A certain Gr. Golosov has taken mortal offence at my having described Chkheidze in *Prosveshcheniye* as an “okolopartiiny Social-Democrat”[10].

Gr. Golosov storms and rages, swears with all his might, piles up exclamation and question marks. But the angrier Gr. Golosov gets, the more obvious it becomes that he is covering up the lack of proofs with angry exclamations.

I called Chkheidze near-Party. It would not have been difficult for Golosov to guess that he could have refuted me by proving Chkheidze’s Party-mindedness.

I pointed out the fact that at the most critical moment in the history of the Social-Democratic Duma group (as well as in the history of the party’s revival) Chkheidze “stood aside.” When the liquidator and anti-liquidator press was taking shape (1911 and early 1912), Chkheidze was neither here nor there.

Does my angry opponent refute this precisely indicated fact?

No. Angry Gr. Golosov does not refute, cannot refute this fact. He is angry but not strong, poor Golosov! He timidly avoids the fact proving that Chkheidze’s conduct (despite his oratorical talent and parliamentary experience) was that of a near-Party man.

If angry Gr. Golosov knew how to think, he would understand that the mark of a Party man is the most energetic, direct, open participation in the affairs of his party (and not only of its Duma faction). The formation of the liquidator and anti-liquidator press was a most important moment in the recent history of Marxism as a whole. Consequently, I have irrefutably proved Chkheidze’s near-Party character.

Gr. Golosov exclaims with a kind of hysterical spite: “The party is where V. Ilyin and Gr. Zinoviev sit.”

Good Golosov here raises upon his own head a most interesting and important question: where is the party? And if Gr. Golosov himself is incapable of thinking, all the workers have thought and are thinking about it.

The party is where the majority of conscious Marxist workers who participate in political life are to be found.

Gr. Golosov gets hysterically angry precisely because he feels his impotence to refute this simple truth.

The elections to the Fourth Duma, the history of the emergence and growth of *Pravda*, the elections to the board of the Metalworkers’ Union, the insurance campaign, and the workers’ resolutions in support of the six worker deputies—all this has proved that the party is on the side of the six, on the side of their line.

Their slogans have been accepted and verified by the mass action of the workers in all fields of the working-class movement.

Angry Golosov is angry precisely because he is powerless to refute the precise, obvious, indisputable facts about the victory of the Marxists over the liquidators in the elections, in the trade unions, in the work of creating daily newspapers, and in the insurance campaign.

Those against whom all the facts are arrayed have nothing left but “heart” and hysterics.

The party is where the majority of workers have rallied around party decisions that give integral, systematic, precise answers to the most important questions. The party is where the majority of conscious workers are united by the unity of these decisions and by the common will to carry them out conscientiously in life.

By defending Chkheidze’s (and the seven’s) “right” to violate these decisions, this will of the working class, Gr. Golosov, like all liquidators, is destroying the Marxist organisation in favour of non-Party-ness.

There is no doubt that the workers will continue to support the position of their six deputies as against the near-Party position of the seven.

*Za Pravdu* No. 12, October 17, 1913. Signature: V. Ilyin

Published according to the text of the newspaper *Za Pravdu*