In April 1926, a new, so-called “united opposition” (Trotskyist-Zinoviev bloc) emerged. It included such party figures as G.E. Zinoviev, L.B. Kamenev, L.D. Trotsky, K.B. Radek, G.L. Pyatakov, G.Ya. Sokolnikov, A.G. Shlyapnikov, V.A. Antonov-Ovseenko and others. In total, the opposition included, according to various estimates, from 4 to 10% of party members. Trotskyists and Zinovievites united on the basis of rejection of the idea of building socialism in one country, rejection of the NEP and concessions in favor of the kulaks and bourgeois elements of the city, criticism of the bureaucratization of the party and the strengthening of leader sentiments in the party and in the country. More consistently than all the opposition leaders, Trotsky continued to lead the struggle against the existing internal party regime, demanding the democratization of the party and the establishment of control over its apparatus. The oppositionists created underground organizations, printing houses, spoke at meetings in party bodies of factories, and took part in the anniversary October demonstration under the slogan “Down with the Central Committee!” There was no unity within the opposition itself due to the fact that it united too heterogeneous forces. This predetermined her defeat. Trotsky and Kamenev were removed from the Politburo. After participating in the October 1927 demonstration under their own slogans, Kamenev, Zinoviev and Trotsky were expelled from the party, along with 93 other members of the opposition.

Right opposition

In 1927, the pro-Stalinist coalition collapsed. Three members of the Politburo (Bukharin, Rykov, Tomsky), called the “right opposition” in the party, opposed Stalin’s “Great Leap Forward” course, defining his policy of emergency measures as incompatible with socialism. Bukharin and his followers criticized calls for a “class war” in the countryside and a “sudden leap” in agriculture. The rightists proposed their own version of a way out of the economic crisis (the reality of which is debatable) along the path of further development of the NEP through the “balanced” development of heavy and light industry, industrial and agricultural sectors, without rejecting accelerated methods of industrialization.

However, none of Bukharin's proposals were accepted. In the conditions of the 20s. the call to abandon the NEP and implement a forced leap seemed to many to be the only correct solution, ensuring the construction of the foundations of socialism in the shortest possible time. The threat from enemies - external and internal - was cited as justification for the chosen course, which was supposed to be confirmed by the ongoing trials against representatives of the technical intelligentsia and “old” specialists.

Bukharin and his active supporter, Secretary of the Central Committee and MK of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks N.A. Uglanov were removed from the Politburo, followed by Rykov and Tomsky losing their titles as Politburo members.

At the XV Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in December 1927, Kamenev, Zinoviev and 20 other members of the opposition, at their request, were reinstated in the party, and Trotsky and 30 of his supporters were exiled to Alma-Ata. In 1929, on charges of counter-revolutionary activities, Trotsky was expelled from the USSR to Turkey. In 1930 L.D. Trotsky and his family members were deprived of Soviet citizenship, and his name was erased from the history of the party and the revolution.

From December 2 to December 19, 1927, the XV Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) was held in Moscow. The delegates, consisting of 1,669 people, made a number of important decisions regarding the further development of the country. Thus, directives were drawn up for the first five-year plan for the development of the national economy. In addition, the delegates decided on collectivization in the countryside. At the congress the so-called “left opposition” (another name is “Trotskyist-Zinoviev anti-party bloc”), which included various groups, based on supporters of Leon Trotsky, Grigory Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev.

1. “Exceptional” forum

The oppositionists were accused of trying to create something like a special party. In the Political Report of the Central Committee, General Secretary Joseph Stalin characterized the current situation as follows: “You ask, what, in the end, are the differences between the party and the opposition, on what issues do these differences lie? For all questions, comrades. (Voices: “That’s right!”) I recently read a statement by a non-party worker in Moscow who is joining or has already joined the party. This is how he formulates the question of disagreements between the party and the opposition: “Previously, we looked for what the differences were between the party and the opposition. And now you can no longer find where she agrees with the party. (Laughter, applause.) The opposition is against the party on all issues, therefore, if I were a supporter of the opposition, I would not join the party.” (Laughter, applause). That’s how aptly and concisely workers can sometimes express themselves. I think that this is the most apt and most accurate description of the opposition’s relationship to the party, to its ideology, to its program, to its tactics. Precisely because the opposition differs from the party on all issues, that is why the opposition is a group with its own ideology, with its own program, with its own tactics, with its own organizational principles. Everything that is necessary for a new party is available to the opposition. The only thing missing is the “little things”, the strength for this is missing. (Laughter. Applause.)"

Organizational measures were taken right at the congress - the delegates expelled members of the left opposition (75 “Trotskyists-Zinovievites”) from the CPSU (b), drawing a thick line under the many years of internal party struggle, which sharply separated the leading representatives of the “Leninist guard” on different sides. So what happened, why did such drastic measures have to be applied to the oppositionists? To answer this question, we must go back to the beginning of the conflict.

2. In the struggle for Ilyich’s inheritance

Factional struggle in the party flared up constantly, but in 1923 the situation escalated sharply. And here Vladimir Lenin’s illness had a significant impact, which stirred up the hopes of the leaders, who were faced with a hypothetical opportunity to take his place as “leader of the world proletariat.” The battle was started by the leftists themselves - actually supporters of L. Trotsky and the so-called. “democratic centralists” (Andrei Bubnov and others), advocating freedom for all groups and factions. They tried to stun the party masses with “letter 46,” in which they attacked the “conservative bureaucracy” of the leadership.

And the party and the country were then led by a triumvirate consisting of the Chairman of the Leningrad Executive Committee and the Executive Committee of the Comintern G. Zinoviev, the Chairman of the Moscow Executive Committee L. Kamenev and the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks I. Stalin.

Trotsky readily supported the opposition in his article “The New Deal.” After all, in essence, we were talking about the removal of the party leadership under the leadership of the “demon of the revolution” himself. The left quickly gained popularity among young people (especially students), skillfully using their inherent nonconformism, coupled with the fever of the revolutionary years that had not yet passed. However, they considered their main support to be the army, which, in fact, was headed by the People's Commissar of Military Affairs and the pre-Revolutionary Military Council Trotsky. However, Trotskyists occupied many leading positions in the Red Army - so its Political Directorate was led by Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko, who issued a special circular in which party army organizations were ordered to support the “new course” of their idol. The commander of the Moscow Military District, Nikolai Muralov, went even further, directly proposing to use Red Army units to remove the party leadership. At the same time, the Trotskyists tried to attract some “neutral” military leaders to their side - for example, the commander of the Western Front, Mikhail Tukhachevsky. In general, there was already a smell of a military conspiracy, into which the “internal party discussion” threatened to spill over.

Under these conditions, the party leadership launched a personnel counterattack, removing a number of leading Trotskyists from their posts (in particular, the same Antonov-Ovseenko). But the most interesting thing happened in the area of, as they would say now, PR and anti-PR. The quarreling leaders decided to find out which of them was “more valuable to the mother of history.” Well, and of course we turned to the history of the October Revolution (by the way, the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks was then called exactly that, and officially). Trotsky was reminded that he became a Bolshevik a few months before the October Revolution, and before that he often advocated compromise with the Mensheviks. Of course, Trotsky did not remain in debt and laid bare the truth about how Zinoviev and Kamenev behaved when they issued (in the press) to the Provisional Government nothing less than a plan for an armed uprising.

For the broad party masses, poorly informed in history, these revelations caused something of a shock. They were already beginning to get used to the idolization of their leaders, and suddenly they began to post such terrible things about themselves.
Of course, their authority was significantly undermined.

3. The Secretary General collects personnel

Stalin found himself in the most advantageous position here, who took almost no part in the war of incriminating evidence. And he did the right thing, because they might have remembered something for him too. For example, how in March 1917 he spoke from a “defensive” position, recognizing the possibility of conditional support for the Provisional Government. However, this did not happen: “Stalin avoided serious blows to his authority. The combination of firmness and moderation he showed during the discussion only strengthened his prestige.” (Yuri Emelyanov “Trotsky. Myths and personality”)

So, the future leader of the USSR, and for now still the Secretary General, still retained his prestige. And he did not fail to use it in the political struggle, relying on the party apparatus. He paid special attention to working with the secretaries of provincial and district party organizations. Actually, the composition of the delegations to the congresses of the CPSU (b) depended on them, which is why painstaking work with local functionaries ensured in the future the Stalinist majority, which managed to defeat the left oppositionists.

Stalin collected personnel, “sharpening” them for the internal party struggle. At the same time, he and his entourage acted according to the principle “in war as in war.” Well, war requires intelligence and counterintelligence; all important information was communicated (both top-down and bottom-up) in the strictest secrecy.
This was monitored by a special body - the Secret Department of the Central Committee. But the regional bodies, which Stalin wanted to liken to the Center, also had their own secret departments.

The mid-20s became a real “golden age” of the party nomenklatura. In 1923-1927, the number of members of the republican Central Committees, regional committees, city committees and district committees doubled. A reliable barrier was put in place for the Trotskyists and other leftist oppositionists, however, the strengthening of the party apparatus was accompanied by its merging with state structures. And this increased bureaucracy and weakened political work in favor of purely directive leadership. And it must be said that Stalin noticed quite early the abnormality of the emerging situation. Already in June 1924, at a course for secretaries of district committees of the CPSU (b), he sharply attacked the thesis of the “dictatorship of the party,” which was then accepted by all leaders. The Secretary General argued that there is not a dictatorship of the party in the country, but a dictatorship of the working class. And in December 1925, in a political report to the XIV Congress, Stalin emphasized that the party “is not identical with the state,” and “the Politburo is the highest body not of the state, but of the party.” These were the first, cautious steps towards weakening the partyocracy. Well, after the defeat of the “leftists,” he attempted party reform. In December 1927, at the plenum of the Central Committee, held after the XV Congress, he proposed eliminating the post of General Secretary. Joseph Vissarionovich stated the following: “If Lenin came to the need to raise the issue of establishing the institution of a general secretary, then I believe that he was guided by the special conditions that we had after the Tenth Congress, when a more or less strong and organized opposition was created within the party. But now these conditions no longer exist in the party, because the opposition is completely defeated. Therefore, it would be possible to abolish this institution...”

At the same time, Stalin offered himself the position of chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, clearly indicating where the center of political power should be. However, the participants in the plenum refused to support Joseph Vissarionovich.

4. How Trotsky outwitted himself

Zinoviev and Kamenev, with their denial of “national limitations,” were much closer to Trotsky than Stalin and Pravda editor Nikolai Bukharin, who recognized the possibility of building socialism in one single country. And, nevertheless, Lev Davidovich at first refrained from an alliance with this duo. He hoped that both groups would weaken each other, and he, at the right moment, would act as an arbiter.

Perhaps Trotsky would have entered into an alliance with Zinoviev and Kamenev right away, but he was already in terrible “contradictions” with them earlier. In 1924, Zinoviev even proposed arresting Trotsky, and his demand to expel the “demon of revolution” from the party was almost constant.

Stalin considered it necessary to maintain the image of a party liberal, objecting to repressive measures against Trotsky, whom he hated.
And the latter, of course, could not ignore this circumstance, drawing from it incorrect conclusions about the greater gentleness of the Secretary General. It is curious that in Trotsky’s faction there were even supporters of an alliance with Joseph Vissarionovich - in particular, Karl Radek adhered to this point of view. (In the future, he would repent of his Trotskyism and become the head of the Bureau of Foreign Relations of the Central Committee, which was something like party intelligence. It was in this capacity that Radek made great efforts to rapprochement with Germany in the 1930s.)

Trotsky greatly miscalculated - without his support, Zinoviev and Kamenev found themselves in a very difficult situation and could not withstand Stalin’s organizational pressure. At the XIV Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, held in 1925, all delegations, except the Leningrad one, spoke out against them. As a result, the leaders of the “new opposition” lost their leading positions. And here Trotsky realized that he would not be able to become an arbiter. He began a rapprochement with Zinoviev and Kamenev, which ended in the creation of a powerful left-wing coalition. She proposed her program for the super-industrialization of the country, involving the implementation of a “great leap forward”. It is believed that it was precisely this program that was implemented by Stalin, whose disagreements with the opposition allegedly concerned exclusively the issue of power. However, there is no point in reducing everything to a struggle for power; the disagreements were significant.

The left opposition spoke out, first of all, against “national limitations” and the country’s withdrawal into “isolation.” According to the left oppositionists, the USSR had to fully support the revolutionary movement in other countries, but at the same time integrate into the system of the world (capitalist) economy. Thus, the Trotskyist industrialization plan provided for the long-term import of Western equipment (up to 50% of all capacities), for which it was supposed to actively use Western loans. It is clear that this would make the USSR dependent on the leading Western powers. At the same time, support for the revolutionary movement would be used by the same West to put pressure on the national elites of third world countries and their own “reactionary-nationalist elements.” But Stalin's industrialization, on the contrary, was accompanied by a constant and steady reduction in the import of Western equipment - with the active use of highly paid labor of foreign specialists. That is, the difference is quite obvious, so in no case can Stalin and his “left” opponents be put on the same level.

It turns out that the left opposition, despite all its revolutionary phraseology, worked for the bourgeois West? Yes, this is exactly what happens if we compare many, by the way, fairly well-known facts.

(At one time, the author of these lines had to write about the connections of the “demon of revolution” with Western democracies) Here, for example, is an interesting observation made by historian Nikol Starikov: “The opposition to Stalin’s course drew up different programs at different times. They had only one thing in common: if the party accepted such a program, there would very quickly be nothing left of the country. In words it sounds beautiful, such as the famous “platform of the 83s”... Let’s compare the dates when the Trotskyists wrote this platform? It turns out that in May 1927. And on May 27, 1927, Great Britain broke off diplomatic relations with the USSR! Do you believe in such coincidences? For our research, the very fact of such a quick break in relations is also important: in February 1924 they admitted, in May 1927 they didn’t want to know anymore. Why? Yes, because Stalin’s victory over Trotsky was already becoming clear and Great Britain did not hesitate to clearly demonstrate its position. The hint is very clear: Stalin’s course will finally prevail - the consequences will be sad for the Soviet country.” (“Who made Hitler attack Stalin?”)

The united left opposition launched a decisive attack. Meanwhile, time was already irretrievably lost. Stalin established strong control over party structures. And the ubiquitous Agitprop has brainwashed the party (and non-party) “masses.” However, during the years of the NEP, this “mass” itself got rid of revolutionary fever and was already oriented toward peaceful construction.

5. The failed revolution

Having been defeated in the party elections, the Trotskyists and other left oppositionists, of course, did not resign themselves. They began to prepare for mass actions, for which they formed parallel party committees, created secret printing houses and developed a plan for demonstrations dedicated to the 10th anniversary of the October Revolution. Trotsky had at his disposal groups of young activists ready to take control of the street. He also had, however, a “spare armored train” - a group of personally devoted military personnel. One of them, divisional commander Dmitry Schmidt, shortly before the November events openly threatened Secretary General Stalin with physical violence.

Of course, Stalin also prepared for the decisive battle for power. And he also relied on the street and the army (the special services also played their role, but they still did not particularly stick out themselves.) Young Stalinist students were organized into shock brigades, led by the technical secretary of the Politburo of the Central Committee Georgy Malenkov (it is interesting that he received this position without having any revolutionary merits - Stalin promoted new people to power.) These mobile units crashed into a crowd of Trotsky’s supporters who came out for a festive demonstration, and thereby upset the ranks of the “left”.

At the same time, the commander of the Moscow Military District, non-party military expert Boris Shaposhnikov, brought armored cars onto the streets of the capital, thereby blocking a possible attempt by the Trotskyist military.

On November 7, Trotsky drove around the capital in a car and addressed the demonstrators. He tried to speak to the demonstrators from the balcony of the National Hotel, but he was met with very brutal obstruction. The carefully planned takeover of power was thwarted.

The further fate of the left opposition was predetermined. Having lost the elections and the pre-election storm, she expected a devastating party congress.

New opposition

The difference in views on strategy quickly began to result in minor conflicts within the “leadership team,” which accumulated every month. Bukharin, Stalin, Kamenev and Zinoviev argued before. Stalin could have spoken out against both Bukharin and Zinoviev. Remaining in the center, Stalin watched the growing battle between the “schools” of Bukharin and Zinoviev. Young supporters of the two theorists argued among themselves and increasingly began to “offend” members of the leadership.

In December 1925, the discussion between Moscow and Leningrad escalated. For most communists, the difference in views between Zinoviev and Bukharin was too complex. Under these conditions, as in the case of Trotsky, the party masses chose to remain on the side of the authorities: in Leningrad - on the side of Zinoviev, in other regions - on the side of Stalin and Bukharin. For the first time, the Bolsheviks were divided into factions based on the principle of “who lives where.” Not because they think so, but because they obey the party leaders who argue among themselves.

Outside Leningrad, Zinoviev was supported by some other Comintern employees, as well as two famous leaders - Kamenev and Lenin's wife N.K. Krupskaya, who had a long-standing friendship with them and shared the old tenets of Leninism. “New opposition” Opposition - In democratic states, the concept of “Opposition” means a set of forces that consolidate, usually in parliament, in order to oppose the political course of the majority. also supported by candidate member of the Politburo, Minister of Finance Sokolnikov and deputy chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council M.M. Lashevich. But that was practically all.

Stalin, Bukharin and other leaders were irritated by the claim of Zinoviev and Kamenev to the role of “guardians of Leninism”, who are free to determine what corresponds to dogma and what does not.

In 1924, Zinoviev honestly stated that there was a dictatorship of the party in the country. Stalin publicly denied and explained that although he is instructed to deliver reports at congresses on behalf of the Central Committee, he is not considered the only official ideologist. But, despite this episode, Zinoviev was a recognized interpreter of Lenin’s precepts.

The ideas of the “new opposition” were close to the views of Trotsky, who was outraged by the fact that “the entire period of economic and political development turned out to be colored by passive admiration for the state of the peasant market.” But, considering Zinoviev and Kamenev to be presumptuous officials, mindful of the persecution that they launched against him, he could not support this new challenge to Stalin and the right-wing Bolsheviks.

Trotsky is more interested in the problems of industrial development. Why shouldn’t Stalin, whose relationship with whom nothing has been clouded for six months now, appoint him at the head of the Supreme Council of National Economy? If so, there is no need to rush to support the opposition. Only at the end of January, after the defeat of the “new opposition”, Trotsky realized that no one was going to put him in this place yet. Then he curtailed his work in this body.

In the meantime, Stalin offered an alliance to Trotsky. Stalin, who often met with Trotsky at the Politburo, acted very carefully. Trotsky did not help him, but he did not support Zinoviev either. By neutralizing Trotsky, Stalin secured his victory.

On December 15, on the eve of the congress, the majority of the Politburo sent an ultimatum: to accept the resolution of the Moscow organization as a basis, members of the leadership not to speak against each other at the congress, to dissociate themselves from the most harsh speeches of members of the Leningrad organization Sarkis and Safarov, to restore the rights of supporters of the majority of the Politburo expelled from the Leningrad delegations before the congress. Acceptance of these demands would mean the complete capitulation of Zinoviev and Kamenev. They rejected this “compromise,” which allowed Stalin to accuse them of refusing to maintain unity.

The decisive clash between the majority of the Politburo and the “new opposition” of Zinoviev and Kamenev took place at the XIV Party Congress on December 18-31, 1925. In the report, Stalin outlined the dominant point of view: “We must make every effort to make our country an economically independent country, based on the domestic market...”. This is the key to the movement towards socialism. Zinoviev is not against this movement. The essence of the disagreement lies elsewhere. Kamenev, specifying the essence of the disagreements, said that Bukharin and Stalin see “the main danger is that there is a policy of disrupting the NEP, and we argue that the danger is in embellishing the NEP.”

The parties demanded that each other repent of past mistakes (including those that the “mistaken” ones admitted) and quoted Lenin abundantly. Bukharin habitually recalled the behavior of Zinoviev and Kamenev in 1917, accused the “new opposition” of disloyalty to the Central Committee, his supporter M. Ryutin added to the list with an accusation of creating a faction.

The main danger of the “new opposition” speeches is the possibility of revealing a terrible secret: Stalin, Zinoviev and Kamenev also created their own faction. But so far only Lashevich has decided to say this directly, and only in hints, jokingly mentioning “three”, “seven” and “ace”. What was meant was not the cards from the Queen of Spades, but the factional bodies of the majority of the Politburo. Lashevich was abruptly interrupted. Members of the majority faction blotted out their answers to Lashevich about the “troika” and “seven” from the transcript so that no one would guess that Stalin and Bukharin were also acting using factional methods. Later, Zinoviev and Kamenev will speak directly about this, but the party masses will already get used to the fact that the opposition cannot be trusted.

But Stalin did not intend to tolerate the dominance of a group clearly hostile to him in the second largest organization of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) (now there was this new reduction, since at the congress the party was renamed from Russian to All-Union). The Central Committee rejected the proposal of the Gubernia Committee (in exchange for recognition of the decisions of the congress, the persecution of the Zinovievites and the purge of the leadership of the Leningrad organization should be stopped, but demanded the capitulation of the opposition).

Zinovievites The followers of Zinoviev’s “school” defended themselves. The majority of district and factory organizations of the CPSU(b) in Leningrad supported Zinoviev. The majority sympathized with the Zinovievites, if only because they insisted on improving the situation of the workers at the expense of the peasants.

But the Bolsheviks are accustomed to discipline: whatever the Central Committee says is true. One after another, regional organizations recognized the correctness of the Stalin-Bukharin faction that won at the congress.

Opposition leaders were sent to work in other regions. Zinoviev and Evdokimov were allowed to come to Leningrad only on personal matters. The “nest” of the opposition was destroyed, but its fighters were not going to lay down their arms in the fight for their principles.

At the beginning of 1926, the communist opposition was split into several factions: Trotskyists, the “new opposition”, the group of “democratic centralism”. Democratic centralism is a principle proposed by V. I. Lenin. After its appearance - first in the statutes of the Bolshevik Party, and then in the statutes of the Comintern (at the Second Congress of 1920) - it became mandatory for all communist parties. (Sapronovtsy), “labor opposition” Workers' parties - Political organizations of class orientation, representing the interests of the labor movement.

Democratic centralism - The principle proposed by V.I. Lenin. After its appearance - first in the statutes of the Bolshevik Party, and then in the statutes of the Comintern (at the Second Congress of 1920) - it became mandatory for all communist parties.

Workers' parties - Political organizations of class orientation, representing the interests of the labor movement. (Shlyapnikovites), “working group” See above (Medvedevites). The first two groups were the most influential. Despite the acute hostility of their leaders to each other, unification was inevitable - the two groups had practically common views. Back in April, Trotsky did not lose hope of reaching an agreement with Stalin on “more friendly work, of course, on the basis of the decisions of the XIV Congress.” But then Trotsky realized that Stalin did not intend to return him to real power. Negotiations began on reconciliation between the disgraced leaders. Stalin watched, not without alarm, the rapprochement of the two groups. He was especially worried about Zinoviev, who in terms of political intrigue was a kind of teacher of Stalin. Stalin was ready to use the humiliated Trotsky in a secondary role as a valuable specialist. But now that Stalin is being attacked by his recent friends, Trotsky has also stepped up the attack. This is intolerable; the Central Committee cannot work in conditions of such squabbles. Bolshevik political culture was alien to agreements. The leadership core could only work as a single team, but this team was selected by Lenin and without him quickly turned into a collection of warring groups. However, simply clearing the leadership of dissenters was dangerous - hundreds of their supporters holding important positions could leave along with the disgraced leaders. A split in the party also meant a split in the state structure and the loss of one-party rule.

Slow, hidden work began to turn Trotsky, Kamenev and Zinoviev “into political renegades like Shlyapnikov.” Their supporters are moved from place to place in order to prevent them from gaining a foothold anywhere, acquiring personnel, or real powers of power. Information about the “unworthy past” is again being disseminated, often slanderous. To humiliate the enemy so that the masses of communists cease to respect Trotsky, Kamenev and Zinoviev. Stalin hoped to beat the Zinovievites and Trotskyists piecemeal, but pressure on the oppositionists accelerated their rapprochement.

Back in June, Trotsky reproached Zinoviev and Kamenev for bureaucracy and persecution of “Trotskyism.” At the Politburo, Trotsky voted either for or against Zinoviev’s proposals. But on the eve of the July plenum of the Central Committee, the opposition leaders finally came to an understanding and admitted the mistake of fighting against each other in 1923-1924. Zinoviev admitted that the opposition movement of 1923 “correctly warned about the danger of a shift from the proletarian line.” Trotsky also admitted that it was a “gross mistake” that he had previously associated “opportunistic shifts” with the activities of Zinoviev and Kamenev, and not Stalin.

Since the entire might of the secretariat of the Central Committee with its well-coordinated apparatus was working against the disgraced Bolsheviks, the oppositionists tried to organize the distribution of their materials in order to inform party circles about their position and refute the slander of the majority. But the Stalinist apparatus quickly tracked their appearance in Bryansk, Saratov, Vladimir, Pyatigorsk, Omsk, Gomel, and Odessa. Since the apparatus of the Central Committee worked against them, the opposition leaders used the apparatus subordinate to them. Zinoviev's Comintern collaborators traveled around the country, gathering supporters of the left. Old conspirators with pre-revolutionary experience began to assign appearances, codes and passwords. Free-thinking communists reprinted opposition materials, even if they did not agree with them: the party must know different opinions.

The head of the Krasnopresnenskaya organization, M. Ryutin, learned about what had happened and immediately reported “to the right place.” The activity of the oppositionists was interpreted accordingly: the oppositionists created an underground organization within the party, a faction. The July plenum of the Central Committee, mockingly inviting the oppositionists to openly express their views, expelled Zinoviev from the Politburo and Lashevich from the Central Committee. He was also removed from the Revolutionary Military Council - the army was being cleansed.

The opposition recalled that the majority of the Politburo acted as a faction. But the majority has already decided to turn the oppositionists into “political renegades.”

The July plenum was supposed to deal a blow to Kamenev, but he was not caught in direct factional work.

On August 3, 1926, Kamenev resigned from the post of People's Commissar, which he did not hold on to. In the eyes of party activists, this also looked like a defeat.

The “United Opposition” did not consider itself defeated. As a result of the plenum, 13 leaders of the Trotskyists and Zinovievites adopted a common resolution, which became the first document of the united opposition. It said: “The immediate cause of the ever worsening crises in the party is bureaucracy, which has grown monstrously in the period following Lenin’s death and continues to grow.”

What is the reason? Immediately after coming to power, the Bolsheviks dragged the proletariat where it did not want to go, actively resisting Bolshevik power. As for the communist “avant-garde,” it has already “defeated” the opposition several times during discussions. The communist opposition did not find the cause of bureaucracy, and could not find it due to its adherence to the over-centralized model of socialism.

The tightly knit centralized apparatus of the party-state became the core of the étacratic class, the basis of which was the bureaucracy. Its strengthening flowed with the inevitability of historical law from the nationalization of the economy, party-state centralization and suppression of civil society. The opposition program did not oppose anything to this process. It expressed the interests of part of the communist technocracy. Technocracy - In political criticism, it implies the tendency to solve fundamental social and political issues on the basis of the presumed primacy of technical rationalization in public or any other sphere of life. , and with all the hatred for her bureaucratic “class brothers”, she objectively contributed to their strengthening. The opposition only tried to rid the bureaucracy of right-wing illusions and give greater dynamism to the state economy. Over time, the leaders of the bureaucracy will accept the economic part of the Trotskyist program. But the opposition leaders believed that their program could only be realized under their leadership.

Bureaucracy at a crossroads

The years 1925-192 6 were the apogee of the NEP. The policy of right-wing Bolshevism, whose ideologist was Bukharin and whose main organizer was Stalin, won. Bukharin seemed to guarantee Stalin and the bureaucratic mass behind him that the growth of peasant farms would give the state sufficient funds for the construction of industrial facilities that would guarantee economic independence and military security, an increase in the well-being of workers, strengthening the authority of the party and the economic power of the state.

“We are now in our country not a party of civil war, but a party of civil peace,” 1 he proclaimed in February 1926. This was almost a recognition of the “supra-class” nature of the party, the absence of its firm connection with the proletariat (even the opposition communists had not yet spoken about the class bureaucratic nature of the new government).

This policy suited the majority of the population, not only the middle peasant, but also the kulak (the wealthy peasant, according to some estimates, the rural bourgeois, according to others). One of the rural entrepreneurs wrote: “We, trading people, have always understood communism... Let the commune be built, as long as it doesn’t bother us... The poor peasant is beneficial for the authorities politically, the middle peasant is economically, and the kulak leads a show economy” 2 . This frank letter suggested a compromise that was terrible for communists - highly productive agriculture can only be large-scale, and since the state is unable to establish such production due to bureaucratic confusion and indifference of workers, the rural bourgeoisie will take this matter into their own hands, and capitalism will turn here in the leading sector.

The state sector, which in the NEP model was supposed to play an organizing role, was in chaos. Bureaucratic monopoly has given rise to a completely ineffective management system. Chairman of the Supreme Council of the National Economy F. Dzerzhinsky wrote: “From my trip... I came away with a firm conviction about the unsuitability of our management system at present, based on general distrust, requiring subordinates to

bodies of all kinds of reports, certificates, information..., ruining every living business and wasting colossal resources and strength" 3 . The inability to produce a sufficient quantity of goods that would satisfy the peasants could lead to a dead end for the next procurement campaign - the peasant did not want to give away grain too cheaply. This was the limit to the growth of the NEP - it was suitable as a restoration policy, but as it approached the level of 1913, new technology, qualified enterprise management, or additional incentives for the work of workers were required. The communists have not yet been able to offer this. Therefore, they could not offer the village enough goods. Therefore, there was not enough bread and other rural goods to ensure the further development of industry. Therefore, the successes of the NEP were temporary, it was doomed to a deep crisis, the pre-war level of the economy was the limit of growth for it.

The April plenum of 1926 recognized the failures of planning, expressed in the exaggeration of plans for grain collection, exports, foreign exchange earnings, and capital construction. One thing followed from the other: less bread - less construction, less construction - less equipment and industrial goods, less industry produces - less grain the village sells. Commodity hunger. Everyone needs goods, but the market is not working. Vicious circle.

It could be broken by industrialization - the creation of advanced industry. According to Kamenev’s report, this problem was to be discussed by the XIV Congress. In April 1926, based on Rykov’s report, the topic was discussed by the Plenum of the Central Committee. Based on the conclusions of specialists (moderate socialists), Rykov considered it necessary to grow industry along a “decaying curve,” that is, rapid growth initially and slower growth later, after a breakthrough. Trotsky called this idea "a snail's step towards socialism." Objecting to Rykov, he argued: “The main economic difficulties stem, therefore, from the fact that the volume of industry is too small. It would be fundamentally wrong to think that one can move towards socialism at an arbitrary pace, being in a capitalist environment” 4 . That is, according to Trotsky, it was impossible to make the growth of industry dependent on the growth of peasant farming. “Meanwhile, the movement towards socialism is ensured only if the pace of industrial development does not lag behind the general economic movement.

government, but leads it along, systematically bringing the country closer to the technical level of advanced capitalist countries” 5.

The shortage of equipment was the main economic problem, well understood by the party leaders. The Plenum of the Central Committee recognized that “the national economy has come to the end of the recovery period, having used all the technology inherited from pre-revolutionary times” 6 . As long as there is no new technology, there cannot be new means of production that are ready to qualitatively increase labor productivity, the economic power of the country and state, and the standard of living of workers. The equipment could have been bought in the West, but in 1926, USSR exports were less than imports - there was nothing to increase purchases with. Kamenev frankly explained the reasons for this to Mikoyan: “Consumption in the country is growing so quickly that it does not make it possible to increase exports” 7 . The peasantry took advantage of the results of the revolution to live better. The Bolsheviks' plans to accumulate the currency necessary for industrialization did not come true; the Bolsheviks could only move towards their goal in spite of the results of the revolution, in spite of their concession to the Socialist Revolutionary program.

The state center did not control the market economically. Private trade overtook the sluggish state economy - it controlled 83% of retail trade turnover. The kulaks turned out, as one would expect, to be more enterprising, and they subjugated the cooperatives themselves, expanded their economy, causing the envy and hatred of officials and the poor - weak peasants who were not capable of independent farming. Peasant self-government supported the economic peasants, and this also affected the elections to the councils. The poor people could only write to the “authority”: “It seems that I could bite my fist with my teeth” 8 . And the slogan sounded more and more often: “What did they fight for?”

The workers also showed dissatisfaction. There were 337 strikes in 1926 compared to 196 in 1925. Sometimes workers' actions took on a political character, as happened during the campaign to help striking English miners, on which the Comintern had high hopes: “The workers of the Putilov factories (5 thousand people) refused to give part of their earnings to help the miners of England. The chairman of the All-Russian Central Council of Unionists spoke to them. P. Tomsky. Twelve workers spoke out against him, sharply criticizing his speech, speaking out against the government’s policy on this issue and their negative

The wearing was motivated by the fact that ragged, undressed Russian workers should pay for the British strikers, whose delegates come here dressed in expensive furs and starched collars... About 80 workers were arrested” 9 .

Let us remember that it was the Putilovites who supported the “new opposition” longer than others. So there was room for expansion of the intra-party opposition. Demands for increasing worker wages and accelerating industrial growth through “pressure on the fist” (that is, increasing taxes on wealthy peasants) met with great support in the party. There was growing dissatisfaction with the privileged bureaucracy, demands for greater rights in the party for ordinary workers, and widespread discussion of the party's course, which began to approach a new crisis point.

The opposition spoke more than others about the approaching crisis, and events confirmed the correctness of their criticism. “That uncritical optimism, which is now so widespread among business executives and is largely supported by our press, can aggravate the effect of the inevitable crisis, for this latter will take us by surprise,” 10 Trotsky recalled at the April plenum of 1926 of his words spoken several months ago. previously.

A reliable means of fighting the opposition leaders was personnel transfers. In January 1926, it was decided to combine the post of head of the Council of Labor and Defense (STO) and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR. The economic dual power inherited from the times of the Civil War was eliminated, and Kamenev, who headed STO, had to look for another job. Kamenev was appointed People's Commissar of Foreign and Domestic Trade, which was a minor demotion (the honored leader was not, as it were, persecuted for dissent). By the same decree, Sokolnikov was transferred from the post of People's Commissar of Finance of the USSR to the insignificant post of one of the deputy chairmen of the USSR State Planning Committee.

The defeat of the Leningrad opposition put the unification of the opposing factions on the agenda. Despite the fact that their leaders could not stand each other, the fact remained that their views were almost the same.

At first, Trotsky was even embarrassed by this circumstance, and he tried to prove: neither he nor any of the leaders of Bolshevism could be accused of ideological “deviations”;

This is artificially inflated by intriguing officials. “Why do accusers so easily become accused? Because in our country every question is put on the edge of a hardware razor and any deviation from this edge by one thousandth of a millimeter is declared - through hardware myth-making - as a monstrous deviation. The specter of Trotskyism is needed to maintain the apparatus regime. This regime automatically leads to the fact that the one who recently accused others of Trotskyism today turns out to be a Trotskyist himself,” 11 said the “chief Trotskyist” at the April plenum of the Central Committee. There was a lot of truth in these bitter words: the leaders of the bureaucratic system of the CPSU (b) fought for complete unanimity and perceived any freedom of opinion as hostile activity, as a step towards a split. Personal antipathies and the struggle for power also played a role in mutual accusations. But for people like adherents of Bolshevism, the ideological search was still in first place. Confidence in one's own rightness divided and brought people together.

ITrotsky and Zinoviev believed that they were representatives not of the bureaucracy, but of the working class. Stalin and Bukharin believed in this. As Marxists, they saw their goal as overcoming the inertia of capitalism in the interests of the common worker. But the ways of this were seen differently. The “right path” is service to the working class, the “wrong” path is something else, hostile, objective or conscious service to the bourgeoisie. First of all - the world bourgeoisie. Since Stalin shifts the center of gravity of the struggle from the world to the country, he objectively helps world capital. The construction of socialism in conditions of dependence on world conditions is the creation of a society controlled by world capital and imbued with national characteristics inherited from the semi-feudal past. “Socialism in our country will win in inextricable connection with the revolution of the European and world proletariat and the struggle of the East against the imperialist yoke,” 12 the oppositionists believed. “The ideological masquerade is most crudely revealed in the completely decadent theory of “socialism in one country.” According to Lenin, the revolutionary era grew out of imperialism, out of the “maturity” and “overripeness” of capitalism, not on a national, but on a global scale.” 13 The oppositionists responded to supporters of building socialism in one country: “You have lost faith in the victory of the social revolution in other countries” 14 .

For the same reasons, the opposition considered it necessary to increase pressure on Russian capital, which was accumulated primarily in agriculture. They believed that the kulaks controlled a third of marketable grain. The opposition did not entertain the illusion of peasants' voluntary participation in the creation of industrial giants, which required colossal funds.

The bureaucracy would support her program (as it would support two years later the idea of an even more brutal expropriation of the peasantry). The Zinovievites hoped that in the near future the mood of the party elite would shift to the left - the logic of events led to this (but only three years later). The opposition directly spoke out against the bureaucracy itself, criticizing its inefficiency and anti-democraticism. The leaders of the opposition, accustomed to feeling like masters of the apparatus, could not get used to the fact that the apparatus had become the master of the party.

Having lost power, the leaders of Bolshevism began to pay much more attention to the problem of bureaucratization than during the years of the revolution, when they laid the foundations of a bureaucratic dictatorship. Trotsky identified democracy with the opportunity for leaders to express different opinions. Now he was deprived of this opportunity. ITrotsky stands up for the right of the party to choose between leaders, which is no longer recognized by the winning faction: “The party is portrayed as an inert mass that resists and which has to be “drawn” into the discussion of the tasks that the same party apparatus sets for it. He explains that he will find necessary, through the party to the working class" 15. The party has already “failed” Trotsky several times. The leader sees the reason for this in the instrumental methods of polemics. Now, if the dispute had been honest, then Trotsky’s eloquence would have yielded results. But the point is not whose eloquence is stronger. When the Bolsheviks lost debates to the Socialist Revolutionaries, Trotsky was in the forefront of those who proposed dispersing the “talking shop” of the Constituent Assembly. But it was their petty-bourgeois talking shop, and now we need to fight for our proletarian democracy. At the same time, Trotsky was far from the idea of providing democracy outside the party, at least to the workers. The proletariat for Trotsky was synonymous with the party. Trotsky did not see that the party bureaucracy could express its own class interests. We had to look for other social explanations for it: “The bureaucratization of the party is in this case an expression of

the social balance destroyed and disrupted to the detriment of the proletariat” 16. But where is this desired balance?

Oppositionists unite

At the beginning of 1926, the communist opposition was split into several factions: the Trotskyists, the “new opposition”, the group of “democratic centralism” (Sapronovtsy), the “worker opposition” (Shlyapnikovites), the “working group” (Medvedevites). The first two groups were the most influential. Despite the acute hostility of their leaders to each other, unification was inevitable - the two groups had practically common views. Back in April, Trotsky did not lose hope of reaching an agreement with Stalin on “more friendly work, of course, on the basis of the decisions of the XIV Congress” 17 . But then Trotsky realized that Stalin did not intend to return him to real power. Negotiations began on reconciliation between the disgraced leaders. Trotskyist Pyatakov wrote to the “new oppositionists”: “Decide: either you “honestly” want to work together, without fists in our direction (and we agree to unclench our fists) or... go to Canossa to see Stalin” 18 . Canossa meant repentance. I didn’t want to repent - everyone believed that they were right.

Stalin watched, not without alarm, the rapprochement of the two groups. He was especially worried about Zinoviev, who in terms of political intrigue was a kind of teacher of Stalin. Stalin writes to Moloto: “Before the appearance of the Zinoviev group, the opposition movements (Tr[otsky], the Workers' Opposition, etc.) behaved more or less loyally, more or less tolerant. With the appearance of the Zinoviev group, the opposition[ ational] currents began to become impudent and break the boundaries of loyalty” 19. Stalin was ready to use the humiliated Trotsky in a secondary role as a valuable specialist. But now that Stalin is being attacked by his recent friends, Trotsky has also stepped up the attack. This is intolerable; the Central Committee cannot work in conditions of such squabbles. Bolshevik political culture was alien to agreements. The leadership core could only work as a single team, but this team was selected by Lenin and without him quickly turned into a collection of warring groups. However, simply clearing the leadership of dissenters was dangerous - hundreds of their supporters could leave along with the disgraced leaders, occupying

holding important positions. A split in the party also meant a split in the state structure and the loss of one-party rule.

Slow, hidden work began to turn Trotsky, Kamenev and Zinoviev “into political renegades like Shlyapnikov” 20 . Their supporters are moved from place to place in order to prevent them from gaining a foothold anywhere, acquiring personnel, or real powers of power. Information about the “unworthy past” is again being disseminated, often slanderous. To humiliate the enemy so that the masses of communists cease to respect Trotsky, Kamenev and Zinoviev. Stalin hoped to beat the Zinovievites and Trotskyists piecemeal, but pressure on the oppositionists accelerated their rapprochement.

Back in June, Trotsky reproached Zinoviev and Kamenev for bureaucracy and persecution of “Trotskyism.” At the Politburo, Trotsky voted either for or against Zinoviev’s proposals. But on the eve of the July plenum, the Central Leaders of the opposition finally came to an understanding and admitted the mistake of fighting against each other in 1923-1924. Zinoviev admitted that the opposition movement of 1923 “correctly warned about the danger of a shift from the proletarian line.” Trotsky also admitted that it was a “gross mistake” that he had previously associated “opportunistic shifts” with the activities of Zinoviev and Kamenev, and not Stalin. “This means that Trotsky openly renounced his sensational “Lessons of October,” thereby giving an “amnesty” to Zinoviev and Kamenev in exchange for the “amnesty” that he received from Zinoviev and Kamenev,” 21 Stalin sneered.

Comrades warned Trotsky against an alliance with Zinoviev. “Stalin will deceive, and Zinoviev will run away,” S. Mrachkovsky told him. Trotsky later admitted that his comrade was right in his assessment of the Zinovievites: “they did not last long” 22 . But in the absence of fish there is fish. It seemed that the joint onslaught of the leaders on the bureaucracy would yield results.

Since the entire might of the Central Committee secretariat and its well-coordinated apparatus worked against the disgraced Bolsheviks, the oppositionists tried to organize the distribution of their materials in order to inform party circles about their position and refute the slander of the majority. But the Stalinist apparatus quickly tracked their appearance in Bryansk, Saratov, Vladimir, Pyatigorsk, Omsk, Gomel, and Odessa. Since the Central Committee apparatus worked against them, the opposition leaders used the apparatuses subordinate to them. Employees of Zi-

Novyev's members of the Comintern traveled around the country, gathering supporters of the left. Old conspirators with pre-revolutionary experience began to assign appearances, codes and passwords. Free-thinking communists reprinted opposition materials, even if they did not agree with them: the party must know different opinions. To give party members of the Krasnopresnensky district the opportunity to listen to the point of view of the opposition candidate for membership in the Central Committee of Moscow. Lashevich, I had to hold a meeting in the forest near Moscow on June 6! Of course, now for connections with the opposition they could be expelled from the party and removed from work.

But Stalin had his own ears everywhere. The head of the Krasnopresnenskaya organization, M. Ryutin, learned about what had happened and immediately reported “to the right place.” The activity of the oppositionists was interpreted accordingly: the oppositionists created an underground organization within the party, a faction. The July plenum of the Central Committee, mockingly inviting the oppositionists to openly express their views, expelled Zinoviev from the Politburo and Lashevich from the Central Committee. He was also removed from the Revolutionary Military Council - the army was being cleansed.

In response to accusations of factionalism, the oppositionists divulged Stalin’s terrible secret: “For two years before the XIV Congress, there was a factional “seven”, which included six members of the Politburo and the chairman of the Central Control Commission. Kuibyshev. This factional elite, secretly from the party, predetermined every issue. A similar factional elite undoubtedly exists after the XIV Congress. In Moscow, Leningrad, Kharkov and other large centers, secret meetings take place, organized by part of the top party apparatus, despite the fact that the entire official apparatus is in its hands. These secret meetings on special lists are purely factional meetings. They read secret documents, for the simple transfer of which anyone not belonging to this faction is expelled from the party” 23. The Plenum chose not to believe this. Moreover, the people sitting on the presidium knew that this was true. But “not caught, not a thief.” But Stalin had to endure serious humiliation when the opposition got him to read out Lenin’s last letters and articles directed against the General Secretary. Stalin read out the texts (they were included in the official transcripts), but no organizational conclusions were drawn from them.

The opposition recalled that the majority of the Politburo acted as a faction, and called: “We address the plenum of the Central Committee with a proposal - with common forces to restore a regime in the party that will resolve all controversial issues in full accordance with all the traditions of the party, with the feelings and thoughts of the proletarian vanguard” 24 . But the majority has already decided to turn the oppositionists into “political renegades.”

The July plenum was supposed to deal a blow to Kamenev, but he was not caught in direct factional work. He was forced to account for the piece of work he had just received: the report of the People's Commissar of Trade Kamenev, “The Grain Procurement Campaign,” was put up for discussion. He spoke in an objectivist vein, but Pyatakov, who spoke next, in a kind of “co-report” criticized the Politburo line from the left. This was a challenge to Dzerzhinsky - after all, Pyatakov was his deputy at the Supreme Economic Council, and it turned out that he stated the position not of a faction, but of a department. Dzerzhinsky took the floor and attacked both Pyatakov and Kamenev. Kamenev, Pyatakov and Trotsky interrupted Dzerzhinsky with poisonous remarks. A skirmish began in which fundamental issues were replaced by petty quibbles. To Dzerzhinsky’s criticism, Kamenev replied: “You have been People’s Commissar for four years, and I have only been for a few months.” Dzerzhinsky responded: “You will be 44 years old and good for nothing, because you are engaged in politicking and not working... I will not spare myself, comrade. Kamenev, neverB” 25 He admitted that his activities were not always successful, which Kamenev immediately seized on: “Dzerzhinsky needlessly sunk 45 million rubles into the metal industry” 26. Enraged, Dzerzhinsky proposed shooting the most prominent members of the opposition. Their reaction: “... it’s you who should be shot!” Dzerzhinsky's response: “I will prove to you that we will achieve our goal!” 27.

Dzerzhinsky was perceived by the opposition as a complete Thermidorian, a supporter of terror against revolutionaries, a guarantor of bourgeois degeneration, the interests of the bourgeois bureaucracy and the new bourgeoisie. Dzerzhinsky's intransigence towards his party comrades contrasted with his patronizing attitude towards the former Mensheviks who worked in the Supreme Economic Council. He once told Valentinov: “Lenin often said that Yu. Larin likes to gossip. That's true. Now he whistles in different places with a fistula (Larin had a squeaky voice, Valentinov comments) that, supposedly, in the Supreme Economic Council - the Menshevik

Silye. I wish that other people’s commissariats would have the same dominance” 28. Dzerzhinsky in his economic views was influenced by the Mensheviks and right-wing Bolsheviks and confidently defended these ideas.

But on the issue of bureaucracy, Dzerzhinsky was closer in views to the opposition: “I am absolutely horrified by our management system, this unheard-of fuss with all kinds of approvals and unheard-of bureaucracy” 29 . Trotsky allegedly shouted to him: “Be careful pointing out the bureaucracy that is corrupting the party! You risk, with all the ensuing consequences, being enrolled in the opposition camp” 30 . Subsequently, the right-wing Bolsheviks would repeat the Trotskyist criticism of the bureaucracy. They will be included in the opposition camp. But Dzerzhinsky did not live to see this. He fought so energetically against the Trotskyists that he died of a heart attack after the next meeting of the plenum. This made it possible to make him a martyr in the fight against Trotskyism. The moral victory at the plenum remained with the ruling group.

On August 3, 1926, Kamenev resigned from the post of People's Commissar, which he did not hold on to. In the eyes of party activists, this also looked like a defeat. Handing over his position, Kamenev explained to his successor Mikoyan his understanding of the situation in the country: “We are heading towards a catastrophic outcome of the revolution.” True, this crisis in the party will come earlier than in the country. It is necessary to give vent to proletarian tendencies, it is necessary to give legal opposition” 31. The opposition believed that if the proletarian core in the party leadership remained, then the party would be able to withstand the disaster and win a new battle, inevitable after the collapse of the NEP. As a result of these events, the slag will be eliminated, and the party structure created by Lenin will take the fight. But if the “Thermidorians” strangle the “proletarian core” of the party (that is, supporters of opposition ideas) or throw it outside the powerful party structure, the regime will not be able to resist. The “Thermidorians” do not have the right ideology; they will not be able to make the right, truly Marxist decisions. If there are counter-revolutionary elements at the headquarters of the revolutionary party, the party will lose the decisive battle and the revolutionary goals will not be achieved. This view of the situation forced the opposition to stick to the party, even in complete antagonism with its leadership.

At the beginning of August, Trotsky declared: “Comrade. Stalin puts forward his candidacy for the role of gravedigger of the party and the revolution” 32. Stalin

was outraged. Personal relations between them were completely severed.

What is the reason for this misfortune? “The discrepancy between the direction of economic policy and the direction of the feelings and thoughts of the proletarian vanguard inevitably strengthens the need for pressure and gives the entire policy an administrative-bureaucratic character” 34 . Immediately after coming to power, the Bolsheviks dragged the proletariat where it did not want to go, actively resisting Bolshevik power. As for the communist “avant-garde,” it has already “defeated” the opposition several times during discussions. The communist opposition did not find the cause of the bureaucratic misfortune, and could not find it due to its adherence to the over-centralized model of socialism.

But there were doubts about the correctness of the Bolshevik party structure. The authors deleted from the draft “statement of the 13” the ritual incantation about the benefits of party centralism: “Without such powerful centralization, we would not have defeated our enemies in the past and will not fulfill our tasks in the future” 35 . The need for party centralization is carried over into the past: “The significance of a tightly welded centralized apparatus in the Bolshevik party does not require explanation. Without this backbone of the party, the proletarian revolution would have been impossible” 36. In order to suppress the opponents of Bolshevism, strong centralization is needed, and after victory, democracy is needed for the communists. But here’s the problem - the “strong centralized apparatus” is not going to give up its positions.

by class” objectively contributed to their strengthening. The opposition only tried to rid the bureaucracy of right-wing illusions and give greater dynamism to the state economy. Over time, the leaders of the bureaucracy will accept the economic part of the Trotskyist program. But the opposition leaders believed that their program could only be realized under their leadership.

United Opposition Campaign

For now, the opposition leaders, like the leaders of the majority, went on vacation. In the truest sense of the word. The disputants dispersed to gather strength for a new battle in the fall.

Trotsky and Zinoviev returned from Crimea on September 29 and learned of the expulsion of several little-known party members for factional work. Party officials checked whether the opposition leaders were ready to stand up for their activists. They were ready. Heading to the Communist Academy, where a meeting was planned with these party leaders (and the oppositionists formally remained party leaders), the leftists subjected the policies of the majority of the Politburo to devastating criticism. Trotsky and Zinoviev had enormous oratorical experience and captivated the audience, even those already treated by the official agitators of the Central Committee.

Inspired by the first success, the leaders of the “united opposition” went to the workers’ cells and were successful there too. The real battle unfolded at a meeting of the party organization of the Ryazan Railway. The workers asked why two of their fellow oppositionists were expelled from the party. For views? The well-known oppositionist, leader of the Democratic Centralism group T. Sapronov was invited to the meeting. He began to perform. The cell leaders tried to stop him. The opposition sent for Trotsky, who arrived immediately. “When Comrade Trotsky appeared at the meeting, the district committee members raised a scream, noise, uproar, whistling, and the workers, Comrade. Trotsky was given a standing ovation,” 37 said Sapronov. The authorities walked out of the meeting and declared it illegal. Despite this, the workers listened to the disgraced leader for a long time, adopted a resolution and sang “The Internationale”.

Sapronov Timofey Vladimirovich(1887-1939, according to other sources 1937). Bolshevik since 1912. After the October Revolution -

Chairman of the Moscow Provincial Executive Committee. “Left communist”, then organizer of the “democratic centralism” faction. In 1918-1921, he actively opposed Lenin’s policies on various issues, demanding democratization of the regime and the introduction of self-government in production. In 1927, excluded from the ON. (b). In 1935 he was convicted of opposition activities.

The workers said that the Moscow Control Commission expelled their comrades from the party “because they tried in good faith to understand the issues that concern the party. We, the workers’ party members, want to take a direct part in the management of our own party. We are told that the opposition is wrong, but what does it say? the opposition itself, we don’t know” 38 .

At meetings, Trotsky outlined the program of the left opposition as follows: “Reduce expenses by half a billion through bureaucracy. Take the ribs of a fist, a nepman, and we’ll get another half a billion. We will win one billion and divide it between industry and wages. That’s our economic program in a nutshell” 39. All these figures were completely arbitrary. One thing was clear to the right: a sharp reduction in the bureaucracy would only lead to disorganization of the state economy. The expropriation of the kulaks and Nepmen will only provide funds for a year, and then there will be no one to take from.

None of the members of the Politburo decided to confront Trotsky and Zinoviev in open polemics when they, inspired by success, together with their supporters - Radek, Pyatakov, Smilga and others, convened several meetings in factories and factories in Moscow and the surrounding area. Discussions began to boil in party cells in factories, economic and even military institutions. Stalin and Bukharin feared a big scandal, especially in the context of a brewing economic crisis. The true sentiments of the party activists were unknown - not everyone dared to express what they thought.

Only 496 people openly decided to vote for the opposition in Moscow and Leningrad, but according to Czechoslovak diplomat J. Girsa, in Moscow about 45% of communists were on the side of the opposition 40 .

The oppositionists have renewed ties with the second capital. On October 7, at a meeting of the staff of the largest Leningrad plant “Krasny Putilovets”, where Kirov was present, an unexpectedly high

Zinoviev, who arrived from Moscow, was stupid. The left also spoke out at other enterprises in Leningrad. Each time their speeches aroused the interest of the workers and a storm of indignation from the management. But this indignation was often ostentatious.

So far, dissatisfaction with the policies of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) was not yet very great. The NEP crisis has not yet gained momentum. Even though the democracy proposed by the opposition did not concern the people (the working class was promised continued wages, nothing more), it was about democracy for the elite. The dictatorial “image” of the opposition leaders weakened the strength of its agitation for democracy and against bureaucracy. The country remembered Trotsky as a brutal dictator during the civil war, Leningrad remembered the authoritarian leadership style of Zinoviev.

The lack of opportunity to defend their views in the press exposed the opposition to slander - its demands were brought to the point of absurdity in the speeches of Bukharin and his supporters. Anti-Semitic notes were also used. “The ideological struggle was replaced by administrative mechanics: telephone calls from the bureaucracy to meetings of party cells..., well-organized whistling and roaring when oppositionists appeared on the podium. The ruling faction pressed with mechanical concentration of its forces and the threat of repression. Before the party masses had time to hear, understand or say anything, they were afraid of a split and catastrophe. The opposition had to retreat,” 41 Trotsky recalls the situation in 1926.

The oppositionists tried to present themselves as an equal movement in the party and on October 4 they turned to the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) with a statement about the need to establish “joint friendly work” and “eliminate the difficult period of internal party strife” 42 . The Politburo then assessed this statement as a recognition of the correctness of the Central Committee's policy, which was a clear exaggeration. In the meantime, it was forced to heed the call for compromise and on October 11 set its own conditions, which boiled down to the cessation of factional work and the inadmissibility of open discussion. It was also necessary to disassociate ourselves from other opposition groups that criticized the Politburo. Since the left denied that they were carrying out factional work and had a negative attitude towards more radical oppositionists than themselves, Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev could only agree to end the discussion.

The achievement of a compromise was also facilitated by the fact that the Stalinist leadership still did not feel confident. There remained “fears of quickly and sharply breaking with each other given the instability of the regime and the fear of its external and internal opponents in the event of a sudden split or disintegration of the party” 43 . These fears will persist later, but the impossibility of unity will change the attitude towards party comrades. Anyone who cannot come to an agreement should be repressed. Under conditions of economic difficulties, the opposition can receive mass support from the dissatisfied, split the party and thus end its monopoly on power. Under conditions of a multi-party system, supporters of other, non-Marxist paths will emerge from the underground, and the country will return to capitalism. All the sacrifices of the revolution will be in vain. This logic will prevail within a year. But now the opposing factions were still ready to negotiate.

On October 15, the editorial of Pravda spoke about the opposition in a compromise tone. On October 16, the leaders of the left signed a statement that reaffirmed their condemnation of the factional struggle (the opposition did not admit that they were waging a factional struggle), admitted some mistakes, although it was argued that the opposition remained “on the basis of its views” set forth “in official documents and speeches..." 44 . Admitting mistakes became a condition for compromise - it was important for Stalin to humiliate his opponents and to use this clash to undermine the authority of the disgraced leaders, whose glory had recently surpassed his, Stalin’s, glory. It was not a matter of personal ambition. To win a political struggle, you need much greater authority, influence, and support than the enemy. Having achieved its goal, the ruling group commented on the opposition’s statement: “The Central Committee believes that the minimum that is necessary to ensure the unity of the party can be considered achieved. The task is to, while continuing the ideological struggle against the fundamental mistakes of the opposition, which it does not renounce, take all measures to ensure that the minimum achieved to ensure party unity is actually implemented” 45 .

It might have seemed to the oppositionists that they had been recognized as having the right to dissent - the preservation of mistakes that needed to be fought ideologically, and not organizationally. But Stalin decided to consolidate the success with “organizational measures”. Once mistakes have been admitted, then

there is an ideological crime, one could move on to punishments. The joint plenum of the Central Committee of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks) on October 2 3 and 2 6 considered the issue “On the internal party situation in connection with factional work and violation of party discipline by a number of members of the Central Committee.” At the suggestion of S. Kirov (of course, on behalf of the Leningrad organization, which should have been a particularly painful blow for Zinoviev), a resolution was adopted, according to which Zinoviev was recalled from the leadership of the Comintern, Trotsky was removed from the Politburo, and Kamenev was removed from candidate members of the Politburo . Penalties had to be moderate. It was important not to arouse excessive pity for the disgraced leaders, and in the event of aggravation of the situation in the country, it would be possible to reconcile with these experienced workers who acted with the greatest efficiency precisely in the conditions of the revolution.

At the same time, Stalin insisted on yet another humiliation of the opposition. As a test of Zinoviev's loyalty, he was asked to speak out against other oppositionists who stood for the rejection of the one-party system, a compromise with social democracy, and broad democratization. This deviation, represented primarily by the “worker oppositionist” S. Medvedev, was branded as Menshevik, and Zinoviev was invited to speak out against it in the press. Zinoviev agreed, since he really was not a supporter of such broad democratization, but he delayed his speech against his colleagues in opposition activities. In May 1926, Stalin wrote to Molotov that Zinoviev “criminally overstayed all the deadlines” for his speech against Medvedev. Finally, the honor of repelling the “Menshevik deviation” fell to Bukharin, who condemned the right in the article “The Right-Wing Danger in Our Party.” The “New Opposition” had to join Bukharin’s position. Zinoviev formulated the alternative as follows: “Either the prestige of your own and the party, or Medvedev’s” 47 . Of course, Zinoviev chose his prestige, especially since on October 29 Medvedev, under threat of expulsion from the party, admitted his mistakes. It was obvious to everyone that this recognition was formal and insincere.

This story was an important success for Stalin: he managed to isolate one group and force it to repent, and the other to dissociate itself from a possible ally and join the official position. The opposition front was split. It's "so-

This tactical means, which was first used to undermine the opposition bloc in October 1926, was then consistently used by Stalin throughout 1927-1929, when the Zinovievites, after “repentance,” served as a weapon in the fight against the Trotskyists…” 48, V.A. comments on these events. Shishkin.

Thus, by the end of the year, the authority of the opposition was undermined, and the ruling bloc could triumph. Speaking on November 1 at the XV Party Conference, Stalin commented on the statement of the “united opposition” on behalf of the workers: “this means that the oppositionists want to fight in the future, which means they haven’t been punished enough, which means they must continue to be beaten” 49 .

But the workers, including the communists, remained silent. And this saddened the opposition, which hoped for more active support from below: “the party middle peasant was unable to resist the unheard-of mockery of the party by the Central Committee of his apparatus, that he seemed too passive, but this passivity is caused by the regime that the Central Committee has carried out in recent years - a regime of unheard-of terror towards everyone who dared to express their opinion” 50. This is not terrorism yet. Dissidents are being dismissed.

After Stalin’s treacherous violation of the compromise on October 16, the opposition continued to send out materials calling for a fight “against the liquidation of the party carried out by the Stalinist faction under the hypocritical slogans of “unity.” For the real unity of the party - on the basis of internal party democracy" 51. They were preparing for new political battles. Now the majority of Politburo members have won. But as soon as they made a political mistake, fortune could turn to face another faction. The events of the following year reminded of this. Foreign policy events gave trump cards to the oppositionists.

Meanwhile, the XV Party Conference, which also condemned the Trotskyists, actually adopted their program on the most important problem of industrialization: “It is necessary to strive to catch up in the shortest historical period and then surpass the level of industrial development of advanced capitalist countries” 52. While the party leaders were satisfied with the so-called “fading” rates of industrial growth (the percentage of growth fell as the possibilities for reactivating old enterprises and restoring the economy were exhausted); hope

were to increase the marketability of peasant farming, to improve planning, to favorable market conditions, to all-out savings, and to new foreign policy successes. 1927 would refute many of these hopes.

Chinese disaster

The leaders of Bolshevism, apparently, seriously believed that the “world bourgeoisie” considered the destruction of the USSR its priority task. After all, they themselves prepared the destruction of the capitalist system, spent energy and resources on developing a network of communist parties - sections of the Comintern. When, at a moment of crisis, a revolutionary upsurge begins in the West, the USSR will become a stronghold of the world revolution. No one in the CPSU(b) renounced this. If so, then the capitalists must strive to destroy this stronghold of the world revolution.

The Bolshevik bureaucracy was a product of armed conflicts and reproduced its fighting spirit in an atmosphere of military hysteria. At the same time, the leadership of the USSR was afraid of war, feeling unprepared for it, and the reluctance of the population to again plunge into a troubled military situation. In 1924, after a coup attempt in Estonia and a scandal due to the Comintern’s intervention in the affairs of Great Britain, the USSR temporarily stopped provoking revolutionary uprisings in Europe. In 1924, Western states began to recognize the USSR one after another. The victory of the theory of building socialism in one country makes the world revolution less urgent, but still necessary, because in a capitalist environment the victory of socialism will always be unstable - both due to the threat of military invasion and due to the lack of advanced technologies concentrated in the West , and due to the lack of resources that the imperialist countries draw from the East.

After the revolutionary wave in the West subsided, the Bolsheviks turned their attention to the East, and above all to China. Since 1923, revolutionary events have been intensifying here. The USSR and the Comintern helped the Chinese revolutionaries - the Kuomintang Party and the Communists - with advisers, money and weapons. Due to the similarity of positions, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) joined the Kuomintang.

In May 1925, a revolution began in China. Strikes and rallies swept the country. Millions of people followed the slogans of unification put forward by the Kuomintang. The Kuomintang quickly radicalized and in February 1926 even asked to join the Comintern. Communists began to occupy key positions in his apparatus and in the army. But at this time the struggle in the Kuomintang between communists and conservative nationalists intensified. In March 1926, it resulted in open clashes. As a result of these events, General Chiang Kai-shek became commander-in-chief of the National Revolutionary Army of the Kuomintang (NRA). He advocated the unification of the country, but was against the anti-capitalist measures and redistribution of land proposed by the communists. The rights of communists in the Kuomintang were limited. The Comintern ordered the CPC to come to terms with restrictions on its rights. The Communists were still weak, and, relying on the organizational strength of the Kuomintang, they could increase their strength and influence.

In July 1926, the Kuomintang proclaimed the Northern Expedition. In 1926-1927, the NRA, with the support of the population, liberated the central regions of China from the “militarists” (military leaders, each of whom controlled vast areas of China).

Mass trade unions were created here, in some places peasants began to share the land of landowners, and townspeople began to share the property of foreigners and merchants. At the same time, hundreds of thousands of new people entered the NRA and the Kuomintang, most of whom were nationalists and had a negative attitude towards the communists and the social uprisings of the poor.

All this time, the leaders of the CPSU(b) led the actions of the CPCche-res Comintern. Naturally, the disputes between them also concerned China. In April 1926, after the first clashes between the communists and Chiang Kai-shek, Trotsky proposed withdrawing the CPC from the Kuomintang, but did not insist on this. Zinoviev, who was the architect of the CPC and Kuomintang alliance, hesitated. On the one hand, it is dangerous to coexist in the same party with reactionaries, on the other hand, I would like to turn the Kuomintang into an anti-imperialist battering ram and squeeze out of it everything that is possible in favor of the CPC. Therefore, the communists had to be quieter and not support the growth of the peasant struggle for land.

On October 26, the Politburo of the CPSU (b) instructed the Far Eastern Bureau of the Executive Committee of the Comintern to insist on containing the class struggle in the countryside, since “the immediate unleashing of civil

a military war in the countryside, in the midst of a war with imperialism and their agents in China, could weaken the combat capability of the Kuomintang" 53 .

The essence of the new communist strategy in China, which corresponded to the bureaucratic nature of the communist leadership, was expressed by Stalin: “And the task of the communists and the revolutionaries of China in general is to penetrate the apparatus of the new government, bring this apparatus closer to the peasant masses and help the peasant masses through this apparatus satisfy their urgent requirements" 54 . Not inciting a revolution, as in the old days, but seizing the apparatus of power becomes the basis of communist politics for decades to come. “The leadership of the epigones in China meant the trampling of all the traditions of Bolshevism. The Chinese Communist Party was, against its will, brought into the bourgeois Kuomintang party and subjected to its military discipline. The creation of Soviets was prohibited. The communists were advised to restrain the agrarian revolution and not arm the workers without the permission of the bourgeoisie,” 55 - Trotsky later commented on this approach. In September 1926, he returned to the Chinese question. The strengthening of the right in the Kuomintang threatened the communists with isolation. “The solution is not to not seek to “replace” the left within the Kuomintang; It’s not about gently and quietly nurturing and pushing them; not to “promote the creation of a left-wing Mindan periphery from the organization of the petty bourgeoisie.” All these recipes and even their wording are eerily reminiscent of old Menshevik cuisine. The way out of the situation lies in organizational disengagement as a prerequisite for an independent policy with eyes fixed primarily not on the left-wing Mindanites, but on the awakened workers.” Specific requirement: “transfer the relationship between the Communist Party and the Kuomintang to the path of a union of two independent parties” 56 .

Stalin believed that leaving the Kuomintang meant surrendering the largest revolutionary organization to the anti-communists. Objecting to those who considered it necessary to create peasant councils under the leadership of the CPC, independent of the Kuomintang, Stalin said: “It is impossible to build Soviets in the countryside, bypassing the industrial centers in China” 57 . Several years will pass, and the communists will create peasant councils and strive to build communism based not on cities, but on rural communes. "Levackaya"

strategy in China will be associated with the name of Mao Zedong, the leader who can lead radical communism to victory. Of course, Maoism is not Trotskyism, but to some extent it allows us to understand where the left alternative led and what it could lead to. After all the upheavals and fierce struggle not only against capitalism, but also against the “revisionism” of the CPSU, radical communism still returned to a bureaucratic dictatorship. The alternative to “left” communism here, as in the USSR in the 20s, turned out to be conditional and led to the same result as the Stalinist path.

In the spring of 1927, the Russian left opposition finally overcame differences on the Chinese issue and decided to nevertheless launch criticism of Stalin’s policies in China: “Communists act under their own banner only in the most exceptional cases. The entire movement is under the banner of the Kuomintang. This situation will lead to the fact that when the top of the Kuomintang turns to the right, there will be no organizational core for the masses moving away from the Kuomintang,” 58 argued K. Radek, an expert on the Chinese question in the ranks of the opposition.

The opposition's speech on the Chinese issue was very inappropriate. The Chinese Revolution was at its peak and the Comintern's position underwent a shift to the left. In March 1927, as a result of the poor people's uprising, Shanghai came under the control of the NRA. The workers' detachments did not disarm and clashed with Chiang Kai-shek. Nanjing, occupied by the NRA, was shelled by a flotilla of Western countries. This strengthened the anti-imperialist sentiments of one part of the Kuomintang members and the tendency towards reconciliation in the other. Something had to be decided. By this time, Stalin had already acted much more radically than in 1926, demanding the development of the peasant and labor movement, but still indicated that the CPC should remain part of the Kuomintang. Having analyzed the documents of this period, the historian A. Pantsov came to the conclusion: “A well-prepared “quiet” communist coup within the Kuomintang had by that time become a real Stalinist fixe idea” 59 . In March, the communists and leftist Kuomintang members began to prepare for the arrest of Chiang Kai-shek 60 . It was necessary, by officially demonstrating friendship in relations with Chiang Kai-shek, to prepare for his elimination. The Comintern hoped for the support of the leader of the left Kuomintang, Wang Jin-wen, who returned to China. How many times will Stalin act later?

do the same. Carefully and quietly prepare a blow, and then deliver it with lightning speed (if the enemy does not get ahead).

But in April 1927, Chiang Kai-shek, warned of a communist plot, took power into his own hands and expelled the communists from the army and the Kuomintang. A bloody purge and ridding of communists was carried out in Shanghai. And after this, Stalin did not consider it possible to “give the Kuomintang banner, the most popular of all banners in China, into the hands of the right-wing Kuomintang members” 61 .

The liberated territory split. The coastal regions supported Chiang Kai-shek, and the central ones - the Wuhan government of the left Kuomintang and communists led by Wang Ching-wen, to whom the USSR continued to provide financial and military assistance. Stalin found himself a hostage to his own politics and tried to benefit from an alliance with at least the fragments of the Kuomintang. But the opposition categorically protested against the continuation of this bankrupt policy: “It is precisely the line of leaving the Communist Party in the Kuomintang in the position of an appendage to the Kuomintang that needs to be reconsidered,” Zinoviev wrote in the fresh wake of the coup. “To put up the slogan of the Soviets in China means, in Stalin’s opinion, “ mix up all the cards,” mix up all the perspectives.” Whose cards, whose prospects?... Yes, these cards need to be “mixed up” 62. On the Chinese issue, as never before, two political styles collided. The radical Bolsheviks were accustomed to an unpredictable game, changing tactics depending on the situation, relying on the mass element and then suppressing it when the task of gaining power was completed. Stalin preferred careful preparation of the operation, and in the event of a sudden failure, he continued to act by inertia for some time, gradually preparing a new “operation.” When Stalin supported the Kuomintang, the opposition advocated for Soviets in China. In the 1930s, Stalin would pursue a policy of creating councils here. The opposition advocated speeding up industrialization, and the NEP crisis showed Stalin that they were right. But he could no longer reconcile with Trotsky, and a change of course was possible only after the liquidation of the left opposition as a force that could lay claim to power. Stalin will be ready to accept ideas from outside, but he, and not someone else, should decide which ideas to accept and which not.

At the beginning of July, Stalin came to the conclusion: “We used the Wuhan elite as soon as it was possible to use it. Those-

now we need to throw it away” 63. But the Comintern called: “Wuhan must be the center for a different path of development in China,” and at the same time, taught by the bitter experience of the alliance with Chiang Kai-shek, gave instructions to the communists: “Build your armed forces” 64. The communist military preparations were noticed by the left-wing Kuomintang members. In July, they also defeated the CPC and united with Chiang Kai-shek. Thousands of communists died. In desperation, the CCP tried to raise uprisings in the cities of China. Emissaries of the Comintern arrived in Canton for this purpose, including the prominent figure of the CPSU (b) V. Lominadze. But the population did not support the communists, and the protests were suppressed.

The Chinese disaster shocked communists around the world. The last hopes for a world revolution collapsed, thousands of Chinese comrades died. Stalin's policies suffered a complete collapse. Some oppositionists “seemed that such an obvious bankruptcy of Stalin’s policies should bring the victory of the opposition closer” 65. This allowed Trotsky to assert: “the bourgeoisie, about which it was said that we would use it and throw it away like a squeezed lemon, in fact used us. We helped her sit in the stirrup, she kicked us aside, seized all power, and bled the proletariat dry. A week before, Stalin took responsibility for Chiang Kai-shek's political line. This is the worst deception of the party - this has never happened in the history of our party - they say that the Central Committee “foresaw everything,” but in reality it was just the opposite” 66. So, Stalin was wrong in China. This means he could be wrong in the USSR too. The opposition was right in criticizing Chinese policy, which means it may be right regarding the NEP.

Military alert and opposition offensive

The defeat of the communist movement in such a huge country as China created the impression that imperialism was launching a global counter-offensive, that an attack on the USSR must be expected. This was confirmed by a series of events on the eve of Chiang Kai-shek's coup. There were raids on Soviet missions in London and Beijing, followed by the publication of captured documentation about Soviet intervention in the affairs of China and Great Britain. Relations with the latter also began to quickly deteriorate, which was explained primarily by Soviet support

British miners' strikes. In May 1927, diplomatic relations with Great Britain were severed. The Soviet leadership feared that Western countries might take military action against the USSR with the help of Eastern European countries. Therefore, the murder of Soviet Ambassador P. Voikov in Warsaw on June 7 made a shocking impression in Moscow. It was compared to the shooting in Sarajevo, which provoked the First World War, and new provocations were expected.

War anxiety began in the country. This time it was not propaganda hype: “the current panic, which is heard in every public speech and read in every article by party leaders, is not “fake” B, this nervousness is successfully transmitted to the entire Soviet people,” 67 reported the British diplomat. The Czechoslovak diplomat also reported that in 1927 “the number of ambulance trains is increasing. Many factories and factories switched to defense work..." 68. But the USSR was still too weak to fight the coalition of its Western neighbors, supported by Great Britain and France.

War anxiety only aggravated the NEP crisis. E. Carr comments: “In 1927, the crisis in the foreign affairs of the USSR, as well as the first explosion of enthusiasm for planning, diverted attention from agrarian problems. The harvest, although less abundant than in 1926, was quite satisfactory, and it was assumed that grain procurement, like last year, would proceed calmly. This confidence was completely unjustified. Compared to the previous year, the mood has changed. The alarming international situation, talk about war, about occupation - all this now worried the village. After two fruitful years, the peasant finally felt confident for the first time since the beginning of the revolution. Uzazhi-precise peasant had reserves of grain and money. The industrial goods he might need were almost impossible to buy. Money was again devalued by inflation; in such an uncertain situation, grain turned out to be the most reliable currency. For peasants who had large reserves of grain, there was no point in sending them to the market. Therefore, in the fall of 1927, grains handed over to the state were almost half as much as in 1926. “In the winter of 1927/28, queues for bread in cities became commonplace, butter, cheese and milk became a rarity. State grain reserves have been depleted” 69.

The military alarm was only the trigger of a long-pending crisis. Already from the beginning of the year, the Bolshevik leadership took risky steps to get out of the vicious circle and force wealthy peasants to sell grain at lower prices. The state abandoned the traditional increase in prices in the spring, when grain was sold by owners of large stocks. It was believed that under the conditions of a state monopoly, the kulaks would not go anywhere and would still sell grain in the fall. But they didn't sell it. The peasants were not so rich as to refuse food that they themselves needed. Moreover, they themselves regulated the volume of production, reducing it in accordance with the more than modest opportunities to buy something from the city. In 1926-1927, bread production fell by 300 million. 70 poods.

Trotsky turned out to be right that if the Bolsheviks did not want to lose control over the economic situation, and therefore power, they needed to return to the policy of pressure and confiscation - their cadres did not know any other methods. Bukharin is forced to outline ways of retreat from the previous policy: “We must now... with a closed front, together with the middle peasants, successfully begin more solid pressure on our main enemy in the countryside - on the kulak” 71. Zinoviev comments on this turn of official ideology: “This means that the opposition did not fight in vain. This means that she was right - even if she was able to snatch such a statement from Bukharin before the congress" 72 .

Everyone felt that the “civil peace” was fragile, and the communists were ready to turn to terror at any moment. The day after Voikov’s murder, the OGPU shot 20 “White Guards.” The world assessed this act as the return of red terror, hostage-taking. This convulsive reaction was generated by the recommendation of the OGPU, which here also pursued its own goal - to hide the “ends” of the failure of Operation Trust. The fact is that for several years the organs of the OGPU cultivated monarchist circles, creating from them an organization controlled by their own agents. “Trust”, with the help of the GPU, built channels for transporting people across the border. This made it possible to arrest the international adventurer S. Reilly. However, in 1927, several White Guards infiltrated the USSR (possibly with the help of Trest figures). Once in the USSR, the militants did not report to the leadership of the Trust, but took up terrorism. They laid

bombed the OGPU dormitory (it was discovered before the explosion) and threw bombs at the Central Party Club in Leningrad. One person died and several were injured. On June 8, one group of militants fled to Finland with impunity. The other one was destroyed. These events reminded Soviet leaders, caught up in internal struggle, that emigration was not asleep. The OGPU decided to sacrifice its “hotbed of monarchism” in order to demonstrate success in the fight against terrorism and prove to external enemies that they should not count on support in the country. Figures of the monarchist underground, emigration emissaries who entered the country in 1926-1927, former White Guards and tsarist officials were selected for execution.

The June 10 shooting politically returned the country to the days of war communism. The opposition felt on horseback - the time had come for its leaders to triumph. They hoped that in conditions of military danger they would again be called to leadership. Moreover, in matters of foreign policy, almost every new day proved them to be right. Thus, the opposition advocated stopping the work of the Anglo-Russian Trade Union Committee, where communists and social democrats collaborated. The shooting of the “hostages” aroused the indignation of representatives of the General Council of the British Confederation of Labor, the committee disintegrated, which caused deep satisfaction of the opposition: “the protest of the General Councilors against our shooting of twenty White Guards finished off the idea of the Anglo-Russian committee” 73 .

But Stalin was in no hurry to reconcile. Moreover, the opposition was suspected of taking part in the defense of the USSR on its own terms. This caused the indignation of Trotsky and Zinoviev: “The slanderous nicknames “defeatists” and “conditional defencists” will not stick to us, the workers will not believe you in this” 74 .

In May 1927, in the fresh wake of the Chinese catastrophe, Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev wrote an open letter to the Central Committee, under which they first collected 83 signatures of old Bolsheviks, and then more than 3,000 signatures of party members. True, some of the signatories withdrew their signatures. Such cases were widely covered in the press. But this did not bother the oppositionists: “the overwhelming amount of waste is not the result of a free choice of ideological positions, but capitulation to the apparatus” 75, wrote L. Smilga. It's okay - hundreds are taking the place of the departed units.

By exposing the international policies of Stalin and Bukharin, the oppositionists threatened the party with an external invasion. Appealing to

traditions of old Bolshevism, the oppositionists demanded the restoration of intra-party democracy (but in no case - democracy outside the party).

The NEP led, according to the opposition, to a slide from revolution to “Thermidor.”

The “Jacobins” demanded to protect the proletariat from the onslaught of the bureaucracy, the kulaks, the new bourgeoisie (NEPmen), and bourgeois specialists. The main means of reviving the proletariat was still considered an industrial breakthrough, which could finally turn the country into a single “socialist” factory. “The lag of large-scale industry from the demands placed on it from the national economy (hunger of goods, high prices, unemployment) and from the Soviet system as a whole (national defense) leads to the strengthening of capitalist elements in the economy of the Soviet Union - especially in the countryside" 76,” wrote the authors of the “Letter of 83” and called for this situation to be corrected. The opposition felt that the last and decisive battle had come for them.

The failure of the foreign policy of the ruling group put it before a choice - either to allow the opposition to strengthen to such an extent that it would become the “position” of the party, or to crush it, if not with arguments, then with organizational and repressive measures. Stalin has now decided to replace the “struggle of attrition” against the opposition waged over the last six months with a “struggle of extermination.” Why? Because Stalin became weaker; its bankruptcy in the Chinese and Anglo-Russian issues is obvious, as are the grave consequences of this bankruptcy for our international position. The growing right wing is pressing on Stalin: why did he get involved in the general strike and in China? 77. The authors of the letter called on the majority for reconciliation. They really wanted this, especially now that they were so right. Sketching out theses for yet another of his countless speeches in 1927, Kamenev writes: “We want desks. legality” - and circles this saying in a frame. “What is legality? a) Preservation of the charter. Election. b) The tone of the controversy. c) Collaboration" 78 . These conditions would ensure their return to power as soon as the party elite realizes that there is no way out of the current situation without experienced leaders.

Several times during the summer, it seemed to leftist leaders that the tide was about to turn. So, for example, in June Zinoviev urgently called

Kamenev to Moscow: “New events have happened, this time in our favor. Serious decisions lie ahead" 79 .

The “Letter of 83” was widely circulated and stimulated wide discussion: semi-legal meetings were held everywhere, at which thousands of party members and then non-party members met, which threatened the foundations of the Bolshevik regime.

Criticism of the bureaucracy by the left opposition became more and more radical, even at meetings of the party court of the Central Control Commission, where oppositionists were summoned from time to time. It was not possible to convict them. The results of these debates were disappointing for Stalin: “It seems like a complete embarrassment for the Central Control Commission. It was not members of the Central Control Commission who interrogated and accused, but Zinoviev and Trotsky” 80. Trotsky said: “Comrades, there is no need to confuse the socialist fatherland with the authorities. We declare: we will criticize the Stalinist regime until you mechanically shut our mouths. Until you force a gag into our mouths, we will criticize this Stalinist regime, which will undermine all the gains of the October Revolution, and they are as dear to us as they are to you” 81. Trotsky’s conclusions became bolder: “The state and economic apparatus is firmly captured by an irremovable caste of officials. These officials are already confronting the working masses as the new ruling class, embodying in their person the unprecedented growth of bureaucratic perversions of the workers’ state” 82. Yes, the state is still a “workers’ state”, but real power is in the hands of the bureaucratic class. From here it is one step to understanding that the party, the state, and the government are of a class bureaucratic nature.

Trotsky, who had always supported violence against the non-Bolshevik opposition, now warned that bureaucratic repression would eventually spread to all current party ideologists: “Whoever votes always 100% with you, who yesterday, on the orders of the “wings” of Trotsky, today Zinoviev, will cover tomorrow Bukharin and Rykov, he will never be a steadfast soldier in the difficult hour of the revolution” 83. He asked his opponent A.A. Solts, who accused the opposition of being counter-revolutionary and threatened it with reprisals: “Under what chapter is Solts going to shoot us?.. s I’m afraid, comrade. Solts, that you are going to shoot us according to the Ustryalov, i.e., Thermidorian, chapter.” In response to Solts’s objection that he was also a revolutionary, Trots-

Kiy was ready to answer with lightning speed: “The Thermidorians were Jacobins, only getting better” 84.

Though he was talking about Thermidor at that time, Trotsky remained a Jacobin, that is, a revolutionary ready to impose his authoritarian schemes on the people and perceived any deviation from these schemes as counter-revolution. Phenomena of the same order for him were the protests against the bureaucratic dictatorship of the Bolsheviks in favor of Soviet democracy, which he suppressed in Kronstadt in 1921, and the current authoritarian-bureaucratic policy of Stalin: “The Kronstadt form of Thermidor is a military uprising. But under certain conditions it is possible to slide more peacefully towards Thermidor. If the Kronstadters, party and non-party, under the slogan of the Soviets and in the name of the Soviets, descended to the bourgeois regime, then it is possible to slide to Thermidorian positions even with the banner of communism in their hands. This is the devilish cunning of history” 85. “The devilish cunning of history” and Trotsky’s historical tragedy lay in the fact that “Napoleon,” who had put an end to “Thermidor,” would come to power, adopting Trotsky’s slogans. This “Napoleon” will be Stalin, who in 1927 was a stronghold of “right-wing” politics, and in 1929 will become “to the left” 86 of Trotsky.

The apparatus purged party and state bodies of oppositionists or moved them from place to place, depriving them of real power. Supporters of the majority behaved more and more aggressively: “At party meetings, fascist speeches are heard every now and then about the need for physical reprisals against Leninists. The Stalinist apparatus does not defeat the opposition ideologically, but suppresses, breaks, depersonalizes, politically corrupts and kills individuals,” 87 Smilga was indignant.

But so far it has not been possible to break the opposition leaders. Remembering the unsuccessful experience of the Central Control Commission, a joint plenum of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission was held against Trotsky and Zinoviev, which was held from July 29 to August 9. Trotsky and Zinoviev were accused of disseminating the factional declaration of the 83rd, making anti-party speeches, accusing the party of Thermidorianism, and declaring that the party regime is worse than war. Of particular danger to the ruling group was the “printing and distribution of factional literature not only among party members, but also non-party members, the organization of underground factional circles” 88 and the organization of a demonstration (this meant seeing off Smilga to the Far East, where he was sent by the secretariat of the Central Committee).

Stalin accumulated a wealth of experience in conducting political battles with the opposition. A. Mikoyan recalls: “It was nice to see how the General Secretary of the party began a battle with the opposition: He gave the members of the Central Committee the opportunity to enter into a fight with the opposition, and when all the opposition’s cards were revealed and partially defeated, he himself began to finish them off with calmness and dignity, without in a tone of aggravation, but, on the contrary, calming” 89.

Stalin waged a successful campaign. Trotsky was simply not allowed to speak, constantly interrupting him. Wading through the cries of the Tsekists, Trotsky tried to accuse Stalin and Bukharin of revising Leninism and dictatorship. To accusations that by opposing the leadership, the opposition was undermining the country's defense capability, Trotsky replied: “The party must maintain control over all its organs in times of war, as in times of peace” 90 . Trotsky's arguments were not really listened to. The decision to expel Trotsky and Zinoviev from the party was taken as a basis. They decided that they had already been expelled and did not go to the Central Committee meeting on August 6. However, the scenario of the massacre was not yet completed. As in tsarist times, to humiliate the victim, a pardon was offered at the last moment. And the “hanged men” are not going to accept it! Ordzhonikidze, who did not know about the absence of Trotsky and Zinoviev at the meeting of the Central Committee, began to rhetorically address them: “Let them answer me.” To this, Kamenev, who remained in the hall, shouted: “Zinoviev cannot answer you, because he and Trotsky were expelled by you from the Central Committee” 91 . When the majority stood up, there was a commotion. They sent for the disgraced leaders. They were solemnly told that they had not yet been expelled from the Central Committee, that they were being given one last chance. Immediate expulsion threatened to split the party, and Stalin at that time still planned to play for time, keep the opposition leaders on the brink of expulsion, but not take risks. After all, the exclusion of Trotsky from the party could cause its split and the emergence of a second communist party in the semi-underground. And all this in the face of the danger of military invasion.

The parties, claiming that their opponent had “faltered,” agreed on a compromise. A new trade has begun about the text that the opposition must sign. They quickly agreed to condemn factionalism (the opposition was against factionalism and considered its actions a forced response to the arbitrariness of the Stalinist faction), and to refuse to create a second Communist Party. After some debate, the opposition agreed to admit that

The Thermidorian degeneration of the party has not become a fact, there is only such a threat. In response, the opposition demanded the announcement of an official discussion on its platform. Stalin recommended accepting these conditions.

The slogan of the opposition became: “Neither a new October 16th, nor a slogan of the second party” 92. She no longer wanted to make concessions, hoping to regain the majority in the party as the situation in the country “leftward”. When dissatisfaction with the Stalin-Bukharin course becomes widespread, a “shift in power” will occur. This can happen both in conditions of military defeats (Trotsky cited the example of Clemenceau’s rise to power during the World War) and in conditions of an acute social crisis. Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev will now be breathing down Stalin’s neck - just stumble. The left opposition continued to call on Lenin for help. Having examined in detail Lenin’s “testament,” which was now being distributed by oppositionists in samizdat, G. Safarov concludes: “The party, despite the two-year existence of the Stalinist regime of internal party terror, still has enough strength to achieve the implementation of Lenin’s will” 99 .

The headquarters of the opposition was the XV Party Congress. The left understood that the Stalinist apparatus would not allow the Trotskyists to win a majority at the congress, but they hoped to agitate the masses of delegates. Since the discussion was still announced, they put forward their platform.

Veterans of the fight against Trotskyism on the historical front still believe that “the initial unrealizability of the proposals, coupled with the enormous ambition of their authors, deprived these platforms of political prospects” 94 . This is how Stalin wanted to present the matter: unrealistic, just ambition. But in politics there are no people without ambitions. They just manifest themselves differently. But the “unrealizability” of Trotskyist ideas is very doubtful. After all, their socio-economic component was later almost completely, and sometimes even more than, realized by Stalin, and the political component was adopted by Bukharin. So let’s take a closer look at the Trotskyist program.

The draft platform of the Bolsheviks-Leninists (opposition) for the XV Congress stated: “Stalin’s group is leading the party blindly,” 95 hiding the enemy’s forces, preventing an objective analysis of the difficulties. Among these difficulties, the left attributed the slow growth of industry and workers’ wages, the plight of the poor and farm laborers.

kov, rising unemployment, pandering to the kulaks, who control a significant part of marketable grain and continue to grow stronger.

The platform put forward a number of usual social democratic demands to protect labor, in particular it proposed increasing wages in accordance with the growth of labor productivity. This fair demand, however, deprived the state of the opportunity to receive additional profits with increased productivity, which was completely inappropriate in conditions of a shortage of funds. The left reasoned as Marxists in an exploitative society, and the right and centrists (Stalin's group) as pragmatists who needed money for industrialization.

The platform called for a struggle against the rural bourgeoisie: “The growing farming of the countryside must be countered by the faster growth of collectives. Along with this, it is necessary to provide more systematic assistance to poor farms not covered by collectives, by completely exempting them from taxes, appropriate land management policies, loans for economic establishment, and involvement in agricultural cooperation.”

The slogan of “creating a non-party peasant activist through the revitalization of the Soviets” (Stalin - Molotov), which in fact leads to strengthening the leadership role of the upper strata of the village, is devoid of precise class content, but must be contrasted with the slogan of creating a “non-party farmer, poor peasant and similar middle peasant activist” 96. In 1928-1929, Stalin would take these proposals into account and even exceed them by carrying out collectivization.

The platform criticized the draft five-year plan developed by the State Planning Commission, especially the “fading” growth rates. These rates are good for a capitalist state, but with the centralization of resources in single state hands, much greater speed can be achieved. And here Stalin listens to Trotsky’s arguments.

But where to get funds for an industrial breakthrough? The left advises to sharply increase the share of the state budget in the national income, that is, to strengthen the nationalization of the economy: “to carry out a real taxation of all types of excess profits of private entrepreneurs,” “in order to strengthen exports, to ensure withdrawal from the wealthy kulak strata, approximately 10% of the

Stiansky households, by way of loan, at least 150 million poods... of grain reserves"; in addition, it is necessary to reduce industrial prices, reduce bureaucratic apparatuses, strengthen economy under the control of the “mass”, select competent leaders (the current ones are not very competent, but the opposition did not propose strengthening the role of specialists, hoping to promote their personnel); as well as the mobilization of private savings by banks through pressure on the private owner (do not allow them to speculate - they will inevitably take the money to the state bank). At the same time, the platform proposed to abandon the sale of vodka, increase allocations for defense, for industry in general, for electrification, transport, housing construction, and collectivization 97 . To sum up these proposals, the left proposed withdrawing funds from private entrepreneurs (possibly at the cost of completely suppressing private initiative) and directing them to accelerate the pace of industrialization and collectivization. It was a risky move. If the public sector does not work, when the private sector has already collapsed, the entire economy will collapse. Therefore, the left opposition proposes relatively cautious measures, which, it seems, do not finish off the private owner to the end. Already in 1928, the ruling majority would follow this path, and it would become clear that half-measures were not enough. We need to decide - either a rejection of state socialism, or a leap towards it despite any sacrifices by society.

In the field of foreign policy, the left proposed to abandon foreign economic concessions even in the face of a military threat (otherwise the world market would dissolve socialist elements in the Soviet economy) and “take a course towards international revolution.”

The left considers their opponent in the ruling elite to be the apparatus-centrist group of Stalin, influencing the economic leadership (Rykov and others) of the former Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, who make up about a quarter of the party activists (and how many more non-party specialists, including theorists of the entire movement of Kondratiev, Chayanov and etc.), the trade union elite of Tomsk and the revisionist “school” of red professors led by Bukharin. To rectify the situation, the opposition proposes to restore internal party democracy in the spirit of Lenin’s last articles and the resolution of December 5, 1923. But, as we have seen, these plans led to democracy only for the party leaders.

But the group of “Democratic Centralism” of T.V. Sapronov and V. Smirnov (a group of 15 - according to the number of signatures of the old Bolsheviks under their platform “Under the Banner of Lenin”, published in June 1927) applied to the current situation their proposals put forward back during the trade union discussion in 1921, when it was decided what the social system of Soviet Russia would be like after the end of the civil war. Then the ideas of industrial democracy were buried under the pressure of Lenin's authority. Now, when industrial and state authoritarianism was visibly leading to bureaucratization, the “democratic centralists” decided to remind the party and workers of their proposals: “The internal regulations at the factory must be changed in the direction of its democratization. A course must be firmly pursued... towards strengthening the participation of the working masses in the management of production. For these purposes:

a) when appointing plant directors and their assistants by the supposed highest economic bodies, candidates must be discussed at general or workshop meetings of workers, who can also nominate their own candidates. The final appointment can be made only after such a discussion, based on taking into account the attitude of the workers towards the nominated candidacy and the proposals of the general meetings;

b) under the director of the plant, a permanent meeting must be created from the highest administration, a representative of the production conference and representatives of workers elected at general meetings of workers. The decisions of this meeting are not binding on the director, but all the main issues of the enterprise’s activities should be discussed at it so that the elected representatives of the workers are fully aware of the affairs of the enterprise, and the administration knows the attitude of the workers to the activities being carried out. The same system should be carried out in large workshops;

c) instead of the current diversity in the organization of production meetings, these meetings should be elected everywhere and accountable to the workers. Their work should be closely connected with the work of the above-mentioned permanent meetings with the plant director” 99.

Sapronov and his supporters were much more categorical towards Stalin. They criticized Trotsky’s caution: “We must decisively reject the tactics of passive waiting, the orientation towards the “left” of the leading group.

Suppression of the Left Bolsheviks

Stalin understood that in conditions when the opposition turned out to be right in the dispute about the strategy of Bolshevism, when its proposals on almost all economic and foreign policy issues were about to be accepted, the problem of the struggle for leadership could not be solved by purely political methods. The dissemination of opposition materials deprived the ruling group of a monopoly on the press and the opportunity to slanderously interpret opposition slogans. The party activist could understand that he was being deceived. The Trotskyists would eventually be able to agitate the party, especially as the crisis deepens further.

py or its delamination as a result of internal friction. The so-called “centrists” (Stalin and Co.) serve only as a cover for the so-called “rightists” (Rykov, Kalinin, etc.), but in fact they pursue the policy of this first. The Trotskyist-Zinoviev bloc still cannot get rid of these illusions, from which is the result of his vacillations and mistakes. The citadel of the right-wing danger is the Stalinist group and the party apparatus subordinate to it (the entire opposition proceeded from this before the discussion of 1926), the Zinoviev-Trotsky opposition repeatedly oriented the party towards the fact that the Stalinist group itself could begin to fight the right-wing danger » 100. It seems that the Trotskyists were right in this dispute. Subsequently, it turned out that Stalin, under the pressure of circumstances, could easily abandon the “Thermidorian” economic policy. For some Trotskyists, this will be a signal to reconcile with him. But the “democratic centralists” turned out to be more far-sighted in another way - Stalin’s “leftward movement” will not stop the bureaucratic “degeneration”. In this regard, Stalin, even pursuing a left-wing economic policy, remained right-wing, a “Thermidorian” and even a “Bonapartist”, for he contributed to the strengthening of the division of society into classes and the strengthening of the bureaucratic system.

The “United Opposition” dissociated itself from the “too” democratic proposals of the 15, but with a caveat: “We are of the opinion that the platform of the 15 should be published in the party press, as was always done under Lenin” 300. However, the platform of the “United Opposition” has not yet been published.

And searches began in the apartments of ordinary Trotskyists. They were looking for “compromising evidence.” “To hide our platform, Stalin had no choice but to ‘block’ politics with ‘criminalism’ 102,” believed Zinoviev, Smilga and Peterson. On September 13, the center for reprinting Trotskyist materials was destroyed. It was announced that an underground Trotskyist printing house had been discovered. The opposition sarcastically commented: “But, in fact, the GPU only seized a couple of typewriters, a glass printer and a rotator, i.e. such a “printing house” that is available in any Soviet institution” 103. It turned out that the competitors to the Soviet institutions were Preobrazhensky, Serebryakov and Sharov, who recognized themselves as the owners of the discovered “equipment”.

On September 18, the GPU arrested certain Shcherbakov and Tverskoy, who discussed with a former Wrangel officer the possibility of organizing a military coup and purchasing printing equipment. These plans clearly contradicted each other; most likely, the dissatisfied discussed different options for fighting the Soviet regime. But they were unlucky - the officer was an agent of the GPU.

Now it was possible to “link” two traces through “printing equipment” - the White Guard, especially terrible, since the echo of the June terrorist attacks had barely died down, and the Trotskyist one. The Bolsheviks have not yet been accused of political criminality in the USSR. The Trotskyists immediately recalled how the Provisional Government accused the Bolsheviks of organizing a putsch with German money (Trotsky and Zinoviev were among the accused then), as well as the “amalgam” method used by the “Thermidorians” during the French Revolution. In fact, this method, which consisted of uniting accused revolutionaries and counter-revolutionaries in one trial, was tested precisely by the Jacobins, that is, by the left. But the Trotskyists mentioned exactly the analogy they needed.

Opposition leaders angrily dissociated themselves from connections with the White Guard underground: “On September 22, on behalf of the Politburo and the Presidium of the Central Committee, a notice was sent to all party organizations about the opening of the printing house, which stated that:

“Some of the arrested non-party people are actually connected with some people from the military environment who are thinking about a military coup in the USSR similar to the Pilsudski coup... The discovery of the underground printing house was a side and unexpected result of the arrests of non-party people related to the group

military conspiracy. The OGPU has not conducted and is not conducting an investigation into the case of the illegal opposition printing house. The only connection between the opposition printing house and the military conspiracy was a GPU agent who was monitoring the White Guards and the opposition.”104 The oppositionists scoffed at the explanations of the security officers, who declared: “It is not the fault of the OGPU if the allies of the opposition from among the non-party intellectuals found themselves in one (?) or another (?) connections with the military who are thinking about a military putsch” 105. Yes, the OGPU could not yet prove such connections and even provoked them. But did Stalin consider it impossible that the “cornered” Trotskyists would want to restore their old ties with the military? Just in case, he purges active Trotskyists from the army, and moves not very active ones to safe posts like attachés abroad.

This time the amalgam did not stick together. The theses of the opposition began to be published in the discussion sheet of Pravda under the title “Counter theses of the Trotskyist opposition on work in the countryside” (the real name of the platform was mockingly given in a note).

Meanwhile, the Stalinists brought forward an even more serious accusation... Speaking on October 26, Molotov said: “The opposition is raising in its midst some elements who are ready to use any means to fight the party. Therefore, sharpening the struggle on personal attacks, on the persecution of individuals can serve as a direct fuel for criminal terrorist sentiments against party leaders" 106 . Did Molotov believe what he said? Terrorism in Russia at that time was not considered reprehensible in itself. Revolutionary terrorism evoked admiration, counter-revolutionary terrorism evoked indignation. What if one of the thousands of opposition supporters decides that the Thermidorian degeneration of the party has already been completed, that the party is headed by counter-revolutionaries? Many people still have weapons from the Civil War. The opposition received Molotov’s statement with indignation: “Knowing who we are dealing with, we assume that to all the effects with the “Wrangel officer” they want to add some other effect” with an “attempt” on the leader - in order to free their hands for some kind of some reprisals" 107 . In 1927, this “bomb” did not explode. She continued to lie until 1934.

The OGPU was not inclined to delve into ideological subtleties - its job was to find conspirators, and they were ready for reprisals against anyone who behaved like a conspirator.

The opposition is still trying to appeal to the revolutionary past of the current rulers. Thus, oppositionist S. Zorin wrote to his former comrade Bukharin regarding the arrest of the typographer Fishelev, who worked in Bukharin’s newspaper before the revolution: “Socialism is generally unthinkable with such attributes as prisons for the best proletarian communists” 108. This could have been understood a few years ago, when the communists began throwing socialist proletarians into prison.

The opposition spoke so often about the interests of the workers that, in the conditions of being removed from the last levers of power, its leaders began to think about going directly to the proletariat: “The mass of non-party workers are listening more and more attentively to our disagreements, with more and more thirst they are trying to find out the real truth - first of all: what the opposition demands” 109, wrote Zinoviev. Opposition agitators began to speak to the non-party working masses at enterprises. The opposition went beyond the party, and this was the Rubicon, crossing which the Trotskyists doomed themselves to repression. The party's monopoly on political life was sacred to the Bolshevik leadership. The denunciation of intensified exploitation attracted the sympathy of the workers. Hundreds of non-party members signed requests for oppositionists to speak in their workshops. “At the factories of the Orekhovo-Zuevsky district, at the Manometer, Dux factories, the Red October factory, at the Podolsk Gosshveymashina plant, in Kharkov at the VEK plant, the printing house named after. Petrovsky, open meetings of cells and factory meetings, the workers, when the question of the opposition was raised, demanded speakers from the opposition and left the meetings when the apparatchiks refused to do so,” 110, asserted the “democratic centralists.”

At the same time, the summer successes of the Trotskyists in the party turned out to be a Pyrrhic victory - the bureaucracy rallied, took away some of the slogans from the opposition, oppositionists were removed from posts, and some were arrested. Despite the fact that opposition documents were still distributed under the heading “Only for members of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)” 111, the left and right were already acting as two parties. On the side of some are non-party workers dissatisfied with the NEP, on the side of others are non-party specialists.

In October, Trotsky and Zinoviev managed to appear on the official platform in Leningrad. Seeing the disgraced leaders of the revolution on the podium, the crowd rushed towards them, calling out the names of Trotsky

and Zinoviev, on whom the charisma of suffering had already fallen. “The enthusiasm with which our comrades met was similar to the enthusiasm of the workers of Leningrad in 1717, when Lenin appeared on the podium,” 112 said an opposition supporter who observed the events. Columns of factories shouted slogans: “Long live the true leaders of the revolution!” This could hardly have been an accident - a strong opposition activist remained in the Leningrad factories, which prepared the workers for the fact that they would see “themselves” of Trotsky and Zinoviev. The head of the Leningrad party organization, Kirov, found himself in a stupid position and, in order to somehow smooth out the situation, went to the podium with Trotsky and Zinoviev, but then, realizing the possible consequences of such a “bloc” for himself personally, he retreated.

In Moscow, the opposition managed to organize a mass meeting (about 2 thousand people) at the Higher Technical School. While opposition activists held back the onslaught of administration guards, Trotsky and Kamenev expressed their views. At this time, by order of the technical secretary of the Politburo G. Malenkov, the hall was cut off from electricity. “Then the chairman of the meeting, L. B. Kamenev, solemnly proclaimed: “Let’s dispel Stalin’s darkness with Lenin’s light,” dozens of candles lit up in different parts of the audience to enthusiastic applause,” 113 recalled oppositionist I. Pavlov. The wit of the opposition leaders attracted communist youth to their side.

The demonstration in Leningrad was the last straw that overwhelmed Stalin's patience. He realized that further delaying the split would bring him only disadvantages. On October 21-23, 1927, the joint plenum of the Central Committee of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party (Bolsheviks) again discussed the personal affairs of Trotsky and Zinoviev. This time they were practically not allowed to speak, and they threw objects that came to hand at Trotsky - books, a glass. Now the methods that the Bolsheviks used, say, in the Constituent Assembly, were regarded by Trotsky as unacceptable hooliganism. The Plenum condemned the line of the opposition and expelled Trotsky and Zinoviev from the Central Committee. “This put them in the position of ordinary citizens, who are fully subject to the laws on Solovki, Siberia and capital punishment” 114, commented Czechoslovak diplomat J. Girsa. On October 22, immediately after the expulsion of the opposition leaders from the Central Committee, the remaining opposition members of the Central Committee of the Central Control Commission declared: “This is a direct attempt to put the XV Congress

ed by the act of schism." They promised to continue, together with their expelled comrades, to defend the cause of the Leninist party “against the opportunists, against the schismatics, against the gravediggers of the revolution” 115 . “Gravediggers” is a word that hurt Stalin last year. Well, Stalin had already made a political decision to crush the opposition, just as the Mensheviks were crushed in their time - with prisons and exile.

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of people attended opposition meetings. During the discussion, 4,120 communists openly voted for the opposition, which is not so small, given the voter fraud and the ongoing purges of state and party bodies. How many people sympathized with Trotsky behind the scenes? V. Feigin reported to S. Ordzhonikidze about such an alarming fact for the Stalinists: at a meeting of the Moscow Komsomol activists, the speech of the oppositionist Ter-Vaganyan was booed by those present. At the end of the meeting, a documentary was shown. Trotsky appeared in the frame. “There was thunderous applause. Then he appears in Brest-Litovsk, then at the front near Kazan, etc. All the time he was greeted with thunderous applause... Theroux was not allowed to speak, but Trotsky in the picture (in the dark) was welcomed” 116.

When Stalin begins to implement some of the party slogans, part of the party masses that sympathized with Trotsky will support him. But these party members will not have confidence in Stalin, who dealt with the opposition through repressive measures. Were the oppositionists prepared to use violence against their enemies? Protesting the arrests, Trotsky argued: “Violence could play an enormous revolutionary role. But on one condition: if it is subordinated to correct class politics” 117.

Encouraged by their success at workers' meetings and communist rallies, the oppositionists decided to demonstrate in an organized manner on November 7, 1927. “Participation in an opposition demonstration with several posters was caused by the need to contrast the truth about the opposition with the slander with which both party members and non-party members are poisoned,” 118 the oppositionists explained their return to the tactics of the opposition intelligentsia during the struggle against tsarism. The mention of non-party members was deliberate - the left no longer bound itself within the framework of party discipline.

During the anniversary demonstration in Moscow and Leningrad, oppositionists raised their slogans over the columns: “Let’s turn around.”

fire to the right - against the kulak, the Nepman and the bureaucrat! Opposition slogans were hung on the walls of houses where oppositionists lived. On the corner of Vozdvizhenka and Mokhovaya there were portraits of Trotsky, Kamenev and Zinoviev. The Stalinists tried to tear them off with hooks. “The originals actively defended their portraits. Armed with a long-handled broom, Trotsky energetically repulsed the attacks." 119 The opposition's platform was the Paris Hotel, overlooking Manezhnaya Square. From there, Preobrazhensky and other “second-row” opposition leaders exchanged greetings with the demonstrators. An assault detachment of the “majority,” led by the secretary of the Krasnopresnensky district committee, M. N. Ryutin, arrived at the hotel and began a siege. They threw stones, rotten potatoes, and logs at the opposition's balcony. Then shouting “Beat the opposition!” and “Beat the opposition Jews!” Ryu-tin's team broke into the room and started a pogrom there. Oppositionists were beaten and detained. The police did not intervene.

Ryutin Martemyan Nikitich(1890-1937). Bolshevik since 1914. In 1917 he served as a soldier in Harbin. In 1918 - commander of the troops of the Irkutsk Military District. Fought for Soviet power in Siberia and the Far East. In 1925-1928 - first secretary of the Krasnopresnensky district committee of the CPSU (b), removed from his post for participation in the right deviation and expelled from the party in 1930. Arrested in 1932. Later shot.

But when opposition slogans appeared in the crowd, there was an immediate reaction. But the leftists were not peaceful lambs either: “The police arrived in time and, at the direction of the Stalinists, arrested three oppositionists, but on the way to the site a group of comrades caught up with them and, threatening them with revolvers, released them from arrest. (It must be said that many oppositionists, going to the demonstration, took revolvers with them. The communists and Komsomol members were not yet disarmed)” 120. The almost universal arming of communists since the civil war has become a source of real threat to the leaders of the regime. But this time there was no shooting.

The ruling faction was well prepared for the November 7 demonstration. Those who raised the posters immediately began to be beaten, the posters were torn out of their hands and broken. Zinoviev and Radek were detained

before the demonstration. The car in which Trotsky, Kamenev, Smilga and Muralov were traveling was attacked. The police fired, the crowd screamed, and someone hit the car. In Kharkov, shooting was opened during the dispersal of an opposition meeting. The opposition announced the “refusal of “links” (opposition meetings. - A.Sh.) under threat of physical reprisal against communists" 121.

Despite the fact that the opposition considered it possible for itself not to obey the decisions of the upcoming XV Congress, which was supposed to turn into a “narrow asset of the Stalinist faction” 122, the left continued to assert: “The opposition will not allow itself to be torn away from the CPSU and will not begin to organize a second party.” 123. But on November 14, Trotsky and Zinoviev were expelled from the party, and other oppositionists were removed from the Central Committee of the Central Control Commission.

The defeat of the opposition was completed at the XV Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) on December 2-19, 1927. The oppositionists were represented at the congress by several delegates with an advisory voice, who were subjected to a demonstrative ideological “flogging.” When Kamenev and Rakovsky spoke, they were constantly interrupted, not allowed to speak, insulted, and accused of betraying the party. Rykov and Tomsky demanded the arrest of the oppositionists. Kamenev spoke about reconciliation with the party, about complete submission to it, but not about renunciation of those views that were confirmed (as in the case of China). Instead they shouted at him: “What are you renouncing?” They needed abdication, humiliation of the opposition, regardless of whether it was right or wrong. Rakovsky reproached the majority for pandering to the world bourgeoisie, which seeks to “isolate us ideologically from the world proletariat.” In response they shouted: “Away with the Mensheviks from the rostrum!” 124

It was impossible to agitate the congress. The opposition was doomed to defeat because it could not imagine itself outside the party. According to Trotsky, after November 7, “the only concern of Zinoviev and his friends now became: to capitulate in a timely manner” 125. But the tasks of the Trotskyists were not yet very different. On December 10, the congress received separate messages from the Trotskyists (Rakovsky, Muralov and Radek) and the Zinovievites (Kamenev, Bakaev, Evdokimov and Avdeev). They were almost identical; they contained requests to preserve at least their views, subject to the dissolution of the factions. Stalin no longer believed such statements: “They say that the opposition intends to submit to the congress some kind of statement that it,

the opposition, submits and will obey all decisions of the party (voice: “The same as in October 1926?”), will dissolve its faction (voice: “We heard it twice!”) and will defend its views, from which it does not refuses (voices: “Oh.” “No, we’d better disband them ourselves!”), within the framework of the party charter. (Voices: “In agreement.” “Our framework is not rubber.”) I think, comrades, that nothing will come of this thing” 126.

The Bolsheviks were committed to the idea of military discipline in their party and considered the existing level of freedom of opinion to be quite sufficient. The opposition proposed expanding it to limits fraught with splits. The level of political culture of the Bolshevik leaders for the most part was not high; they did not yet feel the need for freedom of opinion. Later, after the major failures of 1930-1933, sad experience would teach authoritative leaders that decisions must first be discussed and then implemented. But the right to discuss will already be taken away. Even without discussion, the correctness of the oppositionists’ criticism of Stalin’s course will become obvious to many. But that will come later.

The XV Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) came to the conclusion that “the opposition has ideologically broken with Leninism, degenerated into a Menshevik group” 127, and expelled 75 leaders of the United Opposition and 15 “democratic centralists” from the party. On December 19, the Zinovievites asked to return, but the congress invited them to contact their party organizations individually. The oppositionists expelled from the party were sent into exile, like the Social Democrats of the early 20th century. January 16, 1928. Trotsky was expelled from Moscow to Alma-Ata. Prominent oppositionists no longer had the opportunity for legal action, and there were not many active Trotskyists left at large. The working class did not stand up for the left opposition - things did not go beyond simple interest in its opinion.

The opposition was defeated in the legal struggle. But she did not admit the defeat of her ideas, especially since many of them had already been adopted by the winners. The left opposition also retained some of its underground structures. Its activists, despite threats of arrest, continued to distribute leaflets, and on the eleventh anniversary of the October Revolution they again held demonstrations in several cities across the country. After the mass arrests of Trotskyists in Kyiv, the remaining comrades also staged a demonstration in front of the OGPU - the first demonstration of communism.

stov against the repressive bodies of the USSR. Trotsky sent hundreds of letters from exile to both exiles and comrades who remained free. He was preparing for new battles, having no doubt that the NEP crisis would force the party to accept his program.

Already at the XV Congress, the victors were forced to accept some of the proposals of the vanquished. It was decided to speed up the pace of industrialization and collectivization and intensify the offensive against the kulaks. The Congress instructed the planning authorities to proceed from “a faster rate of economic development than in capitalist countries” 128 . The center of gravity shifted to the area of production of means of production, rather than means of consumption. Rapid industrialization of agriculture was expected. All this required funds. Where to get them in conditions when the socio-economic crisis was growing? Something had to be done about this.

Trotsky’s attitude towards the “new opposition” was twofold: on the one hand, as a “high-ranking front of Zinoviev”, on the other, as an expression of the sentiments of the working masses. Subsequently, he assessed the reasons for the emergence of the “new opposition” and its rapprochement with the opposition of 1923: “The Leningrad communists were protected from the opposition of 1923 by the heavy cover of the Zinoviev apparatus. But now (in 1925 - V.R.) their turn came. The Leningrad workers were excited by the course towards kulaks and socialism in one country. The class protest of the workers coincided with Zinoviev's high-ranking front. This is how a new opposition arose... To the great surprise of everyone and especially of themselves, Zinoviev and Kamenev found themselves forced to repeat piecemeal the criticism of the opposition and were soon enrolled in the “Trotskyist” camp. It’s no wonder that in our midst the rapprochement with Zinoviev and Kamenev seemed, at least, a paradox.”

The gulf dug in the previous period by the Zinoviev group between itself and the “Trotskyists” turned out to be so great that it took almost six months after the XIV Congress for these groups to unite, realizing who posed the main threat to the party and the entire cause of socialist construction.

Many former oppositionists close to Trotsky opposed the bloc with the Zinovievites. There were even some among them - although there were not many of them - who advocated a bloc with Stalin against Kamenev and Zinoviev. They considered the latter, based on the experience of the previous internal party struggle, to be the most zealous “anti-Trotskyists.” One of Trotsky’s close friends, Mrachkovsky, spoke out against the bloc with both factions, saying: “Stalin will deceive, and Zinoviev will run away.”

“But in the end, questions of this kind,” wrote Trotsky, “are resolved not by psychological, but by political assessments. Zinoviev and Kamenev openly admitted that the “Trotskyists” were right in the struggle against them since 1923. They accepted the fundamentals of our platform. Under such conditions it was impossible not to conclude a bloc with them, especially since thousands of Leningrad revolutionary workers stood behind them.”

Trotsky had not met Kamenev outside of official meetings since the memorable night in March 1923, when they had a conversation about Lenin's last letters. At his first personal meeting with Trotsky at the beginning of 1926, Kamenev once again showed his political shortsightedness, declaring: “As soon as you and Zinoviev appear on the same podium, the party will find its real central committee.” “I could only laugh at this bureaucratic optimism,” Trotsky recalled. “Kamenev clearly underestimated the work of disintegrating the party that the “troika” had been doing for three years.”

Kamenev and Zinoviev were pushed towards rapprochement with Trotsky by the speed with which the Stalinist faction deprived them of leadership positions. In 1926, Zinoviev was removed from the post of chairman of the ECCI, this post itself was eliminated, and Bukharin actually became the leader of the Comintern. Kamenev was removed from the posts of chairman of the Moscow City Council, deputy chairman of the Council of People's Commissars and chairman of the STO, for a short time he was appointed people's commissar of domestic and foreign trade, and then sent as ambassador to Italy.

The rapprochement between Trotsky and the “new opposition” was first revealed at the April (1926) plenum of the Central Committee when discussing Rykov’s report on economic policy. By that time, the ruling faction did not have any clear plan for socialist transformations in the economy, nor clear views on the relationship between the development of industry and agriculture.

At the XIV Congress, Stalin said that agriculture “can move forward by leaps and bounds,” while the rate of development of industry after its restoration is completed will decrease sharply. When editing his report for publication, Stalin replaced the thesis about “by leaps and bounds” with a more elastic formulation that “agriculture, unlike industry, can move for a certain time at a rapid pace and with the current technical base.” Bukharin, in turn, stated “that we can build socialism even on this miserable technical basis...”.

The ruling faction’s extremely unclear idea of the specific paths, methods, and prospects for socialist construction was reflected in Rykov’s report at the April plenum. Pointing out the difficulties of the upcoming industrialization in “the most agrarian and backward country in Europe,” Rykov, based on Gosplan calculations, predicted a decrease in the growth of gross output in industry from 23 percent in the 1926/27 business year to 14.7 in 1929/30.

Trotsky made essentially a co-report at the April plenum, in which he criticized the underestimation by the majority of the Politburo of the task of more rapid development of industry. He proposed developing plans for more intensive industrialization of the country, providing for an increase in the volume of capital construction in the next five years to such an extent that would reduce the gap between industry and agriculture and thereby eliminate the “scissors” between the prices of industrial and agricultural goods. In this case, by about 1931, “a relative equilibrium could have been established between supply and demand for industrial products, subject to the steady continuation of the policy of price reductions.” Trotsky raised the question of the transition from annual plans to planning “major structures and works designed for a number of years... The annual plan should be considered as a certain part of the five-year long-term plan.”

Trotsky's amendments to the Politburo resolution on economic development were supported at the April plenum by Pyatakov, Kamenev and Zinoviev. The majority of the Central Committee rejected these amendments. Stalin stated that “Comrade. Trotsky is thinking of whipping up our central institutions with expanded plans, exaggerated plans for industrial construction.” In contrast to the “exaggerated plans,” Stalin in his speech several times returned to the idea of “the extremely minimum rate of industrial development that is necessary for the victory of socialist construction.” From this attitude grew subsequent accusations by Stalin, Bukharin and their allies of Trotsky of “over-industrialization”, “impatience”, “superhuman leaps”, etc.

The final formation of the “united” or left opposition took place at the next, July plenum of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission in 1926. The opposition bloc united a significant part of the old party guard. It included 7 out of 12 members of the Central Committee elected at the VII Party Congress, 10 out of 18 members of the Central Committee at the VIII Congress, 9 out of 16 members of the Central Committee at the IX Congress (not counting those who died by 1926).

But the “summation of forces” turned into their real weakening. Stalin and his allies, skillfully playing up the previous internecine strife between the two united currents of the party, presented the matter in such a way that the formation of their bloc occurred as a result of the transition of the Leningrad group to the position of “Trotskyism,” on the one hand, and Trotsky’s “amnesty” for the “capitulatory” position of Zinoviev and Kamenev, on the other. Constantly recalling the past philippics of the Zinoviev group against Trotsky and “Trotskyism,” Stalin and the Stalinists successfully undermined the authority of both movements in the eyes of party members.

This process unfolded especially actively in Leningrad. Later, at the XV Congress in December 1927, Kirov explained the departure from the opposition of a significant part of the Leningrad party organization, which in 1925 undividedly supported its leaders: “...One of the points that at one time helped this work was that nowhere Trotskyism was not so defeated... as in Leningrad... then suddenly the famous fraternization between Zinoviev and Trotsky took place. This step seemed to the Leningrad organization something completely magical..."

In the article “Response to the inquiries of comrades about the opposition” (September 1926), Trotsky noted that the Stalinist faction based its policy of splitting the party on the opposition of “Trotskyism” to Leninism and on the assertion that the Leningrad opposition had moved from the position of Leninism to the position of “Trotskyism.” Meanwhile, it is absolutely clear to every thinking member of the party that the purpose of such agitation is to divert attention from the real disagreements caused by the obvious slide of the Stalinist faction from the class line. Explaining the reason for the unification of the two opposition groups, Trotsky wrote: “Since 1923, the party has accumulated gigantic experience, and from this experience only those elements who automatically slide into the petty-bourgeois swamp have not learned... We united in defense of Leninism against its distorters, on the unconditional recognition of all instructions made in Lenin's will about each of us, for the deep meaning of these instructions was confirmed entirely by experience, by the unconditional implementation of the will, the meaning of which lies not only in the removal of Stalin from the post of General Secretary, but in the preservation of the entire leadership core formed under Lenin , and preventing the degeneration of the party leadership from Leninist to Stalinist."

At the July plenum, opposition leaders raised the issue of publishing Lenin’s “Testament” and implementing the advice it contained regarding Stalin. This question had some background. Continuing to use Lenin's name and authority in the factional struggle, Stalin at the beginning of 1926 led a campaign for the publication of Lenin's letters of 1917 criticizing Kamenev and Zinoviev. He inspired a statement submitted to the April (1926) plenum of the Central Committee by its ten members (Kaganovich, Kirov, Antipov, Zelensky and others) demanding that Lenin’s letter dated October 18, 1917, be sent to members of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission, where he characterized Kamenev’s article in newspaper "New Life" as a "treasonous" and "strikebreaking" act. At Rykov's suggestion, this statement was sent by the plenum of the Central Committee for consideration by the Politburo.

Immediately after this, the Politburo received three statements. Trotsky's statement emphasized the incorrectness of the separate use of some of Lenin's unpublished letters while keeping silent about others. In the changed political conditions, the selective publication of individual unpublished documents of Lenin, according to Trotsky, could arouse suspicion of a deliberate policy of compromise. To prevent anyone from misusing this or that part of Lenin’s political heritage, Trotsky proposed collecting all unknown or insufficiently known letters from Lenin and handing them over to all members of the Central Committee.

The statement by Zinoviev and Kamenev noted that the proposal to distribute Lenin’s 1917 letter represented an attempt to use it as a weapon in the internal party struggle. In this regard, they raised the question of Lenin’s other letters, in particular about the letters on the national question and the “Letter to the Congress,” which were familiarized only to the delegates of the XII and XIII Congresses, and even then only by ear. Therefore, these Leninist works are not known to some members and candidates of the current Central Committee in their original form. Zinoviev and Kamenev especially emphasized that Lenin was unable to carry out his proposal regarding Stalin only because he could no longer attend either the XII or XIII Party Congresses.

Finally, Krupskaya’s statement noted that the interest in Lenin’s letters was understandable, especially among some newly elected members of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission, who knew him little personally and were completely unfamiliar with his assessment of a number of comrades. Some members of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission may not even know about the existence of a number of unpublished letters from Lenin. Therefore, if you send them out, then all of them, “otherwise the mailing will be of a nature that would greatly outrage Vladimir Ilyich.” Krupskaya also emphasized that it was absolutely necessary to publish the “Testament.”

Stalin and Rykov responded to these statements with “Notes” sent to members of the Central Committee on April 24 and 27. Stalin wrote that at the XIII Congress Lenin’s will was carried out, since the congress discussed the “Testament” by delegation (although in reality there was no such discussion), that in the “Testament” Lenin put the October mistakes of Zinoviev and Kamenev “on the same level as the mistakes of Trotsky” (although the mention of Trotsky next to the remark about the “not an accident” of the “October episode” of Zinoviev and Kamenev was made by Lenin only in connection with his demand not to “blame Trotsky personally” for his “non-Bolshevism”). At the same time, Stalin said that if Krupskaya proposes to publish the “Testament,” then he can “only support Krupskaya’s demand for the publication of the document.”

By the time of the July plenum, copies of the “Testament” and Lenin’s letters on the national question were already quite widely distributed in the party, especially among the oppositionists. The party apparatus also wanted to clarify for itself what Lenin actually said in his last letters (“The Opposition knows, but we do not know”). After long resistance, Stalin was forced to read out these forbidden documents at a meeting of the plenum of the Central Committee and they ended up in a secret transcript that was printed for the top of the party apparatus.

The July Plenum decided to ask the XV Congress to cancel the resolution of the XIII Congress banning the publication of “Letters to the Congress” and then publish it in the Lenin Collection. Thus, Stalin received permission to conceal, at least temporarily, until the XV Congress, the “Testament” from the party, which was extremely necessary for him during the period of aggravation of the internal party struggle.

At the July plenum, thirteen opposition members of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission (Trotsky, Kamenev, Zinoviev, Krupskaya, Pyatakov, Evdokimov, Lashevich, Muralov and others) presented a “Statement”, which emphasized that “the immediate cause of the ever worsening crises in the party is bureaucracy, which grew monstrously in the period after Lenin’s death and continues to grow.” In development of this position, the document pointed out “the obvious and undoubted consequence of the dominance of the course, in which they speak only from above, and from below they listen and think to themselves, separately, under cover. Those who are dissatisfied, disagree or doubtful are afraid to raise their voices at party meetings. The party masses hear only the speech of the party leadership according to the same crib sheet. Mutual communication and trust in management weakens. At the meetings, officialdom reigns and the indifference inevitably associated with it. By the time of voting, a tiny minority often remains: meeting participants are in a hurry to leave so as not to be forced to vote for decisions dictated in advance. All resolutions everywhere and everywhere are adopted only “unanimously”. All this only affects the internal life of party organizations. Party members are afraid to openly express their most cherished thoughts, desires and demands.”

The “Statement of the 13” also drew attention to the fact that Lenin’s idea of the Central Control Commission as a body promoting the fight against bureaucracy and protecting the right of communists to freely express their opinions turned out to be grossly violated: “... the Central Control Commission itself became a purely administrative body that helps the clampdown on the part of other bureaucratic bodies, performing for them the most punitive part of the work, pursuing every independent thought in the party, every voice of criticism, every aloud expressed concern for the fate of the party, every critical remark about certain party leaders.”

Revealing the connection between the growing bureaucratization of the party, state and economic apparatus and the growing social stratification in the city and countryside, the “Statement” noted that “the state apparatus in its composition and standard of living is to an enormous extent bourgeois and petty-bourgeois and pulls away from the proletariat and the rural the poor, on the one hand - towards the settled intellectual, and on the other - towards the tenant, merchant, kulak, new bourgeois... Inept and sloppy tariff-setting work, which severely hits the worker, is in nine cases out of ten the direct result of bureaucratic inattention to the most elementary interests workers and production itself... The question of the so-called excesses of the top is entirely connected with the clampdown on criticism.”

Another point of disagreement that became extremely acute at the July plenum was related to the accusation that opposition leaders were “attempting to create a factional organization.” The reason for this was the fact of organizing a meeting in a forest near Moscow, at which Lashevich made a report criticizing the leadership of the Central Committee. The July Plenum approved the decision of the Presidium of the Central Control Commission to take harsh measures against the participants of this meeting. Zinoviev was expelled from the Politburo for “actually leading the factional struggle of the opposition.” Lashevich was expelled from the Central Committee (the first time point 7 of the resolution of the Tenth Congress “On Party Unity” was used), removed from the post of deputy chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council and deprived of the right to conduct responsible party work for two years. In 1928, Lashevich committed suicide.

In response to accusations of “factionalism,” the opposition, recalling the existence of the factional “seven” for two years, pointed out that a similar factional elite existed even after the XIV Congress. In Moscow, Leningrad, Kharkov and other large centers, secret factional meetings take place, organized by the majority of the Central Committee, despite the fact that almost the entire official apparatus is in the hands of this majority. “The assertion that the “majority” cannot be a faction is clearly meaningless,” the opposition’s “Statement” said. “The interpretation and application of the decisions of the congress should be carried out within the framework of normal party bodies, and not by pre-determining all issues by the ruling faction behind the scenes of normal institutions... This system inevitably narrows the leadership elite, lowers the authority of the leadership and thereby forces the replacement of ideological authority with a double and triple clamp.”

Developing these provisions in a letter addressed to comrades in the opposition, Trotsky wrote in September 1926 that the defeat, elimination and cutting off of the “united opposition” would lead to the subsequent removal from the leadership of “more authoritative and influential representatives of the currently ruling faction.” In this forecast, Trotsky proceeded from the fact that Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky cannot and are not capable of playing the role of unconditional executors of Stalin’s will, which is willingly performed by persons like Kaganovich, who do not have a significant revolutionary past and high authority in the party. Therefore, “cutting off the current opposition would mean the inevitable actual transformation of the remnants of the old group in the Central Committee into opposition. A new discussion would be in line, in which Kaganovich would denounce Rykov, Uglanov would denounce Tomsky, and the Slepkovs, Stans and Co. would debunk Bukharin.”

This forecast was largely justified in the coming years. The only thing Trotsky was wrong about was the names of the “accusers” of the next opposition. In reality, Uglanov, Slepkov, Stan and other supporters of Bukharin shared his fate, and the ranks of the “accusers” were joined by new 100% Stalinists such as Mekhlis, Pospelov and Mitin.

The July plenum of 1926 opened a campaign of persecution and persecution of the left opposition that continued for another year and a half.

Notes:

*More details about numerous examples of the Bolsheviks’ search for a difficult compromise based on the principle of tolerance towards “loyal” Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries can be found in E. Carr’s book “History of Soviet Russia. Book 1: Bolshevik Revolution. 1917 - 1923" (M., 1990. P. 146-152).

Questions of the history of the CPSU. 1990. No. 5. P. 37.

Lenin V.I. Complete. collection op. vol. 45. pp. 349, 350.

Communist opposition in the USSR. T. 2. P. 82, 83.

Questions of the history of the CPSU. 1990. No. 2. P. 105-107.

Communist opposition in the USSR. T. 2. pp. 11-22.

Communist opposition in the USSR. T. 2. P. 80.