Protocol Record
Протокольная запись
Date: 1917
Source: PSS vol 31
Translated by: AI (Claude)

Comrades, regarding the revision of the party program, the matter stands as follows: the section was given an initial draft of changes to the principled part of the program and some basic points of the political part. The program must be revised in its entirety, as its complete obsolescence was pointed out in party circles long before the war. As a result, it turned out that there is no hope for discussion of the draft changes to the entire program as a whole. On the other hand, in the section it was recognized by all that revision of the program is absolutely necessary, and in a whole series of questions it is possible and necessary to indicate in what direction this revision should be carried out. We therefore outlined the following draft resolution, which I will read to you with small commentaries. We refuse to put forward precisely formulated theses now, and indicate only in what direction the revision must be made.

(Reads the resolution.)

"The conference recognizes the necessity of revising the party program in the following direction:

1) Evaluation of imperialism and the epoch of imperialist wars in connection with the approaching socialist revolution; struggle against the distortion of Marxism by the so-called defensists, who have forgotten Marx's slogan: 'workers have no fatherland.'"

This is so clear that it requires no commentary. Indeed, the policy of our party has gone far ahead and has practically already taken the position that this formulation proposes.

"2) Correction of provisions and paragraphs about the state in the spirit of demanding not a bourgeois-parliamentary republic, but a democratic proletarian-peasant republic (i.e., a type of state without police, without a standing army, without privileged bureaucracy)."

Other formulations of this point were also outlined. One referred to the experience of the Paris Commune and to the experience of the 70s-80s, but such a formulation is unsatisfactory and too general; another spoke of a republic of Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies, but this formulation was also recognized by the majority of comrades as unsatisfactory. A formulation is necessary, because the matter is not in what the institution is called, but in what the political character and structure of these institutions are. Speaking of a proletarian-peasant republic, we indicate its social content and political character.

"3) Removal or correction of obsolete parts of the political program."

Our general political activity in the Soviets of W. and S. D. has practically already gone along this path, which is why one can hardly doubt that changing the program on this point and precise formulation of that moment at which the revolution caught our party cannot cause disagreements.

"4) Reworking of a number of points of the political program-minimum in the sense of more precise indication of more consistent democratic demands.

5) Complete reworking in very many places of the obsolete economic part of the program-minimum and points relating to popular education."

The main thing is that these points are obsolete: professional movement has outpaced them.

"6) Reworking of the agrarian program in accordance with the adopted resolution on the agrarian question.

7) Insertion of the demand for nationalization of a number of syndicates and the like most prepared for this."

Here a cautious formulation is chosen, which can be narrowed or expanded depending on what projects emerge from print.

"8) Addition of a characterization of the basic currents of contemporary socialism."

In the "Communist Manifesto" such an addition is made.

"The conference instructs the CC to compose on these bases a draft party program within a two-month period for submission of this draft for approval by a party congress. The conference calls on all organizations and all members of the party to discuss drafts of the program, to correct them and to work out counter-drafts."

It was indicated that it is desirable to create literature on this question and a scientific organ, but there are no people and means for this. Here is the resolution that will help rapid revision of the program. It will be sent abroad as well, so that our comrades-internationalists there can take part in the revision of the program, which our party has undertaken on the basis of the experience of the world war.

First published in 1921 in the Collected Works of N. Lenin (V. Ulyanov), volume XIV, part II
Printed from the typed copy of the protocol record