Date: 1895
Source: ru:PSS/v8

The analysis of the debates and votes at the congress, with which we have concluded, explains, in essence in nuce (in embryo), everything that happened after the congress, and we can be brief, noting the further stages of our party crisis.

We were faced with a dilemma: would Comrade Martov wish to consider his congress "coalition" a singular political fact (similar to how Bebel's coalition with Vollmar in 1895 was a singular case – si licet parva componere magnis[135]), or would he wish to consolidate this coalition, direct all efforts to prove our error with Plekhanov at the congress, and become a true leader of the opportunist wing of our party? In other words, this dilemma was formulated as follows: squabble or political party struggle? Of the three of us who, on the day after the congress, were the only available members of the central institutions, Glebov was most inclined towards the first solution to the dilemma and most eager to reconcile the quarreling children. Comrade Plekhanov was most inclined towards the second solution, to whom, as they say, there was no approaching. I played the role of the "center" or "swamp" this time and tried to appeal with convictions. At present, attempting to restore verbal convictions would be a hopelessly confusing undertaking, and I will not follow the bad example of Comrade Martov and Comrade Plekhanov. But I consider it necessary to reproduce some passages from one written conviction addressed by me to one of the Iskra-ites of the "minority":

And so I ask myself: what, in fact, are we going to disagree about?... I go through all the events and impressions of the congress, I realize that I often acted and behaved in terrible irritation, "furiously," I am willingly ready to admit this fault of mine to anyone, if it should be called a fault that was naturally caused by the atmosphere, the reaction, the retort, the struggle, etc. But, looking without any fury now at the achieved results, at what has been accomplished through furious struggle, I resolutely cannot see in the results anything, absolutely nothing harmful to the party and absolutely nothing offensive or insulting to the minority.

Of course, it could not but be offensive to have to remain in the minority, but I categorically protest against the idea that we are "stigmatizing" anyone, that we want to offend or humiliate anyone. Nothing of the sort. And it should not be allowed that political disagreement leads to the interpretation of events by accusing the other side of dishonesty, roguery, intrigue, and other lovely things that are heard more and more often in the atmosphere of the impending split. This should not be allowed, for it is, at the very least, to пес plus ultra[136] unreasonable.

We have politically (and organizationally) disagreed with Martov, as we have disagreed with him dozens of times. Being defeated on the question of § 1 of the charter, I could not but strive with all my energy for revenge on what remained to me (and to the congress). I could not but strive, on the one hand, for a strictly Iskra-ite Central Committee, and on the other, for a three-member editorial board... I consider this three-member board the only one capable of being an official institution, and not a collegium based on familiarity and negligence, the only real center in which everyone would always introduce and defend their party point of view, not a hair more and irrespective[137] of everything personal, of any considerations of offense, departure, etc.

This three-member board, after the events at the congress, undoubtedly legitimized a political and organizational line directed against Martov in one respect. Undoubtedly. To tear apart because of this? To break the party because of this?? And weren't Martov and Plekhanov against me on the question of demonstrations? And weren't I and Martov against Plekhanov on the question of the program? Doesn't every three-member board always turn one of its sides against each participant? If the majority of Iskra-ites, both in the Iskra organization and at the congress, found this particular shade of Martov's line in organizational and political terms to be erroneous, aren't attempts to explain this by some kind of "manipulation" and "incitement," etc., truly insane? Wouldn't it be insane to excuse oneself from this fact by calling this majority "riffraff"?

I repeat: I, like the majority of Iskra-ites at the congress, am deeply convinced that Martov took the wrong line and that it had to be corrected. To take offense because of this correction, to derive insult, etc., from this is unreasonable. We have not "stigmatized," do not "stigmatize," and do not remove anyone from work. And to raise a split because of removal from the center would be an incomprehensible madness to me"[138].

I considered it necessary to restore these written statements of mine now, because they accurately show the desire of the majority to immediately draw a definite line between possible (and inevitable in a heated struggle) personal grievances and personal irritation due to the sharpness and "fury" of attacks, etc., on the one hand, and a certain political error, a political line (coalition with the right wing), on the other.

These statements prove that the passive resistance of the minority began immediately after the congress and immediately provoked a warning from our side that this is a step towards a split in the party; that this directly contradicts the loyal statements at the congress; that this will be a split solely because of removal from the central institutions (i.e., because of non-election), since no one ever thought of removing any of the party members from work; that the political disagreement between us (inevitable, since the question of whether Martov or we were mistaken in our line at the congress has not yet been clarified and resolved) is becoming increasingly distorted into a squabble with abuse, suspicions, etc., etc.

The warnings did not help. The behavior of the minority showed that the least stable and least valuing the party elements among them were gaining the upper hand. This forced Plekhanov and me to withdraw our consent to Glebov's proposal: indeed, if the minority proved its political instability by its actions, not only in the realm of principles, but also in the realm of elementary party loyalty, then what significance could words about the notorious "continuity" have? No one ridiculed as wittily as Plekhanov the absurdity of the demand to "co-opt" into the party editorial board a majority of such people who directly declare their new and growing disagreements! Where in the world has it ever been seen that before clarifying in the press, before the party, new disagreements, the party majority in the central institutions itself turns into a minority? Let the disagreements be stated first, let the party discuss their depth and significance, let the party itself correct its mistake made at the Second Congress, if this or that mistake is proven! The very presentation of such a demand in the name of still unknown disagreements showed the complete instability of those demanding, the complete suppression of political disagreements by squabbling, the complete disrespect both for the entire party and for their own convictions. There have never been and never will be such principled people who would refuse to convince before they receive (privately) a majority in the institution that they are going to re-convince.

Finally, on October 4, Comrade Plekhanov announces that he will make a last attempt to put an end to this absurdity. A meeting of all six members of the old editorial board is convened in the presence of a new member of the Central Committee[139]. For three hours, Comrade Plekhanov proves the unreasonableness of the demand to "co-opt" four from the "minority" to two from the "majority." He proposes to co-opt two, in order, on the one hand, to eliminate any fears that we want to "run over," suppress, besiege, execute, and bury someone, and on the other hand, to protect the rights and position of the party "majority." The co-optation of two is also rejected.

On October 6, Plekhanov and I write an official letter to all the old editors of Iskra and to the collaborator, Comrade Trotsky, of the following content:

"Dear Comrades! The Editorial Board of the Central Organ considers it its duty to officially express its regret regarding your removal from participation in Iskra and Zarya. Despite the repeated invitations to collaborate that we made immediately after the Second Party Congress and repeated repeatedly thereafter, we have not received a single literary work from you. The Editorial Board of the Central Organ declares that it considers your removal from collaboration to be in no way caused by it. Any personal irritation should not, of course, serve as an obstacle to work in the Central Organ of the party. If, however, your removal is caused by this or that divergence of views between you and us, then we would consider it extremely useful in the interests of the party to give a detailed account of such disagreements. Moreover. We would consider it extremely desirable that the nature and depth of these disagreements be clarified as soon as possible before the entire party on the pages of the publications we edit"[140].

As the reader sees, it still remained completely unclear to us whether personal irritation prevailed in the actions of the "minority" or a desire to give the organ (and the party) a new course, what exactly, in what exactly. I think that even now, if you put 70 interpreters to work clarifying this question on the basis of any literature and any witness testimony, they would never be able to sort out this confusion. A squabble can hardly ever be unraveled: it must either be cut short or distanced from it[141].

Axelrod, Zasulich, Starover, Trotsky, and Koltsov answered our letter of October 6 with a couple of lines stating that the undersigned have not taken any part in Iskra since its transfer to the hands of the new editorial board. Comrade Martov was more talkative and honored us with the following answer:

"To the Editorial Board of the Central Organ of the RSDLP. Dear Comrades! In response to your letter of October 6, I declare the following: I consider all our explanations on the issue of joint work in one organ to be completed after the meeting that took place in the presence of a member of the Central Committee on October 4, at which you refused to answer the question about the reasons that prompted you to withdraw the proposal made to us about the entry of Axelrod, Zasulich, Starover, and me into the editorial board on the condition that we give an undertaking to elect Comrade Lenin as our "representative" to the Council. After you repeatedly evaded formulating your own statements, made in the presence of witnesses, at the aforementioned meeting, I do not consider it necessary in a letter to you to explain the motives for my refusal to work in Iskra under the current circumstances. If necessary, I will speak about this in detail before the entire party, which will already learn from the minutes of the Second Congress why I refused the offer, now repeated by you, to take a place on the editorial board and in the Council..."[142]

This letter, together with the previous documents, provides an irrefutable explanation on the issue of boycott, disorganization, anarchy, and preparation for a split, which Comrade Martov so diligently avoids (by means of exclamation marks and ellipses) in his "Besieged Position" – the issue of loyal and disloyal means of struggle.

Comrade Martov and others are offered to state the disagreements, asked to say directly what the matter is and what their intentions are, persuaded to stop being capricious and calmly analyze the error in § 1 (inextricably linked with the error in the turn to the right) – and Comrade Martov and Co. refuse to talk and shout: I am being besieged, I am being run over! Ridicule of the "terrible word" has not cooled the ardor of these comical cries.

How can you besiege someone who refuses to work together? – we asked Comrade Martov. How can you offend, "run over," and oppress a minority when it refuses to be in the minority?? After all, any stay in the minority necessarily and inevitably means certain disadvantages for the one who remained in the minority. These disadvantages consist either in the fact that you will have to enter a collegium that will majorize on certain issues, or you will have to stand outside the collegium, attacking it and, consequently, being subjected to the fire of well-fortified batteries.

With cries about the "besieged position," Comrade Martov wanted to say that they, who remained in the minority, are being fought or managed unfairly and disloyally? Only such a thesis would have (in Martov's eyes) at least a shadow of reasonableness, for, I repeat, certain disadvantages are necessarily and inevitably entailed by being in the minority. But that is the comedy: it was impossible to fight Comrade Martov in any way as long as he refused to talk! It was impossible to manage the minority in any way as long as it refused to be in the minority!

Comrade Martov did not prove a single fact of abuse of power or abuse of authority in relation to the editorial board of the Central Organ when Plekhanov and I were on the editorial board. The minority's practices on the part of the Central Committee also did not prove a single fact. No matter how Comrade Martov now twists and turns in his "Besieged Position," it remains completely irrefutable that there was absolutely nothing but "flabby whining" in the cries about the besieged position.

The complete absence of reasonable arguments against the editorial board appointed by the congress is best illustrated by their own word: "we are not serfs!" ("Besieged Position," p. 34). The psychology of the bourgeois intellectual, who considers himself to be among the "chosen souls" standing above mass organization and mass discipline, is remarkably clear here. To explain the refusal to work in the party by the fact that "we are not serfs" means to give oneself away completely, to admit the complete absence of arguments, the complete inability to motivate, the complete absence of reasonable reasons for dissatisfaction. Plekhanov and I declare that we consider the refusal to be in no way caused by us, we ask to state the disagreements, and we are answered: "we are not serfs" (with the addition: we have not yet bargained about co-optation).

To the intellectual individualism, which has already manifested itself in the disputes about § 1, revealing its inclination towards opportunist reasoning and anarchic phraseology, any proletarian organization and discipline seem like serfdom. The reading public will soon learn that the new party congress also seems to these "party members" and "officials" of the party to be a serf institution, terrible and unbearable for the "chosen souls"... This "institution" is indeed terrible for those who are eager to take advantage of the title of party membership, but feel the discrepancy between this title and the interests of the party and the will of the party.

The resolutions of the committees, listed by me in a letter to the editorial board of the new Iskra and printed by Comrade Martov in the "Besieged Position," prove in fact that the behavior of the minority was a complete insubordination to the decisions of the congress, disorganization of positive practical work. The minority, made up of opportunists and haters of Iskra, was tearing apart the party, spoiling, disorganizing the work, wanting to take revenge for the defeat at the congress and feeling that by honest and loyal means (explaining the matter in the press or at the congress) it would never be able to refute the accusation of opportunism and intellectual instability leveled against them at the Second Congress. Realizing their powerlessness to convince the party, they acted by disorganizing the party and hindering all work. They were reproached for the fact that they (having messed up at the congress) made a crack in our vessel; they responded to the reproach by trying with all their might to completely break the cracked vessel.

Concepts were confused to the point that boycott and removal from work were declared "honest[143] means" of struggle. Comrade Martov is now twisting and turning in every way around this delicate point. Comrade Martov is so "principled" that he defends the boycott when it is conducted by the minority, and condemns the boycott when it threatens Martov himself, who has fallen into the majority!

I think we can leave without analysis the question of whether this is a squabble or a "principled disagreement" regarding honest means of struggle in the Social-Democratic workers' party.

After unsuccessful attempts (October 4 and 6) to obtain an explanation from the comrades who started the story because of "co-optation," the central institutions only had to see what the loyalty of the struggle promised by them in words would be in practice. On October 10, the Central Committee addresses a circular to the League (see the League's minutes, pp. 3-5), declaring the charter being developed by it and inviting members of the League to assist. The League's congress at that time was rejected by its administration (by two votes against one, see p. 20 there). The responses of the supporters of the minority to this circular immediately showed that the notorious loyalty and recognition of the decisions of the congress were only a phrase, that in fact the minority decided absolutely not to submit to the central institutions of the party, responding to their calls for united work with formal replies full of sophisms and anarchic phrases. To the notorious open letter of a member of the administration, Deich (p. 10), Plekhanov and I, together with other supporters of the majority, responded with a decisive expression of "protest against those gross violations of party discipline by means of which an official of the League allows himself to hinder the organizational activities of a party institution and calls on other comrades to commit the same violation of discipline and the charter. Phrases such as "in such work at the invitation of the Central Committee, I do not consider myself entitled to participate," or "comrades! we must in no case allow him (the Central Committee) to develop a new charter for the League," etc., belong to such a kind of agitational techniques that can only arouse indignation in any person who understands even a little what the concepts mean: party, organization, party discipline. Techniques of this kind are all the more outrageous because they are used in relation to a newly created party institution, are thus an undoubted attempt to undermine confidence in it among party comrades, and are put into use under the guise of a member of the League's administration and behind the back of the Central Committee" (p. 17).

Under such conditions, the League's congress promised to be only a scandal.

From the very beginning, Comrade Martov continued his congress tactics of "getting into the soul," this time of Comrade Plekhanov, by distorting private conversations. Comrade Plekhanov protests, and Comrade Martov has to take back (pp. 39 and 134 of the League's minutes) frivolous or irritated reproaches.

It is the turn for the report. I was the delegate from the League to the party congress. A simple reference to the summary of my report (p. 43 et seq.)[144] will show the reader that I gave a rough draft of the very analysis of the votes at the congress, which in its developed form constitutes the content of this pamphlet. The entire center of gravity of the report lay precisely in proving that Martov and Co., due to the mistakes they made, found themselves in the opportunist wing of our party. Despite the fact that the report was made before a majority of the most embittered opponents, they could not find in it absolutely anything deviating from the loyal methods of party struggle and polemics.

Martov's report, in addition to minor and private "corrections" to my presentation (we showed the inaccuracy of these corrections above), was, on the contrary, a certain product of sick nerves.

It is not surprising that the majority refused to fight in such an atmosphere. Comrade Plekhanov protested against the "scene" (p. 68) – it was, indeed, a real "scene"! – and left the congress, not wanting to present the objections he had already prepared on the substance of the report. Almost all the other supporters of the majority also left the congress, submitting a written protest against the "unworthy behavior" of Comrade Martov (p. 75 of the League's minutes).

The minority's methods of struggle were fully apparent to everyone. We accused the minority of a political mistake at the congress, of a turn towards opportunism, of a coalition with the Bundists, Akimovs, Bruckers, Yegorovs, and Makhovs. The minority suffered a defeat at the congress and has now "developed" two methods of struggle, encompassing all the infinite variety of individual sorties, attacks, assaults, etc.

The first method is the disorganization of all party work, the spoiling of the cause, the desire to hinder everything and everyone "without explaining the reasons."

The second method is the arrangement of "scenes," etc., etc.[145]

This "second method of struggle" also affects the notorious "principled" resolutions of the League, in the discussion of which the "majority," of course, did not participate. Let us take a closer look at these resolutions, which Comrade Martov has now reprinted in his "Besieged Position."

The first resolution, signed by Comrades Trotsky, Fomin, Deich, and others, contains two theses directed against the "majority" of the party congress: 1) "The League expresses its deep regret that, due to the tendencies manifested at the congress, which are essentially at odds with the previous policy of Iskra, due attention was not paid to creating sufficient guarantees for protecting the independence and authority of the Central Committee in the development of the party charter" (p. 83 of the League's minutes).

This "principled" thesis boils down, as we have already seen, to the Akimovite phrase, the opportunist character of which was exposed at the party congress by Comrade Popov! In essence, assurances that the "majority" does not think of protecting the independence and authority of the Central Committee have always remained nothing more than gossip. It is enough to point out that when Plekhanov and I were on the editorial board, we did not have an advantage of the Central Organ over the Central Committee in the Council, and when the Martovites entered the editorial board, the Central Organ's predominance over the Central Committee resulted in the Council! When we were on the editorial board, Russian practitioners prevailed over foreign literati in the Council; the Martovites had the opposite. When we were on the editorial board, the Council never attempted to interfere in any practical matter; since the unanimous co-optation, such interference has begun, as the reading public will learn thoroughly in a short time.

The next thesis of the resolution under consideration: "... the congress, in establishing the official centers of the party, ignored the continuity with the actually established centers..."

This thesis boils down entirely to the question of the personal composition of the centers. The "minority" preferred to bypass the fact that the old centers at the congress proved their unsuitability and made a number of mistakes. But the reference to "continuity" in relation to the Organizing Committee is most comical. At the congress, as we have seen, not a single person uttered a word about approving the entire composition of the Organizing Committee. At the congress, Martov even shouted in ecstasy that he was disgraced by the list with three members of the Organizing Committee. At the congress, the "minority" proposed its last list with one member of the Organizing Committee (Popov, Glebov, or Fomin and Trotsky), and the "majority" passed a list with two members of the Organizing Committee out of three (Travinsky, Vasilyev, and Glebov). The question is, can this reference to "continuity" be called a "principled disagreement"?

Let us move on to another resolution, signed by four members of the old editorial board with Comrade Axelrod at the head. Here we find all the main accusations against the "majority," repeated more than once later in the press. It is most convenient to consider them precisely in the formulation of the members of the editorial circle. The accusations are directed against the "system of autocratic-bureaucratic management of the party," against "bureaucratic centralism," which, in contrast to "truly Social-Democratic centralism," is defined as follows: it "puts in the first place not internal unification, but external, formal unity, carried out and protected by purely mechanical means, through the systematic suppression of individual initiative and social activity"; it is, therefore, "by its very essence, incapable of organically uniting the constituent elements of society."

What kind of "society" Comrade Axelrod and Co. are talking about here, only Allah knows. Comrade Axelrod, apparently, did not know very well himself whether he was writing a zemstvo address about desirable reforms in management, or pouring out the complaints of the "minority." What can "autocracy" mean in the party, which the dissatisfied "editors" are shouting about? Autocracy is the supreme, uncontrolled, unaccountable, unelected power of one person. From the literature of the "minority," it is very well known that I, and no one else, am considered to be such an autocrat. When the resolution under consideration was written and adopted, I was in the Central Organ together with Plekhanov. Consequently, Comrade Axelrod and Co. express their conviction that both Plekhanov and all members of the Central Committee "managed the party" not according to their views on the benefit of the cause, but according to the will of the autocrat Lenin. The accusation of autocratic management necessarily and inevitably leads to the recognition of all other participants in management, except for the autocrat, as mere tools in other people's hands, pawns, executors of someone else's will. And we ask again and again: is this really a "principled disagreement" of the most esteemed Comrade Axelrod?

Further. What kind of external, formal unity are our "party members" talking about here, who have just returned from the party congress, the decisions of which they solemnly recognized as legitimate? Do they not know another way to achieve unity in a party organized on any solid principles, other than a party congress? If so, then why do they not have the courage to say directly that they no longer recognize the Second Congress as a legitimate congress? Why do they not try to tell us their new thoughts and new ways of achieving unity in a supposedly organized, supposedly party?

Further. What kind of "suppression of individual initiative" are our intellectual-individualists talking about, whom the Central Organ of the party had just before this begged to state their disagreements and who instead bargained about "co-optation"? How, in general, could Plekhanov and I or the Central Committee suppress the initiative and activity of people who refused any "activity" together with us! How can you "suppress" anyone in such an institution or in such a collegium where the suppressed person refused to participate? How can unelected editors complain about the "system of management" when they refused to "be managed"? We could not have made any mistakes in leading our comrades for the simple reason that these comrades did not work under our leadership at all.

It seems clear that the cries about the notorious bureaucratism are a simple cover for dissatisfaction with the personal composition of the centers, a fig leaf that brightens up the violation of the word solemnly given at the congress. You are a bureaucrat because you were appointed by the congress not according to my will, but against it; you are a formalist because you rely on the formal decisions of the congress, and not on my consent; you act crudely-mechanically, because you refer to the "mechanical" majority of the party congress and do not take into account my desire to be co-opted; you are an autocrat because you do not want to hand over power to the old, warm company, which defends its circle "continuity" all the more vigorously, the more unpleasant it is for it to be directly disapproved by the congress.

There was and is no real content in these cries about bureaucratism other than the one indicated[146]. And it is precisely this method of struggle that only proves once again the intellectual instability of the minority. It wanted to convince the party of the unsuccessful choice of centers. Convince by what? By criticism of the Iskra that Plekhanov and I led? No, they were not able to give this. They wanted to convince by means of the refusal of a part of the party to work under the leadership of the hated centers. But no central institution of any party in the world will be able to prove its ability to lead those who do not want to submit to leadership. Refusal to submit to the leadership of the centers is tantamount to refusing to be in the party, is tantamount to destroying the party, it is not a measure of persuasion, but a measure of destruction. And it is precisely this replacement of persuasion with destruction that shows the absence of principled consistency, the absence of faith in one's ideas.

They talk about bureaucratism. Bureaucratism can be translated into Russian as parochialism. Bureaucratism means subordinating the interests of the cause to the interests of a career, paying close attention to places and ignoring work, a dump for co-optation instead of a struggle for ideas. Such bureaucratism is, indeed, absolutely undesirable and harmful to the party, and I will calmly allow the reader to judge which of the two sides now fighting in our party is guilty of such bureaucratism... They talk about crudely mechanical methods of unification. Of course, crudely mechanical methods are harmful, but I will again allow the reader to judge whether it is possible to imagine a cruder and more mechanical way of fighting the new direction with the old than introducing people into party institutions before the party is convinced of the correctness of the new views, before these views are presented to the party?

But perhaps the minority's favorite words also have some principled meaning, express a certain special circle of ideas, regardless of the small and private reason that undoubtedly served as the starting point for the "turn" in this case? Perhaps, if we abstract from the dump over "co-optation," these words will still turn out to be a reflection of a different system of views?

Let us consider the question from this side. In doing so, we will first of all have to note that Comrade Plekhanov was the first to make an approach to such a consideration in the League, pointing to the minority's turn to anarchism and opportunism, and that it was Comrade Martov (who is now very offended that not everyone wants to recognize his position as a principled[147] position) who preferred to completely bypass this incident in his "Besieged Position."

At the League's congress, the general question was raised as to whether the charter being developed for itself by the League or the committee is valid without the approval of this charter by the Central Committee? contrary to the approval of the Central Committee? It would seem that the question is clearer than clear: the charter is a formal expression of organization, and the right to organize committees is categorically granted by § six of our party charter precisely to the Central Committee; the charter defines the boundaries of the committee's autonomy, and the decisive voice in determining these boundaries belongs to the central, and not the local, institution of the party. This is ABC, and it was pure childishness to deeply reason that "to organize" does not always imply "to approve the charter" (as if the League itself had not independently expressed its desire to be organized precisely on the basis of a formal charter). But Comrade Martov even forgot (for a time, one must hope) the ABC of Social Democracy. In his opinion, the requirement to approve the charter only expresses the fact that "the former revolutionary Iskra-ite centralism is being replaced by bureaucratic centralism" (p. 95 of the League's minutes), and Comrade Martov in the same speech declares that it is here that he sees the "principled side" of the matter (p. 96), which principled side he preferred to bypass in his "Besieged Position"!

Comrade Plekhanov answers Martov immediately, asking him to refrain from such expressions that "violate the dignity of the congress" as bureaucratism, pompadourism, etc. (p. 96). There is an exchange of remarks with Comrade Martov, who sees in these expressions "a principled characteristic of a certain direction." Comrade Plekhanov, like all supporters of the majority, then considered these expressions in their concrete meaning, clearly understanding their not principled, but exclusively "co-optational," if one may say so, meaning. He makes, however, a concession to the insistence of the Martovs and Deiches (pp. 96-97) and moves on to a principled consideration of supposedly principled views. "If this were the case," he says (i.e., if the committees were autonomous in creating their organization, in developing their charter), then they would be autonomous in relation to the whole, to the party. This is no longer a Bundist point of view, but a directly anarchic one. Indeed, the anarchists reason as follows: the rights of individuals are not limited; they may come into conflict; each individual determines the limits of his rights himself. The limits of autonomy must be determined not by the group itself, but by the whole of which it is a part. A clear example of a violation of this principle is the Bund. This means that the limits of autonomy are determined either by the congress or by the higher instance created by the congress. The power of the central institution must be based on moral and intellectual authority. I certainly agree with this. Every representative of the organization must take care that the institution has moral authority. But it does not follow from this that if authority is needed, then power is not needed... To oppose the authority of ideas to the authority of power is an anarchic phrase that should not be here" (98). These provisions are extremely elementary, they are truly axioms that it was even strange to put to a vote (p. 102) and which were questioned only because "at present, concepts are confused" (ibid.). But intellectual individualism inevitably led the minority to a desire to disrupt the congress, not to submit to the majority; but this desire could not be justified otherwise than by an anarchic phrase. It is preposterous that the minority could not express anything to Plekhanov except a complaint about the use of excessively strong expressions such as opportunism, anarchism, etc. Plekhanov rightly ridiculed these complaints, asking why it is "inconvenient to use Jauresism and anarchism, and lèse-majesté (insulting majesty) and pompadourism are convenient"? No answer was given to these questions. This original qui pro quo[148] constantly happens with Comrades Martov, Axelrod, and Co.: their new words bear the clear imprint of the "heart"; pointing this out offends them – we are, they say, principled people; but if you reject the subordination of the part to the whole on principle, then you are anarchists, they are told. A new offense for a strong expression! In other words: they want to fight with Plekhanov, but on the condition that he does not attack them seriously!

How many times Comrade Martov and all sorts of other "Mensheviks" have engaged in no less childish exposure of me in the following "contradiction." A quote is taken from What Is to Be Done? or from A Letter to a Comrade, where it is said about ideological influence, about the struggle for influence, etc., and the "bureaucratic" influence through the charter, the "autocratic" desire to rely on power, etc., is opposed. Naive people! They have already forgotten that before our party was not an organized formal whole, but only a sum of private groups, and therefore there could be no other relations between these groups except ideological influence. Now we have become an organized party, and this means creating power, turning the authority of ideas into the authority of power, subordinating the party's higher instances to the lower ones. Really, it is even somehow awkward to chew such ABCs for my old comrades, especially when you feel that the matter simply boils down to the minority's unwillingness to submit to the majority regarding the elections! But in principle, all these endless exposures of me in contradiction boil down entirely to an anarchic phrase. The new Iskra is not averse to using the title and right of a party institution, but it does not want to submit to the majority of the party.

If there is a principle in the phrases about bureaucratism, if this is not an anarchic denial of the obligation on the part of the part to submit to the whole, then we have before us the principle of opportunism, which seeks to weaken the responsibility of individual intellectuals to the party of the proletariat, to weaken the influence of central institutions, to strengthen the autonomy of the least consistent party elements, to reduce organizational relations to a purely platonic recognition of them in words. We saw this at the party congress, where the Akimovs and Libers said exactly the same speeches about "monstrous" centralism as poured out at the League's congress from the mouths of Martov and Co. That opportunism not by chance, but by its very nature, and not only in Russia, but throughout the world, leads to Martov's and Axelrod's organizational "views," we will see below, when analyzing Comrade Axelrod's article in the new Iskra.