2. What Does the Resolution of the Third Congress of the RSDLP on a Provisional Revolutionary Government Give Us?

The resolution of the Third Congress of the RSDLP, as its title shows, is devoted wholly and exclusively to the question of a provisional revolutionary government. This means that the participation of Social-Democrats in a provisional revolutionary government is included in it as part of the question. On the other hand, it deals only with a provisional revolutionary government and with nothing else; consequently it does not include at all, for instance, the question of the “conquest of power” in general, and so on. Was the congress right to set aside this latter question and others like it? Undoubtedly it was, for the political situation in Russia does not by any means place such questions on the order of the day. On the contrary, the whole people has placed on the order of the day the overthrow of the autocracy and the convening of a constituent assembly. Party congresses should take up for decision not the questions that this or that writer happens to have touched on, relevantly or irrelevantly, but those that are of serious political importance because of the conditions of the moment and of the objective course of social development.

What is the significance of a provisional revolutionary government in the present revolution and in the general struggle of the proletariat? The resolution of the congress explains this by pointing out at the very beginning the need for “the fullest possible political freedom”, from the standpoint both of the immediate interests of the proletariat and of the “ultimate aims of socialism”. And full political freedom requires the replacement of the tsarist autocracy by a democratic republic, as our party programme already recognises. Stressing the slogan of a democratic republic in the resolution of the congress is necessary both logically and in principle, for the proletariat, as the foremost champion of democracy, strives precisely for complete freedom; moreover, this emphasis is all the more appropriate at the present moment because with us it is precisely now that monarchists are coming forward under the flag of “democracy”, namely the so-called Constitutional-“Democratic”, or Osvobozhdenie, party. To establish a republic an assembly of the people’s representatives is absolutely necessary, and it must be a popular one (on the basis of universal, equal and direct suffrage by secret ballot) and a constituent one. This the resolution of the congress goes on to recognise. But it does not stop there. To establish a new order “that really expresses the will of the people” it is not enough to call a representative assembly constituent. This assembly must have the power and the strength to “constitute”. Aware of this, the resolution of the congress does not confine itself to the formal slogan of a “constituent assembly”, but adds the material conditions under which alone it is possible for this assembly really to carry out its task. Such an indication of the conditions under which an assembly constituent in name can become constituent in fact is urgently necessary, for the liberal bourgeoisie, in the person of the constitutional-monarchist party, deliberately distorts the slogan of a popular constituent assembly, as we have more than once pointed out, reducing it to an empty phrase.

The resolution of the congress says that only a provisional revolutionary government, and moreover one that is the organ of a victorious popular uprising, is capable of securing full freedom of agitation during the election campaign and of convening an assembly that really expresses the will of the people. Is this proposition correct? Anyone who took it into his head to dispute it would have to maintain that the tsarist government may refrain from siding with reaction, that it is capable of being neutral during the elections, that it may concern itself with the real expression of the will of the people. Such assertions are so absurd that no one will defend them openly, but they are smuggled in under the liberal flag, precisely by our Osvobozhdenie people. Someone must convene the constituent assembly; someone must guarantee the freedom and fairness of the elections; someone must invest this assembly with full strength and power: only a revolutionary government that is the organ of the uprising can sincerely want this and be strong enough to do everything to bring it about. The tsarist government will inevitably oppose it. A liberal government that has made a deal with the tsar and does not rest wholly on the popular uprising is incapable either of sincerely wanting this or of accomplishing it, even if it wanted it with all sincerity. The resolution of the congress therefore gives the only correct and fully consistent democratic slogan.

But the assessment of the significance of a provisional revolutionary government would be incomplete and wrong if the class character of the democratic revolution were lost sight of. The resolution therefore adds that the revolution will strengthen the rule of the bourgeoisie. This is inevitable under the present, that is, capitalist, social and economic order. And the result of strengthening the rule of the bourgeoisie over a proletariat that has some degree of political freedom must inevitably be a desperate struggle between them for power, desperate attempts on the part of the bourgeoisie “to take from the proletariat the gains of the revolutionary period”. That is why the proletariat, while fighting for democracy in the front ranks and at the head of all, must not for a moment forget the new contradictions and the new struggle latent in the depths of bourgeois democracy.

Thus the significance of a provisional revolutionary government has been fully assessed in the part of the resolution we have examined: in its relation to the struggle for freedom and for a republic, in its relation to the constituent assembly, and in its relation to the democratic revolution that clears the ground for a new class struggle.

The next question is what the attitude of the proletariat in general should be towards a provisional revolutionary government. The resolution of the congress answers this first of all with direct advice to the party to spread among the working class the conviction that a provisional revolutionary government is necessary. The working class must become conscious of this necessity. While the “democratic” bourgeoisie leaves the question of the overthrow of the tsarist government in the shade, we must put it in the forefront and insist on the necessity of a provisional revolutionary government. More than that, we must outline a programme of action for this government that corresponds to the objective conditions of the present historical moment and to the tasks of proletarian democracy. This programme is the whole minimum programme of our party, the programme of the immediate political and economic changes that are, on the one hand, fully realisable on the basis of existing social and economic relations and, on the other hand, necessary for the next step forward, for the realisation of socialism.

Thus the resolution makes the character and aim of a provisional revolutionary government entirely clear. In its origin and basic character this government must be the organ of a popular uprising. In its formal purpose it must be the instrument for convening a popular constituent assembly. In the content of its activity it must carry out the minimum programme of proletarian democracy, the only programme capable of safeguarding the interests of the people that has risen against the autocracy.

It may be objected that a provisional government, being provisional, cannot carry out a positive programme that has not yet been approved by the whole people. Such an objection would be merely a sophism of reactionaries and “absolutists”. To carry out no positive programme means tolerating the existence of the feudal practices of the rotten autocracy. Only a government of traitors to the cause of the revolution could tolerate such practices, not a government that is the organ of a popular uprising. It would be a mockery if anyone proposed that we refrain from putting freedom of assembly into practice until this freedom had been recognised by the constituent assembly, on the pretext that the constituent assembly might perhaps not recognise freedom of assembly! The objection to the immediate realisation of the minimum programme by a provisional revolutionary government is just as much of a mockery.

Let us note, finally, that by making the realisation of the minimum programme the task of the provisional revolutionary government, the resolution thereby rules out the absurd semi-anarchist ideas of the immediate realisation of the maximum programme, of the conquest of power for a socialist revolution. The degree of Russia’s economic development (an objective condition) and the degree of class consciousness and organisation of the broad masses of the proletariat (a subjective condition, inseparably bound up with the objective one) make the immediate complete emancipation of the working class impossible. Only the most ignorant people can ignore the bourgeois character of the democratic revolution now taking place; only the most naive optimists can forget how little the mass of the workers still knows about the aims of socialism and the methods of achieving it. And we are all convinced that the emancipation of the workers can be the work only of the workers themselves; without the class consciousness and organisation of the masses, without their preparation and education by open class struggle against the whole bourgeoisie, there can be no question of a socialist revolution. And in answer to the anarchist objection that we are postponing the socialist revolution, we say: we are not postponing it, we are taking the first step towards it in the only possible way, along the only correct road, namely the road of a democratic republic. Whoever wants to reach socialism by any other road than that of political democracy will inevitably arrive at conclusions that are absurd and reactionary in both the economic and the political sense. If this or that group of workers asks us at the appropriate moment why we should not carry out the maximum programme, we shall answer by pointing out how alien to socialism the democratically minded masses of the people still are, how undeveloped class antagonisms still are, how unorganised the proletarians still are. Just try organising hundreds of thousands of workers all over Russia, try spreading sympathy for your programme among millions! Try doing it without confining yourselves to resounding but empty anarchist phrases, and you will see at once that achieving this organisation, and spreading this socialist enlightenment, depends on the fullest possible realisation of democratic reforms.

Let us go on. Once the significance of a provisional revolutionary government and the attitude of the proletariat towards it have been made clear, the following question arises: is our participation in it (action from above) permissible, and under what conditions? What should our action from below be? The resolution gives precise answers to both these questions. It declares emphatically that in principle the participation of Social-Democracy in a provisional revolutionary government (in the epoch of the democratic revolution, the epoch of the struggle for a republic) is permissible. By this declaration we irrevocably separate ourselves both from the anarchists, who answer this question in the negative on principle, and from the tail-enders of Social-Democracy (like Martynov and the new-Iskrists), who tried to frighten us with the prospect of a situation in which such participation might prove necessary for us. By this declaration the Third Congress of the RSDLP irrevocably rejected the idea of the new Iskra that the participation of Social-Democrats in a provisional revolutionary government is a variety of Millerandism, that it is impermissible in principle as a sanctification of the bourgeois order, and so on.

But the question of permissibility in principle does not, of course, settle the question of practical expediency. Under what conditions is this new kind of struggle, struggle “from above”, recognised by the party congress, expedient? It goes without saying that it is impossible to speak now of concrete conditions such as the relation of forces and so on, and the resolution naturally refrains from defining these conditions in advance. No sensible person would undertake to predict anything about the question that concerns us at the present moment. What can and must be defined is the character and aim of our participation. And this the resolution does, indicating two aims of participation: 1) a relentless struggle against counter-revolutionary attempts, and 2) the defence of the independent interests of the working class. At a time when the liberal bourgeois are beginning to talk zealously about the psychology of reaction (see Mr. Struve’s most instructive “Open Letter” in No. 71 of Osvobozhdenie), trying to frighten the revolutionary people and induce it to be compliant towards the autocracy, it is particularly fitting for the party of the proletariat to recall the task of real war against the counter-revolution. The great questions of political liberty and of the class struggle are decided, in the last analysis, only by force, and we must see to the preparation and organisation of this force and to its active use, not only for defence but for attack. The long epoch of political reaction that has reigned in Europe almost without interruption since the time of the Paris Commune has made us too familiar with the idea of action only “from below”, has accustomed us too much to watching only a defensive struggle. We have now undoubtedly entered a new epoch; a period of political upheavals and revolutions has begun. In a period such as Russia is now living through, it is impermissible to confine ourselves to the old pattern. We must propagate the idea of action from above, we must prepare for the most energetic, offensive action, we must study the conditions and forms of such action. Of these conditions the resolution of the congress puts two in the forefront: one concerns the formal side of Social-Democratic participation in a provisional revolutionary government (strict control by the party over its representatives), the other the very character of this participation (never for a moment losing sight of the aim of a complete socialist revolution).

Having thus made clear from every side the policy of the party in action “from above”, in this new and hitherto almost unprecedented method of struggle, the resolution also provides for the case in which we shall not succeed in acting from above. We are obliged in any case to act from below on the provisional revolutionary government. For such pressure from below the proletariat must be armed, for at a revolutionary moment matters come particularly quickly to outright civil war, and it must be led by Social-Democracy. The aim of its armed pressure is “safeguarding, consolidating and extending the gains of the revolution”, that is, those gains which, from the standpoint of the interests of the proletariat, must consist in the realisation of the whole of our minimum programme.

With this we shall conclude our brief analysis of the resolution of the Third Congress on a provisional revolutionary government. As the reader sees, this resolution makes clear the significance of the new question, the attitude of the party of the proletariat towards it, and the policy of the party both within a provisional revolutionary government and outside it.

Let us now look at the corresponding resolution of the “Conference”.