Tensions on the Editorial Board¶
Core Argument¶
Here, the chapter examines the first major internal conflict within the Iskra editorial board, centring on Lenin’s uncompromising polemic against liberalism. The core argument is that the disagreement over Lenin’s article ‘The Persecutors of the Zemstvo and the Hannibals of Liberalism’ was not a trivial squabble but a symptom of a deeper, structural tension between the old guard of the Emancipation of Labour Group and the exigencies of building a mass revolutionary party. The chapter contends that figures like Plekhanov and Axelrod, despite their theoretical stature, were temperamentally and tactically ill-suited to the new period, clinging to conciliatory habits that Lenin saw as fatal.
The key claim is that Lenin’s article was a “devastating indictment” of bourgeois liberalism, demonstrating its inherent cowardice and readiness to betray the revolution for a rotten compromise with the autocracy. The evidence is the article’s own language: Lenin accuses liberals of “pleading” with the autocracy, utilising the threat of revolution unscrupulously, and deserving the whip of reaction. The chapter uses Plekhanov’s private letter to Axelrod as direct evidence of the rift, showing Plekhanov’s discomfort with Lenin’s “much too malevolent” tone and his doubt about Lenin’s position on Zemstvo work. The chapter further notes that Lenin and Krupskaya mockingly labelled Zasulich and Potresov the ‘Struvefreundliche Partei’ (the ‘be-nice-to-Struve Tendency’), crystallising the factional fault-line.
The historical context is the transition from the period of small-circle propaganda to the creation of a unified, centralised workers’ party. The chapter argues that the “amateurish and informal methods” of the earlier epoch were now a hindrance. It draws on Krupskaya’s memoirs to underscore the need for a “businesslike footing” devoid of personal caprice. The narrative then broadens to describe the practical work of the Iskra tendency: the patient building of a network of agents and worker-correspondents, the struggle against “localism” and “Economism” inside the committees, and the theory of ‘the paper as organiser’. Trotsky’s characterisation of the Iskrovites as a “wandering order” severed from local ties is used to illustrate the professional, centralising ethos Lenin championed.
The chapter’s polemic is directed against two fronts. First, it argues against the liberal-bourgeois tendency represented by Struve, which Lenin attacked. Second, and more centrally, it polemicises against the “Struvefreundliche” elements within the editorial board itself—Plekhanov, Axelrod, Zasulich, and Potresov—who failed to grasp the necessity of a radical break. The chapter also rebuts modern bourgeois historians who accuse Iskra of “manoeuvring to gain control,” countering that it was the Economist opponents who resorted to bureaucratic expulsions, exemplified by the St. Petersburg committee’s “Bouncer,” Tokarev. The ultimate evidence for the correctness of Lenin’s line, the chapter implies, is historical: the anti-Iskra committees withered, while the Iskra committees grew.