V. I.   Lenin

The Seventh (April) All-Russia Conference of the R.S.D.L.P.(B.)

APRIL 24–29, 1917

The All-Russia Conference of the R.S.D.L.P. recognises that:

1. The Provisional Government, by its class character, is the organ of landowner and bourgeois domination;

2. The Provisional Government and the classes it represents are bound with indissoluble economic and political ties to Russian and Anglo-French imperialism;

3. The Provisional Government is carrying out its proclaimed programme only partially, and only under pressure of the revolutionary proletariat and, to some extent, of the petty bourgeoisie;

4. The forces of bourgeois and landowner counter-revolution, now being organised, have already, under cover of the Provisional Government and with the latter’s obvious connivance, launched an attack on revolutionary democracy: thus the Provisional Government is avoiding fixing the date for the elections to the Constituent Assembly, preventing the arming of the people as a whole, opposing the transfer of all the land to the people, foisting upon it the landowners’ way of settling the agrarian question, obstructing the introduction of an eight-hour workday, condoning counter-revolutionary propaganda in the army (by Guchkov and Co.), rallying the high-ranking officers against the soldiers, etc.;

5. The Provisional Government, protecting the profits of the capitalists and landowners, is incapable of taking a number of revolutionary economic measures (food supply, etc.)   which are absolutely and urgently necessary in view of the impending economic catastrophe;

6. This government, at the same time, is relying at present on the confidence of, and on an actual agreement with, the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies, which is still the leading organisation for the majority of workers and soldiers, i. e., peasants;

7. Every step of the Provisional Government, in both its domestic and foreign policies, is bound to open the eyes of the urban and rural proletarians and semi-proletarians and force various sections of the petty bourgeoisie to choose between one and the other political line.

Considering the above, the Conference resolves that:

1. Extensive work has to be done to develop proletarian class-consciousness and to unite the urban and rural proletarians against the vacillations of the petty bourgeoisie, for only work of this nature can serve as a sure guarantee of the successful transfer of the entire state power into the hands of the Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies or other organs directly expressing the will of the majority of the people (organs of local self-government, the Constituent Assembly, etc.);

2. This calls for many-sided activity within the Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies, for work aimed at increasing the number of these Soviets, consolidating their power, and welding together our Party’s proletarian internationalist groups in the Soviets;

3. In order immediately to consolidate and widen the gains of the revolution in the local areas, it is necessary, with the backing of a solid majority of the local population, in every way to develop, organise, and strengthen its independent actions aimed at implementing liberties, dismissing the counter-revolutionary authorities, introducing economic measures, such as control over production and distribution, etc.;

4. The political crisis of April 19–21 precipitated by the Note of the Provisional Government has shown that the government party of the Constitutional-Democrats, which is organising counter-revolutionary elements both in the army and in the streets, is now making attempts to shoot down the workers. In view of the unstable situation arising from the dual power, the repetition of such attempts is inevitable,   and it is the duty of the party of the proletariat to tell the people as forcibly as possible that, in order to avert the seriously threatening danger of such mass shootings of the proletariat as took place in Paris in the June days of 1848, it is necessary to organise and arm the proletariat, to establish the closest alliance between the proletariat and the revolutionary army, to break with the policy of confidence in the Provisional Government.

Notes