The history of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was generally perceived as covering that of the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party from which it evolved. In 1912, the party formally split, and the predecessor to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union became a distinct entity. Its history since then can roughly be divided into the following periods: the early years of the Bolshevik Party in secrecy and exile the period of the October Revolution of 1917 consolidation of the party as the governing force of the Soviet Union the Great Purge of the 1930s the Khrushchev and Brezhnev periods (1956–1982) the Gorbachev era of reform (1985–1991), which eventually led to the break-up of the party in 1991. The history of the regional and republican branches of the party does however differ from the all-Russian and all-Union party on several points.
Nomenclature With its lineal predecessors and soi-disant heirs, the party used various names in succession: 1898 – 1912: Russian Social Democratic Labour Party – RSDLP () 1912 – 8 March 1918: Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks) () 8 March 1918 – 31 December 1925: Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) () 31 December 1925 – 14 October 1952: All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) () 14 October 1952 – 6 November 1991: Communist Party of the Soviet Union () 6 November 1991–: various, including Communist Party of the Russian Federation ()
Formation of RSDLP(b)
In January 1912, the Bolshevik faction of the RSDLP convened a 6th All-Russian Party Conference in Prague, in the absence of their Menshevik adversaries. Over twenty Party organizations were represented. In the eyes of the Bolsheviks the conference had, therefore, the significance of a regular Party congress.
In the statement of the conference which announced that the shattered central apparatus of the Party had been restored and a new Central Committee set up is the following statement: "Not only have the banner of the Russian Social-Democratic Party, its program and its revolutionary traditions survived, but so has its organization, which persecution may have undermined and weakened, but could never utterly destroy." Moreover, the conference declared the Mensheviks expelled from the party. Thus the RSDLP effectively split, with the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks constituting separate political parties (Both groups would continue to use the name "RSDLP". The Bolshevik party added "bolshevik" to their name to differentiate themselves from the Mensheviks.)
In its resolution on the reports presented by the local organizations, the conference noted that "energetic work is being conducted everywhere among the Social-Democratic workers with the object of strengthening the local illegal Social-Democratic organizations and groups". The conference noted that the most important rule of Bolshevik tactics in periods of retreat - to combine illegal work with legal work within the various legally existing workers' societies and unions - was being observed in all the localities.
The Prague Conference elected a Bolshevik Central Committee of the Party, consisting of:
Vladimir Lenin Joseph Stalin Sergo Ordzhonikidze Yakov Sverdlov Suren Spandaryan Filipp Goloshchyokin Others
Stalin and Sverdlov won election to the Central Committee despite their non-attendance at the conference, as they were in exile at the time. The elected alternate members of the Central Committee included Mikhail Kalinin.
For the direction of revolutionary work in Russia a practical center (the Russian Bureau of the C.C.) was set up, with Stalin at its head and including Y. Sverdlov, Spandaryan, S. Ordzhonikidze, M. Kalinin and Goloshchekin.History of the CPSU(b). New York: International Publishers, 1939. p. 138-139.
Writing to Maxim Gorky at the beginning of 1912, on the results of the Prague Conference, Lenin said:
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.Lenin, Collected Works, Russ. ed., Vol. XXIX, p. 19.
Speaking of the significance of the Prague Conference, 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.Verbatim Report of the Fifteenth Congress of the C.P.S.U.[B.], Russ. ed., pp.361–362.
In the summer of 1912, Lenin moved from Paris to Galicia in order to be nearer to Russia, and there he presided over two conferences of members of the Central Committee and leading Party workers, one of which took place in Kraków at the end of 1912, and the other in Poronino, a small town near Kraków, in the autumn of 1913. These conferences adopted decisions on questions relating to the working-class movement including the rise in the revolutionary movement, the Party tasks in connection with the strikes, the strengthening of the illegal organizations, the Social-Democratic group in the Duma, the Party press, and the labor insurance campaign.History of the CPSU(b). New York: International Publishers, 1939. p. 148
Emergence of Pravda
An important instrument used by the Bolshevik Party to strengthen its organizations and to spread its influence among the masses was the Bolshevik daily newspaper Pravda (Truth), published in St. Petersburg. It was founded, according to Lenin's instructions, on the initiative of Stalin, Olminsky and Poletayev. Pravda was intended as a legal, mass working-class paper founded simultaneously with the new rise of the revolutionary movement. Its first issue appeared on .In remembrance of the founding of Pravda, May 5 was celebrated as 'Workers' Press Day' in the Soviet Union.
Previous to the appearance of Pravda, the Bolsheviks already had a weekly newspaper called Zvezda, intended for advanced workers. Zvezda had played an important part at the time of the Lena events. It printed a number of political articles by Lenin and Stalin. But the Party felt that with the revolutionary upsurge, a weekly newspaper no longer met the requirements of the Bolshevik Party. According to the analysis of the Party leadership, a daily mass political newspaper designed for the broadest sections of the workers was needed. Thus Pravda was founded.
The tsarist government suppressed Pravda eight times in the space of two and a half years; but each time, with the support of the workers, it reappeared under a new but similar name, e.g., Za Pravdu (For Truth), Put Pravdy (Path of Truth), Trudovaya Pravda (Labour Truth), etc..
Whilst the average circulation of Pravda was 40,000 copies per day, the circulation of Luch (Ray), the Menshevik daily, did not exceed 15,000 or 16,000.History of the CPSU(b). New York: International Publishers, 1939. p. 149
In Moscow, the party launched Nash Put as a workers newspaper in September 1913. It was banned after just a few editions were published.
Work in the Duma Another legally functioning central organ of the Party was the Bolshevik group in the Fourth State Duma. In 1912 the government decreed elections to the Fourth Duma. The RSDLP(b) decided to participate in the elections. The RSDLP(b) acted independently, under its own slogans, in the Duma elections, simultaneously attacking both the government parties and the liberal bourgeoisie (Constitutional-Democrats). The slogans of the Bolsheviks in the election campaign were a democratic republic, an 8-hour day and the confiscation of the landed estates.
The elections to the Fourth Duma were held in the autumn of 1912. At the beginning of October, the government, dissatisfied with the course of the elections in St. Petersburg, tried to encroach on the electoral rights of the workers in a number of the large factories. In reply, the St. Petersburg Committee of the RSDLP(b), on Stalin's proposal, called upon the workers of the large factories to declare a one-day strike.
Placed in a difficult position, the government was forced to yield, and the workers were able at their meetings to elect whom they wanted. The vast majority of the workers voted for the 'Mandate (Nakaz) of the Workingmen of St. Petersburg to Their Labour Deputy' to their delegates and the deputy, which had been drawn up by Stalin. The Mandate declared that the future actions of the people should take the form of a struggle on two fronts—against the tsarist government and against the liberal bourgeoisie. In the end, RSDLP(b) candidate Badayev was elected to the Duma by the workers of St. Petersburg.
The workers voted in the elections to the Duma separately from other sections of the population (this was known as the worker curia). Of the nine deputies elected from the worker curia, six were members of the RSDLP(b): Badayev, Petrovsky, Muranov, Samoilov, Shagov and Malinovsky (the latter subsequently turned out to be an agentprovocateur). The Bolshevik deputies were elected from the big industrial centres, in which not less than four-fifths of the working class were concentrated. After the election, the RSDLP(b) formed a joint Social-Democratic Duma group together with the Mensheviks (who had seven seats). In October 1913, after a series of controversies with the Mensheviks, the RSDLP(b) Duma members, on the instructions of the Central Committee of the Party, withdrew from the joint Social-Democratic group and formed an independent Bolshevik Duma group.
In the Duma, the Bolsheviks introduced a bill providing for an 8-hour working day. It was voted down, but had a significant agitational value for the Bolsheviks.History of the CPSU(b). New York: International Publishers, 1939. p. 154-156
Outbreak of World War I In July 1914 the Tsarist government called for general mobilization. Russia entered into war with the German Empire. The First World War had begun.
The RSDLP(b) denounced the war as imperialist. Moreover, the party denounced the European Social Democratic parties, who supported the war efforts of their respective countries, as 'social-chauvinists'. From the very outbreak of the war Lenin began to muster forces for the creation of a new International, the Third International. In the manifesto against the war it issued in November 1914, the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party already called for the formation of the Third International in place of the Second International.
In February 1915, a conference of Socialists of the Entente countries was held in London. The RSDLP(b) delegate Maxim Litvinov, on Lenin's instructions, spoke at this conference demanding that the Socialists should resign from the national governments of Belgium and France, completely break with the imperialists and refuse to collaborate with them. He demanded that all Socialists should wage a determined struggle against their imperialist governments and condemn the voting of war credits. But no voice in support of Litvinov was raised at this conference.
At the beginning of September 1915 the first conference of internationalists was held in Zimmerwald. Lenin called this conference the 'first step' in the development of an international movement against the war. At this conference Lenin formed the Zimmerwald Left group. But Lenin felt that within the Zimmerwald Left group only the RSDLP(b) had taken a correct and thoroughly consistent stand against the war.
The Zimmerwald Left group published a magazine in German called the Vorbote (Herald), to which Lenin contributed articles. In 1916 the internationalists succeeded in convening a second conference in the Swiss village of Kienthal. It is known as the Second Zimmerwald Conference. By this time groups of internationalists had been formed in nearly every European country and the cleavage between the internationalist elements and the 'social-chauvinists' had become more sharply defined.