V. I.

Lenin

Geneva, February 20, 1904

Dear Comrades, Asyour pamphlet touches on the circumstances which induced me to
resign from the Iskra editorial board, I would request you to
find space in the Appendix for this reply of mine to Comrade
Plekhanov’s letter of January 29, 1904, to Comrade Martov, published
in Martov’s pamphlet on combating the “state of siege”.

Comrade Plekhanov finds that the statement of the case in my letter to
the editors is inaccurate. However, he has not made, nor
could he have made, a single correction of fact. He has
merely supplemented my account with an inaccurate version of
private conversations I had with him.

Generallyspeaking, to quote private conversations is, I consider, a
sure sign that serious arguments are lacking. I still hold the opinion
so recently held by Comrade Plekhanov in reference to Comrade
Martov’s accounts of private conversations (League Minutes, p. 134),
namely, that it is scarcely possible for such conversations to be
“reproduced accurately”, and that “controversy” regarding them “leads nowhere ”.

Butsince Comrade Plekhanov does cite our private conversations, I
consider myself entitled to explain them and amplify, particularly as
these conversations took place in the presence of third persons.

Thefirst conversation, in which Comrade Plekhanov said that he had decided [1] to
resign if I absolutely refused to agree to co-optation, took place on the evening of the day the
League Congress ended and the following morning, in the presence
of two members of the Party Council. The conversation revolved
around concessions to the opposition. Plekhanov insisted that
concessions were essential, for he felt certain that the
opposition would not obey any decision of the Party Council and
that a complete split of the Party might take place at any
moment. I insisted that, after what had happened at the League,
after the measures taken at its Congress by the representative
of the Central Committee (each of which Comrade Plekhanov had
taken part in discussing and had fully approved), it was
impossible to yield to anarchistic individualism, and that the
formation of a separate writers’ group (which I had repeatedly
declared in conversation with Plekhanov, and contrary to his own
opinion, to be quite permissible) need not necessarily imply a
split. When the upshot of the conversation was that one of us
would have to resign, I at once said that I would do so, not
wishing to hamper Plekhanov in his attempts to settle the
conflict and avoid what he considered would be a split.

Comrade Plekhanov is so amiable towards me now as to find no other
motive for my action than the most cowardly evasiveness. In order to
paint this characteristic of mine in the liveliest colours, Comrade
Plekhanov quotes me as saying: “Everybody will say that Lenin
must be wrong if even Plekhanov disagrees with him."

Thatis laying the colours on thick, no doubt about it! So thick, in
fact, that, all unnoticed by Comrade Plekhanov, the result is a patent
absurdity. If I had been convinced that “everybody” would
consider Plekhanov right (as he modestly thinks to himself), and had
thought it necessary to reckon with the opinion of this everybody,
then, obviously, I would never have ventured to disagree with
Plekhanov, I would have followed him in this instance too. In his
desire to present my conduct in the most unprepossessing light and
ascribe it to the most ignominious motives, he fathers on me a motive devoid of all sense. I am supposed to have been so
afraid of disagreeing with Plekhanov in anything that— I did
disagree with him. It doesn’t hold water, this argument
of Comrade Plekhanov’s.

Actually,my idea was that it would be better for me to resign, for
otherwise my dissenting opinion would hamper Plekhanov’s
attempts to secure peace. I did not want to ham per those
attempts—perhaps we might in fact agree on peace terms—but
I considered it impossible to assume responsibility for an editorial
board on which an 6migr  circle imposed candidates in this way .

Afew days later I did go with a certain Council member to see
Plekhanov, and our talk took the following course:

"Youknow," said Plekhanov, “there are some wives who are
so quarrelsome that it’s best to give way to them in order to avoid
hysterics and an unsavoury row in public."

“Perhapsso," I replied, “but in giving way you must take care to leave yourself strong enough to prevent an even
bigger ’row’."

"Well,but by resigning you surrender everything," said
Plekhanov.

"Notalways," I rejoined, and cited the case of Chamberlain. My
idea was one I have also expressed in print:
should Plekhanov succeed in securing a peace acceptable to the
majority, in whose ranks he had fought so long and so vigorously, then
I would not start war either; if he should not succeed, I reserved to
myself freedom of action, so as to denounce the “quarrelsome
wife” if even Plekhanov could not calm and pacify her.

Itwas during this conversation that I told Plekhanov (who did not yet
know the opposition’s terms) of my “decision” to join the
Central Committee (I could “decide” to do so, but of course all the members of the Central Committee would have to give
their consent). Plekhanov was entirely sympathetic to this plan, as a
last attempt to find some sort of mode of living with the
“quarrelsome wife”. When, in a letter to Plekhanov on
November 6, 1903, I expressed the opinion that perhaps he was simply
going to hand over the editorial board to the Martovites, he replied
(on November 8):
"...You seem to have a wrong idea of my intentions. I explained them
again yesterday to Comrade Vasilyev” (the

Central Committee member who had attended the League
Congress). Writing to this same Comrade Vasilyev on November 10 about
whether to expedite or delay the 52nd issue of Iskra , containing a statement about the Congress, Plekhanov said:
"... Publishing anything about the Congress means either 1)
announcing that Martov and the others are not taking part in
Iskra , or 2) refusln  this request of Mar- toy’s—in which case he will announce it himself in a special leaflet. In either
case it would bring the split to the knowledge of the public, and that is exactly what we have to avoid just now” (my
italics—N. L.). On November 17, Plekhanov wrote to the same comrade: "... What would you say to the immediate
co-optation of Martov and the others? I am beginning to think that
this would be the way to settle the matter with the least
difficulty. I do not want to act without you..." (Plekhanov’s
italics).

Thesequotations show clearly that Plekhanov was trying to act
in agreement with the majority, and wanted to co-opt the editors
solely for the sake of peace and on the condition of peace, and
not for the purpose of war against the majority. If it has
worked out the other way, that only goes to show that the cart
of anarchistic individualism bad got rolling too recklessly in
the tactics of boycott and disruption; the strongest brakes
could not hold it back. That is a great pity, of course, and
Plekhanov, who sincerely wanted peace, has landed in an
unpleasant position; but that is no reason for putting all the
blame on me.

Asto Plekhanov’s statement that I was willing to keep quiet in return
for a suitable “equivalent”, and his proud declaration,
“I did not see fit to purchase his silence”, this polemical trick only makes a comical impression when compared with
the words I have just quoted from his letter of November 10. It was
Plekhanov who attached the utmost importance to silence, to keeping
the split from the knowledge of the public. [2]

What more natural than that I should tell him I agreed to that too, provided there was peace? This talk
about “equivalents” and “purchases” leads one to expect that next time Plekhanov will inform the public that Lenin
is forging currency for transactions of this kind. That sort of thing
has happened, after all, in our 6migr6 quarrels—and the present
atmosphere is conducive to it.

Comrade Plekhanov’s letter involuntarily leads one to wonder
whether he is not now having to purchase the right to be in the minority. The tactics of the minority in our socalled Party organ are already quite clear. What they are trying
to do is obscure the controversial issues and the facts which
really led to our divergence. They are trying to show that
Martynov was far closer to Iskra than Lenin— just how, where and to what extent the muddled editors of the new
Iskra will be a long time endeavouring to explain. They
hypocritically condemn dragging personalities into the controversy, while actually their whole struggle is one big
campaign against an individual, in which they do not even
hesitate to ascribe to the “enemy” pernicious qualities of the most incompatible kind—from the crassest
pig-headedness to the most cowardly evasiveness. Anything to
make it good and strong. And those new allies, Comrades
Plekhanov and Martov, make it so good and strong that they will
soon be no whit behind the famous Bundists with their famous
epithet—"scum”. They are bombarding me so fiercely from their battleships that I am beginning to wonder whether
this is not a conspiracy of two-thirds of the dreadful trio. Ought I not to pose as injured too? Ought I not to cry out
about a “state of siege"? That is sometimes so convenient
and so useful, you know....

Tobe sure, to become a true minority man Comrade Plekhanov has
still, I would say, to take two little steps: first, to avow
that the formulation of Paragraph I of the Rules advocated by
Comrades Martov and Axelrod at the Congress (and so zealously
hushed up by them now) constitutes, not a step towards opportunism, not a surrender to bourgeois individualism, but
the germ of new, truly Social-Democratic, Akimov-Martov and
Martynov-Axelrod organisational views; and, secondly, to avow
that the struggle with the minority since the Congress has not
been a struggle against gross violations of Party discipline,
against methods of agitation that only arouse disgust, not a struggle against anarchism
and anarchistic phraseology (see pp. 17, 96, 97, 98, 101, 102, 104,
etc., etc., of the League Minutes), but a struggle against a
“state of siege”, bureaucracy, formalism, and so forth.

Ishall deal at length with controversial issues of this kind in a
pamphlet I am now preparing for the press. Meanwhile
... meanwhile let us scan the gallery of Gogol types opened in the columns
of our leading organ, which is making a practice of presenting its
readers with conundrums. Who resembles a stiff-necked Sobakevich
treading on everybody’s vanity—I beg pardon, their corns? Who is
like an evasive Chichikov purchasing silence as well as dead souls?
Who are like Nozdrev and Khlestakov, Manilov and Skvoznik

Dmukbanovsky? [3]
Interesting and edifying puzzles....
"A controversy over principles...."

N. Lenin

---
Notes:
[1]
In his zeal for accuracy, Comrade Plekhanov overdoes it a little when
he says: Plekhanov had no right to decide on co-optation, for according to the Rules co-optation has to be unanimous. This is not a
correction, but a quibble, for what the Rules forbid in the absence of
unanimity is definite organisational actions , and not decisions—which some people are all too prone to adopt for
appearances’ sake, without following them up with action. — Lenin

[2]
A propos , it was Plekhanov who was so insistent about with
holding publication of the League Minutes and the concluding part
of the Party Congress Minutes—the part where he says that he takes upon
himself full moral responsibility for a direct vote against the old
so-called editorial board, and expresses the hope that the Party has not
grown poor in literary forces—a statement which one member of the
minority called a pompous phrase in pseudo-classical style. — Lenin

[3]
Characters in Gogol’s Dead Souls and Inspector-General .