The Bolshevik Centre was a select group of

Bolshevik The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical Faction (political), faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, ...

s that led the organization in secret. The Centre conducted its activities in secret in part so as to avoid the prohibition by the

Russian Social Democratic Labour Party The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP), also known as the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party (RSDWP) or the Russian Social Democratic Party (RSDP), was a socialist political party founded in 1898 in Minsk, Russian Empire. The ...

("RSDLP") on separate committees outside of the RSDLP. The Bolshevik Centre emerged from the group that ran the newspaper Proletarian. It was initially charged with the collection and disbursement of the funds for revolutionary propaganda. It operated illegally after the RSDLP dissolved it through a Central Committee joint plenum decision made in February 1910. The Bolshevik Centre was headed by a "Finance Group" consisting of

Vladimir Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ( 187021 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until Death and state funeral of ...

Leonid Krasin Leonid Borisovich Krasin (; – 24 November 1926) was a Russians, Russian Soviet Union, Soviet politician, engineer, social entrepreneur, Bolshevik revolutionary and a Soviet diplomat. In 1924 he became the first List of ambassadors of Russia to ...

and

Alexander Bogdanov Alexander Aleksandrovich Bogdanov (; – 7 April 1928), born Alexander Malinovsky, was a Russian and later Soviet physician, philosopher, science fiction writer and Bolshevik revolutionary. He was a polymath who pioneered blood transfusion, a ...

. Other members included Viktor Taratuta,

Lev Kamenev Lev Borisovich Kamenev. ( Rozenfeld; – 25 August 1936) was a Russian revolutionary and Soviet politician. A prominent Old Bolsheviks, Old Bolshevik, Kamenev was a leading figure in the early Soviet government and served as a Deputy Premier ...

, Virgil Shantser,

Grigory Zinoviev Grigory Yevseyevich Zinoviev (born Ovsei-Gershon Aronovich Radomyslsky; – 25 August 1936) was a Russian revolutionary and Soviet politician. A prominent Old Bolsheviks, Old Bolshevik, Zinoviev was a close associate of Vladimir Lenin prior to ...

, and V.A. Desnitsky. The group was involved in the attempt to unify the Party funds in a wider move to consolidate the Bolsheviks. An account stated that Lenin dominated this group through his connivance with Taratuta, Manev, and Zinoviev. There were instances, however, when the Bolshevik Centre contradicted Lenin. This was demonstrated in its actions concerning the newspapers ''Proletarian'', ''

Pravda ''Pravda'' ( rus, Правда, p=ˈpravdə, a=Ru-правда.ogg, 'Truth') is a Russian broadsheet newspaper, and was the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, when it was one of the most in ...

'', and the creation of a St. Petersburg newspaper.

References

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