ABSTRACT
With the launching of collectivization and all its chaos, the party began to seek scapegoats for the failures of its grandiose plans. In the early trials, from 1928 to 1934, the scapegoats were "class enemies" in Russia and abroad—capitalists, manufacturers, former owners of nationalized enterprises and their "agents" who, according to Soviet propaganda, were organizing conspiracies for wrecking and sabotage in the Soviet Union. In May 1930 the Menshevik Delegation Abroad submitted to the LSI a memorandum which described Soviet policy with regard to the peasants as utterly objectionable and without justification. Soviet publications described how men in the lower ranks of the administration, factory management and engineering staffs helped the secret police to uncover "crimes" and "plots" allegedly committed by their superiors—and were then promoted to the vacant posts. Around 1930, the Soviet government decided to put more order and system into the concentration camps.
