The Second Congress of the R.S.D.L.P.

The Second Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. was held secretly in Brussels and London from July 30 to August 23, 1903. The Congress initially met 13 times in Brussels, then moved to London when the Belgian police deported some delegates and continued to meet 24 times there. The Congress was prepared by the Iskra newspaper. Lenin drafted a series of documents for the Congress and elaborated the agenda and proceedings of the Congress. The Congress was attended by 43 voting delegates, representing 26 organizations (“Emancipation of Labor” Group, the Iskra organization, Foreign Committee and Central Committee of the Bund, Union of Russian Social-Democrats Abroad, and 20 local committees and League of Russian Social-Democrats), with a total of 51 votes (2 votes for each of the organizations, 1 vote for the Central Committee of the Bund, 1 vote for each of the two organizations in Petersburg). The Central Committee of the Bund had 3 votes, and the two organizations in Petersburg had 1 vote each. There were 14 representatives with consultative rights at the Congress. The delegates were of mixed composition, including supporters of the Iskra and the opponents of the Iskra, and the vacillating elements.

Due to the complex and mixed composition of the delegates, the struggle was more intense. The main agenda of this Congress was to discuss and adopt the party's program and constitution, elect the party's leadership, and establish a genuine political party based on the organizational principles proposed and developed by the “Iskraists” faction.

During the debate of the draft party program, the debate centered on whether to include the principle of the dictatorship of the proletariat in the party program. After a debate, the “Iskraists” led by Lenin were victorious. The Party program adopted by the Congress clearly stated that the necessary requirement for the socialist revolution was the dictatorship of the proletariat. This was the first revolutionary program in the international communist movement after the death of Marx and Engels that explicitly advocated the necessity of the struggle for the dictatorship of the proletariat as its basic task. During the discussion of the first article of the Party constitution, a more heated debate emerged at the Congress. Lenin and Martov proposed separate draft articles. The principal difference between the two was the question of what kind of party to build. What Lenin wanted to create was a strictly disciplined, centralized, and unified revolutionary party, whose members must all, without exception, participate in one organization of the party and be subject to its supervision and leadership. Martov’s thought was to unite an ambiguous social group of members with indeterminate composition, which lacks organization and discipline. With the support of the opportunists and some conciliating Iskraists, the first article of the Party constitution proposed by Martov, which opened the door for the vacillating elements to join the Party, was adopted by the Congress with a narrow majority.

But there still was a strong support in the Congress for the provisions of the party constitution drawn up by Lenin. During the election of the Party's leading organ, a split occurred between the revolutionary Iskraists (Leninists) and the "moderate" Iskraists (Martovists).

The revolutionary Iskraist faction was in the minority for the time being. However, on August 18, seven non-Iskraist elements including two delegates form the Rabocheye Dyelo (The Workers' Cause) and the five Bund delegates withdrew from the Congress since they disagreed with certain strict resolutions approved by the Congress. During the elections for the Central Organ of the Party, the Martovists (7 in total), which were supported by the non-Iskraists and the Jewish Bund, was reduced to minority with 20 votes (9 Martovists, 10 from the Jewish Bund and the 1 non-Iskraist delegate), while the 20 true Iskraists (Leninists) which rallied around Lenin became the majority with a total of 24 votes. Finally, Lenin and his supporters won the elections.

The Congress elected Lenin, Martov, and Plekhanov to the editorial board of the central organ Iskra, G. M. Krzhizhanovskii, F. V. Lengnik (both in absentia) and V.A. Noskov to the Central Committee, and Plekhanov to the General Committee of the party. From then on, Lenin and his supporters were called as the Bolsheviks, while the opportunists were called as Mensheviks. Finally, the Congress adopted its first party program and formulated the Party constitution. The Party programme called on the Russian working class and all working people to fight for the overthrow of the Tsarist dictatorship and subsequently fight for the overthrow of the bourgeois system and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat. According to the party constitution, the editorial board of the central organ and the Central Committee established the Party Council as the supreme institution of the Party, on the basis of reciprocity. The Party Council was to co-ordinate and harmonise the activities of the Central Committee and the editorial board of the Central Organ, to restore either of these institutions in the event of its entire membership no longer being able to function, and to represent the Party in relations with other parties. Convening the Party Congress was also the function of the Council, and it was obligated by the Constitution to do so at stated intervals or at the demand of Party organisations.

According to the party constitution one out of five members of the Party Council was elected directly at this Congress who would be eligible to convene the Party Council in the future. At this Congress, the revolutionary wing of the party (Bolsheviks) and the opportunist wing (the Mensheviks) struggled over what kind of party the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party should become, i.e., whether it should become a new and truly revolutionary Marxist party, or a reformist social-democratic party of the kind seen in Western European countries. At the Second Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party, a new type of Marxist party was actually established, a thoroughgoing program of action was laid down, and the direction of the further action for the Russian revolution was determined.