Collected Works of V. I. Lenin - Vol. 26 - From Marx to Mao

224V. I. LENINwrote, himself underlining the word before four times. Isit really so difficult to understand that before a decision hasbeen taken on a strike by the centre, it is permissible toagitate for and against it; but that after a decision in favourof a strike (with the additional decision to conceal thisfrom the enemy), to carry on agitation against the strikeis strike-breaking? Any worker will understand that. Thequestion of insurrection has been discussed in the centresince September. That is when Zinoviev and Kamenev couldand should have come out in writing, so that everybody, uponseeing their arguments, would have realised that they hadcompletely lost their heads. To conceal one’s views fromthe Party for a whole month before a decision is taken, andto send out a dissenting opinion after a decision is taken—that is strike-breaking.Zinoviev pretends not to understand this difference, hepretends not to understand that after a decision to strikehas been taken by the centre, only blacklegs can carry onagitation among the lower bodies against that decision.Any worker will understand that.And Zinoviev did agitate and attempted to defeat thecentre’s decision, both at Sunday’s meeting, 93 where he andKamenev secured not a single vote, and in his present letter.For Zinoviev has the effrontery to assert that “the opinionof the Party has not been canvassed” and that such questions“cannot be decided by ten men”. Just think! Every memberof the Central Committee knows that more than ten C.C.members were present at the decisive meeting, that a majorityof the plenary meeting were present, that Kamenev himselfdeclared at the meeting that “this meeting is decisive”,that it was known with absolute certainty that the majorityof the absent members of the Central Committee were not inagreement with Zinoviev and Kamenev. And now, after theCentral Committee has adopted a decision at a meetingwhich Kamenev himself admitted to be decisive, a memberof the Central Committee has the audacity to write that “theopinion of the Party has not been canvassed”, and that suchquestions “cannot be decided by ten men”. That is strike-breakingin the full sense of the term. Between Party congresses,the Central Committee decides. The Central Committee hasdecided. Kamenev and Zinoviev, who did not come out in