Moscow Regional Bureau of the Central Committee of the RSDLP Bolshevik

(also called Moscow Bureau of the Central Committee of the RSDLP, Regional Bureau of the Central Committee of the RSDLP for the Central Industrial Region, and Moscow Regional Bureau of the RSDLP[B]), a body of representatives of the party Central Committee in Russia charged with directing party work in the Central Industrial Region. It was established during the Revolution of 1905–07. The bureau’s members at various times included S. I. Balashov, A. S. Bubnov, M. F. Vladimirskii, R. S. Zemliachka, A. Lomov (G. I. Oppokov), V. I. Mantsev, M. S. Ol’minskii, N. Osinskii (V. V. Obolenskii), V. S. Popov, A. I. Rykov, M. A. Savel’ev, I. I. Skvortsov-Stepanov, P. Sol’ts, I. N. Stukov, and V. N. Iakovleva.

Prior to 1917 frequent arrests often disrupted the bureau’s work. From 1916 the bureau concentrated on reestablishing contact with party organizations in the Moscow Industrial Region. During the February Revolution of 1917 it worked with the Moscow Committee of the RSDLP(B). From March 1917 the bureau directed party organizations in the provinces of Vladimir, Voronezh, Kaluga, Kostroma, Moscow, Nizhny Novgrod, Orel, Riazan’, Smolensk, Tambov, Tver’, Tula, Iaroslavl’ and, later, Kursk. On March 7 the bureau began publishing the newspaper Sotsial-demokrat jointly with the Moscow Committee; from May it published the paper jointly with the Moscow Regional Committee of the RSDLP(B). During the October Days of 1917, members of the bureau joined the party combat center in Moscow (Stukov and Iakovleva) and the Moscow Military Revolutionary Committee (Lomov).

During the party’s struggle to withdraw from the imperialist war, the bureau’s leadership was in the hands of “Left Communists,” who opposed the Brest-Litovsk Treaty of 1918. V. I. Lenin sharply criticized the bureau’s position in his article “Strange and the Monstrous, “ published in Pravda on Feb. 28 and Mar. 1, 1918. In September 1918 the Fifth Moscow Regional Party Conference decided to rename the bureau the Moscow Regional Committee of the RCP (Bolshevik). A resolution issued by the Central Committee on Jan. 22, 1919, stated that there was no need for the Moscow Regional Committee because it duplicated the work of the Central Committee of the RCP(B).