Historical Dictionary of the Russian Civil Wars, 1916-1926

As a remedy, the Workers’ Opposition advocated political and economic decentralization and the replacing of existing structures with a hierarchy of elected worker assemblies, organized on a sectoral basis (textiles, metalworking, mining, etc.), with an elected “All-Russian Congress of Producers” at its peak. Thirty-eight Bolshevik leaders signed the theses of the Workers’ Opposition in December 1920 (although it had many thousands of followers in the factories, particularly in the metalworking sector). One especially notable adherent to the cause was A. M. Kollontai, who authored the pamphlet entitled The Workers’ Opposition, which circulated at the 10th Congress of the RKP(b) in March 1921 and which provided the fullest exposition of the organization’s platform. However, with the Kronshtadt Revolt, the Tambov Rebellion, the West Siberian Uprising, and other instances of armed resistance to Soviet power raging in the background, the party leadership was in no mood to tolerate internal opposition, and at that conference the Workers’ Opposition was effectively banned by resolutions “On the Anarchist and Syndicalist Deviation in the Party” and “On Party Unity” (the “Ban on Factions”), passed on 16 March 1921. In the former, the party resolved “to consider propagation of these ideas as incompatible with membership in the Russian Communist Party.” Nevertheless, Lenin argued that the Oppositionists should not be excluded from decision-making bodies, and Shliapnikov was even elected to the Central Committee of the RKP(b) at the 10th Congress.

Subsequently, though, a campaign to stifle the independence of trade unions took off. Members of the Workers’ Opposition did manage to publish a declaration (“The Letter of the 22”) in February 1922, addressed to the Komintern, in which the harassment of its adherents was criticized. But subsequently, at the 11th Congress of the RKP(b) (27 March–2 April 1922), they narrowly escaped expulsion from the party. They were then subjected to further restraints. By 1926, almost all leaders of the group had recanted their errors, although this did not save them (or members of the similar Workers’ Group of G. I. Miasnikov) from the predations of Stalin’s purges in the 1930s. Despite this, the Workers’ Opposition’s platform of libertarian (or proletarian) Soviet democracy has endured as one of the “what ifs” of the revolutionary era.

Wrangel, Petr Nikolaevich(15 August 1887–25 April 1928). Colonel (12 December 1914), major general (13 January 1917), lieutenant general (22 November 1918). One of the most talented, determined, and charismatic of the White generals (and one of the few who was authentically, and unashamedly, aristocratic, earning him the title “the Black Baron” during the Soviet era), Baron P. N. Wrangel (Vrangel′) was born at Zarasai (now in northern Lithuania) into a noble Baltic family of Swedish and German origin. He was chiefly raised at Rostov-on-Don, where his father was director of an insurance company; attended the local Realschule; and then graduated from the Catherine II (St. Petersburg) Mining Institute in 1901. He then joined the Life Guards cavalry regiment as a private and graduated as a coronet from the Nicholas Cavalry School in 1902, before volunteering for service at the front during the Russo–Japanese War. During that conflict, he served with the 2nd Verkhneudinsk and 2nd Argunsk Cossack Regiments of the Transbaikal Cossack Host. From 6 January 1906, he served with the 55th Finland Dragoon Regiment, before returning to the Life Guards on 26 March 1907. In 1910, he graduated from the Academy of the General Staff and in 1911 completed a course at the Cavalry Officers School. From 22 May 1912, he was temporary commander, then commander, of His Majesty’s Guards Squadron, with which he entered the First World War. During the war, Wrangel subsequently served as chief of staff of the Independent Cavalry Division (12 September–December 1914) and was then an adjutant in the suite of Nicholas II (December 1914–October 1915). He then became commander of the 1st Nerchinsk Regiment (8 October 1915–16 December 1916), commander of the 2nd Brigade of the Ussurii Mounted Division (16 December 1916–13 January 1917), commander of the 7th Cavalry Division (13 January–10 July 1917), and commander of the Independent Mounted Corps (from 10 July 1917). On 9 September 1917, he was named commander of the 3rd Mounted Corps, but he did not take up that post. Instead, he left the army and went to Crimea, where in the aftermath of the October Revolution he was briefly arrested by local Bolsheviks and narrowly escaped execution.