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After adopting the Rules, the Congress passed a resolution on district organisations and a number of resolutions on particular Party organisations, and, following the extremely instructive debate on the Yuzhny Rabochy group which I have analysed above, proceeded to discuss the election of the Party's central institutions.
We already know that the Iskra organisation, from which the entire Congress had expected an authoritative recommendation, had split over this question, for the minority of the organisation wanted to test in free and open combat whether it could not win a majority at the Congress. We also know that a plan was known long before the Congress -- and to all the delegates at the Congress itself -- for reconstituting the editorial board by the election of two trios, one to the Central Organ and one to the Central Committee. Let us dwell on this plan in greater detail in order to throw light on the Congress debate.
Here is the exact text of my commentary to the draft Tagesordnung of the Congress where this plan was set forth:*
"The Congress shall elect three persons to the editorial board of the Central Organ and three to the Central Committee. These six persons in conjunction shall, if necessary, co-opt by a two-thirds majority vote additional members to the editorial board of the Central Organ and to the Central Committee and report to this effect to the Congress. After the report has been endorsed by the Congress, subsequent co-optation shall be effected by the editorial board of the Central Organ and by the Central Committee separately."
The plan stands out in this text quite definitely and unambiguously: it implies a reconstitution of the editorial board, effected with the participation of the most influential leaders of the practical work. Both the features of this plan which I have emphasised are apparent at once to anyone who takes the trouble to read the text at all attentively. But nowadays one has to stop and explain the most elementary things. It was precisely a reconstitution of the editorial board that the plan implied -- not necessarily an enlargement and not necessarily a reduction of its membership, but its reconstitution; for the question of a possible enlargement or reduction was left open : co-optation was provided for only if necessary. Among the suggestions for such reconstitution made by various people, some provided for a possible reduction of the number of editors, and some for increasing it to seven (I personally had always regarded seven as far preferable to six), and even to eleven (I considered this possible in the event of peaceful union with all Social-Democratic organisations in general and with the Bund and the Polish Social-Democrats in particular). But what is most important, and this is usually overlooked by people talking about the "trio", is that the matter of further co-optation to the Central Organ was to be decided with the participation of the members of the Central Committee. Not one comrade of all the "minority" members of the organisation or Congress delegates, who knew of this plan and approved it (either explicitly or tacitly), has taken the trouble to explain the meaning of this point. Firstly, why was a trio, and only a trio, taken as the starting-point for reconstituting the editorial board? Obviously, this would have been absolutely senseless if the sole, or at least the main, purpose had been to enlarge the board, and if that board had really been considered a
"harmonious" one. If the purpose is to enlarge a "harmonious" body, it would be strange to start, not with the whole body, but with only a part. Obviously, not all members of the board were considered quite suitable for discussing and deciding the matter of reconstituting it, of converting the old editorial circle into a Party institution. Obviously, even those who personally desired the reconstitution to be an enlargement recognised that the old composition of the board was not harmonious and did not answer to the ideal of a Party institution, for otherwise there would be no reason first to reduce the six to three in order to enlarge it. I repeat, this is self-evident, and only the temporary confusion of the issue by "personalities" could have caused it to be forgotten.
Secondly, it will be seen from the above-quoted text that even the agreement of all three members of the Central Organ would not by itself be enough for the enlargement of the trio. This, too, is always lost sight of. Two-thirds of six, that is, four votes, were to be required for co-optation; hence it would only be necessary for the three members elected to the Central Committee to exercise their veto, and no enlargement of the trio would be possible. Conversely, even if two of the three members of the editorial board of the Central Organ were opposed to further co-optation, it would nevertheless be possible if all three members of the Central Committee were in favour of it. It is thus obvious that the intention was, in converting the old circle into a Party institution, to grant the deciding voice to the Congress-elected leaders of the practical work. Which comrades we roughly had in mind may be seen from the fact that prior to the Congress the editorial board unanimously elected Comrade Pavlovich a seventh member of their body, in case it should be necessary to make a statement at the Congress on behalf of the board; in addition to Comrade Pavlovich, a certain old member of the Iskra organisation and member of the Organising Committee, who was subsequently elected to the Central Committee, was proposed for the seventh place.
Thus the plan for the election of two trios was obviously designed: 1) to reconstitute the editorial board; 2) to rid it of certain elements of the old circle spirit, which is out of place in a Party institution (if there had been nothing to get
rid of there would have been no point in the idea of an initial trio!); and, lastly, 3) to get rid of the "theocratic" features of a body of writers (getting rid of them by enlisting the services of prominent practical workers in deciding the question of enlarging the trio). This plan, with which all the editors were acquainted, was, clearly, based on three years' experience of work and fully accorded with the principles of revolutionary organisation that we were consistently introducing. In the period of disunity in which Iskra entered the arena, groups were often formed haphazardly and spontaneously, and inevitably suffered from certain pernicious manifestations of the circle spirit. The creation of a Party presupposed and demanded the elimination of these features; the participation of prominent practical workers in this elimination was essential, for certain members of the editorial board had always dealt with organisational affairs, and the body to enter the system of Party institutions was to be a body not merely of writers, but of political leaders. It was likewise natural, from the standpoint of the policy Iskra had always pursued, to leave the selection of the initial trio to the Congress: we had observed the greatest caution in preparing for the Congress, waiting until all controversial questions of principle relating to programme, tactics, and organisation had been fully clarified; we had no doubt that the Congress would be an "Iskra"-ist one in the sense that its overwhelming majority would be solid on these fundamental questions (this was also indicated in part by the resolutions recognising Iskra as the leading organ); we were bound therefore to leave it to the comrades who had borne the whole brunt of the work of disseminating Iskra 's ideas and preparing for its conversion into a party to decide for themselves who were the most suitable candidates for the new Party institution. It is only by the fact that this plan for "two trios" was a natural one, only by the fact that it fully accorded with Iskra 's whole policy and with every thing known about Iskra to people at all closely acquainted with the work, that the general approval of this plan and the absence of any rival plan is to be explained.
And so, at the Congress, Comrade Rusov first of all moved the election of two trios. It never even occurred to the followers of Martov, who had informed us in writing that this
plan was connected with the false accusation of opportunism, to reduce the dispute over a board of six or three to the question whether this accusation was right or wrong. Not one of them even hinted at it! None of them ventured to say a single word about the differing shades of principle involved in the dispute over six or three. They preferred a commoner and cheaper method, namely, to evoke pity, to speak of possible injured feelings, to pretend that the question of the editorial board had already been settled by appointing Iskra the Central Organ. This last argument, adduced by Comrade Koltsov against Comrade Rusov, was a piece of downright falsity. Two separate items were included -- not fortuitously, of course -- in the Congress agenda (see Minutes, p. 10): Item 4 -- "Central Organ of the Party", and Item 18 -- "Election of the Central Committee and the editorial board of the Central Organ". That in the first place. In the second place, when the Central Organ was being appointed, all the delegates categorically declared that this did not mean the endorsement of the editorial board, but only of the trend,* and not a single protest was raised against these declarations.
Thus the statement that by endorsing a definite organ the Congress had in effect endorsed the editorial board -- a statement many times reiterated by the adherents of the minority (by Koltsov, p. 321, by Posadovsky, p. 321, by Popov, p. 322, and by many others) -- was simply untrue in fact. It was a perfectly obvious manoeuvre to cover a retreat
from the position held at the time when the question of the composition of the central bodies could still be regarded in a really dispassionate light by all. The retreat could not be justified either by motives of principle (for to raise the question of the "false accusation of opportunism" at the Congress was too much to the disadvantage of the minority, and they did not even hint at it), or by a reference to the factual data showing which was actually more effectual -- six or three (for the mere mention of these facts would have produced a heap of arguments against the minority). They had to try to burke the issue by talk about a "symmetrical whole", about a "harmonious team", about a "symmetrical and crystal-integral entity", and so on. It is not surprising that these arguments were immediately called by their true name: "wretched words " (p. 328). The very plan for a trio clearly testified to a lack of "harmony", and the impressions obtained by the delegates during a month and more of working together obviously afforded a mass of material to enable them to judge for themselves. When Comrade Posadovsky hinted at this material (incautiously and injudiciously from his own standpoint: see pp. 321 and 325 regarding the "qualified sense" in which he had used the word "dissonances"), Comrade Muravyov bluntly declared: "In my opinion it is now quite clear to the majority of the Congress that such* dissonances undoubtedly do exist" (p. 321). The minority chose to construe the word "dissonances" (which was given currency by Posadovsky, not Muravyov) in a purely personal sense, not daring to take up the gauntlet flung down by Comrade Muravyov, not daring to bring forward in defence of the board of six a single argument on the actual merits of the case. The result was a dispute which for its sterility was more than comic: the majority (through the mouth of Comrade Muravyov) declared that the true significance of the six-or-three issue was quite clear to them, but the minority
persistently refused to listen and affirmed that "we are not in a position to examine it". The majority not only considered themselves in a position to examine it, but had "examined it" already and announced that the results of the examination were quite clear to them, but the minority apparently feared an examination and took cover behind mere "wretched words". The majority urged us to "bear in mind that our Central Organ is something more than a literary group"; the majority "wanted the Central Organ to be headed by quite definite persons, persons known to the Congress, persons meeting the requirements I have mentioned" (that is, not only literary requirements; Comrade Lange's speech, p. 327). Again the minority did not dare to take up the gauntlet and did not say a word as to who, in their opinion, was suitable for what was more than a literary body, as to who was a figure of a "quite definite" magnitude "known to the Congress". The minority continued to take shelter behind their celebrated "harmony". Nor was this all. The minority even introduced into the debate arguments which were absolutely false in principle and which therefore quite rightly evoked a sharp rebuff. "The Congress," don't you see, "has neither the moral nor the political right to refashion the editorial board" (Trotsky, p. 326); "it is too delicate [sic !] a question" (Trotsky again); "how will the editors who are not reelected feel about the fact that the Congress does not want to see them on the board any more?" (Tsaryov, p. 324.)*
Such arguments simply put the whole question on the plane of pity and injured feelings, and were a direct admission of bankruptcy as regards real arguments of principle, real political arguments. And the majority immediately gave this attitude its true name: philistinism (Comrade Rusov). "We are hearing strange speeches from the lips of revolutionaries," Comrade Rusov justly remarked, "speeches that are in marked disharmony with the concepts Party work, Party ethics. The principal argument on which the opponents of electing trios take their stand amounts to a purely philistine view of Party affairs [my italics through-
out]. . . . If we adopt this standpoint, which is a philistine and not a Party standpoint, we shall at every election have to consider: will not Petrov be offended if Ivanov is elected and not he, will not some member of the Organising Committee be offended if another member, and not he, is elected to the Central Committee? Where is this going to land us, comrades? If we have gathered here for the purpose of creating a Party, and not of indulging in mutual compliments and philistine sentimentality, then we can never agree to such a view. We are about to elect officials, and there can be no talk of lack of confidence in any person not elected; our only consideration should be the interests of the work and a person's suitability for the post to which he is being elected " (p. 325).
We would advise all who want to make an independent examination of the reasons for the Party split and to dig down to the roots of it at the Congress to read this speech of Comrade Rusov's over and over again; his arguments were not even contested by the minority, let alone refuted. And indeed there is no contesting such elementary, rudimentary truths, which were forgotten only because of "nervous excitement ", as Comrade Rusov himself rightly explained. And this is really the explanation least discreditable to the minority of how they could desert the Party standpoint for a philistine and circle standpoint.*
But the minority were so totally unable to find sensible and business-like arguments against election that, in addition to introducing philistinism into Party affairs, they resorted to downright scandalous practices. Indeed, what other name can we give to the action of Comrade Popov when he advised Comrade Muravyov "not to undertake delicate commissions" (p. 322)? What is this but "getting personal", as Comrade Sorokin rightly put it (p. 328)? What is it but speculating on "personalities ", in the absence of political arguments? Was Comrade Sorokin right or wrong when he said that "we have always protested against such practices"? "Was it permissible for Comrade Deutsch to try demonstratively to pillory comrades who did not agree with him?"* (P. 328.)
Let us sum up the debate on the editorial board. The minority did not refute (nor even try to refute) the majority's numerous statements that the plan for a trio was known to the delegates at the very beginning of the Congress and prior to the Congress, and that, consequently, this plan was based on considerations and facts which had no relation to the events and disputes at the Congress. In defending the board of six, the minority took up a position which was wrong and impermissible in principle, one based on philistine considerations. The minority displayed an utter forgetfulness of the Party attitude towards the election of officials, not even attempting to give an estimation of each candidate for a post and of his suitability or unsuitability for the functions it involved. The minority evaded a discussion of the question on its merits and talked instead of their celebrated harmony, "shedding tears" and "indulging in pathos" (Lange's speech, p. 327), as though "somebody was being murdered". In their state of "nervous excitement " (p. 325) the minority even went to the length of "getting personal ", of howling that election was "criminal", and similar impermissible practices.
The battle over six or three at the 30th sitting of our Congress was a battle between philistinism and the party spirit, between "personalities " of the worst kind and political considerations, between wretched words and the most elementary conception of revolutionary duty.
And at the 31st sitting, when the Congress, by a majority of nineteen to seventeen with three abstentions, had rejected the motion to endorse the old editorial board as a whole (see p. 330 and the errata), and when the former editors had returned to the hall, Comrade Martov in his "statement on behalf of the majority of the former editorial board"
(pp. 330-31) displayed this same shakiness and instability of political position and political concepts to an even greater degree. Let us examine in detail each point of this collective statement and my reply (pp. 332-33).
"From now on," Comrade Martov said when the old editorial board was not endorsed, "the old Iskra does not exist, and it would be more consistent to change its name. At any rate, we see in the new resolution of the Congress a substantial limitation of the vote of confidence in Iskra which was passed at one of the first Congress sittings."
Comrade Martov and his colleagues raised a truly interesting and in many respects instructive question of political consistency. I have already replied to this by referring to what everyone said when Iskra was being endorsed (Minutes, p. 349, cf. above, p. 82).[*] What we have here is unquestionably a crying instance of political inconsistency, but whether on the part of the majority of the Congress or of the majority of the old editorial board we shall leave the reader to judge. And there are two other questions very pertinently raised by Comrade Martov and his colleagues which we shall likewise leave the reader to decide: 1) Did the desire to detect a "limitation of the vote of confidence in Iskra" in the Congress decision to elect officials to the editorial board of the Central Organ betray a philistine or a Party attitude? 2) When did the old "Iskra" really cease to exist -- starting from No. 46, when the two of us, Plekhanov and I, began to conduct it, or from No. 53, when the majority of the old editorial board took it over? If the first question is a most interesting question of principle, the second is a most interesting question of fact.
"Since it has now been decided," Comrade Martov continued, "to elect an editorial board of three, I must declare on my own behalf and that of the three other comrades that none of us will sit on this new editorial board. For myself, I must add that if it be true that certain comrades wanted to include my name in the list of candidates for this 'trio', I must regard it as an insult which I have done nothing to deserve [sic !]. I say this in view of the circumstances under which it has been decided to change the editorial board.
This decision was taken on the grounds of some kind of 'friction',[*] of the former editorial board having been ineffectual; moreover, the Congress decided the matter along definite lines without questioning the editorial board about this friction or even appointing a commission to report whether it had been ineffectual. [Strange that it never occurred to any member of the minority to propose to the Congress to "question the editorial board" or appoint a commission! Was it not because it would have been useless after the split in the Iskra organisation and the failure of the negotiations Comrades Martov and Starover wrote about?] Under the circumstances, I must regard the assumption of certain comrades that I would agree to sit on an editorial board reformed in this manner as a slur on my political reputation. . . ."[**]
I have purposely quoted this argument in full to acquaint the reader with a specimen and with the beginning of what has blossomed out so profusely since the Congress and which
cannot be called by any other name than squabbling. I have already employed this expression in my Letter to the Editors of "Iskra", and in spite of the editors' annoyance I am obliged to repeat it, for its correctness is beyond dispute. It is a mistake to think that squabbling presupposes "sordid motives" (as the editors of the new Iskra conclude): any revolutionary at all acquainted with our colonies of exiles and political émigrés will have witnessed dozens of cases of squabbling in which the most absurd accusations, suspicions, self-accusations, "personalities", etc., were levelled and harped upon owing to "nervous excitement" and abnormal, stagnant conditions of life. No sensible person will necessarily seek for sordid motives in these squabbles, however sordid their manifestations may be. And it is only to "nervous excitement" that we can attribute that tangled skein of absurdities, personalities, fantastic horrors, and imaginary insults and slurs which is contained in the above-quoted passage from Comrade Martov's speech. Stagnant conditions of life breed such squabbles among us by the hundred, and a political party would be unworthy of respect if it did not have the courage to designate its malady by its true name, to make a ruthless diagnosis and search for a cure.
Insofar as anything relating to principles can be extracted at all from this tangled skein, one is led inevitably to the conclusion that "elections have nothing to do with any slurs on political reputations", that "to deny the right of the Congress to hold new elections, make new appointments of any kind, and change the composition of its authorised boards" is to confuse the issue, and that "Comrade Martov's views on the permissibility of electing part of the old board reflect an extreme confusion of political ideas" (as I expressed it at the Congress, p. 332).*
I shall omit Comrade Martov's "personal" remark as to who initiated the plan for the trio, and shall pass to his
"political" characterisation of the significance attaching to the non-endorsement of the old editorial board: ". . What has now taken place is the last act of the struggle which has raged during the second half of the Congress. [Quite right! And this second half of the Congress began when Martov fell into the tight clutches of Comrade Akimov over Paragraph 1 of the Rules.] It is an open secret that in this reform it is not a question of being 'effectual', but of a struggle for influence on the Central Committee. [Firstly, it is an open secret that it was a question of being effectual, as well as of a divergence over the composition of the Central Committee, for the plan of the "reform" was proposed at a time when that divergence was nowhere in sight and when Comrade Martov joined us in electing Comrade Pavlovich a seventh member of the editorial board] Secondly, we have already shown by documentary proofs that it was a question of the personal composition of the Central Committee, that à la fin des fins the matter came down to a difference of lists: Glebov-Travinsky-Popov or Glebov-Trotsky-Popov.] The majority of the editorial board showed that they did not want the Central Committee to be converted into a tool of the editorial board. [That is Akimov's refrain: the question of the influence for which every majority fights at any and every party congress so as then to consolidate it with the help of a majority on the central institutions is transferred to the plane of opportunist slanders about a "tool" of the editorial board, about a "mere appendage" of the editorial board, as Comrade Martov himself put it somewhat later, p. 334.] That is why it was found necessary to reduce the number of members of the editorial board [!!]. And that is why I cannot join such an editorial board. [Just examine this "that is why" a little more carefully. How might the editorial board have converted the Central Committee into an appendage or tool? Only if it had had three votes on the Council and had abused its superiority. Is that not clear? And is it not likewise clear that, having been elected the third member, Comrade Martov could always have prevented such an abuse and by his vote alone have destroyed all superiority of the editorial board on the Council? Consequently, the whole matter boils down to the personal composition of the Central Committee, and it is at once clear that the talk about a tool and an
appendage is slander.] Together with the majority of the old editorial board, I thought that the Congress would put an end to the 'state of siege' in the Party and would establish a normal state of affairs. But as a matter of fact the state of siege, with its emergency laws against particular groups, still continues, and has even become more acute. Only if the old editorial board remains in its entirety can we guarantee that the rights conferred on the editorial board by the Rules will not be used to the detriment of the Party. . . ."
There you have the whole passage from Comrade Martov's speech in which he first advanced the notorious war-cry of a "state of siege". And now look at my reply to him:
". . . However, in correcting Martov's statement about the private character of the plan for two trios, I have no intention of denying Martov's assertion of the 'political significance' of the step we took in not endorsing the old editorial board. On the contrary, I fully and unreservedly agree with Comrade Martov that this step is of great political significance -- only not the significance which Martov ascribes to it. He said that it was an act in a struggle for influence on the Central Committee in Russia. I go farther than Martov. The whole activity of Iskra as a separate group has hitherto been a struggle for influence; but now it is a matter of something more, namely, the organisational consolidation of this influence, and not only a struggle for it. How profoundly Comrade Martov and I differ politically on this point is shown by the fact that he blames me for this wish to influence the Central Committee, whereas I count it to my credit that I strove and still strive to consolidate this influence by organisational means. It appears that we are even talking in different languages! What would be the point of all our work, of all our efforts, if they ended in the same old struggle for influence, and not in its complete acquisition and consolidation? Yes, Comrade Martov is absolutely right: the step we have taken is undoubtedly a major political step showing that one of the trends now to be observed has been chosen for the future work of our Party. And I am not at all frightened by the dreadful words 'a state of siege in the Party', 'emergency laws against particular individuals and groups', etc. We not only can but we must create
a 'state of siege' in relation to unstable and vacillating elements, and all our Party Rules, the whole system of centralism now endorsed by the Congress are nothing but a 'state of siege' in respect to the numerous sources of political vagueness. It is special laws, even if they are emergency laws, that are needed as measures against vagueness, and the step taken by the Congress has correctly indicated the political direction to be followed, by having created a firm basis for such laws and such measures."[*]
I have italicised in this summary of my speech at the Congress the sentence which Comrade Martov preferred to omit in his "State of Siege " (p. 16). It is not surprising that he did not like this sentence and did not choose to understand its obvious meaning.
What does the expression "dreadful words" imply, Comrade Martov?
It implies mockery, mockery of those who give big names to little things, who confuse a simple question by pretentious phrase-mongering.
The little and simple fact which alone could have given, and actually did give, Comrade Martov cause for "nervous excitement" was nothing but his defeat at the Congress over the personal composition of the central bodies. The political significance of this simple fact was that, having won, the majority of the Party Congress consolidated their influence by establishing their majority in the Party leadership as well, by creating an organisational basis for a struggle, with the help of the Rules, against what this majority considered to be vacillation, instability, and vagueness.** To make this an occasion for talking of a "struggle for influence" with horror in one's eyes and complaining of a "state of siege" was nothing but pretentious phrase-mongering, dreadful words.
Comrade Martov does not agree with this? Then perhaps he will try to prove to us that a party congress has ever existed, or is in general conceivable, where the majority would not proceed to consolidate the influence they had gained: 1) by securing a majority on the central bodies, and 2) by endowing it with powers to counteract vacillation, instability, and vagueness.
Before the elections, our Congress had to decide whether to give one-third of the votes on the Central Organ and on the Central Committee to the Party majority or the Party minority. The board of six and Comrade Martov's list meant giving one-third to us and two-thirds to his followers. A trio on the Central Organ and our list meant two-thirds for us and one-third for Comrade Martov's followers. Comrade Martov refused to make terms with us or yield, and challenged us in writing to a battle at the Congress. Having suffered defeat at the Congress, he began to weep and to complain of a "state of siege"! Well, isn't that squabbling? Isn't it a new manifestation of the wishy-washiness of the intellectual?
One cannot help recalling in this connection the brilliant social and psychological characterisation of this latter quality recently given by Karl Kautsky. The Social Democratic parties of different countries suffer not infrequently nowadays from similar maladies, and it would be very, very useful for us to learn from more experienced comrades the correct diagnosis and the correct cure. Karl Kautsky's characterisation of certain intellectuals will therefore be only a seeming digression from our theme.
"The problem . . . that again interests us so keenly today is the antagonism between the intelligentsia* and the proletariat. My colleagues [Kautsky is himself an intellectual, a writer and editor] will mostly be indignant that I admit this antagonism. But it actually exists, and, as in other cases, it would be the most inexpedient tactics to try to overcome the fact by denying it. This antagonism is a social one, it relates to classes, not to individuals. The individual intellectual, like the individual capitalist, may identify himself with the proletariat in its class struggle. When he does, he changes his character
too. It is not this type of intellectual, who is still an exception among his class, that we shall mainly speak of in what follows. Unless otherwise stated, I shall use the word intellectual to mean only the common run of intellectual who takes the stand of bourgeois society, and who is characteristic of the intelligentsia as a class. This class stands in a certain antagonism to the proletariat.
The typical intellectual à la Stockmann regards a 'compact majority' as a monster that must be overthrown. . . .
Just such feeble whining of intellectuals who happened to find themselves in the minority, and nothing more, was the refusal of Martov and his friends to be named for office merely because the old circle had not been endorsed, as were their complaints of a state of siege and emergency laws "against particular groups", which Martov cared nothing about when Yuzhny Rabochy and Rabocheye Dyelo were dissolved, but only came to care about when his group was dissolved.
Just such feeble whining of intellectuals who happened to find themselves in the minority was that endless torrent of complaints, reproaches, hints, accusations, slanders, and insinuations regarding the "compact majority" which was started by Martov and which poured out in such a flood at our Party Congress ** (and even more so after).
The minority bitterly complained that the compact majority held private meetings. Well, the minority had to do something to conceal the unpleasant fact that the delegates it invited to its own private meetings refused to attend, while those who would willingly have attended (the Egorovs, Makhovs, and Brouckères) the minority could not invite after all the fighting it had done with them at the Congress.
The minority bitterly complained of the "false accusation of opportunism". Well, it had to do something to conceal
the unpleasant fact that it was opportunists, who in most cases had followed the anti-Iskra-ists -- and partly these anti-Iskra-ists themselves -- that made up the compact minority, seizing with both hands on the championship of the circle spirit in Party institutions, opportunism in arguments, philistinism in Party affairs, and the instability and wishy-washiness of the intellectual.
We shall show in the next section what is the explanation of the highly interesting political fact that a "compact majority" was formed towards the end of the Congress, and why, in spite of every challenge, the minority so very, very warily evades the reasons for its formation and its history. But let us first finish our analysis of the Congress debates.
During the elections to the Central Committee, Comrade Martov moved a highly characteristic resolution (p. 336), the three main features of which I have on occasion referred to as "mate in three moves". Here they are: 1) to ballot lists of candidates for the Central Committee, and not the candidates individually; 2) after the lists had been announced, to allow two sittings to elapse (for discussion, evidently); 3) in the absence of an absolute majority, a second ballot to be regarded as final. This resolution was a most carefully conceived stratagem (we must give the adversary his due!), with which Comrade Egorov did not agree (p. 337), but which would most certainly have assured a complete victory for Martov if the seven Bundists and "Rabocheye Dyelo"-ists had not quit the Congress. The reason for this stratagem was that the Iskra-ist minority did not have, and could not have had, a "direct agreement" (such as there was among the Iskra-ist majority) even with the Egorovs and Makhovs, let alone the Bund and Brouckère.
Remember that at the League Congress Comrade Martov complained that the "false accusation of opportunism" presumed a direct agreement between him and the Bund. I repeat, this only seemed so to Comrade Martov in his fright, and this very refusal of Comrade Egorov to agree to the balloting of lists (Comrade Egorov "had not yet lost his principles" -- presumably the principles that made him join forces with Goldblatt in appraising the absolute importance of democratic guarantees) graphically demonstrates the highly important fact that there could be no question of
a "direct agreement" even with Egorov. But a coalition there could be, and was, both with Egorov and with Brouckere, a coalition in the sense that the Martovites were sure of their support every time they, the Martovites, came into serious conflict with us and Akimov and his friends had to choose the lesser evil. There was not and is not the slightest doubt that Comrades Akimov and Lieber would certainly have voted both for the board of six on the Central Organ and for Martov's list for the Central Committee, as being the lesser evil, as being what would least achieve the "Iskra" aims (see Akimov's speech on Paragraph 1 and the "hopes" he placed in Martov). Balloting of lists, allowing two sittings to elapse, and a re-ballot were designed to achieve this very result with almost mechanical certainty without a direct agreement.
But since our compact majority remained a compact majority, Comrade Martov's flank movement would only have meant delay, and we were bound to reject it. The minority poured forth their complaints on this score in a written statement (p. 341) and, following the example of Martynov and Akimov, refused to vote in the elections to the Central Committee, "in view of the conditions in which they were held". Since the Congress, such complaints of abnormal conditions at the elections (see State of Siege, p. 31) have been poured right and left into the ears of hundreds of Party gossips. But in what did this abnormality consist? In the secret ballot -- which had been stipulated beforehand in the Standing Orders of the Congress (Point 6, Minutes, p. 11), and in which it was absurd- to detect any "hypocrisy" or "injustice"? In the formation of a compact majority -- that "monster" in the eyes of wishy-washy intellectuals? Or in the abnormal desire of these worthy intellectuals to violate the pledge they had given before the Congress that they would recognise all its elections (p. 380, Point 18 of the Congress Regulations)?
Comrade Popov subtly hinted at this desire when he asked outright at the Congress on the day of the elections: "Is the Bureau certain that the decision of the Congress is valid and in order when half the delegates refused to vote?"*
The Bureau of course replied that it was certain, and recalled the incident of Comrades Akimov and Martynov Comrade Martov agreed with the Bureau and explicitly declared that Comrade Popov was mistaken and that "the decisions of the Congress are valid " (p. 343). Now let the reader form his own opinion of the political consistency -- highly normal, we must suppose -- revealed by a comparison of this declaration made by him in the hearing of the Party with his behaviour after the Congress and with the phrase in his State of Siege about "the revolt of half the Party which already began at the Congress " (p. 20). The hopes which Comrade Akimov had placed in Comrade Martov outweighed the ephemeral good intentions of Martov himself.
"You have conquered ", Comrade Akimov!
The only interesting -- but, unfortunately, all too brief -- controversy on the substance of a question arose in connection with Starover's resolution on the liberals. As one can see from the signatures to it (pp. 357 and 358), it was adopted by the Congress because three of the supporters of the "majority" (Braun, Orlov, and Osipov[104]) voted both for it and for Plekhanov's resolution, not perceiving the irreconcilable contradiction between the two. No irreconcilable contradiction is apparent at first glance, because Plekhanov's resolution lays down a general principle, outlines a definite attitude, as regards principles and tactics, towards bourgeois liberalism in Russia, whereas Starover's attempts to define the concrete conditions in which "temporary agreements" would be permissible with "liberal or liberal-democratic trends". The subjects of the two resolutions are different. But Starover's suffers from political vagueness, and is consequently petty and shallow. It does not define the class content of Russian liberalism, does not indicate the definite political trends in which this is expressed, does not explain to the proletariat the principal tasks of propaganda and agitation in relation to these definite trends; it confuses (owing to its vagueness) such different things as the student movement and Osvobozhdeniye, it too pettily and casuistically prescribes three concrete conditions under which "temporary agreements" would be permissible. Here too, as in many other cases, political vagueness leads to casuistry. The absence of any general principle and the attempt to enumerate "conditions" result in a petty and, strictly speaking, incorrect specification of these conditions. Just examine Starover's three conditions: 1) the "liberal or liberal-democratic trends" shall "clearly and unambiguously declare that in their struggle against the autocratic government they will resolutely side with the Russian Social-Democrats". What is the difference between the liberal and liberal-democratic trends? The resolution furnishes no material for a reply to this question. Is it not that the liberal trends speak for the politically least progressive sections of the bourgeoisie, and the liberal-democratic -- for the more progressive sections of the bourgeoisie and the petty bourgeoisie? If that is so, can Comrade Starover possibly think that the sections of the bourgeoisie which
are least progressive (but progressive nevertheless, for otherwise there could be no talk of liberalism) can "resolutely side with the Social-Democrats"?? That is absurd, and even if the spokesmen of such a trend were to "declare it clearly and unambiguously " (an absolutely impossible assumption), we, the party of the proletariat, would be obliged not to believe their declarations. To be a liberal and resolutely side with the Social-Democrats -- the one excludes the other.
Further, let us assume a case where "liberal or liberal-democratic trends" clearly and unambiguously declare that in their struggle against the autocracy they will resolutely side with the Socialist-Revolutionaries. Such an assumption is far less unlikely than Comrade Starover's (owing to the bourgeois-democratic nature of the Socialist-Revolutionary trend). From his resolution, because of its vagueness and casuistry, it would appear that in a case like this temporary agreements with such liberals would be impermissible. But this conclusion, which follows inevitably from Comrade Starover's resolution, is an absolutely false one. Temporary agreements are permissible with the Socialist-Revolutionaries (see the Congress resolution on the latter), and, consequently, with liberals who side with the Socialist-Revolutionaries.
Second condition: these trends "shall not include in their programmes any demands running counter to the interests of the working class or the democracy generally, or obscuring their political consciousness". Here we have the same mistake again: there never have been, nor can there be, liberal-democratic trends which did not include in their programmes demands running counter to the interests of the working class and obscuring its (the proletariat's) political consciousness. Even one of the most democratic sections of our liberal-democratic trend, the Socialist-Revolutionaries, put forward in their programme -- a muddled one, like all liberal programmes -- demands that run counter to the interests of the working class and obscure its political consciousness. The conclusion to be drawn from this fact is that it is essential to "expose the limitations and inadequacy of the bourgeois emancipation movement", but not that temporary agreements are impermissible.
Lastly, in the general form in which it is presented, Comrade Starover's third "condition" (that the liberal-democrats should make universal, equal, secret, and direct suffrage the slogan of their struggle) is likewise incorrect: it would be unwise to declare impermissible in all cases temporary and partial agreements with liberal-democratic trends whose slogan was a constitution with a qualified suffrage, or a "curtailed" constitution generally. As a matter of fact, the Osvobozhdeniye "trend" would fit into just this category, but it would be political short-sightedness incompatible with the principles of Marxism to tie one's hands by forbidding in advance "temporary agreements" with even the most timorous liberals.
To sum up: Comrade Starover's resolution, which was signed also by Comrades Martov and Axelrod, is a mistake, and the Third Congress would be wise to rescind it. It suffers from political vagueness in its theoretical and tactical position, from casuistry in the practical "conditions" it stipulates. It confuses two questions: 1) the exposure of the "anti-revolutionary and anti-proletarian" features of all liberal-democratic trends, and the need to combat these features, and 2) the conditions for temporary and partial agreements with any of these trends. It does not give what it should (an analysis of the class content of liberalism), and gives what it should not (prescription of "conditions"). It is absurd in general to draw up detailed "conditions" for temporary agreements at a party congress, when there is not even a definite partner to such possible agreements in view; and even if there were such a definite partner in view, it would be a hundred times more rational to leave the definition of the "conditions" for a temporary agreement to the Party's central institutions, as the Congress did in relation to the Socialist-Revolutionary "trend" (see Plekhanov's modification of the end of Comrade Axelrod's resolution -- Minutes, pp. 362 and 15).
As to the objections of the "minority" to Plekhanov's resolution, Comrade Martov's only argument was: Plekhanov's resolution "ends with the paltry conclusion that a particular writer should be exposed. Would this not be 'using a sledge-hammer to kill a fly'?" (P. 358.) This argument, whose emptiness is concealed by a smart phrase -- "paltry conclu-
sion" -- provides a new specimen of pompous phrase-mongering. Firstly, Plekhanov's resolution speaks of "exposing in the eyes of the proletariat the limitations and inadequacy of the bourgeois emancipation movement wherever these limitations and inadequacy manifest themselves". Hence Comrade Martov's assertion (at the League Congress; Minutes, p. 88) that "all attention is to be directed only to Struve, only to one liberal" is the sheerest nonsense. Secondly, to compare Mr. Struve to a "fly" when the possibility of temporary agreements with the Russian liberals is in question, is to sacrifice an elementary and manifest political fact for a smart phrase. No, Mr. Struve is not a fly, but a political magnitude, and not because he personally is such a big figure, but because of his position as the sole representative of Russian liberalism -- of at all effectual and organised liberalism -- in the illegal world. Therefore, to talk of the Russian liberals, and of what our Party's attitude towards them should be, without having precisely Mr. Struve and Osvobozhdeniye in mind is to talk without saying anything. Or perhaps Comrade Martov will show us even one single "liberal or liberal-democratic trend" in Russia which could compare even remotely today with the Osvobozhdeniye trend? It would be interesting to see him try!*
"Struve's name means nothing to the workers," said Comrade Kostrov, supporting Comrade Martov. I hope Comrade Kostrov and Comrade Martov will not be offended -- but that argument is fully in the Akimov style. It is like the argument about the proletariat in the genitive case.[105]
Who are the workers to whom Struve's name (and the name of Osvobozhdeniye, mentioned in Comrade Plekhanov's resolution alongside of Mr. Struve) "means nothing"? Those who know very little, or nothing at all, of the "liberal and liberal-democratic trends" in Russia. One asks, what should be the attitude of our Party Congress to such workers: should it instruct Party members to acquaint these workers with the only definite liberal trend in Russia; or should it refrain from mentioning a name with which the workers are little acquainted because of their little acquaintance with politics? If Comrade Kostrov, having taken one step in the wake of Comrade Akimov, does not want to take another, he will answer this question in the former sense. And having answered it in the former sense, he will see how groundless his argument was. At any rate, the words "Struve" and "Osvobozhdeniye " in Plekhanov's resolution are likely to be of much more value to the workers than the words "liberal and liberal-democratic trend" in Starover's resolution.
Except through Osvobozhdeniye, the Russian worker cannot at the present time acquaint himself in practice with anything like a frank expression of the political tendencies of our liberalism. The legal liberal literature is unsuitable for this purpose because it is so nebulous. And we must as assiduously as possible (and among the broadest possible masses of workers) direct the weapon of our criticism against the Osvobozhdeniye gentry, so that when the future revolution breaks out, the Russian proletariat may, with the real criticism of weapons,[106] paralyse the inevitable attempts of the Osvobozhdeniye gentry to curtail the democratic character of the revolution.
offered little of interest; in fact, there was hardly any debate at all.
Having finished our analysis of the Congress debates and voting, we must now sum up, so that we may, on the basis of the entire Congress material, answer the question: what elements, groups, and shades went to make up the final majority and minority which we saw in the elections and which were destined for a time to become the main division in our Party? A summary must be made of all the material relating to shades of principle, theoretical and tactical, which the minutes of the Congress provide in such abundance. Without a general "resumé", without a general picture of the Congress as a whole, and of all the principal groupings during the voting, this material is too disjointed, too disconnected, so that at first sight the individual groupings seem accidental, especially to one who does not take the trouble to make an independent and comprehensive study of the Congress Minutes (and how many readers have taken that trouble?).
In English parliamentary reports we often meet the characteristic word "division". The House "divided" into such and such a majority and minority, it is said when an issue is voted. The "division" of our Social-Democratic House on the various issues discussed at the Congress presents a picture of the struggle within the Party, of its shades of opinion and groups, that is unique of its kind and unparalleled for its completeness and accuracy. To make the picture a graphic one, to obtain a real picture instead of a heap of disconnected, disjointed, and isolated facts and incidents, to put a stop to the endless and senseless arguments over particular votings (who voted for whom and who supported whom?), I have decided to try to depict all the basic types
of "divisions" at our Congress in the form of a diagram. This will probably seem strange to a great many people, but I doubt whether any other method can be found that would really generalise and summarise the results in the most complete and accurate manner possible. Which way a particular delegate voted can be ascertained with absolute accuracy in cases when a roll-call vote was taken; and in certain important cases when no roll-call vote was taken it can be determined from the minutes with a very high degree of probability, with a sufficient degree of approximation to the truth. And if we take into account all the roll-call votes and all the other votes on issues of any importance (as judged, for example, by the thoroughness and warmth of the debates), we shall obtain the most objective picture of our inner Party struggle that the material at our disposal permits. In doing so, instead of giving a photograph, i.e., an image of each voting separately, we shall try to give a picture, i.e., to present all the main types of voting, ignoring relatively unimportant exceptions and variations which would only confuse matters. In any case, anybody will be able with the aid of the minutes to check every detail of our picture, to amplify it with any particular voting he likes, in short, to criticise it not only by arguing, expressing doubts, and making references to isolated incidents, but by drawing a different picture on the basis of the same material.
In marking on the diagram each delegate who took part in the voting, we shall indicate by special shading the four main groups which we have traced in detail through the whole of the Congress debates, viz., 1) the Iskra-ists of the majority; 2) the Iskra-ists of the minority; 3) the "Centre", and 4) the anti-Iskra-ists. We have seen the difference in shades of principle between these groups in a host of instances, and if anyone does not like the names of the groups, which remind lovers of zigzags too much of the Iskra organisation and the Iskra trend, we can tell them that it is not the name that matters. Now that we have traced the shades through all the debates at the Congress, it is easy to substitute for the already established and familiar Party appellations (which jar on the ears of some) a characterisation of the essence of the shades between the groups. Were this
substitution made, we would obtain the following names for these same four groups: 1) consistent revolutionary Social-Democrats; 2) minor opportunists; 3) middling opportunists; and 4) major opportunists (major by our Russian standards). Let us hope that these names will be less shocking to those who have latterly taken to assuring themselves and others that Iskra-ist is a name which only denotes a "circle", and not a trend.
Let us now explain in detail the types of voting "snapped" on this diagram (see diagram: General Picture of the Struggle at the Congress -- p. 339).
The first type of voting (A) covers the cases when the "Centre" joined with the Iskra-ists against the anti-Iskra-ists or a part of them. It includes the vote on the programme as a whole (Comrade Akimov alone abstained, all the others voted for); the vote on the resolution condemning federation in principle (all voted for except the five Bundists); the vote on Paragraph 2 of the Bund Rules (the five Bundists voted against us; five abstained, viz.: Martynov, Akimov, Brouckère, and Makhov with his two votes; the rest were with us); it is this vote that is represented in diagram A. Further, the three votes on the question of endorsing Iskra as the Party's Central Organ were also of this type: the editors (five votes) abstained; in all three cases there were two votes against (Akimov and Brouckère), and, in addition, when the vote on the motives for endorsing Iskra was taken, the five Bundists and Comrade Martynov abstained.*
This type of voting provides the answer to a very interesting and important question, namely, when did the Congress "Centre" vote with the Iskra-ists? It was either when the anti-"Iskra"-ists, too, were with us, with a few exceptions (adoption of the programme, or endorsement of Iskra without motives stated), or else when it was a question of the
sort of statement which was not in itself a direct committal to a definite political position (recognition of Iskra 's organising work was not in itself a committal to carry out its organisational policy in relation to particular groups; rejection of the principle of federation did not preclude abstention from voting on a specific scheme of federation, as we have seen in the case of Comrade Makhov). We have already seen, when speaking of the significance of the groupings at the Congress in general, how falsely this matter is put in the official account of the official Iskra, which (through the mouth of Comrade Martov) slurs and glosses over the difference between the Iskra-ists and the "Centre", between consistent revolutionary Social-Democrats and opportunists, by citing cases when the anti-"Iskra"-ists, too, voted with us ! Even the most "Right-wing" of the opportunists in the German and French Social-Democratic parties never vote against such points as the adoption of the programme as a whole.
The second type of voting (B) covers the cases when the Iskra-ists, consistent and inconsistent, voted together against all the anti-Iskra-ists and the entire "Centre". These were mostly cases that involved giving effect to definite and specific plans of the Iskra policy, that is, endorsing Iskra in fact and not only in word. They include the Organising Committee incident*; the question of making the position of the Bund in the Party the first item on the agenda; the dissolution of the Yuzhny Rabochy group; two votes on the agrarian programme, and, sixthly and lastly, the vote against the Union of Russian Social-Democrats Abroad (Rabocheye Dyelo), that is, the recognition of the
page 341
League as the only Party organisation abroad. The old, pre-Party, circle spirit, the interests of opportunist organisations or groups, the narrow conception of Marxism were fighting here against the strictly consistent and principled policy of revolutionary Social-Democracy; the Iskra-ists of the minority still sided with us in quite a number of cases, in a number of exceedingly important votes (important from the standpoint of the Organising Committee, Yuzhny Rabochy, and Rabocheye Dyelo) . . . until their own circle spirit and their own inconsistency came into question. The "divisions" of this type bring out with graphic clarity that on a number of issues involving the practical application of our principles, the Centre joined forces with the anti-"Iskra"-ists, displaying a much greater kinship with them than with us, a much greater leaning in practice towards the opportunist than towards the revolutionary wing of Social-Democracy. Those who were Iskra-ists in name but were ashamed to be Iskra-ists revealed their true nature, and the struggle that inevitably ensued caused no little acrimony, which obscured from the less thoughtful and more impressionable the significance of the shades of principle disclosed in that struggle. But now that the ardour of battle has somewhat abated and the minutes remain as a dispassionate extract of a series of heated encounters, only those who wilfully close their eyes can fail to perceive that the alliance of the Makhovs and Egorovs with the Akimovs and Liebers was not, and could not be, fortuitous. The only thing Martov and Axelrod can do is keep well away from a comprehensive and accurate analysis of the minutes, or try at this late date to undo their behaviour at the Congress by all sorts of expressions of regret. As if regrets can remove differences of views and differences of policy! As if the present alliance of Martov and Axelrod with Akimov, Brouckère, and Martynov can cause our Party, restored at the Second Congress, to forget the struggle which the Iskra-ists waged with the anti-Iskra-ists almost throughout the Congress!
The distinguishing feature of the third type of voting at the Congress, represented by the three remaining parts of the diagram (C, D, and E), is that a small section of the "Iskra"-ists broke away and went over to the anti-"Iskra"-ists,
who accordingly gained the victory (as long as they remained at the Congress). In order to trace with complete accuracy the development of this celebrated coalition of the Iskra-ist minority with the anti-Iskra-ists, the mere mention of which drove Martov to write hysterical epistles at the Congress, we have reproduced all the three main kinds of roll-call votes of this type. C is the vote on equality of languages (the last of the three roll-call votes on this question is given, it being the fullest). All the anti-Iskra-ists and the whole Centre stand solid against us; from the Iskra-ists a part of the majority and a part of the minority break away. It is not yet clear which of the "Iskra"-ists are capable of forming a definite and lasting coalition with the opportunist "Right wing" of the Congress. Next comes type D -- the vote on Paragraph 1 of the Rules (of the two votes, we have taken the one which was more clear-cut, that is, in which there were no abstentions). The coalition stands out more saliently and assumes firmer shape[*]: all the Iskra-ists of the minority are now on the side of Akimov and Lieber, but only a very small number of Iskra-ists of the majority, these counterbalancing three of the "Centre" and one anti-Iskra-ist who have come over to our side. A mere glance at the diagram suffices to show which elements shifted from side to side casually and temporarily and which were drawn with irresistible force towards a lasting coalition with the Akimovs. The last vote (E -- elections to the Central Organ, the Central Committee, and the Party Council), which in fact represents the final division into majority and minority, clearly reveals the complete fusion of the Iskra-ist minority with the entire "Centre" and the remnants of the anti-Iskra-ists. By this time, of the eight anti-Iskra-ists, only Comrade Brouckère remained at the Congress (Comrade Akimov had already explained his mistake to him and he had taken his
proper place in the ranks of the Martovites). The withdrawal of the seven most "Right-wing" of the opportunists decided the issue of the elections against Martov.[*]
And now, with the aid of the objective evidence of votes of every type, let us sum up the results of the Congress.
There has been much talk to the effect that the majority at our Congress was "accidental ". This, in fact, was Comrade Martov's sole consolation in his Once More in the Minority. The diagram clearly shows that in one sense, but in only one, the majority could be called accidental, viz., in the sense that the withdrawal of the seven most opportunist delegates of the "Right " was -- supposedly -- a matter of accident. To the extent that this withdrawal was an accident (and no more), our majority was accidental. A mere glance at the diagram will show better than any long arguments on whose side these seven would have been, were bound to have been.[**] But the question is: how far was the withdrawal of the seven really an accident? That is a question which those who talk so freely about the "accidental" character of the majority do not like to ask themselves. It is an unpleasant question for them. Was it an accident that the most extreme representatives of the Right and not of the Left wing of our Party were the ones to withdraw? Was it an accident that it was opportunists who withdrew, and not consistent revolutionary Social-Democrats? Is there no connection between this "accidental" withdrawal and the struggle against the opportunist wing which was waged throughout the Congress and which stands out so graphically in our diagram?
One has only to ask these questions, which are so unpleasant to the minority, to realise what fact all this talk
about the accidental character of the majority is intended to conceal. It is the unquestionable and incontrovertible fact that the minority was formed of those in our Party who gravitate most towards opportunism. The minority was formed of those elements in the Party who are least stable in theory, least steadfast in matters of principle. It was from the Right wing of the Party that the minority was formed. The division into majority and minority is a direct and inevitable continuation of that division of the Social-Democrats into a revolutionary and an opportunist wing, into a Mountain and a Gironde,[107] which did not appear only yesterday, nor in the Russian workers' party alone, and which no doubt will not disappear tomorrow.
This fact is of cardinal importance for elucidating the causes and the various stages of our disagreements. Whoever tries to evade the fact by denying or glossing over the struggle at the Congress and the shades of principle that it revealed, simply testifies to his own intellectual and political poverty. And in order to disprove the fact, it would have to be shown, in the first place, that the general picture of the voting and "divisions" at our Party Congress was different from the one I have drawn; and, in the second place, that it was the most consistent revolutionary Social-Democrats, those who in Russia have adopted the name of Iskra-ists,* who were in the wrong on the substance of all those issues over which the Congress "divided". Well, just try to show that, gentlemen!
Incidentally, the fact that the minority was formed of the most opportunist, the least stable and consistent elements of the Party provides an answer to those numerous objections and expressions of doubt which are addressed to the majority by people who are imperfectly acquainted with the matter, or have not given it sufficient thought. Is it not petty, we are told, to account for the divergence by a minor mistake of Comrade Martov and Comrade Axelrod? Yes, gentlemen, Comrade Martov's mistake was a minor one (and I said so even at the Congress, in the heat of the struggle); but this minor mistake could (and did ) cause a lot of harm because Comrade Martov was pulled over to the side of delegates who had made a whole series of mistakes, had manifested an inclination towards opportunism and inconsistency of principle on a whole series of questions. That Comrade Martov and Comrade Axelrod should have displayed instability was an unimportant fact concerning individuals; it was not an individual fact, however, but a Party fact, and a not altogether unimportant one, that a very considerable minority should have been formed of all the least stable elements, of all who either rejected Iskra 's trend altogether and openly opposed it, or paid lip service to it but actually sided time and again with the anti-Iskra-ists.
Is it not absurd to account for the divergence by the prevalence of an inveterate circle spirit and revolutionary philistinism in the small circle comprised by the old Iskra editorial board? No, it is not absurd, because all those in our Party who all through the Congress had fought for every kind of circle, all those who were generally incapable of rising above revolutionary philistinism, all those who talked about the "historical" character of the philistine and circle spirit in order to justify and preserve that evil, rose up in support of this particular circle. The fact that narrow circle interests prevailed over the Party interest in the one little circle of the Iskra editorial board might, perhaps, be regarded as an accident; but it was no accident that in staunch support of this circle rose up the Akimovs and Brouckères, who attached no less (if not more) value to the "historical continuity" of the celebrated Voronezh Committee and the notorious St. Petersburg "Workers' Organisation"[108];
the Egorovs, who lamented the "murder" of Rabocheye Dyelo as bitterly as the "murder" of the old editorial board (if not more so); the Makhovs, etc., etc. You can tell a man by his friends -- the proverb says. And you can tell a man's political complexion by his political allies, by the people who vote for him.
The minor mistake committed by Comrade Martov and Comrade Axelrod was, and might have remained, a minor one until it became the starting-point for a durable alliance between them and the whole opportunist wing of our Party, until it led, as a result of that alliance, to a recrudescence of opportunism, to the exaction of revenge by all whom Iskra had fought and who were now overjoyed at a chance of venting their spleen on the consistent adherents of revolutionary Social-Democracy. And as a result of the post-Congress events, what we are witnessing in the new Iskra is precisely a recrudescence of opportunism, the revenge of the Akimovs and Brouckères (see the leaflet issued by the Voronezh Committee[*]), and the glee of the Martynovs, who have at last (at last!) been allowed, in the detested Iskra, to have a kick at the detested "enemy" for each and every former grievance. This makes it particularly clear how essential it was to "restore Iskra 's old editorial board" (we are quoting from Comrade Starover's ultimatum of November 3, 1903) in order to preserve Iskra "continuity". . . .
Taken by itself, there was nothing dreadful, nor critical, nor even anything abnormal in the fact that the Congress (and the Party) divided into a Left and a Right, a revolutionary and an opportunist wing. On the contrary, the whole past decade in the history of the Russian (and not only the Russian) Social-Democratic movement had been leading inevitably and inexorably to such a division. The fact that the division took place over a number of very minor mistakes of the Right wing, of (relatively) very unimportant differences (a fact which seems shocking to the superficial observer and to the philistine mind), marked a big step forward for our Party as a whole. Formerly we used to differ over major issues, such as might in some cases even justify a split; now we have reached agreement on all
major and important points, and are only divided by shades, about which we may and should argue, but over which it would be absurd and childish to part company (as Comrade Plekhanov has quite rightly said in his interesting article "What Should Not Be Done", to which we shall revert). Now, when the anarchistic behaviour of the minority since the Congress has almost brought the Party to a split, one may often hear wiseacres saying: Was it worth while fighting at the Congress over such trifles as the Organising Committee incident, the dissolution of the Yuzhny Rabochy group or Rabocheye Dyelo, or Paragraph 1, or the dissolution of the old editorial board, etc.? Those who argue in this way[*] are in fact introducing the circle standpoint into Party affairs: a struggle of shades in the Party is inevitable and essential, as long as it does not lead to anarchy and splits, as long as it is confined within bounds approved by the common consent of all comrades and Party members. And our struggle against the Right wing of the Party at the Congress, against Akimov and Axelrod, Martynov and Martov, in no way exceeded those bounds. One need only recall two facts which incontrovertibly prove this: 1) when Comrades Martynov and Akimov were about to quit the Congress, we were all prepared to do everything to obliterate the idea of an "insult"; we all adopted (by thirty-two votes) Comrade Trotsky's motion inviting these comrades to regard the explanations as satisfactory and withdraw their statement; 2) when it came to the election of the central bodies, we were prepared to allow the minority (or the opportunist wing) of the Congress a minority on both central bodies: Martov on
the Central Organ and Popov on the Central Committee. We could not act otherwise from the Party standpoint, since even before the Congress we had decided to elect two trios. If the difference of shades revealed at the Congress was not great, neither was the practical conclusion we drew from the struggle between these shades: the conclusion amounted solely to this, that two-thirds of the seats on both bodies of three ought to be given to the majority at the Party Congress.
It was only the refusal of the minority at the Party Congress to be a minority on the central bodies that led first to the "feeble whining" of defeated intellectuals, and then to anarchistic talk and anarchistic actions.
In conclusion, let us take one more glance at the diagram from the standpoint of the composition of the central bodies. Quite naturally, in addition to the question of shades, the delegates were faced during the elections with the question of the suitability, efficiency, etc., of one or another person. The minority are now very prone to confuse these two questions. Yet that they are different questions is self-evident, and this can be seen from the simple fact, for instance, that the election of an initial trio for the Central Organ had been planned even before the Congress, at a time when no one could have foreseen the alliance of Martov and Axelrod with Martynov and Akimov. Different questions have to be answered in different ways: the answer to the question of shades must be sought for in the minutes of the Congress, in the open discussions and voting on each and every issue. As to the question of the suitability of persons, everybody at the Congress had decided that it should be settled by secret ballot. Why did the whole Congress unanimously take that decision? The question is so elementary that it would be odd to dwell on it. But (since their defeat at the ballot-box) the minority have begun to forget even elementary things. We have heard torrents of ardent, passionate speeches, heated almost to the point of irresponsibility, in defence of the old editorial board, but we have heard absolutely nothing about the shades at the Congress that were involved in the struggle over a board of six or three. We hear talk and gossip on all sides about the ineffectualness, the unsuitability, the evil designs, etc., of the persons elected to the Central Committee, but we hear absolutely nothing about the shades
at the Congress that fought for predominance on the Central Committee. To me it seems indecent and discreditable to go about talking and gossiping outside the Congress about the qualities and actions of individuals (for in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred these actions are an organisational secret, which can only be divulged to the supreme authority of the Party). To fight outside the Congress by means of such gossip would, in my opinion, be scandal-mongering. And the only public reply I could make to all this talk would be to point to the struggle at the Congress: You say that the Central Committee was elected by a narrow majority. That is true. But this narrow majority consisted of all who had most consistently fought, not in words but in actual fact, for the realisation of the Iskra plans. Consequently, the moral prestige of this majority should be even higher -- incomparably so -- than its formal prestige -- higher in the eyes of all who value the continuity of the Iskra trend above the continuity of a particular Iskra circle. Who was more competent to judge the suitability of particular persons to carry out the Iskra policy -- those who fought for that pol icy at the Congress, or those who in no few cases fought against that policy and defended everything retrograde, every kind of old rubbish, every kind of circle mentality?
The analysis of the debates and voting at the Congress, which we have now concluded, actually explains in nuce (in embryo) everything that has happened since the Congress, and we can be brief in outlining the subsequent stages of our Party crisis.
The refusal of Martov and Popov to stand for election immediately introduced an atmosphere of squabbling into a Party struggle between Party shades. On the very next day after the Congress, Comrade Glebov, thinking it incredible that the unelected editors could seriously have decided to swing towards Akimov and Martynov, and attributing the whole thing primarily to irritation, suggested to Plekhanov and me that the matter should be ended peaceably and that all four should be "co-opted" on condition that proper
representation of the editorial board on the Council was guaranteed (i.e., that of the two representatives, one was definitely drawn from the Party majority). This condition seemed sound to Plekhanov and me, for its acceptance would imply a tacit admission of the mistake at the Congress, a desire for peace instead of war, a desire to be closer to Plekhanov and me than to Akimov and Martynov, Egorov and Makhov. The concession as regards "co-optation" thus became a personal one, and it was not worth while refusing to make a personal concession which should clear away the irritation and restore peace. Plekhanov and I therefore consented. But the editorial majority rejected the condition. Glebov left. We began to wait and see what would happen next: whether Martov would adhere to the loyal stand he had taken up at the Congress (against Comrade Popov, the representative of the Centre), or whether the unstable elements who inclined towards a split, and in whose wake he had followed, would gain the upper hand.
We were faced with the question: would Comrade Martov choose to regard his Congress "coalition" as an isolated political fact (just as, si licet parva componere magnis,[*] Bebel's coalition with Vollmar in 1895 was an isolated case), or would he want to consolidate this coalition, exert himself to prove that it was Plekhanov and I who were mistaken at the Congress, and become the actual leader of the opportunist wing of our Party? This question might be formulated otherwise as follows: a squabble or a political Party struggle? Of the three of us who on the day after the Congress were the sole available members of the central institutions, Glebov inclined most to the former answer and made the most efforts to reconcile the children who had fallen out. Comrade Plekhanov inclined most to the latter answer and was, as the saying goes, neither to hold nor to bind. I on this occasion acted the part of "Centre", or "Marsh", and endeavoured to employ persuasion. To try at this date to recall the spoken attempts at persuasion would be a hopelessly muddled business, and I shall not follow the bad example of Comrade Martov and Comrade Plekhanov. But I do consider it necessary to reproduce certain passages
from one written attempt at persuasion which I addressed to one of the "minority" Iskra-ists:
". . . The refusal of Martov to serve on the editorial board, his refusal and that of other Party writers to collaborate, the refusal of a number of persons to work on the Central Committee, and the propaganda of a boycott or passive resistance are bound to lead, even if against the wishes of Martov and his friends, to a split in the Party. Even if Martov adheres to a loyal stand (which he took up so resolutely at the Congress), others will not, and the outcome I have mentioned will be inevitable. . . .
"And so I ask myself: over what, in point of fact, would we be parting company? . . . I go over all the events and impressions of the Congress; I realise that I often behaved and acted in a state of frightful irritation, 'frenziedly'; I am quite willing to admit this fault of mine to anyone, if that can be called a fault which was a natural product of the atmosphere, the reactions, the interjections, the struggle, etc. But examining now, quite unfrenziedly, the results attained, the outcome achieved by frenzied struggle, I can detect nothing, absolutely nothing in these results that is injurious to the Party, and absolutely nothing that is an affront or insult to the minority.
"Of course, the very fact of finding oneself in the minority could not but be vexatious, but I categorically protest against the idea that we 'cast slurs' on anybody, that we wanted to insult or humiliate anybody. Nothing of the kind. And one should not allow political differences to lead to an interpretation of events based on accusing the other side of unscrupulousness, chicanery, intrigue, and the other nice things we are hearing mentioned more and more often in this atmosphere of an impending split. This should not be allowed, for it is, to say the least, the nec plus ultra of irrationality.
"Martov and I have had a political (and organisational) difference, as we had dozens of times before. Defeated over Paragraph 1 of the Rules, I could not but strive with all my might for revanche in what remained to me (and to the Congress). I could not but strive, on the one hand, for a strictly Iskra-ist Central Committee, and, on the other, for a trio on the editorial board. . . . I consider this trio
the only one capable of being an official institution, instead of a body based on indulgence and slackness, the only one to be a real centre, each member of which would always state and defend his Party viewpoint, not one grain more, and irrespective of all personal considerations and all fear of giving offence, of resignations, and so on.
"This trio, after what had occurred at the Congress, undoubtedly meant legitimising a political and organisational line in one respect directed against Martov. Undoubtedly. Cause a rupture on that account? Break up the Party because of it?? Did not Martov and Plekhanov oppose me over the question of demonstrations? And did not Martov and I oppose Plekhanov over the question of the programme? Is not one side of every trio always up against the other two? If the majority of the Iskra-ists, both in the Iskra organisation and at the Congress, found this particular shade of Martov's line organisationally and politically mistaken, is it not really senseless to attempt to attribute this to 'intrigue', 'incitement', and so forth? Would it not be senseless to try to talk away this fact by abusing the majority and calling them 'riffraff'?
"I repeat that, like the majority of the Iskra-ists at the Congress, I am profoundly convinced that the line Martov adopted was wrong, and that he had to be corrected. To take offence at this correction, to regard it as an insult, etc., is unreasonable. We have not cast, and are not casting, any 'slurs' on anyone, nor are we excluding anyone from work. And to cause a split because someone has been excluded from a central body seems to me a piece of inconceivable folly."*
I have thought it necessary to recall these written statements of mine now, because they conclusively prove that the majority wanted to draw a definite line at once between possible (and in a heated struggle inevitable) personal
grievances and personal irritations caused by biting and "frenzied" attacks, etc., on the one hand, and a definite political mistake, a definite political line (coalition with the Right wing), on the other.
These statements prove that the passive resistance of the minority began immediately after the Congress and at once evoked from us the warning that it was a step towards splitting the Party; the warning that it ran directly counter to their declarations of loyalty at the Congress; that the split would be solely over the fact of exclusion from the central institutions (that is, non-election to them), for nobody ever thought of excluding any Party member from work; and that our political difference (an inevitable difference, inasmuch as it had not yet been elucidated and settled which line at the Congress was mistaken, Martov's or ours) was being perverted more and more into a squabble, accompanied by abuse, suspicions, and so on and so forth.
But the warnings were in vain. The behaviour of the minority showed that the least stable elements among them, those who least valued the Party, were gaining the upper hand. This compelled Plekhanov and me to withdraw the consent we had given to Glebov's proposal. For if the minority were demonstrating by their deeds their political instability not only as regards principles, but even as regards elementary Party loyalty, what value could be attached to their talk about this celebrated "continuity"? Nobody scoffed more wittily than Plekhanov at the utter absurdity of demanding the "co-optation" to the Party editorial board of a majority consisting of people who frankly proclaimed their new and growing differences of opinion! Has there ever been a case in the world of a party majority on the central institutions converting itself into a minority of its own accord, prior to the airing of new differences in the press, in full view of the Party? Let the differences first be stated, let the Party judge how profound and important they were, let the Party itself correct the mistake it had made at the Second Congress, should it be shown that it had made a mistake! The very fact that such a demand was made on the plea of differences still unknown demonstrated the utter instability of those who made it, the complete submersion of political differences by squabbling, and their entire disrespect
both for the Party as a whole and for their own convictions. Never have there been, nor will there be, persons of convinced principle who refuse to try to convince before they secure (privately ) a majority in the institution they want to bring round to their standpoint.
Finally, on October 4, Comrade Plekhanov announced that he would make a last attempt to put an end to this absurd state of affairs. A meeting was called of all the six members of the old editorial board, attended by a new member of the Central Committee.[*] Comrade Plekhanov spent three whole hours proving how unreasonable it was to demand "co-optation" of four of the "minority" to two of the "majority". He proposed co-opting two of them, so as, on the one hand, to remove all fears that we wanted to "bully, suppress, besiege, behead or bury anyone, and, on the other, to safeguard the rights and position of the Party "majority". The co-optation of two was likewise rejected.
On October 6, Plekhanov and I wrote the following official letter to all the old editors of Iskra and to Comrade Trotsky, one of its contributors:
"Dear Comrades,
"The editorial board of the Central Organ considers it its duty officially to express its regret at your withdrawal from participation in Iskra and Zarya. In spite of the repeated invitations to collaborate which we made to you immediately following the Second Party Congress and several times after, we have not received a single contribution from you. The editors of the Central Organ declare that your withdrawal from participation is not justified by anything they have done. No personal irritation should serve, of course, as an obstacle to your working on the Central Organ of the Party. If, on the other hand, your withdrawal is due to any differences of opinion with us, we would consider it of the greatest benefit to the Party if you were to set forth these differences at length. More, we would consider it highly desirable for the nature and depth of these differences to be explained
to the whole Party as early as possible in the columns of the publications of which we are the editors."[*]
As the reader sees, it was still quite unclear to us whether the actions of the "minority" were principally governed by personal irritation or by a desire to steer the organ (and the Party) along a new course, and if so, what course exactly. I think that if we were even now to set seventy wise men to elucidate this question with the help of any literature or any testimony you like, they too could make nothing of this tangle. I doubt whether a squabble can ever be disentangled: you have either to cut it, or set it aside.[**]
Axelrod, Zasulich, Starover, Trotsky, and Koltsov sent a couple of lines in reply to this letter of October 6, to the effect that the undersigned were taking no part in Iskra since its passage into the hands of the new editorial board. Comrade Martov was more communicative and honoured us with the following reply:
"To the Editorial Board of the Central Organ of the R.S.D.L.P.
This letter, in conjunction with the previous documents, clarifies beyond any possible dispute that question of boycott, disorganisation, anarchy, and preparations for a split which Comrade Martov (with the help of exclamation marks and rows of dots) so assiduously evades in his State of Siege -- the question of loyal and disloyal methods of struggle.
Comrade Martov and the others are invited to set forth their differences, they are asked to tell us plainly what the trouble is all about and what their intentions are, they are exhorted to stop sulking and to analyse calmly the mistake made over Paragraph 1 (which is intimately connected with their mistake in swinging to the Right) -- but Comrade Martov and Co. refuse to talk, and cry: "We are being besieged! We are being bullied!" The jibe about "dreadful words" has not cooled the ardour of these comical outcries.
How is it possible to besiege someone who refuses to work together with you? -- we asked Comrade Martov. How is it possible to ill-treat, "bully", and oppress a minority which refuses to be a minority? Being in the minority necessarily and inevitably involves certain
M. THE ELECTIONS.
END OF THE CONGRESS
* See my Letter to the Editors of "Iskra" [Transcriber's Note: See Lenin's "Why I Resigned from the Iskra Editorial Board". -- DJR], p. 5, and the League Minutes, p. 53.
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* See Minutes, p. 140, Akimov 's speech: ". . . I am told that we shall discuss the election of the Central Organ at the end"; Muravyov 's speech against Akimov, "who takes the question of the future editorial board of the Central Organ very much to heart" (p. 141); Pavlovich 's speech to the effect that, having appointed the organ, we had obtained "the concrete material on which to perform the operations Comrade Akimov is so much concerned about", and that there could not be a shadow of doubt about Iskra 's "submitting" to "the decisions of the Party" (p. 142), Trotsky 's speech: "Since we are not endorsing the editorial board, what is it that we are endorsing in Iskra? . . . Not the name, but the trend . . . not the name, but the banner" (p. 142), Martynov 's speech: ". . . Like many other comrades, I consider that while discussing the adoption of Iskra, as a newspaper of a definite trend, as our Central Organ, we should not at this juncture discuss the method of electing or endorsing its editorial board, we shall discuss that later in its proper order on the agenda . . . " (p. 143).
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* What "dissonances" exactly Comrade Posadovsky had in mind the Congress never did learn. Comrade Muravyov, for his part, stated at this same sitting (p. 322) that his meaning had been misrepresented, and when the minutes were being endorsed he plainly declared that he "was referring to the dissonances which had been revealed in the Congress debates on various points, dissonances over principle, whose existence is now unfortunately a fact that nobody will deny" (p. 353),
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* Cf. Comrade Posadovsky's speech: ". . . By electing three of the six members of the old editorial board, you pronounce the other three to be unnecessary and superfluous. And you have neither any right nor any grounds to do that."
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* In his State of Siege, Comrade Martov treats this question just as he does all the others he touches upon. He does not trouble to give a complete picture of the controversy. He very modestly evades the only real issue of principle that arose in this controversy: philistine sentimentality or the election of officials, the Party standpoint, or the injured feelings of the Ivan Ivanoviches? Here, too, Comrade Martov confines himself to plucking out isolated bits and pieces of what happened and adding all sorts of abusive remarks at my expense. That's not quite enough, Comrade Martov!
Comrade Martov particularly pesters me with the question why Comrades Axelrod, Zasulich, and Starover were not elected at the Congress. The philistine attitude he has adopted prevents him from seeing how unseemly these questions are (why doesn't he ask his colleague on the editorial board, Comrade Plekhanov?). He detects a contradiction in the fact that I regard the behaviour of the minority at the Congress on the question of the six as tactless", yet at the same time demand Party publicity. There is no contradiction here, as Martov himself could easily have seen if he had taken the trouble to give a connected account of the whole matter, and not merely fragments of it. [cont. onto p. 316. -- DJR] It was tactless to treat the question from a philistine standpoint and appeal to pity and consideration for injured feelings; the interests of Party publicity demanded that an estimation be given in point of fact of the advantages of six as compared with three, an estimation of the candidates for the posts, an estimation of the different shades; the minority gave not a hint of any of this at the Congress.
By carefully studying the minutes, Comrade Martov would have found in the delegates' speeches a whole series of arguments against the board of six. Here is a selection from these speeches: firstly, that dissonances, in the sense of different shades of principle, were clearly apparent in the old six; secondly, that a technical simplification of the editorial work was desirable; thirdly, that the interests of the work came before philistine sentimentality, and only election could ensure that the persons chosen were suited for their posts; fourthly, that the right of the Congress to choose must not be restricted; fifthly, that the Party now needed something more than a literary group on the Central Organ, that the Central Organ needed not only writers, but administrators as well; sixthly, that the Central Organ must consist of quite definite persons, persons known to the Congress; seventhly, that a board of six was often ineffectual, and the board's work had been accomplished not thanks to its abnormal constitution, but in spite of it; eighthly, that the conduct of a newspaper was a party (not a circle) affair, etc. Let Comrade Martov, if he is so interested in the reasons for the non-election of these persons, penetrate into the meaning of each of these considerations and refute a single one of them.
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* That is the way Comrade Sorokin, at this same sitting, understood Comrade Deutsch's words (cf. p. 324 -- "sharp interchange with Orlov"). Comrade Deutsch explained (p. 351) that he had "said nothing like it", but in the same breath admitted that he had said something very, very much "like it". "I did not say 'who dares'," Comrade Deutsch explained; "what I said was: 'I would be interested to see the people who would dare [sic ! -- Comrade Deutsch fell out of the frying pan into the fire!] to support such a criminal [sic !] proposal as the elec- [cont. onto p. 317. -- DJR] tion of a board of three'" (p. 351). Comrade Deutsch did not refute, but confirmed Comrade Sorokin's words. Comrade Deutsch only confirmed the truth of Comrade Sorokin's reproach that "all concepts are here muddled" (in the minority's arguments in favour of six). Comrade Deutsch only confirmed the pertinence of Comrade Sorokin's reminder of the elementary truth that "we are Party members and should be guided exclusively by political considerations". To cry that election was criminal was to sink not only to philistinism, but to practices that were downright scandalous !
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* See pp. 311-12 of this volume. --Ed.
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* Comrade Martov was probably referring to Comrade Posadovsky's expression "dissonances". I repeat that Comrade Posadovsky never did explain to the Congress what he meant, while Comrade Muravyov, who had likewise used the expression, explained that he meant dissonances over principle, as revealed in the Congress debates. The reader will recall that the sole real debate over principles in which four of the editors (Plekhanov, Martov, Axelrod, and I) took part was in connection with Paragraph 1 of the rules, and that Comrades Martov and Starover complained in writing of a "false accusation of opportunism" as being one of the arguments for "changing" the editorial board. In this letter, Comrade Martov had detected a clear connection between "opportunism" and the plan to change the editorial board, but at the Congress he confined himself to hinting hazily at "some kind of friction ". The "false accusation of opportunism" had already been forgotten!
** Comrade Martov further added: "Ryazanov might agree to such a role, but not the Martov whom, I think, you know by his work." Inasmuch as this was a personal attack on Ryazanov, Comrade Martov withdrew the remark. But it was not because of Ryazanov's personal qualities (to refer to them would have been out of place) that his name figured at the Congress as a byword; it was because of the political complexion of the Borba group -- its political mistakes. Comrade Martov does well to withdraw real or assumed personal insults, but this should not lead us to forget political mistakes, which should serve as a lesson to the Party. The Borba group was accused at our Congress of causing "organisational chaos" and "disunity not justified by any considerations of principle" (Comrade Martov's speech, p. 38). Such [cont. onto p. 320. -- DJR] political conduct does indeed deserve censure, and not only when seen in a small group prior to the Party Congress, during the period of general chaos, but also when we see it after the Party Congress, in the period when the chaos has been abolished, even if indulged in by "the majority of the Iskra editorial board and the majority of the Emancipation of Labour group".
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* See present edition, Vol. 6, pp. 505-06. --Ed. [Transcriber's Note: See Lenin's The Second Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. -- DJR]
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* See present edition, Vol. 6, pp. 507-08. --Ed.
** How was the instability, vacillation, and vagueness of the Iskra-ist minority manifested at the Congress? Firstly, by their opportunist phrase-mongering over Paragraph 1 of the Rules; secondly, by their coalition with Comrades Akimov and Lieber, which during the second half of the Congress rapidly grew more pronounced; thirdly, by their readiness to degrade the question of electing officials to the Central Organ to the level of philistinism, of wretched words and even of getting personal. After the Congress all these lovely attributes developed from mere buds into blossoms and fruit.
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* I use the words intellectual and intelligentsia to translate the German Literat and Literatentum, which include not only writers but in general all educated people, the members of the liberal professions, the brain workers, as the English call them, as distinct from manual workers.
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"This antagonism differs, however, from the antagonism between labour and capital. The intellectual is not a capitalist. True, his standard of life is bourgeois, and he must maintain it if he is not to become a pauper; but at the same time he is compelled to sell the product of his labour, and often his labour-power, and is himself often enough exploited and humiliated by the capitalist. Hence the intellectual does not stand in any economic antagonism to the proletariat. But his status of life and his conditions of labour are not proletarian, and this gives rise to a certain antagonism in sentiments and ideas.
"As an isolated individual, the proletarian is nothing. His whole strength, his whole progress, all his hopes and expectations are derived from organisation, from systematic action in conjunction with his fellows. He feels big and strong when he forms part of a big and strong organism. This organism is the main thing for him; the individual in comparison means very little. The proletarian fights with the utmost devotion as part of the anonymous mass, without prospect of personal advantage or personal glory, doing his duty in any post he is assigned to with a voluntary discipline which pervades all his feelings and thoughts.
"Quite different is the case of the intellectual. He does not fight by means of power, but by argument. His weapons are his personal knowledge, his personal ability, his personal convictions. He can attain to any position at all only through his personal qualities. Hence the freest play for his individuality seems to him the prime condition for successful activity. It is only with difficulty that he submits to being a part subordinate to a whole, and then only from necessity, not from inclination. He recognises the need of discipline only for the mass, not for the elect minds. And of course he counts himself among the latter. . . .
"Nietzsche's philosophy, with its cult of the superman, for whom the fulfilment of his own individuality is everything and any subordination of that individuality to a great social aim is vulgar and despicable, is the real philosophy of the intellectual, and it renders him totally unfit to take part in the class struggle of the proletariat.
"Next to Nietzsche, the most outstanding exponent of a philosophy answering to the sentiments of the intelligentsia is probably Ibsen. His Doctor Stockmann (in An Enemy of the People) is not a socialist as many have thought, but the type of the intellectual, who is bound to come into conflict with the proletarian movement, and with any movement of the people generally, as soon as he attempts to work within it. For the basis of the proletarian movement, as of every democratic* movement, is respect for the majority of one's fellows.
* It is extremely characteristic of the confusion brought by our Martovites into all questions of organisation that, though they have swung towards Akimov and a misplaced democracy, they are at [cont. onto p. 326. -- DJR] the same time incensed at the democratic election of the editorial board, its election at the Congress, as planned in advance by everybody! Perhaps that is your principle, gentlemen?
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"An ideal example of an intellectual who had become thoroughly imbued with the sentiments of the proletariat, and who, although he was a brilliant writer, had quite lost the specific mentality of the intellectual, marched cheerfully with the rank and file, worked in any post he was assigned to subordinated himself whole-heartedly to our great cause, and despised the feeble whining [weichliches Gewinsel] about the suppression of his individuality which the intellectual trained on Ibsen and Nietzsche is prone to indulge in when he happens to be in the minority -- an ideal example of the kind of intellectual the socialist movement needs was Liebknecht. We may also mention Marx, who never forced himself to the forefront and whose party discipline in the International, where he often found himself in the minority, was exemplary."[*]
* Karl Kautsky, "Franz Mehring", Neue Zeit, XXII, I, S. 101-03, 1903, No. 4.
** See pp. 337, 338, 340, 352, etc., of the Congress Minutes.
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* P. 342. This refers to the election of the fifth member of the Council. Twenty-four ballots (out of a total of forty-four votes) were cast, two of which were blank.
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*
Certain features, seemingly petty but actually very important, of the end of the Congress, the part of it after the elections, may serve to show how pure and simple a "dreadful word" was the famous phrase about a "state of siege", which has now for ever acquired a tragicomical meaning. Comrade Martov is now making great play with this tragicomical "state of siege", seriously assuring both himself and his readers that this bogey of his own invention implied some sort of abnormal persecution, hounding, bullying of the "minority" by the "majority". We shall presently show how matters stood after the Congress. But take even the end of the Congress, and you will find that after the elections, far from persecuting the unhappy Martovites, who are supposed to have been bullied, ill-treated, and led to the slaughter, the "compact majority" itself offered them (through Lyadov) two seats out of three on the Minutes Committee (p. 354). Take the resolutions on tactical and other questions (p. 355 et seq.), and you will find that they were discussed on their merits in a purely business-like way, and that the signatories to many of the resolutions included both representatives of the monstrous compact "majority" and followers of the "humiliated and insulted" "minority" (Minutes, pp. 355, 357, 363, 365 and 367). This looks like "shutting out from work" and "bullying" in general, does it not?
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* At the League Congress Comrade Martov also adduced the following argument against Comrade Plekhanov's resolution: "The chief objection to it, the chief defect of this resolution, is that it totally ignores the fact that it is our duty, in the struggle against the autocracy, not to shun alliance with liberal-democratic elements. Comrade Lenin would call this a Martynov tendency. This tendency is already being manifested in the new Iskra(p. 88)
For the wealth of "gems" it contains, this passage is indeed rare. 1) The phrase about alliance with the liberals is a sheer muddle. Nobody mentioned alliance, Comrade Martov, but only temporary or partial agreements. That is an entirely different thing. 2) If Plekhanov's resolution ignores an incredible "alliance" and speaks only of "support" in general, that is one of its merits, not a defect. 3) Perhaps Comrade Martov will take the trouble to explain what in general characterises "Martynov tendencies"? Perhaps he will tell us what is the relation between these tendencies and opportunism? Perhaps he will trace the relation of these tendencies to Paragraph 1 of the Rules? 4) I am just burning with impatience to hear from Comrade Martov how "Martynov tendencies" were manifested in the "new" Iskra. Please, Comrade Martov, relieve me of the torments of suspense!
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Apart from Comrade Egorov's "perplexity", mentioned above, over the question of our "supporting" the oppositional and revolutionary movement, the debate on the resolutions
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The Congress ended with a brief reminder from the chairman that its decisions were binding on all Party members.
N. GENERAL PICTURE OF THE STRUGGLE AT THE
CONGRESS. THE REVOLUTIONARY AND OPPORTUNIST
WINGS OF THE PARTY
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* Why was the vote on Paragraph 2 of the Bund Rules taken for depiction in the diagram? Because the votes on endorsing Iskra were not as full, while the votes on the programme and on the question of federation referred to political decisions of a less definite and specific character. Speaking generally, the choice of one or another of a number of votes of the same type will not in the least affect the main features of the picture, as anyone may easily see by making the corresponding changes.
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* It is this vote that is depicted in Diagram B; the Iskra-ists secured thirty-two votes, the Bundist resolution sixteen. It should be pointed out that of the votes of this type not one was by roll-call. The way the individual delegates voted can only be established -- but with a very high degree of probability -- by two sets of evidence: 1) in the debate the speakers of both groups of Iskra-ists spoke in favour those of the anti-Iskra-ists and the"Centre" against; 2) the number of votes cast in favour was always very close to thirty-three. Nor should it be forgotten that when analysing the Congress debates we pointed out, quite apart from the voting, a number of cases when the "Centre" sided with the anti-Iskra-ists (the opportunists) against us. Some of these issues were: the absolute value of democratic demands, whether we should support the oppositional elements, restriction of centralism, etc.
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AT THE CONGRESS.gif)
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* Judging by all indications, four other votes on the Rules were of the same type: p. 278 -- 27 for Fomin, as against 21 for us; p. 279 -- 26 for Martov, as against 24 for us; p. 280 -- 27 against me, 22 for; and, on the same page, 24 for Martov, as against 23 for us. These are the votes on the question of co-optation to the central bodies, which I have already dealt with. No roll-call votes are available (there was one, but the record of it has been lost). The Bundists (all or part) evidently saved Martov. Martov's erroneous statements (at the League) concerning these votes have been corrected above.
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* The seven opportunists who withdrew from the Second Congress were the five Bundists (the Bund withdrew from the Party after the Second Congress rejected the principle of federation) and two Rabocheye Dyelo-ists, Comrade Martynov and Comrade Akimov. These latter left the Congress after the Iskra-ist League was recognised as the only Party organisation abroad, i.e., after the Rabocheye Dyelo-ist Union of Russian Social-Democrats Abroad was dissolved. (Author's footnote to the 1907 edition. --Ed.)
** We shall see later that after the Congress both Comrade Akimov and the Voronezh Committee, which has the closest kinship with Comrade Akimov, explicitly expressed their sympathy with the "minority ".
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* Note for Comrade Martov's benefit. If Comrade Martov has now forgotten that the term "Iskra"-ist implies the follower of a trend and not a member of a circle, we would advise him to read in the Congress Minutes the explanation Comrade Trotsky gave Comrade Akimov on this point. There were three Iskra-ist circles (in relation to the Party) at the Congress: the Emancipation of Labour group, the Iskra editorial board, and the Iskra organisation. Two of these three circles had the good sense to dissolve themselves; the third did not display enough Party spirit to do so, and was dissolved by the Congress. The broadest of the Iskra-ist circles, the Iskra organisation (which included the editorial board and the Emancipation oI Labour group), had sixteen members present at the Congress in all, of whom only eleven were entitled to vote. Iskra-ists by trend, on the other hand, not by membership in any Iskra-ist "circle", numbered, by my calculation, twenty-seven, with thirty-three votes. Hence, less than half of the Iskra-ists at the Congress belonged to Iskra-ist circles.
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* See pp. 408-09 of this volume. --Ed.
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* I cannot help recalling in this connection a conversation I happened to have at the Congress with one of the "Centre" delegates. "How oppressive the atmosphere is at our Congress!" he complained. "This bitter fighting, this agitation one against the other, this biting controversy, this uncomradely attitude! . . ." "What a splendid thing our Congress is!" I replied. "A free and open struggle. Opinions have been stated. The shades have been revealed. The groups have taken shape. Hands have been raised. A decision has been taken. A stage has been passed. Forward! That's the stuff for me! That's life! That's not like the endless, tedious word-chopping of your intellectuals, which stops not because the question has been settled, but because they are too tired to talk any more. . . ."
The comrade of the "Centre" stared at me in perplexity and shrugged his shoulders. We were talking different languages.
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O. AFTER THE CONGRESS.
TWO METHODS OF STRUGGLE
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* If little things may be compared to big. --Ed.
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* This letter (to A. N. Potresov, of August 31 [September 13], 1903 --Ed.) was written in September (New Style). I have only omitted what seemed to me irrelevant to the matter in hand. If the addressee considers what I have omitted important, he can easily repair the omission. Incidentally, let me take this opportunity to say that any of my opponents may publish any of my private letters should they think a useful purpose will be served by it.
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* This Central Committee member[109] arranged, in addition, a number of private and collective talks with the minority, in which he refuted the preposterous tales that were being spread and appealed to their sense of Party duty.
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"Dear Comrades,
"In reply to your letter of October 6 I wish to state the following: I consider all our discussions on the subject of working together on one organ at an end after the conference which took place in the presence of a Central Committee member on October 4, and at which you refused to state the reasons that induced you to withdraw your proposal to us that Axelrod, Zasulich, Starover, and I should join the editorial board on condition that we undertook to elect Comrade Lenin our 'representative' on the Council. After you repeatedly evaded at this conference formulating the statements you had yourselves made in the presence of witnesses, I do not think it necessary to explain in a letter to you my motives for refusing to work on Iskra under present conditions. Should the need arise, I shall explain them in detail to the whole Party, which will already be able to learn from the minutes of the Second Congress why I rejected the proposal, which you now repeat that I accept a seat on the editorial board and on the Council. . . .***
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