1

Lenin briefly defends his formulation, emphasizing in particular that it provides an incentive: "organize yourselves!"{112}. One must not think that party organizations should consist only of professional revolutionaries. We need the most diverse organizations of all kinds, ranks, and shades, beginning with extremely narrow and conspiratorial ones and ending with very broad, free, lose Organisationen. The necessary characteristic of a party organization is its confirmation by the Central Committee.

2

First of all, I would like to make two remarks of a particular nature. First, concerning the kind (I say this without irony) proposal from Axelrod to "haggle." I would readily respond to this call, for I do not at all consider our disagreement so essential that the life or death of the party depends on it. We will hardly perish from a bad paragraph in the statute! But once the matter has come down to a choice between two formulations, I cannot in any way renounce my firm conviction that Martov's formulation represents a deterioration of the original draft, a deterioration that can bring the party, under certain conditions, considerable harm. The second remark concerns comrade Brucker. It is quite natural that, desiring to introduce the elective principle everywhere, comrade Brucker accepted my formulation, which alone defines the concept of a party member with any precision whatsoever. I therefore do not understand comrade Martov's pleasure at comrade Brucker's agreement with me. Does comrade Martov really consider for himself the opposite of what Brucker says, without examining his motives and arguments?

Turning to the substance of the matter, I will say that comrade Trotsky has completely failed to understand the fundamental idea of comrade Plekhanov and therefore has avoided in his reasoning the entire essence of the question. He spoke of intellectuals and workers, of the class point of view and of mass movement, but failed to notice one fundamental question: does my formulation narrow or broaden the concept of a party member? If he had posed this question to himself, he would easily have seen that my formulation narrows this concept, while Martov's broadens it, differing (in Martov's own apt expression) in its "elasticity." And precisely this "elasticity" in such a period of party life as we are experiencing will undoubtedly open the doors to all elements of discord, vacillation, and opportunism. To refute this simple and obvious conclusion, one would need to prove that no such elements exist, and comrade Trotsky has not even thought to do this. And indeed it cannot be proved, for everyone knows that such elements exist in considerable numbers, that they exist even within the working class. The safeguarding of the firmness of our party line and the purity of its principles becomes now a matter all the more urgent, since the party, restored to its unity, will admit into its ranks a great many unstable elements, whose number will grow as the party grows. Comrade Trotsky has very incorrectly understood the fundamental idea of my book "What Is to Be Done?" when he said that the party is not a conspiratorial organization (this objection has been raised against me by many others as well). He forgot that in my book I presuppose a whole series of different types of organizations, beginning with the most conspiratorial and most narrow ones and ending with comparatively broad and "free" ones (lose)[65]. He forgot that the party must be only the vanguard detachment, the leader of the enormous mass of the working class, which in its entirety (or almost in its entirety) works "under the control and guidance" of party organizations, but which does not enter in its entirety and should not enter in its entirety into the party. Just look at what conclusions comrade Trotsky arrives at because of his fundamental error. He told us here that if rows and rows of workers were arrested and all workers declared their non-membership in the party, then our party would be strange! Is it not the opposite? Is not comrade Trotsky's reasoning strange? He considers grievous what would only gladden any experienced revolutionary. If hundreds and thousands of workers arrested for strikes and demonstrations turned out not to be members of party organizations, this would prove only that our organizations are good, that we are fulfilling our task – to conspire a more or less narrow circle of leaders and to attract to the movement as broad a mass as possible. The root of the error of those who stand for Martov's formulation lies in the fact that they not only ignore one of the fundamental evils of our party life, but even sanctify this evil. This evil consists in the fact that in an atmosphere of nearly universal political discontent, under conditions of complete secrecy of work, under conditions of the concentration of the greater part of activity in tight secret circles and even private meetings, we find it extremely difficult, almost impossible, to distinguish between talkers and workers. And hardly any other country exists in which the mixing of these two categories has been so customary, has introduced such darkness of confusion and harm, as in Russia. Not only among the intelligentsia, but also among the working class do we suffer grievously from this evil, and comrade Martov's formulation legalizes this evil. This formulation inevitably tends to make everyone and each individual members of the party; comrade Martov himself was obliged to admit this with the reservation – "if you wish, yes," he said. Precisely this we do not wish! Precisely for this reason we rise so decisively against Martov's formulation. It is better that ten workers do not call themselves members of the party (genuine workers do not chase after titles!) than that one talker should have the right and possibility to be a member of the party. This is the principle which seems to me irrefutable and which compels me to struggle against Martov. I have been objected to that we do not grant party members any rights whatsoever, therefore no abuses can occur. Such an objection is completely unsound: if we have not specified what particular rights a party member receives, then note that we have provided no indication either of limitations on the rights of party members. This is in the first place. And in the second place, and this is the main point, quite apart from rights, one cannot forget that every party member is answerable to the party and the party is answerable for every member. Under our conditions of political activity, given the embryonic state of genuine political organization, it would be directly dangerous and harmful to grant non-members of an organization the right of membership and to impose responsibility on the party for such people who do not enter an organization (and do not enter, perhaps intentionally). Comrade Martov came into a panic at the thought that in court a non-member of a party organization would not have the right, despite his energetic work, to call himself a member of the party. This does not frighten me. Serious harm would result, on the contrary, if in court there presented himself from an undesirable side a man who calls himself a member of the party while not belonging to any of the party organizations. It is impossible to refute that such a person worked under the control and guidance of an organization; it is impossible precisely because of the vagueness of the term. In fact – and this cannot be doubted – the words "under control and guidance" will lead to the result that there will be neither control nor guidance. The Central Committee will never be able to extend genuine control over all who work but do not enter organizations. Our task is to give genuine control into the hands of the Central Committee. Our task is to safeguard the firmness, consistency, and purity of our party. We must strive to raise the standing and significance of party member higher, higher, and higher – and therefore I am against Martov's formulation.

Verified against the manuscript

3

Lenin insists on the inclusion of words about material support, since everyone acknowledges that the party must exist on the means of its members. One cannot, in the question of creating a political party, appeal to moral considerations.