RUDN Journal of Russian History (Dec 2016)
PHENOMENON OF “SPECIALIST-BAITING” IN EARLY SOVIET SOCIETY (BASED ON LETTER MATERIAL TO THE «RABOCHAYA GAZETA» NEWSPAPER OFFICE IN 1922-1928)
Abstract
This article deals with the phenomenon of «specialist-baiting» that actively developed in the early history of the Soviet Union due to the difficult conditions of home politics. This phenomenon obtained its new meaning just after the October Revolution and reached the peak of its development between the 1920-1930s. The conflict between workers and specialists should be valued in the contest of the «revolutionary spirit» of the epoch of socialist transformations. The historically based phenomenon of «specialist-baiting» was one of the reasons that were driving the country to the processes of repressions that in the most cases are associated only with the despotism of power. Real industrial problems and conflicts between workers and “old” specialists and managers existed at all the enterprises and were exploited by the government. At the same time the objective existence of that kind of conflicts increased by 1928-1929 that is proved by the fact that workers wrote about it to the main newspaper editorial offices straight from the working place. This fact does demonstrate that the proletariat followed the political course of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. Ultimately, the New Economic Policy, having used the NEP crisis and the workers and promoted bureaucratic apparatus appeals, gave the way to the politics of industrialization and collectivization.
