1

PRINCIPLES OF
PRINCIPLES OF
COMMUNIST
COMMUNIST
ORGANIZATION
ORGANIZATION
V. I. Lenin on the steps of the
rostrum during
the Third
Congress of the
Communist
International
in the former

Andrevesky Hall in the Kremlin (1921).

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FRONT COVER: V.I. Lenin on the steps of the rostrum during the Third Congress of the
Communist International (1921)

PRINCIPLES OF COMMUNIST
ORGANIZATION

CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………………3

2. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……………………………………………………....6

3. GUIDELINES ON THE ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE OF THE

COMMUNIST PARTIES, ON THE METHOD AND CONTENT OF THEIR
WORK…………………………………………………………………………………7

I. GENERAL PRICIPLES………………………………………………………......8

II. ON DEMOCRATIC CENTRALISM……………………………………………9

III. ON COMMUNISTS’ OBLIGATION TO DO WORK…………………………10

IV. ON PROPAGANDA AND AGITATION………………………………………13

V. ON THE ORGANIZATION OF POLITICAL STRUGGLES……………….....17

VI. ON THE PARTY PRESS…………………………………………………….....20

VII. ON THE STRUCTURE OF THE PARTY ORGANISM……………………...23

VIII. ON THE COMBINATION OF LEGAL AND ILLEGAL WORK……….........26

4. STALIN’S ‘SOWING’ SPEECH………………………………………………..29

5. STALIN’S ‘ANTAEUS’ SPEECH……………………………………………...37

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INTRODUCTION
The Introduction in the first booklet in our series, Philosophy and Class Struggle, gave a class analysis of the
political situation in Zimbabwe whilst the body of the booklet gave an introduction to the concept of scientific
socialism, in particular the philosophy of dialectical materialism, put into a southern African context; this was
followed by references which explained the background history of the communist movement and its founders.
The emphasis in that booklet, and the driving motive behind the formation of ZIMCOM Publishers, is the
absolute necessity of constantly relating theory to practice.

As a young communist I was always taught that:

Practice without theory is blind: theory without practice is sterile.

The great founder of our movement, Karl Marx, in Thesis I of his Theses on Feuerbach written in 1845 early
in his career, said it in another way:

The chief defect of all hitherto existing materialism – that of Feuerbach included – is that the thing,
reality, sensuousness, is conceived only in the form of the object or of contemplation, but not as
sensuous human activity, practice, not subjectively. Hence, in contradistinction to materialism, the
active side was developed abstractly by idealism – which, of course, does not know real, sensuous
activity as such.

Our purpose goes beyond giving people something interesting to read which can sharpen their thought
processes and giving them a clearer understanding of regional politics – important as that is as a starting point.
Our purpose is to create in Zimbabwe a communist party as the vehicle through which revolutionary ideas may
be converted into revolutionary practice.
Having established the elements of revolutionary theory in our first booklet, in the second, Principles of
Communist Organization, the emphasis is on practical organizational methodology.
Within ZAPU, within the ANC, within the SACP and the YCLSA, considerable valuable time has been
wasted in struggles for position, the formation of bogus branches, wrangles over internal election procedures
and similar matters as opposed to organizing the people around the matters which really concern them. I have
absolutely no doubt that the experience in many progressive organizations throughout the world is similar.
If we follow the organizational precepts put forward by the Third Congress of the Comintern in Guidelines
on the Organizational Structure of the Communist Parties. On the Methods and Content of Their Work, and
adapt them to our own conditions, we will not go far wrong. The methodology should also be of interest
outside the communist parties; although the organizational structure of a multi-class mass party such as ZAPU
or the ANC cannot and should not be the same as that of a communist party, nevertheless, much of this
document can be adapted to the needs of the mass organizations. In Southern Africa, the roles of the
communist party and of the mass party are not antagonistic but complementary.
Both Zimbabwe and South Africa have thrown off colonialism, but there is still the battle to create
economies independent of imperialism and monopoly capitalism – National Democratic economies -- in which
the working-class and peasantry play an increasingly leading role. The stronger these two classes become
within the framework of the National Democratic Revolution, the greater becomes the possibility of
transforming the slogan ‘Socialism in Our Lifetime’ into a concrete programme.
The Russian Revolution took place in 1917 in the midst of the First World War (1914-1918) in which Russia
suffered devastating losses of people, territory and productive capacity. For Russia, there was no respite
between the First World War and the Civil War which followed the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks.
Fourteen different countries sent armies to fight against young Soviet Russia and its Red Army. This was not
the first time in history that workers and peasants had fought for their own interests, but it was the first in
which they were victorious, held together by the ideology of communism and the iron discipline of the
Bolsheviks.
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In 1919, the reactionary White Armies with their foreign allies came close to defeating the Bolsheviks: yet
the Comintern was formed in that very year in Russia; and though the war was not to end until 1923, in 1920
V.I. Lenin, the great leader of the Bolsheviks, commissioned the technician Gleb Khrzhizhanovsky to make a
plan for electrification of a country with a land surface far greater than that of the whole of Africa, a
commission which was completed in 1931.
Early in 1923, Lenin had a severe stroke and was no longer able to play any role in the organization and
development of the country, which from 1922 had become the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) or
simply the Soviet Union. Lenin died in January 1924.
The young Soviet Union was devastated by war and famine. L. D. Trotsky, who had played a magnificent
role as Commissar for War, did not believe that it was possible to build socialism in one country. Classically,
Marxists had believed that revolution would occur in the most developed counties first. Revolution had broken
out in Germany, Hungary and elsewhere in Europe following the First World War, but the revolutionary
governments were only to last for weeks before being destroyed in blood.
J. V. Stalin, General Secretary of the Communist Party, expanding on Lenin’s Imperialism the Highest Stage
of Capitalism (1916), wrote in The Foundations of Leninism only two months after the death of Lenin:

The front of capital will be pierced where the chain of imperialism is weakest, for the proletarian
revolution is the result of the breaking of the chain of the world imperialist front at its weakest link;
and it may turn out that the country which has started the revolution, which has made a breach in the
front of capital, is less developed in a capitalist sense than other, more developed, countries, which
have, however, remained within the framework of capitalism.

In making this statement, Stalin, following Lenin, had broken away from Marxism as a scholastic study of
the works of Marx and Engels and aggressively moved to an active application of scientific socialism to the
material conditions – the real intention of Marx and Engels.
The seizure of power by one class from another, the revolutionary act, was not and never can be an end in
itself. Marx throughout his writings talks about change, evolutionary and revolutionary, in the mode of
production. For the war damaged Soviet Union in 1924, production was the central issue for the survival of
both the individual and of the new system.

We have assumed power in a country whose technical equipment is terribly backward. Along with a
few big industrial units more or less based upon modern technology, we have hundreds and thousands
of mills and factories the technical equipment of which is beneath all criticism from the point of view
of modern achievements. At the same time we have around us a number of capitalist countries whose
industrial technique is far more developed and up-to-date than that of our country. Look at the
capitalist countries and you will see that their technology is not only advancing, but advancing by
leaps and bounds, outstripping the old forms of industrial technique. And so we find that, on the one
hand, we in our country have the most advanced system, the Soviet system, and the most advanced
type of state power in the world, Soviet power, while, on the other hand, our industry, which should be
the basis of socialism and of Soviet power, is extremely backward technically. Do you think that we
can achieve the final victory of socialism in our country so long as this contradiction exists?
What has to be done to end this contradiction? To end it, we must overtake and outstrip the
advanced technology of the developed capitalist countries. We have overtaken and outstripped the
advanced capitalist countries in the sense of establishing a new political system, the Soviet system.
That is good. But it is not enough. In order to secure the final victory of socialism in our country, we
must also overtake and outstrip these countries technically and economically. Either we do this, or we
shall be forced to the wall.
J. V. Stalin, Industrialization of the Country and the Right Deviation in the CPSU(B), Speech Delivered at
the Plenum of the Central. Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks)
(19th November 1928)
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The importance of socialist economic growth was understood not only by Stalin, but also by the workers
themselves, the best of whom created Shock Brigades to show their lazier brethren just how much work could
be done in one day. The focus, then, following Lenin’s initiative on electrification, was to be on economic
planning leading to rapid growth on a massive scale.
In such a situation it was not surprising that there could be little time for debate and that all differences of
opinion were met with suspicion and dissidents were harshly treated. However, to think that all those former
associates of Lenin, who found themselves demoted under Stalin’s leadership had ceased to be politically
active, or that the capitalist world which had invaded young Soviet Russia in 1918 was no longer interested in
overthrowing the world’s first socialist state is naïve.

In the autumn of 1936 a message from a high military source in Germany was conveyed to President
Beneš [of Czechoslovakia] to the effect that if he would take advantage of the Fuehrer’s offer he had
better be quick, because events would shortly take place in Russia rendering any help he could give to
Germany insignificant.
While Beneš was pondering over this disturbing hint he became aware that communications were
passing through the Soviet Embassy in Prague between important personages in Russia and the
German Government. This was part of the so-called military and Old-Guard-Communist conspiracy
to overthrow Stalin and introduce a new régime based on a pro-German policy.
President Beneš lost no time in communicating all he could find out to Stalin. Thereafter followed
the merciless, but perhaps not needless, military and political purge in Soviet Russia and the series of
trials, in which Vyshinsky, the Public Prosecutor, played so masterful a part.
Winston S. Churchill, The Gathering Storm (1948)

The fact that rapid economic growth was achieved without any outside assistance received eloquent
testimony through the success of Soviet tanks during the Second World War. The Nazi invasion of the Soviet
Union in 1941 was spearheaded by tanks made in Germany, the technologically most advanced country in
Europe: these were matched against Soviet tanks, made with Soviet steel made from Soviet iron ore smelted
with Soviet coal and built to Soviet designs. These Soviet tanks were bigger and better than those of the
Germans and were able to defeat them in the biggest tank battle in history, Kursk, in 1943. Yet this happened
only twenty years after the end of the Russian Civil War, the last great cavalry war, when the horse was still of
paramount importance.

The victorious offensive of the Red Army became possible thanks to the new labour exploits of the
Soviet people in all branches of our national economy. The working people of the Soviet Union
buttressed the summer victories of the Red Army on the fronts with new production victories in the
rear.
Our industrial workers fulfil before the scheduled time and exceed the programmes fixed by the
State, put new factories, blast furnaces and power stations into commission. In the liberated districts
they restore at an unparalleled speed the industry demolished by the invaders. The heroic efforts of
the working class further strengthen the military-material base of the Red Army, and so hasten the
hour of our final victory.
J.V. Stalin, Order of the Day No.16 (23rd February 1944)

In the National Democratic Revolution, the hegemony of the working-class and peasants cannot be achieved
by demanding better wages and working conditions, and then waiting for government or the capitalist class to
deliver, but by simultaneously leading the battle for production whilst claiming the ownership of the means of
production, by taking control of the process Hard work and working-class militancy are not opposites but go
hand in hand.
Communist organization within the National Democratic Revolution has the dual task of leading the masses
in their struggle against capitalism and government corruption at every level and of aggressively asserting the
leading role of the working people in national production: at ZIMCOM Publishers we believe that Principles
of Communist Organization will serve as a useful tool for our militant workers and peasants.

Ian Patrick Beddowes

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
In publishing this booklet, our main task was to put together a practical, handbook with clarity of language
rather than a scholarly historical archive – to utilize the experience and knowledge of the past for present and
future struggles.
With this in mind, in the first document Guidelines on the Organizational Structure of the Communist
Parties, on the Methods and Content of their Work, we have collated three English versions (the original was
written in German), two from MARXISTS INTERNET ARCHIVE and one from FROM MARX TO MAO,
all available on the Internet. In places we have simplified the wording and used phraseology understood in
Southern Africa where for most readers English is a second language: thus we have eliminated the word
‘fraction’ as a unit of organization, as it may be misunderstood, and substituted words such as ‘unit’ or ‘party
structures’.
In the two Stalin documents, we have followed the usage, but not the exact wording, of the Chuck Anesi
abridged version of the Sowing Speech to be found on the Internet as Problems of Organizational Leadership,
and have similarly shortened the Antaeus Speech. We have left out portions which are repetitive or of mere
historical interest. We have also, for example, replaced the word ‘artel’ with the more familiar ‘clique’.
However, we have not in any way attempted to interfere with the original purpose of the speeches, but rather
to concentrate on the main issues contained in them. For those who wish to read the speeches in full, they are
both to be found on the STALIN INTERNET ARCHIVE and FROM MARX TO MAO. The Sowing Speech is
to be found under Report to the Seventeenth Party Congress on the Work of the Central Committee of the
CPSU(B) Part III, The Party, Section 2 Questions of Organizational Leadership, (January 1934); the Antaeus
Speech is listed as Speech in Reply to Debate (March 1937).
The photograph of Lenin at the Third Congress of the Comintern is taken from the LENIN INTERNET
ARCHIVE. The photograph of Stalin is taken from Problems of Organizational Leadership, Chuck Anesi
version, see www.anesi.com. The reproduction of the Shock Brigades poster is by the ETS publishing house
which is advertising this and other Soviet posters for sale on-line.
At the same time as socialist construction was taking place, there was severe repression of anyone or
anything which was in the way. It is not our purpose here to become bogged down in the debate over the
relative merits of Stalin, Trotsky and others. For those who wish to study the events of the time in detail, there
is the STALIN INTERNET ARCHIVE and the TROTSKY INTERNET ARCHIVE, as well as documents of
the trials of Bukharin and others available on the Internet. The STALIN SOCIETY is one of the places where
one may find a detailed and spirited defence of Stalin – attacks on him are multiple, and whatever wrongs he
committed, claims that he “murdered 20 million people” made by Robert Conquest and others are spurious and
are refuted even by more scholarly anti-Stalinists.
On a personal note as Editor, like Mao Zedong I consider Stalin to be “70% right and 30% wrong”. I also
believe that if Lenin had lived, socialist construction would have been achieved with fewer errors and
somewhat less repression. However we are faced with history as it happened and not as we would have liked it
to happen.

Ian Patrick Beddowes

ZIMCOM Editor
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GUIDELINES ON THE ORGANIZATIONAL

STRUCTURE OF THE COMMUNIST PARTIES, ON
THE METHODS AND CONTENT OF THEIR WORK
Adopted at the 24th Session of the Third Congress of the Communist International,
12th July 1921

I. GENERAL PRINCIPLES
1. The organization of the Party must correspond to the conditions and the purpose of its activity. At every
stage of the revolutionary class struggle and in the subsequent period of transition to socialism – the first step:
in the development of a communist society – the Communist Party must be the vanguard, the most advanced
section of the proletariat.

2. There can be no organizational form for Communist Parties which is correct at all times. The conditions of
the proletarian class struggle are constantly changing: the vanguard of the proletariat must therefore always
seek appropriate organizational forms corresponding to these changes. Similarly, each Party must develop its
own special forms of organization to meet the particular historically determined conditions within its own
country.
But there are definite limits to national variations. Proletarian class struggle varies from country to country
and according to the stage of the revolution, but the similarity in the conditions of struggle is of decisive
importance for the international Communist Movement. This similarity serves as a basis for the organization
of all Communist Parties.
It follows that we must develop and improve the existing Communist Parties, not strive to found any new
model parties in place of pre-existing ones or seek some absolutely correct organizational form or ideal
statutes.

3. The bourgeoisie still rules over much of the world and so most Communist Parties and also the Communist
International as the united Party of the world revolutionary proletariat have to fight it.
In the coming period the centrally important task for all Parties is the overthrow of the bourgeoisie and the
seizure of power. Accordingly, all the organizational work of the Communist Parties in the capitalist
countries must be directed towards establishing organizations which can guarantee the victory of the
proletarian revolution over the possessing classes.

4. Every collective action, in order to be effective, requires a leadership. This is necessary above all for the
greatest struggle of world history. Organizing the Communist Party means the organization of communist
leadership in the proletarian revolution.
To lead well, the Party itself must have good leadership. Our basic task is accordingly the formation,
organization and training of a Communist Party working under the direction of experienced leading bodies to
become the capable leader of the revolutionary working-class movement.

5. To lead the revolutionary class struggle, the Communist Party and its leading bodies must possess great
fighting power and at the same time the ability to adapt to the changing conditions of struggle. Successful
leadership presupposes, moreover, the closest contact with the proletarian masses. Unless such organic
contact is established the leaders will not lead the masses but, at best, only follow them.

In its organization, the Communist Party seeks to achieve these organic ties through democratic centralism.
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II. ON DEMOCRATIC CENTRALISM

6. Democratic centralism in the Communist Party organization should be a real synthesis, a fusion of
centralism and proletarian democracy. This fusion can be attained only on the basis of the constant common
activity, the constant common struggle of the entire Party organization.
Centralization in the Communist Party organization does not mean a formal and mechanical centralization
but rather a centralization of communist activity, i.e., building a leadership which is strong, quick to react
and at the same time flexible.
Formal or mechanical centralization would mean centralization of ‘power’ in the hands of a party
bureaucracy in order to dominate the rest of the membership or the masses of the revolutionary proletariat
outside the Party. But only enemies of communism can assert that the Communist Party wants to dominate the
revolutionary proletariat through its leadership of proletarian class struggles and through the centralization of
this communist leadership. This is a lie. Equally incompatible with the fundamental principles of democratic
centralism adopted by the Communist International are power struggles for domination within the Party.
In the organizations of the old, non-revolutionary workers movement a thorough-going dualism developed of
the same kind as had arisen in the organization of the bourgeois state: the dualism between the bureaucracy
and the ‘people’. Under the paralyzing influence of the bourgeois environment a separation of functions
occurred; formal democracy replaced the active participation of working people, and the organization was
divided into the active functionaries and the passive masses. Even the revolutionary workers’ movement has
not entirely escaped the influence of the bourgeois environment and the evils of this formalism and division.
The Communist Party must thoroughly overcome these divisions by systematic and persevering political and
organizational work and by repeated improvement and review.

7. In the reshaping of a mass socialist party into a Communist Party, the Party must not limit itself to
concentrating authority in the hands of its central leadership, while otherwise leaving its old structure
unchanged. If centralization is not to exist on paper alone but is to be carried out in fact, it must be introduced
in such a way that the members perceive that it positively strengthens their work and their capacity to
fight. Otherwise the masses will see centralization as bureaucratization of the Party and will oppose any
attempts to introduce centralization, leadership and firm discipline. Anarchism and bureaucratism are two sides
of the same coin.
Formal democracy by itself cannot rid the workers’ movement of either bureaucratic or anarchistic
tendencies because these in actual fact result from this type of democracy.
All attempts to achieve the centralization of the organization and a strong leadership will be unsuccessful so
long as we practice formal democracy. We must develop and maintain an effective network of contacts and
links both, on the one hand, within the Party itself -- between the leading bodies and the rank and file of the
membership; and, on the other hand, between the Party and the proletarian masses outside the Party.
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III. ON COMMUNISTS’ OBLIGATION TO DO WORK

8. The Communist Party should be a working school of revolutionary Marxism. Organic links are forged
between the various parts of the organization and among individual members by day-to-day collective work in
the Party organizations.
In the legal Communist Parties most members still do not participate regularly in daily Party work. This is
the chief defect of these Parties, which puts a question mark over their development.

9. When a workers’ party takes the first steps toward transformation into a Communist Party, there is always
the danger that it will be content simply to adopt a communist programme, substitute communist doctrine for
its old doctrine, and replace hostile officials with ones who have a communist consciousness. But adopting a
Communist Programme is only a statement of the will to become communist. If the Party fails to carry out
communist work and if the mass of its membership remains passive, the Party will not have fulfilled even the
least of what it has promised to the proletariat by adopting a Communist Programme[1].
The most important requirement is that all members should at all times participate in the day-to-day
work of the Party.
The art of communist organization consists in making use of everything and everyone in the proletarian class
struggle, distributing Party work suitably among all Party members and using the membership to continually
draw ever wider masses of the proletariat into the revolutionary movement, while at the same time keeping the
leadership of the entire movement firmly in hand, not by virtue of power but by virtue of authority, i.e., by
virtue of energy, greater experience, greater versatility, greater ability.

10. Thus, in its effort to have only really active members, a Communist Party must demand of every member
in its ranks that he devote his time and energy, insofar as they are at his own disposal under the given
conditions, to his Party and that he always give his best in its service.
Obviously, besides the requisite commitment to communism, membership in the Communist Party involves
as a rule: formal admission, first as a candidate member, then as a full member; regular payment of established
dues; subscription to the Party press, etc. Most important, however, is the participation of every member in
daily Party work.

11. In order to carry out daily Party work, every Party member should, as a rule, always be part of a smaller
working group – a group, a committee, a commission, a unit or a cell. Only in this way can Party work be
properly allocated, directed and carried out.
Participation in the general membership meetings of the local organizations also goes without saying. Under
conditions of legality it is not wise to choose to substitute meetings of local delegates for these periodic
membership meetings; on the contrary, all members must be required to attend these meetings regularly. But
that is by no means enough. Proper preparation of these meetings in itself presupposes work in smaller groups
or work by designated comrades, just like preparations for effective interventions in general meetings of
workers, demonstrations and mass working-class actions. The many and varied tasks involved in such work
can be carefully examined and intensively executed only by smaller groups. Unless such constant detailed
work is performed by the entire membership, divided into numerous small working groups, even the most
energetic participation in the class struggles of the proletariat will lead us only to impotent, futile attempts to
influence these struggles and not to the necessary concentration of all vital, revolutionary forces of the
proletariat in a Communist Party which is unified and capable of action.
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12. Communist units are to be formed for day-to-day work in different areas of Party activity: for door-to-door
agitation, for Party studies, for press work, for literature distribution, for intelligence-gathering,
communications, etc.
Communist cells are units for daily communist work in plants and workshops, in trade unions, in workers
cooperatives, in military units, etc. – wherever there are at least a few members or candidate members of the
Communist Party. If there are several party members in the same plant or trade union, etc., then the cell is
expanded into a working group whose work is directed by the cell.
Should it first be necessary to form a broader, general oppositional faction or to participate in a pre-existing
one, the communists must seek to gain the leadership of it by means of their own separate cell.
Whether a communist cell should come out openly as communist in its environment, let alone to the public
at large, is determined by meticulous examination of the dangers and advantages in each particular situation.

13. Introducing the general obligation to do work in the Party and organizing these small working groups is an
especially difficult task for communist mass parties. It cannot be carried out overnight but demands
unflagging perseverance, careful consideration and much energy.
It is particularly important that, from the outset, this re-organization be carried out with care and extensive
deliberation. It would be easy to assign all members in each organization to small cells and groups according
to some formal scheme and then without further ado call on them to do general day-to-day Party work. But
such a beginning would be worse than no beginning at all and would quickly provoke dissatisfaction and
antipathy among the membership toward this important innovation.
It is recommended as a first step that the Party leadership work out in detail preliminary guidelines for
introducing this innovation through extensive consultation with several capable organizers who are both firmly
convinced, dedicated communists and precisely informed as to the state of the movement in the various centres
of struggle in the country. Then, on the local level, organizers or organizational committees which have been
suitably instructed must prepare the work at hand, select the first group leaders and directly initiate the first
steps. The organizations, working groups, cells and individual members must then be given very concrete,
precisely defined tasks, and in such a way that they see the work as immediately useful, desirable and
practicable. Where necessary one should demonstrate by example how to carry out the assignments, at the
same time drawing attention to those errors which are to be particularly avoided.

14. This re-organization must be carried out practically, one step at a time. Accordingly, at the outset, there
should not be too many new units, cells or working groups formed in local organizations. It must first be
established in practice that cells formed in important individual plants and trade unions have begun to function
properly, and that in other main areas of Party work the crucial structures have been formed and have
consolidated themselves to some extent (e.g., in the areas of intelligence-gathering, communications, door-to-
door agitation, the women’s movement, literature distribution, press work, in the unemployed movement, etc.).
The old framework of the organization cannot be blindly destroyed before the new organizational apparatus is
beginning to function.
Nevertheless, this fundamental task of communist organizational work must be carried out everywhere with
the greatest energy. This places great demands not only on a legal Party but also on every illegal one. Until a
widespread network of communist units, cells and working groups is functioning at all focal points of the
proletarian class struggle, until every member of a strong, purposeful Party is participating in daily
revolutionary work and this participation has become second nature, the Party must not rest in its efforts to
carry out this task.

15. The leading Party bodies must not fail to be in constant and firm control of this basic organizational work
and must give it a consistent direction. This requires a great deal of effort on the part of those comrades who
direct the Party bodies. The Communist Party leadership is responsible not only for making sure that all
comrades have work to do, but for assisting and directing this work systematically and with a practical
understanding of the matter at hand. They must be familiar with the specific conditions of work and watch for
mistakes. They must use their experience and knowledge to improve methods of work, always keeping the aim
of the struggle in view.
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16. All our Party work is practical or theoretical struggle, or preparation for this struggle. Until now,
specialization in this work has generally been very deficient. There are whole areas of important work where
anything the Party has done has been only by chance – for example, whatever has been done by the legal
Parties in the special struggle against the political police. The education of Party comrades takes place as a
rule only casually and incidentally, but also so superficially that large sections of the Party membership remain
ignorant of the majority of the most important basic documents of their own Party – even the Party Programme
and the resolutions of the Communist International. All Party units, cells and working groups must educate
their members on a regular and systematic basis so that a higher level of specialization can be attained.

17. In a communist organization the obligation to do work necessarily includes the duty to report. This applies
to all organizations and bodies of the Party as well as to each individual member. General reports covering
short periods of time must be made regularly. They must cover the fulfillment of special Party assignments in
particular. It is important to enforce the duty to report so systematically that it takes root as one of the best
traditions in the Communist Movement.

18. The Party makes regular quarterly reports to the leadership of the Communist International. Each
subordinate body of the Party must report to its immediately superior committee (for example, monthly reports
of the local organizations to the appropriate Party committee).
Each unit, cell and working group should report to the Party body under whose actual leadership it works.
Individual members must report (for example, weekly) to the cell or working group to which they belong (or
to the cell or group head), and they must report the completion of special assignments to the Party body from
which the assignment came.
Reports must always be made at the first opportunity. They are to be made orally unless the Party or the
person who made the assignment requires a written report. Reports should be kept brief and factual. The
recipient of a report is responsible for safeguarding information that would be damaging if made public, and
for forwarding important reports to the appropriate leading Party body without delay.

19. All these Party reports should obviously not be limited simply to what the reporter himself did. They must
also include information on those objective conditions observed during the work which have a bearing on our
struggle, and especially considerations which can lead to a change or improvement in our future work.
Suggestions for improvements found necessary in the course of the work must also be raised in the report.
All communist cells and working groups should regularly discuss reports, both those which they have
received and those which they must present. Discussions must become an established habit.
Units, cells and working groups must also make sure that individual Party members or groups of members
are regularly put on special assignment to observe and report on opponent organizations, particularly petty-
bourgeois workers organizations and above all on the organizations of the ‘socialist’ parties.

Note
1. This document was written when many workers and socialist parties, organizations both big and small, were
declaring themselves communist and applying for membership to the Comintern. The understanding of the
Leninist form of organization was not yet universal.
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IV. ON PROPAGANDA AND AGITATION

20. In the period prior to the open revolutionary uprising our most general task is revolutionary propaganda
and agitation. This activity, and the organization of it, is often in large part still conducted in the old formal
manner, through casual intervention from the outside at mass meetings, without particular concern for the
concrete revolutionary content of our speeches and written material.
Communist propaganda and agitation must above all root itself deep in the culture of the proletariat. It must
grow out of the concrete life of the workers, out of their common interests and aspirations and particularly out
of their common struggles.
The most important aspect of communist propaganda is the revolutionizing effect of its content. Our
slogans and positions on concrete questions in different situations must always be carefully considered from
this standpoint. Not only the professional propagandists and agitators, but all other Party members as well,
must receive thorough and continuous political education n so they can arrive at correct positions.

21. The principal forms of Communist propaganda are:

a) Individual verbal propaganda through discussion.

b) Participation in the struggles of the trade-union and political labour movement.

c) Propaganda through the Party Press and distribution of literature.

Every member of a legal or illegal Party should in some way participate regularly in all this work.
Propaganda through individual discussion must be systematically organized as door-to-door agitation and
conducted by working groups established for this purpose. Not a single house within the local Party
organization’s area of influence must be left out in this agitation. In larger cities, specially organized street
agitation in conjunction with posters and leaflets can also yield good results. Furthermore, at the workplace,
the cells or groups must conduct regular agitation on an individual level, combined with literature distribution.
In countries where national minorities form a part of the population, it is the Party’s duty to devote the
necessary attention to propaganda and agitation among the proletarian layers of these minorities. This agitation
and propaganda must obviously be conducted in the languages of the respective national minorities;
appropriate Party organs must be created for this purpose.

22. In those capitalist countries where the large majority of the proletariat still lacks a revolutionary
consciousness there must be a constant search for more effective methods of work. Propaganda must be
adapted to the understanding of the workers who are not yet revolutionary but are beginning to be radicalized,
and must make the revolutionary movement comprehensible and accessible to them. Communist propaganda
and communist slogans must be capable, whatever the situation, of fostering the hesitant and unconscious
aspirations – still influenced by bourgeois ideology, but nevertheless revolutionary – which the proletariat
develops in its struggle against bourgeois traditions.
At the same time communist propaganda should go beyond the present demands and hopes of the proletarian
masses which are limited and vague. It is on the basis of these demands and hopes that we can build and
develop our influence and bring the proletariat to a closer understanding of communism.

23. Communist agitation amongst the militant workers must be conducted in such a way that they recognize
that our communist organization is both courageous and far-sighted, and the loyal and energetic leader of their
movement.
To achieve this, communists must take part in all the day-to-day struggles and movements of the
working class and must fight for the workers’ cause in every conflict with the capitalists over hours, wages,
working conditions, etc.
 13

In doing this the communists must become intimately involved in the concrete questions of working-class
life; they must help the workers untangle these questions, call their attention to the most important abuses and
help them formulate demands directed at the capitalists precisely and practically; attempt to develop among
the workers the sense of solidarity, awaken their consciousness to the common interests and the common cause
of all workers of the country as a united working class constituting a section of the world army of the
proletariat.
It is only by means of such day-to-day work and through continual self-sacrificing participation in all
struggles of the proletariat, can the ‘Communist Party’ develop into a COMMUNIST PARTY. Only in this
way will it distinguish itself from the obsolete socialist parties, which are merely propaganda and recruiting
parties, whose activity consists only of collecting members, speechifying about reforms and exploiting the
‘possibilities’ of parliament. The conscious and principled participation of all members of the Party in the
daily struggles and clashes between the exploited and the exploiters is a necessary pre-condition not only for
the seizure of power but, even more, for the realization of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Only by leading
the working masses in the day-to-day struggle against the attacks of capitalism can the Communist Party
become the vanguard of the working class, learning in practice how to lead the proletariat and prepare for the
final overthrow of the bourgeoisie.

24. Particularly in strikes, lockouts and other mass dismissals of workers, the communists must be mobilized in
force to take part in the movement of the workers.
It is the greatest error for communists to invoke the Communist Programme and the final armed
revolutionary struggle as an excuse to passively look down on or even to oppose the present struggles of the
workers for small improvements in their working conditions. No matter how small and modest the demands
for which the workers are ready to fight the capitalists today, this must never be a reason for communists to
abstain from the struggle. To be sure, in our agitational work we communists should not show ourselves to be
blind instigators of stupid strikes and other reckless actions; rather, the communists everywhere must earn the
reputation among the struggling workers as their ablest comrades in struggle.

25. In the trade-union movement, communist cells and groups are in practice often quite at a loss when
confronted with the simplest questions of the day. It is easy but fruitless to preach just the general principles of
communism, only to fall into the negative stance of vulgar syndicalism when faced with concrete questions.
This merely plays into the hands of the yellow Amsterdam leadership[1].
A study of the real content of every question should determine the revolutionary position taken by the
communists. Instead of resting content, for example, with a theoretical and principled opposition to all wage
agreements, communists should fight the actual provisions of the agreements put forward by the Amsterdam
leaders. Anything that hinders proletarian militancy must be condemned and vigorously opposed; and, as is
well known, the capitalists and their Amsterdam assistants are trying to use wage agreements to tie the hands
of the militant workers. It is clearly the duty of communists to explain this to the workers. However, as a
general rule, communists can expose the capitalists most effectively by formulating wage agreements which
do not tie the workers.
The same position can also be taken, for example, on mutual aid and other trade-union benefit societies.
Fighting funds and benefit funds to support workers on strike are in themselves very valuable. It would be
incorrect to object on principle to the raising of such funds. It is not these methods of struggle themselves, but
the way they are applied and the use to which the Amsterdam leaders put the funds, that contradict the
revolutionary class interests of the workers.
In the case of union health insurance and the like, communists should, for example, demand the abolition of
compulsory special payments and of all binding conditions for voluntary funds. However, if part of the
membership still wants to secure sick benefits by making payments, they will not understand if we simply wish
to forbid it. It is first necessary to rid these members of their petty-bourgeois aspirations through intensive
propaganda on an individual level.
 14

26. In the struggle against the social-democratic and other petty-bourgeois leaders of the trade unions and
various workers parties, there can be no hope of obtaining anything by persuasion. The struggle against them
must be organized with the utmost energy. However, the only sure and successful way to combat them is by
depriving them of their followers by convincing the workers that their social-traitor leaders are the servants of
the capitalists. Therefore, where possible these leaders must first be put into situations in which they are forced
to unmask themselves; after such preparation they can then be attacked in the sharpest way.
It is by no means enough to simply curse the Amsterdam leaders as ‘yellow’. Rather, their ‘yellowness’ must
be proved continually by practical examples. Their activity in joint industrial councils, in the International
Labour Office of the League of Nations[2], in bourgeois ministries and administrations; the treacherous words
in their speeches at conferences and in parliament; the key passages in their many conciliatory hack articles in
hundreds of newspapers; the attitudes expressed in their numerous soothing articles in hundreds of papers and,
in particular, the hesitancy and reluctance they show in preparing and conducting even the smallest campaigns
for wage increases and improvements in working conditions – all this provides daily opportunities to expose
and brand the unreliable and treacherous doings of the Amsterdam leaders as ‘yellow’ through simply
formulated motions, resolutions and straightforward speeches.
The communist structures working in the trade union movement must conduct their practical offensives
systematically. Communists must not be put off by the lower-level trade-union bureaucracy, who often have
good intentions but who, not being strong enough to put them into practice, use the statutes and resolutions of
union congresses, or the directives of the central administration, as excuses not to act. Communists should
stick firmly to their chosen course of action and always demand that the lower-level bureaucrats give definite
answers to their questions, say what they have done to eliminate the obstacles hindering the struggle and
whether they and the members of their unions are ready to fight openly to remove these obstacles.

27. Communists’ participation in meetings and conferences of trade-union organizations must be carefully
prepared in advance by the working groups, for example, drafting their own resolutions, choosing speakers to
present and to support the motions, nominating capable, experienced and energetic comrades for election, etc.
Through their working groups, communist organizations must also prepare carefully for all general meetings
of workers, election meetings, demonstrations, political working-class festivals and the like, held by opponent
parties. When the communists call general workers’ meetings themselves, as many communist working groups
as possible must co-ordinate their actions according to a unified plan, both beforehand and while the meetings
are in progress, to ensure that full organizational use is made of such meetings.

28. Communists must learn how to draw the unorganized and politically uneducated workers into the Party’s
permanent sphere of influence. Our cells and working groups must persuade these workers to join the trade
unions and read our Party Press. Other working-class organizations can be used to spread our influence:
consumer co-operatives, military veterans’ organizations, educational associations and study groups, sports
associations, theatrical groups, etc. Where the Communist Party must work illegally such workers associations
can be founded outside the Party as well, on the initiative of Party members with the consent and supervision
of the leading Party bodies. For many proletarians who have remained politically indifferent, communist
youth and women’s organizations can first arouse interest in a common organizational life through courses,
reading groups, excursions, festivals, Sunday outings, etc. Such workers can then be drawn permanently close
to the organizations and in this way also induced to aid our party with useful work (distributing leaflets,
circulating Party Newspapers, pamphlets, etc.). They will overcome their petty-bourgeois attitudes most easily
through such active participation in the common movement.

29. In order to win the semi-proletarian layers of the working population to the side of the revolutionary
proletariat, communists must use the conflicts between these layers and the big landowners, the capitalists and
the capitalist state and, by conducting a continuous campaign of propaganda, overcome the mistrust these
intermediate groups have of the proletarian revolution. This may be a long-term project. The semi-proletarian
layers will have more confidence in the Communist Movement if the Party takes a sympathetic interest in their
day-to-day needs and, without asking for favours in return, provides them with information and assistance in
overcoming difficulties which are small in themselves but otherwise could not be surmounted, and if, at the
same time, it draws them into special associations designed to further their education.
 15

Communists must work cautiously, but must never relax their efforts to counter the influence of
organizations and individuals that are hostile to communism but are respected by the poor peasants, domestic
servants and other semi-proletarian elements in the locality. They must show that the enemies who are close at
hand and known to the working people from their own experience as exploiters are representatives of the
whole criminal capitalist system. Communist propaganda and agitation highlight those day-to-day events
which expose the discrepancy between the actions of government bureaucracy and ideals of petty-bourgeois
democracy and the ‘rule of law’, and make the point forcibly and in language accessible to all.
Local organizations in rural areas must carefully divide the work of house-to-house agitation among their
members and make sure that all villages, estates and individual houses in the area are reached.

30. For propaganda work in the army and navy of the capitalist state, a special study must be made of the most
appropriate methods in each individual country. Anti-militarist agitation in the pacifist sense is extremely
detrimental; it only furthers the efforts of the bourgeoisie to disarm the proletariat. The proletariat rejects in
principle and combats with the utmost energy all military institutions of the bourgeois state and of the bourgeois
class in general. On the other hand, it utilizes these institutions (army, rifle clubs, territorial militias, etc.) to
give the workers military training for the revolutionary struggle. Therefore, it is not against the military training
of youth and workers but against the militaristic order and the autocratic rule of the officers that intensive
agitation should be directed. Every possibility for the proletariat to get weapons into its hands must be exploited
to the fullest.
The rank-and-file soldiers must be made aware of the class division evident in the privileged status of the
officers and the rough treatment of the common soldier. Furthermore, this agitation must make clear to the
common soldiers that their whole future is inextricably bound up with the fate of the exploited class. In periods
of advanced revolutionary ferment, agitation for the democratic election of all officers by the soldiers and
sailors and for the founding of soldiers councils can be very effective in undermining the pillars of capitalist
class rule.
The greatest vigilance and incisiveness are always necessary in agitating against the bourgeoisie’s special
class-war troops, especially against their volunteer armed gangs. Where their social composition and
corruption make it possible, the social decomposition of their ranks must be systematically promoted at the
right time. When these troops are all of the same class as, for example, in the officers’ corps, they must be
denounced before the whole population so that, becoming the objects of universal hatred and scorn, their
discipline crumbles and their cohesion evaporates.

Notes
1. YELLOW AMSTERDAM LEADERSHIP: The International Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU) was
formed in Amsterdam, Netherlands in 1919. It was composed of social democratic and even ‘non-political’
elements. It was immediately dubbed ‘yellow’ by communists, both in relation to the cowardliness of its
leaders and to distinguish it from the ‘red’ communist trade unions. Whist the Third Congress of the
Comintern was in session, the Red International of Labour Unions (RILU), also known as the Profintern, was
also in Moscow holding its First World Congress.

2. THE INTERNATIONAL LABOUR ORGANIZATION OF THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS: The League of

Nations was formed in 1919 immediately after the First World War (1914-1918). It was dissolved in 1946, the
year following the formation of the United Nations (UN) immediately after the Second World War (1939-
1945). The International Labour Organization (ILO) was a part of the League of Nations, but became a UN
agency immediately following the dissolution of the League of Nations.
 16

V. ON THE ORGANIZATION OF POLITICAL STRUGGLES

31. For a Communist Party there is never a situation in which political activity is impossible. Strategy and
tactics must be developed so that communists can take advantage in an organized manner of every political and
economic situation and of every development.
However weak a Party is, it can always turn big political events or large-scale strikes which shake the entire
economic life of the country to its advantage by organizing and carrying out systematic and practical
propaganda. If a Party decides upon such a course of action, it should enthusiastically involve all its members
and all sections of the Party in the campaign.
The Party above all must make use of every contact it has established through the work of its structures to
organize meetings in the areas where political feeling or the strike movement is strongest. At these meetings
Party speakers must explain how the communist slogans point the way to overcoming the difficulties. Special
working groups must be set up to make careful and detailed preparations for these meetings. If the Party cannot
call its own meetings, suitable comrades must speak at the general strike meetings or at the meetings attended
by the militant workers and must take a leading part in the discussion from the platform and from the floor.
If there is a possibility of winning over the majority or a significant part of the meeting to support for our
ideas, communists should try to put them across in clearly worded and well-argued proposals and resolutions.
In the event of such a resolution being passed, the communists must try to get the same or similar resolutions
passed -- or at least backed by a strong minority -- at all meetings held in the same locality or in other localities
involved in the same movement. In this way we shall unite those sections of the working-class over which we
have an influence and persuade them to recognize our leadership.
The working groups which take part in the preparation and organization of such a meeting must get together
subsequently to discuss briefly a report for the Party committee in charge of the work and also to draw lessons
for future activity from the experience gained or from mistakes that have been made.
Depending on the situation, we communicate operational slogans to those sections of workers concerned by
using posters and small-format leaflets or by distributing a more detailed leaflet that explains communist ideas
and shows how they are linked to the problems at hand together with the slogans of the day. Specially
organized groups are needed to ensure the effective use of posters and to choose the right place and the right
time to put them.
Leafletting in and outside the factories and in restaurants and pubs used as centres by the militant workers – in
town centres, traffic intersections, employment offices and railway stations, should be combined wherever
possible with the kind of discussion whose catchwords will be taken up by the aroused masses of workers.
Detailed leaflets should if possible be distributed only in buildings – factories, halls, blocks of flats or wherever
else we can expect they will be read attentively.
Apart from conducting intensive propaganda, communists should at the same time be involved in all trade-
union and general factory meetings where the issues at stake are being discussed. Our comrades should
themselves organize meetings or co-operate with others in organizing such meetings and providing suitable
speakers. Our Party Newspapers must devote plenty of space to discussing these workers’ movements and
defending them with careful arguments. The entire organizational apparatus of the Party must work
purposefully and without hesitation to further the cause of any such movement for its duration.

32. Protest actions require a very flexible and selfless leadership which does not lose sight of its aim for a
moment and is capable of deciding when the protest has won the maximum gains or when there is a possibility
of intensifying the campaign by organizing mass stoppages or even mass strikes. The anti-war demonstrations
during the last war[1] showed us that even when demonstrations are unsuccessful a genuine proletarian fighting
party, however small and however persecuted by the authorities, must not ignore issues that are of great
urgency and importance and are likely to become increasingly relevant to the masses.
Street demonstrations should be based on the major factories. Our structures must prepare the way by
systematically conducting oral propaganda, distributing leaflets and creating a favourable atmosphere for their
ideas. Then the committee in charge must call a meeting of Party representatives in the factories and the leaders
of the lower Party structures to discuss and decide upon the best date for the demonstration, the time and place
of assembly, the slogans, the publicity needed and the time the demonstration will begin and end.
 17

The demonstration must be stewarded by a group of well-briefed and capable Party workers who have
organizational experience. Party workers must be placed at regular intervals in the crowd of demonstrators so
that Party members can keep in contact with one another and regularly receive the necessary political
instructions. If such a flexible and politically organized leadership is set up there will be more chance of
organizing a second demonstration or using the demonstration to start a broad mass campaign.

33. Communist Parties which are already fairly strong and possess sufficient mass support must use the broad
campaigns to put a final end to the influence that the social-traitors still have on the working class and persuade
the majority of the working masses to recognize communist political leadership. The way the campaign is
organized will depend on the existing political situation and whether the state of the class struggle makes it
possible for the Party to take up the leadership of the proletariat or whether the period is one of temporary
stagnation. The composition of the Party will also have a decisive influence on the organizational methods of
action adopted.
For example, the method of publishing an ‘open letter’ was used by the United Communist Party of Germany
in order to win over the crucial social layers of the proletariat more effectively than was otherwise then possible
for a young mass Party to do in the individual districts. To unmask the social-traitor leaders, the Communist
Party approached the other mass organizations of the proletariat at a time of increasing impoverishment and
sharpening class antagonisms, demanding openly before the proletariat an answer as to whether these leaders --
with their supposedly powerful organizations -- were prepared to take up the struggle together with the
Communist Party against the obvious impoverishment of the proletariat, for the most minimal demands, for a
crust of bread.
Wherever a Communist Party initiates an ‘open letter’ campaign, it must make complete organizational
preparations for the purpose of making such an action reach the broad masses of the working class. All the
factory structures and trade union officials of the Party must bring the demands made by the Party’ which
should represent the most vital demands of the proletariat, to a discussion at their next factory and trade union
meetings, as well as at all public meetings, after having made thorough preparation. For the purpose of taking
advantage of the temper of the masses, leaflets, handbills and posters must be distributed everywhere and
effectively at all places where our structures intend to make an attempt to influence the masses to support our
demands.
During the campaign our Party Press must carry daily articles (short or more detailed) which discuss the
different aspects of the movement and its problems. Our organizations must provide the press with a continuous
stream of up-to-date and suitable material and must make sure that the editors continue to reflect the progress of
the fight in their pages.
The parliamentary groups and municipal representatives of the Party must also work systematically for the
promotion of such struggles. They must bring the movement into discussion according to the direction of the
Party leadership into parliament and local council meetings by means of resolutions or motions. These
representatives must consider themselves, as conscious members of the struggling masses, their champions in
the camp of the class enemy, and as responsible Party workers and officials.
The broad movement thus formed transcends individual trade-union interests and puts forward several of the
main basic demands which can be fought for by the joint efforts of all the Party structures. In such a campaign
the Communist Party will prove itself to be the real leader of the militant proletariat. The trade-union
bureaucracy and the socialist parties on the other hand, by their opposition to the broad organized movement,
will compromise themselves ideologically, politically and organizationally.

34. If the Communist Party is attempting to gain the leadership of the masses at a time when political and
economic conflict is leading to mass action and struggle, it is not necessary to advance a series of demands.
Instead, the Party can appeal directly to the members of the socialist parties and trade unions not to shrink from
the battles against their poverty and their increasing exploitation at the hands of the bosses even if the
bureaucratic leaders are against action and that only by fighting can catastrophe be avoided. The various Party
bodies, and in particular its daily Press, must constantly emphasize and demonstrate that the communists are
prepared to take part in any and every struggle of the impoverished proletariat and that in the present tense
situation they will take every opportunity to assist all the oppressed.
 18

The Communist Parties must demonstrate day in, day out that without a fight the working class can never
hope to win a tolerable standard of living and that even though this is the case the established organizations are
attempting to avoid or prevent working-class struggles.
The members of the factory and trade-union structures must explain repeatedly to their fellow-workers at
meetings that the paths of retreat are closed, and stress that the communists are ready for battle and prepared to
make sacrifices. The organizational unit which has developed out of conflicts and campaigns is a most
important factor. The Party structures within the unions and factories which have been drawn into the struggle
must not only maintain permanent organizational links with each other, but must also rely on the District
Committees and the central administration to arrange for officials and Party workers to join the movement
immediately and work with those in struggle to extend, strengthen, centralize and unite it. The Communist
Party’s main task is to discover and draw attention to the elements which the different struggles have in
common so that, where necessary, a political programme of united action can be proposed. As the struggle
develops and becomes widespread. it will be necessary to create unified bodies to lead the struggle. Should the
bureaucratic strike leaders abandon the struggle prematurely, well-timed efforts should be made to replace them
with communists, who can give the struggle a firm and decisive leadership. Where the co-ordination of various
individual actions has been achieved, the aim should be the creation of a common leadership, in which,
wherever possible, communists should occupy leading positions. If adequate organizational preparation is
made, it should not be difficult to create a common leadership, using the trade-union and factory committee
groups, general factory meetings and, in particular, mass strike-meetings.
When the movement becomes widespread, and owing to the onslaughts of the employers’ organizations and
government interference, it assumes a political character, preliminary propaganda and organization work must
be started for the elections of workers' councils which may become possible and even necessary. It is here that
all Party organs should emphasize the idea that only by forging their own weapons of the struggle can the
working class achieve its own emancipation. In this propaganda not the slightest consideration should be
shown to the trade union bureaucracy or to the old socialist parties.

35. The Communist Parties which have already grown strong, and particularly the big mass parties, must be
equipped for mass action. All political demonstrations and economic mass movements, as well as local actions
must always tend to organize the experiences of those movements in order to bring about a close union with the
wide masses. The experience gained by all great movements must be discussed at broad conferences of the
leading officials and responsible Party workers, with the trusted trade union representatives of large and middle
industries and in this manner the network of communication will be constantly increased and strengthened and
the trusted workers’ representatives of industries will become increasingly permeated with the fighting spirit.
The ties of mutual confidence between the leading officials and responsible Party workers, with the shop
delegates, are the best guarantee that there will be no premature political mass action, in keeping with the
circumstances and the actual strength of the Party.
Without building closest ties between the Party organizations and the proletarian masses employed in the big
mass actions, a really revolutionary movement cannot be developed. The untimely collapse of the undoubtedly
revolutionary upheaval in Italy last year [1920], which found its strong expression in the seizing of factories,
was certainly due, to a great extent, to the treachery of the trade unionist bureaucracy, unreliability of the
political party leaders, but partly also to the total lack of intimacies of organization between the Party and the
industries through politically informed shop delegates interested in the welfare of the Party. Also the British
coal-miners' strike of the present year [1921] has undoubtedly suffered through this lack to an extraordinary
degree.

Note
1. Refers to the First World War (1914-1918).
 19

VI. ON THE PARTY PRESS

36. The Communist Press must be developed and improved by the Party with tireless energy.
No newspaper may be recognized as a Communist Organ if it does not submit to the directives of the Party.
Similarly, this principle is to be applied to all literary products such as periodicals, books, pamphlets, etc., with
due regard for their theoretical, propaganda or other characteristics.
The Party must be more concerned with having good journals than with having many of them. Above all,
every Communist Party must have a good, if possible daily, Central Organ.

37. A Communist Newspaper must never become a capitalist enterprise like the bourgeois press and many of
the so-called ‘socialist’ papers. Our Paper must keep itself independent from the capitalist credit institutions.
Skillful solicitation of advertising – which in the case of legal mass parties can greatly help in keeping our press
afloat -- must never lead, for example, to our becoming dependent in any way on the major advertisers. Rather,
the Press of our mass Parties will most quickly win unconditional respect through its intransigent attitude on all
proletarian social questions. Our Paper should not pander to an appetite for sensationalism or serve as
entertainment for the public at large. It cannot yield to the criticism of petty-bourgeois writers or virtuoso
journalists in order to make itself ‘respectable’.

38. The Communist Newspaper must above all look after the interests of the oppressed struggling workers. It
should be our best propagandist and agitator, the leading propagandist of the proletarian revolution.
Our Paper has the task of collecting the valuable experiences reflecting the entire work of the Party and its
members and then of presenting these to Party comrades as a guide for the continued review and improvement
of communist methods of work. These experiences should be exchanged at joint meetings of editors from the
entire country; mutual discussion there will also yield the greatest possible uniformity of tone and thrust
throughout the entire Party Press. In this way the Party Press, including every individual Newspaper, will be the
best organizer of our revolutionary work.
Without this unifying influence over the organizational work of the Party through the Communist Press,
particularly the main Newspaper, it will hardly be possible to achieve democratic centralism, to implement an
effective division of labour in the Communist Party or, consequently, to fulfill the Party’s historic mission.
 20

39. The Communist Newspaper must strive to become a communist enterprise, i.e., a proletarian combat
organization, a working collective of revolutionary workers, of all those who regularly write for the paper,
typeset and print it, manage, circulate and sell it, those who collect local material for articles, discuss this
material in the cells and write it up, and of those who are active daily in the Paper’s distribution, etc.
A number of practical measures are required to turn the Paper into this kind of genuine combat organization
and into a strong, vital working collective of communists.
A communist develops the closest ties with his Paper if he must work and make sacrifices for it. It is his daily
weapon which must constantly be tempered and sharpened anew in order to be usable. The Communist
Newspaper can be maintained only by heavy, ongoing material and financial sacrifices. The means for its
expansion and for internal improvements will constantly have to be supplied from the ranks of Party members
until, in legal mass Parties, it ultimately attains such wide circulation and organizational solidity that it itself
begins to serve as a material support for the Communist Movement.
In the meantime it is not enough for a communist to be an active salesman and agitator for the Paper; he must
be an equally useful contributor to it. Every socially or economically noteworthy incident from the factory –
from a shopfloor accident to a plant meeting, from the mistreatment of apprentices to the company financial
report – is to be reported at once to the newspaper by the quickest route. The trade-union groups must
communicate all important resolutions and measures from the membership meetings and executive bodies of
their unions, and they must report on any characteristic activity of our opponents succinctly and accurately.
What one sees of life in public – at meetings and in the streets – often provides an alert Party worker the
opportunity to observe details with a sense of social criticism which can be used in the paper to make clear even
to the indifferent our intimate knowledge of the problems of everyday life.
The editorial staff must treat this information, coming as it does from the life of the working class and
workers organizations, with great warmth and affection. The editors should either use such material as short
news items to give our paper the character of a vital working collective acquainted with real life; or they should
use this material to make the teachings of communism comprehensible by means of these practical examples
from the workers’ daily existence, which is the quickest way to make the ideas of communism immediate and
vivid to the broad working masses. If at all possible, the editorial staff should hold office hours at a convenient
time of day for any worker who visits our Newspaper, to listen to his requests and his complaints about life’s
troubles, diligently note them down and use them to enliven the Paper.
Obviously, under capitalist conditions, none of our Newspapers can become a perfect communist working
collective. However, even under very difficult conditions it is possible to successfully organize a revolutionary
workers Newspaper along these lines. That is proved by the example of the Newspaper of our Russian
comrades, Pravda in 1912-1913. It did in fact constitute an ongoing and active organization of conscious,
revolutionary workers in the most important centres of the Russian Empire. These comrades collectively edited,
published and distributed the Newspaper -- most of them, of course, doing this in addition to working for a
living – and they scrimped to pay for its expenses from their wages. The Newspaper in turn was able to give
them the best of what they wanted, what they needed at the time in the movement, and what is still of use today
in their work and struggle. For the Party members, as well as many other revolutionary workers, such a
newspaper was really able to become ‘Our Newspaper’.

40. The militant Communist Press is in its true element when it directly participates in campaigns led by the
Party. If the Party’s work during a period of time is concentrated on a particular campaign, the Party Paper must
place all of its space, not just the political lead articles, at the service of this campaign. The editorial department
must draw on material from all areas to nourish this campaign and must saturate the whole Paper with it in a
suitable form and style.
 21

41. Sales of subscriptions to our Newspaper must be systematized on a formal basis. First, use must be made
of every situation in which there is increased motion among the workers and where political or social life is
further inflamed by any sort of political and economic events. Thus, immediately after every major strike or
lockout where the Paper has openly and energetically represented the interests of the struggling workers, a
subscription drive should be organized to approach each individual who had been out on strike. The communist
factory and trade-union groups within the trades involved in the strike movement must not only propagandize
for the newspaper with lists and subscription forms in their home areas but, if they possibly can, they must also
obtain lists of addresses of the workers who took part in the struggle, so that special working groups for the
Press can conduct energetic door-to-door agitation.
Likewise, after every political electoral campaign which arouses the workers’ interest, systematic door-to-
door canvassing must be carried out in the proletarian districts by the designated working groups.
At times of latent political or economic crises whose effects are felt by the broader working masses as
inflation, unemployment and other hardships, after making skillful propagandistic use of these developments
every effort should be made to obtain (as much as possible through the trade-union groups) extensive lists of
the unionized workers in the various trades, so that the working group for the Press can productively follow up
with sustained, systematic door-to-door agitation. Experience has shown that the last week of each month is
best suited for this regular canvassing. Any local organization that allows the last week of even one month to
pass without using it for agitation for the Press is guilty of a serious omission in extending the Communist
Movement. The working group for the Press must also not let any public meeting of workers or any major
demonstration go by without being there pushing our Paper with subscription forms at the beginning, during the
breaks and at the end. The same duties are incumbent both on the trade-union groups at every single meeting of
their union, and on the cells and factory committees at factory meetings.

42. Our Newspaper must be continually defended by Party members against all enemies.
All Party members must lead a fierce struggle against the capitalist press; its venality, its lies, its wretched
silence and all its intrigues must be clearly exposed and unmistakably branded.
The social-democratic and independent-socialist press must be defeated through a continuous offensive:
without getting lost in petty factional polemics, we must expose, through numerous examples from daily life,
their treacherous attitude of concealing class antagonisms. The trade-union and other groups must strive
through organizational measures to free the members of trade unions and other workers organizations from the
confusion and paralyzing influence of these social-democratic papers. Both in door-to-door agitation and
particularly in the factories, subscription work for our Paper must be skillfully and deliberately aimed directly
against the press of the social-traitors.
 22

VII. ON THE STRUCTURE OF THE PARTY ORGANISM

43. The extension and consolidation of the Party must not proceed according to a formal scheme of geographic
divisions but according to the real economic, political and transport/communications structure of the given
areas of the country. Stress is to be placed primarily on the main cities and on the major centres of the
industrial proletariat.
In beginning to build a new Party there is often a tendency to immediately extend the network of Party
organizations over the entire country. Limited as the available forces are, they are thereby scattered to the four
winds. This weakens the ability of the Party to recruit and grow. After a few years the Party may often in fact
have built up an extensive system of offices, but it may not have succeeded in gaining a firm foothold in even
the most important industrial cities of the country.

44. To attain the greatest possible centralization of Party work it makes no sense to chop up the Party leadership
into a schematic hierarchy with many levels, each completely subordinate to the next. Optimally, from every
major city which constitutes an economic, political or transport/communications center, a network of
organizational threads should extend throughout the greater metropolitan area and the economic or political
District belonging to it. The Party Committee which directs the entire organizational work of the District from
the major city (the city being the head, as it were, of this Party organism), and which constitutes the political
leadership of the District, must establish the closest ties with the masses of Party members working in the main
urban area.
The full-time organizers of such a District, who are to be elected by the District Conference or the District
Party Congress and approved by the Party Central Committee, must be required to participate regularly in the
Party life of the District’s main city. The District Party Committee should always be reinforced by Party
workers drawn from the members in the main urban area, so that close and vital contact really exists between
the Party Committee which runs the District politically, and the large membership of the District’s urban center.
As organizational forms develop further, the District’s leading Party Committee should optimally also
constitute the political leadership of the main urban centre in the District. In this way, the leading Party
Committees of the District organizations, together with the Central Committee, will serve as the bodies which
actually lead in the overall Party organization.
The area of a Party District is of course not limited only by the geographical extent of the area. The key point
is that the Party District Committee must be able to lead all local organizations in the District as a unit. When
this is no longer possible, the District must be divided and a new District Party Committee founded.
In larger countries, of course, the party needs certain intermediate bodies to serve as connecting links between
the central leadership and the various District leaderships (Provincial leaderships, Regions and the like) as well
as between a given District leadership and the various local bodies (sub-District or Ward leaderships). Under
certain circumstances it may become useful for one or another of these intermediate bodies, for example that of
a major city with a strong membership, to be given a leadership role. However, as a general rule this should be
avoided as a form of de-centralization.

45. The larger units of the Party organizations are composed of local Party entities: of Districts and Ward
organizations according to the divisions of rural area, small town or major city.
A local Party entity which has grown so large that under conditions of legality it can no longer effectively
hold general membership meetings must be divided.
In the local Party organization the members are to be assigned to the various units and working groups for the
purpose of doing daily Party work. In larger organizations it may be useful to combine these into various
collective groups. As a rule those members who come into contact with one another at their workplaces or
otherwise on a daily basis should be assigned to the same collective group. The collective group has the task of
dividing the overall Party work among the various units and working groups, obtaining reports from the heads
of the smaller structures, training candidate members within their ranks, etc.
 23

46. The Party as a whole is under the leadership of the Communist International. The directives and
resolutions of the international leadership in matters affecting a member Party shall be addressed either

1) to the general central leadership of the Party, or

2) through it to the central leadership in charge of a special area of work, or

3) to all party organizations

Directives and decisions of the International are binding on the Party and, as a matter of course, on every Party
member.

47. The Central Committee of the Party is elected at a Party Congress and is responsible to it. The Central
Committee selects out of its own midst a narrower leading body divided into two sub-Committees consisting
of the Political Committee (Politburo) and the Organizational Committee (Orgburo). These sub-Committees or
Bureaus arrange for the regular joint sessions of the Central Committee of the Party where decisions of
immediate importance are to be passed. In order to study the general and political situation and gain a clear
idea of the state of affairs in the Party, it is necessary to have various localities represented on the Central
Committee whenever decisions are to be passed affecting the life of the entire Party. For the same reason
differences of opinion regarding tactics should not be suppressed by the Central Committee if they are of a
serious nature. On the contrary, these opinions should get representation upon the Central Committee. But the
Politburo should be conducted along uniform lines, and in order to carry on a firm and sure policy, it must be
able to rely upon its own authority as well as upon a considerable majority of the Central Committee.
Carried on such a basis, the Central Committee of the Party, especially in cases of legal Parties, will be able
in the shortest time, to form a firm foundation for discipline requiring the unconditional confidence of the
Party membership and at the same time manifesting vacillations and deviations that make their appearance
done away with. Such abnormalities in the Party may be removed before reaching the stage where they should
have to be brought up before a Party Congress for a decision.

48. Every leading Party Committee must have its work divided among its members in order to achieve
efficiency in the various branches of work. This may necessitate the formation of various special committees,
as for example, committees for propaganda, for editorial work, for the trade union campaign, for
communications, etc. Every Special Committee is subordinated either to the Central Committee, or to the
District Committee.
The control over the activity, as well as the composition of all Committees, should be in the hands of the
given District Committees, and, in the last instance, in the hands of the Party Central Committee. It may
become advisable from time to time to change the occupation and office of those people attached for various
Party work such as, editors, organizers, propagandists, etc., provided that this does not interfere too much with
the Party work. The editors and propagandists must participate in the regular Party work in one of the Party
groups.

49. The Central Committee of the Party, as also the Communist International, is empowered at any time to
demand complete reports from all Communist organizations, from their organs and individual members. The
representatives of the Central Committee and comrades authorized by it, are to be admitted to all meetings and
sessions with a deciding voice. The Central Committee of the Party must always have, at its disposal,
plenipotentiaries (i. e., commissars to instruct and inform the leading organs of the various Districts and
Regions not only by means of their circulars and letters, but also by direct and verbal and responsible agencies
on the questions of politics and organizations). In the Central Committee as well as in every District
Committee, there must be an Audit Commission composed of tested and knowledgeable Party comrades to
inspect the treasury and books. It should report regularly to the appropriate Committee.
Every organization and every branch of the Party, as well as every individual member, has the right of
communicating his respective wishes, suggestions, remarks or complaints directly to the Central Committee of
the Party or to the Communist International at any time.
 24

50. The directives and decisions of the leading party bodies are binding on subordinate organizations and on
individual members.
The responsibilities of the leading organs and duty to prevent either delinquency or abuse of their leading
position, can only partly be determined in a formal manner. The less their formal responsibility (as for
instance, in illegal Parties), the greater the obligation upon them to study the opinion of the Party members, to
obtain regular and solid information, and to form their own decisions only after mature and thorough
deliberation.

51. Party members are to conduct themselves in their public activity at all times as disciplined members of a
combat organization. When differences of opinion arise as to the correct course of action, these should as far
as possible be decided beforehand within the Party organization and then action must be in accordance with
this decision. In order, however, that every Party decision be carried out with the greatest energy by all Party
organizations and members, the broadest mass of the Party must whenever possible be involved in examining
and deciding every question. Party organizations and the Party leadership also have the duty of deciding
whether questions should be discussed publicly (Press, lectures, pamphlets) by individual comrades, and if so,
in what form and scope. But even if the decisions of the organization or of the Party leadership are regarded as
wrong by other members, these comrades must in their public activity never forget that it is the worst breach
of discipline and the worst error in combat to disrupt or, worse, to break the unity of the common front.
It is the supreme duty of every party member to defend the Communist Party and above all the Communist
International against all enemies of communism. Anyone who forgets this and instead publicly attacks the
Party or the Communist International is to be treated as an opponent of the Party.

52. The Constitution of the Party is to be formulated so that it is an aid, not an obstacle, to the leading Party
bodies in the continual development of the overall Party organization and in the incessant improvement of the
organization’s work.
The decisions of the Communist International must be carried out without delay by all those Parties
affiliated to it, even in those cases where the requisite changes in the existing constitution and Party decisions
can only be made subsequently.
 25

VIII. ON THE COMBINATION OF LEGAL AND ILLEGAL WORK

53. The day-to-day life of every Communist Party changes in accordance with the different stages of the
revolutionary process. Essentially, however, every Party, whether legal or illegal, should aim at the same type
of Party structure.
The Party must be organized so that it can at all times adapt itself quickly to changes in the conditions of
struggle.
The Communist Party must develop into a fighting organization, capable on the one hand of avoiding open
encounters with an enemy possessing superior forces, and on the other hand of taking advantage of its
opponents’ difficulties and attacking where an attack is least expected. It would be a great mistake for the
Party organization to stake everything on an uprising, on street fighting or on the spontaneous response of the
masses to their extreme oppression. Communists must prepare for revolution in all situations and always be
ready to fight, since it is often almost impossible to know in advance when the movement will grow and when
there will be a period of calm. But even when it is possible to forecast struggles, the signal rarely comes in
time to allow for alterations to be made in the Party organization, since such changes in the situation usually
occur very swiftly and often completely unexpectedly.

54. The legal Communist Parties in the capitalist countries generally have not yet sufficiently grasped that it is
their task to understand how the Party should properly arm itself for revolutionary uprisings, for armed
struggle and for illegal struggle in general. The entire Party organization is built much too one-sidedly on an
enduring legality and is organized according to the requirements of legal day-to-day tasks.
In the illegal Parties, in contrast, there is often insufficient understanding of the possibilities for exploiting
legal activity and for building a Party organization in living contact with the revolutionary masses. In this case,
Party work shows a tendency to remain an impotent conspiracy.
Both are wrong. Every legal Communist Party must know how to ensure maximal combat readiness if it
should have to go underground, and it must be armed particularly for the outbreak of revolutionary uprisings.
In turn, every illegal Communist Party must energetically exploit the opportunities provided by the legal
workers movement in order to develop through intensive party work into the organizer and actual leader of the
great revolutionary masses.
The leadership of legal and of illegal work must always be in the hands of the same unitary central Party
leadership.

55. Within both the legal and the illegal Parties, illegal communist organizational work is often conceived of
as the creation and maintenance of a closed, exclusively military organization isolated from the rest of the
Party work and Party organization. That is completely wrong. On the contrary, in the pre-revolutionary period
our combat organization must be built primarily through general Communist Party work. The entire Party
should be trained as a combat organization for the revolution.
Isolated revolutionary-military organizations established too soon before the revolution are very apt to show
tendencies toward dissolution and demoralization because there is a lack of directly useful Party work for them
to do.

56. It is of course vital that during any important campaign an illegal Party protect its members and its
structures from discovery and be careful not to give away their identity through membership lists, careless
collection of dues or careless distribution of literature. The illegal Party is unable to use open forms of
organization for conspiratorial purposes in the way the legal Party does. But it can learn to make increasing
use of these methods.
All precautionary measures must be taken to prevent the penetration of dubious or unreliable elements into
the party. The methods to be used will depend very largely on whether the Party is legal or illegal, persecuted
or tolerated, growing rapidly or stagnating. One method which has proved successful here and there under
certain circumstances is the system of candidacy. Under this system, an applicant for membership in the Party
is admitted first as a candidate on the recommendation of one or two Party comrades, and whether he can be
admitted as a member is dependent upon his proving himself in the Party work assigned to him.
 26

Inevitably, the bourgeoisie will try to send spies and provocateurs into illegal organizations. This must be
fought with the utmost care and persistence. One method in this fight is the skillful combination of legal and
illegal work. Prolonged legal revolutionary work is absolutely the best way to test who is reliable, courageous,
conscientious, energetic, adroit and punctual enough to be entrusted with important assignments, suited to his
abilities, in illegal work.
A legal Party should constantly improve its defensive measures to avoid being taken by surprise (for
example, by keeping cover addresses in a safe place, as a rule destroying letters, putting necessary documents
in safekeeping, giving its couriers conspiratorial training, etc.).

57. It follows that our overall Party work must be distributed in such a way that, even before the open
revolutionary uprising, the roots of a combat organization corresponding to the requirements of this stage
develop and take hold. It is especially important that the Communist Party leadership constantly keep these
requirements in mind, and that it must try to form a clear conception of them in advance. Naturally, this is
not an easy task; but that is no reason to disregard this most important aspect of communist organizational
leadership.
We must conquer without a previously organized army through the masses under the leadership of the Party.
For this reason even the most determined effort would not succeed should our Party not be well-prepared and
organized for such an eventuality.

58. The revolutionary central leadership bodies have often proved incapable of carrying out their tasks.
During a revolution the proletariat can make great strides forward with its grass-roots organizational tasks,
even while disorder, uncertainty and chaos reign at headquarters. Sometimes the most elementary division of
labour is lacking. The communications network is usually particularly badly organized, becoming more of a
burden than an asset and one which no one can rely on. If secret postal and transport facilities, secret hide-outs
and printing presses are operating where they are needed, this is usually quite coincidental. An organized
opponent can initiate provocative action with every chance of succeeding.
Unless the leading revolutionary party has set up its own special apparatus to deal with these organizational
tasks, this kind of chaos is inevitable. Military intelligence demands special training and knowledge, as does
counter-intelligence work to combat the political police.
Nor can it be otherwise, unless the leading revolutionary Party has organized special work for these purposes
in advance. For example, observing and exposing the political police requires special practice; an apparatus
for clandestine communications can function swiftly and reliably only through extended, regular operation,
etc. Every legal Communist Party needs some kind of secret preparations, no matter how minimal, in all these
areas of specialized revolutionary work.
For the most part, we can develop the necessary apparatus through completely legal work, provided that in
the organization of this work attention is paid to the kind of apparatus that should arise from it. For example,
the bulk of an apparatus for clandestine communications (for a courier system, clandestine mailing, safe
houses, conspiratorial transport, etc.) can be worked out in advance through a precisely systematized
distribution of legal leaflets and other publications and letters.

59. The communist organizer regards every single party member and every revolutionary worker from the
outset as he will be in his future historic role as soldier in our combat organization at the time of the
revolution. Accordingly, he guides him in advance into that structure and that work which best corresponds to
his future position and type of weapon. His work today must also be useful in itself, necessary for today’s
struggle, not merely a drill which the practical worker today does not understand. This same work, however, is
also in part training for the important demands of tomorrow’s final struggle.
 27

J.V. Stalin[2] 1930’s

 28

STALIN’S ‘SOWING’ SPEECH

From the Report to the Seventeenth Party Congress on the Work of the Central
Committee of the CPSU(B)[1] : Section III, The Party; Part 2, Questions of
Organizational Leadership (26th January 1934) [abridged]
Some people think that it is sufficient to draw up a correct Party line, proclaim it for all to hear, state it in the
form of general theses and resolutions, and have it voted for unanimously, for victory to come of itself,
automatically, as it were. That, of course, is wrong. It is a gross delusion. Only incorrigible bureaucrats and
red-tapists can think so. As a matter of fact, these successes and victories did not come automatically, but as
the result of a fierce struggle for the application of the Party line. Victory never comes of itself -- it is usually
won by effort. Good resolutions and declarations in favour of the general line of the Party are only a
beginning; they merely express the desire for victory, but not the victory itself. After the correct line has been
laid down, after a correct solution of the problem has been found, success depends on how the work is
organized; on the organization of the struggle for carrying out the Party line; on the proper selection of
personnel; on checking upon the fulfilment of the decisions of the leading bodies. Otherwise the correct line of
the Party and the correct solutions are in danger of being seriously prejudiced. More than that, after the correct
political line has been laid down, organizational work decides everything, including the fate of the political
line itself, its success or failure.
As a matter of fact, victory was achieved and won by a systematic and fierce struggle against all sorts of
difficulties in the way of carrying out the Party line; by overcoming these difficulties; by mobilizing the Party
and the working class for the task of overcoming the difficulties; by organizing the struggle to overcome the
difficulties; by removing inefficient executives and choosing better ones, capable of waging the struggle
against difficulties.

What are these difficulties; and where do they lie?

They are difficulties of our organizational work, difficulties of our organizational leadership. They lie in
ourselves, in our leading people, in our organizations, in the apparatus of our Party, Soviet, economic, trade-
union, Young Communist League and all other organizations.
We must realize that the strength and prestige of our Party and Soviet, economic and all other organizations,
and of their leaders, have grown to an unprecedented degree. And precisely because their strength and prestige
have grown to an unprecedented degree, it is their work that now determines everything, or nearly everything.
There can be no justification for references to so-called objective conditions. Now that the correctness of the
Party's political line has been confirmed by the experience of a number of years, and that there is no longer any
doubt as to the readiness of the workers and peasants to support this line, the part played by so-called objective
conditions has been reduced to a minimum; whereas the part played by our organizations and their leaders has
become decisive, exceptional. What does this mean? It means that from now on nine-tenths of the
responsibility for the failures and defects in our work rest, not on ‘objective’ conditions, but on ourselves, and
on ourselves alone.
Bureaucracy and red tape in the administrative apparatus; idle chatter about ‘leadership in general’ instead of
real and concrete leadership; the functional structure of our organizations and lack of individual responsibility;
lack of personal responsibility in work, and wage equalization[3]; the absence of a systematic check on the
fulfilment of decisions; fear of self-criticism -- these are the sources of our difficulties; this is where our
difficulties now lie.
It would be naïve to think that these difficulties can be overcome by means of resolutions and decisions. The
bureaucrats and red-tapists have long been past masters in the art of demonstrating their loyalty to Party and
Government decisions in words and pigeon-holing them in deed.
 29

In order to overcome these difficulties it was necessary to put an end to the disparity between our
organizational work and the requirements of the political line of the Party; it was necessary to raise the level of
organizational leadership in all spheres of the national economy to the level of political leadership; it was
necessary to see to it that our organizational work ensured the practical realization of the political slogans and
decisions of the Party.
In order to overcome these difficulties and achieve success it was necessary to organize the struggle to
eliminate them; it was necessary to draw the masses of the workers and peasants into this struggle; it was
necessary to mobilize the Party itself; it was necessary to purge the Party and the economic organizations of
unreliable, unstable and degenerate elements.

What was needed for this?

We had to organize:

1) Full development of self-criticism and exposure of short comings in our work.

2) The mobilization of the Party, Soviet, economic, trade union, and Young Communist League
organizations for the struggle against difficulties.

3) The mobilization of the masses of the workers and peasants to fight for the application of the slogans and
decisions of the Party and of the Government.

4) Full development of emulation and shock-brigade[4] work among the working people.

5) A wide network of political departments at machine and tractor stations and state farms and the bringing
of the Party and Soviet leadership closer to the villages.

6) The subdivision of the People's Commissariats, chief boards, and trusts, and the bringing of economic
leadership closer to the enterprises.

7) The abolition of lack of personal responsibility in work and the elimination of wage equalization.

8) The elimination of the ‘functional system’, the extension of individual responsibility, and a policy aiming
at the abolition of collegium management.

9) Stronger checking on the fulfilment of decisions, and a policy aiming at the reorganization of the Central
Control Commission and the Workers' and Peasants' Inspection with a view to the further strengthening of
checks on the fulfilment of decisions.

10) The transfer of skilled personnel from offices to posts closer to production.

11) The exposure and expulsion from the administrative apparatus of incorrigible bureaucrats and red-tapists.

12) The removal from their posts of people who violate the decisions of the Party and the Government, of
‘window dressers’ and windbags, and the promotion to their place of new people -- business-like people,
capable of concretely directing the work entrusted to them and of strengthening Party and Soviet discipline.

13) The purging of Soviet and economic organizations and the reduction of their staffs.

14) Lastly, the purging of the Party of unreliable and degenerate people.
 30

These, in the main, are the measures which the Party has had to adopt in order to overcome difficulties, to
raise the level of our organizational work to that of political leadership, and thus ensure the application of the
Party line. You know that it was precisely in this way that the Central Committee of the Party carried on its
organizational work during the period under review.
In this the Central Committee was guided by Lenin's brilliant thought that the chief thing in organizational
work is selection of personnel and checking on fulfilment.
In regard to selecting the right people and dismissing those who fail to justify the confidence placed in them,
I should like to say a few words.
Besides the incorrigible bureaucrats and red-tapists, as to whose removal there are no differences of opinion
among us, there are two other types of executive who retard our work, hinder our work, and hold up our
advance.
One of these types of executive consists of people who rendered certain services in the past, people who
have become big-wigs, who consider that Party decisions and Soviet laws are not written for them, but for
fools. These are the people who do not consider it their duty to fulfil the decisions of the Party and of the
Government, and who thus destroy the foundations of Party and state discipline. What do they count upon
when they violate Party decisions and Soviet laws? They presume that the Soviet government will not venture
to touch them, because of their past services. These over-conceited big-wigs think that they are irreplaceable,
and that they can violate the decisions of the leading bodies with impunity. What is to be done with executives
of this kind? They must unhesitatingly be removed from their leading posts, irrespective of past services.
[Voices: Quite right!] They must be demoted to lower positions and this must be announced in the press.
[Voices: Quite right!] This is essential in order to bring those conceited big-wig bureaucrats down a peg or two,
and to put them in their proper place. This is essential in order to strengthen Party and Soviet discipline in the
whole of our work. [Voices: Quite right!: Applause]
And now about the second type of executive; I have in mind the windbags, I would say honest windbags
[Laughter], people who are honest and loyal to the Soviet power, but who are incapable of leadership,
incapable of organizing anything. Last year I had a conversation with one such comrade, a very respected
comrade, but an incorrigible windbag, capable of drowning any live undertaking in a flood of talk. Here is the
conversation:

I: How are you getting on with the sowing?

He: With the sowing, Comrade Stalin? We have mobilized ourselves. [Laughter]

I: Well, and what then?

He: We have put the question squarely. [Laughter]

I: And what next?

He: There is a turn, Comrade Stalin; soon there will be a turn. [Laughter]

I: But still?

He: We can see an indication of some improvement. [Laughter]

I: But still, how are you getting on with the sowing?

He: So far, Comrade Stalin, we have not made any headway with the sowing. [General laughter]
 31

There you have the portrait of the windbag. They have mobilized themselves, they have put the question
squarely, they have a turn and some improvement, but things remain as they were.
This is exactly how a Ukrainian worker recently described the state of a certain organization when he was
asked whether that organization had any definite line:

“Well,” he said, “as to a line… they have a line all right, but they don't seem to be doing any work.”
[General laughter]

Evidently that organization also has its honest windbags.

And when such windbags are dismissed from their posts and are given jobs far removed from operative
work, they shrug their shoulders in perplexity and ask:

"Why have we been dismissed? Did we not do all that was necessary to get the work done? Did we not
organize a rally of shock brigaders? Did we not proclaim the slogans of the Party and of the Government at the
conference of shock brigaders? Did we not elect the whole of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee to
the Honorary Presidium? [General laughter] Did we not send greetings to Comrade Stalin – what more do you
want of us?" [General laughter]

What is to be done with these incorrigible windbags?

Why, if they were allowed to remain on operative work they are capable of drowning every live undertaking
in a flood of watery and endless speeches. Obviously, they must be removed from leading posts and given
work other than operative work. There is no place for windbags on operative work.
[Voices: Quite right!: Applause]
I have already briefly reported how the Central Committee handled the selection of personnel for the Soviet
and economic organizations, and how it strengthened the checking on the fulfilment of decisions. Comrade
Kaganovich[5] will deal with this in greater detail in his report on the third item of the congress agenda.
I should like to say a few words, however, about further work in connection with increased checking on the
fulfilment of decisions.
The proper organization of checking on the fulfilment of decisions is of decisive importance in the fight
against bureaucracy and red tape. Are the decisions of the leading bodies carried out, or are they pigeon-holed
by bureaucrats and red tapists? Are they carried out properly, or are they distorted? Is the apparatus working
conscientiously and in a Bolshevik manner, or is it working to no purpose? These things can be promptly
found out only by a well-organized check on the fulfilment of decisions. A well-organized check on the
fulfilment of decisions is the searchlight which helps to reveal how the apparatus is functioning at any moment
and to bring bureaucrats and red-tapists into the light of day. We can say with certainty that nine-tenths of our
defects and failures are due to the lack of a properly organized check on the fulfilment of decisions. There can
be no doubt that with such a check on fulfilment, defects and failures would certainly have been averted. But if
checking on fulfilment is to achieve its purpose, two conditions at least are required: firstly, that fulfilment is
checked systematically and not spasmodically; secondly, that the work of checking on fulfilment in all sections
of the Party, Soviet and economic organizations is entrusted not to second rate people, but to people with
sufficient authority, to the leaders of the organizations concerned.

That is how matters stand with regard to questions of organizational leadership.

 32

Our tasks in the sphere of organizational work are:

1) To continue to adapt organizational work to the requirements of the political line of the
Party.

2) To raise organizational leadership to the level of political leadership.

3) To secure that organizational leadership fully ensures the implementation of the political
slogans and decisions of the Party.

Notes
1. CPSU(B): Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks).

2. JOSEPH VISSARIONOVICH STALIN (1878-1953): Original surname Djugashvili, he was born in

Georgia, then part of the Russian Empire, the son of a shoemaker. He did not learn Russian until at least 10
years old and retained a strong Georgian accent all his life. At the top of his class at school, at the age of 16 he
was sent to a seminary to learn to become a priest in the Orthodox Church. Still at the seminary, he joined the
Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) in 1898. He left the seminary in 1899 unable to afford the
final exam fees. When the RSDLP split in 1903, Stalin supported Lenin’s Bolshevik faction. He became an
important organizer for the Bolsheviks, first in his home area of the Caucasus, later moving to Russia itself.
During this period he was arrested and imprisoned a number of times. In 1912 Stalin moved to St. Petersburg,
at that time the Imperial Russian capital, where he became editor of the Bolshevik newspaper Pravda [Truth].
In 1913 he published his important work, approved by Lenin, Marxism and the National Question. In 1917,
following Pravda’s support for Lenin’s April Theses in which Lenin called for “All power to the Soviets” and
the overthrow of the Provisional Government, Stalin was elected on to the Bolshevik Central Committee.
Following an active role in the Civil War, Stalin became General Secretary of the Communist Party, as the
Bolsheviks were now called. Following the death of Lenin in 1924, he published his important work, The
Foundations of Leninism. After that he was faced with a leadership battle with L.D. Trotsky (1878-1940), who
as a dogmatic Marxist could not agree to the building of ‘Socialism in One Country’, neither could he
understand the importance of the role of the peasantry in backward countries. Stalin’s view prevailed and the
First Five Year Plan was started in 1928. The Second Five Year Plan was implemented as soon as the First was
completed in 1933 and lasted until 1937 and the Third was from 1938-1941, being interrupted by the Nazi
invasion. From the time of the Nazi invasion until the end of the Second World War, between 60% and 70% of
the German army was engaged against the Red Army and Soviet Partisan forces fighting behind the lines. The
biggest battle in the history of the world took place in Stalingrad on the Volga River in the eastern part of
European Russia; it lasted for seven months during 1942-1943, with more than 1 million men fighting on each
side at its height and about 1½ million dead at the end. This was the turning point of the Second World War. In
May 1945, it was the Red Army which took Berlin, the German capital, forcing Hitler to commit suicide. As a
result of the Nazi invasion the USSR lost around 20 million of its citizens. After the war, the process of
rebuilding had to be carried out all over again. Joseph Stalin died in 1953, having led the Soviet Union and the
world communist movement from 1924. Immediately after his death he was replaced by G.M. Malenkov
(1902-1988) and then by N.S. Khrushchev (1894-1971) who denounced him in 1956 at the 20th Party Congress
of the CPSU. It is true that during the time of his leadership Stalin would block any opposition, that the death
penalty was carried out too freely and that a huge cult of personality grew up around him: however, it is also
true that there is a ridiculous exaggeration by reactionaries of the scale of the repression that happened and
almost no acknowledgement of Stalin’s massive role in building the Soviet Union, building the world
communist movement and saving an ungrateful Europe from Nazi tyranny.
 33

3. WAGE EQUALIZATION: In opposing wage equalization, Stalin is following Marx in the Critique of the
Gotha Programme in which Marx distinguishes between the two phases of communist society. Later writers
from William Morris onwards, term the first phase socialist and the second phase communist. Communists
therefore always refer to the USSR and other countries ruled by communist parties as socialist countries not
‘communist countries’.

What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations,
but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect,
economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from
whose womb it emerges. Accordingly, the individual producer receives back from society – after the
deductions (for further investment, medical, educational and other social funds) have been made –
exactly what he gives to it… The same amount of labour which he has given to society in one form, he
receives back in another…
Right can never be higher than the economic structure of society and its cultural development
conditioned thereby.
In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the
division of labour, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labo ur, has vanished;
after labour has become not only a means of life but life’s prime want; after the productive forces have
also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative
wealth flow more abundantly – only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its
entirety and society inscribe on its banners:
From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!
Karl Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme Section 1.3. (1875)

The earlier part of Marx’s statement quoted above, was summed up in the Constitution (Fundamental Law) of
the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (5th December 1936)

ARTICLE 12: In the U.S.S.R. work is a duty and a matter of honour for every able-bodied citizen, in
accordance with the principle: “He who does not work, neither shall he eat.” The principle applied in
the U.S.S.R. is that of socialism:

From each according to his ability, to each according to his work.

In simple, everyday terms, if everybody is paid the same wages, especially in the period of emergence from
capitalism, many will take advantage and not work hard. Material incentives are a necessity in the first,
socialist, stage of transformation.

4. SHOCK BRIGADE: The shock brigades were an initiative of the workers themselves. The aims of the
shock-worker movement were an increase in labour productivity, a reduction in the prime cost of output, and
the achievement of high speeds of work. The movement arose in the mid-1920’s when advanced workers at
industrial enterprises formed shock groups and then shock brigades. The first brigade was in the carriage repair
shop at the Kazan Railroad’s Moscow Station (July 1926), others then followed. The movement became more
widespread after the publication in January 1929 of V. I. Lenin’s article How to Organize Competition, written
in December 1917, soon after the Bolshevik Revolution; the Sixteenth All-Union Communist Party
Conference’s adopted on 29th April 1929 the Appeal for the Organization of Socialist Competition to Fulfill
the First Five-year Plan (1929–32). This was followed by the First Congress of Shock Brigades which took
place in December 1929 making a resolution stating:

The shock worker is a revolutionary striving to improve production, public life, and everyday life. He
sets an example of a conscientious attitude toward productive work and fights for socialist labor
discipline.
 34

5. LAZAR MOISEYEVICH KAGANOVICH (1893-1991): Born of a Jewish family in the Ukraine, he joined
the Bolsheviks in 1911. He held various posts throughout Stalin’s leadership and was one of his most loyal
supporters. He was expelled from the CPSU in 1961 for being part of a group which tried to oust Khrushchev
as Soviet leader.
 35

1931 poster

USSR - Shock Brigade of Proletariat of All the World!

Workers of the World Protect the Socialist Fatherland
by G. Klutsis (1895 - 1944)
 36

STALIN’S ‘ANTAEUS’ SPEECH

Speech in Reply to Debate at the Plenum of the Central Committee of CPSU(B)
(5th May 1937)[abridged]
Comrades, in my report I dealt with the main problems of the subject we are discussing. The debate has
shown that there is now complete clarity among us, that we understand the tasks and that we are/ready to
remove the defects in our work. But the debate has also shown that there are several definite questions of our
organizational and political practice on which there is not yet complete and clear understanding. Permit me to
say a few words about these questions.
We must assume that everybody now understands and realizes that excessive absorption in economic
campaigns and allowing ourselves to be carried away by economic successes while Party political problems
are underestimated and forgotten, lead into a road with no exit. Consequently, the attention of Party workers
must be turned in the direction of Party political problems so that economic successes may be combined and
march side by side with successes in Party political work.

How, practically, can the task of reinforcing Party political work, the task of freeing Party organizations from
minor economic details, be carried out?

As is evident from the debate, some comrades are inclined to draw from this the wrong conclusion that
economic work must now be abandoned entirely. At all events, there were voices which said in effect,

“Well, now, thank god, we shall be free from economic affairs, now we shall be able to devote our attention
to Party political work.“

Is this conclusion correct?

No, it is not correct.

When our Party comrades who were carried away by economic successes abandoned politics, it meant going to
the extreme, for which we had to pay dearly. If, now, some comrades, in setting to work to reinforce Party
political work, think of abandoning economic work, this will be going to the other extreme, for which we shall
pay no less dearly. You must not rush from one extreme to the other. Politics cannot be separated from
economics. We can no more abandon economics than we can abandon politics. For convenience of study people
usually, methodologically separate problems of economy from problems of politics. But this is only done
methodologically, artificially, only for convenience of study. In real life, however, in practice, politics are
inseparable from economics. They exist together and operate together. And whoever thinks of separating
economics from politics in our practical work, of reinforcing economic work at the expense of political work, or,
on the contrary, of reinforcing political work at the expense of economic work, will inevitably find himself in a
road with no exit.
The meaning of the point in the draft resolution on freeing Party organizations from minor economic details
and increasing Party political work is not that we must abandon economic work and economic leadership, but
merely that we must no longer permit our Party organizations to supercede the business organizations,
particularly the land departments, and deprive them of personal responsibility.
Consequently, we must learn the Bolshevik method of leading business organizations, which is, systematically
to help these organizations, systematically to strengthen them and to guide economy, not over the heads of these
organizations, but through the medium of them. We must give the business organizations, and primarily the land
departments, the best people, we must fill the staffs of these organizations with fresh workers of the best type
who are capable of carrying out the duties entrusted to them. Only after this has been done can we count on the
Party organizations being quite free from minor economic details.
 37

Of course, this is a serious matter and requires a certain amount of time. But until it is done the Party
organizations will have to continue for a short period to deal very closely with agricultural affairs, with all the
details of ploughing, sowing, harvesting, etc.
Two words about wreckers, diversionists, spies, etc. I think it is clear to everybody now that the present-day
wreckers and diversionists, no matter what disguise they may adopt, either Trotskyist or Bukharinite[1], have
long ceased to be a political trend in the labour movement, that they have become transformed into a gang of
professional wreckers, diversionists, spies and assassins, without principles and without ideals. Of course, these
gentlemen must be ruthlessly smashed and uprooted as the enemies of the working class, as betrayers of our
country.

This is clear and requires no further explanation.

Among our responsible comrades there are a number of former Trotskyists who abandoned Trotskyism long
ago and are fighting Trotskyism not less and perhaps more effectively than some of our respected comrades
who have never wavered in the direction of Trotskyism. It would be foolish to cast a slur upon such comrades
now.
Among our comrades there are some who ideologically were always opposed to Trotskyism, but who,
notwithstanding this, maintained personal connections with individual Trotskyists which they did not hesitate to
dissolve as soon as the practical features of Trotskyism became clear to them. Of course, it would have been
better had they broken off their personal friendly connections with individual Trotskyists at once, and not only
after some delay.

But it would be foolish to lump such comrades with the Trotskyists.

What does choosing the right people and putting them in the right place mean?

It means, firstly, choosing workers according to political principle, i.e., whether they are worthy of political
confidence, and secondly, according to business principle, i.e., whether they are fit for such and such a definite
job.
This means that the business approach must not be transformed into a narrow business approach, when people
interest themselves in the business qualifications of a worker but do not interest themselves in his political face.
It means that the political approach must not be transformed into the sole and exclusive approach, when
people interest themselves in the political face of the worker but do not interest themselves in his business
qualifications.

Can it be said that this Bolshevik rule is adhered to by our Party comrades?

The point is that this tried and tested rule is frequently violated in our practical work, and violated in the most
flagrant manner. Most often, workers are not chosen for objective reasons, but for casual, subjective, philistine,
petty-bourgeois reasons. Most often, so-called acquaintances, friends, fellow-townsmen, personally devoted
people, masters in the art of praising their chiefs are chosen without regard for their political and business
fitness.
Naturally, instead of a leading group of responsible workers we get a little family of intimate people, a clique,
the members of which try to live, in peace, try not to offend each other, not to wash dirty linen in public, to
praise each other, and from time to time send vapid and sickening reports to the centre about successes.
It is not difficult to understand that in such a family atmosphere there can be no place for criticism of defects
in the work, or for self-criticism by leaders of the work.
Of course, such a family atmosphere creates a favourable medium for the cultivation of toadies, of people
who lack a sense of self-respect, and therefore, have nothing in common with Bolshevism. This is the absurd
position to which the violation of the Bolshevik rule of properly choosing and placing people leads.

What does testing workers, verifying the fulfilment of tasks mean?

 38

Testing workers means testing them, not by their promises and declarations, but by the results of their work.
Verifying the fulfilment of tasks means verifying and testing, not only in offices and only by means of formal
reports, but primarily at the place of work, according to actual results.

Is such testing and verification required at all?

Undoubtedly it is required. It is required, firstly, because only such testing and verification enables us to get
to know the worker, to determine his real qualifications. It is required, secondly, because only such testing and
verification enables us to determine the virtues and defects of the executive apparatus. It is required, thirdly,
because only such testing and verification enables us to determine the virtues and defects of the tasks that are
set.
Some comrades think that people can be tested only from above, when leaders test those who are led by the
results of their work. That is not true. Of course, testing from above is needed as one of the effective measures
for testing people and verifying the fulfilment of tasks. But testing from above far from exhausts the whole
business of testing.
There is another kind of test, the test from below, when the masses, when those who are led, test the leaders,
draw attention to their mistakes and indicate the way in which these mistakes may be rectified. This sort of
testing is one of the most effective methods of testing people.
The Party membership tests its leaders at meetings of Party actives, at conferences and at congresses by
hearing their reports, by criticising defects and, finally, by electing or not electing this or that leading comrade
to leading bodies. The strict adherence to democratic centralism, in the Party, as the rules of our Party demand,
the obligatory election of Party bodies, the right to nominate and to object to candidates, secret ballot, freedom
of criticism and self-criticism -- all these and similar measures must be carried out in order, among other things,
to facilitate the testing and control of Party leaders by the Party membership.
The non-Party masses test their business, trade union and other leaders at meetings of non-Party actives, at
mass conferences of all kinds, at which they hear the reports of their leaders, criticise defects and indicate the
way in which these defects may be removed.
Finally, the people test the leaders of the country during elections of the government bodies of the Soviet
Union by means of universal, equal, direct and secret suffrage.
The task is to combine testing from above with testing from below.

What does educating cadres about their own mistakes mean?

Lenin taught that conscientiously exposing the mistakes of the Party, studying the causes which gave rise to
these mistakes and indicating the way in which these mistakes may be rectified are one of the surest means of
properly training and educating Party cadres, of properly training and educating the working class and the
toiling masses. Lenin says:

The attitude of a political party toward its own mistakes is one of the most important and surest
criteria of the seriousness of the party and of how it fulfils in practice its obligations toward its class
and toward the toiling masses. To admit a mistake openly, to disclose its reasons, to analyse the
conditions which gave rise to it, to study attentively the means of correcting it -- these are the signs
of a serious party; this means the performance of its duties, this means educating and training the
class, and then the masses.
Lenin,‘Left-Wing‘ Communism an Infantile Disorder, Chapter VI, Should We Participate in Bourgeois
Parliaments? (1920)

This means that it is the duty of Bolsheviks, not to gloss over their mistakes, not to wriggle out of admitting
their mistakes, as often happens among us, but honestly and openly to admit their mistakes, honestly and
openly to indicate the way in which these mistakes may be rectified, honestly and openly to rectify their
mistakes.
 39

I would not say that many of our comrades would cheerfully agree to do this. But Bolsheviks, if they really
want to be Bolsheviks, must have the courage openly to admit their mistakes, to reveal their causes, indicate the
way in which they may be rectified, and in that way help the Party to give the cadres a proper training and
proper political education. For only in this way, only in an atmosphere of open and honest self-criticism, is it
possible to educate real Bolshevik cadres, is it possible to educate real Bolshevik leaders.

Two examples to demonstrate the correctness of Lenin‘s thesis.

Take, for example, our mistakes in collective farm construction. You, no doubt, remember 1930, when our
Party comrades thought they could solve the very complicated problem of transferring the peasantry to
collective farm construction in a matter of three or four months, and when the Central Committee of the Party
found itself obliged to curb these over-zealous comrades. This was one of the most dangerous periods in the life
of our Party. The mistake was that our Party comrades forgot about the voluntary nature of collective farm
construction, forgot that the peasants could not be transferred to the collective farm path by administrative
pressure, they forgot that collective farm construction required, not several months, but several years of careful
and thoughtful work. They forgot about this and did not want to admit their mistakes. You, no doubt, remember
that the Central Committee's reference to comrades being dizzy with success and its warning to our comrades in
the districts not to run too far ahead and ignore the real situation were met with hostility. But this did not
restrain the Central Committee from going against the stream and turning our Party comrades to the right path.
Well? It is now clear to everybody that the Party achieved its aim by turning our Party comrades to the right
path. Now we have tens of thousands of excellent peasant cadres for collective farm construction and for
collective farm leadership. These cadres were educated and trained on the mistakes of 1930. But we would not
have had these cadres today had not the Party realized its mistakes then, and had it not rectified them in time.
The other example is taken from the sphere of industrial construction. I have in mind our mistakes in the
period of the Shakhti wrecking[2]. Our mistakes were that we did not fully appreciate the danger of the
technical backwardness of our cadres in industry, we were reconciled to this backwardness and thought that we
could develop extensive socialist industrial construction with the aid of specialists who were hostile to us,
dooming our own business cadres to the role of bad commissars attached to bourgeois specialists. You, no
doubt, remember how unwillingly our business cadres admitted their mistakes at that time, how unwillingly
they admitted their technical backwardness, and how slowly they assimilated the slogan master technique.
Well? The facts show that the slogan ‘master technique‘ had good effects and produced good results. Now we
have tens and hundreds of thousands of excellent Bolshevik business cadres who have already mastered
technique and are advancing our industry. But we would not have had these cadres now had the Party yielded to
the stubbornness of the business leaders who would not admit their technical backwardness, had not the Party
realized its mistakes then, and had it not rectified them in time.
Some comrades say that it is inexpedient to talk openly about our mistakes, as the open admission of our
mistakes may be construed by our enemies as our weakness and may be utilized by them. That is nonsense,
comrades, sheer nonsense. On the contrary, the open admission of our mistakes and their honest rectification
can only strengthen our Party, raise the prestige of our Party in the eyes of the workers, peasants and working
intelligentsia, increase the strength and might of our state. And that is the main thing. If only the workers,
peasants and working intelligentsia are with us, all the rest will come.
Other comrades say that the open admission of our mistakes may lead, not to the training and strengthening of
our cadres, but to their becoming weaker and disturbed, that we must spare and take care of our cadres, that we
must spare their self-esteem and peace of mind. And so they propose that we gloss over the mistakes of our
comrades, relax criticism, and still better, ignore these mistakes. Such a line is not only radically wrong but
extremely dangerous, dangerous first of all for the cadres whom they want to 'spare‘ and 'take care of‘. To
spare and take care of cadres by glossing over their mistakes means killing these very cadres for certain. We
would certainly have killed our collective farm Bolshevik cadres had we not exposed the mistakes of 1930, and
had we not educated them on these mistakes. We would certainly have killed our industrial Bolshevik cadres
had we not exposed the mistakes of our comrades in the period of the Shakhti wrecking, and had we not
educated our industrial cadres on these mistakes.
 40

Whoever thinks of sparing the self-esteem of our cadres by glossing over their mistakes is killing the cadres
and the self-esteem of cadres, for by glossing over their mistakes he helps them to make fresh and perhaps even
more serious mistakes, which, we may assume, will lead to the complete breakdown of the cadres, to the
detriment of their ‘self-esteem‘ and 'peace of mind‘.

Lenin taught us not only to teach the masses, but also to learn from the masses.

What does that mean?

It means that we, the leaders, must not get swelled heads, must not think that because we are members of the
Central Committee, or the People's Commissariat, we possess all the knowledge necessary to lead properly.
Rank alone does not give knowledge and experience. Still less does title.

It means that our experience alone, the experience of the leaders, is not sufficient to enable us to lead
properly, that, consequently, we must supplement our experience, the experience of the leaders, with the
experience of the masses, the experience of the Party membership, the experience of the working class, the
experience of the people.

It means that we must not for a moment relax, let alone sever our ties with the masses.
And finally, it means that we must listen attentively to the voice of the masses, to the voice of the rank-and-
file members of the Party, to the voice of the so-called 'little people‘, to the voice of the people.

What does leading properly mean?

It does not in the least mean sitting in offices and writing instructions.

Leading properly means:

Firstly, finding the proper solution to a problem; but it is impossible to find the proper solution to a problem
without taking into account the experience of the masses who feel the results of our leadership on their own
backs;

Secondly, organizing the application of the correct solution, which, however, cannot be done without the direct
assistance of the masses;

Thirdly, organizing the verification of the fulfilment of this solution, which again cannot be done without the
direct assistance of the masses.

We, the leaders, see things, events and people only from one side, I would say, from above; consequently, our
field of vision is more or less limited. The masses, on the other hand, see things, events and people from the
other side, I would say, from below; consequently, their field of vision is also to some extent limited. In order to
find the proper solution to a problem these two experiences must be combined. Only then will the leadership be
correct.

This is what not only teaching the masses but also learning from the masses means.

Thus you see that our experience alone, the experience of the leaders, is far from enough for the leadership of
our cause. In order to lead properly the experience of the leaders must be supplemented by the experience of the
Party membership, the experience of the working class, the experience of the toilers, the experience of the so-
called 'little people‘.

But when is it possible to do that?

 41

It is possible to do that only when the leaders are most closely connected with the masses, when they are
connected with the Party membership, with the working class, with the peasantry, with the working
intelligentsia.
Connection with the masses, strengthening this connection, readiness to heed the voice of the masses -- herein
lies the strength and invincibility of Bolshevik leadership.
We may take it as the rule that as long as the Bolsheviks maintain connection with the broad masses of the
people they will be invincible. And, on the contrary, as soon as the Bolsheviks become severed from the masses
and lose their connection with them, as soon as they become covered with bureaucratic rust, they will lose all
their strength and become a mere squib.

In the mythology of the ancient Greeks there is the celebrated hero Antaeus, who, so the legend goes, was the
son of Poseidon, god of the seas, and Gaea, goddess of the earth. Antaeus was particularly attached to his
mother who gave birth to him, suckled him and reared him. There was not a hero whom this Antaeus did not
vanquish. He was regarded as an invincible hero. Wherein lay his strength? It lay in the fact that every time he
was hard pressed in the fight against his adversary he touched the earth, his mother, who gave birth to him and
suckled him, and that gave him new strength.
But he had a vulnerable spot – the danger of being detached from the earth in some way or other. His enemies
took this into account and watched for it. One day an enemy appeared who took advantage of this vulnerable
spot and vanquished Antaeus. This was Hercules. How did Hercules vanquish Antaeus? He lifted him off the
ground, kept him suspended, prevented him from touching the ground and throttled him.
I think that the Bolsheviks remind us of the hero of Greek mythology, Antaeus. They, like Antaeus, are strong
because they maintain connection with their mother, the masses who gave birth to them, suckled them and
reared them. And as long as they maintain connection with their mother, with the people, they have every
chance of remaining invincible.

This is the key to the invincibility of Bolshevik leadership.

Lastly, one more question. I have in mind the question of the formal and heartlessly bureaucratic attitude of
some of our Party comrades towards the fate of individual members of the Party, to the question of expelling
members from the Party, or the question of reinstating expelled members of the Party. The point is that some of
our Party leaders suffer from a lack of concern for people, for members of the Party, for workers. More than
that, they do not study members of the Party, do not know what interests they have, how they are developing;
generally, they do not know the workers. That is why they have no individual approach to Party members and
Party workers. And because they have no individual approach in appraising Party members and Party workers
they usually act in a haphazard way: either they praise them wholesale, without measure, or roundly abuse
them, also wholesale and without measure, and expel thousands and tens of thousands of members from the
Party. Such leaders generally try to think in tens of thousands, not caring about ‚units‘ about individual
members of the Party, about their fate. They regard the expulsion of thousands and tens of thousands of people
from the Party as a mere trifle and console themselves with the thought that our Party has two million members
and that the expulsion of tens of thousands cannot in any way affect the Party's position. But only those who are
in fact profoundly anti-Party can have such an approach to members of the Party.
For the most part people are expelled for so-called passivity.

What is passivity?

It transpires that if a member of the Party has not thoroughly mastered the Party programme he is regarded as
passive and subject to expulsion. But that is wrong, comrades. You cannot interpret the rules of our Party in
such a pedantic fashion. In order to thoroughly master the Party programme one must be a real Marxist, a tried
and theoretically trained Marxist. I do not know whether we have many members of our Party who have
thoroughly mastered our programme, who have become real Marxists, theoretically trained and tried. If we
continued further along this path we would have to leave only intellectuals and learned people generally in our
Party.
 42

Who wants such a Party?

We have Lenin‘s thoroughly tried and tested formula defining a member of the Party. According to this
formula a member of the Party is one who accepts the programme of the Party, pays membership dues and
works in one of its organizations. Please note: Lenin's formula does not speak about thoroughly mastering the
programme, but about accepting the programme. These are two very different things. It is not necessary to
prove that Lenin is right here and not our Party comrades who chatter idly about thoroughly mastering the
programme. That should be clear.

If the Party had proceeded from the assumption that only those comrades who have thoroughly mastered the
programme and have become theoretically trained Marxists could be members of the Party it would not have
created thousands of Party circles, hundreds of Party schools where the members of the Party are taught
Marxism, and where they are assisted to master our programme. It is quite clear that if our Party organizes such
schools and circles for the members of the Party it is because it knows that the members of the Party have not
yet thoroughly mastered the Party programme, have not yet become theoretically trained Marxists.
Consequently, in order to rectify our policy on the question of Party membership and on expulsion from the
Party we must put a stop to the present blockhead interpretation of the question of passivity.
But there is another error in this sphere. It is that our comrades recognize no mean between two extremes. It is
enough for a worker, a member of the Party, to commit a slight offence, to come late to a Party meeting once or
twice, or to fail to pay membership dues for some reason or other, to be kicked out of the Party in an instant. No
interest is taken in the degree to which he is to blame, the reason why he failed to attend a meeting, the reason
why he did not pay membership dues. The bureaucratic approach displayed on these questions is positively
unprecedented. It is not difficult to understand that it is precisely the result of this heartless policy that
excellent, skilled workers, excellent Stakhanovites[3], found themselves expelled from the Party.

Was it not possible to caution them before expelling them from the Party, or if that had no effect, to reprove or
reprimand them, and if that had no effect, to put them on probation for a certain period, or, as an extreme
measure, to reduce them to the position of candidates, but not expel them from the Party at one stroke?

Of course it was. But this calls for concern for people, for the members of the Party, for the fate of members of
the Party. And this is what some of our comrades lack.

Notes
1. TROTSKYIST OR BUKHARINITE: Refers to followers of Trotsky, the leader of the left devation in the
CPSU(B) and Bukharin the leader of the right deviaton in the CPSU(B).

LEON DAVIDOVICH TROTSKY (1879-1940) Born Lev Davidovich Bronstein to a prosperous Russian-
speaking Jewish farmingv family in the Ukraine. Trotsky became a Marxist in about 1897 and joined the
Russian Democartic Labour Party (RSDLP) in 1898 on its foundation. Impressed by Trotsky‘s writing Lenin
brought Trotsky on to the editorial boaed of Iskra (The Spark), the official journal of the RSDLP which he had
started in 1900.; but when the party split betwewen the Bolshevik faction led by Lenin and the Menshevik
faction led by Martov, Trotsky sided wuth the Mensheviks and became part of the group which forced Lenin to
resign from the journal he had started. In the years that followed, Trotsky tried to take an intermediate path
between the two factions, but most of the time he leant towards the Mensheviks. In October 1905 Trotsky took
over the chairmanship of the workers‘ council or Soviet in St, Petersburg during the period of the 1905
Revolution which succeeded in establishing the First Duma or Parliament, which to a limited degree reduced
the power of the Tsarist autocracy. Trotsky was arrested and fled into exile. During these exile years, he
developed the theory of ‘Permanent Revolution‘ a theory which denies the importance of the peasantry in the
revolution and consequently fails to understand the importance of the anti-imperialist struggle; it idealistically
tries to impose rigid theory on to concrete conditions rather than adapt theory to the reality imposed by the
conditions.
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In 1908, Trotsky started the fortnightly paper Pravda which was printed in Germany and smuggled into Russia.
When the paper failed in 1912, a paper of the same name was started in the same year by the Bolsheviks and
was printed in St. Petersburg under the editorship of Stalin. Trotsky eventually joined the Bolsheviks in June
1917. His organizational ability being recognized by Lenin, he was drafted on to the Bolshevik Central
Committee in August. When the Bolsheviks seized power in the October Revolution, Trotsky played an
important role as acknowledged by Stalin in an article in Pravda, 10th November 1918

All practical work in connection with the organization of the uprising was done under the immediate
direction of Comrade Trotsky, the President of the Petrograd Soviet. It can be stated with certainty that
the Party is indebted primarily and principally to Comrade Trotsky for the rapid going over of the
garrison to the side of the Soviet and the efficient manner in which the work of the Military
Revolutionary Committee was organized.

After the Bolsheviks came to power, Trotsky became the People's Commissar [Minister] for Foreign Affairs.
The First World War was raging and Russia was still at war with Germany and had lost a lot of territory.
Trotsky led the Soviet delegation during the peace negotiations in Brest-Litovsk from 22 December 1917 to 10
February 1918. Lenin had called for an immediate peace with Germany to protect the revolution. Trotsky
refused to sign the harsh terms being laid down by the Germans for peace with the result that when peace was
eventually signed on the 15th March 1918 Germany had gained considerably more Russian territory than
before. Trotsky resigned his post. He was then made Commissar for War. In this position he re-organized the
Red Army and was to a great extent responsible for its victory in the Civil War. As head of the armed forces
Trotsky introduced forced conscription, the death penalty for deserters and also used ex-Tsarist officers.

An army cannot be built without reprisals. Masses of men cannot be led to death unless the army
command has the death-penalty in its arsenal. So long as those malicious tailless apes that are so proud
of their technical achievements – the animals that we call men – will build armies and wage wars, the
command will always be obliged to place the soldiers between the possible death in the front and the
inevitable one in the rear. And yet armies are not built on fear. The Tsar’s army fell to pieces not
because of any lack of reprisals. In his attempt to save it by restoring the death-penalty, Kerensky only
finished it. Upon the ashes of the Great War [First World War], the Bolsheviks created a new army.
These facts demand no explanation for anyone who has even the slightest knowledge of the language of
history. The strongest cement in the new army was the ideas of the October revolution, and the train
supplied the front with this cement.
Leon Trotsky, My Life, Chapter XXXIV The Train.

Following his undoubted success as a military leader, Trotsky advocated the militarization of trade unions.
This was firmly rejected by Lenin, Stalin and others. At the Tenth Party Congress in 1921, Trotsky’s position
was defeated and a number of his supporters were removed from the Central Committee. Factions were
banned except immediately before Congress. In 1921, Lenin started to become sick and in 1922 Stalin became
General Secretary of the Communist Party. In March 1923 Lenin had a severe stroke which left him bed-
ridden and unable to talk until his death in January 1924. The war was over and it was necessary to rebuild the
devastated country. Stalin developed the theory of ‘Socialism in One Country’ clearly the only course in the
war ravaged USSR. Stalin gained massive support for his plan to rebuild the economy on socialist principles.
Trotsky, following his idea of ‘Permanent Revolution’ formed the ‘Left Opposition’, believing that the main
task was to spread revolution throughout Europe and that it was impossible to build socialism in backward
Russia. Trotsky was expelled from the Communist Party in 1927 and from the Soviet Union in 1929. In 1938
he formed the ‘Fourth International’ with various dissident communist groups in an attempt to form an
alternative communist movement. In 1940 Leon Trotsky was killed in Mexico City, although there had been
attempts by supporters of Stalin to assassinate Trotsky, evidence shows that Trotsky was killed for personal,
non-political, reasons.

After the death of Trotsky, the Fourth International splintered into numerous factions, with many other
unaffiliated Trotskyist groups abounding worldwide. Trotskyism has become a home for idealists who want to
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criticize the communist movement without getting their hands dirty. Trotskyism has failed to lead or play a
substantial role in any revolution worldwide and become a divisive force wherever they have managed to exert
any degree of leadership. Trotsky himself, despite his many shortcomings, played an important role in the
1905 Revolution, in the October Revolution and in the Civil War. He was a genuine revolutionary who joined
the Bolsheviks without ever really becoming part of them; in particular he failed to understand the hard
realities of building the economy after the revolutionary seizure of power.

NIKOLAI IVANOVICH BUKHARIN (1888-1938): Bukharin was born in Moscow, to Russian parents both
of whom were primary school teachers. As a schoolboy he was involved in revolutionary activities during the
1905 Revolution and joined the Bolsheviks. In 1907 he was responsible, with G. Ya. Sokolnikov for the
convening of a youth conference in Moscow which may be seen as the forerunner of the Soviet Young
Communist League or Komsomol founded in 1918.

By the age 20, Bukharin was a member of the Moscow Committee of the Bolsheviks. Bukharin met Lenin in
Cracow, Poland for the first time in 1912. During the First World War his work Imperialism and World
Economy influenced Lenin’s major work Imperialism the Highest Stage of Capitalism. However, Lenin at
times criticized some of his views as non-Marxist. In 1917 Bukharin became a member of the Bolshevik
Central Committee; almost as soon as he obtained that position, Bukharin became the leader of the ‘Left
Communists’ opposed Lenin on the ending of the war with Germany and the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk,
maintaining that a socialist state could not make peace with a capitalist state and advocating guerilla warfare
against the German invaders, his position being even more extreme and unrealistic than that of Trotsky. In
March 1919, he became a member of the Comintern Executive. He published the well known The ABC of
Communism jointly with Yevgeni Preobrazhensky in 1921 and a number of other theoretical works in the same
period. By 1921, he changed his position and accepted Lenin's emphasis on the survival and strengthening of
the Soviet state as the bastion of the future world revolution. He became the foremost supporter of the New
Economic Policy (NEP) started in 1922. The, NEP allowed private ownership and capitalistic practices in
agriculture, retail trade, and light industry while the state retained the control of heavy industry, in Lenin’s
phrase, “The commanding heights of the economy”. After Lenin's death in 1924, Bukharin became a full
member of the Politburo. Though initially supporting Stalin, Bukharin opposed the ending of the NEP and the
rapid industrialization proposed by Stalin in the First Five Year Plan started in 1928. In 1929 Bukharin was
relieved of all his posts including the editorship of Pravda which he had held since immediately after the
October Revolution. In the years 1934 to 1936, Bukharin was briefly rehabilitated and became the editor of the
government newspaper Izvestia (Bulletin). However, Bukharin’s faction was already discussing the
assassination of Stalin. A French Comintern member and a supporter of the Bukharinite ‘International
Communist Opposition’ (better known inside the Soviet Union as the Right Opposition) tells of a meeting with
Bukharin in 1929:

Bukharin also told me that they had decided to utilize individual terror in order to rid themselves of
Stalin… Bukharin doubtlessly had understood that I would not liaise blindly with his fraction whose
sole programme was to make Stalin disappear. This was our last meeting.
Jules Humbert-Droz, De Lénin à Staline, Dix Ans Au Service de L’ Internationale Communiste 1921-31 (Of
Lenin and Stalin, Ten Years of Service to the Communist International) (1971)

Bukharin was arrested in 1937 and put on trial. In his lengthy final statement at his trial he said:

I have merited the most severe punishment, and I agree with Citizen the Procurator, who several times
repeated that I stand on the threshold of my hour of death…I further admit that I am guilty of
organizing a conspiracy for a ‘palace coup’…I categorically deny that I was connected with foreign
intelligence services, that they were my masters and that I acted in accordance with their wishes.

Nikolai Bukharin was executed in 1938.

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2. SHAKHTI WRECKING: This refers to a series of serious mishaps, including mine flooding which ocurred
in the coal-mining Shakhti region of the Donets basin in 1928. Whether the wrecking was caused by
inexperience, carelessness, deliberate sabotage or any combination of the three is still a matter for debate.
However, reports from American mining engineers recruited by the Soviet Union such as John Scott and John
D. Littlepage confirm extensive, deliberate sabotage during that period.

3. STAKHANOVITES: The Stakhanovites were named after Alexey Grigoreyevich Stakhanov (1806-1977).
They were a continuation of the movement started by the Shock Brigades. In August 1935 Stakhanov mined a
record 102 tonnes of coal, 14 times the normal shift quota in a mine in the Donbas area of Ukraine. He did this
not only by working harder but also by use of superior tools and organization. The movement immediately
took off across the Soviet Union and in November 1935 the first All-Union Conference of Stakhanovites was
held in Moscow. Stakhanovite workers typically applied new production techniques which became a spur to
industry, and became of huge importance in increasing production during the Second World War. They were
given higher pay and better housing commensurate with the principle,“From each according to his ability, to
each according to his work“. Thet were also looked up to in terms of creating a family life of stability,
cleanliness and culture – they were the prototype of the Soviet,‘New Man‘ or ‘New Woman‘. Stakhanov
himself later became a mine director and then a deputy in the Supreme Soviet. After his death., the town of
Kavievka in eastern Uktraine was renamed Stakhanov.