Preface to the Collection of Twelve Years

Preface written by Lenin for the book under the general title Collection of Twelve Years which was published by Zerno Book Publishers in St. Petersburg, the book was published in November 1907, the Chinese translation is included in Vol. 16 of the second revised edition of Complete Works of Lenin.

According to the publishing plan of Zerno Book Publishers, Collection of Twelve Years was to be published in three volumes, but only Vol. 1 and a part one of the Vol. 2 could be published. Vol. 1 of the Collection of Twelve Years was published in mid-November 1907. This Vol. was soon confiscated by the police, but a large portion was rescued and continued to circulate in secret. Vol. 1 includes the following works:

The Economic Content of Narodnism and the Criticism of it in Mr. Struve’s Book; ”The Tasks of the Russian Social-Democrats”; ”The Persecutors of the Zemstvo and the Hannibals of Liberalism”; What is to Be Done?; One Step Forward, Two Steps Back; “The Zemstvo Campaign and Iskra’s Plan”; “Two Tactics of Social-Democracy in the Democratic Revolution”.

Due to the Tsarist government’s censorship, Vol. 2 was renamed as The Agrarian Question instead of using the title Collection of Twelve Years. Vol. 2 was published in two volumes. The first volume was published in early 1908. It includes “A Characterization of Economic Romanticism”; “The Handicraft Census of 1894-1895 in Perm Gubernia” and “The General Problems of ‘Handicraft’ Industry, and The Agrarian Question and the ‘Critics of Marx’” (Chapters I-XI). Part two of the second Vol., “The Agrarian Programme of Social-Democracy in the First Russian Revolution, 1905-1907” was finished but was confiscated by the police when it was being printed press and destroyed.

Vol. 3 was also not published because of the authorities’ censorship. According to the writing plan, this Vol. would contain programmatic and polemical articles which had appeared in the Bolshevik press in the Iskra, Vperyod, Proletary, Novaya Zhizn, and others.

From 1895 to 1907, between those 12 years, the articles and pamphlets mainly discussed the programs, tactics, and organizations of the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party, as well as the struggle between Bolsheviks and the right-wing in the Russian Marxist ideological trend. In order to summarize the experiences, educate the party and struggle better against opportunism, Lenin collected the important articles written over the past 12 years into a book and republished them with this preface.

Lenin analyzed the 12-years struggle between Russian Marxism and the “legal Marxism”, as well as against economism and Menshevism from 1895 to 1907, and concluded that those were different manifestations of the same historical trend.

First of all, Lenin analyzed the struggle between Russian Marxism and “legal Marxism”. Lenin pointed out that Mr. Struve, the main representative of “legal Marxism”, was a bourgeois democrat. “Legal Marxists” broke with the Narodniks (populists) and shifted from Narodnik socialism views to bourgeois liberalism, unlike the Russian Marxists who transformed themselves to proletarian socialism. There were three purposes for Lenin to republish the article “The Economic Content of Narodnism and the Criticism of It in Mr. Struve’s Book” which refuted Struve’s thoughts. The first one is that it was necessary to criticize the views of Struve because he and the Narodniks (populists) both refuted Marxism.

The second was to fight back against those who accuse the Social Democrats of forming an alliance with Struve’s Legal Marxism. The third was that the polemic with Mr. Struve showed that the social democrats and Mr. Struve were not compatible in theory and had practical and political significance. Lenin also wrote “The Tasks of the Russian Social-Democrats” and “The Persecutors of the Zemstvo and the Hannibals of Liberalism” and other articles. He vigorously expounded the views of the Social Democrats, launched a debate with “legal Marxism”, drew a clear line between the Social Democrats and Mr. Struve’s thoughts, which launched an ideological struggle against the liberals.

Secondly, Lenin analyzed the struggle between Russian Marxism and the economist trend of thought. What Is to Be Done? was a work criticizing the economist trend of thought in a polemical form. The first issue was about the views of the book What Is to Be Done?. This book cannot be understood ahead of its time. Many years after the publication of the book, Parvus, a representative of the Mensheviks, said that the idea of establishing a professional revolutionary organization was incorrect. Lenin argued that this view wiped out a period in the development of the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party and the achievements that had been consolidated and completed. What Is to Be Done? was a summarization of the tactics and organizational policies of the “Iskra group” during 1901-02. In this work, Lenin elaborated the struggle between the “Iskra group” and economism in his works. The Iskra newspaper fought for the establishment of the organization of professional revolutionists, defeated the dominant trend of economism at that time, finally established the organization of professional revolutionists in 1903, and maintained the organization throughout the Russian Revolution.

The basic condition for the high degree of unity, consolidation, and stability of the party achieved by the professional revolutionaries’ organization established with the participation of the newspaper Iskra was that, because of objective economic reasons, the working class was the most organized of all classes in capitalist society. Without this condition, it would have been impossible to establish the professional revolutionaries’ organization. The second issue concerned the question of what to make of the spirit of the old Iskraist faction. Lenin pointed out that the struggle in small groups was a phenomenon possible when the workers’ movement in Russa was still young and immature. Only the broadening of the Party by enlisting proletarian elements can, in conjunction with open mass activity, eradicate all the residue of the circle spirit which has been inherited from the past and is unsuited to our present tasks. Lenin pointed out that the question of the group should be treated correctly and not just blamed. In the unique conditions of the past period, the group was essential and played a positive role. The group struggle raised some of the main problems of the Social-Democratic Party in the most acute way and solved them, which laid a solid foundation for broad party work. But now group activity has fulfilled its mission and has become out of date.

The third issue is the polemical approach of What Is to Be Done? to correct the economism. Economism, which arose from a fascination with the strike movement and economic struggle, was a special form of opportunism within the Social-Democratic Party. When the newspaper Iskra began its work, the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party was ostensibly unrelated to the Union of Russian Social-Democrats Abroad, and in fact Iskra was working together with the Plekhanov’s group against the Union of Russian Social-Democratic Abroad. What Is to Be Done? was a systematic account of the reasons for the differences of opinion within the Social-Democratic Party and the nature of the tactics and organizational activities of the newspaper Iskra. In this work, he criticized the right-wing of the Social-Democratic organization. Economists challenged the views on spontaneity and political consciousness as set forth in the program. Economists attacked what is common in both the What Is to Be Done? and the program drafts, when in fact there was no difference in principle between What Is to Be Done? and the draft programs, they did not differ in principle on the issue of spontaneity and self-consciousness. The fourth issue was on the opposition to trade union neutrality. Lenin pointed out that it was not possible to insist in principle on the idea of trade union neutrality, that trade unions should be close to the party and that trade unions should keep in touch with the party.

Thirdly, Lenin analyzed the struggle between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. In One Step Forward, Two Steps Back, Lenin described the split between Mensheviks and Bolsheviks at the Second Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party: (1) On the agrarian program. Lenin pointed out that the land program at that time underestimated the power of the revolutionary-democratic peasant movement and the return of the cut-off lands was excessively limited. However, the Mensheviks opposed this program at that time and considered it too broad. (2) Criticized the organizational opportunism of the Mensheviks. They developed from organizational opportunism to tactical opportunism.

Lenin systematically described their basic tactical differences with the Mensheviks in his work “Two Tactics of the Social-Democracy in the Democratic Revolution”. These differences were fully formulated in the resolutions of the Third (spring) R.S.D.L.P. (B) Congress in London and the Menshevik Conference in Geneva which established the basic divergence between the Bolshevik and Menshevik appraisals. The Bolsheviks stated that the proletariat should be the leader in the democratic revolution. The Mensheviks, on the other hand, reduced the role of the proletariat to that of an “extreme opposition”. The Bolsheviks positively affirmed the class nature and meaning of the revolution, saying that a victorious revolution was only could be achieved by a “revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry”. The Mensheviks always interpreted the concept of the bourgeois revolution so incorrectly that they argued that the proletariat had to settle for playing a subordinate and dependent role to the bourgeoisie in the revolution.

Finally, Lenin concluded that “legal Marxism”, economism, and Menshevism were different manifestations of the same historical trend.

Lenin summarized the struggle between the two factions of the Russian Marxist movement and the Russian Social-Democratic Party during the 12 years from 1895 to 1907. The “Legal Marxism” trend led by Mr. Struve was the reflection of Marxism in bourgeois literature. Economism, as a distinct political trend within the Social-Democratic movement was formed in 1897 and was active in the subsequent years, virtually implemented the program set forth in the bourgeois liberal “Credo”: economic struggle for the workers, political struggle for the liberals. Menshevism is not only a literary trend, not only a tendency in Social-Democratic activity but a close-knit faction, which during the first period of the Russian revolution (1905-1907) pursued its own distinct policy—a policy which in practice subordinated the proletariat to bourgeois liberalism. This proved that the economism of 1897 and the following years had a direct connection with Menshevism. “Legal Marxism”, economism, and Menshevism were not only ideologically connected but also have a direct historical succession.

In all capitalist countries the proletariat is inevitably connected by a thousand transitional links with its neighboring class on its right, i.e., the petty bourgeoisie. In all workers’ parties there inevitably emerges a more or less clearly delineated right-wing trend of thought which, in its views, tactics, and organizational “line”, reflects the opportunist tendencies of the petty bourgeoisie. In such a petty-bourgeois country as Russia, in the era of the bourgeois-democratic revolution, in the formative period of the young Social-Democratic Labor Party, these tendencies were bound to manifest themselves much more sharply, definitely, and clearly than anywhere else in Europe. These circumstances demanded the consolidation of revolutionary Marxism and it should be a weapon in the hands of the Russian working class to be exercised in its own struggle for liberation.

“The Preface to The Collection of Twelve Years” briefly reviewed and summarized the development of the Russian Marxist movement and the struggle between the two factions of the Social-Democratic Party over theoretical, party program, organizational, and tactical issues between 1895 and 1907 in the context of the works included in the collection. The writings in the collection span a wide range of time, and this preface by Lenin is a guiding document for the study of Lenin’s writings from this period.