Participation of the Ukrainian Social Democratic Union in the work of the general imperial congresses and conferences of the RSDLP in 1905–1907

Abstract

The article finds out that after joining the RSDLP 2 (15) February 1905, USDU participated in the activities of the latter, as evidenced, in particular, the active work of its representatives in the imperial conferences and congresses of the Russian Social Democratic Party. The first forum with the participation of a representative of the Union was the Mensheviks All-Russia Conference of Party Officials in the spring of 1905. The latter acknowledged the achievements of the allies in working among the peasantry and ordered them, together with the Mensheviks Organization Committee, to convene a conference of agitators who worked in the given direction and to reprint in Russian popular publications already published in Ukrainian. The representative of the USDU, P. Tuchapskyi, took part in the Second All-Russian Congress of Menshevist (November 1905). The documentary materials of this forum testified to the continuation of the work of the unions in the villages of most of the Ukrainian provinces of the Russian Empire. The delegate of the Union considered it was necessary to carry out theoretical insights into the agrarian question and its discussion in the party press. Three representatives of the USDU were present at the 4th (unifying) congress of the RSDLP (April-May 1906). It was then that the process of association of the Union and the Kyiv District Organization had also been completed. The minutes of the forum testified that USDU representatives opposed the USDRP’s membership in the Russian Marxist Party. The union campaigned actively to increase its representation at the 5th Congress of the RSDLP in May-June 1907. Because of the events held at this forum, the union members formed one of the largest delegations, numbering twelve party members. The mentioned testified to transforming the USDU into one of the most influential communities in the Russian Marxist Party. At the same time, the participation of the organization in the Russian Social Democratic Party, the character of the activities of the organization, showed that it worked on a project that was presented to its creators as a «Russian socialist republic».