The Daily Worker Newspaper, November 5, 1924, Page 13

“e The R (Continued from Page 2.) connection with the old guard of pre- revolutionary Communist fighters. Members of’ the Central Committee are Communists of long standing. Sec- retaries of the District and Province Committees may be only Communists who joined the party prior to October, 1917. Secretaries of the County Com. mittees must be Communists of three years’ standing. Members of the Central and Province Control Committees can only be Communists who actually participated in under ground work before the revolution. Lenin Enrollment c. The great event that manifested to the world the attitude of the masses towards the Communist Party and brought the party imto the very heart of the working masses, was the} Lenin Enrofiment. When Lenin died, the party issued a call to the workers te join the party of Lenin. One hundred thousand were expected to join, two hundred and fifty thousand filed applications, swelling the bership to 700,000, flooding the local nuclei, upsetting all calculations, put- ting an end to the party discussion, overwhelming the organization with the task of assimilating the new mass. Only workers engaged in in dustrial establishments were allowed to enter the Lenin enrollment. A quarter million offered its active serv- ices to the cause of the revolution, pouring new blood, new energy, new vigor, new impetus into the body of the party. This was how the heart of ~ the working ¢lass responded to Len- in’s cherished organisation. “Why did you join the party just after Lenin’s death? Why did you not endous work of training those new ussian Communist Party secretaries, conferences of secretaries Communists, many of whom are men|of nuclei in a given city or district, and women of mature ege. A host of teachers is giving this mass instruc tion in the first principles of socia! theory (“The ABC of political sci- ence”); a host of other teachers is in- troducing the more advanced among the Lenin Enrollment into the study of Marxism, while the secretaries of the nuclei and the party as a whele are drawing the new recruits into the various. phases of actual party life, Pushing them forward even to the most advanced positions. general meetings of numbers of nuc- lei in the same industry or the same locality, etc. All these ways of party intercourse convey to the entire or- ganization the will and the views of jthe leading body, at the same time conveying to the Central Committee and to the Central Control Committee the will and the views of the rank and file members. The Central Committee which is the aeeg government of Russia consists of 54 members; the Central Control mem: | The Vydvishentzy (“those moved to|Committee consists of 152 members. the fore”) are only one case in this |The Central Committee is the highest variegated problem. Hundreds of authority of the party, giving direc workers recommended by the local /|tion to all the activities of every Com- nuclei were taken from the factories | munist organization, at the same time and placed in the highest offices of|it decides upon all the problems con- the Soviet government, the aim be-|fronting the Soviet state. ing, first, to have those fresh and un-| The decisions of the Communist spolied minds observe the workings Party are being carried out not only of the various institutions, simultan-| within the party but wherever a Com- eously inspecting them in the name of |munist happens to work. All Commun the party and learning their mechan-|igts working in the same establish- isms, second, to place these workers |ment or delegated to the same non- in responsible ‘positions in the respect-| partisan conference or congress, or ive offices after they have acquainted|elected to the same Soviet political themselves with their administration. !or industrial or educational office, are The party thus makes it possible forjorganized as a Communist faction IN PETROGRAD Smolny Institute—Headquarters of the Bolsheviks a capable aspiring werker to skip all intermediary steps and attain to high- er administrative work im the shortest _|Possible way. The “ones moved to the fore” bring with them proletarian conceptions of economy and order, proletarian working power, and prole- tarian freedom from bureaucratic bias. Democatio Centralism @. The Russian Communist Party is built on the principle of Democratic Gentralism. The party is centralized from top to botom: the decisions of the Central Committee are law for every party orgamization and every member. The decisions of the Central member. The decisions of the lower institutions may be annulled by the in stitutions.above them. The choice of officers by lowor institutions is subject te veto by the superior bodies. The authority and prestige of the party must be a matter of the highest con- (caucus). The course of action of the faction is determined by the local -or cehtral committee. The decisions of the committee or caucus are binding upon every member. Communists ap- pearing in a non-Communist gather. ing or organization, always act as a unit. No Communist will ever crit- icizé the stand of another Communist before an audienee of strangers. Com- munrists appear to be all of one epin- jon arid defending the same course whea acting in non-Commanist sur- roundings. This is one of the reasons of their great influence among the non-partisan masses, The Communist: .|know what they want in every case, they are never caught unprepared, and they stand all for one and oné for all. The party decidedly forbits caucus: es and groupings with the party or- ganization. No intermediary discip- line may stand betwen the member and the party as a whole. No group loyalty may interfere with the loyalty of a member to his party. Bvery vot« of a party member within the party -/organization must be dictated by his best understanding and not by the collective understanding of a group. elected by its members. Every Coun- ty Committee is elected by a county conference. Regional and provincial commitees are being elected at con- ferences of the region or the province. In the times of underground work prior to 1917 the officers of the party were appointed from above. At pre sent, when the party leads a free and open existence, the party leadership, from the lowest to the highest func- tionaries is being elected from below, —with limitations as to the party standing of the comrade to be elected. There is freedom of opinion and freedom of discussion within the Rus- sian. Communist Party. Freedom of discussion, however, must not be ab- used so as to shake the very founda- tions of the party. When a group within the party criticizes its activ- ities in such a manner as to in in- spire the bourgeoisie with new hope of a near collapse of the proletarian power, when the passions let loose within the party not only tend to de- nounce existing evils but to discredit the party outside its ranks and to un- dermine its vitality within, then the criticiam reaches beyond the mark and freedom of opinion turns to be a danger Such was the caso with the last discussion. One must always bear in mind that the Russian Communist Party is car rying out a colossal] revolutionary task, that the revolution has not yet been concluded, that the enemies are numerous and cunning, and that every rift within the party means a weakening of the power of proletarian rule, Housecieanings @ The Russian Communist Party is a governing party. It represents power. It imposes on its membership ness that characterizes every one of its the party. “We make mistakes. cluded out of a total membership of 700 thousand. In the spring and sum- mer of 1924 another housecleaning was conducted, this time exclusively among the office nuciel, i. @ among those Communists who work in Soviet institutions. What are the reasons for exclusion from the party? First of all, a non- worker who is a member of the Com- munist Party must de work for the party. Even a factory worker is ex- pected to render regular services to his organization, but he is not always in a position to de so. As for a non- worker, an intellectual or semi-intellec- tual, it is not sufficient for him that he does his duty in the Soviet institution: ‘he must also be active within his nucleus and within the party. Non- active intellectuals, however useful otherwise, are considered ballast and put up to a Communist. He shirks his duties, who soldiers on the The party forbids caucuses as tending | job, who is inefficient, who demoral- to disrapt the unity of the organisa tion amd weaken its power in the face of the enemy who waits for just such @ schism in the leadership of the pro- letarian revolution. But while practicing a severe cen-