V. I. Lenin

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

JULY 17 (30)–AUGUST 10 (23), 1908

PROGRAMME OF THE R.S.D.L.P. REGULAR SECOND
CONGRESS {17}

A. Standing orders of the Congress and its constitution.

B. List and priority of questions to be discussed and decided at
the Congress.

A. Standing Ordersofthe Congress .

| 1. The comrade duly
authorised by the Organising Committee {18} is to open the Congress. | { {

In brackets are desirable addenda, explanations, advice and other remarks of a particular character. |
| --- | --- |
| 2. The Congress is to elect a chairman, two assistants (and deputies) of
the chairman, and 9 secretaries.
These 9 {1} constitute the bureau and have their seats at the same table. Organising Committee’s report. | |
| 3. Election of a committee to verify delegates’ credentials and examine any
applications, complaints and protests relating to the constitution of the
Congress. | (This committee is also to receive the Organising Committee’s statement
concerning the persons, as listed , whom it has invited to attend the
Congress with voice but no vote.) {2} |
| 4. Decision on admitting the Polish
Social-Democrats. {19} | ! |
| to 3 {3} | |
| 5. Order of the Congress
sittings: twice a day from
9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and from
3 p.m. to 7 p. m. (roughly). | |
| 6. Limitation on delegates’ speeches: rapporteurs not more than 30 minutes per
speech; the rest, not more than 10 minutes. No one is entitled to speak more
than twice on any question. On points of order, not more than two speakers
for and two against every proposal. | |
| 7. The minutes of the Con gress are to be kept by the secretaries with the
partici pation of the chairman or one of his assistants. Each sitting of the
Congress is to start with the approval of the minutes of the preceding
sitting. Every speaker is to submit to the bureau of the Congress a
summary of each of his speeches within two hours after the sitting . | |
| 8. The voting on all the questions except the elec tion of functionaries is to
be by a show of hands. On the demand of ten votes, roll-call vote’s are
to be taken with a record of all votes cast entered in the minutes. | (To accelerate roll-call voting and avoid mistakes, the bureau of the Congress
should give ballot papers on each question to every member of the Congress with
the right of vote. On each ballot paper, the delegate writes his name (see
=

§ 8 {4} ) |
| | and his vote (yes, no, abstain) and also the question to which his vote
applies. The questions may be designated by abbreviations or even by a figure,
letter, etc. The bureau of the Congress keeps these ballot papers separate ly
for each question until the end of the
Congress.) {5} |
| 9. Secret designation of each delegate’s name (or with out name: first and
second delegate from such and such a Party organisation,
etc.). {6} | |
| 10. The chairman’s state ment that the Congress has been finally
constituted as the Regular Second Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic
Labour Party and that, consequent ly’ the decisions of this
Congress shall invalidate all earlier contradictory de cisions adopted by
the Regular First {20} and sectional congresses—that, consequently , the decisions of this Congress shall be absolutely binding on all the Russian S.D.L. Party. | (It is undesirable to touch upon the question of the Bund {21} in
connection with this point: it is better directly to put it first in,
the list of questions before the Conress.) |
| 11. Discussion of list and priority of questions. | |
| B.

List

and

Priority o f

Questions . |
| 1. The Bund’s status in
the Russian S.D.L.P . (Does the Russian S.D.L.P. accept
the federal principle of | (It is necessary to write a draft resolution on this question beforehand, and it is
desirable to put it through.) |
| Party organisation put for ward by the
Bund?) {7} | NB: The reasons why this question is brought up into first place: formal
(the Bund’s statements, the composition of the Congress,
subordination to majority), and moral (complete elimination of split and
confusion on basic issue). |
| 2. Approval of the text of programme of the Russian S.D.L.P. ||||| First reading : adoption as a whole of one of the available
drafts as a basis for detailed discussion. Second reading : adoption of each point and clause of the progrpmme. | (α. How many draft programmes shall be deemed subject to examination
by the Congress? [ Iskra’s , Borba’s , {22} Zhizn’s {23} ?] β. Shall all the drafts be examined or one taken as a basis? Or
otherwise: shall one of the proposed drafts be adopted in the first
reading ?) |
| 3. Creation of the Party’s Central Organ (newspaper) or confirmation
of one . α) Does the Congress want to set up a new organ? β) If it does not, which of the existing organs does the Congress want to transform into the Party’s Cen tral Organ? | (Necessity of having this question as a separate item: end the struggle of trends within
Social-Democracy .) {8} |
| 4. Reports by the committees (including the report by the Organising
Committee through one of its members) and other Party | α) How many reports are there? β) Are all the reports to be read or referred, to the committee? |
| organisations and individual
members . {9} | γ) Are all the reports to be discussed separately or together? (better separately) δ) Order of reading the reports. |
| 5. Party organisation . Approval of general organisational Rules of
the Russian S.D.L.P. | |
| First reading: selection of one of the drafts as a whole. Second reading:
discussion of one of the drafts point by point. {10} |
| 6. Regional and national organisations . (Recognition or non-recognition of each of them separately in a specified
composition and with (perhaps) such and such exemptions from the Party’s
general
Rules.) {11} | |
| 7. Separate groups in the Party .

{ Borba Zhizn Volya {24} Emancipation o f

Labour

group {25} { { Iskra ’s organisation in
Russia {26} Yuzhny Rabochy {27} , etc. {12} } } | { It is necessary to have a draft resolution on each separate group
and separate organisation. {13} |
| Final (or preliminary, that
is, with the Central Committee authorised to make the | |
| necessary inquiries and lay down the final
decision {14} ) approval of the list of all Party committees, organisations, groups, etc . | |
| 8. National question . | It is necessary to have a resolution on the national question in general
(explanation of “self-determination” and tactical conclusions
from our explanation). (( Perhaps also a special resolution against the
P.P.S.? {28} )) |
| 9. Economic struggle and the trade union movement . | ( Itis necessary to have a resolution both on the principles and on the
pressing tasks facing the Party.) |
| 10. Celebration of May Day . | Ditto . |
| 11. International Socialist Congress in Amsterdam
in 1904 . {29} | Ditto . |
| 12. Demonstrations and uprising . | Ditto . |
| 13. Terrorism . | Ditto . |
| 21. Attitude of the Russian S.D.L.P. to the Socialist-Revolutionaries . [and to the revolutionary socialists?? etc.??] 22. Attitude of the Russian S.D.L.P. to Russian
liberal trends . {15} | Ditto . } insert these two questions after
No. 7 {16} Ditto . | Ditto . | } | insert these two questions after
No. 7 {16} | Ditto . |
| Ditto . | } | insert these two questions after
No. 7 {16} |
| Ditto . |
| 14. Internal questions of Party work : organisation of propaganda . 15.
” ” agitation . 16.
” ” Party literature . 17.
” ” work among the peasantry . 18.
” ” in the army . 19.
” ” among students . 20.
” ” among sectarians . | } Resolutions desirable. |
| 24. Elections to the Central Committee and Editorial Board of the
Party C.O. | The Congress is to elect three persons to the Editorial Board of the Central Organ and three to the Central Committee. These 6 persons together shall, if necessary, co-opt by a two-thirds majority additional

||

members to the
Editorial Board of the Central Organ and the Central Committee and duly report
to the Congress. Following the approval of this report by the Congress,
subsequent co-op tation is to be carried out separately by the Editorial Board
of the Central Organ and the Central Committee. |
| [ 24. Election of the Party
Council . {30} ] | |
| 25. The order governing the publication of decisions and minutes of the
Congress and also the order governing the entry upon the exercise of theit
duties by elected functionaries and institutions . | |

| Written in the second half of June and the first half of July 1903 | Printed from the original |
| --- | --- |
| First published in 1927 in Lenin Miscellany VI | |

---
Notes:
{1}
Apparently, a slip of the pen: the total should be 12.— Ed .

{2}
The bracketed text is crossed out in the MS.— Ed .

{3}
Point 4, like point 11 in Section B (List and Priority of Questions)
was inserted by Lenin additionally. Because of this and changes in the arrangement of the points, Lenin altered their numeration. We give here
his final variant.

Lenin subsequently crossed out point 4 and wrote after it:
“to 3”. — Ed .

{4}
According to initial numeration (actually § 9).— Ed .

{5}
[DUPLICATE "*"] The text in brackets is crossed out in the MS.— Ed .

{6}
The text in brackets is crossed out in the MS.— Ed .

{7}
The text in brackets is crossed out in the MS.— Ed .

{8}
[DUPLICATE "*"] The text in brackets is crossed out in the MS.— Ed .

{9}
Point 4 is crossed out. “Delegates’ reports” is written on top in an
unknown hand.— Ed .

{10}
The text from the word “Approval” to the words “point by point” is
crossed out.— Ed .

{11}
The text in brackets is crossed out.— Ed .

{12}
The text from the word “ Borba ” to the word “etc.” is crossed out.— Ed .

{13}
The paragraph is crossed out.— Ed .

{14}
The text from the words “that is” to the word “decision” is
crossed out.— Ed .

{15}
Written in an unknown hand beside this point: “23. Attitude of the
R.S.D.L.P. to other revolutionary and opposition parties and trends
existing in Russia”. Written in Lenin’s hand before the number of the
point: “23”.— Ed .

{16}
The text is crossed out.— Ed .

{17}
This is a detailed elaboration of the standing orders and agenda for
the Congress. Section A was taken as a basis for the standing orders
adopted by the Congress. Section B was the draft agenda
( Tagesordnung ) supplied with the commentaries, which, Lenin said,
“was known toall the “Iskra”-ists long before the Congress and to all the delegates at the Congress (see present edition, Vol. 7, p. 31).

The initial text of the document was supplemented by Lenin on the
strength of remarks received from Martov and possibly other Iskra
supporters as well who had studied it. The text is here given in full with
subsequent addenda and amendments.

p. 78

{18}
The Organising Committee (O. C.) for the Convocation of the Second Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. was set up at a conference in Pskov on
November 2–3 (15–16), 1902.

The first attempt to set up an Organising Committee was made at the
Belostok conference of the R.S.D.L.P. committees and organisations (March
23–28 [April 5-10], 1902), which was called on the initiative of the
Economists and Bundists. The Organising Committee elected at the conference
consisted of representatives of Iskra , the Union of Southern
Committees and Organisations of the R.S.D.L.P. and the Bund Central
Committee; it was unable to start work because two of its members were arrested soon after
the conference.

A conference of Iskra supporters, led by Lenin, met in London
on August 2 (15), 1902, to set up the nucleus of the Russian O.C. It was
decided to invite representatives from the Bund and the Yuzhny Rabochy group which at the time showed signs of moving closer to
Iskra , and also to give the O.C. the right to co-opt members.

A conference of Social-Democratic organisations at which the O.C. was
constituted was held in Pskov on November 2–3 (15–16). The conference
adopted the text of an “Announcement of the Formation of an Organising
Committee”, which was published as a leaflet in Russia in December 1902.

In early February 1903, the second O.C. conference was held in Orel. It
worked out and adopted draft regulations of the Congress and the list of
organisations entitled to attend it. The regulations were circulated among
the local committees which Were then toured by the members of the O.C. They
were adopted and approved by the local organisations, and served as the
basis for the Organising Committee’s further work in preparing for the
Party’s Second Congress.

The O.C.’s successful activity, which culminated in the con vocation of
the Congress, was made possible only by the tremendous work in uniting
Russian revolutionary Social-Democrats carried out by Iskra’s
Editorial Board and the Iskra organisation under Lenin’s
direction. In his book, One Step Forward, Two Steps Back , Lenin
wrote: “The Organising Committee was mainly a commission set up to convene the Congress, a commission deliberately
composed of representatives of different shades, including even the
Bundists; while the real work of creating the organised unity of
the Party was done entirely by the Iskra organisation” (see present edition, Vol. 7, p. 279).

p. 78

{19}
Polish Social-Democrats —members of the revolutionary party
of the Polish working class, which emerged in 1893, first as the
Social-Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland, and from August 1900, following
the congress of Social-Democratic organisations of the Kingdom of Poland
and Lithuania, whore the Polish and a section of the Lithuanian
Social-Democrats were merged, it was known as the Social-Democracy of the
Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania (S.D.K.P. and L.). The fact that the party
directed the Polish working-class movement towards alliance with the
Russian working-class movement and fought against nationalism was to its
credit. At the same time, it made a number of mistakes; it failed to
understand Lenin’s theory of socialist revolution, or the leading role of
the party in the democratic revolution; it underestimated the role of the
peasantry as an ally of the working class and the importance of the
national liberation movement. While criticising the party’s erroneous
views, Lenin emphasised its services to the Polish revolutionary
movement. He noted that Polish Social-Democrats had created “for the first
time a purely proletarian party in Poland and proclaimed the extremely
important principle that the Polish and the Russian workers must maintain the closest
alliance in their class struggle” (see present edition, Vol. 20, p. 434).

The Fourth (Unity) Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. admitted the
S.D.K.P. and L. into the R.S.D.L.P. as a territorial organisation.

The S.D.K.P. and L. welcomed the Great October Socialist Revolution and
launched a struggle for the victory of the proletarian revolution in
Poland. At the Unity Congress of the S.D.K.P. and L. and the P.P.S.-Lewica
in December 1918, the two parties merged to form the Communist Workers’
Party of Poland.

p. 78

{20}

The First Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. was held at Minsk from
March 1 to 3 (13–15), 1898. It was attended by nine delegates from six
organisations: the St. Petersburg, Moscow, Yekaterinoslav and Kiev
organisations of the League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working
Class, from the group of the Kiev Rabochaya Gazeta and from the
Bund. The Congress elected the Party’s Central Committee, confirmed
Rabochaya Gazeta as the Party’s official organ, issued a Manifesto
and designated the Union of Russian Social-Democrats Abroad as the Party’s
representative abroad (see K.P.S.S. v rezolutsiyakh i resheniyakh syezdov, konferentsii i plenumov TsK (C.P.S.U. in Resolutions and
Decisions of Congresses, Conferences and Plenary Meetings of the Central
Committee), Part I, 1954, pp. 11–15).

The importance of the First Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. lay in the fact
that its decisions and Manifesto proclaimed the establishment of the
Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, thereby playing a great
revolutionary and propagandist part. But the Congress did not adopt a
Programme or work out any Party Rules; the Central Committee elected at the
Congress was arrested and the Rabochaya Gazeta printing-press was
seized, which is why the Congress failed to unite and merge together
separate Marxist circles and organisations. The local organisations were
not guided from a single centre and there was no single line in their work.

p. 80

{21}

The Bund (General Jewish Workers’ Union of Lithuania, Poland
and Russia) consisted mainly of semi-proletarian elements among Jewish
artisans in Russia’s western areas. Within the R.S.D.L.P., the Bundists
constantly supported its opportunist wing (Economists, Mensheviks and
liquidators) and waged a struggle against the Bolsheviks and Bolshevism.

p. 80

{22}
Borba (Struggle)—a Social-Democratic group abroad which
included D. B. Ryazanov, Y. M. Steklov (Nevzorov) and E. L. Gurevich
(V. Danevich). It was formed in Paris in the summer of 1900 and in May the
following year took the name of Borba . Its publications
(“Materials for the Working out of a Party Programme”, parts I-Ill,
“Leaflet of the Borba Group”, etc.) distorted revolutionary
Marxist theory, giving it a doctrinaire and scholastic interpretation and
taking a hostile attitude to Lenin’s principles of Party organisation. In
view of its departures from Social-Democratic ideas and tactics, its
disorganising activity and lack of connection with Social-Democratic
organisations in Russia, it was not allowed to attend the Second Congress of the
R.S.D.L.P., which adopted a decision to dissolve it (see Vtoroi syezd R.S.D.R.P . [The Second Congress of the R.S.D.L.P.], 1959, p. 438).

p. 81

{23}
Zhizn (Life)—a literary, scientific and political magazine
published in St. Petersburg from 1897 to 1901. Among its contributors were
“legal Marxists” (M. I. Tugan-Baranovsky, P. B. Struve and others) and
leading writers and critics (A. M. Gorky, A. P. Chekhov, V. V. Veresayev,
S. G. Skitalets, I. A. Bunin and Y. A. Solovyov [Andreyevich]). The
magazine published Marx’s Wages, Price and Profit and Lenin’s
articles “Capitalism in Agriculture (Kautsky’s Book and Mr. Bulgakov’s
Article)” and “Reply to Mr. P. Nezhdanov” (see present edition, Vol. 4,
pp. 105–59, 460-65).

Zhizn was closed down by the government in June 1901 and was
resumed abroad in April 1902 by the Zhizn Social-Democratic
group. There were six issues of the magazine, twelve issues of the
Listok Zhizni ( Zhizn Handbill) and several publications
in the Biblioteka Zhizni (Zhizn Library) series. The
Zhizn group had some deviations from Social-Democratic views and
tactics, inclining towards Christian socialism and anarchism. It ceased to
exist in December 1902 and the publishing business was wound up.

p. 81

{24}
Volya (Will)—a group abroad which called itself a “revolutionary Social-Democratic organisation”. In February 1903, it
issued a leaflet, “To Revolutionaries from the Revolutionary
Social-Democratic Organisation Volya ”, which put forward the task
of conducting political agitation among all strata of the population and of
uniting Social-Democrats with Socialist-Revolutionaries. The Volya
group was not a part of the R.S.D.L.P. The Second Congress of the
R.S.D.L.P. adopted a resolution “On the Kuklin Publishers Group and the
Volya Group”, which said:

“The Congress states that neither of these organisations is within the
Party, and that they have nothing in common with organised Social-Democracy
in Russia. The question of future relations between these groups and the
Party is for the Party’s Central Committee to decide in the event these
groups apply to it” ( Vtoroi syezd R.S.D.R.P. , 1959, p. 439). Soon
after the Second Congress of the R.S.D.L.P., the group announced its
dissolution and the entry of its members into the R.S.D.L.P.; an
announcement to that effect was inserted in Iskra No. 52 on
November 7, 1903.

p. 82

{25}
The Emancipation of Labour group —the first Russian Marxist
group formed by G. V. Plekhanov in Switzerland in 1883. Among its members
were P. B. Axelrod, L. G. Deutsch, V. I. Zasulich and V. N. Ignatov. It did
much to spread Marxism in Russia and dealt a serious blow at Narodism,
which was the main ideological obstacle to the spread of Marxism and to the
development of the Social-Democratic movement in Russia. Written by
Plekhanov and published by the Emancipation of Labour group, the two draft
programmes of the Russian Social-Democrats (1883 and

1885) were an important step in preparing and creating a Social-Democratic
party in Russia. Lenin said that the group “only laid the theoretical
foundations for the Social-Democratic movement and took the first step
towards the working-class movement” (see present edition, Vol. 20,
p. 278). Members of the group also made serious mistakes: they
overestimated the role of the liberal bourgeoisie and underestimated the
revolutionary role of the peasantry as a reserve of the proletarian
revolution. These mistakes were the germ of the subsequent Menshevik views
held by Plekhanov and other members of the group.

In 1894, the Union of Russian Social-Democrats Abroad was formed on the
initiative of the Emancipation of Labour group. Members of the group and
their followers left the Union in 1900 and set up a revolutionary
organisation, Sotsial-Demokrat . G. V. Plekhanov, P. B. Axelrod and
V. I. Zasulich were on the Editorial Board of Iskra and
Zarya . At the Second Congress of the R.S.D.L.P., in August 1903,
the Emancipation of Labour group announced its dissolution.

p. 82

{26}
Iskra’s organisation in Russia united Iskra supporters operating inside Russia. During the preparation for publishing
Iskra and in the first year of its publication (December
1900-December 1901) a network of Iskra agents was set up in
various towns of Russia. Among them were P. N. Lepeshinsky and
0. B. Lepeshinskaya, P. A. Krasikov, A. M. Stopani, G. M. Krzhizhanovsky
and Z. P. Krzhizhanovskaya, S. I. Radchenko and L. N. Radchenko,
A. D. Tsyurupa, N. E. Bauman and I. V. Babushkin. Iskra pro motion
groups were set up in a number of cities, including St. Petersburg, Pskov,
Samara and Poltava.

The growth of the revolutionary movement and the increasing volume of
practical work insistently urged the need to unite the Iskra
forces and place their work on a planned and organised basis, which would
help to solve the main task, that of overcoming the amateurish methods
introduced by the Economists and winning over the Social-Democratic
committees. In this connection, Lenin put forward a plan for an all-Russia
Iskra organisation, which was to prepare the unification of
Social-Democratic organisations in the country into an integrated,
centralised Marxist party. This plan was initially set out by Lenin in his
article “Where To Begin?” (May 1901) and then elaborated in the pamphlet
What Is To Be Done ? (autumn of 1901-February 1902)

(see present edition, Vol. 5, pp. 13–24, 347–529).

In implementing the plan for the establishment of an integrated
Iskra organisation in Russia, Lenin and his supporters had to
overcome narrow local (regional) tendencies among some Iskra
practitioners.

A congress of Iskra workers was held in Samara in January 1902
and was attended by G. M. Krzhizhanovsky and Z. P. Krzhizhanovskaya,
F. V. Lengnik, M. A. Silvin, V. P. Artsybushev, D. I. Ulyanov,
M. I. Ulyanova and others. The congress set up a Bureau of the
Iskra organisation in Russia.

Armed with Lenin’s book What Is To Be Done ?, Iskra workers vigorously set about spreading and realising Lenin’s plan for the
establishment of the party. The Iskra organisation in Russia
achieved a great deal in actually uniting party organisations on the
principles of revolutionary Marxism. By the end of 1902, almost all the
major Social-Democratic committees had announced their solidarity with
Iskra .

The Organising Committee for Convening the Party’s Second Congress, to
which the Iskra organisations handed over all their connections,
was set up at a conference in Pskov on November 2–3 (15–16), 1902, with
the most active participation of Iskra workers. The Iskra
organisation in Russia operated until the Second Congress and played an
important part in preparing and convoking the Congress, which set up the
revolutionary Marxist party in Russia.

p. 82

{27}
The “Yuzhny Rabochy” group —a Social-Democratic group formed in the south of Russia by the autumn of 1900 round a newspaper of
the same name. The newspaper Yuzhny Rabochy (Southern Worker) was
published illegally from 1900 to 1903. Twelve numbers were issued, the
first in January 1900 by the Yekaterinoslav Committee of the R.S.D.L.P. At
various times, I. Kh. Lalayants, A. Vilensky, 0. A. Kogan (Yermansky),
B. S. Tseitlin, Y. Y. Levin and Y. S. Levina, V. N. Rozanov and others were
members of the group and the Editorial Board.

In contrast to the Economists, the Yuzhny Rabochy group
believed that the main task of the proletariat was to carry on political
struggle for the overthrow of the autocracy. It opposed terrorism, upheld
the idea of launching a mass revolutionary movement and carried out
considerable revolutionary work in the south of Russia. But the group
tended to overrate the role of the liberal bourgeoisie and attached no
importance to the peasant movement. In opposition to the Iskra
plan for creating a centralised Marxist party through the unification of
the revolutionary Social-Democrats round Iskra , the Yuzhny Rabochy group put forward a plan for restoring the R.S.D.L.P. by
setting up regional Social-Democratic associations. In his One Step Forward, Two Steps Back , Lenin said the Yuzhny Rabochy group
was one of those organisations “which, while verbally recognising
Iskra as the leading organ, actually pursued plans of their own
and were unstable in matters of principle” (present edition, Vol. 7, p. 211).

At the Second Congress of the Party, the Yuzhny Rabochy delegates
took a Centrist position (Lenin called them “middling opportunists”).

The Second Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. decided to dissolve the
Yuzhny Rabochy group, like all other separate Social-Democratic
groups and organisations (see Vtoroi syezd R.S.D.R.P. , 1959,
p. 439).

p. 82

{28}
P.P.S. ( Polska Partia Socjalistyczna — Polish Socialist Party )—a reformist nationalist party set up in 1892. It
had a programme based on the struggle for an independent Poland, and under
the leadership of Pilsudski and his followers it carried on separatist nationalistic propaganda among the Polish workers in an effort to draw them
away from joint struggle with the Russian workers against the autocracy and
capitalism.

In 1906 it split up into the P.P.S.-Lewica (Left-wing) and the
Right-wing, chauvinist P.P.S., known as the “revolutionary faction”.

Under the influence of the R.S.D.L.P.(B.) and of the
S.D.K.P. and L. (the Social-Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and
Lithuania), the P.P.S.-Lewica gradually went over to consistent
revolutionary positions.

During the First World War, most of its members took an
internationalist stand and in December 1918 merged with the
S.D.K.P. and L. These two parties constituted the Communist Workers’ Party
of Poland (as the Communist Party of Poland was called until 1925).

During the First World War, the Right-wing P.P.S. continued to conduct
its national-chauvinist policy. When the bourgeois Polish state was formed,
the Right-wing P.P.S. in 1919 united with sections of the P.P.S. on the
territory of Poland earlier occupied by Germany and Austria and once again
took the name of P.P.S. With the government in its hands, it helped the
Polish bourgeoisie to take over power and then launched a systematic
anti-communist campaign, supporting the policy of aggression against the
Soviet state, and the policy of occupying and oppressing Western Ukraine
and Western Byelorussia. Some groups in the P.P.S. which disagreed with
this policy went over to the Communist Party of Poland.

Following the fascist coup staged by Pilsudski in May 1926, the
P.P.S. was nominally in opposition in Parliament, but actually conducted no
active struggle against the fascist regime and continued its anti-communist
and anti-Soviet propaganda. In this period, Left-wing elements in the
P.P.S. co-operated with the Polish Communists and supported the
united-front tactics in a number of campaigns.

During the Second World War, the P.P.S. split up once again. Its
reactionary and chauvinist section, which called itself
“Wolność, Równość, Niepodleglość” (Freedom, Equality, Independence), took
part in the reactionary Polish government in exile (London). The Left-wing
section of the P.P.S., which called itself the Workers’ Part of Polish
Socialists (W.P.P.S.), under the influence of the Polish Workers’ Party
(P.W.P.), set up in 1942, joined the popular front of struggle against the
nazi invaders, I ought for the liberation of Poland from the fascist
enslavement and favoured friendship with the U.S.S.R.

In 1944, following the liberation of the eastern part of Poland from
the German occupation and the establishment of the Polish Committee of
National Liberation, the W.P.P.S. once again took the name of P.P.S. and
together with the P.W.P. set a out building up a democratic people’s
Poland. In December 1948, the P.W.P. and the P.P.S. merged into the Polish
United Workers Party (P.U.W.P.).

p. 83

{29}
The Amsterdam International Socialist Congress of the Second International was held from August 14 to 20, 1904. It dealt with the
following questions: 1) international rules of socialist tactics; 2)
colonial policy; 3) general strike; 4) social policy and workers’
insurance; 5) trusts and unemployment, and other questions.

The attitude to bourgeois parties was expressed in a resolution called
“International Rules of Socialist Tactics”, which prohibited socialists
from taking part in bourgeois governments and censured “any urge to gloss
over existing class contradictions with a view to facilitating a
rapprochement with bourgeois parties”. The Congress decisions, while being
a step forward, went only a part of the way and wore a further concession
to opportunism. The Congress failed to raise the question of the mass
strike developing into an armed uprising or to give a rebuff to Right-wing
opportunists who were inclined to justify the colonial policy of the
imperialist powers. While saying that it condemned revisionism, the
Congress failed to declare a break with it, and said nothing about the
proletarian revolution or the dictatorship of the proletariat.

p. 83

{30}
The Party Council (1903–05) was set up under the Party Rules
adopted by the Second Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. as the highest Party
institution designed to co-ordinate and unify the activity of the Central
Committee and the Editorial Board of the Central Organ and to restore the
C.C. and the Editorial Board of the C.O. in the event the entire membership
of either of these bodies was gone, and also to represent the Party in
relations with other parties. The Council had the task of convening Party
congresses within the period laid down by the Rules or before the due date,
upon the demand of Party organisations which together commanded one-half of
the congress votes. The Party Council consisted of five members, one of
whom was appointed by the Party congress and the others by the Central
Committee and the C.O. Editorial Board, which had two members each on the
Council. The Second Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. elected G.V. Plekhanov as
the fifth member of the Council. Lenin was elected a member of the Council
from the C.O. Editorial Board, and from the C.C. when he left
Iskra . Following Plekhanov’s orientation towards opportunism and
the Mensheviks’ seizure of the Editorial Board, the Party Council became an
instrument of the Mensheviks’ struggle against the Bolsheviks. Lenin waged
a consistent struggle in the Council to unite the Party, exposing the
disorganising and splitting activity of the Mensheviks. Under the Rules
adopted by the Third Congress of the R.S.D.L.P., the Council was abolished.

p. 84