The Prague Conference, officially the 6th All-Russian Conference of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, was held in

Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...

, Austria-Hungary (Present-Day Czechia), on 5–17 January 1912. Sixteen

Bolsheviks 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, ...

and two

Mensheviks The Mensheviks ('the Minority') were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903. Mensheviks held more moderate and reformist ...

attended, although

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...

and

Yakov Sverdlov Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov ( – 16 March 1919) was a Russian revolutionary and Soviet politician. A key Bolshevik organizer of the October Revolution of 1917, Sverdlov served as chairman of the Secretariat of the Russian Communist Party from ...

were unable to attend because they were in internal exile at the time, while

Georgi Plekhanov Georgi Valentinovich Plekhanov ( rus, Георгий Валентинович Плеханов, p=ɡʲɪˈorɡʲɪj vəlʲɪnʲˈtʲinəvʲɪtɕ plʲɪˈxanəf, a=Ru-Georgi Plekhanov-JermyRei.ogg; – 30 May 1918) was a Russian revolutionary, ...

claimed he was too ill to attend. At the conference,

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 ...

and his supporters broke away from the rest of 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 ...

and formed their own predominantly Bolshevik Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. 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 Department for the Protection of Public Safety and Order (), usually called the Guard Department () and commonly abbreviated in modern English sources as the Okhrana ( rus , Охрана, p=ɐˈxranə, a=Ru-охрана.ogg, t= The Guard) w ...

, the secret police of the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

History

Seven people were elected to the Central Committee: Lenin,

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 ...

, Roman Malinovsky (later revealed to be a spy for the Okhrana), Grigoriy Ordzhonikidze, Suren Spandaryan (Stalin's best friend),

(Soviet leader, 1917–19) and Filipp Goloshchekin. The latter four set up a Russian Bureau to direct the party along with

Mikhail Kalinin Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin (, ; 3 June 1946) was a Soviet politician and Russian Old Bolshevik revolutionary who served as the first chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet (head of state) from 1938 until his resignation in 1946. From ...

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 Central Committee. Elena Stasova was made Secretary to the Russian Bureau.

Stepan Shahumyan Stepan Georgevich Shaumian (; ; 1 October 1878 – 20 September 1918) was an Armenians, Armenian Bolsheviks, Bolshevik revolutionary and politician active throughout the Caucasus. His role as a leader of the Russian Revolution in the Caucasus ...

and Kalinin (Soviet head of state 1919–46) became candidate Central Committee members. 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 Alexei Maximovich Peshkov (; – 18 June 1936), popularly known as Maxim Gorky (; ), was a Russian and Soviet writer and proponent of socialism. He was nominated five times for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Before his success as an aut ...

: "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." This view would not have been accepted by Lenin at the time of the Conference, who maintained that only "Liquidators" were excluded from the "Prague" RSDLP, and that not all Mensheviks were Liquidators.

References

Bibliography

External links

History of the CPSU(b)
Socialism Conferences of the Russian Revolution Congresses of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union 1912 in Austria-Hungary 20th century in Prague 1912 conferences {{Russia-hist-stub