V. I.

Lenin

Three issues of the journal Borba , which declares itself to to “non-factional”, have already appeared in
St. Petersburg. The journal’s main line is to advocate unity.

Unity with whom? With the liquidators .

The latest issue of Borba contains two articles in defence
of unity with the liquidators .

The first article is by the well-known liquidator Y. Larin, the same
Larin who recently wrote in one of the liquidationist journals:

“ The path of capitalist development will be cleared of
absolutist survivals without any revolution.... The immediate task is
... to imbue wide circles with the leading idea that in the coming period
the working class must organise, not ‘for revolution’, not ‘in anticipation
of revolution’....”

Writing in Borba , this same liquidator now urges unity and
proposes that it should take the form of federation .

Federation implies agreement between organisations enjoying equal
rights. Thus, in the matter of determining the tactics of the working
class, Larin proposes placing the will of the overwhelming majority of the
workers, who stand for the “uncurtailed slogans”, on an equal
footing with the will of negligible groups of liquidators, whose views
coincide more or less with the passage just quoted above. According to the
subtle plan of the liquidator Larin, the majority of the workers are to be
deprived of the right to take any step until they obtain the consent of the
liquidators of Severnaya Rabochaya Gazeta .

The workers have rejected the liquidators, but now, according to the
plan of the liquidator Larin, the latter are to regain a leading position
by means of federation. Thus, the federation proposed by Larin is simply a
new

attempt to impose on the workers the will of the liquidators whom the
working-class movement has rejected. The liquidators reason as follows: we
were not allowed to come in by the door, so we will steal in by the window,
and call “unity through federation” that which is actually a violation of
the will of the majority of the workers.

The editors of Borba disagree with Larin. Federation, i.e.,
gradual agreement between the liquidators and the Marxists as equal parties , does not satisfy them.

It is not agreement with the liquidators they want, but a new
amalgamation with them “on the basis of common decisions on tactics”,
which means that the overwhelming majority of the workers, who have rallied
to the tactical line of Put Pravdy , must abandon their
own decisions for the sake of common tactics with the liquidators .

In the opinion of Borba’s editors, the tactics developed by
the class-conscious workers, which have stood the test of experience of the
entire movement during the past few years, must be set aside. Why? So as to
make room for the tactical plans of the liquidators, for views that have
been condemned both by the workers and by the whole course of events.

Utter defiance of the will, the decisions and the views of the
class-conscious workers is at the bottom of the idea of unity with the
liquidators which the editors of Borba propose.

The will of the workers has been clearly and definitely
expressed. Anyone who has not taken leave of his senses can say exactly
which tactics the overwhelming majority of the workers sympathise with. But
along comes the liquidator Larin and says: the will of the majority of the
workers is nothing to me. Let this majority get out of the way and agree
that the will of a group of liquidators is equal to the will of the
majority of the class-conscious workers.

After the liquidator comes a conciliator from Borba , who says:
the workers have devised definite tactics for themselves and are striving
to apply them? That means nothing at all. Let them abandon these tested
tactics for the sake of common tactical decisions with the liquidators .

And the conciliators from Borba describe as unity this violation of the clearly expressed will of the majority of the workers, a violation designed to secure equality for the liquidators.

This, however, is not unity, but a flouting of unity, a flouting of the
will of the workers.

This is not what the Marxist workers mean by unity.

There can be no unity, federal or other, with liberal-labour
politicians, with disruptors of the working-class movement, with those who
defy the will of the majority. There can and must be unity among all
consistent Marxists, among all those who stand for the entire Marxist body
and for the uncurtailed slogans, independently of the liquidators and apart
from them.

Unity is a great thing and a great slogan. But what the workers’ cause
needs is the unity of Marxists , not unity between Marxists, and
opponents and distorters of Marxism.

And we must ask everyone who talks about unity: unity with whom? With
the liquidators? If so, we have nothing to do with each other.

But if it is a question of genuine Marxist unity, we shall say: Ever
since the Pravdist newspapers appeared we hive been calling for the unity
of all the forces of Marxism, for unity from below, for unity in practical
activities.

No flirting with the liquidators, no diplomatic negotiations with
groups of wreckers of the corporate body; concentrate all efforts on
rallying the Marxist workers around the Marxist slogans, around the entire
Marxist body. The class-conscious workers will regard as a crime any
attempt to impose upon them the will of the liquidators; they will also
regard as a crime the fragmentation of the forces of the genuine Marxists.

For the basis of unity is class discipline, recognition of the will of
the majority, and concerted activities in the ranks of, and in step with,
that majority. We shall never tire of calling all the workers towards this
unity, this discipline, and these concerted activities.

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