Collected Works of V. I. Lenin - Vol. 16 - From Marx to Mao

108V. I. LENINEach one works on his own account. Otzovist tendenciesare strong in the illegal organisation, they infect even antiotzovists”... (obviously, this refers to those Bolsheviks who,despite Proletary’s repeated and emphatic insistence, havenot broken with the otzovists, do not wage a relentless waragainst them, make attempts at conciliation, uselessly delayingthe inevitable denouement without obtaining in factany renunciation of their stupid tactics by the otzovistultimatumists)....“On this basis there is developing a characteristicphenomenon which has been quite independentlyshown in Odessa as well, viz., revolutionary inaction. Whereverthe spirit of otzovism prevails, it is strikingly evidentthat the illegal organisations are doing nothing. One or twopropagandist circles, a struggle against legal opportunities—that is the total activity. It is mostly of a disorganising nature,as you can see from the extensive data I sent you fromOdessa” ... (used in the article:...*). “As regards legal possibilities,their utilisation lacks a consistent Social-Democraticline. In the darkness of the reaction, the opportunistsin the Social-Democratic movement have raised their headsand ‘brazen it out’, knowing that it is not dangerous nowto go against the fundamental principles of Social-Democracy.One encounters here such a thoroughgoing revision ofrevolutionary Social-Democracy, of its programme and tactics,that in comparison with it Bernstein’s 59 revisionismseems child’s play. The R.S.D.L.P. does not understandMarx, it has made an incorrect analysis of the tendencies ofRussian economic development; there was never any feudalsystem in Russia, there was a feudalistic-trading system;there were not and are not any contradictions between theinterests of the bourgeoisie and those of the landed nobility,nor is there an alliance between them, for these two classesinvented by Russian Social-Democracy constitute a singlebourgeois class (this is a distinctive feature of Russia) andthe autocracy is the organisation of this class. The weaknessof the Russian bourgeoisie, on which was based (??—theinterrogation marks are those of the author) the slogan ofthe ‘dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry’ is imagi-* In the manuscript a place is left blank here for the title of thearticle.—Ed.