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

THE VPERYOD FACTION269to bourgeois ideology and policy. The Vperyod symposiumshows vividly what products can result from such amixture.The author of the leading article in the symposium,Maximov, keeps strictly to the diplomacy used in the platform,speaking of “proletarian culture” without any explanationof what he means by this. In an article whichclaims to be a popular exposition this game of hide-and-seekis strikingly obvious. What kind of popular exposition isthis if not a single reader, unless he happens to be personallyacquainted with Maximov or has already followed thewhole controversy about Machism and relating to Machism,is able to understand the true meaning of such a phrase?What kind of popular exposition is this when the sameMaximov, on page 4 of the symposium, speaks of the “dangerto proletarian socialism” represented by those offshoots ofthe intelligentsia who “uncritically accept and propagateideas of bourgeois science and philosophy that are incorrectand harmful to the proletariat...”?The dots are Maximov’s. We do not know if they aremeant to signify a shamefaced silence. But we are quitesure that to speak, especially in a “popular” article, ofthe harmfulness of “bourgeois philosophy” to the proletariatwithout specifying clearly and exactly which philosophy heis referring to, is to have recourse to the worst form offactional diplomacy. If you consider bourgeois philosophyan important question and raise it in the leading articleof a “popular” symposium, then have the courage to speakstraight out, defend your ideas and do not concealthem.Comrade Sazhin, presumably in the capacity of a “practical”man, spoils Maximov’s diplomacy most impolitely.”** In the Vperyod symposium another “practical man”, “TkachI-n” 112 of St. Petersburg also gives the game away not very diplomatically:“Incidentally,” he writes, “Beltov’s book, The Monist View,is especially likely to give rise to such a wrong notion of historicalmaterialism” (Symposium, p. 57). Why, of course! The truest “notionof historical materialism” is given, of course, by the books of the Russiangod-builders and Machists—what Vperyodist does not know this?And how can a book which has helped to rear a whole generation ofRussian Marxists compete with the philosophical products of theYushkeviches, Bogdanovs, Valentinovs and Lunacharskys?...