An Important Source on the History of the Soviet Working Class in 1918-1920

Abstract

The history of the Soviet working class — the leading force in society — occupies an important place in historical scholarship in our country. The considerable body of research literature in this field has already received historiographic analysis. (1) Further treatment of the problem will require the assembling and interpreting of various groups of sources. The papers in the archives of the Central Committee of the RKP(b) (Russian Communist Party [Bolsheviks]) are in the front rank of collections of documents on the history of the Soviet working class in terms of the information contained. In these papers are reflected the Party's policies in implementing Lenin's plan for the building of a new society; the leading, organizing, and sustaining role of the Party as vanguard of the masses of the workers; and their connection with the people. At the same time, the papers testify to feedback from the working class to the Party, its political and organizational support to and strengthening of the Party, and practical activity in carrying out Party policy. The importance of the collection of documents of the Central Committee of the RSDRP(b) (Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party [Bolsheviks]) and the RKP(b), stored in the Central Party Archive of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism of the Central Committee of the CPSU, has repeatedly been emphasized in surveys. (2) The next step to be taken in the study of that collection is to clarify the place and role of the documents it contains as they pertain to specific problems in history. The present article attempts to demonstrate the significance of the collection as a source in the history of the Soviet working class in the Civil War period.