Quiz: “Left-Wing” Communism: An Infantile Disorder

All 46 questions. A perfect score earns the gold medal; 80% earns silver.

1. For how long does Lenin say the Bolsheviks had held power when he wrote? Two and a half years Eighteen months Three and a half years Just over one year
2. Which maxim does the Detroit introduction invoke to urge readers to consider Lenin’s position? Workers of the world, unite! Marxism is not a dogma but a guide to action No compromise, no political trading The emancipation of the workers must be the act of the workers themselves
3. What does Lenin expect will happen after a proletarian revolution wins in an advanced country? Russia will lead a single world Soviet state, with Moscow as its capital Russia will abandon the dictatorship of the proletariat as no longer necessary The Second International will be revived Russia will cease to be the model and become backward again in the Soviet sense
4. What does Lenin conclude from Lloyd George’s speech? That his speech proves revolution impossible in Britain for a generation at least That he is clever, has learned from the Marxists, and Communists can learn from him That he is a secret Socialist who will soon go over to the Labour Party That the Liberals will win the next election
5. How does Lenin describe the revolution of 1905 in relation to October 1917? As a peasant revolt with no working-class role As a general rehearsal without which October would have been impossible As a mistake the Bolsheviks should never have joined, since it was led by liberals As a purely bourgeois revolution, irrelevant to the events of 1917
6. What, besides international capital and habit, does Lenin say sustains the power of the bourgeoisie after its overthrow? The armies of the Entente and the White generals The Orthodox Church and the old village clergy Small production, which daily gives birth to capitalism The peasant commune
7. What new form of mass organisation does Lenin say the revolution of 1905 showed the world? The Red Army The co-operative societies The trade unions The Soviets
8. Which Bolshevik boycott of a parliament does Lenin call successful and correct? The boycott of the Constituent Assembly The boycott of 1905 The boycott of the Fourth Duma The boycott of 1917
9. How does Lenin say he would support Henderson with his vote? As a rope supports a hanged man As a buttress supports a church wall As a crutch supports the lame beggar As a soldier supports his officer
10. After which event does Lenin say the revival of 1910–1914 became more rapid? The assassination of Stolypin in Kiev in 1911 The founding of the Third International The events in the Lena mines in 1912 The amnesty for the Romanov tercentenary in 1913
11. What question does the Frankfurt pamphlet of the German opposition pose? Whether the revolution should begin in the countryside among the agricultural labourers Whether the Communists should merge with the Independent Social Democrats at once Whether Germany should join the League of Nations Whether the dictatorship should be that of the Communist Party or of the class
12. Which newspaper published the interview with Turati that Lenin quotes? Avanti!, the Socialist daily The Manchester Guardian Il Soviet The Times of London
13. What does Lenin say Gallacher fails to take into account? That politics is an art, and the proletariat needs its own politicians That the Labour Party is already Communist in all but its name and programme That the British bourgeoisie is far weaker than the German and could be overthrown without Parliament That the Parliament at Westminster can never be captured by working-class votes
14. What must the mass of the class adopt before the vanguard is thrown into the final struggle? Direct support of the vanguard, or at least benevolent neutrality to it Membership of the Communist Party or of its youth and trade-union bodies Armed organisation in every factory, ready to rise at a given signal A complete knowledge of Marxist theory, gained through party schooling
15. What comparison does Lenin use to explain the error of Kautsky and Otto Bauer? Politics is a game of chess against a stronger player Politics is a war of position, not of manoeuvre Politics resembles algebra more than arithmetic Politics is like the weather
16. Which police agent does Lenin say got into the Bolshevik Central Committee in 1912? Yevno Azef Sergei Zubatov Father Gapon Malinovsky
17. On what condition does Lenin propose an electoral bloc with Henderson and Snowden? That Labour leave the Second International before the elections That Labour adopt the Soviet system as its programme That the Communists receive half the seats contested by the bloc That the Communists keep full freedom of agitation and criticism
18. To what does Lenin compare the German Left’s talk of “masses” and “leaders”? A new Volapük, an artificial jargon A sermon preached in Church Latin A railway timetable Hamlet without the Prince
19. Which article of Kautsky’s does Lenin quote to show that he once foresaw Russia’s revolutionary role? “The Dictatorship of the Proletariat”, Vienna 1918 “The Slavs and the Revolution”, Iskra, 1902 “The Road to Power”, published in Berlin, 1909 “The Class Struggle”, his Erfurt commentary, 1892
20. Which “left” Communists does Lenin say admitted their mistake over the Brest Treaty? Trotsky and Zinoviev Bogdanov and Lunacharsky Kamenev and Rykov Radek and Bukharin
21. What example does Lenin give to show that taking part in elections does not confuse the masses? The Bolsheviks won a majority in the Fourth Duma in 1912, yet went on to overthrow the tsar The Mensheviks won the Constituent Assembly elections and so discredited parliamentarism The Bolsheviks boycotted the elections of 1917 and still won the support of the workers Bolsheviks stood in elections to the Constituent Assembly, then dispersed it in January 1918
22. What, according to Lenin’s “fundamental law of revolution”, is needed besides the masses’ refusal to live in the old way? That the rulers are unable to govern as of old That a general strike has been declared That the army has been defeated in war That the Communist Party has a parliamentary majority
23. How many members did the Russian Communist Party have in April 1920, according to Lenin? 4 million 61,000 6.1 million 611,000
24. From which year does Lenin date Bolshevism as a current of thought and a party? 1898 1905 1903 1912
25. Whose rejection of all compromise did Engels criticise in 1874? Thirty-three Blanquist refugees of the Commune The Eisenachers around Bebel and Liebknecht The Lassallean party of the General German Workers’ Association The English Chartists of the old physical-force wing
26. In whose name does Gallacher write his anti-parliamentary letter? The Scottish council of the Independent Labour Party The Lanarkshire branch of the Miners’ Federation The Scottish Workers’ Committee of Glasgow The British Socialist Party’s Glasgow branch
27. In the article Lenin quotes, what does Kautsky say the Slavs were in 1848? The storm that broke the ice of reaction in Europe The vanguard of the European revolution of the peoples Neutral spectators of the revolution The crackling frost that killed the flowers of spring
28. Why, according to Lloyd George’s speech, would a crash in Britain be greater than elsewhere? The Liberals and Conservatives are divided over Ireland and cannot govern Britain has the largest army in Europe Britain is overwhelmingly industrial, without a large agricultural population to steady it The monarchy has lost all authority
29. Which group is not among the four British organisations Lenin lists as negotiating to form a Communist Party? The Fabian Society The British Socialist Party The Workers’ Socialist Federation The Socialist Labor Party
30. When, Lenin says, did the party last open its doors wide to workers and peasants? When Yudenich was near Petrograd and Denikin was in Orel When the Civil War had been won and the Whites were driven out After the signing of the Brest Peace with Germany in March 1918 On the day of the October insurrection in Petrograd in 1917
31. What share of the vote does Lenin say the Bolsheviks had at the First Congress of Soviets in June 1917? 25 per cent 13 per cent 51 per cent 3 per cent
32. Whom does Lenin cite as examples of a truly revolutionary use of reactionary parliaments? Philipp Scheidemann and Arthur Henderson Karl Liebknecht and Z. Höglund Victor Adler and Otto Bauer Jean Jaurès and Keir Hardie of the ILP
33. Which Italian paper does Lenin cite as evidence of an approaching split in Italy? L’Ordine Nuovo Il Soviet Il Popolo d’Italia Avanti!
34. What analogy does Lenin use to justify the Brest Treaty? A general retreating before a siege to save his army intact A merchant selling his goods at a loss to avoid ruin A surgeon amputating a limb Handing over one’s car and money to armed bandits to escape
35. According to the Detroit introduction, how many workers did the American Federation of Labor organise? Four million One and a half million Ten million Four hundred thousand
36. Who, according to Lenin, opposed the German Left’s view in January 1919 that parliamentarism was “politically worn-out”? Kautsky and Hilferding of the Independents Scheidemann and Noske of the majority SPD Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht Legien and Ebert
37. What lesson does Lenin say the years of reaction (1907–1910) taught the revolutionary parties? That legal work in the Duma and the unions is always futile That emigration should be abandoned That individual terror is the only effective weapon left How to retreat correctly as well as how to attack
38. What slogan does the German opposition adopt? “Down with the trade-union bureaucrats, up with the revolutionary factory councils” “All power to the Soviets, and no power whatever to the parties or their leaders” “Neither parliament nor party, but the workers’ council alone shall rule” “There the dictatorship of the leaders, here the dictatorship of the mass”
39. What did the Bolsheviks do when Zubatov organised police-sponsored workers’ societies? Sent party members into them to win the workers away Organised armed attacks on their meetings and offices Boycotted them completely and denounced them in the illegal press Asked the Duma to ban them
40. Whose followers does Lenin credit with calling opportunist union leaders “labor lieutenants of the capitalist class”? Daniel De Leon’s Karl Kautsky’s Eugene Debs’s Samuel Gompers’s
41. What does Lenin call the trade unions under the dictatorship of the proletariat? Relics of capitalism to be abolished Organs of state power Branches of the Communist Party A “school of Communism”
42. Who edited the Workers’ Dreadnought, whose arguments Lenin answers? Albert Inkpin George Lansbury William Gallacher Sylvia Pankhurst
43. Which of these is not one of Lenin’s three foundations of party discipline? The ability to merge with the toiling, non-proletarian masses Correct political leadership the workers can verify by experience The class-consciousness and devotion of the vanguard Strict obedience to rules, regardless of the masses
44. What did Sylvia Pankhurst conclude from her expectation that the Labour Party would soon come to power? Communists should abstain from all politics and work only in the workshops and factories Communists should support the Liberals against Labour at the next general election in every constituency Communists should not add to Labour’s strength but prepare to attack its government Communists should join the Labour Party at once and fight from within for its leadership
45. Which boycott does Lenin consider to have been correct? The boycott of the Third Duma elections in the autumn of 1907 and 1908 The boycott of the consultative Duma proclaimed in August 1905 The boycott of the legal trade unions and insurance funds in 1912 The boycott of the Constituent Assembly in 1917
46. What does Lenin advise a future Soviet Germany to do about the Versailles Treaty? Repudiate it immediately and go to war with the Entente in alliance with Russia Accept it for a time, as Soviet Russia accepted the Brest Peace Make its repudiation the first and overriding aim of the German revolution Ask the League of Nations to revise it

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