In statu reprobationis: историк Давид Баевский в центре кампании по борьбе с фальсификацией истории ВКП(б) 1931–1932 гг.

Диалог со временем. 2026. № 96. С. 90–105.

Бадиков Р. А.

The development of Soviet historical science in the 1930s–1950s was characterized by an increasing role of political and ideological campaigns designed to repressively confirm the Stalinist conception of the country’s and ruling party’s history. Researchers who found themselves involuntarily, and often accidentally, at the center of such campaigns faced public and professional ostracism and had to find ways to overcome the resulting personal crisis. The extreme form of vanquishment was the scenario of “escape”, implying a change of the victims’ scientific specialisation under political and ideological pressure. This article reconstructs such a scenario based on the life of David Baevsky, activist of Communist Party historical research in the 1920s–1930s, Doctor of historical sciences, and Professor. Accused of “Trotskyism”, Baevsky, after returning from exile in 1937, chose the scenario of “escape” from a politically insecure specialisation and turned to studying the problems of the country’s economic and industrial transformation. The paper explores the transformation of Baevsky’s scientific specialisation, the downfall in 1931–1932, and his overcoming of the resulting crisis. A conclusion is drawn about the viability of the “escape” scenario as a means of evading a researcher’s status as a victim in political-ideological campaigns.

Keywords: Stalinism, сталинизм, репрессии, intellectual biography, интеллектуальная биография, repressions, party historians, партийные историки, political and ideological campaigns, history of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), David Baevsky, политико-идеологические кампании, история ВКП(б), Давид Баевский

Publication based on the results of: War and Post-War Peace in the Russian Empire and the USSR (2025)