Yesterday, the daughter of one of the key figures of resistance to early communist Russia spoke to local school pupils and students at the University of Bradford.
Irina Shliapnikova talked about the life and times of her father, Aleksandr Shliapnikov, at a historical workshop entitled ‘Life and Opposition in Lenin’s and Stalin’s Russia’. The workshop took place in cooperation with the Department of Languages and European Studies.
Aleksandr Shliapnikov was a leader of the Workers’ Opposition in Soviet Russia in the 1920s. Formed in the winter of 1920, the Workers' Opposition formed a faction within the All-Russian Communist Party to try to halt the perceived drift towards bureaucratism in both Soviet institutions and the party itself, and to promote a syndicalist agenda of trade union control of the economy.
Along with the Democratic Centralists, the Workers' Opposition represented the most serious threat to party unity since the October Revolution and was indicative of considerable working-class disenchantment with the party leadership and its policies. The leading figures in the Workers' Opposition were Aleksandr Shliapnikov, who was also chair of the central committee of the Metalworkers' Union, and Aleksandra Kollontai, the most prominent Bolshevik feminist. Mr Shliapnikov was executed under the Stalin regime in 1937.
Irina, who was arrested at 21 years of age and spent some five years in labour camps, has been researching the life of her father and has worked extensively in the Russian archives. She spoke about her father and life in inter-war Soviet Russia, including her own experiences. During the rest of the session she took questions from the audience. Irina spoke in Russian and was interpreted by Tanya Bezrukova.
Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Bradford, Dr Tony Heywood, said: “I’m delighted that Irina has been able to come to Bradford to give this talk which will provide students and local school pupils with a unique insight into life and politics of early Soviet Russia.”
