V. I.

Lenin

Draft Decision for the Politbureau of the C.C., R.C.P.(B.) on Maxim Gorky’s Articles in the Journal The Communist International [2]

I move the following resolution by a collection of signatures in the Politbureau:

The Politbureau of the C.C. considers the publication in
No. 12 of the Communist International of Gorky’s articles extremely inappropriate, especially the editorial, as there is not only nothing communist about these articles, but a
good deal that is anti -communist in them. In future such articles must on no account be published in the Communist International .

Lenin [1]

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Notes:
[1]
The draft is signed also by L.D. Trotsky, N. N. Krestinsky and
M.I. Kalinin. —Ed.

[2]
This refers to Maxim Gorky’s article “Vladimir Ilyich Lenin" published
as an editorial in the journal The Communist International No. 12,
1920, and Gorky’s letter to H. G. Wells published in the same issue.

Both the article and the letter, though inspired by genuine affection for Lenin and admiration for his activities, were written
from erroneous positions of the personality cult and contained a number of
politically harmful theses. Gorky gave extremely subjective and virtually
idealist appraisals of the role of Lenin and the Russian people, and the
nature of the revolution in Russia. He overlooked the leading role
of the Communist Party, the decisive role of the working class and the
peasantry in the revolution.

Lenin’s motion was adopted by the Politbureau of the
C.C., R.C.P.(B.) on July 31, 1920.

The Communist International, organ of the Executive
Committee of the Communist International, was published in Russian, German,
French, English, Spanish and Chinese. The first issue appeared on May 1,
1919.

The journal published theoretical articles and documents of the Comintern and a number of articles by Lenin (“The Third
International and Its Place in History”, The Tasks of the Third
International”, “Ramsay MacDonald on the Third International”,
“Greetings to Italian, French and German Communists”, “The Constituent
Assembly Elections and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat”, “Notes of a
Publicist" and others). All member Parties of the Comintern were
represented on the journal’s edi torial board. The journal dealt
with the fundamental questions of Marxist-Leninist theory bearing on the
problems of the inter-national labour and communist movements and the
experience of socialist construction in the Soviet Union. It quickly became
a mouthpiece for the Stalin faction of the Communist Party, supporting all
the zig-zags of the Comintern during the 30s and 40s. Publication finally
ceased in June 1943 following the decision by the Presidium of the
Comintern’s Executive on May 15, 1943, dissolving the Communist
International.