It is true that Stalin carried out a series of purges, but before 1934 there were still a number of old Bolsheviks in the party, and the Stalinist system was to some extent dependent on them. These people, though unable to devote themselves to political life, were able to devote their energies to the industrialization of the country and the building of national defense. Stalin could not tolerate those who saw through his political ambitions and never forgot Lenin and Togatzky.
To get rid of them, Stalin organized another purge in 1935 on the pretext of censorship and renewal of party cards. This purge was blatantly and brazenly directed against the old party members. As a result, the leadership of Party committees at all levels fell into the hands of new Maoists who had joined the Party only recently, most of whom were junior members of the Central Committee, fresh out of the gate and in real power. Even the work of the Party Committee of the huge General Directorate of State Political Security. In 1934, Balayan, who was only 25 years old and had been a member of the Party for only a year, was in charge. But it was this same Balayan who set up a purge committee in the Dzerzhinsky district of Moscow and kicked out of the party many veteran Bolsheviks who had been in jail before the revolution.
Then Stalin took another step. In May 1935, he announced the dissolution of the Old Bolshevik Association, an association of old Bolsheviks, whose members were all old party members. The members of this association were all old party members. They had been active in underground revolutionary struggles under the Tsarist regime and called on the working class to rise up to revolution. Lenin called these veterans “gold mines”. The majority of the Party members had great respect and love for them and called them the “conscience of the Party.
The Old Bolshevik Association had a publishing house and a printing press attached to it. In this plant, various works of Marx were published, as well as memoirs written by the members of the Association to recreate the past of the Bolsheviks’ struggle to build the party. Since most of these books were published during Lenin’s lifetime, they naturally did not mention Stalin’s name, but rather recalled the revolutionary activities of other prominent Bolsheviks in full chapter and verse. Because of this, Stalin hated these old Bolshevik Party fighters with a passion. You know. Their memoirs fundamentally punctured many of the biographies of Stalin that had been written on Stalin’s behest. Stalin believed. To achieve dictatorship and autocracy. To achieve dictatorship, one must rewrite and embellish one’s own history.
See how Stalin’s imperial “theorists” recklessly falsified historical events, invented nonsense, and even blatantly falsified and produced demagogic biographies on Stalin’s behalf. The members of the Old Bolshevik Association were outraged by this “closest comrade in arms”. They watched as books on the history of the party published during Lenin’s time were banned and replaced by a new series of carnivalesque books glorifying Stalin and slandering other revolutionaries, even though they were the real leaders of the party in name only. As time went by, Stalin’s lust for power became more and more uncontrollable. By the end of the day, the last batch of new books on the history of the Party no longer satisfied him and was banned from circulation, replaced by another batch of pamphlets with absurd contents, exaggerating and highlighting Stalin’s role indefinitely, and eclipsing even Lenin’s image. But the old Bolsheviks did not forget the past, nor did they recite, like schoolchildren, bizarre stories in praise of today’s dictators and autocrats. These old men, who had spent their youth in Tsarist prisons and in exile, could not be bought by Stalin. It is true that some of them, unable to resist the evil forces of the world and afraid of implicating their children and grandchildren, turned to Stalin in good conscience, but the vast majority of the rest insisted that Stalin was a traitor to the revolution. These people felt great pain in their hearts as they watched the successful reactionary forces bury one revolutionary achievement after another.
After seeing the arrest and exile of the members of the Association who had joined the opposition, the other members who were still free were forced to remain silent. They were powerless to resist Stalin’s violence. Their rich experience in political struggle had taught them that revolutions have both highs and lows. They secretly hoped that Stalin’s dictatorship would be overtaken by the new wave of revolution, although they did not say so verbally. Under the Stalinist dictatorship, in which the whole nation had to boast about the leader and his achievements, this silence was in fact a sign of resistance. In addition, they gathered in associations at every opportunity to discuss events in the country, which prevented Stalin from making false cases to eliminate the old leaders of the Bolshevik Party.
After the dissolution of the Old Bolshevik Association, the old soldiers of the party began to disappear one after another. They were sent to various cities to take up various posts, but in reality only a small number of them reached the place of their appointment, most of them were sent to Siberia and disappeared completely.
A month after disbanding the Old Bolshevik Association, Stalin disbanded the Association of Hard Laborers and Exiles. The Russian exile at hard labor was comparable to the French exile on Devil’s Island at that time. The members of this association had all done such hard labor. Stalin, as is well known, did not enjoy the distinction of being a political prisoner.
The Society of Political Bonded Labourers began publishing the magazine “Bonded Labour and Exile” in 1921 as a means of recounting the history of the Tsar’s persecution of revolutionaries through prison, bondage and exile, as well as the history of the Russian revolutionary movement up to 1917. One need only browse through the issues of the magazine. One very important fact is confirmed: all the extraordinary leaders of the Russian revolutionary movement mentioned in the magazine who survived Stalin’s tyranny were purged. Stalin believed that these conspirators, who had threatened the Tsar’s rule, were now also the enemies of his personal autocracy.
While these two associations were disbanded, many other organizations remained active and were heavily financed from above. It was also during these years that many clubs of the privileged classes were founded in the country, such as the Factory Directors’ Club, the Factory Director’s Wives’ Club, the Automobile Owners’ Club, and even the “Western Dance Club”.
In Stalin’s view, it was not just the old Bolsheviks who threatened his unity. The younger generation, who had grown up in an authoritarian and corrupt environment, also kept him on edge. He knew that the revolutionary parties of the Tsarist period were primarily about mobilizing the youth to join underground organizations, because the youth always had a high sense of justice and refused to yield to any form of oppression.
Recent Comments