The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1924-07-12
BY DAVID WON JONES.

ty or the pr0letar1at IN RUSSIA, Wnen
the words "Menshevik" and "Bolshe-
vik" had not yet been coined. In order
to understand the character and pur-
pose of the journal, it is necessary to
go back a few years.
When Lenin appeared in Petrograd
in 1894, and began to form Social-De-
mocratic groups of workers and intel
lectuaIs, the al-Democratic idea,"
which has then synonymous with revo-
lutionary Marxism, had always been
disseminated in Russia for about ten
years, but only among isolated indi-
viduals here and were Plekhanov and
Axelrod, had formed the "group for
the emancipation of Labor" in Swift
erland. They worked, as it were, in
the absence of workers movement,
when it was still a question of theory,
as far as Russia was concerneN. They
perforce confined themselves to the
literary task of popularizing the
MARKHAM principles among the Russian
revoIutionaries, who were in a state
of establishment and disappointment
at the failure of the "Narodvoltzi"
(Populist) creed, which based its
hopes upon the peasant.
Lenin started the period of action
in Russian Social-Democracy. But, as
we saw in our previous article, he
also most effectively of all, incarnated.
Marxism in the flesh of actual Rus
sian economic conditions. This he did
in his controversy with the "narod-
Mkt" He left monument to this con-
troversy in his mastery work, "The
Development of Capitalism in Russia"
But Lenin not only wrote. With
him theory served to give replies to
the problems arising out of the strug-
gle. He formed groups of workers to
organize agitation in the various work
shops of Petrograd. The agitation
among the workers took the form of
issuing leaflets in connection with
certain factory, Negotiating the abuses
and expressions, the petty fines, ETC.,
to which the workers were subjected.
But Lenin's group not only advanced
particular economic demands, but also
the struggle for the overthrow of
Czarism, thus placing the workers
in the forefront of the struggle for
political freedom. And the workers
readily responded. A wave of strikes
dated from this time. The workers
finally demonstrated their capacity for
political struggle, which was of vast
importance in winning over the revo-
lutionary intelligentsia to Marxism.
Needless to say, the agitation had to
be carried on under the severest con-
spirative conditions. The growing
working class revolt reused the
forces of the Czarist police to action,
and, at the end of 1895, practically the
whole of Lenin's group, the Group
for the emancipation of the working
class" was arrested, including Lenin
himself. In 1897, Lenin was exiled to
Siberia. There, however, he managed
to continue his literary work, his con-
troversy with the legal "narodniki,"
besides writing on the urgent tasks Of
the Social-Democrats in Russia in the
light of the experience gained in the
first attempts in Petrograd.*s
While Lenin was in exile, Social
Democratic groups were being formed
in all the large cities of Russia, and
an attempt was made to hold the first
congress at Minsk, in 1898. But, as
Lenin afterwards showed, the young
Social Democrats were as yet mex
perienced in CONSULTATIVE organiza-
ton, and the central organizations set
up by the Congress were broken up
by the police as soon as formed. Moth
ing remained but the Manifesto of the
Congress. So that there was still no
organized party. 1t remained an idea,
a trend. There was no coordination
among the groups. Each was a law
The word Social Democratic" is