Vladimir Lenin, Draft of a New Program: Presented to the Seventh Party Congress. March 7, 1918

Presented to the Seventh Party Congress

Original Source: Protokoly s"ezdov i konferentsii vsesoiuznoi Kommunisticheskoi Partii (b) Sedmoi s"ezd, 182-86.

The Revolution of November 7, 1917, established in Russia the dictatorship of the proletariat, which is now supported by the poorer peasants or the semi-proletariat.

That dictatorship places before the Russian Communist Party the following tasks:

(1) To continue ... and bring to completion the expropriation of the landlords and the bourgeoisie and to transfer to the ownership of the Soviet Republic all factories, mills, railroads, banks, and other means of production and exchange.

(2) To utilize the solidarity of the city workers and the poorer peasants ... in the interest of a gradual and resolute transition to communal methods of tilling the land and to large-scale socialistic agriculture.

(3) To consolidate and develop the Federative Republic of Soviets as a form of democracy immeasurably higher and more progressive than bourgeois parliamentarism, and as the only type of state which the experiments of the Paris Commune of 1871 and the Russian Revolutions of 1905 and 1917-19 have shown to be the appropriate form of government for the period of transition from capitalism to socialism, i.e., the period of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

(4) To make every use of the torch of the world socialist revolution first kindled in Russia to paralyze the attempts of the imperialistic bourgeois governments to interfere in Russia's internal affairs and then to carry the revolution into all other countries.

Ten Theses on the Nature of the Soviet Power

The Solidification and Development of the Soviet Power

We are concerned with the solidification and development of the Soviet power as a form of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the poorer peasantry (semi-proletariat) which has been tested in experience and brought forth by the mass movement and the revolutionary struggle. This solidification and the development must aim toward the realization ... of these tasks which history had imposed on this form of state power, this new type of state. These tasks are as follows :

(1) To unite and organize only the workers who are oppressed by capitalists and the exploited masses, i.e., only workers and poorer peasants (semi-proletariat) excluding ... the exploiting classes and the well-to-do representatives of the petty bourgeoisie.

(2) To unite the most active, energetic, and class-conscious sections of the oppressed classes--their advance guard--and have them educate the entire toiling population to take an independent part in the government of the state, not theoretically but practically.

(3) To do away with parliamentarism, to unite the legislative and executive functions of government. Amalgamate executive power with legislation.

(4) To establish more intimate connection between government institutions and the masses than existed in the old forms of democracy.

(5) To form an armed force of workers and peasants.

(6) To set up more complete democracy by lessening formalism and providing greater facility for election and recall.

(7) To establish close (immediate) contact with trade unions and

producing economic units (elections in factories and in districts inhabited by peasant farmers and craftsmen). This close contact will make it possible to introduce far-reaching socialist reforms.

(8) ... To remove bureaucracy ... as completely as possible.

(9) To shift the main emphasis in questions of democracy from mere formal equality between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, poor and rich, to the practical use of freedom (democracy) by the toiling and exploited masses of the population.

(10) Further development of the Soviet organization of the state must proceed along the lines of compulsory participation by every. Soviet member in the government. As time goes on the entire population must be called upon to take part in Soviet organizations (tinder condition that the Soviets are tinder control of workers' organizations) and to assume the duties of government.

How the Task Can Be Realized

A. In the sphere of politics-by developing the Soviet Republic. Six points.

(1) By extending the Soviet Constitution to include the entire population, in proportion as the resistance of the exploiters breaks down.

(2) By using the Soviet federation of nations as a transition to a more enlightened and closer union between the toilers, who will have learned to rise above national differences.

(3) By using methods of compulsory and merciless suppression of exploiters.

(4) By granting "liberties" and democracy not to all, but only to the toiling and exploited masses in the interests of their emancipation ...

(5) By arming the workers and disarming the bourgeoisie.

(6) By using the Soviet state as a transition period to a gradual abolition of government by systematically enlisting an ever greater number, and finally all of the citizens in a direct and daily discharge of their share in the management of the state.

B. In the economic sphere.

by introducing socialist organization of production oil a national scale, managed by workers' organizations (trade unions, factory-shop committees, etc.) tinder the general supervision of the Soviet Government as the only sovereign.

By organizing on a similar basis transport and distribution (first, a state monopoly of "trade," then complete and final abolition of "trade" in favor of a planned organization of distribution through trade and industrial unions) under the leadership of the Soviet Government, and by compelling the population to join consuming-producing communes.

By making it legally compulsory for all transactions of buying and selling to be made through the consuming communes but without abolishing money (for the time being) or prohibiting such transactions by individual families.

By introducing universal labor duty at once and by extending it gradually to small peasants who live on their own farms and do not hire outside labor.

By compelling all wealthy people with an income exceeding five hundred rubles a month, all owners of enterprises that hire labor, and all families employing domestic servants to keep consuming-labor (account) books. This is necessary as a first measure, toward the establishment of universal labor duty.

By allowing buying and selling outside the commune (during one's journey) provided the transaction exceeding a definite sum is entered in the consumers' labor book.

By concentrating all banking business and bank capital in the hands of the state. By introducing current accounts for all. By having all money deposited in banks and all money-transfers made through the banks.

By keeping a universal account and control over the production and distribution of all goods. This account and control should be exercised first by workers' organizations and later by the entire population.

By organizing competition between the various (all) consuming-producing communes with the aim of increasing discipline and the production of labor, of adopting higher technique, of economizing labor and material, of shortening the labor day to six hours, and of equalizing by degrees the wages in all professions and categories. By adopting steadfastly and systematically measures aiming to replace individual housekeeping by separate families by communal feeding of large groups of families ...

C. In the financial sphere.

By replacing indirect taxes by progressive-income and property taxes and by deducting a certain proportion of profit from state monopolies. In this connection it is desirable that the wages of certain categories of workers employed by the state should be paid in kind-bread rations and other products,

D. In international politics.

By supporting in the first instance the revolutionary movement of the socialist proletariat in the advanced countries.

By propaganda, agitation, fraternization.

By mercilessly struggling with opportunism and chauvinism. By supporting the democratic revolutionary movement in all countries in general, and in colonies and dependencies in particular.

By freeing all colonial peoples. By advocating federation as a form of transition to voluntary union.

Source: James Bunyan and H.H. Fisher, ed., Bolshevik Revolution, 1917-1918; Documents and Materials (Stanford: Stanford University Press; H. Milford, Oxford University Press, 1934), pp. 547-550.