400
PARTISAN REVIEW
word for it (in a letter to Gorky) that he read it at once, at once
disagreed with it, and wrote a long letter of private criticism to its
author. When the third and final volume of
Empiriomonism
ap–
peared in 1906, Bogdanov sent
him
a presentation copy from jail.
Lenin immediately wrote a further "declaration of love, a little letter
on philosophy which took up three notebooks!" (Lenin to Gorky,
February 25, 1908). But that did not prevent his forming his bloc
with the unrepentant and unconvinced philosopher, nor his maintain–
ing that bloc for five years until it broke up, not on philosophical but
on tactical grounds. This is important to establish beyond a cavil, not
merely for the light it throws on Lenin as philosopher, but no less for
its bearing on the contention of the Leninist epigones that there is a
necessary, direct, and inescapable correlation between 100 per cent
orthodoxy in Marxist philosophy and the very possibility of being a
good revolutionist. The whole of Russian philosophical literature
under Stalin is based upon this supposed deduction from Lenin's book.
And Leon Trotsky has been no less insistent on this matter in the
polemic he conducted during the last year of his life against
his
Amer–
ican followers, James Burnham and Max Schachtman, when they
were breaking with him.
Doubtless
it
was the prevailing mood of "decadence" in 1908
which contributed to Lenin's desire to reprove his associates publicly
for their heterodox philosophy. Yet even then, as he sensed that the
Bolshevik tactical bloc might be heading toward a permanent break,
he reviewed the whole experiment in a letter to Gorky, and found
it right and good. Moreover, he still pleaded for its continuance:
In the summer and autumn of .1904 [he wrote to Gorky in
1908] Bogdanov and I joined each other finally as Bolsheviks, and
formed that tacit bloc which tacitly excluded philosophy as neutral
ground. The bloc lasted throughout the entire time of the Revolu–
tion and gave us the possibility of introducing together into the
Revolution those tactics of revolutionary socialism (Bolshevism)
which, according to my deepest conviction, were the only correct
ones....
A certain amount of conflict among the Bolsheviks on the
philosophical question is, I think, unavoidable. But to split on that
account would,
in
my opinion, be stupid. We have formed a bloc
for pursuing a given set of tactics in the party. These tactics we
have pursued and are pursuing so far without differences (the
only differences of opinion were on the boycott of the Third Duma
elections ... ) . To hamper the cause of carrying out the tactics of
