DECISIONS OF THE COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL IN SUPPORT OF THE CPSU AGAINST TROTSKYISM

ADDENDA

DECISIONS OF THE COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL IN SUPPORT OF THE CPSU AGAINST TROTSKYISM

RESOLUTION ON THE RUSSIAN QUESTION

(Adopted by the Fifth Comintern Congress, 1924)

As a result of the victorious October Revolution, the Russian Communist Party was put in power by the working class and embarked on the organisation of socialist society. The decisive factor in this epoch-making event was that the RCP was highly organised, that in its ranks were revolutionaries steeled in the struggle against the opportunism of the Second International, and that it applied revolutionary proletarian tactics which were devised under Comrade Lenin’s leadership. Thanks to this, the RCP was the fundamental force in the establishment of the Comintern, and to this day it is one of the chief factors determining the success of the international communist movement. The RCP’s successes, and equally, its failures, and particularly the formation of separate factions or groups in its ranks, cannot but strongly affect the revolutionary movement in the other countries of the world.

The RCP carries on its revolutionary work of building socialist society in a country (the USSR), which is encircled by capitalist states, at a time when the Communist parties of other countries are only entering the stage of struggle for power.

The New Economic Policy, which at the present time represents the foundation of the RCP’s Economic activity, determines the inevitable growth of socialist elements but, at the same time, allows for the development of bourgeois relations and, consequently, for bourgeois influences on the state apparatus and on individual contingents of the Party.

In order to combat the capitalist environment successfully, render these bourgeois influences harmless and ensure the USSR’s advancement on the road to communism, the RCP’s revolutionary staunchness and internal unity, that have developed out of the theory and practice of Leninism, are essential.

In view of all these facts, the situation in the Russian Communist Party is of special importance to the Communist International.

Last autumn’s discussion in the RCP, and the opposition that was formed against the majority in the Central Committee of the RCP have confronted the Congress with the necessity of closely studying this question, despite the fact that at its Thirteenth Congress the RCP had itself unanimously denounced the opposition as an offshoot of petty-bourgeois influences, and had emerged from the discussion stronger and more united than ever.

Although the Comintern, with the agreement of the RCP delegation, invited them to present and substantiate their case before the Congress, the representatives of the opposition in the RCP used a formal pretext to turn down this opportunity.

Moreover, the Congress has received no proof that the opposition has acknowledged its errors and rallied entirely to the standpoint of the Thirteenth Congress of the RCP. This state of affairs creates the danger of a resurgence of the discussion in the RCP. At the same time, the Congress observes that the opposition in the RCP has the support of groups in other Communist parties (the Polish, some elements in the German and French parties, etc.), groups which, as the opposition in the RCP, represent a Right-wing (opportunist) deviation in these parties and have been emphatically condemned by the Fifth Congress of the Comintern.

Having heard the special report on the situation in the USSR and in the RCP and studied all the materials relating to these questions in the various sections, the Congress resolves:

(a) to endorse the resolutions of the Thirteenth Conference and the Thirteenth Congress of the RCP denouncing the opposition’s platform as a petty-bourgeois deviation and its actions as a menace to the unity of the Party and, consequently, to the dictatorship of the proletariat in the USSR;

(b) to append the resolutions of the Thirteenth Conference and the Thirteenth Congress of the RCP to the present resolution and publish them as a decision of the Fifth Congress of the Communist International.

The CPSU in Resolutions etc.,

6th Russ. ed., Part II, pp. 788-89