V. I.

Lenin

114

To:   THE SIBERIAN COMMITTEE

To the Siberian Committee from N. Lenin

Geneva, October 30, 1904

Comrades, I should like through you to answer Comrade Simonov, who was here as a
representative of the Siberian Union and who, before departing, left me a letter
(I was not in Geneva at the time) setting out his conciliatory point of
view. It is this letter, the contents of which are probably known to you from
Comrade Simonov, that I should like to talk to you about. Comrade
Simonov’s point of view amounts to this: they (the Minority) are, of
course, anarchists and disrupters, but there is nothing to be done with them; a
“truce” is necessary (Simonov stresses that, in contrast to other
conciliators, he does not speak of peace but of a truce) in order to find some
way out of an intolerable situation, and to gather strength for a further
struggle against the Minority.

I found Simonov’s letter extremely instructive as coming from such a
rarity as a sincere supporter of conciliation. There is so much
hypocrisy among the conciliators that one finds it refreshing to meet the views
(even if incorrect) of a man who says what he thinks. And his views are certainly incorrect. He himself realises that it is impossible to be
reconciled with falsehood, confusion and squabbling, but what is the
sense of talking about a truce ? For the Minority will use such a truce
merely for strengthening their positions. Factional polemics (cessation of which
was hypocritically promised by the hypocritical C.C. in its recent letter to
the committees, a letter that you too have prob- ably already received) have not ceased but have assumed the especially vile
forms that were condemned even by Kautsky, who sides with the Minority. Even
K. Kautsky said in his letter to Iskra that a “hidden”
polemic is worse than any other, for the issue becomes confused, hints re main
obscure, straightforward answers are impossible. And take Iskra; the
leading article in No. 75, the subject of which is very remote from our
differences, will be found interspersed, without rhyme or reason, with senilely
embittered abuse against the Ivanovs on the Council, the sheer ignoramuses,
etc., etc. From the standpoint of our deserters from the C.C., this, probably,
is not factional polemics! I say nothing, in substance, of the arguments used by
the author of the leading article (apparently Plekhanov): that Marx was
mild towards the Proudhonists. Can you imagine a falser use of
historical facts and great names of history? What would Marx have said if the
slogan of mildness was used to cover up muddling the distinction
between Marxism and Proudhonism? (And is not the new Iskra wholly occupied in muddling the distinction between Rabocheye Dyeloism and
Iskrism?) What would Marx have said if mildness had been made a cover for
asserting in print the correctness of Proudhonism against Marxism? (And is not
Plekhanov now playing the fox in print by pretending to recognise that the
Minority is correct in principle?) By this comparison alone Plekhanov gives
himself away, betrays the fact that the relation of the Majority to the Minority
is equivalent to the relation of Marxism to Proudhonism, to that very relation
of the revolutionary to the opportunist wing which figures also in that
memorable article “What Should Not Be Done”. Take the decisions of
the Party Council (No. 73 and the supplement to Nos. 73-74) and you will see
that the cessation of the Minority’s secret organisation, proclaimed in
the above-mentioned letter of the C.C. to the committees, signifies nothing but
the passing of three C.C. members into the secret organisation of the
Minority. In this sense the secret organisation has really disappeared,
for all three of our so-called central institutions—not only the C.C.
and the Council, but also the Central Committee—have now become a secret
organisation (for struggle against the Party). In the name of a struggle
(“on prin- ciple”) against formalism and bureaucracy, they are now declaring war on
the “headings”, declaring that the publishing house of the Majority
is not a Party one. They falsify the congress, counting the votes falsely (16
x4==61, for five members of the Council figure in the total 61, but in half the
organisations the Council figures as an organisation with two votes!),
concealing the resolutions of the committees from the Party (it is concealed
that Nizhni-Novgorod, Saratov, Nikolayev and the Caucasus were in favour of a
congress: see the last resolutions in our pamphlet To the Party and
The Fight for a Congress [1] ) . They bring squabbling into the
Council, interminably distorting the question of representation at the Amsterdam
Congress
[2] and having the audacity to publish charges of
“deceit” against the Northern Committee, when this incident had not
only not been investigated (although the C.C. had decided to investigate it as
far back as July ), but the comrade accused by some slanderer has so
far not even been questioned (during three months, August, September
and October, this comrade was abroad and saw Central Committee member Glebov,
who had taken the decision for an investigation but did not take the trouble to
present the charges to the accused person himself!). They encourage disruption
in the name of the Council, inciting the “periphery” to attack the
Majority committees, and uttering a deliberate lie about St. Petersburg and
Odessa. They condemn as an “abuse” the voting of one and the same
comrades in different committees, when at the same time three Council
members—Plekhanov, Martov and Axelrod—vote three times against a congress: once on the editorial board, once in the Council
and once in the League! They assume the powers of a congress by declaring
credentials invalid. Isn’t that falsifying the congress? And can it be
that Comrade Simonov would advise a truce in relation to
these tactics as well?

Take the report to the Amsterdam Congress
[3] which has recently been
issued in Russian. Deliberately flouting the will of the Party, the Minority
speak in the name of the Party, repeating in a covert form the same lie about
the old Iskra which was always being propagated by Martynov and Co.,
and which is now being served up by Balalaikin-

Trotsky. Or maybe Comrade Simonov wants a truce with this Balalaikin too (whose
pamphlet is published under the editorship of Iskra as plainly stated
in Iskra )? Maybe here, too, he believes in the cessation of factional
polemics promised by the C.C.?

No, the belief that a truce with hypocrisy and disruption is permissible is one
that is unworthy of a Social Democrat and profoundly erroneous at bottom. It is
faint heartedness to think that “there is nothing to be done” with
writers, even notable ones, and that the only tactic left in relation to them is
that formulated by Galyorka (“Down with Bonapartism”) in the words
“You curse but bow down”. To the conversion of all the Party’s
central institutions into a secret organisation for struggle against the Party,
to the Council’s falsification of the congress, the Majority replies by a
further and inevitable strengthening of its unity. Disdaining hypocrisy, it
openly puts for ward a programme of struggle (see the resolution of the 22
endorsed by the Caucasian Union,=

[4] and the Committees of
St. Petersburg, Riga, Moscow, Odessa, Ekaterinoslav and Nikolayev. The C.O., of
course, concealed this resolution from the Party although it received it two
months ago). The southern committees have already taken a decision to unite
the committees of the Majority and to set up an Organising Committee to combat
the flouting of the Party. There is not the slightest doubt that such an organisation of the Majority will be set up in the near future and will act
openly. Despite the lying stories of deserters from the C.C., the adherents of
the Majority are growing in number in Russia, and the young literary forces,
repelled by the muddled and hypocritical Iskra , are beginning to rally
from all sides to the newly-started publishing house of the Majority (the
publishing house abroad of Bonch-Bruyevich and Lenin) with the aim of giving it
every possible support by transforming, enlarging and developing it.

Comrade Simonov had no reason to be down-hearted. He was wrong to jump to the
conclusion that, however nasty it was, there was nothing to be done about
it. There is something to be done! The more grossly they flout the idea of a
congress (Balalaikin-Trotsky, writing under the editorship of Iskra ,
has already declared a congress to be a reactionary attempt to reinforce the plans of the
Iskrists. Ryazanov was more sincere and honest when he called the congress a
packed affair) and the more grossly they flout the Party and its functionaries
in Russia, the more merciless becomes the rebuff they encounter and the more
closely does the Majority rally its ranks, uniting all per sons of principle and
recoiling from the unnatural and intrinsically rotten political
alliance of Plekhanov, Martynov and Trotsky. It is precisely such an alliance
that we see now in the new Iskra and in Zarya No. 5 (a reprint
of Martynov’s article has appeared). Anyone who sees a little further than
his nose, whose policy is not determined by interests of the minute and
coalitions of the hour, will understand that this alliance, which breeds only
confusion and squabbles, is doomed, and that the adherents of the trend
of the old Iskra , people who are able to distinguish this trend from a
circle even of notable “foreigners”, must and will be the
grave-diggers of this alliance.

I should be very glad, comrades, if you would inform me of the receipt of this
letter and whether you have succeeded in forwarding it to Comrade Simonov.

With comradely greetings,

N. Lenin