The Daily Worker Newspaper, May 22, 1926, Page 11

| LENIN LIVING ABROAD. , altho abroad, was well acquainted th the situation in Russia. He followed pments there very closely and attentively. | knew exactly the change in the economy ‘the. country. and the stand of the par- }and groups. He was.especially interested in owing the building up of the party organiza- s and their work.. Thra personal connections letters he settled the conflicts among his rades. Towards comrades there was a differ- attitude on his part and on Plekhanov’s. The kers tell that when they came to Plekhanov received. them in a superior way and tired out with lecturing. Lenin approached them ima simple way and they could talk to him all ajidvall night. He had learned his manners u tis 2 contact with the workers. In the early eties,, when he prepared some party leaflet, questioned one worker so long that the worker, ing the sweat from his forehead, said: “It is eqier to do overtime work than to be questioned by you.” Lenin took notice of this and learned tdput his questions in a different way. But still, diring his time as head of the People’s Commis- sariat, he could be boresome enough for some people—the indifferent Soviet workers and the insincere internationalists. But-the rank and file Bolsheviks, as well as his closest friends, took all their troubles to him and he helped them find the solution. They did not regard him as the omniscient authority and they could criticize him severely and differ with him. But they stuck to him unflinchingly, and together with him they created the iron cohort of the Bolsheviks. And throughout his party life, there stood beside him his wife Nadieshda Krupskaya. As a teacher she had her own sphere of work, but most of her time was devoted to the party work. She was secretary of the group and the party and she conducted the correspond- ence of Lenin with the comrades. “From the Spark, the. Flame.” , Was the slogan of “Iskra”, (Spark’’), Tinea in ae a The head- quarters were later moved to London and then to Switzerland. It was one of those historical papers by which epochs will be known. Its folloyers in exile and in Russia were those still the backbone of the Russian nd leaders of the revolutionary movement of the world. On the editorial staff were three “old-timers,” Plenkhanov, Axelrod, and Vera Zassulitch, and three of the é‘young” ones, Lenin, Martov and Potresov. In the leading article it was stated how the socialists are gaining ground in Russia and the workers’ moyement spreading out. But the weak point of the movement is its hetrogeneity, “Kus- tarnichestvo,” as Lenin called it. The word means “handicraftship”—the primitive method of isolated circles and groups against the central- ized ezarist government. Absolutism can be over- thrown only by a united, strongly organized, centralized army of the foremost fighters of the working class. Without such a party, Lenin said, our fight is as if the peasant should go with his club and his plow against a modern army. There were many deviations from Marxism, theor¥tical and practical, and the Iskra started a mejkiless fight against them. It became the force“unifying the emigrant colonies with the fac- tories and. mines in Russia and the exile camps in: Siberia. . All. questions of the international and Russian. policy were explained. Also the problems of the Russian labor.movement. There were always workers’ letters in it, and the every- day questions of the organizations reviewed. Many comrades who accepted the views of Is- kra did not like the harsh tone of the paper in criticizing the different views. But in time they learned that this was the best thing*about the paper. So ay of those so “harshly” ciriti- cized became ‘deserters or traitors to.the move- ment. And the workers were thankful to Lenin, I ——>— are ee wee weer ae aS SO: Cree, Cor re Ve ae PR oP a e_N Be OS Sr eT. we. ea SS Oo merit 7 - slightest real or imagined infraction of prison rules. In consequence many died of pneumonia and tuberculosis. On a. stairway to an. upper block of cells ig still to be seen a heavy wire screen placed there to keep the desperate prison- ers from killing themselves by jumping to the floor below. This terrible prison is a fitting me- morial of the:monster, Peter the Great. After the February, 1917, revolution, the czar’s ministers got a taste of their,own medicine by being con- fined in this prison for.a short time, ue ee ee eS SS eee ee a eS SS een. © Ws who had warned them in time. All over the country, the rank and filers felt that now there was a leadership in the party. And they fol- lowed it devotedly. One phrase egpecially was emphasized by Iskra—‘the professional revolu- tionist.” Many did not understand this, dnd many misinterpreted it. It was denounced as “conspiracy,” “Blanquism,” and so on. Lenin pointed to conditions: Ozarism is organizing its own “workers’ societies,” its. intention isto catch the revolutionists. We must turm “them. into fields where we can expose the. spies and conduct the class struggle. But there are:ssome prerequi- sites: (1) No revolutionary: organization can be strong without a solid and permanent group of leaders. (2) the more the elementary workers’ movement. grows, the more necessary it is to give to it a strong nucleus. (3) It must be composed of persons who devote their whole life to the revolution and learn revolutionary work as a trade. (4) Only in this way is it possible to keep the spies from coming in; and (5) Only with such an apparatus can new elements from the working class be drawn in and schooled to be- come the leader of the clfss struggle. Lenin wrote: 2 “Let our fighters not feel hurt by severe criti- cism, because when I speak of the insufficient preparation, I must first apply the remarks to myself. I have been a member of a circle, which had broad connections and far-reaching aims, but we, its members, suffered heavily from the consciousness of being only “amateurs,” and that in a time when we could convert a famous proverb to read: Give us an organization of the revolutionists and we will turn Russia upside down.” And the more I think of the feeling of shame that I felt at that time, the more bitter I feel against those false social-democrats, who profane the honored name of revolutionists with their moral preachings, and do not understand that our task is not to recommend the lowering of the revolutionist into an amateur, but to raise the amateur to the rank of the revolutionist.” The same,raising of the, level. to the revolution; ary craft was‘the aim of many .of Lenin’s articles thruout his career. In 1902, he wrote the famous “Letter to the Comrades About the Organiza- tion.” This was an answer to a Petersburg worker who had written about the organizational problems. Lenin explains why the organization at that time must be strictly secret. There can- not be such a democracy as is possible in demo- cratic countries. This lack of democracy can be made good only by the good conduct of the party workers. Therefore regular reports and instruc- tions are needed. In every factory and shop, there must be a nucleus of the party. Thru one member it must keep contact with the section and city committee. Every committee must organize assistant groups around itself. Some of these groups must consist of party members only. In others maybe only one is needed, and not even that. But all these groups together must: build a whole, must be the backbone of the workers’ movement. Especially responsible is the work of the propagandist. The students are always eager to become propagandists immediately. This is not advisable. They should first partici- pate in the work of the nuclei. So the comrades must be educated for the various fields of work. And in this work only it will be apparent who will be the leaders. And to those who think that Lenin was a “dic- tatorial character,” as the Mensheviks have said, it is necessary to point out how Lenin always lis- tened to the arguments of everybody, especially of his opponents, and took a stand only after a thoro examination and: hearing of. all sides. “THE WORKERS PARTY AND THE PEASANTS.” AX article with this heading appearéd’ in the first issue of Iskra. In Russia they were just celebrating the fourteenth anniversary of the lib- eration of the peasants. Lenin explains how this had been “the liberation of the peasants from the land.” The peasants had been compelled to buy their own land from the landlord. And still they were not free citizens, but regarded as a lower caste. There were special peasants’ taxes, they were subject to corporal punishment and they did not have the right to settle where they pleased. It is characteristic that this “liberation” could be carried out only by subduing the revolts of the peasants against it. And now the peasants are-compelled to rent additional parcels from the landlords. and go out as wage-workers in. order to pay the interest to the usurers. Short Stories of His Life Only together with the labor movement, Lenin explains, can the peasant achieve his real libera- tion. The workers must aid the peasants in their fight against the remnants of feudalism, and ex- ploitation. There are two class conflicts in the country: between the landlords and the peas- ants, and between the employers and the prole- tariat. The former controversy is now in the foreground. The liberation of the ‘peasants means the furthering of capitalist development. This is the immediate aim of the peasants and they must be supported in it. In 1902, Lenin wrote a pamphlet in which he explains to the peasants the questions of the workers in the cities. By means of statistics he shows how the poor peasants are compelled to turn to wage-labor and how they for their own sake must be interested in the fights of the work- ers. The program of the Workers’ Party in the peasants’ question must be: with all the peasants against the remnants of serfdom; with the poor and the middle peasants against the bourgeois landlords and the big peasants. Immense lands are in the hands of the landlords, the church and the crown. A large part of them had been peas- ants’ lands before their “liberation” in 1861. After that the peasants were compelled to buy or rent those lands. Therefore the return of the land and the hundreds of millions of rubles ex- torted from them must be the first demand. The pastures, the fishing-grounds and the forests, taken away from them, must be given back. The committees of peasants must divide up the lands and adjust the grievances of the peasants. Those are the general demands of all peasants. They have in some places started to realize them, but have been declared robbers and rebels. The czar- ist troops have raided the villages. Now it us up to the workers to help the peasants and organize. United they will win. “What Is to Be Done?” N 1902 Lenin’s pamphlet, “What Is to Be Done? —About the Burning Questions of the Labor Movement,” was published. It was a summary ‘of the Iskra policy. Lenin made his main attack, of “Eeonomism,” which had gotten new-encour- agement from Bernstein’s attack on “Marxian doctrinairism.” The Economists had explained that the movement must be limited to immediate economic demands because the workers instinct- ively incline to that, and the political fight was too dangerous. Lenin explains how the workers, of their own initiative, can come only to trade unionism. The Socialist consciousness must be given to them by science. All bowing down to the elementary instinctiveness of the workers, the lowering of the socialist policy into pure trade unionism, prepares the way for the utiliza- tion of the labor movement as a tool in the hands of capitalism. (How terribly this prophecy was realized during the war!) ‘ “Lenin points out the dangers of the sponta- neous labor movement growing faster than the group of experienced leading elements. So much good fighting spirit and energy will be lost. Therefore it is urgently necessary to create a party which is able to react immediately to the questions of the day and to give the slogan which unites the whole working people in action. Afterwards, to the critics who said that he had in this pamphlet overemphasized the importanee of professional revolutionists, Lenin answered in. 1907 with a comparison drawn from military life. He asked how a man would be looked upon who would say that the Japanese overestimated the necessity of an adequate army before the war! Don’t these critics understand that in order to get results from an action it is necessary to concentrate all the forces on the main task? That was thé case at that time—the creation of the’ organization of professional revolutionists was the main task and it could not be overesti- mated. 2 * * *. The next short story from Lenin’s life will appear in the coming issue of the Saturday Magazine of the Daily Worker. ‘It will contain a vivid description of one of the most significant incidents in Lenin's life and in the course of the Russian Rev- olution. It is the famous London Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labor ‘Party that will be described in the next story. Without a knowledge of the nature ~ of this Congress no full understanding is ~ possible of the contending forces in the revolution. Be sure to read the next issu of the Magazine! '