Tensions were increasing between the bureaucracy, entrenched in the state apparatus, and the surviving Bolshevik cadre. The bureaucracy could not rest easy while power remained in the hands of the revolutionary Marxists. A struggle for control over the Communist Party was inherent in the situation.

In the party, the Marxist cadre was stretched to breaking point by the demands of public duties, while the ranks of the party were swelled by a massive influx of new members. Many of those who joined, especially during the dark days of the civil war, were militant workers and youth attracted to the party of the revolution. But, increasingly, ex-Mensheviks, bureaucrats, and other hostile elements, seeking a new vehicle for their political ambitions, began to turn their attention to the Communist Party.

As early as March 1919 the eighth party congress recognised the danger, resolving that: “Elements which are not sufficiently communist or even directly parasitic are flowing into the party in a broad stream. The Russian Communist Party is in power, and this inevitably attracts to it, together with the better elements, careerist elements as well … A serious purge is indispensable in the Soviet and party organisations.”(Quoted by Carr, The Bolshevik Revolution, page 212)

However, owing to the pressures of the civil war, the purge was postponed until 1921-22. Unlike the ruthless bureaucratic attacks on opposition of later years, also known as “purges”, it consisted of a careful examination by local party organisations of their members, to decide which of them, through their commitment and activity, could in fact be counted as Communists.

But there were more fundamental reasons why the tide of bureaucratic encroachment could not be halted. Russia’s backwardness was reflected, politically, in the weakness of the working class in relation to the peasantry and the reactionary classes, nationally and internationally. As Lenin put it to the eleventh party congress in 1922 (the last he was able to attend), “while we continue to be a small peasant country, there is a more solid basis for capitalism in Russia than for communism.”

The social weakness of the Soviet working class could not be overcome by administrative measures; bourgeois pressures within the state apparatus could not be eliminated through the creation of new bureaucratic structures. The solution lay in the political regeneration of the working class through the advance of the revolution internationally.

The influence of the bureaucracy increasingly pervaded the party. Many Communists, absorbed in complicated administrative work, were already being ‘led’ by the bureaucracy. Even the party leaders were coming under pressure to adapt to the ‘practical’ demands of the bureaucracy, to concentrate on creating stability in Russia through organisational measures and relegate the international revolution to the background.

Lenin, struck down by illness in the last two years of his life, became sharply aware of the dangers of the situation. At the fourth Comintern congress in 1922 he gave this frank appraisal of the situation in Russia:

“Undoubtedly, we have done, and will still do, a host of stupid things… Why do we do these foolish things? The reason is clear: firstly, because we are backward country; secondly, because education in our country is at a low level; and thirdly, because we are getting no outside assistance. Not a single civilized country is helping us. On the contrary, they are all working against us. Fourthly, our machinery of state is to blame. We took over the old machinery of state, and that was our misfortune. Very often this machinery operates against us… We now have a vast army of government employees, but lack sufficiently educated forces to exercise real control over them … In practice it often happens that here at the top, where we exercise political power, the machine functions somehow; but down below government employees have arbitrary control and they often exercise it in such a way as to counteract our measures.” (Lenin, Report to the Fourth Congress of the Communist International, 1922) (Read Here)

By “educated forces”, Lenin meant Communist workers, organised and able to control the ‘specialists’. Lenin could offer no immediate solution to the problem because, within Russia alone, there was none.

Lenin, increasingly concerned at the influence of middle-class careerist elements within the ranks of the Communist Party itself, called for longer ‘probation periods’ for prospective new members, especially those who were not from working-class ‘proletarian’ backgrounds:

“There is no doubt that, judged by the bulk of its present membership, our Party is not proletarian enough … It is equally undoubted that … our Party is less politically trained than is necessary for real proletarian leadership in the present difficult situation … Further, it must be borne in mind that the temptation to join the ruling party at the present time is very great … there will be a big increase in the efforts of petty-bourgeois elements, and of elements positively hostile to all that is proletarian, to penetrate into the Party”. (Lenin, Conditions for Admitting New Members to the Party, March 1922) (Read here)