3rd Congress

Third Congress of the RSDLP. April-May 1905.

The third congress of the RSDLP took place on April 12-27 (April 25-May 10), 1905 in London. The work of the congress took place in an atmosphere of the growth of the bourgeois-democratic, people's revolution in Russia. The congress was attended by 24 delegates with decisive votes and 14 with advisory votes. All organizations of the RSDLP were invited to the congress, but the Mensheviks refused to participate in the congress and gathered separately in Geneva, where they held their conference, therefore this congress was purely Bolshevik.

The first sessions of the congress were devoted to discussing the report of the Organizing Committee and the mandate verification commission. In the speeches of the delegates and in the adopted resolution "On the construction of the congress" the indisputable legality of the congress was stated, and opposition to the convocation of the congress of the members of the Party Council Plekhanov, Martov and Axelrod, contrary to the party charter, was condemned. The congress made these members of the former Soviet responsible for the split in the party.

Due to the fact that the congress was held during the Russian revolution of 1905-1907, it considered the fundamental questions of the party's tactics in the revolution: about an armed uprising, about a provisional revolutionary government, about the attitude to government policy on the eve of the coup, about an open political speech by the RSDLP, about the attitude towards the peasant movement, about the breakaway part of the party and others. The congress determined the strategic plan of the party in the bourgeois-democratic revolution: the proletariat, as the leader of the revolution in alliance with the entire peasantry, with the isolation of the liberal bourgeoisie, is fighting for the victory of the bourgeois-democratic revolution. The resolution of the congress "On an armed uprising" was based on the ideas of V.I. Lenin on the hegemony of the proletariat in the bourgeois-democratic revolution and the development of the bourgeois-democratic revolution into a socialist one.

In the resolution "On the attitude towards the peasant movement", the congress emphasized the need to provide the most energetic support for all revolutionary measures of the peasantry, up to the confiscation of the landlord's lands, and suggested that the party organizations get closer to the peasant masses, fight for the liberation of the peasantry from the influence of the liberal bourgeoisie, them in the fight against the autocracy.

Proceeding from the strategic plan in the revolution, the party put forward the main slogans before the masses: a democratic republic, confiscation of the landlord's land, an 8-hour working day. The only means of overthrowing tsarism and creating a democratic republic, the Third Congress of the RSDLP, recognized a nationwide armed uprising. The congress instructed all party organizations "to take the most energetic measures to arm the proletariat, as well as to develop a plan for an armed uprising and direct its leadership, creating for this, as necessary, special groups of party workers."

As a result of the victory of the armed popular uprising, a provisional revolutionary government of the victorious classes - workers and peasants - should be created. In the resolution "On a provisional revolutionary government", the congress defined its class character as a political organ of the revolutionary democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry and its tasks: consolidating the gains of the revolution, suppressing the resistance of the exploiting classes, fulfilling the immediate political and economic demands of the proletariat - the minimum program of the RSDLP, creating favorable conditions for the transition to the socialist revolution. For the successful fulfillment of these tasks by the provisional revolutionary government, the congress pointed out the admissibility of the participation of representatives of the Social Democratic Party in it.

The congress put forward tactical slogans - the Party's appeals aimed at unleashing the revolutionary initiative of the masses, at organizing the masses for an uprising against the autocracy. These slogans were: a) the use of mass political strikes; b) organizing the immediate implementation in a revolutionary way of the 8-hour working day and other requirements of the working class; c) the immediate organization of revolutionary peasant committees as organs of the struggle of the peasantry against police-bureaucratic and landlord oppression, organs for carrying out democratic reforms in a revolutionary way up to the confiscation of landowners' lands; d) arming the workers.

The congress took the most important decisions on organizational issues. In the resolution "On Attitude Towards National Social Democratic Organizations", the Congress instructed the Central Committee and local committees to make every effort to reach an agreement with national Social Democratic organizations to coordinate local work and prepare the possibility of uniting all Social Democratic parties into a single RSDLP.

The task of rallying all Social Democrats into a single party has acquired particular importance in connection with the unfolding revolution. In the resolution On the Breakaway Part of the Party, the congress condemned the opportunist views of the Mensheviks not only on organizational but also on tactical questions and invited all party members to wage a vigorous ideological struggle everywhere against deviations from the principles of revolutionary Social-Democracy. The congress adopted a special resolution on the dissolution of the committees that would refuse to recognize the decisions of the Third Congress, indicating that it should be resorted to "only after a thorough investigation has fully established the unwillingness of the Menshevik organizations and committees to submit to party discipline." In a special resolution, the congress instructed the Central Committee to take all measures to prepare and work out the conditions for merging with the breakaway part of the RSDLP.

In the resolution "On Propaganda and Agitation," the congress pointed out the exceptional importance of attracting workers directly associated with the revolutionary movement as members of party committees, agitators, and propagandists.

The congress adopted a new party charter with the Leninist wording of the first paragraph on party membership. The charter clearly defined the rights of the Central Committee and the autonomy of local committees, eliminated the system of two-center in the party. The congress elected a single governing center - the Central Committee, headed by V.I. Lenin.

In the resolution on the newspaper Vperyod, the congress noted its outstanding role in convening the congress and expressed gratitude to the newspaper's editorial board. The congress approved the new Central Organ of the Party - the newspaper Proletary. At the plenum of the Central Committee on April 27 (May 10), 1905, V.I. Lenin.

All the work of the congress was held under the leadership of V.I. Lenin. He made reports on the participation of Social-Democrats. in the provisional revolutionary government, on a resolution to support the peasant movement, and spoke in debates on the legality of the congress, on an armed uprising, on the attitude to government tactics on the eve of the coup, on the relations between workers and intellectuals in the Social-Democrats. organizations, when discussing the party charter, on the issue of practical agreements with the socialist revolutionaries, on the report on the activities of the Central Committee. All the main resolutions adopted by the congress were written by V.I. Lenin: a resolution on an armed uprising, on a provisional revolutionary government, on an open political speech by the RSDLP, on the attitude towards the peasant movement. IN AND. Lenin also wrote resolutions "Concerning the events in the Caucasus", "Resolution on the publication of the minutes of the congress."

Lenin was the chairman of all sessions of the congress: he kept detailed notes during the sessions, made numerous notes on notes submitted by delegates to the Bureau of the Congress, kept notes of speakers, noted the state of the minutes prepared by the secretaries for approval by the congress.

The beginning of 1905 brought the first great wave of the strike movement. In response to the bloody atrocities of the tsarist government in St. Petersburg on January 9, 1905, general strikes began in Moscow, Riga, Warsaw, Tiflis, and other industrial centers of the country. In January 1905, 440,000 workers went on strike, that is, more than in the entire previous decade. Political demonstrations took place in a number of cities.

The proletarian struggle sparked a revolutionary movement among the peasantry. "Only the waves of mass strikes that swept across the country, in connection with the cruel lessons of the imperialist Russian-Japanese war, awakened the broad masses of the peasantry from their lethargic sleep." In February 1905, agrarian unrest began in the Orel, Voronezh, Kursk provinces. The movement was especially strong in the Volga region, the Baltic region, Transcaucasia, Poland. In the spring of 1905, agricultural workers' strikes organized by the Social Democrats took place in a number of places.

“Russia is experiencing a great historical moment,” wrote V. I. Lenin. - The revolution broke out and flared up more and more, covering new areas and new strata of the population. The proletariat is at the head of the fighting forces of the revolution. He has already made the greatest sacrifices to the cause of freedom and is now preparing for a decisive battle with the tsarist autocracy”.

The unfolding popular revolution in Russia demanded from the proletarian party correct and firm political leadership of the revolutionary struggle of the masses. The party, Lenin pointed out, was faced with the greatest, grandiose tasks of organizing an uprising, concentrating the revolutionary forces of the proletariat, rallying them with the forces of the entire revolutionary people, armed attack, and establishing a provisional revolutionary government.

The new questions of organization and tactics, raised by the gigantic upsurge of the revolutionary movement, were to become the focus of the Third Party Congress.

The urgent need to convene a congress was also dictated by the situation within the party, which was actually split into Bolsheviks and Mensheviks, who assessed differently the character, driving forces and tasks of the proletariat in the revolution.

After the Second Party Congress, a struggle broke out between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks over the fundamental questions of the party's organization and tactics. The Bolsheviks, headed by V.I. Lenin, resolutely stood for the implementation of the revolutionary Marxist program and charter adopted at the Second Party Congress, against the schismatic, disorganizing activity of the Mensheviks, who were dragging the Party towards fragmentation and circle-like behavior. The Mensheviks took the path of anti-party methods. They created a secret factional organization headed by Martov, Trotsky, Axelrod and set themselves the goal of seizing the leadership of the party by boycotting the party centers and disorganizing party work. Plekhanov's desertion to the side of the Mensheviks, their seizure of the Iskra editorial board and the majority in the Party Council, the pursuit of a policy of splitting the local Party organizations — all this put the Party in conditions of a grave crisis. Lenin pointed out that the basis of this crisis "was the stubborn unwillingness of the minority of the Second Congress to submit to its majority." The Mensheviks' splitting policy was supported by the leaders of the Second International.

As the only reliable means of curbing the disorganizing Mensheviks, preserving, and multiplying the party's forces, and equipping the party for the upcoming revolutionary battles, V.I. Lenin back in December 1903 put forward the demand for the immediate convocation of a party congress. Local party organizations actively supported the initiative of V.I. Lenin. The struggle to convene the congress became the central task of all Bolsheviks.

“The newspaper Vperyod, founded on the initiative of V. I. Lenin, was of great importance in rallying the party and preparing the congress. The newspaper was published weekly from December 22, 1904 (January 4, 1905). On the pages of the newspaper Vperyod, V. I. Lenin worked out the strategic and tactical line of the Bolsheviks on the main issues of the revolution: the nature and characteristics of the revolution, the armed uprising, the provisional revolutionary government and the revolutionary democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry, the attitude of social democracy to the peasant movement, towards the liberal bourgeoisie, towards the Russian-Japanese war. Over 40 articles and notes by V. I. Lenin were published in the newspaper Vperyod. The propositions on the strategy and tactics of the party in the bourgeois-democratic revolution, formulated and substantiated by V. I. Lenin in these articles, formed the basis for the decisions of the Third Congress. The Bolshevik newspaper Vperyod exposed and smashed the opportunism of the Mensheviks in organizational and tactical questions, ideologically inspired and organized the party masses around the Leninist slogan of the struggle for the congress.

The Mensheviks strongly opposed the convocation of the congress. The Party Council, which included Plekhanov, Martov, Axelrod, acted, according to Lenin's definition, as an instrument of secret organization of the Mensheviks, directing its efforts to disrupt the congress. The party council opposed the majority of the party. Using its statutory right to convene the congress, the Party Council arbitrarily set the conditions for counting the resolutions of local committees that spoke out in favor of convening the congress, showed distrust of these resolutions, delayed their publication, forged the vote count, arrogated to itself the right of the congress to declare mandates invalid, and disorganized the work of local committees, restoring the periphery against them. On March 8, 1905, the Party Council adopted a resolution against the convocation of the congress, publishing it in JV 89 of Iskra.

The party's Central Committee, which was dominated by conciliators Halperin, Krasin, Noskov, also opposed the convocation of the congress. The Central Committee, under the pretext of "establishing peace in the party," banned agitation for the congress and began to dissolve organizations that advocated the need to convene a congress.

In this situation, the Bureau of Majority Committees took over the organization of the congress entirely and on February 15 (28), 1905, published in the newspaper Vperyod "Notice of the Convocation of the 111th Party Congress." This document was based on the "Notice of the Formation of the Organizing Committee and the Convocation of the Third Regular Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party" written by V. I. Lenin in December 1904. To the notification of the BKB, the editors of Vperyod gave a note "From the Editor" written by V. I. Lenin, in which an approximate order of the day of the congress was proposed and an appeal was given to the party members to take an active part in its preparation. This position of the Bureau of Majority Committees was strongly supported by most local committees. In March 1905, out of 28 local party committees, 21 spoke in favor of convening a congress.

The Central Committee, given that the overwhelming majority of local party committees spoke in favor of calling the congress, was forced to abandon its previous position and on March 4, 1905, appealed to the party with an appeal to prepare the congress. On March 12, the Organizing Committee was formed to convene the party congress from representatives of the BKB and the Central Committee.

V. I. Lenin did an enormous amount of organizational work in preparing the congress. In the first half of December 1904, V. I. Lenin sent to all the members of the BKB the "Notice of the Formation of the Organizing Committee and the Convocation of the Third Regular Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party" written by him. At the same time, he makes a preliminary calculation of the committees entitled to participate in the congress, the number of their votes, a list of some possible delegates to the congress and draws up a draft order of the day of the congress. In February 1905, V. I. Lenin drew up a new draft of the agenda and a list of resolutions for the congress, and prepared a "General Plan of Decisions of the Third Congress." This document determined the position of the Bolsheviks on all the immediate questions of the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat and internal party relations. At the same time, V.I. Lenin wrote draft resolutions of the congress: on the disorganizing behavior of the Mensheviks or the new Iskraists, on the behavior of Plekhanov in the party crisis, on the principled position of the new Iskraists, on the relations between workers and intellectuals in the Social-Democratic Party, and he also drew up a questionnaire with a list of the most important questions, the clarification of which was necessary for the revision of the charter and drawing up other resolutions of the congress. In April 1905, V.I. Lenin wrote a note to the congress, in which he indicated which documents should be printed for members of the congress, made a list of resolutions and possible speakers on certain issues.

All organizations of the RSDLP were invited to the congress, but the Mensheviks refused to participate in the congress and gathered separately in Geneva, where they held their conference. The congress was attended by 24 delegates with casting votes and 14 with advisory votes. Delegates from 21 committees were present with decisive votes, operating mainly in large industrial centers of Russia: Petersburg, Moscow, Tverskoy (at the end of the congress), Riga, Northern, Tula, Nizhny Novgorod, Ural, Samara, Saratov, Caucasian Union (8 votes, which was equal to 4 committees), Voronezh, Nikolaev, Odessa, Polessk, North-West, Kursk, Orel. Delegates from the Arkhangelsk, Kazan, Odessa committees, the Ural Union (the second delegate who arrived at the end of the congress), the Yekaterinoslav, Kharkov and Minsk Bolshevik groups, the Vperyod editorial board and the Foreign Organization Committee attended with deliberative votes.

The first sessions of the congress were devoted to discussing the report of the Organizing Committee and the mandate verification commission. In the speeches of the delegates and in the adopted resolution "On the constitution of the congress," the indisputable legality of the congress was stated, and opposition to the convocation of the congress of the members of the Party Council Plekhanov, Martov and Axelrod, contrary to the party charter, was condemned. The congress made these members of the former Soviet responsible for the split in the party.

The revolution of 1905-1907 — the first bourgeois-democratic revolution of the era of imperialism — presented Russian Social Democracy with "such demands that history has never before placed before the workers' party in the era of a democratic revolution." In accordance with this, the congress considered the fundamental questions of the tactics of the party in the revolution: about an armed uprising, about a provisional revolutionary government, about the attitude towards government policy on the eve of the coup, about an open political speech by the RSDLP, about the attitude towards the peasant movement, about the breakaway part of the party, and others.

The congress defined the strategic plan of the party in the bourgeois-democratic revolution: the proletariat, as the leader of the revolution in alliance with the entire peasantry, with the isolation of the liberal bourgeoisie, is fighting for the victory of the bourgeois-democratic revolution. The decisions of the congress were based on Lenin's teaching on the hegemony of the proletariat in the bourgeois-democratic revolution, his theory of the development of the bourgeois-democratic revolution into a socialist one. V.I. Lenin taught that, despite the bourgeois-democratic nature of the revolution that was taking place, the proletariat is its guiding force, that the proletariat is primarily interested in its complete victory, because the victory of this revolution gives the proletariat the opportunity to organize itself, rise up politically, acquire experience and skills. political leadership of the working people and move from the bourgeois revolution to the socialist revolution.

The resolution of the congress "On armed uprising" indicated that only the proletariat "being by its position the most advanced and the only consistently revolutionary class, is thereby called to play a leading role in the general democratic revolutionary movement in Russia." The proletariat can play a leading role in the revolution on condition that it is rallied into a single and independent political force headed by the revolutionary Marxist party.

In the resolution "On the attitude to the peasant movement," the congress emphasized the need to provide the most energetic support for all revolutionary measures of the peasantry, up to the confiscation of the landlord's lands, and invited the party organizations to get closer to the peasant masses, to fight for the liberation of the peasantry from the influence of the liberal bourgeoisie, to actively involve them in the struggle against the autocracy.

Proceeding from the strategic plan in the revolution, the party put forward the main slogans before the masses: a democratic republic, confiscation of landlord's land, an 8-hour working day.

The idea of the hegemony of the working class in the bourgeois-democratic revolution and its alliance with the peasantry laid a dividing line between the Bolshevik, revolutionary and Menshevik, opportunist tactics.

The decisions of the Third Congress outlined concrete ways and means of the struggle of the working people for the victory of the revolution. The only means of overthrowing tsarism and conquering a democratic republic was recognized by the Third Congress of the RSDLP as a nationwide armed uprising. The congress instructed all party organizations "to take the most energetic measures to arm the proletariat, as well as to develop a plan for an armed uprising and direct its leadership, creating for this, as necessary, special groups of party workers."

As a result of the victory of the armed popular uprising, a provisional revolutionary government of the victorious classes — workers and peasants — must be created. In the resolution "On a provisional revolutionary government", the congress defined its class character as a political organ of the revolutionary democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry and its tasks: consolidating the gains of the revolution, suppressing the resistance of the exploiting classes, fulfilling the immediate political and economic demands of the proletariat - the minimum program of the RSDLP, creating favorable conditions for the transition to the socialist revolution. For the successful fulfillment of these tasks by the provisional revolutionary government, the congress pointed out the admissibility of the participation of representatives of the Social Democratic Party in it.

The congress put forward tactical slogans - the Party's appeals aimed at unleashing the revolutionary initiative of the masses, at organizing the masses for an uprising against the autocracy. These slogans were: a) the use of mass political strikes; b) organizing the immediate implementation in a revolutionary way of the 8-hour working day and other requirements of the working class; c) the immediate organization of revolutionary peasant committees, as organs of the struggle of the peasantry against police-bureaucrats and landlord oppression, organs for carrying out democratic reforms in a revolutionary way up to the confiscation of landlords' lands; d) arming the workers.

The congress took the most important decisions on organizational issues. Proceeding from the Leninist principle of building a centralized working class party, one for all nationalities, the congress adopted a resolution "On the attitude towards national social democratic organizations", in which it instructed the Central Committee and local committees to make every effort to reach an agreement with national social democratic organizations to agree work and preparation of the possibility of uniting all social democratic parties into a single RSDLP.

The task of rallying all Social Democrats into a single party acquired special significance in connection with the unfolding revolution. In the resolution "On the breakaway part of the Party", the congress condemned the opportunist views of the Mensheviks not only on organizational but also on tactical questions and invited all party members to wage a vigorous ideological struggle everywhere against deviations from the principles of revolutionary Social Democracy. The congress adopted a special resolution on the dissolution of the committees that would refuse to recognize the decisions of the Third Congress, indicating that this should be resorted to "only after a thorough investigation has fully established the unwillingness of the Menshevik organizations and committees to submit to party discipline." In a special resolution, the congress instructed the Central Committee to take all measures to prepare and work out the conditions for merging with the breakaway part of the RSDLP.

In the resolution "On Propaganda and Agitation," the congress pointed out the exceptional importance of attracting workers directly connected with the revolutionary movement as members of party committees, agitators, and propagandists.

The congress adopted a new party charter. Lenin's formulation of the first paragraph of the party rules, adopted by the congress, was of tremendous importance in the further struggle for the organizational strengthening of the new type of party. The adopted charter clearly defined the rights of the Central Committee and the autonomy of local committees, and eliminated the system of two-center in the party. The congress elected a single governing center — the Central Committee headed by V. I. Lenin.

In the resolution on the newspaper Vperyod, the congress noted the outstanding role of the newspaper in the struggle for the restoration of party membership, its importance in convening the congress and expressed gratitude to the editorial board of Vperyod. The congress approved the new Central Organ of the Party - the newspaper Proletary. Lenin was elected editor of Proletary at the plenum of the Central Committee on April 27 (May 10), 1905. The report of the Party Central Committee was discussed at the 23rd session of the congress. The activities of the Central Committee were sharply criticized by the delegates to the congress. The delegates criticized the conciliatory position of the Central Committee in relation to the factional, splitting activity of the Mensheviks, pointed to the separation of the Central Committee from local party organizations, and stressed that the Central Committee had not fulfilled its role as the political leader of the party. In his speech on the Central Committee report, V.I. Lenin noted that the Central Committee was confused and could not say anything good about its policy. The congress, having heard the report of the Central Committee, without adopting a resolution but a report, decided to move on to the next business.

All the work of the congress was held under the leadership of V.I. Lenin. VI Lenin made reports on the participation of the Social-Democrats. in the provisional revolutionary government, on a resolution to support the peasant movement, and spoke in debates on the legality of the congress, on an armed uprising, on the attitude to government tactics on the eve of the coup, on the relations between workers and intellectuals in the Social-Democrats. organizations, when discussing the party charter, on the issue of practical agreements with the socialist revolutionaries, on the report on the activities of the Central Committee. All the main resolutions adopted by the congress were written by V.I. Lenin: a resolution on an armed uprising, on a provisional revolutionary government, on an open political speech by the RSDLP, on the attitude towards the peasant movement. VI Lenin also wrote resolutions "Concerning the events in the Caucasus", "Resolution on the publication of the minutes of the congress."

V.I. Lenin was the chairman of all sessions of the congress: he kept detailed notes during the sessions, made numerous notes on notes submitted by delegates to the Bureau of the congress, kept notes of speakers, noted the state of the minutes prepared by the secretaries for approval by the congress.

Delegates A. V. Lunacharsky, V. V. Vorovsky, L. B. Krasin, A. A. Bogdanov and others made reports at the congress.

The decisions of the Third Party Congress were of great historical importance. They armed the party and the proletariat with Lenin's strategy and tactics, revolutionary tactical slogans and formed the basis of all the party's practical activities during the period of the bourgeois-democratic revolution.

Simultaneously with the work of the Third Party Congress in Geneva, a Menshevik conference was held. The conference was attended by 8 local committees and unions of the RSDLP, which had, according to the charter, the right of representation at the party congress (Kiev, Yekaterinoslav, Donskoy, Kharkov and Smolensk committees, Crimean, Donetsk, and Siberian unions), the Nikolaev Menshevik Committee, illegally created in opposition to the full-fledged Nikolaev committee of the RSDLP. The conference was also attended by representatives of the St. Petersburg and Odessa groups of the Central Committee formed as a result of the splitting activity of the Mensheviks, the Menshevik periphery of the Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod committees, the Ukrainian Social Democratic Union, the Foreign League, the Iskra editorial board and other Menshevik organizations.

The resolutions of the Bolshevik Congress and the Menshevik Conference exposed the depth of the fundamental differences between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks. The Mensheviks denied the hegemony of the proletariat in the revolution and the policy of alliance between the proletariat and the peasantry. They considered the liberal bourgeoisie to be the leader of the bourgeois-democratic revolution and therefore argued that in the event of the victory of the revolution, power should be in its hands; they rejected the need to form a provisional revolutionary government from representatives of workers and peasants, the slogan of a revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry. The opportunist attitudes of the Mensheviks led to the substitution of reforms for the revolution, to the curtailment of the revolution and the preservation of the autocratic-landlord system, to the subordination of the working class to the interests of the bourgeoisie. Thus, the Mensheviks slipped into the swamp of compromise and turned into agents of the bourgeoisie in the labor movement.

Two congresses - two parties - that is how V.I. Lenin described the situation in the RSDLP in 1905.

The years of the first Russian revolution were a practical test of two political lines - the line of the revolutionary strategy and tactics of the Bolsheviks and the opportunist line of the Mensheviks that opposed it. (The course of the revolution confirmed the correctness of the strategic plan and tactical line of the Bolsheviks developed by the founder and leader of the Communist Party, V.I. Lenin.

The minutes of the III Congress were first illegally published by the Central Committee of the RSDLP in 1905 in Geneva. The commission for the publication of the minutes, elected by the congress, consisting of V.M. Obukhov, N.K. Krupskaya and V.V. Vorovsky, made the necessary abbreviations of the text for conspiratorial reasons, in addition, a part of the text related to the debate on the order of meetings was reduced.

In 1924, the protocols were republished by the Istpart of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), and in 1937 by the Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute under the Central Committee of the CPSU (b). In the 1937 edition, a number of additions were included in the text of the protocols, mainly from materials omitted in the first edition for conspiratorial reasons. All of these additions have been given in the text in square brackets.

This edition of the minutes of the III Congress of the RSDLP is based on the text of the first, Geneva, edition, carefully verified with the text of the minutes stored in the archives of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism, prepared by the protocol commission of the Congress for the Geneva edition, and the original secretarial notes. All additions that were not included in the first edition of the protocols for conspiratorial reasons or for reasons of shortening the text are given in this edition in footnotes, as a rule, according to the text of the protocol commission. Some additions, which were not included in the manuscript of the protocol commission, are given in the original secretarial record. An exception to the submission of additional material was made for the report of the Central Committee at the 23rd session of the congress. The report of the Central Committee in the first edition was printed with large abbreviations for conspiratorial reasons, the restoration of which under the line would be great inconvenience for the reader. Therefore, in the text of the minutes, the report is given according to the first, Geneva, edition, and its full text is given in the section "Materials of the Congress”.

The decoding of party nicknames and pseudonyms of speakers and speakers at the congress in the debate is given during the first speech at each session of the congress: the names are enclosed in square brackets. Obvious misprints and spelling errors have been corrected in the text without reservations. The titles of documents given by the editors are marked with an asterisk.

Compared to the previous edition, the present edition of the minutes of the congress has been significantly supplemented with new documents. The section "Materials of the Congress" includes the following documents of V. I. Lenin: the draft of the order of the day of the congress, synopses of speeches at the congress, notes of the chairman at the congress (diary of the chairman of the congress, notes of speakers, notes when discussing the charter of the RSDLP, on the state of the minutes). The book contains documents characterizing Lenin's struggle for the preparation of the congress: notes on possible participants in the III congress, draft agenda, a list of resolutions, draft resolutions, a general plan of congress decisions, a note to the congress. The section "Materials of the Congress" also includes reports and reports of local party committees to the III Congress of the RSDLP.

The following documents were published for the first time: V. I. Lenin "Notes when discussing the charter of the RSDLP", "Minutes of the unofficial meeting of delegates to the congress on April 12 (25), 1905", "Report of the publishing house" Vperyod "to the III Congress of the RSDLP", "Report of the library committee and archive of the RSDLP to the III Party Congress "," On the organization of work among the intelligentsia. "

The publication is provided with informational notes, as well as indexes of names, party organizations, periodicals and literary works and sources mentioned in the text of the protocols.

Institute of Marxism-Leninism under the Central Committee of the CPSU