I should like to make a remark. It would be wrong, it is claimed, to make the question of the Bund the first item on the agenda, since the reports should be the first item, the programme the second, and the Bund the third. The arguments in favour of this order will not stand criticism. They amount to the presumption that the Party as a whole has not yet reached agreement on the programme, and that it is possible that precisely on this question we may part company. I am surprised at that. It is true that we have not yet adopted a programme, but the surmise that a rupture may take place over the programme is conjectural in the highest degree. No such tendencies have been discernible in the Party, at least as far as its literature is concerned, which of late has given the fullest reflection of Party opinion. There are both formal and moral reasons for making the question of the Bund the first item on the agenda. Formally, we stand by the Manifesto of 1898, but the Bund has expressed a desire for a radical change in our Party’s organisation. Morally, many other organisations have expressed their disagreement with the Bund over this question; that has caused sharp differences leading even to polemics. The Congress therefore cannot begin harmonious work until these differences have been removed. As to the delegates’ reports, it is possible that they may not be heard in pleno at all. I therefore second the agenda in the order approved by the Organising Committee.
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