Workers' Truth

Edit links
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.


Workers' Truth
Рабочая Правда
FoundedSeptember 1921 (1921-09)
DissolvedDecember 1923 (1923-12)
Split fromCommunist Party of the Soviet Union
Preceded byProletkult
NewspaperWorkers' Truth
IdeologyLeft communism
Political positionFar-left
Part of a series on
Left communism
Concepts
Movements
People
Organizations
Extant

Defunct

Related topics

The Workers' Truth (Russian: Рабочая Правда, romanized: Rabochaya Pravda) was a Russian socialist opposition group founded in 1921.[1] They published a newspaper with the same name, Workers' Truth, which first appeared in September 1921.[2]

The Workers' Truth considered that the

workers' party
.

Its main activists were arrested in September 1923—the group's activity being largely suppressed thereafter—and expelled from the Communist Party in December of the same year.

Ideas

Their programmatic statement (the "Appeal/Message to the Revolutionary Proletariat and to All Revolutionary Elements Who Remained Faithful to the Struggling Working Class")

Menshevik newspaper[5] edited in Berlin
.

They argued that during

centralization of economic management and had given rise to a new bourgeois class, composed of the most effective elements of the old bourgeoisie together with new elements drawn from the technical organising intelligentsia. They claimed that although the Russian Communist Party had been the party of the working class, it had become "the party of organisers and directors of the governmental apparatus and economic life along capitalist lines", and that these (like the private entrepreneurs that emerged with the New Economic Policy) led a life of privilege. To combat this situation, they proposed the formation of secret propaganda circles in the workplace, in trade unions and other workers' organisations, as well as within the Communist Party and its affiliates.[4]

The group considered it necessary to create a

workers' party (albeit, at least provisionally, accepting the existing government and the Communist Party), from both non-party workers and Communist Party affiliates, advocating proposals such as:[4]

Origins

The intellectual roots of the Workers' Truth are most likely in the Proletkult movement, and above all in the manifesto of the "Collectivists", published in 1921 by some elements of this movement (and possibly also linked to the Workers' Opposition), warning of the danger of bureaucratic intelligentsia becoming a ruling class in a capitalist state.[7]

The Workers' Truth activists were mostly students[8] and from the "red" academies, that is, the higher education institutions created for the purpose to form the intellectuality of the new regime.[9] Nevertheless, they argued that promoting cultural work among industrial workers was more important than funding universities, as these would be frequented by ex-workers who would join the technocrats.[10]

Relationship with other opposition groups

The Workers' Truth considered that the

peasantry). The Workers' Opposition, on the other hand, had revolutionary elements among its supporters (which Workers' Truth tried to captivate), but an "objectively reactionary" program, which meant returning to the methods of "war communism".[4]

For its part, the Workers' Group, led by Gavril Myasnikov, in its manifesto, accused the Workers' Truth of in practice (by saying that Russia was already capitalist) accepting and promoting the restoration of capitalism, and limiting the working class to fight only for better salaries.[11]

Repression

The Scissors: retail and wholesale prices of agricultural and industrial goods in the Soviet Union July 1922 to November 1923.
Alexander Bogdanov, detained during the 1923 arrests.

In August 1923 a wave of strikes spread across Russian industrial centres, sparked off by the

scissors").[12][13]

Fearing that dissident communist groups like Workers' Truth or the Workers' Group could capitalize on the labor unrest to gain support among the working class,

old Bolshevik" Alexander Bogdanov.[17] Bogdanov denied any organisational involvement with them, although they had claimed that they were inspired by his views, and demanded for a face-to-face meeting with Felix Dzerzhinsky, with whom he spoke twice before being released on 13 October.[18]

In December 1923, Fanya Samoilova Shutskever, Efim Rafailovich Shul'man, Vladimir Markovich Khaikevich, Yakov Grigorevich Budnitsky, Pauline Ivanovna Lass-Kozlova, Oleg Petrovich Vikman-Beleev, and Nellie Georgievna Krym were identified as the leaders of Workers' Truth and expelled from the Communist Party[19] (at least Fanya Shutskever and Pauline Lass-Kozlova would be reinstated in the party, in 1926[20] and 1927,[6] respectively; Shutskever would be arrested again in 1938).[20]

With the arrests of September 1923, the Workers' Truth was effectively dissolved.[21]

See also

References

  1. ISSN 1570-1522
    .
  2. Carr, Edward Hallett (1969). A History of Soviet Russia: The interregnum, 1923-1924. Penguin Books
    . p. 89.
  3. OCLC 1261928253
    . Retrieved 4 February 2018.
  4. ^ a b c d Apelo do grupo Verdade Operária 1923
  5. JSTOR 40870666
    . Retrieved 23 February 2018.
  6. ^ a b Pirani 2008, p. 127
  7. ^ Halfin 2000, p. 378
  8. ^ Halfin 2000, p. 379
  9. ^ Pirani 2008, p. 143
  10. ^ Halfin 2000, p. 381
  11. OCLC 906298570
    .
  12. JSTOR 129715
    . Retrieved 28 December 2017.
  13. ^ Pirani 2008, pp. 199–203
  14. ^ Pirani 2008, p. 203
  15. ISBN 9781859844465
    . Retrieved 23 February 2018.
  16. ^ Schapiro, Leonard (1971). The Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Vol. 745 (2nd ed.). Vintage Books. pp. 280–281.
  17. ^ Pirani 2008, pp. 195, 204
  18. ISBN 978-0-226-45412-2
    . Retrieved 23 February 2018.
  19. ^ "Postanovlenie TsKK po delu gruppy Rabochaya Pravda". Pravda (in Russian) (296). Moscow. 30 December 1923.
  20. ^ a b Pirani 2008, p. 250
  21. ^ Pirani 2008, p. 195

Bibliography

External links
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Workers%27_Truth&oldid=1172832856"