p In the period 1901-04, with the growth of the revolutionary working-class movement, the Marxist Social-Democratic organizations in Russia grew and gained strength. In the stubborn struggle over’ principles, waged against the “Economists,” the revolutionary line of Lenin’s Iskra gained the victory, and the ideological confusion and “amateurish methods of work" were overcome.

p Iskra linked up the scattered Social-Democratic circles and groups and prepared the way for the convocation of the Second Party Congress. At the Second Congress, held in 1903, the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party was formed, a Party Program and Rules were adopted, and the central leading organs of the Party were set up.

p In the struggle waged at the .Second Congress for the complete victory of the Iskra trend in the R.S.D.L.P. there emerged two groups— the Bolshevik group and the Menshevik group.

p The chief differences between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks after the Second-Congress centred round questions of organization.

p The Mensheviks drew closer t» the “Economists” and took their place within the Party. For the time being the opportunism of the 53 Mensheviks revealed itself in questions of organization. The Mensheviks were opposed to a militant revolutionary party of the type advocated by Lenin. They wanted a loose, unorganized, khvostist party. They worked to split the ranks of the Party. With Plekhanov’s help, they seized Iskra and the Central Committee, and used these.central organs for their own purposes—to split the Party.

p Seeing that the Mensheviks were threatening a split, the Bolsheviks adopted measures to curb the splitters; they mustered the local organiztions to back the convocation of a Third Congress, and they started their own newspaper, Vferyod.

Thus, on the eve of the first Russian revolution, when the RussoJapanese war had already begun, the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks acted as two separate political groups.