Translation from German

Toov. K. Kautsky

Dear comrades!

In our first letter2 , which contained the justification for giving money to our faction, we

1) cited the official, i.e., published in the Central Organ of the Party, text of our agreement with the Plenum of the Central Committee;

2) we elaborated on the meaning and significance of this agreement as an agreement aimed at the dissolution of all factions;

3) gave evidence of the fact that neither the "Golos" faction (the liquidationist direction) nor the "Vpered" faction (the otzovist direction) was dissolved;

4) set forth the circumstances under which, after this plenum, the Central Committee never met again, never held a single session, and was not even constitutionalized;

5) pointed out the last compromises proposed by the meeting of the Central Committee members (17.VI.11), which failed completely3;

6) set forth the reasons why the formation of a plenum, as well as the establishment of a special commission, is now absolutely ruled out.

It is difficult to dispute that the sum of the evidence cited is more than sufficient to justify the demand for the return of our faction's property - for the condition under which this money was received by the Central Committee for the purpose of handing it over to the "holders" has not been observed at all. The fact that after what has happened it is impossible to postpone the resolution of the issue any longer requires no special proof.

At this moment, the decision of the holders that 20,000 francs, i.e. about (1/4) quarter of the total amount, should be handed over to the Technical Commission, creates a new state of affairs which compels us once again to defend our interests.

On a purely formal level, with some stretching, this 20,000 francs could be seen as a temporary transfer of the disputed property to a third party until the final resolution of the matter. But that would be a purely external, limited formal representation. De facto, the transfer of a quarter of the entire remaining amount [to the Technical Commission] for 2 months(!) is like a partial solution of the issue...in favor of a third party. Such a decision (even a partial one) in favor of a third party is, in our deepest conviction, in legal terms a huge mistake, and in political terms an attempt to impose on us a certain political responsibility, which we have never assumed and will never assume.

Let us try to analyze the issue from both legal and political points of view.

What is the legal situation? The text of our agreement with the Plenum of the Central Committee gives us a clear and unambiguous answer to this. Let us cite an essential paragraph from it1*: "If the representatives of the Bolshevik current ... demand the release of the sum remaining to them at that time, this question in its entirety, i.e., whether and to whom exactly (to the Bolshevik members of the Central Committee and the Central Committee or to the Central Committee) shall be finally decided by these holders... "4

This text of the agreement is clear and does not allow for different interpretations. It establishes the boundaries within which the issue is decided by the holders ("in full", i.e., which of the two parties should be given the money - this is how this place sounds). In this version, the text of our agreement was handed over to you, comrades, by the delegates of the Central Committee in January 1910 after the plenum, and having declared your readiness to assume the role of holders, you at the same time accepted [the obligation] to adhere strictly to the text of this very formal agreement of ours in case it became necessary to make an arbitration decision. The precise meaning of this agreement is only one: either the Central Committee or the representatives of the Bolshevik current, there is no third party which could claim the disputed property. And the holders, the German comrades, are called upon to act as arbitrators to decide to which of these two contractors the money should be given. There is only one agreement, formally recognized by all, signed and published in the Central Organ: the agreement between the Central Committee and our faction. There is no other agreement, and it is an impossible thing for a third party to derive any rights from the only existing one.

This legal consequence is indisputable, and even less can be disputed the political consequence. We have concluded an agreement with the Central Committee, i.e. the collective body that represents all the factions, that all the factions must be dissolved (liquidated). If there is a merger of all the factions, we lose all rights to the money. If this does not happen, the money is returned to us.We entered into this agreement with none other than the Plenum of the Central Committee and on no other condition than that of the dissolution of all the factions.5 On December 5, 1910, we declared this agreement null and void5. No one can compel us to conclude a new one. We expressly and categorically declare that we will not now lay our hands on any treaty, as we said in our first letter. And as we emphasized there, the political side of the issue is important to us. Even if the money ends up here or there, we want political clarity and we will get it at any cost. In other words: we gave our money only to the Plenum of the Central Committee and only on condition that all the factions would be dissolved; at the moment, since this condition has not been met, we have again been given full freedom of action, and we do not assume responsibility for giving the money to any third party. We consider ourselves perfectly entitled to insist that the German comrades, in order to avoid a mistake which will then have to be corrected, must formally establish which group or faction, and on the basis of which agreement, can lay claim to our money. At present, the process of solving the money question has given rise to a kind of hunt for money in our Party, especially among the foreign factions, groups and factions: the number of claimants, as can be seen from the discussions in the Party, is growing by the hour, not by the day. Sometimes a few phrases of mainly "conciliatory" nature (which cost nothing and do not oblige to anything) are enough to justify the "rights" of the new contenders. Up to now, as a faction, we have concluded and will continue to conclude temporary blocs with various other factions, such as, for example, with the Plekhanov faction (literary agreement), with the Technical Commission, the Organizational Commission, with the Poles, the "reconciliators" (a faction of the reconciliatory-minded)6 and others. We can make blocks of this kind at the conference7. But no agreement has ever been concluded on money matters, and therefore it would be quite difficult for any other faction to legally substantiate its claims to the disputed money.

It would be appropriate here to emphasize briefly two points in close connection with the question to be explored; these are:

1) the finances of the various factions;

2) the attitude between the factions after the meeting (June 17, 1911).

According to the agreement of January 1910, the Bolsheviks undertook not to keep their own faction treasury any longer, and we really did not keep it (if this statement is incorrect, the money should be given to the Foreign Bureau of the Central Committee - and if it is correct, then only to us). All Bolshevik groups surrendered their sums only into the hands of the Central Committee.

After Trotsky's rupture with the representative of the Central Committee, we founded our "Rabochaya Gazeta "8 (with an editorial staff composed exclusively of Bolsheviks) - this was in August 1910. - and recruited a number of Mensheviks loyal to the Party as collaborators. On December 5, 1910, we made a demand for the return of the money.

The Mensheviks did not close their "Voice of the Social-Democrat "9 and collected for it, i.e., for their faction. According to the report in the Voice itself, they received about 14,500 francs in 1 1/2 years. They gave nothing to the Central Committee. In their legal organ they work with the assistance of the Liberals - they have not submitted any report to the Central Committee.

The "Forward" group already had (we offer our services to prove it) first the proceeds from the exchange abroad of 500-ruble bills having as their source the Tiflis expropriation of 1907, and then 85,000 rubles (i.e. 200,000 francs!) from the expropriation in Miass10. And from everything - not a penny to the Central Committee!

The Plekhanovites published their own organ, the "Diary of a Social-Democrat "11 - the Central Committee did not see a penny from this, and not a single line of the report.

The Poles, like the other national organizations, did not give the Central Committee a pfennig.

Under these conditions, we have every right to demand the return of our factional money - because there was an exclusive agreement: everyone helps the Central Committee and the Central Committee alone. Of course, this should not mean that after receiving our factional property we will cease to support the common party centers and enterprises; we were a faction before the plenum and still helped the Central Committee, the Central Organ, just as, for example, we helped the Polish Social Democracy.

Further, after the meeting (17.VI.11)no one made the slightest effort to dissolve the factions. Thus, for example, when asked to become a member of the Organizational Commission, Plekhanov replied to its delegate: "let there be twelve factions - then the Russian workers would rather find a way out than two permanent blocs and a split between them "12.

These words seem paradoxical, but they very accurately illuminate the actual state of affairs: we had not twelve, but only 5-6 Russian factions and various blocs among them. Thus, for example, the liquidators, supporting the "Party School" of the "Forward "13 group and publishing their declarations in the press, made a bloc with them - just as in France the Herveyists and the Jauresists did against the Marxists14. And we shall continue to make blocs, both in elections and in our press organs, with the factions close to us in principle (Plekhanovites, Primirenists, etc.), but the separate existence of the factions is not thereby abolished, nor are their rights to their own property.

To sum up, we insist that the money question must be settled on the strict basis of the agreement of January 1910, that no other legal sources exist or can arise, and that no other claimants than those mentioned in the agreement are allowed.

With party greetings

N. Lenin.

P.S. These lines were already written when your message of 9/7/1115 arrived. The nature of this message compels us to confine ourselves to the following brief statement:

1) We submit to your demand for a waiver of the right to agreement with the Technical Commission in the formulation of the budget. We consider this submission necessary because this matter, although indirectly, is related to the question of money, which you must resolve as determined by the plenum.

2) We protest against the reproach of having exerted "financial pressure" [on the Technical Commission], etc. This reproach can only be explained by a lack of awareness of the true state of affairs.

(3) We bring to your attention that the two bodies set up at the meeting, i.e. the Organizational Commission and the Technical Commission, have adopted a decision by which they recognize our right as contractors to reach an agreement [with them] when drawing up the budget. An agreement for two months has already been indeed reached - without the slightest difference of opinion. We inform you that we do not know whether Tyszka informed you of this fact, just as we do not know whether the Polish representative in the Central Organ left the editorial office after the editorial office refused to accept one of his "ultimatums" (now this representative of the Polish Social Democracy has returned to the editorial office of the Central Organ)16.

4) We ask you to notify us of the date when we should expect your final decision.

In conclusion, let us, comrades, once again express our regret that we are taking up your precious time and diverting your attention from your scientific work to our prosaic affairs.

Published - Geyer D. "Kautskys russisches Dossier" ("Kautsky's Russian Dossier"). Frankfurt am Main - New York. 1981, с. 399-403.

Printed from the original in the archives of the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam.

1* "See our first letter, appendix 16. Page 3" - Lenin's note.

1Dated from the day on which the manuscript of the letter was sent for reprinting (see op. cit. edition, legend, p. 403).

2See doc. 33.

3See Doc. 33, note 14.

4See: The CPSU in Resolutions and Decisions of Congresses, Conferences and Plenums of the Central Committee. 9th ed., vol. 1, p. 359.

5Cf.: Lenin V.I. Complete Collected Works, vol. 48, с. 335.

6The conciliatory Bolsheviks A. I. Lyubimov, S. A. Lozovsky, M. K. Vladimirov and others are meant.

7The reference is to the all-party conference, the preparation of which was handled by the Organizational Commission, formed by a meeting of members of the Central Committee of the RSDLP in June 1911.

8See doc. 30, note 1.

9See doc. 20, note 2.

10Referring to the expropriation in the Tiflis office of the Russian State Bank, carried out by a group of militants under the leadership of S.A. Ter-Petrosyan (Kamo) on June 13 (26), 1907 (the numbers of the seized 500-ruble banknotes were communicated to Russian and foreign banks, so their exchange was only partially successful), and the expropriation of the Ural militants at the Miass railway station in August 1909.

11See Doc. 33, note 6.

12A.I. Rykov was a delegate of the Organizational Commission who visited G.V. Plekhanov.

13See doc. 33, note 32.

14We mean the supporters of G. Hervé, who headed the left-wing direction in the United Socialist Party of France, close to anarcho-syndicalism, and of J. Jaurès, the leader of the right-wing, which leaned towards reformism. Lenin called the Marxists the movement led by J. Gade and P. Lafargue.

15The letter of "Holders" to V.I.Lenin, dated July 9, 1911 (n.d.) (see edition in legend, pp. 381-383), was a reply to a letter from V.I.Lenin, dated between June 4 (17) and June 15 (28), 1911 (see doc. 33).

16It refers to V.Leder. In June 1911, after Y.Martov and F.Dan had left the editorial board, he insisted on the introduction of two other Mensheviks into the editorial board. The disagreement of V.I.Lenin and G.E.Zinoviev caused Leder's temporary refusal to perform editorial functions.