NOTES
[156] Conference of the Extended Editorial Board of "Proletary
" held in Paris on June 8-17 (21-30), 1909 and was attended by nine members of the Bolshevik Centre (elected by the Bolshevik section of the Fifth [London] Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. in 1907) headed by Lenin, and representatives of the St. Petersburg, Moscow Regional and Urals organisations.
The Conference was called to discuss the conduct of the otzovists and ultimatumists. It dealt with the following questions; (1) otzovism and ultimatumism; (2) god-building tendencies among the Social-Democrats, (3) the attitude to Duma activities among the other fields of Party work; (4) the tasks of the Bolsheviks in the Party; (5) the Party school being set up abroad (on Capri); (6) agitation for a Bolshevik congress or a Bolshevik conference separate from the Party; (7) the breakaway of Comrade Maximov; and other questions.
The Conference was guided by Lenin, who delivered speeches on all the principal questions of the agenda. Otzovism and ultimatumism were represented and defended at the Conference by A. Bogdanov (Maximov) and V. Shantser (Marat). Kamenev, Zinoviev, Rykov, and Tomsky took a conciliatory stand.
The Conference condemned otzovism and ultimatumism, which were qualified as "liquidationism from the left". Bogdanov the guiding spirit of otzovism and ultimatumism, was expelled from the ranks of the Bolsheviks. The Conference also condemned god-building and decided to combat it vigorously and expose its anti-Marxist nature.
The headings to Lenin's speeches published in this volume have been given by the Institute of Marxism-Leninism.
[p. 425]
[157] St. -- Stanislav Volsky -- A. V. Sokolov. leader of the Moscow otzovists.
[p. 428]
[158] M. T. -- M. P. Tomsky.
[p. 432]
[159] On the Party School Set Up Abroad -- an anti-Party school set up by Bogdanov (Maximov), Alexinsky and Lunacharsky on Capri (Italy) in 1909 with the assistance of Maxim Gorky. The school was the factional centre of the otzovists, ultimatumists and god-builders, who united to fight Bolshevism.
Under the guise of pro-Party activities the Bogdanovites got some of the local Social-Democratic organisations to send thirteen students to attend the school.
The school existed about four months (August-December). In November 1909 some of the students headed by the worker N. Y. Vilonov emphatically dissociated themselves from the Bogdanovites when the factional nature of this school became clear to them. They sent to the editors of
Proletary a protest against the anti-Party activities of the lecturers, for which they were expelled from the school. On Lenin's invitation they came to Paris, where they attended a cycle of lectures including lectures by Lenin:
page 509
"The Present Moment and Our Tasks" and "The Agrarian Policy of Stolypin". In December 1909 the group of students who remained on Capri formed, together with the lecturers, the anti-Party group "Vperyod".
The conference of the extended editorial board of Proletary condemned the Capri school, which it qualified as "the new centre of a faction that was breaking away from the Bolsheviks".
[p. 432]
[160] God-building -- a religious-philosophical literary trend, hostile to Marxism, which in the period of Stolypin reaction arose among a section of the Party intellectuals who had moved away from Marxism after the defeat of the Revolution of 1905-07.
The god-builders (Lunacharsky, Bazarov and others) advocated the creation of a new "socialist" religion and tried to reconcile Marxism with religion. At one time Maxim Gorky supported them. An extended meeting of the editorial board of
Proletary condemned god-building and declared in a special resolution that the Bolshevik group in the Party had nothing in common with "such a distortion of scientific socialism".
The reactionary nature of god-building was exposed by Lenin in his book
Materialism and Empirio-criticism (see present edition Vol. 14) and in his letters to Gorky in February-April 1908 [Transcriber's Note: See Lenin's letters of February
7, 13,
25, March 24, April
16 and 19. --
DJR] and November-December 1913 [Transcriber's Note: See Lenin's letter of November
13 as well as the undated letter written later that month. --
DJR].
[p. 432]
[161] This refers to the pro-Party Mensheviks, headed by Plekhanov, who came out against the liquidators during the years of reaction. In December 1908 Plekhanov resigned from the editorial board of the liquidators' newspaper
Golos Sotsial-Demokrata, and in 1909 he resumed publication of Dnevnik Sotsial-Demokrata (Social-Democrat's Diary
) for the purpose of fighting liquidationism. While adhering to Menshevism, the Plekhanovites at the same time stood for preserving and strengthening the illegal Party organisation, and consented to form a bloc with the Bolsheviks for that purpose. In 1909 groups of pro-Party Mensheviks were formed in Paris, Geneva, San Remo, Nice and other cities. In St. Petersburg, Moscow, Ekaterinoslav, Kharkov, Kiev and Baku many Menshevik workers came out against the liquidators in favour of a revival of the illegal R.S.D.L.P.
Lenin called on the Bolsheviks to seek closer alignment with the pro-Party Mensheviks, saying that an agreement with them was possible on the basis of a struggle for the Party against liquidationism, "without any ideological compromises, without any glossing over of tactical and other differences of opinion
within the limits of the Party line" (see present edition, Vol. 16, p. 101 [Transcriber's Note: See Lenin's "Methods of Liquidators and Party Tasks of the Bolsheviks". --
DJR]). The pro-Party Mensheviks participated with the Bolsheviks in the local Party committees, and contributed to the Bolshevik publications:
Rabochaya Gazeta (Workers' Gazette ), Zvezda (Star ), and the Central Organ of the Party
Sotsial-Demokrat. Lenin's tactics of alignment with the Plekhanovites, which were supported by the majority of the Menshevik workers in Russia, helped to ex-
page 510
tend the influence of the Bolsheviks in the legal organisations of the workers and oust the liquidators from them.
At the end of 1911 Plekhanov broke the bloc with the Bolsheviks. On the pretext of combating "factionalism" and a split in the R.S.D.L.P. he tried to reconcile the Bolsheviks with the opportunists. In 1912 the Plekhanovites, together with the Trotskyists, the Bundists and the liquidators, came out against the decisions of the Prague Conference of the R.S.D.L.P.
[p. 433]
[162] Vlasov -- A. I. Rykov.
[p. 438]
[163] The private meeting -- a meeting of Leninist Bolsheviks called by Lenin on the eve of the conference of the extended editorial board of
Proletary. Lenin gave the meeting full information concerning the state of affairs in the Bolshevik section and the struggle against the otzovists, the ultimatumists and the god-builders. The theses contained in Lenin's report formed the basis for the resolutions adopted by the conference of the extended editorial board.
[p. 439]
[164] The First All-Russian Congress of Members of People's Universities' Associations was held in St. Petersburg on January 3-6 (16-19), 1908. During the debate on the question of the activities and organisation of the people's universities the workers' group of the congress, headed by the Bolsheviks, introduced motions demanding that the workers' organisations be represented on the boards of the people's universities with the right to take part in arranging the curricula, choosing desirable lecturers on the social sciences, and recognition of the right of every nationality to give tuition in the native language. The congress rejected these demands as being outside the competence of the congress, after which the workers' representatives walked out.
[p. 447]
[165] The First All-Russian Congress of Representatives of Co-operative Societies was held in Moscow on April 16-21 (April 29-May 4), 1908. It was attended by 824 delegates, about fifty of whom were Social-Democrats (Bolsheviks and Mensheviks). Reports were delivered at the congress on the international co-operative movement on the role and tasks of the co-operative movement, on the legal status of the consumer societies in Russia and other matters.
Despite the resistance of the Mensheviks, the Bolsheviks formed a Social-Democratic group at the congress and headed the fight of the representatives from the trade unions and workers' co-operatives against the bourgeois co-operators, who were in the majority at the congress. After a number of speeches by spokesmen of the workers, the police imposed a ban on speeches that touched on questions of the class struggle, the trade unions, aid to workers during strikes and lock-outs, the co-operative press and propaganda and even the election of a congress bureau and the periodicity of congresses, the police officer attending the proceedings being instructed to arrest immediately anyone "who made socialist speeches
page 511
or motions". As a demonstration of protest against this the congress was closed.
[p. 447]
[166] The First All-Russian Women's Congress was held in St. Petersburg on December 10-16 (23-29), 1908. Among its delegates were many women workers. Under pressure of the latter the congress adopted resolutions on combating alcoholism, on the position of the peasant woman, on labour protection for women and children, on producers' co-operatives, and on equal rights for Jews. On the main issue -- that of the political and civic status of women in the modern community -- the women workers submitted a motion demanding universal, direct, and equal suffrage by secret ballot without distinction of sex, race and religion. The presiding committee of the congress refused to read out the motion and replaced it by one drafted in a liberal-bourgeois spirit. The women workers walked out as a demonstration of protest.
[p. 447]
[167] The First All-Russian Congress of Factory Medical Officers and Representatives of Manufacturing Industry convened on the initiative of the Moscow Society of Factory Medical Officers was held in Moscow on April 1-6 (14-19), 1909. Among its delegates were 52 workers elected by the trade unions chiefly of the big industrial centres (St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kiev, Ekaterinoslav, Baku, Ivanovo-Voznesensk, etc.).
According to its sponsors, the congress was to have been a "festival of reconciliation" between workers and capitalists. The Bolsheviks, however who formed a majority of the working-class delegates, succeeded in getting the workers at the congress to take a class, proletarian line, despite the opposition of the liquidationist elements. Speaking on the concrete questions of sanitary and medical arrangements at the factories, the worker delegates exposed the ideas of "class peace" and social reform, and put forward demands based on the programme of the Marxist party. These speeches were of great political significance and had repercussions throughout the country. Especially lively were the debates on the questions of sanitary inspection arrangements (the Bolsheviks' draft resolution on this point was carried) and of the election of the factory inspection by the workers.
The congress was unable to finish its work. After the police had demanded that no questions liable "to excite class struggle" should be touched on in the debates, and after they had forbidden the motion on the housing question to be put to the vote (since "it mentioned socialism and socialisation of the land") and forbidden some of the worker delegates including the Duma Deputy I. P. Pokrovsky, from continuity their speeches, all the workers and some of the doctors walked out of the congress hall. In view of this the presiding committee decided to close the congress.
[p. 447]