## A NOTE ON THE POSITION OF THE NEW "ISKRA."
[December, after the 8th, 1903. Geneva.]

What particularly outrages me in the position that the "March" Iskra has now adopted is the internal falseness and lies, the attempts to evade the substance of the matter, the attempts to juggle away party public opinion and decisions, the attempts to substitute concepts and facts. And only by lack of familiarity with the matter am I inclined to explain the stupidity and indifference, the insensitivity to this lie that some comrades are displaying. Against ignorance one must struggle through clarification, and in no case will I abandon my intention to clarify the entire matter in exhaustive detail (if necessary with all documents) in a special pamphlet, which I shall undertake as soon as the protocols of the party and league congresses come out, i.e., very soon¹.

The basic trick by which the March people are hoodwinking the party (deceiving perhaps even themselves first and foremost on account of their hysteria), is, in the first place, the substitution of the actual sources and causes of disagreement among the Iskrists. This is, in the second place, the substitution of concepts regarding circle-mongering and disorganization, regarding sectarianism and partisanship.

The first substitution consists in presenting as "principled" disagreement what is in essence the mutual name-calling that both sides engaged in after the congress during the struggle of the center against the opposition. The name-calling consisted in the opposition calling the majority autocrats, formalists, bureaucrats, etc., while the majority called the opposition hysterical upstarts, a party of rejected ministers or hysterical scandal-mongers (see the League congress).

And now one side of these mutual "compliments" is being brought into the C.C. as principled disagreement! Is this not base?

* — (escamoter) to steal cleverly, imperceptibly; to hoodwink; to juggle.
Ed.

## A NOTE ON THE POSITION OF THE NEW "ISKRA"

In fact, the cause of disagreement lay precisely in the turn of the March people toward the swamp. This turn expressed itself clearly at the congress on § 1 of the statutes and on the grouping during the elections to the centers. This disagreement, in a certain part of it undoubtedly principled, is being evaded and hushed up.

The second substitution consists in the fact that, by disorganizing the entire Party and all work over the course of three months for the sake of circle interests, for the sake of wriggling into the centers (for no one prevented polemics on the merits and freedom of expression of opinion; on the contrary, the March people were invited and urged to write), the March people, having now wormed their way in through the back entrance into the editorial office, are substituting for this a ridiculous accusation of the majority in disorganizing formalism, bureaucratism, etc., while hushing up their own boycott, their own wriggling-in, etc. Is this not base? It is one of two things: either to consign all this "squabbling" to oblivion and then not speak of it at all, not let the belches of squabbling into the C.C., for the cries about bureaucratism are precisely the belches of the basest wriggling-in. Or to raise the question of disagreement—and then already to lay it all bare.

¹ The pamphlet which Lenin here promised to write for a detailed clarification before the party of the true meaning of the disagreements that arose at the second congress of the party and which gave rise to the split was indeed written by him. This was the pamphlet "One Step Forward, Two Steps Back," which came out in May 1904 (Collected Works, vol. VII, pp. 303—490). The idea of the necessity to write such a pamphlet was first expressed by Lenin at the third session of the League congress in his written statement protesting against the method of struggle employed by Martov in his supplementary report on the second party congress ("Lenin Collection" VII, document 69, p. 171).