Russian Social Democratic Labour Party

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For other uses, see Social Democratic Party of Russia (disambiguation).

Russian Social Democratic Labour Party
Российская социал-демократическая рабочая партия
Political positionLeft-wing
Factions:
Centre-left to far-left
International affiliationSecond International
Colours  Red
Most MPs (Jan, 1907)
65 / 518
Party flag

The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP; Russian: Российская социал-демократическая рабочая партия (РСДРП), Rossijskaja social-demokratičeskaja rabočaja partija (RSDRP)), also known as the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party or the Russian Social Democratic Party, was a socialist political party founded in 1898 in Minsk (then in Northwestern Krai of the Russian Empire, present-day Belarus).

Formed to unite the various revolutionary organizations of the Russian Empire into one party, the RSDLP split in 1903 into Bolsheviks ("majority") and Mensheviks ("minority") factions, with the Bolshevik faction eventually becoming the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

History

Origins and early activities

The RSDLP was not the first Russian

Kiev, both formed a year earlier in 1897; and the League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class in Saint Petersburg. Some additional social democrats from Moscow and Yekaterinburg also attended. The RSDLP program was based strictly on the theories of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Specifically, that despite Russia's agrarian nature at the time, the true revolutionary potential lay with the industrial working class. At this time, there were three million Russian industrial workers, just 3% of the population. The RSDLP was illegal for most of its existence. Within a month after the Congress, five of the nine delegates were arrested by the Okhrana (imperial secret police).[2]

Before the

What Is To Be Done?, outlining his view of the party's proper task and methodology: to form "the vanguard of the proletariat". He advocated a disciplined, centralized party of committed activists who would fuse the underground struggle for political freedom with the class struggle of the proletariat.[3]

Internal divisions

In 1903, the

Bolsheviks (derived from bolshinstvo—Russian for "majority"), headed by Lenin; and the Mensheviks (from menshinstvo—Russian for "minority"), headed by Julius Martov. Confusingly, the Mensheviks were actually the larger faction, but the names Menshevik and Bolshevik were taken from a vote held at the 1903 Party Congress for the editorial board of the party newspaper, Iskra (Spark), with the Bolsheviks being the majority and the Mensheviks being the minority.[5] These were the names used by the factions for the rest of the party Congress and these are the names retained after the split at the 1903 Congress.[5][6][7] Lenin's faction later ended up in the minority and remained smaller than the Mensheviks until the Russian Revolution.[5]

A central issue at the Congress was the question of the definition of party membership. Martov proposed the following formulation: "A member of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party is one who accepts the Party's programme, supports the Party financially, and renders it regular personal assistance under the direction of one of its organizations".[8] On the other hand, Lenin proposed a more strict definition: "A member of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party is one who accepts its programme and who supports the Party both financially and by personal participation in one of the Party organizations".[8] Martov's big tent definition of party membership initially won the vote 28–23. However, his majority was short-lived, given the exit from the party, for separate reasons, of its Bundist and Economist members who had supported his definition. That left in the majority those in favour of Lenin's definition of party members as, in effect, professional revolutionaries- centrally directed, tightly disciplined, and therefore capable of operating effectively in the tsarist police state. From this was derived the faction names: "Majority" ("Bolshevik") and "Minority" ("Menshevik").

Despite a number of attempts at reunification, the split proved permanent. As time passed, ideological differences emerged in addition to the original organizational differences. The main difference that emerged in the years after 1903 was that the Bolsheviks believed that only the workers, backed up by the peasantry, could carry out the bourgeois-democratic revolutionary tasks in Russia, which would then provide incentive to socialist revolution in Germany, France and Britain, while the Mensheviks believed that the workers and peasants must seek out enlightened people from the liberal bourgeoisie to carry out the bourgeois-democratic revolutionary tasks in Russia. The two warring factions both agreed that the coming revolution would be "bourgeois-democratic" within Russia, but while the Mensheviks viewed the liberals as the main ally in this task, the Bolsheviks opted for an alliance with the peasantry as the only way to carry out the bourgeois-democratic revolutionary tasks while defending the interests of the working class. Essentially, the difference was that the Bolsheviks considered that in Russia the tasks of the bourgeois democratic revolution would have to be carried out without the participation of the bourgeoisie. The 3rd Party Congress was held separately by the Bolsheviks.

The 4th Party Congress was held in Stockholm, Sweden and saw a formal reunification of the two factions (with the Mensheviks in the majority), but the discrepancies between Bolshevik and Menshevik views became particularly clear during the proceedings.

The 5th Party Congress was held in London, England, in 1907. It consolidated the supremacy of the Bolshevik faction and debated strategy for communist revolution in Russia. Joseph Stalin never later referred to his stay in London.[9]

1912 split

The Social Democrats (SDs) boycotted elections to the

Fourth Duma (1912–1917), the SDs were finally and fully split. The Mensheviks had seven members in the Duma and the Bolsheviks had six, including Roman Malinovsky, who was later uncovered as an Okhrana agent.[10]

In the years of Tsarist repression that followed the defeat of the

Nikolai Aleksandrovich Rozhkov and Nikolay Chkheidze, who wished to pursue purely legal activities and who now repudiated illegal and underground work.[11]

The Bolsheviks split threeways into the Proletary group led by Lenin, Grigory Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev, who waged a fierce struggle against the liquidators, ultimatists and recallists; the Ultimatist group led by Grigory Aleksinsky, who wished to issue ultimatums to the RSDLP Duma deputies to follow the party line or to resign immediately; and the Recallist group led by Alexander Bogdanov and Anatoly Lunacharsky and supported by Maxim Gorky, who called for the immediate recall of all RSDLP Duma deputies and a boycott of all legal work by the RSDLP, in favour of increased radical underground and illegal work.[11]

There was also a non-faction group led by Leon Trotsky, who denounced all the "factionalism" in the RSDLP, pushed for "unity" in the party and focused more strongly on the problems of Russian workers and peasants on the ground. The Menshevik Julius Martov was formally considered a liquidator partly because most of his closest political friends were liquidators.[11]

In January 1912, Lenin's Proletary Bolshevik group called a conference in Prague and expelled the liquidators, ultimatists and recallists from the RSDLP, which officially led to the creation of a separate party, known as the

All-Russian Communist Party. They banned the Mensheviks after the Kronstadt rebellion
of 1921.

The Interdistrictites, known as the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (Internationalists), emerged in 1913 as another faction originating from the RSDLP.

Party branches

Estonia

In 1902, the

Terijoki, Finland
in March 1907, the Bolshevik supporters came into serious conflict with the Mensheviks.

Livonia

At the 4th (Unity) Congress of the RSDLP in 1906, the Latvian Social Democratic Workers Party entered the RSDLP as a territorial organisation. After the Congress, its name was changed Social-Democracy of the Latvian Territory.[12]

Congresses

Visualization of the strength of party factions present at the 5th Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party – 105 Bolsheviks, 97 Mensheviks, 59 Bundists, 44 SDKPiL, 29 Latvian Social Democracy, 4 'non-faction' delegates
List of congresses of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party from 1898 – 1907.
Congress Location Delegates[b] Elected to Central Committee Majority Faction
1st 13 March
–
15 March 1898
Minsk, Russian Empire 		9 —
2nd 30 July
–
23 August 1903
51 Mensheviks
3rd 25 April
–
10 May 1905
London, United Kingdom 		51 Bolsheviks
4th 10 April
–
25 April 1906
Stockholm, Sweden 		112
  • Boris Bakhmeteff
  • Leon Goldman
  • Vasily Denitsky
  • Pavel Kolokolnikov
  • Leonid Krasin
  • Viktor Krokhmal
  • Natalya Baranskaya
  • Vladimir Rozanov
  • Alexei Rykov
  • Lev Khinchuk
 Mensheviks
5th 13 May
–
1 June 1907
London, United Kingdom 		338 Bolsheviks

Electoral history

Legislative elections

State Duma
Year Votes % Seat(s) +/– Leader
1906 Unknown (3rd) 3.8
18 / 478
 New Julius Martov
Jan, 1907 Unknown (3rd) 12.5
65 / 518
 Increase 47
Oct, 1907 Unknown (4th) 3.7
19 / 509
 Decrease 46
1912 Unknown (4th) 3.3
14 / 434
 Decrease 5

See also

Notes

  1. ^ There is no definitive date on which the RSDLP dissolved. The party split into the Bolshevik and Menshevik factions in 1903, with the two factions forming separate parties in 1912. However, joint party organisations continued to exist until 1917.[citation needed]
  2. ^ Also known as representatives.
  3. ^ Thirteen sessions of the second congress took place in Brussels before it was moved to London.

Footnotes

  1. ^ Cavendish, Richard (11 November 2003). "The Bolshevik-Menshevik Split". History Today. Retrieved 13 September 2017.
  2. ^ Ascher, Abraham. The Revolution of 1905. p. 4.
  3. ISBN 978-90-04-13120-0
    .
  4. ^ Scholey, Keith. "The Communist Club". Archived from the original on 1 November 2018.
  5. ^ a b c "Vladimir Lenin | Biography, Facts, & Ideology | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 20 November 2022.
  6. OCLC 881415856
    .
  7. OCLC 224176363
    .
  8. ^ a b "1903: Organisational Rules of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party". marxists.org. Retrieved 27 October 2017.
  9. ^ Gould, Mark; Revill, Jo (24 October 2004). "Luxury beckons for East End's house of history". The Guardian. Retrieved 27 October 2017.
  10. ^ Badayev, Aleksey. "Badayev: The Bolsheviks in the Tsarist Duma". marxists.org. Retrieved 24 June 2021.
  11. ^
    ISBN 9780091932862
    .
  12. ^ Lenin, Vladimir. "Lenin: The Second Conference of the R.S.D.L.P. (First All-Russia Conference)". marxists.org. Retrieved 27 October 2017.
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