Abstract

The Copenhagen Congress of the Socialist International of 28 August—3 September 1910 was the last Congress of the International in which the RSDRP participated as a formally united party. Though a truce had been negotiated between the warring factions at the Plenum of the Central Committee of 15 January—5 February 1910, a study of the participation of the RSDRP in the Copenhagen Congress reveals that six months after the Plenum conflicts between the factions had not abated. In this article I focus on Lunacharsky’s conception of relations between the different wings of the labour movement (a conception influenced by the views of Louis de Brouckère) and on the opposition to his views of Lenin and Plekhanov. I provide a translation of an “alternative report” on the state of the party written by Lunacharsky before the Congress and published in the paper of the Belgian Socialist Party, Le Peuple. I attach new translations of draft resolutions on policy towards the cooperatives produced by the RSDRP during the Congress.. I show how Lunacharsky’s reminiscences of the Congress published after 1917 differ dramatically from his writings of 1910 and 1911.

The article can be read here.