V. I.

Lenin

Why I Resigned from the Iskra Editorial Board [1]

A Letter to the Editors of Iskra [6]

Thisis by no means a personal question. It concerns the relations
between the majority and minority of our Party Congress, and I am
bound to answer it at once, and openly, not only because the majority
delegates are bombarding me with questions, but because the article
“Our Congress” in No. 53 of Iskra gives an entirely false picture of the not very profound but very
disruptive division among the Iskra -ists to which the
Congress led.

Theaccount the article gives of the matter is such that even
with a magnifying glass no one could discover in it a single really serious cause for the division, could
find so much as a shadow of an explanation of such a phenomenon
as the altered composition of the editorial board of the Central
Organ, or a semblance of valid reasons for my resignation from
the board. We parted company over the organisation of the
Party’s central bodies, the writer of the article says, over the
relations between the Central Organ and the Central Committee,
over the way to apply centralism, over the limits and nature of
a possible and useful centralisation, over the harm of bureaucratic formalism.

Isthat so? Did we not rather part company over the personal composition of the central bodies, over whether it was
permissible, because one did not like the membership elected to
them by the Congress, to boycott these central bodies, to
disrupt the practical work, to revise the decisions of the Party
Congress at the bidding of a circle of Social-
Democrats abroad, such as the majority of the League?

Youknow perfectly well, comrades, that this was indeed the
case. But the great majority of the most influential and most
active Party workers do not know it yet, and so I shall briefly
outline the main facts—briefly because, judging by an announcement in No. 53 of Iskra , all the material
relating to the history of our divergence will shortly be
published.

Atour Congress—as both the writer of the article we are
discussing and the Bund delegation in their newly published
report rightly point out—the “Iskra -ists” were in a considerable
majority, about three-fifths, according to my calculation, even
before the withdrawal of the Bund and Rabocheye Dyelo delegates. During the first half of the Congress these
Iskra -ists stood together against all the anti-Iskra-ists and inconsistent Iskra -ists. This was
very plainly revealed in connection with two incidents during
the first half of the Congress which are important for an
understanding of our divergence: the Organising Committee
incident and the equality of languages incident (the latter was
the only occasion when the Iskra -ist compact majority dropped—from three-fifths to one-half). During the second
half of the Congress the Iskra-ists began to diverge, and by the end of the Congress the divergence was
complete. The controversies over Paragraph I of the
Party Rules and over the elections to the central bodies clearly
reveal the nature of this divergence: a minority of the
Iskra -ists (headed by Martov) became the rallying point
for a steadily increasing number of non-Iskra-ists and indecisive elements, in opposition to the majority of the
Iskra -ists (which included Plekhanov and myself). Over
the question of Para graph I of the Rules this grouping did not
yet take final shape, but even so the Bundist votes and two of
the three Rabocheye Dyelo -ist votes gave the
Iskra -ist minority the upper hand. In the elections to
the central bodies the Iskra ist majority (owing to the
withdrawal from the Congress of the five Bundist and two
Rabocheye Dyelo -ist votes) became the majority at the
Party Congress. And it was only at this point that we parted company in the real sense of the term.

Wedisagreed profoundly, first of all, over the composition of the
Central Committee. After the Organising Committee incident, at the
very beginning of the Congress, the

Iskra -ists hotly discussed various members (and non members ) of the Organising Committee as candidates for the
Central Committee, and at unofficial meetings of the Iskra
organisation, after prolonged and heated debates, rejected one of the
candidates supported by Martov by nine votes to four, with three
abstentions; by ten votes to two, with four abstentions, a list of
five was adopted which, on my proposal , included one leader
of the non-Iskra -ist elements and one leader of the
Iskra -ist minority. But the minority insisted on having three
out of five, and as a result suffered complete defeat at the Party
Congress. The great battle at the Congress over whether to endorse the
old editorial board of six for the Central Organ or to elect a new trio [2] ended in the same way.

Onlyfrom this moment did the divergence become so complete as to suggest a split; only from this moment did the
minority (now already become a real “compact” minority) take the course of abstaining from voting—a
thing until then unwitnessed at the Congress. And after the Congress
this divergence grew ever more acute. The discontented minority
resorted to a boycott, lasting for months. It is quite obvious
that the charges of bureaucratic formalism, of demanding
unquestioning, automatic obedience, and suchlike nonsense, which
sprang from this soil, were merely an attempt to lay the blame
at the wrong door; and this is sufficiently borne out by the
following typical case. The new editorial board (i.e., Plekhanov
and myself) invited all the former editors to contribute, which
invitation, of course, was at first made without any “formalism”, by word of mouth. It met with a
refusal. We then wrote an “official document” (what bureaucrats!), addressed “dear
comrades”, requesting them to contribute in general, and
in particular to set forth their di erences in the columns of the publications of which we were the editors. The reply
was a “formal” statement to the effect that they did not wish to have anything to do with “Iskra”. And, in fact, for months on end none
of the non-editors did any work for Iskra. Relations became exclusively formal and bureaucratic—but on whose
“initiative"?

Undergroundliterature began to be produced; people abroad were
flooded with it, it was disseminated among the committees, and
is now already beginning in part to return from Russia. The
report of the delegate for Siberia, — n’s letter on the
slogans of the “opposition”, and Martov’s Once More in the Minority are all full of the most amusing
charges against Lenin of being an “autocrat”, of instituting a Robespierre guillotine regime (sic! ), of
having staged the political burial of old comrades (non election
to the central bodies is burial!), and the like. By the very
logic of things the opposition is drawn to seeking such
differences of “principle” on matters of organisation as entirely preclude collaboration. An especially
loud outcry is raised over the celebrated “fifth member”
of the Party Council. In all these writings, the Council is made
out to he a piece of diplomacy or trickery on Lenin’s part, an
instrument for the suppression of the Central Committee in
Russia by the Central Organ abroad—which is exactly the
way the matter is depicted by the Bund delegation in their
report on the Congress. It need hardly be said that this
difference of principle is just as nonsensical as the famous
bureaucratic formalism. The fifth member is elected by the
Congress; consequently, it is all a matter of the person who enjoys the greatest confidence of the
majority; and the will of the majority of a Party Congress will
always, however the central Party bodies may be constituted, he
manifested in the choice of definite persons.

Howwidely this kind of literature has been circulated abroad is
evident from the fact that even the good Parvus has taken the
war-path against the attempt to grasp all the threads in one hand and
to “boss” (sic! ) the workers from some such place as Geneva (Aus de’ Weltpolitik , [7] V. Jahrgang, No. 48, November 30, 1903). In a month or two, when he reads the
minutes of the Party Congress and.the League Congress, our new enemy
of autocracy will discover how easy it is to make a fool of oneself by
accepting all manner of

Parteiklatsch [3] at its face value.

Theclimax of the opposition’s campaign against the central bodies
was the Congress of the League. From its minutes the reader will be
able to see whether those who called it an arena for settling Party
Congress scores were right or not, and whether or not there was
anything in the onslaught of the opposition to provoke the Central
Commit tee to altogether exceptional measures (as the Central
Committee itself put it vhen alteration of the composition of
the editorial board held out the hope of peace in the Party). The
resolutions of this Congress reveal the true nature of the differences
of “principle” over the question of autocratic bureaucracy.

Afterthe League Congress a split loomed so threateningly that
Plekhanov decided to co-opt the ex-editors. I foresaw that the
opposition would not rest satisfied with this, and I did not
think it permissible to revise a decision of the Party Congress
to please a circle. But still less did I think it permissible to stand in the way of possible peace in the Party,
and I therefore resigned from the editorial board, after the
51st issue of Iskra , stating at the same time that I did not refuse to continue as a contributor, and that I did not
even insist, if peace and good will were established in the
Party, on having my resignation made public. The opposition
demanded (not transformation of the non-existent system of
bureaucracy, formalism, autocracy, automatism, etc., but)
reinstatement of the old editorial board, the co-optation of
opposition representatives to the Central Committee, two seats
on the Council, and recognition of the League Congress as
lawful. The Central Committee made an offer of peace by
consenting to co-opt two of them, to turn over one seat on the
Council, to have the reorganisation of the League carried out
gradually. These terms too the opposition rejected. The editors were
co-opted, but peace remained an open question. That was the state of
affairs when No. 53 of Iskra appeared.

Thatthe Party wants peace and positive work is hardly open to
question. But articles like “Our Congress” are an obstacle to peace, an obstacle because they bring up hints and
fragments of issues which are not and cannot be comprehensible
unless the story of the divergence is told in full; an obstacle
because they shift the blame from a foreign circle to the centre
in charge of our practical work, which is engaged in the
difficult and arduous task of actually uniting the Party, and
which in any case has been having to wrestle with too many
hindrances to the application of centralism. The committees in
Russia are fighting against the disruptive activities and
boycott tactics of the minority, which are obstructing the work
all along the line. Resolutions to this effect have already
come in from the St. Petersburg, Moscow, Nizhni-Novgorod, Tver,
Odessa, and Tula committees and from the Northern League.

Enoughof this 6migr6

Literatengeiink ! [4]

Let it now be come an example to the practical workers in Russia of “what should not ho done"! Let the editors of the Party’s Central Organ call
for a stop to all boycotts, no matter on whose part, and for concerted
effort under the leadership of the Central Committee of the Party!

*     * *
Butwhat about the difference in shades of opinion among the
Iskra-ists? the reader may ask. Our answer will be: in the first place, the difference is that in the opinion of the
majority one can and should advocate one’s views in the Party
apart from any alteration in the personal composition of the
central bodies. Every circle, even of Rabocheye Dyelo -ists, is entitled, on joining the Party, to demand
the opportunity to express and advocate its views; but no
circle, not even of generals, is entitled to demand representation on the Party’s central bodies. In the second
place, the difference is that in the opinion of the majority the blame for
any formalism and bureaucracy falls on those who, by refusing to
work under the leadership of the central bodies, made it
difficult to conduct matters in a non- formalistic way. In the
third place, I know of one and only one difference of principle on matters of organisation,
namely, that which found expression in the debate on Paragraph
I of the Party Rules. We shall endeavour to return to this
question when the minutes of the Congress appear. We shall then
show that the fact that Martov’s formulation was carried with
the help of non-Iskra -ist and quasi-Iskra ist elements
was no accident, but was due to its being a step towards
opportunism, and that this step is even more apparent in
—n’s letter and in Once More in the Minority . [5]

The minutes will show that the author of “Our Congress goes against the facts when he claims that “the
controversy during the discussion of the Party Rules centred
almost exclusively round the organisation of the central bodies
of the Party”. Quite the contrary. The only controversy
that really involved principles and divided the two “sides” (i.e., the majority and minority of the
Iskra -ists) at all definitely was over Paragraph I of the Party Rules. As for the controversies over the composition
of the Council, co-optation to the central bodies, and so on,
they were just controversies between individual delegates,
between Martov and myself, etc.; they concerned what were
relatively very minor details and did not give rise to any
definite grouping of the Iskra -ists, who by their votes
corrected now one, now another of us when he went too far. To
make out that these controversies were the source of our
disagreement on how centralism should be applied, what should be
its limits, character, etc., is simply to whitewash the stand
taken by the minority and the methods of the fight which they
carried on to change the personal composition of the central
bodies, and which alone caused us to diverge in the full sense
of the term.

---
Notes:
[1]
I sent this letter to Iskra immediately after No. 53 appeared. The editors refused to print it in No. 54, 50 I am compelled to publish it as a leaflet. — Lenin

[2]
In view of the endless talk and misrepresentation that there has been
regarding this celebrated “trio”, let me point out at once that long
before the Congress all comrades who were at all closely in touch were
acquainted with my commentary to the draft Tagesordnung of the
Congress. This commentary, which was circulated at the Congress, contained
the following point: “The Congress shall elect three persons to the
editorial board of the Central Organ and three to the Central
Committee. These six persons in conjunction shall, if necessary,
co opt by a two-thirds majority vote additional members to the editorial
board of the Central Organ and to the Central Committee and report to this
effect to the Congress. After the report has been endorsed by the Congress,
subsequent co-optation shall be effected by the editorial board of the
Central Organ and by the Central Committee separately." — Lenin

[3]
Party tittle-tattle.— Ed .

[4]
Writers’ squabbling— Ed .

[5]
We shall then also ask to have explained what the author of "Our
Congress” means by talking about an undeserved disregard for the
non-Iskra -ists, and about the strict points of the Rules not
corresponding to the actual relation of forces in the Party. What do these
assertions refer to? — Lenin

[6]
This Letter to the Editors of “Iskra” played a big part
in exposing the opportunist tactics of the Mensheviks, their disruptive
activity at the Second Party Congress and after it. After the Menshevik
editors refused pusillanimously to print the “Letter” in
Iskra. the Bolsheviks published it in leaflet form. It had a wide
circulation in Russia, where it was illegally reprinted. Police documents
for 1904-05 show that copies were found during house-searches and arrests in
Moscow, Kharkov, Tula, Tomsk, Riga, Nikolayev, Poltava, Astrakhan, and the
Donbas coalfield.

[7]
Aus der Weltpolitik ( From the Realm of World Politics )—a
weekly bulletin published by Parvus in Munich from 1898 to 1905.