V. I. Lenin

Meeting of the R.S.D.L.P. Central Committee Members {2}

MAY 28–JUNE 4 (JUNE 10–17), 1911

1

REPORT ON THE STATE OF AFFAIRS IN THE PARTY {3}

Followingthe C.C. Plenary Meeting in January
1910 {4} the Bolsheviks bent every effort to restore the composition of
the C.C. and help it to resume its activity. C.C. members Makar and
Innokenty contacted local Party organisations and Party members working in
the open labour movement, together with them nominated candidates for
co-optation to the C.C., etc. But the efforts of the C.C. Bolsheviks ended
in the arrest of both. They got no help at all from the Golos
people in their work in Russia. The representatives of the Mensheviks,
elected at the London Congress, Mikhail, Yuri and Roman, who have now gone
over to the independent legalists, have not only refused to work in the
C.C., but have announced that they consider its very existence harmful to
the labour movement.

In1910, following a break of several months, Comrade Makar, who
escaped from exile, and Comrade Vyazemsky once again set up a bureau for
convening the
C.C. [1]

The Bundist Yudin, a member of the Bureau, took part in their work. Over a
period of six months, they once again established contacts with local
organisations, nominated candidates for the C.C., dispatched agents, and
joined the Duma group in organising the election campaign for the
by-elections in Moscow.

Ofthe representatives of the Mensheviks, they succeeded in contacting
only Comrade Kostrov, who once or twice came merely to exercise his right
to vote in the event it came to a convocation of the C.C.

Afterworking for six months, the C.C. Bolsheviks were arrested
together with several candidates for co-optation to the C.C., the comrade
secretary and a number of other persons variously connected with the Bureau’s activity. In a letter sent
from prison after their arrest, the comrades C.C. members stated that the
gendarmes had kept them under constant surveillance for a number of months
and had been informed of their every step, and that there was no doubt at
all about the provocation over the preparations for convening the C.C. in
Russia; Following the arrest of two members of the Bureau (Makar and
Vyazemsky), the C.C. members still at large—Yudin and Kostrov—displayed
no activity at all over a period of two and a half months, even
failing to send any letters either to the C.C. Bureau Abroad or to the C.C.

Asa result of the 18–month effort to restore the C.C. in Russia, the
four Bolshevik members (Meshkovsky, Innokenty, Makar and Vyazemsky) are
either in exile or in prison. The gendarme inquiries and a whole number of
arrests have made it quite clear that the authorities are most thoroughly
informed about all the London candidates {5} and C.C. members and that their every step is being
watched. In view of all these circumstances to make a fresh attempt to
convene the C.C. in Russia would be to court certain failure without any
hope of success.

Theonly possible way out of this situation would be to call a Plenary
Meeting abroad. Nine persons with the right to take part in the Plenary
Meeting are abroad. {6} This will constitute more than one-half of its full
membership (15 persons). They juridically can and essentially must declare
themselves to be the Plenary Meeting.

Theproposal to postpone the constitution of the Plenary Meeting until
the convocation of the other members would mean many more months of delay.

Withthe exception of Mikhail, Yuri and Roman, who have openly
announced their break with the C.C. and their sympathies for liquidating
the Party, the Mensheviks could “bring together” Kostrov and Pyotr. The
Bolsheviks could bring together Meshkovsky, Innokenty, Rozhkov and
Sammer. It is hard to say how many months this would take.

Inthe light of the experience it has had, the real meaning for the
Party of this protracted “work of bringing together” formal candidates is
nil. It is even worse than nil, for the game of allocating places in central bodies hides from local organisations
and groups the sad reality in respect of which vigorous action must be
taken. After eighteen months of unsuccessful attempts to restore the
activity of the C.C., to feed the Party with more endless delays would be
an affront to the Party. We do not intend to have a hand in any such
affront.

Atpresent the real position of the Party is such that almost
everywhere in the localities there are small Party workers’ groups and
cells that meet irregularly. They enjoy great prestige among the workers
everywhere. Every where they are combating liquidator-legalists in the
unions, clubs, etc. They are not yet connected with each other. Their
supplies of literature are extremely rare. In these groups of workers,
there is a rallying together of Bolsheviks, pro-Party Mensheviks and some
of the Vperyod supporters {7} who have not been drawn into the separate
Vperyod faction set up abroad.

The Vperyod group used all the period since the Plenary
Meeting to help from abroad in strengthening and separating its faction in
organisational terms. Its representatives have withdrawn from the
Diskussionny Listok Editorial
Board {8} and the School Commission under the
C.C. {9} The Vperyod group has failed to carry out the decisions of the last Plenary Meeting, and has, in fact, done everything to
hamper the Social-Democratic general Party work. Preparations for the
forthcoming elections have long since been started in the legal and illegal
Party literature. Mean while, the Vperyod group, far from
assisting the Party in this extremely important political action, has even
failed to state unequivocally whether in general it favours participation
in the elections to the Fourth
Duma {10} or opposes participation in them. Even in their latest
statements in the press, the Vperyod group leaders abroad continue
to flirt with the otzovists.

Afar more serious anti-Party and anti-Social-Democratic force is the
faction of the independent legalists ( Nasha Zarya , {11} Dyelo Zhizni , {12} and the Golos people who, like Dan, Martov
& Co., cover them up). It has been proved beyond doubt that they
recognise no Central Committee and publicly ridicule Central Committee
decisions. They cannot and will not carry out the last Plenary Meeting’s decisions (“Not to minimise
the role of an illegal party”, etc.). They cannot help taking the
opposite line of action.

No Social-Democrat can doubt that the “independent legalists” can be
expected to conduct an election campaign for the Fourth Duma on their own,
apart from and against the Party.

Thetask of the Social-Democratic Party members is clear: the Party
workers’ circles in Russia should be openly and resolutely urged to start
preparations for the elections immediately. Only committed Party
men, only comrades realising the danger of the liquidationist trend should
be nominated as Social-Democratic candidates. Direct action
against independent legalists must not be postponed for a single day; the
workers must be warned right away of the danger posed to the
Social-Democratic Party by the independent legalists at the elections.

Suchis the task of the day for our Party. Any deviation from such an
approach to the question, which has been posed by life itself (and by the
independent legalists), all delays, or attempts by the legalists to repeat
the game of “promises” and “assurances” are fraught with great danger
to the Party.

Ourpractical conclusion: the meeting of the nine must absolutely and
immediately issue a manifesto to the Patty in which the failure to convene
the Central Committee in Russia is truthfully and fully described, and
which calls upon local Party circles to display initiative and establish
local and regional committees, to set up and support a Central Organising
Commission, to set up and support Social-Democratic press organs (where, as
in
Zvezda , {13} which is being published with the participation and
support of the Social-Democratic Duma group, there should be no place for
the liquidators), urging them to conduct a deter mined and implacable
struggle against the independent legalists and to make for closer ties in
their work between representatives of the true Party elements, without
regard for trend. In the event that not only five of the nine members of
the C.C., but a solid majority of the nine agree to regard themselves as a
Plenum of the C.C., this meeting of the C.C. must immediately co-opt new
members, set up an Organising

Commission for calling a conference and start practical preparations for
election to the Fourth Duma. Representatives of pro-Party Mensheviks should
be seated on the Organising Commission and the C.C. right away. The
C.C. meeting must at once start a resolute struggle against the independent
legalist group. It stands to reason that this struggle is incompatible with
the participation of independent legalists in central Party bodies, which
they have sabotaged, obstructed, weakened and kept in a morbid state for
eighteen months.

| Written between May 19 and 28 (June 1 and 5), 1911 | Printed from a copy written in F. Dzerzhinsky’s hand |
| --- | --- |

2

SPEECHES IN THE DEBATE ON THE QUESTION OF CONSTITUTING THE MEETING

MAY 28 (JUNE 10)

1 {14}

Consideringthat the Party has been suffering from the postponement of
the Plenum for 18 months, the non-Russian organisations should have long
since elected their representatives. The Latvian comrade’s approach was
different from that of the Bundist. He said that although he had not been
elected, in view of the conditions of the Plenary Meeting’s convocation he
deemed it his duty to take part in it, and to submit a subsequent report to
the C.C. of the Latvian Territory, with the proviso that the decisions
would enter into force in the Latvian Territory only upon their approval by
the C.C. of the Latvian Territory.

2

Infact, comrades here are being fooled. {15} We know that Makar and Lindov did something, contacted
organisations, appointed agents and contacted the candidate. They were
arrested. Since then we have had no news from any of those who remained. They have even failed to inform either the C.O. or the
C.C. Bureau Abroad. No work has been done. It is no longer possible to
deceive the Party with a Russia
Bureau {16} or a Russia C.C. Convening the C.C. in Russia is a phrase
that helps Stolypin.

Ionov’sstatement says that he will send his invitation to the Bund
C.C. {17} When is he going to do so? How much time has elapsed? Why is
there no reply? Ionov says that not having the powers he cannot attend a
meeting of the C.C. members. Why then is Lieber here? I propose a
resolution on Ionov’s reply, because it makes clear that an intrigue is
being carried on.

3

Letus sum up what has been said about the Bureau. It turns out that
the remaining members of the Bureau were meant. About the work it is said
that no work has been done. Comrade Adrianov is a prominent Menshevik and
the Mensheviks would have been aware of his work if he had done any. Even
his closest associates know nothing about it. Any further attempt to play
up the existence of a bureau somewhere is to deceive the Party. In view of
the arrests, Ber could not contact the Bund C.C. What then is the Party to
do? It cannot afford to wait. There must be initiative in this case.

4

Beris shouting about the law, but at the same time he has been
resolutely fighting in the C.C. Bureau Abroad against the law and in favour
of the liquidators. {18} This kind of behaviour makes me doubt the sincerity of
his statements and expect him to make fresh attempts to break up all-Party
institutions.

| --- | --- |
| Printed from the minutes | |

3

SPEECHES IN THE DEBATE ON THE QUESTION OF CONVENING A C.C. PLENARY MEETING

MAY 30 (JUNE 12)

1 {19}

Istate that for six months the lower institution (C.C. Bureau Abroad)
has been violating decisions and refusing to convene the higher
institution. I am forced to state this in order to give a warning against
putting any trust in an institution which for six months now has been
trying to close the Party’s way to a resumption of its central institution.

2

Ipoint out that as early as the spring of 1910 we had a letter from
Inok saying that C.C. members were being shadowed. We fought with every
means against the Russian gamble. {20} Makar resumed the business in 1910 and the dispatch of money
right away revealed the hopelessness of the attempt. It was quite plain at
once that to call the C.C. in Russia meant to send people to gaol. From the
spring of 1908 to the 1910 Plenary Meeting the C.C. did not meet in Russia
a single time. The history of the convocation in Russia shows that the task
is unfeasible. Sending the C.C. to Russia was tantamount to sending it to
prison.

3 {21}

Overa period of 18 months, four Bolsheviks have been arrested while
doing central work. Not a single Menshevik has been arrested because they
have been working to set up a Stolypin party: Letters were not written to
us and correspondence was suspended for reasons of secrecy. The Mensheviks,
far from working to set up the C.C., even refused to attend for co-optation
(Mikhail, Roman and Yuri), Pyotr has been nowhere near the Bureau, while
Kostrov lived close by. It is an incontrovertible fact that only the
Bolsheviks have been working.

Concerning Lyubich we have a letter from Inok indicating his consent to
work. Concerning Pyotr we merely have the information that he has been
nowhere near the Bureau. A C.C. member has the clear duty of going to work
on the C.C. Martynov is an émigré=Bogdanov, Nikita. If he is
invited, then they and Victor should be invited too. Mikhail, Yuri and
Roman have nothing to do with the C.C. These are men who are building a
Stolypin labour party and are engaged in activity which was resolutely
condemned by the January Plenary Meeting. We have nothing in common with
the architects of a Stolypin labour party or with those who are helping
them.

4

PROPOSAL FOR RESOLUTION ON CONVENING A PARTY CONFERENCE

The Organising
Commission {22} has been recruiting for the work of convening a
conference representatives of local organisations in Russia and influential
comrades engaged in activity among the masses, so that they should, if
possible at once, set up a Russian collegium performing all the practical
work in convening the conference, under the general control of the
Organising Commission—in the sense of fulfilling directives stated in the
resolutions and the letter of the Plenary Meeting.

| Written on June 1 (14), 1911 | Printed from the original |
| --- | --- |
| First published in 1933 in Lenin Miscellany XXV | |

5

STATEMENT {23}

Invoting for the resolution as a whole {24} in order to bring together as closely as possible all the
Party elements without exception, we resolutely protest against the
permissibility of inviting to the Organising Commission the Golos and the
Vperyod people abroad, i.e., representatives of anti-Party groups
which have developed into special factions abroad and which in the
18 months since the Plenary Meeting have proved themselves capable only of
acting against the Party, only of slowing down its work, only of
helping the independent legalist labour party or the otzovists.

N. Lenin

| Written on June 1 (14), 1911 | Printed from the original |
| --- | --- |
| First published in 1933 in Lenin Miscellany XXV | |

---
Notes:
[1]
This provisional bureau was recognised both by non-Russian
organisations and by our Party’s C.C. Bureau Abroad and C.O. — Lenin

{2}
Meeting of the R.S.D.L.P. Central Committee members Living abroad was held in Paris from May 28 to June 4 (June 10 to 17),
1911. It was prepared and called under Lenin’s direction apart from the
Central Committee Bureau Abroad, whose liquidationist majority had
repeatedly thwarted the convocation of a C.C. Plenary Meeting. Preparations
for the meeting began in April 1911. It was to take measures to call a
Plenary meeting of the Central Commit tee and eliminate the grave crisis in
which the Party found itself, being virtually without central governing
bodies. The meeting was attended by Bolsheviks, Polish and Latvian
Social-Democrats, one Golos man and one Bundist. The Latvian
Social-Democrat M. V. Ozolin announced that in accordance with a decision
of his Central Committee he would attend the meeting with voice only. The
Bundist Lieber said that he had not been authorised by the Bund C.C. to
represent it at the meeting.

Inview of the forthcoming elections to the Fourth Duma, the meeting
outlined measures to elaborate the Party’s tactics in the election campaign
and draft an electoral platform. The main item on the agenda was the
calling of a Party conference. Because it was impossible to call a Plenary
Meeting of the Central Committee right away, the meeting undertook to call
a conference, and set up an Organising Commission to prepare the
conference. The meeting adopted Lenin’s proposal to set up a Russian
collegium for practical work in preparing the conference (see p. 240). The
meeting decisions provided for invitations to Party organisations abroad to
work together on the Organising Commission. Lenin, who voted for the
resolution as a whole, lodged a protest against the invitation to the
Organising Commission of representatives of anti-Party groups—the
Golos and Vperyod followers (pp. 240–41).

Themeeting condemned the anti-Party, factional policy of the Central
Committee Bureau Abroad, and decided to refer the question of its existence
to the C.C. Plenary Meeting. In the voting on the last section of the
resolution, Lenin abstained, because he insisted on an immediate
reorganisation of the C.C.B.A. To handle technical matters (Party
publishing, transportation, etc.), the meeting set up a Technical
Commission which was to be responsible to the group of members and
alternate members of the Central Committee attending the meeting.

Aspecial bulletin issued after the meeting—“Announcement”—set
out the circumstances in which the meeting had been called, its composition
and purposes. It also contained the resolutions of the meeting.

Thismeeting was an important step in mustering the Party forces, in
uniting them for the struggle against the Golos liquidators, the
Vperyod followers and the Trotskyites, and for strengthening the
Party. Its decisions helped to rally and strengthen local Party
organisations. To prepare a general Party conference, Lenin sent to Russia
experienced Party workers—the Bolsheviks G. K. Orjonikidze (Sergo),
B. A. Breslav (Zakhar) and I. I. Shvarts (Semyon). By September 1911, the
meeting decisions were approved by the committees and the Social-Democratic
organisations of a number of towns in Russia. In September 1911, there was formed the
Russian Organising Commission, consisting of representatives of a number of
Social-Democratic organisations. The Commission prepared the convocation in
January 1912 of the Sixth (Prague) All-Russia Conference of the
R.S.D.L.P. For the material on the meeting see also present edition,
Vol. 17, pp. 195–205.

p. 233

{3}
The document is printed from a copy in F. E. Dzerzhinsky’s hand. The
original written by Lenin has not been found.

Theminutes of the June meeting of the C.C. members contain no
indication that Lenin made the report at the meeting. It might have been
given to the conferees before the meeting opened.

p. 233

{4}
The Plenary Meeting of the R.S.D.L.P. Central Committee , known
as the “unity” meeting, was held in Paris from January 3 to 23
(January 15 to February 5), 1910.

Itwas attended by representatives of all factions and groups and of
non-Russian Social-Democratic organisations. The conciliators had a
majority at the meeting. Lenin conducted a persistent struggle against the
opportunists and conciliators to secure the condemnation of liquidationism
and otzovism and to bring the Bolsheviks and the pro-Party Mensheviks
closer together. On the agenda were these questions: 1) Report by the
Russian Bureau of the C.C. 2) Report by the C.C. Bureau Abroad. 3) Report
by the Editorial Board of the Central Organ. 4) Reports by the Central
Committees of the non-Russian Social-Democratic Parties. 5) State of
affairs in the Party. 6) Convocation of a regular Party conference. 7)
Rules of the R.S.D.L.P. Central Committee, etc.

On Lenin’s insistence, the Plenary Meeting adopted the resolution “On
the State of Affairs in the Party”, which condemned liquidationism and
otzovism, recognised the danger of these trends and urged the need to fight
them. Lenin said that the January Plenary Meeting finally determined the
Party’s tactical line during the counter-revolutionary period, deciding, in
pursuance of the resolutions of the Fifth (All-Russia) Conference of the
R.S.D.L.P. (1908), that liquidationism and otzovism were manifestations of
bourgeois influence on the proletariat. The Plenary Meeting also connected
the question of the need to have real Party unity, with the Party’s
ideological and political tasks in the current historical period. At the
same time, Lenin sharply condemned the Plenary Meeting’s conciliatory
decisions.

Fordetails about the Plenary Meeting see Lenin’s “Notes of a
Publicist” (present edition, Vol. 16, pp. 195–259).

p. 233

{5}
A reference to the members and alternate members of the
R.S.D.L.P. Central Committee elected at the Fifth (London) Congress, which
was held from April 30 to May 19 (May 13 to June 1), 1907.

p. 234

{6}
The Rules of the Central Committee, adopted at the January 1910 Plenary
Meeting of the R.S.D.L.P. Central Committee, said: “Plenary Meetings (of
15 members) shall be attended by

1) members of the collegium operating in Russia; 2) members of the
C.C. Bureau Abroad, with the exception of those who are not members of the
C.C.; 3) if these do not add up to the figure of 15, the other candidates
shall attend the Plenary Meeting in the following order: a) candidates of
the London Congress doing any Party work in Russia; b) members of the
C.C. and alternate members living abroad and engaged in work assigned to
them by the Central Committee” ( K.P.S.S. v rezolutsiyakh...,
Part I, p. 239).

p. 234

{7}
The Vperyod group —an anti-Party group of otzovists, ultimatumists and god-builders, organised on the initiative of A. Bogdanov
and G. A. Alexinsky in December 1909, following the break-up of the
otzovist-ultimatumist factional centre, the Capri school; it had a
periodical of the same name.

Thegroup, without any support in the working-class movement, broke up
in 1913 and 1914, but was formally dissolved after the bourgeois-democratic
revolution in February 1917.

p. 235

{8}
Diskussionny Listok (Discussion Bulletin)—a supplement to
Sotsial-Demokrat , the Central Organ of the R.S.D.L.P.; it was
published in Paris under a decision of the January Plenary Meeting of the
R.S.D.L.P. Central Committee from March 6 (19), 1910, to April 29 (May 12),
1911. There were three issues. On its Editorial Board were representatives
of the Bolsheviks, Mensheviks, ultimatumists, Bundists, Plekhanovites,
Polish Social-Democrats and Latvian Social-Democrats. It carried Lenin’s
articles “Notes of a Publicist”, “The Historical Meaning of the
Inner-Party Struggle in Russia” and “A Conversation Between a Legalist
and an Opponent of Liquidationism” (see present edition, Vol. 16,
pp. 195–259, 374–92, and Vol. 17, pp. 179–88).

p. 235

{9}
A reference to the School Commission (Committee) set up by the January
1910 Plenary Meeting of the R.S.D.L.P. Central Committee, to organise a
Party school abroad. It consisted of nine persons: two Bolsheviks, two
Mensheviks, two Vperyod sup porters, and one each from the
national organisations—the Bund, the Latvian and the Polish
Social-Democrats.

p. 235

{10}
The Fourth Duma opened on November 15 (28), 1912. Elections
were held in the autumn of 1912 under the reactionary electoral law of
June 3 (16), 1907, and were accompanied by a series of government measures
designed to create a Black-Hundred majority in the Duma. Lenin described
the election campaign and assessed the class and party composition of the
Duma in his article “Results of the Elections” (see present edition, Vol. 18, pp. 493–518).

The Social-Democratic group in the Fourth Duma included six
Bolsheviks—A. Y. Badayev, M. K. Muranov, G. I. Petrovsky, F. N. Samoilov,
N. R. Shagov and R. V. Malinovsky (who later was exposed as a provocateur),
seven Mensheviks and one member who did not enjoy full rights (the Warsaw
deputy, E. J. Jagiello), and who sided with the Mensheviks. Making use of
their slight numerical superiority, the Mensheviks hampered the work of the
group

and blocked the passage of a number of measures proposed by the
Bolsheviks. In October 1913, the Bolshevik deputies, on instructions from
the Central Committee, withdrew from the united Social-Democratic group and
formed their own. Lenin gave day-to-day guidance to the Bolshevik deputies
and taught them to make revolutionary use of the Duma rostrum.

The Duma proved to be incapable of settling any major questions which
the country’s objective development brought up, and its work increasingly
boiled down to wordy debate. Its legislative activity was largely designed
to strengthen such pillars of the autocracy as the courts, the church and
the police.

The Duma approved Russia’s entry into the First World War. The
Mensheviks and the S.R.s took a defencist stand. Only the Bolshevik Party
resolutely opposed the war. The Bolshevik group refused to vote the war
credits and started revolutionary propaganda in the masses. In November
1914, the Bolshevik deputies were arrested and committed for trial.

In August 1915, the bourgeois and landowner groups set up a
“Progressive bloc”, consisting of more than one-half of the
deputies. Lenin said it was “the liberal-Octobrist bloc for the purpose of
reaching an understanding with the tsar on a programme of reforms and
mobilising industry for the victory over Germany” (see present edition, Vol. 21, p. 378).

On February 26 (March 11), 1917, the tsar announced the dissolution of
the Fourth Duma, but, while not daring to protest openly, the deputies
decided to continue their sittings unofficially. On February 27 (March 12)
they formed a Provisional Committee of the Duma to fight the revolution and
save the monarchy. By agreement with the S.R. and Menshevik representatives
of the Petrograd Soviet, the Committee decided to set up a bourgeois
Provisional Government. The Committee’s members were rabid enemies of the
revolution, and at their private meetings demanded the establishment of a
military dictatorship and the abolition of the Soviets. On October 6 (19),
1917, under the pressure of the revolutionary masses, the bourgeois
Provisional Government was forced to decree the dissolution of the Duma.

p. 235

{11}
Nasha Zarya (Our Dawn)—a legal monthly of the Menshevik
liquidators published in St. Petersburg from January 1910 to September
1914. It was edited by A. N. Potresov, and among its contributors were
F. I. Dan and S. 0. Tsederbaum (V. Yezhov). It was the liquidationist
centre in Russia. A resolution of the Sixth (Prague) All-Russia Conference
of the R.S.D.L.P. (1912) said that “a section of the Social-Democrats,
grouped round the journals Nasha Zarya and Dyelo Zhizni ,
have openly come out in defence of a trend which the whole Party has
recognised as a product of bourgeois influence on the proletariat”
( K.P.S.S. v rezolutsiyakh... , Part I, p. 283).

p. 235

{12}
Dyelo Zhizni (Life Cause)—a legal journal, an organ of the
Menshevik liquidators, published in St. Petersburg from January to October
1911. There were nine issues.

p. 235

{13}
Zvezda (The Star)—a legal Bolshevik newspaper published in
St. Petersburg from December 16 (29), 1910, to April 22 (May 5), 1912. It
was initially published as a weekly, twice a week from January 21
(February  3), 1912, and three times a week from March 8 (21), 1912.

Leningave ideological guidance to the newspaper: he carried on a
correspondence with the members of the Editorial Board, directing their
work, criticising their mistakes, especially in the initial period of its
publication, struggling for the paper’s consistent Marxist approach. A
great deal of editorial and organisational work was done by N. N. Baturin,
N. G. Poletayev, K. S. Yeremeyev and M. S. Olminsky. Among those who took
an active part in the paper were V. D. Bonch-Bruyevich and Demyan Bedny. It
carried a number of articles by G. V. Plekhanov. Lenin got Maxim Gorky to
write for it. Zvezda enjoyed great prestige among the working
people of Russia.

p. 236

{14}
The attendant circumstances were as follows: the Golos
Menshevik B. I. Gorev (Goldman) came out against the presence at the
meeting of the representatives of non-Russian organisations, M. I. Lieber
of the Bund and M. V. Ozolin of the Latvian Social-Democrats, without
mandates from their Central Committees. Lieber said they had had no time to
contact their centres and that he was not representing the Bund.

p. 237

{15}
A reference to the speeches by Gorev (Goldman) and Lieber, who said
that there were members of the Russia Bureau in Russia who should be
contacted before the C. C. Plenary Meeting is called abroad.

p. 237

{16}
The Central Committee Bureau in Russia was elected at a
general meeting of the Collegium of C. C. members, which was active in
Russia from 1908. The Bureau was in charge of all the affairs of the
Russian Collegium in between general meetings of the C.C. In 1910 and 1911,
after the January 1910 Plenary Meeting of the C.C., the Bureau in Russia
consisted of the following members and alternate members of the Central
Committee: the Bolsheviks I. P. Goldenberg (Meshkovsky) and
I. F. Dubrovinsky (Innokenty), and after their arrest, V. P. Nogin (Makar)
and G. D. Leiteisen (Lindov). The Menshevik liquidators, members and
alternate members of the C.C., kept aloof from its work, while I. A. Isuv
(Mikhail), P. A. Bronstein (Yuri) and K. M. Yermolayev (Roman) not only
refused to participate but declared that they considered the very existence
of the C.C. to be harmful. All the efforts of the Bureau to call the
Russian Collegium failed.

In March 1911, following the arrest of Nogin and Leiteisen, the Central
Committee Bureau in Russia ceased to exist. Lenin gave a positive
evaluation of the Russia Bureau’s efforts to organise work in Russia and
call the C.C.’s Russian Collegium, but sharply criticised the members’
conciliatory stand.

Atthe Sixth (Prague) All-Russia Conference of the R.S.D.L.P., the
Bureau in Russia was re-established. It consisted of C.C. members:

G. K. Orjonikidze, S. S. Spandaryan, J. V. Stalin and Y. M. Sverdlov, and
alternate C.C. members: M. I. Kalinin, Y. D. Stasova and others. In view of
frequent arrests of Party workers in Russia, the composition of the Bureau
was subsequently changed many times, new members being co-opted in place of
the old ones. After the bourgeois-democratic revolution in February 1917,
the Bureau in Russia ceased to operate.

p. 238

{17}
A statement by the Bundist Ionov (F. M. Koigen) said that not having
any powers from the Bund’s C.C., he was unable to attend the meeting and
that he would send on his invitation to the Bund’s C.C. at the earliest
opportunity.

p. 238

{18}
A reference to the speech by Lieber (Ber) to the effect that there was
no need to decide on the question of a C.C. Plenary Meeting by having an
urgent meeting of C.C. members, but that a “legal way out” should be
sought through the C.C.B.A.

p. 238

{19}
The speech was in reply to Lieber’s statement that the majority of the
C.C.B.A. wanted a Plenary Meeting called and were prepared to adopt an
official resolution on this question.

p. 239

{20}
A reference to the proposal by the liquidationist majority of the
C.C.B.A. to call a C.C. Plenary Meeting in Russia.

p. 239

{21}
This speech, like the next one, is connected with the discussion of the
persons entitled to attend a C.C. Plenary Meeting.

p. 239

{22}
The Organising Commission ( Organising Commission Abroad, O.C.A. ) for convening a general Party conference was set up by the
C.C. members’ meeting on June 1 (14), 1911, and consisted of Bolsheviks,
conciliators and Polish Social-Democrats. Other organisations and groups
abroad invited to take part in the commission did not send their
representatives. The O.C. sent G.K. Orjonikidze as its agent to Russia to
work for the preparation of a general Party conference, and issued an
appeal “To All Social-Democratic Party Organisations, Groups and
Circles”, urging them to start elections to the Russian Organising
Commission.

Asa result of the work carried out by the Bolsheviks, the R.O.C. was
set up. At the end of October, the O.C.A. discussed the R.O.C.’s
“Announcement” of its constitution and resolutions stating that it
assumed full powers in calling the conference and that the Organising and
Technical Commissions Abroad were to be subordinate to the R.O.C. When the
conciliatory majority of the O.C.A. refused to abide by these decisions,
the Bolsheviks left the O.C.A. On October 30 (November 12), Orjonikidze,
who had arrived in Paris, gave a report in the O.C.A. on the activity of
the R.O.C. after which the O.C.A. was forced to recognise the governing
role of the R.O.C. But soon the O.C.A. started an open struggle against the
R.O.C. On November 20 (December 3) it issued a leaflet, “Open Letter to
the Russian Organising Commission”, accusing the latter of factional
activity. The O.C.A.’s anti-Party activity was exposed by Orjonikidze in
his “Letter to the Editorial Board” carried in No. 25 of
Sotsial-Demokrat on December 8 (21), 1911.

All the work of calling the general Party conference, held in January 1912,
was carried out by the R.O.C., which rallied together the illegal Party
organisations in Russia.

p. 240

{23}
The statement also bears the signature of G. Y. Zinoviev.

p. 240

{24}
A reference to the resolution of the June meeting of the C.C. members
“On Convening a Party Conference”.

p. 240