Stalin, Volume 1

by Stephen Kotkin

  266. X s”ezd [1933], 210. “It was necessary . . . to take local circumstances into account and to accommodate oneself to them,” Mikoyan told the 10th Party Congress. Massell, Surrogate Proletariat, 44.

  267. X s”ezd [1933], 214.

  268. X s”ezd [1933], 214–7; Sochineniia, V: 45–9.

  269. X s”ezd [1933], 573–83, 749; Vsesoiuznaia Kommunisticheskaia Partiia (b) v rezoliutsiiakh [5th ed.], I: 393.

  270. RGASPI, f. 4, op. 2, d. 527, l. 38 (Danishevsky), f. 17, op. 84, d. 200, l. 18; Pavliuchenkov, Krest'ianskii Brest, 261.

  271. X s”ezd [1921], 327; X s”ezd [1933], 856–7; Izvestiia, March 23, 1921.

  272. X s”ezd [1921], 222; X s”ezd [1933], 406.

  273. Malle, Economic Organization of War Communism, 446–7 (Osinsky).

  274. Sakharov, Na Rasput’e, 12–3. At the 10th Party Congress, Trotsky reminded the delegates that he had proposed the measures already, a year earlier, only to have been rebuffed in the Central Committee (X s”ezd, 349–50). To halt the “economic degradation,” he had proposed that “the expropriation of surpluses be replaced by a fixed percentage deduction, or tax in kind, so that the best tillage or cultivation would still represent a profit.” He had further suggested that “the quantity of industrial goods delivered to the peasants should bear a closer relation to the quantity of grain sowed.” In other words, peasants should be given incentives, and a better deal, to raise their output. Trotsky’s proposal, “Fundamental Questions of Industrial and Agricultural Policy,” was published in 1926. Trotskii, Sochineniia, XVII/ii: 543–4. Trotsky’s self-presentation in emigration of his alleged anticipation of NEP is wildly inaccurate. Trotskii, Moia zhizn’, II: 199. See also Pavliuchenkov, Krest’ianskii Brest, 158–9. Cf. Danilov, “We Are Starting to Learn About Trotsky.”

  275. Baranov, Krest’ianskoe vosstanie, 14–5. At the Food Procurement Congress in June–July 1920, some officials had pushed the tax in kind onto the agenda. Lenin set up a government commission to examine a tax in kind, including the consequence that it would require legal private trade of the surpluses after tax. The matter was debated in Pravda (February 17 and February 26, 1921). Genkina, “V. I. Lenin i perekhod k novoi ekonomicheskoi politike,” 11.

  276. This went beyond the Bolsheviks: the Menshevik Fyodor Dan, in December 1920, had proposed a food-supply tax but repudiated the suggestion that he also desired free trade. Lih, Bread and Authority, 220.

  277. X s”ezd [1921], 223–4; X s”ezd [1933], 409.

  278. “Why was the food requisitioning allowed to continue during the autumn of 1920 and the spring of 1921, when the civil war had been won and the famine crisis was already widespread?” asked Orlando Figes. His answer: requisitioning officials, locally, were either unquestioning implementers of central policy or themselves fanatics, ready to do whatever seemed necessary to defend the new regime. Figes, Peasant Russia, 271–2. See also Chamberlin, Russian Revolution, II: 375.

  279. X s”ezd, 224, 468; PSS, XLIII: 69–70. Ryazanov, in November 1917, had helped Kamenev try to form an all-socialist coalition government.

  280. X s”ezd [1921], 281; X s”ezd [1933], 523–4.

  281. X s”ezd [1933], 736. Only members of the Workers’ opposition—who did not like the introduction of free trade either—opposed “on party unity.” A key leader of the Workers’ opposition, Yuri Lutovinov (b. 1887), a metalworker and trade unionist from Lugansk—the same coal-mining hometown as Voroshilov—would commit suicide in 1924 over the metastasizing of the bureaucracy as well as the New Economic Policy. He was the first person for whom the new Lenin Mausoleum would be used (on May 10, 1924), when the leadership climbed wooden stairs and addressed the crowd from the raised cube. Izvestiia, May 11, 1924. Stalin would soon prevent suicides from being commemorated in such fashion.

  282. X s”ezd [1921], 289; X s”ezd [1933], 540; X s”ezd, 533–4. According to Barmine, who later defected, Radek in early 1921 told a group of students at the War College in Moscow that the workers were hungry and exhausted and in no mood for further sacrifice, but that rather than yield to (actual) worker wishes, the party would be resolute and press on to victory. The students were armed with rifles in preparation to join the fight against counterrevolution, but that could mean taking on the very workers in whose name the regime existed—a supreme test of faith. Barmine, One Who Survived, 94.

  283. Zinov’ev, Sochineniia, VI: 626.

  284. Pavlova, Stalinizm, 47–8 (citing PANO, f. 1, op. 2, d. 12a, l. 14, 18, 20: K. Danishevsky to Ivan Smirnov, then party boss in Siberia).

  285. Krasnov and Daines, Niezvestnyi Trotskii, 346; Voroshilov, “Iz istorii podavleniia Kronstadtskogo miatezha,” 22. The regime disseminated the slander that rather than the “conscious” sailors of 1917, the rebels were lads fresh from the village, including transfers from the Black Sea Fleet who were “Ukrainian” peasants (a national slander). Therefore, no real socialist should have any qualms about slaughtering them. This was a charge the Mensheviks had used to try to explain away worker support for Bolshevism in 1917. Service, Bolshevik Party in Revolution, 44. See also Figes, A People’s Tragedy, 830.

  286. Mlechin, Russkaia armiia mezhdu Trotskim, 194. En route the Party Congress delegates encountered Zinoviev heading to Moscow to report to the Party Congress, who painted a grim picture of Kronstadt.

  287. Only three of the fifteen members of the Revolutionary Committee were captured: Petr Mikhailovich Perepelkin (1890–1921), Sergei Stepanovich Vershinin (1886–1921), and Vladislav Antonovich Val’k (1883–1921). Avrich, Kronstadt, 1921, 179. A majority of the political refugees would return under an amnesty.

  288. Getzler, “The Communist Leaders’ Role,” 35–7.

  289. Avrich, Kronstadt, 1921, 252–6 (APRF, f. 26, op. 1, d. 80, l.26–34).

  290. When the Party Congress crackdown squad returned to Moscow, Lenin received them on March 21 for a commemorative group photograph. Medals were handed out. In the 1930s, those who had led the crushing of the rebellion would be executed. Voroshilov, “Iz istorii podavleniia Kronshtadtskego miatezha.”

  291. Deutscher, Prophet Unarmed, 55–6; Trotskii, Kak vooruzhalas’ revoliutsiia, III/1: 81.

  292. DVP SSSR, III: 607–14; Izvestiia, May 7, 1921 (Krasin); Krasin, Voprosy vneshnei torgovli, 286–8. See also Shishkin, Stanovlenie vneshnei politiki postrevliutsionnoi Rossii i kapitalisticheskii mir, 101–16.

  293. Glenny, “The Anglo-Soviet Trade Agreement.” Debo argues that the agreement reached between Litvinov and James O’Grady in 1920 in Copenhagen “opened the way to the more comprehensive negotiations which followed.” Debo, “Lloyd George and the Copenhagen Conference.”

  294. Andrew, Her Majesty’s Secret Service, 262–73; Andrew and Gordievsky, KGB, 76–9.

  295. Documents on British Foreign Policy, VIII: 886–9.

  296. “Where will we get the goods? Free trade requires goods, and peasants are very smart people and they are extremely capable of scoffing.” X s”ezd [1921], 227; X s”ezd [1933], 413.

  297. Poland gained control over western Belorussia and western Ukraine, an addition of 52,000 square miles, and became 30 percent minority (5 million Ukrainians, 1.5 million Belorussians, 1 million Germans, as well as 3 million Jews), a potential source of internal instability. The great powers initially refused to recognize Poland’s new eastern borders. The Entente reluctantly acceded to Poland’s eastern borders in March 1923; Germany continued to refuse to do so. Wandycz, Soviet-Polish Relations, 250–90.

  298. Thanks to the diplomatic maneuvering between the Soviets and the Poles, Lithuania, too, like Estonia and Latvia, emerged with its independence reconfirmed. Soviet Russia had contemplated trying to award Wilno/Vilnius, where Polish speakers predominated, to Lithuania as a Machiavellian means of undermining the Lithuanian national state, but in the end agreed not to intervene in the Po
lish-Lithuanian conflict over the disputed city, effectively ensuring Poland’s de facto control. Borezcki, Soviet-Polish Treaty of 1921, 220–1. In 1923, Moscow would halt the agreed repatriation payments; in addition, more than one million Polish refugees would not be allowed to depart the USSR. The two sides fought bitterly over Poland’s share (Congress Poland) of tsarist Russia’s gold reserves; Moscow never paid the 30 million gold rubles that had been agreed (reduced from an original claim of 300 million). In 1927, after receiving two large payments in gems, the Poles gave up on obtaining the bulk of this money, and instead settled for return of Polish cultural treasures.

  299. Gruber, International Communism, 316; Angress, Stillborn Revolution, 109–10.

  300. Angress, Stillborn Revolution, 163 (citing Rote Fahne, April 4, 1921).

  301. On June 25, 1921, Zinoviev would give a summary report to the 3rd Comintern Congress in Moscow, followed by days of discussion during which he, Bukharin, and Radek would defend the “March Action” in Germany; Lenin, Trotsky, and Kamenev would condemn it. Stalin would be away, and one German attendee would later remark that “it was possible in 1921 to spend six months in Moscow without knowing of his existence.” He added that “there was nothing striking about Lenin, nothing impressive. . . . But in discussion—in a small group on the platform at a monster meeting—he was wonderfully convincing by the way he argued, by the tone of his voice, by the logical sequence of statements by which he reached his conclusion.” Reichenbach, “Moscow 1921,” 16–17.

  302. Angress, Stillborn Revolution, 137–196.

  303. X s”ezd [1933], 35; PSS, XLIII: 24.

  304. Markina and Federovna, Baltiiskie moriaki, 322–3; Getzler, Kronstadt, 219. See also Getzler, “The Communist Leaders’ Role.”

  305. Avrich, Kronstadt, 1921, 138–9 (March 5). The absence of evidence for Kozlovsky’s role was whitewashed: on March 25, the politburo created a commission to study Kronstadt, headed by Semyon Sorenson, known as Yakov Agranov (b. 1893), a former Socialist Revolutionary and Cheka operative, and his internal report argued that “the rapid liquidation of the rebellion did not afford the opportunity definitely for the appearance of White Guard elements and slogans.” Kronstadtskaia tragediia, II: 33–43 at 42–3 (TsA FSB RF, d. 114 728, t. 1A); Avrich, Kronstadt, 1921, 230–42. The Cheka would also focus on the Russian Red Cross, which had arrived on Kronstadt on March 8 via Finland, and managed to bring one hundred bags of flour and some medical supplies. The mission included the former commander of the Sevastopol Baron Pavel Viktorovich Vilken, who had emigrated to Finland. The sailors had hesitated to allow the Red Cross, despite their desperation for the food and medicine. The Red Cross mission departed the day after it arrived; Vilken had stayed behind, but the sailors had refused his offer of up to eight hundred armed men, knowing he was a monarchist.

  306. PSS, LXIII: 130–43 (speech to transport workers, March 27, 1921). Lenin understood the Kronstadt sailors were not White Guards per se. He assured the 10th Congress delegates (March 15) that any “conscious peasant” had to understand that “any turn backwards signified a return to the tsarist government. The Kronstadt experience shows this. There, they do not want the White Guards, but no other authority exists, they do not want our state power, and they occupy such a position that it becomes the best agitation for us and against a new government.” In other words, supposedly no political possibilities existed between Bolshevism and a White Guard restoration. And yet, the Kronstadt sailors were not White Guards. X s”ezd [1921], 227–8; X s”ezd [1933], 414.

  307. Instead, the Cheka issued a sensational publication, “A Communication on the uncovering in Petrograd of a plot against Soviet Power,” which named a Petrograd Combat Organization led by Professor V. N. Tagantsev (who had been arrested in May 1921). Izvestiia, August 31, 1921.

  308. Dzierzynski seemed obsessed with the Socialist Revolutionary leader Victor Chernov, citing his publications from exile in Revel as evidence of his cooperation with the Whites. Dzerzhinskii, “Doklad o vserossiiskoi chrezvychainoi komissii o raskrytykh i likvidirovannykh na territorii RSFSR zagorovakh protiv sovetskoi vlasti v period maia-iiunia 1921 goda,” TsA FSB, f. 1, op. 5, d. 10, l. 1–20, in Vinogradov, Arkhiv VChK, 593–612. Chernov had no involvement in Kronstadt: he had sent a note by courier from Estonia to Kronstadt’s Revolutionary Committee indicating that, as the chairman of the (dispersed) Constituent Assembly, he would come to the island to lead the struggle for its restoration, but at a meeting on March 12 only one sailor supported the idea, which was shelved. Petrichenko, on March 13, sent a thank-you note but demurred. Kronstadtskaia tragediia 1921, I: 403; Avrich, Kronstadt, 1921, 124–5.

  309. Sotsialisticheskii vestnik, March 18, 1921: 6.

  310. Martov, “Kronshtadt,” Sotsialisticheskii vestnik, April 1921, no. 5: 5; Burgin, Sotsial-demokraticheskaia menshevistskaia literatura, 297.

  311. Getzler, Martov, 204–17; Burbank, Intelligentsia and Revolution, 59.

  312. PSS, XLIII: 241–2.

  313. Esikov and Kanishev, “Antonovskii NEP,” 60–72.

  314. “Zapiska E. M. Sklianskogo 26 Aprelia 1921 g.,” in Lenin, V. I. Lenin, 428–9, 459–60. Lenin met Tukhachevsky no later than December 19, 1920, in Moscow, where they discussed the southern front, and Lenin requested a report (to be sent to Sklyansky). Lenin received him again in late April 1921, when he was assigned to Tambov. Golikov, Vladimir Il’ich Lenin, VIII: 130.

  315. Kronstadskaia tragediia, I: 291 (Zinoviev).

  316. Baranov, Krest’ianskoe vosstanie, 147–8; Meijer, Trotsky Papers, II: 460–2 (Trotsky retrospectively affixed the wrong date of June; Tukhachevsky’s appointment was approved by the politburo on April 28, 1921).

  317. Landis, Bandits and Partisans, 209–41.

  318. Aptekar’, “Khimchistka po-Tambovskii,” 56 (RGVA, f. 190, op. 3, d. 514; l. 73; f. 34228, op. 1, d. 383, l. 172–4; f. 7, op. 2, d. 511, l. 140, 151; 140, f. 235, op. 2, d. 82, l. 38; op. 3, d. 34, l. 1ob.); Baranov, Krest’ianskoe vosstaniie, 179. For difficulties ascertaining the extent of chlorine gas use, see Landis, Bandits and Partisans, 265–9.

  319. “‘Sfotografirovannye rechi’: govoriat uchastniki likvidatsii antonovshchiny,” Otechestvennye atrkhivy, 1996, no. 2: at 65 (chief of camps at Tambov, claiming 2,000 inmates); Werth, “A State Against Its People,” 110–17. Tukhachevsky soon wrote up the lessons of his counterinsurgency campaign: “If deportation cannot be organized immediately, then one should establish a wide set of concentration camps.” Mikhail Tukhachevskii, “Bor’ba s kontrerevolutsionnymi vosstaniiami,” Voina i revoliutsiia, 1926, no. 6: 6–9, no. 7: 11–13. Some of the incarceration sites were Great War concentration camps.

  320. Baranov, Krest’ianskoe vosstannie, 223–4, 226–7. In Tambov between March and September 1922, there were 217 voluntary resignations from the party, alongside just 29 new members, almost none of whom came from the working class. Pavliuchenkov, “Orden Mechenostsev,” 275 (citing RGASPI, f. 17, op. 11, d. 110, l. 163).

  321. Zdanovich, Organy gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti, 236–8; Plekhanov, VChK-OGPU, 360; Landis, Bandits and Partisans, 277–9.

  322. Mnatsakanian, Poslantsy Sovetskoi Rossii, 56–7.

  323. King, Ghost of Freedom, 169.

  324. Kazemzadeh, Struggle for Transcaucasia, 288–9; Iskenderov, Iz istorii bor’by kommunisticheskoi partii Azerbaidzhana za pobedu sovetskoi vlasti, 527–9.

  325. As Jordania explained in 1918, drawing upon the authority of Kautsky, “the first steps of the victorious proletariat will be not social reforms, but the introduction of democratic institutions, the realization of the party’s minimum program, and only afterwards the gradual transition to the socialist maximum program.” Suny, Georgian Nation, 195.

  326. Jordania, “Staline, L’Écho de la lutte”; Vakar, “Stalin”; Kazemzadeh, Struggle for Transcaucasia, 184–210; Suny, Transcaucasia, 249.
>
  327. “The Free and Independent Social-Democratic State of Georgia,” wrote one perceptive eyewitness of the Menshevik republic, “will always remain in my memory as a classic example of an imperialist ‘small nation.’ Both in territory snatching outside and bureaucratic tyranny inside, its chauvinism was beyond all bounds.” Bechhofer, In Denikin’s Russia, 14.

  328. Pravda, May 8, 1920; Mirnyi dogovor mezhdu Gruziei i Rossiei. Georgia’s secret negotiating team included Grigol Uratadze, David Sagirashvili (former chairman of the soviet of Tsaritsyn in 1917, where he had been exiled), and Aristotle Mirsky-Kobakhidze. Mirsky-Kobakhidze, who had been sent to Georgia to undertake subversion, may have initiated the peace mission from his prison cell at Metekhi. En route to Moscow the men were intercepted by Orjonikidze, who declared he would conduct the negotiations. Mirsky-Kobakhidze managed to contact Lenin, who overruled Orjonikidze. Chicherin had his deputy, Lev Karakhan [Karakhanyan], sign; Uratadze signed for the Georgian government. On May 10, 1921, Lenin received Uratadze in his office. Uratadze and Sagirashvili were also received in Stalin’s office. A banquet was held with the Georgian colony in Moscow. De Lon, “Stalin and Social Democracy.” Uratadze did not see fit to mention Sagirashvili or Mirsky in his account: Uratadze, Vospominaniia. Later in 1921 the Cheka arrested Sagirashvili and imprisoned him in Metekhi (again); he was exiled with a large group in November 1922 to Germany.

  329. For the secret codicil, see Rossiiskaia Sotisalisticheskaia Federativnaia Sovcetskaia Respublika, 16.