One Step Forward, Two Steps Back—The Crisis in Our Party

Lenin’s treatise criticizing the Mensheviks’ opportunism on organizational issues and clarifying the principles of Bolshevik organization. The Second Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party was held from July to August 1903. The congress adopted a unified program and constitution, also established a central leadership organ. At this meeting, due to sharp differences in organizational principles, the Bolsheviks (i.e., the majority) led by Lenin and the Mensheviks (i.e., the minority) led by Julius Martov were formed. After the meeting, with the support of Plekhanov, Mensheviks usurped the leadership of the editorial department of the Iskra making it an instrument against Lenin and Bolsheviks. It concentrated on attacking the party’s organizational principles advocated by Lenin and tried to make the party return to a state of disorganization. Lenin used the phrase “one step forward, two steps back” to describe the serious crisis in the party at that time. Crushing the economist clique, the convening of the Second Congress, and the adoption of the party program were steps forward. The adoption of the first article of Martov’s party constitution and the usurpation of the Iskra was two steps back. To effectively respond to the crisis in the party, Lenin wrote this work based on studying the minutes and resolutions, the speeches of each delegate, the various documents of the political factions, the Central Committee and the General Committee of the party that emerged from the Second Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party, which were published in January 1904. He made a detailed analysis of the evolution of differences at the Second Congress, reasons for the formation of factions, and the development of the struggle after the Second Congress. He criticized the opportunism of the Mensheviks on the organizational issues, clarified the correct organizational principles of the Bolsheviks, and expounded the theory of the proletarian political party. This book was published in Geneva in May 1904 and later included in Vol. 1 of the Collection of Twelve Years published in 1907. The Chinese translation is included in Vol. 8 of the second edition of Complete Works of Lenin.

This work consists of a preface, 18 sections as the main text, and an appendix part.

(1) The book describes the process of the Second Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party.

Lenin recounted the preparatory process of the Second Congress and emphasized the organizational principles of the party. In the preview of publication of the Iskra in 1900, it was proposed that before the reunification, the boundary between Bolsheviks (revolutionaries) and Mensheviks (opportunists) must be drawn, and demanded that the meetings of the committees of the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party in 1902 should be turned into an informal meeting instead of a party congress. At the end of 1902, after the Organization Committee was officially established, the newspaper Iskra considered it necessary to hold a party congress. Therefore, the Second Congress of the Social-Democratic Labor Party was prepared. The Organizing Committee discussed and adopted the constitution of the Second Congress. Article 18 stipulated that: “all decisions of the Congress and all the elections it carries out are decisions of the Party and binding on all Party organizations. They cannot be challenged by anyone on any pretext whatever and can be rescinded or amended only by the next Party Congress”. This decision should have ensured that all manpower, risks, and expenses related to the convening of the congress are not wasted and stipulated that any failure to recognize the resolutions of the congress and its elections is an act of sabotage.

The first one is the lack of analysis of the records of the party congresses in the study and elucidation of the facts and the defense of the first article of the party constitution proposed by Martov and Axelrod in the elucidation of the basic principles of organizational issues.

The second is the opportunist position on the organizational issues: advocating the party building from the bottom up; “their hostility to the ‘formalism’ which demands that a Party member should belong to one of the organizations recognized by the Party; their leaning towards the mentality of the bourgeois intellectual, who is only prepared to ‘accept organizational relations platonically’ their penchant for opportunist profundity and for anarchistic phrases; their tendency towards autonomism as against centralism—in a word, all that is now blossoming so luxuriantly in the ‘New Iskra’, and is helping more and more to reveal fully and graphically the initial error.” Lenin further elaborated that the constitution of the Social-Democratic Party should lead the party’s practical work.

(2) This work analyzes the struggle in the Second Congress and the evolution of the four factions.

Lenin analyzed the factional divisions and political tendencies of the Social-Democratic Labor Party during the Congress. It can be divided into four groups: the Iskra majority, the Iskra minority, the “Centre” and the anti-Iskra group. Their names were radical revolutionary social democrats, small opportunists, medium opportunists, and large opportunists. The task of the Social Democrats was to study the main factions exposed during the discussion of various issues in the Congress and to reveal anew the political face of each basic group in the Congress according to the accurate materials recorded. The minority (Mensheviks) represented by Martov included the most opportunistic members of the Social-Democratic Party.

The majority were the revolutionaries of the Social-Democratic Party, and the minority were the opportunists of the Social-Democratic Party. The differences of views between the two groups were not mainly on the question of program, but only on the question of organization, in which the Mensheviks showed opportunistic mistakes in the organization.

Lenin analyzed three major events and their essence during the Congress, namely “the equality of languages incident”, “paragraph one of the rules” and “the elections”, which caused a serious crisis in the party. The “equality of languages incident” showed that the reasons for the differences are twofold, because Martov was an “Iskra-ist” at that time and was attacking the “anti-Iskra-ists” and the “Centre”. The focus of the debate on the “paragraph one of the rules” of the party constitution at this meeting was on organizational principles on which the party should be built. The Bolsheviks advocated the establishment of a centralized and well-organized party, while the Mensheviks actually wanted to establish a party that is disorganized, unstructured and complex in composition. After the adoption of the party constitution, Congress passed resolutions of the organizations of various regions and several resolutions on individual organizations within the party and kept the election of the central organs of the party. The minority (Mensheviks) couldn’t find a reasonable reason to oppose the election and has resorted to unreasonable means.

(3) This work expounded the organizational principles of the proletarian political parties and exposed the origins of the opportunism of the Mensheviks on the organizational issues.

Firstly, Lenin pointed out that the party was an advanced force of the proletariat and should be composed of the most advanced elements of the proletariat. It couldn’t be confused with the class as a whole. It was a militant organization united by a unified will, unified action and unified discipline. He exposed the misconception of the Mensheviks in confusing the party with the class. Secondly, on the organizational form of the party. Mensheviks have argued that party members did not have to join an organization of the party, as long as they simply assisted the party on a regular basis and advocated that every intellectual who sympathizes with the party and every striker or demonstrator have the right to be declared a party member. Lenin revealed that the essence of the Party advocated by the Mensheviks opened the door for opportunists and petty-bourgeois elements. Lenin reiterated that the party should be the sum of its organizations, should be a totality. Party should be as organized as possible, and it should only absorb elements that could accept at least a minimum of the organization; the unlimited expansion of the party’s boundaries could only weaken the party’s influence on the masses. A centralized, well-organized and disciplined proletarian party must be established. Thirdly, the party is the highest form of organization of the proletariat, other organizations of the proletariat must work under the leadership of the party and maintain physical relations with millions of working-class masses, which is the source of the party’s strength. It exposed the Mensheviks’ mistake of the fundamental denial of the party’s leadership. Fourthly, the party was established under the principle of centralism. It must have a unified party constitution and leadership organs and implement the principles of individual subordination to the organization, minority subordination to the majority, subordination to the higher and local to the Central Committee. Menshevik attacked centralism as “bureaucracy” and “formalism”. They proposed the establishment of an autonomy system, claiming that the party is the sum of all the autonomous committees, that all parts of the party couldn’t obey the whole, and that they should have autonomy over the whole. Lenin pointed out that to deny partial obedience to the whole was an anarchist fallacy, thus, exposed the mistakes of the Mensheviks in opposing centralism and supporting autonomy. Fifthly, the party must have strict and unified discipline, and it is non- discipline is not allowed. The Party discipline was denounced as “serfdom” within the party. Lenin pointed out that the Party’s discipline was the binding force within the whole Party, and exposed the anarchist behavior of Mensheviks for undermining the Party discipline.

Lenin revealed the origin of the opportunism of the Mensheviks on the organizational issues. He pointed out that this was not an accidental phenomenon, it had domestic and foreign roots, respectively in the Russian small-scale peasant economy and the international opportunism. The idea of organizational unity runs through the whole work. Lenin stressed that “in its struggle for power the proletariat has no other weapon but organization”. The reason why the proletariat has an invincible force is that it was consolidated by the ideological unity formed by the principles of Marxism and the material unity of the organization.

In conclusion, Lenin summarized the development trend of inner-party struggle at the Party Congress and after it. Despite the temporary dominance of the opportunist wing of the party after the Congress and the passive resistance of the minority that further divided the party, also because of the growing anarchism and opportunism after the Congress, Lenin was convinced that the principles of the revolutionary social-democratic party, the organization of the proletariat and the organizational discipline of the Party must be completely victorious.

For the first time in the history of Marxism, One Step Forward, Two Steps Back criticized the opportunism in respect to organizational issues in detail, formulated and clarified the organizational principles of the Marxist revolutionary party, crushed the Menshevik opportunism on the organizational issues, and established the organizational foundation of a new proletarian Party.