Eighth Congress of the Russian Communist Party, On the Organizational Question. March 23, 1919

This resolution on the organizational question, adopted at the Eighth Congress of the Russian Communist Party on March 23, 1919, formalized the wartime turn toward tight central control inside the party. It endorsed new central executive organs, including the Politbiuro, Orgbiuro, and Secretariat, and expanded the authority of the center over local party committees and the membership. Written in the language of efficiency and discipline, the document shows how Civil War pressures accelerated the transformation of the Bolsheviks into a highly centralized ruling party.

Original Source: Kommunisticheskaia partiia sovetskogo soiuza v rezoliutsiiakh i resheniiakh s"ezdov, konferentsii i plenumov TsK (Moscow, 1954), Part 1, pp. 441-44.

1. The Growth of the Party

The numerical growth of the party is progressive only insofar as healthy proletarian elements of town and country flow into the ranks of the party. The doors of the party should be wide open to workers and to worker and peasant youth. But the party must always follow attentively the progressive changes in its social composition.... It is important to handle the admission into the party of non-worker and non-peasant elements by careful selection....

2. The Link with the Masses

The Russian Communist Party, since it is in power and holds in its hands the whole apparatus of the soviets, has naturally had to turn tens of thousands of its members over to the work of administering the country. One of the party's most important tasks at the present moment is to place new thousands of its best functionaries in the network of the governmental administration (the railroads, provisioning, control, the army, the courts, etc.).

However, in connection with the fulfillment of this substantial task a serious danger has arisen. Many members of the party who have been placed in this governmental work are divorcing themselves from the masses and becoming infected with bureaucratism, which very often applies to many workers who are members of the soviets. It is necessary to begin the most determined struggle against this evil immediately...

4. The Internal Structure of the Central Committee

The Central Committee has no less than two plenary sessions a month on previously arranged days. All the most important political and organizational questions which do not demand the most hasty decision are considered at these plenary meetings of the Central Committee.

The Central Committee organizes firstly a Political Bureau, secondly an Organizational Bureau, and thirdly a Secretariat.

The Political Bureau consists of five members of the Central Committee. All the other members of the Central Committee who find it possible to participate in one or another of the sessions of the Political Bureau enjoy a consultative voice at the sessions of the Political Bureau. The Political Bureau makes decisions on questions which do not permit delay, and it gives a report on all its work in the two weeks' period to the following meeting of the Central Committee.

The Organizational Bureau consists of five members of the Central Committee. Each of the members of the Organizational Bureau conducts his respective branch of the work. The Organizational Bureau assembles not less than three times a week. The Organizational Bureau directs all the organizational work of the party. The Organizational Bureau reports to the Plenum of the Central Committee every two weeks.

The Secretariat of the Central Committee is composed of one responsible secretary, a member of the Organizational Bureau of the Central Committee, and five technical secretaries from among the experienced party functionaries. The Secretariat organizes a series of departments. The Secretariat reports to the Plenum of the Central Committee every two weeks.

5. Nationality Organizations

At the present time the Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania and Byelorussia exist as special Soviet republics. Thus, the question of their forms of governmental existence is decided at the present moment.

But this does not at all mean that the Russian Communist Party in its turn should be organized on the basis of a federation of independent Communist parties.

The Eighth Congress of the Russian Communist Party decides that the existence of a unitary centralized Communist Party with a unitary Central Committee directing all the work of the party in all parts of the RSFSR is essential. All decisions of the Russian Communist Party and its leading institutions are unconditionally binding on all parts of the party, regardless of their nationality composition. The Central Committees of the Ukrainian, Latvian, and Lithuanian Communists enjoy the rights of regional committees of the party and are wholly subordinated to the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party...

7. Centralism and Discipline

The party finds itself in a position where the strictest centralism and the most rigorous discipline are absolute necessities. All decisions of a higher jurisdiction are absolutely binding for lower ones. Each decision must above all be fulfilled, and only after this is an appeal to the respective party organ permissible. In this sense outright military discipline is essential for the party at the present time....

8. The Assignment of Party Forces

At the present time the correct assignment of party forces is the main guarantee of success and one of the most important tasks. The whole matter of the assignment of party functionaries is in the hands of the Central Committee of the party. Its decision is binding for everyone. In each province the forces are assigned by the provincial committee of the party; in the capitals, by the city committees under the general direction of the Central Committee. The Central Committee is commissioned to wage the most determined struggle against any local privilege or separatism in these questions.

The Central Committee is commissioned to transfer party functionaries systematically from one branch of work to another and from one region to another with the aim of utilizing them the most productively...

Source: Robert V. Daniels, ed., A Documentary History of Communism (Hanover: Published for the University of Vermont by University Press of New England, 1984), pp. 113-115.