30. IX.

... You write: "I have lived too long in the world not to know that in such cases, the truth is not on one side alone, but on both." I fully admit this. The trouble is only that the "side" does not realize the new situation, the new basis, and demands what was easily achieved in the old way (even after a month of fighting), but now is unattainable. The basis has changed, it is a fait accompli*; and they still guide themselves mostly by how offensive something or other at the congress turned out, how fiercely Lenin behaved, etc. It happened, no doubt, and I openly acknowledged my "fury" in a letter to Starover**.

But the point is that the results achieved through "furious" struggle are not at all furious, while that side continues to fight over the fury against the very results, against the inevitable and necessary results. You, of course, have long known where things were heading. You know how you expressed your firm conviction about the obstruction from some "old-timers," and you certainly will not doubt that the unfortunate "trio" is not a trick, not a Jacobin coup, but a direct, natural, and indeed, the best, truly the best way out of three years of "tearing apart." The trio is built on three corners and eliminates any ground for tearing apart. You know how impressionability and "personal" (instead of political) attitude led Martov + Starover + Zasulich, for example, to completely "condemn" a person politically for a purely personal matter. At that time, without hesitation, you stood on the side of the "cruel and monstrous." And yet, this is a completely, completely typical case. Even now - the root is the same, the same confusion of the personal and the political, the same suspicion of us wanting to tarnish personally, although we only move (and shift) politically. And when you remind me: there must be guilt on your side as well, - I reply: I do not deny personal guilt, but there is no need to demand a political correction for it. Precisely in this lies the impasse, the complete impasse of the situation, that for a sum of personal grievances, personal dissatisfaction with the composition of the centers, they demand a political correction. Tout ce que voulez, mais pas de ca!* And if the cause is considered (as some want) to be a political disagreement, then is it not ridiculous to demand for "peace" the co-optation of a larger number or at least an equal number of political opponents?? It is ridiculous to the extreme!** And the small incident I mentioned above from a large series of tearings apart is typical not only in substance but also in the form of its outcome. Do you know how we prevailed then? We were in the minority, but we won through persistence, through the threat of carrying it "on everyone." Now they think: we will do the same now. The trouble is that now

* - All that you want, but not this! Ed.

** - To the utmost degree! Ed.

it is not the same. Now the formal basis is inescapable. If there were no such formal basis, why not six, if people have already reached the breaking point? We suffered for 3 years, let's suffer another 3; we decided not by votes, but by persistence, - let's continue to decide by persistence now. But this is impossible now - that is the point. And they stubbornly refuse to see and understand this change. This makes the situation inescapable. Now the dilemma stands inexorably: either a disagreement on the issue of individuals, in which case it is absurd to make a political scandal and abandon work. Or a political disagreement - in which case it is even more absurd to "correct" it by imposing certain individuals of, say, a different nuance.

They now take (as if they take) the second. Then let Martov enter the trio and prove to the party the errors of the two in your collegium: otherwise, you cannot obtain data to expose these errors and warn the party against them except by participating in the collegium. Otherwise, your accusations are empty Parteiklatsch* for the future.

If you take the first, then do not extend your grievance to abandoning work, and work will quickly make you forget the "fury." There is no more inescapable dead end than the dead end of being excluded from work.