V. I. Lenin

Statement by the Group of Founders of the R.S.D.L.P. Library at Geneva


Written: Written in late December 1904 and early January 1905
Published: First published in 1994 in Lenin Miscellany XXVI. Printed from the original.
Source: Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, 1977, Moscow, Volume 41, page 136.
Translated: Yuri Sdobnikov
Transcription\Markup: R. Cymbala
Copyleft: V. I. Lenin Internet Archive (www.marxists.org) © 2004 Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.  


The group which initiated the establishment of the R.S.D.L.P. library at Geneva has unanimously decided to hand it over to the Majority Committees’ = Bureau{1} for the general management of the library pending a decision by the Third Party Congress.


Notes

{1} The Majority Committees’ Bureau (M.C.B.)—the Bolsheviks’ organisational centre for preparing the Third Congress of the R.S.D.L.P., set up on Lenin’s initiative at the end of 1904. In that period, the Party was in a profound crisis. The Mensheviks had seized the Party centres and were engaged in disorganising and splitting the Party organisations in the localities, and disrupting the unity of working-class action. Meanwhile, the revolutionary situation in the country demanded cohesion of the Party’s forces and militant unity of the proletariat. This dictated the need for an early convocation of the Third Party Congress, which was frustrated in every possible way by the central bodies, which were in the hands of the Mensheviks. Under Lenin’s leadership, the Bolsheviks launched a campaign for convening the Congress. A great part was played by the conference of 22 Bolsheviks called on Lenin’s initiative in Geneva in August 1904. It adopted an appeal “To the Party”, written by Lenin, which became a programme for Bolshevik struggle for the convocation of the Third Congress. Three regional conferences of Bolshevik committees—Southern, Caucasian and Northern—were held in Russia from September to December 1904. They set up the Majority Committees’ Bureau, which included V. I. Lenin, R. S. Zemlyachka, S. I. Gusev, M. N. Lyadov and M. M. Litvinov. Guided by Lenin, the M.C.B. carried out the practical work in preparing the Third R.S.D.L.P. Congress. p. 136


Works Index   |   Volume 41 | Collected Works   |   L.I.A. Index
< backward   forward >