The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1933-12-13
MEMORIES OF LENIN

was no room in the Party for those |
who had decided beforehand that !
they would not abide by the decisions |
of the Party. Certain comrades, how |
ever. interpreted the fight for the
Party to mean Cancellation with the
Iiquidatcrs; they lost sight Of the pur-
pose Of unity and strove to unite ey-
erybody irrespective Of what their
aims were. Even Innokenty, who en-
tirely supported Lenin's point Of view,
and who considered that the main
thing was to unite with the Party
with the Plekhanoyists,
was so carried away with the desire
to preserve the Party that he, too,
began to incline towards the concilia-
tory point Of view. Ilyich put him
right, however.
On the whole, the resolutions were
passed unanimously. 1t is ridiculous
to thank that Ilyich was voted down
and overwhelmed by the votes Of the
and that he surrendered
his position. The Plenum lasted three
weeks. Tyich considered that it was
necessary to make the utmost pos
Sible concessions on Organizational
questions without yielding an inch OF
his position on principles. "Proletarii,"
the organ Of the Bolshevik fraction,
was closed down. The 500-ruble notes
which had not yet been changed were
destroyed. The funds of the Bolsheyik
fraction were handed over to the So
called trustees" three German COM
rades: Kautsky, Mehring, and Clara
Zetkin, who were to pay out the
money only for general Party pur-
poses; in the event of split the ball
ance of the money was to be returned
to the Bolsheviks. Kamenev was sent
to Vienna as the Bolshevik repre-
sentative on the Trotskyist "Pravda."
Things have been very stormy here
recently" Lenin wrote to his sister,
Anna Ilyinishna, "but it ended in an
attempt to make peace with the Men
sheviks. Yes, yes, strange as it may
appear we have closed down the or
gan of the fraction and we are trying
to make q strong move towards
unity"
Innokenty and Nogin went to Rus
STA to organize a Russian de. work
ing in RUSSIA collegium Of the Cen
trail Committee. Nogin was a concil-
iator who wished to unite everybody
and his speeches met with rebuff
on the part of the BolSheviks. limo
kenty followed a different line; but
Eussia was not abroad" where ev-
cry word uttered was understood; his
words were interpreted in the terms
Of Nogin, all the on-Bolsheyiks saw
to that Lindov and V. P. Miliutin
we're co-opted on the Central Com
illittee. Innokenty was soon arrested.
Llndov shared Nogin's point of view,
and was not very active. The state Of
the Russian Central Committee in
1910 could not have been worse.
Abroad, things were not much bet
ter. Mark Qiubimov) and Lyova
(VladfInirov) were "conciliators in
general and frequently allowed
themselves to be influenced by tales
about the alleged quarrelsomeness
and disloyalty Of the Bolsheviks.
Mark, particularly, heard many such
stories, for he was a member of the
United Bureau Of the Central Com
mittee Abroad, on which all the frae-
tons we're represented.
The "Vperyod"- lists continued to
organize their forces. Alexinsky's
group once broke into a meeting of
Bolsheyik group which had assembled
in a cafe on Avenue d'Orleans. With
an inSolent air Alexinsky sat down at
a table and demanded to be allowed
to speak, and when this was refused
he began to create an uproar. The
"Vperyod" lists who came with him
threw themselves upon our comrades
to attack them. Abram Skovno and
Isaac Krivoy, members of our group,
were about to plunge into the fight,
but Nikolai VassilieYich Sapozhkoy
(Xuznetsov), a very powerful man.
grabbed him under one arm and
Isaac under the other, while the pro-
prietor of the cafe, who had had
much experience in the matter of
brswls, extinguished the lights. There
was no fight. But after this incident
Ilyich wandered about the streets of
Parts all night and when he returned
home he could not fall asleep until
morning.
In letter to Maxim Gorki dated
April II, 1916 Ilyich wrote: wen, it
seems that the ludicrous' Gs the pre-
dominant note in the unity and gives
good grounds for staggering. jokes,
etc. 1t is sicksning to have to live
amidst this righteousness, amidst
this sguabbling and scandal. And 1t is
sickening to watch it. But one must
not give way to ones moods The life
of an exile now is hundred times
more arduous than IL was before the
revolution. Exile and squabbling are
inseparable. But squabbllng is MI
nor thing; nine-tenths Of the squab-
bling remains abroad; squabbling is
merely a by-product. But the devel-
opment Of the Social-D Democratic
is going on and on, in
spite of the present hellishly diff
cult conditions. The purging Of the
Social-Denocratic Party Of its dan
gerous 'deviations,' of its liquidation
ism and Otzovism is going ahead I'M
swervingly; within the framework of
unity it has made considerably more
progress than before"
Further on, he states: Il can i'm
agine how hard it is to watch this
difficult growth of q new Social
Democratic movement for those who
have not seen and did not experience
the difficult growth at the end of
the eighties and the beginning of
the nineties At that time Social