V. I.

Lenin

To the Party Membership [1]

A circle or a party? That is the question our Central Organ
has posed for discussion.

We consider discussion of this question to be exceed ingly
timely. We invite the editorial board of our Central Organ to
begin by taking a look at itself. What is this editorial board?
Is it a circle of persons who have been together for so-and-so
many years and who have now forced their way on to the editorial
board by means of a boycott, disruptive activities and the
threat of a split, or is it a body of officials of our Party?

Do not try to evade the point by saying that you were co-opted
legally, in accordance with the Rules. We do not question the
legality of it; but we invite you not to con fine yourselves to
the formal aspect, but to answer the sub stance of our question. We want, not merely a juridical, but a political
answer. And we want that answer from you , gentlemen, “editors” who were never elected by the Congress,
never appointed by the Party, and not from Comrade Plekhanov,
who, perhaps, had no alternative but to co-opt you in order to
avoid a split.

Are you a circle or a body of Party officials?

If you are a circle, then why this hypocrisy and sham, these
phrases about a party? Have you not, in reality, disrupted that
Party, mocking for weeks and months at its institutions and its
Rules? Have you not, in reality, repudiated the decisions of
the Second Congress of that Party, have you not brought matters
to the point of a split, have you not refused to submit to the
Central Committee and the Council? Have you not placed yourselves outside the Party by saying that for you Party congresses are not divine, i.e., not
binding? You trample upon the institutions and laws of the Party and
at the same time are pleased to use the imprint “Central Party
Organ"!

But if you are Party officials, would you mind explaining to the Party
why, and in the name of what, persons who were not appointed by the
Congress insisted on ensconcing themselves in a central Party
institution? Perhaps in the name of the “continuity” of
the old family circle of editors? To think that people who at the
League Congress passed resolutions about this philistine
“continuity” now want to bamboozle us with talk of the
Party! Why, what right have you to talk of a party?

You describe as formalists those who take their stand on the formal
decisions of the Second Congress—because you must blur and gloss
over the fact that you have betrayed the trust of your comrades,who, every one of them, pledged themselves over and over
again to obey the decisions of the Congress. You do not submit to
formal decisions when they are against you, but at the same time you
unblushingly invoke the formal rights of the League when those rights
are to your advantage, you invoke the formal decisions of the Party
Council now that you have managed, against the Party’s will, to
insinuate yourselves into this, the supreme Party institution.

You describe as bureaucrats those who hold Party posts by the will of
the Party Congress, not the caprice of an 6migr6 circle of
writers. You have to do this to cover up the disagreeable fact that
it is indeed a spirit of bureaucracy, a spirit of place-hunting that
obsesses those who just could not bring themselves to work in the
Party except as members of its central institutions. Yes, your
behaviour has indeed clearly shown us that our Party suffers from a
spirit of bureaucracy that puts office above work and shuns neither
boycott nor disruption in the effort to get into office.

You describe as grossly mechanical decisions passed by a majority vote
at the Party Congress, but you do not consider grossly mechanical and
scandalous the methods of struggle in the colonies abroad and at the
League Congress which gained you your shameful victory over our Party
editorial board! You do not see anything hypocritical in protestations of recognising the Party being made by people who have
fought for and obtained control of the Central Party Organ although
they were a minority at the Party Congress!

And you call these hypocritical efforts to whitewash your indecent,
anti-Party behaviour, this preaching of anarchy, this mockery of the
Party Congress, this opportunist justifying of circle philistinism—you call this your new organisational standpoint!

Comrades! Those who are serious in counting themselves members of the
Party must raise an emphatic voice of pro test and put a stop to this
shameful state of affairs! Those who are serious about
Iskra’s three years of work and the Party Congress which it
prepared, and which expressed the will of those Russian
Social-Democrats who are really convinced on the basis of principle
and are really working, will never allow an 6migr6 circle to trample
underfoot all that this Party Congress achieved.

Either—or.

Either we have no party and are completely in the power of an 6migr6
writers’ editorial circle that our Congress rejected—and in that
case, away with this hypocritical talk of a party, away with the false
imprints of “Party” publications, organs and institutions!
We are not the Socialist-Revolutionaries, we have no need of painted
scenery. The party of the proletariat demands the truth. The party of
the proletariat demands the ruthlessly outspoken exposure of the
obsolete circle spirit. We must have the courage to admit that there
is no party and set to work from the beginning, from the very
beginning, to create and build up a real party. We shall not be
daunted by the temporary victory of the circle spirit, we believe and
know that the class-conscious Russian proletariat will be able to
build itself a party in fact, and not just in name, a party in the
sense of genuine party institutions, not in the sense of false
imprints.

Or we do have a party—and in that case, away with all circle
interests, away with gatherings of 6migr6 rowdies! In that case, let
our Party editorial board be vacated at once by those not
appointed to it by the Party Congress. In that case, let the editorial
board of the Central Organ be restored as elected by the Congress. In that case, let
our Party organ advocate the views of the Party majority, let our Party organ defend Party organisation
and the Party institutions instead of trampling them in the mud.

Down with the circle spirit, and, first of all, down with it on
our Party editorial board!

Down with disrupters!

Long live the party of the proletariat, a party able to observe
in practice the decisions of the Party Congress and to respect
Party discipline and organisation!

Down with hypocritical talk and false imprints!

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Notes:
[1]
This appeal was written by Lenin in connection with Martov’s article
“Problems of the Day (A Circle or a Party?)" in Iskra , No. 56
(January 1,1904).