Vladimir Lenin
I. G. Tsereteli and the Class Struggle
All the papers have published, in full or in part, the speech which I. G.
Tsereteli delivered on April 27 at the ceremonial session of the deputies of all
the Dumas, past and present.
It was quite a ministerial speech. The speech of a minister without a portfolio.
Still, we think there is no harm, even when ministers without portfolios make
ministerial speeches, in sparing a thought for socialism, Marxism and the class
struggle. To each his own. It behooves the bourgeoisie to shun all talk about
the class struggle, to avoid analysing it, studying it, and making it a basis
for determining policies. It behooves the bourgeoisie to dismiss these
"disagreeable" and "tactless" subjects-as they say in parlours-and to sing the
praises of "unity" of "all friends of freedom". It behooves the proletarian
party not to forget the class struggle.
To each his own.
Two basic political ideas underlie I. G. Tsereteli's speech. First, that a line
can and should be drawn between two "sections" of the bourgeoisie. One section
"has come to an agreement with the democrats"; the position of this bourgeoisie
insecure. The other consists of "irresponsible elements of the bourgeoisie who
are provoking civil war", or, as Tsereteli describes them, "many people from
among the moderate elements of the property-owners".
The speaker's second political idea is this: "Any attempt right now to proclaim
[!?] the dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry" would be a
"desperate" attempt, and he, Tsereteli, would agree to such a desperate attempt
only if he could believe for one minute that Shulgin's ideas were really "shared
by all the property-owning bourgeoisie".
Let us examine these two political ideas of I. G. Tsereteli, who, as befits a
minister without a portfolio or a candidate for the ministry, has taken a
middle-of-the-road stand- neither for reaction nor for revolution, neither with
Shulgin nor with the adherents of 'desperate attempts".
What class distinctions between the two indicated sections of the bourgeoisie
did Tsereteli make? None at all. It did not even occur to Tsereteli that there
would be no harm in shaping policies on the basis of the class struggle. Both
"Sections" of the bourgeoisie, in class substance, are landowners and
capitalists. Tsereteli did not mention a word about Shulgin not representing the
same classes or sub-classes as Guchkov represents-the latter a member of the
Provisional Government and an important one at that. Tsereteli singles out the
ideas of Shulgin from those of the "entire" property-owning bourgeoisie, but
gives no reasons for doing so. Nor could he give any. Shulgin stands for the
undivided power of the Provisional Government; he is against supervision of that
government by the armed soldiers; he is against "anti-British propaganda",
against the soldiers being "set on" the "officer class", against the propaganda
of Petrogradskaya Storona, etc. These ideas are to be found every day in the
columns of Rech, in the speeches and manifestos of the ministers with
portfolios, etc.
The only difference is that Shulgin speaks more "glibly", while the Provisional
Government, being a government, speaks more discreetly; Shulgin speaks in a deep
voice, Milyukov in a falsetto. Milyukov is for an agreement with the Soviet, and
Shulgin, too, has nothing against such an agreement. Both Shulgin and Milyukov
are for "other methods of control" (not control by armed soldiers).
Tsereteli has thrown overboard all ideas of the class struggle. He has made no
mention of class distinctions or any serious political distinctions between "the
two sections" of the bourgeoisie, nor did he think of mentioning them.
By "democrats", referred to in his speech. Tsereteli meant "the proletariat and
the revolutionary peasantry". Let us examine this class definition. The
bourgeoisie has entered into an agreement with these democrats. One is entitled
to ask, what forms the basis of this agreement, by what class interests is it
upheld?
Not a word about this in Tsereteli's speech. All he speaks about is a "common
democratic platform which has now proved acceptable to the whole country", i.e.,
evidently to the proletarians and the peasants, since the "country" is really
the workers and peasants minus the property-owners.
Does this platform exclude, say, the question of the land? It does not. The
platform side-steps it. Do class interests and their conflicts disappear by
being side-stepped in diplomatic documents, deeds of "agreement", and the
speeches and statements of ministers?
Tsereteli 'forgot' to raise this question, forgot a "trivial detail"-he "merely"
forgot the class interests and the class struggle....
"All the problems of the Russian revolution," expatiates I. G. Tsereteli, 'the
very crux of it [!?] depend on whether the propertied classes [i.e., the
landowners and capitalists] will understand that this is a national platform and
not a specially proletarian platform."
Poor landowners and capitalists! They are so slow-witted. They "do not
understand". They need a special minister of the democracy to teach them what's
what.
Maybe this spokesman of the "democrats" has forgotten the class struggle, has
adopted the stand of Louis Blanc, and is dismissing the conflict of class
interests with mere phrases?
Is it Shulgin and Guchkov with Milyukov who "do not understand" that the peasant
can be reconciled with the landowner on a platform that side-steps the land
question? Or is it I. G. Tsereteli who "does not understand" that this cannot be
done?
The workers and peasants must confine themselves to what is "acceptable" to the
landowners and capitalists-that is the real gist (the class, not the verbal,
gist) of the Shulgin Milyukov-Plekhanov position. And they "understand" it
better than Tsereteli does.
This brings us to Tsereteli's second political idea-that the dictatorship of the
proletariat and the peasantry (a dictator ship, by the way, is won, not
"proclaimed") would be a desperate attempt. In the first place, to speak so
simply of this dictatorship nowadays is likely to land Tsereteli in the archives
of the "old Bolsheviks".
Secondly, and most (See my "Letters on Tactics") important of all, the workers
and peasants constitute the vast majority of the population. And does not
"democracy" mean carrying out the will of the majority?
How then can one be a democrat, and yet be opposed to the "dictatorship of the
proletariat and the peasantry"? flow can one fear "civil war" from it? (What
kind of civil war?
That of a handful of landowners and capitalists against the workers and
peasants? That of an insignificant minority against an overwhelming majority?)
I. G. Tsereteli is hopelessly muddled. He has even forgotten that Lvov and Co.
carry out their promise to convene the Constituent Assembly, the latter would
become a "dictatorship" of the majority. Or must the workers and peasants, even
in the Constituent Assembly, confine them selves to what is "acceptable" to the
landowners and the capitalists?
The workers and peasants are the vast majority. All power to this majority is,
if you please, a "desperate attempt"....
Tsereteli is in a muddle because he has completely over looked the class
struggle. lie has abandoned the standpoint of Marxism for that of Louis Blanc,
who talked himself out of the class struggle.
The task of a proletarian leader is to clarify the difference in class interests
and persuade certain sections of the petty bourgeoisie (namely, the poor
peasants) to choose between the workers and the capitalists, to take sides with
the workers.
The task of petty-bourgeois Louis Blancs is to play down the difference in class
interests and persuade certain sections of the bourgeoisie (mainly the
intellectuals and parliamentarians) to "agree" with the workers, to persuade the
workers to "agree" with the capitalists, and the peasants to "agree" with the
landowners.
Louis Blanc tried hard to persuade the Paris bourgeoisie, and, as we know, all
but persuaded it to refrain from the mass shootings of 1848 and 1871.
Signed: N. Lenin
Written: ~29 April , 1917
First Published: Pravda No. 44, April 29 (May 12), 1917
Transcription/Markup: David Walters and Brian Basgen
Online Version: Lenin Internet Archive (marxists.org) 1999
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