I cannot for the life of me understand what is insolent about the distribution secretary’s first or second letter.[1] He requests information which he needs for his accounts, and the editors, instead of giving a comradely answer to the point—which he never did get—engage in purely bureaucratic quill-driving. Now here is something that really is insolent, in a letter by the editors of the Central Organ to the Central Committee: “The editorial board of the Central Organ brings to the Central Committee’s attention that the presence abroad of three members of the Central Committee, which is not justified by any operational considerations and which implies the establishment of a new organisational centre not envisaged in the Party Rules, inevitably brings political intrigue and disorganisation into Party life...." This is outright vilification (intrigue) without a shadow of facts or evidence! The Central Committee’s reply to it was: "Had the editors not been acting in a state of utmost irritation, they would readily have seen the utter impropriety of their remarks about the number of Central Committee members present abroad. The only reply of the Central Committee’s foreign representative to this and other unseemly sallies by the editors (such as the comical allegation about things being printed ’in secret’) is to call on them to remember their duty as Party members and desist from actions which out of a controversy in literature could create occasions for a split...."[2]
That even bourgeois publishers supposedly let editors have hundreds of copies I must confess I have not heard. Let Comrade Martov try, if his are not just idle words, to ask Dietz whether he gives Kautsky 400 copies of the Neue Zeit to distribute. Or ask Singer, or Fischer, whether Grad nauer demands 200 copies of the Vorwdrts to distribute on his own. The German Social-Democrats know the difference between anarchy and organisation.
The question of funds came up before the arrests—but then, I was only speaking of the difference the arrests had made to it.
How the editors confuse permissible controversy with impermissible boycott is especially vividly seen from the following.
In their letter of January 4, replying to our inquiry about funds, they mention, as one of the “factors which make it difficult for them to appeal to acquaintances for active support of the central treasury”, that “Central Committee agents and their protbg6s indulge at meetings in threatening talk about the illegality of the present composition of the editorial board (and the letter by Central Committee member Lenin talks about it too...)." Just look at this astounding perversion of political values! The question of providing (or cutting off) sources of funds is tied up with that of controversy in speeches and pamphlets! What is that but mixing up ideological struggle with squabbling and contention over posts?! The question of Party members approving or disapproving the composition (and activities) of the editorial board is fumbled with that of “legality"! What is that but bureaucratic formalism?! It is natural that the Central Committee’s foreign representative replied: "... As representative of the Central Committee, I think it necessary to point out to the editorial board that there is no reason to bring up the question of legality, etc., because of heated utterances at forums of the membership abroad or a controversy conducted in literature.... If in the controversy the editors descry attacks on themselves, they have every opportunity, after all, to reply to them. Is it reasonable to get excited over some sharp (in the editors’ view) thrust in controversy when there is no suggestion, even, of boycott or any other disloyal (in the Central Committee’s view) mode of action?"[3]... To talk of “protdg6s” is nothing if not peculiar.... What is it supposed to mean? What sort of bureaucratic language is this? What has the Central Committee to do with what people say at forums? We have no censorship, that we should restrict freedom of speech and freedom of controversy. And does not this kind of struggle need to be marked off from boycotts?
Comrade Martov’s story of the Odessa Committee having asked the Central Committee whether to send in letters to the Central Organ I regard as, obviously, a joke. No one could seriously speak of such a thing.
I repeat, there has never been a single case of the Central Committee barring the minority from the work. And I stress that Comrade Martov himself admits that he can cite no instances of improper, one-sided or biased distribution of literature.
[1] In his first letter the Central Committee’s distribution secretary, M. Leibovich, asked the editors of the Menshevik Iskra to tell him for his report to the Central Committee what they did with the fifty copies of Iskra allotted to the editorial board. The editors refused to give him this information, and demanded to be given a larger num ber of copies. In his second letter the distribution secretary refused to supply more than the allotted fifty copies without permission from the Central Committee.
[2] Lenin is quoting a letter sent the editors of Iskra on December 14 (27), 1903, in the name of Central Committee Foreign Representa tive Lengnik. The letter was written by Lenin (see present edition, Vol. 34).
[3] Lenin is quoting a letter sent the Iskra editorial board on December 26, 1903 (January 8, 1904), in the name of Central Committee Foreign Representative Lengnik. The passage quoted was written by Lenin (see present edition, Vol. 34).
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