V. I. Lenin

Source: ru:LS/v10;es:MT
Translated: machine translation (DeepSeek) from the Russian; AI-translated.

150.
V. I. LENIN. TO THE BUREAU OF THE C.C. IN RUSSIA*
January 2, 1904 [Geneva]

P.S. I have just received the proofs of Axelrod’s article in No. 55 of Iskra¹ (No. 55 will appear in about two days²). It is even more vile than Martov’s article (“Our Congress”) in No. 53. Here we have “ambitious fantasies” “inspired by the traditions of Schweitzer’s dictatorship.” Again accusations that the “omniscient centre” “disposes at its personal (sic!) discretion” of “party members turned (!!) into cogs and wheels.” “The establishment of an infinite number of all sorts of departments, divisions, sections, offices, workshops.” The transformation of revolutionaries (by God, it’s true!) “into heads of departments, clerks, sergeant-majors, non-commissioned officers, privates, constables, artisans” (sic!). The C.C., it is alleged, “should be only a collective agent of this authority (the authority of the Iskra editorial board), be under its strict guardianship and vigilant control.” Such is the “organisational utopia of a theocratic character” (sic!). “The triumph of bureaucratic centralism in the party organisation—such is the result...” (by God, it’s true!). In connection with this article I again and again appeal to all members of the C.C.: can this really be left without protest and struggle? Do you not feel that by tolerating this in silence you are becoming nothing more nor less than purveyors of gossip (about Schweitzer and his pawns) and disseminators of slander (about bureaucrats, i.e., yourselves and the entire majority)? And under such “ideological leadership” do you consider it possible to carry on “positive work”? Or do you know of any other honest means of struggle besides a congress?

((The Martovites apparently have Kiev, Kharkov, the Mining District, Rostov and the Crimea. That makes 10 votes + the League + the editorial board of the C.O. + 2 in the Council = 16 votes out of 49³. If all forces are immediately directed to Nikolayev, Siberia and the Caucasus, they can quite easily be left with 1/3⁴.))

* Printed from the draft of the letter preserved in Lenin’s archive together with the two preceding documents 148 and 149. Ed.

¹ P. B. Axelrod’s article: “The Unification of the Russian Social-Democracy and Its Tasks” was printed as a feuilleton in Nos. 55 and 57 of Iskra. Here Lenin refers to the first part of this article, printed in No. 55 with the subtitle: “The Results of the Liquidation of Handicraft Methods.” In his pamphlet *One Step Forward, Two Steps Back* Lenin devoted a special chapter to the analysis of this and a number of other articles in subsequent issues of Iskra: “r) The New Iskra. Opportunism in Questions of Organisation” (Collected Works, Vol. V, pp. 452-478). Axelrod’s article, which aimed at summing up and evaluating the results of the work of the Second Party Congress, was in fact devoted to criticising and discrediting the organisational line of the majority and at the same time belittled the significance and undermined the authority of the Congress itself. The content of the first part of the article can be briefly summarised by the following quotations from it: “The Congress was to have radically liquidated the liabilities left by the preceding periods. For this it would have been necessary for it clearly to define the tasks which the united Party would have to pursue, and to outline the ways by which it should accomplish them. It was also the business of the Congress to work out directives or instructions to the central bodies concerning the preliminary work necessary for preparing the Party for the extension of the range of its tasks and the arena of its activity. But nothing of the kind was done. The Congress contented itself with discussing and adopting the programme, drawing up the Rules and electing members to the C.O. and the C.C. Then the majority of the delegates dispersed, in the naive conviction that they had radically finished with the liquidation of the period of infancy of our movement, not even suspecting that now, precisely after the formal unification of the Party, the question ‘What Is To Be Done?’ confronts us in all its historical concreteness and complexity”... “And so, the triumph of bureaucratic centralism in the party organisation [our italics. Ed.]—such is the result of the party struggle of revolutionary Social-Democracy with ‘handicraft methods.’ But this centralism, by its inner tendency, is a blood brother of handicraft methods”... “The bureaucratic regime in the party... will have to surrender at the very first steps of the most independent elements of the party on the new path—or else turn into a bulwark and instrument for new opportunist tendencies, but this time not of an economic, but of a political character” (author’s italics. Ed.).

² Issue No. 55 of Iskra is dated December 15, 1903, i.e., December 28, N.S. This indication by Lenin shows that in fact No. 55 appeared a week later, i.e., not earlier than December 22, 1903 (January 4, 1904). This case shows that the official dating of the issues of Iskra did not always correspond to reality.

³ 49 votes—this was the total number of votes which, from the point of view of representation at the Congress, the entire party organisation possessed, consisting of all (20) fully entitled local organisations and central bodies after the Second Congress on the basis of the adopted Party Rules. This sum (49 votes) was obtained from the following calculation: 20 local organisations with 2 votes each (40 votes) + the C.C. and the C.O. with 2 votes each (4 votes) + the Party Council in full (5 votes). For the list of fully entitled (after the Second Congress) organisations see *Lenin Miscellany* VI, Document 16, p. 192.

⁴ According to Paragraph 2 of the Party Rules adopted at the Second Congress, “The Party Council [was] obliged to convene a congress if this is demanded by party organisations which together have the right to half the votes at the congress” (see *Minutes* of the Second Party Congress, 1924 ed., p. 7, para. 2). At the time described, Lenin counted on having 2/3 of the votes (49—16=33 votes) of the entire party organisation for the convening of a congress, which number, according to his calculations, consisted of the following organisations: 14 local organisations (St. Petersburg, Moscow, Nizhni-Novgorod, Saratov, Ufa, Odessa, Yekaterinoslav, Baku, Batum, Tiflis, Nikolayev, Tula, the Northern and Siberian Unions) with 2 votes each, the C.C.—2 votes and in the Party Council—3 votes (at that moment Lenin hoped that Plekhanov in the Council would be for the congress).