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Lenin on liquidationism
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By Chris Slee
January 2007 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- In recent years there have been a number of cases where revolutionary Marxist parties have initiated or participated in attempts at building broad socialist parties. Examples include the Scottish Socialist Party; the Socialist Alliance and later Respect in England; the Socialist Alliance in Australia; Papernas in Indonesia; participation in the Party of Communist Refoundation in Italy; and the New Anti-Capitalist Party initiated by the Revolutionary Communist League (Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire) in France.
Sometimes Marxist groups
that participate in such broad formations are accused of
"liquidationism". This was a term used by Lenin to refer to the
policy of certain members of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party who
wished to dissolve ("liquidate") the RSDLP after the crushing of the
1905 revolution.
Critics of the policy of
building a broad left party sometimes say that, when a revolutionary Marxist
group joins such a broader formation, this amounts to the liquidation of the
Marxist group. Those who argue in this way claim that building a broad left
party is contrary to Lenin's policy of building a revolutionary vanguard party.
How valid is this
counterposition? Lenin certainly aimed to build a vanguard party that could
lead a revolution. But creating such a party was a long and complicated
process.
The RSDLP adopted a
revolutionary program at its 1903 conference. However it immediately split into
Bolshevik and Menshevik factions. While the split was apparently over
organisational matters, it also reflected incipient political differences.
Nevertheless, in subsequent
years there were periods when Lenin was willing to work with the Mensheviks, or
a section of them, in the framework of a united RSDLP. For example, he
collaborated with the "pro-party Mensheviks" led by Georgi Plekhanov to
produce a common newspaper, Zvezda,
which was published between 1910 and 1912. He built the January 1912 RSDLP
conference jointly with some of the pro-party Mensheviks, and all
non-liquidationist trends in the party were invited.
Ultimately Plekhanov backed
away from the opportunity to participate in building the RSDLP together with
the Bolsheviks. But many rank and file workers who had supported the Mensheviks
or had been non-aligned did join Lenin in this project.
Given the diversity of those
invited to participate in the January 1912 RSDLP conference, it seems
reasonable to say that during this period Lenin was trying to build the RSDLP
as a "broad party". But at the same time, Lenin worked to ensure that
the politics of the party were not watered down. The conference adopted a clear
political line: the key demands which the Bolsheviks had fought for were
adopted as the basis for the party's mass campaigning.
Of course, this historical
analogy does not prove the correctness of any particular broad left party
project today. Each must be looked at on its own merits. Liquidationism may be
a real danger in some cases.
This article looks at
Lenin's party-building approach, with a particular focus on his struggle
against liquidationism.
* * *
Liquidationism was a trend
that arose within the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party in the years
following the defeat of the 1905 revolution. The liquidators said that the
RSDLP (which was an illegal party with a revolutionary Marxist program) should
be dissolved (or liquidated), and that socialists should work solely through
legal organisations.
Some of the liquidators
advocated setting up a legal labour party. But in order to have any chance of
legal recognition in the repressive climate of tsarist Russia, such a party
would have needed to drop key aspects of the RSDLP’s program, including its
call for the overthrow of the tsarist monarchy.
Liquidationism arose within
the Menshevik faction of the RSDLP. The division of the RSDLP into Bolshevik
and Menshevik factions went back to the second congress of the party in 1903. The
immediate cause of the formation of factions was a dispute over the composition
of the editorial board of the newspaper Iskra.
But there were also political issues involved.
The 1903 congress adopted a
program that outlined a longer term perspective of socialist revolution, but
defined the "immediate political task" in
The congress was able to
arrive at agreement on the main features of the program, despite differences on
points of detail. Nevertheless, the discussion at the congress revealed the
beginnings of a difference on how the "immediate political task" of
overthrowing tsarism would be carried out. Should the working class, in
alliance with the peasantry, aim to lead the democratic revolution (as the
Bolsheviks said), or should it merely support the liberal bourgeoisie which
would lead the revolution (as the Mensheviks said)? (Grigory Zinoviev, History of the Bolshevik Party, New
Park, London 1973, pp. 90-92)
In 1905 there was a
revolutionary upsurge in
The rebellious workers and
sailors were crushed, partly because of the lack of political consciousness
amongst the peasantry. This meant that the tsarist regime was still able to use
the army, which was largely recruited from the peasantry, against the workers.
(Zinoviev, p. 136)
As well as using repression,
the tsarist regime offered some concessions. It called elections for a sort of
parliament called the Duma. However the election rules were very undemocratic,
with the votes of the upper classes being worth more than those of lower
classes: one landlord vote equalled three capitalist, 15 peasant or 45 worker
votes. Women could not vote, and students, soldiers, agricultural workers and
unskilled workers were also excluded from voting. (LCW, vol. 18, p. 622, note 89). And the
parliament had little power anyway.
Nevertheless, the
concessions were sufficient to persuade the liberal bourgeoisie to reach an
accomodation with tsarism.
When it became clear that
the 1905 revolution had been defeated, there was debate in the RSDLP on the
implications for the party's strategy and tactics.
The Bolsheviks argued that
new outbreaks of rebellion could be expected sooner or later, and it was
necessary to continue arguing for a democratic revolution and preparing the
party to lead a new revolutionary upsurge to victory.
Some Mensheviks, on the
other hand, had no confidence in a new upsurge, and thought it was necessary to
work within the limitations imposed by the "reformed" tsarist
monarchy. They wanted to dissolve the RSDLP and work solely through legal
organisations such as unions and workers' social clubs. Some of them hoped to
be allowed by the tsarist regime to form a legal workers’ party. To gain
legality they were prepared to water down the politics of such a party. These
people were called the liquidators.
Lenin summed up the ideas of
the liquidators as follows: "Liquidationism in the narrow sense of the
word, the liquidationism of the Mensheviks, consists ideologically in negation
of the revolutionary class struggle of the socialist proletariat in general,
and denial of the hegemony of the proletariat in our bourgeois-democratic
revolution in particular...
"In respect of
organisation, liquidationism means denying the necessity for an illegal
Social-Democratic Party, and consequently renouncing the Russian
Social-Democratic Labour Party, leaving its ranks." (LCW, vol. 15, p. 454)
However, there was a section
of the Mensheviks who thought it was still necessary to maintain the RSDLP as
an illegal party. These people were known as the pro-party Mensheviks. Their
most prominent leader was Georgi Plekhanov.
Ultraleftism
At about the same time as
the liquidationist current was emerging amongst the Mensheviks, differences
also arose amongst the Bolsheviks. An ultraleft current emerged that rejected
the need to take advantage of the opportunities, however limited, that existed
for legal work.
One of the opportunities for
legal work was participation in elections for the Duma.
I have mentioned the
undemocratic nature of the Duma. When the plans for the Duma were first
announced in 1905, the Bolsheviks called for a boycott of the elections. They
called for political strikes and an armed uprising to obtain real democracy. This
resulted in the plans for Duma elections being abandoned for the time being.
After the crushing of the
uprising, the government was able to hold elections for the Duma. The RSDLP
(both Bolsheviks and Mensheviks) boycotted the first Duma elections in March
1906.
The Mensheviks soon decided
they had made a mistake and wanted to participate in new elections called later
in 1906 (after the tsarist government had dissolved the first Duma). The
majority of Bolsheviks wanted to continue the boycott.
Lenin, however, favoured
participation in elections for the second Duma. He argued that the Bolsheviks
had been correct to campaign for a boycott in 1905, when a revolutionary
upsurge was occurring. However, conditions had changed following the crushing
of the 1905 uprising. By August 1906 Lenin had concluded that that: "The
time has now come when the revolutionary Social-Democrats must cease to be
boycottists". (LCW, vol. 11, p.
145)
As the revolutionary wave
ebbed, Lenin, while remaining optimistic about the prospects for revival of the
revolutionary movement, realised that this was likely to be delayed for a
number of years. He concluded that it was necessary for socialists to make use
of any legal opportunities, including the use of Duma election campaigns, and
speeches by socialist members of the Duma, for propaganda.
Some Bolsheviks disagreed. They
wanted to boycott future Duma elections and to recall the RSDLP representatives
who had been elected to it. They became known as "recallists" (or otzovists in Russian).
This ultraleft current was
also opposed to participation in legal trade unions and other legal workers
organisations.
Lenin advocated a
combination of legal and illegal work, believing that this was the only way to
maintain and strengthen the party's links with the mass of workers and peasants.
Lenin referred to the
ultraleftists as "liquidators on the left", because if their policies
were followed socialists would be cut off from the masses and the party would decline
and eventually collapse, i.e. it would be liquidated.
Lenin waged a struggle
within the Bolshevik faction against the ultraleftists. He eventually succeeded
in persuading the vast majority of Bolsheviks that his views were correct. The
hardened ultraleftists were expelled from the Bolshevik faction. They formed
their own faction, which came to be known as the Vperyod group (Vperyod
means forward in Russian).
Lenin's tactics proved very
successful in winning increased support from workers, whereas the Vperyod group remained isolated from the
workers and fell apart after a few years.
Pro-party Mensheviks
I mentioned earlier that
some Mensheviks were opposed to the liquidators. Lenin welcomed this, and was
willing to work with the pro-party Mensheviks.
Zinoviev in his History of the Bolshevik Party speaks
highly of Plekhanov's role during the 1907-1909 period, saying that "his
voice proved a great support to the Bolsheviks...", and that his support
was "extremely important in the atmosphere of that period" (Zinoviev,
p. 158).
At that time Lenin did not
view the Bolsheviks as a party, but as a "section" (we would say a
faction) of the RSDLP. While polemicising against Menshevik ideas, Lenin was
willing to work with the pro-party Mensheviks in building the RSDLP.
For example, Bolsheviks and
pro-party Mensheviks worked together on Zvezda,
a newspaper produced between December 1910 and April 1912 (LCW, vol. 17, p. 588, note 24). But over time the leading pro-party
Mensheviks pulled back from participation in this project, and it became
effectively a Bolshevik paper (Zinoviev, p. 168).
January 1912 conference
In January 1912, the
Bolsheviks took the initiative to convene a conference of the RSDLP. It was not
intended to be an exclusively Bolshevik conference. Menshevik-led local party
organisations participated in the preparations for the conference. Pro-party
Mensheviks, Vperyodists and Leon Trotsky were amongst those invited.
However, only two
non-Bolsheviks came to the conference. Both of them were pro-party Mensheviks. But
Plekhanov, the most prominent pro-party Menshevik, did not attend.
The conference elected a new
central committee, composed entirely of Bolsheviks (Tony Cliff, Lenin, vol. 1, p 312, Pluto Press,
London, 1975).
The conference is often said
to have marked the final split between the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. But
Lenin, in the resolutions and reports he drafted for the conference, said
nothing about a split with the Mensheviks
in general. Rather he drew a line of division between the Russian
Social-Democratic Labour Party and the liquidators.
He moved a resolution
declaring that the liquidators were no longer party members, saying that
"the Nasha Zarya and Dyelo Zhizni group has definitely placed
itself outside the party" (a reference to two magazines published by the
liquidators). The resolution called on "all Party members, irrespective of
tendencies and shades of opinion, to combat liquidationism, explain its great
harmfulness to the cause of the emamancipation of the working class, and bend
all their efforts to revive and strengthen the illegal RSDLP" (LCW, vol. 17, p. 481).
Lenin still wanted to keep
the door open to the pro-party Mensheviks, and anyone else who might be willing
to help build a united party with the Bolsheviks. A conference resolution
drafted by Lenin said that: "Everywhere in the localities without a single
exception, Party work is being conducted jointly and harmoniously by the
Bolsheviks and pro-Party Mensheviks, as well as by Vperyod supporters in
Unity
Why did the Bolsheviks take
this approach? Why did they project the January 1912 conference as being open
to the whole RSDLP (not including the liquidators, who were deemed to be
outside the party), rather than making it a conference of the Bolshevik faction
alone?
First, they wanted to
involve broader forces than just those who identified as Bolsheviks at that
time. They wanted to draw RSDLP members who might consider themselves as
Mensheviks, or as non-aligned, into joint party-building work together with the
Bolsheviks.
Second, they wanted to show
rank and file RSDLP members that the Bolsheviks were for unity, and make it as
hard as possible for their opponents to blame the Bolsheviks for any split that
might occur.
Paul Le Blanc states that
there were "a significant number of RSDLP members who favoured the
combination of legal and illegal tactics, who maintained a revolutionary class
struggle orientation, but were unalterably opposed to a split in the
RSDLP". He quotes one such person as saying "I, like many others... am
not a Bolshevik, I am not a Menshevik, I am not an Otzovist [ultraleftist], I
am not a Liquidator -- I am only a social-democrat" (Paul Le Blanc, Lenin and the Bolshevik Party,
Humanities Press, New Jersey, 1993, p. 178).
Lenin had to relate to this
sentiment. The fact that all non-liquidator elements of the RSDLP were invited
to the conference showed that the Bolsheviks were not sectarian. The fact that
most of those invited didn't turn up showed that they, not the Bolsheviks, were
opposed to unity on a principled basis. As Lenin noted in a speech to the
conference: "All have been invited and only those who refused to help the
Party are absent" (LCW, vol. 41,
p. 246).
In effect, the invitation to
attend the conference, and the invitation to participate in carrying out the
decisions of the conference, were a test for the pro-party Mensheviks. Were
they serious about building the party or not? Plekhanov failed this test.
However, the Bolsheviks'
efforts to bring about unity were not wasted. In the period after the
conference there occurred a process which Lenin referred to as "unity from
below". Writing in February 1913, he said:
"The workers have
already started of their own accord, from below, on the solution of the problem
of unity....
"Worker
Social-Democrats everywhere are re-establishing integral illegal organisations
of the RSDLP in the form of factory nuclei and committees, district groups,
town centres, Social-Democratic groups in all kinds of legal institutions, etc."
(LCW vol. 18, p. 454).
It is important to note that
Lenin, in offering to work in a united party with the pro-party Mensheviks, was
not proposing to water down the politics
of the party. The January 1912 conference adopted a clear political line.
A key question was that of
overthrowing the tsarist monarchy. Although the call for a democratic republic
had been included in the 1903 RSDLP program, the majority of prominent
Mensheviks, especially the liquidators, had in practice dropped that demand. The
conference resolved that: "Propaganda for a republic, and against the
policy of the tsarist monarchy, must be given special prominence to counteract,
among other things, the widespread propaganda in favour of curtailed slogans
and of confining activity to the existing 'legality'" (LCW, vol. 17, p.468).
The conference decided that
the main election slogans for the coming Duma elections should be: a democratic
republic; the eight-hour working day; and confiscation of all landed estates (LCW, vol.17, p. 468).
The party which emerged from
the January 1912 conference was officially known as the Russian
Social-Democratic Labour Party. But because its political line was that which
had come to be associated with the Bolshevik faction, and because its central
leaders came from the Bolshevik faction, it was often referred to as the
Bolshevik Party.
August 1912 conference
In August 1912 there was a
conference of groups and individuals who rejected the authority of the January
1912 conference. The August conference brought together liquidators,
ultraleftists, Trotsky and others.
This conference could not
agree on anything except opposition to the Bolsheviks. The so-called
"August bloc" soon fell apart. Trotsky, who played a leading role in
convening the conference, was later to cite it as a classic example of an
unprincipled combination.
Growth of the Bolsheviks
Following the January 1912
conference the Bolsheviks deepened their roots in the working class. They
launched a daily paper (Pravda) in
April 1912. The liquidators also launched a daily paper (called Luch). However Pravda had much more support from the working class. This was
indicated by the fact that four times as many workers' groups made donations to
Pravda as compared to Luch (LCW, vol. 21, p. 334). Mass working-class support for the Bolsheviks
was also shown when they won six seats in the Duma from working-class
electorates in the 1912 elections (LCW,
vol. 18, p. 515).
War and revolution
The real test for all groups
claiming to be socialist came with the outbreak of the first world war.
The Bolshevik Party (which
was still officially known as the RSDLP) took a principled stand against the
war. It called for "the conversion of the present imperialist war into a
civil war" (LCW, vol. 21, p.34),
i.e. for the workers in all countries to overthrow the governments which had
led them to war. This actually happened in
The Mensheviks either became
social chauvinists, supporting the Russian state in the war, or at best took a
pacifist approach, opposing the war but being unable to organise a real
struggle against it.
The liquidators generally
became social chauvinists. But Plekhanov, the former "pro-Party
Menshevik", also became a social chauvinist. This was a sad outcome for
one of the founders of Russian Marxism. Since 1903, he had vacillated between
revolutionary and reformist politics. His failure to accept Lenin's invitation
to help build a united party in 1912 was an important step in his degeneration.
On the other hand, Trotsky
moved in the opposite direction. Seeing the sellout by the Mensheviks, and the
anti-war position of the Bolsheviks, Trotsky began to move closer to the
Bolsheviks. During 1917 Trotsky and his supporters joined the Bolshevik Party. This
fusion was based on agreement around the key political questions which had come
to the fore in the new situation, including opposition to the imperialist war,
opposition to the bourgeois provisional government, and the need for the
soviets to seize power.
Conclusion
The fight against
liquidationism was crucial in building a revolutionary party in
[Chris Slee is a long-term
member of the Democratic Socialist Perspective, an Marxist organisation
affiliated to the Socialist Alliance of Australia. This is an edited version of
a talk he presented at the January 2007 DSP educational conference.]