V. I.

Lenin

Draft Resolutions for the Fifth Congress of the R.S.D.L.P.

1. The Present Stage in the Democratic Revolution

Whereas:

1.the economic crisis which Russia is now experiencing shows no signs of early
abatement, and in its protracted course is continuing to create unemployment
on an enormous scale in the towns and starvation in the villages; 2.as a result of this, the class struggle between the proletariat and the
bourgeoisie, between the landlords and the peasantry, and also between the
government-bribed peasant bourgeoisie and the poor villagers, is becoming
more acute; 3.the political history of Russia during the past year, from the First Duma to
the new elections, reveals a rapid increase of political consciousness in all
classes, which is reflected in the enormous strengthening of the extreme
parties, in the dissipation of constitutional illusions and in the weakening
of the “Centre”, i.e., the liberal-bourgeois Cadet Party, which
is striving to halt the revolution by offering concessions acceptable to the
Black-Hundred land lords and the autocracy; 4.the policy of the Constitutional-Democratic Party directed towards the
achievement of this purpose will release only a minimum of the productive
forces of bourgeois society, will not in any way satisfy the elementary needs
of the proletariat and of the mass of the peasantry, and will necessitate the
constant forcible suppression of these masses; Thisconference declares:

I.that the political crisis that is developing before our eyes is not a
constitutional but a revolutionary crisis leading to a direct struggle of the
proletarian and the peasant masses against the autocracy; 2.that the forthcoming Duma campaign must therefore be regarded merely as one
of the episodes in the people’s revolutionary struggle for power, and
must be utilised as such; 3.that, as the party of the advanced class, the Social- Democratic Party cannot
under any circumstances at present support the Cadet policy in general or a
Cadet ministry in particular. The Social-Democrats must bend every effort to
expose the treacherous nature of this policy to the masses; they must explain
to them the revolutionary tasks confronting them; they must show the masses
that only when they attain a high level of political consciousness and are
strongly organised can possible concessions by the autocracy be converted
from an instrument of deception and corruption into an instrument for the
further development of the revolution.

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