TheRussian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP),[a] also known as theRussian Social Democratic Workers' Party (RSDWP) or theRussian Social Democratic Party (RSDP), was asocialist political party founded in 1898 inMinsk,Russian Empire. The party emerged from the merger of variousMarxist groups operating underTsarist repression, and was dedicated to the overthrow of the autocracy and the establishment of asocialist state based on the revolutionary leadership of the Russianproletariat.
The RSDLP's formative years were marked by ideological and strategic disputes culminating at itsSecond Congress in 1903, where the party split into two main factions: theBolsheviks, led byVladimir Lenin, who advocated a tightly organizedvanguard of professional revolutionaries; and theMensheviks, led byJulius Martov and others, who favored a more moderate, broad-based model. During and in the years after the1905 Revolution, the RSDLP operated both legally and underground, publishing newspapers, infiltrating trade unions, and agitating among industrial workers.
Despite repeated attempts at reunification, the rift between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks widened, resulting in a formal split in 1912. TheFebruary Revolution of 1917 saw some Mensheviks support cooperation with theProvisional Government, which the Bolsheviks opposed in favor of "all power to thesoviets". After the Bolsheviks seized power in theOctober Revolution later that year, the RSDLP was effectively dissolved. In 1918, the Bolshevik party formally renamed itself theRussian Communist Party (Bolsheviks), which later became the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
The RSDLP was not the first RussianMarxist group; theEmancipation of Labour group had been formed in 1883. The RSDLP was created to oppose the revolutionary populism of theNarodniks, which was later represented by theSocialist Revolutionary Party (SRs). The RSDLP was formed atan underground conference in Minsk in March 1898. There were nine delegates: from theJewish Labour Bund, and from theRobochaya Gazeta ("Workers' Newspaper") inKiev, both formed a year earlier in 1897; and theLeague of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class inSaint Petersburg. Some additional social democrats from Moscow andYekaterinburg also attended. The RSDLP program was based strictly on the theories ofKarl Marx andFriedrich Engels. Specifically, that despite Russia's agrarian nature at the time, the true revolutionary potential lay with the industrial working class. At this time, there were three million Russian industrial workers, just 3% of the population. The RSDLP was illegal for most of its existence. Within a month after the Congress, five of the nine delegates were arrested by theOkhrana (imperial secret police).[11]
Members of the RSDLP became popularly labelled asesdeki (Russian:эсдеки, singular:Russian:эсдек,romanized: esdek) - from the Russian-language names of the initial letters S (Russian:С) and D (Russian:Д) standing for "Social Democrats" (Russian:социал-демократы,romanized: sotsial-demokraty).[12]
Before the2nd Party Congress in 1903, a young intellectual named Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (better known by his pseudonym,Vladimir Lenin) joined the party. In 1902, he had publishedWhat Is To Be Done?, outlining his view of the party's proper task and methodology: to form "the vanguard of theproletariat". He advocated a disciplined, centralized party of committed activists who would fuse the underground struggle for political freedom with the class struggle of the proletariat.[13]
In 1903, the2nd Party Congress met in exile inBrussels to attempt to create a united force. However, after unprecedented attention from the Belgian authorities the Congress moved to London, meeting on 11 August inCharlotte Street.[14] At the Congress, the party split into two irreconcilable factions on 17 November: theBolsheviks (derived frombolshinstvo—Russian for "majority"), headed by Lenin; and theMensheviks (frommenshinstvo—Russian for "minority"), headed byJulius Martov. Confusingly, the Mensheviks were actually the larger faction, but the names Menshevik and Bolshevik were taken from a vote held at the 1903 Party Congress for the editorial board of the party newspaper,Iskra (Spark), with the Bolsheviks being the majority and the Mensheviks being the minority.[7] These were the names used by the factions for the rest of the party Congress and these are the names retained after the split at the 1903 Congress.[7][15][16] Lenin's faction later ended up in the minority and remained smaller than the Mensheviks until theRussian Revolution.[7]
A central issue at the Congress was the question of the definition of party membership. Martov proposed that a member of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party was "one who accepts its program and supports it both materially and by regular cooperation under the leadership of one of its organizations."[17][18] On the other hand, Lenin proposed a more strict definition that a member of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party was "one who recognizes the Party's program and supports it by material means and by personal participation in one of the Party's organizations".[17][18] Martov's big tent definition of party membership initially won the vote 28–23.[17] However, his majority was short-lived, given the exit from the party, for separate reasons, of its Bundist and Economist members who had supported his definition. That left in the majority those in favour of Lenin's definition of party members as, in effect, professional revolutionaries- centrally directed, tightly disciplined, and therefore capable of operating effectively in the tsarist police state. From this was derived the faction names: "Majority" ("Bolshevik") and "Minority" ("Menshevik").[18]
Despite a number of attempts at reunification, the split proved permanent. As time passed, ideological differences emerged in addition to the original organizational differences. The main difference that emerged in the years after 1903 was that the Bolsheviks believed that only the workers, backed up by the peasantry, could carry out the bourgeois-democratic revolutionary tasks in Russia, which would then provide incentive to socialist revolution in Germany, France and Britain, while the Mensheviks believed that the workers and peasants must seek out enlightened people from the liberal bourgeoisie to carry out the bourgeois-democratic revolutionary tasks in Russia. The two warring factions both agreed that the coming revolution would be "bourgeois-democratic" within Russia, but while the Mensheviks viewed the liberals as the main ally in this task, the Bolsheviks opted for an alliance with the peasantry as the only way to carry out the bourgeois-democratic revolutionary tasks while defending the interests of the working class. Essentially, the difference was that the Bolsheviks considered that in Russia the tasks of the bourgeois democratic revolution would have to be carried out without the participation of thebourgeoisie. The3rd Party Congress was held separately by the Bolsheviks.
The4th Party Congress was held inStockholm, Sweden and saw a formal reunification of the two factions (with the Mensheviks in the majority), but the discrepancies between Bolshevik and Menshevik views became particularly clear during the proceedings.
The5th Party Congress was held in London, England, in 1907. It consolidated the supremacy of the Bolshevik faction and debated strategy for communist revolution in Russia.
The Social Democrats (SDs) boycotted elections to theFirst Duma (April–July 1906), but they were represented in theSecond Duma (February–June 1907). With the SRs, they held 83 seats. The Second Duma was dissolved on the pretext of the discovery of an SD conspiracy to subvert the army. Under new electoral laws, the SD presence in theThird Duma (1907–1912) was reduced to 19. From theFourth Duma (1912–1917), the SDs were finally and fully split. The Mensheviks had seven members in the Duma and the Bolsheviks had six, includingRoman Malinovsky, who was later uncovered as anOkhrana agent.[19]
In the years of Tsarist repression that followed the defeat of the1905 Russian Revolution, both the Bolshevik and Menshevik factions faced splits, causing further splits in the RSDLP, which manifested themselves from late 1908 and the years immediately following. The Mensheviks split into the "Pro-Party Mensheviks" led byGeorgi Plekhanov, who wished to maintain illegal underground work as well as legal work; and the "Liquidators", whose most prominent advocates werePavel Axelrod,Fyodor Dan,Nikolai Aleksandrovich Rozhkov andNikolay Chkheidze, who wished to pursue purely legal activities and who now repudiated illegal and underground work.[20] The Menshevik Julius Martov was formally also considered a liquidator, partly because most of his closest political allies were part of the liquidator subfaction.[20]
The Bolsheviks split threeways into the Proletary group led by Lenin,Grigory Zinoviev andLev Kamenev, who waged a fierce struggle against the liquidators, ultimatists and recallists; the Ultimatist group led byGrigory Aleksinsky, who wished to issue ultimatums to the RSDLP Duma deputies to follow the party line or to resign immediately; and the Recallist group led byAlexander Bogdanov andAnatoly Lunacharsky and supported byMaxim Gorky, who called for the immediate recall of all RSDLP Duma deputies and a boycott of all legal work by the RSDLP, in favour of increased radical underground and illegal work.[20]
There was also a non-faction group led byLeon Trotsky, who denounced all the "factionalism" in the RSDLP, pushed for "unity" in the party and focused more strongly on the problems of Russian workers and peasants on the ground.
In January 1912, Lenin's Proletary Bolshevik group called a conference in Prague and expelled the liquidators, ultimatists and recallists from the RSDLP, which officially led to the creation of a separate party, known as theRussian Social Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks), while the Mensheviks continued their activities establishing theRussian Social Democratic Labour Party (Mensheviks). In August 1912, Trotsky's group tried to reunite all the RSDLP factions into the same party at a conference in Vienna, but he was largely rebuffed by the Bolsheviks.[20] The Bolsheviks seized power during theOctober Revolution in 1917 when all political power was transferred to thesoviets and in 1918 changed their name to theAll-Russian Communist Party. They later banned the Mensheviks after theKronstadt rebellion of 1921.
TheInterdistrictites, known as the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Internationalists), emerged in 1913 as another faction originating from the RSDLP.
In 1902, theTallinn organization of the RSDLP was founded, which in 1904 was converted into the Tallinn Committee of the party. In November, a parallel (that is, also directly under the CC of RSDLP)Narva Committee was created. Amongst other radicals, the Estonian RSDLP cadres were active in the 1905 Revolution. At the conference of the Estonian RSDLP organizations inTerijoki, Finland in March 1907, the Bolshevik supporters came into serious conflict with the Mensheviks.
At the 4th (Unity) Congress of the RSDLP in 1906, theLatvian Social Democratic Workers Party entered the RSDLP as a territorial organisation. After the Congress, its name was changed Social-Democracy of the Latvian Territory.[21]
^The party split into the Bolshevik and Menshevik factions in 1903, with the two factions forming separate parties in 1912. However, joint party organisations continued to exist until 1917.[3]
^Minin, Oleg (25 April 2023). "The Self and the Other: Representations of the Monarchist Foe and Ally in the Satirical Press of the Russian Right (1906–1908)". In Parppei, Kati; Rakhimzianov, Bulat (eds.).Images of Otherness in Russia, 1547–1917. Imperial Encounters in Russian History. Boston, Massachusetts: Academic Studies Press.ISBN9798887191485. Retrieved30 August 2024.The Marxist-oriented Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party and the closely associated Jewish Bund were habitually referred to [...] asesdeki (Social Democrats) andbundisty (members of the Bund).
^Lih, Lars (2005).Lenin Rediscovered: What is to be Done? in Context. Brill Academic Publishers.ISBN978-90-04-13120-0.
^Jones, Stephen F. (2014).The Making of Modern Georgia, 1918–2012: the First Georgian Republic and its Successors. Hoboken: Taylor and Francis.ISBN978-1-317-81593-8.OCLC881415856.
^Getzler, Israel (2003).Martov: a political biography of a Russian social democrat. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 60.ISBN0-521-05073-1.OCLC224176363.
