LOVE
Every day he went home from the Congress to the Alliluyev apartment. He enjoyed the company of those innocent girls, and their admiration for him. That was probably his reason for moving in. Nadezhda was still at high school. She looked Georgian, with her swarthy complexion and mild brown eyes.
In that little apartment it was the old, old story: Othello, no longer young, told the youthful Desdemona stories of his ordeals and his exploits. Fyodor Alliluyev dutifully recorded Koba’s account of terrible nights in exile at Turukhan. And Nadya’s sister Anna remembered his moving stories about the dog Tishka, with whom he talked the lonely Turukhan evenings away. On one occasion Koba brought Kamo along, that same Kamo who was the subject of legends in the Alliluyev household, and the girls noted the legendary hero’s slavish devotion to their lodger. It is not hard to imagine the impression Koba made on a high school girl, while the lonely, middle-aged Georgian himself was captivated by the charm of youthful innocence and, above all, by the girl’s rapt idolization of him.
Anna Alliluyeva remembered it all, and conscientiously described what Koba was like in those days. When she brought out a volume of reminiscences in 1947, neither she nor her publishers realized that Joseph Stalin was not at all fond of recalling his life as Koba. Poor Anna was packed off to a prison cell. She emerged from solitary confinement only after Koba’s death, by then half-insane.
THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT GROWS WEAKER
Russian democracy was expiring in never-ending harangues and altercations.
The Romanovs had ruled, and Russia had remained silent, for three hundred years. It now seemed likely to go on talking for the next three hundred. It was as if the country had gone mad: workers were not working, peasants were not sowing, soldiers were not fighting. The whole country was engaged in one interminable political meeting. Innumerable parties held innumerable sessions. Demagogy reigned triumphant. The army was too tired to fight. The Galician offensive launched by Kerensky ended in disaster—that desperately tired army lost a hundred thousand soldiers. The army wanted to go home. But instead of making peace, the obtuse government called for another offensive. As in the past, no attempt was made to address the crucial issue of land reform. Lenin meanwhile promised it all: land for the peasants and peace for Russia. Bolshevik newspapers and agitators were busy subverting the army at the front. The Germans had not wasted their money. The bacillus of Bolshevism was now killing the Provisional Government. As General Krasnov wrote, “We saw the very same picture almost everywhere—along the railroads, in trucks, or in the saddle … dragoons sitting or standing round some slick character in an army greatcoat.” By autumn Kerensky’s government resembled that of the dethroned tsar. It was supported by no one. In spite of the espionage affair, the influence of the Bolsheviks had risen steeply.
Kerensky knew that his authority was declining rapidly. A firm hand was needed to prevent the collapse of the regime. Lenin’s latest ideas, on the itinerary toward armed uprising, were now filtering into the press. The commander in chief, General Kornilov, demanded action to forestall a Bolshevik coup. He asked Kerensky for plenary powers to restore order at the front and in the rear, and dispatched General Krymov’s cavalry corps to Petrograd. Kerensky, who had been in favor of this to begin with, took fright at the last moment. He was afraid that once order was restored, he himself might be discarded. He declared General Kornilov’s advance mutinous. The poet Zinaida Gippius noted at that time that “a Bolshevik rising is expected from day to day, and this made it necessary to send in troops from the front. I am almost certain that the divisions were marching for Kerensky, with his full knowledge … and in response to an informal order from him.” (Many decades later, in 1991, Gorbachev would behave exactly as Kerensky did.)
Kerensky replaced Kornilov, and called “all democratic forces,” including the Bolsheviks, to help him. Lenin’s decision was instantaneous: he would ally himself with the government against Kornilov. Kerensky accepted this dangerous gift, and the Bolsheviks were summoned by Kerensky to defend the Winter Palace.
Another of history’s little jokes. Just a few months later one of the Aurora’s guns would open fire on the palace and announce to all the world the end of Kerensky’s government.
Lenin made splendid use of his contact with the government. He armed his supporters in every urban center. Once the “Kornilov mutiny” was put down, Bolsheviks were gradually released from prison. The leaders—Kamenev, Trotsky, and the others—returned. But Lenin did not show himself in Petrograd. He remained in the Finnish hiding place to which Koba had solicitously transferred him from the shack as soon as the autumn rains set in.
Trotsky would write that “the return to work of Central Committee members who had been forcibly removed from it for a time ousted [Stalin] from the eminence which he had occupied at the time of the Congress. His work went on in a sealed vessel unknown to the masses and unnoticed by the enemy.” Yet again he had failed to understand Koba. Koba did indeed withdraw into the shadows, but gladly so. For a truly anxious time was at hand. On September 12 and 14 two extremely dangerous letters were delivered from Lenin, still in Finland: the time for the uprising was now!
September proved fatal to the Provisional Government. The Germans seized islands in the Baltic, and an assault on Kronstadt and Petrograd was expected. The government prepared to evacuate the capital. There was an outbreak of looting in the city. The palaces of Grand Dukes Alexander Mikhailovich and Andrei Vladimirovich were sacked. Gold, silver, diamonds, coin collections, and porcelain vanished. The imperial family’s favorite home, the Alexander Palace, was also plundered. The loot was sold on the open market. The newspapers were dotted with advertisements such as “I buy objets d’art at the highest prices.”
Meanwhile the Bolsheviks were beginning to seize power in Soviets all over the country. In Petrograd people spoke openly of an imminent Bolshevik uprising. In a letter to Gorky, the artist Benoit observed that “our terrified public is horrified by the specter of Bolshevism.… Everything we believed in is doomed, Petersburg is doomed. The plot against Petersburg is nearing realization.”
This was the moment when, at his request, Lenin’s first letter calling for a Bolshevik seizure of power was delivered to Koba, who read it to other members of the Central Committee: “If we seize power at once in Moscow and Petersburg we shall undoubtedly conquer.”
In the course of this discussion, Koba proposed that these letters should be distributed to the most important Party organizations for consideration. He avoided expressing any opinion himself. But the majority supported the idea of an uprising, and Koba voted with them. These were dangerous moments.
RUSSIA IN FLAMES
The Bolsheviks seized control of the Petrograd Soviet and Trotsky became its chairman. Then, on October 9, something which Lenin had eagerly awaited happened: conflict erupted between the disintegrating garrison and the government. The government attempted to pull back reliable troops from the front, and the Soviet immediately came out in defense of the garrison. Trotsky set up a committee of the Soviet to “provide for the defense of Petrograd against the Germans and secure it from attack by reactionaries—Kornilovites military and civilian.” Trotsky would convert this committee into the legitimate general staff of the Bolshevik uprising.
The Central Committee’s most famous session took place on October 10. All the leaders were present. For the first time Lenin and his recent shack-mate Zinoviev put in an appearance, clean-shaven by way of disguise. Lenin spoke on the current situation: “Armed uprising is inevitable, and the time for it is ripe.” Nor would they be alone. Commenting on news of unrest in the German navy, Lenin saw it as evidence of the “ripening of world revolution throughout Europe.” He sensed the dubiety of his associates, but was able to infect them with his own faith. Lenin’s outstanding characteristic was freedom from doubt about his message of the moment, although the very next instant he might be saying the opposite with the same absolute certainty. This was another charac
teristic of the true leader which Koba would adopt.
Koba voted with the majority for the uprising, but did not speak. A Political Bureau was set up for the political direction of the uprising and Lenin saw to it that Koba was included.
Zinoviev and Kamenev spoke against the uprising, predicting that it would fail. Neither man could forget the terrible July days. Defeated in the Central Committee, Kamenev took a rash step. On October 18, in a statement to Gorky’s newspaper New Life, he made clear his own and Zinoviev’s position: the uprising was doomed to defeat, it would have disastrous consequences for the Party and for the prospects of the Revolution. Lenin was furious. He wrote to the Central Committee demanding the expulsion of these “strikebreakers of the Revolution” from the Party. They had betrayed the secret decision to organize an uprising, said Lenin, although in fact there was nothing secret about it. “Rumors are circulating in the city that the Bolsheviks intend to take action on October 20,” the schoolgirl Nadezhda Alliluyeva wrote, in her bold hand, to friends.
Thinking better of it, Zinoviev sent off a craven letter to Workers’ Path (the name assumed by Pravda after it was banned in July). He was at pains to prove that there were and could be “no serious differences of opinion” between Lenin and himself. He had simply been “misunderstood.” And something strange happened. The editor of the newspaper, Koba, not only published the letter, but added a note supporting Zinoviev, and even ventured some slight criticism of Lenin’s intransigence.
WHY WAS HE SO BOLD?
The Central Committee met to discuss Zinoviev’s and Kamenev’s misdemeanor, and Trotsky demanded their expulsion from the Central Committee. Koba’s proposal was quite different: these two comrades should be required to submit to the will of the Central Committee, but should be kept in it. Trotsky’s proposal prevailed, whereupon Koba announced his own resignation from Workers’ Path. He knew—as he had known when he threatened to resign on other occasions—that he would emerge unscathed. Sure enough, the Central Committee refused to accept his resignation. There would be many such “resignations” in times to come. But why did he support Zinoviev and Kamenev?
For one thing, by attaching to himself two of the most important members of the Party he hoped to form a cabal of his own. Second, if the uprising ended in failure, his line would be that he had stood up for those who were against it. We shall see his third reason more clearly later.
For the present, he left it to Trotsky and others to prepare for the risky uprising. Koba himself was busy preparing the agenda for the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets.
THE MAN WHO MISSED THE REVOLUTION
“On Trotsky’s initiative the Bolsheviks launched the uprising on October 24,” an eyewitness reported. “Another of fate’s ironies: the command center of the uprising was set up in the Smolny Palace, in the famous Young Ladies’ Institute, where the daughters of the Russian aristocracy had learned how to behave. Machine guns and cannon stood at the palace doors. Inside there was a scene of feverish activity: councils of war in the schoolrooms, mass meetings without a break in the great hall, soldiers, workers, sailors everywhere.” One person missing from the epicenter of the uprising was Koba.
The editor-in-chief of the Bolshevik newspapers was at his post—in his office. On October 24 Workers’ Path published an “Appeal to the Population—to the Workers and Sailors” written by Koba: “If you all act together and steadfastly no one will dare to oppose the will of the people. The old government will make way for a new one, and the stronger, the more disciplined, the more powerful your show of force the more peaceful the old government’s departure will be.” Peaceful. He was sticking to his old line.
The government had tried to act first. A detachment of government troops had burst into the print shop early that morning, confiscated copies of the newspaper, and sealed the entrance. Koba sent the printers to look for support. A participant in these events tells us that “the Volhynian Regiment immediately sent a company. And the very fact that the government had closed the print shop, and that our company had come to stand guard on it, openly emboldened the whole district.” But Koba knew that those who came off best in the first exchange of fire often went on to lose the battle.
He had put things to rights in the print shop before the morning was out. And then? Can he really have remained in the editorial office throughout that historic day, while the coup was carried out?
In the Smolny Palace, a hastily organized, extraordinary meeting of the Central Committee had been in session since early morning. It had adopted Kamenev’s proposal that “no member of the Central Committee shall leave the Smolny today without a special ruling from the Committee.” Old disputes were forgotten: yesterday’s panickers, Kamenev and Zinoviev, were there among the leaders of the uprising. Final orders for the seizure of power in the capital were given out. Trotsky directed the whole operation. Party functionaries drove off to their battle stations. The whole leadership of the Party took part in the uprising.
With two exceptions. The Party was keeping its Leader hidden in an “illegal” apartment. In case of failure. But where was Koba? Trotsky described him as “The Man Who Missed the Revolution.” According to Trotsky, “When roles in this drama were distributed among the actors, no one mentioned Stalin’s name. No one suggested any assignment for him. He had simply dropped out of the game.”
Had they forgotten him? Forgotten the man who only yesterday had taken charge of the Congress? One of the Party’s leaders? And what of Lenin? How could Lenin fail to make use of such an experienced organizer and successful terrorist in the decisive hour of the Revolution? Can he have given Koba permission to sit out the October Revolution in a newspaper office? Naive questions. Did he then simply avoid committing himself, disappear, using his editorial work as an excuse? But if that was so, would not Lenin have noticed his cautious behavior? Or rather his cowardice? If he did, why would he make this coward a member of his first government on the day after the coup? Why did Koba spend several days after the coup closeted with Lenin? If cowardice was not the explanation—what was?
KOBA’S MOST SECRET CHESS GAME
Koba had not, of course, “dropped out of the game.” It was just that he was playing a game of his own, one of which Trotsky should have known. Anna Alliluyeva wrote, “Immediately before the October Revolution Lenin came to our house. One afternoon the doorbell rang. ‘Whom are you looking for?’ A man I didn’t know was standing on the threshold. ‘Is Stalin at home?’ I recognized Lenin by his voice. Mother offered him something to eat. Lenin refused. After a short discussion he and Stalin left the house together.”
Obviously, editing a newspaper was very far from being Koba’s main job at that time. His main job was liaison with Lenin, who was lying low in a clandestine apartment.
Anna Alliluyeva’s memoirs were written at the time of the Stalin cult, and we must treat them with caution. But Trotsky himself declared that “contact with Lenin was mainly through Stalin,” then added, pointedly, “as he was the person of least interest to the police.” But let me suggest that Lenin’s contact was mainly through Stalin because he was the person who had already saved Lenin in the dangerous July days. Lenin was very cautious. His timidity, his dread of physical punishment, evidently stemmed from the shock he had suffered as an adolescent when his brother died on the gallows. In the manuscript of Sergei Alliluyev’s Memoirs there is an amusing description of Lenin on the eve of his departure for Yemelyanov’s shack, studying his route to the station on a map. Alliluyev assured him that he knew the route perfectly, and that it was safe, but in the middle of the night Lenin insisted on checking everything meticulously.
Lenin knew that, should the uprising fail, his punishment would be merciless. So he entrusted himself to the tried and tested Koba, who had demonstrated his competence during the July days. For the sake of Lenin’s safety, Koba now had to make himself as uninteresting to the police as possible. It was, then, for Lenin’s sake that he absented himself from the Smolny. We s
ee now that the Party had found a task for Koba while the coup was in progress, and Koba had worked hard to be given this assignment. It made it possible for him to take the new Koba’s favorite position: one in which he could exploit the fruits of victory, but remain safe in the event of defeat.
Because he had “dropped out of the game” for Lenin’s sake, it was very easy for him to rejoin it immediately after the coup.
“The headquarters of the uprising were in the Smolny,” wrote Pavlovsky, one of the organizers of the uprising. “But in case the Smolny was successfully stormed, there was an alternative headquarters, in the Peter and Paul Fortress, and there were front-line command posts, one in the Pavlovsk Regiment’s barracks, another in the barracks of the Baltic fleet, a third on the cruiser Aurora.”
Lenin’s safety was evidently ensured in the same organized fashion. Koba arranged alternative apartments, and, in case the insurrection failed, he charted a route for the immediate removal of Lenin from Petrograd, most probably along the well-trod road to Finland. This duty would have devolved upon him as the person “of least interest to the police.” Such was his important, if quite unheroic, assignment. He himself, and the other Party leaders, subsequently preferred to keep silent about it. But official Stalinist historiography would put Koba in the seething Smolny, directing the insurrection jointly with Lenin, and surrounded by figures without names. Almost all those who had played a part in the insurrection he would send to their deaths.
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