Tampere conference of 1905
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The first conference of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) took place in
Tampere Tampere ( , , ; sv, Tammerfors, ) is a city in the Pirkanmaa region, located in the western part of Finland. Tampere is the most populous inland city in the Nordic countries. It has a population of 244,029; the urban area has a population o ...
(Tammerfors),
Grand Duchy of Finland The Grand Duchy of Finland ( fi, Suomen suuriruhtinaskunta; sv, Storfurstendömet Finland; russian: Великое княжество Финляндское, , all of which literally translate as Grand Principality of Finland) was the predecess ...
, in December 1905. Held between the 1905
London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
and 1906 Stockholm party congresses at the
Tampere Workers' Hall Tampere Workers' Hall (also known as the Puistotorni, ''The Park Tower'') is a conference and congress centre in Kaakinmaa, Tampere, Finland, located in the corner between Hämeenpuisto and Hallituskatu. It was built in 1900 by the Tampere Worke ...
, the conference was an unofficial meeting of the
Bolshevik The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...
faction of the party. It is particularly remembered for playing host to the first meeting of
Vladimir Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1 ...
and
Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...
. The conference resolved to forgo participation in the new State Duma, as did most of the far left parties. They later reversed this decision in 1907.Demin, V. A. (2008). "Factions in the Second State Duma". Russian Studies in History. 46 (4): 34 The Tampere conference was conducted in secrecy, and little record remains of its proceedings. The only known documents that remain are the printed record of the resolutions reached at the meeting, and Lenin's report on its results. The exact timeframe of the conference is also unclear. Finnish sources suggest that it was held on 25–30 December, whilst according to Russian historian G. Kramolnikov, who wrote about the conference in the 1930s, it was opened earlier, with the first sessions held on 23 December.


Background

A solicitation for the Tampere meeting appeared in the Bolshevik ''
Novaya Zhizn ''Novaya Zhizn'' (, ''New Life'') was the first legal Bolshevik daily newspaper. It was founded by Alexander Bogdanov and its first editor was Nikolai Minsky. It was first published in October 1905 in Petersburg, under the guidance of Lenin. It ...
'' newspaper in late November 1905. It invited regional Bolshevik organisations to elect representatives to attend a conference in Finland, to be opened on 23 December. The conference was intended as a meeting of the Lenin-led Bolshevik faction of the RSDLP, which had strengthened following the 3rd party congress, held in London earlier that year. That November, the Menshevik faction held its own "second general conference" in St. Petersburg. Unrest caused by the
Russian Revolution of 1905 The Russian Revolution of 1905,. also known as the First Russian Revolution,. occurred on 22 January 1905, and was a wave of mass political and social unrest that spread through vast areas of the Russian Empire. The mass unrest was directed again ...
, however, prevented many Bolshevik regional organisations from sending representatives to Tampere, including those from
Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 millio ...
, Samara, and
Nizhny Novgorod Nizhny Novgorod ( ; rus, links=no, Нижний Новгород, a=Ru-Nizhny Novgorod.ogg, p=ˈnʲiʐnʲɪj ˈnovɡərət ), colloquially shortened to Nizhny, from the 13th to the 17th century Novgorod of the Lower Land, formerly known as Gork ...
. As such, the meeting was lowered in status from party congress to conference. Just before the conference on 21 December, the Moscow
Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...
(Workers' Council), which was controlled by the Bolsheviks, decided to begin an armed rebellion. At the start of the party conference, the outcome of the rebellion was not yet known. Furthermore, the Russian government had just issued an election law for the new State Duma, which became a topic of debate at the conference. The conference was intended to be held in St. Petersburg, but this was later deemed unfeasible due to the ongoing unrest there. Finland was chosen as the new site of the conference because no passport was needed to travel there. Yrjö Sirola, secretary of the Finnish Social Democratic Party, recommended the city of Tampere, as no Russian troops were stationed there. In addition, Tampere's mayor welcomed anti-Tsarist activists of all kinds, and the city was home to a powerful labour movement. Lenin initially opposed the Tampere option for the conference, but changed his mind after the general strike that took place there during the Russian Revolution of 1905. According to the announcement that appeared in ''Novaya Zhizn'', representatives attending the conference were to meet at
Finland Station St Petersburg–Finlyandsky (russian: Станция Санкт-Петербург-Финля́ндский ''Stantsiya Sankt-Peterburg-Finlyandskiy'', in spoken language usually just russian: Финля́ндский вокзал ''Finlyandskiy ...
in St. Petersburg on 21 December, after which they would proceed by train to Tampere in small groups. The Finnish organisers of conference are of uncertain identity. Editor of the ''
Kansan Lehti ''Kansan Lehti'' (Finnish: ''People’s Newspaper'') was a social democratic newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray back ...
'' newspaper
Vihtori Kosonen Vihtori Kosonen (1873–1934) was a Finnish journalist, publisher, and free-thinker.Kujala, Antti: ”Suomi vallankumouksen punaisena selustana”, s. 131–133 teoksessa ''Lenin ja Suomi – osa I''. Opetusministeriö ja Valtion painatuskeskus, ...
has been suggested as one of them.


The conference

The conference was held at the five-year old
Tampere Workers' Hall Tampere Workers' Hall (also known as the Puistotorni, ''The Park Tower'') is a conference and congress centre in Kaakinmaa, Tampere, Finland, located in the corner between Hämeenpuisto and Hallituskatu. It was built in 1900 by the Tampere Worke ...
, which was built by the Tampere Workers' Society as a "
People's House People's Houses (russian: Народный дом) were originally leisure and cultural centres built with the intention of making art and cultural appreciation available to the working classes. The first establishment of this type appeared in T ...
" leisure and cultural centre for the working class. The hall was considered an ideal place to hold the conference, as the sheer number of events and activities held there provided cover for covert activities. The Workers' Society offered to provide space in the hall free-of-charge, organised a guard to keep watch for the Tsarist secret police, and provided accommodation for the representatives at local hotels. Sessions of the conference began on 23 December, though it was not officially opened until the next day. Lenin was elected chairman, with
Boris Goldman Boris may refer to: People * Boris (given name), a male given name *:''See'': List of people with given name Boris * Boris (surname) * Boris I of Bulgaria (died 907), the first Christian ruler of the First Bulgarian Empire, canonized after his d ...
(known by the alias Gorev) and
Mikhail Borodin Mikhail Markovich Gruzenberg, known by the alias Borodin, zh, 鮑羅廷 (9 July 1884 – 29 May 1951), was a Bolshevik revolutionary and Communist International (Comintern) agent. He was an advisor to Sun Yat-sen and the Kuomintang (KMT) i ...
(known by the alias Kiril) selected as deputy chairmen. On Lenin's suggestion, all representatives to the conference used aliases, for fear of detection by the secret police. Well-known representatives to the conference include
Fyodor Dan Fyodor Ilyich Dan (surname at birth: Gurvich) (died 22 January 1947) was a political activist and journalist who helped found the Menshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. Background Fyodor Dan was born to a Jewish family ...
,
Leonid Krasin Leonid Borisovich Krasin (russian: Леони́д Бори́сович Кра́син; 15 July 1870 – 24 November 1926) was a Russian Soviet politician, engineer, social entrepreneur, Bolshevik revolutionary politician and a Soviet diplomat. In ...
, Julius Martov, Alexei Rykov. Leo Laukki represented the FSDP. A total of 41 representatives of regional RSDLP organisations from across Russia attended the conference. The first order of business was the presentation of information regarding ongoing events in each region of Russia, and a discussion about the actions of the Central Committee of the RSDLP. Lenin gave at least two speeches at the conference, and these were subsequently praised by Stalin in his memoirs. The atmosphere at the conference was one of great revolutionary enthusiasm, which was lauded by Lenin's wife, Nadezhda Krupskaya. According to her, members of the Tampere
Red Guards Red Guards () were a mass student-led paramilitary social movement mobilized and guided by Chairman Mao Zedong in 1966 through 1967, during the first phase of the Cultural Revolution, which he had instituted.Teiwes According to a Red Guard lead ...
even taught the Russians how to shoot rifles. The primary issue raised at the conference was the split between the Bolshevik and Menshevik factions of the party. The Bolsheviks desired to mend the split, but would not consider compromising the Bolshevik ideology in searching for a resolution. At Tampere, they considered methods for restoring co-operation between the two factions, even if the formal split could not be resolved. In the end, the conference resolved to mend the split between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks on the basis of equality between the two factions, and issued its support for the merger of parallel Menshevik and Bolshevik regional organisations. They also considered the " agrarian question", a term used by marxists to refer to debate over whether the rural-based
peasant A peasant is a pre-industrial agricultural laborer or a farmer with limited land-ownership, especially one living in the Middle Ages under feudalism and paying rent, tax, fees, or services to a landlord. In Europe, three classes of peasant ...
ry would support an urban-based
proletarian revolution A proletarian revolution or proletariat revolution is a social revolution in which the working class attempts to overthrow the bourgeoisie and change the previous political system. Proletarian revolutions are generally advocated by socialists, ...
. In reference to this question, the conference voted to demand the confiscation of all private, state, and church land. Finally, the conference discussed the upcoming elections to the newly established State Duma. Most representatives at the conference considered the recently publicised State Duma election law to be a "travesty of parliamentarianism", and urged a boycott of the elections. Lenin, along with Gorev, dissented, suggesting that the election law could be exploited to the Bolsheviks' advantage, and that it was necessary to be flexible in efforts to constrain the power of the Tsar. In the face of intense opposition, Lenin abandoned this position, and endorsed the majority's call for an electoral boycott and an endorsement of the ongoing armed uprising in Moscow, which was then adopted. Another decision made at the conference was to reorganise the party into a more centralised framework, in line with Lenin's principles of democratic centralism.


Meeting of Lenin and Stalin

Lenin and Stalin's first meeting took place during the conference at a meeting room in the Tampere Workers' Hall. Stalin later wrote in his memoirs that the meeting had been at first a disappointment. He had assumed that Lenin would be a grand figure, physically bigger than everyone else present, but found instead that he was shorter than average, and looked no different from any of the other representatives present at the conference. Stalin also wrote that he thought it was customary for great men to arrive late to such functions, so as to facilitate the gathered public's waiting in anticipation. Lenin, however, arrived on time, chatting with acquaintances at a corner table, and greeting the representatives in an informal manner. Stalin wrote that, at the time, he considered this to be "violation of certain essential rules", but later realised that this "simplicity and modesty" were Lenin's greatest qualities as a leader of the "rank and file" of humanity. The room where Lenin and Stalin met is now part of the
Tampere Lenin Museum The Tampere Lenin Museum ( fi, Lenin-museo) is a museum devoted to Vladimir Lenin in Tampere, Finland. It was established in 1946 by the Finland–Soviet Union Society, and today it is run by The Finnish Labour Museum Werstas. It was the first ...
.


Myths surrounding the conference

As no minutes of the proceedings of the conference exist, nor are there any photos of the meeting itself, there is very little reliable information about what really occurred at the conference and people's memories of the event are more or less distorted. Furthermore, because the meeting was attended by figures of major historical importance, including Lenin and Stalin, numerous legends and myths have sprung up about that are not necessarily true. For example, Lenin and his wife Nadezhda Krupskaya allegedly stayed at a guest house on the corner of Rautatienkatu and Kyttälänkatu in Tampere, as indicated by a plaque commemorating this on the wall of the building. In fact, there was not yet a guest house at that location in 1905, and Lenin probably stayed at the Hotel Bauer, as did many of the other delegates. Another story describes how the Finnish journalist and activist J. E. Zidbäck prevented Lenin and Stalin from being arrested by the Tsarist secret police based on information he had received from Helsinki. Zidbäck claimed that hundreds of state police and gendarmes had already arrived in town on Christmas Eve. His version of these events, however, is inconsistent with other information; for example, Emil Viljanen, who was president of the Tampere Workers' Society at the time, did not corroborate this story. In a radio interview in 1949, Matti Vuolukka claimed that Lenin had promised Finland its independence at the conference should the Bolsheviks rise to power. It appears, however, that the promise Vuolukka is remembering took place at the second party congress in Tampere in November 1906. Furthermore, Lenin's promise likely only pertained to Finland's internal autonomy.


See also

* Central Committee of the 1st Conference of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party


References


Citations


Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * * * {{CPSU Congresses 1905 conferences 1905 in Finland Congresses of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party