The Socialist Party and Non-Party Revolutionism

A short article written by Lenin on the inevitability of the emergence of non-Party organizations and how to uphold the proletarian party spirit. It was written in November 1905 and first published in the Novaya Zhizn (New Life) newspaper, issue No. 22 and No. 27; on November 26 and December 2, 1905. The Chinese translation is included in Vol. 12 of the second revised edition of Complete Works of Lenin.

At the beginning of the article, Lenin explained the inevitability and characteristics of the emergence of the non-Party organizations.

Firstly, the Russian revolutionary movement quickly spread to a wider class of the population, so many non-Party organizations were established one after another. Secondly, the repression and persecution of the reactionary government against the people’s call for unity provoked people’s resistance and led to the emergence of various non-Party organizations. Thirdly, these non-Party organizations often did not have a fixed form and scope. The political struggles they waged were combined with economic struggles, such as strikes, and took the form of various temporary or more fixed forms of organized association. Lenin pointed out that the of non-Party organizations were idealized, and included in the “sphere” of socialism and became a fashionable slogan. The most “general” political surface phenomena were non-Party organizations, non-Party democracy, non-Party strike doctrine, and non-Party revolution. Lenin stressed that the proletarian party should adhere to the party principles and oppose the non-Party principles.

Lenin pointed out that strict party character was an accompanying phenomenon and product of the highly developed class struggle. The Social-Democratic Party should always fight against the non-Party spirit and make unremitting efforts to establish a Socialist Workers’ party with firm principles and close unity. At the same time, Lenin explained that the non-Party principles, which are opposite to the party character, are the product of the bourgeois nature of the Russian Revolution. Non-Party principles meant indifference to the struggle of all political parties, but it was not the same as neutrality, because there can be no neutrals in the class struggle. In a capitalist society, it is impossible to “abstain” from taking part in the exchange of commodities or the power of labor. And exchange inevitably gives rise to economic and then to political struggle. Lenin revealed that the essence of the so-called “neutrality” of non-Party principle was to support the rulers and the autocratic government. Supporting the non-Party principle was bourgeois ideology, party ideology is socialist ideology, and to forget this truth is to actually reject the socialist critique of the bourgeois society.

Lenin also explained the attitude of the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party towards non-Party organizations. Firstly, it was necessary to look at the issue of socialist participation in non-Party organizations in a historical and concrete way. In the era of democratic revolution, refusal to participate in non-Party organizations is equivalent to a refusal to participate in the democratic revolution under certain circumstances. Participation in non-Party organizations may be necessary in order to propagate socialism to an audience that does not have a clear democratic ideology, or for the common struggle of socialists and revolutionary democrats against counter-revolutionary forces, but both can only be temporary. Secondly, to maintain the ideological and political independence of the proletarian party is the duty that the socialists must fulfill. Party members and party groups assigned to “represent” non-Party federations or committees can only participate under the condition that they accept the absolute supervision and leadership of the whole party. The purpose, nature, and conditions of participating in non-Party organizations should be subject to one basic task: to prepare and organize the socialist proletariat to consciously lead the socialist revolution.

Thirdly, the question of the tactic of participating in such non-Party organizations. One is to use every possibility to make independent contacts to propagate our entire socialist program. Second, to define the immediate political tasks of the day in terms of the fullest and most resolute accomplishment of the democratic revolution; we should put forward the political watchwords of the democratic revolution and advance a “program” of those reforms which should be carried out by militant revolutionary democrats as distinct from haggling, liberal democrats. Only in this context was the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party able to fulfill the two-fold task of the workers’ party in the bourgeois revolution: to carry the democratic revolution to its conclusion and to expand and strengthen the backbone of the socialist proletariat, which needed to be freed to carry out the relentless struggle to overthrow the rule of capital.