LENIN ON ORGANIZATION
identical delegates whose opportunism, as expressed
in the proposal to soften down par. 1 as far as it
regarded the program, was repeatedly admitted by
the congress, and by Martov and Plekhanov in
particular. Imagine it, the “continuity of policy”
of “Iskra” defended by the comedy which begun
after the congress...
b) Opportunism in Question of Organization.
...In order to analyze the fundamental position
taken up by the new “Iskra” we are obliged to
examine two articles by Comrade Axelrod.
Com. Axelrod’s main thesis (“Iskra,” No. 57) is
that “from the very outset our movement contained
within itself two contradictory tendencies the mu-
tual antagonism of which could not but develop
and react on it as it itself developed.” The two
contradictory tendencies are summed up as follows:
“In principle, the proletarian aim of the movement
(in Russia) is the same as that of the Western
Social Democrats.” But in our country influence
is brought to bear on the working class masses “by
social elements foreign to them”—i. e., the radical
intellectuals. Thus, Comrade Axelrod records the
antagonism existing between the proletarian and
the radical intellectual tendencies in our move-
ment.
To that extent Comrade Axelrod is certainly right.
Of the existence of such antagonism (and not in
the Russian Social Democratic Party alone) there
can be no doubt. And not merely so. Everybody
161