The Bourgeois Intelligentsia’s Methods of Struggle Against the Workers

Lenin

Prosveshcheniye No. 6, June 1914.

Collected Works, Volume 20, pages 455-486.

In all capitalist Countries throughout the world, the bourgeoisie resorts to two methods in its struggle against the working-class movement and the workers’ parties. One method is that of violence, persecution, bans, and suppression. In its fundamentals, this is a feudal, medieval method. Everywhere there are sections and groups of the bourgeoisie—smaller in the advanced countries and larger in the backward ones—which prefer these methods, and in certain, highly critical moments in the workers’ struggle against wage-slavery, the entire bourgeoisie is agreed on the employment of such methods. Historical examples of such moments are provided by Chartism in England, and 1849 and 1871 in France.

The other method the bourgeoisie employs against the movement is that of dividing the—workers, disrupting their ranks, bribing individual representatives or certain groups of the proletariat with the object of winning them over to its side. These are not feudal but purely bourgeois and modern methods, in keeping with the developed and civilised customs of capitalism, with the democratic system.

For the democratic system is a feature of bourgeois society, the most pure and perfect bourgeois feature,, in which the utmost freedom, scope and clarity of the, class struggle are combined with the utmost cunning, with ruses and subterfuges aimed at spreading the “ideological” influence of the bourgeoisie among the wage-slaves with the object of diverting them from their struggle against wage-slavery.

In keeping with Russia’s boundless backwardness, the feudal methods of combating the working-class movement are appallingly predominant in that country. After 1905, however, considerable “progress” was to be noted in the employment of liberal and democratic methods to fool and corrupt the workers. Among the liberal “methods” we have, for example; the growth of nationalism, a stronger tendency to refurbish and revive religion “for the people” (both directly and indirectly in the form of developing idealistic, Kantian and Machist philosophy), the “successes” of bourgeois theories of political economy (combined with the labour theory of value, or substituted for it), etc., etc.

Among the democratic methods of fooling the workers and subjecting them to bourgeois ideology are the liquidationist-Narodnik-Cadet varieties. It is to these that we intend to draw our readers’ attention in the present article on certain topical events that have occurred on the fringe of the working-class movement.

I. The LIQUIDATORS’ and the NARODNIKS’ ALLIANCE AGAINST the WORKERS

It is said that history is fond of irony, of playing tricks with people, and mystifying them. In history this constantly happens to individuals, groups and trends that do not realise what they really stand for, i.e., fail to understand which class they really (and not in their imagination) gravitate towards. Whether this lack of understanding is genuine or hypocritical is a question that might interest the biographer of a particular individual, but to the student of politics this question is of secondary importance, to say the least.

The important thing is how history and politics expose groups and trends and reveal the bourgeois nature concealed behind their “pseudo-socialist” or “pseudo-Marxist” phraseology. In the epoch of bourgeois-democratic revolutions, scores of groups and trends have everywhere, all over the world, imagined themselves to be “socialists” and have posed as such (see, for example, the schools listed by Marx and Engels in Chapter III of the Communist Manifesto). History has speedily exposed them in a matter of ten to twenty years, or even less.

Russia is now passing through just such a phase.

It is over ten years since the Economists, then their successors the Mensheviks, and then the Mensheviks’ successors—the liquidators, began to fall away from the working-class movement.

The Mensheviks were especially vociferous in their assertions that the Bolsheviks had drawn close to the Narodniks....

And now we have before us a very definite alliance between the liquidators and the Narodniks directed against the working class and against the Bolsheviks, who have remained true to that class.

The alliance between the petty-bourgeois intelligentsia—liquidationist and Narodnik—against the workers has been developing spontaneously. At first it was stimulated by “practice”. No wonder people say that practice marches ahead of theory (especially in the case of those who are guided by a false theory). When the St. Petersburg workers removed the liquidators from office, expelled these representatives of bourgeois influence from the executives of the trade unions and from their responsible positions on the Insurance Boards, the liquidators found themselves in alliance with the Narodniks.

“As soon as we came into the hail (where the election of the Insurance Board was taking place),” a sincere and naive Narodnik wrote in Stoikaya Mysl, issue No. 5, “the narrow and factional stand taken by the Pravdists at once became clear. But we did not lose hope. Together with the liquidators, we drew up a non-factional election list giving us one seat on the Board and two alternate seats.” (See Put Pravdy No. 38, March 16, 1914.)

Poor liquidators, what a cruel trick history has played on them! How relentlessly has their new “friend and ally” the Left Narodnik, exposed them!

The liquidators did not even manage to renounce their own very formal statements and resolutions of 1903 and other years, describing the Left Narodniks as bourgeois democrats!

History has swept away phrases, dispelled illusions and exposed the class nature of the groups. Both the Narodniks and the liquidators are groups of petty-bourgeois intellectuals, whom the Marxist workers have removed from the movement, and who are trying to sneak in again under false pretences.

They are using the catchword “factionalism” as a cloak, a word that the notorious Akimov, the leader of the Economists, used as a weapon against the Iskrists at the Second Party Congress in 1903. Akimov’s catchword, that of an extreme opportunist, was the only weapon left to the liquidators and Narodniks. That rag of a Sovremennik seemed to have come into the world with the deliberate purpose of showing up to all literate people how rotten, useless and rusty that weapon was.

This Sovremennik is quite a startling event in our democratic journalistic world. Side by side with the names of casual contributors (need drives all sorts of people into strange journals in order to earn a little money!), we find an obviously demonstrative combination of names intended to represent a combination of trends.

The liberal Bogucharsky; the Narodniks Sukhanov, Rakitnikov, B. Voronov, V. Chernov, and others; the liquidators Dan, Martov; Trotsky and Sher (Potresov’s name was announced in issue No. 66 of Severnaya Rabochaya Gazeta next to that of Plekhanov, but for some reason it ... vanished); the Machists Bazarov and Lunacharsky, and last, G. V. Plekhanov, the principal hero of Yedinstvo[1] (spelt both with a small and a capital letter)—such are the ostentatious names that sparkle in the list of Sovremennik’s contributors. And fully in keeping with this, the highlight of the journal’s trend is the advocacy (by the Narodniks) of an alliance between the Narodniks and the “Marxists” (no joking!).

The reader can judge what this advocacy is from the articles penned by Mr. Sukhanov, the head of this journal. Here are some of the most important of this gentleman’s “ideas”.

“The old cleavage, at all events, has disappeared. It is no longer possible to determine where Marxism ends and Narodism begins. Both Narodism and Marxism will be found on either side. And both sides are neither Marxist nor ‘Narodnik’. Indeed, could it, and can it, be otherwise? Can any twentieth-century collectivist think in any but the Marxist way? And can any socialist in Russia he anything but a Narodnik?”

“The same thing should he said about the present-day Marxist agrarian programme as we said last time about the Narodnik agrarian programme: in its method of stating the case it is a Marxist programme, but in its practical aims it is a Narodnik programme. It appeals to the ‘historical course of things’ and it strives to embody the slogan: land and freedom”. (No. 7, pp. 75–76.)

That will suffice, I think!

This Mr. Sukhanov publicly boasts that Plekhanov agrees with him. But Plekhanov is silent!

But let us examine Mr. Sukhanov’s line of argument. This new ally of Plekhanov and the liquidators has “liquidated” the difference between Marxism and Narodism on the ground that, as he claims, the practical aims of both trends embody the slogan: land and freedom.

This, wholly and literally, is an argument in defence of “unity” between the workers and the bourgeoisie. We might say, for example, that “in their practical aims” both the working class and the liberal bourgeoisie “strive to embody” the slogan of a constitution. From this, the clever Mr. Sukhanov should draw the conclusion that the cleavage into proletariat and bourgeoisie has been “liquidated” and that it is “impossible to determine where” proletarian democracy “ends” and bourgeois democracy begins.

Take the text of the Marxist agrarian programme. Sukhanov behaves like all liberal bourgeois who pick out a “practical” slogan (“Constitution”!) and declare that the difference between the socialist and the bourgeois world outlook is a matter of “abstract theory”! But we take the liberty of believing that the meaning and significance of practical slogans, the interests of which class these slogans serve, and how they serve them, are matters to which class-conscious workers and all those who take an intelligent interest in politics cannot remain indifferent.

We turn to the Marxist agrarian programme (which Mr. Sukhanov referred to in order to distort it out of all recognition) and at once find, next to practical points that are objects of controversy among Marxists (for example, municipalisation), other points that are indisputable.

“With a view to eliminating survivals of the serf system, which are a direct and heavy burden upon the peasants, and in order to facilitate the free development of the class struggle in the rural districts” ... this is how the Marxist agrarian programme begins. To Mr. Sukhanov this is unimportant “abstract theory”! Whether we want a constitution to facilitate the free development of the class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie or to facilitate “social conciliation” between the workers and the capitalists is a matter of no importance; that is “abstract theory”. That is what all bourgeois would have us believe.

The bourgeois correctly expresses his class interests when he tries to persuade the workers of this. Mr. Sukhanov behaves entirely like a bourgeois when he relegates to the background the question as to what we need agrarian reforms for—for the purpose of facilitating the free development of the class struggle between the wage-workers and their masters, big and small, or for the purpose of facilitating “social conciliation” between them with the aid of bourgeois catchwords like “labour” economy?

A little further on we read in the Marxist agrarian programme that Marxists ... “will always and invariably oppose every attempt to check the economic progress”. As is known, that is the very reason why Marxists declare that every at tempt, however slight, to restrict the freedom of mobilisation (the buying, selling, mortgaging, etc.) of peasant land is a reactionary measure harmful to the workers and to social development as a whole.

The Narodniks—from the “Social-Cadet” Peshekhonov to the Left Narodniks of Smelaya Mysl—stand for restricting the freedom of mobilisation in one way or another. The Narodniks are the worst kind of reactionaries on this question, the Marxists say.

Mr. Sukhanov evades this point! He is reluctant to recall that it was this that made Plekhanov call the Narodniks “socialist-reactionaries” Mr. Sukhanov brushes “abstract theory” aside on the plea that he stands for “practice”, and he brushes aside “practice” (freedom to mobilise peasant land) on the general plea that he stands for the slogan of “land and freedom”.

The conclusion to be drawn is clear: Mr. Sukhanov is nothing more nor less than a bourgeois who is trying to obscure the class strife between workers and masters.

And it is these bourgeois that the Marxist agrarian programme refers to when it says:

“In all cases and in every situation connected with democratic agrarian reform” (note: under all circumstances and in every situation, i.e., municipalisation, division, or any other likely form)... Marxists “make it their object to work steadily towards an independent class organisation of the rural proletariat, to explain to it the irreconcilable antagonism between its interests and those of the peasant bourgeoisie, to warn it against being beguiled by the petty farming system, which will never, as long as commodity production exists, be able to abolish poverty among the masses,” etc.

That is what the Marxist agrarian programme says. That is exactly what is said in that point of the programme which the Mensheviks accepted from the Bolsheviks’ draft at the Stockholm Congress, i.e., the point that is least disputed and most generally recognised among Marxists.

That is what it says in the most important point on the question of Narodism, which deals with the “small farming system

But Mr. Sukhanov passes this question over in complete silence!

Mr. Sukhanov has done away with the “old cleavage”, with the division of trends into Marxism and Narodism, by ignoring the clear and definite wording of the “Marxist agrarian programme” aimed against Narodism!

Without doubt, Mr. Sukhanov is a mere windbag—many of his kind haunt the drawing-rooms of Our liberal “society”—who has no idea of Marxism, and airily “does away” with this unimportant socialist division into Marxism and Narodism.

As a matter of fact, Marxism and Narodism are poles apart, both in theory and in practice. Marx’s theory is that of the development of capitalism and of the class struggle between the wage-workers and the master class. The theory of Narodism is the theory of the bourgeois white washing of capitalism with the aid of catchwords like “labour economy”; it is a theory which plays down, obscures and hinders the class struggle by means of these very same catchwords, by advocating restriction, of the mobilisation of the land, and so forth.

Historically, the depth of the gulf between Marxism and Narodism in Russia was revealed by practice—not of slogans, of course, for only brainless people can regard “slogans” as “practice”—but by the practice of the open and mass struggle of millions in 1905–07. This practice showed that Marxism had merged with the working-class movement and that Narodism had merged (or had begun to merge) with the movement of the petty-bourgeois peasantry (the Peasant Union, the First and Second Duma elections, the peasant movement, and so forth).

Narodism stands for bourgeois democracy in Russia.

This, was proved by the half a century of evolution of this trend and by the open struggles of the millions in 1905–07. This was recognised repeatedly in the most emphatic and official manner by the supreme bodies of the “Marxist whole” from 1903 to 1907, and down to the Summer Conference of 1913.

The publicists’ alliance that we see today among the lenders of Narodism (Chernov, Rakitnikov and Sukhanov) and various Social-Democratic intellectualist factions that are either openly opposed to the “underground”, i. e., the workers’ party (the liquidators Dan, Martov and Cherevanin) or else help these liquidationist workerless groups (Trotsky and Sher, Bazarov, Lunacharsky and Plekhanov), is in fact nothing more nor less than an alliance of bourgeois intellectuals directed against the workers.

We regard Pravdism as the expression of the workers’ unity on the basis of genuine recognition of the “underground” and of definite decisions that co-ordinate and guide tactics in the old spirit (the decisions of January 1912 and of February and the summer of 1913). It is a fact that between January 1, 1912 and May 13, 1914, Pravdism united 5,674 workers’ groups as against 1,421 united by the liquidators, and none, or almost none, by the Vperyod, Plekhanov, Trotsky and Sher, and other groups. (See Rabochy No. 1, “From the History of the Workers’ Press in Russia”, p. 19 and Trudovaya Pravda No,2, of May 30, 1914.)

It is a fact that this workers’ unity is built on the firm basis of integral, complete and, in principle, consistent decisions on all questions affecting the lives of the Marxist workers. Here you have a whole, for four-fifths have an absolute right to represent, to act and speak on behalf of the “whole”.

But the Sovremennik alliance of the leaders of Narodism and all sorts of Social-Democratic workerless groups (with out definite tactics, without definite decisions, knowing only vacillations between the trend and the united body of Pravdism on the one hand, and the liquidators on the other)—this alliance sprang up spontaneously. Not one of the “Social-Democratic workerless groups” dared to come out in favour of such an alliance straightforwardly, clearly and openly—because the Summer Conference of 1913 expressed opposition to an alliance with the Narodniks! Not one of these groups, neither the liquidators, the Vperyod people, nor Plekhanov and Co., and Trotsky and Co., dared do this! All of them simply swam with the stream, carried along by their opposition to Pravdism and a desire to break or weaken it, and instinctively seeking assistance one from another against the four-fifths of the workers—the liquidators from Sukhanov and Chernov, Sukhanov and Chernov from Plekhanov, Plekhanov from these two, Trotsky also from them, and so forth. None of these groups displays anything like a uniform policy, tactics that can be called at all definite, or a frank declaration to the workers in defence of its alliance with the Narodniks.

It is a most unprincipled alliance of bourgeois intellectuals against the workers. Plekhanov is to be pitied for the disreputable company he finds himself in, but let us face the truth squarely. People can call the alliance of these groups “unity” if they wish to, but we call it a breakaway from the working-class whole, and the facts prove that our view is correct.