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

104V. I. LENINWe shall limit ourselves to a few quotations from Cherevanin’sabove-mentioned new book. Page 173: “In generalI do not retract anything of the analysis which I gave in mybook: The Proletariat in the Revolution. The proletariatand the Social-Democrats have unquestionably made a numberof mistakes which were bound to impede the victory of therevolution, even if this victory had been possible [Cherevanin’sitalics]. But now the question must be asked whether thisvictory was really possible and whether the mistakes of theproletariat and the Social-Democratic Party were the onlycauses of the defeat of the revolution. The question itselfsuggests the answer. The defeat of the revolution is so profoundand the reign of the reaction, for the next few years atleast, is so secure that it would be quite impossible to referthe causes of this to any mistakes of the proletariat. Here,evidently, it is a question not of mistakes but of deeper causes.”There, according to Golos, you have Cherevanin’s “correctionof the mistake”! Cherevanin does not retract his“analysis”, but deepens it, adding quite a number of newgems (such as the statistical definition of the “forces of revolution”as one quarter of the total population, 21.5%-28%; we shall discuss this gem another time!) . To thethesis that the revolutionary proletariat made mistakes,Cherevanin adds: the revolution did not have the “possible”support (p. 197, Cherevanin’s italics) of over one quarterof the population—and the Golosists call this a “correction”and loudly accuse Proletary of slander.Page 176: “Let us imagine that the Mensheviks had allalong adhered consistently to their Menshevik principlesand had not fallen under the influence of the revolutionaryintoxication of the Bolsheviks, by taking part in the Novemberstrike in St. Petersburg, the forcible introduction ofthe 8-hour day and the boycott of the First Duma.” (Conclusion:the tactics of the proletariat would have improved,but defeat would have followed just the same.)Page 138: “Perhaps the revolutionary and oppositional[listen to this!] parties in the stormy year of 1905 went toofar in their expectations of a radical break-up of the agrarianand political relations.”That should be enough, it seems? Liquidationism andrenegacy repeated and aggravated, Golos Sotsial-Demokrata