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Life and Works of Evgenii Alekseevich Preobrazhenskii Translated by Konstantin Gurevich

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

M. M. Gorinov  and
S. V. Tsakunov
M. M. Gorinov
Affiliation:
Institute of History, Academy of Sciences, Moscow
S. V. Tsakunov
Affiliation:
Institute of Marxism-Leninism of the Central Committee, Moscow
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Extract

Evgenii Alekseevich Preobrazhenskii has been one of the most important yet least known figures on the Bolshevik Olympus: a prominent party functionary, economist, journalist, and writer, a talented organizer of scholarly research, and educator. For political reasons, however, his activities have long been virtually ignored in Soviet writing. References to him in Soviet histories of the Communist party or economic histories have been one-sided and sketchy.

Preobrazhenskii was born on 15 February 1886 (old style) in Bolkhov in Ore guberniia. His father, Aleksei Aleksandrovich Preobrazhenskii, was an Orthodox priest and Bible teacher at the Bolkhov Parochial School. Evgenii Alekseevich studied at his father's private school and completed two years at the Bolkhov City School.

Type
1989 Moscow Historians Conference
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 50 , Issue 2 , Summer 1991 , pp. 286 - 296
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1991

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References

1. Preobrazhenskii's views have received a much more comprehensive and objective treatment in the Anglo-American historiography of Soviet society of the 1920s. The works of Edward H. Carr, Robert V. Daniels, Alexander Erlich, Stephen F. Cohen, Alec Nove, and others describe various aspects of Preobrazhenskii's political and scholarly activities. On the other hand, no works deal specifically with his life. Some biographical data can be found in Who's Who in Economics: A Biographical Dictionary of Major Economists, 1700-1980 (Wheatsheaf, 1983); Who Was Who in the USSR (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1972). This paper is based on Preobrazhenskii's works, the memoirs of his son, Leonid Evgen'evich Preobrazhenskii, documents from the TsGAOR SSSR, TsPA IML, published party documents, and Soviet and non-Soviet historiographic works.

2. TsGAOR SSSR, f. 102 (D7), op. 1906, d. 6113, ch. 34, 1. 1-1 ob.; op. 1911, d. 2349, 1. 26.

3. Evgenii Alekseevich Preobrazhenskii, “Avtobiografiia,” in Enlsiklopedicheskii slovar’ Granat 41 (pt. 2): 124, 120-121; TsGAOR SSSR, f. 102 (D7), op. 1906 d. 6113, ch. 34, 1. 2.

4. “Avtobiografiia,” 124-128.

5. TsGAOR SSSR, f. 102 (DP 00), op. 1911, d. 5, ch. 27, l.a.l. 50; f. 102 (DP 00), op. 1916, d.5, ch. 27B, 1. 46-48; f.102 (d.7), op. 1908, d. 2291, 1.28; “Avtobiografia,” 128-129, 129-130, 130.

6. TsGAOR SSSR, f.533, op. 1, d. 1026, 1. 24, 28; Spravka TsPA IML, no. 2793 of 25 April 1989 (see footnote 63).

7. “Avtobiografiia,” 130.

8. Ibid., 131; VI s “ezdRSDRP(b). Avgust 1917g. Protokoly (Moscow, 1958), 7, 250, 461.

9. VIs “ezdRSDRP(b), 250.

10. E. Preobrazhenskii, Anarkhizm i kommunizm (Moscow, Izd. 2-e, 1921), 44-45.

11. VIII s “ezd RKP(b). Protokoly (Moscow, 1959); Nikolai Bukharin and E. A. Preobrazhenskii, Azbuka kommunizma (Petrograd, 1920), 246.

12. Preobrazhenskii, Krest'lanskala Rossiia i sotslallzm (Petrograd, 1918), 16-17.

13. Ibid., 6.

14. While in Irkutsk, Preobrazhenskii had married Roza Abramovna Nevel'son (1898-1980). Their children were Leonid (1917—) and Irina (1921-1988). In the mid-1920s, Preobrazhenskii married Polina Semenovna Vinogradskaia, with whom he had a son, Igor'.

15. IX Vserossiiskaia konferentsiia RKP(b). Stenograficheskii otchet (Moscow, n.d.), 84; X s “ezd RKP(b). Stenograficheskii otchet (Moscow, 1963), 800-802, and 65.

16. X s “ezdRKP(b), 446; L. N. Iurovskii, Naputiakh k denezhnoi reforme, Izd. 2-e (Moscow, 1924), 29; V. I. Lenin, Polnoe sobranie sochineii, 43: 57, 66, 52: 114. See, for example: V. I. Lenin, PSS, 52: 114; Vladimir Il'ich Lenin: Biograficheskaia khronika, 10: 253-254, 311-312, 384, 458, 541-542, 555; 11: 199, 276, 321-322, 410, 416, 434, 450.

17. See Preobrazhenskii, E. A., “Teoreticheskie osnovy spora o zolotom i tovarnom ruble,” Vestnik Kommunisticheskoi Adademii, 1923, no. 3, 58–64, 73.Google Scholar

18. Ibid., 73.

19. Lenin, PSS 45: 46; TsPA IML, f.2, op.l, d.22933.

20. Lenin, PSS 45: 44.

21. Ibid.

22. Ibid.

23. Ibid., 43.

24. Ibid., 78, 69-130; 44: 341-353.

25. See XI s “ezd RKP(b). Stenograficheskii otchet (Moscow, 1961), 82-83; E. Preobrazhenskii, Ekonomicheskie frizisy pri NEPe. Stenogramma doklada, chitannogo, v S. Akademii 1 noiabria 1923 g. (Moscow, 1923) 4-6.

26. Lenin, PSS45: 343-353, 383-388.

27. See E. Preobrazhenskii, “Ekonomicheskaia politika proletariata v krest'ianskoi strane,” Kommunisticheskii Internatsional, 1922, no. 23, 6275-6276, and idem, “Khoziaistvennoe ravnovesie v sisteme SSSR,” Vestnik Kommunisticheskoi Akademii (1927), 22: 23.

28. SeeXlls “ezdRKP(b). Stenograficheskii otchet (Moscow, 1968), 183.

29. E. A. Preobrazhenskii, Itogi Genuezskoi konferentsii i khoziaistvennye perspektivy Evropy (Moscow, 1922), 18.

30. In late 1922 Preobrazhenskii prepared theses on the transition from capitalism to socialism, in which he listed the main difficulties and discussed more or less the same issues as those presented in Ot nepa k sotsializmu (see TsPA IML, f. 5, op. 2, 1. 220-223). The theses were enclosed with his letter to the Politburo, in which he argued that a Central Committee plenum should prepare and adopt a resolution on the transition from capitalism to socialism in Russia. The same argument was made in Preobrazhenskii's “Pora,” Pravda, 25 January 1923. See also his speech at the Twelfth Party Congress (XII s “ezdRKP(b), 142).

31. In studies of party infighting, we tend to underestimate the role and significance of the distortions in the moral and ethical aspects of the life of the party and Russian society during the three revolutions, World War I and the civil war. Preobrazhenskii was among the first to acknowledge problems in this area. See his work 0 morali i klassovykh normakh (Moscow-Petrograd, 1923).

32. E. A. Preobrazhenskii, “O nashem vnutripartiinom polozhenii,” Pravda, 28 November 1923.

33. Preobrazhenskii, E. A., Novaia ekonomika (Moscow, 1926), 250 Google Scholar. See Bukharin, Nikolai I., “Novoe otkrovenie v sovetskoi ekonomike ili kak mozhno pogubit’ raboche-krest'ianskii blok,” Voprosy ekonomiki, 1988, no. 9 Google Scholar; Bukharin, N. I., K voprosu o zakonomernostiakh perekhodnogo perioda (Moscow-Leningrad, 1928).Google Scholar

34. If one disregards the political imperatives of the debate between Bukharin and Preobrazhenskii, one may say, with some degree of simplification, that each of the two opponents, while sharing the same general principles, concentrated on the problems within one of the two different components of the Soviet economy. Bukharin analyzed primarily the peasant agrarian sector, while Preobrazhenskii focused on the proletarian industrial sector.

35. Preobrazhenskii, Novaia ekonomika, 251, 30.

36. Preobrazhenskii, E. A., “Osnovnoi zakon pervonachal'nogo sotsialisticheskogo nakopleniia,” Vestnik Kommunisticheskoi Akademii, 8: 59.Google Scholar

37. For the discussion of the debate in the 1920s Soviet literature concerning industrialization, see Erlich, Alexander, The Soviet Industrialization Debate, 1924-1928 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

38. Preobrazhenskii suggested introducing indirect taxation of peasants; see Preobrazhenskii, Novaia ekonomika, 123.

39. Now that we know what price the people have paid for the Stalin alternative, Preobrazhenskii's attempts to find a different way for the country's development appear at the very least justified. Without debating here the issue whether Stalinism was inevitable, we may note that the main reason why Stalin won within the party was that the Soviet Union was isolated as a socialist country.

40. Cohen, Stephen, Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution: A Political Biography, 1888-1938 (New York: Vintage, 1971), 169.Google Scholar

41. L. D. Trotskii, “Zakon sotsialisticheskogo nakopleniia, planovoe nachalo, temp industrializatsii i—besprintsipnost',” in Kommunisticheskaia oppozitsiia v SSSR, 1923-1927, from The Archives of Leon Trotskii, 4 vols. vol. 1 (1923-1926) (Benson, Vt. 1988), 225.

42. N. I. Bukharin, “Novoe otkrovenie v sovetskoi ekonomike ili kak mozhno pogubit’ rabochekrest'ianskii blok,” no. 9, 149.

43. N. I. Bukharin, “Zametki ekonomista,” Pravda, 30 September 1928; Preobrazhenskii, Khoziaistvennoe ravnovesie v sisteme SSSR.

44. Quoted from Em. Iaroslavskii, “Mertvye shagaiut bystro: Razval trotskizma,” Bol'shevik, no. 18 (30 September 1929), 60.

45. Ibid., 73.

46. XVII s “ezd VKP(b). Stenograficheskii otchet (Moscow, 1934), 238. E. Preobrazhenskii,” Za chto nas iskliuchili iz partii?: Pis'mo k partiinomu s “ezdu,” Kommunisticheskaia oppozitsiia v SSSR 4: 84; “Zaiavlenie v TsKK byvshikh rukovoditelei trotskistskoi oppozitsii tt. E. Preobrazhenskogo, K. Radeka, i I. Smilgi o razryve s oppozitsiei,” Pravda, (13 July 1929).

47. E. A. Preobrazhenskii, “Ekonomicheskaia priroda sovetskikh deneg i. perspektivy chervonsta,” Pod znamenem marksizma (1930) no. 4; Teoriia padaiushchei valiuty (Moscow-Leningrad, 1930); “Izmeneniia v stoimosti zolota i tovarnye tseny,” Problemy ekonomiki (1930), no. 1; Zakat kapitalizma: Vosproizvodstvo i krizisy pri imperializme i mirovoi krizis 1930-1931 gg. (Moscow-Leningrad, 1931).

48. Preobrazhenskii, Ekonomicheskaia priroda sovetskikh deneg, 62.

49. Ibid., 63.

50. Preobrazhenskii, Teoriia padaiushchei valiuty, 27.

51. Preobrazhenskii, Zakat kapitalizma, 5.

52. Ibid., 11.

53. Ibid., 97. Emphasis added.

54. See, for example, B. Borilin, “Protiv izvrashchenii marksistsko-leninskoi teorii na ekonomicheskom fronte,” Problemy ekonomiki (1931), nos. 10-12.

55. Ibid.;K. Butaev, “K voprosu o material'noi baze sotsializma,” Problemy ekonomiki (1932), no. 1.

56. Butaev, “K voprosu,” 9.

57. Ibid., 12.

58. Ibid., 19.

59. XVII s “ezdVKP(b), 661.

60. Proletarskaia revoliutsiia (1924), no. 7, 170.

61. Proletarskaia revoliutsiia (1925), no. 2, 15.

62. XVII s “ezdVKP(b)., 239.

63. Certificate from the Military Board of the Supreme Court, 16 January 1989, no. 6n-0505/88, signed by the head of the Secretariat of the Military Board, “colonel of jurisprudence,” A. Nikonov; certificate from the USSR Prosecutor's Office of 18 April 1989, no. 13/157043, signed by the assistant to the prosecutor general, senior jurisprudence counsellor P. A. Laptev; certificate from the Central Party Archive at the Institute of Marxism-Leninism with the CPSU Central Committee of 25 April 1989, no. 2793, signed by the deputy head of the Central Party Archive, I. U. Akhapkin, and research worker, E. Karavaeva.

64. Neva (1988), no. 10.