November 1916

by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

  “The only way to do it is to split the Party! It’s a bourgeois affectation to pretend that ‘civil peace’ can reign in Swiss social democracy!”

  They shudder. They freeze.

  But he goes on: “The bourgeoisie has reared the social chauvinists to serve it as watchdogs! How can you speak of unity with them?”

  (Keep hitting the same spot, over and over again, varying the words just slightly—that’s the first rule of propagandists and preachers.)

  “It’s a disease that affects Social Democrats not only in Switzerland, not only in Russia, but all over the world—this maudlin hankering after ‘reconciliation’! They’re all ready to renounce their principles for the sake of a bogus ‘unity’! Yet short of a complete organizational break with the social patriots, it’s impossible to advance a single step toward socialism!!”

  However unresponsive they are, whatever they may be thinking, he has the assurance of a teacher confronting his class: the whole class may disagree, but Teacher is right just the same. His voice becomes still more guttural, more impatient, more excited.

  “The question of a split is of fundamental importance! Any concession here is a crime! All those who vacillate on this are enemies of the proletariat! True revolutionaries are never afraid of a split!”

  (Split, split, and split again! Split at all stages of the movement! Go on splitting until you find yourself a tiny clique—but nonetheless the Central Committee! Those left in it may be the most mediocre, the most insignificant people, but if they are united in a single obedience you can achieve anything!!!)

  “It is high time for a split at the international level! We have excellent reports on the split in the German Socialist Party. The time has come to break with the Kautskyites in your own and all other countries! Break with the Second International—and start building a Third!”

  (A method tried and proven at the very dawn of the century. He had pierced and slain the Economists with the death ray of What Is to Be Done?, his scheme for a band of professional conspirators. He had shaken off the clammy clinging incubus of Menshevism with his One Step Forward, Two Steps Back. He did not want power for its own sake, but how could he help taking the helm when all the rest steered so incompetently? He could not let his incomparable qualities of leadership atrophy and go to waste.)

  Yet the idea might have been born there and then, at the table, might have been an instantaneous and irresistible revelation: split your party—and thereby ensure the victory of the revolution!

  Nobs, stiff with delicious fear, doesn’t even murmur. If you refuse, who knows, you may be the loser. Perhaps the best place to be is right here, at this table?

  Platten’s paw has frozen on the handle of his tankard.

  Mimiola has triumphed over his constricting collar, risen clear of it. But he looks gloomy.

  Willi wears a little smile of startled enlightenment. He is ready. And he will carry the young with him. He will repeat every word of it from the platform.

  The heavy brow batters away at the breached wall.

  “My book on imperialism proves conclusively that revolution is imminent and inevitable in all the industrialized countries of Europe.”

  There are still a couple of them who want to believe, but can’t quite see it.

  There you are, living in a room you’ve grown used to, and one morning you go out into the street, with familiar buildings all around you, and you start a revolution. But how? … Who is going to show you how? There has never been anything quite like it.

  “Yes, but this is Switzerland …”

  “What of it? That was a glorious strike in Zurich in 1912! And what about this summer? Willi’s marvelous demonstration on the Bahnhofstrasse! A baptism of blood!”

  Yes, this was Willi’s proudest boast.

  “All those casualties!”

  Even the first of August hadn’t been as good as the third, in honor of the fallen.

  They hem and haw … In Switzerland? …

  How can they disbelieve him? He treats every youngster as his equal with perfect seriousness. Not like those leaders who snub their juniors once they get one foot on the ladder. He never begrudges the effort spent on conversation with the young, wearing them down with questions, questions, questions, until he can slip a noose on them.

  “Yes, but in Switzerland …”

  While they are clearing up this little matter, Radek has found time to read two of the newspapers from his bulging pockets and leaf through a book. And still they don’t understand!

  Radek pokes the stem of his pipe at them. “Your own Party Congress last year … adopted a resolution on revolutionary action by the masses! What about that?”

  Well, what about it? … All sorts of resolutions are passed. Passing resolutions is easy enough.

  “Then there’s Kienthal!”

  Five of those present had been at Kienthal, including Nobs and Münzenberg. Among the forty-five delegates they had been part of the minority of twelve. They had threatened once again to wreck the meeting by walking out, had in fact left the hall and returned. So the majority had given way to the minority, and they had pushed the resolution further and further to the left: “Only the acquisition of political power by the proletariat can ensure peace!”

  True enough, but you can say anything in resolutions …

  “No, but here in Switzerland …”

  The most patient of men couldn’t listen to these numskulls without exploding! Then—he amazes himself with a fresh revelation, which comes out in a hoarse cracked whisper.

  “Don’t you realize that Switzerland is the most revolutionary country in the world??!”

  They are all rocked back in their seats, clutching tankards, plates, forks … The lantern on the pillar sways in the wind of his voice. Nobs grabs at his cigarette holder as it falls from his mouth.

  ??????????????? …

  (He saw it all! Saw the barricades that would soon rise in Zurich, not, perhaps, on the Bahnhofstrasse, where all the banks were, but over toward the working-class district by the Volkshaus on the Helvetiaplatz!)

  And with a caustic flash of the Mongol eyes, in a voice without depth or resonance, but with the cutting edge of a Kalmyk saber, catching only on the r’s: “Because Switzerland is the only country in the world where soldiers are given weapons and ammunition to take home!”

  So …?

  “Do you know what revolution means? It means seizing the banks! The railway station! The post office and telegraph! The big enterprises! And that’s all! Once you’ve done that the revolution is victorious! And what do you need to do it? Only weapons! And the weapons are there!”

  The things Fritz Platten hears from this man, who is his fate and his doom! Sometimes his blood freezes …

  Lenin has abandoned persuasion and is rapping out orders to these recalcitrants, these incompetent muddlers.

  “So what are you waiting for? What more do you need? Universal military training? Well then, the time has come to demand it!”

  He is improvising, thinking between sentences, picking his way among his thoughts, but his voice never falters.

  “Officers must be elected by the people. Any group of … a hundred can demand military training! With instructors paid from the public purse. It is precisely the civic freedom of Switzerland, its effective democracy, that makes revolution immensely easier!”

  Bracing himself against the table, he looks as though he were about to spread his wings, fly up from the dining room of the Stüssihof restaurant, and soar above the five-cornered, enclosed medieval square, itself no bigger than a good-sized public hall, glide over the comic warrior with a flag on the fountain, spiral past the jutting balconies, past the fresco of the two cobblers hammering away on their stools three floors up, past the coats of arms on the pediments five floors up, and over the tiled roofs of old Zurich, over the mountain pensions and the overdecorated chalets of the lackeys’ republic.

  “Begin propaganda in the army immediately! Make the troops
and young men of call-up age see that it is right and inevitable for them to use their arms to liberate themselves from hireling slavery! … Put out leaflets calling for an immediate socialist revolution in Switzerland!”

  (Rather rash words for a foreigner without a passport, but this was the one time in ten that made the difference between victory and defeat.)

  “Take executive control of all working-class associations immediately! Insist that the Party’s parliamentary representatives publicly preach socialist revolution! The compulsory takeover of factories, mills, and agricultural holdings!”

  What? Go and take people’s property away from them, just like that? Without passing a law? The Swiss blockheads couldn’t blink fast enough.

  “To reinforce the revolutionary elements in the country, all foreigners should be naturalized without charge. If the government makes the slightest move toward war, create underground workers’ organizations! And in the event of war …”

  Greatly daring, Münzenberg and Mimiola, leaders of youth, finished it for him: “… refuse to perform military service!”

  (Luckily Münzenberg and Radek, deserters from the German and Austro-Hungarian armies, respectively, cannot be deported under Swiss law.)

  Not one little thing have they understood! A mocking smile but not an unfriendly one, passes over Lenin’s face. He has no other choice—down, down he comes, past the cobblers hammering away at their work with slavish diligence, over the blue column of the fountain, to alight with a rush in his old place in the restaurant.

  “Under no circumstances must they refuse; what can you be thinking of? In Switzerland especially! When they give you arms, take them! Demand demobilization—yes, but without giving up your arms! Keep your arms and get out into the streets! Not a single hour of civil peace! Strikes! Demonstrations! Form squads of armed workers!!! And then an armed uprising!!!”

  Broad-browed Platten is bowled over as though by a blow on the head: “But with all Europe at war … will the neighboring powers … tolerate a revolution in Switzerland? They’ll intervene …”

  This is the nub of Lenin’s scheme—the utter, unreproducible uniqueness of Switzerland.

  “That’s what is so splendid! While all Europe is at war—barricades in Switzerland! A revolution in Switzerland! Switzerland speaks three major European languages. And through those three languages the revolution will overflow in three directions and flood all Europe! The alliance of revolutionary elements will expand to include the proletariat of all Europe! A sense of class solidarity will be aroused in the three neighboring countries! If there is any intervention, revolution will flare up through Europe!! That is why SWITZERLAND IS THE CENTER OF WORLD REVOLUTION TODAY!!!”

  Singed by the red light, the members of the Skittle Club sit fixed as the words chance to find them. The narrow triangle of Münzenberg’s intrepid face is thrust forward into the glow. Nobs’s fluffy mustache is also touched with the flame. Mimiola looks as if he was about to pull his tie off and lead his hot-blooded Italians over the ruins of Europe. Bronski in his sad, sly way is trying to look eager for battle. Radek wriggles, licks his lips, and excitement flashes behind his glasses: if that’s how it’s going to be, what fun he will have!

  (The Skittle Club is the Third International in embryo!)

  “You are the best part of the Swiss proletariat!”

  Radek has a resolution ready and waiting for tomorrow’s Congress of the Swiss Party. If only Nobs will print it …

  Hmmmmm …

  But who will put it to the Congress?

  Hmmmmm …

  Since the restaurant would soon be closing, the party broke up.

  There were three streetlamps on Stüssihof Square, and lights shone from the windows of houses all around. You could easily read the plaque telling how in 1443 Burgomaster Stüssi had fallen in battle not far from here. His family home had stood for sixty years before that. That must be Stüssi too, the comic Swiss warrior in armor and blue hose standing in the middle of the fountain. You could hear the thin jets of water splashing into the bluish basin. The air was dry and cold for this part of the world.

  They were still talking as they took leave of each other and walked away over the smooth cobbles. The square seemed completely shut in, and unless you knew where to look for the crevices which were streets, you might wonder whether you would ever get out. Some of the company went off down a bumpy cobbled slope, and took the side street which led to the embankment. Others turned off at the tavern called the Franciscan. Willi, however, accompanied his teacher along the same street in the opposite direction, past the Voltaire cabaret on the next corner, where the arty set raved the night away, and on the narrow pavements they encountered prostitutes who were still waiting for customers. Past the Voltaire they turned steeply uphill, under an antiquated lamp on an iron post, along a street like a stairway, so narrow that with arms outstretched you could almost touch both walls at once, and there was hardly room to walk two abreast; up and up they went.

  The heels of Lenin’s stout mountain boots clattered on the cobbles.

  Willi wanted his teacher to reassure him over and over again. He had not forgotten the fight on the Bahnhofstrasse that summer, but every trace had been hosed and swept away, the shopwindows were as dazzling as ever, the bourgeoisie strolled around as comfortably as before, and the workers placidly obeyed their accommodating leaders.

  “Yes, but the people aren’t ready for it …”

  At a sharp turning in the alley, in the dim light of someone’s sleepless upper windows, the voice from under the dark cap was quiet but as sharp-edged as ever.

  “Of course the people aren’t ready. But that doesn’t give us the right to postpone the beginning.”

  In spite of the platform victories behind him, the yells of assembled youth in his ears, Willi persisted.

  “But we are such a small minority!”

  Lenin stopped, and out of the darkness came something not revealed even to the select gathering at the Skittle Club.

  “The majority is always stupid, and we cannot wait for it. A resolute minority must act—and then it becomes the majority.”

  The Congress opened the following morning, across the river in the Merchants’ Hall. Lenin, as leader of a foreign party, was invited to deliver greetings. Radek was also there, ostensibly representing the Polish Party. Two from “our” side, speaking in succession.

  On the first morning not all the delegates had arrived, and the audience was no larger than at a good lecture. (Lenin, in fact, was not used to large audiences; he had never known what it was like to address a thousand people at a time—except just once, at a mass meeting in Petersburg when he had lost his tongue.)

  As soon as he looked out over the hall caution overcame him. Just as at Zimmerwald, just as at Kienthal, he had no overpowering urge to speak his mind fully—no, the full fervor of his conviction was naturally reserved for a closed meeting of his supporters. Here, of course, he did not call for action either against the government or against the banks. Standing before this nominally Social Democratic but in reality bourgeois mass of self-satisfied, fat-faced Swiss, lounging at their little tables, Lenin sensed immediately that they did not and would not understand him, and that he had practically nothing to say to them. He somehow couldn’t even bring himself to remind them of the highly revolutionary resolution which they themselves had adopted last year—and anyway it might spoil everything.

  So his salutations would have been quite short, if he had not gotten painfully entangled with the Adler affair. (Two weeks earlier, Fritz Adler, Secretary of the Austrian Social Democratic Party, had shot and killed the Prime Minister of Austria-Hungary—killed the head of the imperial government in time of war!) This assassination had captured everyone’s imagination, there was a lot of talk about it, and before making up his own mind Lenin had inquired carefully into the circumstances. Who had influenced Adler? (His Russian Socialist Revolutionary wife, perhaps?) Because he was secretly preoccupied with this probl
em, a perpetual source of disagreement with the Russian SRs here at the Congress, he had devoted half of his speech to an irrelevant discussion of terrorism … He had said that the greetings sent to the terrorist by the Central Committee of the Italian Party deserved full sympathy, if the assassination were understood as a signal to the Social Democrats to abandon opportunist tactics. And he had defended at length the Russian Bolsheviks’ opposition to individual terror: it was only because terror ought to be a mass activity.

  Meanwhile the Swiss munched and swigged and mooed and tippled—there was no way to understand them.

  Still, the Saturday session had gone well and raised his hopes. Platten was applauded by the majority, and Papa Greulich, a seventy-five-year-old with a luxuriant gray mop of hair, started joking about the Party’s “adoption of new pets.” (Nothing to the round Schweizerdeutsch rudenesses we’ll heap on you when the time comes! When we come to power, we’ll hang you!) It had worked, it had gone off beautifully! Lenin had cheered up and felt like an old warhorse in the swirl of battle. Moreover, the circumspect Nobs had not refused to put forward the Skittle Club’s (i.e., Radek’s) resolution: that the Congress should adhere to the Kienthal decisions. (The stupid Swiss might vote for it just to be in fashion, without really knowing what the Kienthal decisions were—and then they’d be caught! After that, you could bait your hook with their own resolution and catch the whole bunch of them! Grimm as well!)

  Trivialities? No! That is how history is made—from one hard-won resolution to the next, through the pressure of the minority, you push and push every resolution—leftward, ever leftward!

  Then the next step. That Saturday evening, on the Skittle Club’s initiative, by individual invitation, a separate, secret, private meeting of all young delegates was held away from the Congress building; they gambled on the normal sympathy of the young for the left. The plan was simple: to work out with their help a resolution (or rather submit a ready-made one brought along by Radek) for them to put forward and force through the Congress on the following day, Sunday.