Program of the Workers' Organization of the People's Will

A1

The historical experience of humanity, and likewise study and observation of the lives of peoples, convincingly and clearly show that nations will only achieve their greatest happiness and strength, and that people will only become brothers, will only be free and equal, when they have constructed their lives in accordance with socialist teaching, i.e. in the following way:

1. the land and the implements of labour must belong to the whole people, with each worker using them as of right;

2. labour is produced not individually, but socially (through communes [obshchinas], cooperatives [artels], associations);2

3. the products of common labour must be shared, by their own decision, among all workers, according to the needs of each;

4. the State system must be based on a federative alliance of all obshchinas;

5. every obshchina is fully independent and free in its internal affairs;

6. every member of an obshchina is entirely free in his convictions and personal life; his freedom is only limited in those circumstances where it turns into violence against other members of his own or another obshchina. . . .

C

First of all, we must be clear about who our enemies are, who are our friends, and what changes in present-day practice we should strive for. We must know that:

1. All those who are today living at the people's expense, i.e. the government, the landlords, the manufacturers, the mill-owners and the kulaks, will never renounce their privileged position of their own free will, because it is far pleasanter for them to load all work onto the workers' back than it is to get down to it themselves. These gentlemen grasp the point that the working people will serve them only so long as it is ignorant, crushed by need and at loggerheads, and does not understand that its strength lies in the union of all workers. Hence it is fruitless to seek improvements in present-day practice from these gentlemen. It is true that they sometimes set up committees for improving the workers' lot in the factories and mills; but all their care and attention only recalls that of a landlord for the maintenance of his draught animals. They will never give a thought to improving popular education; they will never permit the working man to manage things so that he ceases to need them. Accordingly, the working people must rely on its own strength: its enemies will not help it.

But the people can always rely on its true ally—the party of social revolution. The members of this party are drawn from all classes in the Russian Empire, but they give up their lives to the people's cause, holding the view that all will become free and equal and achieve just conditions only when the labouring class—i.e. the peasantry and the urban workers—comes to manage the affairs of the country; for all other classes, even if they have striven for freedom and equality, have done so for themselves alone rather than for the people as a whole. Thus the social-revolutionary party is the best ally, and the working people can always stretch out a fraernal hand to it.

Apart from it, the people has no true allies. However, in many cases it will find support among particular individuals from other classes, educated people who would also like life to be freer and better in Russia. These people are not too worried by the fact that the Russian peasant is bound by debt to the landowner and kulak, since they are unfamiliar with such oppression. But they have had direct experience of the arbitrary rule of the police and bureaucracy, and would gladly help the people to put an end to these. The people, of course, would benefit from a weakening of governmental oppression: everyone would breathe more freely; every man's brain would work to better effect; learning would become more available to all; the number of well-wishers of the people would grow; but most important of all, the people would be able to agree and unite. So the working people must not reject these people; it is worthwhile to strive for an extension of freedom hand in hand with them. All that is necessary is for the workers not to forget that their cause does not end with this; that they will soon have to part company with these temporary friends and go on in alliance with the party of social revolution alone.

2. The change in conditions which we want to bring about must be understood by the people and accord with its demands, otherwise it will not introduce or support them. And as we have said, one cannot rely on other classes, because what they do is not what benefits the people but what benefits themselves.

3. Any changes in political arrangements must bring our existence closer to a socialist system.

D

Taking all this into account, we recognize that in the immediate future we can aim for the following changes in the State system and national life:

1. Tsarist power in Russia is replaced by a popular government, i.e. the government is made up of popular representatives (deputies). The people itself appoints and replaces these representatives; when selecting them, it gives detailed instructions as to what they must strive for, and requires them to account for their activity.

2. The Russian State, in accordance with the local character and living conditions of the population, is divided into provinces [oblasts], autonomous in their internal affairs but linked together in a single All-Russian Federation. The internal affairs of the oblasts are managed by a provincial administration; State-wide affairs by a Federal government.

3. Peoples who have been forcibly annexed to the Russian Empire are free to secede or to remain in the All-Russian Federation.

4. Communities (hamlets, villages, boroughs, factory artels, etc.) settle their business in assemblies, and implement it through their elected responsible officers—headmen, elders, managers, foremen, clerks, etc.

5. All land passes into the hands of the working people and is deemed national property. Each separate oblast puts land at the disposal of obshchinas or private individuals—but only persons themselves engaged in its cultivation. No one has the right to receive more than the amount he himself is capable of cultivating. Reallotments of land are determined according to the requirements of the obshchina.

6. Mills and factories are deemed to be national property and put at the disposal of mill and factory cooperatives; the revenues belong to these cooperatives.

7. The popular representatives promulgate laws and statutes which indicate how factories and mills should be organized so that the health and lives of the workers are not damaged, fix the length of the working day for men and women, and so on.

8. The right to choose representatives (delegates), both for the Federal government and for the provincial administration, is held by every adult; in just the same way, every adult may be elected to the Federal government or provincial administration.

9. All Russian people have the right to adhere or convert to whatever doctrine they please (religious freedom); the right to disseminate, in oral or printed form, whatever ideas or teachings they please (freedom of speech and of the press); the right to gather together to discuss their affairs (freedom of assembly); the right to form associations (communities, artels, leagues, societies) to pursue whatever aims they please; the right to offer the people advice about their choice of representatives or any social issue (freedom of electoral agitation).

10. Education of the people, in all lower and higher schools, is free of charge and accessible to all.

11. The present-day army and all armed services in general are replaced by a local [popular] militia. All are liable for military service and learn the military craft, without being cut off from their work or their family; they are called up only in the event of legally determined necessity.

12. A Russian State Bank is established, with branches in the various parts of Russia, for the maintenance and organization of factory, mill, agricultural and in general all industrial and educational communities, artels and leagues.

These, then, in our opinion, are the changes in national life that can be accomplished in the near future; we consider that the whole people—urban workers and peasantry—will understand all their utility and willingly stand up for them. All that is necessary is for the urban workers to understand that isolated from the peasantry they will always be crushed by the regime, the factory-owners and the kulaks, because the principal popular force resides not in them but in the peasantry. If they station themselves permanently at the peasantry's side, win it over and argue that the cause should be pursued in concert through their joint endeavours, then the whole working people will become an invincible force.

E

We shall still need to devote a lot of careful work to these questions, but we consider that the work should be carried out as follows:

(a) Those workers who have firmly made up their minds that it is necessary to change the present order and national life as a whole, form small comradely associations (circles) of workers, clarify in common what they should strive for, and prepare themselves for the moment when we shall have to combine all our efforts and move to carry out the revolution. The circles must be secret and inaccessible to government blows.

(b) Members of the circles must explain to the people that there is only one way out of the present ruinous conditions—a forcible revolution—and that revolution is both imperative and possible. With this aim, members of the circles scatter through the mills, factories and villages and set up new circles of workers and peasants on various pretexts, mainly quite legal. (So, for instance, a circle may launch a mutual aid fund, a library, readings, hostels, and so on.) Enjoying the workers' trust and affection, the members of the circle sustain a spirit of rebelliousness in the working-class milieu, where necessary organize strikes against the factory-owners and prepare themselves for struggle against the police and State authorities—which always back the owners. Those individuals from the worker circles who give evidence of capability and determination in conducting the workers' action join the main worker circles, and in this way a secret league of workers becomes consolidated.

F

It is impossible to divine the precise conditions under which the worker leagues (the working-class organization) will have to operate. But whatever they may be, some general rules must constantly be borne in mind.

1. In order to achieve anything at all, the workers must establish a force capable of putting pressure on the government and, when necessary, ready to support their demands weapons in hand. Whether it comes to a bloody struggle or the enemies of the people concede without a fight—no matter: a force must be prepared, and the readier this force is to go into battle, the sooner our enemies will back down without any battle.

2. Only the entire party of social revolution can attack our enemies with any hope of victory, and the worker organization joins this as a section. The party musters forces within the people and throughout society for carrying out the revolution: it organizes leagues in the peasantry and the urban working-class milieu, the army and other social strata. From its own ranks the party details a combat organization, which attacks the regime, destabilizes it and throws it into confusion, thus making it easier for all the discontented—the people, the workers and all those individuals who wish them well—to rise up and carry through the universal revolution.

If a genuine revolt has broken out in some town or in the countryside, the party must support it with its own forces, introduce its own demands into it, provoke similar disturbances in other places and, if at all possible, unite these disturbances into a general uprising and extend this throughout Russia. At the same time, it is necessary to unsettle the regime and eliminate prominent officials (the more prominent the better), both civilian and military; it is necessary to win the army over to the people's side, then disband it and replace it with a popular militia drawn from peasants, workers, former soldiers and all honest citizens.

For the success of the cause, it is vitally important to win control of the biggest towns and hold them for ourselves. To this end, as soon as it has cleared a town of the enemy, the people in revolt must choose its Provisional Government, from workers or people known for their devotion to the popular cause. The Provisional Government, relying for support on the militia, defends the town from enemies and does all it can to help the uprising in other places, uniting and directing the insurgents. The workers keep a vigilant eye on the Provisional Government and compel it to act on behalf of the people. When the insurrection achieves victory throughout the country; when the land, mills and factories pass into the hands of the people, and in the villages, towns and provinces an elected popular administration is established; when there is no armed power in the State other than the militia—then the people at once sends its representatives to the Constituent Assembly (All-Union Government) which, after abolishing the Provisional Government, ratifies the popular conquests and establishes the new All-Union order. The representatives act under precise instructions, given them by their electors.

That is the party's general plan of activity at the time of the revolution.

There may, however, be a different situation. If the regime for fear of a general revolt should decide to make some concessions to society, i.e. grant a constitution, the workers' activity should not for that reason be modified. They must claim power for themselves; they must demand for themselves extensive concessions; they must introduce their representatives into parliament (i.e. the legislative assembly) and, if need be, back up these demands with mass petitions and disturbances. Putting pressure in this way on the government and accumulating forces during the struggle against it, the People's Will party awaits only an opportune moment—when the old, unfit order shows itself incapable of opposing the people's demands—then carries out the revolution with every hope of success.

Translation by Quintin Hoare taken from Teodor Shanin's Late Marx and the Russian Road (pp. 231-237). All footnotes and in-text commentary belong to the editor and/or translator unless otherwise stated.

• 1For Marx's particular reaction to the programme of the workers' organization of the People's Will, see page 61 [of Shanin's Late Marx and the Russian Road—adri].
• 2For discussion of peasant communes, see pages 11-12.