After February:
Army officials, landowners and industrialists were influential in the Provisional Government. But the liberals as well as socialists among them worked towards an elected government. Restrictions on public meetings and associations were removed. ‘Soviet’, like the Petrograd Soviet, were set up everywhere, though no common system of election was followed.
Army officials, landowners and industrialists were influential in the Provisional Government. But the liberals as well as socialists among them worked towards an elected government. Restrictions on public meetings and associations were removed. ‘Soviet’, like the Petrograd Soviet, were set up everywhere, though no common system of election was followed.
In April 1917, the Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin
returned to Russia from his exile. He and the Bolsheviks had opposed the war since
1914. Now he felt it was time for soviets to take over power. He declared that
the war be brought to a close, land be transferred to the peasants, and banks
be nationalised. These three demands were Lenin’s ‘April Theses’. He
also argued that the Bolshevik Party rename itself the Communist Party to indicate its
new radical aims. Most others in the Bolshevik Party were initially surprised
by the April Theses. They thought that the time was not yet ripe for a socialist
revolution and the Provisional Government needed to be supported. But the
developments of the subsequent months changed their attitude. Through the
summer the workers’ movement spread. In industrial areas, factory committees
were formed which began questioning the way industrialists ran their factories.
Trade unions grew in number. Soldiers’ committees were formed in the army. In
June, about 500 Soviets sent representatives to an All Russian Congress of
Soviets. As the Provisional Government saw its power reduce and Bolshevik
influence grow, it decided to take stern measures against the spreading
discontent. It resisted attempts by workers to run factories and began
arresting leaders. Popular demonstrations staged by the Bolsheviks in July 1917
were sternly repressed. Many Bolshevik leaders had to go into hiding or flee. Meanwhile
in the countryside, peasants and their Socialist Revolutionary leaders pressed
for a redistribution of land. Land committees were formed to handle this.
Encouraged by the Socialist Revolutionaries, peasants seized land between July
and September 1917.
Date of the Russian Revolution
Russia followed the Julian calendar until 1 February 1918. The country then changed to the Gregorian calendar, which is followed everywhere today. The Gregorian dates are 13 days ahead of the Julian dates. So by our calendar, the ‘February Revolution’ took place on 12th March and the .October. Revolution took place on 7th November.
Vladimir
Ilyich Lenin
The
Tasks of the Proletariat in the Present Revolution
[a.k.a.
The April Theses]
Published: April 7, 1917 in Pravda No. 26. Signed: N.
Lenin. Published according to the newspaper text.
Source: Lenin’s Collected Works, Progress Publishers, 1964, Moscow, Volume 24, pp. 19-26.
Translated: IsaacsBernard
Transcription: Zodiac
Public Domain: Lenin Internet Archive (2005), marx.org (1997), marxists.org (1999). You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source.
Source: Lenin’s Collected Works, Progress Publishers, 1964, Moscow, Volume 24, pp. 19-26.
Translated: IsaacsBernard
Transcription: Zodiac
Public Domain: Lenin Internet Archive (2005), marx.org (1997), marxists.org (1999). You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source.
This article contains Lenin’s famous April Theses
read by him at two meetings of the All-Russia Conference of Soviets of Workers’
and Soldiers’ Deputies, on April 4, 1917.
[Introduction]
I did not arrive in Petrograd until the night of
April 3, and therefore at the meeting on April 4, I could, of course, deliver
the report on the tasks of the revolutionary proletariat only
on my own behalf, and with reservations as to insufficient preparation.
The only thing I could do to make things easier for
myself—and for honest opponents—was to prepare the theses in
writing. I read them out, and gave the text to Comrade Tsereteli.
I read them twice very slowly: first at a meeting of Bolsheviks and
then at a meeting of both Bolsheviks and Mensheviks.
I publish these personal theses of mine with only
the briefest explanatory notes, which were developed in far greater detail in
the report.
THESES
1) In our attitude towards the war, which
under the new [provisional] government of Lvov and
Co. unquestionably remains on Russia’s part a predatory imperialist war owing
to the capitalist nature of that government, not the slightest concession to
“revolutionary defencism” is permissible.
The class-conscious proletariat can give its consent
to a revolutionary war, which would really justify revolutionary defencism,
only on condition: (a) that the power pass to the proletariat and the
poorest sections of the peasants aligned with the proletariat; (b) that
all annexations be renounced in deed and not in word; (c) that a complete
break be effected in actual fact with all capitalist interests.
In view of the undoubted honesty of those broad
sections of the mass believers in revolutionary defencism who accept the war
only as a necessity, and not as a means of conquest, in view of the fact
that they are being deceived by the bourgeoisie, it is necessary with
particular thoroughness, persistence and patience to explain their error to
them, to explain the inseparable connection existing between capital and the
imperialist war, and to prove that without overthrowing capital it is
impossible to end the war by a truly democratic peace, a peace not
imposed by violence.
The most widespread campaign for this view must be
organised in the army at the front.
Fraternisation.
2) The specific feature of the present situation in
Russia is that the country is passing from the first stage of
the revolution—which, owing to the insufficient class-consciousness and
organisation of the proletariat, placed power in the hands of the
bourgeoisie—to its second stage, which must place power in the
hands of the proletariat and the poorest sections of the peasants.
This transition is characterised, on the one hand,
by a maximum of legally recognised rights (Russia is now the
freest of all the belligerent countries in the world); on the other, by the
absence of violence towards the masses, and, finally, by their unreasoning
trust in the government of capitalists, those worst enemies of peace and
socialism.
This peculiar situation demands of us an ability to
adapt ourselves to the special conditions of Party work among
unprecedentedly large masses of proletarians who have just awakened to
political life.
3) No support for the Provisional
Government; the utter falsity of all its promises should be made clear,
particularly of those relating to the renunciation of annexations. Exposure in
place of the impermissible, illusion-breeding “demand” that this government,
a government of capitalists, should cease to be an imperialist
government.
4) Recognition of the fact that in most of the
Soviets of Workers’ Deputies our Party is in a minority, so far a small
minority, as against a bloc of all the petty-bourgeois opportunist elements,
from the Popular
Socialists and the Socialist-Revolutionaries down
to the Organising
Committee (Chkheidze, Tsereteli,
etc.), Steklov, etc., etc., who have yielded to the influence of the
bourgeoisie and spread that influence among the proletariat.
The masses must be made to see that the Soviets of
Workers’ Deputies are the only possible form of revolutionary
government, and that therefore our task is, as long as this government
yields to the influence of the bourgeoisie, to present a patient, systematic,
and persistent explanation of the errors of their tactics, anexplanation especially
adapted to the practical needs of the masses.
As long as we are in the minority we carry on the
work of criticising and exposing errors and at the same time we preach the
necessity of transferring the entire state power to the Soviets of Workers’
Deputies, so that the people may overcome their mistakes by experience.
5) Not a parliamentary republic—to return to a
parliamentary republic from the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies would be a
retrograde step—but a republic of Soviets of Workers’, Agricultural Labourers’
and Peasants’ Deputies throughout the country, from top to bottom.
Abolition of the police, the army and the
bureaucracy.[1]
The salaries of all officials, all of whom are
elective and displaceable at any time, not to exceed the average wage of a
competent worker.
6) The weight of emphasis in the agrarian programme
to be shifted to the Soviets of Agricultural Labourers’ Deputies.
Confiscation of all landed estates.
Nationalisation of all lands in the
country, the land to be disposed of by the local Soviets of Agricultural
Labourers’ and Peasants’ Deputies. The organisation of separate Soviets of
Deputies of Poor Peasants. The setting up of a model farm on each of the large
estates (ranging in size from 100 to 300 dessiatines,
according to local and other conditions, and to the decisions of the local bodies)
under the control of the Soviets of Agricultural Labourers’ Deputies and for
the public account.
7) The immediate union of all banks in the country
into a single national bank, and the institution of control over it by the
Soviet of Workers’ Deputies.
8) It is not our immediate task
to “introduce” socialism, but only to bring social production and the
distribution of products at once under the control of the
Soviets of Workers’ Deputies.
9) Party tasks:
(a) Immediate convocation of a Party congress;
(b) Alteration of the Party Programme, mainly:
(1) On the question of imperialism and the
imperialist war,
(2) On our attitude towards the state and our demand
for a “commune state”[2];
(3) Amendment of our out-of-date minimum programme;
(c) Change of the Party’s name.[3]
10. A new International.
We must take the initiative in creating a
revolutionary International, an International against the social-chauvinists and
against the “Centre”.[4]
In order that the reader may understand why I had
especially to emphasise as a rare exception the “case” of honest opponents, I
invite him to compare the above theses with the following objection by Mr.
Goldenberg: Lenin, he said, “has planted the banner of civil war in the
midst of revolutionary democracy” (quoted in No. 5 of Mr. Plekhanov’s Yedinstvo).
Isn’t it a gem?
I write, announce and elaborately explain: “In view
of the undoubted honesty of those broad sections of the mass believers
in revolutionary defencism ... in view of the fact that they are being deceived
by the bourgeoisie, it is necessary with particular thoroughness,
persistence and patience to explain their error to them....”
Yet the bourgeois gentlemen who call themselves
Social-Democrats, who do not belong either to the broad sections
or to the mass believers in defencism, with serene brow
present my views thus: “The banner[!] of civil war” (of which there is not
a word in the theses and not a word in my speech!) has been planted(!) “in the
midst [!!] of revolutionary democracy...”.
What does this mean? In what way does this differ
from riot-inciting agitation, from Russkaya
Volya?
I write, announce and elaborately explain: “The
Soviets of Workers’ Deputies are the only possible form of
revolutionary government, and therefore our task is to present a patient,
systematic, and persistent explanation of the errors of their
tactics, an explanation especially adapted to the practical needs of the
masses.”
Yet opponents of a certain brand present my views as
a call to “civil war in the midst of revolutionary democracy”!
I attacked the Provisional Government for not having
appointed an early date or any date at all, for the convocation of the Constituent
Assembly, and for confining itself to promises. I argued that without the
Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies the convocation of the Constituent
Assembly is not guaranteed and its success is impossible.
And the view is attributed to me that I am opposed
to the speedy convocation of the Constituent Assembly!
I would call this “raving”, had not decades of
political struggle taught me to regard honesty in opponents as a rare
exception.
Mr. Plekhanov in
his paper called my speech “raving”. Very good, Mr. Plekhanov! But look how
awkward, uncouth and slow-witted you are in your polemics. If I delivered a
raving speech for two hours, how is it that an audience of hundreds tolerated
this “raving”? Further, why does your paper devote a whole column to an account
of the “raving”? Inconsistent, highly inconsistent!
It is, of course, much easier to shout, abuse, and
howl than to attempt to relate, to explain, to recall what Marx
and Engels said in 1871, 1872 and 1875 about the experience of the Paris
Commune and about the kind of state the proletariat
needs. [See: The
Civil War in France and Critique
of the Gotha Programme]
Ex-Marxist Mr. Plekhanov evidently does not care to
recall Marxism.
I quoted the words of Rosa
Luxemburg, who on August 4,
1914, called German Social-Democracy a
“stinking corpse”. And the Plekhanovs, Goldenbergs and Co. feel “offended”. On
whose behalf? On behalf of the German chauvinists, because
they were called chauvinists!
They have got themselves in a mess, these poor
Russian social-chauvinists—socialists in word and chauvinists in deed.
[3] Instead of “Social-Democracy”, whose official leaders throughout the
world have betrayed socialism and deserted to the bourgeoisie (the “defencists”
and the vacillating “Kautskyites”), we must call ourselves the Communist
Party.—Lenin
[4] The “Centre” in
the international Social-Democratic movement is the trend which vacillates
between the chauvinists (=“defencists”) and internationalists, i.e., Kautsky
and Co. in Germany, Longuet and Co. in France, Chkheidze and Co. in Russia,
Turati and Co. in Italy, MacDonald and Co. in Britain, etc.—Lenin
Reference :
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