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

NOTES OF A PUBLICIST249Democratic Labour Party that was formed in the periodof 1895-1910.As regards Golos and the Golosists, they have most strikinglyconfirmed what was said of them in the resolutionof the enlarged editorial board of Proletary in June of lastyear. That resolution (see Supplement to No. 46 of Proletary,p. 6) reads: “In the Menshevik camp of the Party,whose official organ, Golos Sotsial-Demokrata, is fullycontrolled by the Menshevik liquidators, the minority ofthis faction, having explored the path of liquidationismto the very end, is already raising its voice in protestagainst that path and is again seeking a party basis for itsactivities....”* The distance to the “end” of the path ofliquidationism proved longer than we imagined at thetime, but the correctness of the basic idea underlying thesewords has since been proved by facts. The correctness ofthe expression “captive to the liquidators”, as applied toGolos Sotsial-Demokrata, has been particularly confirmed.They are indeed captives of the liquidators, for they darenot either openly defend liquidationism or openly rebelagainst it. Even at the plenum they unanimously adoptedthe resolutions not as free men but as captives, who for ashort while had obtained leave from their “masters” andwho returned to slavery on the day after the plenum. Unableto defend liquidationism, they laid the utmost stress onall possible (and imaginary!) obstacles, which had nothingto do with questions of principle, but which prevented themfrom renouncing liquidationism. And when all these “obstacles”were removed, when all their extraneous, personal,organisational, financial and other claims had been satisfied,they “voted” against their will for the renunciationof liquidationism. Poor fellows! They did not know at thattime that the Manifesto of the Sixteen was already on itsway to Paris, that the group of Mikhail and Co., the groupof Potresov and Co. had stiffened in their defence of liquidationism.And they obediently turned round and followedthe Sixteen, Mikhail and Potresov back to liquidationism!The heinous crime of the spineless “conciliators” likeYonov and Trotsky, who defend or justify these people,* See present edition, Vol. 15, p. 448.—Ed.