V. I.

Lenin

Theeditors of Iskra state in its 55th issue that the
Central Committee and the opposition “agreed to consign to
oblivion” the facts mentioned in my “Letter to the
Editors of Iskra” ("Why I Resigned from the
Iskra Editorial

Board"). [1]

This statement of the editors is an evasion which (to use Comrade Axelrod’s admirable style)
really is formalistic, official and bureaucratic. In reality
there was no such agreement, as the Central Committee’s
foreign representative has plainly stated in a leaflet published immediately following the appearance of the 55th issue
of Iskra. And there could not have been any such agreement, as should be clear to anyone who reads my letter
attentively; for the opposition rejected the “peace and good will” offered by the Central
Committee, one condition of which would certainly have been to consign to oblivion everything that deserved it. When
the editors rejected the peace offer and declared war on the famous bureaucracy in No. 63, can they have been so naive
as to hope that the other side would keep quiet about the
real origin of these fables about bureaucracy?

Theeditors were very much displeased when I described the real origin
of these fables as squabbling (Literatenge zäink—writers’ squabbling). And no wonder! But, after all, you
cannot dispose of this truly unpleasant fact by mouthing sorry phrases
about it.

Wewill take the liberty of asking our worthy editors two questions.

Firstquestion. Why is one person merely amused by the most violent charges of being an
autocrat, of instituting a Robespierre regime, of staging a
coup, and so on and so forth, while others are mortally
offended by a calm statement reciting the facts and telling of a demand for generals’ posts that actually was put
forward—so offended as to indulge in absolutely “rubbishy” talk about “personalities”,
“moral aspersions”, and even “low” (where did they get that from??) “motives"? Why this
difference, my good friends? Not because the “post” of general is “lower” than that of autocrat, surely?

Secondquestion. Why don’t the editors explain to the reader why (in that remote past when they belonged to
the opposition and really were “in the minority") they expressed the desire to have certain facts consigned to oblivion? Do not the editors think that the very idea of
desiring to “consign to oblivion” differences of principle is absurd and could not have occurred to any
right-minded person?

Soyou see how clumsy you are, my dear “political opponents"!
You wanted to annihilate me with the charge that it was I who was reducing a dispute over principles to the level
of a squabble; instead, you have only confirmed my contention
as to the real origin of some of your “differences of opinion”.

Further,while admitting, out of clumsiness, that there were
squabbles, the editors do not trouble to explain to the reader
where, in their opinion, the difference of principle ends and
the squabbling begins. They pass over the fact that in my letter
I endeavour to draw a perfectly clear line between the two. I show there that the difference of principle (which was by
no means so profound as to cause a real divergence )
arose over Paragraph I of the Rules and was widened by the
Iskra -ist minority joining forces with the non-Iskra -ist elements towards the end of the
Congress. I further show that the talk about bureaucracy,
formalism and the rest is chiefly just an echo of squabbles that occurred after the Congress .

Theeditors probably do not agree with this demarcation between what relates to “principle” and what should be
“consigned to oblivion”. Then why have they not troubled
to give their own opinion as to what a “correct” demarcation between them would be? Is it not because they have not yet drawn (and
cannot draw) any line between the two things in their own minds?

Fromthe article by our esteemed Comrade Axelrod in this same
55th issue of Iskra the reader may judge what this... inability to discriminate leads to and what our Central
Party Organ is turning into. Comrade Axelrod does not say a single word about the substance of our controversy over
Paragraph I of the Rules, but confines himself to hints about
“peripheral societies” that mean absolutely nothing to anyone who was not at the Congress. Comrade Axelrod has
probably forgotten how long and closely we argued over
Paragraph I!—but, on the other hand, he has evolved a “theory” to the effect that “the majority of
the Iskra -ists at the Congress were convinced that their main task was... to fight the internal
enemy”. “In the face of this mission”, our esteemed Comrade Axelrod is firmly convinced, “the
immediate positive task became overshadowed” in the eyes
of the majority. “The prospects of positive work were relegated to the dim remoteness of an indefinite future”;
the
Party was faced with the more urgent “military task of pacifying the internal enemy”. And Comrade Axelrod cannot
find words severe enough to brand this “bureaucratic [2]

[or mechanical] centralism”, these “Jacobin” (!!?)
plans, these “disrupters” who “repress and persecute” people as “mutineers”.

Inorder to demonstrate the true worth of this theory— or,
rather, of these accusations against the Congress majority of a
disruptive tendency to repress mutiny (imaginary mutiny, it is to be supposed) and of ignoring positive work, I
have only to remind the forgetful Comrade Axelrod of one (to begin with) little fact. On October 6,1903,
after repeatedly pleading with the members of the minority on
account of the stupidity and disruptiveness of their boycott,
Plekhanov and I officially invited the “mutinous” writers (Comrade Axelrod among them) to get down to positive work; we
officially told them that it was unreasonable to withdraw from this
work, whether because of personal irritation or of differences of
opinion (for an exposition of which we were throwing open the
columns of our publications). [3]

Comrade Axelrod has forgotten this. He has forgotten that his reply
then was a flat refusal, without any reasons stated. He has forgotten
that in his view at that time, in those distant days, “positive
work was relegated to the dim remoteness of an indefinite
future”, which future became a much-desired present only on
November 26,

1903. [4]

Comrade Axelrod has not only “forgotten” this, but generally would like, would he not, to have such
“personalities” “consigned to oblivion”.

Topoint out to the minority that for months on end they have
been disrupting the Party, neglecting positive work, and taking up
an immense amount of the energies of the Central Committee by
their squabbling is to indulge in “personalities”, cast
moral aspersions, and reduce a struggle between trends to the level of
a squabble. There is no place in the columns of the Central Organ for
that.

Butto accuse the Party Congress majority of having dared to waste
time by pleading with the “mutineers”, of having disrupted
the Party by their fight against (imaginary )
disrupters—that is a difference of principle, for which the
columns of Iskra should be “reserved”. Isn’t that your view, most esteemed Comrade Axelrod?

Itis possible that even today, if Comrade Axelrod looks around him,
he will find plenty of examples of the minority’s practical workers,
too, relegating “positive work” to the dim remoteness of
an also desirable but still indefinite future.

No,it would have been wiser for you not to say anything about the
attitude of the majority and the minority to positive work! It would
have been wiser not to bring up a subject about which, for instance, a
factory worker in the town of——writes to me as follows:

Dear Comrade, "Wehave been informed lately, that is, since the Second Party
Congress, that the Central Committee was not elected by the Congress
unanimously, that the Congress split in two over the relations between the Central Organ and the Central Committee, and that a
so-called majority and minority arose. This came down on our
heads as a terrible crushing blow, because this whole question
of the relations between the Central Organ and the Central
Committee was something absolutely new and unexpected for us:
before the Congress it had never been raised,not only at any
circles or meetings, but, as far as I can remember, in the
literature either. This fact of nothing being said about it
before the Congress is what I cannot understand. If we are to
assume that the issue did not exist at all, then it has to be
admitted that the comrades who worked so hard to unite the Party
did not have a clear idea as to its organisation, that is, its
structure. But that is quite out of the question, because the
issue which has now split the Party shows clearly that opinions
as to the Party structure did exist, and were not unanimous. But
if that was so, why was the fact concealed? That is the first
thing I want to say. The second is that when it comes to the
question itself, I ask myself: what structure of the Party will
ensure its trend being orthodox? And at once it strikes me that
another important thing, besides the Party’s structure, is the
personnel of its leadership ; that is, if the leaders are
orthodox, then the Party trend will be orthodox, but if they are
opportunists, then the Party will be opportunist too. Now, with
that in mind, and knowing the personnel of the Party leader
ship, I am definitely in favour of the Central Organ predominating over the Central Committee in the ideological
direction of the Party. What makes me all the more positive
about it is the conditions in Russia: however orthodox the
Central Committee may be, since it functions in Russia it cannot
be secure against arrests, and hence against losing its
orthodoxy regardless of its own wishes, because successors don’t
always resemble the people they succeed. Any comrade who has
worked on the committees for any time at all will know of cases
when even the best committee is replaced, through one of the
many possible chance circumstances, by a bad committee, and vice
versa. But with the Central Organ it’s quite another matter: it
functions under different conditions (since it will be located
abroad), which ensure it a longer existence, and hence an
opportunity of preparing worthy successors. But I don’t know,
comrade, if this question can be decided once and for all, that
is, by having the Central Organ always predominate over the
Central Committee, or the Central Committee over the Central
Organ. I don’t think it is possible. Take a case like this:
suppose the personnel of the Central Organ changes and from
being orthodox becomes opportunist, as in the case of the

Vorwärts [5] in Germany; could it be allowed to predominate in the ideological leadership? What would we who
have been schooled in the orthodox spirit do if that happened,
would we have to agree with it? No, it would be our duty to take
away its right to predominate and give that right to a different
body; and if that were not don  for any reason, whether a sense
of Party discipline or’ anything else, we would all deserve to
be called traitors to the Social-Democratic workers’ movement.
That’s how I see it, and I can’t agree at all to a decision being made
once and for all, as some comrades do.

"Now,what I cannot understand at all is the fight that’s going
on now between the majority and the minority, and to a great many of us it seems wrong. Look, comrade, is it a natural state of
affairs when all energies are spent on travelling around the
committees for the one purpose of talking about the majority and
minority? Really, I don’t know. Is this issue really so
important that all energies should be devoted to it and because
of it people should look on each other practically as enemies?
For that’s what it comes down to: if a committee is, let’s say,
made up of followers of one camp, then nobody from the other
camp will ever get into it, no matter how fit he may be for the
work; in fact, he won’t get in even if he is essential to the
work and it suffers badly without him. I don’t mean to say, of
course, that the struggle over this issue should be given up
altogether, no, only I think it should be of a different kind
and should not lead us to forget our principal duty, which is to
propagate Social-Democratic ideas among the masses; for if we
forget that we shall rob our Party of its strength. I don’t know
if it is fair or not, but when I see people trampling the
interests of the work in the mud and completely forgetting them,
I call them all political intriguers. It really hurts and fills
you with alarm for the work when you see the people at the head
of it spending their time on something else. When you see that,
you ask yourself: is our Party doomed to perpetual splits over
such trifles, are we incapable of waging the internal and the
external struggle at the same time? What’s the use of having
congresses if their decisions are ignored and everybody does
just what he pleases, saying that the Congress decision is
wrong, that the Central Committee is ineffectual, and so on. And
this is being done by people who before the Congress were always
clamouring for centralisation, Party discipline and so on, but
who now want to show, it seems, that discipline is only meant
for ordinary mortals, and not for them at the top. They seem to
forget that their example has a terrible demoralising effect on
inexperienced comrades; already we hear the workers complaining
again that the intellectuals are forgetting them because of
their own dissensions; already the more impulsive are drop ping
their hands in despair, not knowing what to do. So far all
this centralisation has turned out to be nothing but words. All
one can hope is that the future will bring a change for the better.” [6]

---
Notes:
[1]
See pp. 119-25 of this volume.— Ed .

[2]
By the way, I should like the editors to note that my pamphlet is
appearing with the “established imprint”. As a convinced central ist, I
obey the “principles” laid down by our Central Organ, which in its 55th
issue has instituted a section where Party publications are reviewed from
the standpoint of their “imprints” (as a contribution to the fight
against formalism). — Lenin

[3]
See p. 354-55 of this volume.— Ed .

[4]
It was on November 13 (26), 1903, that Plekhanov co-opted the Mensheviks
Martov, Axelrod, Zasulich, and Potresov to the editorial board of
Iskra.

[5]
Vorwärts (Forward )—the daily Central Organ of the German
Social-Democratic Party. Originally founded in 1876 in Leipzig, it was
banned under the Anti-Socialist Law, but in January 1891 resumed publication
in Berlin as successor to the Berliner Volks blatt (Berlin People’s Gazette , founded in 1884), under the editorship of Wilhelm
Liebknecht. Engels fought in the columns of the Vorwärts against
every manifestation of opportunism; but in the late nineties, after Engels’s
death, the paper fell into the hands of the Right wing of the party and from
then on regularly printed the writings of the opportunists who dominated in
the German Social-Democratic movement and the Second International. The
Vor wiirts gave a tendentious picture of the fight against
opportunism and revisionism in the R.S.D.L.P., supporting the Economists and
later, after the split in the Party, the Mensheviks. In the years of
reaction that followed the defeat of the Russian Revolution of 1905-07 it
published slanderous articles by Trotsky while denying Lenin and the
Bolsheviks the opportunity to controvert him and give an objective account
of the state of affairs in the Party.

Duringthe First World War the Vorwiirts took a social-chauvin ist
stand. After the Great October Socialist Revolution in Russia it became one
of the fountain-heads of anti-Soviet propaganda. It ceased publication in
1933.

[6]
The author of this letter was the worker N. Y. Vilonov, a member of the
Ekaterinoslav Committee of the R.S.D.L.P. Lenin replied to the letter on
December 9 (22), 1903.