Stalin After the Finnish Experience

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While Stalin's faction was still preparing the exclusion of the "Trotskyists" from the party, Stalin, insinuating in his usual manner, asked: "Is the Opposition perhaps against the victory of the Soviet Union in the future struggle with imperialism?" At the session of the Central Committee in August 1927, I replied to this, according to the confidential stenographic report. "Fundamentally Stalin has in mind another question which he doesn't dare express, namely: Does the Opposition perhaps think that Stalin's leadership is not able to guarantee the victory of the USSR? Yes, they do!" "And what about the party?" Molotov, whom Stalin in his intimate conversations called "Blockhead," interrupted me from his chair. "You strangled the party," followed my reply. I finished my speech with the words: "For the socialist fatherland? Yes. For Stalin's course? No! ”

And now, thirteen years after, I stand completely for the defense of the Soviet Union. From the British ruling class I am not only geographically but also politically many thousand miles further than, e. g., Bernard Shaw, the untiring paladin of the Kremlin. The French government arrests my co-thinkers, but all this does not lead me to defend the foreign policy of the Kremlin. On the contrary, I consider the main source of danger to the USSR in the present international situation to be Stalin and the oligarchy headed by him. An open struggle against them, in the view of world public opinion, is inseparably connected for me with the defense of the USSR.

Stalin appears to be a man of great stature as he stands on the top of his gigantic bureaucratic pyramid and casts his long shadow. But he is really a man of medium stature possessing mediocre capacities and with a preponderance of slyness over intelligence. He is gifted with insatiable ambition, extraordinary tenacity, and envious vindictiveness. He never looked far ahead—never —and in no way displayed any great initiative. He waited and maneuvered. Power was granted him by a combination of historical circumstances'—he only plucked the ripened fruit.

Fear of the masses, mercilessness against a weak adversary, readiness to bow before a strong enemy — the new bureaucracy found all its own characteristics in Stalin in their most finished expression, and it declared him its emperor. Already in the period around Lenin's death in 1924, bureaucracy was virtually omnipotent, though it had not become conscious of this, as the "general secretary" — Stalin in those days — was already a dictator, but he still didn't completely realize it.

The country least of all knew about this unique case in world history. Stalin succeeded in concentrating dictatorial power in his hands before one percent of the population knew his name.

Stalin is not a personality, but the personification of bureaucracy. In his struggle against the Opposition, which was reflecting the dissatisfaction of the masses, Stalin realized step by step his mission as defender of the power and privileges of the new ruling caste. At once he felt more resolute and confident. In terms of his subjective tendencies, Stalin is now indubitably the most conservative politician of Europe. He wishes that history, having once guaranteed the rule of the Moscow oligarchy, would stop its flow in order not to damage his own work.

His loyalty to the bureaucracy— that is, to himself—was expressed by Stalin with epic brutality during the famous purges. Their meaning was not understood at the proper time.

The Old Bolsheviks attempted to defend party tradition. The Soviet diplomats in their turn attempted to settle accounts with international public opinion. The Red Generals defended the interests of the army. All three groups fell into contradiction with the totalitarian interests of the Kremlin clique and were liquidated.

Let us imagine for a minute that an enemy's air fleet succeeds in breaking through all obstacles and destroys with bombs the buildings of the Foreign Affairs and War Departments just at the moment when there is a session of diplomatic elite and of the general staff. What a catastrophe! What a commotion would such an internal blow bring into the life of the country! Stalin successfully completed this task without the help of foreign bombers. He collected Soviet diplomats from the four corners of the earth, Soviet army chiefs from the four corners of the USSR, locked them in the cellars of the GPU, and placed a bullet in each of their necks. All this on the eve of a new great war!

Litvinov was saved, but politically did not long survive his former collaborators. Besides political motives in Litvinov's liquidation, bowing before Hitler, there was indubitably a personal motive. Litvinov was not an independent political figure. But he annoyed Stalin too much by the mere fact that he spoke four languages, knew the life of European capitals, and irritated ignorant bureaucrats with references to sources inaccessible to them. They all seized upon the happy opportunity to rid themselves of too "enlightened” a minister. Stalin breathed with relief, finally feeling himself a head above all his collaborators. But immediately new difficulties began.

The trouble is that Stalin lacks independence on questions of great magnitude. With immense reserves of willpower he lacks the capacity of generalization, of creative imagination, and finally of factual knowledge. Ideologically he always subsisted on others. For many years it was Lenin with whom he invariably came into conflict whenever he was isolated from him. After Lenin's illness, Stalin borrowed his ideas from his temporary allies—Zinoviev and Kamenev — whom he afterwards sent to the bullets of the GPU. Then, in the course of several years, he made use of Bukharin for his practical combinations. Having finished with Bukharin, he found that there was no more necessity for generalized ideas.

At that time the bureaucracy of the USSR and the apparatus of the Comintern were conducted into a state of most humiliating and shameful submission. Then the period of comparative stability in international relations came to an end. Terrible convulsions began.

This short-sighted empiricist, a provincial to the marrow, knowing not one foreign tongue, reading no newspapers except those which presented to him his own picture every day — this man Stalin was caught unawares by great events. The tempo of the present epoch is too feverish for his sluggish, clumsy mind. He could not borrow any new ideas from Molotov or Voroshilov nor from the disconcerted leaders of the Western democracies. The only politician who could impress Stalin in those conditions was Hitler.

Ecce homo! Hitler has everything that Stalin has —disdain of the masses, lack of principles, an ambitious will, a totalitarian apparatus. However, Hitler has something that Stalin has not—imagination, the capacity to exalt the masses, the spirit of daring. Under Hitler's cover Stalin attempted to apply Hitler's methods in foreign policy.

In the beginning everything went smoothly — Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania came easily into line. Finland was a misfire. In Stalin's biography that misfire opens a chapter of decline.

In the days of the Red Army's invasion of Poland, the Soviet press suddenly discovered great strategical talents in Stalin, allegedly displayed by him at the time of the civil war. They proclaimed him a super-Napoleon.

At the time of the negotiations with the Baltic delegations the same press pictured him as the greatest of diplomats. It promised in the future a series of miracles to be accomplished without spilling a drop of blood.

Everything turned out to be quite different. Not capable of evaluating the tradition of the long Finnish struggle for independence, Stalin expected to break the Helsinki government by mere diplomatic pressure. He was badly mistaken. Instead of reconsidering his plan he began to threaten. Following his order the Moscow newspaper Pravda kept on promising what would be done with Finland in a couple of days' time. In the atmosphere of Byzantine servility that surrounded him, Stalin became the victim of his own threats. They had no effect on the Finns, but compelled Stalin himself to immediate action.

So began a shameful war without a clear perspective, without moral and material preparation, at a moment when the calendar itself obviously warned against the adventure. Stalin did not even think of visiting the front after the pattern of his inspirator, Hitler. The Kremlin combinationist is too cautious to risk his false reputation as a strategist. Moreover, he has nothing to say to the masses face to face. It is impossible even to imagine this gray figure, with his immobile face, yellowish eyes, weak and guttural voice, before the soldiers in the trenches or on the march. The super-Napoleon remained cautiously in the Kremlin, surrounded by telephones and secretaries.

In the course of two and a half months the Red Army knew nothing but defeat, suffering, and humiliation. Nothing was foreseen, not even the climate.

The second offensive developed slowly and claimed many victims. Non-appearance of the promised lightning victory over a weaker adversary was in itself defeat.

To justify, at least to a certain extent, Stalin's mistakes and failures to reconcile the peoples of the USSR to the senseless invasion of Finland, would be possible only in one way — namely, by winning the sympathy of at least part of the Finnish peasants and workers by means of a social upheaval. Stalin understood this, and openly proclaimed the crushing of the Finnish bourgeoisie as his aim. For this the ill-fated Kuusinen was pulled out from the bureaus of the Comintern. But Stalin was frightened by the danger of Britain's and France's intervention, by Hitler's dissatisfaction at a long war, and withdrew. A tragic adventure was terminated with a bastard peace, a "dictate" in form, a rotten compromise in substance. By means of the Soviet-Finnish war Hitler compromised Stalin and tied him more closely to his own chariot. By means of the peace agreement he guaranteed for himself further importations of Scandinavian raw materials. Russia received, it is true, strategic advantages, but at what a price! The prestige of the Red Army is undermined, the confidence of the toiling masses and oppressed peoples of the entire world is lost. As a result, the international position of the USSR is not strengthened but weakened. Stalin personally emerges badly smitten.

The general sentiment of the country is undoubtedly the following —We should not have begun this unworthy war, but once the war was begun it should have been carried through to the end. That is, to the sovietization of Finland. Stalin promised that, but he did not accomplish it. This signifies that he did not foresee anything—neither the resistance of the Finns, nor the frosts, nor the dangers from the Allies. Together with the diplomat and the strategist was defeated the "Leader of World Socialism" and the "Liberator of the Finnish Nation." An irreparable blow was given to the authority of the dictator. The hypnosis of totalitarian propaganda will lose its force more and more.

It is true that Stalin can receive aid for a time from outside. For this it would be necessary that the Allies enter the war against him. Such a war would pose before the peoples of the USSR the question not of the fate of the Stalinist dictatorship, but that of the country. Defense against foreign intervention would undoubtedly strengthen the position of the bureaucracy.

In a defensive war the Red Army would operate with incomparably more success than in an offensive war. In self-defense, the Kremlin would even show itself capable of revolutionary measures, but this would only delay matters. The insolvency of the Stalinist dictatorship has uncovered itself more than enough in the course of the last fifteen weeks. It would be false to believe that peoples strangled by the totalitarian loop lose their capacity to observe and to think. They draw their conclusions more slowly, but more solidly and profoundly.

Stalin's apogee is behind him. Not a few fateful tests are before him. With the whole planet thrown but of equilibrium Stalin will not succeed in saving the unsteady equilibrium of totalitarian bureaucracy.