V. I.

Lenin

Draft Resolution for the C.C., R.S.D.L.P.(B.) Concerning the Expulsion from the Party of S. A. Lozovsky

Resolution of the C.C., R.S.D.L.P.(Bolsheviks)

Taking into consideration

1) that Comrade Lozovsky, from the very beginning of the October Revolution, has expressed opinions which radically diverge from those of the Party and of the revolutionary proletariat in general, but coincide on all major points with the petty-bourgeois negation of the dictatorship of the proletariat as an essential phase in the transition to socialism;

2) that by his statement of

November… [1] in the newspaper Novaya Zhizn , [2] which has gone over to the bourgeoisie, Comrade
Lozovsky has aroused general indignation not only among all Party people, but among the class-conscious workers at large [3] and that the resolution of the C.C. of the
R.S.D.L.P. concerning Comrade Lozovsky’s expulsion from the Party, passed
soon after this statement had been made, was not announced and carried out
only because of the hopes expressed by some comrades that the vacillations
of Comrade Lozovsky were of a temporary nature caused by his inability to
quickly grasp the significance of the historic upheaval that was taking
place with such extraordinary speed;

3) that the expectations of the comrades who wished to give Comrade
Lozovsky time to fully grasp the significance of the revolution that took
place, have not been justified and that Comrade Lozovsky’s entire political
conduct and especially his articles in Nos. 7 and 8 of Professionalny Vestnik [4] point to this comrade’s complete divergence from the
cardinal principles of socialism in his approach to the role of the
proletariat in the socialist revolution;

4) that membership of the Party by a person who holds an important post
in the trade union movement and is debauching that movement with shoddy
bourgeois ideas, not only compromises the Party and demoralises all
organisational work among the proletariat, but causes enormous practical
harm to the urgent task of organising socialist production by the trade
unions;

5) that joint work in the ranks of a single Party is impossible with a
person who does not understand the necessity for the dictatorship of the
proletariat, which is recognised by our Party Programme, who does not
understand that without such a dictatorship, that is, without a systematic,
ruthless suppression of the resistance of the exploiters, which sticks at
no bourgeois-democratic formulas, one cannot conceive of any consistently
democratic, leave alone socialist, revolution, nor of any serious measures
for coping with the crisis and economic chaos caused by the war;

6) that joint work in the ranks o a single Party is impossible with a
person who repudiates the socialist tasks of the proletariat, which has won
political power; with a person who refuses to accept the idea that it is
the duty of the trade unions to take upon themselves state functions and
carry through with the greatest vigour and determination the socialist reorganisation of production and distribution on a
nation-wide scale, the C.C. of the R.S.D.L.P resolves: that Comrade Lozovsky be expelled
from the R.S.D.L. Party (Bolsheviks) and this resolution be published
without delay.

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Notes:
[1]
Lenin has left a space in the manuscript for the date.— Ed .

[2]
Novaya Zhizn (New Life)—a daily newspaper, published in
Petrograd from April 18 (May 1), 1917 to July 1918; sponsored by Menshevik
internationalists and writers grouped around the magazine Letopis
(Chronicle). The paper adopted a hostile attitude to the October Socialist
Revolution and the establishment of Soviet power. From June 1, 1918,
appeared in two editions—in Petrograd and Moscow. Both were closed down
in July 1918.

[3]
This refers to the statement by S. A. Lozovsky, then Secretary of the
All-Russia Central Council of Trade Unions, addressed to the Bolshevik
group in the Central Executive Committee. It was published in the
newspaper Novaya Zhizn No. 172 for November 4 (17), 1917. In
December 1917 S. A. Lozovsky was expelled from the Bolshevik Party. He was
reinstated in December 1919.

[4]
Lenin is referring to S. A. Lozovsky’s articles “The All-Russia
Congress of Trade Unions” and “The Trade Unions and Soviet Power”
published in Professionalny Vestnik, Nos. 7 apd 8, 1917.

Professionalny Vestnik (Trade Union
Herald)—a journal, organ of the All-Russia Central Council of Trade
Unions; appeared from September 1917 to March 1919 in Petrograd.