Aleksey Ivanovich Rykov: Discovered again

Abstract

The article covers an interesting and little-investigated topic about life and activity of Aleksey Ivanovich Rykov - a revolutionary, party and state figure, whose person has aroused a lot of questions so far. A.I. Rykov led the government in the years 1924-1930, in the period when in the country there took place cardinal crucial events that had impact on the further path of development of the country. New economic policy, industrialization and collectivization, Stalin's coming to power and totalitarianism - these and the other national processes were inseparably in the life of this no ordinary man. The questions about the circle of Rykov's personal power in the period of leading the Soviet government, his relations with the members of government, his attitude to old specialists, his attitude to the intellectuals and so on remain open-ended for historians. The role of Aleksey Rykov in building of new socialist economy also requires a detailed study, that is, change of his standpoints to the leverage of Soviet economy, to socialist planning, to search for resources for implementation of forced industrialization, to the rise of rural economy and its prevailing over industrial sector. The authors of the work have set the goals - to study the process of changing views of the events, retreat from early taken positions, attempt to discover the reasons of rise and destruction of A.I. Rykov - this bright representative of "cohort of Lenin's guard", who became one of the first victims of Stalin's judicial processes of the 1930s. war communism, NEP, totalitarianism, repression.