League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class
St. Petersburg League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class was a Marxist group in St. Petersburg, Russia. It was founded by Lenin, Julius Martov, Gleb Krzhizhanovsky and others in the autumn of 1895.[1] [2]Its main activity was agitation amongst the workers of St Petersburg and the distribution of socialist leaflets to the factories there.[3]
In December 1895, six League members were arrested, Lenin among them. While in prison, Lenin continued to guide the work of the League. In 1906 several more, including Martov, were arrested. Those members of the group still at large however scored a great success organising a strike of the textile workers in St Petersburg in May 1896. This industrial action lasted three weeks and spread to twenty other factories in Russia in what became the greatest strike in Russian history up to that date.[4]
By the end of the 1890's the League was transporting its illegal literature through Finland and Stockholm. Transportation was organised by Hjalmar Branting, a Swedish Social-Democrat, Carder, a Norwegian Social-Democrat, and A. Weidel, a Swedish worker who settled in Finland for that purpose. But Garder's arrest in 1900 disrupted the arrangement and the route via Finland. A route running from Stockholm to Åbo and across the Russian frontier was restarted in 1901.[5]
In the autumn of 1900, the League merged with the St. Petersburg Workers' Organisation.[6]
References
- ^ Tony Cliff (1986) Lenin: Building the Party 1893-1914. London, Bookmarks: 52-59
- ^ Lenin: To G. V. Plekhanov
- ^ Tony Cliff (1986) Lenin: Building the Party 1893-1914. London, Bookmarks: 52-59
- ^ Tony Cliff (1986) Lenin: Building the Party 1893-1914. London, Bookmarks: 58
- ^ Lenin: TO F. I. DAN
- ^ Lenin: TO V. P. NOGIN
External links
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