V. I.

Lenin

The Unity Congress of the R.S.D.L.P.

April 10 (23)-April 25 (May 8), 1906

6

Statement in Support of Muratov’s (Morozov’s)
Amendment Concerning a Parliamentary Social-Democratic Group [1]

Comrade Muratov has relinquished to me the right to reply to the debate. It is
quite untrue that he is forcing an open door. On the contrary, it is he who is
opening it. His amend ment puts the question squarely. This Congress has
approved tactics different from those used by the workers in many places; in
forming a Party group in the Duma, it is necessary to prevent sharp conflicts,
and to ask the workers whether they wish to be represented in the Duma by those
they did not participate in electing.

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Notes:
[1]
Muratov’s amendment (“Muratov” was
M. Morozov, a delegate from the Samarkand organisation), submitted at the
twenty-first session of the Congress, said that in view of the Party’s non
participation in the elections, the question of forming a parliamentary
Social-Democratic group could he decided “only when the composition of the
group of Social-Democrats elected to the Duma was known and they had been
recognised by all the workers’ organisations in whose areas the elections had
taken place” (see The Fourth [Unity] Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. ,
Russ. ed., Moscow, 1934, pp. 368-69). The Menshevik majority at the Congress
rejected the amendment.