Date: 1911-03-19
Source: ru:PSS/v20; en:CW/CW17

Exactly one year ago, the Central Organ of our Party published the following letter of paramount importance—a letter from the Russian Bureau of the Central Committee to the Foreign Bureau of the Central Committee.

“…We (that is, the Russian Bureau of the Central Committee) approached Comrades Mikhail, Roman, and Yuri with a proposal to join our work; however, we received from them a reply stating that they not only regarded the resolutions of the Plenum as harmful but also deemed the very existence of the Central Committee to be detrimental. On this basis, they refused to attend even a single meeting for the purpose of co-optation”[18].

The situation was perfectly clear. In Mikhail, Roman, and Yuri, we were dealing with outright renegades who considered “diplomacy” and evasive maneuvering in the spirit of “Golos” to be superfluous—and who openly declared their break with our Party. Two distinct “tactics” were at play: one—represented by Martov, Dan, and their allies—consisted in undermining the “old” Party from within, keeping the old Party in a state of chronic weakness until Stolypin’s “social-democratic” liquidators had consolidated their position; the other—represented by Potresov, Levitsky, Mikhail, Roman, Yuri, and their comrades—proceeded from the conviction that the game of secretly undermining the old Party from within was hardly worth the candle, and that it was time to move openly toward a rupture with the RSDLP.

The publication of the statement issued by Comrades Mikhail, Roman, and Yuri dealt a severe blow to the strategy pursued by their friends and patrons in “Golos Sozial-Demokrata.” But there was nothing to be done: Dan, Martov, and their allies were forced to cover their tracks once again—on the one hand, formally aligning themselves with the three renegades just mentioned, while on the other hand, subtly “dissociating” themselves from them. Martov even found the audacity, ten months after the publication of his three friends’ formal renunciation of the Party (in the penultimate, 23rd issue of “Golos”), to reproach the three gentlemen for their “frivolity”…

But then the wheel of “history” (the history of liquidationism) turned yet another full revolution. A series of circumstances—most notably the resistance to liquidationism mounted by certain Social-Democratic groups that were now operating in the open—prompted Comrades Potresov, Levitsky, Mikhail, Roman, and their colleagues to temper their zeal and to draw closer to the “wise,” more cautious “tactic” of covering their tracks à la Dan and Martov. This development, in turn, made possible—after a full year—the appearance of a “refutation” of the aforementioned document.

Needless to say, the “refutation” that appeared in “Golos” (under the sensational headline: “The Shattered Legend”) was utterly false from beginning to end. It turned out that the three renegades in question had “officially” withdrawn their candidacy for membership in the Central Committee—or their participation in even a single co-optation meeting—not out of any political conviction, but solely for “personal reasons.” Only later, in a private (and utterly “private”) conversation, did they share with him (that is, with the representative of the Central Committee{81}) a number of considerations—already of a political nature—that compelled us (that is, Roman, Mikhail, and Yuri) to view the proposal made to us with disfavor.

Thus, point 1 of the “refutation”: the statement to which the Central Organ had referred had been made only in a “private conversation,” after the official uniform had been cast aside. Is it not striking how radically this extremely “exculpatory” circumstance alters the picture?

But what, according to their own accounts, did Comrades Mikhail, Roman, and Yuri actually say in that “private conversation”? They did not claim that the resolutions of the Central Committee were harmful; rather, they merely allowed themselves to remark that “the path dictated by the Plenum does not strengthen, but weakens the position of the Central Committee”—that the use of legal means recommended by the Central Committee to the Party “reduced itself, and continues to reduce itself, to the destruction of legal workers’ organizations”—and that the very first step taken by the Central Committee along this path (the publication of the resolution on the Party Conference) had “provided the government with cover” for the destruction of workers’ organizations. Is it not clear that this is entirely different from the assertion made by the representative of the Central Committee, according to whom the three London-based liquidators “consider the Central Committee’s intervention in the spontaneous process of grouping Social-Democratic forces within legal organizations akin to tearing a fetus from its mother’s womb in the second month of pregnancy”? There is nothing to “refute” here!

Moreover, they did not claim that the existence of the Central Committee was harmful—God forbid! They merely expressed, in a thoroughly “private” manner, of course, the view that it would have been far better if, instead of the Central Committee, there had existed an “initiative group” where “no one would ask for a passport” (that is, a party passport), just as no one had ever asked for such a “passport” from the “Iskra” and “Zarya” groups[19] {82}. The main charge was “refuted” by Mikhail, Roman, and Yuri almost as successfully as their colleague Igorev had recently “refuted” the accusations of conspiracy against the Central Committee and the Party that had been leveled against him by his fellow Menshevik Party members—Plekhanov and A. Moscowsky… What was needed, you see, was not a Central Committee, but rather an initiative group like the “Iskra” and “Zarya” group. Of course, the “Iskra” and “Zarya” group had been a revolutionary Social-Democratic group, whereas Comrades Mikhail, Roman, and Yuri required an initiative group devoted to liquidationist aims. But that is not the point here. The point is that, according to their own words, the three allies of Martov and Dan had proposed replacing the Central Committee with a private initiative group—one where no one could demand that infamous “passport,” and where, when it came to “liquidation,” each member held absolute authority. They had “refuted” it!

One of the most telling “nails” in the “refutation” offered by Roman, Mikhail, and Yuri was their account of how the representative of the Central Committee, in inviting them to attend “even a single meeting” of the collegium, had tempted them with the promise that he (that is, the representative of the Central Committee) and the other “Russian Bolsheviks” were eager to “emancipate themselves from the guiding influence of the Leninist circle.” This claim, relayed by the three liquidators, was particularly relished by the editors of “Golos,” who hoped to justify someone—or something—through it. Yet the “Golos” editors clearly became entangled in their own contradictions, speaking against themselves. After all, dear editors of “Golos”—suppose that the Bolshevik who came to your friends on behalf of the Central Committee opposed what you call the “Leninist circle.” All the worse for you. For it was precisely that same Bolshevik who had written the letter of renunciation through which three of your friends left the Party—and which we published in No. 12 of the Central Organ. If this Bolshevik was not a supporter of what you refer to as the “Leninist circle,” then his testimony should, in your eyes, carry even greater weight. Suppose that the Цекистs who invited you were themselves opponents of the “Leninist circle”[20]—then, from your own perspective, the guilt of the three liquidators should be all the greater, since they refused to join the Central Committee even under such favorable conditions. What has become of the “Golos” editors? They are usually adept at covering their tracks—but this time, you’ve really missed the mark, gentlemen! You’ve managed to make things even more awkward than the “refutations” of Stolypin’s “Information Bureau.”

You were unlucky with your “refutation,” dear “Golos” editors—as unlucky as you were with your latest “quarrelsome” leaflets. You tried to “prove too much”—to prove that all Social-Democrats were united, and in the end, you proved nothing at all. Think about it for a moment: yesterday you released a leaflet addressed to 58 individuals (how many of those 58 were hypocrites, and how many were dupes?), portraying your opponents (“the Leninist circle”) as monsters among monsters, as a “gang,” and so forth. And yet the very next day, you—by the editorial staff of “Golos”—released a leaflet featuring a “program of reforms,” declaring that everything would be fine if we (that is, the Golos editors) were granted equal standing with these monsters—in the central organs of the Party, with those who had committed a host of “crimes,” and so on. When do you act “for the good of the Party,” when do you strive for your own sake, gentlemen?—in the first instance, or in the second? As for those… fragrant leaflets of “Golos,” as well as its appendices—where “everything went into action,” right down to the Geneva-based “revocists” who styled themselves as the “ideological circle of Bolsheviks”—it would hardly be worth mentioning them, if they did not shed such a glaring light on the entire political strategy of the Golos editors…

Strive on, you “legend‑destroyers”! Strive on—because you are indeed helping us to shatter one legend: the legend that you still have anything in common with revolutionary Social Democracy.

“Social Democrat,” Nos. 21–22, March 19 (April 1), 1911

Printed according to the text of the newspaper “Social Democrat.”