Stalin’s Victory

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Stalin was elected general secretary while Lenin was still alive, in 1922. At that time the post had more of a technical than political character. Nevertheless, even then, Lenin was opposed to Stalin’s candidacy. It was precisely in this regard that he spoke of a cook with a preference for peppery dishes. But Lenin yielded on this point to other members of the Politburo, though with little enthusiasm: “We’ll try it and see."

Lenin’s illness entirely changed the situation. Until then Lenin had stood at the central lever of power, heading up the Politburo. The secondary level of work, that of implementing central decisions, was entrusted to Stalin as general secretary. All of the other members of the Politburo were occupied with their own special functions.

Lenin’s removal from the scene automatically placed the central lever in Stalin’s hands. This was regarded as a provisional arrangement. No one proposed any changes because everyone hoped for Lenin’s rapid recovery.

During that time Stalin was feverishly active in selecting his friends for advancement within the apparatus. Recovering from his first stroke and temporarily returning to work in 1922-23, Lenin was horrified at how far the bureaucratization of the apparatus had gone and at how omnipotent it seemed in relation to the masses of the party.

Insisting that I should become his deputy in the Council of People’s Commissars, Lenin held discussions with me about waging a joint struggle against Stalin’s bureaucratism. The task was to carry this struggle through with the least possible number of convulsions and shocks to the party.

But Lenin’s health again grew worse. In his so-called testament, written January 4, 1923, Lenin insistently counseled that the party remove Stalin from the central work because of his disloyalty and tendency to abuse his power. But again Lenin had to take to his bed. The provisional arrangement with Stalin at the helm was renewed. At the same time hopes for Lenin’s recovery were fast fading. The prospect that he would have to withdraw from the work altogether brought the question of the party’s leadership to the fore.

At that time no differences of a principled nature had yet taken shape. The grouping that opposed me had a purely personal character. The watchword of Zinoviev, Stalin, and Company was, “Don’t let Trotsky take over the leadership of the party.” In the course of the later struggle by Zinoviev and Kamenev against Stalin, the secrets of this earlier period were revealed by the participants in the conspiracy themselves. For a conspiracy it was.

A secret Politburo (the Septemvirate) was created consisting of all the members of the official Politburo other than myself, and, in addition, Kuibyshev, the present chairman of the Supreme Council of National Economy. All questions were decided in advance in this secret center, whose members were bound by mutual vows. They undertook not to engage in polemics against one another and at the same time to seek opportunities to attack me. There were similar secret centers in the local organizations, and they were bound to the Moscow Septemvirate by strict discipline. For communications, special codes were used. This was a well-organized illegal group within the party, directed originally against one person. People were selected for responsible positions in the party and state according to a single criterion: opposition to Trotsky.

During the prolonged “interregnum" created by Lenin’s illness, this work was carried on untiringly but still cautiously and in disguised fashion, so that in the event of Lenin’s recovery the mined bridges could be kept intact. The conspirators acted by hints. Candidates for posts were required to guess what was wanted of them. Those who “guessed" went up the ladder. Thus a special type of careerism came into being which later on acquired the public designation, “anti-Trotskyism." Lenin’s death untied the conspirators’ hands and allowed them to come into the open.

Party members who raised their voices in protest against this conspiracy became the victims of treacherous attacks based on the most farfetched pretexts, often purely fabricated ones. On the other hand, morally unstable elements of the type which during the first five years of Soviet power would have been ruthlessly driven out of the party now bought insurance for themselves by nothing more than hostile remarks against Trotsky. Beginning in late 1923 the same work was carried out in all the parties of the Comintern: some leaders were dethroned and others appointed in their places exclusively on the basis of their attitude toward Trotsky. A strenuous, artificial process of selection was accomplished, selection not of the best but of the most adaptable. The general policy was to replace independent and gifted people with mediocrities who owed their positions entirely to the apparatus. And the highest expression of that mediocrity of the apparatus came to be Stalin himself.

By late 1923 three-quarters of the apparatus had already been picked over and lined up, ready to carry the fight into the ranks of the party. Every type of weapon was ready and in place, waiting for the signal to attack. Then the signal was given. The first two open “discussion” campaigns against me, in autumn 1923 and autumn 1924, coincided — in both instances — with my being taken ill, which prevented me from addressing any party meetings.

With furious pressure exerted by the Central Committee, the working over of the rank and file began from all directions at once. My old differences with Lenin, which preceded not only the revolution but the world war too and which had long since been dissolved in our joint work, were suddenly dragged up into the light of day, distorted, exaggerated, and presented to the ranks of the uninitiated in the party as matters of most pressing urgency. The ranks were stunned, thrown off balance, intimidated. Simultaneously the method of selecting personnel moved down a step. Now it became impossible to hold a post as factory manager, secretary of a shop committee, chairman of a county executive committee, bookkeeper, or recording secretary without recommending oneself by one’s anti-Trotskyism.

I avoided entering into this fight as long as possible, since its nature was that of an unprincipled conspiracy directed against me personally, at least in the first stages. It was clear to me that such a fight, once it broke out, would inevitably take on extremely sharp features and might under the conditions of the revolutionary dictatorship lead to dangerous consequences. This is not the place to discuss whether it was correct to try to maintain some common ground for collective work at the price of very great personal concessions or whether I should have taken the offensive all along the line, despite the absence of sufficient political grounds for such action. The fact is that I chose the first way and, in spite of everything, I do not regret it. There are victories that lead into blind alleys, and there are defeats that open up new avenues.

Even after profound political differences had come to light, pushing personal intrigues way into the background, I tried to keep the dispute within the bounds of a discussion of principles and tried to counteract or prevent any forcing of the issue, to allow for the possibility that the conflicting opinions and prognoses might be tested against facts and experiences.

By contrast, Zinoviev, Kamenev, and Stalin, who at first cautiously concealed himself behind the other two, pressed the issue with all their might. They had no desire whatsoever for the party to take time and think over the differences and test them in the light of experience. When Zinoviev and Kamenev broke with Stalin, the latter automatically directed against them the same anti-“Trotskyist” slander campaign, with its overpowering force of inertia, that the three of them together had developed over a period of three years.

The foregoing is not a historical explanation of Stalin’s victory, but simply a rough outline of how that victory was won. Least of all is it a complaint against intrigue. A political line that finds the cause of its defeat in the intrigues of its adversary is a blind and pathetic one. Intrigue is a particular kind of technical implementation of a task; it can only play a subordinate role. Great historical questions are resolved by the action of great social forces, not petty maneuvers.

Stalin’s victory, in all its shakiness and uncertainty, expresses significant shifts that have occurred in class relations in the revolutionary society. It is the triumph or semi-triumph of certain layers or groupings over others. It is the reflection of changes in the international situation that have taken place in the last few years. But these issues constitute a theme of such scope as will require separate treatment.

At this point only one thing should be stated. Despite all the mistakes and confusion of the world press, hostile to Bolshevism, in evaluating the various stages and events in the internal struggle in the USSR, it has on the whole managed to break through the outer husks to extract the social kernel of that struggle — namely, that Stalin’s victory is the victory of the more moderate, more conservative, bureaucratic, property-minded, and nationally limited tendencies over the tendencies supporting the international proletarian revolution and the traditions of the Bolshevik Party. To that extent I have no reason to protest against the praise of Stalin’s realism so commonly encountered in the bourgeois press. How solid and lasting his victory will be and what direction future developments will take — that is something else again.