The Seventh (April) All-Russia Conference of the RSDLP(b) (2)

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The Seventh (April) All-Russia Conference of the RSDLP(b) was called by decision of the RSDLP(b) Central Committee, taken between April 4 and 8 (17 and 21), and was held in Petrograd from April 24 to 29 (May 7–12), 1917. It was the Party’s first conference in legal conditions. It was attended by 131 delegates with vote and 18 with voice from 78 Party organisations (including Petrograd and its environments, Moscow and Moscow District, the Central Industrial Area, the Urals, the Donbas, the Volga area and the Caucasus) and also by representatives of front and rear military organisations, the national organisations of Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Finland and Estonia. On the strength of its representation and the political and organisational tasks it dealt with, the Conference could perform and did perform the work of a Party congress: it worked out the political line for the whole Party and set up the Party governing centres.

At 2 p.m. on the day before it opened, there was a meeting of more than a hundred delegates at which new items were added to the agenda and the standing orders of the Conference were approved. A report on the April 21–22 events was given by Lenin who was met with warm applause. On the agenda of the Conference were the following questions: the current situation (the war and the Provisional Government, etc.), a peace conference, attitude to the Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies, revision of the Party Programme, the situation within the International and the Party’s tasks, unification of the internationalist Social-Democratic organisations, agrarian question, national question, Constituent Assembly, organisational question, reports by regions and elections to the Central Committee.

Lenin opened the Conference with a brief speech of welcome and was elected to the presidium. He directed all the work of the Conference.

The Conference exposed and rejected the Right-wing capitulatory line of L. B. Kamenev, who gave a co-report on the present situation as the representative of an anti-Leninist group. L. B. Kamenev and A. I. Rykov tried to oppose the Leninist line towards the socialist revolution by the opportunist assessment of the 1917 revolution, and the prospects of its development. Denying the possibility and need for the bourgeois-democratic revolution to develop into a socialist revolution, Kamenev proposed that the Conference should confine itself to accepting control over the bourgeois Provisional Government on the part of the Menshevik S.R. Soviets. The Conference rejected the capitulatory stand of Kamenev and his small group of supporters, who denied the possibility of the victory of socialism in Russia.

In his report on the revision of the Party Programme, Lenin determined the direction in which the Programme Committee set up by the Conference was to rewrite the Programme of 1903.

During the debate on the national question, G. L. Pyatakov spoke against Lenin’s slogan of the right of nations to self-determination including secession and the formation of an independent state. In support of his resolution on the national question, Lenin said that this right alone ensured complete solidarity of workers and all working people of different nationalities; while the expediency of secession was to be decided by the proletarian party “in each particular case, having regard to the interests of social development as a whole and the interests of the class struggle of the proletariat for socialism” (see present edition, Vol. 24, pp. 302–03).

Lenin’s thesis on the break with the Zimmerwald Centrist majority and the establishment of the Third, Communist International was opposed by G. Y. Zinoviev. The Conference made a mistake by voting for the Bolsheviks’ participation in the Third Zimmerwald Conference, which was predominantly Centrist in composition, thereby delaying preparations for the establishment of the Third, Communist International. Life itself very soon corrected this mistake (see present edition, Vol. 24, p. 388, and the unfinished article “The Tasks of Our Party in the International”, Vol. 26, pp. 220–22).

The Conference elected the Central Committee headed by Lenin.

The historic importance of the Seventh (April) Conference lay in the fact that it adopted Lenin’s programme for transition to the second stage of the revolution in Russia, mapped out the struggle for the development of the bourgeois-democratic revolution into a socialist revolution and put forward the demand for the transfer of all power to the Soviets. Under this slogan, the Bolsheviks prepared the masses for the proletarian revolution. p. 409

APRIL 24–29 (MAY 7–12), 1917

1. SPEECH ON THE PLAN TO CONVENE AN INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST CONFERENCE

APRIL 25 (MAY 8)

1. VARIANT OF MINUTES

First published in 1958 in the book Sedmaya (Aprelskaya) Vserossiiskaya konferentsia R.S.D.R.P.(B.). Petrogradskaya obshchegorodskaya Konferentsia R.S.D.R.P.(B.). Aprel 1917 goda. Protokoly (The seventh [April] All-Russia Conference of the RSDLP[B.]. The Petrograd city conference of the RSDLP[B]. April 1917. Minutes)

I do not agree with the previous speaker.

In Borgbjerg’s proposal we have a political fact of exceptional importance which imposes on us the duty of exposing the social-chauvinists and launching a political campaign. The British and French “socialists” have rejected Borgbjerg’s proposal. The British and French Plekhanovs are not coming to this conference. Borgbjerg’s proposals are a farce. Through Borgbjerg, the German social-chauvinists are offering their terms for peace. They are doing this through a socialist in order to cover up their social-chauvinist intrigue. This must be exposed, to discourage them from ever again applying to the socialist parties.

There can be no doubt at all that this is a proposal coming from the German Government, Which is acting through its own social-chauvinists. It is the one that is arranging this congress.... It cannot do so openly, and is therefore doing it through its own Plekhanovs. By this diplomatic step the German Government sheds all responsibility while propounding through them its secret hopes. Let me read you a report in a foreign paper about Borgbjerg: “Through a Danish social-chauvinist, the German Kaiser wants to call a peace conference in his own interests.” Borgbjerg’s proposal is clearly nothing but a fraud and a swindle. Then we have a report from Rabochaya Gazeta (Reads out the report from “Rabochaya Gazeta” of April 25, 1917.) It is beyond doubt, therefore, that this is a proposal from the German Government. That is how such things are done. It is our task to expose the inner workings of this to the world, i.e., pass a detailed resolution, translate it into several languages and publish it in all the papers. I move a draft resolution.

It is a curious fact that the capitalist newspapers are maintaining a diplomatic silence. They know the rule, that speech is silvern and silence is golden. The bourgeois newspapers know what the whole thing is about. Newspapers like Rabochaya Gazeta are at a loss. Yedinstvo alone has said that Borgbjerg is an agent of the German Government. But by saying in the next breath that neither the British nor the French social-chauvinists, nor the Russian Plekhanovs will attend this conference under any circumstances; it exposes the British, French and Russian governments, who, being aware of the really difficult condition of Germany, hope to fill their appetites at her expense. We must expose this comedy of masques. We must tell how such things are done: Bethmann-Hollweg goes to Wilhelm, Wilhelm summons Scheidemann, Scheidemann goes to Denmark, and as a result, Borgbjerg goes to Russia with the peace terms. (Reads out the resolution.)

Trier is a Danish Marxist. Denmark is a petty-bourgeois country. Her bourgeoisie has battened on the war and hates the workers. The leaders of the Danish Social-Democratic majority are among the most opportunist in Europe. They have clearly exposed themselves as real social-chauvinists. We, for our part, must be fair and say about Borgbjerg what we have said about Plekhanov. If we hear fine phrases shouted to us about Alsace-Lorraine, we must remember that the whole thing boils down to money. In fact, it is a question of unusually rich ores. It is a question of profit, a peaceful sharing out of the booty between the German and the French capitalists. The Danish internationalists have rejected this. I forgot to say that the Kautskyites have agreed to attend the conference, and this must be exposed. The proposal coming via Borgbjerg says that the German capitalists are bargaining, because they are incapable of holding on to what they have seized. Germany’s position is desperate, she is on the brink of ruin. But the German capitalists still hope to retain a bit. The diplomatists have strong bonds with each other, they know everything, everything is clear to them. The people alone are not told such things. The Anglo-French chauvinists have refused to attend the conference because they are very well aware of the real state of affairs. There was good reason for their taking ministerial office. It is now a matter of strangulating and plundering Germany, for she is no longer capable of conducting a policy of aggrandizement. Borgbjerg is an agent of German imperialism. If the soldiers receive this resolution they will understand that it is now a question of squeezing the last breath out of Germany. Congresses are farces attended by social-chauvinist diplomatists. There is the congress, and in the next room they will be sharing out Alsace-Lorraine. The truth about congresses must be told once and for all; to open the people’s eyes. If we adopt this manifesto and have it printed, translated into foreign languages and circulated among the workers and soldiers, they will understand the real state of affairs. This will be a very genuine campaign, it will be a clarification of the proletarian line.

2. NEWSPAPER REPORT

Pravda No. 41, May 9 (April 26), 1917

The invitation to attend the conference is addressed to all the socialist parties of Russia and consequently to our own as well, and so we cannot simply ignore this fact of international importance. The social-chauvinists of all the belligerent countries are acting as unofficial representatives of their governments and ruling classes, Comrade Lenin said.

The German Government, under the pressure of internal discontent, is prepared to give up some of its annexations, and Borgbjerg is its diplomatic representative. He (a representative of Stauning’s party, from which a group of Marxists, headed by Comrade Trier, withdrew following Stauning’s entry into the bourgeois ministry) has nothing in common either with the German or the Scandinavian workers. A conference of social-patriotic majorities appears to the German ruling circles to be a convenient occasion for trying to come to terms with the brigands on the other side.

The social-patriots, who have taken part in this ignominious war, as Comrade Nogin put it, want to have a hand in its ignominious end as well. On the other hand, the rebuff administered to this proposal by the imperialists of the Triple Entente lays quite bare their schemes of conquest. That is what revolutionary Social-Democracy must use in its own interests, by exposing the fraud on both sides. The Party, which unites more than 70,000 workers, must issue a warning against this fraud to the internationalist workers of all countries.

2. PROPOSAL FOR LINES OF DEBATE ON V.P. NOGIN’S REPORT ON “ATTITUDE TO THE SOVIETS OF WORKERS’ AND SOLDIERS’ DEPUTIES”

First published in 1934 in the book Sedmaya (Aprelskaya) Vserossiiskaya i Petrogradskaya obshchegorodskaya konferentsii R.S.D.R.P.(B.). Aprel 1917 goda

Printed from a typewritten copy of the minutes

APRIL 25 (MAY 8)

It is proposed that speakers concentrate on replies to specific questions for working out a general Party platform. Questions: 1) militia, 2) working hours, 3) wages, 4) increase and decrease of production, 5) have there been any removals of management? how and from whom is it organised? 6) single or dual power, 7) elements reducing revolutionary Man, 8) disarmament of the bourgeoisie, 9) food supplies, 10) = ....

Additional: 1) are the Soviets being transformed into Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies? 2) their role in connection with the state-wide Soviet.

3. SPEECH ON THE ATTITUDE TO THE SOVIETS OF WORKERS’ AND SOLDIERS’ DEPUTIES

APRIL 25 (MAY 8)

1. MINUTES

First published in 1934 in the book Sedmaya (Aprelskaya) Vserossiiskaya i Petrogradskaya obshchegorodskaya konferentsii R.S.D.R.P.(B.). Aprel 1917 goda

Printed from a typewritten copy of the minutes

The materials submitted by comrades on the activity of the Soviets, while being incomplete, are remarkably interesting. This may be the most important information material produced by the conference, material which makes it possible to verify our slogans against the actual course of life. The picture we now have disposes us to optimistic conclusions. The movement started out in the centres; initially all the energy of the proletariat there was concentrated on the struggle. A mass of energy was spent on the struggle against tsarism. This struggle in Petrograd has eliminated the central state power. A gigantic task has been done. But if that has led to the seizure of power by the bourgeoisie it does not warrant any pessimistic conclusions, it is not right to regard the workers’ failure to take power as a mistake. It would be utopian to suppose that after a few days of struggle the masses could have taken power into their hands. That could not have been done in the presence of the bourgeoisie, which was very well prepared for taking over

.From the centre, the revolution is moving into the localities. That is what happened in France—the revolution is becoming a municipal one. The movement in the localities shows that there the majority is for the peasants, for the workers, that there has been the least leadership from the bourgeoisie, that there the masses did not lose their head. The more data we collect, the more they show us that the greater the proletarian section of the population and the fewer the intermediate elements, the better the revolution advances in the localities. The Kazan comrades have gone over directly to the tasks of the socialist revolution. We find that even where the proletariat’s organisations are insignificant, the practical requirements have given the proletariat an absolutely correct definition of its tasks. Without such elements as, for instance, statistics, etc., the proletarian revolution cannot be carried out. For the proletarian revolution to be carried out, it is necessary that the engineers, technicians, etc., should be under the practical control of the revolutionary proletariat. The revolution in the localities has gone forward easily. There is always the danger of anarchy in a revolution. Over here anarchy is not....

The bourgeois revolution is unmindful of production, but here the workers are giving it thought. The workers are interested in seeing that production does not dwindle. The revolution in the localities is going forward in gigantic strides. Reports from the localities have shown that the sharper the class contradictions, the more correctly the revolution advances, the surer the dictatorship of the proletariat is realised. While the dictatorship of the proletariat is being implemented in the small localities, the centres turn out to be the least suitable for the revolution’s advance

.There is absolutely no ground for any pessimism. It is a fact that collaboration with the bourgeoisie is beginning in the centres. Through its better organisation, the bourgeoisie is trying to turn the proletariat into a servitor, to make the workers temporary participants in what the bourgeoisie is building. It is ridiculous to think that the Russian people are drawing their guiding principles from pamphlets. Not at all, it is from the immediate practice that the experience of the masses flows.... The people can work it out by participating in a mass movement. The people themselves have started to accumulate mass experience.... In Penza Gubernia, the power took shape under the dictatorship of the peasantry. The Penza representative showed the resolutions of the peasants who had taken over the implements of production and land. Marx’s words are being confirmed.... The programme of the revolution is being carried out in the localities—in order to have grain ... to establish relations themselves. This revolution produces men of practice. The revolution can go forward only under the control of practical experience in the localities. And we are very greatly encouraged by the course of the revolution through out the whole of Russia, where the gigantic majority are peasants

After there proved to be insufficient strength to take over production in the centre, this is being done in the provinces, where it is easily done. In the provinces, the revolution is a municipal one, and it is giving impetus to the centre; the latter is picking up their experience.

The comrade coal-miner said that their first task when... was to go for grain.... It is wrong to think that this experience can go to waste. Without this experience, the centres have nowhere to get an impetus from for a fresh revolution. The new revolution is mounting. The course of events, the dislocation of life, the famine—that is what is propelling the revolution. Hence the struggle against the elements supporting the bourgeoisie. Things are moving towards a collapse which the bourgeoisie will not cope with. We are preparing a new multimillion army which could show its mettle in the Soviets, in the Constituent Assembly—just how, we do not as yet know. Over here in the centre we do not have enough strength. There is a tremendous preponderance in the provinces. On our side is the development of the revolution in the localities, which is going forward and overtaking us.

The people are not setting themselves any communist plans. The revolutionary class throughout Russia is mustering its forces, and it is our task to accumulate this experience and take a step as these forces are mustered. We must not allow ourselves to be intimidated by the fact that they (Narodniks, Mensheviks) are in such an overwhelming majority.

On the strength of the experience, we can now state in the resolution.... In the localities, the production has to be taken over, otherwise the collapse is inevitable. The peasants will not give the grain. To obtain the grain, the measures must be revolutionary, which can be put through by the revolutionary class, relying on the masses in their millions.

I asked comrades from the localities about the state of production there.

The 8–hour day has been introduced in Nizhny Novgorod Gubernia, and production has increased. That is the earnest. There is no other way of escaping the ruin. It will take a vast amount of work. We are separating ourselves from the petty-bourgeois line. Life is on our side. The crisis can not be resolved by petty-bourgeois-democratic methods, because they stop short of revolutionary measures (Shingaryov, Milyukov). The general course of the revolution shows that things are moving forward.

We do not differ from the petty bourgeoisie in that it says “caution”, and we say “speed”; we say “even more caution”. There must be a relentless struggle against this state game.... Better later than earlier—and the centre will win out. (Applause.)

2. NEWSPAPER REPORT

Pravda No. 42, May 10 (April 27), 1917

Comrade Lenin pointed out that the French revolution passed through a phase of municipal revolution, that it drew its strength from the local organs of self-government, which became its mainstay. In the Russian revolution we observe a certain bureaucracy in the centres, and a greater exercise of power wielded by the Soviets locally, in the provinces. In the capital cities the Soviets are politically more dependent on the bourgeois central authorities than those in the provinces. In the centres it is not so easy to take control of production, in the provinces this has already been carried out to some extent. The inference is: to strengthen the local Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies. Progress in this respect is possible, coming primarily from the provinces.

4. SPEECH IN DEFENCE OF THE RESOLUTION ON THE WAR APRIL 27 (MAY 10)

NEWSPAPER REPORT

Pravda No. 44, May 12 (April 29), 1917

Comrade Lenin, speaking in substantiation of the first resolution, pointed out the need for dividing the resolution into three parts: first, giving a class analysis of the war; second, dealing with so-called “revolutionary defencism”, and third, answering the question of how to end the war. The first part of the resolution exposes the mainsprings of the imperialist war, establishes their connection with a definite period in the development of capitalism and brings out the annexationist strivings of the ruling classes of all countries. The second part gives a characteristic of the peculiar trend. The third part outlines the way to end the war—the way of revolutionary class struggle for power—refuting the absurd slander about a “separate” peace.

5. REMARKS IN THE DEBATE ON THE RESOLUTION ON THE WAR

First published in 1925 in the book Petrogradskaya obshchegorodskaya i Vserossiiskaya konferentsii R.S.D.R.P.(B.) v aprele 1917 goda

Printed from a typewritten copy of the minutes

APRIL 27 (MAY 10)

1

Gelman motions that the words “Menshevik opportunist Social-Democratic Party” should be replaced by the words “the Party’s opportunist wing”, arguing that not all the Mensheviks belong to the defencist trend, and that the Left wing does not share the defencist standpoint.

Lenin opposes the amendment: we are speaking about the majority, about the Menshevik Party as a whole, which is why the characteristic should not be changed.

2

Vedernikov proposes that the names “Chkheidze, Tsereteli and others” should be struck out.... If we delete them the resolution will not lose in any way.

Ovsyanikov ... proposes that the words “Chkheidze, Tsereteli, the OC” should be deleted.

Lenin comes out against both amendments. One of two things—either the names or the OC—unless both are retained. The first comrade proposes to leave the OC in and throw out the names. But is the Organising Committee sufficiently well known to the masses, or must the well-known names of Tsereteli and Chkheidze be used to clarify the state of affairs for the masses?

3

Sokolnikov proposes the deletion of the word “completely” in the phrase: “Steps designed to make them completely harmless politically”, because only by undermining their economic domination can the capitalists be rendered politically harmless....

Lenin speaks out against the deletion of the word “completely” and proposes the wording: “Steps undermining the economic domination of the capitalists, and steps designed to make them completely....”

6. PRELIMINARY DRAFT ALTERATIONS IN THE RSDLP PARTY PROGRAMME

At the end of the preamble (after the words “the standpoint of the proletariat”) insert:

World capitalism has at the present time, i.e., since about the beginning of the twentieth century, reached the stage of imperialism. Imperialism, or the epoch of finance capital, is a high stage of development of the capitalist economic system, one in which monopolist associations of capitalists—syndicates, cartels and trusts—have assumed decisive importance: in which enormously concentrated banking capital has fused with industrial capital; in which the export of capital to foreign countries has assumed vast proportions: in which the whole world has been divided up territorially among the richer countries, and the economic carve-up of the world among international trusts has begun.

Imperialist wars, i.e., wars for world domination, for markets for banking capital and for the subjugation of small and weaker nations, are inevitable under such a state of affairs. The first great imperialist war, the war of 1914–17, is precisely such a war.

The extremely high level of development which world capitalism in general has attained, the replacement of free competition by monopoly capitalism, the fact that the banks and the capitalist associations have prepared the machinery for the social regulation of the process of production and distribution of products, the horrors, misery, ruin, and brutalisation caused by the imperialist war—all these factors transform the present stage of capitalist development into an era of proletarian socialist revolution.

That era has dawned.

Only a proletarian socialist revolution can lead humanity out of the impasse which imperialism and imperialist wars have created. Whatever difficulties, the revolution may have to encounter, whatever possible temporary setbacks or waves of counter-revolution it may have to contend with, the final victory of the proletariat is inevitable.

Objective conditions make it the urgent task of the day to prepare the proletariat in every way for the revolution and resolutely break with the bourgeois perversion of socialism, which has taken the upper hand in the official Social-Democratic parties in the form of a social-chauvinist trend (that is, socialism in words, chauvinism in fact, or the use of the “defend your country” slogan to cover up defence of capitalist interests in imperialist wars), and also in the form of a Centre trend (i.e., unprincipled, helpless vacillation between social-chauvinism and revolutionary internationalist proletarian struggle) for the conquest of political power in order to carry out the economic and political measures which are the sum and substance of the socialist revolution.

* *

*

The fulfilment of this task, which calls for the fullest trust, the closest fraternal ties, and direct unity of revolutionary action on the part of the working class in all the advanced countries, is impossible without an immediate break in principle with the bourgeois perversion of socialism, which has gained the upper hand among the leadership of the great majority of the official Social-Democratic parties. Such a perversion is, on the one hand, the social-chauvinist trend, socialism in word and chauvinism in deed, the defence of the predatory interests of “one’s own” national bourgeoisie under the guise of “defence of one’s country”; and, on the other hand, the equally wide international trend of the so-called Centre, which stands for unity with the social-chauvinists and for the preservation or correction of the bankrupt Second International, and which vacillates between social-chauvinism and the internationalist revolutionary struggle of the proletariat for the achievement of a socialist system.

* *

*

The experience of the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917, which created the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies and a number of similar organisations, thereby confirmed the experience of the Paris Commune, which consisted in the fact that the proletariat must have a state for the period of transition to socialism, but this state must not be a conventional type of state, but the immediate, massive and wholesale organisation of the armed workers to substitute for the old instruments of administration: the standing army, the police and the civil service. Explanation to the proletariat of the tasks of such a state—capable both of consolidating the gains of the revolution in general and of ensuring the most peaceful and balanced transition to socialism—must constitute one of the principal tasks of the proletarian party alongside its struggle against the representatives of the bankrupt Second (1889–1914) International, who have distorted Marxism and betrayed socialism on the dictator ship of the proletariat question. Monopoly capitalism, which has been developing into state-monopoly capitalism in a number of advanced countries with especial rapidity during the war, means gigantic socialisation of production and, consequently, complete preparation of the objective conditions for the establishment of a socialist society.

* *

*

In the minimum programme, the whole beginning (from the words “On the path” down to § 1) should be crossed out, and replaced by the following:

In Russia at the present moment, when the Provisional Government, which is part and parcel of the landowner and capitalist class and enjoys the confidence—necessarily unstable—of the broad mass of the petty-bourgeois population, has undertaken to convene a Constituent Assembly, the immediate duty of the party of the proletariat is to fight for a political system which will best guarantee economic progress and the rights of the people in general, and make possible the least painful transition to socialism in particular.

The party is fighting and helping the masses to wage an immediate struggle for a democratic republic, starting the implementation of the freedoms by the masses’ organisation on their own, from below, and working for the establishment not of a bourgeois parliamentary republic, with its special guarantees both for the domination of the capitalists and for the possibility of using force against the masses through the retention of the old organs of mass oppression: the police, the standing army and the civil service, but of a more democratic proletarian-peasant republic in which the retention of these organs of oppression is impossible and inadmissible, and where the state power belongs directly to the workers and peasants who are armed to a man.

§ 1. Supreme power in the state must be vested entirely in the people’s representatives, who shall be elected by the people and be subject to recall at any time, and who shall constitute a single popular assembly, a single chamber.

§ 2. Add:

Proportional representation at all elections; all delegates and elected officials, without exception, to be subject to recall at any time upon the decision of a majority of their electors.

§ 3. Add:

No supervision or control from above over the decisions and acts of regional and local self-governments.

§ 9 to read:

The right of all member nations of the state to freely secede and form independent states. The republic of the Russian nation must attract other nations or nationalities not by force, but exclusively by voluntary agreement on the question of forming a common state. The unity and fraternal alliance of the workers of all countries are incompatible with the use of force, direct or indirect, against other nationalities.

§ 11 to read:

Judges and all other officials, both civil and military, to be elected by the people with the right to recall any of them at any time by decision of a majority of their electors. Salaries to all officials to be not above the wages of a skilled worker, 300–500 rubles, depending on the number of family members and their earnings; unconditional prohibition for officials to supplement their salaries with income from other sources.

§ 12 to read:

The police and standing army to be replaced by the universally armed people; workers and other employees to receive regular wages from the capitalists for the time devoted to public service in the people’s militia.

* *

*

§ 14 of the political section, § 5 and others of the economic section should be, like the whole of the economic section, specially re-examined by commissions consisting of trade union workers and teachers.

Alter the fiscal clause of the programme (following the words “on incomes and inheritances”) insert:

The high level of development of capitalism already achieved in banking and in the trustified branches of industry, on the one hand, and the economic disruption caused by the imperialist war, everywhere evoking a demand for state and public control of the production and distribution of all staple products, on the other, induce the party to demand the nationalisation of the banks, syndicates (trusts), etc.

* *

*

The agrarian programme should be replaced by an agrarian resolution (see its text separately) or rewritten in accordance with it.

The concluding part of the programme (the last two paragraphs from the words: “In the endeavour to achieve”) to be entirely deleted.

FOR THE PROGRAMME

Written not later than April 25 (May 11), 1917

First published in 1933 in Lenin Miscellany XXI

Printed from the original

BETTER VARIANT

The party of the proletariat cannot rest content with a bourgeois parliamentary democratic republic, which throughout the world preserves and strives to perpetuate the monarchist instruments for the oppression of the masses, namely, the police, the standing army, and the privileged bureaucracy.

The party fights for a more democratic workers’ and peasants’ republic, in which the police and the standing army will be abolished and replaced by the universally armed people, by a people’s militia; all officials will be not only elective, but also subject to recall at any time upon the demand of a majority of the electors; all officials, without exception, will be paid at a rate not exceeding the average wage of a competent worker; parliamentary representative institutions will be gradually replaced by Soviets of people’s representatives (from various classes and professions, or from various localities), functioning as both legislative and executive bodies.

7. REPORT ON THE QUESTION OF REVISING THE PARTY PROGRAMME

APRIL 28 (MAY 11)

NEWSPAPER REPORT

Pravda No. 45, May 13 (April 30), 1917

The commission has proposed the adoption of a resolution on the direction in which the Party programme should be changed: 1) evaluation of imperialism in connection with the approaching social revolution; 2) amending the para graphs on the state—the state without a standing army, a police, or a privileged bureaucracy; 3) elimination of what is out of date in the political programme (about tsarism, etc.); 4) altering the minimum programme; 5) re writing the economic section of the programme, which is obviously out of date, and the school section of the programme; 6–7) inserting demands flowing from the changing structure of capitalist society (nationalisation of the syndicated branches of industry, etc.); 8) adding an analysis of the trends in socialism.

8. REPORT ON THE AGRARIAN QUESTION

APRIL 28 (MAY 11)

NEWSPAPER REPORT

Pravda No. 45, May 13 (April 30), 1917

Comrade Lenin pointed to the landed estates, and the incredible jumble of arable fields brought about by the haphazard administration on the peasant land, first of the bailiffs, then of the 1861 magistrates and finally of the Stolypin officials, as the principal cause of the enslaving feudal relations remaining in the countryside.

Hence, the natural desire on the part of the peasants to “clear the land”, to have all the land re-allotted, a desire which is expressed in the saying that “all the land is God’s”. The peasant-holder cannot be reconciled with the obstacles which, in the new conditions of capitalist trade, he finds intolerable. That is proved by the bill submitted by the 104 peasant deputies in the First and Second Dumas.

The Socialist-Revolutionaries have themselves admitted that in that Bill the “petty-economy ideology” prevails over the “principles of equalisation”. The peasant wants to own his land, but wants it allotted in accordance with the new demands of the commodity economy. Even where some peasants appear to accept the principle of egalitarian land tenure, their view of it is different from that of the S.R. intellectuals. The statistical result of the distribution of the landowner and peasant holdings in Russia comes to the following figures: 300 peasant families hold 2,000 dessiatines, and one landowner holds as much. Their demand for “equalisation” clearly contains the idea of equalising the rights of the 300 and the one.

The necessity of land nationalisation, as a fully bourgeois and highly progressive measure, has been prepared by the preceding development of the land economy in Russia and the development of the world market. The war has sharpened every contradiction. Just now, the immediate transfer of the land to the peasants is a demand powerfully dictated by the needs of wartime. Shingaryov & Co. actually intensify the crisis by inviting the peasants to wait for a Constituent Assembly (whereas the sowing must be done right away), thereby threatening to turn the grain shortage into a real famine. They are trying to force on the peasants a bourgeois-bureaucratic solution of the agrarian question. Meanwhile, there is no time to wait for the legalisation of landownership, because the crisis is approaching in gigantic strides. The peasants have already displayed a revolutionary initiative—in Penza Gubernia they have been taking over the landowners’ live and dead stock for common use. It goes without saying that our Party stands only for the organised take-over of lands and implements because that is necessary for increasing production, while any damage to implements inflicts harm above all on the peasants and workers themselves.

On the other hand, we stand for the separate organisation of agricultural workers.

9. REMARK IN THE DEBATE ON THE RESOLUTION ON THE AGRARIAN QUESTION

First published in 1925 in the book Petrogradskaya obshchegorodskaya i Vserossiiskaya konferentsii R.S.D.R.P.(B.) v aprele 1917 goda

Printed from a typewritten copy of the minutes

APRIL 28 (MAY 11)

Solovyov believes that the most essential should be stated at the head of the resolution: that the Party demands the nationalisation of the land.

This amendment is not very essential. I put nationalisation in third place, because initiative and revolutionary action must come first, while nationalisation is a law ex pressing the people’s will. I motion against.

10. SPEECH ON THE NATIONAL QUESTION

APRIL 29 (MAY 12)

NEWSPAPER REPORT

Pravda No. 46, May 15 (2), 1917

Comrade Lenin recalled that the Polish Social-Democrats were against the right to national self-determination in 1903, when the question was not raised in the prospect of a socialist revolution. The specific character of their stand on the national question is due to their peculiar position in Poland; the tsarist oppression fed the nationalistic passions of the bourgeois and petty-bourgeois sections of Poland. The Polish Social-Democrats had to go through a desperate struggle against the “socialists” (P.P.S) who were even prepared to have a European war for the sake of Poland’s liberation, and only they, the Polish Social-Democrats, spreading the feelings of international solidarity among the Polish workers, led them closer to the workers of Russia. However, their attempt to impose a rejection of the right to self-determination on the socialists of the oppressor nations is extremely erroneous and in the event of success could result in nothing more than the adoption of a chauvinistic stand by the Russian Social-Democrats. By rejecting the oppressed nations’ right to self-determination, the socialists of the oppressor nations become chauvinists, giving support to their own bourgeoisie. Russian socialists must work to secure freedom to secede for the oppressed nations, while the socialists of the oppressed nations must maintain freedom to integrate, both taking formally different (essentially the same) ways towards the same goal: the international organisation of the proletariat. Those who say that the national question has been solved within the bourgeois system tend to forget that it has been solved (but not in every case) only in the west of Europe, where the purity of the population is sometimes as high as 90 per cent, but not in the east, where the purity of the population is limited to only 43 per cent. Finland’s example shows that the national question is in practice on the order of the day and that the alternative is support for the imperialist bourgeoisie or the duty of international solidarity, which does not allow of any violation of the will of the oppressed nations. The Mensheviks, who invited the Finnish Social-Democrats to “wait” until the Constituent Assembly and settle the question of autonomy together with it, actually spoke out in the spirit of the Russian imperialists.

11. SPEECH ON THE SITUATION WITHIN THE INTERNATIONAL AND THE TASKS OF THE RSDLP(b)

APRIL 29 (MAY 12)

NEWSPAPER REPORT

Pravda No. 46, May 15 (2), 1917

Comrade Lenin motioned the proposal for a declaration that the RSDLP remained within the Zimmerwald bloc only for the purpose of information, and is, consequently, withdrawing from it. Experience has shown, he said, that it is useless to remain in the bloc. In many countries, Zimmerwald has even become a drag on the forward movement. The social-chauvinists are using it as a cover.

12. REMARKS IN THE DEBATE ON THE RESOLUTION ON THE CURRENT SITUATION

First published in 1925 in the book Petrogradskaya obshchegorodskaya i Vserossiiskaya konferentsii R.S.D.R.P.(B.) v aprele 1917 goda

Printed from a typewritten copy of the minutes

APRIL 29 (MAY 12)

1

Question from the floor. Does control over the syndicates and banks imply measures recommended only on a state-wide scale or are such measures as control over private enterprises, etc., also included?

No, that is not here, because this living practice has been given expression in another resolution where it is in a better perspective. This particular resolution deals with another subject—the steps to be taken towards socialism.

2

Solovyov motions an amendment: a few words about the characteristic of the state in this transition period—that is very essential, because it determines the overall direction of the activities of the Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies....

Lenin objects to Comrade Solovyov’s amendment:

In some resolutions we keep coming up against concrete definitions. The Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies can operate without the police, because they have their armed soldiers. The Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies are institutions which can substitute for the old civil service.

The old agrarian programme ... has not been realised, but we should say: “The Party demands a peasant-proletarian republic without a police, a standing army or a civil service.” Consequently, the conference has predetermined this issue, so all we have to do now is to formulate.