Published:
Source:
Lenin
Collected Works,
Progress Publishers,
1977,
Moscow,
Volume 41,
pages 78-96.1.
Translated: Yuri Sdobnikov
Transcription\Markup:
R. Cymbala
Copyleft:
V. I. Lenin Internet Archive (www.marxists.org)
© 2004
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terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.
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{1} The Second Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. was held from July 17 (30) to August 10 (23), 1903. The first 13 sittings were held in Brussels, after which, because of police persecution, the Congress moved to London.
It was prepared by Iskra, which under Lenin’s guidance put in a tremendous effort to unite Social-Democrats in Russia round the principles of revolutionary Marxism. Iskra’s Editorial Board worked out and proposed for discussion at the Congress a draft Party programme (published in Iskra No. 21 on June 1, 1902). Several documents for the Congress were written by Lenin: draft Rules of the R.S.D.L.P., several draft resolutions and a plan for the report on Iskra’s activity. Lenin also worked out in detail the agenda and the standing orders of the Congress. The draft Rules and the draft agenda of the Congress were communicated beforehand to the members of Iskra’s Editorial Board and then to the delegates.
The Congress was attended by 43 delegates with vote, representing 26 organisations. Some delegates had two votes each so that the total of votes at the Congress came to 51. The composition of the Congress was not homogeneous. It was attended not only by supporters of Iskra, but also by its opponents, and by unstable and wavering elements. There were 20 items on the agenda of the Congress.
Lenin delivered the report on the Party Rules and spoke in the debate on most of the items of the agenda.
Approval of the Programme and the Rules of the Party and the election of the Party governing centres were the most important questions before the Congress. Lenin and his supporters launched a resolute struggle against the opportunists. The Congress gave a rebuff to the opportunists and approved the Party Programme almost unanimously (with one abstention). It contained a formulation of the immediate tasks of the proletariat in the coming bourgeois-democratic revolution (minimum programme) and the tasks designed for the victory of the socialist revolution and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat (maximum programme). For the first time in the international labour movement since the death of Marx and Engels, a revolutionary programme was adopted, which stated, on Lenin’s insistence, that the struggle for the dictatorship of the proletariat was the principal task of the working-class party.
In the debate on the Party Rules there was an acute struggle over the Party’s organisational principles. Lenin and his supporters wanted to set up a militant revolutionary party of the working class, which is why the wording of the first paragraph of the Rules proposed by Lenin stated that a member must not only accept the Party’s Programme and give it financial support, but personally participate in the work of one of its organisations. Martov motioned his own wording of the first paragraph, which stated that a member need only accept the Programme and give the Party financial support, and also give regular personal assistance to the Party under the guidance of one of its organisations. Martov’s wording, which facilitated access to the Party for unstable elements, was adopted by a small majority. Otherwise the Congress approved the Rules as worked out by Lenin. The Congress also adopted a number of resolutions on tactical questions.
At the Congress, a split developed between those who consistently supported Lenin’s Iskra and the “soft” Iskrists, the supporters of Martov. The former received a majority in the election to the Party’s central bodies and accordingly took the name of Bolsheviks, while the latter, the opportunists, received a minority and were called Mensheviks.
The Congress was of tremendous importance for the development of the working-class movement in Russia. Lenin wrote: “As a current of political thought and as a political party, Bolshevism has existed since 1903” (see present edition, Vol. 31, p. 24). The Second Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. was a turning-point in the international working-class movement, because it set up a new type of proletarian party, which became a model for revolutionary Marxists throughout the world. For more information about the Second Congress see present edition, Vol. 6, pp. 467–508. p. 78
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