During renovation work at the Verkhneuralsk prison [1], still in operation, at the beginning of 2018 in Russia a sensational discovery was made. The Main Directorate of the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service for the Chelyabinsk Region reported that a cache had been found under the floorboards of cell No. 312, containing documents dated 1932-1933. They were manuscripts of more than 400 pages and contained titles such as “The decisive betrayal of the Stalin clique: on recent events in Germany”, o “Draft resolution on the theoretical foundations of the Leninist opposition and on Stalinist national socialism”.
By Marcos Margarido
These documents, due to the storage conditions, were quite damaged, so it was not possible to determine the exact number of texts, but it is estimated that there are between 30 and 35 separate documents, or “notebooks”, of which 27 are in good condition. to be transcribed and interpreted.
Why such a sensational discovery? Because they are texts written by members of the Left Opposition in Russia, the international organization created by Trotsky to combat the bureaucratization of the Soviet State under the command of Stalin and resume the country’s revolutionary path, begun in October 1917. It was known that the imprisoned Trotskyists produced a newspaper friendlythat is, handwritten, or Bolshevik-Leninist, in Verkhneuralsk, but no one had seen him before the notebooks were found. The text The fascist coup in Germanyfor example, is the edition of the Bolshevik-Leninist nº 2 (12), of 1933.
Until then, the presence of members of the Left Opposition in Stalinist-era political prisons was only confirmed by indirect accounts, such as in the memoirs of Yugoslav left-wing oppositionist Ante Ciliga, The Russian Enigma [El enigma ruso]or in Victor Serge’s romance, midnight in the Century, y analyzed by the French historian Pierre Broué in his book Communists against Stalinpublished in Portuguese by Editora Sundermann.
The “Notes from the Verkhneuralsk Isolation Pavilion”, a kind of political prison, which came to be identified and transcribed by the Russian historian Aleksandr Fokin and his team, are the documentary confirmation of this presence. Verkhneuralsk was a political prison operated by the NKVD in the early 1930s and housed more than 100 leftist opponents, including Ante Ciliga, Viktor El’tsin, Man Nevel’son, and Fedor Dingel’shtedt. The manuscripts found in the prison, more than 80 years after they were written, finally give material evidence of the vibrant underground exchange of ideas and opinions of the Left Opposition in the prison.
As another Russian historian, Aleksey Gusev, pointed out, the Verkhneuralsk isolation ward, plus the Yaroslavl and Suzdal prisons, were the centers of the opposition’s ideological life after its defeat by the repressive organs.
Immediately after the news of the discovery, Russian historians tried to access the documents. Already in March 2018, the historian Aleksandr Fokin (Chelyabinsk Public University) managed to publish a first analysis of the manuscripts, as well as the transcription of one of them, the fascist coup in Germany (1933), in history magazine Ab Empire [2] . Later another text was published, the section The strategic line of the proletarian revolutionwhich is part of the document The crisis of the revolution and the tasks of the proletariat.
The latter has the following sections: I. The strategic line of the proletarian revolution; III. The world situation and the Comintern; IV. The state economy and prospects for its development; V. The condition of the working class; SAW. Agriculture; VIII. The evolution of the Soviet State and the danger of Bonapartism; IX. The tactics and tasks of the Leninist opposition; X. Program and practical suggestions; XI. Conclusion. Against opportunism! For the revolutionary theory and practice of Marx and Lenin!
Conditions in political prisons in the early 1930s
An interesting fact of the find is that the covers of magazines published by the Soviet State were used as the covers of the notebooks, probably to hide their content. So, according to A. Fokin, for the notebook The crisis of the revolution and the tasks of the proletariat cover was used from the magazine The Communist International. This indicates that the prisoners had access to domestic and foreign political publications (for example, Trotsky’s books published abroad).
This leads to the question of the degree of freedom that existed in political prisons. According to Alexei Gusev:
“Until the mid-1930s, political prisoners in the USSR had a special status, and did not mix with common criminals or those sent to build canals, etc. Thus, they were held in these special political prisons under relatively free conditions. Relatively, of course, because sometimes they beat them, invaded their lodgings, etc. But they could write, they could produce handwritten magazines, programs, they could argue, they could meet in prison yards during their walks. Twice a day they could go for a walk and discuss. [3]
This account of relative freedom is based on the memoir of Ante Ciliga, who was able to read the works published in prison, probably including some of the notebooks discovered, since he was also a prisoner in Verkhneuralsk. According to him:
“¡What diversity of opinions there was, what freedom in each article! What passion and sincerity, not only in the approach to theoretical and abstract issues, but even in the most current issues. Was it still possible to reform the system by peaceful means, or would an armed uprising, a new revolution be necessary? Was Stalin a conscious or merely unconscious traitor? Was his policy of reaction or counterrevolution? Could he be eliminated simply by removing the leaders, or was a real revolution necessary? All the articles were written with the greatest freedom, without reluctance, with dotted i’s and crossed t’s and, supreme horror: – each article was signed with the full name of the writer. [4]
And he completed, about the living conditions in the prison:
“Our freedom was not limited to that. During the walks, which brought together several wards, the prisoners were in the habit of holding periodic meetings in a place in the courtyard, with the president, secretary and speakers speaking in due order… In these meetings, the most dangerous and forbidden topics were discussed without the slightest restriction and without any fear… At these meetings, Stalin got off very badly, being called by all sorts of names. I had seen many things in the USSR, but none as bewildering as this island of freedom, lost in an ocean of slavery, or was it just a madhouse? So great was the contrast between the humiliated and terrified country and the freedom of spirit that reigned in this prison, that I first leaned towards the madhouse theory. How to admit that, in the immensity of Russian silence, two or three small islands of freedom, where men still had the right to speak freely, were… prisons?”[5]
But there was another opinion, perhaps because it was a different prison. A. Tarov, a member of the Left Opposition imprisoned in the Verkhne-Uralsky isolation ward, gives the following account:
“In the seventh month from the date of our imprisonment, we were transferred to the Verkhne-Uralsky isolation ward. Just at that moment, the Bolshevik-Leninist prisoners, numbering 450 people, began a general hunger strike in protest against the prison regime and the arbitrariness of the administration towards the Bolshevik-Leninist Kame. Before this first general hunger strike, in 1930, the prison administration, headed by the head of the prison Bizyukov, ordered to pour cold water on the Bolshevik-Leninists (in winter, in Siberia!). The order was executed. In a moment of confusion, when our comrades tried to block the passages to prevent water from entering the chambers, the guards directed the hoses directly into the comrades’ eyes, blinding Comrade Poghosyan. And, in 1931, in the month of April, a sentry shot through the bars in the chest of Comrade Yesayan”.[6]
But despite these differences, one thing is certain. According to Alexei Gusev:
“But after the assassination of Kirov, of course, all this relative freedom came to an end and the political prisoners of the communist opposition were first sent to the Gulag, and then almost all of them were killed, shot… Stalin ordered a “final solution”: everyone he had to be killed. And they killed them with machine guns, between 200 and 300 a day, in Kolymá and Vorkutá. [7]
Perspectives regarding the Notebooks
This short text aims to introduce readers to the two Notebooks, unpublished in Portuguese [y español]which will be published on the IWL-FI website: The strategic line of the proletarian revolution and, soon, The fascist coup in Germany.
Can we wait for the publication of other texts? Certainly. According to A. Fokin:
“Some notebooks are an index and a catalog containing information about documents that were not found in cell no. 312 (according to GUFSIN officials, there are several other cells in Verkhneuralsk where political prisoners were housed and where there have been no reforms yet) , so it is possible that a set of new sources will be found in the future). [8]
In addition, the Russian historian reported in a personal communication that a book is being prepared with the transcriptions of the notebooks already found, the publication of which is scheduled to take place shortly. We are looking forward to meeting you.
[1] Verkhneuralsk – city in the Chelyabinsk province, near the Ural Mountains, in southern Russia.
[2] Aleksandr Fokin, Tetradi Verkhneural’skogo politicheskogo izoliatora. Predstavlenie istochnika i razmyshleniia o ego znachenii [Los cuadernos de la prisión política de Verkhneuralsk. Presentación de las fuentes y reflexiones sobre su significado]Ab Imperio magazine, no. 4 (2017): 177–94, https://doi.org/10.1353/imp.2017.0080 .
[3] https://www.esquerdadiario.com.br/Aleksei-Gusev-Na-URSS-a-burocracia-atacava-Trotski-como-aliado-da-contrarrevolucao-na-Russia-atual
[4] Before Ciliga, The Russian Enigmap. 199
[5] Ibid., p. 200.
[6] A. Tarov. Letter on Escape [Carta sobre la fuga] // Opposition Bulletin [Boletín de la Oposición]. 1935. Diciembre, n.° 46. http://www.1917.com/Marxism/Trotsky/BO/BO_No_46/BO-0441.html. Citado por A. Fokin, Tetradi Verkhneural’skogo politicheskogo izolyatora: predstavleniye istochnika i razmyshleniya o yego znachenii (Cuadernos del pabellón de aislamiento político de Verkhneuralsky: presentación de sus fuentes y reflexiones sobre susignificado). Revista From the Empire4/2017.
[7] A. Gusev, I’m going.
[8] A. Fokin, here I am.
Translation: Natalia Estrada.
February 12, 2023