In late 1923, Leon Trotsky initiated the fight against the growing Soviet bureaucracy with a series of articles later collected as The New Course. These followed his October 8 letter and the Declaration of the 46, which denounced the bureaucratization of the Communist Party. On December 5, 1923, the Central Committee adopted a resolution “On Party Building” that echoed some of Trotsky’s concerns and called for more party democracy. The Stalinist faction sought to undermine the resolution as soon as it was passed and began a campaign of falsification directed at Trotsky.

Trotsky countered with a series of articles between December 1923 and January 1924, analyzing the questions of party generations, social composition, bureaucratism, the peasantry, and the need for economic planning. Trotsky’s core argument was that the dangers posed by the New Economic Policy and Soviet isolation could only be met by raising the theoretical and political level of the membership and expanding its role in party life.

He warned that the party was functioning on “two stories”: decisions at the top, with members informed after the fact. While objective conditions—European revolution and Soviet economic development—were decisive, the outcome also depended on the party’s consciousness and initiative. The New Course thus laid the foundations of the Left Opposition, linking the fight against bureaucracy to the revival of proletarian democracy.