what was in the april thesis

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April Theses

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April Theses , in Russian history, program developed by Lenin during the Russian Revolution of 1917 , calling for Soviet control of state power; the theses, published in April 1917, contributed to the July Days uprising and also to the Bolshevik coup d’etat in October 1917.

During the February Revolution two disparate bodies had replaced the imperial government—the Provisional Government and the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies . The Socialists who dominated the Soviet interpreted the February Revolution as a bourgeois revolution and considered it appropriate for the bourgeoisie to hold power. They therefore submitted to the rule of the Provisional Government, formed by liberals from the Duma. The Soviet agreed to cooperate with the government and to advise it in the interests of workers and soldiers.

Lenin, however, viewed the two bodies as institutions representing social classes locked in the class struggle. He felt that, as one class gained dominance over the other, its governing body would crush the rival institution; thus the two could not indefinitely coexist. On the basis of this interpretation he developed his theses, in which he urged the Bolsheviks to withdraw their support from the Provisional Government and to call for immediate withdrawal from World War I and for the distribution of land among the peasantry . The Bolshevik Party was to organize workers, soldiers, and peasants and to strengthen the Soviets so that they could eventually seize power from the Provisional Government. The theses also called for the nationalization of banks and for Soviet control of the production and distribution of manufactured goods. Lenin first presented his theses to a gathering of Social Democrats and later (April 17 [April 4, old style], 1917) to a Bolshevik committee, both of which immediately rejected them. The Bolshevik newspaper Pravda published them but carefully noted that they were Lenin’s personal ideas.

Nevertheless, within a few weeks the party’s seventh all-Russian conference (May 7–12 [April 24–29, old style]) adopted the theses as its program, along with the slogan “All Power to the Soviets.” Although some Bolsheviks still had reservations about the program, the concepts contained in the theses became very popular among the workers and soldiers of Petrograd, who, using Bolshevik slogans, unsuccessfully tried to force the Soviet to take power in July. It was not until October, however, that Lenin’s party was able to begin implementation of its program and seize power from the Provisional Government in the name of the Soviets.

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: Isaacs Bernard Transcription: Zodiac HTML Markup: B. Baggins 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.

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, an explanation 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.

[1] [1] --> i.e. the standing army to be replaced by the arming of the whole people.— Lenin

[2] [2] --> i.e., a state of which the Paris Commune was the prototype.— Lenin

[3] [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] [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

Russian Revolution

Extracts from lenin’s april theses (1917).

“1. In our attitude towards the war, which under the new government of Lvov and company unquestionably remains on Russia’s part a predatory imperialist war, owing to the capitalist nature of that government, not the slightest concession to “revolutionary defensism” is permissible. The class-conscious proletariat can give its consent to a revolutionary war, which would really justify revolutionary defensism, only on condition. One, that power passes to the proletariat and the poorest sections of the peasants aligned with the proletariat. Two, that all [territorial] annexations be renounced in deed and not in word. Three, that a complete break be effected with all capitalist interests… 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 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 [territorial] 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, against a bloc of all the petty-bourgeois opportunist elements – from the Popular Socialists and the Socialist-Revolutionaries down to the Organising Committee – 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 is the only possible form of revolutionary government, and that therefore our task, as long as this government yields to the influence of the bourgeoisie, 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. 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. No parliamentary republic! To return to a parliamentary republic from the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies would be a retrograde step… Abolition of the police, the army and the bureaucracy. 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… 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… The immediate convocation of a Party congress. Alteration of the Party Programme, mainly on the question of imperialism and the imperialist war… Change of the party name. 10. A new International. We must take the initiative in creating a revolutionary International, an International against the social-chauvinists and against the ‘Centre’.”

April Theses

Vladimir lenin, the tasks of the proletariat in the present revolution. april 17, 1917.

Original Source: Pravda, 20 April 1917.

 I arrived in Petrograd only on the night of April 16, and could therefore, of course, deliver a report at the meeting on April 17, on the tasks of the revolutionary proletariat only upon my own responsibility, and with the reservations as to insufficient preparation.

The only thing I could do to facilitate matters for myself and for honest opponents was to prepare written theses. I read them, and gave the text to Comrade Tseretelli. I read them very slowly, twice: first at the meeting of Bolsheviks and then at a meeting of Bolsheviks and Mensheviks.

I publish these personal theses with only the briefest explanatory comments, which were developed in far greater detail in the report.

1. In our attitude towards the war, which also under the new government of L’vov and Co. unquestionably remains on Russia’s part a predatory imperialist war owing to the capitalist nature of that government, not the slightest concession must be made to “revolutionary defensism.”

The class conscious proletariat could consent to a revolutionary war, which would really justify revolutionary defensism, only on condition: (a) that the power of government pass to the proletariat and the poor sections of the peasantry bordering on the proletariat; (b) that all annexations be renounced in deed and not only in word; (c) that a complete and real break be made with all capitalist interests.

In view of the undoubted honesty of the broad strata of the mass believers in revolutionary defensism, who accept the war as a necessity only and not as a means of conquest, in view of the fact that they are being deceived by the bourgeoisie, it is necessary very thoroughly, persistently and patiently to explain their error to them, to explain the inseparable connection between capital and the imperialist war, and to prove that it is impossible to end the war by a truly democratic, non-coercive peace without the overthrow of capital.

The widespread propaganda of this view among the army on active service must be organized…

2. The specific feature of the present situation in Russia is that it represents a transition from the first stage of the revolution – which, owing to the insufficient class consciousness and organization of the proletariat, placed power into the hands of the bourgeoisie – to the second stage, which must place power into the hands of the proletariat and the poor strata of the peasantry.

This transition is characterized, on the one hand, by a maximum of freedom (Russia is now the freest of the belligerent countries in the world); on the other, by the absence of violence in relation to the masses, and, finally, by the unreasoning confidence of the masses in the government of capitalists, the worst enemies of peace and socialism.

This specific situation demands of us the ability to adapt ourselves to the specific requirements of Party work among unprecedented large masses of proletarians who have just awakened to political life.

3. No support must be given to the Provisional Government; the utter falsity of all its promises must be explained, particularly those relating to the renunciation of annexations. Exposure, and not the unpardonable, illusion- breeding “demand” that this government, a government of capitalists, should cease to be an imperialist government.

4. The fact must be recognized that in most of the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies our Party is in a minority, and so far in a small minority, as against a bloc of all the petty-bourgeois opportunist elements, who have yielded to the influence of the bourgeoisie and convey its influence to the proletariat …

It must be explained to the masses that the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies is 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 (the non-Bolshevik socialists) tactics, an explanation especially adapted to the practical needs of the masses.

As long as we are in the minority we carry on the work of criticizing and explaining errors and at the same time advocate the necessity of transferring the entire power of state to the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies, so that the masses may by experience overcome their mistakes.

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 Laborers’ and Peasants’ Deputies throughout the country, from top to bottom.

Abolition of the police, the Army and the bureaucracy.

The salaries of all officials, who are to be elected and subject to recall at any time, not to exceed the average wage of a competent worker.

6. in the agrarian program the emphasis must be laid on the Soviets of Agricultural Laborers’ Deputies.

Confiscation of all landed estates.

Nationalization of all lands in the country, the disposal of the land to be put in charge of the local Soviets of Agricultural Laborers’ and Peasants’ Deputies. The organization of separate Soviets of Deputies of Poor Peasants. The creation of model farms on each of the large estates… under the control of the Agricultural Laborers’ Deputies and for the public account.

7. The immediate amalgamation of all banks in the country into a single national bank, control over which shall be exercised by the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies.

8. Our immediate task is not to “introduce” socialism, but only to bring social production and distribution of products at once under the control of the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies.

9. Party tasks:

(a) Immediate summoning of a Party congress. (b) Alteration of the Party program, mainly:

(1) On the question of imperialism and the imperialist war; (2) On the question of our attitude towards the state and our demand for a “commune state”. (3) Amendment of our antiquated minimum program.

(c) A new name for the Party.

10. A new International. Instead of ” Social Democrats”, whose official leaders throughout the world have betrayed socialism … we must call ourselves a Communist Party.

Source: V. I. Lenin, Selected Works in Two Volumes (Moscow: Foreign Language Publishing House, 1952), Vol. 2, pp. 3-17.

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• DISINTEGRATION OF THE OLD SOCIETY
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That actually explain what's on your next test, april theses, from class:, the modern period.

The April Theses were a series of directives issued by Vladimir Lenin upon his return to Russia in April 1917, calling for a radical shift in the Bolshevik strategy towards the Russian Revolution. These theses outlined Lenin's vision for a socialist government, emphasizing 'All Power to the Soviets' and demanding an end to the war, land redistribution, and withdrawal from the capitalist system. Lenin's ideas challenged the prevailing moderate approaches of other revolutionary leaders and played a crucial role in shaping the Bolshevik movement.

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5 Must Know Facts For Your Next Test

• The April Theses were presented by Lenin at a meeting of the Bolshevik party on April 4, 1917, upon his return from exile in Switzerland.
• Lenin's call for 'All Power to the Soviets' directly challenged the authority of the Provisional Government, which was struggling to maintain order.
• The theses demanded immediate withdrawal from World War I, resonating with widespread war fatigue among soldiers and civilians alike.
• Land redistribution was another key demand in the April Theses, appealing to peasants who were eager for reforms to address land ownership issues.
• Lenin's radical ideas set the stage for the October Revolution later that year, as they galvanized support among workers and peasants who felt abandoned by existing leadership.

Review Questions

• Lenin's April Theses presented a stark contrast to the more moderate approaches advocated by other revolutionary leaders. While many leaders sought to collaborate with the Provisional Government and promote gradual reforms, Lenin called for immediate action, including an outright end to participation in World War I and full power to the Soviets. This radical stance aimed to mobilize workers and soldiers by addressing their urgent needs for peace, land, and power.
• The April Theses significantly shifted the direction of the Bolshevik party by solidifying its commitment to radical socialism and direct action against the Provisional Government. This bold stance resonated with many disillusioned citizens who were frustrated with ongoing war efforts and economic instability. As a result, public support for the Bolsheviks grew throughout 1917, ultimately leading to their successful seizure of power in October.
• Lenin's April Theses encapsulated the growing discontent among various social groups in Russia as it directly addressed their most pressing concerns. The demand for immediate withdrawal from World War I echoed widespread war fatigue and loss among soldiers and civilians alike. Additionally, by advocating for land redistribution, Lenin tapped into rural frustrations over land ownership that had been exacerbated by wartime conditions. This alignment with public sentiment allowed Lenin to galvanize support for his radical vision amidst a backdrop of social upheaval.

Related terms

Bolsheviks : A faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party led by Lenin, advocating for a revolutionary overthrow of the existing government and the establishment of a socialist state.

Soviets : Councils of workers and soldiers that emerged during the Russian Revolution, which became key bodies of power and representation for the masses in opposition to the provisional government.

The temporary government established in Russia after the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II in March 1917, which struggled to maintain control amidst growing dissatisfaction and revolutionary fervor.

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Explain Lenin's April Theses.

Lenin was the leader of the bolshevik party. he returned to russia and put three demands which were known as lenin’s april theses. they were: (i) the first world war be brought to an end. (ii) land must be transferred to the peasants. (iii) the banks should be nationalised..

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April Theses: Lenin’s fundamental role in the Russian Revolution

Submitted by World Revolution on 2 April, 2007 - 17:08

It is 90 years since the start of the Russian revolution. More particularly, this month sees the 90th anniversary of the ‘April Theses’, announced by Lenin on his return from exile, and calling for the overthrow of Kerensky’s ‘Provisional Government’ as a first step towards the international proletarian revolution. In highlighting Lenin’s crucial role in the revolution, we are not subscribing to the ‘great man’ theory of history, but showing that the revolutionary positions he was able to defend with such clarity at that moment were an expression of something much deeper – the awakening of an entire social class to the concrete possibility of emancipating itself from capitalism and imperialist war. The following article was originally published in World Revolution 203, April 1997. It can be read in conjunction with a more developed study of the April Theses now republished on our website, ‘ The April Theses: signpost to the proletarian revolution ’.

On 4 April 1917 Lenin returned from his exile in Switzerland, arrived in Petrograd and addressed himself directly to the workers and soldiers who crowded the station in these terms: “Dear comrades, soldiers, sailors and work­ers. I am happy to greet in you the victorious Russian revolution, to greet you as the ad­vance guard of the International proletarian army... The Russian revolution achieved by you has opened a new epoch. Long live the worldwide socialist revolution!...” (Trotsky, History of the Russian Revolution ). 80 years later the bourgeoisie, its historians and media lackeys, are constantly busy main­taining the worst lies and historic distor­tions on the world proletarian revolution begun in Russia.

The ruling class’ hatred and contempt for the titanic movement of the exploited masses aims to ridicule it and to ‘show’ the futility of the communist project of the working class, its fundamental inability to bring about a new social order for the planet. The collapse of the eastern bloc has revived its class hatred. It has unleashed a gigantic campaign since then to hammer home the obvious defeat of commu­nism, identified with Stalinism, and with that the defeat of marxism, the obsolescence of the class struggle and even the idea of revolution which can only lead to terror and the Gulag. The target of this foul propaganda is the political organisation, the incarnation of the vast insurrectionary movement of 1917, the Bolshevik Party, which constantly draws all the vindictiveness of the defenders of the bourgeoisie. For all these apologists for the capitalist order, including the anarchists, whatever their apparent disagreements, it is a question of showing that Lenin and the Bol­sheviks were a band of power-hungry fanatics who did everything they could to usurp the democratic acquisitions of the February 1917 revolution (see ‘February 1917’ WR 202) and plunge Russia and the world into one of the most disastrous experiences in history.

Faced with all these unbelievable calumnies against Bolshevism, it falls to revolutionaries to re-establish the truth and reaffirm the essential point concerning the Bolshevik Party: it was not a product of Russian barbarism or backwardness, nor of deformed anarcho-ter­rorism, nor of the absolute concern for power by its leaders. Bolshevism was, in the first place, a product of the world proletariat, linked to a marxist tradition, the vanguard of the international movement to end all exploi­tation and oppression. To this end the state­ment of positions Lenin brought out on his return to Russia, known as the April Theses, gives us an excellent point of departure to refute all the various untruths on the Bolshe­vik Party, its nature, its role and its links with the proletarian masses.

The conditions of struggle on Lenin’s return to Russia in April 1917

In the previous article ( WR 202) we recalled that the working class in Russia had well and truly opened the way to the world communist revolution with the events of February 1917, overturning Tsarism, organising in soviets and showing a growing radicalisation. The insurrection resulted in a situation of dual power. The official power was the bourgeois ‘Provisional Government’, initially lead by the liberals but which later gained a more ‘socialist’ hue under the direction of Kerensky. On the other hand effective power already lay, as was well understood, in the hands of the soviets of workers’ and soldiers’ deputies. Without soviet authorisation the government had little hope of imposing its directives on the workers and soldiers. But the working class had not yet acquired the necessary political maturity to take all the power. In spite of their more and more radical actions and attitudes, the majority of the working class and behind them the peasant masses, were held back by illusions in the nature of the bourgeoisie, and by the idea that only a bourgeois democratic revolution was on the agenda in Russia. The predominance of these ideas among the masses was reflected in the domination of the soviets by Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries who did everything they could to make the soviets impotent in the face of the newly installed bourgeois regime. These parties, which had gone over, or were in the process of going over, to the bourgeoisie, tried by all means to subordinate the growing revolution­ary movement to the aims of the Provisional Government, especially in relation to the im­perialist war. In this situation, so full of dangers and promises, the Bolsheviks, who had directed the internationalist opposition to the war, were themselves in almost complete confusion at that moment, politically disorien­tated. So, “ In the ‘manifesto’ of the Bolshevik Central Committee, drawn up just after the victory of the insurrection, we read that ‘the workers of the shops and factories, and likewise the mutinied troops, must immediately elect their representatives to the Provisional Revolutionary Government’... They behaved not like the representatives of a proletarian party preparing an independent struggle for power, but like the left wing of a democracy ” ( Trotsky, History of the Russian Revolution , vol. 1, chapter XV , p.271, 1967 Sphere edi­tion). Worse still, when Stalin and Kamenev took the direction of the party in March, they moved it even further to the right. Pravda, the official organ of the party, openly adopted a defencist position on the war: “Our slogan is not the meaningless ‘down with war’... every man remains at his fighting post.” (Trotsky, p.275). The flagrant abandonment of Lenin’s position on the transformation of the imperi­alist war into a civil war caused resistance and even anger in the party and among the work­ers of Petrograd, the heart of the proletariat. But these most radical elements were not capable of offering a clear programmatic alternative to this turn to the right. The party was then drawn towards compromise and treason, under the influence of the fog of democratic euphoria which appeared after the February revolt.

The political rearmament of the Party

It fell to Lenin, then, after his return from abroad, to politically rearm the party and to put forward the decisive importance of the revolutionary direction through the April Theses: “Lenin’s theses produced the effect of an exploding bomb” (Trotsky, p. 295). The old party programme had become null and void, situated far behind the spontaneous action of the masses. The slogan to which the “Old Bolsheviks” were attached, the “demo­cratic dictatorship of workers and peasants” was henceforth an obsolete formula as Lenin put forward: “ The revolutionary democratic revolution of the proletariat and the peasants has already been achieved... ” (Lenin, Letters on tactics ). However, “ 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. ” (Point 2 of the April Theses). Lenin was one of the first to grasp the revolutionary significance of the soviet as an organ of proletarian political power. Once again Lenin gave a lesson on the marxist method, in showing that marxism was the complete opposite of a dead dogma but a living scientific theory which must be con­stantly verified in the laboratory of social movements.

Similarly, faced with the Menshevik posi­tion according to which backward Russia was not yet ripe for socialism, Lenin argued as a true internationalist that the immediate task was not to introduce socialism in Russia (Thesis 8). If Russia, in itself, was not ready for socialism, the imperialist war had demon­strated that world capitalism as a whole was truly over-ripe. For Lenin, as for all the authentic internationalists then, the interna­tional revolution was not just a pious wish but a concrete perspective developed from the international proletarian revolt against the war - the strikes in Britain and Germany, the political demonstrations, the mutinies and fraternisations in the armed forces of several countries, and certainly the growing revolu­tionary flood in Russia itself, which revealed it. This is where the appeal for the creation of a new International at the end of the Theses came from. This perspective was going to be completely confirmed after the October insur­rection by the extension of the revolutionary wave to Italy, Hungary, Austria and above all Germany.

This new definition of the proletariat’s tasks also brought another conception of the role and function of the party. There also the “Old Bolsheviks” like Kamenev were at first re­volted by Lenin’s vision, his idea of the soviets taking power on the one hand and on the other his insistence on the class autonomy of the proletariat against the bourgeois government and the imperialist war, even if that would mean remaining for awhile in the minority and not as Kamenev would like: “ remaining with the masses of the revolutionary proletariat ”. Kamenev used the conception of “ a mass party ” to oppose Lenin’s conception of a party of determined revolutionaries, with a clear programme, united, centralised, minoritarian, capable of resisting the siren calls of the bourgeoisie and petit-bourgeoisie and illusions existing in the working class. This conception of the party has nothing to do with the Blanquist terrorist sect, that Lenin was accused of putting forward, nor even with the anarchist concep­tion submitting to the spontaneity of the masses. On the contrary there was the recognition that in a period of massive revolutionary turbu­lence, of the development of consciousness in the class, the party can no longer organise nor plan to mobilise the masses in the way of the conspiratorial associations of the 19th century. But that made the role of the party more essential than ever. Lenin came back to the vision that Rosa Luxemburg developed in her authoritative analysis of the mass strike in the period of decadence: “ If we now leave the pedantic scheme of demonstrative mass strikes artificially brought about by order of the par­ties and trade unions, and turn to the living picture of a peoples’ movement arising with elemental energy... it becomes obvious that the task of social democracy does not consist in the technical preparation and direction of mass strikes, but first and foremost in the political leadership of the whole movement. ” (Luxemburg, The Mass Strike, the Political Party and the Trade Un­ions ). All Lenin’s energy was going to be orientated towards the necessity of convincing the party of the new tasks which fell to it, in relation to the working class, the central axis of which is the development of class conscious­ness. Thesis 4 posed this clearly: “ 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, an explanation espe­cially adapted to the practical needs of the masses… we preach the necessity of transferring the entire state power to the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies. ” So this approach, this will to defend clear and precise class principles, going against the current and being in a minority, has nothing to do with purism or sectarianism. On the contrary they were based on a comprehension of the real movement which was unfolding in the class at each moment, on the capacity to give a voice and direction to the most radical elements within the proletariat. The insurrection was impossible as long as the Bolshevik’s revolutionary positions, positions maturing through­out the revolutionary process in Russia, had not consciously won over the soviets. We are a very long way from the bourgeois obscenities on the supposed putschist attitude of the Bolsheviks! As Lenin still affirmed: “ We are not charlatans. We must base ourselves only on the consciousness of the masses ” (Lenin’s second speech on his arrival in Petrograd, cited in Trotsky, p. 293).

Lenin’s mastery of the marxist method, seeing beyond the surface and appearances of events, allowed him in company with the best elements of the party, to discern the real dynamic of the movement which was un­folding before their eyes and to meet the profound desires of the masses and give them the theoretical resources to defend their positions and clarify their actions. They were also enabled to orientate them­selves against the bourgeoisie by seeing and frustrating the traps which the latter tried to set for the proletariat, as during the July days in 1917. That’s why, contrary to the Mensheviks of this time and their numerous anarchist, social democratic and councilist successors, who caricature to excess certain real errors by Lenin [1] in order to reject the proletarian character of the October 1917 revolution, we reaffirm the fundamental role played by Lenin in the rectification of the Bolshevik Party, without which the prole­tariat would not have been able to take power in October 1917. Lenin’s life-long struggle to build the revolutionary organisation is a his­toric acquisition of the workers’ movement. It has left revolutionaries today an indispensa­ble basis to build the class party, allowing them to understand what their role must be in the class as a whole. The victorious insurrec­tion of October 1917 validates Lenin’s view. The isolation of the revolution after the defeat of the revolutionary attempts in other coun­tries of Europe stopped the international dy­namic of the revolution which would have been the sole guarantee of a local victory in Russia. The soviet state encouraged the ad­vent of Stalinism, the veritable executioner of the revolution and of the Bolsheviks.

What remains essential is that during the rising tide of the revolution in Russia, the Lenin of the April Theses was never an isolated prophet, nor was he holding himself above the vulgar masses, but he was the clearest voice of the most revolutionary tendency within the proletariat, a voice which showed the way which lead to the victory of October 1917. “ In Russia the prob­lem could only be posed. It could not be solved in Russia. And in this sense, the future every­where belongs to ‘Bolshevism’. ” (Rosa Luxemburg, The Russian Revolution ). SB, March 2007.

[1] Among these great play is made by the councilists on the theory of ‘consciousness brought from outside’ developed in ‘What is to be done?’. Well, afterwards, Lenin recognised this error and amply proved in practice that he had acquired a correct vision of the process of the development of consciousness in the work­ing class.

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Russian Revolution

The significance of lenin's april theses 1917.

Revolutions are the supreme test for revolutionary ideas, programmes and the individuals who support these ideas. Comrades who have studied revolutions in order to understand the processes taking place will be disappointed if they expect a new revolutionary situation to develop exactly like a previous one. The task is to apply the method of analysis to the concrete situation that is unfolding. Theories on how to change society are not abstract schemas or dogmas that are applied at any given moment despite the nature of the concrete situation. Unfortunately however there are so-called revolutionaries who will try to fit the situation to the schema. They fail to recognise that an analysis that was relevant at one time and place is no longer valid because the objective situation has changed.

Revolutions throw up fundamental questions. What is the nature of the revolution? Is it a revolution to establish a bourgeois capitalist democracy or a workers' democracy? What is the balance of forces between the classes? What forces are to lead the revolution? Is it the working class supported by other socially oppressed or marginalised layers? Is it the working class in alliance with "progressive" elements of the bourgeoisie? In the modern epoch the answers seem clear-cut. Capitalism has outlived its usefulness and socialism is on the agenda. For many revolutionary leaders in February 1917 the answers were not so clear-cut, even for many Bolsheviks.

The February 1917 revolution in Russia was the "dress rehearsal" for the October Revolution. In the space of a few weeks the whole of Russian society was turned upside down. The 300-year-old Romanov dynasty came to an end with the abdication of Tsar Nicholas Second on March 3. Strikes, demonstrations and mutinies in the armed forces had brought down the government. In this revolutionary situation there arose two organs of power. On the one hand there was the Temporary Committee of the fourth Duma, a self-appointed grouping of centre-right politicians supported by the middle and upper classes. This became the Provisional Government (PG) headed by Prince Lvov. The only socialist in the PG was Alexander Kerensky who was Minister of Justice. At the same time, on February 26 and 27, elections were held to the Petrograd Soviet of Workers and Soldiers Deputies.

On March 1, the PG began to implement some overdue political and legal reforms to prepare for elections to a Constituent Assembly (CA). The reforms, which any Marxist would have supported, included civil rights such as freedom of the press, of speech, of assembly and of religion, along with the right to strike (strikes had been brutally suppressed under the Tsarist regime), as well as amnesty for political and religious prisoners, an extension of the franchise and the introduction of a secret ballot in elections for the CA. It was also agreed, jointly with the Petrograd Soviet, that a militia would be established to replace the Tsarist police and that the 250,000-strong Petrograd Garrison, the armed power behind the revolution, would not be moved out of the capital.

On the same day however that the PG was issuing these orders, the Soviet published Army Order Number 1 which stated that soldiers and sailors were to obey the orders of the PG only if the Soviet gave its approval. In addition the Order stated that soldiers and sailors were to set up their own committees to take control over weapons out of the hands of the officers. A few days later the Soviet issued Army Order Number 2 which called on soldiers and sailors to sack their commanders and elect others in their place. In addition to this power, the Soviet also had control, through its elected trade union and worker delegates, over the railways, the postal and telegraph services. The Soviet had also set up food supply committees and was publishing its own newspaper - Izvestia (The News). Similar soviets were springing up all over the country (by autumn 1917 there were more than 900)

Frederick Engels once said that in the last analysis the State consists of a body of armed men. In March 1917 there was the PG with nominal political power and the Soviet with real political power in that nothing happened without its approval and it controlled the bodies of armed men. This was a classic situation of dual power where both organs of power even met in the same place - the Tauride Palace! Why then did the Soviet not sweep aside the PG which was a remnant of the fourth Duma that had been elected on a limited franchise and had limited support? The Soviet was an elected body of about 600 delegates that had huge support amongst the working class and the armed forces.

Contradiction

Real power was in the hands of the Soviet, yet it was not taken. To understand this contradiction it is necessary to understand the nature of many of the leaders of the Soviet. This leadership had spent years preparing for a revolutionary overthrow of society and now when power was in their grasp most of them completely failed to recognise the balance of forces and the inability of capitalism to resolve any of the fundamental issues that affect the workers, soldiers and peasants. The issue of food, an end to the war and the land question could not be resolved on the basis of capitalism - and the PG was in fact a capitalist government and as such could not and should not be relied upon. The reforms it had passed were as a result of the mass pressure of the movement of workers, soldiers and peasants. If the pressure were to fade the reforms could just as easily be taken away.

The leadership of the Soviet consisted of Mensheviks, Social Revolutionaries (SRs) and Bolsheviks. The Mensheviks believed in the two-stage theory of the revolution. Firstly, the Tsarist regime would fall and a capitalist liberal democracy would be established. Then the capitalist economy would develop and so would the working class. When the working class was strong enough, it could take power in its own name. The Social Revolutionaries (SRs) drew their support from the peasantry and were divided into a right wing that supported the PG and a left wing that was drawing closer to the Bolsheviks. Many in the Bolshevik leadership were in exile or abroad, but Kamenev and Stalin had returned in March from exile in Siberia and were supporting the Soviet's position of critical support for the PG and were also involved in talks to try and achieve reconciliation between the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. This position seemed natural as Russia, in Lenin's words, was now the freest of all the belligerent countries in the world after the reforms of the PG, so why not support the PG?

It was against this background that Lenin returned from exile on April 3rd, arriving at the Finland Station. He descended from the famous "sealed train" that had brought him from Switzerland to Russia passing through Germany, jumped onto an armoured car and to the surprise of many in the Bolshevik leadership declared no collaboration with the bourgeois PG, no deal with the Mensheviks and the immediate withdrawal of Russia from the imperialist war. Lenin went on to a meeting of the Bolshevik Party and he was heard in "stunned silence". It was obvious that he was in a minority and needed to win a majority for his position. He then went on to a meeting of the Mensheviks after having given a copy of his speech to Tsereteli, the Menshevik leader. Here Lenin was met with heckling and booing.

Not party policy

His speech formed the basis of the April Theses that were published in Pravda, the Bolshevik Party newspaper, on April 7th. The Theses were not party policy but in the following weeks Lenin proved that from afar he had understood better than many of the Bolshevik leaders in Russia the feelings and aspirations of the workers and soldiers. Through a series of meetings, articles and pamphlets he achieved a majority in the Bolshevik party by the end of April. His position was vindicated as party membership rose from about 10,000 in April to half a million in October, with industrial workers making up 60% of the membership.

The growth of the Bolshevik Party was spectacular. At the beginning of March only about 40 of the 600 delegates to the Petrograd Soviet were Bolsheviks. By October they had a majority. In February the Bolsheviks only had 150 members in the Putilov factory that had 26,000 workers! By the end of March some 242 soviets had been established in Russia but only 27 had a Bolshevik majority. By October they had a majority in the Moscow Soviet and at the All Russia Congress of Soviets. Why did the Bolsheviks gain so much power so quickly and attract so many new members? The entry of Tseretelli and Skobelev from the Mensheviks and Chernov from the SRs into the PG in May certainly helped. They lost members to the Bolsheviks as the PG became increasingly isolated. The most important factor however was that the programme and policies of the Bolsheviks articulated the aspirations of the working class, the soldiers and increasingly the peasantry. This programme however would not have existed without the April Theses of Lenin.

So what did the Theses actually say? In a very short document of a few pages there were 10 important points made.

1. The war being fought is an imperialist war and a peaceful, democratic ending to the war will only be possible if capital is overthrown. With "particular thoroughness, persistence and patience" this has to be explained to the masses.

2. The unfolding revolution is passing from the first stage where power was put into the hands of the bourgeoisie to the second stage where power must be placed into the hands of the proletariat and the poorest section of the peasants.

3. No support for the provisional Government, "a government of capitalists".

4. Recognition that the Bolsheviks were a small minority in the Soviet and therefore it was necessary for a "patient, systematic and persistent explanation" of the errors of the other parties. At the same time to preach of the need to transfer "the entire state power to the Soviets of Workers Deputies."

5. Not a parliamentary republic but a republic of Soviets of Workers', Agricultural Labourers' and Peasants' Deputies. No standing army but an armed people. Elected officials subject to recall and paid the same as a competent worker.

6. Confiscation of all landed estates and nationalisation of all lands in the country.

7. Banks to be amalgamated into a single bank under the control of the Soviet of Workers' Deputies.

8. Social production and distribution of products under the control of the Soviets.

9. Convocation of a Party Congress. Change Party programme on the imperialist war, the state and the minimum programme. Change of name to Communist Party.

10. A new International.

These ten points laid the basis for the October Revolution which would not have been successful without the leadership of Lenin. They confirmed the inability of capitalism to take society forward and therefore the need to move to the stage of the proletarian revolution. This point brilliantly confirmed Trotsky's Permanent Revolution. Production of wealth and finance to be in the hands of the working class through its democratic organisations. A break with the Mensheviks and the formation of a new Party to fight for power. A break too with the reformist Second International and the creation of a new (Third) International.

All of these events took place 90 years ago but the lessons have still not been learnt by many so-called revolutionaries. Capitalism can offer no future for humankind. There is only Socialism or Barbarism. There are no "progressive" capitalists. There are no two stages. The only programme is the socialist revolution under the control of the working class. The task is through "patient, persistent and systematic" explanation to prepare the forces that will change society.

• “A most learned armchair fool”: Lenin versus the renegade Kautsky 29 Aug 2024
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• Russian Revolution as never seen before: the real story, told by an eyewitness 7 Nov 2022

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Lenin’s April Theses, 1917

In February 1917 in Russia, women textile workers in Petrograd went on strike and during subsequent days were joined by industrial workers across the city, small business people, students and many soldiers. By 25 February 240,000 workers were on strike according to the government’s figures.

With the background of the First World War and widespread food shortages, the workers and peasants were demanding bread, peace and an end to the autocracy. These events in Petrograd were echoed in Moscow and other cities across Russia.

A Soviet – the Russian word for council – of workers and soldiers was set up in Petrograd to organise the developing revolution and represent the interests of the workers and peasants.

It proceeded to take control of all the main state institutions, and soviets were springing up elsewhere too.

But at that stage the leaders of the soviets didn’t have the aim of placing power in the hands of the working class and peasantry.

Instead they ended up giving conditional support to a newly set-up provisional government led by Prince Lvov.

The February revolution overthrew the Czarist regime – Czar Nicolas was forced to abdicate – but it failed to solve the central issues of bread, peace and land.

In April 1917, when Lenin returned from exile, power still potentially lay in the hands of the workers, soldiers and peasants through the soviets, but even the Bolshevik leaders in the soviets were giving critical support to the capitalist provisional government rather than seeking to take power into soviet hands.

It was only in October 1917 that the Bolshevik revolution brought the soviets to power, placing the working class and peasants in control of their destiny for the first time.

The role that Lenin played through his writings in April 1917, known as the April Theses, and in his interventions after returning from exile, played a critical role in reorientating the Bolshevik party and bringing about the successful October revolution.

The below article by Lynn Walsh, editor of Socialism Today, was originally printed in 1987 in the South African publication Inqaba ya Basebenzi, during the inspiring uprising of the South African working class which led to the overthrow of the South African apartheid regime.

Lynn briefly explains both this success and the subsequent degeneration of that revolution and the influence of stalinism.

Below Lynn’s introduction is the text of Lenin’s April Theses, originally published on 7 April 1917 in Pravda no.26.

Introduction to Lenin’s ‘April Theses’, by Lynn Walsh

The bolsheviks adopt a programme for power, lenin’s april theses form one of the most decisive manifestos in the history of the revolution. they consist of just a few short notes, the bare skeleton of lenin’s speeches when he arrived back in petrograd in april 1917., but the ideas outlined within them brought about a decisive reorientation of the bolshevik leadership. lynn walsh re-examines the april theses and their lessons for today..

Lenin’s return from exile crystallized a crisis in the Bolshevik party. The leadership in Russia around Kamenev and Stalin, who had assumed responsibility on their return from Siberia in March, endorsed the Soviet’s position of conditional support for the Provisional government of Prince Lvov – even though the Soviet held the real power on the streets and in the factories.

Lenin had already rejected this stance, as his Letters from Afar in February demonstrated. The Provisional government, in his view, was so bound up with the landlords, the industrialists and the bankers that it was incapable of fulfilling its promises.

To believe that the government would end the war, distribute the big estates, solve the economic crisis and meet workers’ demands was a dangerous illusion.

There was no question, as far as Lenin was concerned, of supporting the Provisional government while it carried out reforms in the expectation that, at a later stage, more favourable conditions would emerge for the struggle for socialism.

The liberal bourgeois government, pushed reluctantly into power by the February revolution, had already gone as far as it was capable of going.

Unless the Soviets smashed the remnants of the old state and placed power decisively in the hands of the workers, the Provisional government would succumb to counter-revolution. The next phase would be a new regime of totalitarian reaction.

Socialist Programme

In the April Theses, therefore, Lenin called for a struggle for a socialist programme based on the independent action of the working class. Its main elements were:

• No Support for the Provisional government.
• Fight for the Soviets to take power.
• End the war.
• Confiscate the big estates.
• Nationalise the banks.
• Establish workers’ control of industry.
• Replace the police and army with a workers’ militia.
• Replace the old state bureaucracy with workers’ administration.
• Proclaim a Communist Party; establish a new international.

A programme on these lines, with the strategy and tactics also spelt out, was an essential pre-requisite for the success of the October revolution.

In April it was opposed by the leaders castigated by Lenin as ‘Old Bolsheviks’. However, by appealing to the leading Bolsheviks at rank and file level, Lenin won a majority for his ideas.

The new upsurge of workers and peasants, which provoked a new crisis for the Provisional government, confirmed Lenin’s position in a few stormy months. Without the April Theses, 1917 would have ended quite differently.

Underlying Lenin’s strategy and tactics was a clear perspective. This provided a clear guide to action during the ebbs and flows of the revolution.

On the other hand, it was precisely because the ‘Old Bolsheviks’ were working on the basis of a confused perspective, derived from a misinterpretation of Lenin’s previous position, that they adopted a policy which prefigured the disastrous Popular Frontism of the Stalinist leaders in the 1930s and since.

Permanent Revolution

The perspective which Lenin arrived at in 1917 coincided with Trotsky’s theory of Permanent Revolution, worked out following the experience of the 1905 revolution.

This resolved the long debate within the Russian labour movement which revolved around three different conceptions of the coming revolution.

All the Russian Marxists were agreed that the tasks of social transformation facing them were those of the bourgeois-democratic revolution.

These were: The breaking up of the big estates and the distribution of the land to the peasants. The abolition of the Tsarist monarchy and the establishment of a democratic republic.

The separation of the church and state. The introduction of social reforms, urgently demanded by the workers and the peasants, but also necessary to clear the way for the development of capitalism.

Given this, which political forces would provide the leadership?

Would it be (a) the liberal capitalist representatives? If so, would the workers’ parties, including the Bolsheviks, limit themselves to conditional support for the liberals, accepting that the struggle for socialism would come later, under more favourable conditions which would develop under a capitalist regime?

Would it be (b) the working class, in alliance with the representatives of the peasantry, who would take the power – limiting themselves, however, at this stage to bourgeois-democratic tasks?

Or would it be (c) the working class leading the exploited peasantry behind them, who would take power, carry through the bourgeois-democratic tasks – but at the same time implementing radical changes in their own interests which would begin the transition to socialism?

Position (a) was adopted by the Mensheviks, who formed the right wing of the Social-Democratic party.

From Marx, they drew highly schematic conclusions: that feudalism, capitalism and socialism followed in succession and one historical stage had to be complete before another could commence.

There was no question, according to this view, of the working class initiating a socialist revolution until the bourgeois revolution was complete.

This schema, alien to Marx’s dialectical method, took no account of the relationship of forces resulting from Russia’s uneven development.

Elements of modern industry can be injected, through foreign capital, into a society dominated by landlords and ruled by an absolute monarchy.

The capitalists had arrived too late on the scene, and were too cowardly to fight for progressive changes.

Long before 1917 they had held the real economic power. But they relied on the Tsar for protection, and feared the consequences of any big movements among the masses.

Above all, they feared the working class – relatively small, but compact, highly conscious and combative.

The Liberal Capitalists, in Lenin’s view, had long ago proved their inability to carry through their historical tasks.

The workers should place no reliance on the liberals whatsoever. Lenin always argued for an independent policy and organisation for the working class.

In the years before the revolution Lenin had accepted position (b). Given the bankruptcy of the liberal bourgeoisie, the revolution would be carried through by an alliance of the workers, the most dynamic force, and the peasantry, the predominant exploited class.

This perspective was summed up in Lenin’s formula “the revolutionary democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry.”

‘Dictatorship’ did not mean totalitarian rule (this was before the monstrosity of Stalinism!) but class domination, which would be based on democratic soviet-type organizations. ‘Democratic’ expressed recognition of the bourgeois character of the tasks to be carried out.

However, Lenin was far from putting a Chinese wall between the bourgeois-democratic and the socialist revolutions.

He was convinced that, because of capitalism’s international character, the Russian revolution would be one link in a chain of worldwide revolutions.

A revolutionary government in Russia would, through collaboration with the revolutionary workers’ governments in the advanced capitalist countries, move towards a second, socialist revolution in Russia.

How quickly this would happen would depend not on any predetermined historical timetable, but on the relationship of forces.

Above all, it would be determined by the strength of the proletariat involved in the struggle. As far back as 1906 Lenin had written: “We stand for uninterrupted revolution. We shall not stop halfway.”

Lenin’s formula, as he explained in April 1917, was ‘algebraic’. It expressed the class relationships but left open the specific weight of political forces involved, and did not attempt to quantify the concrete tasks to be carried out.

Trotsky, whose perspective was bolder and more concrete, warned in 1906 that any tendency on the part of the proletariat to accept bourgeois-democratic limits would become anti-revolutionary, and could be potentially fatal to the revolution.

A failure on the part of the revolutionary dictatorship to implement socialist measures would in practice undermine the forces of the proletariat.

The leadership would in reality be conceded, under these circumstances, to the liberal bourgeoisie – opening the door to the danger of counter-revolution.

Old Bolsheviks

By developing the revolutionary essence of his formula in relation to the concrete events of 1917 Lenin avoided this danger.

With regard to the ‘Old Bolsheviks’, Trotsky’s warning proved far-sighted and all too true. The Old Bolsheviks clung to Lenin’s ‘antiquated’ and now ‘meaningless’ (as Lenin made clear in the April Theses) formula of the democratic dictatorship.

Kamenev and Stalin claimed to be standing on Lenin’s previous perspective (b). In reality, the logic of this position – conditional support for the Provisional government and the postponement of the struggle on the workers’ own demands – led them back to the Menshevik’s position (a) of an alliance with the liberal bourgeoisie, with the workers playing second fiddle.

Was it an accident that, prior to Lenin’s return, Stalin and Kamenev supported discussions with the Mensheviks on re-unification?

The remaining position (c), the only one which proved genuinely revolutionary in 1917, was that of the Permanent Revolution. This was the position adopted by Lenin in February 1917, outlined in his Letters From Afar and spelt out in the April Theses:

“The specific feature of the present situation in Russia is that the country is passing from the first stage of the revolution … to its second stage, which must place power in the hands of the proletariat and the poorest sections of the peasants …

“The Soviets of Workers’ Deputies are the only possible form of revolutionary government…”

The position of Lenin and Trotsky coincided in 1917. Lenin saw that in the epoch of imperialism which dominated class relations internationally, the bourgeoisie of semi-developed countries like Russia had exhausted their historical mission.

They could no longer complete the tasks undertaken by their predecessors in the classical revolutions of the past.

These tasks now fell on the shoulders of the working class. Lenin now accepted Trotsky’s bold conclusion that the working class had to take power notwithstanding its numerical weakness.

But in taking on these tasks, left over from a previous era, the proletariat could not avoid linking them with the socialist measures essential to meet the workers’ immediate needs.

Given the economic backwardness and barbarous culture of a country like Russia, however, it was clearly imperative for the proletariat to adopt an internationalist outlook, striving to link up with the proletariat of more advanced countries possessing the material conditions for socialist development.

For fundamental material reasons, it is only on the basis of the international extension of the revolution that the workers of a backward country could proceed to the construction of socialism.

Referring to the Permanent Revolution, Lenin told his comrade Adolf Joffe: “Trotsky was right.” After 1917 the polemics of the past no longer seemed so important.

Lenin’s contempt for those who clung to the old formula was made clear in the brutal language of the April Theses.

However, there are many later comments which remove all doubt about Lenin’s view. On the fourth anniversary of the revolution, for instance, Lenin said: “In order to consolidate the achievements of the bourgeois-democratic revolution … we are obliged to go farther; and we did go farther.

“We solved the problems of the bourgeois-democratic revolution in passing as a ‘by-product’ of our main and genuinely proletarian-revolutionary, socialist activities.” (Fourth Anniversary of the October Revolution, 14 October, 1921)

The April Theses Today

Had the Russian revolution been successfully extended internationally, with the development of a socialist federation embracing economically advanced countries, the discussion of pre-1917 perspectives would now be of only historical interest to Marxists.

Unfortunately, with the defeat of the revolution in Europe, Soviet Russia was isolated. The revolution suffered an inevitable degeneration.

The democratic control of the workers was usurped by a bureaucratic elite, which found a bonapartist representative in the person of Stalin.

As the bureaucracy became more remote from the working class within Russia, so it increasingly gave up confidence in the proletarian revolution abroad.

The Communist International was transformed into an agency of the bureaucracy’s foreign policy. Searching for national security, the bureaucracy began to play a counter-revolutionary role on the world arena. The perspective for an independent struggle for socialism was abandoned.

In an effort to provide theoretical, ‘Leninist’ justification for this counter-revolutionary transformation, Stalin exhumed Lenin’s old formula of the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry.

In other words, they returned to the policy they had supported at the beginning of 1917 – before they had been defeated by Lenin in the struggle within the party.

The revival of this discredited policy was applied with disastrous results to the Chinese revolution of 1925-26.

Against the wished of the leadership of the Chinese Communists, the Stalinist bureaucracy imposed a policy of subordination to the Chinese bourgeoisie led by Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang.

This led to the defeat of China’s dynamic working class, with the massacre of thousands of Communists and militants. Since then, the same policy has been applied with the same disastrous results.

In the post-Second World War period the ex-colonial lands have experienced a series of revolutionary upheavals.

The communist party leaders, still dominated by Stalinist ideology, have invariably subordinated the workers’ organizations to the interests of national-capitalist leaders.

In many cases this has meant support for Bonapartist dictators, including military bonapartist leaders.

Sukharno in Indonesia, Kassim in Iraq, Gonçalves in Portugal – the list could be extended around the world many times.

In Chile between 1970-73, the Communist Party leaders supported the popular government of Salvador Allende.

This was on the basis of the so-called anti-imperialist, anti-monopoly programme – to make ‘inroads’ into the power of capital.

In other words, their perspective was that of completing a bourgeois-democratic stage of revolution, with the struggle for workers’ power and socialism postponed beyond the horizon.

Following this line, the Communist Party leaders helped to restrain the magnificent movement of the Chilean workers – who are still living with the horrendous results.

Similarly, in South Africa the Stalinists within the leadership of the ANC base themselves on the theory of stages.

In spite of the magnificent movement of the black workers and youth, they believe that the programme of the revolution must be limited, at this stage, to national democratic tasks.

They fail to see that capitalism has completely exhausted the progressive role it once played.

Crisis of Stalinism

The crisis in Stalinism and the reformist degeneration of the various communist parties has severed many of the links with Moscow.

But the CP leaders nevertheless perpetuate the false ideas of Stalin in 1917 – ideas which had to be swept aside by Lenin in order to ensure the success of the revolution.

If in 1917 the idea that the bourgeois-democratic revolution had to be exhausted before the workers could move towards socialism was incorrect, today it is totally absurd.

On the one side, the capitalist class of the underdeveloped countries is even more subservient to the big monopolies and banks of the advanced capitalist countries than in the past.

It is unable to play an independent, progressive role. Even where the national bourgeoisie has taken over, they have failed to complete their traditional tasks.

On the contrary, given the world-wide capitalist crisis, they have accumulated even more problems and fostered grotesque social contradictions.

On the other side, the national bourgeoisie of the ex-colonial lands is almost everywhere confronted by a powerful working class.

Especially in the semi-developed countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America, the capitalists are paralyzed by fear of the proletariat – much stronger now than the workers of Russia in 1917.

Many strikes, general strikes, and insurrectionary movements have proved the preparedness of the workers to struggle.

The weakness of the proletariat in the ex-colonial lands cannot be attributed to the incompleteness of the national bourgeois-democratic revolution.

The failure of the workers in these regions to assume the leadership of the exploited peasantry and the impoverished petty-bourgeoisie and to lead society out of its present blind alley is due to its political weakness.

This reflects the absence of revolutionary Marxist policy based on the ideas of Lenin and Trotsky and put to the test in 1917.

That is why the controversy of 1917 is still a live issue. The lessons of the April Theses have to be learned, re-learned and carried to class conscious workers throughout the world.

Inqaba ya Basebenzi, October 1987

The tasks of the proletariat in the present revolution, the april theses (published in pravda, no. 26, 7 april 1917), vladimir ilyich lenin.

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.

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, an explanation 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 programmeme;

(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 Programmeme ]

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.

[1] ie the standing army to be replaced by the arming of the whole people. – Lenin

[2] ie, a state of which the Paris Commune was the prototype. -Lenin

[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

This text of the April Theses was sourced from Lenin’s Collected Works, Progress Publishers, 1964, Moscow, Volume 24. Translated by Isaacs Bernard.

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“ It’s a delusion, it’s the delirium of a madman!” –  (A. Bogdanov, Menshevik, referring to Lenin’s April Theses) By Francesco Ricci.   It is April 3, 1917 (April 16 of our calendar) when the so-called ‘sealed train’ that houses Lenin, Zinoviev, Krupskaya, Inessa Armand, Radek and others arrives at the Finland Station. To welcome him, there is a delegation from the Petrograd Soviet, led by the Menshevik Cheidze, who gives a welcoming address. Lenin turns his back on him and heads for the crowd. Trotsky writes: “ T he speech which Lenin delivered at the Finland railway station on the socialist character of the Russian revolution was a bombshell to many [Bolshevik, the editor] leaders of the party. “ [1] Lenin, once again, explains his position to 200 militants who, on the evening of April 3, hear him in Petrograd. Among them is Nicolaj Soukhanov (Menshevik Internationalist), who in his Memoirs recounts the effect that this discourse caused: “(…) it seemed that all the elements had come out of their refuges and that the spirit of universal destruction, that did not respect limits nor doubts… hover in the room… “. When Lenin finishes speaking, applauses are heard, but the Bolshevik leaders looked puzzled. Lenin pointed at the same time to a change of strategy and the necessity, to implement the new line, of destroying the overwhelming influence of the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries in the Soviets (the Bolsheviks were a small minority at that time). Coincidentally, and just the next day, a meeting had been organized to move towards the reunification of the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks… Soukhanov, who watches, writes: “ At this meeting, Lenin seemed to be the living the incarnation of splitting and the whole meaning of his discourse consisted chiefly in burying the idea of unification. “ [2] Learning with the Paris Commune Let us just take a step back. Shortly after learning of the outbreak of the February revolution, Lenin begins, from his exile in Switzerland, a battle to change radically the Party’s strategy. First, on March 6 he sent a telegram to the party: “ Our tactics: no trust in and no support of the new government; Kerensky is especially suspect; arming of the proletariat is the only guarantee; … no rapprochement with other parties. ” [3] In March, he writes the Letters From Afar (Pravda will publish only an edited one). At the heart of these later letters and fundamental texts, among which the April Theses stand out, of which we shall deal next, there is the example of the Paris Commune, which Lenin had studied again in those months while he was writing the so-called Blue Notebook (Marxism and the State), a collection of commented quotations of all the concepts expressed by Marx and Engels on the theme of the State, the work that will be the basis to write The State and the Revolution . [4] The revolution that is developing in Russia, says Lenin, is a socialist revolution. Therefore, the aim of the revolution is to “break the bourgeois state,” as the Parisian workers did, and to replace it with the dictatorship of the proletariat. That is, it is not a question of changing the ruler of the old state machine, but of destroying it and substituting an entirely new one for it. But to achieve this goal, it is necessary to affirm the complete independence of the proletariat from the bourgeoisie and the provisional government, which is a bourgeois government, although it is currently supported by the Soviets (where the Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks have the majority). When Lenin Became a… “Trotskyist” It is not possible to appreciate in depth the changes proposed by Lenin without reminding the previous position sustained by the Bolsheviks for years. From the beginning of the century on, there were three different conceptions of the future Russian revolution [5] . The Mensheviks, in the name of a supposed “Marxist orthodoxy” (in fact, misrepresenting Marx and attributing to him a non-dialectical evolutionist conception of history), believed that Russia should go through a stage of capitalistic industrial development before the socialist revolution – after a considerable period – could succeed. Therefore, there should be a democratic revolution led by the bourgeoisie and the proletariat as a subordinate ally, which would free the country from Tsarism, where social-democracy would be the left wing of the “democratic front” led by Liberals. After centuries of capitalist development, the time for socialist revolution would come. Trotsky’s position was at the opposite pole: he believed that the national bourgeoisie was incapable of achieving democratic goals and therefore foresaw a socialist revolution, led by the proletariat that would hegemonize the poor peasants, to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat and assume, continually, the democratic and (on an international scale of an expanding revolution) the socialist tasks (expropriation of big industry, etc.). This would be possible because of the “uneven and combined development” of society and the international revolution that would allow Russia (like other underdeveloped countries) to “leap” a few steps, breaking an “evolutionary” stages scheme, that would be replaced by the “permanent revolution”. Lenin’s and the Bolsheviks’ position laid between both: the bourgeois revolution “directed to the end,” but (given the incapacity of the national bourgeoisie, tied by a thousand ties to foreign capital) led by the proletariat and the peasantry (In an “algebraic” alliance, according to Trotsky’s critique), to establish a “democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasants.” It is not the dictatorship of the proletariat, but a republic within the limits of bourgeois democracy, as a prelude to a rapid development towards the socialist revolution (its pace being dictated by the European revolution). Lenin believed, therefore, as the Mensheviks did, in a bourgeois revolution, although, unlike the Mensheviks, he managed another leadership, of workers and peasants, independent of the bourgeoisie. His program was different, too, stressing the confiscation of the land of the nobles and the Church; and a different perspective from that anticipated by the Mensheviks – there would be no centuries separating this first revolution from the successive socialist revolution. The February revolution was the confirmation (at least for those who wanted to think) that the only correct and viable conception was Trotsky’s. To guarantee the achievement of the democratic objectives (agrarian revolution, reduction of the working day, peace, the Constituent Assembly), it was necessary first to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat (supported by the poor peasants) based on the Soviets. Therefore, it was necessary to destroy the bourgeois rule, which represented an obstacle on the path to the full power of the Soviets. Lenin did not hesitate to abandon the old theory and, to great scandal of many, he began to defend, indeed, the theory that Trotsky had elaborated over ten years ago. That is why Trotsky comments: “ It is not strange that Lenin’s April Theses were condemned as Trotskyist.” [6] The Rediscovery of Dialectic in Marxism It was rightly observed by several scholars [7] that the change advocated by Lenin at the Finland station was based, from a theoretical point of view, on the study of Hegel’s Science of Logic, which Lenin began in 1914. A study he felt necessary to explain the betrayal of the Second International in World War I and to understand the complete capitulation of his masters of the past: Plekhanov and Kautsky (the latter, along with the bureaucratic deviation of the SPD, was progressively abandoning Marxism, of which he had been the “red pope” in the II International). In those months, closed in the library of Bern, Lenin discovers another Marx, decontaminated of the Feuerbachian prejudices. A dialectical Marxism (that of the Theses on Feuerbach, written by Marx in 1845), born out of the rupture with the “old materialism.” A Marxism based on the understanding of the subject-object dialectic, devoid of any causal conception, which contrasts with that mechanical determinism, which had also partially influenced him during a period (let us think about his Materialism and Empiriocriticism of 1909). It is the discovery of the true Marx, who had been distorted by his disciples and deformed by the opportunism of the Second International: the Marx who affirms “the educator must be educated” (the third Theses on Feuerbach), that is, circumstances may be altered by human action, by the class struggle, by revolutionary praxis. Lenin rediscovers Marx who claims that man makes history, even in circumstances he has not determined. In this Marx, there is no “law of historical development,” which prescribes to every people a linear evolution, no determinism. It is the rupture with the ossified Marxism of Plekhanov that, not by chance, before the October Revolution, will exclaim: “ It is the violation of all the laws of history .” It is in this crucial passage, condensed in his Philosophical Notebooks [8] that Lenin, contemplating Hegel’s books, grabs the dialectic that Marx had absorbed from Hegel and to which he had conferred a revolutionary character. Lenin should not start from scratch: he is always the only one who, since 1902, branding his vanguard party theory that brings socialism “out” of the day-to-day clash between classes, had implicitly rejected socialism understood as a mere product of the impulse of “economic laws”. In Bern, so to speak, he begins to solve a contradiction that remained in his thinking: the contradiction between the conception of the party and its program. Lenin’s Struggle to “Rearm” the Party Most of the Bolshevik leadership do not immediately understand the need for Lenin’s change. Kamenev and Stalin, the main leaders before Lenin’s arrival in Russia, remain anchored in the previous position (which they, furthermore, deformed it to the right) and believe that the Bolsheviks should provide support to the provisional government “to the extent that” it would implement certain policies; that is, it is about “pushing” the government forward. For them, the revolution lives its first stage: the “bourgeois-democratic revolution”, while the socialist one could only develop in an afterward stage. Thus, the Bolsheviks, before Lenin’s arrival, approached the Mensheviks’ positions: for example, on the question of war, the Pravda under Stalin and Kamenev repudiates the revolutionary defeatism that had characterized Bolshevism and pleases the resolution of the Social-Patriots on the war, approved by the Soviets of the Moscow region with the support of the Bolsheviks. At the party’s National Conference, which begins in Petrograd on March 27, Stalin presents the report on the government. In his report, he argues that the interim government is consolidating the revolutionary achievements and therefore the task of the soviets is to “control” and push it forward. As a logical consequence, Stalin presents a motion for merging with the Mensheviks, which is passed by 14 votes to 13. It is understandable why, once the bureaucracy consolidates its power, Stalin will censure the minutes of this Conference (published only in the 1960s). The April Theses The April Theses are undoubtedly the most important text written in the frenetic months of the Russian revolution. It is a short text: 10 theses written on five or six pages, published in the Pravda on April 7 (20, according to our calendar). Let us reread it together. Thesis 1: Rejection of the “revolutionary defensism” line of the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, which supports the continuity of the war. Thesis 2: The bourgeoisie robbed the power of the proletariat, owing to the insufficient class-consciousness and organization of the latter; it is necessary to reverse the situation by returning power to the proletariat supported by the poor peasants. It is not a task for an indeterminate future: it is “the duty of the present moment”. Thesis 3: No (even though critical) support for the Provisional Government. On the contrary, relentless exposure of its bourgeois nature. By reversing the policy hitherto pursued by Kamenev and Stalin, it should be pointed out that the government should not be supported under conditions, it should not be “critically stimulated” because it would only mean “sowing illusions” about the (impossible) fact that a bourgeois government could reconcile the interests of the two mortal class enemies, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. This fundamental thesis deserves an observation: for Lenin, it is not a matter of obeying abstract criteria, a dogma. The fact is that supporting a bourgeois government in any way means creating obstacles to gain the proletariat’s consciousness of the need to “break” the bourgeois state machine, an inevitable step in forming a “workers’ government for the workers.” Thesis 4: Since the Bolsheviks are in “a small minority” in the soviets, as against the “opportunist elements”, it is necessary to patiently explain to the masses why they are following a wrong policy and why it is necessary to transfer “the entire state power to the Soviets.” Thesis 5: The objective is not a bourgeois parliamentary republic, but a republic of the Soviets, that is to say, the dissolution of the repressive forces, the replacement of the permanent army with the armament of the proletariat, the eligibility and revocability of all officials at any time. Thesis 6: Confiscation of all landed estates and nationalization of all lands under the control of the Soviets. Thesis 7: Union of all banks into a single national bank under the control of the Soviets. Thesis 8: To bring social production and distribution under the control of the Soviets. Thesis 9: Consistently with all this, it is necessary to immediately summon a congress and change the program and the party’s name to Communist Party . Thesis 10: The immediate creation of a new revolutionary International against the reformists and against the “Center” (Kautsky, Chkheidze, etc.). [9] Lenin dismisses the old program, summed up as the “democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry,” as “a formula that is already antiquated” and the person who speaks only of it “should be consigned to the archive of ‘Bolshevik’ pre-revolutionary antiques.” However, Stalin will revive it in the course of the Soviets bureaucratic degeneration in the coming decades, but this is another story. [10] Trotsky’s Arrival: “The Best Bolshevik” On April 12, the Pravda publishes an article by Kamenev that criticizes the April Theses stressing that they are Lenin’s personal position, not the party’s. Kamenev adds that Lenin’s line is unacceptable since he proposes the immediate transformation of the revolution into a socialist one, something that for Kamenev (and not only for him) reminds much of Trotsky’s position that the Bolsheviks had fought. In the following days, Lenin began a hard fractional battle and managed to gain the support of an important part of the working class, that, on the other hand (as the Vyborg workers, the party’s backbone), had already expressed strong criticism of the Pravda ’s policy. However, that takes time: he is not immediately successful. In his first attempt, in a Petrograd Committee session, on April 12, the Theses were voted down by 13 votes to 2 and 1 abstention. A week later, at a conference in the Petrograd region, Lenin beats Kamenev by 20 votes to 6, and 9 abstentions. Finally, at the party’s 7 th Pan-Russian Conference (Petrograd, April 24-29), Lenin’s Theses won the majority. Nonetheless, a specific resolution on the theme of the socialist “character” of the revolution secures only 71 votes out of 118 [11] : The old “complete the democratic revolution first” thought still attaches a sector of the party. Consequently, this wing of the party (most notably Kamenev, Rykov, Nogin, while Stalin in the meantime aligns with the majority) thinks that the role of the Soviets is simply to “control” the power that should remain in the hands of the provisional government. On the question of the change of the party’s name, which he proposed to set the party more clearly from the Mensheviks, Lenin gets only his own vote. It is not a simple victory, therefore, and the fact that the provisional government was approaching a first deep crisis, facing street demonstrations, certainly helped him. Above all, as Trotsky observes, [12] Lenin’s victory over the party’s right wing recalls the fact that, in addition to the wrong programmatic formula of a “democratic dictatorship,” the Bolshevik party had been preparing for fifteen years to be at the head of the proletariat in the struggle for power. In those decisive months, its membership acted unconsciously looking for another perspective and, in practice, overcoming its own leadership. Lenin would illuminate them with the April Theses. Meanwhile, on May 4 (17 in the new calendar), Trotsky also arrives in Petrograd. He had spent the first few months of the year in New York after being expelled from Spain and France. A campaign by the Petrograd Soviet releases him from prison in the Amhrest military camp, Canada, where he stayed for one month, and prompts him to come back. In the first weeks after the outbreak of the revolution, he had written a great deal of articles (mostly published in the Russian-language journal Novy Mir ) where he resumed his theory of “permanent revolution” and developed it in concrete terms: Irreconcilable opposition to the provisional government as an indispensable premise to transfer all power to the Soviets and thus to develop the socialist revolution. Trotsky begins the collaboration with Lenin, just after his arrival. It will result in the merger of the Interdistrict group [13] with the Bolsheviks. While Lenin overcomes his “centrist” program of “democratic dictatorship,” Trotsky overcomes his “centrist” critiques of the Bolshevik-type party and abandons his unitary point of view. In fact, since 1914 he has been gradually shifting his position to conclude that “ it was necessary not only an ideological struggle against Menshevism (…) but also an organizational uncompromising rupture “. [14] Thus, the “permanent revolution” ceases to be considered (at least until the beginning of the Stalinization process, in 1924) Trotsky’s only idea but turns to be the practice and patrimony of Bolshevism and the successive Communist International (1919). Trotsky, in Lenin’s assertion, is “the best Bolshevik”. An Essential Lesson for Today What position would the world left have assumed, in the hundredth anniversary of the October revolution, if they had witnessed it? For us, the answer is quite simple: the major left would have supported the Provisional Government, delivering ministers to its cabinet; another part (which we have defined as “centrist”, i.e. semi-reformist) would have given “critical” support, breeding illusions on the possibility of pushing the government to the left by means of street actions. While only a small part of the world left (certainly the IWL-FI, and who else?) would act according to Lenin’s line in that telegram: no support for the government, no rapprochement with other left parties that support the government. Are we wrong? No, and the confirmation of this comes from the mere observation of what the whole left has done in the last decades but us. It is enough to observe the policy of the Italian Communist Refoundation party in this quarter of a century: support for the two-term imperialist Prodi governments with its own minister, or the support given by the entire reformist and semi-reformist left in recent years for the Greek “left-wing” bourgeois government of Tsipras as a model to be followed. The same as the PT’s administrations in Brazil, cited as an example of the ability to govern capitalism differently, reconciling the interests of the opposite classes. Are these not the proof that all this left, if they were present in the 1917 revolution, would have been on the opposite side of Lenin? In making this observation, we should add that when we speak of the Prodi, Lula-Dilma, and Tsipras governments, we are not talking about governments born out of a revolution and supported by the soviets, like those to whom – in any case – the Bolsheviks opposed in 1917! Therefore, we must conclude that present-day reformism stands on an even lower step than that Menshevik reformism which, according to Trotsky’s famous definition, had earned the right to end up in the trash bin of history. Thus, the April Theses continue, a century later, being a scandalous text for the reformists, while they celebrate October as a glorious event of the past, emptied of its teachings. These teachings, on the contrary, we must recover, so that the working class can move, with the struggles and the revolution, toward a new October. *** Translation: Marcos Margarido. ** Notes: [1] Trotsky, The Lessons of October , www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1924/lessons/ch4.htm [2] N. Soukhanov, Le Discours de Lénine du 3 Avril 1917 , published by Cahiers du Mouvement Ouvrier , n. 27, 2005, Editor J.J. Marie. Our translation.

[3] Lenin, Telegram to the Bolsheviks Leaving for Russia , www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/mar/06.htm .

[4] To learn more of the Letters From Afar and the Paris Commune, read our recent article published on the IWL-FI website: 1871-1917: Por que os bolcheviques estudaram a Comuna de Paris para fazer a Revolução de Outubro [5] We presented this debate in a more detailed fashion in What is the theory of permanent revolution?, published in Trotskismo Oggi, n. 1, September 2011. [6] Leon Trotsky, History of the Russian Revolution, vol. I, p. 347. [7] There are a number of studies, as by Michael Löwy, including “From Hegel’s Great Logic to Petrograd’s Finland Station” in Dialectique et Révolution (Anthropos, 1973), or the more recent and interesting one (although we do not share some of its conclusions) by Kevin Anderson, Lenin, Hegel & Western Marxism: A Critical Study (University of Illinois Press, 1995). [8] V. I. Lenin, Philosophical Notebooks, in Collected Works, Volume 38. [9] V. I. Lenin, April Theses, in Collected Works, Volume 24 – www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/apr/04.htm [10] The expressions in quotation marks in this sentence are from Lenin, Letters on Tactics (Collected Works, Volume 24). [11] For a detailed analysis of the vote at the April Conference, see Marcel Liebman, La révolution russe (Marabout Université, 1967) or Jean Jacques Marie, Lenin (Balland, 2004). [12] Read Trotsky, History of the Russian Revolution, especially the chapters: “The Bolsheviks and Lenin” and “The rearming of the party,” for an overview of the question of the April Theses and the struggle in the party. [13] The Interdistrict Group or Mezhraionka, an organization of about 4,000-5,000 militants, was more like a coordination of ex-Mensheviks and ex-Bolsheviks. Ioffe, Lunacharsky, Antonov-Ovseenko, Urickij were members. To read more, see Ian D. Thatcher, The St. Petersburg / Petrograd Mezhraionka, 1913-1917: The Rise and Fall of a Movement for Social-Democratic Unity in Slavonic & East European Review, 87, 2009. [14] On this, see Leon Trotsky, “The Rearming of the Party,” in History of the Russian Revolution.

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