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.

The Provisional Revolutionary Government and Local Organs of
Revolutionary Authority

Whereas:

(1) in developing into armed struggle, the revolutionary movement against the
autocratic government has so far taken the form of sporadic local
insurrections; (2) in this open struggle, the elements of the local population that are
capable of fighting resolutely against the old regime (almost exclusively
the proletariat and the advanced sections of the petty bourgeoisie) have been compelled to set up organisations
that in practice have been embryonic forms of a new revolutionary
authority—the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies in St. Petersburg, Moscow and
other cities, the Soviets of Soldiers’ Deputies at Vladivostok, Krasnoyarsk and
elsewhere, the railwaymens’ committees in Siberia and in the South, the peasant
committees in Saratov Gubernia, the town revolutionary committees in
Novorossiisk and other towns, and lastly, the elected village bodies in the
Caucasus and in the Baltic Provinces; (3) in keeping with the initial, rudimentary form of the insurrection, these
bodies were just as sporadic, haphazard, irresolute in their activities, and
lacked the support of an organised armed force of the revolution, and were
therefore doomed to fall at the very first offensive operations of the
counter-revolutionary armies; (4) only a provisional revolutionary government, as the organ of a victorious
insurrection, can completely crush all resistance by reaction, ensure
complete freedom for election agitation, convene on the basis of universal,
equal and direct suffrage by secret ballot a constituent assembly capable
of really establishing the sovereignty of the people and putting into effect
the minimum social and economic demands of the proletariat; We are of the opinion, and propose that the Congress should agree:

(1) that in order to complete the revolution, the urgent task now confronting
the proletariat is, jointly with the revolutionary democrats, to help to
unite the insurrection, and to set up an organ that will unite it, in the
shape of a provisional revolutionary government; (2) that one of the conditions for the successful fulfilment of the functions of
the revolutionary government is the establishment, in all the towns and
village communities that have joined the insurrection, of organs of
revolutionary local self-government, elected on the basis of universal,
equal and direct suffrage by secret ballot; (3) that the participation of delegates of our Party in the provisional
revolutionary government jointly with the revolutionary bourgeois democrats
is permissible depending on the alignment of forces, and must formally be
made conditional on control of these delegates by the Party and, in substance, on their
upholding the independent interests of the working class and staunchly
maintaining the independence of the Social-Democratic Party, which
strives for the complete socialist revolution and is therefore
relentlessly hostile to all bourgeois parties; (4) that, irrespective of whether it will be possible for Social-Democrats to
participate in the provisional revolutionary government or not, propaganda
must be carried on among the broadest possible sections of the proletariat
to explain that the armed proletariat, guided by the Social- Democratic
Party, should bring constant pressure to bear upon the provisional
government, with a view to protecting, consolidating and enlarging the gains
of the revolution.

---
Notes: