A Short History of the Social Democratic Movement in Russia

Summary

This booklet appeared in two editions: Materialy dlia kharakteristiki razvitiia Rossiiskoi Sotsialdemokraticheskoi Rabochei Partii (Geneva, 1904) and Ocherk razvitiia sotsialdemokratii u Rossii (St Petersburg, 1905). It is the later edition which has been translated here; those few changes that were made for the second edition were of a stylistic nature alone. (The preface to the later edition added little to the original preface and has therefore been omitted here.)

Most of the footnotes are editorial and are keyed into the text by numerical indicators. Akimov's notes are keyed into the text by symbols.—Ed.

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION

The spring of 1901 witnessed an event of enormous importance in the life of Russian society. Tens of thousands of people, men ‘of every calling and condition’, assembled in a number of cities, at a given place and a given time, to express their hostility to the autocratic government.

The so-called ‘March events’ did not occur suddenly and without warning. They were preceded during the winter by a number of outbursts which were touched off by utterly trivial incidents: an anniversary celebration by the editor of a certain newspaper which had been spreading reactionary ideas for a quarter of a century, the production of a play fomenting national hatreds by a journalist who had betrayed his liberal past, the expulsion from the university of two students guilty of a dishonourable action during a nocturnal drinking spree.

Such incidents had occurred repeatedly in the past. But it was only now that they produced a reaction. A hostile demonstration was held in Kharkov near the home of the editor, Iuzefovich, compelling him and his eminent guests to break off their celebration.