V. I. Lenin

Source: ru:PSS/v46;es:MT
Translated: machine translation (DeepSeek) from the Russian; AI-translated.

September 7, 1903

I have just received your letter and am hastening to reply.^{241} Yes, I see that you are already informed and that the sum total of the information which has given you this knowledge is coloured—as, of course, it could not fail to be—in a definite hue. I also realise that what has happened cannot but torment you.

But it is one thing to know and another to understand, you justly write, and I am profoundly convinced that what has happened cannot be understood from the standpoint of the “influence of terrible nervous strain”. Nervous strain could only have given rise to acute exasperation, fury and a reckless attitude towards the results, but the results themselves were absolutely inevitable, and their coming had long been only a matter of time.

“Rabble” and “praetorians”, you say. That is not so. The political grouping was, *im Grossen und Ganzen*,* as follows: 5 Bundists, 3 *Rabocheye Dyelo* supporters, 4 *Yuzhny Rabochy* supporters, 6 “swamp”, or waverers, 9 Iskra-ists of the soft line (or *Zickzackkurs*†), and 24 Iskra-ists of the hard line: these are the decisive votes, and approximate, of course. There were cases when everything was mixed up differently, but *à vol d’oiseau*,‡ in the final analysis, the groups were exactly as I have stated. The biggest case of reshuffling (equality of languages), when many Iskra-ists wavered, left us with not less than 23 (out of a total of 33 Iskra-ists), and even of these 23 the “Martovites” were in a minority. And do you know the results of the vote in the meeting of the 16? The 16 members of the *Iskra* organisation, not the “rabble”, not the “praetorians”? Do you know that here, too, Martov was in the minority both on the question of the person who was the apple of discord and on the question of the lists?

The minority of Iskra-ists of the soft or zigzag line defeated the majority (on the question of the Rules, and more than once) by a coalition of the Bund + the swamp + the *Yuzhny Rabochy* supporters. And when the Bund and *Rabocheye Dyelo* walked out, the majority of Iskra-ists took their revenge. *Voilà tout*.§ And not a single person doubts that if the Bund had not walked out, Martov would have defeated us on the centres. And from such an outcome to deduce insults, grievances, a split in the Party! That is madness.

They are inventing stories that the “praetorians” were kicking people out for the slanderous charge of opportunism, that they were besmirching and removing business-like people, etc. All that is nonsense, the product of a wounded imagination, *rien de plus*.** Nobody, absolutely nobody, was “besmirched” or removed from work, from participation in the cause. Only some people were removed from the centre—is that a reason for taking offence? For tearing the Party apart? For constructing a theory of hyper-centralism? For shouting about hedgehog gauntlets, etc.? I have never for a single moment doubted, and cannot doubt, that the trio of editors is the only truly business-like trio, which is not smashing anything but adapting the old “family” board to the role of an official body. It was precisely the family character of the six that tormented us all these three years—you know that very well—and from the moment *Iskra* became the Party and the Party became *Iskra*, we had, we were obliged, to break with the six, to break with the family character. That is why, even before the Congress, I declared that I would demand freedom to choose the editorial board—*respective* the trio, which is the only basis for efficient co-optation.

The break with the “family character” was absolutely necessary for the cause, and I am sure that the six would all have peacefully accepted this trio if it had not been for the accompanying fights over Paragraph 1 and over the Central Committee. It was only these fights that coloured the trio in their eyes with that “terrible” and absolutely false hue. There is nothing “terrible” about it at all, and the curbing of the *Zickzackkurs* was necessary, and the majority of the Iskra-ists (both at the Congress and inside the *Iskra* organisation) understood that perfectly.

No, I repeat, the outcome is not an “unforeseen calamity”, the outcome is not a “splitting of the whole”. That is not true. It is not true that one can curse the day of “promotion in rank”—or else all our old work would forever have remained the torment of Tantalus. And in the Party, on its formal basis, with everything subordinated to the Rules* (over which we not in vain fought desperately, fought over every trifle with Martov, who was victorious here), in such a Party the old family editorial board (which in three years never once—a fact—met as a body of six) was impossible, especially since into the Party there immediately entered, by right, on a formal basis, a crowd of non-Iskra-ists. And this demanded precisely a firm line and a consistent, not a zigzag, policy. There is no return to the old, and only a disordered imagination can picture the scene that Martov is being led to the slaughter, and not to joint work with comrades, each of whom has a shade of political line. *De facto*, I will say further, the decisive, politically decisive (not literary) centre was this trio, and always before, all these three years, in 99 cases out of 100.

I am now amused by “their” complaints about the rabble, about the praetorians, their lamentations about the “crystal” of the *Iskra* editorial board—after Martov defeated the majority of Iskra-ists by an alliance with the Bund and prepared everything for defeating them by this same alliance on the question of the centres. By an alliance, I say, not by a deal; I do not for a moment think of accusing them of a deal with the swamp and the Bund, nothing of the kind. When “they” argue that “slanderous rumours” were spread about them (that they were allies of the Bundists), “they” repeat their usual mistake of confusing the personal and the political. A deal would have been personally ugly. The alliance did not depend on their will; the alliance was determined by their mistake; it was not they who went with the Bund + the swamp, but the Bund + the swamp + *Yuzhny Rabochy*, etc., who went with them, having immediately scented which of the Iskra-ists should be supported from the standpoint of the anti-Iskra-ists. The Bund + the swamp, etc., politically only revealed Martov’s organisational and tactical mistake.

Whoever knows all the facts of the Congress, and especially the distribution of the Iskra-ist votes (both at the Congress and in the secret *Iskra* organisation), cannot have any doubt that there is no going back. The Iskra-ists have split, and *Iskra* could not exist outside the Iskra-ists. And, I repeat, among the Iskra-ists Martov was in an absolute minority, and the split in the Party (towards which Martov is fatally heading more and more every day) will prove to be a revolt of the minority, which is wrong both legally and, even more, in the essence of the matter.

We are not “besmirching” Martov or anyone else for a mistake, but are calling them all to work.

As for the “material resources” you mention, our affairs are not in a good way now, there is no denying it, and the Californian sources^{242} have collapsed. But, if anything happens, we shall endure even extreme want, so long as we do not allow the whole work of many years to be wrecked because of dissatisfaction with the composition of the centres (for objectively “their” dissatisfaction amounts to nothing else).

“Are we to divide the bucket, too?” you ask. I could hardly answer that question, for I have no claim to impartiality in the “division”, and you do not need a partial answer. I am convinced that there are no “fractional parts” at all, but that there is a mad attempt to split, break up and smash the whole (to scatter the new hearth, as you put it) because of a defeat on one question, in which the defeated Iskra-ists were utterly in the wrong.

I press your hand.

Written by N. K. Krupskaya

* That is why “constitutions among ourselves” are now impossible, absolutely impossible either legally or morally.

*—on the whole. *Ed.*
†—zigzag course. *Ed.*
‡—from a bird’s-eye view. *Ed.*
§—That’s all. *Ed.*
**—nothing more. *Ed.*