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

The Thirteenth Congress of the R.C.P (B) was held in the Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow from May 23 to 31, 1924. The Congress was attended by 748 delegates with voting rights and 416 delegates with consultative rights, representing a total of 735,881 Party members and 127,741 candidate members.

This was the first Congress held after Lenin's death. The "Letter to The Congress", which was called "Lenin's Last Testament", was read out to all delegates. In his letter, Lenin stressed the need to maintain the unity of the party and to establish a solid center capable of preventing a split in the party. Lenin also commented on Stalin in his letter, pointing out, on the one hand, his many virtues as an outstanding leading Party cadre; at the same time, Lenin criticized some of his shortcomings. After discussing Lenin's letter, the delegations, taking into account Stalin's merits and his irreconcilable struggle with the various anti-party groups, advocated that Stalin should be allowed to remain in his post as the General Secretary, but suggested that Stalin should consider Lenin's criticism of him and draw the necessary conclusions from it. The Congress discussed Political and Organizational Reports of the Central Committee, a report of the Central Auditing Commission, the Report of the Central Control Commission, the Report on R.C.P. (B) Representation on the Executive Committee of the Comintern, on Organizational Problems of the Party, Problems of Domestic Trade and Cooperation, Working in Rural Areas, Working among the Youth, so forth.

The Congress unanimously denounced the program of the Trotskyist opposition, pointing out that this program was a petty-bourgeois tendency that had left Marxism and was a revision of Leninism. The Congress also endorsed the position of the Thirteenth Conference of the R.C.P. (B), as expressed in the conference resolution “On Building the Party” and “the resolution On the Results of the Debate and the Petty Bourgeois Deviation in the Party”.

The Congress pointed out the great significance of recruiting members of the party in memory of Lenin and the need to pay attention to strengthening the work of educating new members based on Leninism. The Congress entrusted the Lenin Institute with the task of preparing a scientific and most accurate publication of the Complete Works of Lenin and Selected Works of Lenin in the languages of the peoples of the USS.R. for the masses of workers.

The Congress elected the Central Committee of 53 members and 34 alternate members, the Central Inspection Commission of 151 members, and the Central Auditory Commission comprising of 3 members.