The Mensheviki favored participation in the Duma elections and co-operation with the liberal and radical bourgeoisie parties, in so far as might be necessary to overthrow the autocracy, and without sacrificing Socialist principles.  They pointed out that this position was evidently feared by the bureaucracy far more than the position of the extremists among the Social Democrats and the Socialist-Revolutionists, who refused to consider such co-operation, and pointed to the fact that provocateurs in large numbers associated themselves with the latter in their organizations and preached the same doctrine of absolute isolation and exclusiveness.

It will be seen that the position of the Mensheviki was one of practical political opportunism, an opportunism, however, that must be sharply distinguished from what Wilhelm Liebknecht used to call “political cow-trading.”  No man in the whole history of international Socialism ever more thoroughly despised this species of political opportunism than George Plechanov.  To those who are familiar with the literature of international Socialism it will be unnecessary to say that Plechanov was not the man to deprecate the importance of sound theory as a guide to the formulation of party policies.  For many years he was rightly regarded as one of the greatest theoreticians of the movement.  Certainly there was only one other writer in the whole international movement who could be named as having an equal title to be considered the greatest Socialist theorist since Marx—­Karl Kautsky.

But Plechanov[1]—­like Marx himself—­set reality above dogma, and regarded movement as of infinitely greater importance than theory.  The Mensheviki wanted to convene a great mass convention of representatives of the industrial proletariat during the summer of 1906.  “It is a class movement,” they said, “not a little sectarian movement.  How can there be a class movement unless the way is open to all the working class to participate?” Accordingly, they wanted a convention to which all the factory-workers would be invited to send representatives.  There should be no doctrinal tests, the sole qualification being membership in the working class.  It did not matter to the advocates of this policy whether a man belonged to the Social Democratic party or to any party; whether he called himself a revolutionist or anything else.  It was, they said, a movement of the working class, not the movement of a sect within the working class.

They knew, of course, that in such a great mass movement there would probably be some theoretical confusion, more or less muddled thinking.  They recognized, too, that in the great mass convention they proposed some Social Democratic formulations might be rejected and some others adopted which did not accord with the Marxian doctrines.  But, quoting Marx to the effect that “One step of real movement is worth a thousand programs,” they contended that if there was anything at all in the Marxian theory of progress through class struggles, and the historic rule of the working class, it must follow that, while they might make mistakes and go temporarily astray, the workers could not go far wrong, their class interests being a surer guide than any amount of intellectualism could produce.