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Party Genealogy and the Soviet Historians (1920–1938)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Jonathan Frankel*
Affiliation:
Hebrew University, Jerusalem

Extract

To map out a convincing genealogy of the Russian revolutionary Marxist movement (and, from 1903, of its Bolshevik wing) was always a concern of its leaders. Revolutionary Marxism made its Russian debut with Plekhanov's booklet Socialism and the Political Struggle only in 1883, some thirty-five years after the Communist Manifesto and almost sixty years after the Decembrist uprising. It was thus a latecomer both to European Marxism and to the Russian revolutionary movement. How was it to define its own relationship to these forerunners? To emphasize only the Marxist heritage meant to isolate the young movement from the formidable tradition of revolt already built up in Russia. But to identify the emergent Marxist movement too fully with this tradition would undermine its claim to be possessed of a new message, to be the prophet of a new age.

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Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1966

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References

1 Plekhanov's introduction to A., Tun, lstoriia revoliutsionnykh dvizhenii v Rossii (Geneva, 1903), pp. xiv–xxiiGoogle Scholar.

2 Plekhanov, Georgii V., V. G. Belinskii (Moscow and St. Petersburg, 1903), p. 30 Google Scholar; “N. G. Chernyshevskii,” Sotsial-Demokrat, No. 4 (Geneva, 1892), p . 193.

3 Plekhanov, , “N. G. Chernyshevskii,” Sotsial-Demokrat, No. 2 (Geneva, 1890), pp. 141–42 Google Scholar; see also Plekhanov, , Nashi raznoglasiia (Geneva, 1885), p. 61 Google Scholar.

4 See, for example, Plekhanov, , Sotsializm i politicheskaia bor'ba (St. Petersburg, 1906), p. 3 (1st ed., Geneva, 1883)Google Scholar; and his “Neudachnaia istoriia partii ‘Narodnoi Voli'” (1913?), in Sochineniia (Moscow, 1923-27), XXIV, 130-60.

5 Plekhanov, “Eshche raz sotsializm i politicheskaia bor'ba,” Zaria, No. l (Stuttgart, 1901), pp. 3-4.

6 Plekhanov, “O sotsial'noi demokratii v Rossii” (first published in 1893), in Tun, p. 275.

7 Plekhanov, , “Russkii rabochii v revoliutsionnom dvizheniiSotsial-Demokrat, No. 4 (1892), p. 59 Google Scholar. See also Nashi raznoglasiia, pp. 305-6.

8 Plekhanov wavered here, sometimes giving the Narodnaia volia credit for having driven “our revolutionaries to try to found a real party,” sometimes arguing that “from this angle, too, the inheritance—in the form of ideas—left by them [the Narodovol'tsy] to us, Social Democrats, was paltry in the extreme“; see Sotsializm i politischeskaia bor'ba (1906 ed.), p. 56; and the introduction to Tun, pp. li-lii.

9 Lenin, writing in 1902, divided Russian Social Democratic (as distinct from Russian revolutionary) history into the three periods 1884-94, 1894-98, and 1898-1902 (N. Lenin, Chto delat'f [Stuttgart, 1902], p . 138).

10 Lenin, “Ot kakogo nasledstva my otkazyvaemsia?” (1898), in Polnoe sobranie sochinenii (Moscow, 1960- ), II, 507-50. Lenin made this point in reply to Mikhailovskii, who had written that the Russian Marxists “do not want an unbroken link with the past and decisively reject the heritage” ( N. K., Mikhailovskii, “Literatura i zhizn'Russkoe bogatstvo, No. 10, 1897, p. 179 Google Scholar). This was, it would seem, the opening chapter in the “heritage” debate.

11 See, for example, Lenin, Chto delat'? pp. 102-3.

12 Ibid., p. 80.

13 Lenin, , “Chto takoe ‘druz'ia naroda'” (1894), in Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, I, 262–65Google Scholar; “Ekonomicheskoe soderzhanie narodnichestva i kritika ego v knige g. Struve” (1894), ibid., 413-14.

14 For his explanation of this periodization, see “Iz proshlogo rabochei pechati v Rossii“ (1914), ibid., XXV, 93-96.

15 “Pamiati Gertsena” (1912), ibid., XXI, 255-61.

16 “Chto takoe ‘druz'ia naroda,’ “ ibid., I, 289-92.

17 “Pis'mo k 1.1. Skvortsovu-Stepanovu” (1909), ibid., XLVII, 228-29.

18 “The development of our revolutionary thought is an organic process in which one aspect is naturally linked to the others and in which each given stage emerges logically from that preceding it” (Iu. Nevzorov [pseudonym of Nakhamkis, who also used the pseudonym Steklov], Otkazyvaemsia-li my ot nasledstva? [Geneva, 1902], p. 2).

19 Ibid., pp. 23-74. Plekhanov replied in his introduction to Tun, pp. xiv-xxii, li-liii.

20 Akimov, V. (pseud. of Makhnovets), Ocherk razvitiia sotsialdemokratii v Rossii (St. Petersburg, 1906), p. 157 Google Scholar (first published in Geneva in 1905).

21 P. V. Aksel'rod, “Ob“edinenie rossiiskoi sotsialdemokratii i ee zadachi,” Iskra, No. 55 (1903), pp. 2-5; No. 57 (1904), pp. 2-4; “K voprosu ob istochnike i znachenii nashikh organizatsionnykh raznoglasii,” ibid., No. 68 (1904), pp. 2-3; Plekhanov, “Tsentralizm ili bonapartizm,“ ibid., No. 65 (1904), pp. 2-4.

22 Potresov was from the first critical of the article on the heritage (“Ot kakogo nasledstva my otkazyvaemsia?“) which Lenin had written in 1897. He felt that Lenin, in choosing the tepid figure of Skaldin as representative of the 1860s, had turned his back on the great inheritance left by Chernyshevskii and Dobroliubov (see Lenin's letter to Potresov, Jan. 26, 1899, in Leninskii sbornik [Moscow, 1925], IV, 13-14). Potresov first expressed doubts about Lenin's sociology of history in 1901, but it was only in 1905 that he launched a full-scale attack on both Lenin's historiographical and sociological conceptions (Starover [pseud. of A. I. Potresov], “Chto sluchilos'?” Zaria, No. 1 [1901], pp. 50-74; “Nashi zlokliucheniia,” Iskra, No. 98 [1905], pp. 3-4).

23 “A multifarious conglomeration of bourgeois and of deracinated, declassed elements“ (“Nashi zlokliucheniia,” p. 4).

24 See, for example, Lenin, Shag vpered, dva shaga nazad (Geneva, 1904), pp. 140-42.

25 N. N. Baturin (pseud. of Zamiatin), Ocherki istorii sotsial-demokratii v Rossii (Moscow, 1906; republished in his Sochineniia [Moscow and Leningrad, 1930], pp. 43-143).

26 On Pokrovskii's career as academic administrator, see “M. N. Pokrovskii: Kratkaia biograficheskaia spravka,” Istorik-Marksist, No. 9, 1928, pp. 80-83; Epstein, F, “Die Marxistische Geschichtswissenschaft in der Sovetunion seit 1927,” Jahrbücher für Kultur und Geschichte der Slaven (Breslau), VI (1930), 10345 Google Scholar.

27 Two recent essays on Pokrovskii differ in their assessment of his power and status in the Soviet historical world. Paul H. Aron writes that “by 1932 he held complete control over the entire field of Russian history” and that in the years 1929-32, “although the inconsistency of Pokrovskii's theoretical position grew painfully and increasingly evident, there were none who publicly dared to indicate the obvious state of affairs” (“M. N. Pokrovskii and the Impact of the First Five-Year Plan on Soviet Historiography,” in Curtiss, J. S., ed., Essays in Russian and Soviet History [Leyden, 1963], pp. 286Google Scholar, 292). Roman Szporluk, on the other hand, concludes that “the 1920s were … anything but a period of ideological domination for Pokrovskii and his school” (“Pokrovsky and Russian History,“ Survey, October 1964, p. 117). The material assembled for this present study tends clearly to support the latter view.

28 Pokrovskii finally modified his theory of “merchant capitalism” in 1931, saying that his use of the term had often been “illiterate” (“O russkom feodalizme, proiskhozhdenii i kharaktere absoliutizma v Rossii,” in Istoricheskaia nauka i bor'ba klassov [Moscow and Leningrad, 1933], pp. 285-303; first published in Bor'ba klassov [Moscow], No. 2, 1931, pp. 78-89).

29 He admitted in 1928 that his works contained traces of “nondialectical” Mechanism ( Pokrovskii, M. N., Leninizm i russkaia istoriia [Moscow, 1930], pp. 4Google Scholar; first published in 1928).

30 See, for example, P. Drozdov, “Reshenie partii i pravitel'stva ob uchebnikakh po istorii i zadachi sovetskikh istorikov,” Istorik-Marksist, No. 1 (53), 1936, pp. 9-22; B. B. Kafengauz, “Reformy Petra I v otsenke M. N. Pokrovskogo,” in Protiv antimarksistskoi kontseptsii M. N. Pokrovskogo (a publication of the USSR Academy of Sciences), II (Moscow, 1940), 140-76; and Rubinshtein, N. L., Russkaia istoriografiia (Moscow, 1941), pp. 576–99 Google Scholar.

31 Pokrovskii, M. N., Ocherki po istorii revoliutsionnogo dvizheniia v Rossii v XIX i XX w.: Kurs lektsii (Moscow, 1924), pp. 86–92 Google Scholar.

32 Ibid., pp. 103-5.

33 See, for example, V. Nevskii, “Istorik-materialist (M. N. Pokrovskii),” Pechat’ i revoliutsiia, No. 7, 1928, pp. 9-22.

34 V. Polonskii, “Bakunin v Pervom Internatsionale,” Istorik-Marksist, No. 2, 1926, p. 25.

35 V. Nevskii, Ocherki po istorii Rossiiskoi Kommunisticheskoi Partii, I (Leningrad, 1925), 101-16,196-215 (the first edition was published in 1924).

36 Ibid., pp. 400-428.

37 N. Sergievskii, “Gruppa ‘Osvobozhdenie truda’ i marksistskie kruzhki,” in Nevskii, V. I., ed., Istoriko-revoliutsionnyi sbornik, II (Leningrad, 1924), 86167 Google Scholar; “Dmitr Blagoev v Peterburge,“ Krasnaia letopis', No. 2 (11), 1924, pp. 42-52.

38 Archival material drawn from the early years of Russian Marxist history was published by Sergievskii in Nevskii, ed., Istoriko-revoliutsionnyi sbornik, II, 168-266; III, 184-241. The contribution made by Sergievskii, together with Nevskii, in publishing these documents was acknowledged in a recent Soviet work of distinction, Kazakevich, R. A., Sotsial-demokraticheskie organizatsii Peterburga kontsa 80-kh-nachala 90-kh godov (Kruzhki P. V. Tochkisskogo i M. I. Brusneva) (Leningrad, 1960), p. 5 nGoogle Scholar. Earlier A. M. Shnitman had managed to refer extensively to the material published by Sergievskii without mentioning his name at all (“Revoliutsionnaia deiatel'nost’ D. N. Blagoeva v Rossii i Bolgarii 1878-1885 g.g.,” Voprosy istorii, No. 2, 1956, pp. 96-107).

39 See, for example, Steklov, Iu. M., “Sotsial'no-politicheskie vozzreniia Bakunina” (1914), in Bortsy za sotsializm (Moscow and Leningrad, 1923), pp. 210–90 Google Scholar ; and N. G. Chernyshevskii, ego zhizn’ i deiatel'nost’ (1828-1889) (St. Petersburg, 1909).

40 Steklov, Iu. M., N. G. Chernyshevskii (2 vols.; Moscow and Leningrad, 1928)Google Scholar; and Mikhail Aleksandrovich Bakunin, ego zhizn’ i deiatel'nost’ (4 vols.; Moscow and Leningrad, 1926-27). Steklov's biography of Bakunin brought him into a head-on collision with Polonskii and so, indirectly, with the Pokrovskii school (the dispute continued even after Polonskii's death in 1932).

41 B. P. Koz'min, P. N. Tkachev i revoliutsionnoe dvizhenie 1860-kh godov (Moscow, 1922).

42 A., Gambarov, V sporakh o Nechaeve: K voprosu ob istoricheskoi reabilitatsii Nechaeva (Moscow, 1926)Google Scholar. Gambarov's work was described highly critically by Koz'min in “Istoriia ili fantastika,” Pechat’ i revoliutsiia, No. 6, 1926, pp. 96-108.

43 See, for example, Shchegolev, P, “S. G. Nechaev v Alekseevskom ravelineKrasnyi arkhiv, No. 4, 1923, p. 232 Google Scholar; and Koz'min, P. N. Tkachev i revoliutsionnoe dvizhenie 1860-kh godov, pp. 151-55, 205-8.

44 S. Mitskevich, “Russkie iakobintsy,” Proletarskaia revoliutsiia, No. 6-7 (18-19), 1923, pp. 3-26.

45 See Biulleten’ Instituta K. Marksa i F. Engel'sa, No. 1, 1926 (described by B. Gorev in Pechat’ i revoliutsiia, No. 3, 1926, pp. 136-37).

46 B. I. Gorev, Ogiust Blanki (Moscow, 1921).

47 V. Vaganian, G. V. Plekhanov: Opyt kharakteristiki sotsial'no-politicheskikh vozzrenii (Moscow, 1924).

48 Istpart, established in August 1920, was the abbreviated title of the commission for the collection, examination, and publication of materials on the history of the October Revolution of 1917 and of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks). Among its founding members were Bubnov, Nevskii, Bystrianskii, Ol'minskii, Pokrovskii, and Riazanov. An early plan to produce a collective history of the Party to be written jointly by Bubnov, Mitskevich, Nevskii, Baturin, and Lepeshinskii was frustrated by disagreements—one more cause, no doubt, of the conflict (discussed below) between Nevskii's following in Leningrad and Ol'minskii's in Moscow ( Ol'minskii, , “O memuarakh,” Iz epokhi “Zvezdy” i “Pravdy“ (1911-1914 gg.), I [Moscow, 1921], 3 Google Scholar; Nevskii, Ocherki po istorii Rossiiskoi Kommunisticheskoi Partii, I, 576).

49 Typically, Ol'minskii argued in 1923 against celebrating the one hundredth anniversary of the “aristocratic” Decembrist rising (and, in consequence, was reprimanded for his narrowness by Pokrovskii, in Ocherki po istorii revoliutsionnogo dvizheniia, pp. 26-43).

50 See, for example, E., Iaroslavskii, Kratkie ocherki po istorii VKP(b), I (Moscow and Leningrad, 1926 Google Scholar); see also Iaroslavskii et al., Istoriia VKP(b), I (Moscow and Leningrad, 1926). Zinov'ev's Istoriia Rossiiskoi Kommunisticheskoi Partii (Moscow, 1924) is another work the unoriginality of which frustrates attempts at classification.

51 Deich, L, “Kak G. V. Plekhanov stal marksistomProletarskaia revoliutsiia, No. 7, 1922, pp. 97–140Google Scholar; and “Kto prav? (Otchet prof. M. N. Pokrovskomu),” in Gruppa Osvobozhdenie truda, V (1926), 255-72.

52 Pokrovskii, Ocherki po istorii revoliutsionnogo dvizheniia v Rossii v XIX i XX w.: Kurs lektsii, pp. 76-86.

53 L. Deich, “Vmesto bibliografii: Original'noe iubileinoe proizvedenie,” Gruppa Osvobozhdenie truda, III (1925), 340-70.

54 L. Deich, “Byl li Nechaev genialen?” ibid., II (1924), 73-86.

55 G. Lelevich (review of Gruppa Osvobozhdenie truda, Vol. II), in Pechat’ i revoliutsiia, No. 2, 1925, p. 196.

56 A. Bubnov, “Reviziia roli Lenina v istorii russkogo marksizma,” Bol'shevik, No. 1, 1925, pp. 102-23; V. Kolokolkin, “Istoriia protiv Lenina,” ibid., No. 11-12, 1925, pp. 96-110; N. Angarskii, “N. Lenin v istolkovanii ‘voinstvuiushchego* materialista,” ibid., No. 19-20, 1925, pp. 96-108, and “Zakliuchitel'noe slovo o tov. Vaganiane,” ibid., No. 23-24, 1925, pp. 77-82.

57 V. Vaganian, “Istoriia ne protiv Lenina, a protiv negramotnykh liudei,” ibid., No. 21-22, 1925, pp. 76-91.

58 Vaganian, Seiateli bezgramotnosti i nevezhestva (title as quoted by Iaroslavskii), evidently published in 1926.

59 Iaroslavskii, “Otvet tov. Vaganianu,” Bol'shevik, No. 18, 1926, pp. 80-102.

60 Toward the end of 1923 Nevskii resigned from the editorial board of Krasnaia letopis', having edited Nos. 1-7. Elizarova later wrote, “The work of the journal [Proletarskaia revoliutsiia] was hindered [1922-23] by the fact that comrade Nevskii, one of the members of the [Istpart] collegium (called to St. Petersburg in order to strengthen the ties with the section there and to organize the transmission of archival material to the center) was led to set up his own journal and to exploit the mass of documents in the Police Department. The central section of Istpart pointed out that one journal was enough… b u t … the majority of the meeting was for it. True, it did not continue as a central journal for long; with the reorganization of the Petersburg section it became a local journal” ( Elizarova, A, “Retrospektivnyi vzgliad na Istpart i na zhurnal ‘Proletarskaia revoliutsiia,’” Proletarskaia revoliutsiia, No. 5 [100], 1930, p. 161 Google Scholar).

61 The storm raised had been preceded in the years 1922-23 by a polemical exchange between Nevskii's Krasnaia letopis’ and Ol'minskii's Proletarskaia revoliutsiia. Had the Bolsheviks anticipated that the socialist revolution would follow directly on the bourgeois revolution? Ol'minskii and Lepeshinskii argued that they had not, Bystrianskii that they had. During the exchange Lepeshinskii commented on “the piquancy of the fact that an article published … in the journal of one of the centers of Istpart should fire its salvos at the author of a work published by Istpart” (P. Lepeshinskii, “Ocherednaia progulka t. Bystrianskogo po sadam marksistskoi literatury,” Proletarskaia revoliutsiia, No. 9, 1922, p. 309). Bystrianskii replied: “Our Party does not recognize popes incapable of sin. Yet this is the quality which comrade Lepeshinskii claims for comrade Ol'minskii” ( Bystrianskii, V, “Po povodu t. Lepeshinskogo v ‘Proletarskoi revoliutsii,'Krasnaia letopis, No. 8, 1923, p. 301 Google Scholar).

62 Proletarskaia revoliutsiia, No. 5 (28), 1924, p. 227; No. 8-9 (31-32), 1924, p. 163.

63 N. Baturin, “Po povodu knigi tov. V. I. Nevskogo,” ibid., No. 8-9 (31-32), 1924, pp. 149-61.

64 See M. Liadov (pseud, of Mandel'shtam), Istoriia Rossiiskoi Sotsialdemokraticheskoi Rabochei Partii (2 vols.; St. Petersburg, 1906).

65 Liadov (letter to the editors), in Proletarskaia revoliutsiia, No. 8-9 (31-32), 1924, p.162. For an outline of Bubnov's attack see Nevskii, , “Otvet moim kritikam (Pis'mo v redaktsiiu),” Bor'ba klassov (Leningrad), No. 1-2, 1924, pp. 394416 Google Scholar.

66 A. Bubnov, Osnovnye momenty v razvitii kommunisticheskoi partii v Rossii (Moscow, 1921), pp. 5-6.

67 Baturin, “O ‘sotsial'nykh korniakh’ ‘ekonomizma’ i men'shevizma (po povodu knigi t. Astrova, , “Ekonomisty, predtechi men'shevikov’),” Proletarskaia revoliutsiia, No. 2 (25), 1924, pp. 110–13Google Scholar; G. Lelevich, “Esche o ‘sotsial'nykh korniakh* ‘ekonomizma’ i men'shevizma,“ ibid., No. 5 (28), 1924, pp. 121-27; Baturin, “O vliianii melkoi i krupnoi burzhuazii na rabochee dvizhenie,” ibid., No. 6 (29), 1924, pp. 95-102.

68 “Astrov, in contrast to Lelevich (who followed Zinov'ev in the conflict 1925-26), supported Bukharin. But his book of 1923 on Economism, which Baturin criticized, was a product of his studies at the Institute of Red Professors and was published with Pokrovskii's blessing.

69 Baturin, “O nasledstve ‘russkikh iakobintsev,'” Proletarskaia revoliutsiia, No. 7 (30), 1924, pp. 82-89.

70 Sineira, “Est’ li v marksizme elementy blankizma?” Pechat’ i revoliutsiia, No. 5, 1923, pp. 112-15.

71 See, for example, A. Slepkov, “ ‘Ne soglasnyl’ (Otvet t. Pokrovskomu),” Bol'shevik, No. 5-6 (21-22), 1925, pp. 65-72.

72 Nevskii, “Otvet moim kritikam (Pis'mo v redaktsiiu),” Bor'ba klassov, No. 1, 1924, p. 416.

73 Gorev, B, “Obidno li dlia marksizma ideinoe rodstvo s blankizmom?Pechat’ i revoliutsiia, No. 5, 1923, pp. 115–19Google Scholar. Sineira later denied that he had threatened Gorev with “the censor or the GPU” (Sineira, “Zakliuchitel'noe slovo k diskussii ob elementakh blankizme v marksizme,” ibid., No. 7, 1923, pp. 119-23), but in reply the latter pointed out that it was hard to understand Sineira's choice of phrase as anything but a threat (Gorev, Pis'mo v redaktsiiu [t. Sineira i chuvstvo smeshnogo],” ibid., pp. 123-24).

74 Ol'minskii in fact explained that Mitskevich's first article of 1923 had only been published because he himself had been absent through illness (Proletarskaia revoliutsiia, No. 7 [30], 1924, p. 89 n.).

75 S. Mitskevich, “K voprosu o korniakh bol'shevizma (Otvet tov. N. N. Baturinu),“ Katorga i ssylka, No. 16, 1925, p. 94. Mitskevich maintained here, too, that his own views were almost identical with those expounded in Pokrovskii's recent Ocherki po istorii revoliutsionnogo dvizheniia. Baturin denied the identity but did chide Pokrovskii for calling Tkachev “the first Russian Marxist” (Baturin, “Eshche o tsvetakh russkogo iakobinstva,“ Proletarskaia revoliutsiia, No. 8 [43], 1925, p. 109). The debate about the Blanquist and Jacobin elements in the Bolshevik heritage has been fully described for the years 1923-26 in the interesting pioneer article, to which I am indebted, of Volodymyr Varlamov, “Bakunin and the Russian Jacobins and Blanquists,“ in Black, C. E., ed., Rewriting Russian History (New York, 1956), pp. 302–33 Google Scholar. As a result of its abrupt transition from the mid-1920s to the mid-1930s, however, the article tends perhaps to give an exaggerated impression of the effective power of such men as Baturin and Sineira in the earlier period.

76 Nevskii, review of Vaganian's G, V.. V. Plekhanov, in Pechat’ i revoliutsiia, No. 5-6, 1925, pp. 346–49Google Scholar. Similarly, in 1927 Nevskii attacked “the official historians, the Karamzins, as it were, of our time” who tried to stifle all originality (review of V. Iudovskii's Istoriia VKP(b), ibid., No. 5, 1927, pp. 164-65).

77 Em. Iaroslavskii, “Otvet tov. Vaganianu,” Bol'shevik, No. 18, 1926, p. 97.

78 M. V. Nechkina, “Nauka russkoi istorii,” in V. P. Volgin et al., eds., Obshchestvennye nauki SSSR 1917-27 (Moscow, 1928), pp. 151-52.

79 For example, “K istorii vozniknoveniia Rossiiskoi sotsial-demokraticheskoi partii,“ Proletarskaia revoliutsiia, No. 1, 1921, pp. 20-81; “Pervyi s“ezd partii v sovremennoi literature,“ ibid., No. 2 (73), 1928, pp. 6-22.

80 Tatarov, “I s“ezd RSDRP i ego mesto v istorii nashei partii,” ibid., No. 3 (74), 1928, Pp. 3-21.

81 N. Angarskii, “K istorii I s“ezda RSDRP,” ibid., p. 29.

82 B. Eidel'man, “Ob ekonomistskikh tendentsiiakh I s“ezda RSDRP,” ibid., No. 10 (81), 1928, pp. 137-49.

83 Angarskii, “Otvet tov. Eidel'manu,” ibid., p. 164; see also Tatarov, “O neudachnykh vozrazheniiakh t. Eidel'mana,” ibid., pp. 165-69.

84 Istpart and Agitprop of the Central Committee of the VKP(b), “Tezisy k 30-letiiu I s“ezda RSDRP,” Pravda, March 4, 1938, p. 6.

85 David, Joravsky, Soviet Marxism and Natural Science 1917-1932 (London, 1961), p.227Google Scholar. (This work is a most valuable attempt to identify the trees of Soviet scholastic debate without losing sight of the wood.)

86 “K stoletiiu so dnia rozhdeniia N. G. Chernyshevskogo (Otchet o iubileinykh dokladakh v o-ve istorikov-marksistov),” Istorik-Marksist, No. 8, 1928, p. 152.

87 Iu. Steklov, Eshche o N. G. Chernyshevskom i sbornik statei (Moscow and Leningrad, »93). p. 87.

88 N. L. Sergievskii, Partiia russkikh sotsial-demokratov i gruppa Blagoeva (Moscow and Leningrad, 1929), p. 115.

89 B. Pugachevskii, “Po povodu knigi tov. N. L. Sergievskogo,” Proletarskaia revoliutsiia, No. 8-9 (91-92), 1929, pp. 181-94.

90 Rakhmetov, “K voprosu o men'shevistskikh tendentsiiakh v gruppe ‘Osvobozhdenie truda,'” ibid., No. 9 (8o), 1928, pp. 26-56. As already mentioned (p. 580 above), Iaroslavskii had said from 1926 at least that “early Menshevism” was to be detected in Plekhanov's writings of the 1890s and that the Narodnaia volia no less than the Chernyi peredel had paved the way to Russian Marxism. This approach was shared by the literary critic and historian A. Dvil'kovskii (see, for example, his review of Nevskii, ed., Istoriko-revoliutsionnyi sbornik, Vol. II, in Pechat’ i revoliutsiia, No. 2, 1925, pp. 198-201). But in the mid- 19208, these anti-Plekhanovite ideas had scarcely been developed into the doctrine of a distinctive Iaroslavskii “school.“

91 Teodorovich argued that Plekhanov and his school had “regarded as completely irrelevant and outmoded the problem of the possibilities of the noncapitalist development of backward countries” (“Istoricheskoe znachenie partii ‘Narodnoi Voli,'” Katorga i ssylka, No. 57-58, 1929, p. 34).

92 Tatarov, , “Popytka voskresit’ narodnichestvoIzvestiia, Dec. 27, 1929, p. 5 Google Scholar. See, too, the exchange of letters between Tatarov and Teodorovich, ibid., Jan. 9, 1930, p. 5; and Teodorovich, , “Tataren na al'pakh LeninizmaKatorga i ssylka, No. 1 (62), 1930, pp. 108–27Google Scholar.

93 “Diskussiia o Narodnoi vole v Obshchestve istorikov-marksistov,” Istorik-Marksist, No.15. mo. p-103-

94 Ibid., p. 126.

95 Malakhovskii, V, “Plekhanov o sushchnosti narodnichestvaProletarskaia revoliutsiia, No. 1 (84), 1929, pp. 179–220Google Scholar; “Bibliografiia—O iubileinom slavoslovii,” Pravda, Dec. 20, 1929, p. 6; “Restavratsiia Lenina (Otvet t. I. Teodorovichu),” Pravda, Dec. 27, 1929, p. 5. (See also his Na dva fronta [K otsenke narodovol'chestva] [Moscow, 1930] and “Pravda-li chto narodovol'tsy predvoskhitili Leninizra?” Katorga i ssylka, No. 64, 1930, pp. 45-62.)

96 “Ot redaktsii,” Pravda, Dec. 27, 1929, p. 5.

97 “Diskussiia o Narodnoi vole v Obshchestve istorikov-marksistov,” Istorik-Marksist, No. 15, 1930, p. 134. For an even more extreme defense of the Narodnaia volia as a party of the peasantry and the proletariat, see Ryndich, A, “K voprosu o klassovoi prirode revoliutsionnogo narodnichestva 70-kh godovProletarskaia revoliutsiia, No. 5 (100), 1930, pp. 176–207Google Scholar (the editors published the article to show “what the argument of Teodorovich logically leads to“; see p. 176 n.).

98 For their further development of a “central” position, see E. Genkina, “Lenin o revoliutsionnom narodnichestve i narodovol'stve,” Proletarskaia revoliutsiia, No. 2-3 (97- 98), 1930, pp. 29-61; Genkina (review of M., Potash, Narodnicheskii sotsializm [Moscow, 1930]Google Scholar), ibid., No. 5 (100), 1930, pp. 283-85; Genkina, “Tovarishch Teodorovich v plenu u narodnicheskoi metodologii,” ibid., No. 9 (104), 1930, pp. 157-68; M. Potash, “Kak ne sleduet pisat’ o revoliutsionnom narodnichestve i narodovol'stve (Otvet t. Ryndichu),“ ibid., No. 5 (100), 1930, pp. 208-23.

99 I. A., Teodorovich, “K sporam o ‘Narodnoi vole,'Katorga i ssylka, No. 63, 1930, p. 99 Google Scholar; see also “Na Vsesoiuznom soveshchanii po prepodavaniiu istorii partii i Leninizma,“ Pravda, Feb. 11, 1930, p. 2.

100 “Tezisy k 50-letiiu ‘Narodnoi voli,’ “ Pravda, April 9, 1930, p . 4.

101 I. A. Teodorovich, Istoricheskoe znachenie partii Narodnoi voli (Moscow, 1930).

102 Steklov, Iu., Eshche o Chernyshevskom (Moscow and Leningrad, 1930)Google Scholar. See also Nevskii's, Ot “Zemli i voli” k gruppe “Osvobozhdenie truda” (Moscow, 1930)Google Scholar. The publication of highly controversial books by Sergievskii, Teodorovich, Nevskii, Malakhovskii, and Steklov in the years 1929-30 can, of course, be explained either as an attempt by the authors—using the period of upheaval—to win last-minute approval or else as a deliberate effort by the authorities to stoke the fires of dissension.

103 A. Bur, “Po zhurnalam—'Katorga i ssylka,'” Proletarskaia revoliutsiia, No. 9 (104), 1930, pp. 168-73.

104 “ p i s ‘mo v redaktsiiu: Kakim dolzhen byt’ i kakov est’ zhurnal ‘Katorga i ssylka,’ “ ibid., No. 11 (106), 1930, pp. 183-87.

105 See Joravsky, Soviet Marxism and Natural Science 1917-1932; and Brown, E. J., The Proletarian Episode in Russian Literature 1928-19)2 (New York, 1953 Google Scholar).

106 M. Ol'minskii, “Otvet t. Iaroslavskomu,” Proletarskaia revoliutsiia, No. 11 (106), 1930, pp. 188-89.

107 “Vse sily nauchnykh rabotnikov—na teoreticheskuiu razrabotku problem sotsstroitel'- stva i klassovoi bor'by proletariata: Postanovlenie TsK VKP(b) ot 15 marta 1931 g.,” Pravda, March 18, 1931, p. 1.

108 A. Slutskii, “Bol'sheviki o germanskoi S. D. v period predvoennogo krizisa,” Proletarskaia revoliutsiia, No. 6 (101), 1930, pp. 38-72.

109 “Qt redaktsii,” Proletarskaia revoliutsiia, No. 6 (113), 1931, p. 199.

110 1. Stalin, “O nekotorykh voprosakh istorii bol'shevizme (Pis'mo v redaktsiiu zhurnala 'Proletarskoi revoliutsii’),” ibid., p. 4 (Stalin's article, originally published in Bol'shevik, was reprinted in full in Proletarskaia revoliutsiia).

111 Proletarskaia revoliutsiia, No. 6 (113), 1931. Starting in 1933, it is true, the Marx- Engels-Lenin Institute did begin to publish a new series of Proletarskaia revoliutsiia, but by the end of 1939 only twelve issues had appeared.

112 “Ot redaktsii zhurnala ‘Katorga i ssylka,'” Katorga 1 ssylka, No. 11-12 (84-85), 1931, pp. 25-26.

113 For Tatarov's expulsion, see H. Verber, “Far a marksistish-leninishn tsugang tsu der geshikhte funem folkizm,” Oifn Visenshaftlichen Front (in Yiddish) (Minsk), No. 3-4, 1933, p. 165.

114 We have here—albeit at a low level—a thoroughly tangled example of what Robert Conquest has called “the complicated relationship between purges, doctrine, and power.“ In 1931 Iaroslavskii's history (Istoriia VKP[b], Vol. Ill, Book 2) violently denounced Pokrovskii as deviationist. Pokrovskii's reply, defensive but firm, was published only after his death (Istorik-Marksist, No. 1-2 [23-24], 1932, pp. 13-25). At the same time some of Pokrovskii's leading disciples were purged, while Iaroslavskii retained his various posts. Yet it was Iaroslavskii whom Stalin had publicly rebuked in 1931, and the Pokrovskii cult was maintained by his remaining followers until 1934.

115 See Sergievskii, N, “'Chernyi peredel’ i narodniki 80-kh godovKatorga i ssylka, No. 1 (74), 1931, pp. 7–58Google Scholar; B. Ivanov, “N. L. Sergievskii kak istorik ‘partii russkikh sotsialdemokratov' (1884-87 gg.),” ibid., pp. 59-122; I. A. Teodorovich, “Sotsial'no-politicheskaia mysl’ chernoperedel'chestva i ee znachenie v nashem proshlom,” ibid., No. 4-5 (101-2), 1933, PP. 5-54.

116 Tkachev, P. N., Izbrannye sochineniia, ed. B. P. Koz'min, Vol. I (Moscow, 1932)Google Scholar; Koz'min, Ot 19 fevralia k 1 marta (Moscow, 1933). Koz'min was one of the few historians in this article whose work continued uninterrupted through the Stalin era, although in 1933 he had to abandon his work on the narodniki and devote his attention instead to the “philosophes” of the 1860s (Chernyshevskii, Dobroliubov, etc.). In an essay completed just before his death in 1958 he wrote, “For the last twenty years we have had practically no serious works on the history of narodnichestvo. Indeed, we preferred to pass silently by the narodnichestvo of the 1870s and later years… And from [Chernyshevskii and Pisarev] we went straight to Marxism” (“Narodnichestvo na burzhuazno-demokraticheskom etape osvoboditel'nogo dvizheniia v Rossii,” in Koz'min, Iz istorii revoliutsionnoi mysli v Rossii: Izbrannye trudy [Moscow, 1961], pp. 638-727).

117 S. Chernomordik (pseud. of P. Larionov), “K 50-letiiu gruppy ‘Osvobozhdenie truda/ “ Katorga i ssylka, No. 12 (109), 1933, p. 22 (the article appears in No. 10 [107], 1933, pp. 5-35; and No. 12 [109], 1933, pp. 5-36).

118 I. Teodorovich, “Karl Marks i revoliutsionnoe dvizhenie v Rossii,” ibid., No. 3 (100), J933’ PP- 7∼8i; “Sotsial'no-politicheskaia mysl’ chernoperedel'tsev,” ibid., No. 4-5 (101-2), pp. 5-54; “Do-marksistskii period revoliutsionnogo dvizheniia v Rossii v otsenkakh V. I. Lenina,” ibid., No. 1 (no), 1934, pp. 22-74; introduction by Teodorovich, in Lavrov, P. L., Izbrannye sochineniia, Vol. I (Moscow, 1934)Google Scholar.

119 Koz'min's last article of the Stalin era on the Russian Jacobins in fact appeared in a literary publication: “K voprosu ob otnoshenii Tkacheva, P. N. k marksizmu,” Literaturnoe nasledstvo, No. 7-8 (Moscow, 1933), pp. 117–23 Google Scholar.

120 P. Kazanskii, “Bol'she bol'shevistskoi bditel'nosti,” Bor'ba klassov, No. 5, 1933, pp. 22-28.

121 G. Arkad'ev, “Za bol'shevistskuiu perestroiku,” ibid., No. 6, 1933, pp. 126-35.

122 V. Sorin, “Pervye shagi Lenina po sozdaniiu partii,” ibid., No. 8-9, 1933, p. 58.

123 Sorin, “Nachalo bor'by Lenina s ‘ekonomizmom,’ “ ibid., No. 5, 1933, p. 24. See also his “Lenin nakanune vozniknoveniia massovogo rabochego dvizheniia (1893-1904 gg.),“ ibid., No. 7, 1933, pp. 31-42. To be fair to Sorin it must be said that Lenin himself was not consistent in his attitude to the origins of Economism, originally dating it from 1897 or 1898, later (like Plekhanov) from 1894-95. (Compare, for example, Chto delat'? [Stuttgart, 1902], pp. 138-39, with “Iz proshlogo rabochei pechati v Rossii” [April 1914], in Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, XXV, 96-98.)

124 V. Malakhovskii, “ ‘Nashi raznoglasiia’ Plekhanova i narodnichestvo,” Istorik-Marksist, No. 11 (51), 1935, pp. 58-77.

125 Volgin, who was appointed secretary of the Academy of Sciences in 1930 and became a leading administrator of the historical world during the Stalin era, had played no significant part in the 1928-30 debates about the origins of the Party. But, paradoxically enough, in the early 1920s he had clearly shared Gorev's view of the debt owed by the Bolsheviks to the extreme left wing of pre-Marxian socialism in France. “The basic precepts of Babeufism—the first form of communist teaching in the practical sphere, the first revolutionary communist teaching of modern times … were handed down in their entirety as a legacy to present-day communism. There are no reasons why the latter should deny its ideological kinship with Babeuf and the Babeufists” ( Volgin, V. P., Ocherki po istorii sotsializma [Moscow and Petrograd, 1923], pp. 13132 Google Scholar).

126 Iaroslavskii, Ocherki po istorii VKP(b) (Moscow, 1936), p. 26.

127 Ibid., p. 52.

128 Komissiia TsK VKP(b), Istoriia Vsesoiuznoi kommunisticheskoi partii (bol'shevikov) (Moscow, 1938).

129 Terrorism, even that directed against the tsar, had grown in the period 1930-38 into one of the gravest “heresies” of all.

130 The more glaring omissions and idiosyncracies of Stalin's history were corrected in that of 1959 ( Ponomarev, B. N. et al., Istoriia Kommunisticheskoi Partii Sovetskogo Soiuza [Moscow], pp. 9–40)Google Scholar. The authors of the more recent version have gone much further to produce a history faithful to Lenin's historiographical concepts ( Pospelov, P. N. et al., Istoriia Kommunisticheskoi Partii Sovetskogo Soiuza, Vol. I: 1883-1903 gg. [Moscow, 1964], pp. 22Google Scholar); see, too, George, Fletcher, “The New Party HistorySurvey, October 1965, pp. 162–72Google Scholar.