V. I. Lenin

Source: en:CW/CW25; en:CW/CW41; ru:PSS/v34;es:MT
Translated: machine translation (DeepSeek) from the Russian; AI-translated.

1. The counter-revolution has organised, consolidated itself and has actually taken state power into its own hands.{2}

The complete organisation and consolidation of the counter-revolution consists in the excellently thought-out and already accomplished union of the three main forces of the counter-revolution: (1) The Cadet Party,{3} i.e., the real leader of the organised bourgeoisie, by withdrawing from the government, presented it with an ultimatum, thus clearing the field for the overthrow of this government by the counter-revolution; (2) The General Staff and the top army commands, with the conscious or semi-conscious assistance of Kerensky, whom even the most prominent Socialist-Revolutionaries{4} now call Cavaignac, have seized actual state power, proceeding to shoot down revolutionary troops at the front, to disarm the revolutionary troops and workers in Petrograd and Moscow, to suppress and pacify Nizhni-Novgorod, to arrest Bolsheviks and close down their newspapers not only without trial but even without a government decision. Actually, the fundamental state power in Russia now is a military dictatorship; this fact is still obscured by a number of institutions that are revolutionary in word but powerless in deed. But it is an indubitable fact, and so fundamental that without understanding it nothing can be understood in the political situation. (3) The Black-Hundred-monarchist and bourgeois press, having already passed from a frenzied baiting of the Bolsheviks to baiting the Soviets, the “incendiary” Chernov, etc., has shown more clearly than clear that the real essence of the policy of the military dictatorship, which now reigns and is supported by the Cadets and the monarchists, consists in preparing the dispersal of the Soviets. Many leaders of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, i.e., of the present majority in the Soviets, have already admitted and stated this in the last few days, but, like true petty bourgeois, they try to escape from this menacing reality with the emptiest high-sounding phrases.

2. The leaders of the Soviets and of the Socialist-Revolutionary and Menshevik parties, with Tsereteli and Chernov at their head, have finally betrayed the cause of the revolution by delivering it into the hands of the counter-revolutionaries and by turning themselves and their parties and the Soviets into a fig leaf for the counter-revolution.

This fact is proved by the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks having given up the Bolsheviks and silently sanctioned the destruction of their newspapers, without even daring to tell the people directly and openly that they were doing this and why they were doing it. By legalising the disarming of the workers and revolutionary regiments, they have deprived themselves of all real power. They have become the emptiest windbags, helping the reaction to “engage” the attention of the people while it completes its final preparations for the dispersal of the Soviets. Without realising this complete and final bankruptcy of the Socialist-Revolutionary and Menshevik parties and of the present majority in the Soviets, without realising the utter fictitiousness of their “Directory” and other masquerades, it is absolutely impossible to understand anything in the whole present political situation.

3. All hopes for a peaceful development of the Russian revolution have vanished completely. The objective situation is: either the complete victory of the military dictatorship, or the victory of the armed uprising of the workers, possible only when it coincides with a deep mass upsurge against the government and the bourgeoisie on the basis of economic dislocation and the prolongation of the war.

The slogan of the transfer of all power to the Soviets was the slogan of the peaceful development of the revolution, possible in April, May, June, up to July 5–9, i.e., up to the transfer of actual power into the hands of the military dictatorship. Now this slogan is no longer correct, for it does not take into account this accomplished transfer and the complete betrayal of the revolution by the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks in practice. Not adventures, not riots, not isolated acts of resistance, not hopeless attempts to oppose the reaction in isolation can help the cause, but only a clear realisation of the situation, the endurance and steadfastness of the workers’ vanguard, the preparation of forces for an armed uprising, the conditions for the victory of which are now terribly difficult, but still possible if the facts and trends noted in the text of the thesis coincide. No more constitutional and republican illusions, no more illusions of a peaceful path, no more isolated actions, do not succumb now to the provocation of the Black Hundreds and Cossacks, but gather forces, reorganise them and steadfastly prepare for an armed uprising, if the course of the crisis permits its application on a truly mass, nation-wide scale. The transfer of the land to the peasants is now impossible without an armed uprising, for the counter-revolution, having taken power, has fully united with the landlords as a class.

[First page of Lenin’s manuscript “The Political Situation”, July 10 (23), 1917. (Reduced)]

The aim of the armed uprising can only be the transfer of power into the hands of the proletariat, supported by the poorest peasantry, for the realisation of our Party’s programme.

4. The working-class party, without abandoning legality, but also without exaggerating it for a single moment, must combine legal work with illegal work, as in 1912–1914.

Not for a single hour abandon legal work. But not for an iota believe in constitutional and “peaceful” illusions. Immediately, everywhere and in everything, set up illegal organisations or cells for issuing leaflets, etc. Reorganise immediately, steadfastly, persistently, along the whole line.

Act as we did in 1912–1914, when we were able to speak of the overthrow of tsarism by revolution and armed uprising without losing the legal base either in the State Duma, or in the insurance funds, or in the trade unions, etc.