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FRIENDSHIP IN TIMES OF FACTIONALISM AND

TERROR: ALEKSANDR SHLIAPNIKOV AND SERGEI
MEDVEDEV
To cite this Article: Allen, Barbara C. , 'FRIENDSHIP IN TIMES OF FACTIONALISM
AND TERROR: ALEKSANDR SHLIAPNIKOV AND SERGEI MEDVEDEV',
Revolutionary Russia, 20:1, 75 - 93
To link to this article: DOI: 10.1080/09546540701314400
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Downloaded By: [Allen, Barbara C.] At: 02:44 20 May 2007

Revolutionary Russia, Vol 20, No. 1, June 2007, pp. 7593

Barbara C. Allen
FRIENDSHIP IN TIMES OF
FACTIONALISM AND TERROR:
ALEKSANDR SHLIAPNIKOV AND
SERGEI MEDVEDEV
BarbaraAllen
allenb@lasalle.edu
Revolutionary
10.1080/09546540701314400
FRVR_A_231341.sgm
0954-6545
Original
Taylor
102007
20
00000June
and
&
Article
Francis
(print)/1743-7873
Francis
2007
Russia
Ltd
(online)

Personal relationships both responded to and affected the course of political change in early
Soviet history. Friendships belonged to the web of connections between personalities of early
Soviet political history; therefore, studying friendships can aid our understanding of how
politics changed over time. The friendship between the Russian Communists and trade union
leaders Aleksandr Shliapnikov and Sergei Medvedev was inseparable from their political
partnership as leaders of the Workers Opposition. Their friendship arose through work, was
strengthened through political alliance and under fire from Communist Party leaders, and
was challenged by Stalinist terror but not destroyed. It provided the framework for their resistance to Stalinist political repression. Nevertheless, during Stalins terror, the intimacy of
friendship was cast as subversive.
Our crime is that we did not fit the
Procrustean bed of the Stalinist epoch.
Sergei Medvedev, 1934.
Friendship generally has played a significant role in political collaboration between
historical figures. This was as true of Soviet Russia as of any other government and society. Indeed, personal relationships were inseparable from politics in early Soviet
Russian history.1 Using sources to which few historians have had access, this article will
show that the lifelong friendship between Aleksandr Shliapnikov and Sergei Medvedev,
Russian Communists and trade union leaders, served as a framework for resisting
Stalinist oppression and provided a reason for resistance. Their friendship was intimately connected to their political collaboration. Shliapnikov and Medvedev (both
18851937) were Russian metalworkers, Bolshevik revolutionaries and trade union
leaders. As leaders of the Workers Opposition in Soviet Russia from 1919 to 1921,
they challenged the Communist Party leaders policy towards the Russian working
class. However, Shliapnikov and Medvedevs close political partnership continued after
the Workers Opposition was defeated and it was cemented by personal friendship.
Both were arrested for political crimes in 1935; and both were executed in 1937. The
close link between the two men was due not only to their similar views and personal
histories, but also to a friendship formed in their youth. Their friendship arose through
work, survived during times apart, was strengthened through political alliance and
ISSN 0954-6545 print/ISSN 1743-7873 online/07/010075-19
2007 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/09546540701314400

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REVOLUTIONARY RUSSIA

under fire from Party leaders, and was challenged but not destroyed by Stalinist
terror.2
***
Childhood experiences helped shape Shliapnikov and Medvedevs personalities and
views. While Shliapnikov was born into a poor meshchanstvo family in Murom, Medvedev
came from the peasant estate (although his father was a policeman). Medvedev was born
near St Petersburg, but at age five or six went to Moscow to live with relatives.
Shliapnikovs father died when Aleksandr was only three years old, forcing his mother
to raise him and his three siblings by herself. Medvedevs father was alive and present
for part of his sons young life, but seems to have been abusive. Both men, then, were
largely raised by women. Medvedev apparently did not form a close bond with his father;
but his mother was present in his life up to his arrest and her death in 1935. Shliapnikov
also demonstrated a strong attachment to and sense of duty towards his mother.
Both Shliapnikov and Medvedev had only a primary school education. Medvedev,
at the age of nine, lived and studied for one year in St Petersburg, but then went back
to Moscow and finished school there. Due to his age, he spent an extra year in school
and helped the teacher to instruct the younger students. As the child of Old Believers,
Shliapnikov had difficulty enrolling in primary school. Once there, he enjoyed learning,
but was forced to defend his faith through debate with an Orthodox priest who gave religious lessons. Moreover, he was physically punished when he refused to submit to the
priests teachings. Medvedev had no such formative experience. Thus, Shliapnikov was
poised to assume the role of a confident debater both with those of higher rank and with
his peers. Medvedev had no such early debating experience, but he seems to have been
a successful student. As an adult, his handwriting was neat and precise and his spelling
and grammar were impeccable. Shliapnikov disliked the persecution he underwent
during his formal schooling but continued his education by reading the Russian literature
that he found in factory libraries and taking Sunday classes in French and history.
Medvedevs continued education was more practical; he took Sunday classes in drafting
and applied mechanics. Shliapnikov learned his metalworking skills on the job.
Both Shliapnikov and Medvedev began to work in factories at the age of 13 (using falsified documents attesting that they were older), but Shliapnikov started out in provincial
factories and only went to St Petersburg in 1901. Medvedev, on the other hand, began his
work experience in St Petersburg in 1898 and remained there until 1906. Both were introduced to revolutionary social democracy in ways that imbued the ideology with mystery.
Medvedev at the age of 15 was a courier between shops in the Obukhov factory; workerrevolutionaries surreptitiously gave him sealed packages of revolutionary propaganda for
distribution around the factory. After curiosity drew him to peek inside the packages, he
was then brought into the group. Shliapnikov at first heard about revolutionary propaganda as if it were contained in special black books, in which the truth was written in
disguised form. When he left Piter for home in late 1901, workers gave him copies of Iskra
and revolutionary pamphlets to distribute in the provinces. Thus, Medvedev considered
himself a revolutionary from 1900 and Shliapnikov from 1901. Medvedev, though, was
immersed in Marxist ideology from an earlier age than was Shliapnikov.
The Obukhov strike in 1901 was a formative experience for both men. Medvedev
was already knowledgeable of revolutionary ideology, but his participation in the strike

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ALEKSANDR SHLIAPNIKOV AND SERGEI MEDVEDEV

and the subsequent repression of workers convinced him that revolution was the only
way to achieve change. Shliapnikov also participated in the strike, but only as a boy who
organized his fellow apprentices to throw rocks at strike-breakers. Afterwards, he
became unemployable in Petersburg metalworking factories. This experience with
blacklisting embittered him against the owners of capital and prepared the mental
ground for his acceptance of revolutionary ideology. His dream of becoming a free and
unrestricted master of metalworking in Russias most industrially advanced city had
been dashed. Medvedev, meanwhile, continued to find employment in the capital due
to his more advanced metalworking skills. After the strike, Iskra representatives
contacted Medvedevs group of Social Democrat workers and convinced Medvedev and
some others that it was necessary to create a unified SD organization with a leading
centre. Medvedev soon became a Bolshevik.
Shliapnikov became a Social Democrat and Bolshevik more gradually. In Murom,
he and others set up a socialist workers group, but they indiscriminately distributed
literature from various socialist factions and organizations. Shliapnikov co-operated
with Socialists-Revolutionaries and might have even briefly belonged to an SR group.
However, he became a firm Bolshevik when he was imprisoned in 1905. Shliapnikov
spent a total of two years in prison and Medvedev two and a half years. For both men,
prison was a hardening experience, which made them more determined revolutionaries. Both also spent time living an illegal existence, but Medvedev spent twice as much
time as Shliapnikov in the underground. Their experience with emigration and exile also
diverged. Shliapnikov left Russia in 1907 for Western Europe and spent most of the next
nine years living and working in France, Germany, Belgium, Britain and Scandinavia,
with a short trip to the United States and several brief sojourns in Russia. Medvedev first
left Russia in 1912, when he spent a few months working in Germany and met Lenin
and other Party leaders in Krakow before returning home. In 1915, he was arrested and
exiled to Turukhanskii krai in Siberia, where he stayed until 1917. Medvedev and Stalin
were in the same place of exile and were acquainted with one another there.
Shliapnikov and Medvedev probably became friends in 1907, when both worked at
the St Petersburg Electrical Station of 1886 and both were Bolshevik Party organizers.
Shliapnikov was in the Petersburg Committee of the RSDRP(b), while Medvedev played
a central role in the reception and dispatch of weapons (including bombs) to revolutionary groups. Their friendship survived long periods apart. When Medvedev went to
Germany in 1912, he stayed with Shliapnikov and Kollontai and celebrated the New Year
with them; Shliapnikov helped him to find work. In his memoirs, Shliapnikov recalls
seeking Medvedev out during his 1914 trip to St Petersburg, but Medvedev at that time
was in Moscow guberniia, hiding from the police. By the time of Shliapnikovs return
to Russia in 1916, Medvedev was in Siberian exile. Both men had many common friends
among St Petersburgs radicalized metalworkers, who were part of a broad network of
Bolshevik metalworker-revolutionaries who took pride in being ideologically
conscious, highly skilled and cultured proletarians. These included Aleksei Kiselev,
who chaired the Metalworkers Union from 1910 to 1912 and became a Bolshevik
Central Committee member in 1914 (and was Shliapnikovs zemliak), and Kirill Orlov,
who had participated in the mutiny on the battleship Potemkin in 1905. When Shliapnikov
wrote to Lenin about what the workers thought, he was usually referring to this wide
network. Many of those who later joined the Workers Opposition were from this
network.3

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By 1917, then, both Shliapnikov and Medvedev had become experienced underground revolutionaries, committed Bolsheviks and highly qualified metalworkers. Their
revolutionary upbringing included organizing underground Party cells, distributing illegal literature, organizing trade union work and conducting strikes. Both were arrested
and imprisoned more than once for illegal revolutionary work. Nevertheless, there were
important differences in their pre-revolutionary experiences that contributed to differences in their personalities and attitudes toward internal Party politics after the revolution and into the 1930s. Shliapnikov spent far more time abroad than did Medvedev and
could speak several languages, while Medvedev spoke only Russian. Shliapnikovs life in
Western Europe exposed him to various social democratic traditions and brought him
into contact with migr Russian social democratic intellectuals. Aleksandra Kollontai,
who was his lover from 1911 to 1916, helped to shape his perspectives and train his
thoughts and writing. Shliapnikov published many articles in trade union and Party publications and developed the ability to expound his views through writing. Medvedev, in
contrast, wrote little for publication and spoke largely to gatherings of Russian workers,
whereas Shliapnikov gained experience speaking to diverse audiences. Nevertheless,
Shliapnikov was always most comfortable speaking to audiences of fellow workers. Both
showed dedication to promoting workers organizations aside from the Bolshevik Party.
Shliapnikov worked in trade unions, while Medvedev worked both in trade unions and
in the workers insurance movement.
***
In 1917, Shliapnikov helped to organize the Soviet of Workers and Soldiers Deputies
and the Metalworkers Union in Petrograd, while Medvedev organized and led the
Achinsk Soviet. Thus, Shliapnikov was poised to assume roles as the most prominent
Bolshevik of proletarian background. He became Commissar of Labour in the Soviet
government after the Bolshevik revolution and brought many trade unionists to work in
government. Medvedev returned to Petrograd only in 1918 to work in the All-Russian
Soviet of Workers, Soldiers and Peasants Deputies and then was sent to work as a
political commissar at the front in the civil war. Shliapnikov also served at the front in
the civil war, but as a military commissar. While Medvedev came into conflict with
former tsarist military officers, Shliapnikov worked productively with them. This difference might have stemmed from a combination of factors: their different responsibilities,
their personalities, and the personalities of the officers with whom they worked. Both
men were transformed in some ways by their civil-war experiences. Medvedev seems
to have taken a harder line than Shliapnikov in executing counter-revolutionaries, but
both fell into conflict with Party activists who applied coercion indiscriminately against
workers as well as against other social groups. In fact, both of them had conflicts with
Evgeniia Bosh, one of those hard-line Party activists, while at the front. 4
Shliapnikov returned from the CaspianCaucasian Front in early 1919, spent some
months in Moscow participating in discussions about the role of managerial and technical specialists in the economy and then was sent to the Western Front in late 1919.
Medvedev only returned to Moscow for good in early 1920. It is unlikely, therefore,
that Shliapnikov and Medvedev spent much time with one another in 1918 or 1919,
although leading metalworker unionists did gather several times during this period. One
important meeting was in December 1919, to discuss theses Shliapnikov presented on

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ALEKSANDR SHLIAPNIKOV AND SERGEI MEDVEDEV

the role of trade unions. His proposals countered Trotskys call for the militarization of
industry. Shliapnikov called for unions to take initiative to overcome industrial crises
and transport bottlenecks and for unions to direct government bureaucracies in matters
dealing with organization of production. Some leading metalworker unionists began
gathering behind Shliapnikovs theses and intended to make a showing at the Ninth Party
Congress. Medvedev was among those who stood behind Shliapnikov, but it was the
former metalworker Iuri Lutovinov of the All-Russian Central Council of Trade Unions
(VTsSPS) who presented Shliapnikovs views at the Ninth Party Congress, which Shliapnikov missed because the Party had sent him on a mission to Scandinavia. He remained
in Scandinavia several months. 5
While Shliapnikov was away, Medvedev and others in the Central Committee of the
Metalworkers Union continued the struggle to revive the union, appealing for the
return to it of staff who had been mobilized for the front, for Party and Cheka work and
for work in government. They tried to reserve for the union the power to assign work
to union members who were also Party members, but Party leaders rejected this and
held this right solely for the Party. They also continued to assert their views against those
of Trotsky, sending to him in March 1920 a letter protesting against the political sections
that he advocated as an expedient means of administering the economy. Medvedev and
the others (including A.S. Kiselev, Iu.Kh. Lutovinov and I.I. Kutuzov from the Miners
Union) also spoke at meetings of Communists within VTsSPS and defended their views
against those of Trotsky by engaging in debate with Trotskys supporters in the Party
Central Committee such as N.N. Krestinskii and Karl Radek. Kollontai listed Medvedev
as among the five most important leaders of the Workers Opposition. 6
As a speaker, Medvedev was not as effective as Shliapnikov: combative and sarcastic,
he sometimes overshot his mark or strayed off course, annoying rather than persuading
his audience. He did enjoy popularity in a number of factories in Moscow and Petrograd,
but his fellow oppositionists did not see him as a likely candidate for top Party posts. It
was Shliapnikov, Kollontai, Kiselev, Ivan Kutuzov of the Textile Workers Union,
Lutovinov and others who received such nominations. Medvedev took notes and
engaged in debate at meetings of the Workers Opposition, but he usually supported
Shliapnikovs views. It is not clear whether he was assigned to keep the agenda and record
the proceedings or whether he simply took notes for his own use. 7
At times Medvedev demonstrated what appeared to be excessive suspicion. For
example, in January 1921 he opined that leaders of the majority within the Party Central
Committee had created five or six pseudo-factions in order to sow confusion in the trade
union debate and create the impression that the Central Committee majority represented
stability.8 Medvedevs suspiciousness would reappear at various times during the political struggles of the 1920s and would infect Shliapnikov as well. Kollontais diary notes
about Medvedev give the impression that he was crafty and dragged Shliapnikov into all
sorts of intrigues that Shliapnikov would perhaps not have been inclined to create on his
own.9 It may have been Medvedevs initiative to distance the Workers Opposition from
Kollontais brochure at the Tenth Party Congress, essentially abandoning her in order
to save some of the oppositions proposals. This would have been sufficient for her to
maintain a grudge against Medvedev, which was reflected in her diary entries, although
she eventually forgave Shliapnikov for this offence.
***

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Medvedevs role within the Party and the opposition became greater after the Tenth
Party Congress. He was elected a candidate member of the Party Central Committee
(Shliapnikov became a full member); and he joined Shliapnikov in delivering responses
to the congresss decrees censuring the Workers Opposition and banning factionalism
within the Party. After some leading members of the Workers Opposition (including
Lutovinov and Kiselev) left it, in the wake of the congress, Shliapnikov and Medvedev
came to be viewed as co-leaders of it. Members continued to meet and embarked upon
a critique of NEP. Whether such activities constituted a violation of the Partys ban on
factions remained open to question. Shliapnikov and Medvedev tried to keep within the
line, but others certainly crossed it. While some left the RKP(b) and tried to create new
parties, Shliapnikov and Medvedev were confident that an influx of workers into the
Party and of trade unionists into Party committees would reform the Party. Their opponents in the Party leadership, however, were determined to subordinate trade unions to
the Party.
After the Tenth Party Congress, Party leaders began removing oppositionists from
the leaderships of trade unions. When this campaign came to the Metalworkers Union,
Shliapnikov was the key speaker against Party attempts to change the leadership, while
Medvedev worded resolutions aimed at preserving the elected leadership and organized
supporters of the elected leadership to vote for these resolutions. 10 When this failed,
they turned to criticizing aspects of NEP that they viewed as anti-worker. Shliapnikov
addressed the Party Central Committee numerous times in 1921 with criticisms of
VSNKh policies; Medvedev usually accompanied him and took notes. 11 Sometimes
they co-authored letters of protest to VSNKh against economic transformations that
they considered harmful to workers interests. When the Party assigned a committee of
Shliapnikov and others to investigate persecutions of former oppositionists, it indicated
Medvedev could deputize for Shliapnikov. 12 Thus, both Shliapnikov and Medvedev
increasingly assumed the roles of dual leaders, with separately defined responsibilities,
of the remnants of the Workers Opposition. Mikhail Chelyshev, a former metalworker belonging to the Partys Central Control Commission, might have been a
largely silent third leader, but there is not enough evidence to say so for sure. By the
summer of 1921, Medvedev became Shliapnikovs stand-in for negotiations with
Lenin.13 But they were not alone: Kollontai re-appeared as a speaker on behalf of the
former Workers Opposition. At the Eleventh Party Congress, in 1922, Kollontai,
Shliapnikov and Medvedev would all stand as the representatives of a group that had
submitted a letter to the Comintern protesting against Party leaders suppression of
heterodoxy among Party members. Some members of this group had supported the
Workers Opposition.
Medvedev organized the meetings of those who signed the Letter of the TwentyTwo to the Comintern and took notes during the meetings that Shliapnikov chaired. At
one of the meetings, some participants called on Shliapnikov and Medvedev jointly to
prepare a platform, indicating that they were viewed as co-leaders (although they did
not prepare such a platform).14 The Central Control Commission investigated all those
who signed the Letter of the Twenty-Two, but at the congress only five were called
to account. During the investigation, Medvedev assumed a markedly hostile stance
toward the investigators. Two minor figures were expelled, but after delivering impassioned speeches and enduring a very close series of votes, Shliapnikov, Kollontai and
Medvedev were only given warnings. 15

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ALEKSANDR SHLIAPNIKOV AND SERGEI MEDVEDEV

Only rarely there are indications in the record of disagreements between Shliapnikov and Medvedev at this time. For example, at the Fifth Congress of the Metalworkers
Union, in 1922, Medvedev called for workers in capitalist enterprises to have the right
to strike and for unions to create strike funds and unemployment funds. Shliapnikov
disagreed, instead arguing that state laws and courts were the most appropriate means
for enforcing collective agreements between concessionaires and workers and their
unions under NEP.16
***
Far more information exists about Shliapnikovs personal life before the revolution than
about that of Medvedev. Shliapnikov lived with his French girlfriend in Paris in 1909 or
1910, then was Kollontais lover for five years (she broke it off in 1916) and, in 1918,
had an affair with Kollontais close friend Zoia Shadurskaia. 17 Shliapnikov and
Medvedev both met their wives, Ekaterina Shliapnikova and Maria Medvedeva, during
the civil war. After the war ended, they started building families. Both their wives were
considerably younger women from impoverished Russian gentry families. Medvedev
met Maria at the front, while Shliapnikov met Ekaterina while she was working as a
secretary for Tolokontsev (another leader of the Workers Opposition) in the Central
Artilleries Board. Both women were well-educated, independent and hard workers.
Medvedevas education in a gymnasium was paid for by the tsarist government and a
godmother, while Shliapnikovas education was paid for at first by a tsarist-era governor
out of his own pocket; when he died, she worked her way through gymnasium. After
completing their educations, Medvedeva worked as a clerk and then as a typist, while
Shliapnikovs wife worked in a series of jobs as a typist and secretary. Medvedeva later
worked as an agitator and organizer in the literacy campaign and held administrative
posts in the Moscow Party organization, while Shliapnikova went back to school to
study law, but gave up her studies when she started having children. 18
Medvedev and his wife had two daughters, Aida (born in 1922) and Irina (born in
1926), before Maria died in 1930 from tuberculosis, which she had contracted during
the civil war. Shliapnikovs wife also contracted tuberculosis during the civil war, but
recovered and gave birth to three children: Iuri in 1926; Irina in 1930; and Aleksandr in
1932. The families were very close. In fact, they shared a large apartment for about
four years, from 1925 to 1929, until Shliapnikovs family moved out into co-operative
housing and left the apartment solely to Medvedevs family. Thus, Shliapnikov and
Medvedevs political partnership in the 1920s was facilitated by their shared living
arrangements.19
***
Shliapnikov and Medvedev never worked for pay in the same Soviet government
department or Soviet organization after they were excluded from the leadership of
the Metalworkers Union and had fulfilled their duties in the purge commissions of
192122. Nevertheless, correspondence between them shows that they discussed their
work with one another and offered advice and help with one anothers work. For
example, Medvedev had warned Shliapnikov in 1924 that he would be given little to do
in France on a diplomatic assignment and Shliapnikov later acknowledged that this

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REVOLUTIONARY RUSSIA

turned out to be true.20 Shliapnikov worked as head of a department for import of

metals in the late 1920s and often travelled abroad with his family for his work.
Medvedev worked in the Commissariat of Heavy Industry during the late 1920s, but
lost his post when Ordzhonikidze took over. Shliapnikov wrote in 1930 to Medvedev
about leadership and administrative changes that had edged Medvedev out of his
administrators job at the Commissariat of Heavy Industry. Shliapnikov also both aided
Medvedev materially while he was seeking work and rendered assistance to him in his
search for a new job, appealing unsuccessfully to Party officials to find new work for his
friend.21 As numerous references scattered throughout archival records attest, both
men often appealed to friends and acquaintances in Soviet organs for jobs for other
long-time friends and acquaintances of worker origin. Likewise, they gave priority to
former metalworkers when awarding jobs in departments they headed. They saw the
edging out of their formerly proletarian friends and acquaintances from jobs as actions
hostile to the proletariat. When he was not occupied with diplomatic or administrative
work, Shliapnikov wrote his memoirs, with the intention of illuminating the role of
conscious workers in organizing fellow workers and in preparing the revolution. 22
His memoirs were an important source for later historians writing about the Bolsheviks
and revolution. Medvedev did not write his memoirs, as far as I know, but correspondence reveals that other memoirists turned to him for assistance when checking their
facts.23
***
Both Shliapnikov and Medvedev were very active in internal Party politics in the 1920s.
They never formally joined Trotskys, Zinovevs and Kamenevs groups or other
groups, but did co-operate with these others by exchanging controversial intra-Party
documents and by discussing and distributing one anothers programmes, manifestos,
and so on. Around Shliapnikov and Medvedev congregated Soviet administrators who
shared their views; many had formerly been metalworkers and some had participated in
the Workers Opposition. These people met on the basis of friendship and discussed
politics while drinking tea, eating blini, and celebrating birthdays. Some of them broke
off to form their own parties or groups in the early 1920s and some joined or flirted with
the Trotskyist and other oppositional groups. Thus, there were many associations
between Shliapnikov and Medvedevs group and the groups of Trotsky and Zinovev
and Kamenev. In this article, I will forego an examination of all these relationships and
focus solely on that between Shliapnikov and Medvedev. Nor due to lack of space, not
to lack of sources will I discuss to any great extent the issues behind and political
ramifications of the intra-Party political struggles of the 1920s.
In 192324, Shliapnikov and Medvedev continued to agitate for their views on the
importance of allowing worker initiative in the economy and for giving preference to
the development of heavy industry. They and their supporters engaged in talks with and
locked horns with the supporters of Gavril Miasnikovs Workers Group. Miasnikov and
his supporters definitely saw Shliapnikov and Medvedev as a team, although they
described the men and their supporters collectively as Shliapnikovists. 24 The Party also
recognized Shliapnikov as the primary figure in the group. In October 1923, when the
Central Committee and the Central Control Commission met to discuss Trotskys
letters, of those not directly involved only Shliapnikov and Krupskaia were invited to

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ALEKSANDR SHLIAPNIKOV AND SERGEI MEDVEDEV

attend. Medvedev and Chelyshev, Shliapnikovs co-oppositionists, were among those

whose requests for invitations were denied. 25 In 1926, Iaroslavskii referred to manuscripts originating from a Shliapnikovsko-medvedevskaia gruppa (a most unwieldy moniker)
composed of former members of the Workers Opposition and the Workers Group. 26
Despite Medvedev and others collaboration, published articles usually bore only
Shliapnikovs name, which was probably done to avoid the appearance of factionalism.
Evidence of collaboration does exist. One example is a manuscript dating to
May 1925 about the results of the Fourteenth Party Conference. The typed manuscript
has editing marks in Shliapnikovs hand and attached are sheets with Medvedevs
suggested corrections (which consist of clarifications, corrections and additions).
Medvedev sometimes favoured politically more provocative language: for example, he
suggested describing certain Central Committee figures not merely as senior
members, as Shliapnikov had written, but as members of the leading group within the
Central Committee.27 The only written manifesto attributed solely to Medvedev was
the Baku Letter of 1924. This was a private letter sent from Medvedev to a fellow
oppositionist in Baku, but it contained political views and advice. It was worded in part
as if the views emanated from a group of people in Moscow, but it was signed by
Medvedev alone.28
The two friends protected one another during Party investigations. When, in 1926,
Shliapnikov accused a Party administrator of having been a factory director before 1917
and of having falsified his Party autobiography, Medvedev supported Shliapnikov with
corroborating information.29 In the case of the Baku Letter, the Central Control
Commission investigated Shliapnikov and Medvedev jointly even questioning them
simultaneously, in the same room. Even when some testimony concerned only
Medvedevs role, Shliapnikov was allowed to be present and to speak. Transcripts of
these interviews reveal that Medvedev was less adept than Shliapnikov at avoiding and
verbally countering accusatory snares set up by the investigators and that Shliapnikov
often intervened to distract and redirect investigators from their probing and sometimes
mocking interrogations of Medvedev. The investigators were interested to determine
the role each man (and others) might have played in formulating the views expressed in
the Baku Letter and in whether a well-defined faction had produced this document.
Medvedev presented any collaboration as casual and friendly the product, for example, of conversations between himself and Shliapnikov over breakfast in their shared
apartment, with opinions contributed by Chelyshev if he happened to drop by. 30
However, as oppositionists political activities were forced out of the public sphere and
into the private, such friendly and casual meetings became increasingly suspect in the
eyes of Party leaders and the police.
Correspondence between Shliapnikov and Medvedev shows the former co-ordinating their responses to the 1926 investigation and authoring an article protesting against
the charges against them. Although Shliapnikov took the initiative in formulating their
ideas, he did not dominate Medvedev. He asked Medvedev to review letters to the
Politburo and the Central Control Commission, as well as the article he wrote, and to
transmit them if he approved of the content and wording. 31 Letters from the two men
to Party organs usually carried both their signatures, but published articles carried only
Shliapnikovs name as author (perhaps, again, to avoid the appearance of factionalism).
In their correspondence, the two men referred to others who shared their opinions and
who contributed ideas and comments. Thus, Shliapnikov and Medvedevs friendship

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was an important subset of a larger network of friendships between men and women
who shared similar ideas.
As a result of the Baku Letter investigation, Medvedev was provisionally excluded
from the Party and Shliapnikov was reprimanded for not only failing to distance himself
from his friends views, but for defending them. Neither Shliapnikov nor Medvedev
agreed to describe themselves as part of a bloc with other oppositionists, but they
finally submitted to pressure to criticize some of their views. Consequently, Medvedev
was quickly reinstated, although with a more severe reprimand than Shliapnikov
received.32 Both men received new job assignments after their submission to Party
leaders, Medvedev in non-ferrous and precious metals syndicates and Shliapnikov in the
import of metals from abroad. Nevertheless, they continued to correspond with likethinkers about politics, while refusing to ally with other well-known oppositionists such
as Zinovev, Kamenev and Trotsky. Shliapnikov and Medvedev rendered assistance and
made appeals on behalf of former oppositionists of worker origin who had lost jobs and
been persecuted by Party officials. Former Workers Oppositionists of the early 1920s
also often addressed both Shliapnikov and Medvedev in letters, while later in the 1920s,
friends addressed only one of them but asked about or extended greetings to the other.
Perhaps this change occurred because a letter addressed to both of them might have
smacked of factionalism, thus presenting a political danger.
Despite Shliapnikov and Medvedevs avoidance of open factionalism, in 192930
Party leaders again arraigned them on charges of conspiracy and illegal underground
activity, in connection with investigation of an illegal group in Omsk. There had been
supporters of the Workers Opposition in Omsk in 192122, but in 192729 members
of that group (and some others) had supported Trotsky instead. Nevertheless, someone
tried to make a link between this group and Shliapnikov and Medvedev, based in part
on meetings between Medvedev and some of the Omsk oppositionists that were
arranged through a network of mutual friends. Medvedev and Shliapnikov claimed
these meetings were about prosaic matters, such as attaining rehabilitation, a restored
pension, work and so on, but Central Control Commission leaders suspected that the
meetings had the purpose of forming links between a Moscow centre and an Omsk
branch of the Workers Opposition. This investigation differed somewhat from the
Baku Letter investigation, in part because Shliapnikov and Medvedev were interviewed separately, rather than jointly, by the Central Control Commission (although
they were both interviewed on the same day).
In his interview, Shliapnikov defended and supported Medvedev, echoing the
latters suspicion that this case was a provocation, fabricated in order to set them
both up. When Medvedev was interviewed, unlike Shliapnikov he immediately was
hostile and suspicious, accusing the Central Control Commission of a large-scale plot
to charge him with being a centre for organizations in other cities besides Omsk. In
his answers Medvedev usually avoided mentioning Shliapnikovs name, behaving as if
the charges were being brought solely against him. In this way, he both protected
Shliapnikov and his other friends and made the charges appear all the more ridiculous, as if he alone constituted a powerful centre for various provincial organizations. He only mentioned Shliapnikov when he was specifically asked about him. This
matter ended when Shliapnikov and Medvedev sent a letter to Omsk, to be published
in a newspaper, informing local workers that they did not support underground
organizing.33

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Their tribulations, however, did not end with the Omsk affair. In February 1932,
the Party Orgburo decided to stop publishing Shliapnikovs memoirs and demanded that
he publicly confess and refute the errors in his books. 34 His confession was printed
in Pravda on 9 March 1932 and he was given a job in Gosplan RSFSR, but was not
assigned important work due to his deafness. Instead, he spent time writing his
memoirs. Medvedev was without work for three years, having been placed in inactive
status within the Commissariat of Heavy Industry. Medvedev sought Party work assignments to no avail and eventually tried to find work on his own, which violated the
Partys regulations. He found employment in a factory but the Party prevented him
from starting the job. Shliapnikov was purged from the Party in 1932 as a doubledealer. In the hearings before the purge commissions, Shliapnikov was pressed to
condemn his factional activities since and including the Workers Opposition. He
largely avoided discussing his co-oppositionists but reminded his listeners that he was
not the Workers Opposition all by himself. When he was asked why he signed the apology for the Baku Letter if it were only a personal letter from Medvedev, he said he did
so for the sake of peace within the Party. In 1932, the Central Control Commission then
investigated Medvedev in relation to the Riutin affair, but he was not charged with any
violations and Shliapnikov was not dragged into it. Medvedev was only excluded in late
1933. It might have taken purge officials some time to find him, as he had not been a
member of a Party cell or had a Party card for several years. Again, Purge officials did
not question him about Shliapnikov. 35
In January 1934, Medvedev was sent into administrative exile in the far north to
work as assistant chief of mechanical shops at Medvezhia Gora; he remained there until
January 1935, when he was arrested in connection with the Kirov affair and returned to
Moscow. Despite being an administrative exile, his status was curious, as the militia
registered him on his own passport, which apparently was not done for administrative
exiles. Shliapnikov rendered financial assistance to Medvedevs family while Medvedev
was in exile. He too was sent to the far north in 1934, but only briefly. Officially, he
was not exiled, but sent on a mandatory and indefinite assignment to Karelia, to work
in operational planning at Tuloma Hydro station, in the village of Kola, as part of the
White SeaBaltic Canal. This lasted only a month, from mid-March to mid-April 1934.
On his way north, Shliapnikov stopped in Medvezhia Gora and went to great lengths
when trying to find Medvedev, but the administrators refused to admit that his friend
worked there and would not tell Shliapnikov how to find him. Shliapnikov assumed that
the OGPU had decided not to allow him and Medvedev to meet. 36
Shliapnikov and Medvedev were able to correspond with one another in 1934.
The ever-optimistic Shliapnikov offered encouragement and support to Medvedev and
held forth on international politics, although Medvedev seldom was in the mood for
such discussions. His mood was dark, due to his separation from his two young daughters and the recent deaths of close friends. He was especially forthright in an August
1934 letter he sent Shliapnikov via his daughters, who visited him in exile that
summer. Here Medvedev doubted he would win the right to return to Moscow for a
visit. But Shliapnikov pressed him to appeal for more for his rehabilitation and
reinstatement in the Party. Medvedev was pessimistic:
Our crime is that we did not fit the Procrustean bed of the Stalinist epoch. No
sorts of dodges [ukhishchreniia] will help us conceal this basic fact. All our attempts

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to return to the past will entail only the necessity of subjecting ourselves to all
that vile self-abasement [samooplevanie], which all formers have committed upon
themselves.
He continued with the qualification that he would make such an appeal only if it could
serve as an organizing moment that might unite some in the Party who supported him
and Shliapnikov. Referring to himself as a prisoner of war of the existing regime, he
was sure that he and Shliapnikov would only be able to stay in Moscow if they would cut
themselves off completely from a certain milieu and take up some sort of gardening.
He probably meant that he would have to give up any interest in politics. Medvedev added
that he was as incapable of this as a drunkard would be to abandon his thirst for wine. 37
In the midst of his gloom over his personal fate, Medvedev told Shliapnikov that he
read the works of Marx and Engels for comfort, that they cheered him up and strengthened his spirit. Likewise, Shliapnikov wrote to his wife in 1936 from exile in Astrakhan
that he was turning to the correspondence of Marx and Engels for solace. He felt a close
emotional connection to the thoughts expressed in the correspondence, but he noted
that there was a world of difference between the prevailing and surrounding vulgarity
with which one collides and the progressive character of the future, with which the
correspondence is saturated.38 Thus, their political tribulations did not shake the two
friends faith in Marxism and their long-term hope for revolution raised their morale.
Not only ideology, but also the bonds of friendship boosted their morale. Shliapnikov
tried to cheer Medvedev with his optimism and ironic humour. Referring to the assassination of King Alexander of Yugoslavia in Marseilles in October 1934, he joked that
someone was trying to decide international questions according to the old Caucasian
tradition, with a knife and pistol. He also took note of growing political tensions in Spain
and expressed his fear that the enemies of the revolution will turn out to be more organized, than the republicans, socialists and anarchists. 39 In his reply, Medvedev mourned
the recent death of a friend, A proletarian-fighter dedicated to the cause such people
are becoming fewer in these times proletarian class consciousness grows more
slowly. He followed this with the prediction that (being aged almost 50) he might
last only about ten more years since he had been suffering from heart palpitations. 40
Shliapnikov replied in a letter on 11 December, still inspired by the attempts of revolutionary leftists to realize their programmes but disappointed that Spanish leftists seemed
so ill-versed in elementary street fighting. He thought this could easily be remedied by
the international circulation of literature to explain tactics of street fighting for workers
and how to counter tactics for suppressing workers uprisings. He added sceptically,
Apparently still everywhere chatterers [govoruny] prevail over people of a revolutionary
bent. Trying again to cheer up his old friend, he wrote:
Your ideas that we old men dont have much longer to live are premature. My
calculations go much further and I dont limit myself to only a decade! Thats too
little, although its fair to say that weve lived through and experienced quite a lot.
This letter, sent one week after the Kirov assassination, was the last one Shliapnikov
ever sent to Medvedev.41
***

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ALEKSANDR SHLIAPNIKOV AND SERGEI MEDVEDEV

Shliapnikov was arrested on 1 January 1935 and interrogated on 8, 9 and 11 January,

1516, 17 and 28 March. Medvedev was arrested on 24 January and interrogated on
31 January, 4, 5 and 15 February and 11 and 14 March. 42 At least one interrogator, a
certain Braslina, questioned both Shliapnikov and Medvedev. Braslina subsequently was
arrested and sent to the Gulag. Other interrogators included Shtein and Grigorev for
Shliapnikov and Ivanov for Medvedev. Both men were subjected to long interrogations
in the middle of the night. Their sleep was disrupted. There is no clear evidence that
either one was beaten or otherwise actively tortured or that their families were threatened. Rust-coloured spots can be seen on the transcript of Medvedevs 15 February
interrogation, but they are of indeterminate origin. The transcripts were first handwritten and then typed. The typed versions were given to the accused for review. The
accused was expected to sign each page and initial each paragraph. Both Shliapnikov and
Medvedev made significant handwritten corrections to the transcripts, usually striking
through provocative phrases and substituting more innocuous terms. Sometimes they
did not sign certain passages. The interrogations are fascinating for a number of reasons,
but here I will focus on the resistance Shliapnikov and Medvedev offered to the authorities, who were intent on pressuring them to betray their friendship and to admit to
charges of conspiracy.
Each man was repeatedly pressed to acknowledge that he had been in a counterrevolutionary centre and had conducted illegal work. Early on, Shliapnikov defended
himself and Medvedev against the charges, although by 11 January he admitted that he
had insufficiently struggled with Medvedevs moods. The 1516 March transcript
recorded Shliapnikov as saying that Medvedevs July 1934 letter was deeply mistaken
and counter-revolutionary but Shliapnikov did not initial those remarks. He also failed
to initial or sign other places in this transcript where he supposedly admitted guilt to
having made anti-Party statements in the past. He did, though, sign a section reporting
him as having described Medvedevs views in a 1922 letter as mistaken and anti-Party.
A subsequent letter to prosecutor Akulov and Stalin revealed Shliapnikov as still stubbornly denying that there had been any bloc between him and other oppositionists. In
the 17 March typed transcript Shliapnikov agreed that Medvedev slipped onto an antiSoviet path in his criticisms of Soviet policy, but a number of differences between
the handwritten and typed versions of the transcript make this wording unreliable.
Shliapnikov signed every page of this transcript, but he did not initial paragraphs. In the
interrogations, Shliapnikov acknowledged that Medvedev usually initiated meetings
with former oppositionists, but Shliapnikov insisted that these meetings were informal,
social gatherings of old friends. The interrogations ended with Shliapnikovs sentence to
five years in a prison camp; this was commuted in 1936 to exile in Astrakhan. He was
rearrested and interrogated again in 1936, on 8 October and 13 November. In 1936, he
refused to betray Medvedev, calling the latter not his co-conspirator but his closest
comrade who often accompanied him on visits to other people. Shliapnikov, in using
the term comrade, rather than friend, for Medvedev did not divorce their relationship
from the realm of ideology and politics, but he refused to distort their relationship into
one of political subversion. The interrogator pressured Shliapnikov to admit that he and
Medvedev saw terror as the only way to fight against the Party and against Stalin in
particular, but Shliapnikov would not submit. 43
Medvedev did not waver in his adamant refusal to admit to any political crimes.
His answers to investigators questions were terse and hostile, not explanatory and

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expansive as Shliapnikovs were. Like Shliapnikov, Medvedev sometimes objected to

the wording in the transcripts and made corrections. For example, the transcript of the
4 February interrogation indicated that Shliapnikov gave him instructions to meet with
dissident German Communists in 1922, but Medvedev objected to the word instructions and revised this passage to show that Shliapnikov only gave him names of people
to visit in Germany. He even denied having kept foreign currency until he was
confronted with his sisters testimony that he had done so. Afterwards, he refused to
sign the sentences about the foreign currency. On the date of his last interrogation, he
admitted telling cellmates that he felt as if he were the regimes prisoner of war. 44
Neither Shliapnikov nor Medvedev confessed to having led a counter-revolutionary
organization, nor did they admit to having planned or carried out terrorist acts aimed
against the Party or Stalin. They did not implicate one another in such, nor did they
implicate others. In July 1936, Zinovev testified at his show trial that the Workers
Opposition tried to link up with his group. Shliapnikov accepted Zinovevs confession
of guilt, but he insisted that Zinovev and others testimony implicating him in their
crimes was false. Medvedev simply did not co-operate. Shliapnikov conceded several
times that he or Medvedev had made anti-Party statements in the past, but at the end
both men refused to confess to the charges against them. At his trial, charged with paragraphs eight and eleven of Article Fifty-Eight of the 1934 criminal code (relating to
terrorists and hostile groups), Shliapnikov confessed only to a liberal attitude
towards people with whom he had associated. Despite their refusal to co-operate with
those attempting to construct one large oppositionist bloc, both Shliapnikov and
Medvedev were found guilty and, ultimately, were executed. A military tribunal tried
them secretly. Shliapnikov was shot on 2 September 1937, Medvedev on 10 September
of the same year. Shliapnikov was rehabilitated of criminal charges in 1963 and restored
to membership in the Communist Party in 1988. Medvedev was rehabilitated of criminal charges in 1978 and restored to the Party in 1988. The testimony of N.V. Sergievskii
had played a chief role in the convictions of Shliapnikov and Medvedev (and, indeed, the
convictions of many others). In 1956 and 1957 interrogations, Sergievskii testified that
his testimony from the 1930s was false and had been concocted by investigators. 45
Shliapnikovs wife, Ekaterina, was arrested a few days after his execution. She
was sent to prison and then to the Gulag. Until the late 1950s, she could not live in
Moscow. Their three children were placed in orphanages. They were allowed to
rejoin their mother in internal exile in Nizhnii Novgorod after the Second World
War, but the family was arrested again over the period 194851 and released only
several years after Stalins death. Iuri served time in Komi Gulag and Aleksandr in
Kolyma, but Irina was exiled to Krasnoiarsk. Medvedevs sister, who was also an Old
Bolshevik, and her daughter were arrested in 1935, but Medvedevs two young
daughters, Aida and Irina, were overlooked. Medvedevs mother cared for them
briefly, but she died of a heart attack on her way to see him at the Lubianka. The
maid then cared for the children until she too was arrested. An aunt checked in on
the girls intermittently. They remained in Moscow during the terror and the war, the
older daughter working and caring for the younger one. Both were arrested in 1949
and sent into internal exile in northern Kazakhstan. Charges against them were
dropped only in 1954 and 1955. Now all the surviving children live in Moscow,
where they meet occasionally as friends. Iuri lives part of the year with his daughter
in New Jersey. Shliapnikovs children have helped Medvedevs surviving daughter to

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ALEKSANDR SHLIAPNIKOV AND SERGEI MEDVEDEV

attain her fathers rehabilitation and to obtain access to his records in the archive of
the FSB.46
***
The role of personality in politics is important not only in its individual psychological
aspect, but also in terms of the interplay between personalities. For Shliapnikov and
Medvedev, their friendship and political partnership were tightly intertwined. They had
much in common: natural intelligence and curiosity coupled with only a primary school
education; a desire to improve themselves; factory work as skilled metalworkers; an
early commitment to revolutionary Social Democracy; prison terms; many years in the
revolutionary underground, primarily as political organizers; trade union involvement;
a shared belief in the need for organized workers to prevail in the Bolshevik and
Communist Parties and for leadership to allow workers initiative to flourish. These
similarities forged a close bond of friendship that began in 1907 and lasted until their
executions in 1937.
The differences between them determined the roles they would assume as political
teammates. Shliapnikovs Old Believer upbringing accustomed him to debate with his
superiors, while Medvedevs peasant roots gave him a craftiness Shliapnikov did not
possess. Shliapnikovs personality moved him to strive toward intellectualism, while
Medvedevs personality oriented him more toward practical work. Medvedevs difficult relationship with his father may have prepared him to offer resistance to authority,
while Shliapnikovs lack of a father from his early years may have inclined him to seek a
father figure in Lenin and the Party. Shliapnikovs years abroad gave him not only a
fluent command of French and familiarity with English and German, but also an international reputation that Medvedev lacked. Shliapnikovs experience abroad also
advanced him more quickly in the migr Party hierarchy, while Medvedevs frequent
arrests and long prison and exile terms interfered with his work on behalf of the Party.
Finally, Shliapnikovs relationships with Kollontai, Lenin, Krupskaia and other Party
leaders cultivated his transformation into an intellectual worker, if not a workerintelligent. These differences determined Shliapnikovs role as the recognized leader
and as the initiator of ideas and strategies, while Medvedev assumed a more subsidiary
role in their political collaboration.
Their friendship was a subset of a more extensive web of relationships between
the skilled and politicized metalworkers of Petrograd. The Workers Opposition of
191921 emerged from this web to advocate the role of production workers unions in
organizing the Soviet economy and in running the Communist Party. Due to the decline
of unions power vis--vis the Communist Party during the civil war, however, the
Workers Opposition failed to garner much support among Communist Party members
and administrators. Therefore, the group was censured and banned at the Tenth Party
Congress in 1921. Some of its leading members abandoned their colleagues and acquiesced in the Congresss decisions, while others tried to form new parties or groups
within the Communist Party. Shliapnikov and Medvedev remained within the Party and
formally observed the ban on factions, while continuing to advocate the role of workers
in the economy and Party and to develop a critique of NEP.
As Stalin and his supporters began to consolidate their hold over the Communist
Party and other Soviet organizations in the 1920s, the ban on factions became the

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foundation of an evolving concept of intra-Party relations. By the 1930s, Party leaders

would treat any expression of dissent as anti-Party and any informal relationships
between oppositionists or former oppositionists as evidence of a counter-revolutionary
bloc. Moreover, even the failure to condemn and disassociate oneself from the pariahs
within or outside the Party became evidence of membership in a counter-revolutionary
organization. The investigations and persecution of Shliapnikov and Medvedev in the
1920s both reveal the evolution of these political processes and played a role in how they
evolved. At every step, Shliapnikov and Medvedev resisted the evolving Stalinist dictatorship and repressive machinery, but their attempts to do so while remaining active
within the Party and in the development of the Soviet economy were at cross purposes.
Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, Shliapnikov and Medvedev resisted the Stalinists
efforts to subordinate the personal to the political. In the Kremlin, personal relationships were dependent on political fluctuations and could be cut off abruptly, as when
Stalin sent his comrades close family members to the Gulag. Personal relationships
between former oppositionists and other suspect individuals increasingly came to be
viewed as evidence of subversive political links. In times of terror, the intimacy of
friendship came to seem increasingly subversive. Under interrogation in 1935 and 1936,
Shliapnikov and Medvedev were pressured to denounce one another and to interpret
their friendship as a conspiracy. They refused to do so. Moreover, they refused to admit
to having engaged in terrorism or to having ever been co-conspirators with Zinovev
and Kamenev or others. Neither man was ever put on public trial. There was no show
trial of the Workers Opposition. Thus, Shliapnikov and Medvedev stand as counterpoints to the examples of those oppositionists like Zinov ev and Kamenev who
succumbed to pressure to debase themselves and slander others in the service of the
Party. For Shliapnikov and Medvedev, the Party was not Stalin and his band, but the
potential of revolutionary-minded workers to organize themselves politically. This firm
conviction, reinforced by their personal friendship, helped them remain steadfast in
their moral resistance to Stalins repression.

Acknowledgements
The author is grateful to the International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX) and
Fulbright-Hays for funding the research on which this article is based. An earlier version
of the article was presented to the 2005 convention of the American Association for the
Advancement of Slavic Studies. The author is grateful to La Salle University for providing funds to attend the conference and to discussant William J. Chase and audience
members for their helpful comments and questions.

Notes
1.
2.

Leibiger, Founding Friendship, focuses on the central role of friendship in political collaboration between historical personalities. Montefiore, Stalin, and Taubman, Khrushchev,
explore the political significance of private relationships among Soviet leaders.
Much of the research for this article was conducted in the Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi
arkhiv sotsialno-politicheskoi istorii (RGASPI) and in Tsentralnyi arkhiv Federalnoi Sluzhby

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ALEKSANDR SHLIAPNIKOV AND SERGEI MEDVEDEV

3.

4.
5.

6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.

Bezopasnosti (TsA FSB). In RGASPI, the investigative files of the Partys Central Control
Commission on Shliapnikov and Medvedev were particularly useful. TsA FSB contains
NKVD and Military College files relating to arrests, interrogations and trials of
repressed individuals. Materials confiscated from the arrested and considered potentially useful in the investigation were also preserved among the NKVD files. There
were 56 volumes of files relating to the Workers Opposition, of which I saw 15
volumes. I have also interviewed Shliapnikovs children, Iuri and Irina, on numerous
occasions, and Medvedevs daughter, Irina, once in 1995.
The preceding information comes from RGASPI, f. 589 (Party Control Commission),
op. 3, d. 9102 (Medvedev, S.P.), ll. 17388, which is Medvedevs autobiography for
the central purge commission (10 February 1922); RGASPI, f. 589, op. 3, d. 9103
(Shliapnikov, A.G.), vol. 5, ll. 3250; Shliapnikov, A.G. Shliapnikov (avtobiografiia); Shliapnikov, Podpolnaia rabota v Muromskom raione (19021904gg.);
Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Rossiisskoi Federatsii (GARF), f. 102 (DP), 7 d-vo, 1904, d. 299,
ch. 3, l. 1; Shliapnikov, Zametki o Frantsii; Shliapnikov, On the Eve of 1917; and the
authors discussions with Irina Shliapnikova in Moscow, 199091 and 1995.
Shliapnikov, A.G. Shliapnikov (avtobiografiia); RGASPI, f. 589, op. 3, d. 9102, ll.
17388; Naumov, A.G. Shliapnikov, 24; RGASPI, f. 2, op.1, d. 8, l. 90 (7 January
1919).
RGASPI, f. 2, op. 1, d. 12562, ll. 15; TsA FSB, R33718, d. 499061 (on the accusation
of the Workers Opposition Moscow group, 56 volumes), vol. 37, ll. 21012;
Deviatyi sezd RKP(b). On how the Workers Opposition arose, see Allen, Alexander
Shliapnikov and the Origins of the Workers Opposition.
RGASPI, f. 134 (A.M. Kollontai), op. 3, d. 34, l. 5; RGASPI, f. 99 (Union of Metalworkers), op. 1, d. 4, l. 2; RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 66, l. 1; RGASPI, f. 99, op. 1, d. 14,
l. 7.
TsA FSB, R33718, d. 499061, vol. 42.
Tsentralnyi arkhiv obshchestvenykh dvizhenii goroda Moskvy, f. 3, op. 2, d. 34, l. 54 (21
January session of the Moscow Party Committee).
RGASPI, f. 134, op. 3, d. 37.
RGASPI, f. 99, op. 1, dd. 78; RGASPI, f. 17, op. 84, d. 220. See also Allen, The
Evolution of Communist Party Control over Trade Unions.
RGASPI, f. 2, op. 1, d. 20219; RGASPI, f. 17, op. 84, d. 175, ll. 946; TsA FSB, R33718,
d. 499061, vol. 38.
RGASPI, f. 589, op. 3, d. 9103, vol. 3, l. 48.
RGASPI, f. 2, op. 1, d. 19867.
TsA FSB, R33718, d. 499061, vols. 401.
RGASPI, f. 589, op. 3, d. 9103, vol. 3, ll. 97106; Odinnadtsatyi sezd RKP(b); RGASPI,
f. 48, op. 1, d. 14.
GARF, f. 5469, op. 17, d. 3, ll. 45, 11.
RGASPI, f. 134, op. 4 (numerous files); October 2000 telephone conversation with
Irina Shliapnikova.
TsA FSB, R33718, d. 499061, vol. 43, l. 328; RGASPI, f. 589, op. 3, d. 9103, vol. 4
(E.S. Shliapnikova), l. 1 (14 April 1949 autobiography of Ekaterina Shliapnikova);
conversations with Irina Shliapnikova and Irina Medvedeva in 1995.
TsA FSB, R33718, d. 499061, vol. 42, l. 209 and vol. 13, ll. 419 (10 January 1925
letter from Shliapnikov to Medvedev).
TsA FSB, R33718, d. 499061, vol. 12, ll. 857 (letter from Shliapnikov to Medvedev,
16 December 1924).

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21. TsA FSB, R33718, d. 499061, vol. 43, l. 138 (3 January 1930).
22. Shliapnikovs most well known works are Nakanune semnadtsatogo goda and Semnadtsatyi god. On the eve of his arrest, Shliapnikov had finished the first volume of a
manuscript about his experiences during the civil war. The NKVD confiscated the
manuscript, which was only published recently as Shliapnikov, Za khlebom i
neftiu.
23. TsA FSB, R33718, d. 499061, vol. 36, ll. 2044 and vol. 37, l. 425.
24. RGASPI, f. 589, op. 3, d. 9103, vol. 3, ll. 346.
25. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 2, d. 104 (Central Committee plenums 2527 October 1923), ll.
16, 21; d. 685, l. 32.
26. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 2, d. 254, ll. 89, 1517, 2326 October 1926 plenum of the
Central Committee and the Central Control Commission.
27. TsA FSB, R33718, d. 499061, vol. 38, ll. 2339.
28. The Letter to a Baku Comrade was first published in Kommunisticheskaia oppozitsiia v
SSSR, 192327, vol. 1, 90101.
29. TsA FSB, R33718, d. 499061, vol. 39, ll. 269, 30421.
30. RGASPI, f. 589, op. 3, d. 9103, vol. 1, ll. 75115, 149214.
31. TsA FSB, R33718, d. 499061, vol. 12, l. 23; vol. 13, ll. 419; and vol. 43, l. 204.
32. RGASPI, f. 589, op. 3, d. 9103, vol. 1, ll. 215, 2412, 247.
33. RGASPI, f. 589, op. 3, d. 9102.
34. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 874, l. 15; RGASPI, f. 589, op. 3, d. 9103, l. 82.
35. RGASPI, f. 589, op. 3, d. 9103, vol. 5; and d. 9102, ll. 1918; TsA FSB, R33718, d.
499061, vol. 42, ll. 2012, 22835, and vol. 43, ll. 164, 205.
36. TsA FSB, R33718, d. 499061, vol. 14 (23-page diary inside an envelope labelled l. 8)
and vol. 43, l. 99 and unpaginated material.
37. TsA FSB, R33718, d. 499061, vol. 13, d. 499061, ll. 7681 (handwritten letter from
Medvedev to Shliapnikov, 3 August 1934).
38. TsA FSB, R27744 (Military College of the USSR Supreme Soviet), vol. 1, l. 4 (letter
from Shliapnikov to his wife, 10 August 1936).
39. TsA FSB, R33718, d. 499061, vol. 14 (unpaginated packet of letters and postcards to
Medvedev in Medvezhia gora from Shliapnikov in Moscow, 12 October 1934).
40. TsA FSB, R33718, d. 499061, vol. 14 (letter from Medvedev to Shliapnikov, 25 October
1934).
41. TsA FSB, R33718, d. 499061, vol. 14 (letter from Shliapnikov to Medvedev, Moscow,
11 December 1934).
42. The NKVD in March and April 1935 charged 18 people with being members of the
Moscow counter-revolutionary organization Workers Opposition group.
Together with Shliapnikov and Medvedev, these included G.I. Bruno, S.I. Maslennikov, M.A. Vichinskii, V.P. Demidov, M.N. Ivanov, M.F. Mikhailov, I.I. Nikolaenko,
M.I. Prokopenko, A.A. Serebrennikov, V.E. Tarasov, O.Kh. Prokopenko, K.M.
Tarasova, A.A. Tikhomirov, N.I. Ruzhitskaia, Z.I. Akhmedova, M.I. Dogadina. Other
centres allegedly were in Omsk and Rostov. See Reabilitatsiia, 1045.
43. TsA FSB, R33718, d. 499061, vol. 3, d. 499061, ll. 1692, vol. 4, ll. 11751; and
R27744, d. 3257, vol. 1, d. 3257, ll. 1720.
44. TsA FSB, R33718, d. 499061, vol. 5, ll. 161.
45. TsA FSB, R27744, d. 3257, vol. 1, l. 102; RGASPI, f. 589, op. 3, d. 9102, ll. 249,
26674; RGASPI, f. 589, op. 3, d. 9103, l. 244; Reabilitatsiia, 117, 122.
46. RGASPI, f. 589, op. 3, d. 9103, vol. 4, l. 43 (Ekaterina Shliapnikovas 1956 autobiography); RGASPI, f. 589, op. 3, d. 9103, vol. 6, l. 296 (Ekaterina Shliapnikovas

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ALEKSANDR SHLIAPNIKOV AND SERGEI MEDVEDEV

undated autobiography); conversations with Iuri and Irina Shliapnikov and with
Irina Medvedeva.

References
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Deviatyi sezd RKP(b) mart-aprel 1920 goda: protokoly. Moscow: Politizdat, 1960.
Felshtinskii, Iu., ed. Kommunisticheskaia oppozitsiia v SSSR, 192327. 4 vols. Moscow:
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Naumov, V.P. A.G. Shliapnikov: stranitsy politicheskoi biografii. Moscow: Znanie, 1991.
Odinnadtsatyi sezd RKP(b): stenograficheskii otchet, mart-aprel 1922 goda. Moscow: Politizdat,
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. On the Eve of 1917. Translated by Richard Chappell. London and New York: Allison
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Shliapnikov, A.G. Podpolnaia rabota v Muromskom raione (19021904gg.). In Dvadtsat let rabochei organizatsii v gorodakh: Murom, Kulebaki, Vyksa. Moscow and St Petersburg: Gosizdat, 1923.
. Zametki o Frantsii. Leningrad: Gosizdat, 1926.
. A. G. Shliapnikov (avtobiografiia). Deiateli SSSR i oktiabrskoi revoliutsii: avtobiografii i biografii, edited by Iu.S. Gambarov et al. 3 parts. Moscow: Russkii
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semnadtsatogo goda; Semnadtsatyi god, 3 vols. Moscow: Politizdat, 1992.
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