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

HISTORICAL MEANING OF INNER-PARTY STRUGGLE IN RUSSIA383cratic newspapers, indicated the direction along which thework should have been conducted.” But the trouble wasthat “the idea of the possibility of a ‘strategy of attrition’did not enter anybody’s head. The whole movement wasbeing artificially pushed towards a serious and decisive clash,i.e., towards the December strike and the December “sanguinarydefeat”.Kautsky disputed with Rosa Luxemburg whether in Germanyin the spring of 1910 the moment had come for the transitionfrom the “strategy of attrition” to the “strategy of overthrow”,and Kautsky stated plainly and definitely that thistransition was inevitable if the political crisis developedfurther. But Martov, clinging to Kautsky’s apron-strings,retrospectively advocated the “strategy of attrition” for theperiod when the revolution reached its highest intensity. No,my dear Martov, you are merely repeating liberal speeches.October 17 did not “open up” “prospects” of a peacefulconstitution—that is only a liberal fairy-tale; it openedcivil war. This war was prepared, not by the subjective willof parties or groups, but by the whole course of events sinceJanuary 1905. The October Manifesto signified not the cessationof the struggle, but the balancing of the contendingforces: tsarism was no longer in a position to govern, therevolution was not yet in a position to overthrow it. Theobjectively inevitable consequence of this situation was adecisive struggle. Both in October and in November civilwar was a fact (and the peaceful “prospects” were a liberallie); this war found expression not only in pogroms, but alsoin the struggle by armed force against insubordinate unitsof the army, against the peasants in one-third of Russia andagainst the border regions. Those who under such circumstancesregard the December armed uprising and massstrike as “artificial” can only artificially be classed as Social-Democrats.The natural party for such people is theliberal party.In 1848 and in 1871 Marx said that there are moments ina revolution when surrendering to the enemy without astruggle has a more demoralising effect on the masses thandefeat in a fight. 142 December 1905 was not only such amoment in the history of the Russian revolution, it was thenatural and inevitable culmination of the mass encounters