V. I.

Lenin

We have maintained all along that Messrs. Chkheidze and
Co. do not represent the Social-Democratic proletariat and that a
genuine Social-Democratic Labour Party will never be reconciled or united
with this faction. Our contention was based on the following
incontrovertible facts (1) Chkheidze’s “save the country” formula does not in sub stance differ
from defencism; (2) the Chkheidze faction has never opposed Mr. Potresov and Co., not even
when Martov did; (3) the decisive fact: the faction has never opposed participation in the
war industries committees.

Nobody has attempted to deny these facts. Chkheidze’s adherents simply
evade them.

The pressure of facts has increasingly compelled Nashe Slovo
and Trotsky, who reproach us for our “factionalism”, to take up the
struggle against the O.C. and Chkheidze. The trouble, however, is that it
was only “under pressure” (of our criticism and the criticism of the
facts) that the Nashe Slovo supporters retreated from position to
position; but they have not yet said the decisive word. Unity or a
split with the Chkheidze faction? They are still afraid to decide!

No. 1 of the Bulletin of the Bund Committee Abroad (September
1916) contains a letter from Petrograd dated February 26, 1916. It is a
valuable document and fully con firms our view. Its author declares
unequivocally that there is “a definite crisis in the Menshevik camp
itself”, and what is particularly characteristic, he says nothing
about the Mensheviks opposed to participation in the war
industries committees! He has not seen or heard of them in Russia!

Three out of the five members of the Chkheidze faction, he writes, are
opposed to the “defencist position” (like the 0. C.) and two are in favour of it .

“ Those who serve the faction,” he writes, “are unable to shift the
majority from the position it has taken. The local ‘initiating
group’ [2] , which rejects the defencist position, comes to the aid of the
faction majority.”

Those who serve the faction are liberal intellectuals of the type of
Potresov, Maslov, Orthodox [3] and Co., who call themselves Social-Democrats. Our repeated
assertions that this group of intellectuals is a “hotbed” of
opportunism and of liberal-labour politics have now been confirmed by a Bundist .

He writes further: “Life [and not Purishkevich and Guchkov?] has
brought to the fore... a new organ, the workers group, which is more and
more becoming the centre of the labour movement. [The writer means the
Guchkov, or, to use an older term, the Stolypin labour movement; he
recognises no other!] A compromise was reached in the elections to the workers’ group: not defence and self-defence , but salvation of the country , by which something broader was implied .”

This is how a Bundist exposes Chkheidze and Martov’s lies
about him! At the election of the Guchkov gang (Gvozdyov, Breido,
etc.) to the war industries committees, Chkheidze and the 0. C. entered into a compromise . The Chkheidze formula is: a compromise
with the Potresovs and the Gvozdyovs!

Martov concealed and is now concealing this.

The compromise did not end there. The policy statement was also drawn
up on the basis of a compromise, which the Bundist characterises
in this way:

“ Definiteness disappeared .” “The representatives of the
faction majority and of the ‘initiating group’ were dissatisfied because,
after all, the statement is a big step towards formulation of a defencist
position.... In essence, the compromise is the position of German Social-Democracy , in application to Russia .”

So writes a Bundist.

Clear enough, it would seem? There is a party, that of the O.C.,
Chkheidze and Potresov. Within it there are two contending wings; they
come to an agreement , they compromise and remain in one party. The
compromise is concluded on the basis of participation in the war
industries committees. The only point of disagreement is how to formulate
the “motives” (i. e., how to dupe the workers). As a result of the compromise we have,
“in essence, the position of German Social-Democracy”.

Well, were we not right when we said that the O.C. party was
social-chauvinist, that, as a party, the O.C. and Chkheidze were the same
as the Südekums in Germany?

Even a Bundist is compelled to admit their identity with the
Südekums!

Neither Chkheidze and Co., nor the O.C. have ever expressed opposition
to the compromise, although they are “dissatisfied” with it.

That was the position in February 1916. In April 1916, Martov appeared
in Kienthal with a mandate from the “initiating group” to represent the
whole O.C., the O.C. in general .

Is this not deceiving the International?

And see what we have now! Potresov, Maslov and Orthodox establish
their own organ, Dyelo , [4] which is openly defencist: they invite
Plekhanov to contribute; they enlist Messrs. Dmitriev, Cherevanin,
Mayevsky, G. Petrovich, etc., the whole crowd of intellectuals who were
formerly the mainstay of liquidationism. What I said on behalf of the Bolsheviks in May 1910 ( Diskussionny Listok [5] ) about the final consolidation of the
independent-legalists’ group [1] has been fully confirmed.

Dyelo takes up a brazenly chauvinist and reformist position. See how Mme. Orthodox falsifies Marx and by mis-quoting him makes
him appear to be an ally of Hindenburg (all on “philosophical” grounds,
mind you!), how Mr. Masby (especially in Dyelo No. 2) champions
reformism all along the line, how Mr. Potresov accuses Axelrod and Martov
of “maximalism” and anarcho-syndicalism, how the magazine generally tries
to palm off advocacy of defence as the cause of “democracy” while
modestly evading the unpleasant question as to whether or not this
reactionary war is being waged by tsarism for a predatory purpose, for
throttling Galicia, Armenia, etc.

The Chkheidze faction and the O.C. are silent. Skobelev sends greetings
to the “Liebknechts of all countries”. The real Liebknecht has
ruthlessly exposed and condemned his own Scheidemanns and Kautskyites, whereas Skobelev remains in
permanent harmony and friendship with the Russian Scheidemanns (Potresov
and Co., Chkhenkeli, et al. ) and with the Russian Kautskyites
(Axelrod et al. )

On behalf of himself and of his friends abroad, Martov announces in
Golos [6] No. 2 (Samara, September 20, 1916) a refusal to
contribute to Dyelo , but at the same time he whitewashes
Chkheidze; at the same time ( Izvestia No. 6, September 12, 1916) he asserts that he has parted with Trotsky and
Nashe Slovo because of the “Trotsky” idea of repudiating the
bourgeois revolution in Russia. But everybody knows that this is a lie,
that Martov left Nashe Slovo be cause the latter could not
tolerate Martov’s whitewashing of the O.C.! In the same
Izvestia Martov defends his deception of the German public, which even roused the indignation of Roland-Holst. He published a
pamphlet in German from which he omitted the very part of the
Petrograd and Moscow Mensheviks’ policy statement in which they announced
their willingness to participate in the war industries committees! [7]

Recall the controversy between Trotsky and Martov in Nashe Slovo prior to the latter’s resignation from the Editorial
Board. Martov reproached Trotsky for not having made up his mind whether or
not he would follow Kautsky at the decisive moment. Trotsky retorted that
Martov was playing the part of a “bait”, a “decoy”, trying to entice
the revolutionary workers into the opportunist and chauvinist party of the
Potresovs, then the O.C., etc.

Both sides repeated our arguments. And both were right.

However much the truth about Chkheidze and Co. may be concealed, it
will come to light. Chkheidze’s role is to compromise with the Potresovs,
to camouflage opportunist and chauvinist politics by vague or
near-“Left” phrases. And Martov’s role is to whitewash Chkheidze.

---
Notes:
[1]

 — Lenin

[2]

The “ initiating groups ” were formed by the Menshevik liquidators
from the end of 1910 onwards as a counterweight to the illegal Party
organisations. They were meant to be the nuclei of a new, broad legal
party, functioning within the framework of the June 3, Stolypin regime. The
liquidators succeeded in forming “initiating groups” in St. Petersburg,
Moscow, Ekaterinoslav and Konstantinovka (Donets coalfield) in the shape of
small groups of intellectuals dissociated from the working class. In the
First World War they followed a social-chauvinist policy.

[3]

Orthodox —the pen-name of Lyubov Axelrod, a Menshevik.

[4]

Dyelo (The Cause)—a fortnightly Menshevik magazine published in
Moscow from August 1916 to January 1917 under the editorship of
A. N. Potresov, P. P. Maslov and Lyubov Axelrod (Orthodox). Ten issues,
including three double issues, appeared in 1916 and one issue in 1917. The
magazine followed a chauvinist policy.

[5]

Diskussionny Listok (Discussion Bulletin)—a supplement to the
R.S.D.L.P. Central Organ, Sotsial-Demokrat , published in Paris
from March 6 (19), 1910 to April 29 (May 12), 1911. Three issues
appeared. The editorial board was composed of representatives of the
Bolsheviks, Mensheviks, ultimatumists, Bundists, Plekhanovites and of the
Polish and Latvian Social-Democratic organisations.

[6]

Golos (Voice)—a Menshevik social-chauvinist newspaper published
in Samara in 1916, continuer of the Menshevik papers Nash Gales
(Our Voice) and Golos Truda (Voice of Labour). Altogether four
issues appeared.

[7]

Reference is to the Menshevik pamphlet Kriegs und Friedensprobleme der Arbeiterklasse (War and Peace Issues Facing the Working Class), a
reprint of the draft resolutions and Manifesto of the second Zimmerwald
Conference on the tasks of the proletariat in the struggle for peace,
submitted to the Conference by P. Axelrod, S. Lapinsky and L. Martov.