Ismail
5th October 2010, 08:48
By 1990 the Soviet Union had largely changed from Mikhail Gorbachev's 1985 ascension to the post of General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. For one, there was actually a Soviet Presidency instituted in the 1989-1990 period, which significantly weakened the role of the Party within the Union (as Gorbachev himself held the post) owing to the post's directly state-based nature. Other competing political parties were also roaming around during this period, as Perestroika damaged the Soviet economy and Glasnost allowed anti-communist sentiment to air openly, along with bringing longstanding ethnic and nationalist grievances to the fore.
During all this, the CPSU held its 28th Congress from July 2-13, 1990. During this Congress he declared that, "By moving towards a market, we are not swerving from the road of socialism. What had collapsed was not socialism but Stalinism." Of course today Gorbachev is known as an anti-communist (http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv6n1/gorbach.htm) social-democrat, so the question is: what, exactly, did the CPSU subscribe to in the dying days of the Union?
Well, this should be a nice answer. In pages 94-105 of David Lane's Soviet Society under Perestroika (1992 Ed.) we have the CPSU Programme Statement adopted at the conclusion of the Congress. I post it here for historical interest.
CPSU Programme Statement, July 1990
STATEMENT ADOPTED BY CPSU CONGRESS
[I]‘Pravda’ second edition 15 July 1990
Text of “28th CPSU Congress Programme Statement: Towards a humane, democratic socialism”
I THE CRISIS IN SOCIETY AND THE PARTY’S STRATEGIC GOALS
Assessment of the Current Period
Perestroyka marked the beginning of democratic changes in the country’s life. For all the contradictory nature of the processes of social development, the people are being spiritually and politically emancipated, people are acquiring civic and national dignity and taking on the affairs of society and the state. The myths that obscured consciousness and prevented a vision of the way forward are collapsing. The barriers that separated the country from the outside world are being removed. Preconditions for extricating society from the crisis in which it has found itself are being created step by step, in an acute struggle between the old and the new
The congress considers that the deep-rooted sources of the crisis lie not in the decline of the very idea of socialism, but in the deformations that this idea suffered in the past. Statisation of all aspects of social life and dictatorship by the party-state elite on behalf of the proletariat brought about new forms of man’s alienation from ownership and power and led to tyranny and lawlessness. The natural environment was rapaciously exploited. Dogmatism prevailed, giving rise to intolerance of dissent. A scornful attitude toward the peoples’ cultural and historical values and intellectual wealth was inculcated. The world was regarded as the arena of implacable confrontation between social systems.
Distortions of the principles of socialism during the period between the 1930s and 1950s created difficult problems in our country’s development and, in the second half of the 20th century, when a major shift developed in the life of all mankind owing to the scientific and technical revolution, the authoritarian-bureaucratic system proved completely incapable of bringing the country into the mainstream of world civilisation.
Nevertheless the urgent need for radical change was ignored for a long time. The resolution of the pressing historical conflict was artificially checked by a structure of party-state power cut off from the people.
Perestroyka marked a radical shift toward a policy of renewal and of freeing the country from social forms alien to socialism. But it also revealed that the simultaneous transformation of all spheres in the life of a vast state with a population of almost 300 million is exceptionally complex. What is more, some decisions and actions by the party’s and the country’s leadership over the last few years have proved to be inadequately worked out, inconsistent, and, in a number of cases, simply mistaken.
Miscalculations in investment and export and import policy, in combating unearned income, and in carrying out the anti-alcohol campaign and distortions in the organisation of the co-operative movement had adverse consequences.
The old economic mechanism is being dismantled, and the new one has yet to be created. Control of the money supply and the market situation has been lost to a considerable extent. The creation of a legal base for the impending economic and political transformations has been excessively protracted. The country is rocked by inter-ethnic conflicts. The prestige of the state power has declined. Spiritual and moral values are being eroded and there is a growing wave of violence and crime.
The Central Committee and the Politburo have quite often lagged behind the development of events and operated by means of trial and error when adopting and implementing decisions and reforming the CPSU itself.
The party is living through a complex, crucial period. The renunciation of the former role played by the nucleus of the administrative-command system and its acquisition of the qualities of a socio-political organisation are accompanied by the painful exacerbation of contradictions, the decline of many party organisations’ activeness, the polarisation of opinions and positions and growing criticism of the party.
A rapid process of forming sundry socio-political groups and movements is under way in the country.
The conservative-dogmatic current whose representatives see the policy of renewal as an encroachment on the principles of socialism and are preaching a return to authoritarianism has become more active. It objectively attracts that section of the bureaucratic structures which is incapable of restructuring itself, which sees society’s democratisation as a threat to its political influence and social status and which is therefore doing its utmost to try to freeze the processes of change.
Movements that reject the socialist option and campaign for the unrestricted transfer of social ownership and for the complete commercialisation of education, health care, science and culture are gaining momentum. Monarchist and even fascist extremists have made their presence felt.
Social democratic currents of diverse hues have become a noticeable phenomenon in the country’s socio-political life.
Without breaking with the idea of socialism and retaining its commitment to social security for the population, the social democratic current often lays the stress on mechanical imitation of contemporary socio-economic structures in developed industrial states without consideration of our country’s specific features; many of its representatives refuse to consider Marxism as their ideological base.
National movements in which chauvinist and nationalistic sentiments are manifested increasingly actively alongside democratic trends have gained considerable scope. Setting some nations against others and promoting slogans of separatism and “national exclusiveness”, they often turn out to be mouthpieces for the interests of old or new anti-democratic groups yearning for power.
Democratic perestroyka forces oriented on the socialist option and represented by most CPSU members and many organisations that express the political and vocational interests of the working class, the peasantry, the intelligentsia, young people, servicemen and veterans are to be found at the centre of the political spectrum taking shape in the country.
At a time of political instability which could result in social and economic chaos, the Communist Party sees its task as becoming the party of civic accord and ensuring constructive co-operation among various socio-political forces interested in escaping from the crisis and achieving a democratic reorganisation of society, so as to unite, support and defend all who through their honest labour have created, are creating, or will create the people’s prosperity and spiritual values. It counters those forces that would like to turn society back—to a bourgeois system or barrack usages—and to incite anarchy and civic confrontation and the division of nations and peoples. The congress considers that a consistent course of renewing the social system within the framework of the socialist option is the foundation of the contemporary strategy of advance towards a prosperous and free society and the tactics for extrication from the crisis.
What Kind of Society Are We Striving Towards?
The essence of the perestroyka policy resides in the transition from an authoritarian-bureaucratic system to a society of humane, democratic socialism. This—although difficult—is the only correct way to a dignified life, to the realisation of the country’s material and spiritual potential. While severing links with all that is alien to socialism, the CPSU rejects the denial of the ideals of October and the nihilistic attitude towards the Soviet people’s revolutionary gains. It is necessary to clearly distinguish in our country’s past between, on the one hand, phenomena engendered by Stalinism and stagnation and, on the other, the real achievements of the USSR’s peoples. The party gives due credit to the constructive labour and self-sacrifice of all generations of the working class, peasantry and intelligentsia and to their heroic endeavours in the name of the homeland.
We hold sacred the memory of the people’s sacrifices during the years of most rigorous ordeals.
The CPSU advocates a creative approach to the theory and practice of socialism and their development through constructive analysis of the historical experience of the 20th century and the legacy of Marx, Engels and Lenin freed from dogmatic interpretation. We deem it necessary to utilise the best achievements of human reason and the experience accumulated in the world of effective economic management, the solution of social problems and the development of democratic institutions.
The CPSU is a party with a socialist option and a communist outlook. We regard this prospect as the natural, historical thrust of the development of civilisation. Its social ideal absorbs the humanist principles of human culture, the age-old striving for a better life and social justice.
In our understanding humane, democratic socialism means a society in which:
- man is the aim of social development;
living and working conditions for him are worthy of contemporary civilisation;
man’s alienation from political power and the material and spiritual values created by him are overcome and his active involvement in social processes is assured;
- the transformation of working people into the masters of production, the strong motivation of highly productive labour, and the best conditions for the progress of production forces and the rational use of nature are ensured on the basis of diverse forms of ownership and economic management;
social justice and the social protection of working people are guaranteed—the sovereign will of the people is the sole source of power;
the state, which is subordinate to society, guarantees the protection of the rights, freedoms, honour, and dignity of people regardless of social position, sex, age, national affiliation or religion;
there is free competition and co-operation between all socio-political forces operating within the framework of the law.
This is a society which consistently advocates peaceful and equitable cooperation among the peoples and respect for the rights of every people to determine their own fate.
II CPSU ACTION PROGRAMME
The implementation of the CPSU’s programme goals requires the implementation of both emergency anti-crisis measures and the implementation of a long-term policy to comprehensively transform society. The CPSU will strive to achieve these goals by political methods and by the deliberate and co-ordinated actions of communists, including those working in Soviets and other state organs and social organisations and by using its constitutional right of legislative initiative and winning the trust of the masses.
Emergency Measures for Extrication From the Crisis
The party puts forward the following as IMMEDIATE TASKS:
First. The elaboration this year of a new treaty on the union of republics as sovereign states on a strictly voluntary basis of mutual benefit and freedom of national self-determination; a treaty which takes account of both the specific features and requirements of the republics, and the interests of the union as a whole.
Second. To carry out in the socio-economic sphere within 18-24 months:—the normalisation of the consumer market, above all the market in food, by the very rapid reorientation of the economy towards the consumer sector, the all-round development of entrepreneurial initiative, procurements of imported goods, and the maintenance of fixed prices for a series of essential commodities during the transition to free price formation;—the stabilisation of money supply by the pursuit of financial and credit reform, the distribution of shares among the population, the selling off of surplus stocks of material resources, the sale of housing, increasing interest on the population’s bank deposits, the granting of loans against the future sale of goods and reduction of the state budget deficit to a minimum;—additional funding of urgent socio-economic tasks by means of sensible cutbacks in defence spending, ineffective capital investments, and expenditure on maintaining the managerial apparatus and the regulation of foreign economic ties.
Third. The resolute intensification of discipline and law and order and the intensification of the struggle against crime and of crime prevention. The use of all available resources—economic, political and legal—to combat the shadow economy. The urgent adoption of laws to provide legal foundation for the implementation of the emergency measures to overcome the crisis and the development of mechanisms for their implementation.
For Freedom and People’s Well-Being
The party regards the ensuring of worthy living conditions for Soviet man as the central, strategic task of its policy.
CIVIL RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS. The party advocates:
- the implementation of human rights at the level of internationally recognised norms.
LABOUR AND WELL-BEING. Honest labour is the basis of the well-being of society and each individual. The party advocates:
- guarantees of the right to work, the provision of fair payment for end results without any restrictions; the elimination of levelling, dependence and the eradication of illegal income and privileges.
SOCIAL GUARANTEES. The party proposes:
- creating an integral social-state system of social protection and material support for low-income and large families, ensuring that the level of pay, pensions and allowances is no lower than the subsistence level.
EDUCATION, SCIENCE AND CULTURE. The CPSU considers the development of education, science and culture as a priority area of its policy. By protecting creative freedoms, the party will uphold the highest humanitarian values. It is opposed to bureaucratic administration of the spiritual sphere and the wholesale transfer of culture, art and education to a purely commercial footing.
For An Effective Economy
The creation of a reliable basis for social progress demands the democratisation of economic relations by genuinely emancipating people’s initiative and practical activity and bringing incentives for highly productive labour into play. This is the essence of the programme proposed by the CPSU for perestroika in the economic system.
BECOMING THE MASTER AND REVIVING INDUSTRIOUSNESS. The party considers it necessary to create conditions for the formation and development of diverse and equal forms of ownership, their integration and free competition among them:
- state ownership (all-union, republican, municipal) must be transformed from formal, bureaucratic ownership into social ownership controlled by working people themselves on the basis of existing legislation. Working people’s collectives are to be granted the right to lease state enterprises and property and acquire industrial, trade and services sphere facilities; use is to be made of the joint-stock form of enterprise organisation;—it is necessary to develop various types of cooperative ownership, ownership by public organisations and mixed forms of ownership;
- private labour ownership, which could improve the lives of the people, must have a place in the system of forms of ownership.
The CPSU is against total denationalisation or the imposition of any forms of ownership.
TOWARDS A REGULATED MARKET. The market economy is an alternative to the outmoded administrative-command system of management of the national economy. Advocating a phased transition to the market, the CPSU deems it is necessary to:
- accelerate the elaboration of legislative and legal norms and mechanisms ensuring a switch to a market economy;
- grant enterprises and all commodity producers, regardless of their forms of ownership, autonomy and free enterprise and to promote the development of healthy and honest competition among them; and to separate the functions of state management from direct economic activity;
- implement demonopolisation of production, banking and insurance, trade and scientific development; give support to the development of a network of small and medium-size enterprises;
- gear the state regulation of market relations to the protection of citizens’ social rights, carry out major structural transformations in the national economy and the scientific-technical and ecological programmes, and safeguard the country’s interests in the system of world economic links. Preserve state management of major transport networks, communications, the power industry, and defence complex enterprises within the framework of a single market on the basis of financial autonomy principles and work collectives’ self-management;
- switch, in the planning system, to the elaboration of strategic outlook plans for economic development and targeted state programmes, to indirect regulation of the economy through state orders, pricing, depreciation and customs policy, taxes, interest on credit and so on;
- ensure the switch to a convertible rouble and to an economy that is open to the world market, the creation of favourable conditions for enterprises’ foreign economic activity and the involvement of foreign capital to ensure the earliest possible introduction of progressive technologies and supplies to the market.
MARKET AND PROTECTION MECHANISMS. In view of the fact that the switch to the market is not an end in itself but a means of solving social problems, and in view of the possible adverse consequences of this switch, the CPSU proposes:
- compensating the populace for losses due to the revision of retail prices of goods and services; introducing a flexible system for indexing the population’s monetary incomes and increasing them depending on the growth of consumer prices;
- creating an effective mechanism for maintaining employment, for finding jobs and for vocational retraining; compensation payments during the period of temporary unemployment, retraining and acquisition of new skills;
- ensuring social and state monitoring of the observance of laws regulating market relations.
AGRARIAN POLICY. In it the party proceeds on the basis of the following principles:
- supporting the Soviets’ right to own land and the state, collective and individual farms’ right to use and manage land;
- ensuring equal economic relations between town and countryside;
- ruling out any kind of dictate and bureaucratic rule in all that pertains to land management and relying on the peasant’s free choice; ensuring equal opportunities for the development both of social farming—collective farm and state farm—and of newly established individual, family and lease farming;
- ensuring the priority development of the agro-industrial complex’s material-technical base in the light of the requirements of all forms of economic management;
- enabling every rural inhabitant and anyone wishing to live and work in the countryside to set up his own home and farm holding; improving the social infrastructure of the countryside and making work on the land socially attractive and economically effective.
Towards Genuine People’s Power
THE CIVIL SOCIETY AND THE LAW-GOVERNED STATE. The party consistently advocates:
- the formation of a civil society in which man does not exist for the sake of the state but the state for the sake of man; and all social groups and communities have a legally-guaranteed right and actual opportunity to express and defend their own interests;
- the strengthening of the law-governed state which excludes the dictatorship of any class, party, grouping or managerial bureaucracy and ensures access for all citizens to involvement in state and public affairs and to the holding of any post; the state and its citizens are connected by mutual responsibility, given the unconditional supremacy of democratically adopted law and the equality of all before the law;
- the free competition of socio-political organisations within a constitutional framework;
- the embodiment of the principles of universal, equal and direct suffrage.
We understand democracy not only as rights and freedoms but also as the civil responsibility, strict observance of laws and self-control which are organically linked with them.
SEPARATION OF POWERS into legislative, executive and judicial will create guarantees against the usurpation of unlimited authority and abuse of power and will enable spheres of competence and responsibility to be clearly demarcated.
The Country’s Security
As long as the danger of armed conflicts exists, the country needs reliable defence. The party considers it necessary:
- to implement a military reform based on the new defensive doctrine and the principle of reasonable sufficiency and on the priority of qualitative parameters in military building.
While remaining under modern conditions a vitally necessary institution for defending the constitutional system and maintaining public order, internal affairs and state security bodies must act strictly within the framework of the law and under the control of representative bodies of power. It is necessary to raise the standard of professional training and improve material support for law-enforcement body personnel.
Towards a Renewed Union of Sovereign Republics
FOR A VOLUNTARY UNION OF PEOPLES. The CPSU believes that the development of centrifugal trends can be prevented only on the basis of the democratisation of relations among the peoples and the national-state formations of the USSR and the successful development of the economy of all regions and a single, union-wide market. The party proceeds from recognition of the nations’ right to self-determination, even including secession, but does not confuse the right to secede from the USSR with the expediency of such secession and believes that, proceeding from the interests of the country’s peoples themselves and the trend of world processes toward integration, it is necessary to preserve the integrity of the renewed union as a dynamic multinational state. The CPSU favours the friendship and international unity of all the nations and ethnic groups of the country.
The party will pursue the line of strengthening the sovereignty of union republics. It proposes political and legal diversity in ties between the republics themselves and with the union as a whole and diversity in their economic relations on the basis of enterprises’ economic independence.
HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE RIGHTS OF NATIONS. The CPSU comes out:—for the expansion of the rights of nations while recognising the priority and the strict and unconditional safeguarding of the rights of each person;
- against the existence of any legal norms and laws which allow inequality among citizens on ethnic grounds, and for full freedom of choice in individual national self-determination;
- for respect for the cultural traditions and interests of all ethnic-national groups of the population when adopting the republics’ legal norms and laws.
Towards Mankind’s Peaceful Development
The party believes that the USSR’s foreign policy strategy should be based on the ideas of peace, co-operation, collaboration, progress and humanity; and should contribute in every way possible to the processes of our internal perestroyka and ensure international stability.
FOREIGN POLICY GUIDELINES. With a view to strengthening world security, the party advocates:
- energetic continuation of the successfully launched demilitarisation of international relations; the reduction of arms and armed forces to the limits of reasonable defence sufficiency; the total exclusion of the use and threat of force from world practice; the further lowering and then the complete surmounting of military confrontation;
- the creation of global and regional security structures on the basis of a balance of the interests of all sides to prevent conflicts and international instability;
- the underpinning of relations among states with a legal base guaranteeing freedom of socio-political choice, sovereignty and independence and the development of co-operation and partnership with all countries of the world;
- the further normalisation of Soviet-US relations and their channelling towards a constructive partnership; enterprising participation in the all-European process and the overcoming of the historical split in Europe; the development of new forms of political and economic co-operation with the countries of Eastern Europe; comprehensive consolidation of positive trends in relations with the PRC; an active policy in the Asia-Pacific region with a view to turning it into a zone of peace and co-operation; participation in the political settlement of regional conflicts; collaboration with the Non-Aligned Movement and co-operation with developing countries.
TOWARDS A NEW QUALITY OF INTERNATIONAL CO-OPERATION. The party considers the pooling of efforts of all members of the international community in resolving common problems facing mankind to be vitally necessary.
The Renewal of the Party
As the nucleus of the administrative edict system for many long years, the party itself was subject to serious deformation. Over-centralisation and the suppression of critical thought had a pernicious effect on relations within the party. Tremendous damage was done by the ideological and moral degeneration of a number of party leaders.
The congress notes that the CPSU as the ruling party bears political and moral responsibility for the situation that developed in the country, and it has itself talked candidly about the mistakes made by the country’s party and state leadership and condemned the Stalin-era crimes and the flagrant violations of human rights. But the congress resolutely opposes blanket accusations against honest communists of both past and present generations. Millions of communists served the people selflessly, worked whole-heartedly, and fought courageously for the homeland’s freedom and independence. There have always been progressive forces at work within the CPSU, and it is they who inspired and have led society’s restructuring.
The CPSU resolutely repudiates political and ideological monopolism and the supplanting of state and economic management bodies. The dynamics of the changes dictate the acceleration of the CPSU’s transformation into a true political party expressing and defending the fundamental interests of the working class, peasantry and intelligentsia and operating within the framework of a civil society.
The Party’s Role in Society
The CPSU is a political organisation which, by its practical activity and its constructive approach to the solution of the problems of society’s development, will uphold the right to political leadership in free competition with other socio-political forces.
The party performs the following functions:
THEORETICAL. On the basis of a scientific analysis of objective trends in society’s development, a theoretical evaluation of its prospects, and an elucidation and consideration of the interests of different social groups, it elaborates the strategy and tactics of socialist renewal and socio-economic, political and other programmes.
IDEOLOGICAL. The party defends its philosophy and moral values, propagates its programme goals and policy and draws citizens to the side of and into the ranks of the CPSU.
POLITICAL. The CPSU performs daily work among the masses and in work collectives, organises co-operation with social organisations and movements, campaigns in elections for seats in bodies of power at all levels and, if victorious, forms the corresponding executive bodies, carries out parliamentary activity and implements its pre-election programme.
ORGANISATIONAL. The CPSU conducts organisational work to implement its programme guidelines and decisions. The party renounces formalism and the nomenklatura-based approach in cadre work. The authority for taking cadre decisions in bodies of state power and administration belongs to those bodies and within the party itself is transferred from superior bodies to party organisations and all communists.
In present-day conditions, it is necessary to form in Soviets at all levels party groups and inter-party blocs, and communists must be guided by the will of their voters and the CPSU’s programme goals when participating in those groups or blocs.
Democratisation of the Party
Without the most thorough democratisation of intra-party relations, the CPSU will not be able to perform its role in society.
The CPSU resolutely rejects democratic centralism as it evolved in conditions of the administrative-command system and rigid centralisation and defends democratic principles—electability and interchangeability, glasnost and accountability, subordination of the minority to the majority and a minority’s right to uphold its views, including in the party mass media organs.
Democratisation in the party presumes participation by all its members and structures in shaping CPSU policy by means of partywide and regional discussions and referendums; the right of individual communists and groups to express their views in platforms; collectiveness and openness in the work of all party bodies and freedom of criticism. The profound restructuring of intra-party relations and the party’s activity is designed to ensure the democratic unity of CPSU ranks and to prevent a factional schism. An important factor in the renewal of the CPSU is the recruitment of fresh forces and the rejuvenation of cadres.
The CPSU’s base is its primary organisations. Autonomously and in the light of specific conditions they determine the tasks and forms of activity, structure and numerical size of their bodies and apparatus, the periodicity of and procedure for holding meetings and political actions and they have the final right of admission to the CPSU. Decisions made by them within the framework of powers vested in them by the CPSU Statutes may not be revoked by higher bodies.
The territorial and production principle of party building needs adjustment. While retaining party organisations in production and other collectives, it is necessary, in the light of the increased significance of the pre-election struggle waged among the population in local neighbourhoods, to emphasise the development of powerful and active primary territorial organisations. A CPSU member has the right to choose the primary organisation—production, territorial or both—in which he will work. Freedom to create and act within horizontal structures—party clubs, councils of party organisations’ secretaries and other special interest, professional and other associations—is guaranteed.
The congress does not consider it right to deprive communists in the army, the KGB or the MVD of the right to party membership and the creation of party organisations or to other forms of political activity. However, these organisations must be separate from state and administrative bodies, including military-political bodies, responsible for the moral and political education of armed forces, MVD and KGB personnel.
The congress advocates the election of party committee secretaries and party forum delegates by direct and, as a rule, multi-candidate elections through secret ballot and with the free nomination of candidates. The actual election procedure shall be determined by communists.
Party control must also be democratic. The central, republic, kray, oblast, okrug, town and rayon control bodies are elected autonomously, are independent of party committees and are accountable only to the congresses and conferences which elected them.
To resolve its set tasks an elective party body forms, within its budget limitations, an apparatus to perform organisational and consultative functions.
AUTONOMY and UNITY. In the process of the USSR’s renewal, the autonomy of union republic communist parties, which is dialectically combined with the unity of the party on the basis of the fundamental principles of the CPSU Programme and Rules, must be ensured. They elaborate their own programmes and normative documents in accordance with which they themselves resolve political, organisational, cadre, publishing and financial and economic questions, pursue a party line in the sphere of state building and the socio-economic and cultural development of the republics, and form ties with other parties and social movements, including those abroad. The leaders of union republican communist parties are members of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee. In the event of disagreement with a decision by the party’s central leading bodies, a republican communist party central committee has the right to demand the discussion of the question at a CPSU Central Committee plenum or combined plenum of the Central Committee and CPSU Central Control Commission.
The Party and Social Organisations
The CPSU seeks co-operation with movements and organisations of a socialist orientation and dialogue and equal partnership with all progressive ideological-political currents. The party is ready to create political blocs with them.
CPSU members take part in mass movements which act within the framework of the law. However, the party considers it impermissible for communists to belong to other parties or to organisations which propound chauvinism, nationalism, racism or anti-socialist ideas.
The CPSU will promote the rebirth of worker and peasant movements and development of social activeness among the intelligentsia.
The CPSU welcomes the renewal of trade unions and supports their desire to work actively in the interests of working people and the defence of their rights and freedoms.
The CPSU regards the All-Union Komsomol as an autonomous socio-political communist organisation of young people and expects it to take direct part in the elaboration and implementation of party policy. Party and Komsomol organisations must learn how to form their relations as political allies. It is necessary to treat the emergence of new youth organisations with understanding, to promote the molding of their socialist and general humanist thrust and to instil in young people a sense of involvement in the people’s destiny. The CPSU directs all its organisations resolutely towards young people’s problems. This is also dictated by the interests of the party itself: Without young people it will have no future.
Those are the CPSU’s conceptual and theoretical standpoints and political goals by which communists, party organisations and party organs are to be guided in their practical work until the adoption of a new CPSU Programme. The congress hopes that they will be supported by all democratic forces in the country advocating perestroyka and the renewal of our society.
Source:
BBC World Broadcasts SU/0821/C21
20 July 1990
During all this, the CPSU held its 28th Congress from July 2-13, 1990. During this Congress he declared that, "By moving towards a market, we are not swerving from the road of socialism. What had collapsed was not socialism but Stalinism." Of course today Gorbachev is known as an anti-communist (http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv6n1/gorbach.htm) social-democrat, so the question is: what, exactly, did the CPSU subscribe to in the dying days of the Union?
Well, this should be a nice answer. In pages 94-105 of David Lane's Soviet Society under Perestroika (1992 Ed.) we have the CPSU Programme Statement adopted at the conclusion of the Congress. I post it here for historical interest.
CPSU Programme Statement, July 1990
STATEMENT ADOPTED BY CPSU CONGRESS
[I]‘Pravda’ second edition 15 July 1990
Text of “28th CPSU Congress Programme Statement: Towards a humane, democratic socialism”
I THE CRISIS IN SOCIETY AND THE PARTY’S STRATEGIC GOALS
Assessment of the Current Period
Perestroyka marked the beginning of democratic changes in the country’s life. For all the contradictory nature of the processes of social development, the people are being spiritually and politically emancipated, people are acquiring civic and national dignity and taking on the affairs of society and the state. The myths that obscured consciousness and prevented a vision of the way forward are collapsing. The barriers that separated the country from the outside world are being removed. Preconditions for extricating society from the crisis in which it has found itself are being created step by step, in an acute struggle between the old and the new
The congress considers that the deep-rooted sources of the crisis lie not in the decline of the very idea of socialism, but in the deformations that this idea suffered in the past. Statisation of all aspects of social life and dictatorship by the party-state elite on behalf of the proletariat brought about new forms of man’s alienation from ownership and power and led to tyranny and lawlessness. The natural environment was rapaciously exploited. Dogmatism prevailed, giving rise to intolerance of dissent. A scornful attitude toward the peoples’ cultural and historical values and intellectual wealth was inculcated. The world was regarded as the arena of implacable confrontation between social systems.
Distortions of the principles of socialism during the period between the 1930s and 1950s created difficult problems in our country’s development and, in the second half of the 20th century, when a major shift developed in the life of all mankind owing to the scientific and technical revolution, the authoritarian-bureaucratic system proved completely incapable of bringing the country into the mainstream of world civilisation.
Nevertheless the urgent need for radical change was ignored for a long time. The resolution of the pressing historical conflict was artificially checked by a structure of party-state power cut off from the people.
Perestroyka marked a radical shift toward a policy of renewal and of freeing the country from social forms alien to socialism. But it also revealed that the simultaneous transformation of all spheres in the life of a vast state with a population of almost 300 million is exceptionally complex. What is more, some decisions and actions by the party’s and the country’s leadership over the last few years have proved to be inadequately worked out, inconsistent, and, in a number of cases, simply mistaken.
Miscalculations in investment and export and import policy, in combating unearned income, and in carrying out the anti-alcohol campaign and distortions in the organisation of the co-operative movement had adverse consequences.
The old economic mechanism is being dismantled, and the new one has yet to be created. Control of the money supply and the market situation has been lost to a considerable extent. The creation of a legal base for the impending economic and political transformations has been excessively protracted. The country is rocked by inter-ethnic conflicts. The prestige of the state power has declined. Spiritual and moral values are being eroded and there is a growing wave of violence and crime.
The Central Committee and the Politburo have quite often lagged behind the development of events and operated by means of trial and error when adopting and implementing decisions and reforming the CPSU itself.
The party is living through a complex, crucial period. The renunciation of the former role played by the nucleus of the administrative-command system and its acquisition of the qualities of a socio-political organisation are accompanied by the painful exacerbation of contradictions, the decline of many party organisations’ activeness, the polarisation of opinions and positions and growing criticism of the party.
A rapid process of forming sundry socio-political groups and movements is under way in the country.
The conservative-dogmatic current whose representatives see the policy of renewal as an encroachment on the principles of socialism and are preaching a return to authoritarianism has become more active. It objectively attracts that section of the bureaucratic structures which is incapable of restructuring itself, which sees society’s democratisation as a threat to its political influence and social status and which is therefore doing its utmost to try to freeze the processes of change.
Movements that reject the socialist option and campaign for the unrestricted transfer of social ownership and for the complete commercialisation of education, health care, science and culture are gaining momentum. Monarchist and even fascist extremists have made their presence felt.
Social democratic currents of diverse hues have become a noticeable phenomenon in the country’s socio-political life.
Without breaking with the idea of socialism and retaining its commitment to social security for the population, the social democratic current often lays the stress on mechanical imitation of contemporary socio-economic structures in developed industrial states without consideration of our country’s specific features; many of its representatives refuse to consider Marxism as their ideological base.
National movements in which chauvinist and nationalistic sentiments are manifested increasingly actively alongside democratic trends have gained considerable scope. Setting some nations against others and promoting slogans of separatism and “national exclusiveness”, they often turn out to be mouthpieces for the interests of old or new anti-democratic groups yearning for power.
Democratic perestroyka forces oriented on the socialist option and represented by most CPSU members and many organisations that express the political and vocational interests of the working class, the peasantry, the intelligentsia, young people, servicemen and veterans are to be found at the centre of the political spectrum taking shape in the country.
At a time of political instability which could result in social and economic chaos, the Communist Party sees its task as becoming the party of civic accord and ensuring constructive co-operation among various socio-political forces interested in escaping from the crisis and achieving a democratic reorganisation of society, so as to unite, support and defend all who through their honest labour have created, are creating, or will create the people’s prosperity and spiritual values. It counters those forces that would like to turn society back—to a bourgeois system or barrack usages—and to incite anarchy and civic confrontation and the division of nations and peoples. The congress considers that a consistent course of renewing the social system within the framework of the socialist option is the foundation of the contemporary strategy of advance towards a prosperous and free society and the tactics for extrication from the crisis.
What Kind of Society Are We Striving Towards?
The essence of the perestroyka policy resides in the transition from an authoritarian-bureaucratic system to a society of humane, democratic socialism. This—although difficult—is the only correct way to a dignified life, to the realisation of the country’s material and spiritual potential. While severing links with all that is alien to socialism, the CPSU rejects the denial of the ideals of October and the nihilistic attitude towards the Soviet people’s revolutionary gains. It is necessary to clearly distinguish in our country’s past between, on the one hand, phenomena engendered by Stalinism and stagnation and, on the other, the real achievements of the USSR’s peoples. The party gives due credit to the constructive labour and self-sacrifice of all generations of the working class, peasantry and intelligentsia and to their heroic endeavours in the name of the homeland.
We hold sacred the memory of the people’s sacrifices during the years of most rigorous ordeals.
The CPSU advocates a creative approach to the theory and practice of socialism and their development through constructive analysis of the historical experience of the 20th century and the legacy of Marx, Engels and Lenin freed from dogmatic interpretation. We deem it necessary to utilise the best achievements of human reason and the experience accumulated in the world of effective economic management, the solution of social problems and the development of democratic institutions.
The CPSU is a party with a socialist option and a communist outlook. We regard this prospect as the natural, historical thrust of the development of civilisation. Its social ideal absorbs the humanist principles of human culture, the age-old striving for a better life and social justice.
In our understanding humane, democratic socialism means a society in which:
- man is the aim of social development;
living and working conditions for him are worthy of contemporary civilisation;
man’s alienation from political power and the material and spiritual values created by him are overcome and his active involvement in social processes is assured;
- the transformation of working people into the masters of production, the strong motivation of highly productive labour, and the best conditions for the progress of production forces and the rational use of nature are ensured on the basis of diverse forms of ownership and economic management;
social justice and the social protection of working people are guaranteed—the sovereign will of the people is the sole source of power;
the state, which is subordinate to society, guarantees the protection of the rights, freedoms, honour, and dignity of people regardless of social position, sex, age, national affiliation or religion;
there is free competition and co-operation between all socio-political forces operating within the framework of the law.
This is a society which consistently advocates peaceful and equitable cooperation among the peoples and respect for the rights of every people to determine their own fate.
II CPSU ACTION PROGRAMME
The implementation of the CPSU’s programme goals requires the implementation of both emergency anti-crisis measures and the implementation of a long-term policy to comprehensively transform society. The CPSU will strive to achieve these goals by political methods and by the deliberate and co-ordinated actions of communists, including those working in Soviets and other state organs and social organisations and by using its constitutional right of legislative initiative and winning the trust of the masses.
Emergency Measures for Extrication From the Crisis
The party puts forward the following as IMMEDIATE TASKS:
First. The elaboration this year of a new treaty on the union of republics as sovereign states on a strictly voluntary basis of mutual benefit and freedom of national self-determination; a treaty which takes account of both the specific features and requirements of the republics, and the interests of the union as a whole.
Second. To carry out in the socio-economic sphere within 18-24 months:—the normalisation of the consumer market, above all the market in food, by the very rapid reorientation of the economy towards the consumer sector, the all-round development of entrepreneurial initiative, procurements of imported goods, and the maintenance of fixed prices for a series of essential commodities during the transition to free price formation;—the stabilisation of money supply by the pursuit of financial and credit reform, the distribution of shares among the population, the selling off of surplus stocks of material resources, the sale of housing, increasing interest on the population’s bank deposits, the granting of loans against the future sale of goods and reduction of the state budget deficit to a minimum;—additional funding of urgent socio-economic tasks by means of sensible cutbacks in defence spending, ineffective capital investments, and expenditure on maintaining the managerial apparatus and the regulation of foreign economic ties.
Third. The resolute intensification of discipline and law and order and the intensification of the struggle against crime and of crime prevention. The use of all available resources—economic, political and legal—to combat the shadow economy. The urgent adoption of laws to provide legal foundation for the implementation of the emergency measures to overcome the crisis and the development of mechanisms for their implementation.
For Freedom and People’s Well-Being
The party regards the ensuring of worthy living conditions for Soviet man as the central, strategic task of its policy.
CIVIL RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS. The party advocates:
- the implementation of human rights at the level of internationally recognised norms.
LABOUR AND WELL-BEING. Honest labour is the basis of the well-being of society and each individual. The party advocates:
- guarantees of the right to work, the provision of fair payment for end results without any restrictions; the elimination of levelling, dependence and the eradication of illegal income and privileges.
SOCIAL GUARANTEES. The party proposes:
- creating an integral social-state system of social protection and material support for low-income and large families, ensuring that the level of pay, pensions and allowances is no lower than the subsistence level.
EDUCATION, SCIENCE AND CULTURE. The CPSU considers the development of education, science and culture as a priority area of its policy. By protecting creative freedoms, the party will uphold the highest humanitarian values. It is opposed to bureaucratic administration of the spiritual sphere and the wholesale transfer of culture, art and education to a purely commercial footing.
For An Effective Economy
The creation of a reliable basis for social progress demands the democratisation of economic relations by genuinely emancipating people’s initiative and practical activity and bringing incentives for highly productive labour into play. This is the essence of the programme proposed by the CPSU for perestroika in the economic system.
BECOMING THE MASTER AND REVIVING INDUSTRIOUSNESS. The party considers it necessary to create conditions for the formation and development of diverse and equal forms of ownership, their integration and free competition among them:
- state ownership (all-union, republican, municipal) must be transformed from formal, bureaucratic ownership into social ownership controlled by working people themselves on the basis of existing legislation. Working people’s collectives are to be granted the right to lease state enterprises and property and acquire industrial, trade and services sphere facilities; use is to be made of the joint-stock form of enterprise organisation;—it is necessary to develop various types of cooperative ownership, ownership by public organisations and mixed forms of ownership;
- private labour ownership, which could improve the lives of the people, must have a place in the system of forms of ownership.
The CPSU is against total denationalisation or the imposition of any forms of ownership.
TOWARDS A REGULATED MARKET. The market economy is an alternative to the outmoded administrative-command system of management of the national economy. Advocating a phased transition to the market, the CPSU deems it is necessary to:
- accelerate the elaboration of legislative and legal norms and mechanisms ensuring a switch to a market economy;
- grant enterprises and all commodity producers, regardless of their forms of ownership, autonomy and free enterprise and to promote the development of healthy and honest competition among them; and to separate the functions of state management from direct economic activity;
- implement demonopolisation of production, banking and insurance, trade and scientific development; give support to the development of a network of small and medium-size enterprises;
- gear the state regulation of market relations to the protection of citizens’ social rights, carry out major structural transformations in the national economy and the scientific-technical and ecological programmes, and safeguard the country’s interests in the system of world economic links. Preserve state management of major transport networks, communications, the power industry, and defence complex enterprises within the framework of a single market on the basis of financial autonomy principles and work collectives’ self-management;
- switch, in the planning system, to the elaboration of strategic outlook plans for economic development and targeted state programmes, to indirect regulation of the economy through state orders, pricing, depreciation and customs policy, taxes, interest on credit and so on;
- ensure the switch to a convertible rouble and to an economy that is open to the world market, the creation of favourable conditions for enterprises’ foreign economic activity and the involvement of foreign capital to ensure the earliest possible introduction of progressive technologies and supplies to the market.
MARKET AND PROTECTION MECHANISMS. In view of the fact that the switch to the market is not an end in itself but a means of solving social problems, and in view of the possible adverse consequences of this switch, the CPSU proposes:
- compensating the populace for losses due to the revision of retail prices of goods and services; introducing a flexible system for indexing the population’s monetary incomes and increasing them depending on the growth of consumer prices;
- creating an effective mechanism for maintaining employment, for finding jobs and for vocational retraining; compensation payments during the period of temporary unemployment, retraining and acquisition of new skills;
- ensuring social and state monitoring of the observance of laws regulating market relations.
AGRARIAN POLICY. In it the party proceeds on the basis of the following principles:
- supporting the Soviets’ right to own land and the state, collective and individual farms’ right to use and manage land;
- ensuring equal economic relations between town and countryside;
- ruling out any kind of dictate and bureaucratic rule in all that pertains to land management and relying on the peasant’s free choice; ensuring equal opportunities for the development both of social farming—collective farm and state farm—and of newly established individual, family and lease farming;
- ensuring the priority development of the agro-industrial complex’s material-technical base in the light of the requirements of all forms of economic management;
- enabling every rural inhabitant and anyone wishing to live and work in the countryside to set up his own home and farm holding; improving the social infrastructure of the countryside and making work on the land socially attractive and economically effective.
Towards Genuine People’s Power
THE CIVIL SOCIETY AND THE LAW-GOVERNED STATE. The party consistently advocates:
- the formation of a civil society in which man does not exist for the sake of the state but the state for the sake of man; and all social groups and communities have a legally-guaranteed right and actual opportunity to express and defend their own interests;
- the strengthening of the law-governed state which excludes the dictatorship of any class, party, grouping or managerial bureaucracy and ensures access for all citizens to involvement in state and public affairs and to the holding of any post; the state and its citizens are connected by mutual responsibility, given the unconditional supremacy of democratically adopted law and the equality of all before the law;
- the free competition of socio-political organisations within a constitutional framework;
- the embodiment of the principles of universal, equal and direct suffrage.
We understand democracy not only as rights and freedoms but also as the civil responsibility, strict observance of laws and self-control which are organically linked with them.
SEPARATION OF POWERS into legislative, executive and judicial will create guarantees against the usurpation of unlimited authority and abuse of power and will enable spheres of competence and responsibility to be clearly demarcated.
The Country’s Security
As long as the danger of armed conflicts exists, the country needs reliable defence. The party considers it necessary:
- to implement a military reform based on the new defensive doctrine and the principle of reasonable sufficiency and on the priority of qualitative parameters in military building.
While remaining under modern conditions a vitally necessary institution for defending the constitutional system and maintaining public order, internal affairs and state security bodies must act strictly within the framework of the law and under the control of representative bodies of power. It is necessary to raise the standard of professional training and improve material support for law-enforcement body personnel.
Towards a Renewed Union of Sovereign Republics
FOR A VOLUNTARY UNION OF PEOPLES. The CPSU believes that the development of centrifugal trends can be prevented only on the basis of the democratisation of relations among the peoples and the national-state formations of the USSR and the successful development of the economy of all regions and a single, union-wide market. The party proceeds from recognition of the nations’ right to self-determination, even including secession, but does not confuse the right to secede from the USSR with the expediency of such secession and believes that, proceeding from the interests of the country’s peoples themselves and the trend of world processes toward integration, it is necessary to preserve the integrity of the renewed union as a dynamic multinational state. The CPSU favours the friendship and international unity of all the nations and ethnic groups of the country.
The party will pursue the line of strengthening the sovereignty of union republics. It proposes political and legal diversity in ties between the republics themselves and with the union as a whole and diversity in their economic relations on the basis of enterprises’ economic independence.
HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE RIGHTS OF NATIONS. The CPSU comes out:—for the expansion of the rights of nations while recognising the priority and the strict and unconditional safeguarding of the rights of each person;
- against the existence of any legal norms and laws which allow inequality among citizens on ethnic grounds, and for full freedom of choice in individual national self-determination;
- for respect for the cultural traditions and interests of all ethnic-national groups of the population when adopting the republics’ legal norms and laws.
Towards Mankind’s Peaceful Development
The party believes that the USSR’s foreign policy strategy should be based on the ideas of peace, co-operation, collaboration, progress and humanity; and should contribute in every way possible to the processes of our internal perestroyka and ensure international stability.
FOREIGN POLICY GUIDELINES. With a view to strengthening world security, the party advocates:
- energetic continuation of the successfully launched demilitarisation of international relations; the reduction of arms and armed forces to the limits of reasonable defence sufficiency; the total exclusion of the use and threat of force from world practice; the further lowering and then the complete surmounting of military confrontation;
- the creation of global and regional security structures on the basis of a balance of the interests of all sides to prevent conflicts and international instability;
- the underpinning of relations among states with a legal base guaranteeing freedom of socio-political choice, sovereignty and independence and the development of co-operation and partnership with all countries of the world;
- the further normalisation of Soviet-US relations and their channelling towards a constructive partnership; enterprising participation in the all-European process and the overcoming of the historical split in Europe; the development of new forms of political and economic co-operation with the countries of Eastern Europe; comprehensive consolidation of positive trends in relations with the PRC; an active policy in the Asia-Pacific region with a view to turning it into a zone of peace and co-operation; participation in the political settlement of regional conflicts; collaboration with the Non-Aligned Movement and co-operation with developing countries.
TOWARDS A NEW QUALITY OF INTERNATIONAL CO-OPERATION. The party considers the pooling of efforts of all members of the international community in resolving common problems facing mankind to be vitally necessary.
The Renewal of the Party
As the nucleus of the administrative edict system for many long years, the party itself was subject to serious deformation. Over-centralisation and the suppression of critical thought had a pernicious effect on relations within the party. Tremendous damage was done by the ideological and moral degeneration of a number of party leaders.
The congress notes that the CPSU as the ruling party bears political and moral responsibility for the situation that developed in the country, and it has itself talked candidly about the mistakes made by the country’s party and state leadership and condemned the Stalin-era crimes and the flagrant violations of human rights. But the congress resolutely opposes blanket accusations against honest communists of both past and present generations. Millions of communists served the people selflessly, worked whole-heartedly, and fought courageously for the homeland’s freedom and independence. There have always been progressive forces at work within the CPSU, and it is they who inspired and have led society’s restructuring.
The CPSU resolutely repudiates political and ideological monopolism and the supplanting of state and economic management bodies. The dynamics of the changes dictate the acceleration of the CPSU’s transformation into a true political party expressing and defending the fundamental interests of the working class, peasantry and intelligentsia and operating within the framework of a civil society.
The Party’s Role in Society
The CPSU is a political organisation which, by its practical activity and its constructive approach to the solution of the problems of society’s development, will uphold the right to political leadership in free competition with other socio-political forces.
The party performs the following functions:
THEORETICAL. On the basis of a scientific analysis of objective trends in society’s development, a theoretical evaluation of its prospects, and an elucidation and consideration of the interests of different social groups, it elaborates the strategy and tactics of socialist renewal and socio-economic, political and other programmes.
IDEOLOGICAL. The party defends its philosophy and moral values, propagates its programme goals and policy and draws citizens to the side of and into the ranks of the CPSU.
POLITICAL. The CPSU performs daily work among the masses and in work collectives, organises co-operation with social organisations and movements, campaigns in elections for seats in bodies of power at all levels and, if victorious, forms the corresponding executive bodies, carries out parliamentary activity and implements its pre-election programme.
ORGANISATIONAL. The CPSU conducts organisational work to implement its programme guidelines and decisions. The party renounces formalism and the nomenklatura-based approach in cadre work. The authority for taking cadre decisions in bodies of state power and administration belongs to those bodies and within the party itself is transferred from superior bodies to party organisations and all communists.
In present-day conditions, it is necessary to form in Soviets at all levels party groups and inter-party blocs, and communists must be guided by the will of their voters and the CPSU’s programme goals when participating in those groups or blocs.
Democratisation of the Party
Without the most thorough democratisation of intra-party relations, the CPSU will not be able to perform its role in society.
The CPSU resolutely rejects democratic centralism as it evolved in conditions of the administrative-command system and rigid centralisation and defends democratic principles—electability and interchangeability, glasnost and accountability, subordination of the minority to the majority and a minority’s right to uphold its views, including in the party mass media organs.
Democratisation in the party presumes participation by all its members and structures in shaping CPSU policy by means of partywide and regional discussions and referendums; the right of individual communists and groups to express their views in platforms; collectiveness and openness in the work of all party bodies and freedom of criticism. The profound restructuring of intra-party relations and the party’s activity is designed to ensure the democratic unity of CPSU ranks and to prevent a factional schism. An important factor in the renewal of the CPSU is the recruitment of fresh forces and the rejuvenation of cadres.
The CPSU’s base is its primary organisations. Autonomously and in the light of specific conditions they determine the tasks and forms of activity, structure and numerical size of their bodies and apparatus, the periodicity of and procedure for holding meetings and political actions and they have the final right of admission to the CPSU. Decisions made by them within the framework of powers vested in them by the CPSU Statutes may not be revoked by higher bodies.
The territorial and production principle of party building needs adjustment. While retaining party organisations in production and other collectives, it is necessary, in the light of the increased significance of the pre-election struggle waged among the population in local neighbourhoods, to emphasise the development of powerful and active primary territorial organisations. A CPSU member has the right to choose the primary organisation—production, territorial or both—in which he will work. Freedom to create and act within horizontal structures—party clubs, councils of party organisations’ secretaries and other special interest, professional and other associations—is guaranteed.
The congress does not consider it right to deprive communists in the army, the KGB or the MVD of the right to party membership and the creation of party organisations or to other forms of political activity. However, these organisations must be separate from state and administrative bodies, including military-political bodies, responsible for the moral and political education of armed forces, MVD and KGB personnel.
The congress advocates the election of party committee secretaries and party forum delegates by direct and, as a rule, multi-candidate elections through secret ballot and with the free nomination of candidates. The actual election procedure shall be determined by communists.
Party control must also be democratic. The central, republic, kray, oblast, okrug, town and rayon control bodies are elected autonomously, are independent of party committees and are accountable only to the congresses and conferences which elected them.
To resolve its set tasks an elective party body forms, within its budget limitations, an apparatus to perform organisational and consultative functions.
AUTONOMY and UNITY. In the process of the USSR’s renewal, the autonomy of union republic communist parties, which is dialectically combined with the unity of the party on the basis of the fundamental principles of the CPSU Programme and Rules, must be ensured. They elaborate their own programmes and normative documents in accordance with which they themselves resolve political, organisational, cadre, publishing and financial and economic questions, pursue a party line in the sphere of state building and the socio-economic and cultural development of the republics, and form ties with other parties and social movements, including those abroad. The leaders of union republican communist parties are members of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee. In the event of disagreement with a decision by the party’s central leading bodies, a republican communist party central committee has the right to demand the discussion of the question at a CPSU Central Committee plenum or combined plenum of the Central Committee and CPSU Central Control Commission.
The Party and Social Organisations
The CPSU seeks co-operation with movements and organisations of a socialist orientation and dialogue and equal partnership with all progressive ideological-political currents. The party is ready to create political blocs with them.
CPSU members take part in mass movements which act within the framework of the law. However, the party considers it impermissible for communists to belong to other parties or to organisations which propound chauvinism, nationalism, racism or anti-socialist ideas.
The CPSU will promote the rebirth of worker and peasant movements and development of social activeness among the intelligentsia.
The CPSU welcomes the renewal of trade unions and supports their desire to work actively in the interests of working people and the defence of their rights and freedoms.
The CPSU regards the All-Union Komsomol as an autonomous socio-political communist organisation of young people and expects it to take direct part in the elaboration and implementation of party policy. Party and Komsomol organisations must learn how to form their relations as political allies. It is necessary to treat the emergence of new youth organisations with understanding, to promote the molding of their socialist and general humanist thrust and to instil in young people a sense of involvement in the people’s destiny. The CPSU directs all its organisations resolutely towards young people’s problems. This is also dictated by the interests of the party itself: Without young people it will have no future.
Those are the CPSU’s conceptual and theoretical standpoints and political goals by which communists, party organisations and party organs are to be guided in their practical work until the adoption of a new CPSU Programme. The congress hopes that they will be supported by all democratic forces in the country advocating perestroyka and the renewal of our society.
Source:
BBC World Broadcasts SU/0821/C21
20 July 1990