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

FACTION OF SUPPORTERS OF OTZOVISM AND GOD-BUILDERS53Our “victims of removal” talk of “irregularity” becausein their opinion the editorial board of Proletary has noright to decide the question of the fate of the Bolshevikfaction and of the split in its ranks. Very well, gentlemen.If the editorial board of Proletary and the 15 Bolshevikmembers and candidate members of the Central Committeeelected at the London Congress have not the right to representthe Bolshevik faction you have every opportunity tomake a public declaration to that effect and conduct a campaignfor the overthrow of these undesirable representativesor for new elections to replace them. But you have indeedconducted such a campaign and only after you had met witha certain number of reverses did you prefer to complain andwhine. If you raised the question of a congress or conferenceof Bolsheviks, Comrades Maximov and Nikolayev, thenwhy did you not tell the public that several months agoComrade “Er” submitted a draft resolution to the MoscowCommittee calling for a vote of no confidence in Proletaryand the holding of a Bolshevik conference to elect a newideological centre for the Bolsheviks?Why did you keep silent about this, O wrongly removedones?Why did you keep silent about the fact that “Er’s” resolutionwas rejected by every vote except his own?Why did you keep silent about the fact that in theautumn of 1908 in the whole St. Petersburg organisationfrom top to bottom a struggle was going on over theplatforms of the two trends of Bolshevism, the otzovistsand the opponents of otzovism, and that the otzovists weredefeated?Maximov and Nikolayev want to whine to the public becausethey have been repeatedly defeated in Russia. Both“Er” and the St. Petersburg otzovists had the right to wagea struggle against Bolshevism, in the highest down to thelowest organisations, without waiting for any conferenceand without making public their platforms before the wholeParty.But had not the Proletary editorial board, which declaredopen war on otzovism from June 1908, the right after ayear of strife, a year of controversy, a year of friction, conflict,etc., after it had invited three regional delegates from