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The Making of a Right Communist—A. I. Rykov to 1917

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Samuel A. Oppenheim
Samuel A. Oppenheim*
Affiliation:
California State College-Stanislaus, Turlock, California
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Anyone familiar with Soviet history can identify A. I. Rykov: Lenin’s successor as chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars, a major leader of Right Communism, a victim of Stalin’s purges. But this tells us very little. Because of Rykov’s predilection for practical as opposed to ideological-literary work, his relative colorlessness in comparison with the other Bolshevik luminaries, and a lack of material, he has not been attractive to scholars. Yet Rykov looms large within the Bolshevik movement; he was prominent long before the revolution as well as after 1917. Furthermore, the seeds of Rykov’s positions of the 1920s—which clearly had an impact on the policies and politics of those years—were definitely sown before 1917.

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 36 , Issue 3 , September 1977 , pp. 420 - 440
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1977

References

1. The author has never run across a scholarly article on Rykov, or one that interprets his career and tries to place him within the movement. The four pamphlet-monographs that appeared in the 1920s were short popular works designed to introduce Rykov to the population. These works are Vorob'ev, I. I., Meller, V. L., and Pankratova, A. M., Aleksei Ivanovich Rykov, ego shizn’ i deiatel'nosf (Moscow, 1924), 56 pagesGoogle Scholar; A., Lomov, A. I. Rykov (Moscow, 1924), 32 pagesGoogle Scholar; Vereshchagin, I. K., Predsedatel’ soveta narodnykh komissarov Aleksei Ivanovich Rykov : Ego zhizn’ i deiatel'nosf (Moscow, 1924), 24 pagesGoogle Scholar; 2nd ed. (Moscow, 1925), 21 pages; 3rd ed. (Moscow, 1925), 28 pages; Aleksei Ivanovich Rykov : Kratkaia biografiia (Moscow-Leningrad, 1927), 23 pages; and R. S. D., “Rykov, Aleksei Ivanovich, ” Entsiklopedicheskii slovar’ Granat, 46, part 2 (n.d.), columns 223-30.

2. Bol'shaia sovetskaia entsiklopediia (1944), s.v. “Saratov”; G. Saar, “Vozniknovenie Saratovskoi organizatsii RSDRP, ” Proletarskaia revoliutsiia, no. 6-7/77-78 (1928), pp. 268 and 266; and G. Saar, “Saratovskaia organizatsiia RSDRP V nachale 1900-kh gg., ” Proletarskaia revoliutsiia, no. 11-12/82-83 (1928), p. 126.

3. Saar, “Vozniknovenie, ” pp. 271, 273-74, 284 ff. Other works on the early phase of the Saratov movement include Stanchinskii, A, “Sotsial-demokraticheskoe podpol'e v Saratove i zhurnal ‘Saratovskii rabochii’ v 1899 g.,” Proletarskaia revoliutsiia, no. 2/14 (1923), pp. 87–107Google Scholar; P. Lebedev, “K istorii Saratovskoi organizatsii RSDRP (1901-1903 gg.), ” Proletarskaia revoliutsiia, no. 3/15 (1923), pp. 227-50; Kursanova, A. V., Pervye sotsialdemokraticheskie organizatsii i iskrovtsy v Saratove (Saratov, 1963)Google Scholar; and G. F. Khodakov, Ocherki istorii Saratovskoi organisatsii KPSS, part 1 : 1898-1918 (Saratov, 1968).

4. Stanchinskii, “Sotsial-demokraticheskoe podpol'e, ” pp. 92, 105-6.

5. Lebedev, “K istorii Saratovskoi organizatsii RSDRP, ” pp. 235-36, 237-43; V. N. Stepanov, “V. I. Lenin i sozdanie organizatsii ‘Iskry’ v Rossii, ” Voprosy istorii KPSS, no. 6 (1960), p. Ill; Saar, “Saratovskaia organizatsiia RSDRP, ” pp. 127-28, 129.

6. M. Samsonov, “Saratovskaia organizatsiia R.S.D.R.P. v 1901-1905 gg. (Vospominaniia), ” 1905 god v Saratovskoi gubemii (po matcrialam shandarmskogo upravlenie) : Sbornik statei, vol. 1 (Saratov, 1926), pp. 107 and 105; Saar, “Saratovskaia organizatsiia RSDRP, ” pp. 127-29.

7. Saar, “Saratovskaia organizatsiia RSDRP, ” pp. 127-28; Lebedev, “K istorii Saratovskoi organizatsii RSDRP, ” pp. 239 and 245.

8. Samsonov, “Saratovskaia organizatsiia R.S.D.R, P., ” p. 107; Keep, John H. L., The Rise of Social Democracy in Russia (Oxford : Oxford University Press, 1963, pp. 78–84.Google Scholar

9. R. S. D., “Rykov, Aleksei Ivanovich, ” p. 224.

10. Lebedev, , “K istorii Saratovskoi organizatsii RSDRP,” p. 247; Reswick, William, Dreamt Revolution (Chicago : H. Regnery and Co., 1952), p. 87.Google Scholar Reswick was head of the Associated Press bureau in Moscow in the 1920s and came to know Rykov fairly well.

11. Iskra, nos. 29 and 34 (December 1, 1902; February 15, 1903), used from ‘Iskra, ' 1-52, 7 vols, in 2 (Leningrad, 1925-29), 4 : 139 and 5 : 81; Leninskii sbornik, 5 (1926) : 592; and I. Vereshchagin, PredsedateV soveta narodnykh komissarov, 2nd ed., p. 10.

12. R. S. D., “Rykov, Aleksei Ivanovich, ” p. 225. For more information on the Northern Committee see Varentsova, O, “Severnyi rabochii soiuz, 1900-1903,” Proletarskaia revoliutsiia, no. 9 (1922), pp. 3–39Google Scholar; and O., Varentsova, Severnyi rabochii soiuz i severnyi komitet RSDRP, 1900-1905 gg., 2nd ed. (Moscow, 1935)Google Scholar.

13. Archives of the Paris Division of the Okhrana, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Palo Alto, California, index no. XVId, folder 4 : “Cohesion, Cleavage, and Morale, ” box 196. Also in Lenin, V. I., Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 55 vols., 5th ed. (Moscow, 1958-70), 4 : 367–39Google Scholar, where it is cited only as a letter to M. K. Vladimirov, then in Gomel. This latter source apparently wishes to cover up the weakness of the MK in 1904. When originally published in 1934, the editors pointed out that on the inside of the envelope were found the words “for the M. K.” (see Krasnyi arkhiv, no. 1/62 [1934], p. 162). For the similar recollections of other party workers see Miliutina, V. P., Nakanune pervoi revoliutsii v Moskve (Moscow, 1926), p. 62 Google Scholar; and Mitskevich, S. I., Revoliutsionnaia Moskva (Moscow, 1940), p. 282.Google Scholar

14. Rykov, A. I., “Iz vospominanii,” Na sare rabochego dvizheniia v Moskve, ed. Ovsiannikov, N. (Moscow, 1919), p. 153–54.Google Scholar

15. Ibid., p. 156; A. I. Rykov, “Vospominaniia A. I. Rykova, ” Isvestiia, October 20, 1918, pp. 1-2; Tretiis “ezd RSDRP, aprel'-mai 1905 goda : Protokoly (Moscow, 1959), p. 378.

16. Chebarin, A. S., Moskva v revoliutsii 1905-1907 godov (Moscow, 1955), pp. 7 and 19 Google Scholar; Nevskii, V, “Ianvarskie dni 1905 g. v Moskve. Po neizdannym arkhivnym dokumentam,” Krasnaia letopis, no. 2-3 (1922), pp. 7, 12, 13Google Scholar; and V., Iakovlev, 1905 god v Moskve, istorikorevoliutsionnyi ocherk : Khod sobytii i pamiatnye mesta (Moscow, 1955), p. 20.Google Scholar

17. D. D., Himmer', “V Zamoskvorech'i,” in Piatyi god, ed. Miliutina-Smidovich, M. V., vol. 2 (Moscow, 1925-26), pp. 260 and 269Google Scholar; Archives of the Paris Division of the Okhrana, index no. XVIb(6)(a), folder 3 : “Russian Socialist Workers Party—Bolsheviks, ” box 194 (Rykov's main revolutionary pseudonyms were Aleksei, Vlasov, and Sergeev); “Perepiska N. Lenina i N. K. Krupskoi s peterburgskoi organizatsiei, ” Proletarskaia revoliutsiia, no. 3/38 (1925), pp. 21 and 27.

18. For literature on the BKB see Khabas, R, “Sozdanie bol'shevistskogo tsentra (BKB) i gazety ‘Vpered, '” Proletarskaia revoliutsiia, no. 11/34 (1924), pp. 19–31Google Scholar; Kardashev, D, “K istorii zarozhdeniia biuro komitetov bol'shinstva,” Proletarskaia revoliutsiia, no. 10/93 (1929), pp. 80–95, and no. 1 (1930), pp. 47-67Google Scholar; and Iaroslavskii, Em., ed., Istoriia VKP (b), vol. 1 (Moscow, 1926-30), p. 379 Google Scholar. Solomon Schwarz, a former Menshevik, has concluded that there was no “conference, ” that Lenin himself wrote the leaflet “To the Party, ” sent it to Geneva from Lausanne, where he was vacationing, and had it approved by Bolsheviks in Geneva. It was decided, he goes on, to have the leaflet introduced from within Russia as a sign of internal Russian initiative for a congress, and that the leaflet was first known as “the Riga declaration, ” or “the Riga resolution” (see S., Schwarz, The Russian Revolution of 1905 : The Workers’ Movement and.the Formation of Bolshevism and Menshevism, trans. Vakar, Gertrude [Chicago and London : University of Chicago Press, 1967], pp. 257–60Google Scholar).

19. Khabas, “Sozdanie bol'shevistskogo tsentra, ” pp. 26, n. and 27; Kardashev, “K istorii zarozhdeniia biuro komitetov bol'shinstva, ” no. 10/93 (1929), p. 89, and no. 1 (1930), pp. 63-64; Iaroslavskii, ed., Istoriia VKP(b), vol. 1, p. 379; “Perepiska N. Lenina i N. K. Krupskoi s peterburgskoi organizatsiei, ” p. 17.

20. A. Bubnov, “VKP(b), ” Bol'shaia sovetskaia entsiklopediia, vol. 11 (1930), p. 277; Tretii s “ezd RSDRP : Sbornik dokumentov i matcrialov (Moscow, 1955), pp. 99 and 106; Kardashev, ” K istorii zarozhdeniia biuro komitetov bol'shinstva, ” no. 1 (1930), p. 61; “Dokumenty i materialy k III s” ezdu R.S.D.R.P., ” Proletarskaia revoliutsiia, no. 3 (1922), pp. 125-26; “Perepiska N. Lenina i N. K. Krupskoi s M. M. Litvinovym, ” Proletarskaia revoliutsiia, no. 2/37 (1925), pp. 75-76; “Perepiska N. Lenina i N. K. Krupskoi s peterburgskoi organizatsiei, ” p. 15.

21. Rykov, “Vospominaniia A. I. Rykova, ” p. 1; Schwarz, The Russian Revolution of 1905, pp. 53 and 55; “Perepiska N. Lenina i N. K. Krupskoi s M. M. Litvinovym, ” p. 79. Emphasis added.

22. Liadov, M. [M. N. Mandel'shtam], Is shisni partii nakanune i v gody pervoi revoliutsii (Vospominaniia) (Moscow, 1926), p. 76 Google Scholar; “Protokoly peterburgskogo komiteta RSDRP ot 6/19 i 10/23 marta 1905 goda, ” Krasnaia letopis', no. 2/35 (1930), pp. 28-29. All of the numerous references to Rykov in the 1926 edition of Mandel'shtam's memoirs were deleted from the 1956 edition. Also, the minutes of the Third Congress list Rykov only as a Moscow delegate, not an alternate from St. Petersburg.

23. “Practical” workers were revolutionaries who worked directly in organizational affairs in Russia, as contrasted to the emigre thinkers and litterateurs.

24. Tretii s “esd RSDRP : Protokoly, pp. 270, 291, 461.

25. Ibid., pp. 270-71, 295.

26. Ibid., pp. 225-26, 242. Emphasis in the original.

27. Ibid., pp. 253-54, 261-62, 332-33, 336. Schwarz says that “this was the only time in the history of Bolshevism that Lenin found himself in the minority at a Bolshevik congress after putting up a fight, and that a speech of his was| booed” (see Schwarz, The Russian Revolution of 1905, p. 220, n. 41).

28. This position is less clear, since Rykov's first speech on the subject, at the sixth session, on April 15, was not recorded, and when the minutes of the sixth session were read for approval, at the fourteenth session, on April 20, an effort to have a copy of that speech inserted into the record failed (Tretii s “esd RSDRP : Protokoly, pp. 229 and 715, n. 63). Hence we only have what others said of his speech, plus a short speech of Rykov's at the seventh session, which still is not very clear (see ibid., pp. 144 and 156 [Leskov's speech], and pp. 450-51 [the resolution]).

29. Ibid., p. 403.

30. Liadov [Mandel'shtam], Is zhisni partii, pp. 75, 77-78.

31. The following points of difference between Marxism and Social Revolutionary thought are taken from the first chapter of Radkey, O. H., The Agrarian Foes of Bolshevism : Promise and Default of the Russian Socialist Revolutionaries, February to October, 1917 (New York and London : Columbia University Press, 1958).Google Scholar

32. R., Tucker, Stalin as Revolutionary, 1879-1929 (New York : W. W. Norton, 1973, p. 30.Google Scholar

33. “Zasedanie tsentral'nogo komiteta v polnom sostave 11-go maia 1905 g. v sredu vecherom, ” Leninskii sbornik, 5 (1926), pp. 282 and 592; R. S. D., “Rykov, Aleksei Ivanovich, ” p. 226; Gorev, B. I., Iz partiinogo proshlogo : Vospominaniia (1895-1905) (Leningrad, 1924), p. 72.Google Scholar

34. G. M., Derenkovskii, “K voprosu o zasedanii Ts.K. RSDRP v seredine dekabria 1905 g.,” Voprosy istorii KPSS, no. 1 (1969), p. 109 Google Scholar; Institut Marksizma-Leninizma, Istoriia kommunisticheskoi partii Sovetskogo Soiuza, vol. 2 (Moscow, 1964), p. 144 and 144 nGoogle Scholar. In early 1906 the MOB was reorganized as the Oblast Bureau of the Central Industrial Oblast.

35. Rykov, “Vospominaniia A. I. Rykova, ” p. 2; Sokolov, V, “Tipografiia v podzemle ('Kavkazskii magazin’),” 25 let R.K.P. (bol'shevikov), 1898-1923, ed. Volkovicher, I. V. (Moscow, 1923), pp. 127–28 Google Scholar; Mikhailov, I, “Podgotovka k vooruzhennoi bor'be,” Boevaia gruppa pri TsK RSDRP(b) : Stafi i vospominaniia, comp. Pozner, S. M. (Moscow-Leningrad, 1927), p. 127 Google Scholar; V. Bogomolov, “Sviaz1 ‘voenno-tekhnicheskoi gruppy’ s moskovskoi organizatsiei, ” ibid., p. 154; Ivanov, I. I. (Skvortsov), Ot revoliutsii k revoliutsii : Sbornik statei 1905-1915 (Moscow-Leningrad, 1925), p. 10Google Scholar; Mitskevich, S, “Lektorskaia gruppa pri moskovskom komitete v 1905-1907 gg.,” Proletarskaia revoliutsiia, no. 9/44 (1925), pp. 58 ff.Google Scholar; G. A. Aleksinskii, “Vospominaniia : Konets 1905 goda i 1906-1910, ” Archives of Russian and East European History and Culture, Columbia University, Aleksinsky Collection, folder no. 83, p. 113. By way of comparison, only five of eleven delegates from St. Petersburg were Bolsheviks.

36. Chetvertyi (ob “edinitel'nyi) s” ezd RSDRP; aprel’ (aprel'-mai) 1906 goda : Protokoly (Moscow, 1959), pp. 191, 307, 435-36; Liadov [Mandel'shtam], Is shizni partii, pp. 157-58.

37. R. S. D., “Rykov, Aleksei Ivanovich, ” p. 226; istorii, K.P.S.S., Otdel po, Revoliutsiia i RKP v materialakh i dokumentakh, 7 vols. (Moscow, 1924-27), 4 : 202 Google Scholar; Liadov [Mandel'shtam], Is zhizni partii, p. 200.

38. R. S. D., “Rykov, Aleksei Ivanovich, ” p. 226; Leonid Borisovich Krasin ('Nikitich’), Gody podpol'ia : Sbornik vospominanii, statei i dokumcntov, ed. M. N. Liadov and S. M. Pozner (Moscow-Leningrad, 1928), pp. 44-45; Piatyi (Londonskii) s “ead RSDRP : Protokoly (Moscow, 1963), p. 827, n. 260; M., Moskalev, Biuro tsentral'nogo komiteta RSDRP v Rossii avgust 1903 mart 1917 (Moscow, 1964), p. 109 Google Scholar; Protokoly rasshirennogo soveshchaniia redaktsii ‘Proletariia’ (Moscow, 1934), p. 264, n. 1.

39. Boycottists were Bolsheviks in the post-1905 period who supported a boycott of elections to the Duma; otzovists were Bolsheviks in the same period who supported the recall of Social Democratic deputies from the Duma; ultimatists were Bolsheviks who supported the recall of S.D. deputies from the Duma after an ultimatum had been issued to the Duma; Vperedists were followers of Vpered! (Forward!), a journal published by dissident Bolsheviks in the post-1905 period. ﹛Vpered! was concerned with literary, cultural, political, and philosophical questions. It should not be confused with the journal of the same name founded by Lenin in 1904 to achieve a third party congress.) For literature on these groups see Voitinskii, N, “Boikotizm, otzovizm, ultimatizm,” Proletarskaia revoliutsiia, no. 8-9/91-92 (1929), pp. 33–66Google Scholar; Voitinskii, N, “'Vpered’ (1909-1917),” Proletarskaia revoliutsiia, no. 12/95 (1929), pp. 59–119Google Scholar; D. N., Rudnik, “Lenin v bor'be s gruppoi ‘Vpered, '” Krasnaia letopis, no. 2 (1929), pp. 461–74Google Scholar; Golubkov, A, “Moskovskie bol'sheviki v bor'be s likvidatorstvom i otzovizmom (1908-1910 gg.),” Bor'ba klassov, no. 7-8 (1934), pp. 143–47Google Scholar; Partiia bol'shevikov v period reaktsii (1907-1910 gody) (Moscow, 1968).

40. Tsiavlovskii, M. A., ed., Materialy po istorii boV shevizma s 1903 po 1916 god byvsh. moskovskogo okhrannogo otdeleniia (Moscow, 1918), p. 57.Google Scholar

41. Godbuilders were Marxists who sought to combine Marxism with a higher, godlike, concept. Lenin wrote Materialism and Empiro-Criticism against the Godbuilders.

42. Protokoly rasshirennogo soveshchaniia redaktsii ‘Proletariia, ’ pp. 76, 107-8.

43. R. S. D., “Rykov, Aleksei Ivanovich, ” p. 226; Lenin, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 5th ed., 47 : 174, 179-80. Emphasis in the original.

44. “Iz perepiski mestnykh organizatsii s zagranichnym bol'shevistskim tsentrom v 1910, ” Proletarskaia revoliutsiia, no. 9/80 (1928), p. 170.

45. L., Schapiro, The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (New York : Random House, 1959, p. 101 Google Scholar; Wolfe, Bertram D., Three Who Made A Revolution, rev. ed. (New York : Delta Books, 1964, p. 478 Google Scholar; Moskalev, Biuro tsentral'nogo komiteta RSDRP, p. 161.

46. Quoted in Wolfe, Three Who Made A Revolution, p. 525 (emphasis in the original); Schapiro, The Communist Party of the Soviet Union, pp. .116—17; Ostroukhova, K, “Iz istorii bor'by s likvidatorstvom, 1907-1911,” Proletarskaia revoliutsiia, no. 11/58 (1926), p. 108 Google Scholar; Moskalev, Biuro tsentral'nogo komiteta RSDRP, p. 164.

47. “Bor'ba bol'shevizma s primirenchestvom : Pis'ma V. I. Lenina-A. I. Rykovu, fevral'-mart 1911 g., ” Leninskii sbornik, 18 (1931) : 14.

48. Ibid., pp. 12-13. Emphasis in the original.

49. Ibid., p. 33.

50. “Iz epokhi reaktsii i novogo pod” ema. Avgust 1907-1911, ” Leninskii sbomik, 25 (1933) : 78-79, 80, 84-87, 90; Revoliutsiia i R.K.P.(b), 5, p. 456.

51. Revoliutsiia iR.K.P.(b), 5, pp. 458-62.

52. Ostroukhova, “Iz istorii bor'by s likvidatorstvom, ” pp. 134-35; K., Shalagin, Bor'ba bol'shevikov s trotskiamom, 1907-1914 (Moscow, 1965), p. 66.Google Scholar

53. Tsiavlovskii, ed., Materialy po istorii bol'shevizma, p. 52.

54. It is reprinted in full, with Lenin's markings, in Leninskii sbomik, 25 (1933) : 98-101.

55. Tsiavlovskii, ed, Matcrialy po istorii bol'shevisma, pp. 53-54; Schapiro, The Communist Party of the Soviet Union, pp. 121-22.

56. A., Spiridovich, Istoriia bol'shevisma v Rossii, ot vosniknoveniia do sakhvata vlasti, 1883-1903-1917 (Paris : Tipografiia franko-russkaia pechat, 1922), p. 232 Google Scholar; Wolfe, Three Who Made A Revolution, pp. 527-29; Tsiavlovskii, ed., Materialy po istorii bol'shevisma, p. 57. Wolfe argues that the other factor was Martov's publication of the anti-Bolshevik pamphlet Saviors or Destroyers?

57. For a brief description of Rykov's life from his 1911 arrest to the time of the February revolution, see S. A. Oppenheim, “Aleksei Ivanovich Rykov (1881-1938) : A Political Biography” (Ph.D. diss., Indiana University, 1972), pp. 97-103.

58. G. Haupt and J. Marie, Les Bolcheviks par ettx-memes (Paris : Francis Maspero, 1969), pp. 397-98. The book is largely a translation into French, with notes, of the biographies of the major Soviet leaders in the Granat encyclopedia.

59. Protokoly rasshirennogo soveshchaniia redaktsii ‘Proletariia, ’ p. 119; N., Popov, Ocherk istorii vsesoiuznoi kommunisticheskoi partis (bol'shevikov), 15th ed., vol. 1 (Moscow, 1932), p. 182, n. 3.Google Scholar