Of the many thousands of appreciations of Lenin on his death that seemed incumbent on every single Communist of note to write, whether they could write or not, very few are genuinely worth reading. Olgin, himself a veteran of the Russian Revolution, was, at his best, a very good writer. Born in Ukraine in 1878 where he joined the revolutionary movement as a member of the Bund, becoming editor of its paper, member of its Central Committee, and author of almost all of its proclamations during the ‘1905.’ Active in Kiev and Vilnius, he also organized Jewish self-defense groups against the pogromist reaction. After the Revolution he would study in Germany, where he was stranded by the outbreak of World War One, eventually making his way to New York in 1915 where he wrote for Forverts and became a Left Wing leader of the Socialist Party’s Jewish Socialist Federation. Like many in the JSF, Olgin sided with the Workers Council group and stayed in the SP to fight for its adherence to the Third International until 1921 when they left to help found the new Workers Party, the real founding of a united Communist Party in the U.S., in December, 1921. Olgin would start the Communist Party’s Yiddish-language daily, Morgen Freiheit, which he continued to edit for the rest of his life.

‘Lenin’ by Moissaye J. Olgin from Labor Herald. Vol. 3 No. 1. March, 1924.

AFTER all that has been written about Lenin’s way of thinking and Lenin’s ways with people, about his method of handling sociological data and his method of handling revolutionary affairs, about his leadership of an originally small faction and his leadership of a whole nation–something remains which does not yield to the analysis of a publicist, something which is the very essence of the man’s personality and which awaits, perhaps, the great artist to make it immediately felt by those outside as Lenin himself was felt by those inside of his sphere of influence. This “something” is the true Lenin, the one and only individual character with its individual atmosphere, its unique magnetism, its secret of influence which cannot be dissected.

We may ever so often tell ourselves about Lenin’s strength and Lenin’s prophetic vision, about his single-track mind and his devotion to the revolution, about his cheerfulness amid crises and his all-embracing soul. Yet we must admit that we, Russian revolutionists, did not know Lenin before 1917. It is an absolutely new side of the man that revealed itself through the Soviet revolution–the most valuable reality of Lenin–his being the father of a nation. Little did the Mensheviki and the Bolsheviki imagine, between 1903 and 1917, that a time would come when this scholarly theoretician of proletarian class-struggle would become the most beloved and respected man among the Russian masses, that this merciless analyst and formidable debater would enjoy the unreserved esteem of even his bitterest enemies. It is a new Lenin that the present writer found upon his return to Russia in 1920 after several years of absence a man who seemed to be as much a part of the whole of Russia as if he had been in his leading role for ages; a natural ruler whose authority is taken with as much willingness and confidence as if no other state of affairs were imaginable.

Moreover, one loved Lenin. One spoke of him almost in the same way as the “good people” of the old-fashioned historians are supposed to have spoken of their beloved princes. He was a king in the hearts of the Russian workers this man who so much hated pomp and ostentation that he seemed hiding from the masses even when in the maelstrom of an enthusiastic crowd. Something went out from the heart of Lenin to the heart of every Russian workman, peasant, student, some thing that was more than the authority vested in him by the All-Russian Soviet of Workmen’s and Peasants’ Delegates, more than the authority of President of the People’s Commissars of the first Soviet Republic in the world, something that had little to do with the doctrines of the Revolution and the prospects of the Third International. though Lenin himself was concerned only with the proletarian dictatorship of Russia and the future of the world revolution–something that was his very own, the emanation of his personality, that mysterious substance which appeals directly to large numbers of human beings. This truest “Leninism” is not completely explained by the fact that the man formulated a revolutionary program and advocated a course of action. Lenin was more. Lenin was rooted in the tenderest places of the human soul and imagination.

The above-mentioned activities, however, are not unessential to the understanding of Lenin, and here the facts and explanations are abundant. One thing seems to be little known abroad: Lenin’s marvelous gift of scholarship, coupled with a staggering tenacity in acquiring knowledge. In 1889, a boy of 19, Vladimir Ilyitch Lenin–Ulianoff (born April 10, 1870) is relegated from the University of Kazan for his connections with the revolutionary group of the “People’s Will” (Narodnaya Volya) and exiled to Samara. A year later he applied for admission to the University of Petersburg. Being rejected as “disloyal,” he sets to work by himself and in the course of one year rushes through the entire curriculum of the Faculty of Jurisprudence. In 1891 he secured a University diploma as a full-fledged jurist. A similar feat was accomplished by him between 1907 and 1909. It was a time when Mach and Avenarius became the favorites of the Mensheviki and, in Lenin’s opinion, threatened the integrity of the Social-Democratic conception. Lenin, hitherto absorbed chiefly in economic studies, goes to Paris, works in the national library for two years over philosophical problems and, in 1909, emerges with a large volume, “Materialism and Empyrocriticism: Critical Notes to a Reactionary Philosophy”–a work which is classed by specialists as decidedly not an amateur’s production.

It is fair to say that Lenin was an encyclopedia of social sciences. His numerous articles on political events in the various countries, published during his premiership of Russia, reveal such a detailed and intimate knowledge of both facts and background as very few can claim. The fact is that never did he stop enriching his stock of knowledge. His intellectual veracity equaled only his creative impulse. Ever since that first volume on Marxian economics, which appeared in 1895 and which was directed against the Russian variety of Bernsteinianism (revisionism), Lenin’s writings kept abreast with the most urgent problems of the times. Whether the problem of capitalist development in Russia or the task of labor, whether the struggle between the revolutionary groups or the elections to the Dumas, whether the immediate demands of the revolution of 1905 or its ultimate goal, whether the question of “underground” movement or its “liquidation,” whether the world war or the nature of the capitalist state–Lenin always appears in time with a large or small volume which, by the amount of discussion, opposition and irritation it provokes, can only be likened to an intellectual bomb-explosion.

All his writings, however, are absolutely unified in that they either remove intellectual barriers from the path of the revolution, or they tell how to make the revolution. The latter kind far out-numbers the former. Lenin is no theorist in the sense of satisfying intellectual curiosity (Plekhanov was closer to this type); Lenin is motivated by impatience. He wishes to push the revolutionary movement just one step further than circumstances appear to warrant, yet he never demands things that cannot be reasonably carried out, given concerted effort. For a quarter of a century prior to 1917, he was the instigator of the revolutionary labor movement, the enemy of compromise, the acrid critic of acquiescence in apparently over-powering circumstances, the shrewdest uncoverer of subterfuge, the uncannily energetic leader showing the way of immediate action.

Lenin changes with the change of conditions, with the progress of history, yet he always remains the same, pushing one step ahead of the time. In 1889 he breaks with the Narodnaya Volya which put all its revolutionary hope in the peasantry. In 1890 he forms the first militant labor organization within the borders of Russia (The “Union to Fight for the Liberation of the Working Class”) while the other Marxists of that time still issued pamphlets from abroad. Between 1890 and 1895 he is, in the field of theory, combatting revisionism; in the practical labor movement, wiping out “economism” which meant to keep the attention of the workers riveted to economic problems only. The years of his Siberian exile (1895-1899) are spent in preparing the vo ume “Development of Capitalism in Russia,” which dealt a mortal blow to the Narodniki who still maintained that Russia had no capitalism and, consequently, no prospect of a labor revolution. One or two other volumes appeared in the same years.

Between 1900 and 1905, while living abroad, Lenin’s main line of activity is purging the Social-Democratic Party from sluggishness and hammering out a unified revolutionary force. How one hated him for that famous book, “One Step Forward, Two Steps Backward,” in which he criticized the lack of a trained and disciplined revolutionary force in Russia. But how one read it! What a stream of discussion his other book, “What to Do?” (1902) aroused in revolutionary circles! What to do was pointed out by Lenin with that directness and compelling logic which was like poison to opponents. One had to form groups of “revolutionists by profession,” whose only task would be instigation and leadership in the revolutionary movement, Lenin said. In 1903 he splits the Social-Democratic Party in order to have a free hand in forming revolutionary ranks. “Bolshevism” becomes the name of his faction. In 1904-5 he is fiercely attacking combinations with the liberals of the Miliukov kind, as advocated by the Mensheviki. In 1906 he is for boycotting the First Duma on the ground that the revolution was still in progress. In 1907 he is for participation in the Duma in order to explode it from within. In 1905-6, he puts forth the slogan, “Dictatorship of the Proletariat and the Peasantry,” in 1907 he advocates the formation of “secret groups of three and five” to continue the revolution. In the black years between 1907 and 1912 he is engaged in fighting the “liquidators” who sought to adapt themselves to the Duma regime as final for a long time to come.

None is more bitterly opposed than Lenin to intellectual quietism, to shelving principles, to shapeless movements. He is vigorously combatting the idea of a “labor congress’ which its advocates planned to become a copy of the non-partisan British labor movement. At the same time he is strengthening and tightening the line of the secret organization. In 1911-14 he is the soul of the “underground” revolutionary organization which now bursts out in sporadic strikes and upheavals. In the world war he is a defeatist. In the international labor movement he is the initiator of the Zimmerwald conference (1916) which declared a war of the proletariat of every country against its government, in contradiction to the right-wing tactics of “domestic peace” (Burgfrieden) with the ruling classes. At that time he had already formulated a clear and detailed answer to the question, “What must a Socialist Party do should the Revolution in the midst of the world war place the state power in its hands?” (“Up Stream,” collected articles, 1918). The answer was the program later carried out by the Soviet Revolution. In 1917, while the Mensheviki were rejoicing over the downfall of Czarism, he frames the slogan “All Power to the Soviets.” In October, 1917, this slogan is materialized. In 1918 Lenin puts through the Brest-Litovsk peace against the opposition of his closest associates. In 1919 he advocates and practices nationalization of industries chiefly as a war measure. In 1921 he introduced the New Economic Policy as dictated by necessity of reconstruction. Each time he faces an enormous opposition, and each time he goes just one step ahead of what to others seems the most convenient for the present.

Is not this one of the secrets of his power? There are many other secrets. The convincing simplicity of reasoning which reminds us of Socrates’ dialogues and which irritates opponent to distraction. The constant appeal to practical and apparently feasible action. The seeming impartiality which makes people forget that human passions are behind one or the other proposal. The enormous serenity in the midst of the greatest turmoil. The fearlessness of a man who is the least concerned about himself. The total absence of vanity, of showiness, of ostentation, which is the other side of respect–provoking earnestness in big as well as in small things. The mercilessness towards opponents and an almost tender consideration for political friends, mainly for the plain workmen and peasants. The patience with which defeats are taken, and the endurance with which new ways are found to lead out of a critical situation. The absolute optimism born out of an absolute faith in the ultimate victory of the working class the world over.

This is part of what made Lenin the revolutionary soul of Russia. His loss has bereaved Russia of the man who, like no one in history, penetrated into the affection of millions. His loss means the loss of a compass on a turbulent sea. The Russian revolutionary regime will not perish. It is too firmly established. Yet the loss of the greatest leader is a pain unendurable.

The Labor Herald was the monthly publication of the Trade Union Educational League (TUEL), in immensely important link between the IWW of the 1910s and the CIO of the 1930s. It was begun by veteran labor organizer and Communist leader William Z. Foster in 1920 as an attempt to unite militants within various unions while continuing the industrial unionism tradition of the IWW, though it was opposed to “dual unionism” and favored the formation of a Labor Party. Although it would become financially supported by the Communist International and Communist Party of America, it remained autonomous, was a network and not a membership organization, and included many radicals outside the Communist Party. In 1924 Labor Herald was folded into Workers Monthly, an explicitly Party organ and in 1927 ‘Labor Unity’ became the organ of a now CP dominated TUEL. In 1929 and the turn towards Red Unions in the Third Period, TUEL was wound up and replaced by the Trade Union Unity League, a section of the Red International of Labor Unions (Profitern) and continued to publish Labor Unity until 1935. Labor Herald remains an important labor-orientated journal by revolutionaries in US left history and would be referenced by activists, along with TUEL, along after it’s heyday.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/laborherald/v3n01-mar-1924.pdf