Rabocheye Dyelo¶
Core Argument¶
The First Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party convened at the nadir of the Emancipation of Labour Group’s influence. In November 1898, the younger Economists seized control of the Union of Social Democrats Abroad, forcing the veteran revolutionaries to resign. The Union launched Rabocheye Dyelo as its organ, edited by Krichevsky and Martynov. Unlike the openly Bernsteinist Rabochaya Mysl’, this publication represented a more diffuse but persistent opportunism. It defended Bernstein and Millerand, and originated the theory of stages—the claim that workers must pass through economic agitation before political struggle. The Russian workers ignored this prescription, pursuing political action directly.
Internal tensions within the Emancipation of Labour Group erupted in a bitter row between Axelrod and Plekhanov. Plekhanov had long hesitated to intervene, fearing a split that would sever links with Russia. By early 1899, with Bernstein boasting majority support among Russian Social Democrats, Legal Marxists aligning with revisionism, and Economists dominating St. Petersburg, Plekhanov published his Vademecum. Lenin, in Siberian exile, drafted the Protest of the Russian Social Democrats against Kuskova’s Credo, which argued workers should confine themselves to economic struggle and leave politics to liberals. Lenin’s response restated the Marxist case for an independent proletarian party. The struggle between revolutionary Marxism and reformist Economism—essentially over class collaboration versus working-class hegemony—was thus drawn from the movement’s earliest beginnings.
The group Bor’ba attempted to mediate between Iskra and Rabocheye Dyelo. Ryazanov tried to blackmail Iskra by refusing collaboration unless it softened its criticism of the Economist organ. When this failed, he dissolved the Iskra promotion group in Paris and accused Iskra of “violating organisational neutrality”. Lenin abandoned the group. Despite its pretensions, Bor’ba played no further role; it was not admitted to the Second Congress and soon dissolved. Ryazanov later lectured at the Capri school of the ultra-left Vperyod faction in 1909. After the revolution, he became director of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism, until he was purged by Stalin.