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

123CONCERNING VEKHI 66The well-known symposium Vekhi, compiled from contributionsby the most influential Constitutional-Democraticpublicists, which has run through several editions in a shorttime and has been rapturously received by the whole reactionarypress, is a real sign of the times. However much theCadet newspapers do to “rectify” particular passages inVekhi that are excessively nauseating, however much it isrepudiated by some Cadets who are quite powerless to influencethe policy of the Constitutional-Democratic Partyas a whole or are aiming to deceive the masses as to the truesignificance of this policy, it is an unquestionable fact that“Vekhi” has expressed the unmistakable essence of modernCadetism. The party of the Cadets is the party of Vekhi.Prizing above everything the development of the politicaland class-consciousness of the masses, working-classdemocrats should welcome Vekhi as a magnificent exposure ofthe essence of the political trend of the Cadets by their ideologicalleaders. The gentlemen who have written Vekhi are:Berdayev, Bulgakov, Herschensohn, Kistyakovsky, Struve,Frank and Izgoyev. The very names of these well-knowndeputies, well-known renegades and well-known Cadets, areeloquent enough. The authors of Vekhi speak as real ideologicalleaders of a whole social trend. They give us in conciseoutline a complete encyclopaedia on questions of philosophy,religion, politics, publicist literature, and appraisals of thewhole liberation movement and the whole history of Russiandemocracy. By giving Vekhi the subtitle “A Collection ofArticles on the Russian Intelligentsia” the authors understatethe actual subject-matter of their publication, for, withthem, the “intelligentsia” in fact appears as the spiritualleader, inspirer and mouthpiece of the whole Russian de-