Vladimir Ilyich Lenin: Two Tactics of Social-Democracy in the Democratic Revolution

Written: June-July 1905
Published: First published as a pamphlet in Geneva, July 1905.
Source: Lenin’s Collected Works, 1962, Moscow, Volume 9, pp. 15-140.
Translated: Abraham Fineburg and Julius Katzer
Transcription: D. Walters and V. Kronick
HTML Markup: B. Baggins & K. Goins (2008)
Public Domain: Lenin Internet Archive (1999). You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source.

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Contents

	Preface	17
1..	An Urgent Political Question	21
2..	What Can We Learn From the Resolution of the Third Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. on a Provisional Revolutionary Government?	24
3..	What Is A “Decisive Victory of the Revolution Over Tsarism”?	32
4..	The Abolition of the Monarchist System and the Republic	38
5..	How Should “The Revolution Be Pushed Forward”?	44
6..	From what Direction is the Proletariat Threatened with the Danger of Having its Hands Tied in the Struggle Against the Inconsistent Bourgeoisie?	48
7..	The Tactics of “Eliminating The Conservatives from the Government”	61
8..	Osvobozhdeniyeism and New Iskra Trends	65
9..	What Does Being A Party of Extreme Opposition In Time of Revolution Mean?	74
10..	“Revolutionary Communes” and the Revolutionary-Democratic Dictatorship of the Proletariat and the Peasantry	77
11..	A Cursory Comparison Between Several of the Resolutions of the Third Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. and Those of the “Conference”	88
12..	Will the Sweep of the Democratic Revolution be Diminished if the Bourgeoisie Recoils from it?	92
13..	Conclusion. Dare We Win?	104
Epilogue.	Once Again Osvobozhdeniye Trend, Once Again New Iskra trend	115
I..	What Do The Bourgeois Liberal Realists Praise The Social-Democratic “Realists” For?	115
II..	Comrade Martynov Again Renders the Question “More Profound”	122
III..	The Vulgar Bourgeois Representation of Dictatorship and Marx’s View of It	130

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Notes

Two Tactics of Social-Democry in the Democratic Revolution was written by Lenin in Geneva, in June-July 1905. The book was published in late July 1905, by the Central Committee of the R.S.D.L.P. It was twice republished in Russia in the same year, once by the Central Committee of the R.S.D.L.P., and the second time by the Moscow Committee of the Party, this time in 10,000 copies.

The book was illegally distributed throughout the country—particularly in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kazan, Tiflis and Baku. On February 19, 1907 it was banned by the St. Petersburg Press Department, and on December 22 of the same year the St. Petersburg Court issued an injunction for its destruction.

In 1907 Lenin had Two Tactics published in the miscellany Twelve Years, supplementing the book with new notes. The material prepared by Lenin for this book, his plans, précis, and other notes, were published in Lenin Miscellany V, pp. 315-20, and XVI, pp. 151-56.