File:Russian Social Deomcratic Workers' Party (24332352754).jpg

English: This party was formed in 1898 and attempted to combine all Marxist revolutionary groups in the Russian Empire. The three main original constituents were the League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class, the General Jewish Labour Bund, and the organization of socialists associated with the Kiev-based “Workers’ Newspaper.” The first party congress was held in March 1898 in Minsk. At this Congress the newly-formed party attempted to create a name and write resolutions for the congress, but soon after these were published, 5 of the 9 delegates of the Congress were arrested by the Okhrana, the Russian secret police. Police repressions made it difficult for the party to function cohesively in the next few years. The second party congress, which began in Brussels and, after Belgian police forced the delegates to leave the country, continued in London, saw the finalization of the creation of the party that was founded at the first congress. This second congress is famous for a dispute over whether the party should have loose membership, the view supported by Julius Martov, or whether it should be a party of professional revolutionaries where all members personally participate in a party organization, the view supported by Vladimir Lenin. In a vote on the issue, Martov was initially in the majority by 5 votes, but 8 of the delegates (including the 7 Bundist representatives) to the congress would leave the party later in the sessions, all of whom had supported Martov on the issue. This left Lenin’s position in the majority, and he called his faction the Bolsheviks, meaning majoritarians. Martov went along with the split, calling his side the Mensheviks, meaning minoritarians. Idealogical differences and tensions steadily grew after 1903. The third congress was held separately by the Bolshevik faction and the fourth congress was fraught with tension, although it attempted to reconcile the two sides. In 1912, the two factions became separate parties, with the Bolsheviks calling themselves the Russian Social Democratic Workers’ Party (bolshevik). After seizing power after the October Revolution of 1917, the Bolsheviks renamed their party the Russian Communist Party (bolsheviks). They banned the Mensheviks in 1921. The Russian Communist Party (bolsheviks) renamed itself the All-Union Communist Party in 1925 and then became the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1952.

This book stamp is from a book looted by the Nazis and sorted by Colonel Seymour Pomrenze, one of “the Monuments Men,” at the Offenbach Archival Depot.
There are two scrapbooks of archival markings from the books sorted at the Offenbach Depot in the Seymour Pomrenze Collection held by the American Jewish Historical Society (Call number P-933) There is a finding aid for the collection http://findingaids.cjh.org/?pID=1463157 The digitized scrapbooks are available http://digital.cjh.org/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=1666403 and http://digital.cjh.org/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=1665570.
For more information on this project check the Center’s blog: http://16thstreet.tumblr.com/tagged/Offenbach-Depot
Dr. Mitch Fraas, Acting Director of the Digital Humanities Forum at the University of Pennsylvania Libraries' Special Collections Center is working on a similar project for the German book stamps based on NARA microfilm of the volumes the American Jewish Historical Society currently holds. See http://viewshare.org/views/mfraas/offenbach-bookplates/
The Center for Jewish History would like to acknowledge the following: The American Jewish Historical Society, who graciously allowed the use of their archival materials and digital content; Mitch Fraas, Acting Director of the Digital Humanities Forum at the University of Pennsylvania Libraries' Special Collections Center, for his data and technical assistance in this project; David Rosenberg, Senior Manager for Communications, and Melanie Meyers, Senior Reference Services Librarian for Special Collections, for managing and creating the digital map; as well as Reference Services Librarian Zachary Loeb and Reference Services Assistant Ilya Slavutskiy for their work on translating and mapping.

For copyright information, click http://copyrights.cjh.org