Nechayevism of the 1920s: Youth political radicalism in Soviet Russia during the NEP period

Abstract

The publication presents the results of the study of one of the unique information documents of the OGPU, stored in the funds of the Center for Documentation of the Recent History of the Rostov Region. This is the “Review of the Agent-Investigative Case ‘Anti-Party Committee’” dated May 23, 1928, which is a report by employees of the Plenipotentiary Representative of the OGPU for the North Caucasus Territory concerning their discovery of a secret anti-Soviet youth organization in the city of Krasnodar. Attached to the report are copies of leaflets with anti-Soviet content, which members of the “Anti-Party Committee” produced and distributed in Krasnodar and its environs. The “Review” and the copies of leaflets attached to it contain information of scientific interest about the political sentiments and emotions of educated youth in a Soviet city during the NEP period. An analysis of this information allows us not only to detail ideas about youth political radicalism in Soviet Russia in the 1920s, but also to draw certain parallels between the mindset and activities of young Soviet oppositionists and representatives of the radical wing of the populist movement of the second half of the 19th century. The leaflets of the “Anti-Party Committee” are published with commentaries.