Questions of Party Leadership
THE RIGHT DEVIATION IN THE C.P.S.U.(B.).
Questions of Party Leadership
Thus we have reviewed all the principal questions relating to our disagreements in the sphere of theory as well as in the sphere of the policy of the Comintern and the internal policy of our Party. From what has been said it is apparent that Rykov’s statement about the existence of a single line does not correspond to the real state of affairs. From what has been said it is apparent that we have in fact two lines. One line is the general line of the Party, the revolutionary Leninist line of our Party. The other line is the line of Bukharin’s group. This second line has not quite crystallised yet, partly because of the incredible confusion of views within the ranks of Bukharin’s group, and partly because this second line, being of little importance in the Party, tries to disguise itself in one way or another. Nevertheless, as you have seen, this line exists, and it exists as a line which is distinct from the Party line, as a line opposed to the general Party line on almost all questions of our policy. This second line is that of the Right deviation.
Let us pass now to questions of Party leadership.
a) The Factionalism of Bukharin’s Group
Bukharin said that there is no opposition within our Party, that Bukharin’s group is not an opposition. That is not true, comrades. The discussion at the plenum showed quite clearly that Bukharin’s group constitutes a new opposition. The oppositional work of this group consists in attempts to revise the Party line; it seeks to revise the Party line and is preparing the ground for replacing the Party line by another line, the line of the opposition, which can be nothing but the line of the Right deviation.
Bukharin said that the group of three does not constitute a factional group. That is not true, comrades. Bukharin’s group has all the characteristics of a faction. There is the platform the factional secrecy, the policy of resigning, the organised struggle against the Central Committee. What more is required? Why hide the truth about the factionalism of Bukharin’s group, when it is self-evident? The very reason why the plenum of the Central Committee and Central Control Commission has met is to tell all the truth here about our disagreements. And the truth is that Bukharin’s group is a factional group. And it is not merely a factional group, but—I would say—the most repulsive and the pettiest of all the factional groups that ever existed in our Party.
This is evident if only from the fact that it is now attempting to use for its factional aims such an insignificant and petty affair as the disturbances in Adjaria. In point of fact, what does the so-called “revolt” in Adjaria amount to in comparison with such revolts as the Kronstadt revolt? I believe that in comparison with this the so-called “revolt” in Adjaria is not even a drop in the ocean. Were there any instances of Trotskyites or Zinovievites attempting to make use of the serious revolt which occurred in Kronstadt to combat the Central Committee, the Party? It must be admitted, comrades, that there were no such instances. On the contrary, the opposition groups which existed in our Party at the time of that serious revolt helped the Party in suppressing it, and they did not dare to make use of it against the Party.
Well, and how is Bukharin’s group acting now? You have already had evidence that it is attempting in the pettiest and most offensive way to utilise against the Party the microscopic “revolt” in Adjaria. What is this if not an extreme degree of factional blindness and factional degeneration?
Apparently, it is being demanded of us that no disturbances should occur in our border regions which have common frontiers with capitalist countries. Apparently, it is being demanded of us that we should carry out a policy which would satisfy all classes of our society, the rich and the poor, the workers and the capitalists. Apparently, it is being demanded of us that there should be no discontented elements. Have not these comrades from Bukharin’s group gone out of their minds?
How can anybody demand of us, people of the proletarian dictatorship who are waging a struggle against the capitalist world, both inside and outside our country, that there should be no discontented elements in our country, and that disturbances should not sometimes occur in certain border regions which have common frontiers with hostile countries? For what purpose then does the capitalist encirclement exist, if not to enable international capital to apply all its efforts to organise actions by discontented elements in our border regions against the Soviet regime? Who, except empty-headed liberals, would raise such demands? Is it not obvious that factional pettiness can sometimes produce in people a typically liberal blindness and narrow-mindedness?
b) Loyalty and Collective Leadership
Rykov assured us here that Bukharin is one of the most “irreproachable” and “loyal” Party members in his attitude towards the Central Committee of our Party.
I am inclined to doubt it. We cannot take Rykov’s word for it. We demand facts. And Rykov is unable to supply facts.
Take, for example, such a fact as the negotiations Bukharin conducted behind the scenes with Kamenev’s group, which is connected with the Trotskyites; the negotiations about setting up a factional bloc, about changing the policy of the Central Committee, about changing the composition of the Political Bureau, about using the grain-procurement crisis for attacking the Central Committee. The question arises: Where is Bukharin’s “loyal” and “irreproachable” attitude towards his Central Committee?
Is not such behaviour, on the contrary, a violation of any kind of loyalty to his Central Committee, to his Party, on the part of a member of the Political Bureau? If this is called loyalty to the Central Committee, then what is the word for betrayal of one’s Central Committee?
Bukharin likes to talk about loyalty and honesty, but why does he not try to examine his own conscience and ask himself whether he is not violating in the most dishonest manner the elementary requirements of loyalty to his Central Committee when he conducts secret negotiations with Trotskyites against his Central Committee and thereby betrays his Central Committee?
Bukharin spoke here about the lack of collective leadership in the Central Committee of the Party, and assured us that the requirements of collective leadership were being violated by the majority of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee.
Our plenum, of course, has put up with everything. It can even tolerate this shameless and hypocritical assertion of Bukharin’s. But one must have really lost all sense of shame to make so bold as to speak in this way at the plenum against the majority of the Central Committee.
In truth, how can we speak of collective leadership if the majority of the Central Committee, having harnessed itself to the chariot of state, is straining all its forces to move it forward and is urging Bukharin’s group to give a helping hand in this arduous task, while Bukharin’s group is not only not helping its Central Committee but, on the contrary, is hampering it in every way, is putting a spoke in its wheels, is threatening to resign, and comes to terms with enemies of the Party, with Trotskyites, against the Central Committee of our Party?
Who, indeed, but hypocrites can deny that Bukharin, who is setting up a bloc with the Trotskyites against the Party, and is betraying his Central Committee, does not want to and will not implement collective leadership in the Central Committee of our Party?
Who, indeed, but the blind can fail to see that if Bukharin nevertheless chatters about collective leadership in the Central Committee, putting the blame on the majority of the Central Committee, he is doing so with the object of disguising his treacherous conduct?
It should be noted that this is not the first time that Bukharin has violated the elementary requirements of loyalty and collective leadership in relation to the Central Committee of the Party. The history of our Party knows of instances when, in Lenin’s lifetime, in the period of the Brest Peace, Bukharin, being in the minority on the question of peace, rushed to the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, who were the enemies of our Party, conducted backstairs negotiations with them, and attempted to set up a bloc with them against Lenin and the Central Committee. What agreement he was trying to reach at the time with the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries— we, unfortunately, do not yet know.10 But we do know that at the time the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries were planning to arrest Lenin and carry out an anti-Soviet coup d’état. . . . But the most amazing thing is that, while rushing to the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries and conspiring with them against the Central Committee, Bukharin continued, just as he is doing now, to clamour about the necessity of collective leadership.
The history of our Party knows, too, of instances when, in Lenin’s lifetime, Bukharin, who had a majority in the Moscow Regional Bureau of our Party and the support of a group of “Left” Communists, called on all Party members to express lack of confidence in the Central Committee of the Party, to refuse to submit to its decisions and to raise the question of splitting our Party. That was during the period of the Brest Peace, after the Central Committee had already decided that it was necessary to accept the conditions of the Brest Peace.
Such is the character of Bukharin’s loyalty and collective leadership.
Rykov spoke here about the necessity of collective work. At the same time he pointed an accusing finger at the majority of the Political Bureau, asserting that he and his close friends were in favour of collective work, while the majority of the Political Bureau, consequently, were against it. However, Rykov was unable to cite a single fact in support of his assertion.
In order to expose this fable of Rykov’s, let me cite a few facts, a few examples which will show you how Rykov carries out collective work.
First example. You have heard the story about the export of gold to America. Many of you may believe that the gold was shipped to America by decision of the Council of People’s Commissars or the Central Committee, or with the consent of the Central Committee, or with its knowledge. But that is not true, comrades. The Central Committee and the Council of People’s Commissars have had nothing to do with this matter. There is a ruling which prohibits the export of gold without the approval of the Central Committee. But this ruling was violated. Who was it that authorised the export? It turns out that the shipment of gold was authorised by one of Rykov’s deputies with Rykov’s knowledge and consent.
Is that collective work?
Second example. This concerns negotiations with one of the big private banks in America, whose property was nationalised after the October Revolution, and which is now demanding compensation for its losses. The Central Committee has learned that a representative of our State Bank has been discussing terms of compensation with that bank.
Settlement of private claim is, as you are aware, a very important question inseparably connected with our foreign policy. One might think that these negotiations were conducted with the approval of the Council of People’s Commissars or the Central Committee. However, that is not the case, comrades. The Central Committee and the Council of People’s Commissars have had nothing to do with this matter. Subsequently, upon learning about these negotiations, the Central Committee decided to stop them. But the question arises: Who authorised these negotiations? It turns out that they were authorised by one of Rykov’s deputies with Rykov’s knowledge and consent.
Is that collective work?
Third example. This concerns the supplying of agricultural machinery to kulaks and middle peasants. The point is that the EKOSO of the R.S.F.S.R.,11 which is presided over by one of Rykov’s deputies for matters concerning the R.S.F.S.R., decided to reduce the supply of agricultural machines to the middle peasants and increase the supply of machines to the upper strata of the peasantry, i.e., to the kulaks. Here is the text of this anti-Party, anti-Soviet ruling of the EKOSO of the R.S.F.S.R.:
“In the Kazakh and Bashkir A.S.S.R., the Siberian and Lower Volga territories, the Middle Volga and Urals regions, the proportion of sales of farm machines and implements set forth in this paragraph shall be increased to 20 per cent for the upper strata of the peasantry and decreased to 30 per cent for the middle strata.”
How do you like that? At a time when the Party is intensifying the offensive against the kulaks and is organising the masses of the poor and middle peasants against the kulaks, the EKOSO of the R.S.F.S.R. adopts a decision to reduce the level of deliveries of farm machinery to the middle peasants and increase the level of deliveries to the upper strata of the peasantry.
And it is suggested that this is a Leninist, communist policy.
Subsequently, when the Central Committee learned about this incident, it annulled the decision of the EKOSO. But who was it that authorised this anti-Soviet ruling? It was authorised by one of Rykov’s deputies, with Rykov’s knowledge and consent.
Is that collective work?
I believe that these examples are sufficient to show how Rykov and his deputies practise collective work.
c) The Fight Against the Right Deviation
Bukharin spoke here of the “civil execution” of three members of the Political Bureau, who, he says, “were being hauled over the coals” by the organisations of our Party. He said that the Party had subjected these three members of the Political Bureau—Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky—to “civil execution” by criticising their errors in the press and at meetings, while they, the three members of the Political Bureau, were “compelled” to keep silent.
All that is nonsense, comrades. Those are the false words of a Communist gone liberal who is trying to weaken the Party in its fight against the Right deviation. According to Bukharin, if he and his friends have become entangled in Right deviationist mistakes, the Party has no right to expose those mistakes, the Party must stop fighting the Right deviation and wait until it shall please Bukharin and his friends to renounce their mistakes.
Is not Bukharin asking too much from us? Is he not under the impression that the Party exists for him, and not he for the Party? Who is compelling him to keep silent, to remain in a state of inaction when the whole Party is mobilised against the Right deviation and is conducting determined attacks against difficulties? Why should not he, Bukharin, and his close friends come forward now and engage in a determined fight against the Right deviation and conciliation towards it? Can anyone doubt that the Party would welcome Bukharin and his close friends if they decided to take this not so difficult step? Why do they not decide to take this step, which, after all, is their duty? Is it not because they place the interests of their group above the interests of the Party and its general line? Whose fault is it that Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky are missing in the fight against the Right deviation? Is it not obvious that talk about the “civil execution” of the three members of the Political Bureau is a poorly amouflaged attempt on the part of the three members of the Political Bureau to compel the Party to keep silent and to stop fighting against the Right deviation?
The fight against the Right deviation must not be regarded as a secondary task of our Party. The fight against the Right deviation is one of the most decisive tasks of our Party. If we, in our own ranks, in our own Party, in the political General Staff of the proletariat, which is directing the movement and is leading the proletariat forward—if we in this General Staff should allow the free existence and the free functioning of the Right deviators, who are trying to demobilise the Party, demoralise the working class, adapt our policy to the tastes of the “Soviet” bourgeoisie, and thus yield to the difficulties of our socialist construction—if we should allow all this, what would it mean? Would it not mean that we are ready to put a brake on the revolution, disrupt our socialist construction, flee from difficulties, and surrender our positions to the capitalist elements?
Does Bukharin’s group understand that to refuse to fight the Right deviation is to betray the working class, to betray the revolution?
Does Bukharin’s group understand that unless we overcome the Right deviation and conciliation towards it, it will be impossible to overcome the difficulties facing us, and that unless we overcome these difficulties it will be impossible to achieve decisive successes in socialist construction?
In view of this, what is the worth of this pitiful talk about the “civil execution” of three members of the Political Bureau?
No, comrades, the Bukharinites will not frighten the Party with liberal chatter about “civil execution.” The Party demands that they should wage a determined fight against the Right deviation and conciliation towards it side by side with all the members of the Central Committee of our Party. It demands this of Bukharin’s group in order to help to mobilise the working class, to break down the resistance of the class enemies and to organise decisive victory over the difficulties of our socialist construction.
Either the Bukharinites will fulfil this demand of the Party, in which case the Party will welcome them, or they will not do so, in which case they will have only themselves to blame.
Conclusions
I pass to the conclusions.
I submit the following proposals:
1) We must first of all condemn the views of Bukharin’s group. We must condemn the views of this group as set forth in its declarations and in the speeches of its representatives, and state that these views are incompatible with the Party line and fully coincide with the position of the Right deviation.
2) We must condemn Bukharin’s secret negotiations with Kamenev’s group as the most flagrant expression of the disloyalty and factionalism of Bukharin’s group.
3) We must condemn the policy of resigning that was being practised by Bukharin and Tomsky, as a gross violation of the elementary requirements of Party discipline.
4) Bukharin and Tomsky must be removed from their posts and warned that in the event of the slightest attempt at insubordination to the decisions of the Central Committee, the latter will be forced to exclude both of them from the Political Bureau.
5) We must take appropriate measures forbidding members and candidate members of the Political Bureau, when speaking publicly, to deviate in any way from the line of the Party and the decisions of the Central Committee or of its bodies.
6) We must take appropriate measures so that press organs, both Party and Soviet, newspapers as well as periodicals, should fully conform to the line of the Party and the decisions of its leading bodies.
7) We must adopt special provisions, including even expulsion from the Central Committee and from the Party, for persons who attempt to violate the confidential nature of the decisions of the Party, its Central Committee and Political Bureau.
8) We must distribute the text of the resolution of the joint plenum of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission on inner-Party questions to all the local Party organisations and to the delegates to the Sixteenth Party Conference,12 without publishing it in the press for the time being.
That, in my opinion, is the way out of this situation.
Some comrades insist that Bukharin and Tomsky should be immediately expelled from the Political Bureau of the Central Committee. I do not agree with these comrades. In my opinion, for the time being we can do without resorting to such an extreme measure.
Notes
The present text of this speech contains over 30 pages which were not published in the press at the time.—Ed.
1. The plenum of the Central Committee and Central Control Commission, C.P.S.U.(B.) held April 16-23, 1929, discussed: 1) inner-Party affairs; 2) questions concerning the Sixteenth All-Union Party Conference; and 3) the purging of the Party. The plenum approved the resolution on inner-Party affairs which had been adopted by a joint meeting of the Political Bureau of the C.C. and the Presidium of the C.C.C. on February 9, 1929, and in a special resolution condemned the Right-opportunist activities of Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky. The plenum approved and resolved to submit to the Sixteenth All-Union Party Conference the theses presented by the Political Bureau on a five-year plan for the development of the national economy, on ways and means of promoting agriculture and tax relief for the middle peasants, and on the results and immediate tasks of the fight against bureaucracy. It also decided to submit to the Sixteenth Party Conference theses, which it had approved in principle, on a purge of members and candidate members of the C.P.S.U.(B.). J. V. Stalin delivered a speech on “The Right Deviation in the C.P.S.U.(B.)” at the meeting of the plenum on April 22. (For the resolutions of the plenum of the C.C. and the C.C.C. of the C.P.S.U.(B.), eee Resolutions and Decisions of C.P.S.U. Congresses, Conferences and Central Committee Plenums, Part II, 1953, pp. 429-47).
2. This refers to the sabotage activities of a counter-revolutionary organisation of bourgeois experts which had operated in Shakhty and other Donbas areas in 1923-28.
3. The Sixth Congress of the Comintern was held in Moscow, July 17-September 1, 1928. It discussed a report on the activities of the Executive Committee of the Comintern and reports of the Executive Committee of the Young Communist International and of the International Control Commission, measures for combating the danger of imperialist wars, the programme of the Communist International, the revolutionary movement in the colonies and semi-colonies, the economic situation in the U.S.S.R. and the situation in the C.P.S.U.(B.), and endorsed the Rules of the Comintern. In its resolutions, the congress drew attention to the growth of the internal contradictions of capitalism, which were inevitably leading to a further shaking of the capitalist stabilisation and to a sharp accentuation of the general crisis of capitalism. The congress defined the tasks of the Communist International springing from the new conditions off the working-class struggle, and mobilised the Communist Parties to intensify the fight against the Right deviation, as the chief danger, and against conciliation towards it. The congress took note of the achievements of socialist construction in the U.S.S.R. and their importance in strengthening the revolutionary positions of the international proletariat, and called upon the working people of the whole world to defend the Soviet Union. J. V. Stalin took a leading part in the work of the congress, he was elected to the Presidium of the congress, to the Programme Commission and to the Political Commission set up to draft the theses on the international situation and the tasks of the Communist International.
4. This refers to the plenum of the Central Committee of the C.P.S.U.(B.), together with members of the Central Control Commission and Central Auditing Commission, which was held November 16-24, 1928.
5. Katheder-Socialism—a trend in bourgeois ideology, chiefly in bourgeois political economy, which arose in Germany in the latter half of the nineteenth century and later became widespread in Britain, America and France. Its representatives were bourgeois-liberal professors who used their university chairs (Katheder means university chair) to combat Marxism and the developing revolutionary working-class movement, to slur over the contradictions of capitalism, and to preach class conciliation. The Katheder-Socialists denied the class, exploiting character of the bourgeois state and alleged that the latter was capable of perfecting capitalism by means of social reforms. Referring to the German representatives of this trend, Engels wrote: “Our Katheder-Socialists have never been much more, theoretically, than slightly philanthropic vulgar economists, and now they have sunk to the level of simple apologists of Bismarck’s state socialism” (K. Marx and F. Engels, Works, Vol. XXVII, p. 499). In Russia, the bourgeois-liberal reformist ideas of the Katheder-Socialists were preached by the legal Marxists. The Russian Mensheviks, the opportunist parties of the Second International and the modern Right-wing Socialists also went over to the position of Katheder-Socialism, striving to subordinate the working-class movement to the interests of the bourgeoisie and preaching that capitalism would grow gradually and peacefully into socialism.
6 This refers to the plenum of the C.C., C.P.S.U.(B.) held July 4-12, 1928.
7. Youth International (Jugend Internationale)—a magazine, the organ of the International Union of Socialist Youth Organisations, published in Zurich from September 1915 to May 1918. From 1919 to 1941 it was the organ of the Executive Committee of the Young Communist International. (In 1925-28, it appeared under the title Communist Youth International.)
8. See Lenin Miscellany XIV, pp. 250-59.
9. Sbornik Sotsial-Demokrata (Symposium of Sotsial Demokrat) was published by the C.C., R.S.D.L.P. in 1916 under the personal direction of V. I. Lenin. Two numbers were issued: in October and December 1916.
10. At the time of the Brest Peace (1918), Bukharin and the group of “Left” Communists he headed joined with Trotsky in waging a fierce struggle within the Party against Lenin, demanding the continuation of the war with the aim of exposing the young Soviet Republic, which still had no army, to the blows of German imperialism. At the trial of the anti-Soviet “Right-Trotskyist bloc” in 1938, it was established that Bukharin and the group of “Left” Communists headed by him had joined with Trotsky and the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries in a secret counter-revolutionary conspiracy against the Soviet Government with the object of torpedoing the Brest Peace Treaty, arresting and assassinating V. I. Lenin, J . V. Stalin and Y. M. Sverdlov, and establishing a government of Bukharinites, Trotskyists and Left Socialist-Revolutionaries.
11. EKOSO of the R.S.F.S.R.—Economic Council of the Council of People’s Commissars of the R.S.F.S.R.
12. The Sixteenth Conference of the C.P.S.U.(B.), which took place in Moscow, April 23-29, 1929, discussed a five-year plan of development of the national economy, ways and means of promoting agriculture and tax relief for the middle peasants, results and immediate tasks of the fight against bureaucracy, and the purge and verification of members and candidate members of the C.P.S.U.(B.). The first five-year plan was the chief question discussed by the conference. It rejected the “minimum” variant of the five-year plan advocated by the Right capitulators and adopted an “optimal” variant, to be obligatory under all circumstances. The conference condemned the Right deviation as representing a complete rejection of the Party’s Leninist policy and an outright adoption of the position of the kulaks, and it called upon the Party to deliver a crushing blow to the Right deviation, as the chief danger at that period, and also to conciliatory attitudes towards deviations from the Leninist line. V. M. Molotov reported to the conference on the April plenum of the C.C. and C.C.C., C.P.S.U.(B.) and on the speech delivered at that meeting by J. V. Stalin on “The Right Deviation in the C.P.S.U.(B.)” (see pp. 1-113 in this volume). The conference unanimously passed a resolution on “Inner-Party Affairs” and adopted an appeal to all workers and labouring peasants of the Soviet Union for full development of socialist emulation. (For the resolutions of the Sixteenth Conference, see Resolutions and Decisions of C.P.S.U. Congresses, Conferences
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