07.11.1996

The Russian discussion

From the Workers’ Weekly, paper of the Communist Party of Great Britain, October 29 1926

The opposition’s mistakes reviewed so far have been entirely in the theoretical field. But at this point it is necessary to emphasise that it was not for theoretical mistakes that Zinoviev, Kamenev and Trotsky have been removed from the political bureau of the CPSU. It was because their theoretical mistakes served as a basis for practical activities which strike at the basis of the Party - namely, fraction work.

Those readers who want to get a real understanding of why Lenin fought for the principle of ‘no fractions in the Communist Party’, and of how deep-seated has been Trotsky’s 20 years’ lack of comprehension of this principle, cannot do better than get The errors of Trotskyism, published by our Party. Here it is only possible to say that Lenin denounced fractions in the Communist Party because they assisted the counterrevolutionaries, by paralysing the will and the energy of the most active section of the working class, and transforming it from the disciplined vanguard of the workers into a debating society. At the 10th Party Congress in 1921 he secured the adoption of a resolution providing for the expulsion of members of the central committee, by a two-thirds vote at a joint meeting of the central committee and the control commission, if they engaged in the formation of fractions...

Although soundly beaten at the 14th Party Congress (December 1925) they did not learn better. Kamenev, Zinoviev and Trotsky began to organise “a Party within the Party”, using their respective influences in the Moscow district, the staff of the Comintern and the state commercial apparatus. They had a fractional headquarters, with its secret code and staff of emissaries; secret groups in towns as far apart as Odessa and Vladivostock; secret meetings of their Moscow supporters in the woods, etc...

The Party remains as united in condemnation of fractions as ever, and the opposition themselves have now given up this error in their declaration.