Ninth Congress of the RCP (B) - April 1920
MARCH
— APRIL 1920
EDITORIAL
The
IX Congress of our Party occupies a significant place in the history of our
past, and its decisions are of great international significance. '
The Ninth Party Congress (March 29-April 5, 1920) took place during a new respite, won by the Land of the Soviets as a result of a tremendous victory over international imperialism and a decisive military defeat of the internal counter-revolution. It was a very brief period when allied imperialism began to replace its unsuccessful interventionist tactics with a "trade" orientation. The course of intervention was nevertheless soon afterwards taken again by imperialism, mainly from France. The attack of the White Wormwood, characterized by Lenin as "the wreckage of the old plan of the imperialists," was in the hands of the latter a new, yet another, major attempt at military defeat of the proletarian dictatorship they hated. But that was already after the congress. The respite established before that allowed the party to begin rebuilding its ranks to fight the enemy on the "bloodless front" —the economic front. Ninth Party Congress focused on questions of economic development. The decisions of the Ninth Congress on these issues do not go beyond the economic course of the era of War Communism. This is their profound difference from the decisions adopted at the next, Tenth Party Congress. The civil war was far from over. “We must remember,” Lenin said at the closing of the congress, “that the entire capitalist world is armed from head to toe and is waiting for the moment, choosing the best strategic conditions, examining the methods of attack” .
The
decisions of the Ninth Party Congress on economic development are therefore
"a simple transition on the same lines of politics", they are the
embodiment of the economic course of the era of War Communism.
The
congress decided to use the army on the labor front. The war was ended, but
three million Red Army soldiers were under arms. To dissolve them to their
homes, given the catastrophic state of transport, when trains from Moscow to
Kharkov ran for weeks, it would mean, if necessary, collecting them would take too long.
This would mean completely disarming the country of the proletarian
dictatorship in the face of the intervention gathering with new forces. In
addition, the country was faced with the urgent task of collecting grain and
delivering it to industrial centers. To complete this task quickly, masses of
unskilled labor were needed. That is why the only way out, under the conditions
of that time, was to use the liberated armies on the labor front. It was
precisely this aspect of the question — the labor armies as an emergency and
temporary measure caused by extraordinary circumstances — that Lenin emphasized
at the congress. But Leon Trotsky was inclined to turn this heavy necessity,
which the party was forced to accept, into an ideal. He agreed to the point
that the methods of military coercion, carried out with the help of the labor
army, are almost the best methods of socialist construction. Of course, such
views are not accidental for Trotsky. At the heart of his views on this issue
was lack of faith in the creative forces of the proletariat, in its ability to
lead the peasantry in building socialism, hence the lack of faith in the possibility
of the victory of socialism in our country. The party, led by Lenin and Stalin,
resolutely rejected Trotsky's bureaucratic hobbies.
In
addition to the question of labor armies, in deciding "the immediate tasks
of economic development" the congress widely raised questions of mass
mobilizations, labor service, the development of forms of socialist centralism
and other organizational issues related to economic construction. In this
connection, much attention was devoted to the question of a single economic
plan. The decision adopted at the congress on this issue provided for the
gradual expansion of production in order for the first time to raise the
enterprises and industries most necessary for the country: primarily transport,
fuel, metallurgy, etc.
In the aforementioned decision on the unity of the economic plan, an important place is occupied by the question of the electrification of the entire national economy. It is known how Lenin, who put forward the idea of electrifying the country in the spring of 1918, often returned to this issue. It is known that already at the beginning of 1920, on the eve of the IX Party Congress, V.I. Lenin instructed G.M. Krzhizhanovsky to work out the state draft plan for electrification, which Lenin thought of as a "great program for 10-20 years" . This task of Lenin soon "in the same 1920 gave rise to the well-known GOELRO plan, now far exceeded. It should be noted that exactly this idea of electrification was resolutely opposed by L. Trotsky. He opposed the Leninist plan of bringing the technical and production base under the Soviet superstructure to labor-army. Touching upon this very question, Comrade Stalin in March 1921 wrote to Lenin in a well-known letter devoted to the characterization of the electrification plan:
“Remember last year Trotsky's“ plan ”(his theses) of the“ economic revival ”of Russia based on the massive application of labor to the wreckage of the pre-war industry unskilled peasant-worker masses (labor armies). What squalor, what backwardness in comparison with the GOELRO plan! A medieval handicraftsman who imagines himself to be an Ibsen hero, called upon to “save” Russia with an old saga ... ”. Incidentally, we note that the question of a single economic plan, as it was already raised at the Ninth Congress, met with a negative attitude at the Congress and from AI Rykov. As you know, later he still "criticized" the GOELRO plan, and in the same letter, Comrade Stalin characterizes Comrade Rykov's position on this issue as "philistine" realism "(in fact, Manilovism)" .
The
congress decisively raised the question of resolving a number of urgent
problems of an economic nature and of the priority (shock) supply of certain
industrial enterprises and groups of workers. The tasks of trade unions and cooperatives
discussed at the congress were viewed from the point of view of that “special
organizational task”, which was formulated by the congress in the following
words: “The party will have to adapt its work to new economic tasks, reorganize
its ranks and make a radical redistribution of forces” .
In
the field of party building, the Ninth Congress continued the line of
establishing and strengthening iron discipline and a kind of military regime in
the party. Looking back at the past, it should be said that without the
implementation of these methods of a kind of militarization in politics and
practice, the party would not have resisted the struggle that ended in the
complete defeat of Yudenich, Kolchak, Denikin, etc. democratic centralism
". The leaders of this "faction" were exclusively the
"left" communists of 1918 — Sapronov, V. Smirnov, Osinsky and others.
They opposed the one-man management, against the labor armies, against the
militarization of individual branches of the economy, against the creation of a
strong, centralized state apparatus, in fact, against the dictatorship of the
proletariat. Being ultra-left in its phraseology, the faction “louder than all
the shouts,” as Lenin called it, it took an openly right-wing opportunist
position on a number of issues. From an anarcho-Menshevik position, she spoke
out against proletarian discipline and organization in all the main sectors of
the struggle and building of the party during the years of the fierce civil
war. Especially a lot of "decists" shouted about the excessive
guardianship of the Central Committee over local organizations, about the fact
that the Central Committee arbitrarily disposes of local workers. The fact is
that by that time the Central Committee had done an enormous amount of work on
mass and individual transfers and mobilization of Party workers. In this
connection it was necessary in a number of cases to deprive a number of local
organizations of the necessary personnel. Speaking on this issue, the
"decists" were the direct spokesmen for the narrow-local tendencies
that arose on this basis.
The
"Decists" (Democratic Centralists. EA) tried to give the party a big fight on the
question of one-man management in the management of industry. Despite the fact
that this issue had long been resolved by the party, and it was necessary to
move on to its practical implementation, the "Decists", by the way,
we should note that, supported by a number of trade unionists led by Tomsky and
a group of business executives led by Rykov, demanded collegiality in the
management of industry. considering it as "the highest level of
government." And such argumentation represents, Lenin said, “a terrible
confusion of elementary theoretical questions” . "Decists" were
pulling the party back, to rallies and partisans, then and where the strictest
centralized actions were needed. In a word, the "Decists" pursued a
line of weakening and disintegrating the proletarian dictatorship.
Under
the most difficult conditions of civil war, the Party rebuffed all attempts to
divert it from the Leninist general line. If in the struggle against the
deepest economic devastation, against new and fesh offensives of the
interventionists, the Party won, then the decisions of the IX Party Congress
played a significant role in this.
The
minutes (verbatim record) of the IX'th Party Congress were first issued in 1920 in
Moscow (State Publishing House, 412 pages). This publication is verified
against the transcripts of the sessions of the congress stored in the IMEL
Archive. A number of insertions included in the text, taken from the
transcripts, are published for the first time. The text of Lenin's reports and
speeches, verified against the available transcripts, also includes some
additions.
All
obvious misprints and spelling errors found in the 1919 edition were corrected
in the text without any reservations. All footnotes belonging to the editorial
board of this publication, in contrast to the notes of the editorial committee
of the congress, are signed "Ed."
The
documents cited in the "Supplements" to the 1920 edition are
rearranged in such a way that all resolutions and greetings
adopted at the congress make up the section "Materials of the
congress." All other documents, both included in the 1920 edition and for
the first time included in this edition, have entered in the Appendices section. A
number of documents included in this section are published for the first time,
including Lenin's remarks on Trotsky's draft theses (pp. 812-813).
The
title of the short foreword of the editorial committee was given by the editors
of this publication.
The
work on the preparation for printing of this publication was carried out by M.
A. Avilova, under the direction of I. V. Volkovicher.
December
1933
CONGRESS MATERIALS
I.
Resolutions and resolutions of the IX Congress
1.
According to the report of the Central Committee
2.
On the immediate tasks of economic construction
3.
On the organization of communication between economic commissions
4.
On the issue of trade unions and their organization.
5.
About the attitude towards cooperation
6.
On organizational matters
7.
About the transition to the police system
8.
On the relationship between political departments and party committees
9.
About work among the female proletariat
10.
About mobilization for transport
a)
Appeal of the IX Congress to the local organizations of the RCP (b)
b)
Resolution of the IX Congress of the RCP (b) on mobilization for transport
11.
Composition of the Central Committee of the RCP (b)
II.
Greetings to the Congress
12.
Greetings to the IX Congress of the RCP (b) To the Red Army and the Red
the
fleet of the RSFSR
13.
Greetings to the IX Congress of the RCP (b) to the German proletariat
III.
Composition of the Congress
14.
Delegates with casting vote
APPENDICES
1.
Notice of the convocation of the IX Congress of the RSCB)
2.
To the organizations of the RCP (b) on the issue of the order of the day of partial
congress
3.
Regulations of the IX Congress of the RCP (b)
4.
Political report of the Central Committee
5.
Organizational report of the Central Committee
6.
Report of the Central Committee of the RKSM (for the year of work)
7.
Work in the village
8.
Report on the activities of the Central Committee department for work among
women
9.
Lenin's remark on Trotsky's draft theses - the next important tasks of economic
construction - and the initial project of Trotsky
10.
Draft resolution of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) for the IX Congress on
the next
tasks
of economic construction
11.
Theses of the Central Committee of the RCP on the mobilization of industrial
proletariat, labor service, militarization of the economy and the use of
military units for economic needs
12.
Theses of the Central Committee on trade unions and their organization.
13.
Tasks of trade unions (theses of M. Tomsky).
14.
On collegiality and individuality (theses of the Axis of no one, Sapronov,
Maksimovsky)
15.
Theses of the Moscow Provincial Committee of the RCP ..... 539
16.
Composition of the RCP (according to the information and statistics department
of the Central Committee)
17.
Movement of the composition of the RCP (according to the information and
statistics department of the Central Committee).
18.
Results of the party week (October – December 1919) (according to the
Information-Statistical Department of the Central Committee)
19.
Statistical data on the members of the Congress
NOTES
Lenin's remarks
TO
THE DRAFT OF THE ABSTRACTS OF TROTSKY "REGULAR TASKS OF ECONOMIC
CONSTRUCTION".
To
§ I.
a)
Title § I: "On labor rise."
replace
in the second line the words "the rise of the will to work with the
words" the rise of labor ".
b)
add
universally
recognized and by many congresses of economic councils, etc., the confirmed
principle of establishing the exact responsibility of each employee (member of
the collegium, manager, manager, etc.) for the performance of certain
operations or work or assignments must be persistent and persistent, no matter
what , we carry out. It is still far, far from being sufficiently implemented.
c)
Consumers — through consumer societies, etc., should be systematically involved
in the control of production.
d)
Slave [oche] -Kr [isyankaya] Inspection should raise to more and more
participation in control over production and distribution.
e)
The fight against speculation and red tape, as well as bureaucracy should be
put in the foreground.
f)
Every effort must be made to organize the competition. Measures to improve
discipline and productivity should include lowering rations for the
incorrigible, etc.
g)
End of § 4 in Trotsky (last 9 lines) to delete or soften YALA to formulate more
generally.
(these
are my preliminary draft notes). 3 / Sh Lenin.
Archive
IMEL, Inv. L * 4941
S. M, E. A
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