‘Unity’ Breaks Down¶
Core Argument¶
The chapter details the inevitable collapse of the fragile unity imposed by the January 1910 Plenum of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, a settlement Lenin accepted only under duress and with profound scepticism. Lenin’s letter to his sister reveals he viewed the truce as an experiment, writing “We shall see whether it can be done,” and Krupskaya notes he conceded on organisational matters while refusing to yield “an inch on fundamental issues.” The core argument is that the Plenum solved nothing; the factions continued operating as before, and the attempt to mix revolutionary Bolshevism with reformist Menshevism was as impossible as mixing “oil and water.” The chapter demonstrates that the Menshevik-Liquidators immediately violated the agreements, organising a public faction around the legal journals Nasha Zarya and Dyelo Zhizni, while the Golos Sotsial-Demokrata group (Martov, Dan, Axelrod) acted as “shamefaced liquidators.” On the left, the Vperyodists (Bogdanov, Lunacharsky, Alexinsky) split from the Bolsheviks, organising their own factional schools and forming unprincipled blocs with the Mensheviks against the Bolsheviks. The chapter argues that the Plenum left the Bolsheviks in a weaker position, dependent on the Polish and Lithuanian Social Democrats for policy and the Foreign Bureau for funds, while only the Bolsheviks actually implemented the decisions. Lenin’s assessment was confirmed: the agreements were “not worth the paper they were written on.” The narrative highlights the role of Bolshevik conciliators like Nogin, who was “almost speechless with joy” at the unity and believed Lenin failed to understand its importance, only for these illusions to be shattered. A key development is Lenin’s growing awareness of opportunism as an international phenomenon, sparked by Karl Kautsky’s temporising role in the Russian dispute. Lenin, who had regarded himself as an orthodox “Kautskyite,” was shocked by the International’s unprincipled backing of the conciliators, doubts later confirmed by the betrayal of August 1914. The chapter polemicises against Trotsky’s position, which Lenin called “unprincipled adventurism,” and against the conciliators within the Bolshevik faction who consistently outvoted him. The formal split was delayed until 1912 because the idea of a definitive rupture between revolutionary and reformist Social Democrats was historically novel, with only France and Bulgaria as exceptions. The decisive factor was not the artificial combinations at the top but the real regroupment of Bolsheviks and Pro-Party Mensheviks at the grass roots in Russia, where worker Mensheviks supporting Plekhanov moved closer to the Bolsheviks in joint action.