Now, this slogan (‘freedom of criticism’) has in recent times been solemnly advanced by Rabocheye Dyelo (No. 10), organ of the Union of Russian Social-Democrats Abroad, not as a theoretical postulate, but as a political demand, as a reply to the question, “Is it possible to unite the Social-Democratic organisations operating abroad?”: “For a durable unity, there must be freedom of criticism.” (p. 36.)

From this statement two definite conclusions follow: (1) that Rabocheye Dyelo has taken under its wing the opportunist trend in international Social-Democracy in general, and (2) that Rabocheye Dyelo demands freedom for opportunism in Russian Social-Democracy. Let us examine these conclusions.

Rabocheye Dyelo is “particularly” displeased with the “inclination of Iskra and Zarya to predict a rupture between the Mountain and the Gironde in international Social-Democracy”.[2]

“Generally speaking,” writes B. Krichevsky, editor of Rabocheye Dyelo, “this talk of the Mountain and the Gironde heard in the ranks of Social-Democracy represents a shallow historical analogy, a strange thing to come from the pen of a Marxist. The Mountain and the Gironde did not represent different temperaments, or intellectual trends, as the historians of social thought may think, but different classes or strata – the middle bourgeoisie, on the one hand, and the petty bourgeoisie and the proletariat, on the other. In the modern socialist movement, however, there is no conflict of class interests; the socialist movement in its entirety, in all of its diverse forms (Krichevsky’s italics), including the most pronounced Bernsteinians, stands on the basis of the class interests of the proletariat and its class struggle for political and economic emancipation”. (pp. 32-33.)

A bold assertion! Has not Krichevsky heard of the fact, long ago noted, that it is precisely the extensive participation of an ‘academic’ stratum in the socialist movement in recent years that has promoted such a rapid spread of Bernsteinism? And what is most important – on what does our author found his opinion that even “the most pronounced Bernsteinians” stand on the basis of the class struggle for the political and economic emancipation of the proletariat? No one knows. This determined defence of the most pronounced Bernsteinians is not supported by any argument or reasoning whatever. Apparently, the author believes that if he repeats what the most pronounced Bernsteinians say about themselves his assertion requires no proof. But can anything more ‘shallow’ be imagined than this judgement of an entire trend based on nothing more than what the representatives of that trend say about themselves? Can anything more shallow be imagined than the subsequent ‘homily’ on the two different and even diametrically opposite types, or paths, of party development? (Rabocheye Dyelo, pp. 34-35.) The German Social-Democrats, in other words, recognise complete freedom of criticism, but the French do not, and it is precisely their example that demonstrates the “bane of intolerance”.

To this we can only say that the very example B. Krichevsky affords us attests to the fact that the name ‘Marxist’ is at times assumed by people who conceive history literally in the ‘Ilovaisky manner’.[3] To explain the unity of the German Socialist Party and the disunity of the French Socialist Party, there is no need whatever to go into the special features in the history of these countries, to contrast the conditions of military semi-absolutism in the one with republican parliamentarism in the other, to analyse the effects of the Paris Commune and the effects of the Exceptional Law Against the Socialists, to compare the economic life and economic development of the two countries, or to recall that “the unexampled growth of German Social-Democracy” was accompanied by a strenuous struggle, unique in the history of socialism, not only against erroneous theories (Mühlberger, Dühring,[4] the Katheder-Socialists[5]), but also against erroneous tactics (Lassalle), etc., etc. All that is superfluous! The French quarrel among themselves because they are intolerant; the Germans are united because they are good boys.

And observe, this piece of matchless profundity is designed to ‘refute’ the fact that puts to rout the defence of the Bernsteinians. The question whether or not the Bernsteinians stand on the basis of the class struggle of the proletariat is one that can be completely and irrevocably answered only by historical experience. Consequently, the example of France holds greatest significance in this respect, because France is the only country in which the Bernsteinians attempted to stand independently, on their own feet, with the warm approval of their German colleagues (and partly also of the Russian opportunists; cf. Rabocheye Dyelo, No. 2-3, pp. 83-84). The reference to the ‘intolerance’ of the French, apart from its ‘historical’ significance (in the Nozdryov[6] sense), turns out to be merely an attempt to hush up very unpleasant facts with angry invectives.

Nor are we inclined to make a present of the Germans to Krichevsky and the numerous other champions of ‘freedom of criticism’. If the “most pronounced Bernsteinians” are still tolerated in the ranks of the German party, it is only to the extent that they submit to the Hanover resolution,[7] which emphatically rejected Bernstein’s ‘amendments’, and to the Lubeck resolution, which (notwithstanding the diplomatic terms in which it is couched) contains a direct warning to Bernstein. It is debatable, from the standpoint of the interests of the German party, whether diplomacy was appropriate and whether, in this case, a bad peace is better than a good quarrel; in short, opinions may differ as to the expediency of any one of the methods employed to reject Bernsteinism, but that the German party did reject Bernsteinism on two occasions, is a fact no one can fail to see. Therefore, to think that the German example confirms the thesis that “the most pronounced Bernsteinians stand on the basis of the class struggle of the proletariat, for political and economic emancipation”, means to fail completely to understand what is going on under our very eyes.[8]

Nor is that all. As we have seen, Rabocheye Dyelo demands ‘freedom of criticism’ and defends Bernsteinism before Russian Social-Democracy. Apparently, it convinced itself that we were unfair to our ‘Critics’ and Bernsteinians. But to which ones? Who? Where? When? What did the unfairness represent? About this, not a word. Rabocheye Dyelo does not name a single Russian Critic or Bernsteinian! We are left with but one of two possible suppositions. Either the unfairly treated party is none other than Rabocheye Dyelo itself (this is confirmed by the fact that in the two articles in No. 10 reference is made only to the wrongs suffered by Rabocheye Dyelo at the hands of Zarya and Iskra). If that is the case, how is the strange fact to be explained that Rabocheye Dyelo, which always vehemently dissociated itself from all solidarity with Bernsteinism, could not defend itself without putting in a word in defence of the “most pronounced Bernsteinians” and of freedom of criticism? Or some third persons have been treated unfairly. If this is the case, then what reasons may there be for not naming them?

We see, therefore, that Rabocheye Dyelo is continuing to play the game of hide-and-seek it has played (as we shall show below) ever since its founding. And let us note further this first practical application of the vaunted ‘freedom of criticism’. In actual fact, not only was it forthwith reduced to abstention from all criticism, but also to abstention from expressing independent views altogether. The very Rabocheye Dyelo, which avoids mentioning Russian Bernsteinism as if it were a shameful disease (to use Starover’s[9] apt expression), proposes, for the treatment of this disease, to copy word for word the latest German prescription for the German variety of the malady! Instead of freedom of criticism – slavish (worse: apish) imitation! The very same social and political content of modern international opportunism reveals itself in a variety of ways according to national peculiarities. In one country the opportunists have long ago come out under a separate flag; in another, they have ignored theory and in fact pursued the policy of the Radicals-Socialists; in a third, some members of the revolutionary party have deserted to the camp of opportunism and strive to achieve their aims, not in open struggle for principles and for new tactics, but by gradual, imperceptible, and, if one may so put it, unpunishable corruption of their party; in a fourth country, similar deserters employ the same methods in the gloom of political slavery, and with a completely original combination of ‘legal’ and ‘illegal’ activity, etc. To talk of ‘freedom of criticism’ and of Bernsteinism as a condition for uniting the Russian Social-Democrats and not to explain how Russian Bernsteinism has manifested itself and what particular fruits it has borne, amounts to talking with the aim of saying nothing.

Let us ourselves try, if only in a few words, to say what Rabocheye Dyelo did not want to say (or which was, perhaps, beyond its comprehension).

  1. A comparison of the two trends within the revolutionary proletariat (the revolutionary and the opportunist), and the two trends within the revolutionary bourgeoisie in the eighteenth century (the Jacobin, known as the Mountain, and the Girondist) was made in the leading article in No. 2 of Iskra (February 1901). The article was written by Plekhanov. The Cadets, the Bezzaglavtsi, and the Mensheviks to this day love to refer to Jacobinism in Russian Social-Democracy. But how Plekhanov came to apply this concept for the first time against the right wing of Social-Democracy – about this they prefer to keep silent or to forget.

  2. I.D. Ilovaisky (1832-1920) – historian; author of numerous official textbooks of history that were extensively used in primary and secondary schools in pre-revolutionary Russia. In Ilovaisky’s texts history was reduced mainly to acts of kings and generals; the historical process was explained through secondary and fortuitous circumstances. –Ed.

  3. At the time Engels dealt his blows at Dühring, many representatives of German Social-Democracy inclined towards the latter’s views, and accusations of acerbity, intolerance, uncomradely polemics, etc., were hurled at Engels even publicly at a Party Congress. At the Congress of 1877, Most, and his supporters, introduced a resolution to prohibit the publication of Engels’s articles in Vorwärts because “they do not interest the overwhelming majority of the readers”, and Vahlteich declared that their publication had caused great damage to the Party, that Dühring too had rendered services to Social-Democracy: “We must utilise everyone in the interests of the Party; let the professors engage in polemics if they care to do so, but Vorwärts is not the place in which to conduct them.” (Vorwärts, No. 65, 6 June, 1877.) Here we have another example of the defence of ‘freedom of criticism’, and our legal critics and illegal opportunists, who love so much to cite the example of the Germans, would do well to ponder it!

  4. Katheder-Socialism – a trend in bourgeois political economy that emerged in Germany in the seventies and eighties of the nineteenth century. Under the guise of socialism, the Katheder-Socialists preached bourgeois-liberal reformism from university chairs (Katheder). They maintained that the bourgeois state was above classes, that it was capable of reconciling hostile classes and gradually introducing ‘socialism’, without affecting the interests of the capitalists, while, at the same time, taking the demands of the workers as far as possible into consideration. In Russia the views of the Katheder-Socialists were disseminated by the ‘legal Marxists’. –Ed.

  5. Nozdryov – a character In Gogol’s Dead Souls whom the author called “an historical personage” for the reason that wherever he went he left behind him a scandalous ‘history’. –Ed.

  6. The Hanover resolution – resolution on ‘Attacks on the Fundamental Views and Tactics of the Party’, adopted by the German Social-Democratic Party Congress at Hanover, 27 September to 2 October (9-14 October), 1899. A discussion of this question at the Congress and the adoption of a special resolution were necessitated by the fact that the opportunists, led by Bernstein, launched a revisionist attack on Marxist theory and demanded a reconsideration of Social-Democratic revolutionary policy and tactics. The resolution adopted by the Congress rejected the demands of the revisionists but failed to criticise and expose Bernsteinism. Bernstein’s supporters also voted for the resolution. –Ed.

  7. It should be observed that Rabocheye Dyelo has always confined itself to a bare statement of facts concerning Bernsteinism in the German party and completely ‘refrained’ from expressing its own opinion. See, for instance, the reports of the Stuttgart Congress in No. 2-3 (p. 66), in which all the disagreements are reduced to ‘tactics’ and the statement is merely made that the overwhelming majority remain true to the previous revolutionary tactics. Or, No. 4-5 (p. 25, et seq.), in which we have nothing but a paraphrasing of the speeches delivered at the Hanover Congress, with a reprint of Bebel’s resolution. An exposition and a criticism of Bernstein’s views are again put off (as was the case in No. 2-8) to be dealt with in a ‘special article’. Curiously enough, in No. 4-5 (p. 33), we read the following: “…the views expounded by Bebel have the support of the vast majority of the Congress,” and a few lines thereafter: “…David defended Bernstein’s views… First of all, he tried to show that… Bernstein and his friends, after all is said and done (sic!), stand on the basis of the class struggle…” This was written in December 1899, and in September 1901 Rabocheye Dyelo, apparently no longer believing that Bebel was right, repeats David’s views as its own!

  8. Starover (Old Believer) – the pseudonym of A.N. Potresov, a member of the Iskra Editorial Board; he subsequently became a Menshevik. –Ed.