The discussion on the situation within the Party that opened a few weeks ago is evidently drawing to a close; that is, as far as Moscow and Petrograd are concerned. As is known, Petrograd has declared in favour of the line of the Party. The principal districts of Moscow have also declared in favour of the Central Committee’s line. The general city meeting of active workers of the Moscow organisation held on December 11 fully endorsed the organisational and political line of the Central Committee of the Party. There is no ground for doubting that the forthcoming general Party conference of the Moscow organisation will follow in the footsteps of its districts. The opposition, which is a bloc of a section of the “Left” Communists (Preobrazhensky, Stukov, Pyatakov, and others) with the so-called Democratic Centralists (Rafail, Sapronov, and others), has suffered a crushing defeat.

The course of the discussion, and the changes that the opposition went through during the period of the discussion, are interesting. The opposition began by demanding nothing more nor less than a revision of the main line in internal Party

THE DISCUSSION
affairs and internal Party policy which the Party has been pursuing during the past two years, during the whole NEP period. While demanding the full implementation of the resolution passed by the Tenth Congress on internal Party democracy, the opposition at the same time insisted on the removal of the restrictions (prohibition of groups, the Party-standing rule, etc.) that were adopted by the Tenth, Eleventh and Twelfth Party Congresses. But the opposition did not stop at this. It asserted that the Party has practically been turned into an army type of organisation, that Party discipline has been turned into military discipline, and demanded that the entire staff of the Party apparatus be shaken up from top to bottom, that the principal responsible workers be removed from their posts, etc. Of strong language and abuse of the Central Committee there was, of course, no lack. The columns of Pravda were replete with articles, long and short, accusing the Central Committee of all the mortal sins. It is a wonder that it was not accused of causing the earthquake in Japan.

During this period the Central Committee as a whole did not intervene in the discussion in the columns of Pravda, leaving the members of the Party full freedom to criticise. It did not even think it necessary to repudiate the absurd charges that were often made by critics, being of the opinion that the members of the Party are sufficiently politically conscious to decide the questions under discussion themselves. That was, so to speak, the first period of the discussion. Later, when people got tired of strong language, when abuse ceased to have effect and the members of the Party demanded a business-like discussion of the question, the second period of the discussion set in. This period opened with the publication of the resolution of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission on Party affairs.82 On the basis of the decision of the October Plenum of the Central Committee,83 which endorsed the course towards internal Party democracy, the Political Bureau of the Central Committee and the Presidium of the Central Control Commission drew up the well-known resolution indicating the conditions for giving effect to internal Party democracy. This marked a turning point in the discussion. It now became impossible to keep to general criticism. When the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission presented their concrete plan the opposition was faced with the alternative of either accepting this plan or of presenting a parallel, equally concrete, plan of its own for giving effect to internal Party democracy. At once it was discovered that the opposition was unable to counter the Central Committee’s plan with a plan of its own that would satisfy the demands of the Party organisations. The opposition began to retreat. The demand for cancellation of the main line of the past two years in internal Party affairs ceased to be part of the opposition’s arsenal. The demand of the opposition for the removal of the restrictions on democracy that were adopted by the Tenth, Eleventh and Twelfth Party Congresses also paled and faded. The opposition pushed into the background and moderated its demand that the apparatus be shaken up from top to bottom. It deemed it wise to substitute for all these demands the proposals that it was necessary “to formulate precisely the question of factions,” “to arrange for the election of all Party bodies which hitherto have been appointed,” “to abolish the appointment system,” etc. It is characteristic that even these much moderated proposals of the opposition were rejected by the Krasnaya Presnya and Zamoskvorechye district Party organisations, which endorsed the resolution of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission by overwhelming majorities.

This was, so to speak, the second period of the discussion. We have now entered the third period. The characteristic feature of this period is the further retreat, I would say the disorderly retreat, of the opposition. This time, even the latter’s faded and much moderated demands have dropped out of its resolution. Preobrazhensky’s last resolution (the third, I think), which was submitted to the meeting of active workers of the Moscow organisation (over 1,000 present), reads as follows: “Only the speedy, unanimous and sincere implementation of the Political Bureau’s resolutions and, in particular, the renovation of the internal Party apparatus by means of new elections, can guarantee our Party’s transition to the new course without shocks and internal struggle, and strengthen the actual solidarity and unity of its ranks.”

The fact that the meeting rejected even this very innocuous proposal of the opposition cannot be regarded as accidental. Nor was it an accident that the meeting, by an overwhelming majority, adopted a resolution “to endorse the political and organisational line of the Central Committee.”

RAFAIL

I think that Rafail is the most consistent and thorough going representative of the present opposition, or, to be more exact, of the present opposition bloc. At one of the discussion meetings Rafail said that our Party has practically been turned into an army organisation, that its discipline is army discipline, and that, in view of this, it is necessary to shake up the entire Party apparatus from top to bottom, because it is unfit and alien to the genuine Party spirit. It seems to me that these or similar thoughts are floating in the minds of the members of the present opposition, but for various reasons they dare not express them. It must be admitted that in this respect Rafail has proved to be bolder than his colleagues in the opposition.

Nevertheless, Rafail is absolutely wrong. He is wrong not only from the formal aspect, but also, and primarily, in substance. If our Party has indeed been turned, or is even only beginning to be turned, into an army organisation, is it not obvious that we would now have neither a Party in the proper sense of the term, nor the dictatorship of the proletariat, nor the revolution? What is an army?

An army is a self-contained organisation built from above. The very nature of an army presupposes the existence at its head of a General Staff, which is appointed from above, and which forms the army on the principle of compulsion. The General Staff not only forms the army, but also supplies it with food, clothing, footwear, etc. The material dependence of the entire army on the General Staff is complete. This, incidentally, is the basis
of that army discipline, breach of which entails a specific form of the supreme penalty—death by shooting. This also explains the fact that the General Staff can move the army wherever and whenever it pleases, guided only by its own strategic plans.

What is the Party?

The Party is the advanced detachment of the proletariat, built from below on the voluntary principle. The Party also has its General Staff, but it is not appointed from above, it is elected from below by the whole Party. The General Staff does not form the Party; on the contrary, the Party forms its General Staff. The Party forms itself on the voluntary principle. Nor does there exist that material dependence of the Party as a whole upon its General Staff that we spoke of above in relation to the army. The Party General Staff does not provide the Party with supplies, does not feed and clothe it. This, incidentally, explains the fact that the Party General Staff cannot move the ranks of the Party arbitrarily wherever and whenever it pleases, that the Party General Staff can lead the Party as a whole only in conformity with the economic and political interests of the class of which the Party is itself a part. Hence the specific character of Party discipline, which, in the main, is based on the method of persuasion, as distinct from army discipline, which, in the main, is based on the method of compulsion. Hence the fundamental difference between the supreme penalty in the Party (expulsion) and the supreme penalty in the army (death by shooting).

It is sufficient to compare these two definitions to realise how monstrous is Rafail’s mistake.

The Party, he says, has been turned into an army organisation. But how is it possible to turn the Party into an army organisation if it is not materially dependent upon its General Staff, if it is built from below on the voluntary principle, and if it itself forms its General Staff? How, then, can one explain the influx of workers into the Party, the growth of its influence among the non-Party masses, its popularity among working people all over the world?

One of two things:

Either the Party is utterly passive and voiceless— but then how is one to explain the fact that such a passive and voiceless party is the leader of the most revolutionary proletariat in the world and for several years already has been governing the most revolutionary country in the world? Or the Party is active and displays initiative—but then one cannot understand why a party, which is so active, which displays such initiative, has not by now overthrown the military regime in the Party, assuming that such a regime actually reigns in the Party. Is it not clear that our Party, which has made three revolutions, which routed Kolchak and Denikin, and is now shaking the foundations of world imperialism, that this Party would not have tolerated for one week that military regime and order-and-obey system that Rafail talks about so lightly and recklessly, that it would have smashed them in a trice, and would have introduced a new regime without waiting for a call from Rafail? But: a frightful dream, but thank God only a dream. The fact of the matter is, firstly, that Rafail confused the Party with an army and an army with the Party,