Opening up the Party¶
Core Argument¶
In the aftermath of the 9 January massacre, the Bolshevik and Menshevik factions transformed from isolated sects into rapidly growing organisations. By mid-1905, the Ivanovo-Voznesensk committee alone counted 400–500 activists, with Martov estimating 600 Bolsheviks there, making it the largest committee in the central industrial region. The underground party membership reached “a few tens of thousands of workers, and a few thousand soldiers and peasants”, while its sphere of influence extended to “hundreds of thousands of the urban and rural populace”. This explosive growth forced a fundamental reorientation of party structures and methods.
Lenin insisted throughout 1905 on opening up the party and introducing the elective principle from top to bottom, aiming to replace conservative committeemen with fresh workers and youth capable of reflecting the class’s real mood. The October Manifesto’s concessions—freedom of assembly, press, and union organisation—radically altered conditions for party work. Yet old habits died hard. The chapter documents a sharp internal struggle between Lenin’s demand for democratisation and the resistance of committeemen who interpreted organisational principles mechanically. Lenin argued that underground work necessarily imposes limitations on internal democracy, but only those justified by security; with changed conditions, the party had to adapt to legal and semi-legal work.
The party implemented concrete structural changes: factory branches held open meetings (the Lessner branch recorded 70 attendees), district committees split into sub-districts, city-wide aggregates allowed full membership discussion, and workers’ clubs were established. The elective principle was introduced to secure greater worker participation and exert pressure from below. The chapter emphasises Lenin’s flexibility—democratic centralism combines full freedom of discussion until decision, then unity in action, with emphasis shifting between centralism and democracy according to objective conditions.
A significant polemic emerges regarding trade union work. The Mensheviks had a head start in establishing trade unions in Petersburg, Moscow, Saratov, Baku, and Odessa. Bolshevik committeemen in Moscow committed a serious error: they attempted to set up separate trade unions with a definite party political identity, justifying this as fighting against “non-partyism”. They established Bolshevik unions among bakers, technicians, and fitters and turners. Lenin criticised this position sharply, both in contemporary articles and later in “Left-Wing” Communism: an Infantile Disorder, arguing it is wrong for Marxists to split trade unions and establish ‘revolutionary’ unions separate from mass organisations. The trade unions must embrace all sections of the working class irrespective of party affiliations, excluding only fascists. This episode reveals the gap between Lenin’s strategic flexibility and the narrowness of some Bolshevik committeemen, who failed to understand that the party must fight for influence within mass organisations, not separate from them.