Central Control Commission of the All-Union Communist Party Bolshevik

the party’s highest organ of control from 1920 to 1934. The CCC of the ACP(B) was set up in accordance with V. I. Lenin’s design; in his words, it was a body “responsible only to the Party Congress” (Poln. sobr. soch., 5th ed., vol. 45, p. 200). Originally called the Control Commission of the RCP(B), it was renamed the Central Control Commission of the RCP(B) by the party’s Tenth Congress. Members of the commission were elected by the party congresses. The roster of members of the first commission was confirmed provisionally, pending the next party congress, by the Ninth All-Russian Conference of the RCP(B) in September 1920. The establishment of local party control commissions was based on a letter from the Central Committee of the RCP(B) to all party organizations and party members, dated Sept. 4, 1920, and on a resolution of the Ninth All-Russian Conference of the RCP(B)—the resolution On the Immediate Tasks of Building up the Party.

The tasks of the CCC and of the local control commissions were set by resolutions of the party congresses. The commissions’ most important function was to preserve party unity and to wage the struggle against any kind of antiparty groupings and factional tendencies within the party. Furthermore, the CCC was to strenuously oppose any party member’s infringement of the party’s Program and Rules or violation of party ethics, thus preserving the purity of the party’s ranks. In accordance with Lenin’s plan for the reorganization of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection (WPI), the Twelfth Congress of the RCP(B) defined and greatly expanded the functions, tasks, and rights of the CCC. The CCC was organizationally linked to the People’s Commissariat of the WPI, functioning as the commissariat’s organized party group.

The CCC and its local agencies (the central control commissions of the Communist parties of the Union republics and the control commissions of the various provinces and oblasts) were charged with a number of tasks by various statutes adopted between 1924 and 1926: in addition to protecting the unity of the party and preserving the purity of its ranks, the commissions were to ensure the state agencies’ compliance with the party line, improve and simplify the Soviet administrative apparatus and economic system, fight against bureaucratic distortions in the state apparatus, involve the broad masses of workers and peasants in the work of the state apparatus, and assist the party’s Central Committee in the selection of top-level personnel.

The CCC was guided in its activity by the party congresses; decisions on fundamental issues were made by the CCC plenums, which were convened once every two or three months. Beginning in 1923, the plenums elected the CCC’s governing body—the Presidium of the CCC. The Presidium selected members of the CCC to form the CCC Secretariat, for the commission’s ongoing work, as well as the Party Collegium, which was to review the cases of individual Communists. In order to maintain continuous contact with the central organs of the party, representatives of the Presidium of the CCC attended both Politburo and Orgburo meetings. The most important questions of party policy were discussed at joint plenums of the Central Committee and the CCC.

The CCC played a historic role in preserving the Leninist unity of the CPSU; in defense of Lenin’s general party line, the CCC took decisive action against Trotskyism, against the “New Opposition” and the Trotskyist-Zinovievist antiparty bloc, and against such antiparty currents and groups as the right-wing deviation in the ACP(B). Party purges were carried out with the direct participation of the CCC. At the same time, the CCC devoted much effort to the ideological education of Communists. Together with the People’s Commissariat of the WPI of the USSR, the CCC of the ACP(B) played an important part in strengthening and improving the state apparatus and in the unyielding struggle to implement Lenin’s plan—namely, to build socialism in the USSR.

The stenographic records of most of the CCC plenums were published between 1924 and 1928. Other publications included Biulleten’ TsKK VKP(b)-NK RKI SSSR i RSFSR [Bulletin of the CCC of the ACP(B) and of the People’s Commissariat of the WPI of the USSR and RSFSR], published from 1924 to 1929 (1924–25 masthead, Biulleten’ TsKK RKP(b) . . . [Bulletin of the CCC of the RCP(B)...]), and the fortnightly journal Za tempy, kachestvo, proverku, published jointly by the CCC and the People’s Commissariat of the WPI from 1931 to 1934.

In 1934, by action of the Seventeenth Congress of the ACP(B), the CCC of the ACP(B) became the Commission of Party Control of the Central Committee of the ACP(B), to be elected by the party congresses.