Resolution of the RSDLP Central Committee on Setting Up an Organisational Section of the CC to Direct Illegal Work

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Author(s) Lenin
Written 2 April 1914


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Written on April 2–4 (15–17), 1914
Published: First published in 1957 in the magazine Voprosy Istorii KPSS No. 3. Printed from the original.
Source: Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, 1977, Moscow, Volume 41, pages 330.2-331.1.
Collection(s): Voprosy Istorii
Keywords : Central Committee, RSDLP

The Resolution on Setting up an Organisational Section of the Central Committee to direct illegal work was adopted by the CC at its sittings held in Cracow from April 2 to 4 (15 to 17), 1914, under Lenin’s direction and with the participation of G. I. Petrovsky, representing the Bolshevik Duma group, who had arrived from Russia. The CC examined the questions of preparing for the convocation of the next RSDLP congress, marking Workers’ Press Day, work among the peasants, work in the Duma and report of the Bolshevik Duma group, the International Women’s Conference, the Vienna Congress of the Second International, preparation of leaflets for May Day, etc.

In connection with the discussion of the question of setting up the Organisational Section of the Central Committee to direct illegal Work and the adoption of a resolution on this question, Lenin proposed that prominent Party workers—among them M. I. Kalinin and A. S. Kiselyov—and workers who took an active part in the insurance movement should be included in the Section. Apart from the resolution published here, there is also an outline of the agenda of the CC sittings worked out by Lenin. On the question of the RSDLP CC report to the Vienna Congress of the Second International, the CC decided to “instruct the CC members abroad to engage in drawing up the report”. This was done by Lenin. In April-May 1914, he wrote his “Plan and Outline for a Report of the RSDLP CC to the Vienna Congress of the Second International” (see Fifth Russian edition of the Collected Works, Vol. 25, pp. 441–44). p. 330

In view of the conditions of secrecy, a special section of the CC shall be set up to provide direct guidance in illegal organisational work.

General meetings of the CC sections shall be held only in case of emergency, with special precautions of secrecy and only by agreement between the representatives of both sections. Ordinary relations shall be conducted through individual authorised persons.

The organisational section of the CC shall use the cover name of Workers’ Co-operative Commission.

This section shall 1) direct the work of the St. Petersburg Committee, systematically helping it and restoring it in the event of arrests; 2) see that the work of all legal organisations is connected on Party lines; 3) find especially strict forms of secrecy to cover up illegal ties and undertakings; 4) unite work on the all-Russia scale, with regular contacts and visiting rounds; 5) take charge mainly, of preparing a party congress for August 1914.[1]

The organisational section shall be appointed by the Russian collegium of the CC and shall consist of 3–5 persons with an equal or double number of candidates.

  1. ↑ The Party congress was to be timed to coincide with the International Socialist Congress in Vienna, set for August 1914. An Organising Commission was set up under the Russian Collegium of the CC to prepare for the congress. It was also decided to set up commissions in Moscow, the Caucasus, the South and the Urals. The congress was to be preceded by organisational tours of local Party organisations by CC agents, and also by trips to the localities 14 the Bolshevik deputies to the Duma. The preparations for the congress were especially intensive in the spring and summer of 1914. The Agenda and even the composition of the congress were determined. It was to discuss the following questions: = reports of the CC and reports from the localities, the political situation, the Party’s organisational tasks, the tasks of the strike movement, the tactics of the insurance movement, some addenda to the minimum programme, the national question, the liquidators in connection with the conference under the I.S.B., participation in the bourgeois press and other urgent problems of the time. By the end of July 1914, preparations for the congress and elections to the International Socialist Congress were almost complete. Most of the delegates were elected, the instructions drawn up and the mandates collected. The technical side—secret meeting places, routes and passports—was also ready. But the outbreak of war and the wild reaction that followed worked a sharp change in the situation in the country. The closure of the frontiers cut off communications with all other countries. The congress was postponed until a more favourable moment. Nor was the International Congress able to meet in these circumstances. Although the Party congress did not take place, preparation for it had a great part to play in strengthening and consolidating the Party organisations. p. 331
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