Central Committee Bureau Abroad CCBA

the general representative body of the RSDLP abroad, set up by the Central Committee of the party, subordinate and accountable to the Russian Bureau of the Central Committee. Founded by the August 1908 plenum of the Central Committee, its three members were G. E. Zinoviev for the Bolsheviks, N. V. Ramishvili for the Mensheviks, and J. Tyszka. (L. Jogiches) for the Polish Social Democrats. Later the BolsneviKs were represented in me CCBA by V. K. Taraiuta and A. I. Liubimov (Mark) and the Mensheviks by B. I. Gorev. The Bureau’s functions included maintaining contacts with the Russian Bureau of the Central Committee and with the members of the Central Committee working abroad and overseeing the activities of foreign groups supporting the RSDLP and the Central Bureau of these groups. The CCBA organized fund-raising activities and collected funds from the foreign supporting groups for the needs of the party. The January 1910 plenum of the Central Committee reorganized the CCBA and narrowed its functions. The CCBA subsequently consisted of five people; three were representatives from the central committees of national organizations. At first the CCBA consisted of A. I. Liubimov for the Bolsheviks, B. I. Gorev for the Mensheviks, J. Tyszka for the Polish Social Democrats, F. M. Koigen (lonov) for the Bund, and la. A. Berzin (Pavel) for the Latvian Social Democrats. After further changes, the Bureau comprised N. A. Semashko (Aleksandrov) for the Bolsheviks, M. I. Lieber (Goldman) for the Bund, S. Goldenberg (Stanislawa) for the Polish Social Democrats, and K. J. Eliass (Schwartz) for the Latvian Social Democrats. In the spring of 1910 a liquidationist majority developed in the CCBA, which attempted to undermine in every way the activities of the central institutions of the party. Lenin observed that the CCBA was an agency working to sabotage the party. “The formalistic game of ‘inviting’ the Golosists and Trotskyists on to the central bodies is finally reducing to impotence the already weakened proparty elements. Divesting ourselves of responsibility for this game, we shall, while keeping aloof from it, pursue our proparty policy of rapprochement with the Plekhanovites and ruthless struggle against the bloc” (Poln. sobr. soch., 5th ed., vol. 20, p. 106).

The Bolsheviks were compelled to recall their representative from the CCBA on May 27, 1911. The Paris conference of members of the Central Committee in June 1911 adopted the resolution On the Central Committee Bureau Abroad, condemning its antiparty factional policies. The question of the bureau’s continued existence was to be decided by the next plenum of the Central Committee. The remaining members of the CCBA continued their struggle against the Bolsheviks and attempted to obstruct the preparations for the Sixth (Prague) Conference of the RSDLP. On Nov. 20, 1911, the representative of the Polish Social Democrats was recalled from the CCBA; in early December the Latvian Social Democrats recalled their representative. In January 1912 the CCBA dissolved itself, issuing a statement to that effect in February 1942 in the third issue of the Listor golosa sotsialdemokrata.