4. The Abolition of the Monarchical System and the Republic

Let us pass on to the next part of the resolution:

Let us dwell on this part, which forms an independent section of the resolution. The basic idea of the arguments we have quoted coincides with that set out in point 3 of the congress resolution. But on comparing the two resolutions in this part, the following radical difference between them strikes the eye at once. The resolution of the congress, characterising the social and economic basis of the revolution in a couple of words, concentrates all attention on the sharply defined struggle of classes for definite gains and puts the fighting tasks of the proletariat in the forefront. The resolution of the Conference, describing the social and economic basis of the revolution at length, vaguely and confusedly, speaks very unclearly about the struggle for definite gains and leaves the fighting tasks of the proletariat entirely in the shade. The resolution of the Conference speaks of the abolition of the old order in the process of mutual struggle among the elements of society. The resolution of the congress says that we, the party of the proletariat, must carry out this abolition, that real abolition means nothing other than the establishment of a democratic republic, that we must win this republic, that we shall fight for it and for complete liberty not only against the autocracy but also against the bourgeoisie, when it tries (and it certainly will try) to take our gains from us. The resolution of the congress calls a definite class to struggle for a precisely defined immediate aim. The resolution of the Conference reasons about the mutual struggle of various forces. The one resolution expresses the psychology of active struggle, the other that of passive spectatorship; the one is imbued with a call to living activity, the other with lifeless reasoning. Both resolutions state that the present revolution is for us only the first step, which will be followed by a second; but from this the one resolution draws the conclusion that we must the sooner take this first step, the sooner get it over, win the republic, mercilessly crush the counter-revolution and prepare the ground for the second step. The other resolution, so to speak, oozes away in verbose descriptions of this first step and (pardon the vulgar expression) chews the cud of thoughts about it. The resolution of the congress takes the old and eternally new ideas of Marxism (on the bourgeois character of the democratic revolution) as a preface, or first premise, for conclusions about the advanced tasks of the advanced class, which is fighting both for the democratic and for the socialist revolution. The resolution of the Conference never gets beyond the preface, chewing it over and being clever about it.

This difference is precisely the difference that has long divided the Russian Marxists into two wings: the reasoning wing and the fighting wing in the old days of legal Marxism, the economic wing and the political wing in the epoch of the beginning mass movement. From the correct premise of Marxism about the deep economic roots of the class struggle in general and of the political struggle in particular, the “Economists” drew the original conclusion that we must turn our backs on the political struggle and hold back its development, narrow its scope, belittle its tasks. The politicals, on the contrary, drew a different conclusion from the same premises, namely that the deeper the roots of our struggle are now, the more widely, boldly, resolutely and with greater initiative we must wage this struggle. We have the same dispute before us now, in a different setting and in a modified form. From the premises that the democratic revolution is by no means yet a socialist revolution, that it by no means “interests” only the propertyless, that its deepest roots lie in the inescapable needs and requirements of the whole of bourgeois society as a whole, we draw the conclusion that the advanced class must therefore put forward its democratic tasks all the more boldly, state them all the more sharply to the very end, put forward the direct slogan of a republic, propagate the idea of the necessity of a provisional revolutionary government and of the necessity of mercilessly crushing the counter-revolution. Our opponents, the new-Iskrists, on the other hand, draw from these same premises the conclusion that the democratic conclusions need not be stated to the very end, that the republic may be left out of our practical slogans, that it is permissible not to propagate the idea of the necessity of a provisional revolutionary government, that a decision to convene a constituent assembly may also be called a decisive victory, that the task of fighting the counter-revolution need not be put forward as our active task but may be drowned in a vague (and, as we shall see in a moment, wrongly formulated) reference to “the process of mutual struggle”. This is not the language of political leaders, it is the language of some sort of archive clerks!

And the more closely you examine the separate formulations of the new-Iskrist resolution, the more clearly its basic features, as we have indicated them, stand out. We are told, for example, of “the process of mutual struggle among the elements of politically emancipated bourgeois society”. Bearing in mind the subject on which the resolution was written (a provisional revolutionary government), we ask in bewilderment: if one is going to speak of the process of mutual struggle, how can one say nothing of the elements that are politically enslaving bourgeois society? Do the conferees think that, since they have assumed the victory of the revolution, such elements have already disappeared? Such an idea would be an absurdity in general, and the height of political naivety and political short-sightedness in particular. After the victory of the revolution over the counter-revolution, the counter-revolution will not disappear; on the contrary, it will inevitably begin a new and still more desperate struggle. Devoting our resolution to an analysis of the tasks in the event of a victory of the revolution, we are obliged to devote enormous attention to the tasks of repelling the counter-revolutionary onslaught (as the resolution of the congress does), and not to drown these immediate, urgent, topical political tasks of a fighting party in general reflections on what will happen after the present revolutionary epoch, on what will happen when a “politically emancipated society” is already in existence. Just as the “Economists” covered up their failure to understand the topical political tasks by referring to general truths about the subordination of politics to economics, so the new-Iskrists, by their references to general truths about struggle within a politically emancipated society, cover up their failure to understand the topical revolutionary tasks of the political emancipation of that society.

Take the expression “the final abolition of the whole regime of estates and monarchy”. In plain Russian the final abolition of the monarchical system is called the establishment of a democratic republic. But to our good Martynov and his admirers such an expression seems too simple and clear. They absolutely must “deepen” it and say something “cleverer”. The result is, on the one hand, ludicrous efforts at profundity. And on the other hand, instead of a slogan we get a description, instead of a stirring call to go forward we get a kind of melancholy look backward. It is as if we had before us not living people who want to fight for a republic here and now, but petrified mummies who consider the question sub specie aeternitatis from the standpoint of the plusquamperfectum.

Let us go on: “… a provisional government… that took upon itself the carrying out of the tasks of this… bourgeois revolution…”. Here it is at once apparent that our conferees have overlooked the concrete question that has arisen before the political leaders of the proletariat. The concrete question of a provisional revolutionary government has faded from their field of vision before the question of the future series of governments that will carry out the tasks of the bourgeois revolution in general. If you wish to consider the question “historically”, the example of any European country will show you that it was precisely a series of governments, not at all “provisional” ones, that carried out the historical tasks of the bourgeois revolution, that even the governments that defeated the revolution were nevertheless forced to carry out the historical tasks of that defeated revolution. But what is called a “provisional revolutionary government” is not at all what you are talking about: that name is given to the government of a revolutionary epoch which directly replaces the overthrown government and rests on the uprising of the people, and not on some representative institutions that have come from the people. A provisional revolutionary government is the organ of the struggle for the immediate victory of the revolution, for the immediate repulse of counter-revolutionary attempts, and not at all the organ for carrying out the historical tasks of the bourgeois revolution in general. Let us leave it, gentlemen, to the future historians in a future Russkaya Starina to determine which tasks of the bourgeois revolution you and I, or this or that government, have carried out: there will be time enough to do that thirty years hence; what we must do now is give slogans and practical directions for the struggle for a republic and for the most energetic participation of the proletariat in that struggle.

For the reasons indicated, the last propositions of the part of the resolution we have quoted are also unsatisfactory. The expression that the provisional government would have to “regulate” the mutual struggle between the antagonistic classes is extremely unfortunate, or at least awkward: Marxists ought not to use such a liberal Osvobozhdenie formulation, which gives grounds for thinking that there can be governments that serve not as an organ of the class struggle but as its “regulator”… The government would have “not only to push revolutionary development forward but also to fight against those factors in it that threaten the foundations of the capitalist system”. But this “factor” is precisely the proletariat, in whose name the resolution speaks! Instead of indicating how exactly the proletariat should at this moment “push revolutionary development forward” (push it further than the constitutionalist bourgeoisie would like to go), instead of advice to prepare in a definite way for the struggle against the bourgeoisie when it turns against the gains of the revolution, instead of this we are given a general description of the process that says nothing about the concrete tasks of our activity. The new-Iskrists’ way of setting out their ideas recalls Marx’s verdict (in his famous “Theses” on Feuerbach) on the old materialism, alien to the idea of dialectics. The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways, said Marx; the point, however, is to change it. In the same way the new-Iskrists can describe and explain tolerably well the process of the struggle taking place before their eyes, but are quite unable to give a correct slogan in this struggle. Marching zealously but leading badly, they degrade the materialist conception of history by ignoring the active, leading and guiding role which parties can and must play in history when they have realised the material conditions of a revolution and placed themselves at the head of the advanced classes.