620
NOTES
77
78
79
80
81
82
a petition to the tsar. The atrocious shooting of the defenceless
workers gave rise to mass political strikes and demonstrations
all over Russia under the slogan of “Down with the autocracy!”
The events of January 9 were the starting-point of the revolution of
1905-07.
p. 113
Budushcheye (
L’Avenir)—a liberal bourgeois weekly published in
Paris from October 1911 to January 1914 in Russian (some items
were published in French). It was edited by V. L. Burtsev and Men-
sheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries contributed to it.
p. 113
Lenin is referring to the decision of the liquidators’ Organising
Committee to invite the Left wing of the P.S.P. to the August
liquidationist conference.
Polska
Partia
Socjalistyczna—the
Polish
Socialist
Party
(P.S.P.), a reformist nationalist party founded in 1892. In 1906 it
split into the Left-wing P.S.P. and the chauvinist Right-wing
P.S.P.
p. 118
Zionist-Socialists—members of the Zionist-Socialist Workers’
Party, a Jewish petty-bourgeois nationalist organisation founded
in 1904. They sought to isolate the Jewish workers from the revo-
lutionary struggle of the world proletariat, and advocated a cam-
promise with the bourgeoisie with a view to bringing about the
establishment of a Jewish state.
p. 118
The Lettish Social-Democratic Union, founded abroad in the
autumn of 1900, put forward demands that were close to those of
the Russian Socialist-Revolutionaries. It was imbued to a consid-
erable extent with nationalist tendencies. In 1905 it gained some
influence among a section of the peasantry, but it was not long
before the Lettish Social-Democratic Labour Party superseded it.
Subsequently the Union ceased to play any appreciable role. p. 118
The Fourth (Unity) Congress of the R.S.D.L.P., held in Stockholm
on April 10-25 (April 23-May 8), 1906, decided to merge the
R.S.D.L.P. with the Social-Democratic Party of the Kingdom of
Poland and Lithuania and with the Lettish Social-Democratic
Labour Party. They became part of the R.S.D.L.P. as territorial
organisations working among the proletariat of all nationalities
in the territories concerned.
p. 118
Lenin has in mind the Menshevik liquidators’ plan to liquidate
the illegal Party and replace it by a “broad”, petty-bourgeois
labour party without a programme, a party similar to the British
Labour Party, with a supreme body in the form of a “labour con-
gress” in which Social-Democrats, Socialist-Revolutionaries and
anarchists alike would be represented. Lenin exposed this exceed-
ingly harmful attempt of the Mensheviks to liquidate the Social-
Democratic Labour Party and dilute the vanguard of the working
class with petty-bourgeois elements. This idea of the Menshevik
liquidators amounted to renunciation of the dictatorship of the
proletariat.
p. 119
621
NOTES
83
84
85
86
Dnevnik Sotsial-Demokrata (
The Diary of a Social-Democrat)—
a non-periodical organ published by G. V. Plekhanov in Geneva
from March 1905 to April 1912, at considerable intervals. Altogeth-
er 15 issues appeared. Publication was resumed in Petrograd in
1916, but only one issue appeared.
p. 120
In February 1912 T. O. Belousov, a Menshevik liquidator, member
of the Third Duma for Irkutsk Gubernia, withdrew from the So-
cial-Democratic Duma group. See Lenin’s article “Deputy T. O.
Belousov’s Withdrawal from the Social-Democratic Group in the
Duma” (see present edition, Vol. 17, pp. 521-26).
p. 120
Khlestakov—a character in Gogol’s comedy
The Inspector-General,
typifying a reckless braggart and liar.
p. 121
The Organising Commission Abroad (O.C.A.) for the convening
of a general Party conference was established by a meeting of mem-
bers of the Central Committee on June 1 (14), 1911, and consisted
of representatives of the Bolsheviks, conciliators and Polish So-
cial-Democrats. The other organisations and groups abroad which
had been invited to join the Commission did not send their repre-
sentatives. The O.C.A. sent a group of Party functionaries to
Russia, including its authorised representative G. K. Orjonikidze,
to help in making preparations for the planned conference. It also
issued an appeal “To All Social-Democratic Party Organisations,
Groups and Circles”, calling on them to set about electing members
to the Russian Organising Commission (R.O.C.). But as soon as the
O.C.A. was set up a majority in it was gained by the conciliators
and the Polish Social-Democrats who backed them. The concilia-
tory majority pursued an unprincipled policy aimed at continuing
talks with the Vperyod group and Trotsky, who had refused to send
their delegates to the O.C.A. The conciliators’ publications ac-
cused the Bolsheviks of factionalism. They used their predominance
on the O.C.A. to hold up the dispatch of Party money to Russia
and obstructed preparations for the conference.
As a result of the work done by the Bolsheviks, the Russian Or-
ganising Commission was set up. At the end of October the O.C.A.
discussed the Notification which the R.O.C. had adopted concern-
ing its establishment and its resolutions by which it assumed
full powers for the convening of the conference while the Organising
and the Technical commissions were to be subordinated to the
R.O.C. After the conciliatory majority of the O.C.A. had refused
to submit to these decisions the Bolshevik representatives with-
drew from the O.C.A. On October 30 (November 12) Orjonikidze,
who had arrived in Paris, made a report to the meeting of the
O.C.A. on the activities of the R.O.C., whereupon the O.C.A. was
compelled to recognise the leading role of the R.O.C. Nevertheless,
it was not long before the O.C.A. began an open fight against the
R.O.C. On November 20 (December 3) it issued a leaflet entitled
“An Open Letter to the Russian Organising Commission” accusing
the R.O.C. of factionalism. The anti-Party actions of the O.C.A.