In the autumn of 1893, the Petersburg Social Democrats were only just recovering from the arrest of their leader, Mikhail Ivanovich Brusnyev. Up to this time, the orientation of the group can be seen in Brusnyev’s own words:
Our main and fundamental role [was to] turn the participants… in the workers’ circles into fully developed and conscious social democrats, who could in many ways replace the intellectual propagandists. (Istoriya KPSS, vol. 1, p. 159.)
Already by 1891, the group was able to mobilise 100 people at the funeral of the old revolutionary NV Shelgunov. There were contacts in the big factories and all the main workers’ districts. The work had been started by young students, but gradually the class composition of the group underwent a change. The students painstakingly set about the task of creating working-class cadres or ‘Russian Bebels’, as they expressed it. After the wave of arrests which carried off Brusnyev and many others in 1892, the group had been reorganised by SI Radchenko. It included a group of students from the Technical Institute, some of whom were destined to play a significant role in the development of the party, including Nadya Krupskaya, Lenin’s future wife and lifelong companion.
The basic method of the group was to organise study circles of workers from the main factories. Through individual worker contacts, others were drawn into the circle in the way described above by Krupskaya. The original contacts developed theoretically and themselves became organisers of other circles. In this way an ever-wider network of worker study circles was established. Lenin, who had arrived in St. Petersburg in the autumn of 1893, participated as a lecturer in these circles under the alias, Nikolai Petrovich. Lenin’s work in the circle is described by Krupskaya:
Vladimir Ilyich was interested in the minutest detail describing the conditions and life of the workers. Taking the features separately he endeavoured to grasp the life of the worker as a whole – he tried to find what one could seize upon in order better to approach the worker with revolutionary propaganda. Most of the intellectuals of those days badly understood the workers. An intellectual would come to a circle and read the workers a kind of lecture. For a long time, a manuscript translation of Engels’ booklet The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State was passed round the circles. Vladimir Ilyich read with the workers from Marx’s Capital, and explained it to them. The second half of the studies was devoted to workers’ questions about their work and labour conditions. He showed them how their life was linked up with the entire structure of society, and told them in what manner the existing order could be transformed. The combination of theory with practice was the particular feature of Vladimir Ilyich’s work in the circles. Gradually, other members of our circle also began to use this approach. (N.K. Krupskaya, Memories of Lenin, 1893-1917, pp. 6-7.)
The circles did valuable work in assembling the working class cadres in ones and twos. But they also created certain conservative habits of mind which later proved an obstacle to the development of the movement. The young Martov confessed his mortification when an older worker-Marxist, a member of Brusnyev’s group, instead of inviting him to join the organisation, presented him with a pile of books on ancient history and the origin of the species:
Brought up in the previous period of complete social stagnation, S… apparently could not imagine any other way of training a revolutionary than having him work out, over a period of years, a complete theoretical world view, the crown of which would be admittance to practical work. For us, who had already read the speeches of the SPD workers of 1 May, 1891, and had been shaken by the bankruptcy of the regime in the face of the famine, it was psychologically inconceivable to condemn ourselves to such a long period of waiting. (J. Martov, Zapiski Sotsial Demokrata, 92, quoted in A.R. Wildman, The Making of a Worker’s Revolution – Russian Social Democracy 1891-1903, p. 37)
The ‘Vilna turn’ caused a big impact on the movement in Russia and was hotly debated in the circles. Martov brought a copy of the pamphlet to St. Petersburg in the autumn of 1894. In her Memories of Lenin, Krupskaya recalls that:
When the Vilna pamphlet On Agitation appeared the following year, the ground was already fully prepared for the conducting of agitation by leaflets. It was only necessary to start work. The method of agitation on the basis of the workers’ everyday needs became rooted deeply in our party work. I only fully understood how fruitful this method of work was some years later when, living as an émigré in France, I observed how, during the tremendous postal strike in Paris, the French Socialist Party stood completely aside and did not intervene in the strike. It was the business of the trade unions, they said. They thought the work of the party was simply the political struggle. They had not the remotest notion as to the necessity for connecting up the economic and industrial struggles. (N. Krupskaya, Memories of Lenin, 1893-1917, p. 7.)
By 1895, Lenin’s group had about 10-16 members, who between them organised the work of between 20 and 30 workers’ study circles, which in turn had up to 100-150 contacts. (Istoriya KPSS, vol. 1, p. 222.) The group was connected to the workers’ circles through area organisers. By the end of the year, it was active in practically all the workers’ districts. In November, a decisive step was taken when a newly established Social Democratic group, including Martov, fused with the ‘veterans’ to form the St. Petersburg League of Struggle for the Emancipation of Labour – a name which was adopted in solidarity with Plekhanov’s Emancipation of Labour Group, apparently at Martov’s suggestion. A division of labour was established in the group’s activities – finance, contact with groups of revolutionary-minded intellectuals, the printing of leaflets, etc. The group maintained contact with the underground print shops run by a group of Petersburg Narodniks, and so on. The leaders of the group were Lenin and Martov.
Well, brother, I can’t think what’s gotten into them these days, sending us all these political muzhiks all of a sudden! Before they used to bring us all upper class people and students, real gentlemen. But now in walk the likes of you – just a common muzhik – a worker! (I. Verkhovstev, (ed.) Bor’ba za Sozdanie Marksistskoi partii v Rossii (1894-1904), p. 3.)
With these words the prison warder of the Taganskaya prison greeted the arrival of MN Lyadov, one of the leaders of the Moscow Workers’ League in the year 1895. In his own way, the old warder had grasped the profound change which had taken place in the Russian Revolutionary movement in the 1890s. The more or less rapid growth of the Petersburg League reflected a change in the objective situation. The upsurge in the strike movement presented unprecedentedly wide opportunities for agitation through popular leaflets. The latter enjoyed instant success and served to bring the small forces of Marxism into contact with ever wider layers of the workers. The young people, mostly new recruits with little understanding of Marxist theory, threw themselves enthusiastically into the work of factory agitation, mostly on ‘bread and butter’ issues. This had spectacular results, meeting with instant success among even the most benighted, ignorant and oppressed layers of the class.
In just one strike, according to Fyodor Dan, the League put out more than 30 leaflets. (F. Dan, The Origins of Bolshevism, p. 205.) Agitation was conducted as a dialogue with the workers. The League would carefully listen to workers’ grievances, take note of their demands, and collect reports of the struggles in different factories. They would then return this information to the workers in an agitational form, together with organisational directives, exposures of the manoeuvres of management and the authorities, and appeals for support. Thus, the strike movement of the 1890s became a gigantic preparatory school of struggle, serving to educate a whole generation of workers and Marxists. In the absence of an organised, legal labour movement, the tiny leaflets caused a sensation. The appearance of a leaflet would cause a buzz of expectation on the shop floor. Whenever they could escape the watchful eye of the overseer, the workers would gather in small groups (the favourite location being ‘the club’ – i.e., the factory toilet), where the leaflet would be read aloud to a chorus of “Well said!” and “Absolutely right!” Takhtarev recalls that a typical reaction would be: “To the director! Send it to the director!” and that in a very short time, “rumours about the leaflets circulated throughout the factories of St. Petersburg. Soon the intelligentsia no longer needed to seek out the workers, who avidly inquired after the ‘students’ and requested leaflets”. (Quoted in AR Wildman, The Making of a Worker’s Revolution – Russian Social Democracy 1891-1903, p. 63.)
The success of the new approach is reflected in Trotsky’s autobiography:
We found the workers more susceptible to revolutionary propaganda than we had ever in our wildest dreams imagined. The amazing effectiveness of our work fairly intoxicated us. From revolutionary tales, we knew that the workers won over by propaganda were usually to be counted in single numbers. A revolutionary who converted two or three men to socialism thought he had done a good job of work, whereas with us, the number of workers who joined or wanted to join the groups seemed to be unlimited. The only shortage was in the matter of instruction and in literature. The teachers had to snatch from each other in turn the single soiled copy of the Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels that had been translated by many hands in Odessa, with many gaps and mutilations of the text.
Soon we began to produce a literature of our own: this was, properly speaking, the beginning of my revolutionary work, which almost coincided with the start of my revolutionary activities. I wrote proclamations and articles and printed them all out in longhand for the hectograph. At that time we didn’t even know of the existence of typewriters. I printed the letters with the utmost care, considering it a point of honour to make them clear enough so that even the less literate could read our proclamations without any trouble. It took me about two hours to a page. Sometimes I didn’t unbend my back for a week, cutting my work short only for meetings and study in the groups.
But what a satisfied feeling I had when I received the information from the mills and workshops that the workers read voraciously the mysterious sheets printed in purple ink, passing them about from hand to hand as they discussed them! They pictured the author as some strange and mighty person who in some mysterious way had penetrated into the mills and knew what was going on in the workshops, and 24 hours later passed his comment on events in newly printed handbills. (L. Trotsky, My Life, p. 110.)
The reaction of ordinary workers to the leaflets is reported by Takhtarev, writing while the comments were still fresh in his mind, in 1897:
“Just think of the times we live in! …We used to work and work, and never see daylight. You could see it with your own eyes how they swindled us, but what could you do about it? …But now we have our boys who notice everything, everywhere, and take it down. Tell it to the Soyuz (League), you hear, we have to let them know about this.”
“Who passes the leaflets?”
“Students, I suppose. God grant good health to those people who print the leaflets.” Whereupon the worker devoutly crossed himself. (Quoted in A.R. Wildman, The Making of a Worker’s Revolution – Russian Social Democracy 1891-1903, p. 64.)
By energetically participating in agitation, the small forces of Marxism were able to play a role out of all proportion to their size. The small hectographed leaflets met a ready response. Often the mere appearance of these leaflets would suffice to plunge a whole factory into a ferment and discussion, exercising a major influence on the course of a dispute. Precisely the success of this agitation soon attracted the attention of the tsarist police. Well aware of the explosive mood of the workers in Petersburg, the authorities developed a healthy respect for what the leaflets could achieve. When, in February and April of 1896, a leaflet appeared voicing the demands of the workers in the shipbuilding yards in Petersburg, the Minister of the Interior, fearing a strike, ordered an investigation, which advised the port commander to concede the workers’ demands.
However, the transition from propaganda in small groups to mass agitation was not carried out painlessly or without internal strains and tensions. For many, the underground had become a way of life. It had a certain routine to which one became accustomed. A prolonged period of existence in small, underground circles fostered a certain narrow ‘circle mentality’. Paradoxically, despite the difficulties and dangers, it had a certain ‘cosy’ side. The conditions of circle life did not demand much outward-going activity. One moved exclusively among comrades or advanced workers, in circles where everyone knew practically everyone else. By contrast, agitation among the masses seemed like a leap in the dark. Routine would be disrupted, ideas and methods radically altered. No wonder the proposal was met with mistrust and hostility on the part of a layer of the ‘old men’. Krassin and SI Radchenko warned of dire consequences if the new tactic were pursued: it would undermine the underground work, cause mass arrests, put comrades in danger, and disorganise the work.
The question of the ‘new turn’ was thrashed out, first of all in the narrow circles of the veterans, and then presented for discussion at broader gatherings of workers, where extracts from Kremer’s pamphlet On Agitation were read out and debated. The St. Petersburg worker-propagandist, I.V. Babushkin, recalls his reaction to the new proposals:
I absolutely rebelled against agitation, though I saw the undoubted fruits of its work in the general upsurge of enthusiasm among the worker masses; for I was very much afraid of another such wave of arrests [as that which carried off some of the ‘old-timers’, including Lenin, in December 1895] and thought that now all would perish. However, I proved to be mistaken.
Martov recalls how this same Babushkin protested angrily to him about the new methods: “Here you begin throwing leaflets in all directions and in two months you’ve destroyed what it took years to create… The new youth, brought up in this agitational activity, will tend to be superficial in outlook.” (Ibid., p. 53 in both quotes.) Subsequent development showed that Babushkin’s fear was not entirely without foundation. Some of those who enthusiastically espoused ‘agitation’ and pooh-poohed theory and ‘circle narrowness’ were not merely superficial, but downright opportunists. However, despite an element of youthful exaggeration, the reaction against the ‘circle mentality’ was a necessary corrective to a conservative trend which, had it remained unchecked, would have converted the massive movement into a sect. Many years later, Trotsky was clearly thinking of this period when he wrote that:
Every working class party, every faction, during its initial stages, passes through a period of pure propaganda, i.e., the training of its cadres. The period of existence as a Marxist circle invariably grafts habits of an abstract approach onto the problems of the workers’ movement. Whoever is unable to step in time over the confines of this circumscribed existence becomes transformed into a conservative sectarian. (L. Trotsky, Writings 1935-36, p. 153.)
An example of how the work was being held back by conservative attitudes was the discussion that took place among the Marxists in Moscow on how to intervene in the May Day of 1895. Mitskevich recalls the horrified reaction when he proposed to organise a clandestine meeting in the woods:
When I put the question to my comrades, they decided to celebrate inconspicuously and not to raise a ruckus. They were anxious not to spoil our work and they feared arrest. The comrades said: “It’s too early to speak up, our forces are still too small for open action: the idea of a big celebration – that’s an idea for the intelligentsia”. (Quoted in A.R. Wildman, The Making of a Worker’s Revolution – Russian Social Democracy 1891-1903, pp. 54-55.)
But life itself was preparing a big surprise – a sudden turn in the situation which stood all the old schemas on their head.
On 23 May, 1896, a strike of the spinning assistants at the Russian Spinnery in the Narva district of St. Petersburg signalled the outbreak of a mighty wave of strikes. The textile workers improvised flying pickets which rapidly extended the strike. The lightning speed with which the strike spread was an indication of the explosive mood that had built up over the preceding decade. A major strike wave gripped the capital, and for the first time, the St. Petersburg Marxists found themselves at the head of a mass movement of the working class.
The changed conditions brought about by the strike wave provided the small forces of Marxism with colossal opportunities to spread their influence. Yet in the initial period, opportunities were frequently missed because of the resistance of the more conservative layers to the new methods. Thus, during the important strike of 2,000 weavers in Ivanovo-Voznesensk in October 1895, the leaders of the local Workers’ League initially opposed the proposal that they should send agitators to contact the strikers, and approach other factories to organise support for the strike. Eventually a compromise solution was reached that the League would accept no responsibility for the strike but that individual members would be allowed to participate at their own risk! Similar disputes arose in practically every social democratic circle. But gradually the new methods were accepted, and obtained spectacular results.
The Marxists did not limit themselves to agitation on economic questions, but also tried to place political ideas before the workers. After the arrests of December 1895, the Petersburg group published the leaflet: ‘What is a socialist and a political criminal?’ In the first period of agitation, while setting out from the immediate grievances of the workers, every attempt was made to raise the workers’ horizons to broad political questions, linking the struggle for immediate demands to the central objective of the overthrow of the autocracy. By means of a bold participation in agitation, the influence of Marxism grew by leaps and bounds among ever wider layers of the working class. Despite the smallness of their forces, and the tremendously difficult objective situation, the Marxists had at last broken down the barriers separating them from the masses. The road was now open for the creation of a strong, united party of the Russian proletariat.