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Mikhail Tomsky (1880-1936) was one of the most important and influential leaders of the early Soviet Union. This first English-language biography of Tomsky reveals his central role in all the key developments in early Soviet history, including the stormy debates over the role of unions in the self-proclaimed workers' state. Charters Wynn's compelling account illuminates how the charismatic Tomsky rose from an impoverished working-class background and years of tsarist prison and Siberian exile to become both a Politburo member and the head of the trade unions, where he helped shape Soviet domestic and foreign policy along generally moderate lines throughout the 1920s. His failed attempt to block Stalin's catastrophic adoption of forced collectivization would tragically make Tomsky a prime target in the Great Purges.
List of contents
Acknowledgements
List of Illustrations
Introduction
1 Note on Transliteration
1 The Making of a Moderate Working-Class Bolshevik Leader
2 Balancing Act: Tomsky during War Communism and the Trade-Union Debate
3 Detour East: From Disgraced Exile in Tashkent to Redemption inside the Kremlin
4 Getting Together Then Falling Apart: Tomsky and British Trade Unionists
5 Tomsky during NEP: Trade Unions and the Intra-Party Struggle
6 NEP's Last Stand: The Eighth Trade-Union Congress
7 Tomsky Outcast: Tormenting a 'Right Deviationist'
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index
About the author
Charters Wynn is Associate Professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin. The American Historical Association awarded his book,
Workers, Strikes, and Pogroms: The Donbass-Dnepr Bend in Late Imperial Russia, 1870-1905 the Herbert Baxter Adams Prize.
Summary
Mikhail Tomsky (1880-1936) was one of the most important and influential leaders of the early Soviet Union.
This first English-language biography of Tomsky reveals his central role in all the key developments in early Soviet history, including the stormy debates over the role of unions in the self-proclaimed workers’ state.
Charters Wynn’s compelling account illuminates how the charismatic Tomsky rose from an impoverished working-class background and years of tsarist prison and Siberian exile to become both a Politburo member and the head of the trade unions, where he helped shape Soviet domestic and foreign policy along generally moderate lines throughout the 1920s. His failed attempt to block Stalin’s catastrophic adoption of forced collectivization would tragically make Tomsky a prime target in the Great Purges.
Foreword
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