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Between Right and Left: G. la. Sokolnikov and the Development of the Soviet State, 1921-1929

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Samuel A. Oppenheim
Samuel A. Oppenheim*
Affiliation:
Department of History, California State University, Stanislaus
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Extract

On 26 November 1921, Lenin sent a note to Viacheslav M. Molotov, for transmission to the Politburo, requesting that it appoint Gregorii Iakovlevich Sokolnikov a member of the Board of the People's Commissariat of Finance (PCF). The next day the Politburo approved this suggestion. Nikolai Krestinskii, the Left Communist who had served as people's commissar of finance since July 1918 and who oversaw the virtual dismantling of that ministry, had become the Soviet diplomatic representative in Germany. Although he would formally hold the title of people's commissar of finance until December 1922, Krestinskii had ceased to play a role in the PCF a year earlier. Sokolnikov quickly took over the ministry, especially after he became deputy commissar in January, at which time Lenin wrote Sokolnikov saying that he was “actually in charge of the most important people's commissariat.” Thus, although Sokolnikov officially became people's commissar of finance only in December 1922, he was de facto, if not de jure, in control from the beginning of 1922.

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Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 48 , Issue 4 , Winter 1989 , pp. 592 - 613
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1989

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References

I wish to thank California State University, Stanislaus, for a sabbatical that gave me time to complete the research and writing of this article and also the Mellon Foundation for a travel grant, administered by the Center for Slavic and East European Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, which permitted me to use the resources of the libraries at Berkeley and the Hoover Institution. Portions of this article appeared, in embryonic form, in my entry, "Sokolnikov, Grigorii Yakovlevich," Modern Encyclopedia of Russian and Soviet History, 50 vols, to date (Gulf Breeze, Fla.: Academic International, 1976-) 36:128-132.

1. Leninskii sbornik 36 (1959), 367; Lenin, , Collected Works, 45 vols. (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1960–1970) 42: 364, 45: 446 Google Scholar; Rigby, T. H., Lenin's Government: Sovnarkom, 1917–1922 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 139–140)Google Scholar. The emphasis is Lenin's.

2. Because he was eventually purged, Sokolnikov became a nonperson in Soviet historiography. Heis ignored in all editions of the Bol'shaia sovetskaia entsiklopediia and the Sovetskaia istoricheskaia enisiklopediia. His brief autobiography is in Sokolnikov, G.Ia., “Sokolnikov (Briliant), Grigorii Iakovlevich (avtobiografiia),” Entsiklopedicheskii slovar’ Granat 41, part 3: 73–88 Google Scholar. This work appears to be the onlyextant biographical information, but it offers some useful information. Of the 244 biographies and autobiographiesin the Granat section entitled “Deiateli SSSR i Oktiabr'skoi revoliutsii” in the three parts of volume 41, only three (those of Karl Radek, Lenin, and lu. lu. Markhlevskii) are as long as or longer thanthe eighteen columns Sokolnikov wrote about himself, covering the years to approximately 1927. Althoughmost scholars of the early period of Bolshevik rule mention Sokolnikov, no one has written even an articleabout his career. For a study of Sokolnikov's early career, which is awaiting publication, see my “A Bolshevikin Revolution: G.Ia. Sokolnikov, the Party and State, 1888–1921.” Trotskii's quote is in Deutscher, Isaac, The Prophet Armed: Trotsky, 1879–1921 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1954, 446–447 Google Scholar.In accordance with Mikhail Gorbachev's policy of relative historical glasnost, Sokolnikov is among the formerleaders who have been rehabilitated since 1987. Whether this will lead to the publication in the SovietUnion of significant historical work on him remains to be seen.

3. The Case of Leon Trotsky: Transcript of Proceedings in the Hearings of the Preliminary Commissionof Inquiry into the Charges Made against Leon Trotsky, Albert M. Glotzer, court reporter (New York: Harper, 1968; copyright 1937), 123; Carr, E. H., The Bolshevik Revolution, 1917–1923 (New York: Macmillan, 1951–1953) 2: 351 Google Scholar.

4. New York Times. 7 July 1922, 5.

5. Daniels, Robert V., The Conscience of the Revolution: Communist Opposition in Soviet Russia (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960), 291 Google Scholar and Fischer, Louis, Russia's Road from Peace to War: Soviet Foreign Relations, 1917–1941 (New York: Harper, 1969), 198 Google Scholar. Sokolnikov's wife, the well-knownwriter Galina Serebriakova (b. 1905), wrote a good deal of memoiristic material, including vignettes ofmany prominent people whom she had met and of her experience in England from 1929 to 1932, when herhusband was the Soviet ambassador, but she never mentions him in her works. (See, for instance, the 1968, 1971, and 1975 editions of her O drugikh i o sebe. The 1975 edition is part of Galina Serebriakova: izbrannyeproizvedeniia, 2 vols. [Moscow: Khudozhestvennaia literatura, 1975].) Even in a multivolume work, such as Dokumenty vneshnei politiki, the names of such prominent diplomats as Sokolnikov have been deletedfrom their dispatches ( Uldricks, Teddy J., Diplomacy and Ideology: The Origins of Soviet Foreign Relations, 1917–1930 [Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1979], 184, n. 8 Google Scholar). It should be pointed out that, althoughSokolnikov was the first resident official ambassador of the Soviet Union to the United Kingdom, there hadbeen earlier Soviet representatives at a lesser rank, including M. M. Litvinov (November 1917 to September1918), L. B. Krasin (1922 to 1923 and then 1925 to 1926), Kh. G. Rakovskii (1923 to 1925), and A. P.Rozengolts (1927); see Crowley, E. L., ed., The Soviet Diplomatic Corps, 1917–67 (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow, 1970), 37–38 Google Scholar.

6. Katsenellenbaum, S. S., Russian Currency and Banking, 1914–1924, translated from the Russian (London: P. S. King and Son, 1925), 2–3, 6, 8 Google Scholar.

7. Ibid., 49–54, 60, 69, 75.

8. Ibid., 52–54, 59, 69, 75; Galbraith, John Kenneth, Economics in Perspective: A Critical History (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987), 144 Google Scholar.

9. Nove, Alec, An Economic History of the U.S.S. ft. (London: Penguin, 1972), 68 Google Scholar.

10. Sokolnikov, G. la., Finansovaia politika revoliutsii, 3 vols. (Moscow: Finansovoe izdatel'stvo, 1925–1928) 1: 187 Google Scholar; New York Times, 5 July 1922, 3.

11. G. la. Sokolnikov, “Konfiskatsiia i nalog (starve i novye metody),” Pravda, 27 December 1921, in Sokolnikov, Finansovaia politika revoliutsii 1: 91.

12. Leninskii sbornik 23 (1933): 192–193. Other collections of his speeches and articles were published, some even after he was no longer in Narkomfin; they included Problemy finansovogo stroitel'stva (Moscow: Narkomfin, 1923), Denezhnaia reforma, 2 editions (Moscow: Narkomfin, 1925), and Finansovaiapolitika revoliutsii (Moscow: Narkomfin, 1925–1928).

13. Sokolnikov, G. la., Zadachifinansovoipolitiki, 2d. ed. (Moscow: Narkomfin, 1922, 6–7 Google Scholar; idem, “Tverdaia valiuta, tverdaia vlast’ i real'naia politika,” Sotsialisticheskoe khoziaistvo 5 (1924): 11; idem, Problemy finansovogo stroitel'stva, 8; idem, “Piat’ let finansovoi revoliutsii,” Ekonomicheskaia zhizn', 7 November 1922, reprinted in idem, Finansy posle oktiabria, 7; idem, Finansovaia politika revoliutsii 3: 134; idem, Gosudarstvennyi kapitalizm i novaia finansovaia politika, 3.

14. Sokolnikov, Gosudarstvennyi kapitalizm, 4ff.

15. Sokolnikov in Zadachifinansovoipolitiki, 8–10, 22, 29–30.

16. Odinnadtsatyi s “ezd RKP (b), mart-aprel’ 1922 goda; stenograficheskii otchel (Moscow, 1961), 296–314.

17. Ibid., 315–318, 361, 365, 486–488.

18. Sokolnikov, Finansovaia politika revoliutsii 1: 178–179, 170, 172, 181.

19. Ibid. 2: 133–156, 208, 241, 291.

20. Ibid. 1: 218, 215, 250ff.

21. Sokolnikov, “Sokolnikov, Grigorii Iakovlevich (Briliant) (avtobiografiia),” cols. 86–87.

22. Quoted in Ulam, Adam B., Expansion and Coexistence: Soviet Foreign Policy, 1917–73, 2nd. ed. (New York: Praeger, 1974 Google Scholar; Sokolnikov, , Finansovaiapolitika revoliutsii 1: 182, 275–276.Google Scholar

23. Lenin, Collected Works, 45: 445–446. Emphasis in the original.

24. Ibid., 427, 450, 712; Rigby, Lenin's Government, 139–40. A few months later Trotskii complainedabout the arrangement (Lenin, Collected Works, 33: 355). Krasnoshchekov (1880–1937) subsequentlybecame chairman of the Industrial Bank (Prombank), member of the presidium of the Supreme EconomicCouncil, and an official in the agricultural commissariat. His reported death in 1937 indicates that hewas probably a victim of the purges (see The Great Soviet Encyclopedia [a translation of the third edition ofBol'shaia sovetskaia entsiklopediia] 13: 482).

25. Practically complete runs of this publication are available in diverse places, such as the New YorkPublic Library and the University of California, Berkeley. To date I have been unable to come up with specificfigures on the number of personnel in PCF from 1918 to 1926.

26. Katsenellenbaum, Russian Currency and Banking, 149–152.

27. Sokolnikov, G. la., K voprosu o natsionalizatsii bankov (Moscow: Volna, 1918) 6, 9–13, 30 Google Scholar.

28. Sokolnikov, Gosudarstvennyi kapitalizm i novaia finansovaia politika, 13, 30–31.

29. See, for instance, speeches and articles in Sokolnikov, Finansovaia politika revoliutsii 2: 44 and3: 150, and Denezhnaia reforma, 2d ed. (Moscow: Narkomfin, 1925), 148, 151, 163, (hereafter cited asDenezhnaia reformal2)\ Trel'iis “ezd sovetov SSR (Moscow: Izdanie TsIK, 1925), 442.

30. Katsenellenbaum, Russian Currency and Banking, 154, 161, 183–90, 192–193.

31. G. la. Sokolnikov, “Problemy finansirovaniia promyshlennosti,” Planovoe khoziaistvo, no. 3 (1927), in Sokolnikov, Finansovaia politika revoliutsii 3: 120.

32. Katsenellenbaum, Russian Currency and Banking, 59; G. la. Sokolnikov, “Denezhnaia reforma1924 g.,” Finansy i narodnoe khoziaistvo, no. 15/23 (1927), in Sokolnikov, Finansovaia politika revoliutsii 3: 281.

33. Sokolnikov, Finansovaiapolitika revoliutsii I: 191, 161; Probtemy finansovogo stroitel'stva, 29.

34. Sokolnikov, G. la., Reforma prodnatoga (Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel'stvo, 1923), 33 Google Scholar; Carr, E. H., The Interregnum, 1923–24 (New York: Macmillan, 1954), 36 Google Scholar; Sokolnikov, Finansovaia politikarevoliutsii 1: 190, 256, and 111: 266; Sokolnikov, Denezhnaia reformat, 110–112.

35. Katsenellenbaum, Russian Currency and Banking, 11, quoted in Dobb, Maurice, Soviet EconomicDevelopment since 1917 (New York: International, 1966; originally published in 1928), 122 Google Scholar.

36. Sokolnikov, Gosudarstvennyi kapitalizm i novaia finansovaia politika, 14–15; “Tverdaia valiuta, “6; Denezhnaia reforma/2, 84–86, 88–89; Zadachi finansovoi politiki, 11–12.

37. Sokolnikov, Problemyfinansovogo stroitel'stva, 17; Finansovaiapolitika revoliutsii 3: 321.

38. Katsenellenbaum, Russian Currency and Banking, 101 ff.

39. Sokolnikov, Denezhnaia reforma/2, 27; Problemy finansovogo stroitel'stva, 54; Finansovaia politikarevoliutsii, 3: 58 and 2: 258–259.

40. Sokolnikov, Denezhnaia reforma/2, 10–11; Finansovaia politika revoliutsii 2: 19–20 and 3: 282.

41. Katsenellenbaum, Russian Currency and Banking, 142–143; Sokolnikov, Denezhnaia reforma/2, 81–82; Dobb, Soviet Economic Development (1928 edition), 252–253.

42. For attacks on Strumilin and Krasin see Sokolnikov, Denezhnaia reforma/2, 31–36, 97–104. Forthe quotation on storming, see ibid., 88, and, for the achievements of currency reform, see ibid., 30–31, 77, 83–84, 115, 168.

43. Sokolnikov, Denezhnaia reforma/2, 154; Finansovaiapolitika revoliutsii 1: 267 and 3: 144–147.

44. Leninskii sbornik 36 (1959): 407; Sokolnikov, Finansovaia politika revoliutsii 3: 336; Sokolnikov, Problemyfinansovogo stroitel'stva, 19; G. la. Sokolnikov, “Chervonets i razvitie denezhnogo khoziaistva, “in Denezhnaia reforma/2, 74–75.

45. Sokolnikov, Finansovaia politika revoliutsii 2: 5–10; Problemy finansovogo stroitel'stva, 3–10.

46. Sokolnikov, Finansovaia politika revoliutsii 3: 340, 262, 290; Denezhnaia reforma/2, 145–146.For slightly different figures on gold extraction given by Sokolnikov see Tret'ii s “ezd sovetov SSSR, 449, andSokolnikov, Denezhnaia reforma/2, 144. One pud equals slightly more than thirty-six pounds.

47. Sokolnikov, Denezhnaia reforma/2 17–18; Granat, col. 87; Finansovaia politika revoliutsii3: 168, 170; Gosudarstvennyi kapitalizm i novaia finansovaia politika 18–19; Finansovaia politika revoliutsii1: 188.

48. Dvenadlsatyi s “ezd RKP (b), 17–25 aprelia 1923 goda: stenograficheskii otchet (Moscow: Gospolitizdat, 1923), 427–428; Sokolnikov, Reforma prodnaloga, 14–20; Finansovaia politika revoliutsii2: 132.

49. Dvenadlsatyi s “ezd RKP (b), 424; Sokolnikov, Finansovaia politika revoliutsii 2: 179 and 3: 169;Tret'ii s “ezd sovetov SSSR, 432–433. For a resolution embodying these ideas, see Vtoroi s “ezd SSSR: rezoliutsii (Moscow: Izdanie TsIK, 1924), 12–15.

50. Odinnadtsatyi s “ezd RKP (b), 305; Sokolnikov, “Tverdaia valiuta,” 14 and Finansovaia politikarevoliutsii, 167 and 3: 229.

51. Sokolnikov, Zadaehifinansovoi politiki, 20–21.

52. Sokolnikov, Finansovaiapolitika revoliutsii 1: 163. 269ff and 3: 242–243.

53. Tret'ii s “ezd sovetov SSSR, 434; Sokolnikov, “Tverdaia valiuta,” 12–13, 16.

54. Lenin, Collected Works 45: 446.

55. Sokolnikov, Finansovaia politika revoliutsii 1: 180 and 3: 218; Denezhnaia reformaH, 38.

56. Sokolnikov, Finansovaia politika revoliutsii 3: 228 and 2: 133, 136; Odinnadtsatyi s “ezd RKP (b), 303–305; Sokolnikov, “Tverdaia valiuta,” 16; Sokolnikov, Denezhnaia reforma/2, 40; Sokolnikov, G. la, ed., Soviet Policy in Public Finance, 1917–1928 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1931), 423 Google Scholar. For somewhat different figures see Sokolnikov, Soviet Policy in Public Finance, 401, and Tret'ii s “ezd sovetovSSSR, 425.

57. Sokolnikov, Finansovaia politika revoliutsii 1: 164, 185 and 3: 107–108; Denezhnaia reforma/2, 15–16; Zadachifinansovoi politiki, 16–18.

58. Sokolnikov, Finansovaia politika revoliutsii 2: 37, 40, 50.

59. Sokolnikov: Denezhnaia reformaH, 39, 107 and Finansovaia politika revoliutsii 1: 184 and3: 164–65.

60. Lenin, Collected Works 45: 446, 497.

61. The Case of Leon Trotsky, 123; Armand Hammer, Hammer (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1987), 157–158; Nove, Economic History, 92, 128.

62. See, for instance, Pravda and Ekonomicheskaia gazeta, 1 December 1925; Sokolnikov, Denezhnaiareforma/2, 48; Sokolnikov, Finansovaia politika revoliulsii 3: 129, 144, 320, 323.

63. Sokolnikov, Gosudarstvennyi kapitalizm i novaiafinansovaiapolitika, 3, 4, 9; Zadachifinansovoipolitiki, 27; Finansovaia politika revoliutsii, 1: 87 and 3: 105; and Denezhnaia reforma/2, 135.

64. Sokolnikov, Gosudarstvennyi kapitalizm i novaia finansovaia politika, 21 and Finansovaia politikarevoliutsii, 1: 263; Dvenadtsatyi s “ezd RKP (b), 422.

65. Sokolnikov, Finansovaia politika revoliutsii 1: 170, 245 and 2: 183–184.

66. See, for instance, Genkina, E., Lenin, predsedatel’ sovnarkoma i STO; iz istorii gosudarstvennoideiatel'nosti V.I. Lenin v 1921–1922 godakh (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo an SSSR, 1960)Google Scholar. The Pravda article isin Sokolnikov, Finansovaia politika revoliutsii 1: 290–292.

67. Sokolnikov, Zadachi finansovoi politiki. 28 and Gosudarstvennyi kapitalizm i novaia finansovaiapolitika, 25–26; Odinnadtsatyi s “ezd … . 313–314; Lenin, Collected Works 33: 375–376, 528–529n!15.

68. Lenin, Collected Works 33: 522–523 n58 and 35: 549–550; Odinnadtsatyi s “ezd, 26, 311, 765–766 n8; Sokolnikov, Gosudarstvennyi kapitalizm i novaia finansovaia politika, 6–8; Sokolnikov, Zadachifinansovoi politiki, 25–26; Sokolnikov, Finansovaia politika revoliutsii 1: 85.

69. Herbert Hoover, An American Epic: Famine in Forty-Five Nations. Vol. III: The Battle on the Front Line, 1914–1923 (Chicago, 1961), 478; Lenin, Collected Works 45: 490, 496–497, 500, 723–724 n600, 726 n608.

70. Sokolnikov, Finansovaia politika revoliutsii 1: 72, 164.

71. Odinnadtsatyi s “ezd, 305–308; Sokolnikov, Denezhnaia reforma/2, 137–140; Sokolnikov, Finansovaiapolitika revoliutsii 3: 272–274.

72. Sokolnikov, Finansovaia politika revoliutsii 3: 10, 22, 227; Trel'ii s “ezd sovetov SSSR, 474.

73. Sokolnikov, Finansovaia politika revoliutsii 1: 183, 197 and 3: 37; Reforma prodnaloga, 5–10;Dvenadtsatyi s “ezd, 421; Sokolnikov, Denezhnaia reforma/2, 16.

74. Pravda, 24 September 1925; Tret'ii s “ezd sovetov SSSR, 439; Sokolnikov, “Tverdaia valiuta,” 12;Dvenadtsatyi s “ezd, 425; Sokolnikov, Reforma prodnaloga, 7–8 and Denezhnaia reformal2, 133.

75. Sokolnikov, Finansovaia politika revoliulsii 3: 24, 167, 229 and Denezhnaia reforma/2, 128.

76. Protokoly tsentral'nogo komiteta RSDRP, avgust 1917-fevral’ 1918 (Moscow: Gospolitizdat, 1958), 292. For a list of members of the Central Committee, Politburo, and Orgburo chosen at these partycongresses, see Daniels, Conscience of the Revolution, appendix 2: 422–432.

77. Daniels, Conscience of the Revolution, 225; Za Leninizm (Moscow-Leningrad, 1925), 157–167.

78. Lenin, Collected Works 44: 340. Unfortunately, the sources do not mention the positions inquestion.

79. Sokolnikov, Granat, col. 87; Daniels, Conscience of the Revolution, 255; Bettelheim, Charles, Class Struggles in the USSR: Second Phase, 1923–1930 (Sussex: Harvester, 1978), 370 Google Scholar.

80. Chetyrnadtsatyi s “ezd vsesoiuznoi kommunisticheskoi parlii (b); stenograficheskii otchet (Moscow-Leningrad: Gosizdat, 1926), 323–336.

81. Pravda, 24 September 1925; Sokolnikov, Finansovaia politika revoliutsii 3: 14, 34–35, 217.

82. Sokolnikov, Finansovaia politika revoliutsii 3: 69–70, 86–87, 90–92, 293–294, 324.

83. Piatnadtsatyi s “ezd VKP (b), dekabr’ 1927 goda; stenograficheskii otchet (Moscow: Gospolitizdat, 1961–1962) 1128–1129, 1133, 1135. Indeed, as late as in a work appearing in 1931 Sokolnikov said that “whether it is possible actually to have a fixed and complete ‘united plan’ … is a problem which must as yetbe considered as unresolved” (see Sokolnikov, ed., Soviet Policy in Public Finance, 346).

84. New York Times, 2 March 1929, 6.

85. Daniels, Conscience of the Revolution, 332; Stephen Cohen, “Bukharin-Kamenev Meeting, 1928,” Dissent (Winter 1979): 78–88.

86. Quoted in Lewin, Moshe, Russian Peasants and Soviet Power: A Study of Collectivization (NewYork: Norton, 1975), 306 Google Scholar.