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

226V. I. LENINbers of the Central Committee have by a slanderous liebetrayed the decision of the workers to the capitalists.There can and must be only one answer to that: an immediatedecision of the Central Committee:“The Central Committee, regarding Zinoviev’s and Kamenev’sstatement in the non-Party press as strike-breakingin the full sense of the term, expels both of them from theParty.”It is not easy for me to write in this way about formerclose comrades. But I should regard any hesitation in thisrespect as a crime, for otherwise a party of revolutionarieswhich does not punish prominent blacklegs would perish.The question of insurrection, even if the blacklegs havenow delayed it for a long time by betraying it to Rodzyankoand Kerensky, has not been removed from the agenda, ithas not been removed by the Party. But how can we prepareourselves for insurrection and lay plans for it, if we tolerate“prominent” strike-breakers in our midst? The more prominent,the more dangerous they are, and the less deservingof “forgiveness”. On n’est trahi que par les siens, the Frenchsay. Only your own people can betray you.The more “prominent” the strike-breakers are, the moreimperative it is to punish them by immediate expulsion.That is the only way for the workers’ party to recuperate,rid itself of a dozen or so spineless intellectuals, rally theranks of the revolutionaries, and advance to meet great andmomentous difficulties hand in hand with the revolutionaryworkers.We cannot publish the truth, namely, that after the decisivemeeting of the Central Committee, Zinoviev and Kamenevat Sunday’s meeting had the audacity to demand arevision, that Kamenev had the effrontery to shout: “TheCentral Committee has collapsed, for it has done nothingfor a whole week” (I could not refute that because to saywhat really had been done was impossible), while Zinovievwith an air of innocence proposed this resolution, which wasrejected by the meeting: “No action shall be taken beforeconsulting with the Bolsheviks who are to arrive on October20 for the Congress of Soviets.”Just imagine! After the centre has taken a decision to calla strike, it is proposed at a meeting of the rank and file