Apropos of One Untruth

V. I. Lenin

APROPOS OF ONE UNTRUTH

(LETTER TO THE EDITORS)

From V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, 4th English Edition,
Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1968

First printing 1963
Second printing 1968

Vol. 19, pp. 233-34.

Translated from the Russian by George Hanna
Edited by Robert Daglish

Prepared © for the Internet by David J. Romagnolo, djr@marx2mao.org (June 2002)
(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.*** <"fnp233">

* 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.