V. I.

Lenin

Areprint of the decision of the “Party Council” from
Iskra , No. 95, dated Geneva, April 7, 1905, has just appeared. This
decision is a veritable maze of “deviations from the truth”. Let us
consider the major ones.

Weare told that the Council has taken care not to let the inner struggle in the
Party undermine its unity. This is untrue. All Party members should know from
unrefuted and irrefutable documents that over a year ago, in January 1904, Lenin
and Vasilyev, members of the Central Committee, proposed in the Council that a
call be issued to the entire Party to stop the boycott and the secret
appropriation of Party funds by the circles. [1]
The Council rejected their proposal. Instead, it participated directly in the secret split of
the Party, thus sanctioning the struggle of the secret organisation of the
Minority for “co-optation”. This struggle, as is now proved by
documentary evidence, had been going on since the Second Congress, viz., from
August 1903 to November or December 1904.

Thus,from January 1904 on, the Council was no longer the supreme Party body,
but a tool of the secret organisation of the Minority. The existence of this
organisation was admitted publicly and in print, not only by the conciliatory
C.C., but even by Iskra , at the time when the C.C. sided with the
Minority.

Asa tool of the Minority’s secret organisation, the Council has exerted all
efforts to evade the demand of the committees for an all-Party congress. For
eighteen months Social-Democratic activities in Russia were hampered
by the disruptive tactics of the Minority abroad. For eighteen months the committees in
Russia waged an intense unremitting struggle for a congress against the Geneva
Council, which either pigeonholed the committees’ resolutions or returned them
with insulting remarks (“blackguards, sheer humbug, fabrication of
documents” are the expressions contained in a letter by Martov; see
Orlovsky’s pamphlet The Council Against the Party). Every important
step in this painful struggle against the machinations of the promoters of the
secret split is now documented in Party literature. As far back as October 1904,
i.e., six months ago , it was proved— e.g., in Orlovsky’s The Council Against the Party— that the Council, without offering
reasons, had refrained from convening the Congress, although called upon to do
so by the Party Rules. After that, one Party committee in Russia after another
formally voiced no confidence in the Council and in all the central
bodies. The Council, how ever, ignored these actions and with no sense of shame
flouted the Party. The Council was a tool of the Minority. Now the Council, in
its decision of April 7, 1905, has openly declared itself a party to the dispute , but at the same time it has had no scruples about using the title,
the rights, and the powers of an all-Party body, and it has refused to
return to the Party the mandate it has received from it. The thing has been a
flagrant breach of confidence from beginning to end.

When,finally, the Party committees in Russia, seeing that the Council was
evading the Congress, themselves called the Congress through the
“Bureau” which they had elected at three conferences, even the C.C., which had gone over to the Minority , hastened to rectify its
mistake. The C.C. in Russia , which not only did not sympathise with the
Committees of the Majority but actually combated them, upon seeing how matters stood in Russia and knowing the Majority to be really preponderant
there, had to admit that the Bureau of Committees of the Majority had been absolutely impartial in convening the Congress and had had to rebel against the Council. In its appeal of March 12, 1905, to the general membership of the
Party, the C.C. in Russia, as we noted in the press and as all Party workers in
Russia know from the declaration, openly rebelled against the Council ; it declared in Point 5 of the declaration that “the
March 8 resolution of the Council ( Iskra , No. 89) against the
Congress is not considered grounds for halting organisation work for the
Congress”.

Whatis the significance of this announcement, which our Council so studiously
passes over? The significance is that the C.C. in Russia, knowing Russian
affairs and, evidently, having investigated the assertions of the Council
abroad, designates the assertions as untrue and the pretexts for not
convening the Congress as pure invention; it considers as a proved fact
that the demand for the Congress has the support of the overwhelming majority of
the Russian committees that had a chance to study the facts of the case.

Hence,the silence of our Council regarding the declaration made by the C.C. in
Point 5! For it is in effect a direct admission to the whole Party membership
that the Council has made false allegations, that it has misrepresented the
general opinion of the Party!

Invain, therefore, does the Council attempt to mislead the Party once more by
proposing conferences and agreements between the disputants. In Russia such an agreement has already been reached. The centre of the
Mensheviks in Russia was the Central Committee; Iskra itself
admitted as much in its announcement that the July declaration of the C.C. had been accepted by the
Menshevik organisations. The centre of the Majority in Russia was the Bureau of
Committees of the Majority. The Russian centres of both sides to the
dispute have agreed to hold a joint congress. It is evident from this
that there are Mensheviks in Russia who set a slightly higher value on the Party
spirit and Party unity than do the Mensheviks abroad. It is evident that the
Russian Mensheviks themselves, as represented by their centre, the C.C., expose
the Council abroad and turn their backs on it. It is evident that after an
agreement has been reached between the Russian centres of the disputants, any
agreement with the Council abroad, i.e., with the gentlemen sitting in Geneva,
is entirely out of the question.

Invain, therefore, does our Council speak of its deposition by the C.C. in the
future tense. It is not a matter of the future but of the past. Point 5 of the
C.C.’s appeal to the Party, dated March 12, 1905, proves to all who can understand what they read that this deposition has actually taken place. Russia,
represented by the united centres of the two sides, has overthrown the group
abroad. The Party Council now represents merely the Geneva group and not the
Party.

Howaccurately this describes the state of affairs in the Party may be seen very
clearly from the following. The Council declares that its decision of April 7,
1905, was adopted unanimously. Party members who read this are, of course,
supposed to believe that the two members of the C.C. on the Council also had a hand in this decision.

How ever, any such idea, which the
Council tries to inspire in the readers, is very much open to question.

Theproof: As we stated in Vperyod , No. 13, we are not yet authorised
to publish the agreement between the Bureau of Committees of the Majority and
the C.C. Still, we were informed that at least one point of the agreement might
be made public, should the Party Council decide against convening the Third
Party Congress.

Thiseventuality has now arisen.

We,therefore, now publish this point—Point 1 of the unpublished
agreement.

“ Agreementbetween the Bureau of Committees of the Majority and the Central Committee, signed March 12, 1905 .

“ Point1 . The Organising Committee composed of representatives of the
Central Committee and of the Bureau of Committees of the Majority shall
organise the Third Party Congress immediately, regardless of any resolution the
Council may adopt on the convocation of the Congress.”

Clearenough, it would seem.

TheC.C. expressly stipulated that it would refuse to abide by any
future resolutions of the Council, without making this public for the
time being, in the hope that the Council might for once act honestly. This means
that the Russian Mensheviks still believed it possible for the Council to do
the right thing, even if by way of exception.

The Russian Mensheviks, represented by their Russian centre, have now been
disillusioned.

Hence,it is now proved conclusively that even the C.C., whose sympathies were
entirely on the side of the Council, was compelled to expose its colleague
abroad to the full.

Itnow remains for us in conclusion to put one small question to the reader: In
view of all this, what is one to think of the members of the Council
sitting in Geneva, who have declared publicly, in print, that the Council
decision dated Geneva, April 7, 1905, had been adopted unanimously?

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Notes:
[1]
See present edition, Vol. 7, pp. 147-49.— Ed .