V. I.

Lenin

The Social-Democratic Election Campaign in St. Petersburg [2]

St. Petersburg, January 18, 1907

Theelection campaign in St. Petersburg is in full swing. The decisive moment is
approaching: in the first place, the next few days will reveal the final
grouping of the parties in the elections—who is allied with whom, and who
is against whom. Secondly, the elections themselves are now very near.

Theelections in the capital are of immense importance. The eyes of all Russia
are now turned towards St.

Peters burg.

Here, the pulse of political life beats faster and the government makes itself felt more than elsewhere. Here are the
headquarters of all the parties, the leading news papers of all trends and
shades, and the best public speakers at election meetings.

Wecan already say definitely and emphatically—St. Petersburg has passed
the test. The election campaign in St. Petersburg has already provided an
amazing abundance of political-educational material, and day by day
continues providing more. This material must be assiduously studied. It must be
systematically collected, and serve to bring out in the greatest possible relief
the class basis of the various parties. And this live, direct
knowledge, which interests and agitates everybody, must be carried to the
broadest possible strata of workers and to the most remote rural areas.

Wewill try to begin collecting this material, in the form of a synopsis, of
course. Let the reader look back and ponder over the whole course of the
election campaign in St.

Petersburg, so as to obtain a true and consistent picture of the role played by
the Social-Democrats, and not allow himself to be carried away by the
minor events of the day and the kaleidoscope of loud-mouthed political
chicanery.

Thefirst stage. The Social-Democrats make the theoretical preparations for the
elections. The most prominent representatives of the Right and the Left wings
express their views. At first the Mensheviks do nothing but vacillate:

(1) Cherevanin is for agreements with the

Cadets. [3] (2) The Cadet press is jubilant and spreads the glad tidings to all
corners of Russia.

(3) Martov protests in

Tovarishch , [4] favouring a purely Social-Democratic election list, and reproaching the Bolsheviks ( Proletary , [5] No. 1) even for their general
recognition of the possibility of agreements with the

Trudoviks [6] against the Cadets.

(4) The Bolsheviks come out in favour of a purely
Social-Democratic election list, but do not exclude agreements with
the revolutionary democrats.

(5) In the bourgeois press Plekhanov advocates blocs with the Cadets.

(6) Vacillation among the Mensheviks: Larin wrathfully condemns blocs
with the Cadets as a disgrace to Social-Democracy, Nik.

I—sky [7] admits the possibility of blocs with the Cadets, but prefers a
bloc with the Trudoviks against the Cadets.

(7)
Martov and all the Mensheviks describe an arc of 180°, and swing over to
Plekhanov.

The All-Russian Conference of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour

Party [8] registers two definite trends: the Mensheviks and the

Bundists [9] are in favour of blocs with the Cadets; the Bolsheviks, Poles
and Letts are unreservedly against such blocs, but admit the possibility of
agreements with the revolutionary democrats.

Thesecond stage. The idea of a bloc with the Cadets is developed in the
press. Plekhanov goes so far as to speak of “a Duma with full
powers”, thus threatening to reduce Menshevism to an absurdity. Wishing to
bring the Mensheviks and the Cadets closer together, he achieves the very
opposite (owing to his utter failure to understand the political situation): he
widens the rift between them. On the one hand, the Cadet Party solemnly and
officially rejects the idea of “a Duma with full powers” as a
revolutionary illusion, and jeers at Plekhanov. It is quite clear that the

Cadets want and demand an ideological bloc, the subordination of the
Lefts to Cadet leadership, to compromising, anti-revolutionary Cadet tactics. On
the other hand, Plekhanov’s excess of zeal causes confusion in the ranks of the
Mensheviks: both the Bundists and the Caucasian Mensheviks have made a public
condemnation, in the press, of Plekhanov’s pronouncements. Confused and
perplexed, the Central Committee, where the Mensheviks have a majority, remains
silent. Plekhanov is isolated and is silent, too.

Thethird stage. The beginning of mass action. Election meetings in
Moscow and St. Petersburg. A gust of fresh air from the street
penetrates into the musty atmosphere of intellectualist political
chicanery. The mythical nature of the

Black-Hundred [10] danger at once becomes apparent; the street supports the
Bolshevik contention that, by their outcry against the Black-Hundred
danger, the Cadets are leading the opportunists by the nose in order to
avert the danger threatening them from the Left. The struggle at election
meetings in St. Petersburg and Moscow is, in substance , a struggle
between the Cadets and the Social-Democrats, mainly the Bolshevik
Social-Democrats. The Cadets try to drag everybody—the street, the crowd, the
masses— to the Right ; they oppose revolutionary demands, and,
under the guise of following the path of “peaceful parliamentarianism”,
have high praise for a deal with the reactionaries. The Bolshevik
Social-Democrats call the masses to the Left, and expose the fraudulent,
selfish, class character of the fairy-tales about peaceful methods. The
Mensheviks fade into the background (on the admission of the very Cadet press
which is so enamoured of them); they timidly criticise the Cadets, not in a
manner befitting socialists but like Left Cadets, and they talk just as timidly
about the need for an agreement with the Cadets.

Thefourth stage. The Conference of the St. Petersburg
Social-Democratic organisation [11] takes place. At this Conference, which has been elected
by all the members of the Social-Democratic Party on the basis of
discussions (i.e., the general opinion on the question of agreements with
the Cadets was solicited), the Bolsheviks are in absolute
preponderance—irrespective of whether votes challenged by either side are
counted, uncounted, or counted at a special quota. The Mensheviks walk out of the Conference and launch splitting
tactics. Formally, they try to screen their conduct by means of ridiculous
and miserable hair-splitting on points of organisation (they allege that
the Bolshevik endorsement of credentials is irregular, although the
Bolsheviks preponderate, no matter how the credentials are counted;
secondly, that the Conference has refused to divide into two sections, a
city section and gubernia [1] section, although the Central Committee has no right
to demand this according to the rules, and has not demanded it of Wilno,
Odessa, or any other cities).

Actually,the reason why the Mensheviks are creating a split is obvious to
everyone: the opportunist Social-Democrats are deserting the proletariat for
the liberal bourgeoisie, deserting the workers’ Social-Democratic organisations
for amorphous, non-party election groups.

The Conference pays absolutely no attention to the Menshevik walk-out and
carries on with its own work. In St. Petersburg there are disputes even
among the Bolsheviks; the so-called pure Bolsheviks would have no agreements
with any other party whatsoever. The so-called dissenters are in favour of an
agreement with revolutionary democracy, with the Trudoviks, in order to smash
the hegemony of the Cadets over the unenlightened working-class masses in the
capital of Russia. In certain cases, these disputes between the
“purists” and the “dissenters” become acute, but actually all the Bolsheviks realise full well that this disagreement does not
divide them on questions of principle but merely serves to stimulate a thorough
and business-like discussion of all chances and prospects in the elections.

Thesocialist proletariat cannot refuse the non-socialist petty-bourgeois masses
permission to follow its leadership in order that it may emancipate
them from the influence of the Cadets. After a thorough discussion the
Conference passes a resolution to offer the

Socialist-Revolutionaries [12] and the Committee of the Trudovik Group agreements on the following basis: two
places to the worker curia, two to the Social-Democrats, and two to the
Trudoviks.

In St. Petersburg this was the only correct and the only possible decision; the
task of defeating the Cadets could not be neglected; there would be no
Black-Hundred danger if there were two Left election lists; but there could be
if the Lefts were split still further, and it would be impossible to rally the
masses of voters. The Conference’s offer left the preponderance of the
Social-Democrats intact; it consolidated the ideological and political hegemony
of Social-Democracy in all the purity of its principles.

Asfor the Popular Socialist Party, the Conference decided to exclude it from
the bloc as a semi-Cadet party, evasive on fundamental issues of the struggle
outside the Duma. It is well known that after the Duma was dissolved this party
separated from the revolutionary petty bourgeoisie and began to preach caution
and moderation, in the legal press.

Itgoes without saying that revolutionary Social-Democracy had to demand that the Socialist-Revolutionaries adopt a definite
attitude towards such a party, and either insist on its exclusion (this would
probably have been quite feasible if the Mensheviks had not deserted the
socialists for the Cadets at the decisive moment), or at least to disclaim all
responsibility for such “Trudoviks”.

Thefifth stage. The split caused by the Mensheviks raises the hopes of the
whole liberal bourgeoisie. The whole Cadet press is jubilant—jubilant over the “isolation” of the hated
Bolsheviks, and the “courageous” way in which the Mensheviks went
over from the revolution to the “opposition bloc”.

Rech , [13] the author of this latter expression, has outspokenly
given the Mensheviks and Popular Socialists the title of “moderate socialist parties ”. Indeed, the impression is created that the Cadets
will win over the whole of the petty bourgeoisie (i.e., all the Trudoviks,
including the Socialist-Revolutionaries) and the whole petty-bourgeois
section of the workers’ party, i.e., the Mensheviks.

The Bolsheviks calmly continue their independent activities. We are glad, they
say, to isolate ourselves from this dirty business, from the treachery and
vacillation of the petty bourgeoisie. We shall not subordinate our tactics to seat-hunting. We
declare: in any case there will be three election lists in
St. Petersburg: the Black-Hundred, the Cadet, and the Social-Democratic.

Thesixth stage. The elections in the worker curia and the exposure of the
duplicity of the Trudoviks.

Inthe worker curia the Social-Democrats win, but the Socialist-Revolutionaries
obtain a much larger share of the votes than we expected. It turns out that it
was mainly Mensheviks that the Socialist-Revolutionaries defeated in the worker curia . We are informed that in Vyborg District, the Menshevik
stronghold, more Socialist-Revolutionaries have been elected than
Social-Democrats!

Ourcountry, therefore, bears out a phenomenon that has long been observed in
other countries. Opportunism in Social-Democracy is so repulsive to the working
masses that they swing over to the revolutionary bourgeoisie. The highly
unstable and vacillating policy of the Mensheviks immensely weakens
Social-Democracy and plays into the hands of the Cadets in the urban curia, and
of the Socialist-Revolutionaries in the worker curia.

Itis only revolutionary Social-Democracy that can meet the needs of
the proletarian masses and permanently alienate them from all
petty-bourgeois parties.

Onthe other hand, however, the events also reveal Trudovik duplicity. In the
worker curia they (the Socialist-Revolutionaries) defeat us by routing the
Mensheviks, who favour a bloc with the Cadets. At the same time they are playing
a most unprincipled game in the election campaign. They make no party
declarations, publish no independent organisational decisions, conduct no open
discussion on the question of blocs with the Cadets. One would think that they
were deliberately blowing out all the candles—like people who need the
dark for their dark deeds.

Itis said that the Socialist-Revolutionaries have formed a bloc with
the Popular Socialists. No one knows the terms or the character of that bloc. It
is all guess-work. It is said (cf. Rodnaya Zemlya of January
15; this is the news paper that Mr.

Tan [14] writes for) that the Socialist-Revolutionaries are in favour of a
bloc with the Cadets. No one knows the truth. It is all guess-work. The
same confusion is revealed at election meetings: one Socialist-Revolutionary, jointly with the
Popular Socialists, advocates a bloc with the Cadets; another gets a resolution
carried against a bloc with the Cadets and for a bloc of all the Lefts against
the Cadets.

Theutter instability and duplicity of the entire petty bourgeoisie,
including its most revolutionary section, is now clearly demonstrated
to the masses. Were it not for the petty-bourgeois opportunists in our own
Social-Democratic ranks, we should have an excellent opportunity of explaining
to all the workers why only the Social-Democrats are capable
of defending their interests honestly and consistently.

Itis on that basis that the Bolsheviks are carrying on their agitation. The
Bolsheviks are unswervingly pursuing their own line. In St. Petersburg there
are sure to be Cadet and Social-Democratic election lists. Our decision
does not depend on the vacillations of the petty bourgeoisie:

if they respond to our call and follow the proletariat against the liberals, so
much the better for them. If not, so much the worse for them; in any case we shall pursue the Social- Democratic path.

Theseventh stage. Disintegration . The Cadets get themselves mixed up
in negotiations with the Black Hundreds. The petty-bourgeois opportunists get
themselves mixed up in negotiations with the Cadets. The Bolsheviks unswervingly
pursue their own line.

Thenewspapers report: (1) that Mr. Stolypin has granted an audience to
Mr. Milyukov; (2) that, according to reports in the foreign press, the
government is willing to legalise the Cadet Party on condition that it forms no
blocs with the Lefts.

Aray of light is thrown on the backstage machinations of the liberal
traitors. The Cadets are afraid to reject the offer of the Black
Hundreds, for the latter threaten to dissolve the Duma.

Thatis the real reason why the Cadets, to the horror of the petty
bourgeois opportunists, have suddenly become so “adamant” on the
question of agreements.

The Cadets are obdurate. More than two seats for all the Lefts? Never! In issue
after issue the Cadet Rech explains very distinctly and didactically that it is willing to lead
the moderate socialists (two seats out of six) in order to combat
“revolutionary illusions”, to combat revolution . March
with the revolution? Never!

Theopportunists are in despair. The tone of the articles in Tovarishch
against Rech grows positively hysterical. Mr. Bogucharsky, the renegade
Social-Democrat, twists and turns, exhorting Rech , and, jointly with
other writers on Tovarishch , urges it to consider what it is doing,
etc. The recent joint jubilation of Rech and Tovarishch over
the isolation of the Bolsheviks and the submission of the moderate socialists
to the liberals now gives way to angry recriminations and a free fight. On
January 7, St. Petersburg learned of the decision of the St. Petersburg
Social-Democratic Conference. Today is January 18. But so far the Cadets and the
opportunists have not decided anything . The tone of
Rech today is particularly uncompromising towards Tovarishch ,
and the tone of Tovarishch today is particularly sharp and perplexed in
its remarks against Rech .

The Bolsheviks are unswervingly pursuing their own line. There will be three
election lists in St. Petersburg. Where the petty bourgeoisie will find
themselves is their business: the revolutionary proletariat will do its duty in
any case.

Whatthe eighth stage will be we do not know. This, in the final analysis,
depends on the negotiations, on the relations between the Cadets and the
Black-Hundred government. If they “come to terms” on the immediate
legalisation of the Cadets, or on some other point, the petty bourgeoisie will
be isolated. If, for the time being , the Cadets and the Black Hundreds
fail to come to terms, the Cadets may even concede three seats to the petty
bourgeoisie. The Social-Democrats will not allow this to determine their policy.

Thecourse of events in the St. Petersburg election campaign provides us with a
miniature but excellent picture of the relations between the Black Hundreds, the
Cadets and the revolutionary proletariat. And this course of events strikingly
confirms the old, tested and uncompromising tactics of the revolutionary
Social-Democrats.

Astraight policy is the best policy. A policy based on principles is the most
practical policy. Such a policy alone can really win Social-Democracy the lasting sympathy and confidence of the
masses. It alone can free the workers’ party from responsibility for the
negotiations between Stolypin and Milyukov, and between Milyukov and Annensky,
Dan or Chernov.

Henceforth,this responsibility must forever be borne by the
opportunist Social-Democrats and the “Trudovik parties”.

Itis not surprising that the vacillating Mensheviks are trying to save
themselves by resorting to hypocrisy. We are in favour either of a struggle
against the Black Hundred danger or of purely Social-Democratic
election lists, say the Social-Democrats who left the Conference (if we are to
believe today’s newspapers). This is an amusing subterfuge, which only very
simple-minded people can believe! It has been proved that there is no
Black-Hundred danger in St. Petersburg if there are two Left election
lists. But what if there are three? Are the Mensheviks anxious to try
this?! No, they are simply clutching at anything, for the course of
events has forced them to the wall: they must either desert to the Cadets and
submit entirely to their ideological and political hegemony, or follow the
Bolsheviks, the Social-Democratic election list to which the Trudoviks may be
admitted.

In St. Petersburg such an election list would probably defeat both the Black
Hundreds and the Cadets. And having chosen a correct line from the very outset,
revolutionary Social-Democrats will unswervingly pursue it, undaunted by the
possibility of temporary defeats in the event of the petty bourgeoisie deserting
to the liberals—drawing new strength and determination from the
vacillation and indecision of the opportunists.

Therewill be three election lists in St. Petersburg: the Black-Hundred, the
Cadet, and the Social-Democratic!

Citizens,make your choice!

---
Notes:
[1]
Gubernia, uyezd , volost—Russian administrative-territorial units. The largest of these was the gubernia,
which had its subdivisions in uyezds, which in turn were subdivided into
volosts. This system continued under the Soviet power until the
introduction of the new administrative-territorial division of the
country in 1929-30.— Ed .

[2]
“ The Social-Democratic Election Campaign in St. Petersburg ”
was published in the newspaper Prostiye Rechi , No. 2.

Prostiye Rechi ( Simple Words ) was a legal Bolshevik weekly
published in
St. Petersburg in 1907, Lenin being one of its closest collaborators. Only three
issues appeared—No. I on January 14(27), No. 2 on January 21 (February 3)
and No. 3 on January
30 (February 12), after which it was suppressed by the tsarist. government. In
addition to the above article, published in the second issue, the newspaper’s
third issue carried two other articles by Lenin—“The Elections in the
Worker Curia in St. Petersburg” and “The Struggle Between S.D’s and
S.R.’s in the Elections in the Worker Curia in St. Petersburg”.

Theelection campaign was conducted under the election law of December
11(24), 1905. The law was promulgated by the tsarist government when the
insurrection of the workers was at its height; it made some slight extensions to
the franchise provided by the law governing the elections to the Bulygin Duma
promulgated on August 6(19), 1905. Even under the new election law, however, a
very large part of the population of Russia was disfranchised—all women,
the workers in small enterprises, the peasants of Poland and Siberia and many
others.

Theelections to the Duma were indirect and bad several stages. They were
conducted separately for various groups of the population known as curias— they were the landowner, urban, peasant and worker curias.

Theelections in the landowner and urban curias were in two stages: the urban
population (workers excluded) and uyezd congresses of landowners elected their
representatives to gubernia congresses which, in turn, elected deputies to the
Duma.

Theelections in the worker curia were In three stages: the workers elected
representatives at their factories, these representatives elected electors, and
the electors elected the deputies. Factories employing from 50 to 1,000 workers
elected one representative; bigger enterprises sent one representative for
every thousand workers; factories employing fewer than 50 workers did not take
part in the elections.

Thefour-stage system introduced for the peasants was the following: every ten
households sent a representative to the village meeting, the village meetings
sent one representative each to the volost meeting, a congress of representatives from the volost meetings elected
an elector who attended the gubernia election meeting.

Thusthe election law of December 11(24), 1905 allowed for one elector to every
2,000 voters in the landowner curia, one to each 7,000 in the urban curia, one
to 30,000 in the peasant curia and one to 90,000 in the worker curia, i.e., the
vote of a landlord was equal to three votes by the urban bourgeoisie, 15 peasant
votes and 45 workers’ votes. The electors from the worker curias constituted
only 4 per cent of the electors who elected deputies to the State Duma.

As Lenin pointed out, this law ensured an overwhelming majority of landowners
and capitalists in the Duma and was the crudest distortion of popular
representation.

[3]
Cadets —members of the
Constitutional-Democratic Party, the leading party of the Russian
liberal-monarchist bourgeoisie. The Cadet Party was founded in October 1905, its
membership including representatives of the bourgeoisie, Zemstvo functionaries
and bourgeois intellectuals. Some prominent members of the party were:
P. N. Milyukov, S. A. Muromtsev, V. A. Maklakov, A. I. Shingarev, P. B. Struve,
and F. I. Rodichev. To win over the masses of the working people the Cadets
adopted the deceptive title of “people’s freedom party” although
actually they did not go beyond the demand for a constitutional monarchy. They
considered the struggle against the revolutionary movement their main task, and
were anxious to share state power with the tsar and the feudal landlords. During
the First World War the Cadets actively support ed the tsarist government’s
foreign policy of conquest. At the time of the bourgeois democratic revolution
of February 1917, they tried to save the monarchy; they held leading positions
in the bourgeois Provisional Government, in which they pursued a
counter-revolutionary policy opposed to the interests of the people but
favourable to the U.S., British and French imperialists. After the victory of
the October Socialist Revolution the Cadets became irreconcilable enemies of
Soviet power and participated in all armed counter-revolutionary actions and in the campaigns of the interventionists. When
the interventionists and whiteguards were defeated, the Cadets fled abroad,
where they continued their anti-Soviet, counter-revolutionary activities.

[4]
Tovarishch ( The Comrade )—a bourgeois daily paper published in St. Petersburg from March 1906 to January 1908. It was not
the official organ of any particular party but was the mouthpiece of the Left
Cadets. Mensheviks also contributed to this paper. p. 16

[5]
Proletary ( The Proletarian )—an illegal
Bolshevik newspaper edited by Lenin; it was published from August 21 (September
3), 1906 until November 28 (December 11), 1909, a total of fifty issues having
appeared. Active participants in the editorial work were M. F. Vladimirsky,
V. V. Vorovsky, I. F. Dubrovinsky, A. V. Lunacharsky; the technical side of publication was in the hands of A. G. Schlichter,
E. S. Schlichter and others. The first twenty issues of the paper were edited
and set up in Vyborg (matrices were sent to St. Petersburg and the paper was
printed there; for purposes of concealment the newspaper was date-lined
Moscow). Later, in view of growing difficulties in the way of publishing an
illegal newspaper in Russia, the St. Petersburg and Moscow Committees of the
R.S.D.L.P. decided that publication of the newspaper should he organised
abroad. Nos. 21 to 40 were published in Geneva and Nos. 41 to 50 in Paris.

Nos.1 and 2 of Proletary appeared as the organ of the Moscow and
St. Petersburg Committees of the R.S.D.L.P.; Nos. 3 and 4 as the organ of the
Moscow, St. Petersburg and Moscow District Committees of the R.S.D.L.P.; Nos. 5
to 11 as the organ of the Moscow, St. Petersburg, Moscow District, Perm and
Kursk Committees of the R.S.D.L.P.; Nos. 12 to 20 as the organ of the Moscow,
St. Petersburg, Moscow District, Perm, Kursk and Kazan Committees of the
R.S.D.L.P.; from No. 21 onwards (from the time it moved abroad) it appeared as
the organ of the Moscow and St. Petersburg Committees of the R.S.D.L.P.

Actually, Proletary was the Central Organ of the Bolsheviks. The main
editorial work was done by Lenin, with most issues carrying articles by him
(over a hundred in all) on the most important questions of the revolutionary
struggle of the working class. The newspaper gave prominence to questions of
tactics and general politics; it published reports on the activities of the
Central Committee of the R.S.D.L.P., the decisions of conferences and plenary
meetings of the

CC.,

R.S.D.L.P., letters from the C.C. on various questions of
Party work, and other documents. No. 46 published a supplement containing a
notice of the extended meeting of the Editorial Board of Proletary held
in Paris between June 8 and June 17 (21-30), 1909, and also the resolutions of
that meeting. The newspaper maintained close contact with local Party
organisations.

Duringthe years of the Stolypin reaction, the newspaper played an important
tart in preserving and strengthening the Bolshevik organisations, in the
struggle against the liquidators, and all other opportunists. At the plenary
meeting of the C.C., R.S.D.L.P. in January 1910, the Mensheviks succeeded, with
the aid of the conciliators, in passing a resolution to close the newspaper
Proletary under the pretence of fighting factionalism.

[6]
Trudoviks (Trudovik Group)—a group of petty-bourgeois democrats,
peasants and Narodnik intellectuals in the Russian State Dumas. The Group was
formed in April 1906 from among the peasant deputies to the First Duma.

The Trudoviks put forward demands for the abolition of all social-estate and
national restrictions, the democratisation of the Zemstvos and urban
self-government bodies, and universal suffrage in the elections to the State
Duma. The Trudovik agrarian programme was based on the Narodnik
principles of equalitarian land tenure—the establishment of a national land fund from government, crown,
and monasterial lands to which were to be added privately owned land, if
its area exceeded the labour standard (i.e., the amount that could be
tilled by its owners without outside help); they recognised compensation
for the landed estates that were to be confiscated. Lenin said that the
typical Trudovik is a peasant who “is not averse to a compromise
with the monarchy, to settling down quietly on his own plot of land under
the bourgeois system; but at the, present time his main efforts
concentrated on the fight against the landlords for land, on the fight
against the feudal state and for democracy” (see present edition,
Vol. 11, P. 229).

The Trudoviks in the State Duma, because of the class nature of the peasant
petty proprietors, wavered between the Cadets and the Social-Democrats. However
since the Trudoviks represented the masses of the peasantry, the Bolsheviks in
the Duma followed the tactics of agreement with them on certain questions in the
common struggle against the tsarist autocracy and the Cadets. In 1917 the
Trudovik Group merged with the Popular Socialist Party and gave active support
to the bourgeois Provisional Government. After the October Revolution the
Trudoviks went over to the side of bourgeois counter-revolution.

[7]
Nik. I—sky —N. I. Iordansky. p. 16

[8]
The Second ( First All-Russian) Conference of the R.S.D.L.P.
was held in
Tammerfors on November 3-7(16-20), 1906. It was attended by 32 delegates with a
deciding vote—11 from the Mensheviks, 7 from the Bund, 6 from the
Bolsheviks, 5 from the Social-Democrats of Poland and Lithuania, and 3 from the
Social-Democrats of the Latvian Area. Members of the Central Committee and the
editors of the Central Organ attended with consultative votes.

The Conference adopted the following agenda: (1) the election campaign; (2) the
Party Congress; (3) the labour congress; (4) the struggle against the Black
Hundreds and pogroms; (5) partisan action during revolution.

Byengineering the representation of a number of fictitious organisations, the
Menshevik C.C. ensured the Mensheviks a majority, which enabled them to foist
several Menshevik resolutions on the Conference. The Bolshevik line at the
Conference was defended by 14 delegates from St. Petersburg, Moscow, the Central
Industrial Region, the Volga side and the Polish and Latvian
Social-Democrats. Four reports were delivered on the election campaign to the
Second State Duma. Lenin and A. Varsky (A. S. Varshavsky), a representative of
the Social-Democrats of Poland and Lithuania, defended the Bolshevik tactics
against blocs with the Cadets. The Menshevik tactics of blocs with the Cadets
were defended by L. Martov and the Bundist B. A. Abramovich.

Aftera discussion on the reports, the Conference adopted the Menshevik
resolution on “Tactics of the R.S.D.L.P. in the Election Campaign”,
which allowed for blocs with the Cadets and was voted for by 18 delegates
(Mensheviks and Bundists) and against by 14 delegates. In opposition to this
opportunist resolution, Lenin tabled a Special Proviso on behalf of the 14 delegates—the Bolshevik
platform for the election campaign, which stressed the categorical necessity for
the organisational and ideological independence of the working-class party. The
Special Proviso allowed for the possibility of temporary agreements only with
the Trudoviks and the Socialist-Revolutionaries as representatives of
petty-bourgeois democracy. Lenin criticised the Menshevik draft election
programme submitted by the Central Committee for approval by the Conference,
and moved a number of amendments to it. Under pressure from the Bolsheviks the
Conference adopted a resolution introducing a number of amendments to the draft
election platform.

The Conference adopted a resolution on “Unity of Local Organisations in
the Election Campaign”, with Lenin’s amendments, preventing the Menshevik
Central Committee from pursuing its policy of blocs with the Cadets in local
Party organisations.

Lenininsisted on the need for an extraordinary Party congress, and the
Conference decided to call a regular congress not later than March 15 (28),
1907. Despite the demand of the Bolsheviks that the question of a “labour
congress” be discussed, since they regarded agitation for the convocation
of such a congress as a breach of Party discipline, the Conference did not
discuss the question but confined itself to passing a compromise resolution on
“The Limits of the Agitation for a Labour Congress”.

Owingto lack of time the question of the struggle against the Black Hundreds
and against pogroms, and that of partisan action were not discussed. The
Conference instructed the Central

Commit tee to publish all the draft resolutions and special provisos in a brief Report of the Conference. The
Menshevik Central Committee, however, published only the resolutions of
the. Conference in its organ Sotsial-Demokrat , and omitted the Special
Proviso of the Bolsheviks.

Leninanalysed and criticised the work of the Conference in his “Blocs
with the Cadets”, and “Party Discipline and the Fight Against the
Pro-Cadet Social-Democrats” (see present edition, Vol. 11, pp. 307-19,
320-23).

[9]
The Band (The General Jewish Workers’ Union of
Lithuania, Poland and Russia) was organised in 1897 at an inaugural congress of
Jewish Social-Democratic groups in Wilno. In the main, it was an alliance of
semi-proletarian elements from among the Jewish artisans of the western regions
of Russia. At the First Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. (1898), the Bund joined the
Party as an autonomous organisation, independent only in regard to questions
specially concerning the Jewish proletariat.

The Bund brought nationalism and separatism into the Russian working-class
movement. In April 1901, the Bund’s Fourth Congress voted for changing
organisational relations with the R.S.D.L.P. established at the First Congress,
stating in its resolution that it regarded the R.S.D.L.P. as a federative
association of national organisations which the Band should join as a unit in
the federation.

Followingthe rejection by the Second Congress of the
H.S.D.L.P. of the Bund’s demand that it be regarded as the sole
representative of the Jewish proletariat, the Bund left the Party,
rejoining in 1906 on the basis of a decision of the Fourth (Unity) Congress
of the R.S.D.L.P.

Withinthe R.S.D.L.P. the Bundists were consistent supporters of the
opportunist wing (the Economists, Mensheviks, and liquidators), and waged a
struggle against the Bolsheviks and Bolshevism. In opposition to the Bolshevik
demand for the right of nations to self-determination, the Bund put forward a
demand for cultural and national autonomy.

The Bund adopted a liquidators’ stand during the period of the Stolypin
reaction, and took an active part in forming the anti-Party August bloc. During
the First World War (1914-18), the Bundists took a social-chauvinist stand. In
1917, the Bund supported the counter-revolutionary Provisional Government and
fought on the side of the enemies of the October Socialist Revolution, its
leadership joining forces with the counter-revolution in the Civil War and
during the foreign military intervention. Among the rank and file, however, a
swing towards co-operation with Soviet power was to be observed. In March 1921,
the Bund went into voluntary liquidation and part of its membership joined the
Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) on a general basis.

[10]
Black Hundreds —gangs of monarchists organised by the tsarist
police to fight against the revolutionary movement. The Black Hundreds
assassinated revolutionaries, attacked the progressive intelligentsia and
organised anti-Jewish pogroms. p. 17

[11]
The City and Gubernia Conference of the St. Petersburg Organisation of the R.S.D.L.P. met on January 6 (19), 1907, to decide
questions of agreements in the elections to the Second State Duma. The
Conference was attended by 70 delegates (39 Bolsheviks and 31
Mensheviks). Realising that the Conference would reject the tactics of blocs
with the Cadets, the Mensheviks withdrew from the Conference. The Bolshevik
delegates heard Lenin’s report on the subject and decided that agreements with
the Cadets were impermissible in principle, and harmful politically.

[12]
Socialist-Revolutionaries (S.R.’s)—a petty-bourgeois party that took shape in Russia at the end of 1901 and early in
1902, through the merging of a number of Narodnik groups and study circles (the
Union of Socialist-Revolutionaries, the Party of Socialist Revolutionaries
and others). Its official publications were the news paper Revolutsionnaya Rossiya (Revolutionary Russia ) (1900-05) and the journal Vestnik Russkoi Revolutsil (Herald of the Russian Revolution ) (1901-05). The
S.R. ’s did not draw a line of demarcation between the proletariat and petty
proprietors, glossed over the class differentiation and contradictions within
the peasantry and denied the leading role of the proletariat in the
revolution. Their views were an eclectic mixture of Narodnik ideas and
revolutionism; they tried, to use Lenin’s expression, “to patch up the rents in the
Narodnik ideas with bits of fashionable opportunist ’criticism’ of
Marxism” (see present edition, Vol. 9, p. 310). The tactics of individual
terror that the S.R.’s preached as a. method of struggle against the autocracy
was highly detrimental to the revolutionary movement and made it difficult to
organise the masses for the revolutionary struggle.

TheS.R. agrarian programme envisaged the abolition of private property in land
and its transfer to the communes, the introduction of “the labour
standard” and “equalitarianism” in land tenure; they also
favoured the development of co-operation. The S.R.’s called this programme the
“socialisation of the land” hut in fact it contained nothing that
was socialist. In his analysis of the S.R. agrarian programme, Lenin said that
the retention of commodity production and private farming on commonly-owned land
would not do away with the rule of capital, and would not free the working
peasantry from exploitation and ruin; co-operation under capitalism could not
be a means of saving the small peasant, because it served only to increase the
wealth of the rural bourgeoisie. At the same time, Lenin said, the demand for
equalitarian land tenure, though not socialist, bore a progressive,
revolutionary-democratic character, since it was directed against reactionary
landlordism.

The Party exposed the attempts of the S.R.’s to don the cloak of socialism,
carried on a stubborn struggle against them for influence over the peasantry,
and exposed the harm of individual terror to the working-class
movement. Nevertheless the Bolsheviks entered into temporary agreements with the
S.R.’s, under certain conditions, for the struggle against tsarism.

TheS.R.’s were not a homogeneous class party and this conditioned their
political and ideological instability, organisational fragmentation, and
.constant wavering between the liberal bourgeoisie and the proletariat. As
early as the first Russian revolution, the Right wing of the S.R.’s broke away
and formed the Trudovik Popular Socialist Party, close to the Cadets in its
views; the Left wing, too, broke away to form the semi-anarchist Union of
Maximalists. In the period of the Stolypin reaction the S.R. Party underwent a
complete ideological and organisational collapse. During the First World War the
majority of the S. R.’s adopted a social-chauvinist stand.

Afterthe February bourgeois-democratic revolution of 1917, the S.R.’s, in
company with the Mensheviks and Cadets, were the mainstay of the
counter-revolutionary Provisional Government of the bourgeoisie and landlords,
leaders of the party (Kerensky, Avksentyev, Chernov) being members of that
government. The S.R.’s refused to support the peasant demand for the abolition
of landed estates, and came out in favour of the retention of landlordism; the

SR.

ministers in the Provisional Government sent punitive expeditions against
peasants who had seized landed estates.

Atthe end of November 1917, the Left wing of the party organised an
independent party of Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, and in an effort to retain
their influence among the peasant masses, formally recognised Soviet power and entered into an agreement with the
Bolsheviks. Very soon, however, they took the path of struggle
against Soviet power.

Inthe period of foreign armed intervention and civil war, the S. B. ’s
conducted counter-revolutionary, subversive activities, supported the
interventionists and whiteguards, took part in counter-revolutionary
conspiracies, and organised terrorist acts against the leaders of the Soviet
state and the Communist Party. After the Civil War the S.R.’s continued their
hostile acts against the Soviet state both in the country and abroad, among the
whiteguard émigrés.

[13]
Rech ( Speech )—official organ of the Cadet
Party, published daily in St. Petersburg from February 23 (March 8), 1906. The
newspaper was closed down by order of the Military Revolutionary Committee of
the Petrograd Soviet on October 26 (November 8), 1917. It continued to appear
under various other names— Nasha Rech ( Our Speech ), Svobodnaya Rech ( Free Speech ), Vek ( The Century ), Novaya Rech ( New Speech ), Nash Vek ( Our Century )—until August 1918.
p. 19

[14]
Rodnaya Zemlya ( Native Land )—a weekly newspaper occupying a position close to that of the Trudoviks; published in
St. Petersburg from January till April 1907.

Tan —pseudonymof V. G. Bogoraz, journalist, one of the organisers of the
semi-Cadet Popular Socialist Party.