The Sixth (Prague) All-Russia Conference of the RSDLP (1)

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The Sixth (Prague) All-Russia Conference of the RSDLP worked from January 5 to January 17 (18–30), 1912 in Prague, and actually assumed the character of a Party congress. More than 20 Party organisations were represented at the Conference as well as representatives of the editorial boards of the Central Organ Sotsial-Demokrat and of Rabochaya Gazeta, of the Committee of the RSDLP Organisation Abroad, and the group of the CC of the RSDLP arranging underground transport and travel facilities and known as “the transport group”. Apart from two pro-Party Mensheviks, the delegates were all Bolsheviks. Among the delegates were G. K. Orjonikidze, representing the Tiflis organisation, S. S. Spandaryan from Baku, Y. P. Onufriyev from St. Petersburg, F. I. Goloshchokin from Moscow. The Committee of the Organisation Abroad was represented by N. A. Semashko, and the transport group of the CC by I. A. Pyatnitsky.

January 5–17 (18–30), 1912

1. Draft Resolution on the Constitution of the Conference

The heading to the document, has been provided by the Institute of Marxism-Leninism of the Central Committee of the CPSU

Written not later than January 5 (18), 1912

First published on January 18, 1937, in Pravda, No. 18

RESOLUTION ON THE CONSTITUTION

Whereas:

1. The disintegration and collapse of most Party organisations caused by the broad stream of counter-revolutionary feeling and ferocious persecution on the part of tsarism, as well as the prolonged absence of a practical Party centre, a Central Committee, have all been factors responsible for the extremely serious position of the Russian S.D.L. Party;

2. At the present moment, due to the revival of the working-class movement, progressive workers everywhere show an intense desire to re-establish the illegal organisations of the Party, and in this connection most local organisations of the RSDLP have displayed tremendous and successful initiative in re-establishing the Party and convening a general Party conference;

3. The extremely urgent practical tasks of the working-class movement and of the revolutionary struggle against tsarism (leadership in the economic struggle, political agitation, and proletarian meetings; elections to the Fourth Duma, etc.) make it imperative that prompt and most energetic measures be taken to re-establish a competent practical Party centre, closely linked with the local organisations;

4. After an interval of more than three years since the last conference of the RSDLP, and after many attempts during more than two years to convene a meeting of representatives of all Party organisations, we have now succeeded in uniting twenty organisations in Russia around the Russian Organising Commission which called the present Conference and which several months ago notified all Social-Democrats of its convocation and invited to the Conference all, without a single exception, organisations of our Party; furthermore, all organisations were given an opportunity to take part in our Conference;

5. Despite the delay and a number of arrests all the Party organisations functioning in Russia, with very few exceptions, are represented at the present Conference;

It is therefore resolved:

The Conference constitutes itself the general Party Conference of the RSDLP which is the supreme Party authority and is pledged to establish competent central bodies.

2. Draft Resolution on the Tasks of the Party in the Present Situation

Written early in January 1912

First published in 1941 in Proletarskaya Revolyutsiya, No. 1

This Conference endorses, first and foremost, the resolution adopted at the Party Conference in December 1908 on “The Tasks of the Party in the Present Situation”. This Conference points to the extreme importance of that resolution, whose provisions relating to the historical meaning and class essence of the entire June Third regime on the one hand, and the growing revolutionary crisis on the other, have been fully confirmed by the events of the past three years.

Of these events the Conference particularly notes the following:

(a) The agrarian policy of tsarism, with which both the government parties of the landowners and big bourgeoisie and the counter-revolutionary liberals have bound up their counter-revolutionary interests, has not led to the creation of anything like stable bourgeois relations in the village, nor has it relieved the peasantry of mass hunger, which reflects the extreme worsening of the condition of the population and an enormous loss of productive forces.

(b) In view of its impotence in the face of the world competition of the modern capitalist states and being pushed more and more into the background in Europe, the tsarist autocracy in alliance with the reactionary nobility and the growing industrial bourgeoisie, is now endeavouring to satisfy its predatory interests by means of crude “nationalist” politics, directed against the more cultured regions (Finland, Poland, North-Western Area), and, through colonial conquest, against the peoples of Asia (Persia and Mongolia) who are waging a revolutionary struggle for freedom.

(c) The developing economic advance is largely offset by the complete disruption of peasant economy, by the rapacious budgetary policy of the autocracy and the absolute corruption in the bureaucratic apparatus; on the other hand, the increasing cost of living intensifies the poverty of the working class and the broad masses of the population.

(d) In view of this the broad masses of the population have become convinced, during the five-year existence of the Third Duma, that it is unwilling, unable, and powerless to do anything to improve their conditions, and that the parties predominating in the Duma are anti-popular in character.

(e) The onset of a political revival is to be noted among broad democratic circles, chiefly among the proletariat. The workers’ strikes of 1910–11, the beginning of demonstrations and proletarian meetings, the start of a movement among urban bourgeois democrats (the student strikes), etc., all these are signs of the growing revolutionary feelings of the masses against the June, Third regime.

This Conference, proceeding from all these facts, confirms the tasks confronting the Party as outlined in detail in the resolution of the December 1908 Conference, and draws the particular attention of comrades to:

(1) The fact that, as heretofore, the first task on the order of the day is the continued work of the socialist education, organisation, and unification of the politically-conscious masses of the proletariat;

(2) The necessity for intensive work to re-establish the illegal organisation of the RSDLP, which more than ever before takes advantage of all and every legal possibility, which is capable of leading the economic struggles of the proletariat, and which is the only party able to take the lead in political actions by the proletariat that are growing more frequent;

(3) The necessity to organise and extend systematic political agitation and to give wholehearted support to the incipient mass movement and secure its development under the banner of full implementation of the Party slogans.

Propaganda for a republic, and against the policy of the tsarist monarchy, must be given special prominence to counteract, among other things, the widespread propaganda in favour of curtailed slogans and adaptation to existing “legality”.

3. Draft Resolution on the Tasks of Social-Democrats in the Struggle Against the Famine

The heading to the document has been provided by the Institute of Marxism-Leninism of the Central Committee of the CPSU

Written early in January 1912

First published on January 18, 1937, in Pravda, No. 18

Whereas:

(1) The famine affecting 20 million peasants in Russia once again shows the absolutely unbearable conditions of the peasant masses, crushed and oppressed by tsarism and the class of feudal landowners, conditions unimaginable in any civilised country of the world;

(2) The present famine once again confirms the failure of the government’s agrarian policy and the impossibility of ensuring anything like normal bourgeois development in Russia so long as its policy in general, and its agrarian policy in particular, are directed by the class of feudal landowners who, through the parties of the Right, dominate the Third Duma, the Council of State, and circles at the Court of Nicholas II;

(3) The Black-Hundred parties (with the Markovs and similar people at the head), by their statements in the Duma and their attempts to lay the blame on the “loafing peasants” have so flaunted the shamelessness of the tsarist-landowner gang that is plundering Russia that the eyes of even the most ignorant are being opened, and indignation of even the most indifferent is being aroused;

(4) The actions of the government in hindering relief for the famine-stricken, the police interference with the Zemstvos, with the collectors of funds and the organisers of kitchen committees, etc., give rise to widespread dissatisfaction even among the bourgeoisie, and voices of protest are raised even among such backward and counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie as the Octobrists;

(5) The liberal-monarchist bourgeoisie, while helping in its press to inform the public of the famine and of the behaviour of the government, nevertheless, in the person of the Constitutional-Democrat Kutler in the Third Duma, adopted such a moderate-oppositional position that can, under no circumstances, satisfy democrats, any more than it is possible to accept the presentation of the question of relief for the famine-stricken as philanthropy, which is the way the majority of the liberals present it;

(6) Among the working class, despite the worsening of its economic position arising from the increasing numbers of starving and unemployed, a spontaneous desire is to be observed to collect funds to aid the starving and to help them in other ways. This desire natural to every democrat, to say nothing of a socialist, must be supported and furthered by all Social-Democrats in the spirit of class struggle;

The Conference resolves that it is essential:

(a) To bend all efforts to extending propaganda and agitation among the broad masses of the population, and in particular among the peasantry, explaining the connection between the famine and tsarism and its entire policy; to distribute in the villages for agitational purposes the Duma speeches, not only of the Social-Democrats and Trudoviks, but even of such friends of the tsar as Markov the Second, and to popularise the political demands of Social-Democracy—in the first instance the overthrow of tsarist monarchy and the establishment of a democratic republic, followed by the confiscation of landed estates;

(b) To support the desire of the workers to aid the famine—stricken as far as possible, advising them to send their donations only to the Social-Democratic group in the Duma, to the workers’ press, or to workers’ cultural-educational and other associations, etc., and forming special nuclei of Social-Democrats and democrats upon their joining groups, committees or commissions for aid to the famine-stricken;

(c) To endeavour to give expression to the anger of the democratic masses aroused by the famine in demonstrations, mass meetings, and other forms that constitute the beginning of a revolutionary mass struggle against tsarism.

4. Draft Resolution on Liquidationism and the Group of Liquidators

Written early in January 1912

First published in 1929–30, in 2nd and 3rd editions of Collected Works of V. I. Lenin, Vol. XV

LIQUIDATIONISM AND THE GROUP OF LIQUIDATORS

Whereas:

(1) The Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party for nearly four years has been waging a determined fight against the liquidationist trend, which was characterised at the conference of the Party in December 1908 as

“an attempt on the part of a group of Party intellectuals to liquidate the existing organisation of the RSDLP and to replace it at all costs, even at the price of downright renunciation of the programme, tactics, and traditions of the Party, by a loose association functioning legally”;

(2) The Plenary Meeting of the Central Committee held in January 1910, continuing the fight against this trend, unanimously declared it to be “a manifestation of bourgeois influence upon the proletariat” and demanded, as a condition for real Party unity and for the fusion of the former Bolshevik and Menshevik groups, a complete rupture with liquidationism and the utter rout of this bourgeois deviation from socialism;

(3) In spite of all Party decisions, and in spite of the obligation assumed by the representatives of Menshevism at the Plenary Meeting held in January 1910, a section of the Mensheviks, grouped around the magazines Nasha Zarya and Dyelo Zhizni, refused to help restore the Central Committee (the refusal of Mikhail, Yuri, and Roman, in the spring of 1910, not only to join the Central Committee but even to attend a single meeting to co-opt new members);

(4) It was precisely after the Plenary Meeting of, 1910 that the above-mentioned publications definitely turned to liquidationism all along the line, not only “belittling [contrary to the decision of the Plenary Meeting] the importance of the illegal Party”, but openly renouncing it, declaring that the Party was already liquidated, that the idea of reviving the illegal Party was “a reactionary utopia”, using the columns of censored magazines to heap ridicule and abuse on it, calling upon the workers to regard the nuclei of the Party and its hierarchy as “dead”, etc.;

(5) The few local groups of liquidators, consisting mainly of representatives of the intelligentsia, continuing their work of destroying the Party, not only refused to listen to the call, repeated in 1911, to help revive the illegal Party and convene a Party conference, but, banded together in entirely independent small groups, they openly began to agitate among the workers against the illegal Party and launched an open fight against reviving it—even in those places where the pro-Party Mensheviks predominated (for example, in Ekaterinoslav, Baku, Kiev, etc.);

The Conference declares that by its conduct the above-mentioned group has definitely placed itself outside the Party.

The Conference calls upon all Party members, irrespective of tendencies and shades of opinion, to combat liquidationism, explain its great harmfulness to the cause of the emancipation of the working class, and bend all their efforts to revive and strengthen the illegal Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party.

5. Resolutions of the Conference

Written in January 1912

Published in February 1912 in a pamphlet All-Russian Conference of the RSDLP Central Committee Publishing House, Paris

THE RUSSIAN ORGANISING COMMISSION FOR CONVENING THE CONFERENCE

Having heard and discussed the report of the representative of the Russian Organising Commission on its activity in connection with the convening of a general Party conference:

The Conference deems it its duty to stress the enormous importance of the work accomplished by the Russian Organising Commission in rallying all the Party organisations in Russia irrespective of factional affiliation, and in re-establishing our Party as an all-Russian organisation.

The activity of the Russian Organising Commission, in which Bolsheviks and pro-Party Mensheviks in Russia worked in harmony, is to be all the more commended since it was carried out under incredibly trying conditions due to police persecution and in face of numerous obstacles and difficulties arising out of the situation within the Party.

THE CONSTITUTION OF THE CONFERENCE

Whereas:

(1) The disintegration and collapse of most Party organisations, caused by the broad stream of counter-revolutionary feelings and ferocious persecution on the part of tsarism, as well as the prolonged absence of a practical Party centre, a Central Committee, have all been factors responsible for the extremely serious position in which the RSDLP found itself in the period 1908–11;

(2) At the present moment, due to the revival of the working-class movement, progressive workers everywhere show an intense desire to re-establish the illegal organisations of the Party and inaugurate systematic legal and illegal Social-Democratic activity, and in this connection most local organisation of the RSDLP have displayed tremendous and vigorous initiative in re-establishing the Party and convening a general Party conference;

(3) The extremely urgent practical tasks of the working-class movement and of the revolutionary struggle against tsarism (leadership in the economic struggle, general political agitation, proletarian meetings, the campaign in connection with the elections to the Fourth Duma, etc.) make it imperative that prompt and most energetic measures be taken to re-establish a competent practical Party centre, closely linked with the local organisations;

(4) After an interval of more than three years since the last conference of the RSDLP, and after many attempts during more than two years to convene a meeting of representatives of all Party organisations, we have now succeeded in uniting more than twenty organisations in Russia (St. Petersburg, Moscow, Saratov, Kazan, Samara, Nizhni-Novgorod, Sormovo, Rostov, Ekaterinoslav, Kiev, Nikolayev, Lugansk, Baku, the Tiflis group, the Wilno group, the Dvinsk group, Ekaterinburg, Ufa, Tyumen, a number of places in the Central Region, and others) around the Russian Organising Commission which called the present Conference, and which several months ago notified all Social-Democrats of its convocation and invited to the Conference all, without a single exception, organisations of our Party; furthermore, all organisations were given an opportunity to take part in the Conference;

(5) Despite a number of arrests made by the police, all the Party organisations functioning in Russia, with very few exceptions, are represented at the present Conference;

(6) Groups of Social-Democrats active in the legal working-class, movement in some of the big centres of Russia (St. Petersburg, Moscow, the Caucasus) were invited to attend the Conference and have given it their endorsement;

It is therefore resolved:

The Conference constitutes itself the general Party Conference of the RSDLP, which is the supreme Party authority.

THE ABSENCE OF DELEGATES FROM THE NON-RUSSIAN NATIONAL CENTRES FROM THE GENERAL PARTY CONFERENCE

Recognising that it is extremely important to strengthen the unity of the Social-Democratic workers of all the nationalities of Russia, and considering it absolutely imperative to establish unity with the non-Russians in the localities and to strengthen the ties between the national organisations and the all-Russia centre, the Conference at the same time is compelled to place on record that:

(1) Experience has conclusively proved that in the Party we cannot tolerate a situation where non-Russians working in total isolation from Russian organisations have chosen to set up a federation of the worst type and—frequently regardless of whether they wanted to or not—placed key Russian organisations in such a position that without non-Russian national centres, which for all practical purposes do not concern themselves with Russian affairs, the RSDLP was unable to effect very essential and important Party work.

(2) During the past year one of the non-Russian national centres (that of the Bund) openly co-operated with the liquidators and tried to bring about a split in the RSDLP; others (the central bodies of the Latvians and the Polish S.D.) at the decisive moment kept aloof from the fight against the liquidators who are trying to destroy the Party.

(3) The pro-Party elements in the non-Russian organisations, in the first place all the worker members of the Party, knowing what is going on in the Russian organisations, are coming out resolutely in favour of unity with the Russian illegal Social-Democratic organisations, in favour of sup porting the Russian Organising Commission, and in favour of fighting the liquidationist trend.

(4) The Central Committees of the three national organisations were invited three times (by the Organising Commission Abroad, the Russian Organising Commission, and the delegates to the Conference) to attend the Party Conference, and every facility has been provided for them to send their delegates.

In view of all this, and considering it inexpedient to suspend the activity of the RSDLP because of the reluctance of the non-Russian national centres to send delegates to the general Party Conference, the Conference places the entire responsibility for the failure of the non-Russians to attend on their central bodies. At the same time the Conference instructs the Central Committee of the RSDLP to work unremittingly for unity and the establishment of normal relations with the non-Russian national organisations affiliated to the RSDLP

The Conference is confident that, in spite of all obstacles, worker Social-Democrats of all the nationalities of Russia will work in harmony and fight shoulder to shoulder for the cause of the proletariat and against all the enemies of the working class.

ON THE REPORTS OF THE LOCAL ORGANISATIONS

Having heard the reports of the local organisations the Conference places on record that:

(4) Energetic work is being conducted everywhere among worker Social-Democrats with the object of strengthening the local illegal Social-Democratic organisations and groups;

(2) It has been recognised everywhere that it is necessary to combine illegal with legal Social-Democratic work; it has been recognised everywhere by Social-Democrats that our illegal Party organisations should use the legally existing working-class associations of every kind as bases for carrying on work among the masses. Nevertheless, not enough has so far been done to promote practical Social-Democratic work in trade unions, co-operative societies, clubs, etc.; not enough has so far been done to disseminate Marxist literature, to make use of the speeches of Social-Democrat deputies in the Duma, etc. In this field it is absolutely imperative for the illegal Social-Democratic groups to show greater energy;

(3) Everywhere in the localities, without a single exception, Party work is being conducted jointly and harmoniously mainly by the Bolsheviks and the pro-Party Mensheviks, as well as by Vperyod supporters in Russia wherever there are any, and by all other Social-Democrats who recognise the need for an illegal RSDLP The entire work is, furthermore, conducted in the spirit of the defence of Party principles and the struggle against liquidationism.

The Conference is confident that, in connection with the revival of the working-class movement, energetic efforts will be continued to strengthen the old and create new, sufficiently flexible, organisational forms which will help the Social-Democratic Party to carry on its struggle for the old revolutionary aims and revolutionary methods of achieving them in new circumstances.

THE TASKS OF THE PARTY IN THE PRESENT SITUATION

This Conference endorses, first and foremost, the resolution on the June Third regime and tile tasks of the Party, adopt ed at the Party Conference in December 1908. This Conference points to the extreme importance of that resolution, whose provisions relating to the historical meaning and class essence of the entire June Third regime on the one hand, and the growing revolutionary crisis on the other, have been fully borne out by the events of the past three years.

Of these events the Conference particularly notes the following:

(a) Tile agrarian policy of tsarism, with which both the government parties of the landowners and big bourgeoisie and, actually, the counter-revolutionary liberals have bound up their counter-revolutionary interests, has not led to the creation of anything like stable bourgeois relations in the village, nor has it relieved the peasantry of mass hunger, which reflects the extreme worsening of the condition of the population and an enormous loss of the productive forces of the country.

(b) In view of its impotence in the face of the world competition of the modern capitalist states and being pushed more and more into the background in Europe, tsarism in alliance with the reactionary nobility and the growing industrial bourgeoisie, is now endeavouring to satisfy its predatory interests by means of crude “nationalist” politics, directed against the inhabitants of the border regions, against all oppressed nationalities, against the more cultured regions in particular (Finland, Poland, North-Western Area) and, through colonial conquest, against the peoples of Asia (Persia and China) who are waging a revolutionary struggle for freedom.

(c) The developing economic advance is largely offset by the complete disruption of peasant economy, by the rapacious budgetary policy of the autocracy and corruption in the bureaucratic apparatus; on the other hand, the increasing cost of living intensifies the poverty of the working class and the broad masses of the population.

(d) In view of this the broad masses of the population have become convinced, during the five-year existence of the Third Duma, that it is unwilling, unable, and powerless to do anything to improve their conditions, and that the parties predominating in the Duma are anti-popular in character.

(e) The onset of a political revival is to be noted among broad democratic circles, chiefly among the proletariat. The workers’ strikes of 1910–11, the beginning of demonstrations and proletarian meetings, the start of a movement among urban bourgeois democrats (the student strikes), etc., all these are signs of the growing revolutionary feelings of the masses against the June Third regime.

This Conference, proceeding from all these facts, con firms the tasks confronting the Party, as outlined in detail in the resolution of the December 1908 Conference, particularly pointing out that the task of winning power by the proletariat, carrying with it the peasantry, remains as before, the task of the democratic revolution in Russia. This Conference draws the particular attention of comrades to:

(1) The fact that, as heretofore, the first task on the order of the day is the continued work of the socialist education, organisation, and unification of the politically-conscious masses of the proletariat;

(2) The necessity for intensive work to re-establish the illegal organisation of the RSDLP, which more than ever before takes advantage of every legal possibility, which is capable of leading the economic struggles of the proletariat, and which is the only party able to take the lead in political actions by the proletariat that are growing more frequent;

(3) The necessity to organise and extend systematic political agitation and to give wholehearted support to the incipient mass movement and secure its development under the banner of full implementation of the Party slogans.

Propaganda for a republic, and against the policy of the tsarist monarchy, must be given special prominence to counteract, among other things, the widespread propaganda in favour of curtailed slogans and of confining activity to the existing “legality”.

ELECTIONS TO THE FOURTH DUMA

I

This Conference recognises the undoubted necessity for participation by the R.S.D.L. Party in the forthcoming election campaign to the Fourth State Duma, the nomination of independent candidates of our Party and the formation in the Fourth Duma of a Social-Democratic group, which as a section of the Party is subordinated to the Party as a whole.

The main tasks of our Party in the elections, and equally of the future Social-Democratic group in the Duma itself—a task to which all else must be subordinated—is socialist, class propaganda and the organisation of the working class.

The main election slogans of our Party in the forthcoming elections must be:

(1) A democratic republic.

(2) The eight-hour working day.

(3) Confiscation of all landed estates.

In all our election agitation it is essential to give the clearest possible explanation of these demands, based on the experience of the Third Duma and all the activities of the government in the sphere of central as well as local administration.

All propaganda on the remaining demands of the Social-Democratic minimum programme, namely: universal franchise, freedom of association, election of judges and officials by the people, state insurance for workers, replacement of the standing army by the arming of the people, and so on, must be inseparably linked with the above-mentioned three demands.

II

The general tactical line of the RSDLP in the elections should be the following: the Party must conduct a merciless struggle against the tsarist monarchy and the par ties of landowners and capitalists supporting it, at the same time steadfastly exposing the counter-revolutionary views of the bourgeois liberals (headed by the Cadet Party) and their sham democracy.

Particular attention in the election campaign must be paid to dissociating the position of the proletarian party from that of all non-proletarian parties and explaining the petty-bourgeois essence of the sham socialism of the democratic (chiefly Trudovik, Narodnik and Socialist-Revolutionary) groups, as well as the harm done to democracy by their waverings on the question of consistent and mass revolutionary struggle.

As far as electoral agreements are concerned, the Party, adhering to the decisions of the London Congress, must:

(1) Put forward its candidates in all worker curias and forbid any agreement whatsoever with other parties or groups (liquidators);

(2) In view of the great agitational significance of the mere fact of nomination of independent Social-Democratic candidates, it is necessary to ensure that in the second assemblies of urban voters, and as far as possible in the peas ant curias, the Party puts forward its own candidates;

(3) In cases of a second ballot (Article 106 of the Election Regulations) in the election of electors at the second assemblies of urban voters it is permissible to conclude agreements with bourgeois democrats against the liberals, and then with the liberals against all the government parties. One form of agreement can be the compilation of a general list of electors for one or several towns in proportion to the number of votes registered at the first elections;

(4) In those five cities (St. Petersburg, Moscow, Riga, Odessa, Kiev) where there are direct elections with a second ballot, it is essential in the first elections to put forward independent Social-Democratic candidates for the second urban curia voters. In the event of a second ballot here, and since there is obviously no danger from the Black Hundreds, it is permissible to come to an agreement only with the democratic groups against the liberals;

(5) There can be no electoral agreements providing for a common platform, and Social-Democratic candidates must not be bound by any kind of political commitment, nor must Social-Democrats be prevented from resolutely criticising the counter-revolutionary nature of the liberals and the half-heartedness and inconsistency of the bourgeois democrats;

(6) At the second stage of the elections (in the uyezd assemblies of delegates, in the gubernia assemblies of voters, etc.), wherever it proves essential to ensure the defeat of an Octobrist-Black Hundred or a government list in general, an agreement must be concluded to share the seats, primarily with bourgeois democrats (Trudoviks, Popular Socialists, etc.), and then with the liberals (Cadets), independents, Progressists, etc.

III

All Social-Democrats must immediately commence preparation for the election campaign, and should pay special attention to the following:

(1) It is urgently necessary everywhere to form illegal Social-Democratic nuclei in order that they may without delay prepare for the Social-Democratic election campaign;

(2) To pay the necessary attention to the strengthening and broadening of the legally existing workers’ press;

(3) The entire election campaign must be carried out in close alliance with workers’ trades unions and all other associations of workers, and the form in which these societies participate must be chosen with due consideration paid to their legal status;

(4) Special attention must be paid to the organisational and agitation preparation of the elections in the worker curias of those six gubernias in which the election of deputies to the Duma from the worker curias is guaranteed (St. Petersburg, Moscow, Vladimir, Kostroma, Kharkov and Ekaterinoslav). Every single worker elector—here and in the other gubernias—must be a Social-Democratic Party member;

(5) Assemblies of workers’ delegates, guided by the decision of the illegal Party organisations, must decide who precisely is to be elected to the Duma from the workers, and bind all electors, under threat of boycott and being branded as traitors, to withdraw their candidature in favour of the Party candidate;

(6) In view of persecution by the government, the arrest of Social-Democrat candidates, etc., it is necessary to carry out particularly restrained, systematic and careful work, using every means to react quickly to all police tactics and nullify all the tricks and coercion of the tsarist government, and to elect Social-Democrats to the Fourth State Duma, and then in general to strengthen the group of democratic deputies in the Duma;

(7) The candidates of the Social-Democratic Party are endorsed, and instructions concerning the elections are given by the local illegal organisations and groups of the Party, under the general supervision and guidance of the Central Committee of the Party;

(8) If, despite all efforts, it proves impossible to convene a Party congress or a new conference before the elections to the Fourth Duma, the Conference empowers the Central Committee, or an institution appointed for the purpose by the latter, to issue concrete instructions on questions concerning the conduct of the election campaign in the various localities, or to meet special circumstances arising, etc.

THE SOCIAL-DEMOCRATIC GROUP IN THE DUMA

This Conference recognises that the Social-Democratic group in the Duma made use of the Duma platform in accordance with the line defined by the December (1908) Party Conference, which must remain the guide for the direction of Party work in the Duma.

The Conference, in particular, regards as consistent with the tasks of the proletariat that aspect of the group’s activities that it has energetically defended the interests of the workers and all measures for improving their lot (for in stance, the labour bills) and in so doing has endeavoured to show all the partial tasks in their relation to the general aims of the liberation movement led by the proletariat, and points to the mass movement as the only way to rid Russia of the sufferings and shame to which she has been brought by tsarism.

The Conference welcomes the beginning of open actions by the workers in connection with the praiseworthy behaviour of the Social-Democratic group in the Duma, which in the reactionary Duma raised the banner of the Social-Democratic deputies to the Second Duma and exposed to the workers of the entire world all the provocative filth of the Black-Hundred tsarist gang that organised the government coup d’état of 1907. The Conference calls on all class-conscious workers in Russia to give wholehearted support to the speeches of the Social-Democrats in the Third Duma, and the campaign of proletarian meetings commenced by the St. Petersburg workers.

The Conference recognises that in view of the forthcoming election campaign to the Fourth Duma, the Social-Democratic Duma group must devote still more attention to explaining to the people the class essence of the non-proletarian parties (and in particular to exposing the counter-revolutionary and treacherous nature of the Cadet Party) being guided by the resolution of the London (1907) Congress, which in all its significant sections has been confirmed by the experience of the period of counter-revolution. Further more, the central slogans, which must be common to all statements made by members of the Social-Democratic group, must determine the nature of its work and concentrate all its partial demands and reforms on the main points, should be the following three slogans: (1) a democratic republic, (2) the eight-hour day, (3) confiscation of all landed estates and their transfer to the peasantry.

THE CHARACTER AND ORGANISATIONAL FORMS OF PARTY WORK

Recognising that the experience of the past three years has undoubtedly confirmed the main provisions of the resolution on the problem of organisation carried by the December (1908) Conference, and assuming that the new upswing of the working-class movement makes possible the further development of organisational forms of Party work along the lines indicated therein, i.e., by the formation of illegal Social-Democratic nuclei surrounded by as wide a network as possible of every kind of legal workers’ associations,

The Conference considers that:

(1) It is essential for illegal Party organisations to participate actively in the leadership of the economic struggle (strikes, strike committees, etc.), and to ensure co-operation in this sphere between the illegal Party nuclei and the trade unions, in particular with the S.D. nuclei in the trade unions, and also with various leaders of the trade union movement;

(2) It is desirable that S.D. nuclei in unions organised on an industrial basis should, whenever local conditions permit, function in conjuction with Party branches organised on a territorial basis;

(3) It is essential for the maximum possible initiative to be shown in the organisation of S.D. work in legally existing associations—unions, reading rooms, libraries, various types of workers’ entertainment societies, the circulation of the trade union journals and the guidance of the trade union press in the spirit of Marxism; the use of the Duma speeches of the S.D. members, the training of workers to become legal lecturers, the creation (in connection with the elections to the Fourth Duma) of workers’ and other voters’ committees for each district, each street, etc., and the organisation of Social-Democratic campaigns ill connection with the elections to municipal bodies, etc.;

(4) It is essential to make special efforts to strengthen and increase the number of illegal Party nuclei, and to seek for new organisational forms for them of the greatest possible flexibility, to establish and strengthen leading illegal Party organisations in every town and to propagate such forms of mass illegal organisations as “exchanges”, factory Party meetings, and so on;

(5) It is desirable to draw the study circles into everyday practical work—the distribution of illegal Social-Democratic and legal Marxist literature, and so on;

(6) It is essential to bear in mind that systematic agitation through S.D. literature and particularly the regular distribution of the illegal Party paper, issued frequently and regularly can have a tremendous significance for the establishment of organisational links, both between the illegal nuclei, and between the S.D. nuclei in legally existing workers’ associations.

THE TASKS OF SOCIAL-DEMOCRACY IN THE STRUGGLE AGAINST THE FAMINE

(1) The famine affecting 20 million peasants in Russia once again shows the absolutely unbearable conditions of the impoverished peasant masses, crushed and oppressed by tsarism and the class of feudal landowners, conditions unimaginable in any civilised country of the world;

(2) The present famine once again confirms the failure of the government’s agrarian policy, and the impossibility of ensuring anything like normal bourgeois development in Russia so long as its policy in general, and its agrarian policy in particular, are directed by the class of feudal landowners who, through the parties of the Right, dominate the June Third Duma, the Council of State, and circles at the Court of Nicholas II;

(3) The Black-Hundred parties (with the Markovs and similar people at the head), by their statements in the Duma and their attempts to lay the blame on the “loafing peasants”, have so flaunted the shamelessness of the tsarist landowner gang that is plundering Russia that the eyes of even the most ignorant are being opened, and the indignation of even the most indifferent is being aroused;

(4) The actions of the government in hindering relief for the famine-stricken, the police interference with the Zemstvos, with the collectors of funds and the organisers of kitchen committees, etc., give rise to widespread dissatisfaction even among the Zemstvos and the urban bourgeoisie;

(5) The liberal-monarchist bourgeoisie, while helping in its press to inform the public of the famine and of the behaviour of the government, nevertheless, through the Constitutional-Democratic group in the Third Duma acted as such a moderate opposition that under no circumstances can its conduct satisfy democrats, any more than it is possible to accept the presentation of the question of relief to the famine-stricken as philanthropy, which is the way the majority of the liberals present it;

(6) Among the working class, despite the worsening of its economic position arising from the increasing numbers of starving and unemployed, a spontaneous desire is to be observed to collect funds to aid the starving and to help them in other ways. This desire natural to every democrat, to say nothing of a socialist, must be supported and furthered by all Social-Democrats in the spirit of class struggle.

Having considered all these points, The Conference resolves that it is essential:

(a) To enlist all Social-Democratic forces to extend propaganda and agitation among the broad masses of the population, and in particular among the peasantry, explaining the connection between the famine and tsarism and its en tire policy; to distribute in the villages for agitational purposes the Duma speeches, not only of the Social-Democrats and Trudoviks, but even of such friends of the tsar as Markov the Second, and to popularise the political demands of Social-Democracy—the overthrow of the tsarist monarchy, the establishment of a democratic republic and the confiscation of landed estates;

(b) To support the desire of the workers to aid the famine-stricken as far as possible, advising them to send their do nations only to the Social-Democratic group in the Duma, to the workers’ press, or to workers’ cultural-educational and other associations, etc., and forming special nuclei of Social-Democrats and democrats upon their joining groups, committees or commissions for aid to the famine-stricken;

(c) To endeavour to give expression to the anger of the democratic masses aroused by the famine in demonstrations, mass meetings, and other forms of mass struggle against tsarism.

THE PARTY’S ATTITUDE TO THE WORKERS’ STATE INSURANCE DUMA BILL

I

1. The share of the wealth produced by the wage-worker which he receives in the form of wages is so insignificant that it is scarcely sufficient to provide for his most essential requirements; the proletarian is therefore deprived of any opportunity to lay aside any part of his earnings to provide for himself in case of inability to work as a result of accident, illness, old age or permanent disablement, as well as in case of unemployment which is inseparably linked up with the capitalist mode of production. The insurance of workers in all the aforementioned cases is therefore a reform imperatively dictated by the entire course of capitalist development.

2. The best form of workers’ insurance is state insurance based on the following principles: (a) it should provide for the workers in all cases of incapacity (accidents, illness, old age, permanent disablement; extra provisions for working women during pregnancy and childbirth; benefits for widows and orphans upon the death of the bread-winner) or in case of loss of earnings due to unemployment; (b) insurance must include all wage-earners and their families; (c) all insured persons should receive compensations equal to their fall earnings, and all expenditures on insurance must be borne by the employers and the state; (d) all forms of insurance should be handled by uniform insurance organisations of the territorial type and based on the principle of jail management by the insured persons, themselves.

3. The government Bill, passed by the State Duma, is in radical contradiction to all these fundamental requirements of a rational insurance scheme; for (a) it provides for only two kinds of insurance, cases of accident and cases of illness; (b) it extends to only a small part (according to the most liberal calculations, to one-sixth) of the Russian proletariat, since it excludes from insurance whole regions (Siberia and, in the government’s version, also the Caucasus) and whole categories of workers who particularly need insurance (farm labourers, building workers, railway workers, post and telegraph workers, shop assistants, etc.); (c) it provides for beggarly rates of compensation (the maximum compensation in case of total disablement resulting from accidents is set at two-thirds of the earnings, the latter, moreover, calculated on the basis of standards lower than the actual earnings) and at the same time makes the workers pay the lion’s share of the expenditure on insurance—for the plan is to make the workers cover the expenditures not only on insurance against illness but also on insurance against “minor” injuries, which in practice are the most numerous. This new procedure is a change for the worse even compared with the present law, according to which compensation for injuries is paid entirely by the employers; (d) it deprives the insurance bodies of every vestige of independence, placing them under the combined surveillance of civil servants (from the courts and the “Council for Insurance Affairs”), the gendarmerie, the police (who, besides exercising general surveillance, are invested with the right to direct the practical activities of the insurance bodies, influence the selection of their personnel, etc.), and the employers (the accident insurance societies under the exclusive control of employers; sick benefit societies run by the factories; society rules guaranteeing the influence of the employers, etc.).

4. This law, which rides roughshod over the most vital interests of the workers, is the only one possible in this present period of frenzied reaction, this period of the domination of counter-revolution, and is the result of many years of preliminary negotiations and agreement between the government and the representatives of capital. An insurance reform really corresponding to the interests of the workers can only be accomplished after the final overthrow of tsarism and the achievement of conditions indispensable for the free class struggle of the proletariat.

II

In view of the aforementioned, the Conference resolves that:

(1) It is the urgent task both of the illegal Party organisations and of the comrades active in the legally existing organisations (trade unions, clubs, co-operative societies, etc.) to develop the most extensive agitation against the Duma Insurance Bill, which affects the interests of the entire Russian proletariat as a class, since it grossly violates them.

(2) The Conference considers it necessary to emphasise that all Social-Democratic agitation concerning the Insurance Bill should be presented in relation to the class position of the proletariat in modern capitalist society, and should criticise the bourgeois illusions being spread by the social-reformists; this agitation must, in general, be linked up with our fundamental socialist tasks; on the other hand, it is necessary in this agitation to show the connection between the character of the Duma “reform” and the current political situation and, in general, its connection with our revolutionary-democratic tasks and slogans.

(3) Fully approving of the vote of the Social-Democratic group in the Duma against the Bill, the Conference draws the attention of the comrades to the extensive and valuable material clarifying the attitude of the various classes to labour reforms furnished by the debate in the Duma on this question; the Conference particularly stresses the fact that the debate vividly brought out the aspirations of the Octobrist representatives of backward capital openly hostile to the workers, as well as the attitude of the Constitutional-Democratic Party masked, in the hypocritical speeches of its representatives, by social-reformist phrases about “social peace”; in point of fact, the Cadets came out in the Duma against the independent activity of the working class and virulently contested the principal amendments to the Bill proposed by the Social-Democratic group in the Duma.

(4) The Conference most earnestly warns the workers against all attempts to curtail or completely distort Social-Democratic agitation by confining it to what is legally permissible in the present period of the domination of the counter-revolution; on the other hand, the Conference emphasises that the main point of this agitation should be to explain to the proletarian masses that no real improvement in the worker’s conditions is possible unless there is a new revolutionary upsurge, that whoever wishes to achieve a genuine labour reform must above all fight for a new, victorious revolution.

(5) Should the Duma Bill become law in spite of the pro test of the class-conscious proletariat, the Conference summons the comrades to make use of the new organisational forms which it provides (workers’ sick benefit societies) to carry on energetic propaganda for Social-Democratic ideas in these organisational units and thus turn the new law, devised as a means of putting new chains and a new yoke upon the proletariat, into a means of developing its class-consciousness, strengthening its organisation and intensifying its struggle for full political liberty and for socialism.

THE “PETITION CAMPAIGN”

1. The counter-revolution, as represented by the government and the Third Duma, regards the working-class movement as its chief enemy and persecutes it in all its forms, systematically infringing upon even those “legal opportunities” remaining to the working class as a result of the revolution.

2. This regime constantly confronts the masses of workers with the fact that they cannot achieve even their most elementary rights (above all, the freedom of association) without the complete overthrow of the tsarist monarchy.

3. The petition circulated in the winter of 1910 by a group of St. Petersburg liquidators, and the agitation which accompanied this petition campaign, isolated the demand for freedom of association from the sum total of all the revolutionary demands of the working class. Instead of explaining to the workers that to win full freedom of association in Russia it is indispensable for the masses to wage a revolutionary struggle for fundamental democratic demands, the liquidators actually preached the so-called “fight for right”, that is to say, a liberal fight for the “renovation” of the June Third regime by partial improvements.

4. In view of the specific conditions obtaining in Russian political life and the condition of the masses of the workers, the above-mentioned campaign has inevitably degenerated into the purely formal and meaningless signing of papers and has met with no response and aroused no political interest among the masses.

5. The fate of this petition campaign clearly confirmed the incorrectness of the entire undertaking and its isolation from the working-class masses: altogether 1,300 signatures were collected, the petition campaign having met with absolutely no response in any of the Party organisations regardless of factions and trends; nor did our Social-Democratic group in the Duma deem it possible to have anything to do with it.

6. The workers’ mass meetings in connection with the fate of the deputies to the Second Duma and the workers’ demonstrations held in various cities on January 9, 1912, show that the independent activity of the workers by no means runs in such channels as a petition campaign, nor is it conducted under the banner of “partial rights”.

In view of the aforementioned, the Conference

(1) calls upon all Social-Democrats to explain to the workers the paramount importance to the proletariat of freedom of association; this demand must always be closely linked up with our general political demands and our revolutionary agitation among the masses;

(2) while recognising that under certain conditions a mass petition of workers could prove a very effective means of protest, is of the opinion that in the present period in Russia a petition is one of the least effective methods of Social-Democratic agitation.

LIQUIDATIONISM AND THE GROUP OF LIQUIDATORS

Whereas:

(1) The RSDLP for nearly four years has been waging a determined fight against the liquidationist trend, which was characterised at the conference of the Party in December 1908 as

“an attempt on the part of a group of Party intellectuals to liquidate the existing organisation of the RSDLP and to replace it at all costs, even at the price of downright renunciation of the programme, tactics, and traditions of the Party, by a loose association functioning legally”;

(2) The Plenary Meeting of the Central Committee held in January 1910, continuing the fight against this trend, unanimously declared it to be a manifestation of bourgeois influence upon the proletariat and demanded, as a condition for real Party unity and for the fusion of the former Bolshevik and Menshevik groups, a complete rupture with liquidationism and the utter rout of this bourgeois deviation from socialism;

(3) In spite of all Party decisions, and in spite of the obligation assumed by the representatives of all the factions at the Plenary Meeting held in January 1910, a section of Social-Democrats, grouped around the magazines Nasha Zarya and Dyelo Zhizni, began to defend openly the trend which the entire Party has recognised as being the product of bourgeois influence on the proletariat;

(4) The former members of the Central Committee, Mikhail, Yuri, and Roman, refused not only to join the Central Committee in the spring of 1910, but even to attend a single meeting to co-opt new members, and bluntly declared that they considered the very existence of the Party Central Committee to he “harmful”;

(5) It was precisely after the Plenary Meeting of 1910 that the above-mentioned chief publications of the liquidators, Nasha Zarya and Dyelo Zhizni, definitely turned to liquidationism all along the line, not only “belittling [contrary to the decisions of the Plenary Meeting] the importance of the illegal Party”, but openly renouncing it, declaring that the Party was “extinct”, that the Party was already liquidated, that the idea of reviving the illegal Party was “a reactionary utopia”, using the columns of legally published magazines to heap slander and abuse on the illegal Party, calling upon the workers to regard the nuclei of the Party and its hierarchy as “dead”, etc.;

(6) At a time when throughout Russia the members of the Party, irrespective of factions, united to promote the immediate task of convening a Party conference, the liquidators, banded together in entirely independent small groups, split away from the local organisations even where the pro-Party Mensheviks predominated (Ekaterinoslav, Kiev) and definitely refused to maintain any Party relations with the local organisations of the RSDLP;

The Conference declares that by its conduct the Nasha Zarya and Dyelo Zhizni group has definitely placed itself outside the Party.

The Conference calls upon all Party members, irrespective of tendencies and shades of opinion, to combat liquidationism, explain its great harmfulness to the cause of the emancipation of the working class, and bend all their efforts to revive and strengthen the illegal RSDLP

THE CENTRAL ORGAN

Having heard and discussed the report of the representative of the Central Organ, the Conference approves of the Central Organ’s line in principle and expresses the wish that more space be devoted to articles of a propagandist nature, and that the articles be written in a more popular style, so as to make them more, intelligible to the workers.

RABOCHAYA GAZETA

Whereas:

Rabochaya Gazeta has resolutely and consistently championed the Party and its principles, and enjoys the full sympathy of Party functionaries in local Party branches, irrespective of factional affiliation,

The Conference:

(1) calls upon all comrades in the localities; to support Rabochaya Gazeta in every way;

(2) recognises Rabochaya Gazeta as an official organ of the Central Committee of the Party

NEWSPAPER PRAVDA

This refers to the Vienna Pravda—Trotsky’s factional paper.

The Conference annuls the agreement with the editors of Pravda concluded by the Plenary Meeting of the Central Committee in January 1910.

CHANGES IN THE ORGANISATIONAL RULES OF THE PARTY

The following is to be added to Clause 2:

“Co-option is considered permissible—in accordance with the decisions of the December (1908) Conference.”

Clause 8 is to be deleted and replaced by the following:

“The Central Committee shall convene conferences of representatives of all the Party organisations as frequently as possible.”

Clause 9, third paragraph, dealing with representation at congresses, is amended to read:

“The basis of representation at Party congresses shall be fixed by the Central Committee after preliminary communication with local organisations.”

PROPERTY IN THE HANDS OF THE FORMER TRUSTEE, AND FINANCIAL REPORTS

The Conference notes the statement of the authorised representatives of the Bolsheviks, with whom the Plenary Meeting of the Central Committee concluded an agreement in January 1910, providing for the conditional transfer by the Bolsheviks of the property of their group to the Central Committee, and resolves that

(1) in view of the fact that the liquidators violated the agreement, and that the trustees have refused to act as arbitrators, the Bolshevik representatives have every formal right to dispose both of the property in their own hands and of the property now in the hands of Comrade Zetkin, former trustee;

(2) following the application made by the representatives of the Bolsheviks, the Conference regards the funds now in Comrade Zetkin’s keeping as unquestionably belonging to the Party through the Central Committee elected by the Conference, and

(3) instructs the Central Committee to take all measures immediately to obtain the property of the Party from Comrade Zetkin.

* *

*

The Auditing Committee, having examined the financial reports and the receipts submitted by Rabochaya Gazeta, now endorsed by the Conference as an organ of the Central Committee, and also the receipts presented by the group of Bolsheviks to whom funds were advanced by the Plenary Meeting of the Central Committee for the purpose of publishing Social-Democratic literature, has found the accounts to be in order and moves that they be accepted by the Conference.

THE RED CROSS

The Conference instructs all the comrades in the localities to make every effort to revive the Red Cross organisation, which is so urgently needed for aid to imprisoned and exiled comrades.

THE PARTY ORGANISATION ABROAD

The Conference recognises the absolute necessity for a single Party organisation abroad that carries on its work of assisting the Party under the control and guidance of the Central Committee.

The Conference approves the Committee of the Organisation Abroad as one of the Party organisations functioning abroad, and summons all Party elements, irrespective of factions and trends, who support the illegal Party and are waging an implacable fight against the anti-Party trends (liquidationism), to rally around the Central Committee in order to assist in the work of the Party in Russia and in creating a single organisation abroad.

All groups abroad, without any exception, may communicate with Russian organisations only through the Central Committee.

The Conference declares that the groups abroad which refuse to submit to the Russian centre of Social-Democratic activity, i.e., to the Central Committee, and which cause disorganisation by communicating with Russia independently and ignoring the Central Committee, have no right to use the name of the RSDLP

THE RUSSIAN GOVERNMENTS ATTACK ON PERSIA

The Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party protests against the rapacious policy of the tsarist gang which is bent on suppressing the freedom of the Persian people and, in pursuing this policy, does not shrink from carrying out the most barbarous and infamous acts.

The Conference places on record that the alliance between the Russian and British governments which the Russian liberals are widely advertising and supporting in every way, is directed primarily against the revolutionary movement of the democratic forces in Asia, and that, by virtue of this alliance, the Liberal government of Britain is a party to the bloody atrocities perpetrated by the tsarist government.

The Conference expresses its unqualified sympathy for the struggle waged by the Persian people and, particularly, by the Persian Social-Democratic Party, which has lost so many of its members in the fight against the tsarist butchers.

THE CHINESE REVOLUTION

In view of the campaign of propaganda conducted by the government and liberal newspapers (Rech) in favour of taking advantage of the revolutionary movement in China in order to annex, in the interests of Russian capitalists, the Chinese provinces bordering on Russia, the Conference recognises the world-wide importance of the revolutionary struggle of the Chinese people, which is bringing emancipation to Asia and is undermining the rule of the European bourgeoisie. The Conference hails the revolutionary republicans of China, testifies to the profound enthusiasm and complete sympathy with which the proletariat of Russia is following the successes of the revolutionary people of China, and condemns the behaviour of the Russian liberals who are supporting tsarism’s policy of conquest.

THE POLICY OF THE TSARIST GOVERNMENT IN FINLAND

The Conference of the RSDLP, the first to be convened since Russian tsarism and the counter-revolutionary Duma passed laws abolishing the rights and liberties of the Finnish people, expresses its complete solidarity with the fraternal Social-Democratic Party of Finland, emphasises that the workers of Finland and Russia have a common task in the struggle against the Russian counter-revolutionary government and counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie who are trampling on the rights of the people, and expresses its firm conviction that only as a result of the joint efforts of the workers of Russia and of Finland will tsarism be overthrown and the Russian and Finnish people attain freedom.

GREETINGS TO THE GERMAN SOCIAL-DEMOCRATIC PARTY

The following telegram was sent on behalf of the Conference to the Central Organ of the German Social-Democratic Party:

The Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, as represented by the Russian Organising Commission and the Central Organ of the Party, sends its ardent greetings to the fraternal German Social-Democratic Party on the occasion of the brilliant victory over all the forces of the bourgeois world it won at the recent elections.

Long live international Social-Democracy; long live the German Social-Democratic Party!