Written: Written March 17, 1920
Published:
First published in 1963 in the Fifth Russian Edition of the Collected Works, Vol. 40.
Printed from the manuscript.
Source:
Lenin
Collected Works,
2nd English Printing,
Progress Publishers,
1971,
Moscow,
Volume 42,
pages 184-185a.
Translated: Bernard Isaacs
Transcription\Markup:
D. Walters
Public Domain:
Lenin Internet Archive
(2003).
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The Politbureau, composed of Bukharin, Krestinsky and Lenin, discussed on 17.III.1920 the statement of the A.C.C.T.U. Party group signed by Tomsky and Lutovinov and, found in their presence 1) that Comrade Krestinsky, in private conversations with Comrades Ishchenko, Glebov, Tomsky and Lutovinov, did not voice his misgivings about the awkwardness of the existing relations (namely, the sponsoring by members of the Party at non-Party congresses-and not at their communist groups-of resolutions that differ from the resolution of the C.C. of the Party) in respect of the decision passed by the C.C.
2) that Comrade Krestinsky had suggested that this question should not be dealt with by the Party group before its forthcoming discussion the next day at the Politbureau in the presence of members of the Party group’s bureau;
3) that during these conversations’ Comrade Krestinsky had been rather hasty;
on the other hand,
that under the circumstances the discussion of this question at the Party group was highly out of place and bound to aggravate the conflict needlessly, or rather turn the difference of opinion between the C.C. and the Party group into a real conflict;
that the statement mentioned above is, in the eyes of every Party man, not only hastiness, but squabbling of a decidedly unsavoury nature;
therefore the Politbureau resolves that the members of the A.C.C.T.U. Party group bureau be asked
to have the Party group cancel its resolution and
consider the incident closed.
The Politbureau, composed of comrades Bukharin, Lenin and Krestinsky, discussed on 17.111.1920 the abnormal situation arising from the fact that Party members sponsor resolutions at non-Party congresses which run counter to the decisions of the Party’s C.C.
The Politbureau resolves that from the point of view of Party discipline this is decidedly wrong and impermissible.
Considering the quite exceptional circumstances, however (namely, the very early date of the forthcoming Party congress, the publication of Comrade Tomsky’s theses, and the comparatively minor importance of the still moot question of collective management with or without one-man management in separate cases) it is recognised as a politically lesser evil that members of the A.C.C.T.U. Party group be permitted, pending the decision of the Party congress, to sponsor the resolution of that group at current congresses of the various trade unions.
[1] At a joint meeting of the Party groups of the All-Russia Central Council of Trade Unions and the Moscow C.T.U. on March 15, 1920, N. N. Krestinsky, Secretary of the C.C., R.C.P.(B.), declared that since the stand taken by the A.C.C.T.U.’s Party Group and its responsible leaders on the question of collective and one-man management differed sharply from that of the Party’s Central Committee, he proposed in the name of the Party’s C.C. that none of the group’s members should deliver reports at trade union congresses in favour of collective management.
Members of the group’s bureau, at a closed meeting, emphatically protested against such interpretations and methods of enforcing Party discipline and applied to the C.C. of the R.C,P. (B.) asking to be allowed to move resolutions at trade union congresses on behalf of the A.C.C.T.U.’s Party Group. Their statement was discussed at a meeting of the C.C.’s Politbureau, which adopted Lenin’s draft resolutions.
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