Concluding Remarks at the Plenum of the CC VKP(b), March 5, 1937 (Stenographic Version)

Comrades, I spoke in my report on general questions of the matter under discussion. Now permit me in my concluding remarks to say a few words on more concrete questions.

By now, evidently, everyone has understood and realized that an excessive enthusiasm for economic campaigns and economic matters, an enthusiasm explained by the fact that these matters produce immediate results -- which draws people in all the more -- that this extraordinary enthusiasm, coupled with neglect of other questions, leads to a dead end. I think the comrades have understood and realized this.

But from the speeches of some of the speakers, it is evident that they draw extreme conclusions from this clear and, I would say, axiomatic proposition. There were voices: "Well, now, thank God, we will be free of economic matters..."; "Now we can take up party-political work."

This, comrades, is the other extreme. One cannot lurch from one extreme to the other. Politics cannot be separated from economics. We cannot walk away from economic matters any more than we can and should walk away from politics. It is only for the sake of methodological study, for convenience, that we separate politics from economics in our heads. In life, the opposite is true; in practice, politics and economics are not separated and are inseparable. They exist together and act together. Under no circumstances can we walk away from economic matters. Under no circumstances. The meaning of the draft resolution is that our party leaders should not substitute themselves for the economic organs, should not transfer the headquarters of economic work -- whether the question concerns industry or agriculture, it is all the same -- to the office of the first secretary. That is what is at issue.

Of course, it will not be possible to rid ourselves of economic trivia at once. We are only establishing a direction. In order to implement the directive about freeing ourselves from economic trivia and strengthening party-political work, time is needed. The organs of agriculture must be staffed and given better people. Industry is more solidly built, and its organs will probably not allow you to substitute for them. And that is very good. The situation is weaker with the organs of agriculture, both in the center and in the localities. These organs must be strengthened in every way with people, and the main thing is to master the method of Bolshevik leadership of Soviet and economic organs -- not to substitute for them and depersonalize them, but to help them, strengthen them, and lead through them, not around them. That is what the question comes down to.

Until the organs of agriculture have been staffed and strengthened, you will unfortunately still have to deal closely with agricultural matters in the near future, so that these matters are not abandoned altogether. So then, the one must be combined with the other. This is the method of Bolshevik leadership of economic organs, of the economy in general -- of both industry and agriculture. By strengthening the organs of the economy, staffing them with the best people, help them from the outside, give them guiding ideas, and lead the economy through them -- without lurching to the other extreme and washing your hands of economic work. That will not work, comrades; it will produce the other extreme.

The next question -- about wreckers, saboteurs, and all other agents of the Trotskyist and non-Trotskyist type, of foreign states. I think all the comrades have understood and realized that this breed of people -- whatever flag it may hide behind, Trotskyist or Bukharinist, it is all the same to us -- this breed of people has nothing in common with any political current whatsoever in the workers' movement. It is a desperate gang of hired killers, saboteurs, spies, wreckers, and so on and so forth. I think people have understood and realized this. But I am afraid that in the speeches of certain comrades, the thought crept in: now let us strike right and left at anyone who ever walked down the same street with some Trotskyist, or who ever dined somewhere in the same public cafeteria next to a Trotskyist. Now let us strike right and left.

That will not work; that is no good. Among the former Trotskyists we have remarkable people -- you know this -- good workers who ended up with the Trotskyists by accident, then broke with them and work as genuine Bolsheviks whom one can envy. One of these was Comrade Dzerzhinsky. (A voice from the floor: Who?) Comrade Dzerzhinsky -- you knew him. Therefore, while smashing the Trotskyist nests, you must look around, dear comrades, and strike with discrimination, not picking on people, not picking on individual comrades who once, I repeat, happened to walk down the same street with a Trotskyist. That is the second question.

Third question. What does it mean to select cadres properly; what does it mean to select cadres properly? The Bolsheviks understand this matter as follows. To select cadres properly means to select a worker, first, on the basis of his devotion to the party -- whether he deserves political trust -- and second, on the basis of his professional qualifications -- whether he is suitable for the given work. This is an axiomatic proposition that needs no explanation. This rule has been violated among us. Violations of this rule have been discussed. I would like to demonstrate the violations of this Bolshevik rule with two examples -- examples that show that people are sometimes selected not on the basis of political and professional principle, but from the standpoint of personal acquaintance, personal devotion, cronyism -- in general, on the basis of considerations of a philistine character, considerations that should have no place in our practice. Take Comrade Mirzoyan. He works in Kazakhstan; he worked earlier in Azerbaijan for a long time, and after Azerbaijan he worked in the Urals. I warned him several times: do not drag along your cronies from Azerbaijan or from the Urals; promote people in Kazakhstan; do not fence yourself off from the local people in Kazakhstan -- because what does it mean to drag around with you a whole group of cronies from Azerbaijan who are fundamentally unconnected with Kazakhstan? What does it mean to drag around with you a whole group of cronies from the Urals who are likewise fundamentally unconnected with Kazakhstan? It means that you have acquired a certain independence from the local organizations and, if you will, a certain independence from the CC. He has his own group; I have my own group; they are personally devoted to me...

Well, what does this look like? Can one select people this way? What good can come of it -- I ask you? I warned Comrade Mirzoyan that one cannot behave this way, that one must select cadres from local people. But he, you see, created his own group of people personally devoted to him, selected not on the Bolshevik principle, and among them there are also Trotskyists. But he hopes that since they are devoted to him, they will work with him forever. And what if he is no longer there?...

Another comrade -- Vainov, like Mirzoyan, he brought people from other oblasts.

What should be the attitude of the local cadres toward these people brought in from outside? Of course, guarded. What does it mean -- to bring in your own people, to assemble a group of people personally devoted to you -- from outside? It means expressing distrust of the local cadres. What grounds do Mirzoyan or Vainov have for expressing distrust of the local cadres -- let them tell us. These comrades assume too much and lead themselves astray, and consequently lead the party astray as well.

That is no way to select people. Now take Comrade Sergo, too -- he was one of our foremost, one of our best members of the Politburo, an economic leader of the highest type, I would say -- he, too, suffered from such a malady: he would become attached to someone, declare the person personally devoted to him, and carry on with them, contrary to warnings from the party, from the CC. How much grief he caused himself fussing over Lominadze. How much grief he caused himself, always hoping that he could straighten out Lominadze, while Lominadze was deceiving him, leading him astray at every step. How much grief he caused himself defending against everyone what now turn out to be such scoundrels as Vardanyan, Gogoberidze, Meliksatov, Okudzhava -- now exposed in the Urals. How much grief he caused himself, and how much grief he caused us, and he made a mistake in this, because he suffered and agonized more than all of us that these people, whom he trusted more than anyone and whom he considered personally devoted to him, turned out to be the basest scoundrels. The experience of a man, a leader of the highest type, shows that the method of personal selection of people is ruinous, all the more so the experience of people like Mirzoyan and Vainov, whom I cannot consider leaders of the highest type, but whom I cite to show from their experience that these people lead them and lead the party astray. This method of selection is un-Bolshevik; I would say it is an anti-party method of selecting people, and the comrades must put an end to it before it is too late.

Fourth question. What does it mean to verify work, to verify execution? How should workers be checked; is verification needed at all? Unquestionably it is needed. Without checking people by the results of their work, it is impossible to get to know any worker, to ascertain what he is about and what he represents. One cannot draw conclusions about the nature of a given worker on the basis of speeches, declarations, verbal statements. That is impossible; it is dangerous; it is naive. In order to get to know workers, they must be checked in their work, by the results of their work, day in and day out.

What kinds of verification are there in our practice? There is verification from above -- a superior leader, having subordinate leaders under him, checks on them, visits them, or summons them, and in general checks them by the results of their work. That is very good, that is splendid, but it is not enough. Even this rule is violated all the time among us. When a person has been earmarked for a job and placed there, they then forget about him, do not check on him, do not help him. Many of them ask for help, squeal, cry out, send letters and telegrams -- no answer, no greeting; they simply placed the man on the job and that means they handed the work over to him on lease. This is a violation of the elementary rule of the Leninist principle of verifying execution.

So, this verification is from above -- the verification that goes from above, when the chief checks on his subordinates; and there is verification from below, when the leaders are checked by the party masses or by the non-party masses. Party gatherings or non-party gatherings. Or the people themselves check, through elections. The elections we are organizing for the supreme organs of our country -- these elections will be a great test for many of our workers. The means for verification from below are regular gatherings, party and non-party, and reports by the leaders -- honest, practical reports on their work. Many comrades have abandoned this practice, having been carried away by economic campaigns and having imagined themselves [...] of the world. But they made a mistake, as it turned out, and got tangled up.

Gatherings, party and non-party, must be restored at the people's commissariats, at enterprises -- what used to be called production conferences. It is hard to assemble an entire factory; we have factories where 30-40 thousand work; but to select an active core of the best people, party and non-party, and to report to them and learn what they think and what errors they have noticed -- that should be done.

Here is one means of verifying workers from below: party gatherings, non-party gatherings, and accountability at these gatherings on the part of the leaders. And the other means is the restoration of democratic centralism in our internal party life. That, too, is verification, comrades. Restoration, on the basis of the statutes, of the electability of party organs. Secret ballot, the right to challenge candidates without exception, and the right to criticize. There is a second means of verification from below. Both must be practiced.

So, we have two paths for verifying workers: the path going from above, from the chief to the subordinate, and the other path -- the path going from below, control from below. And control from below takes two forms: control through active gatherings with accountability on the part of leaders, and control through the restoration of democratic elections in our party, when party members have the right to challenge any candidate, to criticize as much as they wish, and to compel the leaders to account to the party masses.

Fifth question. What does it mean to educate cadres on their own mistakes? Lenin taught us that the best means of educating cadres, of raising and developing the reserve of the party or any other organization, is to educate them on their own mistakes. What does this mean? It means helping the cadres to uncover their mistakes in time; helping every worker, every leader, to uncover his mistakes in time; helping them to honestly acknowledge these mistakes and helping them to correct their mistakes honestly and to the end, without fearing that they may, as they say, make enemies in the process.

There are few people or workers for whom this is not unpleasant, but people must be taught to arm themselves with courage, to listen to criticism, to accustom themselves to it, and thereby give workers the opportunity to advance and grow.

Some examples. You remember our mistakes in collective construction in 1930, when there was talk of "dizziness from success." The Central Committee took a firm line on merciless criticism of our cadres. And at that time, as collective farms were being created, there was great competition among the oblasts -- who would achieve the higher percentage of collectivization. A group of propagandists would come to a village, assemble 500-600 households, hold a meeting, and put the question: who is for collectivization? And they would make very transparent hints: if you are against collectivization, it means you are against Soviet power. The peasants would say: we are for it, organize us, we are for collectivization. After this, telegrams would fly to the Central Committee that collectivization is growing, while the farms remained on the old track. No real collectives; there was only a vote for collectivization.

When we checked the Moscow Oblast, it turned out that supposedly 85% had been collectivized in 1930. How much of this percentage was real and how much was on paper? It turned out to be only 8% collectivization instead of 85. You shake your heads, but it was the same everywhere. This disease was universal; every oblast was infected with it to a greater or lesser degree.

The Central Committee struck at these mistakes. Our cadres were able to turn things around, and we educated our cadres on this. If we had not exposed these mistakes, if the Central Committee had been afraid that we might lose some cadres, that we might cause dissatisfaction, if the Central Committee had been afraid to go against the grain, if the Central Committee had gone against this current, we would have ruined the entire cause and demoralized all our cadres. We would have ruined the growth of agricultural cadres, the growth of collective farms. Now we have fairly good leaders of the collective farm movement -- precisely because we exposed their mistakes to the end, compelled them to acknowledge these mistakes and take a new road.

Another example -- the Shakhty affair. It would have been a great miscalculation for all of us if we had not taken up the matter in a genuine Bolshevik way, if we had not given our cadres the opportunity to learn from their own mistakes -- we would have ruined the cause of industry. Many comrades were frightened that to go against the current meant making enemies. The leadership of the Central Committee of the party unleashed self-criticism, merciless self-criticism, and we won. We uncovered our mistakes and educated our economic cadres on this basis. Since that time -- since the Shakhty affair -- we have had genuine, real economic cadres. Ten years have passed since the Shakhty affair, and we have raised magnificent Bolshevik cadres in technical leadership as well. These cadres would not have existed; they would have been demoralized and disorganized if we had given in, even for a moment, to the consideration that going against the current might offend people and make enemies.

That is what it means to educate cadres on their own mistakes. That is what it means to have the courage to honestly acknowledge one's mistakes, analyze them, and find ways to correct them. Only in such an environment do cadres grow and become tempered. This is what Lenin taught us, and Lenin's words have been vindicated before our eyes many times over.

Sixth question -- what does it mean to spare cadres? And how can they generally be preserved and cultivated? To spare cadres. Very many comrades think as follows: if one softens the mistakes of certain comrades, if one glosses over them and says only half of what should be said about comrades' mistakes, then we are sparing the cadres and preserving them. Is this right or wrong? He who thinks that glossing over the mistakes of our cadres means preserving them, sparing them, is ruining the cadres, is surely ruining them. To soften the mistakes of our cadres, to gloss over them -- that means not to spare the cadres but to ruin them. To ruin them.

I would like again to adduce a few facts from the area of the practical work of some very responsible leaders. This was the case with Comrade Sergo, whom I respect no less, but rather more, than certain comrades, but about whose mistakes I must speak here in order to give both us and you the opportunity to learn.

Take his relations with Lominadze. Lominadze had made quite serious mistakes along both party and state lines. As early as 1926-27-28, Comrade Sergo knew about these mistakes better than any of us. He did not inform us about them, relying on himself, believing that he could straighten this out on his own, taking upon himself too much in this matter. He had a rich correspondence with him -- Comrade Sergo with Lominadze. We subsequently, only 8 or 9 years after these letters had been written, learned at the CC that they were of an anti-party character. Comrade Sergo did not inform us about this, out of his exceptional kindness, of course -- he was hoping to reform him.

Since we did not know Lominadze's true nature, we -- the CC did not know -- we began to promote him to certain posts in order to see what would come of him. It is very difficult to know a person. There is one method -- to take the risk, to place him, to give him maximum responsibility, and to see what comes of it. We took this risk, placed him as secretary of the Transcaucasian party organization. If we had known about Sergo's correspondence, we would under no circumstances have allowed it, would not have placed him in that post. But we did not know. We placed him there. It turned out that the man was working not for the party, but against the party.

At this point, Comrade Sergo received one very bad, unpleasant, and unparty-like letter from Lominadze. He came to me and says: "I want to read you a letter from Lominadze." -- "What does it say?" -- "Bad things." -- "Give it to me; I will report it to the Politburo; the CC must know what kind of workers there are." -- "I cannot." -- "Why?" -- "I gave him my word." -- "How could you give him your word? You are the chairman of the CCC and the guardian of party traditions. How could you give a man your word of honor that you would not show an anti-party letter about the CC and against the CC to the Central Committee? And what, you will have secrets with him, with Lominadze, against the CC? What does this look like, Comrade Sergo; how could you agree to this?" -- "I just cannot." He asked several times, begged to read it. Evidently, morally, he wanted to share with me the responsibility for the secrets he had with Lominadze -- not sharing his views, of course, which were undoubtedly against the CC. It was a purely gentlemanly, I would say chivalrous, approach to the matter. I told him that I did not wish to be a participant in such a secret; I still consider myself a member of the CC. Give me the letter; I will immediately send it to the members of the Politburo so that they know what kind of workers there are. I will report it to the CC. And so I told Sergo: "You will ruin him, Lominadze." -- "Why? If you, on this small matter -- the letter is anti-party, but not so much that he could be expelled from the party for it -- if you on this small matter tell the members of the CC about the letter, then on a large matter Lominadze will be more cautious. But if you hide this thing from the CC and continue to defend him, Lominadze will continue to hope that he can go on making certain mistakes against the CC, since there are people who can protect him, and Lominadze may repeat these mistakes, but later he may be caught on a larger matter, and if he is caught on a larger matter, we will smash him to smithereens, not a speck of dust will remain. You are ruining him; you think you are sparing Lominadze. From a philistine standpoint, perhaps it looks that way, but from a genuine, Bolshevik standpoint, you are ruining him, because you are not pulling him up short in time." He says he had received such letters before. That is bad; you have surely ruined him; you have placed him under the CC's blow, because now he will be caught on a larger matter and will not be spared.

And that is exactly what happened. He was caught on a larger matter. Well, of course, no one suffered this tragedy more than Sergo, because he had personally trusted the man, and the man had betrayed his personal trust. He demanded Lominadze's execution. Such an extreme. From defending him, he went to demanding execution. We said: "No, we will not execute him; we will not arrest him; we will not even expel him from the party. We will simply remove him from the CC." There is an example for you, comrades, the example of a man, Comrade Sergo, through whose hands tens of thousands of people passed, who raised thousands of magnificent economic and party leaders. You see, this is what happens when you gloss over, conceal a comrade's mistakes, fail to pull him up short in time, and instead cover for him -- you ruin him, you surely ruin him.

So then, what does it mean to spare cadres and preserve them? It means: if they have mistakes, point them out in time, pull them up short in time, without concealing or glossing over. This is the only means of sparing cadres, the only means of preserving them.

How should we prepare and retrain our cadres in the spirit of Leninism? A brief outline on this question is set forth in the draft resolution. I said something about it in my report; a few more concrete words could be said.

Above all, comrades, we must exert ourselves, and each of us must prepare two deputies for himself. Whether they are the present second secretaries or some others more suitable -- that depends on your perspicacity and your ability to judge people. But the deputies must be real deputies, full-fledged, capable of replacing you, because if the Plenum of the CC adopts this point in the draft resolution -- and it apparently will -- then it is clear that we will proceed to implement this.

We have 102,000 cells in the party, 102,000 primary party organizations. That means 102,000 secretaries of primary party organizations. We will recall all of them for courses in 4 or 5 months, recall them in 3 or 4 months -- practice will show! But before recalling them, these secretaries must each nominate two deputies for themselves. And so that they are not mistaken about people, the corresponding raicoms must confirm the lists of deputies. We must put through training and retraining of a party-political character 102,000 secretaries. These are our party NCOs; very much depends on them; I would say nine-tenths of our work depends on them.

We have over 3,500 raion secretaries, urban and rural. Each of them must obligatorily select two full-fledged deputies capable of replacing them -- whether these are the present second secretaries or not, I do not know, but we no longer wish to tolerate the situation where secretaries choose as their deputies some nonentities, people to run errands. That is no good. The CC will demand that the deputies be genuine, full-fledged, and capable of replacing the raion secretaries. We have about 3,500 secretaries. If we put all of them through study, through retraining, through courses, through what are called Leninist courses -- we will work out the program for these courses; we will take this up together with you, representatives of the oblasts and republics. Centers will be designated where these courses are to be organized. Of course, there is nothing final in the draft resolution; more centers can be designated, or fewer, as long as the education is conducted properly, not the way it is now, unfortunately -- for statistics, for reports, for addresses -- but for genuine political Leninist study.

We have several hundred city committees. After this Plenum, evidently, the first secretary of the obcom or kraicom should also be the first secretary of the gorcom [city committee]. That is clear. In order to raise urban work, direct and immediate responsibility must be placed on him. Well, there will be second secretaries, perhaps two of them. We would like the first secretaries of the gorkoms to select for themselves two full-fledged deputies so that they too can be sent to courses on party history.

We have over 100 kraicoms; there too sit secretaries, as well as in the national oblasts. We will also demand that each first secretary try to nominate two full-fledged deputies for himself. We will confirm these deputies at the CC in order that afterward the first secretaries of the obcoms, kraicoms, and CC of the national communist parties deign to come to Moscow and hold the sort of conferences we are having. We can make these conferences interesting.

I said in the report, and I repeat here, that we, the old men, the members of the Politburo, will soon step aside, will leave the stage. That is the law of nature. And we would like to have several successors, and in order to organize this business, we must begin now, dear comrades -- first secretaries of obcoms, kraicoms, CC of the national communist parties -- to immerse ourselves properly in international and domestic affairs, together with us.

These are our paths, by which it is necessary to organize a genuine Leninist preparation and retraining of our cadres: 102,000 first secretaries of primary party organizations, 3,500 raion secretaries, over 200 gorkom secretaries, over 100 secretaries of obcoms, kraicoms, and CC of the national communist parties. That is the leading cadre that must retrain and improve itself.

The next question. What does it mean not only to teach the masses but also to learn from the masses? I am raising these questions, comrades, because my impressions from the debate are such that there is complete readiness to correct mistakes and, of course, the opportunities exist; if people want to, they will undoubtedly correct themselves. But there is no understanding of certain concrete questions of our practical policy and organizational policy. Therefore, I consider it useful in the concluding remarks to discuss these questions.

What does the Leninist thesis mean: not only to teach the masses but also to learn from the masses? Lenin obliged us not to pose as people who carry in their heads the vessel of all wisdom. Probably things are visible to us leaders from one side, while those being led look at the same things from another side. What we see, perhaps the rank-and-file party members do not see; but what they see, for the most part we do not see. And in order to understand things properly -- and what does it mean to understand? To understand things from all sides -- for that it is necessary to combine the experience of the leaders, who look at things from above, with the experience of the rank-and-file party members, who also live and accumulate experience and who look at things from below. The combining of these two experiences gives a genuine, full-fledged knowledge of things, of affairs and facts. That is what it means not only to teach the masses but also to learn from the masses. Among us, some comrades think that if he is a people's commissar, he knows everything; they think that rank in itself provides very great, almost exhaustive knowledge; or they think: if I am a member of the CC, that is no accident; therefore I know everything. This is wrong. One must study until the very death of an old man, to say nothing of the young. We, the leaders, and they, the led, must teach each other, so that the education turns out full-fledged, one hundred percent. And what does it mean not only to teach the masses but also to learn from the masses? It means not for a single moment to weaken, not to sever the bond with the masses, with the party masses, with the working masses, with the peasant masses -- with the people in general -- not for a single moment to weaken or sever the bond. It means to listen to the voice of the masses, as they say, to the voice of the rank-and-file, or, as they say, to the voice of the simple little people; to learn to listen to the voice of the little people who have no ranks, no posts, but who do not live for nothing on this earth and who have great experience.

So that this is understandable, I would like to tell you about two examples that bear on our leadership. This was three or four years ago, or more, perhaps five years ago. I have in mind the case when here in Moscow, the CC and the leaders of the People's Commissariat of Heavy Industry jointly worked out new guidelines for the Donbass on a new organization of wages, a new organization of work, and verification of execution. This was, I think, some five years ago.

Our situation was desperate; they demanded from the Donbass: mobilize workers, there are not enough workers. We mobilize several hundred thousand workers, we mobilize 200,000. A week later, the 200,000 leave the Donbass. People tell us: you supply us poorly; therefore coal output is not going as it should. We answer the managers: last year you extracted such and such an amount, received such and such a supply, and this year you received 20% more in supply; we mobilized for you several hundred thousand people, but these people went somewhere, vanished into a hole, and this repeats itself year after year. Some kind of Sisyphean labor. We mobilize several hundred thousand people, 300,000, and it turns out just as many leave the Donbass; we give better supply -- that does not help either.

We proposed to the People's Commissariat of Heavy Industry: give us your project for a way out of this situation, because there is some kind of vicious circle here -- supply is better, we give new hundreds of thousands of people, 300,000 people, and 300,000 leave; again we mobilize 300,000 -- and again they leave. The work is disorganized. The Donbass turns into a thoroughfare. Three projects at different times were submitted. Here Sergo took part, Iosif Kosior, the leading workers of the People's Commissariat of Heavy Industry. We, the Politburo members, concluded that these projects were worthless. The people had completely lost touch with the practical needs of the Donbass and could propose nothing useful, and we decided to summon simple people from the Donbass, rank-and-file workers, ordinary workers. We summoned them, asked: what is the matter here, how can we get out of this situation? We talked with them for three days, and they suggested to us the solution that we adopted and that subsequently turned things around for the better in the Donbass. It turned out that the farther a worker was from the mine, the more he was paid; the closer to the underground, the less he was paid. It is clear that the best workers leave the mine area; the worst stay closer to the mine. But poor workers cannot do any good for the cause. Even the surface workers receive more pay than the underground workers. Who among the experienced, initiative workers would go there? No one would go, because he gets much more for surface work. Here both functionalism and depersonalization were exposed. Everything was sanctioned, and the main thing was that a concrete way out of the situation was provided. What the workers told us, we formulated, read it to them, they approved it, and then we put it into effect. There is an example of what it means to listen to the voice of the little people, not to sever the bond with the little people, with the masses, not to weaken the bond, but always to hold it firmly in hand.

The second example -- the example of Nikolaenko. Much was said about her, and there is no need to elaborate. She turned out to be right -- a little person, Nikolaenko, a woman. She squealed and squealed to every authority; no one paid attention to her, and when someone did, she was labeled for it. Then a letter arrived at the CC. We checked. But what she went through, and what byways she had to travel in order to reach the truth! You know about this. But the fact is -- a little person, not a member of the CC, not a member of the Politburo, not a people's commissar, not even a secretary of a cell, but a simple person -- and she turned out to be right. And how many such people do we have whose voices are stifled, drowned out? Why was she beaten? Because she does not give up, she gets in the way, she is a nuisance. No, she does not want to calm down; she knocks on one door, on another, on a third -- it is good that she had enough initiative. They beat her at every turn, and when at last she got to the bottom of the matter, it turned out she was right; she helped you expose a whole number of people. That is what it means to listen to the voice of the rank-and-file, to the voice of the masses.

Among the ancient Greeks, in the system of their mythology, there was a famous hero who was considered invincible -- Antaeus. He was, as mythology tells us, the son of Poseidon, the god of the seas, and Gaia, the goddess of the Earth. He was particularly attached to his mother, who bore and nurtured him. There was not a hero whom Antaeus could not lay on both shoulder blades, according to mythology. What was the source of his strength? It lay in the fact that whenever, in his struggle with an adversary, he found things going hard for him, he touched the earth, his mother who had borne and nurtured him, and received new strength. A hero who, each time he touched the earth, received new strength, became invincible; but he was nevertheless defeated -- Hercules defeated him. How? He tore him away from the earth, lifted him into the air, and strangled him in the air -- tore him away from his mother, who had borne and nurtured him.

I think that our Bolshevik leaders are like Antaeus, must be like Antaeus. Bolshevik leaders are Antaeuses; their strength lies in the fact that they do not wish to sever the bond, to weaken the bond, with their mother who bore and nurtured them -- with the masses, with the people, with the working class, with the peasantry, with the little people. They are all -- these Bolsheviks -- sons of the people, and they will be invincible only if they do not allow anyone to tear them from the earth and thereby lose the ability, by touching the earth, by touching their mother -- the masses -- to receive new strength.

Only people who have understood that one must not only teach the masses but also learn from them, only people who have understood that under no circumstances, not for a single moment, must one break away from our mother -- from the people, from the working class, from the masses that bore, nurtured, and promoted us -- only such Bolsheviks can be invincible, and only insofar as they carry out this precept and this thesis of Lenin in life. Without this -- separation from the masses; without this -- bureaucratic ossification; without this -- ruin. Without such a bond with our mother -- with the masses, with the working class that bore and promoted us -- without such an unbreakable bond: bureaucratic ossification, ruin. That is the meaning of Lenin's principle: not only to teach the masses but also to learn from the masses.

Finally, the last question -- about concern for party members and their fate. I would not say that we show much concern for party members and their fate. Among us there have developed people of grand scale who think in thousands and tens of thousands. To expel 10,000 party members -- a trifle, rubbish. That is how they think. We have 2 million party members and candidates; what does it mean to expel 10,000? Ballast, passivity -- as we also say: passive. (Voices from the floor: Passive.) And what does such an attitude toward the rank-and-file party member mean? It means helping wreckers, Trotskyists, the enemy in general. Because if we expel people indiscriminately and permit them to be expelled indiscriminately, if we think in tens and forget about the individuals, the individual party members, then it is clear that not all those expelled will resign themselves to their fate. This gives the Trotskyists, our enemies, a handhold; it gives them reserves, gives them an army. By themselves, the Trotskyists never represented a great force in our party.

If you recall our last discussion in 1927, the discussion was open -- it was a referendum. A real referendum. 730,000 party members out of 854,000 participated in this referendum. This means 123,000 did not participate in the vote -- either because they were on shift, or away traveling, or on leave, and so on. Of 854,000 party members, 730,800 participated in the referendum. 724,000 voted for the Bolsheviks against the Trotskyists. 4,000 voted for the Trotskyists. That is half a percent. 2,600 abstained. I think that to those who voted for the Trotskyists one must add those who abstained. That will be over 6,000. I think that out of those party members who for various reasons could not participate in this referendum -- that is, 121,000 -- one could give the Trotskyists 10 percent. True, the ratio of forces among those who voted is such that 99.5% voted for the Bolsheviks and 0.5%, that is, half a percent, for the Trotskyists. However, among those who did not take part in the referendum, I would like to give the Trotskyists 10 percent, not half a percent but 10 percent. That will be about 11,000, it seems, out of 120,000.

So then: 4,000 voted for the Trotskyists, 2,600 abstained -- 6,600. Add to them 11,000 -- 18,000. There are the Trotskyists. Let us count 10,000 for the Zinovievites -- 28,000. Let us count still more, for objectivity, more than we should -- 28,000. And all other riffraff: the Rightists and others -- let us count 30,000. There are the cadres, a by no means exaggerated figure -- people who stood for anti-party trends, for the Trotskyists, for the Zinovievites. Many began voting for the Zinovievites and then all sorts of odds and ends: Workers' Opposition, Rightists, Democratic Centralism, and so on -- 30,000 out of 854,000 party members. Now we have one-and-a-half million party members, I think, with candidates about 2 million. Out of these Trotskyist, Zinovievite cadres, 18,000 have already been arrested. If we take 30,000, that means 12,000 remain. Many of them have come over to the party's side, and have come over quite seriously. Some have left the party; some remain -- it would seem not very great forces. But, first, in order to make mischief and do damage, it does not take many forces. And second, this is not exhausted by the cadres of Trotskyists within the USSR.

The fact that during this time we have expelled tens, hundreds of thousands of people, that we displayed much inhumanity, bureaucratic callousness toward the fate of individual party members, that over the last two years there were purges and then the exchange of party cards -- 300,000 were expelled. So, since 1922 we have a total of one-and-a-half million expelled. The fact that at some factories -- for example, take the Kolomna factory... How many thousands of workers there? (A voice from the floor: About thirty thousand.) There are currently 1,400 party members, and former members who have left or been expelled from this one factory -- 2,000. As you see, that is the ratio of forces: 1,400 party members and 2,000 former members at the factory. All these outrages that you have permitted -- all this is grist for the mill of our enemies. Do not console yourselves with the thought that some 12,000, perhaps, from the old cadres remain and that the Trotskyists are putting their last cadres into play to make mischief, whom we will soon shoot. Do not console yourselves. The soulless, inhumane policy toward the rank-and-file members of the party, the total lack of interest on the part of many of our leaders in the fate of individual party members, this readiness to throw out thousands of people -- who turned out, when we checked, to be remarkable people, first-class Stakhanovites, ready for any sacrifice...

All this creates a situation in which the reserves of the enemies are multiplied -- for the Rightists, the Trotskyists, the Zinovievites, and anyone you please. This soulless policy, comrades, must be ended.

Every party member was required to be a Marxist -- that is simply stupid. We have an old, time-tested formula for party membership, given by Lenin, a formula justified by the entire history of our party. A party member is one who accepts the program, participates in one of the party's organizations, and pays membership dues. To accept the program does not necessarily mean to be a conscious Marxist who has read Marx. That takes years, if not decades, to become a conscious Marxist. Where can a worker become a conscious Marxist when he has no time? His situation pushes him toward Marxism; he understands the program, more or less accepts it, and is ready to fight for this program against the enemy. That is all. But if he has not become conscious of Marxism, if he has not studied the foundations of Marxism... (A voice from the floor: Has not absorbed it) -- has not absorbed it. That is sheer idiocy. We permitted this idiocy at the party congress by inserting such commentaries into the party statutes about who can be called active and who can be called passive. We cannot change the statutes. We cannot at a Plenum repeal a mistake that we made through oversight, but in good conscience we can refrain from applying this provision, because it is contrary to Marxism, contrary to Leninism, contrary to truth and conscience.

If a person accepts our program -- well, has adopted it in principle -- if he works in one of our party organizations, if he pays membership dues, insofar as he can -- he is a full-fledged party member. One cannot demand of every party member that he has absorbed Marxism. I do not know how many CC members have absorbed Marxism.

How many obcom and kraicom secretaries have absorbed Marxism? That takes a decade to absorb Marxism. How did Lenin absorb Marxism? How did he read Marx's works? He did not simply read them; he studied them. He made notes, read them a second and a third time, directed the movement. And so, in the end, he succeeded in absorbing Marxism. One cannot demand this of every party member. That is stupid.

And one more blunder or error of ours -- I hardly know what to call it. When a simple person has committed some infraction, our people know no other measure than expulsion, just as at one time in our criminal practice there was only: either shoot him or acquit him, as though there were no intermediate steps. Suppose a party member could not attend a meeting once, a second time. Well, call him in, warn him that it is unacceptable to skip party meetings. Well, if he still cannot attend, or if there was a case where he could not pay his membership dues, warn him again. Well, one can give a reprimand, then give him a deadline -- here is a deadline for you; during this time, correct yourself somehow. Or if he does not know the most elementary things about our party ideology -- there is a certain ABC that a party member ought to learn -- well, give him a deadline, help him learn. If that does not help, transfer him to candidate status; if that does not help, transfer him to sympathizer. No, among us they do not want this. Either you are a party member, or out of the party. This is no good, comrades, no good.

These are the questions I wanted to discuss today.

Glasnost. 1996. No. 4.