Draft Programme of the R.C.P.(B)

This is Lenin’s second draft programme for the R.C.P.(B), also known as the “Draft Programme of the R.C.P.(B)”. It was written in February 1919, published in Pravda issue No.43 on February 25,1919. The Chinese translation is included in Vol. 36 of the second revised edition of the Complete Works of Lenin.

The first programme of the R.C.P.(B) was passed at the Second Party Congress in 1903. The new situation required new theories and guidelines to guide the proletarian revolution. Therefore, Lenin immediately raised the issue of revising the party program after the February 1917 Revolution: he drew up a concrete outline for revising the programme in “Outline of the Fifth ‘Letter From Afar’” written in April 1917; in the “April Theses”, the task of revising the Party’s programme was put forward. In April 1917, he drafted the “Revised Draft of the Theory, Politics and Other Parts of the Party Programme” for the the Seventh Congress of the R.S.D.L.P.(B). The Congress passed a resolution to revise the Party Programme and determined the guidelines for the revision. Shortly after the Congress, in June 1917, Lenin, on the instruction of the Central Committee, published a pamphlet titles as the “Materials Relating to the Revision of the Party Programme”.

In October 1917, Lenin’s article titled “Revision of the Party Programme” was published. In March 1918, a draft Party programme was drawn up for the Seventh Congress of the R.C.P. (B). A report on revising the party programme and changing the Party’s name was made at the Congress. The Congress adopted Lenin’s proposal and suggestions, changed the name of the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party (Bolshevik) to the Russian Communist Party with the addition of the word “Bolshevik” in parentheses, in short or R.C.P. (B), and passed a resolution on revising the Party programme. This article is Lenin’s final draft of the Party’s program based on the above documents and entrusted by the Seventh Congress of the R.C.P. (B). The main contents are as follows:

(1) In this draft, on the basis of retaining the formulation of the nature of capitalist society in the old Party programme, the analysis of materials related to imperialism and the nature of imperialist wars was added as a supplement. At the beginning of the 20th century, free competition capitalism not only developed into a monopoly stage, but also began its transition to state monopoly capitalism: powerful monopoly alliances-syndicates, cartels, trusts, and financial capital was formed by the merge of bank capital and industrial capital became to determine the whole economic life. Capital export became the dominant factor replacing the dominance of commodity export to foreign countries, financial capital intensified competition for the markets, investment scope, raw materials and cheap labor, and the world was economically divided among the competing financial capital groups. The wealthiest countries have carved up the world. Capitalism has entered an era of unprecedented fierce struggle, namely the era of imperialism. Therefore, it was inevitable that there would be wars for world hegemony and strangulation of small and weak nations, as occurred in the first imperialist war of 1914-1918.

(2) The draft revealed the cause, significance and purpose of the proletarian revolution. The exploitation and oppression of the capitalist monopoly organizations and the wars and enslavement of the imperialist countries caused the working class to suffer tragic disasters, disasters and bankruptcy, which were the fundamental causes of the proletarian communist revolution. The October Revolution has promoted the upsurge of proletarian revolutionary movements in advanced countries. The era of proletarian communist revolution in the world has begun. Lenin stressed that only a proletarian socialist revolution could lead humanity out of the impasse which imperialism and imperialist wars have created, and the final victory of the proletariat was inevitable.

(3) Lenin clarified that the leadership of the Third International, or the Communist International, and the close alliance of the working class in advanced countries were the guarantee for the victory of the world proletarian revolution. He urged the R.C.P. (B) to carry out a resolute ideological and political struggle against the opportunism and social chauvinism that used the deceptive slogan of “defense of the fatherland” to protect the interests of the bourgeois marauders in their “own” country, as well as the “Centrist” faction that tried to revive the bankrupt Second International and wavered between the social chauvinists and communists, and to eliminate all kinds of opportunism that distorted socialism.

(4) The draft defined the general tasks and specific tasks of the R.C.P. (B) during the transition from capitalism to socialism. The political section: to further consolidate and develop the Soviet Republic, which was a new type of state with much higher and more advanced democracy than the bourgeois parliamentary system; we should rely on the Soviet government to smash and completely destroy the old bourgeois state institutions and continue the struggle against bureaucracy; the Soviet government would implement the principle of the Paris Commune’s unity of discussion and action. The most important thing was to deliver true democracy for the majority of people and ensure their equal rights to education and democracy. Through democratic elections, the working people would play their role in the state system and state administration, the exploiters would be deprived of their right to vote and their resistance would be suppressed. The economic section: The present tasks were to finish the expropriation of the bourgeoisie and nationalize the means of production; to lead and organize the masses of workers and peasants to develop the productive forces. To this end, bourgeois scientific and technological experts must be utilized; We should rely on the alliance of workers and peasants, guide and develop cooperatives based on the communist principle, facilitate and complete the transition from the old capitalist type of petty-bourgeois cooperatives to the production and consumption communes led by the proletariat, so as to finally replace market trade with planned and organized distribution of products; on the premise that it was impossible to abolish money at one stroke, The R.C.P. (B) would strive as speedily as possible to introduce the most radical measures to pave the way for the abolition of money, first and foremost to replace it by savings-bank books, cheques, short-term notes entitling the holders to receive goods from the public stores, and so forth, to make it compulsory for money to be deposited in the banks, etc. On the basis of abolishing private ownership of land, agricultural labor productivity would be improved by organizing large-scale socialist agriculture so that small-scale peasant economy would gradually transition to large-scale socialist agriculture. The most important of these measures was the organization of state farms (i.e., large socialist farms), the encouragement of agricultural communes (i.e., voluntary associations of tillers of the land for large-scale farming in common), and societies and co-operatives for the collective cultivation of the land; to extensively and systematically enlist industrial workers for the communist development of agriculture to bring them closer to the urban proletariat. The policy for rural work is to set up Poor Peasants’ Committees and rely on the rural proletariat and semi-proletarian, to resolutely oppose the kulaks, that is, the exploiting intentions of the rural bourgeoisie, and suppress their resistance; to distinguish the middle peasants from the kulaks, and gradually and systematically attract them to participate into the work of socialist construction so as to attract them to the working class.

(5) It included the policies for equality of the nations, separation of church from state and the school from the church. Schools should be changed from a tool of the bourgeois class rule to a tool of the proletarian dictatorship. This draft Party programme was written by Lenin under the background of the war against the armed interference of imperialist countries and the armed rebellion of the white guards in the country. To a certain degree it has the colors of “wartime communism” and has basically satisfied the requirements for dealing with the war and consolidate the Soviet power at that time. Therefore, most of the articles were adopted by the Party Programme Commission established by the Seventh Congress and were included into the formal Party Programme adopted by the Eighth Congress.