ABSTRACT
The resolutions and key speeches of the 14th Conference and the 14th Congress of the Party were imbued with the spirit of realistic rightist Communism. The NEP was a realistic attempt by the Communist Party to establish co-operation between the working class and the peasants, including the richer peasants and the middlemen and traders or Nepmen. At bottom, there could be no question of the Communist Party adopting a Social Democratic position on economic development. For orthodox Communists, then, the only remaining course left was abolition of the New Economic Policy. Rykov, whose approach to the economic policy of the Soviet Union was practical and pragmatic, and who acquired great experience as Lenin's successor in the Council of People's Commissars, spoke in the same vein. The opposition's defeat in the Soviet Union was followed up by another defeat at the plenary meeting of the Executive Committee of the Communist International on December 7–13, 1926.
