Page:Lenin - What Is To Be Done - tr. Joe Fineberg (1929).pdf/53

 say: "Any fool can bring forth children," and to-day the "modern Socialists" (à la Narcissus Tuporylov) in their wisdom say: "Any fool can help the spontaneous birth of a new social order." We too are of that opinion. All that is required for help of that kind is to surrender to Economism when Economism reigns and to terrorism when terrorism arises. For example, in the spring of this year, when it was so important to utter a note of warning against terrorism, Rabocheye Dyelo stood in amazement confronted by a problem that was "new" to it and now, six months after, when the problem has become less topical, it, at one and the same time, presents us with the declaration: "We think that it is not and cannot be the task of Social-Democracy to counteract the rise of terroristic temper" [Rabocheye Dyelo, No. 10, p. 23], and the congress resolution: "The congress regards systematic and aggressive terror as being inopportune" [Two Congresses, p. 18]. How beautifully clear and connected this is! Not to counteract, but to declare inopportune, and to declare it in such a way that the "resolution" shall not apply to unsystematic and defencive terror. It must be admitted that a resolution like that is extremely safe and completely insured against error, just as a man who talks, but says nothing, is insured against error! And all that is required to be able to draft a resolution like that is: Ability to keep at the tail end of the movement. When Iskra ridiculed Rabocheye Dyelo for declaring the question of terror to he a new one, the latter angrily accused Iskra of "having the incredible effrontery to impose upon the party organisations decisions on tactical questions arrived at by a group of emigrant writers more than sixteen years ago" [p. 24]. Effrontery indeed, and an exaggeration of the conscious elements to find the theoretical solutions to problems, and then to try to prove to the organisation, to the party and to the masses that this solution is correct! How much better it is to repeat something that has been learned by rote, and, without "imposing" anything upon anybody, swing with every "turn" in the direction of Economism or in the direction of terrorism. Rabocheye Dyelo even goes so far as to generalise this gospel of worldly wisdom and accuses