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

189ONE OF THE OBSTACLES TO PARTY UNITYWhile the pro-Party Mensheviks in quite a number ofgroups abroad are rallying together and coming out moreand more strongly against the patently liquidationist trend ofGolos Sotsial-Demokrata, the Vienna Pravda is still actingevasively. In No. 12 we find an article entitled “To Unity—Despite All Obstacles”. In this article one cannot but approvethe first, even if very timid and very incomplete, attemptto carry out the resolution of the C.C. about explainingthe danger of liquidationism. On the other hand, the wholeof the first part of the article is an illustration how muchfurther from defending partyism certain alleged non-factionalSocial-Democrats are than the pro-Party Mensheviks.Here Pravda tells a downright untruth, asserting thatthe editorial board of the Central Organ in the articleentitled “Golos (Voice) of the Liquidators Against the Party”*declared the “whole agreement” to have been “disrupted”.Anyone who has read No. 12 of the Central Organ will seethat we did not say anything of the sort. The agreementwith the Mensheviks was on condition that they recognisedpartyism and sincerely, consistently renounced liquidationism.Golos Sotsial-Demokrata and a group of its followersin Russia disrupted this agreement: some, like Mikhail,Roman, Yuri, etc. in Russia, by declaring openly that theagreement itself was harmful (“the resolutions of theCentral Committee are harmful”; the very existence of theCentral Committee is harmful; there is no need to liquidatethe Party, it has been liquidated already), others, like Golos,by defending the utterances of the former. The pro-PartyMensheviks, headed by Plekhanov, rebelled against theGolosists for their violation of the agreement. If Pravda* See pp. 156-64 of this volume.—Ed.