V. I.

Lenin

Readerswill already have learned from the legal daily press that the
reorganisation of the St. Petersburg organi sation of the R.S.D.L.P., so long
since contemplated by the majority of local Party members, has now been
completed. A specially elected conference of all members of the local
organisation gathered on March 25, 1907, [4] discussed the St. Petersburg Committee’s reorganisation
plan (pub lished in Proletary , No. 15) and the Mensheviks’
counter-plan (published in Russkaya Zhizn , No. 51), and adopted
the St. Petersburg Committee’s plan with some insignificant amend
ments.

Inessence these organisational rules boil down to adherence to consistent
democratic centralism. The highest body in the organisation is the
conference , elected by direct ballot by all members of the Party (there
are two-stage elections only in cases of insuperable difficulties) with a fixed
rate of representation (the first conference was attended by delegates elected
at the rate of one per fifty Party members). The conference is a standing
institution. It meets not less than twice a month and is the supreme body of the
organisation. It is re-elected twice a year.

Theconference elects the St. Petersburg Committee from among all Party members , and not only from those working in some particular district of the
local organisation.

Thistype of organisation eliminates any disproportion in the representation of
the districts and—this is the main thing—instead of the unwieldy,
multi-stage, undemocratic system of electing the St. Petersburg Committee from
representatives of the districts, real unity of all Party members is created, since they are united by a single guiding conference. The
composition of the conference makes possible and inevitable the
participation of the majority of outstanding workers in the guidance of
all the affairs of the entire local organisation.

Theconference has already put the new type of organisation into effect, has
declared itself a standing institution, elected a new St. Petersburg Committee
of nineteen comrades, and held two meetings (or rather, it has gathered twice
for a meeting) for the solution of all current problems.

Tocharacterise the Menshevik plan for reorganisation that the conference
rejected, we shall mention one circumstance, the most important one. That plan
also envisaged a similar conference at the head of the organisation (calling it
a council). According to that plan, however, the St. Petersburg Committee, the
executive body of the conference, is eliminated altogether! “The city
council,” says the Menshevik plan, “is divided into a number of
commissions (propaganda, agitation, literature, trade union, financial, etc.)
for the conduct of current business.” And “the representation of
the organisation in other parties, and relations with the central institutions
of our Party are entrusted to a presidium” of five members elected by the
council.

Onemay easily imagine how effective an organisation would be if its current affairs were conducted by separate commissions and not by a single
executive body of the conference! In this case democratic centralism
is turned into a fiction; in point of fact this is a step towards Lana’s
famous plan to reduce the role of the Social-Democratic Party to that of a
propaganda body among working-class masses united as little as possible
in a single organisation. It goes without saying that this Menshevik plan was
immediately rejected. It now remains for us to ask its authors to acquaint us
with the experience gained by Menshevik committees or organisations of
the R.S.D.L.P. functioning on such principles.

Tocontinue. It is extremely important to note that the new conference of the
St. Petersburg organisation has put an end to the St. Petersburg split . It is known that the Mensheviks brought about the split in
St. Petersburg during the elections to the Second Duma, by leaving (for
allegedly formal reasons) the conference held on January 6, 1907, the conference that
decided the question of the R.S.D.L.P. election campaign in St. Petersburg. The
elections to the new conference that first met on March 25 were conducted under
the direct control of a special commission appointed by the
Central Committee of the R.S.D.L.P. specifically for that purpose,
which included a Central Committee member from the Lettish
Social-Democrats. The conference held on March 25 (and still functioning, since,
as we have said, it declared itself a standing institution) is, therefore, the
first Social-Democratic conference in St. Petersburg for the past year,
constituted without the slightest dispute on the correctness of the
representation, the legality and number of mandates, etc.

Sucha fact has hitherto never been known in St. Peters burg, with its
most severe struggle between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. Both the boycott
conference (February

1906) [5] and the conference on the question of supporting the demand
for a “Duma” ministry (June

1906) [6] gave the Bolsheviks the victory, but both had to begin with
disputes over the correctness of the representation.

Itwill, therefore, be highly instructive to make use of these
undisputed data, undisputed for the first time, on the strength of the
two sections of Social-Democracy in St. Petersburg, to make clear to ourselves
the real causes arid real significance of the split, now over and done with,
that occurred before the St. Petersburg elections. It will be remembered that
the Mensheviks justified the split on formal grounds—first, incorrect
representation at the conference on January 6 (the Bolsheviks were accused of
exaggerating the number of votes, especially those of the shop-assistants, and
of the unlawful annulment of Menshevik mandates); and secondly, the refusal of
the conference to accede to the Central Committee’s demand to divide into
an urban and a gubernia conference.

Inpreceding issues of Proletary it has already been explained with
sufficient clarity that the second “justification” actually boils
down to the participation of the Central Committee (its Menshevik
part) in engineering the St. Petersburg split. This will be easily understood by
members of our Party in other cities as well, for they know full well that the Central Committee has nowhere demanded the division of city
conferences into urban and gubernia, nor could it have done so . The
Central Committee needed this demand in St. Petersburg in the form of an
ultimatum in order to split the St. Petersburg organisation and
help the break away Mensheviks to begin (or continue) negotiations with the
Cadets.

Thefirst of these “justifications” of the split, however, remains
quite vague and debatable to all members of our Party except those in
St. Petersburg. They are not in a position to judge the correctness of the
representation at the January 6 conference, or the actual relation of Bolshevik
and Menshevik forces in St. Petersburg. It is beyond the power of the
Social-Democratic press to give documentary proofs of this because only a
special commission could collect and analyse the documents. Thanks, however, to
the verified and undisputed figures of the representation at the March 25
conference, we are able to show all our Party how much truth there was in the
Menshevik justification of the split in St. Petersburg prior to the
elections. For this purpose it is only necessary to compare the figures, by districts , of the number of Social-Democrats voting for the Bolsheviks and
for the Mensheviks at the elections to the January 6 conference and to the March
25 conference.

Thedata on the voting at the elections to the March 25 conference are
unquestionable ; they have been verified by a Central Committee
commission and accepted by both Bolsheviks and Mensheviks.

Tohave indisputable data on the voting at the elections to the January
6 conference, we shall take the Menshevik figures . When the thirty-one
Mensheviks walked out of the conference on January 6, they issued a special
statement in the form of a pamphlet entitled “Why Were We Compelled to
Leave the Conference? (Statement by Thirty-One Mensheviks, Submitted to the
Central Committee)”. We discussed this pamphlet in Proletary , No. 12. [1]

We shall now take the “figures on the composition of the
electors to the Conference of St. Petersburg Organisation” (the January 6
conference) printed on pages seven and eight of that pamphlet.

Here the number of those voting for the

Bolsheviks [2] and for the
Mensheviks are given for each of the eleven districts, all votes, furthermore,
being subdivided into undisputed and disputed, and the latter into those
disputed by the Bolsheviks and those disputed by the Mensheviks.

Thereis no need for us to give all the details of these subdivisions. In the
notes, we shall deal specifically with all the amendments introduced by
the Mensheviks. For purposes of comparison, we shall take the total
“number of votes” cast for the Bolsheviks and for the Mensheviks, in
other words, we shall add the undisputed to the disputed votes and, by comparing
these figures with the number of votes cast for the March 25 conference, every
Party member will be able to see for himself what was incorrect in the
elections to the January 6 conference, and who was responsible for the
incorrectness.

Inthe pamphlet of the thirty-one Mensheviks there are no tabulated figures for
the twelfth, shop-assistants’, district of the St. Petersburg organisation. In
the text (page 4) they said that the Central Committee had given the 313
organised shop-assistants the right to elect five representatives, allowing not
one per fifty members (the usual rate), but one per sixty members, in view of
the undemocratic nature of the elections. On these grounds, the Mensheviks
refused to recognise the shop-assistants’ votes altogether . Since one
of the five representatives was a Menshevik and four were Bolsheviks, we shall
assume sixty-three votes for the Mensheviks and two hundred and fifty for the
Bolsheviks.

Next,we shall divide the twelve St.. Petersburg districts of the
Social-Democratic organisation into six undisputed and six disputed. The latter
include those districts in which more than half the votes cast for the
Bolsheviks or Mensheviks were disputed by either the Bolsheviks or the
Mensheviks at the conference. The districts concerned are:

Vyborg (of the 256 Menshevik votes, 234 were challenged by the Bolsheviks as
questionable), City (of the 459 Menshevik votes, 370 disputed by the
Bolsheviks), Moscow (of the 248 Menshevik votes, 97 disputed by the Bolsheviks, 107 by the Mensheviks;
185 Bolshevik votes disputed, [3] all by Mensheviks), Railway (of 21
Bolshevik votes, 5 disputed; of 154 Menshevik votes, 107 disputed); Estonian
(all the 100 Bolshevik votes disputed by the Mensheviks), and
shop-assistants (313 votes challenged in their entirety by the
Mensheviks, who declared that these votes, and these alone, had not been
cast at all; it was alleged that the leadership and not the members of the
organisation had voted).

Theundisputed districts were Vasilyevsky Ostrov, Narva, Okruzhnoi, Latvian (in
these four districts all votes were undisputed), Neva (of 150 Bolshevik
votes, 15 were disputed; of 40 Menshevik votes, 4 were disputed) and
Petersburg (of 120 votes for the Mensheviks , 22 were disputed).

Thedata on the number of votes cast in each district gives us the following
table:

| St. Petersburg Organisation, R.S.D.L.P. | Conference of January 6 Votes cast for : | Conference of March 25 Votes cast for : |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Districts | B-vik | M-vik | Total | B-vik | M-vik | Total |
| Undisputed Districts |
| Vasilyevsky Ostrov | 329 | 339 | 668 | 798 | 435 | 1,233 |
| Petersburg | 161 | 120 | 281 | 528 | 254 | 782 |
| Narva | 24 | 6 | 30 | 202 | 231 | 433 |
| Neva | 150 | 40 | 190 | 585 | 173 | 758 |
| Okruzhnoi | 451 | 63 | 514 | 737 | — | 737 |
| Latvian | 117 | 47 | 164 | 100 | — | 100 |
| Total | 1,232 | 615 | 1,847 | 2,950 | 1,093 | 4,043 |
| Disputed Districts |
| Vyborg | 97 | 256 | 353 | 155 | 267 | 422 |
| City | 220 | 459 | 679 | 701 | 558 | 1,259 |
| Moscow | 185 | 248 | 433 | 331 | 83 | 414 |
| Railway | 21 | 154 | 175 | 29 | 105 | 134 |
| Estonian | 100 | — | 100 | 150 | — | 150 |
| Shop-Assistants | 250 | 63 | 313 | 300 | 50 | 350 |
| Total | 873 | 1,180 | 2,053 | 1,666 | 1,063 | 2,729 |
| Grand Total | 2,105 | 1,795 | 3,900 | 4,616 | 2,156 | 6,772 |

Thefollowing conclusions may be drawn from these data.

(1)St. Petersburg Social-Democratic workers displayed much greater interest in
the reform of the St. Petersburg organisation (the purpose of the March 25
conference) than in the Duma elections in the urban curia (the purpose of
the January 6 conference).

Thenumber of members of the Social-Democratic organisation could not
have changed very considerably in the course of two and a half months. The
harsh conditions in which meetings were held and votes counted were no better,
but probably worse in March than before, in our police-ridden country (there
were no university meetings; persecution of the workers had increased).

Thenumber of voting members of the Social-Democratic organisation
increased by more than half, more than sixty-six per cent (from 3,900 to 6,772).

(2) The preponderance of Bolsheviks over Mensheviks was incomparably greater when a greater number of votes were cast than it had been with
a smaller number of votes. On January 6 the Mensheviks obtained 1,795 votes
out of 3,900, or 46 per cent; on March 25 they obtained 2,156 out of 6,772,
or 32 per cent.

(3)In the undisputed districts (the first six) a greater number of votes were
cast for both Bolsheviks and Mensheviks (the increase in
the number of votes cast for the former being much greater). In the disputed districts (the following six) the number of votes cast for the Bolsheviks increased and the number cast for the Mensheviks decreased .

Thenumber of votes cast for the Bolsheviks increased from 873 to
1,666. The number cast for the Mensheviks fell from 1,180 to
1,063. The preponderance of the Mensheviks in the disputed districts proved non-existent .

Thisfact settles the question of which side was to blame for the split .

Thesecond election, which confirmed the results of the first and was verified
by the Central Committee’s special commission, showed that in the disputed
districts the number of votes claimed by the Bolsheviks was actually
less than the real number, while that claimed by the Mensheviks was
greater than the real number!

The Mensheviks stated, verbally and in print, that the Bolsheviks had
exaggerated the number of votes in the disputed districts. The Bolsheviks
accused the Mensheviks of the same thing. The second election produced a
greater number of votes for the Bolsheviks and fewer for the
Mensheviks. Is it possible to imagine more convincing and more decisive
proof that the Bolsheviks were right?

Thisconclusion cannot be refuted either by reference to the fortuitous nature
of the data taken by districts, or by saying that on January 6 we lumped the
disputed and undisputed votes. The first objection falls to the ground because
we did not take separate districts but groups of districts, and
compared six districts with six, specifically to preclude any
references to fortuity. The data for individual districts (the Moscow District,
for instance!) would be ten times more favourable to us.

Thesecond objection falls to the ground because we deliberately took the
Menshevik figures as our basis, and the Mensheviks made insignificant
corrections to them. In the opinion of the thirty-one, as expressed in their
pamphlet (page 7) only the following votes “should actually not be
confirmed”—15 of the 150 Bolshevik votes in the Neva District and all the
Estonian Bolshevik votes; 107 out of the 248 Menshevik votes in the Moscow
District, and 41 out of
154 Menshevik votes in the Railway District, which amounts to only 115 Bolshevik
and 143 Menshevik votes. The shop-assistants’ votes (the entire 313) were all
rejected by the Mensheviks. It is easy to see that these amendments do not
affect our conclusions.

The March 25 conference, the elections to which were verified by a special
commission appointed by the Central Committee and recognised by all as
indisputable, has proved that, in the dispute over representation at
the January 6 conference, the Bolsheviks, whose preponderance proved very
substantial, were right; the preponderance of the Mensheviks was completely
disproved. An attempt to object to our argument may, of course, be made by
reference to the fact that the March 25 conference took place after the election
campaign and, therefore, reflected the shift of Social-Democratic workers over
to the side of the Bolsheviks on this question, a shift that occurred after
January

6, 1907. Such an objection will naturally not weaken, but rather strengthen
(although in a somewhat different way), the responsibility of the Mensheviks for
the split over the elections.

Responsibilityfor the St. Petersburg split over the elections to the Second
Duma rests entirely on the Mensheviks . We have always maintained this
to be so, and we undertook to prove it to the Party as a whole.

Wehave now submitted our final proofs.

---
Notes:
[1]
See pp. 29-32 of this volume.— Ed .

[2]
These figures are again subdivided into Bolshevik and dissident votes
(“platform of the revolutionary bloc”). Both are Bolsheviks, who
argued among themselves whether there should be a Left bloc or a purely
Social-Democratic election list.— Lenin

[3]
In all cases, by disputed votes are meant those that the other side
considered not entirely correct, unverified, exaggerated, but not
altogether fictitious. At the January 6 conference, the Bolsheviks decided
to decrease the rate of representation for all disputed votes,
allotting them one delegate per 75 members instead of one delegate
per fifty members.— Lenin

[4]
The Conference of the St. Petersburg Organisation of the
R.S.D.L.P. was held in Terioki (Finland) on March 25 (April 7) and was attend ed by 133 delegates (92 Bolsheviks and 41 Mensheviks), over a hundred of the
delegates being workers. The election of delegates to the Conference lasted
over a month and was conducted under the supervision of a special Central
Committee commission. Almost all members of the organisation participated in the election. Lenin took the
chair at the
Conference and also spoke on the question of the reorganisation of
the St. Petersburg Party organisation and on questions of the organisational
work of the St. Petersburg Committee.

The Conference discussed the following items: the reorganisation of the
St. Petersburg organisation of the R.S.D.L.P; the representation of the
St. Petersburg organisation in the Social-Democratic Duma group; the
impermissibility of Social-Democrats writing for the bourgeois press; May Day
and the tactics of Social-Democracy. An overwhelming majority voted in favour
of the reorganisation plan drawn up by the Bolsheviks. The chief point in the
plan was the recognition of the Conference as a standing body that met
periodically as the legislative body of the local organisation and which
elected its executive body, the St. Petersburg Committee, to function as
directed by the Conference. A new St. Petersburg Committee of the R.S.D.L.P. was
elected. Lenin was elected to maintain contact between the St. Petersburg
Committee and the Social-Democratic group in the Duma. The Conference roundly
condemned any sort of collaboration with the bourgeois press by
Social-Democrats.

The Conference put an end to the split that had existed in the St. Petersburg
organisation of the R.S.D.L.P. since the January conference in 1907.

Thesecond session of the Conference was also held in Terioki on April 8 (21),
1907. The items on the agenda were: the celebration of May Day; the campaign of
meetings; the council of delegates; the election of delegates to the Fifth
Congress of the R.S.D.L.P.; the report of Duma Deputy Alexinsky; organisational
questions; the co-operative movement; the struggle against the Black Hundreds;
unemployment. Lack of time prevented a discussion on the last three questions

The Conference passed a decision to celebrate May Day by a one-day general
strike and meetings; it was also decided that a council be organised of
delegates for St. Petersburg City and Gubernia, for which purpose all delegates
be called together immediately by districts. On the question of electing
delegates to the Fifth Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. it was decided that the
St. Petersburg Committee be left to work out the technique of the elections at
the second stage, and that the Conference should confine itself to electing a
mandate commission of seven members from among those present. The Conference
discussed Alexinsky’s report and appointed a commission to draw up a resolution
on it. The Conference also adopted a number of decisions on organisational
questions.

Lenintook part in the discussion on Alexinsky’s report. He also recommended
that the St. Petersburg delegation to the Fifth Congress table a proposal to
call representatives of the combat groups to the Congress in connection with the
question of their reorganisation.

[5]
The boycott conference —the St. Petersburg
City Conference of the R.S.D.L.P. called by the St. Petersburg Committee to
decide the question of the attitude to the State Duma, sixty-five delegates
with the right to vote were present. Lenin played a leading role in the
Conference. Delegates were elected on a basis of one delegate per thirty
voting Party members after discussing and voting on the tactical platforms
of the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks, the former obtaining a substantial
majority. The Mensheviks demanded that the votes of the regional
organisation of the R.S.D.L.P., almost all Bolshevik, be considered
invalid. In the course of the discussion on the regional
organisation of the R.S.D.L.P., Lenin made a number of remarks and
interpolations. The Conference approved the representation of the regional
organisation, and then heard the report of the St. Petersburg Committee, and
adopted. Lenin’s resolution recognising the obligatory nature of its
decisions. Lenin made a report on the attitude towards the State Duma (it
has not been found among the secretary’s notes taken at the meeting). At the
end of his report, Lenin read out a resolution on the tactics of an active
boycott. The Menshevik resolution was read by Martov. The Conference
approved the tactics of an active boycott of the Duma by a majority of 36 to
29 votes, but did not have time to adopt the whole resolution with motives
for the tactics of an active boycott.

ASecond City Conference was called at the end of February, and sat for the
first few days of March to discuss and finally approve the tactics for an active
boycott of the Duma; 62 delegates attended. The Conference discussed Lenin’s
resolution and then Martov’s; the Mensheviks submitted an additional resolution
from Okhta District. After a long and bitter struggle, the Conference adopted by
a majority of 35 votes to 24, with one delegate abstaining, the resolution
submitted by Lenin as the basis of its resolution on the tactics of an active
boycott of the Duma. The Conference elected a commission, with Lenin as one of
its members, to put the resolution into final shape. The Mensheviks refused to
participate in the commission and walked out of the Conference.

[6]
The June inter-district conference of the St. Petersburg
organisation of the R.S.D.L.P. was attended by more than forty Bolsheviks and
about thirty Mensheviks; the resolutions proposed by the Bolsheviks were
adopted.