After the suppression of the first Russian revolution, the tsarist government launched an offensive against the working class and its party.
Mass arrests began. Prominent figures of the party - Leninists F. E. Dzerzhinsky, Y. M. Sverdlov, G. K. Ordzhonikidze, S. M. Kirov, M. I. Kalinin, M. V. Frunze and others were behind the prison bars and in exile. According to the decision of the Bolshevik center Lenin illegally leaves Russia and goes to Stockholm. He had to land on the steamer on one of the Islands of the Gulf of Finland. It was December,and they had to walk across the ice to the island. In one place, the ice began to break and leave from under his feet. Only chance saved Lenin from death. In Stockholm, waiting for the arrival of N. K. Krupskaya, Lenin gets acquainted with the sights of the Swedish capital, visits the Royal library, where he reads and outlines the literature, which is strictly prohibited in Russia.
After waiting for Krupskaya, Lenin went with Her to Geneva. Here he resumed the publication of the Proletarian newspaper, the Central organ of the Bolsheviks. In the articles published in this newspaper ("Revolution and counter-revolution", "Third Duma", "to the assessment of the Russian revolution", etc.) Lenin summarizes the experience of the revolution of 1905-1907, defines the prospects of the revolutionary struggle. During this period V. I. Lenin was much engaged in the agrarian question causing historical originality and national features of revolution in such country of peasants what was Russia. Writes article " Agrarian question in Russia in late nineteenth century."
He also wrote the abstract of the book "agrarian program of social democracy in the first Russian revolution of 1905-1907". The abstract was written in the summer of 1908 at the request of the Polish social Democrats for the magazine "Social democratic review" and published in Polish. The book itself, printed in St. Petersburg in 1908, was destroyed by the tsarist censorship.
In the years of reaction, Lenin was actively fighting for the preservation of the party, strengthening its ties with the working class of Russia. In Paris at the end of December 1908 held V all-Russian conference of the RSDLP. The resolutions of the conference stressed the importance of a skilful combination of illegal and legal work, condemned the opportunistic tactics of the Menshevik liquidators, who shamefully renounced the revolutionary program of the party adopted at the second Congress of the RSDLP, sought the liquidation (hence the "liquidators") of its illegal organizations and the cessation of underground work.
Siyulya 1909 to June 1912, after moving from Geneva to Paris in connection with the transfer there edition of the newspaper "Proletarian", VI Lenin and NK Krupskaya lived in the house N4 on the street Marie-Rose. The apartment became a place of meetings, meetings and heated debates. It often stayed associates of Vladimir Ilyich, who arrived in Paris from the Russian underground. Now here the French Communists created a memorial Museum of Lenin.
In Paris, Lenin studied the experience of the French labor movement. He paid a visit to Paul Lafargue and his wife Laura, the daughter of Karl Marx, who lived in Draveil, two dozen kilometers from the capital of France. While living in Paris, Vladimir Ilyich many times addressed various audiences, including in other cities, with reports and speeches about the situation in Russia and in the party, about the Paris commune.
In April 1908, Vladimir Ilyich went to the island of Capri (Italy) to visit the Russian proletarian writer a.m. Gorky, who was treated there. To Capri, V. I. Lenin established warm and friendly relations with the local fishermen, with whom he often went to sea to catch fish...
In those years, Lenin was actively fighting against the onset of reaction on the ideological front, attempts to revise the philosophical foundations of Marxism. In may 1909 under the pseudonym VL. Il'in, published a book of Lenin "Materialism and empiric. Critical notes on a reactionary philosophy." In the course of writing the book, Lenin studied hundreds of sources on philosophy, natural science, especially physics, in German, French and English.
In this work, a deeply reasoned critical analysis of bourgeois idealist philosophy and philosophical revisionism is given, the latest methods of defending idealism are exposed, the main issues of Marxist philosophy are stated and developed. This work is still a sharp weapon of the Communist parties in the struggle against modern bourgeois idealistic philosophy.
In the summer of 1909 in Paris under the leadership of Lenin held a meeting of the expanded edition of the newspaper "Proletarian". The meeting opposed the anti-party sentiment that had engulfed some members of the party during the years of reaction - they began to be called " Otzovists "- who tried to distract the party from working in legal organizations of the working class and demanded to withdraw (hence-" Otzovists") the social democratic faction from the state Duma. The meeting stressed that the Bolshevik party had nothing in common with the Otzovists and called on the party members to wage a decisive struggle against them.
Active activities VI Lenin launched to rally the left forces in the international labor movement, actively participated in the International socialist Bureau of the II international congresses. In August-September 1910 in Stockholm, Vladimir Ilyich last saw his mother Maria Alexandrovna, who specially came to Stockholm from Russia to see his son. She died in St. Petersburg in July 1916.
Years of new revolutionary rise. 1910-14.
In the article "The beginning of demonstrations" Lenin wrote: "the Period of complete domination of the black hundred reaction is over. Begins a strip of a new rise of... In the first Russian revolution the proletariat taught the masses to fight for freedom; in the second revolution it must lead them to victory!"
The growth of the revolutionary upsurge took place in the new economic environment. The depression was replaced by a revival of production in major industries.
The conditions of life of the working class of Russia were such that they turned it into a decisive force in the struggle against tsardom and capitalism. If in 1910 there were 222 strikes in the country, 8 of them political, in 1914 there were already 3534, including 2401 political strikes.
Economic and political strikes not only rallied the workers in the struggle against the capitalists, but also raised the peasants. In the articles "the Last valve", "Large landlords and small peasant land ownership in Russia", " What is happening in the village?"Lenin carefully analyzed the situation of the peasantry after the so-called Stolypin agrarian reform, which practically changed nothing in the lives of most peasants.
In the conditions of the growing revolutionary upsurge the party of the working class had to play a decisive role, but the situation in the party continued to be difficult. There was a struggle between the Bolsheviks, on the one hand, and the liquidators, the conciliators, and Trotsky, on the other.
In his articles "the Historical meaning of the internal party struggle in Russia", "On the new faction of the conciliators, or virtuous", "on the paint of shame in Trotsky's Judaism" Lenin exposed the factional activity of anti-party groups and trends and revealed the origins of Trotskyism.
On December 16, 1910 the first issue of the newspaper "Zvezda"was published. In this issue was published Lenin's article "Differences in the European workers 'movement", in which he, describing the main deviations from Marxism in the field of theory and tactics, called revisionism, opportunism, reformism, on the one hand, and anarchism, anarchosindicalism, on the other. Lenin showed that the reasons for these deviations lay in the very structure of capitalist society, in the development of the class struggle itself.
Lenin also published in many other Newspapers published abroad, as well as in St. Petersburg and Moscow in 1908-1912 - in the "Workers ' newspaper", "Social Democrat", "Star", "Neva Star", magazines "Thought", "Enlightenment". In the articles published in these editions V. I. Lenin put forward as the main task strengthening of the Union of all truly party forces for protection of Marxism, for fight against liquidationism and otzovism, for an exit from party crisis.
In the house in the town of Longjumeau near Paris on the initiative of Lenin in the spring of 1911, the party school was organized, which played a huge role in strengthening party organizations on the principles of Bolshevism, in the training of party leaders from among the workers-revolutionaries. Most of the lectures were given By V. I. Lenin.
In memory of Lenin's stay in Longjumeau, the French Communists installed a memorial plaque on the wall of the house where Vladimir Ilyich lived: "here lived and worked in 1911 Lenin - the theorist and leader of the world Communist movement, the founder of the Soviet Union."
From 5 to 17 January 1912 in Prague, in the People's house on Hibernian street, held VI (Prague) all-Russian conference of the RSDLP.
All the work of the conference took place under the direct leadership of Lenin, and at his suggestion it declared itself the Supreme party body, designed to create competent leadership centers and help restore party organizations in the field. V. I. Lenin made a report "on the present moment and the tasks of the party." The resolution presented in the exposition called for the unity of all revolutionary forces under the slogans of the Bolsheviks.
The conference adopted the decision on the expulsion of the Menshevik liquidators from the party. Thus the Bolsheviks put an end for ever to the remnants of formal Association with the Mensheviks within the framework of the RSDLP. From Lenin's letter to Gorky: "at Last it was possible - in spite of the liquidator's swine-to revive the party and its Central Committee. I hope You will enjoy it with us."
The Prague conference adopted a number of important resolutions on the international and national liberation movement and elected the Central Committee of the party. Among its members: V. I. Lenin, F. I. Goloshchekin, G. K. Ordzhonikidze, S. S. Spandaryan and others.