‘MERCILESS WAR’ AGAINST TRIFLES: THE LENINGRAD PARTY ORGANISATION AFTER THE FALL OF THE ZINOVIEV OPPOSITION

Abstract

This article examines the process by which the Leningrad Organisation of the Communist Party returned to orthodoxy after having served as the main power base of Grigory Zinoviev and his allies in their clash with the Party leadership at the XIV Congress in December 1925. Focusing primarily on the first year after the crisis, it provides an account of the Organisation's political priorities based on the stenographic records of its conferences and the protocols of the sessions of the Bureau of the Leningrad Regional Committee. It shows that the new leadership devoted little, if any, time to repressing the Oppositionists, remaining chiefly preoccupied with the task of building a politically reliable and ideologically astute Party base. It argues that Party history is key to understanding the process by which Marxist-Leninist ideology influenced Soviet society.