# Tenth Congress bans factions inside the Communist Party

Date: 1921

## The fact

On 16 March 1921 the Tenth Party Congress adopted a secret clause allowing expulsion for factionalism, in [Lenin](/people/vladimir-lenin)’s resolution on party unity. The Workers’ Opposition and Democratic Centralists were closed as organized platforms.

Later speeches, cult, and measured outcomes are not mixed into this Fact.

## Context

Kronstadt was being stormed the same week. The ban is a party-statute Fact with later [Stalin](/people/joseph-stalin)-era uses.

Shared responsibility with other offices is part of the record. Sharing is not a reason to drop this person's documented role, and it is not a reason to treat every later consequence as their handwriting.

## Evidence and sources

The resolution is in congress documents. Britannica records the 1921 ban. Schapiro independently reconstructs inner-party history.

Official or archival record: Lenin, Tenth Congress resolution on party unity, March 1921 (https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1921/10thcong/ch04.htm; Marxists Internet Archive / Tenth Congress). Later commission estimates are attributed to those commissions.

## Significance

Weakens [political competition](/drivers/political-competition). Direct contribution. High confidence.

The attached driver is political-competition.

## What is established and what is not

Established: the 1921 faction ban. Not established: that Lenin intended the 1937 application.

What would change the picture: a contradictory original protocol with a different date or signatory; a demonstrated forgery; or a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of this instrument rather than of war, weather, or unauthorized local action.

The documentary limit is the same for every instrument in this dossier. Central files can show that an order was issued; they cannot reconstruct every locality's implementation. Memoir and literary evidence is independent texture, never the sole causal source. Official statistics of the period are treated as claims with known incentives. Later archival openings and museum publications are independent or successor-state records. They do not convert this Fact into a personality score and do not cancel the original instrument. The contribution is direct where this person signed, chaired, or issued the act, and remains bounded by other offices that had to act. Readers who want the welfare path should open the named driver rather than treating a portrait as the mechanism.

The documentary limit is the same for every instrument in this dossier. Central files can show that an order was issued; they cannot reconstruct every locality's implementation. Memoir and literary evidence is independent texture, never the sole causal source. Official statistics of the period are treated as claims with known incentives. Later archival openings and museum publications are independent or successor-state records. They do not convert this Fact into a personality score and do not cancel the original instrument. The contribution is direct where this person signed, chaired, or issued the act, and remains bounded by other offices that had to act. Readers who want the welfare path should open the named driver rather than treating a portrait as the mechanism.

The documentary limit is the same for every instrument in this dossier. Central files can show that an order was issued; they cannot reconstruct every locality's implementation. Memoir and literary evidence is independent texture, never the sole causal source. Official statistics of the period are treated as claims with known incentives. Later archival openings and museum publications are independent or successor-state records. They do not convert this Fact into a personality score and do not cancel the original instrument. The contribution is direct where this person signed, chaired, or issued the act, and remains bounded by other offices that had to act. Readers who want the welfare path should open the named driver rather than treating a portrait as the mechanism.

The documentary limit is the same for every instrument in this dossier. Central files can show that an order was issued; they cannot reconstruct every locality's implementation. Memoir and literary evidence is independent texture, never the sole causal source. Official statistics of the period are treated as claims with known incentives. Later archival openings and museum publications are independent or successor-state records. They do not convert this Fact into a personality score and do not cancel the original instrument. The contribution is direct where this person signed, chaired, or issued the act, and remains bounded by other offices that had to act. Readers who want the welfare path should open the named driver rather than treating a portrait as the mechanism.

## People

- Vladimir Lenin: https://factrail.ai/people/vladimir-lenin

## Drivers

- Political Competition: https://factrail.ai/drivers/political-competition

## Sources

- https://www.britannica.com/topic/Communist-Party-of-the-Soviet-Union
- https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1921/10thcong/ch04.htm

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/ru-ban-factions-1921