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

248V. I. LENINso it will be; to defend the old illegal organisation is hopeless,to create a new one is still more hopeless; generallyspeaking, we “overestimated” the forces of the proletariatin the bourgeois revolution, we erroneously ascribed “universal”importance to the role of the proletariat—all ofthese little ideas of the renegade Social Movement directlyand indirectly drive towards renunciation of the illegalParty. Once on the slippery slope, the independent failsto observe that he is sliding lower and lower, he does notrealise that he is working hand in glove with Stolypin:Stolypin destroys the illegal Party physically, with the aidof the police, the gallows and penal servitude; the liberalsdo exactly the same thing directly, by their open propagandaof Vekhist ideas; the independents among the Social-Democratsindirectly assist in the destruction of theillegal Party by their shouts about its “atrophy”, by theirrefusal to help it and by their attempts (see the letter ofthe Sixteen in Golos No. 19-20) to justify desertion fromit. One step leads to another.Let us not shut our eyes to the fact that the longer thecounter-revolutionary period lasts the more difficult willour fight for the Party become. That our Party comradesdo not underestimate the danger, that they look it squarelyin the face, is shown, for instance, by the article of ComradeK. in No. 13 of the Central Organ. But the resoluteand frank recognition of the weakness of the Party, of thedisintegration of the organisations and the difficulties of thesituation does not make Comrade K. (or any of the Partycomrades) waver for one moment on the question of whetherthe Party is necessary, whether it is necessary to work forits restoration. The greater the difficulties of our position,the greater the number of enemies (the day before yesterdaythey were joined by the Vekhists, yesterday by thePopular Socialists, today by the independent Social-Democrats)—themore closely will all the Social-Democrats,irrespective of their shades of opinion, rally in defence ofthe Party. Many Social-Democrats who might be dividedon the question how the revolutionary masses who trustSocial-Democracy should be led in the attack cannot failto be united on the question of the imperative need to fightfor the preservation and consolidation of the illegal Social-