V. I.

Lenin

Two years ago one could find statements in the
Social-Democratic press about a “unity crisis” in the

Party. [1]

The disorganisation and disintegration of the period of counter revolution
caused new re-groupings and splits, a new intensification of the struggle
abroad, and many who lacked faith or who were weak-nerved lost heart in
face of the difficult situation within the Social-Democratic Labour
Party. Now, with the formation of the Russian Organising Commission (R.O.C.), [5] we are obviously approaching, if not the end of the
crisis, then at any rate a new and decisive turn for the better in the
development of the Party. The moment is, therefore, opportune to attempt a
general review of the past period of inner Party evolution and of the
prospects for the immediate future.

After the revolution the R.S.D.L.P. consisted of three separate,
autonomous, national, Social-Democratic organisations, and two factions
that were Russian in the narrow sense of the word. The experience of the
years 1905, 1906, and 1907, which were unprecedented for their wealth of
events, demonstrated that these factions had deep roots in the trends
governing the development of the proletariat, in its general way of life
during this period of the bourgeois revolution. The counter-revolution
again threw us from the heights to which we had already climbed, down into
the valley. The proletariat had to re-group its ranks and gather its forces
anew surrounded by Stolypin’s gallows and the jeremiads of Vekhi .

The new situation gave rise to a new grouping of tendencies in the
Social-Democratic Party. In both the new factions—under the severe
pressure of the adverse times—a process of segregation commenced, the
segregation of the least stable Social-Democratic elements, of the various bourgeois fellow-travellers of the proletariat. Two currents strikingly
expressed this departure from Social-Democracy—liquidationism
and otzovism. And it was these that inevitably gave rise to the tendency to
closer relations between the main cores of both the factions which had
remained true to Marxism. Such was the state of affairs which led to the
Plenary Meeting of January 1910—the source of both positive and negative
results, of the steps forward and of the steps back in the subsequent
development of the Social-Democratic Party.

To this very day, many people have failed to understand properly the
undeniable ideological merit of the work per formed by the Meeting, and the
great “conciliationist” mistake it committed. But unless this is
understood it is impossible to understand anything at all in the present
Party situation. We must therefore pause again and again to explain the
source of the present crisis.

The following quotation from an article by a conciliator, written just
before the Plenary Meeting and published immediately after it, may help to
make this clearer than long discussions or quotations from more direct and
more numerous “documents”. One of the leaders of the conciliationism
which dominated the Meeting—Comrade Ionov, a Bundist—wrote the
following in an article “Is Party Unity Possible?”, published in
Discussionny Listok , No. 1 (March 19, 1910; on page 6 we read the
editors’ note: “the article was written before the Plenary Meeting”):

“ However harmful otzovism and liquidationism, as such,
may be to the Party, their beneficial effect on the factions seems to be
beyond doubt. Pathology recognises two kinds of abscess—harmful and
harmless. The harmless type is a disease beneficial to the organism. As it
grows, it draws various injurious substances from the entire organism and
thus helps improve the health of that organism. I believe that a similar
role was played by liquidationism in respect of Menshevism and by
otzovism-ultimatumism in respect of Bolshevism.”

Such is the assessment of the case made by a “conciliator” at the
time of the Plenary Meeting; it describes exactly the psychology
and the ideas of the conciliationism that triumphed there. In the above
quotation the main idea is correct, a thousand times correct; and just
because it is correct the Bolsheviks (who even before the Meeting had fully developed
the struggle against both liquidationism and otzovism) could not
break with the conciliators at the Meeting. They could not, because there
was agreement on the main idea; it was only on the question of the form in
which it should be applied that there were differences. The form will
become subordinated to the content—thought the Bolsheviks, and they
proved to be right, though this “adaptation of form to content” has cost
the Party two gears , which have been almost “wasted”, owing to
the mistake committed by the conciliators.

What was this mistake? It was that the conciliators recognised all and
sundry tendencies on their mere promise to heal themselves, instead of
recognising only those tendencies that were healing (and only insofar as
they were healing) their “abscesses”. The Vperyod and
Golos groups and Trotsky all “signed” the resolution against
otzovism and liquidationism—that is, they promised to “heal their
abscesses”—and that was the end of it! The conciliators “believed” the
promise and entangled the Party with non- Party groups that were,
as they themselves admitted, “abscesses”. From the point of view of
practical politics this was infantile, while from a deeper point of view it
lacked an ideological basis, was unprincipled and full of intrigue. Indeed,
those who were seriously convinced that liquidationism and
otzovism-ultimatumism were abscesses, must have realised that as the
abscesses grew they were certain to draw out and drain injurious
substances from the organism; and they would not contribute to the
poisoning of the organism by attempts to drive inside the poisons gathered
in the “abscesses”.

The first year after the Plenary Meeting was a practical revelation of
the ideological poverty of the conciliators. As a matter of fact, all Party
work (healing “abscesses”) during the whole of that year was done by the
Bolsheviks and Plekhanov’s group. Both Sotsial-Demokrat and
Rabochaya Gazeta (after Trotsky had expelled the Central
Committee’s representative) prove that fact. Some of the generally known,
legally issued publications of

1910 [6] also bear out that fact. These are not words but facts proving
joint work in the leading bodies of the Party.

During that year (1910), the Golos and Vperyod groups and Trotsky, all in fact, moved away from the Party precisely in the
direction of liquidationism and otzovism-ultimatumism. The “harmless
abscesses” behaved harmfully, since they did not drain away the
“injurious substances” from the organism of the Party, but continued to
Contaminate that organism, keeping it in a diseased condition and rendering
it incapable of doing Party work. This Party work (in literature, which was
accessible to all) was con ducted by the Bolsheviks and the Plekhanovites
in spite of the “conciliatory” resolutions and the collegiums
set up by the Plenary Meeting, not in conjunction with the Golos
and Vperyod groups, but against them (because it was impossible to work in conjunction with the liquidators and
otzovists-ultimatumists).

And what about the work in Russia? Not a single meeting of the Central
Committee was held during the whole year! Why? Because the members of the
Central Committee in Russia (conciliators who well deserved the kisses of
Golos Likvidatorov [2]

)

kept on “inviting” the liquidators for twelve, for fifteen months but
never got them to “accept the invitation”. At the Plenary Meeting, our
good conciliators unfortunately did not provide for the institution of
“escorts” to bring people to the Central Committee. As a result the Party
found itself in the absurd and shameful position, predicted by the
Bolsheviks at the Meeting when they fought the credulity and
naïveté of the conciliators—work in Russia is at a standstill, the Party’s hands are tied, while a disgusting stream of
liberal and anarchistic attacks on the Party is pouring forth from the
pages of Nasha Zarya and Vperyod . Mikhail, Roman, and
Yuri, on the one hand, the otzovists and the “god-builders” on the other,
are doing their utmost to ruin Social-Democratic work, while the
conciliationist members of the Central Committee are “inviting” the
liquidators and are “waiting” for them!

By their “application” of December 5, 1910, the Bolsheviks stated
openly and formally that they cancelled the agreement with all the other
factions. The violation of the “peace” made at the Plenary Meeting, its violation by Golos, Vperyod , and Trotsky, had become a fully recognised fact.

About six months were spent (until June 1911) in attempts to convene a
plenary meeting abroad, which under the agreement was to be convened within
three months. The liquidators ( Golos -ists—Bundists—Schwartz)
likewise prevented the convening of this meeting. Thereupon the bloc of
three groups—the Bolsheviks, the Poles, and the “conciliators”—made a
final attempt to save the situation:

to call a conference and to form a Russian Organising Commission. As
before, the Bolsheviks were in a minority:

from January 1910 to June 1911, the liquidators were predominant (in the
Central Committee Bureau Abroad they were the Golos -ists—a
Bundist—Schwartz in Russia—those “conciliators” who had been
continually “inviting” the liquidators) from June 1911 to November 1,
1911 (the time-limit fixed by the trustees), [7] the conciliators, who were joined by the Poles, were
predominant.

This was the state of affairs: both money and the dispatch of agents
were in the hands of Tyszka and Mark (the leader of the Paris conciliators) [8] ; the only assurance the Bolsheviks received was
agreement that they too would be sent on work. The differences arising out
of the Plenary Meeting reduced themselves to the last point which it was
impossible to evade: whether to work with all one’s energy, without
“waiting” for anyone, without “inviting” anyone (anyone who wishes and
is able to work in a Social-Democratic fashion needs no invitations!), or
whether to continue bar gaining and haggling with Trotsky,
Vperyod , etc. The Bolsheviks chose the first path, a fact which
they had already openly and directly declared at the Paris Meeting of
Central Committee members. Tyszka and Co. chose (and foisted on both the
Technical Commission and the Organising Commission Abroad) the second path,
which, as was shown in detail in the article of Sotsial-Demokrat , No. 24, [3] was objectively nothing but empty and miserable intrigue.

The result is now clear to all. By November 1, the Russian Organising Commission was formed. In reality, it was created by the
Bolsheviks and by the pro-Party Mensheviks in

Russia. “The alliance of the two strong factions” (strong in their
ideological solidity and in their work of healing “abscesses”), which so
enraged the weak-minded people at the Plenary Meeting and after it (see
Golos , Vperyod , Otkliki Bunda , [9] Pravda , etc.), became a fact. In such model and
outstanding Social-Democratic organisations as the Baku and the

Kiev [10] organisations were in the Russia of 1910 and 1911, this
alliance, to the great joy of the Bolsheviks, became almost complete
fusion, a single indissoluble organism of pro-Party Social-Democrats.

After the test of two years’ experience, the snivelling for the
dissolution of “all” factions proved to be but a miserable phrase used by
empty-headed people who had been fooled by the Potresovs and the
otzovists. “The alliance of the two strong factions” performed its work,
and in the above-mentioned model organisations it reached a stage where a
complete merging into a single party could be effected. The waverings of
the pro-Party Mensheviks abroad can no longer alter this accomplished fact.

The two years following the Plenary Meeting, which to many sceptics or
dilettantes in Social-Democracy who do not wish to understand the devilish
difficulty of the task, seem to be years of useless, hopeless, senseless
squabbles, of disorganisation and ruin, were in reality years in which the
Social-Democratic Party was led out of the marsh of liquidationist and
otzovist waverings on to the high road. The year 1910 was a year of joint
work by Bolsheviks and pro-Party Mensheviks in all the leading
(both official and unofficial, legal and illegal) bodies of the Party; this
was the first step of the “alliance of the two strong factions” towards
ideological preparation, the gathering of the forces under a single banner,
that of anti-liquidationism and anti otzovism. The year 1911 has witnessed
the second step–the creation of the Russian Organising Commission. The
fact that a pro-Party Menshevik presided at its first meeting is
significant: the second step, the creation of an actually functioning
centre in Russia, has now been taken. The locomotive has been raised and
placed on the rails.

For the first time following four years of ruin and disorganisation, a Social-Democratic centre has met together in Russia—in
spite of incredible persecution by the police and the unheard-of intrigues of Golos, Vperyod , the conciliators,
the Poles, and tutti quanti . For the first time a leaf let has
appeared in Russia addressed to the Party by that centre. [11] For the first time the work of re-establishing the local
underground organisations has systematically and thoroughly covered both
capital cities, the Volga Region, the Urals, the Caucasus, Kiev,
Ekaterinoslav, Rostov, Nikolayev. All this has taken place in about three
months, from July to October 1911, for the Russian Organising Commission
met only after all these places had been visited. Its first
meeting took place simultaneously with the restoration of the
St. Petersburg Party Committee and with a series of workers’ meetings
arranged by it, and with the passing of resolutions by the Moscow city
district organisations in favour of the Party, etc.

Of course it would be unpardonable naïveté to indulge in
light-hearted optimism; we are still confronted with enormous difficulties;
police persecution has increased ten fold since the first leaflet by the
Social-Democratic centre was published in Russia; one may anticipate long
and hard months of work, new arrests and new interruptions. But the main
thing has been accomplished. The banner has been raised, workers’ circles
all over Russia are being drawn to it, and no counter-revolutionary attack
can possibly haul it down.

How did the conciliators abroad, and Tyszka and Leder, respond to this
gigantic stride forward in the work in Russia? By a final flare-up of
miserable intrigue. The “growth of the abscess”, which was so
prophetically foretold by Ionov on the eve of the Plenary Meeting, is
unpleasant, no doubt. But anyone who does not understand that this
unsightly process makes Social-Democracy healthier should not
apply himself to revolutionary work! The Technical Commission and the
Organising Commission Abroad refuse to submit to the Russian Organising
Commission. The Bolsheviks, of course, turn their backs upon those
intriguing abroad with contempt. Then vacillations set in. At the beginning
of November, a report on the calling together of the Russian Organising
Commission was delivered to the remnants of the

Organising Commission Abroad (two Poles and one conciliator). The report
presented such a comprehensive survey of the work that the opponents of the
Bolsheviks, the conciliators whom Golos praised, were forced to recognise the Russian Organising Commission. The Organising
Commission Abroad resolved on November 13, 1911, “to be guided by the
decisions of the Russian Organising Commission”. Four-fifths of the money
in possession of the Organising Commission Abroad is transferred to the
Russian Organising Commission, which indicates that the Poles and
conciliators themselves are not able to cast a shadow of doubt on
the seriousness of the whole undertaking.

Nevertheless, a few days later, both the Technical Commission and the
Organising Commission Abroad again refused to submit to the Russian
Organising Commission!! What is the meaning of this game?

The editors of the Central Organ are in possession of a document [12] which will be submitted to the conference and which reveals
that Tyszka is agitating for non-participation in the Russian Organising
Commission and for non participation in the conference.

Is it possible to imagine more vile intrigue than this? In the
Technical Commission and in the Organising Commission Abroad they undertook
to help convene the conference and to form the Russian Organising
Commission. They boast ed that they would invite “all”, but invited no
one (though, being in the majority, they had the right to do so and to
stipulate any conditions). They could find no one to do the work except the
Bolsheviks and the pro-Party Mensheviks. They suffered utter defeat in the
field they themselves had chosen. They sank so low as to attempt to “trip
up” the Russian Organising Commission, to which, as the authorised body,
they had voluntarily handed over four-fifths of their funds for convening
the conference!

Yes, an abscess is an unpleasant affair, especially when it is in the
process of growth. In No. 24 of the Central Organ it has already been shown
why the theoreticians of an alliance of all and sundry groups abroad can
only engage in intrigues. Now the Russian worker Social-Democrats will make
their choice without any difficulty: whether to defend their Russian
Organising Commission and their conference, or to allow Tyszka, Leder and Co. to sabotage their conference by
intrigues. The intriguers have condemned them selves—that is a fact;
Tyszka and Leder have already passed convicted into the history of the
R.S.D.L.P., but they will never succeed in hindering the conference or in
undermining the Russian Organising Commission.

What about the liquidators? For eighteen months, from January 1910 to
June 1911, when they had a majority in the Central Committee Bureau Abroad
and faithful “friends” in the persons of the conciliators in the Central
Committee Bureau in Russia, they did nothing, absolutely nothing, to
further the work in Russia! When they were in the majority—work was at a
standstill. But when the Bolsheviks broke up the liquidationist Central
Committee Bureau Abroad and proceeded to convene the conference, the
liquidators began to bestir themselves. The form in which that “stir”
expressed itself is very characteristic. The Bundists, who have always very
faithfully served the liquidators, recently wanted to take advantage of the
present “time of troubles” (among the Latvians, for instance, the issue
of the struggle between the two tendencies—liquidationist and Party—has
not yet been decided); they got hold of a Caucasian somewhere and the whole
company went to the city of

Z [13] to grab signatures for the resolutions drafted by Trotsky and Dan
in Café Bubenberg (in Berne, August 1911). But they failed to find
the leading Latvian organisation; they failed to get the signatures, and no
document with the high-sounding heading “Organising Commission of the
Three Strongest Organisations” was prepared. Such are the facts. [4]

Let the Russian workers learn about the way the Bundists are trying to
break up the Russian Organising Commission in Russia! Just think: at a time
when the comrades preparing the conference were touring the Urals, the
Volga

Region, St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kiev, Ekaterinoslav, has toy, Tiflis,
Baku—the Bundists “got hold of” a “Caucasian” (probably one of those
committee men who were in possession of the “seal” of the Regional
Caucasian Committee and who, in December 1908, sent Dan and Axelrod as
representatives to the conference of the R.S.D.L.P.) and took a journey in
order to “grab signatures” from the Latvians. Not much more was needed to
cause this gang of intriguers, who serve the liquidators and who are
absolutely alien to all work in Russia, to come out as the “Organising
Commission” of “three organisations” (including the two “strongest”
possessors of the seal!). Or perhaps the Bundist gentlemen and the
Caucasian will please inform the Party what Russian organisations they
visited, when exactly they made these journeys, where they restored the
work, and where they made reports? Do try and tell us, dear fellows!

And the past masters of diplomacy abroad with the serious mien of
experts, pass judgement: “one must not isolate oneself”, “it is
necessary to talk things over with the Bund and with the Regional Caucasian
Committee”.

What comedians!

Let those who are wavering now, who regret the “isolation” of the
Bolsheviks, learn and ponder over the significance of the history of the
Party during these past two years. This isolation makes us feel
better than we have ever felt before now that we have cut off the bunch of
intriguing nonentities abroad, and have helped to consolidate the ranks of
the Russian worker Social-Democrats of St. Petersburg, Moscow, the Urals,
the Volga Region, the Caucasus, and the South!

Anyone who complains about isolation understands absolutely nothing of
the great ideological work accomplished by the Plenary Meeting or of its
conciliationist mistake. For a year and a half after the Meeting there was
a semblance of unity abroad and complete stagnation of Social-Democratic
work in Russia. For the first time in four or six months of 1911 the
seemingly extreme isolation of the Bolsheviks served as an impetus to
Social-Democratic work in Russia, and restored the Social-Democratic centre
in Russia.

Those who have not yet understood the ideological danger of such
“abscesses” as liquidationism and otzovism will now understand it from the history of the impotent squabbles and
miserable intrigue to which the wretched Golos and
Vperyod groups have sunk, dragging with them, in their fall, all
those who attempted to defend them.

To work, comrades, Party Social-Democrats! Shake off the last remnants
of your contacts with non-Social-Democratic tendencies and the groups that
foster them in spite of the decisions of the Party. Rally round the Russian
Organising Commission, help it convene a conference and strengthen local
work. The R.S.D.L.P. has gone through a serious illness; the crisis is
passing.

Long live the united, illegal, revolutionary Russian Social-Democratic
Labour Party!

---
Notes:
[1]
See present edition, Vol. 16, “Notes of a Publicist, II”.— Ed .

[2]
Voice of the Liquidators , punning on Golos Sotsial-Demokrata (Voice of a Social-Democrat).— Tr

[3]
See pp. 257–77 of this volume.— Ed .

[4]
In addition to the never-lose-heart Bundists, the Vperyod
people also galloped off to snatch resolutions. From that tiny group—by
no means otzovist, heaven forbid!—there galloped off a well-known otzovist [14] ; he “galloped” through Kiev, Moscow, Nizhni-Novgorod,
“reconciled himself” with the conciliators, and went away without
achieving anything anywhere. It is said that the Vperyod group
blames the unsatisfactory god devised by Lunacharsky for its failure and
that it passed a unanimous resolution to devise a better god. — Lenin

[5]
Russian Organising Commission (R.O.C.) for the convening of a
Party conference was formed at the end of September 1911 at a meeting of
representatives of local Party organisations. The meeting opened in Baku
and was guided by G. K. Orjonikidze who had been delegated to call the
conference by the Organising Commission Abroad. Representatives of the
Baku, Tiflis, Ekaterinburg, Kiev, and Ekaterinoslav organisations took
part. Among the delegates were S. G. Shahumyan and S. S. Spandaryan. In
view of police persecution and the danger of those participating in the
meeting being arrested it was transferred to Tiflis. The Meeting discussed
reports from local organisations, the constitution of the R.O.C., relations
with the Organising Commission Abroad, elections to the conference,
representation from legal organisations, and elections from the non-Russian
organisations. A report of the meeting of the Russian Organising Commission was published by
G. K. Orjonikidze in No. 25 of Sotsial-Demokrat , December 8 (21),
1914. The meeting drew up an appeal to the local organisations, and issued
it in leaflet form together with the resolutions of the meeting.

[6]
Lenin is referring to the Bolshevik organs, the newspaper
Zvezda and the magazine Mysl , to which pro-Party
Mensheviks also contributed.

[7]
For more information see Lenin’s article “The Results of the
Arbitration of the ‘Trustees’\thinspace”

[8]
Mark —pseudonym of A. I. Lyubimov.

[9]
Otkliki Bunda ( Echoes of the Bund )—an organ of the
Bund committee abroad which appeared at irregular intervals in Geneva from
March 1909 to February 1911. There were five issues.

[10]
The Baku Social-Democratic Party organisation was one of the
most active local bodies during the period of reaction and the years of the
new revolutionary upsurge. At the beginning of 1911 the Baku Bolshevik
Committee and the “leading Menshevik group members” (pro-Party
Mensheviks) united for struggle against otzovism and liquidationism, and
for the revival of the illegal R.S.D.L.P.; they formed the United Baku
Committee of the R.S.D.L.P. The Baku Committee supported the decision of
the 1911 June Meeting of members of the Central Committee to convene an
all-Russia Party conference and actively participated in setting up the
Russian Organising Commission.

The Kiev Social-Democratic Party organisation worked almost
uninterruptedly during the years of reaction. In 1910–11, the Bolsheviks
worked with the pro-Party Mensheviks. The Kiev organisation was the first
to support the June Meeting of the Central Committee members and the idea
of forming the Russian Organising Commission to convene a Party conference,
appointing one of its Committee members to assist the representative of the
Organising Commission Abroad.

[11]
This refers to the leaflet issued by the Russian Organising Commission
in the autumn of 1911.

[12]
Lenin is referring to G. K. Orjonikidze’s letter to the Editorial Board
of Sotsial-Demokrat , published in No. 25 of December 8 (21), 1911,
under the signature of N.

[13]
The city of Z refers to Brussels, where the Social-Democratic
Party of the Latvian Region had its committee abroad.

[14]
This refers to the otzovist Stanislav Volsky (the pseudonym of
A. V. Sokolov).