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April Theses
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- Spartacus Educational - April Theses
April Theses , in Russian history, program developed by Lenin during the Russian Revolution of 1917 , calling for Soviet control of state power; the theses, published in April 1917, contributed to the July Days uprising and also to the Bolshevik coup d’etat in October 1917.
During the February Revolution two disparate bodies had replaced the imperial government—the Provisional Government and the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies . The Socialists who dominated the Soviet interpreted the February Revolution as a bourgeois revolution and considered it appropriate for the bourgeoisie to hold power. They therefore submitted to the rule of the Provisional Government, formed by liberals from the Duma. The Soviet agreed to cooperate with the government and to advise it in the interests of workers and soldiers.
Lenin, however, viewed the two bodies as institutions representing social classes locked in the class struggle. He felt that, as one class gained dominance over the other, its governing body would crush the rival institution; thus the two could not indefinitely coexist. On the basis of this interpretation he developed his theses, in which he urged the Bolsheviks to withdraw their support from the Provisional Government and to call for immediate withdrawal from World War I and for the distribution of land among the peasantry . The Bolshevik Party was to organize workers, soldiers, and peasants and to strengthen the Soviets so that they could eventually seize power from the Provisional Government. The theses also called for the nationalization of banks and for Soviet control of the production and distribution of manufactured goods. Lenin first presented his theses to a gathering of Social Democrats and later (April 17 [April 4, old style], 1917) to a Bolshevik committee, both of which immediately rejected them. The Bolshevik newspaper Pravda published them but carefully noted that they were Lenin’s personal ideas.
Nevertheless, within a few weeks the party’s seventh all-Russian conference (May 7–12 [April 24–29, old style]) adopted the theses as its program, along with the slogan “All Power to the Soviets.” Although some Bolsheviks still had reservations about the program, the concepts contained in the theses became very popular among the workers and soldiers of Petrograd, who, using Bolshevik slogans, unsuccessfully tried to force the Soviet to take power in July. It was not until October, however, that Lenin’s party was able to begin implementation of its program and seize power from the Provisional Government in the name of the Soviets.
Russian Revolution
Extracts from lenin’s april theses (1917).
“1. In our attitude towards the war, which under the new government of Lvov and company unquestionably remains on Russia’s part a predatory imperialist war, owing to the capitalist nature of that government, not the slightest concession to “revolutionary defensism” is permissible. The class-conscious proletariat can give its consent to a revolutionary war, which would really justify revolutionary defensism, only on condition. One, that power passes to the proletariat and the poorest sections of the peasants aligned with the proletariat. Two, that all [territorial] annexations be renounced in deed and not in word. Three, that a complete break be effected with all capitalist interests… 2. The specific feature of the present situation in Russia is that the country is passing from the first stage of the revolution — which, owing to the insufficient class-consciousness and organisation of the proletariat, placed power in the hands of the bourgeoisie — to its second stage, which must place power in the hands of the proletariat and the poorest sections of the peasants… This peculiar situation demands of us an ability to adapt ourselves to the special conditions of Party work among unprecedentedly large masses of proletarians who have just awakened to political life. 3. No support for the Provisional Government! The utter falsity of all its promises should be made clear, particularly of those relating to the renunciation of [territorial] annexations. Exposure in place of the impermissible, illusion-breeding “demand” that this government, a government of capitalists, should cease to be an imperialist government. 4. Recognition of the fact that in most of the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies, our Party is in a minority, so far a small minority, against a bloc of all the petty-bourgeois opportunist elements – from the Popular Socialists and the Socialist-Revolutionaries down to the Organising Committee – who have yielded to the influence of the bourgeoisie and spread that influence among the proletariat. The masses must be made to see that the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies is the only possible form of revolutionary government, and that therefore our task, as long as this government yields to the influence of the bourgeoisie, is to present a patient, systematic, and persistent explanation of the errors of their tactics, an explanation especially adapted to the practical needs of the masses. As long as we are in the minority we carry on the work of criticising and exposing errors and at the same time, we preach the necessity of transferring the entire state power to the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies, so that the people may overcome their mistakes by experience. 5. No parliamentary republic! To return to a parliamentary republic from the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies would be a retrograde step… Abolition of the police, the army and the bureaucracy. The salaries of all officials, all of whom are elective and displaceable at any time, not to exceed the average wage of a competent worker. 6. The weight of emphasis in the agrarian programme to be shifted to the Soviets of Agricultural Labourers’ Deputies. Confiscation of all landed estates. Nationalisation of all lands in the country, the land to be disposed of by the local Soviets of Agricultural Labourers’ and Peasants’ Deputies. The organisation of separate Soviets of Deputies of Poor Peasants… 7. The immediate union of all banks in the country into a single national bank, and the institution of control over it by the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies. 8. It is not our immediate task to “introduce” socialism, but only to bring social production and the distribution of products at once under the control of the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies. 9. Party tasks… The immediate convocation of a Party congress. Alteration of the Party Programme, mainly on the question of imperialism and the imperialist war… Change of the party name. 10. A new International. We must take the initiative in creating a revolutionary International, an International against the social-chauvinists and against the ‘Centre’.”
Vladimir Lenin
The tasks of the proletariat in the present revolution.
Written: April 4, 1917 First Published: Pravda No. 26, April 7, 1917 Transcription: Zodiac HTML Markup: Brian Baggins Online Version: marx.org 1997, marxists.org 1999
This article contains Lenin's famous April Theses read by him at two meetings of the All-Russia Conference of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, on April 4, 1917.
[Introduction]
I did not arrive in Petrograd until the night of April 3, and therefore at the meeting on April 4, I could, of course, deliver the report on the tasks of the revolutionary proletariat only on my own behalf, and with reservations as to insufficient preparation.
The only thing I could do to make things easier for myself — and for honest opponents — was to prepare the theses in writing . I read them out, and gave the text to Comrade Tsereteli . I read them twice very slowly: first at a meeting of Bolsheviks and then at a meeting of both Bolsheviks and Mensheviks .
I publish these personal theses of mine with only the briefest explanatory notes, which were developed in far greater detail in the report.
1) In our attitude towards the war , which under the new [provisional] government of Lvov and Co. unquestionably remains on Russia's part a predatory imperialist war owing to the capitalist nature of that government, not the slightest concession to "revolutionary defencism" is permissible.
The class-conscious proletariat can give its consent to a revolutionary war, which would really justify revolutionary defencism, only on condition:
(a) that the power pass to the proletariat and the poorest sections of the peasants aligned with the proletariat; (b) that all annexations be renounced in deed and not in word; (c) that a complete break be effected in actual fact with all capitalist interests.
In view of the undoubted honesty of those broad sections of the mass believers in revolutionary defencism who accept the war only as a necessity, and not as a means of conquest, in view of the fact that they are being deceived by the bourgeoisie, it is necessary with particular thoroughness, persistence and patience to explain their error to them, to explain the inseparable connection existing between capital and the imperialist war, and to prove that without overthrowing capital it is impossible to end the war by a truly democratic peace, a peace not imposed by violence.
The most widespread campaign for this view must be organised in the army at the front.
Fraternisation.
2) The specific feature of the present situation in Russia is that the country is passing from the first stage of the revolution — which, owing to the insufficient class-consciousness and organisation of the proletariat, placed power in the hands of the bourgeoisie — to its second stage , which must place power in the hands of the proletariat and the poorest sections of the peasants.
This transition is characterised, on the one hand, by a maximum of legally recognised rights (Russia is now the freest of all the belligerent countries in the world); on the other, by the absence of violence towards the masses, and, finally, by their unreasoning trust in the government of capitalists, those worst enemies of peace and socialism.
This peculiar situation demands of us an ability to adapt ourselves to the special conditions of Party work among unprecedentedly large masses of proletarians who have just awakened to political life.
3) No support for the Provisional Government ; the utter falsity of all its promises should be made clear, particularly of those relating to the renunciation of annexations. Exposure in place of the impermissible, illusion-breeding "demand" that this government, a government of capitalists, should cease to be an imperialist government.
4) Recognition of the fact that in most of the Soviets of Workers' Deputies our Party is in a minority, so far a small minority, as against a bloc of all the petty-bourgeois opportunist elements, from the Popular Socialists and the Socialist-Revolutionaries down to the Organising Committee ( Chkheidze , Tsereteli , etc.), Steklov, etc., etc., who have yielded to the influence of the bourgeoisie and spread that influence among the proletariat.
The masses must be made to see that the Soviets of Workers' Deputies are the only possible form of revolutionary government, and that therefore our task is, as long as this government yields to the influence of the bourgeoisie, to present a patient, systematic, and persistent explanation of the errors of their tactics, an explanation especially adapted to the practical needs of the masses.
As long as we are in the minority we carry on the work of criticising and exposing errors and at the same time we preach the necessity of transferring the entire state power to the Soviets of Workers' Deputies, so that the people may overcome their mistakes by experience.
5) Not a parliamentary republic — to return to a parliamentary republic from the Soviets of Workers' Deputies would be a retrograde step — but a republic of Soviets of Workers', Agricultural Labourers' and Peasants' Deputies throughout the country, from top to bottom.
Abolition of the police, the army and the bureaucracy. [*1]
The salaries of all officials, all of whom are elective and displaceable at any time, not to exceed the average wage of a competent worker.
6) The weight of emphasis in the agrarian programme to be shifted to the Soviets of Agricultural Labourers' Deputies.
Confiscation of all landed estates.
Nationalisation of all lands in the country, the land to be disposed of by the local Soviets of Agricultural Labourers' and Peasants' Deputies. The organisation of separate Soviets of Deputies of Poor Peasants. The setting up of a model farm on each of the large estates (ranging in size from 100 to 300 dessiatines , according to local and other conditions, and to the decisions of the local bodies) under the control of the Soviets of Agricultural Labourers' Deputies and for the public account.
7) The immediate union of all banks in the country into a single national bank, and the institution of control over it by the Soviet of Workers' Deputies.
8) It is not our immediate task to "introduce" socialism, but only to bring social production and the distribution of products at once under the control of the Soviets of Workers' Deputies.
9) Party tasks:
(a) Immediate convocation of a Party congress; (b) Alteration of the Party Programme, mainly:
(1) On the question of imperialism and the imperialist war, (2) On our attitude towards the state and our demand for a "commune state" [*2] ; (3) Amendment of our out-of-date minimum programme;
(c) Change of the Party's name. [*3]
10. A new International.
We must take the initiative in creating a revolutionary International, an International against the social-chauvinists and against the "Centre". [*4]
In order that the reader may understand why I had especially to emphasise as a rare exception the "case" of honest opponents, I invite him to compare the above theses with the following objection by Mr. Goldenberg:
Lenin, he said, "has planted the banner of civil war in the midst of revolutionary democracy"
(quoted in No. 5 of Mr. Plekhanov 's Yedinstvo )
Isn't it a gem?
I write, announce and elaborately explain: "In view of the undoubted honesty of those broad sections of the mass believers in revolutionary defencism ... in view of the fact that they are being deceived by the bourgeoisie, it is necessary with particular thoroughness, persistence and patience to explain their error to them...."
Yet the bourgeois gentlemen who call themselves Social-Democrats, who do not belong either to the broad sections or to the mass believers in defencism, with serene brow present my views thus:
"The banner {!} of civil war" (of which there is not a word in the theses and not a word in my speech!) has been planted(!) "in the midst {!!} of revolutionary democracy...".
What does this mean? In what way does this differ from riot-inciting agitation, from Russkaya Volya ?
I write, announce and elaborately explain: "The Soviets of Workers' Deputies are the only possible form of revolutionary government, and therefore our task is to present a patient, systematic, and persistent explanation of the errors of their tactics, an explanation especially adapted to the practical needs of the masses."
Yet opponents of a certain brand present my views as a call to "civil war in the midst of revolutionary democracy"!
I attacked the Provisional Government for not having appointed an early date or any date at all, for the convocation of the Constituent Assembly , and for confining itself to promises. I argued that without the Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies the convocation of the Constituent Assembly is not guaranteed and its success is impossible.
And the view is attributed to me that I am opposed to the speedy convocation of the Constituent Assembly!
I would call this "raving", had not decades of political struggle taught me to regard honesty in opponents as a rare exception.
Mr. Plekhanov in his paper called my speech "raving". Very good, Mr. Plekhanov! But look how awkward, uncouth and slow-witted you are in your polemics. If I delivered a raving speech for two hours, how is it that an audience of hundreds tolerated this "raving"? Further, why does your paper devote a whole column to an account of the "raving"? Inconsistent, highly inconsistent!
It is, of course, much easier to shout, abuse, and howl than to attempt to relate, to explain, to recall what Marx and Engels said in 1871, 1872 and 1875 about the experience of the Paris Commune and about the kind of state the proletariat needs. [See: The Civil War in France and Critique of the Gotha Programme ]
Ex-Marxist Mr. Plekhanov evidently does not care to recall Marxism.
I quoted the words of Rosa Luxemburg , who on August 4, 1914 , called German Social-Democracy a "stinking corpse". And the Plekhanovs, Goldenbergs and Co. feel "offended". On whose behalf? On behalf of the German chauvinists, because they were called chauvinists!
They have got themselves in a mess, these poor Russian social-chauvinists — socialists in word and chauvinists in deed.
Notes [by Lenin]
[1] i.e. the standing army to be replaced by the arming of the whole people.
[2] i.e., a state of which the Paris Commune was the prototype.
[3] Instead of "Social-Democracy", whose official leaders throughout the world have betrayed socialism and deserted to the bourgeoisie (the "defencists" and the vacillating "Kautskyites"), we must call ourselves the Communist Party .
[4] The " Centre " in the international Social-Democratic movement is the trend which vacillates between the chauvinists (="defencists") and internationalists, i.e., Kautsky and Co. in Germany, Longuet and Co. in France, Chkheidze and Co. in Russia, Turati and Co. in Italy, MacDonald and Co. in Britain, etc.
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Primary Documents - Lenin's April Theses, April 1917
Introduction
In Russian the "Aprelskiye Tezisy", the April Theses formed a programme developed by Lenin during the 1917 Russian Revolution. In these Lenin called for Soviet control of the state. When published the theses contributed to the July Days rising and to the subsequent coup d'etat of October 1917, bringing the Bolsheviks to power.
Lenin's April Theses
I have outlined a few theses which I shall supply with some commentaries. I could not, because of the lack of time, present a thorough, systematic report. The basic question is our attitude towards the war.
The basic things confronting you as you read about Russia or observe conditions here are the triumph of defencism, the triumph of the traitors to Socialism, the deception of the masses by the bourgeoisie... The new government, like the preceding one, is imperialistic, despite the promise of a republic - it is imperialistic through and through.
In our attitude toward the war not the slightest concession must be made to "revolutionary defencism," for under the new government of Lvov & Co., owing to the capitalise nature of this government, the war on Russia's part remains a predatory imperialist war.
In view of the undoubted honesty of the mass of rank and file representatives of revolutionary defencism who accept the war only as a necessity and not as a means of conquest, in view of their being deceived by the bourgeoisie, it is necessary most thoroughly, persistently, patiently to explain to them their error, to explain the inseparable connection between capital and the imperialist war, to prove that without the overthrow of capital it is impossible to conclude the war with a really democratic, non-oppressive peace.
This view is to be widely propagated among the army units in the field...
The peculiarity of the present situation in Russia is that it represents a transition from the first stage of the revolution - which, because of the inadequate organisation and insufficient class-consciousness of the proletariat, led to the assumption of power by the bourgeoisie - to its second stage which is to place power in the hands of the proletariat and the poorest strata of the peasantry...
This peculiar situation demands of us an ability to adapt ourselves to the specific conditions of party work amidst vast masses of the proletariat just wakened to political life.
No support to the Provisional Government; exposure of the utter falsity of all its promises, particularly those relating to the renunciation of annexations. Unmasking, instead of admitting, the illusion-breeding "demand" that this government, a government of capitalist, should cease to be imperialistic...
Recognition of the fact that in most of the Soviets of Workers' Deputies our party constitutes a minority, and a small one at that, in the face of the bloc of all the petty bourgeois opportunist elements... who have yielded to the influence of the bourgeoisie...
It must be explained to the masses that the Soviet of Workers' Deputies is the only possible form of revolutionary government and that, therefore, our task is, while this government is submitting to the influence of the bourgeoisie, to present a patient, systematic, and persistent analysis of its errors and tactics, an analysis especially adapted to the practical needs of the masses...
Not a parliamentary republic - a return to it from the Soviet of Workers' Deputies would be a step backward - but a republic of Soviets of Workers', Agricultural Labourers' and Peasants' Deputies throughout the land, from top to bottom.
Abolition of the police, the army, the bureaucracy...
All officers to be elected and to be subject to recall at any time, their salaries not to exceed the average wage of a competent worker...
In the agrarian programme, the emphasis must be shifted to the Soviets of Agricultural Labourers' Deputies.
Confiscation of private lands.
Nationalisation of all lands in the country, and management of such lands by local Soviets of Agricultural Labourers' and Peasants' Deputies.
A separate organisation of Soviets of Deputies of the poorest peasants.
Creation of model agricultural establishments out of large estates...
Immediate merger of all the banks in the country into one general national bank, over which the Soviet of Workers' Deputies should have control...
Not the "introduction" of Socialism as an immediate task, but the immediate placing of the Soviet of Workers' Deputies in control of social production and distribution of goods...
Party tasks:
- A. Immediate calling of a party convention.
- Concerning imperialism and the imperialist war.
- Concerning our attitude toward the state, and our demand for a 'commune state."
- Amending our antiquated minimum programme.
Rebuilding the International. Taking the initiative in the creation of a revolutionary International, an International against the social-chauvinists and against the "centre"...
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April Theses
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The April Theses were the directives Vladimir Lenin issued to the Bolshevik Party upon his return to Russia, following a long exile in Switzerland.
The Theses, delivered in April 1917, provided the backbone to their goals during the Russian Revolution of October 1917 (November in the Gregorian Calendar). Upon their reception fellow Bolsheviks were alarmed, believing Lenin to be out of touch with the political situation in Russia. Nevertheless, these were the ideological core of the revolution that came less than a year later.
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April Theses: Lenin’s fundamental role in the Russian Revolution
Submitted by World Revolution on 2 April, 2007 - 17:08
It is 90 years since the start of the Russian revolution. More particularly, this month sees the 90th anniversary of the ‘April Theses’, announced by Lenin on his return from exile, and calling for the overthrow of Kerensky’s ‘Provisional Government’ as a first step towards the international proletarian revolution. In highlighting Lenin’s crucial role in the revolution, we are not subscribing to the ‘great man’ theory of history, but showing that the revolutionary positions he was able to defend with such clarity at that moment were an expression of something much deeper – the awakening of an entire social class to the concrete possibility of emancipating itself from capitalism and imperialist war. The following article was originally published in World Revolution 203, April 1997. It can be read in conjunction with a more developed study of the April Theses now republished on our website, ‘ The April Theses: signpost to the proletarian revolution ’.
On 4 April 1917 Lenin returned from his exile in Switzerland, arrived in Petrograd and addressed himself directly to the workers and soldiers who crowded the station in these terms: “Dear comrades, soldiers, sailors and workers. I am happy to greet in you the victorious Russian revolution, to greet you as the advance guard of the International proletarian army... The Russian revolution achieved by you has opened a new epoch. Long live the worldwide socialist revolution!...” (Trotsky, History of the Russian Revolution ). 80 years later the bourgeoisie, its historians and media lackeys, are constantly busy maintaining the worst lies and historic distortions on the world proletarian revolution begun in Russia.
The ruling class’ hatred and contempt for the titanic movement of the exploited masses aims to ridicule it and to ‘show’ the futility of the communist project of the working class, its fundamental inability to bring about a new social order for the planet. The collapse of the eastern bloc has revived its class hatred. It has unleashed a gigantic campaign since then to hammer home the obvious defeat of communism, identified with Stalinism, and with that the defeat of marxism, the obsolescence of the class struggle and even the idea of revolution which can only lead to terror and the Gulag. The target of this foul propaganda is the political organisation, the incarnation of the vast insurrectionary movement of 1917, the Bolshevik Party, which constantly draws all the vindictiveness of the defenders of the bourgeoisie. For all these apologists for the capitalist order, including the anarchists, whatever their apparent disagreements, it is a question of showing that Lenin and the Bolsheviks were a band of power-hungry fanatics who did everything they could to usurp the democratic acquisitions of the February 1917 revolution (see ‘February 1917’ WR 202) and plunge Russia and the world into one of the most disastrous experiences in history.
Faced with all these unbelievable calumnies against Bolshevism, it falls to revolutionaries to re-establish the truth and reaffirm the essential point concerning the Bolshevik Party: it was not a product of Russian barbarism or backwardness, nor of deformed anarcho-terrorism, nor of the absolute concern for power by its leaders. Bolshevism was, in the first place, a product of the world proletariat, linked to a marxist tradition, the vanguard of the international movement to end all exploitation and oppression. To this end the statement of positions Lenin brought out on his return to Russia, known as the April Theses, gives us an excellent point of departure to refute all the various untruths on the Bolshevik Party, its nature, its role and its links with the proletarian masses.
The conditions of struggle on Lenin’s return to Russia in April 1917
In the previous article ( WR 202) we recalled that the working class in Russia had well and truly opened the way to the world communist revolution with the events of February 1917, overturning Tsarism, organising in soviets and showing a growing radicalisation. The insurrection resulted in a situation of dual power. The official power was the bourgeois ‘Provisional Government’, initially lead by the liberals but which later gained a more ‘socialist’ hue under the direction of Kerensky. On the other hand effective power already lay, as was well understood, in the hands of the soviets of workers’ and soldiers’ deputies. Without soviet authorisation the government had little hope of imposing its directives on the workers and soldiers. But the working class had not yet acquired the necessary political maturity to take all the power. In spite of their more and more radical actions and attitudes, the majority of the working class and behind them the peasant masses, were held back by illusions in the nature of the bourgeoisie, and by the idea that only a bourgeois democratic revolution was on the agenda in Russia. The predominance of these ideas among the masses was reflected in the domination of the soviets by Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries who did everything they could to make the soviets impotent in the face of the newly installed bourgeois regime. These parties, which had gone over, or were in the process of going over, to the bourgeoisie, tried by all means to subordinate the growing revolutionary movement to the aims of the Provisional Government, especially in relation to the imperialist war. In this situation, so full of dangers and promises, the Bolsheviks, who had directed the internationalist opposition to the war, were themselves in almost complete confusion at that moment, politically disorientated. So, “ In the ‘manifesto’ of the Bolshevik Central Committee, drawn up just after the victory of the insurrection, we read that ‘the workers of the shops and factories, and likewise the mutinied troops, must immediately elect their representatives to the Provisional Revolutionary Government’... They behaved not like the representatives of a proletarian party preparing an independent struggle for power, but like the left wing of a democracy ” ( Trotsky, History of the Russian Revolution , vol. 1, chapter XV , p.271, 1967 Sphere edition). Worse still, when Stalin and Kamenev took the direction of the party in March, they moved it even further to the right. Pravda, the official organ of the party, openly adopted a defencist position on the war: “Our slogan is not the meaningless ‘down with war’... every man remains at his fighting post.” (Trotsky, p.275). The flagrant abandonment of Lenin’s position on the transformation of the imperialist war into a civil war caused resistance and even anger in the party and among the workers of Petrograd, the heart of the proletariat. But these most radical elements were not capable of offering a clear programmatic alternative to this turn to the right. The party was then drawn towards compromise and treason, under the influence of the fog of democratic euphoria which appeared after the February revolt.
The political rearmament of the Party
It fell to Lenin, then, after his return from abroad, to politically rearm the party and to put forward the decisive importance of the revolutionary direction through the April Theses: “Lenin’s theses produced the effect of an exploding bomb” (Trotsky, p. 295). The old party programme had become null and void, situated far behind the spontaneous action of the masses. The slogan to which the “Old Bolsheviks” were attached, the “democratic dictatorship of workers and peasants” was henceforth an obsolete formula as Lenin put forward: “ The revolutionary democratic revolution of the proletariat and the peasants has already been achieved... ” (Lenin, Letters on tactics ). However, “ The specific feature of the present situation in Russia is that the country is passing from the first stage of the revolution - which, owing to the insufficient class consciousness and organisation of the proletariat, placed power in the hands of the bourgeoisie - to its second stage, which must place power in the hands of the proletariat and the poorest sections of the peasants. ” (Point 2 of the April Theses). Lenin was one of the first to grasp the revolutionary significance of the soviet as an organ of proletarian political power. Once again Lenin gave a lesson on the marxist method, in showing that marxism was the complete opposite of a dead dogma but a living scientific theory which must be constantly verified in the laboratory of social movements.
Similarly, faced with the Menshevik position according to which backward Russia was not yet ripe for socialism, Lenin argued as a true internationalist that the immediate task was not to introduce socialism in Russia (Thesis 8). If Russia, in itself, was not ready for socialism, the imperialist war had demonstrated that world capitalism as a whole was truly over-ripe. For Lenin, as for all the authentic internationalists then, the international revolution was not just a pious wish but a concrete perspective developed from the international proletarian revolt against the war - the strikes in Britain and Germany, the political demonstrations, the mutinies and fraternisations in the armed forces of several countries, and certainly the growing revolutionary flood in Russia itself, which revealed it. This is where the appeal for the creation of a new International at the end of the Theses came from. This perspective was going to be completely confirmed after the October insurrection by the extension of the revolutionary wave to Italy, Hungary, Austria and above all Germany.
This new definition of the proletariat’s tasks also brought another conception of the role and function of the party. There also the “Old Bolsheviks” like Kamenev were at first revolted by Lenin’s vision, his idea of the soviets taking power on the one hand and on the other his insistence on the class autonomy of the proletariat against the bourgeois government and the imperialist war, even if that would mean remaining for awhile in the minority and not as Kamenev would like: “ remaining with the masses of the revolutionary proletariat ”. Kamenev used the conception of “ a mass party ” to oppose Lenin’s conception of a party of determined revolutionaries, with a clear programme, united, centralised, minoritarian, capable of resisting the siren calls of the bourgeoisie and petit-bourgeoisie and illusions existing in the working class. This conception of the party has nothing to do with the Blanquist terrorist sect, that Lenin was accused of putting forward, nor even with the anarchist conception submitting to the spontaneity of the masses. On the contrary there was the recognition that in a period of massive revolutionary turbulence, of the development of consciousness in the class, the party can no longer organise nor plan to mobilise the masses in the way of the conspiratorial associations of the 19th century. But that made the role of the party more essential than ever. Lenin came back to the vision that Rosa Luxemburg developed in her authoritative analysis of the mass strike in the period of decadence: “ If we now leave the pedantic scheme of demonstrative mass strikes artificially brought about by order of the parties and trade unions, and turn to the living picture of a peoples’ movement arising with elemental energy... it becomes obvious that the task of social democracy does not consist in the technical preparation and direction of mass strikes, but first and foremost in the political leadership of the whole movement. ” (Luxemburg, The Mass Strike, the Political Party and the Trade Unions ). All Lenin’s energy was going to be orientated towards the necessity of convincing the party of the new tasks which fell to it, in relation to the working class, the central axis of which is the development of class consciousness. Thesis 4 posed this clearly: “ The masses must be made to see that the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies are the only possible form of revolutionary government and that therefore our task is, as long as this government yields to the influence of the bourgeoisie, to present a patient, systematic and persistent explanation of the errors of their tactics, an explanation especially adapted to the practical needs of the masses… we preach the necessity of transferring the entire state power to the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies. ” So this approach, this will to defend clear and precise class principles, going against the current and being in a minority, has nothing to do with purism or sectarianism. On the contrary they were based on a comprehension of the real movement which was unfolding in the class at each moment, on the capacity to give a voice and direction to the most radical elements within the proletariat. The insurrection was impossible as long as the Bolshevik’s revolutionary positions, positions maturing throughout the revolutionary process in Russia, had not consciously won over the soviets. We are a very long way from the bourgeois obscenities on the supposed putschist attitude of the Bolsheviks! As Lenin still affirmed: “ We are not charlatans. We must base ourselves only on the consciousness of the masses ” (Lenin’s second speech on his arrival in Petrograd, cited in Trotsky, p. 293).
Lenin’s mastery of the marxist method, seeing beyond the surface and appearances of events, allowed him in company with the best elements of the party, to discern the real dynamic of the movement which was unfolding before their eyes and to meet the profound desires of the masses and give them the theoretical resources to defend their positions and clarify their actions. They were also enabled to orientate themselves against the bourgeoisie by seeing and frustrating the traps which the latter tried to set for the proletariat, as during the July days in 1917. That’s why, contrary to the Mensheviks of this time and their numerous anarchist, social democratic and councilist successors, who caricature to excess certain real errors by Lenin [1] in order to reject the proletarian character of the October 1917 revolution, we reaffirm the fundamental role played by Lenin in the rectification of the Bolshevik Party, without which the proletariat would not have been able to take power in October 1917. Lenin’s life-long struggle to build the revolutionary organisation is a historic acquisition of the workers’ movement. It has left revolutionaries today an indispensable basis to build the class party, allowing them to understand what their role must be in the class as a whole. The victorious insurrection of October 1917 validates Lenin’s view. The isolation of the revolution after the defeat of the revolutionary attempts in other countries of Europe stopped the international dynamic of the revolution which would have been the sole guarantee of a local victory in Russia. The soviet state encouraged the advent of Stalinism, the veritable executioner of the revolution and of the Bolsheviks.
What remains essential is that during the rising tide of the revolution in Russia, the Lenin of the April Theses was never an isolated prophet, nor was he holding himself above the vulgar masses, but he was the clearest voice of the most revolutionary tendency within the proletariat, a voice which showed the way which lead to the victory of October 1917. “ In Russia the problem could only be posed. It could not be solved in Russia. And in this sense, the future everywhere belongs to ‘Bolshevism’. ” (Rosa Luxemburg, The Russian Revolution ). SB, March 2007.
[1] Among these great play is made by the councilists on the theory of ‘consciousness brought from outside’ developed in ‘What is to be done?’. Well, afterwards, Lenin recognised this error and amply proved in practice that he had acquired a correct vision of the process of the development of consciousness in the working class.
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Subject essay: Lewis Siegelbaum
The euphoria of the February Revolution did not last long. Within weeks of the overthrow of the tsar, the continued, indeed intensified, deterioration of economic life was roiling the population. With inflation beginning to spiral out of control, agreements concluded between nascent trade unions and employers rapidly became moot as wage increases were nullified by rising prices. Factory owners as well as the landed nobility tended to look to the Provisional Government to protect them from the rising tide of worker and peasant demands. Workers organized factory committees to press their case for workers’ control of factory administration and sought the support of the soviets; peasants petitioned the Provisional Government for revision of land ownership and when they received no effective reply, began to organize rent strikes and even seizures of landowners’ property.
Over and above these economic issues, though, was the question of Russia’s participation in the war, which was widely blamed for its economic miseries. The Petrograd Soviet brought pressure on the Provisional Government by issuing an “Appeal to All the Peoples of the World” on March 14 that repudiated expansionist war aims in the name of “revolutionary defensism.” The government responded on March 27 with a “Declaration on War Aims” that also rejected annexations and indemnities as war aims but contradictorily asserted the need to observe treaty obligations. In the midst of these tensions between the two central institutions of “dual power,” Vladimir Lenin arrived in Petrograd on April 3 aboard a sealed train that had taken him from Switzerland through Germany. At the Finland Station he issued a speech denouncing both positions and demanding the elimination of dual power by the transfer of “all power to the soviets.” These so-called April Theses clearly set the Bolsheviks apart from the other socialist parties, and it took all of Lenin’s considerable persuasive powers to overcome opposition among those who had been guiding the party in his absence.
The dispute over Russia’s war aims exploded into a full-blown political crisis after the publication of a note that the Foreign Minister, Pavel Miliukov, had sent to the allies on April 18 reaffirming the Provisional Government’s commitment to prosecute the war to a victorious end and observe all treaties entered into by its tsarist predecessor. Mass demonstrations and clashes on the streets of Petrograd forced both Miliukov and the War Minister, Aleksandr Guchkov, to resign. The Provisional Government thereupon invited the Petrograd Soviet to help form a coalition government consisting of both socialist and non-socialist leaders, an invitation that the Soviet Executive Committee accepted with reservations. On May 5, five additional socialists including the Socialist-Revolutionary, Victor Chernov, and the Mensheviks Irakli Tseretelli and Mikhail Skobelev, joined Kerenskii in government. This had two critical consequences: the lines of dual power became considerably blurred, and the two main socialist rivals of the Bolsheviks now were inextricably associated with the policies of the Provisional Government and above all, its continued prosecution of the war.
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- February Revolution
- Formation of the Soviets
- Revolution in the Army
- Kornilov Affair
- Bolsheviks Seize Power
- First Bolshevik Decrees
- Constituent Assembly
- Treaty of Brest Litovsk
- FOUR KINDS OF STATES
- Communist Party Building
- Economic Apparatus
- Building the Soviets
- Red Guard into Army
- State Security
- DISINTEGRATION OF THE OLD SOCIETY
- Depopulation of the Cities
- Food Supply
- Conflict with the Church
- Death of the Old Culture
- Destruction of the Left
- The Empire Falls
- CREATION OF A NEW SOCIETY
- New Letters and Dates
- Culture and Revolution
- The New Woman
- Workers Organization
- Peasant Revolution
- Organs of the Press
- Raising Socialist Youth
The Significance of Lenin's April Theses 1917
Revolutions are the supreme test for revolutionary ideas, programmes and the individuals who support these ideas. Comrades who have studied revolutions in order to understand the processes taking place will be disappointed if they expect a new revolutionary situation to develop exactly like a previous one. The task is to apply the method of analysis to the concrete situation that is unfolding. Theories on how to change society are not abstract schemas or dogmas that are applied at any given moment despite the nature of the concrete situation. Unfortunately however there are so-called revolutionaries who will try to fit the situation to the schema. They fail to recognise that an analysis that was relevant at one time and place is no longer valid because the objective situation has changed.
Revolutions throw up fundamental questions. What is the nature of the revolution? Is it a revolution to establish a bourgeois capitalist democracy or a workers' democracy? What is the balance of forces between the classes? What forces are to lead the revolution? Is it the working class supported by other socially oppressed or marginalised layers? Is it the working class in alliance with "progressive" elements of the bourgeoisie? In the modern epoch the answers seem clear-cut. Capitalism has outlived its usefulness and socialism is on the agenda. For many revolutionary leaders in February 1917 the answers were not so clear-cut, even for many Bolsheviks.
The February 1917 revolution in Russia was the "dress rehearsal" for the October Revolution. In the space of a few weeks the whole of Russian society was turned upside down. The 300-year-old Romanov dynasty came to an end with the abdication of Tsar Nicholas Second on March 3. Strikes, demonstrations and mutinies in the armed forces had brought down the government. In this revolutionary situation there arose two organs of power. On the one hand there was the Temporary Committee of the fourth Duma, a self-appointed grouping of centre-right politicians supported by the middle and upper classes. This became the Provisional Government (PG) headed by Prince Lvov. The only socialist in the PG was Alexander Kerensky who was Minister of Justice. At the same time, on February 26 and 27, elections were held to the Petrograd Soviet of Workers and Soldiers Deputies.
On March 1, the PG began to implement some overdue political and legal reforms to prepare for elections to a Constituent Assembly (CA). The reforms, which any Marxist would have supported, included civil rights such as freedom of the press, of speech, of assembly and of religion, along with the right to strike (strikes had been brutally suppressed under the Tsarist regime), as well as amnesty for political and religious prisoners, an extension of the franchise and the introduction of a secret ballot in elections for the CA. It was also agreed, jointly with the Petrograd Soviet, that a militia would be established to replace the Tsarist police and that the 250,000-strong Petrograd Garrison, the armed power behind the revolution, would not be moved out of the capital.
On the same day however that the PG was issuing these orders, the Soviet published Army Order Number 1 which stated that soldiers and sailors were to obey the orders of the PG only if the Soviet gave its approval. In addition the Order stated that soldiers and sailors were to set up their own committees to take control over weapons out of the hands of the officers. A few days later the Soviet issued Army Order Number 2 which called on soldiers and sailors to sack their commanders and elect others in their place. In addition to this power, the Soviet also had control, through its elected trade union and worker delegates, over the railways, the postal and telegraph services. The Soviet had also set up food supply committees and was publishing its own newspaper - Izvestia (The News). Similar soviets were springing up all over the country (by autumn 1917 there were more than 900)
Frederick Engels once said that in the last analysis the State consists of a body of armed men. In March 1917 there was the PG with nominal political power and the Soviet with real political power in that nothing happened without its approval and it controlled the bodies of armed men. This was a classic situation of dual power where both organs of power even met in the same place - the Tauride Palace! Why then did the Soviet not sweep aside the PG which was a remnant of the fourth Duma that had been elected on a limited franchise and had limited support? The Soviet was an elected body of about 600 delegates that had huge support amongst the working class and the armed forces.
Contradiction
Real power was in the hands of the Soviet, yet it was not taken. To understand this contradiction it is necessary to understand the nature of many of the leaders of the Soviet. This leadership had spent years preparing for a revolutionary overthrow of society and now when power was in their grasp most of them completely failed to recognise the balance of forces and the inability of capitalism to resolve any of the fundamental issues that affect the workers, soldiers and peasants. The issue of food, an end to the war and the land question could not be resolved on the basis of capitalism - and the PG was in fact a capitalist government and as such could not and should not be relied upon. The reforms it had passed were as a result of the mass pressure of the movement of workers, soldiers and peasants. If the pressure were to fade the reforms could just as easily be taken away.
The leadership of the Soviet consisted of Mensheviks, Social Revolutionaries (SRs) and Bolsheviks. The Mensheviks believed in the two-stage theory of the revolution. Firstly, the Tsarist regime would fall and a capitalist liberal democracy would be established. Then the capitalist economy would develop and so would the working class. When the working class was strong enough, it could take power in its own name. The Social Revolutionaries (SRs) drew their support from the peasantry and were divided into a right wing that supported the PG and a left wing that was drawing closer to the Bolsheviks. Many in the Bolshevik leadership were in exile or abroad, but Kamenev and Stalin had returned in March from exile in Siberia and were supporting the Soviet's position of critical support for the PG and were also involved in talks to try and achieve reconciliation between the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. This position seemed natural as Russia, in Lenin's words, was now the freest of all the belligerent countries in the world after the reforms of the PG, so why not support the PG?
It was against this background that Lenin returned from exile on April 3rd, arriving at the Finland Station. He descended from the famous "sealed train" that had brought him from Switzerland to Russia passing through Germany, jumped onto an armoured car and to the surprise of many in the Bolshevik leadership declared no collaboration with the bourgeois PG, no deal with the Mensheviks and the immediate withdrawal of Russia from the imperialist war. Lenin went on to a meeting of the Bolshevik Party and he was heard in "stunned silence". It was obvious that he was in a minority and needed to win a majority for his position. He then went on to a meeting of the Mensheviks after having given a copy of his speech to Tsereteli, the Menshevik leader. Here Lenin was met with heckling and booing.
Not party policy
His speech formed the basis of the April Theses that were published in Pravda, the Bolshevik Party newspaper, on April 7th. The Theses were not party policy but in the following weeks Lenin proved that from afar he had understood better than many of the Bolshevik leaders in Russia the feelings and aspirations of the workers and soldiers. Through a series of meetings, articles and pamphlets he achieved a majority in the Bolshevik party by the end of April. His position was vindicated as party membership rose from about 10,000 in April to half a million in October, with industrial workers making up 60% of the membership.
The growth of the Bolshevik Party was spectacular. At the beginning of March only about 40 of the 600 delegates to the Petrograd Soviet were Bolsheviks. By October they had a majority. In February the Bolsheviks only had 150 members in the Putilov factory that had 26,000 workers! By the end of March some 242 soviets had been established in Russia but only 27 had a Bolshevik majority. By October they had a majority in the Moscow Soviet and at the All Russia Congress of Soviets. Why did the Bolsheviks gain so much power so quickly and attract so many new members? The entry of Tseretelli and Skobelev from the Mensheviks and Chernov from the SRs into the PG in May certainly helped. They lost members to the Bolsheviks as the PG became increasingly isolated. The most important factor however was that the programme and policies of the Bolsheviks articulated the aspirations of the working class, the soldiers and increasingly the peasantry. This programme however would not have existed without the April Theses of Lenin.
So what did the Theses actually say? In a very short document of a few pages there were 10 important points made.
1. The war being fought is an imperialist war and a peaceful, democratic ending to the war will only be possible if capital is overthrown. With "particular thoroughness, persistence and patience" this has to be explained to the masses.
2. The unfolding revolution is passing from the first stage where power was put into the hands of the bourgeoisie to the second stage where power must be placed into the hands of the proletariat and the poorest section of the peasants.
3. No support for the provisional Government, "a government of capitalists".
4. Recognition that the Bolsheviks were a small minority in the Soviet and therefore it was necessary for a "patient, systematic and persistent explanation" of the errors of the other parties. At the same time to preach of the need to transfer "the entire state power to the Soviets of Workers Deputies."
5. Not a parliamentary republic but a republic of Soviets of Workers', Agricultural Labourers' and Peasants' Deputies. No standing army but an armed people. Elected officials subject to recall and paid the same as a competent worker.
6. Confiscation of all landed estates and nationalisation of all lands in the country.
7. Banks to be amalgamated into a single bank under the control of the Soviet of Workers' Deputies.
8. Social production and distribution of products under the control of the Soviets.
9. Convocation of a Party Congress. Change Party programme on the imperialist war, the state and the minimum programme. Change of name to Communist Party.
10. A new International.
These ten points laid the basis for the October Revolution which would not have been successful without the leadership of Lenin. They confirmed the inability of capitalism to take society forward and therefore the need to move to the stage of the proletarian revolution. This point brilliantly confirmed Trotsky's Permanent Revolution. Production of wealth and finance to be in the hands of the working class through its democratic organisations. A break with the Mensheviks and the formation of a new Party to fight for power. A break too with the reformist Second International and the creation of a new (Third) International.
All of these events took place 90 years ago but the lessons have still not been learnt by many so-called revolutionaries. Capitalism can offer no future for humankind. There is only Socialism or Barbarism. There are no "progressive" capitalists. There are no two stages. The only programme is the socialist revolution under the control of the working class. The task is through "patient, persistent and systematic" explanation to prepare the forces that will change society.
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- Russian Revolution as never seen before: the real story, told by an eyewitness 7 Nov 2022
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The April Theses were first published in a speech in two meetings on 17 April 1917 (4 April according to the old Russian Calendar). [1] Some believe he based this on Leon Trotsky's Theory of Permanent Revolution. [2] They were subsequently published in the Bolshevik newspaper Pravda.In the Theses, Lenin [3]. condemns the Provisional Government as bourgeois and urges "no support" for it, as ...
Lenin reading his April Thesis to the Petrograd Soviet. The April Crisis, which occurred in Russia throughout April 1917, broke out in response to a series of political and public controversies. Conflict over Russia's foreign policy goals tested the dual power arrangement between the Petrograd Soviet and the Russian Provisional Government.
Vladimir Lenin, The Tasks of the Proletariat in the Present Revolution. April 17, 1917 . Original Source: Pravda, 20 April 1917. I arrived in Petrograd only on the night of April 16, and could therefore, of course, deliver a report at the meeting on April 17, on the tasks of the revolutionary proletariat only upon my own responsibility, and with the reservations as to insufficient preparation.
Vladimir Lenin. April Theses, in Russian history, program developed by Lenin during the Russian Revolution of 1917, calling for Soviet control of state power; the theses, published in April 1917, contributed to the July Days uprising and also to the Bolshevik coup d'etat in October 1917. During the February Revolution two disparate bodies had ...
Vladimir Lenin's April Theses were actually a brief account of a speech he delivered on his return to Russia on April 3rd 1917, then summarised in writing the following day: "1. In our attitude towards the war, which under the new government of Lvov and company unquestionably remains on Russia's part a predatory imperialist war, owing to ...
Written: April 4, 1917. First Published: Pravda No. 26, April 7, 1917. Transcription: Zodiac. HTML Markup: Brian Baggins. Online Version: marx.org 1997, marxists.org 1999. This article contains Lenin's famous April Theses read by him at two meetings of the All-Russia Conference of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, on April 4, 1917.
APRIL THESES Vladimir Ilich Lenin's "April Theses" was one of the most influential and important documents of the Russian Revolution and Bolshevik history. The main ideas of Lenin's April Theses were first delivered in speeches immediately after his arrival in Petrograd on April 16, 1917, and then formalized in a newspaper article ("The Tasks of the Proletariat in the Present Revolution") in ...
Introduction. In Russian the "Aprelskiye Tezisy", the April Theses formed a programme developed by Lenin during the 1917 Russian Revolution. In these Lenin called for Soviet control of the state. When published the theses contributed to the July Days rising and to the subsequent coup d'etat of October 1917, bringing the Bolsheviks to power.
The April Theses were the directives Vladimir Lenin issued to the Bolshevik Party upon his return to Russia, following a long exile in Switzerland. The Theses, delivered in April 1917, provided ...
It fell to Lenin, then, after his return from abroad, to politically rearm the party and to put forward the decisive importance of the revolutionary direction through the April Theses: "Lenin's theses produced the effect of an exploding bomb" (Trotsky, p. 295). The old party programme had become null and void, situated far behind the ...
These so-called April Theses clearly set the Bolsheviks apart from the other socialist parties, and it took all of Lenin's considerable persuasive powers to overcome opposition among those who had been guiding the party in his absence. ... Pavel Miliukov, had sent to the allies on April 18 reaffirming the Provisional Government's commitment ...
Lenin's "April Theses" represented a radical change in the Bolsheviks' political strategy. Previously, it was widely accepted that the Bolsheviks should work within the system of liberal democracy ...
The Theses were not party policy but in the following weeks Lenin proved that from afar he had understood better than many of the Bolshevik leaders in Russia the feelings and aspirations of the workers and soldiers. Through a series of meetings, articles and pamphlets he achieved a majority in the Bolshevik party by the end of April.
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov [b] (22 April [O.S. 10 April] 1870 - 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, [c] was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until his death in 1924, and of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1924. Under his administration, Russia, and later the Soviet Union ...
Lenin read the theses at two meetings held at the Taurida Palace. on April 4 (17), 1917 (at a meeting of Bolsheviks and at a joint. mecting of Bolshevik and Menshevik delegates to the All-Russia Con-. ference of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies).
In the "April Theses," Lenin criticized the Soviet's support for the Provisional Government and set out a radical vision for making Russia a socialist society. Question to Consider . Consider the issues addressed in the document and Lenin's proposals for dealing with them. Why would these "theses" appeal to workers, soldiers, and peasants alike?
[1] Published in Pravda No. 26, for April 7, 1917, over the signa-ture N. Lenin, this article contains Lenin's famous April Theses read by him at two meetings held at the Taurida Palace on April 4 (17), 1917 (at a meeting of Bolsheviks and at a joint meeting of Bolshevik and Menshevik delegates to the All-Russia Conference of Soviets of Work-
The April Theses by V. I. Lenin. Topics marxism, communism Collection opensource Item Size 43.7M . a 1976 soviet book. Addeddate 2022-06-17 00:42:42 Identifier the-april-theses Identifier-ark ark:/13960/s2f24rc7qxh Ocr tesseract 5.1.0-1-ge935 Ocr_autonomous true ...
A new beautiful edition of The Communist Manifesto, combined with Lenin's key revolutionary tract It was the 1917 Russian Revolution that transformed the scale of The Communist Manifesto, making it the key text for socialists everywhere. On the centenary of this upheaval, this volume pairs Marx and Engels's most famous work with Lenin's own revolutionary manifesto, The April Theses ...
April Crisis Sends Disarray Through the Peasant Class Nathan Miller 6 March 2012 By April 1917, the Russian government had experienced drastic political changes including the overthrow of Tsar Nicholas II and the establishment of two ruling bodies, the Provisional Government and the Soviet of Workers' Deputies. Only two months into the
Untitled [Senior Thesis] was a work of performance art by Aliza Shvarts which she conducted during 2008, the final year of her visual arts degree at Yale University. [1] During the 9 month performance Shvarts inseminated herself, and on the twenty-eighth day of her menstrual cycle, she took herbal medications meant to induce menses or miscarriage (although she never knew if she was pregnant).
Decree on Peace title page. The Bolshevik Initial Decrees (the 'Decrees') were announced as soon as the Bolsheviks declared their success in the October Revolution (October 26, 1917). The Decrees seemed to conform to the popular Bolshevik slogan "Peace, Land and Bread", taken up by the masses during the July Days (July 1917), an uprising of workers and military forces.
Martin Luther OSA (/ ˈ l uː θ ər / LOO-thər; [1] German: [ˈmaʁtiːn ˈlʊtɐ] ⓘ; 10 November 1483 [2] - 18 February 1546) was a German priest, theologian, author, hymnwriter, professor, and Augustinian friar. [3] Luther was the seminal figure of the Protestant Reformation, and his theological beliefs form the basis of Lutheranism.He is widely regarded as one of the most influential ...
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