Memorandum of the Leader of the “Workers’ Opposition” Gavriil Myasnikov to the Central Committee of the RCP(b): Source Study Potential

Abstract

Using the methods of interpreting historical sources, the article analyzes the memorandum of one of the leaders of the “Workers’ Opposition” G. I. Myasnikov, sent to the Central Committee of the RCP(b) on the eve of the X Party Congress. The novelty of the study lies in the fact that referring to the source analysis of the memorandum allows us to expand the chronological framework of the initial stage of the formation of the workers’ opposition movement within the RCP(b), to attribute its origin to the middle of 1920, about six months before the end of the X Party Congress, at which, As you know, factional activity in the RCP(b) was officially banned. In the memorandum of G. I. Myasnikov, according to the researcher, various aspects of the intra-party struggle for power between a group of emigrants led by V. I. Lenin and those members of the RCP(b) with pre-revolutionary experience who were subjected to repression for revolutionary activities in the Russian Empire are reflected, served their sentences in prisons and hard labor. The study reveals the desire of the opposition leader to enlist support not only within the ruling RCP(b), but also outside it, among the “deprived” of power working class. In the memorandum of G. I. Myasnikov, according to the researcher, various aspects of the intra-party struggle for power between a group of emigrants led by V. I. Lenin and those members of the RCP(b) with pre-revolutionary experience who were subjected to repression for revolutionary activities in the Russian Empire are reflected, served their sentences in prisons and hard labor.