V. I.

Lenin

A Brief Outline of the Split in the R.S.D.L.P. [3]

Inhis letter of February 1, 1905, to the editors of the newspaper
Vperyod (Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party), the well-known leader
of the Swiss Social-Democrats, Hermann Greulich, incidentally expressed his
regret at the new split in the ranks of the Russian Social-Democrats and
remarked: “Wer die grössere Schuld an dieser Zersplitterung trägt, das werde ich nicht entscheiden und ich habe den internationalen Entscheid bei der deutschen Parteileitung angeregt” (“I do not undertake to
decide who is more to blame for this split. I have proposed to the leadership
of the German Social-Democratic Party that this question be settled through
international channels”).

Theeditors of Vperyod , together with Comrade Stepanov, representative
abroad of the Russian Bureau of Committees of the Majority, answered Greulich in
the letter appended below.

Since Comrade Greulich intends to call for an international decision, we are
communicating to all friends of Vperyod in foreign countries the
contents of our letter to him and request them to translate it into
their respective languages, and to bring it to the notice of the greatest
possible number of foreign Social-Democrats.

Itis also desirable to translate into foreign languages Lenin’s Statement and Documents on the Break of the Central Institutions with the Party , as
well as: (1) the resolutions of the Northern Conference, (2) the resolutions of
the Caucasian Conference; and (3) the resolutions of the Southern Conference.

Pleaselet us know whether this request will be carried out.

The Letter to Greulich

February 3, 1905

Dear Comrade, Inyour letter you touch on the question of which group of our Party (the
R.S.D.L.P.) is to blame for the split. You say that you have asked for the
opinion of the German Social-Democrats and the International Bureau on this
point. In view of this, we feel bound to explain to you how the split
occurred. We shall confine ourselves to the presentation of definitely proved facts and refrain, as far as possible, from an evaluation of the
facts.

Untilthe end of 1903, our Party was the aggregate of the disconnected local
Social-Democratic organisations called committees. The Central
Committee and the Central Organ elected at the Party’s First Congress (in the
spring of 1898) were non-existent. They had been suppressed by the police and
never been revived. Abroad, a split had occurred between the Union of Russian
Social-Democrats (publication—Rabocheye Dyelo; hence, Rabocheye Dyelo -ists) and Plekhanov. Iskra , founded in 1900,
sided with the latter. In the space of three years, between 1900 and 1903,
Iskra gained overwhelming influence among the Russian committees. Iskra upheld the principles of revolutionary
Social-Democracy against “Economism” (alias Rabocheye
Dyelo-ism=’Russian variety of opportunism).

Thelack of unity in the Party was felt keenly by all.

Finally,in August 1903, it became possible, abroad, to assemble the Second Party Congress , at which were represented all the Russian
committees, the Bund [4] (independent organisation of the Jewish proletariat), and
both groups abroad—the Iskra group and the
Rabocheye Dyelo group.

Allparticipants in the Congress recognised its validity. The struggle at the
Congress was between the Iskrists and the anti-Iskrists (the Rabocheye Dyelo -ists and the Bund); in between was the so-called
“Marsh”. The Iskrists carried the day. They achieved the adoption of
the Party programme ( Iskra’s draft). Iskra was recognised as
the Central Organ, and its line as the line of the Party. A number of
resolutions on tactics were Iskrist in spirit, and the accepted

Rules on organisation (Lenin’s draft) were Iskrist. Only with respect to
certain details were the Rules marred by the anti-Iskrists with the aid of a
minority of the Iskrists. The voting at the Congress was as follows: of the
total 51 votes, 33 were Iskra (24 Iskrists of the present
Majority and 9 of the present Minority ), 10 were “Marsh”, and 8 were anti-Iskrists (3 Rabocheye Dyelo -ists
and 5 Bundists). Towards the end of the Congress, before the elections,
seven delegates (2 Rabocheye Dyelo -ists and the 5 Bundists)
walked out. (The Bund withdrew from the Party.)

Theminority of the Iskrists, supported, because of their mistakes, by all the
anti-Iskrists and the “Marsh”, became the minority of the Congress (24 against 9+10+1, or, 24 against 20). At the election of
the central bodies it was decided to choose three persons to the Editorial Board
of the Central Organ and three to the Central Committee. Out of the six members
who constituted the old Editorial Board of Iskra—Plekhanov, Axelrod,
Zasulich, Starover, Lenin, and Martov—there were elected Plekhanov,
Lenin, and Martov. The intention was that the Central Committee should consist
of two elected from the majority and one from the minority.

Martovrefused to take his seat on the Editorial Board without the three
“excluded” (non-elected) comrades, and the entire minority refused
to participate in the election of a Central Committee. No one ever disputed or
disputes now the validity of the elections, but after the Congress the Minority
refused to work under the leadership of the centres elected by the Congress.

Thisboycott continued for three months, from the end of August to the end of
November 1903. Iskra (six issues, Nos. 46-51) was edited by Ple/ihanov and Lenin alone . The Minority formed a secret organisation within the Party
(a fact now corroborated in the press by the
Minority followers themselves and denied by no one at the
present time). The overwhelming majority of the Russian committees (12 of the 14 that had managed
to go on record at the time) condemned this disruptive boycott.

But Plekhanov, following the turbulent congress of the League
Abroad [5] (= the Party organisation abroad), which took place in the last days of October 1903, decided to give way to the Minority, declaring before the whole Party in the article
“What Should Not Be Done” ( Iskra , No. 52, November
1903) that for the sake of avoiding a split one must at times make
concessions even to those who lean in error towards revisionism and
act as anarcho-individualists (the underlined expressions are
employed by Plekhanov literally in his article “What Should Not Be
Done”). Lenin withdrew from the Editorial Board, not wishing to go against
the decisions of the Congress. Plekhanov then co-opted all the four former
editors. The Russian committees declared that they would wait and see what
line the new Iskra would take and whether the Mensheviks had
really joined the Editorial Board with peaceful intentions.

Preciselywhat the Bolsheviks had predicted came to pass. The old-Iskra
line was not retained, nor was peace brought into the Party by the new,
Menshevik Editorial Board. The Iskra line veered so sharply towards the
old Rabocheye Dyelo -ism, which had been repudiated by the Second
Congress, that even Trotsky, a prominent member of the Minority, author
of the programmatic pamphlet Our Political Tasks,which appeared
under the edit or ship of the new “Iskra” , stated literally: “There is a gull between the old ’Iskra’ and the new ’Iskra’.” We confine ourselves to this declaration, made by one of our
opponents, in order not to have to go into lengthy explanations concerning the
instability of Iskra on questions of principle.

Onthe other hand, “the secret organisation of the Minority” was
not disbanded, but continued its boycott of the Central Committee. This covert
split of the Party into an open and a secret organisation was an intolerable hindrance to the work. An overwhelming majority of the Russian committees that
took a position on the crisis emphatically condemned both the line of the new
Iskra and the disorganising behaviour of the Minority. A general
clamour was raised on all sides for the immediate summoning of a Third Congress,
to find some way out of the intolerable situation.

Underour Party Rules, a special congress may be called only on the demand of
organisations commanding in the aggregate at least one half of the total votes (regular congresses are called,
“as far as possible”, every two years). This half had been mustered already. But here the C.C. played the Majority false by taking
advantage of the fact that several of its members belonging to the Majority had
been arrested. Under the pretext of “reconciliation”, the members of
the C.C. who had escaped arrest made a deal with the secret organisation of the Minority and declared that the organisation had been dissolved; at the
same time, in spite of the written declarations of the C.C. and behind the back
of the Party, three Mensheviks were co-opted into the C.C. This
co-optation took place in November or December 1904. Thus, the Minority was
fighting from August 1903 to November 1904, tearing the Party asunder, for the
sake of co-opting three persons into the Central Organ and three into the C.C.

Thespurious central institutions thus formed met the demand for another
congress with silence or abuse.

Thenthe patience of the Russian committees gave out. They began to call their
own private conferences. So far three such conferences have been held: (1) the
Conference of the four Caucasian committees; (2) the Conference of three
southern committees (Odessa, Nikolayev, and Ekaterinoslav); and (3) the
Conference of six northern committees (St. Petersburg, Moscow, Tver, Riga,
“the North”—i.e., Yaroslavl, Kostroma, and Vladimir— and,
lastly, Nizhni Novgorod). All these conferences declared for the
“Majority”, decided to support the publicists’ group of the Majority
(the group consisting of Lenin, Ryadovoi, Orlovsky, Galyorka, [6]
Voinov, [7] and others), and elected their own Bureau . This Bureau was
instructed by the third, viz., the Northern, conference to constitute itself as
an Organising Committee and to convene a congress of the Russian
committees, i.e., the Third Congress of the Party, without regard for the centres abroad that had split from the Party.

Thisis how things stood on January 1, 1905 (new style). The Bureau of Committees
of the Majority has begun its work (conditions in our police-ridden country are
such that the convening of the Congress will, of course, be delayed for a few
months; the Second Congress was announced in December 1902, but was not
convened until August 1903). The publicists’ group of the Majority founded an organ of the Majority , the
newspaper Vperyod , published as a weekly since January 4
(N.S.), 1905. To date (February 3, 1905) four numbers have already
appeared. The line of Vperyod is the line of the old “Iskra”. In the name of the old Iskra, Vperyod
resolutely combats the new Iskra .

Hence,in actual fact, there are now two Russian Social-Democratic Labour
Parties. One has the organ Iskra , “officially” called the
Central Organ of the Party; it has the C.C., and four committees in Russia
out of twenty (the other committees in Russia, apart from the twenty
represented at the Second Congress, were organised later, and the validity of
their confirmation is still in dispute). The other party has the organ
Vperyod , the Bureau of Russian Committees of the Majority, fourteen
committees in Russia (the thirteen above-named committees and the
Voronezh Committee, and most likely also the committees of Saratov,
the Urals, Tula, and

Siberia [1]

).

The new-Iskrists have on their side all the opponents of the old
Iskra , all the Rabocheye Dyelo-ists, and a large part of the
intelligentsia on the fringe of the Party. The Vperyod -ists have on
their side all who followed the old Iskra from conviction and on
principle, as well as a large part of the class-conscious, advanced workers, and
of the practical Party functionaries in Russia. Plekhanov, who was a Bolshevik
at the Second Party Congress (August 1903) and at the Congress of the League
(October 1903), but who has been fighting the “Majority” furiously
since November 1903, declared publicly on September 2, 1904 (this
statement has appeared in print) that the forces on both sides were
approximately equal.

We Bolsheviks maintain that we have on our side the majority of real Party
workers active in Russia. We consider that the main cause of the split and the
chief obstacle to unity is the disruptive behaviour of the Minority, which
refused to bow to the decisions of the Second Congress and preferred to have a
split rather than call the Third Congress.

Atthe present time the Mensheviks are splitting the local organisations everywhere in Russia. In St. Petersburg, for instance, they
prevented the Committee from organising a demonstration on November 28 (see
Vperyod , No. 1 [2]

).

Now they have broken away in St. Petersburg as a separate group known as the “Group Attached to the Central Committee” and work against the local committee of the Party. Recently they
organised in Odessa another such local (“Central Committee”) group for
fighting the Party Committee. The falsity of their position has made the
Menshevik central institutions disorganise the local work of the Party, since
these central bodies did not want to accept the decision of the Party committees
that had elected them.

Thedifferences in principle between Vperyod and new Iskra are
essentially the same as those between the old Iskra and Rabocheye Dyelo . We consider these differences important, but, given the opportunity
fully to defend our views, the views of the old Iskra , we would not
consider these differences of themselves to be a bar to working together in one
Party.

---
Notes:
[1]
At least all the four last-named committees declared for the
“Majority” after the Second Party Congress.— Lenin