1st Congress of the RSDLP

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The 1st Congress of the RSDLP (Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, RSDLP) was held between March 14-16 ([March 1-3, O.S.) 1898 in Minsk, Russian Empire (now Belarus) in secrecy in a private house on the outskirts of Minsk (now in the town centre).

The Congress was convened by three major social democratic groups from different areas of the Russian Empire. The first one was the St. Petersburg-based "Union of the Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class", which had been active since 1895[1]. The future founder of Menshevism Julius Martov and the future founder of Bolshevism Vladimir Lenin were among its leaders in 1895-1896[2]. The group, one of the oldest in the Empire, couldn't play a significant role since it had been recently weakened by arrests[3]. The second group was the General Jewish Labor Union, also known as "The Jewish Bund", which had united Yiddish speaking social democrats in the Pale of Settlement in September 1897. At the time, the Bund was the largest socialist group in the Empire[4] and sponsored the Congress. The third group was the social democratic organization formed in 1897 around the Kiev-based Rabochaya Gazeta (Workers' Newspaper)[5]. There were 9 delegates[6] to the Congress representing these three groups as well as social democrats from Moscow and Yekaterinoslav.

There were 6 sessions, with no minutes taken because of the need for secrecy; only resulutions were recorded. The major issues discussed by the delegates were merging all social democratic groups into one party and selecting the party's name. The Congress also elected a Central Committee of three: Stepan Radchenko, one of the oldest Russian social democrats and a leader of the St. Petersburg "Union", Boris Eidelman of Workers' Newspaper and Alexander Kremer[7], a Jewish Bund leader. The new party's Manifesto was written by Peter Struve[8] at Radchenko's request.

The Central Committee elected by Congress printed the Manifesto and the resolutions of the Congress, but its members were soon arrested by the Russian secret police.

The first Congress failed to unite the Russian Social Democracy, neither it proposed the Statute nor the Programme. A wave of police repression followed, which prevented the party from functioning as a cohesive body for a number of years and ushered in a period of internal schisms and dissention. It wasn't until 1903 that the 2nd Congress of the RSDLP was held abroad and adopted the party's Charter and Programme.


Congresses of the RSDLP, RCB(b), VKP(b), CPSU

1st Congress, 1898 | 2nd Congress, 1903 | 3rd Congress, 1905 | 4th Congress, 1906 | 5th Congress, 1907 | 6th Congress, 1917 | 7th Congress, 1918 | 8th Congress, 1919 | 9th Congress, 1920 | 10th Congress, 1921 | 11th Congress, 1922 | 12th Congress, 1923 | 13th Congress, 1924 | 14th Congress, 1925 | 15th Congress, 1927 | 16th Congress, 1930 | 17th Congress, 1934 | 18th Congress, 1939 | 19th Congress, 1952 | 20th Congress, 1956 | 21st Congress, 1959 | 22nd Congress, 1961 | 23rd Congress, 1966 | 24th Congress, 1971 | 25th Congress, 1976 | 26th Congress, 1981 | 27th Congress, 1986 | 28th Congress, 1990 


[edit] Notes

  1. ^ See Leopold H. Haimson. The Making of Three Russian Revolutionaries, Cambridge University Press, 1987, ISBN 0-521-26325-5, p.461
  2. ^ See Israel Getzler. Martov: A Political Biography of a Russian Social Democrat, Cambridge University Press, 1967, pp.18-20
  3. ^ See Leopold H. Haimson. Op.cit. p.468
  4. ^ For example, RSDLP membership in ethnically Russian areas in early 1905 was estimated at 8,400. Bund membership in mid-1904 was estimated at 23,000. Data from Bol'shaya Sovetskaya Entsiklopediya, vol. III, col. 98; ibidem, vol. XI, col. 531, quoted in Leonard Schapiro. "The Role of the Jews in the Russian Revolutionary Movement", in Slavonic and East European Review, 40 (1961-1962): 167, reprinted in Essential Papers on Jews and the Left, ed. Ezra Mendelsohn, New York University Press, 1997, ISBN 0-8147-5571-2, p.321
  5. ^ See Israel Getzler. Op.cit., p.30
  6. ^ See A Documentary History of Communism in Russia: From Lenin to Gorbachev, ed. Robert V. Daniels, Hanover, NH, University of Vermont, Published by University Press of New England, 1993, ISBN 0-87451-616-1, p.4
  7. ^ Alexander Kremer was also known as "Arkady Kremer". See Jonathan Frankel. Prophecy and Politics: Socialism, Nationalism, and the Russian Jews, 1862-1917, ISBN 0-521-26919-9, Cambridge University Press, 1981, p.669
  8. ^ See A Documentary History of Communism in Russia: From Lenin to Gorbachev, op. cit., p.4
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