12. Will the Sweep of the Democratic Revolution Be Weakened if the Bourgeoisie Recoils from It?

The preceding lines had already been written when we received the resolutions of the Caucasian Conference of the new-Iskrists, published by Iskra. Pour la bonne bouche (as a titbit to finish with) we could not have invented better material.

The editors of Iskra rightly remark: “On the fundamental question of tactics the Caucasian Conference also arrived at a decision analogous” (true!) “to the one adopted at the all-Russian Conference” (that is, the new-Iskrist one). “The question of the attitude of Social-Democracy to the provisional revolutionary government was decided by the Caucasian comrades in the sense of the most negative attitude to the new method propagated by the Vperyod group and the delegates of the so-called congress who joined it.” “The formulation of the tactics of the proletarian party in the bourgeois revolution given by the Conference must be recognised as a very happy one.”

What is true is true. No one could have given a “happier” formulation of the fundamental mistake of the new-Iskrists. We quote this formulation in full, noting in brackets first the little flowers and then the berries served up at the end.

The resolution of the Caucasian Conference of the new-Iskrists on the provisional government:

That is where the dog lies buried. That is where anarchist ideas are interwoven (as constantly happens among the West-European Bernsteinians too) with the purest opportunism. Just think: not to enter the provisional government because that would cause the bourgeoisie to recoil from the cause of the revolution and would thereby weaken the sweep of the revolution! Here we have before us, entire, in pure and consistent form, the new-Iskrist philosophy that, since the revolution is bourgeois, we must therefore bow down before bourgeois vulgarity and make way for it. If we are guided, even partly, even for a moment, by the consideration that our participation may cause the bourgeoisie to recoil, we thereby yield the leadership of the revolution entirely to the bourgeois classes. We thereby place the proletariat entirely under the tutelage of the bourgeoisie (while retaining complete “freedom of criticism”!!), compelling the proletariat to be moderate and meek so that the bourgeoisie does not recoil. We emasculate the most urgent needs of the proletariat, namely its political needs, which the “Economists” and their epigones never properly understood; we emasculate them so that the bourgeoisie does not recoil. We pass over entirely from the ground of revolutionary struggle for the realisation of democracy to the extent the proletariat needs, to the ground of haggling with the bourgeoisie, buying its voluntary consent (“so that it does not recoil”) with our betrayal of principles, our betrayal of the revolution.

In two short lines the Caucasian new-Iskrists managed to express the whole essence of the tactics of betraying the revolution, of turning the proletariat into a wretched hanger-on of the bourgeois classes. What we deduced above from the mistakes of new-Iskrism as a tendency is now raised before us into a clear and definite principle: at the tail of the monarchist bourgeoisie. Since the realisation of a republic would cause the bourgeoisie to recoil (and is already doing so: the example of Mr Struve), down with the struggle for a republic. Since every energetic democratic demand of the proletariat that is carried through to the end always and everywhere in the world causes the bourgeoisie to recoil, therefore hide in your holes, comrade workers, act only from outside, do not think of using the instruments and means of the “bourgeois-state” system for the revolution, and keep for yourselves “freedom of criticism”.

The basic falsity in the very understanding of the term “bourgeois revolution” has come to the surface here. The Martynov or new-Iskrist “understanding” of it leads straight to the betrayal of the cause of the proletariat into the hands of the bourgeoisie.

Whoever has forgotten the old “Economism”, whoever does not study it or remember it, will find it hard to understand the present belch of “Economism” too. Recall the Bernsteinian Credo. From “purely proletarian” views and programmes people deduced: for us Social-Democrats, economics, the real workers’ cause, freedom to criticise all political scheming, the real deepening of Social-Democratic work. For them, the liberals, politics. God forbid that we should fall into “revolutionism”: that would cause the bourgeoisie to recoil. Whoever rereads the Credo in full, or the separate Supplement to No. 9 of Rabochaya Mysl (September 1899), will see this whole line of reasoning.

Now we have the same thing, only on a large scale, applied to the assessment of the whole “great” Russian revolution, which, alas, is vulgarised and reduced to a caricature in advance by the theoreticians of orthodox philistinism! For us Social-Democrats, freedom of criticism, the deepening of consciousness, action from outside. For them, the bourgeois classes, freedom of action, a free field for revolutionary (read: liberal) leadership, freedom to carry out “reforms” from above.

These vulgarisers of Marxism have never pondered Marx’s words about the necessity of replacing the weapon of criticism by the criticism of weapons. Taking Marx’s name in vain, they in fact draw up tactical resolutions entirely in the spirit of the Frankfurt bourgeois talkers, who freely criticised absolutism and deepened democratic consciousness, and did not understand that a time of revolution is a time of action, of action both from above and from below. Having turned Marxism into hair-splitting, they have made the ideology of the advanced, most determined and energetic revolutionary class into the ideology of its least developed strata, who shrink from the difficult revolutionary-democratic tasks and leave these democratic tasks to the Messrs Struve.

If, because Social-Democracy enters the revolutionary government, the bourgeois classes recoil from the cause of the revolution, they will thereby “weaken its sweep”.

Do you hear, Russian workers? The sweep of the revolution will be stronger if it is carried through by the Messrs Struve, not frightened off by the Social-Democrats, who want not victory over tsarism but a deal with it. The sweep of the revolution will be stronger if, of the two possible outcomes we outlined above, the first is realised, that is, if the monarchist bourgeoisie strikes a bargain with the autocracy on a “constitution” of the Shipov type!

Social-Democrats who write such shameful things in resolutions meant to guide the whole party, or who approve these “happy” resolutions, are so blinded by hair-splitting, which has eaten all the living spirit out of Marxism, that they do not notice how these resolutions turn all their other fine words into phrases. Take any article of theirs in Iskra, take even the notorious pamphlet of our celebrated Martynov: you will hear talk of a people’s uprising, of carrying the revolution through to the end, of striving to rely on the common people in the struggle against the inconsistent bourgeoisie. But all these fine things turn into a pitiful phrase from the moment you accept or approve the idea that “the sweep of the revolution” will be “weakened” by the estrangement of the bourgeoisie. One or the other, gentlemen: either we, together with the people, must strive to carry through the revolution and win a complete victory over tsarism in spite of the inconsistent, self-seeking and cowardly bourgeoisie; or we do not admit this “in spite of”, we fear that the bourgeoisie may “recoil”, and then we betray the proletariat and the people to the bourgeoisie, the inconsistent, self-seeking and cowardly bourgeoisie.

Do not try to misinterpret my words. Do not shout that you are being accused of conscious betrayal. No, you have been crawling all along, and have now crawled into the mire, just as unconsciously as the old “Economists”, drawn irresistibly and irrevocably down the inclined plane of “deepening” Marxism into anti-revolutionary, soulless and lifeless “clever-clever” reasoning.

On what real social forces does “the sweep of the revolution” depend? Have you thought about that, gentlemen? Let us leave aside the forces of foreign policy, the international combinations, which have turned out very favourably for us at present, but which we all leave out of consideration, and rightly so, since the question concerns the internal forces of Russia. Look at these internal social forces. Against the revolution stand the autocracy, the court, the police, the bureaucracy, the army and a handful of the high nobility. The deeper the indignation of the people, the less reliable the army becomes and the more the bureaucracy wavers. Further, the bourgeoisie on the whole now stands for the revolution, zealously making speeches about liberty and speaking more and more often in the name of the people and even in the name of the revolution. But all of us Marxists know from theory, and observe daily and hourly in the example of our liberals, Zemstvo men and Osvobozhdenie people, that the bourgeoisie stands for the revolution inconsistently, self-seekingly and in a cowardly way. The bourgeoisie, in the mass, will inevitably turn to the side of the counter-revolution, to the side of the autocracy against the revolution, against the people, as soon as its narrow, self-seeking interests are satisfied, as soon as it “recoils” from consistent democracy (and it is already recoiling from it!). There remains the “people”, that is, the proletariat and the peasantry. The proletariat alone can be relied on to go to the end, for it goes far beyond the democratic revolution. That is why the proletariat fights in the front ranks for a republic, contemptuously rejecting the stupid advice, unworthy of it, to take into account whether the bourgeoisie might recoil. The peasantry includes a mass of semi-proletarian elements alongside petty-bourgeois ones. This makes it unstable too, and compels the proletariat to unite in a strictly class party. But the instability of the peasantry differs radically from the instability of the bourgeoisie, for at present the peasantry is interested not so much in the absolute protection of private property as in the confiscation of the landlords’ land, one of the principal forms of that property. Without thereby becoming socialist, without ceasing to be petty-bourgeois, the peasantry is capable of becoming a whole-hearted and most radical supporter of the democratic revolution. The peasantry will inevitably become such, provided only that the course of revolutionary events, which is enlightening it, is not broken off too soon by the treachery of the bourgeoisie and the defeat of the proletariat. Given that condition, the peasantry will inevitably become a bulwark of the revolution and the republic, for only a completely victorious revolution can give the peasantry everything in the sphere of agrarian reform, everything the peasantry wants, dreams of and really needs (not for the abolition of capitalism, as the “Socialist-Revolutionaries” imagine, but) in order to raise itself out of the mire of semi-serfdom, out of the darkness of oppression and servility, in order to improve its living conditions as far as is possible within the limits of commodity production.

More than that: it is not only the radical agrarian reform that binds the peasantry to the revolution, but all the general and permanent interests of the peasantry. Even in its struggle against the proletariat the peasantry needs democracy, for only a democratic system can give exact expression to its interests and give it predominance as the mass, as the majority. The more enlightened the peasantry becomes (and since the war with Japan it has been becoming enlightened at a rate that many do not suspect, being used to measuring enlightenment only by the school yardstick), the more consistently and resolutely will it stand for a complete democratic revolution, for, unlike the bourgeoisie, it has nothing to fear from the supremacy of the people, but on the contrary stands to gain by it. A democratic republic will become its ideal as soon as it begins to free itself from its naive monarchism, for the conscious monarchism of the stockjobbing bourgeoisie (with an upper chamber, etc.) means for the peasantry the same lack of rights, the same oppression and ignorance, only very slightly touched up with a European constitutional varnish.

That is why the bourgeoisie as a class naturally and inevitably strives to come under the wing of the liberal-monarchist party, while the peasantry as a mass strives to come under the leadership of the revolutionary and republican party. That is why the bourgeoisie is incapable of carrying the democratic revolution through to the end, while the peasantry is capable of carrying the revolution through to the end, and we must help it to do so with all our might.

I shall be told: there is no need to prove this, this is the ABC, all Social-Democrats understand it perfectly well. No, it is not understood by those who are capable of talking of a “weakening of the sweep” of the revolution as a result of the bourgeoisie falling away from it. Such people repeat the memorised words of our agrarian programme without understanding their meaning, for otherwise they would not be afraid of the concept of the revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry, which follows inevitably from the whole Marxist outlook and from our programme; otherwise they would not limit the sweep of the great Russian revolution to the sweep of the bourgeoisie. Such people refute their abstract Marxist revolutionary phrases with their concrete anti-Marxist and anti-revolutionary resolutions.

Whoever really understands the role of the peasantry in a victorious Russian revolution would be incapable of saying that the sweep of the revolution will be weakened when the bourgeoisie recoils. For in fact the real sweep of the Russian revolution will only begin then, it will only then be really the greatest revolutionary sweep possible in the epoch of the bourgeois-democratic revolution, when the bourgeoisie recoils and the mass of the peasantry comes out as an active revolutionary force side by side with the proletariat. In order to be consistently carried through to the end, our democratic revolution must rely on forces capable of paralysing the inevitable inconsistency of the bourgeoisie (that is, capable precisely of “causing it to recoil”, which the Caucasian supporters of Iskra fear through lack of understanding).

The proletariat must carry the democratic revolution through to the end, by allying to itself the mass of the peasantry, in order to crush by force the resistance of the autocracy and to paralyse the instability of the bourgeoisie. The proletariat must accomplish the socialist revolution, by allying to itself the mass of the semi-proletarian elements of the population, in order to break by force the resistance of the bourgeoisie and to paralyse the instability of the peasantry and the petty bourgeoisie. Such are the tasks of the proletariat, which the new-Iskrists present so narrowly in all their arguments and resolutions about the sweep of the revolution.

Only one circumstance must not be forgotten, one that is often lost sight of in arguments about this “sweep”. It must not be forgotten that the question is not of the difficulties of the task but of the path on which its solution is to be sought and achieved. The question is not whether it is easy or difficult to make the sweep of the revolution mighty and invincible, but how one should act in order to strengthen this sweep. The divergence concerns precisely the basic character of our activity, its very direction. We emphasise this because inattentive and unscrupulous people all too often confuse two different questions: the question of the direction of the path, that is, of the choice of one of two different paths, and the question of how easily the aim can be reached, or how near it is, on the given path.

We have not touched at all on this latter question in the foregoing exposition, because it has not given rise to disagreements and divergences within the party. But of course the question is in itself extremely important and deserves the most serious attention of all Social-Democrats. It would be impermissible optimism to forget the difficulties involved in drawing into the movement the mass not only of the working class but of the peasantry as well. It is precisely on these difficulties that efforts to carry the democratic revolution through to the end have more than once been wrecked, and it was the inconsistent and self-seeking bourgeoisie that triumphed most, which both “made capital” out of monarchist protection against the people and “preserved the innocence” of liberalism... or of Osvobozhdenie-ism. But difficulty does not mean impossibility. What matters is confidence that the path chosen is the right one, and this confidence multiplies a hundredfold the revolutionary energy and revolutionary enthusiasm that can work miracles.

How deep the divergence among present-day Social-Democrats on the question of the choice of path is, can be seen at once from a comparison of the Caucasian resolution of the new-Iskrists and the resolution of the Third Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party. The resolution of the Congress says: the bourgeoisie is inconsistent, it will certainly try to take the gains of the revolution away from us. Therefore prepare more energetically for the struggle, comrade workers, arm yourselves, win the peasantry over to your side. We shall not yield our revolutionary gains to the self-seeking bourgeoisie without a fight. The resolution of the Caucasian new-Iskrists says: the bourgeoisie is inconsistent, it may recoil from the revolution. Therefore, comrade workers, please do not think of participating in the provisional government, for then the bourgeoisie will certainly recoil, and the sweep of the revolution will be weaker as a result!

Some say: push the revolution forward, to the end, in spite of the resistance or the passivity of the inconsistent bourgeoisie.

Others say: do not think of carrying the revolution through to the end independently, for then the inconsistent bourgeoisie will recoil from it.

Are not these two diametrically opposite paths? Is it not obvious that the one tactic absolutely excludes the other? That the first tactic is the only correct tactic of revolutionary Social-Democracy, while the second is in essence a purely Osvobozhdenie tactic?