“The new course” of Lev Trostsky and the bolshevik elite of the Urals

About the author:

Valeriy M. Kruzhinov, Dr. Sci. (Hist.), Professor, Department of National History, Institute of History and Political Sciences, Tyumen State University; vm.kruzhinov@mail.ru

Abstract:

The problem of internal democracy revival took the center stage in «The new course» letter of L.D. Trotsky published December 11, 1923 in «Pravda». In this article L.D. Trotsky proposed some innovative ideas. In particular, he argued that the approval of party apparatus methods of leadership in the early Soviet years was accompanied by a growing isolation and the deformation of the Bolshevik elite image of the ruling party. Way out of the situation L.D. Trotsky saw in the movement of the center of intraparty life in the «rank and file» of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks), subordination of the party apparatus to «rank and file». «The new course» aroused the sharp opposition of the Bolshevik elite initiating a major political-ideological campaign against «Trotskyism», the tone and the outcome of the campaign was determined by the «ruling clique» because of the situation of the centralized political regime. At the same time, the “ruling clique” impulses were relatively easy perceived by the «rank and file» of Communists, whose political experience suggested that in a one-party dictatorship calls for submission system and participatory democracy in the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) are the threat of disintegration and self-destruction. As a result «the conservatism of the “ruling clique”» superimposed on «the conservatism of the “rank and file» showing not so much about the «evil machinations» of party careerists or «servility» rank and file Communists but about some publications claimed as about a general strengthening of centralist tendencies in all echelons of power.

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