THE STRUGGLE WAGED BY THE BOLSHEVIK PARTY AGAINST TROTSKYISM IN 1923-1925

JOINT PLENARY MEETING OF THE CC AND THE CCC WITH REPRESENTATIVES OF 10 PARTY ORGANISATIONS

Moscow, October 25-27, 1923 147

RESOLUTION “ON THE SITUATION IN THE PARTY”

The plenary meetings fully endorse the Political Bureau’s opportunely charted line aimed at promoting democracy in the Party and also its proposal to intensify the struggle against the excesses and corrupting influence of the New Economic Policy on individual Party members.

The plenary meetings instruct the Political Bureau to take all the necessary steps to speed up the work of the commissions set up by the Political Bureau and the September plenary meeting: (1) the “scissors” commission, (2) the wages commission, and (3) the commission for the study of the situation in the Party.

As soon as the necessary steps on these questions are worked out the Political Bureau shall put them into effect and report to the next plenary meeting of the CC.

The plenary meetings of the CC and the CCC with representatives of 10 Party organisations consider that at the present crucial moment to the international revolution and the Party, Comrade Trotsky’s pronouncements are a gross political mistake, especially as his attacks on the Political Bureau have objectively acquired the character of a factional action threatening to hit the unity of the Party and give rise to a crisis in the Party. The plenary meetings regretfully state that to raise the questions broached by him Comrade Trotsky has chosen to appeal to individual Party members, instead of following the only permissible procedure—that of raising these questions beforehand for discussion by the collegiums, of which Comrade Trotsky is a member.

The way chosen by Comrade Trotsky has served as a signal for the factional group (Statement of 46).

The plenary meetings of the CC, the CCC and representatives of 10 Party organisations unequivocally condemn the Statement of 46 as a step in factional and divisive politics which has acquired this character even if this was not intended by those who signed it. This Statement threatens to embroil the entire Party in an inner-Party struggle during the next few months and thereby weaken the Party at a most crucial moment to the destinies of the international revolution.

The CPSU in Resolutions etc.,

8th Russ. ed., Vol. 2, pp. 495-96