by Ludo Martens
Since the beginning of the Civil War, the Mensheviks denounced the `Bolshevik dictatorship', the `arbitrary, terrorist rйgime' of the Bolsheviks, the `new Bolshevik aristocracy'. This was 1918 and there was no `Stalinism' in the air! `The dictatorship of the new aristocracy': it is in those terms that social-democracy attacked, right from the beginning, the socialist rйgime that Lenin wished to install. Plekhanov developed the theoretical basis needed to uphold these accusations by insisting that the Bolsheviks had established an `objectively reactionary' political line, going against the flow of history, a reactionary utopia consisting of introducing socialism in a country that was not ready. Plekhanov referred to traditional `peasant anarchy'. Nevertheless, when the foreign interventions occurred, Plekhanov was one of the few Menshevik leaders to oppose them.
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Jane Burbank, Intelligentsia and Revolution: Russian Views of Bolshevism, 1917--1922 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), pp. 13, 36, 42, 44.
The socialists' alliance with the bourgeoisie was based on two arguments. The first was the impossibility of `imposing' socialism in a backward country. The second was that since the Bolsheviks wanted to impose socialism `by force', they would bring `tyranny' and `dictatorship' and would constitute a `new aristocracy' above the masses.
These first `analyses', made by the counter-revolutionary social-democrats, who fought against socialism weapons in hand, are worth studying: these insidious attacks against Leninism would later be crudely amplified to become attacks on `Stalinism'.
Stalin during the Civil War
Let us come back for a moment to the rфle played by Stalin during the Civil War.
Many bourgeois publications place Trotsky, the `creator and organizer of the Red Army', on an equal level with Lenin, the two being responsible for the military victory of the Bolsheviks. Stalin's contribution to the struggle against the White Armies is generally neglected. However, between 1918 and 1920, Stalin, who was one of the main leaders of the Party, personally led the military struggle on many decisive fronts. At the military level, Zinoviev, Kamenev and Bukharin played no rфle.
In November 1917, the Central Committee created a smaller committee to deal with urgent affairs; its members were Lenin, Stalin, Sverdlov and Trotsky. Pestkovsky, Stalin's assistant, wrote: `In the course of the day (Lenin) would call Stalin out an endless number of times .... Most of the day Stalin spent with Lenin'.
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Grey, op. cit. , p. 105.
During the peace negotiations with Germany in December 1917, Lenin and Stalin, in order to preserve Soviet power, whatever the cost, insisted on accepting the humiliating concessions imposed by Germany. They thought that the Russian army was simply incapable of fighting. Bukharin and Trotsky wanted to refuse the conditions and declare `revolutionary war'. For Lenin, this ultra-nationalist line was a trap laid out by the bourgeoisie in order to precipitate the fall of the Bolsheviks. During the negotiations with Germany, Trotsky declared: `We are withdrawing our armies and our peoples from the war ... but we feel ourselves compelled to refuse to sign the peace treaty'. Stalin affirmed that there were no signs of a incipient revolution in Germany and that Trotsky's spectacular act was no policy. Germany again took up the offensive and the Bolsheviks were soon forced to sign even worse peace conditions. In this affair, the Party was on the verge of catastrophe.
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Ibid. , pp. 106--109.
In January 1918, the Tsarist general Alekseev organized a volunteer army in Ukraine and in the Don region. In February, the German Army occupied Ukraine to `guarantee its independence'. In May 1918, thirty thousand Czechoslovakian soldiers occupied a large part of Siberia. During the summer, at the instigation of Winston Churchill, Great Britain, France, the United States, Italy, and Japan, among others, intervened militarily against the Bolsheviks.
Starting in March 1918, Trotsky was People's Commissar for War. His task was to organize a new army of workers and peasants, led by 40,000 officers from the old Tsarist army.
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Ibid. , pp. 115--117.
In June 1918, the North Caucasus was the only important grain-growing region in the hands of the Bolsheviks. It was threatened by Krasnov's army. Stalin was sent to Tsaritsyn, the future Stalingrad, to ensure grain delivery. He found complete chaos. On July 19, he wrote to Lenin, asking for military authority over the region: `I myself, without formalities, will remove those army commanders and (c)ommissars who are ruining things'. Stalin was named President of the Southern War Front Council. Later, Stalin would oppose the old Tsarist artillery general Sytin, named by Trotsky as Commander of the South Front, and the Commander-in-Chief, the old Tsarist colonel Vatsetis. Tsaritsyn was successfully defended.
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Ibid. , pp. 121--127.
`Lenin regarded `the measures decided on by Stalin' as a model'.
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McNeal, op. cit. , p. 157.
In October 1918, Stalin was appointed to the Military Council of the Ukrainian Front; its task was to overthrow Skoropadsky's rйgime, set up by Germany.
In December, when the situation dramatically deteriorated in the Urals, thanks to the advance of Kolchak's reactionary troops, Stalin was sent with full powers to put an end to the catastrophic state of the Third Army and to purge the incompetent commissars. In his inquiry, Stalin criticized the policies of Trotsky and Vatsetis. During the Eighth Congress in March 1919, Trotsky was criticized by many delegates `for his dictatorial manners, ... for his adoration of the specialists, and his torrent of ill-considered telegrams'.
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Grey, op. cit. , pp. 128--129.
In May 1919, Stalin was sent once again, with full powers, to organize the defence of Petrograd against Yudenich's army. On June 4, Stalin sent a telegram to Lenin, claiming, with support from seized documents, that many leading officers in the Red Army were working in secret for the White Armies.
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Ibid. , pp. 129--130.
On the Eastern Front, a bitter conflict developed between its commander, S. S. Kamenev (not to be confused with L. B. Kamenev), and the Commander-in-Chief, Vatsetis. The Central Committee finally decided in favor of the former and Trotsky presented his resignation, which was refused. Vatsetis was arrested pending an inquiry.
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Ibid. , p. 131.
In August 1919, Denikin's White Army was moving forward towards Moscow in the Don, in Ukraine and in South Russia. From October 1919 to March 1920, Stalin led the Southern Front and defeated Denikin.
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Ibid. , pp. 132--133.
In May 1920, Stalin was sent to the Southwestern Front, where the Polish armies were threatening the city of Lvov, in Ukraine, and Wrangel's troops Crimea. The Poles occupied a large part of Ukraine, including Kiev. On the Western Front, Tukhachevsky counter-attacked, pushing back the aggressors to the limits of Warsaw. Lenin hoped to win the war with reactionary Poland and a temporary Polish Soviet government was formed. Stalin warned against such an act: `The class conflicts have not reached the strength to break through the sense of national unity'.
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Ibid. , pp. 135--136.
Poorly coordinated, receiving contradictory orders, Tukhachevsky's troops were counter-attacked by the Polish troops on an unprotected flank and put to flight.
To the South, Wrangel's White Armies were liquidated at the end of 1920.
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Ibid. , p. 139.
In November 1919, Stalin and Trotsky received the newly created Order of the Red Banner for their military successes. Lenin and the Central Committee estimated that Stalin's merits in leading the armed struggle in the most difficult areas equaled Trotsky's in organizing and leading the Red Army at the central level. But to make himself come out in a better light, Trotsky wrote: `Throughout the period of the Civil War, Stalin remained a third-rate figure'.
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Leon Trotsky, Stalin: An appraisal of the man and his influence (New York: Harper & Brother Publishers, 1941), p. 333.
McNeal, who i
s often prejudiced against Stalin, writes on this subject:
`Stalin had emerged ... as a political--military chief whose contribution to the Red victory was second only to Trotsky's. Stalin had played a smaller role than his rival in the overall organization of the Red Army, but he had been more important in providing direction on crucial fronts. If his reputation as a hero was far below Trotsky's, this had less to do with objective merit than with Stalin's lack of flair ... for self-advertisement.'
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McNeal, op. cit. , p. 63.
In December 1919, Trotsky proposed the `militarization of economic life' and wanted to mobilize the workers using methods he had applied for leading the army. With this line, the railroad workers were mobilized under military discipline. A wave of protests passed through the union movement. Lenin declared that Trotsky committed errors that endangered the dictatorship of the proletariat: by his bureaucratic harassment of the unions, he risked separating the Party from the masses.
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V. I. Lenin, The Trade Unions, the Present Situation, and Trotsky's Mistakes (30 December 1920). Collected Works (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1960--1970), vol. 32, pp. 19--42.
Trotsky's outrageous individualism, his open disdain for Bolshevik cadres, his authoritarian style of leadership and his taste for military discipline frightened many Party cadres. They thought that Trotsky could well play the rфle of a Napolйon Bonaparte, effecting a coup d'йtat and setting up a counter-revolutionary authoritarian rйgime.
Lenin's `Will'
Trotsky knew his brief hour of glory in 1919, during the Civil War. However, without question, in 1921--1923, it was Stalin who was the second in the Party, after Lenin.
Since the Eighth Congress in 1919, Stalin had been a member of the Politburo, beside Lenin, Kamenev, Trotsky and Krestinsky. This membership did not change until 1921. Stalin was also member of the Organizational Bureau, also composed of five members of the Central Committee.
Grey, op. cit. , p. 151.
When during the Eleventh Congress, in 1922, Preobrazhensky criticized the fact that Stalin led the People's Commissariat for Nationality Affairs as well as the Workers' and Peasants' Inspection (in charge of controlling the state apparatus), Lenin replied:
`(W)e need a man to whom the representatives of any of these nations can go and discuss their difficulties in all detail .... I don't think Comrade Preobrazhensky could suggest any better comrade than Comrade Stalin.
`The same thing applies to the Workers' and Peasants' Inspection. This is a vast business; but to be able to handle investigations we must have at the head of it a man who enjoys high prestige, otherwise we shall become submerged in and overwhelmed by petty intrigue.'
Lenin, Closing Speech on the Political Report of the Central Committee of the R.C.P.(B.). (28 March 1922). Works, vol. 33, p. 315.
On April 23, 1922, on Lenin's suggestion, Stalin was also appointed to head the secretariat, as General Secretary.
Grey, p. 159.
Stalin was the only person who was a member of the Central Committee, the Political Bureau, the Organizational Bureau and the Secretariat of the Bolshevik Party. At the Twelfth Congress in April 1923, he presented the main report.
Lenin had suffered his first stroke in May 1922. On December 16, 1922, he suffered another major attack. His doctors knew that he would not recover.
On December 24, the doctors told Stalin, Kamenev and Bukharin, the representatives of the Political Bureau, that any political controversy could provoke a new attack, this time fatal. They decided that Lenin `has the right to dictate every day for five or ten minutes .... He is forbidden [political] visitors. Friends and those around him may not inform him about political affairs'.
Ibid. , p. 171.
The Politburo made Stalin responsible for the relations with Lenin and the doctors. It was a thankless task since Lenin could only feel frustrated because of his paralysis and his distance from political affairs. His irritation would necessarily turn against the man who was responsible for interacting with him. Ian Grey writes:
`The journal of Lenin's secretaries, from November 21, 1922 to March 6, 1923, contained the day-by-day details of his work, visitors, and health, and after December 13 it recorded his smallest actions. Lenin, his right arm and leg paralyzed, was then confined to bed in his small apartment in the Kremlin, cut off from government business and, in fact, from the outside world. The doctors insisted that he should not be disturbed ....
`Unable to relinquish the habits of power, Lenin struggled to obtain the papers he wanted, relying on his wife, Krupskaya, his sister, Maria Ilyichna, and three or four secretaries.'
Ibid. , p. 172.
Used to leading the essential aspects of the life of Party and State, Lenin desperately tried to intervene in debates in which he could no longer physically master all the elements. His doctors refused to allow him any political work, which bothered him intensely. Feeling that his end was near, Lenin sought to resolve questions that he thought of paramount importance, but that he no longer fully understood. The Politburo refused to allow him any stressful political work, but his wife did her best to get hold of the documents that he sought. Any doctor having seen similar situations would say that difficult psychological and personal conflicts were inevitable.
Towards the end of December 1922, Krupskaya wrote a letter that Lenin had dictated to her. Having done that, she was reprimanded by telephone by Stalin. She complained to Lenin and to Kamenev. `I know better than all the doctors what can and what can not be said to Ilyich, for I know what disturbs him and what doesn't and in any case I know this better than Stalin'.
Ibid. , p. 173.
About this period, Trotsky wrote: `In the middle of December, 1922, Lenin's health again took a turn for the worse .... Stalin at once tried to capitalize on this situation, hiding from Lenin much of the information which was concentrating in the Party Secretariat .... Krupskaya did whatever she could to shield the sick man from hostile jolts by the Secretariat.'
Trotsky, Stalin, p. 374.
These are the unforgivable words of an intriguer. The doctors had refused to allow Lenin receipt of reports, and here is Trotsky, accusing Stalin for having made `hostile maneuvers' against Lenin and for having `hidden information'!
What enemies of Communism call `Lenin's will' was dictated in these circumstances during the period of December 23--25, 1922. These notes are followed by a post-scriptum dated January 5, 1923.
Bourgeois authors have much focused on Lenin's so-called `will', which supposedly called for the elimination of Stalin in favor of Trotsky. Henri Bernard, Professor Emeritus at the Belgian Royal Military School, writes: `Trotsky should normally have succeeded Lenin .... (Lenin) thought of him as successor. He thought Stalin was too brutal'.
Henri Bernard, Le communisme et l'aveuglement occidental (Soumagne, Belgium: Йditions Andrй Grisard, 1982), p. 48.
The U.S. Trotskyist Max Eastman published this `will' in 1925, along with laudatory remarks about Trotsky. At the time, Trotsky had to publish a correction in the Bolshevik newspaper, where he wrote:
`Eastman says that the Central Committee `concealed' from the Party ... the so-called `will,' ... there can be no other name for this than slander against the Central Committee of our Party .... Vladimir Ilyich did not leave any `will,' and the very character of the Party itself, precluded the possibility of such a `will.' What is usually referred to as a `will' in the йmigrй and foreign bourgeois and Menshevik press (in a manner garbled beyond recognition) is one of Vladimir Ilyich's letters containing advice on organisational matters. The Thirteenth Congress of the Party paid the closest attention to that letter .... All talk about concealing or violating a `will' is a malicious invention.'
Quoted in Stalin, The Trotskyist Opposition Before and Now. Works (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1954), pp. 179--180. Stalin's emphasis.
A few years later, the same Trotsky, in his autobiography, would clamor indignantly about `Lenin's ``Will'', which St
alin concealed from the party'.
Trotsky, My Life, p. 469.
Let us examine the three pages of notes dictated by Lenin between December 23, 1922 and January 5, 1923.
Lenin called for `increasing the number of C.C. members (to 50 to 100), I think it must be done in order to raise the prestige of the Central Committee, to do a thorough job of improving our administrative machinery and to prevent conflicts between small sections of the C.C. from acquiring excessive importance for the future of the Party. It seems to me that our Party has every right to demand from the working class 50 to 100 C.C. members'. These would be `measures against a split'. `I think that from this standpoint the prime factors in the question of stability are such members of the C.C. as Stalin and Trotsky. I think relations between them make the greater part of the danger of a split'.
