Collected Works of V. I. Lenin - Vol. 13 - From Marx to Mao

98V. I. LENINare being bandied about by the “conciliators” inside theSocial-Democratic Party and the “sympathising” semisocialistsoutside it. An excessive penchant for polemicsand splits, we are all too often told, is typical of the Russiansin general, of the Social-Democrats in particularand of the Bolsheviks especially. But the fact is all too oftenoverlooked that the excessive penchant for skippingfrom socialism to liberalism is engendered by the conditionsprevailing in the capitalist countries in general, theconditions of the bourgeois revolution in Russia in particular,and the conditions of the life and work of our intellectualsespecially. From that standpoint it is well worthtaking a look at the events of ten years ago, the theoreticaldifferences with “Struveism” which then began to take shape,and the minor (minor at first glance) divergencies thatled to a complete political demarcation between the partiesand to an irreconcilable struggle in parliament, inthe press, at public meetings, etc.The article against Mr. Struve, I should add, is basedon a paper I read in the autumn of 1894 to a small circleof Marxists of that time. The group of Social-Democratsthen active in St. Petersburg, and who a year later foundedthe League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the WorkingClass, was represented in this circle by St., R., andmyself. The legal Marxist writers were represented byP. B. Struve, A. N. Potresov, and K. 54 The subject of mypaper was “The Reflection of Marxism in Bourgeois Literature”.As will be seen from the title, the polemic withStruve here was incomparably sharper and more definite(in its Social-Democratic conclusions) than in the articlepublished in the spring of 1895. The latter was toned downpartly for censorship reasons and partly for the sake of an“alliance” with the legal Marxists for joint struggle againstNarodism. That the “leftward jolt” which the St. PetersburgSocial-Democrats then gave Mr. Struve has not remainedaltogether without result is clearly shown by Mr.Struve’s article in the police-destroyed symposium of1895, and by several of his articles in Novoye Slovo 55 (1897).Moreover, in reading the 1895 article against Mr. Struveit should be borne in mind that in many respects it is a