Stalin

by Ian Grey

  After the stroke on December 16, 1922, all who had worked closely with Lenin recognized he would never again be able to undertake political responsibilities. He would struggle impatiently and with great courage to return to work, but he would have to husband his strength. At the same time, the communist leaders were increasingly worried by the prospect of Lenin interfering in the affairs of party and government. He still had great prestige among the rank-and-file members and might try to undermine the position of the leaders themselves.

  On December 24, 1922, Stalin, Kamenev, and Bukharin on behalf of the Politburo discussed with the doctors the regimen to be followed by Lenin. It was agreed that “Vladimir Ilyich has the right to dictate every day for five or ten minutes, but this can not have the character of correspondence, and Vladimir Ilyich may not expect to have any answers. He is forbidden [political] visitors. Friends and those around him may not inform him about political affairs.” Presumably, these restraints were based on the opinions of the doctors, who wanted a calm routine for the invalid, avoiding political controversy that would excite him. But it proved extremely difficult to enforce the restrictions. Already Lenin had exacted greater freedom to dictate to his secretaries by threatening to refuse all cooperation with the doctors. But the restrictions reflected the doctors’ concern as well as the anxiety of the party leaders to prevent his ill-advised interference.

  The Politburo made Stalin responsible for liaison with the doctors and, in effect, keeping a watch on Lenin. It was an invidious task. Lenin was bound to resent his guardianship. His antagonism toward Stalin would intensify. It is surprising that Stalin, recognizing these dangers, accepted the task thrust upon him by his colleagues. They did not want the responsibility themselves and were probably not reluctant to see Stalin exposed to these dangers. On at least one occasion, he declared that he would no longer carry on, but was prevailed upon to continue. Presumably, too, he saw the advantages of keeping closely in touch with Lenin’s activities at this time.

  The journal of Lenin’s secretaries, kept between November 21, 1922, and March 6, 1923, contained day by day details of his work, visitors, and health, and after December 13, it recorded his smallest actions. Lenin, his right arm and leg paralyzed, was then confined to bed in his small apartment in the Kremlin, cut off from government business and, in fact, from the outside world. The doctors insisted he should not be disturbed, and their orders were reinforced after December 24, 1922, by the Politburo’s instructions and Stalin’s supervision.

  Unable to relinquish the habits of power, Lenin struggled to obtain the papers he wanted, relying on his wife, Krupskaya, his sister, Maria Ilyichna, and three or four secretaries. He was obsessed with the idea that before death overtook him, he must give positive instructions for the party to follow. Still, he thought of himself as the leader without whom the party and the Soviet state could not survive.

  Working now against time and with a paranoiac conviction of his own infallibility, he could be dangerous. The communist leaders had this danger constantly in mind, and they feared even more that he would plot against them secretly. Indeed, Lenin managed to set up a private commission to investigate events in Georgia, which he himself referred to as his “conspiracy.” At the close of his life, the old conspirator could not resist plotting and conniving, even against his oldest colleagues.

  Stalin was undoubtedly worried. He suspected that Lenin was working on papers and maneuvering against him. The difficulty was to penetrate the wall of secrecy surrounding the invalid. The situation angered him, and he could not always curb his temper. Learning that Krupskaya had written a letter, dictated by Lenin, he phoned her, angrily threatening to have her prosecuted by the Party Control Commission for disobeying the instructions of the Politburo.

  Krupskaya was deeply offended and complained to Kamenev. She wrote him, indignantly stating, “Stalin subjected me to a storm of the coarsest abuse yesterday about a brief note that Lenin dictated to me with the permission of the doctors. I didn’t join the party yesterday. In the whole of these thirty years, I have never heard a single coarse word from a comrade. The interests of the party and of Ilyich are no less dear to me than to Stalin. At the moment I need all the self control I can muster. I know better than all the doctors what can and what can not be said to Ilyich, for I know what disturbs him and what doesn’t and in any case I know this better than Stalin.”

  Presumably, Kamenev said something to Stalin about being gentler in dealings with Lenin’s household. Stalin responded sharply that he would give up this impossible task and let someone else deal with these difficult people. He was persuaded to continue, and there were no further complaints. An entry by Fotyeva in the secretaries’ journal on January 30, 1923, recorded that “Stalin asked me if I was not saying too much to Vladimir Ilyich. How does he manage to keep informed about current business? For example, his article on the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection (Rabkrin) shows that he knew of certain circumstances.”

  At this time, Stalin was at work on the new constitution which he presented on December 30, 1922, to the foundation congress of the Soviets of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. It was, he declared, “a crucial day in the history of Soviet power.” In a short speech, he claimed that during the past five years the regime had come through the period of wartime chaos and was now in the second period when it would deal with economic chaos, and under the new constitution, they had a united state organization and a new Russia which would tackle these problems. He had a positive approach to the immense tasks ahead and was sensitive to the criticism that the party was destructive rather than creative. “We communists are often abused for being incapable of building. Let the history of the Soviet regime during the past five years of its existence bear witness to the fact that Communists also know how to build . . . that Communists know as well how to build the new as they know how to destroy the old.”

  By December 1922, Lenin must have finally realized that he would not be able to address the Twelfth Congress in March 1923. But he could still exert influence from his sickbed. With remarkable determination, he produced between December 23 and 31 a series of notes on the future of the party, and on January 4, 1923, he added a supplement. He also dictated on December 30–31 a memorandum on the nationality question.

  The heading given to the notes by his secretary, Maria Volodicheva, was “Letter to the Congress,” for he intended that it would be circulated and read out to delegates. The document has become known as Lenin’s Testament. In addition, he wrote during January and February 1923 five articles, which the majority of the Politburo tried to suppress. For a man gravely ill and in the shadow of death, it was a heroic achievement.

  Much has been made of the Testament. It was not, however, an inspiring statement of the ideals and objectives of the Revolution, and was mischievous rather than constructive. It began with the statement that he would “strongly advise . . . several changes in our political system.” The purpose of these changes was to strengthen the party. The first threat was that the alliance of the workers and peasants, on which the regime depended, might break down, but this was improbable, for the NEP would promote their union. The greater danger would come from a split within the party hierarchy. To guard against this happening it was essential to strengthen the Central Committee by increasing its membership. The new members must be ordinary proletarians and not members of the party apparatus, who “have already formed notorious habits and biases against which we must fight resolutely.” These workers would have to be present at all meetings of the Politburo and to read all Politburo papers; by their presence, they would add stability to the committee and make it possible to reorganize and improve the party apparatus.

  Throughout his career, Lenin had insisted on the need for a small central body of dedicated professional revolutionaries in command. He had always worked on this basis, and the Politburo of five, later seven, members was his creation. As he well knew, his proposal for an enlarged Central Committee, sitting in on all P
olitburo meetings, was a recipe for confusion and inefficiency. Indeed, had anyone seriously made such a proposal while he was in good health and leading the Party, he would have fought it tooth and nail.

  The danger of a split in the party lay mainly in the relations between Stalin and Trotsky. Lenin wrote:

  Comrade Stalin, having become General Secretary, has concentrated enormous power in his hands and I am not sure that he will always manage to use this power with sufficient caution. On the other hand, Comrade Trotsky . . . is distinguished not only by his exceptional capabilities - personally he is perhaps the most able man in the present Central Committee - but also by his too far-reaching self-confidence and excessive absorption in the purely administrative side of things. . . .

  I will not further characterize the other members of the Central Committee in terms of their personal qualities. I will only recall that the October episode of Zinoviev and Kamenev was not, of course, accidental but it can just as little be held against them personally as the non-Bolshevism of Trotsky.

  Among the young members of the Central Committee, I want to say a few words about Bukharin and Pyatakov. . . . Bukharin is not only the most valuable and the best theoretician of the party, but is rightly considered the favourite of the whole party. But his theoretical views can only with great doubt be considered fully Marxist. . . .

  And then Pyatakov is a man of indubitably outstanding will and outstanding capabilities, but too carried away by . . . the administrative side of things to be depended on in a serious political question . . .

  In preparing these notes for presentation to the Congress, Lenin might have shown concern to strengthen their loyalty to the party and to each other. It was evident, however, that he intended, more by innuendo than direct statement, to damage their standing and to sow discord among them. He never forgot or forgave, and was vindictive. Thus he mentioned Zinoviev and Kamenev only to remind the party that they had been too fainthearted or cautious to support the seizure of power in October 1917. In the most general terms, he praised Trotsky, recalling that he had stood apart from the Bolsheviks and had joined the party late so that, in effect, he was a newcomer. He described Bukharin and Pyatakov, who was not a member of the Politburo, in a way suggesting that there would be great risk in entrusting them with high authority. Here as elsewhere in the “Testament,” the meaning of the phrase “the administrative side of things” was far from clear. Rykov and Mikhail Tomsky, two old Bolsheviks and both full members of the Politburo, were not even mentioned. Lenin’s motives in thus describing the men who would, he knew, lead the party in future contained elements of spite and jealousy.

  Stalin emerged in the best light. He had done nothing to besmirch his party record. The only query was whether he could show good judgment in wielding the vast powers in his hands.

  Then suddenly, Lenin changed his mind: Stalin must be replaced. On January 4, 1923, Lenin dictated an addendum to his notes, condemning Stalin and proposing his removal from the post of general secretary: “Stalin is too coarse and this fault, fully tolerable in our midst and in the relations among us communists, becomes intolerable in the office of General Secretary. Therefore I propose to the comrades that they devise a way of shifting Stalin from his position and appointing to it another man who in all respects falls on the other side of the scale from Stalin, namely more tolerant, more loyal, more polite and more considerate of comrades, less capricious etc. This circumstance may seem an insignificant trifle. But I think that from the point of view of what I have written above about the relation between Stalin and Trotsky, this is no trifle, or it is a trifle that may take on decisive significance.”

  The immediate cause of this outburst was presumably Stalin’s rudeness to Krupskaya twelve days earlier. She had turned to Kamenev, not wishing to upset her husband, but he learned about the incident somehow, probably through Fotyeva. He dictated the note in anger, but as his wording showed, he recognized that to propose the removal of one of the most senior and able Bolsheviks in the party merely for rudeness was unlikely to get support. In a country brutalized by civil war, famine, and other indescribable hardships, manners were an early casualty. Moreover, in his political invective, his promotion of terror, his extreme personal intolerance, and other ways, Lenin himself had done nothing to halt the demise of courtesy. Indeed, he had emphasized that a revolutionary must be prepared to “crawl on his belly in the mud” to further the cause. Stalin was hard and ruthless, and he got things done. He could be brusque, rude, and outspoken, and he had a vicious temper, but he was exceedingly able and loyal to the party. Lenin himself had accepted his coarse manners in the past and had welcomed them as evidence that he was not a member of the intelligentsia, the class he hated, but a man of the people.

  Once he had turned against Stalin, Lenin brooded constantly on ways in which he could damage or destroy him politically. This personal vendetta, more than noble thoughts about the future of the party, was probably paramount in his mind during his last months of partial activity. Concerned that his indictment of rudeness would hardly shatter the confidence and respect Stalin commanded, Lenin decided to attack his record as head of Rabkrin, a post from which Stalin had resigned only on his appointment in April 1922 as general secretary, and his handling of Georgian affairs.

  In an article, dictated in January 1923, entitled “How We Should Reorganize Rabkrin (A Proposal to the Twelfth Party Congress),” Lenin mounted a campaign against bureaucracy, holding up Rabkrin as a warning of its dangers. He proposed that Rabkrin be reorganized by the reducing its staff to 300 or 400 carefully chosen and experienced workers, and it should be merged with the party’s Central Control Commission. Moreover, selected members of the administrative and even of the secretarial staff would have the rights and duties of members of the Central Committee, including even the right to see the papers of the Politburo and attend its meetings. He asserted that this reorganization would minimize the dangers of “purely personal and fortuitous circumstances” and presumably of a split in the leadership. This new enlarged body would carry out general supervision “irrespective of persons involved,” and no one’s authority, “neither that of the General Secretary nor that of any other member of the Central Committee,” should be allowed to hinder or prevent their inspections.

  Thus the Politburo, the inner cabinet of the party, should meet in future, observed and supervised by the presence of fifty to 100 members of the Central Committee and also by an unspecified number of employees, including secretarial staff, of the amalgamated Rabkrin–Central Control Commission. At the same time, everyone and especially those in authority would be under the constant threat of investigation. It was not a proposal to be taken seriously. But Lenin was serious. He was stating, in effect, that in his absence, no one could be trusted to exercise his power or leadership, and that to this end, all decision-making machinery must be so tightly interlocked and supervised as to make it impossible.

  The second article, “Better Less but Better,” dictated early in February 1923, contained a scarcely veiled denunciation of Stalin: “Let us speak bluntly. The Commissariat of Rabkrin does not now enjoy a shade of authority. Everyone knows that a worse-organized institution than our Rabkrin does not exist and that under present conditions nothing can be expected from this Kommissariat.” The criticism was overstated and unreasonable. Everyone knew that Rabkrin was neither better nor worse than other Soviet kommissariats, which had been hurriedly set up with staff who were confused by unaccustomed responsibilities.

  Although he finished it on February 7, 1923, Lenin did not revise this article finally until March 2. The delay may have been due to efforts to prevent its publication. According to Trotsky, Bukharin, as editor of Pravda, was reluctant to publish it. Krupskaya appealed to Trotsky, who requested a special meeting of the Politburo. Stalin, Molotov, Kuibyshev, Rykov, Kalinin, and Bukharin opposed publication. Kuibyshev even suggested making up one special copy of Pravda, containing the article, to mollify Lenin. Trotsky and Bukharin insist
ed, however, that an article by Lenin simply could not be suppressed, and this argument was reluctantly accepted. The article was published on March 4, 1923. It aroused no special interest.

  On the following day, March 5, Lenin dictated a short letter to Trotsky and one to Stalin. The letter to Trotsky read: “Respected Comrade Trotsky. I would very much like to ask you to take upon yourself the defence of the Georgian case in the Central Committee of the Party. The matter is now being “prosecuted” by Stalin and Dzerzhinsky on whose objectivity I cannot rely. Quite on the contrary. If you agree to assume responsibility for the defence, I shall be at ease. If for some reason you do not agree to do so, please return the materials to me. I shall consider this a sign of your refusal. With best comradely greetings. Lenin.”

  The memorandum of December 30–31, 1923, was enclosed with the letter.

  Trotsky rejected Lenin’s request by returning the memorandum. Before doing so, however, he secretly made a copy intending no doubt to make use of it when a suitable occasion arose. When Lenin’s secretary, Volodicheva, phoned him to get an explicit reply, Trotsky said that he could not accept the task because of poor health. The incident showed Trotsky as devious and ignoble. Clearly he was afraid of coming into direct conflict with Stalin. He was isolated and would have had little chance of succeeding in the Central Committee, even though he was promoting Lenin’s case. Evidently Lenin was eager to promote such a conflict notwithstanding his anxiety, expressed in his “Letter to the Congress,” about preserving party unity.

  The letter to Stalin was curt and threatening: “Respected Comrade Stalin. You had the rudeness to summon my wife to the telephone and reprimand her. Although she expressed her willingness to forget what was said, Zinoviev and Kamenev heard about it from her. I do not intend to forget so easily what was done against me, and I need not stress that I consider what is done against my wife is done against me also. I ask therefore that you weigh carefully whether you are agreeable to retract what you said and to apologize or whether you prefer to sever relations between us.”