Meanwhile, the Mensheviks had their own problems. The danger of liquidationism was becoming clear, not only to the Bolsheviks, but to a growing number of rank-and-file Mensheviks. The opportunism of the Duma fraction provoked the indignation of the Menshevik workers. By the end of 1908, a process of inner differentiation was taking place in their ranks. Many Menshevik workers were breaking with the Liquidators who increasingly found themselves politically isolated. The ‘Pro-Party Mensheviks’, headed by Plekhanov, defended the maintenance of the underground party organisation, and naturally gravitated towards the Bolsheviks. Soon after the Fifth Congress Plekhanov left the editorial board of Golos Sotsial Demokrata (Social Democrat’s Voice) and launched his own journal, Dnevnik (The Diary), from which he launched a blistering attack on the ‘legalistic renegades’. Independent local groups broadly sympathetic to Plekhanov’s positions sprang up, especially among the exiles – in Paris, Geneva, Nice, and San Remo.
This unexpected development provided welcome relief for Lenin. Not only did it appear to hold out the hope of reuniting the revolutionary wing of the Party on a principled basis, but it might have fundamentally altered the balance of forces within the rival factions. Despite all the conflicts and hard words of the past, he showed great enthusiasm for the return of his old mentor to the revolutionary camp. Lenin probably hoped that unification with Plekhanov would help him to overcome the ultra-left tendencies in his own faction. In the delicate negotiations with the Pro-Party Mensheviks, Lenin showed both skill and sensitivity. Although the Bolsheviks were numerically far superior to the Plekhanovites, Lenin was careful not to present the relationship between the two trends in triumphalistic terms, but as a growing together of two equal groups of co-thinkers. He had to take into account the personal sensitivities of the eternally prickly Plekhanov, who wrote: “I mean a mutual drawing closer together, and not the Mensheviks switching to the Bolsheviks standpoint.” (GV Plekhanov, Works, in Russian, vol. 19, p. 37.) Lenin showed himself to be very tactful in this respect: “I am speaking of a mutual rapprochement, and not of the Mensheviks going over to the standpoint of the Bolsheviks,” he wrote. (VI Lenin, Collected Works, Russian edition, vol. 19, p. 23.)
This was the real Lenin – a thousand light-years removed from the caricature of the rigid and unforgiving sectarian and fanatic which malicious and dishonest critics have systematically tried to peddle. On the other hand, considerations of tact and diplomacy for Lenin never outweighed the need for political clarity. What was needed was “an agreement on the basis of the struggle for the Party and the Party principle against liquidationism, without any ideological compromises, without any glossing over of tactical and other differences of opinion within the limits of the Party line”. (LCW, Methods of the Liquidators and Party Tasks of the Bolsheviks, vol. 16, p. 101.)
By forming a bloc with Lenin to combat both opportunism and ultra-leftism, the founder of Russian Marxism paid his last service to the cause of the revolutionary working class and its party. Plekhanov came close to making the break with Menshevism at this time. He supported Lenin against both Liquidators and otzovists. But ultimately he proved unable to go the whole way. He baulked at unity with the Bolsheviks, and this proved to be an insurmountable obstacle, preventing Pro-Party Mensheviks from going over to the camp of consistent revolutionism. This scenario has been played out many times in the history of the international labour movement. Under certain conditions, honest left reformist or centrist leaders can make the transition to the camp of revolutionary Marxism. But history shows that this is rather the exception than the rule. More often than not, the mental habits and inertia of long periods of stagnation, and the vacillations and ambiguity which flow from confusion and unwillingness to call things by their right name, act as a powerful brake to prevent the process from coming to fruition. Such individuals – even the best of them, like Plekhanov and Martov – tend to recoil at the moment of truth and sink back into the morass of opportunist politics.
For a time, however, the united front with Plekhanov’s group gave new heart to Lenin’s supporters. Ordzhonikidze wrote to Lenin: “I welcome Plekhanov’s about-turn with all my heart… If he now really takes up a firm position, that will undoubtedly be a plus for the Party.” (Quoted in Istoriya KPSS, vol. 2, p. 269.) Alas, it was not to be. Plekhanov’s rapprochement with Bolshevism was almost entirely confined to the organisational question. Politically, he remained in the orbit of Menshevism, reluctant to completely break the umbilical cord that tied him to his old friends. Inevitably, he veered to the right once more – this time for good. In the First World War, he found himself in the camp of reactionary patriotism. From the standpoint of the revolution, the great man was dead. But for the time being, the collaboration of Leninists and ‘Plekhanovites’ had a positive effect. Many ‘Pro-Party Menshevik’ workers later became Bolsheviks.