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V. I. Lenin
THE UNITY CONGRESS
OF THE R.S.D.L.P.April 10 (23) - April 25 (May 8), 1906
<"s11">12 WRITTTEN STATEMENTS AT THE TWENTY-SIXTH SESSION OF THE CONGRESS
I
It is not true that I "supported" Comrade Vorobyov's statement that the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks cannot work together in one party. I did not in any way "support" such an assertion, and do not share that opinion at all. The sense of my statement: "I am glad Comrade Vorobyov was the first to say that," was purely ironical; for the victors, having a majority at the Congress, only revealed their weakness by being the first to speak of a split.
II I propose that the following note be added to the rules on amalgamation with the Bund:
The Congress instructs the Central Committee to give effect to these rules immediately after they are confirmed by the Bund. <"NOTES">
NOTES <"en124">[124] The Fourth (Unity) Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. took place in Stockholm from April 10-25 (April 23 to May 8), 1906.
The Congress was attended by 112 delegates with the right to vote, who represented 57 local Party organisations and 22 delegates with voice but no vote. Other participants were delegates from various national Social-Democratic parties: three each from the Social-Democrats of Poland and Lithuania, the Bund and the Lettish Social-Democratic Labour Party, one each from the Ukrainian Social-Democratic Labour Party and the Finnish Labour Party, and also a representative of the Bulgarian Social-Democratic Labour Parly. Among the Bolshevik delegates were M. V. Frunze, M. I. Kalinin, N. K. Krupskaya, V. I. Lenin, A. V. Lunacharsky, F. A. Sergeyev (Artyom), S. G. Shaumyan, I. I. Skvortsov-Stepanov, J. V. Stalin, K. Y. Voroshilov and V. V. Vorovsky. The main items on the Congress agenda were the agrarian question, an appraisal of the current situation and the class tasks of the proletariat, the attitude to the Duma, and organisational matters. There was a bitter controversy between the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks over every item. Lenin made reports and speeches on the agrarian question, the current situation, and tactics regarding the Duma elections, the armed uprising, and other questions.
The preponderance of Mensheviks at the Congress, while slight, determined its character‹the Congress adopted Menshevik resolutions on a number of questions (the agrarian programme, the attitude to the Duma, etc.). The Congress approved the first clause of the Rules‹concerning Party membership‹in the wording proposed by Lenin. It admitted the Social-Democratic organisations of Poland and Lithuania and the Lettish Social-Democratic Labour Party into the R.S.D.L.P., and predetermined the admission of the Bund.
The Congress elected a Central Committee of three Bolsheviks and seven Mensheviks, and a Menshevik editorial board of Central Organ.Lenin analysed the work of the Congress in his pamphlet Report on the Unity Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. (See pp. 317-82 of this volume). [p.277]
<"en125">[125] Lenin's report on the agrarian question at the Fourth (Unity) Congress of the Party was not recorded in the Congress minutes and has so far not been found. Nor is there in the Congress minutes, edited chiefly by Mensheviks, any record of Lenin's report on the current situation or of his speech in reply to the debate on the attitude to the Duma. His speeches on other questions were not recorded in full in the minutes. [p.279]
<"en126">[126] John -- the Menshevik P. P. Maslov. [p.279]
<"en127">[127] Lenin is referring to the following passage in Marx's article published in the Neue Rhetnische Zeitung, No. 169, on December 15, 1848: "The whole French terrorism was nothing but a plebeian manner of settling accounts with the enemies of the bourgeoisie, with absolutism, feudalism and philistinism." (Marx and Engels, Selected Works, Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, p. 67.) [p.281]
<"en128">[128] Narodnaya Volya (People's Will ) -- a secret political organisation of Narodnik terrorists, came into being in August 1879 as a result of a split in the Narodnik organisation known as Zemlya i Volya (Land and Freedom). The Narodnaya Volya was headed by an Executive Committee made up of A. I. Zhelyabov, A. D. Mikhailov, M. F. Frolenko, N. A. Morozov, V. N. Figner, S. L. Perovskaya A. A. Kwiatkowski and others. While upholding the views of Narodnik utopian socialism, its members began a political struggle, above all with the aim of overthrowing the autocracy and winning political freedom. Their programme envisaged the organisation of a "permanent people's representative assembly elected by universal suffrage, the proclamation of democratic freedoms, the transfer of the land to the people, and the elaboration of measures for the transfer of the factories to the workers. "The Narodnaya Volya members made a step forward when they took up the political struggle, but they failed to connect it with socialism," wrote Lenin (present edition Vol. 8, p. 72). [Transcriber's Note: See Lenin's "Working-Class and Bourgeois Democracy". -- DJR]
The Narodnaya Volya fought heroically against the tsarist autocracy. However, proceeding from the fallacious theory of "active" heroes and a "passive" crowd, they expected to bring about the reorganisation of society by their own efforts -- through individual terrorism, through intimidation and disorganisation of the government -- without the participation of the people. After March I 1881, when Alexander II was assassinated, the government routed the Narodnaya Volya through cruel reprisals, including executions. Throughout the eighties members of the Narodnaya Volya made fruitless attempts to revive their organisation. In 1886, for example, a group was formed under the leadership of A. I. Ulyanov (a brother of Lenin's) and P. Y. Shevyryov, which shared the traditions of the Narodnaya Volya. In 1887, following an abortive attempt to organise the assassination of Alexander III, the group was discovered, and its more active members were put to death.Lenin, while criticising the erroneous, utopian programme of tbe Narodnaya Volya, spoke very highly of the selfless struggle which its members waged against tsarism, as well as of their secrecy techniques and strictly centralised organisation. [p.283]
<"en129">[129] Kartvelov -- N. G. Chichinadze, a Caucasian Menshevik. [p.285]
<"en130">[130] Borisov -- S. A. Suvorov, who at the Fourth (Unity) Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. adhered to the Bolsheviks. [p.286]
<"en131">[131] Lenin is quoting Karl Marx's "Theses on Feuerbach" (See Marx and Engels, Selected Works, Vol. II, Moscow, 1958, p. 405). [p.287]
<"en132">[132] Petrunkevtch, I. I., and Rodicheu, F. I. -- landlords, prominent Cadets and Zemstvo officials. [p.287]
<"en133">[133] Russkoye Gosudarstvo (The Russian State ) -- a government newspaper published in St. Petersburg from February 1 (14) to May 15 (28), 1906. [p.287]
<"en134">[134] Ptitsyn -- the Menshevik B. I. Soloveichik. [p.289]
<"en135">[135] Leonov -- the Menshevik V. O. Levitsky (Tsederbaum). [p.290]
<"en136">[136] Legitimists -- supporters of the French Bourbons, overthrown in 1830. The Bourbons represented the interests of the big hereditary landowners.
Orleanists -- supporters of the Orleans family in France. The family, which came into power in 1830, was backed by the financial aristocracy and the big bourgeoisie. [p.290]<"en137">[137] See Marx and Engels, Selected Works, Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, p. 208. [p.290]
<"en138">[138] Convention -- the third National Assembly during the French bourgeois revolution of the late eighteenth century. It was established as the supreme legislature following the people's uprising on August 10, 1792, which overthrew the monarchy. Elections to the Convention were held in August and September 1792. The deputies formed three groups: the Jacobins, or the Left wing, the Girondists, or the Right wing, and the "Marsh", or the vacillating majority. Under the pressure of the people the Convention on September 21 abolished the royal power, and on September 22 proclaimed France a republic. The activity of the Convention was particularly fruitful under the Jacobin dictatorship (May 31-June 2, 1793-July, 1794), when the Girondists were expelled. The Convention completed the abolition of the feudal system; it dealt mercilessly with all counter-revolutionaries and compromisers, and fought against foreign intervention. At the same time it upheld the inviolability of private property.
After Thermidor 9 (July 27, 1794), when a counter-revolutionary coup d'état was accomplished, an after the adoption of the so- called Constitution of the Year III, the Thermidor Convention was dissolved on October 26, 1795. [p.291]<"en139">[139] The Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks drafted for the Fourth (Unity) Congress their resolutions on the attitude to the Duma. By the time this question had come up for discussion at the Congress both drafts, written prior to the Duma elections, were obsolete, and new drafts were proposed instead. The committee which was set up at the seventh session of the Congress to draft a joint resolution on the Duma and which comprised G. V. Plekhanov, P. B. Axelrod, V. I. Lenin, F. I. Dan, I. I. Skvortsov-Stepanov (Fyodorov), A. V. Lunacharsky (Voyinov) and 0. A. Yermansky (Rodenko), did not reach unity, and submitted two draft resolutions to the Congress: a Menshevik one, prepared by Plekhanov, Axelrod and Dan and a Bolshevik one, prepared by Lenin, Skvortsov-Stepanov and Lunacharsky. The new Bolshevik draft, written by Lenin, was read by the chairman of the Congress at its sixteenth session, and by Lenin at its seventeenth session, during his co-report on the Duma. It was published in Volna, No. 12, after the Congress, on May 9, 1906, with an afterword by Lenin (see p. 401 of this volume). [p.292]
<"en140">[140] Lenin is referring to an incident that occurred at the twenty first session of the Congress. After the Mensheviks had rejected a Bolshevik amendment to the last clause of the Menshevik draft resolution on the Duma ten Bolshevik delegates, including Lenin, demanded that the amendment be put to a vote by roll-call. Then a Menshevik delegate from the Kharkov organisation accused the Bolsheviks of "collecting agitational material against the authority of the Congress decisions, thereby hampering its work". In reply Lenin, speaking on behalf of the Bolsheviks, pointed out the narrow factionallsm shown by the Menshevlks (see p. 308 of this volume). [p.299]
<"en141">[141] Vorobyov -- the Caucasian Menshevik V. B. Lomtatidze. [p.299]
<"en142">[142] At the Congress, the Bolsheviks described the Menshevik draft resolution on "Armed Uprising" as a resolution "against armed uprising". Lenin also stressed this in his "Report on the Unity Congress of the R.S.D.L.P." (see p. 368 of this volume). p. 299 [p.299]
<"en143">[143] Winter -- L. B. Krasin. [p.299]
<"en144">[144] Akimov, V. P. (Makhnovets) -- extreme opportunist, one of the ideologists of Economism, who adhered to the Menshevik Right wing. At the twenty-second session of the Congress, he made a special report on armed uprising, in which he openly voiced his opposition to insurrection. [p.300]
<"en145">[145] The first clause of the Menshevik draft resolutton on armed uprising, discussed by the Congress, read: "Whereas (1) the stupid obstinacy of the Russian Government confronts the people with the
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necessity of wresting their rights from it. . . ." It was formulated by Plekhanov. On the drafting committee Plekhanov had insisted that "wresting their rights from it" be substituted for "wresting state power", the phrase given in the original draft. Faced with objections, he had renounced his amendment. But just before the Congress met in session the Menshevik section of the committee submitted the first clause of the resolution as worded by Plekbanov. The amendment drew an emphatic protest from Lenin and the Bolshevik section of the Congress. Plekhanov was compelled to withdraw it. [p.300]
<"en146">[146] Muratov's amendment ("Muratov" was M. Morozov, a delegate from the Samarkand organisation), submitted at the twenty-first session of the Congress, said that in view of the Party's non-participation in the elections, the question of forming a parliamentary Social-Democratic group could be decided "only when the composition of the group of Social-Democrats elected to the Duma was known and they had been recognised by all the workers' organisations in whose areas the elections had taken place" (see The Fourth [Unity ] Congress of the R.S.D.L.P., Russ. ed., Moscow 1934, pp. 368-69). The Menshevik majority at the Congress rejected the amendment. [p.302]
<"en147">[147] Stodolin -- the Bolshevik N. N. Nakoryakov. [p.303]