V. I.

Lenin

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

3. The Class Tasks of the Proletariat
at the Present Stage of the Democratic Revolution

Whereas:

1. the democratic revolution in Russia is heading for a new upswing; the big
capitalist and landlord class is taking the side of counter-revolution, while
new strata of the petty bourgeoisie and the peasantry, following the example
of the proletariat, are coming over to the revolution;

2. the class interests of the proletariat in the bourgeois revolution are such
that,conditions must be created for the most successful struggle for
socialism against the propertied classes;

3. the only possible way to create and secure these conditions is to carry the
democratic revolution to its completion, i.e., to win a democratic republic,
the complete sovereignty of the people and the minimum of social and economic
gains necessary for the proletariat (the eight-hour day and other demands of
the Social-Democratic minimum programme);

4. only the proletariat can bring the democratic revolution to its
consummation, the condition being that the proletariat, as the only
thoroughly revolutionary class in modern society, leads the mass of the
peasantry, and imparts political consciousness to its struggle against landed
proprietorship and the feudal st.ate;

5. the role of leader in the democratic revolution provides the proletariat
with the greatest opportunity to improve its social and economic position,
develop its class-consciousness in every way, and pursue its class
activities not only in the economic, but also in the wide political sphere; This conference declares:

1. that the main task of the proletariat at the present moment of history is
to consummate the democratic revolution in Russia;

2. that any belittling of this task will inevitably have the result of
converting the working class from the leader of the people’s
revolution, carrying with it the mass of the democratic peasantry, into a
passive participant of the revolution, trailing behind the liberal-monarchist
bourgeoisie;

3. that all organisations of the Party must guide the activities of the
proletariat in carrying out this task, with out for a moment losing sight of
the independent socialist aims of the proletariat.

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