9. What Does It Mean to Be a Party of Extreme Opposition in Time of Revolution?

Let us return to the resolution on the provisional government. We have shown that the tactics of the new-Iskrists do not push the revolution forward — the possibility of which they would like to ensure by their resolution — but drag it back. We have shown that it is precisely these tactics that tie the hands of Social-Democracy in the struggle against the inconsistent bourgeoisie and do not safeguard it against dissolution in bourgeois democracy. Naturally, the false premises of the resolution lead to a false conclusion: “Therefore Social-Democracy must not set itself the aim of seizing or sharing power in the provisional government, but must remain the party of extreme revolutionary opposition.” Look at the first half of this conclusion, which concerns the setting of aims. Do the new-Iskrists set the decisive victory of the revolution over tsarism as the aim of Social-Democratic activity? They do. They are unable to formulate the conditions of a decisive victory correctly and slip into the Osvobozhdenie formulation, but they do set themselves this aim. Further, do they connect the provisional government with the uprising? Yes, they connect them directly, saying that the provisional government “emerges from a victorious popular uprising”. Finally, do they set themselves the aim of leading the uprising? Yes; like Mr Struve, they evade admitting that the uprising is necessary and urgent, but at the same time, unlike Mr Struve, they say that “Social-Democracy strives to subordinate it (the uprising) to its influence and leadership and to use it in the interests of the working class”.

How neatly it all hangs together, does it not? We set ourselves the aim of subordinating the uprising of both the proletarian and the non-proletarian masses to our influence and our leadership, and of using it in our interests. Hence we set ourselves the aim of leading, in the uprising, the proletariat, the revolutionary bourgeoisie and the petty bourgeoisie (the “non-proletarian groups”), that is, of “sharing” the leadership of the uprising between Social-Democracy and the revolutionary bourgeoisie. We set ourselves the aim of victory for the uprising, which is to lead to the establishment of a provisional government (“which emerges from a victorious popular uprising”). Therefore… therefore we must not set ourselves the aim of seizing or sharing power in the provisional revolutionary government!!

Our friends simply cannot make ends meet. They vacillate between the standpoint of Mr Struve, who evades the question of the uprising, and the standpoint of revolutionary Social-Democracy, which calls for undertaking this urgent task. They vacillate between anarchism, which on principle condemns all participation in a provisional revolutionary government as treachery to the proletariat, and Marxism, which demands such participation on condition that Social-Democracy has the leading influence in the uprising. They have no independent position whatever: neither the position of Mr Struve, who wants to strike a bargain with tsarism and must therefore evade and wriggle on the question of the uprising, nor the position of the anarchists, who condemn all action “from above” and all participation in a bourgeois revolution. The new-Iskrists confuse a deal with tsarism with victory over tsarism. They want to take part in the bourgeois revolution. They have gone a little beyond Martynov’s Two Dictatorships. They even agree to lead the uprising of the people — in order to renounce that leadership immediately after the victory (or, perhaps, immediately before the victory?), that is, in order not to enjoy the fruits of victory but to hand all the fruits over entirely to the bourgeoisie. This is what they call “using the uprising in the interests of the working class”…

There is no need to dwell on this muddle any longer. It will be more useful to examine the origin of this muddle in the formulation that reads: “remain the party of extreme revolutionary opposition”.

This is one of the familiar propositions of international revolutionary Social-Democracy. It is a perfectly correct proposition. It has become a commonplace for all opponents of revisionism or opportunism in parliamentary countries. It has won recognition as a legitimate and necessary rebuff to “parliamentary cretinism”, Millerandism, Bernsteinism and Italian reformism of the Turati type. Our good new-Iskrists have learnt this good proposition by heart and are zealously applying it… quite inappropriately. Categories of the parliamentary struggle are inserted into resolutions written for conditions in which no parliament exists. The concept of “opposition”, which arose as the reflection and expression of a political situation in which no one seriously speaks of an uprising, is senselessly transferred to a situation in which the uprising has begun and in which all supporters of the revolution are thinking and talking about leading it. The wish to “remain” with the same methods as before, that is, to act only “from below”, is voiced with pomp and circumstance precisely when the revolution has confronted us with the necessity, should the uprising be victorious, of acting from above.

No, our new-Iskrists are decidedly unlucky! Even when they formulate a correct Social-Democratic proposition they cannot apply it correctly. They have not considered how the concepts and terms of the parliamentary struggle are transformed and turned into their opposites in a period of revolution that has begun, when there is no parliament, when there is civil war, when there are outbreaks of insurrection. They have not considered that under the conditions in question amendments are moved by means of street demonstrations, interpellations are introduced by means of offensive action by armed citizens, and opposition to the government is effected by means of the forcible overthrow of the government. Like the well-known hero of our folk tale who repeated good advice precisely when it was out of place, our admirers of Martynov repeat the lessons of peaceful parliamentarism precisely when they themselves note that direct hostilities have begun. Nothing could be more comical than this advancing, with a solemn air, of the slogan of “extreme opposition” in a resolution that begins by referring to a “decisive victory of the revolution” and to a “popular uprising”! Think, gentlemen, what it means to constitute the “extreme opposition” in a period of insurrection. Does it mean exposing the government or overthrowing it? Does it mean voting against the government or defeating its armed forces in open battle? Does it mean refusing to replenish the government’s treasury, or does it mean seizing that treasury by revolutionary means and using it for the needs of the uprising, for arming the workers and peasants, for convening a constituent assembly? Are you not beginning to understand, gentlemen, that the concept “extreme opposition” expresses only negative actions — exposing, voting against, refusing? Why is that? Because this concept applies only to the parliamentary struggle, and moreover to a period when no one makes “decisive victory” the immediate object of the struggle. Are you not beginning to understand that things change radically in this respect from the moment the politically oppressed people launches a determined attack all along the line in a desperate struggle for victory? The workers ask us: must we energetically set about the urgent business of the uprising? How are we to ensure that the uprising that has begun is victorious? How are we to use the victory? What programme can and should then be carried out? The new-Iskrists, who are deepening Marxism, reply: remain the party of extreme revolutionary opposition… Well, were we not right in calling these knights virtuosos of philistinism?