Vladimir I. Lenin - The Tasks of the Proletariat in the Present Revolution ("The April Theses").
Published on April 7, 1917 in Pravda No. 26.
Source: Lenin’s Collected Works, Progress Publishers, 1964, Moscow, Volume 24, pp. 19-26. via Marxists Internet Archives.
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.
