League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class

In November 1895, Lenin unified about 20 Marxist working groups in Petersburg and named them "League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class" in December.

This league was the germ of the revolutionary party of the Russian proletariat. It was centralized and had strict discipline. The leading body of the League was the central group with more than 10 members, five of whom formed the core of leadership. They were Lenin, G. M. Krzhizhanovsky, V. Starkov, A. A. Vaneyev and J. Martov; the league had three district groups. The central group and district groups kept in touch with more than 70 factories through organizers. Each factory had an organizer to collect information and disseminate books and periodicals, while larger factories had organized workers’ groups. The League realized the merger of socialism and workers' movement for the first time in Russia, and completed the transition from Marxist propaganda within small groups to mass political agitation. It led the strikes of workers in Petersburg in 1895 and 1896, printed leaflets and pamphlets for workers to read, and organized the publication of the workers' political newspaper Rabocheye Delo (The Workers’ Cause). The league had a great influence on the development of the Russian Social-Democratic movement. Social-Democratic organizations in several cities took it as an example and unified their Marxist groups into city-wide "Leagues of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class".

The leaguewas persecuted by the Tsar government as soon as it was founded. On the night of December 8, 1895, the Tsar government arrested a total of 57 leaders and members of the league, including Lenin. However, the league did not stop its activities because of this. It formed a new leadership core. Meanwhile, Lenin continued to guide the work of the league from prison. In January 1896, after the Tzar regime arrested the members of the league again, the league could still lead the general strike of the textile workers in Petersburg from May to June 1896. As pointed out, in August 1896, another 30 members of the league were arrested. These successive attacks inevitably caused changes in the leadership composition of the league. From the second half of 1898, the league was under the control of the economists faction (evolved from the youth group in the original old league). But some of the older members of the league, who were not arrested, inherited the tradition and participated in the preparations for the First Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party in 1898.