OF FOREIGN ORGANIZATION AND FOREIGN GROUPS

Draft

Having familiarized ourselves with the resolution of the ISB concerning Russian affairs... resolved

To welcome the decision of the Bureau. The full clarification of serious disagreements existing in the Russian workers' movement, which the Bureau has made a first priority, is in our view the most important and absolutely necessary precondition for further steps. We decided therefore to do everything possible to assist our comrades in familiarizing themselves with the existing state of affairs in Russia.

On the other hand, we cannot pass over in silence the unfamiliarity of foreign comrades with the affairs of the RSDLP, which manifested itself in the discussion of this question in the Bureau. We would not fulfill our direct obligation as members of the RSDLP if we left unprotested the statement made at the Bureau meeting by the representative of German social democracy, Kautsky, that "the party does not exist." Considering this statement to be the result of insufficient or one-sided information of that comrade concerning the Russian workers' movement, we consider it our obligation to point out that the knowledge indispensable for every socialist speaking on Russian affairs of the basic facts of the movement (elections, composition of parliamentary representation, party press, decisions of party bodies, the course of strike movement, etc.) would lead Comrade Kautsky to recognize that our party, having survived an epoch of counterrevolutionary terror, is the guiding force of the entire workers' movement in Russia, in all its diverse manifestations.

We express the hope that the steps undertaken by the Bureau to familiarize [people with] the state of affairs in Russia will not only clarify the actual relationship between the RSDLP and the groups that have broken away from it, but will also make impossible in the future statements by responsible figures of international social democracy similar to those permitted by Comrade Kautsky.
Two basic conceptions, two basic viewpoints, which we have already indicated in the report to the ISB at its December session of 1913. The first viewpoint: in Russia there exists an illegal S.D. party in the form of cells [and] groups of S.D. workers, and these cells are surrounded by a network (more or less dense in different cities) of legal workers' societies. This party unites the overwhelming majority of conscious workers in Russia. The legal newspaper of this fully organized party is *Pravda*, the illegal organization is represented by conferences and meetings of I.1912, II.1913, and summer [1913]². Against this workers' party are fighting, disorganizing the workers' movement, bourgeois-intellectual groups, which objectively are the liquidators and small groups desiring to help them. One can help the cause of unity only by ending the separate existence of these groups and their subordination to the majority of conscious workers.

The other viewpoint: in Russian S.D. there reigns a dissolution and chaos of factional struggle of a whole heap of factions and groups, of which the worst factionalism is that of the "Leninists." One can help the cause only through agreement or compromise of all tendencies, all factions.

[Manuscript page of variant of plan and theses of report of CC RSDLP to Brussels Conference. June 1914.]

VARIANT OF THE CONCLUDING PART OF THE REPORT
("CONDITIONS")

On the basis of the objective data set forth above and the experience of 2½ years of open and direct separate existence,—we, the CC RSDLP, are convinced that the group of liquidators is an intellectual group that does not submit to discipline and organization and has demonstrated its inability to create a party and work in a party manner, to unite workers into a party.

We know that all the remaining groups, tendencies, factions, etc., do not share our opinion. All that we can do in such a situation is to propose to them to refute us, to show us our error through experience. Let them create from all the groups that have defended compromise (or even unity) with the liquidators in the press (Trotsky, the Bund, Plekhanov⁴, *Vperyod*⁵, etc.)—a common commission (as they wish, with decisive or consultative vote) and let it publish its assessment of all party questions over the course of half a year. The workers of Russia will then see whether we are wrong in denying the possibility of working with the liquidators.