1. the economic crisis which Russia is now experiencing shows no signs of early abatement, and in its protracted course is continuing to create unemployment on an enormous scale in the towns and starvation in the villages;
2. as a result of this, the class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, between the landlords and the peasantry, and also between the government-bribed peasant bourgeoisie and the poor villagers, is becoming more acute;
3. the political history of Russia during the past year, from the First Duma to the new elections, reveals a rapid increase of political consciousness in all classes, which is reflected in the enormous strengthening of the extreme parties, in the dissipation of constitutional illusions and in the weakening of the “Centre”, i.e., the liberal-bourgeois Cadet Party, which is striving to halt the revolution by offering concessions acceptable to the Black-Hundred land lords and the autocracy;
4. the policy of the Constitutional-Democratic Party directed towards the achievement of this purpose will release only a minimum of the productive forces of bourgeois society, will not in any way satisfy the elementary needs of the proletariat and of the mass of the peasantry, and will necessitate the constant forcible suppression of these masses;
I. that the political crisis that is developing before our eyes is not a constitutional but a revolutionary crisis leading to a direct struggle of the proletarian and the peasant masses against the autocracy;
2. that the forthcoming Duma campaign must therefore be regarded merely as one of the episodes in the people’s revolutionary struggle for power, and must be utilised as such;
3. that, as the party of the advanced class, the Social- Democratic Party cannot under any circumstances at present support the Cadet policy in general or a Cadet ministry in particular. The Social-Democrats must bend every effort to expose the treacherous nature of this policy to the masses; they must explain to them the revolutionary tasks confronting them; they must show the masses that only when they attain a high level of political consciousness and are strongly organised can possible concessions by the autocracy be converted from an instrument of deception and corruption into an instrument for the further development of the revolution.
| | |
| | | | | | |