From V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, 4th
English Edition,
Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1968
(LETTER TO THE EDITORS)
We should have welcomed, from all points of view, the appearance of
L. Martov's articles in Luch, promising an analysis of the
question of "the tactical essence of the present dispute", if the very
first article had not contained a blatant untruth. My words to the
effect that the dispute with the liquidators had nothing to do with the
organisational question[*] were declared to be
"unexpected" by L. Martov. "Just look at this!" he exclaimed. "All of a
sudden, with the help of God; we have a change", and so on.
Yet L. Martov knows full well that there has been no change at
all, that nothing whatever unexpected has happened. In May 1910, over
three years ago, I wrote in a Paris publication, which Martov knows
quite well, "about a group of legalist-independents " (the ideas
of Nasha Zarya and Vozrozhdeniye ) and said that it had
"definitely rallied together and definitely broken with the Party".**
It is obvious that here, too, the dispute does not concern the
organisational question (how to organise the Party?) but the
question of the existence of the Party, of the secession of the
liquidators from the Party, of their complete breakaway from the Party.
Martov must realise that this is not a dispute on the question of
organisation.
In October 1911, in a publication equally well known to Martov,
signed also by me, it was said: "In reality, it is by no means the
organisational question that is now in the fore front", but of the "existence
" of the Party.***
* See
p. 109 of this volume. --Ed. [Transcriber's
Note: See Lenin's "Helplessness
and Confusion". -- DJR]
** See present edition Vol. 16, p. 244. --Ed. [Transcriber's
Note: See Lenin's "Notes of a Publicist".
-- DJR]
*** See present edition Vol. 17, p. 260. --Ed. [Transcriber's
Note: See Lenin's "The New Faction of
Conciliators, or the Virtuous". -- DJR]
The affairs of the liquidators must be in a bad way if Martov, to
evade an examination of the Party's precise decisions, is telling
fairy-tales and publishing a blatant untruth.