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

Resolution on the Armed Uprising^[1]

2. Whereas this movement at the present time has already led to the necessity of an armed uprising;

3. Whereas the proletariat will inevitably take the most energetic part in this uprising, which participation will decide the destiny of the revolution in Russia;

4. Whereas the proletariat can play the leading role in this revolution only if it is united, in a single and independent political force under the banner of the Social-Democratic Labour Party, which directs its struggle both ideologically and practically; and

5. Whereas only the performance of this role will ensure to the proletariat the most advantageous conditions for the struggle for socialism against the propertied classes of bourgeois-democratic Russia;—

Therefore, the Third Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. holds that the task of organising the proletariat for direct struggle against the autocracy by means of the armed uprising is one of the major and most urgent tasks of the Party at the present revolutionary moment.

Accordingly, the Congress instructs all Party organisations:

a) to explain to the proletariat by means of propaganda and agitation, not only the political significance, but the practical organisational aspect of the impending armed up rising.

b) to explain in that propaganda and agitation the role of mass political strikes, which may be of great importance at the beginning and during the progress of the uprising, and

c) to take the most energetic steps towards arming the proletariat, as well as drawing up a plan of the armed up rising and of direct leadership thereof, for which purpose special groups of Party workers should be formed as and when necessary.