Preface

Source: Works, Vol. 2, 1907 - 1913
Publisher:Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1954
Transcription/Markup: Salil Sen for MIA, 2008
Public Domain: Marxists Internet Archive (2008). You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit "Marxists Internet Archive" as your source.

Volume 2 of the Works of J . V. Stalin contains writings mainly of the period from the latter half of 1907 to 1913, prior to Comrade Stalin's exile to the Turukhansk region, where he remained until February 1917. These works cover mainly two periods of Comrade Stalin's revolutionary activities, the Baku period and the St. Petersburg period.

The writings of the first half of 1907 deal with the tactics of the Bolsheviks during the first Russian revolution ("Preface to the Georgian Edition of K. Kautsky's Pamphlet The Driving Forces and Prospects of the Russian Revolution," the article "The Election Campaign in St.Petersburg and the Mensheviks," and others). The articles of this period were published in the Georgian Bolshevik newspapers Chveni Tskhovreba and Dro. They appear in Russian for the first time.

The writings from June 1907 onwards-in the period of Comrade Stalin's revolutionary activities mainly in Baku-deal with the struggle the Bolsheviks waged against the Menshevik Liquidators for the preservation and strengthening of the underground revolutionary Marxist Party ("The Party Crisis and Our Tasks," "Resolutions Adopted by the Baku Committee on January 22, 1910," "Letters From the Caucasus"). Questions concerning the leadership of the revolutionary labour movement and the trade unions are dealt with in the articles:"What Do Our Recent Strikes Tell Us?" "The Oil Owners on Economic Terrorism," "The Conference and the Workers," and others. An analysis of the Fifth Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. is presented in the article "The London Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. (Notes of a Delegate)." J. V. Stalin's articles of this period included in Volume 2 were published in the newspapers Bakinsky Proletary, Gudok and Sotsial-Demokrat.

The latter half of 1911 marked the beginning of the St. Petersburg period of Comrade Stalin's revolutionary activities (1911-1913). As the head of the Russian Bureau of the Central Committee, Comrade Stalin directed the work of the Party in Russia in carrying out the decisions of the Prague Conference of the Party. It was in this period that the works were written dealing mainly with the new revolutionary upsurge in the labour movement and with the tasks of the Bolshevik Party in connection with the elections to the Fourth State Duma. Among these are the leaflet "For the Party!", the articles "A New Stage," "They Are Working Well. . . .", "The Ice Has Broken! . . .", "Mandate of the St. Petersburg Workers to Their Labour Deputy," "The Will of the Voters' Delegates," "The Elections in St. Petersburg," and others. These articles were published in the St. Petersburg newspapers Zvezda and Pravda.

This volume includes J. V. Stalin's well-known work Marxism and the National Question (1913), in which the Bolshevik theory and programme on the national question are developed.

The article "On Cultural-National Autonomy," which Comrade Stalin wrote during his exile in Turukhansk region, and a number of other works, have not yet been discovered.

Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute of the C.P., C.P.S.U.(B.)