V. I.

Lenin

The Third Congress [6]

Thelong and stubborn struggle within the R.S.D.L.P. for the Congress
is over at last. The Third Congress has been held. A detailed appraisal of all
its work will be possible only after the proceedings of the Congress have been
published. At present we propose, on the basis of the published “Report” [1] and the impressions of the Congress delegates, to touch on the principal
landmarks of Party development as reflected in the decisions of the Third
Congress.

Threemajor questions confronted the Party of the class-conscious proletariat
in Russia on the eve of the Third Congress. First, the question of the Party
crisis. Second, the more important question of the form of organisation of the
Party in general. Third, the main question, namely, our tactics in the present
revolutionary situation. Let us see how these questions were dealt with, in the
order of lesser to major.

The Party crisis solved itself by the mere fact that the Congress was
convened. The root cause of the crisis, as every one knows, was the stubborn
refusal of the minority at the Second Congress to submit to the majority. The
agonising and protracted nature of the crisis was conditioned by the delay in
convening the Third Congress, by the fact that there was virtually a split in
the Party, a split that was kept hidden and secret beneath a hypocritical show
of unity, while the Majority was making desperate efforts to find a quick and
direct way out of the impossible situation. The Congress provided this way out
by bluntly asking the Minority whether it accepted the decisions of the
Majority, i.e., whether Party unity was to be restored in actual fact or to be formally and completely broken. The Minority chose the latter
course. It preferred a split. The Council’s refusal to take part in the Congress
in face of the clearly expressed will of the majority of qualified Party
organisations and the refusal of the entire Minority to attend the Congress
represented, as the “Report” states, the final step towards the
split. We shall not dwell here on the formal validity of the Congress, which has
been conclusively evidenced in the “Report”. The argument that the
Congress was invalid, that is, not in accordance with the Party Rules, because
it had not been convened by the Council, can hardly be treated seriously after
all that happened as a result of the Party conflict. It is clear to anyone who
has any idea of the general principles of Party organisation that discipline in
regard to a lower body is conditional upon discipline in regard to the higher
body; the discipline which the Council may command is conditional upon the
Council’s subordination to its principals, that is, the committees and their
totality, the Party Congress. To disagree with this elementary principle is to
come to the absurd conclusion that it is not the agents who are responsible and
accountable to their principals, but vice versa. But this question, we repeat,
is not worth dwelling upon, not only because those do not see the point who do
not wish to see it, but because, from the outset of the split, the dispute on
formalities between the breakaway groups becomes barren, pointless, and
scholastic.

The Minority has split away from the Party; that is an accomplished fact. Some
of them will probably be brought to see by the decisions of the Congress, and
still more by its proceedings, how naive the sundry tales about mechanical
suppression, etc., are; they will come to see that the rights of the Minority in
general are fully guaranteed by the new Rules, that the split is harmful; and
this section of the Minority will re-enter the Party. The other section may
persist for a while in refusing to recognise the Party Congress. As to this
section, we can but hope that it will lose no time in organising itself
internally into a separate organisation with its own tactics and its own
Rules. The sooner it does this, the easier it will he for all, for the broad
mass of the Party workers, to understand the causes of the split and its
implications; the more practicable it will be for our Party to come to a working agreement with the breakaway organisation, depending on the needs
of local work; and the sooner will a way be found for the inevitable
future restoration of the Party’s unity.

Letus now pass to the second question, to the general organisational standards
of the Party. The Third Congress made changes of a substantial character in
these standards in the course of revising the Party Rules. The revision affected
three main points: (a) the amendment of Clause 1 of the Rules; (b) the
precise definition of the rights of the C.C. and the autonomy of the committees,
with the extension of the scope of this autonomy; and (c) the creation of a
single centre. As to the famous Clause I of the Rules, this has been
sufficiently clarified in Party literature. The erroneousness of defending in
principle Martov’s vague formula has been demonstrated conclusively. Kautsky’s
attempt to defend this formula from considerations, not of principle, but of
expediency, namely, the conditions of secrecy prevailing in Russia, was not
successful, as indeed it could not be. Anyone who has worked in Russia knows
well that such considerations of expediency do not exist. The only thing now is
to wait for the first results of the Party’s collective work in
implementing the new Clause I of the Rules. We emphasise the fact that a great
deal of work has still to be done for this implementation. No work at all is
needed to enrol oneself as a member of the Party “under the control of a
Party organisation”, since this formula is a mere name and remained such
from the Second Congress to the Third. A wide network of varied Party
organisations, from narrow and secret organisations to the broadest possible and
least secret, can only be built up by dint of long, hard, and efficient
organising work; this is the work that has now devolved upon our C.C. and to a
still greater extent upon our local committees. It is the committees that will
have to confirm the largest number of organisations in the capacity of Party
branches and in the course avoid all unnecessary red tape and faultfinding; it
is the committees that will have to propagate among the workers constantly and
unremittingly the idea of the necessity to create the greatest possible number
of diverse workers’ organisations affiliated to our Party. We cannot deal here
with this interesting question at greater length. We should like to point out, however, that the revolutionary epoch makes it
particularly essential to draw a line of demarcation’between

Social-Democracy and all the other democratic parties. But this demarcation is
unthinkable unless sustained efforts are made to increase the number of Party
organisations and strengthen the ties among them. The fortnightly reports
decided upon by the Congress will, among other things, serve to strengthen these
ties. Let us hope that the reports will not remain an unrealised wish; that they
will not cause the practical workers to draw for themselves a horrible picture
of red tape and bureaucracy; that these comrades will start off in a small way
till they develop the habit, by perhaps just reporting the number of members of
every Party organisation, even the smallest and the farthest from the
centre. “The first step is the hardest”, runs the proverb. After
that they will realise how tremendously important it is to acquire the habit
of maintaining regular organisational connections.

Weshall not dwell at length on the question of the single centre. The Third
Congress rejected “bicentrism” by as huge a majority as the Second
Congress had adopted it. The reasons will easily be understood by anyone who has
care fully followed the history of the Party. Congresses do not so much create
something new as consolidate results already achieved. At the time of the Second
Congress the Iskra Editorial Board was the recognised pillar of
stability, and it enjoyed dominant influence. The preponderant position of the
comrades in Russia in relation to those resident abroad still seemed
problematical at that stage of the Party’s development. After the Second
Congress it was the Editorial Board abroad that proved to be unstable. The
Party, on the other hand, had developed considerably and unquestionably in
Russia. Under these circumstances the appointment of an Editorial Board of the
Central Organ by the Party C. C. could not but meet with the approval of the
mass of the Party workers.

Finally,the attempts to delimit more precisely the rights of the C.C. and of
the local committees, to draw a line between ideological struggle and
disruptive squabbles, followed inevitably also from the whole course of events
after the Second Congress. We have here a consistent and systematic “accumulation of Party experience”. Plekhanov ’s and
Lenin’s letter of October 6, 1903, [2] to the disgruntled editors was an
attempt to distinguish between irritation and disagreement. The C.C.’s
ultimatum of November 25, 1903, was a similar attempt in the form of a
proposal formulated by a group of publicists. The statement issued by the
C.C. representatives on the Council at the end of January

1903 [3] was an attempt to call upon the whole Party to differentiate the
ideological forms of struggle from boycott, etc. Lenin’s letter of May
26,

1904, [4] to the members of the C.C. in Russia was an admission of the
necessity of formally guaranteeing the rights of the
Minority. The well-known Declaration of the Twenty-Two (autumn 1904) was a similar admission in a more
distinct, detailed, and categorical form. Quite naturally, the Third
Congress took the same path when it “finally dispelled, dispelled by
formal decisions, the mirage of a state of siege”. What these
formal decisions were, viz., the changes in the Party Rules, can be seen
from the Rules and the “Report”; therefore we shall not repeat
them here. We shall mention only two things. First, it is to be hoped that
the guarantee of the right to publish literature and the safeguarding of
the committees against “cashiering” will help the seceded
non-Russian Social-Democratic organisations to return to the
Party. Secondly, in view of the inviolability of committee
membership, some provision had to be made against the possible abuse of this guarantee,
viz., against being saddled with a perfectly useless committee that was
“undeposable”. That accounts for Clause 9 of the new Party
Rules, which sets forth the conditions under which a committee may be
dissolved upon the demand of two-thirds of the local workers belonging to
the Party organisations. Let us wait for the guidance of experience before
deciding to what extent this rule is practical.

Finally,in passing to the last and most important item of the Congress
proceedings, the determination of the Party’s tactics, we must state that this
is not the place to list and analyse the various resolutions. Possibly we shall have to do this in special
articles devoted, to the major· resolutions. Here we need only outline
the general political situation which the Congress had to analyse. Two
alternative courses and outcomes are open to the Russian revolution, which has
begun. The tsarist government may yet succeed by means of trivial concessions
and a “Shipov” constitution in extricating itself from the vice in
which it is now caught. There is little likelihood of such an outcome; but
should the inter national position of the autocracy improve as the result, let
us say, of a relatively favourable peace, should the betrayal by the
bourgeoisie of the cause of freedom be brought quickly to a head by a compromise
with the powers that be, should the inevitable revolutionary outbreak or out
breaks end in the defeat of the people, then such an outcome is likely. We
Social-Democrats and the entire class-conscious proletariat must then face a
long dreary period of harsh, ostensibly constitutional class rule of the
bourgeoisie, with all manner of suppression of the political activity of the
workers and slow economic progress under the new conditions. We shall not lose
heart, of course, whatever the outcome of the revolution; we will take advantage
of every change in conditions to widen and strengthen the independent
organisation of the working-class party, to train the proletariat politically
for renewed struggle. The Congress took this task, among others, into account in
its resolution on open action by the R.S.D.L.P.

Theother possible and more probable outcome of the revolution is the
“complete victory of democracy, headed by the working class”, of
which the “Report” speaks. [5]

We need hardly say that we will do all in our power to achieve this result, to eliminate the possibility of the other alter native.

The objective historical conditions, too, are shaping themselves
favourably for the Russian revolution. The sense less and shameful war is
tightening the noose round the neck of the tsarist government and creating an
exceptionally favourable situation for the revolutionary destruction of
militarism, for the widespread propaganda of the idea of arming the people in lieu of standing armies and for the speedy effectuation of
this measure, in view of its support by the masses of the population. The
long and undivided rule of the autocracy has stored up revolutionary
energy among the people to a degree perhaps never before known in
history. Simultaneously with the vast movement of the working class, the
peasant revolt is spreading and growing, and the petty-bourgeois
democratic forces, consisting mostly of the professional classes, are
coming into alliance. The irony of history has punished the autocracy in
that even friendly social forces, such as clericalism, must organise against
it to some extent, thereby breaking down or widening the framework of the
bureaucratic police regime. Discontent among the clergy, the striving
among them after new forms of life, the emergence of clericals as a
separate group, the appearance of Christian Socialists and Christian
Democrats, the resentment of the “heterodox”, sectarians,
etc.—this all serves the purpose of the revolution and creates
exceedingly favourable conditions for agitation for the complete
separation of the Church from the State. The allies of the
revolution, voluntary and involuntary, conscious and unconscious, are growing and
multiplying hour by hour. The outlook brightens for the victory of the
people over the autocracy.

Thisvictory is possible only through a heroic effort of all the forces of the
proletariat. It makes demands of Social-Democracy such as history has never
before and nowhere made of a working-class party in an epoch of democratic
revolution. We have before us now, not the well-trodden paths of slow
preparatory work, but the colossal, grandiose tasks of organising the
insurrection, mustering the revolutionary forces of the proletariat, uniting
them with the forces of the whole revolutionary people, launching the armed
attack, and establishing a provisional revolutionary government. In the
resolutions which have now been published for general information, the Third
Congress has sought to take into account these new tasks and give all possible
directives to the organisations of the class-conscious proletariat.

Russiais nearing the denouement of the age-long struggle of all the progressive
popular forces against the autocracy. No one doubts any longer that the
proletariat will take the most energetic part in this struggle and that its participation in the struggle
will decide the outcome of the revolution in Russia. We Social-Democrats will
now have to prove our selves worthy representatives and leaders of the
most revolutionary class, to help it win the fullest freedom, which is
the pledge of our victorious march towards socialism.

---
Notes:
[1]
See pp. 433-39 of this volume.— Ed .

[2]
See present edition, Vol. 7, p. 354.— Ed .

[3]
Ibid. , pp. 147-49.— Ed .

[4]
Ibid. , pp. 426-29.— Ed .

[5]
See p. 438 of this volume.— Ed .

[6]
The article “The Third Congress” was reprinted on July 1 (14), 1905, in issue No. I of Borba Proletariata.