V. I.

Lenin

Conference of the Extended Editorial Board of Proletary

June 8–17 (21–80), 1909

Resolutions of the Conference of the Extended Editorial Board of Proletary

1

On Otzovism and Ultimatumism

The slogan of boycott of the Bulygin Duma and the First
Duma issued by the revolutionary wing of our Party played a great
revolutionary role at the time, and was taken up with enthusiasm by all the
most active and most revolutionary sections of the working class.

The direct revolutionary struggle of the broad masses was then followed
by a severe period of counter-revolution. It became essential for
Social-Democrats to adapt their revolutionary tactics to this new political
situation, and, in connection with this, one of the exceptionally important
tasks became the use of the Duma as an open platform for the purpose of
assisting Social-Democratic agitation and organisation.

In this rapid turn of events, however, a section of the workers who had
participated in the direct revolutionary struggle was unable to proceed at
once to apply revolutionary Social-Democratic tactics in the new conditions
of the counter-revolution, and continued simply to repeat slogans which
had been revolutionary in the period of open civil war, but which
now, if merely repeated, might retard the process of closing the ranks of
the proletariat in the new conditions of struggle.

On the other hand, in the conditions of this painful crisis, in an
atmosphere of decline in the revolutionary struggle, of apathy and
dejection even among a section of the workers, at a time when the workers’
organisations were being suppressed and when the strength of their
resistance to disintegrating influences was inadequate, there has developed among a
section of the working class an attitude of indifference towards the
political struggle in general, and of a particularly marked lack of
interest in the work of Social-Democrats in the Duma.

It is in such conditions that so-called otzovism and ultimatumism may
meet with temporary success among these sections of the proletariat.

The proceedings of the Third Duma, which openly flouts the needs of the
workers, work up an otzovist mood among these strata of the workers, who,
owing to their inadequate Social-Democratic training, are as yet unable to
understand that these proceedings of the Third Duma enable the Social-
Democrats to make use of that representative assembly of the exploiting
classes in a revolutionary manner, in order to expose to the broadest
sections of the people the real nature of the autocracy and of all the
counter-revolutionary forces, as well as the need for revolutionary
struggle.

Another contributing factor to this otzovist mood among this stratum of
the workers has been the exceedingly grave errors committed by the Duma
Social-Democratic group, especially during the first year of its activity.

Recognising that this otzovist mood has a detrimental effect on the
socialist and revolutionary training of the working class, the Bolshevik
wing of the Party considers it necessary:

( a) in regard to these strata of the workers : to persevere in
the work of Social-Democratic training and organisation, to explain
systematically and persistently the utter political futility of otzovism
and ultimatumism, the real significance of Social-Democratic
parliamentarism and the role of the Duma as a platform for the
Social-Democrats during a period of counter—revolution ( b) in regard to the Duma Social-Democratic group and Duma work in general : to establish close connections between the Duma group and the
advanced workers; to render it every assistance; to see that the whole
Party supervises and brings pressure upon it; inter alia , by
openly explaining its mistakes; to ensure in practice that the Party guides
its activities as a Party organ; and in general that the Bolsheviks carry
out the decisions of the recent Party conference on this matter; for only the increased attention of working-class circles to
the activities of the Duma Social-Democratic group, and their organised
participation in the Duma activities of the Social-Democrats, will be
effective in straightening out the tactics of our Duma group; ( c) in regard to the Right wing of the Party , which is
dragging the Duma group on to an anti-Party road and there by tearing it
away from the workers’ vanguard: to wage a systematic, irreconcilable
struggle against it, and to expose these tactics as fatal to the Party.

*     * *
In the course of the bourgeois-democratic revolution a number of elements joined our Party, attracted not by its purely
proletarian programme, but chiefly by its gallant and energetic fight for
democracy; these elements adopted the revolutionary-democratic slogans of
the proletarian party, but without connecting them with the entire struggle
of the socialist proletariat as a whole.

Such elements, not sufficiently imbued with the proletarian point of
view, have also been found in the ranks of our Bolshevik wing of the
Party. In this period of social stag nation such elements more and more
reveal their lack of Social-Democratic consistency. Coming as they do into
ever sharper contradiction with the fundamentals of revolutionary
Social-Democratic tactics, they have been creating, during the past year, a
trend that seeks to give shape to a theory of otzovism and ultimatumism,
but in reality only elevates to a principle and intensifies false notions
about Social-Democratic parliamentarism and the work of Social-Democracy in
the Duma.

These attempts to create a complete system of otzovist policy out of an
otzovist mood lead to a theory which in substance expresses the ideology of
political indifference on the one hand, and of anarchist vagaries on the
other. For all its revolutionary phraseology, the theory of otzovism and
ultimatumism in practice represents, to a consider able extent, the reverse
side of constitutional illusions based on the hope that the Duma itself can
satisfy certain urgent needs of the people. In essence, it substitutes
petty-bourgeois tendencies for proletarian ideology.

No less harmful to the Social-Democratic cause than open otzovism is
so-called ultimatumism (i. e., that tendency which on principle renounces
the utilisation of the Third Duma rostrum, or which tries to justify its
failure to carry out. this duty by considerations of expediency, and, in
striving for the recall of the Social-Democratic group from the
Duma. abandons the prolonged work of training the Duma group and
straightening its line in favour of presenting to it an immediate
ultimatum). Politically, ultimatumism at the present time is
indistinguishable from otzovism, and only introduces still greater
confusion and disunity by the disguised character of its otzovism. The
attempts of ultimatumism to assert its direct connection with the tactics
of boycott practised by our wing of the Party during a particular stage of
the revolution, merely distort the true meaning and character of the
boycott of the Bulygin Duma and the First Duma, which was quite correctly
applied by the overwhelming majority of our Party. By their attempt to
deduce, from the particular cases in which the boycott of representative
institutions was applied at this or that moment of the revolution, that the
policy of boycott is the distinguishing feature of Bolshevik tactics, even
in a period of counter revolution, ultimatumism and otzovism demonstrate
that these trends are in essence the reverse side of Menshevism, which
preaches indiscriminate participation in all representative institutions,
irrespective of the particular stage of development of the revolution,
irrespective of whether a revolutionary upsurge exists or not.

All the attempts made so far by otzovism and ultimatumism to lay down
principles on which to base their theory have inevitably led to denial of
the fundamentals of revolutionary Marxism. The tactics proposed by them
inevitably lead to a complete break with the tactics of the Left wing of
international Social-Democracy as applied to present-day Russian
conditions, and result in anarchist deviations.

Otzovist-ultimatumist agitation has already begun to cause
unquestionable harm to the working-class movement and to Social-Democratic
work. If it continues, it may be come a threat to Party unity, for this
agitation has already given rise to such ugly phenomena as the alliance
between otzovists and Socialist-Revolutionaries (in St. Petersburg)

for the purpose of preventing help for our Party representatives in the
Duma; likewise to public speeches at workers’ meetings jointly with avowed
syndicalists.

In view of all this, the extended editorial board of Proletary
declares that Bolshevism as a definite trend with in the Russian
Social-Democratic Labour Party has nothing in common with otzovism and
ultimatumism, and that the Bolshevik wing of the Party must most resolutely
combat these deviations from the path of revolutionary Marxism.

2

The Tasks of the Bolsheviks in the Party

In the period of decisive triumph of counter-revolution
which followed the dissolution of the Second Duma, force of circumstances
dictated that all Party activities should be concentrated on the following
task: to preserve the Party organisation built up in the years of the high
tide of the proletarian struggle, despite all the efforts of reaction, and
notwithstanding the great depression in the proletarian class struggle,
i. e., to preserve it as an organisation which consciously takes its stand
on the basis of orthodox Marxism, and which unites all the “national”
Social-Democratic organisations for the purpose of carrying out a single
revolutionary Social-Democratic line of tactics.

In the course of this two years’ struggle for the Party and partyism,
it became quite clear that, on the one hand, the Party had dissociated
itself from the elements that had penetrated it as a result of the specific
conditions of the bourgeois-democratic revolution, and that, on the other
hand, the revolutionary Social-Democrats had been further consolidated. On
the one hand, the former fellow-travellers of Social-Democracy took quite
definite shape—those fellow-travellers, who, on leaving the Party,
transferred all their activities into various legal organisations
(co-operatives, trade unions, educational societies, advisory commit tees
for the Duma group), where they not only did not carry out the policy of
the Party but, on the contrary, fought the Party and strove to wrest these
organisations away from it and pit them against the Party. Making a fetish
of legality, and elevating to a principle the narrow forms of activity imposed by the
temporary decline of and state of disunity in the working-class movement,
these elements—avowed liquidators of the Party—quite obviously took
their stand upon the ground of theoretical and tactical revisionism. That
the closest connection exists between liquidationism in organisation (the
struggle against Party institutions) and the ideological struggle against
Marxist theory and the fundamental principles of the programme of the
Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, has now most clearly been revealed
and proved by the entire history of the efforts to force an opportunist
policy on our Duma group by its intellectual advisers, as well as by the
entire course of the struggle between the liquidators and the partyists
within the legal workers’ organisations and in the workers’ groups of the
four congresses: of the People’s

Universities, [3] of the co-operatives, [4] of women [5] and of factory medical officers. [6]

On the other hand, the Left wing of the Party, to whose lot it fell to
lead the Party during this period of the decisive triumph of the
counter-revolution, theoretically recognised and in practice applied the
tactics of expediently combining illegal with legal Party work. This
applies to all the Party work with the Duma group and all the Party work in
the legal and semi-legal proletarian organisations. It is precisely these
forms of work—forms enabling the illegal Party to influence more or less
broad masses—that have been brought to the fore by the peculiar
conditions of the present historical situation, in addition to the main
forms of Party work. It is in these forms of activity that the Party in
practice comes into conflict with liquidationism and deals it heavy
blows. It is on this ground also that Social-Democrats belonging to various
groups of the Party have been and are being drawn together. [1]

And here, finally, on the very same questions of Party tactics and
organisation in the conditions of the Third Duma period, the Bolshevik section openly disavows the
pseudo-revolutionary, unstable, non-Marxist elements, which, under cover of
so-called otzovism, have been opposing the new forms of Party activity.

At the present time, outlining the basic tasks of the Bolsheviks; the
extended editorial board of Proletary states:

(1) that in the further struggle for the Party and partyism, the task
of the Bolshevik section, which must remain the foremost champion of
partyism and of the revolutionary Social-Democratic line in the Party, is
to give active and all-round support to the Central Committee and the
Central Organ of the Party. In the present period of the re-grouping of
Party forces, only the central institutions of the Party can serve as the
strong and authoritative representative of the Party line, around which all
genuinely partyist and genuinely Social-Democratic elements can be rallied; (2) that in the Menshevik camp of the Party, whose official organ,
Golos Sotsial-Demokrata , is fully controlled by the Menshevik
liquidators, the minority of this faction, having explored the path of
liquidationism to the very end, is already raising its voice in protest
against that path and is again seeking a party basis for its activities
(the letter of the “Vyborg”

Mensheviks [2] in St. Petersburg, the split among the Mensheviks in Moscow, the split in
the editorial board of Golos Sotsial-Demokrata , the corresponding
division in the Bund, etc.); (3) that in such circumstances the task of the Bolsheviks, who will
remain the solid vanguard of the Party, is not only to continue the
struggle against liquidationism and all the varieties of revisionism, but
also to establish closer contact with the Marxist and partyist elements of
the other groups, dictated by common aims in the struggle for the
preservation and consolidation of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour
Party.

3

Agitation for a Bolshevik Congress or Bolshevik
Conference Separate from the Party

Considering:

that the Bolshevik wing, ever since Party unity was re stored, has
always aligned and rallied the adherents of its political line on issues
which have already become the subject of a general Party discussion, and
always on the basis of an ideological campaign fought on th˜ general
Party arena for its own particular solution of such questions— parallel
platforms, discussion in the Party cells, and at general Party congresses; that this is the only sure way both to rally really like-minded members
and to draw into the wing all really kindred elements; that for the attainment of our main object, to exert such an influence
on the Party that the policy of revolutionary Social-Democracy shall
triumph mice and for all in the Party, the alignment of the Bolsheviks
solely on the general Party arena is the only right and proper procedure; that any other procedure, the procedure of calling special Bolshevik
conferences and congresses, would inevitably split the Party from top to
bottom and would deal an irreparable blow to the section which took the
initiative in bringing about such a total split in the Russian
Social-Democratic Labour Party, the extended editorial board of Proletary resolves:

(1) To warn all its supporters against agitating for a special
Bolshevik congress, as such agitation would lead objectively to a Party
split and might radically impair the position which revolutionary
Social-Democracy has won in the Party.

(2) To hold the next conference of Bolsheviks at the same time as the
regular Party conference, the supreme assembly of the wing as a whole to be
an assembly of its supporters at the next Party congress.

(3) In view of the urgent outstanding issues agitating the Party and
members of its Bolshevik wing, the Bolsheviks on the Central Committee are
instructed to press for a speediest possible general Party conference (to
be called in two or three months) and then for a speediest possible
congress.

4

The Party School Being Set Up Abroad at X— After considering the question of the school at X—, the
extended editorial board of Proletary is of the opinion that the
organisation of this school by the promotion group (which includes Comrade
Maximov, a member of the extend ed editorial board) has from the outset
been proceeded with over the heads of the editorial board of
Proletary and been accompanied by agitation against the
latter. The steps so far taken by the promotion group make it perfectly
clear that under the guise of this school a new centre is being formed for
a faction breaking away from the Bolsheviks. The sponsors of this school,
acting over the heads of the general centres, have contacted numerous
committees in Russia, organised an independent fund and collections, and
are appointing their own organisers, without even informing the editorial
board of Proletary or the general Party centre.

While it recognises that with the present dearth of experienced Party
workers a properly constituted and genuinely Party school, even if located
abroad, might be of some help to local organisations in training up useful
Party functionaries from among the workers, and while it considers for its
part that everything must be done to render such assistance to local
organisations as the condition of our organisation will allow, the extended
editorial board, on the evidence of the whole line of conduct of the
initiators of the school at X—, declares that the aims pursued by these
initiators are not aims common to the Bolshevik wing as a whole, as an
ideological trend in the Party, but are the private aims of a group with a
separate ideology and policy; In view of the dissensions revealed within
our ranks on the subject of otzovism, ultimatumism, the attitude to the
propaganda of god-building and the internal Party tasks of the Bolsheviks
in general; and in view of the fact that the initiators and organisers of
the school at X—are one and all representatives of otzovism, ultimatumism
and god-building, the extended editorial board of Proletary
declares that the ideological and political physiognomy of this new centre
is quite clearly defined.

In view of this, the extended editorial board of Proletary
declares that the Bolshevik wing can bear no responsibility for this
school.

5

The Breakaway of Comrade Maximov

Considering:

that unanimity on principles and tactics between ten members of the
extended editorial board of Proletary , on the one hand, and
Comrade Maximov, on the other, has manifestly proved to be absent on all
points of the agenda; that, furthermore, there have lately been actions on
Comrade Maximov’s part tending also to violate the organisational unity of
the Bolshevik wing; that, lastly, Comrade Maximov gave a negative answer to
the question whether he would abide by the decisions of the extended
editorial board of Proletary and carry them out, the extended editorial board of Proletary henceforth disclaims
any responsibility for the political actions of Comrade Maximov.

| Supplement to Proletary , No. 46, July 3 (16), 1909 | |
| --- | --- |
| Published according to the Supplement | |

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Notes:
[1]
The resolutions on the trade unions and the co-operatives, and a number
of resolutions on Duma activities, carried unanimously by the
Central Committee. Support for the Party line by the overwhelming majority
at the recent All-Russian Conference. The experience of conducting the
Central Organ, the workers’ groups of the said congresses, etc. — Lenin

[2]
The Mensheviks in Vyborg District of St. Petersburg.— Ed .

[3]
The First All-Russian Congress of Members of People’s Universities’ Associations was held in St. Petersburg on January 3-6
(16-19) 1908. During the debate on the question of the activities and
organisation of the people’s universities the workers’ group of the
congress, headed by the Bolsheviks, introduced motions demanding that the
workers’ organisations be represented on the boards of the people’s
universities with the right to take part in arranging the curricula,
choosing desirable lecturers on the social sciences, and recognition of the
right of every nationality to give tuition in the native language. The
congress rejected these demands as being outside the competence of the
congress, after which the workers’ representatives walked out.

[4]
The First All-Russian Congress of Representatives of Co-operative Societies was held in Moscow on April 16-21 (April 29-May 4), 1908. It
was attended by 824 delegates, about fifty of whom were Social-Democrats
(Bolsheviks and Mensheviks). Reports were delivered at the congress on the
international co-operative movement, on the role and tasks of the
co-operative movement, on the legal status of the consumer societies in
Russia, and other matters.

Despite the resistance of the Mensheviks, the Bolsheviks formed a
Social-Democratic group at the congress and headed the fight of the
representatives from the trade unions and workers’ co-operatives against
the bourgeois co-operators, who were in the majority at the congress. After
a number of speeches by spokesmen of the workers, the police imposed a ban
on speeches that touched on questions of the class struggle, the trade
unions, aid to workers during strikes and lock-outs, the co-operative press
and propaganda, and even the election of a congress bureau and the
periodicity of congresses, the police officer attending the proceedings
being instructed to arrest immediately anyone “who made socialist speeches or motions”. As a demonstration of protest against this the congress was
closed.

[5]
The First All-Russian Women’s Congress was held in
St. Petersburg on December 10-16 (23-29), 1908. Among its delegates were
many women workers. Under pressure of the latter the congress adopted
resolutions on combating alcoholism, on the position of the peasant woman,
on labour protection for women and children, on producers’ co-operatives,
and on equal rights for Jews. On the main issue— that of the political
and civic status of women in the modern community—the women workers
submitted a motion demanding universal, direct, and equal suffrage by
secret ballot without distinction of sex, race and religion. The presiding
committee of the congress refused to read out the motion and replaced it by
one drafted in a liberal-bourgeois spirit. The women workers walked out as
a demonstration of protest.

[6]
The First All-Russian Congress of Factory Medical Officers and Representatives of Manufacturing Industry convened on the initiative
of the Moscow Society of Factory Medical Officers was held in Moscow on
April 1-6 (14-19), 1909. Among its delegates were 52 workers elected by the
trade unions chiefly of the big industrial centres (St. Petersburg, Moscow,
Kiev. Ekaterinoslav, Baku, Ivanovo-Voznesensk, etc.).

According to its sponsors, the congress was to have been a “festival
of reconciliation” between workers and capitalists. The Bolsheviks,
however, who formed a majority of the working-class delegates, succeeded in
getting the workers at the congress to take a class, proletarian line,
despite the opposition of the liquidationist elements. Speaking on the
concrete questions of sanitary and medical arrangements at the factories,
the worker delegates exposed the ideas of “class peace” and social
reform, and put for ward demands based on the programme of the Marxist
party. These speeches were of great political significance and had
repercussions throughout the country. Especially lively were the debates on
the questions of sanitary inspection arrangements (the Bolsheviks’ draft
resolution on this point was carried) and of the election of the factory
inspection by the workers.

The congress was unable to finish its work. After the police had
demanded that no questions liable “to excite class struggle” should be
touched on in the debates, and after they had forbidden the motion on the
housing question to be put to the vote (since “it mentioned socialism and
socialisation of the land”) and for bidden some of the worker delegates,
including the Duma Deputy I. P. Pokrovsky, from continuing their speeches,
all the workers and some of the doctors walked out of the congress hall. In
view of this the presiding committee decided to close the congress.