V. I.

Lenin

153

To:   THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE R.S.D.L.P.

October 3, 1905

Dear friends, I have received a pile of documents and listened to Delta’s detailed
story. I hasten to reply on all the points.

1) I shall not be able to come at the scheduled time, as there can be no
question of my leaving the newspaper now. [1] Voinov is stuck in
Italy. Orlovsky had to be sent away on business. There is no one to replace
me. Therefore the thing is being postponed until Russian October, as arranged
by you.

2) I repeat my most urgent request that you send a formal reply to the
International Bureau. As to whether you are sending someone to the conference
abroad. Exactly whom and when. As to whether you are appointing some
one—also precisely. Otherwise you will discredit yourselves incredibly
in the eyes of the International Bureau.

3) About Plekhanov, also formally and conclusively—yes or no. Who should
be appointed? Postponement of this question is extremely
dangerous. [2]

4) About legal publishing, make a formal decision quickly. My draft agreement
with
Malykh, [3] has done you no harm whatever, as it is only a
draft. I merely repeat that Malykh provided a livelihood for lots of people
here, whom the Party is enable to maintain. Do not forget that. I would
advise both concluding an agreement with Malykh and continuing to do business
with the others after the manner of Schmidt.

5) As regards opposition to the C.C. on the part of almost all the agents, I
have the following to say. Firstly, co-opting Insarov and Lyubich, which I
fully welcome, will probably improve matters very much. Secondly, some of the agents are evidently
exaggerating somewhat. Thirdly, would it not be advisable to put some of the
agents on the commit tees with instructions to concern, themselves with the
whole area of two or three neighbouring committees? Unity of tactics should not
be overestimated: a certain variety in the actions and plans of the committees
will do no harm.

6) I consider it extremely important
to start preparing for the fourth congress. [4] It is high time. It will probably be six months late
at least, if not more. All the same, it is high time. I think we are a little
to blame for the laxity among some of the committees and for allowing them to
waive the decisions of the Third Congress concerning the conditions of
admission for the Mensheviks. If these committees, which at one and the same
time recognise and do not recognise the Third Congress, do not define their
attitude to the fourth congress, there will be chaos. Some of them will not
attend the fourth congress. Another scandal. Some of them will attend it and
desert to the other side at the congress. We should not confuse the policy of
uniting the two parts with the mixing-up of both parts. We
agree to uniting the two parts, but we shall never agree to mixing them
up. We must demand of the committees a distinct division, then two congresses
and amalgamation. Two congresses at the same time, in one place, and they
will discuss and accept the drafts for amalgamation prepared beforehand.

But just now we must vigorously oppose any mixing-up of the
two sections of the Party. I would advise giving the agents a watchword of this
kind in the most definite form and instructing them to put it into effect.

If this is not done there will be an unholy mess. The Mensheviks have everything
to gain by confusion and they will go out of their way to breed it. They
won’t be “any the worse for it” (since nothing can be worse
than their disorganisation), whereas we value our organisation, embryonic
though it is, and will defend it tooth and nail. It pays the Mensheviks to mix
things up and make another scandal out of the fourth congress, for they are not
even contemplating a congress of their own . We must direct all our
efforts and all our thoughts towards cementing and better organising our section of the Party. These tactics may seem
“egoistic”, but they are the only reasonable ones. If we are well
united and organised, if we get rid of all the whiners and turncoats, then our
hard core, even if not very large, will carry with it the whole mass of
“organisational nebulosity”. But if we have no such core, the
Mensheviks, having disorganised themselves, will disorganise us as well. If we
have a hard core, we shall soon force them into amalgamation with us. If we have
no core, then it will not be the other core (it is non-existent) that will win
the day, but the muddleheads , and then, I assure you, there will be
fresh squabbles, a fresh, inevitable split and resentment a hundred times worse
than before.

So let us prepare for real unification by increasing our own strength
and working out clear drafts for standards of rules and tactics. And
the people who chatter idly about unification, who mix up the relations
between the sections of the Parry, should, in my opinion, be ruthlessly removed
from our midst.

All the best.

Yours,
N. Lenin

---
Notes:
[1]
This refers to Lenin’s trip to Finland to attend a meeting of the C.C. of
the R.S.D.L.P. In a letter dated October 17 (30) he was given the address
for a rendezvous in Stockholm.

[2]
This refers to representation in the I.S.B. By a decision of the C.C. of
the R.S.D.L.P. Lenin was appointed representative.

[3]
Malykh, Maria —publisher of legal Social-Democratic literature in
1905.

[4]
The Fourth (Unity) Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. was held in
Stockholm on April 10–25 (April 23–May 8), 1906.

It was attended by 112 voting delegates representing 57 local organisations
and 22 delegates with a consultative voice. There were, in addition, three
representatives each from the Social-Democratic Party of Poland and
Lithuania, the Bund, and the Lettish S.D.L.P. and one each from the
Ukrainian S.D.L.P. and the Labour Party of Finland, and a representative of
the Bulgarian Social-Democratic Labour Party. The Bolshevik delegates
included, among others, V. I. Lenin, F. A. Artyom (Sergeyev), M. V. Frunze,
M. I. Kalinin, S. G. Shahumyan, and V. V. Vorovsky.

The principal items on the agenda were the agrarian question, the current
situation, the class tasks of the proletariat, the attitude to the Duma,
and organisational questions. On all issues a sharp struggle was waged
between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks. Lenin made reports and speeches
on the agrarian question, the current situation, on the question of tactics
in regard to the Duma elections, on the armed uprising and other questions.

The Mensheviks’ numerical preponderance at the Congress, though slight,
determined the character of the Congress decisions. On a number of
questions the Congress adopted Menshevik resolutions (the agrarian
programme, the attitude towards the Duma, etc.). The Congress adopted
Lenin’s formulation of Clause One of the Party Rules concerning membership
of the Party. The Congress admitted into the R.S.D.L.P. the non-Russian
Social-Democratic organisations of Poland and Lithuania and the Lettish
Social-Democratic Labour Party, and made arrangements for the Bund to join
the R.S.D.L.P.

The Central Committee elected at the Congress consisted of three Bolsheviks
and seven Mensheviks. Only Mensheviks were elected to the editorial board
of the Central Organ.

An analysis of the Congress is given in Lenin’s pamphlet Report on the Unity Congress the R.S.D.L.P. ^^(see Vol. 10 of this edition)^^.