The additional volumes 41. to 45 of the present edition contain the most important of the new material included in the Fifth Russian edition of the Collected Works of V. I. Lenin.
Volume 41 contains works written before the Great October Socialist Revolution, from 1896 to October 1917, which are an essential supplement to the works published in the respective volumes of the present edition.
A great part of the volume consists of documents reflecting Lenin's efforts in creating and strengthening the Bolshevik Party and working out the ideological and organisational principles, the programme and the rules of a new type of proletarian party. Among them are: âOutline of Various Points of the Practical Section of the Draft Programmeâ, âRecord of Points One and Two of Plekhanov's First Draft Programme, and Outline of Point One of the Programme's Theoretical Sectionâ, âInitial Variant of the Agrarian Section and the Concluding Section of the Draft Programmeâ, and Lenin's speeches at the Second Party Congress. They show that Lenin helped the Iskra Editorial Board to draft a truly revolutionary programme.
The record of the Second Congress of the League of Russian Revolutionary Social-Democracy Abroad, the January and June (1904) sessions of the RSDLP Council, âDraft Resolution of the Majority's Geneva Groupâ, âReply to L. Martovâ, âReport on the State of Affairs in the Partyâ, and others show Lenin's struggle against the Mensheviks' splitting and disorganising activity after the Second Congress of the RSDLP
A large group of documents written by Lenin in connection with the work of the Third, Fourth and Fifth Congresses of the RSDLP is of great importance for a study of the Party's strategy and tactics during the first Russian revolution. These documents contain propositions on the hegemony of the proletariat, the alliance of the working class and the peasantry, and the development of the bourgeois-democratic revolution into a socialist revolution.
Considerable interest attaches to the works connected with the elaboration of Bolshevik tactics in the Duma (Parliament): the report and summing-up speech on the report on the election campaign for the Second Duma and other material of the Second Conference of the RSDLP (the First All-Russia Conference), the articles âAre the Mensheviks Entitled To Conduct a Policy of Supporting the Cadets?", âThe Third Duma and Social-Democracyâ, âReport to the International Socialist Bureau, 'Elections to the Fourth Duma'", âThe Duma Group and the Majority Outsideâ, etc.
A number of works dating from the period of reaction reflect Lenin's struggle against ideological vacillations and deviations from Marxism. Lenin waged an implacable struggle against the avowed opportunists, the Menshevik liquidators, and also against the âLeftâ opportunists inside the Bolshevik Partyâthe otzovists, the ultimatumists and the Vperyod splinter group. In addition to the material already published, the volume contains 14 works by Lenin shedding light on the conference of Proletary's enlarged Editorial Board which condemned both liquidationism and otzovism.
The volume gives a fuller picture of the meeting held by members of the RSDLP Central Committee in Paris in June 1911. In his âReport on the State of Affairs in the Partyâ and speeches at the meeting, Lenin defined the Party's tasks in the struggle against the anti-Party groups.
The Sixth (Prague) All-Russia Conference of the RSDLP brought to a close a long period of struggle against Menshevism. By expelling the Menshevik liquidators from the Party, it strengthened the Party as an all-Russia organisation, capable of giving a lead to the masses in afresh revolutionary upsurge. The volume contains a number of documents which are of great interest for the study of the Conference. Among them are: âReport on the Work of the International Socialist Bureauâ, setting out important propositions on the new epoch, an epoch of socialist revolutions and âbattles against the bourgeoisieâ, and on the consequent sharpening of the struggle between the revolutionary Social-Democrats and the reformists inside the European socialist parties, and âSpeech on the Organisational Questionâ, emphasising the need to strengthen the Party's ties with the masses and to combine legal and illegal work.
The volume contains Lenin's resolution for the Cracow meeting of the RSDLP Central Committee with Party workers, âOn the Reorganisation and Work of the Pravda Editorial Boardâ. This decision shows how the Central Committee, led by Lenin, gave effective and concrete guidance to Pravda, the Party's most important legal organ.
In some of his worksâ"Reply to Liquidators' Article in Leipziger Volkszeitungâ, âLetter to the Executive of the German Social-Democratic Partyâ, âOn the Question of the Bureau's Next Stepsâ, âRussian Workers and the Inter nationalâ, âHow the Liquidators Are Cheating the Workersâ, âResolution on the Socialist Bureau's Decision"âLenin gives a firm rebuff to attempts by the leaders of the German Social-Democrats and the Second International to âreconcileâ and unite the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks by liquidating the Bolshevik Party.
Lenin's struggle for Party unity is characterised by the documents relating to the Fourth Congress of the Social-Democrats of the Latvian territory: his report and summing-up speech, and the draft resolution on the attitude of the Social-Democrats of the Latvian territory to the RSDLP
Of the documents supplementing Lenin's elaboration of the national question, the volume includes: âTheses for a Lecture on the National Questionâ, âGerman Social-Democracy and the Right of Nations to Self-Determinationâ, âNote to the Theses 'Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations to SelfâDetermination'", âOn the Declaration by the Polish Social-Democrats at the Zimmerwald Conferenceâ, plans of an unfinished pamphlet, Statistics and Sociology, and âSpeech on the National Questionâ at the Seventh (April) All-Russia Conference of the RSDLP(b).
Lenin urged the need for the workers to struggle against the danger of the world war which was being prepared by the imperialists of all countries, and exposed the opportunists who denied that such a struggle was of any real importance, an attitude which doomed the workers to a passive stand. He believed that it was a major task of the revolutionary Social-Democrats to conduct anti-militarist propaganda and spread the idea of international solidarity among the working people. This question is dealt with in the following articles: âNotes to the Resolution of the Stuttgart Congress on 'Militarism and International Conflicts'", âNotes to Clara Zetkin's Article 'International Socialist Congress in Stuttgart'", âAnti-Militarist Propaganda and Young Socialist Workers' Leaguesâ and âHow the Socialist-Revolutionaries Write Historyâ.
A number of documents published in the volume relate to the period of the First World War, namely, âOn the Slogan to Transform the Imperialist War into a Civil Warâ, âEditorial Note to the Article 'The Ukraine and the War'", âDraft Point Three of the Resolution 'The C. O. and the New Paper', Adopted by the Conference of the RSDLP Sections Abroadâ, âDraft Resolution of the International Socialist Women's Conferenceâ, âVariant of the Draft Resolution of Left-wing Social-Democrats for the First International Socialist Conferenceâ, âPlan for a Lecture on 'Two Internationals'", speeches at the Zimmerwald and Kienthal International Socialist conferences, âDraft Resolution of the RSDLP Central Committee To Terminate Publication of the Journal Kommunistâ, âRemarks on an Article about Maximalismâ and others. These documents show the Bolshevik tactics with regard to war, peace and revolution; they explain the slogan of transforming the imperialist war into a civil war, and characterise Lenin's activity in rallying the Left-wing and revolutionary elements within the international working-class movement round the banner of internationalism, his struggle against social-chauvinism and Kautskyism (Centrism), and against the Left-wing opportunist, sectarian stand and splitting activities of the Bukharin-Pyatakov group.
A number of documents written after the bourgeois-democratic revolution in Russia in February 1917 contain Lenin's propositions concerning the Party's attitude to the bourgeois Provisional Government.
The volume contains material connected with Lenin's return from Switzerland to Russia in April 1917. It will be recalled that the bourgeois and petty-bourgeois press started a campaign of slander and harassment over Lenin and the Bolsheviks' return home across Germany. This is fully exposed in the following: replies to a correspondent of the newspaper Politiken and to F. Ström, a spokesman of the Left-wing Swedish Social-Democrats, the group's communiquĂ©, âRussian Revolutionaries' Trip Across Germanyâ, speeches at a conference with Left-wing Swedish Social- Democrats on March 31 (April 13), at a meeting of the soldiers of an armoured battalion on April 15 (28), and at a meeting of the soldiers' section of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies on April 17 (30), âAn Unfinished Autobiographyâ, etc.
There is also a newspaper report of Lenin's speech upon his arrival in Petrograd on April 3 (16), 1917, when he addressed workers, soldiers and sailors in the Finland Station Square from the top of an armoured car.
Lenin's return, his elaboration of a concrete plan for going over from the bourgeois-democratic revolution to a socialist revolution, and the open exposition of his plan in the press and in speeches at numerous meetings helped to orient the Party towards preparations for a socialist revolution. A tremendous part in this effort was played by the Petrograd City and the Seventh All-Russia Party conferences held in April 1917. Some of Lenin's reports and speeches at these conferences are published both according to the minutes and the newspaper reports, which gives a fuller idea of their content. The volume also contains âReport on the Results of the Seventh (April) All-Russia Conference of the RSDLP(b) at a Meeting of the Petrograd Organisationâ on May 8 (21), 1917.
A number of documents in the volume deal with the drafting of the Party's second programme, which charted the building of a socialist economy in Russia. Among them are: "Outline of Fifth 'Letter from Afar'â, âPreliminary Draft Alterations in the RSDLP Party Programmeâ, which was the basis for âProposed Amendments to the Doctrinal, Political and Other Sections of the Programmeâ (see Vol. 24, pp. 459-63), âReport on the Question of Revising the Party Programmeâ at the Seventh (April) All-Russia Conference of the RSDLP(b), etc.
The Party's policy on the basic aspects of the revolution, such as war, peace and the agrarian question, is explained in the âSpeech at a Sitting of the Bolshevik Group of the First All-Russia Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputiesâ, âReport on the Current Situation at the All-Russia Conference of Front and Rear Military Organisations of the RSDLP(b)", the articles âThe Attention of Comrades!", âToo Gross a Lieâ, âOn the Grimm Affairâ, âShame!" and others.
The theses âThe Political Situationâ, which Lenin wrote after the July events, were published as an article in the newspaper Proletarskoye Dyelo, and that was how they appeared in Volume 25. Here they are given in their original form. They defined the Party's new tasks and tactics in the changed political situation. Great interest attaches to the âLetter over the Publication of 'Leaflet on the Capture of Riga'", which was published for the first time in the Fifth Russian edition. Lenin gives important instructions in the item âOn the List of Candidates for the Constituent Assemblyâ from his âTheses for a Report at the October 8 Conference of the St. Petersburg Organisation, and also for a Resolution and Instructions to Those Elected to the Party Congressâ, part of which was published in Volume 26. In a letter to Y. M. Sverdlov, Lenin exposes Kamenev and Zinoviev's strike-breaking behaviour and voices his confidence in the victory of the revolution.
A considerable part of the documents consists of preparatory material, such as plans, notes, outlines and theses, which show Lenin's methods and thoroughness in preparing his works. The plans of unfinished or unwritten articles, and plans for speeches and lectures which either have not been recorded, or of which a record no longer exists, are of great importance, because some of them contain vital theoretical propositions and characterise the Party's tasks.
This volume contains 47 of Lenin's works which were first published in the Fifth Russian edition.
Institute of Marxism-Leninism of the CPSU Central Committee
