NOTES
[29]
This article was written by Lenin to acquaint the Polish Social-Democrats with the differences that existed within R.S.D.L.P. and was published in their journal Przeglad Socjaldemokratyczny, No. 2, in April 1908.
Przeglad Socjaldemokratyczny -- a journal published in Cracow from 1902 to 1904 and from 1908 to 1910 by the Polish Social-Democrats with the close participation of R. Luxemburg.
[p. 50]
[30]
Stolichnaya Pochta (Metropolitan Post ) -- a daily newspaper published in St. Petersburg from October 1906 to February 1908. At first the organ of the Left Cadets, it became, after February 1907, the mouthpiece of the Trudovik group. It was banned by the tsarist government.
[p. 50]
[31]
Cf. Marx, Engels, Lenin, Zur deutschen Geschlchte Bd. II, IIIb. I, S. 625-28. "Mai bis October". Dietz Verlag, Berlin 1954.
[p. 51]
[32]
Socialist-Revolutionaries (S.R.s) -- a petty-bourgeois party in Russia, which arose at the end of 1901 and the beginning of 1902 as a result of the amalgamation of various Narodnik groups and cir-
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cles (Union of Socialist-Revolutionaries, Party of Socialist-Revolutionaries, etc.). The newspaper Revolutsionnaya Rossiya (Revolutionary Russia ) (1900-05) and the journal Vestnik Russkoi Revolutsii (Herald of the Russlan Revolution ) (1901-05) became its official organs. The S.R.s did not see the class distinctions between the proletarian and the small proprietor. They glossed over the class differentiation and antagonisms within the peasantry, and repudiated the leading role of the proletariat in the revolution. Their views were an eclectic mixture of the ideas of Narodism and revisionism; they tried as Lenin put it, to "patch up the rents in the Narodnik ideas with bits of fashionable opportunist 'criticism' of Marxism" (see present edition, Vol. 9, p. 310 [Transcriber's Note: See Lenin's "Socialism and the Peasantry". -- DJR]). The tactics of individual terrorism, which the S.R.s advocated as the basic method of struggle against the autocracy, caused great harm to the revolutionary movement and made it difficult to organise the masses for the revolutionary struggle.
The agrarian programme of the S.R.s envisaged the abolition of private landownership and the transfer of the land to the village communes on the basis of the "labour principle", "equalised" land tenure, and the development of co-operatives. There was nothing socialist in this programme, which the S.R.s described as a programme for "socialising the land". In analysing this programme, Lenin showed that if commodity production and private farminy on commonly-owned land were preserved, the rule of capital could not be eliminated nor the labouring peasantry delivered from exploitation and ruin. He also showed that co-operatives functioning under the capitalist system could not save the small peasant, since they only served to enrich the rural bourgeoisie. At the same time Lenin pointed out that the demand for equalised land tenure, though not socialist, was historically progressive, revolutionary democratic in character, inasmuch as it was aimed against reactionary landlordism.
The Bolshevik Party exposed the S.R.s' attempts to pose as socialists; it waged a hard fight against the S.R.s for influence over the peasantry, and revealed the harmful effect which their tactics of individual terrorism had on the working-class movement. At the same time, on definite conditions, the Bolsheviks entered into temporary agreements with the S.R.s in the struggle against tsarism.
The fact that the peasantry did not constitute a homogeneous class accounted for the political and ideological disunity and organisational confusion among the S.R.s, and for their constant wavering between the liberal bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Already during the first Russian revolution the Right wing of the S.R.s split away from the Party and formed the legal Labour Popular Socialist Party, which held views close to those of the Cadets; the Left wing became the semi-anarchist league of "Maximalists". During the Stolypin reaction the Socialist-Revolutionary Party experienced a complete ideological and organizational break-up, and the First Worid War saw most S.R.s adopt social-chauvinist views.
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After the victory of the February bourgeois-democratic revolution in 1917 the S.R.s, together with the Mensheviks and Cadets formed the mainstay of the counter-revolutionary bourgeois-landlord Provisional Government, and the leaders of this party (Kerensky, Avxentyev and Chernov) were members of this government. The S.R. Party refused to support the peasants' demand for the abolition of landlordism. and indeed, stood for its maintenance. Socialist-Revolutionary ministers in the Provisional Government sent punitive expeditions against the peasants who had seized landed estates.
At the end of November 1917 the Left wing of the S.R.s founded an independent party. To retain their influence among the peasant masses, they recognised the Soviet power formally and entered into an agreement with the Bolsheviks, but soon turned against the Soviets.
During the years of foreign military intervention and civil war the S.R.s carried on counter-revolutionary subversive activities, vigorously supported the interventionists and whiteguard generals, took part in counter-revolutionary plots, and organised terrorist acts against Soviet statesmen and Communist Party leaders. After the Civil War they continued their activities against the Soviet state within the country and among the whiteguard émigrés.
[p. 52]
[33]
The Third Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. was held in London between April 12 and 27 (April 20 and May 10), 1905. The Congress was organised and convened by the Bolsheviks under the direction of Lenin. It was the first Bolshevik Congress.
The agenda, drawn up by Lenin, was as follows: (I) Report of the Organising Committee. (II) Questions of Tactics : (1) the armed uprising; (2) the attitude towards the government's policy on the eve of and during the revolution (this point was devoted to two questions: a. attitude towards the government's policy on the eve of the revolution; b. the provisional revolutionary government) (3) the attitude towards the peasant movement. (III) Questions of Organisation : (4) the relations between the workers and the intellectuals within the Party organisations (5) the Party Rules. (IV) Attitude Towards Other Parties and Trends : (6) attitude towards the breakaway group of the R.S.D.L.P., (7) attitude towards the non-Russian Social-Democratic organisations; (8) attitude towards the liberals; (9) practical agreements with the Socialist-Revolutionaries. (V) Internal Questions of Party Life : (10) propaganda and agitation. (VI) Delegates' Reports : (11) report the Central Committee, (12) reports of delegates frorm the local committees. (VII) Elections : (13) elections; (14) standing order for publication of the proceedings and decisions of the Congress, and for the assumption of office by the newly elected functionaries.
On all the basic issues dealt with by the Third Congress Lenin had written the draft resolutions, which he substantiated in articles published in the newspaper Vperyod prior to the Congress. Lenin spoke at the Congress on the question of the armed uprising, on the participation of Social-Democrats in the provisional revolutionary
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government, on the attitude towards the peasant movement, on the Party Rules, and on a number of other questions. The proceedings of the Congress record 138 speeches and motions made by Lenin.
The Congress amended the Party Rules: (a) it adopted Lenin's wording of Clause I; (b) it defined precisely the rights of the Central Committee and its relations with the local committees, (c) it modified the organisational structure of the Party's central bodies: in place of the three centres (the Central Committee, the Central Organ, and the Council of the Party) the Congress established a single competent Party centre -- the Central Committee.
On the work and the significance of the Third Party Conuress see Lenin's article "The Third Congress" (present edition, Vol. 8, pp. 442-49) and his book Two Tactics of Social-Democracy in thc Democratic Revolution (see present edition Vol. 9, pp. 15-140).
[p. 56]
[34]
The Fifth Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. was held in London between April 30 and May 19 (May 13 and June 1), 1907. It was attended by 336 delegates having a vote and consultative voice, of whom 105 were Bolsheviks, 97 Mensheviks, 57 Bundists, 44 Polish Social-Democrats, 29 Lettish Social-Democrats and 4 "non-factionals". The Bolsheviks were backed by the Poles and the Letts and had a stable majority at the Congress. The Bolshevik delegates included Lenin, Voroshilov, Dubroviusky, Stalin, Shahumyan and Yaroslavsky.
The Congress discussed the following questions: (1) Report of the Central Committee. (2) Report of the Duma group and its organisation. (3) Attitude towards the bourgeois parties. (4) The Duma. (5) The "labour congress" and the non-party workers' organisations. (6) The trade unions and the Party. (7) Guerrilla actions. (8) Unemployment, economic crisis, and lock-outs. (9) Organisational questions. (10) The International Congress in Stuttgart (First of May, militarism). (11) Work in the army. (12) Miscellanea. One of the basic questions dealt with at the Congress was that of the policy to be adopted towards the bourgeois parties. Lenin delivered the report on this question. The Congress adopted Bolshevik resolutions on all fundamental issues. It elected a Central Committee consisting of 5 Bolsheviks, 4 Mensheviks, 2 Polish and 1 Lettish Social-Democrats. Alternate members elected to the Central Committee consisted of 10 Bolsheviks, 7 Mensheviks, 3 Polish and 2 Lettish Social-Democrats.
The Congress was a big victory of Bolshevism over the opportunist wing of the Party -- the Mensheviks. On the Fifth Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. see Lenin's article "The Attitude Towards Bourgeois Parties" (present edition, Vol. 12, pp. 489-509).
[p. 56]
35]
Boyevism -- from the Russian word boyevik, a member of the revolutionary fighting squads, who, during the revolutionary struggle, used the tactics of armed action, helped political prisoners to escape, expropriated state-owned funds for the needs of the revolution,
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removed spies and agents provocateurs, etc. During the Revolution of 1905-07 the Bolsheviks had special fighting squads. See present edition, Vol. 12, pp. 409-18. [Transcriber's Note: See Lenin's "Apropos of the Minutes of the November Military and Combat Conference of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party". -- DJR]
[p. 57]
[36]
See K. Marx and F. Engels, Selected Works, Vol. II, Moscow, 1958, pp. 104-05 and 107.
[p. 59]
[37]
Polish Socialist Party (Polska Partia Socjalistyczna ) -- a reformist nationalist party founded in 1892. In 1906 the Party split into the P.S.P. Left wing and P.S.P. chauvinist Right wing.
[p. 61]