8th Conference

Eighth Conference of the RCP (b). December 1919

The transcripts of the VIII All-Russian Conference are published for the first time. The publication is based on: 1) Verbatim records of reports and debates, published in Izvestia of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) No. 9, 10, 11 for 1919; Lenin - "Political Report of the Central Committee"; Krestinsky - "Organizational report OK"; Vladimirsky - "Report on Soviet construction"; Zinoviev - "On the charter"; Bukharin - "On work among the new members of the party" and co-reports and debates on them. 2) The transcripts stored in the archives of the Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute unpublished and not corrected by the editorial committee of the conference: - Yakovlev's report - "On Soviet power in Ukraine", debates on this report, the closing words of Lenin and Yakovlev, and Rykov's report - "On fuel ".

The XIII conference of the CPSU (b) was held in Moscow on January 16-18, 1924. There were 128 delegates with a casting vote and 222 with an advisory vote. The conference discussed issues of party building, international situation, and immediate tasks of economic policy. JV Stalin made a report "On the Immediate Tasks of Party Building". The resolutions "On Party Building" and "On the Results of the Discussion and the Petty-Bourgeois Deviation in Our Party" were adopted.

At the conference, a fierce controversy unfolded between the majority of the delegates, on the one hand, and L. D. Trotsky and his supporters, on the other. As a result of the conference, Trotskyism was condemned and called "a petty-bourgeois and revisionist movement directed against Leninism."

Order of the day: Political and organizational reports of the Central Committee (lecturers V. I. Lenin, N. N. Krestinsky); International situation (speaker G.V. Chicherin); Questions of the order of the day of the 7th All-Russian Congress of Soviets (the question of Soviet construction, lecturer MF Vladimirsky); About Soviet power in Ukraine (speaker Ya.A. Yakovlev); On the party charter (lecturer G.E. Zinoviev); On the work among the new members of the party (speaker NI Bukharin); On the fuel crisis (speaker A.I. Rykov).

In the political report of the Central Committee, Lenin summed up and summed up the experience of the two-year struggle of the party to strengthen Soviet power, revealed the conditions for victories on the fronts of the Civil War, and gave an analysis of the international situation. Lenin identified the immediate tasks of the party in the field of state, economic, party building, the solution of which ensured the victorious end of the Civil War.

Based on Chicherin's report, the conference adopted a resolution reflecting the Leninist principles of peaceful coexistence of the Soviet country with other states. The report on Soviet construction summarized the experience of the Soviet state apparatus, highlighted issues of relations between local and central bodies, and made proposals for amendments to the Constitution of the RSFSR. The conference paid much attention to Ukraine, where (before its capture by the White Guards), Soviet and party bodies made serious mistakes in resolving peasant and national issues (planting communes and state farms without observing the principle of voluntariness, confiscating surplus grain from the middle peasants, attempts at Russification). Lenin made a speech and concluding remarks on the report "On Soviet Power in Ukraine" (the text of the speech has not yet been found);

For the first time since the October Revolution, the conference adopted a new Statute of the RCP (b). Its main provisions were preserved in all subsequent party statutes. The Charter enshrined the principle of democratic centralism, clearly defined the structure of party organizations, introduced a new section on candidates for party members, etc.

The conference discussed the issue of working with young communists admitted to the RCP (b) during the party week, which took place at the end of 1919 (over 270 thousand).

The conference outlined concrete measures to raise the general educational and ideological and political level of communists, strengthen party discipline, and involve young party members in the active construction of a socialist society. A draft resolution on fuel supply was adopted for submission by the communist faction at the 7th All-Russian Congress of Soviets. The conference rebuffed the speeches of the so-called anti-party group T.V. Sapronov - N. Osinsky (VV Obolensky) (the group of "democratic centralism"), which led to the weakening of the dictatorship of the proletariat, to the denial of the party leadership of the Soviet apparatus.

The decisions of the conference formed the basis for the decisions of the 7th All-Russian Congress of Soviets.