CHAPTER 7 JULY 1921-OCTOBER 1922: SEARCHING FOR …grh2/contra/docs/2_3_4.pdfneeded another month of rest before he could resume a normal schedule.1 Debilitating and mysterious illnesses
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described the period as one of “incipient peaceful construction” which had been
interrupted by war. From “the beginning of 1921,” according to Stalin’s new script, the
“course towards peaceful construction” had resumed.”42 This was the phony history that
Lenin had employed to conceal his abrupt change of course in 1921. Stalin’s publication of
this sketch three decades later in his Works and his claim that The Foundations of
Leninism derived from it witness the importance which the unfinished theoretical effort of
1921 had for him. More significant, the fact that he was preparing to pose as Lenin’s heir
and interpreter at such an early date—before any innocent party could reasonably
anticipate Lenin’s death—betrays his knowledge that Lenin was being killed.
Though in the Nal’chik manuscript Stalin muted his differences with Lenin, he
covertly voiced them in the first of the publications he derived from it, a long assessment
of “The Party Before and After Taking Power” which appeared in Pravda on August 28,
1921,43 while Lenin was still recovering from his illness.44 The title did not suggest any
important content, nor did the seemingly pedestrian character of the recital of the Party’s
history and its present tasks which followed. But Stalin-Aesop was again at work beneath
the tranquil surface. About half way into the article, he pointed out that with the October
Revolution
our Party was transformed from a national force into a predominantlyinternational force, and the Russian proletariat was transformed from abackward detachment of the international proletariat into its vanguard.Henceforth, the tasks of the international proletariat are to widen theRussian breach, to help the vanguard which has pushed forward, toprevent enemies from surrounding the brave vanguard and cutting it offfrom its base. The task of international imperialism, on the contrary, is toclose it without fail. That is why our Party, if it wants to retain power,obligates itself to do “the utmost possible in one (its own—J. St.) countryfor the development, support, and awakening if the revolution in allcountries (see “The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky” byLenin).45
There was “an unfavorable aspect” to October, however, in that the revolution took place
in “an economically backward country” beset on all sides by powerful enemies. As a
to this day Russia is a socialist island surrounded by hostile, industriallymore developed capitalist states. If Soviet Russia had as her neighbor onebig, industrial developed Soviet state, or several Soviet states, she couldeasily establish cooperation with those states on the basis of exchange ofnew materials for machinery and equipment. But as long as that is not thecase, Soviet Russia and our Party, which guides its government, areobliged to seek forms of methods of economic cooperation with the hostilecapitalist groups in the West in order to obtain the necessary technicalequipment until the proletarian revolution triumphs in one or severalindustrial capitalist countries…Without this it will be difficult to count ondecisive success in economic construction, in the electrification of thecountry. This process will undoubtedly be slow and painful, but it isinevitable, unavoidable, and what is inevitable does not cease to beinevitable because some impatient comrade get nervous and demand quickresults and showy operations.46
Stalin’s words affirm a concept of socialist internationalism which consists of a Russian
commitment to help inspire world-wide revolution by doing “the utmost” within Russia
and a reciprocal obligation by the international proletariat to aid Russia. The notion that
Russia must wait for the revolution to triumph in the West before achieving “decisive
success” in her own effort to build socialism is specifically rejected. Though “slow and
painful,” Russia’s transformation is “inevitable,” Stalin says, and those “comrades” too
“impatient” or “nervous” to see it through to the end are irrelevant. Stalin’s disdain for
such “comrades” is perhaps best expressed by the pun he makes involving the
concluding words, “showy operations” (effektnykh operatsii), which in Russian sound
similar to “operatic effects” (opernykh effektov). Expressing political criticism by means of
musical allusions was nothing new to Stalin: he had long been given to mocking the
“singing” of political foes.47 These allusions were grounded in Stalin’s possession of a
good singing voice. His preference in vocal music seems to have been limited, though, to
traditional songs, which he often sang at home.48 For opera he had no zest; indeed, he
derived great amusement from a recording of an operatic soprano accompanied by a
chorus of barking and howling dogs.49 By joking about his “nervous” colleagues’ efforts
to achieve “operatic effects,” then, Stalin was punishing them for pursing grandiose
objectives instead of persevering in the down-to-earth work of building socialism.
After a few remarks about the need for world economic growth, Stalin returned to
the viewpoint of “the party, which has overthrown the bourgeoisie in our country and has
raised the banner of proletarian revolution,” but which, he said,
nevertheless considers it expedient to “untie” small production and smallindustry in our country, to permit the partial revival of capitalism, althoughmaking it dependent upon state authority, to attract leaseholders andshareholders, etc., etc., until the time when the party’s policy of “doing theutmost possible in one country for the development, support andawakening of the revolution in all countries” produces real results.50
This sketch of policy for the period until international revolution produces “real results”
conflicts sharply with the sketch Stalin had offered just a few lines earlier. In the first
sketch, the task was to do “the utmost possible” to build socialist Russia, undeterred by
the delay of revolution in the industrialized countries. This effort would inspire the world
proletariat. By contrast, in the second sketch, the party, though having “raised the banner
of proletarian revolution,” thinks that “the utmost possible” it can do to promote world
revolution is to revive capitalism in Russia! And it does this neither on principle nor of
necessity, but because it finds it expedient.
Stalin did not call attention to these conflicting positions; indeed, he camouflaged
his Aesopic carpentry behind a thick veneer of soporific prattle about party history. His
characterizations of the two positions, however, make his purpose clear: the first position
was a determined, militant, confident and Russian road to socialism; the second, an
opportunistic betrayal of socialist principle by those too “nervous” or “impatient” to
undertake the “slow and painful” rigors of the first road. Stalin’s association with the first
position is self-evident in his characterizations, but he underscored it in two additional
ways. First, he consistently called the militant position that of “our party,” while he
consistently labeled the expedient position that of “the party.” Second, he identified the
militant position with himself by associating it with his own interpretation of a quotation
from Lenin, while linking the expedient position with Lenin’s unamended words. This
danger no longer threatens the land,” he said, the old, “military-political” form of the
worker-peasant alliance needed to be replaced with a new, “economic” form. This might
seem a straightforward defense of the shift to the NEP, except that in the opening section
Stalin repeatedly had stressed that, though war had ended, Soviet Russia remained in
serious danger. She was “surrounded by a hostile camp of bourgeois states” which was
“constantly intensifying” its efforts “to prepare a new offensive against Russia, one more
complex and thorough than all previous offensives.” The imperialist powers were erecting
“an economic (and not only economic) cordon around Soviet Russia.” Stalin said, and
Poland and other neighboring states “are vigorously arming themselves with Entente
backing, readying themselves for war.” Counterrevolutionary forces were infiltrating
Soviet territory and foreign spies were “now pouring into Russia” in the guise of
mercantile and philanthropic associations, “the most efficient spy agencies of the world
bourgeoisie.” What they were learning would place Russia “in grave danger,” he feared,
concluding that Russia faced “a combination of economic and military struggle, a
coordinated assault from without and within.” Stalin’s claim that the new openness
toward Western traders increased the espionage threat is a barb clearly aimed at the NEP
and evidently intended to appeal to anxious chekists and soldiers. More important, by
contradicting his later statement that “great danger no longer threatens the land, “ Stalin’s
discussion of the international situation undermined the rationale he presented for the
NEP; this contradiction suggests that, though Stalin felt obliged to mouth Lenin’s line on
the NEP, he did not agree with it.
After offering this dubious explanation of why it had been necessary to change
policy, Stalin briefly assessed the results of abolishing “requisitioning and other similar
obstacles.” These actions, he said,
freed the hands of the small producer and gave an impetus to theproduction of more food, raw materials and other products. It is not hardto understand the colossal significance of this step if one considers thatRussia is now experiencing just such a mass eruption in the developmentof productive forces as North America experienced after the Civil War.
he supported Lenin’s plea for a second chance to present his case. Throughout, it seems
likely that, not agreeing with either a strict monopoly or with abolition of the monopoly, he
floated between the two camps, leaning toward which ever position seemed less harmful
at the moment. In any event, his willingness to accord Lenin a fair hearing testifies to an
evenhandedness which suggests both that he regarded the issue as relatively minor and
that he must have been wholly confident that his ultimate power over Lenin was secure.
1 See the chronologies in Vladimir Il'ich Lenin: Biograficheskaia khronika (hereafterVILBK), 12 vols. (Moscow, 1970-1982), 11:11; and PSS, 44:663-73.
2 Leon Trotsky, “Did Stalin Poison Lenin?” Liberty 17, no. 32 (August 10, 1940):24; alsoLeon Trotsky, Trotsky’s Diary in Exile, 1935 (New York, 1958), 64. Trotsky also commentson Stalin’s “strong will and persistence in carrying out his aims,” in My Life, 506.
3 E. Lyons, Stalin: Czar of All the Russias (New York, 1940), 37; on Georgian vindictivenesssee Lang, Modern History of Georgia, 18.
4 Boris Bajanov, Avec Staline dans le Kremlin (Paris, 1930), 28.
5 SW, 5:136-39.
6 LCW, 5:355.
7 SW, 5:138.
8 1938 Trial, especially 26, 103-4, 450-51, 510-11. Mention of Kazakov’s lysates is made inSolzhenitsyn, Gulag Archipelago, 1:5.
9 For analyzing the bits of information I could provide about possible toxins and Lenin’ssymptoms to determine whether this information might either confirm or contradict theconclusions I have drawn from the literary evidence, I am especially thankful to Carolyn H.Lingeman, M. D., who also provided me with the reference to Solzhenitsyn in thepreceding note.
10 Yves Delbars, The Real Stalin (London, 1953), 129-30.
11 Boris Souvarine, “Les faux dans la guerre politique,” Le Contrat Social 12 (1968):267-71.
12 See Bazhanov’s Avec Staline dans le Kremlin and his Bajanov révèle Staline; also theinterview with him in G.R. Urban, ed., Stalinism. Its Impact on Russia and the World(Cambridge, 1986), 6-30.
13 1938 Trial, 22-28, 34-35, and (for the bulk of Yagoda’s testimony) 568-79.
15 Trotsky, “Poison,” 24-25; Trotsky, Stalin, 378-80. Trotsky’s claim that Yagoda was a“former pharmacist” finds confirmation in the recollections of American correspondentWilliam Reswick, who knew Yagoda and reports that Yagoda administered medication toDzerzhinsky during the civil war. See Reswick, 92-93, and Simon Wolin and Robert M.Slusser, eds., The Soviet Secret Police (Westport, Connecticut, 1974), 41.
16 On Yagoda’s ties with the “Right Opposition,” see Wolin and Slusser, 43-46; GeorgeKatkov, The Trial of Bukharin (New York, 1969), 228; and Medvedev, Judge, 195.
17 Trotsky, Stalin, 367; Trotsky, My Life, 507; and Isaac Deutscher, The Prophet Unarmed.Trotsky: 1921-1929 (New York, 1965), 118, 131-32.
18 Suspicion must also attach to Dr. O. R. Förster; see chapter 8, below.
27 1938 Trial, 773. Interestingly, Bukharin named V. V. Kuibyshev, Emilian Yaroslavsky,and V. R. Menzhinsky as among those “Left Communists” who would have made betterco-conspirators. Menzhinsky served as head of the secret police under Stalin from 1926to 1934; Yaroslavsky was a Stalin supporter from the 1920s and a key figure in the writingof Stalinist history; and Kuibyshev was an important supporter of Stalin from the early1920s for which he was named to the Politburo, and who played leading roles inelectrification and economic planning until his death in 1935. Bukharin’s naming of theseindividuals may have been intended to point a finger at Stalin.
28 Stalin used the pseudonym Ivanovich at the Tammerfors Conference in 1905. That hewas playing games with names in the 1938 show trial is indicated by the use of “Ulyanov”to describe a Russian traitor in Polish service (see chapter 18, above); for anotherexample, involving the names of co-defendants I. A. Zelensky and V. I. Ivanov, see 1938Trial, 7-8, 110-14, 144-45, and 314-24.
29 Though there were two other defendants whose patronymic was Ivanovich, neithercould have been acceptable to Stalin as a stand-in for himself in this context. The first wasBukharin; the second was Rykov, whom Stalin associated with Lenin and had used as asurrogate for Lenin in the March 1921 letter.
30 Stephen F. Cohen, Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution. A Political Biography 1888-1938 (New York, 1975), 83-87.
35 Trotsky also ruled out Bukharin on the grounds that Bukharin “worshipped” and“venerated Lenin” (“Poison,” 25). On Bukharin’s affection for Lenin see also Cohen,Bukharin, 40-41, 151-53, and Boris I. Nicolaevsky, Power and the Soviet Elite (New York,1965), 11-12.
36 “I refute the accusation of having plotted against the life of Vladimir Ilyich,” saidBukharin in his final plea (1938 Trial, 778).
37 1938 Trial, 446-47.
38 1938 Trial, 448-49.
39 We know this because of two inquiries Lenin made about Stalin’s health (SW, 5:437-38).Mentioning these two inquiries in his Works was probably Stalin’s private joke, based onthe fact that it was his own health about which Lenin should have been worrying.
40 SW, 5:63-89.
41 SW, 5:89; for the texts of the latter two works, see SW, 5:163-83 AND 6:71-196,respectively. Medvedev, Judge, 509-10, has produced evidence showing that a significantrole in preparing Foundations was played by F. A. Ksenofontov; see also Tucker, Stalin,324-29.
42 SW, 5:69-71. All emphases are Stalin’s.
43 SW, 5:103-14.
44 PSS, 44:663-73; VILBK, 11:11.
45 SW, 5:108 (Stalin’s emphases).
46 SW, 5:111.
47 Some of the more interesting of the many allusions to singing in Stalin’s writings can befound in SW, 1:30, 40; 2:124-27, 286; 7:123; 9:201; and 12:56.
48 Svetlana Alliluyeva, Twenty Letters to a Friend (New York, 1967), 31. See also Ludwig,Nine, 349, and Aino Kuusinen, Before and After Stalin (London, 1974), 30.
49 Milovan Djilas, Conversations with Stalin (New York, 1962), 161. Stalin’s attitude towardopera and his demeaning treatment of opera singers is discussed by Galina Vishnevskaya,Galina (New York, 1984), 94-96, 208.
50 SW, 5:112.
51 SW, 5:109. The text in SW tends to mask Stalin’s point by spelling out “RussianCommunist Party” instead of using the acronym “RCP” as given in SS, 5:107.
58 Wolin and Slusser, 375-76; Neils Erik Rosenfeldt, Knowledge and Power. The Role ofStalin’s Secret Chancellery in the Soviet System of Government (Copenhagen, 1978), 166-67.
59 SW. 5:119-29.
60 Moshe Lewin, Lenin’s Last Struggle (New York, 1968), 35-37.
61 LCW, 45:496-99, also 500.
62 LCW, 45:549-50, 739-40.
63 LCW, 33:375-79, 528-29; Lewin, 151-52. Years later Stalin admitted that at one time hehad mistakenly advocated “that one of our ports should be temporarily opened for theexport of grain,” but that he “did not persist in my error and, after discussing it with Lenin,at once corrected it.” (SW, 9:78.)