Appendix: The Attempt to Unite Iskra With Rabocheye Dyelo¶
Core Argument¶
The appendix details the fraught negotiations between Iskra and the Rabocheye Dyelo group, culminating in the definitive rupture between revolutionary and opportunist tendencies within Russian Social-Democracy. The core argument is that the split was not caused by organisational disagreements but by the opportunists’ determination to preserve their ideological independence — that is, their freedom to vacillate on matters of principle. Lenin presents Iskra’s approach as a deliberate, principled waiting policy: from its first issue, Iskra sided with the Emancipation of Labour group against Rabocheye Dyelo on fundamentals, while acknowledging the latter’s practical publishing work. This tactical patience was vindicated when three members broke from the Union Abroad in 1900 to form an ‘Initiators’ Group’ seeking mediation; the Union’s refusal to negotiate exposed its bad faith.
The June 1901 conference produced a draft agreement whose resolutions constituted an explicit repudiation of opportunism. Lenin reproduces their key clauses — rejecting Economism, Bernsteinism, Millerandism, the theory of stages, and any forgetfulness of the task of overthrowing the autocracy — to demonstrate that they were directed point by point against Rabocheye Dyelo’s known errors. When a Union member complained the resolutions were too ‘abstract’, a speaker retorted they were “incredibly concrete” and “trying to catch somebody”. Krichevsky seized on this phrase as evidence of a trap; Lenin defends it as a “true word spoken in jest”, arguing that catching an opportunist in a formula is necessary because opportunism means lack of firm principles. The opportunists signed the June resolutions, then promptly abandoned them.
The decisive evidence came with Rabocheye Dyelo No. 10, which appeared just before the conference and revealed a new turn back towards Economism. Martynov defended restricting political influence; the editorial board again championed ‘spontaneity’ and ‘freedom of criticism’. The Union’s subsequent amendments to the June resolutions — deleting ‘so-called Economism’ and ‘Millerandism’, adding that the economic struggle is the most widely applicable means of drawing masses into political struggle — confirmed the reassertion of opportunist independence. Lenin notes that Parvus’s observation that it is difficult to catch an opportunist with a formula had been proved correct: an opportunist signs any formula and then reverts to his old tricks.
The polemic is directed squarely against the Krichevskys and Martynovs, whose vacillations Lenin presents as intolerable from a Party standpoint. He insists Iskra never opposed Rabocheye Dyelo’s autonomy in the sense of a proper distribution of literary functions — a theoretical magazine, a political newspaper, popular pamphlets — but absolutely refused to recognise independence on questions of principle. The rupture was caused by the opportunists’ desire to consolidate their independent features and continue causing confusion. The appendix thus serves as a documentary indictment, using the conference record and published texts to demonstrate that the split was inevitable and principled, rooted in the fundamental opposition between revolutionary Marxism and opportunist eclecticism.