V. I.

Lenin

The Sixth (Prague) All-Russia Conference of the R.S.D.L.P.

JANUARY 5–17 (18–30), 1912

THE “PETITION CAMPAIGN”

1. The counter-revolution, as represented by the government and the
Third Duma, regards the working-class movement as its chief enemy and
persecutes it in all its forms, systematically infringing upon even those
“legal opportunities” remaining to the working class as a result of the
revolution.

2. This regime constantly confronts the masses of workers with the fact
that they cannot achieve even their most elementary rights (above all, the
freedom of association) without the complete overthrow of the tsarist
monarchy.

3. The petition circulated in the winter of 1910 by a group of
St. Petersburg liquidators, and the agitation which accompanied this
petition campaign, isolated the demand for freedom of association from the
sum total of all the revolutionary demands of the working class. Instead of
explaining to the workers that to win full freedom of association in Russia
it is indispensable for the masses to wage a revolutionary struggle for
fundamental democratic demands, the liquidators actually preached the
so-called “fight for right”, that is to say, a liberal fight for the
“renovation” of the June Third regime by partial improvements.

4. In view of the specific conditions obtaining in Russian political
life and the condition of the masses of the workers, the above-mentioned
campaign has inevitably degenerated into the purely formal and meaningless
signing of papers and has met with no response and aroused no political
interest among the masses.

5. The fate of this petition campaign clearly confirmed the
incorrectness of the entire undertaking and its isolation from the
working-class masses: altogether 1,300 signatures were collected, the
petition campaign having met with absolutely no response in any of the
Party organisations regardless of factions and trends; nor did our
Social-Democratic group in the Duma deem it possible to have anything to do
with it.

6. The workers’ mass meetings in connection with the fate of the
deputies to the Second Duma and the workers’ demonstrations held in various
cities on January 9, 1912, show that the independent activity of the
workers by no means runs in such channels as a petition campaign, nor is it
conducted under the banner of “partial rights”.

In view of the aforementioned, the Conference (1) calls upon all Social-Democrats to explain to the workers the
paramount importance to the proletariat of freedom of association; this
demand must always be closely linked up with our general political demands
and our revolutionary agitation among the masses; (2) while recognising that under certain conditions a mass petition of
workers could prove a very effective means of protest, is of the opinion
that in the present period in Russia a petition is one of the least
effective methods of Social-Democratic agitation.