Lenin: A Revolutionary Life (8 page)

In Russia such ideas were taken up by a group of social democrats. Two of them, S. Prokopovich and E. Kuskova, put forward their principles in a pamphlet, dubbed their
Credo
by Lenin’s sister Anna, and it is by that name that it is generally known today. In it, they argued that political struggle was a distraction and the social-democratic movement should put its emphasis on economic struggle – that is the day-to-day battle between employers and employees for better wages and conditions.

For the majority of social democrats, including Lenin, such ideas were heresy of the worst kind. He was completely opposed to them and insisted on the absolute necessity of political struggle to be conducted alongside economic struggle. Indeed, Lenin might be thought to have actually done the opposite of what the Economists did, namely prioritize political struggle over all others. After all, this was the starting point of the Russian revolutionary movement some forty years earlier and was associated with one of the greatest Russian revolutionaries, Bakunin. For Bakunin, it was not economic systems and the associated classes which tyrannized human society, it was two institutions, the state and the church, which were in the forefront of oppression. They had to be destroyed through direct confrontation before any freer society could be constructed.

Many Russian revolutionary groups and thinkers, including Lenin, had a somewhat Bakuninist edge to their revolutionary thought and practice. Lenin’s hatred of religion was notorious, for a start. Along with others he also put the overthrow of tsarist despotism and the inauguration of a democratic republic as the starting point of social progress. His later works brought this out and he was not infrequently accused of being an anarchist. His polemic against the Economists certainly showed his absolute commitment to political struggle and its primary importance. In a sense, the consequence is that Lenin might be seen as being on the wrong side of yet another Marxist tenet here, the priority of economics over politics and the basic assertion that the emancipation of the workers would be accomplished by the workers themselves. Lenin actually quoted exactly this phrase in his article on the death of Engels [SW 1 40] but, arguably, his career expressed increasing doubt about its validity.

However, Lenin was not alone in putting political struggle at the top of the agenda. Along with the Economist controversy, his isolation in Siberia had made him a spectator at the founding of the Russian Social Democratic and Labour Party, a grand name for a small gathering in Minsk which inaugurated it in 1898. Its early leaders were quickly arrested but its main work, establishing a Party programme, drafted, ironically, by the soon-to-be-renegade Peter Struve, survived. It, unambiguously, put the overthrow of tsarism as the primary Party task.

The Economist debate is one of the largely overlooked issues of early Russian Marxism. Indeed, the key themes of both these two debates – the theory of stages and the primacy of politics – have, by a strange twist of fate, become inextricably entwined with the third argument of the period, which is by far the best known, the splitting of the Social Democratic Party into Bolshevik and Menshevik wings in 1903. However, before we can approach that we need to pick up the thread of Lenin’s life after his exile and up to the fateful days during and following the Second Party Congress of 1903.

RETURN TO RUSSIA; RETREAT TO WESTERN EUROPE

Eventually, Vladimir Il’ich’s sentence of exile was served. Not having been caught in any major infractions, no additional time was added. On 11 February 1900 the Ulyanovs began their long journey back. The first stage was a 320-kilometre horseback ride along the Yenissei. According to Krupskaya, the moonlight allowed them to continue travelling at night, wrapped up in their elkskin coats to protect them from the subzero temperatures. Even so, Krupskaya’s elderly mother felt the cold intensely. Once they reached the road system, the greater comfort of a horse and carriage was employed. Finally, at Achinsk, civilization came within reach in the form of the Trans-Siberian Express. From there it was only a few days back to Moscow, one more to St Petersburg, except neither Vladimir Il’ich nor Krupskaya had permission to live in either. Even worse, although Vladimir Il’ich’s sentence was served Krupskaya’s was not and she had to remain in Ufa in the Urals which they reached on 18 February. As she commented somewhat ruefully in her memoirs, ‘it did not even enter Vladimir Ilyich’s head to remain in Ufa when there was a possibility of getting nearer to St. Petersburg.’ Krupskaya was saddened by the thought that ‘it was a great pity to have to part, just at a time when “real” work was commencing.’ [Krupskaya 45]

Indeed the major cities beckoned. Vladimir Il’ich, however, was only permitted to reside in the provinces. He opted to take up residence in Pskov, in North-Western Russia. He supported himself with a humdrum government office job in the Bureau of Statistics, but his real interests were, of course, in getting back in touch with the mainstream of the social-democratic movement. Unsanctioned visits to Moscow and St Petersburg in February and March fulfilled this purpose. A further journey in June brought arrest and ten days’ imprisonment. Such interference made his work in Russia impossible since he would remain under frequent surveillance and face constant interrogation. Emigration seemed the better option and he resolved to take it. Before that, however, he had things to do. As soon as he was released from prison he spent six weeks visiting Krupskaya, who had been ill. He travelled via Nizhny Novgorod and Samara where he made contact with local social democrats. After a final visit to his mother and other family members now living in Podolsk, he left Russia for western Europe on 29 July. Barring a few months, he was to be out of Russia proper until the eve of the October Revolution.

But where should he go? The main exile centres were in Germany, Switzerland, France and Britain. The decision as to which to choose depended on many factors. Not least was the cost of living for these, by and large, modestly financed revolutionaries. Contact with other exiles and the best conditions to work and, especially, conduct propaganda, were the other main criteria.

At first, the inviting openness of Switzerland, the home still of Plekhanov and Axel’rod, was the first choice. Within weeks, however, he had upset several apple carts. Bavaria was his next destination. He was drawn there by contact with people who advised him on the main project of the moment, the production of a newspaper,
Iskra
(
The Spark
). Nuremberg gave way to Munich where Lenin settled down for the time being. He was even able to enjoy the cultural life, writing to his mother about theatre and opera visits which brought him ‘the greatest pleasure’ [CW 37 317]. He also told her in February, during Fäsching, ‘that people here know how to make merry publicly in the streets.’ [CW 37 319] A visit to Vienna brought the comment that it was ‘a huge, lively and beautiful city’. [CW 37 323]

Life was not, however, a holiday. Even though he was out of Russia, Lenin was by no means beyond the reach of the police. He was forced to live a clandestine life including, in order to protect himself, making extensive use of false names to confuse the police. He used no less than 150 pseudonyms in his writings including Meyer, Richter and others. In January 1901, for the first time, he used the name Lenin in place of Tulin and Ilyin which he had used most frequently hitherto. However, this was still not the name under which he is best known today because he usually combined it with the first name Nikolai. Forwarding addresses, false passports and false national identities – including German and Bulgarian – were also part of the covert game. The police were not the only ones who were confused. In April 1901 Krupskaya finished her term of exile in Ufa and she lost no time in joining Lenin whom she believed to be living under the name Modraczek at an address in Prague. The scene Krupskaya describes is worthy of a comedy movie:

I sent a telegram and arrived in Prague. But no one came to meet me
… Greatly disconcerted I hailed a top-hatted cabby, piled him up with my baskets and started off … We … stopped at a large tenement building. I climbed to the fourth floor. A little, white-haired Czech woman opened the door. ‘Modraczek,’ I repeated, ‘Herr Modraczek.’ A worker came out and said: ‘I am Modraczek.’ Flabbergasted, I stammered: ‘No my husband is!’

It was soon realized what the mistake was and Krupskaya was then told that Lenin was in fact in Munich, living under the name Rittmeyer. Unfortunately Rittmeyer, like Modraczek, was actually the name of an associate used for forwarding mail. The scene was set for a partial repetition:

Arrived in Münich … having learned by experience, I left my baggage in the station and set out by tram to find Rittmeyer. I found the house and Apartment No. 1 turned out to be a beershop. I went to the counter, behind which was a plump German, and timidly asked for Herr Rittmeyer, having a presentiment that again something was wrong. ‘That’s me,’ he said. ‘No, it’s my husband,’ I faltered, completely baffled. And we stood staring at one another like a couple of idiots.

Help, however, was at hand. Rittmeyer’s wife saw what had happened and said ‘You must be the wife of Herr Meyer. He is expecting his wife from Siberia. I’ll take you to him.’ She took the thoroughly bemused Krupskaya to a nearby apartment. The door opened, and there, at a table, sat Vladimir Il’ich and his sister Anna Il’inichna, and Martov. ‘Forgetting to thank the landlady I cried: “Why the devil didn’t you write and tell me where I could find you?”’ The misunderstanding had come about because ‘a friend, to whom had been sent a book containing the Münich address, kept the book to read!’ Krupskaya concludes the comic episode: ‘Many of us Russians went on a wild goose chase in a similar fashion. Shliapnikov at first went to Genoa instead of Geneva; Babushkin, instead of going to London, had been about to start off for America.’ [Krupskaya 49–50]

The Ulyanovs overcame this family tiff and took an apartment in Schwabing where, as Krupskaya laconically puts it, we ‘lived after our own fashion’. They engaged in their usual mixture of sampling the local atmosphere and immersing themselves in Russian politics. ‘Local life did not attract our attention particularly. We observed it in an inciden
tal manner.’ [Krupskaya 62] The lack of intensity of German social democracy struck them. They attended May Day celebrations. They observed fairly big columns of social democrats. ‘In dead silence they marched through the town – to drink beer at a country beer-garden. This Mayday celebration did not at all resemble a demonstration of working-class triumph throughout the world.’ [Krupskaya 62] Visitors were frequent and here there was no lack of intensity. The ferocity of discussion undermined Lenin’s delicate health. In particular, Martov would often turn up full of news, gossip, energy and indignation which fuelled daily conversations of five or six hours. They made Lenin ‘exceedingly tired’ and eventually Lenin ‘made himself quite ill with them, and incapable of working’. [Krupskaya 59] Indeed, Lenin’s health had already taken a turn for the worse since his return from Siberia. Catarrh had plagued his early months of European exile and worse was to come. In 1903, at the time of the split in the Party, ‘everything lay on Vladimir Il’ich. The correspondence with Russia had a bad effect on his nerves … Il’ich would spend sleepless nights after receiving letters [with bad news] … Those sleepless nights remain engraved on my memory.’ [Krupskaya 78] By that time the couple were living in London and the health of others was also affected. ‘Potresov was ill; his lungs could not stand the London fogs.’ [Krupskaya 77] Ultimately, at the time the Ulyanovs left London for Geneva in May 1903, Lenin went down with a painful nervous illness, probably shingles, described by Krupskaya as ‘holy fire’ which caused what she identified as ‘shearer’s rash’. ‘On the way to Geneva, Vladimir Il’ich was very restless; on arriving there he broke down completely, and had to lie in bed for two weeks.’

Lenin had not wanted to leave London but had been outvoted by the rest of the editorial board which decided to move the
Iskra
office to Geneva. The Ulyanovs had initially come to London on 14 April 1902, having left Munich on 12 April because the local printers would no longer take the risk of publishing
Iskra
. They journeyed through Germany and Belgium, combining sightseeing – Cologne Cathedral, for example – with visiting left-wing activists. At first, London evoked ambiguity. In a letter to Axel’rod Lenin wrote ‘The first impression of London: vile. And everything is quite expensive.’ [CW 43 81] Krupskaya gives a more nuanced view. According to her she and Vladimir Il’ich were ‘astounded at the tremendous size of London. Although it was exceedingly dismal weather on the day of our arrival, Vladimir Il’ich’s face brightened up and he began casting curious glances at this stronghold of Capitalism, forgetting for the while, Plekhanov and the editorial conflicts.’ [Krupskaya 64] Could any impact be greater than that!

The London of 1903 was the capital of the world, the focus of globalization, the richest city in the world with a formidable gap between rich and poor. It was the centre of finance capital and cultural capital. Its riches included the Reading Room of the British Museum where Lenin, like Marx before him, was able to study uninterruptedly. London was also a political capital, not only of the world’s most powerful country but also of a global empire of unprecedented size. London, as it had been in Marx’s day, was the chief citadel of world capitalism and the focus of a mighty, military and colonial empire. Where better for Lenin to observe the massive contrasts of rampant imperialism? ‘Ilich studied living London.’ [Krupskaya 65]

He and Krupskaya lost no time in exploring their new environment from corner to corner. Leaving their home on Holford Square in St Pancras they would take rides on the upper decks of omnibuses which acquainted them with the many faces of one of the world’s most intriguing cities. From the quiet squares and detached houses of Bloomsbury and the West End to ‘the mean little streets inhabited by the working people, where lines of washing hung across the streets’, [Krupskaya 65] which they explored on foot because the buses could not penetrate them, nothing escaped their analytical gaze. ‘Observing these howling contrasts in richness and poverty, Il’ich would mutter through clenched teeth, and in English: “Two nations!”’ [Krupskaya 65] Street brawls, drunkenness, a bobby arresting an urchin-thief. The Ulyanovs were eager observers. They attended socialist meetings and listened to rankand-file workers expressing themselves. Though contemptuous of the ‘labour aristocracy’, which included most of the labour leaders who had, according to this view, been ‘corrupted by the bourgeoisie and become themselves petty-bourgeois’, Lenin ‘always placed his hope on the rankand-file British workman who, in spite of everything, preserved his class instinct.’ ‘Socialism’, he said, ‘is simply oozing from them. The speaker talks rot, and a worker gets up and immediately, taking the bull by the horns, himself lays bare the essence of Capitalist Society.’ [Krupskaya 66]