ABSTRACT
The Russian Communist party is the fundamental instrument of the proletarian revolution. The 'automatic' withdrawals from the party for 1926 amounted to 25,000 rank-and-file Communists, among whom 76.5 per cent were workers in the shops. The attempt of the apparatus of the Central Committee to minimize these already sufficiently minimized data was obviously unsuccessful. The role of the 'ex-es' in the party apparatus and the governing posts in general has increased. Bureaucratism is growing in all spheres, but its growth is especially ruinous in the party. The present hail of repressions and threats, greatly increasing with the approach of the Fifteenth Congress, is designed to frighten the party still more. It testifies to the fact that the united faction of Stalin and Rykov, in order to cover up its political mistakes, must have recourse to extreme measures.
