Published:
Speeches first published in Geneva in 1904 in the Minutes of the Second Regular Congress of the R.S.D.L.P..
Speeches are published according to the text of the Minutes and the manuscripts.
Source:
Lenin
Collected Works,
Progress Publishers,
1964,
Moscow,
Volume 6,
pages 467-509.
Translated: ??? ???
Transcription\Markup:
R. Cymbala and D. Walters
Public Domain:
Lenin Internet Archive
(2003).
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[1] The Second Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. was held on July 17(30) to August 10(23), 1903. The first thirteen sessions of the Congress were held in Brussels, but owing to police persecution, the Congress sessions were transferred to London. In all, 37 sessions were held. There were 20 items on the agenda, of which the most important were: the Party programme, Party organisation (confirmation of the Rules of the R.S.D.L.P.), elections to the Central Committee and editorial hoard of the Party’s Central Organ. Twenty-six organisations were represented at the Congress, which was attended by 43 delegates possessing 51 decisive votes (eight delegates had two votes each), and by 14 delegates with a deliberative voice.
The preparations for the Congress had been made by Lenin’s Iskra, Lenin himself carrying out tremendous work in this respect.
Lenin drew up the outline of the report on the work of the Iskra organisation, and composed the draft of the Party Rules, the draft resolutions on several questions planned for discussion at the Congress, the agenda and the standing orders of the Congress.
Lenin did much work among the delegates, ascertaining the general situation and state of organisation in various parts of the country, and discussing many of the problems confronting the Congress. At a meeting of the Congress delegates, Lenin made a report on the national question.
The composition of the Congress was not homogeneous. Attending it were not only supporters of Iskra, but also its opponents, as well as unstable and wavering elements. Lenin’s preliminary acquaintance with the delegates made it possible for him to ascertain the political stand of each, of them prior to the opening of the Congress.
Lenin was elected to the Bureau of the Congress and was a member of the main Congress committees: the programme, Rules and Credentials Committees. He delivered the report on the Party Rules and spoke on almost all the subjects on the agenda. The minutes of the Congress register more than one hundred and thirty speeches, remarks, and rejoinders made by Lenin.
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