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

NOTES OF A PUBLICIST2152. “THE FIGHT ON TWO FRONTS”AND THE OVERCOMING OF DEVIATIONSSuch are the two fundamentally different and radicallydivergent views on the nature and significance of our Partyunity.The question is, which of these views forms the basisof the plenum resolution? Whoever wishes to ponder overit will perceive that it is the second view that forms thebasis, but in some passages the resolution clearly revealstraces of partial “amendments” in the spirit of the firstview. However, these “amendments”, while worsening theresolution, in no way remove its basis, its main content,which is thoroughly imbued with the second point of view.In order to demonstrate that this is so, that the “amendments”in the spirit of sectarian diplomacy are really in thenature of partial amendments, that they do not alter theessence of the matter and the principle underlying theresolution, I shall deal with certain points and certain passagesin the resolution on the state of affairs in the Party,which have already been touched upon in the Party press.I shall start from the end.After accusing the “leaders of the old factions” of doingeverything to prevent unity being established, of behavingin the same way at the plenum too so that “every inch ofground had to be taken from them by storm”, Yonov writes:“Comrade Lenin did not want ‘to overcome the dangerous deviations’by means of ‘broadening and deepening Social-Democraticactivities’. He strove quite energetically to put the theory of the‘fight on two fronts’ in the centre of all Party activities. He did noteven think of abolishing ‘the state of reinforced protection’ within theParty” (p. 22, Art. 1).This refers to §4, clause “b”, of the resolution on thesituation in the Party. The draft of this resolution wassubmitted to the Central Committee by myself, and theclause in question was altered by the plenum itself afterthe commission had finished its work; it was altered onthe motion of Trotsky, against whom I fought withoutsuccess. In this clause I had, if not literally the words “fighton two fronts”, at all events, words to that effect. Thewords “overcoming by means of broadening and deepening”