Written in April–May 1917.

Published in accordance with the text of the pamphlet

The Central Committee of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks) instructed the undersigned to immediately publish the material already on hand and at the disposal of the Central Committee on the revision of the party programme.

This material consists of the following:

a) The original draft of amendments to the theoretical and political sections of the programme, submitted by the author of these lines to the All-Russian Conference of the R.S.D.L.P. of 24–29 April 1917 and considered only by the section formed at the conference to work on this question.

b) Remarks by the section and its individual members, both on this draft and in connection with it.

c) My reply to these remarks.

d) A complete draft of amendments to the economic minimum programme, worked out at the conference of 24–29 April 1917 by a sub-section on labour protection.

e) A draft of amendments to the points of the party programme relating to public education, provided with brief explanations. This draft was drawn up after the conference by N. K. Krupskaya{71}.

Since all the above-listed draft amendments together constitute a draft of the complete text of a new programme, I am printing at the end of this pamphlet both the old and the new texts in such a way that readers may have all the material before them in the form most convenient for comparison and for the introduction of corrections.

On behalf of the Central Committee, I request all comrades – members of the Party, as well as all sympathisers with it, to give the widest possible circulation to this material in Party publications, to acquaint all members of the Party with it, and to send to the Editorial Board of Pravda (Moika, 32, Petrograd, marked: for the C.C., materials for the revision of the programme) all and any remarks and drafts whatsoever. 20 May 1917.

2. Draft of Amendments to the Theoretical, Political, and Certain Other Sections of the Programme

At the end of the fundamental section of the programme (after the words: “to the standpoint of the proletariat”) insert:

World capitalism has at present, approximately since the beginning of the twentieth century, reached the stage of imperialism. Imperialism, or the epoch of finance capital, is a highly developed capitalist economy in which the monopolistic associations of the capitalists – syndicates, cartels, trusts – have acquired decisive importance, enormously concentrated banking capital has merged with industrial capital, the export of capital to foreign countries has developed on a very large scale, the whole world is already territorially divided among the richest countries, and the economic division of the world among international trusts has begun.

Imperialist wars – i.e., wars for domination of the world, for markets for banking capital, for the strangulation of small and weak nations – are inevitable under this state of affairs. Such precisely was the first great imperialist war of 1914–1917.

The extremely high stage of development of world capitalism in general; the replacement of free competition by monopolistic capitalism; the preparation by the banks, and likewise by the capitalists’ associations, of the apparatus for the social regulation of the process of production and distribution of products; the rise in the cost of living and the oppression of the working class by the syndicates, growing in step with the growth of capitalist monopolies, the gigantic impediment to its economic and political struggle; and the horrors, calamities, ruin, and brutalization engendered by the imperialist war – all this makes the current stage of capitalist development that has been reached the era of proletarian, socialist revolution.

This era has begun.

Only a proletarian, socialist revolution can lead humanity out of the blind alley created by imperialism and imperialist wars. Whatever the difficulties of the revolution, and its possible temporary setbacks, or waves of counter-revolution, the final victory of the proletariat is inevitable.

Hence, by virtue of objective conditions, the order of the day of the present epoch is the all-round, immediate preparation of the proletariat for the conquest of political power, in order to carry out the economic and political measures that constitute the content of the socialist revolution.

The fulfilment of this task, which requires the fullest confidence, the closest fraternal alliance, and the direct unity of the revolutionary actions of the working class in all advanced countries, is impracticable without an immediate and principled break with that bourgeois distortion of socialism which has gained the upper hand in the leadership of the vast majority of the official Social-Democratic parties. Such a distortion is, on the one hand, the current of social-chauvinism{72}, socialism in words, chauvinism in deeds, the concealment, behind the slogan of "defence of the fatherland", of the defence of the rapacious interests of "one's own" national bourgeoisie, and on the other hand, the equally widespread and international current of the so-called "centre"{73}, which stands for unity with the social-chauvinists, for the preservation or correction of the bankrupt Second International – a current that vacillates between social-chauvinism and the revolutionary-internationalist struggle of the proletariat for the realisation of the socialist system.

In the minimum programme, the entire beginning (from the words: "On the path" to § 1) should be deleted and replaced with the following:

At the moment Russia is experiencing, when the Provisional Government, which belongs to the capitalist class and enjoys the confidence – inevitably unstable – of the broad masses of the petty-bourgeois population, has pledged to convene a Constituent Assembly, the immediate task facing the party of the proletariat is the struggle for a state structure that best ensures both economic development and the rights of the people in general, and the possibility of a most painless transition to socialism in particular.

The party of the proletariat cannot confine itself to a bourgeois-parliamentary democratic republic, which everywhere in the world preserves and strives to perpetuate the monarchical instruments for the oppression of the masses, namely: the police, the standing army, the privileged bureaucracy.

The Party fights for a more democratic proletarian-peasant republic, in which the police and the standing army are completely abolished and replaced by the universal arming of the people, a universal militia; all officials become not only elected but also subject to recall at any time at the demand of a majority of their electors; the pay of all officials, without exception, is fixed at a rate not exceeding the average wage of a good worker; parliamentary-representative institutions are gradually replaced by Soviets of people's representatives (from various classes and professions or from different localities), which simultaneously legislate and implement their laws in practice.

The constitution of the democratic Russian republic must ensure:

§ 1. The autocracy of the people; all supreme power in the state must belong to the representatives of the people, elected and subject to recall at any time by the people, and constituting a single popular assembly, a single chamber.

§ 2. – add:

Proportional representation at all elections; the recall at any time of all delegates and elected officials without exception by a decision of the majority of their electors.

§ 3. – add:

Abolition of all local and regional authorities appointed by the state[9].

In § 8, the last sentence to read:

Introduction of the native language in all local public and state institutions; abolition of a compulsory state language.

§ 9 to be amended to read:

The right of free secession and formation of its own state for all nations that are part of the state. The republic of the Russian people must attract other peoples or nationalities to itself not by violence, but exclusively by voluntary agreement to create a common state. The unity and fraternal union of the workers of all countries will not tolerate either direct or indirect violence against other nationalities.

§ 11 to be amended to read:

Election of judges and officials, both in civil service and in the army, by the people; the recall of all of them at any time by a decision of the majority of their electors.

§ 12 to be amended to read:

Replacement of the police and the standing army by the universal arming of the people; workers and employees must receive their usual pay from the capitalists for the time devoted to public service in the universal militia.

After the financial point of the program (after the words: “on incomes and inheritances”) insert:

The high stage of development of capitalism already achieved in banking and in the trustified branches of industry, on the one hand, and on the other hand, the ruin created by the imperialist war and everywhere evoking the demand for state and public control over the production and distribution of the most important products, impels the Party to demand the nationalization of the banks, syndicates (trusts), etc.

To formulate the agrarian program thus:

Leave the beginning as before (from the words: "In order to eliminate the remnants" to the words: "the Party demands"), and replace the continuation with the following:

1) fights with all its might for the immediate and complete confiscation of all landed estates in Russia (as well as appanage, church, cabinet, etc., etc., lands);

2) comes out for the immediate transfer of all lands into the hands of the peasantry, organized in Soviets of Peasants' Deputies or in other organs of local self-government that are truly fully democratically elected and fully independent of the landlords and officials;

3) demands the nationalization of all lands in the state; signifying the transfer of the right of ownership over all lands to the hands of the state, nationalization transfers the right of disposition over the land to the hands of local democratic institutions;

4) supports the initiative of those peasant committees which in a number of localities in Russia are transferring the landlords' live and dead inventory into the hands of the peasantry organized in these committees for socially-regulated use in the cultivation of all lands;

5) advises the proletarians and semi-proletarians of the countryside that they should strive for the formation, out of each landed estate, of a sufficiently large model farm, which would be run at public expense by the Soviets of Deputies of Agricultural Laborers under the guidance of agronomists and with the application of the best technical means.

The Party in all cases and under all circumstances, etc., to the end of the paragraph ("exploitation").

Finally, leave the end of the agrarian program, from the words: "The Party in all cases and under all circumstances of democratic agrarian transformations" and to the words: "any exploitation," as before.

Delete entirely the very end of the program, the two last paragraphs, from the words: "striving to achieve" to the end.

3. Considerations Regarding the Remarks of Section VII of the (April) All-Russian Conference of the R.S.D.L.P.(B.)

Concerning these remarks regarding the general part of the program, I must note the following.

The revision of the entire general part of the programme, in my opinion, is not necessary. The plan for such a revision, as outlined by the section, seems to me theoretically incorrect.

In its present wording, the general part of the programme contains a description and analysis of the main and most essential features of capitalism as a socio-economic system. These features have not been fundamentally altered by imperialism, the era of finance capital. Imperialism is a continuation of the development of capitalism, its highest stage, transitional—in a certain respect—to socialism.

I cannot, therefore, regard the addition to the analysis of the basic features of capitalism in general of an analysis of imperialism as “mechanical”. In reality, imperialism does not and cannot remould capitalism from top to bottom. Imperialism complicates and intensifies the contradictions of capitalism, “intertwines” monopoly with free competition, but it cannot eliminate exchange, the market, competition, crises, etc.

Imperialism is capitalism which is decaying but not decayed, dying but not dead. Not pure monopolies, but monopolies alongside exchange, the market, competition, crises—that is the most essential feature of imperialism in general.

Therefore, it is theoretically incorrect to throw out the analysis of exchange, commodity production, crises, etc., in general, and “replace” it with an analysis of imperialism as a whole. For there is no such whole. There is a transition from competition to monopoly, and it will be far more correct, will far more accurately reflect reality, to have a programme that retains the general analysis of exchange, commodity production, crises, etc., adding a characterisation of the growing monopolies. It is precisely this combination of mutually contradictory “principles”: competition and monopoly, that is essential for imperialism, and it is precisely this that prepares the way for the crash, i.e., the socialist revolution.

In Russia, moreover, it would be incorrect to portray imperialism as a cohesive whole (imperialism in general is an incohesive whole)—because in Russia there are still very many regions and branches of labour in transition from natural and semi-natural economy to capitalism. This is backward, this is weak, but it still exists and under certain conditions may introduce an element of prolongation into the collapse of capitalism.

The programme ascends – and must ascend – from the simplest manifestations of capitalism to more complex and “higher” ones, from exchange to commodity production, to the displacement of small enterprises by large ones, to crises, etc., right up to imperialism, as the highest stage now growing and having grown only in the advanced countries. This is exactly how things stand in life. To begin by juxtaposing “exchange” in general and the export of capital is incorrect historically, incorrect theoretically.

Such is my objection to the section’s remarks.

4. On the Draft Revision of the Programme

The Old and New Texts of the Programme

To make it easiest and most convenient for the reader to compare the old and new texts of the programme, both texts are printed together as follows:

ordinary type indicates those parts of the old programme that remain unchanged in the new one;

italic type indicates those parts of the programme that are entirely deleted from the new programme;

bold type indicates those parts of the new programme that were absent from the old one.

Programme of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party

The development of exchange has established such close ties among all the peoples of the civilised world that the great liberation movement of the proletariat had to become – and long ago became – international.

Considering itself one of the detachments of the world army of the proletariat, Russian Social-Democracy pursues the same ultimate goal as the Social-Democrats of all other countries. This ultimate goal is determined by the character of contemporary bourgeois society and the course of its development. The main feature of such a society is commodity production based on capitalist production relations, under which the most important and significant part of the means of production and circulation of commodities belongs to a numerically small class of persons, while the vast majority of the population consists of proletarians and semi-proletarians, who by their economic situation are compelled to sell their labour power constantly or periodically, i.e., to hire themselves out to the capitalists, and by their labour create the income of the higher classes of society.

The sphere of domination of capitalist production relations expands more and more as the constant improvement of technology, by increasing the economic significance of large enterprises, leads to the displacement of small independent producers, turning some of them into proletarians, narrowing the role of the rest in socio-economic life and, in places, placing them in a more or less complete, more or less overt, more or less severe dependence on capital.

The same technical progress also gives entrepreneurs the opportunity to employ female and child labour on an ever-increasing scale in the process of production and circulation of goods. And since, on the other hand, it leads to a relative decrease in the entrepreneurs' need for the living labour of workers, the demand for labour power necessarily lags behind its supply, as a result of which the dependence of wage labour on capital increases and the level of its exploitation rises.

This state of affairs within bourgeois countries, and their constantly sharpening mutual rivalry on the world market, make the sale of goods, produced in constantly increasing quantities, more and more difficult. Overproduction, manifesting itself in more or less acute industrial crises, followed by more or less prolonged periods of industrial stagnation, is the inevitable consequence of the development of the productive forces in bourgeois society. Crises and periods of industrial stagnation, in their turn, further ruin the small producers, further increase the dependence of wage labour on capital, and lead even more rapidly to a relative, and sometimes an absolute, worsening of the condition of the working class.

Thus, the improvement of technology, which signifies an increase in the productivity of labour and the growth of social wealth, in bourgeois society brings about an increase in social inequality, a widening of the distance between the propertied and the propertyless, and a growth in the insecurity of existence, unemployment, and various kinds of privation for ever-widening masses of the working people.

But as all these contradictions inherent in bourgeois society grow and develop, so also does the discontent of the toiling and exploited mass with the existing order of things grow, the number and cohesion of the proletarians increase, and their struggle with their exploiters intensifies. At the same time, the improvement of technique, concentrating the means of production and circulation and socializing the labour process in capitalist enterprises, more and more rapidly creates the material possibility of replacing capitalist production relations with socialist ones, i.e., of that social revolution which represents the ultimate goal of the entire activity of international Social-Democracy as the conscious exponent of the class movement.

Having replaced private ownership of the means of production and circulation with social ownership and introduced a planned organization of the social-productive process to ensure the well-being and all-round development of all members of society, the social revolution of the proletariat will abolish the division of society into classes and thereby liberate all oppressed humanity, since it will put an end to all forms of exploitation of one part of society by another.

The necessary condition of this social revolution is the dictatorship of the proletariat, i.e., the conquest by the proletariat of such political power as will enable it to suppress any resistance of the exploiters. Setting itself the task of making the proletariat capable of carrying out its great historic mission, international Social-Democracy organizes it into an independent political party opposing all bourgeois parties, guides all manifestations of its class struggle, exposes before it the irreconcilable opposition between the interests of the exploiters and those of the exploited, and explains to it the historic significance and the necessary conditions of the impending social revolution. At the same time, it reveals to all the rest of the toiling and exploited mass the hopelessness of their position in capitalist society and the necessity of a social revolution in the interests of their own emancipation from the yoke of capital. The party of the working class, Social-Democracy, calls into its ranks all strata of the toiling and exploited population, insofar as they adopt the standpoint of the proletariat.

World capitalism has at the present time—approximately since the beginning of the 20th century—reached the stage of imperialism. Imperialism, or the epoch of finance capital, is a highly developed capitalist economy in which monopolistic unions of capitalists—syndicates, cartels, trusts—have acquired decisive importance, bank capital of enormous concentration has merged with industrial capital, the export of capital to foreign countries has developed on a very large scale, the whole world is already divided territorially among the richest countries, and the economic division of the world among international trusts has begun.

Imperialist wars, i.e., wars for domination over the world, for markets for bank capital, for the strangulation of small and weak nationalities, are inevitable under such a state of affairs. And precisely such was the first great imperialist war of 1914–1917.

The extremely high stage of development of world capitalism in general; the replacement of free competition by monopolistic capitalism; the preparation by banks, and also by unions of capitalists, of an apparatus for the social regulation of the process of production and distribution of products; the growth, connected with the growth of capitalist monopolies, of the high cost of living and the oppression of the syndicates over the working class, the gigantic difficulty of its economic and political struggle; and the horrors, calamities, ruin, and barbarism engendered by the imperialist war—all this makes the presently attained stage of capitalist development an era of proletarian, socialist revolution.

This era has begun.

Only a proletarian, socialist revolution can lead humanity out of the dead end created by imperialism and imperialist wars. Whatever the difficulties of the revolution and its possible temporary failures or waves of counter-revolution may be, the final victory of the proletariat is inevitable.

Therefore, due to objective conditions, the all-sided direct preparation of the proletariat for the conquest of political power, in order to carry out the economic and political measures that constitute the content of the socialist revolution, is placed on the order of the day of the current epoch.

The accomplishment of this task, which requires the fullest confidence, the closest fraternal union, and the immediate unity of the revolutionary actions of the working class of all advanced countries, is impossible without an immediate and principled break with that bourgeois perversion of socialism which has gained victory in the upper circles of the overwhelming majority of the official Social-Democratic parties. Such a perversion is, on the one hand, the trend of social-chauvinism, socialism in words, chauvinism in deeds, the cloaking by the slogan of “defence of the fatherland” of the defence of the rapacious interests of “one’s own” national bourgeoisie, and, on the other hand, the equally widespread and international trend of the so-called “centre”, which stands for unity with the social-chauvinists, for the preservation or correction of the bankrupt Second International, vacillating between social-chauvinism and the revolutionary-internationalist struggle of the proletariat for the realisation of the socialist system.

On the road to their common ultimate goal, determined by the dominance of the capitalist mode of production throughout the civilised world, the Social-Democrats of different countries are obliged to set themselves dissimilar immediate tasks, both because this mode is not everywhere developed to the same degree, and because its development in different countries takes place in different socio-political circumstances.

In Russia, where capitalism has already become the dominant mode of production, very numerous survivals of our old pre-capitalist order, which was based on the enslavement of the labouring masses to the landlords, the state, or the head of the state, still persist.

While hindering economic progress in the strongest possible manner, these survivals do not permit the all-round development of the class struggle of the proletariat, promote the preservation and intensification of the most barbarous forms of exploitation of the multimillion peasantry by the state and the propertied classes, and keep the whole people in ignorance and rightlessness.

The most significant of all these survivals and the mightiest bulwark of all this barbarism is the tsarist autocracy. By its very nature it is hostile to every social movement and cannot but be the bitterest opponent of all the emancipatory strivings of the proletariat.

Therefore, the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party sets as its immediate task the overthrow of the tsarist autocracy and its replacement by a democratic republic, whose constitution would ensure:

At the present moment in Russia, when the Provisional Government, belonging to the capitalist class and enjoying the trust – of necessity unstable – of the broad masses of the petty-bourgeois population, has pledged to convene a Constituent Assembly, the party of the proletariat faces the immediate task of fighting for a state structure that best ensures both economic development and the rights of the people in general, as well as the possibility of the most painless transition to socialism in particular.

The party of the proletariat cannot confine itself to a bourgeois parliamentary democratic republic, which everywhere in the world preserves and strives to perpetuate the monarchist instruments of oppression of the masses, namely: the police, the standing army, the privileged bureaucracy.

The party fights for a more democratic, proletarian-peasant republic, in which the police and the standing army are completely abolished and replaced by the general arming of the people, a universal militia; all officials become not only elected but also subject to recall at any time at the demand of the majority of their electors; the pay of all officials, without exception, is fixed at a rate not exceeding the average wage of a good worker; the parliamentary representative institutions are gradually replaced by Soviets of people's representatives (from various classes and professions or from various localities), which at one and the same time legislate and implement their laws.

The constitution of the Russian democratic republic must ensure:

1. Autocracy of the people; all supreme power in the state must belong to the representatives of the people, elected and subject to recall at any time by the people, and constituting a single popular assembly, a single chamber.

1. Autocracy of the people, i.e., the concentration of the entire supreme state power in the hands of a legislative assembly, composed of representatives of the people and forming a single chamber.

2. Universal, equal and direct suffrage for all citizens, male and female, who have reached the age of twenty, in elections to the legislative assembly and to all local bodies of self-government; secret ballot in elections; the right of every elector to be elected to all representative institutions; biennial parliaments; payment to the people's representatives; proportional representation in all elections; recall of all delegates and elected persons, without exception, at any time by decision of the majority of their electors.

3. Broad local self-government; regional self-government for those localities which are distinguished by particular everyday conditions and population composition; abolition of all local and regional authorities appointed by the state.

4. Inviolability of the person and of domicile.

5. Unlimited freedom of conscience, speech, press, assembly, strikes, and unions.

6. Freedom of movement and of occupation.

7. Abolition of estates and full equality of all citizens irrespective of sex, religion, race, and nationality.

8. The right of the population to receive education in their native language, ensured by the establishment of the necessary schools at the expense of the state and self-government bodies; the right of every citizen to speak in their native language at meetings; the introduction of the native language on an equal footing with the state language in all local public and state institutions; abolition of the compulsory state language.

9. The right to self-determination for all nations forming part of the state.

9. The right to free secession and the formation of an independent state for all nations forming part of the state. The republic of the Russian people must attract other peoples or nationalities not by violence, but exclusively by voluntary agreement to create a common state. The unity and fraternal union of the workers of all countries are incompatible with either direct or indirect violence against other nationalities.

10. The right of every person to prosecute, in the usual manner, before a jury court, any official.

11. Election of judges by the people.

11. Election of judges and all officials, in both civil service and the army, by the people; their replacement at any time by decision of the majority of their electors.

12. Replacement of the standing army by the universal arming of the people.

12. Replacement of the police and the standing army by the universal arming of the people; workers and employees must receive their regular wages from the capitalists for the time devoted to public service in the nationwide militia.

13. Separation of church from state, and school from church; complete secularization of the school.

14. Free and compulsory general and vocational education for all children of both sexes up to age 16; provision for poor children of food, clothing, and school supplies at the expense of the state.

14. Free and compulsory general and polytechnical (acquainting in theory and practice with all main branches of production) education for all children of both sexes up to 16 years; close connection of instruction with socially productive labour of children.

15. Provision of all pupils with food, clothing and school supplies at the expense of the state.

16. Transfer of the matter of public education to the hands of democratic organs of local self-government; elimination of the central authority from any interference in the establishment of school programs and in the selection of teaching personnel; election of teachers directly by the population itself and the right of the population to recall undesirable teachers.

As a fundamental condition for the democratization of our state economy, the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party demands: abolition of all indirect taxes and establishment of a progressive tax on incomes and inheritances.

The high stage of development of capitalism, already achieved in banking and in trustified branches of industry, on the one hand, and on the other, the ruin created by the imperialist war and everywhere giving rise to the demand for state and public control over the production and distribution of the most important products, impels the party to demand the nationalization of banks, syndicates (trusts), etc.

In the interests of protecting the working class from physical and moral degeneration, as well as in the interests of developing its capacity for the liberation struggle, the party demands:

1. Limitation of the working day to eight hours per day for all hired workers.

1. Limitation of the working day for all hired workers – to eight hours per day, including, in the case of continuous work, a break of not less than an hour for taking food. In hazardous industries and those harmful to health, the working day must be reduced to 4–6 hours per day.

2. Establishment by law of a weekly rest period, continuously lasting not less than 42 hours, for hired workers of both sexes in all branches of the national economy.

3. Complete prohibition of overtime work.

4. Prohibition of night work (from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m.) in all branches of the national economy, with the exception of those where it is absolutely necessary for technical reasons approved by workers' organizations.

4. Prohibition of night work (from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m.) in all branches of the national economy, with the exception of those where it is absolutely necessary for technical reasons approved by workers' organizations, – with the proviso, however, that night work time shall not exceed 4 hours.

5. Prohibition of the use by employers of the labour of children of school age (up to 16 years) and limitation of the working time of adolescents (16–18 years) to six hours.

5. Prohibition of employers employing the labor of children of school age (up to 16 years), limitation of the working hours of young people (16–20 years) to four hours, and prohibition of night work for them in industries and mines hazardous to health.

6. Prohibition of female labor in those branches where it is harmful to the female organism; release of women from work for four weeks before and six weeks after childbirth, with preservation of wages at the usual rate for all this time.

6. Prohibition of female labor in those branches where it is harmful to the female organism; prohibition of female night labor; release of women from work for eight weeks before and eight weeks after childbirth, with preservation of full earnings for all this time, and with free medical and medicinal assistance.

7. Establishment at all plants, factories, and other enterprises where women work, of crèches for nursing and young children; release of women nursing a child from work at least once every three hours, for a period of not less than half an hour.

7. Establishment at all plants, factories, and other enterprises where women work, of crèches for nursing and young children and rooms for breastfeeding; release of breastfeeding women from work at least once every three hours, for a period of not less than half an hour; payment of allowances to nursing mothers and reduction of the working day for them to six hours.

8. State insurance of workers for old age and total or partial loss of capacity to work, at the expense of a special fund created by a special tax on the capitalists.

8. Full social insurance of workers:

a) for all types of wage labor;

b) for all types of loss of capacity to work, namely: from sickness, injury, disability, old age, occupational diseases, maternity, widowhood and orphanhood, as well as unemployment, etc.;

c) full self-administration of the insured in all insurance institutions;

d) payment of insurance costs by the capitalists;

e) free medical and medicinal assistance with the transfer of medical affairs into the hands of self-administering sick-funds elected by the workers.

9. Prohibition of the payment of wages in goods; establishment of a weekly term for payment in money under all, without exception, contracts of hiring workers, and payment of their earnings during working hours.

10. Prohibition of employers making monetary deductions from wages, on whatever pretext and for whatever purpose they may be made (fines, rejection of work, etc.).

11. Appointment of a sufficient number of factory inspectors in all branches of the national economy and extension of the supervision of the factory inspection to all enterprises employing hired labour, not excluding state-owned ones (the labour of domestic servants shall also come within the sphere of this supervision); appointment of female inspectors in those branches where female labour is employed; participation of representatives elected by the workers and paid by the state in supervising the enforcement of factory laws, as well as in the drawing up of rates, the acceptance and rejection of materials and the results of work.

9. Establishment of a labour inspection elected by the workers’ organisations and its extension to all types of enterprises employing hired labour, not excluding domestic servants; introduction of the institution of female inspectors in those branches where female labour is employed.

12. Supervision by organs of local self-government, with the participation of workers’ elected representatives, over the sanitary condition of living quarters assigned to the workers by the employers, as well as over the internal regulations of these quarters and the terms on which they are leased – with the object of shielding wage-workers from interference by the employers in their life and activity as private persons and citizens.

13. Establishment of a properly organised sanitary inspection in all enterprises employing hired labour, with the entire medical and sanitary organisation fully independent of the employers; free medical assistance for the workers at the expense of the employers, with maintenance of earnings during illness.

14. Establishment of criminal liability of employers for violation of the labour protection laws.

10. Enactment of sanitary legislation for improving the hygienic conditions of labour and safeguarding the life and health of workers in all enterprises employing hired labour, with the transfer of sanitary affairs to a sanitary inspection elected by the workers’ organisations.

11. Enactment of housing legislation and establishment – for supervision over the sanitary condition of living quarters – of housing inspections elected by the workers’ organisations. However, only the abolition of private property in land and the construction of cheap and hygienic dwellings can solve the housing question.

12. Establishment of industrial courts in all branches of the national economy.

15. The establishment, in all branches of the national economy, of industrial courts composed equally of representatives from workers' and employers' organizations.

16. The imposition upon local self-government bodies of the duty to establish mediation offices for the hiring of local and migrant workers (labour exchanges) in all branches of production, with the participation of representatives of workers and employers in their management.

13. For the proper organization of the task of finding work for the unemployed, labour exchanges shall be established. Labour exchanges must be class-based proletarian organizations (by no means parity-based), must be closely connected with the trade unions and other workers' organizations, and must receive funds from public self-governments.[10]

In order to eliminate the remnants of the serf-owning order, which lie as a heavy yoke directly upon the peasants, and in the interests of the free development of the class struggle in the countryside, the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party demands:

1. The abolition of all estate-based restrictions on the person and property of the peasants.

2. The abolition of all payments and obligations connected with the estate-based separateness of the peasants, and the annulment of debt obligations of a bonded character.

3. The confiscation of church, monastery, appanage, and cabinet lands, and their transfer (as well as state lands) to the large organs of local self-government that unite urban and rural districts, with lands necessary for the resettlement fund, as well as forests and waters of national significance, being transferred to the possession of the democratic state.

4. The confiscation of privately owned lands, except small landholdings, and their transfer to the disposal of large organs of local self-government elected on democratic principles, with the minimum size of land plots subject to confiscation to be determined by the large organs of local self-government.

While supporting the revolutionary actions of the peasantry up to the confiscation of the landed estates, the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party will always and invariably oppose any attempts to retard the course of economic development. Striving, in the event of a victorious development of the revolution, to transfer the confiscated lands into the possession of democratic institutions of local self-government, the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, in the event of conditions being unfavourable for this, will declare in favour of dividing among the peasants those landed estates on which small-scale farming is actually carried on, or which constitute the necessary appendages for rounding out such holdings.

1. Fights with all its might for the immediate and full confiscation of all landed estates in Russia (as well as appanage, church, and so forth).

2. Advocates the immediate transfer of all land into the hands of the peasantry, organized in Soviets of Peasants' Deputies or in other organs of local self-government which are really fully democratically elected and fully independent of landlords and officials.

3. Demands the nationalization of all land in the state; meaning the transfer of the right of ownership of all land to the state, nationalization transfers the right of disposal of the land to local democratic institutions.

4. Supports the initiative of those peasant committees which, in a number of localities in Russia, are transferring the landlords' live and dead stock into the hands of the peasantry organized in these committees for socially-regulated use in the cultivation of all lands.

5. Advises the proletarians and semi-proletarians of the countryside to strive for the formation, from every landed estate, of a sufficiently large model farm, which would be run at public expense by the Soviets of Agricultural Workers' Deputies under the guidance of agronomists and with the application of the best technical means.

At the same time, in all cases and in every situation of democratic agrarian transformations, the party makes it its task to steadfastly strive for the independent class organization of the rural proletariat, to explain to it the irreconcilable antagonism of its interests to those of the peasant bourgeoisie, to warn it against the delusion of the system of small-scale farming, which can never, under the existence of commodity production, eliminate the poverty of the masses, and, finally, to point out the necessity of a complete socialist revolution as the only means of abolishing all poverty and all exploitation.

In striving to achieve its immediate goals, the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party supports every oppositional and revolutionary movement directed against the existing social and political order in Russia, while resolutely rejecting all those reformist projects that are connected with any expansion or strengthening of police-bureaucratic tutelage over the toiling classes.

For its part, the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party is firmly convinced that the complete, consistent, and lasting realization of the indicated political and social transformations is achievable only through the overthrow of the autocracy and the convocation of a Constituent Assembly, freely elected by the whole people.