One Step Forward, Two Steps Back (THE CRISIS IN OUR PARTY)

J. Innocent Victims of a False Accusation
of Opportunism

Before passing on to the subsequent discussion of the Rules, it
is necessary, in order to elucidate our difference over the
personal composition of the central institutions, to touch on
the private meetings of the Iskra organisation during the Congress. The last and most important of these four
meetings was held just after the vote on Paragraph 1 of
the Rules—and thus the split in the Iskra organisation which took place at this meeting was in point of
both time and logic a prelude to the subsequent struggle.

The Iskra organisation began to hold private meetings [1]
[1] I have already tried at the League Congress to give an account of what took place at the private meetings, keeping to the barest essentials in order to avoid hopeless arguments. The principal facts are also set out in my Letter to the Editors of “ Iskra ” (p. 4). Comrade Martov did not challenge them in his Reply . — Lenin soon after the Organising Committee incident, which gave rise to a
discussion of possible candidates for the Central Committee. It
stands to reason that, since binding instructions had been
abolished, these meetings were purely in the nature of consultations and their decisions were not binding on any one;
but their importance was nevertheless immense. The, selection of
candidates for the Central Committee was a matter of considerable difficulty to delegates who were acquainted neither
with the secret names nor with the inner work of the
Iskra organisation, the organisation that had brought about actual Party unity and whose leadership of the practical
movement was one of the motives for the official adoption of
Iskra . We have already seen that, united, the
Iskra -ists were fully assured a big majority at the
Congress, as much as three-fifths, and all the delegates
realised this very well. All the Iskra -ists, in fact, expected the “Iskra” organisation to make definite
recommendations as to the personal composition of the Central
Committee, and not one member of that organisation raised any
objection to a preliminary discussion of the Central Committee’s
composition within it; not one of them so much as hinted at
endorsing the entire membership of the Organising Committee that
is converting that body into the Central Committee, or even at conferring with the Organising Committee as a whole
regarding candidates for the Central Committee. This circumstance is also highly significant, and it is extremely
important to bear it in mind, for now , after the event , the Martovites are zealously defending the
Organising Committee, thereby only proving their political
spinelessness for the hundredth and thousandth time. [2]
[2] Just reflect on this “picture of morals”: the delegate from the Iskra organisation confers at the Congress with it alone and does not hint, even, at conferring with the Organising Committee. But after he is defeated both in this organisation and at the Congress, he begins to regret that the Organising Committee way not endorsed, to extol it retrospectively, and loftily to ignore the organisation that gave him his mandate! It may safely be vouched that no analogous instance will be found in the history of any really Social-Democratic and really working-class party. — Lenin

Until the split over the composition of the central bodies led Martov to
join forces with the Akimovs, everyone at the Congress clearly
realised what any impartial person may easily ascertain from the
Congress minutes and from the entire history of Iskra, namely, that the Organising Committee was mainly a
commission set up to convene the Congress, a commission
deliberately composed of representatives of different shades,
including even the Bundists; while the real work of creating the organised unity of the Party was done
entirely by the Iskra organisation. (It should be remembered also that quite by chance several Iskra -ists
on the Organising Committee were absent from the Congress,
either because they had been arrested or for other reasons
“beyond their control”.) The members of the Iskra organisation present at the Congress have already been
enumerated in Comrade Pavlovich’s pamphlet (see his Letter on the Second Congress ,

p. 13). [9]

The ultimate result of the heated debates in the Iskra organisation was the two votes I have already mentioned in my
Letter to the Editors . The first vote: “by nine votes to four, with three abstentions, one of the candidates supported
by Martov was rejected.” What could be simpler and more natural,
one would think, than such a fact: by the common consent of all
the sixteen Iskra organisation members at the Congress,
the possible candidates are discussed, and one of Comrade
Martov’s candidates is rejected by the majority (it was Comrade
Stein, as Comrade Martov himself has now blurted out— State of Siege , p. 69). After all, one of the
reasons why we assembled at the Party Congress was to discuss
and decide to whom to entrust the “conductor’s baton”—and
it was the common duty of us all as Party members to give this
item on the agenda the most serious attention, to decide this
question from the standpoint of the interests of the work , and not of “philistine sentimentality”, as Comrade
Rusov quite rightly expressed it later. Of course, in discussing
candidates at the Congress , we were bound to touch upon
certain personal qualities, were bound to express our approval
or

disapproval, [3]
[3] Comrade Martov bitterly complained at the League of the vehemence of my disapproval, failing to see that his complaint turned into an argument against himself. Lenin behaved—to use his own expression—frenziedly (League Minutes, p. 63). That is so. He banged the door. True. His conduct (at the second or third meeting of the Iskra organisation) aroused the indignation of the members who remained at the meeting. It did. But what follows? Only that my arguments on the substance of the questions in dispute were convincing and were borne out by the course of the Congress. For if, in fact, nine of the sixteen members of the Iskra organisation in the end sided with me, clearly this was so notwithstanding and in spite of my reprehensible vehemence. Hence, had it not been for this “vehemence”, perhaps even more than nine would have sided with me. The more “indignation” my arguments and facts had to overcome, the more convincing they must have been. — Lenin especially at an unofficial and intimate
meeting. And I have already pointed out at the League Congress that it is absurd to think that a candidate is
“disgraced” when he is not approved (League Minutes, p. 49),
absurd to make a “scene” and go into hysterics over what forms
part of a Party member’s direct duty to select officials
conscientiously and judiciously. And yet this was what put the
fat in the fire as far as our minority are concerned, and they
began after the Congress to clamour about “destroying reputations” (League Minutes, p. 70) and to assure the broad public in print that Comrade Stein had been the “chief
figure” on the former Organising Committee and that he had been
groundlessly accused of “diabolical schemes” (State of Siege , p. 69). Is it not hysterics to shout about
“destroying reputations” in connection with the approval or
disapproval of candidates? Is it not squabbling when people who
have been defeated both at a private meeting of the
Iskra organisation and at the official supreme assembly
of the Party, the Congress, begin to complain to all and sundry
and recommend rejected candidates to the worthy public as “chief
figures”, and when they then try to force their candidates upon
the Party by causing a split and demanding co-optation ?
In our musty émigré atmosphere political concepts have become so confused that Comrade Martov is no longer able to
distinguish Party duty from personal and circle allegiance! It
is bureaucracy and formalism, we are to believe, to think it
proper to discuss and decide upon candidates only at congresses, where delegates assemble primarily for the
discussion of important questions of principle, where representatives of the movement assemble who are able to treat
the question of personalities impartially, and who are able (and
in duty bound) to demand and gather all necessary information about the candidates before casting their decisive
votes, and where the assignment of a certain place to arguments
over the conductor’s baton is natural and essential. Instead of
this bureaucratic and formal view, new usages and customs have
now become the thing: we are, after congresses, to talk right
and left about the political burial of Ivan Ivanovich or the
destroyed reputation of Ivan Nikiforovich; writers are to
recommend candidates in pamphlets, the while beating their
breasts and hypocritically asserting: “This is not a circle, it
is a party....” Those of the reading public who have a taste
for scandal will eagerly savour the sensational news that, on
the assurance of Martov himself, [4] so-and-so was the chief
figure on the Organising Committee. This reading public is far
more competent to discuss and decide the question than formalistic institutions like congresses, with their grossly
mechanical decisions by majority vote.... Yes, there are
still veritable Augean stables of émigré squabbling for our real Party workers to clean up!

Second vote of the Iskra organisation: “by ten votes to
two, with four abstentions, a list of five [candidates for the
Central Committee] was adopted which, on my proposal, included
one leader of the non- Iskra -ist elements and one leader
of the Iskra -ist minority.” [5]

This vote is of the utmost importance, for it clearly and irrefutably proves the
utter falsity of the fables which were built up later, in the
atmosphere of squabbling, to the effect that we wanted to eject
the non- Iskra -ists from the Party or set them aside, that what the majority did was to pick candidates from only one
half of the Congress and have them elected by that half,
etc. All this is sheer falsehood. The vote I have cited shows
that we did not exclude the non-Iskra-ists even from the Central
Committee, let alone the Party, and that we allowed our
opponents a very substantial minority . The whole point
is that they wanted to have a majority , and when this modest wish was not gratified, they started a row and
refused to be represented on the central bodies at all. That
such was the case, Comrade Martov’s assertions at the League
notwithstanding, is shown by the following letter which
the minority of the Iskra organisation addressed to us,
the majority of the Iskra -ists (and the majority at the
Congress after the withdrawal of the seven), shortly after the
Congress adopted Paragraph 1 of the Rules (it should be noted
that the Iskra organisation meeting I have been speaking of was the last : after it, the organisation
actually broke up and each side tried to convince the other Congress delegates that it was in the right).

Here is the text of the letter:

“Having heard the explanation of delegates Sorokin and

Sablina [10] regarding the wish of the majority of the editorial board and
the Emancipation of Labour group to attend the meeting [on such
and such a date], [6] and having with the help of these
delegates established that at the previous meeting a list of
Central Committee candidates was read which was supposed to have
come from us, and which was used to misrepresent our whole
political position; and bearing in mind also that, firstly, this list was attributed to us without any attempt to
ascertain its real origin; that, secondly, this circumstance is
undoubtedly connected with the accusation of opportunism openly
circulated against the majority of the Iskra editorial board and of the Emancipation of Labour group, and that,
thirdly, this accusation is, as is perfectly clear to us,
connected with a quite definite plan to change the composition of the ’ Iskra ’ editorial
board—we consider that the explanation given us of the reasons for excluding us from the meeting is unsatisfactory, and
that the refusal to admit us to the meeting is proof of not
wanting to give us the opportunity to refute the above mentioned
false accusations.

“As to the possibility of our reaching agreement on a joint list
of candidates for the Central Committee, we declare that the
only list we can accept as the basis for agreement is: Popov,
Trotsky, and Glebov. Furthermore, we emphasise that this is a
compromise list, since the inclusion of Comrade Glebov is to be viewed only as a concession to the wishes of the
majority; for now that the role he has played at the Congress is
clear to us, we do not consider Comrade Glebov a person
satisfying the requirements that should be made of a candidate
for the Central Committee.

“At the same time, we stress that our entering into negotiations
regarding the candidates for the Central Committee has no
bearing whatever on the question of the composition of the
editorial board of the Central Organ, as on this question (the
composition of the editorial board) we are not prepared to enter
into any negotiations.

“On behalf of the Comrades, “Martov and Starover”

This letter, which accurately reproduces the frame of mind of
the disputing sides and the state of the dispute, takes us at
once to the “heart” of the incipient split and reveals its real
causes. The minority of the Iskra organisation, having refused to agree with the majority and preferred freedom of
agitation at the Congress (to which they were, of course, fully
entitled), nevertheless tried to induce the “delegates” of the
majority to admit them to their private meeting! Naturally, this
amusing demand only met with a smile and a shrug at our meeting
(where the letter was of course read), and the outcry, bordering
on hysterics, about “false accusations of opportunism” evoked
outright laughter. But let us first examine Martov’s and
Starover’s bitter complaints point by point.

The list had been wrongly attributed to them; their political
position was being misrepresented.—But, as Martov himself
has admitted (League Minutes, p. 64), it never occurred to me to
doubt the truth of his statement that he was not the author of
the list. In general, the authorship of the list has nothing to
do with the case, and whether the list was drawn up by some
Iskra -ist or by some representative of the “Centre”, etc., is of absolutely no importance. The important thing is
that this list, which consisted entirely of members of the
present minority, circulated at the Congress, if only as a mere
guess or conjecture. Lastly, the most important thing of all is that at the Congress Comrade Martov was obliged to dissociate himself with the utmost vehemence
from such a list, a list which he now would be bound to greet with delight. Nothing could more saliently
exemplify instability in the evaluation of people and shades
than this right-about-face in the course of a couple of months
from howling about “defamatory rumours” to forcing on the Party
central body the very candidates who figure in this supposedly
defamatory list! [7]

This list, Comrade Martov said at the League Congress, “politically implied a coalition between us and Yuzhny Rabochy , on the one hand, and the Bund, on the other, a coalition in the sense of a direct agreement ”
(p. 64). That is not true, for, firstly, the Bund would never
have entered into an “agreement” about a list which did not
include a single Bundist; and, secondly, there was and could have been no question of a direct agreement (which was what
Martov thought disgraceful) even with the Yuzhny Rabochy group, let alone the Bund. It was not an agreement
but a coalition that was in question; not that Comrade Martov
had made a deal, but that he was bound to have the support of those very anti- Iskra -ists and unstable
elements whom he had fought during the first half of the
Congress and who had seized upon his error over Paragraph 1 of
the Rules. The letter I have quoted proves incontrovertibly that
the root of the “grievance” lay in the open, and moreover false , accusation of opportunism .
This “accusation” which put the fat in the fire, and which
Comrade Martov now so carefully steers clear of, in spite of my reminder in the Letter to the Editors , was
twofold. Firstly, during the discussion of Paragraph 1 of the
Rules Plekhanov bluntly declared that Paragraph 1 was a question
of “keeping away” from us “every kind of representative of
opportunism”, and that my draft, as a bulwark against their
invading the Party, “should, if only for that reason, receive
the votes of all enemies of opportunism” (Congress Minutes,
p. 246). These vigorous words, even though I softened them down
a little (p. 250), [8] caused a sensation, which was clearly expressed in the speeches of
Comrades Rusov (p. 247), Trotsky (p. 248), and Akimov (p. 253). In the “lobby” of our “parliament”, Plekhanov’s thesis
was keenly commented on and varied in a thousand ways in endless
arguments over Paragraph 1. But instead of defending their case
on its merits, our dear comrades assumed a ludicrous air of
injury and even went to the length of complaining in writing
about a “false accusation of opportunism”!

Their narrow circle mentality and astonishing immaturity as
Party members, which cannot stand the fresh breeze of open
controversy in the presence of all, is here clearly revealed. It
is the mentality so familiar to the Russian, as expressed in the
old saying: either coats off, or let’s have your hand! These
people are so accustomed to the bell-jar seclusion of an
intimate and snug little circle that they almost fainted as soon
as a person spoke up in a free and open arena on his own
responsibility. Accusations of opportunism!—against whom?
Against the Emancipation of Labour group, and its majority at
that—can you imagine anything more terrible? Either split
the Party on account of this ineffaceable insult, or hush up
this “domestic unpleasantness” by restoring the “continuity” of
the bell-jar—this alternative is already pretty clearly
indicated in the letter we are examining. Intellectualist
individualism and the circle mentality had come into conflict
with the requirement of open speaking before the Party. Can you
imagine such an absurdity, such a squabble, such a complaint
about “ false accusations of opportunism” in the German
party? There, proletarian organisation and discipline weaned
them from such intellectualist flabbiness long ago. Nobody has
anything but the profoundest respect for Liebknecht, let us say;
but how they would have laughed over there at complaints that he
(together with Bebel) was “openly accused of opportunism” at the
1895 Congress, when, on the agrarian question, he found himself
in the bad company of the notorious opportunist Vollmar and his
friends. Liebknecht’s name is inseparably bound up with the
history of the German working-class movement not, of course,
because he happened to stray into opportunism on such a
comparatively minor and specific question, but in spite of
it. And similarly, in spite of all the acrimony of the struggle,
the name of Comrade Axelrod, say, inspires respect in every
Russian Social-Democrat, and always will; but not because
Comrade Axelrod happened to defend an opportunist idea at the
Second Congress of our Party, happened to dig out old anarchistic rubbish at the Second Congress of the League, but in
spite of it. Only the most hidebound circle mentality, with its
logic of “either coats off, or let’s have your hand”, could give
rise to hysterics, squabbles, and a Party split because of a
“false accusation of opportunism against the majority of the
Emancipation of Labour group”.

The other element of this terrible accusation is intimately
connected with the preceding (Comrade Martov tried in vain at
the League Congress [p. 63] to evade and hush up one side of this incident). It relates in fact to that
coalition of the anti- Iskra -ist and wavering elements with Comrade Martov which began to emerge in
connection with Paragraph 1 of the Rules. Naturally, there was
no agreement, direct or indirect, between Comrade Martov and the
anti- Iskra -ists, nor could there have been, and nobody
suspected him of it: it only seemed so to him in his fright. But
politically his error was revealed in the fact that people who undoubtedly gravitated towards opportunism began to
form around him an ever more solid and “compact” majority (which
has now become a minority only because of the “accidental” withdrawal of seven-delegates). We pointed to this
“coalition”, also openly , of course, immediately after
the matter of Paragraph 1—both at the Congress (see Comrade
Pavlovich’s remark already quoted: Congress Minutes, p. 255) and
in the Iskra organisation (Plekhanov, as I recall, pointed to it in particular). It is literally the same point and
the same jibe as was addressed by Clara Zetkin to Bebel and
Liebknecht in 1895, when she said: " Es tut mir in der Seele weh, dass ich dich in der Gesellschaft seh ’" (“It cuts me
to the quick to see you [i.e., Bebel] in such company [i.e., of
Vollmar and Co.]”). It is strange, to be sure, that Bebel and
Liebknecht did not send a hysterical message to Kautsky and
Zetkin complaining of a false accusation of opportunism....

As to the list of candidates for the Central Committee, this
letter shows that Comrade Martov was mistaken in declaring at
the League that the refusal to come to an agreement with us was
not yet final—another example of how unwise it is in a political struggle to attempt to reproduce the spoken word from memory, instead of relying on
documents. Actually, the “minority” were so modest as to present
the “majority” with an ultimatum: take two from the “minority”
and one (by way of compromise and only as a concession,
properly speaking!) from the “majority”. This is monstrous, but
it is a fact. And this fact clearly shows how absurd are the
fables now being spread to the effect that the “majority” picked
representatives of only one half of the Congress and got them
elected by that one half. Just the opposite : the
Martovites offered us one out of three only as a concession,
consequently, in the event of our not agreeing to this unique
“concession”, they wanted to get all the seats filled by their own candidates! At our private meeting we had a good
laugh at the Martovites’ modesty and drew up a list of our own:
Glebov-Travinsky (subsequently elected to the Central
Committee)- Popov . For the latter we then substituted (also at a private meeting of the twenty-four) Comrade Vasilyev
(subsequently elected to the Central Committee) only because Comrade Popov refused, first in private
conversation and then openly at the Congress (p. 338), to be
included in our list.

That is how matters really stood .

The modest “minority” modestly wished to be in the majority. When this modest wish was not met, the “minority” were
pleased to decline altogether and to start a row. Yet there are
people who now talk pontifically about the “intransigence” of
the “majority”!

Entering the fray in the arena of free agitation at the
Congress, the “minority” presented the “majority” with amusing
ultimatums. Having suffered defeat, our heroes burst into tears and began to cry out about a state of siege. Voilà tout .

The terrible accusation that we intended to change the composition of the editorial board was also greeted with a smile
(at our private meeting of the twenty-four): from the very
beginning of the Congress, and even before the Congress,
everybody had known perfectly well of the plan to reconstitute the editorial board by electing an initial
trio (I shall speak of this in greater detail when I come to the
election of the editorial board at the Congress). That the
“minority” took fright at this plan after they saw its correctness splendidly confirmed by their coalition with the
anti- Iskra -ists did not surprise us—it was quite natural. Of course, we could not take seriously the proposal
that we should of our own free will, without a fight at the
Congress, convert ourselves into a minority; nor could we take
seriously this whole letter, the authors of which had reached
such an incredible state of exasperation as to speak of “false
accusations of opportunism”. We confidently hoped that their
sense of Party duty would very soon get the better of the
natural desire to “vent their spleen”.

---
Notes:
[1] Note: This footnote has been moved into the body of the document.

[2] Note: This footnote has been moved into the body of the document.

[3] Note: This footnote has been moved into the body of the document.

[4]
I, too, like Martov, tried in the
Iskra organisation to get a certain candidate nominated to the Central Committee and failed, a candidate of
whose splendid reputation before and at the beginning of the
Congress, as borne out by outstanding facts, I too could
speak. But it has never entered my head. This comrade has sufficient self-respect not to allow anybody, after the
Congress, to nominate him in print or to complain about
political burials, destroyed reputations, etc.
— Lenin

[5]
See
p. 121 of this volume.— Ed .

[6]
According to my reckoning, the date mentioned in the letter was
a Tuesday. The meeting took place on Tuesday evening, that is,
after the 28th sitting of the Congress. This chronological point is very important. It is a documentary refutation of Comrade Martov’s opinion that we parted
company over the organisation of the central bodies, and not
over their personal composition. It is documentary proof of the correctness of my statement of the case at the
League Congress and in the Letter to the Editors .
After the 28th sitting of the Congress Comrades Martov and Starover had a great deal to say about a false accusation of
opportunism, but did not say a word about the differences over the composition of the Council or over
co-optation to the central bodies (which we argued about at the
25th, 26th, and 27th sittings).
— Lenin

[7]
These lines were already set up when we received news of the incident of Comrade Gusev
and Comrade Deutsch. We shall examine this incident separately
in an appendix . (See pp. 416–25 of this volume.— Ed .) — Lenin

[8]
See present edition, Vol. 6, pp. 501–02.— Ed .

[9]
There were sixteen members of the Iskra organisation present at the Second Party Congress—9 majority
adherents, headed by Lenin, and 7 minority adherents, headed by
Martov. p. 279

[10]
Sablina—pseudonym of N. K. Krupskaya, Lenin’s wife and closest Party associate.