Was there a surviving Bolshevik-Leninst Opposition movement in the Soviet Union in the later 1930s and beyond? I remember Trotsky writing something about this (admittedly I can't find the source, so I could be wrong) Was Trotsky correct? If Trotsky did mention this was it meant more as a metaphor or rhetorical device (in highly tragic circumstances)? Also I've heard a story that during WWII the US SWP (or someone connected w/the SWP) somehow got hold of a submarine, the crew of which attempted to contact Left Oppositionists in Murmansk.The crew was killed.Again, I can't cite sources. Could this have any truth?
Not much of one as far as I know. There were left dissidents and left dissident circles that survived. In some cases it was people who may have been associated with Bukharin's Right Opposition but were genuinely commited to workers revolution. Two possible sources: Tariq Ali edited an excellent book called The Stalinist Legacy. It's got some really interesting stuff on the Left under Stalin. There's a very moving piece written by a Menshevik prisoner and published abroad on Trotskyist political prisoners in the early 30s. The Trotskyist prisoners refused unsafe work conditions and went to their executions singing the Internationale! Isaac Deutscher's fabulous collection of essays, reviews and interviews, Marxism Wars and Revolutions has a great interview with Heinrich Brandler, one of the reluctant leaders of the totally unsuccessful 1923 "revolution" in Germany (it was really a Soviet backed putsch), and ended up in East Germany supporting the 1953 workers revolt. The book also has a bang on critique of 1984 and the text of a talk by Deutscher during the Vietnam War, which is when he got politically active again, on pacifism. I'd also recommend Deutscher's biography of Stalin.
Thanks for the info. I have read Deutscher's bio of Stalin. His Prophet books were my intro to Trotsky, and among, despite their faults, the most interesting books I've read. I will check out the other books you mentioned.
The best book I have encountered so far on the subject is Vadim Rogovin's 1937: http://books.google.com/books?id=PZ9...page&q&f=false. This book is just part of a series on Soviet history that has yet to be translated from Russian to English. There was a confidential intelligence report to the Politburo in 1932 that there were as many as two million opposition supporters in the USSR.. Stalin later justified the appointment of Nikolai Yezhov as security chief by saying "the OGPU is four years late." The "castrated forces" of the opposition had lost their best leaders by the time the purges began; all the most astute oppositionists had been separated from their political base, then lured back into the apparatus with the promise of a nice job in return for confessions and denunciations that further hurt whatever camaraderie still existed among the old guard. In this way, ironically, the (ex-)leaders of the opposition played major roles in deciding Soviet economic and military policy, right up until they got whacked. One thing is for certain: the bureaucracy definitely thought the opposition was still a big problem, and was terrified of it, as indicated by the extent of the repression. Unfortunately however, I think the opposition had been pretty much wiped out by 1941. There were still flareups of disorganized proletarian opposition though, for instance: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valery_Sablin As for the submarine in the US, it's probably true to some extent, SWP members did try to contact oppositionists in the USSR, never heard they got hold of a sub though. Anyone know good reading about the Proletarian Military Policy or the "American Military Policy" of the SWP?
