The development of exchange has forged such close ties among all the peoples of the civilized world that the great liberation movement of the proletariat could not fail to become—and has long since become—international.

Considering itself one of the detachments within the worldwide army of the proletariat, Russian social democracy pursues the same ultimate goal toward which social democrats in every other country strive. This ultimate goal is determined by the character of modern bourgeois society and the course of its development. The defining feature of such a society is commodity production based on capitalist relations of production, under which the most crucial and most significant portion of the means of production and the circulation of goods is owned by a small, numerically limited class of individuals—while the vast majority of the population consists of proletarians and semi‑proletarians who, by virtue of their economic position, are compelled either constantly or periodically to sell their labor power, i.e., to enter into wage labor relationships with capitalists, and to generate, through their labor, the income of the higher classes of society.

The sphere of dominance of capitalist relations of production expands ever more rapidly as the relentless advancement of technology, by increasing the economic significance of large-scale enterprises, drives smaller, independent producers out of business, transforming some into proletarians, narrowing the role of others in socio‑economic life, and in certain locales reducing them to more or less complete, more or less overt, more or less severe dependence upon capital.

Moreover, this same technological progress enables entrepreneurs to employ female and child labor on an ever‑increasing scale in the processes of production and circulation. And since, on the other hand, it leads to a relative decline in entrepreneurs’ need for living labor from workers, the demand for labor power inevitably lags behind its supply; as a result, the dependence of wage labor upon capital grows, and the level of its exploitation rises.

Such conditions within bourgeois countries—and the ever‑intensifying mutual competition among them on the global market—make it increasingly difficult to dispose of goods produced in ever‑growing quantities. Overproduction, manifesting itself in crises of varying degrees of severity, followed by periods of industrial stagnation of more or less prolonged duration, is an inevitable consequence of the development of productive forces within bourgeois society. Crises and periods of industrial stagnation, in turn, further impoverish small producers, deepen the dependence of wage labor upon capital, and accelerate—not only the relative but sometimes even the absolute deterioration of the working class’s condition.

Thus, while technological advancement, which signifies increased labor productivity and the growth of societal wealth, simultaneously engenders greater social inequality within bourgeois society, widens the gap between the haves and the have‑nots, and intensifies insecurity of livelihood, unemployment, and various forms of deprivation among ever‑broader strata of the working masses.

Yet as these contradictions inherent in bourgeois society grow and develop, so too does the discontent of the toiling and exploited masses with the existing order of things; the number and cohesion of proletarians increase, and their struggle against their exploiters becomes ever more acute. At the same time, technological progress—by concentrating the means of production and circulation and by socializing the labor process within capitalist enterprises—fosters, ever more rapidly, the material conditions necessary for the replacement of capitalist relations of production with socialist ones—that is, with the social revolution which constitutes the ultimate goal of all activity undertaken by international social democracy as the conscious representative of the class movement.

By replacing private ownership of the means of production and circulation with public ownership and by introducing planned organization of the socio‑productive process in order to ensure the well‑being and comprehensive development of all members of society, the social revolution of the proletariat will abolish the division of society into classes and thereby liberate all oppressed humanity, since it will put an end to all forms of exploitation whereby one part of society exploits another.

The indispensable precondition for this social revolution is the dictatorship of the proletariat—that is, the conquest by the proletariat of such political power as will enable it to suppress all resistance from the exploiters. With the aim of equipping the proletariat to fulfill its great historical mission, international social democracy organizes it into an independent political party, standing in opposition to all bourgeois parties, guiding all manifestations of its class struggle, exposing to it the irreconcilable antagonism between the interests of the exploiters and the interests of the exploited, and clarifying for it the historical significance and the necessary conditions of the coming social revolution. At the same time, it reveals to the entire remaining mass of toiling and exploited people the hopelessness of their situation within capitalist society and the necessity of a social revolution in the interest of their own liberation from the yoke of capital. The party of the working class, social democracy, calls into its ranks all strata of the toiling and exploited population—as they adopt the standpoint of the proletariat.

World capitalism has, since roughly the beginning of the 20th century, reached the stage of imperialism. Imperialism—or the era of finance capital—is a highly developed form of capitalist economy in which monopolistic associations of capitalists—syndicates, cartels, trusts—have acquired decisive importance; in which bank capital of immense concentration has merged with industrial capital; in which the export of capital to foreign lands has expanded to enormous proportions; in which the entire globe has already been territorially divided among the wealthiest nations, and in which the economic partition of the world among international trusts has begun.

Under such conditions, imperialist wars—wars waged for domination over the world, for markets for bank capital, for the subjugation of small and weak nationalities—are inevitable. And it is precisely this that characterized the First Great Imperialist War of 1914–1917.

The extraordinarily high level of development attained by world capitalism as a whole; the transition from free competition to monopoly capitalism; the preparation, by banks and by associations of capitalists alike, of an apparatus for the social regulation of the processes of production and distribution; the rise in prices and the intensification of syndicate oppression upon the working class—growing in direct proportion to the expansion of capitalist monopolies; the colossal difficulties confronting the working class in its economic and political struggles; the horrors, calamities, ruin, and barbarization wrought by imperialist war—all of this transforms the present stage of capitalist development into an epoch of proletarian, socialist revolution.

This epoch has begun.

Only a proletarian, socialist revolution can lead humanity out of the dead end created by imperialism and imperialist wars. No matter how great the difficulties of the revolution, or how many temporary setbacks it may suffer, or how many waves of counterrevolution it may encounter—the ultimate victory of the proletariat is inevitable.

In light of the objective conditions prevailing in the current epoch, the immediate, comprehensive preparation of the proletariat for the conquest of political power becomes paramount: only through this preparation can the proletariat carry out the economic and political measures that constitute the substance of the socialist revolution.

The fulfillment of this task—demanding complete trust, the closest fraternal solidarity, and the direct unity of revolutionary action among the working classes of all advanced countries—is impossible without an immediate and principled break with that bourgeois distortion of socialism which has triumphed at the highest levels of the vast majority of official Social-Democratic parties. On the one hand, this distortion takes the form of social-chauvinism: socialism in word, chauvinism in deed—shielding the predatory interests of “one’s own” national bourgeoisie under the banner of “defense of the fatherland.” On the other hand, there is an equally broad, internationally widespread tendency known as the “center,” which stands in solidarity with the social-chauvinists, seeking to preserve or reform the bankrupt Second International, wavering between social-chauvinism and the proletarian struggle for revolutionary internationalism—a struggle aimed at the realization of the socialist order.

On the road toward their common ultimate goal—namely, the dominance of the capitalist mode of production throughout the civilized world—social democrats in different countries are compelled to set themselves varying immediate tasks, both because this mode of production is not everywhere developed to the same degree, and because its development proceeds under differing socio‑political conditions in each country.

In Russia, where capitalism had already become the dominant mode of production, numerous remnants of our old pre‑capitalist order still persisted—orders founded on the enserfment of the laboring masses to landowners, to the state, or to the head of state.

These remnants, while severely impeding economic progress, prevent the full development of the class struggle of the proletariat; they help to preserve and even intensify the most barbaric forms of exploitation inflicted upon the multi‑million‑strong peasantry by the state and by the propertied classes, and they keep the entire people mired in darkness and deprived of rights.

Of all these vestiges, the most significant—and the most powerful bulwark of all this barbarism—is tsarist autocracy. By its very nature, it is hostile to every form of social movement and can only be the bitterest enemy of all the emancipatory aspirations of the proletariat.

Therefore, the Russian Social-Democratic Workers’ Party sets itself the immediate task of overthrowing tsarist autocracy and replacing it with a democratic republic whose constitution would guarantee:

At this moment in Russia’s history—when the Provisional Government, belonging to the capitalist class and enjoying the confidence—though necessarily fragile—of broad layers of the petty-bourgeois population—has pledged to convene a Constituent Assembly—the party of the proletariat faces the immediate task of struggling for a state structure that best ensures both the economic development and the general rights of the people, and, in particular, the most painless possible transition to socialism.

The party of the proletariat cannot content itself with a bourgeois‑parliamentary democratic republic—which, wherever it exists in the world, preserves and seeks to perpetuate the monarchical instruments of mass oppression: namely, the police, the standing army, and the privileged bureaucracy.

The Party strives for a more democratic proletarian–peasant republic, one in which the police and the standing army are entirely abolished and replaced by universal arming of the people, by a nationwide militia; all officials are not only elected but also removable at any time at the will of the majority of their electors; the remuneration of all officials, without exception, is set at a rate no higher than the average wage earned by a skilled worker; parliamentary–representative institutions are gradually replaced by Soviets of People’s Deputies—representatives drawn from the various classes and professions, or from different localities—whose role is both to legislate and to implement their own laws.

The constitution of a democratic Russian republic must ensure:

1. The sovereignty of the people; all supreme state power must reside in representatives of the people, elected by the people and removable at any time by the people themselves, forming a single people’s assembly, a single chamber.

1. The sovereignty of the people—that is, the concentration of all supreme state authority in the hands of a legislative assembly composed of representatives of the people and constituting a single chamber.

2. Universal, equal, and direct suffrage in elections to both the legislative assembly and all local self‑governing bodies for all citizens—men and women alike—who have reached the age of twenty; secret ballots in elections; the right of every voter to be elected to all representative bodies; biennial parliaments; salaries for people’s representatives; proportional representation in all elections; and the removability of all delegates and elected officials, without exception, at any time by decision of the majority of their electors.

3. Broad-based local self‑government; regional self‑government for those areas distinguished by unique living conditions and demographic composition; the abolition of all locally and regionally appointed authorities under state supervision.

4. The inviolability of person and domicile.

5. Unrestricted freedom of conscience, speech, the press, assembly, strikes, and association.

6. Freedom of movement and of trade.

7. The abolition of estates and the attainment of complete equality among all citizens, regardless of gender, religion, race, or nationality.

8. The right of the population to receive education in their native language, ensured through the establishment, at the expense of the state and local self‑governing bodies, of the schools necessary for this purpose; the right of every citizen to express themselves in their native language at public meetings; the introduction of the native language on an equal footing with the state language in all local public and state institutions; the abolition of compulsory state languages.

9. The right to self‑determination for all nations comprising the state.

9. The right of all nations within the state to freely secede and to establish their own independent states. The Republic of the Russian People must attract other peoples and nationalities not through force, but solely through voluntary agreement to form a common state. The unity and fraternal alliance of workers across all countries are incompatible with either direct or indirect violence against other nationalities.

10. The right of every individual to bring charges against any official before the courts, following the ordinary procedure before a jury.

11. The election of judges by the people.

11. The election of judges and officials—in both civil service and the people’s army—by the people themselves; the removability of all such officials at any time by decision of the majority of their electors.

12. The replacement of the standing army with universal arming of the people.

12. The replacement of the police and the standing army with universal arming of the people; workers and employees must receive regular wages from capitalists for the time they devote to public service in the nationwide militia.

13. The separation of church from state and of school from church; the full secularization of the school system.

14. Free, compulsory, general, and vocational education for all children of both sexes up to the age of sixteen; provision of food, clothing, and educational materials for poor children at the expense of the state.

14. Free, compulsory, general, and polytechnical education—for all children of both sexes up to the age of sixteen—grounded in close connection between learning and socially productive labor undertaken by children; education that introduces students to the theory and practice of all major branches of production.

15. Provision of food, clothing, and educational materials for all students at the expense of the state.

16. The transfer of responsibility for public education into the hands of democratic local self‑governing bodies; the removal of central authority from any interference in the formulation of school curricula and in the selection of teaching staff; the election of teachers directly by the local population itself, along with the right of the population to recall teachers deemed undesirable.

As a fundamental condition for the democratization of our national economy, the Russian Social-Democratic Workers’ Party demands: the abolition of all indirect taxes and the introduction of a progressive tax on income and inheritance.

The high level of capitalist development already attained in banking and in trust‑controlled industries, on the one hand, and, on the other, the devastation wrought by imperialist war—and the widespread demand for state and public oversight over the production and distribution of vital goods—prompt the Party to call for the nationalization of banks, syndicates (trusts), and the like.

In order to protect the working class from physical and moral degeneration, and also to foster its capacity for liberatory struggle, the Party demands:

1. The limitation of the working day to eight hours per day for all wage‑earning workers.

1. The working day for all wage laborers shall be limited to eight hours, including a break of at least one hour for meals, provided that work is carried on continuously. In hazardous industries and in occupations detrimental to health, the working day must be reduced to four to six hours per day.

2. The establishment by law of a weekly rest period lasting not less than 42 consecutive hours for wage laborers of both sexes across all branches of the national economy.

3. The complete prohibition of overtime work.

4. The prohibition of night work (from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m.) in all branches of the national economy, except in those cases where it is absolutely necessary for technical reasons, as approved by workers’ organizations.

4. The prohibition of night work (from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m.) in all branches of the national economy, except in those cases where it is absolutely necessary for technical reasons, as approved by workers’ organizations—provided, however, that nighttime labor does not exceed four hours.

5. The prohibition of employers’ use of child labor in school age (under 16 years), and the limitation of working hours for adolescents (16–18 years) to six hours.

5. The prohibition of employers’ use of child labor in school age (up to 16 years), the limitation of working hours for young people (16–20 years) to four hours, and the prohibition of night work in industries and mines that are harmful to health.

6. The prohibition of women’s labor in those sectors where it is detrimental to the female organism; the exemption of women from work for four weeks before and six weeks after childbirth, with full wages retained throughout this entire period.

6. The prohibition of women’s labor in those sectors where it is detrimental to the female organism; the prohibition of women’s night work; the exemption of women from work for eight weeks before and eight weeks after childbirth, with full wages preserved during this time, accompanied by free medical and pharmaceutical care.

7. The provision, at all factories, mills, and other enterprises employing women, of nurseries for infants and young children; the exemption of breastfeeding women from work at intervals of no less than three hours, for periods of at least half an hour each.

7. The provision, at all factories, mills, and other enterprises employing women, of nurseries for infants and young children, as well as lactation rooms; the exemption of breastfeeding women from work at intervals of no less than three hours, for periods of at least half an hour each; the issuance of allowances to nursing mothers and the reduction of their working day to six hours.

8. State-sponsored social insurance for workers in the event of old age or total or partial loss of earning capacity, funded by a special levy imposed on capitalists.

8. Comprehensive social insurance for workers:

a) covering all forms of wage labor;

b) encompassing all types of loss of working capacity—namely, illness, injury, disability, old age, occupational diseases, maternity, widowhood and orphanhood, as well as unemployment and other such contingencies;

c) granting insured workers full self‑management within all insurance institutions;

d) requiring capitalists to bear the costs of insurance;

e) providing free medical and pharmaceutical care, with medical affairs entrusted to self‑governing hospital funds elected by the workers themselves.

9. The prohibition of paying wages in kind; the establishment of a weekly deadline for cash payments under all employment contracts without exception, with wages to be paid to workers during working hours.

10. The prohibition of employers making any monetary deductions from wages, regardless of the reason or purpose for which such deductions are made (fines, rejections, and the like).

11. The appointment of a sufficient number of factory inspectors across all branches of the national economy, extending factory inspection oversight to all enterprises employing wage labor—including state-owned enterprises (domestic service also falls within the scope of this oversight); the appointment of female inspectors in those sectors where women’s labor is employed; the participation of worker-elected representatives—paid by the state—in overseeing the enforcement of factory laws, as well as in the formulation of wage scales, the acceptance and rejection of materials, and the evaluation of work results.

9. The establishment of a labor inspection body elected by workers’ organizations, extending its jurisdiction to all types of enterprises employing wage labor—including domestic service—and the introduction of the office of female inspectors in those sectors where women’s labor is utilized.

12. Oversight by local self‑governing bodies, with the participation of worker-elected representatives, over the sanitary conditions of residential premises allocated to workers by employers, as well as over the internal regulations governing these premises and the terms under which they are rented out—aimed at shielding wage laborers from employer interference in their private lives and civic activities as individuals and citizens.

13. The establishment of properly organized sanitary oversight in all enterprises employing wage labor, with the entire medical and sanitary apparatus maintaining complete independence from employers; providing free medical care to workers at the expense of employers, while preserving wages during illness.

14. The imposition of criminal liability on employers for violations of labor protection laws.

10. The enactment of sanitary legislation aimed at improving hygienic working conditions and safeguarding the lives and health of workers in all enterprises employing wage labor, entrusting sanitary affairs to the hands of a sanitary inspection body elected by workers’ organizations.

11. Publications on housing legislation and the establishment of housing inspection bodies—elected by workers’ organizations—to oversee the sanitary conditions of residential premises—such bodies are essential. However, only the abolition of private ownership of land and the provision of affordable, hygienic housing can truly resolve the housing crisis.

12. Institutions for industrial courts in all branches of the national economy.

15. Institutions for industrial courts in all branches of the national economy, composed equally of representatives from workers’ organizations and from entrepreneurial associations.

16. The local self‑governing bodies shall be charged with establishing intermediary agencies for the recruitment of both local and migrant workers (labor exchanges) across all sectors of production, with representation from both workers and employers participating in their administration.

13. To ensure that the search for employment is conducted properly for the unemployed, labor exchanges shall be established. Labor exchanges must be class-based proletarian organizations—not paritarian bodies at all—and they must maintain close ties with trade unions and other workers’ organizations, drawing their funding from local public self‑governance bodies[10].

In order to eliminate the remnants of serfdom, which weigh heavily upon the peasantry, and in the interest of the free development of class struggle in the countryside, the Russian Social Democratic Workers’ Party demands:

1. The abolition of all feudal restrictions on the personal freedom and property rights of peasants.

2. The abolition of all dues and obligations tied to the feudal fragmentation of the peasantry, as well as the annulment of debt obligations that have taken on exploitative, usurious forms.

3. The confiscation of church lands, monastic estates, appanage lands, and cabinet lands, and their transfer—along with state-owned lands—to large local self‑governing bodies that unite urban and rural districts; meanwhile, lands required for resettlement programs, as well as forests and waters of national significance, shall be placed under the control of a democratic state.

4. The confiscation of privately owned lands, with the exception of smallholdings, and their transfer to the administration of large local self‑governing bodies elected on a democratic basis, with the minimum size of land parcels subject to confiscation to be determined by these large local self‑governing bodies.

While supporting the revolutionary uprisings of the peasantry—even to the point of confiscating landed estates—the Russian Social Democratic Workers’ Party will always and consistently oppose any attempt to impede the course of economic development. In striving, as the revolution advances victoriously, to place confiscated lands under the control of democratic local self‑governing institutions, the Russian Social Democratic Workers’ Party, should conditions prove unfavorable for this goal, will advocate for the division of those landed estates among the peasants themselves—specifically, those estates on which small-scale farming is actually practiced, or which constitute the necessary lands for consolidating and expanding such farms.

1. The Party fights with all its might for the immediate and complete confiscation of all landed estates in Russia (as well as appanage lands, church lands, and the like).

2. The Party advocates for the immediate transfer of all lands into the hands of the peasantry, organized either into Soviets of Peasant Deputies or into other local self‑governing bodies that are genuinely and fully democratically elected, completely independent of landlords and officials.

3. The Party calls for the nationalization of all lands within the state; by transferring ownership of all lands to the state, nationalization also places the power to manage land in the hands of local democratic institutions.

4. The Party supports the initiative of those peasant committees that, in various regions of Russia, are transferring both the living and dead assets of landed estates into the hands of the peasantry organized within these committees—for socially regulated use in the cultivation of all lands.

5. The Party advises the proletariat and semi‑proletariat of the countryside to strive for the establishment, from each landed estate, of sufficiently large model farms—farms that would be operated on a collective basis by Soviets of Agricultural Workers, under the guidance of agronomists and employing the finest available technical means.

In all cases and under every circumstance of democratic agrarian reform, the Party’s fundamental task remains the unwavering pursuit of an independent, class-based organization of the rural proletariat, clearly explaining to it the irreconcilable antagonism between its own interests and those of the peasant bourgeoisie, warning it against being seduced by the system of small-scale farming—which, as long as commodity production persists, can never eradicate the poverty of the masses—and, finally, pointing to the necessity of a complete socialist revolution as the sole means of abolishing all poverty and all exploitation.

In striving to achieve its immediate goals, the Russian Social Democratic Workers’ Party supports every oppositional and revolutionary movement directed against the existing social and political order in Russia, while resolutely rejecting, at the same time, all reformist projects that seek to expand or entrench the police‑bureaucratic oversight over the working classes.

For its part, the Russian Social Democratic Workers’ Party is firmly convinced that the full, consistent, and enduring implementation of these political and social transformations can be achieved only through the overthrow of autocracy and the convocation of a Constituent Assembly freely elected by the entire people.