The August l908 Central Committee Meeting
Compass
In August 1908 a meeting of the Central Committee of the RSDLP was held and the liquidator Mensheviks opened their attack on the Party organisation by moving a resolution that the Central Committee should be abolished as the leading organ of the Party and converted into a mere information bureau. The motion was defeated, and a Bolshevik motion to convene a Party Conference was adopted.
At this meeting the Central Committee set up a Russian Bureau of the Central Committee, composed of one representative each of the Bolsheviks, the Mensheviks, the Polish Party, the Latvian Party and the ‘Bund’, responsible, under the Central Committee, for the direction of Party work within Russia. It also set up a Central Committee abroad, composed of members of the Central Committee residing outside Russia, responsible to the Russian Collegium.
"0tzovism" and "Ultimatumism"
From August l908 the Leninist tactics of combining legal and illegal forms of struggle began to be attacked, riot only by the liquidationists on the right, but also by a group of ‘leftist’ Bolsheviks who demanded the renunciation of all legal forms of struggle.
Since the main demand of this group of Bolsheviks was the immediate recall of the Social-Democratic Deputies from the Duma, they were called "Otzovists" (from "otozvat", to recall)
Another group of ostensibly "leftist" Bolsheviks did not demand the immediate recall of the Party's deputies, but demanded that they should be presented with an ultimatum to correct their politicel errors or be recalled. Lenin described these "ultimatumists" as :
"bashful otzovists".
(V. I. Lenin: "The Historical Meaning of the Internal Party Struggle in Russia", in: ibid.; p. 514) .
The leading figures among the otzovists and ultimatumists were Aleksandr Bogdanov, Anatoly Lunacharsky, Leonid Krassin and Grigori Alexinsky.
In arguing in favour of recall, as did both otzovism and ultimatumism, the adherents of these trends made great play with the errors committed by the Social-Democratic deputies in the Duma who were mainly Mensheviks. The Leninists replied that this was an argument for correcting the errors, not for recalling the deputies.
"The illegal Party must know how to use the legal Duma fraction . . The most regrettable deviation from consistent proletarian work would be to raise the question of recalling the fraction from the Duma. ….
We must at once establish team work in this field, so that every Social-Democratic deputy may really feel that the Party is backing him, that the Party is distressed over his mistakes and takes care to straighten his path --so that every Party worker may take part in the general Duma work of the Party. . . striving to subordinate the special work of the fraction to Party propaganda and agitational activity as a whole".
(V. I. Lenin: "On to the High Road", in: "Selected Works", Volume 3; London; l943; p. 8, 9).
The Leninists strongly condemned both otzovism and ultimatumism as "liquidationism in reverse", since, like liquidationism; its aim was to liquidate one side of the Party’s work:
"In the course of the bourgeois-democratic revolution our Party was joined by a number of elements that were not attracted by its purely proletarian programme, but mainly by its glorious and energetic fight for democracy.
In these troubled times such elements more and more display their lack of Social-Democratic consistency and, coming into ever sharper contradiction with the fundamentals of revolutionary Social-Democratic tactics, have been, during the past year, creating a tendency which is trying to give shape to the theory of otzovism and ultimatumism.
Politically, ultimatumism at the present time is indistinguishable from otzovism; it only introduces greater confusion and disintegration by the disguised - character of its otzovism. By their attempt to deduce from the specific application of the boycott of representative institutions at this or that moment of the revolution that the policy of boycotting is a distinguishing feature of Bolshevik tactics in the period of counter-revolution also -- ultimatumism and otzovism demonstrate that these trends are in essence the reverse side of Menshevism, which preaches indiscriminate participation in all representative institutions- irrespective of the given stage of development of' the revolution. . . .
0tzovist-ultimatumist agitation has already begun to cause definite harm to the labour movement and to Social-Democratic work.. .
Bolshevism as a definite tendency . . has nothing in common with otzovism and ultimatumism and . . the Bolshevik faction must more resolutely combat these deviations from the path of revolutionary Marxism".
(V.I. Lenin: Resolution of the Meeting of' the Enlarged Editorial Board of ‘Proletary’: "On Otzovism and Ultimatumism", in: ibid.; p. 19, 20-21).
The Struggle on Two Fronts
From August 1908, therefore, the Leninists carried on a struggle on the question of Party organisations on two fronts:
Against liquidationism on the one hand, and against "leftist" otzovism and ultimatumism on the other hand.
"Three and a half years ago all the Marxists. . had unanimously to recognise two deviations from the Marxian tactics. Both deviations were recognised as dangerous. Both deviations were explained as being due, not to accident, not to the evil intention of individual persons but to the ‘historical situation of the labour movement in the given period. . .
The deviations from Marxism are generated by the "bourgeois influences over the proletariat".
(V. I.Lenin: "Controversial Questions" in: Ibid; p.129, 130).
"The Bolsheviks have actually carried on, from August 1908 to January l910, a strugg1e on two fronts, i.e., a struggle against the liquidators and the otzovists".
(V. I. Lenin: "Notes of a Publicist", in: ibid.; p. 45).
"Empiro-Criticism"
The reaction following the defeat of the 1905 Revolution led to a revival of' idealist philosophy among the Russian intelligentsia, including some Social-Democrats.
During 1908 a number of books were published which claimed to bring Marxism "up-to-date". The most important of these was a symposium entitled "Studies in the Philosophy of Marxism", published in St. Petersburg, the leading contributors to which were Aleksandr Bogdanov and Anatoly Lunacharsky. Following the lines of an earlier work by -Bogdanov – "Empirio-Criticism" (l904-06)-- this attempted to combine Marxist philosophy with the idealist philosophy of Ernst Mach and Richard Avenarius to produce a "synthesis" which they called "empirio-criticism". - -
"A number of writers, would-be Marxists, have this year undertaken a veritable campaign against the philosophy of Marxism. In the course of less than half a year four books devoted mainly and almost exclusively to attacks on dialectical materialism have made their appearance. These include first and foremost ‘Studies in (? --- it would have been more proper to say ‘against’) the Philosophy of Marxism’".
(V.1. Lenin: Preface to the First Edition of "Materialism and Empirio-Criticism"; in: ‘Selected Works’; Volume 11; London; l943; p. 89).
In September 1908 Lenin completed a long philosophical work, "Materialism and Empirio-Criticism", published in May 1909, in which he attacked and exposed these works of Anti-Marxist philosophy:
"Behind the mass of new terminological devices, behind the litter of erudite scholasticism, we invariably discerned two principal alignments, two fundamental trends in the solution of philosophical problems, Whether nature, matter, the physical, the external world be taken as primary, and mind, spirit, sensation (experience - as the widespread terminology of our time has it) , the psychical, etc., be regarded as secondary -- that is the root question which in fact continues to divide the philosophers into two great camps.
The theoretical foundations of this philosophy (i.e., empirio-criticism -- Ed.) must be compared -with those of dialectical materialism. Such a comparison . . reveals, along the whole line of epistemological problems, the thoroughly reactionary character of empirio-criticism, which uses new artifices, terms and subtleties to disguise the old errors of idealism and agnosticism. Only utter ignorance of the nature of philosophical materialism generally and of the nature of Marx’s and Engels’ dialectical method can lead one to speak of a ‘union’ of empirio-criticism and Marxism. .
Behind the epistemological scholasticism of empirio-criticism it is impossible not to see the struggle of parties in philosophy, a struggle which in the last analysis reflects the tendencies and. ideology of the antagonistic classes in modern society. The contending parties essentially, although concealed by a pseudo-erudite quackery of new terms or by a feeble-minded non-partisanship, are materialism and idealism. The latter is merely a subtle, refined form of fideism, which stands fully armed, commands vast organisations and steadily continues to exercise influence on the masses, turning the slightest vacillation in philosophical thought to its own advantage. The objective, class role played by empirio-criticism entirely consists in rendering faithful service to the fideists in their struggle against materialism in general and historical materialism in particular".
(V.I. Lenin: "Materialism and Empirio-Criticism", in: ibid: p.385-6, 405, 406).
"God-Building"
Among some Social-Democrats the revival of idealist philosophy took the form of trying to reconcile Marxist philosophy and religion.
In l908, Anatoly Lunacharsky published "Religion and Socialism" in which he described Marxism as a "Natural, earthly, anti-metaphysical, scientific and human-religion".
Shortly afterwards Maxim Gorky wrote a novel entitled "A Confession", in which a character prays to the people with the words:
"Thou art my God, O sovereign people, and creator of all the gods, which thou hast formed from the beauties of the spirit in the travail and torture of thy quest..
And the world shall have no other gods but thee, for thou art the only god that works miracles.
This . . .is my confession and belief".
(M. Gorky: "A Confession"; London 1910; p. 320).
Gorky carried this idea forward in his articles and letters.
"One does not seek for Gods -one creates them!"
(M. Gorky: "The Karamazov Episode Again", cited-by: V. I. Lenin: Letter to A. M. Gorky, November 14th,1913, in: ibid.; p. 675).
The Leninists strongly attacked the concept of "God Building".
"I cannot -and will not have anything to do with people who have set out to propagate unity between scientific socialism and religion".
(V.I.Lenin: Letter to A.M.Gorky, April , 1908; In: "Socheniya"; Volume 34; Moscow; 1950; p.343.)
"God seeking no more differs from god-building, or god-making, or god-creating or the like than a yellow devil differs from a blue devil . .
Every religious idea, every idea of god, even every flirtation with the idea of god, is unutterable vileness, vileness that is greeted very tolerantly (and often even favourably) by the democratic bourgeoisie -- and for that very reason it is vileness of the most dangerous kind, ‘contagion’ of the most abominable kind. Millions of sins, filthy deeds, acts of violence and physical contagions are far more easily exposed by the crowd, and are therefore far less dangerous, than the subtle, spiritual ideas of a god decked out in the smartest ‘ideological’ costumes. The Catholic priest who seduces young-girls (of whom I happened to read in a German newspaper) is far less dangerous to democracy than a priest without a frock, a priest without a coarse religion, a democratic priest with ideas who preaches the making and creating of a god. For the first priest is easily exposed, condemned and ejected, whereas the second cannot be -ejected so easily."
(V. I. Lenin: Letter to A. N. Gorky, November l4th. 1913; in: "Selected Works", Volume 11; London; l943; p. 675-6).
"You advocate the idea of god and god-building. . This theory is obviously connected with the theory, or theories, of Bogdanov and Lunacharsky. . . . And it is obviously false and obviously reactionary.
You have gilded and sugar-coated the idea of the clericals, the Purishkeviches, Nicholas II and Messieurs the Struves, for, in practice, the idea of god helps THEM to keep the people in slavery. By gilding the idea of-god, you gilded the chains with which they fetter -the ignorant workers and muzhiks. . .
The idea, of god has always deadened and dulled ‘social- sentiments’, for it substitutes a dead thing for a living thing, and has always been an idea of slavery (the worst, hopeless kind of slavery). The idea of god has never ’bound the individual to society’ but has always bound the oppressed classes by belief in the divinity of the oppressors."
(V. I. Lenin: Letter to A. N. Gorky, December 1913; in: ibid; p. 678-9).
The "Party Mensheviks"
The Leninists considered that a truly united Party could be brought about-only by a rapproachement between the Bolsheviks on the one hand and a section of the Mensheviks on the other hand, those representing the principal factions within the Party and the only ones with significant mass influence. They estimated that a section of the Mensheviks would move farther from reflecting the interests of the capitalist class and nearer to reflecting the interests of the working class, so coming to oppose liquidationism, to split off from the liquidator Mensheviks and to support genuine, practical unity with the Bolsheviks.
In fact, towards the end of 1908 various groups of Mensheviks in Moscow, and later in the Vyborg district of St. Petersburg, passed resolutions sharply condemning the liquidator Mensheviks and their anti-Party policy.
A leading role in the splitting of the Mensheviks was taken by Georgi Plekhanov, who publicly dissociated himself from liquidationism, retired from the editorial board of the organ of the liquidator Mensheviks, "Golos Sotsial-Demokrata" (The Voice of the Social-Democrat), and began to issue his own illegal journal "Dnevnik Sotsial-Demokrata" (The Diary of a Social-Democrat) . In this paper, Plekhanov vigorously attacked the liquidators and called upon all Mensheviks who recognised the necessity of illegal work to rally together. The Leninists called these anti-liquidationist Mensheviks "Party Mensheviks".
"Factions are generated by the relations between the classes in the Russian revolution. The Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks only formulated answers to the questions put to the proletariat by the objective realities of l905-97. Therefore, only the inner evolution of these factions, the ‘strong’ factions -- strong because of their deep roots, strong because their ideas correspond to certain aspects of objective reality -- only the inner evolution of precisely these factions is capable of securing a real fusion of the factions, i.e- the creation of a genuinely and completely united party of proletarian Marxian socialism in Russia. Hence the practical conclusion:
the rapprochement in practical work between these two strong factions alone - and only in so far as they are purged of the non-Social-Democratic tendencies of liquidationism and otzovism - really represents a Party policy, a policy that really brings about unity, not in an easy way, not smoothly, and by no means immediately, but in a real way as distinguished from the endless quack promises of easy, smooth, immediate fusion of "all" factions. . ..
In my discussions I suggested the slogan: ‘rapprochement between the two strong factions, and no whining over the dissolution of the factions’."
(V. I. Lenin: "The New Faction of Conciliators or the Virtuous", in: "Selected Works", Volume 4; London; l943; p. 93-4).
"The present split among the Mensheviks is not accidental but inevitable.
The stand taken by certain Mensheviks justifies their appellation ‘Party Mensheviks’. They took their stand upon the struggle for the Party against the independent legalists. .
Plekhanov was never a Bolshevik. We do not and never will consider him a Bolshevik. But we do consider him a Party Menshevik, as we do any Menshevik capable of rebelling against the group of independent legalists and carrying on the struggle against them to the end. We regard it as the absolute duty of all Bolsheviks in these difficult times, when the task of the day is the struggle for Marxism in theory and for the Party in the practical work of the labour movement, to do everything possible to arrive at a rapprochement with such Social-Democrats"
(V. I. Lenin: "Notes of a Publicist", in: "Selected Works", Volume 4; London; l943; p. 66, 67, 69).
"In my opinion, the line of the bloc (Lenin-Plekhanov) is the only correct one: 1) this line, and it alone, answers to the real interests of the work in Russia, which demand that all real Party elements should rally together; 2) this line, and it alone, will expedite the process of emancipation of the legal organisations from the yoke of the Liquidators, by digging a gulf between the Menshevik workers and the Liquidators, and dispersing and disposing of the latter. A fight for influence in the legal organisations is the burning question of the day, a necessary stage on the road towards the regeneration of the Party.; and a bloc is the only means by which these organisations can be cleansed of the garbage of Liquidationists.
The plan for a bloc reveals the hand of Lenin -- he is a shrewd fellow and knows a thing or two. But this does not mean that any kind of bloc is good. A Trotsky bloc (he would have said ‘synthesis’) would be rank unprincipledness.
A Lenin-Plekhanov bloc is practical because it is thoroughly based on principle, on unity of views on the question of how to regenerate the Party".
(J. V. Stalin:"Letter to the Central Committee of the Party from Exile in Solvychegodsk, December 1910, in "Works", Volume 2; Moscow; l952; p. 2l5, 216).
"Conciliationism"
The Leninists maintained that unity was possible only with groups, which accepted the fundamental principles of Leninist strategy and tactics, and of Leninist organisation.
There were some, however, who stood for unity of the groups at any price, who minimised the differences of principle between Bolsheviks and others and who demanded, that for the sake of unity, the Leninists should make compromises in their principles. Those people the Leninists called "conciliationists".
"Differences of opinion must be hushed up, their causes, their significance, their objective conditions should not be elucidated. The principal thing is to ‘reconcile’ persons and groups. If they do not agree upon the carrying out of common policy, that policy must be interpreted in such a way as to be acceptable to all. Live and let live. This is philistine ‘concilationism’, which inevitably loads to narrow-circle diplomacy. To ‘stop up’ the source of disagreement, to hush it up, to ‘adjust’ at all costs, to neutralise the conflicting trends --it is to this that the main attention of such ‘concilationism’ is directed".
(V. I. Lenin: "Notes of a Publicist", in: ‘Selected Works’, Volume 4; London; l943; p. 4l).
The Leninists regarded concilationism as the product of the same objective conditions which had produced the factions between which it strove for agreement.
"Concilationism is the sum total of moods, strivings and views which are indissolubly bound up with the very essence of the historical task set before the RDSLP during the period of the counter-revolution of 1908-11."
(V. I. Lenin: "The New Faction of Conciliators or the Virtuous", in: ibid.; p. 93).
They recognised conciliationism as a partial and concealed deviation from_Marxist prinicples, since_its aim was to secure modifications by the Leninists of their Principles for the sake of unity.
"Conciliatioism . . really renders a most faithful -service to the liquidators and the otzovists, and therefore constitutes an evil all the more dangerous to the Party, the more cunningly, artfully and floridly it cloaks itself with professedly Party, professedly anti-factional declamations".
(V. I. Lenin: "Notes of a Publicist", in: ibid.; p. 40).
"The role of the conciliators during the period of counter-revolution may be characterised by the following picture. With immense efforts the Bolsheviks are pulling our Party wagon up a steep slope. The liquidators –‘Golos’-ites are trying with all their might to drag it downhill again. In the wagon sits a conciliator; he is a picture of tenderness. He has such a sweet face, like that of Jesus. He looks the very incarnation of virtue. And modestly dropping his eyes and raising his hands he exclaims: ‘I thank: thee, Lord, that I am not like one of these’ -- a nod in the direction of the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks – ‘vicious factionalists’ who hinder all progress’. But the wagon moves slowly forward and in the wagon sits the conciliator".
(V. I. Lenin: "The New Faction of Conciliators or the Virtuous", in: ibid.; p. 110-11).
The Viennese "Pravda"
In the summer of 1907, following the Fifth Congress of the RSDLP, Trotsky had moved to Berlin. Here he became intimate with the right wing-leaders of the Social-Democratic Party of Germany. As his biographer, Isaac Deutscher, expresses it:
"Curiously enough, Trotsky’s closest ties were not with the radical wing of German socialism, led by Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebnicht and Franz Mehring, the future founders of the Communist Party, but with the men . . who maintained the appearances of Marxist orthodoxy, but were in fact leading the party to its surrender to the imperialist ambitions of the Hohenzollern empire".
(I. Deutscher "The Prophet Armed Trotsky: 1879-1921"; London: 1970; p.162).
Trotsky contributed frequently to the SPG’s daily "Vorwarts" (Forward) and to its monthly ‘Neue Zeit’ (New Life), on which his influence was strong.
In those articles Trotsky reiterated his attacks on the "sectarianism" of the Bolsheviks, alleging that the:
"Boycottist tendency runs through the whole history of Bolshevism -- the boycott of the trade unions, of the State Duma, of the local government bodies, etc."
(L.. Trotsky: Article in "Neue Zeit", No.50, cited in: V. I. Lenin: "The Historical Meaning of the Internal Party Struggle in Russia", in: Selected Works’, Volume 3; London; l946; p.505),
as a
". . result of the sectarian fear of being swamped by the masses"
(L. Trotsky: ibid.; p. 505).
To which Lenin replied: -
"As regards the boycott of the trade unions and the local government bodies, what Trotsky says is positively untrue.. It is equally untrue to say that boycottism runs through the whole history of Bolshevism; Bolshevism as a tendency took definite shape in the spring and summer of l905, before the question of the boycott first came up. In August 1906 in the official organ of the faction, Bolshevism declared that the historical causes which called forth the necessity of the boycott had passed. Trotsky distorts Bolshevism".
(V. I. Lenin: ibid.; p. 505.)
Trotsky further declared that both the Bolshevik and the actions, and the Party itself were "falling to pieces". To this Lenin replied:
"Failing to understand the historical-economic significance of this split in the epoch of the counter-revolution, of this falling away of non-Social-Democratic elements from the Social-Democratic Labour Party, Trotsky tells the German readers that both factions are ‘falling to pieces,’ that the Party is ‘falling to pieces’, that the Party is becoming ‘disintegrated’.
This is not true. And this untruth expresss.. first of all, Trotsky’s utter lack of theoretical understanding. Trotsky absolutely fails to understand ‘why the Plenum described both liquidationism and otzovism as the manifestation of bourgeois influence over the proletariat’. Just think: is the severance from the Party of trends which have been condemned by the Party and which express the bourgeois influence over the proletariat, the collapse of the Party, the disintegration of the Party, or is it the strengthening and purging of the Party?"
(V. I. Lenin: ibid.; p. 5l5)
The German government refused to allow Trotsky to stay in Berlin, and he moved shortly to Vienna. However he maintained his influence in the press of the Social-Democratic Party of Germany, the leaders of which continued to regard him as "the authority", on the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party.
"It is time to stop being naive about the Germans, Trotsky is now in full command there.. . It’s Trotsky and Co. who are writing, and the Germans believe them. Altogether, Trotsky is boss in ‘Vorwarts’".
(V. I. Lenin: "Letter to the Bureau of the CC of the RSDLP", April l6th. 1912, in: "Collected Works"Volume 35; Moscow; 1966; p. 34, 35).
Trotsky remained in Vienna for seven years, and there he became intimate with the right-wing leaders of the Austrian Social-Democratic Party - Victor Adler, Rudolf Hilferding, Otto Bauer an& Karl Renner. He became Vienna correspondent of the daily newspaper "Kievskaya Mysl" (Kievan Thought), and contributed to a number of other papers.
In October 1908, Trotsky began to edit a small run-down paper called "Pravda" (Truth), started in l905, by the pro-Menshevik Ukrainian Social-Democratic League ("Spilika") At the end of 1908, the group abandoned the paper, and it became Trotsky’s own journal. Published in Vienna from November 1909, it continued to appear until December 1913.
The principal regular contributors to the Viennese "Pravda", under Trotsky, were Aleksandr Skobolev (a student-who later became Minister of Labour in the Kerensky government) Adolf Yoffe (who committed suicide in 1927-in protest at Trotsky's expulsion from the Party), David Ryazanov (later director of the Marx-Engels Institute) and Victor Kopp (later a Soviet diplomat).
As Lenin commented in October 1911:
"’Pravda" represents a tiny group, which has not given an independent and consistent answer to any-important fundamental question of the revolution and counter-revolution". (V. I. Lenin: "The New Faction of Concilators or the Virtuous" in: "Selected Works", Volume 4; London; l943; p. 106).
Under Trotsky the Viennese -"Pravda" became the principal organ of conciliationism, as Lenin repeatedly pointed out, describing Trotsky as a
"spineless conciliator";
(V. I. Lenin: "Notes of a Publicist", in: "Selected Works", Volume 4; London; l943; p. 60).
"During the period of the counter-revolution of 1908-11 . . Trotsky provides us with an abundance of instances of unprincipled ‘unity’ scheming"..
(V. I. Lenin: "The New Faction of Conciliators or the Virtuous", in: ibid.; p. 93, l05.)
Trotsky himself admits:
"My inner party stand was a concilationist one. . The great historical significance of Lenin's policy was still unclear to me at that time, his policy of irreconcilable ideological demarcation and, when necessary split, for the purpose of welding and tempering the core of the truly revolutionary party.
By striving for unity at all-costs, I involuntarily and unavoidably idealised centrist tendencies in Menshsvism".
(L. Trotsky: "The Permanent Revolution"; New York; 1970; p. 173).
In fact, Trotsky elaborated in this period a "theory" of conciliationism, based on the erroneous concept that factions expressed, not the interests of different classes, but "the influence of the intelligentsia" upon the working class:
"Trotsky expressed conciliationism more consistently than anyone else. He was probably the only one who attempted to give this tendency a theoretical foundation. This is the foundation: factions and factionalism-expressed the struggle of the intelligentsia ‘for influence over the irmiature proletariat’. . . .
The opposite view (i.e. the Leninist view - Ed.) is that the factions are generated by the relations between the classes in the Russian revolution".
(V. I. Lenin: "The New Faction of Conciliators or the Virtuous", in: "Se1ected Works", Volume 4; London; l943; p. 93).
Trotsky attempted to give substance to his "non-factional" pose by articles in which he attacked as "anti-revolutionary" both the Bolsheviks and the Menshoviks. In 1909, for example, he wrote in Rosa Luxemburg’s Polish paper "Przeglad Socjal-Demokratyczny" (Social-Democratic Review):
"While the Mensheviks, proceeding from the abstraction that ‘our revolution is bourgeois’, arrive at the idea of adapting the whole tactic of the proletariat to the conduct of the liberal bourgeoisie, right up to the capture of state power, the Bolsheviks, proceeding from the same bare abstraction: ‘democratic, not socialist dictatorship’, arrive at the idea of the bourgeois-democratic self-limitation of the proletariat with power in its hands. The difference between them on this question is certainly quite important: while the anti-revolutionary sides of Menshevism are already expressed in full force today, the anti-revolutionary features of Bolshevism threaten to become a great danger only in the event of the victory of the revolution."
(L. Trotsky: Article in "'Przeglad Socjal-Demokratyczny", cited in: L. Trotsky: "The Permanent Revolution"; New York; 1970; p. 235-36).
However, Lenin pointed out that, under the guise of "non-factionalism", Trotsky was, in fact, forming his own faction:
"That Trotsky’s venture is an attempt to create a faction is obvious to all now".
(V. I. Lenin: "The Historical Meaning of the Internal Party Struggle in Russia", in: "Selected Works"; Volume 3; London; l943; p.517).
"We were right in referring to Trotsky as the representative of the ‘worst remnants of factionalism’. .
Although Trotsky professes to be non-factional, he is known to all who are in the slightest degree acquainted with the labour movement in Russia as the representative of "Trotsky’s faction" -- there is factionalism here, for both the essential characteristics of it are present: 1) the nominal recognition of unity, and 2) group segregation in reality. This is a remnant of factionalism, for it is impossible to discover in it anything serious in the way of contacts with the mass labour movement in Russia.
Finally it is the worst kind of factionalism, for there is nothing ideologically and politically definite about it."
(V.I.,Lenin: "Violation of Unity under Cover of Cries for Unity", in: "Selected Works"; Volume 4; London; l943; p. 191, 192).
Trotsky’s faction, declared Lenin, vacillated in theory from one of the major factions to the other:
"Trotsky completely lacks a definite ideology and policy, for having the patent, for ‘non-factionalism’, only means . . having a patent granting complete freedom to flit from one faction to another".
(V. I. Lenin: ibid.; p. 191-92).
"Trotsky, on the other hand; represents only his own personal vacillations and nothing more. In l903 he was a Menshevik; he abandoned Menshevism in l904, returned to the Mensheviks in l905 and merely flaunted ultra-revolutionary phrases; in 1906 he left them again; at the end of 1906 he advocated elect-oral agreements with the Cadets (i.e., was virtually once more with the Mensheviks) ; and in the spring of 1907, at the London Congress, he said that he differed from Rosa Luxemburg on ‘individual shades of ideas rather than on political tendencies’. Trotsky one day plagiarises the ideological stock-in-trade of one faction; next day he plagiarises that of another, and therefore declares himself to be standing above both factions."
(V. I. Lenin: "The Historical Meaning of the Internal Party Struggle in Russia in: 'Selected Works", Volume 3; London; l946; p. 5l7).
His "political line" asserted Lenin, is mere high flown demagogy, characterised by revolutionary phrases, designed to deceive the workers:
"The Trotskys decieve the workers. Whoever supports Trotsky’s puny group supports a policy of lying and deceiving the workers. . . by ‘revolutionary’ phrase-mongering".
(V. I. Lenin: "From the Camp of the Stolypin ‘Labour’ Party", in: "Collected Works"; Volume 17; Moscow; 1963; p. 243).
"Empty exclamations, high-flown words. . and impressively important assurances -- that is Trotsky’s total stock-in-trade".
(V. I. Lenin: "The Question of Unity", in: "Collected Works", Volume 18; Moscow; 1963; p.553) .
"Trotsky is fond of sonorous and empty phrases. . . . Trotsky’s phrases are full of glitter and noise, but they lack content. . . . Trotsky is very fond of explaining historical events in pompous and sonorous phrases, in a manner flattering to Trotsky".
(V. I. Lenin: "Vio1ation of Unity under Cover of Cries for Unity", in: ""Selected Works"; Volume 4; London; 1943; p. 189,192, 194).
This demagogy, asserted Lenin, is used to attempt to conceal the fact that in practice Trotsky’s faction supports, and has the confiidence of the liquidator Mensheviks and the otzovists:
"People like Trotsky, with his inflated phrases about the RSDLP and his toadying to the liquidators, ‘who have nothing in common’ with the RSDLP, today represents ‘the prevalent disease’. At this time of confusion, disintegration and wavering it is easy for Trotsky to become the ‘hero of the hour’ and gather all the shabby elements around himself. Actually they preach surrender to the liquidators who are building a Stolypin Labour Party".
(V. I. Lenin: Resolution Adopted By the Second Paris Group of the RSDLP on the State of Affairs in the party", in: "Collected Works", Volume 17: Moscow; 1963; p. 216).
"Trotsky and the ‘Trotskyites and conciliators’ like him are more pernicious than any liquidators; the convinced liquidators state their views bluntly, and it is easy for the workers to detect where they are wrong, whereas the Trotskys deceive the workers, cover up the evil. . . Whoever supports Trotsky’s puny group supports a policy. . of shielding the liquidators. Full freedom of action for Potresov and Co. in Russia, and the sheltering of their deeds by ‘revolutionary’ phrase-mongering abroad - -- there you have the essence of the policy of ‘Trotskyism’".
(V. I. Lenin: "From the Camp of the Stolypin ‘Labour Party’", in: ibid.; p. 243).
"Trotsky’s particular task is to conceal liquidationism by throwing dust in the eyes of the workers. It is impossible to argue with Trotsky on the merits of the issue, because Trotsky holds no views whatever. We can and should argue with confirmed liquidators and otzovists; but it is no use arguing with a man whose game is to hide the errors of both trends; in his case the thing is to expose him as a diplomat of the smallest calibre".
(V. I. Lenin: "Trotsky’s Diplomacy and a Certain Party Platform", in: ibid.; p. 362).
"Trotsky follows in the wake of the Mensheviks and camouflages himself with particularly sonorous phrases. . .
In theory Trotsky is in no respect in agreement with either the liquidators or the otzovists, but in actual practice he is in entire agreement with both the ‘Golos’-ites and the ‘Vperyod’-ists. . .
Trotsky . . enjoys a certain amount of confidence exclusively among the otzovists and the liquidators."
(V. I.Lenin : "The Historical Meaning of the Internal Party Struggle" in Russia, in: "Selected Works", Volume 3; London; 1946; p. 499, 517).
The Menshevik leader Yuli Martov endorsed Lenin’s estimate of Trotsky in a letter dated May 1912:
"The logic of things compels Trotsky to follow the Menshevik road, despite all his reasoned pleas for some ‘synthesis’ between Menshevism and Bolshevism. . -. He has not only found himself in the camp of the ‘liquidators’, but he is compelled to take up there the most ‘pugnacious’ attitude towards Lenin".
(Y. Martov: Letter, May 1912, cited in: "Pisnia P. B. Axelroda i Y. 0. Martova". (Letters of P. B.Axelrod and Y. 0. Martov); Berlin, 1924; p. 233). \
1909: The Fifth Party Conference -
The Fifth Conference of the RSDLP was held in Paris in January 1909, attended by 18 delegates (6 Bolsheviks, I Mensheviks, 5 representives of the Social-Democratic Party of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania, and 3 representatives of the "Bund").
The conference adopted a Bolshevik resolution which defined liquidationism as:
" . the attempts of a certain section of the Party intelligentsia to liquidate the existing organisation of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party and substitute for it an amorphous association within the limits of legality at all costs, even if this legality is to be attained at the price of an open renunciation of the programme, tactics and traditions of our Party (Resolution on Organisation, 5th. Conference of RSDLP, cited by V. I. Lenin. "Excerpts from the Resolutions of the Prague Conference of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party"; in: "Selected Works"; Volume 4; London; 1943; p. 151),
and instructed the Party to wage a determined struggle against this deviation:
"The All-Russian Conference of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party recognises that the following constitute the fundamental tasks of the Party at the -present time: . . .
3) to strengthen the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party in the shape it assumed during the revolutionary period; . . to fight against deviations from revolutionary Marxism, against the curtailment of the slogans of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, and against the attempts to dissolve the illegal organisations -of the RSDLP that are observed among certain Party elements, which have yielded to the influence of disintegration".
(V. I. Lenin: Draft Resolution on the Present Situation and the Tasks of the Party, in: ibid.; p. 15).
The "Proletary" Conference
In June 1909 the editorial board of the Bolshevik newspaper "Proletary" (The Proletarian) called a conference in Paris to which leading Bolsheviks were invited. Although called officially an "enlarged editorial conference" it was, in fact, a Bolshevik Conference.
The conference adopted a-resolution to the effect that otzovism, ultimatumism,_Machism_and god-building were all incompatible with memebrship of the Bolshevik faction, and the adherents of these trends were declared to have placed themselves outside the faction:
"At an official meeting of its representatives held as far back as the spring of 1909, the Bolshevik faction repudiated and expelled the otzovists. "
(V. I. Lenin: "The Historical Meaning of the Internal Party Struggle in Russia", in: "Selected Works", Volume 3; London; 1946; p. 517).
The conference drew attention to the emergence of the "Party Mensheviks", and declared:
"Under such circumstances, the task of the Bolsheviks, who will remain the solid vanguard of the Party, is not only to continue the struggle against liquidationism and all the varieties of revisionism, but also to establish c1oser contact with the Marxian and Party elements of the other factions."
(V. I. Lenin: Resolution of the Meeting of the Enlarged Editorial Board of "Proletary" - on "The Tasks of the Bolsheviks in the Party", in: 'Selected Works," Volume 4; London 1943; p. 23-24).
The "Vperyod" Group
From August to December 1909 a number of otzovists and god-builders who had been expelled from the Bolshevik faction at the enlarged meeting of the editorial board of in June, held a "school" on the island of Capri (Italy).
The leading figures in the school were Grigori Alexinsky, Aleksandr Bogdanov and Anatoly Lunacharsky, with the participation of Maxim Gorky.
In December 1909 a number of lecturers at the Capri school, together with a number of prominent Bolsheviks including Vyacheslav Menzhinsky, Dmitri Manuilsky and Mikhail Pokrovsky formed themselves into a new faction which they named "Vperyod"(Forward.) The name was selected because it was that of the paper published by the Bolshevik "Bureau of the Committees of the Majority" in l904, in order to lend support to the group’s claim that its members were "true Bolsheviks" and that the Leninists were now "betraying Bolshevism".
As Lenin characterised the faction:
"’Vperyod’ represents a non-Socialist-Democratic tendency (otzovism and Machism)" ..
(V. I. Lenin: "The New Faction of Conciliators or the Virtuous."",Lenin "Selected Works"., Volume 4; London; l943; p. 106).
Analysing the programme put forward by the "Vperyod" group, Lenin criticised it for its deviations towards otzovism in the sphere of political tactics and towards reactionary idealism in the sphere of philosophy:
"The platform of the "Vperyod" is permeated through and through by views which are incompatible with Party decisions. . .
In actual fact otzovist tactical conclusions follow from the view adopted by the ‘vperyod’ platform.
By putting forward in its platform the task of elaborating a so-called ‘proletarian philosophy’, ‘proletarian culture’, etc., the ‘Vperyod’ group in fact comes to the defence of the group of literati who are putting forward anti-Marxist views in this field. . . .
By declaring otzovism a ‘legitimate shade of opinion’, the platform of the ‘Vperyod’ group shields and defends otzovism, which is doing great harm to the Party".
(V. I. Lenin: ‘The ‘Vperyod’ Group", in: "Collected Works"; Volume 16; Moscow; 1963; p.145-6).
"Everyone knows that it is precisely Machism that is really implied by the term ‘'proletarian philosophy’. In fact, the most influential literary nucleus of the group is Machian, and it regards non-Machian philosophy as non-‘proletarian’. . . . In reality, all the phrases about ‘proletarian culture’ are intended precisely to cloak the struggle against Marxism."
V.I. Lenin: "Notes of a Publicist", in: ‘Selected Works’, Volume 4; London; l943; p. 35-6).
In the winter of 1910-11 the 'Vperyod' group organised a second 'school' at Bologna (Italy), Here Trotsky acted as one of the lecturers, together with Yuli Martov and Aleksandra Kollontai.
1910: The January 1910 Central Cormmittee Meeting
In January 1910, against the opposition of Lenin who considered the circumstances inopportune, a meeting of the Central Commiittee of the RSDLP was held in Paris, attended by representatives of the Bolsheviks, the Mensheviks, the "Party Mensheviks", the Social-Democratic Party of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania, the Social-Democratic Party of the Latvian Region, the "Vperyod" group, the Viennese group, and the "Bund'. Lenin's opposition to the holding of the Central Committee at this time was due to his awareness that a number of Bolsheviks -- including Alexel Rykov, Solomon Lozovsky, Lev Kamenev, and Grigori Sokolnikov, had adopted a concilationist position.
Despite this, the Leninists were able to secure the unanimous adoption of a resolution which condemned both otzovism and liquidationism, although without specifically naming them.
"The historical situation of the Social-Democratic movement in the period of the bourgeois counter-revolution inevitably gives rise, as a manifestation of the bourgeois influence over the proletariat, on the one hand to the renunciation of the illegal Social-Democratic Party, this debasement of its role and importance, the attempts to curtail the programme and tactical tasks and slogans of consistent Social-Democracy, etc.; on the other hand, it gives rise to the renunciation of the Duma work of Social-Democracy and of the utilisation of the legal possibilities, the failure to understand the importance of either, the inability to adapt the consistent Social-Democratic tactics to the peculiar historical conditions of the present moment, etc.
An integral part of the Social-Democratic tactics under such conditions is the overcoming of both deviations by broadening and deepening the Social-Democratic work in all spheres of the class struggle of the proletariat and by explaining the danger of such deviations".
(Resolution of Plenum of Central Committee of the RSDLP, January 1910, cited by V. I. Lenin: "Controversial Questions", in: "Selected Works", Volume 4; London; 1943; p. 129).
Lenin’s draft resolution used the phrase "fight on two fronts", but this was altered by the meeting, on Trotsky's motion, to the phrase "overcoming . . by broadening and deepening":
"The draft of this resolution was submitted to the Central Committee by myself, and the clause in question was altered by the plenum itself . . on the motion of Trotsky, against whom I fought without success. . . . The words ‘overcoming by means of broadening and deepening’ were inserted on Trostsky’s motion. . . "
Nothing at the plenum aroused more furious – and often comical -- indignation than the idea of a 'struggle on two fronts’. . . .
Trotsky's motion to substituite 'overcoming by means of broadening and deepening' for the struggle on two fronts’ meet with the hearty support of the Mensheviks and the ‘Vperyod’-ists. . . .
In reality this phrase expresses a vague desire, a pious innocent wish that there should be less internal strife among the Social-Democrats! . . it is a sigh of the so-called conciliators."
(V. I. Lenin: "Notes of a Publicist', in: ibid.; p. 45, 47)
Despite it’s dilution by the concilationists, Lenin considered this resolution as "especially important":
"This decision is especially important because it was carried unanimously: all the Bolsheviks, without exception, all the so-called 'Vperyod'-ists, and finally (this is most important of all) all the Mensheviks and the present liquidators without exception, and also all the 'national' (i.e., Jewish, Polish and Lettish) Marxists endorsed this decision".
(V. I. Lenin: "Controversial Questions ", in: ibid.; p. 128-9).
However, the conciliationists managed to secure the adoption of a number of other resolutions at the Central Committee meeting:
1) to dissolve all factional groups;
2) to discontinue the Bolshevik paper "Proletary" and the Menshevik paper "Golos Sotsial-Demokrata";
3) to grant Trotsky's Viennese "Pravda"' a subsidy from Party funds and to delegate a representative of the Central Committee to sit as co-editor along with Trotsky;
4) to set up an editorial board for the Party's central organ, "Sotsial-Demokrat" (The Social-Democrat) consisting of two Bolsheviks (Lenin and Zinoviev), two Mensheviks (Martov and Dan, and one representative of the Polish Party (Waraki);
5) to initiate a "Discussion Sheet" in conjunction with the central organ, open to representatives of trends which differed from the line of the Party;
6) to establish the seat of the Central Commitee in Russia;
7) to transfer all funds in the possession of factional centres to the general Party treasury.
So far as the last point was concerned, the Bolsheviks transferred their funds to three trustees - the leaders of the Social-Democratic Party of Germany, Karl Kautsky, Franz Mehring and Clara Zetkin -- until it could be shown that the other factions had carried out the decisions adopted at the Central Committee meeting.
The Leninists characterised this series of decisions as a conciliationist error, since it secured the dissolution of the Bolshevik faction in return for a worthless verbal promise from the other factions.
"Both the ideological merit of the plenum and its conciliationist error become clear. Its merit lies in its rejection of the ideas of liquidationism and otzovism; its mistake lies in indiscriminately concluding an agreement with persons and groups whose deeds do not correspond to their promises ( 'they signed the resolution')".
(V. I. Lenin: "The New Faction of Conciliators or the Virtuous", in: ibid.; p. 101).
"The conciliators recognised all and sundry tendencies on 'their mere promise to purge themselves, instead of recognising only those tendencies which are purging themselves (and only in so far as they do purge themselves) of their "ulcers". The 'Vperyod'-ists, the 'Golos' ites and Trotsky all ‘signed’ the resolution against otzovism and liquidationism -- that is, they promised to 'purge themselves' -- and that was the end of it! The conciliators 'believed' the promise and entangled the Party with non-Party grouplets, ‘ulcerous’ as they themselves admitted."
(V. I.. Lenin: 'The Climax of the Party Crisis’ in. ibid; p. 115).
The Violation of the CC Decisions
The Bolsheviks dissolved their factional organisation and wound up their factional Paper ‘Proletary' (The Proletarian), in accordance with the decisions of the January 1910 meeting of the Central Committee.
The Mensheviks, however, declined to dissolve their factional organisation, their factional paper "Golos Sotsial-Demokrata' (The Voice of the Social-Democrat) or to break with liquidationism. In fact, they began to publish in St. Petersburg a new legal monthly magazine called "Nasha Zarya" (Our Dawn) (which continued to appear until 1914) and continued to publish in Moscow their legal journal "Vozrozhdeniye" (Regeneration). And in August 1910 the Mensheviks began to issue in Moscow the magazine "Zhizn"(Life) (which, appeared until September 1910), while in January 1911 they began to issue in St. Petersburg the legal magazine "Dyelo Zhizni" (Life’s Cause)
(which appeared until October 1941).
In all these publications, as well as in "Golos Sotsial-Deniokrata"; which continued to appear regularly, the Mensheviks continued to put forward openly liquidationist views:
"A party in the form of a complete and organised hierarchy of institutions does not exist"
(P. Potresov: Article in "Nasha Zarys", No. 2, February 1910, p. 61, cited in: V. I. Lenin: "Notes Of a Publicist", in: "Selected Works", Volume 4; London; l943; p. 53).
"There is nothing to wind up and -- we on our part would add -- the dream of re-establishing this hierarchy in its old underground form is simply a harmful reactionary utopia".
(Editorial in "Vozrozhdeniye", No. 5, April 12th., 1910, p. 51, cited in V.I.Lenin: ibid.; p. 53).
"The tactics which are to be observed in the activities of the so-called 'liquidators' are the 'tactics' which put the open labour movement in the centre, strive to extend it in every possible direction, and seek within this open labour movement and there only the elements for the revival of the party".
(Y.Martov: "Article in "Zhizn", No. 1, September 12th., 1910, p. 9-l0; cited in: V. I. Lenin: 'The Social Structure of State Power, the Prospects and Liquidationism"; in:ibid.; p. 84).
"In the new historical period of Russian life that has set in, the working class must organise itself not 'for revolution’, not 'in expectation of a revolution’, but simply for the determined and systematic defence of its special interests in all spheres of life; for the gathering and training of its forces for this many-sided and comlex activity; for the training and accumulation in this way of socialist consciousness in general; for acquiring the ability to find one’s bearings -- to stand up for oneself".
(Y. Larin: "Right Turn and About Turn!", in: "Dyelo Zhizni", No. 2, p..18, cited in: V. I. Lenin: ibid.; p. 90).
"Great political tasks make inevitable a relentless war against anti- liquidationism. ., . Anti-liquidationism is a constant brake, constant disruption."
(F. Dan: "Article in "Nasha Zarya", No. 6, 1911, cited by: J. V. Stalin: "The Situation in the Social-Democratic Group in the Duma ", in: "Works", Volume 2; Moscow; 1953; p. 385).
In various articles from June 1910 onwards, Lenin drew attention to the fact that the liquidator Menshviks had failed to carry out the decisions of the January 1910 Central Committee meeting:
"During that year (1910), the 'Golos'-ites, the 'Vperyod'-ists, and Trotsky, all in fact, estranged themselves from the Party and moved precisely in the direction of liquidationism and otzovism-ultimatumism".
(V. I. Lenin: "The Climax of the Party Crisis", in: ibid; p. 116).
"Since that very plenum of 1910, the above-mentioned principal publications of the liquidators. . have turned decidedly and along the whole line towards liquidationism, not only by 'belittling' (in spite of the decisions of the plenum) 'the importance of the illegal Party'; but directly renouncing the Party, calling it a ‘corpse’, declaring the Party to be already dissolved, describing the restoration of an illegal Party as a 'reactionary Utopia', heaping calumny and abuse on the illegal Party in the pages of the legal magazines".
(V. I. Lenin: Resolution on Liquidationism and the Group of Liquidators, Sixth Conference of the RSDLP, in: Ibid.; p. 152)
"All the liquidationist newspapers and magazines….. after the most definite and even-unanimous decisions have been adopted by the Party, reiterate thoughts and arguments that contain obvious liquidationism. . . .
The truth proved by the documents I have quoted, which cover a period of more than five years (.1908-13), is that the liquidators, mocking all the Party decisions, continue to abuse and bait the Party, i.e., 'illegal work'".
(V.- I. Lenin: "Controversial Questions", in:. ibid.; p. l33-4).
The 'Vperyod'-ists, on the other hand, continued to support toleration of otzovism within the Party:
"'Vperyod', No. 3 (May 1911) . . openly states that otzovism is a 'completely legitimate tendency within our Party' (p. 78)".
(V.I. Lenin: 'The New Faction of Conciliators Or the Virtuous', in; ibid.; p. 107).
In September 1910, Trotsky expelled Lev Kamenev, the officica representative of the Central Committee of the Party, from the editorial board of ‘ravda' denouncing:
"The conspiracy of the emigre clique (i.e., the Bolsheviks -- Ed.) against the Russian Social-Democratic Labour party";
(L. Trotsky: "Pravda', No. 21, 1910),
and adding threateningly:
"Lenin’s circle, which wants to place itself above the Party, will find itself outside it'.
(L. Trotsky: ibid).
Lenin declared that Trotsky's expulsion of the CC representative from the editorial board of "Pravda" confirmed the already expressed view of the Bolsheviks that, under the guise of "non-factionalism", Trotsky was, in fact, endeavouring to form a faction:
"That Trotsky's venture is an attempt to create a faction is obvious to all now, after obvious to all now, after Trotsky has removed the representative of the Central Committee from ‘Pravda’".
(V. I. Lenin: "The Historical Meaning of the Internal Party Struggle in Russia": In 'Selected Works'; Volume 3; London; 19~6; p. 517).
The fact that Trotsky’s professed desire for unity of the factions concealed his support in practice for the Menshevik liquidators and otzovists is shown by his failure to condemn these factions for their repudiation of the conciliationist decisions to which all actions had agreed at the January 1910 meeting Central Committee.
As Trotsky’s sympathetic biographer Isaac Deutscher expresses it:
"This was the occasion on which Trotsky, the champion of unity, should have spared the offenders against unity no censure. Yet in 'Pravda’ he 'suspended judgement’ and only mildly hinted at his disapproval of the Mensheviks' conduct.. . . Trotsky took his stand against the disciplinarians. Having done so, he involved himself in glaring inconsistencies. He, the fighter for unity, connived in the name of freedom of dissent at the new breach in the Party brought about by the Mensheviks. He, who glorified the underground with zeal worthy of a Bolshevik; joined hands with those who longed to rid themselves of the underground as a dangerous embarrassment. Finally, the sworn enemy of bourgeois liberalism allied himself with those who stood for an alliance with liberalism against those who were fanatically opposed to such an alliance. . . .
So self-contradictory an attitude brought him nothing but frustration. Once again to the Bolsheviks he appeared not just an opponent, but a treacherous enemy. . . Martov made him turn a blind eye more than once on Menshevik moves which were repugnant to him. His long and bitter quarrel with Lenin made him seize captiously on every vulnerable detail of Bolshevik policy. His disapproval of Leninism he expressed publicly with the usual wounding sarcasm. His annoyance with the Mensheviks he vented mostly in private arguments or in 'querulous' letters".
(I. Deutscher: "The Prophet Armed: Trotsky: 1879-1921"; London; 1970; p.. 195, 196).
Lenin expressed, himself more forthrightly on Trotsky's attitude in an article entitled "Judas Trotsky's Blush of Shame":
"At the Plenary Meeting Judas Trotsky made a big show of fighting liquidationism and otzovism. He vowed and swore that he was true to the Party. He was given a subsidy. . .
Judas expelled the representative of the Central Committee from 'Pravda' and began to write liquidationist articles in ‘Vorwarts'. In defiance of the direct decision of the School Commission appointed by the Plenary Meeting to the effect that no Party lecturer may go to the ‘Vperyod’ factional school, Judas Trotsky did go and discussed a plan for a conference with the ‘Vperyod’ group. . . Such is Judas Trotsky's blush of shame".
(V. I. Lenin: "Judas Trotsky's Blush of Shame"; in: "Collected Works"; Volume 17; Moscow; l963; p.45) .
The liquidator Menshevik members of the Central Committee, now based in Russia by the decision of the January 1910 meeting of the Central Committee and so compelled to function illegally, refused to attend the CC on the grounds that all illegal organisations were "objectionable" and "harmful". The conciliationist members of the Central Committee refused to agree to meetings of the Central Committee without the liquidator Mensheviks, on the grounds that such meetings would be "unrepresentative".
"And what about the work in Russia? Not a single meeting of the Central Committee was held during the whole year! Why? Because the members of the Central Committee in Russia (conciliators who well deserved the kisses of 'Golos Likvidatorov') kept on 'inviting' the liquidators for a year and a quarter but never got them to 'accept the invitation’".
(V. I. Lenin: "The Climax of the Party Crisis", in: Ibid.; p.116).
The result was that for a considerable period after the January 1910 meeting of the Central Committee, all practical Party work was carried out by the Bolsheviks and the Party Mensheviks", the latter led by Georgi Plekhanov.
"All Party work .. during the whole of that year (i.e., 1910 -- Ed.) was done by the Bolsheviks and the Plekhanovists. . .
This Party work (in literature, which was accessible to all) was conducted by the Bolsheviks and the Plekhanovists in spite.. of the 'conciliatory' resolutions and the collegiums formed by the plenum, and not in conjunction with the 'Golos'-ites and the 'Vperyod'-ists, but against them (because it was impossible to work in conjunction with the liquidators and otozovists-ultimatumists)".
(V. I. Lenin: ibid.; p. 115, 116).
1910-1911: The Bolsheviks Re-form their Faction
Considering in September l910 that the repudiation of the January 1910 Central Committee decisions had been sufficiently demonstrated; in this month the Bolsheviks funded their own factional nowspaper "Rabochaya Gazeta"' (Worker’s Newspaper), published in Paris under the editorship of Lenin. The Sixth Party Confercnce in January 1912, transformed this paper into the official organ of the Party's Central Committee, and it continued to appear until August 1912.
"The first factional step the Bolsheviks took was to found "Rabochaya Gazeta" in September 1910".
(V. I. Lenin. "The New Faction of Conciliators or the Virtuous", in "Selected Works" Volume 4; London; l943; p. 102).
In December 1910 the Bolsheviks announced formally that they considered themselves released from all the obligations imposed by the January 1910 Central Committee meeting since its decisions had been consistently flouted by the liquidator Mensheviks.
"By their 'declaration' of December 18, 1910, the Bolsheviks openly and formally declared that they cancelled the agreement with all the other factions. The violation of the 'peace' made at the plenum, its violation by 'Golos’, 'Vperyod' and Trotsky, had become a fully recognised fact".
(V.I. Lenin: "The Climax of the Party Crisis", in ibid.; p.117.
In the same month, December 1910, the Bolsheviks began publication in Russia of' the legal newspaper "Zvezda" (The Star) - published at first weekly and then two or three times a week, in St. Petersburg until its suppression by the tsarist government in April 1912. "Zvedzda", was succeeded by "Nevskaya Zvezda" (The Neva Star) , until this too was suppressed in October 1912. They also began to issue the legal magazine "Mysl" (Thought), published monthly in Moscow until April 1911.
In May 1911 the Bolsheviks broke off relations with the Central Corrinittee Bureau Abroad, which was dominated by liquidator Mensheviks.
"For a year and a half, from January 1910 to June 1911, when they had a majority in the Foreign Bureau of the Central Committee and faithful 'friends' in the persons of the conciliators in the Russian Bureau of the Central Committee, they did nothing, absolutely nothing to further the work in Russia!"
(V. I. Lenin: 'The Climax of the Party Crisis", in: ibid.; p. 121).
"The rupture between the Bolsheviks . . . and the Foreign Bureau of the Central Committee is a correction of the conciliationist mistake of the plenum. The rapprochement of the factions which are actually fighting against liquidationism end otzovism will now proceed despite the forms decided on by the plenum, for these forms did not correspond to the content".
(V. I. Lenin: "The New Faction of Conciliators or the Virtuous", in: ibid.; p. 101).
1911: The June 1911 Meeting of CC Members Living Abroad
In June 1911, on the initiative of Lenin, a meeting of Central Committee members living- abroad was held in Paris, attended by representatives of the Bolsheviks, the "Party Mensheviks" the Social-Democratic Party of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania, and the Social-Democratic Party of the Latvian Region.
The meeting set up an Organising Commission Abroad, charged with the calling of an All-Russian Conference. This, in turn, set up a Technical Comminion Abroad, to deal with technical questions such as publishing, transport, etc.
From its inception the Organising Commission Abroad had a majority of conciliationist members and, to avoid bringing about a break with the liquidator Mensheviks, it did not proceed with the work of calling a conference. In November 1911 therefore, the Bolshevik members withdrew from it.
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