itself in Paris as a "League of the Revolutionary Socialists of the Left," and carrying on its journalistic and literary activities from the French capital, attempted under the leadership of Burcev, the indefatigable historian and publicist, to carry out an inexorable self-criticism, and thereby to liberate the party and its organisation from "revolutionary philistinism." The creative activity of the individual, and the active struggle of an organised minority of persons of initiative, must, said the members of this group, come into their own. The party must realise that it was no more than a minority, and could be nothing else. There is no revolutionary mass; the mass has always been led by minorities. The party must therefore abandon its centralist organisation; Azev was the product of centralisation, The greatest enemy, in truth the only enemy, of socialism (not only in Russia but elsewhere as well) is autocracy. In concrete terms, the Romanov dynasty is everywhere the prop of reaction; it must therefore be the first object of attack, and must first of all be annihilated. The autocracy, too, is only a minority.
From the maximalist[1] side, objections were raised to this program of the left.
The maximalists contended that the minimum socialist program (the minimum social revolutionary program not excepted) comprised, as a whole, those demands which were realisable under the continuance of the old regime. Of course the minimum was extensible, varying according to the way in which the term "realisable" was defined. The minimum might be conceived either in a reformist or in a revolutionary sense.
- ↑ The reader must not forget that the "maximalists" referred to in this and the ensuing sections are social revolutionaries, not the maximalist social democrats or bolševiki. See pp. 296 and 364.
the party recognised that whilst the participation of provocative agents cannot prevent a great victory in this field, such participation does serve to impair the energies of the terror at the most critical moment for the government and the revolution, for it prevents the unfolding of the entire strength of this fighting method, prevents the display of all the energy which the party might devote to it; it increases the confidence of the government, and increases therewith the resoluteness of the government at a time when the government has especial need for resolution. While, therefore, the unmasking of Azev has led certain individuals to doubt the efficacy of the terrorist campaign, the party as such merely discovers therein the reason for the failure of the terror to do all that it might have done for the party and the revolution; and it has taught the party what a renascent terror may be competent to do. In this matter, consequently, the party retains its old fighting position."
