1 For the text of the Central Committee report see Izvestija Central'novo Komileta Rossiiskoj Kommunisticheskoj Partii (bol'shevikov), No. 20, March 7, 1921 (hereafter cited as Izvestija Ck).

2 The situation in Moscow was of particular concern to the Party leadership. The existing discontent reached its crest during the November, 1920, gubernija Party conference. The opposition, consisting of Workers’ Opposition, Democratic Centralists, and the group headed by E. N. Ignatov (which merged with the Workers’ Opposition during the Conference) conducted a separate caucus and presented a united slate of candidates. In the election of the new membership for the Moscow Committee, the opposition slate received 124 votes to 154 cast for the official slate, and several of the members of the opposition became members of the Committee. (Protokoly Desjatovo S'ezda RKP (b), Moscow, 1933, p. 829). The measures adopted by the Ninth Party Conference were evidently designed to steal the opposition's thunder. The Central Committee, in its report before the Tenth Congress, stated that while the Moscow opposition achieved 40% of the seats on the Party Committee in November, 1920 (it was actually almost 4 5% according to the above figures), its strength three months later became negligible. (Izvestija Ck, No. 20, March 7, 1921.) This was eventuated, however, less by an application of milder measures and more by an adoption of repressive steps. These included, among other things, transfer of recalcitrant members to remote localities or to diplomatic and other positions abroad.

3 VKP (b) v rezoljucijakh i resheniakh s'ezdov, konjerencii i plenumov TSK (1898-1932), Moscow, 1933, 4th Edition, I, 415 (hereafter cited as VKP (b) v rezoljiucijakh).

4 VKP (b) v rezoljucijakh, I, 415.

5 Ibid., I, 411-17.

6 Typical of the nature of these problems was a case of a certain Makhmud-Bek. This individual was in charge of security of a rest home. Such leading officials of the Bolshevik hierarchy as Dzerzhinskij and Enukidze enjoyed its comforts. Makhmud-Bek was accused of taking advantage of his position, of terrorizing the neighborhood peasants and forcing them to guard the roads leading to the rest home. An investigation was launched during which his suspicious past was also uncovered. But the case dragged on for one and one-half years, since Makhmud-Bek had powerful “pull” with the influential visitors who befriended him. This caused a great deal of bitterness among the rank-and-file, who directed their ire against his benefactors. Dzerzhinskij was especially implicated, since he signed authorizations giving Makhmud-Bek broad powers of unspecified character. After learning all the facts of the case, Dzerzhinskij demanded that he himself should be reprimanded by the Control Commission. This the latter refused to do, but it pointed out that his behavior in this case was mistaken. Another functionary of the Cheka, M. Ju. Kozlovskij was also involved in this case, and was reprimanded by the Control Commission. He appealed to the Central Committee (although the Central Committee had no power to reverse the decision of its sister institution) and accused the Control Commission of operating in an atmosphere ot medieval terror. The Central Committee left the final disposition of the case to the Tenth Congress which, following Kamenev's suggestion, decided that the new, just elected Central Control Commission should reconsider the case, since the previously operating Control Commission was a temporary organ not having been formally elected by the Congress. The Makhmud-Bek affair had the dubious distinction of being the first case considered by the Central Control Commission. (Protokoly Desjatovo S'ezda RKP (b), pp. 63-64, 556, 847).

7 A. A. Sol'c joined the Control Commission in November, 1920, presumably as the representative of the Moscow Party organization. He was to become one of the most important henchmen of Stalin in the control organs. In this capacity he functioned loyally for many years until he fell victim of the Great Purge.

8 Sol'c, with what was perhaps a predilection for round figures, reported that the Control Commission deliberated on 200 cases out of which it decided fifty and referred the remainder to the local commissions. Another report for the same period (October 1920-February 1921) states, however, that the Control Commission considered 133 cases (Izvestija CK, No. 28, March 5, 1921).

9 Protokoly Desjatovo S'ezda RKP (b), pp. 59-68.

10 VKP (A) v rezoljucijakh, I, 434-35.

11 The exception was the right of the members of the Central Control Commission to vote together with the members and candidates of the Central Committee on the demotion of the Central Committee members to the status of candidates, or on their expulsion from the Party. A two-thirds majority was needed to make such a measure effective. In the same manner, members of the Central Control Commission could have been demoted or expelled. (Ibid., p. 431.)

12 Protokoly Odinadcatovo S'ezda RKP (6), Moscow, 1936, pp. 177-78.

13 Ibid., p. 220.

14 The Central Control Commission elected by the Tenth Party Congress consisted of the following members: A. A. Sol'c, P. G. Smidovich (who in the years 1920-1923 was also deputy chairman of the Committee of Aid to the Hungry), N. O. Kuchmenko (a member of the Party since its inception and in the early postrevolutionary period chairman of the Vyborg District Soviet in Petrograd), T. S. Krivov (secretary of the Urals Party Bureau and subsequently member of the Presidium of the Ufa gubernija Party Committee), Z. J a . Sedoj (also known as Litvin, a member of the Moscow delegation, engaged in governmental work), S. A. Shvarc (a delegate from the Far Eastern Republic) and M. I.Chelyshev (a member of the Workers’ Opposition). The three candidates were: A. I. Dogadov (member of the Bureau of the Kazan oblast’ Party Committee), K. A. Ozol (chairman of the Tomsk City Party Committee) and I. G. Batyshev. (Protokoly Desjatovo S'ezda RKP (b), p. 405.) At the Eleventh Congress, the Central Control Commission was reduced to five members and two candidates. Of the members previously elected, only Sol'c continued in the same capacity. The newcomers were: M. F. Shkiriatov (who was to become a permanent fixture in that body), I. D. Chencov (a member of the Executive Committee of the Don oblast’ and a member of the commission which investigated the “case of the 22“), A. A. Korostelev (who was a member of the Collegium of the RKI), and O. A. Varencova (who until 1921 was a secretary of the Ivanovo-Voznesensk gubernija Party Committee). The two new candidates were: M. K. Muranov (who was a member of the Control Commission in its first stage), and F. N. Samoilov (who was Deputy Peoples’ Commissar of Labor of the Ukraine). (Protokoly Odinadcatovo S'ezda RKP (b), p. 547.)

15 The recent purge of Malenkov, Molotov, Kaganovich and Shepilov was carried out in a manner reminiscent of the methods employed by Stalin during the period of the political liquidation of his competitors. Uncertain of his majority in the Party Presidium (the Politburo's successor), and even having reportedly lost it at a certain point, Khrushchev succeeded in bringing the issue before the plenary meeting of the Central Committee which was packed with the apparatus’ functionaries subordinate to him. Furthermore, in order to create the impression of a wide-spread support, he augmented the number of his loyal supporters by inviting to the meeting members of the Central Auditing Commission— a minor Party organ—and endowing them with the right to vote. It should be noted that nowhere in the Party rules is there to be found a provision authorizing a joint meeting of these two bodies. An even larger gathering was assembled to condemn Marshal Zhukov. In addition to the members of the Central Committee and the Central Auditing Commission, high governmental, military and Party officials (including, presumably, representatives of the Party Control Committee) were present to approve the anti- Zhukov resolution (Pravda, July 4, November 3, 1957). Against the purged leaders a favorite weapon of Stalin, Part 7 of the 1921 Resolution on the Party Unity, was used. It stated that the Central Committee members found guilty of factional activities could be either demoted to the status of candidate members of that body, or, in drastic cases, expelled from the Party. Neither of these sanctions, however, was employed against Khrushchev's opponents: they were dismissed from the Central Committee and, of course, its Presidium, but were retained in the Party itself. The incumbent First Secretary shares with his late master the predilection of sweeping aside annoying statutory details whenever they do not suit his purposes.

16 Lenin's preoccupation with this subject is also evident in some of the letters he wrote to the Party Congress at the end of 1922. These documents, including the famous “testament” were distributed to the delegates of the Twentieth Party Congress in February, 1956, and made public for the first time in June of that year. In addition to the Rabkrin reform, Lenin also advocated a substantial increase in the Central Committee membership. The new members were to be workers and their presence in the Central Committee was to assure that no split within that body would develop (Cf. Kommunist, No. 9, June, 1956, pp. 15-26). It was Stalin who then converted this proposal to his advantage. Appearing at the Twelfth Party Congress in 1923 as a rapporteur on organizational matters, he suggested that the existing leadership be rejuvenated by adding to the Central Committee new members who were “closely connected with work in localities.” (Dvenadcatyi S'ezd RKP (b), p. 61.) The Congress duly responded by increasing the membership from 27 to 40, and the subsequent Congresses continued this trend. The great majority of the new additions were, of course, not Lenin's workers, but Stalin's provinicnl functionaries.

17 VKP (b) v rezoljucijakh, I, 597-601.

18 Ibid… I, 602-603.

19 Actually, 151 members were elected. Ibid., II, 77-78.

20 Ibid., II, 218-20; 223-34.

21 Trinadcatyi S'ezd RKP (b), p. 287.

22 Ibid., p. 282.

23 Dvenadcatyi S'ezd RKP (6), p. 220.

24 Ibid., p. 225.

25 The official record of the Eleventh Congress noted that 89 votes were cast in favor of the proposal to abolish the provincial Control Commissions, while 223 votes favored their continuation. Shkiriatov, however, stated at the next Congress that this measure was defeated by a “narrow margin” only. (Ibid., p. 225.)

26 XIV S'ezd VKP (b), p. 532.

27 Dvenadcatyi Sezd RKP (b), p. 224.

28 Trinadcatyi S'ezd RKP (b), pp. 276-78.

29 XIVS'ezd VKP (b), pp. 527-57, 589, 601-03, 621-25.

30 Ibid., pp. 564-67, 571-75, 612-13.