Less than a year after the defeat and expulsion of the United Opposition in November 1927, the alliance between Stalin and Bukharin broke down. In late 1928 leaders Bukharin, Rykov, and Tomsky spoke against the grain procurement, collectivization plans, and pace of industrialization that Stalin’s wing had proposed. Losing the debate in the Party in early spring, Bukharin was removed from by the E.C.C.I. of his leading positions in the Communist International in August and from senior posts, including the Politburo and editor of Pravda, at the Central Committee’s November Plenum. Below is the statement from the Party on the Plenum’s actions. Bukharin and Rykov would be at the center of the ‘Trial of the 21’ during the Purges and executed on March 15, 1938.

‘The C.P.S.U. November Plenum and the Bankruptcy of the Right-Wing Opposition’ from Communist International. Vol. 6 No. 27. December 15, 1929.

“THE Bolsheviks may seize power, but they will not be able to keep it”; so sang the choir of counter-revolutionary singers “from Miliukov to Martov,” and the refrain was taken up in trembling tones by those of the Bolshevik ranks who drifted during the October revolution.

The great proletarian State has stood firmly for twelve years amid an environment of capitalist countries. The wounds inflicted by the civil war and the capitalist interventions have healed long since; the mighty, revolutionary Red Army—blood of the toiling masses’ blood, flesh of their flesh—is compelling the whole of the international counter-revolution to delay its declaration of a new counter-revolutionary imperialist war against the land of the Soviets. The Bolsheviks have not only seized but have retained power.

“The Bolsheviks may retain State power, but they cannot use it for anything except destruction,”—such was the second motif of the counter-revolutionary symphony of international social-democracy. And again were sceptics found among the Bolshevik camp, who denied the possibility of constructing and completing socialism in the U.S.S.R., and declared the inevitability of a Thermidor beneath the pressure of the internal forces of the counter-revolution and the external pressure of the capitalist world.

Under Bolshevik guidance the Soviet Union has long since surpassed the production of prewar Russia, despite the fact that during the civil war industrial production fell to 18% of the prewar dimensions, whilst agricultural production fell to 41%. Towards the end of the present economic year the industrial production of Soviet Russia on the new socialist basis will reach to approximately double the dimensions of pre-war production. The technical basis for the industrialisation of agriculture has been built.

“The Bolsheviks might succeed in restoring the national economy, but no socialism would come out of it; they would be forced to return to the road of capitalism; in an ocean of 25,000,000 peasant husbandries socialist islands are impossible”—such is the third item on the programme of the international counter-revolutionary choir, who sing it rather less confidently, but none the less noisily. And to their voices are this time added those of the opportunists, who propose that we should adjust the situation to the weak spots, that we “should not put everything to the hazard” in the construction of socialism, we should not inflame the class struggle, should make concessions to the class enemy, should await a peaceable “growth of the kulak into socialism.”

The Bolshevik-Leninists, who in October were not afraid of taking State power, who held that power through the fire of civil war and imperialist interventions, have established the foundations of socialism on the ruins of the capitalist economy of a backward peasant country, and at the last Plenum of the C.P.S.U. replied to this third item in the programme of the international counter-revolutionary choir in the following words:

“The violent growth of the socialist forms of economy, the increase in their specific importance in national economy, the strengthening of their influence over the individual peasant husbandry, which is expressed in the elemental movement of the poor and middle masses of the peasantry towards collective forms of economy, all witness to the fact that the complete success of the policy of a socialist attack upon the capitalist elements is guaranteed, and that the work of constructing socialism in the land of proletarian dictatorship can be carried through within an historically minimum period.”

These words, accompanied by the gigantic facts of the great socialist construction both in industry and in agriculture, and inspired by the efforts of the hosts of proletarians in town and countryside, are the answer to the “historical doubts” of all the three periods of the struggle for socialism during October and after. The contemptible social-fascist Schtampfer is compelled to recognise in the evening edition of Vorwaerts that “It (i.e., the October revolution) has drawn the most backward country in the world into the flood of the world socialist movement.” There is nothing left for the counterrevolutionaries of all hues and tints, for the doubting capitulationists and deserters from our own ranks, except to question the possibility of constructing socialism in the land of proletarian dictatorship within the historically minimum period.

THE November Plenum of the C.C. of the C.P.S.U. summarised the results of the first year of the five-year plan of socialist construction, and determined on the control figures for the coming economic year. The question was not whether it would be possible to accomplish the plan of great works at the tempo taken by the Party, with a surpassing of the tasks of the five-year plan in a number of important spheres of national industry. That possibility is now already an indisputable fact. The production of large-scale socialist industry has increased not by the proposed 21.4%, but by 23.7%, whilst the production of means of production has grown by 29.8% instead of the previously determined 25.6%. Although the chemical industry has lagged somewhat behind the plan drawn up for its first year, the growth of all other spheres of industry (electrical construction, heavy and lighter metals and especially of machinery construction) has considerably surpassed the bounds set by the five-year plan, so that the industrial basis of the socialist reconstruction of agriculture is assured. The Plenum found it just as unquestionable that a radical movement in the direction of socialist reconstruction had been accomplished in the form of a vigorous growth of Soviet and collective farm construction, and that this growth had far surpassed the most optimistic estimates of the socialist plan. In 1928-29, instead of the 564,000 husbandries, 1,040,000 husbandries came into collective economy, and this figure embraced not only the poor but also middle peasants. The punctual accomplishment of the grain collection plan, the settlement of the grain problem (which has been the most difficult question of the last two years) the complete collectivisation of enormous areas of the U.S.S.R., the approach to a decision of the problem of machinery supply and the organisation of agricultural labour, taken all together, were an eloquent reply to the declaration of the Bukharin group: “If it is not advantageous for the peasant to produce grain, he will have no desire for tractors, for agricultural instructors ; he will engage in any other line you like; beekeeping, bast-shoe making, transport; he will join the ranks of the town workers and so on.” All these assertions are nothing more nor less than a rejection of the entire general line of the Bolshevik Party, a rejection of the socialist attack on the remnants of capitalism which life has shattered to smithereens. And just as indubitable was the bankruptcy of the entire position of the “right-wing” deviators in whom the well-known “Change the Landmarks” member, Ustralov of Harbin, put such great hope, still hoping to some extent for the capitalist degeneration of the Soviet Union. “For the time being,” said Bukharin, “the ‘Change the Landmark’ members can keep quiet.” The “right-wingers” at the Plenum could not dispute the prospects of the coming economic year; the tempo of growth of socialism during the past year completely justifies the most exacting of control figures for the following year. Capital investment in national economy during 1929-30 amounts to 13,000 million roubles,—4,500 million roubles more than in the previous year, and surpassing the figure laid down in the five year plan by 2,800 million roubles. The growth in the socialist sector does not lag behind the general growth throughout national economy on the contrary, the growth of its specific importance has exceeded the most optimistic expectations. In a peasant country where the Soviet Government inherited a poorly developed capitalist economy, one can speak not merely of the complete safeguarding of the strategic points, but of an undoubted predominance of the socialist sector over the private sector.

There is not a single important indicator of national economy which justifies the denial that the victory of socialism is assured. Towards the end of the economic year 59 % of the basic funds of the entire national economy will belong to the socialist sector, which will produce 51.2% of the gross and 75.4% of the production for the market, and through its own trading and distributing machinery will distribute 96.7 % of the total turnover. What facts could the “rightwing” deviators at the Plenum attack? What could they dispute? The tempo of industrialisation or of the Soviet and collective farm construction? The methods of settling the grain crisis? But all these problems had been so resolved under the Leninist leadership of the C.C. of the C.P.S.U. that those “right-wing” deviators who proposed to capitulate before the difficulties could do nothing else than cling to the tails of the various correspondents of the bourgeois newspapers such as Scheffer and Farbman and admit that the tempo of industrialisation and collectivisation set by the C.C. is completely realisable. With such realism in the general plan, itis no less realistic, although it will be more difficult to achieve a complete realisation of a reduction in cost price, an ensurance of the growth of real wages by 12% during the current economic year, an improvement in the unemployment situation and an absolute reduction in its extent, and in general a rise in all the qualitative indicators of national economy.

It was impossible for them to quarrel with the real dynamic of figures. Their expectation of an economic crisis and speculation on a “decline” came to nothing. There was left only the possibility of counting on social movements in various classes of the transitional society, on difficulties of a political nature in the process of the class struggle. But the dynamic of figures corresponds to the mass social movement. The plan of socialist construction consists not of ideal figures, just as the economic plan is not merely work on paper. The composition and realisation of a socialist plan is a preliminary calculation for the leadership of millions of masses and a movement of those masses. The dynamic of the economic indicators in a situation where socialism is under construction is literally a movement of the millions of the masses. Behind every hundredth part of the indicative figures thousands, tens and hundreds of thousands of workers and poor peasants are working, carrying on a ruthless class struggle. The shock workers at the factories, the staffs of socialist rivalry, the labour enthusiasm and creative initiative of the working masses are all hidden behind these figures. Anyone who essays to quarrel with anything must make up his mind whom he is quarrelling with.

To quarrel with the general line of the C.C. of a Bolshevik Party is tantamount to quarrelling with the toiling masses who find themselves engaged in a ruthless class struggle against class enemies on the front of the socialist offensive.

That is why the “right-wing” deviators decided to call a halt to their open struggle against the general line at this Plenum, whilst continuing their criticism of the socialist offensive.

Actually the socialist offensive is now the main target both for the “right-wing” opposition within the Communist Party and for all the social-democratic and bourgeois press, for all the renegades of Communism in capitalist countries The bourgeois-liberal nature of the “right-wing” opposition’s views on the socialist offensive is clearly demonstrated by the circumstance that, like the bourgeois and social-democratic press, they identify the socialist offensive with extraordinary measures. It is only necessary to compare the views of the bankrupt “right-wing” opposition on the socialist offensive and on the general situation in the U.S.S.R. with what the “left-wing social-democratic” newspaper Leipziger Volkszeitung is writing on the offensive of ‘“‘socialism in the U.S.S.R.” for one to realise at once their monstrous community of views with the Notes of an Economist and other documents of the “right-wing” deviators.

The picture supplied by this social-democratic newspaper is extraordinarily similar to that which the “right-wing” deviators have drawn concerning the “military-feudal expropriation of the peasantry,” the severance with the middle peasant and the results of the socialist offensive in the villages generally. Whilst recognising the socialist offensive in words, the “right-wingers” even at this Plenum identified the socialist offensive with the application of extraordinary measures. No more than the social-democrats and the bourgeois journalists did they see that the application of extraordinary measures was only one, and that not the most important and most essential instrument of the socialist offensive on the Kulak.

Socialism’s offensive on the remnants of capitalism is being carried out by a whole system of State and social measures. It is not that the extraordinary measures are a system of socialist offensive, but that the system of socialist offensive includes the extraordinary measures as a temporary instrument. The actual application of extraordinary measures does not signify a simple application of one of the articles of the criminal code against the kulak sabotagers of the grain supply of the proletarian State. They are applied by the masses of poor, middle and labourer sections of the villages, as a temporary social measure in the class struggle, whilst simultaneously the Soviet State is raising the material and technical level of development of agriculture at a dizzy speed and is reconstructing agriculture on new socialist bases. The “right-wing” opportunists have talked only of extraordinary measures, and not of the fact that in 1929-30 the agricultural machinery factories will have an output of six times as much agricultural machinery as that of pre-war days, and will turn out 133,000 tractors of 10 horse-power. They do not see that by the end of the five years there will be 800,000 tractors at work, on Soviet land, and that even without the newly-constructed works it will be possible to increase the production of agricultural machinery, and of tractors first and foremost, to such an extent that the material-technical basis of socialism in agriculture will be completely assured within six to eight years. It is not the extraordinary measures (which have been, and which possibly at certain moments may still be necessary for extrication from grain difficulties), which are now the characteristic features of the socialist offensive, but the extraordinary exertions to create the material-technical basis for the reconstruction of all agrarian activity on socialist foundations, whilst waging a tense struggle on all fronts. This is not understood by the “right-wing” deviators to whom all the forces hostile to Communism inside and outside the country are clinging. The identification of the socialist offensive with extraordinary measures means in actuality the rejection of the class struggle for socialism under a proletarian State; it signifies an endeavour to change the Party’s general line from being a forcing of the transformation of the country to socialist order, into being a mere marking time. Consequently it was understandable that in addition to demanding a cessation of the offensive on the kulaks the “right-wing” were in opposition on the question of the preparation of fresh technical staffs for socialist construction. The attack on the remnants of capitalism connotes the necessity to replace part of the specialists by our own specialists devoted to the work of socialism. The “right-wingers” who did not want to see the intensifying differentiation in the countryside also did not see the political differentiations proceeding in the towns among the technical and other intelligentsia. In picturing the idyll of the growth of the kulak into socialism they consider that the harm of certain groups of old specialists is only incidental, and not the symptom of an intensified struggle of the class enemy against socialism.

The C.C. Plenum did not take this attitude to the question of preparing fresh specialists. For the Plenum the starting point in the settlement of this issue was not only the quantitative insufficiency of specialists generally, but also the necessity of creating new ranks, qualitatively distinguished from the old technical ranks, of fighters on the front of the class struggle, and for the socialist reconstruction of national economy.

In this regard also the “right-wing” opportunists disagreed from the general line of the Party, for which many millions of toilers are struggling in face of the close attention of the entire capitalist world. But those elements of the “right-wing” opposition which have come into closer contact with the masses could not bring themselves to carry on further an active, anti-Leninist, anti-Bolshevik struggle against the general line of the Party and the proletarian masses standing behind it. These (Kotov, Michaelov, Uglanov, Kulikov) left the “rightwing” opposition. But the ideologists and leaders of the opposition (Bukharin, Rykov, Tomsky) and the young professorial intelligentsia following them, could not bring themselves to abandon their essentially bourgeois-liberal views. Like the Trotskyists they have carried out a retiring manceuvre in their plan of a new attack on the Party, which at the first convenient opportunity, at the first difficulties that arise, will enable them again to make an extensive attack on the Party’s general line. Whilst at the Plenum this group, who follow in the wake of the bourgeois journalists and liberal economists, was forced to bow before the enormous successes of the Party on the front of socialist construction, they simultaneously thought it possible to make demagogic accusations against the Party that in certain spheres it had not fulfilled the plan, and on this basis demanded the cessation in fact of the socialist attack on the kulak. Not in the least withdrawing its monstrous accusations of the “military-feudal exploitation of the peasantry,” of “implanting bureaucracy” and of “flight to Trotskyism,” to their old slanderous statements they added the assertion that the Comintern had at some time or other recognised the theory of the growth of the kulak into socialism as correct. Of course, the Plenum could not be satisfied with such a declaration, which did not unconditionally recognise the Party general line even in words, and which can quite justifiably be characterised as a double-handed rejection of that general line in fact. The brief interval that has elapsed since the Plenum has shown that the Party and non-Party masses struggling for a speedier realisation of socialism entirely approve of not only the removal of the principal leader of the “right-wing” deviators, Comrade Bukharin, from the C.C. Political Bureau, but also their firm determination in the spirit of the E.C.C.I. Tenth Plenum that propaganda of the views of the “right-wing” opposition is incompatible with membership of the Bolshevik Party. It is also unquestionable that the entire Bolshevik Party and the Comintern as a whole approves of the clause which declares that in the event of the least attempts on the part of the “right-wing” deviators to continue the struggle against the line and the decisions of the E.C.C.I. and the C.C. of the C.P.S.U. “The Party will not be slow in applying the requisite organisational measures in respect of them.” Never was it clearer than in this instance of the “right-wing” opportunists that he who struggles against the C.C. of the C.P.S.U. and its general line is struggling against all the masses of the proletariat.

THE double-dealing of the “right-wing” opposition finds expression in the circumstances that they obstinately keep silent concerning the Comintern’s struggle with the “right-wing” danger and the “right-wing” renegades. Com. Bukharin’s theory of organised capitalism has become the official theory of all the “right-wing” opportunists inside the Comintern as well as of those who are already outside its ranks. Hitherto the “right-wing” deviators have not considered it necessary to distinguish themselves from Lovestone, Chilbaum, etc., who raise on high the standard of the theory of organised capitalism, declaring after Bukharin that the “problems of the market,” of prices, competition, crises, are becoming more and more problems of world economy, being replaced “inside each country” by the problem of organisation.

So far the leaders of the “right-wing” opposition have not considered it necessary to withdraw their slanderous legends, identical with the views of Brandler, Thalheimer and similar renegades, that the Comintern is “disintegrating.” This silence in regard to problems of the international revolutionary movement proves that the necessary space is reserved on the new platform of the “right-wing” deviators for the defence of their international followers. Not only the C.P.S.U., but all the sections and lower organisations of the Communist International have the right to demand of Comrades Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky that on the basis of the decisions of the E.C.C.I. Tenth Plenum they shall take up a definite position on the question of the “right-wing” danger in all sections of the Comintern, on the question of the growth of the new revolutionary rise and the necessity to find new roads for the struggle against the social-fascists and for the conquest of the majority of the working-class. There is just as indissoluble a connection between the theory of organised capitalism and the demand for the cessation of the attack on the kulak as there is between the establishment of a new revolutionary rise and the forcing of an offensive on the remnants of capitalism within the U.S.S.R. The task of constructing socialism is not the “private affair” of the proletariat of one country. Even the white-guardist Kerensky has noted the existence of such a connection between Bukharin’s theoretical views on the development of international capitalism and the policy of permanent concessions to the kulak. In the period between the E.C.C.I. Tenth Plenum and the November Plenum of the C.P.S.U. C.C. Kerensky hastened to establish the correctness of Bukharin’s views in the dispute between him and the C.P.S.U. C.C. and the Comintern. “The theoretical dispute between Stalin and Bukharin over capitalism,” wrote Kerensky, “is by the very course of things decided in favour of the latter; but in the eyes of their defenders both theories are bound up with a definite practice of economic and State administration.”

But besides the inter-connection and unity of all Bukharin’s ideology on questions of the development of the international proletarian revolution, his views and those of his adherents in the narrow sense of the word, just as the work of socialistic construction in the U.S.S.R., are not a “private affair,” but a matter for the entire international proletariat. Every step forward taken by socialist construction is an enormous political factor in the proletariat’s revolutionary struggle for power. The opposition views of the Bukharin group are also a powerful weapon in the hands of the social-fascists of all sorts against the international Communist movement. It is no accident that since the complete disintegration of the Trotskyist opposition all the renegades of the Communist movement as well as the open social-fascists have been directing their eyes, full of hope, on the “right-wing” opposition inside the C.P.S.U. The opportunist opposition is now enriching the arsenal of all the anti-Communist tendencies and movements in the workers’ movement. The task of struggling against the opportunists of the C.P.S.U. is therefore a task of the entire Communist International.

AFTER this article had been set up in type we received the declaration made by Comrades Tomsky, Bukharin and Rykov in the C.C. of the C.P.S.U. and that of the last of the adherents among the members of the C.C., Comrade Ugarov. In their declaration, Comrades Tomsky, Bukharin and Rykov write that they consider it “their duty” to state that in this dispute the Party and the C.C. have proved to be right. They admit that the “views expounded in certain documents proved to be erroneous,” they promise that they will strain “all their efforts” in order jointly with their Party to carry on a resolute struggle against all deviations from the general line of the Party, and first and foremost against “right-wing” deviations and conciliation, in order to overcome the other difficulties, and to assure the speedier complete victory of socialist construction.

We say, “Better late than never,” but we also say that these comrades were somewhat late in renouncing their ideology, which is so dangerous for the work of socialist construction. They have been rather late in reacting to the loud voice of the millions of Party and non-Party proletarian masses. Whilst counselling the Party to make “unbroken concessions” in regard to the kulaks and other capitalist elements they were too long thinking whether they should make concessions to the firm opinion of the Party and the entire proletariat. None the less, they have come to a decision at last. And this proves that only a rigid Bolshevik attitude to all deviations from the Leninist Bolshevik line can safeguard a clear and firm accomplishment of socialist construction. This declaration of the leaders of the “rightwing” opposition is a great victory for the Bolshevik Party and for the Leninist C.C., but it in no wise signifies that the supporters of the general line of the C.P.S.U. and the Comintern can now quietly rest on their laurels. The “right-wing” opportunist elements and the class-hostile elements associated with them will continue to endeavour to undermine the construction of socialism in the U.S.S.R. and the revolutionary work of the Comintern and its sections. Consequently the struggle against the “right-wing” opportunistic deviations and a conciliatory attitude towards them is not removed from the agenda. On the contrary, it is necessary to carry on the struggle for the complete elimination of all “right-wing” deviations from the ranks of the Comintern with even greater energy. The victory of the C.C. of the C.P.S.U., the capitulation of the leading ideologists of the “right-wing” deviation must be exploited to show all the sections of the Comintern whither any deviation from the sound Leninist line will lead. A ruthless struggle against all manifestations of opportunism inside the Communist Parties is an even more actual task since the capitulation of Bukharin, Tomsky and Rykov than it was before.

There are a number of journals with this name in the history of the movement. This The Communist was the main theoretical journal of the Communist Party from 1927 until 1944. Its origins lie with the folding of The Liberator, Soviet Russia Pictorial, and Labor Herald together into Workers Monthly as the new unified Communist Party’s official cultural and discussion magazine in November, 1924. Workers Monthly became The Communist in March ,1927 and was also published monthly. The Communist contains the most thorough archive of the Communist Party’s positions and thinking during its run. The New Masses became the main cultural vehicle for the CP and the Communist, though it began with with more vibrancy and discussion, became increasingly an organ of Comintern and CP program. Over its run the tagline went from “A Theoretical Magazine for the Discussion of Revolutionary Problems” to “A Magazine of the Theory and Practice of Marxism-Leninism” to “A Marxist Magazine Devoted to Advancement of Democratic Thought and Action.” The aesthetic of the journal also changed dramatically over its years. Editors included Earl Browder, Alex Bittelman, Max Bedacht, and Bertram D. Wolfe.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/ci/vol-6/v06-n27-dec-15-1929-CI-riaz-orig.pdf