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From The Militant, Vol. 2 No. 13, 15 August 1929, p. 8.
Transcribed by Jan Leder.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
The official Party Press has finally announced that the Tenth Plenum of the E.C.C.I. decided to “relieve” Bucharin, Humbert-Droz, Serra and Gitlow from the secretariat, and to expel Lovestone, Jilek, and Comrade Maurice Spector from the Executive. Comrade Spector is the only one of those named to be expelled for his support of the Bolshevik-Leninists (Opposition).
The removal of Bucharin, which seems to have been the sole accomplishment of the Tenth Plenum, is of little interest now. The delegates to the session had nothing to say about it and the mechanical raising of their hands was the purest and most needless formality. For the last five years Bucharin has been praised to the skies by the Right-Centrist bloc in the Comintern. He was put into Zinoviev’s place as chairman of the C.I., when Zinoviev joined in the Opposition Bloc in the Russian Party. At the Sixth World Congress, held only a year ago, Bucharin was the spokesman for the Executive Committee and for the Russian Party. He gave the political report, and the program report. He was re-elected chairman. His removal from the C.I. was decided in secret caucus by Stalin a long time ago. His actual removal took place some months ago, again by Stalin decision. The Tenth Plenum only served to rubber-stamp enthusiastically the decision with which they had nothing to do. When the Opposition and The Militant reported that Bucharin was already slated for removal, the official Stalinist Press, and all of the functionaries from Stalin to Foster and Lovestone, accused us of counter-revolutionary slander and “speculation” on differences in the Russian Party, which they swore didn’t exist!
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