In February of the present year, a meeting of the Central Committee of the RSDLP with party workers took place. The meeting succeeded in attracting members of illegal party organizations from Petersburg (five), the Moscow region (two), the South (two), the Urals, and the Caucasus. It proved impossible to conduct elections from local organizations, and therefore the meeting was not constituted as a conference. Some members of the Central Committee were unable to attend for police reasons.

Almost all participants in the meeting had taken outstanding part in various kinds of legal workers' societies and so-called "legal opportunities." Thus, the composition of the meeting ensured a correct picture of all party work in all the principal regions of Russia.

The meeting held 11 sessions and worked out resolutions (apart from unpublished ones)[31] on the following agenda items: 1) Revolutionary upsurge, strikes, and the tasks of the party. 2) Construction of an illegal organization. 3) The Duma Social-Democratic faction. 4) Party press. 5) Insurance campaign. 6) Attitude toward liquidationism. The question of unity. 7) On "national" Social-Democratic organizations.

The resolutions were adopted unanimously – the only exceptions were the abstention of one comrade on two points of the "insurance" resolution and another on particulars of the "national" resolution.

The resolutions of the meeting, approved by the Central Committee, provide a summary of party experience and a guiding line on all the most important questions of Social-Democratic work in contemporary Russia.

Systematically accounting for the experience of 1912 is the most important task of Social-Democracy, because that year was a year of great, historic transformation in the workers' movement of Russia. Not only did decline and disintegration give way to revival. The working class transitioned to a massive offensive against the capitalists and against the tsarist monarchy. A wave of economic and political strikes rose so high that Russia again stands foremost in this respect among all, even the most developed, countries of the world.

This fact will not, of course, make any conscious worker forget how far ahead of us the proletariat of free countries has advanced in the matter of organization and class education of the masses. But this fact proved that Russia has entered a period of the growth of a new revolution.

Upon the working class falls the great task of revolutionary awakening and education in struggle of all democratic masses, of guiding them for the mighty onslaught which must give Russia freedom and a republic, destroying the monarchy of the Romanovs. Comprehensive support of the open revolutionary struggle of the masses, its organization, expansion, deepening, and strengthening – such is the fundamental task of the present moment. He is no Social-Democrat who has not understood this task, who does not work in one or another illegal organization, group, or cell serving the cause of the development of revolution.

The revolutionary upsurge of the proletariat in 1912 was the main motive force of the change in the mood of democracy recognized by all. Both in the elections to the Fourth Duma and in the creation of a legal workers' press that preaches at least the rudiments of the theory of Marxism, Social-Democracy achieved major victories. The tsarist government was unable to prevent these successes solely because the open revolutionary struggle of the masses changed the entire socio-political situation. While continuing its unwavering, persistent, systematic work to utilize literally all and every "legal opportunity," from the tribune of the Black Duma to any temperance society, the RSDLP does not forget for a moment that the high title of party member is deserved only by one who conducts all work among the masses genuinely in the spirit of party decisions, thought out and adopted from the standpoint of a growing revolution, and not from the standpoint of the June Third "legality." Not to succumb to the disorder and disintegration that remained from the epoch of 1908–1911, but to struggle against it – such is our task. Not to drift with the current of chaotic and unprincipled legalism, but to utilize all that is legal for the gradual regrouping of all living forces around the illegal party – such is our work. No peace with those who abuse legalism in order to sow skepticism and indifference toward the revolutionary struggle of the masses or even directly obstruct it – such is our slogan.

Not in the diminution of our demands lies the guarantee of their realizability, not in the curtailing of our program, not in the tactic of attracting underdeveloped people by the deceptive slogan of the ease of this or that constitutional reform under Russian tsarism. No. The guarantee lies in the education of the masses in the spirit of consistent democratism and consciousness of the falsity of constitutional illusions. The guarantee lies in the revolutionary organization of the vanguard class, the proletariat, and in the great revolutionary enthusiasm of the masses.

The epoch of the raging counterrevolution left us as a legacy ideological disorder and collapse, organizational disintegration in many centers of the workers' movement, handicraftism and forced separation from the party on the part of some, and scornful and even malicious attitude toward the "underground" which preserves the traditions of revolution and works out revolutionary tactics – on the part of others. The secession of the liquidators from the Social-Democratic party, the factual separation and in some places oblivion of the principles of Social-Democracy, and the disintegration of "national" Social-Democratic organizations – all this to the utmost degree sharpened the requirement of unity.

Unity of the Social-Democratic proletariat – a necessary condition of its victories.

Unity of the Social-Democratic proletariat is impossible without the unity of its party – the RSDLP.

And here we see at once that it is impossible to solve the question of this unity without solving not only in words but in deed the question of the necessity of an illegal party. Whoever speaks of unity while preaching at the same time an "open workers' party" deceives himself and the workers. Whoever speaks of unity while pretending that this question can be solved, can be clarified, can even only be raised within the framework of legality – deceives himself and the workers.

No. Not empty phrases about "unity" in the legal press, not agreements with various "wandering separately" groups of intellectuals, not the diplomacy of negotiations abroad, but only the unification on the ground, the actual merging into a single illegal organization of all workers belonging to the RSDLP – only this alone resolves the question of unity.

The workers have already begun themselves, from below, to undertake this alone serious, alone practical solution of the question of unity. The meeting calls upon all Social-Democrats to embark upon this path.

Social-Democratic workers everywhere are restoring united illegal organizations of the RSDLP in the form of factory cells, factory and plant committees, district groups, all-city centers, Social-Democratic groups in all manner of legal institutions, and so forth. Whoever does not wish to condemn himself to the position of a powerless loner – let him enter these organizations. Recognition of the illegal party, support of the revolutionary struggle of the masses are realized here under the control of the workers themselves.

The period of disintegration is passing. The time of gathering strength has arrived. Let us unite in the illegal organizations of the RSDLP. They do not close their doors to any Social-Democrat willing to work in them, willing to help the organization of the proletariat, its struggle with capital, its begun revolutionary onslaught on the tsarist monarchy.

A nationwide political crisis is slowly but steadily ripening in Russia. The June Third system was the last attempt to save the Black-Hundred monarchy of the tsar, an attempt to renew it through an alliance with the upper bourgeoisie, and this attempt has failed. New forces of democracy are growing and strengthening day by day and hour by hour among the peasantry and urban bourgeoisie in Russia. More rapidly than before, the number of proletarians is increasing in the village and in the cities, their organization is growing, their cohesion is strengthening, their confidence in their invincibility is being reinforced by the experience of mass strikes.

The RSDLP, organizing the vanguard detachments of this proletariat into a single whole, must lead it to revolutionary battles in the name of our old revolutionary demands.

February 1913