LENIN ON ORGANIZATION
rade” (September 1902) which served as the basis
of the organization of the Russian Social Dem-
ocratic Labor Party. At the head of the local or-
ganization was a committee to which were subor-
dinated the district groups and circles. Some of
these, after confirmation by the committee, joined
the party. Others were regarded merely as asso-
ciates. Later on, in large towns, district committees
sprang up. According to the rules adopted at the
Second Congress of the Russian Social Democratic
Labor Party (1903), only the committees, as actual
organizations of “professional revolutionaries,” had
the right to send representatives to Party Con-
gresses, in addition to the Central Committee of the
Party and the editorial board of the central organ.
The latter played a predominant part in the forma-
tion of the Social Democratic Party in Russia: it
was “not only a collective propagandist and col-
lective agitator, but also a collective organizer.”
(Lenin, 1901, in “Iskra,” No. 4).
The Split Between the Bolsheviks and the Menshe-
viks.
Prior to the Second Congress of the Party, Mar-
tov and Paul Axelrod worked together with Lenin.
At the end of the ’90’s in an introduction to Lenin’s
pamphlet, “The Tasks of Russian Social Democrats,”
Axelrod wrote that “Lenin happily combined in him-
self the experience of a good practician with theo-
retical training and a wide political outlook.” At
the Second Congress of the Russian Social Dem-
ocratic Party in 1903, however, they parted com-
pany. The differences arose principally over ques-
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