarticles against the liquidators. They could not very well reject articleswhich, in full accord with the decisions of 1908–10, were directed againstthe liquidators. Now Plekhanov has begun to repeat—with the liquidators,with Bogdanov and the rest—phrases about the unity of “all trends”. Weemphatically condemn this line, which should be relentlessly combated.
Nowhere in the world do the workers’ parties unite groups ofintellectuals and “trends”; they uniteworkers on the followingterms:(1) recognition and application of definite Marxist decisions on questionsof tactics and organisation;(2) submission of the minority of class-conscious workers to the majority.
This unity, on the basis of absolute repudiation of the opponents ofthe “underground”, was achieved by the Pravdists in the course oftwo-and-a-half years (1912–14) to the extent of four-fifths. Witlesspeople may abuse the Pravdists and call them factionalists, splitters, andso forth, but these phrases and abuse will not wipe out the unity of theworkers....
Plekhanov now threatens to destroy this unity of the majority. Wecalmly and firmly say to the workers: put no faith in words. Put them tothe test of facts, and you will see that every step taken by every one ofthe above-mentioned adventurist groups more and more glaringly revealstheir helpless and pitiful vacillation.
[1]TheSvoboda (Freedom) group was founded byY. 0. Zelensky (Nadezhdin) in May 1901. It called itself the“revolutionary-socialist” group, and published the journalSvoboda in Switzerland (of which two issues appeared—No. 1 in1901, and No. 2 in 1902). The group also published: “Eve of theRevolution.A Review of Questions of Theory and TacticsNo. 1, a periodicalOtkliki (Comments) No. 1, a programmaticpamphletThe Revival of Revolutionism in Russia and others. TheSvoboda group preached the ideas of terrorism and Economism, actedin concert with the St. Petersburg Economists againstIskra andthe St. Petersburg Committee of the R.S.D.L.P. The group ceased to exist in1903.
TheBorba (Struggle) group was formed in Paris in thesummer of 1900 and consisted of D. B. Ryazanov, Y. M. Steklov, andE. L. Gurevich. The nameBorba was adopted by the group inMay 1901. In its publications the group distorted the revolutionary theoryof Marxism, which it interpreted in a doctrinaire and scholastic spirit,and was opposed to Lenin’s organisational principles of Party building. Inview of its deviations from Social-Democratic views and tactics, itsdisruptive activities and lack of contact with the Social-Democraticorganisations in Russia, the group was not allowed to attend the SecondCongress. By a decision of the Second Congress of the R. S. D. L. P. theBorba group was dissolved.