Russian Social Democratic Labour Party

(something like Rossiiskaia Sotsial-Demokraticheskaia Rabochaia Partiia)

Russian political party.

Formed in 1898 in Minsk? to unite the various revolutionary organisations into one party. It was not the first Russian Marxist group, the Group for the Liberation of Labour formed in 1883. At the first congress in 1898 all nine delegates were arrested.

Created out of opposition to narodnichestvo? (Revolutionary populism), the Social-Democrats (SDs) program was based on the theories of Karl Marx and [Friedrich Engels]? - that, despite Russias agrarian nature, the true revolutionary potential lay with the industrial working class, they were the group to organise towards a Socialist revolution. The narodniki joined the [Socialist-Revolutionary Party]? (SRs).

Before the Second Congress a young intellectual called [Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov]? joined the party, better known by his pseudonym - Lenin. In 1902 he had published What is to be Done?, outlining his view of the party's task and methodology - to form 'the vanguard of the proletariat' needed a disciplined, centralised party of committed activists.

In 1903 the Second Congress of the party met in Belgium to attempt to create a united force. At the congress the party split into two irreconcilable factions: the Bolsheviks (Bolshinstvo - majority party, Lenin's faction) and Mensheviks (Menshinstvo - minority party, actually the larger faction they were headed by [Julius Martov]?). It was Lenin's uncompromising stance on pushing his ideas that caused the split, he named the two factions too. Despite a number of attempts at reunification the split proved permanent.

The SDs boycotted elections to the First Duma? (April-July 1906), but were represented in the Second Duma (February-June 1907), with the SRs they held 83 seats. The Second Duma was dissolved on the pretext of the discovery of a SD conspiracy to subvert the army. Under new electoral laws the SD presence in the Third Duma (1907-12) was reduced to 19. From the Fourth Duma (1912-17) the SDs were finally and fully split, the Mensheviks had five members at the Duma and the Bolsheviks had seven, including Roman Malinovskii who was later uncovered as a police agent.