Concluding Word on the Organizational Report of the Central Committee to the XIII Congress of the RCP(b), May 27, 1924

Comrades! In the speeches of the speakers, I did not discern objections against the organizational report of the CC. I take this as agreement by the congress with the conclusions of that report. (Applause.)

In my report, I deliberately did not touch upon our disagreements within the party -- I refrained because I did not want to reopen wounds that seemed to have healed. But after Trotsky and Preobrazhensky touched upon these questions, permitted a number of inaccuracies, and issued a challenge, it would be wrong to remain silent. Under such circumstances, silence would be incomprehensible.

Comrade Krupskaya spoke here against duplicating the debates on disagreements. I am categorically against duplication, and precisely for this reason did not touch upon the disagreements in my report. But since comrades who are members of the opposition raised the matter and issued a challenge, we have no right to remain silent.

Trotsky and Preobrazhensky, both of them, in speaking of the disagreements, focus the attention of the congress on one resolution -- the resolution of December 5 -- forgetting that besides this resolution, there is another resolution -- on the results of the discussion -- forgetting that there was a conference, and that after the resolution adopted by the CC on December 5, there was a new wave of discussion, which received its assessment in a special resolution of the XIII Conference on the results of the discussion. They forget that the hushing-up of the XIII Conference will not pass without consequences for the opposition.

I draw the attention of the congress to the fact that at the conference, one resolution was adopted on economic policy, and two resolutions on party construction. Why is this? There was one resolution, confirmed by the entire party and adopted by the CC on December 5, and then it proved necessary to issue another resolution on the same question -- on the petty-bourgeois deviation. Whence this affliction, and how is it to be explained? It is explained by the fact that the entire discussion had two periods. The first period, which ended with the resolution of December 5, adopted unanimously, and the second period, which ended with the resolution on the petty-bourgeois deviation. We assumed at that time, that is, in the first period, that the resolution of December 5 would probably put an end to the disputes in the party, and it was precisely for this reason that I said the last time, in my report at the XIII Conference, touching upon this period, that with good will on the part of the opposition, the resolution of December 5 could have put an end to the struggle in the party. That is what I said, and that is what we all thought. But the fact is that the discussion did not end with this period. After the resolution of December 5, Trotsky's letters appeared -- a new platform with new questions -- and a new wave of discussion began, more fierce than before. This is what wrecked the possibility of peace in the party. This was the second period, which the oppositionists are now trying to hush up, to circumvent.

The fact is that between the discussion in the second period and the discussion in the first period, which found its reflection in the resolution of December 5, there is an enormous difference. In the resolution of December 5, the question of the degeneration of cadres was not raised. Trotsky, with whom we jointly composed this resolution at the time, did not so much as hint that the cadres were degenerating. He apparently reserved this addition for his subsequent speeches. Further, in the resolution of December 5, there is no question of student youth being the truest barometer. Trotsky also left this question, evidently, in reserve for new speeches in the discussion. In the resolution of December 5, there is no inclination to attack the apparatus, no demands for punitive measures against the party apparatus, about which he spoke at great length in his subsequent letters. Finally, in the resolution of December 5, there is not even a hint that groupings are needed, while in his subsequent letters Trotsky spoke at great length about groupings.

That is how enormous the difference is between the position of the opposition before December 5 and the position of its leaders after December 5.

Now Trotsky and Preobrazhensky are trying to hush up, to hide their second platform from the second period of the discussion, apparently thinking they can outwit the party. No, you will not succeed! You cannot fool the congress with clumsy cunning and diplomacy. I have no doubt that the congress will pronounce both on the first stage of the discussion, which found its expression in the resolution of December 5, and on the second stage, which found its expression in the conference resolution on the petty-bourgeois deviation.

These two resolutions are two parts of a single whole called the discussion. Whoever thinks of mixing up these two parts and thereby fooling the congress is mistaken. The party has grown, its consciousness has risen, and the party cannot be fooled with diplomacy. The whole mistake of the opposition consists in failing to understand this.

Let us consider who turned out to be right on the questions of the opposition's platform after December 5. Who was right on the four new questions raised in Trotsky's letters?

First question: the cadres are degenerating. We all demanded and demand facts pointing to the degeneration of the cadres. However, such facts were not given to us, nor can they be, for no such facts exist in nature. And upon examining the matter closely, we all noticed that there is no degeneration among us, while there is undoubtedly a deviation by certain leaders of the opposition toward petty-bourgeois politics. Who, it turns out, is right? Apparently, not the opposition.

Second question -- about student youth, which is allegedly the truest barometer. Who turned out to be right on this question? Again, apparently not the opposition. If we look at the growth of our party during this time, at the admission of 200,000 new members, it turns out that the barometer must be sought not in the ranks of student youth but in the ranks of the proletariat, that the party must orient itself not on student youth but on the proletarian core of the party. Two hundred thousand new party members -- that is the barometer. And here, too, the opposition turned out to be wrong.

Third question -- reprisals against the apparatus, an attack on the party apparatus. Who turned out to be right? Again, not the opposition. It furled its flag of attack on the apparatus and went over to the defensive. You were witnesses here to how it wriggled, retreating in disorder in the struggle against the party apparatus.

Fourth question -- on factions, on groupings. Trotsky declared that he is resolutely against groupings. That is very good. But if it is necessary to touch upon history, allow me to restore certain facts. In December, we had a sub-commission of the CC of the party for the drafting of the resolution that was published on December 5. This sub-commission consisted of three persons: Trotsky, Kamenev, and Stalin. Did you notice that in this resolution of December 5, the phrase about groupings was dropped? It speaks of the prohibition of factions, but nothing is said about the prohibition of groupings. There is merely a reference to the well-known decision of the X Congress on the unity of the party. How is this to be explained? By accident? It is no accident. Kamenev and I resolutely raised the question of prohibiting groupings. Trotsky categorically protested against the prohibition of groupings, saying that he could not vote for the resolution under these circumstances. We then limited ourselves to a reference to the resolution of the X Congress, which Trotsky at the time apparently had not read, and which speaks not only of the prohibition of factions but also of the prohibition of groupings. (Laughter, applause.) Trotsky at that time stood for the freedom of groupings. Here he praised the resolution of December 5. Yet in his letter to the CC of the RCP(b), four days after the adoption of the resolution on party construction, that is, on December 9, Trotsky wrote: "Particular alarm is caused by the purely formal position of Politburo members on the question of groupings and factional formations." How do you like that? The man who is crucifying himself for this resolution turns out to carry in his soul a particular alarm inspired by the Politburo's attitude toward the question of groupings and factions. This does not look as though he was then for the prohibition of groupings. No, Trotsky at that time stood for the formation of groupings, for their freedom.

Further, who does not remember the well-known resolution of Preobrazhensky in Moscow demanding that the question of factions, decided at the X Congress of the party, be clarified in the sense of repealing certain restrictions? Everyone in Moscow remembers this. And who among you does not remember that Preobrazhensky in his feuilletons demanded the restoration in the party of those procedures that existed in the era of the Brest peace? And we know that the party in the era of Brest was compelled to permit the existence of factions -- this we know well. And who does not remember that at the XIII Conference, at the moment when I proposed the simplest thing -- to restore in the memory of party members the seventh point of the resolution on unity, on the prohibition of groupings -- how all the oppositionists went wild, demanding that this point not be introduced? Consequently, the opposition stood on this question wholly and fully on the standpoint of freedom of groupings, expecting that it would lull the vigilance of the parties by saying that it demanded not freedom of factions but freedom of groupings. If today they declare that they are against groupings, that is very good. But I cannot by any means call this an offensive on their part: it is a retreat in disorder, a sign that the CC was right on this question, too.

After this digression, allow me, comrades, to say a few words about certain principled errors committed by Trotsky and Preobrazhensky in their speeches on party-organizational questions.

Trotsky said that the essence of democracy comes down to the question of generations. This is wrong. Fundamentally wrong. The essence of democracy does not come down to this at all. The question of generations is a secondary question. Figures from the life of our party say, the life of our party says, that the young generation of the party is step by step penetrating the cadres -- the cadres are expanding at the expense of the youth. The party has always stood and will always stand on this path. Only one who regards the cadres as a closed entity, as a privileged estate that admits no new members into its midst, only one who regards these cadres as an officer corps of the old type that considers all other party members "beneath its dignity," only one who wants to create a gap between the cadres and the party youth -- only such a person can sharpen the question of democracy on the question of party generations. The essence of democracy comes down not to the question of generations but to the question of initiative, of the active participation of party members in party leadership. This and only this is how the question of democracy can be posed, if, of course, we are speaking not of a formally democratic party but of a genuinely proletarian party, bound by indissoluble ties with the masses of the working class.

Second question. The greatest danger, says Trotsky, lies in the bureaucratization of the party apparatus. This, too, is wrong. The danger consists not in this but in the possible actual separation of the party from the non-party masses. You may have a party that has built its apparatus democratically, but if it is not connected with the working class, that democracy will be empty, not worth a penny. The party exists for the class. Insofar as it is connected with the class, has contact with it, has authority and respect on the part of the non-party masses, it can exist and develop even with bureaucratic shortcomings. If all this is lacking, then organize whatever you like within the party -- bureaucratic, democratic -- the party will certainly perish. The party is a part of the class, existing for the class and not for itself.

The third proposition -- also fundamentally erroneous: the party, says Trotsky, does not err. This is wrong. The party not infrequently errs. Ilyich taught us to teach the party correct leadership on the basis of its own mistakes. If the party had no mistakes, there would be nothing on which to teach the party. Our task consists in detecting these mistakes, revealing their roots, and showing the party and the working class how we erred and how we must not repeat these errors in the future. Without this, the development of the party would be impossible. Without this, the formation of leaders and cadres of the party would be impossible, for they are formed and educated in the struggle with their own mistakes, in overcoming these mistakes. I think Trotsky's declaration of this sort is something of a compliment combined with an attempt at mockery -- an attempt, it is true, that was unsuccessful.

Further -- on Preobrazhensky. He spoke about the purge. Preobrazhensky considers the purge an instrument of the party majority against the opposition, and evidently does not approve of the methods of the purge. This is a principled question. It is a profound error on Preobrazhensky's part not to understand that without a periodic purge of unstable elements, the party cannot be strengthened. Comrade Lenin taught that the party can be strengthened only by freeing itself step by step from the unstable elements that penetrate and will continue to penetrate the party. We would be going against Leninism if we took a negative attitude toward the purge in general. As for the present purge, what is wrong with it? They say there are individual mistakes. Of course there are. When has it ever happened that in a large undertaking there were no individual mistakes? That has never happened. Individual mistakes may and must occur, but fundamentally, the purge is correct. I was told how certain non-proletarian elements from among intellectuals and employees awaited the purge with fear and trembling. I was told of such a scene. In one office sit people subject to the purge. The cell is a Soviet one. In the other office sits the purge commission. One of the cell members, having passed through the purge, comes flying out like a bullet, drenched in sweat. They ask him to tell what happened. And he replies: "Let me catch my breath, let me catch my breath -- I can't." (Laughter.) For those individuals who suffer so and drench themselves in sweat, the purge may not be very pleasant, but for the party it is very good. (Applause.) We unfortunately still have a certain number of party members who, receiving 1,000 and 2,000 rubles a month, consider themselves party members and forget that the party exists. I know of cases where a cell at one of the commissariats where such members serve, a cell that includes, among others, chauffeurs, sent a chauffeur to conduct the purge and evoked a series of complaints to the effect that a chauffeur should not be purging Soviet grandees. Such facts have occurred here in Moscow. Party members who have apparently become detached from the party are outraged and cannot stomach the idea that "some chauffeur" will purge them. Such party members must be educated and re-educated, sometimes by way of expulsion from the party. The essential thing about the purge is that people of this sort feel that there is a master, that there is a party that can demand an accounting for sins against the party. I think that sometimes, from time to time, the master should go through the ranks of the party with a broom in hand. (Applause.)

Preobrazhensky says: your policy is correct, but the organizational line is incorrect, and therein lies the basis of the party's possible ruin. This is nonsense, comrades. It does not happen that a party's policy is correct and that it perishes because of defects in its organizational line. This never happens. The basis of party life and party work consists not in the organizational forms it assumes or may assume at a given moment, but in the party's policy, in its internal and external policy. If the party's policy is correct, if it correctly poses the political and economic questions of decisive importance for the working class, then organizational defects cannot have decisive significance -- the policy will pull through. This has always been so and will remain so in the future. People who have not understood this are poor Marxists -- they forget the ABCs of Marxism.

Was the party right on those questions over which the discussion took place -- questions of an economic character, questions of party construction? Whoever wants to verify this at one sitting, without superfluous words, must turn to the party and the working masses and pose the question: How does the non-party working mass receive the party -- with sympathy or without sympathy? If the members of the opposition had posed the question this way, if they had asked themselves: How does the working class rate the party -- with sympathy or without sympathy? -- then they would have understood that the party is on the right path. The key to understanding all things concerning the results of the discussion comes down to the Lenin enrollment. If the working class sends 200,000 of its members into the party, selecting the most honest and steadfast, then this means that such a party is invincible, for the party has essentially become an elected organ of the working class, enjoying the undivided trust of the working class. Such a party will live to the terror of its enemies; such a party cannot decay. The trouble with our opposition is that it approached questions of the party, questions about the results of the discussion, not from the standpoint of a Marxist who evaluates the specific weight of the party from the angle of its influence among the masses, for the party exists for the masses and not the other way around, but from a formal standpoint, from the standpoint of the "pure" apparatus. In order to find a simple and direct key to understanding the results of the discussion, one must turn not to chatter about the apparatus but to those 200,000 who have entered the party and who have revealed the party's deep democracy. The opposition's references in their speeches to democracy are empty chatter, but when the working class sends 200,000 new members into the party -- that is genuine democracy. Our party has become an elected organ of the working class. Point me to another such party. You cannot, for it does not yet exist in nature. But, strangely enough, even such a mighty party does not please our oppositionists. Where, then, will they find a better party on earth? I fear that in their search for a better one, they may have to emigrate to Mars. (Applause.)

The last question -- on the petty-bourgeois deviation of the opposition, on the claim that the accusations of a petty-bourgeois deviation are supposedly unjust. Is this true? No, it is not. Where did such an accusation come from; what is the basis of this accusation? The basis of the accusation is that in their unbridled agitation for democracy in the party, the oppositionists involuntarily, against their will, served as a certain mouthpiece for that new bourgeoisie that does not care a fig about democracy in our party but would very much like to obtain democracy in the country, very, very much. That part of the party that raised a commotion around questions of democracy involuntarily served as a mouthpiece and channel for agitation coming from the new bourgeoisie in the country, aimed at weakening the dictatorship, "broadening" the Soviet constitution, and restoring the political rights of the exploiters. Therein lies the mainspring and the secret of why members of the opposition, who undoubtedly love the party, and so on and so forth, without noticing it themselves, became a mouthpiece for those who stand outside the party and who want to weaken and decompose the dictatorship.

It is no accident that the Mensheviks and SRs sympathize with the opposition. Is this an accident? No, it is not. The disposition of forces on an international scale is such that any attempt to weaken the authority of our party and the stability of the dictatorship in our country is bound to be seized upon by the enemies of the revolution as a plus for themselves -- regardless of whether this attempt is made by our opposition or by the SRs and Mensheviks. Whoever does not understand this has not understood the logic of the factional struggle within our party, has not understood that the results of this struggle depend not on individuals and wishes but on the results obtained in the overall balance of the struggle of Soviet and anti-Soviet elements. Therein lies the basis of the fact that we are dealing in the opposition with a petty-bourgeois deviation.

Lenin once said about party discipline and the solidarity of our ranks: "Whoever weakens in the least the iron discipline of the party of the proletariat (especially during its dictatorship) in fact aids the bourgeoisie against the proletariat" (see Vol. XXV, p. 190). Need it still be proved that the comrades of the opposition, by their attacks on the Moscow organization and on the Central Committee of the party, weakened the discipline of the party and undermined the foundations of the dictatorship, for the party is the basic core of the dictatorship?

That is why I think the XIII Conference was right in saying that we are dealing here with a deviation toward petty-bourgeois politics. This is not yet petty-bourgeois politics. Not at all! Lenin at the X Congress explained that a deviation is something that has not yet been completed, not yet taken final form. If you do not insist, comrades of the opposition, on this petty-bourgeois deviation, on these small mistakes, everything will be corrected and the work of the party will advance. But if you do insist, the petty-bourgeois deviation may develop into petty-bourgeois politics. It depends entirely on you, comrades of the opposition.

What, then, are the conclusions? The conclusions are that we must continue to conduct work within the party on the basis of complete party unity. Look at the congress, standing as a wall behind the CC's line -- there is your party unity. The opposition represents an insignificant minority in our party. That our party is united, and that it will remain united, this present congress demonstrates by its unity, its solidarity. Whether we will have unity with that insignificant group of the party called the opposition depends on them. We are for collaborative work with the opposition. In the very heat of the discussion last year, we declared the necessity of joint work with the opposition. We confirm this here once again. But whether this unity will come about, I do not know, for unity in the future depends entirely on the opposition. Unity in this case is the result of the interaction of two factors: the majority of the party and the minority. The majority wants unity of work. Whether the minority sincerely wants this, I do not know. That depends entirely on the comrades of the opposition.

The bottom line. The bottom line is to confirm the resolutions of the XIII Conference and to approve the activities of the CC. I do not doubt that the congress will confirm these resolutions and approve the political and organizational activities of the CC. (Prolonged applause.)

Pravda No. 119, May 28, 1924.