FOURTEENTH CONGRESS OF THE CPSU(B)

Moscow, December 18-31, 1925151

ADDRESS TO ALL MEMBERS OF THE LENINGRAD ORGANISATION

Comrades, in view of the utterly irregular conduct of the delegation from Leningrad, which put forward its own co-rapporteur at the Congress against the CC and issued a special “Statement of the Leningrad Organisation” over the signatures of Comrade Kamenev and others, which threatens the unity of our Party (see Leningradskaya Pravda No. 295), the Congress addresses you directly.

Your conference passed a vote of confidence in the Central Committee and instructed your delegation to vote for such confidence at the Congress. At the Congress your delegation voted against confidence in the CC.

Your conference considered Party unity necessary. Your delegation voted against the entire Congress, counterposing itself to the Congress.

All the Communist workers of Leningrad had earlier considered it was necessary to keep in step with 

their Party. Yet Leningradskaya Pravda has already started a campaign against the Congress decisions, in other words, it has started a campaign to wreck Party unity.

At the same time, invoking Party discipline, the Leningrad Gubernia Committee has  forbidden the Vyborg District to hold a meeting in order to express its solidarity with the whole Party and its Congress. This decision of the Gubernia Committee is absolutely wrong. It runs counter to the principles of inner-Party democracy. It must be immediately revoked by the Gubernia Committee, as well as other decisions that violate the elementary rights of Party members and contravene inner-Party democracy.

The Congress calls on all members of the Leningrad organisation to put an end to all these attempts to undermine the unity of our Leninist Party.

The opposition has exposed itself utterly at the Congress. While at district conferences and even at the gubernia Party conference the leaders of the opposition made no mention of any disagreements with the CC and collected votes under the standard of fidelity to the Party leadership, at the Congress they acted as a separate group, counterposing themselves to the Central Committee of our Party.

They are wrong when they assert that the Party does not see the kulak threat.

What is dangerous is their attempt, covered by their outcry over the kulak threat, to belittle  the significance of the Leninist slogan of the alliance of the proletariat and the rural poor with the middle peasants.

The assertion that the Congress did not accept amendments moved by the opposition is not true. The 

opposition moved no amendments, but made a statement couched in the terms of an ultimatum, against which the Congress could not help but object.

The Congress gave its clear-cut decision in the resolution that was adopted on a motion from the Moscow, Urals, Ukrainian (together with the Donbas), Tula, Ivanovo—Voznesensk and Nizhni- Novgorod delegations. This decision (as well as other decisions) of the Congress is binding for all members of the Party. No discussion of the Congress decisions can be or will be allowed. Every Communist worker will see that the resolution on the report of the Central Committee is permeated with Leninism from beginning to end. Every Communist worker will see that it is permeated withintense concern for the unity of the Party. For the sake of this unity the Congress took the step of softening some of the formulations in the resolution. Yet your delegates voted against this resolution.

The Fourteenth Congress declares that it is slander against the Party to assert that the Party wishes to belittle the importance of the Leningrad organisation.

The Leningrad organisation has always been in the front ranks of the Party, and the  Fourteenth Congress has no doubt that it will rectify the errors made by its delegation.

Long live the Leningrad organisation of the CPSU(B)! Long live the unity of the Leninist Party!

The CPSU in Resolutions etc.,

8th Russ. ed., Vol. 3, pp. 261-63

RESOLUTION “ON LENINGRADSKAYA PRAVDA”

In view of the fact that after the Congress had passed its decisions Leningradskaya Pravda  has been conducting a systematic campaign against these decisions in flagrant violation of Party discipline and disrupting Party decisions, the Congress instructs the CC to take immediate steps to change and improve the editorial staff of Leningradskaya Pravda.

The CPSU in Resolutions etc.,

8th Russ. ed., Vol. 3, p. 263