Prague Party Conference

The Prague Conference, officially the 6th All-Russian Conference of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, was held in Prague, Austria-Hungary on 5–17 January 1912. Eighteen Bolsheviks attended, although Joseph Stalin and Yakov Sverdlov, who were in exile at the time, were not able to. Georgi Plekhanov claimed he was too ill to attend. At the conference, Vladimir Lenin and his supporters broke away from the rest of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party and formed their own, purely Bolshevik, party. The conference was meant to be secret; Lenin had instructed: "No-one, no organisation must know about this". However, every detail was known to the Okhrana, the secret police of the Russian Empire.

Seven people were elected to the Central Committee: Lenin, Zinoviev, Malinovsky (later revealed to be a spy for the Okhrana), Ordzhonikidze, Spandaryan (Stalin's best friend), Sverdlov (Soviet president, 1917–19) and Goloshchekin. The latter four set up a Russian Bureau to direct the party along with Kalinin and Stalin, who led the Bureau. This ensured the domination of Russia-based Bolsheviks as opposed to the émigrés who were considered "null and void" by Ordzhonikidze. Spandaryan called for the émigré group to be dissolved.

After the conference, upon Lenin and Zinoviev's recommendation, Stalin was co-opted to the Bolshevik Central Committee. Elena Stasova was made Secretary to the Russian Bureau. Stepan Shahumyan and Mikhail Kalinin (Soviet president 1919–46) became candidate Central Committee members. Ironically, Kalinin was suspected of being an Okhrana agent so was not a full member. Both were Stalin's comrades in the Caucasus.

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