From what has been said the reader will see that our ‘tactics-as-plan’ consists in rejecting an immediate call for assault; in demanding ‘to lay effective siege to the enemy fortress’; or, in other words, in demanding that all efforts be directed towards gathering, organising, and mobilising a permanent army. When we ridiculed Rabocheye Dyelo for its leap from Economism to shouting for an assault (for which it clamoured in April 1901, in “Listok” Rabochego Dyela, No. 6) it of course came down on us with accusations of being “doctrinaire”, of failing to understand our revolutionary duty, of calling for caution, etc. Of course, we were not in the least surprised to hear these accusations from those who totally lack principles and who evade all arguments by references to a profound ‘tactics-as-process’, any more than we were surprised by the fact that these charges were repeated by Nadezhdin, who in general has a supreme contempt for durable programmes and the fundamentals of tactics.

It is said that history does not repeat itself. But Nadezhdin exerts every effort to cause it to repeat itself and he zealously imitates Tkachov[11] in strongly condemning ‘revolutionary culturism’, in shouting about ‘sounding the tocsin’ and about a special ‘eve-of-the-revolution point of view’, etc. Apparently, he has forgotten the well-known maxim that while an original historical event represents a tragedy, its replica is merely a farce.[12] The attempt to seize power, which was prepared by the preaching of Tkachov and carried out by means of the ‘terrifying’ terror that did really terrify, had grandeur, but the ‘excitative’ terror of a Tkachov the Little is simply ludicrous, particularly so when it is supplemented with the idea of an organisation of average people.

“If Iskra would only emerge from its sphere of bookishness,” wrote Nadezhdin, “it would realise that these (instances like the worker’s letter to Iskra, No. 7, etc.) are symptoms of the fact that soon, very soon, the ‘assault’ will begin, and to speak now [sic!] of an organisation linked with an all-Russia newspaper means to propagate armchair ideas and armchair activity.” What an unimaginable muddle – on the one hand, excitative terror and an ‘organisation of average people’, along with the opinion that it is far ‘easier’ to gather around something ‘more concrete’, like a local newspaper, and, on the other, the view that to talk ‘now’ about an all-Russia organisation means to propagate armchair thoughts, or, bluntly put, ‘now’ it is already too late! But what of the “extensive organisation of local newspapers” – is it not too late for that, my dear L. Nadezhdin? And compare with this Iskra’s point of view and tactical line: excitative terror is nonsense; to talk of an organisation of average people and of the extensive publication of local newspapers means to fling the door wide open to Economism. We must speak of a single all-Russia organisation of revolutionaries, and it will never be too late to talk of that until the real, not a paper, assault begins.

“Yes, as far as organisation is concerned the situation is anything but brilliant,” continues Nadezhdin. “Yes, Iskra is entirely right in saying that the mass of our fighting forces consists of volunteers and insurgents… You do well to give such a sober picture of the state of our forces. But why, at the same time, do you forget that the masses are not ours at all, and consequently, will not ask us when to begin military operations; they will simply go and ‘rebel’… When the crowd itself breaks out with its elemental destructive force it may overwhelm and sweep aside the ‘regular troops’ among whom we prepared all the time to introduce extremely systematic organisation, but never managed to do so.” (Our italics.)

Astounding logic! For the very reason that the “masses are not ours” it is stupid and unseemly to shout about an immediate “assault”, for assault means attack by regular troops and not a spontaneous mass upsurge. For the very reason that the masses may overwhelm and sweep aside the regular troops we must without fail “manage to keep up” with the spontaneous upsurge by our work of “introducing extremely systematic organisation” in the regular troops, for the more we “manage” to introduce such organisation the more probably will the regular troops not be overwhelmed by the masses, but will take their place at their head. Nadezhdin is confused because he imagines that troops in the course of systematic organisation are engaged in something that isolates them from the masses, when in actuality they are engaged exclusively in all-sided and all-embracing political agitation, i.e., precisely in work that brings closer and merges into a single whole the elemental destructive force of the masses and the conscious destructive force of the organisation of revolutionaries. You, gentlemen, wish to lay the blame where it does not belong. For it is precisely the Svoboda group that, by including terror in its programme, calls for an organisation of terrorists, and such an organisation would indeed prevent our troops from establishing closer contacts with the masses, which, unfortunately, are still not ours, and which, unfortunately, do not yet ask us, or rarely ask us, when and how to launch their military operations.

“We shall miss the revolution itself,” continues Nadezhdin in his attempt to scare Iskra, “in the same way as we missed the recent events, which came upon us like a bolt from the blue.” This sentence, taken in connection with what has been quoted above, clearly demonstrates the absurdity of the “eve-of-the-revolution point of view” invented by Svoboda.[13] Plainly put, this special ‘point of view’ boils down to this that it is too late ‘now’ to discuss and prepare. If that is the case, most worthy opponent of ‘bookishness’, what was the use of writing a pamphlet of 132 pages on questions of theory[14] and tactics? Don’t you think it would have been more becoming for the ‘eve-of-the-revolution point of view’ to have issued 132,000 leaflets containing the summary call, ‘Bang them – knock’em down!’?

Those who make nation-wide political agitation the cornerstone of their programme, their tactics, and their organisational work, as Iskra does, stand the least risk of missing the revolution. The people who are now engaged throughout Russia in weaving the network of connections that spread from the all-Russia newspaper not only did not miss the spring events, but, on the contrary, gave us an opportunity to foretell them. Nor did they miss the demonstrations that were described in Iskra, Nos. 13 and 14; on the contrary, they took part in them, clearly realising that it was their duty to come to the aid of the spontaneously rising masses and, at the same time, through the medium of the newspaper, help all the comrades in Russia to inform themselves of the demonstrations and to make use of their gathered experience. And if they live they will not miss the revolution, which, first and foremost, will demand of us experience in agitation, ability to support (in a Social-Democratic manner) every protest, as well as direct the spontaneous movement, while safeguarding it from the mistakes of friends and the traps of enemies.

We have thus come to the last reason that compels us so strongly to insist on the plan of an organisation centred round an all-Russia newspaper, through the common work for the common newspaper. Only such organisation will ensure the flexibility required of a militant Social-Democratic organisation, viz., the ability to adapt itself immediately to the most diverse and rapidly changing conditions of struggle, the ability, “on the one hand, to avoid an open battle against an overwhelming enemy, when the enemy has concentrated all his forces at one spot and yet, on the other, to take advantage of his unwieldiness and to attack him when and where he least expects it”.[15] It would be a grievous error indeed to build the Party organisation in anticipation only of outbreaks and street fighting, or only upon the ‘forward march of the drab everyday struggle’. We must always conduct our everyday work and always be prepared for every situation, because very frequently it is almost impossible to foresee when a period of outbreak will give way to a period of calm. In the instances, however, when it is possible to do so, we could not turn this foresight to account for the purpose of reconstructing our organisation; for in an autocratic country these changes take place with astonishing rapidity, being sometimes connected with a single night raid by the tsarist janizaries.[16] And the revolution itself must not by any means be regarded as a single act (as the Nadezhdins apparently imagine), but as a series of more or less powerful outbreaks rapidly alternating with periods of more or less complete calm. For that reason, the principal content of the activity of our Party organisation, the focus of this activity, should be work that is both possible and essential in the period of a most powerful outbreak as well as in the period of complete calm, namely, work of political agitation, connected throughout Russia, illuminating all aspects of life, and conducted among the broadest possible strata of the masses. But this work is unthinkable in present-day Russia without an all-Russia newspaper, issued very frequently. The organisation, which will form round this newspaper, the organisation of its collaborators (in the broad sense of the word, i.e., all those working for it), will be ready for everything, from upholding the honour, the prestige, and the continuity of the Party in periods of acute revolutionary ‘depression’ to preparing for, appointing the time for, and carrying out the nation-wide armed uprising.

Indeed, picture to yourselves a very ordinary occurrence in Russia – the total round-up of our comrades in one or several localities. In the absence of a single, common, regular activity that combines all the local organisations, such round-ups frequently result in the interruption of the work for many months. if, however, all the local organisations had one common activity, then, even in the event of a very serious round-up, two or three energetic persons could in the course of a few weeks establish contact between the common centre and new youth circles, which, as we know, spring up very quickly even now. And when the common activity, hampered by the arrests, is apparent to all, new circles will be able to come into being and make connections with the centre even more rapidly.

On the other hand, picture to yourselves a popular uprising. Probably everyone will now agree that we must think of this and prepare for it. But how? Surely the Central Committee cannot appoint agents to all localities for the purpose of preparing the uprising. Even if we had a Central Committee, it could achieve absolutely nothing by such appointments under present-day Russian conditions. But a network of agents[17] that would form in the course of establishing and distributing the common newspaper would not have to ‘sit about and wait’ for the call for an uprising, but could carry on the regular activity that would guarantee the highest probability of success in the event of an uprising. Such activity would strengthen our contacts with the broadest strata of the working masses and with all social strata that are discontented with the autocracy, which is of such importance for an uprising. Precisely such activity would serve to cultivate the ability to estimate correctly the general political situation and, consequently, the ability to select the proper moment for an uprising. Precisely such activity would train all local organisations to respond simultaneously to the same political questions, incidents, and events that agitate the whole of Russia and to react to such ‘incidents’ in the most vigorous, uniform, and expedient manner possible; for an uprising is in essence the most vigorous, most uniform, and most expedient ‘answer’ of the entire people to the government. Lastly, it is precisely such activity that would train all revolutionary organisations throughout Russia to maintain the most continuous, and at the same time the most secret, contacts with one another, thus creating real Party unity; for without such contacts it will be impossible collectively to discuss the plan for the uprising and to take the necessary preparatory measures on the eve, measures that must be kept in the strictest secrecy.

In a word, the ‘plan for an all-Russia political newspaper’, far from representing the fruits of the labour of armchair workers, infected with dogmatism and bookishness (as it seemed to those who gave but little thought to it), is the most practical plan for immediate and all-round preparation of the uprising, with, at the same time, no loss of sight for a moment of the pressing day-to-day work.

Endnotes

  1. Tkachov, P.N. (1844-1885) – one of the ideologists of revolutionary Narodism, a follower of the Auguste Blanqui. –Ed.

  2. Lenin refers to the following passage from Marx’s The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte: “Hegel remarks somewhere that all facts and personages of great importance in world history occur, as it were, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce.” (see K. Marx and F. Engels, Selected Works, Vol. 1, Moscow, 1958, p. 247.) –Ed.

  3. The Eve of the Revolution, p. 62.

  4. In his Review of Questions of Theory, Nadezhdin, by the way, made almost no contribution whatever to the discussion of questions of theory, apart, perhaps, from the following passage, a most peculiar one from the ‘eve-of-the-revolution point of view’: “Bernsteinism, on the whole, is losing its acuteness for us at the present moment, as is the question whether Mr. Adamovich will prove that Mr. Struve has already earned a lacing, or, on the contrary, whether Mr. Struve will refute Mr. Adamovich and will refuse to resign – it really makes no difference, because the hour of revolution has struck.” (p. 110.) One can hardly imagine a more glaring illustration of Nadezhdin’s infinite disregard for theory. We have proclaimed ‘the eve of the revolution’, therefore “it really makes no difference” whether or not the orthodox will succeed in finally driving the Critics from their positions! Our wiseacre fails to see that it is precisely during the revolution that we shall stand in need of the results of our theoretical battles with the Critics in order to be able resolutely to combat their practical positions!

  5. Iskra, No. 4, ‘Where to Begin?’. “Revolutionary culturists, who do not accept the eve-of-the-revolution point of view, are not in the least perturbed by the prospect of working for a long period of time,” writes Nadezhdin. (p. 62.) This brings us to observe: Unless we are able to devise political tactics and an organisational plan for work over a very long period, while ensuring, in the very process of this work, our Party’s readiness to be at its post and fulfil its duty in every contingency whenever the march of events is accelerated – unless we succeed in doing this, we shall prove to be but miserable political adventurers. Only Nadezhdin, who began but yesterday to describe himself as a Social-Democrat, can forget that the aim of Social-Democracy is to transform radically the conditions of life of the whole of mankind and that for this reason it is not permissible for a Social-Democrat to be ‘perturbed’ by the question of the duration of the work.

  6. Janizaries – privileged Turkish infantry, abolished in 1826. The janizaries plundered the population and were known for their unusual brutality. Lenin called the tsarist police ‘janizaries’. –Ed.

  7. Alas, alas! Again, I have let slip that awful word ‘agents’, which jars so much on the democratic ears of the Martynovs! I wonder why this word did not offend the heroes of the seventies and yet offends the amateurs of the nineties? I like the word, because it clearly and trenchantly indicates the common cause to which all the agents bend their thoughts and actions, and if I had to replace this word by another, the only word I might select would be the word ‘collaborator’, if it did not suggest a certain bookishness and vagueness. The thing we need is a military organisation of agents. However, the numerous Martynovs (particularly abroad), whose favourite pastime is ‘mutual grants of generalships to one another’, may instead of saying ‘passport agent’ prefer to say, ‘Chief of the Special Department for Supplying Revolutionaries with Passports’. etc.