V. I.

Lenin

Having considered the situation which has arisen in Petrograd
after the imperialist, annexationist, and predatory Note of the
Provisional Government of April 18, 1917, and after a number of meetings and demonstrations of the people held in the
streets of Petrograd on April 20, the Central Committee of the
R.S.D.L.P. resolves:

1. Party propagandists and speakers must refute the despicable
lies of the capitalist papers and of the papers supporting the
capitalists to the effect that we are holding out the threat
of civil war. This is a despicable lie, for only at the present moment, as long as the capitalists and their
government cannot and dare not use force against the masses,
as long as the mass of soldiers and workers are freely expressing their will and freely electing and displacing
all authorities—at such a moment any thought of civil war would be naïve, senseless,
preposterous; at such a moment there must be compliance with the will of the majority of the population and free
criticism of this will by the discontented minority; should
violence be resorted to, the responsibility will fall on the
Provisional Government and its supporters.

2. By their outcries against civil war the government of the
capitalists and its newspapers are only trying to conceal the
reluctance of the capitalists, who admittedly constitute an
insignificant minority of the people, to submit to the will
of the majority.

3. In order to learn the will of the majority of the population
in Petrograd, where there is now an unusually large number of
soldiers who are familiar with the sentiment of the peasants
and correctly express it, a popular vote must at once be
arranged in all the districts of Petrograd and its suburbs to
ascertain what the attitude is towards the government’s Note,
what support the various parties enjoy, and what kind of
Provisional Government is desired.

4. All Party propagandists must advocate these views and this
proposal at factories, in regiments, in the streets, etc., by
means of peaceful discussion and peaceful demonstrations, as well as meetings everywhere; we must
endeavour to organise regular voting in factories and regiments, taking care that order and comradely discipline
are strictly observed.

5. Party propagandists must again and again protest against the
despicable slander spread by the capitalists alleging that
our Party stands for a separate peace with Germany. We consider Wilhelm II as bad a crowned brigand meriting
execution as Nicholas II, and the German Guchkovs, i.e., the
German capitalists, just as much annexationists, robbers, and
imperialists as the Russian, British, and all other capitalists. We are against negotiating with the
capitalists, we are for negotiating and fraternising with the revolutionary workers and soldiers of all countries.
We are convinced that the reason why the Guchkov-Milyukov
government is trying to aggravate the situation is because it
knows that the workers’ revolution in Germany is beginning,
and that this revolution will be a blow to the capitalists of
all countries.

6. When the Provisional Government spreads rumours about utter
and unavoidable economic chaos, it is not only trying to
frighten the people into leaving the power in the hands of
this Provisional Government, but is also vaguely, fumblingly
expressing the profound and indubitable truth that all the nations of the world have been led into a
blind alley, that the war waged in the interests of the
capitalists has driven them to the brink of an abyss, and
that there is really no way out except through the transfer
of power to the revolutionary class, i.e., to the revolutionary proletariat, which is capable of adopting
revolutionary measures.

If there are any stocks of grain, etc., in the country, the new
government of the workers and soldiers will know how to dispose
of them too. But if the capitalist war has brought economic ruin
to a stage where there is no bread at all, the capitalist
government will only aggravate the condition of the people
instead of improving it.

7. We consider the policy of the present majority of leaders of
the Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies, of the
Narodnik and Menshevik parties, to be profoundly erroneous,
since confidence in the Provisional Government, attempts to
compromise with it, dickering over amendments, etc., would in
fact mean only so many more useless scraps of paper and
useless delays; and besides, this policy threatens to create
a divergence between the will of the Soviet on the one hand,
and that of the majority of revolutionary soldiers at the
front and in Petrograd and of the majority of workers, on the
other.

8. We call upon those workers and soldiers who believe that the
Soviet must change its policy and renounce the policy of
confidence in and compromise with the capitalist government,
to hold new elections of delegates to the Soviet of Workers’
and Soldiers’ Deputies and to send to that body only people
who would steadfastly hold to a quite definite opinion consonant with the actual will of the majority.