The first and most pressing necessity was to resolve the simmering conflict with the ultra-left otzovists. In June 1909, the enlarged editorial board of Proletary met in Paris. Lenin hoped to make use of this meeting to firm up the leadership of the Bolshevik faction. In reality, it was a meeting of the Bolshevik factional centre. At the meeting, there was a clash on an important question, which fully reveals the difference between Leninism and ultra-leftism. Bogdanov called for a ‘purely Bolshevik congress’, that is to say, he wanted the Bolsheviks to split from the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party and constitute themselves as a separate party. The demand for a ‘purely Bolshevik congress’ was supported by the other ultra-left Bolsheviks: Shantser, Lyadov, and Sokolov (Volsky). This doctrinaire appeal for the ‘independence’ of the revolutionary party, whether it is a party of two, or two million, is the constant refrain of ultra-lefts throughout history. It has nothing in common with Lenin’s skilful and flexible tactics, which were always guided by the need to connect with the masses. The first task was to win over the advanced layers of the working class, which in Russia were organised in the RSDLP. The rise of the right-wing liquidationist tendency in the RSDLP was not an argument for splitting away the revolutionary wing but, on the contrary, for redoubling the fight to defeat the right wing inside the party and tear the workers away from their influence. Upon the results of this struggle depended the future of the revolution in Russia.

Bogdanov’s argument about splitting from the RSDLP in order to establish the ‘independence’ of the revolutionary party was false to the core. In fact, the Bolsheviks were always independent, in the sense that they never compromised in the defence of their revolutionary programme, policy, and theory. But that is insufficient. It is necessary to find a way of carrying these revolutionary ideas to the working class, starting with the most advanced, organised layers. To the extent that a significant part of the organised workers in Russia were still under the influence of the Mensheviks, it was essential to continue the struggle inside the RSDLP – to fight to win the majority. That was Lenin’s line. But in order to do this, it was necessary to organise the revolutionary wing separately, as a faction inside the RSDLP. The Bolsheviks had their own centre, their own publications defending their revolutionary positions and carrying on a constant struggle against the party’s right wing. What more ‘independence’ than this was required? The formal declaration of a separate party? That would be merely an empty gesture, or worse, an adventure. To have accepted this ultra-left line would have doomed the Bolsheviks to sectarian impotence and handed the party over to the reformists on a plate. Bogdanov’s position on this issue was a further manifestation of ultra-left moods born out of impatience and frustration.

To the disgust of the Bogdanovites, the meeting not only threw out the demand for the ‘purely Bolshevik congress’, but also underlined the need for a rapprochement with the Pro-Party Mensheviks. According to Soviet historians, this meeting ‘expelled’ Bogdanov, but this is untrue. Despite the highly provocative behaviour of Bogdanov and his followers, they were not expelled from the Bolsheviks at the Paris meeting, which limited itself to a declaration that the Bolshevik faction “could accept no responsibility” for their activities. This public disassociation of Bolshevism from ultra-leftism was the prior condition for a rapprochement with the Pro-Party Mensheviks. But in any case, the break was clearly inevitable. The meeting also voted a resolution that instructed the Proletary representative on the central organ (CO) to “take a definite stand for the dialectical materialism of Marx and Engels on philosophical questions, if such should arise, in the CO”. This position was by no means unanimous. Tomsky voted against and Kamenev, true to form, abstained.

After the meeting of the enlarged editorial board of Proletary in Paris, the position did not improve, but rapidly deteriorated into an open conflict. Bogdanov’s group had no intention of accepting the decision of the majority, but went onto the offensive, publishing a factional leaflet, defending the minority’s position in defiance of the decisions of the meeting. As a result of his defiance, Bogdanov was expelled from the Bolshevik faction. “The Bolshevik group was breaking up,” writes Krupskaya. (NK Krupskaya, Reminiscences of Lenin, p. 198.) Lunacharsky moaned about Lenin’s ‘impatience’ while Bogdanov published a tendentious account of the discussions. The Vperyodists replied by entering into an open and public conflict with the Bolshevik majority faction. They moved a motion at the Petersburg committee against participation in the Duma elections campaign. Lenin’s supporters replied by calling a better attended district aggregate, where they managed to get this reversed. Sverdlov, released from jail in autumn 1909, played an important role in the Moscow organisation. This was a big help. But Lenin’s position was generally very insecure.

After the conference, the otzovists regrouped and established a factional centre of their own. Realising that they could not easily defeat Lenin in open debate, the Bogdanov group took advantage of the personal wealth and connections of Gorky, who sympathised with their philosophical views, to organise what was effectively a factional school in the unlikely surroundings of the Italian island of Capri. Bogdanov and Lunacharsky also launched their own faction organ, Vperyod (Forward). Lenin tried to take the struggle into the camp of the Bogdanovites, sending people to the Capri school. But the only result was to deepen the split. The workers in Russia were furious with the behaviour of the Vperyodists, but in general they were losing patience with all the émigrés and their philosophical disputes, which seemed remote from the problems on the ground in Russia. Despite everything, Lenin tried his best to save at least some of the boycotters from themselves. Contrary to the widespread picture of Lenin as a virulent factionalist, Krupskaya recalls that:

Ilyich hit back hard when he was attacked, and defended his point of view, but when new problems had to be tackled and it was found possible to cooperate with his opponent, Ilyich was able to approach his opponent of yesterday as a comrade. He did not have to make any special effort to do this. Herein lay Ilyich’s tremendous advantage. Very guarded though he always was on matters where principles were involved, he was a great optimist as far as people were concerned. Despite an occasional error of judgement, this optimism of his was, on the whole, very useful to the cause. But where there was no agreement on matters of principle, there was no reconciliation. (Ibid., p. 251.)

In June 1909 he wrote in Proletary of his conviction that: “comrade Lyadov, who has worked for many years in the ranks of the revolutionary Social Democracy, will not remain for long in the new God-building-‘otzovist’ faction but will return to the Party”. This detail once again shows a side of Lenin which the professional detractors of Bolshevism have carefully concealed – his tolerance, loyalty, and patience with people, qualities that are absolutely necessary for any true leader. Gorky recalled how Lenin would say to him:

Lunacharsky will come back to the party. He is less individualistic than the other two [Bogdanov and Bazarov]. He has an exceptionally gifted nature. I have a soft spot for him, know you. I love him as an excellent comrade! (Quoted in Istoriya KPSS, vol. 2, p. 296.)[6]

Lenin spared no effort to help people where they showed a clear tendency to evolve in a revolutionary direction, to hold out his hand and to invite them to return, setting aside past differences and polemics, no matter how bitter. But he never allowed the search for unity to cloud the central question of the need to defend the purity of the revolutionary message. If that meant a split then so be it. As old Engels once expressed it, “the party becomes strong by purging itself.” Once he saw the inevitability of a break, Lenin could also be implacable.

  1. In fact not only Lunacharsky and Lyadov, but most of the Vperyodists later did rejoin the Bolshevik Party. Even Bogdanov returned in the end. He surfaced in 1918 as a Party activist and theoretician. One of his books (on Marxist economics) was used in the 1920s as a Party textbook. Later he was one of the leading lights of the so-called Proletkult tendency, a sure sign that he had lost none of his iconoclastic tendencies and formalistic leanings. But in the years of bureaucratic counter-revolution he dropped out of politics. Not all the Vperyodists returned to the Party, however. V.A. Bazarov gave up politics altogether and was hostile to the October Revolution.

    ↩