The Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, 1899-1904

Much has been written about the activity of Lenin and his colleagues on the editorial board of the Iskra newspaper, whereas little ink has been spilled about his political interlocutors who unsuccessfully fought for control of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party during the Iskra period. To redress the balance, Richard Mullin has translated 25 documents from this period, most of which express a polemical attitude toward Lenin’s views. They include articles from Rabochee Delo, the Jewish Bund's Poslednie Izvestiia the post-Lenin Iskra, pamphlets by Plekhanov and Martov, the resolutions of Party meetings, as well as some very revealing private correspondence.

Through the examination of these documents a clearer, more grounded, and better-rounded picture of the early Russian Social Democratic Labor Party can be obtained.

Part of the Historical Materialism (HM) Book Series.

Contents

Acknowledgements
Notes on Names and Dates
Preface
Introduction

1. Programme of Rabochee Delo
2. Review of Lenin’s Tasks of the Social Democrats, Rabochee Delo No. 1
3. Announcement in Rabochee Delo No. 5
4. Plekhanov’s Vademecum for the Editorial Board of Rabochee Delo and Editorial Comments on the Protest of the 17 in Rabochee Delo No. 4
5. Documents of the April 1900 RSDLP Congress Attempt
6. Boris Krichevskii, ‘Economics and Politics in the Russian Workers' Movement’, Rabochee Delo No. 7
7. ‘A Historic Turn’, Listok Rabochee Delo No. 6
8. Resolution of an Émigré RSDLP Conference, June 1901, Geneva
9. Boris Krichevskii, ‘Principles, Tactics and Struggle’, Rabochee Delo No. 1
10. Alexander Martynov, ‘Exposure Literature and Proletarian Struggle’, Rabochee Delo No. 10
11. Constitution of the ‘Russian Iskra Organisation’
12. Letters from Iulii Martov to the London Section of the Editorial board of Iskra
13. Report of the Fourth Congress of the Bund
14. Articles from Poslednie Izvestiia
15. Letter of Ekaterina Alexandrova to Lenin, Krupskaya and Martov
16. Pavlovich, Letter to Comrades about the Second RSDLP Congress
17. Resolution of the Second RSDLP Congress ‘Minority’
18. Iulii Martov, The Struggle with the 'State of Siege' in the RSDLP
19. Georgii Plekhanov, ‘What is Not to Be Done’, Iskra No. 52
20. Georgii Plekhanov, ‘Something on “Economism” and “Economists”’, Iskra No. 53
21. Letter from the Urals and Plekhanov’s ‘Centralism or Bonapartism’, Iskra No 63 & No. 65
22. Georgii Plekhanov, ‘The Working Class and the Social-Democratic Intelligentsia’, Iskra No. 70 & 71

Conclusions
Bibliography
Index