Front doorways and basements were full of besprizorniki—homeless children of vanished parents. Homeless little girls were sold for bread.
There is a story by Zamyatin called “The Cave,” about an intellectual dying of cold and hunger in a big, unheated apartment, which has become a primitive cave. Like any primitive man, he goes hunting—in his case to steal his neighbor’s firewood. But most “gentry apartments” had by now been “filled in” by quartering proletarians on the former occupants. A huge increase in the incidence of savage assaults and murders, together with constant hunger, changed people. Yesterday’s humanist was today’s robber with violence; ordinary, good-natured people became cruel animals. Three and a half years of war and nearly two years of revolution had stripped away the veneer of civilization. The poet Blok, dying of revulsion from life as it had become, said, “I am suffocating.… We are all suffocating. World revolution is turning into universal angina pectoris.”
LONG LIVE WORLD REVOLUTION!
Throughout this time of hunger and bloodshed Lenin conjured his party to stand fast: “The workers of all countries look to us with hope. You can hear their voice saying, ‘Hold out just a little longer and we will come to your aid, and by our joint efforts we will cast the imperialist predators into the abyss.’ ” In the same vein, an article of Koba’s suggested stockpiling grain for these hungry republics of the future. Nevertheless, he knew already that the regime would hold out whether world revolution came or not. The terror had taught him once and for all how it would be done.
But … it came to pass! Just when it seemed that they were near the end of their resistance, their hopes were realized!
There was no sleep in the Kremlin on the night of November 9–10: revolution had broken out in Germany. First the defeat of the Czechs, then this second miracle!
The Hohenzollern monarchy had collapsed, and Karl Liebknecht had proclaimed from the balcony of the royal palace the creation of a new Soviet republic.
Germany was now ruled by German Soviets. A second great empire had disappeared from the map of Europe.
The Bolshevik envoy in Berlin began secretly purchasing arms for the German revolutionaries. A little while ago the Germans had been assisting revolution in Russia. Now Lenin was reciprocating. Just as secretly. The Bolshevik embassy became the headquarters of the German revolution.
On November 12 came another revolution, this time in Austria. Yet another monarchy was replaced by a republic. All doubt was now dispelled: exactly one year after the October Revolution, world revolution had arrived! Koba was amazed to see yet another of Lenin’s prophecies become reality. Crowds of joyful revolutionaries paraded all day in front of the Moscow Soviet’s building. But it all ended in victory for moderate socialists, and the creation of more of those bourgeois republics which Lenin so loathed. Hope flared again at the beginning of 1919, when left-wing Social Democrats—the Spartacus League, to which Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg belonged—rose in revolt. Soldiers and sailors seized the Reichskanzlerei in Berlin. But the rising was suppressed. Luxemburg and Liebknecht were murdered by extremists, their bodies thrown in a canal. In accordance with the doctrine of Red Terror, the reply to these murders was the execution of four Romanovs, uncles of the Last Tsar. One of them, Grand Duke Nikolai Mikhailovich, was a liberal and a historian of note. Gorky interceded for him, and Lenin, of course, promised to consider the illustrious writer’s petition. He simultaneously ordered Zinoviev not to let the grand duke get away, and to hurry it up. The image of Lenin the intellectual remained untarnished. And the grand dukes were shot.
Koba admired this procedure. It was something else that he would take over from the Leader.
The German armies now hurriedly abandoned the Ukraine and Transcaucasia. But this made the situation no easier.
In the Ukraine, German rule was replaced by that of Simon Petlyura, a nationalist enemy of the Bolsheviks; the British made their appearance in the Caucasus, while the Don Cossacks, who had been encouraged and armed by the Germans, put themselves under Anton Denikin’s command and henceforward implicitly obeyed his orders. But the Bolsheviks were to face their worst ordeal in the east.
In November 1918, while the Bolsheviks were rejoicing in the German revolution, something terrible happened in Siberia: over the vast expanse from the Pacific Ocean to the Volga basin power passed into the hands of one of the ablest Russian commanders—Alexander Kolchak.
The son of a humble artillery officer, he had reached the climax of a brilliant career as a rear admiral, and on the eve of the Revolution was commanding the Black Sea fleet. After the February Revolution he had tried to check the spread of anarchy by ordering the decommissioning of the most rebellious ships. Mutinies had broken out, and the Provisional Government, hoping to curry favor with the sailors, sacrificed the admiral. Kolchak was relieved of his post and sent to the United States as head of a naval mission.
In October 1918, Kolchak arrived in Omsk and a month later a right-wing government of Kadets and monarchists was set up under his leadership. The enormous human resources of Siberia were in Kolchak’s hands. He also held the gold reserves of the Russian Empire, seized by the Czechoslovak Legion in Kazan.
Kolchak’s army began its victorious march across Siberia.
WE’RE ALL ONLY HUMAN
Lenin decided to send Stalin to the front again. But Koba would first have to make his peace with Trotsky. When all other attempts at a reconciliation failed, Lenin took matters into his own hands. At the end of November he sent a telegram to Trotsky: “Are you willing to try to reach an understanding with Stalin? He is ready to come to see you about it. Do you think it possible, on certain conditions, to put aside previous frictions and arrange to work together, which is what Stalin so much wants? As far as I personally am concerned I think it is essential to make every effort to arrange things so that you and Stalin can work together.”
Voroshilov had already been banished from Tsaritsyn. He had been given the post of People’s Commissar for Internal Affairs in the Ukrainian government, with a proviso that he would not be allowed to interfere in military matters. Trotsky could consider himself satisfied. And shortly afterward Lenin was writing, “There are several reports from the Perm area about the catastrophic condition of the army.… I am thinking of sending Stalin there.… I’m afraid Smilga may be too soft.” Catastrophe had already occurred in the Urals. Drunkenness and looting were rife in the army outside Perm. After its defeats at the hands of Kolchak the army was in its death agony. Koba was dispatched to Perm together with the head of the Cheka, Dzherzhinsky. He lived up to Lenin’s hopes: a round of merciless executions speedily rendered the army fighting fit.
But Kolchak seemed to be irresistible. By the spring of 1919 his 400,000-strong army had crossed the Urals, and he was now advancing on Samara. From there the road to Moscow lay open to the White Guard.
Yet again—the mirage of world revolution: in March 1919 Communists, led by Bela Kun, a Hungarian prisoner of war in Russia who had joined the Bolsheviks, set up a Hungarian republic. Trotsky proposed in the Central Committee that they should go to the aid of Hungary without delay. Koba took no part in such futile discussions. This was no time to be worrying about Hungary. Kolchak had gone over to the offensive, and General Yudenich was outside Petrograd. Passionate speeches were made about Hungary in the Central Committee, and that was the end of it. An International Division was formed in Kiev to help Hungary, but funds for it for some reason never arrived. The Hungarian republic shortly collapsed. For some time to come, the history of Bolshevism would be the history of Russia itself. The great dream of world revolution remained just a dream.
That spring, at the Eighth Congress of the Party, Koba resumed his favorite game, and mounted another attack on Trotsky. What came to be called the “military” opposition united a number of Party members with military ambitions of their own. They openly opposed Trotsky’s policy of reliance on “military experts”—former tsarist officers who had gone over to the Bol
sheviks. The opposition denounced them as secret enemies and traitors.
Lenin happily permitted these attacks on Trotsky, and then, of course, came out in support of him. It was perfectly clear that without the tsarist officers the army would degenerate into a rabble of irregulars. Lenin mercilessly castigated the “partisan mentality.” And who should rally to his support but Koba! He had been the real organizer of the opposition behind the scenes. He now came out against them—at Lenin’s side. Lenin was grateful to Koba—he had given Trotsky another slap in the face—and admired him for his ingenuity. He appointed Koba to a special commission, whose task it was to reconcile Trotsky with the opposition. He did not forget to defend Koba’s executions at Tsaritsyn: “When Comrade Stalin was shooting people at Tsaritsyn I thought it a mistake, and sent a telegram urging him to be cautious. I was in error. We’re all only human.” Koba had to be spotlessly clean. Because Lenin was getting the faithful Georgian ready for a new job.
A THOUSAND POSTS
Early in 1919 Sverdlov, the man of iron through whom all of Lenin’s decisions were transmitted, died. Lenin looked around for someone to take over his role. Who better than Koba? A brilliant organizer. He could always put the squeeze on and get a result. A will of steel. Not afraid to dabble in blood. And he hated Trotsky. Lenin needed in a high position someone able to deal with the self-infatuated Trotsky and his fondness for wild schemes.
As we remember, fate had thrown Sverdlov and Koba together on a number of occasions. They had shared a room in exile at Turukhansk and had jointly organized a Duma electoral campaign. This little man with the little black beard, the black leather jacket, and eyes inflamed by constant insomnia was simultaneously chairman of the Central Executive Committee, the country’s highest legislative organ, and secretary of the Party’s Central Committee, as if to symbolize the fusion of Party and state. Sverdlov concentrated in his own hands all bureaucratic and organizational work, and was always in possession of the Party’s biggest secrets. It was from Sverdlov that Trotsky heard about the shooting of the royal family. After the publication of my book about Nicholas II I received an unsigned letter, which read in part as follows: “Do you know that N. Krestinsky [People’s Commissar for Finance in 1918] had the valuables taken from the bodies of the dead Romanovs brought to Moscow, and that Sverdlov added them to what was called ‘the Party’s emergency fund’? This fund, consisting of jewels, was established by the Bolsheviks in case the Party lost power, and was kept by Sverdlov in a secret safe.”
I viewed this information with skepticism, but shortly afterward I succeeded in examining a transcript of a speech made by Yurovsky, who organized the execution of the royal family. In this speech, to an audience of Old Bolsheviks, he mentions that “valuables taken from the tsar and his family after their execution were taken by N. N. Krestinsky to Moscow.” Further, Bazhanov, Stalin’s onetime secretary who defected to the West, mentions in his book that after Sverdlov’s death his widow, with Stalin’s blessing, went on keeping these valuables “in case the Party lost power.”
On March 25, 1919, a Politburo (Political Bureau) was elected from among the members of the Central Committee. The prototypes of the Politburo created by Lenin before the Revolution had been qualitatively different. They had operated within the Party and expired in due course. But now the Party embraced the whole country. Lenin’s intention was that henceforward the history of the country would be the history of the Party. The “million-handed” Party would penetrate every area of the country’s life, and the Politburo would be the nerve center of the Party. Once a week, on “Lenin’s Thursdays,” members of the Politburo met in strictest secrecy to act as the real government of the country. Ill-educated revolutionaries in the Politburo made decisions on the multifarious problems of the country’s economic life. They were the initiated, armed with the gift of prophetic foresight, thanks to the scriptures according to the great theorist Marx. From among the major leaders of the Party Lenin brought Kamenev and Trotsky into the Politburo. And also Koba. This was the nerve center. Zinoviev and Bukharin he made only associate members. Lenin also set up an Organization Bureau, to supervise the current work of the Party, and made Koba a member of this body too. Even this was not enough. He appointed Koba to two People’s Commissariats—Nationalities and the very important Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspectorate. It was still not enough. Throughout this period a great number of commissions came into being to manage the day-to-day life of the country under the Politburo’s guidance. Lenin appointed Koba to all the particularly important commissions, usually steering Trotsky in the same direction. Koba never forgot that he was there to do battle with the great Lev, giving Lenin the opportunity to act as impartial arbiter. Lenin often authorized Koba to conduct meetings of the government in his absence.… This, then, was the new Koba—member of the Politburo and the Orgburo, People’s Commissar twice over, representative of the Central Committee and the Revolutionary Military Council on the Petrograd, western, and southern fronts. Add to this all those commissions.…
At the Eleventh Congress in 1922 one prominent Bolshevik, E. Preobrazhensky, would note with astonishment the vast authority which Lenin had concentrated in Koba’s hands: “Take Stalin, for instance.… Is it conceivable that one man can take responsibility for the work of two commissariats, while simultaneously working in the Politburo, the Orgburo, and a dozen commissions?” But Lenin would not surrender his favorite: “We need a man whom any representative of any national group can approach, a man to whom he can speak in detail. Where can we find such a man? I don’t think Comrade Preobrazhensky could name any candidate other than Comrade Stalin.… We have to have a man with authority at the head of it … otherwise we shall drown in a sea of petty intrigue.”
In May, when he was already within a short distance of Samara, Kolchak suffered a crushing defeat. This was no temporary setback. Still in May, Lenin telegraphed the Revolutionary Military Council as follows: “Can you guarantee that rumors about the disintegration of Kolchak’s forces and mass desertions to us are not exaggerated?” The rumors were confirmed. Yet again the Bolsheviks had stood their ground. Ironically, just when Kolchak’s power was waning, the long-awaited unification of the White forces finally took place: Yudenich in the northwest and Denikin in the south recognized Kolchak as “Supreme Ruler of Russia.”
Taking advantage of the fact that the main Bolshevik forces had been drawn eastward, Yudenich suddenly broke through the Bolshevik lines in the northwest and advanced on Petrograd. His force was very small—a single corps. But his agents had infiltrated the garrisons around Petrograd and were trying to provoke a mutiny, which the daring breakthrough was meant to support. Yudenich advanced rapidly on Petrograd. Zinoviev, chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, panicked. “Zinoviev knew no intermediate states. He was either in the seventh heaven or lying on his couch heaving sighs,” wrote Trotsky.
Lenin could not rely on Zinoviev. He sent Koba to Petrograd, with ominous instructions to “take whatever extraordinary measures are necessary.”
Petrograd was expecting Yudenich to arrive at any moment. Koba reached the city on May 19. He acted in the usual way: electricity was cut off. The apartments of “former persons” were searched by candlelight. Hostages—aristocrats, officers, tsarist bureaucrats, priests—were shot. The city was frightened out of its wits. Resistance within the city was broken, but on June 12 the garrisons of two forts outside Petrograd, the Red Hill and the Gray Horse, mutinied.
Koba realized that if the mutiny was not put down immediately the fire would spread to other forts. Some ships of the Baltic fleet went over to the mutineers. But by June 15 simultaneous attacks by land and sea had quelled the mutiny.
Koba proudly telegraphed Lenin: “The speedy capture of Red Hill is due to the roughest intervention on my part in operational matters, to the extent of canceling orders and imposing my own. I consider it my duty to state that I shall continue to act in this way.”
The White offensive had misfired, and Yuden
ich retreated.
In October 1919 Yudenich launched another menacing attack on Petrograd, this time with a whole army. Lenin was ready to abandon the former capital, but Trotsky successfully defended it. Koba was elsewhere—on the southern front—at the time. Stalinist historians subsequently remedied the situation by merging Yudenich’s two offensives, so that Koba became the sole savior of revolutionary Petrograd.
In the second half of 1919 General Denikin led the “Armed Forces of South Russia” against Moscow, threatening to join with Kolchak’s armies, and at the beginning of September Lenin sent Koba, the acknowledged expert in crisis management, to the southern front. Denikin took Kursk at the end of that month, and Orel in October. The Whites were drawing near the capital. Posters bearing the slogan “Everything for the struggle against Denikin” were pasted up all over Moscow.
Denikin was halted, as Kolchak had been, on his way to Moscow. October proved fatal to the general. Before the month was out he had lost Orel.
The White army began to retreat. Koba had performed his role. A Red cavalry army, commanded by a former cavalry sergeant major in the tsar’s army, smashed the elite Cossack troops of the tsarist generals Mamontov and Shkuro. Koba informed Lenin by telegraph that “the spoils captured include all the enemy’s armored trains” and that the “halo of invincibility around the names of General Mamontov and Shkuro had been dispelled.”
Budenny’s cavalry mercilessly harassed Denikin’s units as they fell back toward the Black Sea.
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