Resolution on Yugoslavia of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Romanian Workers' Party

secret

The Decision of the Select Meeting of the

Political Bureau of the R.W.P.

The Political Bureau of the Central Committee [of the] R. W. P. has discussed, in a select meeting, the letters of the C. C. of the C. P. /B / U.S.S.R. of 27 and 31 March this year.

The notes concerning the attitude of some of the state organizations of Yugoslavia, and of some of the leaders of the C.P. from Yugoslavia toward the Soviet Union and toward the Communist Party/Bolshevik/from U.S.S.R., were received by the members of the Political Bureau with profound surprise and revolt.

The Political Bureau is in complete agreement with the commentaries contained in the letters of comrades Stalin and Molotov, and notes the exceptional gravity of the fact that, because of the fault of some top leaders of the Y. C. P. [Yugoslav Communist Party], there has been a worsening of the relations between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union.

This reality is proportionally graver to the extent to which the international situation demands - as it has been noted in the Declaration of the Meeting of the Council of the 9 Communist Parties - an even greater cohesion of the anti-imperialist and democratic camp, whose reading force is the Soviet Union. It would appear that some Yugoslav comrades have forgotten that any 'fissure, however small, in the democratic and anti-imperialist front, can help only the enemies of socialism, of peace, and of those who work. The Political Bureau believes that the attitude of these comrades completely contradicts the spirit of the Declaration of the 9 Parties, which was also signed by the representatives of the Yugoslav Communist Party.

The Political Bureau of [the] C. C. [of the] A. W. P. considers that the comments of some Yugoslav top people about the C. P./B / U.S.S.R., about the Soviet Union and about the Soviet Army, constitutes a manifestation of imperialist influences. The war-mongering imperialist circles are those which, for the purpose of breaking the front of the democratic forces, and of the isolation of the Soviet Union, circulate lies concerning the "conquering tendencies" of the Soviet Union, the use of the Cominform as [a] "weapon of Soviet expansion [sic], etc.

The letter [from the] C. C. [of the] C. P. / B / U.S.S.R. emphasizes, with full justice, that the anti-Soviet comments of some of the top people of the Y.C.P., made secretly, under the cover of "leftist" sentences, concerning the "Revolutionary Socialism" from Yugoslavia, are analogous to those which were made a time ago by Trotsky, which have reached the camp of the sworn enemies of the Soviet Union.

The calumnious statements made by some of the top leaders of the Y. C. P., concerning the U.S.S.R. and the Soviet Army, are the equivalent of denying the dominant role played by the U.S.S.R. and its armed forces, which, by winning the victory over Hitlerist Germany, and through its defeat of the plans of Anglo-American imperialism in the Balkans, has made possible the coming to power and the development of the regimes of popular democracy in Yugoslavia, in Romania and in other countries.

Because the attitude of some of the top leaders of the Y. C. P. toward the Soviet specialists did not receive the right retort, it has determined the mistaken line of the Yugoslav government on a series of important problems of Soviet-Yugoslav relations, forcing the Soviet Government to remove its military and civilian specialists from Yugoslavia.

Our Party and Government have the experience of fruitful work with Soviet specialists in various domains of activity. We are grateful to these specialists for the priceless help that they have given us.

The Political Bureau of [the] C. C. [of the] R. W. P. categorically disapproves of the attitude of these Yugoslav leaders toward the Soviet Army, an attitude which proves the lack of acknowledgment of the decisive moral superiority of the Army of the Socialist State, and also of the superiority of Soviet military science, which have won a historical triumph in the Second World War. We consider the attitude toward the Soviet Army and toward the moral conduct of the Soviet officers condemnable.

Concerning the situation from Y.C.P., the semi-legal structure of the Y.C.P. has puzzled us for a long time. Concerning the question of relations between the C. P. and the Popular Front, the Political Bureau believes that the Yugoslav comrades who have brought about the erasure of the identity of the Party, have renounced emphasizing openly its leading role, do not develop in the ranks of the party criticism and self-criticism, have the tendency to erase with the sponge the historical experience of the Bolshevik Party, personalized by the guidance of Lenin and Stalin about the Party.

We are of the opinion that the situation in the Y.C.P. mirrors the ideological confusion concerning the problem of relations between classes under the regime of popular democracy, as a specific form for transition toward socialism. Dealing in the year 1925 with the problem of the relationships between classes, comrade Stalin wrote:

"The dictatorship of the proletariat is 1) violence unlimited by law in matters which concern the capitalists and the landowners, 2) proletarian leadership in matters which concern the peasantry, 3) the building of socialism in matters which concern the entire society". (I. V. Stalin, Works, vol, 7, p, 187, the Russian edition),

It seems to us that the theory of the programmatic identity between the C.P. and the Popular Front, the opportunistic theory of the peaceful growth of capitalism into socialism, the lack of a policy [for the purpose] of the limiting of capitalist elements, the lack of understanding for the truth that a bitter class struggle, independent of the forms that it is taking, continues also under the conditions of the regime of popular democracy, and must be waged both in the cities and in the villages, etc., are consequences of the fact that among the comrades from Yugoslavia, as in the other countries of popular democracy, there circulates the theory of the so-called "peaceful" transformations toward socialism, without the dictatorship of the proletariat.

We express our trust that the Y. C. P., with the help provided by the C.C. of C. P. / B / U.S.S.R. through its letter, will know how to decisively liquidate the unhealthy manifestations and the foreign influences among its leadership, for the benefit of the proletariat and of the entire Yugoslav people, and also for the benefit of the forces of democracy and of socialism in the entire world.

The Political Bureau considers that our party must, with all seriousness, come to the right conclusions from the letter from C. C. of C. P. /B / U.S.S. R. In the last 3 years, because of the rapid increase of the Party, among our rank have intruded numerous small-bourgeois and inimical elements. On the occasion of the unification [of the Romanian Communist Party with the Romanian Social Democratic Party, which took place in February 1948], their percentage has increased even more. This increases the influence of foreign elements over our party.

The Political Bureau reconfirms its decision to proceed to the verification [i.e., purge] of the party members, and obliges its members to work for the increase in the spirit of vigilance toward the infiltration of the foreign elements into the Party, and to intensify the struggle against imperialist agents, and against their influence, both within the ranks of the Party, and in the masses. The Political Bureau decides in favor of the strengthening of the critical and self-critical spirit within the ranks of the Party organizations and of the organs of party leadership. At the same time, keeping in mind the deficiencies in the theoretical and political training of our cadres, the Political Bureau decides [in favor of] the intensification of theoretical work, and of the work for the uplifting of the ideological level of the cadres, paying an unusual attention to the study of the Short Course of History of the C. P. /B /U.S.S.R. The Political Bureau will take measures for the intensification of the action of the popularizing of the grandiose achievements of the Soviet Union, and of the decisive role played by it, as the leading force of the anti-imperialist and democratic camp, as the main bulwark of peace and of the independence of the peoples.

Deputized by the select meeting of the Political Bureau of R.W.P.,

Gh. Gheorghiu-Dej

Bucharest, April 22, 1948