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The publication of pamphlets and books for workers undertaken by the ‘Emancipation of Labour’ group will be aimed, primarily, at the most developed sections of the working class; in other words, the working-class intelligentsia. Whilst we are keen to contribute to the creation of literature accessible to the entire peasant and working-class masses, we are nevertheless compelled, for the time being, to limit our popular literary activities to a narrow circle of more or less educated readers from the working class. We are compelled to do so by our situation far from our homeland and by the extremely small number of people on whose serious support for such an undertaking we can currently rely. Let us hope that the sincere friends of the working classes amongst the Russian revolutionaries will not delay in earnestly setting about fulfilling one of their most important duties – the creation of peasant- and worker-oriented literature, adapted to the understanding of readers with varying levels of intellectual development. In the meantime, let our endeavour serve at least as a first step along this path.
With the working-class intelligentsia as the primary target audience for its publications, the ‘Emancipation of Labour’ Group considers it necessary to address them with a few clarifications regarding the immediate objectives of the ‘Workers’ Library’.
These tasks depend, first and foremost, on the aims which the working class in Russia must and can pursue. The duty of literature – books and newspapers – is to help clarify in people’s minds those aims and paths which most surely lead to their well-being.
Russia now stands on the eve of great changes. Its people suffer under the yoke of tsarist autocracy and the arbitrariness of officials, gendarmes and the police – right down to the high-handedness of district officers and constables. Lawlessness and tyranny reign throughout the country and stifle everyone, from peasants and workers to scholars, publishers and authors of books and newspapers, students and so on. This monstrous order – or, rather, disorder – is bound to collapse soon under the pressure of the revolutionaries’ struggle against it and under the weight of its own savagery. Will the working classes of Russia benefit from this, and to what extent? – this is the question that every enlightened, thinking worker and every sincere friend of the people, whatever class of the population they may belong to, must ask themselves.
The benefit to Russia’s peasant and working-class population from the forthcoming changes in its governance will depend, first and foremost, on the degree of consciousness and energy with which they fight against the autocratic rule of the Tsar and the police, and participate in the task of establishing a new order upon its ruins. Everywhere, the working classes have, at the cost of their own blood, contributed to the overthrow of tsarist despotism in favour of the establishment of constitutional order, that is, the governance of the country by means of laws enacted by representatives elected by the people. Yet rarely were these changes accompanied by any significant improvement in the material circumstances of peasants and workers – an increase in land allotments, relief from the burden of taxation, higher wages, and so on. Not only that, but in the vast majority of cases the upper classes and their educated representatives – the intelligentsia – managed to exclude landless peasants and workers even from exercising such political rights as the election of legislators and representatives to provincial and Duma assemblies, the right to assemble and form associations to defend their interests, and so on. Meanwhile, in constitutional states, these rights constitute one of the most important means by which different classes fight for their welfare. The underdevelopment of the lower classes, and their failure to understand the significance of the events unfolding around them or their own interests, meant that for a long time, in every country, they served merely as cannon fodder in the hands of the wealthy and educated minority of the population.
Can we expect that this will not happen in our own country should the current system of government collapse? We do not dare to answer this question with complete certainty. In any case, every enlightened and honest person has a duty to make every effort to protect our working classes from the humiliating role of being a blind instrument in the hands of their exploiters.
Anyone who is more or less familiar with the current living conditions of the peasantry will agree with us that they are extremely unfavourable to the development, amongst them, of that awareness of their own interests which is necessary for an independent and rational struggle against unjust systems. This is not the place to prove this point. Let us merely note that the very fact of the peasantry’s dispersion across villages, their isolation from contact with populous centres of trade, industry and education, and, finally, the extreme difficulty in their receiving accurate news about what is taking place beyond the narrow confines of the village – constitute sufficiently strong obstacles to the emergence amongst them of a fully conscious movement to overthrow tsarist despotism and establish a better order in Russia.
But whilst our peasantry cannot, of its own accord, produce a united force of conscious fighters for its interests, it nevertheless, could become a significant revolutionary force under the energetic influence of that section of the exploited classes which is placed in more favourable conditions for developing within itself the capacity and ability to struggle against the existing order. We are speaking of the working class in industrial and commercial centres.
Admittedly, this class is still too small in our country, compared with the population as a whole, for it to be able, on its own, to acquire in the coming years the sort of strength possessed, for example, by the workers of England or even of Germany and France. However, life in Russia’s densely populated cities provides it with the opportunity to develop within itself the qualities necessary to become the conscious leader of the working masses of Russia in their struggle for their freedom and well-being. The concentration of workers from different parts of Russia in large numbers in a few locations, in factories and workshops, enables them to learn from one another about the lives of people throughout the empire and facilitates their ability to reach mutual agreement regarding the common needs of the entire working class and the methods of struggle to satisfy those needs. Close contact (compared with rural dwellers) with the higher authorities and with educated people, and finally, greater ease of access to newspapers and books – all this gives urban workers the opportunity to arrive at a correct understanding of the nature of our government, of the systems prevailing in various countries, and of the paths leading to universal equality and the true freedom of humanity.
A mere 10–12 years have passed since the best and brightest of the student youth set out ‘among the people’ to preach socialist doctrines. And despite all manner of government persecution, and despite even the fact that the propagandists themselves regarded their work amongst urban workers as very insignificant compared with revolutionary activity in peasant circles, and therefore did not treat it with the seriousness it deserved, despite all this, our working class has already managed, in this short space of time, to demonstrate both its receptiveness to the ideas of socialism and its ability to fight for them.
In the early 1870s, there was only one social stratum in our country – the ‘intelligentsia’, consisting of more or less educated people from the ranks of the propertied classes. ‘The people’ and ‘the workers’ were then contrasted with it as a solid mass of ignorant and undeveloped people. Who would deny that we now have a working-class intelligentsia, comprising several thousand individuals, who consciously sympathise with the aspirations of the Russian revolutionaries and take just as much interest in the most important social issues as the mass of educated representatives of the upper and middle classes? Hundreds of working-class socialists languishing in exile, in prisons and in penal servitude, dozens of courageous fighters from the working class who have appeared as defendants in various trials, and many other facts from its history over the last 10 years demonstrate what it is capable of when serious propaganda is carried out amongst its ranks. Let us recall, finally, that significant fact that, through the ‘North Russian Workers’ Union’, the working class was the first in our country to come forward – even in defiance of the so-called revolutionary intelligentsia – with demands for political freedom; it came to realise, entirely of its own accord, that no improvements in the living conditions of the lower classes were possible without their securing political rights for themselves.
These brief references to the successes of socialist propaganda amongst the workers speak quite convincingly in favour of the idea that the Russian working class possesses great potential to become the conscious representative of the interests of the entire labouring masses of Russia. However, in order for it to assume such a role in Russian life in due course, revolutionaries must set about the task of propagating socialism amongst the working class and uniting it into secret organisations with clearly defined aims and means of struggle with far greater seriousness and perseverance.
This duty falls first and foremost upon the working intelligentsia, and especially upon its most developed and courageous representatives. But in order to fulfil this duty worthily, it must itself be deeply imbued with an awareness of the close connection between the conditions of the peasants’ and industrial workers’ well-being, and with an understanding of the tasks of the working class as the leader of all the toiling strata of Russia. It must itself be imbued with the idea that the serious and unremitting preparation of the working class for its great historical role constitutes one of the most essential conditions for safeguarding the working masses of Russia from ruinous errors, from deception and oppression on the part of the exploiting classes.
It is evident that the first step in preparing the workers of the industrial centres to take to the field of struggle against the enemies of the people’s welfare must consist in our working-class intelligentsia organising itself into an independent force. Instead of trailing in the wake of so-called intellectual circles, it must direct all its efforts and all its energy towards the formation of a single, independent workers’ union or workers’ party in the full sense of the word. Sincere friends of popular self-initiative from the upper and middle classes will, no doubt, be quick to support the efforts of the working-class intelligentsia along this path.
The more energetically it pursues this aim, the bolder and more tirelessly it will strive to achieve it, and the more the number of revolutionaries from what we call the intelligentsia will grow – those who will consider it an honour to be members of workers’ circles and to act on their behalf and in their name. An inevitable consequence of the activities of the working-class intelligentsia will ultimately be that all sincere and conscious socialists, whatever their rank or origin, will join a general workers’ union; in place of the present revolutionary circles, each of which acts for the people and on behalf of the people, a single socialist workers’ party will be formed, comprising, as is now the case in Germany, all genuine friends of the working classes.
From all that has been said above, the mission of the ‘Workers’ Library’ follows naturally. It boils down, chiefly, to clarifying for the working intelligentsia its tasks and the conditions under which these can best be fulfilled. To this end, it will familiarise Russian workers with:
Editors: P. Axelrod, G. Plekhanov.
Geneva, 15 September 1884.
Last updated on 11 October 2026