V. I. Lenin

The Second Congress of the R.S.D.L.P.

JULY 17 (30)–AUGUST 10 (23), 1908

PROGRAMME OF THE R.S.D.L.P. REGULAR SECOND CONGRESS{17}

A. Standing orders of the Congress and its constitution.

B. List and priority of questions to be discussed and decided at the Congress.

A. S t a n d i n g O r d e r s o f t h e C o n g r e s s.

Notes

{1} Apparently, a slip of the pen: the total should be 12.—Ed.

{2} The bracketed text is crossed out in the MS.—Ed.

{3} Point 4, like point 11 in Section B (List and Priority of Questions) was inserted by Lenin additionally. Because of this and changes in   the arrangement of the points, Lenin altered their numeration. We give here his final variant.

Lenin subsequently crossed out point 4 and wrote after it: “to 3”. —Ed.

{4} According to initial numeration (actually § 9).—Ed.

{5} [DUPLICATE "*"] The text in brackets is crossed out in the MS.—Ed.

{6} The text in brackets is crossed out in the MS.—Ed.

{7} The text in brackets is crossed out in the MS.—Ed.

{8} [DUPLICATE "*"] The text in brackets is crossed out in the MS.—Ed.

{9} Point 4 is crossed out. “Delegates’ reports” is written on top in an unknown hand.—Ed.

{10} The text from the word “Approval” to the words “point by point” is crossed out.—Ed.

{11} The text in brackets is crossed out.—Ed.

{12} The text from the word “Borba” to the word “etc.” is crossed out.—Ed.

{13} The paragraph is crossed out.—Ed.

{14} The text from the words “that is” to the word “decision” is crossed out.—Ed.

{15} Written in an unknown hand beside this point: “23. Attitude of the R.S.D.L.P. to other revolutionary and opposition parties and trends existing in Russia”. Written in Lenin’s hand before the number of the point: “23”.—Ed.

{16} The text is crossed out.—Ed.

{17} This is a detailed elaboration of the standing orders and agenda for the Congress. Section A was taken as a basis for the standing orders adopted by the Congress. Section B was the draft agenda (Tagesordnung) supplied with the commentaries, which, Lenin said, “was known t o a l l the “Iskra”-ists long before the Congress and to all the delegates at the Congress (see present edition, Vol. 7, p. 31).

The initial text of the document was supplemented by Lenin on the strength of remarks received from Martov and possibly other Iskra supporters as well who had studied it. The text is here given in full with subsequent addenda and amendments. p. 78

{18} The Organising Committee (O. C.) for the Convocation of the Second Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. was set up at a conference in Pskov on November 2–3 (15–16), 1902.

The first attempt to set up an Organising Committee was made at the Belostok conference of the R.S.D.L.P. committees and organisations (March 23–28 [April 5-10], 1902), which was called on the initiative of the Economists and Bundists. The Organising Committee elected at the conference consisted of representatives of Iskra, the Union of Southern Committees and Organisations of the R.S.D.L.P. and the Bund Central Committee; it was   unable to start work because two of its members were arrested soon after the conference.

A conference of Iskra supporters, led by Lenin, met in London on August 2 (15), 1902, to set up the nucleus of the Russian O.C. It was decided to invite representatives from the Bund and the Yuzhny Rabochy group which at the time showed signs of moving closer to Iskra, and also to give the O.C. the right to co-opt members.

A conference of Social-Democratic organisations at which the O.C. was constituted was held in Pskov on November 2–3 (15–16). The conference adopted the text of an “Announcement of the Formation of an Organising Committee”, which was published as a leaflet in Russia in December 1902.

In early February 1903, the second O.C. conference was held in Orel. It worked out and adopted draft regulations of the Congress and the list of organisations entitled to attend it. The regulations were circulated among the local committees which Were then toured by the members of the O.C. They were adopted and approved by the local organisations, and served as the basis for the Organising Committee’s further work in preparing for the Party’s Second Congress.

The O.C.’s successful activity, which culminated in the con vocation of the Congress, was made possible only by the tremendous work in uniting Russian revolutionary Social-Democrats carried out by Iskra’s Editorial Board and the Iskra organisation under Lenin’s direction. In his book, One Step Forward, Two Steps Back, Lenin wrote: “The Organising Committee was mainly a commission set up to convene the Congress, a commission deliberately composed of representatives of different shades, including even the Bundists; while the real work of creating the organised unity of the Party was done entirely by the Iskra organisation” (see present edition, Vol. 7, p. 279). p. 78

{19} Polish Social-Democrats—members of the revolutionary party of the Polish working class, which emerged in 1893, first as the Social-Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland, and from August 1900, following the congress of Social-Democratic organisations of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania, whore the Polish and a section of the Lithuanian Social-Democrats were merged, it was known as the Social-Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania (S.D.K.P. and L.). The fact that the party directed the Polish working-class movement towards alliance with the Russian working-class movement and fought against nationalism was to its credit. At the same time, it made a number of mistakes; it failed to understand Lenin’s theory of socialist revolution, or the leading role of the party in the democratic revolution; it underestimated the role of the peasantry as an ally of the working class and the importance of the national liberation movement. While criticising the party’s erroneous views, Lenin emphasised its services to the Polish revolutionary movement. He noted that Polish Social-Democrats had created “for the first time a purely proletarian party in Poland and proclaimed the extremely important   principle that the Polish and the Russian workers must maintain the closest alliance in their class struggle” (see present edition, Vol. 20, p. 434). The Fourth (Unity) Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. admitted the S.D.K.P. and L. into the R.S.D.L.P. as a territorial organisation.

The S.D.K.P. and L. welcomed the Great October Socialist Revolution and launched a struggle for the victory of the proletarian revolution in Poland. At the Unity Congress of the S.D.K.P. and L. and the P.P.S.-Lewica in December 1918, the two parties merged to form the Communist Workers’ Party of Poland. p. 78

{20} The First Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. was held at Minsk from March 1 to 3 (13–15), 1898. It was attended by nine delegates from six organisations: the St. Petersburg, Moscow, Yekaterinoslav and Kiev organisations of the League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class, from the group of the Kiev Rabochaya Gazeta and from the Bund. The Congress elected the Party’s Central Committee, confirmed Rabochaya Gazeta as the Party’s official organ, issued a Manifesto and designated the Union of Russian Social-Democrats Abroad as the Party’s representative abroad (see K.P.S.S. v rezolutsiyakh i resheniyakh syezdov, konferentsii i plenumov TsK (C.P.S.U. in Resolutions and Decisions of Congresses, Conferences and Plenary Meetings of the Central Committee), Part I, 1954, pp. 11–15).

The importance of the First Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. lay in the fact that its decisions and Manifesto proclaimed the establishment of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, thereby playing a great revolutionary and propagandist part. But the Congress did not adopt a Programme or work out any Party Rules; the Central Committee elected at the Congress was arrested and the Rabochaya Gazeta printing-press was seized, which is why the Congress failed to unite and merge together separate Marxist circles and organisations. The local organisations were not guided from a single centre and there was no single line in their work. p. 80

{21} The Bund (General Jewish Workers’ Union of Lithuania, Poland and Russia) consisted mainly of semi-proletarian elements among Jewish artisans in Russia’s western areas. Within the R.S.D.L.P., the Bundists constantly supported its opportunist wing (Economists, Mensheviks and liquidators) and waged a struggle against the Bolsheviks and Bolshevism. p. 80

{22} Borba (Struggle)—a Social-Democratic group abroad which included D. B. Ryazanov, Y. M. Steklov (Nevzorov) and E. L. Gurevich (V. Danevich). It was formed in Paris in the summer of 1900 and in May the following year took the name of Borba. Its publications (“Materials for the Working out of a Party Programme”, parts I-Ill, “Leaflet of the Borba Group”, etc.) distorted revolutionary Marxist theory, giving it a doctrinaire and scholastic interpretation and taking a hostile attitude to Lenin’s principles of Party organisation. In view of its departures from Social-Democratic ideas and tactics, its disorganising activity and lack of connection with Social-Democratic organisations   in Russia, it was not allowed to attend the Second Congress of the R.S.D.L.P., which adopted a decision to dissolve it (see Vtoroi syezd R.S.D.R.P. [The Second Congress of the R.S.D.L.P.], 1959, p. 438). p. 81

{23} Zhizn (Life)—a literary, scientific and political magazine published in St. Petersburg from 1897 to 1901. Among its contributors were “legal Marxists” (M. I. Tugan-Baranovsky, P. B. Struve and others) and leading writers and critics (A. M. Gorky, A. P. Chekhov, V. V. Veresayev, S. G. Skitalets, I. A. Bunin and Y. A. Solovyov [Andreyevich]). The magazine published Marx’s Wages, Price and Profit and Lenin’s articles “Capitalism in Agriculture (Kautsky’s Book and Mr. Bulgakov’s Article)” and “Reply to Mr. P. Nezhdanov” (see present edition, Vol. 4, pp. 105–59, 460-65).

Zhizn was closed down by the government in June 1901 and was resumed abroad in April 1902 by the Zhizn Social-Democratic group. There were six issues of the magazine, twelve issues of the Listok Zhizni (Zhizn Handbill) and several publications in the Biblioteka Zhizni (Zhizn Library) series. The Zhizn group had some deviations from Social-Democratic views and tactics, inclining towards Christian socialism and anarchism. It ceased to exist in December 1902 and the publishing business was wound up. p. 81

{24} Volya (Will)—a group abroad which called itself a “revolutionary Social-Democratic organisation”. In February 1903, it issued a leaflet, “To Revolutionaries from the Revolutionary Social-Democratic Organisation Volya”, which put forward the task of conducting political agitation among all strata of the population and of uniting Social-Democrats with Socialist-Revolutionaries. The Volya group was not a part of the R.S.D.L.P. The Second Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. adopted a resolution “On the Kuklin Publishers Group and the Volya Group”, which said: “The Congress states that neither of these organisations is within the Party, and that they have nothing in common with organised Social-Democracy in Russia. The question of future relations between these groups and the Party is for the Party’s Central Committee to decide in the event these groups apply to it” (Vtoroi syezd R.S.D.R.P., 1959, p. 439). Soon after the Second Congress of the R.S.D.L.P., the group announced its dissolution and the entry of its members into the R.S.D.L.P.; an announcement to that effect was inserted in Iskra No. 52 on November 7, 1903. p. 82

{25} The Emancipation of Labour group—the first Russian Marxist group formed by G. V. Plekhanov in Switzerland in 1883. Among its members were P. B. Axelrod, L. G. Deutsch, V. I. Zasulich and V. N. Ignatov. It did much to spread Marxism in Russia and dealt a serious blow at Narodism, which was the main ideological obstacle to the spread of Marxism and to the development of the Social-Democratic movement in Russia. Written by Plekhanov and published by the Emancipation of Labour group, the two draft programmes of the Russian Social-Democrats (1883 and   1885) were an important step in preparing and creating a Social-Democratic party in Russia. Lenin said that the group “only laid the theoretical foundations for the Social-Democratic movement and took the first step towards the working-class movement” (see present edition, Vol. 20, p. 278). Members of the group also made serious mistakes: they overestimated the role of the liberal bourgeoisie and underestimated the revolutionary role of the peasantry as a reserve of the proletarian revolution. These mistakes were the germ of the subsequent Menshevik views held by Plekhanov and other members of the group.

In 1894, the Union of Russian Social-Democrats Abroad was formed on the initiative of the Emancipation of Labour group. Members of the group and their followers left the Union in 1900 and set up a revolutionary organisation, Sotsial-Demokrat. G. V. Plekhanov, P. B. Axelrod and V. I. Zasulich were on the Editorial Board of Iskra and Zarya. At the Second Congress of the R.S.D.L.P., in August 1903, the Emancipation of Labour group announced its dissolution. p. 82

{26} Iskra’s organisation in Russia united Iskra supporters operating inside Russia. During the preparation for publishing Iskra and in the first year of its publication (December 1900-December 1901) a network of Iskra agents was set up in various towns of Russia. Among them were P. N. Lepeshinsky and 0. B. Lepeshinskaya, P. A. Krasikov, A. M. Stopani, G. M. Krzhizhanovsky and Z. P. Krzhizhanovskaya, S. I. Radchenko and L. N. Radchenko, A. D. Tsyurupa, N. E. Bauman and I. V. Babushkin. Iskra pro motion groups were set up in a number of cities, including St. Petersburg, Pskov, Samara and Poltava.

The growth of the revolutionary movement and the increasing volume of practical work insistently urged the need to unite the Iskra forces and place their work on a planned and organised basis, which would help to solve the main task, that of overcoming the amateurish methods introduced by the Economists and winning over the Social-Democratic committees. In this connection, Lenin put forward a plan for an all-Russia Iskra organisation, which was to prepare the unification of Social-Democratic organisations in the country into an integrated, centralised Marxist party. This plan was initially set out by Lenin in his article “Where To Begin?” (May 1901) and then elaborated in the pamphlet What Is To Be Done? (autumn of 1901-February 1902) (see present edition, Vol. 5, pp. 13–24, 347–529).

In implementing the plan for the establishment of an integrated Iskra organisation in Russia, Lenin and his supporters had to overcome narrow local (regional) tendencies among some Iskra practitioners.

A congress of Iskra workers was held in Samara in January 1902 and was attended by G. M. Krzhizhanovsky and Z. P. Krzhizhanovskaya, F. V. Lengnik, M. A. Silvin, V. P. Artsybushev, D. I. Ulyanov, M. I. Ulyanova and others. The congress set up a Bureau of the Iskra organisation in Russia.

Armed with Lenin’s book What Is To Be Done?, Iskra workers vigorously set about spreading and realising Lenin’s plan for the establishment of the party. The Iskra organisation in Russia achieved a great deal in actually uniting party organisations on the principles of revolutionary Marxism. By the end of 1902, almost all the major Social-Democratic committees had announced their solidarity with Iskra.

The Organising Committee for Convening the Party’s Second Congress, to which the Iskra organisations handed over all their connections, was set up at a conference in Pskov on November 2–3 (15–16), 1902, with the most active participation of Iskra workers. The Iskra organisation in Russia operated until the Second Congress and played an important part in preparing and convoking the Congress, which set up the revolutionary Marxist party in Russia. p. 82

{27} The “Yuzhny Rabochy” group—a Social-Democratic group formed in the south of Russia by the autumn of 1900 round a newspaper of the same name. The newspaper Yuzhny Rabochy (Southern Worker) was published illegally from 1900 to 1903. Twelve numbers were issued, the first in January 1900 by the Yekaterinoslav Committee of the R.S.D.L.P. At various times, I. Kh. Lalayants, A. Vilensky, 0. A. Kogan (Yermansky), B. S. Tseitlin, Y. Y. Levin and Y. S. Levina, V. N. Rozanov and others were members of the group and the Editorial Board.

In contrast to the Economists, the Yuzhny Rabochy group believed that the main task of the proletariat was to carry on political struggle for the overthrow of the autocracy. It opposed terrorism, upheld the idea of launching a mass revolutionary movement and carried out considerable revolutionary work in the south of Russia. But the group tended to overrate the role of the liberal bourgeoisie and attached no importance to the peasant movement. In opposition to the Iskra plan for creating a centralised Marxist party through the unification of the revolutionary Social-Democrats round Iskra, the Yuzhny Rabochy group put forward a plan for restoring the R.S.D.L.P. by setting up regional Social-Democratic associations. In his One Step Forward, Two Steps Back, Lenin said the Yuzhny Rabochy group was one of those organisations “which, while verbally recognising Iskra as the leading organ, actually pursued plans of their own and were unstable in matters of principle” (present edition, Vol. 7, p. 211). At the Second Congress of the Party, the Yuzhny Rabochy delegates took a Centrist position (Lenin called them “middling opportunists”).

The Second Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. decided to dissolve the Yuzhny Rabochy group, like all other separate Social-Democratic groups and organisations (see Vtoroi syezd R.S.D.R.P., 1959, p. 439). p. 82

{28} P.P.S. (Polska Partia Socjalistyczna—Polish Socialist Party)—a reformist nationalist party set up in 1892. It had a programme based on the struggle for an independent Poland, and under the leadership of Pilsudski and his followers it carried on separatist   nationalistic propaganda among the Polish workers in an effort to draw them away from joint struggle with the Russian workers against the autocracy and capitalism.

In 1906 it split up into the P.P.S.-Lewica (Left-wing) and the Right-wing, chauvinist P.P.S., known as the “revolutionary faction”.

Under the influence of the R.S.D.L.P.(B.) and of the S.D.K.P. and L. (the Social-Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania), the P.P.S.-Lewica gradually went over to consistent revolutionary positions.

During the First World War, most of its members took an internationalist stand and in December 1918 merged with the S.D.K.P. and L. These two parties constituted the Communist Workers’ Party of Poland (as the Communist Party of Poland was called until 1925).

During the First World War, the Right-wing P.P.S. continued to conduct its national-chauvinist policy. When the bourgeois Polish state was formed, the Right-wing P.P.S. in 1919 united with sections of the P.P.S. on the territory of Poland earlier occupied by Germany and Austria and once again took the name of P.P.S. With the government in its hands, it helped the Polish bourgeoisie to take over power and then launched a systematic anti-communist campaign, supporting the policy of aggression against the Soviet state, and the policy of occupying and oppressing Western Ukraine and Western Byelorussia. Some groups in the P.P.S. which disagreed with this policy went over to the Communist Party of Poland.

Following the fascist coup staged by Pilsudski in May 1926, the P.P.S. was nominally in opposition in Parliament, but actually conducted no active struggle against the fascist regime and continued its anti-communist and anti-Soviet propaganda. In this period, Left-wing elements in the P.P.S. co-operated with the Polish Communists and supported the united-front tactics in a number of campaigns.

During the Second World War, the P.P.S. split up once again. Its reactionary and chauvinist section, which called itself “Wolność, Równość, Niepodleglość” (Freedom, Equality, Independence), took part in the reactionary Polish government in exile (London). The Left-wing section of the P.P.S., which called itself the Workers’ Part of Polish Socialists (W.P.P.S.), under the influence of the Polish Workers’ Party (P.W.P.), set up in 1942, joined the popular front of struggle against the nazi invaders, I ought for the liberation of Poland from the fascist enslavement and favoured friendship with the U.S.S.R.

In 1944, following the liberation of the eastern part of Poland from the German occupation and the establishment of the Polish Committee of National Liberation, the W.P.P.S. once again took the name of P.P.S. and together with the P.W.P. set a out building up a democratic people’s Poland. In December 1948, the P.W.P. and the P.P.S. merged into the Polish United Workers Party (P.U.W.P.). p. 83

{29} The Amsterdam International Socialist Congress of the Second International was held from August 14 to 20, 1904. It dealt with the following questions: 1) international rules of socialist tactics; 2) colonial policy; 3) general strike; 4) social policy and workers’ insurance; 5) trusts and unemployment, and other questions.

The attitude to bourgeois parties was expressed in a resolution called “International Rules of Socialist Tactics”, which prohibited socialists from taking part in bourgeois governments and censured “any urge to gloss over existing class contradictions with a view to facilitating a rapprochement with bourgeois parties”. The Congress decisions, while being a step forward, went only a part of the way and wore a further concession to opportunism. The Congress failed to raise the question of the mass strike developing into an armed uprising or to give a rebuff to Right-wing opportunists who were inclined to justify the colonial policy of the imperialist powers. While saying that it condemned revisionism, the Congress failed to declare a break with it, and said nothing about the proletarian revolution or the dictatorship of the proletariat. p. 83

{30} The Party Council (1903–05) was set up under the Party Rules adopted by the Second Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. as the highest Party institution designed to co-ordinate and unify the activity of the Central Committee and the Editorial Board of the Central Organ and to restore the C.C. and the Editorial Board of the C.O. in the event the entire membership of either of these bodies was gone, and also to represent the Party in relations with other parties. The Council had the task of convening Party congresses within the period laid down by the Rules or before the due date, upon the demand of Party organisations which together commanded one-half of the congress votes. The Party Council consisted of five members, one of whom was appointed by the Party congress and the others by the Central Committee and the C.O. Editorial Board, which had two members each on the Council. The Second Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. elected G.V. Plekhanov as the fifth member of the Council. Lenin was elected a member of the Council from the C.O. Editorial Board, and from the C.C. when he left Iskra. Following Plekhanov’s orientation towards opportunism and the Mensheviks’ seizure of the Editorial Board, the Party Council became an instrument of the Mensheviks’ struggle against the Bolsheviks. Lenin waged a consistent struggle in the Council to unite the Party, exposing the disorganising and splitting activity of the Mensheviks. Under the Rules adopted by the Third Congress of the R.S.D.L.P., the Council was abolished. p. 84