V. I.

Lenin

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

2. The Attitude to the Bourgeois Parties

Whereas:

1.the Social-Democrats are now faced with the particularly urgent task of
defining the class character of the various non-proletarian parties, of
assessing present class relations, and, accordingly, of defining their
attitude to wards other parties; 2.the Social-Democrats have always recognised the necessity of supporting every
opposition and revolutionary movement against the present social and
political order in Russia; 3.it is the duty of Social-Democrats to do all in their power to enable the
proletariat to act as the leader in the bourgeois-democratic revolution; Thisconference declares:

1.that the Black-Hundred parties (the Union of the Russian People, the
monarchists, the Council of the United

Nobility, [2] etc.) are coming out more and more resolutely and
definitely as the class organisation of the feudal-minded landowners, and
are with increasing arrogance robbing the people of their revolutionary
gains, thereby causing an inevitable intensification of the revolutionary
struggle; the Social-Democratic Party must expose the close link between these parties and tsarism and the interests of big feudal landownership,
and explain to the masses that an uncompromising struggle must be waged for the
complete abolition of these relics of barbarism; 2.that such parties as the Union of October Seventeenth, the
Commercial and Industrial Party, and to a certain ex tent the Party of
Peaceful Renovation, etc., are class organisations of a section of the
landowners and particularly of the big commercial and industrial
bourgeoisie, which have not yet definitely come to terms with the
autocratic bureaucracy on the division of power under a thoroughly
undemocratic constitution of some sort based on a property qualification,
but which have gone over entirely to the side of the counter-revolution and
are manifestly sup porting the government [1]

;

the Social-Democratic Party [while taking advantage of the conflicts between
these parties and the Black-Hundred autocracy to develop the revolution] must
[at the same time] carry on a most relent less struggle against these
parties; 3.that the parties of the liberal-monarchist bourgeoisie, and their principal
party, the Cadets, have now definitely turned away from the revolution, and
are seeking to halt it by coming to terms with the counter-revolution; that
the economic basis of these parties is provided by a section of the middle
landlords and the middle bourgeoisie, especially the bourgeois
intelligentsia, while a section of the urban and rural petty-bourgeois
democrats still follow these parties merely by force of tradition and because
they are deliberately deceived by the liberals; that the ideal of these
parties does not go beyond a bourgeois society of law and order, protected
from the encroachments of the proletariat by a monarchy, police, a
two-chamber parliamentary system, a standing army and so forth; the
Social-Democrats must use the activities of these parties for the political
education of the people, counteract their hypocritically democratic phraseology by consistent proletarian democracy, expose
the constitutional illusions which they are spreading, and ruthlessly
fight against their leadership of the democratic petty bourgeoisie; 4.that the Narodnik or Trudovik parties (the Popular Socialists, the Trudovik
Group, the Socialist-Revolutionaries) come more or less close to expressing
the interests and viewpoint of the broad masses of the peasantry and urban
petty bourgeoisie, wavering between submission to the leadership of the
liberals and a determined struggle against landed proprietorship and the
feudal state; these parties hide their essentially bourgeois-democratic aims
be hind a more or less vague socialist ideology; the Social-Democrats must
persistently expose their pseudo-socialist character and combat their efforts
to obliterate the class distinction between the proletarian and the small
proprietor; at the same time they must exert every effort to free these
parties from the influence and leadership of the liberals, and compel them
to choose between the policy of the Cadets and that of the revolutionary
proletariat and thus compel them to side with the Social-Democrats against the
Black Hundreds and the Cadets; 5.the joint action ensuing here from must preclude all possibility of deviation
from the Social-Democratic programme and tactics, and must serve only for
the purpose of making a united and simultaneous onslaught against reaction
and against the treacherous liberal bourgeoisie.

Note: The words in square brackets are those deleted by the minority,
which proposed the amended wording quoted above.

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Notes:
[1]
Wording proposed by the minority: “... of the bourgeoisie which
have entirely gone over to the side of the counter-revolution, are
manifestly supporting the government, and whose object is to secure a
thoroughly undemocratic constitution based on a property
qualification.” — Lenin

[2]
Council of the United Nobility —a counter-revolutionary organisation of feudal landowners established in May 1906
at the First Congress of Representatives of Gubernia Assemblies of the Nobility
that existed until October 1917. The purpose of the organisation was the defence
of the autocracy, the big landed estates and the privileges of the
nobility. Lenin called it a “council of united serf-owners”. The
Council of the United Nobility was in reality a semi-governmental organisation
that dictated to the government legislative measures for the protection of its
feudal interests. A large number of the Council’s members belonged to the
Council of State and the leading centres of the Black Hundreds.