The Tenth Congress of the R.C.P. (B)

The Tenth Congress of the R.C.P. (B) was held in the Sverdlov Hall of the Kremlin, Moscow between March 8 to 16, 1921.

The Congress was attended by 717 delegates with voting rights and 418 delegates with consultative rights, representing a total of 732,521 Party members. The agenda of the Congress included: report of the central committee; the organizational report of the Central Committee; report of the control committee; the chief administration for political education and the party’s propaganda and agitation work; the party’s current tasks in the nationalities question; problems of party organisation; the trade unions’ economic role; food supply, surplus-food appropriation, tax in kind and fuel crisis; the socialist republic in a capitalist encirclement foreign trade, concessions, etc.; report of the R.C.P.’s representatives (Bukharin) in the Comintern and its current tasks; on party unity and on the syndicalist and anarchist deviation in our party; elections to the central committee, the control commission and the auditing commission. In addition, the Congress heard the report of the Party History Committee and discussed the Reorganization of the Army and the Militia Question in a secret meeting. This congress adopted a number of decisions on fundamental questions of the political and economic life of the country, setting out the specific ways of transition from capitalism to socialism in Russia.

Lenin led the work of the Congress. He reported on the main issues on the agenda of the Congress—The Political Work of The Central Committee, On the Substitution of a Tax in Kind for The Surplus-Grain Appropriation System, On Party Unity and On the Syndicalist and Anarchist Deviation in Our Party—and prepared the most important draft resolutions of the Congress. On the basis of Lenin's report, the Congress adopted the historic resolution on replacing the surplus collection system with a tax in kind, a shift from wartime communism to a new economic policy.

The Congress gave special attention to the issue of party unity and adopted “Resolution on Party Unity” drafted by Lenin, which called for the complete elimination of all factionalism weakening the party and undermining the Party's unity and authorized the Central Committee to take extreme measures to directly expel the members of the Central Committee who carried out factional activities. The general assembly also adopted the “Resolution on the Syndicalist and Anarchist Deviation in Our Party” drafted by Lenin, pointing out that the views of the working opposition are the wavering expression of the anarchism of the petty bourgeoisie. In the area of party building, the Congress adopted a decision to expand democracy within the party and improve the quality of party members and issued instructions to the Central Committee to carry out party purge. The Congress also passed the regulations of the Control Commission, stipulating the establishment of the Central Control Commission and the Provincial Control Commission, which is of great significance for consolidating the Party and improving the state organs.

The Congress also summed up the debate on trade unions and adopted the “Resolution on the trade Unions’ Economic Role” by a majority vote. This resolution reiterated the thesis that trade unions are the schools of communism, defined their role and tasks, and proposed measures to expand trade union democracy. The Congress also adopted the “Resolution on The Party’s Current Tasks in the Nationalities Question”, which called for the complete elimination of the the real inequality of the formerly oppressed nationalities and condemned the two wrong tendencies on the national question, chauvinism of the great nations and local nationalism. The Congress elected a new Central Committee consisting of 25 members and 15 candidates, and a Central Supervisory Committee consisting of 7 members and 3 candidates.