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

PREFACE TO THE PAMPHLET BY VOINOV163unions) with my amendment deprives the London resolution(that of the London Congress of the R.S.D.L.P.) of its significance.Probably many readers, upon reading this declarationof our magnificent Narcissus, will believe thatthe struggle at Stuttgart was fought precisely over thisamendment of Plekhanov’s and that generally speakingthis amendment had some serious significance.In reality, this amendment (“unity of the economic struggleshould always be borne in mind”) had no serious significancewhatever. It even had no bearing on the essenceof the questions in dispute at Stuttgart, on the essence ofthe differences of opinion in international socialism.As a matter of fact, Plekhanov’s raptures over “his” amendmenthave a very vulgar significance—to mislead the readerby drawing his attention away from the really disputablequestions of the trade-union movement and to concealthe defeat of the idea of neutralism in Stuttgart.The Stockholm Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. (1906), atwhich the Mensheviks won the day, adhered to the point ofview of trade-union neutrality. The London Congress of theR.S.D.L.P. took a different stand and proclaimed the necessityof working towards partisanship of the unions. TheStuttgart International Congress adopted a resolution,which “puts an end to neutrality once and for all”, as Kautskyrightly expressed it.* Plekhanov went into the Commissionof the Stuttgart Congress to defend neutrality, as describedin detail by Voinov. And Clara Zetkin wrote in Die Gleichheit,the mouthpiece of the women’s labour movementof Germany, that “Plekhanov attempted by rather unconvincingarguments to justify a certain limitation of thisprinciple”** (i.e., the principle of close alignment of theunions with the Party).Thus, the principle of neutrality which Plekhanov advocatedwas a failure. His arguments were considered “unconvincing”by the German revolutionary Social-Democrats.* Vorwärts, 1907 No. 209, Beilage, Kautsky’s report to the Leipzigworkers on the Congress in Stuttgart. See Kalendar dlya vsekh,1908, Zerno Publishers, p. 173, my article on the InternationalSocialist Congress in Stuttgart. (See pp. 87-88 of this volume.—Ed.)** See Kalendar dlya vsekh, p. 173, as well as the collected articlesof Zarnitsy (St. Petersburg, 1907), which gives a complete translationof this article from Die Gleichheit.