Letter to the Central Committee of the RSDLP, October 3, 1905

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1.

I received your Letuchy Listok No. 2 for June 24, 19O5, only today, October 3, 1905, new style. (It takes the “United Centre” three months to inform its members....)

The article: “Fundamentals of Party Organisation” is very good. I can imagine what it’s like to have to chew over the ABC to the Mensheviks! But you have to. The writer of the article has made an excellent job of it. I am thinking of publishing it in Proletary. It is late, of course, but better late than never.

This article has set me thinking that you can and should see to it that the CC is not mute but always articulate. The time is past for ideological leadership through “whisperings” in secret meeting places and rendezvous with agents! Leadership should be through political literature. Rabochy is not suitable for that, it has a different role to perform. You must decidedly issue a CC bulletin in a format not exceeding two printed pages, but you should issue it twice a week. It would contain a short article on a political, tactical or organisational subject, then brief, minor items of three lines each. Only (1) it must be printed, for the hectograph is now very bad (is there not some small equipment that operates rapidly?) and (2) it must be done punctually and frequently.

Your plan of converting Rabochy into a smaller weekly newspaper is not clear to me. In my opinion, a popular organ is one thing (I am not in favour of it, but the Congress decided on it, so that’s that), and a bulletin of really guiding political articles of a general kind is another. You have three or four good contributors, so it would be as easy as anything to get two small articles every week, and the significance would be tremendous!

2.

October 3, 1905

Dear friends,

I have received a pile of documents and listened to Delta’s detailed story. I hasten to reply on all the points.

1) I shall not be able to come at the scheduled time, as there can be no question of my leaving the newspaper now. Voinov is stuck in Italy. Orlovsky had to be sent away on business. There is no one to replace me. Therefore the thing is being postponed until Russian October, as arranged by you.

2) I repeat my most urgent request that you send a formal reply to the International Bureau. As to whether you are sending someone to the conference abroad. Exactly whom and when. As to whether you are appointing some one—also precisely. Otherwise you will discredit yourselves incredibly in the eyes of the International Bureau.

3) About Plekhanov, also formally and conclusively—yes or no. Who should be appointed? Postponement of this question is extremely dangerous.

4) About legal publishing, make a formal decision quickly. My draft agreement with Malykh, has done you no harm whatever, as it is only a draft. I merely repeat that Malykh provided a livelihood for lots of people here, whom the Party is enable to maintain. Do not forget that. I would advise both concluding an agreement with Malykh and continuing to do business with the others after the manner of Schmidt.

5) As regards opposition to the CC on the part of almost all the agents, I have the following to say. Firstly, co-opting Insarov and Lyubich, which I fully welcome, will probably improve matters very much. Secondly, some of the agents are evidently exaggerating somewhat. Thirdly, would it not be advisable to put some of the agents on the commit tees with instructions to concern, themselves with the whole area of two or three neighbouring committees? Unity of tactics should not be overestimated: a certain variety in the actions and plans of the committees will do no harm.

6) I consider it extremely important to start preparing for the fourth congress. It is high time. It will probably be six months late at least, if not more. All the same, it is high time. I think we are a little to blame for the laxity among some of the committees and for allowing them to waive the decisions of the Third Congress concerning the conditions of admission for the Mensheviks. If these committees, which at one and the same time recognise and do not recognise the Third Congress, do not define their attitude to the fourth congress, there will be chaos. Some of them will not attend the fourth congress. Another scandal. Some of them will attend it and desert to the other side at the congress. We should not confuse the policy of uniting the two parts with the mixing-up of both parts. We agree to uniting the two parts, but we shall never agree to mixing them up. We must demand of the committees a distinct division, then two congresses and amalgamation. Two congresses at the same time, in one place, and they will discuss and accept the drafts for amalgamation prepared beforehand.

But just now we must vigorously oppose any mixing-up of the two sections of the Party. I would advise giving the agents a watchword of this kind in the most definite form and instructing them to put it into effect.

If this is not done there will be an unholy mess. The Mensheviks have everything to gain by confusion and they will go out of their way to breed it. They won’t be “any the worse for it” (since nothing can be worse than their disorganisation), whereas we value our organisation, embryonic though it is, and will defend it tooth and nail. It pays the Mensheviks to mix things up and make another scandal out of the fourth congress, for they are not even contemplating a congress of their own. We must direct all our efforts and all our thoughts towards cementing and better organising our section of the Party. These tactics may seem “egoistic”, but they are the only reasonable ones. If we are well united and organised, if we get rid of all the whiners and turncoats, then our hard core, even if not very large, will carry with it the whole mass of “organisational nebulosity”. But if we have no such core, the Mensheviks, having disorganised themselves, will disorganise us as well. If we have a hard core, we shall soon force them into amalgamation with us. If we have no core, then it will not be the other core (it is non-existent) that will win the day, but the muddleheads, and then, I assure you, there will be fresh squabbles, a fresh, inevitable split and resentment a hundred times worse than before.

So let us prepare for real unification by increasing our own strength and working out clear drafts for standards of rules and tactics. And the people who chatter idly about unification, who mix up the relations between the sections of the Parry, should, in my opinion, be ruthlessly removed from our midst.

All the best.

Yours,

N. Lenin