by Ian Grey
Stalin, in particular, had reason to be disturbed. It seemed that illness had turned Lenin into a cantankerous, interfering old man. Even before his first stroke, he had shown alarming signs of excitability and unreasonableness. A proposal, made by Grigori Sokolnikov, then kommissar for Finance, that the state foreign trade monopoly should be relaxed had provoked a tantrum. Sokolnikov’s plan was to introduce greater flexibility into foreign trade than was possible under the inexperienced administration of the Foreign Trade Kommissariat. It was a proposal that normally Lenin would have discussed rationally and calmly. Now his reaction took everyone by surprise. On May 15, 1922, he wrote to Stalin and to M. Frumkin, the vice kommissar for Foreign Trade, demanding that they take steps “formally to prohibit” further consideration of the proposal. Stalin answered this outburst calmly; “I have no objection at the present stage to the ‘formal prohibition’ of steps toward a relaxation of the foreign trade monopoly; still I think that the relaxation is becoming inevitable.” To Stalin, this was an irritating but minor disagreement. It was, however, the forerunner of more serious conflict.
During the months of convalescence, Lenin had been able to stand back to consider the party, its apparatus, and its personalities. Probably for the first time, he had recognized the extent of the power that had come into Stalin’s hands. It had filled him with resentment as though he had discovered him in the act of usurping his position. Although it is usually assumed that Stalin was covertly grasping at positions of power and influence, the fact is that he was promoted mainly on the initiative of Lenin. Once appointed to his various offices he was prompt to exercise the authority necessary to carry out the work. If Lenin appreciated this, it did not diminish his resentment.
Like most men obsessed with power, Lenin saw his authority as something personal, and the thought of another wielding it was unbearable. He was the one chosen by fate to destroy the tsarist regime, to lead the Revolution, and to build a new society. At this stage, because he still believed he would recover from his stroke and because he could not conceive of anyone being able to take his place, he gave no thought to a successor. Now the possibility that Stalin might be emerging to assume that role angered him, and he became determined to reduce his authority and even to destroy him politically. But Stalin was already the one indispensable member of the ruling hierarchy, and, even had Lenin been in good health, he would probably have found it impossible to remove him.
The communists always showed concern for legal formalities: They craved respectability. But in 1922, their earnest discussions on a new constitution were stimulated by more than a hunger for respectability. Relations between the RSFSR and the other republics were confused. The Ukraine and Georgia complained strongly about the lack of any definition of powers and about the supreme authority assumed by the RSFSR in certain fields without consultation or agreement. In 1922, also, Soviet Russia was entering into diplomatic relations with other countries, and a constitution was needed to enable the government in Moscow to represent the whole country.
On August 10, 1922, the Central Committee set up a constitutional commission under Stalin’s chairmanship. Its task was to provide an acceptable definition of the relationship between the RSFSR and the republics, which would form the basis of a new constitution. The commission included representatives from the republics, but the final statement was drafted by a subcommittee, comprising Stalin, Ordzhonikidze, Molotov, and Gabriel Myasnikov. It was, in fact, Stalin’s project that was put forward, and it simply reflected the relationship which had developed with Lenin’s direct participation since the Revolution. The draft was entitled “Project of a Resolution Concerning the Relations Between the RSFSR and the Independent Republics.” The main clauses provided for the merging of the republics into the RSFSR as autonomous units and with the authority of the main organs of the RSFSR extending over the republics. This gave effect to his vision of Soviet Russia as a centralized state in which the government of the RSFSR was sovereign in its powers over the whole country.
The draft was sent to the republics for the approval of their central committees. The Communist party of Azerbaijan, under the firm grip of Ordzhonikidze, approved it, but the others expressed strong opposition, and none more vigorously than the Georgian. When the commission met on September 23–24, 1922, however, it showed no concern for this hostile reaction and approved the plan. On the following day, Stalin sent the draft with supporting documents to Lenin in Gorki and to all members of the Central Committee, which was to meet on October 5.
Lenin was strongly critical of the draft. He had a meeting with Stalin at which he insisted that a new federation must be created with a separate government, and that all the republics, including the RSFSR, should enter it as equals. The draft plan, providing for the autonomous republics to merge with the RSFSR, would be seen as an act of Great Russian chauvinism and would provoke and strengthen nationalist movements. Stalin accepted Lenin’s proposal for a union of equal republics but rejected his demand for the creation of new organs of central government. The government of the RSFSR already provided the necessary apparatus, and to create a new stratum of supreme organs would make for a top-heavy and confusing system.
Lenin was insistent. On September 26, 1922, he wrote a letter to Kamenev for circulation to members of the Politburo. Describing the matter as one of supreme importance, he complained that “Stalin has a slight tendency to be hasty,” a remark which stung Stalin. He stated that in conversation with him, Stalin had agreed to amend the draft to allow for the equal entry of all republics, together with the RSFSR, into a union of soviet republics of Europe and Asia. Stalin had not agreed, however, to the other major amendment which he demanded, and the Plenum must consider it.
Stalin reacted angrily. He considered Lenin’s views on the nationality question to be muddled and contradictory, and he had no patience with his concern for national sensitivities. The wording of Lenin’s letter annoyed him. He circulated his own brusque comments to members of the Politburo. He dealt with Lenin’s points one by one, rejecting some and dismissing others as having only editorial significance. Showing resentment of Lenin’s remark about his hastiness, he commented that Lenin himself had “hastened a little” in proposing the merger of certain kommissariats with new federal organs. “There is hardly a doubt,” he wrote, “that this ‘hastiness will provide fuel to the advocates of independence’ to the detriment of the national liberalism of Comrade Lenin.”
The Plenum accepted Lenin’s proposals out of deference to his strongly expressed demands. He himself was not present at the session on October 6, 1922, when the matter was debated. He was suffering from a toothache, but he made his views known in a note in which he wrote: “I declare war on Great Russian chauvinism, a war not for life but for death. As soon as I get rid of that accursed tooth, I shall devour it with all my healthy ones.” The Plenum went on to approve the revised draft. It also set up a commission of eleven members, again under Stalin’s chairmanship, to draft a constitution on the basis of the principles as finally approved.
The Georgians now raised a further objection. The draft prepared by Stalin had provided for the three Transcaucasian republics to enter the RSFSR directly. The revised draft, as approved by the Plenum, had made the provision that the three republics should first come together in a Transcaucasian federation, which would join with the other republics in forming the Soviet Union. Georgians now demanded that their country should enter the union as an individual republic like the Ukraine and Belorussia and that the idea of a Transcaucasian federation should be abandoned. On October 16, Stalin replied that the Central Committee had unanimously rejected their demand.
By now, Stalin and others were exasperated by the Georgians, who were taking up so much time when other urgent matters needed attention. Stalin was also angry because he had learned that during his convalescence, Lenin had had private talks with Mdivani and some of his colleagues. The Georgian leader was actively campaigning against Ordzhonikidze and indirectly agai
nst Stalin, and seeking special consideration for Georgia. Mdivani, who was both charming and persuasive, and was clearly struggling against Great Russian chauvinism, was gaining Lenin’s sympathy.
The Georgians had some grounds for complaint about the Transcaucasian federation. Ordzhonikidze, the “fiery Sergo,” had, like Stalin, identified himself completely with the Russian party. He was, when opposed, choleric and impatient; he gave no thought to non-Russian sensitivities. On his initiative, and probably with Stalin’s approval, a plenary session of the Kavburo had decided on the federation of Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia. There had been no prior consultation with the central committees of the three national groups, and while Armenia and Azerbaijan subsequently acquiesced, Mdivani, on behalf of the Georgian communists, denounced the proposal.
At a meeting of the Presidium of the Georgian Central Committee, Mdivani went so far as to declare that with only three exceptions every member of the committee looked upon Ordzhonikidze as the “evil genius” of the Caucasus and requested his recall. Mdivani next sent a personal telegram to Stalin, proposing that the Kavburo’s membership should be changed and complaining that “Sergo [Ordzhonikidze] is accusing the Georgian communists, me in particular, of chauvinism,” But Stalin, who fully approved Ordzhonikidze’s activities, ignored the appeal.
In Moscow, the Politburo had requested a report about the Kavburo’s decision on the formation of the Transcaucasian Republic. Stalin prepared the report and drafted the Politburo decision. He sent the draft to Lenin, who confirmed his support for the federation, but proposed changes in the wording to lessen the impression that the three countries were acting under pressure from Moscow. The Politburo approved the revised draft.
Under Mdivani’s direction, the Georgians kept up their campaign against Ordzhonikidze and the Kavburo. Stalin’s brother-in-law, Aleksandr Svandize, who was the Georgian kommissar of Finance, wrote personally begging him to try to reconcile Mdivani and Ordzhonikidze. He added a postscript asking if he could be posted abroad as a relief from the political tensions of Tiflis, and his request was answered with an appointment as Soviet trade representative in Berlin.
The Georgians pressed on with their campaign for separate treatment. In a telegram to Lenin, they denounced Ordzhonikidze. But he reaffirmed the decision that Georgia must enter the U.S.S.R. as part of the Transcaucasian federation. Stalin was furious with the Georgian leaders. On October 22, he sent a telegram to Ordzhonikidze: “We intend to put an end to the wrangle in Georgia and to punish thoroughly the Georgian Central Committee. . . . In my opinion, we have to take a decisive line and expel any or all remnants of nationalism from the Central Committee. Did Lenin’s telegram come? He is furious and extremely unhappy with the Georgian nationalists.”
Lenin appeared, however, to be changing his position on the nationality question. He was, in fact, faced with a dilemma which he was unable to resolve. He had worked to establish a united party and a centralized state, but now he also wanted an exceptional position, including a degree of self-government, for the minorities and special protection for them against Great Russian encroachment on their rights. The two demands were incompatible. Stalin recognized the contradictions inherent in his position. He himself had identified completely with Great Russian hegemony over the party and the government. He was now irritated by Lenin’s maneuvers to reconcile the irreconcilable.
The Georgians continued their campaign, and the Georgian issue began to disturb the party leaders. Kamenev and Bukharin proposed the appointment of a commission of inquiry, and the Secretariat nominated as its chairman Dzerzhinsky, who always strongly opposed the principle of self-determination. But Lenin evidently had no confidence in the chairman or members of this commission, for he asked Rykov to make inquiries in Tiflis and report to him personally.
An incident witnessed by Rykov in Tiflis and reported to Lenin infuriated him. Rykov was in Ordzhonikidze’s apartment, talking with A. Kobakhidze, one of Mdivani’s supporters. Ordzhonikidze came into the room, and, turning to him, Kobakhidze spoke about a white horse in Ordzhonikidze’s possession and virtually accused him of corruption. Ordzhonikidze was enraged by the insult and struck him across the face. According to Anastas Mikoyan’s memoirs, published after Stalin’s death, the white horse was a gift from mountaineers, which Caucasian custom obliged him to accept. He had passed the horse to the official stables and rode it only on formal occasions. The accusation of corruption was unjustified and his quick-tempered reaction understandable.
Lenin was incensed by the incident. He interpreted it as direct evidence that senior communist officials, carried away by Great Russian arrogance, had not hesitated to humiliate a member of a national minority. He made no attempt to look into the circumstances of Ordzhonikidze’s outburst.
This incident and others suggested that Lenin’s illness was affecting him mentally. He had become increasingly capricious and flew into rages over minor matters. A Politburo decision, made after he had withdrawn early from the session on December 7, 1922, to allow Professor Nikolai Rozhkov to reside and study in Moscow, infuriated him. Rozhkov had been a Bolshevik, but in 1917, he had joined the Mensheviks and had supported Kerensky’s government. He had since given up all political activity and devoted himself to study. But he had incurred Lenin’s undying hatred. Lenin harassed the members of the Politburo until, for the sake of peace, they rescinded their decision and sent the unfortunate professor to Simbirsk. It is probable that his fury over this incident and over the Georgian conflict helped to bring on the two slight strokes he suffered on December 13 and 16, 1922.
Within a few days, however, he was able to work for short spells. His special anxieties were to resolve the Georgian affair to his own satisfaction and, closely linked with it, to pursue his vendetta against Stalin. At the end of December 1922, he dictated a “Memorandum on the National Question,” which was to be his last contribution on the subject:
I am, it appears, much at fault before the workers of Russia for not having intervened with sufficient energy and incisiveness in the notorious question of “autonomization,” which is officially called, it seems, the question of the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics. . . . It is said that we needed a single apparatus. . . . Is not our apparatus the same Russian apparatus which was borrowed from tsarism and only barely anointed with the Soviet chrism? . . .
In such circumstances, it is quite natural that “the freedom of exit from the Union” with which we justify ourselves, will prove to be nothing but a scrap of paper, incapable of defending the minorities in Russia from the inroads of that hundred per cent Russian chauvinist, in reality - the scoundrel and violator which the typical Russian is. . . .
I think that here a fatal role was played by the hastiness and administrative passion of Stalin and also by his anger at the notorious “social nationalism.” Anger in general plays in politics the worst possible role.
I also fear that Comrade Dzerzhinsky, who journeyed to the Caucasus to “investigate the crimes of these social-nationals,” distinguished himself in this matter only by his truly Russian attitude (it is known that assimilated non-Russians always go to excess in the matter of hundred per cent Russian attitudes) and that the objectivity of his whole commission is sufficiently characterized by the “beating” meted out by Ordzhonikidze. I think that no provocation, not even any offence can excuse such a Russian “beating” and that Comrade Dzerzhinsky is irreparably guilty of having taken a lighthearted view of this beating.
After making this thunderous assault on Russian chauvinism and on Stalin and others, however, he had only trivial remedies to propose. Communist officials should observe “codes of behaviour” in the borderlands; special protection should be extended to the languages and culture of the national minorities; party control over the apparatus should be strengthened. His chief proposal was that the union of the republics must be “retained and strengthened,” but that the republics should have independence except in military affairs and foreign policy. The memo
randum could hardly be expected to gain Stalin’s support, for he was not a sycophant, ready to suppress his opinions in an attempt to regain Lenin’s favor.
Lenin was expended physically and mentally. He had devoted his life to the single purpose of leading the socialist revolution in Russia. His goal had seemed so remote that he had not expected to live to achieve it. Suddenly, the war, the failure of Tsar Nicholas II and collapse of the old regime, and other factors had plunged Russia into revolution. He had seized power but then had come the great shock. He had given long and eager thought to destroying the tsarist regime, but only in general theoretical terms to the creation of a new order. His immediate concern was to prevent power from slipping out of his hands, for power was his obsession. The next stage, which was to build the Soviet state, was beyond his strength and probably his ability. Stalin had both the strength and the ability, and he was ready to shoulder this immense task. It was about this time that he first began to see himself leading the party and the country.
Lenin had returned to Moscow in October 1922, intending to resume his role as leader. He had the Politburo’s meetings arranged to take place not more than once a week, each meeting limited to three hours and with an agenda distributed at least one day in advance. Still, he was overtaxing himself. He had to rely on others to find out what was happening. He began to suspect that a cabal had developed within the party, directed against him. In the Politburo, Zinoviev and Kamenev sided with Stalin, and Trotsky was isolated. Wherever Lenin looked, Stalin or one of his numerous supporters was in control. Angry and frustrated by his own impotence, he turned more and more against Stalin.