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Kamenev in Early NEP: The Twelfth Party Congress Alexis E. Pogorelskin In the spring of 1923, Lev Kamenev's position in the party appeared unassailable . As an intimate of Lenin in the years of exile, he had readily, despite early hesitations on his part in October and November 1917, moved into the highest echelons of power in the new Soviet state. By 1923 he was one of the triumvirs, along with Stalin and Zinov'ev, who had stepped in to rule as Lenin's health failed. Yet with extraordinary swiftness, in a mere two years, Kamenev existed on the fringes of power. In four years, at the Fifteenth Party Congress, his rout was complete. To account for the swiftness of his fall, the Twelfth Party Congress held April 17-23, 1923, provides crucial information. Scholars have noted the importance of that congress for understanding the emerging succession struggle. N. I. Kapchenko called it "an important marker [rubezh] in the struggle for power.,,1 Robert V. Daniels observed that it was "the last when individual delegates spoke their minds without prepared scripts.,,2 Adam Ulam suggested that "it is possible that it was at the Twelfth Party Congress that Stalin was first seized with the idea of his personal dictatorship being ... feasible3 I would add that the Twelfth also provides remarkable evidence for understanding the paradox inherent in Kamenev's career during NEP, namely immense power coupled with precipitous decline. Kamenev, in that sense, experienced the fate of Trotskii and Zinov'ev. But they have something more in common. The careers of all three share the same hinge: the Twelfth Party Congress. The Twelfth Congress was the first from which Lenin was absent since the Bolsheviks seized power. His deteriorating health meant not only that he would miss the congress, but that the party could never again count on his presence within the leadership. Yet as Kamenev noted, precisely at this time, the party faced overwhelming uncertainty and challenges that would determine the future course of Soviet power: "Before our congress stands the question of the proletariat and the peasantry ... the organization of industry, the decision on the nationality question, and the reorganization of the state and 1 N. I. Kapchenko, Politicheskaia biografiia Stalina (Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2005), 688. 2 Robert V. Daniels, The Conscience of the Revolution (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1988),193. 3 Adam B. Ulam, Stalin (New York: The Viking Press, 1973), 227. Rude & Barbarous Kingdom Revisited: Essays in Russian History and Culture in Honor of Robert 0. Crummey. Chester 5. L. Dunning, Russell E. Martin, and Daniel Row land, eds. Bloomington, IN: siavica Publishers, 2008, 173-87. 174 ALEXIS E. POGORELSKIN party apparatus," Kamenev told the delegates, opening the conclave as cl1air of the congress.4 Some, if not all of those issues, raised the question of Stalin's position in the party. The Twelfth Congress was also the first to be held since Stalin had been appointed General Secretary of the party. In the year that he had occupied the position, the General Secretary had managed to turn the Uchraspred, the Account and Assignment Section of the Secretariat, into his lever to control the composition of the partys Since the Eleventh Congress met in 1922, Uchraspred had made "10,000 assignments ... half ... involved so-called responsible officials.,,6 As Robert Daniels has observed, Stalin may have possessed "effective control over a majority of the delegates"? thanks to his appointment of so many gubkom secretaries; but the Twelfth also witnessed a measure of independence on the part of delegates, who felt free to express themselves spontaneously in the give and take of debate. The Twelfth Congress offered opportunities to the oligarchs as well. With Lenin absent they presented themselves to the party, vying in the political arena for allegiance and ultimately supremacy. Stalin, for example, may have taken control of party appointments; he had yet to convince the party to follow him. Kamenev had carefully cultivated a client group in the capital and its environs, but could his appeal extend beyond that region? Did he perceive that he might have to convince the party as a whole of his right to leadership? By the Thirteenth Congress, the first after Lenin's death, the oligarchs provided "a model of unanimity."s To lift the veil over the leadership struggle, we must turn back to the Twelfth Congress where Kamenev joined his fellow oligarchs on display for the first time with Lenin absent. Each stepped forward from Lenin's shadow...

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