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The R.S.D.L.P. has passed through unprecedentedly hard years of rampant counter-revolution and is now on the right way to re-establishing its organisation and increasing its forces and its guiding influence on the Russian proletariat, which dealt powerful blows at the autocracy in 1905 and will destroy it in the coming revolution.

The hard years 1908-11 were years of division; it was in that period that the present Executive Committee of the Social-Democratic Party of Poland and Lithuania, which had joined our Party in 1906 and had marched with us Bolsheviks against the Menshevik opportunists, seceded from the R.S.D.L.P.

The worker Social-Democrats of Poland should make a critical appraisal of this secession of the present Executive from the R.S.D.L.P. Therefore I very gladly accept the proposal of the Warsaw Committee of the S.D.P. of Poland and Lithuania that I should briefly explain in Gazeta Robotnicza [91] the causes of the division in the Party and the sorry role which the present Executive played in it, and should point out the immediate tasks of the Social-Democratic proletariat of all Russia.

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NOTES



^[91] Gazeta Robotnicza (Workers' Newspaper )‹an illegal organ published by the Warsaw Committee of the Social-Democratic Party of Poland and Lithuania from May to October 1906. Publication was resumed in 1912. The split among the Polish Social-Democrats in 1912 gave rise to two parallel Party committees. There were two Warsaw Committees and two newspapers bearing the same title of Gazeta Robotnicza, one of them being published by the supporters

 
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of the Executive Committee in Warsaw and the other by the oppositionist Warsaw Committee in Cracow. Lenin's article "The Situation in tho R.S.D.L.P. and the Immediate Tasks of the Party" was published in the Cracow Gazeta Robotnicza No. 15-16. For the split in the Social-Democratic Party of Poland and Lithuania, see Lenin's article "The Split Among the Polish Social-Democrats" (pp. 479-84 of this volume).    [p. 150]

^[92] See Note 20.

[Note 20 -- The Vperyod group was an anti-Party group of otzovists, ultimatumists, god-builders and empirio-monists (adherents of the reactionary, idealist philosophy of Mach and Avenarius). The group was formed in December 1909 on the initiative of A. A. Bogdanov and G. A. Alexinsky. It published a printed organ called Vperyod. In 1912 it united with the Menshevik liquidators to form a general anti-Party bloc (the August bloc) against the Bolsheviks. This bloc was organised by Trotsky. Failing to gain support among the workers, the group virtually fell to pieces in 1913-14. Its final disintegration occurred in 1917 after the February Revolution.
The Golos supporters were Menshevik liquidators grouped around Golos Sotsial-Demokrata (P. B. Axelrod, F. I. Dan, L. Martov, A. S. Martynov, A. N. Potresov and others), which was published from February 1908 to December 1911 first in Geneva and then in Paris.
The pro-Party Bolsheviks were a group of Bolsheviks who took a conciliatory view of liquidationism and otzovism. Most of the conciliators opposed the Lenin bloc of Bolsheviks and pro-Party Mensheviks. They urged unprincipled unification of the Bolsheviks with various groups that had no support among the masses but sought to exert influence in the Party.
The pro-Party Mensheviks were a small group of Mensheviks led by Plekhanov. They had broken away from the Menshevik liquidators, and opposed liquidationism in 1908-12.]

   [p. 152]

^[93] This refers to the meeting which the liquidators held in Russia in the middle of January 1912. The meting was called on the initiative of the Bund and the Contra Committee of the Social-Democratic Party of the Lettish Territory. It is known as the "Meeting of National Social-Democratic Organisations". It was attended by two delegates from the Lettish Social-Democrats, two from the Bund, one from the Caucasian Regional Committee and one from the Social-Democracy of Poland and Lithuania (this last delegate was present only at the second sitting). The meeting set up an Organising Committee for convening the Trotskyist-liquidationist August conference of 1912.    [p. 156]

^[94] Czerwony Sztandar (Red Banner ) -- an illegal newspaper published by the Executive Committee of the Social-Democratic Party of Poland and Lithuania from 1902 to 1918 (Zurich-Cracow-Warsaw-Berlin). Publication was suspended between 1914 and 1917. In all 195 issues appeared.    [p. 156]