A. The Beginning of the Spontaneous Movement

In the previous chapter we pointed out how universally absorbed the educated youth of Russia were in the theories of Marxism in the middle of the nineties. The strikes that followed the famous St. Petersburg industrial war of 1896 also assumed a similar wholesale character. The fact that these strikes spread over the whole of Russia showed how deep the reviving popular movement was, and if we must speak of the “spontaneous element” then, of course, we must admit that this strike movement certainly bore a spontaneous character. But there is a difference between spontaneity and spontaneity. Strikes occurred in Russia in the seventies, and in the sixties (and also in the first half of the nineteenth century), and these strikes were accompanied by the “spontaneous” destruction of machinery, etc. Compared with these “revolts” the strikes of the nineties might even be described as “conscious,” to such an extent do they mark the progress which the labour movement had made since that period. This shows that the “spontaneous element,” in essence, represents nothing more nor less than consciousness in an embryonic form. Even the primitive rebellions expressed the awakening of consciousness to a certain extent: The workers abandoned their age-long faith in the permanence of the system which oppressed them. They began .. . I shall not say to understand, but to sense the necessity for collective resistance, and emphatically abandoned their slavish submission to their superiors. But all this was more in the nature of outbursts of desperation and vengeance than struggle. The strikes of the nineties revealed far greater flashes of consciousness: Definite demands were put forward, the time to strike was carefully chosen, known cases and examples in other places were discussed, etc. While the revolts were simply uprisings of the oppressed, the systematic strikes represented the class struggle in embryo, but only in embryo. Taken by themselves, these strikes were simply trade union struggles, but not yet Social-Democratic struggles. They testified to the awakening antagonisms between workers and employers, but the workers were not and could not be conscious of the irreconcilable antagonism of their interests to the whole of the modern political and social system, i. e., it was not yet Social-Democratic consciousness. In this sense, the strikes of the nineties, in spite of the enormous progress they represented as compared with the “revolts,” represented a purely spontaneous movement.

* Rabocheye Dyelo, No. 10, 1901, pp. 17-18 [R. D.’s italics].

We said that there could not yet be Social-Democratic consciousness among the workers. This consciousness could only be brought to them from without. The history of all countries shows that the working class, exclusively by its own effort, is able to develop only trade-union consciousness, i. e., it may itself realise the necessity for combining in unions, to fight against the employers and to strive to compel the government to pass necessary labour legislation, etc.* The theory of Socialism, however, grew out of the philosophic, historical and economic theories that were elaborated by the educated representatives of the propertied classes, the intellectuals. The founders of modern scientific Socialism, Marx and Engels, themselves belonged to the bourgeois intelligentsia. Similarly, in Russia, the theoretical doctrine of Social-Democracy arose quite independently of the spontaneous growth of the labour movement; it arose as a natural and inevitable outcome of the development of ideas among the revolutionary Socialist intelligentsia. At the time of which we are speaking, 7. e., the middle of the nineties, this doctrine not only represented the completely formulated programme of the Emancipation of Labour group but had already won the adhesion of the majority of the revolutionary youth in Russia.

Hence, simultaneously we had both the spontaneous awakening of the masses of the workers—the awakening to conscious life and struggle, and the striving of the revolutionary youth, armed with the Social-Democratic theories, to reach the workers. In this connection it is particularly important to state the oft-forgotten (and comparatively little-known) fact that the early Social-Democrats of that period, zealously carried on economic agitation (being guided in this by the really useful instructions contained in the pamphlet Agitation that was still in manuscript) but they did not regard this as their sole task. On the contrary, right from the very beginning they brought up the general historical tasks of Russian Social-Democracy, and particularly the task of overthrowing the autocracy. For example, the St. Petersburg group of Social- Democrats, which was formed by the League of the Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class towards the end of 1895, got out the first number of the journal known as Rabocheye Dyelo. This number was completely ready for the press when it was seized by the gendarmes who, on the night of December 8, 1895, raided the house of one of the members of the group, Anatole Alekseyevich Vaneyev,* and so the original Rabocheye Dyelo was not fated to see the light. The leading article in this number (which perhaps in thirty years’ time some Russkaya Starina [Russian Antiquary] will discover in the archives of the Department of Police) described the historic tasks of the working class in Russia, of which the achievement of political liberty is regarded as the most important. This number also contained an article entitled, “What Are Our Cabinet Ministers Thinking Of?” which dealt with the wrecking of the premises of the elementary education committees by the police. In addition, there was some correspondence, from St. Petersburg, as well as from other parts of Russia (for example, a letter on the shooting down of the workers in the Yaroslav province). This, if we are not mistaken, “first attempt” of the Russian Social-Democrats of the nineties was not a narrow, local, and certainly not an “economic” newspaper, but one that aimed to unite the strike movement with the revolutionary movement against the autocracy, and to win all the victims of oppression and _ political and reactionary obscurantism over to the side of Social-Democracy. No one in the slightest degree acquainted with the state of the movement at that period could doubt that such a paper would have been fully approved of by the workers of the capital and the revolutionary intelligentsia and would have had a wide circulation. The failure of the enterprise merely showed that the Social-Democrats of that time were unable to meet the immediate requirements of the time owing to their lack of revolutionary experience and practical training. The same thing must be said with regard to the St. Petersburg Rabochy Listok |Workers’ Leaflet] and particularly with regard to the Rabochaya Gazeta and Manifesto established in the spring of 1898 by the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party. Of course, we would not dream of blaming the Social-Democrats of that time for this unpreparedness. But in order to obtain the benefit of the experience of that movement, and to learn practical lessons from it, we must thoroughly understand the causes and significance of this or that shortcoming. For that reason it is extremely important to establish the fact that part (perhaps even a majority) of the Social-Democrats operating in the period of 1895-1898, quite justly considered it possible even then, at the very beginning of the “spontaneous movement,” to come forward with a most extensive programme and fighting tactics.* The Jack of training of the majority of the revolutionists being quite a natural phenomenon, could not have aroused any particular fears. Since the tasks were properly defined, since the energy existed for repeated attempts to fulfil these tasks, the temporary failures were not such a great misfortune. Revolutionary experience and organisational skill are things that can be acquired provided the desire is there to acquire these qualities, provided the shortcomings are recognised—which in revolutionary activity is more than half-way towards removing them!

* Trade Unionism does not exclude “politics” altogether as some imagine. Trade unions have always conducted political agitation and struggle (but not Social-Democratic ones). We shall deal with the difference between trade union politics and Social-Democratic politics in the next chapter.

* A. A. Vaneyey died in eastern Siberia in 1899, from consumption, which he contracted as a result of his solitary confinement in prison prior to his banishment. That is why we are able to publish the above information, the authenticity of which we guarantee, for it comes from persons who were closely and directly acquainted with A. A. Vaneyev.

It was a great misfortune, however, when this consciousness began to grow dim (it was very lively among the workers of the group mentioned), when people appeared—and even Social-Democratic organs—who were prepared to regard shortcomings as virtues, who tried even to put a theoretical basis to slavish cringing before spontaneity. It is time to summarise this tendency, the substance of which is incorrectly and too narrowly described as Economism.