Vladimir Lenin
Letters on Tactics
Written: Between April 8 and 13, 1917
First Published: April, 1917 (as pamphlet)
Online Version: marxists.org 1999
Foreword
On April 4, 1917, I had occasion to make a report on the subject indicated in
the title, first, at a meeting of Bolsheviks in Petrograd. These were delegates
to the All-Russia Conference of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, who
had to leave for their homes and therefore could not allow me to postpone it.
After the meeting, the chairman, Comrade G. Zinoviev, asked me on behalf of the
whole assembly to repeat my report immediately at a joint meeting of Bolshevik
and Menshevik delegates, who wished to discuss the question of unifying the
Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party.
Difficult though it was for me immediately to repeat my report, I felt that I
had no right to refuse once this was demanded of me by my comrades-in-ideas as
well as by the Mensheviks, who, because of their impending departure, really
could not grant me a delay.
In making my report, I read the theses which were published in No. 26 of Pravda,
on April 7, 1917. [1]
Both the theses and my report gave rise to differences of opinion among the
Bolsheviks themselves and the editors of Pravda. After a number of
consultations, we unanimously concluded that it would be advisable openly to
discuss our differences, and thus provide material for the All-Russia Conference
of our Party (the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, united under the
Central Committee) which is to meet in Petrograd on April 20, 1917.
Complying with this decision concerning a discussion, I am publishing the
following letters in which I do not claim to have made an exhaustive study of
the question, but wish merely to outline the principal arguments, which are
especially essential for the practical tasks of the working-class movement.
First Letter
Assesment of the Present Situation
Marxism requires of us a strictly exact and objectively verifiable analysis of
the relations of classes and of the concrete features peculiar to each
historical situation. We Bolsheviks have always tried to meet this requirement,
which is absolutely essential for giving a scientific foundation to policy.
"Our theory is not a dogma, but a guide to action," [2] Marx and Engels always
said, rightly ridiculing the mere memorising and repetition of "formulas", that
at best are capable only of marking out general tasks, which are necessarily
modifiable by the concrete economic and political conditions of each particular
period of the historical process.
What, then, are the clearly established objectivefacts which the party of the
revolutionary proletariat must now be guided by in defining the tasks and forms
of its activity?
Both in my first Letter Irom Afar ("The First Stage of the First Revolution")
published in Pravda Nos. 14 and 15, March 21 and 22, 1917, and in my theses, I
define "the specific feature of the present situation in Russia" as a period of
transition from the first stage of the revolution to the second. I therefore
considered the basic slogan, the "task of the day" at this moment to be:
"Workers, you have performed miracles of proletarian heroism, the heroism of the
people, in the civil war against tsarism. You must perform miracles of
organisation, organisation of the proletariat and of the whole people, to
prepare the way for your victory in the second stage of the revolution" (Pravda
No. 15).
What, then, is the first stage?
It is the passing of state power to the bourgeoisie.
Before the February-March revolution of 1917, statepower in Russia was in the
hands of one old class, namely, the feudal landed nobility, headed by Nicholas
Romanov.
After the revolution, the power is in the hands of a different class, a new
class, namely, the bourgeoisie.
The passing of state power from one class to another is the first, the
principal, the basic sign of a revolution, both in the strictly scientific and
in the practical political meaning of that term.
To this extent, the bourgeois, or the bourgeois-democratic, revolution in Russia
is completed.
But at this point we hear a clamour of protest from people who readily call
themselves "old Bolsheviks". Didn't we always maintain, they say, that the
bourgeois-democratic revolution is completed only by the
'revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry"? Is
the agrarian revolution, which is also a bourgeois-democratic revolution,
completed? Is it not a fact, on the contrary, that it has not even started?
My answer is: The Bolshevik slogans and ideas on the whole have been confirmed
by history; but concretely things have worked out diflerently; they are more
original, more peculiar, more variated than anyone could have expected.
To ignore or overlook this fact would mean taking after those "old Bolsheviks"
who more than once already have played so regrettable a role in the history of
our Party by reiterating formulas senselessly learned by rote instead of
studying the specific features of the new and living reality.
'The revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry"
has already become a reality [3] in the Russian revolution, for this "formula"
envisages only a relation of classes, and not a concrete political institution
implementing this relation, this co-operation. "The Soviet of Workers' and
Soldiers' Deputies" -- there you have the "revolutionary-democratic dictatorship
of the proletariat and the peasantry" already accomplished in reality.
This formula is already antiquated. Events have moved it from tile realm of
formulas into the realm of reality, clothed it with flesh and bone, concretised
it and thereby modified it.
A new and different task now faces us: to effect a split within this
dictatorship between the proletarian elements (the anti-defencist,
internationalist, "Communist" elements, who stand for a transition to the
commune) and the small-proprietor or petty-bourgeois elements (Chkheidze,
Tsereteli, Steklov, the Socialist-Revolutionaries and the other revolutionary
defencists, who are opposed to moving towards the commune and are in favour of
"supporting" the bourgeoisie and the bourgeois government). [4]
The person who now speaks only of a "revolutionary democratic dictatorship of
the proletariat and the peasantry" is behind the times, consequently, he has in
effect gone over to the petty bourgeoisie against the proletarian class
struggle; that person should be consigned to the archive of "Bolshevik"
pre-revolutionary antiques (it may be called the archive of "old Bolsheviks").
The revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry
has already been realised, but in a highly original manner, and with a number of
extremely important modifications. I shall deal with them separately in one of
my next letters. For the present, it is essential to grasp the incontestable
truth that a Marxist must take cognisance of real life, of the true facts of
reality, and not cling to a theory of yesterday, which, like all theories, at
best only outlines the main and the general, only comes near to embracing life
in all its complexity.
"Theory, my friend, is grey, but green is the eternal tree of life." [5]
To deal with the question of "completion" of the bourgeois revolution in the old
way is to sacrifice living Marxism to the dead letter.
According to the old way of thinking, the rule of the bourgeoisie could and
should be followed by the rule of the proletariat and the peasantry, by their
dictatorship.
In real life, however, things have already turned out differently; there has
been an extremely original, novel and unprecedented interlacing of the one with
the other. We have side by side, existing together, simultaneously, both the
rule of the bourgeoisie (the government of Lvov and Guchkov) and a
revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry,
which is voluntarily ceding power to the bourgeoisie, voluntarily making itself
an appendage of the bourgeoisie.
For it must not be forgotten that actually, in Petrograd, the power is in the
hands of the workers and soldiers; the new government is not using and cannot
use violence against them, because there is no police, no army standing apart
from the people, no officialdom standing all-powerful above tbe people. This is
a fact, the kind of fact that is characteristic of a state of the Paris Commune
type. This fact does not fit into the old schemes. One must know how to adapt
schemes to facts, instead of reiterating the now meaningless words about a
'dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry" in general.
To throw more light on this question let us approach it from another angle.
A Marxist must not abandon the ground of careful analysis of class relations.
The bourgeoisie is in power. But is not the mass of the peasants also a
bourgeoisie, only of a different social stratumm, of a different kind, of a
different character? Whence does it follow that this stratum cannot come to
power, thus "completing" the bourgeois-democratic revolution? Why should this be
impossible?
This is how the old ...
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