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Humanitarian sciences in Siberia

2018 year, number

THE PERSONAL AFFAIR OF V.B. ELTSIN, A COMMUNIST (SEPTEMBER 1927-FEBRUARY 1928)

V.I. Shishkin
Institute of History SB RAS, 8, Nikolaeva str., Novosibirsk, 630090, Russian Federation
Keywords: V.B. Eltsin, Siberian party organization, Sibkraicom of AUCP(b), intraparty struggle, discussion, opposition, trotskyism, faction, control commission, political practices

Abstract

The aim of this paper is understanding political practices, which were used by the leadership of AUCP(b) in the struggle against intraparty opposition in the mid -1920s. The determination of institutes and “technologies” (instruments, mechanisms and methods), used by Stalin’s majority of the ruling Communist party against its opponents, will permit to get a more complete and objective idea about the state of the political sphere of the Soviet society of that time and the trends of its development, the political culture of different factions of the Bolshevik party, about the causes of the victory won by I.V. Stalin and his supporters over the opposition. The object of research is the Bolshevik-oppositionist Victor Eltsin, the subject of research is his political behavior and the arsenal of methods, used by the party leadership against him. Victor Eltsin was chosen as the subject and object of the research due to two reasons. Firstly, he was a son of B.M. Eltsin, who belonged to the thin layer of Bolsheviks, who were considered to be “the old party guard”; secondly, Victor Eltsin was a bright representative of a young generation of Bolsheviks, who had shown his worth during the revolution, the civil war and the first half of NEP, due to which he was known among the party elite and wide communist environment. The methodology is based on double reflection, where a retrospective research strategy of a biographical method is combined with the strategy of case study. The author of the article comes to the conclusion that three repressive measures were used against Eltsin: at the end of September of 1927 a temporary assignment by way of party discipline (in fact - an exile) from Moscow to Siberia; in the middle of November - the expulsion from the rows of AUCP(b) based on the charge in faction anti-party activity; in January of 1928 - an administrative exile to Ust-Vym of the autonomous region Komi (Zyrian). Since the autumn of 1927 the above mentioned repressive measures began to play a less important role in the arsenal of political practices, used by Stalin’s leadership of AUCP(b).