From article “Our Program,” 1899 (emphasis in original)
International social-democracy is at the present time passing through a period of ideological vacillations. The doctrines of Marx and Engels were hitherto considered to be a firm foundation of the revolutionary theory, but now voices are heard on all sides that these doctrines are inadequate and obsolete. . .
We stand entirely on the basis of the theory of Marx: it was the first to transform socialism from an utopia to a science, to fix the firm foundation of this science and to indicate the path along which it is necessary to proceed, while developing this science further and elaborating it in every detail.
It laid bare the essence of modern capitalist economy, explaining the manner in which the hire of the labourer, the purchase of labour-power, masks the enslavement of millions of propertyless people by a handful of capitalists, the owners of the land, factories, mines, etc.
It showed that the whole trend of development of modern capitalism is towards the ousting of small production by large, and the creating of conditions which make a socialist system of society possible and inevitable. It taught us to see under the veil of rooted customs, political intrigues, subtle laws and artful doctrines, the class struggle, the struggle between all species of propertied classes and the masses of non-possessors, the proletariat, which stands at the head of all the propertyless.
It made dear the real task of a revolutionary socialist party: it is neither drawing up plans for the reconstruction of society, nor preaching sermons to the capitalists and their hangers-on about improving the lot of the workers, nor making conspiracies, but the organization of the class struggle of the proletariat and the leadership of this struggle, the final aim of which is the winning of political power by the Proletariat and the organization of a socialist society.
And we now ask: has anything new been introduced into this theory by its loud-voiced “renovators,” gathered around the German socialist Bernstein, who have now raised such a noise? No, nothing whatever: they have not advanced the science, the development of which was bequeathed to us by Marx and Engels, a single step forward; they have not taught the proletariat any new methods of struggle; they only crawl backwards, picking up snatches of backward theories and instead of the theory of the struggle, they preach to the proletariat the theory of compliance, compliance with the most vicious enemies of the proletariat, the governments and bourgeois parties, who are untiring in their search for new means of baiting socialists.
One of the founders and leaders of Russian Social-Democracy, Plekhanov, was quite right in mercilessly criticizing the latest “criticism” of Bernstein whose views have now been rejected also by the representatives of the German workers (at the Congress in Hanover [Oct. 1899]).
We know that a pile of accusations will be heaped upon us for these words. The cry will be raised that we want to convert the Socialist Party into an order of “true believers” who persecute the “heretics”‘ for deviations from “dogmas” and for any independent opinion, etc. We know all these fashionable and biting phrases.
Only there is not a single grain of truth or sense in them. There can be no strong socialist party in the absence of a revolutionary theory uniting all the socialists, from which they draw all their convictions and which they apply in their modes of struggle and methods of activity.
To defend such a theory, which you absolutely feel to be the truth, against unfounded attacks and attempts to deteriorate it, does not by any means imply that you are an enemy of all criticism. We do not by any means look upon the theory of Marx as something final and inviolable; on the contrary, we are convinced that it only laid the cornerstones of the science which socialists must advance in all directions, if they do not want to lag behind events.
We think that the independent elaboration of Marx’s theory is especially necessary for Russian socialists since this theory provides only the general guiding principles which in detail must be applied in England in a manner different from that applied in France, in France in a manner different from that applied in Germany, and in Germany in a manner different from that applied in Russia. We will therefore gladly afford space in our paper for articles on theoretical questions and invite all comrades to a frank discussion of controversial points….
