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    We sometimes come across literary efforts whose only significance lies in their Herostratean nature. A most ordinary literary work, as, for instance, Eduard Bernstein's well-known The Premises of Socialism, assumes outstanding political significance and becomes the manifesto of a trend amongst Marxists, although it departs from Marxism all along the line. Similar outstanding significance, by reason of their Herostratean nature, undoubtedly attaches to Mr Potresov 's article on trivialities in last year's February issue of Nasha Zarya, and V. Bazarov's article in reply to it in the April Nasha Zarya. To be sure, the questions discussed in these articles are far from being so profound or of such wide scope, and have not the same international significance, as the questions raised by Bernstein (or, rather, which he put forward after the bourgeoisie had already done so), but for us Russians, in the period of 1908-9-10-?, these are questions of tremendous and cardinal importance. That is why Mr. Potresov's and V. Bazarov's articles are not out of date, and it is necessary, it is our duty, to deal with them.

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NOTES



  ^[44] The article "Those Who Would Liquidate Us " appeared in the magazine Mysl (Thought ), a Bolshevik legal monthly philosophical and socio-economic magazine published in Moscow from December 1910. The magazine was started and guided by Lenin from abroad, in order to counter the journals of the liquidators and struggle against them.
    Lenin published six articles in the first four issues of Mysl, including the major work Strike Statistics in Russia. Closely connected with the work of the magazine were V. V. Vorovsky. M. S. Olminsky, I. I. Skvortsov-Stepanov; G. V. Plekhanov and other pro-Party Mensheviks also collaborated. The magazine was published until April 1911. In all, five issues appeared, the last being confiscated.    [p. 60]

 
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  ^[45] Osvobozhdeniye (Emancipation ) -- a fortnightly bourgeois-liberal magazine, published abroad from 1902 to 1905 under the editorship of P. B. Struve. From January 1904 it became the organ of the liberal-monarchist Osvobozhdeniye League. Later, the Osvobozhdeniye group made up the core of the Cadet Party, the chief bourgeois party in Russia.    [p. 61]

  ^[46] Lenin refers to his article "The Victory of the Cadets and the Tasks of the Workers' Party", written in March 1906, and published as a pamphlet in April of that year (see present edition, Vol. 10, pp. 199-276).    [p. 62]

  ^[47] Octobrists -- members of the Union of October Seventeenth, founded in November 1905, as a counter-revolutionary party representing the big industrial and commercial capitalists and the landlords who farmed their land on capitalist lines. The Octobrists claimed to accept the Manifesto of October 17, but fully supported the domestic and foreign policy of the tsarist government. The leaders of the Octobrists were K. Guchkov, a big industrialist, and M. Rodzyanko, who owned huge landed estates.    [p. 62]

  ^[48] The law of November 9 (22), 1906 on "Additions to Certain Regulations of the Existing Law on Peasant Land Ownership and Land Tenure", and the law of June 14 (27), 1910 on "Amendments and Addenda to Certain Regulations on Peasant Land Ownership" defined the regulations for the withdrawal of the peasants from the village communes, and for obtaining the title to their allotments.    [p. 66]

  ^[49] Platform of the 104 -- the Land Reform Bill of the Trudovik deputies to the First and Second Dumas was based on Narodnik principles of equalitarian land tenure: the creation of a national fund from state, crown and monastery lands, and also privately-owned lands if the estates exceeded the established "labour standard" (i.e., the amount of land that can be tilled by a peasant family without the help of hired labour). Provision was also made for compensation in respect of alienated land. The implementation of the land reform was to be the responsibility of local land committees. (For information on the Platform of the 104 see present edition, Vol. 12, pp. 201-03 and Vol. 13, pp. 267-72.  [Transcriber's Note: See Lenin's "The Elections to the Duma and the Tactics of the Russian Social-Democrats" and "The Agrarian Programme of Social-Democracy in the First Russian Revolution, 1905-07", respectively. -- DJR])    [p. 66]

  ^[50] Trudoviks (Trudovik group) -- a group of petty-bourgeois democrats in the Dumas composed of peasants and intellectuals with Narodnik leanings. The Trudovik group was formed in April 1906 from peasant deputies to the First Duma.
    The Trudoviks demanded the abolition of all social-estate and national restrictions, the democratisation of urban and rural local government, and universal suffrage in elections to the State Duma. Their agrarian programme was that outlined in Note 49. Owing to the class nature of the small landowning peasantry the Trudo-

 
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viks in the State Duma wavered between the Cadets and the Social-Democrats. Since the Trudoviks to some extent represented the peasantry, the Bolsheviks in the Duma collaborated with them on certain questions relating to the general struggle against tsarism and against the Cadets. In 1917 the Trudovik group merged with the Popular Socialist Party and actively supported the bourgeois Provisional Government. After the October Socialist Revolution the Trudoviks supported the bourgeois counter-revolution.    [p. 67]

  ^[51] Zhizn (Life ) -- a magazine published in Moscow by the Menshevik-liquidators. There were two issues, in August and September 1910.    [p. 71]

  ^[52] Russkaya Mysl (Russian Thought ) -- a monthly magazine of the liberal bourgeoisie published in Moscow from 1880. After the 1905 Revolution it became the organ of the Right wing of the Cadet Party. During the period of its existence Lenin called it "Black-Hundred Thought". The magazine was closed down in the middle of 1918.    [p. 71]

  ^[53] Lenin quotes N. A. Nekrasov's lyrical comedy The Bear Hunt.    [p. 72]

  ^[54] Lenin quotes the works of Bazarov from Turgenev's Fathers and Sons.    [p. 72]

  ^[55] N. Beltov -- G. V. Plekhanov's pseudonym under which his book The Development of the Monist View of History was published in 1895.    [p. 74]

  ^[56] God-builders -- a religious-philosophical trend hostile to Marxism, which arose during the period of Stolypin reaction among a section of the Party intellectuals who had broken with Marxism after the defeat of the 1905-07 Revolution. The "god-builders" (A. V. Lunacharsky, V. Bazarov, and others) advocated the creation of a new "socialist" religion, attempting to reconcile Marxism with religion. At one time Maxim Gorky was associated with them.
    A meeting of the enlarged Editorial Board of Proletary, held on June 8-17 (21-30), 1909, condemned the "god-building" trend and in a special resolution declared that the Bolshevik faction had nothing in common with such distortion of scientific socialism.
    The reactionary character of god-building was exposed by Lenin in his Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, and in letters to Gorky in February-April 1908  [Transcriber's Note: See Lenin's letters of February 7, 13, 25, March 24, April 16 and 19. -- DJR] and November-December 1913  [Transcriber's Note: See Lenin's letter of November 13 as well as the undated letter written later that month. -- DJR].    [p. 77]

  ^[57] The Social Movement in Russia at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century -- a five-volume Menshevik publication (four volumes were published) under the editorship of L. Martov, P. Maslov, A. N. Potresov. Plekhanov, who was a member of the original editorial board, left it at the end of 1908 because he disagreed with the inclusion of a liquidationist article by A. N. Potresov in the first volume.    [p. 78]