MEETING OF THE BOLSHEVIK GROUPS
ABROAD[168]
DECEMBER 14-17 (27-30), 1911
1
DRAFT RESOLUTION ON THE REPORT
"STATE OF AFFAIRS IN THE PARTY"
Organisation of the Social-Democratic Party Forces Abroad
and the Tasks of the Bolsheviks
The present state of Social-Democratic organisations abroad is abnormal in the extreme.
From 1908 onwards, when Social-Democratic publishing had begun to shift more and more abroad, and prior to the Plenary Meeting, there was a complete organisational split in all important centres abroad, owing to the complete secession of the Menshevik groups from the Party.
The Plenary Meeting (January 1910) attempted to create unity on the basis of its unanimous approval of an anti-liquidationist and anti-otzovist line, and made a particularly energetic call for the establishment of complete unity abroad.
After the Plenary Meeting, however, in view of the non-fulfilment of its terms by the liquidators and otzovists, no unity of the groups abroad was achieved. On the contrary, there was greater disintegration, as in fact the Vperyod group broke away from the Bolsheviks, and Plekhanov's followers from the Mensheviks. The parallel -- "first" and "second" or Menshevik and Bolshevik -- groups continued to exist traditionally, but actually in no way united any sound elements capable of carrying out joint Social-Democratic work.
At the present moment Bolshevik, "conciliator", Vperyod, Golos, and Plekhanov's groups exist abroad in factional isolation, linked together purely formally, and often not at
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all, completely independent of each other, following different ideological lines and having their own individual ties with various Social-Democratic elements in Russia.
The formation of the Russian Organising Commission (R.O.C.) in Russia by the forces of the Bolsheviks and pro-Party Mensheviks and the energetic start made by this R.O.C. Collegium to call a general Party conference of the R.S.D.L.P. make for a decisive turn in the history of the Party and show the only possible way, demanded by reality, out of the condition of disruption and collapse.
Since the Plenary Meeting, real Social-Democratic work has been carried out only by the Bolsheviks and the pro-Party Mensheviks; it was particularly harmonious in 1910. The Golos group represents nothing but a section abroad of the Russian liquidator group Dyelo Zhizni and Nasha Zarya, which has placed itself outside the Party; and the Vperyod group abroad, which continues to cover up otzovism and through its leader Lunacharsky to carry out religious propaganda, conducts work which is not Social-Democratic. At the present moment, the R.O.C., created by the Bolsheviks and the pro-Party Mensheviks and supported by nearly all the local Social-Democratic organisations in Russia, is, in fact, the only absolutely competent centre of Social-Democratic Party work.
Uniting the Bolsheviks in one Social-Democratic organisation abroad, the Meeting places the responsibility for the continuing split abroad on those groups who do not wish to support the Russian centre, the R.O.C., or on those who, cut off from Russia, continue "to play at agreeing", thus supporting non-Social-Democratic groups that are isolated from Russian work.
The Bolshevik organisation abroad will, as hitherto, use all its strength to attract, irrespective of trends, all Social-Democrats prepared to support the R.O.C. and to carry out the Party line, that is, the anti-liquidationist and anti-otzovist (and equally anti-god-seeker) line, in order that they join forces and merge into one Party organisation.
The practical task of the Party organisation abroad is to struggle against the liquidationist and otzovist trends,
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against the disintegration of the groups abroad having no ideological basis, assisting the unification of all real Social-Democratic Party members and pro-Party Mensheviks in particular, and assisting the R.O.C. We consider that the organs which should be supported by Party members are the Central Organ and Rabochaya Gazeta, as the isolation of the pro-Party Mensheviks (abroad) can in no manner be justified, and no change of the line confirmed by Party decisions can be round in the above-mentioned journals.