the charges of plotting against the Central Committee and the Party which the Menshevik pro-Party comrades, Plekhanov and A. Moskovsky,[83] preferred against him. . . . What is needed, you see, is not a Central Committee, but an "organising group", such as the "Iskra and Zarya group". To be sure, the Iskra and Zarya group was a revolutionary Social-Democratic group, whereas Messrs. Mikhail, Roman, and Yuri need a liquidationist organising group. But that is not the point at the moment. The point is that according to their own testimony, Martov's and Dan's three allies proposed to replace the C.C. by a private organising group, whom nobody could request to show a despised "mandate" and which could do all the "liquidating" it liked. A fine rebuttal" indeed! . . .
* See Golos, supplement to No. 24, p. 3.
page 132
One of the "pivots" of the "rebuttal" published by Roman, Mikhail, and Yuri is the story that the representative of the C.C., who invited them to attend "at least one meeting" of the collegium, tried to persuade them by saying that he (i.e., the representative of the C.C.) and other "Bolsheviks in Russia" were bent on "freeing themselves from the guiding influence of Lenin's circle". This statement made by a Bolshevik in Russia, for which we have the evidence of three liquidators, is particularly relished by the editors of Golos, who think they can use it to justify somebody and something. It is obvious, however, that the Golos crowd have become entangled in their own snares and speak against themselves. Just use your brains, esteemed editors of Golos. Let us assume that the Bolshevik who approached your friends on behalf of the Central Committee was opposed to what you call "Lenin's circle". So much the worse for you. For it was the very same Bolshevik who wrote the letter reporting the repudiation of the Party by your three friends, which we printed in No. 12 of the Central Organ. If that Bolshevik is not a follower of what you call "Lenin's circle", then you must consider his evidence to be all the more unbiased. Let us assume that the members of the Central Committee who invited you were opposed to "Lenin's circle"* -- from your own standpoint that should only aggravate the guilt of the three liquidators who refused to join the Central Committee even under conditions so favourable for them. What has come over the Golos gentlemen? They are generally more clever . . . at covering up their tracks. You have made a very clumsy job of it, gentlemen! More stupid even than the "rebuttals" published by Stolypin's "Information Bureau".
* Another member of the Central Committee, one of the "Bolsheviks in Russia", is reproached by Golos with having, you see, placed "obstacles in the way of co-opting Golos people as members of the Central Committee, since he declared that the Bolshevik members of the C.C. . . . would permit the co-option only of such candidates as will first sign a statement renouncing "liquidationism'". The member of the C.C. whom the Golos crowd accuse of so terrible a crime is at present not in a position to answer the liquidationist gentlemen himself.[84] That is why we shall say on his behalf: if what you report of him were true, it would only mean that from the standpoint of the Party he was absolutely right and that he acted fully in the spirit of the decisions of the Plenary Meeting.
page 133
You have had ill luck with your "rebuttal", gentlemen of Golos, just as you have had ill luck with your recent scurrilous leaflets. You wanted "to prove too much", you wanted to prove that all Social-Democrats are pro-Party -- and that's why you have proved nothing. Just reflect a little: one day you publish the leaflet of the fifty-eight[85] (how many of the fifty-eight are hypocrites and how many have been hoodwinked?), in which you represent your opponents ("Lenin's circle") as arch-monsters, as a "gang", etc. And the very next day you (the editors of Golos ) issue a leaflet containing a "programme of reforms", in which you declare: everything will be perfect if we (the Golos group) are allowed representation in all central Party institutions on a basis of equality with these monsters, with people who are guilty of a number of "crimes", etc., etc. Well, when are you acting "for the benefit of the Party", and when are you looking after your own interests, gentlemen -- in the first or in the second case? Those fragrant-smelling Golos bulletins as well as its supplements, in which "everything has been made use of", including the Geneva otzovists who style themselves an "ideological circle of Bolsheviks ", would not be worth mentioning, if not for the fact that they shed such glaring light on the entire policy of Golos. . . .
Try hard, you "wreckers of legends", do your utmost! There is one legend which you are indeed helping us to wreck -- the legend that you still have something in common with revolutionary Social-Democracy.
NOTES
[83] A. Moskovsky -- Menshevik G. I. Khundadze.
[p. 131]
[84] The Bolshevik member of the C.C. was I. F. Dubrovinsky who was arrested in June 1910 (see Note 73).
[Note 73: Innokenty (Innokentiev, Inok) -- I. F. Dubrovinsky, member of the Central Committee of the R.S.D.L.P., a Bolshevik; in 1910-11 he became a conciliator.]
[p.
132]
[85] Leaflet of the fifty-eight -- a leaflet published in Paris in 1911 under the title "To All Members of the Party from the Meeting of Mensheviks in Paris".
[p. 133]