Decree of the Bureau of the Central Committee of the Komsomol on “Komsomolskaya Pravda” dated August 8, 1929

Source: http://sovdoc.rusarchives.ru

Archive: RGASPI. F. 17. Op. 3. D. 752. L. 17-18.

Appendix №  2

to p. 1 6 pr. PB No. 92.

Final edition .

Decree of the Bureau of the Central Committee of the Komsomol on “Komsomolskaya Pravda” dated August 8, 1929

( Adopted unanimously ).

The decisions of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on Komsomolskaya Pravda of July 25, in particular on the article by Comrade Shatskin, are considered correct by the Bureau of the Central Committee of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League and accept them for leadership.

The Bureau of the Central Committee notes that Komsomolskaya Pravda in the main correctly oriented the Komsomol in the struggle for the general line of the party. Resolutely posing various questions of socialist construction before the youth of workers and peasants, as well as carrying out the slogan of self-criticism with great initiative and boldly fighting against the perversions of the proletarian class line in the work of individual organs and in the fight against bureaucracy, Komsomolskaya Pravda won itself prestige among worker-peasant youth, which it is obliged to further strengthen in its work.

However, the Bureau of the Central Committee states that lately the editorial staff has made a number of obvious political mistakes that completely misdirect the Komsomol in matters of carrying out party policy and in fulfilling the tasks facing the party and the Komsomol. These mistakes do not strengthen, but, on the contrary, permeate the political authority of Komsomolskaya Pravda and hinder the further struggle of the Komsomol against bureaucracy, inertia, routine and other shortcomings in construction.

An obvious mistake on the part of Komsomolskaya Pravda is the publication of Comrade Shatskin's fundamentally false article "Down with the Party Philistine", in which Comrade. Shatskin replaces the party slogan of struggle against the right deviation with the slogan of struggle against the philistine of the party, essentially repeating the Trotskyist attacks against the party, allegedly waging a struggle against the right deviation in a bloc with a “political swamp”.

Instead of fighting the real philistine in the Party milieu, a struggle which the Party is waging with success, boldly developing self-criticism and inner-Party democracy, raising the activity of broad Party and Komsomol masses, Comrade Shatskin, under the guise of fighting the philistine of the Party, in fact made unacceptable attacks. on the disciplined party members devoted to the revolution, in a lordly-intellectual tone, slighting the iron Bolshevik discipline.

The publication in Komsomolskaya Pravda No. 169, despite the condemnation by a special decision of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Comrade Shatskin's article—an article by Comrade Stan, who in its entirety and in an even more frank form, carries out the erroneous views of Comrade Shatskin, exacerbated the error of the editors of Komsomolskaya Pravda.

Comrade Stan's appeal to the Komsomol members to "study all questions seriously from their own experience and in this way convince themselves of the correctness of the general line of our Party" is open propaganda of distrust of the general Bolshevik line and is a rehash of the "theory" of the Right deviators about the freedom of deviations from the general Bolshevik line. lines.

The main meaning of the articles vol. Shatskin and Stan lies in liberal tolerance for deviations from the Leninist line of the party and in the denial of the unconditional need for iron discipline in the ranks of the Bolsheviks, which is one of the manifestations of political instability and petty-bourgeois laxity, covered up by a semi-oppositional flag of imaginary revolutionism and “leftism” in the spirit of petty bourgeois radicalism. This position t.t. Shatskin and Stan can only impede the party's struggle against the Right deviation and pave the way for openly opportunist and pseudo-revolutionary, and in fact also opportunist, deviations from the general Bolshevik line.

Akin to errors, etc. Shatskin and Stan is the mistake of Comrade Kostrov, the editor-in-chief of the Young Guard, who, by defending the slogan "creating a broad mass organization of the poor in the countryside," actually helps to popularize the idea of ​​a peasant union, which runs counter to the party's class policy in the countryside.

Based on all this, the Bureau of the Central Committee of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League suggests that in order to avoid a possible repetition of mistakes, Komsomolskaya Pravda should continue to be more attentive to the placement of materials in the newspaper, as well as to the choice of authors. In this regard, the Central Committee points out to the editorial staff that the party and Komsomol activists are not sufficiently attracted to work in the newspaper and proposes to expand the circle of authors on various topics, especially by more resolutely attracting the workers of the Komsomol and party activists.

Further participation in Komsomolskaya Pravda as authors on various topics, vol. Shatskin, Stan, Ksenofontov, Kostrov, who made a number of erroneous provisions in their articles, to be produced only with the approval of the Secretariat of the Komsomol Central Committee.

In order to ensure a consistent party line in the work of Komsomolskaya Pravda and the magazine Molodaya Gvardiya, to revise the existing composition of the editorial boards of these bodies.

Discuss at the next meeting of the Bureau of the Central Committee of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League the personal composition of these editorial boards.

Consider it necessary to provide more complete coverage of all these questions in the Komsomol press.

Instruct Comrade Kosarev to write an article on these questions.

Decree of the Bureau of the Komsomol Committee of the Komsomol dated 31.VII. about "Komsomolskaya Pravda" is considered correct, both in essence and in form.