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

107IDEOLOGICAL DECAY AND DISUNITYAMONG RUSSIAN SOCIAL-DEMOCRATS 58The fight against otzovism and liquidationism, whichhas naturally occupied the first place among the tasks ofthe really Marxist and Social-Democratic elements of ourParty, should not, however, hide from us the more profoundevil which has in essence given rise to both otzovism andliquidationism and which, according to all the evidence,will give rise to a number of further new tactical absurdities.This evil is the ideological decay and disunity whichhas wholly taken possession of liberalism and is finding itsway into our Party from all sides.The following is one of the numerous illustrations of thisdisunity. A comrade who had long worked in the Party,an old Iskrist and old Bolshevik, was prevented by imprisonmentand exile from taking part in the movement fora very long time, almost from the beginning of 1906. Herecently returned to work, became acquainted with otzovismultimatumism,and rejected it with dissatisfaction and indignationas a scandalous corruption of revolutionary Social-Democratictactics. Having learned of the state of workin Odessa and St. Petersburg, this comrade came, interalia, to the following conclusion or “provisional result”from his observations: “...It seems to me that the hardesttime has passed and it remains to liquidate the remnants ofthe period of break-up and disintegration.” But there arenot a few of these remnants.“In all the St. Petersburg work,” we read in the same letter,“one feels the absence of a single guiding centre, indiscipline,lack of order, the absence of connection betweenthe separate parts, the absence of unity and plan in the work.