PROJECT OF A LETTER TO THE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
ORGAN OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE RSDLP
[February–March 1916. Zurich]
Letter from K. Z. to the Sections of the R.S.D.L.P.
Dear Comrades,1 In the recently published No. 25 (the second issue during the war) of “The Workers’ Gazette,” the organ of the opposition within the R.S.D.L.P., resolutions from their meeting—specifically, the meeting of the editorial board—were printed, adopted back in June 1915.
These resolutions clearly demonstrate that, as an organization (we are not speaking here of its individual members, some of whom have been carrying out highly valuable work in the German Social Democratic press), the R.S.D.L.P. is once again wavering—with complete lack of principle!
Not a single word against Kautskyism, not a single word about a firm and resolute struggle against opportunism as the source—and the mainstay—of social-chauvinism!! The real meaning of this stance is one and only one: a willingness to once again—just as in Brussels on March 3, 1914—enter into “play” with the Kautskysists**.
We present the main (fourth) resolution in full.
Here is its text:
… IV. Relations Between the S.D.P. and the R.S.D.L.P. 1L “The Workers’ Gazette” of the R.S.D. (Opposition), No. 25 (January 1916). “Resolutions of the Editorial Board Meeting Held June 1–2, 1915” ***
“In Russia, Polish revolutionary social democracy, composed of the most resolute revolutionary-internationalist elements, regards the Central Committee of the R.S.D.L.P. as a collective body; while granting the regional organizations the freedom to regulate their organizational relations with it in the future, the Central Committee will politically support them and coordinate its own activities with theirs.
The common revolutionary position of the Polish social democrats and the Central Committee on the principal, essential (wytyczuych [defined?]) points of their policy obliges the S.D.P. II. and L. to continue, as before, to treat with critical scrutiny the undeniable exaggerations (wybujalosci [“boisterous” growth of grain yields, etc.]) in its tactics.
While rightly seeking to emphasize the proletarian class’s unequivocally hostile attitude toward the predatory policies of Tsarist autocracy, the Central Committee advances the slogan of Russia’s defeat, grounding it in the particularly reactionary role of Tsarist autocracy in Europe and in the special significance of the Russian Revolution; yet in doing so, the Central Committee falls into contradiction with the method of internationalism, which does not permit us to tie the hopes and tasks of the proletariat to any particular outcome of the war—and even lends arguments to the German social-patriots.
While rightly recognizing the necessity for revolutionary action in order to build a new International, while rightly rising up against all attempts to obscure or gloss over the conflict, to reassemble the old, fragmented International, the Central Committee nevertheless overestimates the role of mechanically isolating itself from all less resolute elements that do not, a priori, share its own viewpoint—and forgets (przeocza) that the task of the revolutionary camp (oboza) should not be to repel these elements, but rather to draw them into the struggle against the charlatanism (obmanam) of social-patriotism and to aid the process of their radicalization through sharp criticism of their ideological instability.
As for the O.K. of the R.S.D.L.P., the conference-meeting (pagaia)
confirms that the main [portion] of its group residing in Russia, together with its literary representative (ekspozytura literacka),
stands on the position of social-patriotism; that its weak internationalist wing lacks both the strength and the courage to break with the social-patriots; that the center of the O.K. holds a pacifist standpoint; the conference-meeting believes that the relationship between the S.D.P. II. and L. and the O.K. can be resolved only through critical examination of its position, by aiding its disintegration (rozkiadu) and by drawing away from the O.K. those internationalist elements among its ranks who cluster around “Nashe Slovo,” the organ that has done much to develop (to crystallize) internationalist-revolutionary viewpoints within the R.S.D.L.P. II.
The same applies, in particular, to the Bund, which is part of the O.K.; its position represents an even more chaotic mixture of social-patriotic and pacifist elements, of Russophile and Germanophile tendencies.”
End of Resolution IV
[The Polish] social democrats here state that they wish to “coordinate” their activities with the Central Committee.


PROJECT
LETTER FROM THE KZО TO THE SECTIONS OF THE RSDLP

We believe that it is our unconditional duty to tell the Central Committee:
The Central Committee must not—and cannot—“coordinate” its activities with the R.S.D.L.P.
Why?
Because the R.S.D.L.P. once again, for the thousand-and-first time*, is wavering [(or, to put it objectively, playing games)]
on the fundamental question of our party. There is no doubt that the central question of the social democratic movement in Russia today is the question of split.
We are uncompromising on this question, for all the experience of the social democratic movement in Russia—especially the years 1903–1909, then 1910–1914, and above all 1915–1916—has convinced us that unity with the O.K. (or, what amounts to the same thing, with the Chkheidze Fraction) is harmful to the workers’ movement, ensuring its subordination to the bourgeoisie.
The war and the “Gvozdev affair” have finally proven this beyond doubt.
And it is precisely on this, the chief, fundamental, root question, that the Polish social democrats [again and again] waver**.
They say not a word about how the war has convinced them of the necessity of splitting and of the fallacy of their tactics in Brussels (March 3, 1914).
On the contrary, they inserted into the resolution a phrase that seems deliberately crafted to justify and enable yet another “Brussels-style” shift to the side of the O.K. or of Chkheidze. That phrase reads:
…“The Central Committee overestimates the role of mechanical isolation…”
[This is the crux of the matter. Everything else is mere rhetoric.] If the Central Committee “overestimates” the necessity of splitting, then it is clear that tomorrow—or the day after— the R.S.D.L.P. will once again be entitled to vote for a new Brussels–Kautskyite resolution on “unity.”
It is the same old Tushkinism, the same old game between the Central Committee and the O.K., the same old eclectic (to put it mildly) use of the pendulum’s position.
We are by no means opposed to working together with the R.S.D.L.P.—neither in general nor within the Zimmerwald Left; we are not defending
* Instead of the phrase enclosed in parentheses, written in Krupskaya’s hand, it now reads:
“Thus.”
Ed.
** In Krupskaya’s hand, the word in parentheses was replaced with the word “waver.”
Ed.

each of our resolutions; but when it comes to (1) the split in Russia and (2) our uncompromising stance toward Kautskyism in Europe, we remain uncompromising. [We consider it our duty to warn all comrades about the unreliability of the Polish social democrats and to insist that the Central Committee not allow itself to be drawn once again into repeating the “Brussels” experiments, nor to place trust in the authors and participants of those experiments.]
With comradely greetings, K. Z. O.