V. I.

Lenin

Allcomrades know from the resolutions of the Third Congress of the
Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party what our attitude should be, in point of
principle and organisation, towards the so-called Minority, or the
new-Iskrists. While recognising the need for an ideological struggle against the
survivals of “Economism”, the Third Congress ruled that adherents of
the Minority may be admitted to membership in Party organisations, provided they
recognise the congresses of the Party and submit to Party
discipline. Since this condition has not been met, all “Minority”
groups must be regarded as being outside the Party. Practical
agreements may, of course, be concluded with them at the discretion of
the Central Committee and the local committees, along the same lines as the
agreements with the Bund, etc.

Atpresent all we can give the comrades is some information regarding the
section abroad of the seceded Minority. Immediately after the Congress the
C.C. wrote to the “League”, as well as to the heads of the technical
and financial departments of the Party, asking the former to state its attitude
to the Third Congress, and the latter to turn over the Party property to the
C.C. No reply was received to either of the letters. The new-Iskrists were not
averse to using the Party printing-house and store, and to receiving money from
the German Social-Democratic Party and from abroad in general, in the name of
the entire Party; but they showed no desire to account to the Party for the use
of Party property and the disbursement of Party funds. We consider comment on
such behaviour superfluous.

Inthe article on the Third Congress ( Proletary , No. 1 [1]

)

we expressed the wish that the breakaway group of the Party might at least organise itself
into some cohesive form as quickly as possible, since this would make agreements
easier and the path towards future unity clearer. Unfortunately, even this wish
of ours has proved almost unrealisable. The resolutions of the Minority
“Conference” have now been published (see the highly interesting
pamphlet, The First All-Russian Conference of Party Functionaries , a
separate supplement to Iskra , No. 100; also Iskra , No. 100). We earnestly recommend this pamphlet to all Party organisations, for
we cannot imagine any better material than this for combating the ideas of the
breakaway section of the Party. These resolutions show the Minority’s total
incapacity to organise even its own followers. They could not even convene
their own Conference; we did it for them, the Bureau of Committees of the
Majority and the C.C., when we convened the Third Congress. The delegates of
the Menshevik organisations went to the Congress on the instructions of their
organisations, but arrived instead at the Conference! The Conference resolved
not to recognise the decisions of the Third Congress—and to rescind the
Party Rules adopted at the Second Congress! The Conference was unable
to constitute itself as a congress; its decisions were the decisions
of a consultative assembly, subject to the approval of each
organisation. There is no complete list of the participants at the Conference,
nor are there any minutes. The organisations of the Minority can therefore only
give their ayes and noes to the question whether they will recognise
any particular resolution. Thus, a vote will be taken on the resolutions with no
opportunity for the voters to offer proposals for changes or to have before them
a complete record of the discussion of the resolutions. Heaven only knows how
these votes are to be counted, since the polls in favour of confirming or
rejecting particular sections of the resolutions may differ. We have here the
principle of Bonapartist plebiscites, as opposed to the principle of democratic
representation generally recognised by Social-Democrats the world over. With us,
democratically elected and responsible representatives of qualified organisations consult with one another and reach a
decision. With them, representatives as well as guests confer and make
proposals, and the qualified organisations vote aye or no post factum. It is difficult to imagine a system better suited for
disorganising the Social-Democrats. In practice this system of plebiscites
always ends in a farce.

The Rules adopted by the Conference and consisting of thirteen clauses are a gem
of their kind. They erect a six storey party structure rising in the following
order:

(1) Directing Board; (2) Committee; (3) Regional Congress; (4) Regional Committee; (5) Conference; and (6) Executive Committee. Generally speaking, the
lower body elects the higher. But the relations between the Directing Board and
the Committee are not based on the principle of election but on the principle
of “agreement”, as the new-Iskrists see it, or on the principle of
“confusion”, as we see it. On the one hand, the Committee is
included en bloc in the membership of the Directing Board, together
with all the members, not only of the District Committees, but of “the
groups working among the special sections of the population”. On the other
hand, “the District Committee includes also a representative of the
Committee”! On the one hand, all important decisions must come from the
Directing Board; on the other, in emergency cases, the Committee may act on its
own initiative “before inviting the opinion [!] of the District
Committees”. What is more, “the Committee is obliged to
report periodically on its activities to the district committees If a majority of the
members of the District Committees express no confidence in the Committee, the
latter is reorganised “by mutual agreement between the Regional
Committee and the District Committees”. Neither the powers nor
the composition of the other Party organisations (including the District Committee) are defined
in any way. The concept of Party membership, of which the Mensheviks made a
major issue at the Second Congress, has been jettisoned! Hereto fore the
principle of “agreement” among members of one and the same
organisation or party, who sing in unison on all essential questions of
programme and tactics, was regarded as an anarchist principle. Social-Democrats
throughout the world have in such cases always followed the principle of the subordination of the minority to the majority. The new-Iskrists want to
show the world a shining example of the manner in which these two principles can
be commingled in the most “poetic” disorder. Recently we came across
a copy of a German newspaper bearing the motto, “Weder Autorität noch Majorität” (“Neither Authority nor Majority”), a principle
akin to the organisation-as-process theory of the new-Iskrists. The newspaper is
the organ of the German anarchists: Der Anarchist .

Inthe election of the centre (“the body that unifies all Party work”) the
new-Iskrists prefer indirect voting, through electors, to direct voting. The
Executive Committee is not elected by the direct vote of the representatives of
the Directing Boards, but in four stages! Why this sudden dislike of
direct elections God alone knows. Some people wonder whether the new-Iskrists
may not have been influenced by the example of Mr. Struve, who wants the Upper
House to be elected by universal suffrage, but not by direct vote. How this
four-stage election is to be carried out, again God alone knows, for there is
not a word about it in the “Rules”.

Obviouslyit would be absurd to take the Rules seriously, though we have not
exhausted their charms by far. They will never be put into practice. The
six-decker bus would not be able to budge an inch, even if it could be
built. These Rules are of importance, not for their practical value, but as a
statement of principles. They are a superb, peerless illustration of the famous
“organisation-as process” theory. Now even the blind must see that
organisation-as-process means disorganisation. Hitherto the Mensheviks have
acted as disorganisers of their opponents, of the Second Congress and the bodies
created by it. Now they act as disorganisers of their own followers. This is
truly disorganisation exalted to a principle.

Thatthe Mensheviks have begun by breaking their own Rules does not surprise
us. They have mapped out no scheme for the division of Russia into regions. They
have elected no Executive Committee, not even pro tem. , pending the
confirmation of the committees and organisations. The Conference elected an
Organisation Committee, which was not provided for in the Rules, and assigned to
it special tasks! At present even temporary and partial agreements with the Mensheviks are
made extremely difficult, for this Organisation Committee lacks official
status, and no steps that it takes can have decisive significance. Anyone
desiring to have dealings with the Mensheviks must now take the trouble of
communicating with each of their organisations separately, and even with
each individual “Pan” who may say, “Nie pozwalam !” [2]

Finally,the most astonishing thing about the “Rules” of the
Minority is the omission of all reference to Party organs and to Party
literature in general. Organs there are ( Iskra, Sotsial-Demokrat [4] )

and will be, but the “Rules” adopted by the Conference establish
no connection between them and the Party. This is incredible, but it is
a fact. The publicists are outside the Party, above the Party. No control, no
reports, no material dependence. Something reminiscent of the worst days of
opportunism among the French socialists: the Party unto itself, and the
publicists unto themselves. From this point of view the following decision of
the Conference, viz., the resolution on Party (?) literature, should
perhaps not seem accidental: “The Conference deems it necessary: (1) that
the Organisation Committee take measures to furnish the Party publicists greater
possibilities to wage a struggle in the legal press for the theoretical
principles of the Party”. A kind of prototype of Menshevik organisation:
a group of “Party publicists”, non-responsible and “independent”, indispensable and irreplaceable. And attached to
them—a committee to have charge of the work of ... legal publication!

Itis difficult to discuss this type of organisation with the necessary
seriousness. The nearer the revolution and the nearer the opportunity for
Social-Democrats to write openly in the “legal” press, the more
strictly should the party of the proletariat adhere to the principle of the
unconditional responsibility of “Party publicists” to the Party, of
their dependence on the Party.

Asregards the tactical resolutions of the Conference, they admirably confirm
the declaration of the Third Congress on the shadings of Social-Democracy “akin to Economism”, and on
“the constriction of the scope of Party work”. We shall say nothing
of the incredibly careless editing of the resolutions, which rather resemble
jottings, aphorisms, reflections, and scraps of rough copy. In this respect the
resolutions of the Conference can be rivalled only by the “Programme of
the Osvobozhdeniye League”. Instead of precise, clear-cut
directives issued by the highest body of the Party, we find here ... stylistic
exercises of some Party literati .

Totake the contents. On the pressing question of the uprising, we are not told
that it has become “essential”; that it is necessary to elucidate,
not only its political significance, but its “practical and organisational
aspect”; that we must “organise the proletariat” to this end
and “form special groups as the need arises”. (Resolution of the
Third Congress.) Not at all. First we are told that the possibility of timing
the uprising and preparing it by methods of secret organisation is
“excluded”; we then read that, with broader agitation and
organisation, it is possible to convert spontaneous movements into
“planned insurrections”. From this muddle the party of the
proletariat is expected to derive ideological guidance! The Third Congress of
the R.S.D.L.P. repeats and confirms all the old truths about
propaganda, agitation, the general democratic movement, etc., but adds
to this a new task: to organise the proletariat for the uprising, to elucidate
the “practical and organisational aspect” of new methods
of struggle, of the determined struggle for freedom. The Conference speaks only
of “the preparation of the uprising” in general, with stale
repetitions about agitation and organisation in general; it cannot bring itself
to formulate a single new task independently, it advances no guiding slogan on
the necessity to take a step forward from the general preparation, of which we
have spoken since 1902, to the treatment of the matter from the point of view of
practical organisation. Like the old Economists to a T. When new tasks of the
political struggle emerged upon the scene, they were belittled, broken up into
stages, and subordinated to the tasks of the economic struggle.

Notonly economic struggle, but political struggle, and in the broadest and
boldest forms, said the revolutionary Social-Democrats. The best means of
political agitation is economic struggle, answered the Economists. Not only propaganda and agitation in
general, the revolutionary Social-Democrats now say, not only
clarification of the political significance of the uprising, but also the
formation of special groups, the immediate commencement of practical
organisational work, “the most energetic measures for the arming of
the proletariat.” A planned uprising is excluded, retort the
new-Iskrists; we must expand agitation, strengthen organisation, prepare
the conversion of the spontaneous into the planned; only in this way
“can the moment of insurrection be brought nearer”, only in
this way “can the technical fighting preparations acquire more or
less serious importance”....

Forthem the moment of insurrection has not yet “come near”! For them the
practical preparations have still to “acquire more or less serious
importance”! Is this not tail-ism par excellence? Is this not a
degradation of the “urgent” task (urgent in the opinion of the Third
Congress), towards which we have as yet done dreadfully little? Are not these
people backing away from uprising to agitation, as the Economists backed away
from political struggle to economic struggle with the employers and the
government? Read in Osvobozhdeniye , No. 71, how Mr. Struve is backing
away from the slogan of the “armed uprising”, how this leader of the
liberal bourgeoisie is questioning the inevitability of the uprising (p. 340),
how he lays himself out to minimise the importance of “the technical
aspect of the revolution”, how he “gives depth” to the slogan of the uprising by pointing to the “socio-psychical
conditions”, how he substitutes for this slogan the slogan of
“imbuing the masses with the ideas of democratic reform”— and you
will understand what a profoundly demoralising influence the tail-ism of the
new-Iskrists must exercise on the proletariat, and into whose hands it plays.

Thesecond urgent political question is that of the provisional revolutionary
government. This question is clearly and distinctly formulated in the resolution
of the Third Congress. The preamble speaks of the struggle for the republic,
which can be won only through a completely successful uprising; of the need for
the convocation of the Constituent Assembly by a provisional revolutionary
government in order to guarantee truly free and fair elections; of the need to prepare for the struggle with the bourgeoisie to safeguard the gains of the
revolution. The conclusions and directives of the Congress: The proletariat must
be made to realise the need for a provisional revolutionary government. The
proletariat must put clearly defined demands before this government, namely, the
realisation of the entire minimum programme. Social-Democrats may participate in
the government (action “from above”), the object of such participation
being clearly specified (a ruthless struggle against counter revolution and
defence of the independent interests of the working class). The conditions of
such participation are made equally explicit. The formal condition is strict
control by the Party; the material condition, i.e., the condition determining
the expediency of such participation, is jealous preservation of the
independence of the Social-Democratic position and the creation of the
conditions for the socialist revolution. This enumeration of the conditions of
participation in the government, the conditions of pressure from above, as a
new form of activity characteristic of the revolutionary epoch, is supplemented
by an indication of the form and the purpose of pressure from below, which must
be steadily maintained under all circumstances — pressure on the
provisional revolutionary government by the armed proletariat led by the
Social-Democratic Party. Broadly, we have here a complete answer to the
new political question, a precise indication of the significance of the
new forms of struggle and their purpose, of the programme of the
struggle and the conditions under which these forms may be employed.

Andin the Conference resolution? The resolution begins with the grossly
erroneous assertion that “the decisive victory of the revolution
over tsarism” may be signalised either by the establishment of a
provisional government “or by the revolutionary initiative of a
representative institution, which, under the direct revolutionary pressure of
the people, decides to organise a popular Constituent Assembly”.

The Party may and should be given tactical directions both for the contingency
of a victory of the uprising and for the contingency of its defeat, both for the
contingency of the convocation of a true Constituent Assembly along
revolutionary lines and for the contingency of the convocation of a travesty of popular representation by the tsar. But to apply the term decisive
victory to something that lacks the essential element of victory is to
confuse the revolutionary consciousness, not to lead it. Any
“decision” of any representative institution to organise a
Constituent Assembly is as far removed from decisive victory as word is
from deed; for the tsarist government wields the power that can prevent
word from becoming deed. There is nothing whatever to choose between the
resolution of the new-Iskrists and the affirmation of the old Economists
that the decisive victory of the workers may consist either in their
winning the eight-hour day or in the government’s granting them the
ten-hour day, from which stage the workers will pass to the nine-hour
day.

The Conference resolution repeats the incontestable theses of Marxism on the
bourgeois nature of the democratic revolution, but interprets them narrowly or
incorrectly. Instead of the militant slogan of “Republic”, we are
given a description of the process of “liquidation of the monarchist
regime”. Instead of setting forth the conditions and tasks of the
new method of struggle “from above”, which can and must be
employed in a successful course of the proletarian uprising in the epoch of
revolution, we are given the guiding rule “to remain the party of the
extreme revolutionary opposition”. This is a very useful thesis for the
parliamentary struggle and action from below, but it would certainly be
inadequate in the time of insurrection. At such a time the task of the
“opposition” consists in the violent overthrow of the government;
on this question the Conference was unable to offer a guiding slogan.

Whileadmitting the possibility of partial and sporadic “seizures of
power” in separate cities and districts, the Conference resolution
abandons the “principle” of the new Iskra that participation in a provisional revolutionary government with the bourgeoisie
constitutes a betrayal of the proletariat, that it is Millerandism,
etc. Betrayal that is partial and sporadic is betrayal none the less.

Limiting the problem to separate cities and districts does not solve it, however, but
merely divides our attention and splits up the question, thereby befogging the
issue. Lastly, the slogan of “revolutionary communes”, embodied in
the Conference resolution, is more like an empty phrase on account of its unclarity, in
contrast to the slogan of the revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the
proletariat and the peasantry.

Theresolution of the new-Iskrists on the provisional revolutionary government
suffers from the very fault that glares from their resolution on insurrection,
namely, an inability to determine the new tactical tasks of the moment;
reiteration of the much reiterated instead of the summons to go forward; the
lack of a guiding slogan for the advanced class in the democratic revolution; a
belittlement of the tasks and the scope of activity of this class, of its revolutionary enthusiasm and revolutionary energy. The political tendency of this
erroneous tactical line is to bring new Iskrism closer to
Osvobozhdeniye -ism, to yield the leadership in the democratic
revolution to the liberal bourgeoisie, to make the proletariat a mere satellite
of the liberal bourgeoisie.

Thisbasic error manifests itself also in the minor resolutions of the
Conference. Thus, instead of the slogan of winning the eight-hour day by
revolutionary means (resolution of the Third Congress), the old, now inadequate
slogan of campaigning for the legislative introduction of the eight-hour day is
put forward. Instead of the call for the immediate organisation of revolutionary
peasant committees, we have the proposal solely to bring to the Constituent
Assembly the demand for their formation. Instead of the slogan of combating the
inconsistency, narrowness, and inadequacy of the liberation movement of the
bourgeoisie wherever these traits manifest themselves (resolution of the Third
Congress), the Conference resolution, repeating Starover’s error, pursues the
illusory aim of finding “the litmus paper”, of enumerating the
“points” conformity with which, if he meets them, entitles the
bourgeois democrat to be called a true friend of the people. Of course, the
“points” in the resolution of the new-Iskrists have shown
themselves to be incomplete. The demand for the republic is missing. One is
left to conclude that a democratic group like the “Russian Liberation
Union” ( Proletary , No. 4 [3]

)

conforms to these “points”, although in reality there is no guarantee whatever that the
Osvobozhdeniye crowd will not predominate in this group.

Itneed hardly be said that in a newspaper article we could only give a very
brief and general idea of the main error pervading the new Iskra’s
tactical line, as expressed in the Conference resolutions. The erroneous
tendencies of the new Iskra’s tactical line are as serious and
important to the Party as its “organisation-as-process” is not
serious. We therefore deal with these tendencies in detail in a special pamphlet
which is now in the press and will appear very shortly. [5]

---
Notes:
[1]
See p. 443 of this volume.— Ed .

[2]
“I do not permit!”—the expression of the “Liberum veto”
possessed by every member of the Polish Sejm in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries.—Ed.

[3]
See pp. 499-510 of this volume— Ed .

[4]
Sotsial-Demokrat (The Social-Democrat)—a Menshevik newspaper, appeared in Geneva from October 1904 to October
1905.

[5]
The reference is to Lenin’s Two Tactics of Social-Democracy in the Democratic Revolution , which appeared at the end of July 1905.