July 29, 1929

To Comrade Molotov.

For Monday's session of the CC Politburo.

I categorically object to the placement in Komsomolskaya Pravda of Sten's article (see Komsomolskaya Pravda No. 169), which is analogous to Shatskin's article, just days after the Politburo's condemnation of Shatskin's article. This is either the stupidity of the Komsomolskaya Pravda editors, or a direct challenge to the Central Committee of the Party. To call the subordination of Komsomol members (and hence Party members) to the general line of the Party "servility," as Sten does, means to call for a revision of the general line of the Party, for an undermining of the iron discipline of the Party, for the transformation of the Party into a discussion club. This is precisely how every opposition group in our country began its anti-Party activity. This is how Trotsky began his "work." Zinoviev danced from the same stove. Bukharin chose the same path. And now the group of Shatskin-Averbakh-Sten-Lominadze is taking this path, demanding (in essence) the freedom to revise the general line of the Party, freedom to weaken Party discipline, freedom to turn the Party into a discussion club.

For this purpose, the Shatskin-Sten group is trying to turn (if it has not already turned) Komsomolskaya Pravda into its own combat organ. For this purpose, it is trying to turn Molodaya Gvardiya into its theoretical journal. For this purpose, Komsomolskaya Pravda is being counterposed to Pravda, and Molodaya Gvardiya to Bolshevik. It is time to put an end to this outrage. It is time to call this group to order and rein it in, as a group that is straying, or has already strayed, from the path of Leninism onto the path of petty-bourgeois (Trotskyist) radicalism. It is time, because only in this way will it be possible to straighten out these young comrades and save them for the Party.

What is needed:

1) To immediately review the composition of the editorial boards of Komsomolskaya Pravda and Molodaya Gvardiya, placing at their head comrades who are firm in Party terms;

2) To criticize the ideological waverings of the Shatskin-Sten-Averbakh-Lominadze group;

3) To show that the Slepkovites and the Shatskinites are two boots of a pair.

It seems to me that the sooner we finish with this matter, the better. To delay in this matter means to ruin it and perhaps to lose for the Party a number of young comrades who could become valuable workers in the future. To delay means to allow a group of misguided young comrades to continue corrupting and demoralizing our glorious revolutionary youth. This is absolutely inadmissible.

July 29, 1929.

J. Stalin.

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Source: Letters of J.V. Stalin to V.M. Molotov. 1925–1936. P. 135–137.

RGASPI. F. 558. Op. 1. D. 5388.

NOTE

L. Shatskin's article "Down with Party Philistinism" (Komsomolskaya Pravda, June 18, 1929) was condemned by a Politburo decision of July 22, 1929, and Shatskin himself was relieved of his duties as a member of the editorial board of Pravda. Returning to this question again on July 25, the Politburo proposed that the editorial board of Komsomolskaya Pravda publish an article explaining the erroneousness of Shatskin's article, and that the Bureau of the CC VLKSM discuss measures to strengthen the newspaper's editorial staff.

On August 8 the Politburo approved the resolution of the CC VLKSM on Komsomolskaya Pravda. The editorial boards of Pravda and Bolshevik were instructed to illuminate questions connected with the errors in the articles by Sten and Shatskin.

On August 15 the Politburo approved the new composition of the editorial board of Komsomolskaya Pravda proposed by the Bureau of the CC VLKSM. The institution of responsible editor of the newspaper and his deputies was abolished. These duties were assigned to a leading troika from the editorial board.