Discussion—a Sign of the Party’s Strength

Report Delivered at an Enlarged Meeting of the Krasnaya Presnya District Committee of the R.C.P.(B.) With Group Organisers, Members of the Debating Society and of the Bureau of the Party Units
December 2, 1923
Comrades, first of all I must say that I am delivering a report here in my personal capacity and not in the name of the Central Committee of the Party. If the meeting is willing to hear such a report, I am at your service. (Voices: “Yes.”) This does not mean that I disagree with the Central Committee in any way on this question; not at all. I am speaking here in my personal capacity only because the commission of the Central Committee for drafting measures to improve the internal situation in the Party is to present its findings to the Central Committee in a day or two; these findings have not yet been presented, and therefore I have as yet no formal right to speak in the name of the Central Committee, although I am sure that what I am about to say to you will, in the main, express the Central Committee’s position on these questions.
DISCUSSION—A SIGN
OF THE PARTY’S STRENGTH
The first question I would like to raise here is that of the significance of the discussion that is now taking place in the press and in the Party units. What does this discussion show? What does it indicate? Is it a storm that has burst into the calm life of the Party? Is this discussion a sign of the Party’s disintegration, its decay, as some say, or of its degeneration, as others say?
I think, comrades, that it is neither one nor the other: there is neither degeneration nor disintegration. The fact of the matter is that the Party has grown more mature during the past period; it has adequately rid itself of useless ballast; it has become more proletarian. You know that two years ago we had not less than 700,000 members; you know that several thousand members have dropped out, or have been kicked out, of the Party. Further, the Party membership has improved, its quality has risen in this period as a result of the improvement in the conditions of the working class due to the revival of industry, as a result of the return of the old skilled workers from the countryside, and as a result of the new wave of cultural development that is spreading among the industrial workers.
In short, owing to all these circumstances, the Party has grown more mature, its quality has risen, its needs have grown, it has become more exacting, it wants to know more than it has known up to now, and it wants to decide more than it has up to now.
The discussion which has opened is not a sign of the Party’s weakness, still less is it a sign of its disintegration or degeneration; it is a sign of strength, a sign of firmness, a sign of the improvement in the quality of the Party’s membership, a sign of its increased activity.