One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

Preface

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

(THE CRISIS IN OUR PARTY)

Preface

When a prolonged, stubborn and heated struggle is in progress, there usually begin to emerge after a time the central and fundamental points at issue, upon the decision of which the ultimate outcome of the campaign depends, and in comparison with which all the minor and petty episodes of the struggle recede more and more into the background.

That, too, is how matters stand in the struggle within our Party, which for six months now has been riveting the attention of all members of the Party. And precisely because in the present outline of the whole struggle I have had to refer to many details which are of infinitesimal interest, and to many squabbles which at bottom are of no interest whatever, I should like from the very outset to draw the reader’s attention to two really central and fundamental points, points which are of tremendous interest, of undoubted historical significance, and which are the most urgent political questions confronting our Party today.

The first question is that of the political significance of the division of our Party into “majority” and “minority” which took shape at the Second Party Congress and pushed all previous divisions among Russian Social-Democrats far into the background.

The second question is that of the significance in principle of the new Iskra’s position on organisational questions, insofar as this position is really based on principle.

The first question concerns the starting-point of the struggle in our Party, its source, its causes, and its fundamental political character. The second question concerns the ultimate outcome of the struggle, its finale, the sum-total of principles that results from adding up all that pertains to the realm of principle and subtracting all that pertains to the realm of squabbling. The answer to the first question is obtained by analysing the struggle at the Party Congress; the answer to the second, by analysing what is new in the principles of the new Iskra. Both these analyses, which make up nine-tenths of my pamphlet, lead to the conclusion that the “majority” is the revolutionary, and the “minority” the opportunist wing of our Party; the disagreements that divide the two wings at the present time for the most part concern, not questions of programme or tactics, but only organisational questions; the new system of views that emerges the more clearly in the new Iskra the more it tries to lend profundity to its position, and the more that position becomes cleared of squabbles about co-optation, is opportunism in matters of organisation.

The principal shortcoming of the existing literature on the crisis in our Party is, as far as the study and elucidation of facts is concerned, the almost complete absence of an analysis of the minutes of the Party Congress; and as far as the elucidation of fundamental principles of organisation is concerned, the failure to analyse the connection which unquestionably exists between the basic error committed by Comrade Martov and Comrade Axelrod in their formulation of Paragraph 1 of the Rules and their defence of that formulation, on the one hand, and the whole “system” (insofar as one can speak here of a system) of Iskra’s present principles of organisation, on the other. The present editors of Iskra apparently do not even notice this connection, although the importance of the controversy over Paragraph 1 has been referred to again and again in the literature of the “majority”. As a matter of fact, Comrade Axelrod and Comrade Martov are now only deepening, developing and extending their initial error with regard to Paragraph 1. As a matter of fact, the entire position of the opportunists in organisational questions already began to be revealed in the controversy over Paragraph 1: their advocacy of a diffuse, not strongly welded, Party organisation; their hostility to the idea (the “bureaucratic” idea) of building the Party from the top downwards, starting from the Party Congress and the bodies set up by it; their tendency to proceed from the bottom upwards, allowing every professor, every high school student and “every striker” to declare himself a member of the Party; their hostility to the “formalism” which demands that a Party member should belong to one of the organisations recognised by the Party; their leaning towards the mentality of the bourgeois intellectual, who is only prepared to “accept organisational relations platonically”; their penchant for opportunist profundity and for anarchistic phrases; their tendency towards autonomism as against centralism—in a word, all that is now blossoming so luxuriantly in the new Iskra, and is helping more and more to reveal fully and graphically the initial error.

As for the minutes of the Party Congress, the truly undeserved neglect of them can only be explained by the fact that our controversies have been cluttered by squabbles, and possibly by the fact that these minutes contain too large an amount of too unpalatable truth. The minutes of the Party Congress present a picture of the actual state of affairs in our Party that is unique of its kind and unparalleled for its accuracy, completeness, comprehensiveness, richness and authenticity; a picture of views, sentiments and plans drawn by the participants in the movement themselves; a picture of the political shades existing in the Party, showing their relative strength, their mutual relations and their struggles. It is the minutes of the Party Congress, and they alone, that show us how far we have really succeeded in making a clean sweep of the survivals of the old, purely circle ties and substituting for them a single great party tie. It is the duty of every Party member who wishes to take an intelligent share in the affairs of his Party to make a careful study of our Party Congress. I say study advisedly, for merely to read the mass of raw material contained in the minutes is not enough to obtain a picture of the Congress. Only by careful and independent study can one reach (as one should) a stage where the brief digests of the speeches, the dry extracts from the debates, the petty skirmishes over minor (seemingly minor) issues will combine to form one whole, enabling the Party member to conjure up the living figure of each prominent speaker and to obtain a full idea of the political complexion of each group of delegates to the Party Congress. If the writer of these lines only succeeds in stimulating the reader to make a broad and independent study of the minutes of the Party Congress, he will feel that his work was not done in vain.

One more word to the opponents of Social-Democracy. They gloat and grimace over our disputes; they will, of course, try to pick isolated passages from my pamphlet, which deals with the failings and shortcomings of our Party, and to use them for their own ends. The Russian Social-Democrats are already steeled enough in battle not to be perturbed by these pinpricks and to continue, in spite of them, their work of self-criticism and ruthless exposure of their own shortcomings, which will unquestionably and inevitably be overcome as the working-class movement grows. As for our opponents, let them try to give us a picture of the true state of affairs in their own “parties” even remotely approximating that given by the minutes of our Second Congress!

N .Lenin

May 1904

A. The Preparations For The Congress

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

(THE CRISIS IN OUR PARTY)

A. The Preparations For The Congress

There is a saying that everyone is entitled to curse his judges for twenty-four hours. Our Party Congress, like any congress of any party, was also the judge of certain persons, who laid claim to the position of leaders but who met with discomfiture. Today these representatives of the “minority” are, with a naïveté verging on the pathetic, “cursing their judges” and doing their best to discredit the Congress, to belittle its importance and authority. This striving has been expressed most vividly, perhaps, in an article in Iskra, No. 57, by “Practical Worker”,[4] who feels out raged at the idea of the Congress being a sovereign “divinity”. This is so characteristic a trait of the new Iskra that it cannot be passed over in silence. The editors, the majority of whom were rejected by the Congress, continue, on the one hand, to call themselves a “Party” editorial board, while, on the other, they accept with open arms people who declare that the Congress was not divine. Charming, is it not? To be sure, gentlemen, the Congress was not divine; but what must we think of people who begin to “blackguard” the Congress after they have met with defeat at it?

For indeed, let us recall the main facts in the history of the preparations for the Congress.

Iskra declared at the very outset, in its announcement of publication in 1900, that before we could unite, lines of demarcation must be drawn. Iskra endeavoured to make the Conference of 1902[5] a private meeting and not a Party Congress.[1] Iskra acted with extreme caution in the summer and autumn of 1902 when it re-established the Organising Committee elected at that conference. At last the work of demarcation was finished—as we all acknowledged. The Organising Committee was constituted at the very end of 1902. Iskra welcomed its firm establishment, and in an editorial article in its 32nd issue declared that the convocation of a Party Congress was a most urgent and pressing necessity.[2] Thus, the last thing we can be accused of is having been hasty in convening the Second Congress. We were, in fact, guided by the maxim: measure your cloth seven times before you cut it; and we had every moral right to expect that after the cloth had been cut our comrades would not start complaining and measuring it all over again.

The Organising Committee drew up very precise (formalistic and bureaucratic, those would say who are now using these words to cover up their political spinelessness) Regulations for the Second Congress, got them passed by all the committees, and finally endorsed them, stipulating among other things, in Point 18, that “all decisions of the Congress and all the elections it carries out are decisions of the Party and binding on all Party organisations. They cannot be challenged by anyone on any pretext whatever and can be rescinded or amended only by the next Party Congress”.[3] How innocent in themselves, are they not, are these words, accepted at the time without a murmur, as something axiomatic; yet how strange they sound today—like a verdict against the “minority”! Why was this point included? Merely as a formality? Of course not. This provision seemed necessary, and was indeed necessary, because the Party consisted of a number of isolated and independent groups, which might refuse to recognise the Congress. This provision in fact expressed the free will of all the revolutionaries (which is now being talked about so much, and so irrelevantly, the term “free” being euphemistically applied to what really deserves the epithet “capricious”). It was equivalent to a word of honour mutually pledged by all the Russian Social-Democrats. It was intended to guarantee that all the tremendous effort, danger and expense entailed by the Congress should not be in vain, that the Congress should not be turned into a farce. It in advance qualified any refusal to recognise the decisions and elections at the Congress as a breach of faith.

Who is it, then, that the new Iskra is scoffing at when it makes the new discovery that the Congress was not divine and its decisions are not sacrosanct? Does that discovery imply “new views on organisation”, or only new attempts to cover up old tracks?

B. Significance of the Various Groupings at the Congress

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

(THE CRISIS IN OUR PARTY)

B. Significance of the Various Groupings at the Congress

Thus, the Congress was called after the most careful preparation and on the basis of the fullest representation. The general recognition that its composition was correct and its decisions absolutely binding found expression also in the statement of the chairman (Minutes, p. 54) after the Congress had been constituted.

What was the principal task of the Congress? To create a real party on the basis of the principles and organisational ideas that had been advanced and elaborated by Iskra. That this was the direction in which the Congress had to work was predetermined by the three years’ activities of Iskra and by the recognition of the latter by the majority of the committees. Iskra’s programme and trend were to become the programme and trend of the Party; Iskra’s organisational plans were to be embodied in the Rules of Organisation of the Party. But it goes without saying that this could not be achieved without a struggle: since the Congress was so highly representative, the participants included organisations which had vigorously fought Iskra (the Bund and Rabocheye Dyelo ) and organisations which, while verbally recognising Iskra as the leading organ, actually pursued plans of their own and were unstable in matters of principle (the Yuzhny Rabochy group and delegates from some of the committees who were closely associated with it). Under these circumstances, the Congress could not but become an arena of struggle for the victory of the "Iskra " trend. That it did become such an arena will at once be apparent to all who peruse its minutes with any degree of attention. Our task now is to trace in detail the principal groupings revealed at the Congress on various issues and to reconstruct, on the basis of the precise data of the minutes, the political complexion of each of the main groups. What precisely were these groups, trends and shades which, at the Congress, were to unite under the guidance of Iskra into a single party?—that is what we must show by analysing the debates and the voting. The elucidation of this is of cardinal importance both for a study of what our Social Democrats really are and for an understanding of the causes of the divergence among them. That is why, in my speech at the League Congress and in my letter to the editors of the new Iskra, I gave prime place to an analysis of the various groupings. My opponents of the “minority” (headed by Martov) utterly failed to grasp the substance of the question. At the League Congress they confined themselves to corrections of detail, trying to “vindicate” themselves from the charge of having swung towards opportunism, but not even attempting to counter my picture of the groupings at the Congress by drawing any different one. Now Martov tries in Iskra (No. 56) to represent every attempt clearly to delimit the various political groups at the Congress as mere “circle politics”. Strong language, Comrade Martov! But the strong language of the new Iskra has this peculiar quality: one has only to reproduce all the stages of our divergence, from the Congress onwards, for all this strong language to turn completely and primarily against the present editorial board. Take a look at yourselves, you so-called Party editors who talk about circle politics!

Martov now finds the facts of our struggle at the Congress so unpleasant that he tries to slur over them altogether. “An Iskra-ist,” he says, "is one who, at the Party Congress and prior to it, expressed his complete solidarity with Iskra, advocated its programme and its views on organisation and supported its organisational policy. There were over forty such Iskra-ists at the Congress—that was the number of votes cast for Iskra’s programme and for the resolution adopting Iskra as the Central Organ of the Party." Open the Congress Minutes, and you will find that the programme was adopted by the votes of all (p. 233) except Akimov, who abstained. Thus, Comrade Martov wants to assure us that the Bundists, and Brouckere, and Martynov demonstrated their “complete solidarity” with Iskra and advocated its views on organisation! This is ridiculous. The fact that after the Congress all who took part became equal members of the Party (and not even all, for the Bundists had withdrawn) is here jumbled with the question of the grouping that evoked the struggle at the Congress. Instead of a study of the elements that went to make up the “majority” and the “minority” after the Congress, we get the official phrase, “recognised the programme”!

Take the voting on the adoption of Iskra as the Central Organ. You will see that it was Martynov—whom Comrade Martov, with a courage worthy of a better cause, now credits with having advocated Iskra’s organisational views and organisational policy—who insisted on separating the two parts of the resolution: the bare adoption of Iskra as the Central Organ, and the recognition of its services. When the first part of the resolution (recognising the services of Iskra, expressing solidarity with it) was put to the vote, only thirty five votes were cast in favour; there were two votes against (Akimov and Brouckère) and eleven abstentions (Martynov, the five Bundists and the five votes of the editorial board: the two votes each of Martov and myself and Plekhanov’s one). Consequently, the anti-Iskra group (five Bundists and three Rabocheye Dyelo-ists) is quite apparent in this instance also, one most advantageous to Martov’s present views and chosen by himself. Take the voting on the second part of the resolution—adopting Iskra as the Central Organ without any statement of motives or expression of solidarity (Minutes, p. 147): forty-four votes in favour, which the Martov of today classes as Iskra-ist. The total number of votes to be cast was fifty-one; subtracting the five votes of the editors, who abstained, we get forty-six; two voted against (Akimov and Brouckère); consequently, the remaining forty-four include all five Bundists. And so, the Bundists at the Congress “expressed complete solidarity with Iskra”—this is how official history is written by the official Iskra! Running ahead somewhat, we will explain to the reader the real reasons for this official truth: the present editorial board of Iskra could and would have been a real Party editorial board (and not a quasi-Party one, as it is today) if the Bundists and the “Rabocheye Dyelo”-ists had not withdrawn from the Congress; that is why these trusty guardians of the present, so-called Party editorial board had to be proclaimed Iskra-ists. But I shall speak of this in greater detail later.

The next question is: if the Congress was a struggle between the Iskra-ist and the anti-Iskra-ist elements, were there no intermediate, unstable elements who vacillated between the two? Anyone at all familiar with our Party and with the picture generally presented by congresses of every kind will be inclined a priori to answer the question in the affirmative. Comrade Martov is now very reluctant to recall these unstable elements, so he represents the Yuzhny Rabochy group and the delegates who gravitated towards it as typical Iskra-ists, and our differences with them as paltry and unimportant. Fortunately, we now have before us the complete text of the minutes and are able to answer the question—a question of fact, of course—on the basis of documentary evidence. What we said above about the general grouping at the Congress does not, of course, claim to answer the question, but only to present it correctly.

Without an analysis of the political groupings, without having a picture of the Congress as a struggle between definite shades, the divergence between us cannot be understood at all. Martov’s attempt to gloss over the different shades by ranking even the Bundists with the Iskra-ists is simply an evasion of the question. Even a priori, on the basis of the history of the Russian Social-Democratic movement before the Congress, three main groups are to be noted (for subsequent verification and detailed study): the Iskra-ists, the anti-Iskra-ists, and the unstable, vacillating, wavering elements.

C. Beginning of the Congress. The Organising Committee Incident

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

(THE CRISIS IN OUR PARTY)

C. Beginning of the Congress. The Organising Committee Incident

The most convenient way to analyse the debates and the voting is to take them in the order of the Congress sittings, so as successively to note the political shades as they became more and more apparent. Only when absolutely necessary will departures from the chronological order be made for the purpose of considering together closely allied questions or similar groupings. For the sake of impartiality, we shall endeavour to mention all the more important votes, omitting, of course, the innumerable votes on minor issues, which took up an inordinate amount of time at our Congress (owing partly to our inexperience and inefficiency in dividing the material between the commissions and the plenary sittings, and partly to quibbling which bordered on obstruction).

The first question to evoke a debate which began to reveal differences of shades was whether first place should be given (on the Congress “order of business”) to the item: “Position of the Bund in the Party” (Minutes, pp. 29-33). From the standpoint of the Iskra-ists, which was advocated by Plekhanov, Martov, Trotsky, and myself, there could be no doubt on this score. The Bund’s withdrawal from the Party strikingly bore out our view: if the Bund refused to go our way and accept the principles of organisation which the majority of the Party shared with Iskra, it was useless and senseless to “make believe” that we were going the same way and only drag out the Congress (as the Bundists did drag it out). The matter had already been fully clarified in our literature, and it was apparent to any at all thoughtful Party member that all that remained was to put the question frankly, and bluntly and honestly make the choice: autonomy (in which case we go the same way), or federation (in which case our ways part).

Evasive in their entire policy, the Bundists wanted to be evasive here too and postpone the matter. They were joined by Comrade Akimov, who, evidently on behalf of all the followers of Rabocheye Dyelo, at once brought up the differences with Iskra over questions of organisation (Minutes, p. 31). The Bund and Rabocheye Dyelo were supported by Comrade Makhov (representing the two votes of the Nikolayev Committee—which shortly before had expressed its solidarity with Iskra!). To Comrade Makhov the matter was altogether unclear, and another “sore spot”, he considered, was “the question of a democratic system or, on the contrary [mark this!], centralism”—exactly like the majority of our present “Party” editorial board, who at the Congress had not yet noticed this “sore spot”!

Thus the Iskra-ists were opposed by the Bund, Rabocheye Dyelo and Comrade Makhov, who together controlled the ten votes which were cast against us (p. 33). Thirty votes were cast in favour—this is the figure, as we shall see later, around which the votes of the Iskra-ists often fluctuated. Eleven abstained, apparently not taking the side of either of the contending “parties”. It is interesting to note that when we took the vote on Paragraph 2 of the Rules of the Bund (it was the rejection of this Paragraph 2 that caused the Bund to withdraw from the Party), the votes in favour of it and the abstentions also amounted to ten (Minutes, p. 289), the abstainers being the three Rabocheye Dyelo-ists (Brouckère, Martynov, and Akimov) and Comrade Makhov. Clearly, the grouping in the vote on the place of the Bund item on the agenda was not fortuitous. Clearly, all these comrades differed with Iskra not only on the technical question of the order of discussion, but in essence as well. In the case of Rabocheye Dyelo, this difference in essence is clear to everyone, while Comrade Makhov gave an inimitable description of his attitude in the speech he made on the withdrawal of the Bund (Minutes, pp. 289-90). It is worth while dwelling on this speech. Comrade Makhov said that after the resolution rejecting federation, “the position of the Bund in the R.S.D.L.P. ceased to be for me a question of principle and became a question of practical politics in relation to an historically evolved national organisation”. “Here,” the speaker continued, “I could not but take into account all the consequences that might follow from our vote, and would therefore have voted for Paragraph 2 in its entirety.” Comrade Makhov has admirably imbibed the spirit of “practical politics”: in principle he had already rejected federation, and therefore in practice he would have voted for including in the Rules a point that signified federation! And this “practical” comrade explained his profound position of principle in the following words: “But [the famous Shchedrin “but”!] since my voting one way or the other would only have significance in principle [!!] and could not be of any practical importance, in view of the almost unanimous vote of all the other Congress delegates, I preferred to abstain in order to bring out in principle [God preserve us from such principles!] the difference between my position on this question and the position of the Bund delegates, who voted in favour. Conversely, I would have voted in favour if the Bund delegates had abstained, as they had at first insisted.” Can you make head or tail of it? A man of principle abstains from loudly saying “Yes” because practically it is useless when everybody else says “No”.

After the vote on the place of the Bund item on the agenda, the question of the Borba group cropped up at the Congress; it too led to an extremely interesting grouping and was closely bound up with the “sorest” point at the Congress, namely, the personal composition of the central bodies. The committee appointed to determine the composition of the Congress pronounced against inviting the Borba group, in accordance with a twice-adopted decision of the Organising Committee (see Minutes, pp. 383 and 375) and the report of the latter’s representatives on this committee (p. 35).

Thereupon Comrade Egorov, a member of the Organising Committee, declared that “the question of Borba” (mark, of Borba, not of some particular member of it) was “new to him”, and demanded an adjournment. How a question on which the Organising Committee had twice taken a decision could be new to a member of the Organising Committee remains a mystery. During the adjournment the Organising Committee held a meeting (Minutes, p. 40), attended by such of its members as happened to be at the Congress (several members of theOrganising Committee, old members of the Iskra organisation, were not at the Congress).[1] Then began a debate about Borba. The Rabocheye Dyelo-ists spoke in favour (Martynov, Akimov, and Brouckère—pp. 36-38), the Iskra-ists (Pavlovich, Sorokin, Lange,[3] Trotsky, Martov, and others)—against. Again the Congress split up into the grouping with which we are already familiar. The struggle over Borba was a stubborn one, and Comrade Martov made a very circumstantial (p. 38) and “militant” speech, in which he rightly referred to “inequality of representation” of the groups in Russia and abroad, and said that it would hardly be “well” to allow a foreign group any “privilege” (golden words, particularly edifying today, in the light of the events since the Congress!), and that we should not encourage "the organisational chaos in the Party that was characterised by a disunity not justified by any considerations of principle" (one right in the eye for . . . the “minority” at our Party Congress!). Except for the followers of Rabocheye Dyelo, nobody came out openly and with reasoned motives in favour of Borba until the list of speakers was closed (p. 40). It should be said in fairness to Comrade Akimov and his friends that they at least did not wriggle and hide, but frankly advocated their line, frankly said what they wanted.

After the list of speakers had been closed, when it was already out of order to speak on the issue itself, Comrade Egorov “insistently demanded that a decision just adopted by the Organising Committee be heard”. It is not surprising that the delegates were outraged at this manoeuvre, and Comrade Plekhanov, the chairman, expressed his “astonishment that Comrade Egorov should insist upon his demand”. One thing or the other, one would think: either take an open and definite stand before the whole Congress on the question at issue, or say nothing at all. But to allow the list of speakers to be closed and then, under the guise of a “reply to the debate”, confront the Congress with a new decision of the Organising Committee on the very subject that had been under discussion, was like a stab in the back!

When the sitting was resumed after dinner, the Bureau still in perplexity, decided to waive “formalities” and resort to the last method, adopted at congresses only in extreme cases, viz., “comradely explanation”. The spokesman of the Organising Committee, Popov, announced the committee’s decision, which had been adopted by all its members against one, Pavlovich (p. 43), and which recommended the Congress to invite Ryazanov.

Pavlovich declared that he had challenged and continued to challenge the lawfulness of the Organising Committee meeting, and that the Committee’s new decision “contradicts its earlier decision”. This statement caused an uproar. Comrade Egorov, also an Organising Committee member and a member of the Yuzhny Rabochy group, evaded answering on the actual point in question and tried to make the central issue one of discipline. He claimed that Comrade Pavlovich had violated Party discipline (!), for, having heard his protest, the Organising Committee had decided “not to lay Pavlovich’s dissenting opinion before the Congress”. The debate shifted to the question of Party discipline, and Plekhanov, amid the loud applause of the delegates, explained for the edification of Comrade Egorov that “we have no such thing as binding instructions” (p. 42; cf. p. 379, Regulations for the Congress, Point 7: “The powers of delegates must not be restricted by binding instructions. In the exercise of their powers, delegates are absolutely free and independent”). “The Congress is the supreme Party authority”, and, consequently, he violates Party discipline and the Congress Regulations who in any way restricts any delegate in taking directly to the Congress any question of Party life whatsoever. The issue thus came down to this: circles or a party? Were the rights of delegates to be restricted at the Congress in the name of the imaginary rights or rules of the various bodies and circles, or were all lower bodies and old groups to be completely, and not nominally but actually, disbanded in face of the Congress, pending the creation of genuinely Party official institutions? The reader will already see from this how profoundly important from the standpoint of principle was this dispute at the very outset (the third sitting) of this Congress whose purpose was the actual restoration of the Party. Focused in this dispute, as it were, was the conflict between the old circles and small groups (such as Yuzhny Rabochy) and the renascent Party. And the anti-Iskra groups at once revealed themselves: the Bundist Abramson, Comrade Martynov, that ardent ally of the present Iskra editorial board, and our friend Cornrade Makhov all sided with Egorov and the Yuzhny Rabochy group against Pavlovich. Comrade Martynov, who now vies with Martov and Axelrod in sporting “democracy” in organisation, even cited the example of . . . the army, where an appeal to a superior authority can only be made through a lower one!! The true meaning of this “compact” anti-Iskra opposition was quite clear to everyone who was present at the Congress or who had carefully followed the internal history of our Party prior to the Congress. It was the purpose of the opposition (perhaps not always realised by all of its representatives, and sometimes pursued by force of inertia) to guard the independence, individualism and parochial interests of the small, petty groups from being swallowed up in the broad Party that was being built on the Iskra principles.

It was precisely from this angle that the question was approached by Comrade Martov, who had not yet joined forces with Martynov. Comrade Martov vigorously took the field, and rightly so, against those whose “notion of Party discipline does not go beyond a revolutionary’s duty to the particular group of a lower order to which he belongs”. “No compulsory [Martov’s italics] grouping can be tolerated within a united Party,” he explained to the champions of the circle mentality, not foreseeing what a flail these words would be for his own political conduct at the end of the Congress and after.... A compulsory grouping cannot be tolerated in the case of the Organising Committee, but can quite well be tolerated in the case of the editorial board. Martov condemns a compulsory grouping when he looks at it from the centre, but Martov defends it the moment he finds himself dissatisfied with the composition of the centre....

It is interesting to note that in his speech Comrade Martov laid particular stress not only on Comrade Egorov’s “profound error”, but also on the political instability the Organising Committee had displayed. “A recommendation has been submitted on behalf of the Organising Committee,” he exclaimed in just indignation, “which runs counter to the committee report [based, we will add, on the report of members of the Organising Committee—p. 43, Koltsov’s remarks] and to the Organising Committee’s own earlier recommendations.” (My italics.) As we see, at that time, before his “swing-over”, Martov clearly realised that substituting Ryazanov for Borba in no way removed the utter contradictoriness and inconsistency of the Organising Committee’s actions (Party members may learn from the League Congress Minutes, p. 57, how Martov conceived the matter after his swing-over). Martov did not confine himself then to analysing the issue of discipline; he bluntly asked the Organising Committee: “What new circumstance has arisen to necessitate the change?” (My italics.) And, indeed, when the Organ ising Committee made its recommendation, it did not even have the courage to defend its opinion openly, as Akimov and the others did. Martov denies this (League Minutes p. 56), but whoever reads the minutes of the Congress will see that he is mistaken. Popov, in submitting the Organising Committee recommendation, did not say a word about the motives (Party Congress Minutes, p. 41). Egorov shifted the issue to one of discipline, and all he said on the question itself was: "The Organising Committee may have had new reasons [but whether it did, and what those new reasons were, is unknown]; it could have forgotten to nominate somebody, and so on. [This “and so on” was the speaker’s sole refuge, for the Organising Committee could not have forgotten about Borba, which it had discussed twice before the Congress and once in the committee.] The Organising Committee did not adopt this decision because it has changed its attitude towards the Borba group, but because it wants to remove unnecessary rocks in the path of the Party’s future central organisation at the very outset of its activities." This is not a reason, but an evasion of a reason. Every sincere Social-Democrat (and we do not entertain the least doubt about the sincerity of any Congress delegate) is concerned to remove what he considers to be sunken rocks, and to remove them by those methods which he considers advisable. Giving reasons means explicitly stating and explaining one’s view of things, and not making shift with truisms. And they could not give a reason without “changing their attitude towards Borba”, because in its earlier and contrary decisions the Organising Committee had also been concerned to remove sunken rocks, but it had then regarded the very opposite as “rocks”. And Comrade Martov very severely and very rightly attacked this argument, saying that it was “petty” and inspired by a wish to “burke the issue”, and advising the Organising Committee “not to be afraid of what people will say”. These words characterise perfectly the essential nature of the political shade which played so large a part at the Congress and which is distinguished precisely by its want of independence, its pettiness, its lack of a line of its own, its fear of what people will say, its constant vacillation between the two definite sides, its fear of plainly stating its credo—in a word, by all the features of a “Marsh”.[2][2] There are people in our Party today who are horrified when they hear this word, and raise an outcry about uncomradely methods of controversy. A strange perversion of sensibility due to . . . a misapplied sense of official form! There is scarcely a political party acquainted with internal struggles that has managed to do without this term, by which the unstable elements who vacillate between the contending sides have always been designated. Even the Germans, who know how to keep their internal struggles within very definite bounds indeed, are not offended by the word versumpft (sunk in the marsh—Ed.) are not horrified, and do not display ridiculous official prudery. —Lenin

A consequence of this political spinelessness of the unstable group was, incidentally, that no one except the Bundist Yudin (p. 53) did put before the Congress a resolution to invite one of the members of the Borba group. Yudin’s resolution received five votes—all Bundists, apparently: the vacillating elements had changed sides again! How large was the vote of the middle group is shown approximately by the voting on the resolutions of Koltsov and Yudin on this question: the Iskra-ist received thirty-two votes (p. 47), the Bundist received sixteen, that is, in addition to the eight anti-Iskra-ist votes, the two votes of Comrade Makhov (cf. p. 46), the four votes of the members of the Yuzhny Rabochy group, and two others. We shall show in a moment that this alignment can by no means be regarded as accidental; but first let us briefly note Martov’s present opinion of this Organising Committee incident. Martov maintained at the League that “Pavlovich and others fanned passions”. One has only to consult the Congress Minutes to see that the longest, most heated and sharpest speeches against Borba and the Organising Committee were delivered by Martov himself. By trying to lay the “blame” on Pavlovich he only demonstrates his own instability: it was Pavlovich he helped to elect prior to the Congress as the seventh member of the editorial board; at the Congress he fully associated himself with Pavlovich (p. 44) against Egorov; but afterwards, having suffered defeat at the hands of Pavlovich, he began to accuse him of “fanning passions”. This is ludicrous.

Martov waxes ironical in Iskra (No. 56) over the importance that was attached to whether X or Y should be invited. But again the irony turns against Martov, for it was this Organising Committee incident that started the dispute over such an “important” question as inviting X or Y on to the Central Committee or the Central Organ. It is unseemly to measure with two different yardsticks, depending on whether the matter concerns your own “group of a lower order” (relative to the Party) or someone else’s. This is precisely a philistine and circle, not a Party attitude. A simple comparison of Martov’s speech at the League (p. 57) with his speech at the Congress (p. 44) sufficiently demonstrates this. “I can not understand,” Martov said, inter alia, at the League, “how people can insist on calling themselves Iskra-ists and at the same time be ashamed of being Iskra-ists.” A strange failure to understand the difference between “calling oneself” and “being”—between word and deed. Martov himself, at the Congress, called himself an opponent of compulsory groupings, yet, after the Congress, came to be a supporter of them....

D. Dissolution of the Yuzhny Rabochy Group

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

(THE CRISIS IN OUR PARTY)

D. Dissolution of the Yuzhny Rabochy Group

The alignment of the delegates over the Organising Committee question may perhaps seem accidental. But such an opinion would be wrong, and in order to dispel it we shall depart from the chronological order and at once examine an incident which occurred at the end of the Congress, but which was very closely connected with the one just discussed. This incident was the dissolution of the Yuzhny Rabochy group. The organisational trend of Iskra—complete amalgamation of the Party forces and removal of the chaos dividing them—came into conflict here with the interests of one of the groups, which had done useful work when there was no real party, but which had become superfluous now that the work was being centralised. From the standpoint of circle interests, the Yuzhny Rabochy group was entitled no less than the old Iskra editorial board to lay claim to “continuity” and inviolability. But in the interests of the Party, it was its duty to submit to the transfer of its forces to “the appropriate Party organisations” (p. 313, end of resolution adopted by the Congress). From the standpoint of circle interests and “philistinism”, the dissolution of a useful group, which no more desired it than did the old Iskra editorial board, could not but seem a “ticklish matter” (the expression used by Comrade Rusov and Comrade Deutsch). But from the standpoint of the interests of the Party, its dissolution, its “assimilation” in the Party (Gusev’s expression), was essential. The Yuzhny Rabochy group bluntly declared that it “did not deem it necessary” to proclaim itself dissolved and demanded that “the Congress definitely pronounce its opinion”, and pronounce it “immediately: yes or no”. The Yuzhny Rabochy group openly invoked the same “continuity” as the old Iskra editorial board began to invoke . . . after it was dissolved! “Although we are all individually members of one Party,” Comrade Egorov said, “it nevertheless consists of a number of organisations, with which we have to reckon as historical entities.... If such an organisation is not detrimental to the Party, there is no need to dissolve it.”

Thus an important question of principle was quite definitely raised, and all the Iskra-ists—inasmuch as their own circle interests had not yet come to the forefront—took a decisive stand against the unstable elements (the Bundists and two of the Rabocheye Dyelo-ists had already withdrawn from the Congress; they would undoubtedly have been heart and soul in favour of “reckoning with historical entities”). The result of the vote was thirty-one for, five against and five abstentions (the four votes of .the members of the Yuzhny Rabochy group and one other, that of Byelov, most likely, judging by his earlier pronouncements, p. 308). A group of ten votes distinctly opposed to Iskra’s consistent organisational plan and defending the circle spirit as against the party spirit can be quite definitely discerned here. During the debate the Iskra-ists presented the question precisely from the standpoint of principle (see Lange’s speech, p. 315), opposing parochial amateurishness and disunity, refusing to pay heed to the “sympathies” of individual organisations, and plainly declaring that “if the comrades of Yuzhny Rabochy had adhered more strictly to principle earlier, a year or two ago, the unity of the Party and the triumph of the programme principles we have sanctioned here would have been achieved sooner”. Orlov, Gusev, Lyadov, Muravyov, Rusov, Pavlovich, Glebov, and Gorin all spoke in this strain. And far from protesting against these definite and repeated references made at the Congress to the lack of principle in the policy and “line” of Yuzhny Rabochy, of Makhov and of others, far from making any reservation on this score, the Iskra-ists of the “minority”, in the person of Deutsch, vigorously associated themselves with these views, condemned “chaos”, and welcomed the “blunt way the question was put” (p. 315) by that very same Comrade Rusov who, at this same sitting, had the audacity—oh, horror!—to “bluntly put” the question of the old editorial board too on a purely Party basis (p. 325).

On the part of the Yuzhny Rabochy group the proposal to dissolve it evoked violent indignation, traces of which are to be found in the minutes (it should not be forgotten that the minutes offer only a pale reflection of the debates, for they do not give the full speeches, but only very condensed summaries and extracts). Comrade Egorov even described as a “lie” the bare mention of the Rabochaya Mysl[1] groupalongside of Yuzhny Rabochy—a characteristic sample of the attitude that prevailed at the Congress towards consistent Economism. Even much later, at the 37th sitting, Egorov spoke of the dissolution of Yuzhny Rabochy with the utmost irritation (p. 356), requesting to have it recorded in the minutes that during the discussion on Yuzhny Rabochy the members of the group had not been asked either about publication funds or about control by the Central Organ and the Central Committee. Comrade Popov hinted, during the debate on Yuzhny Rabochy, at a compact majority having predetermined the fate of the group. “Now,” he said (p. 316), “after the speeches of Comrades Gusev and Orlov, everything is clear.” The meaning of these words is unmistakable: now, after the Iskra-ists had stated their opinion and moved a resolution, everything was clear, i.e., it was clear that Yuzhny Rabochy would be dissolved, against its own wishes. Here the Yuzhny Rabochy spokesman himself drew a distinction between the Iskra-ists (and, moreover, Iskra-ists like Gusev and Orlov) and his own supporters, as representing different “lines” of organisational policy. And when the present-day Iskra represents the Yuzhny Rabochy group (and Makhov too, most likely?) as “typical Iskra-ists”, it only demonstrates that the new editorial board has forgotten the most important (from this group’s standpoint) events of the Congress and is anxious to cover up the evidence showing what elements went to form what is known as the “minority”.

Unfortunately, the question of a popular periodical was not discussed at the Congress. It was very actively discussed by all the Iskra-ists both before the Congress and during the Congress itself, outside the sittings, and they agreed that it would be highly irrational at this moment in the Party’s life to launch such a publication or convert any of the existing ones for the purpose. The anti-Iskra-ists expressed the opposite opinion at the Congress; so did the Yuzhny Rabochy group in their report; and the fact that a motion to this effect, with ten signatures, was not tabled can only be attributed to chance, or to a disinclination to raise a “hopeless” issue.

E. The Equality of Languages Incident

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

(THE CRISIS IN OUR PARTY)