A
In our fundamental convictions we are socialists [sotsialisty] and populists [narodniki]. We are convinced that only upon a socialist basis can humanity embody freedom, equality and fraternity in its existence, and ensure general material well-being and full, all-round personal development—hence progress. We are convinced that only the will of the people can sanction social forms; that the people's development is only stable when it proceeds independently and freely, and when every idea that is to be translated into reality passes first through the consciousness and will of the people. Popular well-being and the popular will—these are our two most sacred and indissolubly linked principles.
B
1. If we examine the situation in which the people has to live and operate, we find that the [common] people [narod] is in a condition of absolute economic and political servitude. As a worker, it labours exclusively to 'nourish' and maintain the parasitic strata; as a citizen, it is devoid of all rights. Not only does Russian reality as a whole not accord with its will: it does not even dare express or formulate that will; it does not even have any possibility of thinking about what is good or what is bad for it; and the very notion of any kind of will of the people is' seen as an offence against the existing order. Enmeshed on every side, the people is reduced to physical degeneration, stupefied, down-trodden, pauperized—enslaved in all respects.
2. On top of the people shackled in chains, we can observe enshrouding layers of exploiters, created and protected by the State. We observe that this State constitutes the mightiest capitalist power in the land; that this same State constitutes the sole political oppressor of the people; that only thanks to it can lesser predators exist. We see that this State-bourgeois excrescence maintains itself only through naked violence—through its military, police and bureaucratic organization—in precisely the same way that Genghis Khan's Mongols maintained themselves in our country. We see the total absence of popular sanction for this arbitrary, violent rule, which forcibly introduces and maintains State and economic principles and forms that have nothing in common with popular aspirations and ideals.
3. In the people itself, we see that its old traditional principles are still alive, though repressed in every way: the people's right to land; communal and local self-government; the rudiments of a federal system; freedom of conscience and speech. These principles would attain a broad development and give a quite new direction to our entire history, in a popular spirit, if the people were only to get a chance to live and arrange matters as it wished, in accordance with its own inclinations.
C
1. We therefore hold that, as socialists and populists, we should pose as our immediate task: to free the people from the oppressive yoke of the present State; to carry out a political revolution, with the aim of transfer of power to the people. Through this revolution we shall achieve: first, that the people's development will henceforth take place independently, in accordance with its own will and inclinations; secondly, that many purely socialist principles, common to us and to the people, will be recognized and supported in our Russian life.
2. We hold that the will of the people would be adequately expressed and enacted, in accordance with the voters' instructions, by a Constituent Assembly, freely elected by universal suffrage. This, of course, is a far from ideal form of expression of the popular will; but it is all that is possible in practice today, so we consider it necessary to adopt precisely that.
3. Thus our aim is: to remove power from the hands of the existing regime and transfer it to a Constituent Assembly, composed as just indicated, which must review all our State and social institutions and reshape them in accordance with its electors' instructions.
D
Albeit submitting ourselves entirely to the popular will, we shall nonetheless consider it our duty, as a party, to present ourselves before the people with our own programme. We shall disseminate this up until the revolution; we shall advocate it during the electoral campaign; we shall defend it in the Constituent Assembly. This programme is as follows:
1. permanent popular representation, constituted as indicated above, and having full power on all state-wide questions;
2. extensive provincial self-government, guaranteed by election to all administrative posts, autonomy of the peasant commune [mir] and economic independence of the people;
3. autonomy of the mir, as an economic and administrative unit;
4. ownership of the land by the people;
5. a set of measures aiming to transfer all plants and factories into the hands of the workers;
6. full freedom of conscience, of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association and of electoral agitation;
7. universal voting rights, without class or property restrictions;
8. replacement of the regular army by a territorial one.
We shall carry out this programme, in the conviction that its several points cannot be achieved in isolation from one another, but only in their aggregate would they ensure the people's political and economic freedom or healthy development.
E
In view of the aims just outlined, the party's activity is set out in the following sections:
1. Propaganda and agitational activity.
The aim of propaganda is to popularize among all layers of the population the idea of democratic political revolution, as a means of social reform, and also to popularize the party's own programme. Criticism of the existing order, exposition and explanation of the methods of revolution and social reform, constitute the essence of propaganda.
Agitation must strive to foster among the people and in society, on the widest scale possible, protests against the existing order and demands for reform in the spirit of the party—particularly the demand that a Constituent Assembly be convened. The forms of protest may be rallies, demonstrations, petitions, partisan speeches, refusal to pay taxes, etc.
2. Destructive and terrorist activity.
Terrorist activity involves annihilating the regime's most obnoxious personalities, defending the party against espionage, punishing the most notorious cases of violence and injustice on the part of government or administration, and so on. Its aim is to destroy the aura of government power; to give constant proof of the possibility of struggle against the regime; in this way to stimulate the people's revolutionary spirit and belief in the success of the cause; and finally to create forces ready for—and accustomed to—armed struggle.
3. The organization of secret societies and their unification round a single centre.
The organization of small-scale clandestine associations—for every kind of revolutionary purpose—is essential, both to implement many of the party's tasks and to train its members politically. But these small organizations, for more harmonious conduct of their struggle and especially for organizing the revolution, must at all costs group themselves around a common centre—on the basis of either full amalgamation or a federal union.
4. Acquiring an influential position and good connections in the administration, the army, the educated classes [obshchestvo] and the people.⁽ᵃ⁾
In order to accomplish all the party's functions successfully, a solid position in the various strata of the population is of the greatest importance. For the seizure of power [perevorot], the administration and army are especially important. The party must pay equally serious attention to the people. The party's main task within the people consists in preparing it to assist in the seizure of power and in laying the ground for a successful electoral struggle after the seizure of power: a struggle having as its aim the installation of genuine popular deputies. The party must recruit conscious supporters in the most prominent section of the peasantry; it must carry out preparatory work, at the most vital points and among the most receptive elements of the population, aimed at securing active assistance from the masses. In view of this, each member of the party must strive to occupy a position among the people that will enable him to defend peasant interests; to relieve peasant needs; to acquire the reputation of an honest man and well-wisher of the peasantry; to maintain the party's good name and defend its ideas and aims among the people.
5. Organization and execution of the seizure of power.
In view of the people's oppressed state and the fact that the regime can contain the general revolutionary movement for a long time through local repressive actions, the party must itself take responsibility for initiating the actual seizure of power—rather than waiting until such time as the people is in a position to manage without it. As regards the conditions for executing the seizure of power. . . .⁽ᵇ⁾
6. Electoral agitation in connection with the summoning of a Constituent Assembly.
However, the overturn [perevorot] may have occurred whether as the result of an autonomous insurrection or through a conspiracy—the party's responsibility is to work for the immediate convocation of a Constituent Assembly, to which the powers of the Provisional Government established by the insurrection or conspiracy should be transferred. In its electoral agitation, the party must fight in every way against the assorted kulak candidates, fight with all its strength to get in people truly representing peasant communes.
[(a) The Russian terminology of the period has adopted as self evident the concepts obshchestvo, i.e. nominally 'society' but actually the educated classes and the public opinion as against narod, i.e. the people equated with manual labour and plebeian classes, i.e. within Russia, mostly peasants.]
(b) This part of Point 5 is not for publication [author's comment].
Translation by Quintin Hoare taken from Teodor Shanin's Late Marx and the Russian Road (pp. 207-212)
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