Stalin

by Ian Grey

Stalin’s exact role in the creation of this immense party apparatus is not known, but it was significant. Indeed, he alone among the party leaders had the knowledge and patience for this kind of work. Lenin took a close interest, but as long as development was on lines that he approved, he did not involve himself in details. Zinoviev and Kamenev were mainly concerned with their roles as the party chiefs respectively of Petrograd and Moscow. Trotsky was taken up with his economic proposals. Moreover, after the rejection of his plans at the Tenth Congress in March 1921, he seemed to withdraw, as though deeply hurt, and he took no direct interest in the building of the party organization.

  During these years, Stalin was a full member of the Central Committee, the Politburo, and the Orgburo. He had always shown a remarkable ability for shouldering a multiplicity of responsibilities. He was still kommissar for Nationality Affairs, and from 1919 to 1922, he was also the People’s Kommissar of State Control, later renamed the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection, or Rabkrin, which exercised control over the whole government machinery, becoming a “kommissariat above all kommissariats.”

  At the Eleventh Party Congress in March-April 1922, Eugene Preobrazhensky asserted that many top party leaders were giving excessive attention to governmental matters. He went on to question whether any man, and he referred directly to Stalin, could shoulder the responsibilities of two kommissariats and also carry out his party work.

  Lenin admitted the difficulty but pointed out that there was no one else capable of dealing with these particular tasks. “These are all political questions,” he said, referring to the nationality problems with which Stalin was dealing. “We are resolving them and we have to have a man to whom any national representative can go and explain in detail what the problem is. Where can we find him? I don’t believe that Preobrazhensky could name any candidate other than Comrade Stalin. The same applies to Rabkrin. A gigantic job! But in order to cope with the inspection work, you have to have at the head of it a man with authority, otherwise we’ll bog down and drown in petty intrigues.”

  Krestinsky, Preobrazhensky, and L. P. Serebryakov, who had been in charge of the Secretariat since March 1920, were all closely associated with Trotsky. At the Tenth Party Congress in March 1921, they were not re-elected to the Central Committee and consequently vacated their places in the Secretariat and the Orgburo. Stalin’s colleagues Voroshilov and Ordzhonikidze gained seats on the Central Committee. Molotov, already under Stalin’s domination, became a full member. Two able young party workers, Valerian Kuibyshev and Sergei Kirov, both Stalin’s supporters, were also elected. The three places in the Secretariat were filled by Molotov, Emelyan Yaroslavsky, and V. M. Mikhailov.

  During the desperate months of the Civil War, Stalin had not been able to give time to his Kommissariat for Nationality Affairs. He returned to it actively in the spring of 1920 and quickly developed its powers and jurisdiction until it became a small-scale federal government on its own. But his handling of nationality affairs brought increasing friction in his relations with Lenin.

  The policy of centralizing power in the one communist party had been clearly stated in the party rules in December 1919. Communist parties in the Ukraine, the Muslim borderlands, and Georgia had been subordinated to the Russian Central Committee in the course of the Civil War, and claims to autonomy or the preservation of national identity had been brushed aside. Lenin had become disturbed, however, about the working of communist policy among national minorities. He had always had misgivings about Great Russian chauvinism, although in a party which was some 80 percent Russian in composition, the predominance of Russian influence was inevitable. To Stalin the policy was clear: It was to reunite without delay as much of the tsarist empire as possible directly under Moscow’s rule. Lenin accepted this principle but worried about the dangers of pushing the policy through in haste, especially in Georgia. Stalin was not the man to allow exceptions, least of all in Georgia, where the despised Mensheviks were in power.

  In November 1920, Stalin went to Baku. It was his first visit to Transcaucasia since 1912, and he had grown in authority and matured greatly during these years. In Baku, he was welcomed with enthusiasm and hailed as “the leader of the proletarian revolution in the Caucasus and the East.” Ordzhonikidze, head of the Central Committee’s Caucasian Bureau (Kavburo), set up in April 1920, and Stalin’s strong supporter, had arranged this reception. He was one of the group of Stalin’s agents who included L. M. Kaganovich, head of the Turkestan Bureau, S. M. Kirov, head of the Azerbaijan Central Committee, and Molotov, head of the Ukrainian Central Committee. Anastas Mikoyan, a young Armenian, was soon to join the group. All were eager for the complete reconquest of Transcaucasia, and this meant seizing Georgia.

  Early in May 1920, Ordzhonikidze, impatient for action, sent telegrams to Lenin and Stalin, proposing that the Eleventh Army, then in the North Caucasus under the command of Tukhachevsky, should march into Georgia. At this time, the Poles were advancing into the Ukraine. Anxious to avoid further commitments for the weary Red forces, the Politburo, in a telegram signed by Lenin and Stalin, expressly forbade invasion and instructed him to open negotiations with the Georgian government, led by Menshevik Noi Zhordania. A treaty was duly signed on May 7, 1920, by which the government of the RSFSR formally recognized the independence of Georgia and guaranteed the legal status of the local Communist party. Kirov went to Tiflis as Moscow’s envoy, and by diplomatic and other means, he set about undermining the Georgian government. The republic’s independence could only be a temporary arrangement.

  In an interview, published in Pravda on November 30, 1920, Stalin stated that “the Georgia that enmeshed itself in the toils of the Entente and was consequently deprived both of Baku oil and of Kuban grain, the Georgia that became the main base of imperialist operations by Britain and France and hence entered into hostile relations with Soviet Russia - this Georgia is now living out the last days of its existence.”

  In December 1920 and again in January 1921, Ordzhonikidze, with the support of all members of the Kavburo, sent telegrams to Lenin urging the immediate takeover of Georgia. The reply on each occasion was that the time was not yet ripe. Lenin’s hesitation was due to many factors. The Red Army was in no condition to wage a long campaign. The Turkish armies along the Georgian and Armenian frontiers might attack. He feared, too, that, since Britain had recognized independent Georgia, it might intervene in support of the regime. Leonid Krasin was instructed to take soundings in London, and he obtained an assurance from Prime Minister David Lloyd George, that the British government would not be unduly distressed by Soviet action.

  At this stage, Stalin took up the Kavburo proposals, which became the decisive factor. He made an issue of allegations that Zhordania’s government had violated the Soviet-Georgian treaty and argued that a revolutionary situation existed in Georgia. He proposed to the Central Committee that Ordzhonikidze be directed to prepare an armed communist rising in Georgia and that the Revolutionary War Council should stand ready to give military assistance. He added a postscript to his letter which read tersely: “I request a reply before 6 o’clock.” Lenin responded promptly, adding to the letter the words “Not to be delayed.” On February 15, 1921, the Red Army invaded Georgia.

  Lenin continued nevertheless to feel troubled about Georgia. Socialists abroad would be critical of the Soviet government’s use of force to overthrow a social democratic regime. At this time, too, it was important to avoid damaging further good relations with the West, which the Soviet government was cultivating in the hope of attracting the massive capitalist aid urgently needed for the revival of the Russian economy. Such factors had not troubled him unduly in respect of other national minorities, but Georgia was an exception. Early in March 1921, he sent messages to Ordzhonikidze, urging him to try to reach a compromise agreement with Zhordania and the Georgian Mensheviks. But Zhordania and his ministers had already fled from Tiflis, and soon afterward, sought refuge abroad. Lenin continued to urge moderation, but Ordzhonikidze was
impatient and overbearing in his methods, and Lenin’s advice was ignored.

  The Red Army had carried out its invasion of the country with brutality. It was followed by a swarm of officials from Moscow who took over the administration, and the Cheka exercised police functions with a crude unconcern for Georgian feelings. Ordzhonikidze set up his headquarters in Baku and ruthlessly asserted his authority throughout Transcaucasia, especially in purging the Menshevik and anti-Soviet elements.

  The Georgians reacted angrily. The conflict developed into a feud between Ordzhonikidze, supported by Stalin, and Budu Mdivani, leading the Georgian Bolsheviks, which came to a climax over the formation of the Transcaucasian federation. At first, Lenin supported Ordzhonikidze and Kavburo, but gradually he became opposed to them, and in the process, he turned against Stalin.

  During 1921, Lenin’s health began to fail. Cerebral arteriosclerosis was already obstructing the blood circulation and taking its toll. The small, thick-set man whose driving energy had been inexhaustible was tiring easily. He became irascible, sensing perhaps that soon he would be unable to carry on. The interminable working hours, the day-to-day problems of party and government, the handling of fractious or overzealous members, all would be beyond his strength. He spent much of the summer resting in the village of Gorki not far from Moscow. But he found difficulty in resting; he had to be at the center, running the party and the government.

  The Eleventh Party Congress was to meet toward the end of March 1922, and he prepared carefully. The sessions threatened to be stormy. Many members were critical of the dictatorship of the hierarchy and the suppression of party democracy. Indeed, in February 1922, a group of twenty-two members of the former Workers’ Opposition, led by Shlyapnikov and Aleksandra Kollontai, went so far as to appeal to the Third Communist International. There was never any possibility that the International would censure the Russian party. But the action of the twenty-two members caused embarrassment to Lenin and his colleagues. In fact, they failed to appreciate that the mass of members were in sympathy with Shlyapnikov’s group.

  The widespread discontent erupted at the congress. Lenin attended only the opening and closing sessions. He was infuriated by the criticisms made from the floor. In the past, he had handled critics effectively, but now, he showed his anger and made threats, and some members even laughed at him. Moreover, the congress defied him and the Central Committee in refusing to expel Shlyapnikov and Kollontai from the party. Otherwise, the policies set out in Lenin’s opening paper were endorsed. But on the important issue of the retention of the Party Control Commissions, the Central Committee got its way only by falsifying the voting.

  The Party Control Commissions had been set up in 1920 to guard communist morals. They were separate and independent from party organs; no member of the Central Committee could serve on a control commission. They had to keep constant watch for corruption, inefficiency, and personal failings in party officials. Lenin was puritanical in the moral standards he expected and was under the illusion that through the constant vigilance of such commissions he could keep the party free from corruption.

  At first, the commissions acted with petty thoroughness against all members. They did not hesitate to look into complaints against the hierarchy, as in the case of the railway guard who accused Stalin of swearing and threatening him. Other party leaders found themselves under examination. Increasingly, however, the commissions investigated the critical and dissident members, and they became a means of suppressing criticism of any kind. It was for this reason that rank-and-file members wanted the commissions abolished.

  At the Congress, Molotov reported on behalf of the Secretariat. He claimed that as a result of the purge of the party, some 160,000 members had been expelled or forced to resign. “Now,” he stated, “those [opposition] currents and semi-formed factions do not exist.” The delegates were not impressed. Indeed, the sessions provided lively evidence that the spirit of opposition was far from dead. There were numerous complaints about the clumsy bureaucracy and the inefficiency of the Secretariat. Of all the organs of the Central Committee, the Secretariat appeared to command the least respect.

  On April 3, 1922, the day after the end of the Congress, it was announced that Stalin had been appointed to the new post of general secretary. The function of the office was to coordinate the work of the complex party apparatus. But it was also intended that the Secretariat would examine the membership more closely and ensure that delegates to future congresses were more carefully chosen. The obvious and, indeed, the only man with the knowledge, efficiency, and authority for this key post was Stalin. Kamenev as chairman of the Politburo nominated him on its behalf, and there can be no doubt that Lenin supported the nomination, which he probably initiated. Molotov and Kuibyshev were appointed as Stalin’s assistants. The appointment was announced in the Soviet press as a routine matter. Apparently no one, not even Lenin at this stage, paused to reflect that Stalin was now the only Bolshevik leader who was a member of the Central Committee, Politburo, Orgburo, and the Secretariat, the four closely interlinked organs which controlled every aspect of the party and of national life.

  Lenin was weary after the Congress. Stormy meetings of this kind drained him of nervous energy, and, instead of recovering quickly, he had to take a long rest. Angered by this unaccustomed debility, he harried the doctors with demands for a cure. He was only fifty-two years old, an age when most men were reaching their prime, and he had a reasonable expectation of many years in power. In April 1922, he underwent a minor operation to remove a bullet lodged in his body since 1918 when Fanya Kaplan had shot him. There was evidently some hope that the operation might lead to an improvement in his condition. But on May 26, 1922, while resting at his country home in Gorki, he suffered a severe stroke with partial paralysis of the right side of his body and loss of speech.

  The party and the whole nation were shocked. With the custom of centuries, the Russian people looked to one man as their ruler, the embodiment of the government and of the nation itself. For them, Lenin held the position that the tsar had held, and at this time, after the catastrophes of war and when every part of national life was nearing collapse, he was needed.

  Within the party, the shock was greatest. Lenin had created the party. It was identified with him, and without him, it was assumed that there could be no party. The leaders were alarmed. At every level of the membership, from the Central Committee and the Politburo down to the rank-and-file members, the overriding concern was to reassure the masses and to protect the unity of the party.

  The Politburo had been the oligarchy wielding power, and although Lenin thought and acted as autocrat, he usually consulted and sought the agreement of its members. Now within the Politburo, a troika or triumvirate of Zinoviev, Kamenev, and Stalin was formed to provide collective leadership. Zinoviev, as head of the party in Petrograd and one of Lenin’s close colleagues, was accepted at first as its leader; Kamenev, as chairman of the Politburo and head of the party in Moscow, was also a natural member. Stalin was the leader-organizer and represented the party apparatus. Trotsky was excluded. Zinoviev, Kamenev, and Stalin were personally antagonistic toward him, but the main reason for his exclusion was the fear that with his arrogant dictatorial approach to all problems he would provoke opposition and endanger party unity.

  The triumvirate, bringing together in the absence of Lenin the three most powerful men in the party, was accepted as a temporary arrangement. It was, in fact, the opening round in the struggle for the succession.

  The party leaders worked hard to reassure the people about Lenin’s health and to instill confidence that he would soon return to office. Stalin’s short personal article, published in Pravda on September 24, 1922, was particularly noteworthy. He had a remarkable gift for communicating directly with the masses, for making them feel that he was talking as a friend and taking them into his confidence. It was a talent that he used infrequently, but on occasions with tremendous effect.

  It was not really
appropriate, he commented, to write about Comrade Lenin resting, for he was soon returning to work. Also, he had so many valued memories that he could not really write them down in a short article. But write he must, for the editors insisted. When he had seen him in July 1922 for the first time after the stroke, Lenin reminded him of one of those old warriors he had met at the front, who had fought without a break for days on end and who after a rest had come back refreshed and ready for new battles. Lenin had made the impression on him that after a month and a half’s rest he was completely revived, but with traces of his former exhaustion. Lenin complained lightheartedly about the doctors’ orders. “I am not allowed to read newspapers or talk about politics,” he said. “But,” Stalin added, “we laughed about the doctors who cannot understand that professional politicians on meeting cannot help talking about politics.” A month later, he found a different Lenin, now “surrounded by a pile of books and newspapers and no longer showing signs of strain and fatigue.” It was “our old Lenin, peering cunningly at his visitor and screwing up his eyes.”

  At the time when this article was written, Lenin was still seriously ill. But he was not a man to submit passively to disabilities. He strove impatiently to overcome his paralysis and to regain his power of speech. On July 2, 1922, he wrote triumphantly that “my handwriting begins to look human,” and he asked for the preparation of numerous papers in readiness for his return to work. His recovery was rapid, and early in October, he was again at his desk in Moscow. But he should have taken longer to recuperate. His doctors had advised him to convalesce in the warmth of the Crimea and to avoid the northern winter. He would not hear of staying away for a day longer than necessary, and, although he agreed to restrict his activities, he plunged at once into work.

  The return of Lenin to Moscow was welcomed by most members. But to the party leaders and especially to the triumvirate, it was a source of misgiving. Lenin had become more arbitrary and unpredictable. At this time of economic crisis and acute unrest within the party, he might seize on some line of policy and stubbornly pursue it against all objections. He was also possessive about the party: It was his creation and he was not prepared to surrender control over it even to his closest comrades.