Sessions in Brussels

First Session[edit source]

(48 persons present)^[1]

On behalf of the Organising Committee, Comrade Plekhanov opened the Second Ordinary Congress of the RSDLP with the following speech:

Comrades! The Organising Committee has instructed me to declare open the Sécond Ordinary Congress of the RSDLP. I can account for this great honour only by assuming that the Organising Committee wished to express, by honouring me, its cordial feelings for the group of veteran Russian Social-Democrats who, twenty years ago, in 1883, first began to introduce propaganda for Social-Democratic ideas into Russian revolutionary literature. I address to the Organising Committee, on behalf of all these veterans, sincere comradely thanks for this comradely expression of feeling. I want to believe that at least some of us are destined to fight under the red flag for a long time yet, shoulder to shoulder with fresh, young and ever more numerous fighters. The state of affairs is now so favourable for our Party that every one of us Russian Social-Democrats can cry, and perhaps has already cried more than once, in the words of the humanist knight: ‘It is joyous to live at such a time.’^[2] And when life is joyous, one has no desire to pass over, as Herzen puts it, into the mineral-and-chemical kingdom—one wants to live, in order to go on fighting. In this lies the whole meaning of our lives.

I said that the situation is now extremely favourable for our Party. These words may seem exaggerated in view of the many disorders, disagreements and differences which have made themselves felt so severely in the last five years. These disorders, disagreements and differences have certainly been very great and very regrettable. But they have not prevented our Party from becoming, both theoretically and practically, the strongest of all the revolutionary and opposition parties in Russia! Despite all our differences and disagreements, we have already won more than one glorious theoretical victory and have had many substantial practical successes. Twenty years ago we were nothing, now we are a great social force—I say this, of course, taking into account the Russian scale of things. But strength imposes obligations. We are strong, but our strength has been created by a situation which is favourable to us: this is spontaneous strength due to the situation. We have to give this spontaneous strength conscious expression in our programme, in our tactics, in our organisation. And this is the task before our congress, which is faced, as you see, with a great deal of serious and difficult work. But I am confident that this serious and difficult work will be successfully accomplished, and that this congress will constitute an epoch in the history of our Party. We were strong, but the Congress will enormously increase our strength. I declare the congress open, and propose that we proceed to elect the Bureau. [Prolonged applause.]

The congress then proceeded to elect the Bureau. Comrade Plekhanov was elected chairman, by acclamation: Comrades Lenin and Pavlovich were elected vice-chairmen, and Comrade Fomin secretary, by votes cast in writing.

The congress approved the list, presented by the Organising Committee, of nine secretaries to take the minutes.

When the elections were over, a member of the Organising Committee read the report on the convening of the congress:

In …1902,^[3] on the initiative of the Bund and of the Petersburg Committee, a conference of certain of our Party organisations was held. Participating in this conference were: the Bund, the Petersburg Committee, the Yekaterinoslav Committee, Iskra, the Union of Russian Social-Democrats Abroad, the Nizhny-Novgorod Committee and the Association of Southern Committees and Organisations.

The initiators of the conference proposed to turn it into a Party congress, if a substantial majority of the organisations took part, but this proposal proved impracticable. Consequently, the conference confined itself to drawing up the general proclamation for May 1, and electing an Organising Committee, to which it gave the task of convening the second Party congress, organising transport for common purposes, and publishing proclamations in the Party’s name. The Organising Committee was made up of representatives of three organisations: Iskra, the Bund and the Association of Southern Committees and Organisations. The conference then dispersed, and immediately afterwards arrests began to be made…Throughout the summer the Organising Committee was unable to begin its work, and a considerable number of organisations did not even know of its existence.

The conference had, incidentally, made provision that in the event of the Organising Committee proving unable to function, it would be the duty of all those taking part in the conference to re-establish it. Therefore, in the autumn, the Party’s Petersburg Committee, which did not know whether a single member of the OC was still in existence, again took the initiative, with a view to re-establishing it, and got in touch with the organisations which had been present at the first conference (including, by the way, the Bund), inviting them to meet. This gathering was attended by representatives of the Petersburg Committee, Iskra, the Yuzhny Rabochy group, the Kiev Committee and the Northern Association: the representative of the Yuzhny Rabochy group announced that the Association of Southern Committees and Organisations no longer existed. There was no representative from the Bund.

At this gathering it was decided to form an Organising Committee from the representatives of those organisations which the conference had provided should form the OC and then subsequently to complete its composition by co-opting some additional members. This is the connection between the present Organising Committee and the 1902 conference.

The Organising Committee had first to secure the endorsement of at least a substantial majority of the Party organisations. This process did not start off very happily. We have already mentioned that no representative of the Bund attended the autumn meeting. The reasons for this absence were not known to the OC, but it hoped that the Bund would not refuse subsequently to take part in its activity, and a note to this effect was included in the announcement addressed to the Party organisations. The initiators of the meeting invited the Bund by means of a letter to the Bund’s Central Committee and also personally, through the Vilna Committee. The letter was not received by the Central Committee of the Bund, and the personal invitation was handed to the Vilna Committee only after the meeting was over. Consequently, there was no representative of the Bund at this meeting. A delegate was sent to persuade the Bund to take part in the OC. In their talks with this delegate the Central Committee of the Bund said that the Bund would not refuse to participate in the OC, and that its absence could to some extent be made up for by its participation in the drawing-up of the announcement to be issued, and by signing this announcement. The delegate of the OC agreed, and at once sent a letter asking that the printing or distribution of the OC’s announcement be delayed, and the original text be sent to the CC of the Bund for signature, if circumstances permitted. Unfortunately, this also was not done, as some committees had already earlier, by accident been supplied with printed copies of the announcement. A letter explaining what had happened was sent to the CC of the Bund, but, as it turned out later, this letter also failed to arrive. Consequently, the CC of the Bund, being unaware of the reasons why the announcement had not been sent to them, saw in this a desire to prevent them from participating in the OC and the note to the OC’s announcement which referred to the Bund seemed to the CC of the Bund to be equivocal, so that they issued a special statement reproaching the initiators of the meeting with showing too little concern about inviting the Bund However, it is beyond question that the OC had no intention whatever of preventing the Bund from taking part in its work, since otherwise it would not have sent two delegates, one after the other, to invite the Bund to send a delegate.

Subsequently, at the second meeting of the OC, in which a representative of the Bund took part, all these misunderstandings caused by accidental combinations of circumstances (non-receipt of letters, delay in personal approaches owing to lack of addresses) were cleared up, and the representative of the Bund agreed that the OC had been correctly constituted and that it had shown no desire to exclude the Bund. But the incident with the Bund had already developed into an extensive polemic, which could have been ended only by elucidating the whole incident, in detail. However, the OC considered an incomplete elucidation of the details would be embarrassing and there was nothing it could do but to ask Iskra and the Foreign Committee of the Bund to stop their polemic, in view of the facts that (1) the misunderstanding with the Bund had already been settled and (2) this polemic might give rise to a false interpretation of the attitudes of the OC and the Bund towards each other.

Immediately after the publication of the announcement, the Party committees were asked to state their attitude to the OC. This questionnaire produced the following result. The OC was recognised, in respect of all its functions, by the committees of Petersburg, Moscow, Kiev, Kharkov, Yekaterinoslav and the Don Region, the Northern Association and the Association of Mining and Metallurgical Workers, the committees of Tiflis, Baku, Tula, Saratov, and Bryansk, and the Siberian Association. The Odessa and Nikolayev Committees, while endorsing the OC’s initiative in calling a Party congress, considered undesirable the attempt by the OC to carry out some of the functions of the Central Committee. The Voronezh Committee took up a quite unique position, issuing a lengthy statement to the effect that the OC was nothing but an intrigue by Iskra. We shall not say much about the statement by the Voronezh Committee in view of the fact that it had absolutely no repercussions, apart from protests by two or three committees which were angered by the disagreeable tone of this statement. On the whole it was clear that the OC was unquestionably accepted by the Party, so that it could at once proceed to the further fulfilment of its talks. At the second meeting, draft rules for a party congress were drawn up, in which consideration was given to the proposal by the Bund, expressed in its printed statement, that the forthcoming congress should be regarded as a constituent congress, and that, therefore, other national Social-Democratic organisations as well ought to be invited to it. This proposal was rejected by all the other members of the OC, which regarded the congress as an ordinary Party congress. After this, a second consultation of the committees took place.

Discussion of the rules for the congress [see Appendix VI] by the committees gave the following results: the rules were approved in their entirety, without any changes, by the committees of Kharkov, the Don and Tiflis, and the Northern, Siberian and Mining- and Metallurgical Associations. The Nikolayev Committee merely made a stylistic correction to the Note to paragraph 1, without altering the sense of this note. The Petersburg Committee proposed merely to alter Paragraph 19, on the procedure for approving the rules, advocating that the OC be given authority to approve them without balloting the committees. These two committees left the rules themselves unchanged. The Yekaterinoslav, Kiev and Moscow committees put forward alterations to Paragraph 4: the first and second of these committees proposed that the ‘Emancipation of Labour’ group bestruck out of the list, and the third that this be done with the League of Revolutionary Social-Democrats. The Odessa Committee proposed amendments to Paragraph 2, suggesting a different formulation of its second point; to Paragraph 4, suggesting that the Borba group be included; to Paragraph 10, proposing to give two deciding votes even to those organisations which operate within the limits of one town; and to Paragraph 19, proposing to submit Paragraphs 2 and 19 to a vote by all the organisations composing the Party. The Baku Committee proposed to delete the note to Paragraph 1; to invite the Borba group; to delete Paragraph 3, depriving grouped organisations of their votes; and to increase the number of votes allowed to the Bund. Remarks were also sent in by the committees of Bryansk, Poltava and Smolensk. No remarks were submitted by the committees of Nizhny-Novgorod and Tula. The Bund proposed deletion of the paragraph about imperative mandates.

Altogether, in the vote conducted by the bureau of the OC, out of the 16 organisations which the OC took into account, the great majority, not less than two-thirds, approved each paragraph of the rules taken separately. The draft was accepted, and all the organisations were so informed. At the same time, the OC drew up a list of local organisations with the right to take part in the congress on the basis of Paragraph 2. This list comprised the following organisations: the Petersburg Committee, the Northern Association, the Moscow Committee, the—Committee, the Saratov Committee, the Siberian Association, the Caucasian Association, [In view of the fact that official statements were received from all the Caucasian organisations to the effect that the Caucasian Association no longer existed, its place the list was taken by three committees: Tiflis, Baku, Batum.] the committees of the Don Region, Yekaterinoslav, Kharkov, Kiev, Odessa and Nikolayev, and the Bund. All the other organisations, namely: the Tula, Ufa, Petersburg II and Kishinev Committees, the Petersburg Workers’ Organisations, the Association of Mining and Metallurgical Workers, the Rabochaya Volya organisation in Odessa, the Crimean Association, the Voronezh Committee, and the organisations in Poltava, Kremenchug, Yelizavetgrad, Kherson, Samara, Kazan, Smolensk and Bryansk, were informed that they were not on the list.

Of these organisations, the nine first-named protested against their exclusion from the list by the Organising Committee. These protests were dealt with as follows. In the case of the Tula Committee, the OC bad not originally put it on the list owing to lack of precise information as to whether it fulfilled the conditions set out in Paragraph 2. A member of the OC was sent to see them, and it then proved that there were, in fact, no grounds for excluding this committee from participation in the congress.

The Odessa Rabochaya Volya group was not included in the list because, according to the OC’s information, this group was an extremely small organisation which, though it had indeed been formed before May 1 of last year, carried out hardly any activity before the autumn of that year. Since then the ‘activity’ of the Rabochaya Volya group has been made known to the Odessa Committee only in the form of three or four proclamations, distributed in very small numbers. As regards the other organisations working in neighbouring towns, neither the Nikolayev nor the Kishinev Committee knew anything at all about Rabochaya Volya, apart from the fact that it had at some time separated off from the Odessa Committee. The Rabochaya Volya group maintained no relations with other Social-Democratic organisations, so that the OC was unable to obtain any other evidence about it. Personal discussion with representatives of Rabochaya Volya did not produce an impression that this organisation possessed any solidity. Consequently, the OC informed it that it would not be included in the list of organisations having the right to take part in the congress, and offered to arrange for arbitration if the group was dissatisfied with the OC’s decision. Rabochaya Volya replied that it protested against its non-inclusion in the list, but at the same time would not accept arbitration, for two reasons: (1) that it considered that this arbitration would be mere play-acting, with the OC getting its own way in the end, and (2) that in general, ‘it does not accept’ these paragraphs about arbitration. In reply, a representative of the OC informed Rabochaya Volya that the entire set of rules put forward by the OC had been approved, and if Rabochaya Volya did not accept them, then there could be no question of that organisation taking part in the congress. The representative of the OC then asked Rabochaya Volya about its attitude to the forthcoming congress, and proposed that the organisation submit to the congress a written protest against the action of the OC. After discussing this proposal, Rabochaya Volya replied that it would not recognise the forthcoming congress as a Party congress, and did not intend to address a protest to it.

In all the other cases where there were protests, arbitration was carried out, resulting in the following decisions:

1. It was decided to invite the Ufa Committee to the congress. [It was not possible to furnish the congress with the text of the resolution on this matter.]

2. Where Petersburg was concerned, it was decided to deprive the; Petersburg Committee of one of its votes and give this vote to the Committee of the Workers’ Organisation (which also calls itself the Petersburg Union of Struggle), while the other group which also calls itself the Petersburg Committee was invited to petition the congress to admit its representative; but the group in question declined to do this. [The text of the resolution on this matter has not been printed for security reasons.]

3. The Association of Mining and Metallurgical Workers was given the right of full participation in the congress. [See Resolution 1 in Appendix VII.]

4. The Kishinev Committee was refused the right to take part the Congress. [See Resolution II in Appendix VII.]

5. As regards the Crimean Association, the arbitration decision that this organisation be invited to the congress was based on knowledge of its activity in Kerch, Melitopol, Yalta, Fyodosia and Simferopol.

Thus, the original list had five organisations added to it, and so 21 local organisations, including the Bund, are taking part—27 organisations in all. These are: (1) the Petersburg Committee, (2) the Petersburg Workers’ Organisations, (3) the Moscow Committee, (4 the Northern Workers’ Association, (5) the Tula Committee, (6) the Kharkov Committee, (7) the Kiev Committee, (8) the Odessa Committee, (9) the Nikolayev Committee, (10) the Yekaterinoslav Committee, (11) the Don Committee, (12) the Association of Mining an Metallurgical Workers, (13) the Baku Committee, (14) the Tiflis Committee, (15) the Batum Committee, (16) the Saratov Committee, (17) the Ufa Committee, (18) the Siberian Association, (19) the Crimean Association, (20) the Bund, (21) the ‘Emancipation of Labour’ group, (22) the Russian organisation of Iskra, (23) the League of Russian Revolutionary Social-Democrats, (24) the Union of Russian Social-Democrats Abroad, (25) the Foreign Committee the Bund, (26) the Yuzhny Rabochy group, and (27) a committee whose delegates have not shown up at the congress.^[4]

On the basis of the paragraph of the rules which states that the Organising Committee must declare the Congress open if not less than half of the organisations with full rights are present, this congress, at which all but one of the organisations are represented, must be considered valid. [On the basis of statements made by the Baku and Batum delegates, the rapporteur of the OC made the following corrections to his report: (i) The Baku Committee did not propose inviting Borba to the congress. (ii) The Batum Committee recognised the OC in respect of all its functions, and accepted the rules in their entirety, without amendments.]

Akimov: Supplementing the report of the Organising Committee, I think it needs to be mentioned that, following the decision of the Byelostok conference of 1902, the Organis ing Committee was to include representatives of three organisations abroad: Iskra, the Union of Russian Social-Democrats, and the Foreign Committee of the Bund. After the arrest of the comrades in Russia, the organisations abroad tried to re-establish the OC, but these efforts were not supported by the comrades in Russia, a circumstance which is very greatly to be regretted, since otherwise this aim could have been attained sooner and more successfully. In the OC’s report it is stated that when the draft rules were being worked out, the draft was sent to all the organisations. The Union of Russian Social-Democrats did not receive a copy, however. This explains, incidentally, why, despite the request of the Voronezh Committee to petition the congress to admit its representative, we, who were left for a long time withqut the rules or the list of organisations with full rights, applied to the OC too late for arbitration to be arranged. I propose, therefore, that the question of this presence of the Voronezh Committee at the congress (a presence to which this Committee has every right, in my view) be referred to a commission.

Brouckère:^[5] It is not true that a representative of the Petersburg Committee entered the OC, since there are two committees in Petersburg: besides the Committee referred to, there was also the ‘Union of Struggle’, whose representative at this congress I am. The ‘Union of Struggle’ received notice of the formation of the OC very late—in February. And the ‘Union’ then replied that it recognises the OC only on condition that a representative of the ‘Union’ be included in the OC. The OC rejected this demand. Nevertheless, the ‘Union of Struggle’ subsequently recognised the OC and took part in the congress. The ‘Union’ was given the right to take part in the congress only as a result of arbitration. Above all, I protest against the way the OC continually referred to the ‘Union of Struggle’ as an organisation, although the arbiter recognised that it is the continuation of the first Petersburg Committee. The Vorenezh Committee, a member of which I happen to have been, did not receive any notice that it was not being invited to the congress. I protest vigorously against the expressions employed by the OC in its report regarding the statement of the Voronezh Committee that the entire OC is an ‘intrigue’ by Iskra. By printing a few phrases from the statement of the Voronezh Committee, Iskra gave a false impression of this statement. There were no malicious fantasies in the statement by the Voronezh Committee.

At the chairman’s suggestion, the Congress decided to hand over all grievances concerning the composition of the congress to the credentials commission to which were elected, by written vote: Deutsch, Sablina, Lenin, Yudin and Martov; when the last-named declined election his place was taken by the candidate next in line, Koltsov.

The congress proceeded to discuss the standing orders for the congress. Paragraph 1 was adopted without debate. Paragraph 2 dealt with limiting the length of speeches.

Martynov considered it inappropriate to limit the length of speeches on all questions. Where certain questions were concerned, in view of their importance, the congress should be asked to decide specifically the permitted duration of speeches.

Lieber agreed with Martynov about the adoption of a special procedure when certain questions were being discussed. Furthermore, he could not agree with restricting the number of times each speaker could speak. There were a lot of people at the congress, and in the course of debates many new arguments would be put forward, which it would not be possible to deal with if the number of speeches was to be limited. At most, he might agree to limitation of the length of speeches, but not of their number.

Orlov asked how much time was to be allowed for introducing and defending reasoned proposals, that is, for resolutions or amendments to resolutions. In such cases more time was needed—at least twenty minutes.

Martov agreed with Comrade Orlov that argument in favour of a resolution required more time than a mere contribution to discussion. For the sake of saving time he supported the proposal to limit the number of speeches, considering that in exceptional cases the congress could waive the general rule. He was against any special procedure being adopted for particular questions.

Deutsch proposed that fifteen minutes be allowed for a first speech and ten minutes for a second. He agreed with limiting the number of speeches.

Lieber: The rapporteur must always have the last word. Chairman: This is the normal procedure, so it is not laid down in the standing orders.

Lange proposed to add a point about the desirability, in exceptional cases, of departing from the rule of laying down a limited time for the rapporteurs’ speeches.

By a majority of 22 to 13 a period of half an hour was laid down for rapporteurs’ speeches. Comrade Lange’s proposal was also accepted.

A period of twenty minutes was adopted for the introduction of reasoned proposals. It was agreed to limit the number of times a delegate could speak to three.

Martov raised the question of the right of persons with a consultative voice to take part in voting on the standing orders. This question was decided in the affirmative.

Gusev proposed that ten minutes be allowed for first and second speeches, and five minutes for a third.

It was decided to allow 10 minutes for each speech.

Paragraph 2 of the congress standing orders was adopted.

Martov proposed that where all questions of a formal character were concerned, that is, questions relating to the order of business (Geschäftsordnung ), voting should include all persons present; that is, he proposed including also those persons with only a consultative voice. Where questions of substance were before the congress, however,

Lenin considered that this would make counting difficult, and proposed that a uniform procedure for voting be adopted, that is, that only those with mandates be allowed to vote.

This proposal was adopted.

Lieber observed that persons with a consultative voice had already taken part in voting.

Lenin pointed out that this had concerned only the standing orders.

Paragraphs 3, 4, and 5 of the standing orders were adopted.

Yudin asked whether resolutions would require absolute or relative majorities for adoption.

Muravyov: What is to be done about abstentions? If some of the delegates abstain, that means they consider themselves incompetent to vote on the question. I propose, therefore, that questions be decided by a majority of those voting.

Makhov: Regardless of the number of abstentions, it may also not be possible to get an absolute majority in cases when votes are split up among several resolutions.

Plekhanov proposed that in such cases a second vote be taken, the result of which should be accepted regardless of the number of abstentions.

Lieber: The resolutions of this congress will be of enormous importance. The lack of an absolute majority for some resolutions would reduce their importance. Therefore I propose that resolutions adopted by absolute majority only. If an absolute majority cannot be obtained, the question should be referred to a commission which would compose a generally-acceptable resolution.

Chairman: And if, even then, no absolute majority can achieved?

Lieber: Then no resolution whatsoever should be adopted.

Posadovsky: The congress decisions are binding on the whole Party. Therefore, in cases when resolutions are approved by only a few representatives of the Party, it would be best not to adopt them at all.

Makhov proposed that, when an absolute majority could not be obtained for a resolution, a second vote should be taken, the result of which should be accepted as decisive in every case.

Martov: Points such as those which Comrades Lieber and Posadovsky have proposed have never been included in any standing orders. I propose that resolutions be adopted after a second vote, even though only a relative majority be obtained again, since the majority validates the resolution. Abstention from voting shows that those abstaining do not want to associate themselves with the majority’s decisions, but will not go so far in their protest as to associate themselves with the minority. In such cases the number of abstentions should be halved, since we must not allow a resolution to be lost through abstentions from voting.

Gusev: Three concepts are being confused here: relative, absolute and simple majority. A relative majority is possible only when three or more resolutions are involved. Where there are two resolutions only, there can only be a simple majority.

Martynov: It is unthinkable that we should accept the proposal that we refrain from taking decisions, since in that case extremely important points might have to be left out of the programme. I pro pose that when there is only a relative majority the decision be referred to the commission, and if an absolute majority cannot be secured then, that a decision be adopted nevertheless. Individual Party members may be incompetent to decide questions, but the Social-Democratic Party as a whole cannot refuse to take decisions.

Koltsov: Referring questions to the commission would be pointless, since these resolutions will come back again from a commission in which, we must assume, the different points of view are represented. It would be better to take a second vote.

Lenin: I propose that all questions be decided by a simple majority of votes cast.

Lieber: Opinions become clear only in the course of debates. Perhaps a question has not been clarified sufficiently for voting to take place straightaway. Withdrawing my own proposal, I support the proposal that a resolution which has not obtained an absolute majority be referred to a commission made up of representatives of the different viewpoints, and that a second vote by the congress be accepted as conclusive even if the majority is only relative.

The congress adopted Comrade Makhov’s proposal [see Paragraph 8 of the standing orders.] Paragraph 8 was approved.

Koltsov proposed, in order to facilitate the work of the Bureau, that resolutions be submitted in writing, except for those dealing with questions of a formal character.

This proposal was adopted [see Paragraph 9 of the standing orders], and standing orders as a whole were approved.

The congress proceeded to examine the list of questions presented for it to discuss. This list was put forward by the Organising Committee [see the Agenda].

Lieber: What is meant by the point: ‘the national question’? Why is it separated from the point: ‘draft programme’? Are we to understand that the national question is a tactical question? Why is this question not included among those of cardinal importance?

Lenin: According to plan, the question of the Party programme has been put second. The national question comes into the programme, and decisions on it will be taken when this is discussed. The question of territorial and national organisations in general is an organisational question. And the question of our attitude to the nationalities in particular is a tactical question and constitutes an application of our general principles to practical activity.

Martov: The national question is bound up with questions of tactics in so far as the Social-Democrats, as a Party, define their attitude to different national protest movements. True, such questions cannot be finally resolved independently of the settlement of questions of principfe, but this does not prevent us from treating them separately.

Gusev: I propose one additional heading: ‘any other questions’, in case unforeseen questions should come up.

Martov: I propose that either a heading like this be provided in advance, or that questions that may arise in connection with matters already raised, or resulting from such matters, be referred to the Bureau.

Lenin: Neither procedure is called for, since the congress always has the right to take up such questions if requested to do so by a majority.

Lieber: What is meant by the point: ‘national organisations’? This question is presented as though it is distinct from the question of the position of the Bund in the Party.

Lenin: The first point in the list [Point 2 of the agenda.] is concerned specially with the organisation of the Bund. The sixth point [Point 7 of the Agenda.] is concerned with organisation of the Party. In laying down a general rule regarding local, district, national and other organisations, a special question arises: what sort of organisations are these, and on what conditions are they to be drawn into the Party?

The list of questions for discussion by the congress was adopted. Additional questions, it was decided, could be raised if the request was supported by not less than ten votes.

The congress proceeded to discuss the order in which questions should be discussed [see Agenda].

Lieber: The agenda proposed by the Organising Committee is not satisfactory. Why is the question of the position of the Bund in the Party put before all the others? After all, the Bund is present at this Congress as an autonomous section, that is, on the basis of its position at the First Congress. Consequently, the question of a change in the Bund’s position in the Party can be discussed only along with and in connection with other questions of Party organisation. This way of discussing the matter is what needs to be followed, for this reason also, that our view of the Bund’s position in the Party will depend, to a large extent if not completely, on our view of questions of Party organisation in general. The agenda I propose is as follows: (1) reports, (2) programmatic questions, (3) questions of Party organisation, and, in connection with these, the question of the position of the Bund in the Party. This agenda has the following advantages. Before proceeding to discuss particular questions one must have an idea of the movement’s position in the different parts of the country; this is all the more necessary because over five years have passed since the First Congress of the Party, and during this period the picture presented by the movement has altered markedly. The rapporteurs can point out in the usual way, in the course of their reports, the questions and aspects of the movement which are most in need of elucidation, and so on. Programmatic questions should be taken next. Before proceeding to discuss other questions we need to reach agreement on the terrain of principle, of the programme. Essentially, the RSDLP has hitherto lacked an official programme, and is only now proposing to adopt one, and it is self-evident that, first and foremost, we must reach unity on the terrain of the programme. The character of the programme can, moreover, have a marked bearing on the Party’s organisational principle.

The session was concluded.

Second Session[edit source]

(51 persons present)^[6]

The discussion on the agenda was continued.

Lenin: I should like to make an observation. It would be wrong, it is claimed, to take the question of the Bund as the first item on the agenda, since the reports should be taken first, then the programme, and the Bund should come third. The arguments in favour of this procedure will not stand up to criticism. They amount to assuming that the Party as a whole has not yet reached agreement on the programme, and that it is possible that precisely on this question we may suffer a split. I find this amazing. It is true that we have not yet adopted the programme, but the supposition that a split may take place over the programme is conjectural in the highest degree. No such tendencies have been observable in the Party, at least in its publications, and these have recently given the fullest reflection to opinions in the Party. There are reasons both formal and moral for making the question of the Bund the first item on the agenda. Formally, we take our stand on the Manifesto of 1898, but the Bund has expressed a desire for a radical change in the organisation of our Party. Morally, many other organisations have expressed their disagreement with the Bund on this question, and this has led to sharp differences, giving rise even to polemics. The Congress cannot, therefore, get down to harmonious work until these differences have been resolved. As to the delegates’ reports, it is possible that they may not be heard in Pleno at all. Consequently, I support the order of dealing with the questions on the agenda which has been approved by the Organising Committee.

Akimov: I support Lieber’s proposal. It seems to me to be quite impossible for us to discuss the question of the position of the Bund in the Party before we have decided the question of the way the Party is to be organised. The Bund has its own democratic, republican form of organisation. If our Party is to be organised according to a different principle, then I would defend all measures which would preserve, if only for the Bund alone, that excellent form of organisation which I should have liked to see in our Party as a whole. If, however, our organisation is to be democratic in character, I would be against any measures that might segregate the Bund from the Party. Furthermore, I propose that the question of the Central Organ be put after the question of organisation, since we cannot recognise any particular organ as the Party organ until it is known what the relation is to be between the Central Organ and the Central Committee, whether the editorial board is to be elected, whether it is to be given instructions, whether the editorial board is to be responsible for carrying out these instructions, and so on.

Lieber: Comrade Lenin presented the question of the Bund quite wrongly. Party organisations other than Iskra have not expressed their attitude on this question. Besides, to put the question of the Bund at the beginning of the agenda means deciding this question in advance. Lenin did not answer the question which has been raised. The Bund has come to the congress as an autonomous section of the Party. In the 1898 rules nothing was said about organisation. The Bund has now introduced a new proposal, but has introduced it under separate headings of the agenda, for example, on district and national organisations, and so on. We have to construct a complete set of organisational rules for the Party, and, therefore, to treat the question of the Bund on its own means to pre-determine it. A change was introduced at the Fourth Congress of the Bund, which expressed the wish to see the Party organised on federal principles. This idea was presented in general form, and not merely in relation to the Bund. Consequently, I propose to the congress that the question of the Bund be not taken as the first point on the agenda.

Makhov: Assuming as I did that the Bund had insisted that the ‘question of the Bund’ be taken first, I had to reconcile myself to this order of dealing with the questions before the congress as, so to speak, a regrettable necessity. It turns out, however, that the representatives of the Bund not only do not claim a right to the congress’s exclusive attention, but even protest against being given this privilege. Considering, for my part, that it is not possible to settle the Bund question without first proceeding from certain theoretical presuppositions which govern all questions of theory and practice, it seems to me that, with the agenda as it has been recommended to us, we shall perforce have to expound some ideas of a general character. I consider that to discuss the question of the Bund as the first item on the agenda will entail a waste of time. If it is necessary to finish with the Bund as soon as possible, then ..

Chairman: Nobody has formulated the question like that.

Trotsky: Lieber pointed out that the First Congress provided only the main outlines of our programme, tactics and organisation. It is for the Second Congress to decide a number of questions which come under these three headings. Consequently, he says, the question of the place of the Bund in the Party does not call for separate treatment: it belongs under the heading of Party organisation. I do not share this view. The First Congress provided, to be sure, only the ‘main outlines’ of Party organisation, but these it did provide. We start from them. Since profound differences have flared up in the Party regarding these ‘main outlines’, in the interests of future work we must settle these differences before we do anything else. If differences had accumulated within the Party regarding fundamental questions of programme and tactics (the class character of the Party, terrorism, and so on) we would have put them at the top of the agenda, since there would be no sense in discussing together the elaboration in detail of our programme, tactics and organisation if we differed among ourselves on the fundamentals of Party life. But such a fundamental difference as this exists on the organisation question alone: are we to have a united organisation with some degree of independence for the sections (‘autonomy’), or an association of independent organisations (‘federation’)? Once this question had arisen before us, as it has arisen, we were obliged to settle it; we could not postpone dealing with it.

Martov: One circumstance is being lost sight of. If the congress were to agree to a federal form of organisation, we should thereby break up into a number of independent organisations, and the Russian comrades would be faced with the task of organising themselves all over again, so as to be on an equal footing with the Bund, when discussing questions common to the whole Party. I appreciate the difficulties mentioned by Comrades Akimov and Makhov, but they must waive them in the interests of saving their strength for later debates.

Lvov: Lieber said that the Bund had decided the question of federation in principle only. That is not true. The Bund has applied this decision in its relations with the Union of Russian Social-Democrats Abroad. It is also untrue that no Russian organisations apart from Iskra have defined their attitude to the Bund. They have made statements expressing solidarity with Iskra.

Akimov repeated his previous arguments against discussing the question of the Bund as the first point on the agenda, and said that, in the case envisaged by Martov, they would be deprived of the possibility of discussing Party organisations with such experienced comrades as the representatives of the Bund.

Makhov: Previous speakers have recognised, just as I do, that t discuss the question of the Bund first and foremost is illogical. Comrade Trotsky has put forward no other grounds for dealing with the Bund question first than that this question is a sore spot. I think that there may prove to be more sore spots than we suppose—for example, the question of a democratic structure or, on the contrary, centralism—so to put the question of the Bund at the top of the list for that reason does not stand up to criticism.

Plekhanov: Comrade Martov agreed with Akimov that there is a certain illogicality in dealing first with the Bund question. Actually, there is nothing illogical in this. There is only an appearance of illogicality, created by the situation. Either our congress is an ordinary congress, or it is a constituent congress. If it is an ordinary congress, and of this there cannot be the slightest doubt, then the life of the Party must follow the course that was laid down for it by the First Congress. If some people want to alter radically the Party’s way of life, then first of all we must decide whether we agree with this. We are faced by a choice: autonomy or federation? This difference is primarily organisational. But every quantitative difference gradually grows into a qualitative one.

Lieber (on a point of order) says that Plekhanov has renamed the point about the position of the Bund in the Party by calling it a point about autonomy or federation.

Plekhanov: It’s all the same: what the question comes down to is the Bund.

The list of speakers was closed. By a majority of 30 to 10 it was decided to discuss the question of the Bund as the first item on the agenda.

Akimov repeated his view that it was desirable to examine the question of the Central Organ only after the question of Party organisation had been settled.

Martov: Point 3 on the list [Point 4 of the agenda.] speaks only of the designation of an organ, and the organisational relations between the Central Organ and the Central Committee have to be considered specially, when we discuss the question of Party organisation in general.

Akimov: What is meant by ‘the designation of an organ’? Will an already existing organ be recognised as the Party organ, or will the editorial board be elected?

Yegorov: What has caused the question of the Central Organ to be put third on the agenda? Previously this was an important question because it was not clear what the attitude of the majority was on what the Central Organ should be. Now, when ideological unity has been established in the Party, this question can be discussed in connection with Party organisation.

Lenin: Now that the Congress has decided what is to be the first item on our agenda, the third point is the only moot point so far as the rest of the agenda is concerned. This item reads: ‘Creation of the Central Organ of the Party, or its endorsement’. Some comrades consider that this point should be moved to a later position on the agenda: first, because it is not possible to discuss the Central Organ until decisions have been taken regarding the organisation of the Party in general and of its central body in particular, and so on; and, secondly, because many committees have already expressed their views of the substance of this question. I consider the second argument wrong, for declarations by the committees are not binding on the congress and, formally speaking, possess no deciding vote at the congress. The other objection is wrong because, before settling details of organisation, the Party Rules, and the like, we must finally decide the question of the direction to be taken by the Russian Social-Democratic movement. It is, in fact, this question that has divided us for so long, and we cannot, merely by adopting a programme, eliminate all the differences that divide us on this issue. That can be done only by deciding, immediately after the question of the programme, what kind of Central Organ of the Party we should create from scratch, or what old one we should endorse, with certain modifications. This is why I support the agenda in the form in which it has been approved by the Organising Committee.

At the suggestion of the Chairman, all the points of the agenda were’ adopted en bloc, by 36 to 6, with one abstention.

The congress proceeded to discuss the report of the credentials commission, which had the task of determining the composition of the congress.

Rapporteur (Koltsov): There are 42 delegates at the congress, with 51 mandates. Eight delegates (those from the Baku, Batum and Tiflis Committees, the Mining-and-Metallurgical Association, the Crimean Association, the Nikolayev Committee, the Iskra organisation, and the League of Revolutionary Social-Democrats) have two mandates each. All the other organisations: the Moscow, Tula, Kharkov, Kiev, Odessa, Yekaterinoslav, Don, Saratov and Ufa Committees, the Northern and Siberian Associations, the ‘Emancipation of Labour’ Group, the Union of Russian Social-Democrats Abroad, the Foreign Committee of the Bund^[7] and the Yuzhny Rabochy group have each sent two delegates. The only exceptions are the Petersburg Committee and the Petersburg Workers’ Organisation, each of which has one delegate with a single mandate, and the Bund, which has two delegates, with three mandates. All the mandates have been checked and found valid. In addition, there are present at the congress, with the right to a consultative voice, eight members of different organisations invited by the Organising Committee on the basis of the right conferred upon it.

Complaints have been received from the Voronezh Committee and the Borba group. As is known, the Voronezh Committee reacted negatively to the very existence of the Organising Committee. In two proclamations it not only criticised the composition of the OC but also questioned its right to exist. The Voronezh Committee, according to its defenders, attempted to enter into negotiations with the OC about being admitted to the congress: nevertheless, a request for arbitration was received from this Committee only two days before the opening of the Congress. This request could not be met, of course, in view of the impossibility, at this stage, of finding arbiters and witnesses. The commission also questioned the OC and some representatives of neighbouring organisations about the activity of the Voronezh Committee. On the basis of all this the Commission considers it is in a position to propose to the congress the following resolution. [In view of the fact that the Voronezh Committee has not recognised the Organising Committee or the rules on the basis of which the congress has been convened, the Second Congress of the RSDLP finds that the OC was certainly in the right in not inviting this committee to the congress. The arbitration formally proposed by the Voronezh Committee only two days before the congress opened cannot take place owing to the absence at the present time of the conditions needed. As regards the question of the capacity of the Voronezh Committee, the congress cannot find anything incorrect in the conduct of the OC in this connection.]

The other complaint submitted to the commission comes from the Borba group. The following message has been received from this group [see Appendix I]. A letter sent by the Borba group to the OC was not received. A letter sent by this group to the Foreign Bureau of the OC, addressed to Comrade Deutsch, reached him a few days before the congress. As regards the substance of the matter, the commission, after hearing the representatives of the OC, came to the conclusion that the view expressed in the note to one of the paragraphs of the draft rules of the Second Congress of the RSDLP, concerning the importance of the Borba group, is fully in accordance with the facts. The organisations in Russia, with very few exceptions, did not consider at all that this group should be invited, despite the fact that the above-mentioned note had brought its existence to this notice. In view of this the commission could not but take up a negative attitude in this case as well.[Resolution: The Second Congress of the RSDLP, fully agreeing with the opinion of the Organising Committee that the Borba group does not constitute a particular tendency in the Social-Democratic movement, and that it enjoys no influence among the Social-Democratic organisations in Russia, decides that there is no case for inviting this group.]

Besides these complaints, the commission received a letter from a Polish comrade belonging to the Social Democratic Party of Poland and Lithuania, with the following contents. [See Appendix II] As talks have been in progress for some time between the Social Democratic Party of Poland and Lithuania and the OC regarding participation by that Party in our congress, and as, on the other hand, the letter does not make clear the relations which the Polish Social-Democrats wish to have with the Russian Party, the commission decided to propose to the congress the following resolution on this matter. [In view of the decision by the OC and in view of the importance of participation in the Congress by organisations which recognise that ‘the cause of uniting the Social-Democratic Party throughout Russia is a matter of first-rate importance’, the Second Congress of the RSDLP has pleasure in welcoming to the congress comrades from the Social-Democratic movement of Poland and Lithuania, and grants them a consultative voice, before they present to the congress the resolution they have adopted on their relations with the RSDLP.]

All the commission’s decisions were adopted unanimously by four of its members. As regards the fifth member: (1) on the question of the Voronezh Committee, he agreed with the first three points of the resolution, but he proposed to replace the fourth point by one reading: ‘There is insufficient information to come to a decision on the question of the capacity of the Voronezh Committee’; (2) on the question of the Borba group, he said that he knew absolutely nothing about this group, but considered that it should be accorded one consultative voice; (3) finally, on the question of inviting the Polish Social-Democrats, he considered that it was beyond the competence of the commission to decide on this question.

Yegorov: The question of the Borba group is new to me. Accordingly, I request a five-minute recess so that I can discuss it with comrades.

After consulting the Bureau, the chairman announced that a recess would be allowed, but only as an exception to the rule.

When the session resumed, Martynov was the first to speak: Without going into the matter of how the ‘historical services’ rendered by the Borba group are to be evaluated, a matter on which we do not share the group’s own view, and without going into the question of the group’s formal rights to be present at the congress, I urge that it be allowed to attend, simply from the standpoint of the interests of the Party and of the congress: the congress is interested in having an all-sided discussion of the programme, and the participation of this group will contribute to that. It is the only Social-Democratic group which has come up with a criticism of the programme presented by the editors of Zarya and Iskra. Whatever one may think of Ryazanov’s pamphlet, it did cause Comrade Plekhanov to express himself more definitely on two points, namely, attitude to oppositional trends, and the village commune. That criticism therefore proved to be of use even from the viewpoint of those who are completely and absolutely in agreement with the Iskra draft. The objections raised against participation by the Borba group are groundless. We have not invited Svoboda or the ‘Socialist-Revolutionaries’ because they are not Social-Democrats, but where Ryazanov was concerned, Comrade Plekhanov himself said, obliquely, at the end of his article, that he was not guided by motives of difference in principle. Zhizn was not invited because it never showed the appropriate interest, whereas Comrade Plekhanov considered it necessary to come out against Ryazanov in the pages of Iskra, and to set forth objections affecting the substance of the matter. Participation by the Borba group cannot endanger the Party’s organisational unity, since this group is very small and weak:^[8] it has only a ‘particular opinion’, within the framework of Social-Democratic principles, and it will be useful for the congress to hear every such opinion and to discuss it.

Plekhanov: As in the letter from the Borba group, so also in Comrade Martynov’s speech, it is stated that I said that Ryazanov’s criticism resulted from personal factors. That is not true. I recall that I was faced with a choice: either Ryazanov’s criticism was a product of his intellectual poverty, or else of a desire on his part to confuse the issue by bringing in considerations of a personal character. The Borba group embraced the first alternative, as it had the right to do. The second alternative remained. But so far as I am concerned, the choice is still open.

Akimov: Comrade Lenin said that there are no programmatic differences in our Party. That is not true. Everyone knows that such differences do exist, and it would be extremely useful if the different views could find expression at this congress. From this standpoint, it would be desirable to have the Borba group here. This is all the more important because, in general, those groups which do not see eye to eye with the majority in the Party did not have an adequate say in the preparation of the Congress. The rapporteur mentioned that in several cases communications addressed to the OC failed to reach them, and this is understandable, since none of the groups which do not share the views of the majority were represented on the OC. The St Petersburg Committee had the right to be represented there. Two organisations exist in St Petersburg, both calling themselves the St Petersburg Committee, but only one of these was represented on the OC. The other, the ‘Union of Struggle’, which was recognised by the arbitration tribunal to be the continuation of the old Committee, and which does not agree with the majority line, was not so represented. In the same way, the ‘Union of Russian Social-Democrats Abroad’, which was entitled, by the decision of the 1902 conference, to be represented in the foreign section of the OC, did not in fact participate in the OC and the Union’s proposal to establish a foreign section was rejected by’ the OC. The Voronezh Committee has been eliminated from participation in the congress. If the Borba group suffers a like fate, then all the groups which have in one way or another opposed the prevailing tendency will have been more or less ousted from taking part in the work of the congress. Furthermore, the Borba group has issued as many as three booklets dealing with the drawing-up of the programme, and its presence here would therefore be all the more useful, since no other publications dealing with this matter have appeared. All Party organisations must submit to the decisions of the congress, but they have an inalienable right to be heard, and to be allowed to defend their views before the Party.

Lange: If we allowed the Borba group to attend the congress we should have to admit every publisher and every author who has brought out a book or a pamphlet. We are devoting more time to this question than it deserves.

Martov: To be invited to the congress it is not enough to have said something about the programme. Other Social-Democrats too have sent in critical notes (X^[9], the South-Russia group, and others). These critical notes are being published, so that comrades can become acquainted with them. Thus, the Borba group’s contribution to the work of unifying the Party, through publishing its criticism, has already been provided for, just as in the case of other criticisms. Consequently Borba has been ‘heard’ by the Party, as Akimov pleaded it should. If our ideal is that as many as possible of all the groups should be present at the congress, but this ideal cannot be realised owing to conditions in Russia, it follows that we must take care that there is no imbalance between the representation of those Social Democrats who live in Russia and those who live abroad. A number o groups in Russia which do not meet the conditions laid down have submitted without protest to their exclusion from the list of participants in the congress. Would it be a good thing to give privileged treatment to a small group which, thanks to its origin outside Russia, is able to press insistently for admission to the congress, though its presence here would in no way be more useful than that of those groups inside Russia which have been refused this right? The fact mentioned in the letter from Borba that, during the year and a halt that Borba has been in existence, it has not obtained a sufficient number of supporters inside Russia for its point of view to be expressed at the congress by any Russian organisation speaks more eloquently than anything else of the ephemeral nature of this group. The Borba group does indeed, as Akimov said, include ‘old comrades of ours’, for the members of Borba have at different times been everybody’s comrades, moving from organisation to organisation and not settling anywhere. The Borba group is the embodiment of that period of organisational chaos in the history of our Party which was marked by a disunity not justified by any considerations of principle. I move that the commission’s resolution be voted on.

The list of speakers was closed.

Brouckère: I rise to defend the interests of the Voronezh Committee. I am not satisfied and I am not happy. What the OC has told us is not true. It never approached the Voronezh Committee directly. The OC justifies its conduct by saying that the Voronezh Committee does not recognise it. That is not true. The Voronezh Committee expressed its opinion about the unsatisfactory make-up of the OC. The OC may have taken offence at this, but it had no right to ignore a Social-Democratic Committee. After the OC had been recognised by the majority it could not be regarded as being still a private body. The Borba group could have been invited to the congress, in view of the lack of critical pamphlets, other than theirs, about the programme.

Pavlovich: The congress is not a gathering for discussion but for practical work by revolutionaries, and so I regard the arguments on behalf of Borba as worthless.

Sorokin: I condemn the method of ‘unification’ practised by Borba. Borba had no differences of principle to justify its action, and the break with Iskra is due to Nevzorov’s desire to be one of the editors. The congress should sharply condemn this sort of unification by separation. And Borba ’s persistence—I do not want to say, straight out, Borba’s impudence …

The chairman checked the speaker.

Sorokin (continuing): … but we ought to condemn such audacity as they have shown.

Trotsky: All who have spoken in favour of Borba have made the reservation that, personally, they do not share this group’s views, and even that they do not regard them as valuable. Consequently, each speaker was arguing that these views were of interest to somebody else, though not to himself. However, Comrade Martynov did utter one quite concrete argument in favour of inviting the Borba group. This group is weak, he said, and to invite it would therefore not bring any risk of a split. So, then, an invitation to the congress should be a sort of certificate of weakness. This view is unacceptable, of course, even though Borba ’s weakness is beyond question. This group is weak both practically and from the moral and political standpoint. In practice, because it has not found any committee to give it representation. From the moral and political standpoint, because its position has never been one of principle, but has always been determined by the conjuncture of the given moment. At the height of Iskra ’s struggle against economism the Borba group took up a conciliatory attitude. It seemed to them that Iskra was exaggerating the differences. When the revolutionary Social-Democratic trend got the upper hand, Borba made a sharp turn-round, and, in Ryazanov’s book, accused Iskra of economism. One of the representatives of revolutionary Social-Democracy even turned out to be a typical economist, though a very talented one. In this weathercock behaviour lies the root of the moral and political weakness of Borba. But people don’t get awarded certificates for such weakness. It calls, rather, for punishment. This punishment takel the form of denial of an invitation to the congress. Such a sentence will serve not only as a moral condemnation of Borba but also as a warning to every other group who want, in the interests of their political career, to thrust their group physiognomy through any ideological crack that may appear, exploiting the tragic situation of our Party. [Applause.]

Martov (on a point of order) proposed that the vote be taken on the report as a whole.

Lieber (on a point of order): This proposal cannot be adopted. We may agree with the conclusion, while not agreeing with the reasons given.

Yegorov: I propose that the last word be accorded to the OC, since otherwise I shall be put in a difficult position as regards voting on this question.

Martov: When the Organising Committee’s report was read, it was subjected to a number of reproaches, to which it should reply. This omission must be put right. The OC must be allowed to speak, otherwise we cannot take the vote.

Lenin: This goes without saying. The point is that during the recess the OC held a meeting, which brought a new factor into the discussion procedure.

A proposal was introduced and adopted regarding closure of the list of speakers on the question of Borba.

Yegorov: The meeting of the OC held during the recess did not violate the procedure of the congress, as Comrade Lenin claims. No one has the right to forbid the OC to meet during recesses. I insist that the decision which the OC has just taken be heard. It can have a bearing on the vote.

Lenin: The list of speakers has been closed. The discussion is finished. We are going to vote on the question of the Borba group. Comrade Yegorov’s demand cannot, therefore, be met.

Yegorov: I propose that the OC’s statement be heard before we vote. Chairman: The debate is over, and I do not understand how Comrade Yegorov can persist in his demand. In any case, the Bureau will discuss this matter.

The session was closed.

Third Session[edit source]

(50 persons present)

The session began with the reading of the minutes of the first session of the congress.

Brouckère asked that the following be added to the report of his speech in the minutes: ‘The St Petersburg Union of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class was given representation at the Congress only as the result of arbitration, which recognised this body as a Party Committee and not an organisation. And yet in the report of the OC the St Petersburg Union of Struggle is systematically described as an organisation, and not as a committee.’

Pavlovich emphasised that the arbitration decision spoke of ‘the so-called Union of Struggle’.

Popov: The arbitration body acknowledged that it was not competent to decide whether the ‘Union of Struggle’ was a Party Committee or not, and left this to be settled by the Party congress.

Brouckère did not insist on his assertion, since he had not taken part in the arbitration.

The minutes of the first session were approved.

Chairman: The morning session went into recess as a result of Comrade Yegorov’s statement, and though this may have affected the course of the debate, it could not affect its outcome. The statement about the new meeting of the OC which adopted a certain decision might, however, have that effect. This statement put the Bureau in a quandary from which it has not yet emerged. Formally speaking, we could go on with the debate, but the Bureau has decided that the best course to adopt in such cases is to have a comradely explanation. And so we turn to the representative of the OC: will he please speak to us on this matter.

Popov: During the recess a meeting of the OC was held at which it was decided that the OC would propose that the congress invite Ryazanov to attend, with the right to a consultative voice. The OC did not take the decision itself (1) because the congress was already in session and (2) because the congress had not yet dealt with this question in its discussions.

Pavlovich: I must express my bewilderment. I am a member of the OC and also a delegate from the Kiev Committee. Two voices are in conflict in my soul. I know that there are no imperative mandates. But, as a member of the OC, I find myself in an abnormal situation, as a result of the OC’s latest statement. I put this question to the congress: has the OC a right to take part in the congress as a body, a right which is not provided for in the rules? After all, the representative of the OC is present here by chance, because he is at the same time the delegate from Yuzhny Rabochy. The new decision by the OC contradicts its previous decision. Replacing Borba by Ryazanov means exercising pressure on the congress. I want to know, has the OC the right to depart from its role as an accountable person and, as a body, to bring forth decisions after it has presented its report?^[10]

Yegorov: Comrade Pavlovich’s^[11] behaviour compels me to make a statement which I would have very much preferred not to make. The OC discussed at its meeting today the protest made by Comrade Pavlovich, and decided, in accordance with its rules, not to lay Comrade Pavlovich’s dissenting opinion before the congress. The OC could not, of course, assume the prerogative of depriving anyone of the right to appeal to the congress, and so it proposed to Comrade Pavlovich that it inform the congress that there had been a protest by one member, which the OC did not think it was obliged to bring to the attention of the congress. If the congress should wish to know what this protest was, then the OC would, of course, at once give the information. However, Comrade Pavlovich paid no attention at all to the OC’s decision. This was a breach of Party discipline. Comrade Pavlovich could have raised, in a general way, during the discussion, the question of the OC’s right to take such a decision. Mentioning the fact that Comrade Pavlovich is a delegate from the Kiev Committee is sophistry. To turn to the substance of the matter. In my view, the OC continues to exist until it is announced at the congress that it has ceased to exist. It is not by chance that the OC is taking part in this congress. It was aware that some of its members would be taking part in the congress anyway. But even if it had not taken part, the question of the presence of the OC would have come up for decision in one way or another. It might have met separately somewhere and taken this or that decision. While the congress has technical questions to consider, the OC continues to exist. Talk of the illogicality or the impossibility of rescinding a previous decision is baseless, since the OC might have fresh ideas, or might forget to nominate someone, etc. The OC took its decision not because it had changed its attitude to the Borba group but because it wanted to remove unnecessary obstacles from the path of the future central organisation of the Party, when this organisation takes its first steps.

Plekhanov: Comrade Yegorov’s statement was mild in form but sharp in content. If I failed to stop Comrade Pavlovich, the fault is mine, in my capacity as chairman. But the reason why I did not stop Comrade Pavlovich was that I found no breach of discipline in what he was saying. We have no imperative mandates here. And, talking of Party discipline, we must clarify some points concerning this. The discipline of every one of the Party’s corporate bodies is binding upon extraneous and lower-level bodies, but not upon those which stand higher. I ask you: in the first place, is the congress extraneous in relation to the OC, and, in the second place, does the congress consider that it is a lower-level body compared with the OC? No, the congress is the Party’s highest instance, and Comrade Pavlovich was in no way violating Party discipline by informing the congress of this incident. [Loud applause.] Talking of discipline, I did not know how the comrades working in Russia looked on the matter. But now I see that the majority of comrades share my view. Therefore I think that I acted rightly in not stopping Comrade Pavlovich, since there was no breach of discipline in what he said. On the contrary, it is Comrade Yegorov’s statement that must be considered a breach of discipline in relation to the congress.

Popov: The reasons for which the OC arrived at its latent decision were accepted by the five members, though the fifth member proposed only a special form of invitation to Comrade Ryazanov. I am here not by chance but as the official representative of the OC, empowered by all their votes, except that of Comrade Pavlovich, who did not protest against this. The congress has not yet abolished the OC, and so we have found it possible to bring forward a proposal.

Pavlovich: I recognise as legitimate meetings of the OC which can serve to provide the congress with material, but I cannot accept active interference by it in the affairs of the congress, bringing pressure to bear on the latter’s decisions. I denied the legitimacy of the meeting and therefore I did not take part in the voting. Consequently, no discipline can compel me to submit to the decision of a meeting the legitimacy of which I denied.

Koltsov: I want to remind comrades that the congress is now discussing the report of the commission charged with determining the composition of the congress. As soon as the report of this commission has been approved, the powers of the OC will cease. But there is one point on which these powers have already ceased: from the moment when the congress elected a credentials commission, any proposal relating to this matter could be introduced only through that commission. Furthermore, I would point out that the commission took its decision about Borba after questioning the members of the OC.

Yegorov: I have been made the object of blame which I do not deserve. This matter has been wrongly conceived. I did not say, at all, that there is an instance that is higher than the congress. The point was this: if we accept that the OC is an organisation, then it has rules, which its members ought not to transgress. Comrade Pavlovich was given the opportunity to say that he adhered to a particular view, and only if and when the congress asked was he to tell what happened at the OC meeting. This decision was taken by the OC, and Comrade Pavlovich violated it by making his statement. A similar question had already been discussed by the OC, in connection with a proposal from another member, and Comrade Pavlovich then went along with us. Comrade Pavlovich was allowed a way of expressing his views, but only by keeping to a certain form. Although the applause has indirectly, so to speak, reprimanded me, I do not feel that I am in any way in the wrong.

Lenin: I cannot agree with Comrade Yegorov. It is he who has infringed the rules of the congress, and he who is against the clause on imperative mandates. I do not doubt the existence of the Organising Committee, just as I do not doubt the existence of the Iskra organisation, which also has its own organisation and rules. But as soon as the rules of the congress were announced, the Iskra organisation informed its delegates that they had full freedom of action at the congress. What sort of position do we find ourselves in, as members of the credentials commission of the congress, who yesterday heard two members of the Organising Committee, Comrades Stein and Pavlovich, and now hear an entirely new proposal? There are experienced comrades here who have attended more than one international congress. These comrades could tell you what a storm of indignation has always been aroused when people say one thing in commission and another thing on the floor of the congress.

Abramson: I do not agree at all with Plekhanov and Lenin in the way they define Party discipline. Like Comrade Yegorov, I cannot call Comrade Pavlovich’s conduct anything but a breach of discipline, as this is understood by the comrades working in Russia. The applause given to Plekhanov’s speech was not meant for his definition of Party discipline but for his statement that the congress is the Party’s highest instance. [Shouts: ‘Not true!’]

Martov: I am surprised that Comrade Abramson, as a delegate of the Bund, considers that the comrades in Russia would regard Comrade Pavlovich’s conduct as a breach of Party discipline. I doubt if that is so. But if indeed they were to see it in this light, it would show that in their conception of Party discipline they do not look beyond the duty of a revolutionary to that lower-level group to which he belongs. Of course it is possible to have, within the framework of a united party, free groupings determined by convictions and the demands of conscience which bring together certain members of the Party in relation to certain questions. But no compulsory grouping is permissible within a united party; such subjection to the discipline of a lower group would cut across the duty of a Party member to the Party as a whole. Comrade Yegorov made a very big mistake, and there was nothing left for Comrade Pavlovich to do but what he in fact did. Let me point out that this matter arose during the recess which Comrade Yegorov asked for, so that he could acquaint himself with the situation, as he had only just arrived. Instead, the recess was used for a meeting as a result of which a proposal was put forward, in the name of the OC, which ran counter to the report of the commission, and to the OC’s previous proposals. We resolved to refer all proposals to the Bureau. If the OC had applied to the Bureau the latter would have explained that it ought to hand over its proposal to the credentials commission. Comrade Yegorov says that the purpose of the new proposal is to remove unnecessary ‘submerged rocks’ from the course of the future central committee. Yesterday the OC had no such fear, when it excluded the Borba group and did not include Ryazanov among those to be invited to attend with a consultative voice. What new facts have emerged, to make a change necessary? These new facts should be told to us, and not covered up with petty arguments about submerged rocks, in other words, about what people will say! When our tendency was everywhere in a minority we were not afraid of what people might say. And I advise the OC now, when our tendency has grown strong, not to be afraid of what people will say.

In order to close this incident, I move the following resolution: ‘The congress, requesting all comrades who have particular proposals to put forward to hand these in to the Bureau, considers as over and done with the incident caused by the statements of Comrades Pavlovich and Yegorov.’

Plekhanov: Comrade Yegorov said that I had made a serious accusation against him. There can be no doubt, however, that this accusation was no less serious than that which he made against Comrade Pavlovich. One must take the rough with the smooth. I accused no-one, but merely, as chairman, corrected statements made which seemed to me to be out of place. And in making these corrections I had to explain the conceptions of Party discipline by which I was guided. Comrade Abramson expressed doubt as to whether the comrades in Russia are in agreement with me on the definition of Party discipline. I think that the comrades in Russia are on my side, just as I have logic on my side. Higher obligations prevail over lower ones. Turning to the unfortunate incident, I must say this: all of us, like the Bureau, are fully grateful to the OC for its work in convening the congress, but… ‘Plato is dear to me, but still dearer to me is truth.’ The OC exists now as a group reporting on its activities. It is impossible to report on one’s activities and at the same time continue them.

Fomin (on a point of order): Martov has moved a resolution to proceed to next business. I second this, and propose that the list of speakers be closed.

Fomin’s proposal was adopted. (Those speakers who had put their names down earlier were still allowed to speak.)

Popov: The OC supposed that it continued to exist until the congress dissolved it. But since doubt has been expressed as to its existence, I move that the congress express its view on this matter.

Pavlovich: I repeat my question: has the OC the right to meet as an independent body? Denying as I did the legitimacy of the OC meeting, I was not obliged to submit to its decisions. The recommendation of Ryazanov to the congress ought to have been introduced through the commission.

Martynov: In view of the grave charges which have been levelled, directly or indirectly, against four members of the OC, I must observe that two questions are being confused here: the question of the general rules of Party discipline and the question of the standing orders of the congress. I consider that the comrades of the OC did not act contrary to the general rules of Party discipline. In the army, where discipline is at its strictest, every soldier has the right to appeal to the highest instance, but only according to a certain established procedure, going through the lower instances. From this point of view, the members of the OC were right to require of their fellow-member, Comrade Pavlovich, that if he appealed to the congress against the body to which he belonged, he .must do this in the established way, namely, through this same body. The mistake made by the OC comrades consisted only in that they violated the standing orders of the congress: they continued to carry out functions which they had lost with the opening of the congress.

Yegorov: The chairman was mistaken in taking my reproach as directed at him. He could not know what the OC had decided. As regards the reproach that I made use of the recess for a purpose other than that for which I had requested it, it must be stated that I did this after a private conversation with the chairman, who told me that this was a matter for the OC. Consequently, the accusation made was applicable not to me but to the OC.

Trotsky: Comrade Martynov takes, on the question of Party discipline, the viewpoint of military discipline, which is based on the principle that rank must respect rank. In the army someone of lower rank cannot address himself to the highest instance otherwise than through the intermediate instance. But in this case there was no instance standing higher than the OC, and lower than the congress, to which Comrade Pavlovich could have appealed. I regard the incident as closed, and support Martov’s resolution.

Makhov: Regardless of differing notions about Party discipline, Comrade Pavlovich justified himself only by the fact that he considered the decision of the OC to be invalid. That is his affair. All the same, though, he acknowledged the existence of the OC, and it seems to that it would have been more tactful to ask the congress to decide whether or not the meeting of the OC was legitimate. I find that Comrade Yegorov’s error of tact was caused by the error of tact made by Comrade Pavlovich.

The chairman pointed out to the speaker that Comrade Pavlovich was not in the dock.

Makhov: That’s how it looked just now, where Comrade Yegorov was concerned.

Martov’s resolution was adopted unanimously.

In order to define the position of the OC at that stage, Popov moved the following resolution: ‘The congress declares that, from the moment that it opened, the OC is to be regarded as having been dissolved, and must cease its activity completely.’

Koltsov moved another resolution: ‘With the election of the credentials commission, the OC lost the right to influence, as a body, the composition of the congress, and its activity as a body is regarded as having ceased so far as this matter is concerned.’

Pavlovich considered Comrade Popov’s resolution unfortunate. According to this resolution the OC was to be regarded as dissolved, and yet it had to exist in order to be able to make its report to the Congress.

Deutsch proposed that Comrade Popov’s resolution be adopted, with the amendment that ‘dissolved’ be replaced by ‘activity … suspended’.

Popov: The word ‘dissolved’ is to be understood in the sense that the OC has no right to take any decisions. However, the OC still has work to do in Russia, in the fields of transport, technical questions and so on. Must the OC stop carrying out these functions?

Plekhanov: Comrade Popov’s resolution cannot be adopted for the reason mentioned by Comrade Popov himself. The activity of the OC must be discontinued only on the matter of the convening of the Congress. I support Koltsov’s proposal.

Deutsch put forward a draft resolution: ‘The congress recognises that with the opening of the congress the activity of the OC is discontinued.’

Yudin presented a resolution: ‘From the moment that the OC gave the congress its report on its activity in connection with the composition of the Congress, the activity of the OC, as a body, be at an end so far as this matter is concerned.’

Stein asked that the significance of this resolution n be explained. Was the OC to continue to exist, as a body, or was it completely done away with by this resolution? The OC was left with practical activity to perform. If it was to be allowed the right to carry on practical activity, then it was thereby allowed the right to undertake discussion of these questions.

Lenin: The Organising Committee can meet, but not as a body exercising influence upon the business of the congress. The practical activity of the OC does not cease: what ceases is its influence on the congress, apart from the commission.

Stein: I do not in any way contest the resolution, but I find it necessary to define more clearly just what activity remains for the OC to carry out.

In the voting, Koltsov’s resolution was passed by a majority of 32. Yudin’s resolution received 16 votes, and the resolutions of Popov and Deutsch one each.

Chairman: I invite those who have advocated inviting Ryazanov with a consultative, to see the commission about the matter. We now have to consider the question of participation in the congress by the Polish comrades.

Lieber: The proposal brought forward by the commission violates the rules of the congress. All the speakers have said that this congress is an ordinary congress. The Bund said in its statement that the congress should be a constituent one, and that all the nationalities should be represented at it. In answer we were told that the congress is a congress of Russian Social-Democratic organisations. Now they are inviting representatives of the Social-Democracy of Poland and Lithuania, which is an independent organisation. It is being said here that the Polish Social-Democrats want unity, but who is there that does not want it? Borba, too, wants unity. When the Bund proposed that the Lithuanian and Lettish Social-Democrats be invited, this proposal was rejected: why then does an exception have to be made for the Social-Democracy of Poland and Lithuania? If the same proposal had been made to the Lettish and Lithuanian Social-Democrats, then, probably, it would have been accepted by them.

Popov expressed surprise that the commission’s resolution on inviting the Social-Democracy of Poland and Lithuania began with the words: ‘In view of the decision taken by the OC,’ when in fact the OC took no such decision.

Stein expressed his astonishment on the same matter. Giving evidence yesterday he had told the commission that the OC declined to invite the Social-Democrats of Poland and Lithuania to the congress and proposed that this be done by the congress itself.

Deutsch: Talks with the Polish Social-Democrats were carried on through me, and I told them that the congress might invite them. If I exceeded my authority then the entire responsibility rests with me.

Yegorov: No talks with the Polish Social-Democrats took place officially. Judging by the mood among the Russian comrades, the OC thought that it was desirable to have the Polish Social-Democrats at the congress, and so they considered it necessary to let the Polish comrades know this.

Lenin: In its report, the commission finds that the presence of the Polish comrades at the congress is desirable, but only in a consultative capacity. In my view, that is quite right, and it seems to me perfectly reasonable to begin the resolution of the commission with a statement to this effect. It would be highly desirable if the Letts and Lithuanians could be present, but, unfortunately, that is not feasible. The Polish comrades could at any time have announced their conditions for joining, but they did not do this. The Organising Committee was therefore right in showing reserve in relation to them. The question is not clarified, either, by the letter from the Polish Social-Democrats which was read here. In view of this, I move that the Polish comrades be invited to attend as guests.

Martov: There were official relations between the OC and the Polish Social Democrats, and they were effected through the Iskra organisation, which conveyed the OC’s letter to the Polish comrades and received their answer. Thus, one cannot put the Lithuanians and Letts on the same plane with the Polish Social-Democrats, since the latter took steps towards unification which the former did not. I think it necessary to mention, though, that the step taken by the Polish Social-Democrats was without significance, since it was put to them that they must unequivocally define their attitude on the question of entry into the Russian Party, and this they have not done. The OC was not empowered to take responsibility for inviting the Polish Social-Democrats. The congress must state its attitude on this matter.

Yegorov agreed with Martov, and found the reference to the congress rules unfortunate. An attempt had also been made in relation to the Lithuanian party, and talks carried on with them, but no decision had as yet been reached.

Abramson: I am not opposed in principle to unity with the Polish Social-Democrats, but I regard the resolution of the commission as wrong. It has already been shown that it does not satisfy the formal conditions which the OC adhered to when drawing up the congress rules, which it has upheld throughout its activity, and from which our congress, too, has proceeded up to now. The Polish Social-Democrats have so far not declared themselves to be a section of the Party, despite the fact that they have several times been asked to do this, as we learnt here from Comrade Martov. They have shown very great caution in this matter, and they still maintain this caution in the letter which they have addressed to the congress. We do not know what kind of unification the Polish Social-Democrats want, in what sense they regard themselves as being a party, whether or not they have passed a resolution on this point at their congress, and, if so, what this resolution is. The letter presented to us remains silent on all that. The resolution from the commission says that, depending on the resolution adopted by the Polish Social-Democrats, they may be allowed to exercise a consultative voice at the congress. But their resolution may be such that they would have to separate themselves completely from this congress. Consequently, it would be logical for the commission to take a different line, namely, to ask the Polish Social-Democrats for the resolution they have adopted. Comrade Lenin was mistaken in what he said about the resolution of the OC on the Polish Social-Democrats. The OC did not decide to ask the congress to invite the Polish Social-Democrats, and this has been confirmed today by the representative of the OC. Consequently, the commission’s statement that its resolution is in accord with the decision of the OC is also wrong.[Comrade Abramson’s resolution: ‘The congress proposes that the Polish Social-Democrats table the resolution adopted at their congress about the question of relations with the RDSLP, this being necessary in order to decide the question of the Polish Social-Democrats’ participation in the Second Congress of the RSDLP.’]

Trotsky: I do not understand the objections which have been raised against inviting the Polish comrades to the congress—objections based on the rules for convening the congress. These rules were drawn up by the OC on the basis of the norms laid down by the First Congress, and they served as their guide. But once the congress has met it has the right to invite new comrades, if it finds this necessary. It is proposed that the Polish comrades be invited to attend with a consultative voice. If the Polish comrades tell us that they regard themselves as forming a section of the Russian Party, then we shall have no grounds for refusing them a deciding vote. It is objected that this is premature: our future Central Committee, it is said, will enter into negotiations with them and will do everything needed to bring about unity. Of course! But if the Polish comrades declare their adhesion to the Party it will be only fair to enable them to exercise influence in the formation of the Central Committee itself. I support the invitation to the Polish Social-Democrats.

Lieber: Trotsky’s argument is very odd. While the OC had no right to invite the Polish Social-Democrats, he says, the congress has this right. I do not agree. The Congress cannot repudiate all the preliminary work done, and change the rules. If the OC had taken steps to approach the Letts and Lithuanians, the situation would have been different. Judging by the OC’s report, this was not done. Our organisations are present at a well-defined congress, which cannot consider itself as an instance capable of changing absolutely everything, even the rules. The Polish comrades have not put forward any resolution which might have elucidated for us the relations they wish to have with the Russian Social-Democrats, and no grounds exist for inviting them.

Lenin: I cannot see any weighty arguments against the invitation. The OC took the first step in bringing the Polish comrades closer to the Russian comrades. By inviting them to the congress we shall take the second step along this path. I cannot see that any complications will result from this.

The discussion of this question came to an end. The congress passed to considering the resolution about the Voronezh Committee.

Akimov: In my view, the OC’s statement about the non-recognition of the OC by the Voronezh Committee is wrong. The Voronezh Committee only said that the OC was wrongly constituted, and that this had a harmful effect on its work. If something was said against the rules for the congress, the Voronezh Committee had the right to say it. They even had the right to say at the congress that they consider the composition of the OC to be unsound. The Voronezh Committee’s request for arbitration was presented in good time, through both the Petersburg Union of Struggle and the Foreign Bureau of the OC, and the Voronezh Committee was not to blame if this request was brought forward only two days before the congress. The request was handed to a member of the OC in good time by the Petersburg Committee. The fault lay with the unsound composition of the OC, and also with the fact that the Union was not told when the congress was to be held. I do not know whether the Voronezh Committee managed to send delegates but the congress ought, in principle, to express its view on this matter.

Yegorov: I cannot accept the concluding part of the resolution submitted by the commission. In omitting to invite the Voronezh Committee to the congress the OC was not guided by the consideration that the Voronezh Committee refused to recognise it.

Brouckère: The Voronezh Committee showed more interest in the congress than any other group. It undertook active work with a view to influencing the preparatory work for the congress. And the OC had no right to punish the Voronezh Committee for this by not inviting it the congress. Nor do I agree with the commission that the Voronezh Committee has displayed only feeble activity.

Lensky: The previous speaker said that the Voronezh Committee worked very actively and showed much liveliness and energy in the matter of the congress. But this energetic work was of a shameful character. In the two letters received by the Yekaterinoslav Committee, the moral physiognomy of the Voronezh Committee was revealed rather unprepossessingly. These letters were nothing better than libels …

The Chairman (interrupting the speaker ): I must ask you not to use such expressions when speaking about Party comrades, even when they are absent.

Brouckère: Evidently our tastes differ. To me the moral physiognomy of the Voronezh Committee, as expressed in these declarations, seems attractive and agreeable. I want also to add that the OC addressed its inquiries to organisations which were hostile to us. Further, the OC did not supply the written material to all the organisations.

Orlov: I agree with Comrade Brouckère that the Voronezh Committee acted very energetically, all right: the trouble was that all this energy was expended in making visits and sending ‘friendly messages’ to ‘friendly committees’. As an example, take this fact. The Yekaterinoslav Committee was one of the most stubborn in the sense of struggle against, or, more correctly, indifference to, the Iskra tendency. Clearly, this Committee was very dear to the Voronezh Committee, whose whole aim consisted in combating that tendency in Russian Social-Democracy. Having learnt that the Yekaterinoslav Committee was beginning to depart from its previous line, the Voronezh Committee hastened to despatch a friendly message to Yekaterinoslav, advising that Committee not to become infatuated with the beauty and elegance of fashionable views. Ungrateful Yekaterinoslav did not reply to this ‘fraternal admonition’. Another interesting fact: when it came forward as a Party Committee, the Voronezh Committee applied to Yekaterinoslav with a request to print its proclamation announcing that it had been formed. To the inquiry of the Yekaterinoslav Committee as to what Committees recognised this organisation as a Party Committee, the comrade from Voronezh who had come to Yekaterinoslav for this purpose named the Rostov Committee. The request was carried out, but soon it emerged that Rostov had not in fact given its consent to this, and that the Voronezh comrades had said in Rostov that they were recognised by Yekaterinoslav. All this time, all that I knew of the activity of the Voronezh Committee was three proclamations, printed by the presses of other towns. I say nothing of those proclamations, by which the committee become known throughout Russia. All this, it would seem, is clear enough, and provides a distinct picture of the solidity and the moral physiognomy of the Voronezh Committee.

Brouckère: If the Voronezh Committee is a convinced opponent of Iskra, then it naturally tries, by means of friendly letters, to influence other committees. The previous speaker most probably also wanted to show that they have no press in Voronezh. That is not the case. His information about the issuing of the proclamations is incorrect. The Voronezh Committee has issued not three but seven proclamations. The statement that the Voronezh Committee was endorsed by the Yekaterinoslav and Don Committees reached my ears only yesterday: although such endorsement was not required, the Voronezh Committee was in fact endorsed by the Petersburg Union of Struggle and the Union of Russian Social-Democrats Abroad.

The discussion was closed, and the rapporteurs of the commission and of the OC were allowed to have the last word.

Koltsov: First of all, I regard it as my duty to apologise to the comrades for some shortcomings in the report I gave this morning. Our commission worked all night and, not surprisingly, I. was very tired after that. Some of these defects have been pointed out to me and I shall now try to correct them. First, it must be mentioned that the letter from the Borba group which was not received by the OC was forwarded by the Foreign Bureau of the OC, which possesses the relevant documents. Then, I forgot to mention that the OC replied to this letter from the Borba group as soon as it received it. I will read the reply. [See Appendix III.]

I now turn to the objections which have been put forward here. First, about the Borba group. It must be acknowledged that the objections presented here by the group’s few defenders have surprised me very much. Comrade Martynov is greatly concerned that he should not be identified with this group, and yet he insists that we invite a group which he obviously does not hold in very high esteem, merely because, if we do, the discussion of the programme will be more complete. Yet, what Borba had to say it set forth in a booklet, which anyone may read and, consequently, anyone is at liberty to use the arguments contained in this publication. I was particularly amazed by Comrade Akimov. In all our epic struggles about ‘unity’, in which the Borba group always played, in its own words, the role of conciliator, we always came up against the question of the role to be played in the new organisation by the Borba group—would it obtain the post of editor, would it preside at the congress, and so on. And I recall that on one such occasion Comrade Akimov replied to one of the members of the Borba group: ‘Whose fault is it that you stand outside the organisation? You went everywhere, and everywhere you were welcomed, but everywhere you ran away.’ Now, however, it is said that this group has to its credit not only ambitions but also a booklet criticising the programme drafted by Iskra and Zarya. In my opinion, what is new in this booklet is not true, and what is true is not new. But even if this booklet were very valuable the congress would have no call to establish a precedent on the basis of which, in future, everyone who has published a booklet would have the right to attend a congress.

As for the Voronezh Committee, I say that it is quite clear from the proclamations it issued, especially from the second of these, that it did not recognise the OC, did not recognise the OC’s right to convene a congress; and all one can do is to ask how it expected to get into this congress? Of the particularly lively activity displayed by this Committee we heard here from the representative of the Yekaterinoslav Committee, and yesterday, in the commission also from the representative of the Don Committee: according to these representatives, the activity of the Voronezh Committee was insignificant, except that a great deal of energy was expended in journeys to various towns in order to get various proclamations printed.

A few words more about the invitation to the Polish Social-Democrats. In the first place, the commission agrees to delete from the resolution the first phrase, referring to the decision of the OC. As regards the objections raised, my answer is that we have not invited other national groups because they have not shown any desire to work with us for the unity of the RSDLP. On the other hand, we have invited the Polish Social-Democrats with a consultative voice only because they have hitherto not stated the relations which they intend to have with the Russian Party.

In view of all the above, I recommend the congress to approve the resolution in the form in which it has been presented by the commission.

Popov (as rapporteur for the Organising Committee): As regards the invitation to the Borba group, I declare on behalf of the OC that the OC in no way renounced its previous view about the Borba group when it put forward the proposal to invite Ryazanov with the right to a consultative voice.

Regarding the incident with the Voronezh Committee, I can say this. The Voronezh Committee has accused the OC of not giving it the opportunity to protest in time and ask for arbitration. I ask the congress to note that the formation of the OC was known to the Voronezh Committee already in February. And that Committee was fully able to enter in good time into negotiation with the OC. The Voronezh Committee circled round and round the OC for a long time, collecting information about its composition, formation and so on, but had no dealings with the OC itself. In general there was not much logic in the attitude of the Voronezh Committee to the OC. To the announcement by the OC in which it spoke of itself as a private organisation the Voronezh Committee replied with a letter in which it treated the OC as a Party organ, and demanded representation in it, accordingly, for the Union of Russian Social-Democrats Abroad. When the OC had been recognised by nearly all the Committees and had become a Party institution, the Voronezh Committee wrote a second letter, beginning with the words: ‘To the group calling itself the Organising’ Committee’—but then, after that, it applied once more to the OC, as a Party institution, requesting arbitration. It is impossible in view of this to accuse the OC of not entering into relations with the Voronezh Committee. As regards Comrade Akimov’s comment that the OC could have communicated to the Union of Social-Democrats Abroad the list of organisations possessing the right to take part in the congress, the OC did not know that the Union had close relations with the Voronezh Committee. The request for arbitration which was addressed to the OC here could not be met because the OC was not in a position to furnish the tribunal with the necessary materials, and also because, once the congress was in session, there would be no point in oganising an arbitration tribunal on its doorstep.

About the invitation to the Polish Social Democrats I can say that the OC took the decision not to invite them, even with merely a consultative voice, not in the least because it wanted to prevent the Polish Social-Democrats from participating in the congress, but simply because it was not decided on whether to invite an organisation which did not consider itself as belonging to the RSDLP.

After this, the resolutions of the credentials commission were voted on. The resolution about Borba was passed by 42 to 4. Yudin’s resolution, proposing that one member of the Borba group be invited, with a consultative voice, was rejected by 41 to 5. The resolution on the Voronezh Committee was passed by 37 to 3, with 4 abstentions. Rejected were: Akimov’s proposal that the statement that the request for arbitration was y two days before the congress be deleted from the resolution, and Lieber’s proposal (29 to 10) that the words ‘since it did not recognise the OC’ be deleted from the reasons given. The resolution of the commission on the Polish Social Democrats was passed by 37 to 6, with 5 abstentions, and Abramson’s resolution was rejected by 35 to 8, with 5 abstentions. A proposal that the Polish Social-Democrats send not more than two delegates was introduced and passed, with 29 votes.

Chairman: Now all the preliminary work of the congress has been completed. The congress has been finally constituted. Its decisions are unconditionally binding on the entire Party, and supersede all decisions of the First Congress that may be in contradiction to them. I propose that we express to the Organising Committee the profound gratitude of the congress for the energetic, skilful and tactful way in which it has performed its tasks. [Tumultuous and prolonged applause.]

Chairman: With regard to the report of the OC, the Bureau has been handed a resolution conceived in these terms: ‘The Second Congress of the RSDLP, having heard the report on the activity of the Organising Committee for restoring the organisational unity of the Party, expresses to the OC the profound gratitude of the Party for the skilful and tactful fulfilment of the task which it assumed by virtue of the decision of the conference of March 1902.’

Chairman: All in favour of this resolution, please stand. [All stand.]

Lieber: The text of the resolution bears the signatures of certain delegates. I propose that the resolution be recorded in the minutes without signatures, or else that the resolution be made available for everyone who wishes to sign.

Chairman: That goes without saying. The resolution will be recorded in the minutes without signatures. And it will also be made available for all who wish to sign it.

The session was closed-

Fourth Session[edit source]

(Present: 42 delegates with 51 deciding votes, and 8 persons with consultative voice.)

The chairman, after making some announcements, read a request from the Caucasian delegates to allow a comrade of theirs who had taken part in the Social-Democratic movement from the start to attend the congress with the right to a consultative voice.

Martov proposed that the OC be asked about this.

Makhov, while having nothing against inviting new comrades, said that the congress only lost time by discussing such questions.

Popov: In order that the OC might reply to a question about inviting a new comrade it would be necessary to rescind the resolution passed yesterday, since that meant that the OC had no power to influence the composition of the congress once it had been constituted. To express an opinion on an invitation to a new comrade would signify influencing the composition of the congress.

Karsky: If the OC no longer has the right to influence the composition of the congress, that does not mean that it is obliged to lose its memory.

Lieber proposed that the discussion be closed.

This proposal was adopted.

The proposal of the Caucasian delegates that their comrade be invited, with the right to a consultative voice, was then approved.^[12]

The following declaration by Comrade Martynov was read: ‘I must make a correction to the speech by the representative of the OC, Comrade Popov. He said: “I did not know that the Voronezh Committee and the Union of Russian Social-Democrats Abroad were one and the same.” I draw attention to this because in accordance with the rules of the congress, Comrade Akimov always speaks in his own name, and not in that of the Union. Besides, Comrade Akimov did not say that.’

Martov proposed the election of a commission to work on problems of the programme. In view of the need for serious preparatory work, they might already at this stage begin compiling the list of candidates.

Akimov considered this procedure inappropriate. What was needed first was a general discussion, and then there would be elected to the commission representatives to the different tendencies which had become manifest during the discussion.

Karsky: It is not necessary to wait for the discussion for the tendencies to show themselves, as these are already very clear. Besides, after the discussion little time will be left for the work of the commission.

The Bureau agreed with Comrade Akimov’s view.

The congress proceeded to discuss the second point on its agenda—the place of the Bund in the Party.

Lieber (rapporteur): I have a hard task to perform in setting forth the grounds for the proposal made by the Bund. In the first place, the majority of the delegates have obviously formed a definite opinion about the matter under discussion, and in the second place, organisational questions, in the sense of questions of national and district organisation, have not been gone into in our publications. True, there has been a fierce polemic on the matter, but essentially nothing was said in it. Let me briefly recall the history of this question. On the basis of the Manifesto of 1898, the Bund entered the RSDLP in accordance with the principle of autonomy. As we know, soon after the 1898 congress the Russian Party ceased to exist legally, and so the organisational relations between the sections of the Party were determined in an absolutely casual way. The different sections acted independently of each other. And, juridically speaking, no forms of relationship between the Bund and the other Party organisations were ever laid down. Then, at the Fourth Congress of the Bund the question was raised of giving proper form to these relations—the question of the principles on which the Russian Party should be organised. A resolution which you know about was adopted dealing with this question. At the Fifth Congress of the Bund, held not long ago^[13]—a report on which we have not yet been able to give, owing to he non-adoption of the agenda we suggested—this question of the position of the Bund in the Party came up for discussion again, and the congress drew up an agreement, which I will now proceed to explain.

The Manifesto of 1898 laid down the principles governing Party organisation and the relation of the Bund to this. But no formal expression was given to these principles. And now, when we bring forward a set of rules worked out by the Fifth Congress of the Bund, we are not introducing changes, but merely proposing rules* which constitute a realisation and a further logical development of the principles of the Manifesto of the First Party Congress. We do not agree with the expression ‘autonomy’, because it is indefinite, and it can cover a variety of contents. But we do not advocate the term ‘federation’ either, for this is also too vague. And in fact, if we analyse the point in the Manifesto of the First Congress concerning the Bund (the Bund is an autonomous section of the All-Russia Party) we come to the conclusion that a different, much wider content is given to the concept of ‘autonomy’ by the Polish Socialist Party when it demands this of the German Social-Democratic Party.

Article 1. The position of the Bund in the Party is defined by the following points.

Article 2. The Bund is the Social-Democratic organisation of the Jewish proletariat, not restricted in its activity by any geographical limits, and it enters the Party as the sole representative of the Jewish proletariat.

Article 3. To the Central Committee of the Party, the Foreign Committee of the Party and the Party congresses the Bund elects its own representation to express itself as such on those questions which fall within the competence of the congresses of the Bund. The mode of representation of the Bund must be based on principles which are identical for all sections constituting the Party.

Note. Local and district organisations are to be treated for this purpose as separate sections.

Competente of the Bund

Article 4. The programme of the Bund is the programme common to the whole Party, which it has the right to supplement for itself on questions arising from the special position of the Jewish proletariat in Russia and the interrelation of social forces within the Jewish nation, with special points which do not run counter to the common Party programme.

Article 5. The Bund holds its own congresses, to decide all questions specially concerning the Jewish proletariat, and has its own Central Committee.

Artide 6. The Bund has the right to decide, being guided by the Party programme, those general questions on which no resolutions have been presented at Party congresses. These decisions have temporary force, until general Party congresses take decisions on the questions concerned.

Article 7. The Bund has freedom to settle the affairs of its own organisation. Article 8. The Bund has the right to unhindered publication, both in Yiddish and in other languages. The Bund has the right to address itself to the proletariat of other nationalities only with the assent of the organs of the corresponding sections of the Party, and to the proletariat of the whole country only with the assent of the Central Committee of the Party.

Note. Other sections of the Party have the right to address the Jewish proletariat only with the assent of the Central Committee of the Bund.

Article 9. (a) The Bund has the right to enter into temporary agreements for practical undertakings with revolutionary organisations which do not belong to the Party, and no special ban on agreements with which has been imposed by Party congress or by the Party’s Central Committee. The Central Committee of the Bund is to inform the Party’s Central Committee of every such agreement. The publication of joint statements with non-Social-Democratic organisations is not permitted. (b) With special permission from the Party’s Central Committee, the Bund has the right to enter into regular agreements with Social-Democratic organisations not belonging to the Party, for joint fulfilment of certain aspects of revolutionary work.

Article 10. The Party Congress has the right to cancel all decisions made by congresses of the Bund except decisions taken on the precise basis of the present constitution. If the Party’s Central Committee regards any action by the CC of the Bund as being in contradiction to decisions taken by the general congresses of the Party, it has the right to demand explanations.

Artide 11. In case of necessity the CC of the Party has the right to deal directly with particular sections of the Bund, but only with the assent of the CC of the Bund. The way in which such dealings are to be effected will be decided in each particular case by the CC of the Bund.

Article 12. All these points are to be considered as fundamental and can be changed, added to or cancelled only by mutual agreement between the sections of the Party.

Note. Local and district organisations are not to be counted as sections of the Party for this purpose.

The point in the Manifesto of the First Congress relating to the Bund is also unclear in that it does not answer the questions: in relation to whom is the organisation autonomous, who is autonomous, and autonomous on what questions?

If the organisation of the Jewish proletariat is autonomous in relation to the Party, that is, to its central organs, then this autonomy should apply to every section of the Party which also enjoys autonomy in its district affairs. In order to answer the second question (who is autonomous?) the sphere of activity of the Bund should have been defined. This was not done. And on this matter two propositions are possible: (1) some have said that the Bund should become a territorial organisation; (2) others have said that the Bund should work among the Jewish proletariat everywhere.

First and foremost, the question arises, why do we need to have an organisation for the Jewish proletariat? It could be justified, in the first place, by those particularly harsh legal conditions under which the entire Jewish proletariat lives, regardless of the language it speaks; secondly, by the fact that the relation of social forces in the Jewish nation is quite distinctive, in that, for example, there are no nobles, no landowners, and no peasants in it. And for this reason any notion of transforming the Bund into a territorial organisation (not to speak of the fact that we are in general against territorial organisations, since they lead to decentralisation) renders it pointless.

To base the need for a special organisation of the Jewish proletariat upon language is unthinkable. For in that case why should the Bund be autonomous? The question of language is a technical one, and it would be simple to set up a technical commission to deal with it.

Consequently, the sole condition determining the autonomous status of the Bund is the limits of the Jewish proletariat as such, taken as a whole. And we think that, in the Party, the Bund should occupy the position of representative of the Jewish proletariat. By this, however, we do not mean to say that other Social-Democratic organisations are not to work among the Jewish proletariat.

The question arises whether it is possible to delimit the range of questions in relation to which the organisation is to be autonomous. According to the Manifesto of the First Congress, ‘the Bund is an organisation possessing autonomy in relation to questions concerning the Jewish proletariat’. What are these questions? Let us take, for example, the question of the legal position of the Jewish proletariat. Is this question not closely bound up with other political questions? And since this is so, then one of two possibilities exists: either the Bund is really autonomous, that is, it has complete freedom to discuss all questions, or the Central Committee is to take a highly rigorist line towards the Bund, confining its freedom within narrow bounds.

Here another question also arises: is the congress of the Bund the highest instance where questions concerning the Jewish proletariat are involved? To this question we answer ‘no’. The Bund must possess competence on all questions, but there will be a higher institution checking on it.

The usual reply to this is that, if this is so, then why have an independent organisation for the Jewish proletariat? But those who ask that question forget that the Jewish proletariat is very much more strongly interested in the struggle against the exceptional restrictions which are imposed upon it than the rest of the proletariat is, and for this reason it is also a more active fighter against this oppression.

And so, by virtue of all the considerations mentioned, we do not find it possible to organise the Party on the principle of autonomy. What should be the relations between the different sections of the Party? I say that they should be based on the principle of federation. One section of the Party should represent the totality of the Russian committees, while the other should be the Bund, organised as a separate Union. It is usually objected that these two sections are unequal, incommensurable, and so their unification on federal principles would be extremely difficult to arrange. In Austria, however, it has been found quite feasible to form a federal union of national Social-Democratic organisations on principles of equality. On grounds of principle we too could demand the same.

Our opponents think that federation and decentralisation are synonymous. This is not so. In our view there is no higher form of centralisation than federation. And it is quite untrue that autonomy is a more centralistic form than federation. The proletariat of a particular nation has a tendency towards centralism only when it looks to the centre for the solution of all its problems and, in particular, of its national needs. By building an autonomous organisation on the principle of separating these national needs from the centre, we thereby not only do away with its centralistic tendency but also divert it from those strivings which are common to the proletariat as a whole, and focus its attention on narrowly national questions and its own organisation. Such a separation of general questions from national ones is harmful. Federal organisation does away with this distinction and is therefore the best way of ensuring centralisation.

Lieber then proceeded to read the more detailed argument for the rules which had been drawn up by the Fifth Congress of the Bund.

Martov (co-rapporteur) : After the report we have just heard no-one can be in any doubt that the congress acted very wisely in putting the question of the Bund at the top of the agenda. As we have seen, there is a section of the Party which talks in terms of a treaty between two independent organisations—Jewish and non- Jewish. Formulating it like this is, in my view, much more precise than talking about mutual relations between different national organisations. The Fifth Congress of the Bund also engaged in drawing up a draft treaty between the Jewish proletariat and the rest of the proletariat of Russia. For the representatives of the Bund the present congress is, evidently, a constituent congress. And yet no longer ago than yesterday, when the matter before us was that of inviting the Polish comrades, they insisted that this was not a constituent congress but an ordinary one. I say that the representatives of the Bund see the present congress as a constituent one, because they talk of a treaty between two sections of the Party, of which there can be no question at an ordinary congress, where only union with other parties can be discussed, but not a treaty between sections of the Party itself. Until lately the Bund was a section of the Party, and evidently regarded itself as such, since it took part in the Organising Committee, which recognised that the congress was an ordinary one and constituted a congress not of separate national organisations but of sections of the Party. Comrade Lieber said: ‘We are not introducing changes but merely proposing rules. The First Party congress merely laid down the principle governing the relation between the Bund and the All-Russia Party, and now we are for the first time formulating rules.’ That is true, and I am not going to deny it; but these rules which have been presented to us turn upside down the basis of Party organisation established by the 1898 congress. In the Manifesto of the First Congress it is quite precisely laid down that the organisations whose representatives were present there merged into a single organisation. The autonomy which was given to the Bund at the First Congress was not an exception, since such autonomy was given to all the committees, though within narrower limits.

The Fourth Congress of the Bund passed the resolution which we know. [See Appendix IV But this resolution did not contain the word ‘future’, which Comrade Lieber added when he quoted it. This word made its appearance only in 1903. In the letter from the Central Committee of the Bund to Iskra it was explained that the Bund intended presenting to the Party Congress this resolution about a federal structure for the Party. But when the question of convening the Congress became a practical one, the Bund comrades assembled in a Fifth Congress, re-worked the resolution of their Fourth Congress, and now talk to us about a treaty—that was the expression used by Comrade Lieber. And when we discussed the agenda, it was precisely on the question of the Bund that the comrades from the Bund saw themselves not as a free negotiating party, not as a separate, independent organisation, but as a section of the Party, and on this basis objected to the placing of this question on its own at the head of the agenda.

I do not consider it possible for the congress to undertake to examine the draft treaty which has been presented to us, and on which no preliminary discussion through the Party’s organs has taken place.

And I will now show that the draft put before us is a treaty that we cannot and ought not to consider. Underlying this draft is the presupposition that the Jewish proletariat needs an independent political organisation to represent its national interests among the Social-Democrats of Russia. Independently of the question of organising the Party on the principle of federation or that of autonomy, we cannot allow that any section of the Party can represent the group, trade or national interests of any section of the proletariat. National differences play a subordinate role in relation to common class interests. What sort of organisation would we have if, for instance, in one and the same workshop, workers of different nationalities thought first and foremost of the representation of their national interests?

The particularly harsh legal conditions in which the Jewish proletariat has to live should not serve as a basis for separating it off; this fact can serve only as an argument for a wider degree of autonomy for the organisation which leads the struggle of the Jewish proletariat. However, wide autonomy has nothing in common with the principle of granting the right of representation to national organisations.

The Bund’s situation is contradictory. But this does not compromise either the Bund or the Russian Party, since the contradiction was the result of a number of unfortunate historical circumstances. And this abnormal situation cannot be eliminated by means of one heroic resolution. We are well aware of this, but precisely for that reason we must not shut our eyes to this abnormal situation, we must not ignore it.

The notion that federation is the best means for ensuring centralisation, on which Comrade Lieber was so insistent, was not supported by any kind of proof. Comrade Lieber merely showed us that relations of autonomy can be and are abnormal.

I now turn to consider the Bund’s proposed rules. Let us take Article 2. What would become of us if the field of action of each organisation making up the Party was to be unrestricted by any limits? But, according to the proposal of those who composed this draft, the field of activity of the Bund is to be bounded only by the frontier of the Russian Empire. If that were permitted, the organisation of the Party would not even be federal in character.

Then, Article 3. It would have been more consistent to apply this norm to all sections of our Party. If it is inadmissible for the representatives of the Jewish proletariat to be over borne by the majority then, clearly, this is likewise inadmissible in the case of the Kiev, Petersburg or any other committee. Then it would be necessary for the Central Committee to be made up of representatives of all the organisations, and to be transformed into an institution very similar to the Polish Sejm, in which the veto of any one member could disqualify the Sejm from taking a particular decision.

Article 5 runs counter to all endeavours to centralise the Party. Making the CC of the Bund a barrier between the CC of the Party and local Party groups means bringing terrible disorganisation into the Party. And, again, consistency would require that this norm be applied to all sections of the Party. What would happen then?

Article 12 says very plainly that what we have before us is a treaty, since, if we accept these rules, we can only suggest modifications in them, which would have to be introduced by agreement with the Bund, but we are not allowed to delete any points.

These are the rules which have been put before us. And so, before proceeding to discuss them, before deciding on the relation of the Bund to the Party, we need to get an answer to this question: with whom are we dealing, with a section of the Party or with a free negotiating party which has offered us a treaty, in relation to which we too are a free negotiating party?

I will now explain the resolution I have presented. [Martov’s resolution: ‘Considering: (a) that the closest unity of the Jewish proletariat with the proletariat of those races amidst which it lives is absolutely necessary in the interests of its struggle for political and economic liberation: (b) that only such very close unity guarantees success for the Social-Democrats in the struggle against all forms of chauvinism and anti-semitism; and (c) that such unity in no way rules out independence for the Jewish workers’ movement in all matters concerned with special tasks of agitation among the Jewish population which arise from differences in language and living conditions—the Second Congress of the RSDLP expresses its profound conviction that restructuring the organisational relations between the Jewish proletariat and the Russian proletariat on federal lines would constitute a substantial obstacle in the way of fuller organisational rapprochement between conscious proletarians of different races, and would inevitably do enormous harm to the interests of the proletariat generally and of the Jewish proletariat of Russia in particular; and, therefore, emphatically rejecting as absolutely inadmissible in principle any possibility of federal relations between the RSDLP and the Bund, as a component section of the Party, the congress resolves that the Bund occupies, within the united RSDLP, the position of an autonomous component, the limits to its autonomy to be defined when the general Party rules are elaborated. In view of the above, the congress, regarding the “Rules” proposed by the Bund delegates as a draft for a section of the general Party rules, defers discussion of the draft until Point 6 of the agenda, and proceeds to next business.’] In the first point we stress that the solution of all political and social questions is possible only if we have the closest unity of the entire proletariat. In the second point we repeat what was said at the international congress in Brussels in 1891. In the third point it is stated that a certain degree of independence for the organisation of the Jewish proletariat is in no way excluded. But the widening of the autonomy of the Bund is motivated not by national demands but merely by the conveniences of revolutionary agitation. Finally, we say in conclusion that we reject any attempt to restructure the Party on federal principles, as erecting an obstacle to further rapprochement between the Jewish and the Russian proletariats.

Trotsky: I think it not without value to add to the resolution moved by Comrade Martov that this resolution is signed by Jewish comrades who, working in the All-Russia Party, have considered and consider themselves also to be representatives of the Jewish proletariat.^[14]

Lieber: Among whom they have never worked.

Trotsky: I request that both my statement and Comrade Lieber’s exclamation be entered in the minutes.

Lieber: I ask that it be recorded in the minutes that the chairman did not stop Comrade Trotsky when by his statement he committed a gross piece of tactlessness.

Chairman: No special entry in the minutes is called for, since it will be obvious from them anyway that I did not stop Comrade Trotsky.

Lieber: I insist on this being entered in the minutes.

Chairman: Then be so good as to submit your statement in writing to the Bureau.

Lieber presented a statement which read as follows. ‘I take note that the chairman did not stop Comrade Trotsky when he mentioned that the persons who introduced the resolution belonged to the Jewish nationality, thereby committing a gross violation of tact and turning the entire dispute on this question into a matter of national passions.’

[Recess.]

Chairman: Before continuing with the session I must give the Congress an explanation. I have already had the honour to bring it to the notice of Comrade Lieber that the chairman must indeed check a speaker when the latter makes a tactless observation. But the judge in these cases is the chairman himself, and not any individual member of the assembly. As chairman, I saw nothing tactless in Comrade Trotsky’s statement. What was tactless in it? The fact that he mentioned his own Jewish origin, or the fact that, having mentioned this, he said that he regarded himself as a representative of the Jewish proletariat too? As for making the dispute a matter of national passions, if this innocent statement by Comrade Trotsky can stir national passions, then it is clear that these passions are very close to constituting national fanaticism.

And I had no right to presume the-existence of national fanaticism in any of those present here. But since, through the insistence of Comrade Lieber, I see that my conduct has met with disapproval, I submit this matter to the congress, for discussion, and for my part I propose that it express to the presidium that confidence without which it is impossible for us to continue in session.

Akimov: said that there was no reason to create an incident, and that Comrade Lieber’s statement should be treated as a private comment.

Stein: I do not think Trotsky’s remark was gross tactlessness. It was merely out of place .. .

Chairman: We are not discussing Comrade Trotsky’s remark, but the question of confidence in the presidium.

Lieber: My statement relates not to the conduct of the chairman but to the question whether Comrade Trotsky’s statement was tactless or not.

Akimov moved the following resolution: ‘Having heard Comrade L ieber’s comment on Comrade Trotsky’s speech, and the Chairman’s explanation, the congress passes to next business.’

Lange and Muravyov moved the following resolution: ‘In connection with Comrade Lieber’s statement, the congress votes its confidence in the Bureau and passes to next business.’

Both resolutions were voted on. Comrade Akimov’s resolution was rejected. The resolution moved by Comrades Lange and Muravyov was passed, all the delegates voting for it except five who abstained.

The session was closed.

Fifth Session[edit source]

(42 delegates with 51 deciding votes present, and 8 with consultative votes.)

The minutes of the second session were read and confirmed. The debate on Point 2 of the agenda was then resumed.

Karsky:^[15] Lack of time prevents me from dealing with several points in Comrade Lieber’s report to which I should have liked to offer objections. I shall speak only about the following propositions put forward by the comrades from the Bund.

The Bund seeks not only to be the representative of that section of the Jewish proletariat which lives in a particular part of the country and speaks Yiddish, but to be the sole representative of the entire Jewish proletariat, as such and as a whole. Thus, the field of activity of the Bund is to be: everywhere that a worker is living who belongs to the Jewish nationality. This is the fundamental proposition advanced and upheld by the Bund. This is a nationalist attitude, not a socialist one. The Bund does not base itself on technical conditions and it takes no account of the fact that Jews live in different parts of Russia, that large country, and speak different languages. No, all that is without importance for the Bund. The question is settled so far as the Bund is concerned by the mere fact that a section of the proletariat belongs to the Jewish nationality. I am reminded of the utopian project of a certain Armenian who proposed to unite in a single Armenian Social-Democratic Party the Armenian proletariat living in America, in Caucasia, in Turkey, in Persia, and so on. This Armenian was a consistent socialist-nationalist, but in the case of the Bund we cannot observe such consistency.

I am amazed at the Bund’s demand to establish a sort of state within the state. After all, we Georgians, Armenians and so on do not demand special Georgian, Armenian, etc., organisations, and yet this does not prevent us from working in the RSDLP, and working successfully, as recent history shows: we are thoroughly uprooting all national prejudices in Caucasia.

Rusov: It is my lot to work in one of the outlying areas where conditions in respect of variety in the racial composition of the population are similar to those in which the Bund works. I mention with pleasure the fact that in our area no organisational separatism exists, whatsoever, such as the Bund has displayed so strongly in recent times. In all of our towns there are Party Committees, working in several languages—three, so far (Russian, Georgian, and Armenian), and where necessary also in a fourth (Tatar).^[16] And yet no inconveniences have resulted from this, and the progress of the movement in Caucasia has not been hindered by it. It seems to me that the tendency which is now predominant in the Bund has nothing in common with socialism. The existence of a special Jewish organisation in the Party of the proletariat, mistakenly permitted by the First Congress, and which had, perhaps, some historical justification, has led to very undesirable results. Without denying the services rendered by the Bund in organising the Jewish proletariat, I find it a serious omission on the part of the Party that there are still no Party committees in the West working in all languages. And this situation which exists today has for its sole explanation the mistake made by the First Congress. Work is carried on there among the Jews, but the Poles, Lithuanians, Letts and Russians remain outside the sphere of Party agitation. That is an abnormal situation. I shall try to show that the resolution of the First Congress had no foundation, except, perhaps, an historical one—i.e., the fact that a strong Jewish organisation existed already before the unification of the Party. There can be two sorts of reasons for a separate organisation to exist: technical reasons (language, territory) and reasons of principle (different political tasks). Let us consider the first of these. In different places the Jewish population speak different languages (Polish, Georgian, Tatar) and so a single organisation for the Jewish proletariat is not needed. Finally, we know of organisations in which agitation is carried on in several languages. As regards reference to territory, this argument is repudiated by the Bund itself, as having no relevance to the case of the Jewish proletariat. So, then, it is not a question here of technical conditions.

Let us now consider the reasons of principle: the special legal position of Jews, antisemitism, the restrictive laws against the Jews—these are what are always quoted to us. But exceptional laws exist which apply not only to the Jews but also to other minorities in Russia. This exceptional situation as an oppressed nationality, which provides a great deal of material for agitation, does not serve as a sufficient reason for forming an independent organisation. I think that this is not enough for the establishment of a separate national organisation. If there are favourable conditions for political agitation, every keen and worthy revolutionary is duty bound to make use of these factors for agitation. If I were to find myself in the Pale of Settlement then I would, no less than the Bund, carry on agitation in which I would make use of the special legal position of the Jews. If we were to be guided by such considerations, we would have to form special organisations for the sectaries, for all the minorities, and so on, and this would contribute not to the unity of the Party but to its disintegration. Why, for example, can the Vilna Committee, working among all the proletarians of that town, like the committees in Caucasia, not carry on intense agitation on the basis of the special legal situation of the Jews? The whole proletariat of Russia is just as interested as the Jewish proletariat in abolishing the restrictive laws. That is why this demand is one which is common to the whole proletariat and not peculiar to the Jews. All the Russian comrades have hitherto always looked on the comrades from the Bund as good practical workers. I address myself to them as good practical workers: ought they not to admit that the existence in one and the same town of two different organisations, however closely these may be linked, must lead in time of struggle to undesirable delays and complications? The historical conditions call for quick decisions, but here they have to proceed by way of seeking agreement with each other. Finally, this has a harmful effect on propaganda, obscuring the class character of the struggle with a national element. [At this point Comrade Rusov was interrupted by the Chairman, as his time had run out, but the congress decided to let him continue.]

Another reason of principle for the existence of a special organisation of the Jewish proletariat showed through in the speech by the comrade rapporteur. He kept talking of the Bund as the representative of the Jewish proletariat in the Party. Such special representation would have sense if we were to accept the notion that the interests of the Jewish proletariat are, even if only on one point, in contradiction with those of the proletarians of the other nationalities of Russia. I think that there is no such contradiction, and there can be none, provided that we are speaking from a class standpoint and not a national one. I consider that every Party member is a representative of the entire proletariat of all Russia. If we are to recognise each delegate as being a representative of a national group of the proletariat, then I shall have to regard myself as representing the Russian, Georgian, Armenian, Tatar and Jewish proletariat living in Caucasia; but I willingly renounce this long title in favour of the flattering description of ‘representative of the proletariat of all Russia’. As is clear from all that I have said, I stand for the type of organisation by which in every town and in every district there would be a single Party organisation, carrying on agitation in whatever languages are required. But, taking account of the historical conditions which have brought about the special position of the Bund, I am obliged to give my support to Comrade Martov’s resolution. [Applause.]

Kostich: Proceeding (1) from the point in the resolution of the Fourth Congress of the Bund that ‘the congress considers that the concept of nationality applies to the Jewish people as well’ and (2) from the idea that Jewish national culture can develop freely only in a state constructed on principles of national autonomy, the Bund considers that the latter can be achieved only if it stands in a federal relationship with the RSDLP. Without touching on the question of the national culture of the Jews (though I see this in quite a different light from the Bund), I think that achievement of the essentials of the Bund’s demand can be fully expressed in a political structure which guarantees all those rights which are mentioned in Iskra ’s draft programme. These essentials will not be obtained by the Bund through a federal relationship with the Party, but only if there is no federalism, only if the Bund is completely united with the RSDLP. In my view, the Bund can regard itself, in accordance with the common program-me, as the sole bearer of freedom for the Jewish proletariat from the specific oppression it suffers only if the following three practical considerations are present. Let us suppose that this revolutionary Social-Democratic movement fails to fight seriously for certain demands in its programme, that it fails to summon the proletariat with all its strength to fight for these demands. Given a situation like that, revolutionary Social-Democracy would not be fully conscious, and then the Bund ought not to stand aloof from it, but rather ought to merge as closely as possible with it, striving to raise it to the high level of class consciousness on which the Bund itself stands. Not federation, but unity.

It could be that though we summon the workers to fight for these demands, they are accepted so reluctantly by the non-Jewish masses of the workers, the latter are so remote from these demands, that the democratic constitution which we establish is deficient precisely in relation to these demands. But federation will not cure this evil, it will only increase it, by isolating the non-Jews from the Jews and estranging them from one another through the specific Bundist agitation which is the basis of federation. Only complete unity makes it possible for the class consciousness of the proletariat to develop in this respect.

There remains the last of these imaginary situations. Both the revolutionary Social-Democrats and the proletariat led by them fight with all their strength for the demands set out above, but they do not succeed in winning them. However, I think that the Bundists’ scheme of federation is not likely to win them.

I mentioned earlier the harm done to the cause of the development of the class-consciousness of the proletariat by the Bundist agitation, in that it is inseparably connected with the federal principle which the Bund advocates. I have been able to see evidence of this harm in Odessa, where a Bundist organisation was set up a few months ago. The Bund justified its establishment by claiming that the Odessa Committee was not meeting the demands of the Jewish workers’ movement. The Bund conceived these demands in a special sense, not in the spirit of the Manifesto of the First Congress, since the Odessa Committee had been up to that time carrying on an intense agitation, along those lines, among the Jews. Indeed, only two years ago the Odessa Committee was being reproached for giving its exclusive attention to work among the Jews. The Bundist group appeared and its agitation soon assumed the form of asserting ‘we Jews must rely on our own strength, unite in a Jewish organisation’, and so on. This type of agitation will be inevitable if there is federation, and it is, in my opinion and in that of the comrade agitators, both Jews and non-Jews, something which runs counter to the only sort of agitation which Social-Democrats should carry on where the national question is concerned: there is ‘neither Jew nor Greek’ in the revolutionary Social-Democratic movement. Holding this view, I wholeheartedly support Martov’s resolution. As regards the incident with Trotsky, I consider the latter’s statement entirely pertinent, since I have often had it said to me when I have voiced my idea about the harmfulness of federation: ‘you are not a Jew’, and so forth. A similar attitude towards opponents of the federal principle is also apparent in the pamphlet: On the Question of National Autonomy.^[17]

Lange: After Comrade Martov’s detailed speech and what previous speakers have said, I have not much to say. I only want to point out the attitude which is adopted by certain Jewish groups among the workers towards the proletariat of other nationalities and towards the Social-Democrats working in the Bund’s area. I have had some experience of this attitude, acquired in various localities of North Russia. What I have noticed is that there are groups of Jewish workers, among whom we almost always find Bundist workers in leading positions, who take up a very special attitude, showing little interest in anything that goes on among the proletariat of other nationalities. Social-Democratic workers always have considerable difficulty in seeking them out and making contact with them, and always need to struggle hard and long in order to draw them out of their state of national isolation. Significant here is, undoubtedly, the bias which the leaders of these groups, former Bundists, have acquired under the influence of the education they received when they were in the Bund. It is obvious that such consequences of Bundist education (resulting from the fundamentals of their party rules) cannot facilitate the cause of the victory of the proletariat (either Russian or Jewish) over its common foe. Besides, I am not clear whether the committee in a place where a small group of Jewish workers of this sort exists has the right to enter into dealings with them and give leadership to them without the knowledge of the Central Committee of the Bund. From the point in the rules of the Bund’s Fifth Congress which was read to us here by Comrade Lieber it follows that the committee does not have this right, though that contradicts all the fundamentals of our programme, and ordinary common sense into the bargain. So long as the Bund is unwilling to treat the national question as secondary, friction is inevitable.

Martynov: We Social-Democrats must be guided by the principle set forth in the Communist Manifesto : ‘In the struggles of the proletarians of the different countries, the Communists single out and fight for the common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality.’ The Bund, judging by the draft rules which have been presented to us, ‘singles out and fights for’ the national interests of a particular proletariat. It works for the national isolation of the Jewish proletariat. I shall not spend a long time proving the truth of this statement, but merely refer to the places in their draft in which it is plainly revealed. [Reads passages from Articles 2, 3, 10, 11 and 12 of the Bund resolution.] Given the fact that this is the character of the Bund’s proposed rules, I fully concur with the resolution moved by Comrade Martov; but I regard it as inadequate. We must combat the Bund’s harmful tendency towards national isolation of the Jewish proletariat, but we are not against the Bund in general. We value its great historical services and do not wish to break up this force which has been shaped by history—we only want to subordinate it to the Party. This ought to be said in the resolution.

Abramson: The comrade from Odessa described the activity of the Bund to us in strange and ‘fearful’ form. We Bundists were said to bring discord everywhere, to be separatists, nationalists, and so on. In support of his statements he quoted to us various anecdotes about Bundist agitators making some dreadful speeches at certain meetings, and then referred to his private conversations with certain Bundists. In so far as he thought it necessary to operate at this congress with ‘facts’ of that order, it is not worth my replying to him. Really to define the role played by the Bund it would be necessary to go into its history, into the history of the All-Russia revolutionary Social-Democratic movement, of which the comrade from Odessa has only a very vague notion. I am not going to expound our history here, except to recall such well-known facts as the participation of the Bund in the convening of the First Congress of the RSDLP and in the last Party Conference, which was held last year, and which gave us the idea of the Organising Committee.

The Bund is accused of preaching distrust of the non-Jewish proletariat. This charge is based on the fact that it organises the Jewish proletariat separately. In this connection, one comrade here described as a ‘regrettable mistake’ the fact that at the Party’s First Congress the Bund was given autonomous status. It is unnecessary to answer such a charge.

Comrade Martov said that the very formation of the Bund arose from abnormal conditions. From this we can conclude that now, when conditions have become normal, the Bund has lost its raison d’être. I would ask Comrade Martov to explain what criterion he uses to define normal historical conditions. Does he consider that even today, for instance, we are living in normal conditions?

Some speakers objected to Article 2 of our rules that it excludes the possibility of anyone apart from the Bund working among the Jewish proletariat. This view is based on a misunderstanding. In demanding that the Bund be the sole representative of the Jewish proletariat in the Party we are not in the least saying that nobody else shall dare to work among the Jewish workers. We merely lay it down that the Bund is the only organisation which works exclusively among the Jewish proletariat, and therefore it must be recognised as possessing the right to be the sole representative of the Jewish proletariat. Comrade Martov, after analysing all the points in our rules, came to the conclusion that what showed through them all was the concept of a treaty, and he would not accept this. My comrade in our delegation has already said, and I now repeat this, that we are putting the rules before you not as an ultimatum but as a basis for discussion, point by point—a discussion in the course of which some points may be modified at this congress.

Lyadov (giving an illustration of the Bund’s tactics): At a meeting held in Berlin for the purpose of protesting against the events in Kishinev, the members of the Bund who were present tried to turn this meeting for common protest into an exclusively Jewish occasion.

Rusov: I take the floor to defend myself against certain attacks made by the comrades from the Bund. Neither I nor any of the comrades who have spoken referred to the Bund as a harmful organisation, and nobody sought to belittle the importance of the Bund in the Party. I merely pointed to an undesirable consequence that has followed from the decision of the First Congress: instead of having, in the West of Russia, organisations of a single Party, working in all the local languages, we have propaganda carried on exclusively in Yiddish. That is what I regard as an abnormal thing—and that alone. Moreover, the fact that a Bundist committee was formed in Odessa confirmed my idea that organisational separatism exists: the Bund established a committee of its own in Odessa on the grounds that the local Party committee does not satisfy the requirements of the Jewish proletariat, that is, it does not carry on sufficient agitation and propaganda among the Jewish masses. The natural conclusion to draw from this situation would have been to ask the local committee to admit to its ranks a group of one’s own energetic workers. That is an approach very different from setting up a committee of one’s own. The comrade from the Bund said that it is not that the Russian comrades have anything against work among the Jews, but that ‘in actual fact they cannot do it’. I think this is quite untrue. To carry on our Party work it is necessary, first, to be a Social-Democrat, and, secondly, to know the local language, or, if one doesn’t know it, to have an interpreter. And for this there is no need for any special national organisation to exist. I find that the existence of the Bund has given rise to separatism. The strength of the Bund does not give it the right to live exclusively for the Jewish proletariat. I would ask the comrade from the Bund to explain to me why it is possible in Caucasia for Russian comrades and comrades of other nationalities to work together in a single organisation. Our Central Committee is not, according to the Bund’s rules, to be the supreme institution: in it the opinions of members of various organisations, and not simply of Party members, are to be represented. Among the Bundists there are experienced practical workers who can enter the Central Committee—not, though, as members of the Bund, but as experienced revolutionaries. The place of a central organ is to be taken, according to the Bund’s rule, by a federal parliament.

Orlov: In complete agreement with what the comrade from Baku has said, I want to mention the harmful consequences that have resulted from the Bund’s attempts to set up its own committees in South Russia. As an example I will take a case of this kind which occurred fairly recently in Yekaterinoslav. In that town, as you know, agitation and propaganda have long been carried on among the Jewish craftsmen. So far back as 1896 planned activity in that direction is recorded. During the whole of this period we know of no complaints and no expressions of discontent on the part of the Jewish proletariat regarding unsatisfactory defence of their interests or unsatisfactory conduct of agitation, in the sense of ignoring the legal oppression to which they are subject. The Jewish comrades have worked hand in hand with the Russians; together they have fought against exploitation by capital, together they have made their protest against the existing order, against political tyranny. Community of interests and the same state of economic dependence have been the bond linking the urban craftsmen with the factory proletariat. It never occurred to anyone that the Jewish proletariat had special interests which it did not share with the proletariat as a whole. I repeat, the committee never received any complaints on that score, and it seems that there was nothing for the Bund to do here, even following the resolution of its Fourth Congress. But our comrades from the Bund did not .see the matter in that light. A few months ago, a representative of the Bund arrived in Yekaterinoslav for the particular purpose of setting up a Bundist committee there. It must be mentioned that all this was done informally, but that has been the way with the Bund’s tactics in recent times: the ground is first prepared and then, when some organised group already exists, they emerge as a committee. It is understood that in Yekaterinoslav, as generally in the South of Russia, given the previously mentioned circumstances, agitation in favour of separating off the Jewish proletariat into a special organisation has to be carried on in the spirit of the existence of special interests of the Jewish proletariat which are to be defended by means of a sufficiently solid organisation consisting exclusively of Jewish workers.

This agitation aroused a storm of indignation among the advanced workers, both Jewish and non-Jewish: they pointed out that activity such as this would stir up distrust and national hatred between members of one and the same family; that this division of forces would lead to a weakening of the movement; that the Jewish workers had no special interests, and so on. When I was present at a mass meeting of workers I had to reply to the question why a separate organisation for the Jews was needed. After all, the workers said, we have worked together for a long time without feeling any inconvenience, but only benefit, from doing so, and now suddenly it is said that we must split up, the Jews being organised separately from the non-Jews. Why is this necessary? Why, in general, does the Bund exist? I was put in an awkward position: on the one hand, I knew the rules of 1898, by which the Bund had been given autonomy in relation to questions concerning the Jewish proletariat, that is, autonomy of a purely technical kind (questions of agitation and propaganda): this autonomy was conditioned by the fact that the Bund had to work among a proletariat speaking only Yiddish and living in distinctive circumstances. The title: ‘General Jewish Workers’ Union in Russia and Poland’ does not itself proclaim that the area of activity of this organisation is unlimited, since in it there is, for example, no mention of the principal area where the Bund is active, namely, Lithuania.^[18] Evidently, Lithuania is here embraced by the word ‘Russia’. On the other hand, Bundist Committees exist in the South of Russia. So, if were to explain the expediency and legitimacy of the existence of the Bund on the basis that it is a special organisation for work in Lithuania and Poland, then it could have no business in Russia. The entire Yekaterinoslav Committee was put in this embarrassing position. There was nothing to be done but to speak out sharply and openly against the separatist tendencies of the Bund and its national programme. A decision to this effect was taken at a meeting of the committee, where it was decided to hold mass meetings at which the question of nationalism and internationalism would be explained, and then a statement made regarding the national programme of the Bund and its principle of federation. Fortunately, for certain reasons we did not have to do this. I say ‘fortunately’, because the Bundists’ attempt suffered defeat without any need for this. The Yekaterinoslav comrades, it turned out, understood the interests of the Jewish proletariat better than the leaders of the Bund did.

Passing now to the question of the Bund’s place in the Party, I, of course, deny absolutely both the possibility of enlarging the field of activity of the Bund, without damage to the Party, and the need for this. But at the same time I dispute on general grounds the need for a separate Jewish organisation to exist. We know, after all, that the Bund has recently started to work also among workers of other nationalities Russians, Poles, Letts, and so on. To be logical, the Bund ought to have separated off these groups into special committees, since the Bund exists as an organisation for defending the interests of and representing the Jewish proletariat, according to its own claims. The existence of two committees would lead to everlasting disputes and disagreements which would weaken the movement of the proletariat of Russia. For us, as upholders of the idea of centralism, it is unnecessary to demonstrate the harm that can ensue from the existence in one town of two centres of leadership. In the light of all this I propose that a territorial union be set up in the area of Poland and Lithuania, which could be called the North-Western Union of the RSDLP’. The Bund would enter this territorial organisation as one of its sections. In every town we should have only one committee of this Union, which would work among the proletariat of all nationalities. This would give the work of our Party a planned character and would radically solve the so-called question of the Bund. It would also solve the question of our attitude to a possible unification with the Social-Democrats of Poland and Lithuania. The Social-Democratic movement of Poland and Lithuania would also enter this organisation, as a group working in the same territory. In thus explaining my view on the so-called question of the Bund, I have made it clear that I am sharply opposed to the rules presented by the Bund’s Fifth Congress, and I support Martov’s motion.

Brouckère: It seems to me that the ‘logical illogicality’ by virtue of which discussion of the place of the Bund in the Party was put at the head of our agenda has already made itself apparent. The congress decides that it cannot enter into any treaty with the Bund as a distinct ‘negotiating party’ and yet it discusses this treaty, and analyses it. On the other hand, though the Bund declares that its rules do not constitute a treaty put forward on behalf of one side, its proposal relates only to the Bund, as to a special section, differing from all other sections of the Party, and its rules are put forward as rules only for itself, only for the Bund. I cannot accept the federal principle of organisation, but if the Bund had put forward a general plan of Party organisation, and this had been marked by the democratic tendency with which the Bund’s own organisation is permeated, with the principle of representation of all districts of the Party, I should have supported it, for the lake of this tendency and this principle. The Bund cites, as its only argument for the need to organise the Jewish proletariat separately, the special character of the latter’s legal situation. I think that it is just this special legal situation that ought to make us seek the closest rapprochement between the Jewish proletariat and the proletariat of other nations. For the Jewish proletariat, which is specially oppressed in regard to its national interests, the need to assert its national rights has matured and, moreover, this is fully understood by it, and therefore joint work by this proletariat with the proletariat of other nations will help awareness of the need for social rights to grow among the latter as well.

Lieber: I note that what we are discussing here is the question whether an independent organisation of the Jewish proletariat is needed. A strange question has been raised—is the Bund needed at all? Such a question can be raised now, in the sixth year since the foundation of the Bund, after it has played such an outstanding role in the history of our Party, only by persons who have forgotten their kindred. [The chairman asks the speaker to calm down.] I am amazed to hear the history of the Bund described in such a way here. When the Bund arose the Jewish labour movement presented an impressive picture. A revolutionary wave swept over the whole area in which the Jewish proletariat lives. The Bund transformed pariahs into a huge revolutionary force, but our comrades did not see this. With bitterness I must say that the Government appreciated the results of our work better than our own comrades. Let them prove to us that the tactics of the Bund contradict the principles of international socialism. If we spoke in terms of a Party of the Jewish proletariat, we were not in such bad company. Rosa Luxemburg and the Vorstand^[19] of the German Social-Democratic Party also used the expression: ‘Party of the Polish Proletariat’. The comrade from Caucasia told us that the Bund is nationalistic because it seeks to organise separately the workers of one nationality. On the question of organisation Rosa Luxemburg proposes that the organisation of the Polish Social-Democrats should concern itself with all matters relating to all Polish workers living in Germany. The comrade from Caucasia is afraid that the Bund, in seeking to organise the Jewish proletariat, may not be confined by territorial limits and may soon even cross the borders of the Russian Empire. Oh, what a terrible thing that would be!

We are told that, wherever the Bund works, it works in a nationalistic way. How is it possible for the comrade from Caucasia to forget all the manifestations of solidarity shown by the Jewish proletariat? Finally, in some towns the Bund works even among Christians.

Trotsky: I listened with astonishment to Comrade Lieber’s statement that we wish to destroy the Bund. What does he mean? That we want to destroy those physical individuals who belong to the Bund organisation? That we want to destroy the fruitful work in developing the consciousness of the Jewish proletariat which the Bund is doing and which Comrade Lieber exphasised? Or that we want to ‘destroy’ the Bund only in the special form of its position in the Party?^[20]

The Bund, as the sole representative of the interests of the Jewish proletariat in the Party and before the Party—or the Bund as a special Party organisation for agitation and propaganda among the Jewish proletariat? That is how the question can be put. And, if one acknowledges the need for the Bund to exist independently in this second sense, it is possible for it to enter the Party as a subordinate organisation possessing a defined sphere of independence within the limits of the task assigned to it. In that case there can be no question of special safeguards for the Bund against encroachments by the Party. Yet it is Just safeguards that the Bund wants to establish. This is quite openly expressed in the celebrated Article 12 of the rules which have been put before us. It is nothing but distrust of the Party as a whole given the form of a rule. The constitution of our Party can, according to the project presented to us by the Bund comrades, be changed not in the usual way, by a vote of the majority, but by agreement between the interested parties so that, as the rapporteur put it, we would not be able at subsequent congresses to suppress the Bund, that is, ‘the interests of the Jewish proletariat’. If the Bund, lacking confidence in the Party, is by this embodiment of ‘the idea of a fourth estate’ demanding safeguards, that we can understand. But how can we put our signatures to this demand? It would mean restricting our freedom, and the freedom of our successors, to make decisions. And why? So as to prevent suppression of the legitimate interests of the Jewish proletariat by the Party, that is, in order to insure ourselves against committing an act of betrayal. To accept such conditions would mean that we acknowledged our own moral and political bankruptcy, it would mean committing moral and political suicide. The congress will not do that.

Comrade Martynov found Martov’s resolution inadequate, as it does not define the future position of the Bund. But that is not its task. Its only task is categorically to reject the treaty (federal) principle as the principle of Party organisation. Therefore, I support it. After rejecting federation we are left with the task of working out a form of existence for the Bund as a section within a united party. This we shall do when we discuss Party organisation. We reject the federal principle, although Comrade Lieber said in his first speech, and repeated in his second, that federation is the highest form of centralism. He produced no evidence for this on either occasion, and yet such evidence would not be superfluous. If I were to assert that the Romanov bureaucracy is the highest form of existence of republican liberties I should be uttering a paradox no greater than Comrade Lieber’s. Inside each of a set of federated organisations (parties) the principle of centralism can, of course, prevail. But a united, centralised party does, of course, mean that internal federalism is ruled out.

A few words regarding the incident caused by my statement this morning about Martov’s resolution. Comrade Stein said that my statement was ‘out-of-place’, but he did not manage to explain why, as his own speech proved to be ‘out-of-place’ in the debate and was cut short by the chairman. Comrade Lieber called my statement a piece of gross tactlessness. What had I said? To the Bund’s claim to the role of sole representative of the Jewish proletariat I replied by pointing out that many comrades who have worked and are working among the Jewish workers do not belong to the Bund, and yet regard themselves as being, for all that, no less representatives of the Jewish proletariat, as a proletariat. I mentioned that these comrades are Jews. Why? So as to block the favourite argument of Bund publicists—a poverty-stricken argument—that opponents of the Bund’s position know nothing about the psychology of the ‘Jewish proletariat’. Where was the gross tactlessness in that?

But Comrade Lieber shouted out that these Jews have never worked among the Jewish proletariat. Does this mean that he was casting doubt on the correctness of what I had said? Of course not. Such a supposition would be too insulting to Comrade Lieber. One is left to assume that work among the Jewish proletariat which is not carried out under the supervision of the Bund is not classed as work by Comrade Lieber. I suggest that he himself elucidate this misunderstanding.

In reply to Comrade Lieber’s attacks on the agenda we have adopted I must say that I, on the contrary, consider that this agenda was the best possible. True, the question of ‘the place of the Bund in the Party’, put before us as the first point on the agenda, was necessarily complicated by historical allusions and discussions on programme and tactics. But this was not due to the agenda but to the very nature of the question. If we had postponed it till after our consideration of programme and tactics, the complications of this question would not have been eliminated. These complications would have affected all our work on programmatic, tactical and organisational questions in a concealed, and therefore illegitimate fashion. By settling the radical difference between us we are freeing our hands for our subsequent tasks.

To conclude. Where the Party is to confine the Bund to a definite area or to recognise it as an All-Russia organisation for propaganda and agitation in the Yiddish language, in either case the Bund must be a subordinate section of the Party, and not a ‘party to negotiations’. The rules, drawn up by the Fifth Congress of the Bund, which have been presented to us, have as their function, as a comrade neatly put it to me in conversation, to raise a wall between us and the Bund and strew the top of this wall with broken glass. The congress must speak out unanimously against the erection of this wall.

Muravyov: I fully agree with Comrade Trotsky that such statements as that ‘there is no higher form of centralisation than federation’ need to be not just uttered but proved. Also, I hope that Comrade Lieber is now quite clear about the difference between the concepts ‘autonomy’ and ‘federation’. In view of the fact that the question now awaiting decision by the congress amounts to the question ‘autonomy or federation?’ I think I should explain what I understand to be their respective meanings. Autonomy assumes that the several autonomous sections of a whole are absolutely subordinate to this whole. Contrariwise, the form of unity known as federation is characterised by the fact that the mutual relations between the sections composing it can be altered only by consent of all the several sections. It is time to start calling things by their right names. The draft treaty laid before us by the delegates of the Bund is in fact a plan for re-structuring the Party on federal principles. The congress’s mind is now, it seems to me, sufficiently made up for us, perhaps, to be able to take a vote on the question. The delegates of the Bund have up to now expressed themselves very inadequately and indefinitely on the presuppositions of principle which have moved them to defend the need for their ‘project’, and which have been analysed adequately only by their opponents. Thus, for example, we should very much like to know what Comrade Lieber meant by the words: ‘the relation of social forces in the Jewish nation is quantitatively different from what it is in other nationalities’. Again, according to the same speaker, the distinctive language spoken by the Jewish proletariat ‘facilitates technical work only, and autonomy is not needed for that’. Also left unanswered by the delegates of the Bund was the argument of their opponents that the exceptional position of the Jews with regard to their status as citizens of Russia cannot provide an argument for the Bund to be separated off, in a federal relationship with the Party. In exactly the same way, according to Comrade Lieber, the territorial conditions in which the Jewish proletariat live cannot provide a basis for a demand for autonomy, since from that point of view every local organisation ought to be as autonomous as the Bund. Finally, there is Comrade Lieber’s phrase that ‘there are no questions in the organisational sphere that would not affect the Jewish proletariat, and so it is autonomous in all organisational questions’—this phrase in particular because it was expressed in so general a form as to be meaningless. From what I have said it follows that it is very desirable that the delegates of the Bund should explain in detail their views on the question of federation, from the standpoint of principle.

Stepanov: Comrades, I have allowed myself to make use of my right to speak. But, as the comrade from Baku has said everything that can be said on this matter from the practical angle, it is left to me to give you just a few personal observations. I am a representative of the Kiev organisation and I have become convinced by personal experience of the damage caused by separating off the Jewish proletariat. In order to smooth over the effects of this separation, the Kiev Committee has recently taken a number of measures to unite the craftsmen’s organisations, which consist of Jews, with the factory organisations, which are purely Russian. The stumbling block in the way of such unification was interference by the Bund. The Bund thought it necessary to interfere because, they said, the Kiev Committee was not giving satisfaction to the needs of the Jewish proletariat.

This was clearly conveyed by the representative whom the Central Committee of the Bund formally despatched to Kiev, and who was told by the Kiev Committee that the CC of the Bund was violating the decision of the First Party Congress. This decision says that the Bund cannot, as an independent organisation, carry on revolutionary work in localities where an organisation of the mixed variety already exists. This did not stop the representative of the CC of the Bund, and there is now an organisation of the Bund in Kiev—not formally, to be sure, but it does exist. What the results of its work may be I do not know, but I am profoundly convinced that it is doing harm. When the Russian workers learnt that a branch of the Bund had been opened, they were deeply angered by this demonstration of distrust towards the Russian comrades who are fighting alongside them against the common enemy, the Russian autocracy. And some Jewish workers, too, have reacted negatively to the establishment of an independent Jewish organisation. [Applause.]

Lvov: Comrades, we are still being accused of acting illogically in putting the question of the Bund at the head of the agenda. We are charged with having thereby transformed our congress into a constituent one. No, comrades from the Bund, it is you who have turned our ordinary congress into a constituent congress by presenting us with the draft treaty’ which we heard this morning. Why, you want to carry out a revolution in our Party! And it is not only thanks to the agenda we chose that we have learnt the intentions of the Bund so soon. In his heated speech, Comrade Lieber called us ‘people who have forgotten their kindred’. I protest most energetically against that! I myself worked in the Russian Social-Democratic organisations which prepared the First Party Congress, and I know very well what an honourable role was played by the Bund in the founding of our Party. And the overwhelming majority of the previous speakers have said the same. It is all the more instructive to compare the Bund’s previous role and place in the Party with what has happened since the famous Fourth Congress. Before then, the Bund was in the closest and liveliest relations, to the best of my knowledge, with many Southern organisations, rendering us many services in the sphere of transport and technique, and concentrating its activity in Lithuania and Byelorussia. As the Fourth Congress approached, and especially clearly after that Congress, when the Bund openly took the line of federalism, relations between us got worse. The Bund began to hold aloof from the Russian organisations, and began to the work independently in places where Russian Committees had already been formed. Disputes started breaking out everywhere. Thanks to the Bund, the gulf between Christians and Jews grew ever wider. That is what has happened to the Bund lately.

I think it is instructive to remember what happened as a result of the separatist policy of the Bund in Poland, its estrangement in Lithuania and Poland from the Polish and Lithuanian socialists. From the very beginning of the Bund the Polish Socialists called upon the Bundists to merge with the Polish organisation. The separatism of the Bund created favourable soil in Poland for continual squabbles and exacerbated relations between the Christian and Jewish workers. The same danger threatens us if the Bund fails to merge very closely with us. As representative of the Mining and Metallurgical Association I cannot refrain from mentioning, to supplement what the comrades from the South have said, that among us, although there are a fair number of Jewish craftsmen, the absence of a Bundist organisation has never hindered our work. On the contrary, relations between the factory workers and the Jewish craftsmen are very good. Our association carries on active propaganda among the craftsmen, and they render it great services. If the Bund were to appear, the craftsmen would all be shut up in their own little circles, and the work of common Social-Democratic agitation would suffer a serious setback. Comrade Lieber refers to Rosa Luxemburg. But references to Germany, with its constitutional system, where also the national unions of which Rosa Luxemburg speaks are frequently of a purely cultural nature, are quite unconvincing. We are in Russia, and it is unthinkable to compare our organisation so mechanically as this with those which exist in Europe. Comrade Lieber ended his speech with an emotional reminder of the great role played by the Bund in the work of uniting our Party. But for that very reason it is all the more painful to see what has happened now. The Caucasian comrades said that it is impossible to forgive the mistake we committed in giving the Bund such a privileged position in the Party. For my part, I say that it is impossible not to regret that our Russian organisation should have lagged in its development so far behind the growth of the Bund, thereby enabling the latter to move away from the Party and to develop pernicious tendencies within itself.

To the same extent as, at the end of the 1890’s, the Bund played the role of uniter in our Party, so now it is acting as a divisive force among us. The Bund is not uniting us, but dividing us. Today, comrades of the Bund, you have revealed your true face to us. All that remains is for me to thank you with all my heart for having at last put your cards on the table!

The session was closed.

Sixth Session[edit source]

(Present: 42 delegates with 51 deciding votes and 9 with consultative voice.)

Chairman: As the minutes are not ready yet, let us get on with the discussion without reading them. I call on Comrade Karsky.

Karsky: I begin my observations in chronological order. First, I want to answer Comrade Abramson, who assured us that the rules were being put before us only for discussion and not as an ultimatum. However, that what he is offering us is not offered as an ultimatum does not mean that what underlies it is not a nationalist point of view. Then, Comrade Lieber replied to me particularly sharply, even angrily, as though I had carelessly touched a sore spot. He quoted from Rosa Luxemburg, while himself attacking Martynov for quoting from the Communist Manifesto, and declared that ‘you won’t frighten us with quotations’. That’s right, you won’t frighten us with quotations. If Rosa Luxemburg did agree with the Bund’s project it would be a different matter, but I think her attitude to this would be a negative one. Comrade Lieber claimed that I said that ever since the Bund was formed it has been departing from the framework of Social-Democracy. But in fact I only said that it has been doing this in the last two years. We have been told that we belittle the importance of the Bund in the Social-Democratic movement. That is not so. We all respect the Bund’s activity, but the Bund is itself belittling its own importance by abandoning the principles of Social-Democracy.

Before examining Lieber’s arguments, I want to say a few words about Comrade Brouckère, who alleged that only the Bund fully understands the rights of nations, that the Jewish proletariat has become conscious of these rights, whereas the Russian proletariat has remained unconscious of them, and that this provides the Bund with a raison d’étre for independent existence. I don’t think the Bund will care to defend that position. Such a view assumes too low a level of consciousness on the part of the movement’s leaders. Let me repeat some propositions of Comrade Lieber’s. The Bund aspires to be the representative not merely of a territorially restricted proletariat but of the whole Jewish proletariat in general, and to be its sole representative. I cannot call this principle anything but nationalistic, since the Bund is guided in this case not by the general principles of Social-Democracy but merely by the fact that a proletariat belongs to a certain nation. The point of departure here is not language, or conditions of life, or level of consciousness, but the fact of belonging to the Jewish nationality, to the Jewish religion. This principle can be called nationalistic. It is strange that Lieber got angry when I described this principle in that way, instead of proving that it does not underlie the Bund’s rules. If he will bring forward a different principle, I will withdraw what I said. I recall that two years ago Lieber and I had occasion to speak against the Zionists, and he then attacked them for their nationalist principles. The Jewish nation is a fiction, he said. Yet now he puts forward a nationalistic principle as the basis of his programme.^[21] I move on to the question of how it will be possible to prevent the friction created by the parallel existence of two organisations; how, without friction, elements are to be drawn out of the general mass into each of these organisations. To do this it would be necessary to point to the existence of a difference of interests between the two proletariats. One cannot set up two committees without giving prominence to such a difference. Consequently, we create conditions that lead not towards unity but towards separation into a distinct party. On the other hand, we should be weakening the Party by detaching from it such a powerful element as the Jewish proletariat.

Bekov: Comrade Lieber said that the Bund’s opponents forget the services it has rendered, and even called us persons who had forgotten their kindred. I protest against this. Nobody forgets the Bund’s services. But that does not mean that we recognise as a great service also the proposal made yesterday by the Bund. Lieber will agree, I suppose, that Social-Democrats must strive towards the unification and merging of all organisations, and must not permit without extreme necessity the appearance of national organisations. In order to show that the Bund and other organisations can exist, or be born anew, one needs to show whether conditions exist for the birth of new organisations, and continued existence of old ones, of a national character. Here the idea has been put forward that the basis for the separate existence of the Bund as a national organisation is: (1) a different relationship of social forces and (2) different legal conditions. Lieber did not say much about the first point, merely mentioning the absence among the Jews of a peasantry and a nobility. But how does one get from that circumstance to the existence of a special national organisation? The second point was sufficiently dealt with yesterday. I would merely recall that every Social-Democratic movement fights against every form of oppression, and that applies also, therefore, to the Social-Democratic movement in Russia. Arguing for the separate existence of the Bund, Lieber yesterday defended the opposite position. The Bund, he said, agitates not only among the Jewish proletariat but also among workers of other nationalities. That is certainly a great merit—but why, then, put forward a point according to which no organisation is to be allowed to address the Jewish proletariat except with the consent of the Bund? Here the Bund is going counter to the demands of life, which have obliged the Bund itself to expand the field of its agitation. But then Comrade Lieber made a last attempt to justify his views on the need for national organisations to exist, making use of the method of analogy. It would be possible to restrict oneself to saying that an analogy is not a proof. Nevertheless, I say that the reference made to Rosa Luxemburg in this connection is quite misplaced. That the PPS^[22] did not agree with Rosa Luxemburg’s formulation is easily understood, but it is also no less understandable that Rosa Luxemburg wished by this formulation merely to take a step towards rapprochement with the PPS. Comrade Lieber surely does not doubt that Rosa Luxemburg, like every other Social-Democrat has as her ideal the merging of all national organisations into one strong united party. The same analogy could be made in relation to the Caucasian proletariat. I think, though, that the mere fact that a nationality exists is not enough to prove that it is right for a national organisation to be set up. And it must be said that the Union of Armenian Social-Democrats did not and does not exist: it was nothing but a signboard.

Abramson: I must make a factual correction to the speech delivered yesterday by the representative of the Mining and Metallurgical Workers. I will make several such corrections. The comrade representative of the Mining and Metallurgical Association, seeking to discredit the Bund and to illustrate that ‘divisive influence’ (his words) which the Bund allegedly exerts everywhere, mentioned the relations between the Bund and the PPS in Poland. But the facts of which he spoke tell a quite different story. The history of the relations between the Bund and the PPS is a history of struggle by the Bund against that party, a struggle which always encountered only sympathy in the ranks of our party. But even with the PPS the Bund tried to enter into temporary agreements for practical undertakings, as happened this year for the celebration of the First of May. Agreement was not achieved, because the PPS demanded that the Bund march in the demonstrations under the flag of the PPS and we could not accept that. As against the facts quoted by the representative of the Mining and Metallurgical Workers, we must point to our relations with the Polish Social-Democrats. While refusing to demonstrate alongside the PPS, we did demonstrate together with the Polish Social-Democrats. The story of our relations with the PPS serves as a lesson to all the Bund’s opponents, all who want to destroy it at any cost and who look with scorn upon the Bund [Protests.]

Chairman: I protest against Comrade Abramson’s statement and ask that my protest be recorded in the minutes.

Lenin: I think that what Comrade Lvov said was that the Bund talks about scorn for the Jewish proletariat. Comrade Abramson evidently took this as meaning scorn for the Bund. [Protest.]

Lenin: I ask that this be recorded in the minutes.

Abramson: I withdraw what I said.

Lenin: Let us look out for that when the minutes are read.

Abramson: Furthermore, in reply to the big talk by the representative of Yekaterinoslav about the Bundist organisations in that town, I state categorically that no such organisations have been formed in Yekaterinoslav. Whether we have the right to form them is another matter. I think we have that right. But we have not done anything of the sort. The comrade said that the Bund has set up some informal organisation, and he does not want to believe us. I have already replied to that. As for Karsky’s speech, which was besprinkled with the words ‘nationalism’, ‘bourgeois-ness’ … [Protests: ‘He said nothing about “bourgeois-ness"!’]

Abramson: (continuing): … it must be said that this comrade substitutes the word ‘nationalistic’ for the word ‘national’. For him it is enough that the proletariat of some nation has created its own organisation for it to have taken the path of nationalism. There is no need to prove the falsity of this view. Incidentally, about the Armenian Union. It doesn’t matter whether it exists or not. What matters is that it published a manifesto of the Union of Armenian Social-Democrats, and Iskra welcomed this new national union, and did not see in it either chauvinism or nationalism or any other such sins as Comrade Karsky bestows so generously on all national organisations.^[23] The question of how to prevent friction arising from the existence of two organisations can be asked only by persons who have, in general, a poor notion of what is involved in the existence side by side of different organisations. We have the examples of Riga, of Lodz, where organisations were set up among the German workers. The ‘friction’ in Kiev and Odessa proved nothing. It is only the legacy of abnormal general conditions. The other comrade from Caucasia said that the Bund itself has begun to work among Christians and yet at the same time demands restrictions on approaches to the Jews by other nationalities. But the point to which he referred does not say that. The Bund, too, has no right to approach the proletariat of other nationalities without the consent of the appropriate organisations—precisely so as to avoid friction.

Martynov: Yesterday’s discussion convinced me still more strongly of the soundness of what I said about Comrade Martov’s resolution. We have to fight against the Bund’s tendency towards national isolation, but in doing this we must not break up the real organised force which the Bund has created in the Western Territory. Abramson’s objections did not convince me. In Article 1 of the Bund’s draft it is said that the Bund enters the Party as the sole representative of the Jewish proletariat. I stress, ‘as the sole representative’, though Abramson put the emphasis on the words ‘enters the Party’. And this is not just a phrase. Concrete conclusions are drawn from it in the draft rules; in particular, that the CC of the Party has no right to address the Jewish proletariat without the consent of the CC of the Bund. I turn to the matter of representation—not in the sense that the Bund was to have a representative on the CC of the Party, but on the question of whose representative he is to be. He is to be the representative of the Jewish proletariat with regard to matters which are specially Jewish, in the capacity of a sort of consul, with a mandate to defend the interests of his state, and not like each of us, in the capacity of a representative of the Party at large. Here we see the tendency of the Bund to break up the unity of the Social-Democratic party. I have not yet spoken about the attempt to limit the freedom of the Party congress. I have no doubt about the separatist tendencies of the Bund, I regard them as harmful, and I propose that the congress declare itself against them. But, I repeat, we are not fighting against the Bund, as an organisation which is strong and which has historical services to its credit, and we want to preserve it. That this too ought to be said in the resolution was shown by the speech of the Yekaterinoslav comrades, who struck the Bund off the map of Russia’s Social-Democratic movement. That was a very fantastic proposal. As regards the Bund, it seems to me, we ought to pass Martov’s resolution with the addition that the Bund joins the Party …

Martov: It is already in the Party.

Martynov: Yes, but it ought to be subordinate to the general Party organisation. It is now in the Party in the form in which it was organised before its Fourth Congress, that is, before it began to introduce federalistic principles.

Martov: I want to say something about Martynov’s concluding words. I do not think we can vote on his proposal about the Bund’s entry into the Party. The Bund has already entered the Party. There is also no point in talking about our intention to preserve the Bund, since nobody has sought to destroy it, and a phrase about preserving the Bund could not serve to appease the Bundists, since it is clear that we have not been arguing about the abolition of the Bund. When one speaks about the abnormal position occupied by the Bund as a result of exceptional historical conditions, that does not mean that one is talking of abolishing it. Our relations with the Bund were expressed in the phrase about the difficulties which such a position would place in the way of the closest rapprochement with the Jewish proletariat. We hope that by further work we may succeed in working out new relations. This is a long way from proposing a mechanical alteration in what has been shaped by history. Moreover, we do not deny the services rendered by the Bund generally, and, in particular, in the matter of unification. It was just because of our memories of those days, the days of our First Congress, that we wanted to discuss our present relationship. The Bund’s Fifth Congress was held quite recently. Was it normal that at this congress, held before our Party congress, the opinion of the Russian comrades was not heard? After all, the Bund was represented in the OC. Did the OC know that a congress was being prepared at which it would be desirable for the views of the Russian comrades to be given a hearing? And in saying this I do not want to make a point of the fact that the comrade from the Bund forgot about the existence of the OC. I only want to show how it is that awkward situations have been created, as now with this proffering to us of a treaty. By rejecting this treaty we have put the Bundist comrades in an awkward situation. This would not have happened if they had acquainted themselves beforehand with the opinion of the Russian comrades on this question.

I will say nothing about other facts regarding the present policy of the Bund, which is so different from what it was in 1898. I express confidence that these discussions may remove the obstacles to a rapprochement between the Bund and the Russian Party. The comrades must have seen what our attitude is to separatism. I hope that in the future they will talk with us not as ‘contracting parties’ but as comrades. That is why I consider that the adoption of our resolution will summon us not to a worsening of relations but to the creation of a basis for mutual understanding and the ending of the ‘armed peace’ between us. To turn to some points of detail: Comrade Lieber quoted Rosa Luxemburg on the attitude of the German Vorstand to the Polish comrades. Why refer to Rosa Luxemburg’s views on Polish-German relations when you could have referred to her views, which are the same as ours, on Russo-Jewish relations? The abnormality of the conditions in which Polish-German relations are developing is quite different from the abnormality of the position of the Bund in the RSDLP. The analogy does not help at all. Then comrades made statements about the disadvantages to centralisation caused by the existence side by side of Bundist and Russian committees. In reply to this the comrades from the Bund asked why we did not mention Lodz, Riga, and so on. But there (in Lodz) the Bundists are working with the Polish Social-Democrats, which is hardly an argument in favour of such isolation. Quite the contrary. As regards Riga, there the so-called unity of three organisations has meant that the movement is at a standstill. Though uniting for particular acts of protest, in their day-to-day work they remain isolated. While the weak Lettish and Russian organisations work among the great mass of the proletariat, the well-established Jewish organisation, which has many capable organisers, stands aloof from the movement of the Russians and Letts, confining its activity exclusively to a handful of Jewish craftsmen, and only occasionally joins with the other two organisations for the joint issue of a proclamation. The results are the same as if there were three completely uncoordinated organisations.

Kostich: I do not understand why Comrade Abramson is surprised at what I said about specifically Bundist agitation. He himself said yesterday: ‘We do not reject the possibility of work by other groups among the Jews.’ He even mentioned that there had been cases when a Bundist group clashed with a Party committee in the course of its work. How does he conceive the Bund’s agitation in a case like that? With which organisation would Comrade Abramson suggest that a worker should side? I think he would answer: with the Bundist organisation. Very well, but what arguments would he advance in favour of this proposal? I think they would be the arguments which are set out in the pamphlet On National Autonomy, that is, he would resort to the kind of agitation which forms the basis for federation. And it is just these arguments that I consider absolutely detrimental to the development of class consciousness. But Comrade Abramson asked for facts, so here they are. I will quote two characteristic incidents. One, I think, is known to Comrade Abramson. It was fully reflected in the pages of Poslednie Izvestiya^[24]—the all too famous story of the shop-assistants. The other incident is the dispute that occurred, at a meeting of not very highly conscious workers, between a member of a Party-committee organisation and a Bundist. During this dispute the member of the Bundist organisation ured arguments which I cannot call anything but specifically Bundist and harmful. But Comrade Abramson, of course, does not see this harm. He even sees benefit, not only to the Jewish labour movement but also to the All-Russia labour movement. The committees can then devote all their forces to work among the Christians. And this argument is not new. Let us divide the work between us, say the Bundists: you will work among the Christians and we shall work among the Jews, and so on. But I answer: if you sincerely aim at growth of the revolutionary movement among the backward sections of the people, then you must place all your forces at the disposal of the united Party, which will use them for this purpose. Comrade Lieber! Don’t call us ‘people who have forgotten their kindred’. We do not forget our kinship with the Bund as it was before its Fourth Congress. But we cannot guarantee that we shall remember our kinship with the Bund after its Fourth Congress. Do not forget your kinship with the principles of revolutionary Social-Democracy!

Akimov: I want to say a few words about the reproof we have just heard. The brilliant organisation of the Bund has always supported, defended and implemented the principles of revolutionary Social-Democracy. It is ridiculous to instruct it in these principles. Some comrades have tried to analyse the reasons which have caused the question of the position of the Bund in the Party to come up, but it seems to me that they have failed to dot their i’s.

I think that all these reasons can be reduced to two: the national tasks of the Bund and its organisational tasks. The Jews constitute a distinct nation, sharply marked off from all other nations. They have survived for thousands of years, despite all persecutions, and have produced a large number of geniuses in all fields of knowledge and art. The Jewish proletariat represents the interests of the Jewish nation. Nobody has ever denied the role played by the proletariat in the life of a nation generally. In relation to national interests it must be said that no other class can so clearly express not only its own interests but also those of its nation.

The comrade from Caucasia said that the Jews lack certain estates, namely the nobility and the peasantry, and therefore they are not a nation, but I think this is untrue. There are classes among the Jews—a proletariat and a bourgeoisie. Among the Jewish bourgeoisie a nationalist movement has arisen, namely, Zionism. This comes forward as the defender of the interests of the whole Jewish community and may succeed in attracting to itself the less conscious section of the workers. Therefore, the party of the Jewish proletariat has to fight against its own bourgeoisie, and to show that even in the struggle for the national interests of the Jews the proletariat is the most advanced class. After thousands of years of enslavement, the Jews are being reborn to life as a nation, like the Czechs, and this complicates the task of the Jewish proletariat, creates the need for it to have a national Social-Democratic organisation similar to the Social-Democratic organisations of other nations. The Bund seeks to achieve this, and in this endeavour there is no nationalist motive, only a national one. On the other hand, the Bund now possesses an organisation which has developed historically, and it must ensure that it is able to develop without hindrance. Yet our comrades from the Bund have obtained from speeches at this congress the impression—and, in my view, the quite correct impression—that there are some here who want to alter this organisation by a mighty blow of the fist. Comrade Martov said plainly that the Bund’s present position makes no sense and was brought about by abnormal conditions—among others, by the Bund’s fight against the PPS. This fight really ought to be a source of instruction for us. The PPS did not want to take account of the requirements of the Jewish comrades, and this led to continual conflict, from which the Bund emerged quite definitely the victor. There are similar tendencies here in this congress. One feels that some comrades assume that this organisation will eventually be assimilated to the position of all the rest, will come into line with the remaining organisations of the RSDLP.

Martov: How criminal of these comrades.

Akimov: I am not looking at this matter from the ethical standpoint, from which alone this could be regarded as criminal … In contrast to the opinion of these comrades, I think that the congress will not mark the end of conflicts with the Bund, it will merely open an era of such conflicts. In view of all this, we must approach the question with the greatest caution.

Hofman: First, a few words about an accusation against us which was levelled especially by Comrade Martov. It is said that we are coming forward as a ‘contracting party’. This amounts to shifting the blame from the guilty to the innocent. A substantial majority of the congress insisted on putting the question of the Bund’s position in the Party at the head of the agenda, and thereby showed that they did not look on the Bund as a section of the Party, relations with which must be regulated by the general rules of the organisation. Right from the start, a compact majority was formed at the congress which treated us as a ‘contracting party’.

Now I come to Comrade Martov’s report, or, more correctly, to his critical comments on Comrade Lieber’s report, since Comrade Martov offered us no report of his own. Comrade Martov’s criticism was concerned mainly with two points: the point saying that the Bund is not restricted by any territorial limits, and enters the Party as the sole representative of the Jewish proletariat, and the point dealing with representation. Comrade Martov likes to emphasise his All-Russia point of view, proceeding from which he insists on restricting the Bund to a certain area: the Bund may work in Lithuania and Poland, but there is no place for it in South Russia, where only Russian committees exist and must exist. He knows that in Lithuania and Poland the Bund has come into conflict with the Lithuanian and Polish workers’ movement, but that does not matter to him, and he puts that area at the disposal of the Bund. He is interested only in South Russia, which he wants to safeguard from the pretensions of the Bund. Comrade Martov has abandoned the All-Russia standpoint and adopted the standpoint of the Southern area of the country. Comrade Martov opposed the point about the Bund entering the Party as the sole representative of the Jewish proletariat, and thereby came into contradiction with the Manifesto of the Party, his solidarity with which he had often proclaimed to us.

In the Manifesto it says: the Bund enters the Party as an autonomous section, possessing independence with regard to questions which specially concern the Jewish proletariat. What does that mean? It means that out of the whole mass of questions with which the Social-Democratic movement has to deal, one group of questions is singled out, which we are accustomed to call ‘special’ questions, and these are placed under the jurisdiction of the organisation of the Jewish proletariat. This already implies recognition that the said organisation is the sole representative of the Jewish proletariat in the Party. Thus, the point about the Bund being the ‘sole representative’ is the logical deduction from the point concerning the Bund in the Manifesto. The question is asked: why is the Bund the sole representative of the Jewish proletariat? Because it is the only organisation which has organised under its banner large masses of the Jewish proletariat, and which specially and systematically carries on work among the Jewish proletariat. It is said that there are Jewish workers who have joined certain Russian committees, but this gives these committees as little right to represent the Jewish proletariat as the Bundist organisations that work in some places among German, Polish and Russian workers would claim to represent the Polish, German or Russian proletariats. This work is not their typical work. What determines the character and content of the activity of the Bundist organisations is their systematic work among the Jewish proletariat. As regards the representation of the Bund in the Party’s central organs, this should stimulate the Bund to greater interest in general questions, and tell against that segregation which has been so much talked about here.

I am not going to say any more about the rules we have proposed, because what is involved now is not these rules, but the question whether the Bund should or should not exist. A clear-cut tendency in favour of abolishing the Bund has revealed itself at this congress. This tendency has been apparent in all the speeches made. Regret has been expressed that the Bund has grown so fast. Petty facts of an anecdotal character have been quoted against the Bund. What is significant is not so much that speeches like this have been delivered. What is significant is that these speeches have been greeted with friendly applause by the majority of the congress. And if any doubt remained that there is a party formed against us, that doubt must be finally dissipated after hearing such applause. In view of this, it is a pity that the rapporteur Martov did not tell us just what the majority in question want. We find more or less definite plans concerning the Bund in the speeches by Comrade Trotsky and the delegate from Yekaterinoslav. Comrade Trotsky drew this picture for us. The Bund is to look after the organisation of Yiddish-speaking workers. Non-Bundist committees are to detach groups for work among the Jewish workers. These groups are to form an entity, holding its own congresses, and sending delegates to the congresses of the Bund. There would seem to be no point in discussing this plan as a practical proposition. I only fall to understand why Comrade Trotsky, in advocating committees with groups for Jewish workers, makes an exception of the Bundist committees and leaves these unscathed. That would make sense only if these Bundist committees were working in areas inhabited exclusively by Jews, but this is not the case. Comrade Trotsky knows that in the places where the Bundist committees work it is not only Jews that are living, but also Poles, Lithuanians, Germans, and Russians, and so it follows logically that the committees of the Bund should be replaced by general committees, carrying on work among the workers of all the nationalities in the given locality—in other words, that the Bund should be abolished. Comrade Trotsky felt that there was something not quite right in that, and fried to extricate himself from the difficulty by this method. What! he exclaimed, people are accusing us of wanting to abolish the Bund? And what about the class consciousness of the Jewish proletariat? Do we want to abolish that? Then he took two more ideological factors, showed that nobody had any designs on them, and implied that nobody was thinking of abolishing the Bund. No, Comrade Trotsky, this is sophistry. The Bund finds material expression in committees, organisations, and congresses, and by abolishing these we thereby abolish the Bund itself. The delegate from Yekaterinoslav Committee proposes that a North-Western Union be set up, to consist of general committees working among workers of all nationalities. The Bund should become part of the Union, he considers. How the Bund can enter an organisation which presupposes the abolition of the Bund remains a mystery. Evidently, the comrade from Yekaterinoslav did not have courage enough openly to call for suppression of the Bund.

Martov: A word on a personal point. The comrade has asked me why I did not state the wishes of the ‘compact majority’. I was voicing my personal opinions, and have no authority to state the wishes of the ‘compact majority’.

Lvov: Hofman touched on an interesting question: the logical conclusion that follows from comrades’ speeches. Yes, the conclusion is that committees made up of various nationalities ought to exist everywhere. In view, however, of the fact that we are only now getting formed into a Party, we have to take account of already existing magnitudes. I did not speak of scorn for the Bund, for which I feel the greatest respect. Then, my remarks about the PPS. I know that the PPS, operating on the territory of Russian Poland, has tried to create an All-Poland organisation, analogous to the All-Russia one. By referring to this analogy I wanted to say that the Bund, by breaking away from the All-Poland organisation, provided an example of the harm done by separatist tendencies, which have given rise to antagonism between the Polish and Jewish proletariats. By allowing the Bund to exist separately we are repeating the history of Poland.

Karsky: One of the Bundist comrades said that the majority have acted at the congress like a party. However, if the majority declared in favour of putting the Bund question in the forefront, this does not mean that the congress was divided into two ‘contracting parties’, but merely that the majority found this procedure more convenient. Then, the second argument of the Bund to justify its being the sole representative of the Jewish proletariat is the idea that the Bund works exclusively among the Jewish proletariat. But this work they do does not give the Bund the right to treat the whole Jewish population as its province. On one point Akimov agreed with the Bund, namely, about the difference between ‘national’ and ‘nationalist’. We know that this difference exists. But what is ‘national’, by growing, passes into what is ‘nationalist’. The Bund’s separatist endeavours reveal its nationalist essence. We were also told that the Jewish masses have produced many talented people. It is strange to hear this said at a socialist congress. We all know that Marx was a Jew. But this does not mean that he would be a Bundist. The Bundists say that their opponents want to assimilate the Jewish proletariat and abolish the Bund. The formation of a united Party does not imply, however, that sort of assimilation which the Bund is afraid of—Russianisation.

Brouckère: I consider that Comrade Karsky’s objections do not apply to me. He repeated what I said, that the Jewish proletariat knew its rights better than the Russian proletariat did. From that I merely drew the conclusion that the consciousness of the more advanced proletariat must help to raise the level of consciousness of the more backward one. When I spoke of backward consciousness, I did not intend to denigrate the leaders, I meant only the consciousness of the masses. Since these elements with a low level of consciousness exist, joint work with the Jewish proletariat is desirable. Unlike Comrade Karsky, I assume that not only the protest of the proletariat grows spontaneously, but also its consciousness. What I have said, I repeat, implies merely that the Jewish proletariat, as the more conscious one, should come to the aid of the Russian.

Lenin: I shall deal first with Hofman’s speech and his expression ‘compact majority’. Comrade Hofman uses these words as a reproach. In my opinion we should not be ashamed but proud of the fact that there is a compact majority at the congress. And we shall be prouder still if our Party as a whole proves to be a compact, a highly compact, 90 per cent majority. [Applause.] The majority did right in making the position of the Bund in the Party the first item on the agenda: the Bundists showed at once that this was so, by submitting their so-called rules, but in essence proposing federation. Since there are in the Party members who advocate federation and members who reject it, no course was open but to make the question of the Bund the first item on the agenda. You can’t force people to love you, and it is impossible to discuss the Party’s internal affairs until we have decided, firmly and steadfastly, whether or not we want to march together.

The crux of the matter at issue has not always been presented quite correctly in the debate. What it amounts to is that, in the opinion of many Party members, federation is harmful and runs counter to the principle of Social-Democracy as applied to existing Russian conditions. Federation is harmful because it sanctions segregation and alienation, elevating them to the status of a principle, a law. Complete alienation does indeed exist among us, and we ought not to sanction it, or cover it with a fig-leaf, but to combat it, and we ought resolutely to acknowledge and proclaim the need firmly and unswervingly to advance towards the closest unity. That is why we reject federation in principle, in limine, as the Latin phrase has it, why we reject all obligatory partitions set up among us. Even without them there will always be different groupings in the Party, groupings of comrades who are not wholly of one mind on questions of programme, tactics or organisation; but let there be only one division into groups throughout the Party, that is, let all like-minded Party members join in a single group, instead of groups being formed first in one section of the Party, separately from the groups in another section, and then having a union not of groups holding different views, or with different shades of opinion, but of sections of the Party, each containing different groups. I repeat, we recognise no obligatory partitions, and that is why we reject federation in principle.

I now pass to the question of autonomy. Comrade Lieber said that federation means centralism, whereas autonomy means decentralism. Can it be that Comrade Lieber takes the members of this congress for six-year-olds, who can be treated to such sophistries? Is it not clear that centralism requires the absence of all partitions between the centre and even the most remote and out-of-the-way sections of the Party? Our Party centre will be given the absolute right to communicate directly with every single Party member. The Bundists would only laugh if someone were to propose to them a form of ‘centralism’ within the Bund under which its Central Committee could not have dealings with all the groups and comrades in Kovno otherwise than through the Kovno Committee. Incidentally, as regards the committees: Comrade Lieber exclaimed, with feeling: ‘What is the good of talking about autonomy for the Bund if it is to be an organisation subordinated to one central body? After all, you wouldn’t give autonomy to some Tula Committee or other.’ You are mistaken, Comrade Lieber. We will certainly and without fail give autonomy to ‘some’ Tula Committee, too—autonomy in the sense of freedom from petty interference by the centre, although the duty of subordination to that body will, of course, remain. I have taken the words ‘petty interference’ from the Bund leaflet Autonomy or Federation? The Bund has put forward this freedom from ‘petty interference’ as a condition, as a demand presented to the Party. The mere fact that it puts forward such ridiculous demands shows how confused the Bund is on the question at issue. Does the Bund really suppose that the Party would tolerate the existence of a centre that interfered in a ‘petty’ way in the affairs of any Party organisation or group? Is this not, in effect, that ‘organised distrust’ which has already been mentioned at this Congress? Such distrust shows through in all the proposals and all the arguments of the Bundists. Is it not, in fact, the duty of our entire Party to fight, for example, for full equality of rights and even for the recognition of the right of nations to self-determination? Consequently, if any section of our Party were to fail in this duty, it would undoubtedly be liable to censure, by virtue of our principles: it would undoubtedly be liable to correction by the central institutions of the Party. And if that duty was being neglected consciously and deliberately, despite full opportunity to perform it, then this neglect of duty would be treachery.

Further, Comrade Lieber asked us, in moving tones, how it can be proved that autonomy is adequate to guarantee to the Jewish workers’ movement the independence which is absolutely essential to it. What a strange question! How can it be proved that one of several paths suggested is the right one? The only way is to take that path and test it in practice. My reply to Comrade Lieber’s question is: march with us, and we undertake to prove to you in practice that all legitimate requirements in the matter of independence will be fully satisfied. When disputes arise about the place of the Bund, I always recall the British miners.^[25] They are excellently organised, better than the rest of the workers. And, because of that, they want to thwart the common demand for an eight-hour day put forward by all proletarians. Those miners conceive the unity of the proletariat in the same narrow way as our Bundists. Let the sad example of the miners serve as a warning to our comrades of the Bund.

Lieber: I have seldom been at a meeting where the words ‘principles of revolutionary Social-Democracy’ have so often been misused as at this congress. But it was pointed out long ago that not everyone who says ‘Lord, Lord!’ shall enter into the kingdom of heaven. Not everyone who reminds us of the principles of revolutionary Social-Democracy is really standing up for them.

These speakers are unwilling to reckon with the following phenomenon. Within the national organisms known to us there are different social classes. These classes, entering into conflict with each other, group themselves in different parties, which exhibit both their particular class character and the fact that they belong to particular nations. One can point to such specifically national bourgeois movements as Russian liberalism, the Polish Narodowa Demokracja, or Jewish Zionism. Comrade Lenin tells us that the federal principle of Party organisation is contradictory to the principles of Social-Democracy. But where was Comrade Lenin when this frightful breach of principle was committed in Austria? Comrade Lenin says that practice has not demonstrated any advantages in federation, but the practice of the Executive Committee of the Austrian Social-Democratic Party, mentioned in its report, tells us the contrary. In the Executive Committee’s opinion, thanks to this form of organisation it has proved possible to achieve brilliant results, both in the growth of the movement and in its unity. Comrade Lenin says that the disintegration which we are alleged to be bringing into the Party does not need to be covered by the ‘fig-leaves of federation’. So far as ‘fig-leaves’ are concerned, one can only be grateful to Comrade Lenin for having torn the fig leaves from the words of Comrades Martov and Trotsky. Comrade Lenin speaks openly of the need to abolish the Bund. He may, of course, allow the Central Committee of the Bund to continue for the purpose of organising smuggling, but we do not need the Central Committee of the Bund for that. We need it as the leader of the Jewish proletariat.

We are constantly being told about ‘common Russian interests’, but our opponents understand these ‘in a special way’. They first delete from these ‘common Russian’ interests everything that is of special concern to the proletariat of a particular nation, and then suppose that the residue that remains will express common Russian interests. Comrade Lenin says: we want the Bund, but a different Bund. I think I ought to mention that in the polemic between the Bund and the PPS which was once published in the journal Rabotnik, edited by Plekhanov, the profession de foi we are now making was set forth without any reservations, and without being subjected to the attacks which it is encountering today.

We then said that the Russian Social-Democratic movement will become the leader of the whole proletariat when it has become the leader of all the nationalities. Lenin now says that we do not need the Bund as the leader of the Jewish proletariat, and tactlessly compares us to the Durham miners. Of all our opponents who have spoken about the principles of revolutionary Social-Democracy, none has shown us how our proposals conflict with those principles. This is, to say the least, a frivolous accusation on Comrade Lenin’s part. We should like to ask this question of our comrades who claim to have a monopoly of revolutionary Social-Democratism. Every Social-Democrat must recognise that the Social-Democratic movement groups itself, in different nationalities, in different parties with different physiognomies. The Jewish bourgeoisie is organised. Is it not natural that against this bourgeoisie there must fight that force which has arisen in the midst of Jewry itself, the Jewish proletariat? It is this force that has activated the Bund. You have confronted us with the fiction of common-Russian tendencies, but these interests are the total sum—not arithmetical, of course—of the interests of the proletariat of all nationalities. As an example of our common-Russian tendencies we have seen the practice of the common-Russian organ Iskra, which allotted so little space to the interests of the outlying areas that the matter was mentioned in the Odessa Committee. I say, and not as a reproach, to the comrades from Iskra : your aspirations will meet with defeat until your side gives satisfaction to the interests of the different nationalities. They want to create international socialism for us without an international movement, and forget that we—the representatives of the proletariat of the Jewish nationality—transformed such pariahs among other nationalities, in Kautsky’s words, as the Jews were, into a mighty revolutionary force.

Yegorov: After Comrade Lieber’s passionate speech it is hard for me to bring forward my calm arguments. But I think that, nevertheless, what I have to say will receive attention. The passion revealed in our discussion shows the seriousness of the question at issue, shows us that we are here dealing with the profoundest fundamentals of Social-Democracy. We need to remember that attention must be given not only to what is said but also to what is hidden behind the things said. I am not going to assert that the comrades from the Bund are nationalists, but I think that if these comrades could foresee all the consequences of their plans, could divine what it is their proposal is fraught with, they would see that there is a nationalist subsoil hidden beneath it. All the difficulties which Social-Democracy has encountered on its path are explicable by the fact that we lacked a common, firmly established programme, that we were feeling our way and could not foresee where our steps were leading us. From this soil arose the crazes for economism, terrorism and so on. People followed where life led them, instead of marching ahead of it. Without wishing to offend respected comrades, I must say that their present endeavours have a smell of that same opportunism about them. From the fact that the Jewish nation exists, a fact which it would, of course, be absurd to deny, they deduce a foundation of principle for their programme. But the mere fact that something exists is not enough to put completely new principles into operation.

If, comrades, you will consider the question coolly; if you will believe that we all sincerely want unity; if you will get rid of the idea that here are assembled brigands who want at any cost to destroy what they allegedly see as this perfidious Bund; if, moreover, you will take account of the full seriousness of the occasion, the exceptional importance of our present congress—which, though the second in number, to be sure, is the first as regards its role in our future history; if, I repeat, you remember all this, you will not bring so much irritation into our collective discussion. So let’s all keep cool. The consciousness of the masses is not a horse which can be led now this way, now that, by one flick of the bridle. If we allow so much as the shadow of a division into Jews and non-Jews to creep in here, it will set a mark on the psychology of the masses such as later we shall find it not easy to cope with. It is not enough to say in our programmes that we are not nationalists, it is not enough to talk to the workers about mass solidarity—we have to show that this is so in all our activity. Did the PPS insert the nationalist principle in its programme? And it justified the demand for the separation of Poland by purely practical considerations. Nevertheless, nationalism is apparent in the whole essence of its activity. Facts are stronger than words. Look at the Socialist-Revolutionaries. They too say ‘not instead of’ but ‘together with’. They assign to terror a very minor place in their programme, but we know that facts have their own logic, and if, somewhere in the programme, a door is opened for terrorism, then it will inevitably begin to take priority over everything else in the programme. Life, regardless of your will, starts to push you where you don’t want to go.

It is enough to look at the history of the Bund to see how it too has gone where it didn’t want to go. At the beginning of the 1890s the present representatives of the Bund were continuators of the traditions of the 1870s, representatives of the Russian revolutionaries. The first groups of Jewish workers were educated in the spirit of Russian revolutionism: these workers were Russian revolutionaries in the best sense of the word. I am myself a pupil of the Bund, and still retain profound respect for my teachers, whom I see here among the delegates. Their views have greatly changed since those days. In their subsequent work, as they extended their activity, the founders of the Bund went over to agitation in Yiddish. Let me mention that in so doing the Bund was not reckoning with ‘the demands of life’. The mass of the propagandised workers protested against this agitation in Yiddish. But at that time, I repeat, the Bund did not appeal to ‘life’. The new forms of activity were justified by purely practical considerations, and not at all by national pecularities. The question of the separation off of the Bund as a special organisation had not yet arisen. However, after a short time, phrases began to be heard about the special obligations of the Jewish intellectual towards the Jewish masses. The nationalist note began to be sounded. I am not going to trace the subsequent history, but will take up only the last link. What happened? Those same Jewish revolutionaries, workers and intellectuals, who had until then been continuators of Russian revolutionism, carved out their own special little niche for themselves and disappeared into their national shell. The interests of the Russian proletariat began to be evaluated in accordance with how they guaranteed those of the Jewish proletariat.

You talk of the need for unity, but only because, without this unity, you can find no way out of the blind alley into which you have got yourselves. The unity proposal which you have put to us smells of an ultimatum, as Martov correctly observed. If you were to develop consistently the principles which underlie this treaty, you would arrive at naked nationalism. True, it may be that life will not allow this to manifest itself. But that is a different matter. Your programme, if consistently applied, would, I repeat, logically engender nationalism. If you justified the existence of a special Jewish organisation merely by the special features of the situation of the Jewish proletariat, then it would be easy to reach agreement on the basis of that practical matter. One could detach a special group for work among the Jewish proletariat, in order to make use of these special features, but this would merely be a practically-needed organ within the revolutionary organisation, and not a national organisation of the proletariat. We declare that it is dangerous to divide the masses in accordance with special indicators of any sort, and especially so if the indicator in question is nationality. You all point to the unfortunate example of Austria, forgetting that, perhaps, it is precisely the peculiarity of that country’s state structure, that dismal condition of things which has held back its entire political mechanism and prevented it from developing properly, which has caused the success of this form of organisation. It is a long way from that, though, to acknowledging its correctness in principle. This is only an evil, perhaps a compromise due to circumstances. Are you going to claim that the successes of the Party over there correspond to the strength and importance of the proletariat? And, in general, such factual references are unconvincing. You have not yet established the principle of your segregation. It is not we but you who have to prove that your tendency does not run counter to our programmes. The onus of proof lies upon you. We advance the general principle that all barriers, whether of occupation or of nationality, without distinction, contribute to the disintegration of consciousness. [Applause] Furthermore, it seems to me that the national principle is being applied by you not just in concealed form: in your arguments an obviously nationalist note is being sounded, which can grow into a nationalist chord. Let me refer here to private conversations in which it has been said that in our activity we ought not to try to do away with national peculiarities. While such phrases are not dangerous on the lips of leaders, they can have a dangerous significance in the consciousness of the masses—and not only the masses that are at a low level of consciousness, either. A clear example of this is the fact that, frequently, Russian comrades replying to you have accepted that they are not competent to deal with the question of the interests of the Jewish masses, and thereby have emphasised the nationalistic character of these interests.

No, comrades, we must state categorically that for us the national factor lies outside the sphere of ethics. We are not interested in what goes on among the Jews, Poles, Russians, and so on, as such. The question of nationality arises only in an oppressed nation, and only then does it assume an ethical character. But we consider that the interests of nationality will be ensured automatically with the attainment of our ideal. The special features embodied in nations can develop on the basis of a common European culture. True, you have not put forward here the preservation of nationality as a principle, but this is perhaps because, in general, you have not put before us any considerations of principle. Your allusion to a special grouping of social forces provides no justification for the special existence of the Bund. Is not a special grouping of social forces to be observed in Little Russia, for instance, where there was no village commune and where the historical conditions of development were quite distinctive? You resort too often to matters of detail, and I call that opportunism. Comrades! Look at the questions calmly, do not see us as enemies, have confidence in our readiness to work together with you, and, before you say ‘no’, think of the consequences your decision will bring with it. [Prolonged applause.]

The session was closed.

Seventh Session

(Present: 42 delegates with 51 deciding votes, and 8 with consultative voice)

The minutes of the third session were read and approved.

Lvov announced that a telegram had been received about the confirmation by the Mining and Metallurgical Association of a second delegate, and proposed that the congress allow this delegate to attend the session. He supported this proposal by saying that he had approached Comrade Deutsch on the matter, and Deutsch had asked a member of the OC to check the delegate’s credentials.

Deutsch confirmed this statement.

Yegorov: According to the rules of the congress, delegates certified and confirmed by the OC cannot be replaced by others. A departure from this rule can, however, be allowed: after all, the OC must, as a rule, know the delegate already. I propose that this question be referred to the credentials commission.

Reference of this matter to the commission was approved by the congress, which then proceeded to continue the discussion on Point 2 of the Agenda.

Lieber: Before we go on with the debate, I ask to be allowed to make a statement and move a motion. [Permission was given.] Comrades, we have taken note of all the discussion that we have had here, and, although our view regarding all the points in the rules we have proposed remains unaltered, in the interests of unity, which, as we have repeatedly said, is extremely dear to us, we have decided to make considerable modifications in our draft rules, and to those I request you to give your attention. [Amended rules put forward by the delegates of the Bund:

1. The position of the Bund in the Party is defined by the following points:

2. The Bund is the Social-Democratic organisation of the Jewish proletariat, unrestricted in its activity by any territorial limits, and enters the Party as the sole representative of the Jewish proletariat.

3. The Bund elects its representation in the central committee of the Party, the Foreign Committee of the Party, and the Party congresses.

4. The programme of the Bund is the programme common to the whole Party.

5. The Bund holds its own congress to decide all questions of special concern to the Jewish proletariat, and has its own Central Committee and Foreign Committee.

6. The Bund is authorised to settle freely the internal affairs of its own organisation.

7. The Bund has unrestricted right of publication, both in Yiddish and in other languages.

8. The Party congress has the right to overrule any decisions of congresses of the Bund.

9. All the above points are to be considered fundamental, and can be altered, added to or deleted only by a majority consisting of two thirds of the votes of those participating 1n Party congresses.]

In the third point, as you will see, we have struck out the words about the capacity in which our representatives in the central organs will speak. These words gave rise to a lot of dispute and by removing them we once more emphasise our idea that these representatives of the Bund, once they have become members of the central organs, will speak there as members of the Party as a whole. As regards the other points, let me mention the correction made to point 9. We were told that in this point as it was previously worded, the ‘treaty’ character of the rules presented by us was especially marked, and so we have altered this, making it possible now for our rules to be countermanded by the votes of two-thirds of the participants in a congress. We propose this qualified majority only so as to provide some sort of guarantee of the durability of these rules. I would observe that if this point is directed against anybody, it is directed rather against ourselves, since it would probably be difficult for us to get these two-thirds of the votes for our proposals. And so, comrades, as you see, we have done everything possible to ensure unity. We cannot go any further. Without the points that are left it will be impossible for the Bund even to exist. [In reply to a question from the chairman as to whether this statement was to be understood as the presentation of an ultimatum, Lieber continued:] I regard the chairman’s question as quite unnecessary. We know the rules of the congress perfectly well, and are present here, like the rest of the comrades, without any imperative mandate. I merely said that, in our view, unless these points are accepted, it will be impossible for the Bund to continue to exist. That is our common conviction.

Chairman: I am not arguing. I merely ask that Comrade Lieber’s explanation be recorded in the minutes.

Akimov: In my speech yesterday I said that the question of the position of the Bund in the Party had arisen as a result of the Bund’s understandable endeavour to ensure for itself the possibility of carrying out two tasks: a national one and an organisational one. The objection was made that it was superfluous to mention the merits of this nation in the history of mankind; but I think there is point in mentioning this, in order to counterpose my view to that of Comrade Yegorov, who seemed when speaking about the national rights of the Jews to show hardly any sympathy for this nation. The Jews are a nation like any other, and therefore the point in our programme which guarantees the right of self-determination to all nations must be applicable to them. The changes which the comrades from the Bund have introduced into their proposal have only confirmed my view that they had no nationalistic tendencies, but merely the motives of which I have spoken. I agree that in their endeavour to ensure the conditions they need for their activity, the Bund did allow unacceptable separatist tendencies to appear in certain points in their rules. But I consider their proposal in its new form to be wholly acceptable, and I shall speak in favour of many of its points, when we discuss Party organisation in general, as being suitable for all sections of the Party. I would only propose that the expression ‘representation of the Bund’ be replaced by ‘representatives of the Bund’. This will provide the Bund with a necessary and sufficient guarantee that its interests will be adequately represented in all the Party’s organs.

Martov: The new proposal introduced by the comrades from the Bund alters the question which is before us in discussing Point 2 of the Agenda. The previous rules gave an integral and clear, principled answer to the question of the place of the Bund. Therefore, in our resolution of principle we included a principled evaluation of the rules as they were first presented. The second version gives no such precise answer. In it the principle of autonomy is interwoven with the federalist principle. We cannot now discuss and vote on the details of a proposal for one section of the rules of the Party, for these details must be determined by the nature of the Party’s organisation in general. As we do not at present know what form this organisation is to take, we cannot decide on these details. If, therefore, the comrades from the Bund will not withdraw their new draft from discussion under Point 2 of the Agenda, then we shall have, in our resolution of principle, in one way or another to reject the new rules altogether! If the Bund wants us to discuss them in detail, then it must withdraw them now. If the Bund will not do this, then we shall say, deleting from our proposed resolution the words referring to the first set of rules: ‘even as expressed in amended form’.

Lieber: Martov’s proposal cannot be accepted. He says that federal relations are proposed in our draft. I say that this is not so, although I am in favour of federation. And in view of the fact that the resolution of principle prejudges the question of the new rules we have presented, I insist on a detailed examination of these new rules. How, indeed, can we adopt a general resolution if we have not yet analysed whether the federal principle is embodied in the new rules, and nobody has spoken against federalism on grounds of principle? We have not prejudged the question either, and do not want to smuggle the federal principle in as contraband, so that it is pointless for Martov to stand at the customs-barrier proposing that a bull be promulgated against us.

Plekhanov: Lieber’s practical proposal amounts to this, that we should not adopt a decision of principle. I protest against this proposal. I am not thinking of arguing against a definite proposal by the Bund. We want agreement with this Party organisation, but, unfortunately, a question has arisen in our Party publications: autonomy or federation? This question seemed to the congress so important that it decided to place discussion of it first on the agenda. And after two days of debate, after we have heard Lieber’s thoughts on the delights of federation, it would be strange not to strike the balance of what we have arrived at. Since the majority have expressed themselves against the federal principle, it would be strange, pointless and illogical to refrain from passing a resolution. Since the federal principle is seen as being harmful, bringing disruption and death, a resolution ought to be passed, and in it we should say that we reject federation. Martov was right when he said that, without discussing the details of the rules, we ought to say in the resolution of principle: in so far as the federal principle is present in the proposal presented by the comrades from the Bund, to that extent we reject it. Although the new proposal includes concessions, its basis is still the federal principle—at least, that is my personal opinion. If we declare against federalism, we thereby declare against the points referred to, while postponing discussion of the details of the suggested rules until we come to Point 6 of the agenda.

Martov: Comrade Lieber does not respect the agenda which we agreed upon. We understood that the rules as first presented were the Bund’s answer to the question about ‘the position of the Bund in the Party’. The second version does not provide an answer to this question. Therefore I propose that it be withdrawn, and brought forward again when we are working out the general Party rules. At present it can be adopted or rejected only as a whole. But since we cannot do that, as the second version gives no direct answer to the question before us, the Bund should withdraw it. In our resolution of principle we are answering not only the Bund but other organisations as well.

Hofman: I must observe that Comrades Plekhanov and Martov have tried to alter the agenda. We urged that the question of the Bund be discussed in connection with the question of Party organisation. But the congress majority decided to deal with it as the first point on the agenda. They told us that there was a radical difference in the Party on the organisation question, which must first of all be eliminated at all costs, and this was how the need to separate the question of the Bund from the general question of the organisation of the Party was justified. The question was taken separately—and now they want to transfer it to the heading of ‘organisation’. The first point on the agenda is called: ‘The place of the Bund in the Party’. The place of the Bund can be defined only in a concrete way, and we have presented a perfectly concrete proposal under this heading, and until this proposal has been discussed we cannot proceed to the next point on the agenda. It is permissible during a debate to adopt a resolution of principle, but the congress has no right to strike out the question of the Bund and replace it by the question of principle: ‘autonomy or federation’. The congress majority can, of course, act as it thinks fit and force a change in the agenda. There is no way of stopping that. But it would be wrong for it so to act.

Now a few words about Comrade Martov’s resolution. We have been reproached with desiring to bring about an organisational revolution. I shall now show that this is what Point 3 of Martov’s resolution aims to do, when it says: ‘This unity in no way excludes the independence of the Jewish workers’ movement in all matters relating to the particular tacks of agitation among the Jewish population which are determined by special features of language and conditions of life.’ The Manifesto speaks of autonomy in relation to questions specially affecting the Jewish proletariat. Now they want to narrow this independence and reduce it to the technical autonomy possessed by every committee. They want to put the Bund on the same footing as an ordinary committee, with only this difference, that the Bund’s technical autonomy is to apply over a larger area. This is equivalent to effecting an organisational revolution. If it is desired to discuss Martov’s resolution, then it ought to be clearly stipulated in that resolution that adopting it does not exclude the possibility of discussing the rules we introduced.

Trotsky: I do not understand why the comrades from the Bund are opposing the resolution of principle. We were offered draft rules in which, as the rapporteur himself stated, the principle of federation was embodied. Our discussions, which undoubtedly revealed the congress’s negative attitude to the principle of federation, obliged the comrades from the Bund to withdraw their draft. We, as ‘doctrinaires’, want to consolidate that stage in our debate by means of a resolution. After this—disposing of the question of federation—we shall have taken a step forward.

But, we are asked, why should this resolution of principle be taken in connection with the Bund? In general, though, when do we adopt resolutions of principle? When Party life demands this. We are not academics, we are politicians. We need to express at this moment our attitude to the principle of federation. Why do we link this question with the Bund? Because the Bund has linked itself with this question.

We are ‘doctrinaires’. We examined the first draft of the rules point by point not in order to haggle over it piecemeal but in order, by analysing these points, to reveal the basis of principle underlying the draft, namely, federalism, and to reject this draft en bloc. The comrades of the Bund have presented a new draft. They want us to examine it point by point. Why? So as to adopt it or reject it piecemeal ? As ‘doctrinaires’, we shall not do that. We are ready to look at it, but only in order to check it over from the standpoint of principle, and, depending on what we find, either to reject it altogether or to postpone discussion of it until the time comes to talk about questions of organisation generally.

Comrade Hofman, replying to Comrade Martov, asked with horror: does this mean that you understand autonomy for the Bund as being the same as for local committees, that is, purely technical in character? Yes, as we see it, the Bund’s autonomy is no different in principle from that of any committee. If implementing the general Party programme, in the framework of the tactics approved by our congresses, is to be called a technical matter, then the autonomy of each committee, and of the Bund, is purely technical. But the Bund’s autonomy is wider in so far as the area of its work is wider, and in so far as this work is carried out under the special conditions of a special milieu.

I must also mention one point which inevitably recurs in every speech by a comrade from the Bund, namely, the remark about the inconvenience of the agenda we have adopted. In proof of this they refer to the abnormal course taken by our debate. The Bundist comrades forget that we are not in a position to make a concrete comparison, as we cannot carry out the costly experiment of discussing the matter in the order which the Bund delegation wanted. On the basis of the general considerations which I have set forth, I think and I declare that the agenda we adopted was the right one, since, because of it, all those complications have been brought to light which otherwise would have weighed upon our discussions in a disguised form.

Plekhanov: I make two observations to Comrade Hofman. The first relates to the question of technical autonomy. Everything that goes beyond the limits of this autonomy we regard as federalism, and reject as such. But the limits of technical autonomy can be wider or narrower. And we have no intention of narrowing them. It is said that we have altered the agenda. Actually there has been no alteration. This is seen in the fact that we want to take our stand on principle. The second point in the agenda is entitled: ‘The place of the Bund in the Party’. We want to give this answer: the Bund’s place must not be determined by federal principles. Will that be a digression? No, it will be a clear, categorical and unequivocal reply to the second question on the agenda. This answer will not be to the liking of the Bund, but we are not obliged to please the Bund, and the congress can with a good conscience pass the resolution which has been moved.

Lieber: I support Hofman’s statement, and I repeat that Comrades Plekhanov and Martov are altering the agenda. I will explain. By putting the question as ‘autonomy or federation’, they presuppose that our draft rules must fall under one or other of those headings, whereas a third category is possible. It is not enough to say: we are against federation. We ought also to give a positive answer as to what we do stand for. This answer we have given in our draft rules, but nobody else has given any answer at all. It is said that the question was put in that way in the publications of the Bund, but that is no argument: we shall talk about that when we analyse our publications. In Iskra the question was raised: ‘Does the Jewish proletariat need an independent political party?’ and they answered in the negative, but we are not dealing with that question now.

Martov’s resolution must be rejected, since, while rejecting federation, it offers nothing positive. The answer we have given is no less principled because it is not expressed in one word, as Comrade Plekhanov wants, but in the rules as a whole. We do not accept Martov’s resolution, because it is ‘positive’ only in a very hazy and unclear way. Comrades Plekhanov and Trotsky were more consistent. We will accept a resolution which rejects two or three of our points, but we shall not be so naive as to offer a second time what has already been rejected. I propose that the congress should either not consider the rules at all, or else take them point by point.

The session was closed.

Eighth Session[edit source]

(Present: 42 delegates with 51 deciding votes and 8 persons with consultative voice.)

The debate on the second item of the agenda continued.

Rusov: The comrades from the Bund, especially Comrade Lieber, have continually said that we should examine the rules they have proposed, point by point, rather than try to define their basis in a few words and then pass a resolution. Comrade Lieber says that a point-by-point examination of the draft rules will amount in itself to a settlement of the question of principle. This seems to me to show unfounded alarm in face of concern for principle. One cannot compose rules without being guided by some definite principle, unless the rules are themselves unprincipled, and I don’t think the comrades from the Bund would describe their proposal in that way. Let us then try to discover the not-quite-overtly expressed basis of principle in the new rules which have been put forward. In the second point we encounter an idea which contradicts the fundamental proposition of international socialism about solidarity of the proletariat’s class interests. It demands special representation of the interests of the Jewish proletariat. There would be sense in such representation if the class interests of the Jewish and Russian proletariats were in some way incompatible. But this is not so, and cannot be so. It is another matter if we are talking about group interests, as, for instance, the conflict of interest between the American workers and immigrants from China, or between the Batum workers and immigrants from Turkey. Contradictions such as these have nothing to do with class interests. To accept this point in the new rules—having accepted which we ought logically also to accept federation—means, as Comrade Trotsky rightly said, signing a declaration of no confidence in ourselves. But the principle of federation is perceptible not only in this point. According to the third point, the Bund is to elect its representation in the Party’s central institution, although Comrade Lieber explains that the Bund’s representative, by entering the Central Committee, thereby becomes merely a Party member. If he is to be merely a Party member, then why, one would like to know, does he have to be from the Bund? Is it not clear that the comrades from the Bund want to retain a special representation of their own in the Party’s central institutions, so as to look after the interests of their particular organisation? What does this mean, if not federation?

In my first speech I referred to the Bund’s organisational separatism, and now this is clearly revealed in the aggrieved tone that Comrade Hofman adopts when the Bund is described as being on a par with a territorial organisation, or with Party committees. Comrades Trotsky and Plekhanov have already replied on this question, and I concur with them. Comrade Lieber kept saying that no-one who spoke had explained how he conceived the relations between the Bund and the Party. It seems to me that everyone plainly emphasised, and I myself said this earlier in so many words, that the ideal form of Party organisation would be to have a single Party committee in each town, working in whatever languages were required. It would have been desirable to apply this principle in the Western Territory, as elsewhere, but we have to reckon with historically-formed conditions. Therefore I support Comrade Martov’s resolution.

Trotsky: The question of the place of the Bund in the Party arose from the outset as the question of federation versus autonomy. This question was put to us by the Bund, and the majority have declared against federation. The Bund has presented us with new rules in which the rapporteur himself is unable to discover any principle at all. The rapporteur has mistakenly said that, in rejecting federation, we have put forward no positive principle of Party organisation—‘for’, he says, ‘besides the principle of federation there can be a number of other principles’. That is a misunderstanding. I repeat, the question before us is this: federation or autonomy? Having rejected the former, we have established this positive definition: a united party with a greater or lesser, concretely determined, degree of autonomy for the sections of this party. That is why, if the second set of rules put to us were to be based on the principle of federation, we should have to reject them en bloc. But since, according to the comrades of the Bund, this is not the case, it remains for us, having affirmed our position of principle, to defer detailed analysis of the rules put before us until the general discussion on organisation provided for under item 6 of our agenda. We shall then lay down in detail the extent and limits of the autonomy to be enjoyed by the Bund. Therefore I urge that we adopt the following resolution, which completely sums up the outcome of the discussion we have had. [Reads the second part of Martov’s resolution.]

It was proposed that the list of speakers be closed.

Akimov: I consider that there is no need to close the list of speakers, since the question has already been adequately elucidated and it is hardly likely that this discussion can be prolonged. At the same time, after the speakers already listed have had their say it may be that there will be a need to answer them. [It was decided to close the list of speakers.]

Lieber: Among what ‘various’ races does the Jewish proletariat live? As far as I know, it lives not among races but among nations. What is meant in the resolution by ‘independence of the Jewish labour movement’? If the Jewish labour movement is independent, then it ought to have an independent organisation.

Trotsky: Perhaps Comrade Lieber will move an amendment to the resolution?

Lieber: I cannot move an amendment until I have been given the explanation I have asked for. Perhaps this explanation will serve precisely to refute the resolution which has been moved.

Trotsky: There is nothing more I can say. Comrade Lieber’s duty, since he does not find my idea clear enough, is to move an amendment. After all, the resolutions of this congress are composed not only for the benefit of its members but for that of all who are interested in the congress.

At the chairman’s suggestion, Comrade Trotsky explained that the words ‘independence of the Jewish labour movement’ referred to organisational independence, that is, to the autonomy of the Bund.

Plekhanov: It would be desirable for Comrade Lieber to explain to us more precisely what his ethnographic views are, because the ‘criticism’ he has made will not itself stand up to criticism. In the present state of knowledge, at any rate, there is no exact definition of the concepts ‘race’ and ‘nation’, and we can speak either of the Lithuanian race or of the Lithuanian nation.

Martov: Evidently Comrade Lieber favours the old way of dividing up mankind into five races, which is found in some works .. .

Trotsky: Especially in schoolbooks.

Martov: Yes, in schoolbooks.

Posadovsky: At the present time it is the fate of the Jewish proletariat to live with non-Jewish proletarians as to whom there can be no doubt, even from the standpoint of primitive textbooks, that they belong to a race differing from that of the Jews. In Caucasia, for instance, the Jews live alongside Tatars who, as is known, are related to the Mongols, in Kazan they also live with Tatars, in Siberia they live with Buryats, Chinese, and so on. Consequently, I favour the retention in Comrade Martov’s resolution of the word ‘races’, since this broadens its application.

Hofman: I demand, on behalf of my comrades, that the congress immediately consider our proposal, since it provides a direct answer to the second item on the agenda.

Martov: We do indeed have to answer the second item of the agenda, since we are discussing the question of the place of the Bund in the Party, and our resolution offers a quite direct and principled answer to that question, whereas the answer presented to us by the Bund offers us eight mutually contradictory points. Consequently we must pass over the ‘draft’ which has been put before us, deferring discussion of it until we come to the sixth item of our agenda. There would be no point in our making a detailed analysis of the draft at this stage. A practical discussion of the question of the Bund’s place in the Party is impossible until we have defined in principle the Bund’s place in the general system of Party organisation.

Lenin: I do not understand what practical significance Comrade Lieber’s proposal possesses. He says that in our resolution we do not answer the question embodied in the agenda, but the entire difference consists in the fact that whereas in the agenda the word ‘place’ is used, in the resolution we have the word ‘position’. Since no third proposal is before us, there is nothing to be done but, having defined our attitude in principle, to reserve the right to discuss the matter concretely when it becomes appropriate to do this.

Yudin asked, on behalf of the delegates from the Bund, for an adjournment so that they could confer.

–––––

After the adjournment, Comrade Lieber took the floor to insist, on behalf of the Bund delegation, that their proposal be discussed forthwith: If this proposal is rejected [he said] then we move the following amendment to the third point in Martov’s resolution, with which we entirely disagree: ‘… that this unity in no way excludes the independence in all questions specially concerning the Jewish proletariat which was conferred on the Bund by the First Congress of the RSDLP.’ My reason for this is that our amendment repeats what was said in the resolution of the First Congress, and we should stick to the formulation laid down by that congress.

Martynov moved an amendment to the third point of Martov’s resolution, arguing that in its altered form this was less definite than that which he, Martynov, was proposing. [Martynov’s amendment to Martov’s resolution: ‘The second ordinary congress of the Party declares that the Bund remains in the Party at present as an entity in the form in which it existed before the Fourth Congress of the Bund—that is, before it began to apply in practice the principle of federal relations—provided that it submits unconditionally to all the Party’s central institutions.’]

Lange moved an addition to the third point of Martov’s resolution: after the words ‘special features of language and way of life’ to insert ‘in localities where such special features are found’.

The rapporteur (Lieber) and co-rapporteur (Martov) waived their right to make concluding speeches. Lieber explained that he declined to speak because ‘we are now discussing in principle a question which is not the one that we were discussing yesterday’.

Martov: I also renounce my right to speak. I wish merely to say that Lieber’s amendment defines the position of the Bund in the Party just as unclearly as it was formulated at the First Congress.

After a short discussion on voting procedure, the congress voted on the amendments. Lange’s amendment received one vote. The amendment moved by Lieber, for the Bund delegation, received 13 votes, with 26 against.

A proposal signed by ten delegates was moved and adopted, for a roll-call vote on Martov’s resolution. The voting was: 45 for, 5 against. [The following voted for the resolution: Rusov (2 votes), Bekov (2 votes), Karsky (2 votes), Makhov (2 votes), Lvov (2 votes), Gusev, Tsaryov, Osipov, Kotich, Medvedev, Ivanov, Pavlovich, Stepanov, Panin, Srokin, Byelov, Lyadov, Gorin, Fomin, Muravov, Lange, Dyedov, Trotsky, Posadovsky, Lensky, Orlov, Popov, Yegorov, Gorsky, Brouckère, Akimov, Martynov, Plekhanov, Deutsch, Lenin (2 votes), Martov (2 votes), Hertz, Braun. Against were: Hofman, Goldblatt, Yudin, Leiber, Abramson.]

Also voted on, and rejected by 41 to 5, was the proposal by the Bund delegates for immediate point-by-point examination of the proposed draft rules.

Martynov’s resolution received one vote.

The congress proceeded to discuss the third item on the agenda: The Programme of the RSDLP.

Martynov: I propose that we take from among the several drafts the draft programme which was composed by Iskra and Zarya. As regards the actual form of the discussion, we should first consider, en bloc, the section of the general programme which lays down principles, and then the remainder of it. When we discuss the ‘principles’ section, a general discussion should be followed by discussion of the separate points in this section, and, to conclude, we should take amendments to the separate points in this ‘principles’ section.

Martov: Before we elect the programme commission we should make a general analysis of the programme, and then submit amendments when the draft is discussed in commission.

The congress decided to take the Iskra-Zarya programme as basis for discussion, and proceeded to discuss its general section.

Martynov: The section of Iskra’s draft programme dealing with principles has one feature which distinguishes it from all the other Social-Democratic programmes in Europe. In all those programmes it is said, in one form or another, in strict conformity with the principles of Marxism, that the development of capitalist society necessarily creates not only the material but also the spiritual conditions for the realisation of socialism, that is, it contributes to the development of the class-consciousness of the proletariat, intensifying the struggle of the proletariat against the whole capitalist system. This proposition is nowhere to be found in Iskra ’s draft programme.

In the ‘principles’ part of the Guesdiste programme, which is very concisely worded, it is stated in a general way only: ‘Considérant que la forme collective, dont les éléments materiels et intellectuels sont constitutués par le développement mame de la classe capitaliste, etc.’ [‘Considering that the collective form, the material and intellectual elements of which are constituted by the development of the capitalist class itself, etc.’]

In the Austrian Hainfeld^[26] programme we read: ‘Während gleichzeitig für die Form des gemeinsamen Besitzes die nothwendigen geistigen und materiellen Vorbedigungen geschaffen werden …’ Then, later: ‘Der Träger dieser (geschichtlich nothwendigen) Entwickelung kann nur das klassenbewuste und als politische Partei organisirte Proletariat sein.’ [While at the same time the spiritual and material pre-conditions are created for the form of common ownership…’ ‘The bearer of this (historically necessary) development can only be the class conscious proletariat, organised as a political party.’]

In the Erfurt programme we read: ‘It (i.e., the social revolution) can only be the work of the working class… The struggle of the working class against capitalist exploitation is inevitably a political struggle. The working class cannot wage its economic struggle and develop its economic organisation without political rights. It cannot cause the means of production to pass into social ownership unless it has previously conquered political power.’

In this paragraph the content of the concept struggle of the working class against capitalist exploitation’ is defined. It includes both the trade-union struggle, which requires a struggle for certain political rights, and the struggle for economic emancipation, which requires the conquest of political power. It thus signifies the struggle for socialism.

In the succeeding paragraph it is stated that the task of the Social-Democratic party is precisely to develop this inevitable tendency of the proletariat to fight for socialism. ‘To organise this struggle of the working class, to unify it, to make it conscious and to explain to it its necessary ultimate aim—this is the task of the Social-Democratic party. The basis of the Party’s activity is here, therefore, the objectively inevitable political struggle of the proletariat.’

Finally, in the most recent (Vienna) programme of the Austrian Social-Democratic party we read: ‘At the same time the proletariat becomes conscious that it must contribute to this development and hasten it, that the transformation of the means of production into social property of the whole people must be the aim, and conquest of political power the means, of its struggle for the emancipation of the working class.’

So we see that in all Social-Democratic programmes mention is made of the spiritual pre-conditions for socialism, of the inevitable tendency of the working class to struggle for socialism.

There is no such proposition in the draft programme of Iskra.

In the place where, according to the sense of the programme, the spiritual pre-conditions for socialism, the active role of the proletariat should have been mentioned, all that is said is: ‘The numbers and cohesion of the proletarians increase and their struggle against their exploiters intensifies.’

But it is clear that ‘the struggle of the proletarians against their exploiters’ does not cover the concept of ‘struggle of the working class against capitalist exploitation’. Whereas the latter expression, used in the Erfurt Programme, embraces the entire content of the class struggle of the proletariat, the former expression signifies, rather, only the elementary form of this struggle—the trade-union struggle. The draft programme states merely that, by itself, the proletariat inevitably engages in trade-union struggle against the capitalists. This interpretation of that passage is all the better-founded in that nothing is said anywhere in the draft about the development of the class-consciousness of the proletariat being an inevitable consequence of the development of capitalist society.

How are we to account for the fact that in Iskra ’s draft programme we find no mention of a proposition of principle which is set forth, in one way or another, in all Social-Democratic programmes?

Undoubtedly we see here the influence of the recent fight against so-called economism, and in particular the influence of a basic theoretical argument which was advanced during that fight by Comrade Lenin, the author of the pamphlet What Is To Be Done?

Let us look and see what scientific value this thesis possesses. Comrade Lenin writes: ‘The spontaneous development of the working-class movement leads to its becoming subordinated to bourgeois ideology … for the spontaneous working-class movement is trade-unionism, is Nur-Gewerkschaftlerei, and trade-unionism means the ideological enslavement of the workers by the bourgeoisie … The history of all countries shows that by its own efforts alone the working class is able to develop only trade-unionist consciousness, that is, conviction of the need to unite in trade unions, to wage a struggle against the employers, to obtain from the government various laws which the workers need,’ and so on.

This is the modest, or, rather, the negative role which Comrade Lenin assigns to the proletariat in the elaboration of its own socialist ideology. In his view, ‘there can be no question of an independent ideology being worked out by the mass of the workers in the process of their movement …’ ‘Social-democratic consciousness can be introduced only from without … The theory of socialism grew out of philosophical, historical and economic theories that were elaborated by educated representatives of the propertied classes, intellectuals. By their social status the founders of modern scientific socialism, Marx and Engels, belonged to the bourgeois intelligentsia…’

If this is true, if the proletariat spontaneously tends towards bourgeois ideology, if socialism is developed outside the proletariat, then the spreading of socialism among the workers must take the form of a struggle between the ideology of the proletariat and its own spontaneous tendencies, and Comrade Lenin draws that conclusion: ‘Our task, the task of a Social-Democrat, consists in struggle against spontaneity, so as to divert the working-class movement from this spontaneous trade-unionist tendency to come under the wing of the bourgeoisie…’

Comrade Lenin sees antagonism between the ideology of the proletariat and the mission of the proletariat. I observe an antagonism between Lenin’s thesis and that which was voiced on many occasions by Marx and Engels. Listen to what Marx says in The Poverty of Philosophy: ‘In the measure that history moves forward, and with it the struggle of the proletariat assumes clearer outlines, they (the socialists) no longer need to seek science in their minds; they have only to take note of what is happening before their eyes and to become the mouthpiece of this.’

Engels, in Socialism, Utopian and Scientific speaks even more plainly: ‘Modern socialism is nothing but the reflex in thought of this actual conflict (between the productive forces and the mode of production), its ideal reflection in the minds first of the class which is directly suffering under it—the working class… Scientific socialism (is) the theoretical expression of the proletarian movement.’

In The Eighteenth Brumaire Marx states a general proposition regarding the. relation between the ideologists of any class and the class itself. ‘What makes (the democrats) representatives of the petty-bourgeoisie is the fact that in their minds they do not go beyond the limits which the latter do not go beyond in life, that they are consequently driven theoretically to the same tasks and solutions to which material interest and social position practically drive the latter. This is in general the relationship of the political and literary representatives of a class to the class they represent.’

So say Marx and Engels. But Comrade Lenin assures us that ‘the history of all countries shows’, etc.

We must suppose, then, that one of two things is true. Either the experience of all countries testifies against the words I have quoted from Marx, or Comrade Lenin has failed to throw light on this experience from the standpoint of Marx. I incline towards the latter view. What the history of all countries tells me is that modern socialism has arisen as a product of the movement of the proletariat, and that ‘the spontaneous development of the working-class movement leads to its becoming subordinated’ not to bourgeois ideology but to modern scientific socialism. In order to find confirmation of this view of history it is above all necessary not to interpret it naively, not to suppose that the proletariat elaborates its ideology exclusively on the basis of experience of its own internal life, independently of the traditions it inherits or the contemporary social situation surrounding it, not to suppose that the proletariat develops its ideology like the spider drawing its web out of its own back.

While disputing Proudhon’s view that all preceding centuries had been designed by providence for the accomplishment of the idea of equality, Marx nevertheless did not find it possible to declare that this idea sprang like Minerva from the head of Jove: the creative role of the present generation, in his view, is expressed in its transformation of the results achieved by earlier generations. ‘Economists,’ he says, ‘know very well that the very thing that was for the one a finished product was for the other but the raw material for new production.’ The same idea is expressed by Engels in his Ludwig Feuerbach: ‘In all ideological domains tradition forms a great conservative force. But the transformations which this material undergoes spring from class relations, that is to say, out of the economic relations of the persons who execute these transformations. And here that is sufficient.’

And so we Marxists affirm that the proletariat has elaborated independently its own socialist ideology; but by that we mean that the proletariat has independently transformed the ideology borrowed by it from its surroundings, in accordance with its own class interests.

In becoming distinguished as a particular class, separated out from the mass of the ‘democracy’, the proletariat at the same time transformed the former struggle of the ‘democracy’ against the feudal system into a new struggle, that of the working class against the bourgeois system.

When we trace the history of the rise of modern socialism we can easily perceive how the proletariat converted the economic and political struggle, the social ideals and philosophical world-outlook of the ‘democracy’ of the early nineteenth century into the corresponding elements of the modern socialist movement.

During the Great Revolution, the economic struggle of the ‘democracy’ was a struggle of the poor consumer against privilege, monopoly, usury and customs barriers. With the separation of the proletariat out of the ‘democratic’ mass, this form of economic struggle was transformed into the struggle of labour against capital. In England the first quarter of the nineteenth century was filled with the struggle of the proletariat for freedom to strike, which it won at last in 1825. Then came the period of the forming of ‘grand national trades unions’ (1825-1850). In France in 1831 the revolt of the Lyons weavers flared up, and in Germany in 1844 that of the weavers of Silesia.

Parallel with this, the European proletariat, which had previously functioned as the bourgeoisie’s rearguard in its political struggle against the aristocracy, arrived by experience at awareness of the need for independent political struggle, directed against all the ruling classes. In England the reform of Parliament in 1831, which gave the bourgeoisie predominance over the landowners, was won with the help of the proletariat, who threatened to refuse to pay their taxes.

Cheated by this reform and embittered by the Poor Law of 1834, the proletariat broke with the middle bourgeoisie and, in alliance with the Radicals, launched the political struggle for the Charter. This was the first step in the development of political consciousness by the proletariat, and it was soon followed by a second. Subsequent experience showed the proletariat how inept the petty bourgeoisie were for decisive revolutionary struggle and how different were their economic interests (the proletariat demanded a ten-hour day, the petty bourgeoisie demanded repeal of the Corn Laws). Thus, in 1843, a split took place in the Chartist movement, between the proletariat and the petty bourgeoisie. The proletariat took its second step forward and emerged as an independent political party, with the slogan—’political power our means, social happiness our end’.

The same happened in France. In the July Revolution the proletariat was still helping the bourgeoisie to get the better of the landowners. Their betrayal by the big bourgeoisie taught the proletariat a lesson, and stimulated it to form an alliance with the radical petty bourgeoisie. In the revolt in Paris in 1832, in the revolts in Lyons and Paris in 1834 and in the revolt of 1839 the proletariat came forward as a revolutionary force, and its political leaders were semi-Radical, semi-Socialist societies (Société des droits de l’homme, Sociéte des Saisons ).^[27] But this alliance did not last, either. The ups and downs of the February revolution, and especially the July revolt, opened the proletariat’s eyes to the truth about the petty bourgeoisie. On December 10 the Mountain made its last attempt to act independently alongside the proletariat. On that same day the votes for Raspail and against Ledru-Rollin were, as Marx put it, ‘the first act by which the proletariat, as an independent political party, cut loose from the democratic party’.

This was the initial process of development of the political consciousness of the proletariat. While the European proletariat was separating off from the ‘democracy’ into a distinct class, working out the forms of its own economic and political class struggle, its advanced sections were transforming the ideas of bourgeois socialism which they had learnt into the new idea of revolutionary proletarian communism. Socialism as a problem had, of course, appeared before the rise of the revolutionary force of the proletariat, which was capable of solving this problem. The rapid spread of socialism as an idea was the inevitable consequence of the contradiction between the democracy the Great Revolution had promised and that which it produced. But until the proletariat, the true bearer of socialism, arrived on the scene of history, socialism was, and was bound to be, either utopian or petty-bourgeois. Now, however, with the 1830s, the proletariat everywhere lifted its head, and we can clearly see how, under its pressure and with its participation the ideas of socialism quickly began to change in content. The laboratory of this transformation was a series of French secret societies, to which similar German societies were affiliated: Association pour la défense de la presse patriote and the Deutscher Bund zur Vertheidigung der Pressfreiheit gave place to the Société des Droits de l’Homme and the Bund der Geächteten. They were succeeded by the Société des Saisons and the Bund der Gerechten. This series culminated in the Communist League which published the Communist Manifesto of Marx and Engels. These societies, which were at first purely radical, were gradually filled with members from the ranks of the proletarianised craftsmen. As a result, their character changed. From exclusive conspiratorial societies they were transformed into societies for open propaganda, and the ideas of bourgeois radicalism and petty-bourgeois socialism which had prevailed in them were replaced by the ideas of proletarian social revolution. In the Bund der Geächteten these two world-outlooks were still in conflict, in the persons of Venedey and Schuster: in the Bund der Gerechten the idea of social revolution obtained, at last, clear expression in the words of Weitling. Under the impression made on him by Weitling Marx said: ‘The German proletariat is the theoretician of the European proletariat, just as the English proletariat is its economist and the French proletariat its politician. ’^[28]

Thus, the history of the first half of the nineteenth century shows graphically how the proletariat, arriving by experience at consciousness of its class interests, transformed all the old forms of the democratic movement into the new forms of the class movement of the workers. By the time that the Communist Manifesto appeared, the elements of the modern socialist movement—the struggle of labour against capital, the political struggle of the proletariat under its own flag, and the idea of the social revolution—were already present; but these elements, which had been worked out by different sections of the proletariat, had not been linked together. The economic struggle of the proletariat was isolated from its political struggle; the trade unions in England, for example, looked unsympathetically on the Chartist movement. In their turn, the political movements of the proletariat were not yet clearly linked with the idea of social revolution. The social ideals of the Chartists and of the so-called ‘Social-Democrats’ in France were extremely vague and confused. The first-named dreamt of a partial nationalisation of the land, of the development of small-scale farming, of state aid to associations of producers. The others fermented unclear notions about ‘the right to work’ and ‘the organisation of labour’. They dreamt of achieving socialism side by side with the bourgeois system, and not upon its ruins. Finally, those proletarians who were aware of the necessity for social revolution (the Weitlingians) were unable to link this with awareness of the necessity for political struggle. Thus, although the principal elements of the modern socialist movement were present, they had not been co-ordinated, and so long as this task had not been accomplished the proletariat could not finally free itself from bourgeois influence, could not march with firm tread towards complete emancipation.

In order to crown the edifice of socialism it was necessary to unite these elements into one harmonious whole and provide the whole movement with a theoretical basis. This great work was accomplished by the founders of scientific socialism, Marx and Engels.

Just as the economic, political and socialist elements of the proletarian movement were so many transformations of the corresponding forms of the radical-democratic movement, so the highest ideological superstructure of the proletarian movement, the theory of scientific socialism, was the result of a re-working of the theories of bourgeois philosophers and scholars. But whereas elaboration of the first-mentioned forms was predominantly the product of the experience and thinking of various sections of the proletariat, the creation of the theory of scientific socialism presupposed such an extensive scientific training as could be possessed only by professional intellectuals, men who came from the propertied classes. Such were the creators of scientific socialism, Marx and Engels. Nevertheless, we do not concede even this creative work of theirs to the bourgeois intelligentsia. In order to accomplish the revolution in social thought they first had to abandon the viewpoint of bourgeois radicalism and take up that of the proletariat—not some abstract proletariat, but the actual proletariat of their own time. In other words, they were obliged first to side ideologically and morally with the movement of the proletariat which had already been formed by history. Their great revolutionary work was not, and could not have been, the fruit of mere study-bound thought. Engels says in Ludwig Feuerbach: When… it is a question of investigating the driving forces which consciously or unconsciously lie behind the motives of men in their historical actions … then it is not a question so much of the motives of single individuals, however eminent, as of those motives which set in motion great masses, whole peoples, and again whole classes of people in each people …’

The biographies of Marx and Engels fully bear this out. They show us how the revolutionary movement of the proletariat wrested Marx and Engels from the ranks of the bourgeois democrats and gave a new direction to their theoretical thinking. In 1843 they were still to a considerable extent bourgeois radicals, with an idealistic outlook and seeing communism as a dogmatic abstraction. Marx wrote in those days to Ruge: ‘I am not in favour of raising any dogmatic banner .. . Communism, in particular, is a dogmatic abstraction… We want to influence our contemporaries, particularly our German contemporaries … In the first place religion, and next to it, politics, are the subjects which form the main interest of Germany today. We must take these, in whatever form they exist, as our point of departure, and not confront them with some ready-made system such as, for example, the Voyage en Icarie. ’ That was how Marx and Engels reasoned at that time. They needed most of all to find a revolutionary force which would overturn the old political system of Germany. But already at that time the only revolutionary class was the proletariat, and this they discovered as soon as they crossed the frontier of their own country. It was natural that Marx, in his revolutionary quest, came into contact with the movement of the French proletariat and Engels with the British movement, with Chartism. Engels even participated in the Chartist movement, as a contributor to the Northern Star. The result of this contact was that a rapid and profound change took place in their views. So early as 1845 they published The Holy Family, the work in which they first set out the foundations of economic materialism, and in which, along with this, the proletarian point of view is clearly observable.

Thus, history gives us the right to say: first, all modern socialism is the product of the working class, though materials for it had already been made ready by the bourgeois democrats; and, secondly, in the elaboration of modern socialism, sections of the working class which differed in their levels of consciousness arrived in practice, gropingly, at the separate tasks and solutions which their ideologists discovered, synthesised and grounded theoretically. These propositions are of enormous importance. They contradict the thesis put forward by Comrade Lenin in his pamphlet What Is To Be Done?, but they are derived from the foundations of Marxism, and they are formulated in one way or another in all Social-Democratic programmes. They ought to be given clear expression in our programme too. To this end I propose that the passage I quoted from the draft programme to be replaced by the following: ‘The numbers, cohesion and consciousness of the proletarians increase and the struggle of the masses of the workers against exploitation intensifies.’

I shall not now speak about my other, corresponding but less important amendments to the section of the programme dealing with principles. Here I will merely note that the fundamental idea which I have been expounding up to now is shared by all comrades in the organisation to which I belong. We are not, however, all agreed as to the conclusions to be drawn from these views. Therefore, I will from now on speak only for myself.

I have already said that the gap I pointed out in the Iskra programme is a reflection of the recent struggle against ‘spontaneity’, ‘economism’ and ‘amateurism’. Now I want to ask if that practical consideration can serve as justification for a theoretical hiatus like this in the programme? Certainly not. The correct Marxist formulation of the question, which I propose, in no way opens the door to worship of spontaneity, economism or amateurism.

It does not open the door to worship of spontaneity. When we say that modern socialism is merely the most complete and conscious expression of the spontaneous tendency of the class struggle of the proletariat we not only do not play down the active role of consciousness and theory in our movement but, on the contrary, we raise this to its highest level. It is just because we are convinced that the development of the proletariat proceeds in accordance with the spontaneous laws of nature towards the realisation of our theoretical principles that we firmly and unwaveringly uphold these principles and reject all theoretical compromises arising from transient practical considerations. It is strange that I should have to prove to the editors of Iskra what Beltov proved to us. It is strange that I should have to demonstrate that the maximum of freedom, activity and individual initiative is found where there is the maximum of necessity. In order to safeguard the movement from worship of the momentary moods of certain strata of the proletariat or the intelligentsia, Social-Democracy possesses only one means: it brings its activity into line with the general tendencies of the struggle of the working class as a whole.

Nor does the formulation of the question I have proposed, which is normal in the international Social-Democratic movement, open the door to ‘economism’. I know and I have already said that any particular form of the class struggle of the proletariat, taken by itself, separated from the other forms of the class struggle of the proletariat, is incapable of liberating the proletariat from bourgeois influences. This is why the bourgeois parties and the ideologists of the bourgeoisie try so hard to conceal the necessary link between the social revolution and the political and economic struggle of the proletariat. But I do not, of course, affirm that modern socialism expresses any one isolated form of the class struggle of the proletariat, such as the trade-union struggle, taken in isolation. On the contrary, I say that scientific socialism is the synthesis and theoretical expression of all the basic forms of the class struggle of the proletariat. This formulation commits us, of course, to resolute struggle against any attempt to narrow down the content and reduce the scope of the historically inevitable movement of the proletariat as a whole.

Finally, the formula I propose cannot, either, serve as cover for federalism and local amateurism. If modern socialism synthesises the different forms of the movement of the proletariat and reflects only its general historical tendency, then it is obvious that from that stand-point the organisation of the Social-Democratic Party must be sufficiently centralised to ensure that the common interests of the Social-Democratic movement as a whole take precedence over local interests within it. Thus, no practical considerations have furnished grounds for the compilers of the programme to refrain from including the generally-accepted formulation of the matter in question. They, however, evidently had a different opinion: they evidently thought that the generally-accepted formulation does not offer adequate safeguards against spontaneity, economism and amateurism. Therefore they gave us their own unclear formulation, which can easily be interpreted in the sense of the proposition defended in the pamphlet What Is To Be Done?, in the sense of an antagonism between Social-Democracy and the spontaneous development of the working-class movement. What has been achieved in practice by this theory of Lenin’s? It certainly offers a very sharp weapon for use against the tactical errors and omissions mentioned. But it also opens the door to other dangerous tactical errors; it opens a deep fissure between the leading elements in the movement and the working-class masses, between the activity of an exclusive party and the broad struggle of the working class.

We do not have to talk in hypothetical terms about these mistakes, since they have already revealed themselves to a sufficient extent, especially during the year or year-and-a-half of revolutionary upsurge in Russia which began with the March events.^[29]

While previously too little attention was given to the theoretical development of the leading elements of the movement, since this time we have begun to neglect excessively the means for developing the consciousness of broad circles of the workers. Popular literature and the political independence of comparatively broad strata of the workers have been held in contempt, as phenomena which could have the effect of vulgarising our movement.

While previously the movement suffered from ‘economic’ narrowness, it has now begun to suffer from political diffuseness. The strengthening of political agitation and enlargement of its content were, of course, a very big step forward. But, first, unfortunately, in our political agitation we have begun to stress too much that which unites the proletariat with other oppositional elements in society, and too little that which distinguishes it as the most revolutionary class. Secondly, our political agitation has, unfortunately, begun to be separated from our social and economic agitation. Reading the proclamations and leaflets issued in this period by the Kiev Committee, and especially those issued by the Odessa Southern Revolutionary Union’, it is often hard to define what there is in them that is specifically Social-Democratic, since they might just as well have been issued by political radicals. In these publications there is obviously something important which is not being given sufficient expression. It was due to this great defect that in this same period reports came from various parts of Russia that the workers in the study-circles were losing interest in purely socialist questions such as, for instance, the question of surplus-value, of the working day, and so on. This was written about in the Arbeiterstimme,^[30] and we had letters about it from Saratov and other places.

While previously our movement suffered from disorderliness and amateurism, in this period, in contrast, there was introduced, and met with sympathy, a conspiratorial Jacobin plan of organisation which is essentially suitable not for the class party of the proletariat but for a radical party basing itself upon a variety of revolutionary elements.

Undoubtedly, in the period in question the Social-Democratic movement did, on the whole, take a very big step forward compared with what we had before. But the Social-Democratic movement was also taken unawares in this period by the spontaneous growth of the revolutionary forces in Russia, and so Lenin’s pamphlet reflected more or less the shortcomings of the particular moment, insofar as it was concerned not to criticise but to build a theory and outline positive prospects.

Fortunately, life itself soon contributed corrections to our criticism. The rapidly formed Osvobozhdenie party and the SocialistRevolutionaries forced us to break off relations with them not only theoretically but in practice as well. On the other hand, the broad, rising wave of the revolutionary movement of the working-class mas-ses forced us once again to try to strengthen our ties with these masses. And I must admit that Iskra responded with great sensitivity to these demands of life, that during the past year it has rid itself of many defects from which it suffered in the period of the struggle against economism. But let us hope that this process will be carried through consistently to the end and that it will be consolidated in a principled way.

Our movement has finally emerged from its childhood. It is beginning to get rid of one-sidedness and the tendency to make leaps. For this reason I consider that our programme of principle, too, not only should but can be made free from the traces of past extremisms. It has to provide a lasting foundation for all our future tactics, and so must be formulated just as objectively as the programmes of the advanced European Social-Democratic Parties.

Martov: l am amazed that all the considerations set out by Comrade Martynov should have resulted in nothing more than a proposal to insert the word ‘consciousness’ and to replace the word ‘exploiters’ by ‘exploitation’. I cannot see the connection between a passage in Lenin’s book and the absence of the word ‘consciousness’. I have nothing against inserting this word. Comrade Martynov’s argument against Lenin’s phrase is based on confusion between two questions, which are situated on different planes. The quotations given by Comrade Martynov show us that this is so. For example, what does Marx say in The Eighteenth Brumaire ? He defines the relation between the ideology of a particular class and the class itself. But Marx says nothing about the process which culminates in the elaboration by the working class of that world-outlook which expresses the conditions of the historical existence of the working class.

Gorin: We know of two serious conceptions of the historical process: materialism and idealism. A combination of the two, as an eclectic form, must be regarded as vulgar. We must also regard as vulgar both idealism and materialism themselves when these are conceived in their crude, direct meanings. Among us, vulgar idealism is represented by the doctrine of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, and vulgar materialism by economism. For the latter outlook, no idea, no individuality, no consciousness possess any significance. The Rabocheye Dyelo group constitutes a fourth type—eclectic, but closely approximating to economism. Comrade Martynov—experienced in the discussions on economism—declares himself hostile to that conception, but he only wants to give somewhat more elegant expression to this fourth type. I am not going to try and find out why he had to quote Marx, Engels, Kautsky and others, endlessly, in various languages (among which I was afraid Spanish was going to turn up) as though, do you see, the factor of ideas had been overlooked. Only economic terms were being ured: ‘exploiters’, ‘exploitation’, and there were no terms relating to anything different. To fill the gap Comrade Martynov proposes the word: ‘consciousness’. Then he goes for Comrade Lenin on the grounds that the latter attributes a spontaneous origin to the independent ideology of the proletariat. He sees as false Comrade Lenin’s proposition that the conscious element is introduced only by ideologists, and demonstrates that, on the contrary, the theories of the ideologists are worked out under the influence of the proletariat. Thereby he essentially seeks to show that these theories are spontaneous in origin. In actual fact, the point is merely that these theories do not fall from heaven but represent a certain induction from an objective process. I am not here going to say how correct I consider Comrade Lenin’s proposition to be. This question is too complex and has been too little analysed. But, in general, I think, the true course of the process has been defined. Comrade Martynov himself did not sustain his view regarding the independence of the proletariat, and he said that the proletariat, left to itself, falls under the influence of the bourgeoisie. Thereby he unintentionally acknowledged that the proletariat is unable, without influence from ideologists, to rise above purely instinctive opposition.

Lieber: Comrades, I suggest that the purpose of the present item on the agenda is not just to make certain changes in the draft programme, but also to call for some explanations. Not all of us are sufficiently competent to work out a programme, but all of us do, of course, need to have a clear and uniform conception of what each point of the programme means. It is with a request for such an explanation that I rise to address you. In the third paragraph on the third page it is stated that ‘the Social-Democrats of different countries are obliged to undertake different immediate tasks, both because this [capitalist] mode [of production] has not developed everywhere to the same degree and because its development in the different countries is coming to fruition under a variety of socio-political circumstances’. The question arises, is the social and political situation the same in all parts of a country like, for example Russia, where one part, namely Poland, has developed in the past in a distinct way, and so, can this point apply uniformly to the whole country? Later, in the same paragraph, where mention is made of survivals from pre-capitalist systems, such survivals as the vestiges of serfdom are quoted. But, for example, the Jewish proletariat has to struggle against such survivals as the middleman system, and so on. These survivals set a sharp imprint on the entire struggle of the Jewish proletariat. Here again the question arises, can the general description of Russia which is given in this paragraph be taken as applicable to all parts of the country? This is the question which I should like to have explained.

Lyadov: I rise to speak in reply to Comrade Lieber. He asked for an explanation of the point in the programme which speaks of the need for a special organisation of Social-Democrats in each different country. He considers that, in accordance with this point, the Jewish proletariat has the right to an independent organisation, since the mutual relations between classes among the Jews are quite different from what they are in the rest of Russia. I think we cannot agree with Comrade Lieber. The Russian political system is the expression of the whole complex of economic conditions in different parts of Russia. The inter-relation of classes among the Jews is one of the details which make up the entire class physiognomy of Russia. I think that the proletariat living anywhere in Russia suffers in the same way from survivals of pre-capitalist relations, which are defended by one and the same government. The whole proletariat has a common enemy, and so the struggle against this enemy must be waged as a common struggle. As for the allegedly special struggle of the Jewish proletariat against an allegedly special form of exploitation, I must say that literally this same form of exploitation exists everywhere that we find the domestic form of industry, the handicraft mode of production. The special form of exploitation which, according to Comrade Lieber, is a peculiarity affecting only the Jewish proletariat, exists in literally identical form in the Moscow, Vladimir and Pavlovo areas.

After this, the congress proceeded to elect a commission to discuss the programme. Elected to this commission were: Plekhanov, Lenin, Akselrod, Starover, Yudin, Martynov and Yegorov.

The session was closed.

Ninth Session[edit source]

(Present: 42 delegates with 51 deciding votes and 8 persons with consultative voice.)

After the reading and approval of the minutes of the fourth session, the congress continued its general discussion of the programme.

Gorin: I do not intend to offer any criticism of the draft programme which has been presented to us. It gives a good formulation of the principles of Social-Democracy. But I do find a few inexactitudes in it. It is desirable that our programme should be distinguished not only by consistency of principle but also by meritorious editing, so as not to offer any handle to idle criticism. In the third paragraph I suggest that, instead of the words: ‘On the basis of capitalist production-relations’ we put: ‘On the basis of the predominance of capitalist production-relations.’ This formulation will be more appropriate for describing present-day bourgeois society, within which petty production has been retained. In the fourth paragraph, after the words: large-scale enterprises’ I would add: ‘and the simultaneous increase in the amount of social capital, which continually narrows the sphere in which the latter can be invested’. ‘The economic weight of large enterprises’, taken by itself, is a necessary but not a sufficient cause for the squeezing-out of small producers. This happens insofar as the simultaneous increase in capital cramps the spheres where this capital was invested previously, forcing it to invade those sphere which are occupied by small-scale production.

To the fourth paragraph I would add at the end: ‘besides the direct tendency toward this which is due to the constant cheapening of the means of reproducing the commodity labour-power’. After all, the increase in the level of exploitation depends first and foremost on the cheapening of the workers’ means of subsistence.

Only supplementary to this is the influence, tending in the same direction, produced by the fall in demand for labour-power, relative to the supply. I agree with the law of the relative decline in the demand for labour-power, recognised in this paragraph, insofar as this implies growth in the reserve army of labour as compared with the ‘field army’, and insofar as this growth is dependent on the fact that the labour-force as a whole is recruited at the time of absolute production, that is, when society’s productive forces are strained to the utmost, and then part of this force is put in reserve when production falls to the level determined by social demand. My remaining editorial improvements I propose to hand to the special commission.

Martynov: Comrade Martov and Gorin have replied to me. Comrade Martov upholds the proposition which I criticised and Comrade Gorin has criticised the propositions I put forward. Let me begin with Comrade Martov’s objections to what I said. First of all, he declared that I wilfully interpreted the passage from the programme which I quoted in the sense of the thesis propounded by Comrade Lenin in the pamphlet What Is To Be Done? He said that the expression quoted by me should be understood in the broad sense of the class struggle of the proletariat, and not in the sense of the trade-union struggle alone, especially as, in the programme, discontent with the existing order is even ascribed to the entire mass of working people. I will answer that. In the first place, the discontent of the petty-bourgeoisie with the existing order can have nothing in common with the class-consciousness of the proletariat. In the second place, my interpretation is supported not only by the passage I quoted but also by some other passages in the programme, on which I will not dwell now. Then, Comrade Martov tried to defend Comrade Lenin’s thesis. He tried to use the passage I quoted from The Eighteenth Brumaire in the spirit of Comrade Lenin. He showed, on the basis of Marx’s words, that the ideologists of a particular class may, by their social origin, belong to a different class. I do not dispute this, of course. But why did Comrade Martov not explain to us how, if one takes Comrade Lenin’s view, it is possible to agree with the second part of Marx’s sentence: ‘a social class is driven practically to the same conclusions as those to which its ideologists are driven theoretically’?

Then Comrade Martov told us that in Comrade Lenin’s pamphlet the question is considered on a plane different from that of the programme. In the latter what is meant is the tendency of the working class, in the former the internal process by which this tendency is elaborated. Recognising that the working class has an inevitable tendency towards socialism does not mean denying that this tendency is realised through influence by the intelligentsia on the working-class masses. I agree with that. But I claim that Comrade Lenin describes falsely the process whereby the tendency of the working class towards socialism is elaborated. In order to defend Comrade Lenin’s theory, Comrade Martov has first touched it up. He says that among the masses of the proletariat there are opposing tendencies—towards socialism and towards ‘bourgeoisness’—and that the intelligentsia carries out an artificial choice between these tendencies. I say that, even in this corrected form, Comrade Lenin’s theory is wrong. In general the working-class movement has no tendency towards bourgeois ideology. It bears a bourgeois imprint insofar as it has not yet freed itself from the influence of the bourgeois atmosphere in which it has grown up and in which it develops. Comrade Lenin asserts that the spontaneous movement of the working class is not that which breaks away from bourgeois ideology but that which subordinates itself to bourgeois ideology.

Plekhanov: I want to bring it to the attention of everyone, and of Comrade Martynov in particular, that he has transferred the argument to a terrain on which it is inexpedient to argue, a terrain on which controversy does not justify the effort unproductively expended.^[31] The observation which he has directed against the programme is aimed at one phrase in one of the works of one of the editors of the draft programme. Even if we assume that the phrase was unfortunate, that would only show that all the rest of our ideas are excellent. Comrade Martynov’s method reminds me of the censor who said: ‘Give me the Lord’s Prayer, and let me take one phrase from it, and I’ll show you that the author ought to be hanged.’ But all the reproaches directed against this unfortunate phrase, and not by Comrade Martynov alone but by many others, are based on a misunderstanding. Comrade Martynov quotes Engels’s words: ‘Scientific socialism is the theoretical expression of the proletarian movement.’ Comrade Lenin agrees with Engels, too, and, if he didn’t, he ought indeed to be hanged. But Engels’s words amount, after all, only to a general proposition. The question is: who first formulates this ‘theoretical expression’? Lenin was writing not a treatise on the philosophy of history, but a polemical article against the economists who said: we must wait for the working class to catch up, without the help of the ‘revolutionary bacillus’. The latter was forbidden to tell the workers anything, precisely because it was a ‘revolutionary bacillus’, that is, because it possessed theoretical consciousness. But if you eliminate the ‘bacillus’, then you are left with a uniform unconscious mass, into which consciousness has to be injected from without. If you were to be fair to Lenin and read the whole of his book with attention, you would see that that is just what he says in it. Thus, speaking of the trade-union struggle, he develops that very idea that broad socialist consciousness can be introduced only from outside the limits of the direct struggle for improving the conditions which govern the sale of labour-power.

Akimov: I am handing to the commission some corrections to the draft programme, and what I want to do now is to explain the general considerations which have guided me in putting each of them forward.

I fully agree with Comrade Martynov that the point in the draft about which he spoke fully reflects Comrade Lenin’s distinctive views about the anti-socialist ideology of the proletariat as such, and the conclusions to be drawn from this.

I regard as mistaken Comrade Plekhanov’s view that the reference to Lenin’s little book was unfounded. One cannot, he says, criticise a programme on the basis of one phrase in one book by one of the editors of the draft. The phrase of Comrade Lenin’s which Comrade Martynov criticised is no isolated phrase, it expounds the fundamental idea of What Is To Be Done?, and this idea, it seems to me, finds expression in the draft programme. It is an idea that does not coincide at all with what Plekhanov wrote in his commentaries. And I am sure that Plekhanov does not agree with Lenin. [Laughter.] And I think Comrade Lenin himself will not refuse to confirm that this is his view, and not an isolated passage, a casual phrase. Here, for instance, is another extract from the pamphlet What Is To Be Done? Note this statement, that the theory of scientific socialism ‘arose quite independently of the working-class movement’. No, of course, it was not strikers who worked out the theory of scientific socialism. [Laughter.]

I do not agree with Comrade Martynov that only one or two corrections are needed to the paragraph in the draft which he mentioned. It seems to me that a wrong idea runs consistently and undilutedly all through the ‘principles’ section of the draft, from beginning to end. The historical conditions under which this programme appeared have marked the document deeply. It was a period of powerful upsurge of political radicalism in all sections of Russian society. This was reflected in the fact that specifically proletarian forms of struggle were pushed into the background, the role of other strata of the oppressed population was overestimated in our party, and the very methods of struggle brought to the forefront not the class itself but its organisation, the Party, in which, as a result, the Party’s class features and the mass character of its activity were glossed over and concealed.

In a general discussion I cannot mention all the corrections I intend to suggest. I shall refer to only a few of them, by way of commenting on what I have said.

The draft discusses whether or not an absolute worsening of the position of the working class takes place as capitalism develops. This question is connected with the question of the Party’s methods of work. In West-European writings it has been said that the ‘theory of impoverishment’ runs counter to existing methods of agitation. Our programme ought to give a quite definite answer to this question, and thereby provide the Party with a guiding principle in its leadership of the political and economic struggle of the proletariat. In the draft this question is dealt with evasively, and, basically, in the sense that the fight for bettering the position of the proletariat is a side-issue for the Party and of interest to it only as furnishing the conjuncture within which it operates. Thus, in this point of the programme a tendency appears to separate our Party and its interests from the proletariat and the proletariat’s interests.

This appears still more clearly in the paragraph on the tasks of the Party. Here the concepts ‘Party’ and ‘proletariat’ are completely separated and counterposed, with the former as an active collective personage and the second as a passive milieu upon which the Party exercisel influence, because in the propositions in this draft the noun ‘Party’ always appears as the subject and the noun ‘proletariat’ as the object. [Laughter.]

Similarly, the paragraph on the conquest of political power has been formulated in such a way, as compared with the programmes of all other Social-Democratic parties, that it may be interpreted, and has actually been interpreted by Plekhanov, to mean that the role of the leading organisation is to relegate to the background the class it is leading and to separate the former from the latter. Consequently, the formulation of our political tasks is exactly the same as that of Narodnaya Volya.

The point about the non-proletarian strata of the population, if it were put into effect, would make our Party not the party of the proletariat but a party of all the oppressed and exploited strata, that is, a party which would be neither revolutionary nor socialist.

Consequently, all my corrections have the purpose of altering the very spirit of the programme. Many of them are trivial if taken in isolation, but taken together, if they were adopted they would make substantial changes.

Martov: I quite fail to understand where Akimov could have perceived in our programme a tendency to play down the importance of the labour movement. Has this draft not been blamed, on the contrary, for saying too little in its theoretical section about the detailed tasks of the particular political moment in Russia, and dealing mainly with the general tasks of the world movement of the proletariat? It is a queer notion to see in the statements about the other sections of the working people a tendency to draw doser to the Socialist-Revolutionaries. The latter have said, on the contrary, that they would have accepted this item of our programme if, instead of: ‘the point of view of the proletariat’ we had written: ‘the point of view of socialism’. The class character of the Party is expressed clearly enough there. The words ‘of the working class’ are used only in order to avoid repeating the word ‘proletariat’ twice in the same sentence. I don’t know what Akimov means when he says that the programme reflects a contemptuous attitude to the workers’ economic struggle. Is it his wish that instead of speaking about the struggle for the common economic aim of the entire labour movement, the social revolution, we should have spoken about the partial tasks of different groups of the proletariat? The passage dealing with the so-called ‘theory of impoverishment’ states the limits within which it is conceivable to improve the position of the working class under the capitalist system. It shows that the task of this struggle for immediate material improvement is to counteract the degrading tendencies of capitalist development, and the section of the programme which enumerates factory reforms provides the best answer to the reproach that we have ignored the struggle for immediate improvement.

Where has Akimov found evidence of our placing excessive hopes in other social movements? The latter are mentioned only at the end of the draft, where it is said that we shall support any oppositional and revolutionary movement directed against Tsardom. Is Comrade Akimov opposed to that, perhaps? If he thinks that Iskra has now renounced the task of agitating among all strata of the population, then he is mistaken. We hope, on the contrary, that, with the restoration of the Party, we shall be able to widen the sphere of its influence; and I am not without hope that the time will come when Comrade Akimov himself will be detailed by the Party to carry out propaganda among those famous ‘marshals of the nobility’ on account of whom Iskra was subjected to particular reproach.^[32]

Karsky: I completely fail to understand how the proletariat on its own, the working class in its day-to-day struggle, the struggle for its immediate interests, could have succeeded in creating the harmonious philosophical system of scientific socialism, embracing a whole philosophy of social development. I completely fail to understand how such a task could be accomplished by a section of society whose field of vision is limited, enclosed within certain bounds, and does not embrace the whole variety of social phenomena. This is the position of the mass of the working class, which cannot, with its own forces alone, on the basis of familiarity only with its own position, create the theory of scientific socialism. This theory could be created, at a certain stage of the development of capitalism, by a genius who had studied and elucidated for himself the laws governing this development. Such a revolution in social philosophy could be accomplished only by someone who took up the standpoint of the proletariat and who at the same time was able to build his edifice upon an historical study of the conditions of modern capitalism. In that sense, of course, the theory of socialism was brought to the working class from without. And it is strange to hear this view objected to. But it appears that those who disagree with us are under the influence of a certain idea regarding ‘spontaneity’ and ‘stages’. Naturally, whoever defends ‘spontaneity’ also defends the idea of the spontaneous elaboration of the theory of socialism, and vice versa.

We always find another question connected with this one, namely, the counterposing of the Party to the working class. Comrade Akimov considers that the Party must not be placed above the working class. This way of posing the question seems to me both incorrect and out of place. From out of the working class there emerges a militant, conscious force, the Party, which is the bearer and promoter of socialist ideals and, as such, the Party cannot but stand higher than ‘the working class’, since the conscious part of this class is the leader of the unconscious or inadequately conscious part.

I regard Comrade Akimov’s objection on the third point, about the ‘theory of impoverishment’ as extremely significant. This theory must occupy a central position in our socialist world-outlook.

Martyrnov: Comrade Karsky said that my idea of the relation between the working class and socialist ideology was that the working class itself arrived at the theory of scientific socialism. I never said anything of the kind. I only said that different strata of the proletariat worked out independently the forms of economic and political class struggle and transformed the ideas of bourgeois socialism into communist ideas. The role of the ideologists was to synthesise these elements of the class struggle, to provide a theoretical foundation for this struggle. This work was accomplished, of course, not by workers, but by Marx and Engels and consisted in the transforming of past philosophical and social theories into the theory of scientific socialism. But Marx and Engels were able to accomplish this theoretical work only after they had broken with radicalism and adopted the standpoint of the proletariat—in other words, joined the movement of that class.

Up to this point we agree with Comrade Akimov’s views. But we draw different conclusions from them. I do not deny either the theory of impoverishment or the dictatorship of the proletariat. I think this needs to be stressed. Later, Comrade Akimov, referring to me, said that the period which followed the period of economism was marked by a major defect, namely, political radicalism. We are not at all of one mind in the way we see that period. The movement, it seems to me, took a step forward then, and did so precisely because it assumed a political form. But at the same time big gaps appeared in the movement: political agitation was, in practice, poorly linked up with socialism; too much emphasis was laid on what united our political interests with those of the bourgeois opposition, and too little on what distinguished us from it.

Lange moved that the programme be voted on en bloc and its final editing referred to a commission.

Trotsky proposed that the list of speakers be closed.

Akimov opposed categorically the idea that the programme be voted on en bloc. If that were done the programme would be deprived of all serious significance. It was probable that every one of the delegates could find some point in the draft programme which they did not agree with. When voting for the programme as a whole they would consider that particular point as not binding upon them.

Martov advocated voting on the programme en bloc after corrections had been made to it and it had been voted on point by point.

Akimov opposed the closing of the list of speakers on such an important question as the programme.

Martov saw no disadvantage in closing the list of speakers. When the programme came back from the commission the discussion would be renewed, point by point.

Martynov asked that, as rapporteur, he be allowed to make his concluding speech.

Martov: Comrade Martynov’s report dealt with one amendment only, and now, when we are having a general discussion, a concluding speech by him would be pointless. It would be much better to let the rapporteur make his concluding speech at the end of the debate on the programme.

Martynov: The concluding speech does not depend on the content of the report, and the standing orders of the congress place no restrictions upon it.

Brouckère was against closing the list of speakers. Lenin and Plekhanov were on the list, and delegates would probably want to reply to what they said.

Trotsky: I did not mean a complete closure of the debate. After the programme has come back from the commission the debate will be resumed, but it will then have a more planned character.

Trotsky’s proposal was adopted, and Comrade Lange’s rejected.

Plekhanov: Comrade Akimov’s views on the theory of impoverishment must logically and inevitably lead to opportunism. In Comrade Akimov’s view, if I understood him correctly [Akimov: ‘That’s just it, you didn’t understand me’], the position of the working class in bourgeois society not only does not worsen absolutely but also does not worsen relatively. Comrade Akimov considers that even in present-day society it is possible for the material position of the proletariat as a whole to improve, and that these gradual improvements in the material conditions of existence of the working class can lead to socialism.

From these statements of Comrade Akimov’s there logically follows denial of the ‘increased dependence of wage-labour upon capital’, of the ‘increased level of exploitation’. From them there logically follows denial of the increase of social inequality, insecurity of existence, unemployment, and so on. Actually, if modern capitalism, the existence of the institution of private property, does not lead to relative, and even absolute, deterioration in the position of the working masses, if it does not lead, on the one hand, to the concentration of capital in a few hands, and, on the other, to the proletarianisation of the masses on an ever wider scale, then we must ask why a spirit of discontent, a revolutionary mood, should grow among the working class, why antagonism between classes should develop, why contradiction between classes should intensify? Denial of the theory of impoverishment is tantamount to tacit acceptance of the theory of opportunism. Bourgeois economists writing in the spirit of Basfiat, such as Giffen or Leroy-Beaulieu and their pupils in the struggle against revolutionary socialism, argue fast and foremost, in the same way as Comrade Akimov, that is, they deny the theory of impoverishment and assure us of a progressive improvement in the position of the working masses, and so on. Bourgeois writers have correctly understood the importance of this theory. On the other hand, denial of this theory has led Bernstein and his supporters to Bernsteinism and Jaurésism, that is, to opportunism. Indeed, if the position of the working class is gradually improving, if such an improvement is even now attainable for wider and wider masses, then, naturally, the reformist socialists have all the chances and every right to appear as the true spokesmen and defenders of the interests of the proletariat, and revolutionary Social-Democracy must take its stand under the banner of opportunism. But no, Comrade Akimov, we are not going to stand under that banner: the steadily developing deterioration, both relative and absolute, in the position of ever broader masses of the proletariat summons us to rally under the banner of revolutionary Social-Democracy. We stand and shall continue to stand beneath that banner.

Gorin: Economism as such has disappeared from the scene. But a tendency remains which might be called a federal relationship with economism. This tendency is incapable of understanding our point of view. Its supporters have understood the statement which has been made that Russian Social-Democracy arose independently of the working-class movement as an assertion made by us in an absolute, metaphysical sense, and they blame us accordingly. What we have said relates to a fact, and does not express any social philosophy or conception of history. We have simply said that Russian Social-Democracy was first of all merely an imported doctrine, which antedated the rise of the labour movement in Russia. But Russian Social-Democracy did not fall from heaven. Having arisen as a populist doctrine along with other Russian revolutionary doctrines, it assumed Social-Democratic form under the pressure of the West-European labour movement and West-European scientific socialism, and only later did Russian Social-Democracy link itself practically with the Russian labour movement.

It is important to dissociate oneself from the vulgar form of materialism which understands the dependence of the ideology of revolutionaries on external circumstances as meaning their dependence on the spontaneous ideology of the proletariat. If it is not vulgar revolutionaries that we have in mind, their ideology was elaborated according to other standards. Let me explain. The average man can be likened to a short-sighted person who sees only a narrow circle around himself and judges the rest of space by analogy with his own little spot. A man with an exceptional mind is long-sighted, and sees everything in space more or less equally clearly. This is why men of genius can break away from the ideology of their own class and take up a universal-human standpoint, influenced only by objective facts and the findings of science. The true ideologists of the proletariat occupy a middle position between such exceptional men and the mass of mankind. They are to a considerable extent objective, but eventually what they work out is a proletarian ideology, in so far as they, to a certain extent, come close to the proletariat economically. The proletariat en masse is not capable of doing this. What would the situation be if the proletariat were left to itself? It would be like the situation that existed on the eve of the bourgeois revolution. The bourgeois revolutionaries possessed no scientific theory. And yet, the bourgeois system arose. Even without ideologists the proletariat would, of course, eventually work towards social revolution, but only in an instinctive way.

Large-scale enterprises grow. In its struggle to overcome crises the bourgeoisie of every branch becomes merged into a single syndicate, with monopoly prices for the goods they produce. The syndicates agree on the norms of exchange. Exchange and commodity relations between capitalists disappear. On the other hand, the syndicate of the capitalists confronts the syndicate of all the workers. The ratio between wages and surplus value is laid down once and for all. Labour-power ceases to be a commodity. It is understood that the syndicate of capitalists can be replaced by the syndicate of workers. The proletariat would put socialism into effect instinctively, but it would not have any theory of socialism. The process would be slow and more painful than if it were helped along by revolutionary ideologists who set a definite aim and foresee what we are moving towards.

Lieber: I also disagree with the idea expressed by Comrade Lenin which has been discussed here. I consider that, among the objective factors under the influence of which the ideology of the Social-Democratic intelligentsia, made up of persons of bourgeois origin, is formed, Comrade Lenin underestimates the influence of proletarian psychology. But since I cannot trace the influence of Comrade Lenin in the draft which has been presented to us, I shall not pursue that subject.

I pass to consideration of two places in the draft in which, it seems to me, the line of demarcation is not drawn sharply enough between our point of view on the proletariat and that of the ‘Socialist-Revolutionaries’. In one passage it is said that the Social-Democrats must reveal to the proletariat ‘the contradiction between the interests of the exploiters and those of the exploited’. In capitalist society it is not only the proletariat that is exploited: what distinguishes the proletariat from the other exploited strata is the specific character of the exploitation to which it is subjected. Further, at the end of this same paragraph it is said: ‘The Party of the working class, the Social-Democratic Party, summons to its ranks all sections of the working and exploited population, in so far as they go over to the standpoint of the proletariat.’ It seems to me that this thesis can give rise to misunderstanding. Can non-proletarian sections of the population, as whole sections, actually go over to the standpoint of the proletariat? I think they never can. Of course, in its fight for its minimum programme the Social-Democratic movement can attract to its side the sympathy of other sections of the populations, which see in it the most resolute defender of democracy; but only the proletariat can and will fight for the maximum programme, for socialism, and only isolated individuals from other sections can resolutely go over to the standpoint of the proletariat.

Lenin: First of all, I must mention the extremely characteristic way in which Comrade Lieber confuses a Marshal of the Nobility with a section of the working and exploited people. This confusion has featured in all the debates. Isolated episodes of our controversy are everywhere being confused with the laying down of basic principles. One cannot deny, as Comrade Lieber does, the possibility of even a section (one or another) of the working and exploited population coming over the side of the proletariat. You will recall that in 1852, referring to the revolt of the French peasants, Marx wrote (in The Eighteenth Brumaire ) that the peasantry acts sometimes as a representative of the past and sometimes as a representative of the future; it is possible to appeal not only to the peasant’s prejudice but also to his judgment.^[33] You will further recall that Marx said that the Communards were quite right in declaring that the cause of the Commune was the cause of the peasantry as well.^[34] I repeat, it cannot be doubted that, under certain conditions, it is by no means impossible for one section or another of the working people to come over to the side of the proletariat. What matters is to define correctly what these conditions are. And the condition we are concerned with is expressed quite precisely in the words: ‘go over to the point of view of the proletariat’. It is these words that mark off us Social-Democrats most definitely from all allegedly socialist trends in general and from the so-called Socialist-Revolutionaries in particular.

I turn to that disputed passage in my pamphlet What Is To Be Done? which has given rise to so much comment here. It would seem that after all these comments the question has been so well clarified that very little is left for me to add. Obviously, an episode in the struggle against economism has here been confused with a principled presentation of a major theoretical question, namely, the formation of an ideology. Furthermore, this episode has been presented in an absolutely false way.

In support of this last statement I can refer, primarily, to Comrades Akimov and Martynov, who have spoken here. They made it clear that this was indeed an episode in the struggle against economism.

They expressed views which have already, and quite rightly, been described as opportunist. They went so far as to ‘deny’ the theory of impoverishment, to ‘dispute’ the dictatorship of the proletariat, and even to advocate the Erfüllungstheorie,^[35] as Comrade Akimov called it. To tell the truth, I don’t know what that means. It may be that Comrade Akimov meant to say Aushöhlungstheorie^[36]—the ‘theory of the emptying out’ of capitalism, that is, one of the most popular current notions of the Bernsteinian theory. In his defence of the old basis of economism, Comrade Akimov put forward the incredibly bizarre argument that the word ‘proletariat’ does not figure even once in our programme in the nominative case. At most, exclaimed Comrade Akimov, they let the proletariat appear in the genitive case.^[37] And so it appears that the nominative is the most honourable case, while the genitive takes second place in the scale of honour. It only remains to convey this idea—through a special commission, perhaps—to Comrade Ryazanov, so that he may supplement his first learned work on the letters of the alphabet with a second, a treatise on the cases .. .

As to the direct references that were made to my pamphlet What Is To Be Done? it is not difficult for me to show that they were wrenched out of their contexts. It was said that Lenin does not mention conflicting trends, but categorically affirms that the working-class movement always ‘tends’ to succumb to bourgeois ideology. Really? Didn’t I say that the working-class movement is drawn towards the bourgeois outlook with the benevolent assistance of the Schulze-Delitsches and their like? And what is meant here by ‘their like’? None other than the economists, none other than those who used to say, for example, that bourgeois democracy in Russia is a phantom. Today it is easy to talk so cheaply about bourgeois radicalism and liberalism, when examples of them are apparent to everyone. But was that the case previously?

Lenin, it is said, takes no account whatever of the fact that workers, too, participate in the formation of ideology. Really? Have I not said, time and again, that the shortage of fully conscious workers, worker-leaders and worker-revolutionaries, is precisely the greatest shortcoming in our movement? Did I not say, there, that the training of such worker-revolutionaries must be our immediate task? Is there no mention there of the importance of developing the trade-union movement and creating special trade-union publications? Is not a desperate struggle waged there against any attempt to lower the level to that of the masses, or of the average workers?

To conclude. We all know now that the economists bent the stick in one direction. In order to straighten the stick it was necessary to bend it in the other direction, and that is what I did. I am convinced that the Russian Social-Democratic movement will always vigorously straighten out a stick that has been bent by opportunism of any kind, and that our stick will always, therefore, be the straightest and fittest for action.

Trotsky: The most principled ideas regarding the draft programme presented by Iskra and Zarya have been expressed here by Comrades Martynov and Akimov. But where the former is concerned it has already been said that the general scope of his address was quite incommensurate with his final conclusions. In the words of Shchedrin, he promised us much bloodshed, but, instead, he ate a siskin. Comrade Akimov’s scope was also very wide, but unfortunately it was not at all connected with the draft programme. On one point only did Comrade Akimov, in a quite clear and principled way, come out in opposition to the draft under discussion. That was on the dictatorship of the proletariat. What is wrong with the draft, according to him, is that it improperly shifts the centre of gravity from the day-to-day struggle to the revolutionary dictatorship, from the class to the party … What does this mean? The draft under discussion includes a minimum programme, which is no smaller, in terms of the number of reforms demanded, that the minimum programme of other Social-Democratic parties. But revolutionary Social-Democrats, in fighting for reforms, are carrying out their fundamental reform—a reform of the minds of the proletariat, preparing them for the revolutionary dictatorship. We cannot stress vigorously enough the element of the proletarian dictatorship, for the reforms themselves are not a free political creation by the proletariat, but concessions made to the proletariat by the ruling classes, and made only under the threat of social revolution. Comrade Akimov tried to line up the draft under discussion with the programmatic position of the Socialist-Revolutionaries. This charge can return upon him a hundredfold. It is the Socialist-Revolutionaries who ‘shift the centre of gravity’ from the social revolution, which they describe as a ‘fantastic leap’, to the day-to-day struggle, which they conceive as a ‘planned ascent’ into the realm of socialism. I could furnish Comrade Akimov with some appropriate quotations, for his information. He fears the dictatorship of the proletariat as a Jacobin action. He forgets that this dictatorship will become possible only when the Social-Democratic Party and the working class—the counterposing of which one to the other worries him so much—have come closer than now to identification one with the other. The dictatorship of the proletariat will not be a conspiratorial ‘seizure of power’ but the political rule of the organised working class, constituting the majority of the nation. By denying this dictatorship Comrade Akimov falls into ordinary social-reformism.

Plekhanov: Comrade Lieber asked whether it is possible for any social stratum to come over as a whole to the side of the proletariat. This was put forward as an objection to what appears in our programme. But the programme does not deal with that question. It speaks conditionally: we, the Party of the proletariat, invite into our ranks all other strata of the working population in so far as they come over to our standpoint. Comrade Lieber thinks that we are expressing ourselves here with insufficient precision. But the Communist Manifesto says the same thing: all other strata become revolutionary only in so far as they come over to the standpoint of the proletariat.^[38] Comrade Lieber wanted to be more orthodox than Marx himself. This happens to individuals, but the Party as a whole has not the slightest need of it. We expressed ourselves precisely enough to mark off our views from those of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, for instance. The latter want to enlist the peasants on their side without bringing them over to the standpoint of the proletariat. We, however, say that the peasantry cannot march with us unless they abandon their peasant standpoint. This constitutes the principal line of demarcation between us and the Socialist-Revolutionaries.

As regards Comrade Akimov, this is what I notice. He says that our whole draft is permeated with the spirit of that phrase of Lenin’s which has been quoted so often. But this can be said only by someone who has understood neither Lenin’s phrase nor our draft. Actually, what is the idea that underlies our programme? Underlying it is the fundamental idea of Marx’s historical theory, the idea that the development of the productive forces determines the development of production-relations, which in their turn determine the entire development of society. What has Lenin’s phrase to do with that? Altogether, Comrade Akimov’s speech amazed me. Napoleon had a passion for making his Marshals divorce their wives: some gave in to him on this matter, even though they loved their wives. Comrade Akimov is like Napoleon in this respect—he wants, at any cost, to divorce me from Lenin. But I shall show more character than those Marshals of Napoleon’s. I shall not divorce Lenin and I hope he does not intend to divorce me. [Comrade Lenin laughingly shakes his head.] Let us now finally turn to Comrade Martynov. He says: socialism is worked out by the whole proletariat, including its conscious section, that is, he explains, all those who have come over to its side. If Comrade Martynov wants to say that, I see no reason to divorce him, any more than to divorce Lenin. By this formula the proletariat is made to include also the well-known bacillus—and then there is nothing to argue about. It only remains to ask Comrade Akimov to explain to us, at last, what case we should use when speaking of the proletariat in general, and of the bacillus in particular.

The session was closed.

Tenth Session[edit source]

(Present: 43 [Starting with this session, a third delegate from the Bund was present, so that the Bund had three delegates with three mandates, in addition to the two representatives from its Foreign Committee.] delegates with 51 deciding votes and eight with consultative voice.)

Lenin and Trotsky proposed that the entire programme, and not merely its general section, be handed over to the commission. Comrade Brouckère proposed that, before doing this, the congress hold a general debate on the remaining part of the programme. The proposal that the programme be handed over to the commission was adopted by 24 votes.

Deutsch announced the arrival of the Polish comrades.

Chairman Plekhanov: Comrades! Two delegates from the Social Democratic Party of Poland and Lithuania have come to our congress. I welcome warmly their presence here, and call on one of them, Comrade Warszawski, to speak.

Warszawski: Comrades! You invited us to your congress, and we bring you fraternal greetings from the Polish comrades, with wishes for successful and fruitful work for our common cause. As our party congress, which concluded only recently, did not have any official notification of your congress and did not receive an invitation to send delegates to it, we could not, of course, take definite decisions regarding the tasks of the present congress, but could only formulate in general terms the attitude of the Polish Social-Democrats to the future united All-Russia Social-Democratic Party.^[39]

In this spirit our congress appointed my comrade and me as representatives of our organisation to undertake discussions either at an all-Russia congress or in other circumstances. Your invitation thus came very opportunely.

I will now read you the decision which was adopted, as I mentioned, by our congress. It must be noted that this decision is no product of the immediate moment. On the contrary, it is a conclusion derived from the position of principle which the Polish Social-Democrats have held since the very beginning of their movement.

Already at our first party congress, which took place in Warsaw in March 1894, we adopted a resolution on the question of our relation to the Russian workers’ movement which recognised the need for common, united class struggle by the Polish and Russian proletariats. At the time when we adopted this decision there was not yet any mass workers’ movement in Russia, and Russian Social-Democracy existed only in embryo. Our political opponents, the Polish nationalists called us, in those days, utopians and fantasists, saying that a proletarian revolutionary movement in Russia was an impossible dream. For years we had to fight for the idea of a union of the entire working class of Russia, without distinction of nationality, reckoning in advance with the results of the social process of development in Russia on which we firmly counted, as ‘orthodox’ Marxists.

I think I ought to mention here that our attitude to the Russian Social-Democratic movement results not only from the mechanical view by which struggle against the common enemy, the autocracy, requires unity of all revolutionary forces in Russia, but also from our view of the whole process of social development, which is welding capitalist Poland and capitalist Russia ever more closely in a single economic organism, thereby laying the historical basis for the merging of the Polish and Russian proletariats in common class struggle under the flag of a single, united Social-Democratic movement.

Our attitude to the Russian labour movement is thus the reverse side of our attitude to Polish nationalism, which strives, on the contrary, to isolate the Polish proletariat from the Russian and organise it on a basis of utopian national aspirations. In this sense we ascribe great importance to unity with the Social-Democratic Party of Russia, seeing in it the realisation of our fundamental views, which we have been defending for ten years, and therefore what is of primary significance to us is the mere fact of unity. The forms to be assumed by this unity, however important they may be from the practical stand-point, are consequently seen by us as secondary.

It was in that spirit that our congress passed the following resolution:

In conformity with the resolutions of the first congress, in 1894, and of the third congress, in 1901, of the Social-Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania, which expressed the need for common, united political struggle shoulder to shoulder with the proletariat of the entire Russian state against Tsardom, the fourth congress of the SDKLP resolves that a single common Social-Democratic organisation for the whole Russian state is desirable. This main task of the present moment is of fundamental importance, so that the form of organisation is a secondary matter, the settlement of which will depend on the position and needs of the movement not only in Poland and Lithuania but also throughout Russia, and can therefore be realised only through agreement with the Social Democrats of the entire state. Consequently, the fourth congress leaves open the question of forms of organisation.

In the interests of the Social-Democratic movement in Poland it is desirable that there shall be:

1. Complete independence for the Polish Social-Democrats in all internal matters relating to agitation and organisation in the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania, with their own congresses, committees and publications.

2. Adoption by the common Social-Democratic Party of the official title: ‘Social-Democratic Labour Party of Russia’, with the Polish Social-Democratic movement retaining, as a sub-title, its present name: ‘Social-Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania’.

3. Other Polish socialist organisations to be allowed to enter the all-Russia Party only by joining the Social-Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania.

4. A member of the Polish organisation to be a member of the editorial board of the Central Organ, there to give guidance, along with the other members of the board, on matters concerning Polish party and public affairs.

5. Replacement of paragraph 7 of the programme of the Russian Party by a precise formula incapable of interpretation in a nationalist spirit.

6. Autonomy to be demanded for the Polish and Lithuanian provinces.

7. Adoption of a resolution expressing the attitude of the Russian Social-Democrats towards Polish social-patriotism, in the spirit of the SDKPL.

The resolution I have read gives the main points of what our congress desired, and we hope, comrades, that you will recognise the rightness and expediency of these points. Some of them, however, were emphasised by our congress as forming the indispensable conditions for our joining a common Social-Democratic Party.

These points are No 1, the underlined part of No 2, and No 3.

Comrades! You invited us to attend with the right of a consultative voice until we announced the decisions adopted by our congress with regard to your Party, which achieved unity already at your first congress. We consider this decision fully understandable, but we think it appropriate to state, for our part, that we cannot regard the decisions of this congress as binding upon us until we know your answer on the three basic points which I have mentioned as conditions for our union.

In conclusion I will add that given the present position of our movement in Poland, we ascribe special importance to unity with the Social-Democratic Party of Russia on the grounds of its moral significance. Even if our practical joint work were, in the immediate future, to be confined, whether we like it or not, to isolated instances, nevertheless the mere fact of political unity between the Polish and Russian proletariats is historic, and at the same time a fitting answer to a whole century of oppression of the Polish people by official, autocratic Russia.

Hitherto, only the tricolour flag of Russian absolutism has waved over Poland, as the symbol of enslavement. From the moment of our unification there will wave over Poland the red flag of all-Russia Social-Democracy, as the pledge of coming liberation. In the hope that the present congress will bring about this event, which we have long awaited, we again express to you our wishes for success, our wishes that this congress may prove to be the harbinger of death for our common immediate foe, the autocracy.

Chairman (Plekhanov): The draft agreement which our comrades from the Social-Democracy of Poland and Lithuania have put before us must be regarded as the first step in the rapprochement between us. Its foundations will be examined when we come to discuss the draft rules of the Party. We should then give our Polish comrades a precise

answer to their proposals. For the present we ask them to remain at our congress with a consultative voice. I propose to the congress that a commission be elected to study the agreement proposed by the Polish comrades.

Hofman said that the chairman had no right to decide on his own the question of a commission.

The Chairman said that this was merely a proposal, not a decision.

Lieber said that the question could not be referred to a commission without preliminary discussion, because it was of fundamental importance.

Yegorov asked what the commission was to do.

Chairman: The commission is to study the question of the agreement.

Lenin repudiated the charge that the chairman had proceeded irregularly. Nobody, so far as he had heard, had proposed that a decision taken by the congress be replaced by a decision taken by the commission. Nobody was trying to conceal anything. A commission would be elected in order to hear what the Polish comrades had to say, discuss the agreement these comrades proposed, and then submit for approval by the congress the opinion they had formed on this matter.

Goldblatt: The congress should discuss this question in a general way, so that this general discussion can provide the commission with the necessary material. I urge that we have an open general discussion. Then everything will be done in the full light of day.

Chairman: I don’t know what Comrade Goldblatt means when he says ‘in the full light of day’. At all international congresses work in commissions takes place before debates.

Both proposals were put to the vote, and by a majority of 32 to 6 the proposal of the presidium was adopted. Comrade Lieber’s proposal was rejected.

A proposal to elect a commission of five was adopted, by 37 to 6.

Chairman: I now open the discussion on item 4 of the agenda: the Party’s Central Organ.

Gorin: I propose that Iskra be recognised as the central organ, because Iskra has fulfilled and is fulfilling in practice the role of the guiding organ of revolutionary Social-Democracy.

Akimov proposed that it be explained what this item meant: was it a matter of pre-determining the existence of a single organ, or was the question of local organs also to be decided?

Lenin explained that the item related to the question of either confirming the old organ or establishing a new one.

Akimov (on a point of order): It follows from Lenin’s explanation that we cannot discuss this question today. We cannot discuss the question of the Party organ until we have finished discussing the programme.

Yegorov: I will begin by replying to Comrade Akimov. Of course the organ must be considered along with our programme. This is not the question before us at the moment. The third item on our agenda is very important. It must decide the question of how we are to ensure unity and adherence to principle in the activity of our Party, how we are to make sure that the point of view which proves victorious here is really put into effect, without wavering or vacillation. This, in my opinion, was what the OC had in mind when it made the question of the Party organ the third item on our agenda. We have now to express our attitude to Rabocheye Dyelo and to Iskra, not so much in the sense of the standpoint of principle of the one organ or the other as in the sense of stating what the situation is. Throughout the entire period that it has existed Iskra has unwaveringly and firmly put forward its principled point of view, without fearing to arouse discontent among a wide circle of readers, without fearing to anger its friends. That cannot, of course, be said of the other organ. This staunchness of Iskra is dear to us. It is not enough for us to draw up a programme, we have to put it into effect. We must remember the conditions under which we are obliged to work. Uncoordinated, disunited, lacking the possibility of communicating freely, each one of us is left to himself. We must have an ideological nucleus that can firmly direct our scattered activities, imparting unity to them and standing on guard for strict adherence to principle.

Akimov proposed that no discussion take place on the substance of the matter. He agreed with Comrade Yegorov, but considered that an organ ought not to be approved merely because it was steadfast.

Kostich: Comrade Akimov is mistaken. The feeling of the majority is not unknown to him. Why drag the matter out for the sake of formal considerations? Everyone is agreed, more or less, on everything. This question is clear. I am in favour of this question being discussed now.

Brouckère: I do not understand why Comrade Lenin did not understand Comrade Akimov. Of course we cannot approve the organ until we have adopted the programme. I propose that discussion of the organ be held over until we have adopted the programme.

Akimov moved a resolution, saying: I consider that the congress would go against its own decision, as just explained by Comrade Lenin, if it were to discuss the question of the organ before it has discussed the Party programme, and I propose that the congress adjourn and give the commission time to do its work.

The congress rejected Akimov’s resolution.

Kostich: I agree with Comrade Yegorov. Recognising Iskra as the guiding organ means bearing witness that Iskra is just what we need as a Party organ. True, Iskra has not, up to now, been able to respond to all the requirements of its readers. But everything that hindered it from doing this has now disappeared. I support Comrade Yegorov’s proposal and call for Iskra to be recognised as the central organ.

Koltsov: Comrade Yegorov says that Iskra has been staunch in its views. But that does not go far enough. It needs to be said that Iskra has been staunch in implementing certain principles, namely, those of revolutionary Social-Democracy. It is for that reason that I propose recognition of Iskra as the central organ.

Muravyov: Supplementing what Comrade Kostich has said, I want to stress that Iskra has been accepted as the guiding organ not only by the delegates at this congress but also by the majority of committees in Russia, and so by all the comrades who make up these committees, This acceptance of Iskra by the committees could not be and was not compatible with lack of familiarity with, or even complete ignorance of, Iskra ’s programme, because this acceptance concerned the body of ideas of Russian Social-Democracy, on matters of principle, tactics and general organisation, which were expressed by Iskra ; and the aggregate of these ideas must logically, in their turn, condition the general Party programme of Iskra.

Lieber: I consider that the question of the central organ cannot be reduced to that of the principle which this organ should uphold. There is also the question of the form of the central organ. Rabochaya Gazeta is regarded as the central organ. Until Rabochaya Gazeta has been abolished we cannot nominate a new organ. I think that, despite the defects which I find in Iskra, it ought to be recognised as the central organ. Whether it is enough for us to have only one organ is another matter. Has Iskra met all the requirements of its readers? I say no. For the RSDLP it is not enough to have only one Central Organ. The Party needs the guidance that a single Central Organ can give. But is it really supposed that there is no need for a workers’ paper? I am surprised that the comrades who have spoken before me have not mentioned this need. A newspaper must not only give leadership, it must also take up a number of questions which concern the workers. That the working-class masses need a leading organ I have no doubt. We must create an organ that will be understood by the broad masses. Local organs cannot take the place of the central organ for the mass of the workers. I propose that we consider the question whether the comrades agree that we need a second organ—a workers’ paper for popularising ideas among the mass of the workers.

Akimov: I know that Iskra will be recognised as the Party organ. But I declare myself against this. I want it to be made clear in the minutes of the congress that the question of the organ was pre-determined. I have been told that the committees’ recognition of Iskra as the guiding organ has already pre-determined the question of recognising Iskra as the Party organ. Does this mean that the central organ will bear the name Iskra ’? Or that its editorial board will continue? Or that its principles will be adopted? It seems to me that we must first of all ask the Iskra group whether it agrees to surrender its signboard to the congress. Does it agree to submit to the instructions of the congress? I think this is a pertinent question, taking into account the staunch convictions of Iskra. I am told that we shall discuss the election of the editorial board of the Central Organ at the end. But I think this question ought to be taken up now.

Yegorov: What Koltsov said is self-evident. One can’t be principled unless one has principles. If, nevertheless, I emphasised Iskra ’s merits not as regards the views it promotes but as regards its ability to promote them I did this because at the moment, when we are discussing item 3 of the agenda, it is just this that we need to pay attention to. We have to show how a Party organ ought to be conducted. I tum now to Comrade Akimov’s objections. I think we ought not to play hide and seek. We want to express in our resolution today our attitude to the serious work that Iskra has accomplished.

Comrades! Consider the state of affairs in our Party during the last two years. General chaos, uncertainty and vacillation were the typical features of this period. If we nevertheless remained a united Party, if we are meeting here today as members of a like-minded collective, we owe all this to a group of persons who on their own initiative created an organ which, amid all the prevailing confusion, held high the banner of revolutionary Social-Democracy, yielding to none of the fashionable trends of the time. An organ which was able to maintain its positions in such a troubled period will, of course, be able to safeguard them also under more favourable conditions. I therefore propose that Iskra be recognised as the Party’s central organ. In calling upon comrades to declare for recognising Iskra as the Party organ I consider that by this decision we shall safeguard ourselves against any future surprises. [Applause.]

Lyadov: I fully concur with Comrade Yegorov’s view. We need a leading organ, and Iskra alone is such an organ. The question of a popular organ should, I think, be taken up under the item on Party publications.

Popov: I want to add a few words to what was said by Comrade Yegorov, my co-delegate. He described the significance of Iskra and pointed to its role in the future. I wish to recall its history. I remember the announcement of the publication of Iskra in which the editors, referring to the mental vacillation that was going on, declared that the first step towards the creation of a Party must be the creation of a Party organ. I recall the article ‘Where To Begin’ in No 3 or No 4 or Iskra. Many of the comrades active in Russia found it a tactless article; others thought this plan was fantastic, and the majority attributed it solely to ambition. Then I remember the bitterness shown towards Iskra by the majority of the Committees: I remember a whole series of splits. Fairness requires me to say that in all these splits, even though each one did grave harm to the organisation—in all these splits there was always a good side: they infused a fresh spirit into the work of the committees. I recall, finally, how since last year, starting from May 1, the committees began, one after another, to voice their ideological solidarity with Iskra. I recall, finally, the work of the OC, working under the direction of Iskra.

The liquidation of the period of amateurism went ahead, and now we see here at this congress a united Party which has to a significant extent been created by the activity of Iskra. Iskra created the Party, and I think the Party should recognise Iskra as its organ.

Muravyov: When I referred to the fact that Iskra has been recognised as the leading organ by the majority of the committees in Russia I did not in the least intend to associate this circumstance with the ‘imperative’ or ‘non-imperative’ character of delegates’ mandates, as Comrade Akimov supposes. I merely mentioned it as one argument in favour of recognition by the congress of Iskra as the Party’s leading organ. Delegates of committees are, of course, absolutely free to express their views; but, all the same, I must say to Comrade Akimov that if, for example, the Congress delegates were to recognise Rabocheye Dyelo as their leading organ, then they would undoubtedly repent bitterly having taken such a rash decision as soon as they got back home to their committees . . . Comrade Akimov takes the question of the future editorial board of the Central Organ very much to heart, and his sympathetic attitude to the Iskra organisation, which is faced with the misfortune of being deprived of such a truly dear possession as the Iskra newspaper, did, I confess, give me a pleasant surprise. But even so, I must confess to Comrade Akimov that in my heart of hearts, I do not doubt the complete readiness of the Iskra group to sacrifice, if need be, their right of private ownership for the good of the common cause.

Gorin: Comrade Lieber said something like this: it is not enough to acknowledge the principled character of an organ, one has also to pay attention to the forms in which its principles are put into effect. He is paying attention, evidently, to the matter of economising revolutionary labour-time. It is difficult for workers to understand Iskra. But in order that Iskra may be equal to its own principles, in order that it may propagate the principles of scientific socialism, it cannot be popular in character. So as to overcome stylistic difficulties, leaders can take an article from Iskra and read it with workers. As for the polemical methods for which Iskra is blamed, this is not the place to talk about that matter, since we are not gathered here to judge of proprieties. I will mention that Iskra still has before it the big task of undertaking the publication of popular pamphlets.

Pavlovich: I did not understand Akimov at all when he put his questions. When we have chosen the Party organ from among the existing organs we shall possess the concrete material on which to perform the operations Comrade Akimov is so much concerned about.

As for Comrade Akimov’s wondering whether the Iskra organisation will submit to the decisions of the congress, let me remind him that it is not for nothing that the letters ‘RSDLP’ appear at the masthead of Iskra. Everything that bears that heading belongs to the party, and must submit to the Party’s decisions. Here we are merely deciding what part of this ideological property we want to see as the ideological mouthpiece of the Party’s views, just as the Party can cause another part of its property to cease to exist. How any perplexity can anse in this matter is for Comrade Akimov to explain.

Trotsky: Comrade Akimov asks: what are we endorsing in Iskra, if we are not endorsing the editorial board—the name?

Although I am present here, comrades, as delegate of the Siberian Association, I also have the honour to belong to the Iskra organisation. Members of that organisation, and its ideological supporters general-ly, have been and are called Iskrists’. This is not just a name, it is a trend. A trend which has rallied certain persons around it, a trend which has compelled everyone to take up a definite attitude towards it. And this was all the more important because Iskra appeared at a time of ideological confusion in our own ranks.

Let us recall how quickly Marxism conquered the minds of the intelligentsia at the beginning of the 1890s. For the majority of these intellectuals Marxism was the instrument for emancipating our democratic movement from the outworn ideology of Narodism. It brought with it the right to ‘go to school under capitalism’ with a good conscience. But Marxism soon introduced its truly revolutionary content into the labour movement. The more that movement developed, the more urgent it became for democratic circles to define their attitude towards it. But the democratic movement itself succeeded in growing and becoming stronger, and acquired a taste for sounding its own independent political notes. The ideology of the proletariat was not convenient from its point of view. A critical campaign against Marxism began. The official purpose of this campaign was to free Marxism from un-critical, ‘dogmatic’ survivals. The real task of the campaign was to free the democratic movement from the burden of Marxist ideology. ‘Criticism’ served to ‘undermine’ all the foundations of Marxism. Not a trace remained of the former fascination of Marxism. The disruptive influence of this ‘criticism’ was felt in our ranks, too, in the ranks of the Social-Democrats. A period of doubt, vacillation and disorder set in. We yielded up one position after another to the bourgeois democrats.

It was at this critical moment that the group around Iskra and Zarya appeared, taking upon itself the responsibility of rallying the Party under the banner of revolutionary socialism. At the beginning of its work this group was ‘in the minority’. Now the situation has changed radically. And if Iskra was our guiding organ during that time of confusion in the Party, then by recognising it now as our central organ we are merely giving formal expression to its victory, to the victory of our trend. It is not the name we are endorsing, Comrade Akimov, but the banner, the banner around which, in practice, our Party has rallied! [Applause.]

Martynov: The question of the organ, as has been said here, is the question of our banner, of our trend. Therefore, like many other comrades, I consider that while discussing the adoption of Iskra, as a newspaper of a definite trend, as our central organ, we should not at this juncture discuss the method of electing or endorsing its editorial board: we shall discuss that later, in its proper place on the agenda. I shall therefore speak only about the Iskra trend.

Much has been said here about the services rendered by Iskra to our movement. It has been said that Iskra was the transmitter among us of the idea of revolutionary Social-Democracy. Reference has been made to its staunchness, to its principled consistency, to the boldness and passion with which it promoted its views. I fully admit all these services rendered by Iskra. But when we mention an organ’s merits we ought also to mention its defects. It seems to me that the key to the explanation of Iskra ’s principal defects was given us yesterday by one of its editors, Comrade Lenin.

Speaking about the episode of Iskra ’s fight against economism, Comrade Lenin made a confession to us. ‘The stick had been bent in one direction, and so we bent it the other way.’ By these words Comrade Lenin did not mean the excessive passion or ruthlessness shown in the fight against economism. Nobody, including myself, would blame Iskra for that. The degree of passion shown in a fight testifies only to the degree of conviction in the fighter. In accordance with the whole sense of the discussion, Comrade Lenin had in mind something different, namely, that in combating a false theory and false tactical principles, Iskra ‘bent the stick’ in precisely those matters, in matters of theory and tactical principle. That sort of method in politics is, I believe, a harmful one, and as I have already said, the character of our movement at the time immediately following the period of economism clearly revealed the danger of this system of stick-bending. I shall not go into detail here on that question. I shall add only this. When the vote is taken on the recognition of Iskra as the central organ, I shall vote for Iskra, and I ask the congress to interpret this vote as endorsing the Iskra trend with the reservation mentioned.

Brouckère: I agree with Comrade Yegorov that members of the editorial board of the Party Organ should not belong to any committee, since otherwise, being absorbed in local needs, they will involuntarily reflect these. But, unlike Comrade Yegorov, I think that Iskra certainly ought not to be recognised as our central organ. Comrade Yegorov said just now that Iskra was afraid neither of foes nor of friends. The fact that it is not afraid of foes is not peculiar to Iskra. Who that is concerned with illegal publications worries about the opinion of the Government or the liberal trends? You don’t fear your adversary and you don’t consider him. But the fact that Iskra has not shown consideration for friends, either, deserves to be made a reproach against it. Iskra was the representative of one of the Social-Democratic trends, and sought to destroy all those Social-Democratic organisations whole aims did not chime with its own. It felt no shame in its choice of methods of struggle for this purpose: seeking to discredit these organisations, it proceeded against them with completely unjust and untrue accusations, thereby committing against the Social-Democratic trends which disagreed with it a whole series of crimes [shouts: ‘Oho!’]—crimes from your point of view as well, yours, the majority’s. Two days ago Comrade Orlov charged the Voronezh Committee with persuading others of what it believed itself, and the majority joined him in making this charge. How much more guilty, even from your point of view, must be the crimes of Iskra, which, in order to fight against the trends that disagreed with it, did not hesitate to throw dirt on them, and in the scope of its polemic and the quality of its methods went beyond all the bounds set by scruples. I observe that in the charges against the Voronezh Committee these was no mention of those methods, borrowed from Iskra, to which it resorted in its first leaflet against the OC. These methods were not approved, even by their supporters, who blamed them for starting, as they put it, ‘to behave like Iskra ’.

By recognising this organ as the Party organ we thereby acknowledge, first, that the whole Party is in solidarity with Iskra on all matters, and, secondly, that the Party assumes responsibility for the entire past of this organ. Can we say that we are all in solidarity with the Iskra tendency, or can we say, with conviction, that the majority of those Social-Democrats who have worked in Russia—who have worked, I say—are in solidarity with it? No, not in the least. The fact that the majority of the committees have declared themselves supporters of Iskra does not argue against this: in most cities there is another trend apart from the committees, and we do not yet know which of them is the real Social-Democratic movement, which of them constitutes the majority. Only one trend is represented here, the Iskra trend, and choosing Iskra as the Party organ will forcibly subject the other trend to this one’s views. Secondly, can we take upon ourselves responsibility for the past of Iskra as a newspaper, for all the mistakes and errors of tact committed by the group of private individuals who have been directing it? I mean tactlessness not only in relation to the Social-Democrats of the other trend but also in relation to the Socialist-Revolutionaries. [Ironical applause. ] Yes, the methods to which Iskra resorted made one blush for it. Comrade Popov said just now that most of the comrades who have read a few articles in Iskra have agreed that it is tactless. [Shows: ‘They have already repented!’] I don’t know whether these comrades have repented or whether they have simply lost their notion of what constitutes tact, but I have recently heard comrades express indignation with Iskra ’s methods and say that since Iskra’s sallies against the Socialist-Revolutionaries they have been ashamed to meet them. [Applause.] If you, who are in solidarity with Iskra on all points and who even approve of its methods, are capable of assuming responsibility for its past, you have no right to load this responsibility on to the shoulders of those who have been its constant opponents. I therefore move that Comrade Gorin’s proposal to recognise Iskra as the Party organ be rejected and that we either create a new organ or else re-establish the former Party organ, Rabochaya Gazeta.

In conclusion, I consider it my duty to warn comrades that recognition of Iskra as the Party organ will constitute one of the biggest obstacles to the uniting of all Social-Democratic trends in one party. [Exclamations: ‘Oho!’ ‘Well, now!’]

Lieber: I have given views about the past services attributed to Iskra, and about the group which has directed it. $ut I find that even on this sun there were spots. Iskra was unable to distinguish its foes from its friends. The polemic that Iskra waged against its friends, the Bund, was harmful. By this polemic Iskra brought bitterness into its relations with the Bund. It did not always behave tactfully in relation to the Bund. Now, while wishing to see Iskra as the central organ, I think that when it has acquired that status it will learn to distinguish its friends from its foes.

Akimov: I was not satisfied with Comrade Yegorov’s reply. He mentioned the important role played by Iskra as a principled organ. But that is not convincing. Such an organ was bound to appear and did appear. It has been asked, how tactful and skilful was Iskra in advancing these principles? If this organ had been more tactful it would have advanced these principles much more rapidly and durably. It has been mentioned here that the majority are on Iskra ’s side. But it must not be forgotten that there is a large minority who are not on Iskra ’s side.

Orlov: I did not blame the Voronezh Committee for its fight against the Iskra trend, but for the method by which this fight was carried on. Its underhand procedure, by way of ‘friendly letters’, and its tactless statements seemed to me blameworthy, and showed up the solidity and the moral physiognomy of the Voronezh Committee.

Popov: I want to reply briefly to the comrade who spoke about spots on the sun. Iskra has been accused of tactlessness, and Comrade Brouckère referred to evidence from me on this point. But he did not quote this evidence correctly. I said that Iskra aroused indignation only in those who stubbornly persisted in their errors. You speak of tactlessness. Comrade Lieber says that Iskra did not distinguish between its own people and others. No, it distinguished only between principles. That was tactless… But here, it seems to me, we ought to speak not about tactfulness but about political tact. I will not single out particular articles from Iskra or from the Bund’s Posledniye Izvestiya. I will merely mention that Iskra undoubtedly possessed political tact. That very tact required that it came out in the sharpest kind of polemic, and it is thanks to Iskra ’s tactics that we now see such unity in the Party. And this is what I have to say about Comrades Akimov and Brouckère. They have striven persistently to ensure that their objections to Iskra get into the minutes. Let the readers see that they fought for their position to the last drop of blood. This reminds me of a scene in The Inspector-General. Bobchinsky asks that he be written about in the newspapers: let everyone know, he says, that Pyotr Ivanovich Bobchinsky exists. [Applause.]^[40]

The list of speakers was exhausted.

Rusov: While the first congress endorsed Rabochaya Gazeta, the second will abolish it.

Chairman: Clearly, by naming a central organ the congress automatically abolishes the previously existing one.

Lieber: The Comrade Chairman’s explanation is torrett. But we could recognise both Iskra and Rabochaya Gazeta as central organs.

Koltsov: There can only be one central organ. There can be other organs common to the whole Party, but only one central organ.

Lenin: I propose that we issue a death certificate to Rabochaya Gazeta, then Comrade Lieber will be satisfied.

Lieber: It is not true that there can only be one central organ.

Plekhanov: The concept of two centres contradicts the laws of geometry.

Martynov: I think that Comrade Lieber is proposing a second organ. There can be a single central organ, but also other organs common to the whole Party. I ask that this be mentioned in the resolution.

Muravyov: It seems to me that this is not a matter to be dealt with today. We shall talk about this when we discuss the question of publications readable by everyone.

Chairman: The congress has noted that Rabochaya Gazeta has ceased to exist.

Martov: In view of the fact that Rabochaya Gazeta has ceased to exist, I propose that the congress recognise this fact. [He then moved his resolution.] [Resolution by Martov and Stein: ‘The congress rescinds the decision of the First Congress recognising Rabochaya Gazeta as the Party’s central organ.’]

Comrades Akimov and Brouckère moved their resolution.[Resolution by Akimov and Brouckère: ‘In the interests of removing all obstacles standing in the way of complete unification of all Social Democrats active in Russia, the congress rejects the proposal to recognise Iskra as the Party organ, since Iskra represents only one trend. The congress re-establishes Rabochaya Gazeta, which was recognised as the Party organ by the First Congress of the RSDLP.’

]

The resolution by Comrades and Akimov and Brouckère was put to the vote, and received only two votes. The Martov-Stein resolution was voted on and adopted.

A resolution was moved which was signed by the members of the Yuzhny Rabochy group (Comrades Popov, Yegorov, Ivanov and Medvedev) and by Comrades Tsaryov, Lvov, Karsky, Rusov, Bekov and Stepanov.[Resolution by the members of the Yuzhny Rabochy group and others: ‘Considering (a) the services rendered by Iskra to ideological unification and to the development and defence of the principles of revolutionary Social-Democracy and struggle on the basis of these principles against all kinds of opportunist tendencies in our Party, and also against tendencies seeking to divert the working-class movement from the only true revolutionary path; (b) the role of Iskra in directing the practical work of the Party; and (c) the leading role played by Iskra in the work of unification—the second congress of the RSDLP declares that Iskra is its central organ.’]

Martynov: I propose that the resolution be divided into two parts and each part voted on separately. My reason is that I can vote for the second part but I want to abstain from voting on the first.

The Bureau agreed to Comrade Martynov’s proposal and put to the vote first of all the second part of the resolution of the members of the Yuzhny Rabochy group. It received 44 votes, with two against, the editors of Iskra abstaining. When the first part of the resolution was voted on it received 35 votes, with two against and 11 abstentions (including the editors of Iskra). That resolution as a whole was then put to the vote, and received 38 votes, with two against and nine abstentions (including the editors of Iskra.) [Applause.]

Comrade Lieber submitted the following statement, signed by Comrades Lieber, Abramson, Hofman, Yudin and Goldblatt: ‘We abstained from voting owing to the motivation of this resolution, as we do not agree with certain points in this motivation in the way that these were interpreted by the comrades who moved the resolution.’

With the adoption of the resolution of the members of the Yuzhny Rabochy group, Comrade Gorin’s resolution became unnecessary. [Gorin’s resolution: ‘The congress recognises Iskra as the Party’s central organ for the following reasons: fast, Iskra satisfies all the demands that can be required of an organ as regards the theoretical and practical promotion of Social-Democratic principles; secondly, it has already been fulfilling in practice, up to now, the function of central organ.’]

Chairman: I propose that we proceed to next business, that is, to the delegates’ reports (Item 5 on the Agenda).

There was a discussion about whether the reports should be read in their entirety or only in abbreviated form. Two resolutions were moved on this question: one moved by Comrade Kostich, [‘The congress elects a special commission with the task of examining the reports and deciding which of them should be read to the congress. Brief oral reports to be given on the course of events in the remaining organisations.’ (Comrade Kostich’s resolution.)] which was passed by 27 votes to 14, and one moved by Comrade Makhov, [Comrade Makhov’s resolution: ‘The congress asks the delegates to give the congress brief oral statements about the course of events in their organisations. The reports themselves to be handed over to the congress Bureau.’] which was rejected by 26 to 24.

Eleventh Session[edit source]

(Present: 43 delegates with 51 deciding votes and 10 [The two representatives of the Social-Democratic Party of Poland and Lithuania had now been added.] with consultative voice.)

The session opened with reading of the minutes of the 5th session.

Martov (on a point of order): In view of the fact that the minutes take up so much of our time, I propose that we change the procedure for reading them. At the German Party congresses the minutes are not read out at sessions, but every speaker has the right to peruse them and make corrections, with the secretary’s consent. I propose that we introduce the same procedure.

A discussion took place on this question, in which it was pointed out, among other things, that the German Social-Democrats had their own daily press, in which congress reports were published, so that any necessary corrections could be made at once. Eventually the congress decided to retain the old procedure for reading and approving the minutes.

Chairman: Who wishes to make any corrections to the minutes of the 5th session as read?

Lieber mentioned that in Comrade Lvov’s speech the evidence he had given for the Bund’s separatism had been omitted: namely, his reference to the Bund’s holding a separate May Day demonstration from that of the PPS in Warsaw.

Abramson drew attention to the omission from the minutes of the statement by Comrade Lvov that ‘relations with the Bund were good only so long as it stayed at home, and deteriorated when it began to extend its sphere of activity’.

Trotsky explained that what Comrade Lvov meant was: ‘The separatism of the Bund was not harmful to the Party so long as the Bund remained content with its own sphere of activity, but it became harmful when the Bund began to extend its area of influence.’

Koltrov: We cannot add to the speeches that have been made. We can only ask, in the course of a speech, that some particular statement by the speaker be included in the minutes.

Abramson: pointed out that one could not know beforehand what would be included in the minutes and what would not.

Chairman: In view of Comrade Lvov’s absence I propose that we include the additions proposed by Lieber and Abramson, and Trotsky’s explanation, in the minutes of today’s session. The minutes as they have been read should not be altered, but taken as approved.

This proposal was adopted by the congress.

The secretary of the Bureau presented the list of persons elected to the commission for working over the reports from committees, etc. Those elected were: Zasulich, Popov and Fomin.

The Chairman asked the congress if it desired to postpone consideration of the fourth item in the agenda until the reports had come back from the commission, and proceed to the next item, or if the session should be adjourned.

Lyadov proposed that the report of the Moscow Committee be read: since it was ready and would be of interest to all present it could be read in full, without abridgement.

Plekhanov said that it was the commission’s task to decide which reports should be read in full and which should be abridged.

Lenin proposed that there be an adjournment, after which the commission might give an account of its work.

An adjournment was announced, after which the rapporteur of the commission which had been elected addressed the congress.

Popov: At the request of the comrades from the Bund, and since their report is ready, and should be of interest to all present, the commission considers that it should be read in full, and proposes that the reading of reports begin with this one.

The spokesman of the Bund gave his report. [The reports will be published separately.]

After the report of the Bund had been heard, Comrade Martov said that many delegates had questions to ask, arising from the report which had been read, which it would be interesting to get answers to at once. He therefore proposed that everyone who wished to put questions to the spokesman of the Bund should do so and that the latter deal with them there and then.

Martov’s proposal was adopted.

Comrade Lieber was asked a large number of questions by numerous delegates. Why was a point included in the rules of the Bund giving the Central Committee the right to veto any congress delegate elected by a committee? Was the Socialist-Revolutionary organisation included among the organisations with which the Bund had relations? What were the sources of the Bund’s funds? In which towns were there authorised committees of the Bund? What groups did the delegates to the Bund’s Fifth Congress form in the voting at that congress? Were there different theoretical tendencies in the Bund? Did the so-called workshop organisations exist now? Had the Bund any dealings with the Osvobozhdenie Party? On what organisational principle were the local committees composed: were they elected? What was the number of votes east for each resolution moved at the Fifth Congress? Were there members of trade unions among the 30,000 workers organised in the Bund, and if so, how many? Why had the number of local organs decreased, and what was to be the character of the organ set up by the Fifth Congress?

Gorin: I should like to put one question to the comrades from the Bund. When I was in Byelostok the non-Jewish (Polish and German) workers of one of the textile milis in that town went on strike. The boss of the factory invited Jews, working on hand-looms, to take the places of these workers. Jewish workers who had been embittered by the way their own strikes had constantly been broken by non-Jewish workers were inclined to think that the offer should be accepted, and were held back only by the feeling that it was not good for Jews, whom everyone was against, to engage in strike-breaking. It must be appreciated that half of the workers in Byelostok are Jews, but they all work on hand-looms: they are not employed by the factory owners, because the non-Jewish workers do not allow it. Relations between Jewish and non-Jewish workers are strained. I should like to know what the Bund has done about this state of affairs in Byelostok, which is regarded as an important centre of the labour movement. [Lieber’s answers to these questions were not included in the minutes.]

Lange: Has the Bund helped the Osvobozhdenie Party in the matter of transport?

Abramson: The Osvobozhdenie Party approached the Bund with this proposal, and offered very advantageous terms, but the Bund rejected the proposal. It took the same line with the Socialist Revolutionaries.

Muravyov was not satisfied with Lieber’s answer. He wanted to know the number of delegates from local committees and the number from the Central Committee. When was the veto introduced?

Lieber: The number of members of the Central Committee is not known to anyone, as it has the right to co-opt.

The Chairman pointed out that only twenty minutes were left, and a number of practical questions had to be settled.

Martov proposed that discussion of the Bund’s report be terminated.

Plekhanov asked the comrades from the Bund for their view, derived from their practical experience, as to whether the principles of what was now referred to as ‘democratism’ were applicable in the case of local committees.

Lieber: We have found, from practical experience, that it is not possible to apply the democratic principles advocated by some of our comrades.

After this, questions on the Bund report were terminated. The rapporteur of the credentials commission was called on to speak.

Koltsov: As the members of the congress know, the commission has been invited to admit to our sessions a second delegate from the Mining and Metallurgical Association. The commission has ascertained that the position is as follows. The Mining and Metallurgical Association had the right to send two delegates to the congress. These two delegates were duly elected, and two alternative delegates as well. But one of the delegates did not come to the congress, for certain purely personal reasons. Then the delegate who did come to the congress proposed to the Association that it recognise as its second delegate another person, who had been endorsed by the Association. It must be mentioned that this person was not one of those who had been duly elected by the Association as an alternative delegate. Furthermore it is obvious that the election was carried out in this case in conditions somewhat different from those governing the election of all other delegates to this congress. Again, I have to add that the commission has been unable to obtain any information about the local work of the proposed delegate. Consequently, the Commission proposes that the congress pass the following resolution. [‘Although no unfavourable evidence was given to the commission regarding the delegate proposed by the Mining and Metallurgical Association, nevertheless, since (a) the period laid down by the Organising Committee for the nomination of delegates has expired long ago, and since (b) the commission has been able to obtain only very meagre information about the local work of this person—the second congress of the RSDLP finds it impossible to admit the proposed delegate to its sessions.’ (Resolution by the commission.)]

Lvov expressed regret that the Mining and Metallurgical Association had not taken the trouble to furnish information regarding the new delegate, and proposed that the Association submit to the decision of the congress.^[41]

The resolution was passed by a majority.

The session was closed.

Twelfth Session[edit source]

(Present: 43 delegates with 51 deciding votes and 11 with consultative voice) [Comrade Kostrov, who had been invited, had now arrived.]

The entire session was devoted to the reading of the reports of the delegates from the Baku and Saratov Committees, the Association of Mining and Metallurgical Workers, the Russian organisation of Iskra, and the Yuzhny Rabochy group.

Thirteenth Session^[42][edit source]

(Present: 43 delegates with 51 mandates and 11 with consultative voice.)

The reports of the delegates from the Don, Yekaterinoslav, Tula, Tver (Northern Association) and Moscow committees were read. The minutes of the sixth session were read and approved.

↑ At the first session Yegorov (delegate from Yuzhny Rabochy and a member of the Organising Committee) and Goldblatt, of the Bund, had not yet arrived. Yegorov arrived for the second session, and Goldblatt for the tenth.
↑ Plekhanov’s ‘humanist knight’ is Ulrich von Hutten (1488-1523), on whom see Engels, in The Peasant War in Germany. In a letter to a friend in 1518, early in the Reformation period, he wrote: ‘O seculum! Juvat vivere.’
↑ This refers to the conferences held at Byelostok in March 1902 and at Pskov in November 1902. The precise dates were not given here for security reasons.
↑ The 27th committee, whose representative did not arrive, having been arrested while crossing the Russian frontier, was the Nizhny-Novgorod committee.
↑ Lydia Makhnovets took as her pseudonym the name of Louis de Brouckère (18701951), a Belgian Socialist who was at this time prominent in the Second International.
↑ ‘51 persons present’ is a mistake by the secretaries. There were at the 2nd session 50 persons altogether—42 delegates, with 51 deciding votes, and 8 persons with consultative voice.
↑ At the time of the credentials report at the second session, Goldblatt not having arrived yet, the other delegate from the Foreign Committee of the Bund was temporarily credited with two votes, pending his partner’s arrival.
↑ The Borba group consisted of Ryazanov, Nevzorov (i.e. Nakhamkes, also known as Steklov) and Danevich (Le., E.L. Gurevich).
↑ ‘X’ was P. P. Maslov. Lenin’s ‘Reply to Criticism of our Draft Programme’ June 1903, in Collected Works, Vol. 6, deals with his critique.
↑ For the background to this affair, see Lenin's Account of the Second Congress of the RSDLP Stein, a member of the OC, had favoured inviting a person named Chernyshov to the congress, but Pavlovich, also on the OC, had vigorously opposed this. Piqued, Stein now changed her attitude on the question of inviting Ryazanov. Though she had previously been against this, and had told the Credentials Committee so, she now joined with the other members of the OC, apart from Pavlovich, in asking the congress to invite Ryazanov. Pavlovich denounced before the congress the action of the OC majority, and the question arose of the OC’s right to function at the congress as a group with its own discipline.
↑ Pavlovich (Krasikov, 1870-1939) was a tough, determined man—to his enemies, ‘a drunken brawler’—who gave steady support to Lenin throughout the congress. A lawyer by training, he became head of the Cheka in Petrograd, and under Stalin was a judge in the Court of Appeal.
↑ The Caucasian permitted to attend with consultative voice was Kostrov, i.e. Zhordania.
↑ The 5th Congress of the Bund was held in Zurich in June 1903.
↑ According to the Bund’s own report of this congress, Martov’s resolution was signed by ‘twelve persons—all Jews’.
At the congress of the League Abroad in October 1903 Trotsky revealed that Lenin had sent him a note: ‘Trotsky, would you take the floor after Martov for a little statement regarding the resolution which you have signed [on the Bund] and declare that the Jews who signed it are also representatives of the Jewish proletariat.’ [Protokoly Ligi, p. 69: quoted by Getzler, Martov, p. 76, n. 76.)
↑ Karsky (Topuridze) and Rusov (Knunyants) were Georgian and Armenian, respectively.2
↑ By ‘Tatar’, Rusov means here Azeri, the Turkic language spoken in Azerbaijan. It was common in Russia in those days to speak of the Moslem people of that country as ‘the Tatars of Azerbaijan’.
↑ The Bund’s pamphlet On the Question of National Autonomy was published in February 1902.
↑ The background to Orlov’s remarks was that the Bund had been active originally in Lithuania (which in those days often meant Byelorussia as well as Lithuania proper) and had only later started to spread its activity into places further South, such as Yekaterinoslav (now Dniepropetrovsk), Odessa and Kiev.
↑ Vorstand. The leadership of the German Social-Democratic Party.
↑ Trotsky on the resolution of the 5th Congress of the Bund: ‘Whereas previously, at least in theory, the Bund was the representative of the interests of the Social-Democratic Party among a section of the Jewish proletariat, it was now transformed into the representative of the interests of the Jewish proletariat before the Social-Democratic Party.’ (Report of the Siberian Delegation, p. 10.)
↑ The Bund and the Zionists: A humorist once said that ‘a Bundist is a Zionist who suffers from seasickness’—i.e., he doesn’t want to sail away to Palestine, but instead wants to create a sort of Jewish state in Western and Southern Russia.
↑ The initials of Polska Partia Socjalistyzna, by which the (nationalistic) Polish Socialist Party was commonly known.
↑ Iskra and the Armenian Social-Democrats: the allusion is presumably to Lenin’s article (February 1903), ‘On the Manifesto of the Armenian Social-Democrats’, in Collected Works, Vol. 6, pp. 326-329.
↑ Posledniye Izvestiya was the bulletin of the Foreign Committee of the Bund. The affair of the shop-assistants was an incident in Odessa in early 1903 when Iskra reported that the Bund had formed an organisation there out of shop-assistants recruited from the Zionist milieu. The Bund organ denied that they were ex-Zionists.
↑ Lenin refers to the miners of Northumberland and Durham who, having in the 1880s obtained for themselves a six-hour working day, opposed, as threatening their position, the agitation for a law fixing the length of the working day at eight hours, which would have been a great gain for most of the British workers.
↑ The ‘Hainfeld’ programme of the Austrian Social-Democrats was adopted in 1889. It was replaced by the ‘Vienna’ programme in 1901.
↑ The Société des Droits de l’Homme was led by Barbes, the Société des Saisons by Blanqui. ‘July’ in the ‘July revolt’ is presumably a misprint for ‘June’, since it is the Paris insurrection of June 1848 that is obviously meant. The Association pour la Défence de la Presse Patriote existed in 1832-34, one of its leaders being Garnier-Pagès.
↑ Martynov says nothing about Marx’s dramatic break with Weitling in 1846 (Ignorance never yet did anybody any good!’), though it had been described in P. Annenkov’s memoir published in Russia in 1880. See Reminiscences of Marx and Engels, Moscow, no date, pp. 269-272.
↑ The allusion is to the wave of peasant revolts in Poltava, Kharkov, Voronezh and other provinces which began in the spring of 1902.
↑ Arbeiterstimme was the Bund’s paper. Osvobozhdenie was an illegal liberal paper published in Stuttgart and Paris in 1902-1909, edited by the ex-Marxist P.B. Struve. The group around it developed into the Constitutional-Democratic (‘Cadet’) Party. The Socialist-Revolutionary Party began in early 1902.
↑ Not long after this, Plekhanov wrote an article in Iskra, nos 70 and 71 (July 27 and August 1, 1904) in which he expounded what was substantially the line of Martynov’s criticism of What Is To Be Done? For a French translation of this article, see the edition of What Is To Be Done? (Que Faire? ) by J.-J. Marie, Paris, 1%6, Appendix 6.
↑ In his ‘Review of Home Affairs’ in Zarya, December 1901, Lenin had discussed expressions of discontent with the Government’s policy towards the Zemstvos which had been uttered by some Marshals of the Nobility, and ended the article thus: ‘Taking our leave of the marshals of the nobility, we say, Au revoir, gentlemen, our allies of tomorrow!’ (Collected Works, Vol. 9, p.301). See also his ‘Political Agitation and the “Class Point of View“,’ in Iskra, February 1902 (ibid., pp.337-343).
↑ Lenin refers to this passage in The Eighteenth Brumaire : ‘The Bonaparte dynasty represents not the revolutionary but the conservative peasant … It represents not the enlightenment but the superstition of the peasant; not his judgement, but his prejudice; not his future, but his past …’
↑ The passage referred to by Lenin comes in the Address of the General Council … on the Civil War in France, in which Marx writes: ‘The Commune was perfectly right in telling the peasants that “its victory was their only hope“.’
↑ ErfĤllungstheorie —‘theory of filling’: the theory that, as capitalism and the labour movement grow, the proletariat becomes automatically ‘filled’ with socialist consciousness.
↑ Aushöhlungstheorie —‘theory of emptying’: the theory that class contradictions under capitalism are gradually reduced by successful trade-union struggle, co-operative societies, etc.
↑ In Russian the accusative form, for masculine personal objects, is the same as the genitive.
In Ryazanov’s critique of the Iskra draft programme he had objected to the phrase: ‘Crises and periods of industrial stagnation.’ The Russian for ‘and’ is the single letter ‘i’. (This was presumably the origin of one of Ryazanov’s nicknames in the Party, Bukvoyed, meaning ‘pedant’.)
↑ In the standard English translation of the Communist Manifesto the phrase about the lower middle class, the peasantry, etc., runs: ‘If by chance they are revolutionary, they are so only in view of their impending transfer into the proletariat; they thus defend not their present, but their future interests; they desert their own standpoint to place themselves at that of the proletariat.’
↑ The SDKPL had held its fourth congress at the beginning of July 1903. The resolution passed by this gathering was not known to the RSDLP Congress held soon afterward, nor was it made clear in the letter received by the congress from Warski (Warszawki). As a result of an invitation to attend with consultative voice, two Polish Social-Democrats came to the RSDLP congress and there revealed the conditions for unity proposed by the Polish congress. For the Polish background of all this see Nettl, Rosa Luxemburg, Vol. I pp. 271-279. (He is also useful on relations between the Polish Social-Democrats and the German Social-Democrats, which were sometimes referred to at the RSDLP congress: see Ibid., I, pp. 173-184, 299-261.)
↑ The obscure provincial landowner Bobchinsky asked Khlestakov to be so good, when he returned to St Petersburg, as to tell all the members of high society whom he imagined Khlestakov knew, that he, Bobchinsky, ‘exists’. In a later reference at the congress, Bobchinsky gets changed (perhaps by a secretary’s mishearing) into his partner Dobchinsky.
↑ The Mining Association delegate who was not accepted by the congress was E.G. Mankovskaya. The one originally elected who failed to arrive was M.S. Balabanov.
↑ The 13th session was the last to be held in Brussels. Zemlyachka (‘Osipov’) had been arrested and deported, and the congress decided to move to London, where they would not be harassed by the police. There was an interval of five days between the 13th session and the 14th, the first to meet in London.

[1] At the first session Yegorov (delegate from Yuzhny Rabochy and a member of the Organising Committee) and Goldblatt, of the Bund, had not yet arrived. Yegorov arrived for the second session, and Goldblatt for the tenth.

[2] Plekhanov’s ‘humanist knight’ is Ulrich von Hutten (1488-1523), on whom see Engels, in The Peasant War in Germany. In a letter to a friend in 1518, early in the Reformation period, he wrote: ‘O seculum! Juvat vivere.’

[3] This refers to the conferences held at Byelostok in March 1902 and at Pskov in November 1902. The precise dates were not given here for security reasons.

[4] The 27th committee, whose representative did not arrive, having been arrested while crossing the Russian frontier, was the Nizhny-Novgorod committee.

[5] Lydia Makhnovets took as her pseudonym the name of Louis de Brouckère (18701951), a Belgian Socialist who was at this time prominent in the Second International.

[6] ‘51 persons present’ is a mistake by the secretaries. There were at the 2nd session 50 persons altogether—42 delegates, with 51 deciding votes, and 8 persons with consultative voice.

[7] At the time of the credentials report at the second session, Goldblatt not having arrived yet, the other delegate from the Foreign Committee of the Bund was temporarily credited with two votes, pending his partner’s arrival.

[8] The Borba group consisted of Ryazanov, Nevzorov (i.e. Nakhamkes, also known as Steklov) and Danevich (Le., E.L. Gurevich).

[9] ‘X’ was P. P. Maslov. Lenin’s ‘Reply to Criticism of our Draft Programme’ June 1903, in Collected Works, Vol. 6, deals with his critique.

[10] For the background to this affair, see Lenin's Account of the Second Congress of the RSDLP Stein, a member of the OC, had favoured inviting a person named Chernyshov to the congress, but Pavlovich, also on the OC, had vigorously opposed this. Piqued, Stein now changed her attitude on the question of inviting Ryazanov. Though she had previously been against this, and had told the Credentials Committee so, she now joined with the other members of the OC, apart from Pavlovich, in asking the congress to invite Ryazanov. Pavlovich denounced before the congress the action of the OC majority, and the question arose of the OC’s right to function at the congress as a group with its own discipline.

[11] Pavlovich (Krasikov, 1870-1939) was a tough, determined man—to his enemies, ‘a drunken brawler’—who gave steady support to Lenin throughout the congress. A lawyer by training, he became head of the Cheka in Petrograd, and under Stalin was a judge in the Court of Appeal.

[12] The Caucasian permitted to attend with consultative voice was Kostrov, i.e. Zhordania.

[13] The 5th Congress of the Bund was held in Zurich in June 1903.

[14] According to the Bund’s own report of this congress, Martov’s resolution was signed by ‘twelve persons—all Jews’.
At the congress of the League Abroad in October 1903 Trotsky revealed that Lenin had sent him a note: ‘Trotsky, would you take the floor after Martov for a little statement regarding the resolution which you have signed [on the Bund] and declare that the Jews who signed it are also representatives of the Jewish proletariat.’ [Protokoly Ligi, p. 69: quoted by Getzler, Martov, p. 76, n. 76.)

[15] Karsky (Topuridze) and Rusov (Knunyants) were Georgian and Armenian, respectively.2

[16] By ‘Tatar’, Rusov means here Azeri, the Turkic language spoken in Azerbaijan. It was common in Russia in those days to speak of the Moslem people of that country as ‘the Tatars of Azerbaijan’.

[17] The Bund’s pamphlet On the Question of National Autonomy was published in February 1902.

[18] The background to Orlov’s remarks was that the Bund had been active originally in Lithuania (which in those days often meant Byelorussia as well as Lithuania proper) and had only later started to spread its activity into places further South, such as Yekaterinoslav (now Dniepropetrovsk), Odessa and Kiev.

[19] Vorstand. The leadership of the German Social-Democratic Party.

[20] Trotsky on the resolution of the 5th Congress of the Bund: ‘Whereas previously, at least in theory, the Bund was the representative of the interests of the Social-Democratic Party among a section of the Jewish proletariat, it was now transformed into the representative of the interests of the Jewish proletariat before the Social-Democratic Party.’ (Report of the Siberian Delegation, p. 10.)

[21] The Bund and the Zionists: A humorist once said that ‘a Bundist is a Zionist who suffers from seasickness’—i.e., he doesn’t want to sail away to Palestine, but instead wants to create a sort of Jewish state in Western and Southern Russia.

[22] The initials of Polska Partia Socjalistyzna, by which the (nationalistic) Polish Socialist Party was commonly known.

[23] Iskra and the Armenian Social-Democrats: the allusion is presumably to Lenin’s article (February 1903), ‘On the Manifesto of the Armenian Social-Democrats’, in Collected Works, Vol. 6, pp. 326-329.

[24] Posledniye Izvestiya was the bulletin of the Foreign Committee of the Bund. The affair of the shop-assistants was an incident in Odessa in early 1903 when Iskra reported that the Bund had formed an organisation there out of shop-assistants recruited from the Zionist milieu. The Bund organ denied that they were ex-Zionists.

[25] Lenin refers to the miners of Northumberland and Durham who, having in the 1880s obtained for themselves a six-hour working day, opposed, as threatening their position, the agitation for a law fixing the length of the working day at eight hours, which would have been a great gain for most of the British workers.

[26] The ‘Hainfeld’ programme of the Austrian Social-Democrats was adopted in 1889. It was replaced by the ‘Vienna’ programme in 1901.

[27] The Société des Droits de l’Homme was led by Barbes, the Société des Saisons by Blanqui. ‘July’ in the ‘July revolt’ is presumably a misprint for ‘June’, since it is the Paris insurrection of June 1848 that is obviously meant. The Association pour la Défence de la Presse Patriote existed in 1832-34, one of its leaders being Garnier-Pagès.

[28] Martynov says nothing about Marx’s dramatic break with Weitling in 1846 (Ignorance never yet did anybody any good!’), though it had been described in P. Annenkov’s memoir published in Russia in 1880. See Reminiscences of Marx and Engels, Moscow, no date, pp. 269-272.

[29] The allusion is to the wave of peasant revolts in Poltava, Kharkov, Voronezh and other provinces which began in the spring of 1902.

[30] Arbeiterstimme was the Bund’s paper. Osvobozhdenie was an illegal liberal paper published in Stuttgart and Paris in 1902-1909, edited by the ex-Marxist P.B. Struve. The group around it developed into the Constitutional-Democratic (‘Cadet’) Party. The Socialist-Revolutionary Party began in early 1902.

[31] Not long after this, Plekhanov wrote an article in Iskra, nos 70 and 71 (July 27 and August 1, 1904) in which he expounded what was substantially the line of Martynov’s criticism of What Is To Be Done? For a French translation of this article, see the edition of What Is To Be Done? (Que Faire? ) by J.-J. Marie, Paris, 1%6, Appendix 6.

[32] In his ‘Review of Home Affairs’ in Zarya, December 1901, Lenin had discussed expressions of discontent with the Government’s policy towards the Zemstvos which had been uttered by some Marshals of the Nobility, and ended the article thus: ‘Taking our leave of the marshals of the nobility, we say, Au revoir, gentlemen, our allies of tomorrow!’ (Collected Works, Vol. 9, p.301). See also his ‘Political Agitation and the “Class Point of View“,’ in Iskra, February 1902 (ibid., pp.337-343).

[33] Lenin refers to this passage in The Eighteenth Brumaire : ‘The Bonaparte dynasty represents not the revolutionary but the conservative peasant … It represents not the enlightenment but the superstition of the peasant; not his judgement, but his prejudice; not his future, but his past …’

[34] The passage referred to by Lenin comes in the Address of the General Council … on the Civil War in France, in which Marx writes: ‘The Commune was perfectly right in telling the peasants that “its victory was their only hope“.’

[35] ErfĤllungstheorie —‘theory of filling’: the theory that, as capitalism and the labour movement grow, the proletariat becomes automatically ‘filled’ with socialist consciousness.

[36] Aushöhlungstheorie —‘theory of emptying’: the theory that class contradictions under capitalism are gradually reduced by successful trade-union struggle, co-operative societies, etc.

[37] In Russian the accusative form, for masculine personal objects, is the same as the genitive.
In Ryazanov’s critique of the Iskra draft programme he had objected to the phrase: ‘Crises and periods of industrial stagnation.’ The Russian for ‘and’ is the single letter ‘i’. (This was presumably the origin of one of Ryazanov’s nicknames in the Party, Bukvoyed, meaning ‘pedant’.)

[38] In the standard English translation of the Communist Manifesto the phrase about the lower middle class, the peasantry, etc., runs: ‘If by chance they are revolutionary, they are so only in view of their impending transfer into the proletariat; they thus defend not their present, but their future interests; they desert their own standpoint to place themselves at that of the proletariat.’

[39] The SDKPL had held its fourth congress at the beginning of July 1903. The resolution passed by this gathering was not known to the RSDLP Congress held soon afterward, nor was it made clear in the letter received by the congress from Warski (Warszawki). As a result of an invitation to attend with consultative voice, two Polish Social-Democrats came to the RSDLP congress and there revealed the conditions for unity proposed by the Polish congress. For the Polish background of all this see Nettl, Rosa Luxemburg, Vol. I pp. 271-279. (He is also useful on relations between the Polish Social-Democrats and the German Social-Democrats, which were sometimes referred to at the RSDLP congress: see Ibid., I, pp. 173-184, 299-261.)

[40] The obscure provincial landowner Bobchinsky asked Khlestakov to be so good, when he returned to St Petersburg, as to tell all the members of high society whom he imagined Khlestakov knew, that he, Bobchinsky, ‘exists’. In a later reference at the congress, Bobchinsky gets changed (perhaps by a secretary’s mishearing) into his partner Dobchinsky.

[41] The Mining Association delegate who was not accepted by the congress was E.G. Mankovskaya. The one originally elected who failed to arrive was M.S. Balabanov.

[42] The 13th session was the last to be held in Brussels. Zemlyachka (‘Osipov’) had been arrested and deported, and the congress decided to move to London, where they would not be harassed by the police. There was an interval of five days between the 13th session and the 14th, the first to meet in London.

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Sessions in Brussels

Contents

First Session[edit source]

Second Session[edit source]

Third Session[edit source]

Fourth Session[edit source]

Fifth Session[edit source]

Sixth Session[edit source]

Eighth Session[edit source]

Ninth Session[edit source]

Tenth Session[edit source]

Eleventh Session[edit source]

Twelfth Session[edit source]

Thirteenth Session^[42][edit source]

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Sessions in Brussels

First Session[edit source]

Second Session[edit source]

Third Session[edit source]

Fourth Session[edit source]

Fifth Session[edit source]

Sixth Session[edit source]

Eighth Session[edit source]

Ninth Session[edit source]

Tenth Session[edit source]

Eleventh Session[edit source]

Twelfth Session[edit source]

Thirteenth Session[42][edit source]

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Thirteenth Session^[42][edit source]