V. I. Lenin

Source: ru:PSS/v7;es:MT
Translated: machine translation (DeepSeek) from the Russian; AI-translated.

The Iskra Editorial Board says in No. 55 that an “agreement was reached between the Central Committee and the opposition to consign to oblivion” the facts mentioned in my “Letter to the Iskra Editorial Board” (“Why I Resigned from the Iskra Editorial Board”).[6] This statement of the Editorial Board is a “dodge,” truly a formalistic, bureaucratic and red-tape one (to use Comrade Axelrod’s excellent phrase). Actually, no such agreement was reached, as the foreign representative of the Central Committee directly declares in a special leaflet issued immediately after the appearance of No. 55 of Iskra.{7} Such an agreement could not have been reached, as must be clear to every attentive reader of my letter, for the opposition rejected the “good peace” which the Central Committee had proposed and which would probably have included the condition that everything worthy of oblivion be consigned to oblivion. Could the Editorial Board have been so naive as to think that, after rejecting peace and opening war in No. 53 against the notorious bureaucratism, the other side would keep silent about the real source of these tales about bureaucratism?

The Editorial Board was very, very displeased that I called the real source of these tales squabbles (Literatengezänk—literary squabbles). I should think so! But to utter pitiful words about this really unpleasant fact does not mean to refute it.

We will permit ourselves to ask the highly respected Editorial Board two questions.

First question. Why is it that some people find merely amusing the most furious accusations of autocracy, of a Robespierrian regime, of having engineered a coup d’état, and so on and so forth, while others are mortally offended by a calm account of facts and of the general’s posts that were actually demanded? So offended that they talk sheer “nonsense” about “personalities,” “moral shadow,” and even “base (whence this? ?) motives”? Why this difference, eh, my friends? Is it not because the “post” of a general is “baser” than that of an autocrat?

Second question. Why does the Editorial Board not explain to the readers why it (in those far-off days when it belonged to the opposition and was actually “in the minority”) expressed a desire to consign certain facts to oblivion? Does the Editorial Board not think that the very idea of a desire to “consign to oblivion” principled differences is absurd and could not occur to any sane person?

You see how awkward you are, my dear “political opponents”! You wanted to crush me with the accusation that I was transferring a principled dispute to the sphere of squabbles, but instead you have confirmed my assertion concerning the real source of some of your “differences.”

Further. By awkwardly admitting that there were squabbles, the Editorial Board did not take the trouble to explain to the readers where, in its opinion, principled differences end and squabbles begin. The Editorial Board passes over in silence the fact that in my letter I attempt to draw a perfectly exact line between the two spheres. I show there that a principled difference (by no means so deep as to cause a real split) came to light over the question of Paragraph 1 of the Rules and was widened by the rapprochement of the Iskra minority with the non-Iskra elements towards the end of the Congress.{8} I also show that the talk about bureaucratism, formalism, etc., is primarily a mere echo of the squabbles that occurred after the Congress.

The Editorial Board presumably disagrees with such a demarcation of the “principled” and the “subject to oblivion”? Why, then, did it not take the trouble to state its opinion on the “correct” demarcation of these spheres? Is it not because these spheres have not yet been separated (and cannot be separated) in its own mind?

From the article by the respected Comrade Axelrod in the same No. 55 of Iskra, the readers can judge what this… indiscriminateness leads to, and what our Central Party Organ is being turned into. Comrade Axelrod does not say a single word on the substance of our disputes over Paragraph 1 of the Rules, confining himself to hints about “peripheral societies” that are absolutely incomprehensible to anyone who was not at the Congress. Comrade Axelrod has probably forgotten how long and thoroughly we argued about Paragraph 1! Instead, Comrade Axelrod has concocted a “theory” according to which “the majority of the Iskra supporters who came to the Congress were imbued with the conviction that their main task was… to fight internal enemies.” “Before this mission” the majority “lost sight of (in the firm conviction of the respected Comrade Axelrod) the positive task confronting them.” “The prospect of positive work recedes into the misty distance of an indefinite future”; the Party is faced with the more urgent “military task of subduing internal enemies.” And Comrade Axelrod finds no words to brand this “bureaucratic[7] (or mechanical) centralism,” these “Jacobin” (!!?) plans, these “disorganisers” who “crowd and treat someone as if they were conspirators.”

To show the true value of this theory—or rather, of these accusations against the majority of the Congress of having disorganising tendencies to crowd (presumably imaginary) conspirators and to ignore positive work, it will be sufficient for me to remind the forgetful Comrade Axelrod of one (to begin with, one) small fact. On October 6, 1903, after repeated exhortations to the members of the minority on the absurdity and disorganising character of their boycott, Plekhanov and I officially invited the “conspiratorial” literary men (including Comrade Axelrod) to undertake positive work, and officially declared to them that refusal to do this work would be equally unreasonable from the standpoint of personal irritation and from that of one or another difference (for the exposition of which we were opening the columns of our publications).[8]

Comrade Axelrod has forgotten this. He has forgotten that he then replied with a flat refusal without any explanation of his reasons. He has forgotten that for him then, in those bygone days, “positive work receded into the misty distance of an indefinite future,” which future only became a desirable present on November 26, 1903.{9}

Comrade Axelrod has not only “forgotten” this, but would also like to “consign to oblivion” such “personalities” in general, would he not?

To point out to the minority that for whole months it disorganised the Party, neglected positive work, and diverted a tremendous amount of the Central Committee’s energy with its squabbles—that is “personalities,” that means casting a moral shadow, that means reducing the struggle of tendencies to the level of squabbling. That has no place in the columns of the Central Organ.

But to accuse the majority of the Party Congress of daring to waste time on exhorting “conspirators,” of disorganising the Party by fighting (imaginary) disorganisers—that is principled differences, for which the columns of Iskra must be “kept.” Is that not so, respected Comrade Axelrod?

Perhaps, if he looks around him, Comrade Axelrod will even now find not a few examples of how “positive work” for the practical workers of the minority, too, recedes into the misty distance of a future that is equally desirable but still indefinite?

No, you know, it would have been more advantageous for you not to touch at all upon the question of the attitude of the majority and the minority to positive work! It would have been more advantageous not to remind people of what, for example, a worker from a factory in the town of —va{10} says in the following letter to me:

“Dear Comrade,

“Recently, i.e., after the Second Party Congress, we were told that the Central Committee had not been elected unanimously by the Congress, that the Congress had split into two parts over the question of the relations of the Central Organ to the Central Committee, and that a so-called majority and minority had been formed. All this fell upon our heads like a heavy stone and crushed us with all its weight, because the very question of the relation of the C.O. to the C.C. was an unexpected novelty for us: up to the Congress itself it had not only not been raised in any circles or meetings, but, as far as I remember, it had been passed over in silence in the literature as well. This very silence about it before the Congress is incomprehensible to me. If we assume that it did not exist at all, then we must admit that the comrades who devoted all their energies to uniting the Party had no clear idea of its organisation, i.e., of its structure. But the second is quite impossible, because the question that has now split the Party has clearly shown that there was a view on the structure of the Party, and that it was not the same for all. And if that is so, why was it concealed? That is the first point. And the second—when it comes to deciding this very question, I put the following question to myself: what structure of the Party will ensure its orthodox trend, and immediately alongside it the thought occurs to me that besides the structure of the Party, the composition of its leaders is important, i.e., if they are orthodox, then the Party’s trend will be orthodox; if they are opportunists, then the Party will be the same. Now, with such assumptions and knowing the composition of the Party leaders, I absolutely come out in favour of the predominance of the C.O. over the C.C. in the ideological guidance of the Party. I am still more strongly impelled to come out in favour of this by Russian reality: no matter how orthodox the C.C. may be, being in Russia it cannot be insured against a smash-up, and consequently against the loss of orthodoxy against its will, since successors do not always correspond to those they replace. Which of the comrades who work even a little in committees is not familiar with such phenomena as the best committee, owing to one of many accidents, being replaced by a bad one, and vice versa. It is quite different with the C.O.: it is in different conditions (taking into account that the C.O. will be abroad), which ensure it a more prolonged existence, and consequently the possibility of preparing worthy successors for itself. But I do not know, comrade, whether this question can be decided once and for all, i.e., either that the C.O. should always predominate over the C.C., or the C.C. over the C.O. I think it cannot. Let us take such a situation: suddenly the composition of the C.O. changes and from orthodox becomes opportunist, as, for example, Vorwärts in Germany; well, can we then give it predominance in ideological guidance? What would we, who have been brought up in an orthodox spirit, do? Would we have to agree with it? No, it would be our duty to take away its right to predominance and transfer it to another institution, and if this were not done for some reason or other, be it Party discipline or anything else, then we would all deserve to be called traitors to the working-class Social-Democratic movement. That is how I look at it, and I cannot at all agree with a decision once and for all, as some comrades do.

“Now, the struggle that is now being waged between the majority and the minority is quite incomprehensible to me, and to very many of us it seems wrong. Well, tell me, comrade! Is it natural that all energies should be spent on travelling to committees merely to talk about the majority and the minority? I really don’t know. Is this question really so important that all energies should be devoted to it and people should look upon each other almost as enemies because of it? And that is actually what is happening: if a committee is made up, let us suppose, of one camp, then nobody from the other camp will get into it, despite all his fitness for work; he will not get in even when he is necessary for the work, when the latter suffers greatly from his absence. By this, of course, I do not mean to say that the struggle over this question should be abandoned altogether; not at all, only, in my opinion, it should be of a different character, and because of it we should not forget our main task, namely, the propaganda of Social-Democratic ideas among the masses, because by forgetting this we thereby weaken our Party. I do not know whether it is honest, but when I had occasion to see the interests of the cause being trampled in the mud and completely forgotten, I called all of them political intriguers. It was somehow painful and I became afraid for the cause itself when I saw that the people at the head of it were occupied with something else. Looking at this, one thinks: is our Party doomed to eternal splits over such trifles, are we incapable of carrying on an internal struggle simultaneously with an external one? What then are congresses for, when their decisions are not taken into account and everyone does as he pleases, justifying himself by saying that the Congress decided wrongly, that the C.C. is incapable, etc. And this is done by those who before the Congress were all the time shouting about centralisation, Party discipline, etc., and now seem to want to show that discipline is necessary only for ordinary mortals, and not for them, the top people. They have probably forgotten that their example is terribly demoralising for inexperienced comrades; already one hears again among the workers dissatisfaction with the intelligentsia, which, because of its own squabbles, forgets them; already the more ardent are losing heart, not knowing what to do. For the time being, the whole centralised set-up of the work is now an empty sound. One can only hope that in the future everything will change for the better.”