COMMUNIST PARTY REORGANIZED

Southland Times, Issue 23142, 8 March 1937, Page 7

COMMUNIST PARTY REORGANIZED

SECRET BALLOT TO ELECT LEADERS (Received March 7, 6.30 p.m.) MOSCOW, March 6. The fundamental reorganization of the Russian Communist Party was announced after a secret session, lasting 10 days, of the party’s central committee. The party’s right to a monopoly of leadership is reasserted, but the committee decided that the principle of “democratic centralism” must be introduced to enable all members to participate in and to criticize freely all party and Government matters. All party officials must be elected by a majority vote, and party elections will in future be conducted by means of a secret ballot instead of by a show of hands as at present. The Soviet Press describes . these changes in the party’s constitution as making a landmark in Soviet history, because they mean that the masses are now directly in control of the election of the country’s ruling group.

The Communist Party is the only legalized political organization in the Soviet Union, though non-party candidates are freely elected to public office. The party directing body is the Central Committee, elected by the membership at the annual party congresses. The committee elects a small executive body, the Political Bureau, which by virtue of its pisition of party leadership makes decisions on policy which are followed by the Government. M. Joseph Stalin, the secretary-general, is thus dictator of Russia. The membership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union on July 1, 1936, was 2,389,500, which is little more than one-ninth of the population of 180,000,000.