V. I.

Lenin

I

The Party congress, as we know, is to be convened in a few weeks from now. We
must most energetically set about preparations for the congress, get down to a
discussion of the basic tactical problems on which the Party must take
decisions at the congress.

The Central Committee of our Party has already out lined an agenda for the
Congress, which has been announced in the press. The chief items on the agenda
are:

(1) The Immediate Political Tasks and (2) The State Duma. As far as the second item is concerned, its necessity is
obvious and cannot give rise to objections. In our opinion, the first item is
also essential, but should be worded somewhat differently, or, rather, should
have its content somewhat changed.

Fora general Party discussion on the tasks of the congress and the tactical
problems it has to solve to begin immediately, a conference of representatives
of the two metropolitan organisations of our Party and the editorial board of
Proletary drew up, on the eve of the convocation of the Second Duma,
the draft resolutions printed below. [1]

We intend to give an outline of how the conference under stood its tasks, why it gave first
place to draft resolutions on certain questions, and what basic ideas
were included in these resolutions.

Item One: The Immediate Political Tasks.

Inour opinion the question must not be presented to a congress of the
R.S.D.L.P. in this way in the times we are living through. This is a
revolutionary epoch. All Social-Democrats, irrespective of the groups they
belong to, are agreed on this. The correctness of our postulate will be borne
out by a glance at that part of the resolution adopt ed by the Mensheviks and
the Bundists at the All-Russian Conference of the R.S.D.L.P. in November 1906,
which deals with principles .

Ina revolutionary epoch it is impermissible to limit oneself to
defining immediate political tasks, impermissible for two
reasons. Firstly, in such epochs the basic tasks of the
Social-Democratic movement are given first place, and they must be analysed in
detail, not as is customary in times of “peaceful” and petty
constitutional development. In the second place, it is impermissible
to define the immediate political tasks, because a revolution is
marked precisely by the possibility and inevitability of sharp changes, sudden
turns, unexpected situations, and violent outbursts. To appreciate this, one has
only to mention the possible and probable dissolution of the Left Duma and
changes in the election law in the spirit of the Black Hundreds.

Itwas all very well for the Austrians, for instance, to define their
“immediate” task as the struggle for universal suffrage, when there
was every indication that the more or less peaceful epoch of uninterrupted and
consistent constitutional development would continue. In our country, do not
even the Mensheviks speak in the above resolution of the impossibility of a
peaceful path, of the need to elect fighters to the Duma, and not
petitioners? Do they not recognise the struggle for a constituent assembly? Try
to imagine a European country with a settled constitutional system likely to
endure for some time, in which such slogans as “constitutional
assembly”, the antithesis of “petitioner” and “fighter” in the Duma could find currency, and you will realise that
the “immediate” tasks cannot be defined as they now are in
the West. The more successful the work of the Social-Democrats and revolutionary
bourgeois democrats in the Duma, the more probable will be an outburst of struggle outside the Duma which will confront us with immediate
tasks of a special kind.

No.It is not so much the immediate tasks as the proletariat’s
basic tasks at the present moment of the bourgeois revolution that have
to be discussed at the Party congress. If this is not done, we shall find
ourselves in the position of helpless people who lose themselves at every turn
taken by events (as happened a number of times in 1906). In any case the
“immediate” tasks cannot be defined, just as nobody can say whether
the Second Duma and the Election Law of December 11, 1905, [4] will last a week, a month or six months. So far, the basic
tasks of the Social-Democratic proletariat in our revolution have not yet
been elaborated by our Party as a whole. And without such an elaboration no
mature, principled policy is possible, and no pursuit of the definition of
“immediate” tasks can be successful.

The Unity Congress did not adopt a resolution with an appraisal of the present
moment or a definition of the proletariat’s tasks in the revolution,
although the necessary drafts were presented by both trends in the
Social-Democratic Party, and the question of the appraisal of the situation
stood on the agenda and was discussed at the congress. Consequently,
the importance of these questions was recognised by everybody , though
the majority at the Stockholm Congress considered that at that time
they had not been made sufficiently clear. An analysis of these questions must
be resumed. We must examine: firstly, the nature of the present revolutionary
situation from the standpoint of the general tendencies of social, economic and
political development; secondly, the political grouping of classes (and parties)
in Russia today; thirdly, the basic tasks of the Social-Democratic Labour Party
in this situation and with this political grouping of the
social forces.

Wedo not, of course, close our eyes to the fact that some Mensheviks (and
perhaps the Central Committee) understood the question of the immediate
political tasks to be simply one of supporting the demand for a Duma, i.e., a
Cadet, ministry.

Plekhanov,with his customary—of course, highly praise worthy—impetuosity in pushing the Mensheviks further to the Right, has already risen in defence of this demand in Russkaya Zhizn (February 23).

Webelieve that this is an important but subordinate question, which
Marxists cannot pose separately, without an assessment of the present situation
in our revolution, without an assessment of the class content of the
Constitutional-Democratic Party and its entire political role today. To reduce
this question to pure politicising, to the “principle” of the
ministry’s responsibility to the Chamber in a constitutional system in
general, would mean wholly abandoning the point of view of the class struggle
and going over to the point of view of the liberal.

Forthis reason, our conference linked the question of the Cadet ministry with
the assessment of the present situation in the revolution.

Inthe appropriate resolution we, first and foremost, begin, in the preamble,
with the question which all Marxists recognise as basic, that of the economic
crisis and the economic condition of the masses. The conference adopted the
formula: “the crisis shows no signs of early abatement”. This
formula is probably far too cautious. But it is, of course, important for the
Social-Democratic Party to establish indisputable facts, note the basic
features, and leave a scholarly elaboration of it to Party literature.

Weaffirm that on account of the crisis (point two of the preamble) there has
been a sharpening of the class struggle between the proletariat and the
bourgeoisie (an undoubted fact, and the manifestations of this sharpening are
common knowledge), and also a sharpening of the social struggle in the
countryside. There are, in the countryside, no out standing events that make
themselves prominent, like lock-outs, but such government measures as the
November agrarian laws [5] (“bribery of the peasant bourgeoisie”) prove that the struggle
is growing sharper, that the landlords are compelled to devote their
efforts to splitting the peasantry in order to weaken the pressure exerted
by the peasantry as a whole.

Whatthese efforts will ultimately lead to we do not know. All
“uncompleted” (Marx’s expression) bourgeois revolutions
“ended” with the defection of the well-to-do peasantry to the side
of law and order. In any case, Social-Democracy must do everything possible to develop the political consciousness of
the widest strata. of the peasantry, and make clear to them the class
struggle that is going on in the countryside.

Further,the third point states the basic fact in the political history of
Russia for the past year—the “rightward” swing of the upper
and the “leftward” swing of the lower classes. We thought that,
particularly in a revolutionary epoch, Social-Democracy should, at its
congresses, sum up the periods of social development, applying
its own Marxist methods of analysis to them and teaching other classes
to glance back and view political events from the stand point of
principle , not from the standpoint of the interests of the moment or
the achievements of a few days in the way the bourgeoisie do—the
bourgeoisie actually despise all theory and are afraid of any class analysis of
recent history.

Thestrengthening of the extremes means the weakening of the Centre. The
Centre—that is the Cadets, not the Octobrists as some Social-Democrats
(Martov among them) erroneously thought. What is the objective
historical task of that party? That is a question the Marxists must answer if
they want to remain true to their theory. The resolution answers: “ to halt the revolution by offering concessions acceptable [since the
Constitutional-Democrats favour a voluntary agreement] to the Black-Hundred
landlords and the autocracy”. In Karl Kautsky’s well-known book
The Social Revolution it was made perfectly clear that reform differs
from revolution in that it preserves the power of the oppressor class which
suppresses the insurrection of the oppressed by means of concessions that are acceptable to the oppressors and do not destroy their power.

Theliberal bourgeoisie’s objective task in the bourgeois-democratic
revolution is precisely that—to preserve the monarchy and the landlord
class at the cost of “reasonable” concessions.

Isthis task a feasible one? That depends on circumstances. The Marxist cannot
admit that it is absolutely infeasible. But such an outcome of the
bourgeois revolution signifies:

(1) a minimum of freedom for the development of the productive forces of
bourgeois society (the economic progress of Russia would undoubtedly be more rapid if landed proprietorship were
abolished by the revolution than if it were reformed as planned by the Cadets); (2) the basic needs of the popular masses would not be met and (3) it would be necessary to suppress those masses by force . The
Cadets’ “peaceful” constitutional development cannot be effected except by the suppression of the masses. This is something we must
never forget, something we must make the masses fully conscious of. The Cadet
“social peace is peace for the land and factory owner, the
“ peace ” of a suppressed peasants’ and workers’ insurrection.

Repressionsby Stolypin’s military courts arid the Cadet
“reforms” are the two hands of one and the same oppressor.

II

Eightdays have elapsed since our first article on this subject was published,
and a number of important events in political life have confirmed the truth of
what we then said, and have cast the glaring light of an “accomplished
fact” (or one that is still being accomplished?) on the urgent
questions dealt with.

The Cadet swing to the Right has already made itself felt in the Duma. The
Rodichevs’ support of Stolypin in preaching moderation, caution, legality,
tranquillity, and not arousing the people, and Stolypin’s support for
Rodichev, his famous “all-round” support, are now fact. [6]

Thisfact has fully borne out the correctness of our analysis of the present
political situation, an analysis made in the draft resolutions compiled between
February 15 and 18, before the opening of the Second Duma. We refused
to accept the Central Committee’s proposal and to discuss “immediate
political tasks”. We showed that such a proposal was absolutely
groundless in a revolutionary epoch, and we substituted the question of the
fundamentals of socialist policy in the bourgeois revolution for the question of
a policy for the moment.

Anda week of revolutionary development has followed the pattern we anticipated.

Onthe last occasion, we examined the preamble to our draft resolution. The
central feature of that part of the draft was a statement to the effect
that the weakened party of the “Centre”, that is, the bourgeois-liberal Constitutional-Democratic Party, was striving to halt
the revolution by means of concessions acceptable to the Black-Hundred
landowners and the autocracy.

Itwas only yesterday, as it were, that Plekhanov and his Right-wing following
in the R.S.D.L.P. asserted that this Bolshevik idea, Which we persistently
defended through out 1906 (and even earlier, ever since 1905, ever since the
publication of the pamphlet Two Tactics ), was a semi-fantastic surmise
born of rebel views on the role of our bourgeoisie, or that it was to say the
least an untimely warning, etc.

Today everyone can see that we were right. The “striving”
of the Cadets is beginning to materialise, and even a newspaper like
Tovarishch , which probably more than any other hates Bolshevism for its
ruthless exposure of the Cadets, said, with reference to the rumours, [2] refuted by Rech , of negotiations between the Cadets and the
Black-Hundred government, that “there is no smoke without fire”.

Wecan only welcome this revival of “Bolshevik week” in
Tovarishch . We can only mention that history has confirmed the correctness of all our warnings and slogans ; history has exposed the
thoughtlessness (thoughtlessness at best) of those “democrats”—and,
unfortunately, of some Social-Democrats—who would not accept our criticism
of the Cadets.

Whosaid, at the time of the First Duma, that the Cadets were bargaining with
the government behind the backs of the people? The Bolsheviks did. And then it turned out that a personage like
Trepov was in favour of a Cadet ministry.

Whoconducted the most energetic campaign of all for the exposure of
Milyukov’s visit to Stolypin on January 15 at the height of the election
struggle (allegedly a struggle) of the party of so-called people’s freedom
against the government? The Bolsheviks did.

Who,at the election meetings in St. Petersburg and during the first days of
the Second Duma (see Novy Luch ), recalled that in 1906 the loan of
2,000 million francs was actually a gift made to Dubasov & Co., with the
indirect aid of the Constitutional-Democrats, who rejected Clemenceau’s
formal proposal to come out openly, in the name of the party, against that loan?
The Bolsheviks did.

Who, on the eve of the Second Duma, made the exposure of the
“ treacherous nature of Constitutional-Democratic policy”
the corner-stone of their policy of consistent (i.e., proletarian) democracy?
The Bolsheviks did.

Alltalk of supporting the demand for a Duma ministry or a responsible ministry,
or the demand to subordinate executive to legislative power, etc., was blown
away like down by the first breeze that blew. Plekhanov’s dream of making
this slogan the signal for a decisive battle, or the means of educating the
masses, proved to be the dream of a well-meaning philistine. Probably no one
would now dare give such slogans serious support. Experience has shown—
or, rather, is beginning to show—that the issue involved is by no means
the “principle” of a fuller or more consistent implementation of
“constitutional fundamentals”, but the fact of a deal made between the Cadets and the reactionaries . Experience has shown that those
were right who behind the liberal exterior of an allegedly progressive general
principle, recognised and demonstrated the narrow class interests of the
frightened liberal who gave pleasant names to disgusting and filthy things.

Thecorrectness of the conclusions of our first resolution has, therefore, been
confirmed much sooner than we could have expected, and confirmed much more
satisfactorily— by history and not by logic, by deeds and not by words, by
the events of the revolution and not by the edicts of the Social-Democrats.

Firstconclusion: “the political crisis that is developing before our eyes
is not a constitutional but a revolutionary crisis leading to a direct
struggle of the proletarian and the peasant masses against the autocracy.”

Secondconclusion, proceeding directly from the first:

“the forthcoming Duma campaign must therefore be regarded merely as one of
the episodes in the people’s revolutionary struggle for power, and must
be utilised as such.”

Whatis the essential difference between a constitutional and a revolutionary
crisis? The difference is that the former may be resolved on the basis of
existing fundamental laws and institutions of the state, while the latter
requires the smashing of those laws and feudal institutions. Until now, the idea
expressed in our conclusions has been shared by all Russian Social-Democrats,
irrespective of group.

Itis only recently that there has been a growth of that tendency among the
Mensheviks which inclines to the opposite view, to the view that all thought of
a revolutionary struggle should be abandoned, that we should stop at the
present “constitution”, and use it as ground to work on. Here are
some noteworthy points from the draft resolution on the attitude to the State
Duma compiled by “Comrades Dan, Koltsov, Martynov, Martov, Negorev and
others, with a group of practicians participating”; it was published in
Russkaya Zhizn , No. 47 [3] (and also as a separate leaflet):

“...(2)the task of the direct struggle for power that is becoming the
central feature of the Russian revolution, is, under the existing alignment of
social forces [?], reduced [?] mainly to the question [?] of the struggle for
[?] popular representation; “...(3)the elections to the Second Duma, by revealing a considerable number of
consistent [?] supporters of the revolution, have shown that among the
masses of the people there is a growing consciousness of the necessity for
this [?] struggle for power....”

Nomatter how muddled and evasive the wording of these points may be, the trend
is clearly visible—instead of the revolutionary struggle of the
proletariat and the peasantry for power, reduce the tasks of the workers’ party to that of
the liberal struggle for the existing popular representation
or on the basis of it. We must wait and see whether all Mensheviks, at the
present moment or at the Fifth Congress, really accept this presentation of the
question.

Inany case, the rightward swing of the Cadets and Stolypin’s
“all-round” approval of them will soon compel the Right wing in our
Party to make an issue of the question:

either continue the policy of support for the Cadets and thereby irrevocably
enter on the path of opportunism, or discontinue all support of the Cadets and
accept the policy of the socialist independence of the proletariat and of the
struggle for the liberation of the democratic petty bourgeoisie from the
influence and hegemony of the Cadets.

Thethird conclusion drawn by our resolution is that, “as the party of the
advanced class, the Social-Democratic Party cannot under any circumstances at
present support the Cadet policy in general or a Cadet ministry in
particular. The Social-Democrats must bend every effort to expose the
treacherous nature of this policy to the masses; they must explain to them the revolutionary
tasks confronting them; they must show the masses that only when they attain a
high level of political consciousness and are strongly organised can possible
concessions by the autocracy be converted from an instrument of deception and
corruption into an instrument for the further development of the revolution.”

Wedo not altogether deny the possibility of partial concessions, and do not say
that we shall not take advantage of them. The text of the resolution does not
leave any doubt on this score. It is also possible that a Cadet ministry will
in some way or another come under the heading of “concessions by the
autocracy”. But the party of the working class, while not rejecting this
“payment on account” (Engels’s expression), [7] must under no circumstances forget the other
particularly important aspect of the matter, which is often lost sight of
by the liberals and opportunists—the role of “concessions” as an instrument of deception and corruption .

Ifthe Social-Democrat does not want to turn into a bourgeois reformist, he must
never forget this aspect of the matter. The Mensheviks unpardonably forget
it when, in the aforementioned resolution, they say “... Social-Democ racy will support all efforts of the
Duma to subordinate executive power to itself...”. “Efforts of the
Duma” means the efforts of the majority in the Duma. The Duma majority
may, as experience has shown, be formed from Rights and
Constitutional-Democrats against the Lefts. “The efforts” of such a majority could subordinate
“executive power” to itself in such a way as to worsen the condition of the people, or deceive them outright.

Letus hope that the Mensheviks are merely over-enthusiastic in this respect:
that they will not support all the efforts of the majority in the
present Duma in this field. It is typical, of course, that prominent leaders of
Menshevism could have accepted such a formulation.

The Cadets’ swing to the Right actually compels all Social-Democrats,
irrespective of group allegiance, to adopt the policy of refusing to support the
Cadets, to adopt the policy of exposing their treachery, the policy of an
independent and consistent revolutionary party of the working class.

---
Notes:
[1]
See pp. 133-44 of this volume.— Ed .

[2]
These lines had already been written when we read the following in the
Rech leading article for March 13: “When the exact details of the
notorious negotiations between the Cadets and the government in June of
last year are published, the country will learn that if the Cadets can be
reproached for anything in connection with these negotiations behind the
’backs of the people’, it is for that obstinacy of which

Rossiya [8] speaks.” Of course, “when they are published”! But
so far the Cadets, despite the challenges that have been made, have not
published “exact details” of the negotiations in June 1906, or those of
January 1907 (January 15—Milyukov’s visit to Stolypin), or those of
March 1907. Nevertheless the negotiations behind the backs of the people are a fact .— Lenin

[3]
February 24, 1907.— Lenin

[4]
See Note 1.

[5]
The November agrarian laws were drawn up by Stolypin and promulgated by
the tsarist government in November 1906. On November 9 (22), 1906, a decree was
published on “Some Amendments to Existing Laws on Peasant Landownership and
Land Tenure”, which, after its passage through the Duma and the Council of
State became known as the law of June 14, 1910; on November 15 (28), 4906, a decree
was issued on “The Granting of Loans by the Peasant Land Bank on the
Security of Allotment Lands”. These laws gave the peasants the right to convert
their allotment land into private property and the right to leave the commune
with a plot of land or a separate farmstead. Peasants leaving the commune could obtain a loan
from the bank to acquire land. The purpose of the Stolypin laws was to create a
class of kulak farmers as a bulwark of the autocracy in the countryside, to
preserve the landed estates and break up the communes by force.

Stolypin’sagrarian policy accelerated the capitalist evolution of agriculture
by the most painful, “Prussian” method, retaining the power, property and
privileges of the semi-feudal landowners; it increased the expropriation by
force of the peasant masses and accelerated the formation of a peasant
bourgeoisie able to buy up the lands of the poor peasants at a nominal price.

Leninsaid that Stolypin’s agrarian legislation in 1906 (and the law published
on June 14 [27], 1910) was the second step (the Reform of 1861 was the first)
towards turning the feudal autocracy into a bourgeois monarchy. “Stolypin
has granted the old regime and the old feudal system of land tenure ’a new
lease of life’ by opening the last valve that could be opened without
confiscating all the landed estates,” wrote Lenin (see present edition, Vol. 18,
“The Last Valve”). Although the government conducted extensive propaganda
for the peasants to leave the communes, only about two and a half million
peasant families in European Russia did so in the nine years from 1907 to
1915. First and foremost it was the rural bourgeoisie who took advantage of the
right to leave the communes and thereby improve their farms. Some of the poor
peasants also left the communes in order to sell their allotments and leave the
land for ever. The petty peasant farms, weighed down by want, still remained
beggarly and backward.

Stolypin’sagrarian policy did not remove the chief contradiction—that
between the peasantry and the landowners—but led to the even greater ruin
of the masses of the peasantry and the sharpening of class contradictions
between the kulaks and the village poor.

[6]
At the sitting of the Second State Duma on March 7 (20), 1907,
when the question of aid for the famine-stricken was being discussed, the
Social-Democratic group, supported by the S.R.’s, the Popular Socialists and
part of the Trudoviks, tabled a proposal to set up a Duma Food Commission to go
thoroughly into government actions to help the famine-stricken in the 1905-07
period and to examine the way in which funds had been spent. The
Social-Democratic group proposed that the question be studied not only from the
reports, but by investigation on the spot.

The Cadet Deputy Rodichev spoke against the proposal of the Social-Democratic
group and moved that the commission’s competency be limited to an examination
of ministerial report in St. Petersburg, “within the framework of the
law”, stating as the motive for his proposal that it was essential to “preserve
the authority of the Duma” and not desirable to arouse the
people.

Rodichev ’s speech was fully approved by the government. Stolypin said that “the
government is in complete agreement with Rodichev’s proposal”.

[8]
Rossiya ( Russia )—the daily official newspaper of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; it was controlled by the police and the
Black Hundreds. Published in St. Petersburg from 1905 to 1914.

[7]
Marx and Engels, Selected Correspondence , Moscow, 1955, p. 553.