The following letter from Lenin to members of the Central Committee was prompted by a letter received shortly before from L. E. Galperin, in which the latter spoke in favor of "peace" and against a congress.

183.

V. I. LENIN — TO MEMBERS OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE IN RUSSIA*.

[Second half of February 1904. Geneva.]

The old man writes. I have read the letters from Zemlyachka and Konyagin². Where he got the idea that I now see the uselessness of a congress, only Allah knows. On the contrary, I continue to insist as before that this is the only honest way out, that only shortsightedness or cowardice can hide from this conclusion. I continue to insist as before that Boris, Mitrophane, and the Horse be sent here without fail, absolutely without fail, because people themselves must see the situation (created especially after the Council sessions), and not braid bast mats from afar, hiding their heads under a wing and taking advantage of the fact that it takes three years of hard riding from here to reach the Central Committee.

Nothing is more absurd than the opinion that work on convening a congress, agitation in the committees, the passage through them of sensible and decisive (not sniveling) resolutions³ excludes "positive" work or contradicts it. This opinion merely reflects inability to understand the political situation that has now developed in the Party.

The Party is torn apart in fact, the statute has been turned into a rag, the organization is spat upon,—only complacent provincial bumpkins can still fail to see this. But whoever has understood this must be clear that to the onslaught of the Martovites we must respond with an onslaught of our own (and not with vulgar piddling about "peace"⁴ and so forth). For an onslaught we must employ all our forces. Let the auxiliary forces, helpers, agents occupy themselves exclusively with technique, transport, and reception. To assign Central Committee members⁵ to this—is sheer stupidity. Central Committee members must occupy all the committees, mobilize the majority, travel throughout Russia, unite their people, launch an offensive (in response to attacks by the Martovites), an offensive against the Central Organ, an offensive by resolutions, 1) demanding a congress; 2) asking the Central Organ's editorial board whether it will submit to the congress on the question of the editorial board's composition; 3) denouncing the new Iskra without "bourgeois sentimentality," as Astrakhan, Tver, and the Urals did just recently⁶. These resolutions must be printed in Russia; we have said this a hundred times already.

I think that we actually have bureaucrats and formalists in our Central Committee, not revolutionaries. The Martovites spit in their face, and they wipe themselves off and lecture me: "it's useless to struggle!"... Only bureaucrats can fail to see now that the Central Committee is not a Central Committee and attempts to be one are ridiculous*. Either the Central Committee becomes an organization of war against the Central Organ, war in deed, not in words, war in the committees, or the Central Committee is a worthless rag that will rightly be thrown out.

Understand, for Christ's sake, that centralism has been torn apart by the Martovites irreversibly. Spit on idiotic formalities, occupy the committees, teach them to struggle for the party against the foreign cliquishness, write them leaflets (this will not hinder agitation for a congress, but will help it!), assign technique to auxiliary forces. Lead the war against the Central Organ or drop entirely the ridiculous pretense at "leadership"... wiping off spittle.

The conduct of Klér is shameful⁷, and Konyagin's encouragement of it is even worse. Nothing angers me so much now as our "so-called" Central Committee. Addio**.

The Old Man.

¹ The approximate date has been established on the basis of the letter's indication of receipt of resolutions from committees in Astrakhan and the Urals, which L. M. Knipovich sent abroad in the second half of February (see below the letter from N. K. Krupskaya of 28 February, document 188, p. 347).

² The letters here mentioned from R. S. Zemlychka and L. E. Galperin are not at our disposal.

³ It may be thought that such a characterization by Lenin of certain committee resolutions related, among other things, to the Baku Committee resolution cited above (communicated by L. B. Krasin in a letter of early February, document 173, p. 306).

⁴ V. I. Lenin apparently had in mind here, in addition to talk of "peace" in the letter from Galperin to which he was replying, also a recently received letter from G. M. Krzhizhanovsky from Königsberg of 11 February (above, document 179, p. 321).

* In Lenin's text it says: "ridiculous." Ed.

** — farewell. Ed.

V. I. LENIN — TO MEMBERS OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE IN RUSSIA

⁵ A good half of the Central Committee members were engaged at that time in such technical-organizational work: V. A. Noskov (constantly traveling in connection with the organization and direction of all sorts of "technique"), L. B. Krasin (who managed this work in the Caucasus), F. V. Gusarov (stationed near the western border), G. M. Krzhizhanovsky (who was at that moment also at the border, in Königsberg).

⁶ This refers to the responses of local committees to the well-known letter from the Iskra editorial board, which it sent out in December to the committees (see above, appendix to document 157, p. 143): concerning the letter of the Tver Committee, the resolution of the Astrakhan Committee, and the extensive letter from representatives of the Ufa, Middle Urals, and Perm committees (see the pamphlet by N. Shakhov: "The Struggle for a Congress," Geneva, 1904, pp. 19-22 and 33-42;* the same in reprint in the Istpart collection of the Central Committee of the VKP(b) "How the Bolshevik Party Was Born," Leningrad, 1925, pp. 275-277 and 287-296; as well as in Collected Works of V. I. Lenin, appendix to vol. V, pp. 542-544, where the Astrakhan Committee resolution is printed without its conclusion,—only its first half,—and the letter from representatives of the Urals committees is absent).

⁷ Lenin apparently has in mind here the statement by G. M. Krzhizhanovsky in his letter of 11 February (document 179, pp. 321-322) in favor of "peace" at all costs and his silence on the question of a congress.