Caucasian Union Committee of the Rsdlp

(KSK) the directing body of the Caucasian Union of the RSDLP from 1903 to 1906.

The committee was founded at the First Congress of the Social Democratic Organizations of the Caucasus in March 1903 in Tbilisi, which was attended by 15 delegates from the Tiflis, Baku, and Batum committees; the Kutaisi, Chiatura, Ozurgety, Gori, and Mikhailov (Khashuri) groups of the RSDLP; and the editorial boards of the newspapers Brdzola and Proletariat. The congress proclaimed the Caucasian Union an inseparable part of the RSDLP, acknowledged the Leninist Iskra as the leading organ of the party, and adopted the draft program and draft of the party rules worked out by the editorial board of Iskra. Among those elected by the congress as members of the committee were M. Z. Bochoridze, B. M. Knuniants, F. I. Makharadze, A. G. Tsulukidze, and M. G. Tskhakaia, as well as four who later joined the Mensheviks, S. V. Dzhibladze, N. N. Zhor-daniia, A. G. Zurabov, and D. A. Topuridze. At various times the committee included N. N. Aladzhalova, V. S. Bobrovskii, M. N. Davitashvili, P. A. Dzhaparidze, D. S. Postolovskii, J. V. Stalin, S. M. Khanoian, A. Kh. Khumarian, and S. G. Shaumian.

The committee recommended the delegates to the Second Congress of the RSDLP in 1903. In September 1903 the Central Committee of the RSDLP confirmed the Caucasian Union as a regional organization of the party. According to the rules adopted at the Second Congress of the Caucasian Union in October 1903, the committee’s task was to coordinate the activity of local party committees on the basis of proletarian internationalist principles and to expand the publication of Marxist literature in the national languages. At the committee’s congresses and conferences there was discussion on the reports of the Central Committee of the RSDLP, as well as on the accounts of the committee itself and of local party committees. Among other issues discussed were the problem of obtaining arms and of preparing for armed insurrection. The committee published the illegal newpaper Bor’ba proletariata and its supplement Listok “Bor’by proletariata” in three languages—Georgian, Armenian, and Russian—and maintained the underground Avlabar press.

The Caucasian Union was a militant detachment of Russian Social Democracy, closely tied with Lenin and with the editorial boards of the newspapers Vpered and Proletarii; it gave direction to political demonstrations and strikes of the Transcaucasian proletariat, fought against Menshevism, and took part in the struggle for convening the Third Congress of the Party and for the implementation of its resolutions. Lenin rendered regular assistance to the committee. With the merger of the Bolshevik and Menshevik committees on the eve of the Fourth Congress of the RSDLP in 1906 the Caucasian Union Committee ceased its activities.