These polite expressions, as the reader will recall, belong to Rabocheye Dyelo, which in this way answers our charge that it “is indirectly preparing the ground for converting the working-class movement into an instrument of bourgeois democracy”. In its simplicity of heart Rabocheye Dyelo decided that this accusation was nothing more than a polemical sally: these malicious doctrinaires are bent on saying all sorts of unpleasant things about us, and, what can be more unpleasant than being an instrument of bourgeois democracy? And so, they print in bold type a “refutation”: “Nothing but downright slander”, “mystification”, “mummery”. (Two Conferences, pp. 30, 31, 33.) Like Jove, Rabocheye Dyelo (although bearing little resemblance to that deity) is wrathful because it is wrong and proves by its hasty abuse that it is incapable of understanding its opponents’ mode of reasoning. And yet, with only a little reflection it would have understood why any subservience to the spontaneity of the mass movement and any degrading of Social-Democratic politics to the level of trade-unionist politics mean preparing the ground for converting the working-class movement into an instrument of bourgeois democracy. The spontaneous working-class movement is by itself able to create (and inevitably does create) only trade-unionism, and working-class trade-unionist politics is precisely working-class bourgeois politics. The fact that the working class participates in the political struggle, and even in the political revolution, does not in itself make its politics Social-Democratic politics. Will Rabocheye Dyelo make bold to deny this? Will it, at long last, publicly, plainly, and without equivocation explain how it understands the urgent questions of international and of Russian Social-Democracy? Hardly. It will never do anything of the kind, because it holds fast to the trick, which might be described as the ‘not here’ method – “It’s not me, it’s not my horse, I’m not the driver. We are not Economists; Rabochaya Mysl does not stand for Economism; there is no Economism at all in Russia.” This is a remarkably adroit and ‘political’ trick, which suffers from the slight defect, however, that the publications practising it are usually nicknamed, ‘At your service, sir’.

Rabocheye Dyelo imagines that bourgeois democracy in Russia is, in general, merely a “phantom”. (Two Conferences, p. 32.)[17] Happy people! Ostrich-like, they bury their heads in the sand and imagine that everything around has disappeared. Liberal publicists who month after month proclaim to the world their triumph over the collapse and even the disappearance of Marxism; liberal newspapers (S. Peterburgskiye Vedomosti,[18] Russkiye Vedomosti, and many others) which encourage the liberals who bring to the workers the Brentano[19] conception of the class struggle and the trade-unionist conception of politics; the galaxy of critics of Marxism, whose real tendencies were so very well disclosed by the Credo and whose literary products alone circulate in Russia without let or hindrance; the revival of revolutionary non-Social-Democratic tendencies, particularly after the February and March events – all these, apparently, are just phantoms! All these have nothing at all to do with bourgeois democracy!

Rabocheye Dyelo and the authors of the Economist letter published in Iskra, No. 12, should “ponder over the reason why the events of the spring brought about such a revival of revolutionary non-Social-Democratic tendencies instead of increasing the authority and the prestige of Social-Democracy”.

The reason lies in the fact that we failed to cope with our tasks. The masses of the workers proved to be more active than we. We lacked adequately trained revolutionary leaders and organisers possessed of a thorough knowledge of the mood prevailing among all the opposition strata and able to head the movement, to turn a spontaneous demonstration into a political one, broaden its political character, etc. Under such circumstances, our backwardness will inevitably be utilised by the more mobile and more energetic non-Social-Democratic revolutionaries, and the workers, however energetically and self-sacrificingly they may fight the police and the troops, however revolutionary their actions may be, will prove to be merely a force supporting those revolutionaries, the rear-guard of bourgeois democracy, and not the Social-Democratic vanguard. Let us take, for example, the German Social-Democrats, whose weak aspects alone our Economists desire to emulate. Why is there not a single political event in Germany that does not add to the authority and prestige of Social-Democracy? Because Social-Democracy is always found to be in advance of all others in furnishing the most revolutionary appraisal of every given event and in championing every protest against tyranny. It does not lull itself with arguments that the economic struggle brings the workers to realise that they have no political rights and that the concrete conditions unavoidably impel the working-class movement on to the path of revolution. It intervenes in every sphere and in every question of social and political life; in the matter of Wilhelm’s refusal to endorse a bourgeois progressist as city mayor (our Economists have not yet managed to educate the Germans to the understanding that such an act is, in fact, a compromise with liberalism!); in the matter of the law against ‘obscene’ publications and pictures; in the matter of governmental influence on the election of professors, etc., etc. Everywhere the Social-Democrats are found in the forefront, rousing political discontent among all classes, rousing the sluggards, stimulating the laggards, and providing a wealth of material for the development of the political consciousness and the political activity of the proletariat. As a result, even the avowed enemies of socialism are filled with respect for this advanced political fighter, and not infrequently an important document from bourgeois, and even from bureaucratic and Court circles, makes its way by some miraculous means into the editorial office of Vorwärts.

This, then, is the resolution of the seeming ‘contradiction’ that surpasses Rabocheye Dyelo’s powers of understanding to such an extent that it can only throw up its hands and cry, ‘Mummery!’ Indeed, just think of it: We, Rabocheye Dyelo, regard the mass working-class movement as the corner-stone (and say so in bold type!); we warn all and sundry against belittling the significance of the element of spontaneity; we desire to lend the economic struggle itself – itself – a political character; we desire to maintain close and organic contact with the proletarian struggle. And yet we are told that we are preparing the ground for the conversion of the working-class movement into an instrument of bourgeois democracy! And who are they that presume to say this? People who ‘compromise’ with liberalism by intervening in every ‘liberal’ issue (what a gross misunderstanding of “organic contact with the proletarian struggle”!), by devoting so much attention to the students and even (oh horror!) to the Zemstvos! People who in general wish to devote a greater percentage (compared with the Economists) of their efforts to activity among non-proletarian classes of the population! What is this but ‘mummery’?

Poor Rabocheye Dyelo! Will it ever find the solution to this perplexing puzzle?

Endnotes

  1. There follows a reference to the “concrete Russian conditions which fatalistically impel the working-class movement on to the revolutionary path”. But these people refuse to understand that the revolutionary path of the working-class movement might not be a Social-Democratic path. When absolutism reigned, the entire West-European bourgeoisie ‘impelled’, deliberately impelled, the workers on to the path of revolution. We Social-Democrats, however, cannot be satisfied with that. And if we, by any means whatever, degrade Social-Democratic politics to the level of spontaneous trade-unionist politics, we thereby play into the hands of bourgeois democracy.

  2. S. Peterburgskiye Vedomosti (St. Petersburg Recorder) – a newspaper that began publication in St. Petersburg in 1728 as a continuation of the first Russian newspaper Vedomosti, founded in 1703. From 1728 to 1874 the S. Peterburgskiye Vedomosti was published by the Academy of Sciences and from 1875 onwards by the Ministry of Education; it continued publication until the end of 1917. –Ed.

  3. L. Brentano – a German bourgeois economist, a champion of so-called ‘state socialism’, who tried to prove the possibility of achieving social equality within the framework of capitalism by reforms and through the reconciliation of the interests of the capitalists and of the workers. Using Marxist phraseology as a cover, Brentano and his followers tried to subordinate the working-class movement to the interests of the bourgeoisie. –Ed.