V. I. Lenin

Purging the Party [1]

The purging of the Party has obviously developed into a serious
and vastly important affair.

In some places the Party is being purged mainly with the aid of
the experience and suggestions of non-Party workers; these
suggestions and the representatives of the non-Party proletarian
masses are being heeded with due consideration. That is the most
valuable and most important thing. If we really succeed in
purging our Party from top to bottom in this way, without
exceptions, it will indeed be an enormous achievement for the
revolution.

The achievements of the revolution cannot now be the same as
they were previously. Their nature inevitably changes in
conformity with the transition from the war front to the
economic front, the transition to the New Economic Policy, the
conditions that primarily demand higher productivity of labour,
greater labour discipline. At such a time improvements at home
are the major achievements of the revolution; a neither salient,
striking, nor immediately perceptible improvement in labour, in
its organisation and results; an improvement from the viewpoint
of the fight against the influence of the petty-bourgeois and
petty-bourgeois-anarchist element, which corrupts both the
proletariat and the Party. To achieve such an improvement, the
Party must be purged of those who have lost touch with the
masses (let alone, of course, those who discredit the Party in
the eyes of the masses). Naturally. we shall not submit to
everything the masses say, because the masses, too, sometimes—particularly in time of exceptional weariness
and exhaustion resulting from excessive hardship and suffering—yield to sentiments that are in no way
advanced. But in appraising persons, in the negative attitude to
those who have “attached” themselves to us for selfish motives, to those who have become “puffed-up
commissars” and “bureaucrats”, the suggestions of the non-Party proletarian masses and, in many cases, of the
non-Party peasant masses, are extremely valuable. The working
masses have a fine intuition, which enables them to distinguish
honest and devoted Communists from those who arouse the disgust
of people earning their bread by the sweat of their brow,
enjoying no privileges and having no “pull”.

To purge the Party it is very important to take the suggestions
of the non-Party working people into consideration. It will
produce big results. It will make the Party a much stronger
vanguard of the class than it was before; it will make it a
vanguard that is more strongly bound up with the class, more
capable of leading it to victory amidst a mass of difficulties
and dangers.

As one of the specific objects of the Party purge, I would point
to the combing out of ex-Mensheviks. In my opinion, of the
Mensheviks who joined the Party after the beginning of 1918, not
more than a hundredth part should be allowed to remain; and even
then, every one of those who are allowed to remain must be
tested over and over again. Why? Because, as a trend, the
Mensheviks have displayed in 1918-21 the two qualities that
characterise them: first, the ability skilfully to adapt, to
”attach” themselves to the prevailing trend among the workers; and second, the ability even more skilfully to
serve the whiteguards heart and soul, to serve them in action,
while dissociating themselves from them in words. Both these
qualities are the logical outcome of the whole history of
Menshevism. It is sufficient to recall Axelrod’s proposal
for a “labour congress”, [2] the attitude of the
Mensheviks towards the Cadets [3] (and to the monarchy) in words and action, etc., etc. The Mensheviks
”attach” themselves to the Russian Communist Party not only and even not so much because they are Machiavellian
(although ever since 1903 they have shown that they are past
masters in the art of bourgeois diplomacy), but because they are
so ”adaptable". Every opportunist is distinguished for his
adaptability (but not all adaptability is opportunism); and the
Mensheviks, as opportunists, adapt themselves ”on principle” so to speak, to the prevailing trend among the
workers and assume a protective colouring, just as a hare’s coat turns white in winter. This characteristic of
the Mensheviks must be kept in mind and taken into account. And
taking it into account means purging the Party of approximately
ninety-nine out of every hundred Mensheviks who joined the
Russian Communist Party after 1918, i.e., when the victory of
the Bolsheviks first became probable and then certain.

The Party must be purged of rascals, of bureaucratic, dishonest
or wavering Communists, and of Mensheviks who have repainted
their “facade” but who have remained Mensheviks at heart.

September 20, 1921

Endnotes

[1] The purge was
undertaken in the second half of 1921 on the basis of the Tenth
R.C.P.(B.) Congress resolution “On Problems of Party
Development”. It was preceded by long and careful preparation.

Under the purge nearly 170,000 people, i.e., almost 25 per cent
of the membership, were expelled from the Party. This improved
the Party’s social composition, strengthened discipline,
gave the Party greater prestige among the non-Party worker and
peasant masses and freed the Party from elements who discredited
it. The Party’s ideological and organisational unity was
enhanced.

[2] The idea of
convening a so-called labour congress, proposed by P. B. Axelrod
and supported by other Mensheviks, was aimed at getting
representatives of various workers’ organisations together
and founding a legal ”broad labour party", which would include Social-Democrats, Socialist-Revolutionaries and
anarchists. Actually, it would have meant the dissolution of the
R.S.D.L.P. and its replacement by a non-Party organisation.

[3]
Cadets —members of the Constitutional-Democratic
Party, the chief political organisation of the liberal-monarchist bourgeoisie in Russia. It was founded in
October 1905, its membership including representatives of the
bourgeoisie, Zemstvo leaders from among the landowners, and
bourgeois intellectuals. In order to deceive the working people
the Cadets falsely called themselves the “Party of
People’s Freedom”, but in reality they never went beyond the demand for a constitutional monarchy. They considered
their main task to be the fight against the revolutionary
movement and aspired to share power with the tsar and the feudal
landowners. During the First World War they actively supported
the tsarist government’s foreign policy of conquest, and
in the period of the bourgeois-democratic revolution of February
1917 they tried to save the monarchy. After the Great October
Socialist Revolution they became irreconcilable enemies of
Soviet rule and actively participated in all the armed counter-revolutionary actions and campaigns of the
interventionists. When the interventionists and whiteguards were
defeated, the Cadets fled abroad, where they continued their
anti-Soviet, counter-revolutionary activity.