V. I.

Lenin
Tasks of Revolutionary Army Contingents

Written: Written in late October 1905

Published: First published in 1926 in Lenin Miscellany V.
Published according to the manuscript.
Source: Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, 1972,
Moscow,Volume 9, pages 420-424.
Translated: The Late Abraham Fineberg and Julius Katzer
Transcription\Markup: R. Cymbala
Public Domain: Lenin Internet Archive (2004). 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. • README

1. Independent military action.

2. Leadership of the mass.
The contingents may be of any strength, beginning with two or three
people.
They must arm themselves as best they can (rifles, revolvers, bombs,
knives, knuckle-dusters, sticks, rags soaked in kerosene for starting
fires, ropes or rope ladders, shovels for building barricades, pyroxylin
cartridges, barbed wire, nails [against cavalry], etc., etc.). Under no
circumstances should they wait for help from other sources, from
above, from the outside; they must procure everything themselves.
As far as possible, the contingents should consist of people who either
live near each other, or who meet frequently and regularly at definite
hours (preferably people of both categories, for regular meetings may
be interrupted by the uprising). They must arrange matters so as to be
able to get together at the most critical moments,, when things may take
the most unexpected turns. Therefore, each group must work out
beforehand ways and means of joint action: signs in windows, etc., so
as to find each other easily; previously agreed upon calls or whistles so
that the comrades recognise one another in a crowd; previously
arranged signals in the event of meetings at night, etc., etc. Any
energetic person, with the aid of two or three comrades, could work out
a whole series of such rules and methods, which should be drawn up,
learned and practised beforehand. It must not be forgotten that the
chances are 100 to lb that events will take us unawares, and that it will
be necessary to come together under terribly difficult conditions.
Even without arms, the groups can play a most important part: 1) by
leading the mass; 2) by attacking, whenever a favourable opportunity
presents itself, policemen, stray Cossacks (as was the case in Moscow),
etc., and seizing their arms; 3) by rescuing the arrested or injured, when
there are only few police about; 4) by getting on to the roofs or upper
storeys of houses, etc., and showering stones or pouring boiling water
on the troops, etc. Given sufficient push, an organised and well-knit
combat group constitutes a tremendous force. Under no circumstances
should the formation of the group be abandoned or postponed on the
plea of lack of arms.
As far as possible members of combat groups should have their duties
assigned in advance, leaders or chiefs of groups being sometimes
selected in this way. It would be unwise, of course, to play at conferring
ranks, but the enormous importance of uniform leadership and rapid
and determined action should not be forgotten. Determination and
push are three-quarters of success.
As soon as the groups are formed—i.e., right now—they must get
down to comprehensive work—not only theoretical, but most certainly
practical work as well. By theoretical work we mean a study of military
science, an acquaintance with military problems, the arrangement of
lecture meetings on military questions, talks by military men (officers,
non-commissioned officers, etc., etc., including also workers who have
served in the army); the reading, discussion and assimilation of illegal
pamphlets and newspaper articles on street fighting, etc., etc.
Practical work, we repeat, should be started at once. This falls into
preparatory work and military operations. The preparatory work
includes procuring all kinds of arms and ammunition, securing
premises favourably located for street fighting (convenient for fighting
from above, for storing bombs and stones, etc., or acids to be poured on
the police, etc., etc.; also suitable for headquarters, for collecting
information, for sheltering fugitives from the police, for use as
hospitals, etc., etc.). Further, preliminary activity includes the
immediate work of reconnaissance and gathering information—
obtaining plans of prisons, police stations, ministries, etc., ascertaining
the routine in government offices, banks, etc., and learning how they
are guarded, endeavouring to establish contacts which could be of use
(with employees in police departments, banks, courts, prisons, post-
and telegraph-offices, etc.), ascertaining the where abouts of arsenals,
of all the gunsmiths’ shops in the city, etc. There is a great deal of this
sort of work to be done, and—what is more—it is work in which even
those who are quite incapable of engaging in street fighting, even the
very weak, women, youngsters, old people, and so on, can be of
immense service. Efforts should be made immediately to get into
combat groups absolutely all those who want to take part in the
uprising, for there is no such person, nor can there be one, who,
provided he desires to work, cannot be of immense value, even if he is
unarmed and is personally incapable of fighting.
Further, revolutionary army groups should under no circumstances
confine themselves to preparatory work alone, but should begin
military action as soon as possible so as to 1) train their fighting forces;
2) reconnoitre the enemy’s vulnerable spots; 3) inflict partial defeats on
the enemy; 4) rescue prisoners (the arrested); 5) procure arms; 6)
obtain funds for the uprising (confiscation of government funds), and
so on and so forth. The groups can and should immediately take
advantage of every opportunity for active work, and must by no means
put matters off until a general uprising, because fitness for the uprising
cannot be acquired except by training under fire.
All extremes, of course, are bad. All that is good and useful, if carried
to extremes, may become—and beyond a certain limit is bound to
become—bad and injurious. Disorderly, unorganised and petty terrorist
acts may, if carried to extremes, only scatter and squander our forces.
That is a fact, which, of course, should not be forgotten. On the other
hand, under no circumstances should it be forgotten that a slogan
calling for an uprising has already been issued, that the uprising has
already begun. To launch attacks under favourable circumstances is not
only every revolutionary’s right, but his plain duty. The killing of spies,
policemen, gendarmes, the blowing up of police stations, the liberation
of prisoners, the seizure of government funds for the needs of the
uprising—such operations are already being carried out wherever
insurrection is rife, in Poland and in the Caucasus, and every
detachment of the revolutionary army must be ready to start such
operations at a moment’s notice. Each group should remember that if
it allows a favourable opportunity for such an operation to slip by today,
it will be guilty of unpardonable inactivity, of passivity—and such an
offence is the greatest crime a revolutionary can commit at a time of
insurrection, the greatest disgrace that can befall anyone who is striving
for liberty in deed, and not in word alone.
As for the composition of these combat groups, the following may be
said. Experience will show how many members are desirable in each
group, and how their duties should be distributed. Each group must
itself begin to acquire this experience, without waiting for instructions
from outside. The local revolutionary organisation should, of course, be
asked to send a revolutionary with military experience to deliver
lectures, conduct discussions and give advice, but if such a person is not
available it is absolutely incumbent upon the group to do this work
itself.
As regards Party divisions, it is natural that members of the same
Party will prefer to belong to the same group. But there should be no
hard and fast rule debarring members of other parties from joining. It
is precisely here that we must put into practice the alliance, the working
agreement (without any merging of parties, of course), between the
socialist proletariat and revolutionary democracy. Who ever wants to
fight for liberty and proves in fact his readiness to do so may be
regarded as a revolutionary democrat, and we must strive to carry on
with such people the work of preparing for the uprising (provided, of
course, the given person or group is quite trustworthy). All other
“democrats” should be emphatically rejected as quasi-democrats, as
liberal windbags who must not be relied on at all, and whom it would
be criminal for a revolutionary to trust.
It is, of course, desirable for combat groups to unite their activities. It
would be extremely useful to work out the forms and terms of joint
action. Under no circumstances, however, should this be carried to the
extreme of inventing complex plans and general schemes, or of
postponing practical work for the sake of pedantic concoctions, etc.
The uprising will inevitably take place under circumstances in which
the unorganised elements will outnumber the organised thousands of
times over; there will inevitably be cases when it will be necessary to
take immediate action, right then and there, in twos or even singly—
and one must be prepared to act on ones s own initiative, and at one’s
own risk. All delays, disputes, procrastination and indecision spell ruin
to the cause of the uprising. Supreme determination, maximum energy,
immediate utilisation of each suitable moment, immediate stimulation
of the revolutionary ardour of the mass and the direction of this ardour
to more vigorous and the most determined action—such is the prime
duty of a revolutionary.
The fight against the Black Hundreds is an excellent type of military
action, which will train the soldiers of the revolutionary army, give
them their baptism of fire, and at the same time be of tremendous
benefit to the revolution. Revolutionary army groups must at once find
out who organises the Black Hundreds and where and how they are
organised, and then, without confining themselves to propaganda
(which is useful, but inadequate) they must act with armed force, beat
up and kill the members of the Black-Hundred gangs, blow up their
headquarters, etc., etc.

Notes

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