Comrades,
The size of this post requires the division into two parts.
It seems appropriate for continued discussion, to meet with requests for an
explanation of the two-stage revolution and to fill an apparent gap in the
appreciation of certain aspects of the October socialist revolution by some
comrades, that we review Lenins April Theses focussing on Lenins evaluation
of the "Russian revolution" as a "two stage" revolution.
In March and April 1917, Lenin was in Zurich, closely following the events
in Russia he became concerned (March 4 (17) at 'the new government
(capitalists and landlords) that has siezed power in St. Petersburg, or more
correctly wrested it from the proletariat'. Lenin promptly drew up his
'Draft Theses, March 4(17), 1917', to rally the revolutionary proletarian
forces to continue the struggle for peace, bread and freedom, which the
reactionary capitalists and landlords cannot give them. In this short
article Lenin gives the outlines of what is to become the policy for an
advance to socialism through a continued uninterrupted revolutionary
struggle for socialism through the establishment of a "democratic republic":
"The revolutionary proletariat can therefore only regard the revolution of
March 1 (14) as its initial, and by no means complete victory on its
momentous path. It cannot but set itself the task of continuing the fight
for a democratic republic and socialism.
To do that, the proletariat and the R.S.D.L.P. must above all utilise the
relative and partial freedom the new government is introducing, and which
can be guaranteed and extended only by continued, persistent and persevering
revolutionary struggle. .... Only By making the truth known to the widest
masses of the population, only by organising them, can we guarantee full
victory in the next stage of the revolution and the winning of power by a
workers' government." 'Draft Theses, March 4(17), 1917'p.290
Following this 'draft' theses came five 'letters from afar' culminating in
the issue on April 7th. 1917 of the completed Theses 'The Tasks Of The
Proletariat In The Present Revolution' (C/W Vol 24 p.20.). 'Letters On
Tactics' followed and then came the 'draft platform of the proletarian
party' - The Tasks Of The Proletariat in Our Revolution' (ibid p.53). It is
in the letters from afar that the "new Path" to "workers government"
emerges, a "government" that we recognise as the dictatorship of the
proletariat. In the first letter from afar, we find the two-stage revolution
theory beginning to take shape, a little confusion in terminology at first
which is soon overcome:
The first Letter from Afar - 'The First Stage of the First Revolution':
"The first revolution engendered by the imperialist world war has broken
out. The first revolution but certainly not the last. Judging by the scanty
information available in Switzerland, the first stage of this first
revolution, namely, of the Russian revolution of March 1, 1917, has ended.
This first stage of our revolution will certainly not be the last."Lenin C/W
Vol.23.Letters From Afar, p.297.
Lenin here asserts that the (March 1 1917) "first revolution" = "The
Russian revolution" = The "first stage of our revolution".
Below this he states:
"Without the tremendous class battles and the revolutionary energy
displayed by the Russian proletariat during the three years 1905-07, the
second revolution could not possibly have been so rapid in the sense that
its initial stage was completed in a few days. The first revolution (1905)
deeply ploughed the soil, uprooted age-old prejudices, awakened millions of
workers and tens of millions of peasants to political life and political
struggle and revealed to each other -- and to the world -- all classes (and
all the principal parties) of Russian society in their true character and in
the true alignment of their interests, their forces, their modes of action,
and their immediate and ultimate aims. This first revolution, and the
succeeding period of counter-revolution (1907-14), laid bare the very
essence of the tsarist monarchy, ..."
p. 297. Vol. 23 C/W (Mar.1917)
Here Lenin refers to the 1905-7 revolution as "the first revolution". which
presumably makes the March revolution 'the second revolution' where before,
above, it is identified as the "first revolution". Again on the next page he
refers to:
"For the first great revolution of 1905..." ibid p. 298.
He earlier designated the Feb 1917, as the "first revolution". Make of it
what you will, with this small but confusing juxtaposition in his
formulations concerning the Russian revolution; however, from this point on,
the whole outline becomes clearer:
"The Soviet of Workers' Deputies is an organisation of the workers, the
embryo of a workers' government, the representative of the interests of the
entire mass of the poor section of the population, i.e., of nine-tenths of
the population, which is striving for peace, bread and freedom.
The conflict of these three forces determines the situation that has now
arisen, a situation that is transitional from the first stage of the
revolution to the second." Ibid p.304.
It is clear that Lenin views the period after the Feb.1917 revolution as
being transitional to the second stage of, as he earlier formulated, "our
revolution".
"Ours is a bourgeois revolution, therefore, the workers must support the
bourgeoisie, say the Potresovs, Gvozdyovs and Chkheidzes, as Plekhanov said
yesterday.
Ours is a bourgeois revolution, we Marxists say, therefore the workers
must open the eyes of the people to the deception practised by the bourgeois
politicians, teach them to put no faith in words, to depend entirely on
their own strength, their own organisation, their own unity, and their own
weapons.
The government of the Octobrists and Cadets, of the Guchkovs and
Milyukovs, cannot, even if it sincerely wanted to (only infants can think
that Guchkov and Lvov are sincere), cannot give the people either peace,
bread, or freedom." p 306.
..... "It cannot give freedom because it is a landlord and capitalist
government which fears the people and has already begun to strike a bargain
with the Romanov dynasty.
The tactical problems of our immediate attitude towards this government
will be dealt with in another article. In it, we shall explain the
peculiarity of the present situation, which is a transition from the first
stage of the revolution to the second, and why the slogan, the "task of the
day", at this moment must 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." p.307.
Again he confirms the two stages, the first was the Feb 1917 revolution the
second stage to come, the intervening period is the "transition" The clear
outlines of the two-stage revolution have emerged. Lenin is advocating for
and pointing the way forward through 'uninterrupted revolution' by the
proletariat.
Second Letter From Afar - The new Government and The Proletariat.
In relation to a report of a an appeal for support for the new government,
contained in a manifesto of the 'Soviet Of Workers' Deputies' Lenin confirms
that the first stage is "completed":
"The manifesto says that the government (the new one) consists of
"moderate elements". A strange description, by no means complete, of a
purely liberal, not of a Marxist character. I too am prepared to agree that
in a certain sense -- in my next letter I will show in precisely what
sense -- now, with the first stage of the revolution completed, every
government must be ''moderate''. But it is absolutely impermissible to
conceal from ourselves and from the people that this government wants to
continue the imperialist war, that it is an agent of British capital, that
it wants to restore the monarchy and strengthen the rule of the landlords
and capitalists." p.315.
"I will set out my ideas about this workers' militia in my next letter.
In it I will try to show, on the one hand, that the formation of a
militia embracing the entire people and led by the workers is the correct
slogan of the day, one that corresponds to the tactical tasks of the
peculiar transitional moment through which the Russian revolution (and the
world revolution) is passing;.." p. 319
The two-stage revolutionary theory is now becoming a constituent part of
scientific-socialism, of Marxism-Leninism in particular:
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