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    Martov Biography

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    Roonah Kay
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    Martov Biography

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    Roonah Kay
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    martov

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    martov

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf
    104 views9 pages

    Martov Biography

    Uploaded by

    Roonah Kay
    martov

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
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    Download as pdf
    of 9
    MARTOV A Political Biography of a Russian Social Democrat ISRAEL GETZLER Senior Lecturer in History University of Adelaide CAMBRIDGE AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS MELBOURNE UNIVERSITY PRESS 1967 MARTOV 8 ‘There is also some evidence that Ma with Lenin on the nature of the party wh Congres. In an article which Martov wrote for Rosa Luxemburg’s Preeglad Socjaldemokratyezny (Social Democratic Review)" in April 1903, he posed the basic organizational question of social democracy in Russia: how to reconcile the urgent need for conspiracy with the ‘yearning for the creation ofa broadly-based social democratic party of the Yworking masses. He felt \d their con- rtov did not quite see eye 1 eye ‘ch was to emerge from the Second Jutionary forces an deinye zadachiprolearskogo sowiallamat, (6H, that the tremendous increase of active revo tinuous recruitment by way of well-developed and widespread propaganda and agitation would enable the ‘central organizational apparatus tO ‘make use of its numerous activists for the purpose of ‘drawing the wide mast pe othe movement through a whole network of ‘all sorts of unions @ groups of, so t0 say, coeond order, scattered among the wide masses.'?? Sthis would require a modified form of entralization to cope with ‘the task of co-ordinating all these forces’; ‘the ‘deological unity of the mass of ot ve revolutionists nurtured by theoretically SOE ‘and serious literary propaganda’ would allow for a combination of ‘centralization indispensable veep abcret, conspiratorial organization « - - with the necessary autonomy, within defined limits, of the integral parts ‘of the party, an autonomy which Jhould secure for them revolutionary self-reliance.? Martov, then, a great believer in the primacy of revolutionary theory* was convinced that as Tong as ideological unity held the party ’ crivists together (and he thought thie had already been achieved, thanks +o Tskra) some initiative, control ang auonomy oy ld be delegated to regional or other forms of organization. Boome rime in April 1903, if not earlier, ‘with the imminent Second Co! ress in mind, Martov drafted a lengthy project of a party constitution*® srtteh seems 10 reflect that widening of The party, the delegation of some Initiative and authority to local ‘organizational bodies. which his article had urged. The membership (qualification was even slightly wider than the Mternative formula he introduced at ‘he congress: it admitted persons ander the control and guidance of the Orgs of the party (section I) which was even less definite than la ‘under the guidance of one of the party organization: mn could be a member 31Martoy, ‘Najblizsze zadania socjalne} _demokracfi rosyskie}’ (The Immediate saat Social, Democracy’), Preeglad “Socjaldemokratycsny, vol. 2 RO. 41 132. Preeglad ‘Socjaldemokratycany, the ‘heoretical journal of the Social Apmocratic Party of the Kingdom ‘of Poland and Lithuania, was by Rosa Luxem- burg, Leo Tyszko Cogiches) ‘and Julian Marchlewski. ibid. #3 Ibid. si Son eg, his ‘Ideinye traditsii tk po, ju, 1 January 1903, where siti ilted “all the living forces of th ‘volution’ t0 ‘theory’ since an Yategrated socio-political wald-view is that mould which is necessory fer the conversion of the active -potitigrs of an oppressed social class into @ political ty. Party, svlovich’ (P, A. Krasikov), Pis'me ke tovarishcham o, viorom se2de RSDRP (Letter to the Comrades on “the Second Congress of the RSD.RP) (Geneva, 1904), Ps S: (eetfons that ‘during Christmas, 190 sefomrade who worked in Rusia {a member vanaf Committee) requested the AGfcorial board of Iskra in the persons tin organizational, consicution ar fartov's fst of the Organ of rnrades Martov and Lenin to ee i Fy a ais eo drafts to Lenin probably early in May. nin os, the second of thirty-nine Par Ste Grafted.’ Martov grafted Mated of no less than forty Cighe “only the second has been prescry sae equoted in full in Lenin's On or Sieps Back (Sochinensta, vo: & PP. 1926). 4 THE PARTING OF THE WAYS o Who was not enrolled in a organization, indeed even if he was not so much as directly supertaed | by one. His draft recognized the party ‘committees as ‘the representatives of the party in its local work’ (this would strengthen their position vis-a-vis the agents of the Central Committee) and, in any situation where a new or reorganized local committee be- came necessary, allowed the Central Committee to co-opt no more than one- third of local committee members (section If, 7). Moreover, the Central Committee was empowered to declare a committee dissolved only on the basis of the decision of a party congress (section II, 9). Local committees Were to be in charge of all local propagandist, agitational, and organiza- tional party activity (section II, 10, 11), and to decide on all matters con- cerning the relations between them and the local secondary organizations attached to them (such as factory committees, student circles, educational associations etc), though they were to inform the Central Committee and the Central Organ (the official party newspaper). Local secondary organiza- tions were to deal with the central authorities only through the local com- mittees (section IIT, 19). Organizations engaged in agitation in any of the non- Russian languages were permitted to band together in autonomous unions with their own literary and administrative organs, subject to the approval and direct control of the Central Committee. Local committees were also allowed to join such unions while remaining party committees. The central govern- ing bodies of the party, apart from the congress appointing them, were the Central Committee, the political centre in charge of all organizational work, and the Central Organ (the ideological centre): their relations to each other were not clearly defined but both were in direct connection with all local party committees (section HI). Martov showed his draft to Lenin some time in May.* Lenin disapproved of it, especially of its inordinate length and detail*” (thirty-nine paragraphs), and produced his own brief counter-draft™* (welve paragraphs). In August 1903 Lenin’s draft and not Martov’s was tabled at the Second Congress and was, with certain modifications (notably Martov’s membership paragraph), adopted as the constitution of the RSDRP. Since Lenin was clearly Iskra’s expert on organizational questions such an outcome is not surprising—what is surprising is that Martov should have taken the initiative and drafted a constitution in the first place. Pethaps he wanted to make sure that the ideas which he had rather vaguely expressed in his Polish article of April 1903 would be embodied in the con- stitution. He certainly could not rely on Lenin to do this for him, For Lenin, the centralist par excellence, was evidently contemptuous" of a detailed constitution which would spell out clearly the rights and powers and also the limitations of the central party institutions, in their relations with the local committees. When in the end, confronted with Martov’s draft which did precisely that, Lenin formulated his own, all he did was to (i) narrow polozheniem’ o RSDRP (Struggle against the ‘State of Siege? ntokoly Ligi, p. 8. 34 See Borba s ‘osadnym 190 Oa OIG, pth contain Lenin's final diagnosis of in the RSDRP) (Geneva, 1904) 31 Protokoly Ligi, p. ner, vol. Martov’s draft as ‘suffering from almost incurable dropsy’. 34 For Lenin’s draft see Sochinemiia, vol. 6, pp- 12-13. 39 See Sochineniia, vol. 5 (Moscow-Leningrad, 1935) PP. * MARTOV 0 rofessional revolu- jembership paragraph to exclude any but pr virtually unlimited rights to the Central Committee, 0V

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