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Short Course" and its historiographical significance. A short course on the history of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) A short course on the history of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks read

It was on this basis that Stalin’s main ideological and political action was carried out. A book appeared entitled “History of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks). Short course." It came out at the end of summer - beginning of autumn 1938, that is, when mass repressions were ending. In a way, she was their crowning glory. Its appearance answered one of Stalin’s constant concerns, which did not leave him throughout the entire period of his reign. From the very first great advance in 1924, the party made great efforts to educate and educate its new members. These efforts, in particular, determined the tendency to compress Marxist-Leninist theory into certain generalized formulations that had the character of an official doctrine. In the early 30s. Stalin launched the first decisive attack on any independent currents in the field of scientific Marxist research, that is, in the field where the fierce socio-political struggle of that period could more naturally be reflected. As the educational system rapidly developed, Stalin's vigilance regarding theoretical research also increased; Much attention, in particular, began to be paid to the creation of unified textbooks on various disciplines taught in educational institutions. Particular efforts were focused - which in itself is not surprising - on history, for it is through the study of history that each community acquires self-awareness and understands its problems. Finally, in the same report in March 1937, which gave a theoretical justification for unleashing repressions, Stalin also demanded the creation of a systematized network of party schools, stretching from the center to the periphery and necessarily covering all leading cadres.

A few years later, Stalin appropriated the authorship of the “Short Course” to himself, although the book was written by a group of authors. Be that as it may, the book was indeed created under his direct supervision: he personally drew up its plan and dictated its periodization. Other members of the Politburo, in particular Molotov, made some comments on the manuscript. In terms of presentation style, the resulting text was accessible, lapidary, schematic, and not devoid of persuasiveness, which corresponded to the task assigned to it. Its content was a reworking of the history of the party, which had very little in common with its actual past. The book, meanwhile, claimed not only to present history: the entire Marxist theory, for example, was contained in it in just over two dozen pages, summarized in the well-known section of Chapter Four, entitled “On Dialectical and Historical Materialism.” This section, as it immediately became known, was written by Stalin himself. Of course, this retelling was very far from the ideological richness of the original and looked almost like a catechism, but that is precisely why its provisions were easier to remember.

The authors of the book dealt with Lenin’s political theory in a similar way: the text clearly recounted some of its aspects, as a rule, relating to the pre-revolutionary period of its formation, and, on the contrary, its entire evolution after October was widely hushed up. All complexity, all richness of thought was discarded: the goal was to preserve only a few very simplified principles. A common thread running through the book (nowhere, however, not expressed directly and openly) was the idea of the “two leaders” of Bolshevism and the revolution: Lenin and Stalin. The very date of birth of the party was 1912, the year of the Prague Conference, at which Stalin was first co-opted into the Central Committee. The course of the civil war was presented distortedly, so that the story made it clear that the decisive role in achieving victory belonged to Stalin. The main thing is that the central tendency of the book was the depiction of all disputes and ideological clashes in the ranks of the Bolsheviks as a “principled struggle against anti-Leninist trends and groups,” without which “the party ... would have been degenerated” and the whole history of this struggle would have looked like an “incomprehensible squabble.” In this vein, both the disputes that took place during Lenin’s lifetime and which he himself never regarded in this way, and those that unfolded after his death, when he could no longer judge them, were presented. The inviolability of Lenin's principles was personified, therefore, in Stalin both for the present time and for those periods when some of these principles had nothing to do with reality at all, and Stalin himself (which was kept silent) came into conflict with Lenin.

The book was crowned with a passage about large processes, the official version of which was thereby elevated to the rank of historical truth. Convicted, “these scum of the human race, together with the enemies of the people - Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev - were in a conspiracy against Lenin, against the party, against the Soviet state from the first days of the October Socialist Revolution. Provocative attempts to disrupt the Brest Peace Treaty in early 1918; conspiracy against Lenin and conspiracy with the left Social Revolutionaries to arrest and murder Lenin, Stalin, Sverdlov in the spring of 1918; the villainous shot at Lenin and wounding him in the summer of 1918; rebellion of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries in the summer of 1918; the deliberate aggravation of divisions in the party in 1921 in order to undermine and overthrow Lenin's leadership from within; attempts to overthrow the party leadership during Lenin's illness and death; issuing state secrets and providing spy information to foreign intelligence services; the villainous murder of Kirov; sabotage, sabotage, explosions; the villainous murder of Menzhinsky, Kuibyshev, Gorky - all these and similar atrocities, it turns out, were carried out over a period of twenty years with the participation or leadership of Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Bukharin, Rykov and their henchmen on orders from foreign bourgeois intelligence services.

The trials revealed that the Trotskyist-Bukharinist monsters, carrying out the will of their masters - foreign bourgeois intelligence services, set as their goal the destruction of the party and the Soviet state, undermining the country's defense, facilitating foreign military intervention, preparing the defeat of the Red Army, dismembering the USSR, giving the Soviet Primorye to the Japanese, giving back Soviet Belarus to the Poles, giving back Soviet Ukraine to the Germans, destroying the gains of workers and collective farmers, restoring capitalist slavery in the USSR.”

The question may arise as to how Stalin decided to liquidate the entire great legacy that these people who led the revolution represented - the legacy of the ideological and political battles of the old Bolshevik party, from the depths of which he himself emerged. The answer comes down to the fact that this was in fact its true goal, as well as repression. He cast a dark shadow over the entire former party, or at least its leaders, but the brighter light was concentrated on his own figure. Bolshevism, in accordance with its central thesis, would have degenerated if there had not been Lenin (it goes without saying, perceived as a necessary initial link in a further succession), but especially if there had been no Stalin, a man who was always right. The great achievements of the people after the revolution were accomplished under his leadership.

From now on, the names of his opponents will be mentioned only with abuse and curse. Their works, now considered dangerous subversive texts, were confiscated from libraries and locked in hard-to-reach special storage sections. Since they were also scattered among the files of Soviet newspapers and magazines, these publications faced a similar fate. The images of these people were never reproduced: in old group photographs they were blurred out before reprinting. Subsequently, the names of those who were not officially branded as guilty were also condemned to oblivion. At the beginning of 1939, Krupskaya died, essentially spending the rest of her life in complete isolation. She was solemnly buried on Red Square in Moscow. But the very next day the publishing houses received an order: “Don’t print a word more about Krupskaya.”

The only one who continued to defend the history of old Bolshevism was Trotsky in his eternal exile. Compared to Stalin's falsifications, his reconstruction of history, even while associated with a specific view of things, was invariably distinguished by scrupulous fidelity to facts and circumstances. Having left the Princes' Islands off the coast of Turkey, Trotsky successively changed refuges in France, Norway and Mexico. After 1932, his last contacts with the USSR gradually diminished and finally ceased completely. In the years when the hunt for Trotskyists turned into an obsessive topic of Soviet political life, he had practically no real opportunities left to influence the course of events in the USSR. The international effect of his propaganda and agitation activities was great. She, too, however, was marked by serious weaknesses.

Thus, after sharply criticizing the Comintern theses on “social fascism,” Trotsky did not understand the focus on “popular fronts” and waged a fight against them. The Fourth International, which he tried to found, “died before it was born.” The repressions and trials in Moscow, in which his name was invariably mentioned as the name of the most important villain hiding from justice, gave Trotsky food for the entire last phase of his battle alone, breathing new fervor into it. Using irrefutable logic, he destroyed the false construction of accusations and devoted himself to systematically exposing Stalin's distortions of history. Although this activity of his found a relatively limited response in the world, the very weight of his arguments haunted Stalin. In the USSR, Trotsky was now spoken of only as an “arch-enemy,” the embodiment of all kinds of abomination. Abroad, the Soviet secret services relentlessly hunted him until their man finally managed to mortally wound him in Mexico on August 20, 1940. Trotsky died the next day.

edited by the commission of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks

approved by the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks

The 1938 edition mentions some names that were deleted from the later text of the 1945 edition; also, in the 1945 edition, surnames were sometimes added. In such cases, the crossed out text is given in angle brackets.

Workers of all countries, unite!

Introduction

The All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) has come a long and glorious way from the first small Marxist circles and groups that appeared in Russia in the 80s of the last century to the great Bolshevik Party, which now leads the world's first socialist state of workers and peasants.

The CPSU(b) grew out of the labor movement in pre-revolutionary Russia from Marxist circles and groups that connected with the labor movement and brought socialist consciousness into it. The CPSU(b) was and is guided by the revolutionary teachings of Marxism-Leninism. Its leaders, in the new conditions of the era of imperialism, imperialist wars and proletarian revolutions, further developed the teachings of Marx and Engels and raised them to a new level.

The CPSU(b) grew and strengthened in a principled struggle with petty-bourgeois parties within the labor movement - the Socialist Revolutionaries (and even earlier with their predecessors - the populists), Mensheviks, anarchists, bourgeois nationalists of all stripes, and within the party - with the Menshevik, opportunist movements - the Trotskyists , Bukharinites, national deviationists and other anti-Leninist groups.

The CPSU(b) grew stronger and became more tempered in the revolutionary struggle against all the enemies of the working class, against all the enemies of the working people - landowners, capitalists, kulaks, saboteurs, spies, and all the mercenaries of the capitalist encirclement.

The history of the CPSU(b) is the history of three revolutions: the bourgeois-democratic revolution of 1905, the bourgeois-democratic revolution in February 1917 and the socialist revolution in October 1917.

The history of the CPSU (b) is the history of the overthrow of tsarism, the overthrow of the power of landowners and capitalists, the history of the defeat of foreign armed intervention during the civil war, the history of the construction of the Soviet state and socialist society in our country.

Studying the history of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) enriches us with the experience of the struggle of the workers and peasants of our country for socialism.

Studying the history of the CPSU(b), studying the history of the struggle of our party against all the enemies of Marxism-Leninism, against all the enemies of the working people helps take over Bolshevism, increases political vigilance.

Studying the heroic history of the Bolshevik Party equips with knowledge of the laws of social development and political struggle, knowledge of the driving forces of the revolution.

Studying the history of the CPSU (b) strengthens confidence in the final victory of the great cause of the Lenin-Stalin party, the victory of communism throughout the world.

This book briefly outlines the history of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks).

The struggle for the creation of a Social Democratic Labor Party in Russia

(1883–1901)

1. Abolition of serfdom and the development of industrial capitalism in Russia. The emergence of the modern industrial proletariat. The first steps of the labor movement.

Tsarist Russia entered the path of capitalist development later than other countries. Until the 60s of the last century, there were very few factories and factories in Russia. The serf-dominated economy of the noble landowners predominated. Under the serf system, industry could not truly develop. Forced serf labor resulted in low labor productivity in agriculture. The entire course of economic development pushed towards the abolition of serfdom. The tsarist government, weakened by military defeat during the Crimean campaign and intimidated by peasant “revolts” against the landowners, was forced to abolish serfdom in 1861.

But even after the abolition of serfdom, the landowners continued to oppress the peasants. The landowners robbed the peasants, taking away and cutting off from them during the “liberation” a significant part of the land that the peasants had previously used. The peasants began to call this part of the land “cuts.” The peasants were forced to pay the landowners a ransom for their “liberation” - about two billion rubles.

After the abolition of serfdom, peasants were forced to rent landowners' land under the most difficult conditions. In addition to the monetary payment for rent, the landowner often forced the peasants to cultivate a certain amount of the landowner's land with peasant tools and horses for free. This was called “works off”, “corvee labor”. Most often, the peasant was forced to pay the landowner for the rent of land in kind from the harvest in the amount of half of his harvest. This was called work "ispol".

Thus, the situation remained almost the same as under serfdom, with the only difference that now the peasant was personally free, he could not be sold or bought like a thing.

The landowners squeezed the last juice out of the backward peasant economy using various predatory methods (rent, fines). The majority of the peasantry, due to the oppression of the landowners, could not improve their farming. Hence the extreme backwardness of agriculture in pre-revolutionary Russia, which led to frequent crop failures and famines.

The remnants of serfdom, huge taxes and redemption payments to landowners, which often exceeded the profitability of peasant farming, caused ruin and impoverishment of the peasant masses, forcing peasants to leave the villages in search of work. They went to factories and factories. Factory owners received cheap labor.

Above the workers and peasants stood a whole army of police officers, police officers, gendarmes, policemen, and guards who defended the tsar, capitalists, and landowners against the working people, against the exploited. Before 1903, corporal punishment existed. Despite the abolition of serfdom, peasants were flogged with rods for the slightest offense, for failure to pay taxes. Workers were beaten by police and Cossacks, especially during strikes, when workers stopped work, unable to withstand the oppression of factory owners. Workers and peasants had no political rights in Tsarist Russia. The tsarist autocracy was the worst enemy of the people.

Tsarist Russia was a prison of nations. Numerous non-Russian peoples of Tsarist Russia were completely without rights and were constantly subjected to all kinds of humiliation and insults. The tsarist government taught the Russian population to view the indigenous peoples of the national regions as an inferior race, officially called them “foreigners,” and instilled contempt and hatred for them. The tsarist government deliberately incited national hatred, set one people against another, organized Jewish pogroms and Tatar-Armenian massacres in Transcaucasia.

In the national regions, all or almost all government positions were occupied by Russian officials. All cases in institutions and in courts were conducted in Russian. It was forbidden to publish newspapers and books in national languages, and schools were prohibited from teaching in their native language. The tsarist government sought to stifle any manifestation of national culture and pursued a policy of forced “Russification” of non-Russian nationalities. Tsarism acted as an executioner and tormentor of non-Russian peoples.

After the abolition of serfdom, the development of industrial capitalism in Russia proceeded quite quickly, despite the remnants of serfdom that still delayed this development. In 25 years, from 1865 to 1890, the number of workers in large factories, factories and railways alone increased from 706 tons to 1,433 thousand, that is, more than doubling.

It went far beyond the scope of the actual history of the party and became a standard in covering the national history of the 19th-20th centuries.

“A Short Course” was a reference book not only for every communist, but also for every working person in our country... “A Short Course in the History of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)” became truly a reference book for everyone, a lot of work was done not only on its creation, but also on his propaganda. An entire generation of people was brought up on this textbook.

The concept of the history of the party formed the basis of the civil history of Russia. A clear periodization was established, the main elements of which were then reproduced in all Soviet publications of the 1960-1980s: 1) the time of maturation of the preconditions for the October Socialist Revolution; 2) preparation and conduct of the October Revolution; 3) the period of foreign intervention and civil war (1918-1920); 4) restoration of the national economy (1921-1925) and beyond.

The impact of the “Short Course” was facilitated by a large-scale campaign to promote the ideas of this publication, its introduction into the consciousness of the population through secondary and higher schools.

From 1938 to 1953, the “Short Course” was published 301 times in the amount of 42,816 thousand copies in 67 languages. After the death of I.V. Stalin, the book was revised and published under the title “ A short course on the history of the CPSU».

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All-Union Communist Party

(Bolsheviks)

SHORT COURSE

INTRODUCTION

Studying the history of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) enriches us with the experience of the struggle of the workers and peasants of our country for socialism.

Studying the heroic history of the Bolshevik Party equips with knowledge of the laws of social development and political struggle, knowledge of the driving forces of the revolution.

Studying the history of the CPSU (b) strengthens confidence in the final victory of the great cause of the Lenin-Stalin party, the victory of communism throughout the world.

This book briefly outlines the history of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks).

THE STRUGGLE FOR THE CREATION OF A SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC WORKERS' PARTY IN RUSSIA

(1883-1901)

1. Abolition of serfdom and the development of industrial capitalism in Russia. The emergence of the modern industrial proletariat. The first steps of the labor movement.

Thus, the situation remained almost the same as under serfdom, with the only difference that now the peasant was personally free, he could not be sold or bought like a thing.

Capitalist large-scale industry began to develop even faster in Russia in the 90s. By the end of the 90s, the number of workers in large factories and factories, in the mining industry, and on railways in only 50 provinces of European Russia increased to 2,207 thousand, and throughout Russia - to 2,792 thousand.

It was a modern industrial proletariat, radically different from the factory workers of the serf period and the workers of small, handicraft and all other industries, both in its unity in large capitalist enterprises and in its fighting revolutionary qualities.

The industrial boom of the 90s was associated primarily with increased railway construction. Over the decade (1890-1900), over 21 thousand miles of new railway tracks were built. The railways required a huge amount of metal (for rails, locomotives, wagons), and required more and more fuel, coal and oil. This led to the development of metallurgy and the fuel industry.

As in all capitalist countries, in pre-revolutionary Russia the years of industrial growth were followed by years of industrial crises and industrial stagnation, which hit the working class hard and doomed hundreds of thousands of workers to unemployment and poverty.

Although the development of capitalism after the abolition of serfdom in Russia proceeded quite quickly, Russia still lagged far behind other capitalist countries in its economic development. The vast majority of the population was still engaged in agriculture. In his famous book “The Development of Capitalism in Russia,” Lenin cited important figures from the general population census carried out in 1897. It turned out that about five-sixths of the total population were employed in agriculture, while only about one-sixth of the population was employed in large and small industry, trade, railway and water transport, construction, forestry, and so on.

This shows that Russia, despite the development of capitalism in it, was an agrarian country, economically backward, a petty-bourgeois country, that is, one in which small-proprietary, unproductive individual peasant farming still predominated.

The development of capitalism took place not only in the city, but also in the countryside. The peasantry, the largest class in pre-revolutionary Russia, was disintegrating and stratifying. In the village, among the wealthiest peasants, the kulak elite, the village bourgeoisie, stood out, and, on the other hand, many peasants went bankrupt, the number of poor peasants, village proletarians and semi-proletarians increased. The number of middle peasants decreased every year.

In 1903, there were about 10 million peasant households in Russia. In his pamphlet “To the Village Poor,” Lenin calculated that of this number of households there were no less than three and a half million households horseless peasants These poor peasant households usually sown a small piece of land, handed over the rest of the land to the kulaks, and they themselves went to work. In terms of their position, the poorest peasants were closest to the proletariat. Lenin called them village proletarians or semi-proletarians.

On the other hand, one and a half million rich, kulak peasant households (out of a total of 10 million) took into their hands half of all peasant crops. This peasant bourgeoisie grew rich, oppressing the poor and middle peasantry, profiting from the labor of farm laborers and day laborers and turning into agricultural capitalists.

Already in the 70s and especially the 80s of the last century, the working class in Russia began to awaken and began to fight the capitalists. The situation of workers in tsarist Russia was unusually difficult. In the 80s, the working day in factories was at least 12.5 hours, and in the textile industry it reached 14-15 hours. Exploitation of female and child labor was widespread. Children worked the same hours as adults, but, like women, received significantly lower wages. Wages were prohibitively low. Most of the workers received 7-8 rubles a month. The highest paid workers in metalworking and foundry factories received no more than 35 rubles per month. There were no labor protections, which led to widespread injury and death of workers. There was no insurance for workers, medical care was provided only for a fee. Living conditions were unusually difficult. 10-12 workers lived in small “closets” and workers’ barracks. Factory owners often shortchanged workers, forced them to buy food at exorbitant prices in their owners' shops, and robbed workers through fines.

The workers began to conspire among themselves and jointly present demands to the owner of the factory to improve their unbearable situation. They quit work, that is, they declared a strike, a strike. The first strikes in the 70s and 80s usually arose due to exorbitant fines, cheating, deception when paying workers, and price reductions.

During the first strikes, the workers, driven out of patience, sometimes broke machines, broke windows in factory premises, and destroyed their owners' shops and offices.

Advanced workers began to understand that to successfully fight the capitalists they needed organization. Workers' unions began to appear.

In 1875, the South Russian Union of Workers was organized in Odessa. This first workers' organization lasted 8-9 months, then was destroyed by the tsarist government.

In St. Petersburg in 1878, the “Northern Union of Russian Workers” was organized, headed by the carpenter Khalturin and the mechanic Obnorsky. The program of this union stated that in its tasks it was aligned with the social-democratic workers' parties of the West. The ultimate goal of the union was to carry out a socialist revolution - “the overthrow of the existing political and economic system of the state, as an extremely unjust system.” One of the organizers of the union, Obnorsky, lived abroad for some time, where he became acquainted with the activities of Marxist social democratic parties and the First International, led by Marx. This left its mark on the program of the Northern Union of Russian Workers. This union set its immediate goal to win political freedom and political rights for the people (freedom of speech, press, right of assembly, and so on). Among the immediate demands was also a limitation of the working day.

The number of members of the union reached 200 people, and the same number of sympathizers. The union began to take part in workers' strikes and led them. The tsarist government also crushed this workers' union.

But the labor movement continued to grow, covering more and more new areas; the 80s gave a large number of strikes. During the five-year period (1881-1886) there were more than 48 strikes with 80 thousand striking workers.

Of particular importance in the history of the revolutionary movement was the big strike that broke out in 1885 at Morozov’s factory in Orekhovo-Zuevo.

About 8 thousand workers worked at this factory. Working conditions worsened every day: from 1882 to 1884, wages were reduced five times, and in 1884, prices were immediately reduced by one quarter, that is, by 25 percent. But, in addition, the manufacturer Morozov tortured the workers with fines. As it turned out in court after the strike, from every ruble earned, under the guise of fines, 30 to 50 kopecks were taken from the worker in favor of the manufacturer. The workers could not stand this robbery and went on strike in January 1885. The strike was organized in advance. It was led by the advanced worker Pyotr Moiseenko, who was previously a member of the Northern Union of Russian Workers and already had revolutionary experience. On the eve of the strike, Moiseenko, together with other most conscious weavers, developed a number of demands for the manufacturer, which were approved at a secret meeting of workers. First of all, the workers demanded an end to extortionate fines.

This strike was suppressed by armed force. More than 600 workers were arrested, several dozen of them were put on trial.

Similar strikes took place in 1885 at factories in Ivanovo-Voznesensk.

The following year, the tsarist government, frightened by the growth of the labor movement, was forced to issue a law on fines. This law stated that fine money should not go into the pocket of the manufacturer, but for the needs of the workers themselves.

From the experience of the Morozov and other strikes, the workers realized that they could achieve a lot through organized struggle. The labor movement began to identify from its midst capable leaders and organizers who firmly defended the interests of the working class.

At the same time, on the basis of the growth of the labor movement and under the influence of the Western European labor movement, the first Marxist organizations began to be created in Russia.

2. Populism and Marxism in Russia. Plekhanov and his group "Emancipation of Labor". Plekhanov's fight against populism. The spread of Marxism in Russia.

Before the emergence of Marxist groups, revolutionary work in Russia was carried out by populists, who were opponents of Marxism.

The first Russian Marxist group appeared in 1883. This was the “Emancipation of Labor” group, organized by G.V. Plekhanov abroad, in Geneva, where he was forced to leave from persecution by the tsarist government for revolutionary activities.

Before this, Plekhanov himself was a populist. Having become acquainted with Marxism in emigration, he broke with populism and became an outstanding propagandist of Marxism.

The Liberation of Labor group did a lot of work to spread Marxism in Russia. She translated the works of Marx and Engels into Russian: “Manifesto of the Communist Party”, “Wage Labor and Capital”, “The Development of Socialism from Utopia to Science” and others, published them abroad and began to secretly distribute them in Russia. G.V. Plekhanov, Zasulich, Axelrod and other members of this group also wrote a number of works in which they explained the teachings of Marx and Engels, explained the ideas scientific socialism.

Marx and Engels, the great teachers of the proletariat, in contrast to the utopian socialists, were the first to explain that socialism is not an invention of dreamers (utopians), but a necessary result of the development of modern capitalist society. They showed that the capitalist system will fall in the same way as the serfdom fell, that capitalism itself creates its own gravedigger in the person of the proletariat. They showed that only the class struggle of the proletariat, only the victory of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie will save humanity from capitalism, from exploitation.

Marx and Engels taught the proletariat to be aware of their strengths, to be aware of their class interests and to unite for a decisive struggle against the bourgeoisie. Marx and Engels discovered the laws of development of capitalist society and scientifically proved that the development of capitalist society and the class struggle in it must inevitably lead to the fall of capitalism, to the victory of the proletariat, to dictatorship of the proletariat.

Marx and Engels taught that it is impossible to get rid of the power of capital and transform capitalist property into public property peacefully, that the working class can achieve this only by using revolutionary violence against the bourgeoisie, by proletarian revolution, by establishing its political dominance - the dictatorship of the proletariat, which must suppress the resistance of the exploiters and create a new, classless communist society.

Marx and Engels taught that the industrial proletariat is the most revolutionary and therefore the most advanced class of capitalist society, that only a class like the proletariat can gather around itself all the forces dissatisfied with capitalism and lead them to storm capitalism. But in order to defeat the old world and create a new classless society, the proletariat must have its own workers' party, which Marx and Engels called the communist party.

The first Russian Marxist group, Plekhanov’s “Emancipation of Labor” group, began to spread the views of Marx and Engels.

The Emancipation of Labor group raised the banner of Marxism in the Russian foreign press at a time when there was no Social Democratic movement in Russia. It was necessary, first of all, to pave the way for this movement theoretically and ideologically. The main ideological obstacle to the spread of Marxism and the Social Democratic movement at that time was the populist views that then prevailed among the advanced workers and revolutionary-minded intelligentsia.

With the development of capitalism in Russia, the working class became a powerful progressive force, capable of organized revolutionary struggle. But the Narodniks did not understand the leading role of the working class. Russian populists mistakenly believed that the main revolutionary force was not the working class, but the peasantry, and that the power of the tsar and landowners could be overthrown through peasant “revolts” alone. The Narodniks did not know the working class and did not understand that without an alliance with the working class and without its leadership, the peasants alone would not be able to defeat tsarism and the landowners. The populists did not understand that the working class is the most revolutionary and most advanced class of society.

The populists first tried to rouse the peasants to fight against the tsarist government. For this purpose, the revolutionary intelligent youth, dressed in peasant clothes, moved to the village - “to the people,” as they said then. This is where the name “populists” came from. But the peasantry did not follow them, since they did not properly know or understand the peasants. Most of the populists were arrested by the police. Then the populists decided to continue the struggle against the tsarist autocracy on their own, without the people, which led to even more serious mistakes,

The populist secret society "People's Will" began to prepare the assassination of the Tsar. On March 1, 1881, the Narodnaya Volya managed to kill Tsar Alexander II with a thrown bomb. However, this did not bring any benefit to the people. It was impossible to overthrow the tsarist autocracy by killing individuals; it was impossible to destroy the class of landowners. In place of the murdered tsar, another appeared - Alexander III, under whom life became even worse for the workers and peasants.

The path chosen by the populists to fight tsarism through individual murders, through individual terror, was erroneous and harmful to the revolution. The policy of individual terror was based on the incorrect populist theory of active “heroes” and a passive “crowd” expecting heroic deeds from the “heroes.” This false theory said that only individual outstanding individuals make history, and the masses, the people, the class, the “crowd,” as populist writers contemptuously expressed it, are incapable of conscious, organized actions; they can only blindly follow the “heroes.” Therefore, the populists abandoned mass revolutionary work among the peasantry and working class and switched to individual terror. The populists forced one of the largest revolutionaries of that time, Stepan Khalturin, to stop working on organizing a revolutionary workers' union and devote himself entirely to terror.

The populists distracted the attention of the working people from the fight against the oppressor class by killing individual representatives of this class, which was useless for the revolution. They hindered the development of revolutionary initiative and activity of the working class and peasantry.

The populists prevented the working class from understanding its leading role in the revolution and delayed the creation of an independent working class party.

Although the secret organization of the Narodniks was crushed by the tsarist government, populist views persisted for a long time among the revolutionary-minded intelligentsia. The remnants of the Narodniks stubbornly resisted the spread of Marxism in Russia and interfered with the organization of the working class.

Therefore, Marxism in Russia could grow and strengthen only in the fight against populism.

The Emancipation of Labor group launched a struggle against the erroneous views of the Narodniks and showed how harm the teachings of the Narodniks and their methods of struggle brought to the labor movement.

In his works directed against the Narodniks, Plekhanov showed that the views of the Narodniks had nothing in common with scientific socialism, although the Narodniks called themselves socialists.

Plekhanov was the first to give a Marxist critique of the erroneous views of the Narodniks. While delivering pointed blows to populist views, Plekhanov simultaneously launched a brilliant defense of Marxist views.

What were the main erroneous views of the populists, to whom Plekhanov dealt a crushing blow?

Firstly, the populists argued that capitalism in Russia is a “random” phenomenon, that it will not develop in Russia, and therefore the proletariat will not grow and develop.

Secondly, the populists did not consider the working class to be the advanced class in the revolution. They dreamed of achieving socialism without the proletariat. The populists considered the main revolutionary force to be the peasantry, led by the intelligentsia, and the peasant community, which they considered as the embryo and basis of socialism.

Thirdly, the populists had an erroneous and harmful view of the entire course of human history. They did not know or understand the laws of economic and political development of society. They were completely backward people in this regard. In their opinion, history is made not by classes and not by the struggle of classes, but only by individual outstanding individuals - “heroes”, who are blindly followed by the masses, the “crowd”, the people, the classes.

Fighting against the populists and exposing them, Plekhanov wrote a number of Marxist works, on which Marxists in Russia studied and were educated. Plekhanov’s works such as “Socialism and the Political Struggle”, “Our Differences”, “On the Question of the Development of a Monistic View of History” cleared the way for the victory of Marxism in Russia.

In his works, Plekhanov outlined the main issues of Marxism. His book “On the Question of the Development of a Monistic View of History,” published in 1895, was of particular importance. Lenin pointed out that this book “brought up a whole generation of Russian Marxists” (Lenin, vol. XIV, p. 347).

In his works directed against the Narodniks, Plekhanov proved that it is absurd to pose the question the way the Narodniks posed it: should capitalism develop in Russia or not? The point is, Plekhanov said, proving this with facts, that Russia has already joined on the path of capitalist development and that there is no force that could turn it off this path.

The revolutionaries' task was not to detain the development of capitalism in Russia - they would not have been able to do this anyway. The task of the revolutionaries was to rely on the powerful revolutionary force that is generated by the development of capitalism - on the working class, to develop its class consciousness, to organize it, to help it create its own workers' party.

Plekhanov also smashed the second main erroneous view of the populists - their denial of the leading role of the proletariat in the revolutionary struggle. The populists viewed the emergence of the proletariat in Russia as a kind of “historical misfortune” and wrote about the “ulcer of the proletariat.” Plekhanov, defending the teachings of Marxism and its full applicability to Russia, argued that, despite the quantitative predominance of the peasantry and the comparative small number of the proletariat, it is on the proletariat, on its growth, that revolutionaries should place their main hopes.

Why specifically the proletariat?

Because the proletariat, despite its current small number, is a working class that is associated with most advanced form of economy - with large-scale production, and has a great future in mind.

Because the proletariat, as a class, growing from year to year, develops politically, easily amenable to organization due to working conditions in large-scale production, and most revolutionary due to its proletarian position, for in the revolution it has nothing to lose except its chains.

The situation is different with the peasantry.

The peasantry (we were talking about the individual peasantry - Ed.), despite its large number, is a working class that is associated with most backward form of economy - small-scale production, which is why it does not and cannot have a great future.

Not only is the peasantry not growing as a class, but, on the contrary, disintegrates from year to year on the bourgeoisie (kulaks) and the poor (proletarians, semi-proletarians). In addition, it is more difficult to organize due to its dispersal and is less willing to join the revolutionary movement due to its petty property status than the proletariat.

The populists argued that socialism would come to Russia not through the dictatorship of the proletariat, but through the peasant community, which they considered the embryo and base of socialism. But the community was not and could not be either the base or the embryo of socialism, since the community was dominated by kulaks, “world eaters” who exploited the poor, farm laborers, and weak middle peasants. The formally existing communal land ownership and the occasional redistribution of land by hearts did not change matters at all. The land was used by those members of the community who had draft animals, equipment, seeds, that is, wealthy middle peasants and kulaks. Horseless peasants, the poor and those with little power in general were forced to give the land to the kulaks and become hired laborers. The peasant community was in fact a convenient form for covering up kulak dominance and a cheap means in the hands of tsarism for collecting taxes from peasants on the principle of mutual responsibility. That is why tsarism did not touch the peasant community. It would be ridiculous to consider such a community the embryo or basis of socialism.

Plekhanov also smashed the third main erroneous view of the populists regarding the primary role in social development of “heroes,” outstanding personalities, and their ideas, and about the insignificant role of the masses, “crowds,” people, and classes. Plekhanov accused the populists of idealism, proving that the truth is not on the side of idealism, but on the side materialism Marx – Engels.

Plekhanov developed and substantiated the point of view of Marxist materialism. According to Marxist materialism, he argued that the development of society is ultimately determined not by the wishes and ideas of outstanding individuals, but by the development of the material conditions of the existence of society, changes in the methods of production of material goods necessary for the existence of society, changes in the relationship of classes in the production of material goods, and the struggle of classes for the role and place in the field of production and distribution of material goods. It is not ideas that determine the socio-economic status of people, but the socio-economic status of people that determines their ideas. Outstanding personalities can turn into nothing if their ideas and wishes run counter to the economic development of society, contrary to the needs of the advanced class, and, on the contrary, outstanding people can become truly outstanding personalities if their ideas and wishes correctly express the needs of the economic development of society, the needs advanced class.

The publication of “A Short Course in the History of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)” was preceded by a rather long and dramatic history. Its beginning dates back to the end of the 20s, when the ideological needs of the intensified struggle for power in the leadership of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the emerging personality cult of Stalin began to increasingly conflict with the traditional Bolshevism “Leninist concept” of the history of the party, set out in numerous textbooks on the history of the CPSU (b) at that time.

A new interpretation of the history of the party was required both by Stalin personally and by the nomenklatura layer of party bureaucrats on which he relied. It was equally important for them to provide an idea of the legitimacy of their power, to historically substantiate their dubious “right” to political dominance in the country. “The falsification of the past was not at all a matter of personal intrigue or group squabble...,” wrote L. D. Trotsky in the book “Stalin’s School of Falsifications.” The matter was about a deep political process that had its own social roots.... The bureaucracy, rising above the revolutionary class, could not, as its independent positions strengthened, not feel the need for an ideology that would justify its exceptional position and would insure it from discontent from below . This explains the gigantic scope of the reshaping, re-facing and outright falsification of the still very fresh revolutionary past.”

The inspirer and organizer of the process was Stalin, who steadily strove to create his own cult and an aura of greatness around his “theoretical genius.” He decided, first of all, to ensure his own control over the social sciences - political economy, philosophy and, of course, the history of the party. Already in 1931, he appeared in the magazine “Proletarian Revolution” with an article “On some issues in the history of Bolshevism.” After this, historical-party science turned into a field of intense political struggle and an instrument for creating a cult of personality. Repressions against some famous historians, many of whom were also major party functionaries (A. S. Bubnov, V. G. Knorin, V. I. Nevsky, N. N. Popov, etc.); “working through” others (Em. Yaroslavsky, I.I. Mints, etc.) and turning them into obedient executors of the will of the leader, using in the field of history as authors of “new” concepts of representatives of Stalin’s inner circle (L.P. Beria, K E. Voroshilov, L. M. Kaganovich, I. P. Tovstukha, etc.), distinguished by their readiness for unbridled flattery and servility and, at the same time, for any falsification of history - all this served to achieve this goal.

Thus, during the first half of the 30s. A new Stalinist concept of the history of Bolshevism was emerging, which was designed to replace the old, traditional Leninist concept. What are the differences and similarities between these two concepts of the history of the CPSU(b)?

If we talk about similarities, then it is in the class intransigence that permeates both concepts; in partisanship, which denied the very possibility of an opponent being right and an ideological compromise with him; in approving political extremism, violence, armed uprising as methods of achieving political goals; in denying the intrinsic value of any forms of civil society, ideological and political pluralism, “bourgeois” democracy; in recognizing the dictatorship of the proletariat - “power not limited by law and based on violence” - “the highest form of democracy”; and, finally, in the conviction that the revolutionary party of the proletariat not only has the right, but must, having won power, rule in the name and in the interests of the proletariat, not hesitating to use force not only in relation to “enemies”, but also against the proletariat itself . Consequently, the history of the Bolshevik Party became, first of all, the history of the struggle against class enemies and “opportunists” of all stripes. “The history of our party,” says the “Short Course on the History of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks,” “is the history of the struggle and defeat of petty-bourgeois parties: Socialist Revolutionaries, Mensheviks, anarchists, nationalists. As we see, the ideological and political basis of the Leninist and Stalinist concepts of the history of Bolshevism are virtually identical. But there is a significant difference between them. Class position and party bias in Lenin’s concept of the history of the RSDLP and Bolshevism were manifested in a certain selection of actual, real facts in their respective interpretation. Lenin, as a rule, did not stoop to distorting facts. “You cannot create illusions, create myths for yourself,” he wrote in 1910, “the materialist understanding of history and the class point of view are certainly hostile to this.”

For Stalin and his associates, the truth of a fact, a document, or statistics did not matter. They deliberately engaged in myth-making (for example, regarding the leadership role of Stalin in the October revolution), falsification of facts (for example, by extrapolating accusations of “enemies of the people” of subversion in relation to the October and post-October periods), distortion of statistics, etc. In 30 19th and subsequent years, even the text of Lenin’s works was subject to editing in the spirit of the establishing Stalinist concept of party history (of course, with the knowledge of Stalin himself). Ultimately, it was decided to put “an end to the arbitrariness and confusion in the presentation of the history of the party, the abundance of different points of view and arbitrary interpretations of the most important issues of party theory and party history, which took place in a number of published textbooks on the history of the party,” in other words, to establish censorship from The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks over all publications on the history of the party, to unify the coverage of facts and events, to limit the independence of the authors of works on the history of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks in the interpretation of certain issues.

In October 1935 The department of party propaganda and agitation of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Scientific Committee of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR held a meeting of teachers of the Institute of Red Professors, at which the issue of teaching party history was discussed. The meeting participants spoke in favor of creating a new textbook on the history of the CPSU(b). This wish was approved by the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, which formed a commission for the preparation of the textbook, headed by the Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, A. A. Zhdanov.

In 1935-1937 a team of authors led by V. G. Knorin, P. N. Pospelov and Em. Yaroslavsky proposed to the Central Committee several options for the layout of the future educational manual, but all of them were recognized as not meeting the objectives.

At the beginning of 1937, Stalin addressed the group of authors with a letter “On the history textbook of the CPSU(b)”. “I think,” he wrote, “that our textbooks on the history of the CPSU (b) are unsatisfactory for three main reasons. They are unsatisfactory either because they present the history of the CPSU(b) without connection with the history of the country; or because they are limited to a story, a simple description of events and facts of the struggle of currents, without giving the necessary Marxist explanation; or because they suffer from incorrect design, incorrect periodization of events.” Stalin suggested that the textbook authors preface each chapter (or section) with a brief historical background on the economic and political situation of the country, without which, he noted, the history of the party would look “like an easy and incomprehensible story about the affairs of the past.”

He also recommended giving a Marxist class explanation for the abundance of trends and factions in the party in the pre-revolutionary period, and also showing that the Bolshevik struggle with anti-Bolshevik trends and factions was a principled struggle for Leninism. To clarify this position, Stalin proposed using Engels’ letter to Bernstein (1882), given in his report at the VII extended plenum of the ECCI and his, Stalin’s, comments to this letter. It is worth noting here that in his report Stalin gives a definition of the history of the party, which almost literally coincides with the definition of Kaganovich in the above-mentioned speech to the ICP. “The history of the party,” said Stalin, “is the history of overcoming intra-party contradictions and the steady strengthening of the ranks of our party on the basis of this overcoming.” From this definition it follows that Stalin and his entourage understood the history of the party only as the history of internal party struggle, when issues of the political activity of the party and party building were discarded or barely touched upon. This is exactly how, in Stalin’s style, the entire internal party life was described in the future “Short Course on the History of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks).” Finally, Stalin’s letter contained a scheme for the periodization of the history of Bolshevism that he himself had developed, which apparently continued the Leninist periodization of the history of the party given in the works “What is to be done?”, “The childhood disease of “leftism” in communism” and others, but, in essence, differed from her in principle.

The periodization proposed by Stalin and derived in the “Short Course” created a myth about Stalin as a member of the top leadership of the Bolshevik Party from the moment of its formation and indirectly justified Stalin’s political vacillations in March 1917 as vacillations that allegedly took place only at the bourgeois-democratic stage even before the transition to the stage of socialist revolution. The post-October periodization of the history of the RCP (b) - CPSU (b), proposed by Stalin, was based on the fetishization of party directives and speeches of Stalin. As B. N. Ponomarev rightly said at the All-Union Conference of Historians in 1962 “(he later did not remember this), “in covering the post-October period of the country’s history, Stalin directly instilled voluntarism. The result was a fetishization of the power of an order, a directive, any speech by Stalin; this distorted the historical perspective: what was declared was presented as something that really existed." It was because of this circumstance that the period of the "struggle for industrialization" (1926-1929) arose in the Stalinist scheme, although at that time it had not yet actually been carried out; the period of the "struggle for collectivization of agriculture" (1930-1934) coincided with the years of the most intensive development of industry; finally, the scheme was crowned by the period of "completion of the construction of a socialist society", so named in accordance with the decisions of the XVII Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks - the "Congress of the Winners". This It would not hurt to proclaim in 1939 at the XVIII Party Congress the USSR’s entry into the period of “completion of the construction of a classless socialist society and a gradual transition to communism,” which, according to the exact meaning of the slogan, indicates the recognition of the incompleteness of the process of building socialism in the USSR.

Despite the theoretical inconsistency and factual fallacy of the Stalinist scheme, on April 16, 1937, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks decided: “To offer the group working on a textbook on the history of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks - t.t. Knorin, Yaroslavsky, Pospelov based their work on Comrade Stalin’s project and his proposed scheme for the periodization of the history of the CPSU (b).... To complete this task, within a 4-month period, release Knorin, Yaroslavsky and Pospelov for 4 months from all other work " After the decision was made, completed on time, another, final version of the layout of the “Short Course on the History of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks” appeared, distributed for review to members of the commission of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and members of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. From the surviving materials it is clear that they did not make significant changes to the text of the layout. The comments were in the nature of minor editorial corrections, or even simply crossing-outs, question marks or “ticks” in the margins.

The only member of the commission who actually worked on the layout and made significant and fundamental changes to it was Stalin. The Russian Center for the Storage and Study of Documents of Contemporary History (RCKHIDNI) stores photocopies of those pages of the layout that were touched to one degree or another by Stalin’s hand. This allows us not only to see his contribution to the content of the book, but also to establish the concept of the history of the CPSU (b) that he was guided by.

It should be noted that the entire content of the model that arrived on Stalin’s desk was imbued to a great extent with the cult of his personality. Stalin's historical merits were incredibly inflated, and in some places the apologetics against him reached the point of absurdity. While working on the layout of the book, Stalin crossed out the most odious-sounding exaggerations. From the layout of the Short Course, Stalin crossed out only those exaggerated praises addressed to him that did not look plausible enough. The final version of the textbook's title page was written by Stalin's hand. This formulation predetermined the subsequent canonization of this publication.

Stalin, while working on the layout, edited the headings of a number of chapter titles and paragraphs, bringing them into line with his concept of the history of Bolshevism as the history of the struggle against class and political opponents, and made other editorial changes to the text.

But Stalin did not limit himself to such “minor” changes. In a number of cases, he included large pieces of his own writing in the Short Course, which significantly influenced the entire concept and content of the book. It is known that Stalin wrote § 2 of Chapter IV “On dialectical and historical materialism” - the philosophical section of the “Short Course”, which after its publication was considered the only and most authoritative statement of the essence of Marxist philosophy. As a popular exposition of Marxism, this work was as good, and perhaps better, than many others. And along with others, it could be very useful. But the fact of the matter is that “along with” no longer existed. She was the only one, unique. It was immediately declared the pinnacle of Marxist-Leninist thought. And its author is a genius among the geniuses of all times and peoples, a luminary of all sciences.”

The philosophical section of the “Short Course” is preceded by a large insert made by Stalin, characterizing the situation on the Marxist “philosophical front” in conditions of reaction. “Decade and mistrust,” he wrote, “also affected one part of the party intellectuals, who considered themselves Marxists, but never stood firmly on the positions of Marxism.” Stalin included, in particular, A.V. Lunacharsky among these party intellectuals, excommunicating him and a number of other “philosophical heterodoxists” from Marxism.

The next large piece of the text of the “Short Course”, written personally by Stalin, is devoted to clarifying the significance of the VI (Prague) Conference of the RSDLP, defining the essence of the Bolshevik party as a party of a “new type”, which, according to Stalin, was formed in 1912 in Prague.

Noteworthy is the almost manic insistence with which Stalin (three times in one paragraph) repeats the idea of breaking the Bolsheviks with the Mensheviks and forming them into a separate party, a party of a “new type.” Further in Stalin's text there follows a large section devoted to an irreconcilable criticism of Western European social democracy, which, as he wrote, was “a mixture, a mishmash of Marxist and opportunist elements... It is clear that such parties cannot be revolutionary parties.”

And if Lenin defined the results of the VI (Prague) conference of the RSDLP as “the revival of the party,” then Stalin, summing up its results, included in the “Short Course” a quote from his report at the XV Congress of the CPSU (b), which read: “This conference had the greatest significance in the history of our party, because it put a boundary between the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks and united Bolshevik organizations throughout the country into a single Bolshevik party.”

All this taken together meant a complete and fundamental revaluation of the history and events of the entire initial period of the history of Bolshevism in comparison with its Leninist concept, and even more so in comparison with the objective history of the RSDLP, which excludes the substitution of the history of Russian Social Democracy as a whole with the history of only one of its factions. Stalin does not even mention the Second Congress of the RSDLP, which adopted its program and charter, and refers to Bolshevism as 1903-1912. not a party, not even a faction, but only a “political group” and, finally, the entire process of “preparing a party of a new type” was reduced to the fight against opportunism and the creation by Lenin of the four works mentioned above, the significance of which he exaggerated enormously, and the content of each of them was unfounded narrowed it down to a single aspect, which in no way reflected the diversity of the problems posed.

Stalin's last major insertion into the text of the layout concerned the history of collectivization of agriculture. But first he deleted two paragraphs from this story: a quote from his own speech at the conference of Marxist agrarians on December 27, 1929 and a reference to Lenin when characterizing the genesis of the slogan for the liquidation of the kulaks. The reasons for excluding these passages from the text were:

secondly, Stalin’s desire to secure for himself the “honor” of being considered the creator of the theory and practice of “socialist collectivization” of agriculture, contrary to Lenin’s “cooperative plan,” which provided for convincing peasants of the advantages of collective labor, and not violence against them.

Instead of crossed out paragraphs, Stalin wrote a large text - about one and a half book pages - that is of fundamental importance. At first, he showed the difference between the policy of limiting the kulaks and the policy of their liquidation, explaining the latter solely by economic circumstances: the ability of the already established collective and state farms to “replace kulak grain production with their own production. And then Stalin gave his definition of collectivization as a “revolution from above.”

Stalin, of course, it was not by chance that Stalin took the trouble to cover in the “Short Course”, in addition to questions of philosophy, the above three problems: the ideological struggle in the party during the years of reaction, the formation of a new type of party at the VI (Prague) Conference of the RSDLP and the collectivization of agriculture . It was very important for him to interpret them in a light favorable to himself. And having personally taken up the task of falsifying them, Stalin carried it out to the fullest.

At the same time, it is not enough to reduce Stalin’s active role in the preparation of the “Short Course” only to the desire to highlight, elevate and exaggerate his historical role. He also pursued important political goals. He sought to reduce the history of the RSDLP to the history of Bolshevism, cutting off from it, as completely opportunistic, the history of Menshevism, Trotskyism and other trends in Russian Social Democracy. He sought to portray Bolshevism as the only truly revolutionary force in the international labor and socialist movement and to present the social democracy of the West as “social fascism”, which had completely betrayed the interests and goals of the working class. And of course, Stalin intended to justify and “legitimize” the cruel methods and ambiguous results of collectivization of agriculture as a consequence, on the one hand, of the joint efforts of the authorities and the broad peasant masses for the revolutionary transformation of the countryside and, on the other hand, of the “mad resistance” of the Opponents of collectivization - liquidated and the expropriated kulaks and their agents in the party - “right deviation”, Bukharinites and Trotskyists. Thus, Stalin sought the exaltation of the Bolshevik Party, recognition of its infallibility, while simultaneously pointing out its “enemies” who “put a spoke in the wheels” of socialist construction.

The rest of the work on rewriting the history of the party in the spirit of the ideology of Stalinism was done by those who were entrusted by the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, and their employees. Only V.G. Knorin did not have to fully participate in this matter: he was arrested and repressed. The main role in polishing the “Short Course” was played by Em. Yaroslavsky, P. N. Pospelov, as well as M. S. Volin, I. I. Mints, B. N. Ponomarev and others. Guided by Stalin’s instructions, they revised and rewrote the entire history of the CPSU(b), essentially creating its new concept, implementing the idea of “two leaders of the party and the revolution,” exorbitantly exaggerating Stalin’s merits, surrounding him with an aura of genius and infallibility. At the same time, the textbook contained the idea of constantly victorious, crisis-free development and error-free activity of the party. Mistakes, even if they were admitted, were explained solely by the machinations of “enemies of the people,” and their overcoming was associated with the “defeat” of the latter. It was in this regard, as Stalin demanded, that the history of the party was declared to be the history of an irreconcilable struggle against deviations from consistently revolutionary, Marxist-Leninist positions. The majority of the party, it was argued in the “Short Course,” having overcome the resistance of the opportunists, invariably followed the correct “Leninist-Stalinist” path.

At the end of September - beginning of October 1938, a meeting of propagandists and leading ideological workers from Moscow and Leningrad was held in the Kremlin on the issue of organizing the study of the history of the CPSU (b). It was attended by members of the Politburo and secretaries of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. The meeting was chaired and opened by A. A. Zhdanov with an opening speech. Stalin spoke at it twice - the first time at the beginning, in order to direct the debate on the right path, in his opinion, and the second time - in conclusion, with a large and sometimes rather harsh speech dedicated to the main tasks of the propaganda work of the CPSU (b) in connection with the release of new textbook. The task of the meeting was to, having proclaimed the “Short Course” almost a divine revelation, to direct the efforts of the ideological apparatus of the party to its massive propaganda, to the assimilation of its content by the masses of working people. “The task is connected with the fact,” Zhdanov said, opening the meeting, “to ensure that not only propagandist cadres, but also Soviet cadres, economic cadres, cooperative cadres, and student youth master Bolshevism.” “Employees,” Stalin responded. “People,” Zhdanov continued, “who are directly related to the management of the state, because it is impossible to manage a state like ours without being aware of the matter, without being savvy in terms of theoretical knowledge.” Particular attention was paid to the need to “ideologically savvy” the intelligentsia, whom Stalin never trusted. In his speech, he emphasized that “insufficient attention” to its political education led to the fact that “part of the intelligentsia was spoiled and lured into their networks by foreign intelligence services,” which is why it is “to our Soviet intelligentsia, first of all, that we are sending this book to give them an opportunity to gain theoretical knowledge..."

Thus, we were talking about the unification of the worldview of the people based on the ideas of Stalinism, the cult of Stalin’s personality, the Stalinist concept of barracks, state-bureaucratic socialism, which permeated the “Short Course”. It is no coincidence that the attempt of some of the first speakers praising the merits of the book to express some critical judgments was decisively suppressed by Stalin himself. Stalin unexpectedly took the floor and immediately cooled the critical fervor of the meeting. As one of its participants, the prominent Soviet historian M.S. Volin, said, Stalin said that the task of the meeting was not to discuss or criticize the “Short Course,” especially since the comrades who spoke were wrong in essence (although they expressed, according to M. S. Volina, very correct remarks), and approval of this textbook. Of course, in subsequent speeches, apologetics against the “Short Course” and Stalin as its supposed author only intensified, and criticism virtually disappeared. Each of the speakers at the meeting sought to outdo the others in searching for epithets to give the highest rating to the new textbook.

So, the “Short Course” became a single guide for students of the history of the party, which did not allow for a diversity of opinions in the field of this “science”. And at the same time, he was an encyclopedia of the “cult of personality.” It was through him that they introduced into the consciousness of party cadres and millions of non-party people not the thoughts and views of the party (which was not consulted on this issue), and not even the thoughts and views of the Central Committee (which unanimously approved the recommendations of the leader), but precisely the views of Stalin himself. Creating unanimity based on the ideology of Stalinism and the cult of personality - this is the goal that was pursued when publishing the “Short Course on the History of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks).” But a book completely and completely imbued with Stalinist ideology could raise questions, disagreement or doubt in readers, a desire to go beyond the narrow framework of its text, to penetrate into the problems of history. And this confused Stalin; it seemed unacceptable to him: people had to completely and completely assimilate not only the spirit, but also the letter of the new textbook, accept it unconditionally, and not ask questions.

That is why Stalin opposed studying the history of the party in circles led by propagandists in favor of independent work with the text of the book. Stalin was clearly afraid that propagandists, who knew the history of the CPSU(b) from old manuals, now doomed to destruction, would bring confusion to the study of the past using a “uniform textbook.” It was precisely in order to prevent such a “danger” that the task of comprehensive development of independent study of the “Short Course” was set. To the remark of one of the speakers that “after all, people who will study individually will require help and consultation,” Stalin answered irritably: “Let them live in peace!” On November 14, 1938, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks adopted a resolution “On the organization of party propaganda in connection with the release of the “Short Course on the History of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks””. The publication of the “Course of History of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks”, approved by the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, puts an end to the arbitrariness and confusion in the presentation of the history of the party, the abundance of different points of view and arbitrary interpretations of the most important issues of party theory and party history, which took place in a number of previously published textbooks on the history of the party." This turned the “Short Course” into a Bolshevik catechism, and historical-party knowledge into dogma, becoming an insurmountable obstacle to the creative development of social sciences.

The words of the resolution that the new textbook does not allow any arbitrary interpretations were taken literally. Any, even the slightest, corrections in it were excluded. The archives of A. A. Zhdanov contain a letter from the historian M. S. Volin, addressed to P. N. Pospelov (he gave it to Zhdanov), about the factual inaccuracies contained in the “Short Course on the History of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)”. Volin noted that elections to the Constituent Assembly took place not before, as stated in the book, but after the October Revolution; that Lenin’s article “Unhappy World” was written not after, but before the corresponding decision of the VII Congress of the RCP (b); that, finally, it is incorrect to attribute the beginning of the liberation of Transcaucasia to the end of 1920, if, as is known, Azerbaijan was liberated in April 1920. “I think that in the next editions of the book these inaccuracies should be corrected,” wrote M. S. Volin.

Despite this, in one of the last editions (1953) of the “Short Course”, on those pages that Volin noted, errors were still reproduced. The “Short Course” for many years determined the content of teaching party history in all educational institutions and in the party education system. His every word, every position was presented and perceived as the ultimate truth, which inevitably led to dogmatism and scolding, both in teaching and in the study of party history.

No less evil was the fact that the popular textbook - “A Short Course in the History of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)” - was considered as a standard in scientific work. Quotes from it, as indisputable confirmation of the truth of a particular position, were widely used in scientific works, along with quotes from the works of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin himself. None of the researchers dared to go beyond the canons and introduce something new into the “final” formulations. Noteworthy is the fact that in 1939-1941. The main type of historical party literature was numerous manuals and lectures to help students of the “Short Course in the History of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)”. Popular in form, simple in content, they represented a retelling of the text of the textbook, flavored with numerous quotes from the “Short Course” itself, as well as from the works of Lenin and especially Stalin. The publication of monographs on the history of the CPSU(b) has sharply decreased. In the 13 years after the appearance of the “Short Course,” only in 1951, the only monograph by M. Stepanov, “The Bolshevik Party - the Organizer of the Victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution,” was published. Other rare monographs covered the history of Bolshevism in the pre-October years. There was virtually no research literature on the post-October period. It is characteristic, however, that in the first post-war years, an important area of research work on the history of the CPSU(b) was the study of the history of local party organizations. Given the impossibility of going beyond the “Short Course” in solving general party problems, scientists were left with a loophole to study topics of a local nature, about which nothing was said in the textbook. Of course, the concept of the “Short Course” was preserved, but some increase in knowledge due to unknown facts, events and historical details still occurred.

It is impossible not to note two more circumstances related to the influence of the “Short Course on the History of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)” on the development of historical science. On the one hand, the concept of the textbook went far beyond the scope of the history of the party itself and became a standard in covering domestic history (then the history of the USSR) of the 19th-20th centuries, the modern history of the West (negative assessment of social democracy and its political role), the history of international workers and the communist movement, which inevitably introduced dogmatism and discipline into all specific historical disciplines and made them dependent on totalitarian ideology.

On the other hand, the history of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) has become a leading branch of historical knowledge, occupying a privileged position in historical science, which predetermined the peculiar sectarian position of party historians, who isolated their discipline from other areas of historical science. This was manifested in the desire to consider the history of the CPSU as a kind of self-contained and self-sufficient part of history, to study the history of Bolshevism in isolation from the history of Menshevism, other political parties in Russia, in isolation from “civil” history. This also manifested itself in an attempt to prove the existence of a “special” methodology for the history of the party, different from the general historical methodology.

Short Course" and its historiographical significance. A short course on the history of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) A short course on the history of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks read

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