1. History of attempts to restore the Central Committee in Russia.

Two periods:

(a) I. 1910 – VIII. (or IX.) 1910.

Two members of the Central Committee from the Bolshevik faction were arrested during attempts to convene the Central Committee. Many times they scheduled Central Committee meetings. Not once did Mikhail + Yuri + Roman, or a single Menshevik at all, appear.

(b) End of 1910 – spring of 1911.

A new bureau was created by 2 members of the Central Committee from the Bolshevik faction. Not a single Menshevik took any part in their work (contacts with agents, with the Duma faction, with Moscow social-democrats during elections, etc.).

To "cast a vote," one Menshevik (Kostrov) appeared at the bureau once or twice!

Both Bolsheviks were arrested.

Result: all Bolsheviks, members of the Central Committee, were taken for central work and were doing that work. Of the Mensheviks, some (Mikhail + Yuri + Roman) refused any participation, one (Peter) took no part whatsoever for 1½ years, one (Kostrov) appeared at the bureau twice over 1½ years (in 1911!), taking no part in central work. After the Bolsheviks were exposed, this Menshevik did not take a single step in 2½ months, did not even write a single letter about restoring the Central Committee.

Therefore, Igorev's claim that this Menshevik + a Bundist now constitute the bureau (not even formally announced in the Central Committee Plenum and recognized by no one!), we consider a direct mockery.

2. Is it now possible to restore a foreign plenum?

Legally: there are present 9 people out of 15. Formally they can (a) proclaim themselves a plenum. While formally indisputable, such a step is probably possible only by a margin of one vote, that is, by a decision of 5 out of these 9 against 4. In reality, the significance of such a formally impeccable step is negligible: it is beyond doubt that the Central Committee cannot fulfill its role under such conditions.

(b) It is also formally possible that these 9 present members of the Central Committee will bring from Russia candidates with the right to membership. What would this mean in reality? The Mensheviks can "bring" either their liquidators (Mikhail + Yuri + Roman and others), whom, after the well-known statement by Mikhail + Yuri + Roman, no honest party member will recognize as Central Committee members; – or two Central Committee members who were at the plenum in I. 1910 and have done no central work in the 1½ years since then. The timeframe during which they can be brought is undefined.

The Bolsheviks can bring two more of their candidates in addition to the 3 Bolsheviks present. To bring these candidates would require months and months of work maintaining contact with the exiled, organizing escapes, arranging means of livelihood for families, etc. and so on. How many months this "work" of bringing "formal" candidates would require, it is impossible to say.

The real significance for the party of this undefined, prolonged work of bringing "formal" candidates, incapable now in fact of conducting central work in Russia, would be not merely nil. It would be worse than nil, for it would hide from local party groups the sad, requiring energetic initiative, reality, through a game of distributing positions from above.

After 1½ years of unsuccessful restoration of the Central Committee, to treat the party to yet more "tomorrows": tomorrow you will "have" the Central Committee – this would mean mocking the party. We have no intention of participating in such mockery.

3. It goes without saying that attempts now to gather candidates in Russia in order to restore the Central Committee there can only come from supporters of Stolypin. The police know all the candidates and watch them, as proved by the exposure of Innocent and Makar twice and thrice. This is, firstly and chiefly, the main point. And secondly, the real purpose of such a gathering – cooptation of Russians – is now impossible, because there are no candidates present (taken together with Makar the last time) and the unanimity required by statute for cooptation of Mensheviks is impossible, because not a single Bolshevik (Innocent already declared this to Sverchkov) will allow a single liquidator (or Bundist either) to pass.

4. The real position of the party now is such that in the localities almost everywhere there exist completely informal, extremely small and petty, irregularly assembled party worker groups and cells. Everywhere they wage war with the liquidator-legalists in unions, clubs, etc. They are not connected with each other. They rarely see literature. They enjoy prestige among workers. In these groups, Bolsheviks + Plekhanovists and in part those of the "Forward" faction members are uniting – those who have read "Forward" literature or heard Forward speakers, but have not yet become drawn into the separate Forward faction created abroad.

This anti-party faction certainly has some, though not great, influence among part of the Petersburg workers. It is fully proved that it submits to no Central Committee and, as far as it is able, hinders social-democratic work (to this day it has not openly called for elections to the Fourth Duma and continues to flirt with Otzovists).

An incomparably more serious anti-party and anti-social-democratic force is represented by the faction of independent legalists ("Our Dawn" + "Life's Work" + "Voice of the S.D."). It is fully proved that they submit to no Central Committee, publicly mocking its decisions. They cannot carry out plenum resolutions ("do not diminish" the significance of the illegal party, etc.), because they do not wish to. They cannot help but conduct a contrary line.

Not one honest social-democrat can doubt that the "independent legalists" are preparing for elections to the Fourth Duma and will conduct these elections apart from and against the party.

The task of party members is clear: not to permit any further delay whatever, not to postpone for a single day direct action against the independent legalists, openly and decisively to call upon party worker circles in Russia to begin preparations for the elections and at the elections to warn workers against the "independent legalists," to struggle with them, to promote only those workers who have understood the danger of this trend, only fully party workers.

Such is the task of the day for our party. Any deviation from this position of the question really posed by life (and by the independent legalists), any evasions, delays, attempts to repeat the game of "promises" and "assurances" from legalists threaten the party with the gravest danger.

5. Our practical conclusion: the assembly of 9 must be urged without fail and immediately to address the party with an appeal, setting forth truthfully and completely the failure to convene the Central Committee in Russia, calling upon local circles to take the initiative and to create regional, and then central organizational commissions, and to engage in decisive, direct, uncompromising struggle against the "independent legalists."

This appeal should be reinforced by a formal vote of the Central Committee plenum only if not five members of the Central Committee out of nine, but the vast majority of the nine agrees to recognize itself as a plenum and to take the path of decisive struggle against the group (faction) of independent legalists. It is self-evident that such struggle is incompatible with the participation of these legalists in central institutions, which they disrupted, hindered, weakened, and "kept in a morbid state" for a year and a half.

Written between May 19 and 23 (June 1 and 5), 1911.

Printed from the manuscript