Comrade Martov espies the danger of a coup on our part. That is comical. (Martov: “What about the ultimatum?") The Central Committee’s “ultimatum” was a reply to Starover’s ultimatum.[1] The ultimatum is our last word on conditions for peace and good will that we could accept. That is all. Only a diseased imagination could discover schemes for a coup in our reply to the minority, who have, unquestionably, brought the Party to the point of a split. The majority have no need to contemplate a coup. As regards the distribution of Iskra, all issues of the paper have, as far as possible, been distributed regularly, and had any committee deemed itself “forgotten” in this respect, it would only have needed to inform the Central Committee in a comradely way. We have up to the present received no such notifications. And the editorial board’s letter to the commit tees is not a comradely action, but an act of war.
The Central Committee is of the opinion that the work of literature distribution must be carried on from a single source and that a second distribution centre is unnecessary and harmful. Now a few words about the distribution secretary. I repeat that he became a target for attack only because he wanted to do his job conscientiously and addressed a business inquiry to the editorial board. And the editorial board’s peremptory answer— ’Don’t dare talk!" “Send along 100 or 200 copies!", etc.—bears all the earmarks of a bureaucratic approach in its purest form.
On the subject of addresses I shall only say that every thing that belongs to the editorial board has been handed over to it. Only personal and organisational correspondence has been sorted out, and all the rest turned over to the editors. I might also remind you that already in the London days the Organising Committee officially took all the organisational correspondence into its own hands.
To speak of there being a new centre because some members of the Central Committee are here abroad is a patent quibble and bureaucratic meddling in matters which are the Central Committee’s independent concern.
[1] Starover’s ultimatum—Potresov’s letter to Plekhanov of October 21 (November 3), 1903. In this letter Potresov, speaking for the Menshevik opposition, demanded to have the old editorial board of Is/era reinstated, Mensheviks co-opted to the Central Committee and the Party Council, and the decisions of the Congress of the League Abroad recognised as lawful.
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