STATEMENT TO THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE RSDLP.
To the Central Committee.
[December 1910, or early January 1911. Paris.]
With regard to our application No. 1, false rumors have been circulating—deliberately spread by the liquidators and the “Vozrozhdenie” faction—which we feel it is our duty to refute with a concise exposition of the true nature of the matter and of our own views.
Formally speaking, the situation is as follows: at the First Plenum, a pact was concluded between the Fraktion and the Party. According to the agreement, our Fraktion undertook to dissolve itself if the other Fraktionen were to be dissolved. That condition has not been fulfilled. We are now restoring our freedom to struggle against the liberals and anarchists who are being encouraged by the leader of the “primitivists,” Trotsky. The question of funds plays only a secondary role for us; although, of course, we have no intention of handing over money to the bloc of liquidators—Anarchists plus Trotsky—but we certainly do not renounce our right to expose this bloc, its so‑called “foundations” (the infamous “advance funds,” zealously guarded from exposure by Trotsky and the Vozrozhdenie faction), before the international social‑democratic movement—and beyond that, to the entire world.¹
* The right to represent the Fraktion was granted to our six-member plenum. Of those six votes, we hold four: three in Paris and one, by written proxy, from Meshkovsky [I. P. Goldenberg, ed.]. Should Meshkovsky choose to withdraw his support, we will consult with the remaining members of the Central Committee elected in London—both full members and candidates—and we will also consult with those members who have established themselves through influential work.²

THE STRUGGLE ON TWO FRONTES
7 5
In essence, we are absolving ourselves of responsibility for the role our “conciliationist” policy—namely, the policy of indulging the Voice‑of‑the‑People liberals and the Vozrozhdenie anarchists—played in the disintegration of the Party. We had warned the Party both officially and openly even before the Central Committee’s decision, publishing in the leaflet “The Voice of the Liquidators Against the Party” an exposé of the conspiracy hatched against the Party.³
If some regarded these words as an exaggeration, events have since confirmed them in every respect. The liquidator–liberal elements, operating outside the Party, consolidated their position, forming a Fraktion utterly hostile to social democracy—hostile, for example, to “Our Dawn,” “Revival,” and “The Cause of Life”—and ready to sabotage the Party’s cause in the elections to the Fourth Duma. The Voice‑of‑the‑People faction aided Messrs. Potresov and Co. in undermining the Party, sabotaging and obstructing the work of the central organs from within. The Central Committee of the Party—the sole permanent, practical body—fell into the hands of the liquidators, partly due to the ineffectiveness of the Bund and the Latvian organizations, and partly through the direct assistance of Voice‑of‑the‑People elements within those national organizations.⁴ The Central Committee of the Party not only failed to take any meaningful steps toward uniting Party members abroad, nor did it offer any real support in the struggle against the Voice‑of‑the‑People and Vozrozhdenie factions; on the contrary, it shielded the anti‑Party “funds” of the anarchists and the liberal maneuvers.
The Vozrozhdenie faction, bolstered by Trotsky’s “conciliationist” backing and the support of the Voice‑of‑the‑People, strengthened its position within the Fraktion, acquiring transport and agency networks—and after the Tenth Plenum, its strength increased manyfold. What had already become quite clear at the Plenum—such as Trotsky’s defense of the anarchist school, for example, while the Voice‑of‑the‑People faction remained silent—now came to full fruition. The bloc of liberals and anarchists, aided by the conciliators, shamelessly destroyed what remained of the Party from without, while simultaneously helping to undermine it from within. The mere formalism of “inviting” the Voice‑of‑the‑People and Trotsky to the centers further weakened the Party members, already exhausted and demoralized.
By relieving ourselves of responsibility for this game, we will continue, despite it, to pursue our Party line of rapprochement with the Plekhanovites and of relentless struggle against the bloc. It goes without saying that we will fully support all measures taken by the Central Committee—if it succeeds in convening in Russia, in reestablishing the central apparatus within Russia, in building a Party organizational base abroad (replacing the liquidator‑oriented Central Committee of the Party) and in launching a campaign against the liberals and anarchists.
In conclusion, a few words about the split that the “conci

LENIN’S COLLECTION
lators” constantly threaten. In fact, the split is already complete, for the Potresovites and Vozrozhdenie faction have fully broken away and will never return to the Party line. If the Central Committee decisively condemns them as liberals and anarchists, there will be no de jure split, since they can no longer defend their own line. If the central bodies cease playing the game of “inviting” the liberals who serve Potresov (the Voice‑of‑the‑People faction) and the Vozrozhdenie faction, then there will be no de jure split—and the workers will finally turn their backs on both the Vozrozhdenie faction and the Potresovite Voice‑of‑the‑People faction. Any other policy would only prolong the split, emboldening the Potresovites and Vozrozhdenie faction. As for us, as authorized representatives of the Bolshevik current—whose leading role was recognized by the First Plenum of the Tenth—we completely distance ourselves from this “piecemeal” policy.
The Bolshevik representatives who signed the agreement with the Central Committee at the Plenum, and who held the authority—by proxy from Meshkovsky—to dissolve that agreement,
1)
2)
3)
On December 15, 1910, a statement was submitted to the Central Committee of the Party by Bolshevik representatives who had participated in the January Plenum of the Central Committee in 1910, signed by Lenin, Kamenev, and Zinoviev, and acting on behalf of Meshkovsky, demanding the immediate convocation of a Plenum of the Central Committee to resolve the issue of returning the property of the Bolshevik Fraktion, which had been transferred to “custodians” (K. Kautsky, F. Mehring, and K. Zetkin) following the Plenum’s decision to liquidate the Fraktion’s central bodies. The text of this statement and an account of the subsequent developments can be found in a letter from the Bolshevik representatives to the Party’s Foreign Bureau (in the documents and materials included in Volume XV of Lenin’s Collected Works, p. 581).
Lenin’s analysis of the majority of the Central Committee’s conduct regarding the Bolsheviks’ request to convene a Plenum of the Central Committee was published and thoroughly examined in his article “On the State of Affairs in the Party” (Collected Works, Volume XV, pp. 60–70).
1. The Bolshevik declaration announcing the dissolution of their Fraktion’s central bodies, the termination of the Fraktion’s organ “Proletary,” and the transfer of property—partly to the Central Committee, partly to external “custodians”—was made public by the Bolshevik representatives at the January Plenum of the Central Committee in 1910, and on the basis of this declaration, the Plenum adopted a resolution concerning the Fraktion’s central bodies.
(The text of the declaration can be found in the documents and materials included in Volume XIV of Lenin’s Collected Works, p. 474.)
8. The anti‑Party bloc of liquidators, Vozrozhdenie supporters, and Trotsky—whose actual composition was taking shape at this very time—was analyzed by Lenin in his article “On the State of Affairs in the Party” (see note 1 above).
4. The Bolshevik “six-member plenum”—that is, the four Bolshevik members of the Central Committee who attended the January Plenum of the Central Committee in 1910 and held decisive voting power—namely I. Dubrovinsky, I. Goldenberg, G. Zinoviev, and V. Nogin—and the two members who held advisory votes—Lenin (representing the editorial board of “Social Democrat,” a candidate for membership in the Central Committee) and Kamenev (representing the editorial board of “Proletary”). In Paris