The Self-Emancipation Group[23] and Rabocheye Dyelo

We have dealt at such length with the little-known and now almost forgotten leading article in the first issue of Rabochaya Mysl because it was the first and most striking expression of that general stream of thought which afterwards emerged into the light of day in innumerable streamlets. V.I. was perfectly right when, in praising the first issue and the leading article of Rabochaya Mysl, he said that the article had been written in a “sharp and fervent” manner. (‘Listok’ Rabotnika, No. 9-10, p. 49.) Every man with convictions who thinks he has something new to say writes ‘fervently’ and in such a way as to make his views stand out in bold relief. Only those who are accustomed to sitting between two stools lack ‘fervour’; only such people are able to praise the fervour of Rabochaya Mysl one day and attack the ‘fervent polemics’ of its opponents the next.

We shall not dwell on the ‘Separate Supplement’ to Rabochaya Mysl (below we shall have occasion, on various points, to refer to this work, which expresses the ideas of the Economists more consistently than any other) but shall briefly mention the ‘Appeal of the Self-Emancipation of the Workers Group’. (March 1899, reprinted in the London Nakanune,[24] No. 7, July 1899.) The authors of the ‘Appeal’ rightly say that “the workers of Russia are only just awakening, are just beginning to look about them, and are instinctively clutching at the first available means of struggle”. Yet they draw from this the same false conclusion as that drawn by Rabochaya Mysl, forgetting that the instinctive is the unconscious (the spontaneous) to the aid of which socialists must come; that the “first available means of struggle” will always be, in modern society, the trade union means of struggle, and the “first available” ideology the bourgeois (trade union) ideology. Similarly, these authors do not ‘repudiate’ politics, they merely (merely!) echo Mr. V.V. that politics is the superstructure, and therefore, “political agitation must be the superstructure to the agitation carried on in favour of the economic struggle; it must arise on the basis of this struggle and follow in its wake”.

As for Rabocheye Dyelo, it began its activity with the ‘defence’ of the Economists. It stated a downright untruth in its opening issue (No. 1, pp. 141-42) in claiming that it “does not know to which young comrades Axelrod referred” when he warned the Economists in his well-known pamphlet.[25] In the polemic that flared up with Axelrod and Plekhanov over this untruth, Rabocheye Dyelo had to admit that “in form of perplexity, it sought to defend all the younger Social-Democrats abroad from this unjust accusation” (the charge of narrowness levelled by Axelrod at the Economists). In reality this accusation was completely justified, and Rabocheye Dyelo knew perfectly well that, among others, it applied also to V.I., a member of its Editorial Board. Let me note in passing that in this polemic Axelrod was entirely right and Rabocheye Dyelo entirely wrong in their respective interpretations of my pamphlet The Tasks of the Russian Social-Democrats. The pamphlet was written in 1897, before the appearance of Rabochaya Mysl, when I thought, rightly, that the original tendency of the St. Petersburg League of Struggle, which I characterised above, was dominant. And this tendency was dominant at least until the middle of 1898. Consequently, Rabocheye Dyelo had no right whatever, in its attempt to deny the existence and danger of Economism, to refer to a pamphlet that expressed views forced out by Economist views in St. Petersburg in 1897-98.[26]

But Rabocheye Dyelo not only ‘defended’ the Economists, it itself constantly fell into their fundamental errors. The source of this confusion is to be found in the ambiguity of the interpretation given to the following thesis of the Rabocheye Dyelo programme:

We consider that the most important phenomenon of Russian life, the one that will mainly determine the tasks [our italics] and the character of the publication activity of the Union, is the mass working-class movement [Rabocheye Dyelo’s italics] which has arisen in recent years.

That the mass movement is a most important phenomenon is a fact not to be disputed. But the crux of the matter is, how is one to understand the statement that the mass working class movement will ‘determine the tasks’? It may be interpreted in one of two ways. Either it means bowing to the spontaneity of this movement, i.e., reducing the role of Social-Democracy to mere subservience to the working-class movement as such (the interpretation of Rabochaya Mysl, the Self-Emancipation Group, and other Economists), or it means that the mass movement places before us new theoretical, political, and organisational tasks, far more complicated than those that might have satisfied us in the period before the rise of the mass movement. Rabocheye Dyelo inclined and still inclines towards the first interpretation, for it has said nothing definite about any new tasks but has argued constantly as though the ‘mass movement’ relieves us of the necessity of clearly understanding and fulfilling the tasks it sets before us. We need only point out that Rabocheye Dyelo considered that it was impossible to set the overthrow of the autocracy as the first task of the mass working-class movement, and that it degraded this task (in the name of the mass movement) to that of a struggle for immediate political demands. (Reply, p. 25.)

We shall pass over the article by B. Krichevsky, editor of Rabocheye Dyelo, entitled ‘The Economic and the Political Struggle in the Russian Movement’, published in No. 7 of that paper, in which these very mistakes[27] are repeated, and proceed directly to Rabocheye Dyelo, No. 10. We shall not, of course, enter in detail into the various objections raised by Krichevsky and Martynov against Zarya and Iskra. We are here interested solely in the basis of principles on which Rabocheye Dyelo, in its tenth issue, took its stand. Thus, we shall not examine the strange fact that Rabocheye Dyelo saw a “diametrical contradiction” between the proposition:

Social-Democracy does not tie its hands, it does not restrict its activities to some one preconceived plan or method of political struggle; it recognises all means of struggle as long as they correspond to the forces at the disposal of the Party. (Iskra, No. 1.)

And the proposition:

Without a strong organisation skilled in waging political struggle under all circumstances and at all times, there can be no question of that systematic plan of action, illumined by firm principles and steadfastly carried out, which alone is worthy of the name of tactics. (Iskra, No. 4.)

To confound recognition, in principle, of all means of struggle, of all plans and methods, provided they are expedient, with the demand at a given political moment to be guided by a strictly observed plan is tantamount, if we are to talk of tactics, to confounding the recognition by medical science of various methods of treating diseases with the necessity for adopting a certain definite method of treatment for a given disease. The point is, however, that Rabocheye Dyelo, itself the victim of a disease which we have called bowing to spontaneity, refuses to recognise any “method of treatment” for that disease. Hence, it has made the remarkable discovery that “tactics-as-plan contradicts the fundamental spirit of Marxism” (No. 10, p. 18), that tactics are “a process of growth of Party tasks, which grow together with the Party”. (p. 11, Rabocheye Dyelo’s italics.) This remark has every chance of becoming a celebrated maxim, a permanent monument to the Rabocheye Dyelo ‘trend’. To the question, whither? the leading organ replies: Movement is a process of changing the distance between the starting-point and subsequent points of the movement. This matchless example of profundity is not merely a curiosity (were it that, it would not be worth dealing with at length), but the programme of a whole trend, the very programme which R.M. (in the ‘Separate Supplement’ to Rabochaya Mysl) expressed in the words: That struggle is desirable which is possible, and the struggle which is possible is that which is going on at the given moment. This is precisely the trend of unbounded opportunism, which passively adapts itself to spontaneity.

“Tactics-as-plan contradicts the essence of Marxism!” But this is a slander of Marxism; it means turning Marxism into the caricature held up by the Narodniks in their struggle against us. It means belittling the initiative and energy of class-conscious fighters, whereas Marxism, on the contrary, gives a gigantic impetus to the initiative and energy of the Social-Democrat, opens up for him the widest perspectives, and (if one may so express it) places at his disposal the mighty force of many millions of workers ‘spontaneously’ rising for the struggle. The entire history of international Social-Democracy teems with plans advanced now by one, now by another political leader, some confirming the far-sightedness and the correct political and organisational views of their authors and others revealing their short-sightedness and their political errors. At the time when Germany was at one of the crucial turning-points in its history – the formation of the Empire, the opening of the Reichstag, and the granting of universal suffrage – Liebknecht had one plan for Social-Democratic politics and work in general, and Schweitzer had another. When the anti-socialist law came down on the heads of the German socialists, Most and Hasselmann had one plan – they were prepared then and there to call for violence and terror; Hochberg, Schramm, and (partly) Bernstein had another – they began to preach to the Social-Democrats that they themselves had provoked the enactment of the law by being unreasonably bitter and revolutionary and must now earn forgiveness by their exemplary conduct. There was yet a third plan, proposed by those who prepared and carried out the publication of an illegal organ. It is easy, of course, with hindsight, many years after the struggle over the selection of the path to be followed, and after history has pronounced its verdict as to the expediency of the path selected, to utter profound maxims about the growth of Party tasks, which grow together with the Party. But at a time of confusion,[28] when the Russian ‘Critics’ and Economists are degrading Social-Democracy to the level of trade-unionism, and when the terrorists are strongly advocating the adoption of ‘tactics-as-plan’ that repeats the old mistakes, at such a time, to confine oneself to profundities of this kind, means simply to issue to oneself a ‘certificate of poverty’. At a time when many Russian Social-Democrats suffer from a lack of initiative and energy, from an inadequate “scope of political propaganda, agitation, and organisation,”[29] from a lack of “plans” for a broader organisation of revolutionary work, at such a time, to declare that “tactics-as-plan” contradicts the essence of Marxism means not only to vulgarise Marxism in the realm of theory, but to drag the Party backward in practice.

Rabocheye Dyelo goes on to sermonise:

The task of the revolutionary Social-Democrat is only to accelerate objective development by his conscious work, not to obviate it or substitute his own subjective plans for this development. Iskra knows all this in theory; but the enormous importance which Marxism justly attaches to conscious revolutionary work causes it in practice, owing to its doctrinaire view of tactics, to belittle the significance of the objective or the spontaneous element of development. (p. 18.)

Another example of the extraordinary theoretical confusion worthy of Mr. V.V. and his fraternity. We would ask our philosopher: how may a designer of subjective plans ‘belittle’ objective development? Obviously by losing sight of the fact that this objective development creates or strengthens, destroys or weakens certain classes, strata, or groups, certain nations or groups of nations, etc., and in this way serves to determine a given international political alignment of forces, or the position adopted by revolutionary parties, etc. If the designer of plans did that, his guilt would not be that he belittled the spontaneous element, but, on the contrary, that he belittled the conscious element, for he would then show that he lacked the ‘consciousness’ properly to understand objective development. Hence, the very talk of “estimating the relative significance” (Rabocheye Dyelo’s italics) of spontaneity and consciousness itself reveals a complete lack of ‘consciousness’. If certain “spontaneous elements of development” can be grasped at all by human understanding, then an incorrect estimation of them will be tantamount to “belittling the conscious element”. But if they cannot be grasped, then we do not know them, and therefore cannot speak of them. What then is Krichevsky discussing? If he thinks that Iskra’s ‘subjective plans’ are erroneous (as he in fact declares them to be), he should have shown what objective facts they ignore, and only then charged Iskra with lacking political consciousness for ignoring them, with “belittling the conscious element”, to use his own words. If, however, displeased with subjective plans, he can bring forward no argument other than that of “belittling the spontaneous element” (!), he merely shows: (1) that, theoretically, he understands Marxism a la Kareyev and Mikhailovsky, who have been sufficiently ridiculed by Beltov;[30] and (2) that, practically, he is quite satisfied with the “spontaneous elements of development” that have drawn our legal Marxists towards Bernsteinism and our Social-Democrats towards Economism, and that he is ‘full of wrath’ against those who have determined at all costs to divert Russian Social-Democracy from the path of ‘spontaneous’ development.

Further, there follow things that are positively droll.

Just as human beings will reproduce in the old-fashioned way despite all the discoveries of natural science, so the birth of a new social order will come about, in the future too, mainly as a result of elemental outbursts, despite all the discoveries of social science and the increase in the number of conscious fighters. (p. 19.)

Just as our grandfathers in their old-fashioned wisdom used to say, anyone can bring children into the world, so today the ‘modern socialists’ (a la Nartsis Tuporylov)[31] say in their wisdom, anyone can participate in the spontaneous birth of a new social order. We too hold that anyone can. All that is required for participation of that kind is to yield to Economism when Economism reigns and to terrorism when terrorism arises. Thus, in the spring of this year, when it was so important to utter a note of warning against infatuation with terrorism, Rabocheye Dyelo stood in amazement, confronted by a problem that was ‘new’ to it. And now, six months after, when the problem has become less topical, it presents us at one and the same time with the declaration: “We think that it is not and should not be the task of Social-Democracy to counteract the rise of terroristic sentiments” (Rabocheye Dyelo, No. 10, p. 23), and with the Conference resolution: “The Conference regards systematic and aggressive terror as being inopportune.” (Two Conferences, p. 18.) How beautifully clear and coherent this is! Not to counteract, but to declare inopportune, and to declare it in such a way that unsystematic and defensive terror does not come within the scope of the ‘resolution’. It must be admitted that such a resolution is extremely safe and is fully insured against error, just as a man who talks, but says nothing, insures himself against error. All that is needed to frame such a resolution is an ability to keep at the tail end of the movement. When Iskra ridiculed Rabocheye Dyelo for declaring the question of terror to be new, the latter angrily accused Iskra of “having the incredible effrontery to impose upon the Party organisation solutions of tactical questions proposed by a group of emigrant writers more than fifteen years ago.” (p. 24.) Effrontery indeed, and what an overestimation of the conscious element – first to resolve questions theoretically beforehand, and then to try to convince the organisation, the Party, and the masses of the correctness of this solution![32] How much better it would be to repeat the elements and, without ‘imposing’ anything upon anybody, swing with every ‘turn’ – whether in the direction of Economism or in the direction of terrorism. Rabocheye Dyelo even generalises this great precept of worldly wisdom and accuses Iskra and Zarya of “setting up their programme against the movement, like a spirit hovering over the formless chaos.” (p. 29.) But what else is the function of Social-Democracy if not to be a ‘spirit’ that not only hovers over the spontaneous movement, but also raises this movement to the level of “its programme”? Surely, it is not its function to drag at the tail of the movement. At best, this would be of no service to the movement; at worst, it would be exceedingly harmful. Rabocheye Dyelo, however, not only follows this “tactics-as-process”, but elevates it to a principle, so that it would be more correct to describe its tendency not as opportunism, but as tail-ism (from the word tail). And it must be admitted that those who are determined always to follow behind the movement and be its tail are absolutely and forever guaranteed against “belittling the spontaneous element of development”.

* * *

And so, we have become convinced that the fundamental error committed by the ‘new trend’ in Russian Social-Democracy is its bowing to spontaneity and its failure to understand that the spontaneity of the masses demands a high degree of consciousness from us Social-Democrats. The greater the spontaneous upsurge of the masses and the more widespread the movement, the more rapid, incomparably so, the demand for greater consciousness in the theoretical, political and organisational work of Social-Democracy.

The spontaneous upsurge of the masses in Russia proceeded (and continues) with such rapidity that the young Social-Democrats proved unprepared to meet these gigantic tasks. This unpreparedness is our common misfortune, the misfortune of all Russian Social-Democrats. The upsurge of the masses proceeded and spread with uninterrupted continuity; it not only continued in the places where it began, but spread to new localities and to new strata of the population (under the influence of the working class movement, there was a renewed ferment among the student youth, among the intellectuals generally, and even among the peasantry). Revolutionaries, however, lagged behind this upsurge, both in their ‘theories’ and in their activity; they failed to establish a constant and continuous organisation capable of leading the whole movement.

In Chapter 1, we established that Rabocheye Dyelo belittled our theoretical tasks and that it ‘spontaneously’ repeated the fashionable catchword ‘freedom of criticism’; those who repeated this catchword lacked the ‘consciousness’ to understand that the positions of the opportunist ‘Critics’ and those of the revolutionaries in Germany and in Russia are diametrically opposed.

In the following chapters, we shall show how this bowing to spontaneity found expression in the sphere of the political tasks and in the organisational work of Social-Democracy.

Endnotes

  1. The Self-Emancipation of the Workers Group – a small group of ‘Economists’ formed in St. Petersburg in the autumn of 1898; it existed for only a few months and published a manifesto setting forth its aims [published in Nakanune (On the Eve) in London], a set of rules and several leaflets addressed to the workers. –Ed.

  2. Nakanune (On the Eve) – a journal expressing Narodnik views. It was published in Russian in London from January 1899 to February 1902 – altogether 37 issues. The journal was a rallying point for representatives of various petty-bourgeois parties. –Ed.

  3. Present Tasks and Tactics of the Russian Social-Democracy, Geneva, 1898. Two letters to Rabochaya Gazeta, written in 1897.

  4. In defending its first untruth (“we do not know to which young comrades Axelrod referred”), Rabocheye Dyelo added a second, when it wrote in its Reply: “Since the review of The Tasks was published, tendencies have arisen, or become more or less clearly defined, among certain Russian Social-Democrats, towards economic one-sidedness, which represent a step backwards from the state of our movement as described in The Tasks.” (p. 9.) This, in the Reply, published in 1900. But the first issue of Rabocheye Dyelo (containing the review) appeared in April 1899. Did Economism really arise only in 1899? No. The year 1899 saw the first protest of the Russian Social-Democrats against Economism (the protest against the Credo). Economism arose in 1897, as Rabocheye Dyelo very well knows, for already in November 1898, V.I. was praising Rabochaya Mysl. (see ‘Listok’ Rabotnika, No. 9-10.)

  5. The ‘stages theory’, or the theory of ‘timid zigzags’, in the political struggle is expressed, for example, in this article, in the following way: “Political demands, which in their character are common to the whole of Russia, should, however, at first (this was written in August 1900!) correspond to the experience gained by the given stratum (sic!) of workers in the economic struggle. Only [!] on the basis of this experience can and should political agitation be taken up,” etc. (p. 11.) On page 4, the author, protesting against what he regards as the absolutely unfounded charge of Economist heresy, pathetically exclaims: “What Social-Democrat does not know that according to the theories of Marx and Engels the economic interests of certain classes play a decisive role in history, and, consequently, that particularly the proletariat’s struggle for its economic interests must be of paramount importance in its class development and struggle for emancipation?” (Our italics.) The word ‘consequently’ is completely irrelevant. The fact that economic interests play a decisive role does not in the least imply that the economic (i.e., trade union) struggle is of prime importance; for the most essential, the ‘decisive’ interests of classes can be satisfied only by radical political changes in general. In particular the fundamental economic interests of the proletariat can be satisfied only by a political revolution that will replace the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie by the dictatorship of the proletariat. Krichevsky repeats the arguments of the ‘V.V.’s of Russian Social-Democracy’ (viz., that politics follows economics, etc.) and of the Bernsteinians of German Social-Democracy (e.g., by similar arguments Woltmann sought to prove that the workers must first of all acquire ‘economic power’ before they can think about political revolution).

  6. ‘Ein Jahr der Verwirrung’ (‘A Year of Confusion’) is the title Mehring gave to the chapter of his History of German Social-Democracy in which he describes the hesitancy and lack of determination displayed at first by the socialists in selecting the ‘tactics-as-plan’ for the new situation.

  7. Leading article in Iskra, No. 1.

  8. G.V. Plekhanov published his well-known work The Development of the Monist View of History legally in St. Petersburg in 1895 under the pseudonym of N. Beltov. –Ed.

  9. Nartsis Tuporylov (Narcissus Blunt-Snout) was the pseudonym under which Y.O. Martov published his satirical poem ‘Hymn of the Contemporary Russian Socialist’ in Zarya, No. 1, April 1901. The ‘Hymn’ ridiculed the ‘Economists’ and their adaptations to spontaneous events. –Ed.

  10. Nor must it be forgotten that in solving ‘theoretically’ the problem of terror, the Emancipation of Labour group generalised the experience of the antecedent revolutionary movement.