Gentlemen liquidators persist in defending the Octoberist paragraph that somehow “found its way” into their bill on liberties. This is Paragraph 5, a narrowly crafted provision that restricts freedom of coalition by stating that workers’ actions are not punishable “since they do not, in and of themselves, constitute a criminally punishable offense.”

The reactionary nature of this paragraph is plain to see. It is clear that genuine Social Democrats, had they been called upon to address this quibbling provision, would have said the opposite—that is, they would have either argued that, in connection with a strike undertaken in order to aid oppressed comrades, the acts committed are not punishable, or at the very least that their punishability ought to be mitigated.

It is obvious that the liquidators will have to strike this reactionary paragraph from their draft: the workers will compel them to do so.

And yet, instead of straightforwardly admitting their error, the liquidators—led by Burenin–Gammá—spin and dodge, resorting to petty lies. Mr. Gorsky assures us in the “New Liquidator Gazette”{81} that at overseas conferences (three or four years ago){82}, “with the close participation of N. Lenin,” similar articles were adopted into the bill on strikes.

All of this is sheer falsehood.

At the overseas conferences, work was organized such that subcommittees drafted proposals, while the main committee discussed certain fundamental issues. Lenin did not participate at all in the subcommittee on strikes (he was a member of the subcommittee on the eight-hour working day). And in the main committee, Lenin spoke out against every single clause that sought to permit or even recognize criminal liability for strike-related offenses!!

Mr. Gorsky seeks to pin some draft proposed by Mr. F. D. (a former member of the subcommittee on strikes!) onto Lenin. But you won’t succeed, gentlemen.

Mr. Burenin–Gammá has employed yet another poor argument in defense of a bad cause.

“Social Democrats,” he wrote, “must conduct their class struggle within certain limits—not out of respect for ‘bourgeois legality,’ but out of respect for the moral and legal consciousness of the broad popular masses.”

What a line worthy of a philistine!

Within certain limits, Mr. Liquidator, we wage our class struggle according to considerations of expediency, avoiding anything that might, under certain conditions, disrupt our ranks or ease the pressure exerted upon us by the enemy—at a time when such measures would benefit only the opposing side, and so forth. Unable to grasp these real, practical reasons, the liquidator plunges headlong into the quagmire of opportunism. What, after all, are the broad popular masses? They are underdeveloped proletarians and petty bourgeois, steeped in petty-bourgeois, nationalist, reactionary, clerical, and other such prejudices—and more besides.

How, then, can we “respect” the “moral and legal consciousness” of, say, anti-Semitism—which, as is well known, often proved to be the dominant trait even in the minds of the “broad popular masses,” at least in Vienna, a city far more cultured than many Russian cities?

The “moral and legal consciousness” of the broad petty-bourgeois masses might condemn, for example, a blow struck at a strikebreaker in the heat of a strike waged in defense of higher wages amid starvation-level pay. We will not preach violence in such cases, for it is counterproductive from the standpoint of our struggle. But we will not “respect” such petty-bourgeois consciousness—we will relentlessly combat it by all means of persuasion, propaganda, and agitation.

Mr. Burenin–Gammá’s call for “respect” for the moral and legal consciousness of the broad popular masses is, in essence, a philistine’s call to respect petty-bourgeois prejudices.

Yet another piece of evidence—added to the thousand others—of the philistinism of the liquidator gentlemen.

“Proletarian Truth,” No. 1, December 7, 1913

Printed according to the text of the newspaper “Proletarian Truth.”