V. I.

Lenin

Geneva, July 24, 1905

Dear Comrades, Wereceived your letter of June 28 several days ago, with some interesting
documents (letters from Comrades Bebel and Plekhanov) enclosed, but being
extremely busy we were unable to reply at once.

1.As regards Comrade Plekhanov’s letter, we are obliged to make the following
observations:

1) Comrade Plekhanov’s assertion that since the Second Congress of our Party
(August 1903) we have differed only on the question of organisation is not in
full keeping with the facts. The “Minority” at the Second
Congress (headed by Comrades Axelrod, Vera Zasulich, and Martov) actually
split the Party immediately after the Congress by declaring a boycott of the
central bodies elected by the Congress and by setting up a secret
“Minority” organisation, which was dissolved only in the autumn
of 1904. Comrade Plekhanov himself, who sided with us at the Second Congress
of the Party and at the Congress of the League of Russian Social- Democracy
Abroad (October 1903), evidently held a some what different opinion
concerning our differences when he publicly stated in Iskra , No. 52
(November 1903) that we must make skilful concessions to the
“revisionists” (Plekhanov’s expression) in order to avoid a split
in the Party.

2) The assertion that the Third Congress of the Party was convened “quite
arbitrarily” does not correspond to the facts either. According to
Party Rules, the Council is obliged to call a congress if so demanded by half
of the committees. As you know from the resolutions of the Third Congress,
which have been translated into French, the Council ignored the Party
Rules. The Party committees and the “Bureau of   Majority Committees” [1] which they elected were morally and
formally obliged to convene the Congress, even against the will of the Council,
which did nothing to convene it.

3) You know from the selfsame resolutions of the Third Congress that it was not
“something like half of the duly authorised organisations” that
were represented at the Congress, but a considerable majority of the biggest
committees.

4)It is true that there are comrades in our Party who are referred to in jest
as the “Marsh”. Its members were continually changing sides
during the controversies within our Party. The first of these turncoats was
Plekhanov, who went over from the Majority to the Minority in November 1903,
only to leave the Minority on May 29 of this year, when he resigned from
Iskra’s Editorial Board. We do not approve of changing sides like
that, but think we cannot be blamed if after much vacillation members of the
“Marsh” are inclined to follow us. 5) In his letter to the Bureau
(June 16, 1905) Comrade Plekhanov most inappropriately forgot to mention his
letter of May 29, 1905, published in Iskra (No. 101), a complete and
exact translation of which we have already forwarded to you. 6) When he says
that the other section in the Party is grouped around Iskra , the
Party’s former Central Organ, Comrade Plekhanov again forgot to add that the
“Minority” Conference (May 1905) annulled the Rules drawn up at
the Second Congress, and failed to set up a new Central Organ. We think that
the International Socialist Bureau should have a complete translation of all
resolutions of that conference. If Iskra refuses to send them to
the Bureau we are prepared to do so ourselves. 7) Comrade Plekhanov states
that only the two remaining members of the Central Committee (the others had
been arrested) declared them selves in favour of convening the Third
Congress.

Comrade Plekhanov’s letter is dated June 16, 1905. The next day, June 17, No. 4
of Proletary , the Central Organ of the Party, which had been set up by
the Third Congress, published the following statement: “After reading the
Central Committee’s Open Letter to Comrade Plekhanov, Chairman of the Party
Council, and being in full agreement with the Central Committee, we consider it
necessary— for reasons which comrades acquainted with the state of affairs
in the Party will understand—publicly to declare our solidarity with the Central Committee.” Signed (pseudonyms): Ma, Bern,
Vladimir, Innokenty, Andrei, Voron. We may inform you in confidence that
these pseudonyms belong to the arrested members of the Central
Committee. [2]

Consequently, as soon as the members of the
Central Commit tee learned of the conflict between the Central Committee and
Comrade Plekhanov (and, therefore, the Council as well) regarding the
convocation of the Congress, most of them at once declared in favour of the
Central Committee and against Comrade Plekhanov. We earnestly request the
International Secretariat to inform us whether Comrade Plekhanov deemed it
necessary to acquaint the Bureau with this important statement by the
arrested members of the Central Committee, which completely refutes the
assertions contained in Comrade Plekhanov’s letter of June 16. 8)
Comrade. Plekhanov is mistaken in saying that both groups asked him to go on
representing the Party in the International Bureau. To date the Central
Committee of our Party has not made any such request. As we informed you a
few days ago, this question has not yet been finally decided, although it
stands on the order of the day. 9) Comrade Plekhanov thinks that it is not
difficult for him to be impartial in the question of our differences. After
what has been set forth above, however, we believe that he finds it quite
difficult, and at the present moment, at any rate, next to
impossible. [3]

II.I pass on to Comrade Bebel’s proposal on the subject of our affairs.

HereI must make the following observations: 1) 1 am only one
of the members of the Central Committee and the responsible editor of
Proletary , the Party’s Central Organ. I can act for the whole of the
Central Committee only in regard to our affairs abroad and certain other matters
specially entrusted to me. In any case, all my decisions may be an nulled by a
general meeting of the Central Committee. There fore, I cannot decide on the
question of the Bureau’s intervention in the affairs of our Party. However, I
immediately forwarded your letter, as well as the letters of Comrades Bebel and
Plekhanov, to Russia, to all the members of the Central Committee. 2) In order
to speed up the Central Committee’s reply it would be very useful to obtain
certain necessary explanations from the Bureau: a) should the term "intervention” be taken to mean only conciliatory mediation, and
advice having merely moral, and not binding, force; b) or does the Bureau have
in view a binding ruling by a court of arbitration; c) does the Bureau’s
Executive Committee propose to submit our differences to the general meeting of
the International Socialist Bureau for final decision, without right of appeal?
3) On my part I consider it my duty to inform the Bureau that shortly before the
Third Congress Comrade Bebel made a similar proposal to me and to those who
share my views offering his services or the services of the entire Executive
Committee of the German Party ( Parteivorstand ), as arbitrator in the
dispute between the Majority and the Minority in our Party.

Ireplied that the Party Congress would take place soon and that I personally
could not decide for the Party or in its name.

The Bureau of Majority Committees rejected Bebel’s offer. The Third Congress
passed no decision on this offer, and thereby tacitly endorsed the reply given
by the Bureau of Majority Committees. 4) Since the International Bureau
considers it proper to obtain its information from “certain German
newspapers”, I am compelled to state that nearly all German socialist
papers, especially Die Neue Zeit and Leipziger Volkszeitung , [4] are entirely on the side of the
“Minority”, and present our affairs in a very one-sided and
inaccurate way. Kautsky, for instance, also calls himself impartial, and yet, in
actual fact, he went so far as to refuse to publish in the Neue Zeit a
refutation of an article by Rosa Luxemburg, in which she defended disruption in
the Party. [5]

In Leipziger Volkszeitang Kautsky even urged that the German pamphlet with the translation of the resolutions of the Third
Congress should not be circulated!! After this it is easy to understand why many
comrades in Russia are inclined to regard the German Social-Democratic Party as
partial and extremely prejudiced in the question of the split in the ranks of
Russian Social-Democracy.

Accept,dear comrades, our fraternal greeting.

VI. Ulyanov (N. Lenin)