Valuable history from Lenin on Socialist newspapers under the Tsar before and after Iskra.

‘The History of the Labour Press in Russia’ (1914) by V.I. Lenin from Selected Workers, Vol. 11. International Publishers, New York. 1939.

The history of the labour press in Russia is intimately bound up with the history of the democratic and Socialist movement. And, therefore, only if we know the principal stages of the emancipation movement can we really get to understand why the preparatory stages and rise of the Jabour press proceeded as they did and not otherwise.

The emancipation movement in Russia has passed through three principal stages, corresponding with the three principal classes of Russian society that have left their impress on the movement: 1) the aristocratic period, roughly from 1825 to 1861; 2) the commoner, or bourgeois-democratic. period, approximately from 1861 to 1895; 3) the proletarian period, from 1895 to the present day.

The most prominent figures during the aristocratic period were the Decembrists and Herzen. At that time, under serfdom, there could be no question of a working class becoming separated out from the general mass of serfs, the unfranchised, “lower” orders, the “common people.” The precursor of the labour (proletariandemocratic or Social-Democratic) press at that time was the generaldemocratic, uncensored press headed by Herzen’s Kolokol.

Just as the Decembrists awakened Herzen, so Herzen and his Kolokol helped to awaken the commoners, the educated representatives of the liberal and democratic hourgeoisie, who did not belong to the nobility, but to the officials, the burghers, the merchants and the peasants. A precursor of the complete elimination of the nobility by the commoners in our emancipation movement, while serfdom still existed, was V.G. Belinsky. His famous “Letter to Gogol,” which summed up Belinsky’s literary activities, was one of the best of the writings that appeared in the uncensored democratic press, and it has retained its tremendous, living significance to this day.

The collapse of serfdom was accompanied by the appearance of the commoner as the principal mass figure in the movement for emancipation in general and in the uncensored democratic press in particular, Narodism became the prevailing trend, the trend that corresponded with the views of the commoners. As a social current it was never able to dissociate itself from liberalism on the Right and from anarchism on the Left. But Chernyshevsky, who followed Herzen in developing Narodist views, made a big advance on Herzen. Chernyshevsky was a far more consistent and militant democrat, His writings breathe the spirit of the class struggle. He vigorously pursued the line of exposing the treachery of liberalism, the line which to this day is so repugnant to the Cadets and the Liquidators. He was a remarkably profound critic of capitalism, in spite of his utopian Socialism.

The period of the ’sixties and ‘seventies witnessed the appearance of a number of uncensored writings of a militant democratic and utopian Socialist nature which began to appeal to the “masses.” And among the most prominent of the figures of that period were workers, Pyotr Alexeyev, Stepan Khalturin and others, But the proletarian-democratic current was unable to separate itself from the general flood of Narodism. This became possible only after the Russian Marxist trend became defined ideologically (the “Emancipation of Labour” Group in 1883) and when an uninterrupted labour movement began in connection with the Social-Democratic movement (the St. Petersburg strikes of 1895 and 1896).

But before proceeding to deal with this period, in which the labour press in Russia really originated, we shall cite figures that strikingly demonstrate the class difference between the movements in the three historical periods aforementioned. These figures refer to the distribution, according to social rank,1 and according to occupation (class), of persons tried for state (political) crimes. Of every 100 such persons there were:

In the aristocratic period, the period of serfdom (1827-46), the vast majority (76 per cent) of the “politicals” were nobles, who constituted an insignificant minority of the population. In the Narodnik or commoner period (1884-90; unfortunately no detailed figures are available for the ‘sixties and ’seventies) the nobles retired into the background, but still constituted a large proportion (30.6 per cent). The overwhelming majority (73.2 per cent) of the participants in the democratic movement were intellectuals.

The period 1901-03, the period in fact of the appearance of the first Marxist political newspaper, the old Iskra, is already marked hy a predominance of workers (46.1 per cent) over intellectuals (36.7 per cent), and by the fact that the movement has already become completely democratised (10.7 per cent nobles and 80.9 per cent “unprivileged”).

Anticipating a little, let us point out that the only change noticeable in the period of the first mass movement (1905-08) is the replacement of the intellectuals (28.4 per cent, as against 36.7 per cent) by the peasants (24.2 per cent, as against 9 per cent).

The Social-Democratic movement in Russia was founded by the “Emancipation of Labour” Group, formed outside of Russia in 1883. The writings of this group, printed abroad and not subjected to censorship, were the first to give a systematic exposition of the ideas of Marxism with all their practical deductions, the only ideas which, as the experience of the whole world has shown, reflect the true nature of the working class movement and its aims. During the twelve years 1883-95, almost the only attempt to create a Social-Democratic labour press in Russia was the publication in St. Petersburg in 1895 of a Social-Democratic newspaper entitled Rabochy, of course uncensored. But only two issues of this newspaper appeared. The absence of a mass working class movement prevented the wide development of a labour press.

In 1895 and 1896, with the famous strikes in St. Petersburg, a mass working class movement began in which the Social-Democrats participated. It was at this time that a labour press in the true sense of the word began to appear in Russia. The chief productions of the labour press at that time were uncensored leaflets—the majority of which were not printed but hectographed—devoted to “economic” (and also non-economic) agitation, that is, to setting forth the needs and demands of the workers in various factories and branches of production. Of course, had the advanced workers not taken a most active part in the compilation and distribution of this literature, it could not have existed. Of the workers of St. Petersburg who were active at that period, mention should be made of Vassily Andreyevich Shelgunov, who later became blind and was unable to act with his former energy, and Ivan Vassilyevich Babushkin, an ardent Iskraist (1900-03) and “Bolshevik” (1903-05), who was later shot for his part in an uprising in Siberia at the end of 1905 or the beginning of 1906.

The leaflets were issued by Social-Democratic groups, circles and organisations, which at the end of 1895 for the most part began to call themselves “Leagues of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class.” And in 1898 a congress of representatives of the Social-Democratic organisations from the various localities founded the “Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party.”

The leaflets were followed by the appearance of uncensored labour newspapers, e.g., the Sankt-Peterburgsky Rabochy Listok in St. Petersburg in 1897, and the Rabochaya Mysl, also in St. Petersburg but very soon transferred abroad. From that time on, local Social-Democratic newspapers continued to exist, uncensored, almost uninterruptedly down to the Revolution. They were constantly destroyed, of course, but continued to spring up in all parts of Russia.

Taken together, the labour leaflets and Social-Democratic newspapers of that period, that is. twenty years ago. were the immediate and direct precursors of the present labour press: they contained the same “accusations” against factories, the same chronicle of the “economic” struggle, the same treatment of the principles underlying the aims of the working class movement from the standpoint of Marxism and consistent democracy, and finally, the same two fundamental trends, the Marxist and the opportunist, in the labour press.

A remarkable fact, one that is by no means adequately appreciated to this day, is that as soon as a mass working class movement sprang up in Russia (1895-96) there at once began a division into a Marxist and an opportunist trend, a division which may have changed in form, appearance, and so on, but which remained unchanged essentially throughout the period 1894 to 1914. There are evidently profound social and class reasons for precisely such a division, and no other, in the internal struggle among the Social-Democrats.

The Rabochaya Mysi referred to above represented the opportunist trend of the time, which was known as “Economism.” In the disputes among the participants in the working class movement at home, this trend became evident as early as 1894 and 1895. Abroad, where the awakening of the Russian workers led to a luxuriant outcrop of Social-Democratic literature as early as 1896, the appearance and consolidation of the “Economists” ended in a split in the spring of 1900) (that is, before the rise of the Iskra, the first number of which appeared at the very end of 1900).

The history of the labour press during the two decades 1894 to 1914 is the history of two trends in Russian Marxism and in Russian (or rather, Rossiskaya2) Social-Democracy. In order to understand the history of the labour press in Russia, one must know not only, and not so much, the names of the various publications, names which mean nothing to the modern reader and only confuse him, but the content, the nature, the ideological line of the various sections of the Social-Democratic movement.

The chief publications of the “Economists” were Rabochaya Mysl (1897 to 1900) and Rabocheye Dyelo (1898 to 1901). Rabocheye Dyelo was headed by B. Krichevsky, who subsequently went over to the syndicalists, A. Martynov, a prominent Menshevik and now a Liquidator, and Akimov, now an “Independent Social-Democrat” who is heart and soul in agreement with the Liquidators.

The Economists were at first combated only by Plekhanov and the whole “Emancipation of Labour” Group (the journal Rabotnik and so on), and later by the Iskra (from 1900 to August 1903, that is, down to the Second Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party). What was the essence of “Economism”?

Verbally, the “Economists” were very energetic in their advocacy of a mass working class movement and the independent action of the workers, insisting on the prime importance of “economic” agitation and on the observance of moderation and gradualness in the adoption of political agitation. As the reader sees, these are the same. old favourite phrases the Liquidators love to make play of. But in practice the “Economists” pursued a liberal-labour policy, the essence of which Mr. S.N. Prokopovich, one of the leaders of “Economism” al that time, briefly expressed as follows: “The economic struggle for the workers—the political struggle for the liberals.” In practice, the “Economists,” who talked more about independent labour action and a mass movement than anybody else, constituted an opportunist, petty-bourgeois intellectual wing of the labour movement.

The overwhelming majority of the class conscious workers—from whose midst, in 1901-03, 46 out of every 100 political offenders already came, as against 37 from the intellectuals—supported the old Iskra as against opportunism. The three years (1901-03) of activity of the Iskra helped to work out the programme of the Social-Democratic Party, the basic lines of its tactics and the forms of combination of the economic and political struggles of the workers on the basis of consistent Marxism. In the years immediately preceding the Revolution, the labour press, centred around the Iskra and under its ideological guidance, attained big proportions. The number of uncensored leaflets and unsanctioned printshops was extraordinarily large, and grew rapidly all over Russia,

The complete victory gained in 1903 by the Iskra over “Economism,” by consistent proletarian tactics over intellectual opportunist tactics, led to a new and bigger influx of “fellow-travellers” into the ranks of the Social-Democratic Party, and opportunism was resurrected on the soil of Iskra-ism, and as a part of it, in the shape of “Menshevism.”

Menshevism was formed at the Second Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party (August 1903) from the minority of the Iskra-ists (hence the name Menshevism) and from all the opportunist opponents of Iskra, The “Mensheviks” reverted to “Economism”—of course, in a somewhat renovated form; all the “Economists” who still remained in the movement, headed by A. Martynov, joined the ranks of the “Mensheviks,”

The new Iskra, which from November 1903 began to appear under the direction of a new editorial hoard, became the chief organ of the “Mensheviks.” “Between the old and the new Iskra lies an abyss”—Trotsky, at that time an ardent Menshevik, frankly declared. The principal publications of the “Bolsheviks” who advocated the tactics of consistent Marxism faithful to the old Iskra, were Vperyod and Proletary (1905).

The years of revolution, 1905-07, served as a test for both the principal trends, the Menshevik and the Bolshevik, in Social-Democracy and in the labour press, as regards their real contact with the masses and the extent to which they expressed the tactics of the proletarian masses. An open Social-Democratic press could not have at once arisen in the autumn of 1905 had not the activities of the advanced workers, who had close contacts with the masses, paved the way for it. And the fact that the open Social-Democratic press of 1905. 1906 and 1907 consisted of two trends and two factions cannot, in its turn, be explained otherwise than by the difference between the petty-bourgeois and the proletarian lines in the labour movement of that period.

An open labour press appeared in all three periods of upsurge and relative “freedom”: the autumn of 1905 (Novaya Zhizn of the Bolsheviks and Nachalo of the Mensheviks—to mention only the chief among many), the spring of 1906 (Volna, Echo, etc., of the Bolsheviks, Narodnaya Duma, etc., of the Mensheviks), and the spring of 1907.

The essence of the Menshevik tactics of that period was recently expressed by L. Martov himself in the following words:

“Menshevism saw no other chance of the proletariat fruitfully participating in the present crisis except by assisting the bourgeois liberal democrats in their attempts to remove the reactionary section of the possessing classes from state power—which assistance, however, the proletariat was to give while preserving complete political independence.”

And these tactics of “assisting” the liberals meant in practice that the workers would be dependent on the liberals; they amounted in practice to a liberal-labour policy. The tactics of the Bolsheviks, on the contrary, ensured the independence of the proletariat during the bourgeois crisis by waging a struggle to bring this crisis to a head, by exposing the treachery of liberalism and by educating and consolidating the petty bourgeoisie (particularly the rural petty bourgeoisie) to counterbalance this treachery.

We know—and the Mensheviks themselves, including the present Liquidators, Koltsov, Levitsky and others, have frequently admitted–that during these years (1905-07) the working class masses followed the Bolsheviks. Bolshevism expressed the proletarian essence of the movement, Menshevism its opportunist, petty-bourgeois intellectual wing.

We cannot here give a more detailed description of the character and significance of the tactics of the two trends in the labour press. We must confine ourselves to a precise statement of the principal facts, to a definition of the chief lines of historical development.

The labour press in Russia has almost a century of history behind it—first, the preparatory phase, that is, the history not of the labour movement, not of the proletarian movement, but of the “general-democratic,” i.e., the bourgeois-democratic movement for emancipation—and then its own history, the twenty-year history of the proletarian movement. proletarian democracy, or Social-Democracy.

Nowhere in the world has the proletarian movement arisen, or could it have arisen, “in a trice.” complete and in a pure class form, like Minerva from the head of Jupiter. It was only the prolonged struggle and the arduous effort of the advanced workers themselves, of all the class-conscious workers, that made possible the separation of the proletarian class movement from all kinds of petty-bourgeois admixtures, limitations, restrictions and distortions, and its consolidation. The working class exists side by side with the petty bourgeoisie, which, in the course of its decay, provides ever fresh recruits for the ranks of the proletariat. And Russia is the most petty-bourgeois, the most lower-middle-class, of the capitalist countries; it is only just passing through that era of bourgeois revolutions which in England, for instance, marked the seventeenth century and in France the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth century.

The class-conscious worker, who is now taking up a cause which he has at heart—the conduct of the labour press, its organisation, consolidation and development—will not forget the twenty-year history of Marxism and of the Social-Democratic press in Russia.

Those faint-hearted intellectual friends of the labour movement who ignore the internal struggle among the Social-Democrats and who fill the air with cries and appeals to ignore it, are doing a poor service to the working class movement. These people are well-meaning but futile, and futile are their outcries.

Only by studying the history of the struggle of Marxism against opportunism, only by making themselves thoroughly and minutely familiar with the process of separation of the independent proletarian-democratic movement from the petty-bourgeois hodgepodge, can the advanced workers definitely increase their knowledge and strengthen their labour press.

May 5 (April 22), 1914

1. In pre-revolutionary days the population of Russia was officially divided into four social ranks, orders, or estates: nobles, meshchanye (burghers), merchants and clergy.—Trans.

2. Rossiskaya refers to all the nations and peoples inhabiting Russia (Kossiya), as distinct from the Russians proper.—Trans.

International Publishers was formed in 1923 for the purpose of translating and disseminating international Marxist texts and headed by Alexander Trachtenberg. It quickly outgrew that mission to be the main book publisher, while Workers Library continued to be the pamphlet publisher of the Communist Party.

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