Published:
Pravda No. 127, June 5, 1913.
Signed: V. I..
Published according to the Pravda text.
Source:
Lenin
Collected Works,
Progress Publishers,
1977,
Moscow,
Volume 19,
pages 175-176.
Translated: The Late George Hanna
Transcription\Markup:
R. Cymbala
Public Domain:
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(2004).
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Pravda No. 104 (308) published an article “Separatists in Russia and Separatists in Austria”.[1] Now Mr. V. Kosovsky has published an article in Luch No. 119 (205) refuting it, or, to be more exact, containing a mass of vituperation against Pravda for that article. All we can do is draw the attention of the workers, who are interested in the fate of their own, organisation, to these slanging attacks by the Luch gentlemen, who evade the controversial questions.
What proof did Pravda offer of Bundist separatism?
1) The Bund left the Party in 1903. Mr. Kosovsky’s invective did nothing to disprove this fact. The Kosovskys scold because they are powerless to disprove the facts.
2) Jewish workers have joined and are still joining the Party everywhere in spite of the Bund.
This poor defender of the Bund cannot say a word against that either!
3) The Bund has deliberately contravened the Party decision on the unity of workers of all nationalities in local organisations, a decision that was taken in 1906 and given special confirmation in 1908.
Mr. Kosovsky could not say a word against that!
4) The Bundist Medem admitted that Bund members had never put into effect this unity in local organisations, that is, had always been separatists.
Again not a single objection from Mr. Kosovsky!
Just think of it, reader; what is the gentleman to do but scold and rage when he cannot say a single word against the four chief points in Pravda?
Pravda, furthermore, gave an exact quotation from the organ of the Czech separatists in Austria, who have been unanimously condemned for their separatism by the entire International. That organ praises Mr. Kosovsky (his article in the liquidators’ Nasha Zarya) for his “turn for the better” in respect of the separatists.
Now what, Mr. Kosovsky? Is our quotation not correct? Mr. Kosovsky knows that it is, and is malicious in his impotence: “a review in some Czech news-sheet”.
Don’t lie, Mr. separatist and Jewish liberal! Lies will not help you, for you will be exposed.
Not “a review” and not in “some Czech news-sheet”, but a special article in the German organ of the Czech separatists.[2] This is a fact, and you have not refuted it.
I do not defend the separatists, says Mr. Kosovsky to justify himself, summarising his article in Nasha Zarya.
Is that so? Then the Czech separatists have misunderstood you? The poor liberal leaders of the Bund! Not only their enemies, even their friends “misunderstood” them!
Any worker, however, will understand well enough that a petty liar who has been caught red-handed is seeking salvation in evasion and imprecation. You will not scare the workers that way, gentlemen.
Pravda has proved that the Bundists are separatists. Mr. V. Kosovsky has failed to refute it.
Messrs. Kosovsky, Medem & Co., are a group of liberal intellectuals that is corrupting the Jewish workers with bourgeois nationalism and separatism. For this reason Pravda has fought against and will continue to fight against the Bund.
Jewish Social-Democratic workers are joining the working-class party in spite of the Bund and against the Bund.
[1] See pp. 87–88 of this volume.—Ed.
[2] The publication referred to is Der &chat;echoslavische Sozialdemokrat.
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