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

The Fourth Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. was held in Stockholm from April 23 to May 8, 1906. In the history of the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party, the Congress was called the "Unity Congress", because the representatives of both Bolsheviks and Mensheviks had attended the Congress. The Congress was attended by 112 representatives with voting rights and 22 specially invited delegates with consultative rights. They represented 62 organizations of the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party. There were also three representatives of the Social-Democratic Party of Poland and Lithuania, three representatives of the Latvian Social-Democratic Labor Party and three representatives of the collapse, one representative of the Ukrainian Social-Democratic Labor Party and one representative of the Finnish Labor Party. In addition, there is a representative of the Bulgarian Social-Democratic Labor Party. Together with the invited delegates and guests, a total of 157 people attended the Congress. Concerning the election of delegates, the system of determining the number of delegates according to the number of party members was established for the first time based on Lenin's proposal, i.e., one delegate was elected out of 300 party members, and organizations with less than 300 members also elected one delegate. The system of determining the number of deputies to the Congress according to the number of Party members was written into the Party Rules adopted by the Fourth Congress. Since many party organizations in the Bolshevik-dominated industrial centers were severely weakened by the destruction, the composition of the Congress did not reflect the true balance of power within the party. Of the 112 votes, the Bolsheviks had 46 and the Mensheviks had 62, and the conciliators, who had a few votes, were also in agreement with the Mensheviks on the basic issues. The Congress comprised of nearly 30 sessions.

The agenda of the congress included: revising the agrarian program; present situation and the class tasks of the proletariat; on the question of the attitude towards the State Duma; armed uprising; fighting guerrilla operations; the provisional revolutionary government and local organs of revolutionary authority; the attitude towards workers representing the Soviet Union; the trade unions; the attitude towards the peasant movement; attitude towards the bourgeois parties; the issue of the soviets of workers’ deputies and, in connection with the nationalities question in the party program, the issue of a special constituent assembly for Poland; principles of party organization; union with the social democracy of the kingdom of Poland and Lithuania, the Latvian social-democratic labor party, and the Bund; work reports; and lastly elections. the congress discussed the issues of the revision of the agrarian program, present situation and the class tasks of the proletariat, the attitude towards the State Duma, fighting guerrilla operations, attitude towards the national social-democratic parties, and principles of party organization. Lenin made a report on the agrarian question, the current situation and question of the attitude towards the state duma, made a statement on the question of armed uprising and other issues, and participated in the drafting committee of the party principles.

A fierce struggle took place in the Congress. On the issue of revising the agrarian program, three programs were put forward: Lenin's land nationalization program, a part of the Bolsheviks' land distribution program, and the Mensheviks' program of local communal ownership of land. By a majority vote, the Congress approved the local public land program of the Mensheviks, but under the pressure of the Bolsheviks, it made some changes to the program. The Congress also approved the Menshevik resolutions “Attitude Towards the State Duma” and “On Armed Uprising”, and the Congress adopted without discussion the resolutions on the “Trade Unions” and “On the Attitude Towards the Peasant Movement”. The Congress adopted the decision to unite with the Social-Democratic Party of Poland and Lithuania and with the Social-Democratic Labor Party of Latvia, which joined the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party as regional organizations working among the national proletariat of the region. The Congress also established the conditions for reunification with the Jewish Bund. In the new party rules approved by the Congress, the first article on party membership adopted Lenin's provisions, but the situation of the coexistence of the two central organs was retained with regard to the interrelationship of the Party's Central Committee and the Central Organ. At this Congress, the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks were only formally united, while in practice they maintained their own views and independent organizations.

Finally, the Congress elected a Central Committee consisting of seven Mensheviks (V. Rozanov, L. Goldman, L. Radchenko, L.M. Khinchuk, V.N. Krokhmal, B.A. Bakhmeteff, P.N. Kolokolnikov) and three Bolsheviks (V. Denitsky, L. Krasin, A.I. Rykov) and the editorial board of the Central Organ consisting of 5 Mensheviks (J. Martov, A. Martynov, P. P. Maslov, F. I. Dan, A. N. Potresov). Rykov, a member of the Central Committee, was later replaced by A.A. Bogdanov. Each of the national social-democratic parties that joined the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party was later represented in the Central Committee.