The Chkheidze Faction and Its Role
Lenin Collected Works, Volume 23, pages 171-174.
We have maintained all along that Messrs. Chkheidze and Co. do not represent the Social-Democratic proletariat and that a genuine Social-Democratic Labour Party will never be reconciled or united with this faction. Our contention was based on the following incontrovertible facts (1) Chkheidze’s “save the country” formula does not in sub stance differ from defencism; (2) the Chkheidze faction has never opposed Mr. Potresov and Co., not even when Martov did; (3) the decisive fact: the faction has never opposed participation in the war industries committees.
The pressure of facts has increasingly compelled Nashe Slovo and Trotsky, who reproach us for our “factionalism”, to take up the struggle against the O.C. and Chkheidze. The trouble, however, is that it was only “under pressure” (of our criticism and the criticism of the facts) that the Nashe Slovo supporters retreated from position to position; but they have not yet said the decisive word. Unity or a split with the Chkheidze faction? They are still afraid to decide!
No. 1 of the Bulletin of the Bund Committee Abroad (September 1916) contains a letter from Petrograd dated February 26, 1916. It is a valuable document and fully con firms our view. Its author declares unequivocally that there is “a definite crisis in the Menshevik camp itself”, and what is particularly characteristic, he says nothing about the Mensheviks opposed to participation in the war industries committees! He has not seen or heard of them in Russia!
Three out of the five members of the Chkheidze faction, he writes, are opposed to the “defencist position” (like the 0. C.) and two are in favour of it.
“Those who serve the faction,” he writes, “are unable to shift the majority from the position it has taken. The local ‘initiating group’, which rejects the defencist position, comes to the aid of the faction majority.”
Those who serve the faction are liberal intellectuals of the type of Potresov, Maslov, Orthodox and Co., who call themselves Social-Democrats. Our repeated assertions that this group of intellectuals is a “hotbed” of opportunism and of liberal-labour politics have now been confirmed by a Bundist.
He writes further: “Life [and not Purishkevich and Guchkov?] has brought to the fore... a new organ, the workers group, which is more and more becoming the centre of the labour movement. [The writer means the Guchkov, or, to use an older term, the Stolypin labour movement; he recognises no other!] A compromise was reached in the elections to the workers’ group: not defence and self-defence, but salvation of the country, by which something broader was implied.”
This is how a Bundist exposes Chkheidze and Martov’s lies about him! At the election of the Guchkov gang (Gvozdyov, Breido, etc.) to the war industries committees,Chkheidze and the 0. C. entered into a compromise. The Chkheidze formula is: a compromise with the Potresovs and the Gvozdyovs!
Martov concealed and is now concealing this.
The compromise did not end there. The policy statement was also drawn up on the basis of a compromise, which the Bundist characterises in this way:
“Definiteness disappeared.” “The representatives of the faction majority and of the ‘initiating group’ were dissatisfied because, after all, the statement is a big step towards formulation of a defencist position.... In essence, the compromise is the position of German Social-Democracy, in application to Russia.”
So writes a Bundist.
Clear enough, it would seem? There is a party, that of the O.C., Chkheidze and Potresov. Within it there are two contending wings; they come to an agreement, they compromise and remain in one party. The compromise is concluded on the basis of participation in the war industries committees. The only point of disagreement is how to formulate the “motives” (i. e., how to dupe the workers). As a result of the compromise we have, “in essence, the position of German Social-Democracy”.
Well, were we not right when we said that the O.C. party was social-chauvinist, that, as a party, the O.C. and Chkheidze were the same as the Südekums in Germany?
Even a Bundist is compelled to admit their identity with the Südekums!
Neither Chkheidze and Co., nor the O.C. have ever expressed opposition to the compromise, although they are “dissatisfied” with it.
That was the position in February 1916. In April 1916, Martov appeared in Kienthal with a mandate from the “initiating group” to represent the whole O.C., the O.C. in general.
Is this not deceiving the International?
And see what we have now! Potresov, Maslov and Orthodox establish their own organ, Dyelo, which is openly defencist: they invite Plekhanov to contribute; they enlist Messrs. Dmitriev, Cherevanin, Mayevsky, G. Petrovich, etc., the whole crowd of intellectuals who were formerly the mainstay of liquidationism. What I said on behalf of the Bolsheviks in May 1910 (Diskussionny Listok) about the final consolidation of the independent-legalists’ group has been fully confirmed.
Dyelo takes up a brazenly chauvinist and reformist position. See how Mme. Orthodox falsifies Marx and by mis-quoting him makes him appear to be an ally of Hindenburg (all on “philosophical” grounds, mind you!), how Mr. Masby (especially in Dyelo No. 2) champions reformism all along the line, how Mr. Potresov accuses Axelrod and Martov of “maximalism” and anarcho-syndicalism, how the magazine generally tries to palm off advocacy of defence as the cause of “democracy” while modestly evading the unpleasant question as to whether or not this reactionary war is being waged by tsarism for a predatory purpose, for throttling Galicia, Armenia, etc.
The Chkheidze faction and the O.C. are silent. Skobelev sends greetings to the “Liebknechts of all countries”. The real Liebknecht has ruthlessly exposed and condemned his own Scheidemanns and Kautskyites, whereas Skobelev remains in permanent harmony and friendship with the Russian Scheidemanns (Potresov and Co., Chkhenkeli, et al.) and with the Russian Kautskyites (Axelrod et al.)
On behalf of himself and of his friends abroad, Martov announces in Golos No. 2 (Samara, September 20, 1916) a refusal to contribute to Dyelo, but at the same time he whitewashes Chkheidze; at the same time (Izvestia No. 6, September 12, 1916) he asserts that he has parted with Trotsky and Nashe Slovo because of the “Trotsky” idea of repudiating the bourgeois revolution in Russia. But everybody knows that this is a lie, that Martov left Nashe Slovo be cause the latter could not tolerate Martov’s whitewashing of the O.C.! In the same Izvestia Martov defends his deception of the German public, which even roused the indignation of Roland-Holst. He published a pamphlet in German from which he omitted the very part of the Petrograd and Moscow Mensheviks’ policy statement in which they announced their willingness to participate in the war industries committees!
Recall the controversy between Trotsky and Martov in Nashe Slovo prior to the latter’s resignation from the Editorial Board. Martov reproached Trotsky for not having made up his mind whether or not he would follow Kautsky at the decisive moment. Trotsky retorted that Martov was playing the part of a “bait”, a “decoy”, trying to entice the revolutionary workers into the opportunist and chauvinist party of the Potresovs, then the O.C., etc.
Both sides repeated our arguments. And both were right.
However much the truth about Chkheidze and Co. may be concealed, it will come to light. Chkheidze’s role is to compromise with the Potresovs, to camouflage opportunist and chauvinist politics by vague or near-“Left” phrases. And Martov’s role is to whitewash Chkheidze.
Sbornik Sotsial-Demokrata No. 2, December 1916
Lenin Collected Works, Volume 23, pages 171-174.
Lenin Collected Works, Volume 23, pages 171-174.
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