THE MILITANTS BOOKSHELF the fact that the vast majority of SocialDemocrats are almost entirely immersed in local work, which narrows their point ofview, limits their activities and affects their conspiratorial skill and training. It is to this fact of being scattered that we must ascribe the vacillation and the hesitation to which have referred above.
The Role of a Newspaper And the first task upon which he demanded the concentration of the movement, in preparation for its unification on a principled basis into political organization which, in turn, would organize the revolutionary victory of the proletariat, was the establishinent of a newspaper. The first step toward removing this defect said the article, and transforming several local movements into a united national (All Russian) movement is the establishment of a national All Russian newspaper. Finally.
it is a political paper we need. Without a political organ, a political movement de serving that name is impossible in modern Europe. But the role of a paper is not confined to the spreading of ideas, to political education and to procuring political allies. paper is not merely a collective propagandist and collective agitator, it is also a collective organizer.
The article Where To Begin was a brief synopsis of the views he was to elaborate a few months later in his famous pamphlet What is to be done. In this pamphlet, which became a cornerstone of Bolshevism. Lenin settled accounts with the Economists and, with the revisers and critics of Marx. He elucidated the limitations of trade unionism with a profound insight which the whole history of international syndicalism has completely vindicated. He outlined the role of the Party extending and concretizing Marx theory of the vanguard and brought forward for the first time the project of a body of professional revolutionaries would devote their lives wholly to the revolution and take upon themselves the leadership and direction of the entire movement. What Is To Be Done is part of the contents of the second book of the volume devoted to the Iskra period and as such will be the subject of review another time.
LENIN AND THE ISKRA PERIOD gimentation of thought and its barracks in all history. Nothing escaped him or was discipline, compare with Lenin appraisal beyond his attention. The party he created, Volume IV, The Collected Works of Lenin; of the situation and the tasks? In the De for which history has no comparable exThe Iskra Period, Book 336 Pages.
claration Lenin poses the question of unit ample, bears testimony to the work of a International Publishers, New York, ing the movement. Foster, if we are not genius in whom theory and practice, in all Thirteen years after the Russian revmistaken, also stands for unity only the their ramitications, were united. Take the olution and seven years after Lenin death methods are somewhat different.
single question of the role of leaders, and a serious beginning is made with the pubLenin proposed a free discussion in the the collective work of the group of leaders lication of his collected works in English at columns of the two journals (Iskra and which he truly described as an art, and a price workers can afford. Such unparZarya. They must reflect. he wrote, an art, we may say parenthetically, which donable tardiness has, of course, its own all shades of opinion, all local peculiarities, is all too little known and see with what significance which need not be dealt with and all the various political methods. His attentiveness he studied the problem, and here. It is most important now to report plan was to unite the movement through a solved it in advance. Lenin, the theorist that four volumes comprising six books free ideological struggle in which polemics and practical leader in one, knew. what have recently been published in the popular would no. be suppressed but rather encourpedants and formalists will never knowpriced edition. American militants thus aged.
that such a question as the personal relahave access now to at least a good part of tions between leaders can often play an He wrote: Open polemics, conducted this long buriell treasure. For this we must in the sight and hearing of all Russian Socenormous, even if not a finally decisive role.
be grateful. The first book of volume IV, ial Democrats and class conscious workers.
Did he not speak in the last testament to devoted to the early Iskra period, can only are ssary and desirable in order to exthe Party of the rudeness of Stalin and be a source of deep satisfaction to one the relations between Stalin and Trotsky plain the profoundness the differences who has the opportunity to rend it.
as constituting a big half of the danger tirat exist, in order that disputed questions What the incomparable leader wrote in may be discussed from all angles. to comof that split he wanted to prevent? In this book, which covers a part of the forma hat the extremes into which representatives direct connection with this danger of split tive period of the Bolshevik Party (1900 of various view s, various localities, or var.
he made his proposal to remove Stalin from the post 1902. has the most vital import for the ious branches of the revolutionary Party Secretary. And in this moveAmerican Oppositionists who follow in his ment invariably fall. Indeed, we regard hook there is a very illuminating article which bears the title, How The Spark Was path and who stand, as Lenin and his co one of the drawbacks of the present day Nearly Extinguished Therein he shows workers stood then, before the task of asmovement to be the absence of open polemics how the newspaper enterprise with great sembling and training the nucleus of the between arowedly differing views, an effort future party of proletarian struggle and to conceal the differences that exist over political aims was once on the point of victory. No duty is more pressing than the extremely fundamental questions. Our disruption because of the arbitrary cinduct of Plekhanov and the spoiled personal reconscientious study of these volumes; no emphasis. One has enly to read these lines task will be more quickly and abundantly to comprehend the chasm which separates lations which ensued from it. Leaders who master the art of working together greatly compensated. The words of Lenin himself, the real Lenin from the epigones.
enhance thereby their usefulness to the in contradistinction to the interpretations And that is not to say that Lenin had of those who speak in his name, reveal the in mind a discussion from which no conrevolution.
indissoluble unity of the ideas of the In elusions would be drawn. His aim, was to Not the least of the qualities of Lenin ternational Opposition with the ideas of draw clearly the lines of demarcation. The matchless genius was his unfailing ability Lenin and reinforce conviction in them. publication was not to be merely a storeto combine realism with far sighted vision. Our teaching. said Engels, is no house for various views. On the contrary, He knew what he wanted and how to get dogma but a manual of action. And no we shall conduct it along the lines of a it. And he also knew the next step. That less can be said of the teaching of Lenin strictly defined tendency. This tendency is a remarkable combination, and a rare who understood the doctrines of Marx and can be expressed by the word Marxism.
one. Trotsky, in his Autobiography, speaks Engels in this sense and so applied them. Unity, said the heretic of 19900, cannot be of the Menshevik Martov who, in revoluThe study of his works therefore cannot be bronght about by simply giving orders.
tionary situations had thoughts for all a mere exercise in historical research. His For that idea alone he would be expelled questions except the all important quesdo nex writings are to be conceived rather as text in 1931.
And of Lenin books on the strategy of the proletarian he remarked that in all his preoccupations Lenin the Orthodox Marxist revolution. They dishonor and distort Lenin with matters great and small the goal was who reduce his teachings to a system of Lenin was an orthodox Marxist. This never absent from his thought. But tolifeless formulae. The thing is to grasp fact leaps out from every page of his writgether with that, as has been said, he contheir living essence, and its application to ings. They are profoundly wrong, therecentrated on the task of the moment. He our own time and place. In other words fore, who attempt to used the expression about grasping the Lenin up as a to study his writings not as pedants but as theoretician beside Marx, that is, in opposinext link in the chain so often that it has revolutionaries.
tion to Marx. Lenin own writings refute become a truism for the movement; reThe Iskra Declaration this idea. Bolshevism came into being, as peated often enough, unfortunately, by peohe himself said in Left Sickness, on the ple who could not grasp it as surely as Iskra (The Spark. as most of our granite foundations of Marxian theory. Lenin did. If one could sum up the imreaders know, was the paper founded by study of Lenin works is therefore at the pression received from this first book of Lenin in 1900. One of the most interesting same time a study of Marxism. If Engels writings during the Iskra period in a word documents in the volume under review is it would be to say: Lenin gives here a was the greatest popularizer of Marx doc.
the Declaration by the Editorial Board of trines in a general sense, then Lenin was series of object lessons in the art of keepIskra which appeared in its first issue and undoubtedly the greatest popularizer of the ing sight of the goal and knowing what to outlined the ideas and aims of the editors. same doctrines in a special and particular do next in the struggle toward the goal.
Iskra made its first appearance at a time sense. Lenin method was primarily the Where To Begin of rise in working class activity, when the method polemic and of concrete applicaspontaneous labor movement was running tion. Through Lenin the word of Marx was This is the essential quality of the notahead of its conscious political organiza illustrated in the deed. It was Trotsky able article reprinted from the fourth numtion. The ideas of Economism. that is, who once remarked that the best road to ber of Iskra which appeared in May, 1901, of limiting the political work of the Social Marx was through Lenin. In this book, and called, Where To Begin There he Democrats were being propagated by an which from tirst to last is a demonstration outlined system and plan of practical acInfluential group of leaders. The Social of Marxist truth in the heat of polemical tivity which would be consonant with the Democratic movement of the time consisted battles, one can see a remarkable confirmapermanent interests of the movement and of loosely connected circles, and was lack tion of this thought.
lead in the direction of its final aims. This ing in a uniform program and cohesive or This is shown with singular clarity article stirred up a great commotion ganization. Lenin dediented the Iskra to in the pamphlet, The Agrarian Question throughout the ranks of the Russian Socialthe task of uniting the political movement And The Critics of Marx, which makes up Democrats and in an extended formule and overcoming the opportunist doctrines a full third of the first of the two books came the basis upon which the future nucof Economism.
devoted to the Iskra period. Here some of lens of the Bolshevik faction was concenThe Declaration declared war on re the most difficult problems of Marxism are trated. The scattered and disunited charvisionism, on Economism and the effort elucidated with simplicity.
an acter of the movement, the kind of an orto push into the background the task of Moreover the pamphlet demonstrates the ganization needed, and the first steps toward forming a revolutionary party to lead the painstaking and thorough research with its creation these were the questions he struggle at the head of the whole people which the destined leader of the Russian pt and answered in Where To Begin.
Thus from the very beginning Lenin revolution had informed himself for this First of all he called for the formation brought revolutionary theory into the fore conflict with the critics. Thereby he was of a tighting political organization. Work ground. Narrow practicality. he wrote not only able to rout the law of dimin.
for the establishment of a fighting organizain the first draft of the Declaration, de ishing returns on theoretical grounds alone.
tion he said) must be carried on under tached from the theoretical conception of This law. brought forward by the eri all circumstances, no matter how drab and the movement as a whole may destroy the tics in support of the superiority of peaceful the times may be, and no matter contact between Socialism and the revolu small scale farming, was also demolished how low the vepression of revolutionary tionary inorement in Russia on the one in Lenin pamphlet by a detailed analysis spirit has sunk. More than that, it is prehand, and the spontaneous labor movement of statisties showing the actual trend of the cisely in such conditions and in such peron the other. These words have a direct development of agriculture in the opposite iods that this work is particularly required: and immediate import today, especially for direction.
for it would be too late to start building those Communists immersed in trade union How significant this polemie was for such an organization in the midst of upriswork who tend to lose themselves in the Russian revolution can be estimated, ings and cutbreaks. The organization must details. The conception of the party, as the for example, by citing a couple of wellbe ready when the moment arrives. These highest form of proletarian organizationknown historie facts. Lenin, who defended words were true for Czarist Russia thirty its unifying and directing force was al. Marxism on the agrarian question, stood, years ago, and they are no less true for ways uppermost in Lenin thought as it in the decisive hour, at the head of the America today. Even now it is necessary is unfolded on the pages of this book.
victorious proletariat; Chernov, against to epare for ure day.
The American Communist movement, whom the polemie was directed, didn reThe organization he projected was to including all of its factions, represents far cognize the revolution when it arrived and be a political organization; other words less a political force than did the Social found himself on the other side of the bar a party. Lenin was irreconcilable Democratic movement of Russia during the ricade with his Social Revolutionary party.
of all eclecticism, narrow mindedness and early Iskra period. And in view of its disIt is no secret that American revolutionlocalism. The movement had to be united integration into factions it cannot justly aries have yet to undertake a serious study on a national scale: it had to invest all its be said that it is more united. If the Social and application of Marxism on the agrarian detailed activities with a sweeping perDemocrats of Russia at the time constituted question. That necessary study can very spective of revolutionary overthrow He a disunited propaganda body, no more can well begin with Lenin pamphlet referred wrote: Our movement, intellectually as be said for our present movement. How to here.
well as practically (organizationally. sufthen does our party régime, with its reLenin was an all sided leader, unique fers most of all from being scattered, from THE REPRESSION IN SPAIN PARIS. The repression of Admiral Aznar yields in no respect to that of Berenguer. It is directed against the worker militants. The monarchy wants to stifle in advance the voice of the proletarian revolution, while it plays the politician with the bourgeois republicans to whom it offers ministerial portfolios in its golden cage.
The Spanish Communist Party hardly exists. At the present moment, it has neither unity, nor cadres, nor clear perspectives. The first task of the Communists in Spain is to invest their party with organization and a political platform. This work has lrardly been begun. Let us add that it cannot be conducted properly except through the tenacious efforts of the Opposition.
In the meanwhile, the militants are being constantly tung into prison. The approach a period of electoral agitation now an ithen causes some doors to open while others are being closed. Our comrade Andres Nin. who had been arrested during the December events, has now been released. The same is true of our comrade Jose Soriano. Esteban Bilbao and Justo Solozabal have also been let go.
But our comrade Lacroix remains imprisoned in Valencia, where he has been for more than eight months. Comrade Garcia Lavid, condemned to five years imprisonment, remains at Ocana. His brother, Luis Garcia Lavid, has also just been ar rested at Bilbao. In the same city, our comrade Leonato Miguel has been arrested too.
All these Opposition Communists are in the front ranks in the revolutionary struggle. They are setting the example in political firmness and proletarian courage.
We shall return to the general political situation in Spain in a coming number.
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