V. I.

Lenin

The political ignorance of the people of Russia is to be
seen, in part, in their inability to look for exact proofs concerning
controversial and important historical questions, and in the na\"ive
credence they give to shouting and expostulation, and to the assurances and
vows made by people with interests at stake.

The question of liquidationism is confused precisely be cause the
people with interests at stake (i.e., the liquidators themselves) are not
too lazy to make assurances and vows, while the “public” are too lazy to
look for exact proofs.

What is the substance of the matter? It is the attitude to the
revolution and to the underground, the effort to create a mass
working-class movement.

Well, are there no exact proofs to offer on the factual aspect of these
issues?

Of course, there are. One has only to get out of the habit of taking on
trust what the loud-mouthed and the liberals say.

The “issue” of the underground. Should not those who are interested
in this question ask: “ Who works in the underground?
Who belongs to the underground organisations?” Is it not clear
that underground organisations that do not make their presence felt are
nothing, are a deception?

In St. Petersburg there are two newspapers—one is anti liquidationist, the other is the liquidationist Luch , “also
Social-Democratic”. In other cities there are not yet any working-class
newspapers.

Should it not be assumed that the liquidators are stronger in
St. Petersburg than elsewhere? But who works in the Party in
St. Petersburg?

Take the evidence of the bourgeois press. You will find there the news
that leaflets were distributed by the St. Petersburg Committee
before January 9, and on the occasion of the Tercentenary of the Romanovs,
and on the eve of April 4 and on the eve of May Day.

Have you any reason to doubt the bourgeois press on such a question of
fact?

No sensible person would risk expressing such doubt. And anyone who is
at all close to the Social-Democratic movement will have seen the
St. Petersburg Committee’s leaflets.

Not a single newspaper mentioned any leaflets issued by the
liquidators’ “initiative group” in St. Petersburg in connection with
these dates that are famous for the great revolutionary acts of the
proletarian masses in St. Petersburg.

And no matter how the Luch people may “vow” that they are
“also Social-Democrats”, “also for the underground”, and that the
“Leninists” and Plekhanov are wrong in “harassing” them, etc., we shall
not stop pointing to facts that disprove the fables and lies told
by Luch .

Find us a bourgeois newspaper that reported the appearance of leaflets
issued by the liquidators in St. Petersburg on the eve of January 9, on the
eve of April 4, or on the eve of May Day. There is none. There were no leaflets . The liquidators are not working in the underground. It is
not the liquidators who constitute the underground organisations
of the Party. There are no liquidators on the St. Petersburg Committee. The
liquidators are outside the Party because there is no other Party but that of the underground, and no other organisation in
St. Petersburg except the one led by the St. Petersburg Committee.

We have deliberately avoided mentioning the leaflets of the Central
Committee and the Organising
Committee, [2] because it is difficult to prove that they are
distributed locally, while from the Organising Committee for almost a whole
year we have seen only the Vienna May Day leaflet, which has
nothing to do with work in St. Petersburg or in Russia.

The liquidators evade direct answers to the question of “the
underground” because they are not there . Oath-taking and vows, shouts and curses will not disprove that fact.

Trotsky, doing faithful service to liquidators, assured himself and the
na\"ive “Europeans” (lovers of Asiatic scandal-mongering) that the
liquidators are “stronger” in the legal movement. And this lie, too, is
refuted by the facts .

Take the Duma elections. In the Second Duma the Bolsheviks had 47
per cent of the worker curia; in the Third they had 50 per cent and in the
Fourth, 67 per cent. Should these facts be believed, or should one believe
Trotsky and the liquidators?

Take the working-class press. In 1912 the anti-liquidationist newspaper
comes into being at a much earlier date and is supported by a considerably
greater number of workers’ groups (according to the published data on
collections). There were 620 workers’ groups for Pravda and 89 for
Luch .

1913. Party people are already collecting funds for two newspapers, the
liquidators have a deficit and their one newspaper lives on foreign and
undefined (bourgeois) support. Pravda is supported by 402 workers’
groups, a Moscow workers’ paper of the same trend by 172 workers’ groups,
and Luch by 167 workers’ groups.

Should one believe these facts or the vows made by Luch ,
Trotsky, F. D. & Co.?

The Metalworkers’ Union in St. Petersburg. At the first open
election where platforms [3] were put forward, ten out of the fourteen were
Pravda supporters. In the same way as a thief, caught red-handed,
shouts “Stop thief!” so the liquidators are shouting “Beware of a
split!”

In May 1910 the liquidators were told publicly and clearly
( Diskussionny Listok
No. 2 [4] ) that they were legalist-independents who had seceded from the
=

Party. [1]

Since then three years have passed and only people who are
completely wrapped up in their own lies, or who are absolutely ignorant,
could deny the facts that fully confirm those words.

The liquidators are parasites on the Social-Democratic organism. To
“Europe” (the Organising Committee’s German pamphlet and Mr. Semkovsky in
=

Kampf [5] ) they boast of strikes, but in Russia they write
disgusting articles in Luch against strikes, about the “strike craze” and about the
“syndicalism” of revolutionary strikes. To Europe (and to naive An, also)
they claim to be in favour of the underground. Actually ,
there are none of them in the underground. Powerless in the working class,
they are strong in the moral (and, of course, not only moral)
support they receive from the bourgeoisie. One has to be as na\"ive as An,
whom the Luch editors laugh at as they would at a little child
(No. 95), to recognise the slogan of an “open party” while defending the
under ground! That means surrendering the content to the
liquidators and fighting them over the form ! Let An ponder over
whether the complete acceptance of the “open party” slogan by a
bourgeoisie hostile to the underground is fortuitous!

The “open party” slogan is the slogan of reformism , a slogan
that means—given the present alignment of class and political forces in
Russia—rejection of the revolution. The slogan of the underground is the slogan of revolution.

The bourgeoisie cannot influence the workers directly in
contemporary Russia. As a result of 1905 the workers jeer at the
bourgeoisie and its liberalism. The word “Cadet” has become an
expletive. And so the role of the bourgeoisie among the workers is played
by the liquidators. Their objective significance is that they are the
vehicle of bourgeois influence, bourgeois reformism and bourgeois
opportunism.

All F.D.’s articles in Luch , all the tactical premises of the
liquidators are based on reformism, on rejection of the revolution. You
have not proved the inevitability of revolution—such is the liquidator’s
usual answer. Your “forecast” of the revolution is one-sided—trills
Mr. Semkovsky, playing up to the liquidators.

That can be answered in a few words. The onset of the revolution,
Messrs. Liberals, can be demonstrated only by the onset of the
revolution. And when the revolution begins, both cowardly liberals and even
purely casual people and adventurists are capable of becoming
“revolutionaries”. October and November 1905 proved this to the hilt.

A revolutionary is not one who becomes revolutionary with the onset of
the revolution, but one who defends the principles and slogans of the
revolution when reaction is most violent and when liberals and democrats
vacillate to the greatest degree. A revolutionary is one who teaches the masses
to struggle in a revolutionary manner and nobody can possibly foresee (make
a “forecast” of) the results of that “teaching”.

The situation in Russia is a revolutionary one. The proletariat, with
whom only anti-liquidators co-operate and march in step, is
training the masses for revolution, is preparing the revolution ,
and is using any and every legal possibility for it . In the matter
of preparing the revolution, or, which is the same thing, in the matter of
the consistent democratic education of the masses, in the matter of
fulfilment of our socialist duty (since outside of democracy there
is no socialism), the revolutionary Social-Democrats are making a
positive contribution, while the liquidators’ contribution is
negative .

True Social-Democratic work is possible in Russia only when conducted
against reformism, against the liquidators.