Draft Programme

A.1. Big factories are developing in Russia with ever-growing rapidity,
ruining the small handicraftsmen and peasants, turning them into
propertyless workers, and driving ever-increasing numbers of the people to
the cities, factory and industrial villages and townlets.

2. This growth of capitalism signifies an enormous growth of wealth and
luxury among a handful of factory owners, merchants and landowners, and a
still more rapid growth of the poverty and oppression of the workers. The
improvements in production and the machinery introduced in the big
factories, while facilitating a rise in the productivity of social labour,
serve to strengthen the power of the capitalists over the workers, to
increase unemployment and with it to accentuate the defenceless position
of the workers.

3. But while carrying the oppression of labour by capital to the highest
pitch, the big factories are creating a special class of workers which is
enabled to wage a struggle against capital, because their very conditions
of life are destroying all their ties with their own petty production,
and, by uniting the workers through their common labour and transferring
them from factory to factory, are welding masses of working folk
together. The workers are beginning a struggle against the capitalists,
and an intense urge for unity is appearing among them. Out of the isolated
revolts of the workers is growing the struggle of the Russian working
class.

4. This struggle of the working class against the capitalist class is a
struggle against all classes who live by the labour of others, and against
all exploitation. It can only end in the passage of political power into the hands of the working class, the
transfer of all the land, instruments, factories, machines, and mines to
the whole of society for the organisation of socialist production, under
which all that is produced by the workers and all improvements in
production must benefit the working people themselves.

5. The movement of the Russian working class is, according to its
character and aims, part of the international (Social-Democratic) movement
of the working class of all countries.

6. The main obstacle in the struggle of the Russian working class for its
emancipation is the absolutely autocratic government and its irresponsible
officials. Basing itself on the privileges of the landowners and
capitalists and on subservience to their interests, it denies the lower
classes any rights whatever and thus fetters the workers’ movement
and retards the development of the entire people. That is why the struggle
of the Russian working class for its emancipation necessarily gives rise
to the struggle against the absolute power of the autocratic government.

B.1. The Russian Social-Democratic Party declares that its aim is to
assist this struggle of the Russian working class by developing the
class-consciousness of the workers, by promoting their organisation, and
by indicating the aims and objects of the struggle.

2. The struggle of the Russian working class for its emancipation is a
political struggle, and its first aim is to achieve political liberty.

3. That is why the Russian Social-Democratic Party will, without
separating itself from the working-class movement, support every social
movement against the absolute power of the autocratic government, against
the class of privileged landed nobility and against all the vestiges of
serfdom and the social-estate system which hinder free competition.

4.On the other hand, the Russian Social-Democratic workers’ party
will wage war against all endeavours to patronise the labouring classes
with the guardianship of the absolute government and its officials, all
endeavours to retard the development of capitalism, and consequently the
development of the working class!

5. The emancipation of the workers must be the act of the working class
itself.

6. What the Russian people need is not the help of the absolute government
and its officials, but emancipation from oppression by it.

C. Making these views its starting-point, the Russian Social-Democratic
Party demands first and foremost:

1. The convening of a Zemsky Sobor made up of representatives of all
citizens so as to draw up a constitution.

2. Universal and direct suffrage for all citizens of Russia who have
reached 21 years of age, irrespective of religion or nationality.

3. Freedom of assembly and organisation, and the right to strike.

4. Freedom of the press.

5. Abolition of social estates, and complete equality of all citizens
before the law.

6. Freedom of religion and equality of all nationalities. Transfer of the
registration of births, marriages and deaths to independent civic
officials, independent, that is, of the police.

7. Every citizen to have the right to prosecute any official, without
having to complain to the latter’s superiors.

8. Abolition of passports, full freedom of movement and residence.

9. Freedom of trades and occupations and abolition of guilds .

D. For the workers, the Russian Social-Democratic Party demands:

1. Establishment of industrial courts in all industries, with elected
judges from the capitalists and workers, in equal numbers.

2. Legislative limitation of the working day to 8 hours.

3. Legislative prohibition of night work and shifts. Prohibition of work
by children under 15 years of age.

4. Legislative enactment of national holidays.

5. Application of factory laws and factory inspection to all industries
throughout Russia, and to government factories, and also to handicraftsmen
who work at home.

6. The Factory Inspectorate must be independent and not be under the
Ministry of Finance. Members of industrial courts must enjoy equal rights with the Factory Inspectorate in ensuring
the observance of factory laws.

7. Absolute prohibition everywhere of the truck system.

8. Supervision, by workers’ elected representatives, of the proper
fixing of rates, the rejection of goods, the expenditure of accumulated
fines and the factory-owned workers’ quarters.

Alaw that all deductions from workers’ wages, whatever the reason
for their imposition (fines, rejects, etc.), shall not exceed the sum of
10 kopeks per ruble all told.

9.A law making the employers responsible for injuries to workers, the
employer being required to prove that the worker is to blame.

10.A law making the employers responsible for maintaining schools and
providing medical aid to the workers.

E. For the peasants, the Russian Social-Democratic Party demands:

1. Abolition of land redemption payments [4]  and
compensation to the peasants for redemption payments made. Return to the
peasants of excess payments made to the Treasury.

2. Return to the peasants of their lands cut off in 1861.

3. Complete equality of taxation of the peasants’ and
landlords’ lands.

4. Abolition of collective responsibility [5]   and of all laws that
prevent the peasants from doing as they will with their lands.

Explanation of the Programme

Theprogramme is divided into three main parts. Part one sets forth all
the tenets from which the remaining parts of the programme follow. This
part indicates the position occupied by the working class in contemporary
society, the meaning and significance of their struggle against the
employers and the political position of the working class in the Russian
state.

Parttwo sets forth the  Party’s aim , and indicates the
Party’s relation to other political trends in Russia. It deals with
what should be the activity of the Party and of all class-conscious
workers, and what should be their attitude to the interests and strivings of the other classes in Russian
society.

Partthree contains the Party’s practical demands. This part is
divided into three sections. The first section contains demands for
nation-wide reforms. The second section states the demands and programme
of the working class. The third section contains demands in the interests
of the peasants. Some preliminary explanations of the sections are given
below, before proceeding to the practical part of the programme.

A1. The programme deals first of all with the rapid growth of big
factories, because this is the main thing in contemporary Russia that is
completely changing all the old conditions of life, particularly the
living conditions of the labouring class. Under the old conditions
practically all the country’s wealth was produced by petty
proprietors, who constituted the overwhelming majority of the
population. The population lived an immobile life in the villages, the
greater part of their produce being either for their own consumption, or
for the small market of neighbouring villages which had little contact
with other nearby markets. These very same petty proprietors worked for
the landlords, who compelled them to produce mainly for their
consumption. Domestic produce was handed over for processing to artisans,
who also lived in the villages or travelled in the neighbouring areas to
get work.

Butafter the peasants were emancipated, these living conditions of the
mass of the people underwent a complete change: the small artisan
establishments began to be replaced by big factories, which grew with
extraordinary rapidity; they ousted the petty proprietors, turning them
into wage-workers, and compelled hundreds and thousands of workers to work
together, producing tremendous quantities of goods that are being sold all
over Russia.

Theemancipation of the peasants destroyed the immobility of the
population and placed the peasants in conditions under which they could no
longer get a livelihood from the patches of land that remained in their
possession. Masses of people left home to seek a livelihood, making for
the factories or for jobs on the construction of the railways which
connect the different corners of Russia and carry the output of the big factories everywhere. Masses of people went to jobs in the
towns, took part in building factory and commercial premises, in
delivering fuel to factories, and in preparing raw materials for
them. Finally, many people were occupied at home, doing jobs for merchants
and factory owners who could not expand their establishments fast
enough. Similar changes took place in agriculture; the landlords began to
produce grain for sale, big cultivators from among the peasants and
merchants came on the scene, and grain in hundreds of millions of poods
began to be sold abroad. Production required wage-workers, and hundreds of
thousands and millions of peasants, giving up their tiny allotments, went
to work as regular or day labourers for the new masters engaged in
producing grain for sale. Now it is these changes in the old way of life
that are described by the programme, which says that the big factories are
ruining the small handicraftsmen and peasants, turning them into
wage-workers. Small-scale production is being replaced everywhere by
large-scale, and in this large-scale production the masses of the workers
are just hirelings employed for wages by the capitalist, who possesses
enormous capital, builds enormous workshops, buys up huge quantities of
materials and fills his pockets with all the profit from this mass-scale
production by the combined workers. Production has become capitalist, and
it exerts merciless and ruthless pressure on all the petty proprietors,
destroying their immobile life in the villages, compelling them to travel
from one end of the country to the other as ordinary unskilled labourers,
selling their labour-power to capital. An ever-increasing part of the
population is being separated once and for all from the countryside and
from agriculture, and is concentrating in the towns, factory and
industrial villages and townlets, forming a special propertyless class of
people, a class of hired proletarian workers, who live only by the sale of
their labour-power.

Theseare what constitute the tremendous changes in the country’s
life brought about by the big factories—small-scale production is
being replaced by large-scale, the petty proprietors are turning into
wage-workers. What, then, does this change mean for the whole of the
working

population, and where is it leading? This is dealt with further in the
programme.

A2. Accompanying the replacement of small- by large-scale production is
the replacement of small financial resources in the hands of the
individual proprietor by enormous sums employed as capital, the
replacement of small, insignificant profits by profits running into
millions. That is why the growth of capitalism is leading everywhere to
the growth of luxury and riches. A whole class of big financial magnates,
factory owners, railway owners, merchants, and bankers has arisen in
Russia, a whole class of people who live off income derived from money
capital loaned on interest to industrialists has arisen; the big
landowners have become enriched, drawing large sums from the peasants by
way of land redemption payments, taking advantage of their need of land to
raise the price of the land leased to them, and setting up large
beet-sugar refineries and distilleries on their estates. The luxury and
extravagance of all these wealthy classes have reached unparalleled
dimensions, and the main streets of the big cities are lined with their
princely mansions and luxurious palaces. But as capitalism grew, the
workers’ conditions became steadily worse. If earnings increased in
some places following the peasants’ emancipation, they did so very
slightly and not for long, because the mass of hungry people swarming in
from the villages forced rates down, while the cost of food stuffs and
necessities continued to go up, so that even with their increased wages
the workers got fewer means of subsistence; it became increasingly
difficult to find jobs, and side by side with the luxurious mansions of
the rich (or on city outskirts) there grew up the slums where the workers
were forced to live in cellars, in overcrowded, damp and cold dwellings,
and even in dug-outs near the new industrial establishments. As capital
grew bigger it increased its pressure on the workers, turning them into
paupers, compelling them to devote all their time to the factory, and
forcing the workers’ wives and children to go to work. This,
therefore, is the first change towards which the growth of capitalism is
leading: tremendous wealth is accumulating in the coffers of a small
handful of capitalists, while the masses of the people are being turned
into paupers.

Thesecond change consists in the fact that the replacement of small- by
large-scale production has led to many improvements in production. First
of all, work done singly, separately in each little workshop, in each
isolated little household, has been replaced by the work of combined
labourers working together at one factory, for one landowner, for one
contractor. Joint labour is far more effective (productive) than
individual, and renders it possible to produce goods with far greater ease
and rapidity. But all these improvements are enjoyed by the capitalist
alone, who pays the workers next to nothing and appropriates all the
profit deriving from the workers’ combined labour. The capitalist
gets still stronger and the worker gets still weaker because he becomes
accustomed to doing some one kind of work and it is more difficult for him
to transfer to another job, to change his occupation.

Another,far more important, improvement in production is the introduction
of  machines  by the capitalist. The effectiveness of labour is
increased manifold by the use of machines; but the capitalist turns all
this benefit against the worker: taking advantage of the fact that
machines require less physical labour, he assigns women and children to
them, and pays them less. Taking advantage of the fact that where machines
are used far fewer workers are wanted, he throws them out of the factory
in masses and then takes advantage of this unemployment to enslave the
worker still further, to increase the working day, to deprive the worker
of his night’s rest and to turn him into a simple appendage to the
machine. Unemployment, created by machinery and constantly on the
increase, now makes the worker utterly defenceless. His skill loses its
worth, he is easily replaced by a plain unskilled labourer, who quickly
becomes accustomed to the machine and gladly undertakes the job for lower
wages. Any attempt to resist increased oppression by the capitalist leads
to dismissal. On his own the worker is quite helpless against capital, and
the machine threatens to crush him.

A3. In explaining the previous point, we showed that on his own the
worker is helpless and defenceless against the capitalist who introduces
machines. The worker has at all costs to seek means of resisting the
capitalist, in order to defend himself. And he finds such means in  organisation.
Helpless on his own, the worker becomes a force when organised with his
comrades, and is enabled to fight the capitalist and resist his onslaught.

Organisation becomes a necessity for the worker, now faced by big
capital. But is it possible to organise a motley mass of people who are
strangers to one another, even if they work in one factory? The programme
indicates the conditions that prepare the workers for unity and develop in
them the capacity and ability to organise. These conditions are as
follows: 1) the large factory, with machine production that requires
regular work the whole year round, completely breaks the tie between the
worker and the land and his own farm, turning him into an absolute
proletarian. The fact of each farming for himself on a patch of land
divided the workers and gave each one of them a certain specific interest,
separate from that of his fellow worker, and was thus an obstacle to
organisation. The worker’s break with the land destroys these
obstacles. 2) Further, the joint work of hundreds and thousands of workers
in itself accustoms the workers to discuss their needs jointly, to take
joint action, and clearly shows them the identity of the position and
interests of the entire mass of workers. 3) Finally, constant transfers of
workers from factory to factory accustom them to compare the conditions
and practices in the different factories and enable them to convince
themselves of the identical nature of the exploitation in all factories,
to acquire the experience of other workers in their clashes with the
capitalist, and thus enhance the solidarity of the workers. Now it is
because of these conditions, taken together, that the appearance of big
factories has given rise to the organisation of the workers. Among the
Russian workers unity is expressed mainly and most frequently in strikes
(we shall deal further with the reason why organisation in the shape of
unions or mutual benefit societies is beyond the reach of our
workers). The more the big factories develop, the more frequent, powerful
and stubborn become the workers’ strikes; the greater the oppression
of capitalism and the greater the need for joint resistance by the
workers. Strikes and isolated revolts of the workers, as the programme
states, now constitute the most widespread phenomenon in Russian factories. But, with the further
growth of capitalism and the increasing frequency of strikes, they prove
inadequate. The employers take joint action against them: they conclude
agreements among themselves, bring in workers from other areas, and turn
for assistance to those who run the machinery of state, who help them
crush the workers’ resistance. Instead of being faced by the one
individual owner of each separate factory, the workers are now faced by
the  entire capitalist class  and the government that assists
it. The  entire capitalist class  undertakes a struggle against the
entire  working class  ; it devises common measures against the
strikes, presses the government to adopt anti-working-class legislation,
transfers factories to more out-of-the-way localities, and resorts to the
distribution of jobs among people working at home and to a thousand and
one other ruses and devices against the workers. The organisation of the
workers of a separate factory, even of a separate industry, proves
inadequate for resisting the entire capitalist class, and joint action by
the  entire working class  becomes absolutely necessary. Thus, out
of the isolated revolts of the workers grows the struggle of the entire
working class. The struggle of the workers against the employers turns
into a  class struggle.  All the employers are united by the one
interest of keeping the workers in a state of subordination and of paying
them the minimum wages possible. And the employers see that the only way
they can safeguard their interests is by joint action on the part of the
entire employing class, by acquiring influence over the machinery of
state. The workers are likewise bound together by a common interest, that
of preventing themselves being crushed by capital, of upholding their
right to life and to a human existence. And the workers likewise become
convinced that they, too, need unity, joint action by the entire class,
the working class, and that to that end they must secure influence over
the machinery of state.

A4. We have explained how and why the struggle between the factory
workers and the employers becomes a class struggle, a struggle of the
working class—the proletarians—against the capitalist class—the bourgeoisie. The question arises, what significance has
this struggle for the entire people and for all working people? Under the contemporary conditions, of which we have already spoken in the
explanation of point 1, production by wage-workers increasingly ousts
petty economy. The number of people  who live by wage-labour  grows
rapidly, and not only does the number of regular factory workers increase,
but there is a still greater increase in the number of peasants who also
have to search for work as wage-labourers, in order to live. At the
present time, work for hire, work for the capitalist, has already become
the most widespread form of labour. The domination of capital over labour
embraces the bulk of the population not only in industry, but also in
agriculture. Now it is this exploitation of wage-labour underlying
contemporary society that the big factories develop to the utmost. All the
methods of exploitation used by all capitalists in all industries, and
which the entire mass of Russia’s working-class population suffers
from, are concentrated, intensified, made the regular rule right in the
factory and spread to all aspects of the worker’s labour and life,
they create a whole routine, a whole system whereby the capitalist sweats
the worker. Let us illustrate this with an example: at all times and
places, anybody who undertakes work for hire, rests, leaves his work on a
holiday if it is celebrated in the neighbourhood: It is quite different in
the factory. Once the factory management has engaged a worker, it disposes
of his services just as it likes, paying no attention to the
worker’s habits, to his customary way of life, to his family
position, to his intellectual requirements. The factory drives the
employee to work when it needs his labour, compelling him to fit in his
entire life with its requirements, to tear his rest hours to pieces, and,
if he is on shifts, to work at night and on holidays. All the imaginable
abuses relating to working time are set into motion by the factory and at
the same time it introduces its “rules,” its “practices,” which are obligatory for every worker. The order
of things in the factory is deliberately adapted to squeezing out of the
hired worker all the labour he is capable of yielding, to squeezing it out
at top speed and then to throwing him out! Another example. Everybody who
takes a job, undertakes, of course, to submit to the employer, to do
everything he is ordered. But when anybody hires himself out on a
temporary job, he does not surrender his will at all; if he finds his
employer’s demands wrong or excessive, he leaves him. The factory, on the other hand,
demands that the worker surrender his will altogether; it introduces
discipline within its walls, compels the worker to start or to stop work
when the bell rings, assumes the right itself to punish the worker, and
subjects him to a fine or a deduction for every violation of rules which
it has itself drawn up. The worker becomes part of a huge aggregate of
machinery. He must be just as obedient, enslaved, and without a will of
his own, as the machine itself.

Yetanother example. Anybody who takes a job has frequent occasion to be
dissatisfied with his employer, and complains about him to the court or a
government official. Both the official and the court usually settle the
dispute in the employer’s favour, support him, but this promotion of
the employer’s interests is not based on a general regulation or a
law, but on the subservience of individual officials, who at different
times protect him to a greater or lesser degree, and who settle matters
unjustly in the employer’s favour, either because they are
acquaintances of his, or because they are uninformed about working
conditions and cannot understand the worker. Each separate case of such
injustice depends on each separate clash between the worker and the
employer, on each separate official. The factory, on the other hand,
gathers together such a mass of workers, carries oppression to such a
pitch, that it becomes impossible to examine every separate case. General
regulations are established, a law is drawn up on relations between the
workers and the employers, a law that is obligatory for all. In this law
the promotion of the employer’s interests is backed up by the
authority of the state. The injustice of individual officials is replaced
by the injustice of the law itself. Regulations appear, for example, of
the following type: if the worker is absent from work, he not only loses
wages, but has to pay a fine in addition, whereas the employer pays
nothing if he sends the workers home for lack of work; the employer may
dismiss the worker for using strong language, whereas the worker cannot
leave the job if he is similarly treated; the employer is entitled on his
own authority to impose fines, make deductions or demand that overtime be
worked, etc.

Allthese examples show us how the factory intensifies the exploitation of
the workers and makes this exploitation universal, makes a whole
“ system ” of it. The worker now has to deal, willy-nilly, not with an individual employer and his will and oppression,
but with the arbitrary treatment and oppression he suffers from the entire
employing class. The worker sees that his oppressors are not some one
capitalist, but the entire capitalist class, because the system of
exploitation is the same in all establishments. The individual capitalist
cannot even depart from this system: if, for example, he were to take it
into his head to reduce working hours, his goods would cost him more than
those produced by his neighbour, another factory owner, who makes his
employees work longer for the same wage. To secure an improvement in his
conditions, the worker now has to deal with the entire social system aimed
at the exploitation of labour by capital. The worker is now confronted not
by the individual injustice of an individual official, but by the
injustice of the state authority itself, which takes the entire capitalist
class under its protection and issues laws, obligatory for all, that serve
the interests of that class. Thus, the struggle of the factory workers
against the employers inevitably turns into a struggle against the entire
capitalist class, against the entire social order based on the
exploitation of labour by capital. That is why the workers’ struggle
acquires a social significance, becomes a struggle on behalf of all
working people against all classes that live by the labour of others. That
is why the workers’ struggle opens up a new era in Russian history
and is the dawn of the workers’ emancipation.

What,however, is the domination of the capitalist class over the entire
mass of working folk based on? It is based on the fact that all the
factories, mills, mines, machines, and instruments of labour are in the
hands of the capitalists, are their private property; on the fact that
they possess enormous quantities of land (of all the land in European
Russia, more than one-third belongs to landed proprietors, who do not
number half a million). The workers possess no instruments of labour or
materials, and so they have to sell their labour-power to the capitalists,
who only pay the workers what is necessary for their keep, and place all
the surplus produced by labour in their pockets; thus they pay for only part of the
working time they use, and appropriate the rest. The entire increase in
wealth resulting from the combined labour of the masses of workers or from
improvements in production goes to the capitalist class, while the
workers, who toil from generation to generation, remain propertyless
proletarians. That is why there is only one way of ending the exploitation
of labour by capital, and that is to abolish the private ownership of the
instruments of labour, to hand over all the factories, mills, mines, and
also all the big estates, etc., to the whole of society and to conduct
socialist production in common, directed by the workers themselves. The
articles produced by labour in common will then go to benefit the working
people themselves, while the surplus they produce over and above their
keep will serve to satisfy the needs of the workers themselves, to secure
the full development of all their capabilities and equal rights to enjoy
all the achievements of science and art. That is why the programme states
that the struggle between the working class and the capitalists can end
only in this way. To achieve that, however, it is necessary that political
power, i.e., the power to govern the state, should pass from the hands of
a government which is under the influence of the capitalists and
landowners, or from the hands of a government directly made up of elected
representatives of the capitalists, into the hands of the working class.

Suchis the ultimate aim of the struggle of the working class, such is the
condition for its complete emancipation. This is the ultimate aim for
which class-conscious, organised workers should strive; here in Russia,
however, they still meet with tremendous obstacles, which hinder them in
their struggle for emancipation.

A5. The fight against the domination of the capitalist class is now being
waged by the workers of all European countries and also by the workers of
America and Australia. Working-class organisation and solidarity is not
confined to one country or one nationality: the workers’ parties of
different countries proclaim aloud the complete identity (solidarity) of
interests and aims of the workers of the whole world. They come together
at joint congresses, put forward common demands to the capitalist class of
all countries, have established an international holiday of the entire organised proletariat
striving for emancipation (May Day), thus welding the working class of all
nationalities and of all countries into one great workers’ army. The
unity of the workers of all countries is a necessity arising out of the
fact that the capitalist class, which rules over the workers, does not
limit its rule to one country. Commercial ties between the different
countries are becoming closer and more extensive; capital constantly
passes from one country to another. The banks, those huge depositories
that gather capital together and distribute it on loan to capitalists,
begin as national institutions and then become international, gather
capital from all countries, and distribute it among the capitalists of
Europe and America. Enormous joint-stock companies are now being organised
to set up capitalist enterprises not in one country, but in several at
once; international associations of capitalists make their
appearance. Capitalist domination is international. That is why the
workers’ struggle in all countries for their emancipation is only
successful if the workers fight jointly against international
capital. That is why the Russian worker’s comrade in the fight
against the capitalist class is the German worker, the Polish worker, and
the French worker, just as his enemy is the Russian, the Polish, and the
French capitalists. Thus, in the recent period foreign capitalists have
been very eagerly transferring their capital to Russia, where they are
building branch factories and founding companies for running new
enterprises They are flinging themselves greedily on this young country in
which the government is more favourable and obsequious to capital than
anywhere else, in which they find workers who are less organised and less
capable of fighting back than in the West, and in which the workers’
standard of living, and hence their wages, are much lower, so that the
foreign capitalists are able to draw enormous profits, on a scale
unparalleled in their own countries. International capital has already
stretched out its hand to Russia. The Russian workers are stretching out
their hands to the international labour movement.

A6. We have already spoken of how the big factories carry capital’s
oppression of labour to the highest pitch, how they establish a whole
system of methods of exploitation; how the workers, in their revolt against capital, inevitably
arrive at the need to unite all workers, at the need for joint struggle by
the entire working class. In this struggle against the capitalist class,
the workers come up against the general laws of the state, which protect
the capitalists and their interests.

Butthen, if the workers are strong enough to force concessions from the
capitalists, to resist their attacks by joint action, they could also, by
their unity, influence the laws of the state, and secure their
alteration. That is what the workers of all other countries are doing. The
Russian workers, however, cannot exert direct influence on the state. The
conditions of the Russian workers are such that they are deprived of the
most elementary civil rights. They must not dare to gather together, to
discuss their affairs together, to organise unions, to publish statements;
in other words, the laws of the state have not only been drawn up in the
interests of the capitalist class, but they frankly deprive the workers of
all possibility of influencing these laws and of securing their
alteration. The reason this happens is that in Russia (and in Russia alone
of all European countries) the absolute power of an autocratic government
continues to this day, that is, a system of state exists under which laws
that are obligatory for the entire people may be issued by the tsar alone,
at his discretion, while only officials appointed by him may give effect
to them. The citizens are not allowed to take any part in issuing laws, in
discussing them, in proposing new or in demanding the repeal of old
laws. They have no right to demand of officials an account of their
activity, to check their activity, and to prosecute them. Citizens do not
even possess the right to discuss affairs of state: they must not dare to
organise meetings or unions without the permission of those same
officials. The officials are thus irresponsible in the full sense of the
term; they constitute a special caste, as it were, placed above the
citizens. The irresponsibility and arbitrary conduct of the officials, and
the fact that the population itself is inarticulate, give rise to such
scandalous abuse of power by officials and such a violation of the rights
of the common people as are hardly possible in any European country.

Thus,according to law, the Russian Government has absolute authority, and
is considered to be quite independent, as it were, of the people, standing
above all social estates and classes. If, however, that were really the
case, why should the law and the government in all conflicts between the
workers and the capitalists take the side of the capitalists? Why should
the capitalists meet with ever-growing support as their numbers and their
wealth grow, whereas the workers meet with ever-increasing resistance and
restriction?

Actuallythe government does not stand above classes, it protects one
class against the other, protects the propertied class against the
propertyless, the capitalists against the workers. An absolute government
could not rule such a huge country if it did not give all sorts of
privileges and favours to the propertied classes.

Althoughthe government, according to law, possesses absolute and
independent power, actually the capitalists and landowners possess
thousands of means of influencing the government and affairs of
state. They have their own social-estate associations—noblemen’s and merchants’ societies,
chambers of trade and manufactures, etc.—recognised by law. Their
elected representatives either become officials outright, and take part in
governing the state (for example, marshals of the nobility), or are given
posts in government institutions of every kind: for example, the law
provides for factory owners to participate in factory courts (the chief
authority over the Factory Inspectorate), to which they elect their
representatives. But they do not confine themselves to this direct
participation in ruling the state. In their societies they discuss laws of
state, draft bills, and the government usually consults them on each
issue, submits draft bills to them with a request for their views.

Thecapitalists and landed proprietors organise all-Russian congresses,
where they discuss their affairs and devise various measures of benefit to
their class, and on behalf of all the landed nobility, or of the
“merchants of all Russia,” petition for the adoption of new
laws and for the amendment of old ones. They can discuss their affairs in
the newspapers, for however much the government hampers the press with its censorship, it would never dare think of depriving the propertied
classes of the right to discuss their affairs. They have all sorts of ways
and means of approaching the top representatives of the governmental
authorities, they can more easily discuss the arbitrary conduct of lower
officials, and can easily secure the repeal of particularly oppressive
laws and regulations. And while there is no country in the world where
there are so many laws and regulations, such unexampled police supervision
by the government, a supervision that extends to all sorts of petty
details and robs every undertaking of its individuality, there is no
country in the world where these bourgeois regulations are so easily
violated and where these police laws are circumvented so easily by just
the gracious assent of the supreme authorities. And this gracious assent
is never refused. [6]

B1. This is the most important, the paramount, point of the programme,
because it indicates what should constitute the activity of the Party in
defending the interests of the working class, the activity of all
class-conscious workers. It indicates how the striving for socialism, the
striving for the abolition of the age-old exploitation of man by man,
should be linked up with the popular movement engendered by the living
conditions created by the large-scale factories.

The Party’s activity must consist in promoting the workers’
class struggle. The Party’s task is not to concoct some fashionable
means of helping the workers, but to join up with the workers’
movement, to bring light into it, to assist the workers in the struggle
they themselves have already begun to wage. The Party’s task is to
uphold the interests of the workers and to represent those of the entire
working class movement. Now, what must this assistance to the workers in
their struggle consist of?

Theprogramme says that this assistance must consist, firstly, in
developing the workers’ class-consciousness. We have already spoken
of how the workers’ struggle against the employers becomes the class
struggle of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie.

Whatis meant by workers’ class-consciousness follows from what we
have said on the subject. The workers’ class-consciousness means the
workers’ understanding that the only way to improve their conditions and to achieve their emancipation
is to conduct a struggle against the capitalist and factory-owner class
created by the big factories. Further, the workers’ class-consciousness means their understanding that the interests of all
the workers of any particular country are identical, that they all
constitute one class, separate from all the other classes in
society. Finally, the class-consciousness of the workers means the
workers’ understanding that to achieve their aims they have to work
to influence affairs of state, just as the landlords and the capitalists
did, and are continuing to do now.

Bywhat means do the workers reach an understanding of all this?  They do
so by constantly gaining experience from the very struggle that they begin
to wage against the employers and that increasingly develops, becomes
sharper, and involves larger numbers of workers as big factories
grow. There was a time when the workers’ enmity against capital only
found expression in a hazy sense of hatred of their exploiters, in a hazy
consciousness of their oppression and enslavement, and in the desire
to wreak vengeance  on the capitalists. The struggle at that time
found expression in isolated revolts of the workers, who wrecked
buildings, smashed machines, attacked members of the factory management,
etc. That was the  first  , the initial, form of the working-class
movement, and it was a necessary one, because hatred of the capitalist has
always and everywhere been the first impulse towards arousing in the
workers the desire to defend themselves. The Russian working-class
movement has, however, already outgrown this original form. Instead of
having a hazy hatred of the capitalist, the workers have already begun to
understand the antagonism between the interests of the working class and
of the capitalist class. Instead of having a confused sense of oppression,
they have begun to distinguish  the ways and means  by which
capital oppresses them, and are revolting against various forms of
oppression, placing limits to capitalist oppression, and protecting
themselves against the capitalist’s greed. Instead of wreaking
vengeance on the capitalists they are now turning to the fight for
concessions, they are beginning to face the capitalist class with one
demand after another, and are demanding improved working conditions, increased wages, and shorter
working hours. Every strike concentrates all the attention and all the
efforts of the workers on some particular aspect of the conditions under
which the working class lives. Every strike gives rise to discussions
about these conditions, helps the workers to appraise them, to understand
what capitalist oppression consists in in the particular case, and what
means can be employed to combat this oppression. Every strike enriches the
experience of the entire working class. If the strike is successful it
shows them what a strong force working-class unity is, and impels others
to make use of their comrades’ success. Ii it is not successful, it
gives rise to discussions about the causes of the failure and to the
search for better methods of struggle. This transition of the workers to
the steadfast struggle for their vital needs, the fight for concessions,
for improved living conditions, wages and working hours, now begun all
over Russia, means that the Russian workers are making tremendous
progress, and that is why the attention of the Social-Democratic Party and
all class-conscious workers should be concentrated mainly on this
struggle, on its promotion. Assistance to the workers should consist in
showing them those most vital needs for the satisfaction of which they
should fight, should consist in analysing the factors particularly
responsible for worsening the conditions of different categories of
workers, in explaining factory laws and regulations the violation of which
(added to the deceptive tricks of the capitalists) so often subject the
workers to double robbery. Assistance should consist in giving more
precise and definite expression to the workers’ demands, and in
making them public, in choosing the best time for resistance, in choosing
the method of struggle, in discussing the position and the strength of the
two opposing sides, in discussing whether a still better choice can be
made of the method of fighting (a method, perhaps, like addressing a
letter to the factory owner, or approaching the inspector, or the doctor,
according to circumstances, where direct strike action is not advisable,
etc.).

Wehave said that the Russian workers’ transition to such struggle
is indicative of the tremendous progress they have made. This struggle
places (leads) the working-class movement on to the high road, and is the certain guarantee of its further
success. The mass of working folk learn from this struggle, firstly, how
to recognise and to examine one by one the methods of capitalist
exploitation, to compare them with the law, with their living conditions,
and with the interests of the capitalist class. By examining the different
forms and cases of exploitation, the workers learn to understand the
significance and the essence of exploitation as a whole, learn to
understand the social system based on the exploitation of labour by
capital. Secondly, in the process of this struggle the workers test their
strength, learn to organise, learn to understand the need for and the
significance of organisation. The extension of this struggle and the
increasing frequency of clashes inevitably lead to a further extension of
the struggle, to the development of a sense of unity, a sense of
solidarity—at first among the workers of a particular locality, and
then among the workers of the entire country, among the entire working
class. Thirdly, this struggle develops the workers’ political
consciousness. The living condition of the mass of working folk places
them in such a position that they do not (cannot) possess either the
leisure or the opportunity to ponder over problems of state. On the other
hand, the workers’ struggle against the factory owners for their
daily needs automatically and inevitably spurs the workers on to think of
state, political questions, questions of how the Russian state is
governed, how laws and regulations are issued, and whose interests they
serve. Each clash in the factory necessarily brings the workers into
conflict with the laws and representatives of state authority. In this
connection the workers hear “political speeches” for the first
time. At first from, say, the factory inspectors, who explain to them that
the trick employed by the factory owner to defraud them is based on the
exact meaning of the regulations, which have been endorsed by the
appropriate authority and give the employer a free hand to defraud the
workers, or that the factory owner’s oppressive measures are quite
lawful, since he is merely availing himself of his rights, giving effect
to such and such a law, that has been endorsed by the state authority that
sees to its implementation. The political explanations of Messrs, the
Inspectors are occasionally supplemented by the still more beneficial “political
explanations” of the minister, [7]  who reminds the workers of the feelings of
“Christian love” that they owe to the factory owners for their
making millions out of the workers’ labour. Later, these
explanations of the representatives of the state authority, and the
workers’ direct acquaintance with the facts showing for whose
benefit this authority operates, are still further supplemented by
leaflets or other explanations given by socialists, so that the workers
get their political education in full from such a strike. They learn to
understand not only the specific interests of the working class, but also
the specific place occupied by the working class in the state. And so the
assistance  which the Social-Democratic Party can render to the
class struggle of the workers should be: to develop the workers’
class-consciousness by assisting them in the fight for their most vital
needs.

Thesecond type of  assistance  should consist, as the programme
states, in promoting the organisation of the workers. The struggle we have
just described necessarily requires that the workers be
organised. Organisation becomes necessary for strikes, to ensure that they
are conducted with great success, for collections in support of strikers,
for setting up workers’ mutual benefit societies, and for propaganda
among the workers, the distribution among them of leaflets, announcements,
manifestoes, etc. Organisation is still more necessary to enable the
workers to defend themselves against persecution by the police and the
gendarmerie, to conceal from them all the workers’ contacts and
associations and to arrange the delivery of books, pamphlets, newspapers,
etc. To assist in all this—such is the Party’s second task.

Thethird consists in indicating the real aims of the struggle, i.e., in
explaining to the workers what the exploitation of labour by capital
consists in, what it is based on, how the private ownership of the land
and the instruments of labour leads to the poverty of the working masses,
compels them to sell their labour to the capitalists and to yield up
gratis the entire surplus produced by the worker’s labour over and
above his keep, in explaining, furthermore, how this exploitation
inevitably leads to the class struggle between the workers and the capitalists, what the conditions of this struggle and
its ultimate aims are—in a word, in explaining what is briefly
stated in the programme.

B2. What is meant by these words: the struggle of the working class is a
political struggle? They mean that the working class cannot fight for its
emancipation without securing influence over affairs of state, over the
administration of the state, over the issue of laws. The need for such
influence has long been understood by the Russian capitalists, and we have
shown how they have been able, despite all sorts of prohibitions contained
in the police laws, to find thousands of ways of influencing the state
authority, and how this authority serves the interests of the capitalist
class. Hence it naturally follows that the working class, too, cannot wage
its struggle, cannot even secure a lasting improvement of its lot unless
it influences state authority.

Wehave already said that the workers’ struggle against the
capitalists will inevitably lead to a clash with the government, and the
government itself is exerting every effort to prove to the workers that
only by struggle and by joint resistance can they influence state
authority. This was shown with particular clarity by the big strikes that
took place in Russia in 1885-86. The government immediately set about
drawing up regulations concerning workers, at once issued new laws about
factory practices, yielded to the workers’ insistent demands (for
example, regulations were introduced limiting fines and ensuring proper
wage payment); in the same way the present strikes (in 1896) have again
caused the government’s immediate intervention, and the government
has already understood that it cannot confine itself to arrests and
deportations, that it is ridiculous to regale the workers with stupid
sermons about the noble conduct of the factory owners (see the circular
issued by Finance Minister Witte to factory inspectors. Spring 1896). The
government has realised that “organised workers constitute a force
to be reckoned with” and so it already has the factory legislation
under review and is convening in St. Petersburg a Congress of Senior
Factory Inspectors to discuss the question of reducing working hours and
other inevitable concessions to the workers.

Thuswe see that the struggle of the working class against the capitalist
class must necessarily be a political struggle. Indeed, this struggle is
already exerting influence on the state authority, is acquiring political
significance. But the workers’ utter lack of political rights, about
which we have already spoken, and the absolute impossibility of the
workers openly and directly influencing state authority become more
clearly and sharply exposed and felt as the working-class movement
develops. That is why the most urgent demand of the workers, the primary
objective of the working-class influence on affairs of state must be
the achievement of political freedom  , i.e., the direct
participation, guaranteed by law (by a constitution), of all citizens in
the government of the state, the guaranteed right of all citizens freely
to assemble, discuss their affairs, influence affairs of state through
their associations and the press. The achievement of political freedom
becomes the “ vital task of the workers ” because without it the workers do not and cannot have any influence over affairs
of state, and thus inevitably remain a rightless, humiliated and
inarticulate class. And if even now, when the workers are only just be
ginning to fight and to close their ranks, the government is already
hastening to make concessions to the workers, in order to check the
further growth of the movement, there can be no doubt that when the
workers fully close their ranks and unite under the leadership of one
political party, they will be able to compel the government to surrender,
they will be able to win political freedom for themselves and the entire
Russian people!

Thepreceding parts of the programme indicated the place occupied by the
working class in contemporary society and the contemporary state, what is
the aim of the struggle of the working class, and what constitutes the
task of the Party that represents the workers’ interests. Under the
absolute rule of the government there are not, nor can there be openly
functioning political parties in Russia, but there are political trends
which express the interests of other classes and which exert influence
over public opinion and the government. Hence, in order to make clear the
position of the Social-Democratic Party, it is necessary now to indicate
its attitude towards the remaining political trends in Russian society, so as to enable the workers to determine who may be
their ally and to what extent, and who their enemy. That is indicated in
the two following points of the programme.

B3. The programme declares that the workers’ allies are, firstly,
all those social strata which oppose the absolute power of the autocratic
government. Since this absolute rule is the main obstacle to the
workers’ fight for their emancipation, it naturally follows that it
is in the direct interest of the workers to support every social movement
against absolutism (absolute means unlimited; absolutism is the unlimited
rule of the government). The stronger the development of capitalism, the
deeper become the contradictions between this bureaucratic administration
and the interests of the propertied classes themselves, the interests of
the bourgeoisie. And the Social-Democratic Party proclaims that it will
support all strata and grades of the bourgeoisie who oppose the absolute
government.

Itis infinitely more to the workers’ advantage for the bourgeoisie
to  influence  affairs of state  directly  , than for their
influence to be exerted, as is the case now, through a crowd of venal and
despotic officials. It is far more advantageous to the workers for the
bourgeoisie to openly influence policy than, as is the case now, to exert
a  concealed  influence, concealed by the supposedly all-powerful
“independent” government, which is called a government “by the grace of God,” and hands out “its graces”
to the suffering and industrious landlords and the poverty-stricken and
oppressed factory owners. The workers need  open struggle  against
the capitalist class, in order that the entire Russian proletariat may see
for whose interests the workers are waging the struggle, and may learn how
to wage the struggle properly; in order that the intrigues and aspirations
of the bourgeoisie may not be hidden in the ante-rooms of grand dukes, in
the saloons of senators and ministers, and in departmental offices barred
to the public, and in order that they may come to the surface and open the
eyes of all and sundry as to who really inspires government policy and
what the capitalists and landlords are striving for. And so, down with
everything that hides the present influence of the capitalist class, and
our support for any representative of the bourgeoisie who comes out against the bureaucracy, the bureaucratic administration,
against the absolute government! But, while proclaiming its support for
every social movement against absolutism, the Social-Democratic Party
recognises that it does not separate itself from the working-class
movement, because the working class has its specific interests, which are
opposed to the interests of all other classes. While rendering support to
all representatives of the bourgeoisie in the fight for political freedom,
the workers should remember that the propertied classes can only be their
allies for a time, that the interests of the workers and the capitalists
cannot be reconciled, that the workers need the abolition of the
government’s absolute rule only in order to wage an open and
extensive struggle against the capitalist class.

Furtherthe Social-Democratic Party proclaims that it will render support
to all who rise up against the class of the privileged landed
nobility. The landed nobility in Russia are considered to be the first
estate in the land. The remnants of their feudal power over the peasants
weigh down the masses of the people to this day. The peasants continue to
make land redemption payments for emancipation from the power of the
landlords. The peasants are still tied to the land, in order that the
landed gentry may not suffer any shortage of cheap and submissive farm
labourers. Rightless and treated as juveniles, the peasants to this day
are at the mercy of officials who look after their own pockets and
interfere in peasant life so as to ensure that the peasants make their
redemption payments or pay quit-rent to the feudal landlords
“punctually,” that they do not dare to “shirk” working for the landlords, do not dare, for example, to leave the district
and so perhaps compel the landlords to hire outside workers, who are not
so cheap or so oppressed by want. The landlords keep millions, tens of
millions of peasants in their service, enslaving them and keeping them
without rights, and in return for their display of prowess in this sphere
enjoy the highest privileges of state. The landed nobility are the
principal holders of the highest posts in the state (what is more, by law
the nobility, as a social estate, enjoy priority in the civil service);
the aristocratic landlords are closest to the Court and more directly and
easily than anybody else influence government policy in their own
direction. They utilise their close connections with the government to plunder the state
coffers and to secure out of public funds gifts and grants that run into
millions of rubles, sometimes in the shape of huge estates distributed for
services, at other times in the shape of “concessions.” [1]

Notes

[1]
The hectographed text in the notebook in the possession of the Institute
of Marxism-Leninism, Central Committee of the C.P.S.U breaks off
here.— Ed.

[2]
The “ Draft and Explanation of a Programme for the Social-Democratic Party ” were written by Lenin while in prison in St. Petersburg. The
“Draft Programme” was written in December 1895, some time
after the 9th (21st) of that month. The “Explanation of the
Programme” was written in June-July 1896. The reminiscences of
N. K. Krupskaya and A. I. Ulyanova-Yelizarova show that the text was
written in milk between the lines of some book. Lenin’s original
text was evidently first developed and then copied.

Inthe Archives of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism of the C.C. of the
C.P.S.U. there are three copies of the “Draft Programme.” The
first one, found among Lenin’s personal papers for the period of
1900-04, was written by an unknown hand in invisible ink between the lines
of S. Chugunov’s article “The Human Cervical Vertebra from the
Viewpoint of the Theory of Evolution” in issue No. 5, 1900, of the
magazine  Nauchnoye Obozreniye.  There is no heading to this
copy. The pages are numbered in pencil in Lenin’s handwriting and
were placed in an envelope with the inscription, also in Lenin’s
handwriting: “Old (1895) Draft Programme.”

Thesecond copy was also found among Lenin’s personal papers for the
period 1900-04, it was typed on tissue paper and headed: “Old (1895)
Draft Programme for the Social-Democratic Party.”

Thethird copy, found in the Geneva archives of the R.S.D.L.P., consists
of 39 sheets of hectographed text. As distinct from the other two copies,
this one contains not only the “Draft Programme,” but also an
“Explanation of the Programme,” which together constitute one
integral whole.

[3]
Nauchnoye Obozreniye  (  Science Review  ) a journal that
appeared in St. Petersburg from 1894 to 1903, at first weekly, then
monthly. It had no definite line, but “to be in the fashion”
(Lenin’s expression) allowed Marxists to use its columns. It
published several letters and articles by Marx and Engels, and also three
articles by V. I. Lenin: “A Note on the Question of the Market
Theory,” “ Once More on the Theory of Realisation,” “ Uncritical Criticism.”

[4]
Land redemption payments  were established by the Regulation
Governing Redemption by Peasants Who Have Emerged from Serf
Dependence. . . , adopted on February 19, 1861. The tsarist government
compelled the peasants, in return for the allotments assigned to them, to
pay redemption to the landlords amounting to several times the real price
of the land. When the purchase deal was concluded, the government paid the
landlords the purchase price, which was considered a debt owed by the
peasants, to be repaid over a period of 49 years. The instalments to be
paid annually by the peasants were called land redemption payments. These
were an intolerable burden on the peasants and caused their ruin and
impoverishment en masse. The peasants formerly belonging to landlords
alone paid nearly 2,000 million rubles to the tsarist government whereas
the market price of the land that the peasants received did not exceed 544
million rubles. In view of the fact that the adoption of the redemption
scheme by the peasants did not take place at once, but dragged on until
1883, the redemption payments were only to have ended by 1932. However the
peasant movement during the first Russian revolution, in 1905-07,
compelled the tsarist government to abolish the redemption payments as
from January 1907.

[5]
Collective responsibility  was a compulsory measure making the
peasants of each village community collectively responsible for timely and
full payments and for the fulfilment of all sorts of services to the state
and the landlords (payment of taxes and of land redemption instalments,
provision of recruits for the army, etc.). This form of bondage, which was
retained even after serfdom had been abolished, remained in force until
1906.

[6]
The copyist apparently could not decipher several words following the word
“refused.” The hectographed notebook continues as follows:
“[blank]* . . . the rule of irresponsible officials than any
interference by society in government affairs, the more readily does it
present the opportunity . . . [blank II].”

[7]
Lenin refers to the circular to factory inspectors issued by Minister of
Finance S. Y. Witte following the strikes in the summer and autumn of
1895. Comments on the circular are given on pp. 123-4 of this volume.