The Defeat of the Right When I defeat the Right that will be then end of any serious attempt to limit my power!!!!

I. The Defeat of the Right I. The Defeat of the Right (What was the attitude of the Right towards NEP and industrialization?) A. The major representatives of the Right were Rykov, Tomsky, & Bukharin 1. They had loyally served Stalin in his outflanking of Trotsky & the Left. 2. Politically the Right was not the challenge the Left was under the Trotskyite bloc a. Stalin was against the Right because they were in the way of industrial & agricultural schemes he had started to implement in 1928

II. Collectivization & industrialization A. Historians uncertain as to when Stalin decided collectivization & industrialization was the answer 1. Was this another piece of opportunism? Having defeated the Left politically he may then have felt free to adopt their economic policies. 2. Other historians suggest in 1928 Stalin became genuinely concerned about the serious grain shortage B. It had been the view of Bukharin & the Right that it was unnecessary to force the pace of industrialization. 1. Less disruptive to let it happen on its own. State should assist but not direct 2. Peasants should not be controlled & oppressed

3. Right agreed that it was from the land that the means of financing industry would have to come a. They argued giving the peasants the chance to become prosperous, far more grain would be produced for sale abroad. 4. Bukharin argued that Stalin’s aggressive policy of State grain procurements was counter- productive. a. He argued they were to repressive & that there were alternatives b. Bukharin did not want to admit that Stalin’s program was no different from the one Trotsky had previously advocated.

III. Weaknesses of the Right III. Weaknesses of the Right (Why were the Right unable to mount a successful challenge to Stalin?) A. Stalin was able to exploit a # of weakness in the Right 1. These related to their ideas, their organization, & their support.

B. Ideas of the Right 1. Their economic arguments were not unsound, but in the invasion-scared atmosphere of the late 1920s they appeared timid & unrealistic. 2. Their plea for a soft line w/ the peasants did not accord w/ the Party’s needs. 3. Stalin was able to suggest that the Right were guilty of underestimating the crisis facing the Party & the USSR. a. Stalin understood the Party mentality. The majority were far more likely to respond to the call for a return to hard-line policy, then to risk Revolution itself by untimely concessions to a peasantry that had no real place in the proletarian future.

C. Organization of the Right 1. How could they impress their ideas upon the Party while Stalin remained master of the Party’s organization? 2. Fearful of creating “factionalism” they hoped that hey could win the whole Party round to their way of thinking without causing deep divisions. a. All this played into Stalin’s hands. He could portray the Right as a weak & irresponsible clique. Don’t hate the player, hate the game!

D. Support for the Right 1. Only real support lay in the trade unions, and in the CPSU’s Moscow branch. 2. When Stalin figured this out he acted quickly & decisively. He sent a ruthless & ambitious young Politburo member to undertake a purge of the suspect trade unionists. 3. Molotov, Stalin’s faithful henchman, was dispatched to Moscow where he enlisted the support of the pro- Stalin members to achieve a similar purge of the local Party officials. 4. Tomsky, Rykov, & Bukharin were allowed to remain in the Party but only after they publicly admitted the error of their ways. Stalin’s triumph over the Left/Right was complete.