by Ian Grey
Stalin’s major contribution to Russian communist doctrine had its origins in the polemics with Trotsky after the publication of “Lessons of October.” Of the heresies alleged against Trotsky, the most important was the basic theory that the success of the Russian Revolution depended on the support of revolutions in the industrial West. As a Russian nationalist, Stalin instinctively rebelled against this assumption of dependence. Since the Mongol conquest in the thirteenth century, Russia had forged its own civilization, taking what it wanted from other countries but never depending on them; indeed, the ingrained Muscovite tradition insisted that Russian civilization was superior, and it was Russia’s mission to lead the world.
Stalin nevertheless had to contend with the fact that Lenin had always accepted as fundamental the dependence of Russia’s Revolution on world revolution or at least revolution in the industrial West. To Trotsky, the internationalist who scorned nationalism in any form, it was unthinkable that Russia could pursue a revolutionary course except as part of the world proletariat. He had simply taken this assumption for granted in “Lessons of October.”
Stalin had accepted this theory. As late as April 1924, when giving his lectures on “Foundations of Leninism,” he had expressly confirmed that Russia’s Revolution would succeed only as part of the international revolution. But he had growing doubts. Revolutions had failed to materialize in the West, and the socialist bid for power in 1923 in Germany, on which Lenin, Trotsky, and others had pinned so much hope, had been a fiasco. It was patently unrealistic to expect revolution in the West in the foreseeable future. Did this mean that the Russian Revolution must inevitably fail or that it must somehow mark time until the rest of the world was ready?
Searching in Lenin’s writings for ammunition against Trotsky, he came upon an article, written in 1915, which contained the germ of the idea of the new policy. Lenin had written that, since capitalist countries had not all developed at the same pace, it was possible that revolution would come in some countries earlier than in others, and that it might even break out first in one country. He did not mention Russia specifically and probably had not had Russia in mind as that one country. Seizing on this tenuous statement, Stalin developed his concept of “socialism in one country,” creating the impression that Lenin had envisaged and approved this possibility and, incidentally, that Trotsky had rejected it.
Stalin’s idea was first considered by the Politburo in April 1925. Zinoviev and Kamenev had agreed without enthusiasm to its inclusion in the resolution to be submitted to the Fourteenth Party Congress in December 1925. It had aroused no great interest among the delegates, who had endorsed it as a matter of abstract doctrine without immediate practical application. Then in January 1926, after his triumph at the congress, Stalin wrote his article “On Questions of Leninism” in which he answered opposition criticisms and then dealt with the main obstacles to the creation of socialism in one country. The first was the backwardness of the Russian economy, which was a challenge to the faith and ability of the people. The real threat was that the capitalist powers, having entered upon a period of stabilization, might attack Soviet Russia. To counter this danger, the Soviet Union needed to withdraw and in isolation pursue a policy of intensive industrialization. It would then prepare to repel any capitalist attack and at the same time surge forward irresistibly toward industrial socialism. This article was reprinted in a volume entitled “Questions of Leninism,” which provided a fundamental text of the party in the years ahead.
At the Fifteenth Party Conference “socialism in one country” was discussed and approved in principle. Stalin made full use of its appeal. He taunted the opposition with being men of little faith; they had no confidence in the power of the Russian party and of the Russian people to build socialism in their own country. The policy as he presented it posed a dramatic challenge to the party and the people to embark on heroic action.
Although defeated at every stage, the opposition leaders did not give up. They seized on two events in May 1927 to renew their attacks. The first event was the murder of Chinese communists in Shanghai by Chiang Kai-shek’s troops. They charged that the official foreign policy, condoning alliances with noncommunist regimes and in this case, the Kuomintang, was contrary to the principles of international communism. The sufferings of brother communists in China demonstrated the failure of the party leaders. Trotsky charged further that this was a natural outcome of the “petty bourgeois theory of socialism in one country.”
The criticisms made an impression on the rank-and-file members who were readily aroused by the struggles of foreign comrades. But then, a genuine fear of capitalist attack caused alarm. In May 1927, the British police raided the offices of the Soviet Trade Delegation in London and found evidence of subversive communist activities. The British government reacted strongly by breaking off diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union. In Moscow, this was interpreted, quite mistakenly, as the first step by Britain to a declaration of war. The opposition protested that a change of leaders was essential if the country was to defend itself in war, and that the support of the true foreign revolutionaries, who were now being denounced as deviationists, should be enlisted in Russia’s coming struggle. Stalin and his supporters answered that this was the time when party unity mattered above all else and the oppositionists should put aside their differences and rally to the party.
The war scare died away, but the ferment continued in the party. Stalin’s patience with the opposition leaders was exhausted. He had always stood against their expulsion, and at the Fourteenth Congress in December 1925, he had explained why he had opposed the demand of Zinoviev and Kamenev for the expulsion of Trotsky. Now his view was different. The party would be at risk so long as the oppositionists were active within its ranks. Lenin would never have tolerated them. He had been determined in 1917 and later to smash the Mensheviks and the SRs, and he had insisted in 1921 on the prohibition of factions within the Bolshevik party. Stalin himself had always shared his view that the party must be completely united. He had hoped that some genuine settlement might be reached. This hope was no longer tenable. The party and the regime were facing immense problems and fighting to survive. The opposition exercised a debilitating influence, which was not permissible at this crucial time.
At the Plenum of the Central Committee at the end of July 1927, he moved for a resolution to expel Trotsky and Zinoviev from the committee. He could be sure of a majority in the committee, whereas in the Politburo, the right-wing members - Bukharin, Rykov, Tomsky, and Kalinin - were said to oppose such drastic action. The Central Committee approved the resolution, but then it was rescinded. Ordzhonikidze, who was now chairman of the Central Control Commission, had mediated with the opposition, who once again had made a declaration of unconditional surrender. Stalin then agreed to the withdrawal of the resolution. It was clear, however, that time was running out for the opposition leaders.
In September 1927, as preparations were getting under way for the Fifteenth Party Congress, the opposition drew up the third statement of their aims and policies. Their chief purpose was to change the party leadership, eliminating the right-wing and Stalin, although the statement did not specify names. Members elected by the Congress to the Central Committee “must,” it declared, “be independent of the apparatus” and “closely associated with the masses,” a formula which would have excluded Stalin and most of his supporters.
The opposition presented their statement to the Central Committee with the demand that it be printed and circulated to all delegates to the Congress. Expecting that their demand would be rejected, as, indeed, it was, they had set up a secret printing press, intending to print the statement for mass circulation. The OGPU knew in advance about their plans and seized the printing press. All who were directly involved were arrested and at once expelled from the party, but the leaders remained free for the time being. Desperate and frustrated in their efforts to publicize their views, they addressed meetings of workers. The Central Committee, conven
ing jointly with the Central Control Commission on October 21–23, 1927, again severely reprimanded them, but they remained members and at liberty.
On November 7, 1927, the tenth anniversary of the Revolution, Trotsky and Zinoviev promoted demonstrations in Moscow and Leningrad. The demonstrations were thinly attended and ineffectual, but they were a grave breach of party rules. Again the OGPU was ready. The police and organized bands of thugs broke up the demonstrations, and many were arrested. A week later, Trotsky and Zinoviev were expelled from the party. The Congress endorsed their expulsion and an additional seventy-five oppositionists of the Trotsky-Zinoviev group, as well as fifteen Democratic Centralists. The Congress demonstrated with enthusiasm in support of the party leaders. Certain groups of oppositionists signed declarations of obedience to the decisions of the Congress and petitioned to be readmitted to membership. Trotsky himself signed several of these petitions but to no avail. Zinoviev and Kamenev petitioned to be readmitted and abjectly recanted, confessing that their opposition views had been antiparty and anti-Leninist. Their conduct was pitiful. They were told that their pleas would be considered in due course and they were left to wait. Months later, they were readmitted to the party and even given minor appointments, but their political careers were at an end.
In January 192, Trotsky and some thirty other oppositionists departed from Moscow by train to distant parts of the country. Trotsky was sent to Alma-Ata in Central Asia, the beginning of a long exile.
At some time shortly before the Fifteenth Party Congress, Stalin reached a momentous decision. It did not happen with dramatic suddenness, but came to him gradually, flowing with a terrible inevitability from the country’s predicament. It was a decision demanding courage and determination and the fanatic conviction that the survival of Soviet Russia depended upon it. It was a decision to plunge the country into an era of headlong industrialization and collectivization.
Stalin had made up his mind that there was no alternative. Industry was backward and small in scale, and agriculture primitive and unreliable in output. Communist rule was threatened by the capitalist powers, who would strike as soon as they were ready, sweeping away the party, destroying the gains of the Revolution, and enslaving the nation. He had read widely and knew Russia’s history. This had been its fate whenever it was weak and lacking firm leadership. But to Stalin the country had never been so enfeebled and vulnerable as in the 1920s, when the party was undermined by opposition factions and when the leadership was at the mercy of the great amorphous mass of over 100 million peasants stubbornly opposed to change and antagonistic to the communist regime and its purpose of leading the nation into a new era of strength and socialist prosperity.
There was no time to lose in building industry, collectivizing agriculture, and creating a strong economy. And always in the forefront of Stalin’s mind was the imperative need to build Russia’s military might so that it could stand proud and secure against the nations of the world. These had been the goals of Peter the Great, whom he admired as a hero and a model. In November 1928, addressing the Central Committee, he declared that “when Peter the Great; competing with the more developed Western countries, feverishly constructed industrial works and factories to provide supplies for the army and to strengthen the country’s defence, this was an attempt to liquidate her backwardness.” The theme of liquidating Russia’s backwardness began to recur in his speeches and articles.
Peter had been autocrat, wielding absolute power and imposing his will on the nation. This was the Russian tradition; it was what the people had always known and expected. Stalin had begun to see himself as heir to this tradition. He cast himself in the role of leader because none of the other party leaders was remotely capable of assuming it, and because he had developed a burning sense of his mission to lead Russia. Shared leadership was weak leadership, as had been amply demonstrated since Lenin’s death. He must rule as the great tsars had ruled, but he was not yet armed with the necessary power.
The policy of concessions to the peasantry to encourage grain production and marketability appeared to have been successful. Two good harvests had given outstanding yields. Adjustment of the agricultural tax and improvements in the efficiency of the state and cooperative purchasing organizations had produced results. The grain collection for the year July 1926–June 1927 amounted to 10.6 million tons, compared with 8.4 million tons in the previous year. Not only had more grain been produced and marketed, but a larger proportion of the grain had been gathered into the public sector. This meant that the export target figure of 275 million rubles was almost reached.
By the end of 1926, a mood of optimism was spreading through the party. Bukharin and Rykov, who had argued insistently for the official policy, were exultant. The left-wing opposition, led by Trotsky and Zinoviev had, they claimed, proved wrong. Rykov, presenting the report on the economy to the Fifteenth Party Conference in October 1926, declared that industry and agriculture were progressing side by side.
The opposition was taken aback by the initial success of the official policy. Zinoviev, Kamenev, Pyatakov, Sokolnikov, Trotsky, and Evdokimov went so far as to sign a declaration on October 16, 1926, which was in effect a confession of defeat and of support for the official policy. But in the conference discussions, Trotsky made the point that “the economic experience since April [the previous conference] has been too small to give us any hope of converting the comrades.”
Although gratified by the apparent success of the official policy, Stalin and the more perceptive members of the party were troubled by the agricultural situation. As communists, they were obsessed with the kulaks, who were class enemies. Attempts had been made by progressive rates of tax and in other ways to restrict their growing wealth, but with little effect. The fact was that the kulaks were not the oppressive monsters denounced at party meetings; they were the efficient peasants who worked hard, showed initiative, hired labor, leased additional land, and produced the grain surpluses so desperately needed to feed the towns and to export. A resolution of the Central Committee in April 1926, however, acknowledged with grave misgiving “the inevitable strengthening of the kulaks in the present period of NEP” and referred to “the struggle of kulak elements to control the countryside.”
Another factor clouding the widespread optimism was the amount of grain held back and accumulated by the peasants. It was estimated that by July 1, 1926, some 6 million tons had been hoarded, a figure expected nearly to double by the end of the year. Six months later, Rykov admitted that the amount of grain in peasant hands was even higher, which meant “the tempo of development of the economy is to a significant extent retarded.”
Stalin was well aware that the criticisms of the Trotsky-Zinoviev opposition had validity. The official policy of promoting the prosperity of the peasants as the only way to generate capital might have needed to be modified by using more forceful methods to extract this capital. It was unacceptable, too, as well as dangerous, that the workers’ standard of living lagged far behind that of the prospering peasants.
In the debate leading up to the Fifteenth Party Congress in December 1927, Bukharin and Rykov continued to display optimism, but there was strong emphasis on “a more decisive offensive against the kulak.” The opposition countered in their policy statement with a section, headed “Official optimism is an aid to the enemy,” declaring that “capitalism in the countryside is growing absolutely and relatively, and every day sees an increase in the dependence of the Soviet state and its industry on the raw material and export resources of the well-to-do and kulak sector of the countryside.”
At the Fifteenth Congress, the mounting crisis, threatened by a decline in grain deliveries, intensified the underlying uneasiness. The need for collectivization and industrialization was stressed. In his general report to the Congress, Stalin spoke of “a transition to collective cultivation of the soil on the basis of a new and higher technique.” He gave no hint of the tremendous decision already in his mind. He was impatient for action, bu
t the time was not yet ripe. Bukharin, Rykov, and Tomsky in the Politburo and other right-wing supporters would oppose any policy to abandon NEP and to use force against the peasantry.
The crisis, threatening famine in the early months of 1928, was due not to failure in production, but to refusal of the peasants to deliver their grain. Prosperity had brought a new spirit of independence among them and a readiness to defy the party and government. Urgent measures were introduced to avert calamity. Party workers, more than 30,000 in number, were sent to important regions to extract grain from the peasants. The party leaders themselves traveled to regions where the peasants were notably uncooperative. Stalin set out on January 15, 1928, to visit parts of Siberia. There the harvest had produced a record yield, but surpluses had been held back. He admonished and exhorted, and even threatened that grain hoarders would be prosecuted under Article 107 of the criminal code of the RSFSR, a new article added only in the previous year. Under this pressure, peasants rebelled in some districts, and their hostility toward Moscow intensified. The amount of grain collected increased, but some 250,000 tons had to be imported, and precious foreign exchange used to pay for it. Early in 1928, it became clear that the peasants, whose surpluses had often been extracted by brutal methods, were sowing less so that they would have no grain surplus.
Stalin had not yet revealed his new policy. Rumors had begun to spread after the defeat of the left opposition that NEP would soon be abolished. But at the joint meeting of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission on April 6–11, 1928, these “malicious rumors” were firmly denied. Soon afterward, however, at the meeting of the Central Executive Committee of the All-Union Congress of Soviets, Stalin introduced the draft of a new land law, severely restricting peasant rights. It met with strong opposition and was withdrawn, it was said, to allow for further discussion. The draft nevertheless revealed one part of the policy he had in mind.