The Third Congress of the R.S.D.L.P.
April 12 (25)-April 27 (May 10), 1905

Draft Resolution on the Attitude of the R.S.D.L.P. Towards the Armed Uprising

2. Whereas only the performance of this role during the revolution will ensure the proletariat the most advantageous position in the ensuing struggle for socialism against the propertied classes of the bourgeois-democratic Russia about to be born; and

3. Whereas the proletariat can perform this role only if it is organised under the banner of Social-Democracy in to an independent political force and if it acts in strikes and demonstrations with the fullest possible unity;— Therefore, the Third Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. resolves that the task of organising the forces of the proletariat for direct struggle against the autocracy by means of mass political strikes and the armed uprising, and of setting up for this purpose an apparatus for information and leadership, is one of the chief tasks of the Party at the present revolutionary moment; for which reason the Congress instructs both the C.C. and the local committees and leagues to start preparing the political mass strike as well as the organisation of special groups for the obtainment and distribution of arms, for the elaboration of a plan of the armed up rising and the direct leadership of the rising. The fulfilment of this task can and should proceed in such a way as will not only not in the least prejudice the general work of awakening the class-consciousness of the proletariat, but, on the contrary, will render that work more effective and successful.