It is absurd to describe as insulting what amounts to a demand for definiteness and precision. We have seen dozens of times (and particularly at the League Congress) what countless misunderstandings and even rows result from incorrect accounts of private conversations. That is a fact which it would be strange to deny. I say that the private remarks of Comrade Travinsky have been misunderstood both by the representative of the Central Organ and in part by Comrade Plekhanov. Here is what Comrade Travinsky writes me, among other things, in a letter of December 18: “We have just learned that the editorial board has circulated to the committees an official letter of the most invidious [I am toning down a stronger expression I character. In it the editorial board openly comes out against the Central Commit tee and threatens that through the Council it could even now compel the co-optation of anyone it chose, but that it does not wish to resort yet to such measures and calls the attention of the committees to the narrow exclusiveness and incapacity of the Central Committee and the illegitimacy of the co-optation of Lenin.... A host of sallies of a personal nature. In a word, a disgraceful and ... II again omit a too strong expression] breach of all the promises made to me. I am thoroughly disgusted. Is it possible that Plekhanov had a part in this? The Ekaterinoslav Committee is deeply incensed at the letter and has sent a very sharp reply.... Now the minority is recklessly severing the connecting bonds. The letter circulated to the committees is, in my opinion, the last straw and an open challenge. And I for one find that Lenin has every right to publish his letter outside Iskra. I am sure the other comrades too will have nothing against it."
There you have proof that the idea formed of Comrade Travinsky’s opinion is mistaken. Comrade Travinsky could expect co-optation to take place since he hoped peace and good will would be established in the Party; but his hopes entirely failed to materialise.
What happened was that, instead of peace, the editorial board of Martov and the rest started war on the majority. Whereas Travinsky had hoped, and had had a right to hope, for peace.
What happened was that Plekhanov’s attempts to restrain the “anarchistic individualists” did not succeed (in spite of his efforts). Accordingly, the hopes entertained by both Traviusky and myself—hopes of Plekhanov being able to keep the new editorial board from warring on the majority— these hopes did not materialise. Which only goes to show that hopes do not always materialise; when I resigned from the editorial board, it was also in the hope that this would make for peace, but my hopes did not materialise either. No one denies that private negotiations occurred, only you have to distinguish between expressions of the hopes and expecta tions of individuals and decisions of official bodies. There is nothing insulting to the members of the Council in my remark that one cannot draw conclusions here from private negotiations. I emphatically deny that Comrade Travinsky expressly promised co-optation to the Central Committee. Undoubtedly, he departed hoping for peace, and as a result of that peace he could expect co-optation, but he could not expressly promise it.
Against my appeal Comrade Martov advances the argument that it contains the attacks made by only one side. Nothing of the kind. I can, if it comes to that, move another resolution, modifying the expressions Comrade Martov does not like, but his contention that my resolution is one-sided is nonsense. Earlier it was said of my resolution that it smacked of a pastoral message, that it was full of truisms, and so on— but no one ascribed to it a tendency to inflict new wounds. Comrade Martov charges me with evading a straight answer to Comrade Plekhanov’s question of whether the Central Committee is or is not willing to co-opt representatives of the “minority”. But how could we give you an answer to that question if we do not know what all the rest of the nine Central Committee members think of the matter now? (Plekhanov: “You misunderstood Comrade Martov.") To say that I am deliberately evading is ridiculous. I simply could not give the answer for not giving which I am being accused of evasion. I have said plainly that the dissatisfaction with the composition of the central bodies is mutual. One has to reckon with the opinion of other comrades too, after all. I am told: we must try to come to an understanding; but we have been trying to do that for the past five months. Comrade Martov’s suggestion that by calling for a congress the Central Committee testifies to its own bankruptcy and impotence is therefore simply laughable. Hasn’t the Central Committee already made every possible effort to resolve the conflict by domestic means? “The Central Committee will be demonstrating its inability...." Inability to do what? To wage the struggle? Or to bring about peace in the Party? Yes indeed! And the attacks to which my proposal has been subjected here abundantly prove it. What your resolution talks about is gaining ground from the adversary, so to speak; but then a demand like that gives rise to counter-demands, and I will even put the question in this way: has the Central Committee the right to start negotiating again on that basis? There are committees, after all, which censured the Central Committee for making concessions to the League.[1] You want us to reckon with the minority and not reckon with the majority. That is funny. And avoidance of a congress would under these conditions smack of fearing a congress. That is why we admit ourselves powerless, but not in the sense Comrade Martov means. The Central Committee is indeed powerless to end the dissensions in the Party, and that is why we are proposing to the Council that a congress should be convened. Next, the purely juridical point of the Council’s power to convene one. Comrade Martov’s interpretation of it is totally incorrect. What the Rules say is: “The congress is convened (if possible not less than once in two years) by the Party Council." Consequently, the Council has the power to convene a congress at any time. It is obliged to convene a congress only in one specific case. (Martov: “From the Rules it directly follows that the Council is obliged to convene a congress when demanded by a specified number of competent organisations, or upon the lapse of two years after the previous congress. Thus, until the two years are up or until the specified number of organisations call for a congress, the Council cannot convene one." Plekhanov: “I suggest that the matter of the provisions for convening a congress is out of order, as having no bearing on the business in hand.")
It was Comrade Martov who brought the matter up, and we have not taken any decision to drop it. Martov says the Council cannot convene a congress, and I say that it can. The congress is convened by the Party Council on its own responsibility at any time—if possible not less than once in two years. Comrade Martov says that holding a congress is an ultima ratio. Yes, it is, and the fruitlessness of our present debates goes to confirm it.
You will recall that Comrade Martov has himself admitted in principle that a body made up of people who have not been involved in our dissensions could play a useful part in bringing peace to the Party. And since our own peace making attempts have produced no results and even in literature we are unlikely to keep to permissible forms of polemic, I maintain that only outside comrades can speak the decisive word. We, the representatives of the Central Committee, disclaim all responsibility in respect of further attempts at reconciliation in the Party; we see no other honest way to end our dissensions than by appealing to the congress. Now about Comrade Plekhanov’s remark as to the word “Marsh”. (Plekhanov: “I was replying to the question of Comrade Vasilyev, who applied the term to a section of the Party; I repeat, as chairman I cannot allow such expressions in the Party Council.") I am admonished here that I say nothing about the abnormal and one-sided composition of the Central Committee; but what I am stating is the fact that there are two sides in the Party and that they are fighting with impermissible weapons. On the present basis, any positive work is quite impossible.
[1] Resolutions censuring the Central Committee for its concessions to the League Abroad and condemning the Mensheviks’ conduct at the Second Congress of the League were adopted, for example, by the Saratov and Odessa committees. They were published in N. Shakhov’s pamphlet The Fight for a Congress, Geneva, 1904, p. 28.
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