V. I.

Lenin

Draft Resolution on the Present Political Situation [1]

The Central Committee of the R.S.D.L.P., on the basis of the
resolution on the political situation adopted by the Sixth
Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. (Bolsheviks), and applying that
resolution to the present situation, at its plenary meeting
states:

1. In the two months from July 3 to September 3, due to
the unparalleled speed of the revolution, the course of the class
struggle and the development of political events have carried the
whole country as far forward as it would have been impossible for
the country to advance over many years in peace-time, without
revolution and war.

2. It becomes more and more apparent that the events of
July 3-5 were the turning-point of the whole revolution. Without a
correct estimate of these events, it is impossible to correctly
estimate either the proletariat’s tasks, or the speed of
development of revolutionary events, which is beyond our
control.

3. The slander against the Bolsheviks, which the
bourgeoisie spread with tremendous zeal and which they put about
very widely among the people with the aid of the millions invested
in capitalist papers and publishing houses, is being exposed more
and more rapidly and widely. First it was the workers in the
capital and in the large cities, and then the peasants, who
realised more and more that the slander against the Bolsheviks is
one of the main weapons used by the landowners and capitalists in
the struggle against the defenders of the interests of the workers
and poor peasants, i.e., against the Bolsheviks.

4. An outright attempt was made to camouflage the Kornilov
revolt, i.e., a revolt of generals and officers behind whom stand
the landowners and the capitalists headed by the Cadet Party (the
“people’s freedom” party), by bringing up again the old
slander against the Bolsheviks. It was this that helped finally to
open the eyes of the broadest sections of the people to the true
meaning of the bourgeois slander against the Bolshevik workers’
party, the party of the true defenders of the poor.

5. Had our Party refused to support the July 3–4 mass movement,
which burst out spontaneously despite our attempts to prevent it,
we should have actually and completely betrayed the proletariat,
since the people were moved to action by their well-founded and
just anger at the protraction of the imperialist war, which is a
predatory war conducted in the interests of the capitalists, and
at the inaction of the government and the Soviets in regard to the
bourgeoisie, who are intensifying and aggravating economic
disruption and famine.

6. In spite of all the efforts of the bourgeoisie and the
government, in spite of the arrest of hundreds of Bolsheviks, the
seizure of their papers and documents, the search of their
editorial offices, etc.—in spite of all this nobody has
succeeded, and nobody will ever succeed, in proving the slander
that our Party’s aim in the July 3-4 movement was anything other
than a “peaceful and organised” demonstration with the slogan of transfer of all state power to the Soviets of Workers’,
Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies.

7. It would have been wrong if the Bolsheviks had aimed to seize
power on July 3-4, since neither the majority of the people nor
even the majority of the workers at that time had yet actually
experienced the counter-revolutionary policies of generals in the
army, of the landowners in the countryside, and of the capitalists
in the town. These policies were only revealed to the masses after
July 5, and stemmed from a compromise between the
Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, on the one hand, and the
bourgeoisie, on the other. None of our Party organisations, either
central or local, advocated, either in writing or by word of
mouth, the slogan of seizing power on July 3-4; none of them even
discussed this question.

8. The real mistake of our Party on July 3-4, as events now
reveal, was merely that the Party considered the general situation
in the country less revolutionary than it proved to be, that the
Party still considered a peaceful development of political changes
possible through an alteration in the Soviets’ policies, whereas
in reality the Mensheviks and S.R.s had become so much entangled
and bound by compromising with the bourgeoisie, and the
bourgeoisie had become so counter-revolutionary, that peaceful
development was no longer possible. This erroneous view, however,
which was sustained only by the hope that events would not develop
too fast, our Party could not have got over other than by
participating in the popular movement of July 3-4 with the slogan
“All power to the Soviets” and with the aim of making the
movement peaceful and organised.

9. The historic significance of the Kornilov revolt is that
with extraordinary force, it opened the people’s eyes to a fact
which the S.R.s and Mensheviks had concealed and still are
concealing under conciliatory phrases. The fact is that the
landowners and the bourgeoisie, headed by the Cadet Party, and the
generals and officers who are on their side, have organised
themselves; they are ready to commit, or are committing, the most
outrageous crimes, such as surrendering Riga (followed by
Petrograd) to the Germans, laying the war front open, putting the
Bolshevik regiments under fire, starting a mutiny, leading troops
against the capital with the “Savage
Division” [2] at their head, etc. The purpose of all this is to seize power
completely and put it in the hands of the bourgeoisie, to
consolidate the power of the landowners in the countryside, and to
drench the country in the blood of workers and peasants.

The Kornilov revolt has proved for Russia what has been proved
throughout history for all countries, namely, that the bourgeoisie
will betray their country and commit any crime to retain both
their power over the people and their profits.

10. The workers and peasants of Russia have no other
alternative than the most determined struggle against, and victory
over, the landowners and the bourgeoisie, over the Cadet Party and
the generals and officers sympathising with it. Only the urban
working class can lead the people, i.e., all working people, into
such a struggle and to such a victory, provided all state power
passes into its hands and provided it is supported by the peasant
poor.

11. Events in the Russian revolution, particularly since
May 6, and even more so since July 3, have been developing with
such incredible, storm- or hurricane-like velocity, that it can by
no means be the task of the Party to speed them up. All efforts,
in fact, must be directed towards keeping up with events and doing
on time our work of explaining to the workers, and to the working
people in general, as much as we can, the changes in the situation
and in the course of the class struggle. This is still the main
task of our Party; we must explain to the people that the
situation is extremely critical, that every action may end in an
explosion, and that therefore a premature uprising may cause the
greatest harm. At the same time, the critical situation is
inevitably leading the working class—perhaps with catastrophic
speed—to a situation in which, due to a change in events beyond
its control, it will find itself compelled to wage a determined
battle with the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie and to gain
power.

12. The Kornilov revolt fully revealed that the entire
army hates the General Staff .
This had to be admitted even by those Mensheviks and S.R.s who through months of effort had proved
their hatred for the Bolsheviks and their defence of the policy of
agreement between the workers and peasants, on the one hand, and
the landowners and the bourgeoisie, on the other. The hatred of
the army for the General Staff will not die down but will become
stronger now that Kerensky’s government has confined itself to
substituting Alexeyev for Kornilov, leaving Klembovsky and other
Kornilov generals, and has done absolutely nothing substantial to
democratise the armed forces and remove the counter-revolutionary
commanders. Soviets, which tolerate and support this weak,
wavering, unprincipled policy of Kerensky and missed another
opportunity to take all power peacefully when the Kornilov revolt
was being liquidated, become guilty not only of conciliation but
even of criminal conciliation.

The army, which hates the General Staff and does not want to
fight a war it now knows to be a war of conquest, is inevitably
doomed to new catastrophes.

13. Only the working class, when it has gained power, will
be able to pursue a peace policy, not merely in words, like the
Mensheviks and S.R.s, who in practice support the bourgeoisie and
their secret treaties, but in deeds. Specifically, the working
class will immediately offer all peoples open, precise, clear and
just peace terms. This will be done irrespective of the military
situation, even if Kornilov’s generals follow up the surrender of
Riga by that of Petrograd. The working class can do this in the
name of the entire people, since the overwhelming majority of
Russia’s workers and peasants oppose the present war of annexation
and support a peace on just terms, without annexations and
indemnities.

The S.R.s and Mensheviks are deceiving themselves and the
people when they spend months talking about this peace. The
working class, on gaining power, will offer this peace to all
without losing a single day.

The capitalists of all countries have so much difficulty in
stemming the workers’ revolution against war—a revolution which
is growing everywhere—that if the Russian revolution were to
pass from impotent and pitiful yearning for peace to a forthright
peace offer coupled with the publication and annulment of secret
treaties, etc., there are ninety-nine chances in a hundred that
peace would quickly follow, that the capitalists would be unable
to stand in the way of peace.

If, however, the highly improbable were to happen and the
capitalists were to reject the peace terms of the Russian workers’
government, against the will of their peoples, a revolution in
Europe would come a hundred times nearer, and our workers’ and
peasants’ army would elect for itself not hated but respected
commanders and military leaders. The army would see the justice of
the war once peace had been offered, the secret treaties torn up,
the alliance with the landowners and the bourgeoisie severed, and
all land given to the peasants. Only then would the war become a
just war for Russia, only this war would the workers and peasants
fight of their own free will, without being bludgeoned into
fighting; and this war would bring even nearer the inevitable
workers’ revolution in the advanced countries.

14. Only the working class, when it has gained power, will be
able to guarantee the immediate transfer of all landed estates to
the peasants without compensation. This must not be put off. The
Constituent Assembly will legalise the transfer, but it is not the
peasants’ fault that the Constituent Assembly is being delayed. The peasants daily become more convinced that it is
impossible to get the land by agreement with the landowners and
the capitalists. The land can only be obtained through a very
close, brotherly alliance of the poor peasants and the workers.

Chernov’s resignation from the government after he had for
months tried to uphold the interests of the peasants through
concessions, big and small, to the Cadet landowners, and after all
these attempts had failed, revealed with particular clarity the
hopelessness of the policy of conciliation. The peasants see, know
and feel that since July 5 the landowners have become arrogant in
the villages and that it is necessary to curb them and render them
harmless..

15. Only the working class, when it has gained power, will be
able to put an end to economic disruption and the impending
famine. Since May 6 the government has kept on promising control,
but it has done and could do nothing because the capitalists and
landowners obstructed all work. Unemployment is growing, famine is
approaching, currency is losing value. Peshekhonov’s resignation
after the fixed prices have doubled will aggravate the crisis, and
it again shows the utter feebleness and impotence of the
government. Only workers’ control over production and distribution
can save the situation. Only a workers’ government will curb the
capitalists, will bring heroic support from all working people for
the efforts of state power , and will establish order and a fair
exchange of grain for manufactured goods.

16. The confidence of the peasant poor in the urban working
class, temporarily undermined by the slander of the bourgeoisie
and by hopes put in the policy of conciliation, has been
returning, particularly after the arrests in the countryside and
the various kinds of persecution of working people after July 5
and then the Kornilov revolt opened the people’s eyes. One of the
signs that the people are losing faith in conciliation with the
capitalists is that among the S.R.s and Mensheviks, the two main
parties responsible for introducing this policy of conciliation
and bringing it to a culmination, there have been growing,
especially since July 5, a discontent within these parties and a
struggle against conciliation. This opposition at the last
Socialist-Revolutionary “Council” and at the Menshevik congress involved about two-fifths (40 per cent) of the
members.

17. The whole course of events, all economic and political
conditions, everything that is happening in the armed forces, are
increasingly paving the way for the successful winning of power by
the working class, which will bring peace, bread and freedom and
will hasten the victory of the proletarian revolution in other
countries.

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Notes:
[1]
The “ Draft Resolution on the Present Political Situation ” was
written by Lenin for the plenary meeting of the Party’s Central
Committee set for September 3 (16). What took place on that date was
not a plenum but a regular meeting of the C.C., which did not
discuss the political situation. In the available records of the C.C.
R.S.D.L.P.(B.) for 1917 there is no indication of the draft having
been discussed by the Central Committee.

[2]
Savage Division —nickname of a division recruited during the
First World War from volunteers among the mountain tribes of
the North Caucasus. General Kornilov used it as a striking force
of the troops he led against revolutionary Petrograd.