The Organization of Social-Democratic Forces Abroad and the Tasks of the Bolsheviks

The current state of Social-Democratic organizations abroad is, to say the least, profoundly abnormal.

At the Plenum held in January 1910, an attempt was made to forge unity on the basis of the anti-liquidator and anti-revocation line that had been unanimously adopted by the Plenum—and a particularly vigorous appeal was issued for the establishment of complete unity overseas.

In practice, however, owing to the failure of liquidators and revocationists to meet the conditions set forth by the Plenum, no genuine reunification of the overseas groups followed the Plenum’s decision. On the contrary, fragmentation only deepened: in fact, the vanguardist factions separated themselves from the Bolsheviks, while the Plekhanovists distanced themselves from the Mensheviks. The parallel—“first” and “second,” or Menshevik and Bolshevik—groups continued to exist in accordance with tradition, yet in reality they did not unite any truly solidary elements capable of conducting joint Social-Democratic work.

At present, overseas there exist factionally isolated groups—linked to one another only in a purely formal sense, and often not linked at all—namely, Bolshevik, “conciliationist,” vanguardist, “Golosovist,” and “Plekhanovist” groups, entirely independent of one another, pursuing divergent ideological lines and maintaining separate ties with various Social-Democratic elements in Russia.

The formation of the Russian Committee of the Party (ROK) by the Bolsheviks and party-affiliated Mensheviks, together with this ROK’s energetic initiative to convene a general Party conference of the RSDLP, marks a decisive turning point in the history of the Party and points to the only viable path—already emerging through the course of events—for overcoming the state of disorganization and fragmentation.

In fact, after the Plenum, it was only the Bolsheviks and party-affiliated Mensheviks who genuinely carried out Social-Democratic work, especially in the harmonious spirit that prevailed throughout 1910. The Golosovists represent nothing more than the overseas branch of the Russian liquidator group “Delo Zhizni” and “Nasha Zarya,” which have placed themselves outside the Party; meanwhile, the “Vpered” overseas group, while continuing to cloak itself in revocationism and, through its leader Lunacharsky, engaging in religious propaganda, conducts work that is utterly non-Social-Democratic in character.

Now, the ROK—established by the Bolsheviks and party-affiliated Mensheviks and supported by nearly all local Social-Democratic organizations in Russia—is, in fact, the sole and fully legitimate center for Social-Democratic Party work.

By uniting into a single overseas Social-Democratic organization, the Bolsheviks’ conference places responsibility for the ongoing schism abroad upon those groups that refuse to support the Russian center, the ROK, or that continue to “play the game of compromise” with those who have broken away from Russia, thereby upholding non-Social-Democratic, anti‑Party, and anti‑Russian lines.

The Bolshevik organization abroad will continue to exert every effort to attract, without distinction among currents, all Social Democrats who are ready to support the ROK and to pursue a Party line—that is, an anti-liquidator and anti-revocation (and likewise anti-theistic) line—so that they may join the ROK and merge into a unified Party organization.

The struggle against the liquidator and revocationist currents—the struggle against the disintegration of ideologically empty overseas groups—alongside the task of fostering the consolidation of all genuine Social-Democrats, and of the Meckovites in particular—this is the practical mission of the overseas Party organization. We regard both the Central Organ and “The Workers’ Gazette” as the organs that should serve the Party members; for the exclusion of (overseas) Meckovite Party members cannot be justified by anything, and there has been no change in the line of these organs that would be consistent with Party resolutions.

Written in December, no later than the 14th (27th) of 1911.