A University of Sussex DPhil thesis Available online via Sussex Research Online: http://eprints.sussex.ac.uk/ This thesis is protected by copyright which belongs to the author. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Please visit Sussex Research Online for more information and further details Lenin and the Iskra Faction of the RSDLP 1899-1903 Richard Mullin Doctor of Philosophy Resubmission University of Sussex March 2010 1 I hereby declare that this thesis has not been submitted in whole or in part to another University for the award of any other degree ……………………………….. 2 Contents Contents.......................................................................................................................3 Acknowledgements……………..…………………………………………………...4 Abstract........................................................................................................................5 Notes on Names, Texts and Dates…….....……………………..…………………...6 Chapter One: Historical and Historiographical Context…………………..…....7 i) 1899-1903 in the Context of Russian Social-Democratic History and Theory …12 ii) Historiographical Trends in the Study of Lenin and the RSDLP …………...…..23 iii) How the thesis develops previous work ………………………………..……….40 A: The Struggle Between Revolutionary Marxism and Economism Chapter Two: Autumn 1899-Summer 1900: Ideology…………………………53 i) Two Contrasting Programmes...............................................................................57 ii) Lenin and Rabochee Delo…………………………..…………………………...67 iii) A Secret Alliance is Exposed………….………………..…………………….....74 iv) Economism…………………………………………..…………………………..80 v) Some Conclusions…....……….………………………..………………………...86 Chapter Three: Autumn 1899-Autumn 1901: Organisational Tactics……… 88 i) Rabochaia Gazeta………………………………….………………………….... 90 ii) The Declarations of the Editorial Board of Iskra………………….…………....98 iii)Lenin's 'reinsertion' of the Plekhanovites back into the RSDLP….….…………109 iv) Some Conclusions……………………………………….………….………… .124 . B: The Struggle Between Democratic Centralism and Federalism Chapter Four: November 1901-February 1903: Party Democracy…….……...128 i) Two Contrasting Methods of Organising a Congress………………………..…..133 ii)Revolutionary Marxism and Reformism in the Context of RSDLP Democracy.....147 iii) The Reconstitution of the Organising Committee and its Work……………..….153 iv)The Jewish Bund……………………………………………..………………….165 v) Some conclusions…………………..………………….…………………………175 Chapter Five: December 1902-August 1903: Struggle….…………………........179 i) The Resistance Campaign of the Bund and the Economists……………..……….184 ii) Elements within the Iskra Faction Break with Lenin's Organisational Plan…...193 iii) How the Revolutionary Marxists Split at the Second Congress…….………..…205 iv) How Martov changed his stance………………………………………..….……212 v) Some Conclusions..................................................................................................222 Chapter Six: Summary and General Conclusions………………………………226 3 Bibliography…………………………………………………………….……242 Acknowledgements A significant amount of the material necessary for the preparation of this material is located in the British Library at St Pancras. Of particular use was the guide to the library‘s Russian Revolutionary Literature Collection, compiled by KE Carpenter and the Collection of Newspapers, Periodicals Pamphlets and Books Relating to the Menshevik Movement compiled by the Hoover Institute for War, Revolution and Peace. Thanks must go to the individuals and institutions that compiled and maintain these resources, including the curators of the Russian collection, Peter Hellyer and Katya Rogatchevskaia, and the staff in the Rare Books and Music Reading Room. Especially useful also was the Marxist Internet Archive – www.marxists.org - and special thanks to the many volunteers who have worked on this project is due. Other digital resources used include the Jstor and Project Muse journal archives and the Eastview collection of databases and archives. In my research I also made use of the SSES library, the London Library, the University of Sussex Library, the Russian State Library in Moscow and the Russian State Archive of Social and Political History. Many thanks to all those involved in these projects. 4 University of Sussex Richard Mullin: Social & Political Thought: DPhil Submission Lenin and the Iskra Faction of the RSDLP: 1899-1903 Abstract Using primary material, much of which has been overlooked up to now, this thesis argues that the Iskra newspaper and its organisational appendages were conceived by Lenin and his closest collaborators in a pragmatic attempt to strike a balance between the theoretically authoritative and revolutionary, yet inactive Osvobozhdenie Truda and the more active, but reformist and theoretically unclear Rabochee Delo grouping. As such, Iskra does not appear to have been the product of a detailed plan conceived in Siberian exile, as is often thought. Nor did it represent the extreme left wing of the Russian social-democratic movement of the time, a place occupied by Osvobozhdenie Truda. Iskra and its supporting organisations formed a faction of a broader party, the RSDLP, whose institutions it aimed to rebuild and to which it aimed to give ideological leadership broadly in sympathy with the basic views of Plekhanov, though differing with him in terms of tactics. Starting from a position of weakness both in the emigration and inside Russia, Lenin at first sought an alliance with the ‗Economists‘ of Rabochee Delo rather than a policy of open factional struggle, which was at this stage (1900-01) advocated by Plekhanov. Only when serious vacillations in the Rabochee Delo line started to emerge in the spring of 1901 did Lenin break with this tactic, in despair of any useful co-operation with the politically unstable followers of the economist journal. From the end of 1901an open struggle for the support of the RSDLP local committees inside Russia began, in which the Economists were unable to martial support, whilst Iskra, owing to its network of full-time ‗agents‘ and their assistance, eventually won a dominant position. On this basis, plans were laid for a Second Congress of the RSDLP that reveal a distinctly democratic and pluralist conception of party organisation on the part of Lenin, A conception which does not square with his dictatorial reputation. Accordingly, this thesis argues that the Second Congress was a credible, if not perfect representation of rank and file opinion within the RSDLP at the time and that the split within the Iskra faction that took place at this meeting owes more to pre-existing tensions with the Russian Iskra organisation rather than any unreasonable behaviour on the part of Lenin. Specifically, individual agents showed signs of weariness in relation to Lenin‘s policy of factional struggle prior to the Second Congress. For this reason they sought, but failed to find compromise at the congress with the Bund and the economists, and as such provoked a split with the supporters of Lenin within Iskra. As such, it was actually an inopportune search for compromise which appears to have provoked the split within Iskra, rather than dictatorial or intolerant practices on the part of Lenin. The supporters of Martov assumed that the Bund and the supporters of economism could be appeased, but this was not in fact the case. 5 Notes on Names, Texts and Dates Every individual who appears in this study is referred to by his or her best known pseudonym even though, in the documents we have studied, they are referred to using a variety of different aliases. We are grateful to Brian Pearce's index of cadre names which can be found in his translation of the Minutes of the Second RSDLP Congress, the footnotes and endnotes in the Leninskii Sbornik, and Krupskaya's Memories of Lenin for help in linking pseudonyms to definite individuals. As a result we can draw attention to the fact that he following individuals who appear in this study are widely known by the following alternative names: Name in the Study Alternative Names VP Akimov VP Makhnovetz [real name] EM Alexandrova Stein [at the Second Congress] LO Dan LO Kantsel-Tsederbaum [maiden name] T Dan FI Dan RS Halberstadt Fischer [Second Congress] VN Krokhmal Fomin [Second Congress] PA Krasikov Pavlovich, Ignat, Pankrat EE Levin A Egorov Iu O Martov L Martov AS Martynov AS Pikker [real name] AN Potresov Starover DB Riazanov DB Goldendach, N Riazanov AM Stopani Lange [Second Congress] Apart from this, we cannot refrain from the observation that some of documents we cite are written in non-standard Russian, a fact which has generated a protest from a native Russian speaker who proofread the draft. Unfortunately, many of her painstaking corrections to the citations were in fact modifications of the original text, which the present writer was unable to accept for quite obvious reasons. The only modifications we have made to any text is the use of the modern Russian spelling in place of the one in existence prior to the orthographic reform of 1917, which is due to the limitations of modern keyboards, and the sparing use of ellipsis All place names are the official names ones in use at