V. I.

Lenin

Issue No. 83 of Iskra , which we have just received, contains a
declaration by the Mensheviks and the Central Committee concerning “the
complete cessation of the Minority’s organisational separateness”. “The Minority,” we are assured, “ceases to
consider itself a camp , and there can be no further question of either
boycotting the Central Committee or presenting ultimatums to it.” This
statement comes just a wee bit late! The Party now knows from Lenin’s pamphlet
( Statement and Documents on the Break of the Central Institutions with the Party [1]

)

that the “ultimatums” to co-opt Popov, Fisher, and
Fomin have already been enforced , to be sure, on the quiet, by deception of the Party. The ultimatum to sabotage the Third Congress
through similar deceptions has also been enforced. The disorganisation of local
work is continuing, and the so-called Central Committee has approved the
setting-up in St. Petersburg (by the report in Iskra ) of “a
special organisation” or group, in view of the fact that its
numerous [?] members are obviously unable to work under the leadership of the
local committee”.

And so, what the “Majority” said and predicted, beginning with
Lenin’s “Letter” (“Why I Resigned from the Iskra
Editorial Board”, December

1903 [2]

)

and ending with Orlovsky’s pamphlet
The Council Against the Party , has now been wholly and unquestionably confirmed by events. The actual object of the eighteen
months’ struggle was the co-optation of four to the Central Organ and three to the Central Committee. For the sake of co-optation the organisation-as-process
theory and a heap of differences “on points of principle” were
concocted. For the sake of this co-optation our centres have now broken
completely with the Party and are breaking with the local committees
piecemeal. The correctness of our slogan that “the Majority must break
off all relations with the disorganisers” ( Vperyod , No. 1,
“Time to Call a

Halt!” [3]

)

is now fully confirmed.

Extremely interesting, too, is the following passage from the Iskra
statement: “The decision of the delegates [of the Minority] was submitted
for discussion to all the adherents of the Minority working in the Kiev,
Kharkov, Don, Kuban, St. Petersburg, and Odessa committees, the Donets and
Crimean leagues, and other Party organisations.” Thus, after a furious campaign
of nearly eighteen months , the circle abroad, with the aid of the
Central Organ, the Council, and (since May) the Central Committee, won to its
side only five Russian committees out of the twenty attending the Second Congress! [4]

Outside the committees, sizable groups considered worthy of
being listed in Iskra were set up in only two cities, in St. Petersburg
and in Odessa. The Kuban Committee, apparently, was only recently knocked
together for the sake of an extra pair of votes.

Consequently, Iskra , the organ of the Minority, now, in January,
confirms the correctness of the analysis of the Party situation which another
Menshevik gave in September. It was the agent of the Central Committee, sympathising with the Minority and now co-opted to the C.C., who wrote in September
to

Glebov, [5] a member of the C.C., that “in Russia the Minority is powerless” , that it is
backed by only four committees. It was this powerlessness of the
circle abroad that made it engineer the Bonapartist coup in the C.C. and
side-track, by deceit, the Third Congress.

---
Notes:
[1]
See present edition, Vol. 7, pp. 529-39.— Ed .

[2]
Ibid. , pp. 119-25.—Ed.

[3]
See pp. 35-39 of this volume. — Ed .

[4]
Of the committees attending the Congress only the Kiev Committee went
over from the Majority to the Minority, i.e., at the Congress both its
delegates were Bolsheviks, but now in the committee the Mensheviks
predominate. In the Nikolayev and Siberian committees, on the contrary,
both delegates to the Congress were Mensheviks, but after the Congress
these committees sided with the Majority. The Odessa, Don, Ufa, and Moscow
committees were divided at the Congress between the Majority and the
Minority (one delegate in each). Of these only the Don Committee is now
Menshevist.— Lenin

[5]
See Note 77.— Ed .