THE POLITICAL CIRCLE OF NIZHNY NOVGOROD STUDENTS UNDER THE PROLETARIAN DICTATORSHIP

By the mid-1920s, the remnants of the multi-party system in the USSR were eliminated, and the political monopoly of the RCP(b) fully established in the country. During Lenin’s illness in 1922–1923, Stalin and his allies began to solve all the issues in the highest party leadership. During this period, a struggle for power began between the Bolshevik leaders, which found expression in the subsequent party discussions. In May-June 1927, a Statement of the 83 appeared, which at that time collected about 1.5 thousand signatures of representatives of the old Leninist Guard. This statement was signed by supporters of Trotsky in the opposition of 1923–1924 and supporters of Zinoviev and Kamenev in the opposition of 1925–1926. They shared a common goal — the desire to change the intra-party regime. Since the party-state apparatus prevented the opposition from forming a legal faction, it was forced to use the methods of illegal work familiar from pre-revolutionary times: creation of a coordination center, its own channels for distributing information, issuing statements, «platforms», leaflets, sending representatives to the places, organization of secret meetings. Under these conditions, a political circle formes among Nizhny Novgorod students, basing on the ideas of the opposition. Students with the help of leaflets called on the population to unite those who disagree with the political arbitrariness of the authorities and create an opposition movement «Union of Struggle for the Dictatorship of the Working Class», which could resist the party and state bodies basing on «militant Marxism». OGPU rapid operational actions led to finding and eliminating the political circle among Nizhny Novgorod student youth. Thus, the forced use of illegal methods by the opposition gave Stalin a reason to strengthen punitive measures against dissenters. Thus, at the end of the 1920s, the prerequisites for the formation of totalitarianism finally formed in the USSR.