The RSDLP has long split with its opportunists. Russian opportunists have now become chauvinists as well. This only strengthens our conviction that a split with them is necessary in the interests of socialism. We are convinced that the present divergences of social-democrats from social-chauvinists are in no way smaller than those which socialists once had with anarchists, when the s.-d. split from the latter. The opportunist Monitor in the *Preußische Jahrbücher* correctly stated that for opportunists and the bourgeoisie the present unity is advantageous, for it forces the left to submit to chauvinists and prevents workers from sorting out the disputes and creating their own truly workers', truly socialist party. We are profoundly convinced that under the present circumstances, a split with opportunists and chauvinists is the first duty of a revolutionary—just as a split with the yellow unions, with antisemites, with liberal workers' unions, etc., was necessary precisely in the interests of the speediest enlightenment of backward workers and their attraction into the ranks of the s.-d. party.

The Third International, in our opinion, should have been created precisely on such a revolutionary basis. For our party there is no question of the expediency of a break with social-chauvinists. That question is settled for it irrevocably. For it there exists only the question of the feasibility of this break in the nearest future on an international scale.

It is completely understandable that for the realization of an international Marxist organization, there must exist a readiness for the creation of independent Marxist parties in different countries. Germany, as the country with the oldest and strongest workers' movement, has decisive significance. The near future will show whether the conditions for the creation of a new Marxist International have already matured. If yes, our party will joyfully enter such a III International, purged of opportunism and chauvinism. If no, this will show that a more or less lengthy evolution is still required for this purification. And then our party will be the extreme opposition within the old International—until the basis for international proletarian solidarity, standing on the ground of revolutionary Marxism, is created in different countries.

We do not know and cannot know how development will proceed in the nearest years on the international arena. But what we know for certain, what we are unshakeably convinced of, is this—that our party in our country, among our proletariat, will work tirelessly in the indicated direction and through all its everyday activity will create the Russian section of the Marxist International.

In Russia too there is no lack of open social-chauvinists and groups of the "centre." These people will struggle against the creation of a Marxist International. We know that Plekhanov stands on the same principled ground as Südekum and is already extending his hand to him. We know that the so-called "Organizational Committee," led by Axelrod, preaches Kautskyism on Russian soil. Under the guise of workers' class unity, these people preach unity with opportunists and through them—with the bourgeoisie. But everything we know of the present state of the workers' movement in Russia gives us complete assurance that the conscious proletariat of Russia will remain with our party as before.