Take as a basis my draft[11] (pamphlet, p. 19 ff.[12]).

Retain the theoretical part, deleting the last paragraph of the first part (p. 22 of the pamphlet, from the words: “On the order of the day” to the words: “content of the socialist revolution”[13], i.e. 5 lines out).

In the following paragraph (p. 22), beginning with the words: “The fulfilment of this task,” introduce the amendment indicated in the article “On the Revision of the Party Programme,” *Prosveshcheniye* (Nos. 1–2, September–October 1917), p. 93[14].

In this same paragraph, twice insert instead of “social-chauvinism”:

(1) “opportunism and social-chauvinism”;

(2) “between opportunism and social-chauvinism, on the one hand, and the revolutionary-internationalist struggle of the proletariat for the realisation of the socialist system, on the other.”

Further on, the entire text will have to be revised, approximately, as follows:

The revolution of 25 October (7 November) 1917 realised in Russia the dictatorship of the proletariat, supported by the poorest peasantry or semi-proletarians.

This dictatorship sets before the communist party in Russia the task of carrying through to the end, of completing the already begun expropriation of the landowners and the bourgeoisie, the transfer of all factories, works, railways, banks, the fleet and other means of production and exchange into the ownership of the Soviet republic;

of utilising the alliance of the urban workers and the poorest peasantry, which has already brought about the abolition of private property in land and the law on that transitional form from small peasant farming to socialism which the contemporary ideologists of the peasantry that has taken the side of the proletarians have called the socialisation of the land, for the gradual but unswerving transition to the collective cultivation of the land and to large-scale socialist agriculture;

of consolidating and further developing the federative republic of Soviets, as an immeasurably higher and more progressive form of democracy than bourgeois parliamentarism, and as the only type of state corresponding, on the basis of the experience of the Paris Commune of 1871 and likewise the experience of the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917–1918, to the transition period from capitalism to socialism, i.e. to the period of the dictatorship of the proletariat;

of comprehensively and in every way utilising the torch of world socialist revolution, kindled in Russia, in order, while paralysing the attempts of the imperialist bourgeois states to intervene in the internal affairs of Russia or to unite for a direct struggle and war against the socialist Soviet republic, to carry the revolution into the more advanced and, generally, into all countries.

TEN THESES ON SOVIET POWER

Strengthening and Development of Soviet Power

Strengthening and development of Soviet power, as a form — already tested by experience, a form advanced by the mass movement and revolutionary struggle — of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the poorest peasantry (semi-proletarians).

Strengthening and development must consist in the implementation (broader, universal and systematic implementation) of the tasks that historically fall upon this form of state power, upon this new type of state, namely:

(1) the unification and organization of the working and exploited masses oppressed by capitalism and only them, i.e., only the workers and the poorest peasants, semi-proletarians, with the automatic exclusion of the exploiting classes and rich representatives of the petty bourgeoisie;

(2) the unification of the most energetic, active, conscious part of the oppressed classes, their vanguard, which must educate the entire working population to independent participation in the administration of the state, not theoretically, but practically.

(4) (3) Abolition of parliamentarism (as the separation of legislative work from executive); combination of legislative and executive state work. Fusion of administration with legislation.

(3) (4) A closer connection with the masses of the entire apparatus of state power and state administration than previous forms of democracy.

(5) Creation of an armed force of workers and peasants, least detached from the people (Soviets = armed workers and peasants). Organization of nationwide armament as one of the first steps toward the full arming of the entire people.

(6) More complete democracy, due to less formality, greater ease of election and recall.

(7) Close connection (and direct) with professions and with productive-economic units (elections by factories, by local peasant and artisan districts). This close connection makes it possible to carry out profound socialist transformations.

(8) (Partly, if not wholly, included in the previous) — the possibility of eliminating bureaucracy, doing without it, the beginning of the realization of this possibility.

(9) Shifting of the center of gravity in questions of democracy from the formal recognition of the formal equality of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, the poor and the rich, to the practical feasibility of the enjoyment of freedom (democracy) by the working and exploited mass of the population.

(10) The further development of the Soviet organization of the state must consist in every member of the Soviet necessarily performing permanent work in state administration, in addition to participating in meetings of the Soviet; – and then in gradually drawing the entire population as a whole into both participation in the Soviet organization (subject to subordination to the organizations of the working people) and into the service of state administration.

The fulfilment of these tasks requires

a) In the political sphere:

develop the Soviet Republic.

Advantages of the Soviets ;*

* See Works, 5th ed., Vol. 34, pp. 304–305.—Ed.

spread of the Soviet constitution to the whole population as the resistance of the exploiters ceases;

federation of nations as a transition to the conscious and closer unity of the working people, who have learned voluntarily to rise above national discord;

the relentless suppression of the exploiters' resistance is obligatory; the norms of ‘general’ (i.e., bourgeois) democracy are subordinated to this aim, yielded to it:

‘Freedom’ and democracy are not for all, but for the working and exploited masses in the interests of their emancipation from exploitation; ruthless suppression of the exploiters;

NB: the centre of gravity is shifted from the formal recognition of freedoms (as was the case under bourgeois parliamentarism) to the actual provision for the enjoyment of freedoms by the working people who are overthrowing the exploiters.

For example, from the recognition of freedom of assembly to the transfer of all the best halls and premises to the workers, from the recognition of freedom of speech to the transfer of all the best printing presses into the hands of the workers, etc.

Transition through the Soviet state to the gradual abolition of the state by systematically drawing an increasing number of citizens, and subsequently all citizens, into the direct and daily bearing of their share of the burdens of state administration.

b) In the economic sphere:

socialist organization of production on a country-wide scale: the workers' organizations (trade unions, factory committees, etc.) administer, under the general guidance of the Soviet power, which alone is sovereign.

The same applies to transport and distribution (first the state monopoly of ‘trade’, then the replacement, complete and final, of ‘trade’ by systematically organised distribution through the unions of commercial and industrial employees, under the guidance of the Soviet power).

– Compulsory association of the entire population into consumer-producer communes.

Without abolishing (temporarily) money and without prohibiting individual purchase-and-sale transactions by individual families, we must first of all make mandatory, by law, that all such transactions are conducted through consumer-producer communes.

– Immediate commencement of the full implementation of universal labor conscription, with the most cautious and gradual extension of it to the petty peasantry living by their own farming without hired labor; the first measure, the first step towards universal labor conscription must be the introduction of consumer-worker (budget) books (compulsory introduction), for all the rich (= persons with an income of over 500 rubles a month, then for owners of enterprises with hired workers, for families with servants, etc.); purchase and sale are permissible even not through one’s own commune (when traveling, at markets, etc.), but with mandatory recording of the transaction (if it exceeds a certain amount) in the consumer-worker books.

– Full concentration of banking in the hands of the state and of the entire money-and-trade turnover in the banks. Universalization of bank current accounts: a gradual transition to the compulsory keeping of current accounts in the bank, first by the largest, and then by all economic units in the country. Compulsory keeping of money in banks and transfers of money only through banks.

– Universalization of accounting and control over the entire production and distribution of products, this accounting and control to be exercised first by workers’ organizations, then by the entire population without exception.

– Organization of competition between the various (all) consumer-producer communes of the country for the steady enhancement of organization, discipline, labor productivity, for the transition to a higher technique, for the saving of labor and products, for the gradual reduction of the working day to 6 hours a day, for the gradual equalization of all wages and salaries in all professions and categories.

– Steady, systematic measures toward (transition to Massenspeisung[15]) replacing the individual household management of separate families with the common feeding of large groups of families.

In the area of pedagogy:

?

old points plus

In the area of finance:

replacement of indirect taxes with a progressive income and property tax, as well as by deduction of (a certain) income from state monopolies. In connection with this, the payment in kind of bread and other products to workers employed at state expense on certain types of socially necessary work.

International politics

Support for the revolutionary movement of the socialist proletariat in the advanced countries, first and foremost.

Propaganda. Agitation. Fraternisation.

Ruthless struggle against opportunism and social-chauvinism.

Support for the democratic and revolutionary movement in all countries in general, especially in the colonies and dependent countries.

Liberation of the colonies. Federation as a transition to voluntary amalgamation.

Written in March, not later than the 8th, 1918.

Published on March 9, 1918 in the newspaper Kommunist No. 5

Printed from the manuscript.