The Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) (June 1–4, 1936) served multiple purposes. It was intended to demonstrate the further consolidation of the political and economic elites around the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), J.V. Stalin, on the basis of the draft Constitution of the USSR. The Plenum participants’ endorsement of Stalin’s claims regarding the “victory of the socialist mode of production in the economy” and the “successful process of bringing all segments of Soviet society closer together into a single people” would have signified their complete agreement with the dominance of the mythological constructs of socialism in one country. The article reveals for the first time the true course of events at the Plenum. While the members of the Central Committee had no objections to the draft Constitution as a powerful propaganda document, they were compelled to address the real situation in their regions and sectors, for which they were directly responsible. The conflict between utopian ideas about socialism in the USSR and realistic assessments of reality was not direct; however, the cumulative weight of critical assessments stood in stark contrast to the “majestic image of the world’s most democratic Constitution”.
plenum; All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks); five-year plan; planned economy; industrialization; mythology; ideology; J.V. Stalin; USSR.