Stalin: A Biography

He then enjoyed himself with the rest of the Bolshevik factional delegation. His modest expenses were covered by the party. This was the first period he spent outside the Russian Empire. The party had fraternal relations with the Swedish social-democrats and with their help had obtained the use of the People’s House for the Congress proceedings. Little attempt was made to prevent the Okhrana from knowing about the event — and anyway the Okhrana had plenty of informers and received detailed reports on proceedings at the apex of the Russian Social-Democratic Workers’ Party regardless of precautions taken by the revolutionaries. Each faction discussed its internal affairs. There were also negotiations among the factions. The atmosphere was convivial even though there was no time for delegates to see much of the city beyond their hotels and the People’s House. For Dzhughashvili, though, this did not matter. He had read articles by the luminaries of the Russian Social-Democratic Workers’ Party — Plekhanov, Axelrod, Lenin, Martov, Bogdanov and Maslov — over many years. (Alexander Bogdanov, a philosopher and organiser, had become almost as influential among Bolsheviks as Lenin himself.) Now Dzhughashvili saw them gathered together in a single large hall. The agreed task was to sort out the problems between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks as well as to settle a common set of policies, and Dzhughashvili was able to play his part.

While advocating reunification, Lenin did not disarm himself politically. He maintained a Bolshevik Centre separate from any party body involving the Mensheviks. He also continued to sanction armed robberies by Bolsheviks as a means of raising cash for political purposes. The Fourth Congress prohibited both these things. Lenin and his associates acceded in public while ignoring the ban in reality — and Dzhughashvili, as the main organiser of the Bolshevik campaign of robbery and extortion in Georgia, was an integral figure in this systematic deceit.

It was at the Fourth Congress that Dzhughashvili — using Ivanovich as his pseudonym — advanced his claim to be taken seriously by the ascendant party leaders. He was elected to the commission which checked the mandates of delegates. He also challenged the reliability of Georgian Menshevik reports on the situation in Georgia. This stirred controversy. His own speech, though, was questioned by Mensheviks and he was asked to justify himself. He shouted back: ‘I’ll give you my answer in my own time!’¹⁰ He declared: ‘It’s no secret to anyone that two paths have been marked out in the development of Russia’s sociopolitical life: the path of qua si-reforms and the path of revolution.’ For Dzhughashvili, the Mensheviks had foolishly adopted ideas diverting them from a Marxist strategy:¹¹

On the contrary, if the class interests of the proletariat lead to its hegemony and if the proletariat must go not at the tail but at the head of the current revolution, it is self-evident that the proletariat cannot hold back either from active participation in the organisation of armed insurrection or from a seizure of power. Such is the ‘scheme’ of the Bolsheviks.

With a zealot’s confidence he freely attacked veterans of the Russian Marxist movement, including Plekhanov and Axelrod.¹²