V. I.

Lenin

The Editorial Board of Vperyod can only state that it is completely in
sympathy with the initiative of the Russian Bureau. At last an energetic step
has been made towards a way out of the situation created by the
Bonapartists abroad, [2] and a way out along Party lines! In our Party News
column we publish reports showing the alacrity with which the committees are
responding to the call issued by the Bureau. May their example be followed by
each and every group and organisation, as well as by individuals who consider themselves members of the R.S.D.L.P. or who at least
stand close to it in their views and sympathies. The Third Congress is the
first to be convened under conditions whereby its composition (as set
forth in the Party Rules), its proceedings, and the basis of participation are
known beforehand. Let all comrades then make the most of these conditions! Let
them not forget that our Party Rules guarantee to everybody an opportunity to
appeal to the Congress. (See Clause 10: “Every Party member, as well as
any person having any dealings with the Party , has the right to demand
that any statement he may submit to the Central Committee, to the Editorial
Board of the Central Organ, or to a Party Congress be delivered in the
original.”) Let everyone take advantage of this opportunity immediately. The Editorial Board of
Vperyod undertakes to deliver such statements to the Russian Bureau,
which has now been constituted as the Organising Committee of the Congress. The
right to vote at the Congress is restricted to representatives of committees and
of other qualified Party organisations as defined by the Rules. But the Congress
itself may extend to everyone the right of participation with consultative voice, while the Organising Committee
may grant this right to delegates from Party organisations not possessing
full-rights status. (Clause 3, Note 2, of the Party Rules: “The
Central Committee is authorised to invite to a congress, with consultative
voice, delegates from organisations which do not fulfil the conditions
stipulated in Note 1,” viz., organisations whose qualification has not been
confirmed a year prior to the Congress.

Itgoes without saying that when the Organising Committee is instructed by the
majority of the committees to convene a congress against the will of the
Bonapartist Central Committee and Council, it takes over all the rights of the
C. C. with regard to such convocation.)

The Editorial Board of Vperyod proposes to the Congress the following
tentative agenda: (1) Constitution of the Congress (standing orders,
report of the Organising Committee, examination of credentials). (2) Delegates’
reports. (3) The Party crisis. [1] (4) Organisational question.

(5) Attitude towards insurrection.

(6) Agreement with the revolutionary democrats for purposes of the insurrection.

(7) Attitude towards the liberals.

(8) Work among the peasantry and sup port of the revolutionary peasant movement.

(9) Work among the troops.

(10) Improvement of propaganda and agitation.

(11) Election of officers.

Theactive participation of all Party members in drafting and preparing reports
and resolutions on these and other major questions (as well as in the collection
of material for reports) is absolutely essential for the success of the
Congress. We call upon all adherents of the Party principle to start on this
work at once. Everyone who has been involved in one way or other in the
trials and tribulations of the Party crisis can help the Congress by a brief
statement of his experiences and his view of the way out. Everyone who
has worked in any Party or Party-connected organisation can give invaluable information,based on personal experience, for solving various aspects
of the organisational question. (The contributions might cover such points as
time and place of the activity; membership of the particular organisation—
number of workers and number of intellectuals; the relations between them;
whether written rules are needed, and which; whether there should be any fixed
rules—and if so, to what extent—governing the limits of autonomy and
of the division of labour of the groups belonging to the Party or connected with
it, co-optation and expulsion of members; the elective principle; the attitude
of the committees to the groups of propagandists, agitators, and organisers, to
the district circles and factory circles, to the publicists’ committees,
technical committees, etc., etc.)

The Vperyod Editorial Board has already received some material on work
among the peasants and the soldiers. We know of one group which is working
systematically on a summary of the experience acquired by its members
in the field of propaganda, agitation, and organisation, and is preparing a
report for the Congress. We have been promised the report of a comrade who
helped to organise hundreds of workers for armed resistance in the
event of an anti-jewish pogrom in a certain large city, and a report on the
question of street fighting from another comrade who has made a study of
military science. It is of the highest importance that the greatest possible
number of comrades undertake such and similar work at once .

The Party crisis has been clarified in our literature down to the minutest
detail. The discussion of this question cannot and should not take up much
time. The keynote of the Congress should be the new questions of
organisation and tactics, which are being brought to the fore by the new
gigantic upswing in our revolutionary movement. In the solution of these
questions the collective experience of all Social-Democrats who have
been in any way active in the movement will be of inestimable value. But we must
gather this experience as soon as possible and make it available for discussion
at the Congress.

Towork, then, comrades! Let everyone who has the interests of the
Social-Democratic working-class movement at heart bestir himself at once to give
the Congress his active aid. Then the Party will quickly emerge from this period of temporary abasement
and enfeeblement on to the path of most active participation in the great
Russian revolution, the path leading to victory over the accursed enemy of
the Russian people!

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Notes:
[1]
Bebel wrote to Lenin offering his services as arbitrator between the
supporters of Iskra and the supporters of Vperyod. Lenin
replied that neither he nor any other Vperyod supporters within
his knowledge had the right to take any action binding upon the whole
Party, and that Bebel’s proposal would, therefore, have to he submitted to
the Party Congress that was being called by the Russian Bureau. We think
the Congress could include this proposal in the item “Party crisis”.— Lenin

[2]
Bonapartists abroad —applied by Lenin to the Mensheviks who, in
defiance of the Party, had seized control of the Party’s Central Organ,
Iskra , of the Central Committee, and of the Council of the
Party.