. . . The comparative lenience with which the police dealt at that time with the Marxist movement commands attention.
It gives an impression that the Police Department regarded the Marxists somewhat mildly, being led by earlier memories to consider the narodniki the most dangerous revolutionaries.1
1. V. Burtsev, Borba za svobodnuiu Russiiu. Moi vospominaniia ("The Fight for a Free Russia. My Reminiscences") (Berlin : Gamaiun, 1923), I, 147.
( pages 29 - 30, note on page 331 )
. . . Ulianov . . . received the sum of 1,000 rubles ($500,00), which was quite enough to make it possible to start activities. This money, like later payments, passed through the hands of A. M. Kalmykova, a part apparently coming directly from her own personal means. Ulianov went abroad with legal permission, receiving a foreign passport from the Governor of Pskov. At the very last minute, however, the plan almost fell through, for Ulianov visited St. Petersburg, which he had no right to do under the police restrictions, and was there arrested. But he was soon set free, and on July 29, 1900, he entered Germany. V. L. Burtsev, the best authority on the history of the secret police in Russia up to 1917, thinks that the Police Department purposely permitted Ulianov to pass the border.2 The prospect of a Marxist newspaper abroad seemed to the Police Department advantageous for the conflict with the terroristic organizations of the narodniki, which were raising their heads ; ;concerning these the department had information through Azev, who from 1893 on had been in its service and also in the revolutionary circles of the Narodniki.
2. Ibid., pp. 159 ff. [ Note on page 331. ]
In the latter half of August, Ulianov arrived in Switzerland for conferences with the Liberation of Labor group ; its participation, as the most authoritative
Russian Social Democratic Labor organization, was indispensable for the success of the projected publication. But Ulianov�s conversations with this group nearly ended in a break.
Plekhanov, who headed the Liberation of Labor group, regarded himself as the natural leader of Russian social democracy. So it seemed to him logical that he should be in charge of the newspaper. Ulianov was to be limited to the obscure role of a technical assistant, mainly concerned with contacts with Russia. . . .
It is not surprising that there followed a sharp conflict between Plekhanov and Ulianov. The reverence Ulianov had felt for Plekhanov vanished forever. . . . Plekhanov was recognized as the honorary sponsor of the enterprise, but the editorial offices of the paper were
located not in Switzerland, where Plekhanov lived, but in Munich, Germany, where Ulianov could feel freer from Plekhanov�s supervision. The months of October and November, 1900, Ulianov passed in making ready for the first number of the Iskra (�The Spark) as it was decided to name the new paper. The first number appeared on December 24, 1900. Ulianov soon succeeded in bringing into the work people who thought more nearly as he did. From Russia came Martov, who became the chief worker in the editorial staff, and Krupskaya, who took charge of correspondence with Russia on the affairs of the Iskra. If Ulianov was not the sole master of the enterprise, as he had earlier thought he should be, nevertheless he was able to play the leading role.
When many Marxists began to voice discontent with the new turn of affairs, the editorial staff of the Iskra—of course at the demand of Ulianov&3151;determined to transfer publication to a point still further removed from Plekhanov. Early in April, 1902, the editorial office of the Iskra was moved to London. A new member was introduced into the staff, a young man recently escaped from Siberia, named Bronstein, who later became famous under the pseudonym Trotsky. Despite his youth, Bronstein soon began to take an independent attitude toward Ulianov. . . .
Plekhanov was a brilliant and astute debater and publicist whose talents, however, were somewhat superficial. . . . The inner disturbances in connection with the Iskra finally became obvious in a division of the Iskra followers at the Second Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labor party. [* See later, chap. ii, sec.1]
The publication of the Iskra played a great part in the preliminary history of the Russian Revolution of 1905. . . .
( pages 34 � 38 )
After lengthy preparations, the Iskra group succeeded in bringing together a convention of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party. According to official party precedence, it was called the Second Convention, the First being considered the one held in 1898 which actually did not have real significance from the point of view of party organization because the majority of its leaders were quickly arrested.
The gathering of 1903 was really the first party convention. It opened in Brussels on July 30 and held fifteen session, the last on August 4. . . .
( page 47 )
Two different tendencies were now evident in the Iskra faction—a majority controlling twenty four votes, and a minority controlling nine votes. This marked the beginning of the split which has become widely known since that time, between the Bolsheviks (the majority) and the Mensheviks (the minority). Both Plekhanov and Lenin officially stood at the head of the Iskra majority at the Convention, but in truth its animating spirit was Lenin. At the time of the Convention, Plekhanov obviously took Lenin�s course only because of a feeling that it would not be correct for him to violate the unity of the Iskra group. But the place of first violinist in the party concert passed to Lenin. Martov, formerly a sympathizer and colleague of Lenin, stood at the head of the Iskra minority, and he had the support of Trotsky.
The split of the Iskra group into two sections occurred on a question concerning not the party program but the problem of organization, during a discussion of the formula in section 1 of the party constitution determining the conditions of party membership. Lenin proposed the following formula: �Every person shall be considered a party member who recognizes its program and supports the party both by material means and by personal participation in one of the party organizations.� Martov�s formula read: �Every person shall be considered a member of the Russian Social Democratic Labor party who accepts its program, supports the party by material means, and accords it regular personal co-operation under the direction of one of its organizations.�
For anyone not consecrated to the cause it is difficult to discern any substantial difference between the two formulas. But around this question boiling passions
seethed ; concerning it long orations were declaimed ; and in consequence of it the party divided in two. The internal significance of all the conflict amounted to this :
According to Lenin�s variant of the formula, the only person who could be considered a party member was one who, belonging to a ;arty organization, must through that fact be bound in his conduct by an iron party discipline and consequently be subordinate to the regulations of the party center ; thus Lenin envisaged in the party a conspiratory organization formed wholly of illegal agents. According to Martov�s variant, any person might be a member of the party who accorded it co-operation, although not entering directly in the party organization and only being affiliated with it, that is to say, actually retaining the possibility always of refusing to execute instructions of the party center or to adhere to party discipline ; thus individuals, following a legal curse of action, might belong to the party, and in case of opportunity it would not be difficult to transform the whole party into an open legal organization.
As he had already made it clear in his brochure What Is To Be Done, in 1901, Lenin wanted an organization of the kind which was later realized in the Bolshevik party, that is, an organization welded together by an iron discipline. . . .
( pages 49 � 50 )