V. I.   Lenin

Conference of the Extended Editorial Board of Proletary

June 8–17 (21–80), 1909

I think it unnecessary to reply for the hundredth and thousandth time to Comrade Maximov on the question at issue i. e., to repeat that in breaking away from us he is creating a faction of caricature Bolsheviks or godly otzovists. All this has already been said, printed, chewed over and emphasised in Proletary. And I only say: speak out, say in print what you have been saying here within four walls— and then, and only then, shall we get an ideological struggle instead of the unseemly bickering that has been going on here for more than three days. Say in print that we are “neo–Bolsheviks”, “neo–Proletary–ists’? “in the new Iskra sense”, i. e., virtually, Mensheviks, that we “have made two steps back”, that we “are destroying the most precious heritage of the Russian revolution—Bolshevism”. Say these things, which I have taken down from your speech, in print, and we shall show the public yet once more that you do answer to the type of a caricature Bolshevik. Say in print that we—I quote your words again—"will die a political death as prisoners of Plekhanov in the event of anew upsurge”, that we “will win in the event of a protracted period of reaction”, say this in print, and we shall, for the benefit of the Party, elucidate once more the difference between Bolshevism and “godly otzovism”. But since you refuse (in spite of our direct challenges, beginning from August 1908, when you were formally requested at a meeting of the editorial board to come forward with a pamphlet, to express your views in a   pamphlet), since you refuse to fight openly, but continue your intrigue within the Party, we must get an open statement from you by directly removing you from our section (not from the Party but from our section of it), removing you for the sake of an ideological struggle which will teach the Party a great deal.

Notes