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    There are two bodies of opinion on what is at present taking place in the Russian Social-Democratic movement.

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    One opinion, expounded by Rosa Luxemburg in the proposal she made to the International Socialist Bureau last year (December 1913) and shared by the liquidators and the groups which support them, is as follows: in Russia the "chaos" of factional strife reigns among a multitude of factions, the worst of which, namely, the Leninist faction, is most active in fomenting a split. Actually, the differences do not preclude the possibility of joint activities. The road to unity lies through agreement or compromise among all trends and groups.

    The other opinion, which we hold, is that there is nothing resembling "chaos of factional strife" in Russia. The only thing we have there is a struggle against the liquidators, and it is only in the course of this struggle that a genuinely workers' Social-Democratic Party is being built up, which has already united the overwhelming majority -- four-fifths -- of the class-conscious workers of Russia. The illegal Party, in which the majority of the workers of Russia are organised, has been represented by the following conferences: the January Conference of 1912, the February Conference of 1913, and the Summer Conference of 1913. The legal organ of the Party is the newspaper Pravda (Vérité ), hence the name Pravdist. Incidentally, this opinion was expressed by the St. Petersburg worker who, at a banquet in St. Petersburg which Comrade Vandervelde attended, stated that the workers in the factories of St. Petersburg are united, and that outside of this unity of the workers there are only "general staffs without armies".

    In the second part of my report I shall deal with the objective data which prove that ours is the correct opinion. And now I shall deal with the substance of liquidationism.

    The liquidationist groups were formally expelled from the Party at the R.S.D.L.P. Conference in January 1912, but the question of liquidationism was raised by our Party much earlier. A definite official resolution, binding upon the whole Party and unreservedly condemning liquidationism, was adopted by the All-Russia Conference of the R.S.D.L.P. held as far back as December 1908. In this resolution liquidationism is defined as follows:

    (Liquidationism is) "an attempt on the part of some of the Party intelligentsia to liquidate the existing organisa-

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tion of the R.S.D.L.P. and to substitute for it an amorphous federation acting at all cost within the limits of legality, even at the cost of openly abandoning the programme, tactics and traditions of the Party".

    From this it is evident that as far back as 1908 liquidationism was officially declared and recognised as an intellectualist trend, and that in substance it stood for the renunciation of the illegal Party and the 1substitution, or advocacy of the substitution, of a legal party for it.

    The Central Committee's plenary meeting held in January 1910 once again unanimously condemned liquidationism as "a manifestation of the influence of the bourgeoisie on the proletariat".

    From this we see how mistaken is the opinion that our differences with the liquidators are no deeper and are less important than those between the so-called radicals and moderates in Western Europe. There is not a single -- literally not a single -- West-European party that has ever had occasion to adopt a general party decision against people who desired to dissolve the party and to substitute a new one for it!

    Nowhere in Western Europe has there ever been, nor can there ever be, a question of whether it is permissible to bear the title of party member and at the same time advocate the dissolution of that party, to argue that the party is useless and unnecessary, and that another party be substituted for it. Nowhere in Western Europe does the question concern the very existence of the party as it does with us, i.e., whether that party is to be or not to be.

    This is not disagreement over a question of organisation, of how the party should be built, but disagreement concerning the very existence of the party. Here, conciliation, agreement and compromise are totally out of the question.

    We could not have built up our Party (to the extent of four-fifths) and cannot continue to build it otherwise than by relentlessly fighting those publicists who in the legal press fight against the "underground" (i.e., the illegal Party), declare it to be an "evil ", justify and eulogise desertion from it, and advocate the formation of an "open party".

    In present-day Russia, where even the party of the extremely moderate liberal is not legal, our Party can exist only

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    On April 22, 1912 (old style) the working-class daily, Pravda, began to appear in Russia, thanks to the restoration of the Party at the January Conference of 1912; this newspaper is pursuing the line (often by hints and always in a curtailed form) laid down by that Conference.

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Obviously, we never mention in any organ of the press the illegal connection that exists between the Party's illegal Conference of January 1912 and the Central Committee it set up, on the one hand, and the legal newspaper Pravda, on the other. In September 1912, the rival newspaper of the liquidators, Luch, now called Nasha Rabochaya Gazeta, began to appear. Then, in the autumn of 1912, the Fourth Duma elections took place. In 1913, a new insurance law came into force in Russia, establishing sick funds for the workers. Lastly, the legal trade unions, relentlessly persecuted by the government and repeatedly suppressed, were, nevertheless, constantly revived.

    It is not difficult to understand that all these manifestations of the mass working-class movement -- especially the daily newspapers of the two trends -- provide a vast amount of public, verifiable, and objective data. We deem it our duty to the Executive Committee of the International Socialist Bureau emphatically to protest against the habit of the liquidators and their defenders abroad of making unsubstantiated statements, assurances and declamations, while ignoring the objective facts of the mass working-class movement in Russia.

    It is these facts that have definitely strengthened us in our conviction that the line we are pursuing is the right one.

    In January 1912 the Conference of the R.S.D.L.P., which restored the illegal Party, was held. The liquidators and the groups abroad (including Plekhanov) greeted it with abuse. But what about the workers in Russia?

    The answer to this question was provided by the Fourth Duma elections.

    These elections were held in the autumn of 1912. Whereas in the Third Duma 50 per cent (four out of eight) of the deputies elected by the worker curia belonged to our trend, in the Fourth Duma six out of nine, i.e., 67 per cent, of the deputies elected by the worker curia were supporters of the Party. This proves that the masses of the workers sided with the Party and rejected liquidationism. If the six members of the Duma, who incline towards liquidationism, now really desire unity with the Party group in the Duma, the Russian Social-Democratic Labour group, then we are

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obliged to say that recognition of the fact that these deputies are carrying out the will of the majority of the workers is the condition for unity.

    To proceed. Daily newspapers are extremely important media of working-class organisation. They contain a vast amount of material proving this, i.e., the figures showing the number of contributions received from workers' groups. Both newspapers, the Pravdist (i.e., the Party) and the liquidationist, publish reports of financial contributions received from workers' groups. These reports are, for Russia, the best conceivable index -- public and legal -- of the actual state of organisation of the masses of the workers.

    In Western Europe, where the socialist parties are legal, the number of party members is known to everybody, and discussions concerning the organised working-class movement are always based on these figures.

    In Russia we have no open, i.e., legal party. The Party's organisations are illegal, secret, "underground", as we say. But an indirect -- and also unerring -- index of the state of these organisations is provided by the number of financial contributions received from workers' groups.

    These figures have been published openly and regularly in both newspapers -- for over two years in ours and over eighteen months in the liquidators' -- and if any false claim or mistake were made it would immediately have called forth a protest on the part of the workers themselves. Consequently, these figures are absolutely reliable and are the best public and legal index of the state of organisation of the masses of the workers.

    Our liquidators, and the groups abroad which defend them, persistently ignore these figures, and say nothing about them in their press; but our workers merely regard this as evidence of their desire to flout the will of the majority of the workers, as evidence of their lack of honesty.

    Here are the figures for the whole of 1913. The Pravdists received 2,181 money contributions from workers' groups, while the liquidators received 661. In 1914 (up to May 13), the Pravdists had the support of 2,873 workers' groups, and the liquidators, of 671. Thus, the Pravdists organised 77 per cent of the workers' groups in 1913, and 81 per cent in 1914.

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    The Pravdists have been publishing these figures regularly since 1912, inviting investigation, pointing to their objective character, and calling upon the genuine (not hypocritical) friends of "unity" straightforwardly and honestly to submit to the will of the majority of the workers. Failing this, all their talk about unity is sheer hypocrisy.

    After the liquidators had been fighting the Party for eighteen months, the class-conscious workers of Russia, by a four-fifths majority, approved of the Pravda line and demonstrated their loyalty to the "underground" and to revolutionary tactics. What we expect from the liquidators and their friends is not phrases about "unity" against the Party's will, but a straightforward answer to the question: do they or do they not accept the will of the vast majority of the class-conscious workers of Russia?

    It is easy to give empty assurances, but it is very difficult to organise a genuine working-class newspaper that is really maintained by the workers. All the foreign comrades know this, and they are more experienced than we are. A real working-class newspaper, i.e., a newspaper that is really financed by the workers and which pursues the Party line, is a powerful instrument of organisation.

    What do these figures show? These objective figures show that Pravda is a genuinely working-class newspaper, whereas the liquidationist newspaper, which repudiates the "underground", i.e., the Party, both in its ideas and in the sources from which it obtains its funds is, in fact, a bourgeois newspaper.

    From January 1 to May 13, 1914, both newspapers, as usual, published reports of collections, and our newspaper published a summary of these reports. Here are the results, Pravda collected R.21,584.11, of which R.18,934.10 came from workers' groups. Thus, 87 per cent of the contributions came from organised workers and only 13 per cent from the bourgeoisie.

    The liquidators collected R.12,055.89, of which R.5,296.12 came from workers' groups, i.e., only 44 per cent -- less than half. The liquidators get more than half their funds from bourgeois sources.

    Moreover, day in day out the entire liberal-bourgeois press eulogises the liquidators, helps them to flout the will

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of the majority of the workers, and encourages them in their reformism and repudiation of the "underground".

    The activities of the groups abroad are exemplified in the newspaper Yedinstvo, run by Comrade Plekhanov, deputy Buryanov, and others. I have before me three issues of this newspaper, the first for May 18 and the third for June 15 of this year. The reports in these issues show that somebody contributed 1000 rubles to the newspaper through Comrade Olgin, who lives abroad, while collections made abroad amounted to R.207.52. Six (six!) workers' groups contributed 60 rubles.

    And this newspaper, which is supported by six workers' groups in Russia, calls upon the workers not to heed the Party's decisions, and calls it a "splitters'" Party! A Party which in the course of two-and-a-half years rallied 5,600 groups of workers around the definitely formulated decisions of the three illegal conferences of 1912 and 1913 is a "splitters'" Party; whereas Plekhanov's group, which united six workers' groups in Russia and collected 1,200 rubles abroad for the purpose of thwarting the will of the Russian workers, is a group which stands for "unity", if you please!

    Plekhanov accuses others of being factionalists, as though making separate collections for a separate group, and calling upon the workers not to carry out the decisions adopted by a four-fifths majority, is not factionalism.

    As for us, we say plainly that we regard the behaviour of Plekhanov's group as a model of 1disruption. Plekhanov's conduct is the same as though Mehring, in Germany, were to organise six workers' groups and, in an independent newspaper, call upon the German Social-Democrats to defy the party which had, let us assume, split away from the Poles.

    Plekhanov and we speak in different tongues. We call the solidarity of four-fifths of the workers in Russia real unity, and not unity merely in word; and we call disruption the struggle conducted by groups abroad -- financed with money collected abroad -- against the majority of the Russian workers.

    According to the figures Comrade Vandervelde obtained in St. Petersburg and made public in the press, Pravda has a circulation of 40,000, while the liquidationist newspaper has one of 16,000. Pravda is maintained by the workers and

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pays its way, but the liquidationist newspaper is maintained by those whom our newspaper calls their rich friends from among the bourgeoisie.

    We are submitting to the Executive Committee of the International Socialist Bureau the financial reports published in both newspapers. To foreign comrades, who know what a serious business a working-class newspaper is, this will be far more convincing than assurances, promises, statements, and abuse of the Leninists.

    We ask the liquidators: do they still choose to ignore the objective fact that their group's newspaper is in effect a bourgeois undertaking run for the purpose of advocating repudiation of the "underground" and of flouting the will of the majority of the class-conscious workers of Russia?

    If they do, then all their talk about "unity" will continue to evoke derision from our workers.

    Those who earnestly seek unity should sincerely admit that the entire liquidationist line is utterly fallacious, as has been proved by Party decisions commencing with 1908, as well as by the experience of the struggle waged by the masses of the workers during the past two-and-a-half years.

    To proceed. Here are the objective figures concerning the election of workers' representatives to the insurance bodies We reject as mere liberalism all talk about political, constitutional reforms in present-day tsarist Russia and will have nothing to do with it; but we take advantage of real reforms, such as insurance, in deed and not in word. The entire workers' group on the All-Russia Insurance Board consists of Pravda supporters, i.e., of workers who have condemned and rejected liquidationism. During the election to this All-Russia Insurance Board, 47 out of the 57 delegates, i.e., 82 per cent, were Pravdists. During the election of the Metropolitan, St. Petersburg, Insurance Board, 37 of the delegates were Pravdists and 7 were liquidators, the Pravdists constituting 84 per cent.

    The same can be said about the trade unions. When they hear the talk of the Russian Social-Democrats abroad about the "chaos of factional strife" in Russia (indulged in by Rosa Luxemburg, Plekhanov, Trotsky, and others), our foreign comrades perhaps imagine that the trade union movement in our country is split up.

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Nothing of the kind.

    In Russia there are no duplicate unions. Both in St. Petersburg and in Moscow, the trade unions are united. The point is that in these unions the Pravdists completely predominate.

    Not one of the thirteen trade unions in Moscow is liquidationist.

    Of the twenty trade unions in St. Petersburg listed in our Workers' Calendar together with their membership, only the Draftsmen's, Druggist Employees' and Clerks' Unions, and half the members of the Printers' Union, are liquidationist. In all the other unions -- Metalworkers', Textile Workers', Tailors', Woodworkers', Shop Assistants', and so forth -- the Pravdists completely predominate.

    And we say plainly: if the liquidators do not want drastically to change their tactics and put a stop to their disruptive struggle against the organised majority of the class-conscious workers in Russia, let them stop talking about "unity".

    Every day Pravda commends the "underground ", if only obliquely, and condemns those who repudiate it. And the workers follow the lead of their Pravda.

    Here are figures on the illegal press published abroad. After the liquidators' August Conference in 1912, our Party, up to June 1914, put out five issues of an illegal leading political newspaper; the liquidators -- nil ; the Socialist Revolutionaries -- nine. These figures do not include leaflets issued in Russia for revolutionary agitation during strikes, meetings and demonstrations.

    In these five issues you will find mention of 44 illegal organisations of our Party; the liquidators -- nil ; the Socialist Revolutionaries -- 21 (mainly students' and peasants).

    Lastly, in October 1913, an independent Russian SocialDemocratic Labour group was formed in the Duma, the aim of that group, unlike that of the liquidators, being to carry out, not flout, the will of the majority of the class-conscious workers of Russia. At that time both newspapers published resolutions from workers all over Russia supporting either the line of the Party group or that of the liquidationist group. The signatures to the resolutions in favour of the Pravdist, i.e., the Party group in the Duma, numbered 6,722, whereas those supporting the liquidationist group numbered

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2,985 (including 1,086 signatures of Bundist workers and 719 of Caucasian workers). Thus, together with all their allies, the liquidators succeeded in collecting less than one-third of the signatures.

    These, briefly, are the objective data which we oppose to the bare statements by the liquidators. These objective data on the mass working-class movement in Russia during the past two-and-a-half years definitely prove, through the experience of the class-conscious workers, that our Party line is correct.

    Here I must digress and quote a concrete case to prove why "unity" or even "peace" with the present newspaper of the present liquidators is entirely ruled out.

    I now come to the third part of my report. Having examined the experience of the mass working-class movement in Russia, which has confirmed the correctness of our line, I now propose to examine the experience of our opponents.

    Our opponents, both the liquidators and groups abroad, such as Plekhanov's, like to apply to us the abusive term of "usurpers". They repeated this abuse in the columns of Vorwärts in March 1912. But Vorwärts did not give us an opportunity of replying! Let us see what political significance there is in the accusation that we are "usurpers".

    I have already said that the 1912 Conference was convened by the Russian Organising Commission which was set up by the Party committees after the liquidators had wrecked the old Central Committee. We take credit for having restored the illegal Party, and the majority of the workers of Russia have recognised this.

    But let us assume for a moment that our numerous opponents (numerous in the opinion of the intellectualist groups and the Party groups living abroad) are right. Let us assume that we are "usurpers", "splitters", and so forth. In that case, would it not be natural to expect our opponents to prove, not merely with words, but by the experience of their activities and their unity, that we are wrong.

    If we are wrong in asserting that the Party can only be built up by fighting the liquidationist groups, then should we not expect the groups and organisations which disagree with us to prove from the experience of their activities that unity with the liquidators is possible?

    But the experience of our opponents shows this. In January 1912, our illegal Party was restored by our Conference, which was representative of the majority of organisations in Russia.

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    In March 1912, the following united in the columns of Vorwärts to abuse us:

the liquidators
the Bund
the Letts
the Poles
the Trotskyists
and the Vperyodists.

    But when steps were taken to convene the "August" Conference of the liquidators, it was found that our opponents could not march in step.

    Both the Poles and Plekhanov refused to attend the "August" Conference of the liquidators.

    Why?

    Because they could not agree even on the meaning of the term: membership in the Party!

    And so, when Plekhanov's group or Rosa Luxemburg or anybody else, assure themselves and others that it is possible to unite with the liquidators, we answer: dear comrades, you just try yourselves to "unite" with the liquidators on a definition of Party membership, not in word, but in deed.

    Further. The Vperyodists attended the August Conference, but afterwards walked out in protest and denounced it as a fiction.

    Then, in February 1914, eighteen months after the "August Conference" of the liquidators, the Congress of the Lettish Party was held. The Letts had always been in favour of "unity". The Lettish workers had wanted to work with the liquidators and had proved this not merely in word, but in deed, by experience.

    And after eighteen months' experience, the Letts, while remaining strictly neutral, declared at their congress that they were withdrawing from the August bloc because:

    -- as the resolution of the Lettish Congress reads:

    "The attempt by the conciliators to unite at all costs with the liquidators (the August Conference of 1912) proved

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fruitless, and the uniters themselves became ideologically and politically dependent upon the liquidators."

    If anybody else wants to make the "experiment of uniting with the liquidators", let them do so. We, however, declare that until the liquidators definitely abandon their liquidationist line, unity with them is absolutely impossible.

    Lastly, Trotsky's group, the Caucasians under their leader An, and a number of other liquidators ("Em-El", for example) have practically dropped out of the August bloc and founded their own journal, Borba. This journal has no connection with the workers whatsoever, but by its very existence, by its criticism of the liquidators' opportunism, by its breakaway from the liquidators, this journal, which belongs to the group of former liquidators, has proved in deed and by experience that unity with the liquidators is impossible.

    Unity will be possible only when the liquidators are ready, once and for all, to abandon their entire tactics and cease to be liquidators.

    I shall now proceed to formulate the precise and formal conditions for such "unity".

    The following are the practical, concrete conditions, formulated by our Central Committee, which will make "unity" with the liquidators possible for our Party.

    First :

    1. The Party resolutions on liquidationism, adopted in December 1908 and January 1910, shall be confirmed in the most emphatic and unreserved fashion, in application precisely to liquidationism.

    In order that this confirmation may be accepted by all class-conscious workers in Russia as something really serious and final, and in order that no room may be left for any ambiguity, it shall be agreed that whoever opposes (especially in the legal press) the "underground", i.e., the illegal organisation, calls it a "corpse", declares it non-existent, that its restoration is a reactionary utopia, and so forth, or, in general, deprecates the role and importance

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of the "underground", shall be deemed deserving of condemnation and shall not be tolerated in the ranks of the illegal R.S.D.L.P.

    It shall be agreed that whoever opposes (especially in the legal press) the "advertising of the illegal press" shall be deemed deserving of condemnation and shall not be tolerated in the ranks of the illegal Party. Membership in the illegal Party shall be open only to those who sincerely de vote all their efforts to promoting the development of the illegal press, the publication of illegal leaflets, and so forth.

    It shall be agreed that whoever, in any form whatsoever, advocates the formation in present-day Russia of an "open" (i.e., legal) workers' party -- for objectively such a party would be a tsarist-monarchist labour party -- whoever proclaims the slogan of an "open party" or of "fighting" for such a party, shall be deemed deserving of condemnation and shall not be tolerated in the ranks of the illegal Party.

    It shall be agreed that whoever, in any form whatsoever, opposes (especially in the legal press) revolutionary mass strikes (i.e., strikes which combine the economic and political struggle with revolutionary agitation) and opposes the organisation of revolutionary meetings and street demonstrations, shall be deemed deserving of condemnation and shall not be tolerated in the ranks of the illegal Party. The banning of attacks against the revolutionary activities of the Party, which conducts strikes and demonstrations, shall also apply to condemnation, in the legal press, of the "strike craze" among the workers, or of "higher forms of the struggle" (= the legal pseudonym for demonstrations).

    It shall be agreed that the journal Nasha Zarya2 and the newspaper Nasha Rabochaya Gazeta are guilty of such deviations from the Social-Democratic line towards "bourgeois influence".

    2. It shall be agreed that whoever, in any form whatsoever, declares (especially in the legal press) that the slogans of a democratic republic and confiscation of the landed estates -- slogans incorporated in our Party's programme and particularly urgent in present-day Russia, where the tsarist monarchy has reduced the tsar's formal recognition of the constitution to sheer mockery of the people -- are useless, or of little use for agitation among the masses, shall be

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deemed deserving of condemnation and shall not be tolerated in the ranks of the illegal Party.

    It shall be agreed that whereas the liberal press is broadcasting the idea of reformism, the idea that political freedom is compatible with the existence of the tsarist monarchy, and that the revolutionary overthrow of tsarism is unnecessary, harmful, and sinful -- in view of this, agitation for a constitutional reform such as freedom of association must be conducted, and conducted on the widest possible scale, with a clear realisation, however, that the working class is hostile to the propaganda of the liberal reformists; and this agitation must be closely combined with the task of explaining and disseminating the slogan of a republic, as a slogan for the revolutionary onslaught of the masses against the tsarist monarchy.

    3. It shall be agreed that it is absolutely impermissible and incompatible with membership in the Party for any section of our Party -- the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party -- to enter into a bloc or alliance with any other party.

    It shall be agreed that the bloc of the Bund and the liquidators with the Left-wing of the P.S.P., a non-Social-Democrat ic party, against the will and without the consent of the Polish Social-Democrats, and without a decision by the Congress of the R.S.D.L.P., comes within the category of such prohibited blocs.

    Deputy Jagiello, as a member of a non-Social-Democratic party, can be regarded only as being aligned with our Party group in the Duma, but not as a member of that group.

    4. It shall be agreed that in every city and every locality there shall be only one united Social-Democratic organisation embracing workers of all nationalities, and conducting activities in all the languages spoken by the local proletariat.

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Revolutionaries against the overwhelming majority of the Social-Democratic workers in St. Petersburg, as was the case during the elections to the Insurance Boards, shall be definitely and unreservedly condemned.

    A publicists' bloc shall be forbidden between outstanding liquidators and prominent Social-Democrats belonging to groups that defend the liquidators (Plekhanov, Trotsky, and others), and the Socialist-Revolutionaries who in their St. Petersburg journal Sovremennik assert that "the old cleavage, at all events, has disappeared" and that "it is impossible to tell where Marxism ends and Narodism begins". (Sovremennik No. 7, p. 76.)

    Publicists who wish to become members of the Social-Democratic Party, but who contribute to that journal for reasons other than the necessity of seeking a livelihood by writing for bourgeois publications, shall be called upon to withdraw from the journal and make a public announcement to this effect.

    9. In view of the extreme disorganisation introduced into the working-class movement of Russia by various detached groups abroad, which act without a mandate from any Party organisation in Russia, and without any agreement with such an organisation, it shall be deemed necessary to pass and put into effect a resolution that all groups resident abroad shall without exception communicate with organisations operating in Russia only through the Central Committee of the Party.

    Groups abroad which do not submit to the Russian centre of Social-Democratic activity, i.e., the Central Committee, and which cause disorganisation by communicating with Russia independently of the Central Committee, shall have no right to speak on behalf of the R.S.D.L.P.

    A Social-Democratic discussion journal shall be founded abroad, with funds collected there, for the purpose of discussing from all angles and free of the censorship, questions concerning the programme, tactics and organisation.

    The Party rule (Clause 3) that only "endorsed organisations of the Party have a right to publish Party literature" shall be reaffirmed and strictly applied.

    10. The resolution unanimously adopted at the beginning of January 1908 by the London Central Committee

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shall be deemed absolutely binding on all Social-Democrats.

    The resolution reads:

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    12. The Caucasian Social-Democrats must forbid agitation in favour of cultural-national autonomy, which has been rejected by the Programme of the R.S.D.L.P.

    The Caucasian Social-Democrats shall undertake not to violate the principle of a united international organisation in every city, and under no circumstances adopt the principle, either in political or industrial organisations, of dividing workers according to nationality.

    13. The six members of the Duma (the Chkheidze group), and also deputy Buryanov, must accept all the above conditions.

    The Chkheidze group must declare from the Duma rostrum that, in conformity with the Programme of the Russian Social-Democrats, it withdraws its support of "cultural-national autonomy" (and its pseudonym: "institutions" etc.).

    The Chkheidze group must accept the leadership of the Party's Central Committee elected at the January Conference of 1912, and must recognise as binding all Party decisions, and also the Central Committee's right of veto.

    Such are the terms on which the Central Committee of our Party considers unity possible, and on which it undertakes to launch a campaign in favour of unity. We consider it utterly impossible to have any negotiations or contacts with the liquidators' group which publishes Nasha Zarya and Nasha Rabochaya Gazeta, as long as it pursues its present tactics. As far as their political role in the working-class movement in Russia is concerned; we regard all the other groups, trends, factions and bodies which defend the liquidators or advocate unity or compromise with them, as fictions.

    We declare that to feed the working class of Russia with verbal assurances and promises that unity with the liquidationist group is possible and easy, means rendering very bad service to the cause, and passing off phrases for reality.

    We therefore make the following practical proposal.

    A year ago, the question was raised in our Party of convening a Party congress. This was announced in the resolutions of the 1913 Summer Conference of the Central Com-

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mittee of the R.S.D.L.P. The arrangements for convening this congress are now almost completed. In all probability, a congress of our Party will be held in the very near future, immediately after the Vienna Congress, or even while it is being held. Of course, we ask the comrades not to announce this or speak of it. If arrests are very numerous, perhaps a conference will be held instead of a congress.

    Thus, while refraining from any steps towards a rapprochement with the liquidationist group or its defenders until the above terms are accepted and carried out, we propose that all groups, trends and factions, which -- unlike us -- hold that unity, or peace, or compromise with the present liquidationist group such as it is, is possible considering its present tactics, we propose that these groups should take the opportunity provided by the Vienna Congress to organise a joint formal discussion of our terms.

    Let those who advocate peace or compromise with the liquidators not confine themselves to propaganda, but prove in deed that unity with the present liquidators is possible.

    For our part, we shall be very glad if we are able to inform the representatives of four-fifths of the workers of Russia gathered at the congress or conference of our Party as to the outcome of the conference between all groups that defend the liquidators, and the liquidationist group.

    14. In conclusion, I must touch upon one other point which, although very unpleasant, cannot be avoided if we are to have a sincere and frank exchange of opinion on the question of Social-Democratic unity in Russia.

    The point is the following:

    In their press, our opponents, the liquidators, are conducting a bitter personal campaign against several members of our Party, accusing them publicly and before the masses, of a host of dishonourable, despicable and criminal actions, or else reporting in their newspaper "rumours" about such actions. Our Party press replies to these attacks and, in the name of the Central Committee of our Party, plainly and definitely calls the liquidators -- and especially their two leaders, Dan and Martov -- slanderers.

    It is not difficult to realise the degree of disorganisation and demoralisation the liquidators are spreading among the masses by this sort of "campaign", to which we shall always

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retaliate on the principle "à corsaire -- corsaire et demi ". We shall briefly quote four examples:

    1. In 1911, L. Martov published in Paris a pamphlet entitled Saviours or Destroyers, devoted in the main to accusations against Lenin of having committed dishonourable and criminal acts. Martov sent a German translation of this pamphlet to Kautsky, who was then acting as arbiter in a controversial question affecting Russian Social-Democracy. In a letter to Lunacharsky (of the Vperyod group) Kautsky described Martov's pamphlet as "disgusting", and this opinion was published in the Russian Social-Democratic press by Plekhanov. The liquidators' newspaper is now beginning, in the form of insinuations, gradually to spread the contents of this pamphlet among the Russian public.

    2. Since 1913 the liquidators' newspaper has been constantly accusing Dansky, a member of our Party and an insurance expert, of dishonesty. The pretext for these accusations is that Dansky works for an employers' organisation, thus serving the bourgeoisie. Our Party, as represented by a number of bodies (the editorial boards of Pravda and Prosveshcheniye, the Russian Social-Democratic Labour group in the Duma, several trade unions, etc.), examined these accusations and found that Dansky had gradually given up working for the employers and was serving the working-class movement, beginning as anonymous contributor to Pravda. When Dansky definitely joined our Party he was requested, in conformity with the resolutions of our Party, to sever all connections with the employers' organisation. Dansky did so and gave up his job. On behalf of the Central Committee, I repeat that our Party regards this man as an honest comrade, and it will not permit anybody to besmirch his honour with impunity. Our press, in accusing the liquidators of slandering Dansky, pointed out that in this case the liquidators were particularly dishonest, because Martov himself constantly writes for a bourgeois newspaper under a different pseudonym (here I will fully reveal the fact: Yegorov, in Kievskaya Mysl ); Yezhov, one of the closest collaborators of the liquidationist newspaper, was on the staff of an employers' association, as was, or is, also the case with Yermansky.

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    3. Malinovsky, a Duma member, suddenly left the Duma and resigned without giving any reason. Our workers called together their local and central leading bodies and sentenced Malinovsky to expulsion from the Party, describing his unexplained resignation without consultation with his colleagues as disruptive, and as desertion from his post. The liquidationist newspaper then began to publish anonymous rumours to the effect that Malinovsky was an agent provocateur, and demanded a joint investigation by the different groups. Our Central Committee declared that it vouched for Malinovsky, had investigated the rumours, and was convinced that Dan and Martov were indulging in base slander. The Central Committee rejected the proposal for a joint commission with the liquidators and, following on the opinion expressed by the representatives of ten trade unions in Moscow, denounced as slanderers those people who dared to publish in the press anonymous "rumours " about agents provocateurs, instead of submitting these rumours in an organised manner to our Central Committee, or to their own Central Committee (their "O.C."), to the Bund and to groups that trust the liquidators, to have them investigated by boards and responsible bodies. Burtsev declared that he did not believe the rumours. The Committee of Investigation set up by our Central Committee declared that it would publish the facts about those who were circulating these rumours. I can only add that these rumours were circulated by the liquidators.

    4. Some days ago the liquidationist newspaper published an open letter from ex-member of the Second Duma Alexinsky, accusing Comrade Antonov, a member of our Party who had served a term of penal servitude, of being a traitor. But Comrade Antonov's conduct was pronounced unimpeachable both by a special committee consisting of comrades who had served sentence with him, as well as by a decision of the Central Committee of the Party adopted in 1907-08 in Finland, when the Mensheviks (i.e., the present liquidators) and all the "national organisations" were represented on the Central Committee. The answer given in our press is again tantamount to accusing Dan and Martov of spreading slander.

    On instructions from the Central Committee, I must submit to the Executive Committee of the International Social-

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ist Bureau the following practical proposal on this matter. We regard the liquidators' procedure as a specific method of political struggle used by people who have been expelled from the Party. We therefore harbour no hope that this matter can be "rectified" with the aid of moral precepts. But when bodies which screen the liquidators (the "O.C." and the Bund, for example, as well as Trotsky), and the numerous groups abroad (including Plekhanov) talk to us about "unity" with these liquidators, we make them the following proposal before the Executive Committee of the International Socialist Bureau:

    let them declare openly and publicly, without equivocation, whether they approve or disapprove of the liquidators' "campaign" on all the four points enumerated (to which we are sure the liquidators will add another 44).

    If they disapprove, let the workers of Russia know it.

    If they approve, let all groups that offer us "unity" or compromise with the liquidators elect a joint commission and formulate a reasoned, business-like, and open charge of dishonest conduct against certain members of our Party. We shall submit this charge to our Party congress and invite representatives of this commission of all groups which defend the liquidators to attend our congress and produce their evidence.

    We deem it our duty to declare that if this is not done, it will strengthen the opinion, already being expressed in the ranks of our Party, that all groups that advocate "unity" with the liquidators are tacitly supporting the slanderers.

    In the name of the majority of the class-conscious workers of Russia, we shall defend the organisation of our Party from the disruptors, and we shall recognise no means of defence other than those we have applied, and which I have enumerated above (not to mention the bourgeois law court, to which we shall resort at the first opportunity).

    The report I have been instructed to make on behalf of the Central Committee of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party is finished. Permit me to sum up in two brief theses:

    Formally, the situation is as follows. Our Party, which was restored at the January 1912 Conference in the teeth of the resistance from the liquidators' group, expelled that group.

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After this, after two-and-a-half years of the movement, the overwhelming majority,of the class-conscious workers of Russia have approved of our Party line. We therefore have every reason to be convinced more firmly than ever that our line is correct, and we shall not depart from it. If the liquidators and the groups defending them want us to rescind the resolution expelling the liquidators from the Party, our Central Committee is prepared to submit a motion to that effect to our Party congress and to support it only on the terms I have mentioned.

    Materially, i.e., in substance, the position is as follows. Russia is passing through a period of bourgeois revolutions, during which small and unstable groups of intellectuals are sometimes inclined to regard themselves as Social-Democrats, or to support the opportunist trend in the Social-Democratic movement, which our Party has been fighting against for the past twenty years (Economism in 1895-1902, Menshevism in 1903-08, and liquidationism in 1908-14). The experience of the August (1912) bloc of liquidators and its break-down have shown that the liquidators and their defenders are absolutely incapable of forming any kind of party or organisation. The genuine workers' Social-Democratic Party of Russia which, in spite of enormous difficulties, has already united eight-tenths of the class-conscious workers (counting only Social-Democrats) or seven-tenths (counting Social-Democrats and Socialist-Revolutionaries) can be built up, and is being built up, only in the struggle against these groups.

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    On the question as to the connection existing between the figures on whether the majority or the minority of workers follow the lead of the Pravdists, or rather, are themselves Pravdists, in Russia, and the question of "unity", it should be noted:

    1. If a party or group definitely and concretely advances a programme or tactics with which our Party cannot agree in principle, then the question of a majority is of course of no significance. If, for example, the Socialist-Revolutionary Party (Left Narodniks), whose programme and tactics differ from ours, were to win over the majority of workers in RussiA, that would not in the least induce us to depart from our line. The same applies to the straightforward and definite repudiation of the "underground" (= illegal Party) in present-day Russia.

    However, certain Social-Democratic groups and some liquidators assert that there are no irreconcilable disagreements on principle between us. We are obliged to point out their inconsistency to these groups and individuals, when they refuse to submit to the majority.

    2. We have been convinced of the correctness of our line on tactics and organisation primarily by our long years of acquaintance with the workers' Social-Democratic movement in Russia, and by our participation in it, as well as by our theoretical Marxist convictions. But we are of the opinion that the practical experience of the mass working-class movement is no less important than theory, and that this experience alone can serve as a serious test of our principles. "Theory, my friend, is grey, but the tree of life is eternally green" (Faust). Therefore, the fact that, after two-and-a-half

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years of struggle against liquidationism and its allies, four-fifths of the class-conscious workers have expressed themselves in favour of Pravdism, strengthens our conviction that our line is correct and makes this conviction unshakable.

    3. In Russia, nearly every group, or "faction" (to use the old terminology), accuses the other of being not a workers' group, but a bourgeois intellectualist group. We consider this accusation or rather argument, this reference to the social significance of a particular group, extremely important in principle. But precisely because we consider it extremely important, we deem it our duty not to make sweeping statements about the social significance of other groups, but to back our statements with objective facts. For the objective facts prove absolutely and irrefutably that Pravdism alone is a workers' trend in Russia, whereas liquidationism and Socialist-Revolutionism are in fact bourgeois intellectualist trends.

    Should an attempt be made (whether by any member of the International Socialist Bureau, or by our opponents) to "dismiss" or set aside the evidence, the objective proofs, that we are the majority, then be sure to ask for the floor so as to make a formal statement on behalf of the entire delegation and enter a formal protest of the following nature:

    We categorically protest against the statement (or hints, inferences, etc.) that our objective evidence as to the side which the overwhelming majority of the class-conscious workers of Russia are supporting, cannot be examined by the Executive Committee on the grounds that it has not verified them (or on the grounds that they are irrelevant to the question of unity). On the contrary, we consider that it is in the indubitable interest of the entire International, and in accordance with the will of the International Socialist Bureau, as clearly expressed in the resolution of the I.S.B. (December 1913), to receive the fullest, most precise, and documented information on the actual state of the working-class movement in Russia.

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    We are of the opinion that our opponents, who are aware of the December decision of the I.S.B., have failed to perform their duty in not yet having independently collected objective data on the working-class movement in Russia.

    We declare that after Comrade Vandervelde's successful visit to Russia, there cannot be the slightest doubt that the Executive Committee of the I.S.B. could, through Comrade Vandervelde, quite legally have addressed an open letter to the editors of all the working-class (or would-be working-class) newspapers in Russia, and to all the members of the executives of all the legal workers' societies in Russia, for the purpose of obtaining from direct sources data showing how the class-conscious workers of Russia are divided into Pravdists, liquidators, Socialist-Revolutionaries (Left Narodniks), and other trends.

    Without such objective data, the subjective statements of the representatives of individual "groups" are entirely worthless.

    Judging from certain fragmentary statements by the liquidators at the Lettish Congress and from hints in the press, one of the fraudulent plans for "unity" they propose is that of a "general congress".

    This plan, whose obvious object is to dupe credulous foreigners, is roughly as follows: either set up a "federated" organising committee for the purpose of convening a general congress, or "supplement" the Central Committee of our Party with representatives of one of the liquidationist organisations for the purpose of convening this congress.

    In whatever the form it is presented, this plan is wholly unacceptable to us, and if it nevertheless comes up at the "conference" in Brussels, our delegation of the Central Committee must declare the following:

    It is absolutely impossible for us to take any step towards a general congress or federation, or even towards the slightest rapprochement, until the liquidators' group complies with the terms we propose. For unless that group fulfils these terms, it will be impossible for us to place the slightest confidence in the liquidators' group which has been expelled

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from the Party, and, in its paper, is daily continuing its disruptive activities.

    If we placed any confidence in this group, it would encourage it to continue its disruptive work. On the basis of decisions of our congresses, conferences and our Central Committee, we demand the cessation of these activities of the liquidators as a canditio sine qua non of "peace".

    The fact that the liquidators are shielded by groups or organisations which have not been formally expelled from the Party (for example, the Bund, or the Caucasian Regional Bureau, or the six deputies, etc.) does not in the least alter the case. As far as work in Russia is concerned, only one thing really matters, i.e., that this group of liquidators and their newspaper advocate flouting the will of the majority.

    Let the Bund, Chkheidze's six deputies and the others -- or the Caucasian Regional Committee, or Trotsky, or the O.C., or anybody else who desires rapprochement with us, first of all induce the liquidators' group to accept our terms, or else emphatically condemn it and break with it. Unless this is done, we cannot take the slightest step that might in any way indicate confidence in the liquidators' group.

    Let those who really want to see Russian Social-Democracy united harbour no illusions and yield to no subjective assurances, promises and the like. There is one and only one way to unity, and that is to induce the minority which has left the illegal Party and is trying to thwart and disrupt its activities and the will of the majority, to abandon its present practices and prove in deed that it is willing to respect the will of the majority.

    No direct or indirect encouragement of the liquidators' group in its present conduct, or attempts to inspire it with hopes of the possibility of "federation", "conciliation", a "general congress","rapprochement", or the like with that group, as long as it continues its present activities and refuses to submit in deed to the will of the majority, will lead to anything. The Party of the Social-Democratic workers in Russia, which unites four-fifths of the class-conscious workers, will not allow its will to be thwarted.

    Let those groups or bodies which "assure" themselves and others that the liquidators are not so bad (the Bund,

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the O.C., the Caucasian Regional Committee) realise that we want not words but deeds. If they trust the liquidators let them organise their own congress with them, submit our terms to that congress, and induce the liquidators to give a favourable reply to these terms and faithfully carry them out. We shall wait and see the results; we shall wait and see their actions ; we shall not believe promises.

    Only after our terms have been faithfully complied with wiII a general congress, and steps towards it, be possible.

    Our foreign socialist comrades are sometimes most sadly mistaken when they think that the cause of unity can be promoted by inspiring the liquidators with the hope that we will agree to co-operate with them even if they do not completely and radically change their conduct, and even if they do not submit to the will of the majority. Objectively, such tactics amount to helping, not the cause of unity, but the splitters.

    Our term~ constitute a draft of a pacte d'unité, and until this pact is signed by the liquidators and until they have carried it out in practice, there can be no talk of taking any steps towards a rapprochement.

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promising to submit the "counter-proposals" of our dear comrades to our congress.

    The most important thing is to emphasise (best of all in a reply) that our "terms" were in the main published long ago by the workers. I am sending Popov the appropriate issues of Pravda.

    What procedure is desirable, from our point of view, for the conference in Brussels?

    First, the reports of all organisations and groups -- this will take up a fairly long time. Then brief comments followed by a formulation of concrete proposals made by all organisations and groups.

    When all the participants at the conference have formulated their concrete proposals, each of them should express his opinion whether he considers these proposals a basis for possible further steps towards a rapprochement or talks on rapprochement, or, if he considers that impossible, he will submit all the proposals to his organisation.

    Clearly, we, in any case, shall not accept the proposals of the liquidators, the Bund, Rosa and Plekhanov (as well as of Kautsky and Vandervelde), and shall submit them to our congress or conference.

    Our task is only to make our terms clear, make a note of "their" terms, and walk out.

    Are not our terms in the nature of an ultimatum? -- we may be asked. They are not. We shall see what counter-proposals are made to us before saying whether we agree to continued talks on this basis or not (we should let everyone have his say, ask everyone for counter-proposals on all questions, and go away. Voilà notre programme !

    Should Polish affairs be kept apart from Russian? I think we ought to be opposed to separation. We shall consult our Polish comrade on this.

    Obviously, people will go out of their way to attack us for our "monstrous" demands. We should calmly refer to the resolutions of our conferences and meetings and the resolutions on unity adopted by the St. Petersburg, Moscow,

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Caucasian and other comrades. I shall send a collection of them. We sum up the opinions of our organisations. If any body chooses to disregard them, that is their business. Nous n'y pouvons rien.