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

416V. I. LENINleast stable: the drop in the percentage of establishmentsin which strikes occurred in 1907 as compared with 1906 wasgreatest in the small establishments, and least in the bigestablishments. It was the vanguard which worked the longestand the most persistently to halt the retreat.But to return to the interrelation between the economicand the political strike. The quarterly data for the entiretriennium, quoted above,* show, in the first place, that allthe great advances in the movement were accompaniedby a rise not only in the number of workers involved inpolitical strikes, hut also of those involved in economicstrikes. The only exception was the upsurge in the springof 1907; in that year the largest number of workers involvedin economic strikes was not in the second but in the thirdquarter.At the beginning of the movement (first quarter of 1905)we see an overwhelming prevalence of workers involved ineconomic strikes over those involved in political strikes(604,000 as against 206,000). The zenith of the movement(fourth quarter of 1905) brings with it a new wave of economicstrikes, not as high as in January, however, and withpolitical strikes strongly predominating. The third advance,in the spring of 1906, again shows a very large increase inthe number of participants both in economic and in politicalstrikes. These data alone are sufficient to refute the opinionaccording to which the combination of the economicwith the political strike represented a “weak aspect of themovement”. This opinion has been often expressed by theliberals; it has been repeated by the liquidator Cherevaninin relation to November 1905; recently it has been repeatedby Martov too in relation to the same period. The failure ofthe struggle for an eight-hour day is especially often referredto as confirming this opinion.This failure is an undeniable fact; it is also undeniablethat any failure implies that the movement is weak. But theview of the liberals is that it is the combination of theeconomic with the political struggle that is the “weak aspectof the movement”; the Marxist view, on the other hand, is* See p. 409 of this volume.—Ed.