WHY THE WORKERS’ ORGANISATIONS PUBLICLY DENOUNCED THE LIQUIDATORS AS SLANDERERS?

Lenin
The Bourgeois Intelligentsia’s Methods of Struggle Against the Workers

Prosveshcheniye No. 6, June 1914.

Put Pravdy, issue No. 92 for May 21, 1914, published the resolution adopted by representatives of ten industrial organisations in the city of Moscow. This resolution very emphatically and sharply condemned Malinovsky’s disruptive resignation as a “crime”, then expressed complete confidence in the Russian Social-Democratic Labour group in the Duma (“march firmly along your road—the working class is with you!”), and lastly, publicly denounced the liquidators of Nasha Rabochaya Gazeta as people who “throw scurrilous abuse at the retiring deputy”; these people’s conduct is compared with “the spreading of slanderous rumours by the Right press with the object of creating confusion in the ranks of the workers”.

“It is the sacred duty of all those to whom the cause of labour is dear,” the representatives of the ten industrial organisations of Moscow stated in their resolution, “to rally their forces and offer united resistance to the slanderers.” “In reply, the working class will rally more closely around its representatives [i. e., the Russian Social-Democratic Labour group] and contemptuously ignore the slanderers.”

There is no need for us to quote any more of the numerous workers’ resolutions couched in similar terms, or the opinion of the Lettish workers’ newspaper, etc. That would be need less repetition.

Let us see what happened.

Why did the class-conscious workers of Russia, through the representatives of ten industrial organisations in Moscow, and many others, publicly denounce the liquidators of Nasha Rabochaya Gazeta as filthy slanderers, and call upon the working class contemptuously to ignore them?

What did Nasha Rabochaya Gazeta do?

It spread insidious rumours and insinuations to the effect that Malinovsky is an agent provocateur.

It did not name a single accuser. It did not quote a single definite fact. It did not submit a scrap of definitely formulated evidence, backed by references to at least Party pseudonyms, to objects of police raids, dates, or anything of the kind.

All we had was insidious rumours, an attempt to create a sensation out of Malinovsky’s “inexplicable” resignation from the Duma. But it was precisely for this inexplicable resignation, for this secret flight that the organised workers, the members of the workers’ party, severely censured Malinovsky.

The organised Marxist workers at once called together all their various local, trade union, Duma and all-Russia directing bodies, and straightforwardly and publicly declared to the proletariat and to the world at large: Malinovsky did not give us the reasons for his resignation, nor did he give us any warning of it. This inexplicable behaviour, this act of unprecedented insubordination, makes his conduct that of a deserter at a time when we are waging a grim, arduous and responsible class struggle. We have judged the deserter and ruthlessly condemned him. There is no more to be said about it. The case is closed.

“One person is nothing. The class is everything. Stick to your guns. We are with you” (telegram sent by forty Moscow shop assistants to the Russian Social-Democratic Labour group. See Put Pravdy No. 86, May 14, 1914).

The case is closed. The organised workers saw it through to the end in an organised manner, then closed their ranks for further work. Forward, to work!

But intellectualist circles behave differently. The “inexplicable” affair does not induce them to deal with it in an organised manner (not a single leading body of the liquidators or of their friends came out with an open, straightforward and full appraisal of the merits of the case!) but rouses scandal-mongering interest. Ah, “here is something inexplicable!”—the gossips of intellectual society are intrigued.

The gossips have no facts whatever to go by. The scandal-mongers of Martov’s circle are incapable of organised action, of calling together a committee, collecting information of political interest or significance, of verifying, analysing, jointly discussing, and formulating an official and responsible decision for the guidance of the proletariat. The gossips are incapable of doing anything like that.

But then these intellectual gossips are past masters of the art of scandal-mongering, of going to or from Martov (or other filthy slanderers like him) and encouraging insidious rumours, or picking up and passing on insinuations! Whoever has been hut once in the company of these scandal-mongering intellectualist gossips will certainly (unless he is a gossip himself) retain for the rest of his life disgust for these despicable creatures.

Each to his own. Every social stratum has its own way of life, its own habits and inclinations. Every insect has its own weapon. Some insects fight by excreting a foul-smelling liquid.

The organised Marxist workers acted in an organised manner. They closed in an organised manner the case of the unsanctioned resignation of a former colleague, and carded on with their work, went on with the struggle in an organised manner. The liquidationist intellectualist gossips could not and did not go further than filthy gossip and slander.

The organised Marxist workers at once recognised these gossips, from the very first articles in Nasha Rabochaya Gazeta, and at once gave them the appraisal they fully deserved: “filthy slander”, “contemptuously ignore them”. Not a shadow of belief in the “rumours” circulated by Martov and Dan; a firm determination to ignore them, to attach no importance to them.

Incidentally, the workers, who were indignant with the liquidators, referred in their resolutions to the liquidators in general. I believe it would have been far more correct to name Martov and Dan, as was done in Lenin’s telegram, and in some of the articles and resolutions. We have no grounds for accusing all the liquidators and branding them publicly for indulging in filthy slander. But for ten years, beginning with their attempt to flout the will of the Second (1903) Party Congress, Martov and Dan have repeatedly shown their “style” of fighting by means of insinuations and filthy slander. It was of no avail for these two individuals to try and hide behind the plea that somebody or other was divulging the names of the actual editors of Novaya Rabochaya Gazeta. Nowhere has a word or a sound been uttered about editorship, or actual editors.

But the slanderers, whom the workers’ party knows from its ten years of history, had to be named, and named they were.

The slanderers tried to bamboozle the inexperienced, or those utterly incapable of thinking for themselves, by means of the “plausible” demand for an “unofficial” trial. They pleaded ignorance of anything definite, asserted that they were not accusing anybody, that rumours were “not enough” to ground a charge on, for they could serve only as a basis for “investigation”!

But the entire corpus delicti—to use a legal term—of filthy slander consists in people circulating insidious, anonymous rumours in the press, without mentioning a single honest citizen, or a single reputable and responsible democratic body capable of vouching for the truth of these rumours!

That is the crux of the matter.

Martov and Dan have long been known and repeatedly exposed as slanderers. This has been spoken of dozens of times in the press abroad. When Martov, in collaboration with and on the responsibility of Dan, wrote the special libellous pamphlet, Saviours or Destroyers, even the mild and cautious Kautsky, who has of late been greatly given to making “concessions” to the liquidators, called it “disgusting”.

That is a fact long ago published in the press abroad.

And after this, Martov and Dan want us to agree to an investigation undertaken on their initiative, on the basis of their slanderous statements, and with the participation of the very groups that shield them!

That is downright impudence, and sheer stupidity on the part of the slanderers.

We do not believe a single word of Dan’s and Martov’s. We shall never agree to any “investigation” into insidious rumours with the participation of the liquidators and the groups that help them. This would mean covering up the crime committed by Martov and Dan. We shall however thoroughly expose it to the working class.

When Martov and Dan, with their backers, the Bundists, Chkheidze and Co., the August bloc members, etc., directly or indirectly call upon us to conduct a joint “investigation” with them, we say in reply: “We do not trust Martov and Dan. We do not regard them as honest citizens. We shall treat them as despicable slanderers and nothing else.”

Let those who shield Dan and Martov, or the weak-kneed intellectuals who believe the “rumours” circulated by those gentlemen, bemoan the idea of a bourgeois court. That does not frighten us. Against the blackmailers, we are always and absolutely in favour of the bourgeois legality of a bourgeois court.

When a man says: “Give me a hundred rubles, otherwise I shall reveal the fact that you are unfaithful to your wife and are living with A.”—that is criminal blackmail. In such a case we are in favour of appealing to a bourgeois court.

When a Ann says: “Make political concessions to me, recognise me as an equal member of the Marxist body, or else I shall spread rumours about Malinovsky being an agent provocateur”—that is political blackmail.

In such a case we are in favour of appealing to a bourgeois court.

And this point of view was adopted by the workers themselves who, as soon as they read the very first articles of Dan and Martov, distrusted them, and did not say to themselves: “Really, if Martov and Dan write about these ‘rumours’ they must be true?” No, the workers grasped the point at once and said: “The working class will ignore filthy slander.”

Either make a direct charge backed by your signatures, so that a bourgeois court may convict and punish you (there are no other means of combating blackmail), or continue to carry the stigma of slanderers that the representatives of the ten workers’ industrial organisations have publicly placed upon you. That is the alternative that confronts you, Messrs. Martov and Dan!

A leading body investigated these rumours and pronounced them absurd. The workers of Russia trust this body, and it will utterly expose those who spread slander. Martov must not think that he will remain unexposed.

But, you will say, the political groups which defend the liquidators, or oven partly sympathise with them, do not trust our leading body. Of course they do not. We do not want them to trust us; and we shall not take a single step that might suggest that we place the slightest trust in them.

We say: Gentlemen, members of the groups that trust Martov and Dan, and want to “unite” with them, all of you August bloc people, Trotskyists, Vperyodists, Bundists, and so on, and so forth, please come out in the open and show your true colours! Either of two things, gentlemen:

Since you yourselves want to “unite” with Martov and Dan, and call upon the workers to do so, that shows that you (unlike us) trust the recognised leaders of the ideological political trend known as the liquidators. Since you trust them and consider it possible to “unite” with them, admit it and advocate it, then do something; don’t merely talk about it!

Either you call upon Dan and Martov (you trust them and they trust you) to disclose the source of the “rumours”, investigate them yourselves, and then publicly declare to the working class: We vouch for the fact that this is not the silly scandal of gossips, or the spiteful insinuations of angry liquidators, but weighty and serious evidence. When you do that and prove that the moment these rumours arose, the liquidationist, Plekhanovist, and other leading bodies examined them and immediately informed the Pravdist leading body, we shall answer: Gentlemen, we are convinced that you are mistaken and we shall prove that to you, but we admit that you have behaved like honest democrats.

Or else, you—leaders of “trends” and groups which call upon the workers to unite with the liquidators—hide behind the backs of Dan and Martov, allow them to utter as much slander as they please, refrain from calling upon them to disclose their sources, and do not take the trouble (and the political responsibility) to verify the truth of the rumours.

In that case we shall openly declare to the workers: Comrades, don’t you see that all these group leaders are, aiding and abetting these filthy slanderers?

We shall see what the workers will decide.

For the sake of illustration, we shall take a concrete case. When the leading body, which is recognised by four-fifths of the class-conscious workers of Russia, declared that it had investigated the rumours and was absolutely convinced that they were utterly absurd (if not worse), two groups made statements in the press: (1) the group of Chkheidze, Chkhenkeli, Skobelev, Khaustov, Tulyakov, Mankov and Jagiello; (2) the August bloc people, i. e., the leading August body of the liquidators.

What did they say?

Only that they had taken no part in the investigation into the rumours conducted by the leading body of the Pravdists! That is all they said!

Let us consider this case.

Let us suppose, firstly, that instead of the group of Chkheidze and Co. we have honest democrats before us. Let us assume that these people had elected Malinovsky as the vice-chairman of their Duma group. Suddenly, rumours appear in the press, in the organ for which they are politically responsible, to the effect that Malinovsky is an agent provocateur!

Can there possibly be two opinions about what the elementary and bounden duty of all honest democrats should be under such circumstances?

Their duty should be immediately to appoint a committee from their own ranks or anybody else they please, immediately to investigate the source of these rumours, those who have spread them and when they did so; ascertain the authenticity and grounds of these rumours, and then declare publicly, straightforwardly and honestly to the working class: Comrades, we have worked, we have investigated and we vouch for the fact that this is a serious matter.

That is what honest democrats would do. But to say nothing, to refrain from any investigation, and to continue to bear responsibility for a press organ that spreads insidious rumours means sinking to the lowest depths of meanness and baseness, means behaving in a manner unworthy of an honest citizen.

Secondly, let us assume that instead of Chkheidze and Co. we have before us aiders and abettors of filthy slander, who either heard these insidious rumours from Martov or his friends but never thought of taking them seriously (for who among those that have anything to do with Social-Democratic activity has not, scores of times, heard patently absurd “rumours” it would be ridiculous to pay attention to?) or who heard nothing at all, but, knowing the Dan and Martov “style”, preferred not to “get mixed up in such a complicated and troublesome business” for fear of besmirching and disgracing themselves for the rest of their lives by openly expressing belief in the truth of the rumours spread in the press by Martov and Dan, but at the same time desired surreptitiously to shield the latter.

People like the ones we have taken in our second assumption would behave precisely in the way Chkheidze and Co. did.

The same applies fully to the August bloc men.

Let the workers themselves choose one of these two assumptions; let them examine and ponder over the conduct of Chkheidze and Co.

Now let us examine Plekhanov’s behaviour. In issue No. 2 of Yedinstvo he describes the liquidators’ articles on Malinovsky as “outrageous” and “disgusting”, but he adds, obviously as a reproach to the Pravdists: this is the fruit of your splitting tactics. “It’s no use crying over spilt milk!”

How is this behaviour of Plekhanov’s to be interpreted?

If, despite the plain statement by Dan and Martov that they regarded these rumours as true and authentic (otherwise they would not have demanded an investigation), Plekhanov describes the liquidators’ articles as outrageous and disgusting, it shows that he does not in the least trust Dan and Martov! It shows that he, too, regards them as filthy slanderers!

If that were not the case, what reasonable grounds would there have been for publicly describing as “disgusting”, articles written by people who desire (as they claim) to promote the cause of democracy and of the proletariat by exposing a grave and frightful evil, namely, agents provocateurs?

But if Plekhanov does not believe a single word of Martov’s and Dan’s, if he regards them as filthy slanderers, how can he blame us Pravdists for the methods of struggle employed by the liquidators who have been expelled from the Party! How can he write: “It’s no use crying over spilt milk.” This can only mean that he justifies Dan and Martov on the grounds of the “split”!

That is monstrous, but it is a fact.

Plekhanov justifies filthy slanderers, whom he himself does not trust in the least, on the grounds that the Pravdists are to blame for having expelled these slanderers from the Party.

This behaviour of Plekhanov’s (as he has already been told publicly by a “group of Marxists” who were ready to believe him, but were soon disillusioned in him), is a diplomatic defence of blackmailers, i. e., a defence prompted by narrow circle diplomacy, which is objectively tantamount to encouraging the blackmailers to continue with their blackmailing.

Since we—Martov and Dan must be arguing—succeeded at once in getting the “anti-liquidationist” Plekhanov, who does not trust us, to blame the Pravdists, even indirectly, even partly, for driving us into this desperate struggle by their “split”, why ... why, let’s carry on! Let’s continue on the same lines. Plekhanov encourages us to hope that we shall obtain concessions as a reward for our blackmail!

The workers straightaway saw through Plekhanov s narrow circle diplomacy. This was proved by the opinion the Moscow workers expressed about issue No. 1 of Yedinstvo, and by the reply of the “group of Marxists” who were inclined to trust Plekhanov but later called him a “diplomat”. Before very long Plekhanov’s narrow circle diplomacy will be utterly exposed.

In January 1912, representatives of the workers publicly and officially expelled from the Party a definite group of liquidators headed by Martov and Dan. Since then, in the course of two-and-a-half years, the workers of Russia have approved of this decision by a four-fifths majority, and adopt ed it as their own. The blackmail and slander of Martov and Dan will not induce the workers to “make concessions”, but will convince them more firmly than ever that only without the liquidators and against them is it possible to build up the workers’ “entire Marxist body”, four-fifths of which has already been built.

Everybody is now talking about the growth of the Russian workers’ political consciousness, about the fact that they them selves are now handling all affairs connected with the workers’ party, and their greater maturity and independence after the revolution. Trotsky and Plekhanov also appeal to the workers against “intellectuals’ circles” or the “factionalism of the intellectuals”. But—and this is a remarkable circumstance!—as soon as mention is made of the objective facts showing which political trend the present-day class-conscious workers of Russia choose, approve of and create, Plekhanov, Trotsky and the liquidators all change their ground and shout: These workers, the Pravdist workers, who form the majority of the class-conscious workers in Russia, follow the lead of Pravdism only because they are “bewildered” (Borba No. 1, p. 6), are only “being swayed” by “demagogy”, or factionalism, etc., etc.

It follows, therefore, that the liquidators, Plekhanov, and Trotsky recognise the will of the majority of the class-conscious workers, not in the present, but in the future, only in the future event of the workers agreeing with them, with the liquidators, Plekhanov, and Trotsky!

What amusing subjectivism! What an amusing dread of objective facts! But if we are not to engage simply in mutual recriminations, accusing each other of intellectualist parochialism, we must take the present facts, the objective facts.

The political education of the workers, which everybody admits is making progress, is another thing which our conciliators, Plekhanov, Trotsky and Co., talk about with amusing subjectivism. Plekhanov and Trotsky are wavering between the two contending trends in the Social-Democratic class movement and are ascribing to the workers their own subjective vacillations, saying: The fact that the workers participate in this conflict of trends is evidence of their ignorance; when they become more enlightened they will stop fighting, will cease to be “factional” (Plekhanov, like Trotsky, repeats “by force of habit” parrot-phrases such as “factionalism”, although the Pravdists put an end to “factionalism in January 1912, i. e., two-and-a-half years ago, by straight forwardly and openly expelling the liquidators).

The subjectivism of this appraisal of the situation by Plekhanov and Trotsky is most glaring. Turn to history—after all, there is no harm in a Marxist turning to the history of the movement!—and you will find a story of nearly twenty years’ struggle against the bourgeois trends of Economism (1895–1902), Menshevism (1903–08) and liquidationism (1908–14). There can be no doubt whatever about the unbroken connection and continuity between these three varieties of “bourgeois influence on the proletariat”. It is a historical fact that the advanced workers of Russia participated in this struggle and sided with the Iskrists against the Economists, with the Bolsheviks against the Mensheviks (as Levitsky himself was compelled to admit by the weight of objective facts), and lastly, with Pravdism against liquidationism.

The question arises: Does not this historical fact concerning the mass Social-Democratic workers’ movement point to something more important than the subjective and pious wishes of Plekhanov and Trotsky, who for the last ten years have been giving themselves credit for their failure to fall into step with the mass Social-Democratic workers’ trend?

The objective facts of the present period, taken from both sources—the liquidationist and Pravdist—as well as the history of the last twenty years, abundantly prove that the struggle against liquidationism and the victory achieved over it is precisely the result of the political education of the Russian workers and of the formation of a genuine workers’ party which does not yield to petty-bourgeois influences in a petty-bourgeois country.

Plekhanov and Trotsky, who offer the workers their subjective pious wishes for the avoidance of conflict (wishes which ignore both history and the mass trends among the Social-Democrats), look upon the political education of the workers from the point of view of copy-book maxims. History has existed up to now, but now it has ceased to exist—as Marx wittily retorted in his criticism of Proudhon. Up to now, for twenty years, the workers have received their political education solely in the course of the struggle against the bourgeois trend of Economism and against the later varieties of a similar trend, but now, after a couple of “copy-book” maxims about the harmfulness of conflicts, maxims served up by Plekhanov and Trotsky, history will cease, the mass roots of liquidationism (which owe their mass character to the support of the bourgeoisie) will vanish, mass Pravdism (which became a mass movement solely as a result of the “bewilderment” of the workers!) will vanish, and something “real” will arise.... The reasoning followed by Plekhanov and Trotsky is truly amusing!

The workers can obtain real political education only in the course of a sustained, consistent, all-out struggle of proletarian influences, aspirations and trends against bourgeois influences, aspirations and trends. Not even Trotsky will deny that liquidationism (like the Economism of 1895–1902) is a manifestation of bourgeois influence on the proletariat; as for Plekhanov, he himself, in the long-distant past, fully a year-and-a-half or two-and-a-half years ago, defended the Party decision which established this truth.

But nowhere in the world have bourgeois influences on the workers ever taken the form of ideological influences alone. When the bourgeoisie’s ideological influence on the workers declines, is undermined or weakened, the bourgeoisie everywhere and always resorts to the most outrageous lies and slander. And every time that Martov and Dan flouted the will of the majority of organised Marxists, every time they lacked the weapon of the ideological struggle, they resorted to the weapon of insinuation and slander.

Till now, however, they have done this in conditions of exile abroad, before a relatively limited “audience”, and often got away with it. But this time they have come out before tens of thousands of Russian workers and have immediately pulled up short. The “trick” of emigrants’ gossip and slander has missed fire. The workers have already proved politically educated enough to see at once the insincerity, the dishonesty of the utterances of Martov and Dan from the very character of these utterances, and they have denounced them publicly, before the whole of Russia, as slanderers.

The advanced workers of Russia have taken another step forward along the road of political education by knocking out of the hands of one bourgeois group (the liquidators) the weapon of slander.

Neither the bourgeois alliance between Plekhanov and Trotsky, the liquidationist leaders, and the Narodniks, nor the efforts of the liberal press to proclaim it the duty of “honest” people to secure unity between the workers and those who want to liquidate the workers’ party, nor the campaign of slander conducted by Martov and Dan will check the growth and development, of proletarian solidarity with the ideas, programme, tactics and organisation of Pravdism.