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

56V. I. LENINProletary, dated August 21, 1906, we find an editorialarticle “The Boycott” and it states in black and white: “Thetime has now come when the revolutionary Social-Democratsmust cease to be boycottists.”* Since that time there has notbeen a single issue of Proletary containing even one line ofprint in favour of “boycottism” (after 1906), otzovism andultimatumism, without a refutation of this caricature ofBolshevism. And now the caricature Bolsheviks are gettingon stilts and trying to compare themselves with those whofirst fought the three-year campaign of the old Iskra andsecured the endorsement of its line by the Second PartyCongress and then exposed, the volte-face of the new Iskra!Comrade Maximov now signs himself “Former editor ofthe popular workers’ newspaper Vperyod”, wanting to remindthe reader that it was said “geese saved Rome”. “Your relationto the policy of Vperyod,” 38 we tell Maximov in replyto this reminder, was exactly the same as Potresov’s relationto the old Iskra. Potresov was its editor, but he did notlead the old Iskra, the old Iskra led him. As soon as hesought to change the policy the supporters of the old Iskraturned their backs on him. And now even Potresov himself ismaking frantic efforts to blot out the “sin of his youth”, hisparticipation in the editorship of the old Iskra.Maximov did not lead Vperyod, but Vperyod led him.Proof: the policy of boycotting the Third Duma, in supportof which Vperyod did not and could not say a single word.Maximov acted very wisely and well when he allowed himselfto be led by Vperyod. Now he has begun to think up (or,what comes to the same thing, to help the otzovists to thinkup) a line of policy that is inevitably leading him into themorass, just like Potresov.Remember this, Comrade Maximov: the basis one shouldtake for comparison is the integrity of an ideological andpolitical trend, not “words” and “slogans”, which somepeople learn by heart without understanding their meaning.Bolshevism ran the old Iskra for three years, from 1900 to1903, and emerged as an integral trend for the struggle withMenshevism. The Mensheviks persisted for a long time intheir new alliance with the anti-Iskrists and the support-* See present edition, Vol. 11, p. 145.—Ed.