Collected Works of V. I. Lenin - Vol. 16 - From Marx to Mao

103GOLOS SOTSIAL-DEMOKRATAAND CHEREVANIN 57Comrade Cherevanin is the prototype and model of theconfirmed liquidator among the Mensheviks. He has madethis perfectly clear in his well-known book The Proletariat,etc. Liquidationism is so strongly pronounced in this bookthat the well-known Dutch woman writer and Marxist, Roland-Holst,the author of the preface to the German translation,could not refrain from expressing her protest againstthe distortion of Marxism and its replacement by revisionism.At that time the editorial board of Golos Sotsial-Demokrataprinted a repudiation of Cherevanin in Vorwärts,declaring that leading Mensheviks do not agree with him.Proletary pointed out the hypocrisy of such a repudiation,since it was not reprinted in Golos and was not accompaniedby a systematic explanation of Cherevanin’s “mistakes”in the Russian press.* Is not this exactly how bourgeoisministers behave, beginning with Stolypin and ending withBriand: by making reservations, corrections, by repudiatingand over-zealous kindred-spirit and over-ardent supporter,and by continuing the old line under this cover?Golos No. 16-17 publishes a letter from Cherevanin tothe editors with its comment. Proletary is accused of“slander” because we allegedly “concealed” from the publicthat Cherevanin himself “corrected the mistake” in hisbook: The Contemporary Situation and the Possible Future(Moscow, 1908).We shall show our readers once again what are the methodsof the Golosists, and what it means when they accuse Proletaryof “slandering” them as liquidators.* See present edition, Vol. 15, pp. 452-60.—Ed.