TO THE ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITTEE
WITH THE TEXT OF I. K. KRUPSKAYA’S LETTER*

Received the OC letter.

I propose to answer like this:

"In our opinion, the question of the "ordre du jour"* stands as follows. The congress itself, and only it, decides this question, the "ordre du jour," definitively. Therefore, arguing about the decisive votes on this point is completely useless. Further, a mass of committees has already recognized the "exclusive initiative" of the OC in convening the congress. It follows from this that the preliminary preparation of the congress, including the preliminary preparation (respective propaganda) of the ordre du jour, is entrusted exclusively to the Organizational Committee. Therefore, to propose to vote again on the "preliminary" ordre du jour to anyone else is completely superfluous: it cannot have decisive significance. Furthermore, this will only cause both red tape and discontent, because there will be offended (unsolicited committees), there will inevitably be dissatisfied and complaining. Consequently, both from the point of view of formal loyalty and from the point of view of tact, no formal decision should be made about collecting votes from committees or anyone else. This will only undermine the authority of the OC, which is renouncing the exclusive initiative granted to it.

If it is already very inconvenient to modify the adopted (and formally impeccable) decision, then perhaps there would be such a way out: to turn the voting (of committees) into a consultation with them, i.e., to decree that the OC will, as far as possible, try to take advantage of meetings and conversations for consultation.

Sent by N. K. Krupskaya to London for forwarding a letter to the Organizational Committee (text in quotes) to Kharkov. Ed.

* – agenda. Ed.

* – or. Ed.


In conclusion, we advise you to hurry with the congress. The sooner you convene it, the better. And immediately and more actively get down to preparing the committees, nominating delegates, conquering Nikolaev and Odessa. The main thing is to ensure complete confidence in the undoubted majority of decisive Iskra-ites."

Nevzorov disgraced himself yesterday: both Charles Rappoport and Krichevsky took him apart. There were no Iskra-ites.232

I am probably leaving on Sunday. Trains arrive not at 6, but at 3:45 and at 10:45. Probably on one of these.

Yours...

Written between March 4 and 7, 1903.

Sent from Paris to London

First published in 1928 Printed from the manuscript in Lenin Miscellany VIII

TO THE ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITTEE

Letter to the OC

We have just received the charter of the congress. So, we misunderstood you and answered about the ordre du jour, when you asked about the charter of the congress. We hasten to report that in general we are very pleased with your draft, which is carefully and reasonably drawn up. Paragraph 19, which caused disputes, seems rational to us: it is really inconvenient and impossible to exclude certain organizations from the congress (and the charter is precisely, in the final analysis, a charter about excluding some and the legitimacy of others) without the consent of the majority of committees. We would only advise you to set a mandatory and formal deadline, as short as possible (for example, no more than one week), during which committees and organizations are required to develop and send their amendments to the draft charter. This is extremely necessary in order to

* – agenda. Ed.