Bolsheviks Against Stalinism

by V.Z. Rogovin

"This book was published by Vadim Rogovin in Moscow in the fall of 1993, slightly less than two years after the Soviet Union had been dissolved. It is the second volume of what would become a seven-volume study of the struggle of the Left Opposition led by Leon Trotsky, both inside the Soviet Union and abroad, as it fought the Stalinist degeneration of the workers' state established after the October Revolution in 1917. The first volume raises the question: "Was There an Alternative to Stalinism?" It studies the rise of the Left Opposition led by Leon Trotsky in 1923, and ends with the expulsion of Trotsky and his supporters at the Fifteenth Party Congress in 1927. The succeeding volumes examine the history of the resistance to Stalinism up through Trotsky's assassination in August 1940 and the outbreak of World War II. The period under consideration in this book was a time when new oppositions composed of former Bukharinists and Stalinists arrived at "Trotskyist" ideas. This process concluded in 1932 with an attempt to unite the old and new oppositional groups inside the party. This book attempts to trace the history of the inner-party struggles of 1928-1933, comparing the following fundamental types of sources: official "party documents" (decisions of congresses and plenums of the Central Committee, the speeches of Stalin and his accomplices, Stalinist propaganda); memoirs of the participants in political life of those years; Soviet archival material that exposes im- portant aspects of historical events hidden from contemporaries; and oppositional docu- ments, a large portion of which are unknown to the Soviet reader."--

Genres: History

Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 1993

Reviews

[Carolyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

An enormous masterpiece of historical research and writing about the opposition to Stalin within the Soviet Union. Contrary to those who continue to promulgate the false narrative that the only possible outcome of the Russian Revolution was Stalinist repression and dictatorship, Vadim Rogovin provides the evidence that there were a number of movements against Stalin, particularly in the years 1928-1933 (the year Hitler came to power in Germany). The most well-known was the Left Opposition, led by Leon Trotsky, whose publication Bulletin of the Opposition, was published first in Berlin and then in Paris. But there were others, many unknown to me previously, like the Riutin Group.

Rogovin details how Stalin's reckless and ego-driven programs of forced collectivization in agriculture, and unrealistic demands on industrial production--at the expense of the proletariat--contributed to the opposition movements. Also described is the deadly result of Stalin's notion of "social fascism" directed against any collaboration with social democracy in Germany to stop the rise of Hitler.

This history deserves as wide an audience as possible to correct the lies and falsifications about this period in the USSR--both the falsifications of the capitalist governments of the west AND the falsifications by Stalin himself in his attempt to cast himself as the infallible heir to Lenin, and his unremitting war against Trotsky, ending in the show trials of 1936-37 and the murder of Trotsky in Mexico in 1940.

It is my opinion that this history must be made known widely and taught in schools in order to counteract the false and prejudiced history about the Soviet Union that has until now held reign.

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very important book.

[Denis Knezovic · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amid the ever-growing crises of capitalism, many people are yearning for an alternative to it. When we ask ourselves whether such an alternative exists, the question that always arises is if there was an alternative to brutal Stalinism in the Soviet Union. In this book, Mr. Rogovin really shines a light on especially the most principled of groups standing against Stalinism, the Left Opposition led by Leon Trotsky. In this masterpiece, Rogovin also looks at other Marxist oppositions within the USSR and makes clear that principled Bolsheviks opposed Stalinist tyranny. Neither the bureaucratic cliques that ruled the Soviet Union from Lenin's death to the restoration of capitalism nor the Stalinist satellite states in Eastern Europe and parts of Asia had much in common with actual Marxist ideology. That is why Rogovin states that any future Marxists will need to deal with the legacy of Stalinism. For that task, this book is an indispensable tool. Five stars!