FIFTEENTH CONFERENCE OF THE CPSU(B)

Moscow, October 26-November 3, 1926153

RESOLUTION “ON THE OPPOSITION BLOC IN THE CPSU(B)”

A salient feature of the present period is that the struggle between the capitalist states and our country, on the one hand, and between socialist and capitalist elements in our country, on the other, has intensified.

While the attempts of world capital to encircle our country economically, isolate it politically, enforce a camouflaged blockade and, lastly, wreak vengeance for the aid rendered by the workers of the USSR to the fighting workers of the West and the oppressed peoples of the East create difficulties of an external order, our country’s transition from the period of restoration to a period of reorganisation of our industry and economy generally on the basis of modern technology and the resultant exacerbation of the struggle between the capitalist and socialist elements in our economy create difficulties of an internal order.

The Party sees these difficulties and has the possibility of surmounting them. With the support of the millions of proletarians it is already ironing out these difficulties, confidently leading the country towards socialism. But not all the contingents of our Party believe that a further advance can be achieved. Some, true, numerically small, sections of the Party have been frightened by the difficulties. They feel fatigued, vacillate, give way to despair and despondency, become infected with scepticism of the proletariat’s creative strength and go over to the ideology of capitulation.

In this context the present turning-point is somewhat reminiscent of the turning-point in October 

1917. In the same way as in October 1917, when the critical situation and difficulties of the transition from the bourgeois to the proletarian revolution gave birth to vacillation among a section of the Party, to defeatism and misgivings about the possibility of the proletariat seizing power and holding it (Kamenev, Zinoviev), at the present turning-point the difficulties of the transition to a new phase of socialist construction are making some circles in our Party waver, doubt that the socialist elements in our country can triumph over the capitalist elements and question the possibility of victorious socialist construction in the USSR.

These pessimistic and defeatist sentiments of a section of our Party are expressed by the opposition bloc.

The Party sees the difficulties and has the possibility of surmounting them. But before they  can be 

eliminated, the pessimism and defeatist ideology of this section of the Party have to be overcome.

In a document dated October 16, 1926 the opposition bloc declared its repudiation of factional activity and its dissociation from patently Menshevik groups in and outside the CPSU(B) but, at the 

same time, stated that it would stick to its old fundamental positions, refused to abandon its basic errors and made it clear that it would uphold these erroneous views within the framework of the Party Rules.

This is an indication that the opposition bloc plans to continue cultivating pessimistic views and defeatism and propagating its erroneous views in the Party.

The Party’s immediate task is, therefore, to show that the opposition bloc’s basic views are untenable in principle, explain why they are incompatible with the principles of Leninism and wage a determined ideological struggle against the opposition bloc’s fundamental errors in order to surmount

them.

I. The “New Opposition’s” Switch to Trotskyism on the Basic Question of the Nature and Prospects of Our Revolution

The Party acts on the principle that ours is a socialist revolution, that the October Revolution is the signal, stimulus and starting point of the socialist revolution in the West, but that, at the same time, it is, firstly, the basis for the further unfolding of the world revolution and, secondly, ushers in the period of transition from capitalism to socialism in the USSR (dictatorship of the proletariat), in the course of which the proletariat, provided it pursues a correct policy towards the peasantry, can and will successfully build the entire edifice of socialist society if, of course, the might of the international revolutionary movement, on the one hand, and the strength of the proletariat of the USSR, on the other, will be sufficient to safeguard the USSR against military intervention by imperialism.

Trotskyism propounds totally different views about the nature and prospects of  our revolution. 

Although in October 1917 Trotskyism marched in step with the Party, its point of departure has been 

and remains that in itself our revolution is not essentially socialist, that the October Revolution is only the signal, stimulus and starting point of the socialist revolution in the West, but if the world revolution is delayed and the socialist revolution in the West is not victorious in the immediate future, the proletarian power in Russia will fall or degenerate (which is the same thing) under pressure of inevitable clashes between the proletariat and the peasants.

While the Party, in organising the October Revolution, contended that “the victory of socialism is possible first in several or even in one capitalist country alone”, that after “expropriating the capitalists and organising their own socialist production, the victorious proletariat” can and must stand up “against the rest of the world—the capitalist world—attracting to its cause the oppressed classes of other countries, stirring uprisings in those countries against the capitalists, and in case of need using even armed force against the exploiting classes and their states”* (Lenin, Vol. XIII,  p.  133), Trotskyism, on the contrary, although it co-operated with the Bolsheviks during the October Revolution, held that “it is hopeless to imagine . . . for example, that revolutionary Russia can hold its own against conservative Europe” (Trotsky, Vol. III, Part 1, p. 90, Peace Programme, first published in August 1917).

While the Party’s point of departure is that the Soviet Union has “all that is necessary and sufficient” “to build a complete socialist society”,† Lenin, “On Co-operation”), Trotskyism, on the contrary, argues that “a genuine upsurge of the socialist economy in Russia will become possible only after the proletariat is victorious in the major countries of Europe” (Trotsky, Vol. III, Part 1, p. 93, “Afterword” to the Peace Programme written in 1922).

While the Party believes that “ten or twenty years of regular relations with the peasantry and victory is assured on a world scale”,‡ (Lenin, “Plan of the Pamphlet The Tax in Kind”), Trotskyism,  on the contrary, says that the proletariat cannot establish correct relations with the peasantry until the victory of the world revolution, that having seized power the proletariat “will find itself in hostile collision not only with the bourgeois groups that supported it at the initial stage of its revolutionary struggle but also with the broad peasant masses with whose assistance it came to power”, that “the contradictions in the position of a workers’ government in a backward country, in which the overwhelming majority of the population are peasants, can only be resolved on an international scale, in the arena of the world revolution of the proletariat” (Trotsky, Foreword to his book 1905, written in

1922).

The Conference places on record that the views of Trotsky and his supporters on the fundamental question of the nature and prospects of our revolution have nothing in common with the views of our 

Party, with Leninism.

The Conference considers that these views belittle the historic role and importance of our revolution, as the base for the further development of the world revolutionary movement, and undermine the will of the Soviet proletariat to continue the building of socialism, thereby obstructing the unfolding of the forces of the world revolution and running counter to the principles of genuine internationalism and the basic line of the Communist International.

The Conference considers that these views of Trotsky and his supporters approximate those of Social-Democracy as expounded by its present leader Otto Bauer, who maintains that “in Russia, where the proletariat comprises an insignificant minority of the nation, it can establish its rule only temporarily”, that “it must inevitably lose it again as soon as the peasant mass grows sufficiently mature culturally to take power into its own hands”, that “the temporary rule of industrial socialism in agrarian Russia is only a flame that summons the proletariat of the industrial West to the struggle”, that “only the conquest of political power by the proletariat of the industrial West can ensure the prolonged rule of industrial socialism” in Russia (see Otto Bauer, Bolshevism or Social-Democracy, German edition).

The Conference therefore qualifies these views of Trotsky and his supporters as a Social- Democratic 

deviation in our Party on the basic question of the nature and prospects of our revolution.

The salient point in the development of inner-Party relations in the CPSU(B) after the Fourteenth Congress (which condemned the fundamental views of the “New Opposition”) is that the “New Opposition” (Zinoviev, Kamenev), which had formerly been opposed to Trotskyism, to the Social-Democratic deviation in our Party, has adopted the ideological positions of Trotskyism, wholly and completely abandoning its former general Party stand relative to Trotskyism, and is now coming out for Trotskyism with the same zeal as it had formerly been against it.

Two principal circumstances are behind this switch of the “New Opposition” to   Trotskyism.

They are:

(a) fatigue, vacillation, unproletarian pessimism and defeatism among the supporters of the “New Opposition” in face of fresh difficulties in the present period of change; the current vacillation and defeatism displayed by Comrades Kamenev and Zinoviev are not accidental—they are a  repetition 

and recurrence of the vacillation and pessimism which these comrades displayed nine years ago, in 

October 1917, in face of the difficulties of that period of change;

(b) the utter defeat of the “New Opposition” at the Fourteenth Congress and the resultant aspiration to achieve unity with the Trotskyites at all costs in order to fuse the two groups, the Trotskyites and the “New Opposition”, and thereby make up for their weakness and isolation from the proletarian masses, especially as the ideological stand of Trotskyism fully accords with the present pessimism of the “New Opposition”.

This also explains the fact that the opposition bloc has become the rallying centre of all bankrupt trends inside and outside the CPSU(B) that have been denounced by the Party and the Comintern: from the “Democratic Centralists” and the “Workers’ Opposition” in the CPSU(B) to the “ultra-Left” 

opportunists in Germany and the liquidators of the Souvarine type in France.

Hence the unscrupulousness in means and the lack of principle in policy underlying the existence of 

the bloc consisting of the Trotskyites and the “New Opposition” and without which  theywould not have brought together the various anti-Party trends.

The Trotskyites and the “New Opposition” have thus come together quite naturally on the common platform of the Social-Democratic deviation and the unprincipled association of the most diverse anti-Party elements in a struggle against the Party, thereby forming an opposition bloc which represents something in the nature of a revival of the August bloc (of 1912-1914).

II. Practical Platform of the Opposition Bloc

The practical platform of the opposition bloc is a direct continuation of the principal error of this bloc on the question of the nature and prospects of our revolution.Its key features are:

(a) Questions relating to the international movement. The Party’s view is that the leading capitalist countries are now by and large experiencing a state of partial, temporary stabilisation, that the present is a period between revolutions which binds the Communist parties to prepare the proletariat for the coming revolution, that the offensive of capitalism, which is vainly seeking to consolidate this stabilisation, will unavoidably give rise to a retaliatory struggle and the unification of the working class against capitalism, that the Communist parties must intervene in the growing class struggle and turn the attacks of the capitalists into counter-attacks of the proletariat with the objective of establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat, that to achieve these purposes the Communist parties have to win over the millions of workers still siding with the reformist trade unions and the Second International, and that the united front tactics are thus vital and mandatory for all the Communist parties.

The opposition bloc acts on totally different premises. Having no faith in the inner forces of our revolution and falling into despair in face of the delay of the world revolution, it is sliding from a Marxist analysis of the class forces of the revolution to “ultra-Left” self-deceit and “revolutionary” adventurism, fails to see the partial capitalist stabilisation and thus adopts the tactics of putschism.

Hence its insistence on a revision of the united front tactics, its wrecking of the Anglo- Russian Committee, its failure to understand the role of the trade unions and its slogan calling for the replacement of the trade unions with new, imaginary “revolutionary” organisations of the proletariat.

Hence its support for the ultra-Left tub-thumpers and opportunists in the Communist International (for instance, in the German party).

The Conference considers that the opposition bloc’s international policy does not conform to the interests of the international revolutionary movement.

(b) The proletariat and peasantry in the USSR. The Party’s standpoint is that the “supreme principle of the dictatorship is the maintenance of the alliance between the proletariat and the peasantry in order that the proletariat may retain its leading role and its political power” (Lenin, Vol. XVIII, Part 1, p. 33l),* that the proletariat can and must be the predominant force relative to the main mass of peasants in the economy, in the building of socialism, because in October 1917 it led the peasantry politically, in the overthrow of the bourgeoisie and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat; that the country’s industrialisation can only be effected if it rests on the gradual improvement of the material condition of the majority of the peasants (poor and middle peasants) who represent the principal market for our industry; that, as a consequence, an economic policy (prices, taxation, etc.) must be pursued which will strengthen the link between industry and the peasant economy and preserve the alliance of the working class with the main mass of peasants.

The opposition bloc holds totally different views. Having departed from the basic line of Leninism in the peasant question, having no faith in the hegemony of the proletariat relative to the peasantry in the building of socialism, and regarding the peasantry chiefly as a hostile force, the opposition bloc proposes economic and financial measures that can only rupture the link between the town and countryside, destroy the alliance of the working class with the peasantry and thereby wreck any possibility of actually promoting industrialisation. Such are, for example: (a) the proposal to raise the wholesale prices of manufactured goods, an increase that cannot fail to cause a rise of retail prices, the impoverishment of the poor and considerable sections of the middle peasants, the narrowing down of the home market, friction between the proletariat and the peasantry, a fall of the exchange rate of the gold ruble and, ultimately, a drop in real wages; (b) the proposal to exert the maximum tax pressure on the peasantry—such pressure cannot fail to cause a crack in the alliance between the workers and peasants.

The Conference considers that the opposition bloc’s policy in relation to the peasantry does not conform to the interests of the country’s industrialisation and the dictatorship of the proletariat.

(c) The struggle against the Party apparatus under the guise of fighting bureaucracy in the Party. The Party holds that its apparatus and membership are a single whole, that the Party apparatus (CC, CCC, regional organisations, gubernia committees, area committees, uyezd committees, cell bureaus, etc.) embody the leading element in the Party as a whole, that this apparatus is composed of the finest proletarians, who can and must be criticised for mistakes, who can and must be “freshened up” but who cannot be defamed without running the risk of disintegrating the Party and leaving it unarmed.

The opposition bloc, on the contrary, contraposes the Party membership to the Party apparatus, seeks to belittle the leading role of this apparatus, reducing it to the functions of a registrar and propagandist, and to incite the Party membership against the Party apparatus, thus trying to discredit the apparatus and weaken its position in the leadership of the state.

The Conference considers that, having nothing in common with Leninism, this policy of the opposition bloc can only disarm the Party in its struggle against bureaucracy in the state apparatus, to secure an effective reorganisation of this apparatus and thus strengthen the dictatorship of the proletariat.

(d) Struggle against the “regime” in the Party under the guise of fighting for inner-Party democracy. The Party’s point of view is that “whoever brings about even the slightest weakening of the iron discipline of the Party of the proletariat (especially during its dictatorship), is actually aiding the bourgeoisie against the proletariat” (Lenin, Vol. XVII, p. l36),* that the purpose of inner-Party democracy is not to weaken and break down proletarian discipline in the Party but to strengthen and consolidate it, for the dictatorship of the proletariat is inconceivable without iron discipline in the Party, without a firm regime in the Party backed by the sympathy and support of millions of proletarians.

The opposition bloc, on the contrary, contraposes inner-Party democracy to Party discipline, confuses freedom for factions and groups with inner-Party democracy and tries to use this sort of democracy to destroy Party discipline and undermine Party unity. Naturally, the opposition bloc’s appeal for a struggle against the “regime” in the Party, which ultimately leads to upholding freedom for factions and groups within the Party, is thereby an appeal which the anti-proletarian elements in our country are snatching at as a sheet-anchor against the dictatorship of the proletariat.

The Conference considers that, having nothing in common with the organisational principles of Leninism, the opposition bloc’s struggle against the “regime” in the Party can only undermine  Party unity, weaken the dictatorship of the proletariat and let loose the anti-proletarian forces in the

country who are trying to weaken and destroy the dictatorship.

The opposition bloc has chosen a nation-wide discussion, which it tried to start last October, as a means of shattering Party discipline and aggravating the struggle in the Party. While holding that free discussion of divergences is necessary in our Party’s theoretical journals and recognising the right of every Party member to free criticism of shortcomings of our Party work, the Conference recalls Lenin’s words to the effect that our Party is not a debating club but a fighting organisation of the proletariat. The Conference considers that a nation-wide discussion may be found necessary only in the event: (a) this need is recognised by at least some of the local Party organisations of gubernia or regional level; (b) if a sufficiently firm majority is non-existent in the CC on major questions of Party policy; (c) if, in spite of the existence of a firm majority in the CC on a definite point of view, the CC feels the need for checking the correctness of its policy through a discussion in the Party. However, in all these cases, a nation-wide discussion may be started only after the appropriate decision by the CC.

The Conference places it on record that none of these conditions obtained at the time the opposition bloc demanded a nation-wide discussion.

The Conference declares, therefore, that the Central Committee had acted quite correctly  when it found a discussion inexpedient and condemned the opposition bloc for its attempts to force on the Party a nation-wide discussion on questions that had already been decided by the Party.

In summing up its analysis of the opposition bloc’s practical platform, the Conference finds that this platform marks the opposition bloc’s departure from the class line of the proletarian revolution on key questions of foreign and domestic policy.

III. The “Revolutionary” Wordsand Opportunist Actions of the Opposition Bloc

A specific of the opposition bloc is that while actually representing the Social-Democratic deviation in our Party and propounding an opportunist policy, it is nonetheless trying to camouflage  its actions with revolutionary verbiage, seeking to criticise the Party from the “Left”, to pose as “Lefts”. The reason for this is that the Communist proletarians, to whom the opposition bloc chiefly appeals, are the most revolutionary of all the proletarians in the world, that, having been educated in the spirit of revolutionary traditions, they simply will not listen to outspoken critics from the Right. Therefore, in order to sell its opportunist goods the opposition bloc has been compelled to give them a revolutionary label in the knowledge that this is the only subterfuge that will help to attract the attention of revolutionary proletarians.

But inasmuch as the opposition bloc continues to act as the Social-Democratic deviation  since, in fact, it advocates an opportunist policy, its actions invariably belie its words. Hence the inner contradiction in its activity. Hence the discord between words and deeds, between revolutionary  words and opportunist actions.

The opposition clamorously criticises the Party and the Comintern from the “Left” and insists on a revision of the united front tactics, the disbandment of the Anglo-Russian Committee, and the replacement of the trade unions by new “revolutionary” organisations, in the belief that this will push the revolution, whereas actually they will only be helping James Thomas and J. Oudegeest, divorcing the Communist parties from the trade unions, weakening the position of world communism and, consequently, holding up the revolutionary movement. In words they are “revolutionaries” but in deeds they are accomplices of the Thomases and Oudegeests.

The opposition thunders against the Party from the “Left” and, at the same time, demands an increase of the retail prices of manufactured goods in the belief that this will speed up  industrialisation, whereas, in fact, it will only disorganise the home market, destroy the union between industry and the peasant economy, reduce the exchange rate of the gold ruble, diminish real wages and, consequently, undermine industrialisation in any form. In words it favours industrialisation but indeeds it aids and abets the adversaries of industrialisation.

The opposition accuses the Party of being reluctant to combat bureaucracy in the state apparatus and, at the same time, suggests raising retail prices in the belief, evidently, that higher retail prices have nothing to do with bureaucracy in the state apparatus, whereas, in fact, this will make the state economic apparatus bureaucratic from top to bottom because high retail prices are the surest means of strangling industry and bureaucratising the economic apparatus. In Words they are against bureaucracy but in deeds they defend and propound the bureaucratisation of the state apparatus.

The opposition holds forth against private capital and, at the same time, suggests channelling state capital from the sphere of circulation into industry in the belief that this will undermine private capital, whereas in fact it will only make for an immense strengthening of private capital because the extraction of state capital from circulation, which is the basic sphere of the operation of private  capital, will place trade entirely in the hands of private capital. While fighting private capital in words, the opposition helps it in deeds.

The opposition vociferously accuses the Party apparatus of degeneration, but in fact when the CC raised the question of expelling Mr. Ossovsky, a Communist who had really degenerated, the opposition displayed the utmost loyalty to that gentleman, voting against his expulsion. In words it is against degeneration, but in deeds it aids and defends degeneration.

The opposition raised an outcry about inner-Party democracy and, at the same time,  demanded a nation-wide discussion thereby thinking to effectuate inner-Party democracy, whereas in fact by trying to force a discussion on the overwhelming majority of the Party membership on behalf of an 

insignificant minority it most flagrantly violated every form of democracy. In words it is for inner-Party democracy, but in deeds it violates the fundamental principles of any democracy.

During the present aggravation of the class struggle, the working-class movement can pursue only one of two possible policies: either a Menshevik policy or the policy of Leninism. The attempts of the opposition bloc to steer a middle course between these antipodal lines under cover of “Left”, “revolutionary” phrase-mongering and by levelling sharp criticism at the CPSU(B) had to and did indeed take it into the camp of the opponents of Leninism.

The enemies of the CPSU(B) and of the Comintern know the worth of the opposition bloc’s “revolutionary” verbiage. Therefore, ignoring this verbiage as worthless, they unanimously laud the 

opposition bloc for its unrevolutionary deeds, adopting as their own its slogan calling for a struggle against the main line pursued by the CPSU(B) and the Comintern. It cannot be considered accidental that the Socialist-Revolutionaries, the Constitutional Democrats, the Russian Mensheviks and the German “Left” Social-Democrats have all found it possible to give open support for the opposition bloc’s struggle against the Party, calculating that this struggle will lead to a split and that a split will untie the anti-proletarian forces in our country to the delight of the enemies of the revolution.

The Conference considers that the Party must pay special attention to exposing the opposition bloc’s “revolutionary” disguise and showing its opportunist substance.

The Conference considers that the Party must safeguard the unity of its ranks as the apple of its eye, believing that the unity of our Party is the most potent antidote to all the counter-revolutionary assaults of the enemies of the revolution.

IV. Conclusions

In summing up the past stage of the inner-Party struggle, the Fifteenth Conference of the CPSU(B) 

places it on record that in this struggle the Party has demonstrated its immense ideological growth, unhesitatingly rejected the fundamental views of the opposition and won a quick and decisive victory  over  the  opposition  bloc,  compelling  it  to  renounce  openly  its  factional  activity  and todissociate itself from patently opportunist groups in and outside the CPSU(B).

The Conference declares that as a result of the opposition attempts to force a discussion on  the Party and undermine its unity, the Party masses have rallied still more closely round the CC, thereby isolating the opposition and achieving real unity of the Party ranks.

The Conference considers that it was only due to the active support of the broad Party masses that the CC achieved these successes and that the activity and political awareness displayed by the Party masses in the struggle against the opposition bloc’s disorganising work are the best indications of the fact that the Party lives and develops on the basis of real inner-Party democracy.

While wholly and completely approving the policy of the CC to ensure unity, the Conference considers that the course to be followed by the Party is:

1. To make sure that the achieved minimum needed for Party unity is actually implemented.

2. To wage a determined .ideological struggle against the Social-Democratic deviation in our Party, explaining the fallacy of the opposition bloc’s fundamental views to the masses and exposing the opportunist content of these views no matter what “revolutionary” verbiage is used to disguise them.

3. To secure from the opposition bloc an admission that its views are wrong.

4. To safeguard Party unity in every possible way and cut short any attempt to renew factional activities and violate discipline.

The CPSU in Resolutions etc.,

8th Russ. ed., Vol. 3, pp. 401-12