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Historical Materialism #90
Alexander Shlyapnikov, 1885–1937: Life of an Old Bolshevik
In Alexander Shlyapnikov, 1885-1937: Life of an Old Bolshevik , Barbara Allen recounts the political formation and positions of Russian Communist and trade unionist, Alexander Shlyapnikov. As leader of the Workers' Opposition (1919-21), Shlyapnikov called for trade unions to realise workers' mastery over the economy. Despite defeat, he continued to advocate distinct views on the Soviet socialist project that provide a counterpoint to Stalin's vision. Arrested during the Great Terror, he refused to confess to charges he thought illogical and unsupported by evidence. Unlike the standard historical and literary depiction of the Old Bolshevik, Shlyapnikov contested Stalin's and the NKVD's construct of the ideal party member. Allen conducted extensive research in archives of the Soviet Communist party and secret police.
Listen to SRB Podcast's episode on Alexander An Old Working Class Bolshevik featuring Barbara Allen.
Listen to SRB Podcast's episode on Alexander An Old Working Class Bolshevik featuring Barbara Allen.
440 pages, Hardcover
First published January 15, 2015
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About the author
Barbara C. Allen
4 books31 followersHaving grown up in rural North Carolina, I earned a B.A. in Modern European history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where I also studied Russian language and literature. My Ph.D. is in Russian and Soviet History from Indiana University Bloomington, where I studied with Alexander Rabinowitch. I have carried out archival research in Russia, Ukraine, and the United States. I teach at La Salle University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
March 18, 2018
An extremely scholarly but readable biography of a sadly underrepresented figure in histories of the Russian Revolution. Through telling Shlyapnikov’s impressive life story, Allen illuminates many of the important debates within the Russian Left before, during and after the Revolution, in the process complicating many of the cliches the various segments of the Left fall into in their interpretations of Bolshevik history.
January 7, 2024
Shylipanikov's is an important story that mirrors the broader rise and fall of the independently organised radical socialist working class in Russia.
This book is erudite and very readable. If you want you could read it in an hour as it is organised with chapters that have concise conclusions.
This book is erudite and very readable. If you want you could read it in an hour as it is organised with chapters that have concise conclusions.
September 5, 2015
Shlyapnikov, a metal worker, became a Bolshevik due to his uncompromising commitment to the workers' cause. This book tells a story of how this particular commitment, which made him an effective revolutionary, was utilized by a constantly bureaucratizing Soviet regime in order to make Shlyapnikov advance anti-workers' policies. Still, his attempts to struggle for the status of workers within the new regime made him suspicious in the eyes of the Stalinist authorities and, like many other old Bolsheviks, no matter how willing to compromise with the regime, He was executed in 1937. Committed revolutionaries were not wanted in bureaucratized Stalinist Soviet Union.
While the book is mostly a biography of this one man, it is also an interesting attempt to analyze how a struggle for workers' social, political, and economic equality might be utilized by a political regime establishing not an equal, but an unequal society, which is unequal in ways different than previously.
While the book is mostly a biography of this one man, it is also an interesting attempt to analyze how a struggle for workers' social, political, and economic equality might be utilized by a political regime establishing not an equal, but an unequal society, which is unequal in ways different than previously.
May 16, 2017
Fascinating look at a Russian revolutionary often forgotten amidst the Lenins & Trotskys & Stalins & Kamenevs. There was much to be admired in Alexander Shlyapnikov, his principled insistence on worker democracy as central to the RSDLP(B) platform, even as he slowly lost the battles against the intellectuals whose names are now much better known.
If you've an interest in the period, especially of the Russian Revolutions of 1917 & the Civil War, an absolutely worthy read.
If you've an interest in the period, especially of the Russian Revolutions of 1917 & the Civil War, an absolutely worthy read.
June 14, 2023
This is a biography of a revolutionary
hero who rose from nothing to become a close associate of Lenin and one of Stalin’s millions of victims. Alexander Shlyapnikov was one of the leaders of the Bolshevik underground during World War I. He was a skilled metal worker and unionist. He was the Commissar of Labor in the first Soviet government and was labeled as head of the Workers Opposition by Lenin. His dogged campaign in the Communist Party for a purge of non-proletarian elements and for freer expression of opinions in the party was very clever and he somehow was able to stay in the party that had put the lid on opposition. A campanion volume is now available bi the same author. It is a trove of primary documents in which Shlyapnikov speaks for himself. The Workers Opposition in the Russian Communist Party.
hero who rose from nothing to become a close associate of Lenin and one of Stalin’s millions of victims. Alexander Shlyapnikov was one of the leaders of the Bolshevik underground during World War I. He was a skilled metal worker and unionist. He was the Commissar of Labor in the first Soviet government and was labeled as head of the Workers Opposition by Lenin. His dogged campaign in the Communist Party for a purge of non-proletarian elements and for freer expression of opinions in the party was very clever and he somehow was able to stay in the party that had put the lid on opposition. A campanion volume is now available bi the same author. It is a trove of primary documents in which Shlyapnikov speaks for himself. The Workers Opposition in the Russian Communist Party.
August 25, 2024
This is an interesting study which leaves me feeling unsatisfied at various points while being fascinated at other times.
Allen explains well the politics of the ‘Workers Opposition’ of which Shlyapnikov was a leading member and the alternative posed by them to other policies advocated by the Russian Communist Party (B) in the early 1920’s – in essence, workers control of the economy and state via trade unions.
Shlyapnikov’s formative political life as a worker exile who worked as a skilled engineer in Western Europe and was active in Western trades unions. His role as a key Bolshevik organiser in the exile community is somewhat skipped over.
The methods by which the NKVD sought to break and to frame Shlyapnikov in the Purge and Terror of the 1930’s is also enlightening.
The book is weaker in terms of cohesiveness. It has the look of several works spliced together and the first section on aspects of Shlyapnikov’s early life, the role of the Old Believer religion and some elements of his exile and affair with Alexandra Kollontai have the look of an undergraduate thesis – the writing is quite poor – and should have been revised and re-written.
There’s a problem with historical biography which Allen falls into which is too little detail on the political context within which the subject of the biography evolved. Given that this would be the breadth of Russian history from 1890-1935 I appreciate that the book would expand considerably. That means that any reader not in possession of quite a detailed knowledge or understanding of the period and of issues and personalities would wonder what was going on. That’s also a problem because this book is published as part of the Historical Materialism series but I struggled to spot much in the way of that methodology in the work.
That said, as someone who is interested in the minutiae of the period and particularly in oppositional forms of Bolshevism, I enjoyed the book.
Allen explains well the politics of the ‘Workers Opposition’ of which Shlyapnikov was a leading member and the alternative posed by them to other policies advocated by the Russian Communist Party (B) in the early 1920’s – in essence, workers control of the economy and state via trade unions.
Shlyapnikov’s formative political life as a worker exile who worked as a skilled engineer in Western Europe and was active in Western trades unions. His role as a key Bolshevik organiser in the exile community is somewhat skipped over.
The methods by which the NKVD sought to break and to frame Shlyapnikov in the Purge and Terror of the 1930’s is also enlightening.
The book is weaker in terms of cohesiveness. It has the look of several works spliced together and the first section on aspects of Shlyapnikov’s early life, the role of the Old Believer religion and some elements of his exile and affair with Alexandra Kollontai have the look of an undergraduate thesis – the writing is quite poor – and should have been revised and re-written.
There’s a problem with historical biography which Allen falls into which is too little detail on the political context within which the subject of the biography evolved. Given that this would be the breadth of Russian history from 1890-1935 I appreciate that the book would expand considerably. That means that any reader not in possession of quite a detailed knowledge or understanding of the period and of issues and personalities would wonder what was going on. That’s also a problem because this book is published as part of the Historical Materialism series but I struggled to spot much in the way of that methodology in the work.
That said, as someone who is interested in the minutiae of the period and particularly in oppositional forms of Bolshevism, I enjoyed the book.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews