M.I. Frumkin at the party “purge”. 1929 (based on the materials of the Central State Archives of Moscow)

The article is devoted to the fate of the oldest Bolshevik, Moisey Ilyich Frumkin, who, as the Deputy Commissar of Finance of the USSR, in June 1928 was the first to oppose the accelerated collectivization, saying that all economic data revealed that such a turn was premature. In the speeches of the party leaders, he heard that the middle peasants displayed “exploitative traits”. In this way, the very idea of the new economic policy as a policy of an alliance with the middle peasant – and against the kulak – was annihilated: though that was Lenin’s position. Such deformation scared Frumkin by turning to the practice of war communism. He wrote two letters to the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, in which he contended that the Leninist policy in agriculture should not be abandoned. Despite the serious arguments supported by economic facts, he reversed his position, recognizing the fallacy of his previous views. The archival documents pertained to the party purge in the People’s Commissariat of Finance shed light on the nature of the birth of Stalinism as a phenomenon – not only economic, political, but also ethical and psychological. The article explores the mental crisis in the perception of one’s own opinion (albeit based on rational arguments) and the collective opinion of the party (which begins to be dominated by the religious motivation of loyalty).

1. Anfert’ev, I.A. (2020), Modernizatsiya sovetskoI ̆ Rossii v 1920–1930-e gody: programmy preobrazovaniI ̆ RKP (b) – VKP (b) kak instrumenty bor’by za vlast’ [Modernization of Soviet Russia in the 1920s – 1930s: programs of the reforms of the RCP (b) – VKP (b) as the instruments of struggle for power], Infra-M, Moscow, Russia.

2. Kiseleva, E.L. (2014), Chistka gosudarstvennogo apparata 1929–1932 gg.: Osnovnye kompleksy istochnikov, ikh analiz i znachenie [The purge of the state apparatus 1929–1932: The main sources, their analysis and significance], Ph.D. Thesis (History), Moscow, Russia.

3. Nerar, F.K (2011), Pyat’ protsentov pravdy: Razoblacheniya i donositel’stvo v stalinskom SSSR (1928–1941) [Five percent of the truth. Disclosures and whistleblowing in Stalin’s USSR (1928–1941)], ROSSPEN, Moscow, Russia.

4. Smirnova, T.M. (2003), «Byvshie lyudI» Sovetskoi Rossii: Strategii vyzhivaniya i puti integratsii: 1917–1936 gg. [“Former зeople” of Soviet Russia: the strategies of survival and the paths of integration. 1917–1936], Izdatel’skii dom «Mir istoriI», Moscow, Russia.

5. Yurganov, A.L. (2020), Kul’t oshibki: Teoreticheskii front i Stalin (seredina 20-kh – nachalo 30-kh gg. XX v.) [The cult of error. The theoretical front and Stalin (mid-20s – early 30s of the 20th century)], Tsentr gumanitarnykh initsiativ, Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Russia.

6. Yurganov, A.L. (2022), V krivom zerkale satiry: Kul’t vozhdya partii bol’shevikov i ofitsial’naya satira v seredine 20-kh – nachale 30-kh godov [In the crooked mirror of satire. The cult of the Bolshevik Party leader and official satire in the mid-20s – early 30s.], Tsentr gumanitarnykh initsiativ, Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Russia.

7. Yurganov, A.L. (2024), “About the original version of the play ‘Fear’ by Stalinist playwright Alexander Afinogenov. The 1930s”, Herald of an Archivist, no. 2, pp. 480–494.