V. I.

Lenin

Materials Relating to the Revision of the Party Programme

2

Proposed Amendments to the Doctrinal, Political and Other Sections of the Programme

At the end of the preamble (after the words “the standpoint of
the proletariat”) insert:

World capitalism has at the present time, i.e., about the
beginning of the twentieth century, reached the stage of
imperialism. Imperialism, or the epoch of finance capital, is a
high stage of development of the capitalist economic system, one
in which monopolist associations of capitalists—syndicates,
cartels, and trusts—have assumed decisive importance; in
which enormously concentrated banking capital has fused with
industrial capital; in which the export of capital to foreign
countries has assumed vast dimensions; in which the whole world
has been divided up territorially among the richer countries,
and the economic carve-up of the world among international
trusts has begun.

Imperialist wars, i.e., wars for world domination, for markets
for banking capital and for the subjugation of small and weaker
nations, are inevitable under such a state of affairs. The first
great imperialist war, the war of 1914–17, is precisely such a
war.

The extremely high level of development which world capitalism
in general has attained, the replacement of free competition by
monopoly capitalism, the fact that the banks and the capitalist
associations have prepared the machinery for the social
regulation of the process of production and distribution of
products, the rise in the cost of living and increased oppression of the working class by the syndicates due to the
growth of capitalist monopolies, the tremendous obstacles
standing in the way of the proletariat’s economic and political
struggle, the horrors, misery, ruin, and brutalisation caused by
the imperialist war—all these factors transform the present
stage of capitalist development into an era of proletarian
socialist revolution.

That era has dawned.

Only a proletarian socialist revolution can lead humanity out of
the impasse which imperialism and imperialist wars have
created. Whatever difficulties the revolution may have to
encounter, whatever possible temporary setbacks or waves of
counter-revolution it may have to contend with, the final
victory of the proletariat is inevitable.

Objective conditions make it the urgent task of the day to
prepare the proletariat in every way for the conquest of
political power in order to carry out the economic and political
measures which are the sum and substance of the socialist
revolution.

The fulfilment of this task, which calls for the fullest trust,
the closest fraternal ties, and direct unity of revolutionary
action on the part of the working class in all the advanced
countries, is impossible without an immediate break in principle
with the bourgeois perversion of socialism, which has gained the
upper hand among the leadership of the great majority of the
official Social-Democratic parties. Such a perversion is, on the
one hand, the social-chauvinist trend, socialism in word and
chauvinism in deed, the defence of the predatory interests of
“one’s own” national bourgeoisie under the guise of “defence of
the fatherland”; and, on the other hand, the equally wide
international trend of the so-called “Centre”, which stands for
unity with the social—chauvinists and for the preservation
or correction of the bankrupt Second International, and which
vacillates between social-chauvinism and the internationalist
revolutionary struggle of the proletariat for the achievement of
a socialist system.

In the minimum programme, the whole beginning (from the words
“On the path” down to § 1) should be crossed out, and replaced by the following:

In Russia at the present moment, when the Provisional
Government, which is part and parcel of the capitalist class and
enjoys the confidence—necessarily unstable—of the broad mass of the petty-bourgeois population, has undertaken to
convene a Constituent Assembly, the immediate duty of the party
of the proletariat is to fight for a political system which will
best guarantee economic progress and the rights of the people in
general, and make possible the least painful transition to
socialism in particular.

The party of the proletariat cannot rest content with a
bourgeois parliamentary democratic republic, which throughout
the world preserves and strives to perpetuate the monarchist
instruments for the oppression of the masses, namely, the
police, the standing army, and the privileged bureaucracy.

The party fights for a more democratic workers’ and peasants’
republic, in which the police and the standing army will be
abolished and replaced by the universally armed people, by a
people’s militia; all officials will be not only elective, but
also subject to recall at any time upon the demand of a majority
of the electors; all officials, without exception, will be paid
at a rate not exceeding the average wage of a competent worker;
parliamentary representative institutions will be gradually
replaced by Soviets of people’s representatives (from various
classes and professions, or from various localities), functioning as both legislative and executive bodies.

The constitution of the Russian democratic republic must ensure:

§ 1. The sovereignty of the people; supreme power in the
state must be vested entirely in the people’s representatives,
who shall be elected by the people and be subject to recall at
any time, and who shall constitute a single popular assembly, a
single chamber.

§ 2. Add:

Proportional representation at all elections; all delegates and
elected officials, without exception, to be subject to recall at
any time upon the decision of a majority of their electors.

§ 3. Add

The abolition of all State-appointed local and regional
authorities. [1]

The last sentence in § 8 to be worded as follows:

The native language to be used in all local public and state
institutions; the obligatory official language to be abolished.

§ 9 to read:

The right of all member nations of the state to freely secede
and form independent states. The republic of the Russian nation
must attract other nations or nationalities not by force, but
exclusively by voluntary agreement on the question of forming a
common state. The unity and fraternal alliance of the workers of
all countries are incompatible with the use of force, direct or
indirect, against other nationalities.

§ 11 to read:

Judges and other officials, both civil and military, to be
elected by the people with the right to recall any of them at
any time by decision of a majority of their electors.

§ 12 to read:

The police and standing army to be replaced by the universally
armed people; workers and other employees to receive regular
wages from the capitalists for the time devoted to public
service in the people’s militia.

After the fiscal clause of the programme (following the words
“on incomes and inheritances”) insert:

The high level of development of capitalism already achieved in
banking and in the trustified branches of industry, on the one
hand, and the economic disruption caused by the imperialist war,
everywhere evoking a demand for state and public control of the
production and distribution of all staple products, on the
other, induce the Party to demand the nationalisation of the
banks, syndicates (trusts), etc.

The agrarian programme to be formulated thus:

The beginning (from the words “In order to do away with the
relics” to the words “the Party demands”) to be retained; the
continuation to be amended as follows:

1) Fights with all its strength for the immediate and complete
confiscation of all landed estates in Russia (and also crown
lands, church lands, etc.).

2) Stands for the immediate transfer of all land to the
peasantry organised in Soviets of Peasants’ Deputies or in
other organs of local self-government elected on a truly
democratic basis and completely independent of the landowners
and bureaucrats.

3) Demands the nationalisation of all lands in the country;
nationalisation implies that all property rights in land are
vested in the state, while the right of disposal of the land
is vested in the local democratic institutions.

4) Encourages the initiative of those peasant committees which,
in various localities of Russia, are turning over the landowners’ livestock and agricultural implements to the
peasants organised in these committees for the purpose of
their socially regulated utilisation in the cultivation of
the land.

5) Advises the rural proletarians and semi-proletarians to
strive towards turning every landed estate into a sufficiently large model farm, to be conducted on a communal
basis by the local Soviet of Agricultural Labourers’ Deputies
under the direction of agricultural experts and with the aid
of the best technical appliances.

The Party under all circumstances and whatever the conditions,
etc.—to the end of the paragraph (“exploitation”).

The conclusion of the agrarian programme, from the words “The
Party under all circumstances, and whatever the conditions of
democratic agrarian reform may be” to the words “poverty and
exploitation”, to remain unchanged.

The whole concluding part of the programme, the last two
paragraphs (from the words “In the endeavour to achieve” to the
end), to be entirely deleted.

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Notes:
[1]
See Pravda No. 08, May 28, 1917, [See Lenin’s Article A Question of Principle

F. Engels’s discussion

[in Critique of the Social Democratic programme of 1891] of the Marxist view—and consistently
democratic view in general—on the question of the appointment and endorsement of officials elected by the local
population. [2]
— Lenin

[2]