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

THE LIQUIDATORS EXPOSED19general boundary among them will lie. We shall see whetherit will be a really general boundary.Plekhanov depicts the split within the Menshevik ranksover liquidationism as a split over an organisational question.At the same time, however, he provides data whichshow that the matter is far from being confined to a questionof organisation. So far Plekhanov has drawn two boundaries,neither of which as yet deserves to be called general.The first boundary definitely divides Plekhanov fromPotresov, the second divides him indefinitely from the“factional diplomatists”, the toy manikins and theinborn opportunists. Concerning Potresov, Plekhanov saysthat already in the autumn of 1907 he “spoke like a convincedliquidator”. But there is more to it than that. Besidesthis verbal statement of Potresov’s on the organisational question,Plekhanov refers to the well-known collective workof the Mensheviks The Social Movement in Russia at theBeginning of the Twentieth Century, and says that he, Plekhanov,resigned from the editorial board of this symposiumbecause Potresov’s article (even after corrections and redraftingsdemanded by Plekhanov and carried out through themediation of Dan and Martov) was unacceptable to him.“I became fully convinced that Potresov’s article could notbe corrected” (p. 20). “I saw,” he writes in Dnevnik, “thatthe liquidationist ideas Potresov expressed in Mannheim werefirmly established in his mind and that he had completelylost the ability to look at social life, at its present and past,through the eyes of a revolutionary” (pp. 19-20). “Potresovis no comrade of mine ... he and I do not go the same way”(p. 20).The question here is not at all one of present-day organisationalproblems, which Potresov did not touch on, andcould not touch on, in his article. It is a question of thefundamental ideas of the Social-Democratic programme andtactics, which are being “liquidated” by the collective Menshevik“work” issued under the collective Menshevik editorshipof Martov, Maslov and Potresov.In order to draw a really general boundary here it is notenough to break with Potresov and make a “gentle” hintat the “as you please” heroes. For this it is necessary toreveal in detail precisely where, when, why and how “Potre-