The workers’ Opposition was not alone in voicing disillusionment. At the 11th Congress, last attended by Lenin, Trotsky saw himself and Lenin attacked by old and intimate friends: Antonov-Ovseenko, who spoke about the party’s surrender to the kulak and foreign capitalism; Ryazanov, who thundered against the prevalent political demoralization and the arbitrary manner in which the Politburo ruled the party; Lozovsky and Skrypnik, the Ukrainian commissar, who protested against the over-centralistic method of government, which, he said, was all too reminiscent of the “one and indivisible” Russia of old; Bubnov, still the Decemist, who spoke about the danger of the party’s “petty bourgeois degeneration”; and Preobrazhensky, one of the leading economic theorists and former secretary of the Central Committee. One day most of the critics would be eminent members of the “Trotskyist’ Opposition; and one-day Trotsky himself would appeal, as Shliapnikov and Kollontai had done, against the Russian Central Committee to the International.
Deutscher, Isaac. The Prophet Unarmed. London, New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1959, p. 31
The discussion was at once focused on the statement of the Forty-Six who were now free to expound their views to the rank-and-file. Pyatakov was their most aggressive and effective spokesman; wherever he went he easily obtained large majorities for bluntly worded resolutions.
Deutscher, Isaac. The Prophet Unarmed. London, New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1959, p. 116
…curious though the factional fights became, they were still contained within limits. Until the end of 1927, they were still fought out openly before the Central Committee Plenum, the Party Congress or Conference, where the opposition was free to challenge the leadership, issues were settled by votes, and the debates reported. The opposition spokesman were more and more subject to heckling and interruption, but that is true even of parliamentary assemblies; they had increasing difficulty in rallying support inside the party, but even when in 1928-29 the clash between Stalin and the right opposition took place behind closed doors, the opposition could not be suppressed, it had to be defeated. The leaders were not arrested or shot; even Trotsky was banished, not imprisoned or executed, and most of the others, like Zinoviev and Kamenev, were allowed back into the party–even, like Bukharin, to hold official posts.
Bullock, Alan. Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives. New York: Knopf, 1992, p. 182
Comrades, oppositionists can and should be allowed to hold posts. Heads of Central Committee departments can and should be allowed to criticize the Central Committee’s activities.
Stalin, Joseph. Works. Moscow: Foreign Languages Pub. House, 1952, Vol. 6, p. 44
[In a report on the Results of the 13th Congress of the Party on June 17, 1924 Stalin stated] What should our policy be with regard to these oppositionists, or, more precisely, with regard to these former oppositionists? It should be an exceptionally comradely one. Every measure must be taken to help them come over to the basic core of the Party and to work jointly and in harmony with this core.
Stalin, Joseph. Works. Moscow: Foreign Languages Pub. House, 1952, Vol. 6, p. 267
Next question. Why did not the Central Committee publish the opposition’s “platform”? Zinoviev and Trotsky say that it was because the Central Committee and the Party “fear” the truth. Is that true? Of course not. More than that. It is absurd to say that the Party or the Central Committee fear the truth. We have the verbatim reports of the plenums of the Central Committee and Central Control Commission. Those reports have been printed in several thousand copies and distributed among the members of the Party. They contain the speeches of the oppositionists as well as of the representatives of the Party line. They are being read by tens and hundreds of thousands of Party members. If we fear the truth we would not have circulated those documents. The good thing about those documents is precisely that they enable the members of the party to compare the Central Committee’s position with the views of the opposition and to make their decision. Is that fear of the truth?
Stalin, Joseph. Works. Moscow: Foreign Languages Pub. House, 1952, Vol. 10, p. 183
Although, in the early years of the regime, its ideological opponents, such fans and socialist revolutionaries, had been put in prison, the game–at least in theory–was not depressed and physically or to put him into their intellectual life, but merely to segregate them from the rest of the population and prevent them from spreading their ideas.
Berger, Joseph. Nothing but the Truth. New York, John Day Co. 1971, p. 60
Since the revolution, and especially during the period of the New Economic Policy the arts and intellectual life had enjoyed a considerable degree of autonomy. True, open political opposition was forbidden, and the regime could use the power of the purse to support this or that tendency. But direct political supervision was sporadic, and diverse schools of thought and art could and did contend, even forming separate organizations in literature, for example.
McNeal, Robert, Stalin: Man and Ruler. New York: New York University Press, 1988, p. 153
The workers’ Opposition was not alone in voicing disillusionment. At the 11th Congress, last attended by Lenin, Trotsky saw himself and Lenin attacked by old and intimate friends: Antonov-Ovseenko, who spoke about the party’s surrender to the kulak and foreign capitalism; Ryazanov, who thundered against the prevalent political demoralization and the arbitrary manner in which the Politburo ruled the party; Lozovsky and Skrypnik, the Ukrainian commissar, who protested against the over-centralistic method of government, which, he said, was all too reminiscent of the “one and indivisible” Russia of old; Bubnov, still the Decemist, who spoke about the danger of the party’s “petty bourgeois degeneration”; and Preobrazhensky, one of the leading economic theorists and former secretary of the Central Committee. One day most of the critics would be eminent members of the “Trotskyist’ Opposition; and one-day Trotsky himself would appeal, as Shliapnikov and Kollontai had done, against the Russian Central Committee to the International. Deutscher, Isaac. The Prophet Unarmed. London, New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1959, p. 31
The discussion was at once focused on the statement of the Forty-Six who were now free to expound their views to the rank-and-file. Pyatakov was their most aggressive and effective spokesman; wherever he went he easily obtained large majorities for bluntly worded resolutions. Deutscher, Isaac. The Prophet Unarmed. London, New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1959, p. 116
…curious though the factional fights became, they were still contained within limits. Until the end of 1927, they were still fought out openly before the Central Committee Plenum, the Party Congress or Conference, where the opposition was free to challenge the leadership, issues were settled by votes, and the debates reported. The opposition spokesman were more and more subject to heckling and interruption, but that is true even of parliamentary assemblies; they had increasing difficulty in rallying support inside the party, but even when in 1928-29 the clash between Stalin and the right opposition took place behind closed doors, the opposition could not be suppressed, it had to be defeated. The leaders were not arrested or shot; even Trotsky was banished, not imprisoned or executed, and most of the others, like Zinoviev and Kamenev, were allowed back into the party–even, like Bukharin, to hold official posts. Bullock, Alan. Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives. New York: Knopf, 1992, p. 182
Comrades, oppositionists can and should be allowed to hold posts. Heads of Central Committee departments can and should be allowed to criticize the Central Committee’s activities. Stalin, Joseph. Works. Moscow: Foreign Languages Pub. House, 1952, Vol. 6, p. 44
[In a report on the Results of the 13th Congress of the Party on June 17, 1924 Stalin stated] What should our policy be with regard to these oppositionists, or, more precisely, with regard to these former oppositionists? It should be an exceptionally comradely one. Every measure must be taken to help them come over to the basic core of the Party and to work jointly and in harmony with this core. Stalin, Joseph. Works. Moscow: Foreign Languages Pub. House, 1952, Vol. 6, p. 267
Next question. Why did not the Central Committee publish the opposition’s “platform”? Zinoviev and Trotsky say that it was because the Central Committee and the Party “fear” the truth. Is that true? Of course not. More than that. It is absurd to say that the Party or the Central Committee fear the truth. We have the verbatim reports of the plenums of the Central Committee and Central Control Commission. Those reports have been printed in several thousand copies and distributed among the members of the Party. They contain the speeches of the oppositionists as well as of the representatives of the Party line. They are being read by tens and hundreds of thousands of Party members. If we fear the truth we would not have circulated those documents. The good thing about those documents is precisely that they enable the members of the party to compare the Central Committee’s position with the views of the opposition and to make their decision. Is that fear of the truth? Stalin, Joseph. Works. Moscow: Foreign Languages Pub. House, 1952, Vol. 10, p. 183
Although, in the early years of the regime, its ideological opponents, such fans and socialist revolutionaries, had been put in prison, the game–at least in theory–was not depressed and physically or to put him into their intellectual life, but merely to segregate them from the rest of the population and prevent them from spreading their ideas. Berger, Joseph. Nothing but the Truth. New York, John Day Co. 1971, p. 60
Since the revolution, and especially during the period of the New Economic Policy the arts and intellectual life had enjoyed a considerable degree of autonomy. True, open political opposition was forbidden, and the regime could use the power of the purse to support this or that tendency. But direct political supervision was sporadic, and diverse schools of thought and art could and did contend, even forming separate organizations in literature, for example. McNeal, Robert, Stalin: Man and Ruler. New York: New York University Press, 1988, p. 153