V. I.

Lenin

An Appeal to the Party by Delegates to the Unity Congress Who Belonged to the Former “Bolshevik” Group [1]

Comrades, The Unity Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. has been held. The split no longer
exists. Not only have the former “Bolshevik” and “Menshevik” factions completely amalgamated organisationally, but
unity has also been achieved between the R.S.D.L.P. and the Polish
Social-Democrats, [2] a unity agreement has been signed with the
Lettish Social-Democrats, [3] and unity has been assured with the
Jewish Social-Democrats, i.e., the [4]

Bund. The political significance of these events would have been very great in any circumstances, but it
is truly enormous in the historic period through which we are now passing.

The fate of the great Russian revolution is apparently to be determined in the
near future. The proletariat leading the broad masses of the town and rural poor
has been marching at the head of the revolution from the very beginning of the
movement up to this day. In view of the coming formidable, decisive events in
the people’s struggle, it is all the more essential to attain the practical
unity of the class-conscious proletariat of the whole of Russia, and of all her
nationalities. In a revolutionary epoch like the present, all theoretical errors
and tactical deviations of the Party are most ruthlessly criticised by
experience itself, which enlightens and educates the working class with
unprecedented rapidity. At such a time, the duty of every Social-Democrat is to
strive to ensure that the ideological struggle within the Party on questions of theory and tactics is conducted as openly, widely and freely as possible, but
that on no account does it disturb or hamper the unity of revolutionary action
of the Social-Democratic proletariat.

The great Russian revolution is now on the eve of its turning-point. The
struggle waged by all classes of bourgeois Russia against the autocracy brought
into being a paper constitution. A section of the bourgeoisie is completely
satisfied with this and has turned away from the revolution. Another section,
wishing to go further, deludes itself with hopes of a “constitutional” path of struggle, and is ready to regard the
election victory of the wavering and hypocritical bourgeois Cadet Party as an
important victory for people’s freedom.

The broad masses of the peasants, fighting courageously against old, semi-feudal
Russia, against the omnipotence of officials and the yoke of the landlords,
remain on the side of the revolution, but they are far from being fully
class-conscious. The revolutionary-democratic section of the town petty
bourgeoisie also shows but little political awareness. Only the proletariat,
which fought heroically for freedom in October, and took up arms in defence of
it in December, remains, as before, a consistently revolutionary class, which is
gathering fresh forces and is now consciously preparing for a new and still
greater battle.

The tsarist government is now with cynical frankness playing at a
constitution. It retains its former power, it continues and intensifies the
persecution of the fighters for liberty, its obvious intention is to make the
Duma a futile talking shop, a screen for the autocracy, an instrument for
deceiving the people. Whether these tactics will be crowned with success or not
will be decided in the very near future, by the outcome of the new revolutionary
explosion now coming to a head.

If the proletariat of the whole of Russia closes its ranks, if it succeeds in
rousing all the genuinely revolutionary sections of the people, all those who
want to fight and not to strike a bargain, if it trains itself well for the
struggle and selects the proper moment for the final battle for freedom, it
will be victorious. Then the tsar’s cynical playing at a constitution will fail;
then the bourgeoisie will not succeed in striking a bargain with the autocracy; then the Russian revolution will not turn out to
be as incomplete, half-hearted, and three-fourths fruitless for the
interests of the working class and the peasants, as were the revolutions
of the nineteenth century in Western Europe. Then it will really be a
great revolution, a complete victory of the people’s uprising will free
bourgeois Russia of all the old fetters, and will perhaps open the epoch
of socialist revolution in the West.

While striving for a complete democratic revolution, Social-Democrats must in
all their work reckon with the inevitability of a new revolutionary
explosion. We must ruthlessly expose the constitutional illusions fostered both
by the government and by the bourgeoisie as represented by its liberal
party—the Cadets; we must call upon the revolutionary peasantry to close
its ranks for the sake of a complete victory of a peasant uprising; we must
explain to the masses of the people the great importance of the first December
uprising and the inevitability of a new revolt, which alone will be able really
to wrest power from the tsarist autocracy and really transfer it to the
people. Such must be the basic aims of our tactics at the present moment in
history.

We cannot and must not conceal the fact that we are profoundly convinced that
the Unity Congress did not quite appreciate these tasks. The three most
important resolutions of the Congress clearly bear the stamp of the erroneous
views of the former “Menshevik” faction, which numerically was
predominant at the Congress.

The Congress accepted the principle of “municipalisation” in its
agrarian programme. Municipalisation means peasant ownership of allotment land
and the renting by the peasants of the landed estates transferred to the
Zemstvos. This, in effect, is something midway between real agrarian revolution
and Cadet agrarian reform. The peasants will not accept such a plan. They will
either demand the simple division of the land, or its complete transfer to the
people as their property. Municipalisation would be a serious democratic reform
only in the event of a complete democratic revolution, if a republican regime
were established and if government officials were elected by the people. We
proposed to the Congress that it should at least link municipalisation with
these conditions, but the Congress rejected our proposal. And without these conditions municipalisation, as a liberal bureaucratic reform, will give
the peasants something very different from what they require, and at the same
time it will give new strength, new influence to the bourgeois anti-proletarian
elements which dominate the Zemstvos. For it virtually puts the distribution of
the land into their hands. We must explain this point to the broad masses of the
workers and peasants.

In its resolution on the Duma, the Congress declared it desirable that a
Social-Democratic parliamentary group in this Duma should be formed. The
Congress refused to reckon with the fact that nine-tenths of the class-conscious
workers of Russia, including all the Polish, Lettish and Jewish
Social-Democratic proletarians, boycotted the Duma. The Congress
rejected a proposal to make participation in the elections conditional on whether it would be possible
to conduct really wide agitation among the masses. It rejected a proposal that
only those whom workers’ organisations had nominated for election to the Duma
could be members of the Social-Democratic parliamentary group. The Congress,
therefore, embarked on parliamentarism without even providing the safeguards for
the Party which in this connection have been produced by the experience of
revolutionary Social-Democrats in Europe.

As Social-Democrats we, of course, have recognised the obligation in principle
of using parliamentarism as a weapon of the proletarian struggle. But the point
is whether it is admissible for Social-Democrats to take part, in present
conditions, in a “parliament” like our Duma. Is it admissible to form a
parliamentary group without Social-Democratic members of parliament elected by
workers’ organisations? Our opinion is that it is not.

The Congress rejected the proposal to make it one of the tasks of the Party to
combat playing at constitutionalism, to combat constitutional illusions. The
Congress stated no opinion on the dual nature of the Cadet Party, which is
predominant in the Duma and which inclines so strongly towards making a deal
with the autocracy, towards blunting and putting an end to the revolution. The
Congress allowed itself to be too greatly impressed by the fleeting and tinsel
success of the party of bourgeois compromisers between the autocracy and
people’s freedom.

Nor, in its resolutions on the armed uprising, did the Congress provide what
was necessary, namely, direct criticism of the mistakes of the
proletariat, a clear assessment of the experience of October-December
1905—it did not even attempt in them to study the relationship
between strike and insurrection. Instead of all this, a sort of timid
evasion of the armed uprising predominates in the resolutions. The
Congress did not openly and clearly tell the working class that the
December uprising was a mistake; but at the same time, in a covert way, it
condemned that uprising. We think that this is more likely to befog the
revolutionary consciousness of the proletariat than to promote it.

We must and shall fight ideologically against those decisions of the Congress
which we regard as erroneous. But at the same time we declare to the whole Party
that we are opposed to a split of any kind. We stand for submission to the
decisions of the Congress. Rejecting boycott of the Central

Commit tee and valuing joint work, we agreed to those who share our views going on the Central
Committee, although they will comprise a negligible minority in it. We are
profoundly convinced that the workers’ Social-Democratic organisations must be
united, but in these united organisations there must be wide and free discussion
of Party questions, free comradely criticism and assessment of events in Party
life.

On the question of organisation, we differed only as regards the rights of the
editorial board of the Central Organ. We insisted on the right of the Central
Committee to appoint and dismiss the editors of the Central
Organ. [5]

We were all agreed on the principle of democratic centralism, on
guarantees for the rights of all minorities and for all loyal opposition, on the
autonomy of every Party organisation, on recognising that all Party
functionaries must be elected, account able to the Party and subject to
recall. We see the observance in practice of these principles of organisation,
their sincere and consistent application, as a guarantee against splits, a
guarantee that the ideological struggle in the Party can and must prove fully
consistent with strict organisational unity, with the submission of all to the
decisions of the Unity Congress.

We call upon all our fellow-thinkers to accept such submission and such
ideological struggle: we invite all the members of the Party carefully to assess the resolutions of the Congress. Revolution
teaches: and we believe that practical unity in struggle of the
Social-Democratic proletariat throughout Russia will safeguard our Party against
fatal errors during the climax of the impending political crisis. In the course
of the fight, events themselves will suggest to the working masses the right
tactics to adopt. Let us do all in our power to ensure that our estimate of
these tactics contributes to the fulfilment of the tasks of revolutionary
Social-Democracy, to prevent the workers’ party from deviating from the
consistent proletarian path to hunt after some cheap fleeting success, so that
the socialist proletariat may perform to the end its great role of vanguard
fighter for liberty!

---
Notes:
[1]
Lenin wrote the Appeal immediately after the Unity
Congress of the Party. It was discussed and approved by the conference of
Bolshevik delegates held at People’s House in Stockholm, and was signed by 26
Bolshevik delegates to the Congress who represented the largest Party organisations.

[2]
The merger of the Polish Social-Democratic Party and the
R.S.D.L.P. was considered necessary, and proposed more than once, by the
Social-Democracy of Poland and Lithuania (S.D.P. & L.)
at its congresses. At the Second Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. (1903), which discussed the question, the
S.D.P. & L. did not join the R.S.D.L.P. because of differences over the national question. In January 1906, the Executive
Committee of the
S.D.P. & L. resumed talks on a merger with the Joint
Central Committee of the
R.S.D.L.P. The talks resulted in the drafting of a treaty which the

S.D.P. & L. representative brought to the Fourth (Unity)
Congress. After introducing some amendments into the draft, the
Congress approved it.

[3]
The Lettish Social-Democratic Labour Party was founded by its First Congress in June 1904. Its Second Congress, which met in
June 1905, adopted the Party Programme and passed a decision on the necessity of
a merger with the R.S.D.L.P. In 1905, it led the revolutionary actions of the
workers and prepared the masses for an armed uprising.

At the Fourth (Unity) Congress, the Party joined the R.S.D.L.P. as a territorial
organisation. After the Congress it was renamed the Social-Democracy of the
Lettish Territory.

[4]
The Bund (The General Jewish Workers’ Union of Lithuania, Poland, and Russia ) was formed by a founding congress of Jewish
Social- Democratic groups held in Vilno in 1897; it was an association mainly of
semi-proletarian Jewish artisans in the western regions of Russia. The Bund
joined the R.S.D.L.P. at tile First Congress (1898) “as an autonomous
organisation, independent only in respect of questions affecting the Jewish
proletariat specifically”. ( The C.P.S. U. in Resolutions and Decisions of Its Congresses, Conferences, and Plenary Meetings of the Central Committee , Moscow, 1954, Part I, p. 14, Russ. ed.)

The Bund brought nationalism and separatism into the working-class movement of
Russia. Its Fourth Congress, held in April 1901, resolved to alter the
organisational relations established by the First Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. The
resolution said that the Congress regarded the R.S.D.L.P. as a federation of
national organisations and that the Bund should he treated as a member of that
federation.

After the Second Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. had rejected its demand that it be
recognised as the sole representative of the Jewish proletariat, the Bund left
the Party. In 1906, the Bund again entered the R.S.D.L.P. on the basis of a
resolution of the Fourth (Unity) Congress.

Within the R.S.D.L.P. the Bundists persistently supported the opportunist wing
of the Party (the “Economists”, the Mensheviks, the liquidators) and
struggled against the Bolsheviks and Bolshevism. The Bund countered the
Bolsheviks’ programmatic demand for the right of nations to self-determination
by a demand for cultural-national autonomy. During the period of the Stolypin
reaction, it adopted a liquidationist position and was active in forming the
August anti-Party bloc. During the First World War (1914-15) it adopted the
position of the social-chauvinists. In 1917, it supported the
counter-revolutionary Provisional Government and fought on the side of the
enemies of the Great October Socialist Revolution. In the years of foreign
military intervention and civil war the Bund leadership joined forces with the
counter-revolution. At the same time a change was taking place among the rank
and file of the Bund in favour of collaboration with Soviet power. In March
1921, the Bund decided to dissolve itself, and part of its membership joined the
Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) according to general procedure.

[5]
During the Congress debate on Clause 7 of the Party’s organisational Rules
the question of the relations between the Central Commit tee and the Central
Organ gave rise to a controversy. The Mensheviks insisted that the editors of
the C.O. be elected by the Congress, with the right to vote when political
matters were discussed by the Central Committee. The Bolsheviks, on the other
hand, insisted that the editorial board of the C.0. be appointed by the Central
Committee, which should also have the right to recall the board. The Menshevik
majority of the Congress succeeded in carrying its proposal through. In 1907,
the Fifth (London) Congress, revising the clause, adopted the Bolshevik wording
of it (see

The C.P.S.U. in Resolutions and Decisions of Its Congresses Conferences, and Plenary Meetings of the Central Committee , Moscow, 1954, Part I,
pp. 170-72, Russ. ed.).