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

42V. I. LENINA well-known otzovist leader in Moscow Region “edited”an article by an otzovist worker, which was publishedin Rabocheye Znamya 30 No. 5, but we have still not receivedthis leader’s own platform. We know perfectly well that inthe spring of 1909 when the regional conference of the CentralIndustrial Region was in preparation the otzovist leader’splatform was being read and passed from hand to hand.We know from the reports of Bolsheviks that there wereincomparably more gems of un-Social-Democratic thoughtin this platform than in the St. Petersburg platform. Butwe were never supplied with the text of the platform, probablyfor reasons just as accidental, purely accidental, as thosewhich caused Maximov to address the conference as thespokesman of the otzovist faction.The question of utilising legal opportunities, too, Maximovand Co. covered up by a “smooth” phrase: “It is takenfor granted.” It would be interesting to know if “it is takenfor granted” now also by the practical leaders of the Maximovfaction, Comrade Lyadov and Stanislav, who only threemonths ago caused a resolution to be passed in the RegionalBureau of the Central Industrial Region, which was then intheir hands (the same Regional Bureau which endorsed thefamous “school”; the membership of this Bureau has changedsince), against Social-Democratic participation in the congressof factory doctors. 31 As we know this was the first congressat which the revolutionary Social-Democrats were in themajority. Yet all the prominent otzovists and ultimatumistscampaigned against participation in this congress, declaringthat it would be “treason to the cause of the proletariat” totake part in it. And Maximov covers up his tracks—“it istaken for granted”. We may “take it for granted” that thefranker otzovists and ultimatumists are openly disruptingpractical work in Russia, while Maximov and Co. who arehankering for the laurels of Krichevsky and Martynov, 32obscure the point at issue: there are no differences of opinion,no one is opposed to the idea of utilising legal opportunities.The restoration of the Party bodies abroad, the foreigngroups for the organisation of connections, etc., leads inevitablyto a repetition of the old abuses which must be combatedmost relentlessly. It is a complete repetition of the