Bookvica

[FIRST PARTY MEETING WITHOUT LENIN] Chetyrnadtsatyy s’yezd Rossiyskoy kommunisticheskoy partii (bol'shevikov) [i.e. Fourteenth Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks)]

Item #2282

Moscow: GIZ, 1925. 68 p. 26x14 cm. 1 of 6000 copies printed. Original printed wrappers. Wrappers are foxed, a pencil mark on the front wrapper and a small tear. Few tears and marginal stains, otherwise good.

First and only edition of the bulletin. The stenographic account of the Congress was printed a year later, in 1926. This is the first official printed account of the Congress, held in December 1925, which consists of the opening speech, the election of the board and the general report of the general secretary of the Party - comrade Stalin.
This makes it the first report by Stalin as general secretary in print. The discussions upon the fate of Bukharin didn’t make it to the bulletin as well as Stalin’s famous phrase ‘If you want Bukharin’s blood, comrade Zinoviev, we will not give it to you’ (Zinoviev executed in 1936, Bukharin - 1938). Trotsky was present at the Congress but chose not to participate in discussions on the left opposition. This became his last Party Congress.

The 14th Party Congress went down in history as the industrialization congress. The decisions taken at it marked the beginning of the transformation of the USSR into an industrial power, the abolishment of the NEP policy. The most important industrial facilities of this period were the Dnieper hydroelectric power station (the largest in Europe at that time), the Stalingrad Tractor Plant, Turksib, the Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works, etc.
Stalin’s report which occupies most of the book, is important as the showcase of his first statement as a Party leader, although still challenged by some voices inside the party - one of such voices at this Congress was Nadezhda Krupskaya, to her criticism Stalin responded that she’s ‘merely a ordinary party member, like million others’.
In his report Stalin points out, among other things the separatist nature of the USSR as a country surrounded by capitalist countries, that has to progress not together with them, but rather against them. The private property and business are not criticized as harshly as in following Meetings, but already a large number of points dedicated to the ‘first against kulaks’.
Like most party publications from the 1920s, this bulletin was banned from book-distribution in USSR from late 1930s to late 1980s.

Rare. Not in the Worldcat.

Price: $950.00