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

FACTION OF SUPPORTERS OF OTZOVISM AND GOD-BUILDERS43history of the Economists, who in Russia carried on a campaignagainst political action while they sheltered themselvesabroad behind Rabocheye Dyelo. It is a completerepetition of the history of the bourgeois-democratic “Credo”(Credo—a symbol of faith), which was advocated in Russiaby Prokopovich and Co. and was made public in the revolutionarySocial-Democratic press against the will of theauthors. Nothing could have a more demoralising influenceon the Party than this game of hide-and-seek, this exploitationof the onerous conditions of illegal work to hold thingsback from Party publicity, this Jesuitry of Maximov andCo., who, while operating wholly and in every respect handin glove with the otzovists, in print beat their breasts anddeclare that all this business of otzovism is a deliberateexaggeration on the part of Proletary.We are not pettifoggers, we are not formalists, but revolutionaries.What matters to us is not the verbal distinctionswhich might be drawn between otzovism, ultimatumism,and “boycottism” (of the Third Duma), but the actualcontent of Social-Democratic propaganda and agitation. Andif views which have nothing in common with Bolshevismnor with Social-Democracy in general are being propagatedin illegal Russian circles under the mask of Bolshevism,those persons who are hindering a full exposure of theseviews and a full explanation of their falsity before the wholeParty are acting as enemies of the proletariat.IVThese people have also disclosed themselves on the questionof god-building. The enlarged editorial board of Proletaryadopted and published two resolutions on this question:one on the principle involved, the other with special referenceto Maximov’s protest. The question arises, what does thissame Maximov say now in his “Report”? He writes his“Report” in order to cover up his tracks exactly in the styleof the diplomat who said that language was given to man soas to hide his thoughts. 33 We are told that “wrong information”is being spread about the “so-called god-building”trend of Maximov’s clique, and that is all.