Stalin, Volume 1

by Stephen Kotkin

  105. Sochineniia, VI: 52–64, 69–188. Sverdlov Communist University eventually gave way to the Higher Party School (established in 1939).

  106. Mikoian, Tak bylo, 370. Back at the 7th Party Congress in 1918, when Stalin was nominated to serve on the commission to write a new party program, some people objected that he had no theoretical writings, but the session chairman pointed to Stalin’s work on the national question and that quieted the objection. VII ekstrennyi s”ezd RKP (b), mart 1918 goda, 163.

  107. On December 30, 1926, in another private letter, Stalin refused to allow Ksenofontov to cite the 1924 letter. Sochineniia, IX: 152.

  108. Uchenie Lenina o revoliutsii. Medvedev, Let History Judge, 821–2.

  109. Ksenofontov, Lenin i imperialisticheskaia voina 1914–1918 gg., 16. Filipp Ksenofontov would become editor of the newspaper Volga commune in 1929, but was soon removed as a rightist; in the fall of 1930 he left for Moscow’s Institute of Red Professoriate. He would be arrested on March 16, 1937, in Samara, and accused of Trotskyism. The Kuibyshev province GB Lieutenant Detkin wrote: “In 1929, serving as editor of the regional newspaper, he grouped around himself a group of Trotskyites from among the workers of the newspaper.” Ksenofontov refused to confess, was sent to Moscow, but in Lefortovo still refused to confess. Officially, he died January 1, 1938, during interrogation.

  110. Stalin, O Lenine; Sochineniia, VI: 69–71.

  111. Trotskii, O Lenine. See also Tucker, Stalin as Revolutionary, 356.

  112. Kransaia nov’, 1924, no. 4: 341–3.

  113. Za leninizm, 186.

  114. Leningradskaia Pravda, June 13, 1924; Carr, Socialism in One Country, II: 14.

  115. Zinoviev, “O zhizni i deiatel’nosti V. I. Lenina,” Izvestiia TsK KPSS, 1989, no. 7: at 178. Ivan Maisky, who was then working in the former capital, wrote to Molotov (March 10, 1924), that “Comrade Zinoviev does not spend a lot of time in Leningrad.” But Zinoviev was there on April 16, 1924, the anniversary (under the new calendar) of Lenin’s arrival at the Finland Station, laying of the foundation stone for a Lenin monument. Pravda, April 18, 1924; U Velikoi mogily, 517–9.

  116. Zinoviev also wrote: “Lenin is the Genius of Leninism.” Volkogonov, Lenin: Life and Legacy, 281 (citing RGASPI, f. 324, d. 246, l. 2; d. 267, l. 4–7), 285 (citing RGASPI, f. 324, op. 1, d. 490, l. 2). Zinoviev’s principal Lenin work was his report to the 13th Party Congress, which he published as a book: Po puti Il’icha (Leningrad: Priboi, 1924). See also Zinov’ev, Leninizm.

  117. Rosenfeldt, Knowledge and Power, 170–1.

  118. The Institute of Red Professors had been founded in 1921, and by 1924 would produce its first graduating class, 51 of the 105 who had started (that year the original three-year course of study was extended to four); more than two thirds were white collar, only a tiny handful were workers. It suffered from a shortage of teachers. Initially it was located inside a former nunnery, the Passion (Strastnoi), which had been seized by the war commissariat in 1919 but retaken by the nuns in 1921–2 (who lived alongside the students); soon the institute moved to Ostozhenka, 51, the former Katkov Lycee. By 1929, 19 of the 236 graduates were workers. In April 1928 the nunnery would be given over to the Central Archives; the structure would be torn down in 1937 and replaced by a Pushkin statue and later a cinema. The Red Professors at Ostozhenka, meanwhile, would acquire dormitories in 1932.

  119. Slepkov questioned Stalin’s presentation of Lenin’s conception of NEP (in the chapter “The Peasant Question”), arguing that the worker-peasant “alliance” had not been an afterthought, for in 1917 “the peasantry was compelled, if it wanted land, to support the proletariat in its struggle against capital.” Bol’shevik, 1924, no. 9 (August 5): 102–5. The next month, Slepkov became a co-editor of Bolshevik, under the patronage of editor in chief Bukharin. Slepkov was also named to Pravda’s editorial board, under Bukharin as well, in 1924. In 1925, he would concurrently become editor of Komsolskaya pravda.

  120. Carr, Socialism in One Country, II: 332–3.

  121. XIII s”ezd VKP (b), mai 1924 g., 749–66.

  122. Vera Dridzo, Krupskaya’s long-time, faithful secretary, recalled that negotiations between Krupskaya and the triumvirate “lasted three and a half months, and only on the eve of the congress itself, May 18,” did she “turn over the Testament, agreeing to its being read to the delegations of the congress.” Dridzo, “O Krupskoi,” 105. Evidently unable to win over the ruling triumvirate, she tried to force their hand: on May 18, the very eve of the congress, she sent a handwritten letter to the Central Committee. Sakharov points out that the note indicates Krupskaya had already handed the documents to Zinoviev a year before, and that this document, known as a “protocol of handing over,” did not resemble a typical such Central Committee document of that time, and instead concerned publication or distribution, not handing over. Sakharov, Politicheskoe zaveshchanie, 535; PSS, XLV: 594.

  123. Trotsky later asserted that Stalin opened the package in the presence of his aides, Lev Mekhlis and Sergei Syrtsov, and cursed Lenin, but it is not clear how Trotsky could have learned this, if it happened. Trotsky, Stalin, 37.

  124. Tomsky, Bukharin, Molotov, and Kuibyshev (Central Control Commission presidium) concurred. Trotsky’s summary labeled it a meeting of the politburo and Central Control Commission presidium, but did not indicate when the discussion took place. Fel’shtinskii, Kommunisticheskaia oppozitsiia v SSSR, I: 56.

  125. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 2, d. 129, l. 1–3. Stalin had the secretariat direct the package from Krupskaya to a special “Central Committee commission” consisting of himself, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Bukharin, Kalinin, and Alexander Smirnov (agriculture commissar), which resolved “to bring the documents to the attention of the Central Committee plenum with the suggestion to bring them to the attention of the party congress.” Sakharov, Politicheskoe zaveshchanie, 579 (citing RGASPI, f. 17, op. 2, d. 246 IV vyp., s. 65).

  126. The German writer Emil Ludwig, citing a conversation with Radek, falsely asserted that Stalin read aloud the Testament, an assertion that Trotsky repudiated. Trotsky falsely claimed that the opposition first learned of the Testament now, on May 22, at the council of elders of the congress delegations. Trotsky, “On the Testament of Lenin [December 31, 1932],” in Trotsky, Suppressed Testament, 11–3; Sakharov, Politicheskoe zaveshchanie, 577–8; Trotskii, “Zaveshchanie Lenina,” 267–8.

  127. Trotskii, “Zaveshchanie Lenina” [Gorizont], 38–41.

  128. XIV s”ezd VKP (b), 398–9, 455–7, 506; Izvestiia TsK KPSS, 1991, no. 4: 192–207; Chuev, Sto sorok, 183.

  129. Bazhanov has Zinoviev proposing that Stalin be reelected general secretary, and Trotsky failing to object, and some voting against and a few abstaining (Bazhanov claims he was charged with counting the hands), but this seems garbled: no outgoing Central Committee before a Party Congress had the right to vote on the reelection of the general secretary; this would only be done after the Party Congress by the Central Committee newly elected at the congress. It is possible that Bazhanov has merged the post-congress and pre-congress Central Committee meetings. Bazhanov, Bazhanov and the Damnation of Stalin, 75–6; Bazhanov, Vospominaniia [1980], 106–7; Bazhanov, Avec Staline dans le Kremlin, 43–5; Bazhanov, Stalin, 32–4. Other accounts include Eastman, Since Lenin Died, 28–31; Wolfe, Khrushchev and Stalin’s Ghost, 258–9; McNeal, Stalin, 110; and Stalin, “Trotskistkaia oppozitsiia prezhde i teper’: rech’ na zasedanii ob”edinennogo plenuma TsK I TsKKK VKP (b) 23 oktiabria 1927 g.,” in Sochineniia, X: 172–205. The Stalin loyalist Yaroslavsky recalled that “when these few pages written by Lenin were read to the members of the Central Committee the reaction was one of incomprehension and alarm.”

  130. The Young Pioneers, formed in 1922, had just 161,000 members Union-wide; on Red Square that day, they recited a new, modified oath “to unswervingly observe the laws and customs of the young pioneers
and the commandments of Ilich.” XIII s”ezd RKP (b) [1924], 629–33. See also Balashov and Nelepin, VLKSM za 10 let v tsifrakh, 34–7.

  131. XIII s”ezd RKP (b), 106–7. He had it published as a pamphlet: Zinov’vev, Po puti Il’icha: politicheskii otchet TsK XIII-mu s”ezdu RKP (b) (Leningrad: Priboi, 1924). Stalin, having allowed Zinoviev to serve as the attack dog, followed with a report on organizational work and appeared reasonable. (Later in the proceedings, Stalin would let loose on Trotsky.) Sochineniia, VI: 220–23; XIII s”ezd RKP (b), 259–67.

  132. XIII s”ezd RKP (b) 153–68 (at 158, 165–6); XIII s”ezd RKP (b) [1924], 372; XIII s” ezd RKP (b) [1963], 167.

  133. Sochineniia, VI: 227; Medvedev, Let History Judge, 127–8.

  134. Sotsialisticheskii vestnik, July 24, 1924: 13. Stalin’s people attacked, with Nikolai Uglanov stating that at the Sormovo Engineering Works, the workers had voted for “the Central Committee,” while the engineers—holdovers of the old regime—had voted for Trotsky, thereby indicating an alien class basis to the opposition; Molotov repeated this assertion that the opposition was rooted in class aliens. XIII s”ezd RKP (b), 169, 523.

  135. Sakharov, Politicheskoe zaveshchanie, 584–5 (citing RGASPI, f. 17, op. 2, d. 246 IV vyp., 62, 64: a letter from Stalin to the politburo, July 17, 1925, demanding that Trotsky repudiate the Max Eastman book of 1925, which Trotsky would do).

  136. Komsomol’skaia Pravda, June 11, 1988. Milchakov, who spent sixteen years in Norilsk and Magadan camps, died in 1973.

  137. Sakharov, Politicheskoe zaveshchanie, 582–3 (citing RGASPI, f. 17, op.1, d. 57, l. 184–6). Khrushchev, in his secret speech to the 20th Congress of the CPSU in February 1956, confirmed that Lenin’s “Testament” “was made known to the delegates at the 13th Party Congress who discussed the question of transferring Stalin from the position of Secretary General.” Khrushchev, “Secret Speech,” 7.

  138. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 2, d. 130.

  139. The unemployed had jumped from 160,000 as of January 1922 to 1.24 million by January 1924, according to registrations at the labor exchanges run by the labor commissariat. Rogachevskaia, Likvidatsiia bezrabotitsy, 76–7.

  140. APRF, f. 3, op. 27, d. 13, l. 53–4, in Istochnik, 1995, no. 3: 132–3.

  141. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 16, d. 175, l. 165; Rozhkov, “Internatsional durakov,” 61–6.

  142. Half the members of the Italian fascist party in 1922 did not even renew their membership. Bosworth, Mussolini’s Italy, 152.

  143. Italy’s government resigned in protest, instead of forming a broad anti-fascist coalition, which would have had to include reformist Socialists, instead of including the fascists in government, on the condition that they renounce their illegal, extra-parliamentary behavior. The latter, however, could only have been achieved by splitting the fascist movement and co-opting its more politically responsible elements, which had not been done. Lyttelton, Seizure of Power, 79.

  144. “All authority depends on confidence,” the great historian of Italian fascism Adrian Lyttelton explained, “and the King, rational to a fault and with a low opinion of man in general, had none. He gave way . . . the only man who could do anything was convinced of his impotence.” Lyttelton, Seizure of Power, 93. The king additionally was worried about palace intrigues that placed hopes in his more imposing cousin.

  145. Lyttelton, Seizure of Power, 85 (Michele Bianchi).

  146. Berezin, Making the Fascist Self, 81.

  147. Kvashonkin, Bol’shevistskoe rukovodstvo, 263–5 (RGASPI, f. 5, op. 2, d. 326, l. 20–2). Bukharin, in commentary that went little remarked, also marveled at Italian fascism. “It is characteristic of fascist methods of combat that they, more than any other party, have adopted and applied in practice the experiences of the Russian revolution,” he told the delegates to the 12th Party Congress. “If one regards them from the formal point of view, that is, from the point of view of the technique of their political methods, then one discovers in them a complete application of Bolshevik tactics, and especially those of Russian Bolshevism, in the sense of rapid concentration of forces, energetic action of a tightly structured military organization, in the sense of a particular system of committing one’s forces, personnel-assignment-organs, mobilization, etc., and the pitiless destruction of the enemy, whenever this is necessary and demanded by the circumstances.” XII s”ezd RKP (b), 273–4.

  148. Pravda, October 31, November 1, 1922.

  149. Pipes, Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime, 253.

  150. V vsemirnyi kongress, I: 156–7, 175–92; Diskussiia 1923 goda, 262 (Rykov-sponsored Comintern resolution, June 27, 1924).

  151. Deutscher, Prophet Unarmed, 141–51.

  152. Boersner, The Bolsheviks, 152 (citing Protokoll des Fuenften Kongresses der Kommunistischen International, 2 vols. [Hamburg: Carl Hoym, 1924], I: 237).

  153. Izvestiia, June 19, 1924; New York Times, June 20, 1924; Tumarkin, Lenin Lives!, 193–4. Delegates to the 13th Party Congress back in May 1924 had also been given a glimpse of Lenin’s body in a pre-completion mausoleum preview. Pravda, June 13, 1924; Zbarskii, Mavzolei Lenina, 41.

  154. Firsov, “Nekotorye voprosy istorii Kominterna,” 89; Claudin, Communist Movement, 152–3. Stalin also wrote an enigmatic note: “The defeat of the revolution in Germany is a step towards war with Russia.” RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 25, l. 101 (no date). Stalin, along with Zinoviev, went further, meeting secretly with the German ultraleftists Arkadi Maslow and Ruth Fischer, whose destructive actions had helped sabotage the coup effort. They were soon promoted, however, being the enemies of the Soviet triumvirate’s Left opposition enemies (Radek and Pyatakov).

  155. Matteotti, Un anno di dominazione fascista.

  156. Canali, Il delitto Matteotti, 218.

  157. Bosworth, Mussolini’s Italy, 197.

  158. De Felice, Mussolini il fascista, I: 632–6.

  159. Lyttelton, The Seizure of Power, 242–3.

  160. Bosworth, Mussolini’s Italy, 212–3.

  161. In dialogue with Frunze about a document that labeled Trotsky “the Leader [vozhd’] of the Red Army,” Stalin advised, “I think that it would be better if we spoke about a vozhd only in terms of the party,” meaning himself. Kvashonkin, Bol’shevistskoe rukovodstvo, 298–9 (RGASPI, f. 558, op. 1, d. 5254, l. 1: Dec. 10, 1924).

  162. Sotsialisticheskii vestnik, July 24, 1924: 11–2.

  163. With Lenin sidelined, Chicherin perhaps imagined he would enjoy greater freedom of action, but soon enough, he would be complaining of Stalin’s “interference” in foreign affairs. Debo, “G. V. Chicherin,” 27–8; Kvashonkin, Bol’shevistskoe rukovodtsvo, 295.

  164. By 1924, Albania, Austria, Denmark, Greece, Norway, Sweden, Afghanistan, Iran, China, Mexico, and Turkey had also recognized the USSR, as well as the former tsarist territories Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Finland.

  165. Anin, Radioelektronnyi shpionazh, 24.

  166. On Stalin’s and Lenin’s views of foreign trade missions as spying operations, see Sochineniia, V: 117–20; and Carr, Bolshevik Revolution, III: 349–50.

  167. Izvestiia, January 26, 1924.

  168. Chicherin had Soviet diplomats duplicitously vow to China that the USSR “recognizes that Outer Mongolia is an integral part of the Republic of China and respects China’s sovereignty therein,” and promise to withdraw Soviet troops once a timetable had been agreed upon at an upcoming Sino-Soviet conference. Elleman, Diplomacy and Deception.

  169. Ballis, “The Political Evolution of a Soviet Satellite”; Thomas T. Hammond, “The Communist Takeover of Outer Mongolia: Model for Eastern Europe,” in Hammond and Farrell, Anatomy of Communist Takeovers; Barany, “Soviet Takeover.”

  170. The German warned that “the Russians will take up the old tsarist imperialist policy against China.” Quoted in Elleman, “Secret Sino-Sovi
et Negotiations,” 546. See also Tang, Russian and Soviet Policy, 388–9; and Rupen, How Mongolia Is Really Ruled, 44.

  171. Murphy, Soviet Mongolia, 89–90.

  172. The action was known in an extremely narrow circle: most officials in Stalin’s apparatus were kept in the dark. Balashov and Markhashov, “Staraia ploshchad’, 4 (20-e gody),” no. 6: 187.

  173. Zinoviev had evidently concluded from the earlier failures that strikes and mass public protests had only served to put the authorities on alert, and so this time, the Comintern plotted a lightning coup, which would presumably inspire a workers’ revolt of support for an Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic. Fischer, Stalin and German Communism, 463; Krivitsky, I Was Stalin’s Agent, 64–5; Leonard, Secret Soldiers, 34–7.

  174. Saar, Le 1-er décembre 1924; Kuusinen, Rings of Destiny, 66.

  175. “The Reval Uprising,” in Neuberg [false name], Armed Insurrection, 61–80.

  176. Pil’skii, “Pervoe dekabrai,” I: 218–9.

  177. Rei, Drama of the Baltic Peoples, 180–6; Sunila, Vosstanie 1 dekabria 1924 goda. See also Krivitsky, In Stalin’s Secret Service, 48.

  178. Stalin, Na piutiakh k Oktiabriu; Sochineniia, VI: 348–401. Marx and Engels had categorically denied that revolution could succeed in just one country, but their European Social Democrat followers had revised this view. “The final victory of socialism in any one single state or several states” was possible, a Bavarian democratic socialist had allowed in 1878: von Vollmar, Der isolierte sozialistiche Staat, 4. Kautsky’s Erfurt Program of the German Social Democrats in 1891 had adopted a similar position: Kautsky, Das Erfurter Programm, 115–6.

  179. PSS, XLV: 309; van Ree, “Socialism in One Country,” which supersedes Carr, Socialism in One Country, II: 49–50; and Tucker, Stalin as Revolutionary, 368–94. Stalin, in a private letter, dated January 25, 1925, responding to a critical note sent to him about his “Socialism in One Country” article, asserted the rootedness of his views in Lenin’s writings, though the explicit case was weak.Sochineniia, VII: 16–8.