Lenin CW-Vol. 23.pdf - From Marx to Mao

37712This article and the two that follow it were directed against theun-Marxist and anti-Bolshevik attitude of the Bukharin-Pyatakov-Bosh group which began to take shape in the spring of 1915, whenpreparations were being made for publication of the magazineKommunist. It was to be put out in co-operation with Sotsial-Demokrat. Y. L. Pyatakov (P. Kievsky) and Y. B. Bosh undertookto finance the magazine and N. I. Bukharin was made one of itseditors. Lenin’s differences with the group were accentuated afterthe appearance of No. 1-2 of Kommunist in September 1915. Intheir theses “On the Self-Determination Slogan”, which they sent toSotsial-Demokrat, Bukharin, Pyatakov and Bosh opposed Lenin’stheory of socialist revolution, rejected the struggle for democracyin the imperialist era and insisted on the Party withdrawing itsdemand for national self-determination.The group did not confine itself to theoretical differences andopenly attacked the Party’s policy and slogans. It sought to useKommunist in furtherance of its factional aims and tried to dictateterms to the editors of Sotsial-Demokrat. Pyatakov and Bosh insistedon the Central Committee Bureau Abroad recognising themas a separate group not accountable to it and authorised to maintainindependent connections with Central Committee members inRussia and publish leaflets and other literature. Though this demandwas turned down, the group attempted to establish contactwith the Central Committee Bureau in Russia.Lenin was sharply opposed to the Pyatakov-Bosh-Bukharintheses, saying that “we can take no responsibility for them, eitherdirect or indirect—even for harbouring them in the Party, let alonegranting them equality”. In letters to N. I. Bukharin, Y. L. Pyatakov,G. Y. Zinoviev and A. G. Shlyapnikov, Lenin trenchantlycriticised the group’s views and anti-Party, factional actions andcondemned the conciliatory attitude of Zinoviev and Shlyapnikov.On his proposal, joint publication of Kommunist by the Sotsial-Demokrat editors and the group was discontinued.The “Nascent Trend of Imperialist Economism” was writtenwhen the Sotsial-Demokrat editors had received Bukharin’s commentson the theses “The Socialist Revolution and the Right ofNations to Self-Determination”. The article was not published atthe time. p. 13Economism was an opportunist trend in Russian Social-Democracyat the turn of the century, a Russian variety of international