V. I.

Lenin

Second Congress of the League of Russian Revolutionary Social-Democracy Abroad [3]

October 13-18 (26-31), 1903

1

Prefatory Remarks to the Report On the Second Congress of the
R.S.D.L.P., October 13 (20)

I

Leninmade a few prefatory remarks to his report. I propose, in the
first place, he said, to keep to the pseudonyms used at the Congress,
because I am accustomed to them and it will be easier for me to use
them than to stop and think each time what organisation the delegate
represented. Secondly, I propose to touch also on the meetings of the
Iskra organisation which took place, privately, so to speak,
in the intervals between sittings of the Congress. I think this is in
order, firstly, because the League was the foreign branch of the
Is/era organisation, secondly, because the Is/era organisation has now been dissolved, and, thirdly, because without
these facts it will be more difficult for me to bring out the true
meaning of the events at the Party Congress.

II

Comrade Martov is against any reference being made 10 the
private meetings of the Iskra organisation on the grounds that no minutes were kept. But neither are the minutes
of the Party Congress available yet, and I cannot cite them
either. After all, Comrade Martov is present here and will be
able to correct any inaccuracies that may creep in. If the
private meetings of Iskra have a bearing on the matter,
I shall bring them to the knowledge of an even wider audience—Comrade Martov will not be able to hush them up
any way. ("Oho!" ) I remember perfectly whom I kept out
of these meetings, and who withdrew from them, and I shall have
a lot to say on this score. Of course, mistakes may occur, and I
shall not be able to reconstruct everything from memory. The
important thing is the political grouping.

What it was as shown by each particular vote taken, I can, of course,
recall only approximately, but in general it is perfectly clear to
me. It is not in the interest of the work to conceal from the League
what pertains to the Iskra organisation, which has now been
dissolved, and what has already become the common concern of the
Party. As to the pseudonyms used in the minutes, they would be better,
of course, but I have not read the minutes and am therefore
unacquainted with them.

III

Comrade Martov is afraid that discussing the private meetings of
Iskra may land us in the domain of tittle-tattle. I had no
intention of entering the domain of tittle-tattle, and we shall see
who will be able to keep the argument on the plane of principle, and
who will have to descend into that murky domain. ("Oho!" ) We shall see, we shall see! I consider
myself fully at liberty to touch on the meetings of the editorial
board, and will not object if Comrade Martov does likewise;
nevertheless, I must point out that during the Congress there was not
a single meeting of the editorial board as such.

IV

Thechief purpose of my report is to show that Comrade Martov made a
mistake; but in his hint regarding Comrade Plekhanov I detect
something quite different. Let me remind you of what I said on one
occasion at the Party Congress:
"What a storm of indignation is usually aroused when people say
one thing at committees and another on the floor of the

Congress.” [1]

To
hint at such behaviour is no longer discussing political conduct but
indulging in personalities. As regards P. B. Axelrod’s statement that
X. went away completely uninformed, let me say that that was not so at
all. He himself wrote me a letter saying that in his opinion there was
a lot that was personal about this whole divergence and not much that
related to principle. From that I conclude that he was already
informed. And in answer to his request for my opinion regarding the
Congress, I wrote to him on several occasions too.

2

Report On the Second Congress of the R.S.D.L.P., October 14 (27)

Beforebeginning his report, Lenin referred to the discussion at the
previous sitting as to how far mention might be made of the private
meetings held by the Iskra -ists during the Party Congress. He
interpreted yesterday’s decision of the Congress as meaning that facts
not recorded in the minutes must be touched on as little as possible,
and therefore intended, in referring to the meetings of the
Iskra organisation, to deal only with the voting results.

Afterthis introduction, he went on to speak of the period
immediately preceding the Party Congress. In the Organising
Committee, whose business it was to arrange the Congress, the
Iskra -ists predominated, and its work was carried on along Iskra -ist lines. But even while the Congress
arrangements were still in progress it became apparent that the
Organising Committee was far from being completely at one. To
begin with, it included a Bundist, who did everything he could
to prevent the convocation of an Iskra -ist Congress; this member of the Organising Commit tee always pursued a
separate line of his own. There were also two Yuzhny Rabochy members on it, and although they considered
themselves Iskra -ists, and even announced their adherence to Iskra , on which subject there were lengthy
negotiations, they could not be wholly regarded as such. Lastly,
even the Iskra -ist members of the Organising Committee
were not completely at one; they had differences among themselves. It is also important to mention the Organising
Committee’s decision on the subject of binding instructions. This question came up long before the Congress, and the decision arrived at was that binding instructions be
abolished. The editorial board too pronounced emphatically in
favour of this. The decision applied to itself also. It was
decided that at the Congress, since it was the supreme Party
authority, no member of the Party, or of the editorial board,
should consider himself bound by any commitments to the
organisation that had delegated him. It was in view of this
decision that I drafted a

Tagesordnung* [ * Agenda.—Ed. ] for the
Congress, together with a commentary, which I decided to submit
to the Congress in my own name. Item 23 of this draft had the
comment in the margin that three persons should be elected to
the editorial board and as many to the Central Committee. There
is one other point in this connection. As the editorial board
consisted of six persons, it was decided by common consent that,
if it were found necessary to hold a meeting of the board during
the Congress and the votes divided equally, Comrade Pavlovich
would be invited to the meeting with full voting rights.

Thedelegates began to arrive long before the opening of the
Congress. The Organising Committee gave them an opportunity to get
acquainted with the editors beforehand. Very naturally, the
Iskra -ists wanted to present themselves at the Congress
united and in harmony on all points, and with this in view private
conversations were held with the delegates as they arrived, and
meetings were arranged to work out a common viewpoint. At these
meetings the political complexion of some of the delegates became
pretty clear. At one such meeting, for instance, where I read a paper
on the national question, [4] the delegate from the Mining Area expressed views akin to those of the Polish Socialist

Party, [5] and in general betrayed extreme confusion of
ideas.

Suchwere the circumstances that preceded the Congress.

Ishall now explain how I came to be the only delegate from the League, although
it had elected two. It turned out that no delegate had arrived from
the Iskra organisation in

Russia, [6] which was also to have sent two delegates. Thereupon a meeting of the
Iskra -ists, held just before the Congress opened, decided
that one of the two League delegates should turn over his mandate to the other and himself act as
the delegate of the Iskra organisation with its two mandates,
with the provision that if an elected delegate should arrive from
Russia, one of these two man dates would be turned over to
him. Naturally, both Martov and I wanted to be the delegate from
Iskra , in view of the minor role played by the League. We
settled the point by drawing lots.

Thefirst preliminary question—the election of the Congress
Bureau—gave rise to something of a difference, true, a minor
one, between Martov and me. He insisted on the election of nine
persons, these even to include a Bund ist. I, on the other hand,
considered that we should elect a Bureau capable of pu1 uing a firm,
consistent policy and, if necessary, even of applying what is called
the “iron glove”. The Bureau elected consisted of
Plekhanov, Lenin, and Pavlovich.

Inaddition to five Bundists, there were at the Congress two
delegates from the Union of Russian Social-Democrats Abroad and
a delegate from the St. Petersburg League of Struggle, who
nearly always voted with them. From the very outset these
persons greatly dragged out the proceedings. The discussion of
the Congress Standing Orders alone took up an incredible amount
of time. There were endless arguments, lasting several sittings,
over the position of the Bund in the Party. Similar delays were
caused by the Bundist who got on to the Credentials
Committee. He practised obstruction at every turn, would not
agree with the other members of the committee, of which I was
one, on a single point, and invariably recorded a “dissenting opinion”. When it was remarked that this
sort of thing was likely to drag out the Congress, he replied,
“Well, let it”, and said he was ready to have the committee sit for any length of time. It was not till long after
midnight that the work of verifying the credentials was
finished.

Alsoin the opening days of the Congress we had an incident over the
Organising Committee. Under the Regulations it had drawn up, only
“prominent Party personalities” could be invited to the
Congress in a deliberative capacity, and the Credentials Committee had
rejected the request of the Borba group to be granted representation. Two members of the Organising Committee had attended the Credentials Committee
meeting, and they had categorically opposed admitting a Borba
representative to the Congress. When the spokesman for the committee
informed the Congress of this decision, a long debate “for” and “against” developed, in which one of
the Iskra -ists declared that a representative of Borba should
on no account be invited to the Congress, as that group did nothing
but intrigue, try to insinuate itself into every chink, sow dissension
everywhere, and so on. (Trotsky :
"Why don’t you give the speaker’s name? It was I who said it."
P. Axelrod: “The speaker evidently does not think it
would be in his interest.") Yes, it was Comrade Trotsky who spoke so
harshly of the Borba group. At the very height of this argument about
whether a Borba representative should be admitted to the Congress, one
of the Yu zhny Rabochy delegates, who had been late in arriving and had only just turned up, asked for a five-minute
adjournment to allow him to acquaint himself with all the
circumstances of the case. When the adjournment was granted, the
members of the Organising Committee held a meeting then and there, by
the window. I should mention that even before the Congress opened
certain Organising Committee members had shown some dissatisfaction
with the editorial board. For example, the Bundist member was highly
indignant that the editorial board had sent its contribution of five
hundred marks to the election fund of the German Social- Democrats in
its own name and that of the Organising Committee without first
obtaining the latter’s sanction. This innocent action, which was quite
natural considering the impossibility of communicating promptly with
the comrades in Russia, was interpreted by the Bundist as meaning that
the editors, living abroad, made free with the name of the Organising
Committee without asking its consent. A motion was even tabled in the
Organising Committee to censure the editors for this, and it was
passed, because the Bundist was supported by Comrade NN, a member of
the Iskra organisation. When I told Martov of this, he was
much incensed, and said it was “infamous”. (Martov: “I did not use the
word ’infamous’.") I do not remember the exact expression he
used. Martov added that he “would not let the matter rest
there”. I, for my part, tried to persuade him that the incident was of no great significance, and that it
would be better to say nothing and attach no importance to
it. When the meeting of the Organising Committee by the window
was over, Comrade Paviovich, who was a member of it, informed
the other two members of the Bureau that on the motion of the
belated Yuzhny Rabochy delegate, who was also a member of the Organising Committee, the latter had decided by a
majority of all against Paviovich himself to invite the Borba
representative Ryazanov to the Congress, in a deliberative
capacity. Comrade Pavlovich had objected strongly to this
decision, and, as binding instructions had been abolished, he
considered himself at liberty to protest against it to the
Congress. We Bureau members, and also the editors and other
Iskra -ists, were outraged at this decision of the
Organising Committee. Comrade NN, the Organising Committee
member I have mentioned, had him self spoken in the Credentials
Committee against admitting a Borba representative to the
Congress, yet now, at this meeting of the Organising Committee,
he had agreed to invite one. He was himself trying now to
smuggle Ryazanov into the Congress. We had thus been caught in a
trap. And we decided to fight with might and main against this
disgraceful Organising Committee decision. Many delegates rose
and opposed it. In my own speech on the subject I spoke of
“the storm of indignation that is aroused at European congresses when people say one thing at committees and another
on
the floor of the congress”. In saying this I had in mind
NN, who was a member of the Iskra organisation. When
Comrade Paviovich made his protest to the Congress against this
decision of the Organising Committee, the Yuzhny Rabochy member found this to be a breach of discipline, a
disruptive move, and so on, and demanded that the Congress
inflict suitable punishment on Comrade Paviovich for his
action. But we were able to smash all these arguments. The
Organising Committee majority was defeated. A resolution was
passed to the effect that after the Congress had appointed a
Credentials Committee the Organising Committee as a body no
longer had any right to influence the composition of the
Congress. The motion to invite Ryazanov was rejected. But even
since the Congress I have heard some Iskra -ists question: why not have admitted a Borba member to the Congress? (Deutsch: “I said that at
the Congress itself too.") Quite so, and on other questions
also, as I shall have occasion to point out, Comrade Deutsch did
not always vote with the rest of the Iskra -ists, as, for instance, on equality of languages. Some Iskra -ists
have even been expressing the very singular view that the
activities of the Central Committee should reflect all vacillations and primitive conceptions existing in the
Party. And at the Congress certain irresolute, wavering
Iskra -ists spoke in this same spirit. Thus, the idea that all who claim to be Iskra -ists really are
Iskra -ists turns out to be quite mistaken. There are
Iskra -ists who are even ashamed of the name—that is a fact. There are Iskra -ists who fight
Iskra , who obstruct it in all kinds of ways and hinder its activities. Iskra has become
popular, it has become the fashion to call oneself an
Iskra -ist, but that does not prevent many people from remaining what they were before Iskra was recognised by
many of the committees. These unreliable Iskra -ists have done it a great deal of harm. If at least they would fight
it openly and squarely.... But no, they do it in a sneaking,
underhand, surreptitious, secret manner.

Thesecond item on the Tagesordnung of the Party
Congress was the Party programme. The supporters of
Rabocheye Dyelo , the Bundists, and diverse delegates who during the Congress were nicknamed the “Marsh”
practised incredible obstruction. The debate on the programme
dragged out beyond all belief. Akimov alone moved several dozen
amendments. There were arguments literally over single words,
over what conjunction to use. So many amendments had to he
discussed that one Bundist, a member of the Programme Committee,
asked, and with reason, whose draft we were considering, the one
submitted by the editors of Iskra , or one submitted by
Akimov. The amendments were trifling, and the programme was
adopted without any changes of importance whatever; nevertheless, the debates took up about .twenty sittings, so
unproductive was the work of the Congress owing to the opposition of various anti-Iskra-ist and quasi
Iskra -ist elements.

Thenext major incident to arise at the Congress after the Organising
Committee incident was in connection with equality of languages, or,
as it was ironically called at the

Congress, “freedom of tongues”. (Martov:
“Or the ’asses’." Laughter. ) Yes, and the “asses". The point was this. The draft Party programme
spoke of equal rights for all citizens irrespective of sex,
nationality, religion, etc. This was not enough for the
Bundists, and they wanted to write into the programme the right
of every nationality to receive tuition in its own language and
to use it in addressing public and state institutions. When a
garrulous Bundist referred, by way of example, to state stud
farms, Comrade Plekhanov remarked that stud farms had nothing to
do with it, as horses do not talk—"only asses do”. The Bundists took offence at this, evidently thinking
the jest was meant for them.

Itwas over the equality of languages question that the first signs of
a split appeared. In addition to the Bundists, the Rabocheye Dyelo -ists, and the “Marsh”, certain
Iskra -ists too pronounced in favour of “freedom of tongues”. Comrade Deutsch’s votes on this issue evoked our
astonishment, indignation, and disgust; in some cases he abstained,
in others voted against us. In the end the question was decided
amicably and unanimously.

Onthe whole, during the first half of the Congress all the
Iskra -ists stood together. The Bundists claimed there was a
conspiracy against them. One Bundist described the Congress as a
“compact majority”. In reply, I expressed the wish that
our whole Party might become one compact majority.

Butthe second half of the Congress presented an entirely different
picture. From that time began Martov’s historic change of front. The
disagreements that developed between us were by no means
insignificant. They were due to Martov’s erroneous appraisal of the
present situation. Comrade Martov deviated from the line he had
previously adhered to.

Thefifth item on the Tagesordnung was the Rules. An argument
between Martov and myself over Paragraph I of them had already arisen
in the committee. We each upheld a different formulation. Whereas I
proposed defining a Party member as one who accepted the Party
programme, support ed the Party financially and belonged to one of its
organisations, Martov thought it sufficient if, in addition to the
first two conditions, a person worked under the control of one of the
Party organisations. I insisted on my formulation and pointed out that we could not adopt a different definition
of a Party member without departing from the principle of
centralism. To recognise as a Party member one who did not
belong to any Party organisation would mean being against all
control by the Party. Martov was introducing here a new
principle that was entirely contr iry to the principles of Iskra. His formulation widened the boundaries of the
Party. He tried to justify this by saying that our Party must be
a party of the masses. What he was doing was to open the door to
every kind of opportunist, to widen the boundaries of the Party
until they became entirely blurred. In the conditions under
which we have to work this is very dangerous, because it is very
difficult to draw the line between a revolutionary and a
windbag; that made it necessary to narrow the concept “Party”. Martov’s mistake was that he was throwing
the door of the Party wide open to every adventurer, when it had
become apparent that even at the Congress fully one-third of
those present were given to intriguing. Martov on this occasion
acted as an opportunist. His formulation introduced a false,
discordant note into the Rules: every Party member should be
under the control of an organisation, so that the Central
Committee should be able to communicate with every single
member. My formulation provided an incentive to organise. Comrade Martov was cheapening the concept “Party
member”, while it should, I consider, stand high, very high. Martov got the support of Rabocheye Dyelo , the
Bund and the “Marsh”, and with their aid he secured the adoption of his Paragraph I of the Rules.

Then Martov began to say that “defamatory rumours” were being circulated about him. But there was nothing offensive
in pointing out with whom Martov found himself in alliance. I
was the object of a similar reproof when I found myself in
alliance with Comrade Brouck re. And I took no offence when
Martov sent me a note saying: “Look who is voting with you." True, my alliance with Brouck re was a temporary and
accidental one, while Martov’s alliance with the Bund turned out
to be lasting. I was against Mai  toy’s formulation because it
meant

Versumplung . [2]

I warned Martov of that, and our opponents, by following him to a man, provided eloquent illustration of his error. The most dangerous
thing, however, was not that Martov had landed in the marsh, but that,
having accidentally done so, he made no attempt to get out of it, but
sank in deeper and deeper. The Bundists felt they were now the masters
of the situation, and put their mark on the Party Rules.

Duringthe second half of the Congress, too, a compact majority
was formed, only it now consisted of a coalition of the
Martovites plus the “Marsh” plus the Rabocheye Dyelo and Bund compact minority. And this compact majority
stood against the Iskra -ists. One Bundist, seeing the
Iskra ists quarrelling among themselves, said:
“It’s nice to spar when the leaders are at loggerheads." I
cannot understand why the Bund should have withdrawn, things
being as they were. They were actually the masters of the
situation, and could have had a lot their own way. Most
probably, they had binding instructions.

After Paragraph 1 of the Rules had been spoilt in this way, we had to bind the broken pot as tightly as possible, with
a double knot. Naturally, we began to fear that we would be
intrigued against, let down. Hence it was necessary to introduce mutual co-optation to the central bodies, so that the
Party might be assured of their unity of action. Over this a
struggle developed too. Things had to be so arranged that in
the period leading to the Third Party Congress we should not get
a repetition of what had happened with the Organising
Committee. A consistent, honest Iskra ist cabinet had to be formed. On this point we were again defeated. The clause
on mutual co-optation to the central bodies was voted down. The
mistake of Martov, who was supported by the “Marsh”, stood out more saliently than ever. From that moment the
coalition was definitely formed and, on pain of defeat, we had
to load our guns with double charges. There sat the Bund and
Rabocheye Dyelo , their votes deciding the fate of the
Congress. That caused the stub born, bitter struggle that
ensued.

Ishall now pass to the private meetings of the Iskra organisation. At these we chiefly discussed the composition of the
Central Committee. At all four meetings of the Iskra organisation, there were debates on the subject of Comrade NN, on whom
a section of the Iskra -ists wanted to pass a vote of political non-confidence, though not in the
literal sense of the term, for no one imputed to NN any thing
that disgraced him, but in the specific sense that he was unfit
to be a member of the Iskra -ist cabinet. This led to a
desperate scrap. At the last meeting, the meeting of the
sixteen, nine voted against NN, four in favour, while the rest
abstained. At this meeting, too, we discussed who was now to be
included in our cabinet.

Martovand I proposed different “trios”; we could not agree on them. Not wanting to split the vote at the
Congress, we decided to propose a compromise list. We were
prepared to make every concession: I agreed to a list that included two
Martovites. The minority rejected this. Incidentally, a
Yuzhny Rabochy delegate refused to be included in our list while consenting to be included in the Martovite list. It
was Yuzhny Rabochy—an outside element— that was deciding the question of the Central Committee. After the
Iskra -ists had split, we had to muster our sup porters,
and we started a vigorous agitation. The unexpected withdrawal
of the Bund reversed the whole situation. With its withdrawal,
there was again a compact majority and minority. We were now in
the majority, and we secured the election to the Central
Committee of the people we wanted.

Suchwere the circumstances that led to the split. It was exceedingly
tactless of Martov to raise at the Congress the question of endorsing
all the six editors of Iskra , when he knew that I would
insist on the editors having to be elected. It meant turning the
election of the editorial board into an expression of non-confidence
in individual editors.

Theelections ended at five o’clock on Saturday. We then proceeded to
discuss the resolutions. We had only a few hours left for this. Owing
to the obstruction and delays caused by the “Marsh”, many
important items had to be dropped from the Tagesordnang; not
enough time was left, for instance, to discuss all the tactical
questions.

Overthe resolutions the Congress was so unanimous that we formed the
impression that a conciliatory mood had developed; it seemed to us
that Martov was not going to make the disagreements that had arisen an
issue of state. He even said, when one of the Yuzhny Rabochy -ists questioned the validity of the elections, that the
minority accepted all the

Congress decisions. All the resolutions were passed in a peaceful and
amicable spirit; differences arose only over Starover’s resolution on
the liberals. It was vague, and it, too, was marked by opportunism; we
fought it and secured the adoption of an additional resolution on the
same subject.

Thegeneral impression one got of the Congress was that we had
to fight against intrigue. It was made impossible for us to
work. The natural conclusion was: “Heaven preserve us from
friends like these!"—i.e., the quasi-Iskra ists. Martov completely failed to understand this situation. He
elevated his mistaken position to a principle. His assertion
that the majority had instituted a “state of siege” ran glaringly counter to the Party’s real needs. For the work to
be more effective, it was necessary to eliminate the obstructing
elements and make it impossible for them to damage the Party;
only if that were done could our work at the next Congress be
fruitful. That is why it was necessary to establish complete
unity between the central bodies of the Party.

Thefirst half of the Congress was the complete opposite of the
second. The cardinal, major points of the Congress as a whole were the
following four: 1) the Organising Commit tee incident; 2) the debate
on equality of languages; 3) the debate on Paragraph I of the
Rules, and 4) the struggle over the elections to the Party central
bodies.

Duringthe first half of the Congress, Martov stood with us
against the Organising Committee, the Bund, Rabocheye Dyelo and the “Marsh”; during the second half
he landed accidentally in the marsh. Now, after the Congress,
this accidental Versump/ung is turning into a real
Versumpfung . (Applause.)

3

Statement Concerning Martov’s Report, October 15 (28) [7]

Iprotest most emphatically, as against a contemptible method
of struggle, against Martov’s asking who was lying or intriguing in
reporting the private conversation between him, Starover and myself. I
wish to point out that this conflicts glaringly with Martov’s own
statements of yesterday to the effect that he would disdain to raise
the unanswerable question of how truthfully private conversations had
been reproduced! I declare that Martov ’5 account of the private
conversation en question is altogether incorrect. I declare that I agree to any arbitration and that I challenge Martov to
it if he chooses to accuse me of conduct incompatible with holding a
responsible post in the Party. I declare that it is the moral duty of
Martov, who is not levelling any explicit accusations but only
throwing out dark hints—that it is his duty to have the courage
to make his accusations openly and over his signature before the
entire Party, and that I, as a member of the editorial board of the
Party’s Central Organ, propose to him on behalf of the whole editorial
board that he immediately publish a pamphlet containing
all his accusations. By failing to do this, Martov will only
prove that all he wanted was a row at the League Congress, not the
moral cleansing of the Party.

4

Speech On the Rules of the League, October 17 (30)

Ishall dwell chiefly on one point, namely, the main speaker’s
idea that the League is autonomous in drawing up its
Rules. That, in my opinion, is absolutely wrong, for the Central
Committee, in which, under Paragraph 6 of the Party Rules, is
vested the right to organise committees, is the only body that
can draw up Rules for the League; for organising means first and
foremost drawing up Rules. And until the Central Committee
endorses the Rules of the League, the League has no
Rules. The idea of autonomy is absolutely inapplicable here, for
it runs counter to the Party Rules. I once again stress
emphatically that, pending their endorsement by the Central
Committee, the League has no Rules. As to the League having been
endorsed by the Party Congress, that was not in recognition of
its activities, but rather, I should say, in spite of all its
defects—exclusively because of its consistency of principles.

---
Notes:
[1]
See present edition, Vol. 6,
p. 484.— Ed .

[2]
Sinking into the marsh.— Ed .

[3]
The Second Congress of the League of Russian Revolutionary Social-Democracy Abroad was held in Geneva on October 13-18 (26-31),
1903; it was called at the insistence of the Mensheviks. Fifteen of the
delegates (with 18 votes) were majority adherents, headed by Lenin; 18
delegates (22 votes) were minority adherents; and one delegate (with two
votes) belonged to neither majority nor minority.

Themain item on the agenda was the report by Lenin, who had been the League’s
delegate at the Second Party Congress. A co- report was then made by Martov,
who defended the opportunism of the Mensheviks and indulged in calumnious
attacks upon the Bolsheviks. Lenin and his supporters thereupon withdrew
from the Congress. For refusal to submit to the decisions of the Second
Party Congress, the Central Committee and the Party Council pronounced the
League Congress unlawful.

[4]
This paper on the national question Lenin later worked up into an article
for Iskra , under the title. “The National Question in Our
Programme” (present edition, Vol. 6, pp. 454-63).

[5]
The Polish Socialist Party (P.S.P.), founded in 1892, was a
petty-bourgeois nationalist party.

[6]
The “Iskra” organisation in Russia served to unite the
Iskra sup porters working within the country. Even before the paper
began publication and during the first year of its existence (December
1900-December 1901), a network of Iskra “agents” (P. N. and 0. B. Lepeshinsky, P. A. Krasikov, A. M. Stopani, G. M. and
Z. P. Krzhizhanovsky, S. I. and L. N. Radchenko, A. D. Tsurupa,
N. E. Bauman, I. V. Babushkin, and others) was set up in various parts of
the country, and in a number of towns (St. Petersburg, Pskov, Samara,
Poltava, and others), groups for assistance to Iskra were
formed. These groups and agents collected funds for the paper, acted as its
correspondents, arranged for its transport and distri bution, and set up
facilities for reprinting it in Russia. During this period, however, they
had little contact with each other and for the most p art communicated
directly with the editorial board.

Butas the revolutionary movement mounted and the volume of practical work
increased, it became essential to concert their efforts,to work on planned
and organised lines to counter the parochial amateurishness which the
Economists were fostering and win the Social-Democratic committees to
Iskra’s side. Lenin accordingly put forward a plan for an
all-Russia Iskra organisation, which was to pave the way for
uniting Russia’s scattered Social-Demo cratic organisations into a single
centralised Marxist party. This plan he originally outlined in his article
“Where To Begin” (May 1901), and subsequently elaborated in
detail in What Is To Be Done? (autumn 1901-February 1902).

Incarrying out this plan Lenin and his associates had to combat parochial
tendencies among some of the Iskra practical workers. “We
must say," Lenin wrote in a letter to S. 0. Zederbaum in July 1901 (present
edition, Vol. 34), “that we in general regard any plan for the
publication of any district or local organ by the Iskra
organisation in Russia as absolutely incorrect and harmful. The
Iskra organisation exists in order to support and build up
Iskra and to unite the Party thereby, not to cause a dispersion of forces, of which there is quite enough without it."

In January 1902 a conference of Iskra -ists was held in Samara, with
G. M. and Z. P. Krzhizhanovsky, F. V. Lengnik, M. A. Silvin,
V. P. Artsybushev, and D. 1. and M. I. Ulyanov taking part. This conference
set up a Bureau of the Iskra organisation in Rus sia, established
regular arrangements for contacts among members of the organisation and with
the editorial board and for the collection and allocation of funds, and
mapped out the line in relation to the committees and local publications. It
was further ducided, with a view to the cardinal objective of securing the
committees’ adherence to Iskra and recognition of it as the general
Party organ, to send members out to various parts of the
country. “Your ini tiative," Lenin wrote to the organisers of the
conference, “has heart ened us tremendously. Hurrah! That’s the right
way! Reach out wider! And operate more independently, with greater
initiative— you are the first to have begun in such a broad way, and
that means the continuation, too, will be successful” (Lenin Miscellany VIII , p. 221).

Althoughthe arrest of a number of Iskra -ists in February 1902 put
added difficulties in the way of carrying out the conference decisions, the
Iskra organisation, with What Is To Be Done? to guide it,
launched a vigorous drive to propagate and practically execute Lenin’s plan
for building a real p arty. It achieved far-reaching results in effecting
actual unity of the Social-Democratic organisations on the principles of
revolutionary Marxism. By the end of 1902 nearly all the leading committees
had proclaimed their solidarity with Iskra .

The Iskra -ists were the leading spirits in setting up, at the Pskov
conference of November 2-3 (15-16), 1902, the Organising Committee for
convening the Second Party Congress, and to this com mittee they handed over
all their contacts. The Iskra organisation, which remained in
existence until the Second Party Congress, played a vital part in preparing
and arranging that Congress, which brought into being a revolutionary
Marxist party in Russia.

[7]
The Statement Concerning Martov’s Report was read by Lenin at the
third sitting of the League Congress and handed in to the Congress
Bureau. No court of arbitration to examine Martov’s slanderous accusations
was ever held, as Martov was obliged to admit, in a letter of November 16
(29), 1903, that he had no doubts of Lenin’s sincerity and good faith.