What Is To Be Done?
BURNING QUESTIONS of our MOVEMENT
IVThe Primitiveness of the Economists and the Organization of the Revolutionaries
Rabocheye Dyelo's assertions, which we have analyzed, that the
economic struggle is the most widely applicable means of political
agitation and that our task now is to lend the economic struggle itself a
political character, etc., express a narrow view, not only of our
political, but also of our organizational tasks. The "economic struggle
against the employers and the government" does not at all require an
all-Russia centralized organization, and hence this struggle can never
give rise to such an organization as will combine, in one general
assault, all the manifestations of political opposition, protest, and
indignation, an organization that will consist of professional
revolutionaries and be led by the real political leaders of the entire
people. This stands to reason. The character of any organization is
naturally and inevitably determined by the content of its activity.
Consequently, Rabocheye Dyelo, by the assertions analyzed
above, sanctifies and legitimizes not only narrowness of political
activity, but also of organizational work. In this case, Rabocheye Dyelo,
as always, proves itself an organ whose consciousness yields to
spontaneity. Yet subservience to spontaneously developing forms of
organisation, failure to realise the narrowness and primitiveness of our
organisational work, of our "handicraft" methods in this most important
sphere, failure to realise this, I say, is a veritable ailment from
which our movement suffers. It is not an ailment that comes with
decline, but one, of course, that comes with growth. It is however at
the present time, when the wave of spontaneous indignation, as it were,
is sweeping over us, leaders and organisers of the movement, that an
irreconcilable struggle must be waged against all defence of
backwardness, against any legitimation of narrowness in this matter. It
is particularly necessary to arouse in all who participate in practical
work, or are preparing to take up that work, discontent with the amateurism prevailing among us and an unshakable determination to rid ourselves of it.
A. WHAT IS PRIMITIVENESS?
We shall try to answer this question by giving a brief description of
the activity of a typical Social-Democratic study circle of the period
1894-1901. We have noted that the entire student youth of the period was
absorbed in Marxism. Of course, these students were not only, or even
not so much, interested in Marxism as a theory; they were interested in
it as an answer to the question, "What is to be done?", as a call to
take the field against the enemy. These new warriors marched to battle
with astonishingly primitive equipment and training. In a vast number of
cases they had almost no equipment and absolutely no training. They
marched to war like peasants from the plough, armed only with clubs. A
students' circle establishes contacts with workers and sets to work,
without any connection with the old members of the movement, without any
connection with study circles in other districts, or even in other
parts of the same city (or in other educational institutions), without
any organisation of the various divisions of revolutionary work, without
any systematic plan of activity covering any length of time. The circle
gradually expands its propaganda and agitation; by its activities it
wins the sympathies of fairly large sections of workers and of a certain
section of the educated strata, which provide it with money and from
among whom the "committee" recruits new groups of young people. The
attractive power of the committee (or League of Struggle) grows, its
sphere of activity becomes wider, and the committee expands this
activity quite spontaneously; the very people who a year or a few months
previously spoke at the students' circle gatherings and discussed the
question, "Whither?", who established and maintained contacts with the
workers and wrote and published leaflets, now, establish contacts with
other groups of revolutionaries, procure literature, set to work to
publish a local newspaper, begin to talk of organising a demonstration,
and finally turn to open warfare (which may, according to circumstances,
take the form of issuing the first agitational leaflet or the first
issue of a newspaper, or of organising the first demonstration). Usually
the initiation of such actions ends in an immediate and complete
fiasco. Immediate and complete, because this open warfare was not the
result of a systematic and carefully thought-out and gradually prepared
plan for a prolonged and stubborn struggle, but simply the result of the
spontaneous growth of traditional study circle work; because,
naturally, the police, in almost every case, knew the principal leaders
of the local movement, since they had already "gained a reputation" for
themselves in their student days, and the police waited only for the
right moment to make their raid. They deliberately allowed the study
circle sufficient time to develop its work so that they might, obtain a
palpable corpus delicti, and they always permitted several of
the persons known to them to remain at liberty "for breeding" (which, as
far as I know, is the technical term used both by our people and by the
gendarmes). 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. True, from the historical point of view,
the primitiveness of equipment was not only inevitable at first, but even legitimate
as one of the conditions for the wide recruiting of fighters, but as
soon as serious war operations began (and they began in fact with the
strikes in the summer of 1896), the defects in our fighting
organisations made themselves felt to an ever-increasing degree. The
government, at first thrown into confusion and committing a number of
blunders (e.g., its appeal to the public describing the misdeeds of the
socialists, or the banishment of workers from the capitals to provincial
industrial centres), very soon adapted itself to the new conditions of
the struggle and managed to deploy well its perfectly equipped
detachments of agents provocateurs, spies, and gendarmes. Raids
became so frequent, affected such a vast number of people, and cleared
out the local study circles so thoroughly that the masses of the workers
lost literally all their leaders, the movement assumed an amazingly
sporadic character, and it became utterly impossible to establish
continuity and coherence in the work. The terrible dispersion of the
local leaders; the fortuitous character of the study circle memberships;
the lack of training in, and the narrow outlook on, theoretical,
political, and organisational questions were all the inevitable result
of the conditions described above. 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. In order that the reader who is not acquainted
with the movement may have no grounds for thinking that we are
"inventing" a special stage or special disease of the movement, we shall
refer once again to the witness we have quoted. We trust we shall be
forgiven for the length of the passage:
"While the gradual transition to more extensive practical activity," writes B-v in Rabocheye Dyelo,
No. 6, "a transition that is directly dependent on the general
transitional period through which the Russian working-class movement is
now passing, is a characteristic feature, ... there is, however,
another, no less interesting feature in the general mechanism of the
Russian workers' revolution. We refer to the general lack of revolutionary forces fit for action,
[all italics ours — Lenin] which is felt not only in St. Petersburg,
but throughout Russia. With the general revival of the working-class
movement, with the general development of the working masses, with the
growing frequency of strikes, with the increasingly open mass struggle
of the workers, and with the intensified government persecution,
arrests, deportation, and exile, this lack of highly skilled revolutionary forces is becoming more and more marked and, without a doubt, cannot but affect the depth and the general character of the movement.
Many strikes take place without any strong and direct influence upon
them by the revolutionary organisations.... A shortage of agitational
leaflets and illegal literature Is felt.... The workers' study circles
are left without agitators.... In addition, there is a constant dearth
of funds. In a word, the growth of the working class movement is outstripping the growth and development of the revolutionary organisations.
The numerical strength of the active revolutionaries is too small to
enable them to concentrate in their own hands the influence exercised
upon the whole mass of discontented workers, or to give this discontent
even a shadow of coherence and organisation.... The separate study
circles, the separate revolutionaries, scattered, uncombined, do not
represent a single, strong, and disciplined organisation with
proportionately developed parts...." Admitting that the immediate
organization of fresh study circles to replace those that have been
broken up merely proves the vitality of the movement ... but does not
prove the existence of an adequate number of adequately prepared
revolutionary workers, the author concludes: "The lack of practical
training among the St. Petershurg revolutionaries is seen in the results
of their work. The recent trials, especially that of the
Self-Emancipation Group and the Labour-against-Capital group,[16]
clearly showed that the young agitator, lacking a detailed knowledge of
working class conditions and, consequently, of the conditions under
which agitation can be carried on in a given factory, ignorant of the
principles of secrecy, and understanding only the general principles of
Social-Democracy [if he does], is able to carry on his work for perhaps
four, five, or six months. Then come arrests, which frequently lead to
the break-up of the entire organisation, or at all events, of part of
it. The question arises, therefore, can the group conduct successful
activity if its existence is measured by months?... Obviously, the
defects of the existing organisations cannot be wholly ascribed to the
transitional period.... Obviously, the numerical, and above all the
qualitative, make-up of the functioning organisations is no small
factor, and the first task our Social-Democrats must undertake ... is
that of effectively combining the organisations and making a strict selection of their membership."
B. Primitiveness and Economism
We must now deal with a question that has undoubtedly come to the mind
of every reader. Can a connection be established between primitiveness
as growing pains that affect the whole movement, and Economism, which is one
of the currents in Russian Social-Democracy? We think that it can. Lack
of practical training, of ability to carry on organisational work is
certainly common to us all, including those who have from the
very outset unswervingly stood for revolutionary Marxism. Of course,
were it only lack of practical training, no one could blame the
practical workers. But the term "primitiveness" embraces something more
than lack of training; it denotes a narrow scope of revolutionary work
generally, failure to understand that a good organisation of
revolutionaries cannot be built on the basis of such narrow activity,
and lastly — and this is the main thing — attempts to justify this
narrowness and to elevate it to a special "theory", i.e., subservience
to spontaneity on this question too. Once such attempts were revealed,
it became clear that primitiveness is connected with Economism and that
we shall never rid ourselves of this narrowness of our organisational
activity until we rid ourselves of Economism generally (i.e., the narrow
conception of Marxist theory, as well as of the role of
Social-Democracy and of its political tasks). These attempts manifested
themselves in a twofold direction. Some began to say that the working
masses themselves have not yet advanced the broad and militant political
tasks which the revolutionaries are attempting to "impose" on them;
that they must continue to struggle for immediate political demands, to conduct "the economic struggle against the employers and the government"{1}
(and, naturally, corresponding to this struggle which is "accessible"
to the mass movement there must be an organisation that will be
"accessible" to the most untrained youth). Others, far removed from any
theory of "gradualness", said that it is possible and necessary to
"bring about a political revolution", but that this does not require
building a strong organisation of revolutionaries to train the
proletariat in steadfast and stubborn struggle. All we need do is to
snatch up our old friend, the "accessible" cudgel. To drop metaphor, it
means that we must organise a general strike,{2} or that we must stimulate the "spiritless" progress of the working-class movement by means of "excitative terror".{3}
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.
We have quoted the words of B-v: "The growth of the working-class
movement is outstripping the growth and development of the revolutionary
organisations." This "valuable remark of a close observer" (Rabocheye Dyelo's
comment on B-v's article) has a twofold value for us. It shows that we
were right in our opinion that the principal cause of the present crisis
in Russian Social-Democracy is the lag of the leaders ("ideologists", revolutionaries, Social-Democrats) behind the spontaneous upsurge of the masses. It shows that all the arguments advanced by the authors of the Economist letter (in Iskra,
No. 12), by Krichevsky and by Martynov, as to the danger of belittling
the significance of the spontaneous element, of the drab everyday
struggle, as to tactics-as-process, etc., are nothing more than a
glorification and a defence of primitiveness. These people who cannot
pronounce the word "theoretician" without a sneer, who describe their
genuflections to common lack of training and backwardness as a "sense
for the realities of life", reveal in practice a failure to understand
our most imperative practical tasks. To laggards they shout:
Keep in step! Don't run ahead! To people suffering from a lack of energy
and initiative in organisational work, from a lack of "plans" for wide
and bold activity, they prate about "tactics-as-process"! The worst sin
we commit is that we degrade our political and organisational
tasks to the level of the immediate, "palpable", "concrete" interests
of the everyday economic struggle; yet they keep singing to us the same
refrain: Lend the economic struggle itself a political character! We
repeat: this kind of thing displays as much "sense for the realities of
life" as was displayed by the hero in the popular fable who cried out to
a passing funeral procession, "Many happy returns of the day!"
Recall the matchless, truly "Narcissus-like" superciliousness with which these wiseacres lectured Plekhanov on the "workers' circles generally" (sic!) being "unable to cope with political tasks in the real and practical sense of the word, i.e., in the sense of the expedient and successful practical struggle for political demands" (Rabocheye Dyelo's Reply,
p. 24). There are circles and circles, gentlemen! Circles of "amateurs"
are not, of course, capable of coping with political tasks so long as
they have not become aware of their amateurism and do not abandon it.
If, besides this, these amateurs are enamoured of their primitive
methods, and insist on writing the word "practical" in italics, and
imagine that being practical demands that one's tasks be reduced to the
level of understanding of the most backward strata of the masses, then
they are hopeless amateurs and, of course, certainly cannot in general cope with any political tasks.
But a circle of leaders, of the type of Alexeyev and Myshkin, of
Khalturin and Zhelyabov, is capable of coping with political tasks in
the genuine and most practical sense of the term, for the reason and to
the extent that their impassioned propaganda meets with response among
the spontaneously awakening masses, and their sparkling energy is
answered and supported by the energy of the revolutionary class.
Plekhanov was profoundly right, not only in pointing to this
revolutionary class and proving that its spontaneous awakening was
inevitable, but in setting even the "workers' circles" a great and lofty
political task. But you refer to the mass movement that has sprung up
since that time in order to degrade this task, to curtail
the energy and scope of activity of the "workers' circles". If you are
not amateurs enamoured of your primitive methods, what are you then? You
boast that you are practical, but you fail to see what every Russian
practical worker knows, namely, the miracles that the energy, not only
of a circle, but even of an individual person is able to perform in the
revolutionary cause. Or do you think that our movement cannot produce
leaders like those of the seventies? If so, why do you think so? Because
we lack training? But we are training ourselves, we will go on training
ourselves, and we will be trained! Unfortunately it is true that the
surface of the stagnant waters of the "economic struggle against the
employers and the government" is overgrown with fungus; people have
appeared among us who kneel in prayer to spontaneity, gazing with awe
(to take an expression from Plekhanov) upon the "posterior" of the
Russian proletariat. But we will get rid of this fungus. The time has
come when Russian revolutionaries, guided by a genuinely revolutionary
theory, relying upon the genuinely revolutionary and spontaneously
awakening class, can at last — at long last! — rise to full stature in
all their giant strength. All that is required is for the masses of our
practical workers, and the still larger masses of those who dreamed of
practical work when they were still at school, to pour scorn and
ridicule upon any suggestion that may be made to degrade our political
tasks and to restrict the scope of our organisational work. And we will
achieve that, rest assured, gentlemen!
In the article "Where To Begin", I wrote in opposition to Rabocheye Dyelo:
"The tactics of agitation in relation to some special question, or the
tactics with regard to some detail of party organisation may be changed
in twenty-four hours; but only people devoid of all principle are
capable of changing, in twenty-four hours, or, for that matter, in
twenty-four months, their view on the necessity — in general,
constantly, and absolutely — of an organisation of struggle and of
political agitation among the masses."[17] To this Rabocheye Dyelo replied: "This, the only one of Iskra's charges that makes a pretence of being based on facts, is totally without foundation. Readers of Rabocheye Dyelo know very well that from the outset we not only called for political agitation, without waiting for the appearance of Iskra
... [saying at the same time that not only the workers' study circles,
"but also the mass working-class movement could not regard as its first
political task the overthrow of absolutism", but only the struggle for
immediate political demands, and that "the masses begin to understand
immediate political demands after one, or at all events, after several
strikes"], ... but that with our publications which we furnished from
abroad for the comrades working in Russia, we provided the only
Social-Democratic political and agitational material ... [and in this
sole material you not only based the widest political agitation
exclusively on the economic struggle, but you even went to the extent of
claiming that this restricted agitation was the "most widely
applicable". And do you not observe, gentlemen, that your own argument —
that this was the only material provided — proves the necessity for Iskra's appearance, and its struggle against Rabocheye Dyelo?]....
On the other hand, our publishing activity actually prepared the ground
for the tactical unity of the Party... [unity in the conviction that
tactics is a process of growth of Party tasks that grow together with
the Party? A precious unity indeed!]... and by that rendered possible
the creation of a 'militant organisation' for which the Union Abroad did
all that an organisation abroad could do" (Rabocheye Dyelo,
No. 10, p. 15). A vain attempt at evasion! I would never dream of
denying that you did all you possibly could. I have asserted and assert
now that the limits of what is "possible" for you to do are
restricted by the narrowness of your outlook. It is ridiculous to talk
of a "militant organisation" to fight for "immediate political demands",
or to conduct the economic struggle against the employers and the
government".
But if the reader wishes to see the pearls of "Economist" infatuation
with amateurism, he must, of course, turn from the eclectic and
vacillating Rabocheye Dyelo to the consistent and determined Rabochaya Mysl. In its Separate Supplement,
p. 13, R. M. wrote: "Now two words about the so-called revolutionary
intelligentsia proper. True, on more than one occasion it has proved
itself prepared 'to enter into determined battle with tsarism'. The
unfortunate thing, however, is that our revolutionary intelligentsia,
ruthlessly persecuted by the political police, imagined the struggle
against the political police to be the political struggle against the
autocracy. That is why, to this day, it cannot understand 'where the
forces for the struggle against the autocracy are to be obtained'."
Truly matchless is the lofty contempt for the struggle against the
police displayed by this worshipper (in the worst sense of the word) of
the spontaneous movement! He is prepared to justify
our inability to organise secret activity by the argument that with the
spontaneous mass movement it is not at all important for us to struggle
against the political police! Very few people indeed would subscribe to
this appalling conclusion; to such an extent have our deficiencies in
revolutionary organisations become a matter of acute importance. But if
Martynov, for example, refuses to subscribe to this, it will only be
because he is unable, or lacks the courage, to think out his ideas to
their logical conclusion. Indeed, does the "task" of advancing concrete
demands by the masses, demands that promise palpable results, call for
special efforts to create a stable, centralised, militant organisation
of revolutionaries? Cannot such a "task" be carried out even by masses
that do not "struggle against the political police" at all? Could this
task, moreover, be fulfilled if, in addition to the few leaders, it were
not undertaken by such workers (the overwhelming majority) as are quite
incapable of "struggling against the political police"? Such
workers, average people of the masses, are capable of displaying
enormous energy and selfsacrifice 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.
Although this question has found little reflection in literature, it has
greatly engaged us "politicians" in conversations and polemics with
comrades who gravitate more or less towards Economism. It is a question
meriting special treatment. But before taking it up, let us offer one
further quotation by way of illustrating our thesis on the connection
between primitiveness and Economism.
In his Reply, Mr. N. N.[18]
wrote: "The Emancipation of Labour group demands direct struggle
against the government without first considering where the material
forces for this struggle are to be obtained, and without indicating the path of the struggle."
Emphasising the last words, the author adds the following footnote to
the word "Path": "This cannot be explained by purposes of secrecy,
because the programme does not refer to a plot but to a mass movement.
And the masses cannot proceed by secret paths. Can we conceive of a
secret strike? Can we conceive of secret demonstrations and petitions?" (Vademecum,
p. 59.) Thus, the author comes quite close to the question of the
"material forces" (organisers of strikes and demonstrations) and to the
"paths" of the struggle, but, nevertheless, is still in a state of
consternation, because he "worships" the mass movement, i.e., he regards
it as something that relieves us of the necessity of conducting revolutionary activity and not as something that should encourage us and stimulate
our revolutionary activity. It is impossible for a strike to remain a
secret to those participating in it and to those immediately associated
with it, but it may (and in the majority of cases does) remain a
"secret" to the masses of the Russian workers, because the government
takes care to cut all communication with the strikers, to prevent all
news of strikes from spreading. Here indeed is where a special "struggle
against the political police" is required, a struggle that can never be
conducted actively by such large masses as take part in strikes. This
struggle must be organised, according to "all the rules of the art", by
people who are professionally engaged in revolutionary activity. The
fact that the masses are spontaneously being drawn into the movement
does not make the organisation of this struggle less necessary. On the contrary, it makes it more necessary;
for we socialists would be failing in our direct duty to the masses if
we did not prevent the police from making a secret of every strike and
every demonstration (and if we did not ourselves from time to time
secretly prepare strikes and demonstrations). And we will succeed in doing this, because the spontaneously awakening masses will also produce increasing, numbers of "professional revolutionaries" from their own ranks (that is, if we do not take it into our heads to advise the workers to keep on marking time).
C. Organisation of Workers and Organisation of Revolutionaries
It is only natural to expect that for a Social-Democrat whose conception
of the political struggle coincides with the conception of the
"economic struggle against the employers and the government", the
"organisation of revolutionaries" will more or less coincide with the
"organisation of workers". This, in fact, is what actually happens; so
that when we speak of organisation, we literally speak in different
tongues. I vividly recall, for example, a conversation I once had with a
fairly consistent Economist, with whom I had not been previously
acquainted. We were discussing the pamphlet, Who Will Bring About the Political Revolution?
and were soon of a mind that its principal defect was its ignoring of
the question of organisation. We had begun to assume full agreement
between us; but, as the conversation proceeded, it became evident that
we were talking of different things. My interlocutor accused the author
of ignoring strike funds, mutual benefit societies, etc., whereas I had
in mind an organisation of revolutionaries as an essential factor in
"bringing about" the political revolution. As soon as the disagreement
became clear, there was hardly, as I remember, a single question of
principle upon which I was in agreement with the Economist!
What was the source of our disagreement? It was the fact that on
questions both of organisation and of politics the Economists are
forever lapsing from Social-Democracy into trade-unionism. The political
struggle of Social-Democracy is far more extensive and complex than the
economic struggle of the workers against the employers and the
government. Similarly (indeed for that reason), the organisation of the
revolutionary Social-Democratic Party must inevitably be of a kind different
from the organisation of the workers designed for this struggle. The
workers' organisation must in the first place be a trade union
organisation; secondly, it must be as broad as possible; and thirdly, it
must be as public as conditions will allow (here, and further on, of
course, I refer only to absolutist Russia). On the other hand, the
organisation of the revolutionaries must consist first and foremost of
people who make revolutionary activity their profession (for which
reason I speak of the organisation of revolutionaries, meaning revolutionary Social-Democrats). In view of this common characteristic of the members of such an organisation, all distinctions as between workers and intellectuals, not to speak of distinctions of trade and profession, in both categories, must be effaced.
Such an organisation must perforce not be very extensive and must be as
secret as possible. Let us examine this threefold distinction.
In countries where political liberty exists the distinction between a
trade union and a political organisation is clear enough, as is the
distinction between trade unions and Social-Democracy. The relations
between the latter and the former will naturally vary in each country
according to historical, legal, and other conditions; they may be more
or less close, complex, etc. (in our opinion they should be as close and
as little complicated as possible); but there can be no question in
free countries of the organisation of trade unions coinciding with the
organisation of the Social-Democratic Party. In Russia, however, the
yoke of the autocracy appears at first glance to obliterate all
distinctions between the Social-Democratic organisation and the workers'
associations, since all workers' associations and all
study circles are prohibited, and since the principal manifestation and
weapon of the workers' economic struggle — the strike — is regarded as a
criminal (and sometimes even as a political!) offence. Conditions in
our country, therefore, on the one hand, strongly "impel" the workers
engaged in economic struggle to concern themselves with political
questions, and, on the other, they "impel" Social-Democrats to confound
trade-unionism with Social-Democracy (and our Krichevskys, Martynoys,
and Co., while diligently discussing the first kind of "impulsion", fail
to notice the second). Indeed, picture to yourselves people who are
immersed ninety-nine per cent in "the economic struggle against the
employers and the government". Some of them will never, during the entire
course of their activity (from four to six months), be impelled to
think of the need for a more complex organisation of revolutionaries.
Others, perhaps, will come across the fairly widely distributed
Bernsteinian literature, from which they will become convinced of the
profound importance of the forward movement of "the drab everyday
struggle". Still others will be carried away, perhaps, by the seductive
idea of showing the world a new example of "close and organic contact
with the proletarian struggle" — contact between the trade union and the
Social Democratic movements. Such people may argue that the later a
country enters the arena of capitalism and, consequently, of the
working-class movement, the more the socialists in that country may take
part in, and support, the trade union movement, and the less the reason
for the existence of non-Social-Democratic trade unions. So far the
argument is fully correct; unfortunately, however, some go beyond that
and dream of a complete fusion of Social-Democracy with trade-unionism.
We shall soon see, from the example of the Rules of the St. Petersburg
League of Struggle, what a harmful effect such dreams have upon our
plans of organisation.
The workers' organisations for the economic struggle should be trade
union organisations. Every Social-Democratic worker should as far as
possible assist and actively work in these organisations. But, while
this is true, it is certainly not in our interest to demand that only
Social-Democrats should be eligible for membership in the "trade"
unions, since that would only narrow the scope of our influence upon the
masses. Let every worker who understands the need to unite for the
struggle against the employers and the government join the trade unions.
The very aim of the trade unions would be impossible of achievement, if
they did not unite all who have attained at least this elementary
degree of understanding, if they were not very broad
organisations. The broader these organisations, the broader will be our
influence over them — an influence due, not only to the "spontaneous"
development of the economic struggle, but to the direct and conscious
effort of the socialist trade union members to influence their comrades.
But a broad organisation cannot apply methods of strict secrecy (since
this demands far greater training than is required for the economic
struggle). How is the contradiction between the need for a large
membership and the need for strictly secret methods to be reconciled?
How are we to make the trade unions as public as possible? Generally
speaking, there can be only two ways to this end: either the trade
unions become legalised (in some countries this preceded the
legalisation of the socialist and political unions), or the organisation
is kept secret, but so "free" and amorphous, lose[19] as the Germans say, that the need for secret methods becomes almost negligible as far as the bulk of the members is concerned.
The legalisation of non-socialist and non-political labour unions in
Russia has begun, and there is no doubt that every advance made by our
rapidly growing Social-Democratic working-class movement will multiply
and encourage attempts at legalisation — attempts proceeding for the
most part from supporters of the existing order, but partly also from
the workers themselves and from liberal intellectuals. The banner of
legality has already been hoisted by the Vasilyevs and the Zubatovs.
Support has been promised and rendered by the Ozerovs and the Wormses,[20]
and followers of the new tendency are now to be found among the
workers. Henceforth, we cannot but reckon with this tendency. How we are
to reckon with it, on this there can be no two opinions among
Social-Democrats. We must steadfastly expose any part played in this
movement by the Zubatovs and the Vasilyeys, the gendarmes and the
priests, and explain their real intentions to the workers. We must also
expose all the conciliatory, "harmonious" notes that will be heard in
the speeches of liberal politicians at legal meetings of the workers,
irrespective of whether the speeches are motivated by an earnest
conviction of the desirability of peaceful class collaboration, by a
desire to curry favour with the powers that be, or whether they are
simply the result of clumsiness. Lastly, we must warn the workers
against the traps often set by the police, who at such open meetings and
permitted societies spy out the "fiery ones" and try to make use of
legal organisations to plant their agents provocateurs in the illegal organisations.
Doing all this does not at all mean forgetting that in the long
run the legalisation of the working-class movement will be, to our
advantage, and not to that of the Zubatovs. On the contrary, it is
precisely our campaign of exposure that will help us to separate the
tares from the wheat. What the tares are, we have already indicated. By
the wheat we mean attracting the attention of ever larger numbers,
including the most backward sections, of the workers to social and
political questions, and freeing ourselves, the revolutionaries, from
functions that are essentially legal (the distribution of legal books,
mutual aid, etc.), the development of which will inevitably provide us
with an increasing quantity of material for agitation. In this sense, we
may, and should, say to the Zubatovs and the Ozerovs: Keep at it,
gentlemen, do your best! Whenever you place a trap in the path of the
workers (either by way of direct provocation, or by the "honest"
demoralisation of the workers with the aid of "Struvism") we will see to
it that you are exposed. But whenever you take a real step forward,
though it be the most "timid zigzag", we will say: Please continue! And
the only step that can be a real step forward is a real, if small,
extension of the workers' field of action. Every such extension will be
to our advantage and will help to hasten the advent of legal societies
of the kind in which it will not be agents provocateurs who are
detecting socialists, but socialists who are gaining adherents. in a
word, our task is to fight the tares. It is not our business to grow
wheat in flower-pots. By pulling up the tares, we clear the soil for the
wheat. And while the Afanasy Ivanoviches and Pulkheria Ivanovnas[21]
are tending their flower-pot crops, we must prepare the reapers, not
only to cut down the tares of today, but to reap the wheat of tomorrow.{4}
Thus, we cannot by means of legalisation solve the problem of
creating a trade union organisation that will be as little secret and as
extensive as possible (but we should be extremely glad if the Zubatovs
and the Ozerovs disclosed to us even a partial opportunity for such a
solution — to this end, however, we must strenuously combat
them). There remain secret trade union organisations, and we must give
all possible assistance to the workers who (as we definitely know) are
adopting this course. Trade union organisations, not only can be of
tremendous value in developing and consolidating the economic struggle,
but can also become a very important auxiliary to political agitation
and revolutionary organisation. In order to achieve this purpose, and in
order to guide the nascent trade union movement in the channels desired
by Social-Democracy, we must first understand clearly the absurdity of
the plan of organisation the St. Petersburg Economists have been nursing
for nearly five years. That plan is set forth in the "Rules for a
Workers' Mutual Benefit Fund" of July 1897 ("Listok" Rabotnika, No. 9-10, p. 46, taken from Rabochaya Mysl,
No. 1), as well as in the "Rules for a Trade Union Workers'
Organisation" of October 1900 (special leaflet printed in St. Petersburg
and referred to in Iskra, No. 1). Both these sets of rules
have one main shortcoming: they set up the broad workers' organisation
in a rigidly specified structure and confound it with the organisation
of revolutionaries. Let us take the last-mentioned set of rules, since
it is drawn up in greater detail. The body consists of fifty-two
paragraphs. Twenty-three deal with the structure, the method of
functioning, and the competence of the "workers' circles", which are to
be organised in every factory ("a maximum of ten persons") and which
elect "central (factory) groups". "The central group," says paragraph 2,
"observes all that goes on in its factory or workshop and keeps a
record of events." "The central group presents to subscribers a monthly
financial account" (par. 17), etc. Ten paragraphs are devoted to the
"district organisation", and nineteen to the highly complex
interconnection between the Committee of the Workers' Organisation and
the Committee of the St. Petersburg League of Struggle (elected
representatives of each district and of the "executive groups" — "groups
of propagandists, groups for maintaining contact with the provinces,
and with the organisation abroad, groups for managing stores;
publications, and funds").
Social-Democracy = "executive groups" in relation to the economic
struggle of the workers! It would be difficult to show more glaringly
how the Economists' ideas deviate from Social-Democracy to
trade-unionism, and how alien to them is any idea that a Social-Democrat
must concern himself first and foremost with an organisation of
revolutionaries capable of guiding the entire proletarian
struggle for emancipation. To talk of "the political emancipation of the
working class" and of the struggle against "tsarist despotism", and at
the same time to draft rules like these, means to have no idea
whatsoever of the real political tasks of Social-Democracy. Not one of
the fifty or so paragraphs reveals even a glimmer of understanding that
it is necessary to conduct the widest possible political agitation among
the masses, an agitation highlighting every aspect of Russian
absolutism and the specific features of the various social classes in
Russia. Rules like these are of no use even for the achievement of trade
union, let alone political, aims, since trade unions are organised by trades, of which no mention is made.
But most characteristic, perhaps, is the amazing top-heaviness of the
whole "system", which attempts to bind each single factory and its
"committee" by a permanent string of uniform and ludicrously petty rules
and a three-stage system of election. Hemmed in by the narrow outlook
of Economism, the mind is lost in details that positively reek of red
tape and bureaucracy. In practice, of course, three-fourths of the
clauses are never applied; on the other hand, a "secret" organisation of
this kind, with its central group in each factory, makes it very easy
for the gendarmes to carry out raids on a vast scale. The Polish
cornrades have passed through a similar phase in their movement, with
everybody enthusiastic about the extensive organisation of workers'
benefit funds; but they very quickly abandoned this idea when they saw
that such organisations only provided rich harvests for the gendarmes.
If we have in mind broad workers' organisations, and not widespread
arrests, if we do not want to provide satisfaction to the gendarmes, we
must see to it that these organisations remain without any rigid formal
structure. But will they be able to function in that case?
Let us see what the functions are: "... To observe all that goes on in
the factory and keep a record of events" (par. 2 of the Rules). Do we
really require a formally established group for this purpose? Could not
the purpose be better served by correspondence conducted in the illegal
papers without the setting up of special groups? "... To lead the
struggles of the workers for the improvement of their workshop
conditions" (par. 3). This, too, requires no set organisational form.
Any sensible agitator can in the course of ordinary conversation gather
what the demands of the workers are and transmit them to a narrow — not a
broad — organisation of revolutionaries for expression in a leaflet. "
... To organise a fund ... to which subscriptions of two kopeks per
ruble[22] should be made"
(par. 9) — and then to present to subscribers a monthly financial
account (par. 17), to expel members who fail to pay their contributions
(par. 10), and so forth. Why, this is a very paradise for the police;
for nothing would be easier for them than to penetrate into such a
secrecy of a "central factory fund", confiscate the money, and arrest
the best people. Would it not be simpler to issue one-kopek or two-kopek
coupons bearing the official stamp of a well-known (very narrow and
very secret) organisation, or to make collections without coupons of any
kind and to print reports in a certain agreed code in an illegal paper?
The object would thereby be attained, but it would be a hundred times
more difficult for the gendarmes to pick up clues.
I could go on analysing the Rules, but I think that what has been said
will suffice. A small, compact core of the most reliable, experienced,
and hardened workers, with responsible representatives in the principal
districts and connected by all the rules of strict secrecy with the
organisation of revolutionaries, can, with the widest support of the
masses and without any formal organisation, perform all the
functions of a trade union organisation, in a manner, moreover,
desirable to Social-Democracy. Only in this way can we secure the consolidation and development of a Social-Democratic trade union movement, despite all the gendarmes.
It may be objected that an organisation which is so lose that
it is not even definitely formed, and which has not even an enrolled and
registered membership, cannot be called an organisation at all. Perhaps
so. Not the name is important. What is important is that this
"organisation without members" shall do everything that is required, and
from the very outset ensure a solid connection between our future trade
unions and socialism. Only an incorrigible utopian would have a broad organisation of workers, with elections, reports, universal suffrage, etc., under the autocracy.
The moral to be drawn from this is simple. If we begin with the solid
foundation of a strong organisation of revolutionaries, we can ensure
the stability of the movement as a whole and carry out the aims both of
Social-Democracy and of trade unions proper. If, however, we begin with a
broad workers' organisation, which is supposedly most "accessible" to
the masses (but which is actually most accessible to the gendarmes and
makes revolutionaries most accessible to the police), we shall achieve
neither the one aim nor the other; we shall not eliminate our
rule-of-thumb methods, and, because we remain scattered and our forces
are constantly broken up by the police, we shall only make trade unions
of the Zubatov and Ozerov type the more accessible to the masses.
What, properly speaking, should be the functions of the organisation of
revolutionaries? We shall deal with this question in detail. First,
however, let us examine a very typical argument advanced by our
terrorist, who (sad fate!) in this matter also is a next-door neighbour
to the Economist. Svoboda, a journal published for workers,
contains in its first issue an article entitled "Organisation", the
author of which tries to defend his friends, the Economist workers of
Ivanovo-Voznesensk. He writes:
"It is bad when the masses are mute and unenlightened, when the movement
does not come from the rank and file. For instance, the students of a
university town leave for their homes during the summer and other
holidays, and immediately the workers' movement comes to a standstill.
Can a workers' movement which has to be pushed on from outside be a real
force? No, indeed.... It has not yet learned to walk, it is still in
leading-strings. So it is in all matters. The students go off, and
everything comes to a standstill. The most capable are seized; the cream
is skimmed and the milk turns sour. If the 'committee' is arrested,
everything comes to a standstill until a new one can he formed. And one
never knows what sort of committee will be set up next — it may be
nothing like the former. The first said one thing, the second may say
the very opposite. Continuity between yesterday and tomorrow is broken,
the experience of the past does not serve as a guide for the future. And
all because no roots have been struck in depth, in the masses; the work
is carried on not by a hundred fools, but by a dozen wise men. A dozen
wise men can be wiped out at a snap, but when the organisation embraces
masses, everything proceeds from them, and nobody, however he tries, can
wreck the cause" (p. 63).
The facts are described correctly. The picture of our amateurism is well drawn. But the conclusions are worthy of Rabochaya Mysl,
both as regards their stupidity and their lack of political tact. They
represent the height of stupidity, because the author confuses the
philosophical and social-historical question of the "depth" of the
"roots" of the movement with the technical and organisational question
of the best method in combating the gendarmes. They represent the height
of political tactlessness, because, instead of appealing from bad
leaders to good leaders, the author appeals from the leaders in general
to the "masses" . This is as much an attempt to drag us back
organisationally as the idea of substituting excitative terrorism for
political agitation drags us back politically. Indeed, I am experiencing
a veritable embarras de richesses, and hardly know where to begin to disentangle the jumble offered up by Svoboda.
For clarity, let me begin by citing an example. Take the Germans. It
will not be denied, I hope, that theirs is a mass organisation, that in
Germany everything proceeds from the masses, that the working-class
movement there has learned to walk. Yet observe how these millions value
their "dozen" tried political leaders, how firmly they cling to them.
Members of the hostile parties in parliament have often taunted the
socialists by exclaiming: "Fine democrats you are indeed! Yours is a
working-class movement only in name; in actual fact the same clique of
leaders is always in evidence, the same Bebel and the same Liebknecht,
year in and year out, and that goes on for decades. Your supposedly
elected workers' deputies are more permanent than the officials
appointed by the Emperor!" But the Germans only smile with contempt at
these demagogic attempts to set the "masses" against the "leaders", to
arouse bad and ambitious instincts in the former, and to rob the
movement of its solidity and stability by undermining the confidence of
the masses in their "dozen wise men". Political thinking is sufficiently
developed among the Germans, and they have accumulated sufficient
political experience to understand that without the "dozen" tried and
talented leaders (and talented men are not born by the hundreds),
professionally trained, schooled by long experience, and working in
perfect harmony, no class in modern society can wage a determined
struggle. The Germans too have had demagogues in their ranks who have
flattered the "hundred fools", exalted them above the "dozen wise men",
extolled the "horny hand" of the masses, and (like Most and Hasselmann)
have spurred them on to reckless "revolutionary" action and sown
distrust towards the firm and steadfast leaders. It was only by
stubbornly and relentlessly combating all demagogic elements within the
socialist movement that German socialism has managed to grow and become
as strong as it is. Our wiseacres, however, at a time when Russian
Social-Democracy is passing through a crisis entirely due to the lack of
sufficiently trained, developed, and experienced leaders to guide the
spontaneously awakening masses, cry out ,with the profundity of fools:
"It is a bad business when the movement does not proceed from the rank
and file."
"A committee of students is of no use; it is not stable." Quite true.
But the conclusion to be drawn from this is that we must have a
committee of professional revolutionaries, and it is immaterial
whether a student or a worker is capable of becoming a professional
revolutionary. The conclusion you draw, how. ever, is that the
working-class movement must not be pushed on from outside! In your
political innocence you fail to notice that you are playing into the
hands of our Economists and fostering our amateurism. Wherein, may I
ask, did our students "push on" our workers? In the sense that
the student brought to the worker the fragments of political knowledge
he himself possesses, the crumbs of socialist ideas he has managed to
acquire (for the principal intellectual diet of the present-day student,
legal Marxism, could furnish only the rudiments, only scraps of
knowledge). There has never been too much of such "pushing on
from outside"; on the contrary, there has so far been all too little of
it in our movement, for we have been stewing too assiduously in our own
juice; we have bowed far too slavishly to the elementary "economic
struggle of the workers against the employers and the government". We
professional revolutionaries must and will make it our business to
engage in this kind of "pushing on" a hundred times more
forcibly than we have done hitherto. But the very fact that you select
so hideous a phrase as "pushing on from outside" — a phrase which cannot
but rouse in the workers (at least in the workers who are as
unenlightened as you yourselves) a sense of distrust towards all
who bring them political knowledge and revolutionary experience from
outside, which cannot but rouse in them an instinctive desire to resist all such people — proves you to be demagogues, and demagogues are the worst enemies of the working class.
And, please — don't hasten howling about my "uncomradely methods" of
debating. I have not the least desire to doubt the purity of your
intentions. As I have said, one may become a demagogue out of sheer
political innocence. But I have shown that you have descended to
demagogy, and I will never tire of repeating that demagogues are the
worst enemies of the working class. The worst enemies, because they
arouse base instincts in the masses, because the unenlightened worker is
unable to recognise his enemies in men who represent themselves, and
sometimes sincerely so, as his friends. The worst enemies, because in
the period of disunity and vacillation, when our movement is just
beginning to take shape, nothing is easier than to employ demagogic
methods to mislead the masses, who can realise their error only later by
bitter experience. That is why the slogan of the day for the Russian
Social-Democrat must be — resolute struggle against Svoboda and Rabocheye Dyelo, both of which have sunk to the level of demagogy. We shall deal with this further in greater detail.{5}
"A dozen wise men can be more easily wiped out than a hundred fools."
This wonderful truth (for which the hundred fools will always applaud
you) appears obvious only because in the very midst of the argument you
have skipped from one question to another. You began by talking and
continued to talk of the unearthing of a "committee", of the unearthing
of an "organisation", and now you skip to the question of unearthing the
movement's "roots" in their "depths". 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, and yet we all
complain, and cannot but complain, that the "organisations" are
being unearthed and as a result it is impossible to maintain continuity
in the movement. But since you raise the question of organisations
being unearthed and persist in your opinion, I assert that it is far
more difficult to unearth a dozen wise men than a hundred fools. This
position I will defend, no matter how much you instigate the masses
against me for my "anti-democratic" views, etc. As I have stated
repeatedly, 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.
I invite our Economists, terrorists, and "Economists-terrorists"{6}
to confute these propositions. At the moment, I shall deal only with
the last two points. The question as to whether it is easier to wipe out
"a dozen wisemen" or "a hundred fools" reduces itself to the question,
above considered, whether it is possible to have a mass organisation
when the maintenance of strict secrecy is essential. 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. We must have such circles, trade unions, and organisations everywhere in as large a number as possible and with the widest variety of functions; but it would be absurd and harmful to confound them with the organisation of revolutionaries,
to efface the border-line between them, to make still more hazy the all
too faint recognition of the fact that in order to "serve" the mass
movement we must have people who will devote themselves exclusively to
Social-Democratic activities, and that such people must train themselves patiently and steadfastly to be professional revolutionaries.
Yes, this recognition is incredibly dim. Our worst sin with regard to organisation consists in the fact that by our primitiveness we have lowered the prestige of revolutionaries in Russia.
A person who is flabby and shaky on questions of theory, who has a
narrow outlook, who pleads the spontaneity of the masses as an excuse
for his own sluggishness, who resembles a trade union secretary more
than a spokesman of the people, who is unable to conceive of a broad and
bold plan that would command the respect even of opponents, and who is
inexperienced and clumsy in his own professional art — the art of
combating the political police — such a man is not a revolutionary, but a
wretched amateur!
Let no active worker take offence at these frank remarks, for as far as
insufficient training is concerned, I apply them first and foremost to
myself. I used to work in a study circle[23]
that set itself very broad, all-embracing tasks; and all of us, members
of that circle, suffered painfully and acutely from the realisation
that we were acting as amateurs at a moment in history when we might
have been able to say, varying a well-known statement: "Give us an
organisation of revolutionaries, and we will overturn Russia" The more I
recall the burning sense of shame I then experienced, the bitterer
become my feelings towards those pseudo-Social-Democrats whose
preachings "bring disgrace on the calling of a revolutionary", who fail
to understand that our task is not to champion the degrading of the
revolutionary to the level of an amateur, but to raise the amateurs to the level of revolutionaries.
D. The Scope of Organisational Work
We have heard B-v tell us about "the lack of revolutionary forces fit
for action which is felt not only in St. Petersburg, but throughout
Russia". Hardly anyone will dispute this fact. But the question is, how
is it to be explained? B-v writes:
"We shall not go into an explanation of the historical causes of this
phenomenon; we shall merely state that a society, demoralised by
prolonged political reaction and split by past and present economic
changes, promotes from its own ranks an extremely small number of persons fit for revolutionary work;
that the working class does produce revolutionary workers who to some
extent reinforce the ranks of the illegal organisations, but that the
number of such revolutionaries is inadequate to meet the requirements of
the times. This is all the more so because the worker who spends eleven
and a half hours a day in the factory is in such a position that he
can, in the main, perform only the functions of an agitator; but
propaganda and organisation, the delivery and reproduction of illegal
literature, the issuance of leaflets, etc., are duties which must
necessarily fall mainly upon the shoulders of an extremely small force
of intellectuals" (Rabocheye Dyelo, No. 6, pp. 38-39).
On many points we disagree with B-v, particularly with those we have
emphasised, which most saliently reveal that, although weary of our
amateurism (as is every thinking practical worker), B-v cannot find the
way out of this intolerable situation because he is weighted down by
Economism. The fact is that society produces very many persons
fit for "the cause", but we are unable to make use of them all. The
critical, transitional state of our movement in this respect may be
formulated as follows: There are no people — yet there is a mass of people.
There is a mass of people, because the working class and increasingly
varied social strata, year after year, produce from their ranks an
increasing number of discontented people who desire to protest, who are
ready to render all the assistance they can in the struggle against
absolutism, the intolerableness of which, though not yet recognised by
all, is more and more acutely sensed by increasing masses of the people.
At the same time, we have no people, because we have no leaders, no
political leaders, no talented organisers capable of arranging.
extensive and at the same time uniform and harmonious work that would
employ all forces, even the most inconsiderable. "The growth and
development of the revolutionary organisations" lag, not only behind the
growth of the working-class movement, which even B-v admits, but behind
that of the general democratic movement among all strata of the people.
(In passing, probably B-V would now regard this as supplementing his
conclusion.) The scope of revolutionary work is too narrow, as compared
with the breadth of the spontaneous basis of the movement. It is too
hemmed in by the wretched theory of "economic struggle against the
employers and the government". Yet, at the present time, not only
Social-Democratic political agitators, but Social-Democratic organisers
must "go among all classes of the population".{7}
There is hardly a single practical worker who will doubt that the
Social-Democrats could distribute the thousand and one minute functions
of their organisational work among individual representatives of the
most varied classes. Lack of specialisation is one of the most serious
defects of our technique, about which B-v justly and bitterly complains.
The smaller each separate "operation" in our common cause the more
people we can find capable of carrying out such operations (people who,
in the majority of cases, are completely incapable of becoming
professional revolutionaries); more difficult will it be for the police
to "net" all these "detail workers", and the more difficult will it be
for them to frame up, out of an arrest for some petty affair, a "case"
that would justify the government's expenditure on "security". As for
the number of people ready to help us, we referred in the preceding
chapter to the gigantic change that has taken place in this respect in
the last five years or so. On the other hand, in order to unite all
these tiny fractions into one whole, in order not to break up the
movement while breaking up its functions, and in order to imbue the
people who carry out the minute functions with the conviction that their
work is necessary and important, without which conviction they will
never do the work,{8} it is
necessary to have a strong organisation of tried revolutionaries. The
more secret such an organisation is, the stronger and more widespread
will be the confidence in the Party. As we know, in time of war, it is
not only of the utmost importance to imbue one's own army with
confidence in its strength, but it is important also to convince the
enemy and all neutral elements of this strength; friendly
neutrality may sometimes decide the issue. If such an organisation
existed, one built up on a firm theoretical foundation and possessing a
Social-Democratic organ, we should have no reason to fear that the
movement might be diverted from its path by the numerous "outside"
elements that are attracted to it. (On the contrary, it is precisely at
the present time, with amateurism prevalent, that we see many
Social-Democrats leaning towards the Credo and only imagining
that they are Social Democrats.) In a word, specialisation necessarily
presupposes centralisation, and in turn imperatively calls for it.
But B-v himself, who has so excellently described the necessity for
specialisation, underestimates its importance, in our opinion, in the
second part of the argument we have quoted. The number of working-class
revolutionaries is inadequate, he says. This is perfectly true, and once
again we stress that the "valuable communication of a close observer"
fully confirms our view of the causes of the present crisis in
Social-Democracy, and, consequently, of the means required to overcome
it. Not only are revolutionaries in general lagging behind the
spontaneous awakening of the masses, but even worker-revolutionaries are
lagging behind the spontaneous awakening of the working-class masses.
This fact confirms with clear evidence, from the "practical" point of view, too, not only the absurdity but even the politically reactionary nature
of the "pedagogics" to which we are so often treated in the discussion
of our duties to the workers. This fact proves that our very first and
most pressing duty is to help to train working-class revolutionaries who
will he on the same level in regard to Party activity as the
revolutionaries from amongst the intellectuals (we emphasise the words
"in regard to Party activity", for, although necessary, it is neither so
easy nor so pressingly necessary to bring the workers up to the level
of intellectuals in other respects). Attention, therefore, must be
devoted principally to raising the workers to the level of revolutionaries; it is not at all our task to descend to the level of the "working masses" as the Economists wish to do, or to the level of the "average worker" as Svoboda
desires to do (and by this ascends to the second grade of Economist
"pedagogics"). I am far from denying the necessity for popular
literature for the workers, and especially popular (of course, not
vulgar) literature for the especially backward workers. But what annoys
me is this constant confusion of pedagogics with questions of politics
and organisation. You, gentlemen, who are so much concerned about the
"average worker", as a matter of fact, rather insult the workers by your
desire to talk down to them when discussing working-class
politics and working-class organisation. Talk about serious things in a
serious manner; leave pedagogics to the pedagogues, and not to
politicians and organisers! Are there not advanced people, "average
people", and "masses" among the intelligentsia too? Does not everyone
recognise that popular literature is also required for the
intelligentsia, and is not such literature written? Imagine someone, in
an article on organising college or high-school students, repeating over
and over again, as if he had made a new discovery, that first of all we
must have an organisation of "average students". The author of such an
article would be ridiculed, and rightly so. Give us your ideas on
organisation, if you have any, he would be told, and we ourselves will
decide who is "average", who above average, and who below. But if you
have no organisational ideas of your own, then all your
exertions in behalf of the "masses" and "average people" will be simply
boring. You must realise that these questions of "politics" and
"organisation" are so serious in themselves that they cannot be dealt
with in any other but a serious way. We can and must educate workers (and university and Gymnasium students) so that we may be able to discuss
these questions with them. But once you do bring up these questions,
you must give real replies to them; do not fall back on the "average",
or on the "masses"; do not try to dispose of the matter with facetious
remarks and mere phrases.{9}
To be fully prepared for his task, the worker-revolutionary must
likewise become a professional revolutionary. Hence B-v is wrong in
saying that since the worker spends eleven and a half hours in the
factory, the brunt of all other revolutionary functions (apart from
agitation) "must necessarily fall mainly upon the shoulders of
an extremely small force of intellectuals". But this condition does not
obtain out of sheer "necessity". It obtains because we are backward,
because we do not recognise our duty to assist every capable worker to
become a professional agitator, organiser, propagandist,
literature distributor, etc., etc. In this respect, we waste our
strength in a positively shameful manner; we lack the ability to husband
that which should be tended and reared with special care. Look at the
Germans: their forces are a hundredfold greater than ours. But they
understand perfectly well that really capable agitators, etc., are not
often promoted from the ranks of the "average". For this reason they
immediately try to place every capable working man in conditions that
will enable him to develop and apply his abilities to the fullest: he is
made a professional agitator, he is encouraged to widen the field of
his activity, to spread it from one factory to the whole of the
industry, from a single locality to the whole country. He acquires
experience and dexterity in his profession; he broadens his outlook and
increases his knowledge; he observes at close quarters the prominent
political leaders from other localities and of other parties; he strives
to rise to their level and combine in himself the knowledge of the
working-class environment and the freshness of socialist convictions
with professional skill, without which. the proletariat cannot
wage a stubborn struggle against its excellently trained enemies. In
this way alone do the working masses produce men of the stamp of Bebel
and Auer. But what is to a great extent automatic in a politically free
country must in Russia be done deliberately and systematically by our
organisations. A worker-agitator who is at all gifted and "promising" must not be left
to work eleven hours a day in a factory. We must arrange that he be
maintained by the Party; that he may go underground in good time; that
he change the place of his activity, if he is to enlarge his experience,
widen his outlook, and be able to hold out for at least a few years in
the struggle against the gendarmes. As the spontaneous rise of their
movement becomes broader and deeper, the working-class masses promote
from their ranks not only an increasing number of talented agitators,
but also talented organisers, propagandists, and "practical workers" in
the best sense of the term (of whom there are so few among our
intellectuals who, for the most part, in the Russian manner, are
somewhat careless and sluggish in their habits). When we have forces of
specially trained worker-revolutionaries who have gone through extensive
preparation (and, of course, revolutionaries "of all arms of the
service"), no political police in the world will then be able to contend
with them, for these forces, boundlessly devoted to the revolution,
will enjoy the boundless confidence of the widest masses of the workers.
We are directly to blame for doing too little to "stimulate"
the workers to take this path, common to them and to the
"intellectuals", of professional revolutionary training, and for all too
often dragging them back by our silly speeches about what is
"accessible" to the masses of the workers, to the "average workers",
etc.
In this, as in other respects, the narrow scope of our organisational
work is without a doubt due directly to the fact (although the
overwhelming majority of the "Economists" and the novices in practical
work do not perceive it) that we restrict our theories and our political
tasks to a narrow field. Subservience to spontaneity seems to inspire a
fear of taking even one step away from what is "accessible" to the
masses, a fear of rising too high above mere attendance on the immediate
and direct requirements of the masses. Have no fear, gentlemen!
Remember that we stand so low on the plane of organisation that the very
idea that we could rise too high is absurd!
E. "Conspiratorial" Organisation and "Democratism"
Yet there are many people among us who are so sensitive to the "voice of
life" that they fear it more than anything in the world and charge the
adherents of the views here expounded with following a Narodnaya Volya
line, with failing to understand "democratism", etc. These accusations,
which, of course, have been echoed by Rabocheye Dyelo, need to be dealt with.
The writer of these lines knows very well that the St. Petersburg
Economists levelled the charge of Narodnaya Volya tendencies also
against Rabochaya Gazeta (which is quite understandable when one compares it with Rabochaya Mysl). We were not in the least surprised, therefore, when, soon after the appearance of Iskra, a comrade informed us that the Soclal-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. Only a
gross failure to understand Marxism (or an "understanding" of it in the
spirit of "Struveism") could prompt the opinion that the rise of a mass,
spontaneous working-class movement relieves us of the duty of
creating as good an organisation of revolutionaries as the Zemlya i
Volya had, or, indeed, an incomparably better one. On the contrary, this
movement imposes the duty upon us; for the spontaneous
struggle of the proletariat will not become its genuine "class struggle"
until this struggle is led by a strong organisation of revolutionaries.
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.{10}
But this does not, of course, mean that we deny the need for a strong
revolutionary organisation. Thus, in the pamphlet mentioned in the
preceding footnote, after the polemics against reducing the political
struggle to a conspiracy, a description is given (as a Social-Democratic
ideal) of an organisation so strong as to be able to "resort to ...
rebellion" and to every other form of attack, in order to "deliver a
smashing blow against absolutism".{11} In form
such a strong revolutionary organisation in an autocratic country may
also be described as a "conspiratorial" organisation, because the French
word "conspiration" is the equivalent of the Russian word "zagovar"
("conspiracy"), and such an organisation must have the utmost secrecy.
Secrecy is such a necessary condition for this kind of organisation that
all the other conditions (number and selection of members, functions,
etc.) must be made to conform to it. It would be extremely naive indeed,
therefore, to fear the charge that we Social-Democrats desire to create
a conspiratorial organisation. Such a charge should be as flattering to
every opponent of Economism as the charge of following a Narodnaya
Volya line.
The objection may be raised that such a powerful and strictly secret
organisation, which concentrates in its hands all the threads of secret
activities, an organisation which of necessity is centralised, may too
easily rush into a premature attack, may thoughtlessly intensify the
movement before the growth of political discontent, the intensity of the
ferment and anger of the working class, etc., have made such an attack
possible and necessary. Our reply to this is: Speaking abstractly, it
cannot be denied, of course, that a militant organisation may
thoughtlessly engage in battle, which may end in a defeat
entirely avoidable under other conditions. But we cannot confine
ourselves to abstract reasoning on such a question, because every battle
bears within itself the abstract possibility of defeat, and there is no
way of reducing this possibility except by organised
preparation for battle. If, however, we proceed from the concrete
conditions at present obtaining in Russia, we must come to the positive
conclusion that a strong revolutionary organisation is absolutely
necessary precisely for the purpose of giving stability to the movement
and of safeguarding it against the possibility of making
thoughtless attacks. Precisely at the present time, when no such
organisation yet exists, and when the revolutionary movement is rapidly
and spontaneously growing, we already observe two opposite
extremes (which, as is to be expected, "meet"). These are: the utterly
unsound Economism and the preaching of moderation, and the equally
unsound "excitative terror", which strives "artificially to call forth
symptoms of the end of the movement, which is developing and
strengthening itself, when this movement is as yet nearer to the start
than to the end" (V. Zasulich, in Zarya, No. 2-3, p. 353). And the instance of Rabocheye Dyelo shows that there
exist Social-Democrats who give way to both these extremes. This is not
surprising, for, apart from other reasons, the "economic struggle
against the employers and the government" can never satisfy
revolutionaries, and opposite extremes will therefore always appear here
and there. Only a centralised, militant organisation that consistently
carries out a Social-Democratic policy, that satisfies, so to speak, all
revolutionary instincts and strivings, can safeguard the movement
against making thoughtless attacks and prepare attacks that hold out the
promise of success.
A further objection may be raised, that the views on organisation here
expounded contradict the "democratic principle". Now, while the earlier
accusation was specifically Russian in origin, this one is specifically foreign
in character. And only an organisation abroad (the Union of Russian
Social-Democrats Abroad) was capable of giving its Editorial Board
instructions like the following:
"Organisational Principle. In order to secure the successful
development and unification of Social-Democracy, the broad democratic
principle of Party organisation must be emphasised, developed, and
fought for; this is particularly necessary in view of the
anti-democratic tendencies that have revealed themselves in the ranks of
our Party" (Two Conferences, p. 18).
We shall see in the next chapter how Rabocheye Dyelo combats Iskra's
"anti-democratic tendencies". For the present, we shall examine more
closely the "principle" that the Economists advance. Everyone will
probably agree that "the broad democratic principle" presupposes the two
following conditions: first, full publicity, and secondly, election to
all offices. It would be absurd to speak of democracy without publicity,
moreover, without a publicity that is not limited to the membership of
the organisation. We call the German Socialist Party a democratic
organisation because all its activities are carried out publicly; even
its party congresses are held in public. But no one would call an
organisation democratic that is hidden from every one but its members by
a veil of secrecy. What is the use, then, of advancing "the broad democratic principle" when the fundamental condition for this principle cannot be fulfilled
by a secret organisation? "The broad principle" proves itself simply to
be a resounding but hollow phrase. Moreover, it reveals a total lack of
understanding of the urgent tasks of the moment in regard to
organisation. Everyone knows how great the lack of secrecy is among the
"broad" masses of our revolutionaries. We have heard the bitter
complaints of B-v on this score and his absolutely just demand for a
"strict selection of members" (Rabocheye Dyelo, No. 6, p. 42). Yet, persons who boast a keen "sense of realities" urge,
in a situation like this, not the strictest secrecy and the strictest
(consequently, more restricted) selection, of members, but "the broad democratic principle"! This is what you call being wide of the mark.
Nor is the situation any better with regard to the second attribute of
democracy, the principle of election. In politically free countries,
this condition is taken for granted. "They are members of the Party who
accept the principles of the Party programme and render the Party all
possible support," reads Clause 1 of the Rules of the German
Social-Democratic Party. Since the entire political arena is as open to
the public view as is a theatre stage to the audience, this acceptance
or non-acceptance, support or opposition, is known to all from the press
and from public meetings. Everyone knows that a certain political
figure began in such and such a way, passed through such and such an
evolution, behaved in a trying moment in such and such a manner, and
possesses such and such qualities; consequently, all party
members, knowing all the facts, can elect or refuse to elect this person
to a particular party office. The general control (in the literal sense
of the term) exercised over every act of a party man in the political
field brings into existence an automatically operating mechanism which
produces what in biology is called the "survival of the fittest".
"Natural selection" by full publicity, election, and general control
provides the assurance that, in the last analysis, every political
figure will be "in his proper place", do the work for which lie is best
fitted by his powers and abilities, feel the effects of his mistakes on
himself, and prove before all the world his ability to recognise
mistakes and to avoid them.
Try to fit this picture into the frame of our autocracy! Is it
conceivable in Russia for all who accept the principles of the Party
programme and render the Party all possible support to control every
action of the revolutionary working in secret? Is it possible for all to
elect one of these revolutionaries to any particular office, when, in
the very interests of the work, the revolutionary must conceal his
identity from nine out of ten of these "all"? Reflect somewhat over the
real meaning of the high-sounding phrases to which Rabocheye Dyelo
gives utterance, and you will realise that "broad democracy" in Party
organisation, amidst the gloom of the autocracy and the domination of
gendarmerie, is nothing more than a useless and harmful toy. It is a useless toy because, in point of fact, no revolutionary organisation has ever practiced, or could practice, broad
democracy, however much it may have desired to do so. It is a harmful
toy because any attempt to practise "the broad democratic principle"
will simply facilitate the work of the police in carrying out
large-scale raids, will perpetuate the prevailing primitiveness, and
will divert the thoughts of the practical workers from the serious and
pressing task of training themselves to become professional
revolutionaries to that of drawing up detailed "paper" rules for
election systems. Only abroad, where very often people with no
opportunity for conducting really active work gather, could this
"playing at democracy" develop here and there, especially in small
groups.
To show the unseemliness of Rabocheye Dyelo's favourite trick
of advancing the plausible "principle" of democracy in revolutionary
affairs, we shall again summon a witness. This witness, Y. Serebryakov,
editor of the London magazine, Nakanune, has a soft spot for Rabocheye Dyelo
and is filled with a great hatred for Plekhanov and the
"Plekhanovites". In its articles on the split in the Union of Russian
Social-Democrats Abroad, Nakanune definitely sided with Rabocheye Dyelo
and poured a stream of petty abuse upon Plekhanov. All the more
valuable, therefore, is this witness in the question at issue. In Nakanune
for July (No. 7) 1899, an article entitled "Concerning the Manifesto of
the Self-Emancipation of the Workers Group", Serebryakov argued that it
was "indecent" to talk about such things as "self-deception,
leadership, and the so-called Areopagus in a serious revolutionary
movement" and, inter alia, wrote:
"Myshkin, Rogachov, Zhelyabov, Mikhailov, Perovskaya, Figner, and others
never regarded themselves as leaders, and no one ever elected or
appointed them as such, although in actuality, they were leaders,
because, in the propaganda period, as well as in the period of the
struggle against the government, they took the brunt of the work upon
themselves, they went into the most dangerous places, and their
activities were the most fruitful. They became leaders, not because they
wished it, but because the comrades surrounding them had confidence in
their wisdom, in their energy, in their loyalty. To be afraid of some
kind of Areopagus (if it is not feared, why write about it?) that would
arbitrarily govern the movement is far too naive. Who would pay heed to
it?"
We ask the reader, in what way does the "Areopagus" differ from "anti democratic tendencies"? And is it not evident that Rabocheye Dyelo's
"plausible" organisational principle is equally naive and indecent;
naive, because no one would pay heed to the "Areopagus", or people with
"anti- democratic tendencies", if "the comrades surrounding them had" no
"confidence in their wisdom, energy, and loyalty"; indecent, because it
is a demagogic sally calculated to play on the conceit of some, on the
ignorance of others regarding the actual state of our movement, and on
the lack of training and the ignorance of the history of the
revolutionary movement on the part of still others. The only serious
organisational principle for the active workers of our movement should
he 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 not the time to think
about toy forms of democratism (democratism within a close and compact
body of comrades in which complete, mutual confidence prevails), but
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 has a long history behind it,
and which sternly and ruthlessly punishes every departure from the
duties of comradeship (and "democratism", real and not toy democratism,
certainly forms a component part of the conception 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.
It must be observed also that the other source of this talk, viz.,
naivete is likewise fostered by the confusion of ideas concerning the
meaning of democracy. In Mr. and Mrs. Webb's book on the English trade
unions there is an interesting chapter entitled "Primitive Democracy".
In it the authors relate how the English workers, in the first period of
existence of their unions, considered it an indispensable sign of
democracy for all the members to do all the work of managing the unions;
not only were all questions decided by the vote of all the members, but
all official duties were fulfilled by all the members in turn. A long
period of historical experience was required for worker's to realise the
absurdity of such a conception of democracy and to make them understand
the necessity for representative institutions, on the one hand, and for
full-time officials, on the other. Only after a number of cases of
financial bankruptcy of trade union treasuries had occurred did the
workers realise that the rates of contributions and benefits cannot be
decided merely by a democratic vote, but that this requires also the
advice of insurance experts. Let us take also Kautsky's book on
parliamentarism and legislation by the people. There we find that the
conclusions drawn by the Marxist theoretician coincide with the lessons
learned from many years of practical experience by the workers who
organised "spontaneously". Kautsky strongly protests against
Rittinghausen's primitive conception of democracy; he ridicules those
who in the name of democracy demand that "popular newspapers shall be
edited directly by the people"; he shows the' need for professional
journalists, parliamentarians, etc., for the Social-Democratic
leadership of the proletarian class struggle; he attacks the socialism
of anarchists and litterateurs who in their "striving for
effect" extol direct legislation by the whole people, completely failing
to understand that this idea can be applied only relatively in modern
society.
Those who have performed practical work in our movement know how
widespread the "primitive" conception of democracy is among the masses
of the students and workers. It is not surprising that this conception
penetrates also into rules of organisations and into literature. The
Economists of the Bernsteinian persuasion included in their rules the
following: "§ 10. All affairs affecting the interests of the whole of
the union organisation shall be decided by a majority vote of all its
members." The Economists of the terrorist persuasion repeat after them.
"The decisions of the committee shall become effective only after they
have been referred to all the circles" (Svoboda, No. 1, p. 67). Observe that this proposal for a widely applied referendum is advanced in addition to the demand that the whole of
the organisation be built on an elective basis! We would not, of
course, on this account condemn practical workers who have had too few
opportunities for studying the theory and practice of real democratic
organisations. But when Rabocheye Dyelo, which lays claim to
leadership, confines itself, under such conditions, to a resolution on
broad democratic principles, can this be described as anything but a
mere "striving for effect"?
F. Local and All-Russia Work
The objections raised against the plan of organisation here outlined on
the grounds that it is undemocratic and conspiratorial are totally
unsound. Nevertheless, there remains a question which is frequently put
and which deserves detailed examination. This is the question of the
relations between local work and all-Russia work. Fears are expressed
that the formation of a centralised organisation may shift the centre of
gravity from the former to the latter, damage the movement through
weakening our contacts with the working masses and the continuity of
local agitation generally. To these fears we reply that our movement in
the past few years has suffered precisely from the fact that local
workers have been too absorbed in local work; that therefore it is
absolutely necessary to shift the centre of gravity somewhat to national
work; and that, far from weakening this would strengthen our ties and
the continuity of our local agitation. Let us take the question of
central and local newspapers. I would ask the reader not to forget that
we cite the publication of newspapers only as an example
illustrating an immeasurably broader and more varied revolutionary
activity in general.
In the first period of the mass movement (1896-98), an attempt was made
by local revolutionary workers to publish an all-Russia paper — Rabochaya Gazeta.
In the next period (1898-1900), the movement made an enormous stride
forward, but the attention of the leaders was wholly absorbed by local
publications. If we compute the total number of the local papers that
were published, we shall find that on the average one issue per month
was published.{12} Does this
not clearly illustrate our amateurism? Does this not clearly show that
our revolutionary organisation lags behind the spontaneous growth of the
movement? If the same number of issues had been published, not
by scattered local groups, but by a single organisation, we would not
only have saved an enormous amount of effort, but we would have secured
immeasurably greater stability and continuity in our work. This simple
point is frequently lost sight of by those practical workers who work actively
and almost exclusively on local publications (unfortunately this is
true even now in the overwhelming majority of cases), as well as by the
publicists who display an astonishing quixotism on this question. The
practical workers usually rest content with the argument that "it is
difficult"{13} for local
workers to engage in the organisation of an all-Russia newspaper, and
that local newspapers are better than no newspapers at all. This
argument is, of course, perfectly just, and we, no less than any
practical worker, appreciate the enormous importance and usefulness of
local newspapers in general. But not this is the point. The
point is, can we not overcome the fragmentation and primitiveness that
are so glaringly expressed in the thirty issues of local newspapers that
have been published throughout Russia in the course of two and a half
years? Do not restrict yourselves to the indisputable, but too general,
statement about the usefulness of local newspapers generally; have the
courage frankly to admit their negative aspects revealed by the
experience of two and a half years. This experience has shown that under
the conditions in which we work, these local newspapers prove, in the
majority of cases, to be unstable in their principles, devoid of
political significance, extremely costly in regard to expenditure of
revolutionary forces, and totally unsatisfactory from a technical point
of view (I have in mind, of course, not the technique of printing, but
the frequency and regularity of publication). These defects are riot
accidental; they are the inevitable outcome of the fragmentation which,
on the one hand, explains the predominance of local newspapers in the
period under review, and, on the other, is fostered by this
predominance. It is positively beyond the strength of a separate local
organisation to raise its newspaper to the level of a political organ
maintaining stability of principles; it is beyond its strength
to collect and utilise sufficient material to shed light on the whole of
our political life. The argument usually advanced to support the need
for numerous local newspapers in free countries that the cost of
printing by local workers is low and that the people can be kept more
fully and quickly informed — this argument as experience has shown,
speaks against local newspapers in Russia. They turn out to be
excessively costly in regard to the expenditure of revolutionary forces,
and appear very rarely, for the simple reason that the publication of
an illegal newspaper, however small its size, requires an
extensive secret apparatus, such as is possible with large-scale factory
production; for this apparatus cannot be created in a small, handicraft
workshop. Very frequently, the primitiveness of the secret apparatus
(every practical worker can cite numerous cases) enables the police to
take advantage of the publication and distribution of one or two issues
to make mass arrests, which result in such a clean sweep that
it becomes necessary to start all over again. A well-organised secret
apparatus requires professionally well-trained revolutionaries and a
division of labour applied with the greatest consistency, but both these
requirements are beyond the strength of a separate local organisation,
however strong it may be at any given moment. Not only the general
interests of our movement as a whole (training of the workers in
consistent socialist and political principles) but also specifically
local interests are better served by non-local newspapers. This
may seem paradoxical at first sight, but it has been proved to the hilt
by the two and a half years of experience referred to. Everyone will
agree that had all the local forces that were engaged in the publication
of the thirty issues of newspapers worked on a single newspaper, sixty,
if not a hundred, issues could easily have been published, with a
fuller expression, in consequence, of all the specifically local
features of the movement. True, it is no easy matter to attain such a
degree of organisation, but we must realise the need for it. Every local
study circle must think about it and work actively to achieve
it, without waiting for an impetus from outside, without being tempted
by the popularity and closer proximity of a local newspaper which, as
our revolutionary experience has shown, proves to a large extent to be
illusory.
And it is a bad service indeed those publicists render to the practical
work who, thinking themselves particularly (close to the practical
workers, fail to see this illusoriness, and make shift with the
astoundingly hollow and cheap argument that we must have local
newspapers, we must have district newspapers, and we must have
all-Russia newspapers. Generally speaking, of course, all these are
necessary, but once the solution of a concrete organisational problem is
undertaken, surely time and circumstances must be taken into
consideration. Is it not quixotic for Svoboda (No. 1, p. 68) to write in a special article "dealing with the question of a newspaper":
"It seems to us that every locality, with any appreciable number of
workers, should have its own workers' newspaper; not a newspaper
imported from somewhere, but its very own." If the publicist who wrote
these words refuses to think of their meaning, then at least the reader
may do it for him. How many scores, if not hundreds, of "localities"
with any appreciable number of workers there are in Russia, and what a
perpetuation of our amateurish methods this would mean if indeed every
local organisation set about publishing its own. newspaper! How this
diffusion would facilitate the gendarmerie's task of netting — and
without "any appreciable" effort — the local revolutionary workers at
the very outset of their activity and of preventing them from developing
into real revolutionaries. A reader of an all-Russia newspaper,
continues the author, would find little interest in the descriptions of
the. malpractices of the factory owners and the "details of factory life
in various towns not his own". But "an inhabitant of Orel would not
find Orel affairs dull reading. In every issue he would learn who had
been 'picked for a lambasting' and who had been 'flayed', and he would
be in high spirits" (p. 69). Certainly, the Orel reader is in high
spirits, but our publicist's flights of imagination are also high — too
high. He should have asked himself whether such concern with
trivialities is tactically in order. We are second to none in
appreciating the importance and necessity of factory exposures, but it
must be borne in mind that we have reached a stage when St. Petersburg
folk find it dull reading the St. Petersburg correspondence of the St.
Petersburg Rabochaya Mysl. Leaflets are the medium through which local factory exposures have always been and must continue to be made, but we must raise the level of the newspaper,
not lower it to the level of a factory leaflet. What we ask of a
newspaper is not so much "petty" exposures, as exposures of the major,
typical evils of factory life, exposures based on especially striking
facts and capable, therefore, of arousing the interest of all workers
and all leaders of the movement, of really enriching their knowledge,
broadening their outlook, and serving as a starting-point for awakening
new districts and workers from ever-newer trade areas.
"Moreover, in a local newspaper, all the malpractices of the factory
administration and other authorities may he denounced then and there. In
the case of a general, distant newspaper, however, by the time the news
reaches it the facts will have been forgotten in the source localities.
The reader, on getting the paper, will exclaim: 'When was that-who
remembers it?'" (ibid.). Precisely — who remembers it! From the
same source we learn that the 30 issues of newspapers which appeared in
the course of two and a half years were published in six cities. This
averages one issue per city per half-year! And even if our frivolous publicist trebled
his estimate of the productivity of local work (which would be wrong in
the case of an average town, since it is impossible to increase
productivity to any considerable extent by our rule-of-thumb methods),
we would still get only one issue every two months, i.e., nothing at all
like "denouncing then and there". It would suffice, however, for ten
local organisations to combine and send their delegates to take an
active part in organising a general newspaper, to enable us every
fortnight to "denounce", over the whole of Russia, not petty,
but really outstanding and typical evils. No one who knows the state of
affairs in our organisations can have the slightest doubt on that score.
As for catching the enemy red-handed — if we mean it seriously and not
merely as a pretty phrase — that is quite beyond the ability of an
illegal paper generally. It can be done only by a leaflet, because the
time limit for exposures of that nature can be a day or two at the most
(e.g., the usual brief strikes, violent factory clashes, demonstrations,
etc.).
"The workers live not only at the factory, but also in the city,"
continues our author, rising from the particular to the general, with a
strict consistency that would have done honour to Boris Krichevsky
himself; and he refers to matters like municipal councils, municipal
hospitals, municipal schools, and demands that workers' newspapers
should not ignore municipal affairs in general.
This demand — excellent in itself — serves as a particularly vivid
illustration of the empty abstraction to which discussions of local
newspapers are all too frequently limited. In the first place, if indeed
newspapers appeared "in every locality with any appreciable number of
workers" with such detailed information on municipal affairs as Svoboda
desires, this would, under our Russian conditions, inevitably
degenerate into actual concern with trivialities, lead to a weakening of
the consciousness of the importance of an all-Russia revolutionary
assault upon the tsarist autocracy, and strengthen the extremely virile
shoots — not uprooted but rather hidden or temporarily suppressed — of
the tendency that has become noted as a result of the famous remark
about revolutionaries who talk a great deal about non-existent
parliaments and too little about existent municipal councils. We say
"inevitably", in order to emphasise that Svoboda obviously does
not desire this, but the contrary, to come about. But good intentions
are not enough. For municipal affairs to be dealt with in their proper
perspective, in relation to our entire work, this perspective must first
be clearly conceived, firmly established, not only by argument, but by
numerous examples, so that it may acquire the stability of a tradition. This is still far from being the case with us. Yet this must be done first, before we can allow ourselves to think and talk about an extensive local press.
Secondly, to write really well and interestingly about municipal
affairs, one must have first-hand knowledge, not book knowledge, of the
issues. But there are hardly any Social-Democrats anywhere in Russia
who possess such knowledge. To be able to write in newspapers (not in
popular pamphlets) about municipal and state affairs, one must have
fresh and varied material gathered and written up by able people. And in
order to be able to gather and write up such material, we must have
something more than the "primitive democracy" of a primitive circle, in
which everybody does everything and all entertain themselves by playing
at referendums. It is necessary to have a staff of expert writers and
correspondents, an army of Social-Democratic reporters who establish
contacts far and wide, who are able to fathom all sorts of "state
secrets" (the knowledge of which makes the Russian government official
so puffed up, but the blabbing of which is such an easy matter to him),
who are able to penetrate "behind the scenes" — an army of' people who
must, as their "official duty", be ubiquitous and omniscient. And we,
the Party that fights against all economic, political, social, and
national oppression, can and must find, gather, train, mobilise, and set
into motion such an army of omniscient people — all of which requires
still to be done. Not only has not a single step in this direction been
taken in the overwhelming majority of localities, but even the
recognition of its necessity is very often lacking. One will search in
vain in our Social-Democratic press for lively and interesting articles,
correspondence, and exposures dealing with our big and little affairs —
diplomatic, military, ecclesiastical, municipal, financial, etc., etc.
There is almost nothing, or very little, about these matters.{14}
That is why "it always annoys me frightfully when a man comes to me,
utters beautiful and charming words" about the need for newspapers in
"every locality with any appreciable number of workers" that will expose
factory, municipal, and government evils.
The predominance of the local papers over a central press may be a sign
of either poverty or luxury. Of poverty, when the movement has not yet
developed the forces for large-scale production, continues to flounder
in amateurism, and is all but swamped with "the petty details of factory
life". Of luxury, when the movement has fully mastered the
task of comprehensive exposure and comprehensive agitation, and it
becomes necessary to publish numerous local newspapers in addition to
the central organ. Let each decide for himself what the predominance of
local newspapers implies in present-day Russia. I shall limit myself to a
precise formulation of my own conclusion, to leave no grounds for
misunderstanding. Hitherto, the majority of our local organisations have
thought almost exclusively in terms of local newspapers, and have
devoted almost all their activities to this work. This is abnormal; the
very opposite should have been the case. The majority of the local
organisations should think principally of the publication of an
all-Russia newspaper and devote their activities chiefly to it. Until
this is done, we shall not be able to establish a single newspaper capable, to any degree, of serving the movement with comprehensive
press agitation. When this is done, however, normal relations between
the necessary central newspaper and the necessary local newspapers will
be established automatically.
* *
*
It would seem at first glance that the conclusion on the necessity for
shifting the centre of gravity from local to all-Russia work does not
apply to the sphere of the specifically economic struggle. In this
struggle, the immediate enemies of the workers are the individual
employers or groups of employers, who are not bound by any organisation
having even the remotest resemblance to the purely military, strictly
centralised organisation of the Russian Government — our immediate enemy
in the political struggle — which is led in all its minutest details by
a single will.
But that is not the case. As we have repeatedly pointed out, the
economic struggle is a trade struggle, and for that reason it requires
that the workers be organised according to trades, not only according to
place of employment. Organisation by trades becomes all the more
urgently necessary, the more rapidly our employers organise in all sorts
of companies and syndicates. Our fragmentation and our amateurism are
an outright hindrance to this work of organisation which requires the
existence of a single, all-Russia body of revolutionaries capable of
giving leadership to the all-Russia trade unions. We have described
above the type of organisation that is needed for this purpose; we shall
now add but a few words on the question of our press in this
connection.
Hardly anyone will doubt the necessity for every Social-Democratic newspaper to have a special department
devoted to the trade union (economic) struggle. But the growth of the
trade union movement compels us to think about the creation of a trade
union press. It seems to us, however, that with rare exceptions, there
can be no question of trade union newspapers in Russia at the present
time; they would be a luxury, and many a time we lack even our daily
bread. The form of trade union press that would suit the conditions of
our illegal work and is already required at the present time is trade union pamphlets. In these pamphlets, legal{15}
and illegal material should be gathered and grouped systematically, on
the working conditions in a given trade, on the differences in this
respect in the various parts of, Russia; on the main demands advanced by
the workers in the given trade; on the inadequacies of legislation
affecting that trade; on outstanding instances of economic struggle by
the workers in the trade; on the beginnings, the present state, and the
requirements of their trade union organisation, etc. Such pamphlets
would, in the first place, relieve our Social-Democratic press of a mass
of trade details that are of interest only to workers in the given
trade. Secondly, they would record the results of our experience in the
trade union struggle, they would preserve the gathered material, which
now literally gets lost in a mass of leaflets and fragmentary
correspondence; and they would summarise this material. Thirdly, they
could serve as guides for agitators, because working conditions change
relatively slow ly and the main demands of the workers in a given trade
are extremely stable (cf., for example, the demands advanced by the
weavers in the Moscow district in 1885 and in the St. Petersburg
district in 1896). A compilation of such demands and needs might serve
for years as an excellent handbook for agitators on economic questions
in backward localities or among the backward strata of the workers.
Examples of successful strikes in a given region, information on higher
living standards, on improved working conditions, in one locality, would
encourage the workers in other localities to take up the fight again
and again. Fourthly, having made a start in generalising the trade union
struggle and in this way strengthening the link between the Russian
trade union movement and socialism, the Social-Democrats would at the
same time see to it that our trade union work occupied neither too small
nor too large a place in our Social-Democratic work as a whole. A local
organisation that is cut off from organisations in other towns finds it
very difficult, sometimes almost impossible, to maintain a correct
sense of pro portion (the example of Rabochaya Mysl shows what a
monstrous exaggeration can be made in the direction of trade-unionism)
But an all-Russia organisation of revolutionaries that stands
undeviatingly on the basis of Marxism, that leads the entire political
struggle and possesses a staff of professional agitators, will never
find it difficult to determine the proper proportion.
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