Plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU, Decree on the Anti-Party Group of G. M. Malenkov, L. M. Kaganovich, and V. M. Molotov. June 29, 1957
Original Source: KPSS v rezoliutsiiakh i resheniiakh s”ezdov, Vol. IV (Moscow, 1960), p. 271.
At its meetings of 22 June to 29 June 1957, the plenary session of the Party Central Committee considered the question of the anti-party group of Malenkov, Kaganovich and Molotov which had formed within the Presidium of the Party Central Committee.
At a time when the Party, led by the Central Committee and supported by the people as a whole, is doing tremendous work to carry out the historic decisions of the Twentieth Congress -intended to develop the national economy further and steadily raise the living standard of the Soviet people, to re-establish Leninist norms of inner-party life, to eliminate violations of revolutionary legality, to expand the Party’s ties with the masses, to develop Soviet socialist democracy, to strengthen the friendship of the Soviet peoples, to pursue a correct nationality policy and, in the sphere of foreign policy, to relax international tension in order to secure a lasting peace-and when notable progress, well known to every Soviet citizen, has been made in all these fields, the anti-party group of Malenkov, Kaganovich and Molotov came out against the Party line.
Seeking to change the Party’s political line, this group used anti-party, factional methods in an attempt to change the composition of the Party’s leading bodies, elected by the plenary session of the Party Central Committee.
This was not accidental.
In the past three or four years, during which the Party has been steering a resolute course toward rectifying the errors and shortcomings engendered by the personality cult and waging a successful struggle against revisionists of Marxism-Leninism, both in the international arena and inside the country years during which the Party has done appreciable work to rectify past distortions of Leninist nationality policy-the members of the anti-party group, now laid bare and fully exposed, have been offering constant opposition, direct or indirect, to this course approved by the Twentieth Party Congress. This group attempted, in effect, to oppose the Leninist course towards peaceful coexistence among states with different social systems, to oppose the relaxing of international tension and the establishment of friendly relations between the USSR and all the peoples of the world.
They were against enlarging the powers of the union republics in the sphere of economic and cultural development and in the sphere of legislation and also against enhancing the role of the local Soviets in carrying out these tasks. Thereby, the anti-party group opposed the Party’s firm course toward more rapid development of the economy and culture in the national republics -a course assuring further strengthening of Leninist friendship among all the peoples of our country. Not only did the anti-party group fail to understand the Party’s measures aimed at combating bureaucracy and reducing the inflated state apparatus, it opposed them. On all these points, it came out against the Leninist principle of democratic centralism implemented by the Party.
This group persistently opposed and sought to frustrate so vastly important a measure as the reorganization of industrial management and the setting up of economic councils in the economic regions, a measure approved by the entire Party and the people. They refused to understand that at the present stage, when progress in socialist industry has assumed a tremendous scale and continues to grow rapidly, with the development of heavy industry receiving priority, it was essential to find new, more perfect forms of industrial management which would uncover great reserves and assure an even more powerful rise in Soviet industry. This group went so far as to continue its struggle against the reorganization of industrial management, even after the approval of these measures in the course of the nationwide discussion and the subsequent adoption of the law at a session of the USSR Supreme Soviet.
With regard to agricultural questions, the members of this group failed to understand the new and vital tasks. They did not acknowledge the need to increase material incentives for the collective farm peasantry in increasing the output of agricultural products. They opposed abolition of the old bureaucratic system of planning on the collective farms and the introduction of the new system of planning which unleashes the initiative of the collective farms in managing their own affairs-a measure which has already yielded positive results. They have become so divorced from life that they cannot understand the real opportunity which makes it possible to abolish obligatory deliveries of farm products from collective farm households at the end of this year. Implementation of this measure, which is of vital importance for the millions of working people of the land of the Soviets, has been made possible by substantial progress in communal animal husbandry on the collective farms and by the development of the state farms. Instead of supporting this pressing measure, the members of the anti-party group opposed it.
They waged an entirely unwarranted struggle against the Party’s appeal -actively supported by the collective farms, provinces and republics-to overtake the USA in per capita output of milk, butter and meat in the next few years. Thereby the members of the anti-party group demonstrated lordly indifference to the vital life-interests of the broad masses of the people and lack of faith in the enormous potentialities inherent in the socialist economy, in the nationwide movement now going on for a faster increase in milk and meat production.
It cannot be considered accidental that Comrade Molotov, a participant in the anti-party group, manifesting conservatism and a stagnant attitude, not only failed to realize the need for developing the virgin lands but even opposed the plowing up of 35,000,000 hectares of virgin land, which has been of such tremendous importance in our country’s economy.
Comrades Malenkov, Kaganovich and Molotov stubbornly opposed those measures which the Central Committee and our entire party carried out to eliminate the consequences of the cult of the individual leader, to eliminate the violations of revolutionary law which had occurred and to create conditions which would preclude their recurrence.
Whereas the workers, collective farmers, our glorious youth, our engineers and technicians, scientists, writers, the entire intelligentsia, unanimously supported the measures promulgated by the Party in accordance with the decisions of the Twentieth Party Congress, whereas the entire Soviet people joined the active struggle to carry out these measures, and whereas our country is experiencing a mighty increase in the active part played by the people and a fresh surge of new creative forces, the participants in the anti-party group remained deaf to this creative movement of the masses.
In the sphere of foreign policy, this group, in particular Comrade Molotov, were sluggish, and hampered in every way implementation of new and pressing measures intended to alleviate international tension and strengthen world peace. As Minister of Foreign Affairs, Comrade Molotov for a long time not only failed to take any measures through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to improve relations between the USSR and Yugoslavia but repeatedly came out against those measures which the Presidium of the Central Committee carried out to improve relations with Yugoslavia. Comrade Molotov’s erroneous stand on the Yugoslav question was unanimously condemned by the July 1955 plenary session of the Party Central Committee as ‘not corresponding to the interests of the Soviet state and the socialist camp and not conforming to the principles of Leninist policy.’
Comrade Molotov raised obstacles to the conclusion of the state treaty with Austria and the improvement of relations with this state in the center of Europe. The conclusion of the treaty with Austria was of great importance in lessening general international tension. He was also against normalizing relations with Japan, whereas this normalization has played an important part in relaxing international tension in the Far East. He opposed the fundamental propositions worked out by the Party on the possibility of preventing wars under present conditions, on the possibility of different ways of transition to socialism in different countries, on the necessity of strengthening contacts between the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the progressive parties of foreign countries.
Comrade Molotov repeatedly opposed the Soviet government’s necessary new steps in defense of peace and the security of peoples. In particular he denied the advisability of establishing personal contacts between leaders of the USSR and the statesmen of other countries, which is essential in the interests of achieving mutual understanding and improving international relations.
On many of the above questions Comrade Molotov’s opinion was supported by Comrade Kaganovich and in a number of cases by Comrade Malenkov. The Presidium of the Central Committee and the Central Committee as a whole patiently corrected them and combated their errors, assuming that they would learn from their errors, that they would not persist in them and would fall into step with the entire guiding collective of the Party. However, they continued to hold their erroneous un-Leninist positions.
What underlies the position of Comrades Malenkov, Kaganovich and Molotov -which is at variance with the party line -is the fact that they were and still are shackled by old notions and methods, that they have become divorced from the life of the Party and country and fail to see the new conditions, the new situation, that they take a conservative attitude and cling stubbornly to obsolete forms and methods of work that are no longer in keeping with the interests of the movement toward communism, rejecting what is engendered by life and arises from the interests of the development of Soviet society, from the interests of the entire socialist camp.
Both in domestic questions and in questions of foreign policy they are sectarian and dogmatic and they use a scholastic, inert approach to Marxism-Leninism. They fail to realize that under present conditions living Marxism-Leninism in action and the struggle for communism manifest themselves in implementation of the decisions of the Twentieth Party Congress, in persistent pursuit of the policy of peaceful coexistence, the struggle for friendship among peoples and the policy of thorough consolidation of the socialist camp, in improved industrial management, in the struggle for an over-all advance in agriculture, for an abundance of food products, for large-scale housing construction, for enlargement of the powers of the union republics, for the flourishing of national cultures, for general development of the initiative of the masses.
Seeing that their erroneous statements and actions were constantly rebuffed in the Presidium of the Central Committee, which has been consistently carrying out the line of the Twentieth Party Congress, Comrades Molotov, Kaganovich and Malenkov embarked on a group struggle against the party leadership. Reaching agreement among themselves on an anti-party basis, they set out to change the policy of the Party, to return the Party to those erroneous methods of leadership which were condemned by the Twentieth Party Congress. They resorted to methods of intrigue and reached a secret agreement against the Central Committee. The facts revealed at the plenary session of the Central Committee show that Comrades Malenkov, Kaganovich and Molotov, as well as Comrade Shepilov, who joined them, having embarked on the path of factional struggle, violated the Party Statutes and the ‘On Party Unity’ decision of the Tenth Party Congress, drafted by Lenin, which states:
In order to effect strict discipline within the Party and in all Soviet work and to achieve maximum unity in eliminating all factional activity, the Congress empowers the Central Committee to apply in cases of breach of discipline or of a revival or occurrence of factional activity, all measures of party punishment, including expulsion from the Party, and in respect to members of the Central Committee, their reduction to the status of candidates for membership or even, as an extreme measure, their expulsion from the Party. The condition for application of this extreme measure to members of the Central Committee and members of the Control Commission shall be the convening of a plenary session of the Central Committee to which all candidates for membership in the Control Commission shall be invited. If such a general meeting of the most responsible party leaders recognizes by a two-thirds vote the necessity of reducing a member of the Central Committee to the status of a candidate for membership or his expulsion from the Party, then this measure shall be carried out immediately.
This Leninist resolution makes it obligatory for the Central Committee and all party organizations constantly to strengthen party unity, resolutely to rebuff any manifestation of factional or group activity, to assure truly integrated work which really expresses the unity of will and action of the vanguard of the working class, the Communist Party.
The plenary session of the Central Committee notes with great satisfaction the monolithic unity and solidarity of all the members of and candidates for membership in the Central Committee and the members of the Central
Inspection Commission of the Communist Party, who unanimously condemned the anti-party group. Not a single member of the plenary session of the Central Committee supported the group.
Faced with unanimous condemnation of the anti-party activity of the group by the plenary session of the Central Committee, in a situation where the members of the plenary session of the Central Committee unanimously demanded the removal of the members of the group from the Central Committee and their expulsion from the Party, they admitted the existence of collusion and the harmful nature of their anti-party activity and bound themselves to comply with the Party’s decisions. On the basis of the above and guided by the interests of comprehensively strengthening the Leninist unity of the Party, the plenary session of the Party Central Committee resolves:
1. To condemn as incompatible with the Leninist principles of our party the factional activities of the anti-party group of Malenkov, Kaganovich and Molotov, and of Shepilov, who joined them.
2. To exclude Comrades Malenkov, Kaganovich and Molotov from membership in the Presidium of the Central Committee and from the Central Committee; to remove Comrade Shepilov from the post of Secretary of the Central Committee and to exclude him from the list of candidates for membership in the Presidium of the Central Committee and from membership in the Central Committee.
The unanimous condemnation of the factional activity of the anti-party group of Comrades Malenkov, Kaganovich and Molotov by the Party Central Committee will serve to strengthen further the unity of the ranks of our Leninist party, to strengthen its leadership, to promote the struggle for the general line of the Party.
The Party Central Committee calls on all Communists to rally still more closely around the invincible banner of Marxism-Leninism, to direct all their powers toward success in solving the tasks of communist construction.
(Adopted on 29 June 1957, by unanimous vote of all the members of the Central Committee, candidates for membership in the Central Committee and members of the Central Inspection Commission, with one abstention in the person of Comrade Molotov.)
Source: Current Digest of the Soviet Press, Vol. IX, No. 23 (1960), p. 6.