C H A P T E R T W O
FORMATION OF THE RUSSIAN SOCIAL-
DEMOCRATIC LABOUR PARTY. APPEARANCE
OF THE BOLSHEVIK AND THE MENSHEVIK
GROUPS WITHIN THE PARTY
|UPSURGE OF THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT IN
The end of the nineteenth century in Europe was marked by an
industrial crisis. It soon spread to Russia. During the period of the crisis
(1900-03) about 3,000 large and small enterprises were closed down and over
100,000 workers thrown on the streets. The wages of the workers that
remained employed were sharply reduced. The insignificant concessions
previously wrung from the capitalists as the result of stubborn economic
strikes were now withdrawn.
Industrial crisis and unemployment did not halt or weaken the
working-class movement. On the contrary, the workers' struggle assumed an
increasingly revolutionary character. From economic strikes, the workers
passed to political strikes, and finally to demonstrations, put forward
political demands for democratic liberties, and raised the slogan, "Down
with the tsarist autocracy!"
A May Day strike at the Obukhov munitions plant in St. Petersburg in
1901 resulted in a bloody encounter between the workers and troops. The only
weapons the workers could oppose to the armed forces of the tsar were stones
and lumps of iron. The stubborn resistance of the workers was broken. This
was followed by savage reprisals: about 800 workers were arrested, and many
were cast into prison or condemned to penal servitude and exile. But the
heroic "Obukhov defence" made a profound impression on the workers of Russia
and called forth a wave of sympathy among them.
In March 1902 big strikes and a demonstration of workers took place
in Batum, organized by the Batum Social-Democratic Committee. The Batum
demonstration stirred up the workers and peasants of Transcaucasia.
In 1902 a big strike broke out in Rostov-on-Don as well. The first to
come out were the railwaymen, who were soon joined by the workers of many
factories. The strike agitated all the workers. As many as 30,000 would
gather at meetings held outside the city limits on several successive days.
At these meetings Social-Democratic proclamations were read aloud and
speakers addressed the workers. The police and the Cossacks were powerless
to disperse these meetings, attended as they were by many thousands. When
several workers were killed by the police, a huge procession of working
people attended their funeral on the following day. Only by summoning troops
from surrounding cities was the tsarist government able to suppress the
strike. The struggle of the Rostov workers was led by the Don Committee of
The strikes that broke out in 1903 were of even larger dimensions.
Mass political strikes took place that year in the south, sweeping
Transcaucasia (Baku, Tiflis, Batum) and the large cities of the Ukraine
(Odessa, Kiev, Ekaterinoslav). The strikes became increasingly stubborn and
better organized. Unlike earlier actions of the working class, the political
struggle of the workers was nearly everywhere directed by the
The working class of Russia was rising to wage a revolutionary
struggle against the tsarist regime.
The working-class movement influenced the peasantry. In the spring
and summer of 1902 a peasant movement broke out in the Ukraine (Poltava and
Kharkov provinces) and in the Volga region. The peasants set fire to
landlords' mansions, seized their land, and killed the detested zemsky
nachalniks (rural prefects) and landlords. Troops were sent to quell the
rebellious peasants. Peasants were shot down, hundreds were arrested, and
their leaders and organizers were flung into prison, but the revolutionary
peasant movement continued to grow.
The revolutionary actions of the workers and peasants indicated that
revolution was maturing and drawing near in Russia.
Under the influence of the revolutionary struggle of the workers the
opposition movement of the students against the government assumed greater
intensity. In retaliation for the student demonstrations and strikes, the
government shut down the universities, flung hundreds of students into
prison, and finally conceived the idea of sending recalcitrant students into
the army as common soldiers. In response, the students of all the
universities organized a general strike in the winter of 190I-02. About
thirty thousand students were involved in this strike.
The revolutionary movement of the workers and peasants, and
especially the reprisals against the students, induced also the liberal
bourgeois and the liberal landlords who sat on what was known as the
Zemstvos to bestir themselves and to raise their voices in "protest" against
the "excesses" of the tsarist government in repressing their student sons.
The Zemstvo liberals had their stronghold in the Zemstvo boards.
These were local government bodies which had charge of purely local affairs
affecting the rural population (building of roads, hospitals and schools).
The liberal landlords played a fairly prominent part on the Zemstvo boards.
They were closely associated with the liberal bourgeois, in fact were almost
merged with them, for they themselves were beginning to abandon methods
based on survivals of serfdom for capitalist methods of farming on their
estates, as being more profitable. Of course, both these groups of liberals
supported the tsarist government; but they were opposed to the "excesses" of
tsardom, fearing that these "excesses" would only intensify the
revolutionary movement. While they feared the "excesses" of tsardom, they
feared revolution even more. In protesting against these "excesses," the
liberals pursued two aims: first, to "bring the tsar to his senses," and
secondly, by donning a mask of "profound dissatisfaction" with tsardom, to
gain the confidence of the people, and to get them, or part of them, to
break away from the revolution, and thus undermine its strength.
Of course, the Zemstvo liberal movement offered no menace whatever to
the existence of tsardom; nevertheless, it served to show that all was not
well with the "eternal" pillars of tsardom.
In 1902 the Zemstvo liberal movement led to the formation of the
bourgeois "Liberation" group, the nucleus of the future principal party of
the bourgeoisie in Russia -- the Constitutional-Democratic Party.
Perceiving that the movement of the workers and peasants was sweeping
the country in a formidable torrent, the tsarist government did everything
it could to stem the revolutionary tide. Armed force was used with
increasing frequency to suppress the workers' strikes and demonstrations;
the bullet and the knout became the government's usual reply to the actions
of the workers and peasants; prisons and places of exile were filled to
While tightening up the measures of repression, the tsarist
government tried at the same time to resort to other, non-repressive and
more "flexible," measures to divert the workers from the revolutionary
movement. Attempts were made to create bogus workers' organizations under
the aegis of the gendarmes and police. They were dubbed organizations of
"police socialism" or Zubatov organizations (after the name
of a colonel of gendarmerie, Zubatov, who was the founder of these
police-controlled workers' organizations). Through its agents the Okhrana
tried to get the workers to believe that the tsarist government was itself
prepared to assist them in securing the satisfaction of their economic
demands. "Why engage in politics, why make a revolution, when the tsar
himself is on the side of the workers?" -- Zubatov agents would insinuate to
the workers. Zubatov organizations were formed in several cities. On the
model of these organizations and with the same purposes in view, an
organization known as the Assembly of Russian Factory Workers of St.
Petersburg was formed in 1904 by a priest by the name of Gapon.
But the attempt of the tsarist Okhrana to gain control over
the working-class movement failed. The tsarist government proved unable by
such measures to cope with the growing working-class movement. The rising
revolutionary movement of the working class swept these police-controlled
organizations from its path.