The Fifth (London) Congress

The conduct of the Duma fraction gave rise to considerable discontent at rank-and-file level. This was one of the reasons for calling the Fifth (London) Congress. Throughout the months of February and March, 1907, the Party’s attention was concentrated on preparations for the Congress. As could be expected, the agenda was polarised between conflicting resolutions presented by the Bolshevik and Menshevik factions. The Congress was originally going to be held in Denmark, but the tsarist authorities leaned on the government in Copenhagen and persuaded it to refuse permission. They then attempted to hold it across the water in Malmö, but the Swedish government made it clear they were not welcome, so they had to pack their bags yet again. The Congress eventually ended up in London, where it took up residence in the Brotherhood non-denominational Church in Southgate Road, Whitechapel, which, by an irony of history, belonged to those arch-enemies of revolutionism, the right-wing reformist Fabian Society.[4] “I can still see vividly before me,” recalled Gorky many years later, “those bare wooden walls unadorned to the point of absurdity, the lancet windows looking down on a small, narrow hall which might have been a classroom in a poor school.” (Ibid., p. 146.) In such inauspicious surroundings, the revolutionaries gathered to hammer out the fate of the Russian Revolution.

At seven o’clock in the evening of 30 April the Fifth Congress opened. It lasted almost three weeks, until 19 May, 1907. It was a critical meeting. Despite the difficult conditions, this was the most representative gathering of Russian Social Democracy yet. There were no fewer than 303 delegates, as well as a further 39 with consultative vote. There was one delegate for every 500 party members (a total of 150,000 members in 145 party organisations), of which 100 were from the RSDLP, eight organisations of the Polish and Lithuanian Social Democrats, plus seven Latvian and 30 Bundist groups. These were the battle-hardened troops of the revolution. Although most were still in their twenties, there was scarcely anyone who had not served their apprenticeship in prison and exile. Since the previous congress 12 months earlier, the Russian section of the Party had increased from 31,000 to 77,000 members, i.e., two and a half times. However, these figures must be treated with caution. The sharpness of the factional struggle led both sides to inflate the figures of membership. Even bearing this in mind, it is clear that the Party had continued to grow, even in the period of reaction, reflecting, not the mood of the masses, but the radicalisation of a layer of the most conscious workers and students. For the same reason, the party’s left wing grew at a faster rate than the right wing.

The factional line-up was balanced on a knife’s edge. At the beginning of 1906, Bolsheviks and Mensheviks in St. Petersburg were almost equal. But in the interval between the first and second Dumas, the Bolsheviks began to pull ahead. By the time of the second Duma, Trotsky recalls, they had “already won complete dominance among the advanced workers”. (L. Trotsky, Stalin, p. 89.) This shift was reflected in the composition of the London Congress. The Stockholm Congress had been Menshevik; the London Congress was Bolshevik. At the previous congress, the breakdown had been 13,000 Bolsheviks and 18,000 Mensheviks (one delegate for every 300 party members). Now the situation was different. Of the full delegates, 89 were Bolsheviks, 88 Mensheviks.

This was the most remarkable galaxy of talent ever assembled at a Social Democratic congress. Plekhanov, Martov, Axelrod, Deutsch, and Dan were brilliant exponents of the Menshevik cause. The Bolshevik delegates included, among others, Lenin, Bogdanov, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Bubnov, Nogin, Shaumyan, Lyadov, Pokrovsky, Tomsky. Gorky, the well-known writer, who was close to the Bolsheviks, was also present. Trotsky, recently escaped from exile, attended as a non-factional Social Democrat. There was also a young Georgian known as Ivanov who had no voice in the proceedings, as he had no credentials from any recognised party organisation in the Caucasus, which was represented by Shaumyan – later murdered by the British intervention forces in Baku – and Mikha Tskhakaya, who travelled with Lenin in the famous ‘sealed train’ in 1917. This silent visitor called Ivanov later gained notoriety under the name of Stalin. But at this stage he was unknown in Party circles outside his local area and his presence at the congress passed completely unnoticed.

A major factor was the participation of the non-Russian parties, which generally stood on the left, thus giving the Bolsheviks an overall majority. Among the delegates from Poland and Lithuania were Rosa Luxemburg, Markhlevsky, and Tyszka (Jogiches), who formed part of a closely knit group of 44 which swung the congress sharply to the left. Felix Dzerzhinsky, the future head of the Cheka, was to have been part of the Polish delegation but had been arrested en route. The equally radical Latvian Social Democrats were headed by another future leader of the Cheka and Red Army, Hermann Danishevsky. The changed composition of the congress was duly noted by the Police Department, which reported that “the Menshevik groups in their present state of mind do not present as serious a danger as the Bolsheviks”. They also included the following appraisal:

“Among the orators who in the course of discussion spoke in defence of the extreme revolutionary point of view were Stanislav (Bolshevik), Trotsky, Pokrovsky (Bolshevik), Tyszka (Polish Social Democrat); in defence of the opportunist point of view – Martov and Plekhanov,” (leaders of the Mensheviks). “There is clear intimation,” the Okhrana agent continued, “that the Social Democrats are turning toward revolutionary methods of struggle… Menshevism, which blossomed thanks to the Duma, declined in due time, when the Duma demonstrated its impotence, giving ample scope to Bolshevik, or rather, to extreme revolutionary tendencies.” (L. Trotsky, Stalin, p. 89 in both quotes.)

The verbatim account of this Congress makes fascinating reading. Here we have the first real debate between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks on tactics and strategy. Compared to this, the differences at the Second Congress appear to be a mere anticipation – as, indeed, they were. Even the debates on the nationalisation versus municipalisation of the land at the Stockholm Congress did not really get to the heart of the problem, which emerged with absolute clarity at the Fifth Congress. On the agenda were reports from the Central Committee and the Duma fraction; the Party’s attitude to the bourgeois parties; the question of a Labour Congress; the Duma; the trade unions; the partisan movement; unemployment; the economic crisis; the lockout; organisational questions; the International Congress, and work in the army.

Martov opened the Congress with the Central Committee report. Since the outgoing CC was overwhelmingly dominated by the Mensheviks, Bogdanov gave a counter-report stating the Bolshevik point of view. The Congress thus opened with a heated discussion. But in contrast to the previous Congress, the Mensheviks were now on the defensive. When Plekhanov in his opening address assured the delegates that there were no revisionists in the Party, Lenin bent down, convulsed with silent laughter. Nearly everyone present at this Congress belonged to one faction or another, and this fact was reflected in the election of the presidium. This was composed of five delegates, one from each organised group. The Mensheviks chose Dan, the Bundists Medem, the Latvians Azis-Rozin, the Poles Tyszka, and the Bolsheviks Lenin. The Mensheviks showed their spiteful attitude from the outset by calling Lenin’s credentials into question. At this, the congress exploded, with delegates shouting and waving their fists at each other. Order was restored when the Mensheviks withdrew their objections, but the opening set the stage for the rest of the congress.

1. The venue was only one of several ironies associated with this Congress. An even more amusing incident relates to the way the Congress was financed. The Party being, to all intents and purposes, bankrupt, the revolutionaries were compelled to seek a loan. This was finally arranged by Gorky through the mediation of the English socialist, George Lansbury, with an English soap manufacturer. The loan was due to be repaid by 1 January, 1908. Probably the lender was not unduly surprised when not a penny arrived. However, the debt was not forgotten. After the October Revolution, the Soviet government, through the services of Krassin, its ambassador in London, returned the money to the lender’s heirs, who, no doubt utterly astonished, returned the letter acknowledging the debt, signed by all the participants in the congress!

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