The Unity Congress of the RSDLP

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The Fourth (Unity) Congress of the RSDLP took place in Stockholm from April 10-25 (April 23 to May 8), 1906.

The Congress was attended by 112 delegates with the right to vote, who represented 57 local Party organisations, and 22 delegates with voice but no vote. Other participants were delegates from various national Social-Democratic parties: three each from the Social-Democrats of Poland and Lithuania, the Bund and the Lettish Social-Democratic Labour Party, one each from the Ukrainian Social-Democratic Labour Party and the Finnish Labour Party, and also a representative of the Bulgarian Social-Democratic Labour Party. Among the Bolshevik delegates were M. V. Frunze, M. I. Kalinin, N. K. Krupskaya, V. I. Lenin, A. V. Lunacharsky, F. A. Sergeyev (Artyom), S. C. Shaumyan, I. I. Skvortsov-Stepanov, J. V. Stalin, K. Y. Voroshilov and V. V. Vorovsky. The main items on the Congress agenda were the agrarian question, an appraisal of the current situation and the class tasks of the proletariat, the attitude to the Duma, and organisational matters. There was a bitter controversy between the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks over every item. Lenin made reports and speeches on the agrarian question, the current situation, and tactics regarding the Duma elections, the armed uprising, and other questions.

The preponderance of Mensheviks at the Congress, while slight, deter mined its character— the Congress adopted Menshevik resolutions on a number of questions (the agrarian programme, the attitude to the Duma, etc.). The Congress approved the first clause of the Rules—concerning Party membership—in the wording pro posed by Lenin. It admitted the Social-Democratic organisations of Poland and Lithuania and the Lettish Social-Democratic Labour Party into the RSDLP, and predetermined the admission of the Bund.

The Congress elected a Central Committee of three Bolsheviks and seven Mensheviks, and a Menshevik editorial board of the Central Organ.

Lenin analysed the work of the Congress in his pamphlet Report on the Unity Congress of the RSDLP.

April 10 (23)-April 25 (May 8), 1906

1. Speech in Reply to the Debate on the Agrarian Question

I advance two main theses: (1) the peasants will never agree to municipalisation; (2) without a democratic republic, with out the fully guaranteed sovereignty of the people and with out the election of government officials, municipalisation would be harmful. In developing these theses, I will first deal with the more serious objections raised against nationalisation. Undoubtedly, the most important objection is the one raised by Comrade Plekhanov. Comrade Plekhanov said literally the following, I took down his words: “We can not under any circumstances be in favour of nationalisation.” This is a mistake. I venture to assert that if a peasant revolution is really brought about in Russia, and if the political revolution that will accompany it reaches the point of creating a really democratic republic, Comrade Plekhanov will consider it possible to support nationalisation; and if a democratic republic is really brought about in Russia in the forthcoming revolution, then not only the Russian but the entire international situation of the movement will push things towards nationalisation. But if this condition does not arise, municipalisation will still prove to be a fiction; in those circumstances it can be carried out only as possibly a new form of compensation. Comrade John uses the term alienation instead of confiscation, and, as was evident from his speech, he did not choose this term by chance. Yet it is a purely Cadet term: it can be taken to mean anything you please, and the compensation scheme proposed by the Cadets fits in with it completely. To go on. “What guarantee is there against restoration?” asked Comrade Plekhanov. I don’t think this question has any close and inseparable bearing on the programme we are discussing; but since it has been raised, a definite and unambiguous answer must be given to it. If we mean a real, fully effective, economic guarantee against restoration, that is, a guarantee that would create the economic conditions precluding restoration, then we shall have to say: the only guarantee against restoration is a socialist revolution in the West. There can be no other guarantee in the real and full sense of the term. Without this condition, in which ever other way the problem is solved (municipalisation, division of the land, etc.), restoration will be not only possible, but positively inevitable. I would formulate this proposition as follows: the Russian revolution can achieve victory by its own efforts, but it cannot possibly hold and consolidate its gains by its own strength. It cannot do this unless there is a socialist revolution in the West. Without this condition restoration is inevitable, whether we have municipalisation, or nationalisation, or division of the land: for under each and every form of possession and property the small proprietor will always be a bulwark of restoration. After the complete victory of the democratic revolution the small proprietor will inevitably turn against the proletariat; and the sooner the common enemies of the proletariat and of the small proprietors, such as the capitalists, the landlords, the financial bourgeoisie, and so forth are overthrown, the sooner will this happen. Our democratic republic has no other re serve than the socialist proletariat in the West. And in this connection we must not lose sight of the fact that the classical bourgeois revolution in Europe, namely, the Great French Revolution of the eighteenth century, took place in an international situation that was entirely different from the one in which the Russian revolution is taking place. France at the end of the eighteenth century was surrounded by feudal and semi-feudal states. Russia in the twentieth century, accomplishing her bourgeois revolution, is surround ed by countries in which the socialist proletariat stands fully prepared on the eve of the final battle with the bourgeoisie. If such relatively insignificant events as the tsar’s promise of freedom in Russia on October 17 gave the powerful impetus it did to the proletarian movement in Western Europe, if a telegram from St. Petersburg announcing the issue of the notorious Constitutional Manifesto was sufficient to make the Austrian workers pour into the streets, to lead to a number of demonstrations and collisions with the troops in the largest industrial towns of Austria, you can imagine what the international socialist proletariat will do when it receives news from Russia, not of promises of freedom, but of its actual achievement, and the complete victory of the revolutionary peasantry. If, however, the question of a guarantee against restoration is put on a different basis, that is, if we mean a conditional and relative guarantee against restoration, then we shall have to say: the only conditional and relative guarantee against restoration is that the revolution should be effected in the most drastic manner possible, effected by the revolutionary class directly, with the least possible participation of go-betweens, compromisers and all sorts of conciliators; that this revolution should really be carried to the end. In this respect, my draft provides the maximum as regards guarantees against restoration.

My draft proposes the formation of peasant committees as the direct levers of the revolutionary peasant movement, and as the most desirable form of that movement. Translated into simple language, peasant committees mean calling upon the peasants to set to work immediately and directly to settle accounts with the government officials and the land lords in the most drastic manner. Peasant committees mean calling upon the people who are being oppressed by the survivals of serfdom and the police regime to eradicate these survivals “in a plebeian manner”, as Marx put it. Comrade Plekhanov thinks that this premise of a revolution carried to the end, of a revolution which introduces the election of government officials by the people, is reminiscent of anarchism, which is abhorrent to him, just as to all of us, of course. But it is extremely strange that the question of the people electing the government officials should remind anyone of anarchism, or should, at a time like the present, bring a smile to the lips of any Social-Democrat, except Bernstein, perhaps. It is at the present time that this slogan—the election of government officials by the people—assumes direct and immense practical significance. All our activity, our propaganda and agitation among the masses of the peasantry should consist largely in propagating, spreading and explaining this slogan. To advocate a peasant revolution, to speak of an agrarian revolution at all seriously,, and at the same time to say nothing about the need for real democracy, which, among other things, includes the election of government officials by the people, is a crying contradiction. This reproach about anarchism in this connection only reminds me of the German Bernsteinians who not long ago, in controversy with Kautsky, accused him of advocating anarchism.

We must plainly and definitely say to the peasants: if you want to carry the agrarian revolution to the end, you must also carry the political revolution to the end; for unless the political revolution is carried to the end there will be no durable agrarian revolution, and perhaps none at all. Without a complete democratic revolution, without the election of government officials by the people, we shall have either peasant disturbances, or Cadet agrarian reforms. We shall not have what would deserve the lofty title used by Plekhanov—a peasant revolution. To go on. Municipalisation provides a wide arena for the class struggle, said Plekhanov. I have tried to use his own words as nearly as possible, and I must say emphatically that what he says is definitely wrong. It is wrong both in the political and in the economic sense. Other things being equal, a municipality and municipal landownership undoubtedly allow a narrower arena for the class struggle than the whole nation, and the nationalisation of the land. In a democratic republic, nationalisation of the land would undoubtedly provide the widest field for the class struggle—the widest field possible and thinkable under capitalism. Nationalisation means the abolition of absolute rent, a reduction in the price of grain, the maximum freedom for competition and the free penetration of capital into agriculture. Municipalisation, on the contrary, narrows the field of the nation-wide class struggle, for it does not free all production relations in agriculture from absolute rent, and it cuts up our general demands into particular demands. At all events, municipalisation obscures the class struggle. From this point of view, only one answer can be given to Comrade Plekhanov’s question. From this point of view municipalisation does not hold water. Municipalisation means narrowing and obscuring the class struggle.

Plekhanov’s next objection concerns the question of seizing power. He perceives in my draft o.f the agrarian programme the idea of seizing power. I must admit that my draft does, indeed, contain the idea of the seizure of power by the revolutionary peasantry; but it is a great mistake to put this on a par with the Narodnaya Volya idea of seizing power. In the 1870s and 1880s, when the idea of seizing power was fostered by the Narodnaya Volya, the latter consisted of a group of intellectuals, and there was no really mass revolutionary movement of any extent to speak of. Seizure of power was the desire, or the phrase of a handful of intellectuals, but not the inevitable next step of an already developing mass movement. Now, after October, November and December 1905, after the broad masses of the working class, the semi-proletarian elements and the peasantry have shown the world forms of the revolutionary movement such as have not been witnessed for a long time; after we have had the struggle of the revolutionary people for power flaring up in Moscow, in the South and in the Baltic Provinces, to put the idea of the revolutionary people winning political power on a par with the ideas of the Narodnaya Volya means being fully twenty-five years behind the times, means striking out a whole vast period of Russian history. Plekhanov said we must not be afraid of an agrarian revolution. But this fear that the revolutionary peasantry will win power is fear of an agrarian revolution. Agrarian revolution is an empty phrase if its victory does not presuppose the winning of power by the revolutionary people. Without this latter condition, it will not be an agrarian revolution but a peasant revolt, or a Cadet agrarian reform. In concluding the examination of this point, I should like to remind you that even the resolution of the comrades of the Minority, published in the second issue of Partiiniye Izvestia, says that we are already being confronted with the task of wresting power from the government.

Comrade Plekhanov thinks that the expression “the creative activity of the people”, which I don’t think you will find in our resolutions, but which, if we are to trust Comrade Plekhanov’s memory, I used in my speech, is reminiscent of old acquaintances—the Narodnaya Volya and the Socialist-Revolutionaries. I think that this recollection of Comrade Plekhanov’s is also twenty-five years behind the times. Recall what happened in Russia in the last quarter of 1905—strikes, Soviets of Workers’ Deputies, insurrections, peasant committees, railwaymen’s committees, and so forth. All this shows that the popular movement was passing into the form of insurrection, and these bodies were undoubtedly rudimentary organs of revolutionary authority. And what I said about the creative activity of the people had a very definite and concrete meaning: it referred precisely to these historic days of the Russian revolution, and it characterised this method of fighting not only against the old regime, but by means of a revolutionary authority, a method employed for the first time by the broad masses of the Russian workers and peasants in the famous October and December days. If our revolution has been buried, then so have these rudimentary forms of the revolutionary authority of the peasants and workers. But if your reference to a peasant revolution is not a mere phrase, if we have a real agrarian revolution in the true sense of the word, then we shall undoubtedly see a repetition of the October and December events on a much greater scale. A revolutionary authority, not of intellectuals, not of a group of conspirators, but of the workers and peasants, has already existed in Russia, has already been put into effect in the course of our revolution. It was crushed by the triumph of reaction; but if there are real grounds for our conviction that the revolution will revive, then we must also anticipate the inevitable revival, development and success of new organs of revolutionary authority that will be even more resolute and more closely connected with the peasantry and the proletariat than the preceding ones. Hence, by raising this battered and ridiculous bogy of the Narodnaya Volya, Plekhanov has merely dodged the task of analysing the October and December forms of the movement.

Lastly, let us examine the question whether my programme is flexible and “well shod on all four hoofs”. I think that in this respect, too, my agrarian programme is more satisfactory than all the others. What if things go badly with the revolution? What if it turns out to be impossible to carry through to the end our democratic revolution unless all the “ifs” I have put in my draft are met? In that case, we shall certainly have to reckon with the conditions of peasant farming and of peasant land tenure that already exist. In this connection I will mention the extremely important factor of rented land. If we can conceive of things going badly with the revolution, of it not being carried through to the end, we must undoubtedly reckon with the existence and persistence of this factor. And in my draft, the Party’s tasks in the event of this worst contingency arising, in the event of all the allegedly utopian “ifs” being absent, are formulated more fully, more precisely and much more soberly than in Comrade Maslov’s draft. Thus my programme provides practical slogans both for the present conditions of peas ant farming and peasant land tenure, and for the contingency that capitalism will have the best possible prospects of development. Comrade John tried to be witty and said that my programme contains too many programmes, that it provides for both confiscation and the renting of land, and that the one precludes the other. But his joke fell flat, because confiscation of the landed estates does not preclude the renting of land: this takes place on the peasants’ land as well. Hence Comrade Plekhanov was particularly wrong when he advanced his particularly slashing argument against me. He implied that it was easy to draw up a programme for the contingency that everything will go off splendidly. Anybody can draw up a programme like that; but try to draw up a programme for the contingency that the best conditions don’t exist. In answer to this argument, I assert that it is precisely having in view the contingency of the worst possible course or outcome of our revolution that my programme is particularly realistic and particularly “well shod”, for it speaks of the confiscation of the landed estates and makes provision for questions such as that of renting land. But Comrade John’s draft, which says nothing about these worst conditions, that is, about the absence of complete political democracy, merely provides for municipalisation; and municipalisation without the election of government officials by the people, without the abolition of the standing army, and so forth, is as dangerous as nationalisation, and even more so. That is why I insist on retaining all the “ifs” that Plekhanov has so unjustly condemned.

And so, the peasants will not accept municipalisation. Comrade Kartvelov said that in the Caucasus the peasants are fully in agreement with the Socialist-Revolutionaries, but they ask whether they will have the right to sell the land they obtain as a result of division, or of socialisation. Quite right, Comrade Kartvelov! Your observations fully coincide with the peasants’ interests in general, and with the peasants’ conception of their interests. But it is precisely because the peasants regard every agrarian reform from the point of view of whether they will have the right to sell the extra land they obtain that they will undoubtedly be opposed to municipalisation, or Zemstvo-isation. The peasants still confuse the Zemstvo with the rural superintendent, and they have much more reason to do so than is assumed by the haughty Cadet professors of law who scoff at the ignorance of the peasants. That is why, before speaking about municipal isation, it is necessary, absolutely necessary, to speak about the election of government officials by the people. At present, however, until this democratic demand is carried out, it is appropriate to speak only of confiscation in general, or of division of the land. That is why, to simplify matters for the Congress on this fundamental question, I propose the following: as Comrade Borisov’s programme has a number of features in common with mine and is based on the principle of division and not of nationalisation, I withdraw my programme and leave it to the Congress to express its opinion on the question of division or municipalisation. If you reject division—or perhaps it would be more correct to say “when” you reject division—I, of course, shall have to withdraw my draft for good, as hopeless. If, however, you accept division, I will submit my programme in its entirety as an amendment to Comrade Borisov’s draft. I would also remind you, in reply to the reproach that I want to foist nationalisation on the peasants, that my programme contains “Variant A”, which expressly speaks of removing any idea of foisting anything upon the peasants against their will. Hence the substitution of Borisov’s draft for mine in the preliminary voting will not affect the substance of the matter in the least, and will only make it easier and simpler for us to as certain what the Congress really wants. In my opinion, municipalisation is wrong and harmful; division is wrong, but not harmful.

I will refer briefly to the difference between the two. The “divisionists” rightly interpret the facts, but they have forgotten what Marx said about the old materialism: “The materialists interpreted the world; the point, however, is not only to interpret the world, but to change it.” The peasant says: “The land is God’s, the land is the people’s, the land is nobody’s.” The “divisionists” tell us that the peasant says this without realising what he is saying; that he says one thing and means another. All that the peasants are really striving for, they tell us, is additional land; they want to enlarge their small farms, and no more. All this is quite true. But our disagreement with the “divisionists” does not end here, it only begins. We must use what the peasants say, even if it is economically unsound or meaningless, as a hook for our propaganda. We must say to them: You say that everybody ought to have the right to use the land? You want to transfer the land to the people? Excellent! But what does transferring the land to the people mean? Who controls the people’s wealth and the people’s property? The government officials, the Trepovs. Do you want to transfer the land to Trepov and to the government officials? No. Every peasant will say that it is not to them that he wants to transfer the land. Do you want to transfer the land to the Petrunkeviches and Rodichevs, who, perhaps, will sit on the municipal councils? No. The peasant will certainly not want to transfer the land to these gentle men. Hence—we will explain to the peasants—if the land is to be transferred to the whole people in a way that will benefit the peasants, it is necessary to ensure that all government officials without exception are elected by the people. Hence my proposal for nationalisation, with the proviso that a democratic republic is fully guaranteed, suggests the right line of conduct to our propagandists and agitators; for it clearly and vividly shows them that discussion of the agrarian demands of the peasantry should serve as a basis for political propaganda in general, and for propaganda in favour of a republic in particular. For example, the peasant Mishin, who was elected to the Duma by the Stavropol peasants, brought with him an instruction from his electors which has been published in full in Russkoye Gosudarstvo. In this instruction, the peasants demand the abolition of Zemstvo officials, the erection of elevators, and the transfer of all the land to the state. This last demand is undoubtedly a reactionary prejudice, for in constitutional Russia today and tomorrow the state is and will be a police and military despotism. But we must not simply reject this demand as a harmful prejudice; we must “hook on” to it in order to explain to Mishin and his like how things really stand. We must tell Mishin and his like that. the demand for the transfer of the land to the state expresses, although very badly, an idea that is extremely important and useful for the peasants. The transfer of the land to the state can and will be very useful for the peasants only when the state becomes a fully democratic republic, when all government officials are elected by the people, when the standing army is abolished, and so forth. For all these reasons I think that if you reject nationalisation, you will cause our practical workers, our propagandists and agitators, to make the same mistakes as we brought about by our mistaken demand for restitution of the cut-off lands in our programme of 1903. Just as our demand for the restitution of the cut-off lands was interpreted in a narrower sense than it was meant by its authors, so now rejection of nationalisation and its replacement by the demand for division, to say nothing of the utterly con fused demand for municipalisation, will inevitably lead to so many mistakes by our practical workers, our propagandists and agitators, that very soon we shall regret having adopted the “division” or the municipalisation programme.

I will conclude by repeating my two main theses: first, the peasants will never agree to municipalisation; secondly, without a democratic republic, without the election of govern ment officials by the people, municipalisation would be harmful.

2. Speech in Reply to the Debate on the Present Situation and the Class Tasks of the Proletariat

I shall try to keep to the most important points. Comrade Ptitsyn reminded me of the saying: the ball comes to the player. He asked: “What makes the Bolsheviks think that the main form of the struggle now is breaking the laws, etc.?” Do take your Cadet spectacles off, Comrade Ptitsyn! It seems to you that parliamentarism is the main form of the struggle. Look at the unemployed movement, the movement among the armed forces, the peasant movement. The main form of the movement is not in the Duma; it can only play an indirect role. Comrade Plekhanov said that Hegel would have turned in his grave twice over had he heard my reference to him. But Comrade Plekhanov spoke before Comrade Ptitsyn, and it is to him that this remark applies. Comrade Ptitsyn worships the present; he sees only things that lie on the surface; he does not notice what is going on deep below the surface. He does not study things in their process of development. He thinks that talk about the head and the tail, about whether the proletariat should play the part of vanguard or rearguard, is mere phrase-mongering. This brought out all the more vividly the fundamental mistake of the Mensheviks. They do not see that the bourgeoisie is counter-revolutionary, that it is deliberately striving for a deal. They refer to the Jacobins, and say that they were naive monarchists and yet became republicans. The Cadets, however, are not naive, but deliberate monarchists. This is what the Mensheviks forget.

Our formidable Comrade Leonov said: “Look, the ’Bolsheviks’ talk about the revolutionary people; but so do the ’Mensheviks’, in their resolution.” Comrade Leonov mentioned Marx, who in his Class Struggles in France said that a republic is the supreme political form of the rule of the bourgeoisie. Comrade Leonov should have read on. He would have found that the republic was imposed on the bourgeoisie by a temporary situation and that, having broken up into two factions—Legitimists and Orleanists— it endured the republic against its will.

Dan said: “The ’Bolsheviks’ ignore the importance of political organisation.” That is not true; but it would be merely a truism to talk about the importance of organisation in general. The point is, what particular forms of political organisation are necessary today? We must say on what ground we are building a political organisation. The “Mensheviks” take as their premise an upsurge of the revolution, and yet recommend tactics that would be suitable for a decline, and not for an upsurge, of the revolution. In this way they play into the hands of the Cadets, who are doing every thing to discredit the period of October-December. The “Mensheviks” talk about an explosion. Put that word into the resolution. If you do, the present form of the movement—the elections to the State Duma, and so forth—will appear only as a transitory form.

Comrade Dan said: “The slogans of the ’Minority’ have been confirmed”; and he referred to revolutionary local self-government bodies, to the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies. But take Plekhanov’s Dnevnik, No. 5. There Plekhanov says that revolutionary local self-government “misleads people”. But whom has this slogan misled, and when? We have never repudiated this slogan; but we regarded it as inadequate. It is half-hearted; it is not a slogan of victorious revolution. The reference to the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies is beside the point. We have not yet discussed them.

Plekhanov’s mistake is that he does not at all analyse the forms of the movement in October. He said: “Soviets of Workers’ Deputies are desirable and necessary.” But he has not taken the trouble to investigate what Soviets of Workers’ Deputies are. What are they? Organs of revolutionary local self-government, or rudimentary organs of authority? I assert, and this thesis cannot be refuted, that they represent a struggle by means of revolutionary authority. This, and this alone, is the characteristic that distinguishes the struggle in October-December from the present struggle; we cannot impose any particular form of struggle on the movement.

Plekhanov said: “Bernstein was praised for his theory, for having abandoned theoretical Marxism, whereas I was praised for my tactics.” “The situation is different now,” said Comrade Plekhanov. To this Comrade Varshavsky rightly answered that Bernstein was praised for his tactics, for trying to blunt antagonisms, as the Cadets are doing. Bern stein tried to blunt social contradictions on the eve of the socialist revolution. Plekhanov is trying to blunt. political contradictions at the height of the bourgeois-democratic revolution. That is why the Cadets are praising Plekhanov and the Mensheviks.

Comrade Plekhanov said: “We do not reject the seizure of power, but we want it to be seized in the way it was done in the period of the Convention, and not by conspirators.” Well, put that into your resolution, “Menshevik” comrades. Reject Leninism, denounce the Socialist-Revolutionary conspirators, and so on, and so forth; that doesn’t frighten me in the least. But put in a clause about seizing power on the lines of the Convention, and we will sign that resolution with both hands. But remember, Comrade Plekhanov: as soon as you do that, the Cadets will stop praising you—they really will.

3. Draft Resolution on the State Duma Submitted to the Unity Congress

Whereas:

(1) the election Law of December 11 and the conditions in which the elections were actually conducted prevented the proletariat and the Social-Democratic Party from participating in the elections by putting up and independently securing the election of real Party candidates;

(2) in view of this, the real significance of participation by the workers in the elections was bound to, and as experience has shown, actually did, lead to the obscuring of the strictly class position of the proletariat as a consequence of agreements with the Cadets or other bourgeois groups;

(3) only complete and. consistent boycott enabled the Social-Democrats to maintain the slogan of convening a constituent assembly by revolutionary means, to place all responsibility for the State Duma on the Cadet Party and to warn the proletariat and the peasant or revolutionary democrats against constitutional illusions;

(4) the State Duma, with its now evident (predominantly) Cadet composition, cannot possibly fulfil the function of a real representative of the people, and can only indirectly help to develop a new, wider and deeper revolutionary crisis;

We are of the opinion and propose that the Congress should agree:

(1) that by boycotting the State Duma and the Duma elections, the Party organisations acted correctly;

(2) that the attempt to form a Social-Democratic parliamentary group in present political conditions, and in view of the absence in the Duma of really party Social-Democrats capable of representing the Social-Democratic Party, holds out no promise of reasonable success, but rather threatens to compromise the RSDLP and place upon it responsibility for a particularly harmful type of parliamentarians, mid way between the Cadets and the Social-Democrats;

(3) that in view of the foregoing, conditions do not yet exist to enable our Party to take the parliamentary path;

(4) that the Social-Democrats must utilise the State Duma and its conflicts with the government, or the conflicts within the Duma itself, fighting its reactionary elements, ruthlessly exposing the inconsistency and vacillation of the Cadets, paying particular attention to the peasant revolutionary democrats, uniting them, contrasting them with the Cadets, supporting such of their actions as are in the interests of the proletariat, and preparing to call upon the proletariat to launch a determined attack on the autocracy at the moment when, perhaps, in connection with a crisis in the Duma, the general revolutionary crisis becomes most acute;

(5) in view of the possibility that the government will dissolve the State Duma and convene a new Duma, this Congress resolves that in the subsequent election campaign no blocs or agreements shall be permitted with the Cadet Party or any similar non-revolutionary elements; as for the question whether our Party should take part in a new election campaign, it will be decided by the Russian Social-Democrats in accordance with the concrete circumstances prevailing at the time.

Volna, No. 12, May 9, 1906

Published according to the Volna text

4. Co-Report on the Question of the Attitude Towards the State Duma

Comrades, I will not read you the Bolshevik resolution, as in all probability you are all familiar with it. (Nevertheless, in response to requests from delegates, the speaker reads the Bolshevik resolution again.) If you compare this resolution with that of the Mensheviks, you will find the following four main points of difference, or four main defects in the latter:

(1) The Menshevik resolution contains no appraisal of the elections, no assessment of the objective results of our political experience in this field.

(2) This resolution is permeated with an imprudent, to put it mildly, or optimistic attitude towards the State Duma.

(3) The resolution does not clearly distinguish the various trends or parties among the bourgeois democrats, from the point of view of our tactics towards them.

(4) Your resolution proposes that a parliamentary group be formed under conditions and at a time when the value of such a step for the proletarian party cannot in any way be proved.

Such are the real disagreements between us, if we examine our disagreements seriously, and not seize upon words or trivialities.

Let us examine these four points.

It is highly important to sum up our experience of the elections if we want to base our conclusions on the actual alignment of political forces, and not on general phrases about parliamentarism in general, and so forth. We have advanced, and advance today, the very definite proposition that participation in the elections really means supporting the Cadets; that participation is impossible without blocs with the Cadets. Do you analyse the substance of this pro position? Do you examine the situation in the light of the actual facts on this question? Nothing of the kind. Axelrod completely evaded the first two points, and on the next two he made two contradictory statements. At first he referred to blocs with the Cadets in general in the most disparaging terms. Then he said that he would have no objection to such blocs, provided, of course, they were not arranged by the old hole-and-corner methods and backstairs agreements, but by public and direct methods visible to the whole proletariat. This last “proposition” of Axelrod’s is a magnificent specimen of “Cadet” dreaming, of real “pious wishes” engendered by constitutional illusions. In reality we have no constitution and no basis for open activities; what we have is Dubasov “constitutionalism”. Axelrod’s dreams will remain empty dreams, while the Cadets will obtain real benefit from the agreements, tacit or signed, formal or informal.

And when people talk about our “self-elimination” from the elections, they always forget that it was the political conditions and not our desire that kept our Party out; kept it out of newspapers and meetings; prevented us from putting up prominent members of the Party as candidates. In these circumstances, parliamentarism is a futile and pitiful game rather than a means of educating the proletariat. It is naive to take parliamentarism “in its pure form”, as an “idea”, isolated from the real situation.

When people talk about the elections they usually forget that actually the contest took place, on the basis of Dubasov constitutionalism, between two strong “parties”—the Cadets and the Black Hundreds. The Cadets were right when they told the voters that any split in the vote, any nomination of “third” candidates, could lead only to the victory of the Black Hundreds. Take the case of Moscow, for example. Guchkov receives, say, 900 votes and the Cadet, 1,300. It would have been enough for the Social-Democrats to obtain 401 votes for the Black-Hundred candidate to win. Thus the Cadets rightly understood the significance of Social- Democratic participation in the elections (they gave the Moscow workers a seat in the State Duma as a reward for participating in the elections), while you Mensheviks misunderstand its significance and thus indulge in an empty and idle dream. Either don’t take up parliamentarism and don’t talk commonplaces about it, or take it up seriously. Your present position is no use at all.

The second point. Axelrod in his speech even more glaringly revealed the defects in the resolution that I have point ed to. The resolution speaks of transforming the Duma into an instrument of the revolution. You regard the Duma exclusively in the light of the pressure the government exercises on us, of the government’s efforts to crush the revolution. We regard the State Duma as a body that represents a definite class, as an institution that has a definite party composition. Your argument is absolutely wrong, incomplete and non-Marxist in its approach. You fail to take into account the Duma’s internal structure, which is conditioned by the class composition of the Cadet Party. You say that the government is strangling the revolution, but you forget to add that the Cadets have already fully displayed their desire to extinguish it. A Cadet Duma cannot but display the characteristics of the Cadet Party. You completely overlook the example of the Frankfurt Parliament which, although a representative institution in a revolutionary period, betrayed an obvious desire to extinguish the revolution (owing to the petty-bourgeois narrow-mindedness and cowardice of the Frankfurt windbags).

The reference to “authority recognised by the tsar and established by law”, is most unfortunate in a Social-Democratic resolution. The Duma is not really an authority. The reference to the law does not strengthen, but weakens your whole argument and all your agitational slogans that follow from this resolution. Witte will most readily of all appeal to the “law” and to the “will of the tsar”, in thwarting the slightest attempt of the Duma to go beyond the ridiculously narrow limits of its powers. Not the Social-Democrats, but Russkoye Gosudarstvo stands to gain by these references to the tsar and the law.

I come now to the third point. A fundamental mistake in the resolution, and one closely connected with all the preceding ones, is the absence of a clear characterisation of the Cadets, the refusal to expose all their tactics, the failure to draw a distinction between the Cadets and the peasant and revolutionary democrats. Yet it is the Cadets who are masters of the situation in the present Duma. And these Cadets have already revealed more than once their betrayal of the “people’s freedom”. When, after the elections, the amiable windbag Vodovozov, wanting to be more Left than the Cadets, reminded the latter of the promises they had made about a constituent assembly, and so forth, Rech, adopting a “Great Power” tone, rudely and coarsely told him that it did not need gratuitous advice.

And your resolution is equally mistaken as regards the striving to weaken the revolution. As I have already said, this striving exists not only in the government, but also in those petty-bourgeois compromisers who are now making the most noise on the surface of our political life.

Your resolution says that the Duma is trying to lean on the people. This is only half true, and therefore not true at all. What is the State Duma? Is it tolerable that we should confine ourselves to general references to this institution, instead of analysing the classes and parties that actually determine its content and significance? Which Duma is striving to lean on the people? Not the Octobrist Duma, be cause such a striving is totally alien to the Octobrists. And not the peasant Duma, for the peasant deputies are an inseparable part of the people, and there is no need for them to “strive to lean on the people”. The striving to lean on the people is characteristic precisely of the Cadet Duma. But characteristic of the Cadets is both their striving to lean on the people and their tear of independent revolutionary activity by the people. By pointing to one aspect of the question and saying nothing at all about the second, your resolution presents not only a wrong, but a positively harmful picture. Objectively, silence on this second aspect—which is emphasised in our resolution on the attitude to be adopted towards other parties—is the utterance of a lie.

In defining our tactics towards the bourgeois democrats we cannot possibly remain silent about the Cadets, or refrain from criticising them sharply. We can, and must, seek the support only of the peasant and revolutionary democrats, and not of those who try to blunt the political contradictions of the present time.

Lastly, let us glance at the proposal to form a parliamentary group. Even the Mensheviks dare not deny that Social- Democrats must handle this new weapon, “parliamentarism”, very cautiously. They are quite ready to admit this “in principle”. But the point now is not admitting things in principle; the point is to make a correct appraisal of concrete conditions. Recognition of caution “in principle” is worth less if actual conditions transform this recognition into innocent and idle dreams. The comrades from the Caucasus, for example, talk very finely about independent elections, about purely Party candidates and about repudiating blocs with the Cadets. But what are these fine phrases worth when—as one of the comrades from the Caucasus in formed me in conversation—in Tiflis, that Menshevik stronghold in the Caucasus, the Left Cadet Argutinsky will probably be elected and, probably, not without the aid of the Social-Democrats? What good are our wishes for public and open statements before the masses if we only have—as we have now—the Partiiniye Izvestia of the Central Committee against a host of Cadet newspapers?

Note also that even the most optimistic Social-Democrats hope to get their candidates elected only through the peasant curia. Thus they want to “start parliamentarism” in the practice of the workers’ party with the petty-bourgeois, semi-Socialist-Revolutionary curia and not with the workers’ curia. Just think, which has most chance of emerging out of this situation—a Social-Democratic or a non-Social-Democratic workers’ policy?

5. Speech on the Question of Armed Uprising

A comrade stated recently that we were collecting material for agitation against the decisions of the Congress. I at once answered that this was a very strange thing to say about voting by roll-call. Anyone who is dissatisfied with the Congress decisions will always agitate against them. Comrade Vorobyov said that the “Mensheviks” could not work in one party with us “Bolsheviks”. I am glad that Comrade Vorobyov was the first to raise this subject. I have not the slightest doubt that his statement will serve as “material for agitation”. But material for agitation on questions of principle is more important, of course. And better material for agitation against the present Congress than your resolution against armed uprising could not be imagined.

Plekhanov said that this important question ought to be discussed calmly. He is a thousand times right. Calm discussion, however, is indicated, not by the absence of debate before and at the Congress, but by the really calm and practical content of the resolutions to be discussed. And precisely from this standpoint, a comparison of the two resolutions is particularly edifying. It is not the .polemics in the “Menshevik” resolution that we object to—Plekhanov entirely misunderstood what Comrade Winter said on that score—it is not the polemics we object to, but the petty, paltry polemics running through the “Menshevik” resolution. Take the question of appraising the experience of the past, the question of the criticism of the proletarian movement by the conscious exponent of that movement, the Social-Democratic Party. Here criticism and “polemics” are absolutely essential; but it must be open, straightforward, obvious and clear criticism and not petty attacks, pinpricks or intellectual insinuations. And so our resolution, scientifically summing up the experience of the past year, straightforwardly criticises and says: the peaceful strike has’ proved to be “dissipation of forces”, it is becoming obsolete. Insurrection is becoming the main form of struggle, and strikes the auxiliary form. Take the “Menshevik” resolution. Instead of calm discussion, instead of a consideration of experience, instead of a study of the relationship between strikes and insurrection, we get a covert, sneakingly covert renunciation of the December uprising. Your resolution is thoroughly saturated with Plekhanov’s view: “It was wrong to take up arms” (although the majority of the “Mensheviks” in Russia have declared that they do not agree with Plekhanov). Comrade Cherevanin completely gave himself away in his speech when, in order to defend the “Menshevik"resolution, he had to depict the December uprising as a hopeless manifestation of “despair”, as an insurrection which did not prove in the least that armed struggle is possible.

Kautsky, as you know, has expressed a different opinion. He has admitted that the December uprising in Russia makes it necessary to “reconsider” Engels’s view that barricade fighting was no longer possible, and that the December uprising marks the beginning of new tactics. K. Kautsky’s view may be wrong, of course, and the “Mensheviks” may be nearer to the truth. If you attach any value to “calm” and serious discussion, and not to petty criticism, you should openly and straightforwardly express your opinion in your resolution and say: “It was wrong to take up arms.” But it is impermissible to express this view in a resolution covertly, without definitely formulating it. It is this sneaking, covert disavowal of the December insurrection, unsupported by the slightest criticism of past experience, that is the main and vast defect in your resolution. And it is this defect that provides an enormous amount of material for agitation against a resolution which virtually inclines towards Comrade Akimov’s views, only hiding its rough edges.

The first clause in your resolution suffers from the same defect. It starts with a platitude, for “stupid stubbornness” is typical of all reactionary governments; but this in itself does not prove that insurrection is necessary and inevitable. “Wrest power” is the same as “seize power”, and it is amusing to note that those who opposed the latter term accept ed the former. Thereby they revealed the hollowness of all their declamations against Narodnaya Volya-ism, etc. Comrade Plekhanov’s proposal to substitute the term “wrest their rights” for “wrest power” is particularly unfortunate because this is a purely Cadet formula. The main thing, I repeat, is that your resolution approaches the question of wresting power” and of armed uprising on the basis of unproved and unprovable platitudes, and not of a study and consideration of past experience and of the facts about the growth of the movement.

6. Statement in Support of Muratov’s (Morozov’s) Amendment Concerning a Parliamentary Social-Democratic Group

Comrade Muratov has relinquished to me the right to reply to the debate. It is quite untrue that he is forcing an open door. On the contrary, it is he who is opening it. His amend ment puts the question squarely. This Congress has approved tactics different from those used by the workers in many places; in forming a Party group in the Duma, it is necessary to prevent sharp conflicts, and to ask the workers whether they wish to be represented in the Duma by those they did not participate in electing.

7. Dissenting Opinion on the Composition of the Parliamentary Group of the RSDLP

I

Regarding the rejection of Stodolin’s amendment as a departure even from the principles of parliamentarism, I declare that I am submitting a dissenting opinion on this question.

II

In accordance with the declaration I have already submitted, I enclose herewith my dissenting opinion on the question of Stodolin’s amendment.

In his amendment, Comrade Stodolin proposed that the official parliamentary group of the RSDLP should consist exclusively of Party members who not only work in one of the Party organisations, and not only submit to the Party as a whole, and to their Party organisations in particular, but who, in addition, have been put up as candidates by the latter (i.e., the respective Party organisations).

Consequently Comrade Stodolin wanted our first Social-Democratic steps on the path of parliamentarism to be taken exclusively on the direct instructions of the respective organisations, and in their name. It is not enough that members of the parliamentary group should belong to one of the Party organisations. In view of the conditions prevailing in Russia, this does not preclude the most undesirable incidents, for our Party organisations cannot exercise open and public control over their members. It is highly important therefore that our first steps on the path of parliamentarism should be accompanied by every precaution devised by the experience of the socialist parties in Europe. The West-European parties, and particularly their Left wings, even insist on parliamentary candidates being nominated by the local party organisations by agreement with the Central Committees. The revolutionary Social-Democrats in Europe have very serious grounds for demanding this triple control over their members of parliament: first, the general control that the party exercises over all its members; secondly, the special control of the local organisations who nominate the parliamentary candidates in their own name; and thirdly, the special control of the Central Committee, which, standing above local influences and local conditions, must see to it that only such parliamentary candidates are nominated as satisfy general party and general political requirements.

By rejecting Comrade Stodolin’s amendment, by rejecting the demand that the parliamentary group should consist exclusively of those whom the Party organisations had directly nominated as parliamentary candidates, by rejecting this demand, the Congress has revealed far less prudence in parliamentary tactics than the West-European revolutionary Social-Democrats. And yet there can hardly be any doubt that, in view of the especially difficult conditions prevailing in Russia for the public activities of the Social-Democrats, we unquestionably require far greater prudence than that prompted by the experience of the revolutionary Social-Democrats of Western Europe.

8. Resolution on the Accountability of the Credentials Committee to the Congress

This Congress makes it the duty of the Credentials Committee to present reports that will show the considerations which guided the organisation in electing delegates to the Congress, and the criterion applied in determining Party membership.

9. Statement on the Necessity of the Congress Approving the Minutes

All minutes should be approved by the Congress. Hence the official minutes will be those kept by the secretaries. Stenographers should record only individual speeches.

10. Written Statement at the Seventeenth Session of the Congress

I did not say that the Tiflis comrades had decided to secure the election of Argutinsky. I said that Argutinsky’s victory was considered probable, and moreover, probably not without help from the Social-Democrats.

11. Written Statement at the Twenty-First Session of the Congress

We declare that to describe voting on important questions by roll-call as “material for agitation against the authoritative character of Congress decisions” means to misunderstand the role of the Congress or to display narrow factionalism.

12. Written Statements at the Twenty-Sixth Session of the Congress

I

It is not true that I “supported” Comrade Vorobyov’s statement that the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks cannot work together in one party. I did not in any way “support” such an assertion, and do not share that opinion at all. The sense of my statement: “I am glad Comrade Vorobyov was the first to say that,” was purely ironical; for the victors, having a majority at the Congress, only revealed their weakness by being the first to speak of a split.

II

I propose that the following note be added to the rules on amalgamation with the Bund:

The Congress instructs the Central Committee to give effect to these rules immediately after they are confirmed by the Bund.