Session of the Council of the RSDLP, June 1904 (2)

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Author(s) Lenin
Written 31 May 1904


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Source: Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, 1977, Moscow, Volume 41, pages 122.2-127.1.
Keywords : RSDLP, Russia

The RSDLP Council met at Geneva on May 31 and June 5 (June 13 and 18), 1904, with V. I. Lenin, 0. V. Plekhanov (Chairman), V. A. Noskov, P. B. Axelrod and L. Martov present. At its first sitting it discussed the questions of calling an inter-party conference of revolutionary and opposition organisations of Russia, and of the forthcoming international congress at Amsterdam. The second sitting was devoted to a discussion of internal Party questions: 1) the right of the Party’s central bodies (CC and CO) to recall their representatives from the Party Council; 2) co-optation to the committees and the Central Committee’s right to seat new members on them; 3) procedure governing the voting by Party organisations on the convocation of the Party’s Third Congress; 4) publication of the minutes of Council sittings, etc.

In view of the fact that three of the five Council members (Plekhanov, Axelrod and Martov) represented the Menshevik opposition, while Noskov took a conciliatory stand, the Party Council adopted Menshevik decisions on the most important internal Party matters (for Lenin’s speeches at the RSDLP Council see present edition, Vol. 7, pp. 435–44). p. 122

MAY 31 AND JUNE 5 (JUNE 13 AND 18), 1904


1. REMARK ON THE AGENDA[edit source]

First published in full in 1930 in Lenin Miscellany XV

Printed from the minutes

MAY 31 (JUNE 13)

L e n i n motions the addition to the list of items on the agenda of the question raised by the Polish Socialist Party (P.P.S.) concerning the desirability of calling a conference of RSDLP and P.P.S. representatives to discuss the basis and terms of joint struggle by the two parties.

2. SPEECHES ON AN INTER-PARTY CONFERENCE[1][edit source]

First published in full in 1930 in Lenin Miscellany XV

Printed from the minutes

MAY 31 (JUNE 13)

1

I second the proposal to invite both Latvian organisations.[2] As for the Armenian federalist organisation,[3] there can be no question of inviting it to the conference after what Comrade Martov has said about its intimacy with the Socialist-Revolutionaries. Furthermore, I don’t quite see the point of Comrade Plekhanov’s insistent proposal of the need for an immediate reply to the Finns.

2

I think it would be too much to demand unanimity in decisions on questions of principle.[4] I can’t see any of the Social-Democrats staying on if the conference adopted some monstrous decision.

3. SPEECHES ON RSDLP REPRESENTATION AT THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST CONGRESS[edit source]

First published in full in 1930 in Lenin Miscellany XV

Printed from the minutes

MAY 31 (JUNE 13)

1

I should like to have an explanation as to whether it is convenient to send delegates both from the Council and from the individual organisations. Are there any similar examples in the practice of other countries at earlier congresses? I think this mode of representation is somewhat inconvenient in terms of both principle and practice (from the financial, technical and other standpoints). Would it not be better for the Council to be represented there in corpore? I don’t see hew we could be victimised. After all, our Party can’t be deprived of its vote!

2

Since Comrade Plekhanov says that we shall not be able to secure the Party’s separate representation at the Congress, while the dispatch of a large number of delegates to the Congress would cost a great deal, and anyhow we shall not be able to match the Bundists in this respect, it would be more dignified if the Council alone represented the Party at the Congress.

3

Moreover, we shall hardly have time to contact all the organisations to obtain their mandates.[5] In view of this, I motion that in case of necessity the Council should, with out contacting the individual organisations, be empowered to represent each of them separately....

4. REMARK ON THE NEED OF CONTROL OVER THE GNCHAK NEWSPAPER[6][edit source]

First published in full in 1930 in Lenin Miscellany XV

Printed from the minutes

MAY 31 (JUNE 13)

L e n i n seconds Comrade Martov’s proposal, remarking that there is need for control over the publication of the Gnchak newspaper, which has not always been Social-Democratic.

5. MOTION OF AMENDMENT TO MARTOV’S RESOLUTION ON THE RIGHT OF THE CO AND THE CC TO RECALL THEIR REPRESENTATIVES FROM THE PARTY COUNCIL[edit source]

First published in full in 1930 in Lenin Miscellany XV

Printed from the minutes

JUNE 5 (18)

Comrade Martov remarked that he put forward his proposal regardless of the concrete cases and merely to avoid conflicts in the future. That is why I shall not refer to any concrete cases either and if the resolution is designed exclusively to lay down a definite rule for the future, I shall not argue against it. Perhaps it would be better to cut it down and reduce it to the right of the collegium to recall its representatives, deleting the sentence on non-responsibility to the Congress.

6. SPEECH ON CO-OPTATION TO THE COMMITTEES AND ON THE C. C.’S RIGHT TO APPOINT NEW MEMBERS[edit source]

First published in full in 1930 in Lenin Miscellany XV

Printed from the minutes

JUNE 5 (18)

What Martov said was news to me.[7] We have quite definite indications that the minority of the Moscow Committee proposed the co-optation of one of its candidates, without, however, connecting this question with factional differences. Furthermore, speaking on the substance of the matter, I would consider it more correct and more in the spirit of the Rules to regard every fraction as a unit; nevertheless, this question is so insignificant that I agree to vote for Comrade Martov’s resolution.

7. SPEECHES ON THE VOTING PROCEDURE IN DECIDING THE QUESTION OF CONVENING THE THIRD CONGRESS OF THE RSDLP[edit source]

First published in full in 1930 in Lenin Miscellany XV

Printed from the minutes

JUNE 5 (18)

1

L e n i n joins Glebov in regarding the votes of the Tver and the Riga committees as = invalid,[8] and proposes that the organisations should be regarded as existing not since the issue of their proclamations but since their confirmation by the CC In addition, he says, the reference to the date of the Congress should be deleted from Martov’s resolution. The rules of the leagues will determine how many votes they are to have at the Congress. Until their rules are approved, everything should remain as it was at the Second Congress. For example, the Caucasian League[9] should have six votes.

2

Comrade Martov and I essentially agree on the right of 9 committees in voting on the Congress. The Baku Committee, I believe, should not have a separate vote because it is a part of the Caucasian League. Inquiries should be made about all the five leagues and then the relevant decisions adopted.

3

In substance I would have nothing against Comrade Martov’s proposal, but it would be formally wrong.[10] The Congress has not confirmed them and, consequently, they should be subject to the rule that they may vote for or against the Congress only after one year. There is the less reason to discuss this, since the period has almost run out. But we should be very careful about the Caucasian League: they would be deeply mortified if we gave them only two votes instead of the six they had. Moreover, I think that Comrade Martov tends to confuse two points (e and f) of § 3 of the Rules, when he proposes that leagues should be given the same status as committees. Thus, I motion that we postpone the question of the Caucasian League and make inquiries through the CC

4

I join in Comrade Martov’s opinion concerning the Caucasian League.[11] Then there is another juridical question of how the votes of the Council are to be counted in a general count of the votes required for the convocation of a congress. I think two interpretations would be correct: either, in determining the required number of organisations, to make the count without including the five votes of the Council in the overall total of votes belonging to all the organisations, and then to count each vote of the Council separately; or simply to take one-half of the existing number of organisations, without the Council, and to reckon this half as the number required in this case. I believe that it would be most correct to count each of the Council’s votes separately.

8. SPEECHES ON THE QUESTION OF PUBLISHING THE MINUTES OF THE PARTY COUNCIL SITTINGS[edit source]

First published in full in 1930 in Lenin Miscellany XV

Printed from the minutes

JUNE 5 (18)

1

I absolutely disagree with Comrade Martov. It is desirable to establish for all the sittings of the Council the rule adopted on the minutes of the last sitting.[12] This publication will hardly be impeded by the requirements of secrecy and it would be highly important for Party members to know what is going on in the Party’s supreme body and the opinions which are held there by both sides.

2

I am very much surprised by Comrade Glebov’s raising the question of the decision taken at the last sitting and his proposal to review it now. I believe such a review is inadmissible, either formally or morally.

3

No decision on their publication has yet been taken by the CC and I merely insist on the CC’s right to take such a decision, whenever it deems it necessary to do so.[13]

  1. ↑ The Inter-Party Conference of Opposition and Revolutionary Organisations of Russia, called on the initiative of the Finnish Party of Active Resistance, was held at the end of 1904. The representatives of the RSDLP and several other Social-Democratic parties and organisations of Russia met at Amsterdam in August 1904, before the International Socialist Congress opened, and decided not to attend the inter-Party conference. For the RSDLP, this decision was approved by the Party Council sitting on August 21 (September 3), 1904. p. 122
  2. ↑ The Latvian Social-Democratic Labour Organisation of the Baltic Area was set up in April 1902 through the merger of several Social-Democratic organisations. On its basis, the First Congress of Latvian Social-Democratic Organisations, held from June 7 to 9 (20–22), 1904, set up the Latvian Social-Democratic Labour Party which joined the RSDLP at the Fourth (Unity) Congress in 1906.
    The Latvian Social-Democratic Union, set up in the autumn of 1900 abroad, was akin in its demands to the Russian Socialist-Revolutionaries and was largely permeated with nationalistic tendencies. In 1905, the Union gained some temporary influence among a section of the peasants, but was soon ousted by the Latvian Social-Democratic Labour Party. The Union subsequently played no noticeable role of any kind. p. 122
  3. ↑ A reference to the Armenian Social-Democratic Labour Organisation (Specifics), which was set up by Armenian national-federalist elements soon after the Second Congress of the RSDLP Like the Bundists, the Specifics wanted the Party organised on the federal principle, which implied a division of the proletariat on national lines, and declared themselves to be the sole representatives of the Armenian proletariat. They tried to justify their nationalism by referring to the “specific conditions of each nation”. In a letter to the RSDLP Central Committee over the conference of Social-Democratic organisations in Russia called for September 1905, Lenin wrote: “I strongly warn you against the Armenian Social-Democratic Federation. If you have agreed to its participation in the conference, you have made a fatal mistake, which must be rectified at all costs. It is represented in Geneva by a couple of disrupters who publish sheer trivia here and have no serious connections with the Caucasus. It is a Bund creatura, nothing more, specially Invented to cultivate Caucasian Bundism.... All the Caucasian comrades are against this gang of disruptive writers...” (see present edition, Vol. 34, p. 337). p. 122
  4. ↑ A reference to Martov’s proposal at the first sitting of the Party Council calling for the adoption of a resolution to have all decisions involving principle, at the inter-party conference, adopted only unanimously. p. 122
  5. ↑ A remark Lenin made in connection with Martov’s resolution inviting all Party organisations to send to the Party Council their mandates for the Amsterdam Congress of the Second International, and also to submit reports on local activity for the drawing up of a general report. Martov was followed by Plekhanov who said there was no time to wait for local reports and proposed that someone should be asked to draw up a report right away. p. 123
  6. ↑ A reference to the newspaper Veratsnutyun (Renascence), organ of the Gnchak, the Armenian petty-bourgeois nationalist party. It was published in Rusčuk, Bulgaria, in 1903 and 1904. p. 124
  7. ↑ A reference to Martov’s assertion that the minority of the Moscow Committee had proposed the co-optation not of one but of two of their members. p. 124
  8. ↑ Under the Party Rules adopted by the Second Congress of the RSDLP, only those organisations which had been confirmed not less than a year before the congress enjoyed the right of representation on it. On the strength of this, V. A. Noskov (Glebov) said at the second sitting of the Party Council that the votes of the Tver and Riga committees were invalid in deciding on the convocation of the Party’s Third Congress. p. 125
  9. ↑ The Caucasian League of the RSDLP was set up at the First Congress of Caucasian Social-Democratic Organisations at Tiflis in March 1903, on the initiative of the Tiflis and the Baku commit tees of the RSDLP It was attended by 15 delegates from the Tiflis, Baku, Batum, Kutais and other Social-Democratic organisations in Transcaucasia. It elected the League’s 9-man governing body, the Caucasian Union Committee of the RSDLP, and approved the political line of the Leninist Iskra; it adopted as a basis for activity by Social-Democratic organisations in Trancaucasia the draft Party programme worked out by Iskra and Zarya.
    At the Second Congress of the RSDLP, there were three delegates from the Caucasian League, who had been instructed to defend the programme, organisational and tactical principles of the Leninist Iskra. From the outset, the Caucasian Union Committee of the RSDLP established close ties with Lenin and provided firm support for the Bolsheviks in their struggle against the Menshevik opposition. The League took an active part in preparing the Third Congress of the RSDLP, and its representatives were on the Majority Committees’ Bureau, which made the practical preparations for the Third Congress. The League played an important part in organising the labour movement in Transcaucasia before and during the first revolution in Russia. It did a great service in educating the workers of the multi-national Caucasus in the spirit of proletarian internationalism. In February 1906, the League was dissolved in view of the establishment of united committees of the Bolshevik and the Menshevik factions. p. 125
  10. ↑ A reference to Martov’s proposal at the second sitting of the Party Council to give the Samara, Smolensk, Bryansk and Astrakhan committees the same status as that accorded to those which had at tended the Congress, that is, the right to vote in deciding on the convocation of a Party congress. p. 125
  11. ↑ Martov proposed that the Caucasian League should be given the right to vote for a congress, as of September 1903, when its Rules had been approved. p. 126
  12. ↑ A reference to the decision taken by the January 1904 sitting of the Party Council to publish the Council’s minutes. p. 126
  13. ↑ On June 5 (18), 1904, the Party Council—by the votes of the Mensheviks G. V. Plekhanov, L. Martov and P. B. Axelrod, and the conciliator V. A. Noskov (Glebov)—decided against publishing the Council’s minutes. p. 127
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