Stalin and the Soviet Union

Stephen J. Lee

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2005
• ISBN:
  9781134665730
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

Stalin and the Soviet Union offers new interpretations of recently uncovered archives examining the Soviet leader's domestic and foreign policy. It covers core topics such as:

* Stalin's rise to power
* the economy
* society
* culture
* the Cold War
* the Second World War
* terror.

For all students of Russia, Stalin and European history, this will prove essential reading, and a clear background and guide to exam success.

1
STALIN’S RISE AND RULE

BACKGROUND NARRATIVE

At the time of Lenin’s death in 1924, Stalin was forty-five. He had become a member of the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party in 1912 and arrived in Petrograd in February 1917 after a period of enforced exile in Siberia. He played only a minor role in the October Revolution and a relatively inconspicuous part in the Civil War. He did, however, spend the period between 1917 and 1924 building up his position within government and the Party. By the time of Lenin’s death he had accumulated the posts of People’s Commissar for Nationalities in 1917, liaison official between the Politburo and the Orgburo in 1919 and General Secretary of the Party in 1922. These roles gave him a greater overview than was possessed by anyone else: the implications are examined in Analysis (1).

This did not mean that Stalin would automatically become Lenin’s successor. Indeed, his ambitions incurred Lenin’s distrust to the extent that, in his Political Testament, Lenin warned against Stalin and, in a codicil added in January 1923, recommended his removal from the post of General Secretary. However, Lenin died before any further action could be taken and Stalin was soon able to put himself forward as one of the contenders for the succession.

At first Stalin was seen by other Bolsheviks as less of a threat than Trotsky who, it was thought, might use his influence with the army to introduce a military dictatorship. Hence Kamenev and Zinoviev joined with Stalin in a power-sharing triumvirate. This was committed to pursuing a policy of ‘Socialism in One Country’, based at this stage on giving priority to the cautious pursuit of economic recovery within Russia through the continuation of the New Economic Policy (NEP), which had been started by Lenin in 1921. Ranged against this approach was the more radical Permanent Revolution favoured by Trotsky. This incorporated proposals for revolution abroad and radicalism at home—including rapid industrialisation and the introduction of collective farming. These views failed to gain widespread acceptance and Trotsky was increasingly marginalised during the course of 1925.

Then, between 1925 and 1927, Stalin became involved in a conflict with Kamenev and Zinoviev, who now considered Trotsky a lesser threat and therefore lined up with him to form the ‘Left Opposition’. Stalin promptly aligned with the Party’s ‘Rightists’, especially Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky. This alliance secured the expulsion of Trotsky, Kamenev and Zinoviev from the Party. During the course of 1929, the Rightists were, in turn, attacked, as Stalin removed Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky. By the end of 1929 Stalin’s position as leader was secure. Bukharin warned that ‘Stalin will strangle us. He is an unprincipled intriguer who subordinates everything to his lust for power.’

Meanwhile, Stalin had also changed the emphasis of his policy. Socialism in One Country came to mean the abandonment of the moderate NEP and the pursuit of a more radical programme of collectivisation and rapid industrialisation. In effect Stalin was now implementing ideas similar to those of Trotsky—although without the connection with Permanent Revolution.

Analysis (1) explains the reasons for the rapid shifts and changes that helped place Stalin in power, while Analysis (2) considers what type of rule Stalin actually established.

ANALYSIS (1): WHY DID STALIN SUCCEED LENIN?

Stalin’s rise to power between 1924, when he appeared to have been ruled out of the succession by Lenin’s codicil, and 1929, when he had eliminated all credible alternatives, has inevitably attracted a wide range of explanations. These need not necessarily be exclusive of each other: indeed, a combination is more likely to reflect the complexity of the background and issues involved.

A general starting point is the cyclical pattern that has frequently been applied to revolutions. Between 1793 and 1794, for example, the French Revolution had experienced a radical phase, often known as the Reign of Terror. This had been sharply reversed by the coup d’état of Thermidor, in which the policies and leadership swung to the right, eventually to be taken over by the military under Napoleon Bonaparte. By 1802 the French Republic had been converted into the personalised rule of Napoleon.

The Bolsheviks drew lessons from this pattern that helped shape future events. One of the main advantages that Stalin had was that he was seen as a much safer alternative to Trotsky. The latter was associated by many with a possible Bonapartist threat, largely because of the way in which he had built up the Red Army during the Civil War between 1918 and 1921. Because of this deterministic belief that revolutionary patterns might repeat themselves, Trotsky was feared and isolated which, ironically, enabled Stalin to emerge. In exile during the 1930s, Trotsky redefined the lessons of history by associating Stalin with the Thermidorian reaction and with the slide towards Bonapartism —by which time the damage had already been done. The lessons of history differ according to the power of those who interpret them. The Bolsheviks, by trying to avoid repeating one mistake, merely committed another.

What made Stalin appear historically ‘safe’ to the Bolsheviks was the general perception of him at the time. He was considered pedestrian: Trotsky referred to him as ‘the Party’s most eminent mediocrity’. He certainly lacked Trotsky’s intellectual ability, had no contacts with European culture and spoke no European language apart from Russian. These points, however, worked to Stalin’s advantage. He was considered to be safer than Trotsky, who was clearly influenced by contacts with Western Europe. For this reason, Stalin’s obvious Slavic influences were advantageous, particularly since the failure of Trotsky’s plans for revolution elsewhere in Europe boosted the credibility of Stalin’s emphasis on isolationism. Trotsky was condemned in a Party Central Committee Resolution in January 1925 for ‘a falsification of communism in the spirit of approximation to “European” patterns of pseudo-Marxism’. (1) Trotsky was also considered to be intolerably arrogant by his colleagues, a perception that blinkered all the other leaders to the even greater dangers of his underestimated rival.

For beneath Stalin’s bland and grey exterior was a singularly ruthless and opportunist character. While posing as a moderate, he waited for the opportunity to attack other candidates for the leadership —first Zinoviev and Kamenev, then Bukharin. Historians have remained in agreement about Stalin’s attributes here. Martin McCauley’s view is typical: ‘He was a very skilful politician who had a superb grasp of tactics, could predict behaviour extremely well and had an unerring eye for personal weaknesses.’ (2) In particular, he was able to capitalise on Bukharin’s inability to convert his plausible economic theory into a credible programme, on Kamenev’s lack of vision and on Zinoviev’s organisational weakness. Stalin, by contrast, showed consistent skills in grouping around him an alternative set of allies—men like Kalinin, Kuibyshev, Molotov and Voroshilov.

Particularly important in Stalin’s rise was his manipulation of the central organs of the Communist Party. The process was mutually reinforcing. As General Secretary in 1922, Stalin controlled the Party organisation and the promotion of its leading members. They, in turn, came to support him against his potential rivals. The Communist Party was officially a democratic institution, in which the local parties elected the central Party Congress which, in turn, produced the membership of the Central Committee. The Central Committee then elected the Politburo, the key decision-making body. The membership of the local parties was determined by the Secretariat, which was, from 1922, under Stalin’s control. Over a period of time, therefore, Stalin’s supporters gradually moved into the upper levels of the Party. They were given the added incentive of filling the vacancies of those removed above them—who were usually Stalin’s main rivals.

This Party base enabled Stalin to outmanoeuvre his rivals at all stages. It also meant that he was consistently more secure than Trotsky. At first sight this seems odd. Trotsky had, after all, had a powerful military base. As Commissar for War, he had developed and expanded the Red Army in defeating the threats from the Whites. He was also renowned for his powers of oratory, for his administrative abilities and for his skill in mobilising the limited resources of Bolshevik Russia at the time of its greatest peril. For these reasons Trotsky has been referred to as ‘the dynamo of the militarised Bolshevik state’. (3) But this apparent strength was also a major source of weakness. Trotsky was essentially a man of the state, which had, of course, become subject to the Party—over which Stalin had consolidated his position. Hence Stalin controlled the methods by which Trotsky could be outmanoeuvred. Trotsky, admittedly, had control over the means by which Stalin could be overthrown but, for ideological reasons, this was too strong a measure to use. Yet, because he had this potential power, other Bolshevik leaders were persuaded that Trotsky posed a Bonapartist threat and therefore supported Stalin.

But even this would have had limited effect if he had not been assisted by objective circumstances, the most important of which was the threat of the impending collapse of Bolshevism into chaos, to which two main factors contributed. The first of these was the failure of revolution abroad. Trotsky’s reputation had been closely tied to the spread of communism in Europe. But the opportunities for this had all disappeared by 1919. The Spartacists failed to seize power in Germany, while the Bela Kun regime was overthrown in Hungary in under a hundred days. The benefit to Stalin was enormous. According to Colletti, ‘The first rung of the ladder which was to carry Stalin to power was supplied by the Social-Democratic leaders who in January 1919 murdered Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht… The remaining rungs were supplied by the reactionary wave which subsequently swept Europe.’ (4) Against this Stalin could project a solid, traditionally Slavic appeal that was more in keeping with his emphasis on Socialism in One Country.

The second factor favouring Stalin was the insecurity of Bolshevik economic policies. The two strategies proposed for the 1920s appeared to be alarmingly antagonistic. On the one hand was the planned retreat of the NEP—what Lenin described as ‘one step forward, two steps backward’. Bukharin interpreted this as meaning that the economy should now progress at the pace of ‘the peasant’s slowest nag’. On the other hand, Trotsky and the Leftists argued for increasing the pace of industrialisation to implement socialism. Russia was therefore caught up in a conflict involving a new peasantry, which benefited from a revived capitalism allowed by the NEP, and the urban workers who had more to gain from accelerated socialism. Stalin was actually one of the few leading Bolsheviks who were able to make the necessary adjustments between these extremes, being adaptable to the conditions of the time. The early 1920s favoured the NEP and the Rightists, whereas the procurement crisis of 1927 demonstrated that the NEP was no longer working and hence needed a radical rethink. His struggle against Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky was therefore seen by many at the time as a balanced reaction to a policy that had failed by all objective criteria. This may or may not have been true, but the important factor is that the majority of the Party thought this way. They also considered that they had good grounds for supporting the leader to whom many owed their places. Stalin therefore confirmed support for his position by reading correctly the signs of the economic times. A recent view is that ‘Machine politics alone did not account for Stalin’s triumph’; rather ‘the salient political fact’ of 1928–9 was ‘a growing climate of high party opinion’. (5) Stalin’s ability to bend like a reed therefore owed much to the prevailing wind of circumstances.

One final issue needs careful analysis. The rise of Stalin can be seen too much as the calculation of a supremely rational Party machine taking advantage of an efficient dictatorship already established by Lenin. What we have already seen might point in this direction. Or the reverse could apply. The revolution had experienced an emergency in the form of the Civil War, which had created widespread chaos. Policies and organisations were thrown into the melting pot. Stalin was an average politician by normal criteria but his rather basic skills were enhanced by these circumstances. He succeeded not in producing order overall but in controlling particular pressure points. Trotsky was right about Stalin’s ability but wrong about the situation that allowed the latter to prevail. The situation in Russia favoured the pragmatist, who had built up his base within the Party. This had been made possible by the use of certain skills that had been misinterpreted—part of a more general political enslavement to the ‘lessons’ of history.

Questions

1. Was Trotsky’s description of Stalin as ‘the Party’s most eminent mediocrity’ a true one?
2. Why, against Lenin’s express wishes, did Stalin assume the succession?

ANALYSIS (2): WHAT SORT OF DICTATOR WAS STALIN BETWEEN 1929 AND 1941?

Interpretations of Stalin are beginning to change. This is for two main reasons. The first is that historians have already done much to revise earlier views about Hitler and Nazi Germany. It was always likely that Stalin would be next in line for their attention. Second, the collapse of ...

Table of contents

• COVER PAGE
• TITLE PAGE
• COPYRIGHT PAGE
• SERIES PREFACE
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• 1. STALIN’S RISE AND RULE
• 2. STALINIST POLITICS AND TERROR
• 3. STALIN’S ECONOMIC POLICIES
• 4. SOCIETY AND CULTURE
• 5. STALIN’S FOREIGN POLICY, 1929–41
• 6. THE SOVIET UNION AT WAR, 1941–5
• 7. STALIN’S POST-WAR REGIME, 1945–53
• 8. AN OVERALL SUMMARY
• NOTES
• BIBLIOGRAPHY