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

238V. I. LENINand ask “where are the first steps to an answer on the partof the revolutionary Marxists?” The independents knowthat it is impossible to answer them in the legal press.And in the illegal press the friends of these independents(the Golosists) contemptuously refrain from answering thequestions “without a settlement of which it will be impossibleto move a step”. Everything is achieved that is requiredby the independents (i.e., the renegades of socialism)the world over: the resounding phrase is there, actual independencefrom socialism and the Social-Democratic Partyis there as well.6. THE GROUP OF INDEPENDENT-LEGALISTSLet us now proceed to ascertain what took place afterthe plenum. To this question Trotsky and Yonov give auniform and simple answer. “Neither in the external conditionsof political life,” states the Vienna resolution, “norin the internal relations of our Party did any real changestake place after the plenum that might hinder the work ofbuilding up the Party....” A factional relapse, the survivingheritage of factional relations—that is all.Yonov supplies the same explanations “personalised”.“The plenum is over. Its participants have gone theirseveral ways.... The leaders of the old factions found themselvesat liberty and emancipated themselves from alloutside influences and pressure. Moreover, considerablereinforcements arrived: for some of them—in the shape ofComrade Plekhanov, who of late has been ardently advocatingthat a state of martial law be declared in the Party;for others—in the shape of the sixteen ‘old Party members,well known to the editorial board of Golos Sotsial-Demokrata’”(see No. 19-20, “Open Letter”). “Under these conditions,how could one refrain from throwing oneself into thefray? And so they resumed the old ‘game’ of mutual extermination”(Otkliki Bunda No. 4, p. 22).“Reinforcements” arrived from the factionalists and—another fight ensued, that is all. True, the “reinforcements”for the Bolsheviks arrived in the person of a pro-Party Menshevik,Plekhanov; he “arrived” to make war on the liquidators,but that is immaterial to Yonov. Yonov apparently