The representatives of the Central Committee in the Party Council consider it their duty to record a dissenting opinion on Comrade Plekhanov’s resolution.
The representatives of the Central Committee are profoundly convinced that, far from putting an end to the Party dissensions, which actually mean a complete split in the Party organisation, this resolution will, on the contrary, inflame and aggravate them still further, make them chronic, and further disrupt the Party’s positive work.
This resolution is, essentially, nothing but an expression of the wish of the Party Congress minority to alter the personal composition of the Central Committee, ignoring the contrary wish of the Party Congress majority.
This resolution, as we are firmly convinced, is essentially a continuation within the Council of the policy pursued by the opposition ever since the Party Congress; and that policy has been one of boycott, disruption and anarchy, with the aim of altering the composition of the Party’s central bodies by methods which do not conform in any degree to the standards of normal Party life, and which have now been condemned, too, by revolutionary public opinion as expressed in resolutions by the majority of the committees.
This resolution expresses the wish that the Central Committee should again enter into negotiations with the opposition. Negotiations have already been going on for over five months, causing complete demoralisation in the Party’s ranks. The Central Committee has already stated that it said its last word when it consented, as far back as November 25,1903, to the co-optation of two in token of comradely confidence.
The negotiations have already entailed a tremendous expenditure of funds for travelling and an even more serious expenditure of the time and energy of revolutionaries, who have been diverted from their work.
The representatives of the Central Committee do not feel justified in again renewing these interminable negotiations, which produce fresh dissatisfaction on both sides and fresh contention over posts, hampering positive work in the most appalling way.
We most earnestly draw attention to the fact that such negotiations involve a complete interruption of the normal course of Party life.
We declare that the Central Committee lays the entire responsibility for these interruptions at the door of the minority.
We declare that we positively and absolutely fail to see any other honest and proper solution to the present dissensions in the Party, any other way of terminating this unpardonable struggle over the composition of the central bodies, than by the immediate convening of a Party Congress.
At the same time we feel that, now that Comrade Plekhanov’s resolution has been adopted, our own earlier resolution has in effect been nullified and has become quite pointless, for which reason we withdraw it.
Council members
N. Lenin
F. Vasilyev
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