Conclusion¶
Core Argument¶
This concluding chapter presents a periodisation of Russian Social-Democracy’s development, framing the movement’s history as a dialectical progression through three distinct phases, the last of which constitutes a crisis that must be overcome. The first period (approximately 1884–1894) is characterised as the embryonic stage of theory and programme, where Social-Democracy existed without a mass working-class movement, its adherents few in number. The second period (1894–1898) marks the movement’s childhood and adolescence: a surge of mass strike action, a youthful intelligentsia breaking with Narodnaya Volya traditions, and the formation of the Party in spring 1898. The author emphasises that these young Social-Democrats, though untrained, were steeled by struggle against Narodism and remained anchored in Marxist theory and the goal of overthrowing the autocracy.
The third period (1898–?), by contrast, is one of disunity, dissolution, and vacillation. The central claim is that while the proletarian struggle itself expanded enormously across Russia, the political consciousness of the leaders capitulated before the spontaneous upsurge of the masses. A new type of functionary emerged, trained almost exclusively on ‘legal Marxist’ literature, which proved inadequate. The author identifies two poles of this regression: on the legal side, figures like Struve, Prokopovich, Bulgakov, and Berdyaev; on the illegal side, V.I-n, R.M., Krichevsky, and Martynov. These leaders sought to justify their theoretical and practical backwardness with high-flown arguments, degrading Social-Democracy to trade-unionism—the Brentano adherents in legal literature, the tail-enders in illegal. The Credo programme, which subordinated political struggle to economic economism, began to be implemented.
The chapter’s polemic is directed squarely at Rabocheye Dyelo, which the author grants ‘historical’ significance for most notably reflecting the spirit of this third period. The critique is not of consistent opponents but of weathercocks who combined pettifogging practice with utter disregard for theory, vulgarising scientific socialism into a hodgepodge diluted by every new German textbook. The slogan ‘class struggle’ was used as a balm rather than a spur to broader activity; the idea of a party was reduced to justifying a ‘revolutionary bureaucracy’ and infantile playing at ‘democratic’ forms. The author insists that what is needed is to put an end to the third period, to replace the opportunist rear-guard with the genuine vanguard of the most revolutionary class, and to consolidate militant Marxism. The chapter ends by moving from history to the present and future, expressing firm belief that the fourth period will see Russian Social-Democracy emerge from crisis in the full flower of manhood.