Stalin: A Biography

by Robert Service

  Meanwhile the Provisional Government failed to keep clear of trouble after April. Among its problems was conflict between its liberal and socialist members. The Mensheviks Irakli Tsereteli and Mikhail Skobelev and the Socialist-Revolutionary Viktor Chernov insisted that regional self-rule should be granted to Finland and Ukraine. The Kadets walked out on 2 July rather than accept cabinet responsibility. The Socialist-Revolutionary Minister of Military Affairs, Alexander Kerenski, had started an offensive against the Central Powers a few days earlier. Political crisis ensued. The Bolsheviks, having embarrassed the Provisional Government in spring, wanted to test the political waters again. They organised a massive protest demonstration on 4 July. Their slogan was ‘All Power to the Soviets!’ and they aimed to supplant the government. Kronstadt garrison sailors were invited to participate with their weapons in hand. The Provisional Government, supported by the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, banned the demonstration. But such was the popular discontent that crowds went on gathering in Petrograd. At the last moment the Bolshevik Central Committee feared the use of superior force by the authorities and strove to call off the demonstration. Yet the Provisional Government had had enough. Lenin’s financial connections with the German government were exposed and a warrant was issued for his arrest. Petrograd Bolsheviks went into hiding as leading figures such as Lev Trotski, Lev Kamenev and Alexandra Kollontai were taken into custody.

  The Alliluevs put their vacant room at Lenin’s disposal. On the run from the authorities in the ‘July Days’ he took refuge at first with the Bolshevik activist Nikolai Poletaev. But Poletaev as a former Duma deputy was well known, and Lenin was grateful to move in with the Alliluevs. He stayed there for a few days before arranging to flee north to the countryside at Razliv. Disguise was essential. He decided to get rid of his beard and moustache. Stalin, who arrived at the Alliluevs’ to see him off, performed the task of the party’s barber-in-chief.16 (It would be some years before he became its master butcher.) When Lenin looked in the mirror he was pleased: ‘It’s very good now. I look just like a Finnish peasant, and there’s hardly anyone who will recognise me.’17 While Lenin stayed with the Alliluevs, Stalin moved in with fellow bachelors Vyacheslav Molotov and Pëtr Zalutski — as well as with Ivan Smilga and his wife — in a largish apartment on Petrograd Side.18 Molotov and Stalin put their disputes behind them after Stalin admitted: ‘You were the nearest of all to Lenin in the initial stage, in April.’19 There were new strains, however, on their relationship. In old age Molotov recalled that when they shared a flat, Stalin poached a girlfriend — a certain Marusya — off him.20

  A week or so after Lenin’s departure Stalin, despite concern that his presence might endanger the family,21 moved in with the Alliluevs. By then they had relocated to a more central district and were renting a bigger apartment at 17 Tenth Rozhdestvenskaya Street. There were three rooms, a kitchen and bathroom and the steps into the whole building were ‘luxurious’ and were manned by a uniformed concierge. There was a lift to the fifth floor where the Alliluevs lived. Stalin was given his own room.22 A lot of the time he was alone, as Anna and Nadya had left Petrograd for the summer vacation and Fedya was working as hard as their parents Sergei and Olga.23 He brought his few possessions — manuscripts, books and a few clothes — in a wicker suitcase. Olga fussed over Joseph (as she called him), insisting that he get a new suit. When Joseph pleaded lack of time, she and her sister Maria went out and bought him one. He asked them to put some thermal pads into the jacket. He also said his throat infection made it uncomfortable to wear a normal collar and tie. Olga and Maria were more than happy to indulge him, and Maria sewed two vertical velvet collars on to the suit. Although he looked no dandy, his appearance certainly became smarter.24

  Nadya returned to Petrograd for the start of the school term at summer’s end. She turned sixteen only in September but was already fed up with schooling and had to put up with a certain amount of teasing because of her family’s Bolshevik sympathies.25 Coming back to the flat on Tenth Rozhdestvenskaya, she developed a passion for housework. One day the noise of the tables and chairs being moved around brought Stalin out from his room: ‘What’s happening here? What’s all the commotion? Oh, it’s you! Now I can see that a real housewife has got down to work!’ This flummoxed Nadya, who asked: ‘What’s up? Is that a bad thing?’ Quickly Stalin reassured her: ‘Definitely not! It’s a good thing! Bring some order, go ahead… Just show the rest of them!’26

  Stalin liked a woman who looked after the household. He also expected and needed to be admired, and was searching for an enclave in his very busy political life where he could relax. Perhaps he was beginning to take a fancy to Nadya. He might be more than twice her age, but this had not inhibited him with adolescent girls in Siberia. For the time being, however, he went on acting almost as a father to her in the evenings. He read Chekhov’s ‘Chameleon’ and other short stories to the young Alliluevs and recited Pushkin. Maxim Gorki was another favourite. When friends of the youngsters turned up, he was fun with them too.27 Before turning into bed, he resumed his work; and sometimes he was so tired that he dropped off to sleep with pipe still alight: he once singed the sheets and nearly set the flat ablaze.28 But the blend of work and family atmosphere was congenial to him. It was a new experience (if we except the periods of exile). He was in his late thirties. He had seldom had a settled life among people who were fond of him. Among the Alliluevs he found a sanctuary at last. A gap in his feelings was being closed; it was scarcely a surprise that he soon took one of the family as his wife.

  Still, though, he had to do much for himself. The Alliluev family was busy every day, and Stalin’s movements were anyway unpredictable. He therefore bought his food on the way back from work. At the corner of Tenth Rozhdestvenskaya Street he would stop at a stall and buy a loaf of bread and some smoked fish or a sausage. This would constitute his dinner — or, if party business had been hectic, his missed lunch.29

  Politics, though, was the greater object of his affections. He found his deepest urges satisfied in power and prestige. He had not given up his ambitions as a Marxist theorist. But his current inclinations were towards practical matters such as helping to lead the Central Committee, edit Pravda and plan the manoeuvres of the Bolsheviks in Petrograd. The unpleasantness of his reception by the Russian Bureau in March was far behind him; he was solidly established in the central party leadership. He worked madly. His jobs in the Central Committee and at Pravda involved so much writing with pen or pencil that calluses appeared on the fingers of his right hand.30 With the work came authority. Lenin and Zinoviev were fugitives. Trotski, Kamenev and Kollontai were in prison. The party leadership fell into the hands of Stalin and Sverdlov since they were the only members of the inner core of the Central Committee who were still at liberty. Such a situation would have disconcerted many. But Stalin and Sverdlov overbrimmed with confidence as they sought to repair the damage caused to the party by the July Days — and Stalin relished the chance to show that he had political skills which few in the party had as yet detected in him.

  By the start of the clandestine Sixth Party Congress in late July there was no doubt about Stalin’s eminence among Bolsheviks. He was chosen by the Central Committee to give its official report as well as another ‘on the political situation’. Frissons of past mutual hostility no longer bothered Stalin and Sverdlov. As Central Committee Secretary, Sverdlov did not represent a proper rival to Stalin. Indeed Sverdlov was an administrator par excellence and although could also be called upon to give rousing speeches in his booming bass voice, he had no aspirations to an independent political persona: he left it to others to think up policies. This was a partner after Stalin’s own heart as he sought the limelight in the Bolshevik party.

  The July Days in Petrograd had had a damaging impact on the party in the provinces, and delegates from the provinces grumbled that the Central Committee had mishandled affairs in the capital and overlooked the needs of the rest of the party. Stalin stood up
undaunted. The criticism, he noted:

  comes down to the comments that the Central Committee kept no contact with the provinces and concentrated its activity in Petrograd. The charge of isolation from the provinces is not without foundation. But there was no chance of covering the entire provincial network. The charge that the Central Committee really turned into a Petersburg Committee has partial validity. That’s how it was. But it was here in Petrograd that Russia’s politics were swirling.

  Having dealt with the objections, he insisted that the Congress should focus on future strategy. At present the soviets remained under the control of the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, and Lenin — still hiding in Finland — wanted to drop the slogan of ‘All Power to the Soviets!’ Stalin quietly resisted this move. He understood that if the party was going to gain popularity it needed to project itself as the eager agent of the ‘mass organisations’.

  Stalin also made a notable contribution to the debate ‘on the political situation’. Yevgeni Preobrazhenski, a promising young delegate (who was to join the Central Committee in 1919), wanted a greater emphasis on the need for revolutions elsewhere in Europe. Stalin disagreed:31

  The possibility is not excluded that Russia may prove to be the very country that paves the way to socialism. Until now not a single country enjoys such freedom as Russia and has tried to establish workers’ control of production. Moreover, the base of our revolution is wider than in Western Europe where the proletariat directly confront the bourgeoisie in complete isolation. Here the workers are supported by the poorest strata of the peasantry. Finally, the apparatus of state power in Germany functions incomparably better than the imperfect apparatus of our bourgeoisie which is a dependency of European capital. We must reject the outmoded idea that only Europe can show us the way. There is dogmatic Marxism and there is creative Marxism. I stand on the ground of the latter.

  This statement acquired significance several years later when Stalin, by then the Party General Secretary, demanded that the focus of party policies should be directed at constructing ‘socialism in a single country’.32

  Politics were changing fast outside the Bolshevik party. Alexander Kerenski, who became premier after the July Days, sought to restore political order. He held a State Conference to rally support from parties and other public organisations. Among those who were well received at the State Conference in right-wing political circles was Kerenski’s Commander-in-Chief Lavr Kornilov. Kerenski and Kornilov hatched a plan to transfer frontline units to Petrograd (where the troops in the garrisons were notoriously unreliable). At the last moment, on 28 August, Kerenski unjustifiably suspected Kornilov of plotting a coup d’état. Kornilov was ordered to keep his forces at the front. This convinced Kornilov that Kerenski was no longer fit to govern the country at war, and he decided to overthrow him. Panic ensued in Petrograd. Kerenski’s military resources were weak and he relied on socialist agitators to meet the trains and dissuade the troops from obeying Kornilov. Among the much-needed agitators were Bolsheviks as well as Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries. Kornilov was arrested. Kerenski survived, but already his days looked numbered.

  And Bolshevism grew again as an open political force. Yet it did not do this any longer under the dual leadership of Stalin and Sverdlov. On 30 August the Central Committee considered a confidential request from Zinoviev to return to work. There were risks in this. Not only might Zinoviev be arrested but also his restoration to the Central Committee might provoke a renewed attack on the party by the authorities. Zinoviev was told that the Central Committee was ‘making every effort for him to be as close as possible to party and newspaper work’.33 This did not put off Zinoviev, and he attended the meeting of the Central Committee the very next day.34 The Central Committee recognised it needed a revolutionary leader of his talent. The same was true of Trotski even if many Bolsheviks continued to regard him with hostility. Released from prison, he was itching to have a public impact. On 6 September the Central Committee made fresh dispositions of personnel. The Pravda editorial board, previously led by Stalin, was expanded to include Trotski, Kamenev, Sokolnikov and a Petersburg Committee representative. Trotski was also assigned to help edit Prosveshchenie and to join the Central Executive Committee of the Congress of Soviets. Although Stalin too was assigned to the Central Executive Committee, his deficiencies as an orator meant that Trotski would be the party’s leading figure on it.35

  Stalin’s weeks in the political sun were over. The next task for the Central Committee was to organise the Bolsheviks for the Democratic Conference convoked by Alexander Kerenski. This was set to occur in the Alexandrinski Theatre on 14 September and Kamenev was selected as the main Bolshevik speaker. Stalin joined Trotski, Kamenev, Milyutin and Rykov on the commission which drew up the party’s declaration.36 The Democratic State Conference brought together the socialist parties from across the former empire. Among Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries there was rising discontent about the Provisional Government’s incapacity to alleviate social distress and refusal to intensify reform. Alexander Kerenski was becoming almost as much their bête noire as he already was for the Bolsheviks. The Central Committee’s strategy was to persuade delegates to the Democratic State Conference that Kerenski needed to be replaced by a socialist government. The Mensheviks and the Socialist-Revolutionaries remained in charge of most soviets in urban Russia even though both the Petrograd Soviet and Moscow Soviet had fallen into the hands of the Bolsheviks. The declaration therefore called on all socialists, including Bolsheviks, to unite their forces in pursuit of common objectives. This was agreed on the assumption that it was in line with the strategic compromise accepted by Lenin in Finland.

  The specific demands of the Bolsheviks were comprehensive, and these would inevitably lead to disputes with the Mensheviks and the Socialist-Revolutionaries. While aiming to set up an all-socialist administration, the Bolshevik Central Committee insisted that the policies should be radical. The landed gentry needed to be expropriated. Workers’ control should be introduced and large-scale industry nationalised. A ‘universal democratic peace’ should be offered to the peoples of the world. National self-determination had to be proclaimed. A system of comprehensive social insurance should be established.37

  What the Central Committee had not bargained for was that Lenin had ceased to believe — if ever he had believed — in the possibility of peaceful revolutionary development. On 15 September the Central Committee discussed a letter from him demanding the start of preparations for armed insurrection.38 He said nothing about an all-socialist coalition. The thing for him was to overthrow Kerenski and set up a revolutionary administration. His frustrations in hiding were poured into writing. Articles flowed from his pen in Helsinki, each stipulating that the Bolshevik caucus should make no compromise at the Democratic State Conference: the time for talking had ended. In ‘Marxism and Insurrection’ he called for ‘the immediate transfer of power to the revolutionary democrats headed by the revolutionary proletariat’.39 His summons to uprising caused consternation among several Central Committee members. At the same Central Committee meeting there was heated discussion, and Stalin confirmed his support for Lenin by proposing that the letter be sent to the most important party organisations for discussion; but the Central Committee in the end decided to burn the letter and keep only one copy for the records. This was agreed by a vote of six to four.40

  Bolshevik party policy on the central question of governmental power was in flux. Radical opinion was strengthened by Trotski’s return to open activity. Throughout the country, moreover, there were many socialist leaders and activists who sought the Provisional Government’s removal. More and more city soviets, trade unions and factory-workshop committees were acquiring Bolshevik majorities in late September and early October. Sooner or later the question had to be answered: were the Bolsheviks going to seize power? If so, when would they do it? And if they did it, would they act alone or in some kind of socialist alliance? Stalin, though, had m
ade his choice. He no longer saw the point of compromise of any kind with the Mensheviks. (Trotski had made the same transition.) His future lay with the Bolsheviks and with them alone. His position in the Bolshevik Central Committee was firmly held but he had next to no political authority outside its framework. He was one of the most influential yet one of the most obscure of Bolsheviks. If he had died in September 1917, no one — surely — would have written his biography.

  13. OCTOBER

  Petrograd in October 1917 was more placid than at any time since the fall of the Romanovs. The schools and offices functioned without interruption. Shops opened normally. The post and tram systems operated smoothly. The weather was getting brisk; people were wrapping up well before going outdoors but as yet there was no snow. Calm prevailed in the Russian capital and heady mass meetings were a thing of the past. Leading Bolsheviks who plotted insurrection had reason to worry. What if Lenin was wrong and the popular mood had turned away from supporting a revolutionary change of regime?

  Yet the subterranean strata of politics were shifting. Lenin, holed up in Helsinki since mid-July, was frustrated by the Bolshevik Central Committee’s refusal to organise an uprising against the Provisional Government. Instinct told him the time for action had arrived, and he decided to take a chance and return secretly to Petrograd. Bolshevik leaders who met him secretly in the capital had to weather the anger of his demands for an insurrection. He was softening them up for a confrontation at the Central Committee on 10 October. Twelve members attended. Everyone knew there would be trouble. The minutes of the meeting were skimpily recorded — and this means that no trace survives of Stalin’s contribution. At any rate the crucial statements appear to have been made by Sverdlov and Lenin. Sverdlov as Central Committee Secretary was keeper of information on the party’s organisational condition and political appeal across the country. Convinced by Lenin’s arguments in favour of an uprising, he put a positive gloss on his report by stressing the rise in party membership. This gave Lenin his chance: ‘The majority of the population is now behind us. Politically the situation is entirely mature for a transfer of power.’1