12th Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks)


The 12th Congress of the Russian Communist Party was held during 17–25 April 1923 in Moscow. The congress elected the 12th Central Committee. It was attended by 408 delegates with deciding votes and 417 with consultative votes, representing 386,000 party members. This was the last congress of the Russian Communist Party during Vladimir Lenin's leadership, though Lenin was unable to attend due to illness.

Agenda

Much of this Congress was taken up with Joseph Stalin's struggle against the Georgian Bolshevists. Stalin dominated the Congress with Grigoriy Ordzhonikidze and Mamia Orakhelashvili, moving against the Old Bolsheviks Budu Mdivani and Filipp Makharadze. Stalin accused the latter of the following:
Ordzhonikidze went further:
attended this Congress, but he was subject to attack immediately afterwards in the Tartar newspaper Eshche and arrested during May 1923. He was roundly condemned by Stalin at the Fourth Conference of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party with the Workers of the National Republics of the Regions, held 9–12 June 1923.
At this Congress, the RCP redefined the problems of nationalism identifying local chauvinism as the main problem rather than Great Russian chauvinism. The Congress was the beginning of the so-called policy of Korenizatsiya. The main idea was to grow national cadres for every nationality so that the party line could be pursued everywhere by representatives of the local nationality and the national proletariat could be raised against its own exploiters.