TheFirst Congress of the RSDLP (Russian:Российская социал-демократическая рабочая партия, РСДРП) was held between 13 March – 15 March (1 March–3 MarchO.S.) 1898 inMinsk,Russian Empire (nowBelarus) in secrecy. The venue was a house belonging to Rumyantsev, a railway worker on the outskirts of Minsk (now in the town centre). The cover story was that they were celebrating the nameday of Rumyantsev's wife. A stove was kept burning in the next room in case secret papers had to be burnt.
Delegates of the 1st Congress of the RSDLP (in rows): (1) S. Radchenko, A. Vannovsky, P. Tuchapsky, (2) B. Eidelman, N. Vigdorchik, K. Petrusevich, (3) A. Mutnik,A. Kremer, Sh. Katz
The Congress was convened by three majorsocial democratic groups from different areas of the Russian Empire.
TheGeneral Jewish Labour Bund, which had unitedYiddish speaking social democrats in thePale of Settlement in September 1897. At the time, the Bund was the largest socialist group in the Empire[4] and sponsored the Congress.
The social democratic organization formed in 1897 around theKiev-basedRabochaya Gazeta (Workers' Newspaper).[5]
There were 9 delegates[6] to the Congress representing these three groups as well as social democrats fromMoscow andYekaterinoslav. TheKharkov socialists refused to come thinking the move premature.[7]
There were 6 sessions, with no minutes taken because of the need for secrecy; only resolutions 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 aCentral Committee of three:Stepan Radchenko, one of the oldest Russian social democrats and a leader of the Saint Petersburg League,Boris Eidelman ofRabochaya Gazeta andArkadi Kremer,[8] a Jewish Bund leader. The Manifesto of the new party was written byPeter Struve[9] at Radchenko's request.
The Central Committee elected by Congress printed the Manifesto and the resolutions of the Congress, but five of the nine delegates were arrested by theOkhrana within a month.[7]
The first Congress failed to unite the Russian Social Democracy, neither through the proposed Statutes nor the Programme. A wave of police repression followed, which prevented the party from functioning as a cohesive body for several years and ushered in a period of internal schisms and dissension. Three of the delegates weren't arrested, but only becauseZubatov thought they would lead him to other members.[10] It was not until 1903 that the2nd Congress of the RSDLP was held abroad and adopted the party's Charter and Programme.
^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 fromBol'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", inSlavonic and East European Review, 40 (1961–1962): 167, reprinted inEssential Papers on Jews and the Left, ed. Ezra Mendelsohn, New York University Press, 1997,ISBN0-8147-5571-2, p.321
^SeeA 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,ISBN0-87451-616-1, p.4
^Whose original name was Alexander Kremer. SeeJonathan Frankel.Prophecy and Politics: Socialism, Nationalism, and the Russian Jews, 1862–1917,ISBN0-521-26919-9, Cambridge University Press, 1981, p.669
^SeeA Documentary History of Communism in Russia: From Lenin to Gorbachev, op. cit., p.4
^THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF RUSSIA, Volume II – Imperial Russia, 1689–1917 page 645
