V. I.

Lenin

A Tactical Platform for the Unity Congress of the R.S.D.L.P.

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

Attitude Towards the Bourgeois Parties

Whereas:

(1) the Social-Democratic Party has always recognised the necessity of
supporting every opposition and revolutionary movement against the existing
social and political system in Russia; (2) at the present time, when the revolution is bringing various classes into
open action, thus stimulating the formation of political parties, it is
the urgent duty of the Social-Democratic Party to ascertain the class
character of these parties, to appraise the present relations between the
classes, and to determine its own attitude to the various parties
accordingly; (3) the main task of the working class at the present stage of the democratic
revolution is to carry it to its completion and therefore, in determining
its attitude towards the other parties, the Social-Democratic Party must
particularly take into account the extent to which each party is capable of
actively promoting this object; (4) from this point of view, all existing non-Social-Democratic parties in
Russia (bar the reactionary parties) may be divided into two main groups: liberal-monarchist parties and
revolutionary-democratic parties; We are of the opinion, and propose that the Congress should agree:

(1) that the Right liberal-monarchist parties (the Union of October
Seventeenth, the Party of Law and Order, the Commercial and Industrial
Party, [1] etc.) represent the class organisations of the landlords and
the big commercial and industrial bourgeoisie and are openly
counter-revolutionary, but have not yet made a final deal with the autocratic
bureaucracy on sharing power; that the party of the proletariat, while taking
advantage of this conflict which is still in progress, must at the same time
wage a relentless struggle against these parties; (2) that the Left liberal-monarchist parties (the Party of Democratic
Reforms, [2] the Constitutional-Democratic Party, etc.), not being
definitely class organisations, are constantly vacillating between the
democratic petty bourgeoisie and the counter-revolutionary elements of the
big bourgeoisie, between the desire to lean on the people and fear of its
independent revolutionary activity, and aim at nothing that goes beyond the
limits of a well-ordered bourgeois society protected from the encroachments
of the proletariat by a monarchy and a two-chamber system; and that the
Social-Democratic Party must utilise the activities of these parties for the
political education of the people, counteract their hypocritical democratic
phrase-mongering by the consistent democracy of the proletariat, and
ruthlessly expose the constitutional illusions they spread; (3) that the revolutionary-democratic parties and organisations (the
Socialist-Revolutionary Party, the Peasant Union, some of the semi-trade
union and semi-political organisations, etc.) most closely express the
interests and point of view of the broad masses of the peasantry and petty
bourgeoisie, strongly opposing landlordism and the semi-feudal state,
consistently striving for democracy and clothing their virtually
bourgeois-democratic aims in a more or less nebulous socialist ideology; and
that the Social-Democratic Party deems it possible and necessary to enter
into fighting agreements with these parties, while at the same time
systematically exposing their pseudo-socialist character and combating their attempts to obscure the class antithesis between the
proletarian and the small proprietor; (4) that the immediate political object of such temporary fighting agreements
between the Social-Democratic Party and the revolutionary democrats is to
secure the convocation by revolutionary means of a constituent assembly of
the whole people with full powers, on the basis of universal, direct and
equal suffrage by secret ballot; (5) that temporary fighting agreements are possible and advisable at the present
time only with those elements which recognise armed uprising as a means of
struggle and are actually assisting to bring it about.

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Notes:
[1]
The Commercial and Industrial Party— a counter-revolutionary party of big capitalists, founded in Moscow after the
publication of the Manifesto of October 17 (30), 1905. Its founders were
G. A. Krestovnikov, V. P. Ryabushinsky and other big capitalists. The party,
which proclaimed itself a supporter of the October Manifesto, insisted on the
establishment of a strong government authority to put down the revolutionary
movement. It opposed the convocation of a constituent assembly, nationalisation
of the land, the introduction of an eight-hour working day, and freedom to
strike. It formed a bloc with the Octobrists in the elections to the First
Duma. It disintegrated at the close of 1906, most of its members joining the
Union of October Seventeenth.

[2]
The Party of Democratic Reforms —a party of the liberal-monarchist bourgeoisie founded early in 1906, during the elections
to the First Duma, by elements who considered the Cadet programme too
leftist. Among its more prominent leaders were K. K. Arsenyev, I. I. Ivanyukov,
M. M. Kovalevsky, V. D. Kuzmin-Karavayev and A. S. Posnikov. Lacking a solid
basis as it did, the Party had gone out of existence by the end of 1907.