“...I Have a Disagreement Organizational Order…”: About One Conflict 1931 in the Leadership of the RAPP

On March 25, 1931, Pravda published an article criticizing the editorial board of the magazine “At the literary Post”. The essence of the reproaches was that RAPP, as Pravda believed, was inclined to expose fictional opponents, not real ones. And such a fictional opponent turned out to be V.S. Popov-Dubovsky, who, according to the leadership of the RAPP, called for giving literature to writers alien to the revolution. The conflict between Pravda and RAPP, as archival documents show, was the reason that, on the one hand, the remaining Bukharinites were removed from the editorial office of Pravda, on the other, that on May 6, 1931 there was a Resolution of the Organizational Bureau of the Central Committee of the CPSU(b) “On disagreements between the editorial board of Pravda and the faction of the RAPP Secretariat”, which, in particular, pointed to the insufficient development of self-criticism within RAPP, the presence of administrative elements, ignoring in practice the basic provision that RAPP is a literary and educational, and not a state administrative organization. The last point of this resolution is “To consider it necessary to create a friendly atmosphere within RAPP for the work of individual creative movements, in particular the current headed by T. Panferov” — unequivocally pointed to the new favorite of the Central Committee. The conflict between Pravda and RAPP prepared the conditions for the dissolution of literary unions by the Resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU(b) dated April 23, 1932.