Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Introduction
- Part One Lenin's Attempt to Build a Bolshevik Party, 1910–1914
- 1 Lenin and the Social Democratic Schools for Underground Party Workers, 1909–1911
- 2 The Art of Calling a Party Conference (Prague, 1912)
- 3 Lenin and Pravda, 1912–1914
- 4 The Congress that Never Was: Lenin's Attempt to Call a ‘Sixth’ Party Congress in 1914
- 5 Lenin and the Brussels ‘Unity’ Conference of July 1914
- Part Two The ‘Other’ Lenin
- Notes
- Bibliography of Works Cited
- Index
4 - The Congress that Never Was: Lenin's Attempt to Call a ‘Sixth’ Party Congress in 1914
from Part One - Lenin's Attempt to Build a Bolshevik Party, 1910–1914
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 March 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Introduction
- Part One Lenin's Attempt to Build a Bolshevik Party, 1910–1914
- 1 Lenin and the Social Democratic Schools for Underground Party Workers, 1909–1911
- 2 The Art of Calling a Party Conference (Prague, 1912)
- 3 Lenin and Pravda, 1912–1914
- 4 The Congress that Never Was: Lenin's Attempt to Call a ‘Sixth’ Party Congress in 1914
- 5 Lenin and the Brussels ‘Unity’ Conference of July 1914
- Part Two The ‘Other’ Lenin
- Notes
- Bibliography of Works Cited
- Index
Summary
Only twice in its 93-year history did the RSDRP-CPSU fail to call a party congress more or less within the prescribed time-span – the ten-year lapse that followed the Fifth (London) Congress in 1907 and the 13-year gap after the Eighteenth Congress in 1939. In each instance the absence of a congress was a result in part of the current leader's disinclination to hold one, in part of the party's own atrophy, and in part of more pressing concerns of a military nature. While the congresses that did meet in the 1930s were dismal, predictable and perhaps avoidable affairs, the same cannot be said of those of the pre-revolutionary period.
The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDRP) accorded its congresses the position of being ‘the highest organ of the party’. Only such gatherings had the power to pass binding resolutions, to alter the party's programme, to amend its statutes, or to elect its central bodies. It is not surprising, therefore, that much of the early history of the party has been written around the struggles and the changes that occurred at its congresses, particularly the Second (1903), Fourth (1906) and Fifth. These three gatherings – all of which took place in the relative safety of western Europe – were large, long and expensive.2 Nevertheless, they were seen as essential in the building of the party and in the defining of its role. The Fifth Congress declared that henceforth congresses should be called every year by the Central Committee.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Non-Geometric LeninEssays on the Development of the Bolshevik Party 1910–1914, pp. 57 - 72Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2011