In 1883
several Marxists in the Land
and Liberty organization left to form the Emancipation of Labour.
This group, led by George Plekhanov,
argued that it would be impossible to overthrow Russia's authoritarian
government and replace it with peasant communes. They believed that
a successful Marxist revolution could only take place after the development
of capitalism. According to Plekhanov, it would be the industrial
proletariat who would bring about a socialist revolution.
In March,
1898, the various Marxist groups in Russia met in Minsk and decided
to form the Social Democratic Labour Party (SDLP). The party was banned
in Russia so most of its leaders were forced to live in exile. In
1900 the group began publishing a journal called Iskra.
It was printed in several European cities and then smuggled into Russia
by a network of SDLP agents.
At the
Second Congress of the Social Democratic Labour Party in London
in 1903, there was a dispute between Vladimir
Lenin and Julius Martov, two of SDLP's
leaders. Lenin argued for a small party of professional revolutionaries
with a large fringe of non-party sympathizers and supporters. Martov
disagreed believing it was better to have a large party of activists.
Julius
Martov based his ideas on the socialist parties that existed in
other European countries such as the British
Labour Party. Lenin argued that the situation was different in
Russia as it was illegal to form socialist political parties under
the Tsar's autocratic government. At the end of the debate Martov
won the vote 28-23. Vladimir Lenin was
unwilling to accept the result and formed a faction known as the Bolsheviks.
Those who remained loyal to Martov became known as Mensheviks.
Gregory
Zinoviev, Anatoli Lunacharsky,
Joseph Stalin, Mikhail
Lashevich, Nadezhda Krupskaya,
Mikhail Frunze, Alexei
Rykov, Yakov Sverdlov, Lev
Kamenev, Maxim Litvinov, Vladimir
Antonov, Felix Dzerzhinsky, Gregory
Ordzhonikidze and Alexander Bogdanov
joined the Bolsheviks. Whereas George
Plekhanov, Pavel Axelrod, Lev
Deich, Vladimir
Antonov-Ovseenko,
Leon Trotsky, Vera
Zasulich, Irakli Tsereteli, Moisei
Uritsky, Noi Zhordania, Andrei
Vyshinsky and Fedor Dan supported
Julius Martov.
The SDLP
journal, Iska remained under the control of the Mensheviks
so Vladimir Lenin, with the help of Anatoli
Lunacharsky, Alexander Bogdanov,
Lev Kamenev and Gregory
Zinoviev, established a Bolshevik
newspaper, Vpered.
(1)
Isaac Deutscher, Stalin (1949)
In March, 1898, a few Socialists, less than a dozen,
gathered in the town of Minsk in a secret conference to proclaim the
foundation of the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party. Throughout
the century the bolder spirits among the Russian intelligentsia were
in revolt against the oppressive autocracy of the Tsars; but it was
only towards the end of the century that Marxian socialism became
the dominant trend in the revolutionary opposition.
(2)
Alexander Kerensky was a young man when
the Social Democratic Labour Party was formed. He wrote about his
impressions of the party in Russia and History's Turning Point
(1965)
The Marxists (Social Democrats) propagated their economic
doctrine, which demanded alienation from the bourgeois and petty bourgeois
student body and called for the marshaling of all efforts to achieve
the victory of the industrial proletariat. Very few of the students
sympathies with this idea. To most of us in Russia the exclusive regard
for the industrial proletariat and the contemptuous disregard for
the peasantry was utterly absurd.
(3)
Vladimir Lenin, What Is To Be
Done? (1902)
An organization of workers must be first a trade organization;
secondly, it must be as broad as possible; thirdly, it must be as
little secret as possible. An organization of revolutionaries, on
the contrary, must embrace primarily and chiefly people whose profession
consists of revolutionary activity.
In an autocratic country, the more we narrow the membership of such
an organization, restricting it only to those who are professionally
engaged in revolutionary activities and have received a professional
training in the art of struggle against the political police, the
more difficult will it be to catch such an organization.
(4)
After the 2nd Congress of the Social Democratic Labour Party Leon
Trotsky wrote about why the split took place.
One can
say of Lenin and Martov that, even before the split, even before the
Congress, Lenin was 'hard' and Martov 'soft'. And they both knew it.
Lenin would glance at Martov, whom he estimated highly, with a critical
and somewhat suspicious look, and Martov, feeling his glance, would
look down and move his thin shoulders nervously.
How did
I come to be with the 'softs' at the congress? Of the Iskra editors,
my closest connections were with Martov, Zasulitch and Axelrod. Their
influence over me was unquestionable.
The split
came unexpectedly for all the members of the congress. Lenin, the
most active figure in the struggle, did not foresee it, nor had he
ever desired it. Both sides were greatly upset by the course of events.
After the Congress Lenin was sick for several weeks with a nervous
illness.
(5) Alexander Shotman attended
the 2nd Congress of the Social Democratic Labour Party
and after the debate joined the Bolsheviks.
He explained his decision in his book, Reminiscences of an Old
Bolshevik, published in 1932.
Martov resembled a poor Russian intellectual. His face
was pale, he had sunken cheeks; his scant beard was untidy. His glasses
barely remained on his nose. His suit hung on him as on a clothes
hanger. Manuscripts and pamphlets protruded from all his pockets.
He was stooped; one of his shoulders was higher than the other. He
had a stutter. His outward appearance was far from attractive. But
as soon as he began a fervent speech all these outer faults seemed
to vanish, and what remained was his colossal knowledge, his sharp
mind, and his fanatical devotion to the cause of the working class.
When Plekhanov
spoke, I enjoyed the beauty of his speech, the remarkable incisiveness
of his words. But when Lenin arose in opposition, I was always on
Lenin's side. Why? I cannot explain it to myself. But so it was, and
not only with me, but with my comrades and workers.
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