Lomtatidze's letter concerning the struggle between the "six" and the "seven" in the Duma fraction curiously appeared in the liquidationist newspaper alongside a calculation that 3,701 people had spoken in favor of the liquidationists (No. 75, p. 2). We shall defer to another article the verification of this figure, noting only that *Za Pravdu* three days prior to this (No. 26) reported the figure of 5,000, which the opponents have not refuted.

The "seven" is clearly proving once again and again to represent a minority of the workers.

Therefore, Lomtatidze's "strong words" produce an especially awkward impression. To curse, to recall various episodes of old, most embittered struggle, to cry out: "brazenly, absurdly, cynically" and so forth, and so on—all of this is a sign of extreme weakness and impotent irritation.

What remains unrefuted and irrefutable is: 1) that the "six" has behind it the majority of conscious workers; 2) that the "seven" does not recognize the will and decisions of the majority, does not recognize even the guiding body accepted by the majority.

One becomes positively uncomfortable, ashamed for the irritated Lomtatidze, when one reads from him:

"Did they [the six] point to even a single instance when the political Duma statements went counter to the interests of our cause, our slogans, our tradition!"

Lomtatidze's pathos produces a false impression, once we know that not only the "six," but the higher guiding body recognized by it has officially, formally, long ago pointed to at least the violation of the program by the "seven"!

Lomtatidze, through his awkward irritation, through his questions put beside the point, only emphasizes more strongly the genuinely profound essence of the entire conflict—the struggle of the non-party against partisanship. That is the essence. And this is no joke, no trifle, but the most serious and most painful question.

Not everyone who says: "Lord! Lord!" shall enter into the kingdom of heaven. Not everyone who cries out, beating himself upon the breast, about unity and unity, in fact works in favor of unity.

What is the unity of the working class?

It is first of all and chiefly—the unity of its political organization, its whole. Only such unity can ensure genuine unity both of the Duma fraction and of all its statements generally and of the entire struggle of the working class.

It is precisely this unity that has been violated by the liquidationist current, as the formal resolutions of the party have repeatedly acknowledged beginning in 1908. That is the crux of the matter. By evading this, Lomtatidze only reveals his own wrongness.

The "seven" is wholly guilty of the split, because it violated the program, it came out in defense of the liquidationists who were destroying the party, it did not reckon with the formal decisions of the majority, it violates the will of organized workers. There is no other way out but to acknowledge one's guilt, to recognize the "six" as the representatives of the majority, and with them to begin systematic rapprochement through agreement.

*Proletarskaya Pravda* No. 17, December 29, 1913. Signed: V.I.

Published according to the text of the newspaper *Proletarskaya Pravda*