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

NOTES OF A PUBLICIST211(on the overcoming of liquidationist and otzovist deviations)“in co-operation with the given” Golosists, whocontinue as before and even more crudely to defend liquidationism,and with the given Vperyodists, who continue asbefore and even more crudely to assert the legitimacy ofotzovism, ultimatumism, etc.?This question needs only to be put for one to see howhollow are the eloquent phrases in Trotsky’s resolution,to see how in reality they serve to defend the very positionheld by Axelrod and Co., and Alexinsky and Co.In the very first words of his resolution Trotsky expressedthe full spirit of the worst kind of conciliation, “conciliation”in inverted commas, of a sectarian and philistine conciliation,which deals with the “given persons” and not thegiven line of policy, the given spirit, the given ideologicaland political content of Party work.It is in this that the enormous difference lies betweenreal partyism, which consists in purging the Party of liquidationismand otzovism, and the “conciliation” of Trotskyand Co., which actually renders the most faithful service tothe liquidators and otzovists, and is therefore an evil thatis all the more dangerous to the Party the more cunningly,artfully and rhetorically it cloaks itself with professedlypro-Party, professedly anti-factional declamations.In point of fact, what is it that we have been given asthe task of the Party?Is it “given persons, groups and institutions” that wehave been “given” and that have to be “reconciled” irrespectiveof their policy, irrespective of the content of theirwork, irrespective of their attitude towards liquidationismand otzovism?Or have we been given a Party line, an ideological andpolitical direction and content of our entire work, the taskof purging this work of liquidationism and otzovism—atask that must be carried out irrespective of “persons,groups and institutions”, in spite of the opposition of “persons,institutions and groups” which disagree with that policyor do not carry it out?Two views are possible on the meaning of and conditionsfor the achievement of any kind of Party unity. It is extremelyimportant to grasp the difference between these