Russia After Stalin

by Isaac Deutscher

  Malenkov has staked his reputation and perhaps his future on the success of his peace overtures. Opposition to ‘appeasement’ is probably as strong in the inner councils of the Kremlin as it is in Washington, though it is not vocal. For the moment the conciliators have the upper hand and the opportunity to put their policies to the test. They have begun to ‘dig a tunnel of friendship’ from their end and have appealed to the statesmen of the West to do likewise. In the meantime the Soviet opponents of ‘appeasement’ stand in the background and watch the scene. Should Malenkov's policy fail, they may yet come dramatically to the fore and reverse the trend.

  The changes in Russia will strongly affect the communist movements of other countries.

  The quiet winding up of the Stalin cult is already having repercussions in the ranks of world communism, even though Stalinist leaders outside Russia were at first comically slow in realizing what was happening in Moscow.

  The crumbling of Stalinist orthodoxy is sure to be followed by an intense ferment of ideas which may eventually transform the outlook of Communist Parties everywhere. Much depends on the extent to which the Soviet Communist Party evolves in a new direction. If the barrack-square discipline of Stalinism gives place to a freer regime, genuine and public controversy may be expected to develop in the ranks of the Russian party. It will then be impossible for most foreign Communist Parties to maintain their ‘monolithic’ character. Once they begin to discuss frankly their own policies, they may abandon the puppet-like attitude towards Russia which was their chief characteristic throughout the Stalin era. They may regain a certain independence of outlook and a measure of autonomy which would free them from the encumbrances of the past and greatly enhance their appeal.

  Should, however, the era of reform come to a premature end in Russia then this process would be cut short in the foreign communist movements too; although even then those parties would have to search for an ideological substitute for Stalinism. In any case world communism finds itself at an historic crossroad.

  Whatever evolutionary stages lie ahead, the link between world communism and Russia is not likely to be broken. The communist devotion to Russia as the pioneer and mainstay of the whole movement, may change its character. It may free itself from the taint of subservience and become more spontaneous and dignified than it has been hitherto.

  Here again Russia's new rulers may be confronted by a difficult dilemma. If the communist bloc is to pursue a policy of self-containment and ‘peaceful coexistence’ with capitalism, its leaders may think it advantageous to prevent the further spread of communism which might endanger the status quo. Yet they may not be able to impose upon foreign Communist Parties the discipline under which Stalin kept them. They may not be in a position to dictate the policies and control every move of French, Italian, or Indo-Chinese communists. We have seen how first Tito and then Mao wrecked Stalin's policy of self-containment. Another Mao may rise in some corner of Asia or another Tito may reach out for power in some part of Europe, and wreck Malenkov's policy of self-containment as well. Even if the rulers of the communist bloc were to discourage new revolutions, as Stalin did, their background and tradition would compel them to identify themselves with every new communist regime emerging in any part of the world. And any such development would tend to aggravate or bring to a head the conflict between East and West.

  The prospects depend, however, not only and not even primarily on what happens in the communist world. They may be determined more decisively by the trend of American policy.

  Russia's new conciliatory attitude has been in the nature of a delayed reaction to the American policy of ‘containing’ communism, the policy of which George Kennan is widely regarded as the inspirer. Indeed the overtures of Malenkov's government are a signal success ofthat policy. The new Soviet leaders have acknowledged that the mutual pressure which East and West have brought to bear upon one another has resulted in an equilibrium which can form the basis for peace.

  This indubitable success of the American policy of containment has, however, coincided with a crisis of that policy. Its inspirer has left the State Department at the very moment when official Washington might have celebrated him as the victor of the day. A cry to abandon ‘containment’ in favour of ‘liberation’, a cry to overthrow communist regimes in Eastern Europe and China, has gone up. Large sections of American opinion are clamouring for a crusade; and official Washington at times behaves as if it were anxious to yield to the clamour.

  These auguries, when seen from Moscow, appear to promise little success for conciliatory overtures. Yet, Malenkov's government, not allowing itself to be discouraged, hopes to be able to calm the clamour for ‘liberation’, to dispel suspicion, and to induce the Western powers to revert to a policy ‘based on facts’. But it also knows that if the West were in all earnestness to abandon ‘containment’ in favour of ‘liberation’, self-containment would become meaningless for the Soviet bloc.

  Should a war-like threat come from the West before the new regime has had the time to consolidate itself, another dramatic shift may occur on the Russian scene: the Malenkov government may be compelled to withdraw and to make room for its opponents. It may be succeeded by a military dictatorship, a Soviet version of Bonapartism.

  The dynamic potentialities of the Soviet State are still incalculable; and the emergence of a Soviet Bonaparte is one of the possible surprises. The part played by military leaders in the recent crisis in Moscow is still obscure in some respects, but there is no doubt that it was important.

  The Russian revolution has been the only one among the modern revolutions which has so far not led to a military dictatorship. But the ghost of Bonaparte has haunted it for three decades; and both Trotsky and Stalin, each in his own way, wrestled with the ghost. Trotsky repeatedly warned the Bolshevik Party of the military dictator who one day might rise above its head and crush it. Stalin suspiciously scrutinized the faces of Tukhachevsky, Zhukov, and other marshals to see which of them might secretly nourish this dangerous ambition. As in Dante's tale about the man who wrestles with a snake and in the struggle himself assumes the snake's shape, Stalin assumed some features of a Soviet Bonaparte when, as Generalissimo, he placed himself above his generals. But this was in part a masquerade. Stalin remained the civilian party leader in uniform, representing only a diluted and adulterated Bonapartism.

  The mere need for such an adulteration shows that the trend towards Bonapartism was latent in Soviet society; it was no mere invention of the lovers of historical analogy. The trend remained only latent, in part because Russia was until recently too weak to breed a Bonaparte. A Bonaparte cuts no figure if he cannot conquer a continent. The Soviet generals of the past were incapable of such a feat—Russia's industrial-military strength was altogether inadequate for that. At the close of the Stalin era this may no longer be true. Nobody can say whether a real general, whom the uniform of a Bonaparte would fit much better than it fitted Stalin, may not appear in the Red Square one day. It is not irrelevant to the situation in Russia that the trend towards the ‘rule of the sword’, to use an old-fashioned expression, has been so much at work in the non-communist world as well.

  There are as yet no signs of the advent of a Soviet Bonaparte. But if the peace offers made by Stalin's civilian successors were to fail, it may be with him that the West will have to deal next.

  The day on which a Russian Bonaparte rises in the Kremlin may see the end of all self-containment, for the Bonaparte would disperse the party secretaries and make straight for the English Channel.

  CHAPTER TEN

  FUTURE PROSPECTS:

  DOMESTIC AFFAIRS

  The close interplay of domestic and foreign factors will determine the outlook of post-Stalin Russia. Just as an aggravation of the international situation may contribute to the emergence of a military dictatorship so domestic developments, in their turn, will exercise a powerful influence on foreign policy. It may, therefore, not be out of place to consider here the alternative di
rections in which the Soviet regime may evolve.

  There are, broadly speaking, three possible variants of development:

  (a) a relapse into the Stalinist form of dictatorship;

  (b) a military dictatorship;

  (c) a gradual evolution of the regime towards a socialist democracy.

  The conditions under which each of these variants is likely to materialize deserve to be examined. An analysis of these conditions leads to the general conclusion that the balance of domestic factors favours a democratic regeneration of the regime. A prolonged relapse into Stalinism is highly improbable. The essential prerequisite for a military dictatorship would be a war-like threat from the West. The real alternative seems to lie therefore between military dictatorship and democratic evolution.

  The great bourgeois revolutions, which were in a sense the predecessors of the Russian revolution, resulted in the establishment of military dictatcrships. In Puritan England and post-Jacobin France these dictatorships came into being only a few years after the beginning of the revolution. The Soviet regime is well advanced in its fourth decade; but throughout this time it has preserved its character as a civilian, not a military, dictatorship.

  Before exploring further the prospects for the future, we must briefly consider the main reason for this difference between the Russian and the other revolutions.

  Every great revolution begins as a broad popular movement, whose leaders strive to establish a system of government very much more representative and broadly based than that which prevailed under the old order. Cromwell started by defending the rights of Parliament against the Crown. The French revolution represented at first all the Estates against the Court. The Russian revolution sought to establish the rule of Councils of Workers', Peasants', and Soldiers' Deputies in place of Tsarist autocracy and the political vacuum of the Kerensky regime.

  Each revolution defeats the defenders of the old order, because it enjoys massive popular support. But the end of civil war brings about a state of weariness, frustration, and political apathy. On the one hand, the new government loses popular support; on the other, society is incapable of governing itself. The old ruling classes are destroyed or dispersed. The revolutionary classes are exhausted, divided against themselves, confused, and lacking in political energy and will. This was the state of the middle classes in the English and French revolutions; and this was also the state of the Russian working class in the early 1920's.

  A disintegrated society, close to the brink of anarchy, is incapable of producing a stable and representative government, revolutionary or counter-revolutionary. Since it is not in a position to govern itself, that is be governed by its elected representatives, it of necessity comes to be ruled by revolutionary ‘usurpers’.

  In such a disintegrated and politically amorphous society power can be usurped and exercised only by an organization which, by its very nature or by force of tradition, has maintained a high degree of cohesion, discipline, and unity of will. In Puritan England and Thermidorian France only one such body existed: the army. The army was therefore predestined to act as trustee and guardian of post-revolutionary society. Cromwell was both the leader of the revolution and the commander of the Ironsides. In this double role he embodied both stages of the revolution: the representative —

  Parliamentary stage — and the later stage of the usurpatory Protectorate. In France there was a definite break between the two phases, and each was represented by different men. Bonaparte, who had played no significant role in the first phase, embodied the second.

  The Russian revolution, too, developed from government by Soviet representation into a Protectorate by usurpation. But the Bolshevik Party, not the army, in this case provided that closely knit, disciplined body of men which, inspired by a single will, was capable of ruling and unifying the disintegrated nation. No such party had existed in previous revolutions. The Jacobin Party came into being only in the course of the upheaval. It was part of the fluctuating revolutionary tide; and it broke up and vanished at the ebb of the tide. The Bolshevik Party, on the other hand, had formed a solid and centralized organization long before 1917. This enabled it to make a revolution, to win a civil war, and then, after the ebb of the tide, to play the part the army had played elsewhere, and to secure by ‘usurpation’ the stability of the post-revolutionary government. The Bolsheviks alone were able to integrate forcibly the dislocated and splintered nation. It was they who created, inspired, and — what was more important — supervised the Red Army. Thus the same civilian body of men that had stood at the head of the revolution in the proletarian-democratic period, also acted as the dictatorial guardian of society throughout the protracted phase of unrepresentative government.

  The party wielded the two main instruments of power, political police and army. It built up the political police into such a formidable instrument that it has had no need to call on the army to ensure stability of government. Nevertheless, the army has always been in the background as a potential counterbalance to the political police. The party has ensured its own predominance by keeping these twin instruments of power mutually in check. Each had an inherent tendency to make itself independent; but neither army nor police could assert its independence as long as the party was able to use one of them to suppress the other's appetite for power.

  The quintessence of Stalin's mechanics of government consisted in balancing his regime on these two props. But the instruments of power do not operate in a vacuum. Their importance and effectiveness depends primarily on the nation's morale. The extent to which any regime relies for its stability on the use of force is in inverse proportion to the popular support it enjoys. Popular support, or its absence, is therefore the third and the decisive element in any mechanics of power.

  Malenkov's government has struck a blow at the political police. If effective, the blow must cause a shift in the whole structure of the regime. One of its two props has been weakened, perhaps shattered. On the face of it, this upsets the equilibrium of the regime and tends to increase the importance of the other prop — the army. If the party has deprived itself of the ability to oppose the political police to the army, the army may become the decisive factor in domestic affairs. After a delay of several decades the Russian revolution may yet enter its Bonapartist phase.

  However, such a development is possible only if the government does not enjoy enough popular support to make it relatively independent of the material instruments of power. Only if government by persuasion fails are the tools of coercion, their respective weight and mutual relation to one another, of decisive importance. A Bonaparte can reach out for power and have his ‘18th Brumaire’ only in a country ruled by an ineffective Directory, where disorder is rampant, discontent rife, and the Directory is in frantic search of ‘a good sword’. No army can set itself up as an independent political force against a government enjoying popular confidence. In domestic policy as in war the relation of morale to physical factors is as three to one.

  From these general remarks on the mechanics of power we now pass to an examination of the three variants of development possible in Russia.

  Relapse into Stalinism

  An attempt by the political police to regain its former position cannot be ruled out. The decree of amnesty and the exposure of the ‘doctors' plot’ have been major moves in an intense struggle which is still in progress. As these lines are written a new indication of its scope becomes apparent. The former Minister of State Security in Soviet Georgia and several high officials of the Ministry have been arrested and charged with violation of constitutional rights of citizens and extortion of confessions. The local leaders of the party have been deposed for connivance.

  The arrested Georgians have obviously been allies and subordinates of the die-hards of Stalinism defeated in Moscow. But the defeated faction has its allies and subordinates in each of the sixteen Soviet Republics. Each provincial capital has had its Ignatievs and Riumins who are now being removed from office, transferred to prison, an
d charged not as terrorists or spies, but as men guilty of violating the constitutional rights of citizens. Thus, the transition from one regime to another is being carried out by a series of moves amounting to rather more than a mere palace revolt and less than a real revolution.

  In the 1930's Trotsky advocated a ‘limited political revolution’ against Stalinism. He saw it not as a fully fledged social upheaval but as an ‘administrative operation’ directed against the chiefs of the political police and a small clique terrorizing the nation. As so often, Trotsky was tragically ahead of his time and prophetic in his vision of the future, although he could not imagine that Stalin's dosest associates would act in accordance with his scheme. What Malenkov's government is carrying out now is precisely the ‘limited revolution’ envisaged by Trotsky.

  The die-hards of the security police may still try to rally and fight to save their skins. They may fight back from the provinces and they may try to regain the ground lost in Moscow. They may have influential associates and accomplices inside the Kremlin. They may try to remove Malenkov and his associates, denouncing them as apostates, secret Trotskyite-Bukharinites, and imperialist agents and presenting themselves as Stalin's only true and orthodox heirs.

  Even if such a coup were successful, which is improbable, the restoration of Stalinism could be only a brief episode. The motives that caused men of Stalin's entourage to initiate a break with his era would continue to operate. Those motives spring from the present State and needs of the nation and are certainly shared by too many people to be defeated by the removal of a few personalities. Even if Malenkov were to be assassinated, others would fill his place. The political police is morally isolated. It has always been hated and feared. It is now hated more and feared less than ever. It has no chance of asserting itself against the combined strength of people, government, and party.