Written: Written on December 16 (29), 1911
Published:
First published in 1933 in Lenin Miscellany XXV.
Printed from the original.
Source:
Lenin
Collected Works,
Progress Publishers,
1977,
Moscow,
Volume 41,
page 243.2.
Translated: Yuri Sdobnikov
Transcription\Markup:
R. Cymbala
Copyleft:
V. I. Lenin Internet Archive (www.marxists.org)
© 2004
Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the
terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.
In electing a Committee of the Organisation Abroad{2} to handle the latter’s affairs the meeting hands it the draft Rules together with all the remarks, authorising the Commit tee to poll the groups and give final approval to the Rules through such a poll.
Lenin
{1} The proposal was motioned by Lenin at a meeting of Bolshevik groups abroad held in Paris on December 16 (29), 1911, when it was examining the question of whether there should be a detailed discussion of the draft Rules of the Organisation Abroad at the meeting itself, or whether they should be referred to the Committee of the Organisation Abroad for co-ordination with the groups and final approval. Lenin’s proposal was adopted by eight votes to one.
The meeting was held in Paris from December 14 to 17 (27 to 30), 1911, under Lenin’s direction. It was called on the initiative of the Paris circle for the promotion of the Bolshevik Rabochaya Gazeta, and was aimed at uniting the Bolshevik forces abroad and promoting the convocation of an all-Russia Party conference. It was attended by 11 delegates with vote from the Bolshevik groups of Paris, Nancy, Zurich, Davos, Geneva, Liége, Berne, Bremen and Berlin. The Bolsheviks of Toulouse, Lausanne, London, Brussels, Antwerp, Copenhagen, Nice and other cities were unable to send their representatives for technical and financial reasons. Some Bolshevik groups managed to send in detailed reports. On the agenda were these items: 1) reports of the Organising Bureau and delegates from the localities; 2) the state of affairs in the Party; 3) the state of affairs abroad and attitude to the various trends; 4) organisational matters; 5) the tasks of work abroad; 6) attitude to the conference; 7) other matters.
The meeting declared the final break-away of the Golos and Vperyod supporters from the Party, their complete bankruptcy, and approved the measures of the June meeting of the C.C. members on convening a Party conference. The meeting adopted the resolution motioned by Lenin on support for the Russian Organising Commission and the conference it was trying to call, and resolved to set up the R.S.D.L.P. Organisation Abroad (with local sections) on the basis of conducting a true Party line, without allowing any agreements with the liquidators; it also elected the Committee of the Organisation Abroad.
The meeting united the Bolshevik groups abroad into a single organisation, approved the formation of the R.O.C. and declared that “it is the duty of every Party member to support it to the utmost”. p. 243
{2} The Committee of the R.S.D.L.P. Organisation Abroad (C.O.A.) was elected at a meeting of the Bolshevik groups abroad held in Paris in December 1911. It included N. A. Semashko, M. F. Vladimirsky, Inessa Armand and others. The work of the C.O.A. was directed by Lenin. It played an important part in rallying the Party forces and in the struggle against the Menshevik liquidators, the conciliators, the Trotskyites and other opportunists. The C.O.A. responded to all the major events in Russia and measures in directing Party work and the Russian revolutionary movement, and also helped the C.C. to publish Party literature abroad. It ceased functioning in 1917. p. 243
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