Collected Works of V. I. Lenin - Vol. 26 - From Marx to Mao

ULTIMATUM FROM THE C.C. MAJORITY281Thus, at yesterday’s meeting of the Central ExecutiveCommittee, the Bolshevik group, with the direct participationof the Central Committee’s minority members, openlyvoted against a decision of the Central Committee (on thenumber and persons of the representatives of our Party inthe government). This unparalleled violation of discipline,committed by Central Committee member’s behind the backof the Central Committee after many hours’ discussions onthe Central Committee, discussions provoked by these samemembers of the opposition, makes it obvious to us that theopposition intend to force the hand of Party institutionsby sabotaging the Party’s work at a moment when the fateof the Party, the fate of the revolution, depends upon theimmediate result of this work.We cannot and do not wish to bear responsibility forsuch a state of affairs.Addressing the present statement to the minority of theCentral Committee, we categorically demand a writtenreply to the question: Does the minority undertake to submitto Party discipline and to carry out the policy formulatedin Comrade Lenin’s resolution which was adopted by theCentral Committee?In the event of a negative or indefinite reply to thisquestion we shall immediately place before the PetrogradCommittee, the Moscow Committee, the Bolshevik group onthe Central Executive Committee, the Petrograd CityConference and the Extraordinary Party Congress, the followingalternative proposal:Either the Party must entrust the present oppositionwith the task of forming a new government in conjunctionwith those of its allies on whose behalf the opposition is atpresent sabotaging our work—in which case we shallconsider ourselves absolutely free in relation to this newgovernment, which can contribute nothing but wavering,impotence and chaos.Or—which we do not doubt—the Party will endorse theonly possible revolutionary line, as expressed in yesterday’sdecision of the Central Committee—in which case the Partymust categorically demand that the members of the oppositionconduct their disorganising work outside our Partyorganisation. There is not and cannot be any other solution.