1. From WHAT IS TO BE DONE? Burning Questions of Our Movement "We should dream!" I wrote these words and became alarmed. I imagined myself sitting at a "unity conference" and opposite me were the Rabocheye Dyelo` editors and contributors. Comrade Martynov rises and, turning to me, says sternly: "Permit me to ask you, has an autonomous editorial board the right to dream without first soliciting the opinion of the Party committees?" He is followed by Comrade Krichevsky, who (philosophically deepening Comrade Martynov, who long ago rendered Comrade Ple-khanov more profound) continues even more sternly: "I go further. I ask, has a Marxist any right at all to dream, knowing that according to Marx mankind always sets itself the tasks it can solve and that tactics is a process of the growth of Party tasks which grow together with the Party?" The very thought of these stern questions sends a cold shiver down my spine and makes me wish for nothing but a place to hide in. I shall try to hide behind the back of Pisarev. "There are rifts and rifts," wrote Pisarev of the rift between dreams and reality. 'My dream may run ahead of the natural march of events or may fly off at a tangent in a direction in which no natural march of events will ever proceed. In the first case my dream will not cause any harm; it may even support and augment the energy of the working men. . . . There is nothing in such dreams that would distort or paralyse labour-power. On the contrary, if man were completely deprived of the ability to dream in this way, if he could not from time to time run ahead and mentally conceive, in an entire and completed picture, the product to which his hands are only just beginning to lend shape, then I cannot at all imagine what stimulus there would be to induce men to undertake and complete extensive and strenuous work in the sphere of art science and practical endeavour. The rift between dreams and reality causes no harm if only the person dreaming believes seriously in his dream, if he attentively observes life, compares his observations with his castles in the air and if generally speaking he works conscientiously for the achievement of his fantasies. If there is some connection between dreams and life then all is well. Of this kind of dreaming there is unfortunately too little in our movement. And the people most responsible for this are those who boast of their sober views, their closeness to the concrete, the representatives of legal criticism and of illegal tailism Written between the autumn of 1901 and February 1902 Collected Works, Vol. 5, pp. 509-10 2. PARTY ORGANISATION AND PARTY LITERATURE The new conditions for Social-Democratic work in Russia which have arisen since the October revolution have brought the question of party literature to the fore. The distinction between the illegal and the legal press, that melancholy heritage of the epoch of feudal, autocratic Russia, is beginning to disappear. It is not yet dead, by a long way. The hypocritical government of our Prime Minister is still running amuck, so much so that Izvestia Soveta Rabochikh Deputatov is printed "illegally"; but apart from bringing disgrace on he government, apart from striking further moral blows at it, nothing comes of the stupid attempts to "prohibit" that which the government is powerless to thwart. So long as there was a distinction between the illegal and the legal press, the question of the party and non-party press was decided extremely simply and in an extremely false and abnormal way. The entire illegal press was a party press, being published by organisations and run by groups which in one way or another were linked with groups of practical party workers. The entire legal press was non-party-since parties were banned-but it "gravi-tated" towards one party or another. Unnatural alliances, strange "bed-fellows" and false cover-devices were inevi-table. The forced reserve of those who wished to express party views merged with the immature thinking or mental cowardice of those who had not risen to these views and who were not, in effect, party people. An accursed period of Aesopian language, literary bond-age, slavish speech, and ideological serfdom! The prole-tariat has put an end to this foul atmosphere which stifled everything living and fresh in Russia. But so far the proletariat has won only half freedom for Russia. The revolution is not yet completed. While tsarism is no longer strong enough to defeat the revolution the revolution is not yet strong enough to defeat tsarism. And we are living in times when everywhere and in everything there operates this unnatural combination of open forthright, direct and consistent party spirit with an underground, covert, ''diplomatic" and dodgy legality. This unnatural combination makes itself felt even in our newspaper: for all Mr Guchkovs witticisms about Social-Democratic tyranny forbidding the publication of moderate liberal-bourgeois newspapers, the fact remains that Proletary, the Central Organ of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party still remains outside the locked doors of autocratic police-ridden Russia. Be that as it may, the half way revolution compels all of us to set to work at once organising the whole thing on new lines. Today literature, even that published legally, can be nine-tenths party literature. It must become party literature. In contradistinction to bourgeois customs, to the profit-making commercialised bourgeois press, to bourgeois literary careerism and individualism, aristocratic anarchism" and drive for profit the socialist proletariat must put forward the principle of party literature, must develop this principle and put it into practice as fully and completely as possible. What is this principle of party literature? It is not simply that, for the socialist proletariat, literature cannot be a means of enriching individuals or groups it cannot in fact, be an individual undertaking, independent of the common cause of the proletariat. Down with non partisan writers! Down with literary supermen! Literature must become part of the common cause of the proletariat, a cog and a screw of one single great Social-Democratic mechanism set in motion by the entire politically conscious vanguard of the entire working class. Literature must become a component of organised planned and integrated Social-Democratic Party work. "All comparisons are lame says a German proverb. So is my comparison of literature with a cog, of a living movement with a mechanism. And I daresay there will ever be hysterical intellectuals to raise a howl about such a comparison, which degrades, deadens, "bureaucratises" the free battle of ideas, freedom of criticism, freedom of literary creation, etc., etc. Such outcries, in point of fact, would be nothing more than an expression of bourgeois-intellectual individualism. There is no question that litera-ture is least of all subject to mechanical adjustment or levelling, to the rule of the majority over the minority. There is no question, either, that in this field greater scope must undoubtedly be allowed for personal initiative, individual inclination, thought and fantasy, form and content. All this is undeniable; but all this simply shows that the literary side of the proletarian party cause can-not be mechanically identified with its other sides. This, however, does not in the least refute the proposition, alien and strange to the bourgeoisie and bourgeois democracy, that literature must by all means and necessarily become an element of Social-Democratic Party work, inseparably bound up with the other elements. Newspapers must be-come the organs of the various party organisations, and their writers must by all means become members of these organisations. Publishing and distributing centres, book-shops and reading-rooms, libraries and similar establish-ments-must all be under party control. The organised socialist proletariat must keep an eye on all this work, supervise it in its entirety, and, from beginning to end, without any exception, infuse into it the life-stream of the living proletarian cause, thereby cutting the ground from under the old, semi-Oblomov, semi-shopkeeper Russian principle: the writer does the writing, the reader does the reading. We are not suggesting, of course, that this transforma-tion of literary work, which has been defiled by the Asiatic censorship and the European bourgeoisie, can be accomplished all at once. Far be it from us to advocate any kind of standardised system, or a solution by means of a few decrees. Cut-and-dried schemes are least of all applicable here. What is needed is that the whole of our Party, and the entire politically-conscious Social-Democratic proletariat throughout Russia, should become aware of this new problem, specify it clearly and everywhere set about solving it. Emerging from the captivity of the feudal censorship, we have ho desire to become, and shall not become, pris-oners of' bourgeois-shopkeeper literary relations. We want to establish, and we shall establish, a free press, free not simply from the police, but also from capital, from career-ism, and what is more, free from bourgeois anarchist individualism. These last words may sound paradoxical, or an affront to the reader. What! some intellectual, an ardent champion of liberty, may shout. What, you want to impose collective control on such a delicate, individual matter as literary work! You want workmen to decide questions of science, philosophy, or aesthetics by a majority of votes! You deny the absolute freedom of absolutely individual ideological work! Calm yourselves, gentlemen! First of all, we are discussing party literature and its subordination to party control. Everyone is free to write and say whatever he likes, without any restrictions. But every voluntary association (including the party) is also free to expel members who use the name of the party to advocate anti-party views. Freedom of speech and the press must be complete. But then freedom of association must be complete too. I am bound to accord you in the name of free speech, the full right to shout, lie and write to your heart's content. But you are bound to grant me, in the name of freedom of association, the right to enter into, or withdraw from, association with people advocating this or that view. The party is a voluntary as-sociation, which would inevitably break up, first ideolo-gically and then physically, if it did not cleanse itself of people advocating anti-party views. And to define the border-line between party and anti-party there is the party programme, the party's resolutions on tactics and its rules and, lastly, the entire experience of international Social-Democracy, the voluntary international associations of the proletariat, which has constantly brought into its parties individual elements and trends not fully consistent, not completely Marxist and not altogether correct and which, on the other hand. has constantly conducted peri-odical "cleansings" of its ranks. So it will be with us too, supporters of bourgeois "freedom of criticism", within the Party. We are now becoming a mass party all at once, changing abruptly to an open organisation, and it is inevitable that we shall be joined by many who are incon-sistent (from the Marxist standpoint), perhaps we shall be joined even by some Christian elements, and even by some mystics. We have sound stomachs and we are rock-like Marxists. We shall digest those inconsistent elements. Free-dom of thought and freedom of criticism within the Party will never make us forget about the freedom of organising people into those voluntary associations known as parties. Secondly, we must say to you bourgeois individualists that your talk about absolute freedom is sheer hypocrisy. There can be no real and effective "freedom" in a society based on the power of money, in a society in which the masses of working people live in poverty and the handful of rich live like parasites. Are you free in relation to your bourgeois publisher, Mr. Writer, in relation to your bour-geois public, which demands that you provide it with por-nography in novels and paintings, and prostitution as a "supplement" to "sacred" scenic art? This absolute freedom is a bourgeois or an anarchist phrase (since, as a world outlook, anarchism is bourgeois philosophy turned inside out). One cannot live in society and be free from society. The freedom of the bourgeois writer, artist or actress is simply masked (or hypocritically masked) dependence on the money-bag, on corruption, on prostitution. And we socialists expose this hypocrisy and rip off the false labels, not in order to arrive at a non-class literature and art (that will be possible only in a socialist extra-class society), but to contrast this hypocritically free literature, which is in reality linked to the bourgeoisie, with a really free one that will be openly linked to the proletariat. It will be a free literature, because the idea of socialism and sympathy with the working people, and not greed or careerism, will bring ever new forces to its ranks. It will be a free literature, because it will serve, not some satiated heroine, not the bored "upper ten thousand" suffering from fatty degeneration, but the millions and tens of millions of working people-the flower of the country, its strength and its future. It will be a free literature, enriching the last word in the revolutionary thought of mankind with the experience and living work of the socialist proletariat bringing about permanent interaction between the experience of the past (scientific socialism the completion of the development of socialism from its primitive utopian forms) and the experience of the present (the present struggle of the worker comrades) To work, then comrades! We are faced with a new and difficult task. But it is a noble and grateful one - to organise a broad multiform and varied literature inseparably linked with the Social Democratic working class movement. All Social Democratic literature must become Party literature. Every newspaper, journal, publishing house, etc., must immediately set about reorganising its work, leading up to a situation in which it will in one form or another, be integrated into one Party organisation or another. Only then will Social Democratic literature really become worthy of that name, only then will it be able to fulfil its duty and even within the framework of bourgeois society break out of bourgeois slavery and merge with the movement of the really advanced and thoroughly revolutionary class. Novaya Zhizn No. 12, November 13, 1905 Signed: N. Lenin Collected Works, Vol.10, pp.44-49 [from Lenin on Literature and Art p22, Moscow, 1967] 3. TO A. V. LUNACHARSKY Aren't you ashamed of yourself voting for the publica-tion of Mayakovsky's "150,000,000" in 5,000 copies? Nonsensical, stupid, sheer stupidity and affectation 170 I think that only one out of ten such things should be printed and in no more than 1,500 copies for libraries and cranks. And Lunacharsky ought to be flogged for his futurism. Written on May 6,1921 First published in 1957 Collected Works, Fifth Russian Edition, Vol.52, p.179 [ibid., p. 216] 4. TO G. MYASNIKOV August 5, 1921 Comrade Myasnikov, I have only just managed to read both your articles. I am unaware of the nature of the speeches you made in the Perm (I think it was Perm) organisation and of your conflict with it. I can say nothing about that; it will be dealt with by the Organisation Bureau, which, I hear, has appointed a special commission. My object is a different one: it is to appraise your articles as literary and political documents. They are interesting documents. Your main mistake is, I think, most clearly revealed in the article "Vexed Questions". And I consider it my duty to do all I can to try to convince you. At the beginning of the article you make a correct application of dialectics. Indeed whoever fails to under-stand the substitution of the slogan of civil peace for the slogan of ' civil war lays himself open to ridicule if nothing worse. In this you are right. But precisely because you are right on this point I am surprised that in drawing your conclusions you should have forgotten the dialectics which you yourself had properly applied. 'Freedom of the press, from the monarchists to the anarchists, inclusively".. Very good! But just a minute: every Marxist and every worker who ponders over the four years' experience of our revolution will say, "Let's look into this--what sort of freedom of the press? What for? For which class?" We do not believe in "absolutes". We laugh at "pure democracy. The "freedom of the press" slogan became a great world slogan at the close of the Middle Ages and remained so up to the nineteenth century. Why? Because it expressed the ideas of the progressive bourgeoisie, i.e., its struggle against kings and priests, feudal lords and landowners. No country in the world has done as much to liberate the masses from the influence of priests and landowners as the R.S.F.S.R. has done, and is doing. We have been performing this function of "freedom of the press" better than anyone else in the world. All over the world, wherever there are capitalists, freedom of the press means freedom to buy up newspapers, to buy writers, to bribe, buy and fake "public opinion" for the benefit of the bourgeoisie. This is a fact. No one will ever be able to refute it. And what about us? Can anyone deny that the bour-geoisie in this country has been defeated, but not destroyed? That it has gone into hiding? Nobody can deny it. Freedom of the press in the R.S.F.S.R., which is surrounded by the bourgeois enemies of the whole world, means freedom of political organisation for the bourgeoisie and its most loyal servants, the Mensheviks and Socialist--Revolutionaries. This is an irrefutable fact. The bourgeoisie (all over the world) is still very much stronger than we are. To place in its hands yet another weapon like freedom of political organisation (=freedom of the press, for the press is the core and foundation of political organisation) means facilitating the enemy's task, means helping the class enemy. We have no wish to commit suicide, and therefore, we will not do this. We clearly see this fact: "freedom of the press" means in practice that the international bourgeoisie will immedi-ately buy up hundreds and thousands of Cadet, Socialist-Revolutionary and Menshevik writers, and will organise their propaganda and fight against us. That is a fact. "They" are richer than we are and will buy a "force'' ten times larger than we have, to fight us. No, we will not do it; we will not help the international bourgeoisie. How could you descend from a class appraisal - from the appraisal of the relations between all classes - to the sentimental philistine appraisal? This is a mystery to me. On the question of civil peace or civil war, on the question of how we have won over and will continue to ''win over'', the peasantry (to the side of the proletariat) on these two key world questions (= questions that affect the very substance of world politics), on these questions (which are dealt with in both your articles) you were able to take the Marxist standpoint instead of the philistine sentimental standpoint. You did take account of the relationships of all classes in a practical, sober way. And suddenly you slide down into the abyss of sentimentalism! "Outrage and abuses are rife in this country freedom of the press will expose them. That, as far as I can judge from your two articles, is where you slipped up. You have allowed yourself to be depressed by certain sad and deplorable facts and lost the ability soberly to appraise the forces. Freedom of the press will help the force of the world bourgeoisie. That is a fact "Freedom of the press" will not help to purge the Communist Party in Russia of a number of its weaknesses, mistakes misfortunes and maladies (it cannot be denied that there is a spate of these maladies) because this is not what the world bourgeoisie wants. But freedom of the press will be a weapon in the hands of this world bourgeoisie. It is not dead; it is alive. It is lurking nearby and watching it has already hired Milyukov, to whom Chernov and Martov (partly because of their stupidity, and partly because of factional spleen against us, but mainly because of the objective logic of their petty bourgeois-democratic position) are giving faithful and loyal service. You took the wrong fork in the road. You wanted to cure the Communist Party of its maladies and have snatched at a drug that will cause certain death -- not at your hands, of course, but at the hands of the world bourgeoisie (+Milyukov+Chernov+Martov). You forgot a minor point, a very tiny point, namely: the world bourgeoisie and its "freedom" to buy up for itself newspapers, and centres of political organisation. No, we will not take this course. Nine hundred out of every thousand politically-conscious workers will refuse to take this course. We have many maladies. Mistakes (our common mistakes, all of us have made mistakes, the Soviet of Labour and Defence, the Soviet of People's Commissars and the Central Committee) like those we made in distributing fuel and food in the autumn and winter of 1920 (those were enormous mistakes!) have greatly aggravated the maladies springing from our situation. Want and calamity abound. They have been terribly intensified by the famine of 1921. It will cost us a supreme effort to extricate ourselves, but we will get out, and have already begun to do so. We will extricate ourselves, for, in the main, our policy is a correct one, and takes into account all the class forces on an international scale. We will extricate ourselves because we do not try to make our position look better than it is. We realise all the difficulties. We see all the maladies, and are taking measures to cure them methodically, with perseverance, and without giving way to panic. You have allowed panic to get the better of you; panic is a slope-once you stepped on it you slid down into a position that looks very much as if you are forming a new party, or are about to commit suicide. You must not give way to panic. Is there any isolation of the Communist Party cells from the Party? There is. It is an evil, a misfortune, a malaise. It is there. It is a severe ailment. We can see it. It must be cured by proletarian and Party measures and not by means of "freedom" (for the bourgeoisie). Much of what you say about reviving the country's economy, about mechanical ploughs, etc., about fighting for "influence" over the peasantry, etc., is true and useful. Why not bring this out separately? We shall get together and work harmoniously in one party. The benefits will be great; they will not come all at once, but very slowly. Revive the Soviets; secure the co-operation of non-Party people; let non-Party people verify the work of Party members: this is absolutely right. No end of work there, and it has hardly been started. Why not amplify this in a practical way? In a pamphlet for the Congress? Why not take that up? Why be afraid of spade work (denounce abuses through the Central Control Commission, or the Party press, Pravda)? Misgivings about slow, difficult and arduous spade work cause people to give way to panic and to seek an "easy" way out: "freedom of the press" (for the bour-geoisie). Why should you persist in your mistake-an obvious mistake-in your non-Party, anti-proletarian slogan of "freedom of the press"? Why not take up the less "bril-liant" (scintillating with bourgeois brilliance) spade work of driving out abuses, combating them, and helping non-Party people in a practical and business-like way? Have you ever brought up any particular abuse to the notice of the C.C., and suggested a definite means of -eradicating it? No, you have not. Not a single time. You saw a spate of misfortunes and maladies, gave way to despair and rushed into the arms of the enemy, the bourgeoisie ("freedom of the press" for the bourgeoisie). My advice is: do not give way to despair and panic. We, and those who sympathise with us, the workers and peasants, still have an immense reservoir of strength. We still have plenty of health and vigour. We are not doing enough to cure our ailments. We are not doing a good job of practising the slogan: promote non-Party people let non Party people verity the work of Party members. But we can, and w]ll, do a hundred times more in this field than we are doing. I hope that after thinking this over carefully you will not, out of false pride persist in an obvious political mistake ("freedom of the press' ), but, pulling yourself together and overcoming the panic, will get down to practical work: help to establish ties with non-Party people, and help non-Party people to verify the work of Party members. There can be no end of work in this field. Doing this work you can (and should) help to cure the disease, slowly but surely, instead of chasing after will-o-the-wisps like freedom of the press. With communist greetings, Lenin Published in 1921 CW, Vol. 32, pp 504-09 [ibid., pp 215-220] 5. From SUMMING UP SPEECH AT THE THIRD ALL-RUSSIA CONGRESS OF SOVIETS OF WORKERS', SOLDIERS' AND PEASANTS' DEPUTIES January 18 (31), 1918 Of course, the working people had no experience in gov-ernment but that does not scare us. The victorious pro-letariat looks out on a land that has now become a public good, and it will be quite able to organise the new pro-duction and consumption on socialist lines. In the old days, human genius, the brain of man, created only to give some the benefits of technology and culture, and to deprive others of the bare necessities, education and development. From now on all the marvels of science and the gains of culture belong to the nation as a whole, and never again will man's brain and human genius be used for oppression and exploitation. Of this we are sure, so shall we not de-dicate ourselves and work with abandon to fulfil this greatest of all historical tasks? The working people will perform this titanic historical feat, for in them lie dormant the great forces of revolution, renaissance and renovation. Published in Izvestia No. 15, Collected Works, January 20, 1918 VM. 26, pp.481-482 and Pravda No.15, February 2 (January 20), 1918 6. THE CHARACTER OF OUR NEWSPAPERS Far too much space is being allotted to political agitation on outdated themes to political ballyhoo and far too little to the building of the new life to the facts about it Why, instead of turning out 200 400 lines don't we write twenty -- even ten lines on such simple generally known, clear topics with which the people die already fairly well acquainted like the foul treachery of the Mensheviks-the lackeys of the bourgeoisie--the Anglo-Japanese invasion forces that have imposed the right of capital--the American multimillionaires baring their fangs against Germany, etc etc We must bring out the whole thing and note every new fact in this sphere but ee need not write long articles and repeat 100 arguments; what is needed is to condemn in just a few lines "in telegraphic style" the latest manifestation of the old known and already evaluated politics. The bourgeois press in the good old bourgeois times never mentioned the holy of holies--the conditions in privately-owned factories in the private enterprises, in the custom which fitted in with the interests of the bourgeoisie. We must radically break with it. We have not broken with it. So far our type of newspaper has not changed as it should in a society in transition from capitalism to socialism. Less politics. Politics has been elucidated fully and reduced to a struggle between the two camps--the insurrectionary proletariat and the handful of capitalist slave owners (with the whole gang, right down to the Mensheviks and others). We may, and I repeat, we must, speak very briefly about these politics. More economics. But not in the sense of "general" dis-cussions, learned reviews, intellectual plans and similar piffle, for, I regret to say, they are all too often just piffle and nothing more. By economics we mean the gathering, careful checking and study of the facts of the actual organisation of the new life. Have real successes been achieved by big factories, agricultural communes, the Poor Peas-ants' Committees, and local Economic Councils in building up the new economy? What, precisely, are these suc-cesses? Have they been verified? Are they not fables, boast-ing, intellectual promises ("things are moving", "the plan has been drawn up", "we are getting under way", "we now vouch for", "there is undoubted improvement", and other charlatan phrases of which "we" are such masters) ? How have the successes been achieved? What must be done to extend them? Where is the black list with the names of the lagging factories which since nationalisation have remained models of disorder, disintegration, dirt, hooliganism and parasitism? Nowhere to be found. But there are such factories. We shall not be able to do our duty unless we wage war against these "guardians of capitalist traditions". We shall be jellyfish, not Communists, as long as we tolerate such factories. We have not learned to wage the class struggle in the newspapers as skilfully as the bourgeoisie did. Remember the skill with which it hounded its class enemies in the press, ridiculed them, disgraced them, and tried to sweep them away. And we? Doesn't the class struggle in the epoch of the transition from capitalism to socialism take the form of safeguarding the interests of the working class against the few, the groups and sections of workers who stubbornly cling to capitalist traditions and continue to regard the Soviet state iii the old way: work as little and as badly as they can and grab as much money as possible from the state. Aren't there many such scoundrels, even among the compositors in Soviet printing works, among the Sormovo and Putilov workers, etc.? How many of them have we found, how many have we exposed and how many have we pilloried? The press is silent. And if it mentions the subject at all it does so in a stereotyped, official way, not in the manner of a revolutionary press, not as an organ of the dictator-ship of a class demonstrating that the resistance of the capitalists and of the parasites the custodians of capital traditions will be crushed with an iron hand. The same with the army. Do we harass cowardly or inefficient officers? Have we denounced the really bad regiments to the whole of Russia? Have we caught enough of the bad types who should be removed from the army with the greatest publicity for unsuitability, carelessness, procrastination etc? We are not yet waging an effective ruthless and truly revolutionary war against the specific wrongdoers. We do very little to educate the people by living, concrete examples and models taken from all spheres of life, although that is the chief task of the press during the transition from capitalism to communism We give little attention to that aspect of everyday life inside the factories, in the villages and in the regiments where, more than anywhere else the new is being built--where attention, publicity, public criticism condemnation of what is bad and appeals to learn from the good are needed most Less political ballyhoo. Fewer highbrow discussions. Closer to life More attention to the way in which the workers and peasants are actually building the new in their everyday work, and more verification so as to ascer-tain the extent to which the new is communistic. September 20, 1918 N. Lenin _______________________________________________ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international