POLITICAL MARATHON FOR THE SURVIVAL OF PEOPLE AND IDEAS OR XVI CONFERENCE OF THE ALL-UNION COMMUNIST PARTY OF BOLSHEVIKS WITHOUT RETOUCHING AND POLISHING
M.A. Feldman
Ural Institute - a branch of the Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, 66, 8 Marta Str., Ekaterinburg, 620144, Russian Federation
Keywords: conference, plenum, party delegates, collectivization, kulaks, peasants, five-year plan, plan, crisis
Abstract
The question of the possibility of the Soviet society’s development on the “new economic policy” base in the historical literature of the early XXI century received mainly a negative answer: according to many authors’ views, there was no alternative to Stalin’s modernization in the USSR in the late 1920s. For example, the thesis of “delivering as one” of delegates of the XVI AUCP(b) conference remains until now, 90 years later. The paper objective is to reveal whether the postulate of the integrity of the XVI conference delegates is true; to find out who were participants of fierce internal party struggle during a year (April 1928 - April 1929); is there really no need to talk about any form of discussion at the conference, and as a consequence - how fair it is to claim that there were no alternatives to Stalin’s mobilization model? The article deals with the events of the XVI AUCP(b) conference in the general political context of the first months of 1929. Among delegates of the XVI AUCP(b) conference the most significant was the group of Communists who opposed the most unbridled initiatives of the Stalinists. The New Economic Policy (NEP)’s positive results developed some potential of social immunity from left-wing radical actions, and violence in the lives of some Soviet functionaries. It was those managers who tried to talk about acute social and economic problems; to preserve at least a “truncated” NEP. This group’s position was weakened by long-standing hatred of private capital, especially kulaks, but without applying the preventive repressive measures. Contrasting to four previous Plenums of the AUCP(b) Central Committee in spring 1928 - spring 1929, which divided the party elite into supporters of preserving a multi-layered economy (“resisting”), conformists, and those who actively supported Stalin’s line, the majority of delegates of the XVI AUCP(b) conference demonstrated both resistance to the course of continuous collectivization, and emphasized conformism, regularly voting for resolutions condemning the “right”.
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