V. I.

Lenin

The long-winded statements and arguments of the seven deputies to the State Duma in defence of liquidationism create a very
strange impression.

All the time the seven discuss solely Duma activities, Social-Democratic activities in the Duma !

Outside of the Taurida Palace nothing of an organised character exists for the seven! “We, the seven of us, decided; we and
Jagiello voted; we appointed speakers; we adopted a declaration”—this is
all one hears from the seven. “We members of the Duma”, “we in the
Duma”—except for this, the seven know and understand nothing.

The seven have already become so thoroughly infected with
liquidationist views that they have ceased to understand the ABC of
Marxism.

According to Marxist standards, deputies to the Duma should
not carry out their own will, but the will of the Marxist
organisation, not their own decisions, but those of the Marxist
body as a whole, not their own , but its tactics. It is a shame and
a disgrace that this ABC of Marxism should have to be explained to Duma
deputies! What a pass their inclinations towards the liquidators must have
brought them to if they dare to act as non-Party people, as subverters of
the proletarian political organisation!

The seven pro-liquidators dare not even ask “where is the
Marxist organisation?”

And yet, this is the crux of the whole question.

All appeals for unity are sheer hypocrisy if those who make them evade
the question of the single will, the single decisions and
single tactics of the majority of the advanced and class-conscious workers of Russia organised on a Marxist basis.

Za Pravdu long ago indicated the criteria by which the Marxist
will of the majority of the workers, opposition to which means splits,
disorganisation and disruption can (and must) be judged.

These criteria are:
(1) the elections to the Fourth Duma in the worker curia;
(2) the case of the workers’ newspapers; (3) the trade unions. In Europe they add to these what is the most
important—the number of openly registered members of political
parties. Everybody will understand that data of the latter kind cannot be
obtained in Russia; they are partly compensated for by common decisions , which every honest worker regards as binding.

The liquidators and the seven do not say a word about this,
not a word about the characteristics of the Marxist organisation, about its
decisions and its tactics! The liquidators and the seven want “unity”,
that is, they want the six workers’ deputies to submit to the seven non-Party deputies; that is, they want to flout the will of the Marxist body as a whole .

The liquidators and the seven want the Social-Democratic Duma group to
act on its own according to its own sweet will, in isolation from and opposed to this body as a whole. And this disgraceful, disruptive
demand they call a demand for unity.

The appeals for unity made by the seven remind one of a well-known
quip: the seven want to “unite” with the six in the same way as a man
“unites” with a piece of bread. He swallows it.

The seven non-Party men want to swallow the six Marxists; and they
demand that this should be called “unity”.

The destruction of the Marxist organisation by the seven deputies who
have alienated themselves from the majority of the workers, by the
seven pro-liquidator deputies, by the seven who have forgotten
that in the Duma they are only the vehicles of the will of the
majority of the workers—this is what the liquidators and the seven
deputies are aiming at!

The working class protests against this astounding, disruptive
behaviour of the arrogant enemies of working-class organisation, and
emphatically demands subordination in Duma activities as in all else .

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