Mensheviks

“ Neither the fact that the development of Russian capitalism had created extraordinary contradictions at both its poles, reducing the role of bourgeois democracy to insignificance, nor the experience of subsequent events, restrained the Mensheviks from an indefatigable search for ‘true’, ‘real’ democracy, which would place itself at the head of the ‘nation’ and establish parliamentary and so far as possible democratic conditions for capitalist development. ”

“ The Right Socialist Revolutionaries and party of the Mensheviks were on the same side of the barricades as the counter-revolutionary rabble: the Bolsheviks were on the other side, side by side with the workers and soldiers. Blood marked a boundary line between us. Such a thing cannot and never will be forgotten.
This is why we were compelled to give a different name to distinguish us from the traitors to Socialism. The difference between us is too great. Our ways and means are too far apart. ”

“ History has played off this joke: in Russia, in 1905, Soviets were born: in February-October, 1917, they were tampered with by the Mensheviks, who went bankrupt because of their inability to understand the role and significance of the Soviets, and, now that the idea of Soviets has come to life the world over, spreading itself with tremendous rapidity among the proletariat of all countries, the old heroes of the Second International are also everywhere going bankrupt, because, like our Mensheviks, they are unable to understand the true role and significance of Soviets. ”

“ The German Mensheviks believe neither in God nor the devil. They imagine they are some kind of nurses and governesses appointed to the working class. But in fact they only hinder the progress of the working class. They imagine that the workers are simpletons, and unless the wise Menshevik aunt keeps them out of mischief, they will get themselves into an awful state.
One should have seen those venerable intellectual "leaders" at Halle. They were at a loss for words, these enlightened, experienced leaders, as they thought themselves when they were suddenly turned out by the workers! ”

“ If the German bourgeoisie says, "Martov is our man, let us embrace him," they surely know what they are about. And, indeed, the Mensheviks are bound to fall on the neck of the European bourgeoisie. A bird will always espy his mate at a distance. ”

“ And this quite unexpected admission, which, one might think, is extremely like a complete capitulation, is made the more lightly and carelessly that, as the whole resolution shows, it imposes no revolutionary obligations on the Mensheviks. They remain entirely captive to the bourgeois ideology. After recognizing that we are on the road to Socialism, the Mensheviks with all the greater ferocity attack those methods without which, in the harsh and difficult conditions of the present day, the transition to Socialism cannot be accomplished.
Compulsory labor, we are told, is always unproductive. ”

“ Our S.R.'s and our Mensheviks have taken up a reactionary position by keeping the peasants under bourgeois influence, by making them enter into an alliance with the bourgeoisie and by preventing them from uniting with the proletariat.
The experience of revolution rapidly teaches the masses. The reactionary policy of the S.R.'s and the Mensheviks is bankrupt: they have been beaten in the soviets of the two capitals. The opposition of the "Left" increases steadily within the two democratic, petit-bourgeois parties. ”

“ The Mensheviks were unscrupulously deceiving the people by calling this war a defensive or revolutionary war; and Kautsky, when approving the policy of the Mensheviks, is approving the deception practised on the people, is approving the part played by the petty bourgeois in helping Capitalism to trick the workers and to harness them to the chariot of the Imperialists. Kautsky is advocating a characteristically bourgeois and Philistine-like policy, imagining (and trying to instill into the minds of the masses the absurd idea) that a watchword can alter the real position of affairs. ”

“ And the Mensheviks, Socialist Revolutionaries and Social Democrats stand aside, looking on at our mistakes and failings, and draw the conclusion of going back. "Let us return," they say. "Give up everything to the bourgeoisie and content ourselves with a modest helping at capitalist tables." ”

“ Petty-bourgeois democracy without any Socialist ideology, without any Marxian class preparation, could not, of course, have acted differently under the conditions of the Russian Revolution, than did the Mensheviks in the role of the ‘leading’ Party of the February Revolution. The absence of any serious social foundation for bourgeois democracy told on the Mensheviks themselves, because they very soon outlived themselves, and in the eighth month of the Revolution were thrown aside by the class struggle. ”

“ The war and the Revolution have widened the gulf which separated them, though both elements considered themselves as belonging to one Marxian Socialist movement. Since the beginning of the war the Mensheviks themselves were split into two factions, the one led by George V. Plechanov, which was nationalist, and the other led by Martov, which was internationalist. During the first eight months of the Revolution (March-November) , the Mensheviks were in control of the Soviets, while the Bolsheviks were the opposition, demanding the break of the Mensheviks with the bourgeois parties. ”

“ The Mensheviks and the Socialist-Revolutionaries in Russia (like the leaders of the Second International in 1914-20 the world over) began their betrayal by justifying the "defence of the Fatherland," that is, the defence of their marauding bourgeoisie. They continued their betrayal by entering into a coalition with the bourgeoisie against the revolutionary proletariat of their country. ”

“ Our Mensheviks had (and in a very few Trade Unions still have) the support of these organizations, just because of their craft narrow-mindedness, professional selfishness, and opportunism. In the west the Mensheviks have acquired a much firmer footing in the Trade Unions. There a much wider stratum of labor aristocracy—those professional, narrow-minded, selfish, brutal, jealous, petit bourgeois elements—has cropped up, imperialistically inclined, and bribed and corrupted by imperialists. ”

“ But to-day we are living in the period of dictatorship, political and economic. And the Mensheviks continue to undermine that dictatorship. When we are fighting on the civil front, preserving the revolution from its enemies, and the Menshevik paper writes: "Down with the civil war," we cannot permit this. A dictatorship is a dictatorship, and war is war. And now that we have crossed to the path of the greatest concentration of forces on the field of the economic rebirth of the country, the Russian Kautskies, the Mensheviks, remain true to their counter-revolutionary calling. ”

“ The whole point lies in being able to apply these tactics to raise and not to lower the general level of proletarian class-consciousness and revolutionary ability to fight and conquer. It is noteworthy, by the way, that the victory of the Bolsheviks over the Mensheviks demanded, not only before the October revolution of 1917, but also after it, the application of such tactics, of manœuvring, temporizing and compromise—such, of course, as would facilitate, accelerate, consolidate the Bolsheviks at the expense of the Mensheviks. ”

“ To-day the Mensheviks, albeit with reservations, do not deny the lawfulness of stern measures with the White Guards and with deserters from the Red Army: they have been forced to recognize this after their own lamentable experiments with "democracy." They have to all appearances understood—very late in the day—that, when one is face to face with the counter-revolutionary bands, one cannot live by phrases about the great truth that under Socialism we shall need no Red Terror. But in the economic sphere, the Mensheviks still attempt to refer us to our sons, and particularly to our grandsons. ”

“ Overcoming immense difficulties, the Bolsheviks drove back the Mensheviks, whose role as bourgeois agents in the working-class movement was perfectly understood by the whole bourgeoisie after 1905, and who, therefore, were supported by that class against the Bolsheviks. ”

“ Now the Mensheviks tell us incidentally, in the introductory paragraph of their resolution, as something that does not require proof, that we are in the period of transition from capitalism to Socialism. ”

“ The number of organised Mensheviks is given at 18,000, while of organised Bolsheviks there is no trace whatever in the whole region. The other non-Russian districts in these provinces were less fortunate, for in the south-western governments the proportion of Bolsheviks to Mensheviks was 8 to 11, in the Don district 18 to 29, and in the Caucasus 1 to 5. The statistics here, however, show clearly that the strength of Bolshevism was always in an inverse ratio to the strength of the local Jewish population. ”

“ What is more remarkable is that, during the six months of revolution, our government, which calls itself both republican and revolutionary, our government, which the Mensheviks and the S.R.'s support, has, under the name of "plenipotentiary organs of the revolutionary democracy," fought with great bitterness against democratic organisations and has just succeeded in triumphing over them. ”

“ Politically, the guiding role belonged to the Mensheviks who had gone through the school of Marxism and derived from it certain procedures and habits, which aided them in finding their bearings in the political situation to the extent of scientifically falsifying the meaning of the current class struggle and securing the hegemony of the liberal bourgeoisie in the highest degree possible under the given circumstances. ”

“ The Russian revolution would be a bourgeois revolution, so said all the Marxists in Russia before 1905. The Mensheviks, however, adulterated Marxism by Liberalism, in that they reasoned therefrom that the proletariat must not go beyond what was acceptable to the bourgeoisie, and must pursue a policy of compromise with it. The Bolsheviks, on the other hand, argued that that was a bourgeois Liberal theory. ”

“ It is on such a confusion of meanings that the whole position of the Mensheviks, our Russian Kautskies, is founded, as it was expressed in their theoretical resolution moved at the present Congress of Trade Unions.
The Mensheviks attacked not only the militarization of labor, but general labor service also. They reject these methods as "compulsory." They preach that general labor service means a low productivity of labor, while militarization means senseless scattering of labor-power. ”

“ The German Mensheviks of the party of Noske and Scheidemann say this openly, and the German Mensheviks of the party of the Right Independents say the same in a veiled form: they are of the opinion that the revolution is over and a certain stable equilibrium is about to set in. In fact, there is nothing of the kind. There is no equilibrium. ”

“ The scholastic pedant does not see facts beyond his accustomed words. The Mensheviks and S.R.s for him are simply tendencies in Socialism, whereas, in the course of the revolution, they have been transformed into an organization which works in active co-operation with the counter-revolution and carries on against us an open war. ”

“ But in 1918, when revolutions did begin in connection with the war, Kautsky, instead of explaining that they were inevitable, instead of pondering over and thinking out the revolutionary tactics and the ways and means of preparing for revolution, began to describe the reformist tactics of the Mensheviks as internationalism. ”

“ The divergence between the Soviets and the Constituent Assembly has its history, which even a historian who does not share the point of view of the class struggle could not have ignored. Kautsky would not touch upon this actual history. Kautsky has concealed from his German readers the universally known fact (which only malignant Mensheviks now conceal) that the divergence between the Soviets and the “general state” (that is, bourgeois) institutions existed even under the rule of the Mensheviks, i.e., from the end of February to October 1917. ”

“ Truly one may demand an explanation of this extraordinary blindness of the Mensheviks and S.R.'s. Must they be considered as inexperienced babes in politics, who do not know what they are doing and are genuinely self-deluded? ”

“ Politics do not count with us, just because we are directly controlled by the Unions, and not, by any political party. Mensheviks, Maximalists and others have worked and are working in the Commissariat. Of course if a man were opposed to the revolution as a whole we should not have him here, because he would be working against us instead of helping. ”

“ No organization except the army has ever controlled man with such severe compulsion as does the State organization of the working class in the most difficult period of transition. It is just for this reason that we speak of the militarization of labor. The fate of the Mensheviks is to drag along at the tail of events, and to recognize those parts of the revolutionary programme which have already had time to lose all practical significance. ”

“ The experience of our revolution shows with blinding evidence that such a state of affairs would bring the Social Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks to an even feebler condition. They would become more and more separated from the masses, whose indignation and fury would retaliate and whose sympathies for the revolutionary party the Bolsheviks would considerably increase. The proletariat in the capital would be nearer related than at present to the Commune, to the workers' insurrection, the conquest of power, and to civil war in its most definite and decisive form. ”