p The Marxist Social-Democratic Labour Party in Russia was formed in a struggle waged in the first place against Narodism and its views, which were erroneous and harmful to the cause of revolution.

p Only by ideologically shattering the views of the Narodniks was it possible to clear the way for a Marxist-workers’ party in Russia. A’decisive blow to Narodism was dealt by Plekhanov and his “Emancipation of Labour" group in the eighties.

p Lenin completed the ideological defeat of Narodism and dealt it the final blow in the nineties.

p The “Emancipation of Labour"^^1^^ group, founded in ’1883, did a great deal for the dissemination of Marxism, in Russia; it laid the theoretical foundations for Social-Democracy and took the first step to establish connection with the working-class movement.

p With the development of capitalism in Russia the industrial proletariat rapidly grew in numbers. In the middle of the eighties the working class adopted the path of organized struggle, of mass action in the form of organized strikes. But the Marxist circles, and groups only carried on propaganda and did not. realize the necessity for passing to mass agitation among the working class; they-therefore still had no practical connection with the working-class movement and did not lead it.

p The St. Petersburg League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class, which Lenin formed in 1895 and which started mass agitation among the workers and led mass strikes, marked a new stage— the transition to mass agitation among the workers and the union of Marxism with the working-class movement. The St. Petersburg League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class was the rudiment of a revolutionary proletarian party in Russia. The formation of the St. Petersburg League of Struggle was followed by the formation of Marxist organizations in all the principal industrial centres as well as in the border regions.

p In 1898 at the First Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. the first, although unsuccessful, attempt was made to unite the Marxist Social-Democratic organizations into a party. But this congress did not yet create a party: 26 there was neither a party program nor party rules; there was no single leading centre, and there was scarcely any connection between the separate Marxist circles and groups.

p In order to unite and link together the separate Marxist organizations into a single party, Lenin put forward and carried out a plan for the founding of Iskra, the first newspaper of the revolutionary Marxists on an ail-Russian scale.

p The principal opponents to the creation of a single political workingclass party at that period were the “Economists.” They denied the necessity for such a party. They fostered the disunity and amateurish methods of the separate groups. It was against them that Lenin and the newspaper Iskra organized by him -directed their blows.

The appearance of the first issues of Iskra (1900-01) marked a transition to a new period—a period in which a single Russian SocialDemocratic Labour party was really formed from the disconnected groups and circles.