Lenin's London Party

Summer 1903

In late July and early August of 1903, an event took place in Europe that would ultimately enter the annals of history, but which at the time attracted no attention beyond certain members of Russia’s secret police. Nobody else was the slightest bit concerned that a group of revolutionaries, presumably dissatisfied with the situation in their home country, had gathered first in Brussels and later (after the Belgian police took an interest in them) in London, a well-known safe haven for political émigrés. The revolutionaries called themselves Social Democrats, and they professed adherence to the teachings of Karl Marx, although each understood these teachings in his or her own way. Their meetings featured long and heated debates over the correct interpretation of Marxist ideas.

In 1903, nobody had heard of Vladimir Ulyanov (already going by the pseudonym Lenin) or Lev Trotsky, and few at the meeting took note of the small-statured and pock-marked Caucasian Joseph Jughashvili, who had chosen the imposing alias Stalin (“Steely”).

All of these men, who were to have such a profound impact on the course of twentieth century history, were present at the Second Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, which was convened to discuss how to best structure their organization. Generations of Soviet students would later be forced to cram the seemingly pointless details of these discussions into their distracted brains, as they were considered an important part of the required course, the History of the CPSU. But perhaps these details were not so pointless after all, as they did indeed foretell much of what lay in store.

The idea that Lenin expounded at this congress — that once the tsar was overthrown, they would have to immediately launch a second revolution, one that would destroy private property and pave the way toward communism — struck many of those assembled as extremely odd. How could you build communism in a country where the vast majority of the population was illiterate? How could you establish a dictatorship of the proletariat in a country with so few workers, especially insofar as they tended to turn back into peasants every summer and return home to their families and native villages? Marx, after all, considered the working class to be the driving force of revolution. Where could this driving force be found in an underdeveloped country of peasants?

London’s Sidmouth Street, where Lenin et al rented a five-room flat to house the editorial offices of their newspaper, Iskra.

Lenin did not see any of this as a problem. The working class may have been small, but it did exist, and, if you could point it in the right direction, it could create a “dictatorship of the minority in the interests of the majority” and deliver a communist paradise to the entire population, whether most people wanted it or not. There was no point in waiting for Russia to develop into a democratic republic. That was all foolishness. Onward to a dictatorship of the proletariat, and from there — to communism!

Lenin’s handling of this controversy exposed an unscrupulousness that would later manifest itself in almost everything he did. After the Second Congress, Lenin and his followers began calling themselves Bolsheviks (those in the majority), despite the fact that their views garnered a minority of votes on almost every issue. This never bothered Lenin. His followers might be few, but what mattered was that they were entirely devoted to him and prepared to stick with him come what may. A small contingent marching in lockstep can be a powerful force.

The importance Lenin placed on this sort of blind devotion explains the dispute that broke out over the first article of the party’s rules. This article addressed the question of who could be considered a member of the party. Could anyone join it who sympathized with Marxism and who helped the party — a criterion favored by Lenin’s friend and eternal opponent Yuly Martov? If this was the guideline, then the party would have a large membership and might attract rich industrialists with a penchant for revolution or simply a guilty conscience. The party would also attract support from the ranks of the revolutionarily inclined intelligentsia. Lenin was not thrilled with either of these prospects.

Lenin felt that the only people who could become members of the party were those who worked for one of its organizations and submitted to party discipline. Party discipline! It was at the Second Congress that these words were first uttered, words that, with the march of Soviet history, would come to represent a sort of fetish or even cudgel used to bludgeon recalcitrant or skeptical members. For now, however, that all lay in the distant future. For Lenin, what mattered was to have a party membership that consisted of his people ready to submit to his rules. Everything else would eventually fall into place. And it did.

Soon after the Second Congress, the Bolsheviks (Lenin’s followers) and the Mensheviks (those in favor of more cautious action and a more inclusive party) parted ways. Now there were two parties bearing the name Social Democratic, leading to a series of mergers and schisms.

For years, Bolsheviks and Mensheviks sat together in the cafés of Switzerland, Germany, and France, speculating on when revolution would finally come to Russia. Their actions aroused little wider interest, beyond that of the Russian secret police. Respectable Europeans would hear their heated arguments in a foreign tongue, shake their heads in amazement at such ardor, and continue about their business.

Eleven years after the Second Congress, war broke out across Europe. Once again, Lenin was in the minority, a shameful minority, to put it bluntly. His proclamation that the Bolsheviks should hope for the defeat of their own country shocked and repelled many, but he did manage to attract the attention of German intelligence, which immediately understood that such a Russian could be useful to them and that it might even make sense to fund his effort.

Lenin tried to unite socialists from across Europe and persuade them that they should not support their countries’ war efforts. As the war raged, only 42 European socialists answered his call and came to see him. Of them, eight people from a variety of countries accepted the idea that they should desire the defeat of their own governments. Only eight people throughout all of Europe!

That was in 1915. Two years later, after Russia had toppled the tsar, this inconspicuous émigré returned to his native land (not without the help of the German authorities) and in a few months managed to become the idol of thousands and the head of a new state, a truly stunning transformation.

The first steps toward this amazing ascent were made during debates in London in 1903, when a cluster of revolutionaries nobody cared about debated what kind of a party they wanted to have — small, but rigid, or large, but flexible.

Ever since, we have been reaping the harvest of that fateful choice.

To read even more about Lenin and the revolutionaries in London, see Professor Sarah Young’s informative blog post at: bit.ly/russianslondon