The Trotskyist Slanders Cannot Tarnish the Cuban Revolution

Blas Roca

International Socialist Review, Vol.27 No.3, Summer 1966

The vigorous and illuminating denunciation of the anti-Cuban propaganda of the Trotskyists which Compañero Fidel Castro made in his speech closing the Tricontinental Conference, was indispensable.

Not of course because of any significance ascribable to the Trotskyists in themselves, but because of the relation their propagandistic campaign has to the action Yankee imperialism is developing against the Cuban Revolution and because of the damage which, under the circumstances created by the differences involving various socialist states in the international Communist movement, their confusionist campaign could cause in some incipient sector of the rising revolutionary movement in Latin America.

Trotskyism is, in itself, in its politics and its theory, a corpse. Extended internationally in opposition to Leninism and the Leninist thesis of the possibility of the triumph of socialism in one country, historic experience defeated all its major theses and reduced it to small groups isolated from the masses, whose principal function remained limited to combating the Soviet Union and the Communist Parties.

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Letter to the Russian Collegium of the Central Committee of the R.S.D.L.P

Lenin 

December 1910

Collected Works Volume 17 pages 17-22.

Recent events in the life of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party abroad clearly show that the “unity crisis” of the Party is coming to a head. I, therefore, consider it my duty, solely by way of information, to let you know the significance of recent happenings, the denouement that may be expected (according to this course of events) and the position adopted by orthodox Bolsheviks.

In Golos, No. 23, Martov in his article “Where Have We Landed?” gibes at the Plenary Meeting, at the fact that the Russian Collegium of the Central Committee has not met once during the year, and that nothing has been done to carry out the decisions. He, of course, “forgets” to add that it is precisely the liquidator group of Potresovs that has sabotaged the work of the Russian Central Committee; we know of the non-recognition of the Central Committee by Mikhail, Roman, and Yuri, and their statement that its very existence is harmful. The C.C. in Russia has been wrecked. Martov rejoices at this. It stands to reason that the Vperyod group also rejoices, and this is reflected in the Vperyod symposium, No. 1. In his glee, Martov has blurted out his views prematurely. He screams with delight that “legality will finish them” (the Bolsheviks or the “Polish Bolshevik bloc”). By this he means that thanks to the obstruction of the Central Committee’s work by the liquidators, there is no way out of the present situation that would be legal from the Party point of view. Obviously, nothing pleases the liquidators more than a hopeless situation for the Party.

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Trotskyism or Leninism? - The Facts About The October Uprising

Trotskyism or Leninism?

Speech Delivered at the Plenum of the Communist Group in the A.U.C.C.T.U., November 19, 1924;

published in Pravda, No. 269, November 26, 1924;

Comrades, after Kamenev's comprehensive report there is little left for me to say. I shall therefore confine myself to exposing certain legends that are being spread by Trotsky and his supporters about the October uprising, about Trotsky's role in the uprising, about the Party and the preparation for October, and so forth. I shall also touch upon Trotskyism as a peculiar ideology that is incompatible with Leninism, and upon the Party's tasks in connection with Trotsky's latest literary pronouncements.

I. THE FACTS ABOUT THE OCTOBER UPRISING

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Trotskyism or Leninism? - The Party And The Preparation For October

Trotskyism or Leninism?

Speech Delivered at the Plenum of the Communist Group in the A.U.C.C.T.U., November 19, 1924;

published in Pravda, No. 269, November 26, 1924;

Let us now pass to the question of the preparation for October.

Listening to Trotsky, one might think that during the whole of the period of preparation, from March to October, the Bolshevik Party did nothing but mark time; that it was being corroded by internal contradictions and hindered Lenin in every way; that, had it not been for Trotsky, nobody knows how the October Revolution would have ended. It is rather amusing to hear this strange talk about the Party from Trotsky, who declares in this same "preface" to Volume III that "the chief instrument of the proletarian revolution is the Party," that "without the Party, apart from the Party, by-passing the Party, with a substitute for the Party, the proletarian revolution cannot be victorious." Allah himself would not understand how our revolution could have succeeded if "its chief instrument" proved to be useless, while success was impossible, as it appears, "by-passing the Party." But this is not the first time that Trotsky treats us to oddities. It must be supposed that this amusing talk about our Party is one of Trotsky's usual oddities.

Let us briefly review the history of the preparation for October according to periods.

1) The period of the Party's new orientation (March-April). The major facts of this period:

a) the overthrow of tsarism;

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Trotskyism or Leninism?

Trotskyism or Leninism? (back to first article)

Speech Delivered at the Plenum of the Communist Group in the A.U.C.C.T.U., November 19, 1924;

published in Pravda, No. 269, November 26, 1924;

We have dealt above with the legends directed against the Party and those about Lenin spread by Trotsky and his supporters in connection with October and the preparation for it. We have exposed and refuted these legends. But the question arises: For what purpose did Trotsky need all these legends about October and the preparation for October, about Lenin and the Party of Lenin? What is the purpose of Trotsky's new literary pronouncements against the Party? What is the sense, the purpose, the aim of these pronouncements now, when the Party does not want a discussion, when the Party is busy with a host of urgent tasks, when the Party needs united efforts to restore our economy and not a new struggle around old questions? For what purpose does Trotsky need to drag the Party back, to new discussions?

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The State of Affairs in the Party

V. I. Lenin

Sotsial-Demokrat, No. 19–20. Lenin Collected Works, Volume 17, 

The question of the crisis in our Party has again been given priority by the Social-Democratic press abroad, leading to stronger rumours, perplexity and vacillation among wide Party circles. It is, therefore, essential for the Central Organ of the Party to clarify this question in its entirety. Martov’s article in Golos, No. 23, and Trotsky’s statement of November 26, 1910 in the form of a “resolution” of the “Vienna Club”, published as a separate leaflet, present the question to the reader in a manner which completely distorts the essence of the matter.

Martov’s article and Trotsky’s resolution conceal definite practical actions—actions directed against the Party. Martov’s article is simply the literary expression of a campaign launched by the Golos group to sabotage the Central Committee of our Party. Trotsky’s resolution, which calls upon organisations in the localities to prepare for a “general Party conference “independent of, and against, the Central Commit tee, expresses the very aim of the Golos group—todestroy the central bodies so detested by the liquidators, and with them, the Party as an organisation. It is not enough to lay bare the anti-Party activities of Golos and Trotsky; they must be fought. Comrades to whom the Party and its revival are dear must come out most resolutely against all those who, guided by purely factional and narrow circle considerations and interests, are striving to destroy the Party.

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THE PAPER INDUSTRY WORKERS’ TRADE UNION

DECISION OF THE PRESIDIUM OF THE CC OF THE PAPER INDUSTRY WORKERS’ TRADE UNION IN SUPPORT AND APPROVAL OF THE LETTER OF THE PRESIDIUM OF THE METALWORKERS’ CC

TO THE LEADERS OF THE “NEW OPPOSITION”*

August 9, 1917

Having discussed the copy of a letter received from the Central Concessions Committee† and signed by Trotsky, Zinoviev and Yevdokimov, the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Paper Industry Workers’ Trade Union denounces the actions of the above-mentioned comrades aimed at disorganising 

the trade unions, actions which have compelled us to raise this question at a meeting of the Presidium; finds that the letter of Trotsky, Zinoviev and Yevdokimov is an appeal to public organisations (trade unions) to protect their misconceived, clearly untenable views, which are a Trotskyite variation of Menshevism; fully subscribes to the reply of the Central Committee of the Metalworkers’ Trade Union to the letter from Trotsky, Zinoviev and Yevdokimov and regards it as the reply of the Paper Industry Workers’ Trade Union; and, in addition to what was said in the reply of the Central Committee of the Metalworkers’ Trade Union, declares that this new sally of the opposition has neither had nor will have the least sympathy from the Paper Industry Workers’ Trade Union.

The Paper Industry Workers’ Trade Union has worked, is working and will go on working under the guidance of our leader and teacher—the Leninist CPSU(B) and its Central Committee.

Copy certified true‡

Sovetskiye arkhivy, 1967,

No. 3, p. 34

DECISION OF THE BUREAU OF THE CPSU(B) GROUP IN THE CC OF THE TANNERS’ TRADE UNION IN SUPPORT AND APPROVAL OF THE LETTER OF THE PRESIDIUM OF THE METALWORKERS’ CC TO THE LEADERS OF THE “NEW OPPOSITION”*

August 9, 1927

DECISION: In connection with the letter of Comrades Yevdokimov, Zinoviev and Trotsky to the Metalworkers’ CC, sent to the central committees of all trade unions, including the Tanners’ CC, and the reply of the metalworkers to this letter the Party group bureau in the CC of the Tanners’ Trade Union considers it necessary to state that today, more than ever before, the tanners regard as impermissible any divisive activities in the Party, qualifying such activities as a crime against the working class, their Party and the Soviet Union. Any factional struggle, particularly today, when the international situation has alarmingly deteriorated, is a blow at the working class, at its dictatorship, at the Soviet Union and, consequently, can only play into the hands of the enemies of the gains of the October Revolution.

The fact that every action of the opposition as a whole or of its individual representatives is eagerly grasped at and widely used by the deadly enemies of the proletarian revolution in the Soviet Union and abroad should bring the opposition to its senses and show it that it is vital to put an end to what is so irritating to the Party, hinders its extremely difficult work and most surely inflicts irreparable harm on socialist construction and the organisation of the Soviet Union’s defence.

The opposition, which poses as the champion of Leninism, must cease all activity that may in one way or another injure the cause of Lenin, his Party and the Soviet Union, and submit unconditionally to the decisions of Party congresses and the Comintern and to the day-to-day leadership of the Party CC and the Comintern Executive.

Secretary, Party Group Bureau in the Central Committee

of the ‘Tanners’ Trade Union†

Sovetskiye arkhivy, 1967,

No. 3, p. 35

*

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THE AGRICULTURAL AND FORESTRY WORKERS’TRADE UNION TO THE METALWORKERS’ CC IN SUPPORT

LETTER OF THE PRESIDIUM OF THE CC OF THE AGRICULTURAL AND FORESTRY WORKERS’TRADE UNION TO THE METALWORKERS’ CC IN SUPPORT AND APPROVAL OF THE LETTER OF THE PRESIDIUM OF THE METALWORKERS’ CC TO THE LEADERS OF THE “NEW OPPOSITION”*

July 29, 1927

Dear Comrades, having acquainted itself with the resolution on the current situation passed by the Seventh Plenary Meeting of the Central Committee of the AUMTU, with the collective letter of Yevdokimov, Zinoviev and Trotsky to the Metalworkers’ CC and with the reply of the metalworkers, the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Agricultural and Forestry Workers’ Trade Union feels that inasmuch as the comrades of the opposition have circulated their letter to all the central committees, including the Agricultural and Forestry Workers’ Central Committee, and have thereby appealed to the opinion of these organisations, it has to state the following:

(1) The Presidium of the CC fully approves and associates itself with the reply of the Metalworkers’ CC.

(2) The factional struggle started by the opposition against the Central Committee of the CPSU(B), against the Party line, and, in particular, the attempt to provoke a discussion and draw into it not only the Party membership but also the non-Party masses are, in our view, impermissible, especially at a time when the Party and the working class of our country are faced with the militant tasks of socialist construction, when these tasks, difficult in themselves, are made more complicated by the threat of war.

(3) The Presidium of the CC is confident that despite the opposition’s playing up to the interests of the poor peasants and farm labourers, the organised mass of agricultural and forestry proletarians will not let themselves be deceived, and that among them there will be no sympathy for the opposition’s irresponsible statements.

In letters to the trade union CC foremost agricultural and forestry workers declare that they have in many ways learned to see through and understand the true essence of the opposition. The opposition’s petty-bourgeois character, exposed by its general platform and the methods of its actions, is, in our view, most striking in its attitude to the rural proletariat.

It is characteristic that despite the florid demagogical statements about the rural poor and so on, the opposition cannot lay claim to having made any constructive suggestion or to having even simply raised questions aimed at improving the condition of agricultural and forestry workers, supporting their struggle against exploiting elements in the countryside or promoting the social activity of these masses.

The leaders of the opposition are experts at inserting the words “farm labourer” and “poor peasant” in their speeches and documents regardless of whether they are opportune or not, and at complaining that few farm labourers have been elected to the Soviets and the co-operatives (to make political capital out of this “concern”—everything will come in useful in the struggle against the Party), but they are unable (because of their isolation from life, particularly from life in the countryside) and have no desire (being preoccupied not with day-to-day creative work but with political intrigues) to consider practically, for example, the question of strengthening the state farms, which employ several hundred thousand workers, or real measures to improve the condition of the millions of seasonal, day and permanent agricultural and forestry workers.

And here again, what. is the opposition doing at a time when the Party CC distinctly and in a Leninist way approaches the work of organising the farm labourers, safeguarding their class interests, strengthening the state farms, promoting the development of co-operatives in the countryside and giving its assistance to the poor peasants (poor peasant funds, co-operatives, cash credits and so on)? It makes deliberately impracticable promises concerning the poor peasants, shouts about the kulak menace with the hysteria of a political neurotic (the Party sees and knows the actual not exaggerated danger) and, still worse, instead of calling attention to the real threat hanging over the Union of Socialist Republics at the present moment, raises demoralising questions and “doubts, asking: What are the worker, farm labourer and peasant going to fight for?

For its part, casting away these doubts without panic, the Party is, by its correct policy and work, strengthening the alliance of the working class with the main mass of peasants, building up the forces, including the agricultural consumers’ co-operatives and the farm labourers’ trade unions, in opposition to the growth of kulak elements, boosting the influence of the poor peasants and farm labourers in the rural Soviets, directing the upsurge of agriculture and giving the utmost support to the state and collective farms. Under the leadership of the Party the working class is surmounting the kulak influence in the countryside not by empty words but by persevering work, by deeds, and thereby prepares the workers, including the farm-labourer masses, for war with the bourgeois world if such a war is forced on us.

Those who obstruct this work, sow doubt in the success of socialist construction and in the ability of the worker, farm-labourer and peasant masses to give a timely rebuff to hostile class forces in and outside the country, try to shatter the iron ranks of the Leninist Party, and contrapose the will of individuals and groups to the collective will of the Party, are, regardless of their past services, bringing grist to the mill of our enemies.

That is why the CC of the trade union unanimously aligns itself with the assessment of the opposition as defeatist given by the Plenary Meeting of the Metalworkers’ CC.

We are for iron discipline in the Party because that is the prime condition for the further strengthening of the proletarian dictatorship, for consolidating the alliance of the working class with the main mass of peasants and for the successful building of socialism in our country.

We are against all who undermine the Party’s unity and flout Party discipline, against all who by their policy aimed against the Central Committee of the CPSU(B) and, thereby, against the entire Party, are trying to split its ranks and divide the working class.

The farm labourers are the most backward section of the working class in the USSR, but the rural proletariat and semi-proletariat, which has gone through the school of Civil War and several years of peaceful Soviet construction, know that there is no better champion of their interests than the Communist Party and its Central Committee.

The difficulties of building socialism in the countryside are especially great, the living standard of the farm labourers is extremely low, the condition of the rural poor is very hard indeed, but for all their backwardness and despite the hard conditions of their life and work, the farm labourers and poor peasants do not believe in the miracles held out by the opposition, they do not believe the irresponsible promises however alluring they may be.

The Central Committee of the CPSU(B), in its decisions on the work among agricultural and forestry workers and on strengthening the state farms, and the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection and the CCC, as a result of their study of hired labour in the countryside, have correctly mapped out the line and practical steps that can improve the organisation, protection and class education of the agricultural and forestry proletariat.

This is a hard but sure road.

The growing activity and organisation of the agricultural and forestry proletariat (on April 1, 1927 the trade union had more than a million members) may serve as confirmation that the Party is effectively working in this sphere.

Under the leadership of the Central Committee of their trade union the agricultural and forestry workers are advancing and, we are certain, will continue to advance along the road charted by the Communist Party.

Presidium, Central Committee of the

Agricultural and Forestry Workers’

Trade Union of the USSR

Sovetskiye arkhivy, 1967,

No. 3, pp. 33-34

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DECISION OF THE CC OF THE TEXTILE WORKERS’ TRADE UNION

DECISION OF THE CC OF THE TEXTILE WORKERS’ TRADE UNION IN SUPPORT AND APPROVAL OF THE LETTER OF THE PRESIDIUM OF THE METALWORKERS’ CC

TO THE LEADERS OF THE “NEW OPPOSITION”**

July 23, 1927

Having heard the letter signed by Yevdokimov, Zinoviev and Trotsky, received by ordinary mail and addressed to the CC, on the question of the resolution passed by the Plenary Meeting of the Metalworkers’ CC on the international and internal situation, and having heard the reply of the metalworkers to this letter:

(1) The Presidium of the Central Committee of the All-Union Textile Workers’ Trade Union declares that it considers as a most heinous crime against the revolution and the working class the squabble started by the opposition against the Party and its attempts to draw the country into a new discussion and, thereby, divert the attention of the Party, the trade unions and the organs of Soviet power from the practical tasks linked with the immense difficulties that now face our country.

(2) The Presidium of the Central Committee declares that it fully supports the political line of the Leninist Central Committee of the CPSU(B) and that in its work it has been and shall be guided by the decisions of the Fourteenth Party Congress, the Fifteenth Party Conference and the plenary meetings of the CC.

(3) The Presidium of the Central Committee declares that hundreds of thousands of textile workers have learned to believe in and follow the leadership of the Leninist Party as a whole, and not only to believe but to understand this leadership, and that no individual high-ranking personalities, no matter how important their role has been in the past and no matter what post they held or hold, will set them against the Leninist Party and its CC.

(4) The Presidium of the Central Committee considers that revolutionary and Party discipline must be similarly binding on rank-and-file worker members of the Party and on those who strive to lead it; the decision of the Party majority must be a law for the minority in the Leninist Party. 

Persons who list their past services to the revolution and the Party and, for all that, organise a faction that circulates illegal documents among Party members and non-Party people, sponsor “petition campaigns” and “signature collections” round platforms directed against the Party CC, are the most flagrant and criminal violators of revolutionary Party discipline because their actions are, in effect, directed against the Party and aim at wrecking the colossal work that the country has accomplished under its leadership. These persons and their faction must receive the most resolute rebuff from the Party and from the organisations that have rallied round it.

(5) The Presidium of the Central Committee of the Textile Workers’ Trade Union wholly and fully associates itself with the reply of the Presidium of the Metalworkers’ CC of July 13, 1927 to the leaders of the opposition and wholly subscribes to the opinion of the metalworkers that the opposition’s accusation that they have created a precedent byshifting the inner-Party struggle to non- Party organisations is sheer hypocrisy.

(6) Those who signed the letter to the metalworkers are the initiators, organisers and ideological inspirers of the struggle being waged against the Party. They have shifted and still are shifting their criminal activities to the non-Party environment. They organised a public demonstration against the Party (at the Yaroslavl Railway Station). One of the signatories was the first to attack the Party at a non-Party meeting. Had Yevdokimov, Trotsky and Zinoviev sincerely considered the action of the metalworkers as disloyal, they would not have circulated their reply to the central committees of all the trade unions, which are non-Party organisations, but would have taken the matter to the CC and the Central Committee of the CPSU(B). The opposition is doubtlessly aware of these normal Party channels for protesting against various actions of Communist workers either in Party or non- Party organisations.

(7) We regard the opposition’s action of sending our Central Committee a copy of its letter to the metalworkers as a call to denounce the metalworkers and the line of the Party’s Leninist CC and, thereby, introduce elements of strife and struggle into the trade union movement, as an attempt to steer us to the road of struggle against the Party and its CC. To this we reply: Hands off the Party! Hands off the trade unions!

(8) In face of all the difficulties which the opposition is trying to create, the members of the Textile Workers’ Trade Union and its Central Committee and Presidium will unite more closely than ever before in support of the Leninist CC and will be able to give a worthy rebuff to anybody who seeks to split the Party, the trade unions and the working class. Like the metalworkers, the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Textile Workers’ Trade Union will use the entire force of its prestige and authority in order, as the metalworkers have put it in their letter, “to expose the defeatist ideology” if it penetrates our trade union. We shall mobilise the entire force of proletarian resistance to avert the consequences of the opposition’s disorganising policy, which is threatening the Party, the working class and the Soviet state.

(9) The Presidium of the Central Committee of the All-Union Textile Workers’ Trade Union notes the hypocritical nature of the charges made against the Metalworkers’ CC by those who undermine the strength of our CPSU(B) and support the renegades Ruth Fischer, Maslow and Urbahns, who are grinding out propaganda against the USSR and the CPSU(B).

(10) The textile workers are sickened by the systematic, annually repeated attempts of the intellectual opposition to turn the country into a debating club. They insist that the CPSU(B) and the trade unions take practical steps to carry out the assignments charted in the decisions of the Fourteenth Party Congress and the Seventh Congress of Trade Unions, because they believe that the implementation of these decisions will make it possible to foster the country’s welfare, improve the living and cultural level of the workers and strengthen the power of the workers and peasants.

Melnichansky, Chairman, Central Committee AUTWTU Smirnov, Member, Presidium of the CC Certified 

true: A. Afanasyev, Acting Secretary,

Presidium of the CC

Sovetskiye arkhivy, 1967,

No. 3, pp. 31-32

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ON THE STRUGGLE AGAINST TROTSKYISM IN THE TRADE UNIONS

RESOLUTIONS PASSED BY TRADE UNION ORGANISATIONS ON THE STRUGGLE AGAINST TROTSKYISM IN THE TRADE UNIONS

From THE REPLY OF THE PRESIDIUM OF THE CC OF THE METALWORKERS’ TRADE UNION TO A LETTER OF THE LEADERS OF THE “NEW OPPOSITION” OF JUNE 29, 1927*

OUR REPLY TO YEVDOKIMOV, ZINOVIEV AND TROTSKY†

July 13, 1927

In connection with the resolution passed by the Seventh Plenary Meeting of the Central Committee of the All-Union Metalworkers’ Trade Union on June 27 of this year on Comrade Lepse’s report on the current situation, in which the Plenary Meeting condemned, in particular, the disorganising activities of the opposition, you sent us your letter on July 1 of this year addressed solely to the CC of the All-Union Metalworkers’ Trade Union, in which you declared that you could not pass the resolution of our Plenary Meeting over in silence “if only out of respect for the Metalworkers’ Trade Union”. We thank you for your respect, but here it is not a matter of the Metalworkers’ Trade Union, which you respect, but of something else: you have simply used another pretext to write yet another anti-Party document for wide legal and illegal circulation. This is borne out by the fact that you have mailed this letter to the central committees of all the other trade unions, which you evidently respect just as much.

1. You reproach us for having “transferred questions of the inner-Party struggle to a plenary meeting of the CC of the trade union, which is a non-Party institution”, and in a paternally didactic tone you lecture us on Party discipline, declaring that there had been no precedents of this kind in our trade unions.

To say nothing of the circumstance that the CC plenary meeting, which adopted this resolution, was attended solely by members of the trade union CC, all of whom are Party members, we can, in point of fact, say with indignation only the following:

those who organised the opposition demonstration at the Yaroslavl Railway Station and harangued chance passers by against the Party;

those who used the rostrum at the House of Trade Unions at the large non-Party meeting marking the Pravda anniversary on May 9 of this year for gross, slanderous attacks on the Central Committee of the Communist Party and its central organ;

those who support foreign renegades of communism—Ruth Fischer, Maslow, Urbahns, fill their counter-revolutionary newspaper with anti-Party documents of the opposition and turn it into a medium of their malicious agitation and propaganda abroad;

those who have deceived the Party, even after the declaration of October 16, 1926 renouncing the factional struggle, continue this struggle against the Party and its Central Committee by underground anti-Party methods, circulate their anti-Party literature at the factories among non-Party workers, have not the least moral right to accuse us of violating Party discipline and traditions and preceptorially lecture us on good Party conduct. It is not for those who grossly violate all the Leninist traditions and behests, who disgracefully harass the Party and shatter its ranks to speak of the unprecedented nature of our action.

We repeat, we are deeply shocked by the glaring hypocrisy of this reproach and statement by persons, who, while having rendered the Party and the revolution services in the past, have profoundly discredited themselves by their reprehensible and unparalleled disorganising activities in our Party.

With an air of injured innocence you write: “By your appeal to non-Party people against the opposition you intimate that you want to force us to explain not only to Party members but also to non-Party people that our position has nothing in common with the slanderous assertions in your resolution”, and with virtuous indignation you promise at the end of your letter “in the name of elementary revolutionary duty to our Party and the workers’ state” to take all the measures in your power to refute our assertions “before the Party and the non-Party masses”.

This statement is a piece of smug hypocrisy and duplicity from beginning to end.

As though you have to be “forced” to appeal to the non-Party masses! You have long ago started your “explanatory” anti-Party campaign not only before the non-Party workers but also before the philistines, before renegades of communism, who use your “explanations” from the rostrum of the German Reichstag to the sheer delight of the bourgeoisie.

If anyone has been forced to embark on an unprecedented action, it is we Communists working in the trade unions who have been forced by you to do so, because your disorganising conduct has long ago given rise to bewilderment and protesting inquiries not only from rank-and-file Party members but also from all class-conscious rank-and-file non-Party workers, members of our trade union, who, like us, have the interests of the Party at heart, work together with the Party, trust it and are alarmed by the attacks on it.

You have forced us, a trade union that, incidentally, has never been neutral on questions of Party politics, to state, as we should and must do, our opinion and the opinion of the organised metalworkers on the opposition in the Communist Party.

Metalworkers, builders of the Party, the Soviet power and the socialist economy, are not at all indifferent to the destiny of this Party. That is why we are in duty bound to reply to the legitimate alarm of the class-conscious members of our trade union.

2. You are not pleased with the appraisal given of the opposition by the Seventh Plenary Meeting of the Central Committee of the All-Union Metalworkers’ Trade Union, which denounced it for continuing the pernicious propagation of its defeatist ideology. You have taken on the air of amazement as though you have learned of this assessment of your ideology for the first time. You are making a theoretical incursion into the history of the Party, fabricating an analogy between our statement and the Bolshevik slogan adopted during the imperialist war. . .

In the “Statement of 83”, which you write about and which you circulate illegally, you have not found a single bright spot, a single correct measure in either the foreign or domestic policy of the Central Committee of our Communist Party.

This “Statement of 83” can only beget despondency and pessimism. It gives rise to lack of faith in one’s own strength and gives the impression of total defeat and bankruptcy. It seems that in the history of our Party there has never been a more pessimistic and defeatist document than this statement signed by 83 people, who come from the ranks of our own Party. In it everything is painted

in sombre, dark colours.

But do you really imagine that the entire cheerless ideology of this document can give class- conscious workers and peasants any hope for the possibility of a more radical improvement of their condition in the event the leadership of the Party is in the hands of the opposition? No, the very nature of the cheap demagogy thickly garnishing this document speaks against such a possibility, because every worker and toiling peasant can see through the falsity of your promises.

The working masses are perfectly well aware of and see all the difficulties in our development, in the same way as do their trade unions, to whom these difficulties are better known than to many of those who signed the statement. They are working side by side with the entire Party to surmount these difficulties. And they know quite well that the Party is doing everything to ensure the victorious development of the proletarian revolution and improve the condition of the workers and the peasant masses. All the more so that the masses of workers and their trade unions well remember other times, they well remember and know the “democracy” and “love of workers” of Trotsky, the author of the notorious slogan of shaking up the trade unions, to put the least faith in these promises. It seems to us that the peasants, too, with all their respect for Trotsky, will have not a grain of trust in Trotsky, who contraposes himself to our Party, as a solicitor for peasant affairs.

3. Why have you taken offence and put on the air of make-believe bewilderment when we called things by their names, when we called your ideology defeatist? Is it really news to you?

Or have you forgotten how your “ideological trend in the CPSU(B)” was defined by the Fifteenth All-Union Conference of the CPSU(B) in October 1926, which declared that the “opposition bloc expresses . . . pessimistic and defeatist sentiments among a section of our Party” and that to surmount the difficulties facing the Party and the country “pessimism and defeatist ideology” in the Party “have to be overcome”, not cultivated (Resolution of the Fifteenth Conference “On the Opposition Bloc”). This assessment was fully endorsed by the Seventh Plenary Meeting of the Comintern Executive. Why were you not horrified then and why did you not draw similar analogies? 

That, you will recall, is the very decision of the Party and the Comintern that was unanimously approved by the Plenary Meeting of the CC of the Metalworkers’ Trade Union.

4. You needed the analogy with the historic Bolshevik slogan in order to use an imaginary, “monstrous” accusation, which you yourselves have invented, that you are “mortal enemies of the Soviet state” as a means of intimidating the imagination of the non-Party masses, to whom you are appealing, of diverting their attention from the real meaning and significance of our assertions and of again “explaining” your defeatist ideas and moods to them. This is borne out by the very nature of the document.

Why, for instance, did you have to list in your letter all the responsible representatives of the opposition and give all their past and present titles and posts? Was not your purpose to confuse and frighten people by showing them that “strong forces” are on the side of the opposition?

Your listing of the opposition diplomatists, your listing of the names of a number of veteran Party members who signed the “Statement of 83” had no other aim than to sow among Party members and the non-Party masses defeatism, distrust, uncertainty, fear, and doubt in the possibility of coping with the difficulties.

The doubt you want to sow is: “Will we cope without—such-and-such—prominent members of the Party, and will we be able to direct the foreign and domestic policy of the Soviet state without the opposition?”. From this angle the document is outrageous and strikingly emphasises that we were correct in our statements about the continuation of your pernicious propagation of defeatist ideology.

Is it necessary to say that the entire body of veteran Party members (with rare exceptions), that the entire basic cadre of old Bolsheviks, including Bolshevik workers, are the solid foundation ofour Party and, together with its CC, emphatically denounce the opposition?

Moreover, it is also known that the broad masses of workers are in solidarity with the veteran cadres of the Party in this attitude towards the opposition. Therefore, with all our respect for some of the comrades mentioned by you, we can only reply with a caution from the many thousands of metalworkers and the rest of the working class, which every day moves forward new contingents of active builders of the Soviet state, the Party, the trade unions and the economy: “Do not go to extremes, do not play with fire and do not intimidate the working class! Do not abuse your former services and your past as ‘leaders’. Do not forget that the creative strength (which you are vainly trying to bury) of the working class is inexhaustible, that during the ten years of the proletarian dictatorship it has produced a huge replacement of rank-and-file and responsible builders of the Party, the Soviet state and the socialist economy.”

5. Most curious and ludicrous of all is that you, who are now carrying on disastrous factional activities, are concealing yourselves from us behind a mask of loyalty. You are “protecting” the Party CC from us! You accuse us of factional activities! As though it were not you who slandered and lied against the Party CC at all the crossroads with unprecedented insolence, but the members of the Central Committee of the Metalworkers’ Trade Union, all of whom are devoted to the proletariat and its Party, who have done this at our plenary meeting!

As though it is not you, but the Metalworkers’ CC, who are recklessly circulating lies and demagogic statements (in the hope they leave their mark) to further the factional struggle.

As though it is not you who are compromising the Party and yourselves in the eyes of the worker masses, poisoning their minds with the venom of your ideology, but we, members of the Metalworkers’ CC, who have done so in our resolution!

Who are you trying to trap with this cheap gimmick?

After reading this letter every rank-and-file Communist and every honest class-conscious worker will ask: If you found errors in the pronouncements of Communists at the Plenary Meeting of the Central Committee of the Metalworkers’ Union why did you, instead of taking the matter directly to the Central Committee of our Party and insisting on making them answer to the Party, write an open letter to the Metalworkers’ CC and the central committees of other trade unions, sending it by the ordinary and not secret mail and thereby making it known to the entire apparatus of these institutions? Who will now believe in your loyalty to the Party?

You are trying to get new supporters among the metalworkers. But we repeat what has been unanimously said by the Seventh Plenary Meeting of the Metalworkers’ CC: “Among the advanced trade union contingent of metalworkers not only will you fail to find any support but you will receive a vigorous proletarian rebuff.”

In reply to your threat to take all the steps in your power to refute our statements before the Party and non-Party masses, we declare that we shall use all the prestige enjoyed by the Central Committee of the Metalworkers’ Trade Union among the workers united by it to expose your defeatist ideology if it begins to penetrate our membership, and we shall organise the entire force of proletarian resistance to avert the consequences of your disorganising policy, which is threatening the Party, the working class and the Soviet state.

Presidium, Central Committee of the All-Union

Metalworkers’ Trade Union

Sovetskiye arkhivy, 1967,

No. 3, pp. 28-31

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ON THE TROTSKYITE OPPOSITION

ON THE TROTSKYITE OPPOSITION

(Adopted at the Ninth Plenary Meeting of the Comintern Executive, 1928)

The Plenary Meeting of the ECCI notes with satisfaction that the Fifteenth Congress of the CPSU(B) resolutely put an end to the Trotskyite opposition by expelling it from the Party. The Plenary Meeting is in full and complete solidarity with the decisions of the CPSU(B) and the measures taken by it through the Soviet organs to stop the anti-Soviet activities of the opposition.

The Plenary Meeting of the ECCI holds that the decisions of the Fifteenth Congress are of immense significance for the further consolidation of the proletarian dictatorship and for the building of socialism in the USSR.

Unquestionably, the Fifteenth Congress of the CPSU(B) correctly charted the further socialist industrialisation of the Soviet economy through an enhancement of the influence of planning by the proletarian state on the country’s economic development, the further ousting of private capitalist elements, extensive collectivisation of the peasant husbandries and an improvement of the living standard of the working class and the broad toiling masses in general.

Whereas in all capitalist countries capitalism is on the offensive against the working class, finding expression, for example, in the lengthening of the working day, the working day in the USSR is being shortened to seven hours and mounting efforts are being made to raise the cultural level of the working people.

The Plenary Meeting welcomes the decisions of the CPSU(B) Congress directed towards improving and simplifying the machinery of proletarian dictatorship and towards drawing larger sections of the masses of workers and peasants into the administration of the country. The influx of a hundred thousand factory workers to the Party at the moment when the struggle of the opposition against the CPSU(B) reached its highest point shows that the CPSU(B), its leadership and policy enjoy the absolute confidence and support of broad masses of the working class, who regard the Leninist unity and the Leninist policy of their Party the guarantee of a firm and victorious proletarian dictatorship.

The Plenary Meeting of the ECCI considers that the international economic and political situation was correctly analysed by the Fifteenth Congress of the CPSU(B), which noted the following characteristic tendencies in the current historical period:

1. The sharpening contradictions between the capitalist groups in the struggle for spheres of domination and the redivision of the world, the sharpening of the struggle between imperialism and the oppressed colonial peoples, the sharpening struggle of imperialism against the USSR, the growing prerequisites for new imperialist wars.

2. The growing power of the capitalist trusts, their increasing integration with the bourgeois state, the increasing fusion of the Social-Democratic and reformist leaders with the economic and political system of the imperialist organisations, the mounting capitalist pressure on the working class.

3. The radicalisation of the working masses as a result of the bourgeois offensive on the proletariat. This finds expression in the growth of the strike struggle, the increasing political activity  of the working class, the waxing sympathy of the international proletariat for the USSR, the growth of the elements of a new revolutionary upsurge in Europe.

4. The general assault on the Communists by the employers’ organisations, the bourgeois states and the Social-Democratic parties; the striving of the social-reformists to expel the Communists from the mass organisations of the working class; the intensification of the reformist campaign of slander  and calumny against  the Communists  in general  and against the     world’s  first  proletarian dictatorship in particular.

The coming phase of development will be marked by further collisions between the working class and the bourgeoisie and an unremitting struggle between the Social-Democrats and the Communists for influence among the working class. The international Social-Democratic movement, which has long since taken a turn towards coalition with the bourgeoisie and full support of its imperialist policy, towards class peace and support of capitalist rationalisation, is trying to stop the radicalisation of the working class and side-track it onto the path of its treacherous policy. This object is served, on the one hand, by the sharp struggle against the Communists—expelling them from the trade unions, helping the machinery of the bourgeois dictatorship to persecute them, and resorting to vile slander and falsehood. On the other hand, the international Social-Democratic movement is viciously slandering the USSR and the CPSU(B), realising that one of the most important forms of the radicalisation of the working class is its growing sympathy for the USSR.

This whole machinery of falsehood and slander has been set in motion by the Social- Democrats in order to undermine the growing sympathy of the international proletariat for the USSR and communism, in order to discredit the tangible achievements of socialist construction in the world’s first country of proletarian dictatorship, in order to divert the workers from the struggle for the overthrow of capitalism and persuade them to support the bourgeois policy of capitalist rationalisation implemented at the expense of the working class, and to adopt their treacherous policy of “industrial peace”

An especially false and pharisaical role in this struggle against the USSR and the CPSU(B) is played by the leaders of the so-called “Left” wing of social reformism—the Max Adlers, Bauers, Levis, Longuets, Lansburys and Maxtons, who, taking the sympathies of the radicalising workers for the USSR into account, come out against the proletarian dictatorship more cunningly and disguise their attacks on the USSR with hypocritical phrases of sympathy and “conditional” support for it. 

The purpose of these tactics is to stop the working masses from siding with communism and to preserve their support for Social-Democracy. From the standpoint of the struggle to win over the radicalising masses of workers, these so-called “Left” leaders of opportunism are the most dangerous enemies of communism, the Comintern and the USSR. The menace of Trotskyism in the international working- class movement consists, in the present period, in the fact that the Trotskyites directly support the ideas and policies of the “Left” servitors of reformism, that they strengthen the hand of the “Left” leaders of opportunism in their attacks on communism and the USSR, that they increase the means of deception and slander used by the reformists against communism, that Trotskyism has become a species of Bauerism and similar agents of reformism. The Trotskyite opposition has gone over entirely to the position of the “Left” myrmidons of opportunism on all basic questions, acquiring an avowedly counter-revolutionary character. Hurling slander, under cover of verbiage about loyalty to the revolution and the USSR, on the Communist International, the CPSU(B) and the proletarian dictatorship, whose foreign and domestic policy they falsify and distort as much as the Social- Democrats, the Trotskyites, together with the international Social-Democratic movement, pin their hopes on the fall of the Soviet government.

From a factional struggle within the CPSU, the Trotskyite opposition went over to the organisation of a second party, to a struggle in the streets and to open anti-Soviet actions, which, had they not received a crushing rebuff from the broad masses of the proletariat, might have developed into a certain menace for the proletarian dictatorship, rallying the class elements inimical to the proletarian dictatorship round the banner of the Trotskyite opposition. A more openly counter- revolutionary character has been acquired by the group headed by Sapronov, which directly attacks Leninism and openly calls for a struggle against the Soviet government. In programme and tactics it differs in no respect from counter-revolutionary types such as Korsch, Katz, Eastman, Souvarine and others. The proletarian dictatorship cannot and must not allow any counter-revolutionary action, nomatter what banner it is flying.

The Trotskyite opposition, which sought to blow the CPSU up from within, was ideologically and organisationally smashed thanks to the principled firmness and iron solidarity of the CPSU(B) and the working class of the USSR and splintered into several groups, some of which (Kamenev and Zinoviev) are beginning, not without vacillation, to return to the Party positions, gradually abandoning Trotskyism—which proves once more the correctness of the political line of the CPSU(B) and the Communist International—and some are vacillating between the Party and the Trotskyites. The insignificant Trotskyite group which remained intact, having suffered defeat in the CPSU(B) and in the USSR, is now trying to shift the centre of its struggle to the other sections of the Comintern. 

The true opportunist face of the Trotskyite opposition is most clearly expressed in its programme for the consolidation of kindred groups in other countries. It appeals, first and foremost, to patently opportunist and counter-revolutionary elements, such as Souvarine and Paz in France. It entered into an alliance with the anti-proletarian petty-bourgeois Maslow group in Germany, the Treint and Suzanne Girault group in France, with the groups which are now speaking about a turn towards “fascism” and “tsarism” in the USSR. The German group is the strongest base of the Trotskyite opposition outside the USSR. It has established connections, on the one hand, with the counter- revolutionary Korsch group (joint actions during the Hamburg elections) and, on the other, it is making contact with the Left Social-Democrats. It is now beginning to organise openly into an independent party under the spurious name of “Lenin League”. It is aiming at becoming an international centre uniting all opposition groups against the Communist International and the USSR.

The Trotskyite opposition is trying to win over to its side the renegades Rosmer and Monatte. Such anti-proletarian opportunist elements are now rallying to the Trotsky its opposition as the Hula group in Czechoslovakia, Roland Holst in Holland and the “Left” Social-Democrats in Belgium, a group of Italian émigrés in France propounding the same counter-revolutionary platform as Korsch, and finally the Right-wing elements expelled from the American Communist Party (Lore and others, who are supported by the German Social-Democrats of America).

All the worst elements in the working-class movement, the openly opportunist elements in the communist movement and all renegade groups flung out of the ranks of the Comintern are now uniting under the Trotskyite banner against the USSR, the CPSU(B) and the Comintern, playing the role of a most abominable tool of international Social-Democracy against the Communists in the latter’s struggle for influence among the broad masses of the working class.

The Plenary Meeting of the ECCI considers that the Trotskyite opposition’s evolution towards Social-Democracy, its avowedly anti-Soviet stand, which is thoroughly hostile to the proletarian dictatorship, and its divisive methods in the Communist parties have resulted in a situation in which adherence to the Trotskyite opposition and solidarity with its views is incompatible with further membership of the Communist International.

The Communist parties must wage an uncompromising struggle to uproot the Trotskyite groups, concentrating the struggle primarily against their leaders. At the same time, it is necessary to continue an ideological struggle to win those workers who are vacillating but have not yet broken with the opposition.

Furthermore, the Communist parties must step up their work of showing the working-class masses the true face of the Trotskyite opposition because the aggravation of the struggle of the Communists against international Social-Democracy inevitably means a sharpening of the struggle against the anti-Communist, Trotskyite groups both in the USSR and in other countries.

The CPSU in Resolutions etc.,

6th Russ. ed., Vol. 2, pp. 495-96

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Eighth Plenary Meeting of the Comintern Executive, 1927

ON THE STATEMENTS OF TROTSKY AND VUYOVICH AT A PLENARY MEETING OF THE ECCI*

(Adopted at the Eighth Plenary Meeting of the Comintern Executive, 1927)

The Plenary Meeting of the Executive Committee of the Communist International declares before the Communist workers of the whole world that in the present extremely serious situation, in face of the enemy’s attack, some former leading members of the Comintern have ventured to make gross and impermissible assaults on the Bolshevik Party, a party of world-wide importance. The actions of these leaders of the opposition complicate and impede the settlement of the revolutionary problems of the present moment: the mobilisation of all revolutionary forces and the rousing of the entire international working class against the imperialist war.

The Fifth World Congress of the Communist International condemned Trotskyism as a “petty-bourgeois deviation”. The Seventh Extended Plenary Meeting of the ECCI in December 1926 adopted a resolution on the Soviet Union in which it condemned the opposition bloc as embodying a “Social-Democratic deviation” whose aim is to “continue fostering defeatist sentiments and a capitulationist ideology in the Party”. The Plenary Meeting pointed out that “these views are incompatible with the fundamentals of Leninism” and declared that the platform of the opposition runs counter “to the principles of true internationalism and to the fundamental line of the Communist International”.

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RESOLUTION ON THE DISCUSSION IN THE RUSSIAN COMMUNIST PARTY

RESOLUTION ON THE DISCUSSION IN THE RUSSIAN COMMUNIST PARTY*

(Adopted at the Fifth Extended Plenary Meeting of the Comintern Executive, 1925)

The Extended Plenary Meeting finds that Comrade Trotsky’s action, which started a new discussion in the Russian Communist Party, was an attempt to revise Leninism and disorganise the leadership in the RCP(B).

The Extended Plenary Meeting finds that this action was supported by all the forces hostile to Bolshevism. In the Comintern it was supported by all the Right-wing elements in the Communist parties, namely by elements whose tactics have been repeatedly condemned at international congresses as being of a semi-Social-Democratic nature. Outside the Comintern, this action was supported by a number of persons who have been expelled from the communist ranks (Levi, Rosmer, 

Monatte, Balabanova, Höglund and others). Lastly, the Social-Democratic and bourgeois press made 

every effort to take advantage of this action.

Objectively, this action was, thus, not only an attempt to disorganise the ranks of the RCP(B), but inflicted immense injury to the Comintern as a whole.

The Extended Plenary Meeting of the Comintern Executive associates itself entirely with the resolution of the Plenary Meeting of the Central Committee of the RCP(B) in both the part giving a 

principled assessment of Trotskyism and the part stating the measures that have been taken.

The Extended Plenary Meeting of the Comintern Executive is of the opinion that the RCP(B) must continue to give a similarly unanimous rebuff to all attacks on Leninist theory and practice. The Plenary Meeting welcomes the explanatory campaign conducted by the RCP(B) and considers that an explanatory campaign of an equally high level against anti-Leninist deviations should be conducted by the Communist parties of other countries.

The Plenary Meeting is of the opinion that the RCP(B) can fulfil its great historical mission provided there is solid unity in its leadership. Any attempt to shake this unity will inflict the greatest injury to the whole of the Communist International, and will, therefore, be most sternly and emphatically condemned by it.

The CPSU in Resolutions etc.,

6th Russ. ed., Part II, p. 789

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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.

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THE FIFTEENTH CONGRESS OF THE CPSU(B) - December 2, 1927

From THE MESSAGE OF GREETINGS

OF THE MAKEYEVKA FACTORY WORKERS

TO THE FIFTEENTH CONGRESS OF THE CPSU(B)

December 2, 1927

The metalworkers of the Makeyevka Factory, Donbas, send ardent proletarian greetings to the Fifteenth Congress of the CPSU(B), leader of the Party and the working class.

During the past two years factory workers have closely followed the activities of the Party   and its headquarters, the Central Committee.

In practice, at our own factory, we have seen for ourselves that the Party and its CC have pursued a correct Leninist policy aimed at furthering the building of socialism and improving the living standard of the working class.

The opposition enjoys no success either in the Party or among the working class because its lying words are completely refuted by our reality.

We are confident that the Congress will put an end to all the activities of the Trotskyite opposition. For our part we pledge our utmost support.

The workers are sending a model of the blast-furnace, the largest in the USSR, under construction at our factory, and request their Party to see to it that the building of the blast-furnace continues with the same success as before.

Down with the oppositionists, who are hindering us in the building of our blast-furnaces!. . .

The Struggle of the CPSU etc.,
pp. 496-97

RESULTS OF THE PRE-CONGRESS DISCUSSION IN THE CPSU(B)

Result on December 2, 1927

Number of participants—730,862. Votes for

the CC line—724,066; against—4,120 or 0.5 per cent; abstentions—2,676 or 0.3 per cent

The theses of the CC have been discussed at 10,711 cell meetings. The meetings were attended by 

730,862 Communists; votes for the CC line—724,066; against 4,120 (or 0.5 per cent of the total 

number of participants in the meetings); abstentions—2,676 (or 0.3 per cent).

The Struggle of the CPSU etc.,

p. 497

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RESOLUTION OF A MEETING OF THE PARTY ORGANISATION - November, 1927

RESOLUTION OF A MEETING OF THE PARTY ORGANISATION AT THE KRASNY PUTILOVETS WORKS, LENINGRAD, APPROVING THE DECISION OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE AND THE CENTRAL COMMISSION OF THE CPSU(B) ON THE EXPULSION OF TROTSKY AND ZINOVIEV FROM THE PARTY

November 16, 1927

Having heard the report on the decision of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission of the CPSU(B) on the leaders of the Trotskyite opposition, who have isolated themselves from the Party and the working class, the Meeting of the Krasny Putilovets Works Party organisation approves the expulsion of the political bankrupts Trotsky and Zinoviev from the Bolshevik Party and also the expulsion of the group of 11 presumptuous factionalists and disorganisers of the Party from the CC and CCC, the headquarters of the Bolshevik Party.

The Meeting of the Party organisation of the Krasny Putilovets Works expresses its utmost confidence that the Fifteenth Party Congress will put an end to the corrupting activities of the splitters from the Trotsky-Zinoviev opposition.

The Meeting calls on all Party members to keep a close watch on the activities of the remnants of the Trotskyite gunk and put a stop to their anti-Soviet sallies once and for all.

Greetings to the First Leningrad Regional Party Conference!

The Struggle of the CPSU for the Country’s Socialist Industrialisation and to Prepare for Nation-wide Collectivisation (1926-1929),

Russ. ed., Moscow, 1960, pp. 492-93

RESOLUTION OF A PARTY AND KOMSOMOL

MEETING AT THE FIRST OILFIELD, SURAKHAN DISTRICT, BAKU, ON THE RESULTS

OF THE OCTOBER JOINT PLENARY MEETING OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE AND CENTRAL CONTROL COMMISSION OF THE CPSU(B)

AND THE DEMAND TO EXPEL THE OPPOSITIONISTS FROM THE PARTY

November 16, 1927

Having heard the report on the results of the October Plenary Meeting of the Central Committee of the CPSU(B) and on the five-year plan of economic development, the Plenary Meeting of the Party cell jointly with members of the Komsomol considers as correct the plan drawn up by the Central Committee of the CPSU(B) for all branches of our national economy, and therefore pledges to make every effort to carry out all the measures mapped out by our CC and to give every possible assistance to socialist construction in the USSR.

We solemnly declare that we shall abide by Lenin’s behests and move as one family along the charted road to socialism.

We find that the opposition’s sallies at the celebrations of the October Revolution in Moscow and Leningrad are impermissible, demand the expulsion of all disorganisers from our Party and approve the expulsion of Trotsky and Zinoviev.

Long live the Leninist Central Committee of the CPSU(B)! Long live the united, steel-strong 

Leninist Party!

The Struggle of the CPSU etc.,

p. 493

MESSAGE OF GREETINGS OF THE WORKERS AND EMPLOYEES

OF THE HAMMER AND SICKLE WORKS, MOSCOW, TO THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE CPSU(B) ON THE OCCASION OF THE 10th ANNIVERSARY OF THE GREAT OCTOBER

SOCIALIST REVOLUTION

November 25, 1927

The meeting of workers and employees of the Hammer and Sickle Works held to mark the 10th anniversary of the October Revolution sends ardent greetings to its leader and guide, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks).

Unflinching revolutionary will, steeled in the heroic battles with tsarism, defeated the most sinister enemies of the working class—Wrangel, Yudenich and others. The gigantic economic work that followed could only be carried out by the Communist Party and its Leninist Central Committee.

As we mark the first decade of the October achievements, we, the workers of the Hammer and Sickle 

Works, are firmly confident that the Central Committee of the CPSU(B) will continue to lead the working class along the correct Leninist road to further achievements.

To all slanderers, splitters and oppositionists, who are obstructing our work, we declare that the working class, which has traversed the tortuous path of revolutionary struggle under the leadership of the Party of Lenin, will not be diverted from the Leninist road to the road of Menshevism.

Long live the Central Committee of the CPSU(B), the Leninist headquarters! Long live the unity of 

the CPSU(B)!

Long live the Comintern, leader and guide of the world proletariat!

The Struggle of the CPSU etc.,

pp. 493, 496

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THE RESOLUTION OF THE NINTH CONGRESS OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY (BOLSHEVIKS) OF THE UKRAINE

From THE RESOLUTION OF THE NINTH CONGRESS OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY (BOLSHEVIKS) OF THE UKRAINE ON THE REPORTS OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE RCP AND THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE CP(B)U

Kharkov, December 6 - 12, 1925

15. The period since the Eighth All-Ukraine Party Conference has witnessed the strengthening of the Party’s ties with the broad masses and a huge growth of the Party itself. The pessimistic statements of the opposition on the eve of the Thirteenth Congress, alleging that the Party has divorced itself from the proletarian masses, have been strikingly refuted by the doubling of the Party membership, chiefly through an influx of factory workers, and lately through the growth and strengthening of the rural organisation. While further promoting the attraction of factory workers into the Party and regulating the Party’s social composition towards increasing the number of factory workers, the Congress considers it wrong to bring the majority of the proletariat into the Party immediately. Attention must be given to the qualitative aspect of the work, to improving the services for and education of new members and candidate members of the Party, and intensifying Party educational work, bearing in mind that every effort must be made to raise the ideological and political level of the Party membership.

16. The new methods of leadership presently implemented with regard to the Soviets and the trade unions are all the more necessary in the Party organisation itself. The Congress approves the appeal of the July plenary meeting of the Central Committee of the CP(B)U and the October plenary meeting of the Central Committee of the RCP(B) for speeding up the implementation of the principles of inner-Party democracy in all the Party’s work as the basic condition for successful Party 

leadership of the worker and peasant masses under conditions witnessing a growth of their activity. 

The Congress notes the Party’s considerable achievements in this sphere and, furthermore, notes the extensive activity displayed by the entire Party organisation of the Ukraine at all stages of the election of Party organs during the preparations for the Congress in discussing its agenda at cells, Party meetings and district and area conferences. At the same time, the Congress does not close its eyes to the shortcomings and certain passivity in some organisations, and the certain inertness in implementing inner-Party democracy. Inner-Party democracy must continue to be implemented most vigorously. By firmly maintaining inner-Party democracy, which will grow together with the growth of our economic and political might, the Party bears in mind that in its history there have been cases of attempts to secure a radical change of the Party line, revise Leninism and remove the Leninist leadership under the guise of inner-Party democracy. Lately, during the preparations for the Congress, there have been individual cases in which the slogan of inner-Party democracy has been used with the object of discrediting the Party, its apparatus and its line. By no means identifying any business-like Party criticism with the opposition deviation, considering, on the contrary, a critical discussion of its work and the work of individual Party organs with the broad Party masses as extremely useful, the Party must, however, continue giving a firm rebuff to all attempts, under the guise of inner-Party democracy, to change its Leninist line, discredit its Leninist leading cadres and undermine its unity and discipline.

17. In a situation witnessing the Party’s rapid growth and the implementation of inner-Party democracy, it is of paramount importance to preserve, promote and select veteran, experienced and steeled Party leaders. At the same time, while selecting and preserving veteran cadres, it is necessary to step up the promotion and training of new cadres, particularly women, and strengthen the ties between leading Party cadres and the broad mass of new Party members. This is the only condition under which the successiveness of the firm Leninist line can be ensured in the Party.

18. The Congress considers that unshakable Bolshevik unity and discipline in our Party are the fundamental condition for preserving and strengthening the proletarian dictatorship and the Soviet power in our country. This unity and discipline must be absolutely ensured in the entire Party from top to bottom, beginning with the Central Committee, which must be the model and example for the whole Party. Unconditional fulfilment of the decisions adopted by the Party and the subordination of lower to higher Party organs are mandatory for all Party members and organisations no matter what services they may have rendered. Without this there can be no Bolshevism and no Leninism. The Congress calls on the Central Committee of the CP(B)U and the Central Committee of the RCP to continue taking the most determined steps against all attempts to undermine the Leninist Bolshevik discipline in our Party.

19. The difficult conditions for building socialism in a single country encircled by capitalist states have given and are giving rise to ideological departures from the Leninist line accompanied by attacks on the Central Committee of the Party, which pursues the Leninist line. The Party has always found sufficient inner strength to fight and overcome these deviations (Workers’ Opposition, the 1923 opposition, Trotskyism) and repulse the attacks on the Leninist Central Committee. The Party will continue to rid itself of the remnants of old groups and ideological deviations and prevent the emergence of new ones.

The protraction of the world revolution is making individual Party members lose sight of that revolution. On the other hand, this gives rise to pessimism and lack of faith in socialist construction in one country and to underestimation of the achievements of this construction in the USSR. With this are linked the allegations that our state industry is not socialist but amounts to state capitalism, panic fear of elements of capitalism that we are permitting under strict state control, the accusations that the Party is degenerating, and so on, the exaggeration of the role and importance of the kulaks in the present-day Soviet countryside, the trend to ignore the role of the co-operative, and the efforts to achieve a so-called neutralisation of the middle peasants instead of actively drawing them to the side of the Soviet power. On the other hand, there is a trend to belittle the danger from the kulaks and the profiteers. Survivals of national chauvinism—Great Russian, Ukrainian and so on—have still to be reckoned with in the Party ranks in the Ukraine.

The Congress considers that the Party has to intensify its work of putting down and overcoming all the above mentioned deviations. The Congress believes that at present the press is acquiring immense significance in giving Party guidance to the masses. The Congress notes with satisfaction that Pravda, central organ of the RCP and Kommunist, central organ of the CP(B)U, have been pursuing a correct line. The Congress greets the editorial board of Pravda as being a consistently militant organ of the Bolshevik Party.

The Congress expresses the firm confidence that on the basis of inner-Party democracy, by drawing the entire Party membership more and more into the discussion and settlement of questions of Party policy and practice, and by rallying round its leading organs, which are pursuing a consistently Leninist policy, above all, round its Central Committee, the tested headquarters of Leninism, the Party will successfully resolve the tasks confronting it.

The Party in the Struggle for the

Restoration etc., pp. 557-58

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CONFERENCES and RESOLUTIONS - December, 1924

MESSAGE OF GREETINGS FROM THE TENTH ORENBURG GUBERNIA CONFERENCE OF THE RCP(B) TO THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE RUSSIAN COMMUNIST PARTY (BOLSHEVIKS)

December 7, 1924

The Tenth Orenburg Gubernia Conference of the RCP(B) considers as impermissible any attempt on Trotsky’s part to spark a discussion calling in question the principles of Bolshevism, any attempt at revising Leninism and any deviation from it. The Conference emphatically condemns such deviations.

At the same time, the Conference considers that it is vital for members and candidate members of the Party to begin immediately an intensive study of the real history of the RCP(B) and the October Revolution in the light of Lenin’s behests as a means of Party education.

The Conference insists that the Party CC take stringent measures against any deviation from Bolshevism.

Presidium of the Tenth Orenburg Gubernia Party Conference

The Party in the Struggle for the

Restoration etc., pp. 534-35

RESOLUTION OF THE FIFTH PARTY CONFERENCE OF THE KRASNAYA PRESNYA DISTRICT, MOSCOW, ON THE REPORT OF THE WORK OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE RCP(B)

December 13, 1924

Having heard the report on the work of the Central Committee, the Fifth Party Conference of the Krasnaya Presnya District wholly and completely approves the political line and practical work of the Party Central Committee.

The Conference notes with satisfaction the major successes of the Central Committee’s foreign policy line, which culminated in the recognition of the USSR by all the leading capitalist powers of Europe, and also the conspicuous achievements in the Soviet Union in the development and strengthening of the national economy, in balancing the budget and effecting the union between town and countryside.

The Conference considers as absolutely correct the course towards the Bolshevisation of the fraternal parties of the West as charted by the Fifth Congress of the Comintern and successfully pursued by the RCP delegation in the Comintern Executive.

The Conference regards these undeniable successes as indisputable proof of the correctness of the political line and practical leadership of the CC and the untenability of the line which the petty- bourgeois opposition contraposed to the Leninist stand of the CC during the first discussion.

The Conference assesses Trotsky’s latest so-called literary pronouncement as a new attack on the leading nucleus of the CC and as another attempt to revise the principles of Leninism by replacing them with Trotskyism, which is a variety of Menshevism.

While denouncing Trotsky’s pronouncement, the Conference considers that an end must be put once and for all to his indiscipline and opposition to the entire CC, which is the collective leader of our Party.

The Conference regards the decisions of the Thirteenth Party Congress and of the Fifth Congress of the Comintern as absolutely immutable and expects them to be considered as binding not only for rank-and-file members of the Party but also for Trotsky.

On behalf of the 22,000 members of the Krasnaya Presnya organisation the Conference assures the Leninist CC of its complete support for all its measures to achieve a further strengthening of the Soviet Union’s internal situation and position abroad, for all its measures directed towards strengthening the Party on the basis of uncompromising Leninism, and safeguarding the ideological heritage of Comrade Lenin against petty-bourgeois revision.

The Party in the Struggle for the

Restoration etc., p. 535

RESOLUTION OF THE FOURTH PARTY CONFERENCE OF THE ROGOZHSKY-SIMONOVSKY DISTRICT, MOSCOW, ON M. V. FRUNZE’S REPORT ON THE WORK OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE RCP(B)

December 15, 1924

Having heard Comrade Frunze’s report on the work of the Central Committee, the Fourth Rogozhsky-Simonovsky District Conference fully approves the political and organisational line of the Central Committee of the RCP(B) in home and foreign policy.

The Conference notes that the uninterrupted growth and strengthening of the national economy are the best proof of the total bankruptcy of last year’s opposition and of the correctness of the Central Committee’s leadership.

The Conference takes particular note of the Central Committee’s measures to raise the economic and 

cultural level of the countryside, improve the local government apparatus and strengthen the alliance of the working class with the peasants.

The Conference most emphatically condemns the actions of Trotsky, who is again trying to direct the

Party along the false road of departure from the fundamental precepts of the teaching of Lenin.

The Conference expresses the confidence that the Central Committee will be able to safeguard theParty against possible further actions of this kind by Trotsky.

The Rogozhsky-Simonovsky organisation of the RCP(B), which has time and again proved its Bolshevik staunchness, declares that it will always be in the front ranks of the struggle for Leninism.

The Party in the Struggle for the

Restoration etc., p. 536

From THE RESOLUTION OF THE FOURTH PARTY CONFERENCE OF THE BAUMANSKY DISTRICT, MOSCOW, ON THE REPORT OF THE WORK OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE RCP(B)

December 19, 1924

The Conference acclaims the uncompromising Bolshevik ideological rebuff which the leading Leninist nucleus of the CC has given to Trotsky’s attempt to plunge the Party into another discussion, revise the principles of Leninism and distort the history of the Party and the Revolution.

The Conference considers Trotsky’s latest literary work an act against the Party and indignantly rejects as worthless to the Party the old, Menshevik theory of Trotskyism, which this work attempts to palm off on the Party.

The Party will not allow itself to be headed off the correct, genuinely revolutionary road charted by Lenin, a road that has been tested by the entire history of the working-class struggle in Russia.

The Conference declares that exhaustive measures must be taken to exclude any further attempts by Trotsky to demolish the policy and leadership of our Party.

Long live Leninism! Long live the Bolshevik Central

Committee!

The Party in the Struggle for the

Restoration etc., pp. 536-37

From THE RESOLUTION OF THE THIRD PARTY CONFERENCE OF THE ZAMOSKVORECHYE DISTRICT, MOSCOW, ON M. I. KALININ’S REPORT ON THE WORK

OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE RCP(B)

December 20, 1924

The Third Zamoskvorechye District Party Conference unanimously denounces Trotsky’s attempt to revise Leninism, distort the history of the October Revolution and replace Leninism with Trotskyism, which is a variety of Menshevism. The Conference suggests that at its next meeting the Central Committee should examine Trotsky’s pronouncement and give a resolute rebuff to his attempts to substitute Trotskyism for Leninism, under whose banner our Party came into being, grew and moved from victory to victory.

The Conference notes that our delegation in the Comintern acted correctly in aiming to turn all the sections of the Comintern into genuinely Bolshevik parties.

Today our Party is united on the basis of Leninism and is stronger than ever before. Closer ties must be established with the workers and the peasant masses, and the Party must redouble its efforts in the struggle for the development of our Soviet Union and for the world revolution.

Long live our Leninist Central Committee! Long live the Leninist Comintern!

Long live uncompromising Leninism!

The Party in the Struggle for the

Restoration etc., p. 537

From THE RESOLUTION OF THE EIGHTEENTH NOVGOROD GUBERNIA CONFERENCE OF THE RCP(B)

December 1924

1. THE STRENGTHENING OF LENINISM

The discussion of Trotsky’s article “Lessons of the October Revolution” has shown that in the main the Party organisation has understood the anti-Leninist substance of this article and has steered a fully consistent line towards preventing any Menshevik-petty-bourgeois vacillation among the youngest and inadequately steeled section of the Party organisation. Nonetheless, the Conference considers that one of the immediate tasks for the winter period must be the study of the Party’s history and the fundamental points of divergence between Bolshevism and Trotskyism.

The propaganda departments of the uyezd and gubernia committees must make sure that propagandists are thoroughly conversant with the divergences between Bolshevism and Trotskyism in order to give young members of the Party organisation a correct understanding of the essence of Bolshevism, and of the history of the Party and the Revolution.

The Party in the Struggle for the

Restoration etc., p. 540

RESOLUTION OF A MEETING OF THE PARTY CELL AT THE TRYOKHGORNAYA TEXTILE MILL, KRASNAYA PRESNYA DISTRICT, MOSCOW, ON THE REPORT OF THE KRASNAYA PRESNYA DISTRICT COMMITTEE OF THE RCP(B)

1924

Having heard the report by Comrade Vasilyev on the work of the Krasnaya Presnya District Committee, the General Meeting of RCP(B) members of the cell at the Tryokhgornaya Textile Mill finds the work of the District Committee satisfactory. During the period of its work among the worker masses in the Krasnaya Presnya the District Committee has consistently pursued the Leninist line, educating the workers in the spirit of Bolshevism. The result of this work is that the District Committee has strengthened the RCP’s ties with and influence over the non-Party masses in the Krasnaya Presnya District. The Meeting considers that the District Committee must further intensify its work of promoting the Party’s ties with and influence over the non-Party masses, strictly purging the Party ranks of alien elements and safeguarding the purity of its weapon—Leninism—against all 

non-Bolshevik deviations. In implementing the decisions of the Thirteenth Party Congress, the District Committee will rally the working class round its leader, the RCP, under the banner of Leninism, which has been tested in the battles for the cause of the working class. The meeting considers that Trotsky’s attempt to revise Leninism shows that he is contraposing himself to the Party and ignoring the role played by the Party in the October Revolution. We categorically protest against this attitude of Trotsky’s and declare that we shall not tolerate any encroachment on the teaching of Lenin, which has embodied the interests of the working class and with which the working class triumphed in the October Revolution.

(Carried unanimously.)

The Party in the Struggle for the

Restoration etc., p. 541

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