I would like to speak exclusively on the political side of the question. But the last speech of comrade Abramovich compels me to briefly address his remarks. When comrade Abramovich spoke of the "besieged" Menshevik CC, I thought to myself: "Poor Mensheviks! Once again they are in a state of siege. They are "besieged" not only when they are in the minority, but also when they are in the majority!"

Are there not such internal causes, rooted in the very character of Menshevik policy, that force the Mensheviks to eternally complain about being besieged by our proletarian party?

What are the facts concerning the besieging of the Menshevik CC, which comrade Abramovich cited? There are three: agitation for an emergency congress, a conference of military and combat organizations, and finally, "other organizational questions," as comrade Abramovich expressed it.

Let us examine these three facts.

Agitation for an emergency congress unfolded widely at the time when it became clear that the CC's policy was going absolutely against the will of the party majority. I will remind you that this was after the Central Committee had put forward the slogan of support for a "responsible ministry." At that time, the Bund had not yet entered our party, but the Poles and Latvians already had. Both groups definitively rejected the CC's policy. Consequently, it is a completely indisputable fact that the CC had then diverged from the vast majority of the party. Who then was besieging whom: was the party majority besieging the party CC, demanding that it give an account to the congress? Or was the CC, going against the party, besieging the party? Recall what Plekhanov went so far as to do. His letter against the congress was officially reprinted by the *Social-Democrat*, published by the Central Committee. And in this letter, Plekhanov responded to the call for a congress with suspicions of the motives of the agitation and tirades about workers' kopecks! Think about it: was Plekhanov not wrong to allow himself such things against the party majority, demanding a congress?

And I will say only this: after the decision of the November All-Russian Conference of the RSDLP, agitation for an emergency congress ceased.

The second fact: the conference of military and combat organizations. Two conferences resulted. This is unfortunate, of course, but to see in this a "besieging" of the Central Committee is strange. Would it not have been better to explain what was wrong with the decisions of the conference held independently of the CC, rather than getting off with complaints about a siege? I will remind you that at both conferences there were representatives of both the Moscow Committee and the Petrograd Committee – consequently, no faction of the party bound itself as a faction to either conference. And the resolutions of the Bolshevik conference of military and combat organizations, printed in November 1906, have still not encountered any serious criticism.

The third fact: "other organizational questions." What is this? What concrete content is invested in this? Is it not the split in Petrograd, arranged by the Mensheviks with the help of the CC during the elections? But on this matter, to speak of a besieging of the Central Committee would be simply ridiculous.

I turn to the political side of the question. Our main task consists in examining how the CC guided the class struggle of the proletariat, how it applied in practice the tactic adopted at the Unification Congress.

The first slogan taught to the party by the Central Committee was the slogan of support for the demand for a "Duma" or "responsible" ministry. Comrade Martov said here before us that this slogan was put forward in order to broaden and deepen the conflict between the Duma and the government.

Is this so? In what should a proletarian broadening and deepening of the conflict consist? Certainly, in pointing out the actual arena of struggle and collision that provoked the conflict – the arena of class struggle in general, and in this case – the struggle of the people against the old power. To broaden and deepen the Duma conflict, it was necessary to understand oneself and to explain to the people that the Duma conflict only very incompletely and distortedly reflects the conflict of the people against the old power, that the struggle in the Duma is a weak echo of revolutionary struggle outside the Duma. To broaden and deepen it, it was necessary to raise political consciousness and political demands from Duma slogans to the slogans of general revolutionary struggle. The CC did the opposite. It blunted and narrowed the slogans of revolutionary struggle down to the slogan of a Duma ministry. It called the people not to struggle for power, although this struggle flowed from the entire objective situation of things, but to struggle for a deal between the liberals and the authorities. Willingly or unwillingly, the CC called the party to accept the slogans of a parliamentary "peaceful" path at a time when, in reality, revolutionary extra-parliamentary struggle flowed from objective conditions. In reality, there was and could be no serious public movement whatsoever for a "responsible ministry." Even the Menshevik Duma s.-d. faction (of the 1st Duma) did not accept this slogan of the CC. (Martov: "That's not true!") No, it is true, comrade Martov, and a simple reference to the CC's resolution and to the stenographic records of the 1st Duma will show that this is true.

The CC's slogan was in reality, independent of the desires and motives of the CC, an adaptation to liberal policy. And nothing could come from this adaptation, because liberal policy expressed not the actual public movement of that time, but a dream of ending the revolution, although it had not ended at all. The course of events proved that this entire business with the "responsible ministry" was an attempt with inadequate means.

The CC's second slogan relates to the period of the July strike.{168} One cannot reproach the CC for the failure of that outbreak then. This is not a reproach, but rather praise for such a CC as the Menshevik one, that it nevertheless went to meet the revolution. It is not the CC's fault that it, sitting in Petrograd, did not know the mood of the proletariat throughout all Russia. One cannot declare it an error that we believed then in an uprising and awaited it. The uprising actually did occur, and our preliminary slogans, our policy before the uprising, were one of the elements of the success or failure of that uprising.

The CC's error I see in this – that revolutionary struggle, which had reached the point of uprising, it strove to enclose within the bounds of non-revolutionary or curtailed revolutionary slogans. This was expressed in the CC's slogan: "partial mass demonstrations." It was expressed even more in the slogan: "for the Duma as an organ of power for convening the Constituent Assembly." To throw out such lifeless slogans meant adapting proletarian policy to the policy of the liberal bourgeoisie. And once again, events showed the entire futility and complete impotence of attempts at such adaptation. We often hear complaints and whining about the impotence of the workers' party. And I will say this: it is because you blunt your slogans that you are impotent! (Applause from the Bolshevik benches.)

Let us proceed further. Let us look at the question of blocs with the Kadets in the elections to the II Duma. Martov, in the CC report he read, disposed of this question with astonishing complacent formalism: namely, the CC decided that blocs were permissible, and blocs, on the precise basis of the CC's directive, were permitted! (Laughter.) It would be no sin to refer in a political report of the CC not to the formal legality of resolutions, but to verification by life of the correctness of given policy in its substance. We Bolsheviks maintained all along that the much-vaunted Black-Hundred danger in reality boils down to liberal protection against danger from the left, that, guiding our policy by fear of the Black-Hundred danger, we in reality fall into the liberals' trap. The results of the elections proved that we were right. In a whole series of cities, election statistics refuted the tall tales of the liberals and Mensheviks. (Voices: "But Kiev, Poland, Vilna!") I have no time to deal with individual localities; I will speak of general political results. Statistician Smirnov counted, among 22 cities, the number of votes for the left bloc – 41 thousand, for the Kadets – 74 thousand, for the Octobrists – 34½ thousand, and for the monarchists – 17 thousand. According to another 16 cities out of 72 thousand votes for the opposition, 58.7 % were cast, and for reaction – 21 %. The elections exposed the fictitious nature of the Black-Hundred danger, and the policy of "permissible" blocs with the Kadets, supposedly as an exception, turned out to be a policy of the proletariat's dependence on the liberal bourgeoisie.

And I will say to you: do not neglect theoretical disputes, do not wave your hand contemptuously at factional quibbles concerning disagreements. Our old disputes, our theoretical and especially tactical disagreements constantly transform themselves in the course of the revolution into the most immediate practical disagreements. One cannot take a single step in practical politics without running into the same fundamental questions about the evaluation of the bourgeois revolution, about the relationship to the Kadets and the Laborites, etc. Practical life does not erase disagreements, but sharpens and vivifies them. And it is not by chance that such prominent Mensheviks as Plekhanov carried the policy of blocs with the Kadets to the point of absurdity. Plekhanov, putting forward his much-vaunted "full-powered Duma," preached a general slogan for both the proletariat and the liberal bourgeoisie. Plekhanov only more sharply, more strongly than others expresses the inner essence, the fundamental tendency of all Menshevik policy: the substitution of the independent line of the working class with adaptation to the liberal bourgeoisie. The bankruptcy of our CC was first and foremost the bankruptcy of this policy of opportunism. (Applause from part of the center and center-right benches.)