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PREFACE




    When a prolonged, stubborn and heated struggle is in progress, there usually begin to emerge after a time the central and fundamental points at issue, upon the decision of which the ultimate outcome of the campaign depends, and in comparison with which all the minor and petty episodes of the struggle recede more and more into the background.

    That, too, is how matters stand in the struggle within our Party, which for six months now has been riveting the attention of all members of the Party. And precisely because in the present outline of the whole struggle I have had to refer to many details which are of infinitesimal interest, and to many squabbles which at bottom are of no interest whatever, I should like from the very outset to draw the reader's attention to two really central and fundamental points, points which are of tremendous interest, of undoubted historical significance, and which are the most urgent political questions confronting our Party today.

    The first question is that of the political significance of the division of our Party into "majority" and "minority" which took shape at the Second Party Congress and pushed all previous divisions among Russian Social-Democrats far into the background.

    The second question is that of the significance in principle of the new Iskra 's position on organisational questions, insofar as this position is really based on principle.

    The first question concerns the starting-point of the struggle in our Party, its source, its causes, and its fundamental political character. The second question concerns the ultimate outcome of the struggle, its finale, the sum-total of

 
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principles that results from adding up all that pertains to the realm of principle and subtracting all that pertains to the realm of squabbling. The answer to the first question is obtained by analysing the struggle at the Party Congress; the answer to the second, by analysing what is new in the principles of the new Iskra. Both these analyses, which make up nine-tenths of my pamphlet, lead to the conclusion that the "majority" is the revolutionary, and the "minority" the opportunist wing of our Party; the disagreements that divide the two wings at the present time for the most part concern, not questions of programme or tactics, but only organisational questions; the new system of views that emerges the more clearly in the new Iskra the more it tries to lend profundity to its position, and the more that position becomes cleared of squabbles about co-optation, is opportunism in matters of organisation.

    The principal shortcoming of the existing literature on the crisis in our Party is, as far as the study and elucidation of facts is concerned, the almost complete absence of an analysis of the minutes of the Party Congress; and as far as the elucidation of fundamental principles of organisation is concerned, the failure to analyse the connection which unquestionably exists between the basic error committed by Comrade Martov and Comrade Axelrod in their formulation of Paragraph 1 of the Rules and their defence of that formulation, on the one hand, and the whole "system" (insofar as one can speak here of a system) of Iskra 's present principles of organisation, on the other. The present editors of Iskra apparently do not even notice this connection, although the importance of the controversy over Paragraph 1 has been referred to again and again in the literature of the "majority". As a matter of fact, Comrade Axelrod and Comrade Martov are now only deepening, developing and extending their initial error with regard to Paragraph 1. As a matter of fact, the entire position of the opportunists in organisational questions already began to be revealed in the controversy over Paragraph 1: their advocacy of a diffuse, not strongly welded, Party organisation; their hostility to the idea (the "bureaucratic" idea) of building the Party from the top downwards, starting from the Party Congress and the bodies set up by it; their tendency to proceed from the

 
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bottom upwards, allowing every professor, every high school student and "every striker" to declare himself a member of the Party; their hostility to the "formalism" which demands that a Party member should belong to one of the organisations recognised by the Party; their leaning towards the mentality of the bourgeois intellectual, who is only prepared to "accept organisational relations platonically"; their penchant for opportunist profundity and for anarchistic phrases; their tendency towards autonomism as against centralism -- in a word, all that is now blossoming so luxuriantly in the new Iskra, and is helping more and more to reveal fully and graphically the initial error.

    As for the minutes of the Party Congress, the truly undeserved neglect of them can only be explained by the fact that our controversies have been cluttered by squabbles, and possibly by the fact that these minutes contain too large an amount of too unpalatable truth. The minutes of the Party Congress present a picture of the actual state of affairs in our Party that is unique of its kind and unparalleled for its accuracy, completeness, comprehensiveness, richness and authenticity; a picture of views, sentiments and plans drawn by the participants in the movement themselves; a picture of the political shades existing in the Party, showing their relative strength, their mutual relations and their struggles. It is the minutes of the Party Congress, and they alone, that show us how far we have really succeeded in making a clean sweep of the survivals of the old, purely circle ties and substituting for them a single great party tie. It is the duty of every Party member who wishes to take an intelligent share in the affairs of his Party to make a careful study of our Party Congress. I say study advisedly, for merely to read the mass of raw material contained in the minutes is not enough to obtain a picture of the Congress. Only by careful and independent study can one reach (as one should) a stage where the brief digests of the speeches, the dry extracts from the debates, the petty skirmishes over minor (seemingly minor) issues will combine to form one whole, enabling the Party member to conjure up the living figure of each prominent speaker and to obtain a full idea of the political complexion of each group of delegates to the Party Congress. If the writer of these lines only succeeds in

 
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stimulating the reader to make a broad and independent study of the minutes of the Party Congress, he will feel that his work was not done in vain.

    One more word to the opponents of Social-Democracy. They gloat and grimace over our disputes; they will, of course, try to pick isolated passages from my pamphlet, which deals with the failings and shortcomings of our Party, and to use them for their own ends. The Russian Social-Democrats are already steeled enough in battle not to be perturbed by these pinpricks and to continue, in spite of them, their work of self-criticism and ruthless exposure of their own shortcomings, which will unquestionably and inevitably be overcome as the working-class movement grows. As for our opponents, let them try to give us a picture of the true state of affairs in their own "parties" even remotely approximating that given by the minutes of our Second Congress!

N. Lenin    

  May 1904

 


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A. THE PREPARATIONS FOR
THE CONGRESS

    There is a saying that everyone is entitled to curse his judges for twenty-four hours. Our Party Congress, like any congress of any party, was also the judge of certain persons, who laid claim to the position of leaders but who met with discomfiture. Today these representatives of the "minority" are, with a naïveté verging on the pathetic, "cursing their judges" and doing their best to discredit the Congress, to belittle its importance and authority. This striving has been expressed most vividly, perhaps, in an article in Iskra, No. 57, by "Practical Worker",[89] who feels out raged at the idea of the Congress being a sovereign "divinity". This is so characteristic a trait of the new Iskra that it cannot be passed over in silence. The editors, the majority of whom were rejected by the Congress, continue, on the one hand, to call themselves a "Party" editorial board, while, on the other, they accept with open arms people who declare that the Congress was not divine. Charming, is it not? To be sure, gentlemen, the Congress was not divine; but what must we think of people who begin to "blackguard" the Congress after they have met with defeat at it?

    For indeed, let us recall the main facts in the history of the preparations for the Congress.

    Iskra declared at the very outset, in its announcement of publication in 1900, that before we could unite, lines of demarcation must be drawn. Iskra endeavoured to make the Conference of 1902[90] a private meeting and not a Party Congress.* Iskra acted with extreme caution in the summer and autumn of 1902 when it re-established the Organising

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    * See Minutes of the Second Congress, p. 20.

 
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Committee elected at that conference. At last the work of demarcation was finished -- as we all acknowledged. The Organising Committee was constituted at the very end of 1902. Iskra welcomed its firm establishment, and in an editorial article in its 32nd issue declared that the convocation of a Party Congress was a most urgent and pressing necessity.[*] Thus, the last thing we can be accused of is having been hasty in convening the Second Congress. We were, in fact, guided by the maxim: measure your cloth seven times before you cut it; and we had every moral right to expect that after the cloth had been cut our comrades would not start complaining and measuring it all over again.

    The Organising Committee drew up very precise (formalistic and bureaucratic, those would say who are now using these words to cover up their political spinelessness) Regulations for the Second Congress, got them passed by all the committees, and finally endorsed them, stipulating among other things, in Point 18, that "all decisions of the Congress and all the elections it carries out are decisions of the Party and binding on all Party organisations. They cannot be challenged by anyone on any pretext whatever and can be rescinded or amended only by the next Party Congress".[**] How innocent in themselves, are they not, are these words, accepted at the time without a murmur, as something axiomatic; yet how strange they sound today -- like a verdict against the "minority"! Why was this point included? Merely as a formality? Of course not. This provision seemed necessary, and was indeed necessary, because the Party consisted of a number of isolated and independent groups, which might refuse to recognise the Congress. This provision in fact expressed the free will of all the revolutionaries (which is now being talked about so much, and so irrelevantly, the term "free" being euphemistically applied to what really deserves the epithet "capricious"). It was equivalent to a word of honour mutually pledged by all the Russian Social-Democrats. It was intended to guarantee that all the tremendous effort, danger and expense entailed by the Congress should not be in vain, that the Congress

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    * See present edition, Vol. 6, p. 309. --Ed.
    ** See Minutes of the Second Congress, pp. 22-23 and 380.

 
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should not be turned into a farce. It in advance qualified any refusal to recognise the decisions and elections at the Congress as a breach of faith.

    Who is it, then, that the new Iskra is scoffing at when it makes the new discovery that the Congress was not divine and its decisions are not sacrosanct? Does that discovery imply "new views on organisation", or only new attempts to cover up old tracks?


B. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE VARIOUS
GROUPINGS AT THE CONGRESS

    Thus, the Congress was called after the most careful preparation and on the basis of the fullest representation. The general recognition that its composition was correct and its decisions absolutely binding found expression also in the statement of the chairman (Minutes, p. 54) after the Congress had been constituted.

    What was the principal task of the Congress? To create a real party on the basis of the principles and organisational ideas that had been advanced and elaborated by Iskra. That this was the direction in which the Congress had to work was predetermined by the three years' activities of Iskra and by the recognition of the latter by the majority of the committees. Iskra 's programme and trend were to become the programme and trend of the Party; Iskra 's organisational plans were to be embodied in the Rules of Organisation of the Party. But it goes without saying that this could not be achieved without a struggle: since the Congress was so highly representative, the participants included organisations which had vigorously fought Iskra (the Bund and Rabocheye Dyelo ) and organisations which, while verbally recognising Iskra as the leading organ, actually pursued plans of their own and were unstable in matters of principle (the Yuzhny Rabochy group and delegates from some of the committees who were closely associated with it). Under these circumstances, the Congress could not but become an arena of struggle for the victory of the "Iskra " trend. That it did become such an arena will at once be apparent to all who peruse its minutes with any degree of attention. Our task now is to trace in detail the principal groupings revealed at the Congress on various issues and to

 
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reconstruct, on the basis of the precise data of the minutes, the political complexion of each of the main groups. What precisely were these groups, trends and shades which, at the Congress, were to unite under the guidance of Iskra into a single party? -- that is what we must show by analysing the debates and the voting. The elucidation of this is of cardinal importance both for a study of what our Social Democrats really are and for an understanding of the causes of the divergence among them. That is why, in my speech at the League Congress and in my letter to the editors of the new Iskra, I gave prime place to an analysis of the various groupings. My opponents of the "minority" (headed by Martov) utterly failed to grasp the substance of the question. At the League Congress they confined themselves to corrections of detail, trying to "vindicate" themselves from the charge of having swung towards opportunism, but not even attempting to counter my picture of the groupings at the Congress by drawing any different one. Now Martov tries in Iskra (No. 56) to represent every attempt clearly to delimit the various political groups at the Congress as mere "circle politics". Strong language, Comrade Martov! But the strong language of the new Iskra has this peculiar quality: one has only to reproduce all the stages of our divergence, from the Congress onwards, for all this strong language to turn completely and primarily against the present editorial board. Take a look at yourselves, you so-called Party editors who talk about circle politics!

    Martov now finds the facts of our struggle at the Congress so unpleasant that he tries to slur over them altogether. "An Iskra-ist," he says, "is one who, at the Party Congress and prior to it, expressed his complete solidarity with Iskra, advocated its programme and its views on organisation and supported its organisational policy. There were over forty such Iskra-ists at the Congress -- that was the number of votes cast for Iskra 's programme and for the resolution adopting Iskra as the Central Organ of the Party." Open the Congress Minutes, and you will find that the programme was adopted by the votes of all (p. 233) except Akimov, who abstained. Thus, Comrade Martov wants to assure us that the Bundists, and Brouckere, and Martynov demonstrated their "complete solidarity" with Iskra and advocated its views

 
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on organisation! This is ridiculous. The fact that after the Congress all who took part became equal members of the Party (and not even all, for the Bundists had withdrawn) is here jumbled with the question of the grouping that evoked the struggle at the Congress. Instead of a study of the elements that went to make up the "majority" and the "minority" after the Congress, we get the official phrase, "recognised the programme"!

    Take the voting on the adoption of Iskra as the Central Organ. You will see that it was Martynov -- whom Comrade Martov, with a courage worthy of a better cause, now credits with having advocated Iskra 's organisational views and organisational policy -- who insisted on separating the two parts of the resolution: the bare adoption of Iskra as the Central Organ, and the recognition of its services. When the first part of the resolution (recognising the services of Iskra, expressing solidarity with it) was put to the vote, only thirty-five votes were cast in favour; there were two votes against (Akimov and Brouckère) and eleven abstentions (Martynov, the five Bundists and the five votes of the editorial board: the two votes each of Martov and myself and Plekhanov's one). Consequently, the anti-Iskra group (five Bundists and three Rabocheye Dyelo-ists) is quite apparent in this instance also, one most advantageous to Martov's present views and chosen by himself. Take the voting on the second part of the resolution -- adopting Iskra as the Central Organ without any statement of motives or expression of solidarity (Minutes, p. 147): forty-four votes in favour, which the Martov of today classes as Iskra-ist. The total number of votes to be cast was fifty-one; subtracting the five votes of the editors, who abstained, we get forty-six; two voted against (Akimov and Brouckère); consequently, the remaining forty-four include all five Bundists. And so, the Bundists at the Congress "expressed complete solidarity with Iskra" -- this is how official history is written by the official Iskra ! Running ahead somewhat, we will explain to the reader the real reasons for this official truth: the present editorial board of Iskra could and would have been a real Party editorial board (and not a quasi-Party one, as it is today) if the Bundists and the "Rabocheye Dyelo"-ists had not withdrawn from the Congress; that is why these trusty guardians of the present, so-

 
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called Party editorial board had to be proclaimed Iskra-ists. But I shall speak of this in greater detail later.

    The next question is: if the Congress was a struggle between the Iskra-ist and the anti-Iskra-ist elements, were there no intermediate, unstable elements who vacillated between the two? Anyone at all familiar with our Party and with the picture generally presented by congresses of every kind will be inclined a priori to answer the question in the affirmative. Comrade Martov is now very reluctant to recall these unstable elements, so he represents the Yuzhny Rabochy group and the delegates who gravitated towards it as typical Iskra-ists, and our differences with them as paltry and unimportant. Fortunately, we now have before us the complete text of the minutes and are able to answer the question -- a question of fact, of course -- on the basis of documentary evidence. What we said above about the general grouping at the Congress does not, of course, claim to answer the question, but only to present it correctly.

    Without an analysis of the political groupings, without having a picture of the Congress as a struggle between definite shades, the divergence between us cannot be understood at all. Martov's attempt to gloss over the different shades by ranking even the Bundists with the Iskra-ists is simply an evasion of the question. Even a priori, on the basis of the history of the Russian Social-Democratic movement before the Congress, three main groups are to be noted (for subsequent verification and detailed study): the Iskra-ists, the anti-Iskra-ists, and the unstable, vacillating, wavering elements.


C. BEGINNING OF THE CONGRESS.
THE ORGANISING COMMITTEE INCIDENT

    The most convenient way to analyse the debates and the voting is to take them in the order of the Congress sittings, so as successively to note the political shades as they became more and more apparent. Only when absolutely necessary will departures from the chronological order be made for the purpose of considering together closely allied questions or similar groupings. For the sake of impartiality, we shall endeavour to mention all the more important votes, omit-

 
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ting, of course, the innumerable votes on minor issues, which took up an inordinate amount of time at our Congress (owing partly to our inexperience and inefficiency in dividing the material between the commissions and the plenary sittings, and partly to quibbling which bordered on obstruction).

    The first question to evoke a debate which began to reveal differences of shades was whether first place should be given (on the Congress "order of business") to the item: "Position of the Bund in the Party" (Minutes, pp. 29-33). From the standpoint of the Iskra-ists, which was advocated by Plekhanov, Martov, Trotsky, and myself, there could be no doubt on this score. The Bund's withdrawal from the Party strikingly bore out our view: if the Bund refused to go our way and accept the principles of organisation which the majority of the Party shared with Iskra, it was useless and senseless to "make believe" that we were going the same way and only drag out the Congress (as the Bundists did drag it out). The matter had already been fully clarified in our literature, and it was apparent to any at all thoughtful Party member that all that remained was to put the question frankly, and bluntly and honestly make the choice: autonomy (in which case we go the same way), or federation (in which case our ways part).

    Evasive in their entire policy, the Bundists wanted to be evasive here too and postpone the matter. They were joined by Comrade Akimov, who, evidently on behalf of all the followers of Rabocheye Dyelo, at once brought up the differences with Iskra over questions of organisation (Minutes, p. 31). The Bund and Rabocheye Dyelo were supported by Comrade Makhov (representing the two votes of the Nikolayev Committee -- which shortly before had expressed its solidarity with Iskra !). To Comrade Makhov the matter was altogether unclear, and another "sore spot", he considered, was "the question of a democratic system or, on the contrary [mark this!], centralism" -- exactly like the majority of our present "Party" editorial board, who at the Congress had not yet noticed this "sore spot"!

    Thus the Iskra-ists were opposed by the Bund, Rabocheye Dyelo and Comrade Makhov, who together controlled the ten votes which were cast against us (p. 33). Thirty votes were cast in favour -- this is the figure, as we shall see

 
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later, around which the votes of the Iskra-ists often fluctuated. Eleven abstained, apparently not taking the side of either of the contending "parties". It is interesting to note that when we took the vote on Paragraph 2 of the Rules of the Bund (it was the rejection of this Paragraph 2 that caused the Bund to withdraw from the Party), the votes in favour of it and the abstentions also amounted to ten (Minutes, p. 289), the abstainers being the three Rabocheye Dyelo-ists (Brouckère, Martynov, and Akimov) and Comrade Makhov. Clearly, the grouping in the vote on the place of the Bund item on the agenda was not fortuitous. Clearly, all these comrades differed with Iskra not only on the technical question of the order of discussion, but in essence as well. In the case of Rabocheye Dyelo, this difference in essence is clear to everyone, while Comrade Makhov gave an inimitable description of his attitude in the speech he made on the withdrawal of the Bund (Minutes, pp. 289-90). It is worth while dwelling on this speech. Comrade Makhov said that after the resolution rejecting federation, "the position of the Bund in the R.S.D.L.P. ceased to be for me a question of principle and became a question of practical politics in relation to an historically evolved national organisation". "Here," the speaker continued, "I could not but take into account all the consequences that might follow from our vote, and would therefore have voted for Paragraph 2 in its entirety." Comrade Makhov has admirably imbibed the spirit of "practical politics": in principle he had already rejected federation, and therefore in practice he would have voted for including in the Rules a point that signified federation! And this "practical" comrade explained his profound position of principle in the following words: "But [the famous Shchedrin "but"!] since my voting one way or the other would only have significance in principle [!!] and could not be of any practical importance, in view of the almost unanimous vote of all the other Congress delegates, I preferred to abstain in order to bring out in principle [God preserve us from such principles!] the difference between my position on this question and the position of the Bund delegates, who voted in favour. Conversely, I would have voted in favour if the Bund delegates had abstained, as they had at first insisted." Can you make head or tail of it? A man of principle abstains

 
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from loudly saying "Yes" because practically it is useless when everybody else says "No".

    After the vote on the place of the Bund item on the agenda, the question of the Borba group cropped up at the Congress; it too led to an extremely interesting grouping and was closely bound up with the "sorest" point at the Congress, namely, the personal composition of the central bodies. The committee appointed to determine the composition of the Congress pronounced against inviting the Borba group, in accordance with a twice-adopted decision of the Organising Committee (see Minutes, pp. 383 and 375) and the report of the latter's representatives on this committee (p. 35).

    Thereupon Comrade Egorov, a member of the Organising Committee, declared that "the question of Borba" (mark, of Borba, not of some particular member of it) was "new to him", and demanded an adjournment. How a question on which the Organising Committee had twice taken a decision could be new to a member of the Organising Committee remains a mystery. During the adjournment the Organising Committee held a meeting (Minutes, p. 40), attended by such of its members as happened to be at the Congress (several members of the Organising Committee, old members of the Iskra organisation, were not at the Congress).[*] Then began a debate about Borba. The Rabocheye Dyelo-ists spoke in favour (Martynov, Akimov, and Brouckère -- pp. 36-38), the Iskra-ists (Pavlovich, Sorokin, Lange,[92] Trotsky, Martov, and others) -- against. Again the Congress split up into the grouping with which we are already familiar. The struggle over Borba was a stubborn one, and Comrade Martov made a very circumstantial (p. 38) and "militant" speech, in which he rightly referred to "inequality of representation" of the groups in Russia and abroad, and said that it would hardly be "well" to allow a foreign group any "privilege" (golden words, particularly edifying today, in the light of the events since the Congress!), and that we should not encourage "the organisational chaos in the Party that was characterised by a disunity not justified by any considera-

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    * Concerning this meeting, see the "Letter" of Pavlovich,[91] who was a member of the Organising Committee and who before the Congress was unanimously elected as the editorial board's trusted representative, its seventh member (League Minutes, p. 44).

 
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tions of principle" (one right in the eye for . . . the "minority" at our Party Congress!). Except for the followers of Rabocheye Dyelo, nobody came out openly and with reasoned motives in favour of Borba until the list of speakers was closed (p. 40). It should be said in fairness to Comrade Akimov and his friends that they at least did not wriggle and hide, but frankly advocated their line, frankly said what they wanted.

    After the list of speakers had been closed, when it was already out of order to speak on the issue itself, Comrade Egorov "insistently demanded that a decision just adopted by the Organising Committee be heard". It is not surprising that the delegates were outraged at this manoeuvre, and Comrade Plekhanov, the chairman, expressed his "astonishment that Comrade Egorov should insist upon his demand". One thing or the other, one would think: either take an open and definite stand before the whole Congress on the question at issue, or say nothing at all. But to allow the list of speakers to be closed and then, under the guise of a "reply to the debate", confront the Congress with a new decision of the Organising Committee on the very subject that had been under discussion, was like a stab in the back!

    When the sitting was resumed after dinner, the Bureau still in perplexity, decided to waive "formalities" and resort to the last method, adopted at congresses only in extreme cases, viz., "comradely explanation". The spokesman of the Organising Committee, Popov, announced the committee's decision, which had been adopted by all its members against one, Pavlovich (p. 43), and which recommended the Congress to invite Ryazanov.

    Pavlovich declared that he had challenged and continued to challenge the lawfulness of the Organising Committee meeting, and that the Committee's new decision "contradicts its earlier decision". This statement caused an uproar. Comrade Egorov, also an Organising Committee member and a member of the Yuzhny Rabochy group, evaded answering on the actual point in question and tried to make the central issue one of discipline. He claimed that Comrade Pavlovich had violated Party discipline (!), for, having heard his protest, the Organising Committee had decided "not to lay Pavlovich's dissenting opinion before the Congress". The debate shifted to the question of Party discipline, and Ple-

 
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khanov, amid the loud applause of the delegates, explained for the edification of Comrade Egorov that "we have no such thing as binding instructions" (p. 42; cf. p. 379, Regulations for the Congress, Point 7: "The powers of delegates must not be restricted by binding instructions. In the exercise of their powers, delegates are absolutely free and independent"). "The Congress is the supreme Party authority", and, consequently, he violates Party discipline and the Congress Regulations who in any way restricts any delegate in taking directly to the Congress any question of Party life whatsoever. The issue thus came down to this: circles or a party? Were the rights of delegates to be restricted at the Congress in the name of the imaginary rights or rules of the various bodies and circles, or were all lower bodies and old groups to be completely, and not nominally but actually, disbanded in face of the Congress, pending the creation of genuinely Party official institutions? The reader will already see from this how profoundly important from the standpoint of principle was this dispute at the very outset (the third sitting) of this Congress whose purpose was the actual restoration of the Party. Focused in this dispute, as it were, was the conflict between the old circles and small groups (such as Yuzhny Rabochy) and the renascent Party. And the anti-Iskra groups at once revealed themselves: the Bundist Abramson, Comrade Martynov, that ardent ally of the present Iskra editorial board, and our friend Comrade Makhov all sided with Egorov and the Yuzhny Rabochy group against Pavlovich. Comrade Martynov, who now vies with Martov and Axelrod in sporting "democracy" in organisation, even cited the example of . . . the army, where an appeal to a superior authority can only be made through a lower one!! The true meaning of this "compact" anti-Iskra opposition was quite clear to everyone who was present at the Congress or who had carefully followed the internal history of our Party prior to the Congress. It was the purpose of the opposition (perhaps not always realised by all of its representatives, and sometimes pursued by force of inertia) to guard the independence, individualism and parochial interests of the small, petty groups from being swallowed up in the broad Party that was being built on the Iskra principles.

 
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    It was precisely from this angle that the question was approached by Comrade Martov, who had not yet joined forces with Martynov. Comrade Martov vigorously took the field, and rightly so, against those whose "notion of Party discipline does not go beyond a revolutionary's duty to the particular group of a lower order to which he belongs". "No compulsory [Martov's italics] grouping can be tolerated within a united Party," he explained to the champions of the circle mentality, not foreseeing what a flail these words would be for his own political conduct at the end of the Congress and after. . . . A compulsory grouping cannot be tolerated in the case of the Organising Committee, but can quite well be tolerated in the case of the editorial board. Martov condemns a compulsory grouping when he looks at it from the centre, but Martov defends it the moment he finds himself dissatisfied with the composition of the centre. . . .

    It is interesting to note that in his speech Comrade Martov laid particular stress not only on Comrade Egorov's "profound error", but also on the political instability the Organising Committee had displayed. "A recommendation has been submitted on behalf of the Organising Committee," he exclaimed in just indignation, "which runs counter to the committee report [based, we will add, on the report of members of the Organising Committee -- p. 43, Koltsov's remarks] and to the Organising Committee's own earlier recommendations." (My italics.) As we see, at that time, before his "swing-over", Martov clearly realised that substituting Ryazanov for Borba in no way removed the utter contradictoriness and inconsistency of the Organising Committee's actions (Party members may learn from the League Congress Minutes, p. 57, how Martov conceived the matter after his swing-over). Martov did not confine himself then to analysing the issue of discipline; he bluntly asked the Organising Committee: "What new circumstance has arisen to necessitate the change?" (My italics.) And, indeed, when the Organ ising Committee made its recommendation, it did not even have the courage to defend its opinion openly, as Akimov and the others did. Martov denies this (League Minutes p. 56), but whoever reads the minutes of the Congress will see that he is mistaken. Popov, in submitting the Organising Committee recommendation, did not say a word about the

 
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motives (Party Congress Minutes, p. 41). Egorov shifted the issue to one of discipline, and all he said on the question itself was: "The Organising Committee may have had new reasons [but whether it did, and what those new reasons were, is unknown]; it could have forgotten to nominate somebody, and so on. [This "and so on" was the speaker's sole refuge, for the Organising Committee could not have forgotten about Borba, which it had discussed twice before the Congress and once in the committee.] The Organising Committee did not adopt this decision because it has changed its attitude towards the Borba group, but because it wants to remove unnecessary rocks in the path of the Party's future central organisation at the very outset of its activities." This is not a reason, but an evasion of a reason. Every sincere Social-Democrat (and we do not entertain the least doubt about the sincerity of any Congress delegate) is concerned to remove what he considers to be sunken rocks, and to remove them by those methods which he considers advisable. Giving reasons means explicitly stating and explaining one's view of things, and not making shift with truisms. And they could not give a reason without "changing their attitude towards Borba", because in its earlier and contrary decisions the Organising Committee had also been concerned to remove sunken rocks, but it had then regarded the very opposite as "rocks". And Comrade Martov very severely and very rightly attacked this argument, saying that it was "petty " and inspired by a wish to "burke the issue ", and advising the Organising Committee "not to be afraid of what people will say ". These words characterise perfectly the essential nature of the political shade which played so large a part at the Congress and which is distinguished precisely by its want of independence, its pettiness, its lack of a line of its own, its fear of what people will say, its constant vacillation between the two definite sides, its fear of plainly stating its credo -- in a word, by all the features of a "Marsh".*

---

    * There are people in our Party today who are horrified when they hear this word, and raise an outcry about uncomradely methods of controversy. A strange perversion of sensibility due to . . . a misapplied sense of official form! There is scarcely a political party acquainted with internal struggles that has managed to do without this term, by which the unstable elements who vacillate between the contending [cont. onto p. 222. -- DJR] sides have always been designated. Even the Germans, who know how to keep their internal struggles within very definite bounds indeed, are not offended by the word versumpft (sunk in the marsh --Ed.) are not horrified, and do not display ridiculous official prudery.

 
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    A consequence of this political spinelessness of the unstable group was, incidentally, that no one except the Bundist Yudin (p. 53) did put before the Congress a resolution to invite one of the members of the Borba group. Yudin's resolution received five votes -- all Bundists, apparently: the vacillating elements had changed sides again! How large was the vote of the middle group is shown approximately by the voting on the resolutions of Koltsov and Yudin on this question: the Iskra-ist received thirty-two votes (p. 47), the Bundist received sixteen, that is, in addition to the eight anti-Iskra-ist votes, the two votes of Comrade Makhov (cf. p. 46), the four votes of the members of the Yuzhny Rabochy group, and two others. We shall show in a moment that this alignment can by no means be regarded as accidental; but first let us briefly note Martov's present opinion of this Organising Committee incident. Martov maintained at the League that "Pavlovich and others fanned passions". One has only to consult the Congress Minutes to see that the longest, most heated and sharpest speeches against Borba and the Organising Committee were delivered by Martov himself. By trying to lay the "blame" on Pavlovich he only demonstrates his own instability: it was Pavlovich he helped to elect prior to the Congress as the seventh member of the editorial board; at the Congress he fully associated himself with Pavlovich (p. 44) against Egorov; but afterwards, having suffered defeat at the hands of Pavlovich, he began to accuse him of "fanning passions". This is ludicrous.

    Martov waxes ironical in Iskra (No. 56) over the importance that was attached to whether X or Y should be invited. But again the irony turns against Martov, for it was this Organising Committee incident that started the dispute over such an "important" question as inviting X or Y on to the Central Committee or the Central Organ. It is unseemly to measure with two different yardsticks, depending on whether the matter concerns your own "group of a lower order" (relative to the Party) or someone else 's. This is precisely a philistine and circle, not a Party attitude. A simple compari-

 
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son of Martov's speech at the League (p. 57) with his speech at the Congress (p. 44) sufficiently demonstrates this. "I can not understand," Martov said, inter alia, at the League, "how people can insist on calling themselves Iskra-ists and at the same time be ashamed of being Iskra-ists." A strange failure to understand the difference between "calling oneself" and "being" -- between word and deed. Martov himself, at the Congress, called himself an opponent of compulsory groupings, yet, after the Congress, came to be a supporter of them. . . .


D. DISSOLUTION OF THE YUZHNY RABOCHY GROUP

    The alignment of the delegates over the Organising Committee question may perhaps seem accidental. But such an opinion would be wrong, and in order to dispel it we shall depart from the chronological order and at once examine an incident which occurred at the end of the Congress, but which was very closely connected with the one just discussed. This incident was the dissolution of the Yuzhny Rabochy group. The organisational trend of Iskra -- complete amalgamation of the Party forces and removal of the chaos dividing them -- came into conflict here with the interests of one of the groups, which had done useful work when there was no real party, but which had become superfluous now that the work was being centralised. From the standpoint of circle interests, the Yuzhny Rabochy group was entitled no less than the old Iskra editorial board to lay claim to "continuity" and inviolability. But in the interests of the Party, it was its duty to submit to the transfer of its forces to "the appropriate Party organisations" (p. 313, end of resolution adopted by the Congress). From the standpoint of circle interests and "philistinism", the dissolution of a useful group, which no more desired it than did the old Iskra editorial board, could not but seem a "ticklish matter" (the expression used by Comrade Rusov and Comrade Deutsch). But from the standpoint of the interests of the Party, its dissolution, its "assimilation" in the Party (Gusev's expression), was essential. The Yuzhny Rabochy group bluntly declared that it "did not deem it necessary" to proclaim itself dissolved and demanded that "the Congress definitely pronounce its opinion", and

 
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pronounce it "immediately: yes or no". The Yuzhny Rabochy group openly invoked the same "continuity" as the old Iskra editorial board began to invoke . . . after it was dissolved! "Although we are all individually members of one Party," Comrade Egorov said, "it nevertheless consists of a number of organisations, with which we have to reckon as historical entities. . . . If such an organisation is not detrimental to the Party, there is no need to dissolve it."

    Thus an important question of principle was quite definitely raised, and all the Iskra-ists -- inasmuch as their own circle interests had not yet come to the forefront -- took a decisive stand against the unstable elements (the Bundists and two of the Rabocheye Dyelo-ists had already withdrawn from the Congress; they would undoubtedly have been heart and soul in favour of "reckoning with historical entities"). The result of the vote was thirty-one for, five against and five abstentions (the four votes of .the members of the Yuzhny Rabochy group and one other, that of Byelov, most likely, judging by his earlier pronouncements, p. 308). A group of ten votes distinctly opposed to Iskra 's consistent organisational plan and defending the circle spirit as against the party spirit can be quite definitely discerned here. During the debate the Iskra-ists presented the question precisely from the standpoint of principle (see Lange's speech, p. 315), opposing parochial amateurishness and disunity, refusing to pay heed to the "sympathies" of individual organisations, and plainly declaring that "if the comrades of Yuzhny Rabochy had adhered more strictly to principle earlier, a year or two ago, the unity of the Party and the triumph of the programme principles we have sanctioned here would have been achieved sooner". Orlov, Gusev, Lyadov, Muravyov, Rusov, Pavlovich, Glebov, and Gorin all spoke in this strain. And far from protesting against these definite and repeated references made at the Congress to the lack of principle in the policy and "line" of Yuzhny Rabochy, of Makhov and of others, far from making any reservation on this score, the Iskra-ists of the "minority", in the person of Deutsch, vigorously associated themselves with these views, condemned "chaos", and welcomed the "blunt way the question was put" (p. 315) by that very same Comrade Rusov who, at this same sitting, had the audacity -- oh,

 
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horror! -- to "bluntly put" the question of the old editorial board too on a purely Party basis (p. 325).

    On the part of the Yuzhny Rabochy group the proposal to dissolve it evoked violent indignation, traces of which are to be found in the minutes (it should not be forgotten that the minutes offer only a pale reflection of the debates, for they do not give the full speeches, but only very condensed summaries and extracts). Comrade Egorov even described as a "lie" the bare mention of the Rabochaya Mysl group[98] alongside of Yuzhny Rabochy -- a characteristic sample of the attitude that prevailed at the Congress towards consistent Economism. Even much later, at the 37th sitting, Egorov spoke of the dissolution of Yuzhny Rabochy with the utmost irritation (p. 356), requesting to have it recorded in the minutes that during the discussion on Yuzhny Rabochy the members of the group had not been asked either about publication funds or about control by the Central Organ and the Central Committee. Comrade Popov hinted, during the debate on Yuzhny Rabochy, at a compact majority having predetermined the fate of the group. "Now," he said (p. 316), "after the speeches of Comrades Gusev and Orlov, everything is clear. " The meaning of these words is unmistakable: now, after the Iskra-ists had stated their opinion and moved a resolution, everything was clear, i.e., it was clear that Yuzhny Rabochy would be dissolved, against its own wishes. Here the Yuzhny Rabochy spokesman himself drew a distinction between the Iskra-ists (and, moreover, Iskra-ists like Gusev and Orlov) and his own supporters, as representing different "lines" of organisational policy. And when the present-day Iskra represents the Yuzhny Rabochy group (and Makhov too, most likely?) as "typical Iskra-ists", it only demonstrates that the new editorial board has forgotten the most important (from this group's standpoint) events of the Congress and is anxious to cover up the evidence showing what elements went to form what is known as the "minority".

    Unfortunately, the question of a popular periodical was not discussed at the Congress. It was very actively discussed by all the Iskra-ists both before the Congress and during the Congress itself, outside the sittings, and they agreed that it would be highly irrational at this moment in the

 
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Party's life to launch such a publication or convert any of the existing ones for the purpose. The anti-Iskra-ists expressed the opposite opinion at the Congress; so did the Yuzhny Rabochy group in their report; and the fact that a motion to this effect, with ten signatures, was not tabled can only be attributed to chance, or to a disinclination to raise a "hopeless" issue.


E. THE EQUALITY OF LANGUAGES
INCIDENT

    Let us return to the chronological order of the Congress sittings.

    We have now convincingly seen that even before the Congress proceeded to discuss its actual business, there was clearly revealed not only a perfectly definite group of anti-Iskra-ists (eight votes), but also a group of intermediate and unstable elements prepared to support the eight anti-Iskra-ists and increase their votes to roughly sixteen or eighteen.

    The question of the position of the Bund in the Party, which was discussed at the Congress in extreme, excessive detail, reduced itself to deciding about the principle, while its practical decision was postponed until the discussion on organisation. Since the points involved had been given quite a lot of space in the press prior to the Congress, the discussion at the Congress produced relatively little that was new. It must, however, be mentioned that the supporters of Rabocheye Dyelo (Martynov, Akimov, and Brouckère), while agreeing with Martov's resolution, made the reservation that they found it inadequate and disagreed with the conclusions drawn from it (pp. 69, 73, 83 and 86).

    After discussing the position of the Bund, the Congress passed on to the programme. This discussion centred mainly around amendments of detail which present but slight interest. The opposition of the anti-Iskra-ists on matters of principle found expression only in Comrade Martynov's onslaught on the famous presentation of the question of spontaneity and consciousness. Martynov was, of course, backed by the Bundists and Rabocheye Dyelo-ists to a man. The unsoundness of his objections was pointed out, among others,

 
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by Martov and Plekhanov. It should be noted as a curiosity that the Iskra editorial board (on second thoughts, apparently) have now gone over to Martynov's side and are saying the opposite of what they said at the Congress! Presumably, this is in accordance with the celebrated principle of "continuity". . . . It only remains for us to wait until the editorial board have thoroughly cleared up the question and explain to us just how far they agree with Martynov, on what points exactly, and since when. Meanwhile, we only ask: has anyone ever seen a party organ whose editorial board said after a congress the very opposite of what they had said at the congress?

    Passing over the arguments about the adoption of Iskra as the Central Organ (we dealt with that above) and the beginning of the debate on the Rules (which it will be more convenient to examine in connection with the whole discussion of the Rules), let us consider the shades of principle revealed during the discussion of the programme. First of all let us note one detail of a highly characteristic nature, namely, the debate on proportional representation. Comrade Egorov of Yuzhny Rabochy advocated the inclusion of this point in the programme, and did so in a way that called forth the justified remark from Posadovsky (an Iskra-ist of the minority) that there was a "serious difference of opinion". "There can be no doubt," said Comrade Posadovsky, "that we do not agree on the following fundamental question: should we subordinate our future policy to certain fundamental democratic principles and attribute absolute value to them, or should all democratic principles be exclusively subordinated to the interests of our Party? I am decidedly in favour of the latter." Plekhanov "fully associated himself" with Posadovsky, objecting in even more definite and emphatic terms to "the absolute value of democratic principles" and to regarding them "abstractly". "Hypothetically," he said, "a case is conceivable where we Social-Democrats would oppose universal suffrage. There was a time when the bourgeoisie of the Italian republics deprived members of the nobility of political rights. The revolutionary proletariat may restrict the political rights of the upper classes in the same way as the upper classes used to restrict its political rights." Plekhanov's speech was greeted with applause

 
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and hissing, and when Plekhanov protested against somebody's Zwischenruf,[*] "You should not hiss," and told the comrades not to restrain their demonstrations, Comrade Egorov got up and said: "Since such speeches call forth applause, I am obliged to hiss." Together with Comrade Goldblatt (a Bund delegate), Comrade Egorov challenged the views of Posadovsky and Plekhanov. Unfortunately, the debate was closed, and this question that had cropped up in it immediately vanished from the scene. But it is useless for Comrade Martov to attempt now to belittle or even altogether deny its significance by saying at the League Congress: "These words [Plekhanov's] aroused the indignation of some of the delegates; this could easily have been avoided if Comrade Plekhanov had added that it was of course impossible to imagine so tragic a situation as that the proletariat, in order to consolidate its victory, should have to trample on such political rights as freedom of the press. . . . (Plekhanov: 'Merci.')" (League Minutes, p. 58.) This interpretation directly contradicts Comrade Posadovsky's categorical statement at the Congress about a "serious difference of opinion" and disagreement on a "fundamental question". On this fundamental question, all the Iskra-ists at the Congress opposed the spokesmen of the anti-Iskra "Right" (Goldblatt) and of the Congress "Centre" (Egorov). This is a fact, and one may safely assert that if the "Centre" (I hope this word will shock the "official" supporters of mildness less than any other. . .) had had occasion to speak "without restraint " (through the mouth of Comrade Egorov or Makhov) on this or on analogous questions, the serious difference of opinion would have been revealed at once.

    It was revealed even more distinctly over the matter of "equality of languages" (Minutes, p. 171 et seq.). On this point it was not so much the debate that was so eloquent, but the voting: counting up the times a vote was taken, we get the incredible number of sixteen ! Over what? Over whether it was enough to stipulate in the programme the equality of all citizens irrespective of sex, etc., and language, or whether it was necessary to stipulate "freedom of language", or "equality of languages". Comrade Martov charac-

---

    * Interjection from the floor. --Ed.

 
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terised this episode fairly accurately at the League Congress when he said that "a trifling dispute over the formulation of one point of the programme became a matter of principle because half the Congress was prepared to overthrow the Programme Committee". Precisely.[*] The immediate cause of the conflict was indeed trifling, yet it did become a matter of principle and consequently assumed terribly bitter forms, even to the point of attempts to "overthrow " the Programme Committee, of suspecting people of a desire to "mislead the Congress " (as Egorov suspected Martov!), and of personal remarks of the most . . . abusive kind (p. 178). Even Comrade Popov "expressed regret that mere trifles had given rise to such an atmosphere " (my italics, p. 182) as prevailed during the course of three sittings (the 16th, 17th and 18th).

    All these expressions very definitely and categorically point to the extremely important fact that the atmosphere of "suspicion" and of the most bitter forms of conflict ("overthrowing") -- for which later, at the League Congress, the Iskra-ist majority were held responsible! -- actually arose long before we split into a majority and minority. I repeat, this is a fact of enormous importance, a fundamental fact, and failure to understand it leads a great many people to very thoughtless conclusions about the majority at the end of the Congress having been artificial. From the present point of view of Comrade Martov, who asserts that nine-

---

    * Martov added: "On this occasion much harm was done by Plekhanov's witticism about asses." (When the question of freedom of language was being discussed, a Bundist, I think it was, mentioned stud farms among other institutions, whereupon Plekhanov said in a loud undertone: "Horses don't talk, but asses sometimes do.") I cannot, of course, see anything particularly mild, accommodating, tactful or flexible about this witticism. But I find it strange that Martov, who admitted that the dispute became a matter of principle, made absolutely no attempt to analyse what this principle was and what shades of opinion found expression here, but confined himself to talking about the "harmfulness" of witticisms. This is indeed a bureaucratic and formalistic attitude! It is true that "much harm was done at the Congress" by cutting witticisms, levelled not only at the Bundists, but also at those whom the Bundists sometimes supported and even saved from defeat. However, once you admit that the incident involved principles, you cannot confine yourself to phrases about the "impermissibility" (League Minutes, p. 58) of certain witticisms.

 
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tenths of the Congress delegates were Iskra-ists, the fact that "mere trifles", a "trivial" cause, could give rise to a conflict which became a "matter of principle" and nearly led to the overthrow of a Congress commission is absolutely inexplicable and absurd. It would be ridiculous to evade this fact with lamentations and regrets about "harmful" witticisms. No cutting witticisms could have made the conflict a matter of principle; it could become that only because of the character of the political groupings at the Congress. It was not cutting remarks and witticisms that gave rise to the conflict -- they were only a symptom of the fact that the Congress political grouping itself harboured a "contradiction", that it harboured all the makings of a conflict, that it harboured an internal heterogeneity which burst forth with immanent force at the least cause, even the most trifling.

    On the other hand, from the point of view from which I regard the Congress, and which I deem it my duty to uphold as a definite political interpretation of the events, even though this interpretation may seem offensive to some -- from this point of view the desperately acute conflict of principle that arose from a "trifling" cause is quite explicable and inevitable. Since a struggle between the Iskra-ists and the anti-Iskra-ists went on all the time at our Congress, since between them stood unstable elements, and since the latter, together with the anti-Iskra-ists, controlled one-third of the votes (8 + 10 = 18, out of 51, according to my calculation, an approximate one, of course), it is perfectly clear and natural that any falling away from the "Iskra "-ists of even a small minority created the possibility of a victory for the anti-Iskra trend and therefore evoked a "frenzied" struggle. This was not the result of improper cutting remarks and attacks, but of the political combination. It was not cutting remarks that gave rise to the political conflict; it was the existence of a political conflict in the very grouping at the Congress that gave rise to cutting remarks and attacks -- this contrast expresses the cardinal disagreement in principle between Martov and myself in appraising the political significance of the Congress and its results.

    In all, there were during the Congress three major cases of a small number of Iskra-ists falling away from the

 
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majority -- over the equality of languages question, over Paragraph 1 of the Rules, and over the elections -- and in all three cases a fierce struggle ensued, finally leading to the severe crisis we have in the Party today. For a political understanding of this crisis and this struggle, we must not confine ourselves to phrases about the impermissibility of witticisms, but must examine the political grouping of the shades that clashed at the Congress. The "equality of languages" incident is therefore doubly interesting as far as ascertaining the causes of the divergence is concerned, for here Martov was (still was!) an Iskra-ist and fought the anti-Iskra-ists and the "Centre" harder perhaps than anybody else.

    The war opened with an argument between Comrade Martov and Comrade Lieber, the leader of the Bundists (pp. 171-72). Martov argued that the demand for "equality of citizens" was enough. "Freedom of language" was rejected, but "equality of languages" was forthwith proposed, and Comrade Egorov joined Lieber in the fray. Martov declared that it was fetishism "when speakers insist that nationalities are equal and transfer inequality to the sphere of language, whereas the question should be examined from just the opposite angle: inequality of nationalities exists, and one of its expressions is that people belonging to certain nations are deprived of the right to use their mother tongue" (p. 172). There Martov was absolutely right. The totally baseless attempt of Lieber and Egorov to insist on the correctness of their formulation and make out that we were unwilling or unable to uphold the principle of equality of nationalities was indeed a sort of fetishism. Actually, they were, like "fetish-worshippers", defending the word and not the principle, acting not from fear of committing an error of principle, but from fear of what people might say. This shaky mentality (what if "others" blame us for this?) -- which we already noted in connection with the Organising Committee incident -- was quite clearly displayed here by our entire "Centre". Another of its spokesmen, the Mining Area delegate Lvov, who stood close to Yuzhny Rabochy, declared that "the question of the suppression of languages which has been raised by the border districts is a very serious one. It is important to include a point on

 
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language in our programme and thus obviate any possibility of the Social-Democrats being suspected of Russifying tendencies." A remarkable explanation of the "seriousness" of the question. It is very serious because possible suspicions on the part of the border districts must be obviated! The speaker says absolutely nothing on the substance of the question, he does not rebut the charge of fetishism but entirely confirms it, for he shows a complete lack of arguments of his own and merely talks about what the border districts may say. Everything they may say will be untrue he is told. But instead of examining whether it is true or not, he replies: "They may suspect. "

    Such a presentation of the question, coupled with the claim that it is serious and important, does indeed raise an issue of principle, but by no means the one the Liebers, Egorovs, and Lvovs would discern in it. The principle involved is: should we leave it to the organisations and members of the Party to apply the general and fundamental theses of the programme to their specific conditions, and to develop them for the purpose of such application, or are we, merely out of fear of suspicion, to fill the programme with petty details, minutiae, repetitions, and casuistry? The principle involved is: how can Social-Democrats discern ("suspect") in a fight against casuistry an attempt to restrict elementary democratic rights and liberties? When are we going to wean ourselves at last from this fetishist worship of casuistry? -- that was the thought that occurred to us when watching this struggle over "languages".

    The grouping of the delegates in this struggle is made particularly clear by the abundant roll-call votes. There were as many as three. All the time the Iskra core was solidly opposed by the anti-Iskra-ists (eight votes) and, with very slight fluctuations, by the whole Centre (Makhov, Lvov, Egorov, Popov, Medvedev, Ivanov, Tsaryov, and Byelov -- only the last two vacillated at first, now abstaining, now voting with us, and it was only during the third vote that their position became fully defined). Of the Iskra-ists, several fell away -- chiefly the Caucasians (three with six votes) -- and thanks to this the "fetishist" trend ultimately gained the upper hand. During the third vote, when the followers of both trends had clarified their position most fully!

 
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the three Caucasians, with six votes, broke away from the majority Iskra-ists and went over to the other side; two delegates -- Posadovsky and Kostich -- with two votes, fell away from the minority Iskra-ists. During the first two votes, the following had gone over to the other side or abstained: Lensky, Stepanov, and Gorsky of the Iskra-ist majority, and Deutsch of the minority. The falling away of eight "Iskra"-ist votes (out of a total of thirty-three) gave the superiority to the coalition of the anti-"Iskra"-ists and the unstable elements. It was just this fundamental fact of the Congress grouping that was repeated (only with other Iskra-ists falling away) during the vote on Paragraph 1 of the Rules and during the elections. It is not surprising that those who were defeated in the elections now carefully close their eyes to the political reasons for that defeat, to the starting-points of that conflict of shades which progressively revealed the unstable and politically spineless elements and exposed them ever more relentlessly in the eyes of the Party. The equality of languages incident shows us this conflict all the more clearly because at that time Comrade Martov had not yet earned the praises and approval of Akimov and Makhov.


F. THE AGRARIAN PROGRAMME

    The inconsistency of principle of the anti-Iskra-ists and the "Centre" was also clearly brought out by the debate on the agrarian programme, which took up so much time at the Congress (see Minutes, pp. 190-226) and raised quite a number of extremely interesting points. As was to be expected, the campaign against the programme was launched by Comrade Martynov (after some minor remarks by Comrades Lieber and Egorov). He brought out the old argument about redressing "this particular historical injustice", whereby, he claimed, we were indirectly "sanctifying other historical injustices", and so on. He was joined by Comrade Egorov, who even found that "the significance of this programme is unclear. Is it a programme for ourselves, that is, does it define our demands, or do we want to make it popular?" (!?!?) Comrade Lieber said he "would like to make the same points as Comrade Egorov". Comrade Makhov spoke up in

 
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his usual positive manner and declared that "the majority [?] of the speakers positively cannot understand what the programme submitted means and what its aims are". The proposed programme, you see, "can hardly be considered a Social-Democratic agrarian programme"; it . . . "smacks somewhat of a game at redressing historical injustices"; it bears "the trace of demagogy and adventurism". As a theoretical justification of this profundity came the caricature and over-simplification so customary in vulgar Marxism: the Iskra-ists, we were told, "want to treat the peasants as something homogeneous in composition; but as the peasantry split up into classes long ago [?], advancing a single programme must inevitably render the whole programme demagogic and make it adventurist when put into practice" (p. 202). Comrade Makhov here "blurted out" the real reason why our agrarian programme meets with the disapproval of many Social-Democrats, who are prepared to "recognise" Iskra (as Makhov himself did) but who have absolutely failed to grasp its trend, its theoretical and tactical position. It was the vulgarisation of Marxism as applied to so complex and many-sided a phenomenon as the present-day system of Russian peasant economy, and not differences over particulars, that was and is responsible for the failure to understand this programme. And on this vulgar-Marxist standpoint the leaders of the anti-Iskra elements (Lieber and Martynov) and of the "Centre" (Egorov and Makhov) quickly found themselves in harmony. Comrade Egorov gave frank expression also to one of the characteristic features of Yuzhny Rabochy and the groups and circles gravitating towards it, namely, their failure to grasp the importance of the peasant movement, their failure to grasp that it was not overestimation, but, on the contrary, underestimation of its importance (and a lack of forces to utilise it) that was the weak side of our Social-Democrats at the time of the first famous peasant revolts. "I am far from sharing the infatuation of the editorial board for the peasant movement," said Comrade Egorov, "an infatuation to which many Social Democrats have succumbed since the peasant disturbances." But, unfortunately, Comrade Egorov did not take the trouble to give the Congress any precise idea of what this infatuation of the editorial board consisted in; he did

 
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not take the trouble to make specific reference to any of the material published by Iskra. Moreover, he forgot that all the fundamental points of our agrarian programme had already been developed by Iskra in its third issue,[*] that is, long before the peasant disturbances. Those whose "recognition" of Iskra was not merely verbal might well have given a little more attention to its theoretical and tactical principles!

    "No, we cannot do much among the peasants!" Comrade Egorov exclaimed, and he went on to indicate that this exclamation was not meant as a protest against any particular "infatuation", but as a denial of our entire position: "It means that our slogan cannot compete with the slogan of the adventurists." A most characteristic formulation of an unprincipled attitude, which reduces everything to "competition" between the slogans of different parties! And this was said after the speaker had pronounced himself "satisfied" with the theoretical explanations, which pointed out that we strove for lasting success in our agitation, undismayed by temporary failures, and that lasting success (as against the resounding clamour of our "competitors" . . . for a short time) was impossible unless the programme had a firm theoretical basis (p. 196). What confusion is disclosed by this assurance of "satisfaction" followed by a repetition of the vulgar precepts inherited from the old Economism, for which the "competition of slogans" decided everything -- not only the agrarian question, but the entire programme and tactics of the economic and political struggle! "You will not induce the agricultural labourer," Comrade Egorov said, "to fight side by side with the rich peasant for the cut-off lands, which to no small extent are already in this rich peasant's hands."

    There again you have the same over-simplification, undoubtedly akin to our opportunist Economism, which insisted that it was impossible to "induce" the proletarian to fight for what was to no small extent in the hands of the bourgeoisie and would fall into its hands to an even larger extent in the future. There again you have the vulgarisation that forgets the Russian peculiarities of the general

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    * See present edition, Vol. 4, pp. 420-28. --Ed.  [Transcriber's Note: See "The Workers' Party and the Peasantry". -- DJR]

 
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capitalist relations between the agricultural labourer and the rich peasant. Actually, the cut-off lands today oppress the agricultural labourer as well, and he does not have to be "induced" to fight for emancipation from his state of servitude. It is certain intellectuals who have to be "induced" -- induced to take a wider view of their tasks, induced to renounce stereotyped formulas when discussing specific questions, induced to take account of the historical situation, which complicates and modifies our aims. It is only the superstition that the muzhik is stupid -- a superstition which, as Comrade Martov rightly remarked (p. 202), was to be detected in the speeches of Comrade Makhov and the other opponents of the agrarian programme -- only this superstition explains why these opponents forget our agricultural labourer's actual conditions of life.

    Having simplified the question into a naked contrast of worker and capitalist, the spokesmen of our "Centre" tried, as often happens, to ascribe their own narrow-mindedness to the muzhik. "It is precisely because I consider the muzhik, within the limits of his narrow class outlook, a clever fellow," Comrade Makhov remarked, "that I believe he will stand for the petty-bourgeois ideal of seizure and division." Two things are obviously confused here: the definition of the class outlook of the muzhik as that of a petty bourgeois, and the restriction, the reduction of this outlook to "narrow limits". It is in this reduction that the mistake of the Egorovs and Makhovs lies (just as the mistake of the Martynovs and Akimovs lay in reducing the outlook of the proletarian to "narrow limits"). For both logic and history teach us that the petty-bourgeois class outlook may be more or less narrow, and more or less progressive, precisely because of the dual status of the petty bourgeois. And far from dropping our hands in despair because of the narrowness ("stupidity") of the muzhik or because he is governed by "prejudice", we must work unremittingly to widen his outlook and help his reason to triumph over his prejudice.

    The vulgar-"Marxist" view of the Russian agrarian question found its culmination in the concluding words of Comrade Makhov's speech, in which that faithful champion of the old Iskra editorial board set forth his principles. It was not for nothing that these words were greeted with applause . . .

 
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true, it was ironical applause. "I do not know, of course, what to call a misfortune," said Comrade Makhov, outraged by Plekhanov's statement that we were not at all alarmed by the movement for a General Redistribution,[94] and that we would not be the ones to hold back this progressive (bourgeois progressive) movement. "But this revolution, if it can be called such, would not be a revolutionary one. It would be truer to call it, not revolution, but reaction (laughter ), a revolution that was more like a riot. . . . Such a revolution would throw us back, and it would require a certain amount of time to get back to the position we have today. Today we have far more than during the French Revolution (ironical applause ), we have a Social-Democratic Party (laughter ). . . ." Yes, a Social-Democratic Party which reasoned like Makhov, or which had central institutions of the Makhov persuasion, would indeed only deserve to be laughed at. . . .

    Thus we see that even on the purely theoretical questions raised by the agrarian programme, the already familiar grouping at once appeared. The anti-Iskra-ists (eight votes) rushed into the fray on behalf of vulgar Marxism, and the leaders of the "Centre", the Egorovs and Makhovs, trailed after them, constantly erring and straying into the same narrow outlook. It is quite natural, therefore, that the voting on certain points of the agrarian programme should have resulted in thirty and thirty-five votes in favour (pp. 225 and 226), that is, approximately the same figure as we observed in the dispute over the place of the Bund question on the agenda, in the Organising Committee incident, and in the question of shutting down Yuzhny Rabochy. An issue had only to arise which did not quite come within the already established and customary pattern, and which called for some independent application of Marx's theory to peculiar and new (new to the Germans) social and economic relations, and Iskra-ists who proved equal to the problems only made up three-fifths of the vote, while the whole "Centre" turned and followed the Liebers and Martynovs. Yet Comrade Martov strives to gloss over this obvious fact, fearfully avoiding all mention of votes where the shades of opinion were clearly revealed!

    It is clearly evident from the debate on the agrarian programme that the Iskra-ists had to fight against a good

 
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two-fifths of the Congress. On this question the Caucasian delegates took up an absolutely correct stand -- due largely, in all probability, to the fact that first-hand knowledge of the forms taken by the numerous remnants of feudalism in their localities kept them from the schoolboyishly abstract and bare contrasts that satisfied the Makhovs. Martynov and Lieber, Makhov and Egorov were combated by Plekhanov, by Gusev (who declared that he had "frequently encountered such a pessimistic view of our work in the countryside" as Comrade Egorov's "among the comrades active in Russia"), by Kostrov,[95] by Karsky and by Trotsky. The latter rightly remarked that the "well-meant advice" of the critics of the agrarian programme "smacked too much of philistinism". It should only be said, since we are studying the political grouping at the Congress, that he was hardly correct when in this part of his speech (p. 208) he ranked Comrade Lange with Egorov and Makhov. Anyone who reads the minutes carefully will see that Lange and Gorin took quite a different stand from Egorov and Makhov. Lange and Gorin did not like the formulation of the point on the cut off lands; they fully understood the idea of our agrarian programme, but tried to apply it in a different way, worked constructively to find what they considered a more irreproachable formulation, and in submitting their motions had in view either to convince the authors of the programme or else to side with them against all the non-Iskra-ists. For example, one has only to compare Makhov's motions to reject the whole agrarian programme (p. 212; nine for, thirty-eight against) or individual points in it (p. 216, etc.) with the position of Lange, who moved his own formulation of the point on the cut-off lands (p. 225), to become convinced of the radical difference between them.*

    Referring to the arguments which smacked of "philistinism", Comrade Trotsky pointed out that "in the approaching revolutionary period we must link ourselves with the peasantry". . . . "In face of this task, the scepticism and political 'far-sightedness' of Makhov and Egorov are more harmful than any short-sightedness." Comrade Kostich, another minority Iskra-ist, very aptly pointed to Comrade

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    * Cf. Gorin's speech, p. 213.

 
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Makhov's "unsureness of himself, of the stability of his principles" -- a description that fits our "Centre" to a tittle. "In his pessimism Comrade Makhov is at one with Comrade Egorov, although they differ in shade," Comrade Kostich continued. "He forgets that the Social-Democrats are already working among the peasantry, are already directing their movement as far as possible. And this pessimism narrows the scope of our work" (p. 210).

    To conclude our examination of the Congress discussion of the programme, it is worth while mentioning the brief debate on the subject of supporting oppositional trends. Our programme clearly states that the Social-Democratic Party supports "every oppositional and revolutionary movement directed against the existing social and political order in Russia". One would think that this last reservation made it quite clear exactly which oppositional trends we support. Nevertheless, the different shades that long ago developed in our Party at once revealed themselves here too, difficult as it was to suppose that any "perplexity or misunderstanding" was still possible on a question which had been chewed over so thoroughly! Evidently, it was not a matter of misunderstandings, but of shades. Makhov, Lieber, and Martynov at once sounded the alarm and again proved to be in so "compact" a minority that Comrade Martov would most likely have to attribute this too to intrigue, machination, diplomacy, and the other nice things (see his speech at the League Congress) to which people resort who are incapable of understanding the political reasons for the formation of "compact" groups of both minority and majority.

    Makhov again began with a vulgar simplification of Marxism. "Our only revolutionary class is the proletariat," he declared, and from this correct premise he forthwith drew an incorrect conclusion: "The rest are of no account, they are mere hangers-on (general laughter ). . . . Yes, they are mere hangers-on and only out to reap the benefits. I am against supporting them" (p. 226). Comrade Makhov's inimitable formulation of his position embarrassed many (of his supporters), but as a matter of fact Lieber and Martynov agreed with him when they proposed deleting the word "oppositional" or restricting it by an addition: "democratic-oppositional." Plekhanov quite rightly took the field against this

 
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amendment of Martynov's. "We must criticise the liberals," he said, "expose their half-heartedness. That is true. . . . But, while exposing the narrowness and limitations of all movements other than the Social-Democratic, it is our duty to explain to the proletariat that even a constitution which does not confer universal suffrage would be a step forward compared with absolutism, and that therefore it should not prefer the existing order to such a constitution." Comrades Martynov, Lieber, and Makhov would not agree with this and persisted in their position, which was attacked by Axelrod, Starover, and Trotsky and once more by Plekhanov. Comrade Makhov managed on this occasion to surpass himself. First he had said that the other classes (other than the proletariat) were "of no account" and that he was "against supporting them". Then he condescended to admit that "while essentially it is reactionary, the bourgeoisie is often revolutionary -- for example, in the struggle against feudalism and its survivals". "But there are some groups," he continued, going from bad to worse, "which are always [?] reactionary -- such are the handicraftsmen." Such were the gems of theory arrived at by those very leaders of our "Centre" who later foamed at the mouth in defence of the old editorial board! "Even in Western Europe, where the guild system was so strong, it was the handicraftsmen, like the other petty bourgeois of the towns, who displayed an exceptionally revolutionary spirit in the era of the fall of absolutism. And it is particularly absurd of a Russian Social-Democrat to repeat without reflection what our Western comrades say about the handicraftsmen of today, that is, of an era separated by a century or half a century from the fall of absolutism. To speak of the handicraftsmen in Russia being politically reactionary as compared with the bourgeoisie is merely to repeat a set phrase learnt by rote.

    Unfortunately, there is no record in the minutes of the number of votes cast for the rejected amendments of Martynov, Makhov, and Lieber on this question. All we can say is that, here too, the leaders of the anti-Iskra elements and one of the leaders of the "Centre"* joined forces in the already

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    * Another leader of this same group, the "Centre", Comrade Egorov, spoke on the question of supporting the oppositional trends on a different occasion, in connection with Axelrod's resolution on the [cont. onto p. 241. -- DJR] Socialist-Revolutionaries (p. 359). Comrade Egorov detected a "contradiction" between the demand in the programme for support of every oppositional and revolutionary movement and the antagonistic attitude towards both the Socialist-Revolutionaries and the liberals. In another form, and approaching the question from a somewhat different angle, Comrade Egorov here revealed the same narrow conception of Marxism, and the same unstable, semi-hostile attitude towards the position of Iskra (which he had "recognised?), as Comrades Makhov, Lieber, and Martynov had done.

 
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familiar grouping against the Iskra-ists. Summing up the whole discussion on the programme, one cannot help seeing that of the debates which were at all animated and evoked general interest there was not one that failed to reveal the difference of shades which Comrade Martov and the new Iskra editorial board now so carefully ignore.


G. THE PARTY RULES.
COMRADE MARTOV'S DRAFT

    From the programme, the Congress passed to the Party Rules (we leave out the question of the Central Organ, already touched on above, and the delegates' reports, which the majority of the delegates were unfortunately unable to present in a satisfactory form). Needless to say, the question of the Rules was of tremendous importance to all of us. After all, Iskra had acted from the very outset not only as a press organ but also as an organisational nucleus. In an editorial in its fourth issue ("Where To Begin") Iskra had put forward a whole plan of organisation,* which it pursued systematically and steadily over a period of three years. When the Second Party Congress adopted Iskra as the Central Organ, two of the three points of the preamble of the resolution on the subject (p. 147) were devoted precisely to this organisational plan and to "Iskra 's" organisational ideas: its role in directing

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    * In his speech on the adoption of Iskra as the Central Organ, Comrade Popov said, inter alia: "I recall the article 'Where To Begin' in No. 3 or No. 4 of Iskra. Many of the comrades active in Russia found it a tactless article; others thought this plan was fantastic, and the majority [? -- probably the majority around Comrade Popov] attributed it solely to ambition" (p. 140). As the reader sees, it is no new thing for me to hear my political views attributed to ambition -- an explanation now being rehashed by Comrade Axelrod and Comrade Martov .

 
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the practical work of the Party and the leading part it had played in the work of attaining unity. It is quite natural, therefore, that the work of Iskra and the entire work of organ ising the Party, the entire work of actually restoring the Party, could not be regarded as finished until definite ideas of organisation had been adopted by the whole Party and formally enacted. This task was to be performed by the Party's Rules of Organisation.

    The principal ideas which Iskra strove to make the basis of the Party's organisation amounted essentially to the following two: first, the idea of centralism, which defined in principle the method of deciding all particular and detail questions of organisation; second, the special function of an organ, a newspaper, for ideological leadership -- an idea which took into account the temporary and special requirements of the Russian Social-Democratic working-class movement in the existing conditions of political slavery, with the initial base of operations for the revolutionary assault being set up abroad. The first idea, as the one matter of principle, had to pervade the entire Rules; the second, being a particular idea necessitated by temporary circumstances of place and mode of action, took the form of a seeming departure from centralism in the proposal to set up two centres, a Central Organ and a Central Committee. Both these principal Iskra ideas of Party organisation had been developed by me in the Iskra editorial (No. 4) "Where To Begin"* and in What Is To Be Done?** and, finally, had been explained in detail, in a form that was practically a finished set of Rules, in A Letter to a Comrade.*** Actually, all that remained was the work of formulating the paragraphs of the Rules, which were to embody just those ideas if the recognition of Iskra was not to be merely nominal, a mere conventional phrase. In the preface to the new edition of my Letter to a Comrade I have already pointed out that a simple comparison of the Party Rules with that pamphlet is enough to establish the complete identity of the ideas of organisation contained in the two.****

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    * See present edition, Vol. 5, pp. 13-24. -- Ed.
    ** See present edition, Vol. 5, pp. 347-529. --Ed.
    *** See present edition, Vol. 6, pp. 231-52. -- Ed.
    **** See pp. 132-33 of this volume. -- Ed.  [Transcriber's Note: See Lenin's "Preface to the Pamphlet A Letter to a Comrade on Our Organisational Tasks". -- DJR]

 
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    A propos of the work of formulating Iskra 's ideas of organisation in the Rules, I must deal with a certain incident mentioned by Comrade Martov. ". . . A statement of fact," said Martov at the League Congress (p. 58), "will show you how far my lapse into opportunism on this paragraph [i.e., Paragraph 1] was unexpected by Lenin. About a month and a half or two months before the Congress I showed Lenin my draft, in which Paragraph 1 was formulated just in the way I proposed it at the Congress. Lenin objected to my draft on the ground that it was too detailed, and told me that all he liked was the idea of Paragraph 1 -- the definition of Party membership -- which he would incorporate in his Rules with certain modifications, because he did not think my formulation was a happy one. Thus, Lenin had long been acquainted with my formulation, he knew my views on this subject. You thus see that I came to the Congress with my visor up, that I did not conceal my views. I warned him that I would oppose mutual co-optation, the principle of unanimity in cases of co-optation to the Central Committee and the Central Organ, and so on."

    As regards the warning about opposing mutual co-optation, we shall see in its proper place how matters really stood. At present let us deal with this "open visor" of Martov's Rules. At the League Congress, recounting from memory this episode of his unhappy draft (which he himself withdrew at the Congress because it was an unhappy one, but after the Congress, with his characteristic consistency, again brought out into the light of day), Martov, as so often happens, forgot a good deal and therefore again got things muddled. One would have thought there had already been cases enough to warn him against quoting private conversations and relying on his memory (people involuntarily recall only what is to their advantage!) -- nevertheless, for want of any other, Comrade Martov used unsound material. Today even Comrade Plekhanov is beginning to imitate him -- evidently, a bad example is contagious.

    I could not have "liked" the "idea" of Paragraph 1 of Martov's draft, for that draft contained no idea that came up at the Congress. His memory played him false. I have been fortunate enough to find Martov's draft among my papers, and

 
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in it "Paragraph 1 is formulated n o t in the way he proposed it at the Congress"! So much for the "open visor"!

    Paragraph 1 in Martov's draft: "A member of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party is one who, accepting its programme, works actively to accomplish its aims under the control and direction of the organs [sic !] of the Party."

    Paragraph 1 in my draft: "A member of the Party is one who accepts its programme and who supports the Party both financially and by personal participation in one of the Party organisations."

    Paragraph 1 as formulated by Martov at the Congress and adopted by the Congress: "A member of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party is one who accepts its programme, supports the Party financially, and renders it regular personal assistance under the direction of one of its organisations."

    It is clearly evident from this juxtaposition that there is no idea in Martov's draft, but only an empty phrase. That Party members must work under the control and direction of the organs of the Party goes without saying; it cannot be otherwise, and only those talk about it who love to talk without saying anything, who love to drown "Rules" in a flood of verbiage and bureaucratic formulas (that is, formulas useless for the work and supposed to be useful for display). The idea of Paragraph 1 appears only when the question is asked: can the organs of the Party exercise actual direction over Party members who do not belong to any of the Party organisations? There is not even a trace of this idea in Comrade Martov's draft. Consequently, I could not have been acquainted with the "views" of Comrade Martov "on this subject", for in Comrade Martov's draft there are no views on this subject. Comrade Martov's statement of fact proves to be a muddle.

    About Comrade Martov, on the other hand, it does have to be said that from my draft "he knew my views on this subject" and did not protest against them, did not reject them, either on the editorial board, although my draft was shown to everyone two or three weeks before the Congress, or in talking to the delegates, who were acquainted only with my draft. More, even at the Congress, when I moved my

 
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draft Rules[*] and defended them before the election of the Rules Committee, Comrade Martov distinctly stated: "I associate myself with Comrade Lenin's conclusions. Only on two points do I disagree with him" (my italics) -- on the mode of constituting the Council and on unanimous co-optation (p. 157). Not a word was yet said about any difference over Paragraph 1.

    In his pamphlet on the state of siege, Comrade Martov saw fit to recall his Rules once more, and in great detail. He assures us there that his Rules, to which, with the exception of certain minor particulars, he would be prepared to subscribe even now (February 1904 -- we cannot say how it will be three months hence), "quite clearly expressed his disapproval of hypertrophy of centralism" (p. iv). The reason he did not submit this draft to the Congress, Comrade Martov now explains, was, firstly, that "his Iskra training had imbued him with disdain for Rules" (when it suits Comrade Martov, the word Iskra means for him, not a narrow circle spirit, but the most steadfast of trends! It is a pity, however, that Comrade Martov's Iskra training did not imbue him in three years with disdain for the anarchistic phrases by which the unstable mentality of the intellectual is capable of justifying the violation of Rules adopted by common consent). Secondly, that, don't you see, he, Comrade Martov, wanted to avoid "introducing any dissonance into the tactics of that basic organisational nucleus which Iskra constituted". Wonderfully consistent, isn't it? On a question of principle regarding an opportunist formulation of Paragraph 1 or hypertrophy of centralism, Comrade Martov was so

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    * Incidentally, the Minutes Committee, in Appendix XI, has published the draft Rules "moved at the Congress by Lenin" (p. 393). Here the Minutes Committee has also muddled things a little. It has confused my original draft (see present edition, Vol. 6, pp. 476-78. --Ed.  [Transcriber's Note: See Lenin's The Second Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. -- DJR]), which was shown to all the delegates (and to many before the Congress), with the draft moved at the Congress, and published the former under the guise of the latter. Of course, I have no objection to my drafts being published, even in all their stages of preparation, but there was no need to cause confusion. And confusion has been caused, for Popov and Martov (pp. 154 and 157) criticised formulations in the draft I actually moved at the Congress which are not in the draft published by the Minutes Committee (cf. p. 394, Paragraphs 7 and 11). With a little more care, the mistake could easily have been detected simply by comparing the pages I mention.

 
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afraid of any dissonance (which is terrible only from the narrowest circle point of view) that he did not set forth his disagreement even to a nucleus like the editorial board! On the practical question of the composition of the central bodies, Comrade Martov appealed for the assistance of the Bund and the Rabocheye Dyelo-ist! against the vote of the majority of the Iskra organisation (that real basic organisational nucleus ). The "dissonance" in his phrases, which smuggle in the circle spirit in defence of the quasi-editorial board only to repudiate the "circle spirit" in the appraisal of the question by those best qualified to judge -- this dissonance Comrade Martov does not notice. To punish him, we shall quote his, draft Rules in full, noting for our part what views and what hypertrophy they reveal[*]:

    "Draft of Party Rules. -- I. Party membership. -- 1) A member of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party is one who, accepting its programme, works actively to accomplish its aims under the control and direction of the organs of the Party. -- 2) Expulsion of a member from the Party for conduct incompatible with the interests of the Party shall be decided by the Central Committee. [The sentence of expulsion, giving the reasons, shall be preserved in the Party files and shall be communicated, on request, to every Party committee. The Central Committee's decision to expel a member may be appealed against to the Congress on the demand of two or more committees.]" I shall indicate by square brackets the provisions in Martov's draft which are obviously meaningless, failing to contain not only "ideas", but even any definite conditions or requirements -- like the inimitable specification in the "Rules" as to where exactly a sentence of expulsion is to be preserved, or the provision that the Central Committee's decision to expel a member (and not all its decision in general?) may be appealed against to the Congress. This, indeed, is hypertrophy of verbiage, or real bureaucratic formalism, which frames superfluous, patently useless or red-tapist, points and paragraphs. "II. Local Committees. -- 3) In its local work, the Party is represented by the Party committees" (how new and clever!). "4) [As Party committees are recognised all those existing at the time of the Second Congress and represented at the Congress.] -- 5) New Party committees, in addition to those mentioned in Paragraph 4, shall be appointed by the Central Committee [which shall either endorse as a committee the existing membership of the given local organisation, or shall set up a local committee by reforming the latter]. -- 6) The committees may add to their membership by means of co-optation. -- 7) The Central Committee has the right

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    * I might mention that unfortunately I could not find the first variant of Comrade Martov's draft, which consisted of some forty-eight paragraphs and suffered even more from "hypertrophy" of worthless formalism

 
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to augment the membership of a local committee with such numbers of comrades (known to it) as shall not exceed one-third of the total membership of the committee." A perfect sample of bureaucracy. Why not exceeding one-third? What is the purpose of this? What is the sense of this restriction which restricts nothing, seeing that the augmenting may be repeated over and over again? "8) [In the event of a local committee falling apart or being broken up by persecution" (does this mean that not all the members have been arrested?), "the Central Committee shall re-establish it.]" (Without regard to Paragraph 7? Does not Comrade Martov perceive a similarity between Paragraph 8 and those Russian laws on orderly conduct which command citizens to work on weekdays and rest on holidays?) "9) [A regular Party Congress may instruct the Central Committee to reform the composition of any local committee if the activities of the latter are found incompatible with the interests of the Party. In that event the existing committee shall be deemed dissolved and the comrades in its area of operation exempt from subordination[*] to it.]" The provision contained in this paragraph is as highly useful as the provision contained to this day in the Russian law which reads: "Drunkenness is forbidden to all and sundry." "10) [The local Party committees shall direct all the propagandist, agitational, and organisational activities of the Party in their localities and shall do all in their power to assist the Central Committee and the Central Organs of the Party in carrying out the general Party tasks entrusted to them.]" Phew! What in the name of all that's holy is the purpose of this? "11) [The internal arrangements of a local organisation, the mutual relations between a committee and the groups subordinate to it" (do you hear that, Comrade Axelrod?), "and the limits of the competence and autonomy" (are not the limits of competence the same as the limits of autonomy?) "of these groups shall be determined by the committee itself and communicated to the Central Committee and the editorial board of the Central Organs.]" (An omission: it is not stated where these communications are to be filed.) "12) [All groups subordinate to committees, and individual Party members, have the right to demand that their opinions and recommendations on any subject be communicated to the Central Committee of the Party and its Central Organs.] -- 13) The local Party committees shall contribute from their revenues to the funds of the Central Committee such sums as the Central Committee shall assign to their share. -- III. Organisations for the Purpose of Agitation in Languages Other than Russian. -- 14) [For the purpose of carrying on agitation in any non-Russian language and of organising the workers among whom such agitation is carried on, separate organisations may be set up in places where such specialised agitation and the setting up of such organisations are deemed necessary.] -- 15) The question as to whether such a necessity exists shall be decided by the Central Committee of the Party, and in disputed cases by the Party Congress." The first

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    * We would draw Comrade Axelrod's attention to this word. Why this is terrible! Here are the roots of that "Jacobinism" which goes to the length even . . . even of altering the composition of an editorial board. . . .

 
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part of this paragraph is superfluous in view of subsequent provisions in the Rules, and the second part, concerning disputed cases, is simply ludicrous. "16) [The local organisations mentioned in Paragraph 14 shall be autonomous in their special affairs but shall act under the control of the local committee and be subordinate to it, the forms of this control and the character of the organisational relations between the committee and the special organisation being determined by the local committee." (Well, thank God! It is now quite clear that this whole spate of empty words was superfluous.) "In respect of the general affairs of the Party, such organisations shall act as part of the committee organisation.] -- 17) [The local organisations mentioned in Paragraph 14 may form autonomous leagues for the effective performance of their special tasks. These leagues may have their own special press and administrative bodies both being under the direct control of the Central Committee of the Party. The Rules of these leagues shall be drawn up by themselves, but shall be subject to endorsement by the Central Committee of the Party.] -- 18) [The autonomous leagues mentioned in Paragraph 17 may include local Party committees if, by reason of local conditions, these devote themselves mainly to agitation in the given language. Note. While forming part of the autonomous league, such a committee does not cease to be a committee of the Party.]" (This entire paragraph is extremely useful and wonderfully clever, the note even more so.) "19) [The relations of local organisations belonging to an autonomous league with the central bodies of that league shall be controlled by the local committees.] -- 20) [The central press and administrative bodies of the autonomous leagues shall stand in the same relation to the Central Committee of the Party as the local Party committees.] -- IV. Central Committee and Press Organs of the Party. -- 21) [The Party as a whole shall be represented by its Central Committee and its press organs, political and theoretical.] -- 22) The functions of the Central Committee shall be: to exercise general direction of all the practical activities of the Party; to ensure the proper utilisation and allocation of all its forces; to exercise control over the activities of all sections of the Party, to supply the local organisations with literature; to organise the technical apparatus of the Party, to convene Party congresses. -- 23) The functions of the press organs of the Party shall be: to exercise ideological direction of Party life, to conduct propaganda for the Party programme, and to carry out theoretical and popular elaboration of the world outlook of Social-Democracy. -- 24) All local Party committees and autonomous leagues shall maintain direct communication both with the Central Committee of the Party and with the editorial board of the Party organs and shall keep them periodically informed of the progress of the movement and of organisational work in their localities. -- 25) The editorial board of the Party press organs shall be appointed at Party congresses and shall function until the next congress. -- 26) [The editorial board shall be autonomous in its internal affairs] and may in the interval between congresses augment or alter its membership, informing the Central Committee in each case. -- 27) All statements issued by the Central Committee or receiving its sanction shall on the demand of the Central Committee, be published in the Party

 
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organ. -- 28) The Central Committee, by agreement with the editorial board of the Party organs, shall set up special writers' groups for various forms of literary work. -- 29) The Central Committee shall be appointed at Party congresses and shall function until the next congress. The Central Committee may augment its membership by means of co-optation, without restriction as to numbers, in each case informing the editorial board of the Central Organs of the Party. -- V. The Party Organisation Abroad. -- 30) The Party organisation abroad shall carry on propaganda among Russians living abroad and organise the socialist elements among them. It shall be headed by an elected administrative body. -- 31) The autonomous leagues belonging to the Party may maintain branches abroad to assist in carrying out their special tasks. These branches shall constitute autonomous groups within the general organisation abroad. -- VI. Party Congresses. -- 32) The supreme Party authority is the Congress. -- 33) [The Party Congress shall lay down the Programme, Rules and guiding principles of the activities of the Party, it shall control the work of all Party bodies and settle disputes arising between them.] -- 34) The right to be represented at congresses shall be enjoyed by: a) all local Party committees; b) the central administrative bodies of all the autonomous leagues belonging to the Party, c) the Central Committee of the Party and the editorial board of its Central Organs; d) the Party organisation abroad. -- 35) Mandates may be entrusted to proxies, but no delegate shall hold more than three valid mandates. A mandate may be divided between two representatives. Binding instructions are forbidden. -- 36) The Central Committee shall be empowered to invite to the congress in a deliberative capacity comrades whose presence may be useful. -- 37) Amendments to the Programme or Rules of the Party shall require a two-thirds majority; other questions shall be decided by a simple majority. -- 38) A congress shall be deemed properly constituted if more than half the Party committees existing at the time of it are represented. -- 39) Congresses shall, as far as possible, be convened once every two years [If for reasons beyond the control of the Central Committee a congress cannot be convened within this period, the Central Committee shall on its own responsibility postpone it.]"

    Any reader who, by way of an exception, has had the patience to read these so-called Rules to the end assuredly will not expect me to give special reasons for the following conclusions. First conclusion: the Rules suffer from almost incurable dropsy. Second conclusion: it is impossible to discover in these Rules any special shade of organisational views evincing a disapproval of hypertrophy of centralism. Third conclusion: Comrade Martov acted very wisely indeed in concealing from the eyes of the world (and withholding from discussion at the Congress) more than 38/39 of his Rules. Only it is rather odd that à props of this concealment he should talk about an open visor.

 
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H. DISCUSSION ON CENTRALISM
PRIOR TO THE SPLIT AMONG THE ISKRA-ISTS

    Before passing to the really interesting question of the formulation of Paragraph 1 of the Rules, a question which undoubtedly disclosed the existence of different shades of opinion, let us dwell a little on that brief general discussion of the Rules which occupied the 14th and part of the 15th Congress sittings. This discussion is of some significance inasmuch as it preceded the complete divergence within the Iskra organisation over the composition of the central bodies, whereas the subsequent debate on the Rules in general, and on co-optation in particular, took place after this divergence in the Iskra organisation. Naturally, before the divergence we were able to express our views more impartially, in the sense that they were more independent of views about the personal composition of the Central Committee, which became such a keen issue with us all. Comrade Martov, as I have already remarked, associated himself (p. 157) with my views on organisation, only making the reservation that he differed on two points of detail. Both the anti-Iskra-ists and the "Centre", on the contrary, at once took the field against both fundamental ideas of the whole Iskra organisational plan (and, consequently, against the Rules in their entirety): against centralism and against "two centres" Comrade Lieber referred to my Rules as "organised distrust" and discerned decentralism in the proposal for two centres (as did Comrades Popov and Egorov). Comrade Akimov wanted to broaden the jurisdiction of the local committees, and, in particular, to grant them themselves "the right to alter their composition". "They should be allowed greater freedom of action. . . . The local committees should be elected by the active workers in their localities, just as the Central Committee is elected by the representatives of all the active organisations in Russia. And if even this cannot be allowed, let the number of members that the Central Committee may appoint to local committees be limited. . ." (p. 158). Comrade Akimov, as you see, suggested an argument against "hypertrophy of centralism", but Comrade Martov remained deaf to these weighty arguments, not yet having been induced by his defeat over the composition of the central bodies

 
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to follow in Akimov's wake. He remained deaf even when Comrade Akimov suggested to him the " idea" of his own Rules (Paragraph 7 -- restriction of the Central Committee's right to appoint members to the committees)! At that time Comrade Martov still did not want any "dissonance" with us, and for that reason tolerated a dissonance both with Comrade Akimov and with himself. . . . At that time the only opponents of "monstrous centralism" were those to whom Iskra 's centralism was clearly disadvantageous: it was opposed by Akimov, Lieber, and Goldblatt, followed, cautiously and circumspectly (so that they could always turn back), by Egorov (see pp. 156 and 276) and such like. At that time it was still clear to the vast majority of the Party that it was the parochial, circle interests of the Bund, Yuzhny Rabochy, etc., that evoked the protest against centralism. For that matter, now too it is clear to the majority of the Party that it is the circle interests of the old Iskra editorial board that cause it to protest against centralism. . . .

    Take, for example, Comrade Goldblatt's speech (pp. 160-61). He inveighs against my "monstrous" centralism and claims that it would lead to the "destruction" of the lower organisations, that it is "permeated through and through with the desire to give the centre unrestricted powers and the unrestricted right to interfere in everything", that it allows the organisations "only one right -- to submit without a murmur to orders from above", etc. "The centre proposed by the draft would find itself in a vacuum, it would have no peripheral organisations around it, but only an amorphous mass in which its executive agents would move." Why, this is exactly the kind of false phrase-mongering to which the Martovs and Axelrods proceeded to treat us after their defeat at the Congress. The Bund was laughed at when it fought our centralism while granting its own central body even more definite unrestricted rights (e.g., to appoint and expel members, and even to refuse to admit delegates to congresses). And when people sort things out, the howls of the minority will also be laughed at, for they cried out against centralism and against the Rules when they were in the minority, but lost no time in taking advantage of the Rules once they had managed to make themselves the majority.

 
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    Over the question of two centres, the grouping was also clearly evident: all the Iskra-ists were opposed by Lieber, by Akimov (the first to strike up the now favourite Axelrod-Martov tune about the Central Organ predominating over the Central Committee on the Council), by Popov, and by Egorov. From the ideas of organisation which the old Iskra had always advocated (and which the Popovs and Egorovs had verbally approved!), the plan for two centres followed of itself. The policy of the old Iskra cut across the plans of Yuzhny Rabochy, the plans to create a parallel popular organ and to convert it virtually into the dominant organ. There lies the root of the paradox, so strange at first glance, that all the anti-Iskra-ists and the entire Marsh were in favour of one central body, that is, of seemingly greater centralism. Of course, there were some delegates (especially among the Marsh) who probably did not have a clear idea where the organisational plans of Yuzhny Rabochy would lead, and were bound to lead in the nature of things, but they were impelled to follow the anti-Iskra-ists by their very irresoluteness and unsureness of themselves.

    Of the speeches by Iskra-ists during this debate on the Rules (the one preceding the split among the Iskra-ists), particularly noteworthy were those of Comrades Martov ("association" with my ideas of organisation) and Trotsky. Every word of the answer the latter gave Comrades Akimov and Lieber exposes the utter falsity of the "minority's" post-Congress conduct and theories. "The Rules, he [Comrade Akimov] said, do not define the jurisdiction of the Central Committee with enough precision. I cannot agree with him. On the contrary, this definition is precise and means that inasmuch as the Party is one whole, it must be ensured control over the local committees. Comrade Lieber said, borrowing my expression, that the Rules were 'organised distrust'. That is true. But I used this expression in reference to the Rules proposed by the Bund spokesmen, which represented organised distrust on the part of a section of the Party towards the whole Party. Our Rules, on the other hand" (at that time, before the defeat over the composition of the central bodies, the Rules were "ours"!), "represent the organised distrust of the Party towards all its sections, that is, control over all local, district, national, and other organi-

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sations" (p. 158). Yes, our Rules are here correctly described, and we would advise those to bear this more constantly in mind who are now assuring us with an easy conscience that it was the intriguing majority who conceived and introduced the system of "organised distrust" or, which is the same thing, the "state of siege". One has only to compare this speech with the speeches at the Congress of the League Abroad to get a specimen of political spinelessness, a specimen of how the views of Martov and Co. changed depending on whether the matter concerned their own group of a lower order or someone else's.


I. PARAGRAPH ONE OF THE RULES

    We have already cited the different formulations around which an interesting debate flared up at the Congress. This debate took up nearly two sittings and ended with two roll-call votes (during the entire Congress there were, if I am not mistaken, only eight roll-call votes, which were resorted to only in very important cases because of the great loss of time they involved). The question at issue was undoubtedly one of principle. The interest of the Congress in the debate was tremendous. All the delegates voted -- a rare occurrence at our Congress (as at any big congress) and one that likewise testifies to the interest displayed by the disputants.

    What, then, was the substance of the matter in dispute? I already said at the Congress, and have since repeated it time and again, that "I by no means consider our difference [over Paragraph 1] so vital as to be a matter of life or death to the Party. We shall certainly not perish because of an unfortunate clause in the Rules!" (p. 250.)* Taken by itself, this difference, although it did reveal shades of principle, could never have called forth that divergence (actually, to speak unreservedly, that split) which took place after the Congress. But every little difference may become a big one if it is insisted on, if it is put into the foreground, if people set about searching for all the roots and branches of the difference. Every little difference may assume tremendous importance if it serves as the starting-point for a swing towards definite mistaken views, and if these mistaken

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    * See present edition, Vol. 6, p. 501. --Ed.  [Transcriber's Note: See Lenin's The Second Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. -- DJR]

 
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views are combined, by virtue of new and additional divergences, with anarchistic actions which bring the Party to the point of a split.

    And that is just what happened in the present case. The comparatively slight difference over Paragraph 1 has now acquired tremendous importance, because it was this that started the swing towards the opportunist profundities and anarchistic phrase-mongering of the minority (especially at the League Congress, and subsequently in the columns of the new Iskra as well). It was this that marked the beginning of the coalition of the Iskra-ist minority with the anti-Iskra-ists and the Marsh, which assumed final and definite shape by the time of the elections, and without understanding which it is impossible to understand the major and fundamental divergence over the composition of the central bodies. The slight mistake of Martov and Axelrod over Paragraph 1 was a slight crack in our pot (as I put it at the League Congress). The pot could be bound tight with a hard knot (and not a hangman's knot, as it was misunderstood by Martov, who during the League Congress was in a state bordering on hysteria); or all efforts could be directed towards widening the crack and breaking the pot in two. And that is what happened, thanks to the boycott and similar anarchistic moves of the zealous Martovites. The difference over Paragraph 1 played no small part in the elections to the central bodies, and Martov's defeat in the elections led him into a "struggle over principles" with the use of grossly mechanical and even brawling methods (such as his speeches at the Congress of the League of Russian Revolutionary Social-Democracy Abroad).

    Now, after all these happenings, the question of Paragraph 1 has thus assumed tremendous importance, and we must clearly realise both the character of the Congress groupings in the voting on this paragraph and -- far more important still -- the real nature of those shades of opinion which revealed or began to reveal themselves over Paragraph 1. Now, after the events with which the reader is familiar, the question stands as follows: Did Martov's formulation, which was supported by Axelrod, reflect his (or their) instability, vacillation, and political vagueness, as I expressed it at the Party Congress (p. 333), his (or their) deviation towards

 
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Jaurèsism and anarchism, as Plekhanov suggested at the League Congress (League Minutes, p. 102 and elsewhere)? Or did my formulation, which was supported by Plekhanov, reflect a wrong, bureaucratic, formalistic, Jack-in-office, un-Social-Democratic conception of centralism? Opportunism and anarchism, or bureaucracy and formalism? -- that is the way the question stands now, when the little difference has become a big one. And when discussing the pros and cons of my formulation on their merits, we must bear in mind just this presentation of the question, which has been forced upon us all by the events, or, I would say if it did not sound too pompous, has been evolved by history.

    Let us begin the examination of these pros and cons with an analysis of the Congress debate. The first speech, that of Comrade Egorov, is interesting only for the fact that his attitude (non liquet, it is not yet clear to me, I do not yet know where the truth lies) was very characteristic of the attitude of many delegates, who found it difficult to grasp the rights and wrongs of this really new and fairly complex and detailed question. The next speech, that of Comrade Axelrod, at once made the issue one of principle. This was the first speech Comrade Axelrod made at the Congress on questions of principle, one might even say the first speech he made at all, and it can scarcely be claimed that his debut with the celebrated "professor" was particularly fortunate. "I think," Comrade Axelrod said, "that we must draw a distinction between the concepts party and organisation. These two concepts are being confused here. And the confusion is dangerous." That was the first argument against my formulation. Examine it more closely. When I say that the Party should be the sum (and not the mere arithmetical sum, but a complex) of organisations,* does that mean that I "confuse"

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    * The word "organisation" is commonly employed in two senses, a broad and a narrow one. In the narrow sense it signifies an individual nucleus of a collective of people with at least a minimum degree of coherent form. In the broad sense it signifies the sum of such nuclei united into a whole. For example, the navy, the army, or the state is at one and the same time a sum of organisations (in the narrow sense of the word) and a variety of social organisation (in the broad sense of the word). The Department of Education is an organisation (in the broad sense of the word) and consists of a number of organisations (in the narrow sense of the word). Similarly, the Party is an organisation, [cont. onto p. 258. -- DJR] should be an organisation (in the broad sense of the word); at the same time, the Party should consist of a whole number of diversified organisations (in the narrow sense of the word). Therefore, when he spoke of drawing a distinction between the concepts party and organisation, Comrade Axelrod, firstly, did not take account of the difference between the broad and the narrow sense of the word "organisation", and, secondly, did not observe that he was himself confusing organised and unorganised elements.

 
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the concepts party and organisation? Of course not. I thereby express clearly and precisely my wish, my demand, that the Party, as the vanguard of the class, should be as organised as possible, that the Party should admit to its ranks only such elements as allow of at least a minimum of organisation. My opponent, on the contrary, lumps together in the Party organised and unorganised elements, those who lend themselves to direction and those who do not, the advanced and the incorrigibly backward -- for the corrigibly backward can join an organisation. This confusion is indeed dangerous. Comrade Axelrod further cited the "strictly secret and centralised organisations of the past" (Zemlya i Volya[96] and Narodnaya Volya[97]): around them, he said, "were grouped a large number of people who did not belong to the organisation but who helped it in one way or another and who were regarded as Party members. . . . This principle should be even more strictly observed in the Social-Democratic organisation." Here we come to one of the key points of the matter: is "this principle" really a Social-Democratic one -- this principle which allows people who do not belong to any of the organisations of the Party, but only "help it in one way or another", to call themselves Party members? And Plekhanov gave the only possible reply to this question when he said: "Axelrod was wrong in citing the seventies. At that time there was a well-organised and splendidly disciplined centre; around it there were the organisations of various categories, which it had created; and what remained outside these organisations was chaos, anarchy. The component elements of this chaos called themselves Party members, but this harmed rather than benefited the cause. We should not imitate the anarchy of the seventies, but avoid it." Thus "this principle", which Comrade Axelrod wanted to pass off as a Social-Democratic one, is in reality an anarchistic

 
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principle. To refute this, one would have to show that control, direction, and discipline are possible outside an organisation, and that conferring the title of Party members on "elements of chaos" is necessary. The supporters of Comrade Martov's formulation did not show, and could not show, either of these things. Comrade Axelrod took as an example "a professor who regards himself as a Social-Democrat and declares himself such". To complete the thought contained in this example, Comrade Axelrod should have gone on to tell us whether the organised Social-Democrats themselves regard this professor as a Social-Democrat. By failing to raise this further question, Comrade Axelrod abandoned his argument half-way. After all, one thing or the other. Either the organised Social-Democrats regard the professor in question as a Social-Democrat, in which case why should they not enrol him in one of the Social-Democratic organisations? For only if the professor is thus enrolled will his "declaration" answer to his actions, and not be empty talk (as professorial declarations all too frequently are). Or the organised Social-Democrats do not regard the professor as a Social-Democrat, in which case it would be absurd, senseless and harmful to allow him the right to bear the honourable and responsible title of Party member. The matter therefore reduces itself to the alternative: consistent application of the principle of organisation, or the sanctification of disunity and anarchy? Are we to build the Party on the basis of that already formed and welded core of Social-Democrats which brought about the Party Congress, for instance, and which should enlarge and multiply Party organisations of all kinds; or are we to content ourselves with the soothing phrase that all who help are Party members? "If we adopt Lenin's formula," Comrade Axelrod continued, "we shall be throwing overboard a section of those who, even if they cannot be directly admitted to an organisation, are nevertheless Party members." The confusion of concepts of which Comrade Axelrod wanted to accuse me stands out here quite clearly in his own case: he already takes it for granted that all who help are Party members, whereas that is what the whole argument is about and our opponents have still to prove the necessity and value of such an interpretation. What is the meaning of the phrase "throwing overboard", which at first glance seems so terrible? Even if only

 
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members of organisations recognised as Party organisations are regarded as Party members, people who cannot "directly" join any Party organisation can still work in an organisation which does not belong to the Party but is associated with it. Consequently, there can be no talk of throwing anyone overboard in the sense of preventing them from working, from taking part in the movement. On the contrary, the stronger our Party organisations, consisting of real Social-Democrats, the less wavering and instability there is within the Party, the broader, more varied, richer, and more fruitful will be the Party's influence on the elements of the working-class masses surrounding it and guided by it. The Party, as the vanguard of the working class, must not be confused, after all, with the entire class. And Comrade Axelrod is guilty of just this confusion (which is characteristic of our opportunist Economism in general) when he says: "First and foremost we are, of course, creating an organisation of the most active elements of the Party, an organisation of revolutionaries; but since we are the Party of a class, we must take care not to leave outside the Party ranks people who consciously, though perhaps not very actively, associate themselves with that Party." Firstly, the active elements of the Social-Democratic working-class party will include not only organisations of revolutionaries, but a whole number of workers' organisations recognised as Party organisations. Secondly, how, by what logic, does the fact that we are the party of a class warrant the conclusion that it is unnecessary to make a distinction between those who belong to the Party and those who associate themselves with it? Just the contrary: precisely because there are differences in degree of consciousness and degree of activity, a distinction must be made in degree of proximity to the Party. We are the party of a class, and therefore almost the entire class (and in times of war, in a period of civil war, the entire class) should act under the leadership of our Party, should adhere to our Party as closely as possible. But it would be Manilovism[98] and "tail-ism" to think that the entire class, or almost the entire class, can ever rise, under capitalism, to the level of consciousness and activity of its vanguard, of its Social-Democratic Party. No sensible Social-Democrat has ever doubted that under capitalism even the trade union

 
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organisations (which are more primitive and more comprehensible to the undeveloped sections) are incapable of embracing the entire, or almost the entire, working class. To forget the distinction between the vanguard and the whole of the masses gravitating towards it, to forget the vanguard's constant duty of raising ever wider sections to its own advanced level, means simply to deceive oneself, to shut one's eyes to the immensity of our tasks, and to narrow down these tasks. And it is just such a shutting of one's eyes, it is just such forgetfulness, to obliterate the difference between those who associate themselves and those who belong, those who are conscious and active and those who only help.

    To argue that we are the party of a class in justification of organisational looseness, in justification of confusing organisation with disorganisation, is to repeat the mistake of Nadezhdin, who confused "the philosophical and social-historical question of the 'depth' of the 'roots' of the movement with the technical and organisational question" (What Is To Be Done?, p. 91).[*] It is this confusion, wrought by the deft hand of Comrade Axelrod, that was then repeated dozens of times by the speakers who defended Comrade Martov's formulation. "The more widespread the title of Party member, the better," said Martov, without, however, explaining the benefit of a widespread title which did not correspond to fact. Can it be denied that control over Party members who do not belong to a Party organisation is a mere fiction? A widespread fiction is not beneficial, but harmful. "We could only rejoice if every striker, every demonstrator, answering for his actions, could proclaim himself a Party member" (p. 239). Is that so? Every striker should have the right to proclaim himself a Party member? In this statement Comrade Martov instantly carries his mistake to the point of absurdity, by lowering Social-Democracy to the level of mere strike-making, thereby repeating the misadventures of the Akimovs. We could only rejoice if the Social-Democrats succeeded in directing every strike, for it is their plain and unquestionable duty to direct every manifestation of the class struggle of the proletariat, and strikes are one of the most profound and most powerful manifestations of that

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    * See present edition, Vol. 5, p. 461. --Ed.

 
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struggle. But we should be tail-enders if we were to identify this primary form of struggle, which ipso facto is no more than a trade unionist form, with the all-round and conscious Social-Democratic struggle. We should be opportunistically legitimising a patent falsehood if we were to allow every striker the right to "proclaim himself a Party member", for in the majority of cases such a "proclamation" would be false. We should be indulging in complacent daydreaming if we tried to assure ourselves and others that every striker can be a Social-Democrat and a member of the Social-Democratic Party, in face of that infinite disunity, oppression, and stultification which under capitalism is bound to weigh down upon such very wide sections of the "untrained", unskilled workers. This example of the "striker " brings out with particular clarity the difference between the revolutionary striving to direct every strike in a Social-Democratic way and the opportunist phrase-mongering which proclaims every striker a Party member. We are the Party of a class inasmuch as we in fact direct almost the entire, or even the entire, proletarian class in a Social-Democratic way; but only Akimovs can conclude from this that we must in word identify the Party and the class.

    "I am not afraid of a conspiratorial organisation," said Comrade Martov in this same speech; but, he added, "for me a conspiratorial organisation has meaning only when it is enveloped by a broad Social-Democratic working-class party" (p. 239). To be exact he should have said: when it is enveloped by a broad Social-Democratic working-class movement. And in that form Comrade Martov's proposition would have been not only indisputable, but a plain truism. I dwell on this point only because subsequent speakers turned Comrade Martov's truism into the very prevalent and very vulgar argument that Lenin wants "to confine the sum-total of Party members to the sum-total of conspirators". This conclusion, which can only provoke a smile, was drawn both by Comrade Posadovsky and by Comrade Popov; and when it was taken up by Martynov and Akimov, its true character of an opportunist phrase became altogether manifest. Today Comrade Axelrod is developing this same argument in the new Iskra by way of acquainting the reading public with the new editorial board's new views on organi-

 
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sation. Already at the Congress, at the very first sitting where Paragraph 1 was discussed, I noticed that our opponents wanted to avail themselves of this cheap weapon, and therefore warned in my speech (p. 240): "It should not be imagined that Party organisations must consist solely of professional revolutionaries. We need the most diverse organisations of all types, ranks, and shades, beginning with extremely limited and secret and ending with very broad, free, lose Organisationen. " This is such an obvious and self-evident truth that I did not think it necessary to dwell on it. But today, when we have been dragged back in so many respects, one has to "repeat old lessons" on this subject too. In order to do so, I shall quote certain passages from What Is To Be Done? and A Letter to a Comrade.

    ". . . A circle of leaders of the type of Alexeyev and Myshkin, of Khalturin and Zhelyabov, is capable of coping with political tasks in the genuine and most practical sense of the term, for the reason and to the extent that their impassioned propaganda meets with response among the spontaneously awakening masses, and their sparkling energy is answered and supported by the energy of the revolutionary class."[*] In order to be a Social-Democratic party, we must win the support precisely of the class. It is not that the Party should envelop the conspiratorial organisation, as Comrade Martov thought, but that the revolutionary class, the proletariat, should envelop the Party, the latter to include both conspiratorial and non-conspiratorial organisations.

    ". . . The workers' organisations for the economic struggle should be trade union organisations. Every Social-Democratic worker should as far as possible assist and actively work in these organisations. But . . . it is certainly not in our interest to demand that only Social-Democrats should be eligible for membership in the trade unions since that would only narrow the scope of our influence upon the masses. Let every worker who understands the need to unite for the, struggle against the employers and the government join the trade unions. The very aim of the trade unions would be impossible of achievement if they did not unite all who have attained at least this elementary degree of understanding --

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    * See present edition, Vol. 5, p. 447. --Ed.

 
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if they were not very broad organisations. The broader these organisations, the broader will be our influence over them -- an influence due, not only to the 'spontaneous' development of the economic struggle, but to the direct and conscious effort of the socialist trade union members to influence their comrades" (p. 86).[*] Incidentally, the example of the trade unions is particularly significant for an assessment of the controversial question of Paragraph 1. That these unions should work "under the control and direction" of the Social-Democratic organisations, of that there can be no two opinions among Social-Democrats. But on those grounds to confer on all members of trade unions the right to "proclaim themselves" members of the Social-Democratic Party would be an obvious absurdity and would constitute a double danger: on the one hand, of narrowing the dimensions of the trade union movement and thus weakening the solidarity of the workers; and, on the other, of opening the door of the Social-Democratic Party to vagueness and vacillation. The German Social-Democrats had occasion to solve a similar problem in a practical instance, in the celebrated case of the Hamburg bricklayers working on piece rates.[99] The Social-Democrats did not hesitate for a moment to proclaim strike-breaking dishonourable in Social-Democratic eyes, that is, to acknowledge that to direct and support strikes was their own vital concern; but at the same time they just as resolutely rejected the demand for identifying the interests of the Party with the interests of the trade unions, for making the Party responsible for individual acts of individual trade unions. The Party should and will strive to imbue the trade unions with its spirit and bring them under its influence; but precisely in order to do so it must distinguish the fully Social-Democratic elements in these unions (the elements belonging to the Social-Democratic Party) from those which are not fully class-conscious and politically active, and not confuse the two, as Comrade Axelrod would have us do.

    ". . . Centralisation of the most secret functions in an organisation of revolutionaries will not diminish, but rather increase the extent and enhance the quality of the activity

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    * See present edition, Vol. 5, p. 454. --Ed.

 
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of a large number of other organisations that are intended for a broad public and are therefore as loose and as non-secret as possible, such as workers' trade unions; workers' self-education circles and circles for reading illegal literature; and socialist, as well as democratic, circles among all other sections of the population; etc., etc. We must have such circles, trade unions, and organisations everywhere in as large a number as possible and with the widest variety of functions; but it would be absurd and harmful to confound them with the organisation of revolutionaries, to efface the border-line between them . . ." (p. 96).[*] This quotation shows how out of place it was for Comrade Martov to remind me that the organisation of revolutionaries should be enveloped by broad organisations of workers. I had already pointed this out in What Is To Be Done? -- and in A Letter to a Comrade I developed this idea more concretely. Factory circles, I wrote there, "are particularly important to us: the main strength of the movement lies in the organisation of the workers at the large factories, for the large factories (and mills) contain not only the predominant part of the working class, as regards numbers, but even more as regards influence, development, and fighting capacity. Every factory must be our fortress. . . . The factory subcommittee should endeavour to embrace the whole factory, the largest possible number of the workers, with a network of all kinds of circles (or agents). . . . All groups, circles, subcommittees, etc., should enjoy the status of committee institutions or branches of a committee. Some of them will openly declare their wish to join the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party and, if endorsed by the committee, will join the Party, and will assume definite functions (on the instructions of, or in agreement with, the committee), will undertake to obey the orders of the Party organs, receive the same rights as all Party members, and be regarded as immediate candidates for membership of the committee, etc. Others will not join the R.S.D.L.P., and will have the status of circles formed by Party members, or associated with one Party group or another, etc." (pp. 17-18).** The words I have underlined make

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    * See present edition, Vol. 5, p. 466. --Ed.
    ** See present edition, Vol. 6, pp. 243, 245, 246. --Ed.

 
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it particularly clear that the idea of my formulation of Paragraph 1 was already fully expressed in A Letter to a Comrade. The conditions for joining the Party are directly indicated there, namely: 1) a certain degree of organisation, and 2) endorsement by a Party committee. A page later I roughly indicate also what groups and organisations should (or should not) be admitted to the Party, and for what reasons: "The distributing groups should belong to the R.S.D.L.P. and know a certain number of its members and functionaries. The groups for studying labour conditions and drawing up trade union demands need not necessarily belong to the R.S.D.L.P. Groups of students, officers, or office employees engaged in self-education in conjunction with one or two Party members should in some cases not even be aware that these belong to the Party, etc." (pp. 18-19).[*]

    There you have additional material on the subject of the "open visor"! Whereas the formula of Comrade Martov's draft does not even touch on relations between the Party and the organisations, I pointed out nearly a year before the Congress that some organisations should belong to the Party, and others not. In A Letter to a Comrade the idea I advocated at the Congress was already clearly outlined. The matter might be put graphically in the following way. Depending on degree of organisation in general and of secrecy of organisation in particular, roughly the following categories may be distinguished: 1) organisations of revolutionaries; 2) organisations of workers, as broad and as varied as possible (I confine myself to the working class, taking it as self-evident that, under certain conditions, certain elements of other classes will also be included here). These two categories constitute the Party. Further, 3) workers' organisations associated with the Party; 4) workers' organisations not associated with the Party but actually under its control and direction; 5) unorganised elements of the working class, who in part also come under the direction of the Social-Democratic Party, at any rate during big manifestations of the class struggle. That, approximately, is how the matter presents itself to me. As Comrade Martov sees it, on the

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    * See present edition, Vol. 6, p. 247. --Ed.

 
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contrary, the border-line of the Party remains absolutely vague, for "every striker" can "proclaim himself a Party member". What benefit is there in this looseness? A widespread "title". Its harm is that it introduces a disorganising idea, the confusing of class and party.

    In illustration of the general propositions we have adduced, Iet us take a cursory glance at the further discussion of Paragraph 1 at the Congress. Comrade Brouckère (to the great glee of Comrade Martov) pronounced in favour of my formulation, but his alliance with me, unlike Comrade Akimov's with Martov, turned out to be based on a misunderstanding. Comrade Brouckère did "not agree with the Rules as a whole, with their entire spirit" (p. 239), and defended my formulation as the basis of the democracy which the supporters of Rabocheye Dyelo desired. Comrade Brouckère had not yet risen to the view that in a political struggle it is sometimes necessary to choose the lesser evil; Comrade Brouckère did not realise that it was useless to advocate democracy at a Congress like ours. Comrade Akimov was more perspicacious. He put the question quite rightly when he stated that "Comrades Martov and Lenin are arguing as to which [formulation] will best achieve their common aim" (p. 252); "Brouckère and I," he continued, "want to choose the one which will least achieve that aim. From this angle I choose Martov's formulation." And Comrade Akimov frankly explained that he considered "their very aim" (that is, the aim of Plekhanov, Martov, and myself -- the creation of a directing organisation of revolutionaries) to be "impracticable and harmful"; like Comrade Martynov,* he advocated the Economist idea that "an organisation oI revolu-

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    * Comrade Martynov, it is true, wanted to be different from Comrade Akimov, he wanted to show that conspiratorial did not mean secret, that behind the two different words were two different concepts. What the difference is, neither Comrade Martynov nor Comrade Axelrod, who is now following in his footsteps, ever did explain. Comrade Martynov "acted" as if I had not -- for example in What Is To Be Done? (as well as in the Tasks [see present edition, Vol. 2, pp. 323-51. --Ed.  [Transcriber's Note: See Lenin's "The Tasks of the Russian Social-Democrats". -- DJR]]) -- resolutely opposed "confining the political struggle to conspiracy". Comrade Martynov was anxious to have his hearers forget that the people I had been fighting had not seen any necessity for an organisation of revolutionaries, just as Comrade Akimov did not see it now.

 
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tionaries" was unnecessary. He was "confident that in the end the realities of life will force their way into our Party organisation, whether you bar their path with Martov's formulation or with Lenin's". It would not be worth while dwelling on this "tail-ist" conception of the "realities of life" if we did not encounter it in the case of Comrade Martov too. In general, Comrade Martov's second speech (p. 245) is so interesting that it deserves to be examined in detail.

    Comrade Martov's first argument: control by the Party organisations over Party members not belonging to them "is practicable, inasmuch as, having assigned a function to someone, the committee will be able to watch over it" (p. 245). This thesis is remarkably characteristic, for it "betrays", if one may so put it, who needs Martov's formulation and whom it will serve in actual fact -- free-lance intellectuals or workers' groups and the worker masses. The fact is that there are two possible interpretations of Martov's formulation: 1) that anyone who renders the Party regular personal assistance under the direction of one of its organisations is entitled to "proclaim himself " (Comrade Martov's own words) a Party member; 2) that a Party organisation is entitled to regard as a Party member anyone who renders it regular personal assistance under its direction. It is only the first interpretation that really gives "every striker" the opportunity to call himself a Party member, and accordingly it alone immediately won the hearts of the Liebers, Akimovs, and Martynovs. But this interpretation is manifestly no more than a phrase, because it would apply to the entire working class, and the distinction between Party and class would be obliterated; control over and direction of "every striker" can only be spoken of "symbolically". That is why, in his second speech, Comrade Martov at once slipped into the second interpretation (even though, be it said in parenthesis, it was directly rejected by the Congress when it turned down Kostich's resolution -- p. 255), namely, that a committee would assign functions and watch over their fulfilment. Such special assignments will never, of course, be made to the mass of the workers, to the thousands of proletarians (of whom Comrade Axelrod and Comrade Martynov spoke) -- they will frequently be given precisely to those professors whom Comrade

 
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Axelrod mentioned, to those high-school students for whom Comrade Lieber and Comrade Popov were so concerned (p. 241), and to the revolutionary youth to whom Comrade Axelrod referred in his second speech (p. 242). In a word, Comrade Martov's formula will either remain a dead letter, an empty phrase, or it will be of benefit mainly and almost exclusively to "intellectuals who are thoroughly imbued with bourgeois individualism" and do not wish to join an organisation. In words, Martov's formulation defends the interests of the broad strata of the proletariat, but in fact it serves the interests of the bourgeois intellectuals, who fight shy of proletarian discipline and organisation. No one will venture to deny that the intelligentsia, as a special stratum of modern capitalist society, is characterised, by and large, precisely by individualism and incapacity for discipline and organisation (cf., for example, Kautsky's well-known articles on the intelligentsia). This, incidentally, is a feature which unfavourably distinguishes this social stratum from the proletariat; it is one of the reasons for the flabbiness and instability of the intellectual, which the proletariat so often feels; and this trait of the intelligentsia is intimately bound up with its customary mode of life, its mode of earning a livelihood, which in a great many respects approximates to the petty-bourgeois mode of existence (working in isolation or in very small groups, etc.). Nor is it fortuitous, lastly, that the defenders of Comrade Martov's formulation were the ones who had to cite the example of professors and high school students! It was not champions of a broad proletarian struggle who, in the controversy over Paragraph 1, took the field against champions of a radically conspiratorial organisation, as Comrades Martynov and Axelrod thought, but the supporters of bourgeois-intellectual individualism who clashed with the supporters of proletarian organisation and discipline.

    Comrade Popov said: "Everywhere, in St. Petersburg as in Nikolayev or Odessa, as the representatives from these towns testify, there are dozens of workers who are distributing literature and carrying on word-of-mouth agitation but who cannot be members of an organisation. They can be attached to an organisation, but not regarded as members" (p. 241). Why they cannot be members of an organisation

 
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remained Comrade Popov's secret. I have already quoted the passage from A Letter to a Comrade showing that the admission of all such workers (by the hundred, not the dozen) to an organisation is both possible and necessary, and, moreover, that a great many of these organisations can and should belong to the Party.

    Comrade Martov's second argument: "In Lenin's opinion there should be no organisations in the Party other than Party organisations. . . ." Quite true! "In my opinion, on the contrary, such organisations should exist. Life creates and breeds organisations faster than we can include them in the hierarchy of our militant organisation of professional revolutionaries. . . ." That is untrue in two respects: 1) the number of effective organisations of revolutionaries that "life" breeds is far less than we need, than the working-class movement requires; 2) our Party should be a hierarchy not only of organisations of revolutionaries, but of a mass of workers' organisations as well. . . . "Lenin thinks that the Central Committee will confer the title of Party organisations only on such as are fully reliable in the matter of principles. But Comrade Brouckère understands very well that life [sic !] will assert itself and that the Central Committee, in order not to leave a multitude of organisations outside the Party, will have to legitimise them despite their not quite reliable character; that is why Comrade Brouckère associates himself with Lenin. . . ." What a truly tail-ist conception of "life"! Of course, if the Central Committee had necessarily to consist of people who were not guided by their own opinions, but by what others might say (vide the Organising Committee incident), then "life" would "assert itself" in the sense that the most backward elements in the Party would gain the upper hand (as has in fact happened now when the backward elements have taken shape as the Party "minority" ). But no intelligent reason can be given which would induce a sensible Central Committee to admit "unreliable" elements to the Party. By this reference to "life", which "breeds" unreliable elements, Comrade Martov patently revealed the opportunist character of his plan of organisation! . . . "I for my part think," he continued, "that if such an organisation [one that is not quite reliable] is prepared to accept the Party programme and Party control, we may admit it to the Party, without

 
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thereby making it a Party organisation. I would consider it a great triumph for our Party if, for example, some union of 'independents' were to declare that they accepted the views of Social-Democracy and its programme and were joining the Party; which does not, however, mean that we would include the union in the Party organisation. . . ." Such is the muddle Martov's formulation leads to: non-Party organisations belonging to the Party! Just imagine his scheme: the Party = 1) organisations of revolutionaries, + 2) workers' organisations recognised as Party organisations, + 3) workers' organisations not recognised as Party organisations (consisting principally of "independents"), + 4) individuals performing various functions -- professors, high-school students, etc., + 5) "every striker". Alongside of this remarkable plan one can only put the words of Comrade Lieber: "Our task is not only to organise an organisation [!!]; we can and should organise a party" (p. 241). Yes, of course, we can and should do that, but what it requires is not meaningless words about "organising organisations", but the unequivocal demand that Party members should work to create an organisation in fact. He who talks about "organising a party" and yet defends using the word party to cover disorganisation and disunity of every kind is just indulging in empty words.

    "Our formulation," Comrade Martov said, "expresses the desire to have a series of organisations between the organisation of revolutionaries and the masses." It does not. This truly essential desire is just what Martov's formulation does not express, for it does not offer an incentive to organise, does not contain a demand for organisation, does not separate organised from unorganised. All it offers is a title,* and in this connection we cannot but recall

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    * At the League Congress, Comrade Martov adduced one more argument in support of his formulation an argument that deserves to be laughed at. "We might point out," he said, "that, taken literally Lenin's formulation excludes the agents of the Central Committee from the Party, for they do not constitute an organisation" (p. 59). Even at the League Congress this argument was greeted with laughter, as the minutes record. Comrade Martov supposes that the "difficulty" he mentions can only be solved by including the Central Committee agents in "the organisation of the Central Committee". But that is not the point. The point is, that Comrade Martov's example saliently demonstrates that he completely fails to understand the idea of Para- [cont. onto p. 272. -- DJR] graph 1; it was a sheer specimen of pedantic criticism that did indeed deserve to be laughed at. Formally speaking, all that would be required would be to form an "organisation of Central Committee agents" pass a resolution to include it in the Party, and the "difficulty" which caused Comrade Martov so much brain-racking would immediately vanish. The idea of Paragraph 1 as formulated by me consists in the incentive to organise; it consists in guaranteeing actual control and direction. Essentially, the very question whether the Central Committee agents will belong to the Party is ridiculous, for actual control over them is fully and absolutely guaranteed by the very fact that they have been appointed agents and that they are kept on as agents. Consequently, here there can be no question of any confusion of organised and unorganised (which is the root mistake in Comrade Martov's formulation). Why Comrade Martov's formulation is no good is that it allows anyone, any opportunist, any windbag, any "professor", and any "high-school student" to proclaim himself a Party member. It is in vain for Comrade Martov to try to talk away this Achilles heel of his formulation by examples in which there can be no question of people arbitrarily styling or proclaiming themselves members.

 
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Comrade Axelrod's words: "No decree can forbid them [circles of revolutionary youth and the like] or individuals to call themselves Social-Democrats [true enough!] and even to regard themselves as part of the Party" -- now that is not true at all ! It is impossible and pointless to forbid anyone to call himself a Social-Democrat, for in its direct sense this word only signifies a system of convictions, and not definite organisational relations. But as to forbidding various circles and persons to "regard themselves as part of the Party", that can and should be done if these circles and persons injure the Party, corrupt or disorganise it. It would be absurd to speak of the Party as of a whole, as of a political entity, if it could not "by decree forbid" a circle to "regard itself as part" of the whole! What in that case would be the point of defining the procedure and conditions of expulsion from the Party? Comrade Axelrod reduced Comrade Martov's fundamental mistake to an obvious absurdity; he even elevated this mistake to an opportunist theory when he added: "As formulated by Lenin, Paragraph 1 directly conflicts in principle with the very nature [!!] and aims of the Social-Democratic Party of the proletariat" (p. 243). This means nothing less than that making higher demands of the Party than of the class conflicts in principle with the very nature of the aims of the proletariat. It is not surprising that Akimov was heart and soul in favour of such a theory.

 
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    It should be said in fairness that Comrade Axelrod -- who now wants to convert this mistaken formulation, one obviously tending towards opportunism, into the germ of new views -- at the Congress, on the contrary, expressed a readiness to "bargain", saying: "But I observe that I am knocking at an open door" (I observe this in the new Iskra too), "because Comrade Lenin, with his peripheral circles which are to be regarded as part of the Party organisation, goes out to meet my demand." (And not only with the peripheral circles, but with every kind of workers' union: cf. p. 242 of the Minutes, the speech of Comrade Strakhov, and the passages from What Is To Be Done? and A Letter to a Comrade quoted above.) "There still remain the individuals, but here, too, we could bargain." I replied to Comrade Axelrod that, generally speaking, I was not averse to bargaining, and I must now explain in what sense this was meant. As regards the individuals -- all those professors, high-school students, etc. -- I would least of all have agreed to make concessions; but if doubts had been aroused as to the workers' organisations, I would have agreed (despite the utter groundlessness of such doubts, as I have proved above) to add to my Paragraph 1 a note to the following effect: "Workers' organisations which accept the Programme and Rules of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party should be included in the largest possible numbers among the Party organisations." Strictly speaking, of course, the place for such a recommendation is not in the Rules, which should be confined to statutory definitions, but in explanatory commentaries and pamphlets (and I have already pointed out that I gave such explanations in my pamphlets long before the Rules were drawn up); but at least such a note would not contain even a shadow of wrong ideas capable of leading to disorganisation, not a shadow of the opportunist arguments* and

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    * [Transcriber's Note: The printed version of this footnote cuts across three pages of text. -- DJR] To this category of arguments, which inevitably crop up when attempts are made to justify Martov's formulation belongs, in particular, Comrade Trotsky's statement (pp. 248 and 346) that "opportunism is produced by more complex [or: is determined by deeper] causes than one or another clause in the Rules; it is brought about by the relative level of development of bourgeois democracy and the proletariat. . . ." The point is not that clauses in the Rules may produce opportunism, but that with their help a more or a less trenchant weapon against opportunism can be forged. The deeper its causes, the more [cont. onto p. 274. -- DJR] trenchant should this weapon be. Therefore, to justify a formulation which opens the door to opportunism on the grounds that opportunism has "deep causes" is tail-ism of the first water. When Comrade Trotsky was opposed to Comrade Lieber, he understood that the Rules constitute the "organised distrust" of the whole towards the part, of the vanguard towards the backward contingent, but when Comrade Trotsky came to be on Comrade Lieber's side, he forgot this and even began to justify the weakness and instability of our organisation of this distrust (distrust of opportunism) by talking about "complex causes", the "level of development of the proletariat", etc. Here is another of Comrade Trotsky's arguments: "It is much easier for the intellectual youth, organised in one way or another, to enter themselves [my italics ] on the rolls of the Party." Just so. That is why it is the formulation by which even unorganised elements may proclaim themselves Party members that suffers from intellectualist vagueness, and not my formulation, which obviates the right to "enter oneself" on the rolls. Comrade Trotsky said that if the Central Committee "refused to recognise" an organisation of opportunists, it would only be because of the character of certain individuals, and that since these individuals would be known, as political personalities, they would not be dangerous and could be removed by a general Party boycott. This is only, [cont. onto p. 275. -- DJR] true of cases when people have to be removed from the Party (and only half true at that, because an organised party removes members by a vote and not by a boycott). It is absolutely untrue of the far more frequent cases when removal would be absurd, and when all that is required is control. For purposes of control, the Central Committee might, on certain conditions, deliberately admit to the Party an organisation which was not quite reliable but which was capable of working; it might do so with the object of testing it, of trying to direct it on to the right path, of correcting its partial aberrations by guidance etc. This would not be dangerous if in general "self-entering" on the Party rolls were not allowed. It would often be useful for an open and responsible, controlled expression (and discussion) of mistaken views and mistaken tactics. "But if statutory definitions are to correspond to actual relations, Comrade Lenin's formulation must be rejected," said Comrade Trotsky, and again he spoke like an opportunist. Actual relations are not a dead thing, they live and develop. Statutory definitions may correspond to the progressive development of those relations, but they may also (if the definitions are bad ones) "correspond" to retrogression or stagnation. The latter case is the "case" of Comrade Martov.

 
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"anarchistic conceptions" that are undoubtedly inherent in Comrade Martov's formulation.

    This last expression, given by me in quotation marks, is that of Comrade Pavlovich, who quite justly characterised as anarchism the recognition of "irresponsible and self-enrolled Party members". "Translated into simple terms," said Comrade Pavlovich, explaining my formulation to comrade Lieber, "it means: 'if you want to be a Party member, your acceptance of organisational relations too must be not merely platonic'." Simple as this "translation" was, it seems it was not superfluous (as events since the Congress have shown) not only for various dubious professors and high-school students, but for honest-to-goodness Party members, for people at the top. . . . With no less justice, Comrade Pavlovich pointed to the contradiction between Comrade Martov's formulation and the indisputable precept of scientific socialism which Comrade Martov quoted so unhappily: "Our Party is the conscious spokesman of an unconscious process." Exactly. And for that very reason it is wrong to want "every striker" to have the right to call himself a Party member, for if "every strike" were not only a spontaneous expression of the powerful class instinct and of the class struggle which is leading inevitably to the social revolution, but a con-

 
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scious expression of that process, then . . . then the general strike would not be an anarchist phrase, then our Party would forthwith and at once embrace the whole working class, and, consequently, would at once put an end to bourgeois society as a whole. If it is to be a conscious spokesman in fact, the Party must be able to work out organisational relations that will ensure a definite level of consciousness and systematically raise this level. "If we are to go the way of Martov." Comrade Pavlovich said, "we should first of all delete the clause on accepting the programme, for before a programme can be accepted it must be mastered and understood. . . . Acceptance of the programme presupposes a fairly high level of political consciousness." We shall never allow support of Social-Democracy, participation in the struggle it directs, to be artificially restricted by any requirements (mastery, understanding, etc.), for this participation itself, the very fact of it, promotes both consciousness and the instinct for organisation; but since we have joined together in a party to carry on systematic work, we must see to it that it is systematic.

    That Comrade Pavlovich's warning regarding the programme was not superfluous became apparent at once, during that very same sitting. Comrades Akimov and Lieber, who

 
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secured the adoption of Comrade Martov's formulation,[*] at once betrayed their true nature by demanding (pp. 254-55) that in the case of the programme too only platonic acceptance, acceptance only of its "basic principles", should be required (for "membership" in the Party). "Comrade Akimov's proposal is quite logical from Comrade Martov's standpoint," Comrade Pavlovich remarked. Unfortunately, we cannot see from the minutes how many votes this proposal of Akimov's secured -- in all probability, not less than seven (five Bundists, Akimov, and Brouckère). And it was the withdrawal of seven delegates from the Congress that converted the "compact majority" (anti-Iskra-ists, "Centre", and Martovites) which began to form over Paragraph 1 of the Rules into a compact minority! It was the withdrawal of seven delegates that resulted in the defeat of the motion to endorse the old editorial board -- that supposed howling violation of "continuity" in the Iskra editorship! A curious seven it was that constituted the sole salvation and guarantee of Iskra "continuity": the Bundists, Akimov and Brouckère, that is, the very delegates who voted against the motives for adopting Iskra as the Central Organ, the very delegates whose opportunism was acknowledged dozens of times by the Congress, and acknowledged in particular by Martov and Plekhanov in the matter of toning down Paragraph 1 in reference to the programme. The "continuity" of Iskra guarded by the anti-Iskra-ists! -- this brings us to the starting-point of the post-Congress tragicomedy.

*      *
  * 

    The grouping of votes over Paragraph 1 of the Rules revealed a phenomenon of exactly the same type as the equality of languages incident: the falling away of one-quarter

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    * The vote was twenty-eight for and twenty-two against. Of the eight anti-Iskra-ists, seven were for Martov and one for me. Without the aid of the opportunists, Comrade Martov would not have secured adoption of his opportunist formulation. (At the League Congress Comrade Martov tried very unsuccessfully to refute this undoubted fact, for some reason mentioning only the votes of the Bundists and forgetting about Comrade Akimov and his friends -- or rather remembering them only when it could serve against me: Comrade Brouckère's agreement with me.)

 
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(approximately) of the Iskra majority made possible the victory of the anti-Iskra-ists, who were backed by the "Centre". Of course, here too there were individual votes which disturbed the full symmetry of the picture -- in so large an assembly as our Congress there are bound to be some "strays" who shift quite fortuitously from one side to the other, especially on a question like Paragraph 1, where the true character of the divergence was only beginning to emerge and many delegates had simply not yet found their bearings (considering that the question had not been discussed beforehand in the press). Five votes fell away from the majority Iskra-ists (Rusov and Karsky with two votes each, and Lensky with one); on the other hand, they were joined by one anti-Iskra-ist (Brouckère) and by three from the Centre (Medvedev, Egorov and Tsaryov); the result was a total of twenty-three votes (24 - 5 + 4), one vote less than in the final grouping in the elections. It was the anti-"Iskra"-ists who gave Martov his majority, seven of them voting for him and one for me (of the "Centre" too, seven voted for Martov, and three for me). That coalition of the minority Iskra-ists with the anti-Iskra-ists and the "Centre" which formed a compact minority at the end of the Congress and after the Congress was beginning to take shape. The political error of Martov and Axelrod, who undoubtedly took a step towards opportunism and anarchistic individualism in their formulation of Paragraph 1, and especially in their defence of that formulation, was revealed at once and very clearly thanks to the free and open arena offered by the Congress; it was revealed in the fact that the least stable elements, the least steadfast in principle, at once employed all their forces to widen the fissure, the breach, that appeared in the views of the revolutionary Social-Democrats. Working together at the Congress were people who in matters of organisation frankly pursued different aims (see Akimov's speech) -- a circumstance which at once induced those who were in principle opposed to our organisational plan and our Rules to support the error of Comrades Martov and Axelrod. The Iskra-ists who on this question too remained faithful to the views of revolutionary Social-Democracy found themselves in the minority. This is a point of the utmost importance, for unless it is grasped it is absolutely impossible to understand either

 
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the struggle over the details of the Rules or the struggle over the personal composition of the Central Organ and the Central Committee.


J. INNOCENT VICTIMS OF A FALSE ACCUSATION
OF OPPORTUNISM

    Before passing on to the subsequent discussion of the Rules, it is necessary, in order to elucidate our difference over the personal composition of the central institutions, to touch on the private meetings of the Iskra organisation during the Congress. The last and most important of these four meetings was held just after the vote on Paragraph 1 of the Rules -- and thus the split in the Iskra organisation which took place at this meeting was in point of both time and logic a prelude to the subsequent struggle.

    The Iskra organisation began to hold private meetings[*] soon after the Organising Committee incident, which gave rise to a discussion of possible candidates for the Central Committee. It stands to reason that, since binding instructions had been abolished, these meetings were purely in the nature of consultations and their decisions were not binding on any one; but their importance was nevertheless immense. The, selection of candidates for the Central Committee was a mat ter of considerable difficulty to delegates who were acquaint ed neither with the secret names nor with the inner work of the Iskra organisation, the organisation that had brought about actual Party unity and whose leadership of the practical movement was one of the motives for the official adoption of Iskra. We have already seen that, united, the Iskra-ists were fully assured a big majority at the Congress, as much as three-fifths, and all the delegates realised this very well. All the Iskra-ists, in fact, expected the "Iskra" organisation to make definite recommendations as to the personal composition of the Central Com-

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    * I have already tried at the League Congress to give an account of what took place at the private meetings, keeping to the barest essentials in order to avoid hopeless arguments. The principal facts are also set out in my Letter to the Editors of "Iskra" (p. 4)  [Transcriber's Note: See Lenin's "Why I Resigned from the Iskra Editorial Board". -- DJR]. Comrade Martov did not challenge them in his Reply.

 
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mittee, and not one member of that organisation raised any objection to a preliminary discussion of the Central Committee's composition within it; not one of them so much as hinted at endorsing the entire membership of the Organising Committee that is converting that body into the Central Committee, or even at conferring with the Organising Committee as a whole regarding candidates for the Central Committee. This circumstance is also highly significant, and it is extremely important to bear it in mind, for now, after the event, the Martovites are zealously defending the Organising Committee, thereby only proving their political spinelessness for the hundredth and thousandth time.[*] Until the split over the composition of the central bodies led Martov to join forces with the Akimovs, everyone at the Congress clearly realised what any impartial person may easily ascertain from the Congress minutes and from the entire history of Iskra, namely, that the Organising Committee was mainly a commission set up to convene the Congress, a commission deliberately composed of representatives of different shades, including even the Bundists; while the real work of creating the organised unity of the Party was done entirely by the Iskra organisation. (It should be remembered also that quite by chance several Iskra-ists on the Organising Committee were absent from the Congress, either because they had been arrested or for other reasons "beyond their control".) The members of the Iskra organisation present at the Congress have already been enumerated in Comrade Pavlovich's pamphlet (see his Letter on the Second Congress, p. 13).[100]

    The ultimate result of the heated debates in the Iskra organisation was the two votes I have already mentioned in my Letter to the Editors. The first vote: "by nine votes to

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    * Just reflect on this "picture of morals": the delegate from the Iskra organisation confers at the Congress with it alone and does not hint, even, at conferring with the Organising Committee. But after he is defeated both in this organisation and at the Congress, he begins to regret that the Organising Committee way not endorsed, to extol it retrospectively, and loftily to ignore the organisation that gave him his mandate! It may safely be vouched that no analogous instance will be found in the history of any really Social-Democratic and really working-class party.

 
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four, with three abstentions, one of the candidates supported by Martov was rejected." What could be simpler and more natural, one would think, than such a fact: by the common consent of all the sixteen Iskra organisation members at the Congress, the possible candidates are discussed, and one of Comrade Martov's candidates is rejected by the majority (it was Comrade Stein, as Comrade Martov himself has now blurted out -- State of Siege, p. 69). After all, one of the reasons why we assembled at the Party Congress was to discuss and decide to whom to entrust the "conductor's baton" -- and it was the common duty of us all as Party members to give this item on the agenda the most serious attention, to decide this question from the standpoint of the interests of the work, and not of "philistine sentimentality", as Comrade Rusov quite rightly expressed it later. Of course, in discussing candidates at the Congress, we were bound to touch upon certain personal qualities, were bound to express our approval or disapproval,* especially at an unofficial and intimate meeting. And I have already pointed out at the League Congress that it is absurd to think that a candidate is "disgraced" when he is not approved (League Minutes, p. 49), absurd to make a "scene" and go into hysterics over what forms part of a Party member's direct duty to select officials conscientiously and judiciously. And yet this was what put the fat in the fire as far as our minority are concerned, and they began after the Congress to clamour about "destroying reputations" (League Minutes, p. 70) and to assure the broad public in print that Comrade Stein had been the

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    * Comrade Martov bitterly complained at the League of the vehemence of my disapproval, failing to see that his complaint turned into an argument against himself. Lenin behaved -- to use his own expression -- frenziedly (League Minutes, p. 63). That is so. He banged the door. True. His conduct (at the second or third meeting of the Iskra organisation) aroused the indignation of the members who remained at the meeting. It did. But what follows? Only that my arguments on the substance of the questions in dispute were convincing and were borne out by the course of the Congress. For if, in fact, nine of the sixteen members of the Iskra organisation in the end sided with me, clearly this was so notwithstanding and in spite of my reprehensible vehemence. Hence, had it not been for this "vehemence", perhaps even more than nine would have sided with me. The more "indignation" my arguments and facts had to overcome, the more convincing they must have been.

 
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"chief figure" on the former Organising Committee and that he had been groundlessly accused of "diabolical schemes" (State of Siege, p. 69). Is it not hysterics to shout about "destroying reputations" in connection with the approval or disapproval of candidates? Is it not squabbling when people who have been defeated both at a private meeting of the Iskra organisation and at the official supreme assembly of the Party, the Congress, begin to complain to all and sundry and recommend rejected candidates to the worthy public as "chief figures", and when they then try to force their candidates upon the Party by causing a split and demanding co-optation? In our musty émigré atmosphere political concepts have become so confused that Comrade Martov is no longer able to distinguish Party duty from personal and circle allegiance! It is bureaucracy and formalism, we are to believe, to think it proper to discuss and decide upon candidates only at congresses, where delegates assemble primarily for the discussion of important questions of principle, where representatives of the movement assemble who are able to treat the question of personalities impartially, and who are able (and in duty bound) to demand and gather all necessary information about the candidates before casting their decisive votes, and where the assignment of a certain place to arguments over the conductor's baton is natural and essential. Instead of this bureaucratic and formal view, new usages and customs have now become the thing: we are, after congresses, to talk right and left about the political burial of Ivan Ivanovich or the destroyed reputation of Ivan Nikiforovich; writers are to recommend candidates in pamphlets, the while beating their breasts and hypocritically asserting: "This is not a circle, it is a party. . . ." Those of the reading public who have a taste for scandal will eagerly savour the sensational news that, on the assurance of Martov himself,* so-

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    * I, too, like Martov, tried in the Iskra organisation to get a certain candidate nominated to the Central Committee and failed, a candidate of whose splendid reputation before and at the beginning of the Congress, as borne out by outstanding facts, I too could speak. But it has never entered my head. This comrade has sufficient self-respect not to allow anybody, after the Congress, to nominate him in print or to complain about political burials, destroyed reputations, etc.

 
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and-so was the chief figure on the Organising Committee. This reading public is far more competent to discuss and decide the question than formalistic institutions like congresses, with their grossly mechanical decisions by majority vote. . . . Yes, there are still veritable Augean stables of émigré squabbling for our real Party workers to clean up!

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    Second vote of the Iskra organisation: "by ten votes to two, with four abstentions, a list of five [candidates for the Central Committee] was adopted which, on my proposal, included one leader of the non-Iskra-ist elements and one leader of the Iskra-ist minority."[*] This vote is of the utmost importance, for it clearly and irrefutably proves the utter falsity of the fables which were built up later, in the atmosphere of squabbling, to the effect that we wanted to eject the non-Iskra-ists from the Party or set them aside, that what the majority did was to pick candidates from only one half of the Congress and have them elected by that half, etc. All this is sheer falsehood. The vote I have cited shows that we did not exclude the non-Iskra-ists even from the Central Committee, let alone the Party, and that we allowed our opponents a very substantial minority. The whole point is that they wanted to have a majority, and when this modest wish was not gratified, they started a row and refused to be represented on the central bodies at all. That such was the case, Comrade Martov's assertions at the League notwithstanding, is shown by the following letter which the minority of the Iskra organisation addressed to us, the majority of the Iskra-ists (and the majority at the Congress after the withdrawal of the seven), shortly after the Congress adopted Paragraph 1 of the Rules (it should be noted that the Iskra organisation meeting I have been speaking of was the last: after it, the organisation actually broke up and each side tried to convince the other Congress delegates that it was in the right).

    Here is the text of the letter:

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    * See p. 121 of this volume. --Ed.  [Transcriber's Note: See Lenin's "Why I Resigned from the Iskra Editorial Board". -- DJR]

 
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    "Having heard the explanation of delegates Sorokin and Sablina[101] regarding the wish of the majority of the editorial board and the Emancipation of Labour group to attend the meeting [on such and such a date].[*] and having with the help of these delegates established that at the previous meeting a list of Central Committee candidates was read which was supposed to have come from us, and which was used to misrepresent our whole political position; and bearing in mind also that, firstly, this list was attributed to us without any attempt to ascertain its real origin; that, secondly, this circumstance is undoubtedly connected with the accusation of opportunism openly circulated against the majority of the Iskra editorial board and of the Emancipation of Labour group, and that, thirdly, this accusation is, as is perfectly clear to us, connected with a quite definite plan to change the composition of the 'Iskra' editorial board -- we consider that the explanation given us of the reasons for excluding us from the meeting is unsatisfactory, and that the refusal to admit us to the meeting is proof of not wanting to give us the opportunity to refute the above-mentioned false accusations.

    "As to the possibility of our reaching agreement on a joint list of candidates for the Central Committee, we declare that the only list we can accept as the basis for agreement is: Popov, Trotsky, and Glebov. Furthermore, we emphasise that this is a compromise list, since the inclusion of Comrade Glebov is to be viewed only as a concession to the wishes of the majority; for now that the role he has played at the Congress is clear to us, we do not consider Comrade Glebov a person satisfying the requirements that should be made of a candidate for the Central Committee.

    "At the same time, we stress that our entering into negotiations regarding the candidates for the Central Committee has no bearing whatever on the question of the composition of the editorial board of the Central Organ, as on this question (the composition of the editorial board) we are not prepared to enter into any negotiations.

"On behalf of the Comrades,
"Martov and Starover" 



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    * According to my reckoning, the date mentioned in the letter was a Tuesday. The meeting took place on Tuesday evening, that is, after the 28th sitting of the Congress. This chronological point is very important. It is a documentary refutation of Comrade Martov's opinion that we parted company over the organisation of the central bodies, and not over their personal composition. It is documentary proof of the correctness of my statement of the case at the League Congress and in the Letter to the Editors. After the 28th sitting of the Congress Comrades Martov and Starover had a great deal to say about a false accusation of opportunism, but did not say a word about the differences over the composition of the Council or over co-optation to the central bodies (which we argued about at the 25th, 26th, and 27th sittings).

 
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    This letter, which accurately reproduces the frame of mind of the disputing sides and the state of the dispute, takes us at once to the "heart" of the incipient split and reveals its real causes. The minority of the Iskra organisation, having refused to agree with the majority and preferred freedom of agitation at the Congress (to which they were, of course, fully entitled), nevertheless tried to induce the "delegates" of the majority to admit them to their private meeting! Naturally, this amusing demand only met with a smile and a shrug at our meeting (where the letter was of course read), and the outcry, bordering on hysterics, about "false accusations of opportunism" evoked outright laughter. But let us first examine Martov's and Starover's bitter complaints point by point.

    The list had been wrongly attributed to them; their political position was being misrepresented. -- But, as Martov himself has admitted (League Minutes, p. 64), it never occurred to me to doubt the truth of his statement that he was not the author of the list. In general, the authorship of the list has nothing to do with the case, and whether the list was drawn up by some Iskra-ist or by some representative of the "Centre", etc., is of absolutely no importance. The important thing is that this list, which consisted entirely of members of the present minority, circulated at the Congress, if only as a mere guess or conjecture. Lastly, the most important thing of all is that at the Congress Comrade Martov was obliged to dissociate himself with the utmost vehemence from such a list, a list which he now would be bound to greet with delight. Nothing could more saliently exemplify instability in the evaluation of people and shades than this right-about-face in the course of a couple of months from howling about "defamatory rumours" to forcing on the Party central body the very candidates who figure in this supposedly defamatory list!*

    This list, Comrade Martov said at the League Congress, "politically implied a coalition between us and Yuzhny Rabochy, on the one hand, and the Bund, on the other, a

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    * These lines were already set up when we received news of the incident of Comrade Gusev and Comrade Deutsch. We shall examine this incident separately in an appendix. (See pp. 416-25 of this volume. --Ed.)

 
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coalition in the sense of a direct agreement" (p. 64). That is not true, for, firstly, the Bund would never have entered into an "agreement" about a list which did not include a single Bundist; and, secondly, there was and could have been no question of a direct agreement (which was what Martov thought disgraceful) even with the Yuzhny Rabochy group, let alone the Bund. It was not an agreement but a coalition that was in question; not that Comrade Martov had made a deal, but that he was bound to have the support of those very anti-Iskra-ists and unstable elements whom he had fought during the first half of the Congress and who had seized upon his error over Paragraph 1 of the Rules. The letter I have quoted proves incontrovertibly that the root of the "grievance" lay in the open, and moreover false, accusation of opportunism. This "accusation" which put the fat in the fire, and which Comrade Martov now so carefully steers clear of, in spite of my reminder in the Letter to the Editors, was twofold. Firstly, during the discussion of Paragraph 1 of the Rules Plekhanov bluntly declared that Paragraph 1 was a question of "keeping away" from us "every kind of representative of opportunism", and that my draft, as a bulwark against their invading the Party, "should, if only for that reason, receive the votes of all enemies of opportunism" (Congress Minutes, p. 246). These vigorous words, even though I softened them down a little (p. 250),* caused a sensation, which was clearly expressed in the speeches of Comrades Rusov (p. 247), Trotsky (p. 248), and Akimov (p. 253). In the "lobby" of our "parliament", Plekhanov's thesis was keenly commented on and varied in a thousand ways in endless arguments over Paragraph 1. But instead of defending their case on its merits, our dear comrades assumed a ludicrous air of injury and even went to the length of complaining in writing about a "false accusation of opportunism"!

    Their narrow circle mentality and astonishing immaturity as Party members, which cannot stand the fresh breeze of open controversy in the presence of all, is here clearly revealed. It is the mentality so familiar to the Russian, as expressed in the old saying: either coats off, or let's have

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    * See present edition, Vol. 6, pp. 501-02. --Ed.  [Transcriber's Note: See Lenin's The Second Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. -- DJR]

 
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your hand! These people are so accustomed to the bell-jar seclusion of an intimate and snug little circle that they almost fainted as soon as a person spoke up in a free and open arena on his own responsibility. Accusations of opportunism! -- against whom? Against the Emancipation of Labour group, and its majority at that -- can you imagine anything more terrible? Either split the Party on account of this ineffaceable insult, or hush up this "domestic unpleasantness" by restoring the "continuity" of the bell-jar -- this alternative is already pretty clearly indicated in the letter we are examining. Intellectualist individualism and the circle mentality had come into conflict with the requirement of open speaking before the Party. Can you imagine such an absurdity, such a squabble, such a complaint about "false accusations of opportunism" in the German party? There, proletarian organisation and discipline weaned them from such intellectualist flabbiness long ago. Nobody has anything but the profoundest respect for Liebknecht, let us say; but how they would have laughed over there at complaints that he (together with Bebel) was "openly accused of opportunism" at the 1895 Congress, when, on the agrarian question, he found himself in the bad company of the notorious opportunist Vollmar and his friends. Liebknecht's name is inseparably bound up with the history of the German working-class movement not, of course, because he happened to stray into opportunism on such a comparatively minor and specific question, but in spite of it. And similarly, in spite of all the acrimony of the struggle, the name of Comrade Axelrod, say, inspires respect in every Russian Social-Democrat, and always will; but not because Comrade Axelrod happened to defend an opportunist idea at the Second Congress of our Party, happened to dig out old anarchistic rubbish at the Second Congress of the League, but in spite of it. Only the most hidebound circle mentality, with its logic of "either coats off, or let's have your hand", could give rise to hysterics, squabbles, and a Party split because of a "false accusation of opportunism against the majority of the Emancipation of Labour group".

    The other element of this terrible accusation is intimately connected with the preceding (Comrade Martov tried in vain at the League Congress [p. 63] to evade and hush up

 
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one side of this incident). It relates in fact to that coalition of the anti-Iskra-ist and wavering elements with Comrade Martov which began to emerge in connection with Paragraph 1 of the Rules. Naturally, there was no agreement, direct or indirect, between Comrade Martov and the anti-Iskra-ists, nor could there have been, and nobody suspected him of it: it only seemed so to him in his fright. But politically his error was revealed in the fact that people who undoubtedly gravitated towards opportunism began to form around him an ever more solid and "compact" majority (which has now become a minority only because of the "accidental" withdrawal of seven-delegates). We pointed to this "coalition", also openly, of course, immediately after the matter of Paragraph 1 -- both at the Congress (see Comrade Pavlovich's remark already quoted: Congress Minutes, p. 255) and in the Iskra organisation (Plekhanov, as I recall, pointed to it in particular). It is literally the same point and the same jibe as was addressed by Clara Zetkin to Bebel and Liebknecht in 1895, when she said: "Es tut mir in der Seele weh, dass ich dich in der Gesellschaft seh '" ("It cuts me to the quick to see you [i.e., Bebel] in such company [i.e., of Vollmar and Co.]"). It is strange, to be sure, that Bebel and Liebknecht did not send a hysterical message to Kautsky and Zetkin complaining of a false accusation of opportunism. . . .

    As to the list of candidates for the Central Committee, this letter shows that Comrade Martov was mistaken in declaring at the League that the refusal to come to an agreement with us was not yet final -- another example of how unwise it is in a political struggle to attempt to reproduce the spoken word from memory, instead of relying on documents. Actually, the "minority" were so modest as to present the "majority" with an ultimatum: take two from the "minority" and one (by way of compromise and only as a concession, properly speaking!) from the "majority". This is monstrous, but it is a fact. And this fact clearly shows how absurd are the fables now being spread to the effect that the "majority" picked representatives of only one half of the Congress and got them elected by that one half. Just the opposite: the Martovites offered us one out of three only as a concession, consequently, in the event of our not agreeing

 
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to this unique "concession", they wanted to get all the seats filled by their own candidates! At our private meeting we had a good laugh at the Martovites' modesty and drew up a list of our own: Glebov-Travinsky (subsequently elected to the Central Committee)-Popov. For the latter we then substituted (also at a private meeting of the twenty-four) Comrade Vasilyev (subsequently elected to the Central Committee) only because Comrade Popov refused, first in private conversation and then openly at the Congress (p. 338), to be included in our list.

    That is how matters really stood.

    The modest "minority" modestly wished to be in the majority. When this modest wish was not met, the "minority" were pleased to decline altogether and to start a row. Yet there are people who now talk pontifically about the "intransigence" of the "majority"!

    Entering the fray in the arena of free agitation at the Congress, the "minority" presented the "majority" with amusing ultimatums. Having suffered defeat, our heroes burst into tears and began to cry out about a state of siege. Voilà tout.

    The terrible accusation that we intended to change the composition of the editorial board was also greeted with a smile (at our private meeting of the twenty-four): from the very beginning of the Congress, and even before the Congress, everybody had known perfectly well of the plan to reconstitute the editorial board by electing an initial trio (I shall speak of this in greater detail when I come to the election of the editorial board at the Congress). That the "minority" took fright at this plan after they saw its correctness splendidly confirmed by their coalition with the anti-Iskra-ists did not surprise us -- it was quite natural. Of course, we could not take seriously the proposal that we should of our own free will, without a fight at the Congress, convert ourselves into a minority; nor could we take seriously this whole letter, the authors of which had reached such an incredible state of exasperation as to speak of "false accusations of opportunism". We confidently hoped that their sense of Party duty would very soon get the better of the natural desire to "vent their spleen".

 
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K. CONTINUATION OF THE DEBATE ON THE RULES.
COMPOSITION OF THE COUNCIL

    The succeeding clauses of the Rules aroused far more controversy over details than over principles of organisation. The 24th sitting of the Congress was entirely devoted to the question of representation at Party congresses, and again a decided and definite struggle against the common plans of all the Iskra-ists was waged only by the Bundists (Goldblatt and Lieber, pp. 258-59) and Comrade Akimov, who with praiseworthy frankness admitted his role at the Congress: "Every time I speak, I do so fully realising that my arguments will not influence the comrades, but will on the contrary damage the point I am trying to defend" (p. 261). Coming just after Paragraph 1 of the Rules, this apt remark was particularly appropriate; only the words "on the contrary" were not quite in order here, for Comrade Akimov was able not only to damage various points, but at the same time, and by so doing, to "influence the comrades" . . . those very inconsistent Iskra-ists who inclined towards opportunist phrase-mongering.

    Well, in the upshot Paragraph 3 of the Rules, which defines the conditions of representation at congresses, was adopted by a majority with seven abstentions (p. 263) -- anti-Iskra-ists, evidently.

    The arguments over the composition of the Council, which took up the greater part of the 25th Congress sitting, revealed an extraordinary number of groupings around a multitude of proposals. Abramson and Tsaryov rejected the plan for a Council altogether. Panin insisted on making the Council a court of arbitration exclusively, and therefore quite consistently moved to delete the definition that the Council is the supreme institution and that it may be summoned by any two of its members.* Hertz[102] and Rusov advocated differing methods of constituting the Council, in

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    * Apparently, Comrade Starover also inclined to the view of Comrade Panin, only with the difference that the latter knew what he wanted and quite consistently moved resolutions aimed at converting the Council into a pure arbitration or conciliation body, whereas Comrade Starover did not know what he wanted when he said that according to the draft the Council could meet "only on the wish of the parties" (p. 266). That was quite incorrect.

 
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addition to the three methods proposed by the five members of the Rules Committee.

    The questions in dispute reduced themselves primarily to definition of the Council's functions: whether it was to be a court of arbitration or the supreme institution of the Party. Comrade Panin, as I have said, was consistently in favour of the former. But he stood alone. Comrade Martov vigorously opposed this: "I propose that the motion to delete the words, 'the Council is the supreme institution', be rejected. Our formulation [i.e., the formulation of the Council's functions that we had agreed on in the Rules Committee] deliberately leaves open the possibility of the Council developing into the supreme Party institution. For us, the Council is not merely a conciliation board." Yet the composition of the Council as proposed by Comrade Martov was solely and exclusively that of a "conciliation board" or court of arbitration: two members from each of the central bodies and a fifth to be invited by these four. Not only such a composition of the Council, but even that adopted by the Congress on the motion of Comrades Rusov and Hertz (the fifth member to be appointed by the Congress), answers the sole purpose of conciliation or mediation. Between such a composition of the Council and its mission of becoming the supreme Party institution there is an irreconcilable contradiction. The composition of the supreme Party institution should be constant, and not dependent on chance changes (sometimes owing to arrests) in the composition of the central bodies. The supreme institution should stand in direct relation to the Party Congress, receiving its powers from the latter, and not from two other Party institutions subordinate to the Congress. The supreme institution should consist of persons known to the Party Congress. Lastly, the supreme institution should not be organised in a way that makes its very existence dependent on chance -- the two bodies fail to agree on the selection of the fifth member, and the Party is left without a supreme institution! To this it was objected: 1) that if one of the five were to abstain and the remaining four were to divide equally, the position might also prove a hopeless one (Egorov). This objection is unfounded, for the impossibility of adopting a decision is something that is inevitable at times in the case

 
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of any body, but that is quite different from the impossibility of forming the body. Second objection: "if an institution like the Council proves incapable of selecting the fifth member, it will mean that it is ineffectual in general" (Zasulich). But the point here is not that it will be ineffectual, but that there will be no supreme institution at all: without the fifth member, there will be no Council, there will be no "institution ", and the question of whether it is effectual or not will not even arise. Lastly, if the trouble were that it might not be possible to form some Party body over which stood another, higher, body, that would be remediable, for in urgent cases the higher body could fill the gap in one way or another. But there is no body above the Council except the Congress, and therefore to frame the Rules in such a way that it might not even be possible to form the Council would obviously be illogical.

    Both my brief speeches at the Congress on this question were devoted to an examination (pp. 267 and 269) only of these two wrong objections which Martov and other comrades adduced in defence of his proposal. As to the question of the Central Organ or the Central Committee predominating on the Council, I did not even touch on it. This question was brought up, as early as the 14th sitting of the Congress (p. 157), by Comrade Akimov, he being the first to talk of the danger of the Central Organ predominating; and Comrades Martov, Axelrod, and others, after the Congress, were only following in Akimov 's footsteps when they invented the absurd and demagogic story that the "majority" wanted to convert the Central Committee into a tool of the editorial board. When he dealt with this question in his State of Siege, Comrade Martov modestly avoided mentioning its real initiator!

    Anybody who cares to acquaint himself with the entire treatment at the Party Congress of the question of the Central Organ predominating over the Central Committee, and is not content with isolated quotations torn from their context, will easily perceive how Comrade Martov has distorted the matter. It was none other than Comrade Popov who, as early as the 14th sitting, started a polemic against the views of Comrade Akimov, who wanted "the 'strictest centralisation' at the top of the Party in order to weaken

 
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the influence of the Central Organ" (p. 154; my italics), "which in fact is the whole meaning of this [Akimov's] system." "Far from defending such centralisation," Comrade Popov added, "I am prepared to combat it with every means in my power, because it is the banner of opportunism. " There you have the root of the famous question of the Central Organ predominating over the Central Committee, and it is not surprising that Comrade Martov is now obliged to pass over the true origin of the question in silence. Even Comrade Popov could not fail to discern the opportunist character of Akimov's talk about the predominance of the Central Organ,[*] and in order thoroughly to dissociate himself from Comrade Akimov, Comrade Popov categorically declared: "Let there be three members from the editorial board on this central body [the Council] and two from the Central Committee. That is a secondary question. [My italics.] The important thing is that the leadership, the supreme leadership of the Party, should proceed from one source" (p. 155). Comrade Akimov objected: "Under the draft, the Central Organ is ensured predominance on the Council if only because the composition of the editorial board is constant whereas that of the Central Committee is changeable" (p. 157) -- an argument which only relates to "constancy" of leadership in matters of principle (which is a normal and desirable thing), and certainly not to "predominance" in the sense of interference or encroachment on independence. And Comrade Popov, who at that time did not yet belong to a "minority" which masks its dissatisfaction with the composition of the central bodies by spreading tales of the Central Committee's

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    * Neither Comrade Popov nor Comrade Martov hesitated to call Comrade Akimov an opportunist, they only began to take exception and grow indignant when this appellation was applied to them, and applied justly, in connection with "equality of languages" or Paragraph 1. Comrade Akimov, in whose footsteps Comrade Martov has followed, was however able to conduct himself with greater dignity and manhood at the Party Congress than Comrade Martov and Co. at the League Congress. "I have been called an opportunist here," said Comrade Akimov at the Party Congress. "I personally consider this an abusive and offensive term and believe that I have done nothing to deserve it. However, I am not protesting" (p. 296). Can it be that Comrades Martov and Starover invited Comrade Akimov to subscribe to their protest against the false accusation of opportunism, but that Comrade Akimov declined?

 
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lack of independence, told Comrade Akimov quite logically: "I propose that it [the Council] be regarded as the directing centre of the Party, in which case it will be entirely unimportant whether there are more representatives on the Council from the Central Organ or from the Central Committee" (pp. 157-58; my italics).

    When the discussion of the composition of the Council was resumed at the 25th sitting, Comrade Pavlovich, continuing the old debate, pronounced in favour of the predominance of the Central Organ over the Central Committee "in view of the former's stability" (p. 264). It was stability in matters of principle that he had in mind, and that was how he was understood by Comrade Martov, who, speaking immediately after Comrade Pavlovich, considered it unnecessary to "fix the preponderance of one institution over the other" and pointed to the possibility of one of the Central Committee members residing abroad, "whereby the stability of the Central Committee in matters of principle would to some extent be preserved" (p. 264). Here there is not yet even a trace of the demagogic confusion of stability in matters of principle, and its preservation, with the preservation of the independence and initiative of the Central Committee. At the Congress this confusion, which since the Congress has practically become Comrade Martov's trump card, was furthered only by Comrade Akimov, who already at that time spoke of the "Arakcheyev[103] spirit of the Rules" (p. 268), and said that "if three members of the Party Council were to be from the Central Organ, the Central Committee would be converted into a mere tool of the editorial board. [My italics.] Three persons residing abroad would obtain the unrestricted [!!] right to order the work of the entire [!!] Party. Their security would be guaranteed, and their power would therefore be lifelong" (p. 268). It was with this absolutely absurd and demagogic talk, in which ideological leadership is called interference in the work of the entire Party (and which after the Congress provided a cheap slogan for Comrade Axelrod with his talk about "theocracy") -- it was with this that Comrade Pavlovich again took issue when he stressed that he stood "for the stability and purity of the principles represented by Iskra. By giving preponderance to the editorial board of the Central Organ I want to fortify these principles" (p. 268).

 
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    That is how the celebrated question of the predominance of the Central Organ over the Central Committee really stands. This famous "difference of principle" on the part of Comrades Axelrod and Martov is nothing but a repetition of the opportunist and demagogic talk of Comrade Akimov, the true character of which was clearly detected even by Comrade Popov, in the days when he had not yet suffered defeat over the composition of the central bodies!

*      *
 *

    To sum up the question of the composition of the Council: despite Comrade Martov's attempts in his State of Siege to prove that my statement of the case in the Letter to the Editors is contradictory and incorrect, the minutes of the Congress clearly show that, in comparison with Paragraph 1, this question was indeed only a detail, and that the assertion in the article "Our Congress" (Iskra, No. 53) that we argued "almost exclusively" about the organisation of the Party's central institutions is a complete distortion. It is a distortion all the more outrageous since the author of the article entirely ignores the controversy over Paragraph 1. Further, that there was no definite grouping of the Iskra-ists over the composition of the Council is also borne out by the minutes: there were no roll-call votes; Martov differed with Panin; I found common ground with Popov; Egorov and Gusev took up a separate stand, and so on. Finally, my last statement (at the Congress of the League of Russian Revolutionary Social-Democracy Abroad), to the effect that the Martovites' coalition with the anti-Iskra-ists grew steadily stronger, is also borne out by Comrade Martov's and Comrade Axelrod's swing towards Comrade Akimov -- now apparent to everyone -- on this question as well.

L. CONCLUSION OF THE DEBATE ON THE RULES.
CO-OPTATION TO THE CENTRAL BODIES. WITHDRAWAL
OF THE RABOCHEYE DYELO DELEGATES

    Of the subsequent debate on the Rules (26th sitting of the Congress), only the question of restricting the powers of the Central Committee is worth mentioning, for it throws light

 
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on the character of the attacks the Martovites are now making on hypercentralism. Comrades Egorov and Popov strove for the restriction of centralism with rather more conviction, irrespective of their own candidature or that of those they supported. When the question was still in the Rules Commission, they moved that the right of the Central Committee to dissolve local committees be made contingent on the consent of the Council and, in addition, be limited to cases specially enumerated (p. 272, note 1). This was opposed by three members of the Rules Commission (Glebov, Martov, and myself), and at the Congress Comrade Martov upheld our view (p. 273) and answered Egorov and Popov by saying that "the Central Committee would in any case deliberate before deciding on so serious a step as the dissolution of an organisation". As you see, at that time Comrade Martov still turned a deaf ear to every anti-centralist scheme, and the Congress rejected the proposal of Egorov and Popov -- only unfortunately the minutes do not tell us by how many votes.

    At the Party Congress, Comrade Martov was also "against substituting the word 'endorses' for the word 'organises' [the Central Committee organises committees, etc. -- Paragraph 6 of the Party Rules]. It must be given the right to organise as well." That is what Comrade Martov said then, not having yet hit on the wonderful idea that the concept "organise" does not include endorsement, which he discovered only at the League Congress.

    Apart from these two points, the debate over Paragraphs 5-11 of the Rules (Minutes, pp. 273-76) is hardly of any interest, being confined to quite minor arguments over details. Then came Paragraph 12 -- the question of co-optation to all Party bodies in general and to the central bodies in particular. The commission proposed raising the majority required for co-optation from two-thirds to four-fifths. Glebov, who presented its report, moved that decisions to co-opt to the Central Committee must be unanimous. Comrade Egorov, while acknowledging dissonances undesirable, stood for a simple majority in the absence of a reasoned veto. Comrade Popov agreed neither with the commission nor with Comrade Egorov and demanded either a simple majority (without the right of veto) or unanimity. Comrade Martov

 
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agreed neither with the commission, nor with Glebov, nor with Egorov, nor with Popov, declaring against unanimity, against four-fifths (in favour of two-thirds), and against "mutual co-optation ", that is, the right of the editorial board of the Central Organ to protest a co-optation to the Central Committee and vice versa ("the right of mutual control over co-optation").

    As the reader sees, the groupings were highly variegated and the differences so numerous as almost to lend "uniqueness" to the views of each delegate!

    Comrade Martov said: "I admit the psychological impossibility of working with unpleasant persons. But it is also important for our organisation to be virile and effectual. . . . The right of the Central Committee and the editorial board of the Central Organ to mutual control in cases of co-optation is unnecessary. It is not because I think that one is not competent in the sphere of the other that I am against it. No! The editorial board of the Central Organ, for instance, might give the Central Committee sound advice as to whether Mr. Nadezhdin, say, should be admitted to the Central Committee. I object because I do not want to create mutually exasperating red tape."

    I objected: "There are two questions here. The first is that of the required majority, and I am against lowering it from four-fifths to two-thirds. The stipulation for a reasoned protest is not expedient, and I am against it. Incomparably more important is the second question, the right of the Central Committee and the Central Organ to mutual control over co-optation. The mutual consent of the two central bodies is an essential condition for harmony. What is involved here is a possible rupture between the two central bodies. Whoever does not want a split should be concerned to safeguard harmony. We know from the history of the Party that there have been people who caused splits. It is a question of principle, a very important question, one on which the whole future of the Party may depend" (pp. 276-77). That is the full text of the summary of my speech as recorded at the Congress, a speech to which Comrade Martov attaches particularly serious importance. Unfortunately, although attaching serious importance to it, he did not take the trouble to consider it in connection with the whole debate

 
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and the whole political situation at the Congress at the moment it was made.

    The first question that arises is why, in my original draft (see p. 394, Paragraph 11),[*] I stipulated a majority of only two-thirds and did not demand mutual control over co-optation to the central bodies. Comrade Trotsky, who spoke after me (p. 277), did in fact at once raise this question.

    The answer to it is given in my speech at the League Congress and in Comrade Pavlovich's letter on the Second Congress. Paragraph 1 of the Rules "broke the pot" and it had to be bound tight with a "double knot" -- I said at the League Congress. That meant, firstly, that on a purely theoretical question Martov had proved to be an opportunist, and his mistake had been upheld by Lieber and Akimov. It meant, secondly, that the coalition of the Martovites (that is, an insignificant minority of the Iskra-ists) with the anti-Iskra-ists ensured them a majority at the Congress in the voting on the personal composition of the central bodies. And it was about the personal composition of the central bodies that I was speaking here, emphasising the need for harmony and warning against "people who cause splits ". This warning was indeed of important significance in principle, for the Iskra organisation (which was undoubtedly best qualified to judge about the personal composition of the central bodies, having as it did the closest practical acquaintance with all affairs and with all the candidates) had already made its recommendations on this subject and had taken the decision we know regarding the candidates who aroused its misgivings. Both morally and on its merits (that is, its competence to judge), the Iskra organisation should have had the decisive say in this delicate matter. But formally speaking, of course, Comrade Martov had every right to appeal to the Liebers and Akimovs against the majority of the Iskra organisation. And in his brilliant speech on Paragraph 1, Comrade Akimov had said with remarkable explicitness and sagacity that whenever he perceived a difference among the Iskra-ists over the methods of achieving their common Iskra aim, he consciously and deliberately voted for the worse method, because his, Akimov's,

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    * See present edition, Vol, 6, p. 477. --Ed.  [Transcriber's Note: See Lenin's The Second Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. -- DJR]

 
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aims were diametrically opposed to those of the Iskra-ists. There could not be the slightest doubt therefore that, quite irrespective of the wishes and intentions of Comrade Martov, it was the worse composition of the central bodies that would obtain the support of the Liebers and Akimovs. They could vote, they were bound to vote (judging by their deeds, by their vote on Paragraph 1, and not by their words) precisely for that list which would promise the presence of "people who cause splits", and would do so in order to "cause splits". Is it surprising, in view of this situation, that I said that it was an important question of principle (harmony between the two central bodies), one on which the whole future of the Party might depend?

    No Social-Democrat at all acquainted with the Iskra ideas and plans and with the history of the movement, and at all earnest in sharing those ideas, could doubt for a moment that while formally it was quite right and proper for the dispute within the Iskra organisation over the composition of the central bodies to be decided by the Liebers and Akimovs, this would ensure the worst possible results. It was imperative to fight to avert these worst possible results.

    How were we to fight them? We did not fight by hysterics and rows, of course, but by methods which were quite loyal and quite legitimate: perceiving that we were in the minority (as on the question of Paragraph 1), we appealed to the Congress to protect the rights of the minority. Greater strictness as regards the majority required for adoption of members (four-fifths instead of two-thirds), the requirement of unanimity for co-optation, mutual control over co-optation to the central bodies -- all this we began to advocate when we found ourselves in the minority on the question of the personal composition of the central bodies. This fact is constantly ignored by the Ivans and Peters who are so ready to give opinions on the Congress lightly, after a couple of chats with friends, without seriously studying all the minutes and all the "testimony" of the persons concerned. Yet anybody who cares to make a conscientious study of these minutes and this testimony will inevitably encounter the fact I have mentioned, namely, that the root of the dispute at that moment of the Congress was the personal composition of the

 
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central bodies, and that we strove for stricter conditions of control just because we were in the minority and wanted "a double knot to bind tight the pot" broken by Martov amid the jubilation and with the jubilant assistance of the Liebers and the Akimovs.

    "If it were not so," Comrade Pavlovich says, speaking of this moment of the Congress, "one would have to assume that in moving the point about unanimity in cases of co-optation, we were concerned for the interests of our adversaries; for to the side which predominates in any institution unanimity is unnecessary and even disadvantageous." (Letter on the Second Congress, p. 14.) But today the chronological aspect of the events is all too often forgotten; it is forgotten that there wasa whole period at the Congress when the present minority was the majority (thanks to the participation of the Liebers and Akimovs), and that it was precisely at this period that the controversy over co-optation to the central bodies took place, the underlying reason for which was the difference within the Iskra organisation over the personal composition of the central bodies. Whoever grasps this fact will understand the passion that marked our debates and will not be surprised by the seeming paradox that petty differences over details gave rise to really important issues of principle.

    Comrade Deutsch, speaking at this same sitting (p. 277), was in many respects right when he said: "This motion is undoubtedly designed for the given moment. " Yes, indeed, it is only when we have understood the given moment, in all its complexity, that we can understand the true meaning of the controversy. And it is highly important to bear in mind that when we were in the minority, we defended the rights of the minority by such methods as will be acknowledged legitimate and permissible by any European Social-Democrat, namely, by appealing to the Congress for stricter control over the personal composition of the central bodies. Similarly, Comrade Egorov was in many respects right when he said at the Congress, but at a different sitting: "I am exceedingly surprised to hear reference to principles again being made in the debate. [This was said in reference to the elections to the Central Committee, at the 31st sitting of the Congress, that is, if I am not mistaken, on Thursday

 
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morning, whereas the 26th sitting, of which we are now speaking, was held on Monday evening.] I think it is clear to everyone that during the last few days the debate has not revolved around any question of principle, but exclusively around securing or preventing the inclusion of one or another person in the central institutions. Let us acknowledge that principles have been lost at this Congress long since, and call a spade a spade. (General laughter. Muravyov : 'I request to have it recorded in the minutes that Comrade Martov smiled')" (p. 337). It is not surprising that Comrade Martov, like the rest of us, laughed at Comrade Egorov's complaints, which were indeed ludicrous. Yes, "during the last few days " a very great deal did revolve around the personal composition of the central bodies. That is true. That was indeed clear to everyone at the Congress (and it is only now that the minority is trying to obscure this clear fact). And it is true, lastly, that a spade should be called a spade. But, for God's sake, where is the "loss of principles" here? After all, we assembled at the Congress in order, in the first days (see p. 101 the Congress agenda), to discuss the programme, tactics, and Rules and to decide the questions relating to them, and in the last days (Items 18 and 19 of the agenda) to discuss the personal composition of the central bodies and to decide those questions. When the last days of congresses are devoted to a struggle over the conductor's baton, that is natural and absolutely legitimate. (But when a fight over the conductor's baton is waged after congresses, that is squabbling.) If someone suffers defeat at the congress over the personal composition of the central bodies (as Comrade Egorov did), it is simply ludicrous of him, after that, to speak of "loss of principles". It is therefore understandable why everybody laughed at Comrade Egorov. And it is also understandable why Comrade Muravyov requested to have it recorded in the minutes that Comrade Martov shared in the laughter: in laughing at Comrade Egorov, Comrade Martov was laughing at himself. . . .

    In addition to Comrade Muravyov's irony, it will not be superfluous, perhaps, to mention the following fact. As we know, after the Congress Comrade Martov asserted right and left that it was the question of co-optation to the central bodies that played the cardinal role in our divergence,

 
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and that "the majority of the old editorial board" was emphatically opposed to mutual control over co-optation to the central bodies. Before the Congress, when accepting my plan to elect two trios, with mutual co-optation by a two-thirds majority, Comrade Martov wrote to me on the subject: "In adopting this form of mutual co-optation, it should be stressed that after the Congress additions to each body will be effected on somewhat different lines. (I would advise the following: each body co-opts new members, informing the other body of its intention; the latter may enter a protest, in which case the dispute shall be settled by the Council. To avoid delays, this procedure should be followed in relation to candidates nominated in advance -- at least in the case of the Central Committee -- from whose number the additions may then be made more expeditiously.) In order to stress that subsequent co-optation will be effected in the manner provided by the Party Rules, the following words should be added to Item 22[*]: '. . . by which the decisions taken must be endorsed'." (My italics.)

    Comment is superfluous.

---

    Having explained the significance of the moment when the controversy over co-optation to the central bodies took place, we must dwell a little on the votings on the subject -- it is unnecessary to dwell on the discussion, as the speeches of Comrade Martov and myself, already quoted, were followed only by brief interchanges in which very few of the delegates took part (see Minutes, pp. 277-80). In relation to the voting, Comrade Martov asserted at the League Congress that in my account of the matter I was guilty of "the greatest distortion" (League Minutes, p. 60) "in representing the struggle around the Rules [Comrade Martov unwittingly

---

    * The reference is to my original draft of the Tagesordnung (agenda --Ed.) of the Congress and my commentary to it, with which all the delegates were familiar. Item 22 of this draft provided for the election of two trios -- to the Central Organ and to the Central Committee -- "mutual co-optation" by these six by a two-thirds majority, the endorsement of this mutual co-optation by the Congress, and subsequent co-optation by the Central Organ and the Central Committee separately.

 
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uttered a profound truth: after Paragraph 1, the heated disputes were indeed around the Rules] as a struggle of Iskra against the Martovites joined in coalition with the Bund."

    Let us examine this interesting "greatest distortion". Comrade Martov added together the votings on the composition of the Council and the votings on co-optation and listed eight in all: 1) election to the Council of two members each from the Central Organ and the Central Committee -- 27 for (M), 16 against (L), 7 abstentions.[*] (Let me say parenthetically that the number of abstentions is shown in the Minutes -- p. 270 -- as 8, but that is a detail.) 2) election of the fifth Council member by the Congress -- 23 for (L), 18 against (M), 7 abstentions. 3) replacement of lapsed Council members by the Council itself -- 23 against (M), 16 for (L), 12 abstentions. 4) unanimity for co-optation to the Central Committee -- 25 for (L), 19 against (M), 7 abstentions. 5) the stipulation for one reasoned protest for non-co-optation -- 21 for (L), 19 against (M), 11 abstentions. 6) unanimity for co-optation to the Central Organ -- 23 for (L), 21 against (M), 7 abstentions. 7) votability of a motion giving the Council the right to annul a Central Organ or Central Committee decision not to co-opt a new member -- 25 for (M), 19 against (L), 7 abstentions. 8) this motion itself -- 24 for (M), 23 against (L), 4 abstentions. "Here, evidently," Comrade Martov concluded (League Minutes, p. 61), "one Bund delegate voted for the motion while the rest abstained. " (My italics.)

    Why, may one ask, did Comrade Martov consider it evident that the Bundist had voted for him, Martov, when there were no roll-call votes?

    Because he counted the number of votes cast, and when it indicated that the Bund had taken part in the voting, he, Comrade Martov, did not doubt that it had been on his, Martov's, side.

    Where, then, is the "greatest distortion" on my part?

    The total votes were 51, without the Bundists 46, without the Rabocheye Dyelo-ists 43. In seven of the eight votings mentioned by Comrade Martov, 43, 41, 39, 44, 40, 44, and

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    * The letters M and L in parentheses indicate which side I (L) and which side Martov (M) was on.

 
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44 delegates took part; in one, 47 delegates (or rather votes), and here Comrade Martov himself admitted that he was supported by a Bundist. We thus find that the picture sketched by Martov (and sketched incompletely, as we shall soon see) only confirms and strengthens my account of the struggle ! We find that in a great many cases the number of abstentions was very high: this points to the slight -- relatively slight -- interest shown by the Congress as a whole in certain minor points, and to the absence of any definite grouping of the Iskra-ists on these questions. Martov's statement that the Bundists "manifestly helped Lenin by abstaining" (League Minutes, p. 62) in fact speaks against Martov: it means that it was only when the Bundists were absent or abstained that I could sometimes count upon victory. But whenever the Bundists thought it worth while to intervene in the struggle, they supported Comrade Martov; and the above-mentioned case when 47 delegates voted was not the only time they intervened. Whoever cares to refer to the Congress Minutes will notice a very strange incompleteness in Comrade Martov's picture. Comrade Martov simply omitted three cases when the Bund did take part in the voting, and it goes without saying that in all these cases Comrade Martov was the victor. Here are the three cases: 1) adoption of Comrade Fomin's amendment to lower the required majority from four-fifths to two-thirds -- 27 for, 21 against (p. 278), that is, 48 votes. 2) adoption of Comrade Martov's motion to delete mutual co-optation -- 26 for, 24 against (p. 279), that is, 50 votes. Lastly, 3) rejection of my motion to permit co-optation to the Central Organ or the Central Committee only with the consent of all members of the Council (p. 280) -- 27 against, 22 for (there was even a roll-call vote, of which, unfortunately, there is no record in the minutes), that is, 49 votes.

    To sum up: on the question of co-optation to the central bodies the Bundists took part in only four votings (the three I have just mentioned, with 48, 50, and 49 votes, and the one mentioned by Comrade Martov, with 47 votes). In all these votings Comrade Martov was the victor. My statement of the case proves to be right in every particular: in declaring that there was a coalition with the Bund, in noting the relatively minor character of the questions

 
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(a large number of abstentions in very many cases), and in pointing to the absence of any definite grouping of the Iskra-ists (no roll-call votes; very few speakers in the debates).

    Comrade Martov's attempt to detect a contradiction in my statement of the case turns out to have been made with unsound means, for he tore isolated words from their context and did not trouble to reconstruct the complete picture.

---

    The last paragraph of the Rules, dealing with the organisation abroad, again gave rise to debates and votings which were highly significant from the point of view of the groupings at the Congress. The question at issue was recognition of the League as the Party organisation abroad. Comrade Akimov, of course, at once rose up in arms, reminding the Congress of the Union Abroad, which had been endorsed by the First Congress, and pointing out that the question was one of principle. "Let me first make the reservation," he said, "that I do not attach any particular practical significance to which way the question is decided. The ideological struggle which has been going on in our Party is undoubtedly not over yet; but it will be continued on a different plane and with a different alignment of forces. . . . Paragraph 13 of the Rules once more reflects, and in a very marked way, the tendency to convert our Congress from a Party congress into a factional congress. Instead of causing all Social-Democrats in Russia to defer to the decisions of the Party Congress in the name of Party unity, by uniting all Party organisations, it is proposed that the Congress should destroy the organisation of the minority and make the minority disappear from the scene" (p. 281). As the reader sees, the "continuity" which became so dear to Comrade Martov after his defeat over the composition of the central bodies was no less dear to Comrade Akimov. But at the Congress these people who apply different standards to themselves and to others rose up in heated protest against Comrade Akimov. Although the programme had been adopted, Iskra endorsed, and nearly the entire Rules passed, that "principle" which "in principle" distinguished the League from the Union was brought to the fore. "If Comrade Akimov is anxious to make the

 
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issue one of principle," exclaimed Comrade Martov, "we have nothing against it; especially since Comrade Akimov has spoken of possible combinations in a struggle with two trends. The victory of one trend must be sanctioned [this, mark, was said at the 27th sitting of the Congress!] not in the sense that we make another bow to Iskra, but in the sense that we bow a last farewell to all the possible combinations Comrade Akimov spoke of " (p. 282; my italics).

    What a picture! When all the Congress arguments regarding the programme were already over, Comrade Martov continued to bow a last farewell to all possible combinations . . . until he suffered defeat over the composition of the central bodies! Comrade Martov "bowed a last farewell" at the Congress to that possible "combination" which he cheerfully brought to fruition on the very morrow of the Congress. But Comrade Akimov proved even then to be much more far-sighted than Comrade Martov; Comrade Akimov referred to the five years' work of "an old Party organisation which, by the will of the First Congress, bears the name of a committee", and concluded with a most venomous and prescient stab: "As to Comrade Martov's opinion that my hopes of a new trend appearing in our Party are in vain, let me say that even he himself inspires me with such hopes" (p. 283; my italics).

    Yes, it must be confessed, Comrade Martov has fully justified Comrade Akimov's hopes!

    Comrade Martov became convinced that Comrade Akimov was right, and joined him, after the "continuity" had been broken of an old Party body deemed to have been working for three years. Comrade Akimov's victory did not cost him much effort.

    But at the Congress Comrade Akimov was backed -- and backed consistently -- only by Comrades Martynov and Brouckere and the Bundists (eight votes). Comrade Egorov, like the real leader of the "Centre" that he is, adhered to the golden mean: he agreed with the Iskra-ists, you see, he "sympathised" with them (p. 282), and proved his sympathy by the proposal (p. 283) to avoid the question of principle altogether and say nothing about either the League or the Union. The proposal was rejected by twenty-seven votes to fifteen. Apparently, in addition to the anti-Iskra-ists (eight), nearly the entire "Centre" (ten) voted with Comrade

 
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Egorov (the total vote was forty-two, so that a large number abstained or were absent, as often happened during votes which were uninteresting or whose result was a foregone conclusion ). Whenever the question arose of carrying out the "Iskra " principles in practice, it turned out that the "sympathy" of the "Centre" was purely verbal, and we secured only thirty votes or a little over. This was to be seen even more graphically in the debate and votes on Rusov's motion (to recognise the League as the sole organisation abroad). Here the anti-Iskra-ists and the "Marsh" took up an outright position of principle, and its champions, Comrades Lieber and Egorov, declared Comrade Rusov's motion unvotable, impermissible: "It slaughters all the other organisations abroad" (Egorov). And, not desiring to have any part in "slaughtering organisations", the speaker not only refused to vote, but even left the hall. But the leader of the "Centre" must be given his due: he displayed ten times more political manhood and strength of conviction (in his mistaken principles) than did Comrade Martov and Co., for he stood up for an organisation being "slaughtered" not only when that organisation was his own circle, defeated in open combat.

    Comrade Rusov's motion was deemed votable by twenty seven votes to fifteen, and was then adopted by twenty five votes to seventeen. If we add to these seventeen the absent Comrade Egorov, we get the full complement (eighteen ) of the anti-"Iskra"-ists and the "Centre".

    As a whole Paragraph 13 of the Rules, dealing with the organisation abroad, was adopted by only thirty-one votes to twelve, with six abstentions. This figure, thirty-one -- showing the approximate number of Iskra-ists at the Congress, that is, of people who consistently advocated Iskra 's views and applied them in practice -- we are now encountering for no less than the sixth time in our analysis of the voting at the Congress (place of the Bund question on the agenda, the Organising Committee incident, the dissolution of the Yuzhny Rabochy group, and two votes on the agrarian programme). Yet Comrade Martov seriously wants to assure us that there are no grounds for picking out such a "narrow" group of Iskra-ists!

    Nor can we omit to mention that the adoption of Paragraph 13 of the Rules evoked an extremely characteristic

 
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discussion in connection with a statement by Comrades Akimov and Martynov that they "refused to take part in the voting" (p. 288). The Bureau of the Congress discussed this statement and found -- with every reason -- that not even the direct closing down of the Union would entitle its delegates to refuse to take part in the Congress proceedings. Refusal to vote is absolutely abnormal and impermissible -- such was the view of the Bureau, which was shared by the whole Congress, including the Iskra-ists of the minority, who at the 28th sitting hotly condemned what they themselves were guilty of at the 31st ! When Comrade Martynov proceeded to defend his statement (p. 291), he was opposed alike by Pavlovich, by Trotsky, by Karsky, and by Martov. Comrade Martov was particularly clear on the duties of a dissatisfied minority (until he found himself in the minority!) and held forth on the subject in a very didactic manner. "Either you are delegates to the Congress," he told Comrades Akimov and Martynov, "in which case you must take part in all its proceedings [my italics; Comrade Martov did not yet perceive any formalism and bureaucracy in subordination of the minority to the majority!]; or you are not delegates, in which case you cannot remain at the sitting. . . . The statement of the Union delegates compels me to ask two questions: are they members of the Party, and are they delegates to the Congress?" (P. 292.)

    Comrade Martov instructing Comrade Akimov in the duties of a Party member ! But it was not without reason that Comrade Akimov had said that he had some hopes in Comrade Martov. . . . These hopes were to come true, however, only after Martov was defeated in the elections. When the matter did not concern himself, but others, Comrade Martov was deaf even to the terrible catchword "emergency law", first launched (if I am not mistaken) by Comrade Martynov. "The explanation given us," Comrade Martynov replied to those who urged him to withdraw his statement, "has not made it clear whether the decision was one of principle or an emergency measure against the Union. If the latter, we consider that the Union has been insulted. Comrade Egorov got the same impression as we did, namely, that it was an emergency law [my italics] against the Union, and therefore even left the hall" (p. 295). Both Comrade Martov and

 
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Comrade Trotsky protested vigorously, along with Plekhanov, against the absurd, truly absurd, idea of regarding a vote of the Congress as an insult; and Comrade Trotsky, defending a resolution adopted by the Congress on his motion (that Comrades Akimov and Martynov could consider that full satisfaction had been given them), declared that "the resolution is one of principle, not a philistine one, and it is no business of ours if anybody takes offence at it" (p. 296). But it very soon became apparent that the circle mentality and the philistine outlook are still all too strong in our Party, and the proud words I have italicised proved to be merely a high-sounding phrase.

    Comrades Akimov and Martynov refused to withdraw their statement, and walked out of the Congress, amidst the delegates' general cry: "Absolutely unwarranted!"

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NOTES



  [88] Lenin devoted several months to the writing of One Step Forward Two Steps Back (The Crisis in Our Party), making a careful study of the minutes and resolutions of the Second Party Congress, of the speeches of each of the delegates and the political groupings at the Congress, and of the Central Committee and Party Council documents.
    The book evoked fury among the Mensheviks. Plekhanov demanded that the Central Committee disavow it. The conciliators on the Central Committee tried to prevent its publication and circulation.
    Though published abroad, One Step Forward, Two Steps Back had a wide circulation among advanced workers in Russia. Copies of the book were found during arrests and house-searches in Moscow St. Petersburg, Riga, Saratov, Tula, Orel, Ufa, Perm, Kostroma, Shchigri, Shavli (Kovno Gubernia), and elsewhere. Lenin included the book in the Twelve Years collection published in 1907 (the date on the title-page is 1908), omitting sections J, K, L, M, O, and P making abridgements in other sections, and adding a few explanatory notes.
    The present edition contains the full text as originally published in 1904 and all the additions made by the author in 1907.    [p. 203]

  ^[89] "Practical Worker " -- pseudonym of the Menshevik M. S. Makadzyub, also referred to as Panin.    [p. 209]

  ^[90] The conference of 1902 -- a conference of representatives of R.S.D.L.P. committees held on March 23-28 (April 5-10), 1902, in Belostok. The Economists and Bundists intended to proclaim this conference a Party Congress; a report drawn up by Lenin and presented by the Iskra delegate proved that the gathering lacked proper preparation and authority to constitute itself such. The conference set up an Organising Committee to convene the Second Party Congress, but nearly all its members were arrested soon after. A new Organising Committee to convene the Second Congress was formed in November 1902 at a conference in Pskov. Lenin's views on the Belostok conference are set forth in his "Report of the Iskra Editorial Board to the Meeting (Conference) of R.S.D.L.P. Committees" (present edition, Vol. 6, pp. 97-106).    [p. 209]

  ^[91] Pavlovich, Letter to the Comrades on the Second Congress of the R.S.D.L.P., Geneva, 1904.    [p. 217]

  ^[92] Sorokin -- pseudonym of the Bolshevik N. E. Bauman; Lange -- pseudonym of the Bolshevik A. M. Stopani.    [p. 217]

  ^[93] Rabochaya Mysl (Worker's Thought ) was an Economist group which published a paper under this name. The paper, edited by K. M. Takhtarev and others, appeared from October 1897 to December 1902; 16 issues were published altogether.

 
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    Rabochaya Mysl advocated frankly opportunist views. It opposed the political struggle and restricted the tasks of the working-class movement to "the interests of the moment", to pressing for individual partial reforms, chiefly of an economic nature. Glorifying "spontaneity" in the movement, it opposed the creation of an independent proletarian party and belittled the importance of revolutionary theory and consciousness, maintaining that the socialist ideology could grow out of the spontaneous movement.
    The views expounded by Rabochaya Mysl, as the Russian variety of international opportunism, were criticised by Lenin in the article "A Retrograde Trend in Russian Social-Democracy" (present edition, Vol. 4, pp. 255-85), in his Iskra articles, and in What Is To Be Done?    [p. 225]

  ^[94] By this was meant general redistribution of all the land (chorny peredel ) -- a slogan widespread among the peasantry of tsarist Russia.    [p. 237]

  ^[95] Kostrov -- pseudonym of the Caucasian Menshevik N. N. Jordania.    [p. 238]

  ^[96] Zemlya i Volya (Land and Freedom ) was a revolutionary Narodnik organisation formed in St. Petersburg in the autumn of 1876; originally known as the Northern Revolutionary Narodnik Group, it took the name Zemlya i Volya in 1878. Among the members were Mark and Olga Natanson, G. V. Plekhanov, O. V. Aptekman, A. D. and A. F. Mikhailov, A. A. Kvyatkovsky, M. R. Popov, S. M. Kravchinsky, D. A. Klements, A. D. Oboleshev, Sophia Perovskaya and other prominent revolutionaries of the seventies. While not renouncing socialism as the ultimate goal, Zemlya i Volya put forward as the immediate aim the satisfaction of "the people's demands and desires as they are at the moment", namely, the demand for "land and freedom". "Needless to say", its programme declared, "this formula can be made a reality only through violent revolution ", with a view to which it advocated exciting "popular discontent" and "disorganising the power of the state". For the purpose of agitation among the peasantry, members of the organisation set up rural "colonies", chiefly in the agricultural gubernias along the Volga and in the fertile central regions. They also carried on agitation among the workers and the student youth. On December 6 (18), 1876, they organised a demonstration in the Kazan Square in St. Petersburg. In the course of 1878-79 Zemlya i Volya published five issues of a journal of the same name.
    Although connected with some of the workers' circles, Zemlya i Volya could not and did not want to be the leader of the working-class movement, since in common with other Narodniks it denied the vanguard role of the working class. Nor did it understand the importance of political struggle, which in its view only diverted the revolutionaries' energies and might weaken their ties with the people.
    Unlike the Narodnik groups of the early seventies, Zemlya i Volya built up a close-knit organisation, based on principles of

 
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strict centralisation and discipline. There was a central "core" and around it there were territorial and specialised groups (for work among the peasantry and among the workers, for "disorganising" activities, and so on); the "core" was headed by an "administration" (or "commission") which controlled the activities of the groups and supplied them with literature, funds, etc. The Zemlya i Volya Rules, adopted in the winter of 1876-77, stipulated subordination of minority to majority, bound every member to dedicate and sacrifice to the organisation's interests "all his energies, means connections, sympathies and antipathies, and even life itself", and imposed absolute secrecy in regard to all the organisation's internal affairs.
    By 1879, with their socialist agitation among the peasants having little effect and with government persecution increasing, the majority of the members began to lean towards political terrorism as the principal means of achieving their programme. There were sharp disagreements about this, and at its Voronezh Congress in June 1879 Zemlya i Volya split in two: the adherents of the old tactics (headed by Plekhanov) formed an organisation called Chorny Peredel (General Redistribution), while the advocates of terrorism (A. I. Zhelyabov and others) founded Narodnaya Volya (People's Will).    [p. 258]

  ^[97] Narodnaya Volya (People's Will ) -- the secret political organisation of the terrorist Narodniks,formed in August 1879 following the split in Zemlya i Volya. It was headed by an Executive Committee consisting of A. I. Zhelyabov, A. D. Mikhailov, M. F. Frolenko, N. A. Morozov, Vera Figner, Sophia Perovskaya, A. A. Kvyatkov sky, and others.
    While still adhering to the Narodnik utopian-socialist ideas, Narodnaya Volya believed in political struggle also, regarding the overthrow of the autocracy and the achievement of political freedom as a major aim. Its programme envisaged a "permanent popular representative body" elected by universal suffrage, the proclamation of democratic liberties, the transfer of the land to the people, and measures to put the factories in the hands of the workers. "The Narodnaya Volya members," Lenin wrote, "made a step forward when they took up the political struggle, but they failed to connect it with socialism" (see present edition, Vol. 8, "Working Class Democracy and Bourgeois Democracy").
    Narodnaya Volya fought heroically against the tsarist autocracy. But, going by the erroneous theory of "active" heroes and a "passive" mass, it expected to achieve the remaking of society without the participation of the people, by its own efforts, through individual terrorism that would intimidate and disorganise the government. After the assassination of Alexander II on March 1, 1881, the government was able, by savage reprisals, death sentence and acts of provocation, to crush it out of existence.
    Repeated attempts to revive the organisation during the eighties ended in failure. Thus, in 1886 a group in the Narodnaya Volya tradition was formed by A. I. Ulyanov (elder brother of Lenin)

 
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and P. Y. Shevyryov; but after an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Alexander III in 1887, the group was uncovered and its active members executed.
    While criticising Narodnaya Volya's erroneous, utopian programme, Lenin expressed great respect for its members' selfless struggle against tsarism. In A Protest by Russian Social-Democrats (1899) he pointed out that "the members of the old Narodnaya Volya managed to play an enormous role in the history of Russia despite the fact that only narrow social strata supported the few heroes, and despite the fact that it was by no means a revolutionary theory which served as the banner of the movement" (see present edition, Vol. 4, p. 181).    [p. 258]

  ^[98] Manilovism (from the name of Manilov in Gogol's Dead Souls ) -- smug complacency, empty sentimental day-dreaming.    [p. 260]

  ^[99] The reference is to an incident which took place in Hamburg in 1900 in connection with the conduct of a group of members of the Free Bricklayers' Union who performed piece work during a strike in violation of the instructions of the trade union centre. The Hamburg Bricklayers' Union complained to the local Social-Democratic Party organisation about the strike-breaking activities of the Social-Democrat members of the group. A court of arbitration appointed by the Central Executive of the Social-Democratic Party condemned the conduct of these Social-Democrats but turned down the proposal that they be expelled from the Party.    [p. 264]

  ^[100] There were sixteen members of the Iskra organisation present at the Second Party Congress -- 9 majority adherents, headed by Lenin, and 7 minority adherents, headed by Martov.    [p. 279]

  ^[101] Sablina -- pseudonym of N. K. Krupskaya, Lenin's wife and closest Party associate.    [p. 283]

  ^[102] Hertz -- pseudonym of the Bolshevik D. I. Ulyanov, younger brother of Lenin    [p. 289]

  ^[103] For Arakcheyev see Note 34.

    [Note 34: Arakcheyev A. A. (1769-1834) -- the powerful favourite of Paul I and Alexander I, whose name is associated with a period of crushing police tyranny and jackboot rule.]    [p. 293]