the "crisis of Marxism" had long been discussed. And what do we find? In the first production, we would seek in vain for any manifestation, or definite elucidation of the position the new organ intends to occupy. Of theoretical work and the urgent tasks that now confront it, not a word is said in this programme, nor in the supplements to it, that were passed by the Third Congress of the League in 1901 [Two Congresses, pp. 15–18]. During the whole of this time, the editorial board of Rabocheye Dyelo ignored theoretical questions, notwithstanding the fact that these questions excited the minds of Social-Democrats in all countries.
The other announcement, on the contrary, first of all points to e diminution of interest in theory observed in recent years, imperatively demands "vigilant attention to the theoretical aspect of the revolutionary movement of the proletariat," and calls for "ruthless criticism of the Bernsteinist and other anti-revolutionary tendencies in our movement. The issues of Zarya that have appeared show to what extent this programme was carried out.
Thus we see that high-sounding phrases against the ossification of thought, etc., conceal carelessness and helplessness in the development of theoretical ideas. The case of the Russian Social-Democrats strikingly illustrates the fact observed in the whole of Europe (and long ago observed in German Marxism) that the notorious freedom of criticism implies, not the substitution of one theory by another, but freedom from every complete and thought-out theory; it implies eclecticism and absence of principle. Those who are in the least acquainted with the actual state of our movement cannot but see that the spread of Marxism was accompanied by a certain deterioration of theoretical standards. Quite a number of people, with very little, and even totally lacking in, theoretical training, joined the movement for the sake of its practical significance and its practical successes. We can judge, therefore, how tactless Rabocheye Dyelo is when, with an air of invincibility, it quotes the statement of Marx that: "A single step of the real movement is worth a dozen programmes." To repeat these words in the epoch of theoretical chaos is sheer mockery. Moreover, these words of Marx are taken from his letter on the Gotha Programme, in which he sharply condemns eclectism in the formulation of principles: "If you must combine," Marx wrote to the party leaders, "then enter into agreements to satisfy the practical aims of the movement, but do not haggle over principles, do not make 'concessions' in theory." This
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