Ryutin affair

Union of Marxist-Leninists
Союз марксистов-ленинцев
LeaderMartemyan Ryutin
FoundedMarch 1932 (1932-03)
DissolvedOctober 1932 (1932-10)
Split fromRight Opposition
Merged intoBloc of Soviet Oppositions
IdeologyLeninism
Agrarian socialism
Anti-collectivization
Political positionLeft wing to far-left
National affiliationCommunist Party of the Soviet Union

The Ryutin affair was an attempt led by Martemyan Ryutin to remove Joseph Stalin as General Secretary of the All-Union Communist Party (b) (CPSU) in 1932.

Ryutin wrote two publications that were highly critical of Stalin, his authoritarianism, and his first five-year plan. Ryutin established a Right Opposition faction within the CPSU known as the Union of Marxist-Leninists which opposed Stalin's rule and Stalinism in favour of a moderate form of Leninism. Ryutin and his supporters were defeated by a hardline Stalinist faction in the Central Control Commission, arrested by the OGPU as counterrevolutionaries, and later executed in the Great Purge.

Ryutin's movement was one of the last attempts to oppose Stalin from within the CPSU and marked a general decline of the Right Opposition.