The Divine Comedy translated by Minaev. Whose translation of the Divine Comedy into Russian is considered canonical? Dante Alighieri Divine Comedy Hell

The work of V.I. Lenin "What to do. Sore Problems of Our Movement” should be studied very carefully by representatives of modern leftist parties. What is this job? At the end of 1901 and the beginning of 1902, Lenin wrote a series of articles with the general title "What to do". The articles are structured in the form of a polemic with a group of "economists", and the topic of the polemic is a dispute about how to develop the social democratic movement in Russia. Lenin analyzes how the Social Democrats acted earlier, shows what difficulties the Social Democrats face in Russia. But Lenin not only fixes the shortcomings in the work, he develops the strategy and tactics of the revolutionary struggle at a new stage. Lenin's articles became for the Bolsheviks a guide to action for years to come.

Why do Lenin's articles remain relevant for today's left-wing parties? Is it because the experience of Bolshevik party building can be transferred one to one? No I do not think so. Now the historical situation is different, it requires a separate reflection. The goals of the communists of the 21st century have not changed, but the strategy and tactics of the communists must correspond to the challenges of their century. An attempt to mindlessly copy someone else's experience is a deliberately dead end path (and there is no such copying, in fact, even among those who constantly talk about it).

Then what is the relevance of Lenin's articles for us? I believe that in the example of Chto Delat we see a brilliant example of how Lenin approached the solution of questions about party building. A systematic approach, clarity of thought - that's what you need to learn from Vladimir Ilyich. Few can compare with Lenin in this.

Lenin comprehended and solved the problems of the party. And if we take, for example, the leadership of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, it is immediately clear that neither understanding of the problems of the left movement nor the solution of these problems can be expected from this party. Because the Communist Party of the Russian Federation is not a party of struggle for a communist project. For many years it has been marking time and slowly degrading.

However, the Communist Party is a separate issue, but I wanted to talk about something else. I want to devote two or three articles to a short analysis of the “What to do” cycle.

In order to determine the strategy and tactics of the communists at a new historical stage, it was necessary to answer several questions:

1. What are we looking for? [goal of political struggle]
2. How to achieve the goal? [means of political struggle]
3. What should be the political subject (party) to achieve the set goals? [subject that leads the fight]

Lenin gives a detailed answer on each point.

1. What are we looking for?
The Social Democrats proceeded from the thesis that the socialist revolution should be carried out by the proletariat opposed to the bourgeoisie. Therefore, the revolutionaries sought to build relationships with representatives of the working class. However, if the revolutionaries go to the workers, then they need to understand what the goal is: what they are trying to achieve from.

In answering this question, Lenin sets the following task for the Social Democrats:
"to develop the political consciousness of the workers to the stage of social-democratic political consciousness."

Lenin sets the task for the RSDLP - to develop the political consciousness of the workers, because this work will transform the unorganized workers ("class in itself" in Marx's terms) into a revolutionary class ("class for itself"). Lenin does not believe that political consciousness will develop by itself, as soon as the workers start fighting for their economic rights (as the "economists" claimed).

In the articles What Is to Be Done, Lenin criticized the "economists" for calling for work with the workers to confine themselves mainly to questions of an economic nature - the struggle for better working conditions, and so on.

IN AND. Lenin:
“The economic struggle only 'leads' the workers to questions about the attitude of the government towards the working class, and therefore, no matter how much we work on the task of 'giving the economic struggle itself a political character', we will never be able to develop the political consciousness of the workers (to the level of social-democratic political consciousness) within the framework of this task, because this very framework is narrow...

Class political consciousness can only be brought to the worker from outside, that is, from outside the economic struggle, from outside the sphere of relations between workers and employers. The area from which this knowledge can only be drawn is the area of ​​relations of all classes and strata to the state and government, the area of ​​relations between all classes.

But this is a very important idea. In essence, Lenin is saying that the Social Democrats should educate the workers about things that concern far more than just their personal economic interests. Workers need to be given a holistic knowledge of how society works. Only in this case will they develop class consciousness, without which no socialist revolution will be possible. About how Lenin proposes to solve the problem - I will write in the next article.

To be continued...

Foreword

(VII) To the sixth volume Complete collection works of V.I. Lenin includes the book “What to do? Urgent Questions of Our Movement” (autumn 1901 – February 1902) and works written in January – August 1902.

In Russia at that time there was a further deepening and aggravation of the revolutionary crisis; became more and more widespread revolutionary movement against the autocratic landlord system. Demonstrations and strikes of workers in St. Petersburg, Yekaterinoslav, Rostov-on-Don, Batum in February - March 1902, May Day demonstrations in Saratov, Vilna, Baku, Nizhny Novgorod and other cities were clear evidence of the growing activity and political maturity of the working class - the vanguard of the popular struggle against the tsarist autocracy. The peasants of Kharkov, Poltava, Saratov provinces rose up in revolt against the landowners; "Agrarian riots" also covered many other areas, the performances of the peasants of Guria (Kutais province) were distinguished by special persistence and organization. "The peasants decided - and they decided quite rightly - that it is better to die in the struggle against the oppressors than to die without a struggle of starvation" (V.I. Lenin. Works, 4th ed., volume 6, p. 385).

In this environment, exclusively great importance acquired the struggle of Lenin's Iskra against (VIII) "economism", which was the main brake on the workers' and social democratic movement in Russia, for the ideological and organizational rallying of the revolutionary Marxist elements of Russian social democracy, for the creation of a party of a new type, irreconcilable to opportunism, free from circleism and factionalism, the party - the political leader of the working class, the organizer and leader of the revolutionary struggle against autocracy and capitalism.

An outstanding role in the struggle for the Marxist Labor Party was played by V.I. Lenin "What to do?". In it, Lenin substantiated and developed in relation to the new historical setting the ideas of K. Marx and F. Engels about the party as a revolutionary, leading and organizing force of the labor movement, developed the foundations of the doctrine of a new type of party, the party of the proletarian revolution. In this remarkable work of revolutionary Marxism, the Russian Social Democrats found answers to questions that worried them: about the relationship between the conscious and spontaneous elements of the labor movement, about the party as the political leader of the proletariat, about the role of Russian Social Democracy in the impending bourgeois-democratic revolution, about organizational forms, ways and methods of creating a militant revolutionary proletarian party.

Book "What to do?" completed the ideological defeat of "economism", which Lenin considered as a kind of international opportunism (Bernsteinianism) on Russian soil. Lenin exposed the roots of opportunism in the ranks of the Social Democracy: the influence of the bourgeoisie and bourgeois ideology on the working class, admiration for the spontaneity of the labor movement, belittling the role of socialist consciousness in the labor movement. He wrote that the opportunist trend in international social democracy that had taken shape in late XIX- at the beginning of the 20th century and which came out with an attempt to revise Marxism under the banner of "freedom of criticism", entirely borrowed its "theories" from bourgeois literature, that the notorious "freedom of criticism" is (IX) nothing but "freedom to transform social democracy into democratic reform party, freedom to introduce bourgeois ideas and bourgeois elements into socialism” (this volume, p. 9).

Lenin showed that between the socialist ideology of the proletariat and the bourgeois ideology there is a continuous and irreconcilable struggle: “... The question is the only way: bourgeois or socialist ideology. There is no middle... Therefore any belittling of socialist ideology, any suspension from it means thereby the strengthening of bourgeois ideology” (pp. 39-40). Socialist consciousness, he explained, does not arise from a spontaneous working-class movement, it is introduced into the working-class movement by a revolutionary Marxist party. And the most important task of the proletarian party is the struggle for the purity of the socialist ideology, against bourgeois influence on the working class, against the opportunists, the conductors and bearers of bourgeois ideology in the labor movement.

Lenin revealed greatest value theories of scientific socialism for the labor movement, for all the activities of the revolutionary Marxist party of the working class: "... The role of an advanced fighter can only be performed by a party led by an advanced theory"(page 25). Lenin pointed out that the importance of advanced theory is especially great for Russian Social Democracy, by virtue of historical features its development and the revolutionary tasks facing it.

In the book What Is to Be Done?, as in other Leninist works of the Iskra period, serious attention is paid to substantiating the tactics of the proletariat of Russia and its party. The working class, wrote Lenin, must and can lead the people's democratic movement against the autocratic-landowner system, become the vanguard of all revolutionary and opposition forces in Russian society. Therefore, the organization of a comprehensive political denunciation of the autocracy was the most important task of the Russian Social Democracy, one of the indispensable conditions for the political education of the proletariat. This was one of the "hot (X) issues" of the social democratic movement in Russia. The Economists, while preaching profoundly erroneous and harmful views on the class struggle of the proletariat, limited it to the area of ​​economic, professional struggle. Such a policy, the policy of trade unionism, inevitably led the working-class movement into submission to bourgeois ideology and bourgeois politics. In contrast to this opportunist line, Lenin put forward and substantiated the most important proposition of Marxism-Leninism about the paramount importance of political struggle in the development of society, in the proletarian struggle for socialism: “... The most essential, “decisive” interests of classes can be satisfied only indigenous political transformations in general; in particular, the basic economic interest of the proletariat can only be satisfied through a political revolution that replaces the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie with the dictatorship of the proletariat” (p. 46).

Great harm was done to the Social-Democratic movement in Russia by the Economists' admiration for spontaneity in the area of ​​the organizational tasks of the proletariat, their "handicraft" in questions of party building. Lenin saw the source of the primitiveness of the "economists" in the reduction of the tasks of social democracy to the level of trade unionism, in the confusion of two types of organization of the working class: trade unions for organizing the economic struggle of the workers and the political party as the highest form of class organization of the working class. Lenin considered the first and most important task of the Russian Social Democrats to be the creation of an all-Russian centralized organization of revolutionaries, i.e. a political party inextricably linked with the masses, capable of leading the revolutionary struggle of the working class. How to start creating this kind of organization, what path to choose, Lenin showed in the article “Where to start?”, Published in Iskra No. 4 in May 1901 (see Works, 5th ed., Volume 5, p. 1 - 13), and substantiated in detail in the book "What is to be done?". (XI)

III

TRADE UNIONIST AND SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC POLITICS

Let's start again with the praise of “Rab. Cause." "Revealing Literature and the Proletarian Struggle" was the title of Martynov's article in No. 10 of Rabochey Dyelo on the disagreements with Iskra. “We cannot confine ourselves to a single denunciation of the conditions that stand in the way of its (the workers' party) development. We must also respond to the immediate and current interests of the proletariat” (p. 63) - this is how he formulated the essence of these disagreements. “...“Iskra” ... is in fact an organ of the revolutionary opposition, exposing our system, and primarily the political system ... But we are working and will work for the working cause in close organic connection with the proletarian struggle” (ibid.). One cannot but be grateful to Martynov for this formulation. It acquires an outstanding general interest, because it covers, in essence, not only our disagreements with “R. deed,” but also all the disagreements in general between us and the “economists” on the question of the political struggle. We have already shown that the "Economists" do not unconditionally reject "politics", but only continually stray from the Social-Democratic to the trade unionist conception of politics. Martynov goes astray in exactly the same way, and we therefore agree to take him for ~ sample economic misconceptions on this issue. For such a choice - we will try to show this - neither the authors of the “Separate Appendix to the “Rab. Thoughts,” nor the authors of the proclamation of the Self-Liberation Group, nor the authors of the “economic” letter in No. 12 of Iskra.

a) POLITICAL CAMPAIGN AND ITS NARROWING BY ECONOMISTS

Everyone knows that the wide dissemination and consolidation of the economic struggle of the Russian workers went hand in hand with the creation of a "literature" of economic (factory and professional) denunciations. The main content of the "leaflets" were denunciations of factory practices, and among the workers a real passion for denunciations soon flared up. As soon as the workers saw that the Social-Democratic circles were willing and able to deliver to them a new kind of leaflet telling the whole truth about their miserable life, their exorbitant hard work and their lack of rights, they began, one might say, to bombard them with correspondence from factories and factories. This "accusatory literature" produced a tremendous sensation not only in the factory whose orders this leaflet scourged, but also in all factories where anything was heard about the exposed facts. And since the needs and misfortunes of workers in different institutions and different professions have much in common, the “truth about working life” delighted everyone. Among the most backward workers a real passion for "printing" has developed - a noble passion for this rudimentary form of warfare with the entire modern social order built on plunder and oppression. And the “leaflets” in the vast majority of cases were really a declaration of war, because the exposure had a terribly exciting effect, aroused on the part of the workers a general demand to eliminate the most flagrant outrages and a readiness to support these demands with strikes. In the end, the manufacturers themselves had to recognize the significance of these leaflets as a declaration of war to such an extent that very often they did not want to wait for the war itself. Reproofs, as always, became strong by the mere fact of their appearance, acquired the meaning of powerful moral pressure. It happened more than once that one appearance of a leaf was enough to satisfy all or part of the requirements. In a word, economic (factory) denunciations were and still are an important lever of the economic struggle. And this significance will remain with them as long as capitalism exists, which gives rise to the necessary self-defense of the workers. In the most advanced European countries one can observe even now how the denunciation of the outrages of some provincial "industry" or some forgotten branch of domestic work serves as the starting point for the awakening of class consciousness, for the beginning of the professional struggle and the spread of socialism. The overwhelming majority of Russian Social-Democrats of recent times have been almost entirely absorbed in this work of organizing factory denunciations. Suffice it to recall “Rab. Thought” to see to what extent this absorption reached, how it was forgotten that by her own this, in essence, is not yet Social-Democratic, but only trade-unionist activity. The denunciations captured, in essence, only the relations of workers this profession to their owners and achieved only that the sellers of labor power learned to sell this “commodity” more profitably and fight the buyer on the basis of a purely commercial transaction. These denunciations could become (provided that they were used in a certain way by the organization of revolutionaries) the beginning and integral part of Social Democratic activity, but they could also (and, provided they bowed to spontaneity, should) lead to “only professional” struggle and to non-Social-Democratic Social Democracy leads the struggle of the working class not only for v favorable conditions for the sale of labor power, but also for the destruction of the social system that forces the poor to sell themselves to the rich. Social Democracy represents the working class not in its relation to this particular group of entrepreneurs, but in its relation to all classes of modern society, to the state as an organized political force. It is clear from this that the Social-Democrats not only cannot confine themselves to the economic struggle, but also cannot allow the organization of economic denunciations to be their predominant activity. We must actively take up the political education of the working class, the development of its political consciousness. With this Now, after the first onslaught on "Economism" by Zarya and Iskra, "everyone agrees" (although some only in words, as we shall see in a moment). same should be political education? Is it possible to confine ourselves to propagating the idea of ​​the hostility of the working class to the autocracy? Of course not. Not enough explain political oppression of the workers (as it was not enough explain them the opposite of their interests to the interests of the owners). It is necessary to agitate about each specific manifestation of this oppression (as we began to agitate about specific manifestations of economic oppression). And since This oppression falls on the most diverse classes of society, as it manifests itself in the most diverse areas of life and activity, both professional, and general civil, and personal, and family, and religious, and scientific, and so on. etc., is it not obvious that we will not fulfill our task develop the political consciousness of the workers if we do not let's take over organization comprehensive political denunciation autocracy? After all, in order to agitate about concrete manifestations of oppression, it is necessary to denounce these manifestations (as it was necessary to denounce factory abuses in order to conduct economic agitation)? It would seem that this is clear? But it is here that it turns out that with the necessity comprehensively“everyone” agrees to develop political consciousness only in words. This is where it turns out that “Rab. Cause”, for example, not only did not take upon itself the task of organizing (or laying the foundation for organizing) all-round political denunciations, but became drag back and Iskra, which took on this task. Listen: “The political struggle of the working class is only” (precisely not only) “the most developed, broadest and real form of economic struggle” (the program of Rabochaya Dyelo, R. D. No. 1, p. 3). “Now the Social-Democrats face the task of how to give the economic struggle itself, as far as possible, a political character” (Martynov, No. 10, p. 42). “The economic struggle is the most widely applicable means for drawing the masses into an active political struggle” (Resolution of the Congress of the Union and “amendments”: “Two Congresses”, pp. 11 and 17). All these provisions permeate “Rab. The Deed,” as the reader sees it, from its very beginning to the last “editorial instructions,” and all of them obviously express one view of political agitation and struggle. Take a closer look at this view from the point of view of the opinion prevailing among all “economists” that political agitation should follow for economic. Is it true that the economic struggle is in general "the most widely applicable means" for drawing the masses into the political struggle? Completely wrong. No less “widely applicable” means of such “involvement” are all and sundry manifestations of police oppression and autocratic excesses, and by no means only such manifestations as are connected with the economic struggle. Zemstvo bosses and corporal punishment of peasants, bribery of officials and police treatment of the city "common people", the fight against the starving and the persecution of the people's desire for light and knowledge, the extortion of taxes and the persecution of sectarians, the drill of soldiers and the soldier's treatment of students and the liberal intelligentsia - why is everything these and thousands of other similar manifestations of oppression, not directly connected with the "economic" struggle, are in general less“widely applicable” means and reasons for political agitation, for drawing the masses into the political struggle? Quite the opposite: in the total sum of those life cases when a worker suffers (for himself or for people close to him) from lack of rights, arbitrariness and violence, only a small minority, undoubtedly, are cases of police oppression precisely in the professional struggle. Why in advance narrow scope of political agitation, declaring "the most widely applicable" only one of the means, along with which for the Social-Democrat must be others, generally speaking, no less "widely applicable"? In times long, long past (a year ago!..) Delo” wrote: “The immediate political demands become available to the masses after one or, at the most, several strikes,” “as soon as the government has set the police and gendarmerie in motion” (No. 7, p. 15, August 1900). This opportunistic theory of stages has now been rejected by the Union, which makes a concession to us, declaring: “There is no need from the very beginning to conduct political agitation solely on economic grounds” (“Two Congresses”, p. 11). The future historian of Russian Social-Democracy will see better from this denial by the Soyuz of some of its old delusions than from any lengthy reasoning to what a humiliation our “Economists” reduced socialism! But what naivete was it on the part of the Union to imagine that, at the price of this rejection of one form of narrowing of policy, we might be induced to agree to another form of narrowing! Would it not be more logical to say here that the economic struggle should be waged as widely as possible, that it should always be used for political agitation, but “there is no need” to consider the economic struggle most widely applicable means for drawing the masses into an active political struggle? The Union attaches importance to the fact that it replaced the expression "the best means" with the expression "the most widely applicable means" in the corresponding resolution of the 4th Congress of the Jewish Workers' Union (Bund) in 8 . We really would find it difficult to say which of these resolutions is better: in our opinion, both are worse. Here both the Union and the Bund stray (partly, perhaps even unconsciously, under the influence of tradition) into an economic, trade unionist interpretation of politics. The matter does not, in essence, change at all whether this is done by the word: "best" or by the word: "most widely applicable." If the Union were to say that "political agitation on an economic basis" is the most widely used (and not "applicable") means, then it would be right in relation to a certain period in the development of our Social-Democratic movement. He would be right about "Economists" in relation to many practitioners (if not most of them) of 1898-1901, for these “economists” practitioners, indeed, political agitation applied(because they used it at all!) almost exclusively on economic grounds. Such political agitation was recognized and even recommended, as we have seen, and Rab. Thought” and “Self-Liberation Group”! "Slave. case” should have strongly condemn that the useful work of economic agitation was accompanied by a harmful narrowing of the political changeable (“economists”) the most widely used tool applicable/ It is not surprising that when we call these people "economists", they have no choice but to scold us to the fullest and "hoaxers", and "disorganizers", and "papal nuncios", and "slanderers", how to cry in front of everyone and every one that they have been mortally offended, how to say almost with oaths: “No Social-Democratic organization is at present guilty of ‘economism’”. Oh, these slanderers, evil politicians! Didn’t they deliberately invent all the “economism” in order to inflict on people, because of their misanthropy alone, blood grievances? What specific, real makes sense, in the mouth of Martynov, the setting of the task by the Social Democracy: “to give the economic struggle itself a political character”? The economic struggle is a collective struggle between workers and employers for favorable conditions. labor sales, to improve the working and living conditions of workers. This struggle is of necessity a professional struggle, because working conditions are extremely diverse in different professions, and, next, the struggle for improvement these conditions cannot be kept by professions ( trade unions in the West, professional temporary associations and leaflets in Russia, etc.). To give “the economic struggle itself a political character” means, therefore, to achieve the same professional demands, the same professional improvement in working conditions through “legislative and administrative measures” (as Martynov puts it on the next page 43 of his article). This is precisely what all the trade unions of the workers are doing and have always done. Take a look at the work of the well-founded scholars (and "well-founded" opportunists) of the Webbs, and you will see that the British workers' unions have long ago realized and are carrying out the task of "giving the economic struggle itself a political character", have long been fighting for freedom to strike, for the elimination of all kinds of legal obstacles to the cooperative and professional movement, for the issuance of laws in defense of women and children, for the improvement of working conditions through sanitary and factory legislation, etc. Thus, behind the magnificent phrase: “to give most economic struggle of a political nature”, which sounds “terribly” profound and revolutionary, hides, in essence, the traditional desire belittle social-democratic politics to trade-unionist politics! Under the guise of correcting the one-sidedness of the Iskra, which puts - you see - "the revolutionization of dogma above the revolutionization of life", we are presented as something new struggle for economic reform. In fact, there is absolutely nothing else but the struggle for economic reforms contained in the phrase: "to give the economic struggle itself a political character." And Martynov himself could have come up with this simple conclusion, if he had carefully delved into the meaning of his own words. “Our party,” he says, bringing forward its heaviest weapon against Iskra, “could and should put concrete demands on the government for legislative and administrative measures against economic exploitation, against unemployment, against famine, etc.” (pp. 42-43 in No. 10 of R.D.). Specific demands of measures - isn't this a demand for social reforms? And we ask again impartial readers whether we are slandering the Rabocheedelentsy (forgive me this clumsy current word!), Calling them hidden Bernsteinians when they put forward as their own disagreement with Iskra, the thesis about the necessity of fighting for economic reforms? But it uses "economic" agitation to present to the government not only demands for all sorts of measures, but also (and above all) demands to cease being an autocratic government. In addition, she considers it her duty to present this demand to the Government Not only on the basis of the economic struggle, but also on the basis of all manifestations of social and political life in general. In a word, it subordinates the struggle for reforms, as part of the whole, to the revolutionary struggle for freedom and for socialism. Martynov, on the other hand, resurrects the theory of stages in a different form, trying to prescribe without fail an economic, so to speak, path for the development of the political struggle. Coming out at a moment of revolutionary upsurge with the supposedly special “task” of fighting for reforms, he thereby drags the party back and plays into the hands of both “economic” and liberal opportunism. Further. Shamefully hiding the struggle for reforms under a pompous thesis: “to give the economic struggle itself a political character”, Martynov presented as something special only economic(and even only factory ones) reforms. Why he did this, we do not know. Perhaps through an oversight? But if he had in mind not only the "factory" reforms, then his entire thesis, which we have just quoted, would lose all meaning. Perhaps because he considers possible and probable "concessions" on the part of the government only in the economic sphere? If so, then this is a strange delusion: concessions are possible and are also possible in the field of legislation on the rod, on passports, on ransom payments, on sectarianism, on censorship, and so on. and so on. “Economic” concessions (or false concessions) are, of course, the cheapest and most profitable for the government, because it hopes to inspire confidence in itself among the working masses. But it is precisely for this reason that we Social-Democrats do not must in no way and absolutely nothing to give place to the opinion (or misunderstanding) that economic reforms are dearer to us, that we consider them especially important, etc. - would not be an empty phrase, because, promising certain tangible results, they could be actively supported by the working masses”... We are not “economists”, oh no! We only grovel just as slavishly before the “tangibility” of concrete results, as do the Bernsteins, Prokopovichi, Struve, R. M. and tutti quanti! We only make it clear (together with Nartsis Tuporylov) that everything that does not “promise tangible results” is “an empty phrase”! We only express ourselves as if the working masses are incapable (and have not already shown, despite those who blame their philistinism, their ability) to actively support any protest against autocracy, even absolutely no tangible results promising her! Take, for example, the same examples cited by Martynov himself about "measures" against unemployment and hunger. While “Working. Delo” is engaged, judging by its promise, in the development and development of “concrete (in the form of bills?) requirements for legislative and administrative measures”, “promising tangible results”, - at that time “Iskra”, “invariably putting the revolutionization of dogma above the revolutionization of life” , tried to explain the inextricable link between unemployment and the entire capitalist system, warned that “famine was coming”, denounced the police “fight against the starving” and the outrageous “temporary hard labor rules”, at that time Zarya published a separate print, as an agitational pamphlet, part dedicated to hunger "Internal Review". But, my God, how “one-sided” were the incorrigibly narrow orthodoxies, deaf to the dictates of “life itself” dogmatists! Not one of their articles was - oh horror! - for one, well, you can imagine: absolutely not a single "concrete demand" "promising tangible results"! Poor dogmatists! To give them to science by Krichevsky and Martynov in order to convince them that tactics are a process of growth, growing, etc., and that most give a political character to the economic struggle! “The economic struggle of the workers against the employers and the government (“economic the struggle against the government”!!), besides its immediate revolutionary significance, has the other significance that it constantly prompts the workers to the question of their political lack of rights” (Martynov, p. 44). We wrote out this quotation not to repeat for the hundredth or thousandth time what has already been said above, but in order to thank Martynov in particular for this new and excellent formulation: "The economic struggle of the workers against the employers and against the government." How lovely! With what inimitable talent, with what masterful elimination of all particular disagreements and differences in shades between "economists" is expressed here in a short and clear position the whole point"Economism", beginning with the call on the workers to "a political struggle which they are waging in the interests of the common people, having in mind the improvement of the condition of all the workers," continuing with the theory of stages and ending with the resolution of the congress on "the broadest applicability," and so on. The “economic struggle against the government” is precisely trade unionist politics, from which Social-Democratic politics is still very, very far away.

b) THE STORY ABOUT HOW MARTYNOV DEEPENED PLEKHANOV

c) POLITICAL RESPONSES And “EDUCATION OF REVOLUTIONARY ACTIVITY”

In putting forward his “theory” of “increasing the activity of the working masses” against Iskra, Martynov actually revealed a desire belittle this activity, because he declared the preferred, especially important, "most widely applicable" means of awakening and the field of this activity the same economic struggle, before which all "economists" grovelled. That is why this delusion is characteristic, because it is by no means peculiar to Martynov alone. In fact, “increasing the activity of the working masses” can be achieved only provided that we we will not be limited"political agitation on economic grounds." And one of the main conditions for the necessary expansion of political agitation is the organization comprehensive political denunciations. Otherwise, how on these denunciations can not educate the political consciousness and revolutionary activity of the masses. Therefore, activity of this kind constitutes one of the most important functions of all international Social Democracy, for even political freedom does not in the least eliminate, but only slightly shifts the sphere of direction of these denunciations. For example, the German party especially strengthens its position and expands its influence precisely because of the unflagging energy of its political denunciation campaign. The consciousness of the working class cannot be a true political consciousness if the workers are not trained to respond to All And all kinds cases of arbitrariness and oppression, violence and abuse, to which classes neither were these cases; - and, moreover, to respond precisely from the Social-Democratic point of view, and not from any other point of view. The consciousness of the working masses cannot be a true class consciousness if the workers do not learn to observe concrete and, moreover, topical (topical) political facts and events. every from other social classes all manifestations of the mental, moral and political life of these classes; - will not learn to put into practice materialistic analysis and materialistic evaluation all aspects of activity and life all classes, strata and groups of the population. Anyone who pays attention, observation and consciousness of the working class exclusively, or even predominantly to it, is not a Social Democrat, for the self-knowledge of the working class is inextricably linked with the complete distinctness of not only theoretical ... or rather, even to say: not so much theoretical as on experience of political life developed ideas about the relationship all classes of modern society. That is why the preaching of our “economists” is so deeply harmful and so deeply reactionary in its practical significance, that the economic struggle is the most widely applicable means of drawing the masses into the political movement. In order to become a Social-Democrat, a worker must have a clear idea of ​​the economic nature and socio-political image of the landowner and the priest, the dignitary and the peasant, the student and the tramp, know their strengths and weaknesses, be able to make sense of those current phrases and all sorts of sophisms with which covers each class and each stratum has its own egoistic inclinations and its own real “inside”, to be able to understand which institutions and laws reflect and how exactly they reflect certain interests. And this “clear idea” cannot be gleaned from any book: it can only be given by vivid pictures and, in hot pursuit, compiled denunciations of what is happening at the moment around us, of which everyone and everyone is talking about in their own way, or at least whispered, that expressed in such and such events, in such and such figures, in such and such judicial verdicts, and so on, and so on, and so on. These comprehensive political denunciations are necessary and basic a condition for educating the revolutionary activity of the masses. Why does the Russian worker still show little revolutionary activity over the brutal treatment of the people by the police, over the persecution of sectarians, the beating of the peasants, over the outrages of censorship, the torture of soldiers, the persecution of the most innocent cultural undertakings, etc.? Is it not because the “economic struggle” does not “push” him into this, because this “promises” little “tangible results” for him, gives him little “positive”? No, there is such an opinion, we repeat, nothing but an attempt to shift from a sick head to a healthy one, to dump one's own philistinism (Bernsteinism, too) onto the working masses. We must blame ourselves, our backwardness from the movement of the masses, that we have not yet been able to organize sufficiently broad, clear, and swift denunciations of all these infamies. If we do this (and we must do it and we can do it) - and the grayest worker will understand or feel that a student and a sectarian, a muzhik and a writer, are cursing and outrageous with that very dark force that oppresses and crushes him at every step of his life, and, having felt this, he will want, irresistibly want to respond himself, he will be able then - today to arrange a cat's a concert for the censors, tomorrow to demonstrate in front of the house of the governor who had pacified the peasant revolt, the day after tomorrow to give a lesson to those gendarmes in the cassock who are doing the work of the Holy Inquisition, etc. We have still done very little, almost nothing to ensure that throw comprehensive and fresh denunciations to the working masses. Many of us are not yet aware of this responsibilities, but they spontaneously drag themselves behind the “gray ongoing struggle” within the narrow confines of factory life. In this state of affairs, to say: “Iskra has a tendency to belittle the importance of the progressive course of the current gray struggle in comparison with the propaganda of brilliant and complete ideas” (Martynov, p. 61) means to drag the party back, means to defend and glorify our unpreparedness, backwardness. As for calling the masses to action, this will come out of itself, as soon as there is energetic political agitation, lively and vivid denunciations. To catch someone at the scene of a crime and brand them in front of everyone and everywhere at once - this works in itself better than any “call”, it often works in such a way that later it will not be possible to determine who actually “called” the crowd and who actually put forward that or some other plan of demonstration, etc. It is possible to call - not in general, but in the specific sense of the word - only at the scene of action, only the one who himself is going now can call. And our business, the business of Social-Democratic publicists, is to deepen, broaden and intensify political denunciations and political agitation. Speaking of “calls”. The only organ which before spring events urged workers to actively intervene in such, not promising absolutely no tangible results to the worker, the question is how to return students to soldiers, - was the Iskra. Immediately after the publication of the order on January 11 on the “transfer of 183 students into soldiers,” Iskra published an article about this (No. 2, February) and, before any start of demonstrations, directly called"worker to go to the aid of the student", called "the people" to openly answer the government to its audacious challenge. We ask everyone and everyone: how and with what to explain that outstanding circumstance that, speaking so much about “calls”, singling out “calls” even in special kind activities, Martynov did not mention a word about this call? And isn’t it philistinism after this that Martynov’s announcement of Iskra one-sided because it does not “call” enough to fight for demands that “promise tangible results”? Our “economists,” including Rabocheye Dyelo, were successful by imitating undeveloped workers. But the Social-Democratic worker, the revolutionary worker (and the number of such workers is constantly growing) will indignantly reject all these arguments about the struggle for demands “promising tangible results”, etc., for he will understand that these are only versions of the old song about a penny per ruble. Such a worker will tell his advisers from R. Thoughts” and from “Rab. affairs”: in vain you fuss, gentlemen, interfering too diligently in the business with which we manage ourselves, and shirking from the performance of your real duties. It is not at all clever when you say that the task of the Social-Democrats is to give the economic struggle itself a political character; this is only the beginning, and this is not the main task of the Social Democrats, for throughout the world, including in Russia the police themselves often begin to attach economic struggle is political in nature, the workers themselves learn to understand who the government stands for. After all, that “economic struggle of the workers against the bosses and the government”, with which you are rushing about, as if with the America you discovered, is being waged in the mass of Russian backwaters by the workers themselves, who have heard of strikes, but have hardly heard anything about socialism. After all, that “activity” of us workers, which you all want to support by putting forward concrete demands promising tangible results, is already in us, and we ourselves, in our everyday, professional, petty work, put forward these concrete demands often without any help from intellectuals. But we don't have enough such activity; we are not children to be fed with the gruel of one "economic" policy; we want to know everything that others know, we want to get to know everyone aspects of political life and actively participate in any and every political event. For this, it is necessary that the intellectuals repeat less what we ourselves know, and gave more to us what we do not yet know, what we ourselves can never learn from our factory and “economic” experience, namely: political knowledge. This knowledge can be acquired by you, intellectuals, and you obliged deliver it to us a hundred and a thousand times more than you have done so far, and, moreover, deliver it not only in the form of arguments, pamphlets and articles (which are often - pardon the frankness! - boring), but certainly in the form of live denunciation what exactly our government and our commanding classes are doing at this time in all spheres of life. Fulfill this duty of yours more diligently, and talk less about "increasing the activity of the working masses." We have much more activity than you think, and we are able to support even demands with an open, street struggle that do not promise any “tangible results”! And it’s not for you to “increase” our activity, because You just don't have enough activity. Bow less to spontaneity and think more about promotion with howl activities gentlemen!

d) WHAT DOES ECONOMISM AND TERRORISM HAVE IN COMMON?

Above, in a footnote, we compared an “economist” and a non-Social-Democrat-terrorist who happened to be in solidarity. But, generally speaking, between the two there is not an accidental, but a necessary internal connection, about which we shall have to speak below and which must be touched upon precisely on the question of instilling revolutionary activity. "Economists" and modern terrorists have one common root: this is exactly what admiration for spontaneity, oh which we spoke of in the previous chapter as a general phenomenon, and which we now consider in its influence on the field of political activity and political struggle. At first glance, our statement may seem like a paradox: to such an extent, apparently, is the difference between people who emphasize the “gray ongoing struggle” and people who call for the most selfless struggle of individuals. But this is not a paradox. “Economists” and terrorists bow before different poles of the spontaneous current: “economists” - before the spontaneity of the “purely working-class movement”, terrorists - before the spontaneity of the most ardent indignation of intellectuals who are unable or unable to link revolutionary work into one whole with the working-class movement. Whoever has lost faith or never believed in this possibility, it is really difficult for him to find another way out for his indignant! feeling and one's own revolutionary energy, except for terror." start of implementation of the famous Credo program: the workers are waging their own “economic struggle against the employers and the government” (may the author of the Credo forgive us for expressing his thought in Martynian words! We find that we have the right to do this, for the Credo also says about how the workers in the economic struggle "run into the political regime") - and the intellectuals wage their own political struggle, naturally, with the help of terror! It's perfectly logical and inevitable conclusion, on which it is impossible not to insist, at least those who starts this program, themselves and did not realize its inevitability. Political activity has its own logic, independent of the minds of those who, in the best of intentions, call either for terror or for giving a political character to the economic struggle itself. Hell is paved with good intentions, and in this case, good intentions still do not save from elemental attraction along the “line of least resistance”, along the line purely bourgeois programs "Credo". Nor is it accidental, after all, that many Russian liberals - both open liberals and those wearing a Marxist mask - sympathize with terror with all their hearts and are trying to support the upsurge of terrorist sentiment at the moment. task is precisely to provide all-round assistance to the working-class movement, but with the inclusion of into the program terror and emancipated, so to speak, from the Social Democracy - this fact gave more and more confirmation of the remarkable perspicacity of P. B. Axelrod, who literally predicted these results of social democratic vacillation back at the end of 1897(“On the Question of Modern Tasks and Tactics”) and sketched out his famous “two perspectives”. All subsequent disputes and disagreements between the Russian Social-Democrats are, like a plant in a seed, in these two perspectives. From this point of view, it also becomes clear that “Rab. Cause, which could not resist the spontaneity of Economism, could not resist the spontaneity of terrorism either. It is very interesting to note here that special argument in defense of terror, which was put forward by Svoboda. She “completely denies” the intimidating role of terror (The Revival of Revolutionism, p. 64), but on the other hand puts forward its “excitative (exciting) meaning.” This is characteristic, firstly, as one of the stages of the decay and decline of that traditional (pre-Social-Democratic) circle of ideas that forced us to hold on to terror. means, in essence, to completely condemn terror as a system of struggle, as a sphere of activity sanctified by the program. Secondly, this is even more characteristic, as an example of a lack of understanding of our urgent tasks in the matter of "educating the revolutionary activity of the masses." Svoboda propagandizes terror as a means of "stirring up" the working-class movement, of giving it a "strong impetus." It is difficult to imagine an argument that would more clearly refute itself! Really, one asks, in Russian life there are still few such outrages that it is necessary to invent special “exciting” means? And, on the other hand, if someone is not excited and is not excited even by Russian arbitrariness, then is it not obvious that he will also look at the single combat of the government with a handful of terrorists “picking his nose”? The fact of the matter is that the working masses are very excited by the vileness of Russian life, but we do not know how to collect, so to speak, and concentrate all those drops and trickles of popular excitement that seep out of Russian life in an immeasurably greater amount than we all imagine. imagine and think, but which must be precisely combined into one giant stream. That this is a feasible task is irrefutably proved by the enormous growth of the working-class movement and the greed of the workers for political literature, already noted above. Calls for terror, as well as calls for giving the economic struggle itself a political character, are different forms. shirking from the most urgent duty of Russian revolutionaries: to organize the conduct of all-round political agitation. "Freedom" wants replace agitation by terror, frankly admitting that “once intensified, energetic agitation among the masses begins, its excitative (exciting) role is played” (p. 68 of “Revival by Revolution.”). This just shows that both terrorists and “economists” underestimate the revolutionary activity of the masses, in spite of the clear evidence of the events of the spring, some rushing to look for artificial "activators", while others speak of "concrete demands". Both of them pay insufficient attention to the development its own activity in the matter of political agitation and organization of political denunciations. A replace this work is impossible by anything else "neither now, nor at any other time.

e) THE WORKING CLASS AS THE LEADING FIGHTER FOR DEMOCRACY

We have seen that the conduct of the most extensive political agitation, and consequently the organization of all-round political denunciations, is absolutely necessary and most urgently a necessary task of activity if it is truly Social-Democratic activity. But we have drawn this conclusion from only from the most urgent need of the working class for political knowledge and political education. However, only such a formulation of the question would be too narrow, it would ignore the general democratic tasks of every Social Democracy in general and contemporary Russian Social Democracy in particular. In order to explain this situation as concretely as possible, let us try to approach the matter with the “closest” for the “economist”, namely with practical side. “Everyone agrees” that it is necessary to develop the political consciousness of the working class. The question is How to do it and what is needed in order to do it? The economic struggle "leads" the workers only to questions about the attitude of the government towards the working class, and therefore, no matter how hard we work over the task of “giving the economic struggle itself a political character”, we we will never be able to to develop the political consciousness of the workers (to the level of social-democratic political consciousness) within the framework of this task, for these very limits are narrow. Martynov's formula is valuable to us not at all because it illustrates Martynov's ability to confuse, but because it vividly expresses the basic mistake of all "economists", namely the conviction that it is possible to develop the class political consciousness of the workers. from inside, so to speak, their economic struggle, i.e., based only (or at least mainly) on this struggle, based only (or at least mainly) on this struggle. Such a view is fundamentally erroneous, and precisely because the "economists", angry with us for the polemic against them, do not want to think carefully about the source of the differences, and it turns out that we literally do not understand each other, we speak different languages. Class political consciousness can be brought to the worker only from the outside that is, from outside the economic struggle, from outside the sphere of relations between workers and employers. The area from which this knowledge can only be drawn is the area of ​​relations all classes and strata to the state and government, the area of ​​the relationship between everyone classes. Therefore, to the question: what should be done to bring political knowledge to the workers? it is impossible to give only one answer, which in most cases is satisfied with the practitioners, not to mention the practitioners who are inclined towards "economism", namely the answer: "go to the workers." To bring workers political knowledge, social democrats must go to all classes of the population, should send out in all directions detachments of our army. We purposely choose such an angular formulation, purposely express ourselves in a simplified way - not at all out of a desire to speak paradoxes, but in order to properly “push” the “economists” to those tasks that they inexcusably neglect, to that difference between trade unionist and social democratic politics, which they do not want to understand. And so we ask the reader not to get excited, but to listen attentively to the end. Take the type of social-democratic circle that has been most widespread in recent years and examine its work. He has "connections with the workers" and satisfies himself by issuing leaflets denouncing factory abuses, government bias towards capitalists, and police brutality; at meetings with workers, the conversation usually does not, or almost does not, go beyond the bounds of the same topics; abstracts and talks on the history of the revolutionary movement, on questions of the domestic and foreign policy of our government, on questions of the economic evolution of Russia and Europe, and on the situation in modern society of one class or another, etc., are the greatest rarity; no one even thinks of systematically acquiring and expanding ties in other classes of society. In fact, in most cases, the ideal of the leader is portrayed for the members of such a circle as something much more like a secretary of a trade union than a socialist political leader. For the secretary of any, for example, English trade union always helps the workers to carry on the economic struggle, organizes factory denunciations, explains the injustice of laws and measures that restrict the freedom of strikes, the freedom to set up guard posts (to warn everyone that there is a strike in a given factory), explains the partiality of an arbitrator who belongs to the bourgeois classes of the people, etc., etc. In a word, every secretary of a trade union wages and helps to wage an "economic struggle against the employers and the government." And we cannot insist enough that it's not yet social democracy, that the ideal of a social democrat should not be a secretary of the trade union, but people's tribune, who knows how to respond to any and all manifestations of arbitrariness and oppression, wherever they occur, no matter what stratum or class they concern, who knows how to generalize all these manifestations into one picture of police violence and capitalist exploitation, who knows how to use every little thing to set forth in front of everyone their socialist convictions and their democratic demands in order to explain everyone and to each the world-historical significance of the liberation struggle of the proletariat. Compare, for example, such figures as Robert Knight (the well-known secretary and leader of the Boiler Society, one of the most powerful English trade unions) and Wilhelm Liebknecht - and try to apply to them those oppositions in which Martynov puts his disagreements with Iskra. You will see - I start leafing through Martynov's article - that R. Knight much more "called on the masses to certain specific actions" (39), and W. Liebknecht was more engaged in "revolutionary coverage of the entire present system or its partial manifestations" (38-39 ); that R. Knight “formulated the immediate demands of the proletariat and indicated the means for their implementation” (41), and W. Liebknecht, doing this, did not refuse to “simultaneously lead vigorous activity different opposition strata”, “to dictate a positive program of action for them” (41); that R. Knight tried precisely “to give the economic struggle itself, as far as possible, a political character” (42) and was perfectly able to “put concrete demands on the government promising certain tangible results” (43), while W. Liebknecht was much more engaged in “one-sided” “denunciations ” (40); that R. Knight attached more importance to the “progressive course of the current gray struggle” (61), and W. Liebknecht to “propaganda of brilliant and complete ideas” (61); that W. Liebknecht created from the newspaper he led precisely “an organ of the revolutionary opposition, exposing our order, and mainly the political order, since they clash with the interests of the most diverse sections of the population” (63), while R. Knight “worked for the working cause in close organic connection with the proletarian struggle" (63) - if we understand "close and organic connection" in the sense of that worship of spontaneity, which we studied above using the examples of Krichevsky and Martynov - and "narrowed the sphere of his influence", confident, of course, like Martynov , in that he “thus complicates the very impact” (63). In a word, you will see that de facto Martynov reduces Social Democracy to trade unionism, although he does this, of course, by no means because he does not wish the Social Democracy well, but simply because he hastened a little to deepen Plekhanov instead of in order to take the trouble to understand Plekhanov. But let us return to our presentation. We said that a Social-Democrat, if he stands for the need for the all-round development of the political consciousness of the proletariat, not only in words, must "go to all classes of the population." The questions are: how to do it? do we have the strength to do so? is there a basis for such work in all other classes? would this mean a retreat or lead to a retreat from the class point of view? Let's dwell on these questions. We must “go to all classes of the population” both as theoreticians, and as propagandists, and as agitators, and as organizers. That the theoretical work of the Social-Democrats should be directed to the study of all the peculiarities of the social and political position of individual classes, no one doubts this. But very, very little is being done in this respect, disproportionately little in comparison with the work aimed at studying the peculiarities of factory life. In committees and circles you will meet people who go deep even into a special acquaintance with some kind of iron-making production - but you will hardly find examples of members of organizations (forced, as is often the case, to move away from practical work for one reason or another) specially engaged in the collection of materials on some topical issue of our social and political life, which may give rise to Social-Democratic work in other sections of the population. Speaking of the lack of preparedness of most of today's leaders of the working-class movement, one cannot fail to mention preparation in this regard, for this is also connected with the "economic" understanding of "close organic connection with the proletarian struggle." But most importantly, of course, propaganda And agitation in all strata of the people. This task is made easier for the Western European Social-Democrat by the people's assemblies and gatherings, to which any willing, - facilitates Parliament, in which he speaks before the deputies from all classes. We have neither a parliament nor freedom to assemble, but we know how to organize meetings with workers who want to listen social democrat. We must also be able to arrange meetings with representatives of all and every class of the population that they only want to listen to. democrat. For he is not a Social-Democrat who in practice forgets that “Communists support every revolutionary movement”, which we are therefore obliged to before all the people express and emphasize general democratic goals without concealing for a moment his socialist convictions. He is not a Social Democrat who actually forgets his duty to be ahead of all in setting, exacerbating and resolving any general democratic issue. “Everyone agrees with that!” - an impatient reader interrupts us - and new instruction for the editors of “Rab. Affairs”, adopted at the last Union Congress, directly says: “The reasons for political propaganda and agitation should be all the phenomena and events of social and political life that affect the proletariat either directly as special class, either as the vanguard of all revolutionary forces in the struggle for freedom”(“Two Congresses”, p. 17, italics ours). Yes, these are very true and very good words, and we would be quite pleased if “R. Case" understoodtheir, if it did not say, along with these words, what goes against them. After all, it is not enough to call oneself a "vanguard", an advanced detachment - one must also act in such a way that All the rest of the detachments saw and were forced to admit that we were going ahead. And we ask the reader: are the representatives of the other “detachments” really such fools as to believe us at the loro about the “avant-garde”? Imagine just such a picture. A Social Democrat appears in the “detachment” of Russian educated radicals or liberal constitutionalists and says: we are the vanguard; “Now we are faced with the task of how to give, as far as possible, the economic struggle itself a political character.” Any smart radical or constitutionalist (and among Russian radicals and constitutionalists there are many smart people) will only grin when he hears such a speech, and will say (to himself, of course, because in most cases he is an experienced diplomat): “Well, this “avant-garde” is simple! He does not even understand that this is our task, the task of the advanced representatives of bourgeois democracy, to give most The economic struggle of the workers is political in nature. After all, we, like all Western European bourgeois, want to draw the workers into politics, but only precisely into trade unionist, and not into social-democratic politics. The trade unionist policy of the working class is precisely bourgeois politics working class. And the formulation of its task by this "vanguard" is precisely the formulation of the trade unionist policy! Therefore, let them even call themselves, as much as they like, Social Democrats. I'm not a child, in fact, so that I get excited because of labels! Only let them not succumb to these pernicious orthodox dogmatists, let them leave “freedom of criticism” to those who unconsciously drag Social-Democracy into the trade unionist channel!” And the slight grin of our constitutionalist will turn into Homeric laughter when he learns that the Social-Democrats who speak of the vanguard of Social Democracy at the present time of the almost complete domination of spontaneity in our movement are afraid of nothing more than “downplaying the elemental element”, they are afraid of “diminishing the importance of progressive the course of the current gray struggle compared with the propaganda of brilliant and complete ideas” and so on. and so on! The “advanced” detachment, which is afraid that consciousness will overtake spontaneity, which is afraid to put forward a bold “plan” that will force general recognition even among those who think differently! Why don't they confuse the word avant-garde with the word rear-guard? Really, think about the following reasoning of Martynov. He says on page 40 that Iskra's accusatory tactics are one-sided, that "no matter how much we sow distrust and hatred towards the government, we will not achieve our goal until we manage to develop sufficient active social energy to overthrow it." This, to put it in parentheses, is the concern we already know about increasing the activity of the masses while striving to belittle their own activity. But that's not the point now. Martynov speaks here, therefore, of revolutionary energy (“to overthrow”). And what conclusion does he come to? Since in ordinary times different social strata inevitably go astray, “in view of this, it is clear that we Social-Democrats cannot simultaneously lead the active work of various opposition strata, we cannot dictate a positive program of action for them, we cannot indicate to them what one must fight for one's own interests by means day by day... The liberal strata will themselves take care of that active struggle for their immediate interests, which will bring them face to face with our political regime” (41). Thus, having begun to talk about revolutionary energy, about an active struggle to overthrow the autocracy, Martynov immediately strayed into professional energy, into an active struggle for immediate interests! It goes without saying that we cannot lead the struggle of students, liberals, and so on. for their "immediate interests," but that was not the point, most venerable "economist"! It was about the possible and necessary participation of various social strata in the overthrow of the autocracy, and this“active activity of various opposition strata” we not only Can, but we must certainly lead if we want to be “avant-garde”. That our students, our liberals, etc., “come face to face with our political regime”, not only they themselves will take care of this, first of all and most of all the police themselves and the officials of the autocratic government themselves will take care of this. But "we", if we want to be progressive democrats, must take care that push people who are actually dissatisfied only with university or zemstvo, etc., orders, to the thought of the worthlessness of the entire political order. We must take upon themselves the task of organizing such an all-round political struggle under the leadership of our party, so that all possible assistance to this struggle and this party could be rendered and really began to be rendered by all and sundry opposition strata. We Social-Democratic practitioners must be trained into such political leaders who would be able to direct all manifestations of this all-round struggle, who would be able to “dictate a positive program of action” at the right moment to agitated students, dissatisfied Zemstvo residents, and indignant sectarians, and offended teachers of the people, and so on. ., etc. That's why completely wrong Martynov’s statement that “in relation to them we can act only in negative the role of an accuser of orders ... We can only dispel their hopes for various government commissions” (our italics). By saying this, Martynov thereby shows that he understands absolutely nothing on the question of the actual role of the revolutionary "vanguard". And if the reader takes this into account, he will understand true meaning following Martynov's concluding words: “Iskra is an organ of the revolutionary opposition that denounces our system, and primarily the political system, insofar as it clashes with the interests of the most diverse sections of the population. But we are working and will continue to work for the workers' cause in close organic connection with the proletarian struggle. Narrowing the sphere of our influence, we thereby complicate the very influence” (63). The true meaning of this conclusion is this: Iskra wants lift up the trade unionist policy of the working class (which, due to misunderstanding, unpreparedness or conviction, is so often practiced in our country) to social-democratic policy. A "Rab. Case” wants belittle social-democratic politics to trade unionist. And at the same time, it assures everyone and everyone that these are “quite compatible positions in the common cause” (63). Oh, sancta simplicitas! Let's go further. Do we have the strength to direct our propaganda and agitation to All population classes? Of course yes. Our "economists", who are often inclined to deny this, lose sight of the gigantic step forward that our movement made from 1894 (approximately) to 1901. True "tailers", they often live in the notions of a long-gone period of the beginning of the movement. At that time we really had amazingly few strengths, at that time it was natural and legitimate to commit ourselves entirely to work among the workers and to sternly condemn all deviations from it, then the whole task was to establish ourselves in the working class. Now a gigantic mass of forces has been drawn into the movement, all the best representatives of the young generation of the educated classes are coming to us, everywhere and all over the provinces people who have already taken part or wish to take part in the movement, people who gravitate towards Social Democracy (whereas in 1894 one could count the Russian Social Democrats on one hand). One of the main political and organizational shortcomings of our movement is that we we can't to occupy all these forces, to give all suitable work (we will say more about this in the next chapter). The vast majority of these forces are completely deprived of the possibility of "going to the workers," so that the danger of diverting forces from our main business is out of the question. And in order to provide the workers with real, all-round and living political knowledge, “their own people”, Social Democrats, are needed everywhere and everywhere, in all social strata, in all positions that make it possible to know the inner springs of our state mechanism. And such people are needed not only in propaganda and agitation, but even more so in organizational terms. Is there a basis for activity in all classes of the population? Whoever does not see this, he again lags behind in his consciousness from the spontaneous upsurge of the masses. The working-class movement has caused and continues to cause discontent in some, hopes for the support of the opposition in others, the realization of the impossibility of autocracy and the inevitability of its collapse in still others. We would be only in words “politicians” and Social-Democrats (as is very, very often the case in reality) if we were not conscious of our task of exploiting every and every manifestation of discontent, of collecting and processing all the grains of even the germinal protest. Let alone the fact that the entire multimillion-strong mass of the working peasantry, handicraftsmen, small artisans, and so on. I would always eagerly listen to the sermon of a somewhat skilful Social-Democrat. But is it possible to point to at least one class of the population in which there would not be people, groups and circles dissatisfied with lack of rights and arbitrariness, and therefore accessible to the preaching of a Social Democrat, as a spokesman for the most pressing general democratic needs? And who wants to imagine concretely this political agitation of a Social-Democrat in all classes and strata of the population, we will point to political denunciations in the broad sense of the word, as the main (but, of course, not the only) means of this agitation. “We must,” I wrote in the article "WITH what to start? (“Iskra” No. 4, May 1901), which we will have to discuss in detail below, is to awaken in all the more or less conscious sections of the people the passion political rebuke. Don't be embarrassed that politically accusatory voices are so weak, rare and timid at the present time. The reason for this is by no means an endemic reconciliation with police brutality. The reason is that people who are able and ready to rebuke do not have a rostrum from which they could speak - there is no audience passionately listening and encouraging speakers - that they do not see anywhere in the people such a force that would be worth the trouble to appeal to. with a complaint against the "almighty" Russian government... We are now in a position and we must create a tribune for the nationwide denunciation of the tsarist government; - such a tribune should be a social-democratic newspaper.” Precisely such an ideal audience for political denunciations is the working class, which needs comprehensive and living political knowledge above all and most of all; who is most capable of translating this knowledge into an active struggle, even if it does not promise any “tangible results”. And a podium for popular only an all-Russian newspaper can be denounced. “Without a political body, a movement worthy of the name political is unthinkable in modern Europe,” and in this respect Russia undoubtedly also belongs to modern Europe. The press has long ago become a force in our country - otherwise the government would not have spent tens of thousands of rubles to bribe it and to subsidize various Katkovs and Meshcherskys. And it is not news in autocratic Russia that the illegal press broke through censorship locks and forced openly talk about themselves legal and conservative bodies. So it was in the 70s and even in the 50s. And how many times wider and deeper now are those sections of the people who are ready to read the illegal press and learn from it, “how to live and how to die,” to use the expression of a worker who wrote to Iskra (No. 7). Political denunciations are just such a declaration of war. the government as economic denunciations - they declare war on the manufacturer. And this declaration of war has all the more moral significance the wider and stronger this accusatory campaign, the more numerous and resolutely that public Class, which declares war to start a war. Political denunciations are therefore in themselves one of the most powerful means of decomposition hostile system, means of distracting his casual or temporary allies from the enemy, means of sowing enmity and distrust among the permanent participants in autocratic power. Only a party that will organize really national rebuke. And this word: “nationwide” has a very great content. The vast majority of accusers from the non-working class (and to become the vanguard, it is necessary to attract other classes) are sober politicians and cold-blooded business people. They know perfectly well how unsafe it is to “complain” even against a lowly official, let alone against the “almighty” Russian government. And they will turn to us with a complaint only when they see that this complaint is really capable of having an effect, which we are political force. To become such in the eyes of outsiders, you need to work hard and hard on promotion our consciousness, initiative and energy; for this it is not enough to hang the label “vanguard” on the theory and practice of the rearguard. But if we must take it upon ourselves to organize a truly universal denunciation of the government, then what will be the class character of our movement expressed? - asks and asks us already zealous fan of "close organic connection with the proletarian struggle." - Yes, that's precisely in the fact that we, the Social Democrats, are organizing these popular denunciations; - that the coverage of all the questions raised by the agitation will be given in an unswervingly Social-Democratic spirit, without any indulgence to deliberate and unintentional distortions of Marxism; - in the fact that this all-round political agitation will be carried out by the party, which combines into one inseparable whole the onslaught on the government on behalf of the whole people, and the revolutionary education of the proletariat, along with the protection of its political independence, and the leadership of the economic struggle of the working class, the utilization of those spontaneous clashes him with his exploiters, who are rousing and attracting more and more layers of the proletariat to our camp! But one of the most characteristic features"Economism" is precisely the failure to understand this connection - moreover: this coincidence of the most urgent need of the proletariat (comprehensive political education through political agitation and political exposure) and the need of the general democratic movement. Misunderstanding is expressed not only in "Martynov's" phrases, but also in references identical in meaning to these phrases to an alleged class point of view. Here, for example, is how the authors of the “economic” letter in Iskra No. 12 express it: . Having solved by means of theoretical calculations...” (and not by means of “the growth of Party tasks growing together with the Party...”) “the problem of an immediate transition to the struggle against absolutism, and probably feeling all the difficulty of this task for the workers in the present state of affairs ”... (and not only feeling, but knowing full well that this task seems less difficult for the workers than for the “economic” intellectuals who care about small children, for the workers are ready to fight even for demands that do not promise, in the language of the unforgettable Martynov, any “ tangible results”)... “but not having the patience to wait for their further accumulation of forces for this struggle, Iskra begins to look for allies in the ranks of the liberals and the intelligentsia...”. Yes, yes, we have indeed already lost all “patience” to “wait” for that blessed time promised to us by all sorts of “conciliators” a long time ago when our “economists” will stop blaming my backwardness on the workers, to justify the lack of their energy by the lack of strength among the workers. We ask our "economists": what should be the "accumulation of labor forces for this struggle"? Is it not obvious that in the political education of the workers, in exposing them to all aspects of our vile autocracy? And isn't it clear that just right for this job do we really need “allies in the ranks of the liberals and the intelligentsia” who are ready to share with us denunciations of a political campaign against the Zemstvo, teachers, statisticians, students, etc.? Is it really so difficult to understand this amazingly “cunning mechanics” already? Hasn't P. B. Axelrod been repeating to you since 1897: “The task of acquiring adherents and direct or indirect allies among the non-proletarian classes by the Russian Social-Democrats is decided first and foremost by the nature of propaganda activity among the proletariat itself”? But the Martynovs and other "economists" still continue to imagine that the workers at first should “by economic struggle with the owners and with the government” accumulate strength for themselves (for the trade union policy), and Then already to “pass over”—must be, from trade unionist “education of activity” to Social-Democratic activity! “... In its search,” the “economists” continue, “Iskra often departs from the class point of view, obscuring class contradictions and bringing to the fore the general dissatisfaction with the government, although the causes and degree of this discontent among the “allies” are very different. Such, for example, is the relationship of Iskra to the Zemstvos.... Iskra supposedly "promises assistance to the working class to the nobles dissatisfied with government handouts, without saying a word about the class strife among these sections of the population." If the reader turns to the articles "Autocracy and Zemstvo" (Nos. 2 and 4 of Iskra), about which, probably, say the authors of the letter, he will see that these articles are devoted to the relationship governments to the “soft agitation of the estate-bureaucratic zemstvos”, to the “self-activity even of the propertied classes”. The article says that the worker must not look with indifference at the struggle of the government against the zemstvos, and the zemstvos are invited to make soft speeches and say a firm and harsh word when the revolutionary Social-Democracy rises to its full height before the government. What do the writers disagree with here? - unknown. Do they think that the worker "will not understand" the words "possessing classes" and "estate-bureaucratic zemstvos"? - What nudge Zemstvo to the transition from soft to harsh words is a "reassessment of ideology"? Do they imagine that the workers can "accumulate strength" to fight against absolutism if they do not know about the attitude of absolutism? and to zemstvo? All this again remains unknown. Only one thing is clear: that the authors have a very vague idea of ​​the political tasks of the Social Democracy. This is even clearer from their phrase: “The attitude of Iskra towards the student movement is the same” (i.e., also “obscuring class antagonisms”). Instead of calling on the workers to declare in a public demonstration that the real center of violence, excesses and unbridledness is not the students, but the Russian government (Iskra, No. 2) - we should probably place an argument in the spirit of “R. Thoughts"! And similar thoughts are expressed by the Social Democrats in the autumn of 1901, after the February and March events, on the eve of a new student upsurge, which reveals that in this area too the “spontaneity” of protest against the autocracy overtakes conscious leadership of the movement by the Social Democracy. The spontaneous desire of the workers to intercede for the students beaten by the police and the Cossacks overtakes the conscious activity of the Social Democratic organization! . We advise people who usually declare so self-confidently and so frivolously about disagreements among contemporary Social-Democrats that these disagreements are insignificant and do not justify a split, to think carefully about these words. Is it possible successful work in one organization of people who say that in the matter of clarifying the hostility of the autocracy to the most diverse classes, in the matter of acquainting the workers with the opposition to the autocracy of the most diverse strata, we have done amazingly little - and people who see in this matter a "compromise" are obviously a compromise with the theory of “economic struggle against the owners and the government”? We spoke about the need to introduce class struggle into the countryside over the fortieth anniversary of the liberation of the peasants (No. 3) and about the intransigence of self-government and autocracy over Witte’s secret note (No. 4); we attacked the serfdom of the landowners and the government serving them in connection with the new law (No. 8) and welcomed the illegal zemstvo congress, encouraging the zemstvos to go over to the struggle from humiliated petitions (No. 8); - we encouraged students who began to understand the need for political struggle and moved on to it (No. 3), and at the same time castigated the “wild misunderstanding” revealed by supporters of the “student only” movement, inviting students not to participate in street demonstrations (No. 3, regarding appeal of the Executive Committee of the Moscow students of February 25); - we exposed the “meaningless dreams” and “false hypocrisy” of the liberal crafty newspaper “Russia” (No. 5) and at the same time noted the fury of the government dungeon, which “performed reprisals against peaceful writers, over old professors and scientists, over well-known liberal Zemstvo residents ” (No. 5: “Police Raid on Literature”); we exposed the real significance of the program of “state guardianship of the improvement of the life of the workers” and welcomed the “valuable recognition” that “it is better to prevent demands from below by reforms from below than to wait for the latter” (No. 6); - we encouraged Protestant statisticians (No. 7) and condemned strikebreaker statisticians (No. 9). Who sees in these tactics the obscuring of the class consciousness of the proletariat and compromise with liberalism, - he thus discovers that he does not understand at all the true meaning of the program "Credo" and de facto runs this program no matter how much he disowns her! Because he thereby drags the Social-Democrats into an “economic struggle against the owners and against the government” and succumbs to liberalism abandoning the task of actively intervening in every“liberal” question and define own, social-democratic attitude to this issue.

f) AGAIN "Slanderers", AGAIN "MYSTIFIERS"

These kind words belong, as the reader remembers, “Rab. Cause”, which thus answers our accusation of him “indirectly preparing the ground for the transformation of the working-class movement into an instrument of bourgeois democracy”. In the simplicity of the soul “Rab. The case decided that this accusation was nothing but a polemical trick: they decided, they say, these evil dogmatists to tell us all sorts of unpleasant things: well, what could be more unpleasant than being an instrument of bourgeois democracy? And now “refutation” is printed in bold type: “unadorned slander” (“Two Congresses”, p. 30), “mystification” (31), “masquerade” (33). Like Jupiter, R. Delo (although it bears little resemblance to Jupiter) gets angry precisely because it is not right, proving by its hasty curses its inability to ponder over the train of thought of its opponents. But it would take a little thought to understand why any admiration for the spontaneity of the mass movement, any the downgrading of Social-Democratic politics to trade-unionism is precisely the preparation of the ground for the transformation of the working-class movement into an instrument of bourgeois democracy. The spontaneous labor movement in itself is capable of creating (and inevitably creates) only trade unionism, and the trade unionist policy of the working class is precisely the bourgeois policy of the working class. The participation of the working class in the political struggle and even in the political revolution does not in the least make its policy a Social-Democratic policy. Would it not take it into his head to deny this “R. Case"? Will it finally take it into its head to present before everyone, directly and without evasions, its understanding of the sore questions of international and Russian Social-Democracy? - Oh no, it never thinks of anything like that, for it firmly adheres to that method, which can be called the method of "showing in the nets." I am not me, the horse is not mine, I am not a driver. We are not “economists”, “Rab. Thought” is not “economism”, in Russia there is no “economism” at all. This is a remarkably dexterous and “political” device, which has only that small inconvenience that it is customary to call the organs that practice it the nickname: “what do you want?”. “Slave. It seems to the cause that, in general, bourgeois democracy in Russia is a “phantom” (“Two Congresses”, p. 32) Happy people! Like an ostrich, they hide their heads under their wings and imagine that everything around them disappears from this. A number of liberal publicists who monthly inform everyone about their triumph over the disintegration and even disappearance of Marxism; a number of liberal newspapers (SPB. Vedomosti, Russkiye Vedomosti, and many others) encouraging those liberals who bring to the workers the Brentan understanding of the class struggle and the trade unionist understanding of politics; - a galaxy of critics of Marxism, whose true tendencies have been so well revealed by Credo and whose literary goods alone roam Russia duty-free; - revival of revolutionary Not social democratic tendencies, especially after the February and March events; - all this must be a phantom! All this has absolutely nothing to do with bourgeois democracy! “Slave. Delo”, as well as the authors of the “economic” letter in Iskra No. 12, should “think about why these spring events caused such a revival of revolutionary non-Social-Democratic tendencies, instead of causing an increase in the authority and prestige of the Social Democracy "? - Because we were not up to the task, the activity of the working masses turned out to be higher than our activity, we did not have enough trained revolutionary leaders and organizers who would perfectly know the mood in all opposition layers and were able to stand at the head of the movement, turn a spontaneous demonstration into a political one, to expand its political character, etc. Under such conditions, our backwardness will inevitably be taken advantage of by the more mobile, more energetic revolutionaries, not Social Democrats, and the workers, no matter how selflessly and energetically they fight the police and the army, no matter how no matter how revolutionary they come out, they will turn out to be only a force supporting these revolutionaries, they will turn out to be the rearguard of bourgeois democracy, and not the Social-Democratic vanguard. Take German Social-Democracy, from which our "Economists" want to adopt only its weak sides. From what none does a political event in Germany not pass without influencing a greater and greater strengthening of the authority and prestige of the Social Democracy? Because Social-Democracy is always ahead of everyone in the most revolutionary assessment of this event, in defending every protest against arbitrariness. It does not lull itself into thinking that the economic struggle will prompt the workers to the question of their lack of rights and that concrete conditions are fatally pushing the working-class movement onto the revolutionary path. It intervenes in all areas and all questions of social and political life, and in the question of Wilhelm not approving the mayor of the bourgeois progressives (the Germans have not yet been enlightened by our “economists” that this is, in essence, a compromise with liberalism!), and to the question of issuing a law against "immoral" writings and images, and to the question of government influence on the choice of professors, and so on. and so on. Everywhere they find themselves ahead of everyone else, arousing political discontent in all classes, pushing aside the sleepy ones, pulling up the backward ones, and providing all-round material for the development of the political consciousness and political activity of the proletariat. And as a result, it turns out that even conscious enemies of socialism are imbued with respect for the advanced political fighter, and often an important document not only from bourgeois, but even bureaucratic and court spheres somehow miraculously ends up in the editorial office of Vorwarts "a". That's where lies the key to that seeming "contradiction" which surpasses the measure of understanding of "Rabchet. Dyelo" to such an extent that it only raises its hands to the mountain and shouts: "Masquerade!" at the forefront of mass labor movement (and we print it in bold type!), we warn everyone and everyone against underestimating the importance of the elemental element, we want to give ourselves, most, most economic struggle is political in nature, we want to remain in close and organic connection with the proletarian struggle! And we are told that we are paving the way for the transformation of the working-class movement into an instrument of bourgeois democracy. And who says it? People who enter into a “compromise” with liberalism, intervening in every “liberal” question (what a misunderstanding of the “organic connection with the proletarian struggle”!), Paying so much attention to students and even (horror!) to the Zemstvo people! People who, in general, want to devote a larger percentage of their forces (compared to the "economists") to activities among the non-proletarian classes of the population! Is this not a “masquerade”? Poor “Slave. Case"! Will it ever come up with a clue to this cunning mechanics?

The poet's thought in this utopia, from the tragic experiences of a break with the "small" homeland - Florence, and from the dispelled illusions of a large national state - a united Italy, comes, under the cover of Christian-religious allegory, to an idealized idea of ​​the "golden age" of human existence turned to the past. This idea was characteristic of the early socio-mystical utopias of the Middle Ages. Mystical utopias are very often interspersed in the poem with reactionary ideas generated by theological religious-Catholic dogmas.

The immortality of the Divine Comedy and its significance as one of the greatest works of world literature was determined not by its complex system of symbols and allegories, requiring painstaking study and detailed commentary, and not, finally, by its complete display and embodiment of medieval culture and the medieval structure of thought, but by that new and creatively bold in what Dante said about his visions and about himself, and the way he said it. The personality of the poet, this first poet of modern times, in its deep and historically concrete content rose above the schemes of scholastic thought, and a living, poetic awareness of reality subjugated the aesthetic norms dictated by the traditions of medieval literature. The “sweet style”, which already declares itself in the “New Life”, with all the enrichments that the genius of Dante brought to it, is combined in the terzas of the “Divine Comedy” with the power of material-sensual incarnations of poetic images, unprecedented before the appearance of the first lists of “Hell”, with the mighty and the harsh realism of passions, the sculptural expressiveness of portraits and the new excitement of such lyrical and epic masterpieces as the story of the fatal love of Francesca da Rimini and Paolo or the gloomy story of the traitor Ugolino.

The presence in the "Divine Comedy" of the mobile and colorful folk dialect of Florentine streets, markets and squares; the majestic and justified by vast experience of thought and feeling, the sententiousness of the poem, individual verses-aphorisms of which have become established in the living everyday life of the Italian language; finally, the wide, despite all the burden of its allegories, the availability of the Divine Comedy in its largest poetic values ​​to centuries-old readers and in Dante's homeland, far beyond its borders, determined, along with everything else, the preeminent place that it occupied in Italian national culture. .

The difficulties of poetic translation, exacerbated in this case by historical and creative features texts of the Divine Comedy, erected, of course, their own serious obstacles to getting to know this exceptional literary monument, in particular to its Russian interpreters. Several old translations of Dante's work at our disposal, including the translations of D. Mina, D. Minaev, O. Chyumina and others, were far or relatively far from a worthy transmission and the true content and complex style of the original.

The enormous work of recreating the great work of Dante in Russian was carried out responsibly and with inspiration only in Soviet era the greatest master of poetic translation M.L. Lozinsky. Awarded in 1946 with the State Prize of the 1st degree, this work has full right to recognize him as an outstanding phenomenon in the history of Russian poetry.

The Divine Comedy was the greatest achievement in the creative biography of the Russian translator-poet. It was in the work on this work that the main advantages of the Soviet translation school were especially evident: the exacting requirements for the poetic translation technique and the depth of understanding of the ideological content of the original, accurately, artistically and with true inspiration recreated by means of the richest Russian speech.

Abbreviations used in comments

*BP*

CANTO ONE Comments

1 Earthly life having passed to half,

I found myself in a dark forest

Having lost the right path in the darkness of the valley.

Book 1: Vol. 1. "Hell" - 32.5x26.5 cm, 257 p. Book 2: Vol. 2, 3 "Purgatory" and "Paradise" - 32.5x26.5 cm, 320 p. + 305 p. A copy in publisher's full-leather (shagreen) bindings with gold embossing on the spine and on the covers, triple gold edge, in good condition. On the front cover with blind and gold embossing: the name of the author, the title of the book, the names of the translator and illustrator, an ornamented frame. Gold embossed on the spine: author, title, ornamented frames. Composite endpapers made of paper imitating moire. There was a variant of publishing covers and in 3 books. Separately "Hell", "Purgatory" and "Paradise". The publisher sold The Divine Comedy at a very high price: 60 rubles in 2 books, and 70 rubles in 3 books. Volumes were sold separately by Wolf for 20 rubles. Most of the edition came out in cheaper red calico bindings. In close connection with poetic text The Divine Comedy also contains beautiful illustrations by the world-famous artist Gustav Dore, which complement and explain various episodes of the great Italian's journey to the afterlife. One of the most luxurious gift editions mid-nineteenth V. with illustrations by Gustave Dore. The publication is of historical and cultural value as a monument of book and binding art.

In 1839, the first edging of Dante's poem in Italian came off the press of the printing house of Moscow University. The honor of the only Russian edition of "Inferno" and notes to it belonged to the university lecturer Giuseppe Rubini. He came to the northern country at the invitation of the President of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Admiral A. S. Shishkov, and for forty years he enthusiastically studied the unique culture that had opened up to him. The university volume of "Ada" was intended for students and was prepared very carefully: the text was reprinted from the Padua edition of the Comedy of 1726-1727, the biography was borrowed from the distinguished historian of Italian literature Girolamo Tiraboschi, and the description of the three sides of the beyond world was made by the editor himself. At St. Petersburg University, the immigrant, poet-improviser, linguist I. A. Giustiniani was enthusiastically popularizing the Dante poem. Capital owners bookstores it was assured that thanks to his efforts, the Divine Comedy sold much better in the forties than before. At this time, an unexpected literary news was the arrangement of "Hell" by E. V. Kologrivova. Many critics, taking into account the importance of the first experience, reacted to the initiative of an ordinary writer sympathetically or at least condescendingly. Isolated harsh sentences were drowned out by approving responses. The second translation of "Hell" appeared on the pages of "Moskvityanin" for 1853.

Its author was a doctor by education D. E. Min. He held the chair of forensic medicine at Moscow University and never dreamed of becoming a professional writer. However, in other countries, among the translators of Dante, there were different people: poets and pedantic professors, kings and privy councillors. . . Following Hell, Ming published Purgatory (1874) and finally Paradise (1879). The translator perceived his many years of ascetic work as the fulfillment of artistic and civic duty. In the preface to the first part of the poem, he wrote: "I am not afraid of the strict verdict of scientific criticism, consoling myself with the thought that I was the first to decide to transfer the size of the original part of the Divine Comedy into Russian, so capable of reproducing all that is great." According to the general opinion, Ming managed to make the best pre-revolutionary translation of the poem, but even he is far from perfect. The author was able to convey “only a part of the images and expressions of the original,” wrote V. Ya. Bryusov. “True, the most important thing is preserved, but the shades of thought, all the complexity of speech and a long series of individual images have disappeared. Interest in Dante increased markedly after the 600th anniversary of the poet in 1865. The Russian public was informed about the festivities in Italy by two prominent scientists - Alexander Nikolaevich Veselovsky (1838-1906) and Fyodor Ivanovich Buslaev (1818-1897).

In Dante studies, Veselovsky continued and enriched the ideas of his teacher, the gifted professor of Moscow University P. N. Kudryavtsev, the author of an extensive work on Dante and his time. In the fifties it was published in " Domestic notes". Buslaev's passion for the Divine Comedy had a longer history. As a freshman, he got acquainted with Shevyrev's dissertation "Dante and his age", and since then the medieval poem has become his favorite reading and the subject of painstaking studies. A five-volume edition was kept in Buslaev's office " Divine Comedy, known as Minerva, and rich in extensive excerpts from various commentaries on the poem, from the earliest to the latest, dating back to the twenties 19th century. "Minerva" was published in 1822 in Padua and then repeatedly reprinted. In messages from Italy, Buslaev spoke about the amazing love of Italians for their poet. He wrote that during the Austrian rule, Dante's compatriots, violating the strictest prohibitions, organized secret meetings to study the poem. These interpreters of the "patriotic bible of the Italian people," the correspondent reported, nurtured the most noble feelings in young Italy: national pride and love for history, art, and their native language.

Shortly after the anniversary celebrations, the St. Petersburg publisher M. O. Wolf announced a subscription to The Divine Comedy with illustrations by Gustave Doré, which, shortly before the anniversary, graced one of the Paris editions of the poem. They amazed connoisseurs with their splendor and good quality and brought great success to the artist. wolf tied up business relationship with his impresario, Monsieur Mam, bought the right to publish Dore's drawings and ordered the translation of "Comedy" by the poet D. D. Minaev, popular in the sixties. Minaev translated Dante interlinearly. At first he took up the urgent work with great enthusiasm, but then unforeseen and lengthy intermissions began to appear in his studies more and more often. It happened that an agitated publisher sent people in search of a translator, they searched all over the capital and, finally, again returned the poet to the manuscript. In order not to be distracted from his obligations, the conscientious Minaev asked his friends to subject him to "solitary confinement." In 1874 he completed Inferno, but because of the "heretical" pictures in this part of the poem, complications arose with the censor's permission to publish it.

After numerous petitions from the publishers, the chief prosecutor of the Holy Synod, D. A. Tolstoy, instructed them to submit a note stating that Dante reproduced medieval legends in his work. The note was drawn up, the promised permission followed, but with the condition that the book would be quite expensive and would be inaccessible to the general reader. And yet, despite the high price, there were many subscribers. Metropolitan intellectuals and provincial merchants, public libraries, some remote monastery, and even the "Peasant Society of the Village of Sukha" signed. Volf's edition of "Comedy", completed in 1879, sold quite widely, but Minaev's translation could satisfy only the most undemanding readers. A similar opinion was shared by Bryusov, well-informed critics and authoritative dentists. The translator’s verse is heavy, and the culture is very limited, wrote, for example, I. N. Golenishchev-Kutuzov, at the beginning of Minaev’s translation, the terts still somehow, limping, go one after another, but the farther, the translation becomes messier and worse.

When thinking about Pushkin and Dante, the verses involuntarily come to mind:

Zorya is beaten. . . from my hands

Old Dante falls out

A verse begun on the lips

Unread silence -

The spirit flies away.

The poems were composed at the time of the poet's stay in the army, Field Marshal I.F. Paskevich, commander of the Separate Caucasian Corps. It is difficult to say what volume of the Divine Comedy Pushkin took with him in 1829, going to the Caucasus, but he certainly could have called the old and famous edition of the poem translated by the Frenchman Balthasar Grangeer, who was proud to be the first gave his compatriots the happy opportunity to read the entire "Comedy" on mother tongue. This translation in Alexandrian verse, published in 1596-1597, was already the fourth attempt to introduce Dante into the world of French culture. The previous arrangements remained in the lists. The Abbé Grangeier had not mastered the art of poetry enough, and left some of the expressions that he could not master in the original language, and yet his text, in three separate volumes, was of great value. Only two volumes of this antique edition have been preserved in Pushkin's collection. Both are in good condition, in fine embossed gilt-edged morocco with engraved titles and a portrait of Dante. Binding clearly late origin, and the superex libris - the libraries of the Bourbon house. Another Parisian edition of the poem, which was the property of Pushkin, is the second volume of the collected works of Dantin in Italian ("Purgatorio", 1823) with comments by Antonio Buttura. In addition to this book ("Purgatory"), in which only the initial twenty-three pages are cut, the poet had at his disposal the mentioned translations of Artaud and Deschamps. Did Pushkin read "Comedy" in the original? Among his acquaintances, I. A. Krylov and A. A. Shakhovskoy, A. S. Norov and N. I. Bakhtin, S. E. Raich and F. N. Glinka, A. S. Griboedov and D. V. Dashkov... Gogol considered Italian his second native language, and I. I. Kozlov liked to recite the main passages from the Divine Comedy by heart. Pushkin himself "touched", as T. G. Tsyavlovskaya wrote, sixteen languages: Old French, French, Latin, Spanish, German, Italian, Serbian, English, Turkish, Arabic, Polish, Church Slavonic, Old Russian, Ancient Greek, Ukrainian and Hebrew. In terms of the poet's mastery of the living European languages, French was undoubtedly followed by Italian. No wonder Pushkin's library holds up to thirty Italian books. True, there are three times more English, but it is known that Pushkin did not speak English.

The fruit of the whole life of "Severe Dante" (as Pushkin called the brilliant Italian), a creation that in the Middle Ages became a harbinger of the Renaissance, a work that is among the greatest achievements of human thought - so they said, they say and will say about the work that Dante Alighieri himself called simply "Comedy", and his descendants called "Divine". Calling his poem "comedy", Dante uses medieval terminology: comedy, as he explains in a letter to Kangrande, is any poetic work medium style with a frightening beginning and a happy ending, written in the vernacular; tragedy is any poetic work of high style with an admiring and calm beginning and a terrible end. The word "divine" does not belong to Dante, as Giovanni Boccaccio later called the poem. He could not call his work a tragedy only because those, like all genres of "high literature", were written in Latin. Dante wrote it in his native Italian. " The Divine Comedy"- the fruit of the entire second half of Dante's life and work. In this work, the worldview of the poet was reflected with the greatest completeness. Dante appears here as the last great poet Middle Ages, a poet who continues the line of development of feudal literature. According to the Catholic tradition, the afterlife consists of hell, where eternally condemned sinners go, purgatory - the seat of sinners atoning for their sins - and paradise - the abode of the blessed. Dante details this representation and describes the device of the afterlife, fixing all the details of its architectonics with graphic certainty. In the introductory song, Dante tells how, having reached the middle of his life, he got lost one day in dense forest and how the poet Virgil, after delivering him from three wild animals that blocked his path, invited Dante to make a journey through the afterlife. Having learned that Virgil was sent to Beatrice, Dante's deceased beloved, he surrenders without trepidation to the leadership of the poet. More than seven centuries have passed since the appearance of the "Divine Comedy", and historians and critics still do not stop arguing about what it is: a "guide" to the afterlife (in the view of an ordinary earthly person) or something more, an attempt by the human genius to cognize the unknowable, to find the rational in the irrational, to show people the way from darkness and sorrow to light and joy. Either way, The Divine Comedy is a classic that will live on forever. The general art style of the book is romanticism, primarily because the author of the illustrations is Gustave Dore, who is considered one of the latest artists French romanticism. The binding of the book is decorated with elements of the Empire style, but still, in general, romanticism prevails. When at the end of the 60s the Divine Comedy by Dante with magnificent illustrations by Doré was published in Paris, M.O. Wolf had the idea to release its Russian edition with the same illustrations. The huge success that fell to the share of the illustrated French edition, the great demand for this edition - in Russia - was to some extent a guarantee that the Russian edition would also meet with sympathy," - this is how the chapter "The Divine Comedy" in Russia "from the book by S.F. Librovich "At the book post". The edition of The Divine Comedy undertaken by Wolff in 1874-79, and published in three large volumes of sumptuously designed volumes, was unique in its way. The fact is that before the appearance of the Volfovsky illustrated edition, there was not yet a single complete Russian translation of the famous creation of Dante: there were translations of individual songs made by Norov, there were translations of "Hell" - Fan-Dim, Mina and Petrov - but completely all three parts " There was no Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri. At the request of M.O. Wolf, D.D. took over the translation. Minaev; and although he did not know a single word of Italian (and indeed not a single foreign language), he nevertheless coped with this task quite well, ordering translations in prose, and then shifting the prose into verse. Despite the difficulties with which the publication of Dante's Divine Comedy was associated, this book took pride of place among the best gift editions of that time. Referring to S.F. Librovich, "by grace, distinct work, paper, drawings, typographic decorations, binding, Dante's Russian binding can easily compete with luxurious foreign publications of this kind." The format of Dante's Divine Comedy is a sheet (in folio), or 4°.

The abundance of gold embossing on the binding, the artsy design style, the colored calico with a clear texture under the skin of an animal - all these are characteristic features of Wolf's binding. For "Divine Comedy" Dante M.O. Wolf chose a stylish light beige ivory paper, dense and smooth. It is used for both body text and illustrations. In the first volume of the owner's binding with elements of the publisher's binding, a sheet of rice paper is used for laying between the engraving-endpaper and the title page. The main font of the Divine Comedy is Elsevier. Designed on Wolf's personal initiative, the Russian Elsevier deserves special attention. The new font, developed by Wolf's publishing house in 1874, was called Elsevier. It was cut in sizes ranging from nopareil to large sizes in roman and cursive styles. The construction of this font was based on the Dutch Elsevier samples of the 17th century, and for specific Russian letters, new punchons were cut, taking into account the peculiarities of the graphics of Russian fonts of the 18th century. In the design of the new Elsevier font of Wolf's type foundry, we find the following new elements for Russian fonts: . Upper serifs in lowercase letters are built only on the left side. The drawings of lowercase letters "b", "y", "yat" were also changed. 3. In addition, some changes (new elements) were made to the Elsevier font: the styles of the lowercase letters "b", "c", "m", "d" and the capital "d" are closer to cursive samples late XVII- early 18th century. The character of the cursive "tail" of the capital letter "d" is repeated in the letters "ts" and "u". latin letter"u". Due to the fact that the new font differed sharply from the previously used sample, individual letters were cut in several versions (old and new styles). New drawing The font is used only in Wolf's editions. Since the end of the 1980s, the font of a different design, the so-called book Elsevier, has become widespread in books. Elsevier Wolf was not intended for periodicals. It was used mainly for typesetting fiction. Both The Divine Comedy, and Wolf's collection of poems Native Echoes, which we will discuss below, and Faust, were typed in Elsevier. Elsevier of the main text - small size, black font color.

For binding and title page The book uses decorative fonts specially designed for this book (we will talk about them in the "Decorative Elements" section). The decorative elements of the design of the "Divine Comedy" include, first of all, the design of the binding. We looked at three different owner bindings. It should be noted that in any of them there is a colorful embossing - mostly flat, gold or black. On the three-volume book in the owner's binding, the engraved letters of Dante's name, located in a semicircle on the front cover of the binding, draw attention to themselves. The title page is black and white, with tone transitions, made in the technique of lithography and reproduced by flat printing. The name of the artist who painted the title page is not given in the book. In addition to all the listed decorative design elements, there are endings in the book. These are narrow, horizontally elongated openwork vignettes, the same height as the lowercase letters in the text. Each page of the Divine Comedy (except the title page and the Doré engravings) has a double rectangular frame, thin, linear, without any decorations, black. At the beginning of each song there is an initial (letter letter) - engraved, very finely made, elongated vertically (3x6 cm). The initials of the "Divine Comedy" are so patterned that it is not clear what kind of letter is hidden in a thin floral ornament. It may very well be that the initials were made in the technique of end woodcuts and reproduced in letterpress in the book. There are no filigrees in the book. "Dore's illustrations for the great Italian trilogy were printed in a Russian edition from genuine French engravings. The right to reproduce these illustrations for Russia was acquired by the Russian publisher M.O. features to the magnificent illustrations of Dore. "With his artistic flair and deep study of the great work of Dante," wrote one of the critics, "the French artist rose to the beauty of the poem itself, capturing all the shades of poetic thought and the completely "Dante" coloring of the "Commedia." G. Dore, who has long since gained great fame throughout Europe, not only embellished and explained, but also reproduced in a different form the great Italian trilogy, and with the same poetic beauty he drew it in pictures with which Dante created in his powerful poems " wrote another critic. These are the enthusiastic responses about the illustrations of the "Divine Comedy" that we can draw from the book of memoirs of Wolf's employee S.F. Librovich. In fact, the paintings by G. Dore for the "Divine Comedy" are stunning, shaking with the power of the images of hell and paradise. The impact on the viewer of these illustrations is achieved due to Dora's gift for composition and spectacular lighting. It seems that the master himself is shocked by the visions of Dante and is in a hurry to translate them into images that surround him. Engravings depicting paintings of "Hell" are characterized by a closed horizon, a dark tone of engravings, a cramped, compressed space filled with countless crowds of sinners. But the frightening abysses of hell are left behind, and the pictures convey the landscapes of purgatory. The tone of the Doré sheets changes. Everything brightens. A wide, joyful landscape opens before the reader: lush sprawling trees, spring, flowering nature, a clear evening sky, sparkling stars, a joyful, calling distance. And, finally, full of dazzling brilliance, the sheets of "Paradise" crown this grandiose creation Doré. There are 87 engravings by Doré in the edition, all of them are made in the technique of end engraving on wood (they were engraved by A. Pannemaker), in which the French artist worked, and reproduced in the book in letterpress printing on separate sheets. The general color of the engravings is gray, although sometimes the images are very contrasting. The illustrations are artistically imaginative, striped (there are no swing illustrations in the book, unlike Perrault's Fairy Tales). To the left of the title page in each volume of the Divine Comedy there is a frontispiece engraving by Doré: Dante's portrait in profile against a black background in the first volume; Dante and Virgil contemplating the nature of the night - in the second volume; an army of angels and Beatrice and Dante standing in front of them on the clouds - in the third volume. The frontispiece, like the rest of the engravings in the book, is located on a separate, blank sheet on the other side. Reference apparatus in the book is practically absent. There are no tables of contents, indexes, footers, annotations (elements of the reference and auxiliary apparatus) in the book. From the scientific reference apparatus there are only page-by-page footnotes-explanations from the translator (they are often found, on almost every page). In the text, the footnote is marked with an Arabic numeral with parentheses. At the bottom of the page, below the text under the line, the footnotes are arranged according to the numbering in the text. Information about the title and the author can be found on the publisher's binding, on the first half-title, on the title page. Information about the publisher and translator can be found on the title page of the book and on the front cover of the publisher's binding, information about the artist can be found on the bindings of the publisher's and owner's three-volume book, and on the title page. Information about the printing house in which the book was printed is on the back of the title page. You can find out which part of the book is in front of you by the text titles. There is no information about the binding, price, circulation in the publication. Page numbering is page-by-page, except for sheets with engravings, located under the text in the center of the pages, Arabic numerals. Starting with "Song One" there are column numbers: each three-line is numbered in arithmetic progression (1, 3, 6, and so on). Headers and footers are located on the right edge of the double page frame, opposite the corresponding three-verse line. The title elements of the "Divine Comedy" include a cover on which information about the book is ousted. Next in order is the first half-title (on it is the title of the book, the author, the title of the part of the book) - although it stands before the title page, it is not an advance title, since there is no countertitle. Such half-titles up to the title page are a common phenomenon for Wolf publications, apparently due to the fact that the book could be purchased without binding. Then, on the left side of the frontispiece, as expected, there is a richly ornamented title page. It is possible that if the book was bought without binding, it served as a lithographed publisher's cover (then the first shmuttitul served to protect it from contamination) - while the book could be bound at will. Following the title page is the second half-title, on which, from the information, only the title of the part of the book in a double linear frame (the half-title, like the first one, with reverse side clean; they are also decorated in the same style). Accordingly, there are three title pages in the three volumes of the publication, and six half-titles (three introductory, up to the title page, and three preceding different parts of the book: "Hell", "Purgatory" and "Paradise"). The general style of the publication can be defined as romanticism. This is primarily facilitated by the paintings of Gustave Dore, one of the last French artists working in this style. For visual arts romanticism is characterized by lyricism, heroic elation, the desire for climactic, dramatic moments. Romantic artists depicted people in moments of tension of their spiritual and physical strength, when they opposed the natural and social elements. We can observe all this in Doré. So, the sinners in Doré's paintings - powerful, muscular, full of wild energy - amaze with intense and expressive poses. In the landscape of romanticism, the main thing was admiration for the power of nature and its spiritualization. These features are reflected in the work of Gustave Doré. As in Perrault's Fairy Tales, so in Dante's Divine Comedy we see luxurious dark forests, secluded mountain valleys, multifaceted, promising landscapes stretching into the sky. All these are signs of romanticism, and since the two “pillars” of the design of the Divine Comedy are the engravings by Doré and the elegant Elsevier font chosen by Wolf for her, I think the general artistic style of the book fits the definition of “romanticism”.