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

THE LIQUIDATORS EXPOSED21viks Plekhanov compares the Bolshevik Marxists, Social-Democrats, to Gogol’s Osip, 11 who picked up all sorts ofrubbish, every little bit of string (including empirio-criticism12 and god-building). Now the Bolshevik Osip, saysPlekhanov jokingly, has begun “to clear the space aroundhim”, to expel the anti-Marxists, to throw away the “string”and other rubbish.Plekhanov’s joke touches not on a frivolous question buton a fundamental and very serious one for Russian Social-Democracy, namely, which trend within it has been mostto the benefit of rubbish, “string”, i.e., to the benefit ofbourgeois-democratic influences in the proletarian environment.All the “subtleties” of factional disputes, all the longvicissitudes of the struggle over various resolutions, slogans,etc.—all this “factionalism” (which is now so frequentlybeing condemned by empty cries against “factionalism”that encourage unprincipledness most of all) turns on thisfundamental and very serious question for Russian Social-Democracy: which trend within it has been the most subservientto bourgeois-democratic influences (which are inevitableto some extent at some time during the bourgeoisrevolution in Russia, just as they are inevitable in everycapitalist country). Every trend in Social-Democracy inevitablyreceives the adherence of a greater or lesser number ofnot purely proletarian but semi-proletarian and semi-pettybourgeoiselements; the question is which trend is less subordinateto them, more rapidly rids itself of them, moresuccessfully combats them. This is the question of thesocialist, proletarian, Marxist Osip in relation to theliberal or anarchist, petty-bourgeois, anti-Marxist “bit ofstring”.Bolshevik Marxism, says Plekhanov, is a “more or lessnarrow and crudely conceived Marxism”. The Menshevik variety,apparently, is “more or less broad and subtle”. Letus look at the results of the revolution, at the results of sixyears of the history of the Social-Democratic movement(1903-09), and what six years they were! The BolshevikOsips have already drawn a “general boundary” and “shownthe door” to the Bolshevik petty-bourgeois “bit of string”,which is now whining that it has been “ousted” and “removed”.