Skip to main content
The Prague Spring

The Prague Conference, officially the 6th All-Russian Conference of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, was held in Prague, Austria-Hungary on 5–17 January 1912. Eighteen Bolsheviks attended, although Joseph Stalin and Yakov Sverdlov, who were in exile at the time, were not able to. Georgi Plekhanov claimed he was too ill to attend. At the conference, Vladimir Lenin and his supporters broke away from the rest of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party and formed their own, Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (bolsheviks). The conference was meant to be secret; Lenin had instructed: "No-one, no organisation must know about this". However, every detail was known to the Okhrana, the secret police of the Russian Empire.
Seven people were elected to the Central Committee: Lenin, Zinoviev, Malinovsky (later revealed to be a spy for the Okhrana), Ordzhonikidze, Spandaryan (Stalin's best friend), Sverdlov (Soviet president, 1917–19) and Goloshchekin. The latter four set up a Russian Bureau to direct the party along with Kalinin and Stalin, who led the Bureau. This ensured the domination of Russia-based Bolsheviks as opposed to the émigrés who were considered "null and void" by Ordzhonikidze. Spandaryan called for the émigré group to be dissolved.
After the conference, upon Lenin and Zinoviev's recommendation, Stalin was co-opted to the Bolshevik Central Committee. Elena Stasova was made Secretary to the Russian Bureau. Stepan Shahumyan and Mikhail Kalinin (Soviet president 1919–46) became candidate Central Committee members. Ironically, Kalinin was suspected of being an Okhrana agent so was not a full member. Both were Stalin's comrades in the Caucasus.
Lenin wrote to Maxim Gorky: "At last we have succeeded, in spite of the Liquidator scum, in restoring the Party and its Central Committee. I hope you will rejoice with us over the fact." Stalin said: "This conference was of the utmost importance in the history of our Party, for it drew a boundary line between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks and amalgamated the Bolshevik organizations all over the country into a united Bolshevik Party."

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

HIS: This Day in History: 1343 – Pope Clement VI issues the papal bull Unigenitus to justify the power of the pope and the use of indulgences. Nearly 200 years later, Martin Luther would protest this.

  In the teaching of the Catholic Church, an indulgence (Latin: indulgentia, from indulgeo, 'permit') is "a way to reduce the amount of punishment one has to undergo for sins". The Catechism of the Catholic Church describes an indulgence as "a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven, which the faithful Christian who is duly disposed gains under certain prescribed conditions through the action of the Church which, as the minister of redemption, dispenses and applies with authority the treasury of the satisfactions of Christ and all of the saints". The recipient of an indulgence must perform an action to receive it. This is most often the saying (once, or many times) of a specified prayer, but may also include the visiting of a particular place, or the performance of specific good works. Indulgences were introduced to allow for the remission of the severe penances of the early Church and granted at the ...
Post a Comment
Read more

HIS: This Day in History: 1454 – The papal bull Romanus Pontifex awards the Kingdom of Portugal exclusive trade and colonization rights to all of Africa south of Cape Bojador.

HIS: This Day in History: 1454 – The papal bull Romanus Pontifex awards the Kingdom of Portugal exclusive trade and colonization rights to all of Africa south of Cape Bojador. Romanus Pontifex, Latin for "The Roman Pontiff", is a papal bull issued several times over the 15th century, first in 1436 by Pope Eugenius IV and again in 1455 by Pope Nicholas V to King Afonso V of Portugal. As a follow-up to the Dum Diversas, it confirmed to the Crown of Portugal dominion over all lands south of Cape Bojador in Africa. Along with encouraging the seizure of the lands of Saracen Turks and non-Christians. The bull's primary purpose was to forbid other Christian nations from infringing the King of Portugal's rights of trade and colonisation in these regions, particularly amid the Portuguese and Castilian competition for ascendancy over new lands discovered. This bull should not be confused with a September 21, 1451, bull by the same name, also written by Nicholas V, relieving th...
Post a Comment
Read more

HIS: This Day in History: 2002 – The Sierra Leone Civil War is declared over.

 HIS: This Day in History: 2002 – The Sierra Leone Civil War is declared over. The Sierra Leone Civil War (1991–2002), or the Sierra Leonean Civil War, was a civil war in Sierra Leone that began on 23 March 1991 when the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), with support from the special forces of Charles Taylor's National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), intervened in Sierra Leone in an attempt to overthrow the Joseph Momoh government. The resulting civil war lasted 11 years, enveloped the country, and left over 50,000 dead. During the first year of the war, the RUF took control of large swathes of territory in eastern and southern Sierra Leone, which were rich in alluvial diamonds. The government's ineffective response to the RUF, and the disruption in government diamond production, precipitated a military coup d'état in April 1992 by the National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC). By the end of 1993, the Sierra Leone Army (SLA) had succeeded in pushing the RUF rebels back...
Post a Comment
Read more