[We] failed to institutionalize and legalize inner-Party democracy … we drew up the relevant laws but they lacked due authority. This meant that conditions were present for the over-concentration of Party power in individuals and for the development of arbitrary individual rule and the personality cult in the Party.

When an artful and bold man is placed at the head of an army or faction, it is often easy for him, by employing sometimes violence, sometimes false pretenses, to establish his dominions over a people a hundred times more numerous than his partisans. He allows no such open communication that his enemies can know, with certainty, their number and force. Even those, who are the instruments of his usurpation, may wish his fall; but their ignorance of each other's intentions keeps them in awe, and is the sole cause of his security.