Lenin Collected Works:
Volume 16
Preface by Progress Publishers
Volume 16 contains works written by V. I. Lenin in the period from
September 1909 to December 1910.
The volume consists mainly of articles and documents devoted to the
struggle for the Party and its revolutionary principles, against the
two kinds of opportunism in the Party: the liquidators, the
“direct opponents of the Party”, and the otzovists, the
“hidden enemies of the Party”, as well as against the
conciliators, who served as a screen for both kinds of opportunists.
The articles “The Liquidators Exposed”, “Methods
of the Liquidators and Party Tasks of the Bolsheviks”,
“Golos Sotsial-Demokrata and Cherevanin”, and
“Golos (Voice) of the Liquidators Against the Party"
are devoted to the struggle against liquidationism —the agency
of the liberal bourgeoisie in the Party.
The articles “The Faction of Supporters of Otzovism and
God-building”, “A Word to the Bolsheviks of
St. Petersburg”, “A Shameful Fiasco” and
“The
Vperyod Faction”, are directed against otzovism and
ultimatumism.
The work “Notes of a Publicist” gives an appraisal of
the decisions of the plenary session of the C.C. of the
R.S.D.L.P. in January 1910 and an account of the struggle at the
plenary session against the liquidators, Trotskyists and
conciliators.
The articles “The Eleventh Session of the International
Socialist Bureau”, “The Question of Co-operative
Societies at the International Socialist Congress in
Copenhagen”, “Two Worlds”, and “Differences
in the European Labour Movement” are directed against
opportunism in the European labour movement, against the treacherous
policy of the leaders of the Second International.
The articles “The Historical Meaning of the Inner-Party
Struggle in Russia” and “Strike Statistics in
Russia” are devoted to a study of the experience of the
Revolution of 1905-07.
Included in this volume are eight documents published in the
Collected Works for the first time: “To Pupils of
the Capri School”, which reveals the anti-Party activity of
the Capri school; “Ideological Decay and Disunity Among
Russian Social-Democrats”; “The Vperyod
Group”; “Announcement on the Publication of
Rabochaya Gazeta”; “An Open Letter to All
Pro-Party Social-Democrats” with an exposition of the
inner-Party situation after the January plenum of the C.C. of the
R.S.D.L.P. in 1910; and two statements to the Central Committee of
the R.S.D.L.P. Like the majority of the works in this volume,
these documents are devoted to the struggle for the Party, the
struggle on two fronts.
Among the newly included articles is a large work of Lenin's,
“The Capitalist System of Modern Agriculture”, written
at the end of 1910. The manuscript of this work has not yet been
found in its entirety. The end of the article with the signature
V. Ilyin, as well as the end of Chapter I and the beginning
of Chapter II, which were absent when the work was published in
1932, have now been found, and therefore Chapters I, II and VII are
now published in full for the first time.
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