V. I.

Lenin

Announcement of the Formation of a Bureau of Majority Committees [2]

DRAFT

Thecrisis in the Party is dragging on interminably and becoming
ever more difficult to resolve. The adherents of the majority
have repeatedly stated in the press their views concerning the
causes of the crisis and the means by which it could be
ended. The statement of the twenty-two, [1] which was supported by
a number of committees (the Odessa, Ekaterinoslav, Nikolayev,
Riga, St. Petersburg, and Moscow committees and the Caucasian
League), by the declaration of the nineteen, [3] and by the majority members, abroad gave a full and precise
exposition of the majority’s programme. Everyone at all
acquainted with the development of the crisis and at all
concerned for the Party’s honour and dignity has long realised
that the only way out is a Party congress. But now the new
declaration by a section of the Central Committee and the new
decisions of the Party Council aggravate the division in the
Party still more. The Central Committee members who have
deserted to the minority have not shrunk from the grossest
violation of the rights of those members of the Central
Committee who remain on the side of the majority. In proclaiming
its reconciliation policy the new Central Committee has not only
failed to take account of the wishes of the majority, but has
totally ignored the latter and entered into a compact with the
minority alone, and moreover by means of private, secret
transactions. Anyone sincerely desiring a reconciliation would
first of all bring together all the warring, contending, and mutually incensed, and that means calling a Party
congress. To talk of peace and fear a congress, to go about
peace-making and at the same time hold up the bogey of a split
because of the minority’s probable defeat at the Third Congress
also, is to be a hypocrite, to try to force the caprice of an
6migr6 circle on the Party workers in Russia, to sanctify with
the specious slogan of peace a complete betrayal of the
majority. In the name of peace the new Central Committee is
breaking up organisations which have the audacity to want a
congress. In the name of peace the new Central Committee
proclaims the publications of the majority to be non-Party
publications and refuses to supply them to the committees. In
the name of peace the new Central Committee is injecting a
squabbling element into the decisions of the Party Council,
which dares to talk in print about “deceit” on the part of comrades whose actions have not been investigated yet
and who have not even been presented with the charges made
against them. The Party Council is now directly falsifying the
opinion and verdict of the Party membership, by having the
committee resolutions scrutinised by a Central Committee
notoriously hostile to a congress, by casting suspicion on these
resolutions, delaying their publication, gerrymandering the
number of votes, arrogating to itself the congress prerogative
of declaring mandates invalid, and disorganising positive work
by stirring up the local committees’ “peripheral organisations” against them. Meanwhile the centrally
conducted positive work is also at a standstill because the
Central Committee and Central Organ are engrossed in resisting a
congress.

Nocourse remains to the majority committees and organisations but to
unite to fight for a congress, against the so-called central
institutions of the Party, which in fact are directly flouting the
Party. We are making a beginning of such unity by forming a Bureau of
Majority Commit tees, on the initiative and by the common consent of
the Odessa, Ekaterinoslav, Nikolayev, Riga, St. Petersburg, and Moscow
committees.

Ourslogan is the fight for the party spirit against the circle
spirit, the fight for the consistent revolutionary line against
zigzags, confusion, and a reversion to Rabocheye Dyelo -ism, a fight in the name of proletarian organisation and discipline against
the disrupters of organisation.

Ourimmediate objects are to build up ideological and organisational unity of the majority in Russia and abroad, to
support and promote in every way the publishing house of the
majority (started abroad by Comrades Bonch-Bruyevich and
Lenin), to combat the Bonapartism of our central institutions,
to ensure the correctness of measures for convening the Third
Congress, and to assist the positive work of the committees,
which is being disrupted by the agents of the editorial board
and the new Central Committee.

Bureau of Majority Committees

In Russia the Bureau can be contacted through the majority
committees, and abroad through the Bonch-Bruyevich and Lenin
publishing house.

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Notes:
[1]
See pp. 454–61 of this volume.— Ed .

[2]
The
Announcement of the Formation of a Bureau of Majority Committees
was sent to Russia in a letter to Bogdanov on October 20 (November 2), 1904;
it was not published.

[3]
The declaration of the nineteen , published by the Moscow Party
Committee in October 1904 under the title “Appeal to Members
of the R.S.D.L.P.”, was a response to the appeal “To the Party”
issued by the conference of twenty-two Bolsheviks under Lenin’s
leadership.