V. I.   Lenin

The Tenth Congress of the R.C.P.(B.)

March 8-16, 1921[1]


Written: See below.
Published: See below.
Source: Lenin Collected Works, 3nd English Printing, Progress Publishers, 1977, Moscow, Volume 42, pages 281c-284a.
Translated: Bernard Isaacs
Transcription\Markup: D. Walters
Public Domain: Lenin Internet Archive (2003). You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source.README


1
Outline Of A Speech At A Meeting Of Supporters Of The “Platform Of Ten[2]

1) Top strata (bureaucratic) in the Workers’ Opposition ....

2) bottom strata’ actually linked with the rank and file, really proletarian...

3) most resolute ideological struggle against the syndicalist and Makhayev deviation (at the top) of the Workers’ Opposition

4) congress decision condemning in principle the syndicalist, anarchist, Makhayev deviation of the Workers’ Opposition

5) congress decision (by roll-call vote) against leaving any faction or trace of factionalism

6) threat of expulsion from the Party and transference from the C.C. to alternate membership ((by decision of C.C. + Control Commission + all alternate members + two-thirds??))[3]

7) take really proletarian elements into the CC.

8) penetrate ,study, investigate, explore...

9) a number of speakers (at the congress) to put this line through should be elected immediately

10) elect a bureau of the “platform of Ten”...

11) resolution on the report of the C.C. (a) on greater unity and discipline generally, and in the C.C.; (β) on less bureaucratism in the Orgbureau

12) next meeting on the day of (or day after) arrival of the Petrograders (and Zinoviev)

+13) congress decision on press reporting of the Party congress: tone down factional disputes, demonstrate unity.

Written in March, not later than 9, 1921
First published in 1959 In Lenin Miscellany XXXVI
Printed from the manuscript.

2
Remark On The Amendment Of Rafail (B. B. Farbman)
To The Resolution On Party Unity March 16[4]

I don’t think this amendment ought to be adopted. When this discussion started we did not keep to the division in Pravda—political articles got mixed up with discussion   articles. We say here in an emphasised but not ultimatum form that these should not be dragged into the press.

First published in 1921 in the book The Tenth congress of the Russian Communist Party. Verbatim Report (March 8-16, 1921), Moscow
Printed from use text of the book, collated with the shorthand report.

3
Remark On Kiselyov’s Speech Concerning The Resolution On Party Unity March 16[5]

Comrades, I am very sorry that I used the word “machinegun” and hereby give a solemn promise never to use such words again even figuratively, for they only scare people and afterwards you can’t make out what they want. (Applause.) Nobody intends to shoot at anybody with a machine-gun and we are sure that neither Comrade Kiselyov nor anybody else will have cause to do so.

First published in 1933 in the book The Tenth Congress of the R.C.P.(B.) March 1921, Moscow
Printed from the text of the book, collated with the shorthand report

4
Remark On Marchenko’s Amendment To The Resolution On The Anarchist And Syndicalist Deviation March 16[6]

To say this in the name of the congress is far too prohibitive. I move that this amendment should not be adopted, without, of course, depriving the C.C. of the right to recommend, and in case of need, to concentrate all this in C.C.   publications: but I think it would be too much to have a congress ban on the issue of such publications locally.

First published in 1921 in the book The Tenth Congress of The Russian Communist Party. Verbatim Report (March 8-16, 1921), Moscow
Printed from the text of the book, collated with the shorthand report

Notes

[1] The Tenth Congress of the R.C.P.(B.) was held in Moscow on March 8-16, 1921. It was attended, according to the report of the Mandate Commission, by 694 voting delegates and 296 delegates with a voice but no vote, representing 732,521 Party members. The items on the agenda were: 1) Report of the Central Committee; 2) Report of the Control Commission; 3) The trade unions and their role in the country’s economic life; 4) The Socialist Republic in a capitalist encirclement, foreign trade, conces-sions, etc.; 5) Food supply, the surplus-appropriation system, the tax in kind and the fuel crisis; 6) Questions of Party organisation; 7) The Party’s current tasks in the national question; 8) Reorganisation of the army and the militia question; 9) The Chief Committee for Political Education and the Party’s pro- paganda and agitation work; 10) Report of the R . C.P.’s representative in the Comintern and its current tasks; 11) Report of the R.C.P.’s representative in the International Trade Union Council; 12) Elections to the Central Committee, the Control Commission and the Auditing Commission.

The congress passed decisions on cardinal issues pertaining to the country’s political and economic life. The work of the congress was guided by Lenin, who delivered the opening and closing speeches and made reports on the political activities of the C.C., the substitution of a tax in kind for the surplus grain appropriation system, Party unity and the anarcho-syndicalist deviation, the trade unions, and the fuel question. Lenin drafted the major resolutions for the congress. See also present edition, Vol. 32, pp. 165-271.

[2] The meeting of the supporters of the ’,Platform of Ten" referred to here apparently took place on the eve of the congress or early in its proceedings-on March 8 or 9, 1921.

[3] This point was elaborated by Lenin in Point 7 of his preliminary draft resolution on Party unity adopted by the Tenth Congress of the R.C.P.(B.) (see present edition, Vol. 32, pp. 241-44).

[4] The amendment of Rafail (R. B. Farbman) to Point 4 of the resolution on Party unity proposed adding that moot points "be discussed at general meetings and in the press". The amendment was rejected.

[5] A. S. Kiselyov came out against Point 7 of the resolution on Party unity, in which the Central Committee was authorised to resort to the extreme measure of expulsion from the Party in the case of C.C. members guilty of factional activities. In his speech Kiselyov stated that Lenin, in describing the significance of this point, had used the expression “mounting machine-guns”.

[6] The amendment of K. I. Marchenko applied to Point 6 of the resolution ’On the Syndicalist and Anarchist Deviation in Our Party" (see present edition, Vol. 32, p. 248). Marchenko pro-posed to include in the resolution that discussion publications be issued only by the C.C. of the R.C.P,(B,) or by the Regional Bureaux of the CC. The amendment was rejected.


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