11 - Two Tactics of Social-Democracy in the Democratic Revolution by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

Amidst the turmoil of the failed 1905 revolution in Russia, Lenin provides a critical analysis of the Bolshevik political program and tactics, contrasting them with the erratic and subservient factions within the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party. Join us as we explore this insightful examination of revolutionary strategy and political clarity. (Summary by Christian Pecaut) This edition was edited by George Hanna.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Chapter ten of two Tactics of Social Democracy by Lenin
read for LibriVox dot org by Christian Picot at Communist
Revolution dot Org. Chapter ten, Revolutionary Communes and the Revolutionary

(00:28):
Democratic Dictatorship of the Proletariat and the Peasantry. The Conference
of the New Escriists did not keep to the anarchist
position into which the New Escra had talked itself only
from below, not from below and from above. The absurdity

(00:51):
of admitting the possibility of an insurrection and not admitting
the possibility of victory and participation in a provisional revel
lutionary government was too glaring. The resolution therefore introduced certain
reservations and restrictions into the solution of the question proposed
by Martinov and Martov. Let us consider these reservations as

(01:17):
stated in the following section of the resolution. These tactics
to remain the party of extreme revolutionary opposition do not,
of course, in any way exclude the expediency of a
partial and episodic seizure of power and the establishment of

(01:37):
revolutionary communes in one or another district, exclusively for the
purpose of helping to spread the insurrection and of disrupting
the government. That being the case, it means that in
principle they admit the possibility of action not only from below,
but also from above. It means that the proposition laid

(02:02):
down in el Martov's well known article in the Eskrah
number ninety three is discarded, and that the tactics of
period i e. Not only from below but also from
above are acknowledged as correct. Further, the seizure of power,

(02:24):
even if partial, episodic, etc. Obviously presupposes the participation not
only of social democrats and not only of the proletariat.
This follows from the fact that it is not only
the proletariat that is interested and takes an active part
in the democratic revolution. This follows from the fact that

(02:46):
the insurrection is a popular one. As is stated in
the beginning of the resolution, we are discussing that non
proletarian groups the words used in the Conference resolution on
the uprise i e. The bourgeoisie, also take part in it. Hence,
the principle that any participation of socialists in a provisional

(03:10):
revolutionary government jointly with the petty bourgeoisie is treachery to
the working class was thrown overboard by the Conference which
is what the period sought to achieve. Treachery does not
cease to be treachery because the action which constitutes it
is partial, episodic, local, etc. Hence, the parallel drawn between

(03:37):
the participation in a provisional revolutionary government and vulgar jah
raism was thrown overboard by the Conference, which is what
the period sought to achieve. A government does not cease
to be a government because its power does not extend
to many cities but is confined to a single city,

(04:00):
not extend to many districts, but is confined to a
single district, nor because of the name that is given
to it. Thus the formulation of the principles of this question,
which the new Escra tried to give was discarded by
the Conference. Let us see whether the restrictions imposed by

(04:23):
the Conference on the formation of revolutionary governments and participation
in them, which is now admitted in principle, are reasonable.
What difference there is between the concept episodic and the
concept provisional we do not know. We are afraid that

(04:43):
this new and foreign word is merely a screen for
lack of clear thinking. It seems more profound, but actually
it is only more obscure and confused. What is the
difference between the expediency of a partial seizure of power

(05:06):
in a city or district and participation in a provisional
revolutionary government of the entire state? Do not? Cities include
a city like Saint Petersburg, where the events of January
ninth took place. Do not? Districts include the Caucasus, which

(05:26):
is bigger than many A state? Will not the problems
which at one time vex the new escra of what
to do with the prisons, the police, public funds, et
cetera confront us the moment we seize power in a
single city, let alone in a district. No one will deny,

(05:51):
of course, that if we lack sufficient forces, if the
insurrection is not wholly successful, or if the victory is
in the dec it is possible that provisional revolutionary governments
will be set up in separate localities, in individual cities
and the like. But what is the point of such

(06:12):
an assumption, gentlemen, do not you deceive yourselves? Do not
you yourselves speak in the beginning of the resolution about
a decisive victory of the revolution, about a victorious popular insurrection.
Since when have the social democrats taken over the job

(06:33):
of the anarchists to divide the attention and the aims
of the proletariat, to direct its attention to the partial
instead of the general, the single, the integral, and complete.
While presupposing the seizure of power in a city, you

(06:54):
yourselves speak of spreading the insurrection to another city. May
we venture to think to all cities? May we dare
to hope your conclusions, gentlemen, are as unsound and haphazard,
as contradictory and confused as your premises. The Third Congress

(07:17):
of the RSDLP gave an exhaustive and clear answer to
the question of a provisional revolutionary government in general, and
this answer covers all cases of local provisional governments as well.
The answer given by the Conference, however, by artificially and

(07:37):
arbitrarily singling out a part of the question, merely evades
but unsuccessfully the issue as a whole, and creates confusion.
What does the term revolutionary communes mean? Does it differ
from the term provisional revolutionary government? And if so, in

(08:02):
what respect? The Conference gentlemen themselves do not know. Confusion
of revolutionary thought leads them, as very often happens to
revolutionary phrase mongering. Yes, the use of the words revolutionary
commune in a resolution passed by representatives of Social Democracy

(08:26):
is revolutionary phrase mongering and nothing else. Marx more than
once condemned such phrase mongering when fascinating terms of the
bygone past were used to hide the tasks of the future.
In such cases, a fascinating term that has played its

(08:49):
part in history becomes futile and pernicious trumpery, a child's rattle.
We must give the workers and the whole people a
clear and unambiguous explanation as to why we want a
provisional revolutionary government to be set up and exactly what

(09:10):
changes we shall accomplish if we exercise decisive influence on
the government on the very morrow of the victory of
the popular insurrection which has already commenced. These are the
questions that confront political leaders. The Third Congress of the

(09:31):
RSDLP gave perfectly clear answers to these questions and drew
up a complete program of these changes, the minimum program
of our party. The word commune, however, is not an
answer at all. It only serves to confuse people by
the distant echo of a sonorous phrase or empty rhetoric.

(09:56):
The more we cherish the memory of the Paris Commune
of eighteen seventy one, for instance, the less permissible is
it to refer to it offhand without analyzing its mistakes
and the special conditions attending to it. To do so
would be to follow the absurd example of the Blanchyists

(10:18):
whom Engels ridiculed, who in eighteen seventy four, in their
manifesto paid homage to every act of the commune. What
reply will a conferencer give to a worker who asks
him about this revolutionary commune that is mentioned in the resolution.

(10:40):
He will only be able to tell him that this
is the name known in history of a worker's government
that was unable to and could not at that time,
distinguish between the elements of a democratic revolution and those
of a socialist revolution, that confuse the tasks of fighting

(11:01):
for a republic with the tasks of fighting for socialism,
that was unable to carry out the task of launching
an energetic military offensive against Versailles, that made a mistake
in not seizing the Bank of France, etc. In short,
whether in your answer you refer to the Paris Commune

(11:23):
or to some other commune, Your answer will be it
was a government such as ours. Should not be a
fine answer. Indeed, does it not testify to pedantic moralizing
and impotence on the part of a revolutionary who says
nothing about the practical program of the party and inappropriately

(11:47):
begins to give lessons in history in a resolution. Does
this not reveal the very mistake which they unsuccessfully accuse
us of having committed, i e. Of confusing a democratic
revolution with a socialist revolution, between which none of the
communes differentiated. The aim of a provisional government, So inappropriately

(12:13):
termed commune is declared to be exclusively to spread the
insurrection and to disrupt the government. Taken in its literal sense,
the word exclusively eliminates all other aims. It is an
echo of the absurd theory of only from below. Such

(12:37):
elimination of other aims is another instance of short sightedness
and lack of reflection. A revolutionary commune i e. A
revolutionary government, even if only in a single city, will
inevitably have to administer, even if provisionally partly episodic, all

(13:01):
the affairs of state. And it is the height of
folly to hide one's head under one's wing and refuse
to see this. This government will have to enact an
eight hour working day, establish worker's inspection of factories, institute
free universal education, introduce the election of judges, set up

(13:27):
peasant committees, et cetera. In a word, it will certainly
have to carry out a number of reforms. To designate
these reforms as helping to spread the insurrection would be
playing with words and deliberately causing greater confusion in a
matter which requires absolute clarity. The concluding part of the

(13:55):
New Escriist's resolution does not provide any new material for
a critician of the trends of principles of economism which
has revived in our party, but it illustrates what has
been said above from a somewhat different angle. Here is
that part only in one event should social democracy, on

(14:20):
its own initiative, direct its efforts towards seizing power and
holding it as long as possible, namely, in the event
of the revolution spreading to the advanced countries of Western Europe,
where conditions for the achievement of socialism have already reached
a certain degree of maturity. In that event. The limited

(14:43):
historical scope of the Russian Revolution can be considerably widened,
and the possibility of entering the path of socialist reforms
will arise. By framing its tactics in accordance with the
view that during the whole period of the rebels, the
Social Democratic Party will retain the position of extreme revolutionary

(15:06):
opposition to all the governments that may succeed one another
in the course of the revolution. Social democracy will best
be able to prepare itself to utilize governmental power if
it falls into its hands. The basic idea here is
the one that the period has repeatedly formulated, stating that

(15:30):
we must not be afraid, as is Martinov, of a
complete victory for social democracy in a democratic revolution, i e.
Of a revolutionary democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry.
For such a victory will enable us to rouse Europe,
and the socialist proletariat of Europe, after throwing off the

(15:54):
yoke of the bourgeoisie, will in its turn, help us
to accomplish the socialist wrs. But see how this idea
is worsened in the New Eschrists rendering of it. We
shall not dwell on details on the absurd assumption that
power could fall into the hands of a class conscious

(16:17):
party which considers seizure of power harmful tactics. On the
fact that in Europe the conditions for socialism have reached
not a degree of maturity, but are already mature. On
the fact that our party program does not speak of
socialist changes at all, but only of a socialist revolution.

(16:41):
Let us take the principal and basic difference between the
idea presented by the Period and that presented in the resolution.
The period set the revolutionary proletariat of Russia an active
aim to win the battle for democracy and to use
the victory for carrying the revolution into Europe. The resolution

(17:05):
fails to grasp this connection between our decisive victory, not
in the new Escras sense, and the revolution in Europe,
and therefore it speaks not about the tasks of the proletariat,
not about the prospects of its victory, but about one
of the possibilities in general in the event of the revolution.

(17:29):
Spreading the period pointedly and definitely indicated, and this was
incorporated in the resolution of the Third Congress of the
Russian Social Democratic Labor Party. How governmental power can and
must be utilized in the interests of the proletariat, bearing

(17:51):
in mind what can be achieved immediately at the given
stage of social development, and what must first be achieved
as a democratic prerequisite of the struggle for socialism. Here
also the resolution hopelessly drags at the tail when it
states will be able to prepare itself to utilize, but

(18:16):
fails to say how it will be able, how it
will prepare itself and to utilize for what We have
no doubt, for instance, that the new Eschrists may may
be able to prepare themselves to utilize the leading position

(18:36):
in the party. But the point is that the way
they have utilized their preparation up till now do not
hold out much hope of possibility being transformed into reality.
The period quite definitely stated wherein lies the real possibility

(18:58):
of holding power, namely in the revolutionary democratic dictatorship of
the proletariat and the peasantry, in their joint mass strength,
which is capable of outweighing all the forces of counter revolution,
in the inevitable concurrence of their interests in democratic changes.

(19:20):
Here too, the resolution of the Conference gives us nothing positive.
It merely evades the question. Surely, the possibility of holding
power in Russia must be determined by the composition of
the social forces in Russia itself, by the circumstances of
the democratic revolution which is now taking place in our country.

(19:43):
A victory of the proletariat in Europe, it is still
somewhat of a far cry between carrying the revolution into
Europe and the victory of the proletariat will give rise
to a desperate counter revolutionary struggle on the part of
the Russian bourgeoisie. Yet the resolution of the New Eschrists

(20:03):
does not say a word about this counter revolutionary force,
the importance of which has been appraised in the resolution
of the Third Congress of the rs DLP. If in
our fight for a republican democracy we could not rely
upon the peasantry as well as on the proletariat, the

(20:25):
prospect of our holding power would be hopeless. But if
it is not hopeless, if a decisive victory of the
revolution over Czarism opens up such a possibility, then we
must point to it. We must actively call for its
transformation into reality and issue practical slogans not only for

(20:50):
the contingency of the revolution being carried into Europe, but
also for the purpose of carrying it there. Difference made
by the Kostist social democrats to the limited historical scope
of the Russian Revolution merely serves to cover up their
limited understanding of the aims of this democratic revolution and

(21:14):
of the leading role of the proletariat in this revolution.
One of the objections raised to the slogan of the
revolutionary democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry is
that dictatorship presupposes a single will a scraw number ninety five,

(21:36):
and that there can be no single will of the
proletariat and the petty bourgeoisie. This objection is unsound, for
it is based on an abstract metaphysical interpretation of the
term single will. There can be a single will in
one respect and not a single will in another. The

(22:00):
absence of unity on questions of socialism and in the
struggle for socialism does not preclude singleness of will on
questions of democracy and in the struggle for a republic.
To forget this would be tantamount to forgetting the logical
and historical difference between a democratic and a socialist revolution.

(22:24):
To forget this would be tantamount to forgetting the character
of the democratic revolution as a revolution of the whole people.
If it is of the whole people. It means that
there is singleness of will, precisely in so far as
this revolution satisfies the common needs and requirements of the

(22:46):
whole people. Beyond the bounds of democracy, there can be
no question of the proletariat and the peasant bourgeoisie having
a single will. Class struggle between them is inevitable. But
it is in a democratic republic that this struggle will
be the most thorough going and widespread struggle of the

(23:10):
people for socialism. Like everything else in the world, the
revolutionary democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry has
a past and a future. Its past is autocracy, serfdom,
monarchy and privilege. In the struggle against this past, in

(23:34):
the struggle against counter revolution, a single will of the
proletariat and the peasantry is possible, for here there is
unity of interests. Its future is the struggle against private property,
the struggle of the wage worker against the employer, the

(23:56):
struggle for socialism. Here singleness of will is impossible. Note,
the development of capitalism, which is more widespread and rapid
where there is freedom, will inevitably put a speedy end
to singleness of will. The sooner counter revolution and reaction

(24:19):
are crushed, the sooner will the singleness of will come
to an end. Note here our path lies not from
autocracy to a republic, but from a petty bourgeois democratic
republic to socialism. Of course, in actual historical circumstances, the

(24:43):
elements of the past become interwoven with those of the future.
The two paths cross. Wage labor, with its struggle against
private property, exists under the autocracy as well. It is
generated even under serfdom. But this does not in the

(25:05):
least prevent us from drawing a logical and historical dividing
line between the major stages of development. We all draw
a distinction between bourgeois revolution and socialist revolution. We all
absolutely insist on the necessity of drawing a most strict

(25:26):
line between them. But can it be denied that individual
particular elements of the two revolutions become interwoven in history?
Have there not been a number of socialist movements and
attempts at establishing socialism in the period of democratic revolutions
in Europe? And will not the future Socialist revolution in

(25:51):
Europe still have to do a very great deal that
has been left undone in the field of democracy. A
social democrat must never for a moment forget that the
proletariat will inevitably have to wage the class struggle for socialism,
even against the most democratic and republican bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie.

(26:17):
This is beyond doubt. Hence the absolute necessity of a separate, independent,
strictly class party of social democracy. Hence the temporary nature
of our tactics of striking jointly with the bourgeoisie, and
the duty of keeping a strict watch over our ally

(26:40):
as over an enemy, etc. All this is also beyond
the slightest doubt. But it would be ridiculous and reactionary
to deduce from this that we must forget, ignore, or
neglect these tasks, which, although transient and temporary, are vital

(27:02):
at the present time. The fight against the autocracy is
a temporary and transient task of the socialists, But to
ignore or neglect this task in any way would be
tantamount to betraying socialism and rendering a service to reaction.

(27:24):
The revolutionary democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry
is unquestionably only a transient, temporary aim of the socialists.
But to ignore this aim in the period of a
democratic revolution would be downright reactionary. Concrete political aims must

(27:47):
be set in concrete circumstances. All things are relative, all
things flow, and all things change. Of the German Social
Democratic Party does not contain the demand for a republic.
The situation in Germany is such that this question can

(28:10):
in practice hardly be separated from the question of socialism.
Although even as regards Germany, Engels, in his comments on
the draft of the Erfurt Program in eighteen ninety one,
warned against belittling the importance of a republic and of
the struggle for a republic in the Russian Social Democratic Party,

(28:36):
the question of eliminating the demand for a republic from
its program and agitation has never even arisen. For in
our country there can be no talk of an indissoluble
connection between the question of a republic and the question
of socialism. It was quite natural for a German Social

(28:57):
Democrat of eighteen ninety eight not to put the special
question of a republic in the forefront, and this evokes
neither surprise nor condemnation. But a German social Democrat who
in eighteen forty eight would have left the question of
a republic in the shade would have been a downright

(29:19):
traitor to the revolution. There is no such thing as
abstract truth. Truth is always concrete. The time will come
when the struggle against the Russian autocracy will end and
the period of democratic revolution will be over in Russia.

(29:43):
Then it will be ridiculous to talk about singleness of
will of the proletariat and the peasantry, about a democratic dictatorship,
et cetera. When that time comes, we shall attend directly
to the question of the socialist dictatorship of the proletariat
and deal with it at a greater length. But at

(30:05):
present the Party of the advanced class cannot but strive
most energetically for a decisive victory of the democratic revolution
over Czarism, And a decisive victory means nothing else than
the revolutionary democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry.

(30:26):
Note we would remind the reader that in the polemics
between the Iscra and the Period, the former referred, among
other things, to Engel's letter to Turati, in which Engels
warned the future leader of the Italian Reformists not to
confuse the democratic with the socialist revolution. The impending revolution

(30:52):
in Italy, wrote Engles about the political situation in Italy
in eighteen ninety four, will be a petty bois democratic
and not a socialist revolution. The Iskra reproached the period
with having departed from the principle laid down by Engles.

(31:14):
This reproach was unjustified because the period fourteen fully acknowledged
on the whole the correctness of Marx's theory of the
difference between the three main forces in the revolutions of
the nineteenth century. According to this theory, the following forces

(31:35):
take a stand against the old order, against the autocracy, feudalism,
serfdom one the liberal big bourgeoisie, two the radical petty bourgeoisie.
Three the proletariat. The first fights for nothing more than

(32:00):
a constitutional monarchy, the second for a democratic republic, the
third for a socialist revolution. To confuse the petty bourgeois
struggle for a complete democratic revolution with the proletarian struggle
for a socialist revolution spells political bankruptcy for a socialist

(32:26):
Marx's warning to this effect is quite justified. But it
is precisely for this very reason that the slogan revolutionary
communes is erroneous, because the very mistake committed by the
communes that have existed in history is that they confused
the democratic revolution with the socialist revolution. On the other hand,

(32:52):
our slogan, a revolutionary democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and
the peasantry fully safe guards us against this mistake. While
recognizing the incontestably bourgeois nature of the revolution, which is
incapable of directly overstepping the bounds of a mere democratic revolution,

(33:16):
our slogan pushes forward this particular revolution and strives to
mold it into forms most advantageous to the proletariat. Consequently,
it strives to make the very most of the democratic
revolution in order to attain the greatest success in the
further struggle of the proletariat for socialism. End of Chapter ten.

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This recording is in the public domain.