Page:The Proletarian Revolution in Russia - Lenin, Trotsky and Chicherin - ed. Louis C. Fraina (1918).djvu/80

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54
THE PROLETARIAN REVOLUTION IN RUSSIA

This peculiarity demands of us the ability to adapt ourselves to certain conditions of partisan work among the broad masses of the proletariat, who have only now awakened to political life.

3.—No support for the Provisional Government; explanation of the emptiness of its promises, especially concerning the repudiation of annexations. The revelation of the real character of this government, instead of the illusory "demand" that this government, a government of capitalists, should cease to be imperialistic.

4.—Recognition of the fact that in the majority of the Soviets of Workmen's Delegates our party is in the minority, and thus far in a small minority, against the bloc of all the petty bourgeois opportunistic elements, who have come under the influence of the bourgeoisie and who carry this influence into the ranks of the proletariat.

It should be explained to the masses that the Soviets of Workmen, Soldiers and Peasants constitute the only possible form of revolutionary government, and that therefore our problem, as long as this government is influenced by the bourgeoisie, is to adapt our propaganda, systematic, patient, persistent, to the practical needs of the masses, to explain their errors and our tactics.

As long as we are in the minority, we are carrying on work of criticism and explanation of errors; preaching, in the meantime, the necessity of a transference of the whole governmental power to the Soviets, in order that the masses should rid themselves of their errors by experience.

5.—Not a parliamentary republic—a return to it from the Soviets of Workmen's Delegates would be a step backwards—but a Republic of the Soviets of Workmen's and Peasants' Delegates, throughout the whole country.[1]

The removal of the police, army[2] and bureaucracy.

The salary of all government employees, who could be elected or recalled at any Time, not to be any higher than the average salary of a good worker.

6.—In the agrarian program, the transfer of the center of gravity to the Soviets of Farm-Laborers' Delegates.

Confiscation of all the land.


  1. That is, of a government the type of which was the Paris Commune.
  2. That is, the replacement of a permanent army by the general armament of the people.