Annie and Lucas join Barbara C. Allen, editor of the recent collection of documents The Workers’ Opposition in the Russian Communist Party: Documents, 1919-30 and author of Alexander Shlyapnikov, 1885-1937: Life of an Old Bolshevik for a conversation on the Workers’ Opposition in the Russian Communist Party. They discuss what the Workers’ Opposition was, as well as the biographies of the more important members such as Alexander Shlyapnikov and Sergei Medvedev, what the Workers’ Opposition stood for, focusing on its relationship to specialists and to purges and the peasantry and the Workers’ Opposition. They finish with the story of the eclipse of the Workers’ Opposition, the fate of the trade unions and of Alexandra Kollontai after the demise of the organization.
