Reply to the Discussion on the Political Report of

December 7
Comrades, after the speeches delivered by a whole series of delegates, there is little left for me to say. Concerning the speeches of Yevdokimov and Muralov I cannot say anything of their substance, for they provide no material for that. Only one thing could be said about them: Allah, forgive them their trespasses, for they know not what they are talking about. (Laughter, applause.) I should like to deal with the speeches delivered by Rakovsky and, particularly, Kamenev, whose speech was the most hypocritical and lying of all the speeches of the oppositionists. (Voices: “Quite right!”)
I
CONCERNING RAKOVSKY’S SPEECH
a) Concerning foreign policy. I think that it was to no purpose that Rakovsky touched upon the question of war and foreign policy here. Everybody knows that at the Moscow conference Rakovsky made a fool of himself on the question of war. Evidently, he came here and took the floor in order to correct that stupidity, but he made an even bigger fool of himself. (Laughter.) I think it would have been better for Rakovsky not to say anything about foreign policy.

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b) Concerning Left and Right. Rakovsky asserts that the opposition is the Left sector of our Party. That is enough to make a cat laugh, comrades. Obviously, such statements are made for political bankrupts to console themselves with. It has been proved that the opposition is the Menshevik wing of our Party, that the opposition has slipped into Menshevism, that, objectively, the opposition has become a tool of the bourgeois elements. All this has been proved over and over again. How then can there be any talk here about the opposition’s Leftism? How can a Menshevik group which, objectively, has become a tool of the “third force,” of the bourgeois elements, how can such a group be more Left than the Bolsheviks? Is it not obvious that the opposition is the Right, Menshevik wing of the C.P.S.U.(B.)? Evidently, Rakovsky has got himself thoroughly mixed up and has confused the right with the left. Do you remember Gogol’s Selifan?—”Oh you, dirty legs. . . . You don’t know which is right and which is left!”
c) Concerning the opposition’s assistance. Rakovsky says that the opposition is prepared to support the Party if the imperialists attack us. How generous, to be sure! They, a tiny group, scarcely half of one per cent of our Party, graciously promise to assist us if the imperialists attack our country. We have no faith in your assistance, and we don’t need it! We ask only one thing of you: Don’t hinder us, stop hindering us! All the rest we shall do ourselves, you can be sure of that. (Voices: “Quite right!” Applause.)
d) Concerning “signalmen.” Rakovsky states further that the opposition is signalling to us about the dangers, the difficulties, the “destruction” facing our country. Fine “signalmen,” indeed, who want to save the Party from “destruction” when they themselves are rushing to their doom and really need saving! They can barely keep on their feet themselves and yet want to save others! Isn’t it ridiculous, comrades? (Laughter.) Picture to yourselves a tiny boat at sea, barely able to keep afloat, ready to founder at any moment, and picture to yourselves a magnificent steamship powerfully cutting the waves and confidently making headway. What would you say if this tiny boat thrust itself forward to save the huge steamship? (Laughter.) It would be more than ridiculous, would it not? That is exactly the position the “signalmen” of our opposition are in now. They are signalling to us about dangers, difficulties, “destruction,” and what not, but they themselves are sinking, they do not realise that they have already gone to the bottom.
Speaking of themselves as “signalmen,” the oppositionists thereby lay claim to the leadership of the Party, of the working class, of the country. The question is— on what grounds? Have they, the oppositionists, given any practical proof that they are capable of leading anything, let alone the Party, the class, the country? Is it not a fact that the opposition, headed by people like Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev, has been leading its group for two years already and that, by their leadership, the leaders of the opposition have brought it to complete bankruptcy? Is it not a fact that during these two years the opposition has led its group from defeat to defeat? What does this show if not that the leaders of the opposition are bankrupt, that their leadership has proved to

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be leadership to defeat, not to victory? But since the leaders of the opposition failed in a small matter, what grounds are there for thinking that they will be successful in a big one? Is it not obvious that people who have gone bankrupt in leading a small group cannot possibly be entrusted with the leadership of such a big thing as the Party, the working class, the country? That is what our “signalmen” refuse to understand.
II
CONCERNING KAMENEV’S SPEECH
I pass on to Kamenev’s speech. That speech was the most lying, hypocritical, fraudulent and scoundrelly of all the opposition speeches delivered here, from this rostrum. (Voices: “Quite right!” Applause.) a) Two faces in one person. The first thing Kamenev tried to do in his speech was to cover up his tracks. The representatives of the Party spoke here about our Party’s achievements, about our successes in construction, about the improvement in our work, etc. Further, they spoke of the Menshevik sins of the oppositionists, of their having slipped into Menshevism by denying the possibility of successfully building socialism in our country, denying the existence of the dictatorship of the proletariat in the U.S.S.R., denying the expediency of the policy of alliance between the working class and the middle peasants, spreading slanders about a Thermidor, etc. Lastly, they said that these views of the opposition are incompatible with membership of our Party, that the opposition must abandon these Menshevik views if it wants to remain in the Party.

Well? Kamenev could think of nothing better than to evade these questions, to cover up his tracks and pass on. He was asked about vital questions of our programme, our policy, our work of construction; but he evaded them, as if they did not concern him. Can this behaviour of Kamenev’s be called a serious attitude towards the matter? How is this behaviour of the opposi tion to be explained? It can be explained only by one thing: the desire to deceive the Party, to lull its vigilance, to fool the Party once again. The opposition has two faces: a hypocritically genial one, and a Menshevik anti-revolutionary one. It shows the Party its hypocritically genial face when the Party puts pressure on it and demands that it should abandon its factionalism, its splitting policy. It shows its Menshevik anti-revolutionary face when it sets out to appeal to the non-proletarian forces, when it sets out to appeal to the “street” against the Party, against the Soviet regime. Just now, as you see, it has turned its hypocritically genial face to us in the endeavour to deceive the Party once again. That is why Kamenev tried to cover up his tracks by evading the highly important questions on which we disagree. Can this duplicity, this double-facedness, be tolerated any longer? One thing or the other: either the opposition wants to talk seriously to the Party, in which case it must throw off its mask; or it intends to keep its two faces, in which case it will find itself outside the Party. (Voices: “Quite right!”)
b) Concerning the traditions of Bolshevism. Kamenev asserts that there is nothing in the traditions of our Party, in the traditions of Bolshevism, that justifies

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the demand that a member of the Party should give up certain views that are incompatible with our Party’s ideology, with our programme. Is that correct? Of course not. More than that, it is a lie, comrades! Is it not a fact that all of us, including Kamenev, expelled Myasnikov and the Myasnikovites from the Party? Why did we expel them? Because their Menshevik views were incompatible with the Party’s views.
Is it not a fact that all of us, including Kamenev, expelled part of the “Workers’ Opposition” from the Party? Why did we expel it? Because its Menshevik views were incompatible with our Party’s views.
Why were Ossovsky and Dashkovsky expelled from the Party? Why were Maslow, Ruth Fischer, Katz and others expelled from the Comintern? Because their views were incompatible with the ideology of the Comintern, with the ideology of the C.P.S.U.(B.).
Our Party would not be a Leninist Party if it permitted the existence of anti-Leninist elements within our organisations. If this were permitted, then why not bring the Mensheviks into our Party? What is to be done with people who, while in the ranks of our Party, have slipped into Menshevism and propagate their anti-Leninist views? What can there be in common between the Leninist Party and such people? Kamenev slanders our Party, abandons the traditions of our Party, abandons the traditions of Bolshevism by asserting that we can tolerate within our Party people who profess and preach Menshevik views. And it is precisely because Kamenev, and the entire opposition with him, trample upon the revolutionary traditions of our Party that the Party demands that the opposition should abandon its anti-Leninist views. c) The opposition’s pretended devotion to principle. Kamenev asserts that it is difficult for him and the other oppositionists to abandon their views because they are accustomed to defend their views in the Bolshevik manner. He says that it would be unprincipled on the part of the opposition to abandon its views. It appears, then, that the leaders of the opposition are men of high principle. Is that true, comrades? Do the leaders of the opposition really value their principles, their views, their convictions so highly? It does not seem like it, comrades. It does not seem like it, bearing in mind the history of the formation of the opposition bloc. (Laughter.) The very opposite is the case. History shows, facts show, that nobody has jumped so easily from one set of principles to another, nobody has changed his views so easily and freely as the leaders of our opposition have done. Why, then, should they not give up their views now, too, if the interests of the Party demand it?
Here are some examples from the history of Trotskyism. It is well known that Lenin, mustering the Party, convened a conference of Bolsheviks in Prague in 1912. It is well known that that conference was of very great importance in the history of our Party, for it drew a dividing line between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks and united the Bolshevik organisations all over the country into a single Bolshevik Party. It is well known that in that same year, 1912, a Menshevik conference of the August bloc, headed by Trotsky, took place. Further, it is well known that that conferTHE FIFTEENTH CONGRESS OF THE C.P.S.U.(B.)
ence proclaimed war on the Bolshevik conference and called upon the workers’ organisations to liquidate Lenin’s Party. What did the conference of Trotsky’s August bloc accuse the Prague Bolshevik conference of at that time? Of all the mortal sins. It accused it of usurpation, sectarianism, of organising a “coup d’état” in the Party, and the devil knows what else.
Here is what the conference of the August bloc said at that time about the Bolshevik conference in Prague in its statement to the Second International: “The conference declares that that conference (the Bolshevik conference in Prague in 1912—J. St.) is an open attempt of a group of persons, who have quite deliberately led the Party to a split, to usurp the Party’s flag, and it expresses its profound regret that several Party organisations and comrades have fallen victims to this deception and have thereby facilitated the splitting and usurpatory policy of Lenin’s sect. The conference expresses its conviction that all the Party organisations in Russia and abroad will protest against the coup d’état that has been brought about, will refuse to recognise the central bodies elected at that conference, and will by every means help to restore the unity of the Party by the convocation of a genuine all-Party conference.” (From the statement of the August bloc to the Second International, published in Vorwärts, March 26, 1912.)
As you see, everything is here: Lenin’s sect, usurpation, and a “coup d’état” in the Party. And what happened? A few years passed—and Trotsky abandoned those views of his about the Bolshevik Party. He not only abandoned his views, but crawled on his belly to the Bolshevik Party, joining it as one of its active members. (Laughter.)
What grounds are there for assuming, after all this, that Trotsky and the Trotskyists will not be able once again to abandon their views about Thermidor tendencies in our Party, about usurpation, etc.? Another example from the same sphere.
It is known that at the end of 1924, Trotsky published a pamphlet entitled The Lessons of October. It is known that in this pamphlet Trotsky described Kamenev and Zinoviev as the Right, semi-Menshevik wing of our Party. It is known that Trotsky’s pamphlet was the cause of a whole discussion in our Party. And what happened? Only about a year passed—and Trotsky abandoned his views and proclaimed that Zinoviev and Kamenev were not the Right wing of our Party but its Left, revolutionary wing.
Another example, this time from the history of the Zinoviev group. It is known that Zinoviev and Kamenev have written a whole pile of pamphlets against Trotskyism. It is known that as far back as 1925 Zinoviev and Kamenev declared, together with the whole Party, that Trotskyism is incompatible with Leninism. It is known that both Zinoviev and Kamenev, together with the whole Party, carried resolutions, both at the congresses of our Party and at the Fifth Congress of the Comintern, about Trotskyism being a petty-bourgeois deviation. And what happened? Less than a year passed after that before they renounced their views and proclaimed that Trotsky’s group was a genuinely Leninist and revolutionary group within our Party. (A voice: “A mutual amnesty!”)
Such, comrades, are the facts, many more of which could be quoted if desired.
Is it not obvious from this that the high devotion to principle of the leaders of the opposition that Kamenev

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tells us about here is a fairy-tale that has nothing in common with reality?
Is it not obvious that nobody in our Party has managed to renounce his principles so easily and freely as Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev? (Laughter.) The question arises: what grounds are there for assuming that the leaders of the opposition, who have abandoned their principles and their views several times already, will not be able to abandon them once again? Is it not obvious that our demand that the opposition should abandon its Menshevik views is not as harsh for the leaders of the opposition as Kamenev tries to make out? (Laughter.) This is not the first time they have had to abandon their views, so why should they not abandon them just once again? (Laughter.)
d) Either the Party, or the opposition. Kamenev asserts that it is wrong to require the oppositionists to abandon certain views of theirs which have become incompatible with the Party’s ideology and programme. I have already shown how foolish this assertion of Kamenev’s is, bearing in mind the opposition bloc’s past and present. But let us assume for a moment that Kamenev is right. What will the position be then? Can the Party, our Party, abandon its views, convictions, principles? Can our Party be required to abandon its views, its principles? The Party has arrived at the definite conviction that the opposition must abandon its anti-Leninist views, that if it does not do so it will be sent flying out of the Party. If it is wrong to require the opposition to abandon its convictions, why is it right to require the Party to abandon its views and convictions about the opposition? According to Kamenev, however, the opposition cannot abandon its anti-Leninist views, but the Party must abandon its view that the opposition cannot be allowed to remain in our Party unless the opposition abandons its anti-Leninist views. Where is the logic in this? (Laughter, applause.)
Kamenev asserts that the oppositionists are courageous men who stand up for their convictions to the last. I have little belief in the courage and devotion to principle of the leaders of the opposition. I have especially little belief in the courage, for example, of Zinoviev or Kamenev (laughter), who abuse Trotsky one day and embrace him the next. (A voice: “They are accustomed to play leap-frog.”) But let us assume for a moment that the leaders of our opposition have retained some modicum of courage and devotion to principle. What grounds are there for assuming that the Party is less courageous and devoted to principle than, say, Zinoviev, Kamenev or Trotsky? What grounds are there for assuming that the Party will more easily abandon its convictions about the opposition, its conviction that the latter’s Menshevik views are incompatible with the Party’s ideology and programme, than that the leaders of the opposition will abandon their views, which they change every now and again like gloves? (Laughter.)
Is it not clear from this that Kamenev is requiring the Party to abandon its views about the opposition and the latter’s Menshevik mistakes? Is not Kamenev going too far? Will he not agree that it is dangerous to go so far?
The question is this: either the Party, or the opposition. Either the opposition abandons its anti-Leninist views; or it does not do so—in which case not even the

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memory of it will remain in the Party. (Voices: “Quite right!” Applause.)
e) The opposition has broken away from the traditions of Bolshevism. Kamenev asserts that there is nothing in Bolshevik traditions that justifies the demand that members of the Party should abandon their views. Speakers here have fully proved that is not correct. Facts confirm that Kamenev is telling a downright untruth. But the question is: is there in Bolshevik traditions any instance of what the opposition permits itself to do and continues doing? The opposition organised a faction and converted it into a party within our Bolshevik Party. But who has ever heard that Bolshevik traditions permitted anybody to commit such an outrageous act? How can one talk about Bolshevik traditions while at the same time bringing about a split in the Party and the formation of a new, anti-Bolshevik party within it? Further. The opposition organised an illegal printing press, entering into a bloc with bourgeois intellectuals, who, in their turn, were found to be in a bloc with avowed whiteguards. The question arises: how can one talk about the traditions of Bolshevism when one permits such an outrageous act, which borders on downright treachery to the Party and the Soviet regime? Lastly, the opposition organised an anti-Party, anti-Soviet demonstration, appealing to the “street,” appealing to non-proletarian elements. But how can one talk about Bolshevik traditions when one appeals to the “street” against one’s own Party, against one’s own Soviet regime? Who has ever heard that Bolshevik traditions permitted such an outrageous act, which borders on downright counter-revolution?

Is it not obvious that Kamenev speaks of the traditions of Bolshevism in order to screen his rupture with those traditions in the interests of his anti-Bolshevik group?
The opposition gained nothing from its appeal to the “street” because the opposition proved to be an insignificant coterie. That was not its fault but its misfortune. And what if the opposition had a little more strength behind it? Is it not obvious that its appeal to the “street” would have turned into an open putsch against the Soviet regime? Is it difficult to understand that, in essence, this attempt of the opposition’s differed in no way from the well-known attempt of the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries in 1918? (Voices: “Quite right!”) By rights, for those attempts we ought to have arrested all the active members of the opposition on November 7. (Voices: “Quite right!” Prolonged applause.) We did not do so only because we took pity on them, we displayed magnanimity and wanted to give them an opportunity to come to their senses. But they interpreted our magnanimity as weakness. Is it not obvious that Kamenev’s talk about Bolshevik traditions is empty and deceitful talk intended to screen the opposition’s rupture with the traditions of Bolshevism?
f) Concerning sham unity and genuine unity. Kamenev gave us a song here about unity. He positively warbled, begging the Party to come to the rescue and establish unity “at all costs.” They, the leaders of the opposition, don’t you see, are opposed to the two-party policy. They, don’t you see, are in favour of Party unity “at all costs.” And yet, we know for certain that at the very moment

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that Kamenev was singing about Party unity here, his supporters were passing resolutions at their secret meetings to the effect that the opposition’s declaration on unity was a manoeuvre designed to preserve its forces and enable its splitting policy to be continued. On the one hand, the opposition sings about Party unity at the congress of the Leninist Party. On the other hand, the opposition works underground to split the Party, to organise a second party, to undermine Party unity. That is what they call unity “at all costs.” Is it not time to stop this criminal, swindling game?
Kamenev talked about unity. Unity with whom? Unity with the Party, or with Shcherbakov? Is it not time to understand that Leninists and Messieurs the Shcherbakovs cannot be united in one Party? Kamenev talked about unity. Unity with whom? With Maslow and Souvarine, or with the Comintern and the C.P.S.U.(B.)? Is it not time to understand that one cannot speak of unity with the C.P.S.U.(B.) and the Comintern while persisting in unity with the Maslows and Souvarines? Is it not time to understand that it is impossible to unite Leninist views with the opposition’s Menshevik views?
Unite Lenin and Abramovich? No thank you, comrades! It is time to stop this swindling game. That is why I think that Kamenev’s talk about unity “at all costs” is a hypocritical game intended to deceive the Party.
We need genuine unity and not playing at unity. Have we genuine, Leninist unity in our Party? Yes, we have. When 99 per cent of our Party vote for the Party and against the opposition, that is real, genuine, proletarian unity such as we have not had in our Party before. Here you have the Party Congress, at which there is not a single opposition delegate. (Applause.) What is that if not the unity of our Leninist Party? That is what we call the Leninist unity of the Bolshevik Party. g) “Finish with the opposition!” The Party has done all that could possibly be done to put the opposition on the Leninist road. The Party has displayed the utmost leniency and magnanimity to enable the opposition to come to its senses and rectify its mistakes. The Party has called upon the opposition to renounce its anti-Leninist views openly and honestly, before the whole Party. The Party has called upon the opposition to admit its mistakes and denounce them in order to free itself of them once and for all. The Party has called upon the opposition completely to disarm, both ideologically and organisationally. What is the Party’s object in doing so? Its object is to finish with the opposition and to pass on to positive work. Its object is to liquidate the opposition at last and obtain the opportunity to get right down to our great work of construction.
Lenin said at the Tenth Congress: “We do not want an opposition now . . . we must now put an end to the opposition, finish with it, we have had enough of oppositions now!”85 The Party wants this slogan of Lenin’s to be put into effect at last in the ranks of our Party. (Prolonged applause.)
If the opposition disarms—well and good. If it refuses to disarm—we shall disarm it ourselves. (Voices: “Quite right!” Applause.)

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III
THE SUMMING UP
From Kamenev’s speech it is evident that the opposition does not intend to disarm completely. The opposition’s declaration of December 3 indicates the same thing. Evidently, the opposition prefers to be outside the Party. Well, let it be outside the Party. There is nothing terrible, or exceptional, or surprising, in the fact that they prefer to be outside the Party, that they are cutting themselves off from the Party. If you study the history of our Party you will find that always, at certain serious turns taken by our Party, a certain section of the old leaders fell out of the cart of the Bolshevik Party and made room for new people. A turn is a serious thing, comrades. A turn is dangerous for those who do not sit firmly in the Party cart. Not everybody can keep his balance when a turn is made. You turn the cart—and on looking round you find that somebody has fallen out. (Applause.)
Let us take 1903, the period of the Second Congress of our Party. That was the period of the Party’s turn from agreement with the liberals to a mortal struggle against the liberal bourgeoisie, from preparing for the struggle against tsarism to open struggle against it for completely routing tsarism and feudalism. At that time the Party was headed by the six: Plekhanov, Zasulich, Martov, Lenin, Axelrod and Potresov. The turn proved fatal to five out of the six. They fell out of the cart. Lenin alone remained. (Applause.) It turned out that the old leaders of the Party, the founders of the Party (Plekhanov, Zasulich and Axelrod) plus two young ones

(Martov and Potresov) were against one, also a young one, Lenin. If only you knew how much howling, weeping and wailing there was then that the Party was doomed, that the Party would not hold out, that nothing could be done without the old leaders. The howling and wailing subsided, however, but the facts remained. And the facts were that precisely thanks to the departure of the five the Party succeeded in getting on to the right road. It is now clear to every Bolshevik that if Lenin had not waged a resolute struggle against the five, if the five had not been pushed aside, our Party could not have rallied as a Bolshevik Party capable of leading the proletarians to the revolution against the bourgeoisie. (Voices: “That’s true!”)
Let us take the next period, the period 1907-08. That was the period of our Party’s turn from open revolutionary struggle against tsarism to flanking methods of struggle, to the use of all kinds of legal possibilities —from insurance funds to the floor of the Duma. It was the period of retreat after we had been defeated in the 1905 Revolution. This turn required of us that we should master new methods of struggle in order, after mustering our forces, to resume the open revolutionary struggle against tsarism. But this turn proved fatal to a number of old Bolsheviks. Alexinsky fell out of the cart. At one time he was quite a good Bolshevik. Bogdanov fell out. He was one of the most prominent leaders of our Party. Rozhkov—a former member of the Central Committee of our Party—fell out. And so forth. There was, perhaps, at that time no less howling and wailing that the Party would perish than in 1903. The howling, however, subsided but the facts remained.

And the facts showed that the Party would not have been able to get on to the right road under the new conditions of struggle had it not purged itself of the people who were wavering and hindering the cause of the revolution. What was Lenin’s object at that time? He had only one object: to rid the Party of the unstable and whining elements as quickly as possible, so that they should not get in our way. (Applause.)
That is how our Party grew, comrades.
Our Party is a living organism like every organism, it undergoes a process of metabolism: the old and obsolete passes away (applause), the new and growing lives and develops. (Applause.) Some go away, both at the top and at the bottom. New ones grow, both at the top and at the bottom, and lead the cause forward. That is how our Party grew. That is how it will continue to grow.
The same must be said about the present period of our revolution. We are in the period of a turn from the restoration of industry and agriculture to the reconstruction of the entire national economy, to its reconstruction on a new technical basis, when the building of socialism is no longer merely in prospect, but a living, practical matter, which calls for the surmounting of extremely great difficulties of an internal and external character.
You know that this turn has proved fatal to the leaders of our opposition, who were scared by the new difficulties and intended to turn the Party in the direction of surrender. And if certain leaders, who do not want to sit firmly in the cart, now fall out, it is nothing to be surprised at. It will merely rid the Party of people
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who are getting in its way and hindering its progress. Evidently, they seriously want to free themselves from our Party cart. Well, if some of the old leaders who are turning into trash intend to fall out of the cart— a good riddance to them! (Stormy and prolonged applause. The whole congress rises and gives Comrade Stalin an ovation.)