From this communication the following emerges: 1) The Tver Committee, together with the periphery, declared, by the committee’s own admission, its consent to participate in the congress being organised by the Bureau of Majority Committees; 2) afterwards the Tver Committee, under the influence of new promises by the Central Committee to convene the Third Congress, withdrew its consent.^3 The periphery, however, did not follow the committee and did not renounce participation in the congress already convened by the Bureau; 3) the new promises of the Central Committee concerning the convocation of the Third Congress were given by it in an appeal to the party of March 4, 1905, which has not been published so far and is unknown to us.”

TRICKS OF BONAPARTISTS

In order to properly assess the mode of action of our celebrated Central Committee, let us remind the comrades, firstly, of the party Rules, and, secondly, of certain facts. According to the Rules, the congress is convened by the Council, and not by the Central Committee. Consequently, the Central Committee makes promises for which it is not responsible. The Central Committee promises to do what it, the Central Committee, according to the Rules, cannot do. The Central Committee promises or proposes, while the Council disposes. But members of the party who are naive enough to listen to the promises of the Central Committee and who are poorly acquainted with the Rules, find themselves fooled. As to how the Council “disposes” – the facts speak. In its resolution of March 8 (new style) the Council declares (No. 89 of *Iskra*) that it “in agreement with the majority of party workers” (perhaps including the Tver Committee?) “does not deem it expedient to convene a party congress at such a moment.” Is this still not clear? Is it still not evident from this that the Council again and again shamelessly deceives the party, for it has not obtained any “agreement” from “the majority of party workers”?

Further, on March 10 (new style), i.e., the next day, the Council adopted another resolution contradicting the previous one (No. 91 of *Iskra*), in which it expresses its consent to send two representatives to the congress convened by the Russian Bureau of Majority Committees, but says not a word about consent to the convocation of the congress. Let us add that the Council not only officially opposes the “expediency” of convening the congress, but at the same time falsifies the votes for the congress, increasing the number of supposedly fully authorised committees and refusing to inform the party when and which new committees it recognises as confirmed. In the Council resolution of March 8 (analysed in No. 10 of *Vperyod*), the committees of Polesie, the North-Western, the Kuban and Kazan were named as entitled to vote as of January 1, 1905, whereas the last two committees were not confirmed by the Central Committee at all, and the first two were confirmed^* only by April 1, 1905.

^*
The words: “two were confirmed only by April 1” have been corrected by an unknown hand to: “receive full rights only from the 1st.” — Ed.

We ask those party members who want not only to be counted as members but to actually *be* party members: do they really want to tolerate this game? The Council falsifies the votes and speaks out against the congress, and the Central Committee makes “promises” about the congress, taking advantage of the naivety of people who do not know that, according to the Rules, these promises can have no formal significance! Do not the facts wholly confirm what we already wrote in No. 8 of *Vperyod*, February 28/15, regarding the first reports that the Central Committee had “agreed” to a congress? Let us note that a month has passed since then, that since then *Iskra* has issued numbers 88, 89, 90, 91 and 92 (dated March 10, old style), without uttering a single word about this “delicate” question of the Central Committee’s “agreement” to a congress! There remains for us only to repeat what was said in No. 8 of *Vperyod*:

“We have just received a communication which can be understood as signifying the Central Committee’s consent to an immediate congress. While by no means vouching as yet for the reliability of this news, we nonetheless consider it plausible. For many months the Central Committee has been fighting against the congress, breaking up organisations, boycotting and disorganising committees that declared themselves in favour of the congress. Such tactics have suffered collapse. Now, guided by its rule ‘expediency is everything, formality is nothing’,^4 — the Central Committee, for the sake of ‘expediency’ (that is, for the sake of preventing the congress), is ready at least once again formally to declare that it stands for the immediate convocation of the congress. We hope that neither the Bureau nor the local committees will allow themselves to be fooled by the tricks of the party ‘Shidlovsky commission’.”^**

^**
The quotation from *Vperyod* is pasted into the manuscript as a newspaper clipping. — Ed.

Postscript. Geneva, March 29 (16). We have to keep a veritable diary of the Central Committee’s tricks. The following letter of the Central Committee, sent by it to the Bureau of Majority Committees, has been delivered to us.^ “On March 4 the Central Committee resolved to appeal to the party committees calling on them to prepare for the Third Party Congress and, for its part,^*