The Workers Group of the Russian Communist Party was formed in 1923 to oppose the excessive power of bureaucrats and managers in the new soviet society and in the Communist Party. Its leading member was Gavril Myasnikov. The Workers Group defended that the Soviet state and public enterprises should be run by soviets elected from the workplace and that the New Economic Policy (NEP) was in danger of becoming a "New Exploitation of the Proletariat" if not controlled by the workers' democracy.