Date: 1910
Source: ru:PSS/v32

“The Workers’ Gazette,” the organ of the Menshevik ministerialists, attempts to needle us by claiming that in 1911 the Okhrana arrested the Bolshevik conciliator Rykov in order to “grant freedom of action” to the Bolsheviks of our party “on the eve of the elections to the Fourth Duma” (this is expressly stated by “The Workers’ Gazette”).

What, then, does this fact prove? It proves that the Okhrana was clearing the field for the election to the Duma of Malinovsky, who turned out to be a provocateur. Naturally, the Okhrana took great care to protect its own provocateurs.

Does this constitute a reproach to our party? No—just as honest people do not reproach Chernov and his colleagues for their misguided defense of Azeff, nor do they reproach Ionov (a Bundist, a fellow contributor to “The Workers’ Gazette”) and his associates for their 1910 defense, on behalf of the united Central Committee, of the provocateur Zhitomirsky (“Otsov”), nor do they reproach those Mensheviks who, for a time in 1904, sought to shield the provocateur Dobroslakov, nor do they reproach those Kadets among whom, too, there have since been exposed provocateurs.

Mistakes in failing to recognize provocateurs have been made by all parties without exception. That is a fact. And if “The Workers’ Gazette,” while aligning itself with Minister Chernov, chooses not to recall his past errors but instead speaks only of the mistakes of its present opponents, then this is clearly an unfair, indeed a shameless, tactic. The blow that “The Workers’ Gazette” has tried to deal us rebounds squarely upon itself: never will “The Workers’ Gazette” dare to publicly admit, in the presence of all, its long-standing silence about Azeff—and its factional, self‑interested cries about the equally notorious provocateur Malinovsky.

“Pravda,” No. 68, June 10 (May 28), 1917

Printed according to the text of the newspaper “Pravda.”