Page "Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union" Paragraph 6

The system had many faults, and opposition to Lenin and what many saw as his excessive centralisation policies came to the leadership's attention during the 8th Party Congress ( March 1919 ) and the 9th Party Congress ( March 1920 ).

At the 9th Party Congress the Democratic Centralists, an opposition faction within the party, accused Lenin and his associates, of creating a Central Committee in which a " small handful of party oligarchs ... was banning those who hold deviant views.

" Several delegates to the Congress were quite specific in the criticism, one of them accusing Lenin and his associates of making the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic a place of exile for opponents.

Lenin reply was evasive, he conceded that faults had been made, but noted that if such policies had in fact been carried out the criticism of him during the 9th Party Congress could not have occurred.

During the 10th Party Congress ( March 1921 ) Lenin condemned the Workers Opposition, a faction within the Communist Party, for deviating from communism and accused Trotsky of factionalism.

Lenin did state that factionalism was allowed, but only allowed before and during Party Congresses when the different sides needed to win votes.

Several Central Committee members, who were members of the Workers Opposition, offered their resignation to Lenin but their resignations were not accepted, and they were instead asked to submit to party discipline.

The 10th Party Congress also introduced a ban on factionalism within the Communist Party ; however, what Lenin considered to be ' platforms ', such as the Democratic Centralists and the Workers Opposition, were allowed.

Factions, in Lenin's mind, were groups within the Communist Party who subverted party discipline.