V. I.

Lenin

On the History of the Party Programme [1]

Byinsisting that the draft programme was not written by me, Plekhanov
is the first to carry our disputes over the matter into the open in the form of
insinuations, rebukes, and reproaches. Unfortunately, he does not expound these
disputes, but confines himself to gossip—to a statement, which though it
may be piquant, is vague and unverifiable. Therefore, to my colleague’s article
against Plekhanov I must add that I have documentary evidence concerning our
disputes during the discussion of the draft programme and that I shall publish
this evidence when occasion offers. The readers will then see: (1) that
Plekhanov’s assertion that our relations cooled on account of What Is To Be Done? is absolutely untrue; they cooled because the Board of six, in the
dispute over the programme, split into two halves; (2) that I advocated the
thesis of the displacement of small- scale industry by large-scale industry and
had it included in the programme. Plekhanov sought to confine himself to a
nebulous expression in the nature of the famous “more or less”; (3)
that I advocated and secured the substitution of the term
“proletariat” for that of “toiling and exploited masses”
in the passage dealing with the class character of our Party; and (4) that
Plekhanov, when my adherents and I among the six on the Board criticised him for
the fact that in his draft the proletarian character of our Party had not been
brought out with sufficient clarity, parried with the counter charge that I
understood the proletarian character of the Party the way Martynov does.

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Notes:
[1]
This paragraph was printed as a footnote by Lenin to V. V. Vorovsky’s
article “The Fruits of Demagogy” in Vperyod , No. 11, March
23 (10), 1905.

Thematerials dealing with the history of the Party’s Marxist
programme were given in Vol. 6 of this edition.