Communist Party

 Two resolutions: on 'Party Unity' and on 'The Anarchist and Syndicalist Deviation in our Party'

        On the eve of the Tenth Party Congress the communist regime faced opposition from several social groups or classes in society.  It lost its very important support among the working class and part of the army, and its relationship with the peasantry was in deep crisis.  Further more the party was not only confronted with economical or materialistic demands.  The opposition had also thorough political demands, some of which aimed right at the heart of communist rule.

        Thus by no means could the crisis, which faced the party in 1921, be solved by eco-nomical means only.  The supremacy and the monopoly of the communist power were at stake.  Even more because the party was internally involved in a deep crisis too.  The dis-sidence and factions inside the CPSU, and especially inside the Central Committee, restrained it from exercising real governance.  The Tenth Party Congress was therefore partly devoted to keep power in the hands of the party and resolve^[1] the ongoing crises as strict as possible by political and organisational  measures.

        In relation to this, very different plans were in preparation for dealing with discipline inside the party.  Already on the second day of the congress Lenin hinted at them; according to him the time had come “to put an end to opposition, to put a lid on it”^[2].  On the last day of the congress, Lenin put in practise his threat and produced two new resolutions: on “Party Unity” and on “the Syndicalist and Anarchist Deviation in our Party”.^[3]

        The first resolution was about the existence and formation of “groups with separate platforms and with the determination to a certain extent to become self-contained and to create their own group discipline”^[4].  It was put forward by Lenin in a moment of vindictive anger against the Workers’ Opposition.  According to the resolution, the existence of opposition inside the party and the signs of formation of separate groups had encouraged the enemies of the revolution, such as the Kronstadters.^[5]

        The resolution set out new limits for criticism of party policy by members of the party.  “Everyone who criticizes in public must keep in mind the situation of the party in the midst of the enemies by which it is surrounded...”.  The resolution put forward also the immediate dissolution of all groups with a separate platform - otherwise immediate expulsion from the party would follow.  There was a secret clause in the resolution too (which remained secret till January 1924).  It granted the Central Committee full disciplinary powers, including the power of exclusion from the party.  A special proviso was added: when the offender was a member of the Central Committee itself, the quorum for a decision on his exclusion was a two-thirds vote of full members, candidate members and members of the Control Commission.  Henceforth, the Central Committee was to rule the party on the same dictatorial lines as the party ruled the country.  No one could challenge the party’s decisions without exposing themselves to the charge of factionalism - i.e. a danger of expulsion.^[6]

        The second resolution, on the deviation inside the CSPU, aimed directly at the Workers’ Opposition.  It condemned the views of the faction on the role of the trade unions in exercising control over industry.  This opinion was inconsistent with a party-membership because it was more generally incompatible with Marxism.  The resolution obviously bore the marks of Lenin’s distinctive views on the role of the party.  “Marxism teaches us that only the political party of the working class [...], is capable of uniting, educating and organizing such a vanguard of the proletariat [...] as is capable of resisting the inevitable petty bourgeois waverings of these masses... [and] their trade union pre-judices”.^[7]

        According to SHAPIRO the charges against the Workers’ Opposition were flagrantly unjust.  It had never had any press or separate organization or discipline of its own.  Further more, the fact that the Workers’ Opposition emerged at the X Party Congress as a platform, was a direct result of Zinoviev’s call to form platforms or ‘rival policies’ so that elections to the congress could take place by a choice between ‘rival policies’. The way in which it was put forward that the Workers’ Opposition supported the Kronstadt demands, was unjust too.^[8]  As we already stated on page 15, participants in the revolt were SRs, Mensheviks, anarchists and even rank-and-file communists.

         The two important resolutions were voted by a congress that had become impatient and bored with the factional discussions.  The crises in which the communist regime was involved, pressed for the congress to eagerly rally round its leader, Lenin, too.  The reso-lutions received massive support; no more than thirty delegates on a total of 694 voted against them.^[9]  Thus, in March 1921, two very important resolutions were adopted by the Congress of the Communist Party - resolutions which would play an immense role in the further development of the Bolshevik dictatorship and more precisely Stalinism.

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