next up previous contents
Next: About this document ... Up: Four Essays On Liberty Previous: V   Contents

APPENDIX

Four Essays On Liberty -42 Appendix (see Political Ideas in the Twentieth Century, page [*], note 5 )

THIS is not an entirely accurate description of what occurred at the second Congress in 1903. (I owe this information to Mr. Chimen Abramsky's expert knowledge. ) According to the official account of the proceedings, Plekhanov made the statement not in answer to a question, but in support of a thesis expressed by a delegate whose name was Mandelberg but who had adopted the nom de guerre of Posadovsky. Posadovsky is reported as saying: `The statements made here for and against the amendments seem to me not mere differences about details, but to amount to a serious disagreement. There is no doubt that we do not agree about the following fundamental question: must we subordinate our future policies to this or that fundamental democratic principle or principles, recognizing them as absolute values; or must all democratic principles be subordinated exclusively to the exigencies of our party? I am quite definitely in favour of the latter. There are absolutely no democratic principles which we ought not to subordinate to the needs of our party.' (Cries of `And the sanctity of the person?') `Yes, that too! As a revolutionary party seeking its final goal--the social revolution--we must be guided exclusively by considerations of what will help us to achieve this goal most rapidly. We must look on democratic principles solely from the point of view of the needs of our party; if this or that claim does not suit us, we shall not allow it. Hence I am against the amendments that have been offered, because one day they may have the effect of curtailing our freedom of action.' Plekhanov merely dotted the i's and crossed the t's of this unequivocal declaration, the first of its kind, so far as I know, in the history of European democracy.


next up previous contents
Next: About this document ... Up: Four Essays On Liberty Previous: V   Contents
Administrator 2001-02-25