V. I.

Lenin

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

JANUARY 5–17 (18–30), 1912

3

Draft Resolution on the Tasks of Social-Democrats in the Struggle Against the
Famine [1]

Whereas:

(1) The famine affecting 20 million peasants in Russia once again shows
the absolutely unbearable conditions of the peasant masses, crushed and
oppressed by tsarism and the class of feudal landowners, conditions
unimaginable in any civilised country of the world; (2) The present famine once again confirms the failure of the
government’s agrarian policy and the impossibility of ensuring anything
like normal bourgeois development in Russia so long as its policy in
general, and its agrarian policy in particular, are directed by the class
of feudal landowners who, through the parties of the Right, dominate the
Third Duma, the Council of State, and circles at the Court of Nicholas II; (3) The Black-Hundred parties (with the Markovs and similar people at
the head), by their statements in the Duma and their attempts to lay the
blame on the “loafing peasants” have so flaunted the shamelessness of the
tsarist-landowner gang that is plundering Russia that the eyes of even the
most ignorant are being opened, and indignation of even the most
indifferent is being aroused; (4) The actions of the government in hindering relief for the
famine-stricken, the police interference with the Zemstvos, with the
collectors of funds and the organisers of kitchen committees, etc., give
rise to widespread dissatisfaction even among the bourgeoisie, and voices
of protest are raised even among such backward and counter-revolutionary
bourgeoisie as the Octobrists; (5) The liberal-monarchist bourgeoisie, while helping in its press to
inform the public of the famine and of the behaviour of the government, nevertheless, in the person of the
Constitutional-Democrat Kutler in the Third Duma, adopted such a
moderate-oppositional position that can, under no circumstances, satisfy
democrats, any more than it is possible to accept the presentation of the
question of relief for the famine-stricken as philanthropy, which is the
way the majority of the liberals present it; (6) Among the working class, despite the worsening of its economic
position arising from the increasing numbers of starving and unemployed, a
spontaneous desire is to be observed to collect funds to aid the starving
and to help them in other ways. This desire natural to every democrat, to
say nothing of a socialist, must be supported and furthered by all
Social-Democrats in the spirit of class struggle; The Conference resolves that it is essential:

( a) To bend all efforts to extending propaganda and agitation among the
broad masses of the population, and in particular among the peasantry,
explaining the connection between the famine and tsarism and its entire
policy; to distribute in the villages for agitational purposes the Duma
speeches, not only of the Social-Democrats and Trudoviks, but even of such
friends of the tsar as Markov the Second, and to popularise the political
demands of Social-Democracy—in the first instance the overthrow of
tsarist monarchy and the establishment of a democratic republic, followed
by the confiscation of landed estates; ( b) To support the desire of the workers to aid the famine—stricken
as far as possible, advising them to send their donations only to the
Social-Democratic group in the Duma, to the workers’ press, or to workers’
cultural-educational and other associations, etc., and forming special
nuclei of Social-Democrats and democrats upon their joining groups,
committees or commissions for aid to the famine-stricken; ( c) To endeavour to give expression to the anger of the democratic
masses aroused by the famine in demonstrations, mass meetings, and other
forms that constitute the beginning of a revolutionary mass struggle
against tsarism.

| Written early in January 1912 | |
| --- | --- |
| First published on January 18, 1937, in Pravda , No. 18 | |
| Published according to the manuscript | |