How Should the Defects in Internal Party Life Be Removed?

What measures must be adopted to remove these defects? The first thing is tirelessly, by every means, to combat the survivals and habits of the war period in our Party, to combat the erroneous view that our Party is a system of institutions, and not a militant organisation of the proletariat, which is intellectually vigorous, acts independently, lives a full life, is destroying the old and creating the new.
Secondly, the activity of the mass of the Party membership must be increased; all questions of interest to the membership in so far as they can be openly discussed must be submitted to it for open discussion, and the possibility ensured of free criticism of all proposals made by the different Party bodies. Only in this way will it be possible to convert Party discipline into really conscious, really iron discipline; only in this way will it be possible to increase the political, economic and cultural experience of the mass of Party members; only in this way will it be possible to create the conditions necessary to enable the Party membership, step by step, to promote new active workers, new leaders, from its ranks. Thirdly, the principle of election must be applied in practice to all Party bodies and official posts, if there are no insuperable obstacles to this such as lack of the necessary Party standing, and so forth. We must eliminate the practice of ignoring the will of the majority of the organisations in promoting comrades to responsible

Party posts, and we must see to it that the principle of election is actually applied.
Fourthly, there must exist under the Central Committee and the Gubernia and Regional Committees permanently functioning conferences of responsible workers in all fields of work—economic, Party, trade-union and military; these conferences must be held regularly and discuss any question they consider it necessary to discuss; the interconnection between the workers in all fields must not be broken; all these workers must feel that they are all members of a single Party family, working in a common cause, the cause of the proletariat, which is indivisible; the Central Committee and the local organisations must create an environment that will enable the Party to acquire and test the experience of our responsible workers in all spheres of work. Fifthly, our Party units in the factories must be drawn into dealing with the various questions relating to the course of affairs in the respective enterprises and trusts. Things must be so arranged that the units are kept informed about the work of the administrations of our enterprises and trusts and are able to exert an influence on this work. You, as representatives of units, are aware how great is the moral responsibility of our factory units to the non-Party masses for the course of affairs in the factories. For the unit to be able to lead and win the following of the non-Party masses in the factory, for it to be able to bear responsibility for the course of affairs in the factory—and it certainly has a moral responsibility to the non-Party masses for defects in the work of the factory—the unit must be kept informed about these affairs, it must be possible for it to influence them in one way or another. Therefore, the units must be drawn into the discussion of economic questions relating to their factories, and economic conferences of representatives of the factory units in a given trust must be called from time to time to discuss questions relating to the affairs of the trust. This is one of the surest ways both of enlarging the economic experience of the Party membership and of organising control from below.
Sixthly, the quality of the membership of our Party units must be improved. Zinoviev has already said in an article of his that here and there the quality of the membership of our Party units is below that of the surrounding non-Party masses.
That statement, of course, must not be generalised and applied to all the units. It would be more exact to say the following for example: our Party units would be on a much higher cultural level than they are now, and would have much greater authority among non-Party people, if we had not denuded these units, if we had not taken from them people we needed for economic, administrative, trade-union and all sorts of other work. If our working-class comrades, the cadres we have taken from the units during the past six years, were to return to their units, does it need proof that those units would stand head and shoulders above all the non-Party workers, even the most advanced? Precisely because the Party has no other cadres with which to improve the state apparatus, precisely because the Party will be obliged to continue using that source, our units will remain on a somewhat unsatisfactory cultural level unless we take urgent measures to improve the quality of their membership. First of all, Party educational work in the units must be increased to the utmost; furthermore, we must get rid of the excessive formalism our local organisations sometimes display in accepting working-class comrades into the Party. I think that we must not allow ourselves to be bound by formalism; the Party can, and must, create easier conditions for the acceptance of new members from the ranks of the working class. That has already begun in the local organisations. The Party must take this matter in hand and launch an organised campaign for creating easier access to the Party for new members from workers at the bench.
Seventhly, work must be intensified among the non-Party workers. This is another means of improving the internal Party situation, of increasing the activity of the Party membership. I must say that our organisations are still paying little attention to the task of drawing non-Party workers into our Soviets. Take, for example, the elections to the Moscow Soviet that are being held now. I consider that one of the big defects in these elections is that too few non-Party people are being elected. It is said that there exists a decision of the organisation to the effect that at least a certain number, a certain percentage, etc., of non-Party people are to be elected; but I see that, in fact, a far smaller number is being elected. It is said that the masses are eager to elect only Communists. I have my doubts about that, comrades. I think that unless we show a certain degree of confidence in the non-Party people they may answer by becoming very distrustful of our organisations. This confidence in the non-Party people is absolutely necessary, comrades. Communists must be induced to withdraw their candidatures.

Speeches must not be delivered urging the election only of Communists; non-Party people must be encouraged, they must be drawn into the work of administering the state. We shall gain by this and in return receive the reciprocal confidence of the non-Party people in our organisations. The elections in Moscow are an example of the degree to which our organisations are beginning to isolate themselves within their Party shell instead of enlarging their field of activity and, step by step, rallying the non-Party people around themselves. Eighthly, work among the peasants must be intensified. I do not know why our village units, which in some places are wilting, are losing their members and are not trusted much by the peasants (this must be admitted)—I do not know why, for instance, two practical tasks cannot be set these units: firstly, to interpret and popularise the Soviet laws which affect peasant life; secondly, to agitate for and disseminate elementary agronomic knowledge, if only the knowledge that it is necessary to plough the fields in proper time, to sift seed, etc. Do you know, comrades, that if every peasant were to decide to devote a little labour to the sifting of seed, it would be possible without land improvement, and without introducing new machines, to obtain an increase in crop yield amounting to about ten poods per dessiatin? And what does an increase in crop yield of ten poods per dessiatin mean? It means an increase in the gross crop of a thousand million poods per annum. And all this could be achieved without great effort. Why should not our village units take up this matter? Is it less important than talking about Curzon’s policy? The peasants would then realise that the Communists have stopped engaging in empty talk and have got down to real business; and then our village units would win the boundless confidence of the peasants. There is no need for me to stress how necessary it is, for improving and reviving Party life, to intensify Party and political educational work among the youth, the source of new cadres, in the Red Army, among women delegates, and among non-Party people in general. Nor will I dwell upon the importance of increasing the interchange of information, about which I have already spoken, of increasing the supply of information from the top downwards and from below upwards. Such, comrades, are the measures for improvement, the course towards internal Party democracy which the Central Committee set as far back as September of this year, and which must be put into practice by all Party organisations from top to bottom.
I would now like to deal with two extremes, two obsessions, on the question of workers’ democracy that were to be noted in some of the discussion articles in Pravda.
The first extreme concerns the election principle. It manifests itself in some comrades wanting to have elections “throughout.” Since we stand for the election principle, let us go the whole hog in electing! Party standing? What do we want that for? Elect whomever you please. That is a mistaken view, comrades. The Party will not accept it. Of course, we are not now at war; we are in a period of peaceful development. But we are now living under the NEP. Do not forget that, comrades. The Party began the purge not during, but after the war. Why? Because, during the war, fear of defeat drew the Party together into one whole, and some of the disruptive elements in the Party were compelled to keep to the general line of the Party, which was faced with the question of life or death. Now these bonds have fallen away, for we are not now at war; now we have the NEP, we have permitted a revival of capitalism, and the bourgeoisie is reviving. True, all this helps to purge the Party, to strengthen it; but on the other hand, we are being enveloped in a new atmosphere by the nascent and growing bourgeoisie, which is not very strong yet, but which has already succeeded in beating some of our co-operatives and trading organisations in internal trade. It was precisely after the introduction of the NEP that the Party began the purge and reduced its membership by half; it was precisely after the introduction of the NEP that the Party decided that, in order to protect our organisations from the contagion of the NEP, it was necessary, for example, to hinder the influx of non-proletarian elements into the Party, that it was necessary that Party officials should have a definite Party standing, and so forth. Was the Party right in taking these precautionary measures, which restricted “expanded” democracy? I think it was. That is why I think that we must have democracy, we must have the election principle, but the restrictive measures that were adopted by the Eleventh and Twelfth Congresses, at least the chief ones, must still remain in force. The second extreme concerns the question of the limits of the discussion. This extreme manifests itself in some comrades demanding unlimited discussion; they think that the discussion of problems is the be all and end all of Party work and forget about the other aspect of Party work, namely, action, which calls for the implementation of the Party’s decisions. At all events, this was the impression I gained from the short article by Radzin, who tried to substantiate the principle of unlimited discussion by a reference to Trotsky, who is alleged to have said that “the Party is a voluntary association of like-minded people.” I searched for that sentence in Trotsky’s works, but could not find it. Trotsky could scarcely have uttered it as a finished formula for the definition of the Party; and if he did utter it, he could scarcely have stopped there. The Party is not only an association of like-minded people; it is also an association of like-acting people, it is a militant association of likeacting people who are fighting on a common ideological basis (programme, tactics). I think that the reference to Trotsky is out of place, for I know Trotsky as one of the members of the Central Committee who most of all stress the active side of Party work. I think, therefore, that Radzin himself must bear responsibility for this definition. But what does this definition lead to? One of two possibilities: either that the Party will degenerate into a sect, into a philosophical school, for only in such narrow organisations is complete like-mindedness possible; or that it will become a permanent debating society, eternally discussing and eternally arguing, until the point is reached where factions form and the Party is split. Our Party cannot accept either of these possibilities. This is why I think that the discussion of problems is needed, a discussion is needed, but limits must be set to such discussion in order to safeguard the Party, to safeguard this fighting unit of the proletariat, against degenerating into a debating society.

In concluding my report, I must warn you, comrades, against these two extremes. I think that if we reject both these extremes and honestly and resolutely steer the course towards internal Party democracy that the Central Committee set already in September of this year, we shall certainly achieve an improvement in our

Party work. (Applause.)
Pravda, No. 277,
December 6, 1923