285. XIII s”ezd RKP (b) [1924], 371–3 (Boris Souvarine); Deutscher, Prophet Unarmed, 140–1.
286. Souvarine, Staline. When the Polish Communist party, which was in exile in Moscow, sent the Soviet Central Committee letters decrying the hounding of Trotsky, Stalin had the entire Polish Central Committee replaced, with no pretense of holding a Polish party congress. Dziewanowski, Communist Party of Poland, 103–10. See also Bol’shevik, September 20, 1924; Sochineniia, VI: 264–72.
287. Liberman, Building Lenin’s Russia, 79; Lunacharsky, Revolutiuonary Silhouettes, 43, 62; Lunacharskii, Revoliutsionnye siluety, 27; Eastman, Heroes, 258–9. As Carr observed, Trotsky just “could not establish his authority among colleagues by the modest arts of persuasion or by sympathetic attention to the views of men of lesser intellectual caliber than himself.” Carr, Socialism in One Country, I: 166. Deutscher wrongly deemed the reaction to Trotsky’s grating personality “a sense of inferiority,” rather than indignation. Deutscher, Prophet Unarmed, 34.
288. Trotsky, My Life, 504. Although he addressed his letters to “Dear Vladimir Ilich,” while Stalin wrote “Comrade Lenin,” Trotsky, unlike Stalin or Bukharin, did not visit Lenin at home. Volkogonov, Lenin: Life and Legacy, 256.
289. Trostky, My Life, 481; Eastman, Since Lenin Died, 17; Daniels, Conscience of the Revolution, 206–7.
290. Trotsky, My Life, 498.
291. Trotsky, My Life, 500.
292. V. Doroshenko and I. Pavlova, “Posledniaia poezdka,” Altai, 1989, no. 4: 3–18. Details of Lenin’s surprise trip come from his nurse attendant (Zinovy Zorko-Rimsha), his sister Maria, his wife Krupskaya, and witness reports recorded at the time.
293. Volkogonov, Lenin: Life and Legacy, 431–2 (citing RGASPI, f. 4, op. 1, d. 142, l. 406–7); “Zapis’ Z. I. Zor’ko Rishmi,” Izvestiia TsK KPSS, 1991, no. 8 (RGASPI, f. 16, op. 2, d. 17, l. 857–76: October 18, 1923; l. 877–88: October 19, 1923); “Poslednii priezd Vladimira Il’icha v Moskvu: vospominaniia M. I. Ul’ianovoi,” RGASPI, f. 16, op. 3, d. 37, l. 1–3 (1930s); Krupskaia, “Poslednie polgoda zhizni Vladimira Il’icha (3 fevralia 1924 goda),” Izvestiia TsK KPSS, 1989, no. 4: 169–78 (at 174). See also Kul’tura i zhizn’, 1975, no. 1: at 11 (G. P. Koblov); Gudok, April 23, 1924; Golikov, Vladimir Il’ich lenin, XIII: 638–9.
294. Izvestiia TsK KPSS, 1991, no. 8: 177 (RGASPI, f. 4, op. 2, d. 1744, l. 7–8: V. I. Ryabov, August 16, 1940).
295. “Poslednii priezd Vladimira Il’icha v Moskvu: vospominaniia M. I. Ul’ianovoi,” RGASPI, f. 16, op, 3, d. 37, l. 1–3 (1930s). Also later, a Pravda journalist referred to a section of the memoirs of another of Lenin’s nurse attendants from that day about Lenin being disappointed not to encounter members of the leadership, but no such passage is in the extant archival record of the referenced memoirs. Kul’tura i zhizn’, 1975, no. 1: at 11 (D. I. Novoplianskii, citing V. A. Rukavishnikov).
296. “Voot, voot, voot, voot!” in Russian, according to the attendant V. A. Rukavishnikov (RGASPI, f. 16, op. 2, d. 91, l. 37–8: October 19, 1923).
297. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 25, l. 110; RGASPI, f. 17, op. 162, d. 1. l. 21–2.
298. Izvestiia TsK KPSS, 1990, no. 7: 176–89; Vil’kova, RKP (b), vnutripartiinaia bor’ba, 197–220 (RGASPI, f. 51, op. 1, d. 21, l. 51–4). The respondents, listed alphabetically (in Russian), were Bukharin, Zinoviev, Kalinin, Kamenev, Molotov, Rykov, Stalin, and Tomsky; Lenin and Rudzutaks did not sign. Bukharin, in Leningrad at the time, sent a telegram insisting on textual changes, which Stalin ignored while affixing Bukharin’s name. Izvestiia TsK KPSS, 1990, no. 7: 190.
299. Vil’kova, RKP (b), vnutripartiinaia bor’ba, 266–271. Those from the 46 invited to appear on October 26 included Kosior, Lobanov, Muralov, Osinsky, Preobrazhensky, Serebryakov, and Smirnov. Those who took part in the discussion included Preobrazhensky, Osinsky, Kamenev, Rykov, Yaroslavsky, Bumazhny, and Dzierzynski.
300. Sakharov, Politicheskoe zaveshchanie, 478. Fel’shtinskii, Kommunisticheskaia oppozitsiia v SSSR, I: 9, 18–19; RGASPI, f. 5, op. 2, d. 305, l. 2–4. Prior to January 1924, there was no practice of making stenographic records of politburo meetings.
301. See also Carr, Socialism in One Country, I: 157.
302. Vil’kova, RKP (b), vnutripartiinaia bor’ba, 255–65 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 2, d. 685, l. 39–49); Ivanov and Shmelev, Leninizm i ideino-politicheskii razgrom trotskizma, 344 (citing RGASPI, f. 17, op. 2, d. 104, l. 46). A less detailed version of Trotsky’s speech by Bazhanov is at: RGASPI, f. 17, op. 2, d. 104, l. 31–8. They were also published in Izvestiia TsK KPSS, 1990, no. 10: 183–7; and in Voprosy istorii KPSS, 1990, no. 5: 33–9.
303. Vil’kova, RKP (b), vnutripartiinaia bor’ba, 250–5 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 2, d. 104, l. 31–8).
304. Vil’kova, RKP (b), vnutripartiinaia bor’ba, 266–8 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 2, d. 104, l. 1–4); Koloskov, XIII konferentsiia RKP (b), 14.
305. Izvestiia TsK KPSS, 1989, no. 2: 201–2.
306. Babichenko, “Politbiuro TsK RKP (b),” 136 (RGASPI, f. 495, op. 19, d. 362, l. 117). Chicherin attended politburo meetings even though he was not a member.
307. Ruth Fischer, Brandler’s leftist rival, wrote that he and Zinoviev detested each other, and asserted that Brandler had become close to Trotsky. Fischer, Stalin and German Communism, 318, 323. See also Lessons of the German Events, 36–7; XIII konferentsiia RKP (b), 158–78.
308. The Soviet journalist Grigory N. Kaminsky (b. 1895), unlike his colleagues who wrote pie-in-the-sky blather about the strength of the German proletariat, reported the truth on October 15 from Dresden (in Saxony): the German Communists were poorly prepared for battle, reaching only those workers already affiliated. Babichenko, “Politbiuro TsK RKP (b),” 135 (RGASPI, f. 495, op. 293, d. 673, l. 58; op. 18, d. 182, l. 10–1).
309. Babichenko, “Politbiuro TsK RKP (b),” 134–5 (RGASPI, f. 495, op. 293, d. 14, l. 177).
310. Even in the coalition government in Saxony, the Communists had expended their efforts not building a movement but denouncing and intriguing against the Social Democrats, revealing the limits of even a sincere “united front” strategy ordered from above. Babichenko, “Politbiuro TsK RKP (b),” 143 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 2, d. 109, l. 22: Pyatakov, January 15, 1924). Adding insult to injury, the Left Communists in Berlin spent more effort battling others in their own party than preparing an insurrection. Babichenko, “Politbiuro TsK RKP (b),” 151 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 2-e, d. 6968, l. 3: Vasily Shmidt to Stalin and Zinoviev).
311. Kuusinen, Rings of Destiny, 63–5.
312. Voss, Von hamburger Aufstand zur politische Isolierung, 13; Babichenko, “Politbiuro TsK RKP (b),” 139–40 (RGASPI, f. 495, op. 293, d. 14, l. 37).
313. On November 3, the politburo resolved to summon back to Moscow the team sent to Germany. Adibekov and Shirinia, Politbiuro TsK RKP (b)—VKP (b) i Komintern, 216.
314. Out of Berlin, Stalin had been getting regular reports from Pyatakov, mostly complaints about the difficulties in staging the revolution, mixed with worries about the divisive politics at home (Pyatakov was close to Trotsky): “P.S. I am concerned about our internal party conflict in the USSR . . . For God’s sake, do not start a fight, or we will abandon our work here.” RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 785, l. 1–8ob.
315. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 785, l. 23–6.
316. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 785, l. 28. Radek wrote to Moscow that revolution had been “premature.” Adibekov and Shirinia, Politbiuro TsK RKP (b)—VKP (b) i Komintern, 209–13; Komintern i ideia mirovoi revolutsii: dokumenty, 428–35. Pyatakov was trying to get Stalin to focus on the German Communists, writing to him on November 14 that “All of you, obviously, do not notice that such a party in its present form cannot attract the working class to an armed uprising.” The politburo resolved to issue an open letter about German events but failed to come to agreement on the text. Babichenko, “Politbiu
ro TsK RKP (b),” 145 (RGASPI, f. 495, op. 293, d. 638, l. 20–2). Adibekov and Shirinia, Politbiuro TsK RKP (b)—VKP (b) i Komintern, 218–20. It was in November 1923 that the leadership of the Germans of the Volga Valley proposed setting up an “Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic of Volga Germans,” just after having celebrated the fifth anniversary of the First National Autonomy (oblast). GARF, f. 58s, op.1, d. 9, l. 14–10, Hoover Institution Archives, Volkogonov papers, container 21.
317. Gordon, Hitler and the Beer Hall Putsch.
318. Sakharov, Politicheskoe zaveshchanie, 311.
319. Chuev, Molotov Remembers, 135.
320. “M. I. Ul’ianova ob otnoshenii V. I. Lenina k I. V. Stalinu,” Izvestiia TsK KPSS, 1989, no. 12: 196–201 (at 198–9: RGASPI, f. 14, op. 1, d. 398, l. 1–8). Ulyanova was referring to her statement of July 26, 1926, to the plenum: see chapter 13.
321. Chuev, Molotov Remembers, 212.
322. Chuev, Tak govoril Kaganovich, 190–1; Chuev, Kaganovich, 263.
CHAPTER 12: FAITHFUL PUPIL
1. “Po povodu smerti Lenina,” Pravda, January 30, 1924, reprinted in Sochineniia, VI: 46–51.
2. Trotsky’s best biographer commented that “hardly any Menshevik writer attacked Lenin with so much personal venom.” Deutscher, Prophet Armed, 93.
3. V. I. Lenin, “Letter to Yelena Stasova and Others,” in Lenin, Collected Works, 42: 129.
4. V. I. Lenin, “Letter to Grigory Zinoviev,” in Lenin, Collected Works, 34: 399–400.
5. Kommunist, 1988, no. 6: 3–5 (to Goldenberg, October 28, 1909).
6. V. I. Lenin, “Judas Trotsky’s Blush of Shame,” Collected Works, 18: 45. “What a swine that Trotsky is!” Lenin, Collected Works, 39: 290.
7. PSS, XLIX: 390.
8. Trotskii, Trotskii o Lenine i Leninizme; Lenin o Trotskom i trotskizme.
9. On Stalin’s understanding of his role as Lenin’s deputy, see the revealing typescript in the nationalities commissariat, dated 1923, and headed “Biographical Details on Stalin,” in Volkogonov, Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy, 512 (RGASPI, f. 1318, op. 3, d. 8, l. 85).
10. Carr, Socialism in One Country, I: 151–202 (portraits of Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Bukharin, and Stalin).
11. Balabanoff, My Life as a Rebel, 243–4. Carr, however, mischaracterized Zinoviev, both selling him short (“an intellectual void” and “weakness of conviction”) and overselling him (wrongly “the leading figure in the party” during the triumvirate). Socialism in One Country, I: 165, 169. By contrast, see Lih, “Zinoviev.”
12. Even Walter Duranty understood this, writing: “Yet it had occurred to me that Trotsky, who was essentially an intellectual aristocrat, not to say an intellectual snob, was somewhat out of place in the Bolshevik milieu.” Duranty, I Write as I Please, 199.
13. Yuri Annenkov, commissioned to paint Trotsky’s portrait for the Red Army’s fifth anniversary in 1923, discovered him to be not only “a healthy height, thickset, full shouldered and wonderfully muscular,” but also familiar with Annenkov’s recent portrait book and conversant about Matisse and Picasso. Annenkov, Dnevnik moikh vstrech, II: 286–7. See also Annenkov, Semnadtsat’ portretov, II: 295–6. This Annenkov book, which contained drawn portraits of Trotsky, Zinoviev, and Kamenev, among others, would be ordered removed from all Soviet libraries, shops, and private collections in 1928. Annenkov also wrote a devastating portrait of Lenin as anti-intellectual: Dnevnik moikh vstrech, II: 268–70. Annenkov’s 1921 portrait of Lenin was used on Soviet postage stamps and featured at the Soviet Pavilion at the 1925 Paris exhibition.
14. Lawrence Freedman invites us to consider “strategy as a story about power told in the future tense from the perspective of a leading character,” which was precisely Stalin’s achievement, within the rigid Marxist framework. Freedman, Strategy.
15. Stalin’s book based on public lectures, O Lenine, appeared with his speech to Kremlin military cadets. Zinoviev also published it at his own Leningrad publishing house (Priboi). It also came out in Ukrainian (Kharkov: Derzhavne vyd-vo Ukraïny), German (Vienna: Verlag für Literatur und Politik), French (Paris: Bureau d’éditions), and other languages.
16. Vil’kova, RKP (b), vnutripartiinaia bor’ba, 409–14 (RGASPI, f. 76, op. 3, d. 318, l. 60–9).
17. Pravda, January 8, 1924.
18. On January 12, the party newspaper reported that of the 72 party cells in Moscow’s higher education institutions, 32 (with a combined 2,790 members) had voted for the Central Committee, while 40 (with 6,594 members) had voted for the Left opposition: here is where the impatient program of industry now, socialism now, appealed. Moskovskie bol’sheviki, 83 (citing MPA, f. 3, op. 5, d. 2, l. 200); Abramovich, Vospominaniia i vzgliadi, I: 22, 36.
19. Lively polemics ensued as Grigory Sokolnikov (Mr. Fiscal Discipline) went up against Yevgeny Preobrazhensky (Mr. Print Money to Finance Industry), with thuggish rebuttals of the latter by the likes of Bukharin and Nikolai Uglanov, and a stacked voting majority to back them up. Fel’shtinskii, Kommunisticheskaia oppozitsiia v SSSR, II: 34, 101; XIII konferentsiia RKP (b); Vil’kova, RKP (b): vnutripartiinaia bor’ba, 390–406.
20. Vil’kova, RKP (b), vnutripartiinaia bor’ba, 385–93 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 2, d. 109, l. 6ob–7ob); RGASPI, f. 17, op. 2, d. 107, l. 14–7 (stenographic records of Central Committee plenums began at this January 14–15, 1924, gathering); XIII konferentsiiia RKP (b), 95. Provincial affiliates of the party control commission were activated against oppositionists: Olekh, Povorot, kotorogo ne bylo, 146 (citing Dni, December 19, 1923).
21. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 2, d. 107, l. 100–1; X s”ezd, 524; Sochineniia, VI: 15. Schapiro, Origin of the Communist Autocracy [1977], 317–8. Radek correctly objected that no Party Congress had lifted the veil of secrecy over this punishment clause, but no body could hold Stalin to account. Daniels, Conscience of the Revolution, 230; Vil’kova, RKP (b), vnutripartiinaia bor’ba, 403–8 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 2, d. 109, l. 13ob– 14).
22. When Radek charged that Trotsky was “being baited,” Stalin seized the moment, in his closing speech on January 18, 1924, to rehearse the September 1923 incident when “Trotsky jumped up and left the meeting. You will recall that the Central Committee plenum sent a ‘delegation’ to Trotsky to request that he return to the meeting. You will recall that Trotsky refused to comply with this request.” “Zakliuchitel’noe slovo (18 ianvaria [1924 g.],” Sochineniia, VI: 27–45 (at 38–39). But the mauling had become so relentless that Stalin felt compelled to answer criticisms that he had failed to preemptively ban Trotsky’s December 11 article on The New Course: “that would have been a very dangerous step on the part of the Central Committee. Just try to ban an article of Trotsky’s that has already been read aloud in Moscow districts!” (33).
23. Pravda, January 26, 1924. See also Halfin, Intimate Enemies; Robert Service, “How They Talked: The Discourse of Politics in the Soviet Party Politburo in the 1920s,” in Gregory and Naimark, Lost Politburo Transcripts, 121–34. Stalin also had the 13th party conference name a military reform commission, headed by Sergei Gusev, a member of the party’s Central Control Commission, the battering ram Stalin’s men controlled. The conference confirmed a December 5 decision to enroll 100,000 new worker party members.
24. Sakharov, Politicheskoe zaveshchanie, 576 (citing RGASPI, f. 16, op. 1, d. 98, l. 107).
25. Stalin was the lead but not the sole pummeler of the absent Trotsky. Alexander Shlyapnikov, the trade unionist and one-time coleader of the outlawed Workers’ opposition, shredded Trotsky and the Left opposition for their complicity in repressing the Workers opposition back in 1921. Shliapnikov, “Nashi raznoglasiia,” Pravda, January 18, 1924.
26. Trotsky, My Life, 515.
27. Only belatedly, in late August 1923, after his condition had modestly improved, had the regime revealed the gravity of his illness, but even after this
disclosure official reports had continued to contain unwarranted doses of optimism (“substantial improvement . . . great strides”). Pravda, August 30, 1923; Pravda, October 21, 1923 (Health Commissar Semashko). See also Volkogonov, Lenin: Life and Legacy, 414 (citing RGASPI, f. 16, op. 3, d. 6, l. 7), 430 (citing APRF, f. 3, op. 22, d, 307, l. 410); Golikov, Vladimir Il’ich Lenin, XII: 646, 650; and Tumarkin, Lenin Lives!, 115–7. Kamenev had instructed the artist Yuri Annenkov to drive out to Gorki for what was thought to be a final portrait. Krupskaya “said there was no question of a portrait,” Annenkov recalled. “And, indeed, Lenin could serve solely as an illustration of his illness, reclining on a chaise-lounge, wrapped in a blanket and looking past us with the helpless, twisted, babyish smile of a man in his second infancy.” Annenkov, Dnevnykh moikh vstrech, II: 271; Annenkov, “Vospominania o Lenine,” 141–9.
28. Golikov, Vladimir Il’ich Lenin, XII: 658–9; Krupskaia, “Chto nravilos’ Il’ichu iz khudozhestvennoi literatury,” Narodnyi uchitel’, 1927, no. 1: 4–6. On January 19, at the 11th All-Russia Congress of Soviets, Mikhail Kalinin told the delegates that “rays of hope are already visible” in Lenin’s battle to overcome his illness and return to work. “Hurrah,” shouted the congress, an episode carried in the newspaper: Izvestiia, January 20, 1924.
29. Bukharin showed up nearly every Saturday. Izvestiia TsK KPSS, 1989, no. 4: 174–5.
30. Volkogonov, Lenin: Life and Legacy, 299–301; Kun, Bukharin, 135. Later, Bukharin’s presence at Lenin’s death bed would be erased by Stalin’s henchmen: Mikoian, Mysli i vospominaniia, 235–6. Krupskaya, too, even in her unpublished memoirs, insisted Bukharin had not been allowed in. Volkogonov, Lenin: Life and Legacy, 433 (citing APRF, f. 3, op. 22, d. 307, l. 175).
31. Volkogonov, Lenin: politicheskii portret, II: 361 (citing APRF, f. 3, op. 33, d. 307, l. 175–6); Volkogonov, Lenin: Life and Legacy, 435.
32. Golikov, Vladimir Il’ich Lenin, XII: 662, 664; Prof. V. Osipov, “Bolezn’ i smert’ V. I. Lenina,” Ogonek, 1990, no. 4; Ul’ianova, “O Vladimire Iliche,” no. 3; N. Petrenk [B. Ravdin], “Lenin v Gorkakh: bolezn’ i smert’,” Minuvshee: Istoricheski almanakh, 1986, no. 2: 189–91.
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