Date: 1910-04-11
Source: ru:PSS/v47

To A. Maks—

11. IV. 10.

Dear A. M.! Only today was I able to receive your and M. F.'s letter, sent via M. S. Botkin. To avoid forgetting: you can write to me at my personal address (Oulianoff. 4. Rue Marie Rose. 4. Paris. XIV) or to the party's address—then it is safer in two envelopes, and on the inner one: personal for Lenin (110. Avenue d'Orleans. Mr. Kotliarenko. Paris. XIV).

I will try to send you the requested publications tomorrow.

Did I criticize you and where? It must have been in "Discussion Bulletin" No. 1 (published with the Central Organ)***. I am sending it. If those who informed you meant something else, then I do not recall anything else at the moment.

__________

* See the previous letter. Ed.

** The letter is also signed by G. E. Zinoviev. Ed.

*** See V. I. Lenin's article "Notes of a Publicist," section I "On the 'Platform' of the Supporters and Defenders of Recallism" (Collected Works, 5th ed., vol. 19, pp. 241-252). Ed.

TO A. M. GORKY. APRIL 11, 1910. 249

Now, regarding unification. You ask whether it is a fact or an anecdote. This will require a long explanation, as there is both something "anecdotal" (mostly trivial) and serious, in my opinion, in this matter.

Serious and profound factors lead and are leading to party unification: the necessity to cleanse social democracy from liquidationism and recallism in the ideological sphere; the extremely difficult position of the party and all social-democratic work, and the maturation of a new type of social-democratic worker in the practical sphere.

At the plenum of the Central Committee (the "long plenum"—three weeks of torment, all nerves were frayed, a thousand devils!) to these serious and profound factors, recognized by far not everyone, were added minor, petty factors, a mood of "general reconciliation" (without a clear idea of with whom, to what, how), hatred towards the Bolshevik Center for its relentless ideological struggle, bickering and a desire to cause a scandal among the Mensheviks—and a child with boils was born.

Now we are suffering. Either—on a good end—we will open the boils, let out the pus, cure the child, and raise it.

Or—on a bad end—the child will die. Then we will live for some time childless (i.e., we will re-establish the Bolshevik faction), and then we will give birth to a healthier infant.

Among the Mensheviks, those moving towards serious unification (not fully consciously, slowly, wavering, but they are moving and, most importantly, cannot help but move) are the Plekhanovites, the party members, and the workers. But the Golosoviki are waffling, confusing, and fouling things up. They are forming a strong, legal, opportunist center in Russia (Potresov and Co. in literature: see "Our Dawn" No. 2—what a scoundrel Potresov is!—and Mikhail, Roman, Yuri + 16 authors of the "Open Letter" in No. 19/20 of "Golos"—in practical, organizational work).

250 V. I. LENIN

The plenum of the Central Committee wanted to unite everyone. Now the Golosoviki are falling away. This boil must be removed. Without bickering, scandals, torment, filth, and "scum," this cannot be done.

We are currently sitting in the midst of this bickering. Either the Russian Central Committee will cut off the Golosoviki, removing them from important institutions (like the Central Organ, etc.), or we will have to re-establish the faction.

Plekhanov, in No. 11 of the "Diary," gave such an assessment of the plenum that it clearly showed that his sincere and serious desire to fight opportunism now prevails over the petty and trivial desire to use the opportunists, the Golosoviki, against the Bolsheviks. Here, too, a complex tangle is going on, but the formed legalist, liquidationist center of the Mensheviks in Russia inevitably leads to their repulsion from serious social democrats.

Now, about the "Vperedovtsy." For a while, it seemed to me that within this group, there were two currents: towards the party, towards Marxism, towards renouncing Machism and recallism, and the opposite. Party unification would open the way for a convenient, not awkward, party path to correcting the obvious absurdities of recallism, etc. But the second current, apparently, is gaining the upper hand. Alexinsky (a complete child in politics, but an enraged and perpetually foolish child) left the editorial board of the "Discussion Bulletin" and the party school commission in a scandal. They will likely set up their own school again, once more factional, once more off to the side. If this happens, we will fight again, and win back the workers from them.

So, it turns out that the "anecdotal" aspect of unification now predominates, comes to the fore, and provides an occasion for giggles, laughter, and so on. It is said that the SR Chernov even wrote a vaudeville about the unification of the SDs, titled "A Storm in a Teacup," and that this vaudeville will be performed here soon in one of the (sensation-seeking) groups of the emigrant colony.

Sitting in the midst of this "anecdotal" situation, this bickering and scandal, torment, and "scum," is nauseating; observing all this is also nauseating. But it is impermissible to give in to such a mood. Emigration is now 100 times harder than it was before the revolution. Emigration and bickering are inseparable.

But the bickering will fall away; the bickering remains 9/10 abroad; bickering is an accessory. The development of the party, the development of the SD movement, is moving forward through all the devilish difficulties of the present situation. The cleansing of the SD party from its dangerous "deviations," from liquidationism and recallism, is moving forward inexorably; within the framework of unification, it has moved significantly further than before. With recallism, we had essentially finished ideologically even before the plenum. With liquidationism, we did not finish then, the Mensheviks managed to hide the snake for a while, but now it has been brought into the light, now everyone sees it, now we will destroy it and will destroy it!

And this cleansing is not just an "ideological" task, not just "literature," as the fool (or swindler) Potresov thinks, who defends the Machists just as the Mensheviks defended the "Vperedovtsy" at the plenum. No, this cleansing is inextricably linked with the very core of the workers' movement, which is learning to set up SD work in the present difficult times, precisely through negation, through negating liquidationism and recallism, it is finding its way. Only the windbag Trotsky imagines that this negation can be bypassed, that it is unnecessary, that it does not concern the workers, that the questions of liquidationism and recallism are raised not by life, but by the press of malicious polemicists.

I can imagine how hard it is to observe this difficult growth of the new SD movement for those who did not see and did not experience the difficult growth of the late 1880s and early 1890s. Back then, there were tens, if not units, of such SDs. Now—hundreds and thousands. Hence, the crises and crises. And social democracy as a whole is openly and honestly overcoming them.

I shake your hand firmly. Yours, Lenin

Sent from Paris to Capri Island (Italy)

First published in 1924 in the Lenin Collection I

Published from the manuscript

252 V. I. LENIN