Tensions in Proletary¶
Core Argument¶
Here, the chapter dissects the internal conflict that consumed the Bolshevik faction during the depths of the 1909 reaction, centring on the struggle between Lenin’s tactical realism and the doctrinaire impatience of the ultra-left otzovists, led by Bogdanov. The core argument is that the ultra-left demand for a ‘purely Bolshevik congress’—a complete split from the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP)—was a catastrophic, sectarian adventure, not a revolutionary principle. Lenin’s position is presented as the only correct one: the Bolsheviks must remain inside the RSDLP to wage a relentless struggle for the majority of the organised working class, who were still under Menshevik influence. To walk out would be to hand the party to the reformists and doom the revolutionaries to impotent isolation.
The chapter draws on the June 1909 meeting of the enlarged editorial board of Proletary in Paris as its central historical event. At this meeting, Bogdanov, supported by Shantser, Lyadov, and Sokolov, argued for the split. The text refutes the claim by Soviet historians that Bogdanov was ‘expelled’ at this meeting, noting that the meeting only declared the faction could accept no responsibility for his activities, a necessary precondition for a rapprochement with the Pro-Party Mensheviks. The subsequent deterioration into open conflict is charted: Bogdanov’s defiance, his publication of a factional leaflet, and his eventual expulsion. The chapter then details the formation of the Vperyod (Forward) group, their use of Gorky’s wealth and connections to establish a factional school on Capri, and their attempt to reverse Lenin’s line on Duma participation in the Petersburg committee.
The polemic is directed squarely at ultra-leftism, which the text characterises as a perennial, impatient, and doctrinaire tendency that mistakes a formal declaration of independence for the real, painstaking work of winning mass influence. Bogdanov’s position is dismissed as “false to the core,” an “empty gesture,” and an “adventure.” The chapter also offers a notable counter-polemic against the “professional detractors of Bolshevism,” using Krupskaya’s and Gorky’s recollections to paint Lenin not as a “virulent factionalist” but as a leader of great “tolerance, loyalty, and patience,” who sought to reclaim opponents like Lunacharsky and Lyadov, but who was implacable only when a break on matters of principle became inevitable. The text closes by invoking Engels’ dictum that “the party becomes strong by purging itself,” framing the split as a necessary act of revolutionary hygiene.