April Thesis (English: April Thesis)

In April 1917, Lenin, the leader of the Russian Revolution, announced the outline of the revolutionary strategy to be adopted by the Bolshevik Party. Lenin, who had been in exile in Switzerland that year, returned to Russia after receiving news of the outbreak of the February Revolution. Immediately after his return, he read out the 10-point outline at a party meeting, annotated it, and published a document in the newspaper Pravda titled "On the Tasks of the Proletariat in the Present Revolution." In it, Lenin asserted that even under the Provisional Government, the war (World War I) was still an imperialist war, that the current situation was a transition from the first to the second stage of the revolution, that maximum legality, which is a unique point, should be utilized, that he would not support the Provisional Government at all, and that the Soviet of Workers' Deputies was the only possible form of revolutionary government. He proposed transferring all power to the soviets and aiming to establish a republic of workers' and peasants' soviets rather than a parliamentary republic, and mentioned changing the party's name from Social Democratic to Communist and founding the Third International. Since the party leadership at the time was inclined to conditionally support the Provisional Government, this thesis initially met with fierce resistance from within the party, but it was adopted as the party's policy at the 7th Party Conference in April, and this became the basic guideline for the October Revolution that year.

[Hara Teruyuki]

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

ロシア革命の指導者レーニンが1917年4月に発表した、ボリシェビキ党のとるべき革命戦略の要綱。亡命地スイスで同年、二月革命勃発(ぼっぱつ)の知らせを受けて帰国したレーニンは、帰国の直後10項目よりなる要綱を党の集会で読み上げ、それに注釈をつけて「現在の革命におけるプロレタリアートの任務について」と題した文書を『プラウダ』紙に発表した。そのなかでレーニンは、臨時政府のもとでも戦争（第一次世界大戦）は依然として帝国主義戦争であること、当面する状況は革命の第一段階から第二段階への過渡であり、その特異点たる最大限の合法性を利用すべきこと、臨時政府をいっさい支持しないことを主張し、労働者代表ソビエトはただ一つ可能な革命政府の形態であると述べた。そして全権力をソビエトに移し、議会制共和国ではなく労農ソビエト共和国の樹立を目ざすべきことを提起し、社会民主党から共産党への党名変更、第三インターナショナルの創設に言及した。当時の党指導部は臨時政府条件付き支持に傾いていたので、当初このテーゼは党内からも激しい抵抗にあったが、4月の第7回党協議会で全党の方針として採択され、これが、その年の十月革命を目ざす基本路線の指針となった。

［原　暉之］

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