widespread (purely trade unionist) view: Our business, he said, is the labour movement, the labour organisations, here, in our localities; all the rest are merely the inventions of doctrinaires, an "exaggeration of the importance of ideology," as the authors of the letter, published in Iskra, No. 12, expressed it in unison with Rabocheye Dyelo, No. 10.
The question now arises: Seeing what the peculiar features of Russian "criticism." and Russian Bernsteinisrn were, what should those who desired, in deeds and not merely in words, to opposed opportunism have done? First of all, they should have made effort to resume the theoretical work that was only just commenced in the period of legal Marxism, and that has now again fallen on the shoulders of the illegal workers. Unless such work is undertaken the successful growth of the movement is impossible. Secondly, they should have actively combated legal "criticism" that was corrupting people's minds. Thirdly, they should have actively counteracted the confusion and vacillation prevailing in practical work and should have exposed and repudiated every conscious or unconscious attempt to degrade our programme and tactics.
That Rabocheye Dyelo did none of these things is a well-known fact, and further on, we shall deal with this well-known fact from various aspects. At the moment, however, we desire merely to show what a glaring contradiction there is between the demand for "freedom of criticism" and the peculiar features of our native criticism and Russian Economism. Indeed, glance at the text of the resolution by which the League of Russian Social-Democrats Abroad endorsed the point-of-view of Rabocheye Dyelo.
In the interests of the further ideological development of Social-Democracy we recognise the freedom to criticise Social-Democratic theory in party literature to be absolutely necessary in so far as this critcism does not run counter to the class and revolutionary character of this theory [Two Congresses, p. 10].
And what is the argument behind this resolution? The resolution "in its first part coincides with the resolution of the Luebeck Party Congress on Bernstein. …" In the simplicity of their souls the Leaguers failed to observe the testimonium paupertatis (certificate of mental poverty) they give themselves by this piece of imitativeness! … "But … in its second part, it restricts freedom of criticism much more than did the Luebeck Party Congress."
So the League's resolution was directed against the Russian
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