A Declaration of the Democratic Platform Group

We, Communists, representatives of Party clubs and Party organizations of 103 cities from 13 union republics, announce the creation within the framework of the CPSU of the association of Communists’ Democratic Platform, standing for radical reform of the CPSU in the direction of a genuinely democratic parliamentary party, acting in the conditions of a multi-party system.

In the situation of the profound ideological division that has already taken place, we propose a democratic platform, in which we call upon the progressive forces in the CPSU to unite. This platform includes the following basic principles and demands:

1. The transfer of all power from the Party apparatus to democratically elected soviets.

2. The introduction by the CPSU of a legislative initiative for the revocation of Article 6 of the constitution of the USSR and the preparation of a draft law about political parties.

3. The adoption of the concept of democratic socialism, meaning the priority of human over class values, pluralism of forms of ownership and a market economy regulated by society instead of command planning, social solidarity and nonviolence instead of class struggle, political pluralism and the granting of equal rights to all political parties and organizations instead of the party-state apparatus’s monopoly on power, the guarantee of political rights and freedom of the individual instead of total state control, establishment of norms of morality and social justice instead of a system of privileges for the nomenklatura.

4. The transition from the principle of a unitary state and Communist party structure toward a voluntary union of peoples and a union of the Communist parties of the republics, including the Russian Federation.

5. The renunciation of the principle of democratic centralism and the substitution of universal democratic principles, ensuring genuine pluralism in the Party, guarantees for rights of the minority, broad autonomy of Party organizations, and freedom of platforms and groups.

6. The creation of horizontal structures in the Party, i.e., the association of Communists based on specific goals, functions, territories, and other principles.

7. The introduction of direct and equal elections with several candidates and platforms, with secret balloting according to Party districts and free nomination and self-nomination of candidates for secretaries of Party committees and delegates to Party forums.

8. The release of organs of Party control and Party mass media from subordination to executive organs of the Party, their transformation so that they are accountable only to a congress or conference.

9. The abolition of political organs within the armed forces, the KGB, the Ministry of the Interior, and other state organizations.

Conference participants call on like-minded people in various corners of the country to join the Democratic Platform and to nominate to the Twenty-Eighth Congress of the Party those delegates who share the views of this platform.

Communists, create Party clubs and other horizontal structures!

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The way out of this crisis is through the unity of all democratic forces and the creation of an all-union democratic movement!

If we unite our efforts, we will overcome! If we allow ourselves to be separated, we will lose the historic chance that has been given us!