626
NOTES
110
111
112
113
114
The bloc was organised by Trotsky. The conference was attended
by delegates from the Bund, the Caucasian Regional Committee,
the Social-Democratic Party of the Lettish Territory and small
liquidationist groups abroad: the editors of Golos Sotsial-Demokra-
ta, Trotsky’s Vienna Pravda and the Vperyod group. Delegates from
Russia were sent by the St. Petersburg and Moscow “initiating
groups” of the liquidators and the editorial boards of the liquida-
tionist Nasha Zarya and Nevsky Golos. A representative of the Spil-
ka Committee Abroad was present too. The overwhelming majori-
ty of the delegates were people who lived abroad and were out of
touch with the working class of Russia.
The conference adopted anti-Party liquidationist decisions on
all the questions of Social-Democratic tactics and declared against
the existence of the illegal Party.
Being composed of heterogeneous elements, the August bloc
began to fall apart even while the conference was meeting. The
liquidators were unable to elect a Central Committee and limited
themselves to setting up an Organising Committee. The blows deliv-
ered by the Bolsheviks soon resulted in the final disintegration
of the bloc.
p. 217
The manuscript bears no title; the title given here has been sup-
plied by the Institute of Marxism-Leninism under the C.C. of the
C.P.S.U.
p. 221
Le Revue scientifique—a periodical founded in Paris in 1863. p. 224
Lenin is quoting the resolution of the Fifth (London) Congress of
the R.S.D.L.P. “On the Attitude to Non-Proletarian Parties” (see
The C.P.S.U. in Resolutions and Decisions of Its Congresses, Con-
ferences and Plenary Meetings of the Central Committee, Part One,
l 954, p. 164, Russ. ed.).
p. 229
Rabochaya Gazeta No. 9 gave the wrong date of publication—Au-
gust 12 (30) instead of July 30 (August 12).
Rabochaya Gazeta (
The Workers’
Gazette)—a popular Bolshe-
vik newspaper published in Paris from October 30 (November 12),
1910, to July 30 (August 12), 1912. In all nine issues appeared.
Among those who wrote for it were pro-Party Mensheviks. The news-
paper was founded and led by Lenin, who contributed more than
ten articles. The Prague Conference of the R.S.D.L.P. (January
1912) noted that Rabochaya Gazeta firmly and consistently defend-
ed the Party and the Party principle, and made it the official
organ of the C.C. R.S.D.L.P.(B.).
p. 236
“
The Election Platform of the R.S.D.L.P.” was written by Lenin
in Paris at the beginning of March 1912. The election platform was
endorsed by the Central Committee and published in Russia (Tiflis)
in leaflet form on behalf of the C.C. The leaflet was delivered to
eighteen localities, including the largest proletarian centres.
The election platform, reprinted from the leaflet published in Rus-
627
NOTES
115
116
117
118
119
sia, appeared as a supplement to Sotsial-Demokrat No. 26. It con-
stituted a militant policy document calling for a struggle for the
revolution. Lenin attached special importance to the election plat-
form of the Party and exposed the liquidators’ attempts to put for-
ward a legal, opportunist platform “for the elections”.
In sending to Zvezda a copy made from the leaflet “The Election
Platform of the R.S.D.L.P.”, Lenin marked it as follows: “This
platform is being sent only for the information of all, particular-
ly the compilers of the platform. It is time to cease writing platforms
when there already exists one confirmed and published by the Cen-
tral Committee. (A leaflet has already been issued about this in
Russia, but as we possess only one copy, we cannot send it,
but are sending you a hand-written copy.)” (See present edition,
Vol. 17, p. 513.)
p. 237
S. V.—Stanislav Volsky, pseudonym of A. V. Sokolov, one of the
organisers of the Vperyod group.
p. 239
L. M.—L. Martov, one of the Menshevik leaders.
p. 241
The man in a muffler—the chief character in Chekhov’s story of
that name, a man typifying the narrow-minded philistine who
dreads all initiative and all that is new.
p. 244
“
Letter to the Swiss Workers” was written by Lenin in connection
with the following events:
In July 1912 the Menshevik liquidators’ bureau of the united
organisation of the R.S.D.L.P. in Zurich sent a letter to the Exec-
utive of Die Eintracht (a Social-Democratic organisation) and
to the Swiss Workers’ League. In the letter the bureau declared
itself to be the sole representative of the R.S.D.L.P. groups in
Zurich. On July 27 (August 9) the Bolshevik Swiss Section of the
R.S.D.L.P. Organisation Abroad held a meeting which was attend-
ed by representatives of the Zurich, Davos, Berne, Lausanne and
Geneva Bolshevik groups.
The debate at the meeting ended in the adoption of resolutions
(1) on the situation in the Party, (2) on the state of affairs abroad,
and (3) a protest resolution against the liquidators’ bureau. The
three resolutions were published in the form of hectographed leaf-
lets, the first and second being in the Russian language and the
third, which was published along with Lenin’s present letter, in
German.
p. 245
The International Socialist Bureau—the permanent executive and
information agency of the Second International. The decision on
its formation from representatives of the socialist parties of all
countries was adopted at the Paris Congress of the Second Inter-
national in September 1900. G. V. Plekhanov and B. N. Krichevsky
were elected to the Bureau as representatives of the Russian Social-
Democrats. Lenin was a member of the Bureau representing the
R.S.D.L.P. from 1905 on. In 1912 the Sixth (Prague) All-Russia