How Could This Happen?

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How was it possible for this to happen? That question may be answered in two different ways: either by describing the internal mechanism of the struggle between the ruling groups or by revealing the more profound underlying social forces. Each of these approaches has its rightful place. And they are not mutually exclusive; rather, they complement one another. It is natural for the reader to wish to know first of all how such a radical change in the leadership came about concretely, by what means Stalin managed to become master of the apparatus and direct it against others. Compared to the essential question of the realignment of class forces and the progression of the various stages of the revolution, the question of personal groupings and combinations is only of secondary significance. But within its limits it is completely legitimate. And it must be answered.

What is Stalin? For a concise characterization one would have to say: he is the most outstanding mediocrity in our party. He is gifted with practical sense, a strong will, and perseverance in the pursuit of his aims. His political field of vision is extremely narrow. And his theoretical level is equally primitive. His work of compilation, Foundations of Leninism, in which he made an attempt to give the theoretical traditions of the party their due, is full of sophomoric errors. His ignorance of foreign languages — he does not know a single one — compels him to follow the political life of other countries secondhand. His mind is stubbornly empirical and devoid of creative imagination. To the leading group of the party (in broader circles he was not known at all) he always seemed destined to play secondary or even more subsidiary roles. And the fact that today he is playing the leading role is not so much a reflection of his own personality as a characterization of the present transitional period of unstable equilibrium. As Helvetius once said: “Every period has its great men, and if these are lacking, it invents them.”

Like all empiricists Stalin is full of contradictions. He acts on impulse, without perspective. His political line is a series of zigzags. For each zig or zag he creates some ad hoc theoretical banality, or assigns others to do so. He has an extraordinarily unceremonious attitude toward facts and people. He never finds it awkward to call something white today which yesterday he called black. One could without difficulty compile an astounding catalogue of Stalin’s contradictory statements. I will cite only one example, which will fit more easily in the framework of a newspaper article than others. I apologize in advance that the example concerns me personally. In recent years Stalin has concentrated his efforts on what is called the deglorification of Trotsky. A new history of the October Revolution was hastily worked up, along with a new history of the Red Army and a new history of the party. Stalin gave the signal for the revising of values by declaring on November 19, 1924: “Trotsky did not and could not have played any special role in the party or in the October insurrection.” He began to repeat this assertion on every possible occasion.

Stalin was reminded of an article he himself had written on the first anniversary of the revolution. The article said literally: “All the work of practical organization of the insurrection was conducted under the immediate leadership of the chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, Trotsky. One may say with assurance that the swift passing of the garrison to the side of the Soviet and the capable organization of the work of the Military Revolutionary Committee, the party owes principally and primarily to Trotsky.”

How did Stalin get out of this embarrassing contradiction? Very simply: by intensifying the stream of invective aimed at the “Trotskyists.” There are hundreds of such examples. His comments on Zinoviev and Kamenev are notable for their equally glaring contradictions. And one may rest assured that in the near future Stalin will begin, in most venomous fashion, to express the very same opinions about Rykov, Bukharin, and Tomsky that until now he denounced as vicious calumny by the Opposition.

How does he dare indulge in such flagrant contradictions? The key to it is that he makes his speeches or writes his articles only after his opponent has been deprived of the chance to reply. Stalin’s polemics are only the belated echo of his organizational technique. What Stalinism is, above all, is the automatic working of the apparatus.

Lenin, in his so-called testament commented on two characteristics of Stalin: rudeness and disloyalty. But only after Lenin’s death did these develop to their fullest extent. Stalin is preoccupied with creating as poisonous an atmosphere as possible in the internal party struggle and intends by that means to confront the party with the accomplished fact of a split.

“This cook will prepare only peppery dishes,” Lenin warned the party as early as 1922. The GPU decree accusing the Opposition of preparing for armed struggle is not Stalin’s only dish of this kind. In July 1927, that is, at a time when the Opposition was still in the party and its representatives were still on the Central Committee, Stalin suddenly raised the question: “Is the Opposition really opposed to the victory of the USSR in the coming battles with imperialism?"

Needless to say, there was not the slightest foundation for such an insinuation. But the cook had already begun to prepare the dish he called Article 58. Since the question of the Opposition’s attitude toward the defense of the USSR has international importance, I consider it necessary, in the interests of the Soviet republic, to quote excerpts from the speech in which I replied to Stalin’s question:

“Let us leave aside for the moment the brazen impudence of the question,” I said in my speech at the joint plenum of the Central Committee and Central Control Commission in August 1927. “And let us not dwell at this time on Lenin’s carefully weighed characterization of Stalin’s methods — ‘rudeness and disloyalty.’ We will take the question as it has been posed and give an answer to it. Only White Guards could be ‘opposed to the victory of the USSR in the coming battles with imperialism.’ … What Stalin really has in mind is a different question, namely, ‘Does the Opposition really think that the leadership of Stalin is incapable of assuring victory to the USSR?’ … Yes, the Opposition thinks that the leadership of Stalin makes the victory more difficult … . All Oppositionists … will, in the event of war, take up whatever post, at the front or behind the lines, the party assigns them to … . But none of them will renounce their right and duty to fight for the correction of the party’s course . … To sum up: for the socialist fatherland? Yes! For the Stalinist course? No!”

Even today, in spite of the changed circumstances, these words retain their full force and are equally binding now as then.

Together with the question of the Opposition’s alleged preparations for armed struggle and our allegedly negative attitude toward the defense of the Soviet state, I am obliged to call attention to a third dish on Stalin’s menu of specialties — the charge of terrorist acts. As I discovered on arriving in Constantinople, certain obscure reports have already appeared in the world press concerning alleged terrorist plots said to involve certain groups of the “Trotskyist” Opposition. The source of these rumors is obvious to me. In letters from Alma-Ata I frequently warned my friends that Stalin, having taken the road that he had, would find it an increasingly urgent necessity to discover “terrorist plotting” among the “Trotskyists.”

To attribute plans for an armed uprising to the Opposition, which is led by a general staff of fully experienced and responsible revolutionists, was an unpromising task. A much easier job would be to attribute terrorist aims to some anonymous group of “Trotskyists.” That evidently is the direction Stalin’s efforts are taking today. By crying out an advance warning for all to hear, one may not render Stalin’s plans altogether impossible of fulfillment, but at least one may make his task more difficult. That is why I am doing it.

Stalin’s methods of struggle are such that as early as 1926 I felt obliged to say to him, during a meeting of the Politburo that he was making himself a candidate for the role of gravedigger of the revolution and of the party. I repeat that warning today with redoubled emphasis. However, even today, we are as profoundly convinced as we were in 1926 that the party will get the better of Stalin and not Stalin of the party.