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

The Fifth Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. was held in London from May 13 to June 1, in 1907. The Congress was originally planned to be held in Copenhagen or Malmö (Sweden) or Brussels. Denmark, Sweden, and Belgium all banned the convening of the Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party on their territory because of the pressure exerted by the Tsarist government. The delegates of the Congress, who had already gathered in Copenhagen, therefore had to move to Malmö, and from there to London.

342 delegates attended the Congress, representing about 150,000 party members, including 303 delegates with voting rights and 39 specially invited delegates with consultative rights. Among the delegates with voting rights were 89 Bolsheviks, 88 Mensheviks, 55 the Bund delegates, 45 representatives of the Social-Democratic Party of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania, and 26 representatives of the Social-Democratic Party of the Territory of Latvia. Most of the deputies of the big industrial centers were Bolsheviks. Lenin participated in the Congress as a representative of the Upper Kama River Region (Urals) organization and was elected to the presidium. Maxim Gorky attended the Congress as a representative with a consultative right.

The discussion of the agenda of the Congress took up almost four meetings. The Bolsheviks, the Mensheviks, and the Bundists debated whether to include the main theoretical and political questions of principle in the agenda of the Congress. The Bolsheviks, with the support of the Polish and Latvian Social Democrats, put on the agenda one of the most important questions of general principles, namely the question of the attitude towards the bourgeois parties. The meeting agenda adopted by the Congress included: Report of the Central Committee; Report of the Duma group and its set-up; Attitude to the Bourgeois Parties; The Duma; Labor Congress and Non-Party Labor Organizations; Trade unions and the Party; Partisan Action; Unemployment, Economic Crisis and Lockouts; Organizational Questions; and International Congress at Stuttgart (May Day, militarism); Work in the Army; Miscellaneous. Due to time and financial constraints, only the proposals and resolutions presented at the Congresses on behalf of the factions were discussed with regard to the State Duma, on trade unions and the party on the issue of partisan action, and on organizational questions. There was no time to discuss unemployment, the economic crisis, and lockouts, or the Stuttgart International Congress.

The Bolsheviks were supported at the Congress by representatives of the Social-Democratic Party of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania and the Social-Democratic Party of the Territory of Latvia. The Bolsheviks united them with a revolutionary program, thus gaining a majority at the Congresses and achieving the victory of the revolutionary Marxist line. On all fundamental questions, the Congress adopted Bolshevik resolutions. The Bolshevik proposal was defined as the tactic of the uniting the whole party. “On the Question of Attitude to the Bourgeois Parties”, a resolution drafted by Lenin was adopted. The resolution “On the State Duma”, which was also based on Lenin’s draft, defined the tasks of the Social Democrat group working within the Duma. In contrast to the Mensheviks’ view of the Duma group as an autonomous entity acting independent of the party, the resolution stated that the work of the Social Democrats within the Duma should be an integral part of the struggle outside the Duma and that the Duma should be used primarily as a forum for denouncing autocracy and the conciliatory policy of the bourgeoisie and for propagandizing the party’s revolutionary demands. The resolution adopted by the Congress on the question of "Labor Congress and Non-Party Labor Organizations" was based on the draft resolution proposed by Lenin which refuted “ Axelrod’s agitation for a Non-Party labour congress, the aim of which is to destroy the Social-Democratic Labour Party and to set up in its place a Non-Party political organisation of the proletariat”. In the resolution “Trade unions and the Party”, the Congress refuted the opportunist theory of "neutrality" of the trade unions and considered that the Party must exercise ideological and political leadership over the trade unions. The Congress adopted a new Party Constitution which made the following amended, “only the Central Committee shall be elected at the Congress, and the editorial board of the Central Organ shall be appointed by the Central Committee and works under the supervision of the Central Committee. The Party Constitution required regular party meetings which should discuss the most important issues in the party's internal life.

The Congress elected a Central Committee consisting of five Bolsheviks (J. P. Goldenberg, N. A. Rozhkov, I. F. Dubrovinsky, I. A. Teodorovich, V. P. Nogin), four Mensheviks (A. Martynov, Noe Zhordania, Nikifor, J. A. Iusiv), two Polish Social Democrats (A. Warski, F. E. Dzerzhinsky), and one Latvian Social Democrat (Jūlijs Daniševskis) (The other three members of the Central Committee were chosen by the Bund faction and Social-Democratic Party of the Territory of Latvia after the Congress). The Congress also approved 24 candidate members of the Central Committee; Lenin was among them. Because of the mixed composition of the new Central Committee and the unreliability of its leadership, at the end of the Congress, the Bolsheviks formed a Bolshevik Central Committee headed by Lenin at their own meeting, and the editorial board of the newspaper Proletary joined the Central Committee of the Bolsheviks.