so—as to whether this was really a new tendency or whether it was merely an expression of the lack of training of certain individuals. For example, the first mimeographed copies of Rabochaya Mysl never reached the great majority of Social-Democrats, and we are able to refer to the leading article in the first number only because it was reproduced in an article by V. I. [Listok Rabotnika, Nos. 9–10, p. 47ff.], who, of course, did not fail zealously, hut unreasonably to extol the new paper, which was so different from the papers and the schemes for papers mentioned above.[1] And this leading article deserves to be dealt with in detail because it so strongly expresses the spirit of Rabochaya Mysl and Economism generally.
After referring to the fact that the arm of the "blue-coats" could never stop the progress of the labour movement, the leading article goes on to say: "… The virility of the labour :movement is due to the fact that the workers themselves are at last taking their fate in their own hands, and out of the hands of the leaders," and this fundamental thesis is then developed in greater detail. As a matter of fact the leaders (i. e., the Social-Democrats, the organisers of the League of the Struggle) were, one might say, torn out of the hands of the workers by the police;[2] yet it is made to appear that the workers were fighting against the leaders and eventually liberated themselves from their yoke! Instead of calling upon the workers to go forward towards the consolidation of the revolutionary organisation, and to the expansion of political activity, they began to call for a regress to the purely trade-union struggle. They announced that "the economic basis of the movement is eclipsed by the effort never to forget the political idea," and that the watchword for the movement was "Fight for an economic position" (!) or to go even one better, "The workers for the workers." It was de-
- ↑ It should be stated in passing that the praise of Rabochaya Mysl in November, 1898, when Economism had become fully defined, especially abroad, emanated from that same V. I., who, very soon after, became one of the editors of Rabocheye Dyelo. And yet Rabocheye Dyelo denied that there were two tendencies in Russian Social-Democracy, and continues to deny it to this day.
- ↑ That this simile is a correct one is shown by the following characteristic fact. When after the arrest of the "Decembrists," the news was spread among the workers on the Schlusselburg Road that the discovery and arrest was facilitated by an agent provocateur, N. M. Mikhailov, a dental surgeon, who had been in contact with a group associated with the "Decembrists," they were so enraged that they decided to kill him.
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