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

216V. I. LENINwere inserted on the proposal of Trotsky. I am very gladthat Comrade Yonov, by telling of my struggle against thisproposal, gives me a convenient occasion for expressing myopinion on the meaning of the “amendment”.Nothing at the plenum aroused more furious—and oftencomical—indignation than the idea of a “fight on twofronts”. The very mention of this infuriated both the Vperyodistsand the Mensheviks. This indignation can be fullyexplained on historical grounds, for the Bolsheviks havein fact from August 1908 to January 1910 waged a struggleon two fronts, i.e., a struggle against the liquidators andagainst the otzovists. This indignation was comical becausethose who waxed angry at the Bolsheviks were thereby onlyproving their own guilt, showing that they were still verytouchy about condemnation of liquidationism and otzovism.A guilty conscience is never at ease.Trotsky’s proposal to substitute “overcoming by meansof broadening and deepening” for the fight on two frontsmet with the ardent support of the Mensheviks and theVperyodists.And now Yonov and Pravda and the authors of the Viennaresolution and Golos Sotsial-Demokrata are all rejoicingover that “victory”. But the question arises: have they,by deleting from this clause the words about the fighton two fronts, eliminated from the resolution the recognitionof the need for that fight? Not at all, for since “deviations”,their “danger”, and the necessity of “explaining”that danger, are recognised, and since it is also recognisedthat these deviations are a “manifestation of bourgeoisinfluence over the proletariat”—all this in effect means thatthe fight on two fronts is recognised! In one passage an“unpleasant” term (unpleasant to one or other of theirfriends) was altered, but the basic idea was left intact!The result was only that one part of one clause was confused,watered down and marred by phrase-mongering.Indeed, it is nothing but phrase-mongering and a futileevasion when the paragraph in question speaks of overcomingby means of broadening and deepening the work. Thereis no clear idea here at all. The work must certainly at alltimes be broadened and deepened; the entire third paragraphof the resolution deals with this in detail before it