Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

“ We, Rabocheye Dyelo, place the mass labour movement as the cornerstone (and printed in heavy type!) ; we warn all and sundry against belittling the significance of the spontaneous movement; we desire to give the economic struggle itself, itself, itself, a political character; we desire to maintain close and organic contact with the proletarian struggle! And yet we are told that we are preparing the ground for converting the labour movement into an instrument of bourgeois democracy! ”

“ The time has come when Russian revolutionists, led by a genuine revolutionary theory, relying upon the genuinely revolutionary and spontaneously awakening class, can at last—at last!—rise to their full height and exert their giant strength to the utmost. All that is required in order that this may be so is that the masses of our practical workers and the still larger masses of those who dream of doing practical work even while still at school shall meet with scorn and ridicule any suggestion that may be made to degrade our political tasks, and to restrict the scope of our organisational work. ”

“ Lenin and other revolutionary Socialists could not but consider such a policy as a travesty on Marxism, as a complete break with the nature and aims of the revolutionary labor movement, the very essence of which, they held, was the struggle for power. Lenin goes hammer and tongs after all those who attempt to separate the struggle against the tsarist government from that against the capitalists, and brands the pure and simple trade unionism of the Economists as thoroughly reactionary and inimical to the interests of the workers. ”

“ In a word, every trade-union secretary conducts and helps to conduct "the economic struggle against the employers and the government." It cannot be too strongly insisted that this is not enough to constitute Social-Democracy. The Social-Democrat's ideal should not be a trade-union secretary but a tribune of the people, able to react to every manifestation of tyranny and oppression, no matter where it takes place, no matter what stratum or class of the people it affects; he must be able to group all these manifestations into a single picture of police violence and capitalist exploitation ”

“ And the reward for this humiliation and self-degradation of Socialism in the face of the whole world, for the corruption of the Socialist consciousness of the working class—the only thing that can guarantee victory—the reward for this is, imposing plans for niggardly reforms, so niggardly in fact, that much more has been obtained even from bourgeois governments.
He who does not deliberately close his eyes cannot fail to see that the new "critical" tendency in Socialism is nothing more nor less than a new species of opportunism. ”

“ It is not surprising that he so zealously defends and praises Bernstein and Volmar! Indeed, if Social-Democracy, in essentials, is merely a reformist party, and must be bold enough to admit this openly, then, not only has a Socialist the right to join a bourgeois cabinet, but he ought always to strive to obtain places in it. If democracy, in essence, means the abolition of class domination, then why should not a Socialist minister charm the whole bourgeois world by orations on class co-operation? ”

“ To bring political knowledge to the workers the Social-Democrats must go among all classes of the population, must despatch units of their army in all directions.
We deliberately select this awkward formula, we deliberately express ourselves in a simple, forcible way, not because we desire to indulge in paradoxes, but in order to "stimulate" the Economists to take up their tasks which they unpardonably ignore, to make them understand the difference between trade-union and Social-Democratic politics, which they refuse to understand. ”

“ Is there a single class of the population in which no individuals, groups or circles are to be found who are discontented with the state of tyranny, and therefore accessible to the propaganda of Social-Democrats as the spokesmen of the most pressing general democratic needs? To those who desire to have a clear idea of what the political agitation of a Social-Democrat among all classes and strata of the population should be like, we would point to political exposures in the broad sense of the word as the principal (but of course not the sole) form of agitation. ”

“ The workers can acquire class political consciousness only from without, that is, only outside of the economic struggle, outside of the sphere of relations between workers and employers. The sphere from which alone it is possible to obtain this knowledge is the sphere of relationships between all classes and the state and the government—the sphere of the inter-relations between all classes. ”

“ We would now have to define the difference between propaganda and agitation differently from the way in which Plekhanov defined it. [Martynov had just previously quoted the words of Plekhanov: "A propagandist presents many ideas to one or a few persons; an agitator presents only one or a few ideas, but he presents them to a mass of people."] By propaganda we would understand the revolutionary elucidation of the whole of the present system or partial manifestations of it, irrespective of whether it is done in a form capable of being understood by individuals or by the broad masses. ”

“ For it is precisely the Svoboda group that includes terror in its programme and by that calls for an organisation of terrorists, and such an organisation would really prevent our troops froin coining into proximity with the crowd which, unfortunately, is still not ours, and which unfortunately, does not yet ask us, or rarely asks us when and how to commence military operations.
"We will overlook the revolution itself," continues Nadezhdin in his effort to scare Iskra, "in the same way as we overlooked recent events which hurled themselves upon us like a bolt from the blue." ”

“ As I have already said, one may be a demagogue out of sheer political innocence. But I have shown that you have descended to demagogy, and I shall never tire of repeating that demagogues are the worst enemies of the working class. They are the worst enemies of the working class because they arouse bad instincts in the crowd, because the ignorant worker is unable to recognise his enemies in men who represent themselves, and sometimes sincerely represent themselves, to he his friends. ”

“ Hence, our task, the task of Social-Democracy, is to combat spontaneity, to divert the labour movement, with its spontaneous trade-unionist striving, from under the wing of the bourgeoisie, and to bring it under the wing of revolutionary Social-Democracy. ”

“ In Russia, however, the yoke of autocracy appears at first glance to obliterate all distinctions between a Social-Democratic organisation and trade unions, because all trade unions and all circles are prohibited, and because the principal manifestation and weapon of the workers' economic struggle—the strike—is regarded as a crime (and sometimes even as a political crime!) . Conditions in our country, therefore, strongly "impel" the workers who are conducting the economic struggle to concern themselves with political questions. ”

“ In a word, economic (factory) exposures have been an important lever in the economic struggle and they will continue to be so as long capitalism, which creates the need for the workers to defend themselves, exists. Even in the more progressive countries of Europe to-day, the exposure of the evils in some backward trade, or in some forgotten branch of domestic industry, serves as a starting point for the awakening of class-consciousness, for the beginning of a trade-union struggle, and for the spread of Socialism. ”

“ And we, the party that fights against all economic, political, social and national oppression can and must find, collect, train, mobilise, and set into motion such an army of omniscient people—but all this has yet to he done! Not only has not a single step been taken towards this in the overwhelming majority of cases, but in many places the necessity for doing it is not even recognised. ”

“ And if we judge people not by the brilliant uniforms they deck themselves in, not by the imposing appellations they give themselves, but by their actions, and by what they actually advocate, it will be clear that "freedom of criticism" means freedom for an opportunistic tendency in Social-Democracy, the freedom to convert Social-Democracy into a democratic reformist party, the freedom to introduce bourgeois ideas and bourgeois elements into Socialism. ”

“ Because Social-Democracy is always found to be in advance of others in their revolutionary estimation of any event and in their championship of every protest against tyranny. It does not soothe itself by arguments about the economic struggle bringing the workers up against their own lack of rights, and about concrete conditions fatalistically impelling the labour movement on the path revolution. It intervenes in every sphere and in every question of social and political life. ”

“ The very fact that you select so despicable a phrase as "pushing on from outside"—a phrase which cannot but rouse in the workers (at least in the workers who are as ignorant as you are yourselves) a sense of distrust towards all who bring them political knowledge and revolutionary experience from outside, and rouse in them an instinctive hostility to such people—proves that you are demagogues—and a demagogue is the worst enemy of the working class. ”

“ We must not allow ourselves to be discouraged by the fact that the voice of political exposure is still feeble, rare and timid. This is not because of a general submission to political despotism, but because those who are able and ready to expose have no tribune from which to speak, because there is no audience to listen eagerly to and approve of what the orators say, and because the latter can nowhere perceive among the people forces to whom it would be worth while directing their complaint against the 'omnipotent' Russian government. ”

“ But these people refuse to understand that the revolutionary path of the labour movement might not be a Social-Democratic path! When absolutism reigned in Western Europe, the entire Western European bourgeoisie "impelled" and deliberately impelled the workers on the path of revolution. We, Social-Democrats, however, cannot be satisfied with that. And if we, by any means whatever, degrade Social-Democratic politics to the level of spontaneous trade-union politics, we, by that, play into the hands of bourgeois democracy. ”

“ Within a few years, the German workers were subjected to severe trials in the form of the anti-Socialist laws; but they were fully armed to meet the situation, and succeeded in emerging from it victoriously.
The Russian workers will have to undergo trials immeasurably more severe; they will have to take up the fight against a monster compared with which anti-Socialist laws in a constitutional country are but pigmies. History has now confronted us with an immediate task which is more revolutionary than all the immediate tasks that confront the proletariat of any other country. ”

“ But can anything more "shallow" be imagined than an opinion of a whole tendency that is based on nothing more than what the representatives of that tendency say about themselves? Can anything more shallow be imagined than the subsequent "homily" about the two different, and even diametrically opposite, types, or paths, of party development? [Rabocheye Dyelo, pp. 33–35.] The German Social-Democrats, you see, recognise complete freedom of criticism, but the French do not, and it is precisely the latter that present an example of the "harmfulness of intolerance." ”

“ But no one would call an organisation that is hidden from every one but its members by a veil of secrecy, a democratic organisation. What is the use of advancing "broad principles of democracy" when the fundamental condition for this principle cannot be fulfilled by a secret organisation. "Broad principles" turns out to be a resonant, but hollow phrase. More than that, this phrase proves that the urgent tasks in regard to organisation are totally misunderstood. Every one knows how great is the lack of secrecy among the "broad" masses of revolutionists. ”

“ We can never give a mass organisation that degree of secrecy which is essential for the persistent and continuous struggle against the government. But to concentrate all secret functions in the hands of as small a number of professional revolutionists as possible, does not mean that the latter will "do the thinking for all" and that the crowd will not take an active part in the movement. ”

“ It does not even understand that it is our task, the task of the progressive representatives of bourgeois democracy to give to the economic struggle of the workers a political character. Why, we too, like all the West-European bourgeoisie, are striving to draw the workers into politics, but only into trade-union politics and not into Social-Democratic politics. Trade-union politics are precisely bourgeois politics of the working class and the "vanguard's" formulation of its tasks is the formula for trade-union politics. ”