Sentence:  But one cannot escape the suspicion that all this non-stop harping on the misdeeds of the long liquidated `` anti-party '' group would <WSD>be</WSD> totally unnecessary if there were not , inside the party , some secret but genuine opposition to Khrushchev on vital doctrinal grounds , on the actual methods to be employed in the `` transition to communism '' and , last but not least , on foreign policy . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  have the quality of being; (copula, used with an adjective or a predicate noun)