We shall again begin by praising Rabocheye Dyelo. ‘Literature of Exposure and the Proletarian Struggle’ is the title Martynov gave the article on his differences with Iskra published in Rabocheye Dyelo, No. 10. He formulated the substance of the differences as follows:
We cannot confine ourselves solely to exposing the system that stands in its (the working-class party’s) path of development. We must also react to the immediate and current interests of the proletariat… Iskra… is in fact an organ of revolutionary opposition that exposes the state of affairs in our country, particularly the political state of affairs… We, however, work and shall continue to work for the cause of the working class in close organic contact with the proletarian struggle. (p. 63.)
One cannot help being grateful to Martynov for this formula. It is of outstanding general interest, because substantially it embraces not only our disagreements with Rabocheye Dyelo, but the general disagreement between ourselves and the Economists on the political struggle. We have shown that the Economists do not altogether repudiate ‘politics’, but that they are constantly straying from the Social-Democratic to the trade-unionist conception of politics. Martynov strays in precisely this way, and we shall therefore take his views as a model of Economist error on this question. As we shall endeavour to prove, neither the authors of the ‘Separate Supplement’ to Rabochaya Mysl nor the authors of the manifesto issued by the Self-Emancipation Group, nor the authors of the Economist letter published in Iskra, No. 12, will have any right to complain against this choice.