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    At your personal request I am writing the following brief report (bref rapport) in my own name, and apologise in advance for any gaps in this report (rapport), as I am hard pressed for time. The Central Committee of our Party will probably find occasion to send its own official report[*] to the Executive Committee of the International Socialist Bureau, and to correct any possible errors in my own private report.

    What are the differences (dissentiments) between the Central Committee of our Party and the Organising Committee? That is the question. These differences may be reduced to the following six points:

    The Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party was formed in 1898 as an illegal Party, and has always remained such. Today too our Party can exist only as an illegal Party, since in Russia even the party of the moderate liberals has not been legalised.

    Until the 1905 Revolution in Russia, however, the liberals published an illegal organ abroad.[51] When the revolution was defeated, the liberals turned their backs upon it and indignantly rejected the idea of an illegal press. And so after the revolution the idea arose in the opportunist wing of our Party of renouncing the illegal Party, of liquidating it (hence the name "liquidators") and of substituting for it a legal ("open") party.

    On two occasions, in 1908 and in 1910, our entire Party condemned liquidationism[52] formally and unqualifiedly. On

 
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this point the differences are absolutely irreconcilable. It is impossible to restore and build up an illegal Party with people who do not believe in it and have no desire at all to build it up.

    The Organising Committee and the Conference of August 1912[53] which elected it, recognise the illegal Party in word. In deed, however, after the decisions of the August Conference, the liquidators' newspaper in Russia (Luch and Novaya Rabochaya Gazeta in 1912-13), continued to attack, in the legal press, the very existence of the illegal Party (numerous articles by L. S., F. D., Zasulich, and others).

    Thus, we disagree with the Organising Committee because the latter is a fiction, which in word denies that it is liquidationist, but in fact screens and whitewashes the liquidators' group in Russia.

    We disagree with the Organising Committee because the latter is unwilling (and unable, for it is helpless against the liquidators' group) to condemn liquidationism emphatically and irrevocably.

    We cannot build up an illegal Party except by fighting those who attack it in the legal press. In Russia there are now (since 1912) two St. Petersburg workers' dailies: one fulfils and carries out the decisions of the illegal Party (Pravda). The other (Luch and Novaya Rabochaya Gazeta) attacks the illegal Party, defies it, and tries to convince the workers that it is unnecessary. Unity between the illegal Party and the group that is fighting against the existence of the illegal Party is impossible until the paper run by the liquidators' group radically changes its line, or until the Organising Committee emphatically condemns it and breaks with it.

    There can be no unity between our illegal Party, which secretly organises revolutionary strikes and demonstrations, and the group of publicists who in the legal press call the strike movement a "strike craze".

    We disagree with the Organising Committee because the latter refuses to rescind a decision which violates our Party Programme.

    Furthermore, we disagree on the national question in respect of organisation. The Copenhagen Congress definitely condemned the division of trade unions according to nationality.[54] Moreover, the experience of Austria has shown that in this respect it is impossible to draw a distinction between the trade unions and the political party of the proletariat.

    Our Party has always stood for a united, international organisation of the Social-Democratic Party. In 1908, before the split, the Party repeated its demand for the amalga-

 
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mation of all the national Social-Democratic organisations in the local areas.

    We disagree with the Bund, the separate Jewish workers' organisation, which supports the Organising Committee, because, despite Party decisions, the Bund flatly refuses to proclaim the principle of the unity of all national organisations in the local areas, and to bring about such an amalgamation.

    It must be emphasised that the Bund refuses to amalgamate not only with organisations subordinated to our Central Committee, but also with the Lettish Social-Democratic Party, the Polish Social-Democratic Party and the Polish Socialist Party (the Left wing). Consequently, when the Bund poses as an amalgamator, we reject its claim, and declare that it is the Bund that is splitting the movement, since it refuses to bring about international unity among the Social-Democratic workers in the local organisations.

  [51] Lenin is referring to Osvobozhdeniye (Emancipation), the fortnightly journal of the bourgeois liberals, published abroad from 1902 to 1905 and edited by P. B. Struve. In January 1904 it became the organ of the liberal-monarchist Osvobozhdeniye League. Later the Osvobozhdeniye people formed the core of the Cadet Party.    [p. 74]

  ^[52] Lenin is referring to the decisions of the All-Russia Conference of the R.S.D.L.P. (the Fifth Conference of the R.S.D.L.P.) and the January Plenum of the Central Committee of the R.S.D.L.P.
    The Fifth All-Russia Conference of the R.S.D.L.P. was held in Paris on December 21-27, 1908 (January 3-9, 1909). It was attended by 16 voting delegates: 5 Bolsheviks, 3 Mensheviks, 5 Polish Social-Democrats and 3 Bundists. The Central Committee of the R.S.D.L.P. was represented by Lenin, who made a report at the Conference on "The Present Moment and the Tasks of the Party", as well as speeches on the Social-Democratic group in the Duma, on the organisational and other questions. At this Conference the Bolsheviks waged a struggle against the two types of opportunism within the Party‹the liquidators and the otzovists. On a motion by Lenin the Conference denounced liquidationism and called upon all Party organisations to fight resolutely against any attempts to liquidate the Party.
    For an appraisal of the Conference's decisions see Lenin's articles "On the Road" and "The Liquidation of Liquidationism". (See present edition, Vol. 15, pp. 345-55, 452-60.)
    The Plenum of the C.C. of the R.S.D.L.P. was held on January 2-23 (January 15-February 5), 1910 in Paris. It was convened despite Lenin, with the help of Trotsky's secret allies -- Zinoviev, Kamenev and Rykov. Besides the Bolsheviks, it was attended by representatives of all sections and group, as well as by representatives of the national Social-Democratic organisations. In opposition to Lenin's plan of a rapprochement with the pro-Party

 
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Mensheviks (the Plekhanovites) for the purpose of fighting liquidationism, the conciliators, secret Trotskyists, demanded that all groups should be dissolved and that the Bolsheviks should unite with the liquidators and Trotskyists. The conciliators preponderated at the meeting and were able to get a number of anti-Leninist decisions adopted. Only after Lenin's insistent demands did the Plenum adopt a resolution condemning liquidationism and otzovism.    [p. 74]

  ^[53] See Note 34.

    [Note 34 --

(page 571)

    August bloc people -- a name applied by Lenin to participants and adherents of the anti-Party August bloc, organised by Trotsky at the Conference of the liquidators held in Vienna in August 1912. The Conference was attended by representatives of the Bund, the Caucasian Regional Committee, the Social-Democrats of the Lettish Region and the liquidators' groups resident abroad, namely, the

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editorial boards of Golos Sotsial-Demokrata, Trotsky's Vienna Pravda and the Vperyod group. Delegates from Russia were sent by the St. Petersburg and Moscow "sponsor groups" of the liquidators and the editorial boards of the liquidationist publications Nasha Zarya and Nevsky Golos. A representative of the Spilki Committee Abroad was also present. The overwhelming majority of delegates were resident abroad and out of touch with the working class in Russia.
    The Conference adopted anti-Party liquidationist decisions on all questions of Social-Democratic tactics, and declared against the existence of an illegal Party. Unable to elect a Central Committee, the liquidators confined themselves to setting up an Organising Committee. The August bloc, which consisted of ill-assorted elements, began to fall apart at the Conference itself and soon broke down completely. (For details about the August bloc see pp. 158-61 of this volume [Transcriber's Note: See Lenin's "The Break-up of the 'August' Bloc". -- DJR].)]    [p. 75]

  ^[54] The Copenhagen Congress of the Second International was held on August 28-September 3 (new style), 1910. Following the discussion of the Czech-Austrian split, the Congress declared against the "Bundist-nationalist" principles of the Czech separatists.    [p. 76]