V. I.

Lenin

The Third Congress of the R.S.D.L.P.

April 12 (25)-April 27 (May 10), 1905

10

Draft Resolution on the Question of Open Political Action by the
R.S.D L.P.

1. Whereas the revolutionary movement in Russia has already to a certain degree
shaken and disorganised the autocratic government, which has been compelled to
tolerate the comparatively extensive exercise of freedom of political action by
the classes inimical to it;

2. Whereas this freedom of political action is mostly, almost exclusively,
enjoyed by the bourgeois classes, which thereby strengthen their existing
economic and political domination over the working class and increase the
danger that the proletariat may be transformed into a mere append age of
bourgeois democracy; and

3. Whereas there is developing (breaking through, coining to light) among
increasingly wider masses of the workers the urge towards independent open
action in the political arena, even though (on occasions of lesser
importance) with out the participation of the Social-Democrats;—
Therefore, the Third Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. calls the attention of all Party organisations to the fact that it is necessary a)to make use of each and every case of open political action on the part of
the educated spheres and the people, whether in the press, in associations, or
at meetings, for the purpose of contraposing the independent class demands of
the proletariat to the general democratic demands, so as to develop its
class-consciousness and to organise it in the course of such actions into an
independent socialist force; b)to make use of all legal and semi-legal channels for creating workers’
societies, associations, and organisations, and to put forward every effort towards securing (in what ever way) the
predominance of Social-Democratic influence in such associations and to
convert them into bases for the future openly functioning
Social-Democratic working-class party in Russia; c)to take the necessary steps to ensure that our Party organisations, while
maintaining and developing their underground machinery, will proceed at once to
the preparation of expedient forms of transition, wherever and whenever
possible, to open Social-Democratic activity, even to the point of clashes with
the armed forces of the government.

| Written on April 19 (May 2), 1905 | |
| --- | --- |
| First published in 1926 in Lenin Miscellany V | |
| Published according to the manuscript | |

---
Notes: