VII (April) All-Russian Conference of the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party (Bolshevik) - the first legal conference of the Bolshevik Party : held in Petrograd on April 24-29 (May 7-12) 1917. There were 133 delegates with a decisive and 18 with a consultative voice, representing 79204 party member from 78 party organizations. On the eve of the conference, an internal party discussion took place on the April theses of V. I. Lenin, outlining the course of the party on the socialist revolution.
VII (April) All-Russian Conference of the RSDLP (b) | |
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Content
Order of the day
- The current moment (war and Provisional Government, etc.) (rapporteurs V.I. Lenin , L. B. Kamenev );
- Peace Conference ( V.P. Nogin );
- Attitude towards the Soviets of workers and soldiers' deputies ( V.P. Nogin );
- Revision of the party program ( V.I. Lenin , G. Ya. Sokolnikov );
- The situation in the International and our tasks ( G. E. Zinoviev );
- Association of social democratic internationalist organizations ( G. E. Zinoviev );
- The agrarian question ( V.I. Lenin );
- The national question ( I. V. Stalin , G. L. Pyatakov );
- Constituent Assembly;
- Organizational issue;
- Reports from the field;
- Elections of the Central Committee.
Conference work and its results
The conference was led by Lenin, who spoke with reports, wrote more than 20 draft resolutions more than 20 times in the debate.
In a report on the current situation, Lenin comprehensively substantiated the political course of the party for the preparation and conduct of a socialist revolution. A co-report was made by L. B. Kamenev , in particular, who expressed doubts about the country's readiness for a socialist revolution. He was supported by A. I. Rykov . The conference supported the final resolution proposed by Lenin. It stated that the proletariat of Russia should lead the revolution and explain to the people the urgency of resolving a number of issues: the nationalization of the land, the establishment of state control over all banks and their unification into a single central bank, the establishment of control over insurance institutions and the largest syndicates of capitalists. The conference stated that these measures, as well as general labor service, could be carried out by the Soviets as soon as they became the organs of popular rule.
The resolution of the conference “On Soviets of Workers 'and Soldiers' Deputies” substantiated the slogan “All power to the Soviets!” And the task of the party to strengthen and expand influence in them. In the conditions of the dual power formed in the country, the conference set forth a course for the peaceful development of the revolution, for the conquest of power by the Soviets both in the center and in the regions.
The resolution “On Attitude to the Provisional Government” noted that long-term work should be done to clarify class consciousness and rally the proletarians of the city and village, break with the policy of trust in the Provisional Government, organization and arming of the proletariat, strengthening its ties with the army as the most important condition ensuring a peaceful transition of power to the Soviets.
In the resolution “On War,” the conference stressed that the imperialist war could be ended only by transferring state power to the Soviets, which would take matters into the conclusion of peace, that the Bolshevik Party did not support either an imperialist war or the Provisional Bourgeois Government . tsarist policy. The conference dissociated itself from the so-called revolutionary defencism, defining it as one of the main obstacles to the rapid end of the war.
The report on the agrarian issue substantiated the demands for the confiscation of landlords' land and the nationalization of all land. The implementation of these measures, in the opinion of the party, would not only liquidate the landlord class, but also deal a blow to the bourgeoisie, since most of the landlords' land was laid in the banks. The party advised the peasants to take the land immediately and in an organized way, without waiting for the Constituent Assembly, contrary to the suggestions of the Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviks.
The report and resolution of the conference on the national question consolidated and developed the party’s programmatic requirements for full equality of all nations and languages. The co-rapporteur was G. L. Pyatakov , who proposed to fight for socialism under the slogan “Out of the border!” F. E. Dzerzhinsky and F. I. Makharadze believed that the requirement of the right of nations to self-determination contradicts internationalism. The conference adopted a Leninist resolution on the national question. It said that for all the nations that are part of Russia, the right to free secession and the formation of an independent state should be recognized. At the same time, the conference indicated that this right should not be confused with the expediency of secession of one or another nation at one time or another.
The conference decided that uniting with parties and groups that are in the position of “revolutionary defencism” is impossible, stressing the need for rapprochement and unification with groups and movements that actually stand on the basis of internationalism and decisively break with the policies of the bloc with the bourgeoisie.
The Conference adopted a resolution on the revision of the program, which determined the direction in which the program should be developed; instructed the Central Committee to draft a new program and submit it for approval to the party congress.
When deciding on the "Regulations in the Internationale ..." delegates to the conference agreed with Zinoviev's proposal to remain in the Zimmerwald association and participate in the conference of his supporters. Lenin was among those who voted against this decision.
At the conference, the Central Committee was elected by secret ballot with 9 members (109 delegates voted, 26 people ran for office):
- V.I. Lenin - 104 votes
- G. E. Zinoviev - 101 votes
- Joseph Stalin - 97 votes
- L. B. Kamenev - 95 votes
- V.P. Milutin - 82 votes
- V.P. Nogin - 76 votes
- Ya. M. Sverdlov - 71 votes
- I. T. Smilga - 53 votes
- G. F. Fedorov - 48 votes
- G. E. Zinoviev - 101 votes
and 4 candidates for members of the Central Committee:
- I. A. Teodorovich - 41 votes
- A. S. Bubnov - 32 votes
- N. P. Glebov-Avilov - 18 votes
- A. G. Pravdin - 18 votes [1] .
- A. S. Bubnov - 32 votes
The conference on the completeness of the representation of the Bolshevik faction of the RSDLP, on the importance of the tasks solved by it, played the role of a party congress. She outlined the course of the Bolsheviks to the development of a bourgeois-democratic revolution in the socialist.
In the texts of the conference documents, the Bolshevik Party is also referred to as the RSDLP everywhere and everywhere, however, in the minutes of the conference published in Soviet times, the headings of party documents [2] , the party is referred to exclusively as the RSDLP (b), although the name of the party was changed only on March 8, 1918 at the VII Congress .
Notes
- ↑ Chapter T R T T Y Archived December 23, 2014.
- ↑ The Seventh (April) All-Russian Conference of the RSDLP (Bolsheviks); Petrograd City Conference of the RSDLP (Bolsheviks). April 1917: Protocols / Institute of Marxism-Leninism at the Central Committee of the CPSU. - M .: Gospolitizdat, 1958. - XII + 424 p.
Literature
- CPSU in resolutions and decisions of congresses, conferences and plenums of the Central Committee. 1898-1954. The eighth edition, v.1, M., 1970.
- VII (April) All-Russian Conference of the RSDLP (b) / Sovokin AM // Safflower - Soan. - M .: The Soviet Encyclopedia, 1976. - (The Great Soviet Encyclopedia : [in 30 t.] / Ch. Ed. AM Prokhorov ; 1969-1978, vol. 23).