This book presents a comprehensive analysis of the political thought ofJoseph Stalin. Making full use of the documentation that has recentlybecome available, including Stalin’s private library with his handwrittenmarginal notes, the book provides many insights into Stalin and also intoWestern and Russian Marxist intellectual traditions. Overall, the bookargues that Stalin’s political thought is not primarily indebted to the Russianautocratic tradition but belongs to a tradition of revolutionary patriotismthat stretches back through revolutionary Marxism to Jacobin thought inthe French Revolution. It makes interesting comparisons between Stalin,Lenin, Bukharin and Trotskii and explains a great deal about the Stalinistera’s many key problems, including the industrial revolution from above,socialist cultural policy, Soviet treatment of nationalities, pre-war and ColdWar foreign policy, and the purges.

Erik van Ree is a lecturer at the Institute for East European Studies of theUniversity of Amsterdam. His main fields of interest are the history of theUSSR and of world communism. He is the author of Socialism in OneZone: Stalin’s Policy in Korea, 1945–1947 (1989) and co-author of The Riseand Fall of the Soviet Politburo (1992).

The Political Thought of Joseph Stalin

The Political Thought of Joseph StalinA study in twentieth-centuryrevolutionary patriotism

Erik van Ree

First published 2002by RoutledgeCurzon11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canadaby RoutledgeCurzon29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001

RoutledgeCurzon is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group

© 2002 Erik van Ree

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted orreproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,including photocopying and recording, or in any informationstorage or retrieval system, without permission in writingfrom the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication DataA catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication DataA catalog record for this book has been requested

ISBN 0–7007–1749–8

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2003.

ISBN 0-203-22163-X Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-27620-5 (Adobe eReader Format)(Print Edition)

List of illustrations viiAcknowledgements viii

Introduction 1

1 Jacobinism 18

2 Marxism, Leninism and the state 25

3 Proletarian revolution in a backward country 37

4 Marxist nationalism 49

5 Stalin: the years before October 58

6 The years under Lenin 73

7 Socialism in one country 84

8 Stalin’s economic thought 96

9 The sharpening of the class struggle 114

10 Total unity 126

11 Stalin and the state 136

12 The cult of personality 155

13 Stalin on society, culture and science 169

Contents

14 Socialist in content, national in form 190

15 Did Stalin “betray the world revolution?” 208

16 Revolutionary patriotism 230

17 The philosophy of revolutionary patriotism 255

Conclusion 273

Notes 288Bibliography 335Index 359

vi Contents

1 I.V. Stalin: from his 1947 Short Biography 22 Il’ia Chavchavadze: Stalin’s first teacher in nationalism 593 V.I. Lenin: Stalin’s greatest teacher 744 N.I. Bukharin: economic autarky 865 L.D. Trotskii: the speed of accumulation as the fundamental

criterion 876 A.A. Bogdanov: total unity 1287 Karl Marx: “better than Engels” 1378 Ivan the Terrible: Stalin’s favourite tsar 1439 N.G. Chernyshevskii: socially useful art 176

10 V.G. Belinskii: healthy patriotism 17711 Peter the Great: “good ideas, but there came in

too many Germans” 17812 Otto Bauer: flourishing nations under socialism 19213 G.V. Plekhanov: influenced Stalin’s understanding of history 25614 Friedrich Engels: “only idiots can doubt that Engels remains

our teacher” 257

Illustrations

This book has been in the making for a very long time. Joseph Stalin hasbeen with me for so many years that I have almost forgotten what life wouldbe without him. Much of the time, too long, I have been working like ahermit, burying myself ever deeper and ever more desperately in a mountainof books, articles and documents of and about the Soviet dictator. I haveoften doubted whether I would ever be able to climb back to the surfaceagain. Many people have given me the courage to persist in this enormousproject. Among them are my wife, my two children, my parents and mycolleagues and friends. Without them I could not have completed the book.My special thanks go to Michael Ellman and Evan Mawdsley for reading thecomplete typescript and providing their insightful comments, which I hope Ihave used sufficiently. Parts of the typescript have been read and commentedupon by Meindert Fennema, André Gerrits, Marc Jansen, Bruno Naardenand Evert van der Zweerde. I thank them too for their time and valuableremarks. Of course, all mistakes of fact and interpretation remain my exclu-sive responsibility. I want to thank John Löwenhardt and Jan Mets for theirencouragement and help in bringing this project to completion.

During my stay in Moscow in 1994 at the former Central Party Archive Iwas given great help in tracing documents and reading Stalin’s marginalnotes by L.P. Kosheleva and L.A. Rogovaia. I could not have done itwithout them. I want to thank the library staff of the International Instituteof Social History and of my own Institute for East European Studies inAmsterdam for their much appreciated assistance throughout the years. Thebook could not have been completed without a grant from the NetherlandsOrganization for Scientific Research (NWO), which allowed me one and ahalf years of full-time paid leave of absence from the university in 1997–9. Ithank Bruno Naarden and Wim Roobol for their support. Should I haveforgotten to mention anyone who helped me, I sincerely apologise.

The authors and publishers would like to thank the following for grantingpermission to reproduce material in this work:

Collection International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam forFigure 12 ‘‘Otto Bauer’’.

Acknowledgements

Publishing House Respublika, Moscow for Figure 1 ‘‘I.V. Stalin’’ andFigure 6 ‘‘A.A. Bogdanov’’.

State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow for Figure 3 ‘‘V.I. Lenin’’, Figure 8‘‘Ivan the Terrible’’, Figure 9 ‘‘N.G. Chernyshevskii’’, Figure 10 ‘‘V.G.Belinskii’’ and Figure 11 ‘‘Peter the Great’’.

Every effort has been made to obtain permission for the use of copyrightitems. Author and publisher would be glad to hear from any copyrightholders not so acknowledged.

Erik van ReeSeptember 2001

Acknowledgements ix

To write a book about Stalin’s political thought is a risky project. During themany years when I was occupied with it I was routinely treated to the ironicquestion: “Did he, then, have any political thought at all?” Decades after hisleader’s death, Lazar Kaganovich said: “before anything else, Stalin was anideological person. For him the idea was the main thing.”1 But the faithfulKaganovich, one of the Soviet leaders most responsible for the cult ofStalin’s personality, is not exactly an impartial witness. Few would agreewith him that his boss had been a man of ideas. To focus a study of JosephStalin on his ideas is, therefore, a project of which the very relevance shouldbe more or less shown in advance.

That the Soviet dictator was not a stupid man is generally taken forgranted, but that political doctrine was essential for him is open to generaldoubt to no lesser degree. For most, including the present author, Stalin wasabove all a criminal and a mass murderer. There are admittedly a smallnumber who still admire the great leader, but even they do not find his ideashis most significant heritage. Their idol was above all a great war leaderunder whose iron hand the Soviet Union was transformed into a superpower.

Stalin is mostly believed to have been a man of naked power who adaptedhis ideas at will whenever it suited him. From this perspective, he was acynic, an opportunist and a shrewd pragmatist – perhaps a tactician ofgenius – but never a man of principle. To attempt to understand the logic ofStalin’s broader doctrines is therefore not worth the trouble. The effort isallegedly based on a fundamental misunderstanding, namely that Stalin’sthought had some kind of inner logic instead of being an accumulation ofad hoc adaptations. Stalin’s ideas were determined by the interaction ofcircumstance and his own power hunger rather than being an active elementof their own, shaping actual policies. These ideas counted for little if itcomes to understanding what actually happened in the USSR between 1928and 1953, for they were determined by Stalinist reality instead of deter-mining that reality. For example, is it not silly to assume that Stalin put intopractice the idea of the kolkhoz because he was attracted to the idea of thesocialist mode of production? Was his real point not rather to exercise bettercontrol over the peasantry?

Introduction

To counter such objections, one could argue that the Soviet dictator didbelieve in the Marxist principles avowed by him. But even if this could beconvincingly argued – as I believe it can be – it might still not shake thedoubters, for Stalin’s beliefs might be little more than self-deception. Hisconvictions might represent formulas to legitimise his actions to his ownconscience instead of being held in advance of these actions and providing aguideline for them.

One could also point out that in its fundamentals Stalin’s ideology didhave a strong inner coherence. It formed a surprisingly closed system, withits elements hanging together as neatly as the polished building blocks of anInca temple. This strong coherence suggests that the doctrine could not havebeen simply derived from the dynamics of an ever-changing reality but musthave had some kind of logic of its own. The best model to explain thiswould be that it emanated from one ordering centre, from one thinking mindformulating the doctrine. But that does not count for much either. For evenif Stalin’s basic idea could be successfully presented as a coherent wholeinstead of as a hotch-potch of ad hoc elements, as I again believe it can, wehave not shown that it played any active role. We may have proved that theidea was not simply determined by reality, but we have not proved the oppo-site thereby. The idea might be a mere fantasy, hovering above reality.

This latter possibility points to an even more disturbing aspect of thequestion. The first objection against the relevance of a study of Stalin’spolitical thought is based on the hypothesis that the doctrine was a passive

2 Introduction

Figure 1 I.V. Stalin: from his 1947 Short Biography

element in the Soviet system, not one of its determining factors. But there isalso a second, even more fatal, hypothesis holding that, in many cases, thedoctrine had little to do with Soviet reality at all. The Stalinist idea was noteven a passive reflection of that reality but only camouflaged it. It provideda deformed picture of reality, with the only purpose to mislead people. Itwas, in a word, mere propaganda. The leader’s pronouncements aboutdemocracy, peace and proletarian rule fall into this category.

To sum up, according to the above model of analysis of Stalin’s politicalthought, that thought was, first, a justification after the deed instead of asource of inspiration for the deed; and, second, as a justification it was ofteneven fundamentally at odds with reality, ideally deforming rather thanreflecting it. If this were a more or less accurate and exhaustive analysis ofthe role of Stalin’s doctrine, then it would indeed be a waste of time to makea study of it. There would in any case be little use in discussing it at booklength.

But obviously, in my opinion, things are not as simple as they seem to be.Let us first take a closer look at the problem of correspondence betweenideas and reality. In some cases the question is simple indeed. When in 1937Stalin ordered it to be made public that his comrade Sergo Ordzhonikidzehad died of natural causes instead of having committed suicide, he wassimply lying. And when he told Polish government delegates that the deadofficers discovered in Katyn had been murdered by the Germans, he waslying with an even straighter face, which he was very good at. But when heinsisted that the USSR was a democracy, the problem is more complex. Inthat case, we are faced with the question of the definition of a concept.

The relevant questions here are which definition of democracy did Stalinuse; whether he was more or less consistent in this; whether he himself reallydid believe in the appropriateness of that particular definition; and, last butnot least, whether the USSR was a democracy according to that definition.One should not make the lazy mistake of concluding that the Soviet dictatorwas only putting up a deceptive show to cheat his audience into believingwhat he himself very well knew to be a hoax, for the simple reason that theUSSR was obviously no democracy according to our definition of thatterm.

Stalin did know better than anyone that the Soviet people were not insovereign charge of the state. He knew that the communist party, not they,were in charge, and he was determined to strike down mercilessly anyminority, or majority for that matter, challenging communist rule. He knew,in other words, that the USSR was no democracy in the sense of actualpopular sovereignty. But he did apply a concept of democracy of his own,resting on two pillars. First, democracy was not primarily a matter of fairprocedure but of policies alleged to be in the interest of the people. Theundivided rule of the communist party was therefore precisely the crux ofany true democracy, because that party was committed to the only economicsystem truly in the popular interest, i.e. communism. The second defining

Introduction 3

aspect of democracy was that it should be a system that allowed the popula-tion to participate at least in state organs, even without having a determiningsay in it.

Despite numerous adaptations and frequent changes, Stalin remainedfaithful to the basics of this model, in which he obviously believed – witnesshis numerous pronouncements in this direction in the small circle of hisclose comrades. What is more, the USSR was a democracy in this sense. Inthis case, it would therefore be a primitive simplification to assume thatStalin was only cheating the public when he claimed to have created themost democratic state in the world. Or that he was only speaking for anaudience abroad. Such assumptions betray a striking lack of understandingof what made communist leaders like Joseph Stalin tick.

Let me make a perhaps unexpected digression. For those among us whoare not Roman Catholics, or adherents of similar faiths, there is no corre-spondence whatsoever between a small piece of sacramental bread and thebody of Christ. The lack of correspondence is so obvious that, to some, thevery question of whether there could be any correspondence at all is silly.Yet the true believer believes that the bread is unquestionably an instance ofthe body of Christ. The implausibility from a rational point of view doesnot bother him.

Of course, this is no proof of the fact that Stalin believed that the Sovietsystem was an instance of socialist democracy. Strange beliefs do exist, butthat does not prove that Stalin was a strange believer. Nevertheless, theexample of the idea of transubstantiation does warn us against easilyassuming that Stalinist doctrines were pure propaganda for the simple reasonthat they do not conform to our definition of reality. In studying Stalin’spolitical thought, we cannot be content to hang around in our own frame ofmind but must make a bold attempt to visit the latter’s mental universe. Ifwe do that, we will still conclude in many instances that the Soviet dictatorwas a barefaced liar, as in the case of Ordzhonikidze and Katyn. Butalthough Stalin lied whenever it was useful to do so, we will conclude in thepresent study that the fundamental political and ideological concepts withwhich he operated nevertheless expressed his understanding of reality.

As far as can be ascertained, Stalin was a true believer. For him, theSoviet political system was indeed the highest form of democracy. Foranother example, when he ruled the country the proletariat was not inpower. Even in October 1917 there had never been any “dictatorship of theproletariat” but only party rule. But that does not mean that for Stalin thatterm meant, really, nothing, that he used it only to fool his audience. As amatter of fact, we will find that the term “proletarian dictatorship” had aprecise meaning for the Soviet leader. He found it a significant enoughterminological issue to occupy himself for years with the question ofwhether the USSR and the “people’s democracies” should be classified asproletarian dictatorships. From the mid-1930s until his death he did not stopthinking about this question.

4 Introduction

The assumption that Stalin could not really have believed in the doctrineshe avowed publicly rests on two misunderstandings. First, we are soenveloped in our own conceptual framework, so unacquainted with totali-tarian thinking, that we simply cannot believe that anybody can believe suchrubbish. It simply must be a hoax. However, to argue that Stalin’s statementswere so nonsensical that he cannot have believed in them is no less primitivethan to assume, for example, that St Paul must have known very well that hehad not been chosen by the Holy Spirit to convey the word of God; because,obviously, no intelligent man could possibly have believed something asunreal as that. St Paul must have used the story about the Holy Spirit only tostrengthen his authority among the early Christian community. Few scholarswill argue in this way in this case, but is it not from a rational point of viewas implausible to believe in the Holy Spirit as in the proletarian dictatorship?I repeat that strange beliefs do exist, even if we may find them strange.

The second assumption that hinders us from recognising that Stalin mayhave been a true believer is that to recognise that he was sincere in the funda-mentals of his belief might cast a positive light on him. But that is, first,completely irrelevant and, second, misguided. Generally speaking, thegreatest crimes in history have been committed by the sincere – those whobelieve in their hearts that they are justified in committing their acts. In thepresent study, my focus will be to discover what Stalin himself intended toconvey with his doctrinal pronouncements, before easily assuming that itwas mere propaganda and a masquerade.

The question of correspondence of idea and reality has further ramifica-tions beyond questions of definition and belief, which might be consideredrelatively sterile matters by some observers. The point is that, however odd,Stalin’s beliefs were often of causal significance for the development ofSoviet society. Perhaps the most extreme case of non-correspondence of theStalinist idea with Stalinist realities concerned the so-called Great Terror of1937–38. Somewhere under a million people were executed during theseyears on charges of espionage, sabotage and terror. It would be hard to finda single case in which the accusations were accurate. But that total lack ofcorrespondence between idea and reality does not make the former neces-sarily irrelevant.

For, what if Stalin really believed that those he persecuted were indeedmurderers, wreckers and spies? What if that totally inaccurate belief wasnevertheless the main reason he persecuted them? In that case, we wouldhave found a major example in which Stalin’s ideas are essential to an under-standing of real developments. The fact that these ideas were outrageouslywrong then becomes in a sense even irrelevant. If the Son of Sam killedbecause he believed that a thousand-year-old black dog told him to do so,the fact that the dog was considerably younger than that and only barkeddoes not change the killer’s motive.

I will not argue that Stalin was a psychiatric case. That assumption isirrelevant to my argument. I will argue instead that he was a convinced

Introduction 5

adherent of the bolshevik ideology of murderous class war. That ideologymade him predict that, in the face of ultimate defeat, the desperate classenemy was bound to turn to espionage, sabotage and murder on a massivescale. In the course of this book, I will treat the question of how thishypothesis might be upheld despite the fact that Stalin himself organised therespective confessions through torture. I will argue that he believed he wasdrawing the truth out of his victims through violent means, a truth he hadinstinctively grasped in advance on the basis of his bolshevik insights. Thecase of the Holy Inquisition provides a good comparison. Its officers knewvery well that their victims spoke only because they were under torture. Butthat did not necessarily make their confessions untrue. On the contrary, thehot irons forced the truth out of the heretics and witches.

Powerful support for this model of analysis is provided by Stalin’sextremely odd behaviour on the eve of the German invasion of June 1941.The Soviet leader was reliably warned from many quarters about the immi-nent danger, but he just did not believe it. He put aside the numerous reportsfrom the British and his own intelligence services, stubbornly insisting thatthey could not be true. Stalin proceeded from a general analysis of howimperialism operated. The imperialists were out for maximum profits andexpansion, but precisely their motive of self-interest instructed them toproceed more or less rationally. This told Stalin two things. First, Hitlerwould not be so foolish as to attack Russia before he had finished offBritain. And, second, isolated, threatened Britain would do anythingpossible to provoke a Russian–German war. This, again, convinced Stalinthat the reports of imminent attack must be British disinformation.

In other words, Stalin believed in his own powers of analysis to such adegree that he simply knew what Churchill and Hitler were up to. He sensedit. And he was so certain of himself that he was psychologically able toignore all real information. The interesting point here is that, in this case,there can be no doubt that he really did believe his own nonsense. Otherwise,he would have taken the necessary precautions against the German attackafter all. And that again proves that Stalin was able to set aside reality andact on his own truly held assumptions in a way that reasonable observerswould find scarcely possible. It is a clear case of Stalin’s analysis of reality,although completely at odds with it, determining his own actions and thefate of the USSR.

We are now approaching the general question of whether, and to whatdegree, the Stalinist idea had a determining influence on Soviet society andpolitics. The example of Stalin’s refusal to recognise the German threathighlights the dangers of making too schematic a distinction betweenmotives of power and motives of doctrine. Stalin’s assessment of the situa-tion was informed, and deformed, by his bolshevik frame of analysis, but hisgoal remained to protect the Soviet state. Doctrine answered the question ofhow its power might most successfully be preserved. The same can be said ofthe Great Terror. Stalin’s goal was to preserve and enlarge the power of the

6 Introduction

state and of himself, but the delusions inherent in his doctrine told him that,to secure that goal, the numerous saboteurs and spies threatening the stateshould be rounded up.

In one of its aspects, then, the relation between power and doctrine is thatpower represents the goal and doctrine prescribes the means. But this is tooone-sided a framework to fully grasp the matter at hand. The point is thatthe relation can also be of the opposite – with doctrine formulating the goaland power representing the means. Once a leader has acquired power, hemust decide what to do with it. What kind of social order is he going tocreate? Doctrine informs him on that point. Like Stalin, Adolf Hitler strovefor absolute personal power, but whereas the latter worked towards a newworld of racial hierarchy, the former aimed for the very different goal of atotally nationalised and planned society. From this aspect, power was onlythe means enabling the leader to attain his particular vision, to press his ownblueprint onto the world. Thus power and doctrinal motives were inter-twined in complex ways.

The hypothesis that the Stalinist idea only passively reflected the powermotive is untenable. The best model is that of power and doctrinal motivesactively influencing each other. On the one hand, doctrine is alwayssubjected to a kind of Darwinian process of selection. Ideological elementsthat would harm their adherents in terms of power have a tendency to bediscarded as unrealistic. They will mostly either be adapted, completelydisavowed or rendered harmless by removing their realisation to a farawayfuture. But, although these too are tested against reality, new ideas alwaysarise spontaneously. Time and again, political activists and ideologuesdevelop new doctrinal variations. And, in their turn, these ideas are active inshaping the form that power takes. For even when power is the highestconcern, no political actor can ever evade two crucial questions – namely,how can his power best be strengthened and what is he going to do with it?And there is never just one answer. Different systems of ideas providedifferent answers.

The case of the collectivisation of agriculture is illuminating. When in1928 and 1929 the Soviet cities experienced a lack of grain, Stalin concludedthat the villages should move on to some form of large-scale agriculture,which, in his opinion, was the only system equipped to produce a substantialmarketable surplus. We recognise here the two motives operating jointly. Itwas the lack of grain that forced Stalin into action. Discontent among theurban proletariat undermined his prestige and power, but his conclusion thatonly large-scale agriculture was productive enough was stamped by aMarxist bias. Moreover, he decided that, as a socialist state, the USSR couldnever accept a capitalist form of large-scale farming, which left no otheroption but the kolkhoz. The kolkhoz was important to Stalin as a means ofsubjecting the peasants to state control, but had he not been a Marxist andhad he realised that large-scale socialist agriculture was less rather than moreproductive than capitalist, he would have concluded that collectivisation

Introduction 7

could only undermine his power in the long run. He would then have soughtother means of control over the peasantry.

Even more strikingly, when in the early 1930s the collective farms provedto be an economic disaster Stalin decided not to abandon them. Althougheconomic disruption threatened the stability of his regime, he remainedconvinced of the long-term superiority of socialist agriculture. He put hispower at risk because a misguided doctrine told him that in the long runthat power would be served by sitting it out. Thus, even if we for the sake ofargument suppose that Stalin cared nothing for the socialist system and onlyfor his power, then it was still his doctrine that dictated collectivisation –precisely to secure that power. And this is not even putting my case asstrongly as it might be put. The fact is that, apart from power motives, Stalindid also believe in the historical inevitability of socialism. Collectivisationwas not only the best way to secure his power but also historically inevitableand therefore in a sense the very purpose of that power.

Trying to find an answer to the question of which element – power ordoctrine – was the more important one in Soviet Russia, we run into serioustrouble. The best model is that, time and again, circumstances provided theleadership with a problem that in the long run threatened their power. Thisprovided the main motive to act. Thus the question of power is mostlyobservable in the background of a new policy decision. But various optionsare always available, various answers to the question of which course willsolidify power most in the short and long run. And which answer is givendepends again on which interpretation of the events, which set of doctrines,is triumphant. Power provides the question, but doctrine provides theanswer.

Take for another example Stalin’s theory of “socialism in one country.”One can argue convincingly that he embraced it for the simple reason thatthe “world revolution” had failed to break out; because there was onlysocialism in one country. Better focus most attention on constructing theone real power base that exists, Stalin must have thought. Yet, because ofthat very same circumstance of isolation, Trotskii drew precisely the oppo-site conclusion, namely that the Soviet government should focus mostattention on trying to break out of its isolated state. Both were concernedwith the survival and power of the Soviet state. But the dilemma of how topreserve that power produced two different answers, depending on the ideo-logical preferences of their authors. And this, again, leaves even unsaid thefact that for both Trotskii and Stalin how to preserve the Soviet state wasnot the only relevant question. Both were also interested in the long-rangeperspectives of world communism as such.

Yet, having said all this, did not Stalin after all change his principles atwill, dependent on circumstance? Pushing the Communist International firstinto an all-consuming struggle against “social-fascism”, then moving on to a“popular front” policy, and then in 1939 shamelessly embracing Joachimvon Ribbentrop – all that does not testify to a principled stand. In other

8 Introduction

words, it may be so that Stalin’s doctrines were among the determiningfactors of Soviet life, but were these doctrines themselves not so malleablethat they nevertheless counted for little? However, although Stalin was flex-ible to the point of being unprincipled when it came to tactics, in his broadergoals and perspectives he was inflexible. In the first aspect, he was indeed apragmatic, even a cynic, but in the second he was a fanatic and a truebeliever.

The broad outlines of Soviet foreign policy were remarkably constantthroughout Stalin’s era. His main goal was to preserve the USSR and toextend its power through diplomacy and, if necessary or useful, war. At thesame time, the world revolution always remained on his agenda as asecondary and subordinate goal, to be pursued through the world commu-nist movement, which he attempted to guide towards victory in the long run.Stalin never changed this basic framework. Only when it came to questionsof tactics did he feel free to make and break alliances just as it suited him. Itis the latter point that tempts observers into thinking that the dictator was amere opportunist, but that ignores the element of fundamental constancy.The same can be said about, for example, Stalin’s economic policies. Toreturn to the case of collectivisation: whatever happened, the kolkhoz wasthere to stay. It was only in subordinate arrangements, such as the privateplots, that the dictator was prepared to compromise. To repeat: it is simplynot true that Joseph Stalin adapted his ideas at will. In many cases he stub-bornly stuck to them against all common sense, even to the point of,unintentionally, endangering his own power.

This brings me to the question that will play the central role in the presentbook, namely that of the nature of Stalin’s doctrine. That doctrine devel-oped in interaction with the developing circumstances in the country and inthe world at large in answer to the challenges to communist power producedby these changing circumstances. As I have argued above, doctrine andcircumstance were mutually influential. But circumstance is more than whatis immediately found. It contains the political tradition of a country as oneof its important constituting elements. The question is in what ways Stalin’sdoctrine was influenced by the Russian tradition.

As a good point of departure for treating this question, we may note thatStalinism, as well as bolshevism in general, was a phenomenon on the inter-section of two traditions. It originated at the point where German Marxism,imported from the West, mixed with locally existing political traditions.Common sense makes us expect that Stalinism reflected both. That was thecase, but what particular kind of mix was it?

Many thoughtful Western historians have emphasised the Russian tradi-tional factor. Richard Pipes defines pre-revolutionary Russia as apatrimonial state, a term from Hobbes denoting a variety of dynastic rule inwhich a country and state are the personal property of the monarch. Thiswas never a complete reality. The Russian monarch was never effectively incharge of all landed estates throughout the empire. But after the Middle

Introduction 9

Ages the tsarist system took a form that did approach the patrimonial idealtype. However, under Catherine the Great the landowners’ estates revertedto privately owned property. This fundamentally undid the patrimonialsystem as a socio-economic reality. Then again, Russia never made a cleanbreak with the past. Despite the introduction of a limited parliamentari-anism in 1905, the government remained responsible to the emperor alone.In other words, the autocratic polity survived until March 1917. For Pipes,the bolshevik dictatorship largely copied the practices of the old autocracy.2

In Robert Tucker’s understanding of the matter, the roots of Stalin’sthinking lay in Marxism. The latter was and remained a revolutionaryphilosophy. But in practice Stalin turned to other sources of inspiration. TheSoviet dictator was especially fascinated by Ivan the Terrible’s efforts tocreate a centralised state against boyar resistance, and even more by Peterthe Great’s formula to overcome his country’s backwardness. Peter created acolossal, strictly centralised, bureaucratic state, with the purpose of speedingup his country’s modernisation and feeding a great army. In Tucker’s under-standing, Stalin’s model of “revolution from above” by means of acentralised state bureaucracy represented a reversion to that Petrine model.3

Pipes’ and Tucker’s models have the weakness that they observe no directcontinuity of the Soviet state with the imperial system as it existed by 1917,but rather a reversion to its earlier stages – as it were skipping a fewcenturies in reverse. Yet this does not seem to be a fatal flaw. As noted, patri-monialism had been undone by 1917, but the autocratic system was stillalive. And although later emperors did not repeat Peter’s revolution fromabove on the same heroic scale, the model of state-organised industrialisa-tion was not abandoned. Moreover, it would not be impossible as a matterof principle for revolutionary rulers such as Lenin and Stalin to be inspiredby examples set centuries ago. Although Tucker does not accuse Lenin ofthat crime, this is indeed his understanding of the latter’s successor.

The pre-revolutionary Russian tradition of statecraft has a number ofcharacteristics that are too obviously similar to what the bolsheviks did after1917 to be overlooked. There was the strong state, organised along the linesof bureaucratic centralism. There was the tendency of that state to achieveits goals through mobilisation of society from above. And there was, ofcourse, the fact that the state knew a system of one-man rule. Even moresimply put and leaving out all analytical subtleties, the attractiveness ofmodels such as Pipes’ and Tucker’s, making the Russian tradition the domi-nant influence on Stalinism, rests on the undeniable fact that imperial andStalinist Russia were both centralist states unchecked by popular democraticcontrol.

However, this analysis has not remained unchallenged. Martin Malia andStephen Kotkin argue that bolshevism was no perverted product of tradi-tional Russia. Their basic claim is that, despite the obvious similaritiesbetween the pre- and post-revolutionary orders, the differences betweenthem were so substantial that we are dealing with fundamentally different

10 Introduction

systems. For Malia and Kotkin, the destruction of the land-owning, capi-talist and peasant classes set the bolshevik state fundamentally apart fromwhat existed before 1917. In their understanding, Stalin did in fact realise“socialism” – if we define this as full non-capitalism, i.e. as the completeabolition of private ownership of the means of production. Despite the so-called “Great Retreat” of the 1930s, Stalin never retreated to capitalism.

Under tsarism, the strong state was a dominant factor in society, as itwould remain under bolshevism. But the pre-revolutionary economic eliteswere land-owning and capitalist classes. The agricultural system of thevillage commune periodically redividing the land might be described as amidway station between collectivism and private ownership. The tsarist staterecognised private property as the legitimate basis of society. However, thebolshevik state did not and destroyed that property, taking everything intoits own hands. It thereby created a very different way of life. The introduc-tion of complete state ownership of industry and of collectivised agriculturerepresented a transition to a fundamentally new system, supposedly oper-ating on a totally planned basis and hoping to regulate the life of the peopleon new criteria of social welfare and justice.4

Taking a closer look, we will recognise important differences between thepre- and post-revolutionary regimes in all important fields – not only in theeconomic field. For example, in the case of the emperors and Stalin we aredealing with different forms of one-man rule. Like the emperors before him,Stalin was a single ruler whose will dominated all. But the emperors formedthe pinnacle of an ancien régime. They were hereditary dynasts. JosephStalin was the dictator of a modern political party. Looking more closely,what at first seems to be an identity between the two consecutive systemsbreaks down. And the elements of discontinuity become the more strikingthe closer we look, which importantly supports Kotkin and Malia’s basicthesis.

However, having arrived at this point a disturbing thought comes up. Arewe not dealing with a problem, the solution of which is basically arbitrary?Toning down polemics and looking at the matter as soberly as possible, wehave the following situation. One regime was replaced by another. Inevitably,some things remained the same and others changed. We can more or lessobjectively point out what remained the same and what changed. But therelative weight of these aspects remains a subjective matter. What the simi-larities and differences between pre- and post-revolutionary Russia were canbe established fairly accurately, but whether we find the similarities or thedifferences the more striking depends on our choice of criteria. Thisproblem is far from academic, as both the continuities and discontinuitiesare quite significant. The fact that the tsarist and Stalinist states werecentralised bureaucracies is no minor detail; nor is the fact that the onepreserved and the other destroyed private ownership of the means ofproduction. On what objective basis could one possibly decide which ofthese two facts must be considered the predominant aspect of the matter?

Introduction 11

If making the choice of attributing primacy to either of the factors isbasically arbitrary, then the whole debate would not only be endless but evenpointless. At this point, an adherent of the thesis of discontinuity mightbring in a powerful new argument. Political science enables us to categorisepolitical systems, and whatever its many points of similarity with the tsaristregime, and whichever significance we attribute to these points, the fact isthat, as a system, Stalinism must be classified as thoroughly modern. Forexample, and as noted above, whereas tsarism was a hereditary monarchy, atypically ancien régime form of government, in the Stalinist case we aredealing with a dictatorship by a political party, which again subjected itselfto the leader of its own bureaucracy. Whatever its horrors, as a system thiswas part of the modern world.

For another example, the old tsarist state was organised on the basis ofestates. People were categorised into social strata, each of which had adifferent legal definition and rights; which, moreover, a person took withhim should he change profession; and which were hereditary. The only wayout for a non-serf was to climb high enough up the bureaucratic ladder to beennobled, but he would then find himself in another estate. The influence ofthis pre-modern tradition is easily observable in Stalinist Russia. It was ahierarchical society, with different strata – party leaders, workers, peasants,prisoners, etc. – having vastly different rights and privileges in terms ofaccess to scarce goods, freedom of movement and other points.

However, these were no estates. The rights and privileges were completelylinked to the present occupation of a person. Should a nomenklatura officialbe dismissed, he would no longer be classed as part of the nomenklatura andwould lose all his privileges at a stroke. In contrast to workers, kolkhoznikihad a limited right of individual trade. Should a person move to the city andbecome a worker, he would no longer be classed as a peasant and would losethis right to trade. Moreover, the Stalinist system officially recognised formalequality before the law of all citizens. Despite this, privileges tied to socialposition were in some cases defined in law, but mostly, as in the case of thenomenklatura privileges, the matter was of an extra-legal character. All thisdefined the Stalinist system again as an odd, marginal variety of modernity.

The scholar defending the thesis of discontinuity would have no problemin admitting that Stalinism adopted many elements of the tsarist system.But he would add that only such elements of the ancien régime were adoptedas were themselves already part of modernity. For example, Stalin adoptedbureaucratic centralism, the model that Westerniser Peter the Great hadfurthered in order to modernise his country. The hierarchical model ofStalin’s state had many analogies with Peter’s Table of Ranks, but, signifi-cantly, the Soviet dictator did not reintroduce the system of noble titles. Nor,we may add, did he reintroduce serfdom, whatever limitations he set on thepeasants’ freedom of movement.

This classification of Stalinism as part of modernity, setting it fundamen-tally apart from the pre-modern ancien régime, is in my view basic to an

12 Introduction

understanding of what Stalinism was all about. In the course of the presentbook, I will discuss why it did indeed not represent a resurrection of the oldworld. But the proponent of the thesis of continuity will easily recover fromthis blow. He or she may note that, even though the transition from tsarismto Stalinism meant moving from pre-modernity to modernity, the fact thatRussia “chose” precisely this form of modernity highlights the historicalcontinuity. Is it a coincidence that, when Russia became modern, it did notopt for democracy but for totalitarian dictatorship? Is it not characteristicthat in this country, with its autocratic tradition, modernity took a dictato-rial form? Hereby we are returned to the situation of stalemate. Whether wefind the fact that Stalinism was a fundamentally new system the more signif-icant aspect of the matter, or decide to attach most importance to thespecific form the new system took, remains a matter of choice.

As long as we limit ourselves to simply comparing the tsarist and Stalinistsystems, we will be unable to break the deadlock. This does not mean thatsuch comparisons are pointless. But the only conclusion that can validly bedrawn from them is that the elements of continuity and discontinuity areboth so substantial that it is hard to strike a balance. There is no objectivecriterion to decide how to strike that balance. The question seems to bereduced almost to a matter of taste.

The present book hopes to avoid remaining trapped in this dilemma byfocusing on the motives and thinking of the man mainly responsible forconstructing the Stalinist system: Joseph Stalin himself. Returning to theoriginal question of the factors of influence in the development of his polit-ical thought, we must ask ourselves where he found his sources ofinspiration. Did he look to Marx and Lenin, or did he feel more at homewith Ivan and Peter? Did he see himself primarily as a Marxist revolu-tionary or as a Russian statesman? Common sense tells us that it will be alittle of both. Nevertheless, to approach the question from this angle ofStalin’s motives and sources of inspiration does bring us a step further. Wewill find less ambivalence here than a simple comparison of the tsarist andStalinist orders suggests. I will argue that the Soviet dictator was moreinspired by Western revolutionism than by the Russian tradition. Westernrevolutionism predominated in the shaping of Stalin’s political thought.

To make this case, let me first make some crucial observations on theWestern revolutionary tradition. In many scholarly works dealing withStalinism, that tradition is treated oddly. And this way of treating it, oftenseemingly of marginal significance in the argument of the scholarsconcerned, has in fact great consequences for that argument. In accounts ofStalinism, it is quite common to find the scholars in question insisting thatthe idea of transforming society by a powerful state bureaucracy differedvitally from what Marx and Engels understood by socialism. Their socialismwas capped by a decreasingly stratified commune-state. Their society wasbased on equality and emancipation. The brotherhood of man was theirguiding principle. This interpretation of the ideas and practice of original

Introduction 13

Marxism precludes us from using them as a context for understandingStalinism. It forces us to treat Stalinist etatism as a deformation of theMarxist ideal. And the Russian tradition then easily offers itself as thenatural alternative context.

Students of Stalinism, as well as of Leninism, tend to single out a numberof theories and practices that are allegedly in obvious contrast to earlyMarxism. Beginning with Lenin, one observes the idea of the vanguardparty and the resulting practice of minority dictatorship, which goes againstthe grain of all Marx’s strictures against Blanquism. And whereas Marx isalleged to have been a convinced opponent of state terror and bureaucracy,Lenin introduced these mechanisms of government without apparent pangsof conscience. What is more, the whole revolution of October 1917 in anindustrially backward country like Russia was a blatant affront to Marx’stheory that socialism can only be introduced under the conditions of devel-oped capitalism.

Turning to Stalin, the argument continues that the dictator added anumber of crucial deviations from classical Marxism of his own. Theymainly concerned the national question. To begin, in open defiance of clas-sical Marxism, the Soviet dictator insisted that socialism can be constructedin one country. Furthermore, he introduced a strict state centralism oppres-sive of the national aspirations of the non-Russian peoples, after the SecondWorld War climaxing in anti-Semitic “anti-cosmopolitanism.” In thecultural field, Stalin replaced Marxist revolutionary values with Russiannationalism. Finally, in foreign policy, the dictator turned in Marxist inter-nationalism for great power chauvinism.

But scholars of Leninism and Stalinism make it too easy for themselves ifthey define original Marxism in the glowing terms of proletarian solidarityand the stateless society. In doing so, they present a framework into whichStalinism cannot be fitted. This leads the reader gently on to the Russiantradition. For what other framework but this remains? But is all this anacceptable way of presenting the revolutionary tradition, which wasproduced in nineteenth-century Western Europe and exported to Russia? Forexample, did Marx and Engels really reject state centralisation and nationaloppression? What if they did not? What if they would in fact have beenconvinced exponents of this? And, for another example, let us assume thatMarx and Engels did indeed reject dictatorship by revolutionary minorities.Even if that were the case, other Western European revolutionary tendencies,notably the Jacobins and Blanquists, did not reject that option. They – and Imight add not any Russian socialist – were its original exponents.

Let us now make an extraordinarily bold conjecture and suppose thatthere is no fundamental doctrine in the work of Lenin and Stalin thatcannot be found in the Western European revolutionary tradition – Jacobin,Marxist or other. Let us suppose that proletarian revolution in backwardcountries, revolution from above, revolutionary minority dictatorship, stateownership of the means of production, state terror, bureaucracy, centralism,

14 Introduction

socialism in one country, nationalism and great power chauvinism, that allof these Leninist and Stalinist features would under closer scrutiny be seento have an important presence in Western European revolutionary doctrine;that they were not marginal phenomena to be discovered with the help of abright lamp but important everyday features of nineteenth-century Westernrevolutionism; that the only really significant difference would be that in theWest the Jacobins had just a few years to experiment, whereas the bolshevikscould give it a go for many decades. In other words, that the only specificallyRussian thing about all these concepts was that Lenin and Stalin turnedthem into practice on an incomparably larger scale than ever happened inthe West. What would this tell us?

It would tell us one thing at a minimum, namely that the Western revolu-tionary tradition unexpectedly offers itself as a possible and quite completeframework for understanding Stalinism. For then it would become possibleto understand, for example, Stalinist bureaucratic centralism not only withina Russian traditionalist framework but also within the context of Westernrevolutionary doctrine. If it is only a tenacious myth that Marx denied thepossibility of proletarian revolution in industrially backward countries, thenLenin’s decision to carry it out does not necessarily need to be explained byhis adapting Marxism to Russia. It might alternatively be explained from hisMarxist revolutionary orthodoxy. If Marx and Engels were in favour offorcefully assimilating small peoples into the German cultural nation, thenStalin’s policies of national oppression need not necessarily mean his digres-sion from Marxism. He may as well have been acting in its spirit.

It would not be fair to suggest that this approach represents a completelynew departure. There has always been a section of Western scholarshipanalysing bolshevik practice as revolutionary utopianism turned into grue-some reality. One of the first to present this point of view was J.L. Talmon,who argued many decades ago that Stalinism must be understood as a finalproduct of the totalitarian branch of the Western European Enlightenmenttradition. Stalinism embodied the ultimate consequence of the Westernideas of rational order and equality if developed one-sidedly without duerespect for personal liberty. In Talmon’s view, bolshevism replayed theFrench Revolution on a gigantic scale and more consistently than theJacobins ever conceived.5

Whether this is a valid analysis of how Stalin’s political doctrines cameabout remains to be seen. It cannot be determined in the abstract. We mustinvestigate on the basis of the available sources which influences worked onthe Soviet leader – in his youth as well as during his mature years in power.The present book sets out to do this as far as the author is able.

My own belief in the Russian tradition as the main key to understandingthe development of Stalin’s political thought was shaken when I visitedMoscow in 1994 and studied the private library with its handwrittenmarginal notes that the Soviet leader had left behind. As I will discuss inmore detail later, this collection of books is overwhelmingly Marxist in

Introduction 15

composition. It shows Stalin’s lively interest in history – general, Russianand even ancient – but it does not give any indication that its owner hadbeen interested in systems of thought other than Marxism. Leaving literaryworks and those by historians aside, it contained nothing written bySlavophiles, pan-Slavists or other orthodox or conservative Russian thinkers.To put it bluntly, the Soviet dictator may have been a fan of Peter the Greatas a statesman, but there is no indication that he ever read anything of hiscourt ideologist Feofan Prokopovich.

In contrast, the handwritten notes in the works of Marx, Engels and Leninleave no doubt that their author considered himself a pupil of these revolu-tionary luminaries. Even in copies published in 1950 and 1951, one can stillsee the old man marking passages on the “dictatorship of the proletariat”and materialist philosophy. Meanwhile, more and more archival materialswere published, such as part of the Stalin–Molotov correspondence.Publications like these confirmed that the private Stalin was as convinced aMarxist as the public figure speaking from the rostrum of a party congress.In his private notes and letters there figured the same “Trotskyite saboteurs”and “imperialist warmongers” we know so well from his speeches. The Sovietleader seems not to have forgotten the “international working class”, “worldrevolution” and the “struggle against bureaucracy” even for a moment. Allthis was odd, to say the least. From the angle of the mind of Stalin himself,the thesis of continuity seemed to evaporate almost totally.

The latter conclusion would be stretching the point too far. Nevertheless,my research led me to conclude that Stalin developed his political thoughtmainly in a Marxist framework. First of all, Lenin’s influence was overriding.This presents an analytical problem, because the student of Leninism is againconfronted with the same question of Marxist and Russian sources. I willdeal with this matter in the first section of the book, as far as necessary in anargument dealing not with Leninism as such but as a factor in the develop-ment of Stalinism. As we will see, next to Lenin’s dominance, Stalin was alsoinfluenced by a number of other Marxist authors and political activists. As toRussian thinkers of a non-Marxist persuasion, Stalin nurtured specialsympathy for nineteenth-century “revolutionary democrats” such asVissarion Belinskii and Nikolai Chernyshevskii. Typically, these were promi-nent Westernisers.

Stalin’s inspiration by Ivan and Peter, crucial in Tucker’s understanding,is not to be denied. His appreciation of these tsars epitomises his link withthe Russian tradition of strong-armed statecraft. The Soviet dictator appre-ciated Ivan the most. He found him a prince of strong national inclinations,whose efforts to strengthen autocratic power in the face of boyar resistancewere historically progressive. As far as his state-building efforts wereconcerned, Peter too could count on Stalin’s favourable comments. What ismore, not only did Stalin believe in Ivan’s and Peter’s progressive roles, healso recognised the parallel between what they had done and what he wasdoing. Nevertheless, I will argue that Stalin’s appreciation remained limited

16 Introduction

and conditional. The Soviet dictator did absorb the Russian etatist tradition,but only as far as it fitted into his Marxist framework. Otherwise put, hispositive evaluation of Ivan and Peter did not contradict his Marxism butfollowed from the Marxist premisses to which he clung tenaciously.

However, it would be an oversimplification to describe Stalin’s politicalthought exclusively in Marxist terms. Following its developments over theyears, we will observe the growth of a strange compound of Marxism andnationalism. In time, the nationalism grew ever stronger in Stalin’s mind, tothe detriment of the Marxist component. Yet the former never crowded outthe latter. There is something paradoxical about Stalin’s nationalism. Tobegin with, he absorbed it partly from the Marxist tradition itself.Furthermore, the nationalism he came to admire most was that of thenineteenth-century “revolutionary democrats” mentioned above. But thatwas precisely the nationalism of the Westernising school of Russianthought! Even in his most xenophobic and anti-Semitic old days, the “anti-cosmopolitanism” to which Stalin referred was Belinskii’s. Stalin’snationalism was of the revolutionary type, which does not mean that it wasnot murderous in its effects but does show that revolutionary nationalismcan have that effect.

I will conclude that, from the point of view of the history of ideas, nogenuine conservative and traditionalist element can be discovered in Stalin’spolitical thought. Stalinism remained part of the Marxist and revolutionarynationalist universe imported from Western Europe in the nineteenthcentury. Stalin’s curious brand of “revolutionary patriotism” did absorb theRussian etatist tradition but was not overwhelmed by it. Yet this conclusiondoes not shatter the position of those who recognise the powerful Russiantraditionalist imprint on Stalinist doctrine. They can point out that, eventhough Stalin found his defence of dictatorship, centralism and state terrorin Marxism and not directly in the Russian past, it remains significant thathe selected these particular elements from Marxism. He might as well haveadopted its democratic aspects, but he did not. In other words, even if Stalindrew his inspiration mainly from Marxism, his Russian background madeitself felt in his selectivity. I will admit this point. Although the present bookwill hopefully provide powerful support for the thesis of discontinuitybetween tsarism and Stalinism, debates such as these are never finallyresolved.

Introduction 17

In the eighteenth century, French philosophers concluded that humansociety should be made all over again. It should be returned to harmonywith the basic laws and principles that were inherent in nature itself, butwhich had unfortunately been put under a dark cloud when classical antiq-uity went to its ruin – or perhaps even since the dawn of mankind. Theprinciples that had been lost and waited to be retrieved were those ofreason. At some point in history, man lost sight of his own inherent ratio-nality. He plunged himself into ignorance and darkness, and thus causedunreason to prevail.

The philosophes believed that society should be mercilessly stripped of thecrust of unreason that it had allowed to grow upon its own rational essence.But reason clearly did not have its way spontaneously. If the people under-stood their own rationality of themselves, the tragedy of unreason wouldnever have occurred in the first place. Reason ought to be assisted, and thisis where the “Enlightenment” came in. Wise educators showed the world theroad back to its lost essence. The philosophes made themselves available forthe historic task of bringing liberation to the people from the obscurantistpriests and kings who had led them into slavery. They showed the people theway out of this rotten “feudal” world.

Reason is a concept with many interpretations. It may have associations ofeither common sense or logic. Forming a contrasting pair with emotion, italways has to do with the mind in the narrow sense – the intellect. But it is notimmediately clear what a “reasonable” society is. In the eighteenth century, itwas believed to be one based on the twin principles of freedom and equality,but there were, again, different interpretations of these ideals. In his TheOrigins of Totalitarian Democracy, Talmon argued that, on account of theirrespective interpretations of these basic ideals, the various tendencies ofEnlightenment thought could be broadly divided into two. One tendency wasbound to develop into modern liberalism and the other into modern totalitar-ianism. This is a highly schematic division, and it should be understood asideal-typical. But provided that that is understood, it is illuminating.

For the proto-liberals, freedom and equality turned mainly around indi-vidual rights. “Feudal” society hindered individuals in their rightful

1 Jacobinism

endeavours. Citizens should be endowed with equal rights and be free to doanything not violating the rights of their fellows. According to the otherinterpretation, reason found its home not primarily in the individual citizenbut in the community as a whole. A “reasonable” society was homogeneousand unified. Instead of the chaotic “feudal” structure, in which each of thevarious estates had its own specific powers and privileges, it was a tightlybound, compact community in which all individuals were not only equal inrights but also renounced their own “particular interests.” The highest virtuewas “virtue” itself: total dedication, denial of everything that smelled of self-ishness, unreserved association of the individual citizen with the generalgood. According to Talmon, this interpretation carried the danger that,although all citizens had the equal right to participate in the life of thecommunity, no one had any “particular” rights as opposed to the community.

A society built on total dedication has extraordinary features to show for.On the one hand, the citizen has no basis on which to defend his privaterights. Rights are not legitimate once they conflict with the common good.But dedication means that citizens are at the same time expected to engageactively in the body politic. Not to participate means not to dedicate oneselfbut to withdraw behind the protective walls of one’s “particular interests.”Dedication to the common good means ideally that citizens unite with theirfellows in all respects – in deed, in word and even in thought. In this state,community of purpose and community of action are among the mostrespected values. It is a strongly integrated society, pervaded by an atmo-sphere of active participation of the whole citizenry. The principle ofequality in its “totalitarian” interpretation is not primarily an equality ofrights but an equality of sacrifice and effort.

According to Talmon, the godfather of “totalitarian democracy” wasJean-Jacques Rousseau. The latter proceeded from a concept of total andindivisible popular sovereignty. He was driven by fear of any articulation of“particular interests” that might put itself up against the collective of thepeople. His teaching was at once ultra-democratic and dictatorial. On theone hand, Rousseau believed that in a system of representative democracythe delegates of the people inevitably developed into a particular interestgroup. Therefore the people should not allow themselves to be represented.The state should consist of assemblies of the people – pure self-governmentwith popular participation developed to a maximum. But in this directdemocracy, the individual rights of citizens were also a dangerous expres-sion of “particularity.” To endow the people with rights in opposition to thedemocratic state meant to throw the common good to the lions of privateinterest. Therefore he demanded the “total alienation by each associate ofhimself and all his rights to the whole community.” Each put his person“under the supreme direction of the general will.” And with that act of asso-ciation there would be created an “artificial and collective body composed ofas many members as there are voters in the assembly.” Thus that bodyacquired “its unity, its common ego, its life and its will.”

Jacobinism 19

There remained the problem that even the sum of private wills might notadd up to a real universality. Even the collected people could be misled andtherefore will the wrong thing. “There is often,” Rousseau wrote sadly, “agreat difference between the will of all and the general will.” The assemblycould even unanimously diverge from the general will, making the demo-cratic vote a futile exercise. To avoid this, the philosopher hoped that a banon factional organisations of citizens prevented a process of hardening ofprivate interests. He also considered whether private property, which formedthe basis of the particular interest that he so despised, should be banned.Rousseau remarked that once the citizens joined in a social contract, thestate naturally became “master of all their goods.” But he was not preparedto take this step in all seriousness. Having received the property of its citi-zens, the state returned it. Every owner was regarded as a “trustee of thepublic property.” Had he taken the final step towards collective property,Rousseau would have ended up a communist.

Meanwhile, the philosopher acknowledged that pure direct democracydid not work. Some kind of bureaucracy, which I will simply define as abody of professional administrators, must exist. Now according toRousseau, “sovereignty, being nothing other than the exercise of the generalwill, can never be alienated.” But while the will could not be delegated, powercould. Thus he introduced a distinction between the legislative power, repre-senting the general will, and the executive power, which could not belong tothe sovereign people, since this was “exercised only in particular acts.”1 Forthe executive power, the bureaucratic principle was acceptable, provided thatthe directly democratic legislature remained in sovereign charge. The execu-tive power was never more than a humble servant, the one to take the sin of“particularity” on its shoulders. Thus, although accepting the inevitability ofa bureaucracy, there was established a marked hostility towards the execu-tive. To summarise, Rousseau’s popular sovereignty combined radical directdemocracy and popular participation, a totalitarian concept of subjection ofthe individual interest to the state and the acceptance of a subjected, limitedbureaucracy.

Finally, the rich work of Rousseau also provides a natural starting pointfor our discussion of the problem of patriotism. The French philosopher wasa declared opponent of what he called “cosmopolitanism.” In his view, patri-otism was a wholesome passion, because it stimulated virtue. Self-love was anegative trait in man but one hard to suppress. But love of one’s own father-land allowed a person to indulge in it, but in virtuous ways because in thatcase the self-love was combined with dedication to a whole greater thanoneself.2 How, then, did this patriotic pride tally with democracy? Thephilosopher would have considered this a strange question. For him thenation, the true fatherland, was the democratically collected citizenry. Thusthe pride of the patrie was, really, the pride of democracy.

But there was more to it. Essentially, the French Enlightenment doctrineoperated with a purely political concept of the nation. Nations were rational

20 Jacobinism

communities that need not have specific cultural marks. But there was aparadox hidden here, and Rousseau discovered it. If all countries establishedtheir own democratic “general wills,” one ended up with a number of particu-larities after all – namely those countries themselves. The new world consistedof a large number of separate communities, the members of which wereexpected to surrender themselves completely to them. Thus all these nationswould naturally tend to be inward-looking and acquire a specific culturalidentity and character of their own. Despite its primarily political character,the popular community, the “nation,” was coloured in by providing it with acultural identity common to all its members.

The idea that nations had a cultural character of their own was notunique to Rousseau among the Enlighteners. The same thesis can be found,for example, in the Encyclopédie of Diderot and d’Alembert. The idea waswidely shared in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Hegel believed in it,and so did Goethe. The most important ideologist of national character andculture was not Rousseau but Johann Gottfried Herder, who also abhorredcosmopolitanism but identified it with French classicism.3 Nevertheless,there was an important difference in accent between the cultural nationalismof the “French” type and the “German.” In the case of Rousseau, nationalcultures remained a variety of universal culture. The universal remained theyardstick by which to measure the national. For Herder, although hebelieved firmly in the peaceful co-operation of nations, national specificitywas the point of departure. Furthermore, the German nationalists were lessinclined to see the nation as a product of the break-up of the old world thanthe French. They were, on the contrary, always searching for the medievalroots of their culture. The nation should be consolidated by making itconscious of its own origins instead of by overcoming them.

During the French Revolution, the consequences of Rousseau’s concepts,the wholesome as well as the terrifying, came to light. France soon fell underthe dictatorship of the Jacobin Club. This party was based in Paris with itsartisans, while the rival Girondins had their main constituency in theoutlying, peasant provinces. Correspondingly, the former stood for statecontrol of prices and for all-out war against “food speculation” on behalf ofthe urban poor; against the latter, who favoured a liberal price policy. In thepolitical field, Jacobin Paris stood for strict centralism, for la République uneet indivisible, against the provinces, which hoped for a federalist structure ofthe new state. Repression was severe. Aristocrats accused of plotting wereexecuted, and the property of suspects was confiscated and divided amongpoor “patriots.”

This raises the question of whether this “despotism of liberty,” asRobespierre called his own regime, represented a betrayal of the originaldemocratic idea. However, the crucial principle of equality before the lawwas upheld even more consistently by the Jacobins than by their predeces-sors. And they did not abolish civic participation in the state butestablished it. The French nation was prepared for war in 1793 through the

Jacobinism 21

first great mass mobilisation in modern history, the levée en masse. Ratherthan seeing it as the abandonment of the democratic revolution, theJacobin project can be more fruitfully understood as a totalitarian interpre-tation of it. The logic behind Robespierre’s rule was not a very complexone. The Incorruptible was a great believer in Rousseau’s general will, andwhat he did essentially was to develop it in a ruthless way. First, he believedthat the people needed the direction of an enlightened agency to show themwhat they truly “willed.” That justified his own dictatorship. And, second,he knew for a fact that a community truly living according to a united willlived by total virtue. All citizens were expected to forget about themselvesand dedicate themselves totally to the nation. Those who could not live upto this high standard should be destroyed.4 Thus dictatorship and the elimi-nation of individual freedom arose from an interpretation of democraticcommunity.

The Jacobins were great patriots. Hobsbawm has nicely caught the revo-lutionary character of their original “patriotism” – a term pioneered byDutch revolutionaries – in the following terms. Patriots were

those who showed the love of their country by wishing to renew it byreform or revolution. And the patrie to which their loyalty lay, was theopposite of an existential, pre-existing unit, but a nation created by thepolitical choice of its members who, in doing so, broke with or at leastdemoted their former loyalties.5

Jacobin patriotism was of a primarily political rather than cultural type. Thestate was not first conceived as a cultural community but as a political unitestablishing itself by the very act of the establishment of legal equality.Legal equality was the birthmark of the nation, and it continued to beperceived as its essence. But the Jacobins also enthusiastically acceptedRousseau’s conclusion that modern nations necessarily had a cultural iden-tity of their own. That identity was also created, not found. The Frenchrevolutionaries were the first to make an attempt at a modern policy oflinguistic homogenisation. The republic was not only une et indivisible butalso française. Small local languages should be rooted out as counter-revolu-tionary, barbarian and backward.6

Furthermore, the Girondins were accused of forgetting the interests ofthe French people in the name of abstract internationalism. The concepts ofpolitical equality and French cultural identity were closely mixed up,because the “feudal” classes embodying traditional inequality were at thesame time believed to be far removed from the nation as a cultural commu-nity. The Jacobins decried the aristocracy as a “cosmopolitan” parasite onthe body of the nation. With their old family ties and properties throughoutEurope, and their international court culture, they lacked any dedication totheir own land and people. In Joep Leerssen’s words, the Jacobins saw thearistocracy as a “transnational jetset without national roots.”7

22 Jacobinism

And this brings me, finally, to the Jacobin model of foreign policy. Therevolutionary French state accepted Danton’s doctrine that a modern,sovereign nation could not do without “natural frontiers.” In reaction to theold dynastic world, where princes ruled over scattered territories that theycould acquire and exchange at will according to their family ties, modernstates needed a homogeneous national basis. Correspondingly, they wereentitled to a more or less fixed, consolidated existence within secure fron-tiers. For France, this meant the sea, the Alps, the Pyrenees and the RiverRhine.

As “revolutionary patriots” the Jacobins further hoped to transform theworld abroad. The French state acted as a kind of replicator of nations. Forthe purpose of spreading “liberty” to patriots abroad, a network of “sisterrepublics” was established along the French borders. There is no doubtabout it that the French considered themselves the vanguard nation. Theylorded it over the other nations they were supposed to liberate. But it isequally the case that they attempted to eradicate the “feudal” type ofinequality in the wake of their armies. They hoped to create a new world ofnations and legal equality. And that cause continued to be pursued evenafter Napoleon took over. For all his imperial arrogance, the emperor spreadit throughout Europe.

The Jacobin state collapsed before many of its goals could be achieved.But radicals all over Europe hoped for a replay, and they tortured them-selves wondering what had gone wrong. Why had the wonderful ideal of thevirtuous community of equals gone sour? A new understanding wasreached by the radical Jacobins Babeuf and Buonarotti, who concluded thatnations could only achieve unity of interest and will if they abolishedprivate property, the source of the evil of “private wills.” Robespierre hadbeen incoherent. He failed to create a communist economic foundationappropriate to his reign of virtue. This analysis provided the starting pointfor the growth of the communist branch from the Jacobin tree. It also forti-fied the notion of revolutionary minority dictatorship. For, as Babeuf andBuonarotti concluded, people whose opinions were formed under a regimeof inequality were unsuitable to elect their leaders. The general will ought tobe expressed temporarily by an agency other than the popular assemblies.Popular sovereignty ought to be prepared by an educational dictatorship.8

The tenets of Jacobinism continued to influence radical socialistEuropean opinion throughout the nineteenth century. The great revolu-tionary Louis-Auguste Blanqui provides a powerful example of the strengthof the tradition. Like Babeuf and Buonarotti, he believed in universalmanhood suffrage, but he too was an opponent of its immediate introduc-tion. In order to become ripe for sovereignty, the people should first beenlightened by the revolutionary dictatorship. Blanqui’s name is mainlyassociated with the conspiratorial societies that he set up with an eye to theorganisation of a socialist coup d’état. He created the model of the disci-plined vanguard organisation of professional revolutionaries.

Jacobinism 23

In nineteenth-century Europe, nationalism was still understood as a revo-lutionary project. It was not strange for the International to be sung togetherwith the Marseillaise, with its “Allons enfants de la patrie.” Socialists recog-nised the struggle for statehood of cultural nations like the Poles, Germansand Italians as their own. It was hoped that newly created states wouldbecome radical democracies. The Paris Commune was a fine example of thefusion of the old patriotic and democratic ideals. It expressed the desire ofthe population of the French capital to determine their own fate both as thevanguard of the French nation against the German invaders and as thevanguard of the masses in their social struggles. For Blanqui, socialism andpatriotism were still hard to distinguish. His summons in 1870 was Danton’sLa patrie en danger. As a leftist chauvinist, he yearned for another greatEuropean war in the revolutionary tradition. France should again spread theprinciples of liberty and equality at the point of its guns.9 Meanwhile,however, there had arisen a new revolutionary tendency: Marxism.

24 Jacobinism

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels developed their doctrine of moderncommunism partly from a critical digestion of the work of the German clas-sical philosopher Hegel. The latter had regarded society, the collective ofindividual citizens, as a mere sum of “particulars.” In contrast, the state, theclass of bureaucratic officials, was the true “universal.” Marx and Engelsturned this around. They declared civil society itself to be the “universal”and degraded the state bureaucracy to a mere “particular.” But civil societywas as yet fractured by private property. It was therefore not yet a real“universal.” In order to turn society into a true “universal,” two “particu-lars” needed to be abolished: private property and the bureaucratic state.The resulting communist society would be a self-governing one based oncollective ownership of the means of production, a radical democraticcommunity in the spirit of Rousseau but with the additional characteristicof a nationalised economy.

The Communist Manifesto defined communism as the abolition of privateproperty. Communism was the condition where the land and the factorieswere in the hands of the community. In order to achieve that goal, thebrochure called out the workers for the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie.The immediate purpose of this revolution was “to win the battle of democ-racy.” Under the newly achieved democratic constitution, the workers’representatives should gain the upper hand. And they would use theirmajority to “wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centraliseall instruments of production in the hands of the state,” which they definedas “the proletariat organised as ruling class.” This expropriation implied“despotic inroads” into the rights of property. However, once all capital hadbeen expropriated, the “public power loses its political character.” The statewould then be replaced by “the associated individuals.”1 This, then, was thegroundwork of the communist utopia.

But there was much more to it. Under communism, the whole economywould form one nationalised unit and be run like a gigantic enterprise,according to a single, integrated plan. Production would no longer be for themarket. There would be no “commodities,” no production for the purposeof exchange, and no money. Also, the great divisions of labour would be

2 Marxism, Leninism and the state

overcome. The cities would fuse into the countryside, creating a new type ofhuman settlement and resulting in a homogeneous distribution of mankindover the globe. Industry and agriculture would merge into a new syntheticactivity. Mental and physical labour would also be fully integrated, andpeople would no longer be tied to a single profession but could hop fromone activity to another. Even the family as a separate unit would disappearand be replaced by some kind of new collective life. Finally, people would nolonger be remunerated according to their productive achievements. Theywould be free to take according to their needs.

Eventually, Marx and Engels concluded that after the expropriation ofthe capitalists, communism would not automatically acquire all these traitsat once. Initially, the toilers would continue to be remunerated according totheir respective productive achievements. However, the notes with whichthey might draw their share of the social product, proving the time they hadworked, should not be considered as money. Moreover, remuneration shouldonly be differentiated according to the time one had worked. Qualified andunqualified work should be paid equally. Society would pay for the educa-tion that people received, so the benefits need not go to the individual toiler.And, finally, the new system would already be communist, because incomeon the basis of property was excluded. However, all this notwithstanding, itwould not yet be a full communism. For that second stage, where all wouldreceive “according to their needs,” to arrive, several conditions should firstbe met. The division of labour between mental and physical work wouldhave to be overcome. Furthermore, the workers would have to have come toconsider labour no longer as a means to an end but as the fulfilment of theirlives. And, finally, the productive forces would have to have reached anunprecedented level, creating abundance in every field.2

Having hereby laid out the Marxist utopia in its essentials, I will furtherconcentrate on the question of the state. One of the main arguments insupport of the thesis that bolshevism cannot be understood in terms ofMarxist premisses concerns its concept of the state. Marx, so the argumentgoes, did not believe in minority party rule. And he understood under the“dictatorship of the proletariat” a small, quickly diminishing state. However,Lenin re-established the kind of centralised and bureaucratic state thatRussia had known under the tsars. And he placed it under the dictatorialcontrol of his bolshevik sect. Therewith his unscrupulousness in the applica-tion of Marxism is considered sufficiently proved. And the Russian traditionis easily discovered as the background for that lack of scruple. In myopinion, this argument has a flawed side to it.

For Marxists, the question of the state is a complex one because its futuredevelopment is conceived in stages. It is not clear whether both Marx andEngels envisioned a complete abolition of the state under communism. Aswe saw, this was not literally what the Manifesto said. And Marx continuedto talk of a “Staatswesen of the communist society,” a vague termsuggesting that something like a state would remain.3 Engels wrote, in his so-

26 Marxism, Leninism and the state

called Anti-Dühring, that in communist society the state would simply ceaseto exist. The first act in which it really operated as the representative of thewhole society, i.e. the expropriation of the means of production, would alsobe its last independent act. The state would become superfluous in one fieldafter another and eventually fall asleep spontaneously. The state “will not be‘abolished’, it withers away.”4 However, whether the state would be a verylimited one or completely overcome, there is no doubt about it that bothMarx and Engels were convinced that under communism the great, deepdivide between state and society would be a thing of the past. Social self-government was indeed their cherished goal.

But things were different in the transitional period leading up to commu-nism, the period when the victorious proletariat was expropriating thecapitalists, the period of the “dictatorship of the proletariat.” That conceptof Marx’s is often believed to have conveyed almost nothing. Chiefly respon-sible for this is Karl Kautsky. According to this German social democrat, inMarx’s work the “proletarian dictatorship” was only a “little word.” In hisThe Dictatorship of the Proletariat, written shortly after the bolsheviktakeover, Kautsky argued that Marx had not referred to any particular“form of government” but only to a “condition.” Real dictatorship wouldmean the suspension of constitutional rights and freedoms, and that hadnever been Marx’s intention. The father of modern communism had onlyintended to show that, under the conditions of a parliamentary democracy,the majority of the population, the working class, would be automaticallydominant.5

Thus, for Marx, the “dictatorship of the proletariat” meant, really,nothing but democracy. But is this a valid conclusion? We should not forgetthat Kautsky made his claims about Marx in the heat of a polemicalstruggle, when he and Lenin were locked in a fierce battle over Marx’smantle. He was interested in interpreting the latter’s work in his own spirit.And would it not be slightly odd if Marx, who was well acquainted with themeaning of the term “dictatorship,” were to use it as sloppily as Kautskysuggested?

Kautsky’s thesis that for Marx and Engels the proletarian dictatorshipwas synonymous with radical democracy has been defended by distin-guished students of Marxist doctrine, most notably Richard Hunt and HalDraper.6 However, despite the sophistication of their argument, I do notfind it convincing in the end. Hunt and Draper are on safe ground whenthey argue that the archfathers of modern communism rejected dictatorshipby a revolutionary party. In contrast to the Blanquist idea of minority dicta-torship, they propounded the thought that the liberation of the workingclass was the work of that class itself. Marx and Engels did not want theirpleas for dictatorship to be understood as sympathetic to the project of“educational” minority rule. They always insisted on the democratic basis ofthe revolutionary state. However, this does not automatically imply thattheir dictatorship was simply synonymous with majority rule.

Marxism, Leninism and the state 27

In the same month of February 1848, when the Communist Manifestoappeared, another revolution broke loose in France, resulting in the procla-mation of the Second Republic and the election of a constituent assemblyon the basis of universal male suffrage. However, angered by their socio-economic suffering, the Paris workers again rebelled. The rebellion wassuppressed after three bloody days. It was on account of these events thatMarx first used his famous slogan, in a series of articles published in 1850.He described how the Paris workers took to the streets with the boldslogans: “Overthrow of the bourgeoisie!” “Dictatorship of the workingclass!” According to Marx, communism was the “declaration of permanenceof the revolution, the class dictatorship of the proletariat as the necessarypoint of transition to the abolition of class differences as such.”7 Draperdiscovered twelve cases in total where Marx and Engels used the term.8

The question arises of how Marx and Engels harmonised their abhor-rence of minority rule, to which Draper and Hunt point correctly, with aplea for dictatorship. In their days, many revolutionary democrats continuedthe tradition established by Rousseau of mistrust of the executive power ofthe monarch and his bureaucracy. These powers should be firmly subjectedto the legislative power, to the democratic popular assembly. From thisperspective, Montesquieu’s principle of “division of powers” was not a posi-tive one to prevent undesirable concentration of power but an attempt ofthe old world to protect its autonomy in relation to the sovereign people.The development of the concept of “dictatorship of the proletariat” can beunderstood in the context of this Rousseauist model. The point is that, evenbefore the invention of the term “proletarian dictatorship,” Marx and Engelshad already propagated dictatorship itself.

In the revolutionary year of 1848, the two men were politically active inGermany. They demanded insistently that the National Assembly take allpower into its hands and take all necessary measures to thwart the attemptsof the reaction against “popular sovereignty.” They pleaded for a “revolu-tionary dictatorship” of the representative assembly. That dictatorshipshould not only act forcefully but also temporarily abolish the division ofpowers and completely take up all executive prerogatives. Marx noted thatevery provisional state after a revolution demanded an “energetic dictator-ship.” The new rulers should not be lulled by “constitutional dreams” butshould “smash and remove the old institutions.” Otherwise, the defeatedparty would strengthen its positions in the bureaucracy and the army.9 Asfar as the idea of the revolutionary state was concerned, Marx’s laterconcept of proletarian dictatorship added little to this.

In 1852, Napoleon’s nephew Louis abolished the Second Republic andturned France into an empire again. Marx interpreted the event as the“victory of Bonaparte over the parliament, of the Executive Power over theLegislative Power.” In his view, as long as a powerful bureaucracy existed,such things would occur time and again. Marx spoke scathingly of “thisExecutive Power with its horrendous bureaucratic and military organisation,

28 Marxism, Leninism and the state

with its extended and artificial state machinery, an army of officials of halfa million next to an army of another half million, this terrible body of para-sites.” The bureaucracy prevented the “self-activity” of society, and heconcluded bitterly: “All revolutions perfected this machine instead ofbreaking it up.”10 The Paris “Commune” provided Marx and Engels withthe definitive model of their democratic republic. They described it as a“government of the working class” and a “dictatorship of the proletariat.”The Commune had shown that the old bureaucracy could not be adoptedand made to work but should be smashed. Elected by universal suffrage, theCommune was “no parliamentary body, but a working body, executive andlegislative at the same time.” Police and other officials were to work forworkers’ wages and be eligible and recallable at all times.11

Hereby we have discovered the essential meaning of the “dictatorship ofthe proletariat.” It referred to the rule of the elected legislative assembly, inwhich the proletariat would have the majority, over the executive power,behind which the forces of the old world barricaded themselves. To returnto Draper and Hunt, this is precisely the conclusion that they also reach.The paradox is, then, that Marx’s dictatorialism flowed from his passionatedemand for direct democracy, which brooked no limitation. The dictator-ship of the proletariat was the Diktat of the legislative power, boundlessdemocracy.

But the question remains of what form Marx and Engels expected demo-cratic rule to take. According to Hunt’s interpretation, the main point theymade was that a democratic state arising from a revolution was necessarily aprovisional one. Its rule was outside any established legal framework, for thesimple reason that the old law was defunct and there was no new one as yet.However, the matter cannot be confined to this. As we saw, there wasinvolved not merely a new unitary model of the state, in which the executivepower was absorbed by the legislative, and which could, for example, also berecognised in the present British system. Marx’s was a much more sweepingmodel, in which the executive power was considered essentially as a hostileforce and treated as such. It should be “crushed” and “smashed.” In prac-tice, this could not but lead to a tenacious battle to subjugate officialdom.Marx did not expect the officials to take their defeat easily. Some kind ofstate of emergency was clearly foreseen by him. In fact, his very use of theterm “dictatorship” suggests this.

“Dictatorship” in its classical sense refers to a form of unlimited govern-ment in which rights are not abolished but suspended. It is not intended toabolish democracy but to prevent it being definitely undone under excep-tional circumstances. But in order to reach this goal, martial law, a state ofemergency, is called. If we assume that Marx had the classical meaning inmind, the term “proletarian dictatorship” would refer to a dual system. Onthe one hand, it would rest on the authority of a democratic assembly andremain of a temporary nature. On the other hand, it would call for emer-gency measures, temporarily – in force only until the demise of classes – but

Marxism, Leninism and the state 29

no less real. According to David Lovell, who researched the degree ofMarx’s “responsibility” for the Soviet dictatorship, Marx predicted the needfor a policy of emergency measures to break resistance against the commu-nist regime, which should also serve as an instrument to make possible thecomplete expropriation of capital. His dictatorship was real.12 In myopinion, this interpretation is more tenable than Hunt and Draper’s.

Marx and Engels’ views on red terror confirm that they expected a systemof violent emergency measures. Both men criticised the Jacobin Terror. Intheir opinion, Robespierre had adopted an impossible mission, namely tofound a regime of virtue, inspired by ancient democracy, on an economicbasis of modern private ownership of the means of production. Such anincoherent project would force the power into a never-ending struggleagainst ever new oppositions. Engels called the Terror of 1793 a policy of“for the greatest part useless cruelties,” committed by frightened politi-cians.13 But never did he or his friend condemn the Jacobin Terror in toto.Even the passage just quoted implied a partial acceptance of it. Marx tooacknowledged that the Terror had been the “plebeian way” to deal withabsolutism and feudalism. With their “powerful hammer blows,” the Frenchmasses cleared away the feudal mess in a more effective way than the fright-ened bourgeoisie would ever have dared to do.14

It is well known that in 1848 Marx spoke up powerfully for “revolutionaryterrorism” as the only way to speed up the dying process of the old society.And in 1850 he urged workers in bloodthirsty terms to force the democrats“to carry out their present terrorist phrases.” He left no misunderstanding asto what he meant by this: “Far from opposing the so-called excesses, thecases of popular revenge against hated individuals or public buildings…onemust not only tolerate such cases, but take charge of them oneself.”15 Thesewere revolutionary times, but Marx did not change his opinion later. Thepoint is that he and Engels were convinced that the bourgeoisie would takeup arms to resist the democratic state once it began to expropriate them.Only firm terror could frighten the old owners into submission.16 Even incountries where a democracy already existed, and where the proletariatmight therefore be able to come to power peacefully, such as Britain, “slaveowners’ rebellions” would speed up the transformation process “by puttingthe sword into the hand of the Social Revolution.”17

In summing up, in his own view Marx’s revolutionary dictatorship wasonly the expression of democracy, but, for all that, it was not any less of areality. The dictatorship would be carried out by a legislative assembly,elected by universal suffrage and operating as the apex of a pyramid ofdirectly democratic, commune-like councils. But, although Marx did notexplicitly argue for suspending rights and freedoms, this legislative powerwould be compelled to place the executive power and the property ownersunder dictatorship. Only ruthless action, if necessary not shrinking fromterror, could force the bureaucrats to accept the total dismantling of theirinstitutions and the rich to accept their losses. Only the weapon of terror

30 Marxism, Leninism and the state

could force the powers of the old world to accept the decisions of the newdemocracy.

Meanwhile, Marx’s extreme abhorrence of bureaucracy was not tosurvive in the Marxist movement. It always had a problematical side to it,for the ideal of a totally planned economy made a wide extension of bureau-cracy, instead of its limitation, a practical inevitability. Marx may not haveacknowledged it, and the conclusion would have appalled him, but it is diffi-cult to imagine a society running its own economy completely without ahuge apparatus. There were others among his followers who did have thecourage to recognise this. In the years around the turn of the century, theMarxist principles were subject to a process of gradual erosion. In Marx’sview, there would in general be need of a violent revolution to establishdemocracy. But gradually in many European countries the suffrage wasextended and parliaments acquired ever more power without such apreceding revolution. Understandably, the aim of bringing about catas-trophic and bloody upheavals receded in the minds of the foremost socialdemocratic leaders, like Kautsky, an “orthodox Marxist” and leader of theSecond International. The new society of the future was also painted insofter, less utopian colours.

For example, in his comment on the so-called Erfurt program of theSocialist Party of Germany, Kautsky rejected the tenet of the abolition ofmoney under communism and the system of remuneration according toperformance or need. He failed to see how money could be abolished in acomplex mechanism such as the “modern production system with its incred-ibly ramified division of labour.” As long as nothing better was found, it wasbest to preserve the money form. The wage system would stay, and in allkinds of different forms. There would not be one ruling principle, and anyexaggerated Gleichmacherei was rejected. As part of this kind of thinking,Kautsky also adapted his views of the state. He insisted that the socialdemocrats intended to strengthen the power of the elected parliament to amaximum. “State socialists” who hoped to take over the existing stateunchanged were wrong. But it was unclear which other changes in the statestructure Kautsky envisioned except for the establishment of completeparliamentary dominance over the executive power. A true parliamentaryregime was in his view even compatible with the preservation of a monarchylike in Great Britain.18

For Kautsky, establishments like the railways simply could not operatewithout a “bureaucratic organisation.” The apparatus could at best bedemocratically controlled. Against the radical social democrat AntonPannekoek, he argued that socialism did not aim for the abolition of offi-cialdom but only for making the highest positions open to all. Theproletarian takeover would diminish neither the number nor the significanceof the bureaucrats. In short, the state apparatus should be captured, notdestroyed.19 This kind of thinking became the new dogma in the SecondInternational, gradually driving out the memory of Marx’s more radical

Marxism, Leninism and the state 31

schemes. There was involved here a parallel process of increasing acceptanceof the state bureaucracy and of a decreasing willingness to consider dictato-rial forms of government among Marxist socialists. This inverse parallelismcannot surprise us, as in Marx’s own work dictatorialism was closelyconnected with a determination to root out bureaucracy.

Another problem to look into concerns the general question of statecentralisation. Although Marx hated bureaucracy, he did not hatecentralism. On the contrary, he and Engels enthusiastically adopted theformula of the République une et indivisible. In 1848, they presented thepurely Jacobin demand that “All Germany will be declared a single, indivis-ible republic.”20 The preference of the German democrats for a federalmodel represented a case of treachery. The workers needed the “most deci-sive centralisation of power in the hands of the state,” and they should notlet themselves be confused by “democratic talk of freedom for the munici-palities, self-government etc.” Referring to the France of 1793, they madethe strictest centralisation the order of the day.21 Ironically, this plea forstate centralisation was based on the same argument as the plea againstbureaucracy. The national, democratic legislative assembly should be all-powerful. Nothing might stand in its way. And that included autonomouslocal authorities no less than government bureaucrats in the capital. Liketheir Jacobin predecessors, and directly inspired by them, Marx and Engelswere anti-bureaucratic centralists.

I should add that in the course of time this standpoint was somewhatmitigated. The experience of the Commune opened up Marx to the value of“local self-government.” The provinces would have had their owncommunes, managing their own affairs. But he continued to deny vigorouslythat he had embraced Girondin federalism. The democratic communeswould have to form a nationally integrated government, creating rather thanobstructing “the unity of the nation.”22 Engels eventually concluded that forsome large countries like the United States, federalism, i.e. a system in whichthe local units retained some legislative sovereignty, could be useful. But forGermany the “one and indivisible republic” remained the only acceptablemodel. Moreover, in all countries the centralist republic remained the finalgoal.23

To sum up, by the end of the nineteenth century the Marxist movement,which became embodied in the Second International, had worked out adoctrine of the state with various contradictory elements. The workersshould in any case create a democracy based on universal suffrage, but as towhat would happen further, various interpretations were possible. Accordingto the original radicalism of Marx and Engels, adopted from the Jacobins,the state should be administered along centralist lines. Federalism was anecessary evil at best, and then only a temporary construction.Furthermore, there was a high probability of the need to declare a state ofsiege in order to suppress the reactionaries by the force of terror; and thebureaucratic apparatus should be almost totally dismantled. Against this,

32 Marxism, Leninism and the state

Kautsky’s “orthodox Marxists” no longer expected the need for terror anddictatorship, and they hoped that the new democracy would capture and putto use the existing state bureaucracy rather than smash it.

The Russian Social Democratic Workers’ Party, of which the bolsheviksformed the radical faction, was part of the Second International. It receivedthe various Marxist views of the state, as sketched above, as part of itsdoctrinal input. Bureaucratic centralism being the Russian tradition ofgovernment, it causes little surprise that the bolsheviks adopted preciselysuch elements from the available Marxist tradition. Take for instance Lenin’sideal of the centralist state. In State and Revolution, he pointed out that thisideal was derived from the formula of the “one and indivisible republic” ofthe French Revolution. The famous 1917 pamphlet was the first occasion forLenin to admit that, under certain circumstances, federalism might be a stepforward compared with an initial situation of monarchy. He believed thatthis exceptional situation might apply in Russia. But he insisted that afederal republic could never be more than a transitional form on the road tofull centralism, and he quoted Engels in support.24 Lenin’s centralisticconception of the state, so fitting for a Russian revolutionary, was neverthe-less inspired by Marx and Engels, who were again indebted to Robespierreand his fellow revolutionaries.

In State and Revolution, Lenin further expounded a concept of the statethat was at once directly democratic and centralist. The new democracyrested on workers’ councils, soviets, and the old bureaucratic machinery wasto be smashed. The state would be unitary instead of holding on to a divi-sion of powers. The result of all this smashing and concentrating of powerin the hands of the armed workers would be a totally centralised state, withall citizens transformed into “workers and officials of one huge ‘syndicate’ ”and the whole economy organised like a “post office.”25 Lenin did his verybest to prove, against Kautsky, that the idea of smashing the state apparatusinstead of capturing it represented the right interpretation of the originalMarxism. And, in that regard, he was certainly right. But, surprisingly, healmost immediately retracted this thesis, which he had defended so vigor-ously in State and Revolution. In September 1917, he wrote that the existingeconomic apparatus of the state, the banks and the syndicates, should not besmashed but be captured intact and subjected to the soviets.26 Thus we seeLenin the state bureaucrat emerging.

After the bolshevik takeover, he continued to value forms of popularparticipation through soviets, trade unions and other bodies. But, as a prac-tical man, he did not hesitate to preserve the tsarist administrative apparatus.Specialists, administrators, technicians and army officers were welcomedaboard. After the Civil War, Lenin’s enthusiasm for the state bureaucracydiminished. He remembered his former appeals for a small state anddemanded that the party strengthen its hold on the apparatus and sweep itclean. But he never returned to the consistent anti-bureaucratism that he hadlaid down in State and Revolution. There was no return to Marx’s complete

Marxism, Leninism and the state 33

hostility towards the executive power. The state bureaucracy was there to stay.But, although harmonising with the Russian state tradition, all this did notrepresent a moving away from Marxism – only from Marx’s own originalradicalism – for by capturing and putting to use the old state machinery,Lenin in fact adhered to the established Kautskyan approach, dominant inthe European socialist movement of his day. He did not admit that that waswhat he was doing, but he must have been completely aware of it.

It was only on the point of the dictatorial aspect of the state that Leninremoved himself from an important element of Marxist political doctrine.In State and Revolution, he still conceived the future Soviet state as overar-ched by a constituent assembly, but he announced an “exclusion fromdemocracy” of the rich. Quoting Engels with approval, to the effect that the“democratic republic” was the “specific form of the dictatorship of theproletariat,” Lenin commented shrewdly that the democratic republicformed the “nearest approach” to that dictatorship – which meant some-thing quite different. This formulation suggested that the dictatorship couldno longer be considered a democratic republic.27 As we know, the newbolshevik rulers soon dispersed the constituent assembly. And in the 1918Constitution it was laid down that certain groups of the population, i.e. thebourgeoisie and all who were counted among that class, could betemporarily deprived of the suffrage. Furthermore, from now on the vote offour village inhabitants counted for that of one person from the city.28

Thereby, the principle of universal and equal representation was abolished.Even the term “democratic republic” was removed from bolshevik jargon.One of the most authoritative works from the Leninist period, NikolaiBukharin and Evgenii Preobrazhenskii’s 1919 ABC of Communism, noted:

Formerly many believed that the dictatorship of the proletariat wouldbe possible in the form of a so-called ‘democratic republic’, whichshould be established by a Constituent Assembly, and governed by aparliament elected by all classes of the people.29

Thus the “exploiters” were confronted by a state that not only responded totheir resistance by terror but even took away their formal rights. Thereby,Lenin took Marx’s “proletarian dictatorship” literally in a sense not antici-pated by its author, for whom universal suffrage had precisely been thelegitimisation of the proletarian dictatorship. What is more, Lenin’s dictato-rialism was also more extreme than Marx’s in another respect: he created aparty dictatorship. That too was definitely alien to the Marxist tradition assuch. Almost all Marxists outside Russia agreed that dictatorial rule by asingle socialist party was a sectarian aberration.

But Lenin was of the opinion that the degradation of the people undercapitalism made them unfit to rule for the time being. To my knowledge, theearliest occasion when he referred to minority dictatorship was in 1906,when he wrote that in present-day society people were so crushed morally by

34 Marxism, Leninism and the state

false pacifist theories and by prejudice, habit and routine that the revolu-tionary dictatorship could never be “realised by the whole people but onlyby the revolutionary people.” The people as a mass should only be made toparticipate in state activities.30 Thus the people would lose their sovereignpower to the revolutionaries. Democratic organs would function as institu-tions not of self-government but of participation. The people should helpthe revolutionary minority to carry out its dictatorship and be educated inthe process. In State and Revolution, he repeated that the Marxist “vanguardof the proletariat” should take power and lead the people to socialism.31

And after the bolshevik takeover, Lenin did not hesitate to declare openlythat his regime was a “dictatorship of one party,” that it was, “in essence,” adictatorship of the “organised and conscious minority” of the workingclass.32 In summary, Lenin’s concept of dictatorship went beyond whatMarx had envisioned, in its measures as well as in its form of organisation.

The notion of a closely organised vanguard was traditionally influentialin the Russian revolutionary movement. The main group to come to mind isNorodnaia volia. Among those important ideologists who influenced thedoctrine of this party was the communist Petr Tkachev. He believed that,left to themselves, the people would never be able to bring about the revolu-tion. The broad masses were blinded by their private interests. As a result ofcenturies of miseducation, they would always lose sight of the generalinterest. Only a revolutionary minority dictatorship could temporarily fillthe gap until the masses were regenerated enough to recognise where their“true needs” lay.33 But, as I noted in the introduction, this argument was noRussian invention. Tkachev and other nineteenth-century Russian revolu-tionaries who thought like him did not promote themselves publicly asJacobins.34 Nevertheless, their doctrine of revolutionary minority dictator-ship was a restatement of earlier views of communist Jacobins such asBabeuf and Buonarotti. In 1881, Tkachev admitted on Blanqui’s grave thatthe latter had been his inspiration and model.35

Unlike Tkachev, who was not burdened by a self-imposed duty to be anorthodox Marxist, Lenin never admitted that he had reinterpreted Marxismin a Blanquist spirit. The name of Blanqui was taboo among Marxists. Buthe did admit to being inspired by Jacobinism. The locus classicus for this washis famous 1904 statement: “The Jacobin, indissolubly linked with the organ-isation of the proletariat, which has recognised its own class interests, that isprecisely the revolutionary social democrat.” When he provided this defini-tion, he accused the mensheviks–Girondins of fearing the proletariandictatorship and believing in the “absolute value of democratic demands.”36

In other words, when he pointed to the precedent of the Jacobins he knewexactly what he was talking about, and he was indeed thinking precisely oftheir dictatorial style as most worthy of emulation. When he, in order to keephis party in power, suspended universal suffrage, Lenin broke with Marxism,but in doing so he merely took refuge within another Western tradition,namely that of Jacobinism–Blanquism – and he was well aware of it.

Marxism, Leninism and the state 35

To sum up, the thesis that Lenin’s terrorism, his party rule and hisbureaucratic centralism testify to a reassertion of the Russian tradition is asapt as it is problematic. It is apt in the sense that the idea of a terroristminority dictatorship was influential among nineteenth-century Russianrevolutionaries; and bureaucratic centralism was the model of the Russianstate apparatus. Lenin took to such practices because he was a man ofRussia and because he had little choice – provided that he wanted to keephis party in power at all costs. However, in doing so he did not createanything new compared with the prescriptions for revolutionary rule devel-oped in the West. The bolshevik leader could adopt the ideas of minorityrule and bureaucratic centralism straight from the world of nineteenth-century Marxism and Jacobinism.

36 Marxism, Leninism and the state

The thesis of the bolsheviks’ adaptation of Marx’s heritage to the realities ofRussia also rests crucially on their organising a proletarian takeover in a“backward” country. This is considered to be in obvious contradiction toMarx’s views on the necessary preconditions for communism. That systemwas the product of developed capitalism in a twofold way. Politically, theindustrial proletariat had to comprise a majority of the population in orderfor a democratic republic to start moving towards communism. And only apredominantly industrial country was economically and technologically fitto introduce communism. One cannot have a centrally planned economy ina fragmented agricultural world. And here, then, the case essentially rests.Quod erat demonstrandum – with his proletarian, socialist revolution Leninadapted Marxism to Russian conditions.

However, in my opinion this thesis is again fatally flawed. A forceful argu-ment for its inadequacy has been provided by Alan Gilbert, but theconsequences of his argument have not been recognised by those who studySoviet history. In his Marx’s Politics, this author argues that Marx nevermade the triumph of socialism in any particular country dependent on theproletariat comprising a majority segment of the population. Instead,throughout his career he urged the workers of predominantly peasant coun-tries to take power in a coalition with peasant parties.1

Present-day thinking on Marx and Engels’s strategy is often muddled bya curious misunderstanding. We tend to visualise a contrast between “devel-oped” countries like Germany, France and England on the one hand and“backward” ones like Russia on the other. But how “developed” were coun-tries like Germany, France and England in 1848 or 1871? Only in Englanddid the working class, if defined in an extremely loose sense, form a majorityof the population. In France, and even more so in Germany, it formed asmall minority. As soon as one realises that in Marx’s lifetime France andGermany were overwhelmingly peasant countries, his comments on revolu-tionary strategy in such states acquire a different significance from the oneusually attributed to them.

In the Manifesto, the German communists were advised to join with thebourgeoisie against the absolute monarchy and its feudal hangers-on. But

3 Proletarian revolution in a backward country

after the democratic revolution the workers should immediately begin thestruggle against the bourgeoisie. The overthrow of the monarchy was the“immediate prologue of a proletarian revolution.”2 Two years later, Marxand Engels expected a revolution of the petit bourgeois democrats.Subsequently, the proletarians should again immediately form “revolu-tionary workers’ governments” in order to “make the revolution permanent,until all more or less propertied classes are removed from power, [and] statepower has been conquered by the proletariat.” Although the completion ofthis process would take a “rather long” period, there was no hint of waitingwith the second, proletarian, revolution until the workers formed a majorityof the population.3 A few months later, Marx ridiculed those communistswho aimed for an immediate proletarian revolution in Germany. He warnedthe workers that they might perhaps be fit to rule only after fifty years ofcivil war.4 But in 1856 he regained his optimism. The victory of the “prole-tarian revolution” in Germany depended on the possibility of backing it upby a “second edition of the Peasant War.” Under such conditions, itschances of success looked excellent.5

As we saw in the previous chapter, Marx called for a “dictatorship of theworking class” in the predominantly peasant France of 1850. He expected thepeasants to accept the urban proletariat as their natural leader, because onlyan “anti-capitalist, proletarian government” could stop their social degrada-tion. And once the French peasants understood where their true interests lay,then, Marx said, “the proletarian revolution will obtain that chorus withoutwhich its solo song becomes a swan song in all peasant countries.”6 And Marxand Engels did not hesitate to call the Commune a workers’ government. HadParis been triumphant, the peasant majority would have recognised the “spir-itual leadership” of the cities, and the workers as their “leaders andeducators”, their “natural representatives.”7 Hunt quotes a particularly inter-esting comment by Marx in his 1874–75 notebooks on Bakunin, whichsummarises Marx’s view on the matter very well:

A radical social revolution depends on particular historical conditionsof economic development; they are its prerequisites. Thus a revolution ispossible only where, together with capitalist production, the industrialproletariat occupies at least an important place within the population.And to have any chance of success it must mutatis mutandis be ableimmediately to do at least as much for the peasants as the French bour-geoisie during its revolution did for the French peasants of the time.8

“An important place within the population” – no more. In summary, in thepredominantly peasant countries of the continental Western Europe of hisday, Marx hoped for the establishment of democratic republics under prole-tarian minority governments supported by the peasantry.

But what about the economic conditions of communism? In 1847, Engelscalled for the revolutionary establishment of democratic governments under

38 Proletarian revolution in a backward country

proletarian domination in Great Britain and also in France and Germany,where, as he mentioned explicitly, the working class still formed a minorityof the population. He continued to explain that in all these countries thedemocratic government should start “immediately” to attack private prop-erty. He accompanied this with the following comment:

Once the first radical attack on private property has been carried out,the proletariat will be forced to go ever further, to concentrate ever moreall capital, all agriculture, all industry, all transport, all trade in thehands of the state. All measures work in that direction; and they willbecome realisable…in the measure in which the productive forces of thecountry are being multiplied by the labor of the proletariat.9

The same line of thought was developed in the Communist Manifesto: theworkers should centralise all means of production in the hands of the stateand simultaneously “multiply the mass of the means of production asquickly as they can.”10 Hal Draper interpreted these lines as in my opinionthey should be. This was a “transitional program” adapted to a situation ofsocieties that were not yet ripe for communism but that could be steered onthe road to it by a revolutionary government. The conditions for the aboli-tion of private property were not yet there, the productive forces were notyet developed enough for it, but, as Draper pointed out: “One of the tasksof proletarian rule itself is to bring this about.”11 And here we have foundthe answer to the question of how Marx and Engels could have believed thatone could never create communism without the proper economic conditions– and could yet believe in proletarian revolution in a situation where suchconditions were lacking. The solution was simple: it was precisely that revo-lution which would create those conditions by a program of acceleratedindustrialisation. For Marx and Engels, the “democratic revolution” signi-fied essentially a political event – the establishment of a democratic republic– not a necessary economic transition to full capitalism.

But what about the peasantry? Would its patience with the proletariangovernment not run out once it started communising agriculture? Not so,according to Marx: in 1874, he noted that in all Western European countriesexcept England the peasants still formed a “considerable majority.” Undersuch circumstances, the latter might wreck any workers’ revolution unless thegovernment took “measures by which the peasant sees his situation immedi-ately improved and which therefore win him over to the revolution.” Therevolutionary government should take measures that facilitated “the transi-tion from private property in land to collective property, so that the peasantcomes to it by himself, in an economic way.”12 In 1894, Engels reaffirmed hiscommitment to a program of voluntary socialisation of agriculture in Franceand Germany. Through good example and aid, peasant enterprises might beturned into “co-operative” ones.13 Thus, according to Marx and Engels, thepeasantry could be convinced that its best chances lay with communism.

Proletarian revolution in a backward country 39

Given a prudent policy, a proletarian government ruling a peasant nationcould slowly start to prepare the communisation of agriculture. In summary,it is simply a myth that Marx and Engels denied the possibility of prole-tarian revolution in an industrially backward country, and of the subsequentcommunist transformation of that country.

Interestingly, Engels himself has furnished some kind of final proof ofthe correctness of the above interpretation of his and Marx’s thinking. In1895, shortly before his death, he wrote that in 1848 and 1871 he and hisfriend had been much too optimistic. Still under the influence of the originalFrench Revolution, they had believed that the days of the final proletarianrevolution in France and Germany had arrived. Only now did he understandthat “the situation of the economic development on the continent had thenbeen by far not ripe enough for the replacement of capitalist production.”But even then he did not indicate that the proletariat should necessarilybecome the majority class as a condition for a takeover.14 Engels’s new anal-ysis is also symptomatic of the shift towards moderation in the SecondInternational.

The question of proletarian revolution in backward countries becomesmore complex once we draw in Russia. The Russian populists hoped that theobshchina, the village commune, might serve as a starting point for a socialisttransition of their country. Marx and Engels agreed that Russia was so back-ward (the industrial proletariat was much smaller even than in Germany andFrance) that the democratic revolution could only be a peasant one.15 As faras I am aware, proletarian participation in a Russian revolutionary govern-ment was never discussed by them. They also acknowledged the possibilityof a quick breakthrough to communism, skipping an extended capitaliststage, if a revolutionary government could stop the disintegration of theobshchina. However, against the Russian populists, they insisted that withoutsupport from revolutionary governments in Western Europe it would beimpossible for any Russian government to prevent the commune disinte-grating. In that case, the road would be opened for a further development ofRussian capitalism.16

But this latter prediction must not be misrepresented as indicating that afull development of capitalism in Russia was a precondition for a proletariantakeover. The thesis that, in the absence of support from a revolutionaryWestern Europe, capitalist disintegration of the commune was inevitablemeant just that and no more: capitalism would develop further to the pointof dominating the Russian countryside. This is much less sweeping a claimthan the one that before any socialist transformation could be started inRussia, capitalism should have turned that country into a developed indus-trial state with a majority working class. To my knowledge, neither Marx norEngels ever made such a claim. Their thesis of the probable capitalist disinte-gration of the commune does not therefore indicate that in the Russian casethey denied the possibility of a proletarian takeover until that class becamethe dominant segment of the population.

40 Proletarian revolution in a backward country

All this means that Lenin’s proletarian revolution in backward Russiawas, after all, an operation in correspondence with Marxist orthodoxy. Werecognise that, at least for its economic part, the formula of Stalin’s “revolu-tion from above”, state-organised industrialisation at an accelerated pace,was also provided in embryonic form in the work of the archfathers ofcommunism. Thus, with a closer look, the argument for a bolshevik adapta-tion of Marxism to the realities of backward Russia also breaks down onthis point. The point is not to deny that the bolsheviks developed Marxismin such a way as to allow them to make revolution in their backwardcountry. They did just that – but in doing so they arrived at a doctrine thatstill corresponded to Marx’s original ideas. And, from the point of view ofcircumstance, that can hardly cause surprise. After all, did not Marx himselfdevelop his own doctrine of revolution for the circumstances of backwardGermany and France?

However, in the Second International of the early twentieth century, evenamong the bolsheviks, the radicalism of the original Marxist strategy ofrevolution was no longer fully understood. Lenin for example wanted ademocratic Russian government, thrown up by a popular revolution, to takemeasures like redistribution of the land to the peasantry and the introduc-tion of an eight-hour working day. It should be mainly instrumental in afurther development of capitalism.17 Only on rare occasions did he expressthe hope that socialism might be on the Russian agenda very soon. In 1905,he suggested that nationalisation of the land be tried out. Large-scale capi-talist estates should be transferred to associations of agricultural workersinstead of being divided up among the peasants. And, he concluded:

from the democratic revolution we will immediately begin to make thetransition to the socialist revolution. We will begin to make that transi-tion precisely to the measure of our strength, of the strength of theconscious and organised proletariat. We favour an uninterrupted revolu-tion.18

But, then again, Lenin did not believe that without the aid of a victoriousproletarian revolution in the West such a project in backward Russia couldever be crowned with success. When the Russian proletariat moved towardssocialism, the peasant majority would turn against it and defeat it. Only theassistance by the proletariat in the West would permit their Russiancomrades to establish socialism.19 Lev Trotskii defended the “uninterruptedrevolution” more insistently. He was adamant that the revolutionary govern-ment should quickly begin a socialist reconstruction of society. But he toobelieved that only direct state support of the European working class couldconvert a proletarian domination of Russia into a lasting socialism. Left onits own, the Russian proletariat would stumble over the technological back-wardness of the country. And it would be crushed by the counter-revolutionthe moment the peasantry turned its back on it.20

Proletarian revolution in a backward country 41

At this point, two questions should not get mixed up, namely that ofsocialist construction in a backward country and the chances of such aproject in a single country – whether backward or developed. The two ques-tions are intimately linked with each other, because Lenin believed that theconstruction of socialism in an isolated revolutionary Russia was impossibleprecisely because of its backward socio-economic conditions. Nevertheless,the two questions must be carefully distinguished in order to be able to makea fair assessment of the place of Stalin’s doctrine of “socialism in onecountry” in the history of the Marxist movement. Next to Lenin’s plan forbringing the proletariat to power in a backward country, Stalin’s subsequentthesis that socialism could be built in an isolated state serves as anotherimportant argument for those who observe a perversion of Marxism by theRussian tradition. In this case, it is not Lenin who is alleged to have beeninstrumental in the process of Russification but his successor. Lenin heldfast to the original Marxist internationalism, which Stalin betrayed in thename of Russian nationalism.

Let me begin to state that in Marx and Engels’s view the construction ofa socialist society was indeed impossible in a single country, even in the mostadvanced one. In their view, communism presupposed a simultaneous revo-lution of all “ruling peoples,” overturning the major “civilised” countriessuch as England, America, France and Germany essentially in one blow.The crucial point in their argument was the “universal development” of theproductive forces and the world economy. The world market and largeindustry had brought all civilised peoples of the Earth so closely togetherthat each was dependent on what happened to the other. This made commu-nism in a single country unfeasible.21 And there is the well-known critique ofMarx on the passage in the Gotha program, inspired by Lassalleanism, thatthe working class should strive for its emancipation first of all within theframework of the present-day national state. Marx did not like any sugges-tion of nationally confined socialism.

The matter also had a military-political aspect. Marx and Engelsexpected the world revolution to begin in France, but to crown a proletarianrevolution with success within the “national walls” of France was impossiblebecause of its dependence on foreign trade. Great Britain, the “despot” ofthe world market, would ruin any isolated communist project in France.Therefore, upon the victory of the French revolution, France should declarewar on England. This “world war”, as Marx called it, would sweep theEnglish revolutionaries to power too. And where Britain representedeconomic reaction, the Russian autocracy was its political bulwark. Norevolution in Western Europe could be “definitely and finally victorious aslong as the present Russian state exists at its side.” Therefore the overthrowof the tsarist state was the other great purpose that a revolutionary Franceand Germany should set themselves.22 In summary, the world revolutioncould only come about through revolutionary war against the despotsEngland and Russia. Marx and Engels were true heirs of the great French

42 Proletarian revolution in a backward country

Revolution. They believed in the example of export of revolution set by theJacobins and Napoleon. All this seems to confirm that with his “socialism inone country” Stalin showed a sovereign disregard of Marxist fundamentals.

But things are, again, not so simple. It turns out that important “orthodoxMarxists” of the Second International did not agree with their teachers. In1878, the German social democrat Georg Vollmar published a small bookcalled The Isolated Socialist State. It was his intention to treat a question thathad until then not been given the attention it deserved, namely, whether for aplanned socialist economy to function, a simultaneous proletarian takeoverwas needed in the whole civilised world, or whether “a single socialisticallyorganised state would also be possible and viable.” Vollmar acknowledged thatmost socialists felt that the latter option was unrealisable, but he disagreed.In his opinion, “the final victory of socialism in at first only one single state orseveral states” was even the most probable course of things. And to back upthis claim he discussed how a socialist economy could function on a limitedterritory, and how the respective state might successfully defend itself againstthe military onslaughts of the bourgeois world.23

In October 1891, the Social Democratic Party of Germany adopted anew program at Erfurt. Kautsky wrote a comment, which served in theSecond International as an introduction to Marxist social democracy. Heacknowledged that the “separate socialist nations” would ultimately fuseinto a world republic. But initially socialist economies should function on anational basis. According to Kautsky, the present internationalisation ofeconomic life was less determined by technological progress than by capi-talist principles. Capitalism led to excess production to be sold abroad.Under socialism, international trade would be “strongly reduced.” A“certain degree” of international exchange must continue to exist, but“economic independence” was the fundamental model of a socialisteconomy.24 Kautsky implicitly referred to a situation of various socialiststates existing next to each other, and not to one socialist state in a capitalistenvironment. Nevertheless, he sketched autarkic socialist economies, organ-ised within a national framework. Thereby, he set up an ideal of self-reliantsocialism rivalling Marx and Engels’s internationalist model. Thus“Marxism” offered not one but two orthodoxies to the bolsheviks. And fromthe point of view of one of them there would be nothing heretical about“socialism in one country.”

In the debates concerning the strategy of the Russian revolution the ques-tions of the chances of socialism under backward conditions and undernationally isolated conditions were not always carefully distinguished.During the First World War, leftist bolsheviks formulated the thesis that theworld revolution would take the form of, as Georgii Piatakov formulated it, a“united action of the proletarians of all countries. They destroy the bordersof the bourgeois state, tear down the boundary posts, blow up the nationalcommunity and establish a class community.”25 Against this model, whichwas in close correspondence with Marx’s views, Lenin wrote in August 1915:

Proletarian revolution in a backward country 43

The unevenness of economic and political development is an uncondi-tional law of capitalism. It follows from this that the victory of socialisminitially in some or even in one, separately taken, capitalist country ispossible. After having expropriated the capitalists and having organisedsocialist production at home, the victorious proletariat of this countrywould stand opposed to the remaining capitalist world, attracting to itsside the oppressed classes of the other countries, arousing an uprisingagainst the capitalists in them, and in case of need even coming out withmilitary force against the exploiting classes and their states.26

Thus Lenin embraced the suggestions previously developed by Vollmar andKautsky – although without acknowledging his debt. Trotskii defendedMarx’s heritage against Lenin. He conceded that the view of the world revo-lution as a simultaneous process was indeed a primitive one, but due to themutual dependence of the European states, an isolated revolutionary statecould never survive for long. The revolution should begin on a nationalbasis, but “it would be hopeless to think…that, for instance, revolutionaryRussia could survive in the face of conservative Europe, or a socialistGermany could remain isolated in a capitalist world.”27 But for his partLenin reconfirmed his earlier position in September 1916.28 This smalldebate has been much commented on. Years later, Lev Kamenev argued thatLenin had not referred to Russia but to Western European countries. Stalindenied that, but Kamenev was probably right.29 However, although he prob-ably believed that it only applied to developed countries, there is no denyingthat Lenin defended the principle of socialism in one country.

When the tsarist regime was overthrown, Lenin was forced to think againabout the perspectives of the Russian revolution. Shortly before his return toRussia he wrote that the Russian proletariat could not “complete thesocialist revolution victoriously when it uses only its own forces.” But itcould create such conditions that “it will be begun in a certain way.” Andthat would again make it easier for the European and American proletariatto engage in decisive battles.30 These remarks about the possibility of begin-ning a socialist transformation in backward Russia confirmed hissuggestions of 1905. More importantly, they indicated a growing optimismeven compared with that latter position. Previously, he had held thatwithout world revolution a socialist project in Russia would collapse.Capitalist restoration was inevitable due to peasant resistance. But now heonly suggested that the project of Russian socialism would remain crippled;it could not be “completed.”

In his so-called April theses of 1917, Lenin emphasised that it would befoolish to think about the “ ‘introduction’ of socialism as our immediatetask.” Nevertheless, the revolution should be oriented towards a transitionto socialism. Although not yet expropriating the private owners, theworkers’ soviets should establish some form of control over production. Thebanks and land should be nationalised immediately. Furthermore, although

44 Proletarian revolution in a backward country

a general collectivisation of agricultural enterprises was not yet foreseen,large estates should not be split up but administered as a unit by the localsoviets. Such a transitional program could be carried out by the proletariatin an alliance with the “poorest layers of the peasantry.”31 The crucial pointin this argument was the notion that the lower strata of the peasantry couldapparently be convinced that turning in the direction of socialism was intheir own interests. In that way, although a minority in the population, theproletariat could get majority support for its socialist efforts.32 We see Leninreturning, perhaps without realising it, to the original Marxist radicalism.

At a bolshevik conference in late April, Lev Kamenev spoke up againstan “immediate transformation of the bourgeois-democratic revolution intoa socialist one.” And Aleksei Rykov added: “From where will the sun of thesocialist revolution rise? …the initiative of the socialist revolution does notbelong to us. We don’t have the forces, the objective conditions for it.” Leninresponded as follows:

Comrade Rykov says that socialism must come from other countrieswith a more developed industry. But that is not true. It is impossible tosay who will begin and who will end. This is not Marxism, but a parodyon Marxism. Marx said that France will begin but the Germans willcomplete it. But then, the Russian proletariat achieved more thananyone.

Later, he spoke explicitly of the ripeness of Russia for socialism:

Usually one draws such a conclusion…: “Russia is a backward, peasant,petit bourgeois country, and therefore one should not speak of thesocial revolution,” but one forgets that the war put us in unusual condi-tions and that next to the petty bourgeoisie there is big capital. …Russiawill come to stand with one foot in socialism, with one – because thepeasant majority leads the other economic side of the country. That thechange has ripened economically cannot be denied. In order to realise[the transitional measures] politically one has to have a majority, andthe majority is made up of peasants who are understandably interestedin these transformations.33

Lenin proceeded from the fact that, although not the dominant factor in theeconomy, Russian “big capital” was as modern as that in, say, France orGermany. It was therefore developed enough to serve as a basis for nationalplanning of the industrial sector itself. Thus, with its one industrial “foot,”Russia could as easily step into the world of socialism as the French orGermans. The “other foot,” the small peasant economy, was economicallyunripe for socialism. Yet the poor peasant majority was interested in aprogram of transitional measures. This, then, is how we might interpretLenin’s earlier remark that, without world revolution, Russia could not

Proletarian revolution in a backward country 45

“complete” its socialist transformation. Industrially it could, but in theRussian countryside only a sort of transitional order, midway between capi-talist and socialist agriculture, might be established, with nationalised landand some large estates administered by peasant soviets. But the olddoomsday scenario of an angry counter-revolutionary peasantry inevitablyoverthrowing the proletariat had vanished from Lenin’s book.34

After the October Revolution, the process of “socialist construction”began in a Russia which was at once backward and internationally isolated.What is more, the bolsheviks were not overthrown, either by foreign imperi-alists or by angry peasants. This circumstance allowed Lenin to adapt hisviews further in an optimistic direction. Most acute was the question offoreign intervention. Initially, Lenin remained convinced that revolutionaryRussia would inevitably be crushed by the imperialist powers if there was nosocialist revolution in the West. At the Seventh Party Congress in early 1918,he said that “the final victory of our revolution would be hopeless, if itwould remain alone, if there were no revolutionary movement in other coun-tries.” Peace with imperialism could never be more than a “breathing spacefor war,” and eventually military defeat against imperialism was a certainty:

Because it is an absolute truth that we would go under without aGerman revolution – perhaps not in Piter, not in Moscow, but inVladivostok, in even more faraway places, where we shall perhaps beforced to move ourselves.35

But the surprising survival of Soviet Russia through the Civil War gave thelie to such pessimistic predictions. To my knowledge, after the summer of1918 Lenin never repeated the inevitability of Soviet military defeat. Asbolshevik fortunes improved, he became ever more confident of the militaryviability of his regime.36 In July 1921, he remembered that originally thebolsheviks had thought that “either immediately or at least very soon therevolution will come in other, capitalistically more developed countries, or,in the opposite case, we must go under.” But in reality the movement did notgo “so straightforwardly as we expected.”37 A few months later, he repeatedthat he had once assumed that only a victorious revolution abroad couldhave saved Soviet Russia from certain doom. But, as it turned out, Russiahad received “support of another kind, indirect support” in the form of the“solidarity of the toiling masses.” The Western workers prevented the impe-rialists organising large-scale intervention. And “I must say that already nowwe can rely on it.”38 Thereby, the thesis of the impossibility of isolated revo-lutionary Russia’s military survival was finally abandoned.

As to the other, economic, aspect of the matter, at first Lenin held on tothe conclusions he had drawn just before the revolution. The socialist projectmight not collapse due to peasant counter-revolution, but it could not becompleted either.39 From January 1918 onwards, one can collect a string ofquotations by Lenin to the effect that “the final victory of socialism in one

46 Proletarian revolution in a backward country

country is impossible.” To win “completely, definitively on a world scale” itwas necessary for the proletariat to be victorious in at least “several of thelarge, advanced countries.” Mostly Lenin used the words polnaia (complete)and okonchatel’naia (final) to describe the kind of socialist victory that wasnot achievable in an isolated Russia.40 Stalin later claimed that Lenin hadreferred only to the danger of imperialist intervention. The victory ofsocialism could never be absolutely certain in any country as long as theimperialist threat existed. However, that was not the only thing Lenin had inmind. In November 1918, for example, he remarked that the completevictory of socialism demanded the “most active co-operation of, at least,several advanced countries.”41

The problem of the inevitable “incompleteness” of socialism turnedmainly on agriculture. That was where the bolsheviks believed Russian“backwardness” had its focus. In 1919, for example, Bukharin andPreobrazhenskii wrote that until Western socialist countries delivered enoughindustrial products to Russia, the Soviet state could never help the villageenough to draw the peasants into the state sector. As long as it was notassisted by more developed socialist states, the agricultural sector wouldremain based on the small private owner. Soviet Russia could at most organisea limited number of collective farms.42

Trotskii was even more pessimistic. In 1922, he wrote a preface to hisbook The Year 1905, in which he summarised his old theory of “permanentrevolution.” A proletarian government in a backward country with a hugemajority of peasants, but which nevertheless attacked bourgeois property,inevitably ran into hostile actions of the peasantry. And such contradictions“could find its solution only in the international arena, in the arena of theworld revolution of the proletariat.” In his opinion this assessment was stillcompletely justified.43 At times, though, Trotskii suggested, more in linewith Lenin, that socialism in isolated Russia need not collapse but mightonly lack real strength. In a new afterword to his 1915 “The programme ofpeace,” which he also wrote in 1922, he asked whether the old thesis that“the proletarian revolution cannot be victoriously completed in nationalframeworks” was outdated. But it was not. Although military defence hadbeen successful, “a real upsurge of the socialist economy in Russia becomespossible only after the victory of the proletariat in the most important coun-tries of Europe.”44

Lenin soon concluded optimistically that full collectivisation was feasible.Even if surrounded by a capitalist world, Russia could produce enough trac-tors to convince the peasantry to support the “commune.” The Russianproletariat had the strength to lead the peasant majority into collectivisedproduction.45 But what would collective agriculture represent from aMarxist point of view? It was not easy to “classify” it within the duality ofcapitalism and socialism. Socialism had been defined as the negative ofprivate property – property of the community as a whole, represented by thestate for as long as that institution existed. But what would be the status of

Proletarian revolution in a backward country 47

co-operative property? It was not really private, but it did not belong to thecommunity as a whole either. By 1921, Lenin was still arguing that thepeasant co-operative, although a step forward, was merely a “variety of statecapitalism,” an essentially capitalist enterprise controlled by the proletarianstate. “Complete socialism” would mean that there would be no differencebetween workers and peasants.46 In other words, like industry, agricultureshould be nationalised to deserve the name “socialist,” and that, apparently,could not be done by the forces of Soviet Russia alone.

However, in the course of 1922 Lenin’s views finally began to shift. Hepredicted that Russia could be socialist within several years.47 As appearsfrom “On Co-operation” of January 1923, the optimism of the leader wasbased on a redefinition of the nature of co-operative property. He notedthat, if they were founded on land and used means of production thatbelonged to the proletarian state, peasant co-operatives “do not distinguishthemselves from socialist enterprises.” Therefore the growth of the peasantco-operative was “identical” to the growth of socialism. With state power inthe hands of the proletariat, a “complete socialist society” could beconstructed on the basis of the co-operatives. Lenin admitted that thisnotion reflected a “fundamental change of our whole point of viewregarding socialism.”48 Thus in early 1923 he redefined peasant co-opera-tives as fully socialist enterprises. Thereby, shortly before his death, Lenincreated the basis of a new doctrine of the possibility of “complete socialism”in isolated Soviet Russia. Without spelling it out, he reached the conclusionthat “socialism in one country,” the notion he had accepted in general termseven before the revolution, was applicable to backward Russia too.

Summing up, we find that neither the thesis of the possibility ofconstructing socialism in a backward country nor the perspective of anautarkic socialist economy in a single state was invented by Lenin or Stalin.The former thesis was basic Marxism, and the latter followed Vollmar andKautsky. The claim that the bolshevik project of revolution and socialisttransformation in Russia was at odds with the Marxist tradition therebycollapses. It was undoubtedly the opportunity, offered by the Great War, tomake a proletarian revolution in peasant Russia, and the subsequentsurvival of the Soviet state, that formed the background for Lenin’s reformu-lations. But, again, the result remained a clearly recognisable Marxism withfew new elements. At the end of his life Lenin took a step further. Hismotive was again somewhat opportunistic. Realising that the nationalisationof Russian agriculture was not a feasible project for the foreseeable future,he simply redefined collective farms as socialist too. But the interesting thingabout this is that, from that point onwards, the only thing lacking remainedthe explicit recognition of the applicability of the formula of “socialism inone country” to Russia. The later Stalinist thesis was clearly foreshadowedin Lenin’s last works.

48 Proletarian revolution in a backward country

Joseph Stalin’s nationalist excesses are commonly understood as one moreproof of his sharp deviation from Marxism. However, all too often the inter-nationalism of Marx and Engels is interpreted in a crude, simplistic way.The original Marxism did in fact contain a strong nationalist component.The odd thing is that there is an extensive body of literature to documentthis, but the respective conclusions have not found their way to researchersof Stalinism, who continue to present us with a caricature of Marxism as aconsistently internationalist doctrine. Let me begin my discussion with oneof the most famous passages from the 1848 Communist Manifesto, which isroutinely quoted to show the committed internationalism of the commu-nists: “The workers have no fatherland. One cannot take from them thatwhich they do not have.” These resounding words were immediatelyfollowed by this:

In the sense that the proletariat must first conquer political rule foritself, raise itself to the status of a national class, constitute itself as [the]nation, it is itself still national, although not at all in the sense of thebourgeoisie. Already with the development of the bourgeoisie thenational boundaries and conflicts among the peoples vanish more andmore…. The rule of the proletariat will make them vanish even more.1

Communist nationalism was less consistent than the Jacobin original, in thatit foresaw an eventual fusion of nations. The nation was only a midwaystation on the journey to a unified world. The Marxists treated the nation asthey treated the state. Once the task of “nationalising” the means of produc-tion had been completed, it would disappear. Not only would the state sinkback into society, it would also merge simultaneously with the other statessurrounding it. Nevertheless, the Manifesto was very clear that the workershad first to constitute themselves as the nation. For nineteenth-century revo-lutionaries this was a self-evident truth. Revolutions inevitably resulted inthe formation of nations, communities of equal citizens establishing theirsovereignty in the state. National formation was the whole point of revolu-tions. In a way, the Marxists went even further than the Jacobins. With their

4 Marxist nationalism

program of “nationalisation” of the factories and land, they hoped to createa more compact “national” community than their predecessors.

It all comes down to this: at the time of writing the Manifesto the prole-tariat, lacking both property and the vote, was for all practical purposesexcluded from the nation. In that sense the workers did indeed have nofatherland. But by taking power, and thereby acquiring property and thevote, they could acquire a fatherland. In other words, the CommunistManifesto contained a message of proletarian patriotism.

The notion that the triumphant proletariat should first establish itself asthe nation was no hollow phrase. On many occasions, Marx and Engelsdiscussed the industrial proletariat as a patriotic force in the original senseof an agency of regeneration of the fatherland. In 1848, Engels typicallycomplained that the backward Germans did not move along with the newtimes. They compromised themselves in front of all other nations, turningthemselves into the laughing stock of Europe. But if the cowardly Germanbourgeois did not defend the nation, he set his hopes on the Germanworkers. They would rise and “put an end to the whole filthy, confused offi-cial German business and restore German honour through a radicalrevolution.”2 Similarly, Marx insisted decades later that it was impossible forFrance to be saved from ruin without revolution. The victory of the ParisCommune would have led to the “rebirth of France”.3 In such statements,we can still recognise the origin of Marxism as a communist interpretationof Jacobin patriotism.

One could object that, all this notwithstanding, the dominant feature ofMarxism remained an ideal of international proletarian unity. That may beright, but only as far as it goes. Here we enter a complex field of interpreta-tion. The case for the consistent internationalism of the young Marx hasbeen argued by Roman Szporluk in his study of the latter’s relation with thenationalist Friedrich List.4 Szporluk shows that Marx rejected List’sprogram of economic development of backward Germany. Protectionistnational capitalist development was a mere reactionary illusion; free tradewas a more progressive system. Only a proletarian Germany with a socialistorientation was a feasible project, but even that only as part of a socialistEurope. Not the nation but mankind was the relevant unit. Szporluk moreor less ignores the issue of the temporary existence of national proletarianstates predicted in the Manifesto.5 But he does acknowledge that after 1848Marx and Engels’s internationalism was diluted. They supported thenational causes of what they called the “historic” nations, in particular theGermans, Hungarians and Poles.6

This brings us to the question most famously discussed by RomanRosdolsky.7 Marx, and especially his friend Engels, took an extreme positionin the various “national questions” of their times. Central Europe was theterritory of the multinational state. Before the destruction of their state inthe late eighteenth century, the Poles had formed the nucleus of aPolish–Lithuanian commonwealth. Likewise, the Germans and Magyars

50 Marxist nationalism

formed the urban, ruling elites of the Habsburg Empire, dominating peasantpeoples of Slav and Romanian stock. Marx and Engels strongly supportedthe dominant nations. While sympathising with a restoration of Polandwithin its old borders, as well as with the German and Hungarian nation-alist efforts, they resisted the nationalism of the small peoples under theircontrol. And when in 1848 the Croats and Czechs chose the Habsburg side,against German and Hungarian assimilatory policies, the two communistrevolutionaries condemned them in the most horrifying terms. The followingquotation from Engels is characteristic:

We reply to the sentimental phrases of brotherhood which are offered tous…in the name of the most counter-revolutionary nations of Europethat hatred of the Russians was, and still is, the first revolutionarypassion of the Germans; that since the revolution a hatred of the Czechsand the Croats has been added to this, and that, in common with Polesand Magyars, we can only secure the revolution against these Slavpeoples by the most decisive acts of terrorism…. We shall fight “animplacable life-and-death struggle” with Slavdom, which has betrayedthe revolution; a war of annihilation and ruthless terrorism, not in theinterests of Germany but in the interests of the revolution!8

This is no isolated passage quoted out of context but one in a long string ofbrutal pronouncements against the Slavs. Together with peoples like theGaels, Bretons and Basques, they are described as “national refuse” and“ruins of peoples.” Lacking the capacity for survival, they are worthy ofbeing exterminated, “to perish in the universal revolutionary storm.”9

Rosdolsky notes that Marx and Engels adopted Hegel’s approach ofdividing peoples into historic and non-historic nations. The former hadproved capable of independent state formation. Those with less energy andvitality were unable to constitute themselves as independent nations. Theywere obstacles to progress and should allow themselves to be assimilated.Engels believed that the peasant nations, those unable to adapt to themodern world, in case they refused to disappear, had no other choice but toturn for protection to the reactionary powers. The Czech and Croat alliancewith the Habsburgs in 1848 was a case in point. More importantly, theyturned under the flag of pan-Slavism to the Russian tsar. The Russians werenot a non-historic nation, but as the mainstay of bureaucratic absolutism itwas an even greater danger to progress. Thus the German, Polish andHungarian “bearers of progress”10 battled against small, dying peopleshiding under the mantle of Russia.

In this general scheme, Marx and Engels demanded a German declara-tion of war against Russia as a contribution to the “propaganda ofcivilisation.” Similarly, they supported the Prussian government in its warwith Denmark for possession of Schleswig-Holstein. Engels commented thatGermany took Schleswig with the “right of civilization against barbarism,

Marxist nationalism 51

of progress against stability.”11 The scheme was flexible enough to recognisethat the Russians, although barbarians compared with other Europeans,were advanced in relation to Asians. Engels noted characteristically that, forall its “Slavonic dirt,” Russian rule had been a civilising force among theBashkirs and Tatars.12 Marx’s conditional support for British colonialism inIndia can be understood in the same light. For all their cruelty, theEuropeans had a progressive mission.

Of all national sentiments, Marx and Engels’s German sympathies werethe strongest. In one of his last years, Engels wrote that if it came to a warbetween France and Russia on the one hand and Germany and Austria onthe other, German social democracy would stand solidly behind its govern-ment. France was a more progressive nation than the present Germany, butonce it linked up with Russian “oriental barbarism” this lost allsignificance.13 It appears that Lenin’s later neutral stand in the Great Warwas not the model of the way Marxists looked at conflicts between capitaliststates that it is sometimes considered to have been. Marxists could very wellside with one capitalist power against another.

The notion of the political superiority of certain nations was also appliedto the socialist movement. After the defeat of the Paris Commune, Germansocial democracy gradually turned into the vanguard of internationalsocialism in Marx and Engels’s eyes. Already in 1870 the former had writtenthat “the centre of gravity of the West European workers’ movement”moved from France to Germany. This was fortunate enough, as the Germanworking class was “theoretically and organisationally superior to theFrench”.14 Engels’s enthusiasm for German socialism knew few bounds.Soon after the Franco-Prussian War he noted that the “really internation-alist attitude” of the German workers during that war had provided themwith a leading position in the European movement. He was happy that itwas “precisely a German, Marx,” who had developed scientific socialism,and that “socialist Germany” now occupied the “leading, most honourableand most responsible position in the international workers’ movement.” TheGerman working class showed more discipline, courage and energy than anyother. It was possible, then, that Germany rather than France would becomethe theatre of the first great proletarian victory.15

At the end of the century, admiration for the Slavs grew among Germansocial democrats. After the murder of Alexander II in 1881, Marx andEngels admitted that Russia now formed the “vanguard of the revolutionaryaction in Europe.” They hoped that a Russian revolution might spark offone in Germany.16 Kautsky went even further. In 1902, he remarked that theunspoiled Russian revolutionary movement still knew the old “passionatedevotion” that was lost in the West. Not only had the Slavs “entered theranks of the revolutionary nations,” it was even the case that the “centre ofrevolutionary thought and revolutionary action” had shifted to them. Russiahad ceased to be “merely a bulwark of reaction and absolutism in WesternEurope.” Today the very opposite was the case. “Western Europe is

52 Marxist nationalism

becoming a bulwark of reaction and absolutism in Russia.”17 In 1902, Lenintoo predicted that, by destroying tsarism, the Russian proletariat wouldbecome the “vanguard of the international revolutionary proletariat”.18

These predictions seemed to come true with the revolution of 1905.To sum up, we have found that nationalist hopes and preferences formed

a part of the original Marxism. It was, first, not in contrast with this orig-inal tradition to treat the proletariat as a force for patriotic regeneration.Second, nothing could be further from the truth than to assume that Marxand Engels were pure internationalists in the sense that they valued allnations equally. They divided the European nations into forces of“barbarism”, embodied in small-scale, peasant backwardness and monar-chical-bureaucratic empires, and those of “civilisation” – to be identifiedwith modern nationalism, urbanism and democracy.

This fact has given rise to a debate among scholars as to whether Marxistnationalism was an aberration or a coherent part of the internationalistdoctrine. Rosdolsky takes the first position. The theory of non-historicnations stood in contradiction to the materialist interpretation of historyand the class approach. That Marx and Engels nevertheless adopted it wasdue mainly to the objective situation in Central Europe. The need to keepthe German, Hungarian and Polish elites as revolutionary allies, as well asthe Russian tsarist threat, forced them to insert an odd element into theirthinking.19 Horace Davis takes a similar position. He argues that class inter-nationalism remained the dominant element in Marx and Engels’s work.Their position on nationalism, state formation and colonialism was contra-dictory, without real coherence.20

In contrast, Ephraim Nimni argues that Marx and Engels’s quasi-Hegelian position was a coherent part of their communist conception.Central to his argument is the fact that the fathers of communism recog-nised the progressive significance of the formation of the modern state aspart of the process of overcoming feudal fragmentation and the establish-ment of capitalism. In order to be politically and economically viable, statesshould be sufficiently large. Marx and Engels adhered to the Jacobin modelof the state as a centralised and linguistically homogeneous entity, i.e. as anation into which small nationalities were assimilated. If the proletariatassumed power it would only play the role of a “national class” for a shortperiod, quickly advancing to the higher, developmental stage of the aboli-tion of the national state. Nevertheless, historical development to nationlesscommunism proceeded from feudalism through the national state. Involvedhere was an evolutionary view of history as “progressive centralisation,” inwhich the national state was a stage on the road to the most centralised unit,namely the unified communist world.21

This makes the defence of great nations – those capable of independentstate formation and thereby of modern capitalist development – and thedemand to the small nations to admit their defeat and let themselves beabsorbed understandable in a Marxist context. Formulated more generally, a

Marxist nationalism 53

paradox of communist doctrine is involved here. As a fundamentally inter-nationalist system, communism aimed to establish the eventual unificationof the proletarians of all countries on a basis of equality. But as a doctrineof universal progress it also held that, although potentially equal, differentnations were more or less advanced on the yardstick of progress. There wereadvanced and backward nations, the former pointing mankind towards itshistorical goal of international unity and the latter holding it back in theparticularistic and despotic dark ages. It stood to reason to support theformer against the latter, which produces nationalist conclusions.

After the death of Marx and Engels, the debate about the national ques-tion in the Second International remained focused on the relations betweennations within the multinational states of Central and Eastern Europe. TheJacobin model of the centralist state was problematic in the case of theRussian and Austro-Hungarian empires. One could start from the republicanformula and transform these empires into huge, centralised “indivisible”proletarian wholes. But one could also take the existing cultural nations(including those with a peasant identity) living in these empires as the pointof departure, and explode the old states into their components, creating astring of new, nationally homogeneous states, each “one and indivisible.” Aswe saw, Marx and Engels tended to take a middle position, supporting alimited number of assimilating national states of Poles, Germans andMagyars.

The gut reaction of the Second International remained to hold theempires together and turn them into unitary states of a democratic prole-tarian type. From the standpoint of proletarian internationalism, it would beunfortunate to break up the existing frameworks uniting workers of variousnationalities, however oppressive the frameworks might be. This leftist posi-tion was most classically defined by Rosa Luxemburg, who strongly opposeda right to secession of, for example, the Poles from Russia. In her view, a rightto secession represented a form of capitulation to petit bourgeois nation-alism.22 But the social democrats understood that the small nations couldnot be ignored, so at its congress in London in 1896 the Second Internationalgranted them a right to “self-determination”. However, it remained a matterof fierce debate what that right implied. Like Luxemburg, Lenin was anoutspoken proponent of centralistic internationalism, but unlike her hedefended a right to secession from the empires of nationally homogeneousterritories. He hoped that, given that opportunity, nations would preferremaining within their large, centralised states, gradually merging into one,to developing their own separate statehood. But the right to secede wasessential to win the trust of the proletariat of the small nations.

A third model, especially fitting for a country in which nations often livednot in homogeneous but in nationally mixed areas, was developed by the so-called Austro-Marxists, most prominently represented by Otto Bauer andKarl Renner. They favoured a system of “national cultural autonomy” inthe nationally heterogeneous regions of their multinational empire. In their

54 Marxist nationalism

model, citizens registered individually according to nationality and formedcollective institutions to administer and develop their own cultural affairs. Inother words, here was a program of “national self-determination” servingmainly the preservation not of the political but of the cultural identity ofnations.

Bauer and Renner developed a corresponding theory of what nationswere. According to Kautsky, the modern nation was the product of capi-talism. Commodity production demanded the breakdown of barriersbetween mutually separated but adjoining territories and the creation of onecentralised economic and political “organism.” Furthermore, the need forsmooth economic traffic brought about the development of one nationallanguage, replacing Latin and local dialects. As a result, he concluded that“community of language” and “community of territory” were the definingcharacteristics of the modern nation. In this scheme, the psychological aspectof nations was reduced to that of its members having a common language.Kautsky refused to endow nations with self-consciousness in a meaningfulsense. He did not deny that something like a “community of national char-acter” might exist, but that was not a necessary condition for the existence ofa nation. It was too vague a notion. Finally, Kautsky also expected economicinternationalisation and socialism to bring about the eventual demise ofnations, to be replaced by a unified world culture and language.23

But in 1902 Renner challenged Kautsky’s authority with his Der Kampfder österreichischen Nationen um den Staat. He defined the nation as a“cultural community” not linked to the “soil.” Nations were known for theirstrong “organic unity”. A nation was a real union of identically thinkingand speaking persons, it “thinks, feels and acts as a unified whole.” Insummary, for Renner nations were self-conscious cultural communities.24

Bauer, the other important Austro-Marxist, made his own contribution tothe question when he published Die Nationalitätenfrage und dieSozialdemokratie in 1907. His starting point remained the materialist anal-ysis that community of economic life lay at the basis of the development ofnations. But he went much further than Kautsky, claiming that closeeconomic links had induced endogamy and shared biological characteristicsamong people, and then produced a community of language and culture. Asa result, nations developed in the course of time into relatively unified“communities of character.” In this scheme, community of territory wascontributory but not essential to the formation of nations. Perhaps Bauer’smost revolutionary thought was that socialism would not lead to a fusion ofnations but rather to their increasing differentiation. He expected themodern nation to survive for a long time into the socialist era.25

Lenin’s attitude towards the question of national culture was an ambiva-lent one. Like Kautsky, he refused to accept the idea of a national culture asrelevant to the definition of nations. He was deeply disturbed by the theoriesof Bauer and Renner, which he believed guided the workers into collusionwith the bourgeoisie, with whom they supposedly formed one national

Marxist nationalism 55

cultural community. This denial of the reality of national culture wouldseem to prevent Lenin from nurturing any national pride. However, thisemotion was not alien to him. In What is to be Done?, he pointed withobvious satisfaction to the universal significance of nineteenth-centuryRussian revolutionary democrats like Gertsen, Belinskii and Chernyshevskii,and he even noted the worldwide significance of Russian literature.26 Leninchose Kautsky’s side in the polemic against the Austro-Marxists because heabhorred their program of national cultural autonomy; but he did not reallyreject the idea that nations had a cultural identity of their own. In 1913, hecalled the “slogan of a national culture” a bourgeois fraud, but he explained:

In each national culture there exist, though perhaps undeveloped,elements of a democratic and socialist culture, because in each nationthere exists a working and exploited mass…. When we put forth theslogan of an ‘international culture of democratism and the workers’movement of the world’, we take from each national culture only itsdemocratic and its socialists elements.

He then summarised that there were “two nations within each modernnation” and “two national cultures within each national culture.” There wasfor instance the reactionary Great Russian culture, “but there exists also theGreat Russian culture characterised by the names of Chernyshevskii andPlekhanov.”27 In other words, Lenin’s rejection of the idea of “nationalculture” merely meant rejecting wholesale adoption of it. There did after allexist a specific Great Russian cultural identity. It was only split up into areactionary and a progressive part; and social democrats could only be right-fully proud of the latter elements of the Great Russian culture, not of thatculture as such. Interestingly, we also know that Lenin realised that nationswere tenacious phenomena that did not disappear immediately after therevolution. In 1920, he wrote that “national and state differences betweenpeoples and countries” would continue to exist “for a very, very long timeafter the realisation of the dictatorship of the proletariat on a worldscale.”28 In other words, Lenin’s view of nations had more elements of theAustro-Marxist culturalism than he would care to admit.

There is, finally, also ample proof that, like Marx and Engels, Lenin sawrevolution as an instrument of patriotic regeneration. And he was aware thatthis interpretation of the meaning of revolutions went back to the Jacobinprototype. For Lenin, the coming Russian revolution served not only theworking class but also to reinvigorate Russia, to make it strong economicallyand militarily. Just before the October events, he wrote:

One always points to the revolutionary patriotism and the miracles ofmilitary courage of the French in the years 1792–93…. The example ofFrance tells us one and only one thing: in order to make Russia capableof defence, in order to achieve ‘miracles’ of mass heroism here, we have

56 Marxist nationalism

to blow away all that is old with ‘Jacobin’ ruthlessness and to renewRussia and let it be reborn economically. …either we’ll go down, or we’llcome alongside the advanced countries and overtake them economicallytoo.29

And in March 1918 he wrote – under a poem about “Mother Russia” – thatthe recent peace with Germany had been forced upon him. In due course,the country would be liberated from the shame and recover. The bolshevikleader avowed his firm determination to ensure whatever the cost “thatRussia [Rus’] will stop being miserable and powerless.” There remainedenough space and natural wealth to create a truly powerful and prosperousRussia.30 It did not even insult Lenin’s Marxist sensitivities to compare hisown work with that of national hero Peter the Great. The emperor hadhoped to Westernise barbarian Russia with barbarian instruments; and like-wise the bolsheviks should not hesitate to use dictatorial instruments tointroduce Western administrative culture into Russia in order to improve theadministration of the country.31

To sum up, many elements of Stalinist nationalism often considered tohave been proof of a “betrayal” of the Marxist tradition in fact remainedwell within that tradition. It was never odd for Marxists to see the revolutionas an instrument to save the fatherland from degradation. Marxists alsoconsidered it essential to support the cause of progressive nationalismagainst allegedly backward nations. And, finally, the analysis of nations asentities arising out of the integrative working of capitalism made Marxistsfrom the Austrians to Lenin sensitive to the phenomenon of national cultureand character. The idea that nations did not disappear with the advent ofsocialism, but were cultural entities stable enough to survive into thesocialist era, was no Stalinist invention either. It was defended by the mostdistinguished social democratic theorists of the national question, theAustro-Marxists. On all such points the Russian tradition influencing Stalindid not subvert the existing Marxism. There was no need for any subverting.

Marxist nationalism 57

When Joseph Stalin was suggested for membership of the commission toformulate a new party program at the Seventh Party Congress in 1918, itwas objected that he had never written any articles of programmatic signifi-cance. Only when the chairman pointed to his writings on the nationalquestion was he voted in.1 The revolutionary activities and writings of Stalinin the period before the October Revolution are a subject worthy of atten-tion in themselves, but for the development of the Stalinist doctrine, which isthe proper subject of the present book, his work on the national questionwas most significant. What is more, nationalism seems to have been the firstimportant influence shaping the later Stalin’s political thought.

Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, the later Stalin, was born in 1878 in thesmall Georgian town of Gori, the son of a leather worker and a washer-woman. He grew up under very poor circumstances but as a bright childmanaged to enter the local church school. He completed it successfully in1894, whereupon he was admitted to the Tbilisi theological seminary toreceive an education as a priest. In 1899, Iosif was expelled from this institu-tion, without having completed the course. During his days at the seminary,the future Stalin was at first involved with the Georgian nationalist move-ment. That appears from his earliest publications, the six poems he wrote in1895 and 1896. The first five were published in the Georgian nationalistjournal Iveriia, edited by the celebrated writer Il’ia Chavchavadze. The lastone appeared in Kvali, a weekly established by Georgii Tsereteli, a liberalnationalist, who favoured the introduction of industrial capitalism anddemocracy in Georgia.

Chavchavadze resented industrialism, but he was no conservative. Thewriter was a typical representative of nineteenth-century cultural nation-alism. His overriding aim was the rebirth of Georgia as a cultural nation,which in the long run was supposed to create the condition for Georgianindependence. Culture provided a focus of broad national unity and epito-mised the country’s spiritual and material development. Chavchavadzeexpected much of popular education. In order to promote a cultural renais-sance among the peasantry, he established the so-called Society for theSpread of Literacy among the Georgians, which ran a network of schools,

5 Stalin The years before October

bookshops and libraries throughout the country. The whole Georgianpeople, from the elite down to the popular masses, should be moulded into ahomogeneous community, structured around an axis of shared culturalvalues. But Georgia should also be a modern political community, wherethere was no room for any “feudal” privilege. Although he believed in thelanded proprietor, Chavchavadze had been among the most irreconcilableopponents of serfdom.2

It seems that the young Iosif became acquainted with the milieu ofGeorgian revival even before he moved to Tbilisi. This might be deducedfrom the fact that he was a frequent visitor to a bookshop in Gori owned bya member of Chavchavadze’s society. At the shop, which was most probablypart of the network of the society, Iosif obtained books by Georgian writerslike Chavchavadze himself, Vazha-Pshavela, Aleksandr Kazbegi and RafaelEristavi.3 In the work of these and other writers, the themes of patriotismand the struggle of the peasant masses against the Russian rulers and theirown cruel landlords played important parts. That Dzhugashvili after hisarrival in Tbilisi began publishing in Chavchavadze’s journal suggests thathe felt close to the latter’s brand of nationalism.

This conclusion is supported by the content of the poems. The earliestone painted Georgia’s flowers and birds, and it concluded: “Be full ofblossom, o lovely land, rejoice, Iberians’ country, and you, o Georgian, by

Stalin: the years before October 59

Figure 2 Il’ia Chavchavadze: Stalin’s first teacher in nationalism

studying bring joy to your motherland.” Here we have the program ofcultural nationalism, of the regeneration of the motherland through educa-tion and enlightenment. In the second poem, Iosif compared himself to aman who had been driven out by his enemy, but “again becomes worthy ofhis oppressed country.” The fourth poem was a tribute to Eristavi, who wasmoved to tears by the “laments of the toiling peasants.” It ended on thefollowing note: “Hurray for Raphael! May there be many sons like thee inthe fatherland!!!” Again a patriotic tone dominated, but for the first timeIosif also spoke of the peasantry, as opposed to the motherland in general.But would the peasants listen? In Iosif ’s fifth poem, a “bard” ran intotrouble. His voice “enlightened many a man’s mind which had been cast intouttermost darkness.” But instead of glorifying him, “the mob set before theoutcast a vessel filled with poison” and made him drink it. “We do not wantyour truth nor these heavenly tunes of yours!” It seems that Iosif began todoubt the effectiveness of the nationalist message.

The third poem contains the sentence “The Lord’s Providence is great,”which suggests that at the time Dzhugashvili was still a believer – notsurprising for a boy in a seminary. Yet this belief quickly faded. Thesentence was the first and last indication of religiosity in Stalin’s wholework. In later years, he continued to sprinkle his writings with biblical refer-ences, but as far as one can ascertain, the religious influence on his thinkingwas limited to style and his preference for dogmatic formulation. In thesummer of 1896 he switched to Kvali, in which his last poem was published.It described a man, “scythed down by old age” and exhausted by his work inthe fields.4 The peasant question replaced the nationalist theme. Around thistime, Iosif became a member of a socialist student circle, which was active atthe seminary. This brought him in touch with Marxism. However, GeorgianMarxism was not completely devoid of the nationalist spirit.

The dominating figure of the early Marxist movement, Noi Zhordaniia,rejected nationalism as the central pillar of political strategy. Nevertheless, hebelieved that the Russian oppression of his native land made some forms ofclass collaboration unavoidable. And his concept of nationality was wideenough to provide a theoretical basis for this. Capitalism not only dividedcountries into opposing classes but also promoted their economic integra-tion. Thereby, it created the basis of the modern nation. And Zhordaniiabelieved that modern nations knew a “community of consciousness.” Forhim, it was even the essential characteristic of nationhood whether or notpeople felt themselves to constitute a nation. In his own words, “nationality,culture” formed a country’s “I.” Correspondingly, Zhordaniia’s patriotismwas a program not only of common action against Russian oppression butalso of cultural affirmation. Georgia’s future lay in rationalism, butEuropeanisation should never be wholesale. The country should not lose itscultural identity. Zhordaniia even insisted that the psychological bondbetween the Georgians preceded the capitalist era. His list of characteristic

60 Stalin: the years before October

marks of nations – “history, culture, ways and habits” – emphasised thenation’s roots in the pre-national era.5

Zhordaniia’s understanding of nations was more encompassing thanKautsky’s and close to the Austro-Marxist model of the cultural community.Despite his great influence in the early years of Georgian social democracy,his pleas to integrate nationalism into the socialist platform were challengedby other comrades, who found the class struggle the only acceptable businessfor social democrats. But even they often shared his theoretical under-standing of nationhood. In 1902, the later bolshevik Filipp Makharadzewrote that the modern nation was characterised not only by a community ofeconomic life and territory but also by a cultural community of the peopleconstituting it.6 And the bolshevik Stepan Shaumian wrote in his 1906pamphlet, “The national question and social democracy,” that human beingstended to join into ever larger “social organisms.” The formation of modernnations was a process covering “dozens and hundreds of centuries,” and thecentralisation resulting from the rise of capitalist commodity productiongave only the final push. Nations were characterised by a community oflanguage, religion, custom and ancestry.7 Thus the notion of nations having aspecific cultural identity, and roots going back deep into history, was broadlyshared among trans-Caucasian social democrats.

Iosif Dzhugashvili immediately joined the Tbilisi branch of the RussianSocial Democratic Workers’ Party (RSDWP) when that party was estab-lished in 1898. In 1902, he was arrested for the first time and exiled to avillage near Irkutsk, from where he escaped early in 1904. By the time of hisreturn, his party had split into bolshevik and menshevik factions. Until theend of 1904, the whole trans-Caucasian party stood on the bolshevik side,and “Koba,” as Dzhugashvili was nicknamed, naturally joined that faction.He became a man of some importance in the regional party apparatus. Butit was from conviction that he became a bolshevik, for he remained onewhen during 1905 the overwhelming majority of trans-Caucasian socialdemocrats deserted to the menshevik camp.

Dzhugashvili’s views on the national question during his early Marxistcareer were quite extraordinary. His first essay on the theme, “How socialdemocracy understands the national question,” appeared in 1904. Its mainthrust was directed against the ideal of Georgian autonomy. Koba acknowl-edged that nationalities had the freedom of language and localself-government, but he added that the RSDWP program was neverthelessbased on “political centralism.” Moreover, although nations had a right topolitical separation, “generally speaking, the proletariat will not support a so-called ‘national liberation movement.’ ” On these points, the article was arather standard reflection of the views shared by most bolsheviks andmensheviks at the time, but Koba’s views of the Georgian nation and itsculture betrayed a leftism of the crudest type, denying as he did the wholeconcept of cultural identity of nations. There existed no community of

Stalin: the years before October 61

interest whatsoever between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, or a “nationalspirit” of any kind. In the original version of the article, even the existenceof “national characteristics” as such was denied. The word “nation” waswritten between inverted commas.

Furthermore, acknowledging that “reactionary ‘national’ habits” were tobe defended against the onslaught of the tsarist government, Koba stressedthat in themselves they were not worth defending: “as such the so-called‘national interests’ and ‘national demands’ have no particular value.” Theywere “only worthy of attention in so far as they further…the class self-consciousness of the proletariat.” The whole “national question” consistedmerely of the problem: “how can one destroy national isolation, in order tobring the workers of Russia more closely together.” In other words,Georgian culture could best be uprooted as a barrier dividing the Georgianworker from his Russian brethren and sisters.8 Surprisingly, national identityand culture had become non-items for Dzhugashvili. Nations were almost afigment of the imagination. Hereby, he landed far to the “left” of his fellowsocial democrats Zhordaniia, Makharadze and Shaumian. It looks asthough, as a man coming from the Chavchavadze movement, he made anextreme effort to prove his Marxist credentials by shedding everything remi-niscent of his nationalist days.

Yet nationalism would in various direct and indirect ways continue to bediscernible in Dzhugashvili’s thinking. To begin with, in practical terms hisanti-nationalist position resulted in a defence of Russian centralism. Wewould be mistaken, though, to assume that he was inspired by secret sympa-thies for the tsarist rulers. In July 1905, for example, he criticised a menshevikpamphlet that had cried out after the Russian naval defeat against Japan:“Can a true Russian stand such a humiliation of the fatherland?” QuotingMarx and Engels that the workers had no fatherland, Dzhugashvili accusedthe mensheviks of seeking “common ground” with the autocracy.9 And a fewmonths later, he insisted that all “reactionary, chauvinistic tendencies” wereto blame for the violent conflicts between Armenians and Tatars – includingZionism, pan-Islamism, pan-Armenianism and “Russian ‘patriotism.’ ”10

Dzhugashvili appreciated Russian culture more highly than that of theCaucasian nations, but in a somewhat paradoxical way – not because heliked things specifically Russian but because Russia embodied modernity. InJune 1906, he explained that those who demanded trans-Caucasianautonomy separated “the fate of our country from Russian culture and linkit to Asian barbarism”:

In comparison to the Turks and the nationalities of the trans-Caucasus,Russia is indeed a civilised country. That is the reason why we considersuch “farsighted” politicians like you, who demand trans-Caucasianautonomy, to be reactionaries. Today young Russia stands at the head ofstruggling mankind, while Turkey did not yet emerge from thebarbarian state.11

62 Stalin: the years before October

Russian culture was to be supported against trans-Caucasian culturebecause it had evolved further on the ladder to modernity, on the scalerunning from barbarism to civilisation. The remark that Russia was at thehead of struggling mankind referred to the 1905 revolution, where theRussians had taken the lead in attacking the old world. A similar argumentshowed in Dzhugashvili’s early remarks against the Jews. In an article aboutthe party congress of 1907, he noted that among the menshevik delegatesJews and Georgians predominated, as opposed to the predominantlyRussian bolsheviks. He commented:

But such a composition of the factions is not difficult to explain: thecentres of bolshevism are mainly districts with large-scale industry,which are, with the exception of Poland, purely Russian districts, whilethe menshevik districts, the districts of small production, are at the sametime the districts of the Jews, Georgians etc.

Bolshevism was “the tactic of the real proletarians”; and he called the JewishBund a group of “petty dealers”.12 In other words, Dzhugashvili preferredthe Russians to the Jews and Georgians because they knew a more advancedindustrialisation and proletarianisation. To sum up, in these early writings wesee two closely connected themes emerging. To begin with, it was denied thatseparate nations had a specific cultural identity of their own. Ironically, thisnegation of the reality of national identities is the quintessential thesis of so-called “cosmopolitanism,” which Joseph Stalin later castigated. On a moreconcrete level, Dzhugashvili seemed to acknowledge cultural identities afterall. He counterposed the Georgians and Jews on the one hand and theRussians on the other – in terms of “barbarism” versus “civilisation,” small-scale production and trading versus large-scale industry. But this was only adifferent way of formulating the same thing. The essence of backwardnational cultures was, as it were, that they were still national and specific,while the essence of the modern Russian culture was that it had largely shedits national specificity and become part of the universal culture of modernity.

In 1907, Dzhugashvili moved to Baku, one of the few trans-Caucasianareas where the bolsheviks preserved a strong position. In the followingyears, his stay in this city of oil was interrupted several times by new arrests,and in 1912 he transferred his party work to the capital. By now he was amember of the bolshevik Central Committee. In 1913 he was once againarrested, to be exiled to the Turukhansk district, where he spent several hotsummers and cold winters before the February Revolution of 1917 set himfree. But in the short St Petersburg period he did develop his views on thenational question further. The occasion was Lenin’s anger when the menshe-viks at last accepted the Austro-Marxist principle of national culturalautonomy in August 1912. When they managed to have the point includedin a statement of the joint social democratic Duma faction, he was outragedand called his comrades to war to defend the party program on this point.

Stalin: the years before October 63

In November 1912 and January 1913, three articles of Stalin’s handappeared on the subject in Sotsial-demokrat.13 They held that, while nationshad a right to federation, or even to separation, the party would neversupport such demands. And they contained an especially blistering attack onthe strategy of cultural autonomy. The Bund was attacked for its false ideathat the Jews formed a culturally defined nation. The author sarcasticallyslighted the concept of a “historical culture” and particularly the defence ofthe rights of “the backward part of the Jewish petit bourgeoisie, itssabbaths, its jargon, religious holidays etc.” Traditional Jewish culture wasreactionary and should not be defended by any modern social democrat.14

A few months later, “The national question and social democracy”appeared in the March, April and May 1913 issues of the bolshevik monthlyProsveshchenie. The article, later known as Marxism and the national ques-tion, was one of the most important ones Stalin ever wrote.15 Most of it wasin the spirit of his previous work. It contained a virulent attack on Bauerand Renner (whose work Stalin read in translation) and their ideal ofnurturing the cultural identity of nations. The author did concede minoritynations the right to self-determination, and even to political separatism fromthe Russian state, but separation would only rarely be supported by theRSDWP. The radical edge of Stalin’s thinking showed especially in the wayhe attacked Bauer’s slogan of “organise the nation.” This was no more thana “replacement of the socialist principle of class struggle by the bourgeois‘principle of nationality.’ ” This set the tone, for it made the contrast betweensocialism and nationalism a total one.

Stalin still refused to see any positive significance in national cultures. Allpeoples had the right to stick to their “harmful habits and institutions,” butthe party never supported them. With relish the author observed that “primi-tive” nationalities like the Abkhasians and Tatars were “assimilating” into theGeorgian and Russian nations. He was particularly scathing when hediscussed Tatar habits like ritual self-flagellation and the “right to revenge.”The Georgian bolshevik did support “regional autonomy” for the Caucasus,but this should serve as a form of trans-Caucasian integration and underminerather than develop the separate nations living in the region. “The nationalquestion in the Caucasus,” he explained, “can be solved only in the spirit ofdrawing in the backward nations and nationalities into the general bed of higherculture.” Regional autonomy “does not strengthen national boundaries – onthe contrary, it breaks down these boundaries and unites the population.”

The basis of Stalin’s “cosmopolitan” argument lay in the thesis that, whilecapitalism had at first produced nations and national identities, further capi-talist economic development was now inexorably undermining thesephenomena. Capitalism first as it were nationalised and thereupon de-nationalised the world. In Stalin’s words:

National autonomy contradicts the whole course of the development ofnations. …can one artificially weld them together, when life, when the

64 Stalin: the years before October

economic development tears off from them whole groups and scattersthe latter over various regions? Undoubtedly nations draw themselvestogether at the first stages of capitalism. But…at the higher stages ofcapitalism there begins the process of scattering of nations…. At thefirst stages of capitalism one can still speak of “cultural community” ofthe proletariat and the bourgeoisie. But with the development of large-scale industry and the sharpening of the class struggle the “community”begins to fade away.16

The one nation singled out for special stricture were the Jews. From Stalin’spoint of view their culture was uniquely reactionary because it wasconstructed around a religious pillar. Moreover, whatever it was, the Jewishnation was ceasing to exist: “the Jews are assimilating.” And, parrotingKautsky and Lenin, Stalin argued that the Jews were in fact no nation at all.They had “a religion, a common descent and some rudiments of nationalcharacter,” but that did not make them into a “unified nation.” The pointwas that they lacked necessary attributes of nationality such as a commonterritory and language. Furthermore, to survive nations needed a “broad,stable layer connected to the land, naturally fortifying the nation not only asits skeleton, but also as its ‘national’ market.” But only a small minority ofthe Russian Jews were peasants. Almost everywhere they lived as scatteredminorities on the territory of other nations, whom they served as “industri-alists and traders, as well as people of the free professions.” The lack of atoiling peasantry rooted in a territory of their own prevented the formationof the Jews as a nation.17

Stalin believed that in his days all nations were assimilating. The processof dilution of nations into a new rational universality was a general one,rooted as it was in the trend of development of capitalism. But the Jewswere assimilating even more than others because they had not even been anation in the first place. Stalin’s treatment of the Jews seemed a curious one.The fact that they formed no nation in his understanding should have beenparticularly commended by him. From the cosmopolitan point of view, theJews should have figured as the most progressive segment of the populationof Russia. But one would search in vain for such an acknowledgement.However, within his historical scheme Stalin’s treatment of the Jews was notincoherent. To allow oneself to become one with the other nations is onething, but never to have formed a nation is something else. From Stalin’shistorical perspective the Jews with their diaspora had not participated inthe process of integrating the scattered medieval world into separate stateswith consolidated territories, languages and economies. The Jews formed apeople who as it were had never become modern. They were a living rudi-ment of pre-national feudal relations.

The 1913 article also knew the same ambivalence towards the Russiansthat had characterised his earlier writings on the subject. Stalin rejected thewhole idea of national identity in the name of cosmopolitan modernity. But

Stalin: the years before October 65

he did expect the other nations to assimilate into the Russian body. As aresult, although small minority nations were to disappear, the Russiannation would be preserved and perhaps even strengthened. One reason forthis I have already mentioned: Stalin believed that Russian culture was moreuniversalist than that of the other nations of the empire and therefore enti-tled to more respect. Now he mentioned a further point, concerning earlierhistory. In the period of transition from feudalism to modernity theRussians had served, like the Germans and Magyars, as a “unifier of nation-alities.” They had proved to be “most suited to the organisation of a state.”18

One can easily recognise in this historical scheme, in which Russians andJews formed opposite poles, the duality of historic and non-historic nationsthat we met in Engels’s work. Strong, progressive nations, like the Russians,Germans and Magyars, operated as historical avant-gardes. They were theones who integrated the scattered feudal world into viable modern states. Inthe next historical stage they continued to be in the vanguard, for theypointed to even further progress towards a cosmopolitan future. Primitivepeoples like the Jews and trans-Caucasians, on the other hand, were alwaysholding mankind back. In the past they were unable or unwilling to inte-grate themselves into modern states, and at present they were stubbornlysticking to their barbarian identities, holding up the further internationali-sation of the world. By mentioning the historic role of the Germans andMagyars in this context, Stalin placed himself in the tradition of thoughtas defended among Marxists mainly by Friedrich Engels, although itcannot be ascertained whether he was directly influenced by the latter’swork.

The theoretical first chapter of Stalin’s article defined the nation as a“historically formed, stable community of people, united by community oflanguage, of territory, of economic life, and of psychological make-up,which expresses itself in community of culture.”19 This was a synthetic defi-nition fusing Kautsky’s nation based on only two “communities” – oflanguage and territory – with the cultural approach of the Austro-Marxists.20 Stalin’s definition, which included a community of culture, wasin itself not in conflict with what followed in the further chapters. In thelater parts of the article he insisted on the absence of a cultural communitybetween the classes of nations, but he did not deny that such a communityhad once existed. The point was only that nations were now falling apart,and their cultural identity disappeared with them. However, although therewas no logical problem, one wonders why Stalin did not simply reproduceKautsky’s definition, which was after all the one Lenin preferred. Whywould he care to include the Austro-Marxist notion of the “community ofculture” in an article that was dedicated to the destruction of Austro-Marxist nationalism? What is more, by describing nations as “stable”communities he suggested that their disintegration might perhaps take moretime than was to be expected, which was another silent concession toBauer’s line of argument.

66 Stalin: the years before October

Interestingly, Stalin even took pains to provide his synthetic definitionwith substance. He spoke of “national organisms” and described nations asliving entities with a real identity. They would characteristically be no “paper‘nations’ ’’ but rather “real nations, acting and moving.” The nation wassomething “living and acting,” with its members living a “common…life,”and its “separate parts [united] into one whole.” Stalin seems to have visu-alised the ideal-typical nation as a kind of large-scale individual, lumpingtogether its economic, territorial and linguistic community as its “conditionsof life” and treating the psycho-cultural characteristic as its “state of mind”(dukhovnyi oblik).21 This organicist view of “living and acting” nations againsounds remarkably like Renner’s, an author whose work he was attacking atthe top of his voice. The Austro-Marxist influence was undeniable.

Why did Stalin, who was so utterly nihilistic in his views of the nation,appropriate part of the Austro-Marxist theoretical heritage? One source ofinspiration may have been a booklet by the Dutch social democrat AntonPannekoek, Klassenkampf und Nation, published in 1912. Lenin read thebook in its year of publication and appreciated it as one of the few goodsocial democratic pamphlets on the national question.22 He may have famil-iarised Stalin with the contents of this German work, which the latter couldnot have read himself. The point is that Stalin’s work was remarkably similarin construction to Pannekoek’s. In the first part of his pamphlet, the Dutchauthor supported Bauer’s definition of nations as cultural communities, buthe then turned his argument completely around, noting that with the devel-opment of class struggle all national unity evaporated, and there remainedonly the need for a united proletarian world culture.

More importantly, Stalin’s acceptance of “cultural community” as adefining characteristic of nations represented the resurgence of that notionpresent in the work of authors like Zhordaniia, Makharadze and Shaumian.We may surmise that in 1912–13, when he began to study the subject seri-ously for the first time, Koba realised that, in his abhorrence of his own pastin the Chavchavadze movement, he might have gone too far. He began dimlyto realise that the cultural identity of nations could not be rejected out ofhand. And, when reaching these conclusions, he could easily return to thework of his old trans-Caucasian comrades with which he was familiar.

At the same time, I should stress the limitations of Stalin’s debt to theAustro-Marxists. Otto Bauer believed that nations were defined, amongother points, by a common biological ethnicity, but Stalin denied this vigor-ously. He was insistent that nations had no biological connotationwhatsoever. National characters were not inborn. For Stalin, the nation was“neither racial nor tribal, but a historically formed community of people.”The national character did not “constitute something given once and forall.” Differences in character developed “from generation to generation as aresult of different conditions of existence.” Consequently, national charactershould be seen as a “reflection of the conditions of life,” in other words as a“lump of impressions, received from the environment.”23 Thus, for Stalin,

Stalin: the years before October 67

national character remained shaped primarily by education and circum-stance, not by biological or racial factors. Nations were no outgrowth of theworld of tribes but modern, newly integrated entities representing the over-coming of such ethnic communities.

Stalin’s debt to Zhordaniia and Shaumian was also limited. He was insis-tent that “the process of the formation of people into nations” was aconcomitant of “the process of the liquidation of feudalism and the develop-ment of capitalism.” In particular, the third characteristic of nations,community of economic life, was realised only as a result of capitalistunifying processes. And if one of the four necessary characteristics of acommunity was lacking, one could not define it as a nation. Nations couldtherefore only come into being with the rise of the capitalist system.24 Stalindid not deny that national cultures had roots in traditions preceding capi-talism, and, conversely, Zhordaniia and Shaumian agreed that modernnations arose only fully with capitalism, but the latter valued the historicalroots of nations to such a degree that they included community of “history”and “ancestry” in their definition of them. Stalin did not. For him, the rise ofnations represented a break with religious, feudal and patriarchal traditionsrather than a culmination of them.

To sum up, the young Marxist Dzhugashvili/Stalin saw the national ques-tion fundamentally in terms that he was later to decry as “cosmopolitanism”and “national nihilism.” Nations were fundamentally obsolete. They were ina process of merging into a larger universality. To hold on to national tradi-tions and character, to attempt to provide nations with a separate politicalor cultural life of their own, was a reactionary fantasy. The reason nationslike the Tatars, Georgians and Jews should orient themselves towards theRussians was not because the latter nation had the best character butbecause it had, as it were, the least. While the Jews and Tatars were stilllocked in their ridiculous world of sabbaths and self-flagellation, theRussians had overcome all that. They were furthest advanced on the road tothe nationless, abstract civilisation of the future.

But Stalin’s views were not one-dimensional. In two ways, the nation didplay a role in his thinking even at this stage. First, he perceived a two-stephistorical process. Nations were now obsolete, but in early modern timestheir formation had represented a tremendous step forward for the peoplesof Europe. The old feudal and patriarchal world, the world of tribes andtraditional ethnic communities, had been shaken up and reorganised intomuch more integrated and centralised units – the modern nations. The devel-oping capitalist market was the basis of this process of integration, and therise of the modern state its climax. Like Engels, Stalin believed that someprogressive, historic nations like the Russians, Germans and Magyars hadpushed forward this process of state formation, whereas other, morebarbaric, peoples had been unable to shed their tribal past and take the steptowards modernity. Only the Russians could profit from this. Neithercultural autonomy nor federalism nor state separation for the minority

68 Stalin: the years before October

nations of the empire could count on any sympathy from Stalin. Whicheverway you looked at it, these nations should always orient themselves towardsthe Russians, for the latter had taken the lead in the process of state forma-tion as well as in adopting a cosmopolitan world culture. I should add that,in his conclusions, Stalin was less extreme than Luxemburg, who explicitlyrejected the right to secession. He at least agreed with Lenin that in principlesuch a right existed.

The second way in which Stalin recognised the nation – and here we donot hear Engels’s echo but the voices of the Austro-Marxists, trans-Caucasian social democracy and perhaps even a memory of what he learnedas a young Georgian nationalist – concerns his theoretical recognition thatall nations did after all have a cultural identity. For the time being, though,this admission, implicit in his definition of the nation, was of no politicalsignificance.

The young Stalin’s underlying nationalism betrayed itself mainly throughhis pride in the revolutionary achievements of the Russian proletariat, espe-cially its performance during the first Russian Revolution. In April 1905, hewrote in a pamphlet to the workers of Batumi that no other proletarianparty had ever had to deal with such a great matter as this:

The Russian social democracy is responsible not only to the Russianproletariat, not only to all peoples of Russia, moaning under the yoke ofthe barbarian autocracy – it is responsible to all of mankind, to all ofmodern civilization.25

Some of his writings suggest that Dzhugashvili hoped that his fatherlandwould become some kind of new France, as it were the France of the twen-tieth century, the new international vanguard of the world revolution. Hedescribed, for example, how the French Revolution once “crossed theborders of France and spilled over Europe in a powerful stream.”Whereupon he added proudly that the heroic revolutionary actions of theyoung proletariat of Russia likewise provoked applause all over Europe. TheGerman workers told their leaders to organise the struggle “in the Russianway.” And as a result of the Russian Revolution the French proletariat tookcourage and threatened the bourgeoisie with a second Commune.26

Dzhugashvili always remained aware of the fact that the Russian strugglewas part of a wider historical process begun by the French. What theRussians should do was in many respects similar to what their Frenchbrethren and sisters had attempted to accomplish. For instance, in June 1906he wrote that the democratic republic that the Russian social democratshoped to establish should be similar to the French republic of 1793 and theParis Commune.27 As late as July 1917, he could make a comparisonbetween the French municipalities and the soviets.28 And he repeatedlypraised the French revolutionaries for the patriotic defence of their countryagainst the counter-revolutionary coalition.29

Stalin: the years before October 69

But it was never a question of copying the French original. Rather thansomething to be emulated, the French Revolution was to be surpassed. TheRussians could do better. This conviction especially concerned the bolshevikstrategy of democratic revolution. Koba extolled Lenin’s strategy orientingthe proletariat towards the peasantry instead of towards the bourgeoisie asan original Russian contribution to Marxist revolutionary thought. Whereasin France the bourgeoisie had been the leaders of the revolution, in Russia itwas the workers. The mensheviks, who in Dzhugashvili’s interpretation settheir hopes on the liberal bourgeoisie, were only slavishly following theFrench original. The point was that in France the workers had lacked socialdemocratic education and the kind of party that the Russian workers nowhad. Moreover, France had not known large-scale industry, and the classcontradictions had not been sharply developed.30

In 1917, Stalin also followed Lenin in his further conclusion that theworkers and peasants of Russia could not only take power but could alsoquickly begin marching to socialism. In the early days after the FebruaryRevolution he did not acknowledge this immediate socialist perspective. Buthe was soon convinced. At the Sixth Party Congress opening in late July1917, he and Bukharin were, in Lenin’s absence, the main speakers to defendthe socialist perspective.31 Stalin noted that the Russian workers shouldcollect the poor strata of the peasantry around them, and that the revolutionhad begun to take the character of a “socialist, workers’ revolution.”Socialism had become practically unavoidable due to the catastrophic effectsof the war:

Some comrades said that it is utopian to put the question of thesocialist revolution, because capitalism is weakly developed with us.They would be correct if there were no war, if there were no disruption[razrukha], if the foundations of the economy were not shattered. Butthese questions of the intervention into the economic sphere are neces-sarily being brought up in all states.

The second reason why the Russian Revolution would assume a socialistcharacter was the unprecedented degree of organisation of the workers.Nowhere in the world did the proletariat have such broad organisations asthe soviets. In Stalin’s view, this made “non-intervention of the workingmasses in economic life” impossible. In summary, socialism was now on theagenda in Russia because the economic distress and the high degree ofproletarian consciousness made state intervention in industry unavoidable.32

But there was also the question of the peasantry, and on that point therewas an important difference between Bukharin and Stalin. The formernoted that the coming revolution knew two stages. During the first theparticipation of the peasantry was guaranteed, as it “strives to receive theland.” But in the second stage of proletarian revolution, which shouldfollow immediately upon the first, the “satisfied peasantry” abandoned the

70 Stalin: the years before October

proletariat. Only the Western European proletariat remained to support theRussian workers.

This was the old model of uninterrupted revolution, as Lenin andTrotskii had expounded it in the early years of the century. The missingelement here was Lenin’s new idea that the poor peasantry might continue tosupport the social democrats and provide them with a majority for a transi-tional program, so that not only the industrial sector but also thecountryside could begin to move in the direction of socialism. Stalin sidedwith Lenin:

According to [Bukharin], we are going to have a peasant revolution inthe first stage. But it must of needs meet the proletarian revolution,coincide with it. It cannot be that the working class, forming thevanguard of the revolution, would not struggle for its own demands atthe same time. Therefore I consider the scheme of comr. Bukharin notthought through. According to comr. Bukharin the second stage is aproletarian revolution supported by Western Europe, without the peas-ants, who received the land and are satisfied. But against whom is thisrevolution directed? In his playful scheme comr. Bukharin does notanswer that question.33

In other words, Stalin suggested, first, that the proletariat should start tomove towards socialism immediately. And, second, he did not believe thatthe peasantry would then abandon the working class. At the time, he stillthought that Russian socialism was ultimately dependent on the proletarianrevolution in the West. He explained that if “the link between the Russianworkers and the revolutionary workers of the West” was not as close as thelink between the Russian and Western imperialists, it would take the imperi-alists not much effort “to strangle the Russian revolution.” But this referredto the danger of military intervention. As far as internal factors wereconcerned, Stalin joined Lenin in believing that the peasantry need notnecessarily rebel when the Russian proletariat set course towards socialism.

This strategy of a proletarian–peasant coalition for socialism remainedfuelled by the powerful emotion of Russian revolutionary pride. Like Leninhad done in April, Stalin rejected the idea of waiting with the socialist revo-lution for initiatives from the West. It would be “undignified pedantry todemand that Russia ‘wait’ with its socialist transformations until Europe‘begins.’ That country ‘begins’ which has the best opportunities.” In the reso-lution proposed by Stalin, it was said that the task of the proletariat and theurban and village poor was to orient revolutionary state power towards a“socialist reconstruction of society.” This led to a famous debate, whenPreobrazhenskii proposed to make the socialist orientation dependent on aproletarian revolution in the West. Stalin disagreed. Again parroting theremarks Lenin had made in April, he noted that it was not impossible “thatprecisely Russia will be the country that will pave the way to socialism”:

Stalin: the years before October 71

Until this time not one country enjoyed such freedom as in Russia ortried to realise workers’ control over production. Moreover, the basis ofour revolution is broader than in Western Europe, where the proletariatstands completely alone face to face with the bourgeoisie. With us thepoorest strata of the peasantry support the workers. Finally, inGermany the apparatus of state power operates incomparably betterthan the imperfect apparatus of our bourgeoisie, which is itself a depen-dency of European capital. We must reject the obsolete view that onlyEurope can point us the way. There exists a dogmatic Marxism and acreative Marxism. I stand on the basis of the latter.34

From the early years of the century until the revolution Joseph Stalin was aRussian patriot. But his patriotism remained strictly of the revolutionarytype. It consisted of a proud awareness of the fact that Russia was on thepoint of becoming the new vanguard of the world revolution, a country onthe verge of overtaking France and Germany in pushing the world forward.Russia was the detonator to set off the explosion that would destroy the oldworld, the first country to set course to socialism through a strategy ofproletarian coalition with the peasantry. In adopting this line of quick tran-sition to socialism in a predominantly peasant country, Stalin joined Leninin his return to Marx and Engels’s original radicalism.

72 Stalin: the years before October

After the October Revolution, Stalin quickly accumulated an impressivenumber of positions. Most importantly, he was elected a full member of thePolitburo when it was officially established in 1919. His speciality being thenational question, he became a People’s Commissar of Nationalities on dayone of the revolution. In 1919, he also acquired the People’s Commissariat ofState Control, a function that he kept when the commissariat was renamedWorkers’ and Peasants’ Inspection the following year. He lost that positionwhen he became General Secretary of the communist party in 1922. Fromthe theoretical point of view, during the years before Lenin’s death it wasagain the questions of nationality that Stalin paid most attention to and thatare therefore mainly of interest for our purpose. But in his position ofcommissar responsible for the proper functioning of the state apparatus healso had to develop an opinion on the question of bureaucracy. Prior to therevolution, Koba/Dzhugashvili’s views on the proletarian dictatorship hadbeen almost anarchistic. In his “Anarchism or socialism?” published ininstalments in 1906–07, he responded to the charge that a proletarian dicta-torship resulted in Blanquist rule of individuals over the class. He insistedthat it would be a “dictatorship of the whole proletariat, as a class.” In thissystem, “the masses stand at the head of the dictatorship, there is no placehere for a camarilla or secret decisions, here everything is done openly, on thestreet, in meetings, and that is because this is a dictatorship of the street, ofthe masses.” The essential difference between social democrats and anar-chists was not the fact that, in contrast to the latter’s irreconcilability towardsthe state, the former hoped to preserve that institution temporarily. The realdifference was that the anarchists favoured the slogan “Everything for theindividual,” whereas the socialists believed in “Everything for the mass.”1

Dzhugashvili seems to have visualised the proletarian dictatorship as a kindof anarchist self-government, only more disciplined – orderly mob rule.

Despite these semi-anarchistic outpourings, Stalin had in his pre-revolu-tionary days been a man of the apparatus, one of the party’s typical“committee men.” Leading strikes and demonstrations had not been hisstrong side. In his new position at the head of the organs of state control,Stalin put his proven organisational abilities to good use. His preference for

6 The years under Lenin

the apparatus was soon reflected in his views. The people’s commissar didnot hesitate to follow Lenin in his neo-Kautskyan rehabilitation of bureau-cracy. In October 1920, he addressed a conference of officials of theWorker–Peasant Inspection. He noted that the old state apparatus had beensmashed, “bureaucratism was broken, but bureaucrats remained.” The oldofficials who had been allowed to stay had not overcome their “old bour-geois habits.” Stalin did not define bureaucracy as an apparatus, but as anapparatus with bad apparatchiki. There was nothing wrong with having aprofessional executive machinery in itself. On the contrary:

Comrades, the country is in fact not administered [upravliaiut] by thosewho elect their delegates to parliaments under the bourgeois order or tocongresses of Soviets under a Soviet order. No. Actually the country isadministered by those who in fact take hold of the executive appara-tuses of the state, those who lead these apparatuses. If the working classreally wants to take hold of the state apparatus to administer thecountry, it must have experienced agents…. The WPI must be a schoolfor such cadres from the workers and the peasants.2

Stalin did not say that, instead of the legislative organs, the executivebureaucracy was in power. It merely “administered,” i.e. ran the country onan everyday basis. He took care not to overstep the boundaries of official

74 The years under Lenin

Figure 3 V.I. Lenin: Stalin’s greatest teacher

Leninist dogma. As we saw, even before he came to power Lenin acknowl-edged that the soviets could not work effectively without a bureaucracy oftheir own. But he held on to the fiction that this remained a soviet power,albeit under party control. By presenting state officials as agents of theworking class, Stalin implicitly acknowledged the dogma of the primacy ofthe legislative organs. But for those who could listen he admitted that, for allpractical purposes, the state bureaucracy was in charge of the soviets. Thushe went as far as he could in polishing up the significance of the bureau-cracy, to the very limit of what remained acceptable in Lenin’s newneo-Kautskyan orthodoxy.

Stalin never entirely abandoned the concept of popular participation. Hevalued the soviets as an instrument for attracting support among theworkers and peasants for the practical work of the state. But the apparatusbecame his main concern, and it would remain so until the end of his days.In the last part of his life, Lenin became ever more discontented with thesheer size of the state. Although he did not dream of dismantling it, hewanted the party to take stricter control of it and reduce it to more accept-able proportions. But this campaign never attracted much sympathy fromStalin. At the Twelfth Party Congress in April 1923, the General Secretarycommented that Lenin was right when he complained that “our apparatus isa fake.” The “car” of state did not move in the direction the driver, thecommunist party, wanted it to move. But he had a more limited conceptionof the failings of the apparatus than his leader:

Our policy is correct, the driver is an excellent one, the type of car itselfis o.k., it is of a Soviet type, but parts of the car of state, i.e. some offi-cials in the state apparatus, are bad, they are not our people…. The stateapparatus is of a correct type, but parts of it are still alien, bureaucratic,half of it is tsarist-bourgeois.

The state apparatus should, sure enough, be reduced in staff, simplified andmade cheaper. But for Stalin the main thing was only to chase away “thievesand swindlers” and replace them with more reliable personnel closer to theparty.3 Thus, whereas before the revolution Stalin’s idea of the proletariandictatorship was more radical-democratic than Lenin’s, once he had had ataste of power his reservations about the bureaucracy became even less thanLenin’s. Although he took care not to break up the new theoretical frame-work established by Lenin and in which the bureaucracy remained subjectedto the legislative powers, in practice Stalin adapted himself almost instinc-tively to the etatist tradition of government of his country.

In the area of nationality policy Lenin and Stalin operated in closetandem during the first years of the Soviet regime. In a previous chapter wesaw that in State and Revolution the possibility of a temporary federalisationof Russia was suggested. Stalin was thinking in the same direction. In aletter of February 1916 to Lev Kamenev from Turukhansk, he mentioned

The years under Lenin 75

his writing two new articles on the national question. They contained thethesis that in the era of imperialism the national movement was in decline.The old framework of the “national state” was no longer sufficient, and theidea of national separation suffered a “fiasco.” Small and medium-sizedstates could no longer exist on a completely independent basis. Hence the“popularity of the idea of a narrow union of states, not only military butalso economical.” Stalin observed a “tendency to form ‘multinational states[gosudarstva natsional’nostei],’ ” but he acknowledged that this tendencypromoted resentment among small nations and a movement for nationalself-determination. Therefore he hoped that the inevitable “broadening offrameworks” would take a democratic form. He thought of a model of“autonomy of national regions.”4

It was social democratic dogma that multinational states should know asystem of limited regional autonomy, but Stalin now mentioned thatnational regions would enjoy that autonomy. Apparently, the borders of theself-governing areas were to be determined by national composition. Thatwas new. At the April 1917 bolshevik conference, he noted that the moredemocratic a state was, the less national oppression it knew in general.Nevertheless, even in a new democratic Russia nations should have the rightto secede. For those nations willing to stay in Russia the party proposedautonomy for regions that “distinguish themselves by particularities of wayof life, language.”5 In August 1917, Stalin wrote in Proletarii that he stillsupported “the unification of small states into big ones.” It made the realisa-tion of socialism easier. But there was the option of a “federal republic.”“The peoples” had a right to “determine their territories and the forms oftheir political structure at their own constituent assemblies.”6 Obviously,federalism on a national basis could not be avoided.

After the revolution, the bolsheviks had a hard time reconciling theirdefence of the right to secede with their unwillingness to allow it to be exer-cised. That unwillingness made reformulation of the right hard to avoid, butit should be done in such a way that the propagandistic value of having thisright on paper was not lost. It was the People’s Commissar of Nationalitieswho attempted to provide the saving formula. Discussing the right toUkrainian independence in December 1917, Stalin noted that such a rightexisted, but it could not be exercised by the counter-revolutionary elementsof the nation: “We are in favour of self-determination of peoples.”7 TheThird Congress of Soviets in January 1918 was the occasion for him toformulate his new interpretation of self-determination authoritatively.According to the Pravda report, he said:

Only the Soviet power has openly proclaimed the right of all nations onself-determination including complete separation from Russia. …theprinciple of self-determination has been used by the bourgeois-chau-vinist circles of Ukraine to further their own imperialist class aims. Allthat points to the need to interpret the principle of self-determination as

76 The years under Lenin

a right to self-determination not of the bourgeoisie but of the toilingmasses of a given nation.8

The solution was to uphold the right on paper but reformulate it in such away that it could never be exercised against the will of the Soviet authorities.Only the “toilers”, i.e. the soviets, might legitimately articulate the wishes ofthe nation. However, Stalin’s shrewd formula of a right of peoples to self-determination never made it to bolshevik doctrine. At the Eighth PartyCongress in 1919, Bukharin proposed that in the new party program theslogan of the right of nations to self-determination be dropped. “Basingmyself on the declaration made by comr. Stalin at the 3rd congress ofSoviets, I proposed in the commission the formula: self-determination of thetoiling classes of each nationality.”9 But Lenin rejected Bukharin’s proposal,although not on principled grounds. He recognised that “self-determinationof the toilers” existed in Soviet Russia, but as it did not elsewhere it couldnot be included in a party program that contained only generally applicableslogans.10

In the end, the right to secession was qualified in a simpler way. InFebruary 1920, Lenin argued that, in the light of the common struggleagainst imperialism, the secession of Ukraine and other republics fromRussia was “criminal.”11 Stalin followed this up in October 1920 when hesuggested that the right to secession of autonomous republics from theRussian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic (RSFSR) was suspended. Heargued that without the mutual support of central Russia and its borderlands the victory of the revolution was impossible. The border lands hadminerals, fuels and consumption goods vitally necessary for Russia, and theycould not defend themselves against the imperialists without Russian protec-tion. Therefore the demand for secession of border lands from Russia mustbe “excluded.” Stalin did add:

Of course, the borderlands of Russia, the nations and tribes that popu-late these borderlands, as well as all other nations, have the inalienableright to secession from Russia, and if any one of these nations would bymajority decide to separate from Russia…then Russia would probably[veroiatno] have to take this for a fact and accept the secession. But…theinterests of the popular masses say that the demand of secession ofborderlands at the given stage of the revolution is deeply counter-revo-lutionary.12

Thus, although all nations preserved a right to secede from Russia, no nationwould actually be allowed to exercise that right. The right was preserved onpaper but in fact suspended. Theoretically, this was a less elegant solution,but the message was clear enough.

Realising that the national feelings of the peoples of Russia could not beignored without endangering their regime, Lenin and his Commissar of

The years under Lenin 77

Nationalities firmly decided on implementing the federalist option after thebolshevik takeover. This was a bitter pill for them to swallow, for it meantabandoning the unitary Jacobin ideal passed on to them through Marx.Basing the new federalism on nationally defined territories was even more ofa concession. But, clearly, it was felt this was the only practical solution. Amore forceful and straightforward policy of Russifying modernisationcarried too great a risk of rebellion in the national territories.

The concept worked out jointly by Lenin and Stalin was for national terri-tories to be awarded autonomous rights and to be included in the RSFSR ona federal basis. The republics were handed authority on cultural/educational,juridical and local administrative matters. Military, political and economicdecisions fell under the RSFSR people’s commissariats. The result was anew, Soviet system of national cultural autonomy, differing from the Austro-Marxist proposals in having a territorial instead of an individual basis. Thisconstruction entailed an important reinterpretation by Stalin of the nationalquestion. In April 1918, he explained in Pravda that in the “border areas,which are populated by elements which are backward in a cultural respect,”Soviet power was as yet relatively unpopular. It was urgently necessary towin over the toiling masses of these areas for the Soviet cause. But that wasimpossible without the autonomy of these border areas, i.e. without theorganisation of the local school, local courts, local administration, localorgans of power, and local socio-political and educational institutions, witha guarantee of a fullness of rights for the local language, spoken by thetoiling masses of the district, in all spheres of socio-political work.13

Stalin held on to his old assumption that Russian culture was moreprogressive than that of the minority nations, but instead of workingtowards their assimilation, he now proposed the more roundabout approachof allowing them to preserve and develop their own culture so that theymight become receptive to the Soviet and socialist message. The idea was notto aim for Russification but to lift the other cultures up to Russia’s“advanced” level. Perhaps the commissar was not really happy with thefederal idea. During a conference with Tatars and Bashkirs in May 1918 hestressed the need for a “strong, all-Russian power.” He felt that “the creationof local and regional sovereign organs of power parallel to the central powerwould in fact mean the collapse of all power.” If federalism is the devolutionof a degree of sovereignty, i.e. of legislative power, to local units, then theabove remark may reflect Stalin’s doubts about this principle. But there is nodoubt that he wanted the Soviet nations to be able to organise their owncultural life, as long as they did not violate the political dominance of thefederal authorities. He explained:

But passing the national question by, ignoring and denying it, as someof our comrades do – by doing so nationalism is not yet crushed. Farfrom it! National nihilism only damages the cause of socialism, playingin the hands of the bourgeois nationalists.14

78 The years under Lenin

Here we see the spectre of “national nihilism” raising its head. Stalin nowapparently realised that the national identity of the non-Russian nationscould not be ignored. No longer did he rave about assimilation and the needto abolish national differences. Instead, national cultures were to benurtured. This was a huge change compared with 1913. That he was able tomake this change quickly must be attributed not only to his flexibility butalso to the fact that he had in 1913 already absorbed the Austro-Marxistthesis of the cultural identity of nations. Although the Soviet model ofcultural autonomy differed in practice from the Austro-Marxist, Stalin coulduse their theoretical insight for the reformulation of his thinking on thismatter. In that indirect way, Austro-Marxism played an important role in thenew “nationalist” direction that Stalinist doctrine took.

At the same time, however, Stalin’s new national realism did not diminishhis feeling of Russian superiority. In late 1919, he explained the communistvictories in the Civil War by the superiority of Russia over the other areas ofthe former empire. He noted that in order to achieve military success “unity”was absolutely necessary, the “closedness of that living human environmentwith the elements of which these troops feed themselves and with the juicesof which they support themselves.” Russia, the basis of the Reds, was moredeveloped and more united than the border regions, in which the Whitesbased themselves:

Inner Russia with its industrial and cultural-political centres – Moscowand Petrograd – with its nationally homogeneous population, mainlyRussian, turned into the basis of the revolution. But the borderlands ofRussia, mainly the southern and eastern borderlands, without importantindustrial and cultural-political centres, with a population to a highdegree nationally heterogeneous, …turned into the basis of the counter-revolution.

To attribute Russian superiority to a higher degree of industrialisation andurbanisation was a traditional claim to make for Stalin. But this was thefirst time that he extolled national homogeneity as an ideal. He held it up asa positive goal to unify the population of a state around a more or lessunified body of culture and habit. This contributed to the strength of thecommunity. If this argument was thought through to its end, Russificationand assimilation would once again be the logical policy to follow. This wasnot Stalin’s immediate goal, though. He added that the White generals madethe disintegrative effect of the national heterogeneity of their territorieseven greater by their “true Russian, autocratic” policies.15 To enforcenational cultural homogeneity through a policy of cultural Russificationwas counterproductive. Stalin was even prepared to accept the Shar’ia inMuslim republics.16 Nevertheless, assimilation into the leading Russiannation in the name of universal progress remained visible as an option inthe background. Stalin did not burn all his boats. He could always revert

The years under Lenin 79

from Austro-Marxist-style equal recognition of all national identities to themodel of historic and non-historic nations expounded by Engels.

At the Tenth Party Congress in 1921, Stalin once again explained that theRussians had been the foremost nation in the early period of state forma-tion. First he pointed to the way states had been formed in Eastern Europe:

In Eastern Europe…the process of formation of nations and of theliquidation of feudal fragmentation did not coincide in time with theprocess of the formation of centralised states. I have Hungary, Austria,Russia in mind. In these countries there was not yet a capitalist develop-ment, perhaps it was only just getting started, when the interests ofdefence against the onslaught of the Turks, Mongols and other peoplesof the East demanded the immediate formation of centralised states.

In Eastern Europe, the modern state arose not as a result of the formationof people into nations but prior to that. In contrast to the way nationalstates had been formed in Western Europe, the eastern pattern was one ofmultinational states “with one, more developed nation at the head and withthe other, less developed nations finding themselves in political and thenalso economic subjection to the ruling nation.” The common trait of allnon-Russian nations of the country was that they “lagged behind centralRussia in the development of their own statehood.”17 Obviously, Stalinhoped that the Russians would continue to serve as the cement of the state.But he did not forget his new insight that the non-Russian nations could bemore easily convinced to remain in one state with the Russians if they wereaccorded a possibility of developing their own culture. In November 1922,he spoke up for economic unification of the national republics, but heemphasised once again that “Russification” was only “reactionary DonQuixotism”:

the national republics…cannot be abolished, cannot be robbed of…theirnational foundation, as long as the nationalities which have given birthto them exist, as long as there exist a national language, a nationalculture, way of life, norms and habits.18

In the last months of Lenin’s active life, there was a remarkable clashbetween he and Stalin on the question of how the multinational state shouldbe organised. During the Civil War, a number of new Soviet republics hadcome into being, the main example being Ukraine, which were notautonomous units within the RSFSR but nominally independent republics,working towards treaty relations with Soviet Russia. This latter model wasnot foreseen in the Russian constitution of 1918. In August 1922, a commis-sion was formed, with Stalin among its members, to decide on futurerelations between the RSFSR and the nominally independent republics.Stalin produced a draft resolution proposing the entry of Ukraine, White

80 The years under Lenin

Russia, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia into the RSFSR. This would haverestored the old constitutional structure.

In September, Stalin defended his “autonomisation” in a letter to Lenin.Moscow should make a clear choice between giving the independentrepublics true independence and letting them alone, and including them inthe RSFSR, subjecting them to the centre in all fundamental respects andparticularly welding them into “one economic whole.” The second option,favoured by Stalin, signified the replacement of “fictitious independence,”which had never been more than a “game” for diplomatic reasons, by“genuine internal autonomy” of the republics in the cultural, juridical andother fields.19 However, Lenin proposed amalgamation of the RSFSR andthe other independent republics into a new federative union. Stalin andother members of the commission accepted this and proposed that theRSFSR, Ukraine, White Russia and the Trans-Caucasian Federation befused into a “Union of Socialist Soviet Republics.”20 In October, the CentralCommittee adopted Stalin’s USSR proposal.

Hearing of this, Lenin, who had been absent during the decision,declared a struggle against “Great Russian chauvinism.” He proposed thatthe Central Executive Committee of the new union establish a rotatingchairmanship of a Russian, Ukrainian, Georgian and others.21 Stalin hadno problem with this, writing “Correct!” on the note when he received it.22

The rotating chairmanship was accepted, and Lenin was now satisfied. Onedoes well to realise that, in a way, the whole debate until this moment wassomething of a fake. RSFSR dominance remained guaranteed in the newunion as much as in Stalin’s original RSFSR proposal, for the simple reasonof the numerical preponderance of the RSFSR in the union.23

However, in December Lenin unexpectedly changed his mind. Heconcluded that the new union was after all a flawed structure; it was “prema-ture.” He proposed to turn back the decisions that had been taken, leavingonly armed forces and foreign affairs under the federal authorities andrestoring independence in all other fields. Furthermore, he accused Stalin ofwaging a “truly Great Russian nationalist campaign” for prematurelybringing the non-Russian republics within the scope of the union.24

Although he probably wanted the situation for the autonomous Muslimrepublics within the RSFSR to remain as it was, Lenin now in effect adopteda confederal rather than a federal model for the union as a whole.

Lenin’s unexpected change of mind apparently provoked Stalin andcaused him to waver in his commitment to the policy of cultural autonomy.In early February 1923, he proposed to upgrade the people’s commissariatsof Education, Internal Affairs, Justice, Health and Social Security of therepublics to the category of commissariats jointly run by the federal andrepublican authorities.25 If realised, this proposal would have overturnedestablished bolshevik policies by turning the USSR into an almost unitarystate. But the Central Committee rejected the suggestion.26 Lenin soonsuffered his last stroke, which put him out of action. As a result, his

The years under Lenin 81

confederalist proposals were ignored at the Twelfth Party Congress in April1923. Stalin had his way at this party forum. But it then appeared that hehad not after all changed his views. As usual, he insisted on Russian leader-ship in the Soviet state in the light of the fact that the Russians formed themost industrialised nation:

We are told that we shouldn’t insult the nationals…. But to create fromthat a new theory, that we should put the Great Russian proletariat inan unequal position in relation to the former oppressed nations – thiswould mean to say an absurdity. …it is clear that the political basis ofthe proletarian dictatorship is first and foremost made up by the centralregions, the industrial ones, and not by the border areas, which consti-tute peasant countries.

But he also argued that Soviet power was transformed into “a power not onlyRussian, but also international.” To collect all threads of government arounda “Russian principle” was counterproductive. It would destroy the trust inthe Russian proletarians among the other nations. Instead, the Russianproletariat, “the most cultured layer of the proletariat of our whole federa-tion,” should use its predominance to help the “culturally and economicallybackward nationalities.” Local industrial development was essential. Schoolsshould be “nationalised,” and local institutions should work mainly withlocal personnel, in the local language and according to local custom.27 Thelast struggle between Lenin and Stalin did not in the end make the latterchange course. He stuck to the compromise model of Russian political domi-nance balanced by local cultural autonomies adopted in 1917.

Robert Tucker argues that in the early 1920s Stalin represented a“Russian red patriotism” among the bolsheviks. His “true Russian” sympa-thies were allegedly at odds with Lenin’s policies, more internationalist andmore sympathetic to the interests of the non-Russian nations.28 This conclu-sion is problematic. Stalin was indeed a Russian red patriot, if this termrefers to his insistence on Russian leadership as the most advanced nation ofthe multinational state. He used a purely Marxist argument, proceedingfrom the progressive socio-economic and state development of Russiacompared with the border lands, which at the same time harmonisedperfectly with the traditional centralism of the Russian state. But untilDecember 1922, Lenin had no less than Stalin defended the concentration ofall strategic decisions in Moscow. If Stalin was a “Russian red patriot,” sohad Lenin been one, at any rate until December 1922.

The real point of interest in Stalin’s views in the years 1917–23 is not thathe favoured centralised authority and Russian dominance. That was in thespirit of what he had written all along before the revolution. The new thingwas that despite this he agreed to federalism and cultural autonomy for thenon-Russian nations. He and Lenin apparently concluded that, from thepoint of view of power, the most stable solution was to combine Russian

82 The years under Lenin

central leadership with local autonomy. From the point of view of doctrine,one observes a further step in the “re-nationalisation” of Stalin’s thinking.In 1904, he derided the whole concept of nations. In 1913, he still held fastto this “cosmopolitan” approach; however, having read Renner and Bauer,he adopted a partly culturalist definition of nations. Now, as a responsiblePeople’s Commissar, he put the deed to the word and adopted cultural iden-tity as an element of policy.

The years under Lenin 83

After Lenin’s death in January 1924, it took Stalin five years to become theuncontested leader of the Soviet Union. From now on he was free to inter-pret Leninism without the chance that the master might correct him.Although the written works of the founder of bolshevism remained, andcould only be ignored at the peril of losing legitimacy in the eyes of hisparty comrades, Stalin was free to develop his own political thought in rela-tive independence. In the rest of this book, I will treat the development ofthat thought in thematic chapters.

The main doctrine for which Stalin became known, and which is thesubject of the present chapter, is that of “socialism in one country.” We sawthat after 1918 Lenin concluded that an isolated Soviet Russia stood a goodchance of holding its own against the military threat of the imperialists.Furthermore, he no longer believed in the inevitability of a clash with thepeasantry. The peasant could be convinced to accept co-operative agricul-ture. In the very last period of his active life he concluded that, providedthey used land and means of production owned by the proletarian state,peasant co-operatives were socialist in nature. Thereby, he almost admittedin so many words to the applicability of his idea of the possibility ofsocialism in one country to a backward country like Russia. Stalin’s positionon the matter was somewhat undetermined. In general he followed Lenin’soptimistic assessment. In October 1920, he wrote that “some participants ofthe October revolution” had been convinced of the fact that the Russiansocialist revolution was solid only when it was immediately followed by arevolutionary explosion in the West. But

this view was also proven wrong by events, for socialist Russia…success-fully continues its existence and development already for three years. Itappeared that the socialist revolution might not only begin in a capital-istically backward country, but also be successful and advance, whileserving as an example for capitalistically developed countries.

Favourable conditions distinguished Russia from countries like Hungaryand Italy. As a “gigantic country,” providing space for military manoeuvre

7 Socialism in one country

and an abundance of fuels, grain and minerals, it might survive as “somekind of oasis of socialism.”1 In December 1921, Stalin concluded that,although the international working class was not yet strong enough to bringdown imperialism, the bourgeoisie was no longer strong enough to strangleSoviet Russia either.2

At times, Stalin even suggested that the Russian proletariat was able toconstruct a complete, rounded socialist society under the circumstances ofinternational isolation. For example, in July 1921 he explained that in back-ward countries like Russia it was much easier to make a revolution than inthe classical countries of capitalism, where the bourgeoisie had turned into a“serious leading force of the whole social life.” Of course, once begun, morefavourable conditions existed in Germany, France and England to carry therevolution to its end, i.e. “to organise a socialist economy.” But Stalinsuggested that such conditions also existed in Russia, for he wrote that arevolution in the West should make it “easier for us, i.e. for Russia, to carryour revolution to the end.”3 Apparently, it would not be impossible toaccomplish that task without revolution in the West. But Stalin was notalways so optimistic. In August 1923, he even warned the Politburo that incase of a collapse of the German revolution the Soviet federation would be“smashed.”4 This was an odd alarmist notion, long ago abandoned by Leninand most other bolshevik leaders.

Stephen Cohen suggests that Bukharin was the real father of the idea ofsocialism in one country.5 The party leadership followed Lenin’s suggestionsof agricultural co-operativisation, and Bukharin hoped that peasant co-operatives in the field of “circulation” – buying, selling, credit and so on –would provide a peaceful way to make the peasantry move in the directionof socialism. And in February 1924 he argued that in “one isolated country”only an evolutionary road to socialism was feasible.6 But it is questionable totreat this as the first suggestion of the possibility of socialism in an isolatedRussia. Lenin’s last writings can hardly be interpreted in any other way.Moreover, Bukharin was not even as insistent as Lenin, who had beentalking of “complete” socialism. Nevertheless, it is fair to say that, with itsexplicit mention of socialism in an isolated Russia, Bukharin’s article “Leninas a Marxist” was a milestone.

Stalin associated himself with Bukharin’s policy of co-operativisation asthe road to socialism. In June 1923, he pleaded for “gradual involvement ofthe millions of small agricultural proprietors in socialist constructionthrough co-operatives.”7 Around this time, he began to realise that asocialist perspective in backward Russia might not be at odds with Marx’soriginal teachings. In November of that year, he wrote that the “banner ofsocialism” had become attractive to the Russian peasants. He quoted Marxon the dependence of the German proletarian revolution on a peasant war,adding that this was written “about the Germany of the 1850s, a peasantcountry.”8 But he still had serious doubts about the degree to which thesocialist project could be completed. In April and May 1924, Pravda carried

Socialism in one country 85

his On the Foundations of Leninism, a series of recent lectures containing asummary of the essentials of the thinking of the deceased leader. Stalinargued that mass co-operativisation was the way to lay the “foundation of asocialist economy.” He pleaded for

drawing in the majority of the peasants into socialist constructionthrough the co-operative, …gradual introduction of the principles ofcollectivism into agriculture, initially in the sphere of sales, and subse-quently in the sphere of the production of products of agriculture…. [Inthat way we will] lay under the dictatorship of the proletariat that neces-sary foundation without which the transition to a socialist economy isimpossible.9

The formula of laying merely a “foundation” for socialism suggests thatStalin had not yet absorbed Lenin’s thesis that the co-operative should beconsidered a full form of socialism. This is confirmed by another passage inthe lectures, which the author later removed and which shows that in early1924 he did not yet see the possibility of constructing a Russian socialism ina full sense in the absence of world revolution:

86 Socialism in one country

Figure 4 N.I. Bukharin: economic autarky

But to overthrow the power of the bourgeoisie and to establish thepower of the proletariat in one country does not yet mean that thecomplete victory of socialism is guaranteed. The main task of socialism– the organisation of socialist production – still lies ahead…. For thefinal victory of socialism, for the organisation of socialist production,the efforts of one country, particularly of such a peasant country likeRussia, are insufficient – for that the efforts of the proletarians ofseveral advanced countries are necessary.10

For the bolsheviks, the question of whether Russia could approach socialismthrough peasant co-operativisation was connected with the question ofindustrialisation. Bukharin and Stalin argued that Soviet industry wasmainly dependent on the peasant market. One should therefore guaranteethat the village had enough financial means to buy industrial goods onfavourable terms. In the long run, industry too would profit from increasedsales. This approach was favourable for the peasant trading co-operatives,which were provided with a sound financial basis. However, the so-calledLeft Opposition, with leaders like Trotskii and Preobrazhenskii, argued thatindustrial production was too low. It was useless to provide the peasantswith more financial space to buy non-existent goods. The only sensible thingto do would be to drain funds from the wealthier parts of the village to beused for increased industrial investment.

Socialism in one country 87

Figure 5 L.D. Trotskii: the speed of accumulation as the fundamental criterion

The leftists believed that in the long run agriculture too would profit froma larger supply by industry and from the lower prices resulting fromincreased industrial efficiency. But in the short run their policy was lessconsiderate towards the agricultural sector, and therefore also towards thepeasant co-operatives. Was this relative indifference of the leftists to thewell-being of those co-operatives not surprising? Whether one agrees thatthese enterprises were socialist or not – no bolshevik could disagree thatthey represented a step in the right direction. Would one, then, not expectleftists to argue more instead of less insistently than Bukharin and Stalin forcollectivisation? However, that was not the case. Trotskii and his comradesconcentrated their attention on industry and did not care much for theprogress of agricultural co-operativisation. How might that be explained?

A systematic exposé of the leftist economic proposals for a sharp priceand tax policy to the benefit of industry was provided in the work ofPreobrazhenskii. He pleaded for it that the state should consciously notapply “exchange of equivalents” between city and countryside. This was aposition all bolsheviks, with their industrial bias, took, but Preobrazhenskiiwanted to maximise the overpumping of funds. He also believed there couldbe no durable equilibrium between socialist industry and private agriculture.The state must devour the latter sector, for which only “degradation” lay instore. Preobrazhenskii showed little interest in the co-operativisation of theprivate sector. In his opinion, trading co-operatives were still on the “capi-talist road.” They were meaningless from a socialist angle, because theirproductive basis remained private. Productive co-operatives did represent aform of transition to socialism, but they could only get under way whenlarge-scale industry, the “only active principle of socialist co-operation,” firstbecame much stronger. Co-operative agriculture could never assume animportant scale “until the period of primitive socialist accumulation iscompleted.”11 Trotskii also took the position that as long as industry wasnot the dominant sector of the Russian economy co-operatives inevitablyremained only an instrument of the capitalist strata among the peasants.12

The leftist position, then, was that, Russia being an industrially underde-veloped country, peasant co-operativisation was either a capitalist or anunfeasible project. As long as Soviet Russia was a predominantly agricul-tural country, the perspective of socialist agriculture, and thereby ofsocialism in any full sense, was a chimera. This was the ideological stalematewhen the debate on “socialism in one country” broke lose. In the fall of1924, Trotskii published his pamphlet Lessons of October, in which hementioned in passing his old theory of “permanent revolution.” Trotskii’scolleagues reacted immediately to this, although the matter was not the realissue in the pamphlet and the question of the long-term viability ofsocialism in a single country was not even mentioned. Grigorii Zinov’ev andBukharin indignantly rejected Trotskii’s old idea that an isolated SovietRussia could not avoid being blown up by a violent conflict between theworkers and the peasants.13

88 Socialism in one country

In December 1924, several newspapers carried Stalin’s “October andcomrade Trotskii’s theory of permanent revolution.”14 It treated two closelyrelated problems, namely the alliance with the peasantry and the confine-ment of the Russian revolution to one country. On the first issue, itconfirmed that there was no such thing as an inevitable and fatal conflictwith the peasantry when the road to socialism was taken. Russian socialismneed not collapse due to a peasant war. He then proceeded to discuss Lenin’s“law” of the unevenness and abruptness of the economic and political devel-opment of capitalist countries. The resulting wars for the redivision of theworld broke up imperialist unity and made that world system vulnerable atits weakest links – separate countries – where isolated socialist revolutionsmight then occur. He concluded:

under the condition of the preservation of capitalism in the other coun-tries, the victory of socialism in one country is completely possible andprobable – even if this country is capitalistically less developed andthese [other] countries are capitalistically more developed…. It goeswithout saying that for the complete victory of socialism, for a completeguarantee against the restoration of the old order, the joint efforts ofthe proletarians of several countries are needed.

What exactly Stalin meant by “complete victory” was unclear. He didmention that foreign intervention could bring about a restoration of the oldorder. The solidarity of the European workers with the Russian revolutionmight prevent an intervention, but one could never be sure. However, Lenin’ssolemn formula of “complete socialism” was not mentioned in the article.15

Thus it only expressed a view already held by many bolsheviks at the time, tothe effect that an isolated Soviet Russia need not inevitably collapse, eitherfrom a peasant rebellion or from an imperialist intervention. Perhaps themost noteworthy thing about it was that it expressed this for the first time inso many bold words: “socialism in one, backward country is possible.”

In April 1925, the matter came under discussion at the Fourteenth PartyConference. In the meetings of the Politburo preceding it, it appeared thatthe party leaders who had jointly set out to destroy Trotskii’s name did notsee completely eye to eye on the matter. According to Bukharin’s report,Kamenev and Zinov’ev defended the position that “we cannot complete thebuilding of socialism [stroit’ do kontsa] due to our technological backward-ness.”16 In other words, they too defended the now rather common point ofview that Lenin had taken from 1917 to 1922, that some kind of socialismcould indeed be built in an isolated Russia, but that it would remain defec-tive. However, this no longer satisfied Stalin and Bukharin. At theconference, the thesis of socialism in one country was formulated as follows:

the presence of two directly contradictory social systems produces apermanent threat of capitalist blockade, of other forms of economic

Socialism in one country 89

pressure, of armed intervention, of restoration. The only guarantee ofthe final [okonchatel’naia] victory of socialism, i.e. guarantees againstrestoration, is therefore the victorious socialist revolution in severalcountries. From this it does not follow at all that the building [postroika]of a complete [polnoe] socialist society in such a backward country likeRussia without “state support” (Trotskii) of technologically andeconomically more developed countries is impossible.17

Thus Lenin’s last sayings about a “complete socialist society” were finallyintegrated into party dogma. After the conference, Stalin dotted the i’s. InMay 1925, Pravda carried his “Concerning the results of the work of theXIV conference of the RKP(b),” in which he discussed two groups ofcontradictions. The first comprised “the internal contradictions, existingbetween the proletariat and the peasantry.” These could “be overcome byour own efforts,” because the peasantry was interested in the socialist systemof production. Through the co-operatives, “we can and must build acomplete socialist society together with the peasantry.” As to the second,external group of contradictions, Stalin produced a further simplificationcompared with the resolution of the conference. While the conference heldopen the option that bolshevik Russia might be destroyed by an economicblockade, Stalin noted that as long as the capitalist encirclement existed“there will be the danger of military intervention.” The final victory ofsocialism “equals the complete guarantee against attempts at intervention,and therewith against restoration.”18 In summary, of all the possible threatsonly military intervention was a potentially mortal one. This was the firsttext where the thesis of socialism in one country in its classical form wasfully expounded.

In 1925, Stalin received a letter from a party comrade, who pointed toEngels’s thesis that socialism in one country was impossible. The GeneralSecretary solved this problem by proclaiming that the thesis reflected “theera of pre-monopoly capitalism, the pre-imperialist era when there were notyet the conditions of an uneven, abrupt development of the capitalist coun-tries.”19 Stalin apparently preferred confining Lenin’s “law” (which itsauthor had declared to be unconditionally valid under capitalism) to theimperialist stage of that system to saying that Engels had been wrong. InJanuary 1926, he gave his most well-known formulation of “socialism in onecountry” in On Questions of Leninism, but this added nothing to what hewrote in May 1925.20 In the course of 1925, Bukharin wrote his ownsummaries of the new doctrine.21 Thus in that year he and Stalin jointlyfathered the classical theory of socialism in one country.22

Initially, neither Zinov’ev nor Trotskii contradicted the conclusions ofthe party conference, but in September 1925 the former opened fire in hisbook Leninism. Its main thesis was incoherent. The author insisted thatsocialism in one country was a real possibility. In any case, a “large measureof socialism” could be preserved in an isolated Russia. But he also said that

90 Socialism in one country

only a socialist revolution in several countries could prevent a “restorationof bourgeois relations” in Russia.23 At the Fourteenth Party Congress inDecember 1925, Zinov’ev confirmed that one could “build [stroim]socialism,” but he did not believe that one could “finish building [postroim]”it in one country, especially in a peasant one like Russia.24 Zinov’ev was ahesitant adherent of the thesis of an incomplete socialism in one country.The bolsheviks would be able to build a socialism of sorts, but the agricul-tural stamp on Russia would not allow them to finish the project. Thus heheld on to the position that Lenin had taken prior to his last change ofmind.

In the meantime, the debate about the construction of socialism in Russiaacquired yet another component. In Bukharin’s arguments the peasantmarket was always central. He acknowledged that there could be no realequivalent exchange between town and country. Socialist industry shouldreceive some surplus value from the small producers, but prices should notdiscriminate against the peasants to such a degree that the absorbingcapacity of the internal market was harmed. This approach was not onlyfavourable for the agrarian sector, it was also of consequence for industry.Socialist industry should mainly orient itself towards the internal peasantmarket instead of attempting full-scale integration in the international divi-sion of labour. This implied a more or less autarkic model of development,which made it inevitable that Soviet Russia would build a heavy industry ofits own. Although earlier he had emphasised the importance of lightindustry, Bukharin acknowledged that his model implied that the centre ofgravity gradually moved to the heavy sector. Finally, his careful price poli-cies and non-use of the advantages of scale connected with internationalspecialisation inevitably reduced the tempo of industrial growth. ButBukharin was willing to pay that price to preserve the orientation towardsthe peasant market.

Trotskii was a vigorous opponent of the autarkic model. He favoured anorientation towards the world market and hoped to make optimum use ofthe international division of labour. The leftist leader feared that a closedeconomy with full proportional development of all branches lowered effi-ciency and thereby the tempo of development. Under the presentinternational conditions of “capitalist encirclement,” Soviet Russia neededto maximise its industrial growth rate in order to survive. “The fundamentalcriterion of our economic policy must be the tempo – the speed of accumu-lation.”25 At first, Trotskii championed heavy industry, but eventually heconcluded that a priority development of light industry was most suitable. Itprovided quicker profits and thereby allowed a faster tempo of develop-ment.26 Thus there arose a new conflict between the moderate partymajority and the Left Opposition around industrial policy. Two modelsfaced each other – that of slow-growing autarky with a heavy industrialfocus; and that of orientation towards the world market, which set its hopeson high speed and the quick profits of light industry.

Socialism in one country 91

The theoretical question of “socialism in one country” came back on theagenda at the Fifteenth Party Conference in October–November 1926.Kamenev took a position almost identical to that of Stalin and Bukharin.Acknowledging that “given a correct policy in relation to the peasantry, theproletariat can and will successfully construct a complete socialist society,”his only critique on Bukharin and Stalin concerned their exclusive focus onthe dangers of military intervention. Under the condition of an insufficienttempo of economic growth, imperialist economic pressures might suffice todestroy bolshevik Russia.27 Kamenev defended the line adopted at theFourteenth Party Conference.

Trotskii was another matter. In his To Socialism or to Capitalism? (1925),he had given a glowing comment on the first attempts at planned economy.In the dry economic data, the author recognised the “majestic historicalmusic of growing socialism.” He hoped that his booklet would show “howthe form of the proletarian state should be filled with the economic contentof socialism.”28 At the party conference, Trotskii quoted angrily from thispamphlet to prove his innocence of excessive pessimism.29 But Stalin notedthat he had only discussed how to “go [itti] to socialism” but not acknowl-edged that one could “arrive [pritti] at socialism.”30 This soundeddisingenuous, but it was not so strange a remark after all. The book provedthat Trotskii was confident that at least a good measure of socialism couldbe achieved in isolated Russia. But it did not answer the question of whatwould happen in the long run, should the world revolution not occur.31

By this time, when he discussed the slogan of socialism in one country,Trotskii usually treated it as the formula of economic autarky. In his view,this was a self-defeating policy, as it slowed down the tempo of developmentof the Soviet economy and thereby contributed to Russia’s defeat by theimperialist powers.32 Richard Day concludes from this that the debate wasreally only about autarky or integrationism. The point was not whethersocialism could be built but only how.33 This is an overstatement of thepoint. There was also a real difference over the question of ultimate perspec-tives, whatever economic policy was chosen. At the conference, Trotskiiadmitted that Russia had sufficient means to “take socialist constructionforward.” Nevertheless, the constructive effort was “internationally deter-mined.” If European capitalism gained strength for a considerable period,“we would be strangled or shattered.” In the alternative case of a rottingcapitalism, the European proletariat would probably take power and saveSoviet Russia. But if the Western comrades would not act there was littlehope of survival.34 Thus even an integrationist policy could not prevent ulti-mate doom if the Western working class failed to topple its rulers.35 Afterhis expulsion from the Soviet Union, Trotskii lost all hesitation he mighthave had. In 1929, he wrote:

In an isolated proletarian dictatorship, the internal and external contra-dictions grow inevitably along with the successes achieved. If it remains

92 Socialism in one country

isolated, the proletarian state must finally fall victim to these contradic-tions. The way out for it lies only in the victory of the proletariat of theadvanced countries.36

Trotskii made a full return to the old thesis that he and Lenin had nurturedin the early years of the century and which held that an isolated socialistproject in Russia was doomed to utter collapse. To sum up, although it wasnot recognised in the heat of the factional struggles, the real division in thedebate was not between Stalin and Bukharin on the one hand, and Trotskii,Zinov’ev and Kamenev on the other. The situation was rather that all of the“old bolsheviks” – Stalin, Bukharin, Zinov’ev and Kamenev – followedLenin’s lead, and to a greater or lesser degree recognised the possibility ofconstructing socialism in a single country. Their differences were minor.Only Trotskii held on to the idea that capitalist restoration in Soviet Russiawas inevitable unless the world revolution saved it.

In the late 1930s, Stalin sharpened some aspects of his doctrine. In anunpublished speech to a conference of “propagandists” in October 1938, hecomplained that not only was the idea that socialism in one country waspossible ignored but also that the simultaneous victory of socialism in allcountries was impossible. And, this time taking Engels to task by name, headded: “This was formerly impossible and so it is today.”37 Thereby, headmitted that even in Engels’s day the hope of a simultaneous world revolu-tion had been unreal. However, Stalin chose not to make this new discoverypublic, for he had committed himself publicly too often to the fact that intheir day Marx and Engels had been right in their assessment.38

The following year the Soviet leader brought “socialism in one country”to its natural conclusion. At the Eighteenth Party Congress he revealed thatthe state remained in existence even in the post-socialist, communist stage ofdevelopment if the capitalist encirclement was not liquidated.39 This impliedthat not only “complete socialism” but even communism could exist on thescale of one country. In September 1946, he proclaimed this as a new solemnformula: “‘Communism in one country’ is completely possible, especially ina country like the Soviet Union.”40 Curiously, Stalin told G.F. Aleksandrovthe next month: “The teaching of the victory of communism in one countryis Lenin’s. Complete socialism is the same as communism.”41 In fact, Lenin’s“complete socialism” had only referred to the thesis that the peasant produc-tive co-operative should be considered a socialist form of economy.However, under communism the collectives would have to be raised to thelevel of property of the “whole people” and the system of remunerationfundamentally changed. But by this time the leader could afford to besloppy in his formulations.

Stalin arrived at his thesis that socialism could be constructed in a single,backward country simply because of the fact of Soviet Russia’s survival forso many years. He saw no reason why it could not survive indefinitely, andhe was confident that the peasantry could be made to accept collective

Socialism in one country 93

agriculture. To back up these conclusions, he had Lenin’s statements of1915–16 and 1922–23. The intellectual history of “socialism in one country”did not go any deeper than this. But this is not to deny that Stalin was awareof the fact that he continued Marxist traditions older than Lenin. InSeptember 1927, he mentioned two elements that Lenin had allegedlycontributed to Marxism: the possibility of constructing a complete socialistsociety in an isolated country; and the policy of drawing the peasantry intosocialism through co-operatives.42 But, as we saw, he knew that Marx hadbelieved in peasant support for the proletarian revolution in backwardGermany. What is more, he also realised that Lenin had not been the first tosuggest the possibility of an isolated socialism. In June 1927, the followingoccurred at a plenary session of the Central Control Commission:

Trotskii: …And who was the predecessor of the “optimist” Stalin, do youknow that? …It is the article of Vollmar, well-known afterwards asa German social patriot, written in 1879. This article is called“The isolated socialist state.”…

Ordzhonikidze: We read it.Trotskii: Ah, you read it – that’s even worse, it means you hid that too from

the party.43

Vollmar’s book was not translated into Russian before 1990, so Stalincannot personally have read it.44 But Ordzhonikidze’s answer shows that herealised the ancestry of the theory. Stalin did read Kautsky’s ErfurterProgramm, with its proposals for an autarkic socialist economy.45 Ironically,his desire to give Lenin credit as a renewer of Marxism and his refusal tomake favourable references to Kautsky and Vollmar contributed to the myththat socialism in an isolated, backward country was a Russian invention, aRussian aberration of Marxism.

The final test of the idea of “socialism in one country” came with thecreation of the socialist camp. The establishment of the “people’s democra-cies” after the Second World War was accompanied by a new debate on thepossibility of isolated socialist efforts. The Soviet leaders were not preparedto accept that option. It would undermine their hegemony in the new camp.In June 1948, the Second Conference of the so-called Cominform discussedthe alleged defection of the Yugoslav communists. Tito and his comradeswere accused of betraying “proletarian internationalism,” i.e. the “militantco-operation of the peoples headed by the great Country of Socialism.” TheYugoslav claim that they could manage “by their own forces” was derided asa bourgeois nationalist illusion. The Italian leader Togliatti explained that

this development along the road to socialism would be impossible ifthese countries were isolated, if the close co-operation of these countrieswith the country of socialism would be absent…the Marxists reply posi-tively on the question of the possibility of a quick development towards

94 Socialism in one country

socialism even in backward countries. Lenin and Stalin spoke about thispossibility, but a necessary condition of such a development must be theunbreakable link with that country where socialism is already victorious.

The Bulgarian leader, Kostov, insisted that without the Soviet Union “theconstruction and development of the countries of the new democracy”would be impossible. Without Soviet assistance, “they would turn into aplaything in the hands of the imperialist forces.”46 Thus “socialism in onecountry” was more or less formally declared inapplicable to small countrieswithout the kind of economic and military resources that Russia had.

This did not represent a complete turnabout though. When Stalin drew hisconclusions in the 1920s, he did not present isolated socialism as a desirableoption but merely as a possibility. He preferred a situation where Russia neednot be an “independent economic unit” but formed one socialist economicspace with a revolutionary Germany and France. The autarkic economy wasforced upon Russia.47 However, after the war autarky was preserved. Stalincould have transformed the whole of Eastern Europe into an integratedeconomic zone, with the various states functioning as specialised depart-ments of the Soviet economy, but he did not take that direction. The Councilfor Mutual Economic Assistance, established in January 1949, neveramounted to much during the leader’s lifetime, because all member stateswere expected to develop their own autarkic, comprehensively developedeconomies. In other words, “socialism in one country” turned from anecessity into an ideal of self-reliant economic development. And an ineffi-cient one at that, a good example of how ideological determination mayresult in counterproductive policies in terms of efficiency and power.

Socialism in one country 95

According to Marxist dogma, under socialism, i.e. in a system withoutprivate ownership of the means of production, products were no longermade for the market. They were distributed over the producers according totheir respective achievements, but the distribution took place without theintervention of money under a form of direct regulation by the communityor the state. That system was referred to by the term “direct productexchange.” In the early period of the Soviet system, the establishment ofsuch a form of distribution was attempted, but this was at a time when agri-culture was still in private hands. In other words, a socialist form ofdistribution was superimposed over a partly capitalist system of production.The New Economic Policy (NEP) put an end to this anomaly, later dubbed“war communism.” And the NEP not only placed the market between stateindustry and private agriculture but also introduced various money andmarket forms in the sphere of state industries themselves. But it remaineddogma that, once the private ownership of the means of production hadbeen overcome, money and the market would be replaced by direct productexchange.

Through the best part of the 1920s Stalin defended the NEP. In July1928, when his coalition with Bukharin was already breaking up, he definedthe NEP as the policy that “aimed to overcome the capitalist elements andto construct a socialist economy by using the market…and not throughproduct exchange.” Conversely, “war communism” aimed to distribute prod-ucts directly by the state, partly by military means. Characteristically, Stalinclaimed that all countries traversing the road from capitalism to socialismneeded to pass through a stage of the former kind, whereas “war commu-nism” was not unavoidable.1

Nevertheless, Stalin’s perspective was never completely identical toBukharin’s. Gradually, his views on industrialisation began to diverge fromthe latter’s. In the early 1920s he had, like Bukharin, believed in the primacyof light industry.2 And in 1925 he concluded, again like Bukharin, thatmetal was the “fundamental basis of industry.” The Soviet Union needed anall-round heavy industrial base of its own. He visualised its future economy“not as a subordinate enterprise of world capitalism, but as an independent

8 Stalin’s economic thought

economic entity, depending mainly on the internal market.” The problemwas that the capitalist countries had achieved their industrialisation throughunacceptable means – by colonisation and aggressive war or by subjectingothers to humiliating conditions. But Stalin was convinced that alternativemeans could be found.3

The General Secretary was not always the extreme industrialiser he wasto become. In November 1926, he took Preobrazhenskii and Trotskii totask for underestimating the need to uphold the purchasing power of thepeasantry. The opposition did not understand that “industry is the leadingprinciple of the economy, but agriculture forms in its turn the basis uponwhich our industry can deploy itself.”4 Nevertheless, in the course of 1926he began to stress the Trotskyite theme of tempo. He would say that, asindustry was “the foundation, the beginning and the end of socialism,” itshould develop “with as high a tempo as possible.” And although capi-talism showed a “furious” tempo of development, the potential of socialismwas superior. The Soviet economy could move forward “in seven-leagueboots.”5

As we saw in the previous chapter, the leftists hoped to realise a hightempo of industrial development, which they thought unavoidable, bydraining the countryside of funds. During 1927, Stalin too explained that itwas impossible to close the so-called price “scissors” between industry andagriculture immediately. A “certain harm” to the peasant economy wasacceptable in order to industrialise the country. Furthermore, the so-called“goods famine,” the fact that not enough industrial goods were available forthe peasantry, was another inevitable consequence of the fact that the rate ofgrowth of heavy industry should be higher than that of the light sector. To acertain extent, heavy industry could not but develop at the expense of theconsumer sector.6

At the plenary session of the Central Committee of July 1928, Stalinconfirmed the significance of heavy industry for the village. The alliancebetween town and countryside rested not only on satisfying the personalneeds of the peasantry through textiles but also on providing them withagricultural machinery and fertiliser. “Thus the alliance [smychka] has notonly textile but also metal as its basis.”7 On the same occasion, Stalinrepeated that the “scissors” could only be closed gradually:

our peasantry…pays not only ordinary taxes to the state, direct andindirect ones, but on top of that it overpays for the industrial goods withrelatively high prices – that’s point one, and more or less underreceivesfor agricultural products in terms of prices – that’s point two. This is anadditional tax on the peasantry in the interests of the upsurge ofindustry, serving the whole country, including the peasantry. It is some-thing like a ‘tribute’, something like a supertax, which we are forced totake temporarily in order to uphold and develop further the tempo ofdevelopment of industry.8

Stalin’s economic thought 97

This remark drove Bukharin to great anger. However, even he wanted thepeasants to overpay. That had not been the issue between him andPreobrazhenskii. The issue had been whether one should try to maximisethis “overpumping” or to keep it within moderate limits. Stalin was nowundoubtedly embracing Preobrazhenskii’s argument, but not because hespoke up for a “tribute” but because he hoped to increase it as far aspossible. At the same plenum, Stalin remarked that Soviet state farms didnot need maximum profits but could do with minimum ones, “and some-times they may even temporarily get around with no profits at all.”9 In otherwords, he suggested that the “tribute” might be large enough to absorb allagricultural profits.

The coalition between Stalin and Bukharin finally broke down during1928 and 1929, when grain procurement for the cities ran into trouble andthe former responded with radical measures unacceptable to the latter. Thequestion of the tempo of industrial growth was one of the issues at stake.At the November 1928 Central Committee plenum, the General Secretaryindicated:

the high [bystryi] tempo of development of industry in general, and ofproduction of the means of production in particular, is the fundamentalprinciple and key to the industrialisation of the country. …we determine[our control figures] and realise them under a sign of tenseness. …it isnecessary to succeed in catching up and overtaking the advanced tech-nological level of the developed capitalist countries…. This is correctalso from the point of view of the defence of our country in a situationof capitalist encirclement.

Except for the focus on heavy industry, this was almost literally whatTrotskii had been saying for years. During the next few years, Stalin’s callsfor an increasing tempo became ever more outrageous. In order to overtakethe capitalist world, the tempo should be “accelerated,” “furious” and“forced.” The Soviet dictator recognised that there should be some kind ofbalance, but that did not prevent him demanding a permanent driving up ofthe targets. This should not be understood as undermining the plan prin-ciple. The economic plan was anyhow not “something finished and givenonce and for all.” The plan was only a first approximation, only “the begin-ning of planning.”10 Tempo overruled balance. Perhaps the most extremestatement came in 1931, when Stalin said that the criticism that the indus-trial plan was unrealistic was wrong, for the following reason:

It is realistic if only because its realisation now depends exclusively onourselves, on our ability and on our will to use the very rich possibilitieswe have…. The reality of our program consists of living people, it is youand me, our will to work, our readiness to work in a new way, ourresolve to carry out the plan.11

98 Stalin’s economic thought

This turned plan targets almost exclusively into a question of will. However,this extremism did not last. Under the impression of economic dislocationcaused by his extremism, the leader finally put an end to the madness inJanuary 1933. He claimed that in the future industrial growth rates wouldstill remain higher than in capitalist countries, but it was now possible toreturn to a policy of “less accelerated tempos.”12 In July 1934, Stalindistributed an angry letter to the Politburo, criticising a recent article byBukharin in Izvestiia for, among other points, having covered up the factthat heavy industry was the “leading and reorganising” branch of theeconomy.13 Thus Stalin did not abandon such fundamental points, but thetime of pure extremism was over.

Next to accelerated industrialisation, with a heavy industrial focus, thesecond pillar of early Stalinist economics was the twin campaign of collec-tivisation and dekulakisation. Stalin interpreted the unpreparedness of thepeasants in the winter of 1928 to sell their grain against the price he foundacceptable as a form of class struggle, and he was prepared to meet the chal-lenge head-on. In July 1928, he famously noted that:

as we move forward, the resistance of the capitalist elements will grow,the class struggle will become sharper, and Soviet power, of which theforces will grow ever more, will carry out a policy of isolation of theseelements, …a policy of suppression of the resistance of the exploiters.14

In 1923, Lenin had proposed to shift the “centre of gravity” of the party’sactivities to “peaceful organisational ‘cultural’ work” as the way to convincethe peasants to join the co-operatives.15 The leader of bolshevism did notmake a pledge that under different circumstances a violent course in thecountryside would be excluded. Nevertheless, Stalin’s new course representeda major tactical change compared with the course set in the early 1920s.When the peasants refused to comply with his demands, Stalin shifted toLenin’s earlier methods of forced grain procurement and repression. InDecember 1929, he announced the dual policies of “total collectivisation”and “liquidation of kulakdom as a class.” The kulaks were to beexpropriated.16

In this speech, Stalin elaborated on some theoretical aspects of the collec-tivisation movement. He began with an attack on what he called “theso-called theory of ‘balance’ of the sectors of our economy,” which heascribed to the Right Opposition. In his interpretation, this theory held thatthe socialist and the “non-socialist, if you wish – capitalist” sectors of theSoviet economy co-existed peacefully and did not touch each other, until ina mysterious way the former triumphed. According to Stalin, this theorydefended “the positions of the individual peasant economy” and in partic-ular its kulak elements. It overlooked the fact that the classes behind thesetwo sectors were locked in a life or death struggle. Moreover, whereas large-scale production had the potential of “expanded reproduction,” the small

Stalin’s economic thought 99

peasant economy was so ineffective that it seldom even realised “simplereproduction.” To enlarge the scale of agriculture was the only way out.17

Stalin had argued for years that the “middle peasant” economy producedtoo limited marketable surpluses, but with this new and more extremeformulation he repeated almost to the letter Preobrazhenskii’s predictionsthat the non-socialist sector was heading for degradation.

He also turned against what he called the theory of “spontaneity”(samotek). This “theory” allegedly held that as under capitalism the villagespontaneously followed the city, under socialism the same thing could beexpected. Stalin did not believe this. Under capitalism, both the city and thevillage had been organised on the basis of private property. But one couldnot expect a privately organised village to follow a socialist city sponta-neously. He concluded:

The socialist city can lead the village of small peasants along in no otherway than by implanting collective and state farms in the village and bytransforming the village according to a new, socialist order.18

This was an admission that, if left to the peasantry, there would never be anycollectivisation at all. It was almost admitted in so many words that theprocess could only be involuntary. This too was strikingly in the spirit ofPreobrazhenskii and Trotskii’s thesis that the countryside could not collec-tivise itself, the city being the only “active principle” of socialism.

But there was one crucial difference: the leftists did not believe that thetime was ripe for such a socialist transformation of the countryside.However, attacking the further “theory of the ‘stability’ of the small peasanteconomy,” which held that the peasant would never willingly give up hispiece of land, Stalin noted that because there was no private ownership ofland, “we also lack that slavish dedication of the peasant to his plot ofland.” If put under pressure from the city, the peasant would accept thekolkhoz after all. Stalin considered Engels’s proposal to provide the peasantwith as much time as possible to think collectivisation over exaggeratedlycautious.19 In other words, in contrast to the leftists, who found a more orless completed industrialisation the precondition for collectivisation, Stalinsaw the nationalisation of land as a sufficient condition.

As in industry, madness reigned in agriculture too, but some sobrietysoon returned. The brutal campaign threatened to provoke civil war, andStalin saw no other option but to apply the brakes. In March 1930, he wrotean article under the cynical title “Dizzy with success” in which he notedindignantly that many party officials violated the “principle of voluntari-ness.”20 One month later, he explained that the root cause of the mistakeshad been the idea to “implant kolkhozy by compulsion.” The peasant massesshould be brought to collectivisation by convincing them of the superiorityof the collective principle. Stalin hoped to stop the mass withdrawal fromthe kolkhozy by providing these farms with privileged treatment in terms of

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taxes, credits and technical assistance.21 It did not take long for thepercentage of collectivised households to start its steep climb again.22 But itdid not go quickly enough for Stalin’s taste. In July 1934, he complained at aparty conference in the Kremlin that sometimes individual peasants workedunder better circumstances than the kolkhozniki:

We need a gradual but systematic march forward. Not by chasingpeople administratively, but through economic means and by agita-tion…. The individual peasant must see that it’s better to be in thekolkhoz…. That doesn’t mean that I favour destroying the individualpeasants, arrest, punish, execute them etc.… We must educate them byeconomic and financial measures…turn the tax screw.23

It is clear what Stalin meant by a voluntary kolkhoz movement. He rejecteddirect force to pressure the peasantry to join up, but there was no return tovoluntariness in a full sense. Gradually, economic circumstances would bemade so unbearable for the individual peasant that he would have littleoption but to join up after all – “voluntarily.” But then again, the collec-tivised peasantry were allowed some freedoms. While the main means ofproduction remained kolkhoz or state ownership, the peasants were allowedto keep their own houses, as well as a private plot, birds, small livestock anda cow.24 Collective farms and individual kolkhozniki were allowed to tradethe surplus, which they did not have to sell to the government, in openmarkets. In 1935, Stalin recognised that the collective farm represented amixed system, resting on a combination of social and individual interest.25

To sum up some conclusions concerning the early Stalinism of the periodof the Great Turn, let me first note that the General Secretary himself sawhis new course as a revolution organised from above by the proletarian state.The most concise definition was given in the notorious Short Course, the1938 history of the communist party, where it was said that the expropria-tion of the kulaks was of equal importance to the October Revolution.

The originality of this revolution consisted therein that it was broughtabout from above, at the initiative of state power, with the direct supportfrom below by the mass of the millions of peasants.26

In a previous chapter, I noted that the idea of “revolution from above,” inthe sense of a state-sponsored program of accelerated industrialisation andagricultural collectivisation, was part of Marx and Engels’s concept of prole-tarian revolution in peasant countries. It was their solution to the problem ofa proletarian party taking power in a country that was economically not yetripe for communism. Stalin did not realise this, or at least he nevermentioned it. Lenin had not realised it either. The experience in the SecondInternational had clouded their understanding of the radicalism of Marxand Engels’s original program. Nevertheless, although there is no indication

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that Stalin’s change of direction was inspired by the writings of the fathers ofcommunism, the fact remains that by organising his revolution from above,he restored the continuity with original Marxism rather than breaking it.

Fortunately, we do not have to look far and wide for Stalin’s sources ofinspiration. To point to his familiarity with Bukharin and Trotskii suffices.The accusation that, after defeating Bukharin, Stalin hijacked the leftistprogram is an old one, but it is only partially accurate.27 In importantrespects Stalin remained loyal to Bukharinism. The new Stalinist coursefused the Bukharinist and Trotskyite models. Stalin took Bukharin’s idea ofthe autarkic development of an all-round economy with its own heavyindustry; but he refused to accept the corollary of the slow growth rate.Instead, he grafted Trotskii’s obsession with tempo on to it, but without thespecialised economy with its quick profits. Likewise, the collectivisation ofagriculture was fundamentally Bukharinist, but Stalin refused to accept thatin a backward country the tempo of transformation should be slow. Instead,he hoped to push it through by adopting the Trotskyite urban socialistinitiative, which was intended for a later period. In other words, Stalin heldon to the Bukharinist strategy, but speeded it up artificially by injectingTrotskyism into it.28

The question arises of whether Stalin was not inspired by Russian patrio-tism and by the Petrine precedent as well. According to Tucker, the Sovietdictator’s identification with Peter made his Marxism diverge widely fromLenin and Trotskii’s.29 But the logic of making Russia powerful enough towithstand foreign threats through crash development was purely Trotskii’s.It was he who argued for years that any lowering of the tempo presented amortal danger in view of the capitalist encirclement. What is more, the needto catch up with the capitalist world and overtake it had first beenexpounded by Lenin – and for the same reason of preventing Russia beingcrushed by the imperialists. In his well-known February 1931 speech on thesubject of driving Russia forward, Stalin quoted a poem about “motherRussia.”30 Ironically, the General Secretary may have actually used Lenin’sMarch 1918 article on the saving of Russia when he prepared the speech.The poem was the same one Lenin had used in his article.31 The patrioticmotive was not Stalin’s privilege but part of the bolshevik outlook.

Having said this, the continuity between Stalin’s bureaucratic revolutionfrom above and Peter’s is obvious enough. But it seems an overstatement ofthis point to assume that Stalin was directly inspired by Peter when heembarked on his Great Turn. What he said about the first emperor does notin any case confirm this hypothesis. In April 1926, the General Secretarymade fun of comrades who believed Ivan and Peter to have been the firstindustrialisers. Their efforts had not been worth much. Industrialisation wasnot a matter of simply enlarging the share of industry in the nationalproduct but of increasing in particular those sectors (such as fuels, metalsand machinery) that strengthened the economic independence of acountry.32 In November 1928, he explained to the Central Committee:

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When Peter the Great, having to deal with the more developed countriesof the West, feverishly built mills and factories to supply the army andto strengthen the defence of the country, then that was a special kind ofattempt to leap from the context of backwardness. It is completelyunderstandable, however, that not one of the old classes, neither thefeudal aristocracy nor the bourgeoisie, could solve the task of eradi-cating the backwardness of our country.33

In his 1931 discussion with Emil Ludwig, Stalin denied the parallel betweenPeter’s modernising programme and his own. He recognised that the emperor“did much for the elevation of the class of the landlords and the developmentof the beginning merchant class,” for the “creation and strengthening of thenational state of landlords and merchants.” But that was accomplished overthe back of the peasantry. He, Stalin, set himself the task of the “elevation ofanother class, to be precise – the working class.”34 Reading between the lines,these various comments show that Stalin did in fact appreciate Peter’s effortsto organise a quick “leap from backwardness.” He sympathised with thisstatesman, who heroically mobilised the country to strengthen the state. Butthe hero had failed. We need not take Stalin’s commitment to the well-beingof the workers and peasants very seriously. This was only genuine in the sensethat he believed that the socialist system served these classes in the long run.But Stalin did undoubtedly believe that only the socialist system was capableof modernising and industrialising the country.

From Stalin’s perspective, only socialism – the new system of state andcollectivised ownership and planning – could accomplish the modernisationthat Russia’s old rulers had attempted but failed to bring off. The dictatorpositively despised old Russia. As he wrote to Maksim Gor’kii in 1930:

The USSR will be a first-class country with the largest-scale, technologi-cally equipped industrial and agricultural production. Socialism isinvincible. No longer will we have “miserable” Russia. An end to that!We’ll have a powerful and prosperous advanced Russia.35

Ironically, it is precisely his most patriotic speech of February 1931 whichshows that Stalin can have been inspired by Peter in only a very conditionalsense. In pre-revolutionary days, the leader said, Russian workers did not havea fatherland. Only after the overthrow of capitalism “we have a fatherland andwe’ll defend its independence.” Russia was fifty to a hundred years behind. Ithad to make good this distance in ten – or be destroyed by its foreign enemies.History taught that it would be impossible to reduce the “bolshevik tempos.”In the past Russia had been beaten by the Mongols, the Poles, the Swedes andmany others for its backwardness. One should not risk this again.

No, we cannot, comrades! We cannot reduce the tempos! On the contrary,we must accelerate them to our capabilities and opportunities…. To

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reduce the tempos means to fall behind. And those who fall behind arebeaten. But we don’t want to be beaten. No, we don’t want that! Thehistory of old Russia existed among other points therein that it waspermanently beaten because of its backwardness.36

Stalin’s patriotism was all too real, but it was precisely this patriotism thatfed his deep hostility towards the tsarist past, including the Petrine era. Hesympathised with Peter’s idea of crash modernisation by a strong state. Thatis where the continuity between Petrine and bolshevik Russia lay, and Stalinmust have realised this well enough. But his comments on Peter and oldRussia leave no doubt that, in his own mind, the aspect of discontinuitybetween the socialist system and Peter’s was of greater weight. It meant thedifference between failure and success. And that means, again, that to lethimself be inspired too much by his imperial predecessors was the mostfoolish thing to do. It spelled no less than doom. To copy Peter would meanto repeat his failure.

The “law of value”

The slowing down of the tempo of industrialisation and the change fromlarge-scale terror to economic pressure on the peasantry was forced upon theSoviet leadership by the dramatic failures of the First Five Year Plan. Stalindid not intend to land up in the history books as one who launched boldattacks but could not stabilise the front. Already during the First Five YearPlan he had stressed the importance of a practical orientation in work. In1928, he emphasised that the proletariat should educate reliable economicdirectors. Many believed it to be impossible for communists to master chem-ical and technical knowledge. But “there are no fortresses in this world whichthe toilers, the bolsheviks, couldn’t capture.”37 During the climax ofeconomic madness in 1931, the Soviet leader repeated his attack on managerslacking in technical expertise, concluding: “It’s time that the bolsheviks them-selves became specialists. In the reconstruction period technology decideseverything.”38 And in 1935 he replaced this slogan, which did not express hisrespect for professionalism sufficiently, with “Cadres decide everything.” Itwas time to understand that “people, cadres, are the most valuable and themost decisive capital.”39

One of the main questions to be solved in the practical running of thesocialist economy was that of “direct product exchange” and its counterpart– money and markets, i.e. the question of the so-called “law of value.” ThisMarxist “law” referred to two interconnected phenomena. First, incommodity-producing economies values are expressed in money form, asprices fluctuate around the true labour value. And, second, it is this marketprocess that spontaneously directs the flow of investments. According toMarx and Lenin, the law of value would no longer be operative undersocialism. In December 1929, Stalin proclaimed the kolkhoz a socialist

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production unit.40 Thus, with the completion of collectivisation, the USSRwould be a socialist country. From the start of the winter of 1929–30 it wasobvious that this was only a matter of time, which forced the Stalinists toface the question of whether they had to abolish money.

During the early years of the NEP it was accepted that state enterprisesoperated on a “commercial” basis. This policy was unchallenged, but itcaused theoretical confusion. The leaders of the 1925 New Opposition,Zinov’ev and Kamenev, made it a point to claim that, in a sense, the Sovietstate sector was still “state capitalist” because money wages were paid and itproduced for a market.41 Against them, Stalin argued that the state sectorwas socialist, for the simple reason that the proletarian state was its owner:

The point is not at all that trade and the money system are methods ofthe ‘capitalist economy’. …the socialist elements of our economycapture these methods and arms of the bourgeoisie in order to over-come the capitalist elements…. The point is consequently that, thanksto the dialectic of our development, the functions and significance ofthese instruments of the bourgeoisie change fundamentally.42

Money and the market were not exclusively characteristic of capitalism.During the period of transition to socialism, these capitalist weapons mightbe used against capitalism.43 But at the time it was still taken for grantedthat under socialism itself money and markets would disappear. In February1930, Stalin wrote that the NEP would be discarded only “when we have thepossibility of arranging economic links between town and countryside viaproduct exchange, without trade with its private turnover.”44 A few monthslater, he noted that the country was still in the stage of NEP, for“commodity turnover and the money economy still remain.”45 Apparently,socialism would be a system without trade and money.

But, in this case, Utopia did not stand a chance. To abolish money wouldhave meant to lead the country to complete economic breakdown in theimmediate future. Although history knows cases of communist leaderswilling to pay this price for Utopia, Pol Pot being a case in point, Stalin wasobviously too much of a realist to consider that option. And theory had tobe adapted correspondingly. According to R.W. Davies, the idea that only amoneyless system deserved the name “socialist” was gradually abandoned inthe course of 1931 and 1932.46 At the Seventeenth Party Congress in 1934,Stalin made the conclusion official when he criticised “leftist petit bour-geois” communists holding that money would soon be replaced by directproduct exchange. He concluded that money was there to stay “until thecompletion of the first stage of communism – the socialist stage of develop-ment.”47 At the November 1934 plenum of the Central Committee he waseven more outspoken. Commodity circulation and the money economyshould be strengthened “by all means.” He described money as a very “flex-ible” system:

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The money economy is one of those few bourgeois apparatuses of theeconomy which we, socialists, must use ad fundum…and we’ll set it towork in our own way, to make it serve our cause, rather than capi-talism’s…. Under our circumstances it is unthinkable to organise theexchange between city and countryside without commodity circulation,without buying and selling.48

In 1936, Viacheslav Molotov reminded Stalin that, according to Marx andLenin, the first stage of communism was already a system without moneyand commodity production. But the latter answered that although theoreti-cally this might be so, life dictated otherwise. Money would only disappearin the higher stage of complete communism.49 Stalin not only acceptedmoney because of the plain impossibility of abolishing it. As we will see, hepositively appreciated it as an instrument for increasing economic efficiency.That had been recognised during the 1920s. The leader saw no good reasonto reconsider this matter after the victory of socialist ownership in the 1930s.

Two specific conditions of the early 1930s did urge Stalin on to reformu-late Marxist doctrine. First, after the horrors of the famine of 1933 someimprovement of the standard of living of the population would have to beimplemented if his regime was not to run into serious trouble. Second, bynow the party elite lived extremely privileged lives compared with those ofthe ordinary population. A theoretical justification for the different stan-dards was urgently demanded. As a result, during 1934 Stalin expounded anew, “consumerist” interpretation of socialism.50

Two themes were discussed by the leader, namely the significance ofconsumption as such – the rejection of an idea of socialism based onpoverty; and the necessary differentiation of tastes and income. At theSeventeenth Party Congress, Stalin insisted that socialism could not comeabout “on a basis of poverty and privations [lisheniia].” Its basis was ratheran abundance of consumer goods, a “comfortable life of the toilers” and a“tempestuous growth of culturedness.” The slogan of the party should nowbe “to make all kolkhozniki well-off.” Stalin rejected any “neglect of thedemands of assortment and of the demands of the consumer.” Moreover,incomes for qualified and unqualified work should be differentiated. Oneshould not expect everyone to dress in identical costumes and eat the samekind of food:

levelling in the field of needs and individual life is a reactionary, petitbourgeois absurdity, worthy of some primitive sect of ascetics, but notof a socialist society, organised in a Marxist way, for one cannotdemand that all people would have identical needs and tastes, that allpeople would live their personal life according to one model….Marxism assumes that the tastes and needs of people are not andcannot be identical and equal in quality and quantity, either in theperiod of socialism or in the period of communism.51

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All this should certainly not be taken at face value,52 but the new“consumerism” was no mere sham either. Even the leader’s well-knownoutcry – “Life has become better, comrades. Life has become happier” – wasmore than a classical case of cynicism.53 An element of deliberation wasinvolved. The Soviet leader went out of his way to claim that the combina-tion of “individual interests and the interests of the collective” was afundamental principle of socialist society.54 To provide the citizens with amore comfortable life and opportunities for individual betterment was a wayof seducing them to work harder for society, as Stalin himself admitted.55 Itwas a form of material stimulus.

The question of differentiation of income and consumption patterns wasof some theoretical importance for the definition of socialism as a system.Stalin abhorred a niggardly interpretation of the principle of rewardaccording to achievement. In early 1936, he reformulated the socialist prin-ciple of distribution as one of being “in accordance with the quantity andquality of contributed labour. Therefore there still exists a wage, which iseven unequal and differentiated.”56 In a 1941 discussion with Sovieteconomists, he made this official when he noted:

Engels confused our people. He incorrectly believed that undersocialism everyone – qualified and unqualified people, leaders and thosein executive jobs – must receive an average wage. And now we havepeople who want to jump directly through socialism to communism,when we’ll have such equality…. We have to stop being pigs, we have tobe cultured, clean up things, then we’ll arrive at communism.57

Meanwhile, in 1936, when socialism, according to Stalin, had been “funda-mentally” achieved,58 an order had gone out to the experts to produce a newhandbook of “political economy.” Before the Second World War, six subse-quent versions were produced, to be checked by Stalin personally.59 In amaket of December 1940 he made a number of notes, underlining the signifi-cance of money and the market. Next to a passage claiming that socialismdid not know rent, he wrote that it was not abolished “but transformed intoincome of society (as with ‘profit’).” He crossed out a passage from Engels tothe effect that under socialism labour was social in an immediate sense,without interference of the law of value, and commented: “foolish.” Next toa line concerning “Soviet trade, money, credit and budget,” we read in pencil:“And the market?” And next to the thesis that the plan had replaced the lawof value he wrote: “And the cost price?” “And do we have, let’s say, a kolkhozmarket?” “But the price must not be below the cost price.” The handbookalso said that under socialism prices were not determined on the basis ofmarket conditions, but Stalin wrote: “Not so” and “The market and itsparticularities under the Soviet system.” Finally, next to the heading“Socialist wages” he wrote: “Personal interest” (zainteresovannost’).60

In January 1941, Stalin called together the authors’ collective to inform it

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of his criticisms. He noted that Marx only provided the “general road.”People should use their “own heads.” Furthermore, in the handbook it wassaid that the “law of value” had been overcome in Soviet Russia. Stalincommented:

This is not clear, why overcome? We have payment of kolkhozniki,workers and also of the intelligentsia according to work done. People ofdifferent qualification receive differently…. With us categories like priceand cost price have not disappeared. We are, for instance, still a longway from controlling prices…. The law of value has not been overcome,it is active. Only when we’ll begin to distribute according to needs, andnot according to work done, then the law of value will be overcome….Once you have money, you have also commodities. All these categorieshave stayed, but their significance has changed, their functions havechanged.61

Hereby Stalin confirmed that money and the market were there to stayduring the whole first stage of communism. One of the motives forpreserving the monetary system concerned the question of personal interestin production. Characteristically, Stalin said in the same speech that, whileTrotskii had believed that under socialism money was only a means of“calculation,” it should be recognised that even under socialism people work“not only because with us they are in power…but also because we give theman interest in it…. We have to hook people on their personal interests.”62

Stalin’s argument can, perhaps, be divided into two closely relatedelements. First, as long as output was not so plentiful that people couldreceive according to their needs, they had to receive according to theirachievements. And, with the differences between qualified and unqualifiedlabour being as wide as they were, a fair distribution was so complex that itcould not be done without the “flexible” instrument of money. This pointedto the function of money as an efficient instrument of trade, mainly inconsumer goods. Second, money could serve as a productive stimulus for theindividual producers. This second function could be compared to the use ofmoney as an instrument of control and accounting for enterprises as awhole.63

After the end of the war Stalin repeated his demand for a new handbook,and a new maket was ready by 1946. But it was again found wanting. Andagain new texts were ready by 1948.64 In 1947, Gosplan chairman NikolaiVoznesenskii wrote a book on the Soviet economy during the war. Themanuscript was checked and corrected by Stalin, the book received a StalinPrize, and it served as a substitute handbook for some time.65 But the matterwith the handbook dragged on. In 1949, Stalin told D.T. Shepilov that hewas dissatisfied with the work of its main author, Leont’ev. The handbookwas of the utmost importance. The new society could only be constructedon the basis of a correct economic theory. “Communism does not rise like

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Aphrodite from the foam of the sea.”66 In February 1950, Stalin ordered yeta new text to be made, but when it was ready a few months later he wasagain dissatisfied. Now he suggested that on the basis of the next version apublic debate should be organised. In April 1951, the new maket was ready.It became the subject of a conference of experts held in Moscow inNovember–December 1951.67

Stalin’s reaction to the debate, four articles, was published in Pravda andBol’shevik in October 1952 under the title “Economic problems of socialismin the USSR.”68 Interestingly, the leader now reverted to a more rigid posi-tion. He acknowledged that the law of value was operative in socialistRussia, namely in that part of the economy “where commodities andcommodity production exist,” mainly in the buying and selling of“commodities of personal consumption.” Furthermore, it worked as ameans of economic accounting, khozraschet. Commodity production existedprior to capitalism, so there was no reason why it could not serve socialism“for a certain period” as well. Furthermore, by stating that “in the secondstage of communist society” “value and its forms” would disappear, Stalinsuggested, as he had before, that the commodity–money complex was to bepreserved until that moment.69

However, on a second look he became less bold. Reacting to Engels’sremark that once society had taken the means of production in hand,commodity production would disappear, Stalin said that this was only thecase when “all means of production were turned into property of the wholepeople.” That was obviously not the case in Russia with its collective farms,which therefore “want to get rid of their products only in the form ofcommodities.” And then he said:

Of course, when instead of two basic production sectors, state and collec-tive, there will appear one all-embracing production sector with the rightto dispose of the whole product of consumption goods of the country,commodity circulation with its “money economy” will disappear.

Stalin believed that this would initially not take the form of nationalisationof the kolkhozy but occur through the establishment of one joint organ ofthe state and collective sector, which could organise the new “productexchange.” It is unlikely that Stalin intended to put the deed to the wordquickly. He understood that the introduction of a new system, under whichthe kolkhoz would receive products instead of money for their surplus,demanded an “enormous increase” in industrial production. It should beintroduced without any “particular hurry.”70 Nevertheless, theoretically theonly remaining condition for the abolition of money and the market wasthat the collective farms be placed under stricter control, allowing the stateto divide their output directly among enterprises and consumers. TherebyStalin implied that the abolition of “commodity–money relations” need notwait for the arrival of full communism.71

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To sum up this part of my discussion, in the mid-1930s Stalin abandonedthe idea that socialism was a moneyless economy. He concluded that moneycould only be abolished in the second, higher, stage of communism. Thesocialist principle of remuneration according to performance made amoneyless economy unworkable for two reasons. Money was needed for theefficient distribution of consumption goods among the toilers. Furthermore,to encourage individuals and enterprises to work properly, financial stimuliwere essential. By the end of his life, Stalin had made a partial retreat onthis matter. Now he saw, at least theoretically, the possibility to put kolkhozoutput under more direct state control, which might create the conditionsfor a system of state distribution of consumption goods even before fullcommunism was reached. But in practice money and a limited market forconsumer goods remained an accepted part of the Stalinist economy.

The second aspect of the “law of value,” concerning capital allocationpolicies, was of no less significance. Stalin made his position known inJanuary 1933, at the time of the great famine caused by the relentlessprocurement campaign. The General Secretary was angry at those whoproposed to shut down the kolkhozy and sovkhozy because they were notprofitable. The black metallurgical sector was not profitable either, heretorted. If one looks at profitability like that, the state might as welldevelop only the most profitable branches, like the pastry and flour-grindingindustries, the perfumery and tricotage industries and children’s toys. Oneshould not “look to profitability as petty dealers, from the point of view ofthe present moment.” Profitability was a matter of the economy as a wholeand seen from the perspective of many years.72 In his talk in January 1941,Stalin acknowledged that the planning organs should not allow “dispropor-tions in the economy.” But their main task was to ensure that the USSR waseconomically independent. This presupposed that profit by branch couldnever be the main goal, for the profitable light industries were strategicallyless important than the heavy sector.73

As we saw above, in the same speech Stalin pointed out that the “law ofvalue” remained operative in the USSR, but in his view it obviously did notinfluence allocation decisions. Nevertheless, the authoritative pronounce-ment forced Soviet economists to formulate what might possibly be therelation between the law of value and capital flows in Soviet Russia. In 1943,it was written in Pod znamenem marksizma that, since the distribution ofcapital among the different branches of production was regulated by theplan, allowing “the development of a branch of production which at firstmust run at a loss,” the law of value “functions under socialism…in a trans-formed manner.”74 The formula of the plan resting on a “transformed”version of the law of value came originally from Bukharin, who had meantthe opposite by it, however. His thesis had been that there existed a single“law of labour expenditures” that determined the proportions in capitalist aswell as socialist economies, and that appeared under capitalism in the formof the “law of value.” The precise proportions of investment were not neces-

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sarily the same under the two systems, but under socialism all sectors shouldin any case be profitable, just like under capitalism.75 In his 1947 work,Voznesenskii insisted on priority for the production of the means of produc-tion and other orthodox points,76 but he also wrote:

The most elementary law of the expenditures in production and ofdistribution of products in the Soviet economy is the transformed law ofvalue…. In the Soviet economy the state plan uses the law of value torealise the necessary proportions in production and the distribution ofsocial labour and the product, subordinated to the tasks of strength-ening and developing the socialist system…. The state plan uses the lawof value for a correct distribution of social labour between the variousbranches of the economy.77

This suggested that the relative cost of production and profitability of thevarious sectors did influence investment decisions.78 Voznesenskii furtherwrote that “the main means of production and the labour force” wereexcluded from the sphere of buying and selling. Nevertheless,money–commodity transactions concerned not only consumption goods butalso “the exchange of commodities between socialist enterprises (amongwhich between state enterprises and kolkhozy).”79 That opened the possi-bility that certain means of production were commodities after all. And thatwould again imply that state enterprises would have to be cost-accounting ina fundamentally self-reliant way. It suggested an economic model in whichindividual profitability of sectors and enterprises set boundaries to thestate’s ability to redistribute funds. In other words, the abstruse formula ofthe “transformed law of value” could be interpreted as referring to aBukharinist standpoint that the separate enterprises and sectors needed tobe profitable. Profitability might serve as a criterion for the allocation ofcapital among the various branches.

During the November–December 1951 economists’ debate the priority ofheavy industry came under fire from two angles. First, most participantsdefended the view that the law of value operated in socialist Russia “in atransformed shape.” Some explicitly concluded that the law influencedinvestment proportions. This might lead to an improved position for theprofitable light industrial sector. Second, some defended another of theviews originally developed by Voznesenskii in the 1930s, namely that theeconomic laws of socialism were no more than creations of the Soviet state.Surprisingly, this voluntaristic thesis might also serve to undermine theleading position of heavy industry. Heavy industrial priority was allegedlyrooted in a “law of proportional development,” but if the state could changeeconomic laws at will, could it not also abolish this latter law? Was heavyindustrial priority really objectively necessary?80

In Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR, Stalin indicated that thelaws governing a socialist economy were a “reflection of objective processes,

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taking place independently of the will of people.” People could useeconomic laws but not create new ones. Consequently, the Five Year Planscould not dictate economic proportions at will but had to remain within theboundaries set by the “objective economic law of the planned, proportionaldevelopment of the economy.” What is more, the objectively existing lawscould not be changed, even by the state. This had the following consequence:

People say that some economic laws, among which is the law of value,which are operative with us under socialism, are ‘transformed’ or even‘fundamentally transformed’ laws on the basis of the planned economy.That’s not true either. One cannot ‘transform’ laws.

Thereby Stalin declared both of Voznesenskii’s concepts anathema: the stateas the creator of new economic laws and the notion of the “transformed lawof value.”81 Thus he exploded both formulas that might threaten heavyindustrial priority. Theoretically, Stalin’s argument was weakly elaborated.As the main law of socialism, he formulated “the guaranteeing of amaximum satisfying of the permanently growing material and cultural needsof the whole society by an uninterrupted growth and perfecting of socialistproduction on the basis of the highest technology.” This contrasted withcapitalism, where maximum profit was the main goal. Stalin argued furtherthat his “law” was of greater weight than that of the “planned, proportionaldevelopment” of the economy. While the former provided the goals, thesecond showed only how to reach these goals without upsetting theeconomic balance.82 Thereby Stalin in fact returned to Voznesenskii’s oldformula of the state defining its purposes at will and only afterwards takingthe proportions into account.83

Nevertheless, Stalin’s purposes with this theoretical exercise were clearenough. He acknowledged that, since consumption goods were stillcommodities, in that field the law of value continued to have “within certainlimits the role of a regulator.” But only “objects of personal consumption”were commodities. Labour power was not, and neither were the means ofproduction, which were not sold by one socialist enterprise to another butdistributed among them according to plan. The law of value did not serve asa “regulator of production” under socialism. He concluded:

Completely incorrect is also the claim that [under socialism] the law ofvalue would regulate the “proportions” of the distribution of labourbetween the different branches of production. If that would be true, thenit is incomprehensible why we do not go all the way in developing lightindustry, as the most profitable, and superior over heavy industry, whichis often less profitable, and sometimes even completely unprofitable.

Stalin also reacted fiercely against the economist Iaroshenko, who doubtedthe validity of Marx’s so-called “reproduction schemes” under socialism,

112 Stalin’s economic thought

and which Lenin believed implied the priority development of the sectorproducing the means of production.84 It did not take long for it to comeinto the open that Voznesenskii had indeed been the target of Stalin’s attack.In December 1952, Mikhail Suslov publicly condemned the views of the bynow executed Gosplan chairman as a “mishmash” of “voluntaristic viewson the role of the plan and the state in Soviet society” and “a fetishisation ofthe law of value, as though the latter was a regulator of the allocation oflabour among the branches of the USSR’s national economy.”85 Thus untilthe end of his life Stalin resisted the view, associated with Bukharin, that thelaw of value, albeit in a “transformed” way, would somehow continue toinfluence the proportions between socialist production branches.

Summing up, on the central question of the “law of value” Stalin’seconomic thought was ambivalent. What he did was to split the law as itwere into two. He remained faithful to the Marxist dogma, in that themarket mechanism was no longer allowed to influence capital allocationdecisions. Only in that way could the priority development of heavy industrybe guaranteed. The guiding thought behind this was a concern for the powerand independence of the Soviet state, demanding a technologically advanceddefence sector. On the other hand, Stalin rejected the dogma of socialism asa moneyless economy, for equally pragmatic reasons. Without the flexibleinstrument of money to stimulate production by individuals and enterprisesand to regulate trade in consumption goods, it was impossible to guaranteea minimum of economic efficiency.86

Thus motives of power and efficiency were Stalin’s overriding concern inhis preserving as well as in his reformulating of Marxist economic dogma.The main point that he reformulated concerned his introducing a “commer-cial” element into socialism. No longer was socialism considered to beirreconcilable with money and markets as a matter of principle. For abolshevik, this was new and even bold. Under the New Economic Policy, thecommercial principle had been partly rehabilitated. But Lenin never madecommercialism part of his concept of socialism. Under socialism, moneyand markets would be no longer. Ironically, Stalin was not only the manwho destroyed the NEP but also the one to preserve some of its elements.Then again, from a wider perspective of Marxist thought, Stalin’s innova-tions were not so bold after all. As we saw, long before him Kautsky hadinsisted that Gleichmacherei was nonsense and that socialism could not dowithout money. In this respect, what Stalin did was merely return to themainstream of Second International thinking.

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Leninism was an ideology of class struggle. For the Leninists, the classenemy comprised a wide variety of people. The category covered not onlyforeign imperialists and the defeated Russian bourgeoisie but also parts ofthe intelligentsia, priests, former policemen and other strata of the “oldworld” believed to have been in league with the bourgeoisie. Furthermore,there were all those political activists – conservatives, liberals, moderatesocialists and oppositionists within the bolshevik party – who were believedto defend a position benefiting the old order. One of the main theses thatStalin became notorious for was that of the inevitable sharpening of theclass struggle as socialism is approached. In July 1928, when he wasembarking on his course of extraordinary measures in the countryside, theleader noted solemnly:

It has never been seen and will never be seen that obsolete classessurrender their positions voluntarily, without attempting to organiseresistance. …the movement towards socialism must lead to resistance bythe exploiting elements against this movement, and the resistance of theexploiters must lead to an inevitable sharpening of the class struggle.1

Class struggle became more violent, to the degree that Soviet power becameconsolidated. The next year, Stalin observed that “precisely because the rela-tive weight of the capitalist elements decreases, the capitalist elements scenta mortal danger and strengthen their resistance.” They fought harder as theybecame weaker. That was “the mechanics of the sharpening of the classstruggle.”2 This hypothesis on the psychology of the class enemy became ared thread in Stalin’s thinking. But although often attributed to him, it alsoran through Lenin’s thinking in the years of the Civil War. The latterinsisted that, after the establishment of the proletarian dictatorship, the classstruggle became more bitter in many respects. Capitalism resisted the morefuriously the closer it came to its death. Precisely their defeat would enor-mously increase the “energy of…resistance” of the exploiters.3 Lenin againprobably derived the perspective of an “energy of despair” among the

9 The sharpening ofthe class struggle

defeated classes from Georgii Plekhanov.4 In 1921, Lenin further warnedthat the proletarian dictatorship needed to continue the class struggle aslong as the capitalist encirclement existed.5

As collectivisation drew nearer, the General Secretary more often quotedLenin to the effect that the individual peasant economy spontaneouslygenerated capitalism. As long as the individual economy predominated,capitalism had a sounder economic basis than communism.6 Stalin wascareful to call publicly for “liquidating” the kulaks only “as a class”; he didnot aim for their destruction as individual people but merely for “depriving[them] of the productive sources of existence and development,” i.e. for theirexpropriation. But he also spoke of “dying classes” and called his ownpolicy towards them one of “terrorisation” (ustrashenie).7 Within a fewyears, the kulaks had been expropriated and collectively deported, if theyhad not been shot or starved.

The destruction of private farming did not lead to a more conciliatoryview on class struggle. At the January 1933 Central Committee plenum –during the famine – Stalin insisted that the “people from the past” did nottake their defeat easily. The leader attributed the problems to the resistanceof the last rudiments of the dying classes. They had become too weak to actopenly, but in their dying agony they put up a terrible fight. The formerkulaks and reactionary intellectuals had put up a “mask” and engaged inlarge-scale sabotage. They set storage buildings on fire, broke machines,stole kolkhoz property, injected cattle with the plague and spread meningitisamong the horses. The Central Committee should take seriously the need to“kill off the rudiments of the dying classes and organise the defence againstthe capitalist encirclement, which has not yet been destroyed at all and willnot be destroyed soon.” And once again Stalin formulated his celebratedprinciple: “The destruction of the classes is not achieved by an extinguishingof the class struggle but by its strengthening.”

In Stalin’s opinion, one of the reasons for the persistence of class strugglewas that “the consciousness of people lags behind in its development incomparison to their actual situation.” Although the kolkhozniki were nowcollective farmers, “their consciousness is for the time being still the old oneof the private proprietor.” Many ordinary kolkhozniki sympathised with theclass enemies and their hostile work. According to the “law of atavism,”there might even arise new private traders and speculators from among thecollectivised peasantry.8 At the Seventeenth Party Congress in 1934, Stalinformulated his conclusions as a general thesis:

But can we say that we already overcame all rudiments of capitalism inthe economy? No, we cannot say that. The more so we cannot say thatwe overcame the rudiments of capitalism in the consciousness of people.We cannot only not say that because the consciousness of people lagsbehind in its development in comparison to their economic situation,

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but also because there still exists the capitalist encirclement, whichattempts to revive and support the rudiments of capitalism in theeconomy and consciousness of the people in the USSR.9

Hereby the class struggle could be stretched almost indefinitely after thedestruction of the class of private owners. The momentum of bourgeoisideology and the presence of capitalist states guaranteed that the strugglecontinued under socialism. In 1936, the leader proclaimed that, with thecompletion of expropriation, all exploiting classes had been liquidated.10

But this changed nothing as far as the class struggle was concerned. At theplenary session of the Central Committee in February–March 1937, Stalinrepeated that the idea of a fading class struggle was a “rotten” theory. Theclass struggle could only become more desperate as a result of the commu-nist successes. The bourgeois states were still plotting to attack the USSR. Intheir support, they mobilised the Trotskyites and the Zinovievites, who hadagreed to undermine the Soviet state by espionage, terror and sabotage, so asto make it ripe for military intervention and a restoration of capitalism. Inreturn, the bourgeois states provided these desperate oppositionists with anopportunity to return to power. He concluded bluntly: “As long as thereexists the capitalist encirclement, we’ll have wreckers, spies, saboteurs andmurderers sent into our hinterland by foreign states.”11

These ominous words were not spoken in vain. Soon the so-called GreatTerror broke loose, a bloodbath of astounding proportions. According toofficial figures, almost 700,000 people were executed during 1937 and1938.12 In these two years, Stalin signed lists with almost 40,000 names ofparty and state cadres and other dignitaries to be shot.13 The main target ofthe terror was not the Soviet and party apparatus. In terms of numbers ofvictims the murder of the allegedly oppositionist elements in the Soviet elitewas a minor affair compared with two other “operations.”

In the summer of 1937, a campaign of mass arrests and executionsstarted against “former kulaks, active anti-Soviet elements and criminals.”The anti-Soviet elements included a variety of categories, such as formerofficials of non-communist political parties, priests, White Guardists andtsarist police officials. Stalin alleged that many former kulaks and criminalswho had returned from their places of exile engaged in activities such assabotage. The operation was in part directed against common criminals andsocially marginal people, who were seen as enemies of the system. Butanother part was a final “mopping up” of the remaining “people from thepast,” a crackdown on the former classes and on those whom Stalin thoughtwere their political representatives.14 Altogether, this one campaign resultedin 350,000 executions.15

Simultaneously a second mass operation started against so-called“counter-revolutionary national contingents” among certain minoritycommunities: Poles, Latvians, Germans, Estonians, Finns, Greeks, Iranians,Bulgarians, Macedonians, Chinese, Rumanians and others. Those arrested

116 The sharpening of the class struggle

were accused of criminal activities in the service of the respective foreigngovernments with which they were ethnically linked.16 In this operation,around 250,000 people were executed.17 It highlighted Stalin’s Russian patri-otic orientation but also the fact that the leader continued to understand thestruggle in defence of the Soviet state as part of a global battle betweenrevolution and counter-revolution. The foreign governments were enlistingthe services of Soviet citizens as part of a plot to restore capitalism inRussia. For Stalin the terror, including its “national” department, remaineda climactic form of class struggle.

In November 1938, Stalin and Molotov signed a decision ending theGreat Terror. The “great work to destroy the enemies of the people and toclean up [ochistka] the USSR” had been accomplished. The method of massrepression need not be used again.18 Mass executions on this gigantic scalewere indeed not repeated. Stalin explained that Russia was now “free ofclass collisions” because even the rudiments of the exploiting classes hadbeen liquidated. The last internal sources of capitalist restoration had beendestroyed. Had Russia been an island, the victory of socialism would havebeen “final.”19 However, the leader never relaxed. In 1941, he noted that itremained a task of the planning authorities “to close all channels for arestoration of capitalism.”20 In 1952, he wrote that if the kolkhozy wereallowed to own their own tractors, they would become so independent of thestate that a “rebirth of capitalism” would be inevitable.21 Thus, although theinternal conditions for capitalist restoration were abolished, they might berecreated if the party made serious mistakes.22 Even leaving the imperialistthreat out of account, there was no room for complacency. Stalin neverwithdrew his thesis of the sharpening class struggle.

True believer

It is not difficult to recognise the operations against the criminals, kulaks,anti-Soviet elements and counter-revolutionary nationals during the GreatTerror as part of a “class” operation. The Stalinist authorities believed suchgroups to be a direct threat to the stability of their socialist system. Next todoubts about the loyalty to the Soviet state of the national minorities, theissues underlying the climactic events were often of an economic nature.Soviet industry and agriculture faced severe functional problems, whichneeded to be explained and addressed. The doctrine of class struggle repre-sented the terms in which Stalin as a Marxist understood thesocio-economic problems he faced. He attributed these problems to specificstrata of the population, interpreting these groups in terms of class. In thatway, Stalinist class doctrine remained an interpretation of reality but,because of the outrageous nature of that interpretation, it introduced a newelement of murderous extremism into reality.

But Stalin’s murdering of tens of thousands of his own party and stateofficials – can that operation too be understood as a result of the leader’s

The sharpening of the class struggle 117

insistence on “continuing the class struggle?” Publicly, Stalin treated theformer oppositionist leaders – Trotskii, Zinov’ev, Bukharin and others – astraitors, conspirators and political representatives of the bourgeois class. Todestroy them was a matter of defending the socialist state against the threatof capitalist restoration. But was the Soviet dictator serious when he madesuch outrageous allegations, or was he deceiving his audience to cover upother and more real motives? It is not my purpose to discuss the wholecomplex of backgrounds and motives of the Great Terror, but we mustknow whether Stalin took his own publicly avowed doctrines seriously. Theevidence is overwhelming that he did.

It appears that already in the early 1930s Stalin was convinced that theoppositional leaders, who had given up their resistance against him, wereinvolved in a widely ramified imperialist conspiracy. Starting in the summerof 1930, a number of prominent specialists in various state institutions –N.D. Kondrat’ev, Leonid Ramzin and others – were arrested on charges ofsabotaging Russian finance, industry and agriculture on the orders ofemigrant Russian capitalists and Western European governments, who werepreparing an invasion of the Soviet Union. Stalin’s correspondence suggeststhat he believed in the accusations. In a letter to OGPU chairmanMenzhinskii he wrote:

Ramzin’s testimony is very interesting. I think the most interesting in histestimony is the question of the intervention in general, and in partic-ular the question of the timing of the intervention. It appears that theyaimed for an intervention in 1930, but postponed it to 1931 or even to1932. This is very probable and important.

Stalin wanted Ramzin to be questioned to find out why they had postponedit. The arrested people, “being (unquestionably!) interventionists,” shouldknow about this. He was convinced that in this way the attempts at interven-tion could be paralysed for at least one or two years.23 In September 1930,Stalin privately ordered Molotov to publish the testimony of “Anglo-bastards,” who were the “organisers of the explosions, fires and destructionof our factories.” Their evil deeds were to be made known widely.24 And hedirectly linked the old oppositionists in the party to these cases. He wrote toMolotov that former leftist leader Piatakov was inspired by the plotters. Hedid not doubt that there existed a “Rykov–Piatakov bloc,” allied with the“Kondrat’ev–defeatist tendencies.”25

And that was not all. During 1930, Stalin received a report fromMenzhinskii that chief of the general staff Tukhachevskii might bepreparing a coup d’état. Thereupon Stalin wrote to his comradeOrdzhonikidze that he did not know whether to believe this. But thereexisted at least the possibility that the “Kondrat’ev–Sukhanov–Bukharinparty” aimed for “a military dictatorship, if only they can get rid of the CC,

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of the kolkhozy and sovkhozy, of the bolshevik tempos of development ofindustry.” Fortunately, the leader convinced himself some time later that, ashe wrote to Molotov, Tukhachevskii “appeared 100% pure. That’s verygood.” Subsequently, the matter petered out.26 Nevertheless, strikingly, in1930 we already have the fully developed concept of a bloc of rightists andleftists, in league with conspirators in the Red Army and bourgeois special-ists, who again co-operated with the imperialist powers to prepare militaryintervention against the USSR. And all this appears not from statements forpublic consumption but from Stalin’s private mail.

In the years 1930 to 1933 new opposition groups were again formed inthe party. However, in no case did they gain any significant scale. But if hefound out about it Stalin was genuinely alarmed. In 1930, the authoritieswere informed that RSFSR Prime Minister Syrtsov was conspiring withFirst Secretary of the trans-Caucasian District Committee Lominadze.Stalin took this “Left–Right bloc” seriously. He commented to Molotovabout the “anti-party (in essence right deviationist) little factional group”and added: “They played at a takeover.”27 Another affair concerned high-ranking government and party officials Eismont, Tolmachev and A.P.Smirnov, who were accused of having formed an opposition group. Thereality behind this was that they had been complaining privately aboutStalin’s policies. The leader understood that there was not much to it, but aletter of his to Klim Voroshilov of December 1932 shows that he neverthe-less considered it to be a case of opposition:

It appears to be an oppositional group around the vodka of Eismontand Rykov, Tomskii’s wild boar hunts, …Smirnov’s growling andrumbling and all kinds of Moscow gossips for dessert.28

Stalin always suspected even his closest comrades of not recognisingcounter-revolutionary plots. In August 1932, for example, he complained toKaganovich that Politburo member Stanislav Kosior failed to recognise that,through his “direct agents” in the Ukrainian party, Polish leader Pilsudskiwas organising an espionage network.29 The murder of Leningrad partyleader Sergei Kirov on 1 December 1934 further excited Stalin’s fears. Hewas afraid that he would be next. He was warned by history – or so hethought. In June 1935, he commented on the Kirov murder to the Frenchwriter Romain Rolland in the following way:

In such circumstances the power must be strong, firm and fearless.Otherwise it is no power and it will not be recognised as such. It appearsthat the French Communards did not understand this, they were too softand indecisive. Karl Marx reprimanded them for that. And this is thereason why they lost, and the French bourgeois did not show mercy forthem. That’s a lesson for us.30

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In early 1935, a large group of Kremlin staff – from librarians to guardpersonnel – had been arrested. In March, Stalin gave a speech in theOrgbureau in which he explained what was going on. It is forceful testimonyto the mental state of the Soviet leader. He was dissatisfied with the way theparty organisation was run. The bolsheviks had gained power, but they didnot know how to handle it: “we turn it over, like a monkey smelling at a pairof spectacles, we lick it, and that’s all.”31 He asked in particular how it couldbe that the “elements hostile to us” were operating more shrewdly than thecommunists.

People didn’t understand that the greater our victories and the quickerwe proceed forward, the sharper will be the struggle against us….You’ve heard what went on in the Kremlin. A single person who hasaccess to the apartments of our leaders – a cleaning woman who cleansthe rooms, or a librarian who visits an apartment under the pretext ofbringing the books in order. Who are they? Often we don’t know that.There exists a very great variety of poisons which are very easy to apply.The poison is put in a book – you take the book, you read and write. Orthe poison is put on a pillow – you go to bed and breathe. And a monthlater it’s all over…. We have two eyes, but we must have four.32

The first great trial, at which Zinov’ev and Kamenev were condemned todeath, took place in August 1936. The so-called Trotskyite–Zinovievite blocwas accused of having organised the murder of Kirov. More or less simulta-neously, cases were prepared against other former leftists Piatakov,Sokol’nikov and Radek, and against the former rightist leaders Bukharin,Rykov and Tomskii. We have several documents to suggest that Stalin wasunder the impression that the confessions that were beaten out of his victimswere genuine. There is for example his comment on the report of the ques-tioning of Sokol’nikov on 4 October. It concerned discussions the latter hadhad with an English journalist. Stalin wrote in the margin, presumably forhis own eyes only:

But did he then inform him of the plan to kill the leaders of the VKP?Of course he did…. Of course Sokol’nikov provided Talbot with infor-mation on the USSR, on the CC, on the PB, on the GPU, oneverything. Therefore Sokol’nikov was an informer (an intelligence man,a spy) of the English intelligence service.33

Stalin’s speech at the December 1936 plenary session of the CentralCommittee also provides an insight into his state of mind. The Soviet leadercontinually broke in during People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs Ezhov’sspeeches with informative questions on points such as what kind of linksKamenev and Piatakov had entertained with which imperialist governments.He also told Rykov that “you, and Tomskii definitely, and perhaps also

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Bukharin, simply had to know that these bastards were preparing some dirtybusiness.” When Rykov and Bukharin asked desperately to be trusted, Stalinanswered:

All right, let’s talk of sincerity and trust. When Kamenev and Zinov’evdeclared in 1932 that they revoked their mistakes and recognised thecorrectness of the position of the party we believed them. …but wemade a mistake…. When Smirnov and Piatakov declared that theyrevoked their views, declared about that openly in the press, we believedthem…. We made a mistake. Try to believe in the sincerity of peopleafter that! We drew one conclusion: one cannot believe former opposi-tionists on their word.34

Bukharin and Rykov were arrested at the next plenary session of the CentralCommittee in February–March 1937. They did not come to trial until early1938, but with their arrest the repression of the former oppositionists wasmore or less completed. But the Great Terror was only beginning. First,Stalin’s old suspicions about the military were revived. In June 1937, a groupof leading Red Army commanders, among whom Tukhachevskii was the mostprominent, were condemned to death. They were accused of having organiseda putschist group, linked with the Trotskyites and rightists and working for theGerman intelligence service. The most complete reflection of Stalin’s interpre-tation of the events that we now have is his speech in early June at an extendedmeeting of the USSR Military Council, shortly before the trial.

A group of thirteen people was involved in the conspiracy, the leader toldhis audience, among whom were a few “political leaders” such as Trotskii,Rykov, Bukharin and Politburo candidate member Rudzutak. FormerCommissar of Internal Affairs Iagoda was also part of the group, and thenthere were the military men. “What kind of people are these? It’s very inter-esting to know that,” Stalin said, as if he was giving a lecture. He firstexplained that what linked these bastards was not their social origins. Thatwas not even relevant. Lenin was of noble descent, and Engels was a capi-talist. Stalin condemned the “biological approach” as un-Marxist. “Weconsider Marxism not as a biological science, but as a sociological science.”

Of the thirteen culprits, “ten of them were spies.” Trotskii’s motive forproviding espionage services to the imperialists and for organising industrialsabotage was to prove that he really had “people” in Russia, i.e. that hecould not be ignored. And then Stalin explained what espionage was in hisinterpretation: “You remember Radek’s testimony, you remember Livshits’stestimony, you remember Sokol’nikov’s testimony – they gave information.Well, that’s espionage too.” Take Iagoda: “He informed the Germans who ofthe GPU officials has such-and-such vices. He sent such chekisty abroad forholidays.” In essence, Stalin accused these people of having been too easy-going, too loose in their relations with officials from capitalist countries.And he interpreted that as a form of espionage, adding in the process his

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own unfounded suspicions to their small transgressions. And then there wasthe crucial fact of personal “links,” “relations” – sviazy in Russian – a wordthat continually returned during the Great Terror: “We have no data that[Bukharin] himself provided information, but Enukidze, as well asKarakhan and Rudzutak, were very strongly linked to him.” And then heexplained how it could all have happened:

You can ask, of course, a question like – how can it be, these people,yesterday they were still communists, and suddenly they became a ruth-less instrument in the hands of the German espionage service? Thepoint is that they were recruited. Today they demand from them toprovide information. If you don’t provide it, we already have writtenproof [tvoia raspiska] that you have been recruited, we’ll publish it.

And so it went on; the imperialists blackmailed them to go ever further onthe road to murder and sabotage. “They tell them, organise a group whichmust arrest the government. Reports are sent that there is such a group, we’lldo everything, we’ll make the arrest etc.” But how did the imperialistsmanage to recruit so many people in the first place?

That’s a very serious question. I think that here they operated as follows.A person is disgruntled about something, for instance, he is disgruntledabout it that, as a former Trotskyite or Zinovievite, he is not promotedso easily…. They begin with small things, with a small ideologicalgroup, and then they went further. Among themselves they talked asfollows: look here, boys, what do we have? We have the GPU in ourpocket, Iagoda is in our pocket, we have the Kremlin in our pocket….We have everything in our pocket. Either we move up today, ortomorrow – when we’ll come to power – we’ll be left out in the cold.35

This was a speech for a large group of military men, intended to convincethem that their commanders had been arrested for a real reason.Theoretically, it is possible that Stalin was putting on a show, that he knew itwas all a fake. But the speech sounds genuine, as if Stalin was speaking tohimself. He was convincing himself that the suspicions which his own mindhad produced were really not unfounded. He too doubted, he found it diffi-cult to believe that so many good communists had turned traitor. He toowanted to understand what was going on. And here he laid out the answerhe had come up with himself.36 We have confirmation from the Bulgariancommunist leader Georgi Dimitrov that Stalin believed in the accuracy ofthe charges. In November 1937, the dictator told him that the arrestedpeople were “weak elements”:

[They] did mentally not accept the party line, they did especially notdigest the collectivisation (when it was necessary to slit the throat of the

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kulak), they went underground. They joined up with the enemiesabroad, promised Ukraine to the Germans, White Russia to the Poles,the Primor’e to the Japanese. They expected a war and in particularinsisted that the German fascists soon began a war against the USSR.

Stalin added that he had known already in 1936 that something was goingon, “but we waited to get a hold of more threads.” The conspirators plannedto strike early in 1937, but they could not decide. Then they wanted toattack the Kremlin in July, but they became afraid. “I told our [comrades]:they won’t dare, they won’t act, and I laughed about their plans.”37

In the summer of 1937, the Terror was spilling over to the Stalinist cadresthemselves. Tens of thousands of Stalin loyalists in the apparatus wereaccused of being personally “linked” to the former oppositionists and subse-quently condemned to death. And all the time Stalin continued to write tohis confidantes in exactly the same terms as were used in the columns ofPravda. Take for example his important correspondence with Ezhov. InAugust, he ordered him to detain all wives of “traitors to the motherlandand members of the Right–Trotskyite espionage and wrecking organisa-tion.”38 And in December he notified Ezhov and other comrades that theeditorial board of Izvestiia was “the object of Trotskyite–Bukharinistwrecking.”39 On another occasion, Stalin complained to Ezhov aboutKosior’s behaviour. The latter’s brother had been a Trotskyite. Stalin wroteto his security chief that the brother was “a subject alien to the workingclass” and that it was surprising that his colleague in the Politburo had inter-vened for his sake.40

The brother of another Politburo member, Kaganovich, was alsoarrested. Again Stalin seemed convinced of his guilt. Kaganovich laterremembered that Stalin told him at a Politburo meeting: “we received testi-mony that your brother Mikhail is part of a conspiracy.” When Kaganovichsaid that this was a lie, Stalin reacted: “What do you mean, a lie? I receivedtestimony.”41 The Soviet dictator could even believe in the guilt of membersof his own family. Witness the case of his brother-in-law and NKVD officialRedens. According to the leader’s son, Vasilii, when Lavrentii Beriiaproposed to arrest him his father commented: “look into it very carefully…Idon’t believe Redens is an enemy.” But later he told his son: “I was mistakenin Redens.” The latter was shot.42

One of the cases against an important Stalinist we know most about isthat of Komsomol leader Aleksandr Kosarev. In July 1937, Stalin accusedhim of not assisting the NKVD in tracking down enemies in his organisa-tion. In response, Kosarev denied that a particular Komsomol official wasan enemy.43 Later, Kosarev accused a Komsomol activist of discreditinghonest comrades. She complained in a letter to Stalin, who thereupon saidto Matvei Shkiriatov: “We have to verify this case carefully. We should notonly cherish honest people, but also defend them when they are treatedincorrectly.” The showdown came at a Komsomol CC plenum in November

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1938. When Kosarev dared to doubt whether some members of the organi-sation were enemies, Stalin said:

It seems that all understand [the mistakes made], except the CC of theKomsomol…. But maybe [Kosarev] did understand them, but he doesnot want to understand them…. But maybe this is a system instead ofmistakes? There are simply too many mistakes after everything thathappened. Two years of wrecking have been liquidated, but there stillremain very many mistakes.44

The Komsomol leader was subsequently arrested and shot. All suchinstances strongly suggest that Stalin believed he was fighting real traitors tothe cause of the working class and the Soviet Union. We have to do herewith private notes made by the leader, his mail to close collaborators and hiswords at limited forums of party leaders. I should add that I am unaware ofthe existence of any remark by Stalin found among the great quantity ofarchival material that has come to light in the past few years that wouldsuggest he realised he was tracking down innocent people. There is noobservable difference between what Stalin said and wrote privately andpublicly.45

But how could someone believe accusations he made up himself ? Perhapsthe answer to this question is not as complex as it seems. The point ofdeparture was Stalin’s a priori conviction that the leaders of the oppositionalgroups of the 1920s were still plotting against him. He could not believe thatexperienced politicians like Trotskii (whom Stalin privately called a “crim-inal gang boss and menshevik charlatan”46), Zinov’ev and Bukharin wouldgive up so easily. And he believed that, to survive politically, they had noother choice but to enter into a coalition with the imperialists. At somepoint, his suspicions against certain people would become acute, for instanceafter the occurrence of frequent accidents in certain industries. He wouldinterpret such events as confirming his suspicion of treason. He trusted hisown instincts enough to feel sure that the accidents were caused by delib-erate sabotage. When Kirov was killed, he was immediately convinced thatan opposition group was behind this. That had to be the case.

But the Soviet dictator realised that he did not know the details of theplots. Therefore, after those he suspected were arrested, the investigatorswere ordered to question them – if necessary by prolonged physical violenceand blackmail – in order to find out the details of the conspiracy. Stalinmight even suggest answers to their questions in case he nurtured suspicionsof a more specific nature. And thereby the process began, for most of theaccused would break down. They “confessed” and indeed produced detailsof criminal activities. The police triumphantly reported back to Stalin thathis suspicions had been confirmed. The leader as well as the interrogatorswere fully aware that the confessions were forced, but that did not neces-sarily make them false. Stalin was so convinced of the guilt of his victims

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that he believed he was forcing the latter to unveil the truth.47 This model ofa vicious circle of suspicion, interrogation and confession is more fruitfulthan the assumption that cases were “fabricated.” It explains why Stalin, thesecurity services and the party organs operated with the same conspiracytheory in their internal communications as they did in public. It alsoexplains why confessions were demanded even when cases were tried insecret or did not come to court at all. People were questioned because Stalinwanted answers.48

The doctrine of class struggle, which Stalin inherited from Lenin, was noempty rhetoric. It fed his suspicions and thereby provided a starting pointfor the Great Terror. The doctrine predicted that the defeated enemy wouldin desperation strengthen his resistance and turn to the imperialists. Thisexpectation set Stalin off on his fatal course towards mass murder. Thedoctrine served, as it were, as a powerful hypothesis; and the dictator hadthe power to produce the proof of the hypothesis, whereas he was ideologi-cally blinded enough not to realise that he was producing the proof ratherthan discovering it. All this is not to deny that power was the real issue. Thatit was is recognisable in Stalin’s own understanding of the events. He didafter all accuse those he murdered of wanting to take power. His own goalwas to prevent that and to make his own power more absolute. For Stalin’spart, the Great Terror in the party was obviously a power struggle, but theform it took was determined by the Leninist system of ideas he adhered to.

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In the early years of the century, Koba Dzhugashvili defended an even moretotal ideal of party unity than Lenin’s. The latter stood for plenipotentiarypower of the Central Committee. In his classically dictatorial concept,democracy signified the right to elect the Central Committee (CC) at thecongress. Until the next congress, the membership was for all practicalpurposes subjected to the leading board. The CC had the right to preventundesirable debates and to appoint local committees. Dzhugashvili’s adop-tion of an even more radical model was rooted in an abhorrence of what heconsidered the feudal tradition. In October 1904, he commented as followson the way in which the mensheviks and their alleged sympathisers treateddifferences in the party:

These people – Rosa, Kautsky, Plekhanov, Aksel’rod, Vera Zasulich andthe others – seem to have worked out some sort of family traditions, likeold acquaintances. They cannot…“betray” each other, and defend eachother as the members of a clan of the patriarchal tribes defended eachother, without examining the guilt or innocence of their relative.1

In his “The class of the proletarians and the party of the proletarians” ofJanuary 1905, Dzhugashvili explained why he sided with Lenin. Hecompared the RSDWP, with its Central Committee leading the local organi-sations according to one plan, with a “complex organism (consisting) of agreat number of very simple organisms.” The party should be “no coinci-dental accumulation of individuals but a closed, centralist organisation.”The RSDWP was no “philosophical school or religious sect” but a party ofstruggle. Complete “unity of views” was demanded of all members. Only hewho “completely accepts” the party’s views could enter it. Only he whoconsidered it his duty “to merge his wishes with the wishes of the party”could become a member. The party demanded of all members that “wemerge our personal interests with the interests of the party.” Koba disdain-fully rejected the easy conditions of access proposed by the menshevikleader Martov. This could only benefit professors and gymnasium students.The menshevik party resembled a “hospitable patriarchal family.”2

10 Total unity

It appears that the reason why Stalin rejected a decentralised and relaxedparty life was that it reminded him of tribalism, of the patriarchal system ofclans and families of traditional Georgia. These families and clans protectedtheir members against the outside world whatever sin they committed.Serving as a shield against the central authorities, they protected those notworthy of being protected, thereby preventing society from functioningproperly. The party should break with this harmful tradition and function asa compact community based on unreserved dedication of its members.Mercilessness, not to protect one’s unfit or erring comrade against the party,to give oneself totally to it without asking anything in return – only thatcreated an efficient fighting machine.

In the January 1905 article, centralism was taken to a remarkable, totali-tarian extreme. If one “merges” even one’s wishes with those of the party,nothing can be left of any particular point of view. If taken literally, Koba’sthesis implied that someone who was prepared to defend the party programand publicly swallow all his doubts about it, but who continued to have suchdoubts, would be unfit for membership. All party members should not onlyact as one, not only speak as one, they should also think as one. This ends inthe eradication of the personality as such.

Dzhugashvili’s totalitarian interpretation of the united will can easily beseen as rooted in Russian traditions. The nineteenth-century Slavophiles, forexample, nurtured the ideal of complete organic unity. Only throughabsorption in the collective and dedication to the community did the indi-vidual find his freedom. In the work of Konstantin Aksakov, the villagecommune was treated as an association of dedicated people renouncingtheir personal egoism, a “moral choir” in which collective self-abnegationwas the highest virtue.3 A similar analysis of the organisation of theOrthodox Church was presented by Aleksei Khomiakov with his principleof “sobornost’” – conciliarity or collectedness – according to which theChurch was a living organism fusing all believers into one.4 However, Ifound no indication that Stalin, at any stage of his life, was even aware ofthese Slavophile notions.

We are on safer grounds with the Orthodox Church itself. Theoretically,this Church rules out any doctrinal diversity. Full doctrinal unity is allegedto be attainable, as all members are united in one and the same Holy Spirit.This is the “common mind” present in each of them separately.5 This notionis founded mainly in St Paul’s letters, in which the Church is described as abody held together by one Spirit. We know for certain that Stalin was wellacquainted with this. The model of the Church must have been the firstorganisational theory he became acquainted with, as a former seminarian.Again, however, I did not find any occasion when Stalin, at any time in hislife, referred positively to the Church as a model of strongly integratedorganisation. Common sense suggests that it must have played at least anunconscious role in developing his ideal of a closely organised party, but thelack of evidence does not bring us much further.

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Robert Williams suggests that Dzhugashvili’s demand that partymembers fuse their personality into the party whole had its origins in thetradition of the so-called “collectivist” tendency among the bolsheviks,headed by Lenin’s comrade in the Bolshevik Centre, Aleksandr Bogdanov.Their collectivism apparently appealed to Dzhugashvili, and he set it up asan ideal working model of the party organisation.6 Bogdanov provided aradical interpretation of his own of the Marxist idea that humankindprogressed from primitive communism through class society to the commu-nism of the future. Mankind had in its primitive stage been characterised bythe homogeneity of an undifferentiated embryo, of a lower organism. Theperson did not yet really exist. There had been no “I” as a centre of separateinterests and strivings. Modern egoist individualism was a product of thebreak-up of primitive communism by the advent of classes. The veryconcept of the individual, the “separate I,” was a historical construct. Withthe future new collectivisation of mankind, there would once again be acomplete “merger of individual lives into one grandiose whole.” In thetotally unified communist society, individuals would be like the cells of anorganic being.7

Thus the human personality, the individual mind, was to be absorbedcompletely into the collective of the future. Williams’s analysis of Koba’sindebtedness to the Bogdanovites is supported by the fact that, in respect of

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Figure 6 A.A. Bogdanov: total unity

political tactics, he was close to Bogdanov for a period of time. In 1907–08,he initially sided with the latter in his conflict with Lenin.8 A further indica-tion that Williams is right is Dzhugashvili’s use of the terminology of theBogdanovites in his writings of 1905. He shared with them the curiousobsession with the flattening of the “I,” as the individual was mostly calledin Bogdanovite publications. For example, in a pamphlet of May of thatyear he accused Plekhanov and Martov of having no real differences withLenin. They felt insulted and therefore invented differences. Their realmotive was that they did not “subject their ‘I’ to our sacred cause.”9 A fewmonths later he wrote that

the party and its interests mean nothing whatsoever to the “menshe-viks,” …they take the party for a warm fur coat, which is needed onlywhen it’s freezing, but which can be discarded when it’s warm…as soonas their party “I” gets into conflict with the group “I” of the “menshe-viks,” they will trample on the “holy of holies” of the party, its centralinstitutions.10

Meanwhile, despite this “collectivist” interpretation of party unity, after1905 Stalin did not in practice turn out to be a hard-liner when it came toenforcing discipline in the bolshevik faction or to relations with the menshe-viks. He was even guilty of the sin of “conciliationism,” as the moreeasy-going approach to party unity was called.11 Lenin’s views of partydemocracy were not static either. When the bolsheviks and mensheviksreunited in 1906, he accepted the menshevik principle of “democraticcentralism,” under the provisions of which free debate and eligibility of localcommittees was guaranteed.

However, once in power the bolshevik leader began to work his way back.The Tenth Party Congress in March 1921 signified the beginning of the endof party democracy, as far as it ever existed. The congress is known forbanning factions – organised groups in the party with a platform and disci-pline of their own – but that was not all. In his speech, Lenin complainedthat the party was no “debating club.” No longer did it need any opposition.Henceforth, exchange of opinions should be confined to special publicationsso as to avoid struggles that might harm the party’s striking power. Thecongress banned all what it called “unbusiness-like” criticism of the partyline. Not only belonging to an organised opposition group but also propa-ganda for its ideas was made incompatible with membership of the party.12

For all practical purposes, the communist party was reduced to an organisa-tion where, except at the congress, only one line was legitimately defended.

Stalin let himself be drawn along with Lenin’s new, strict interpretation ofdemocratic centralism. He felt increasingly uneasy about his own “concilia-tionist” errors. Shortly after the Tenth Party Congress, he wrote that Leninhad been right in his struggle against the conciliators. Without this “theparty would have been diluted and would not have been an organism, but a

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conglomerate of heterogeneous elements.” Lassalle had been correct to notethat parties strengthen themselves by purging themselves.13 In other words,those who defended a line differing from the one laid down at the congressshould be excluded from the ranks.

In his position of General Secretary, Stalin was responsible for upholdingthe new regime in the party. But Lenin was not happy with the way his pupilhandled this responsibility. In his notes of December 1922 and January1923, he proposed to strengthen the Central Committee in order to be ableto contain the conflicts between the leaders in the Politburo. Stalin in partic-ular should be removed as General Secretary, for with his rudeness and lackof tolerance he was bound to provoke a conflict with Trotskii, which mightescalate into a split in the party.14

Ironically, Lenin’s last move against Stalin might be interpreted as theclimax of his campaign to undo party democratism rather than as a lastditch attempt to save it. In 1921, the bolshevik leader had muzzled the partymembership in order to silence dissenting voices. His demand to Stalin,Trotskii and the other leaders of the Politburo to co-operate peacefullyamong themselves amounted to an attempt to extend this enforced unity tothe top of the party. With his demand to stop bickering, he put the muzzleover the only remaining branch of the party where real debate was stillallowed, namely its very summit. Seen from this perspective, it is notsurprising that, once Lenin’s illness had definitely incapacitated him, Stalinadopted his suggestions. At the 1923 party congress, he confirmed that thereindeed existed a risk of a split. Over the years quarrelsome habits hadformed, which created an unhealthy atmosphere. Therefore he supportedLenin’s proposal to strengthen the Central Committee with new people whowere free from such traditions.15

In 1923 and 1924, when he emerged from under Lenin’s shadow, theGeneral Secretary elaborated an original concept of the party as aphenomenon to be treated from two angles – “as an organism, living itsparticular life, and as an apparatus, giving out slogans and checking on theirfulfilment.” A political party was a system of institutions with superior andsubordinate officials, but a healthy party, a real fighting organisation, shouldalso be a “self-active [samodeiatel’nyi] organism.” In this context, theorganic metaphor did not refer to total ideological unification but more orless to its opposite – to the need for a party to be alive, to have an activelycommitted membership, which presupposed a measure of debate. Turninghis 1905 argument around, “complete one-mindedness” reminded Stalin ofa “sect” or a “philosophical school.” He acknowledged that debate had atro-phied in the past few years, which he attributed to the militarised style ofwar communism, to the unfortunate example of hierarchical state bureau-cracy and to the lack of education and cultural development among themajority of party members.

But then again, debate was not supposed to undermine the regime thatLenin had established in 1921. Stalin insisted that as long as the capitalist

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encirclement lasted there could never be full party democracy. Thereforedebate should be limited in several ways. First, for the party to be a “self-active organism with a united will,” there should in any case be a “completeunity of views” on all fundamental questions. Second, criticism of the partyshould be moderate and raise rather than undermine the membership’s faithin it. Debate should serve to fortify conscious discipline. Healthy debateaimed at reaching consensus. Stalin insisted that after the struggle of opin-ions ended and a decision had been taken, the “unity of will and the unity ofaction of all members” should be established. This touched on a third point:debate should also strengthen the party’s unified activity. Stalin typicallydescribed the party as a “monolithic organisation, carved from one piece,having one will and uniting in its work all shades of thought in one streamof practical action.” To enhance active commitment of the membership wasthe whole point of democratic debate:

For [the opposition] freedom of groupings and democracy are unbreak-ably linked. We don’t understand democracy like that. We understanddemocracy as the raising of the activeness and consciousness of theparty mass, as the systematic involving of the party mass not only in thediscussion of questions but also in the leadership to work.16

To conclude, Stalin used the organic metaphor of the ideal party ambiva-lently. Already before the revolution he had on occasion used it not to referto total unity of views but to other needs such as organisational integration,a committed membership and a degree of free debate, i.e. to the need to be“alive.”17 The organic metaphor knows this ambivalence in itself. Anorganism is typically an integrated unit of one mind, which in practicalterms implies that debate, as far as it can be allowed at all, must result in fullconsensus. However, an organism is never static either, and it knows an innerlife of its own. One cannot force members to think identically by decreewithout the danger of demoralising them and driving them away from theparty. Therefore some debate cannot be avoided. From Stalin’s perspective,the boundaries of what represented acceptable and unacceptable debatewere fluid and could not be captured in a simple formula.

But as the years went by, he interpreted party discipline in ever stricterterms. Gradually, unity of mind became the party organism’s main charac-teristic. In October 1926, Stalin told the Politburo that the comrades of theminority should “openly admit” that they were wrong. It was defined as thetask of the party “to make the opposition bloc admit that their views arewrong.”18 This was new. Lenin did his utmost to forge a steel unity in theparty and to prevent the expression of rival political lines. The ideal of themonolithic party was his, and so were terms like “unity of action” and“unity of will.” But he never demanded that oppositionists castigate theirown views. Stalin’s initiative was the beginning of a slide downwards to anunprecedented form of psychological terrorism.

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At the Fifteenth Party Congress, Stalin once again demanded of theoppositionists “to disarm fully and completely in the ideological and organi-sational respect” and “to take back their anti-bolshevik views openly andhonestly, before the whole world.” Such formulations show that even morewas demanded than public self-criticism. The demand that self-criticismshould be “honest” implied that a true change of mind should haveoccurred. This might force the oppositionists, on pain of expulsion, tocomply with the demand against their real convictions, which would makethem vulnerable to the charge of insincerity. Stalin was aware of thisdilemma. When Kamenev noted that it was not part of the bolshevik tradi-tion to demand public self-criticism, the leader insisted that the opposition“drop its mask,” and he added:

History shows, the facts show, that no one as yet jumped so easily fromone set of principles to another, no one as yet changed his own views soeasily and freely as the leaders of our opposition. Why, then, couldn’tthey take their own views back now too, if the interests of the partydemand this?19

Stalin demanded an “honest” transformation in his opponents. In May1929, the dictator treated the problem of factionalism in two speeches in theExecutive Committee of the Comintern. The problem with factions was thatmembers would characteristically spend their valuable energy in endlessintrigues and manoeuvres to outflank each other instead of dedicating theirefforts to the party. Factional struggle was “the most furious of all kinds ofstruggle.” It “blinds the most objective of people.” The only way to avoidfactionalism was a true mental transformation, to sacrifice pride:

the highest mark of courage does not consist in defending one’s ownconvictions and showing oneself a Demiurg, declaring oneself a supe-rior power in comparison to the will and decision of the Comintern.True courage, the highest spirit of courage consists in rising aboveoneself, overcoming oneself and submitting to the decision of theComintern. …without the preparedness to overcome oneself – if youplease: one’s self-love – and to submit one’s own will to the will of thehigher level, there is no collective, no leadership, no communism.20

It was understood by some perceptive party members that Stalin’s newdemandingness represented a resurrected Bogdanovism. In late October1927, A.M. Kollontai reported in Pravda on the rise of a “very special andnew concept” in which discipline was not seen “as subjection to an ‘order’but as a fusion of one’s own will with the will of the collective body.” Shecalled this “collectivist thinking.”21 And some of the defeated oppositionleaders understood what Stalin demanded of them. Referring to his own“capitulation,” Piatakov professed to a friend that a true bolshevik “will

132 Total unity

readily cast out from his mind ideas in which he has believed for years.” Tobecome one with the party “he would fuse himself with it, abandon his ownpersonality, so that there was no particle left inside him which was not atone with the party.”22

But some did not understand it. At the Sixteenth Party Congress in 1930,Stalin complained that Tomskii did not “expiate his sins.” He was not self-critical enough. Apparently, he hoped to outsmart the party, but “he didn’tunderstand that millions of eyes look at each one of us and one can’toutsmart anybody here.” Stalin demanded that the former leaders of theopposition break with their anti-Leninist views “openly and honestly.” Tomake public confessions without convincing enthusiasm only proved thatthey were still “not completely convinced of the correctness of the partyline.” And, he added:

Here you have, comrades, the circumstances which hinder the formerleaders of the rightist opposition to come closer to the nucleus of theparty leadership and to merge themselves completely with it…. For thatthere is only one means: to break finally with their own past, to re-armanew and to merge into one with the CC of our party.23

These totalitarian demands caused a redefinition of factionalism. Anyprivate critical conversation between party members fell within its scope. Atthe January 1933 Central Committee plenum, Stalin loyalist Shkiriatovdiscussed the group of Smirnov, Eismont and Tolmachev. “Wherein does thisfaction consist?” he asked and answered: “Three people met and had a talk,they met and discussed the work of our party and our shortcomings, but notat all in order to help the party, but in order to change its line.” If that consti-tuted a faction, then no private critical talk was allowed. And Shkiriatovconfirmed that party discipline demanded that “once a decision of the partyhas been taken, one must defend it absolutely everywhere – not only at meet-ings, but also in separate talks.” There was no room in the organisation for“individual party members who disagree with the line of the party.”24 At theSeventeenth Party Congress in early 1934, Stalin triumphantly concludedthat there had at last been established a “complete unity of views of ourparty leaders on, you might say, all questions of party politics.”25

Under these conditions of a disciplining of mental life the defeated partyleaders were denied any remaining individuality. One of the most tragicexpressions of this are the letters Zinov’ev wrote to Stalin after his arrest inDecember 1934. In the first, he claimed that for the past period he had “notsaid one word, not written one sentence, not had one thought, which I hadto hide from the party, from the CC, from You personally.” The next monthhe confessed to being a hypocrite:

because we were unable really to submit to the party, to merge with it tothe end, to get filled with those feelings of complete recognition toward

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Stalin with which the whole party and the whole country has been filled,because we continued to look backwards, to live our own particular“mental life”…to live according to our own particular psychology.26

Zinov’ev did not in his despair overstate Stalin’s goal of mental conformism.The leader did indeed aim for the rooting out not only of the expression ofdeviating opinions in the party but of these very opinions themselves. InNovember 1937, he insisted that anyone “who with his deeds and thoughts –yes, also with his thoughts – attacks the unity of the socialist state will bemercilessly destroyed by us.”27 It is hard to formulate the psychology oftotalitarianism more concisely.

An interesting confirmation that Stalin realised that his model of the“merging” of minds was more extreme than Lenin’s exists. In January 1932,he asked himself how it could be that the Trotskyites had not been able toshed their menshevik heritage after they entered the bolshevik party in 1917.This was his explanation:

having shed their anti-bolshevik views and thus entering the party, theTrotskyites did nevertheless not take back these views, and because ofthat they, these very views, made themselves known with particular forceat every turn by the party.28

Thus Stalin realised that Lenin had not forced people to admit that theirviews were wrong. Meanwhile, the demand to think identically created theneed to know exactly what to think. Most important was the creation of anew body of party history. In 1935, there appeared On the Question of theHistory of the Bolshevik Organisations in the trans-Caucasus, presented in along speech by Lavrentii Beriia. It contained a falsified account of Stalin’srole in the development of trans-Caucasian bolshevism.29 Of the greatestsignificance was the 1938 History of the All-Union Communist Party(Bolsheviks). Short Course.30 In a speech on 1 October, Stalin commentedon its publication that people were “confused” by the great number of partyhistories. “With such an abundance of textbooks there is no practical unityof views…. All that created chaos in the heads of the people.” That was whythe Central Committee had decided to create a “compass,” one new, authori-tative textbook, so that “there would be no doubt…that this is what theCentral Committee officially recommends, how to express the thoughts,views, instructions of the party.”31

Gradually, the drive for unanimity spilled over from the party into societyat large. The Short Course mentioned a new phenomenon of “moral–polit-ical unity of society,” which had now allegedly been created in SovietRussia.32 This total unity was, of course, never attained. But Stalin hopedfor it, and he provided some kind of theoretical underpinning. According toLeninist doctrine, socialist ideology was embodied in the party. The toilingmasses were to a certain extent the victims of bourgeois ideology. Logically

134 Total unity

speaking there could, then, exist no ideologically unified society. But Stalindid not like this conclusion. In May 1935, he told a group of participants inthe First of May Parade that one could well be a bolshevik without being amember of the party. Many “non-party bolsheviks” served the cause of theworking class as well as any member. What is more, according to him, themajority of the bolsheviks remained outside the organisation. They wereoften the best, most modest bolsheviks, for they did not join because theydid not consider themselves worthy.33 In a speech in February 1946, Stalinexplained the matter from a fundamental angle. In former times the commu-nists mistrusted those outside the party.

But now we have different times. A barrier, called the Soviet socialsystem, now divides those outside the party from the bourgeoisie. Thissame barrier unites those outside the party with the communists intoone common collective of Soviet people…. The only difference betweenthem exists therein, that the ones are members of the party and theothers are not. But this is a formal difference.34

In other words, Stalin suggested that the Soviet system shielded the peoplemore or less from the ideological influence of the bourgeoisie. As a result,the people at large too embraced communist ideology. This was the deathstab to Lenin’s theory of the vanguard, but with a vengeance. From now oneverybody could be expected to support party doctrine. The demand formental conformism spread from the party to society as a whole. As we sawin the previous chapter, Stalin realised that society could never be reallymonolithic. He was highly suspicious of bourgeois influences filtering infrom across the border. Nevertheless, the Soviet people as an integratedcommunity of thought expressed the totalitarian ideal perfectly.

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As we saw in a previous chapter, People’s Commissar of State ControlJoseph Stalin was an outspoken defender of the need for a powerful statebureaucracy.1 Stalin never wavered in his commitment to the strong state.His claim that as socialism was approached, the state grew stronger all thetime is well known. From the leader’s own perspective, the proletarian stateshould be strengthened as an instrument of class war. There was involved aparadoxical outflow of the Marxist thesis that the destruction of the hostileclasses – national and international – was the main precondition for thedisappearance of the state. Destroying the enemy classes could only beaccomplished by a state operating at maximum strength. At the January1933 Central Committee plenum, the dictator said authoritatively:

The dying of the state takes place not through the weakening of statepower, but through its maximum strengthening, necessary in order tokill off the rudiments of the dying classes and to organise the defenceagainst the capitalist encirclement.2

Next to repressive and military tasks, the proletarian state had importanteconomic ones. Marginal notes in some of the books in his library suggestthat Stalin believed he was on this matter defending Marxist orthodoxyagainst Engels. In the Communist Manifesto, it had been announced thatafter the proletariat begins expropriation, the state has to develop the outputof the factories it takes in hand to a maximum. In a 1935 copy of State andRevolution, Stalin inserted “1)” and “2)” into Lenin’s quote of the respectiveManifesto passage next to the state’s tasks of expropriation and stimulationof production. And he added in the margin “Marx = better than Engels.”Two pages later, Lenin wrote that the proletariat needed the state not onlyfor the purpose of striking down the resistance of the exploiters but also tolead the peasants to socialism. Stalin added “Lenin � Marx,” anotherimplicit slight at Engels’s address.3 Incidentally, these notes show that after1935 Stalin was aware of the continuity between his own state-organisedindustrialisation and the original Marxist idea, although he oddly believedthat Engels had taken another view.

11 Stalin and the state

From a theoretical angle, the most interesting question is what happenedwith the Soviet state once the classes of private owners had been liquidated.According to Marx and Engels, a proletarian democratic state remained inexistence for the period leading up to communism. After the expropriationof capital, it was replaced by social self-government – although Engels wasmore explicit than Marx in insisting that this implied the state’s total disap-pearance. Making a distinction between primitive and full communism, thetwo men never suggested, though, that the state only withered away duringthe latter stage. However, this had been Lenin’s opinion. In State andRevolution, he reminded his readership that in Marx’s first stage of commu-nism, “which is usually called socialism,” there was still a differentiatedremuneration according to productive achievements. This made the survivalof the state under socialism unavoidable. Without classes, there was no classto be repressed. But as long as citizens could not take freely according totheir needs, one could not do without a regulating institution.4 The idea ofan inevitable survival of the state under socialism was originally Lenin’s –not Stalin’s.

After collectivisation had run an important part of its course, the ques-tion of the state became acute. Stalin never contemplated abolishing it, forthe same kind of reasons that he never contemplated abolishing money. Hewas realistic enough and not enough of a utopian to embark on a course ofself-destruction. But keeping the state in business after it should accordingto Marx have disappeared demanded doctrinal justification. Stalin’s

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Figure 7 Karl Marx: “better than Engels”

marginal notes show him studying the matter by reading Marx, Engels andLenin. He was concerned to find a Marxist interpretation of state socialismnot only for the public. He searched for an ideological context of thephenomenon of a socialist state as much for himself as for his audience.

Stalin saw the Soviet state after the demise of classes as a classless institu-tion. This is suggested by a 1934 copy of the party program, in which heunderlined a passage holding that all states had a “class character” and that,after the demise of classes, the state would disappear. Next to it he wrotesimply: “Not so.”5 Likewise, in a 1937 copy of Marx’s Der Bürgerkrieg inFrankreich, Stalin underlined a passage in Engels’s introduction to the effectthat the state was nothing but a machine of class suppression, commenting:“not only.”6 The most extensive notes are found in the above-mentioned1935 copy of State and Revolution, in which Stalin marked a passage on thesurvival of the state in the first stage of the classless society. This proves hisawareness of Lenin’s pioneering of the thesis. He then critically examinedother points that Lenin had written in the book and found them wanting.Lenin quoted Engels to the effect that all states were instruments of classoppression. Realising that this contradicted Lenin’s own notion of a state ina classless socialist society, Stalin commented: “under capitalism” and“No!” When Lenin wrote that states existed only under the condition ofclass contradictions, he commented: “This concerns states of exploiters.”7

Stalin realised that, in preserving a socialist state, he followed up on Lenin,but his predecessor had not thought through the matter sufficiently.

In defending the need to preserve a socialist state, the Soviet dictatorreferred mainly to its military tasks in the context of international classstruggle. In a speech on 1 October 1938 at a meeting of party propagandists,Stalin noted that the one eventuality not foreseen by Marx and Engels wasthe international isolation of the socialist state. If the proletariat hadtriumphed in Germany and in the majority of the countries surroundingRussia, the state would most probably have disappeared. The state had threefunctions: class oppression, economic-organisational and military defence.In a socialist country the first two, remaining police work and “economicleadership” – although the latter grew “tremendously” due to the plannedcharacter of the economy – could be carried out through social self-govern-ment. But defence could not. Although there remained no hostile classes inthe USSR, the international class struggle did remain. “We represent theinterests of the toilers, but in the other countries the power of the staterepresents the interests of the exploiters and there exists an antagonismbetween them.” And a military threat could never be countered by aworkers’ militia. “One rings the alarm, workers arrive, they take their gunsand go out to battle – that won’t do.” A standing army was unavoidable:

the existence of an army leads to a situation where one needs means tofeed the army. One has to mobilise all resources of the country, and forthat one needs a state apparatus, and one needs officials, and not such

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ones whom we could elect, all of them: today they are elected,tomorrow they would be chased away. We need such officials…as wouldbe experienced…. Therefore, as soon as there is an army, there is a state,a state apparatus.

The professional army formed the “basis” of the Soviet state. Moreover, aslong as the capitalist encirclement existed, the Soviet state should “not onlynot die, on the contrary – it will be strengthened.”8 The Soviet leaderrepeated all this in his speech at the Eighteenth Party Congress of March1939, although with some minor adaptations, such as his description of thesecond function of the state as including “cultural-educational” manage-ment next to economic work.9

The reason Stalin gave for his preserving the socialist state was that noeffective army could be built on the basis of the communist principle ofsocial self-government. Only a professional army could stand up to profes-sional armies.10 But he was being insincere when he claimed that, undersocialism, police work and economic-cultural management could as wellhave been carried out directly by the masses. In an earlier speech of 27September 1938, he had indicated that his preference for professional,bureaucratic administration was not confined to the army:

The intelligentsia, that are all people who are leading cadres…we wantto turn the whole working class and the whole peasantry into an intelli-gentsia, to raise their level…. Not one state can administer a countrywithout officials, without a leading cadre [komandnyi sostav] for theeconomy, for politics, for culture. Because, by what is our state distin-guished from any bourgeois state? Thereby, that it absorbed allfundamental lines of the economy and culture…. It is a giganticorganism of administration of the country. …we have about 8 millionofficials. Just imagine. This is the apparatus, with the assistance ofwhich the working class governs the country.11

Thus the need for a professional army was in fact only one aspect of thematter. The economic and cultural sectors also demanded a professionalapparatus. The dictator believed in the overall wholesomeness of the bureau-cratic model of organisation. Whereas Lenin had rehabilitated theKautskyan thesis that the state could not do without a professional bureau-cracy only for the period of transition to socialism, Stalin also accepted thisconclusion for the socialist era.

In his all-round defence of bureaucracy, Stalin believed himself to be oper-ating from a Marxist perspective. Whereas we are struck by the obviouscontinuity between Stalinist and traditional bureaucratism, this was not howStalin interpreted the matter himself. In his own mind, the size of his statedistinguished it from the political machinery of his predecessors, rather thanbeing a point of similarity. He was mainly struck by the fact that the

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bolshevik state was bigger than the imperial had been. This was the first timefor Stalin to indicate that it was a general characteristic of socialist states tobe bigger instead of smaller than bourgeois ones. He explained the need forstate gigantism mainly with reference to the socialist ambition to own, planand administer the whole economy. In May 1940, the dictator repeated thesame thing to V.A. Malyshev, noting that bourgeois states “have not absorbedthe economic organisations, but our state is not only a political organisationbut also an economic one. The more so we need [state] control.”12

I might add that Stalin’s insistence that the state completely embrace notonly the economy but all spheres, including cultural life, has a firm Marxistprecedent too, although this is less directly relevant, for he may well havebeen unaware of this. In his Marxism and the Leap to the Kingdom ofFreedom, Andrzej Walicki treats this problem extensively, quoting Engels tothe effect that in communist society the “administrative body” would have tomanage “not merely individual aspects of social life, but the whole of sociallife, in all its various activities, in all its aspects.”13 In any case, for himselfStalin argued the need to preserve a socialist state and to strengthen it to amaximum, mainly from the demands of international class struggle andfrom its ambition to administer the whole economy.

Meanwhile, the problem of the class character of the socialist statehaunted Stalin for years. Under Lenin, the “proletarian dictatorship” turnedinto perverse reality in so far as the electoral system excluded the bour-geoisie and positively discriminated in favour of the industrial working classto the detriment of the rural masses. The abolitin of universal and equalsuffrage became a defining characteristic of the proletarian dictatorship.And Stalin defended it. The Soviet state did after all not belong to the“whole people” but represented the exclusive power of the proletariat – aproletarian edinoderzhavie, “monocracy.”14

However, the proletarian dictatorship was no longer mentioned as a func-tioning reality in the new constitution of 1936. The text held that “all powerin the USSR belongs to the toilers [trudiashchiesia] of the city and thevillage.”15 In his speech to the Congress of Soviets in November 1936, Stalincommented that all exploiting classes had been liquidated. There were nolonger any mutually “antagonistic,” irreconcilable classes. The populationwas divided into three gradually merging strata: workers, peasants and intel-ligentsia. In the absence of any class to be suppressed, universal and equalsuffrage could be restored. The USSR became a “democracy for the toilers,i.e. democracy for all.” But Stalin hesitated on the right formula. He addedthat the “state leadership to society (the dictatorship) belongs to the working[rabochii] class.” To prove that the dictatorship of the working class was stillin force, the leader pointed to the article that described the communist partyas the “leading nucleus” of all social and state organisations.16 But thatproved little, for the same constitution defined the party as “the advanceguard of the toilers,” whereby the toilers again encompassed all thoseworking, i.e. not only the industrial workers.17

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From a practical point of view, the constitution’s failure to claim anexclusively proletarian character reflected the new reality of the introductionof general and equal suffrage, which brought positive discrimination infavour of the urban working class to an end. The proletarian dictatorship,for what it had been worth, was in practice thereby abolished. According toMolotov, Stalin admitted privately that the proletarian dictatorship was athing of the past.18 In his speech of 1 October 1938, the latter observed thatin its first, class stage the proletarian state served to oppress the bourgeoisie.Soviet power was now in a second stage, “when power becomes the power ofthe toilers. I wouldn’t say that it is now a class power, that it is the power ofone class.”19

Remarkably, however, in his speech at the Eighteenth Party Congress theleader omitted the thesis of the classless state. The 1939 party rules definedthat organisation again as the vanguard of the working class, providing“leadership” to society and strengthening the “dictatorship of the workingclass.”20 Nevertheless, in the end Stalin overcame his hesitations. In a discus-sion with the Polish communist Bierut in May 1946 he remarked that “inessence” there was “no dictatorship of the proletariat in the USSR noweither. We have a Soviet democracy.” The reason was that there were onlyexternal enemies to suppress.21 The party rules adopted at the NineteenthParty Congress in 1952 removed all specific references to the working class.The party was redefined as a “union of like-minded communists, organisedfrom people from among the working class, the toiling peasants and thetoiling intelligentsia.”22

Finally, we must discuss the question of the ultimate fate of the stateunder full communism. At the Eighteenth Party Congress Stalin declaredthat, with capitalist encirclement, even under full communism the statewould remain in business.23 But he never abandoned the idea that, with theglobal demise of classes, the state would come to an end.24 His views of thefuture stateless society were ambiguous though. Before the revolution hehad written that, with the disappearance of classes, the state would bereplaced by a “free and equal association of the producers.” But this associ-ation looked suspiciously like a state:

for the carrying out of the common affairs…there will be necessary acentral statistical bureau, which must collect information on the needsof the whole society and subsequently assign the various work tasksamong the toilers…. There will also be necessary…congresses, the deci-sions of which will be unconditionally binding until the next congress25

This suggested that the stateless society knew the same commune-like systemas the transitional period of proletarian dictatorship. The reference to a“bureau” even suggested the survival of a limited bureaucracy. Stalin laterexplained that the “stateless society,” the commune, would come about bystrengthening the soviets and reducing the bureaucratic apparatus.26 He

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continued to pay attention to the matter, his notes suggesting that somethinglike a state might be preserved under full communism. In the same copy ofState and Revolution of 1935 he put a quotation mark near a passageexplaining that under full communism the need for “governing [upravlenie]”people would disappear. He was enthusiastic about Lenin’s discussion ofwhether Marx had been more of an etatist (gosudarstvennik) than Engels. Hemarked Marx’s reference to a “statehood of communist society.”27 Shortlybefore his death, he wrote that “the state will not exist forever. With thewidening of the sphere of action of socialism in a majority of the countriesof the world, the state will die.” But stateless communism knew some kindof political structure:

The state will die, but society will stay. Consequently, it will not be thestate (which will have died) that will act as the next holder [preemnik] ofthe property of the whole people, but society itself in the person of itscentral, leading economic organ.28

It seems that Stalin interpreted the stateless society as an association oftoilers with a commune or soviet structure. The transition from the socialiststate to communist statelessness consisted, then, of the gradual absorptionof most of the professional bureaucracy by the soviets. In other words, thedemise of the state equalled the demise of the apparatus, but not of demo-cratic representative organs. Moreover, Stalin’s bureaucratism was strongenough to convince him that even under full communism there remainedsome kind of professional apparatus to assist the elected representatives ofthe toilers. His etatism was strong enough to make him envision “stateless”communism with a state-like structure. But, then again, he believed to befollowing Marx on this point, an assumption in which he may well have beenright.

Stalin on the tsarist state

Previously, I noted that Stalin’s etatism fitted well into the political traditionof his country, but that it would overstate this point to assume that his state-building efforts were much inspired by the example of Ivan and Peter.Between 1926 and 1931, he commented on various occasions on their workbut gave them little credit. As representatives of the feudal and bourgeoisclasses they had been powerless to accomplish much. However, Stalin’s viewsbegan to shift in 1934. In August of that year he, Andrei Zhdanov and Kirovwrote a negative comment on the manuscript of a new textbook on the historyof the USSR. They complained that the difference between “the autocraticsystem of the state and the feudal system, when Russia had been divided intoa multitude of semi-states,” had not been duly noted.29 Underlining the posi-tive significance of state centralisation by the early tsars against the boyarsand other forces of “feudal” decentralisation, this set a new tone.

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On 27 January 1936, Izvestiia carried an article by Bukharin, checked byStalin personally and mentioning “the relatively progressive historicalactivity” of Peter the Great.30 In March 1936, it was decided to organise acompetition for a new textbook of the history of the USSR. A.S. Bubnov,who was involved in this work, criticised the progress of the respective histo-rians. Referring to directives from Stalin and Zhdanov, he noted their failureto make a clean break with the so-called Pokrovskii school. They continuedto watch historical events “only through the prism of their class limitations”and ignored the “progressive side” of the consolidation of the Muscovitestate, the unification of the Russian lands and the later Petrine reforms.Zhdanov mentioned several points that the authors should take intoaccount, among which was “the progressive meaning of the centralisation ofstate power.”31

Ivan IV the Terrible was also the subject of reappraisal. In a short historyof the USSR to appear in 1937, his oprichnina was praised as an instrumentto strengthen “autocratic power in the Russian state by destroying the privi-leges of the boyars.” Ivan completed the work of gathering together thescattered appanage principalities into one strong state.32 In the new 1939History of the USSR, Ivan and Peter were given a positive reading forhaving fought feudal fragmentation and consolidating strong central

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Figure 8 Ivan the Terrible: Stalin’s favourite tsar

power.33 In the same year, there also appeared a collection of articlessummarising the struggle against the deceased historian Pokrovskii. Thelatter was accused of having neglected the “progressive role” of Peter theGreat. And it was noted that “the creation of a big state on a territory wherethere existed until recently still dozens of small states would be impossiblewithout strengthening the central political power, which at that time couldonly be an autocratic power.” Therefore, Ivan IV, although still representingthe interests of the nobility, had waged a wholesome struggle to create a“homogeneous order” throughout the country.34

During the war, in September 1943, Stalin commented positively onEizenshtein’s scenario of the film Ivan Groznyi: “Ivan the Terrible as aprogressive force of his time, and the oprichnina as his effectiveinstrument.”35 Unfortunately for Eizenshtein, in September 1946 theCentral Committee condemned the second part of his film.36 The decisionwas taken after a speech by Stalin at the Orgbureau in August. According tothe leader, Eizenshtein had

completely deviated from history. He showed the oprichniki as the worstlice, degenerates, something like the American Ku Klux Klan.[Eizenshtein] hasn’t understood that the forces of the oprichnina wereprogressive forces, on which Ivan the Terrible relied in order to collectRussia into one centralised state against the feudal princes, who wantedto scatter and weaken it…. Russia…had to unite in order to avoidfalling under the Tatar yoke a second time.37

Finally, in February 1947, Stalin, Molotov and Zhdanov receivedEizenshtein and the actor Cherkasov in the Kremlin to discuss the matter.The leader repeated that Ivan had united Russia so as to have a strongholdagainst the Tatars. Centralisation was necessary and therefore the oprichninawas a positive force. It had been a “royal troop. As opposed to a feudalarmy, which could fold its tents any time and leave the battlefield – a regulararmy, a progressive army.” Ivan had been “a great and wise ruler. If onecompares him with Louis XI, …who prepared absolutism for Louis XIV…,then Ivan the Terrible was in a much higher class.” The tsar’s ruthlessnesshad been unavoidable. One of his errors was that he “failed to knife throughfive large feudal families. Had he wiped out these five families, there wouldhave been no Time of Troubles.”38 In 1949, Stalin told Malyshev that Peterthe Great had made a mistake by moving the capital to St Petersburg. Butthere had been some justification for the step: “Peter was afraid of the boyarintrigues in Moscow.” Nevertheless, with its central position Moscow wasmost suited to be the capital.39

Stalin appreciated the state-building efforts of Ivan and Peter for theirdedicated centralism. The Soviet dictator believed that all states should beorganised along centralist lines. In September 1947, he wrote a characteristictribute to Moscow, on the occasion of its founding eight hundred years

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earlier. The city’s merit consisted above all in the fact that it had welded scat-tered Russia into a “unified centralised state.” And this was more than ahistorical event. The achievement remains universally relevant to this day.According to Stalin, “not one country in the world can count on preservingits independence, and on serious economical and cultural growth, if it couldnot liberate itself from feudal fragmentation and from the princely mess.”40

Stalin’s straightforward praise for Ivan and Peter during the 1930s and1940s shows that he became more aware of the continuities between theirand his rule. He and they were state centralists, and we may safely assumethat, as Tucker stresses in his work, the Soviet dictator began to see himselfas a Russian statesman. However, this is not to mean that his new apprecia-tion for his predecessors signified a reduction of his Marxist commitment. Itwas rather his Marxist beliefs which made him acknowledge the historicalvalue of Ivan’s and Peter’s work.

Let me first note that, to appreciate state centralism and the struggle ofthe early monarchs against “feudal” lords, was common enough amongearlier revolutionaries. Among the Enlightenment philosophes, there hadalways been those who argued back from their preferences for a rationalistcentralism to support for the prince. Voltaire, for one, was known for histhèse royale, according to which the king was supported in his struggleagainst feudal anarchy, so that France could be a unified state. And statecentralism was an essential part of the Jacobin understanding of modernisa-tion. The nation could not be forged into a true national community withoutovercoming local particularism and forging a centralised state.

Marx and Engels stood in this tradition. They too were principledcentralists. Correspondingly, they appreciated early modern rulers whoseefforts at state unification created favourable conditions for capitalisteconomic development. The overthrowing of the Golden Horde and theunification of the Russian lands into one state by fifteenth-century Moscowprince Ivan III was acclaimed by them, to be compared with similar feats inthat period by the royal power against the feudal princes in countries likeSpain, Portugal, France and England. In their view, the absolute monarchiesrepresented the progressive phenomenon of “national unity.” Russia waseven further developed in this respect than Italy and Germany.41 Stalin’senthusiasm for Ivan IV’s efforts to break the backs of the boyars fitted inthis Marxist scheme of historical progress. It would have been odd from aMarxist point of view had he not taken that position.

However, Marx and Engels were at the same time highly critical of thelater state-building work of the tsars. The process of development that Peterembarked on was a flawed one – Russia remained essentially an “Asian”power. Peter delivered a blow to Russian barbarism but, as he did it para-doxically “by barbarism,” the result was a deceptive civilisation based onserfdom instead of on modern capitalism.42 The point is that, whereas Marxand Engels saw centralisation as a progressive phenomenon, they rejectedbureaucracy as stifling modernisation. As I noted before, they were anti-

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bureaucratic centralists, and this point of view determined the way theylooked at European history.

Stalin did not share Marx and Engels’s anti-bureaucratic sentiment. Hislove of bureaucratic order and all its trappings runs through much of whathe wrote, said and did. For a small but typical example, when in 1943uniforms and signs of rank in people’s commissariats and other stateservices were reintroduced, the argument was that the new dress enhancedthe “authority” of the respective officials.43 And when in 1946 the name of“people’s commissars” was changed back to “ministers,” Stalin argued againthat this enhanced their authority:

It is fitting to turn from the name commissar to the name minister. Thepeople will understand this well, because there are too many commis-sars. The people get confused. Only God knows who is the highest ofthem. Everywhere we have commissars, but here we have a minister.44

Correspondingly, the fact that tsarist centralisation had taken a bureaucraticform did not bother Stalin as it had bothered Marx and Engels. There wasin his view no other way to administer a centralised state. His sympathies forthe bureaucratic authoritarianism of the tsarist system were genuine enough.Andrei Gromyko, for example, quotes the leader during a discussion on theproblems of Moscow’s city administration: “And why couldn’t we restoresomething from the past? For power lay once in the hands of a ‘head’[golova]. He, the ‘head’, was the final authority…at a city level.”45 Here wehave clear proof of Stalin’s readiness to borrow consciously from the past,and literally to establish a continuity with it.

But, then again, although during the 1930s Stalin began to appreciate thecontinuity between his and the tsars’ bureaucratism, he continued to arguefrom his own model and preferences. He did not hope to copy the tsars’model of bureaucracy. Peter’s state, with its “table of ranks,” had been acurious hybrid of bureaucratic order and the hereditary principle. It was amodern bureaucracy, open to others besides the nobility. But it remained atypical ancien régime institution in that the mass of the Russian populationwere serfs by birth and not free to follow a bureaucratic career. Moreover,those who climbed sufficiently high were awarded with hereditary nobletitles. In contrast, the Stalinist state apparatus was a pure bureaucracy, ashierarchical and graded as the imperial one but without rudiments of thehereditary principle. Stalin never showed any appreciation of the feudalrudiments in the imperial state.

In understanding Stalin’s treatment of the tsarist past, we must take hisown thinking as the point of departure. The Soviet leader believed in ahistorical march towards modernisation as a dual process of centralisationand bureaucratisation. As a centralist, he was simply a classical Marxist inthe tradition of Marx and Engels. At the same time, though, he had adoptedLenin’s basically positive appreciation of state bureaucracy as an organisa-

146 Stalin and the state

tional model, which he had again adopted from the mainstream SecondInternational reappraisal of Marx’s radicalism. In that way, bureaucraticcentralism became the synthetic viewpoint for Stalin to look back from toRussian history and admit that much good had been done by his tsaristpredecessors. In the process, an element of continuity with the Russian tradi-tion was re-established. But that tradition never provided the point ofdeparture of Stalin’s thinking. It was only partially absorbed.

“Democracy for the toilers”

Stalin’s concept of the state is not exhaustively treated if we confineourselves to his bureaucratic centralism, however important that may havebeen. Let us now turn to his views on “democracy for the toilers.” Lenin wasnot afraid to admit that his regime was a party dictatorship, but he did notdeny the significance of popular participation. Beginning with Rousseau’sdirect democracy, mobilisation of the popular masses was a revolutionarytradition. The Jacobins destroyed it by laying power in the hands of a revo-lutionary minority, but they continued to value citizen participation. In their“educational dictatorship,” the participatory aspect of direct democracy waspreserved, with an eye on preparing the misguided masses for their assump-tion of sovereignty in the future.

After Marx restored the ideal of popular self-government, Lenin againtook to Jacobin revolutionary elitism. But he invited the toiling masses tomake an active contribution. The executive apparatus of the Soviet stateworked on the same bureaucratic principles as that of “bourgeois” states,but the soviets themselves, an outgrowth of direct democracy, differed fromordinary parliamentary forms of representation. The members of thesecouncils were not professional politicians but workers, peasants and “toilingintellectuals” serving as popular representatives in their spare time.Therefore, although they lost all power to the party and the state bureau-cracy, the councils nevertheless served as instruments of participation.

This was reflected in Lenin’s doctrine. Acknowledging that the party“realises the dictatorship,” he insisted that it could not operate in a vacuum.The dictatorship was a “complex system of several cog wheels,” the partynecessarily using the “transmission belts” of the soviets and trade unions toreach the masses. Such organisations were educational in nature. Theworkers should not be approached like soldiers but with a proper mix of“compulsion and persuasion.” Through their organisations, which were“schools of communism,” they should be stimulated to participate in theadministration of the country and thus gradually learn this trade.46 Insteadof military commands, a propaganda effort was made to convince theorganised proletariat of the correctness of the policies followed. In case ofcrisis, the fall-back method of “compulsion” was available.

One of Stalin’s oldest definitions of democracy had been given in anarticle in June 1906 on inner party life. “True democratism” existed only

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“when the party masses are active in the party organisation, …when theparty masses propose their own resolutions and force their own organisationsto carry out these resolutions.”

Democratism does not consist exclusively in democratic elections. Thedemocratism of elections cannot yet be called true democratism:Napoleon III was elected by a general vote, but who doesn’t know thatthis elected emperor was the greatest enslaver of the people? We arereferring to a democratism of action, when the party masses themselvesdecide questions and themselves act.47

The value of elections was not denied, but emphasis was laid on the partici-patory aspect of democracy. After the revolution, there was never any doubtin Stalin’s mind that the class should be led by only one party.48 But hecontinued to appreciate mass participation, especially through the soviets:“most popular” organs embracing potentially all workers and toilers andforming “an organism of the most mass-like character.”49 They were a newtype of state.50 In January 1921, he wrote that, like Lenin, he favoured the“methods of influencing like explications, mass propaganda, the develop-ment of initiative and the self-activity of the working masses, eligibility etc.”It was necessary to convince the masses of the correctness of bolshevik poli-cies. “Conscious democratism” was more reliable than blind obedience. But,again like Lenin, he was careful to preserve the right of the party to back upwords by force if necessary.

There exist two methods: the method of compulsion (the militarymethod) and the method of persuasion (the trade union method). Thefirst method does not at all exclude elements of persuasion…. Thesecond method in its turn does not exclude elements of compulsion, butthe elements of compulsion are subjected here to the demands of themethod of persuasion and form a means of support for it.51

The proper relation between the party and the working class remained animportant subject of Stalin’s thinking in the 1920s. Initially, he merelyparroted Lenin’s prescriptions. The proletariat had the power “in the personof its party.” The party should achieve such authority that the working classturned, as it were, into its “army.” Nevertheless, the proletarian masses shouldbe persuaded to follow the party voluntarily. The “direct organisations of themasses” – trade unions, co-operatives, youth and women’s organisations, andsoviets – should never be formally subordinated to party leadership. Theyshould be used to organise maximum “participation” in the state, providingthe proletariat with the opportunity to educate itself as a force capable ofgoverning the country.52 The soviets formed a “school of government” forhundreds of thousands of workers and peasants. The state apparatus shouldbe strengthened by bringing it closer to the population through the soviets.

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This was the way to the “transition of society from the dictatorship of theproletariat to communist society.”53 Lenin could not have agreed more.

Interestingly, Stalin went further in his pleas for voluntary participationwhen after Lenin’s death he rejected his formula of the “dictatorship of theparty,” which he insisted his predecessor had used only metaphorically. Theparty was the directing force in the state, giving leading instructions – and“in that sense…the dictatorship of the proletariat is, in essence, a ‘dictator-ship’ of its vanguard.” Nevertheless, although leader and teacher, the party’sauthority over the class did not rest on force but on trust.54 But what if theparty was unable to convince the class? Stalin insisted that the party couldnever thrust its leadership on the workers by force, because the result couldnot last. The party should wait with new policies until it had at a minimumguaranteed the “sympathetic neutrality of the majority of the class.”55

Stalin’s rejection of the formula of “party dictatorship” was not merely forpublic consumption. His concern appears from his notes in the margins ofLenin’s works. In a 1919 copy of State and Revolution, he wrote on the backflap that one could only speak of a dictatorship of the party if referring to“leadership by the party.” One could not have two real dictatorships at oneand the same time – of the party and of the class: “Which one of them is themost real? Magic formulas won’t help.”56 In a 1922 copy of a volume ofLenin’s works, where it was denied that there was a contradiction betweenclass dictatorship and one of individuals, Stalin wrote that the proletariandictatorship was no dictatorship of individuals.57 Then again, in a 1923 Leninvolume he commented on a passage holding that the party led the class: “Yes,but that is not a dictatorship of the party.” And in a longer comment:

What must the dict. of the party signify? A state power resting on force?No, that’s rubbish! Unlimited rights by the party? Not that either! Thepoint is not about rights, the point is about trust in the party, and trustdoes not at all presuppose unlimited rights of the party as its necessarycondition. The point is about leadership.58

Stalin heartily disliked the formula of “party dictatorship.” His motive forthis odd denial of reality is not hard to find. Realising that the party was theonly holder of power, he wanted to keep it that way just as surely as Lenin.But he found the term “dictatorship,” with its hint of naked force, inappli-cable. He was deeply aware of the fact that the bolshevik regime could notsurvive without working-class support. It was therefore absolutely vital togain the trust of the proletariat to avoid collapse.59 There is something ironicabout this insistence on gaining the workers’ trust. It not only meant thatone should at times be prepared to adapt policies to public opinion but also,conversely, that unusual efforts should be made to bring public opinion intoline with the demands of the party. Stalin’s rejection of the formula of partydictatorship was part of a frame of mind that ended in totalitarian“moral–political unity of Soviet society.”60

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The enthusiasm of the General Secretary for workers’ participation wason the rise during the First Five Year Plan, when the party hoped tomobilise every available force for the economic effort. Workers were encour-aged to comment critically on industrial policies, resulting in the upgradingof the “workers’ control commissions,” the so-called “production confer-ences” and the establishment of “shock brigades.”61 Mass participation wascomplementary to the power of the party. In April 1928, Stalin noted thatunder the condition of its undivided power, the party should mobilise thenecessary critique on its own work. There was no one else to do it. It wastime to organise a “permanent and unbreakable contract between [theleaders] and the masses.”

The point is to organise a broad public opinion of the party in the formof self-criticism and criticism of our shortcomings, a broad publicopinion of the working class, as a living and vigilant moral control.

But he never forgot the limits of the critical process. “Counter-revolutionarycriticism” by workers would not be accepted.62 The next month he madeanother vigorous plea for the production conferences and “control commis-sions” of the trade unions at a Komsomol congress. He hoped to unleashthe “rage of the toiling masses,” explaining:

It would be wrong to think that only leaders have experience ofconstruction. That’s not true, comrades. The millions strong masses ofthe workers, who build our industry, accumulate a gigantic experience ofconstruction every day, which is not at all of less value for us than theexperience of the leaders. We need the mass critique from below, thecontrol from below.63

Some time later, the General Secretary wrote that mass “self-criticism” was apermanent feature of the bolshevik style of leadership because the bolshe-viks were in power. Power naturally stimulated complacency, making publiccriticism essential to avoid mistakes. Mass participation provided a correc-tion of the inevitable negative consequences of the bolshevik monopoly ofpower. But “self-criticism” would have to strengthen labour discipline andfortify the authority of the leaders. Criticism of alleged “degeneration” ofthe Soviet system was intolerable.64 After 1930, Stalin’s commitment toworkers’ participation gradually waned, although it resurfaced in 1935,when the leader promoted the Stakhanov movement with slogans like:“Leaders come and go, but the people [narod] stay. Only the people areimmortal. All the rest is transitory.”65

Mass mobilisation also applied within the party. The organisation shouldhave an active membership, with regular meetings and (controlled) debatesand elections. Like the soviets, the party was a “school” to educate futurestate leaders.66 The membership might also be mobilised against enemies. At

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the February–March 1937 CC plenum, Stalin criticised his fellow partyleaders for ignoring party rules. Some comrades believed only in controlfrom above, but he, Stalin, appreciated “control from below, when themasses, when those who are being led check up on the leaders, note theirmistakes and point out ways to correct them.” The point was “not only toteach the masses, but also to learn from the masses”:

We, the leaders, see things, events, people only from one side, I wouldsay – from above. Our viewpoint is therefore more or less limited. Incontrast, the masses see things, events, people from the other side, Iwould say – from below. Their viewpoint is therefore also to a certaindegree limited. In order to reach a correct solution of a problem, onehas to combine these two experiences.

The leader compared the party to the mythological hero Antaeus, son of theEarth goddess Gaia, who was invincible only as long as his feet touched hismother, i.e. the masses. Stalin’s intentions with the mobilisation of the partymembership became clear enough when he gave some examples of the activ-ities of people he admired. One such “ordinary ‘small person’ ” wasComrade Nikolaenko from Kiev, who had been unmasking Trotskyites for awhole year but had not been taken seriously by the party leadership.67

Beginning in the summer of 1937, the Stalinist clique used the local partymemberships – through meetings, debates and elections – as an additionalmeans next to the NKVD to remove undesirable leaders.

In retrospect, the Great Terror formed the high point of mass participa-tion. Stalin reproached local leaders for violating the rules by not holdingregular meetings and elections, but he was himself guilty of the same sin in ahigher degree by continually postponing the party congress. This negligencewas part of a tendency of retreat from mass participation. Stalin’s growingdoubts on its use were expressed in the 1935 edition of State and Revolution.Next to passages which read that the whole population should participate inthe running of the state, that officials should be recallable at all times, thatthe “armed proletariat” should control the economy, and that the state itselfshould consist of “armed workers,” Stalin commented each time: “Nu…,”expressing great hesitation.68 On occasion, the dictator continued to pay lipservice to the people; witness his famous July 1945 toast at a meeting ofparticipants of the victory parade, to

the people who are considered the “little screws” of the great statemechanism, but without whom we all – marshalls and commanders offronts and armies, to put it rudely, are worth nothing. Some “littlescrew” gives up – and it’s all over. I propose a toast to the simple, ordi-nary, modest people, to the “little screws” who hold our great statemechanism in a state of activity.69

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But organised campaigns of mass participation became less frequent andless intense. This was not only a matter of decreasing enthusiasm. It had aninstitutional aspect as well. Under the new constitution of 1936, the elementof direct democracy was further reduced. Elections became direct andsecret. No longer did the Congress of Soviets consist of representatives oflower soviets. From now on, citizens voted directly for the two chambers ofthe Supreme Soviet. This new system reduced the element of mass participa-tion in two ways. First, direct elections to the supreme organs automaticallyreduced the significance of the grass-roots soviets, in which citizens had atleast some influence. Second, the old system of voting for the lower sovietsin open meetings by a show of hands disappeared. Nevertheless, althoughritualised, citizen participation was never abolished. The soviets continuedto be populated by non-politicians. Soviet citizens were expected to organisethemselves in mass organisations and to show up periodically at meetingsand in the streets to support government and party campaigns.

Mass mobilisation was one aspect of Stalinist “democracy of the toilers.”Another aspect was the training of new cadres from among the popularmasses. It was again particularly during the First Five Year Plan that theeducation of new state and economic personnel from among the workingclass became a matter of prime attention. Stalin noted that, in sharpcontrast to the land-owners and bourgeoisie in their times, the working classoccupied an unfavourable position. As a poor class, it had in the past notbeen able to give its children proper education. The workers had not beenable to form their own educated section of society. There were still too few“red specialists.” But “not one ruling class could manage without its ownintelligentsia.” Stalin therefore insisted that “the working class must create itsown production-technical intelligentsia.”70 The doors of higher educationwere opened widely for people from among the popular classes.Furthermore, a great number of workers were promoted directly from thebench to leading positions.

But in 1935 the criteria for selection for higher education, which discrimi-nated positively in favour of workers and peasants, were dropped. In hisspeech at the Congress of Soviets in November 1936, Stalin noted that theSoviet intelligentsia, the category of “officials” (sluzhashchie), formed noclass. It “was and remains a layer, recruiting its members from among allclasses of society,” mainly from among the workers and peasants. The intelli-gentsia should from now on be treated as a “full and equal member of Sovietsociety.” It was a “completely new intelligentsia.” The overwhelming majorityof it “have come from the working class, the peasantry and other layers of thetoilers.”71 This shrewd reference to other layers suggested that it was no longerproblematic for the intelligentsia to be partly recruited from among themselves.

In the next few years, Stalin repeated the theme of the intellectuals as theequals of the workers more than once. In his speech of September 1938, hefirmly rejected the ideas of the Polish socialist Machaiski, who allegedlyheld that the party needed no intellectuals but only workers, as foolish and

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idiotic. “Our factory is something like a laboratory,” Stalin noted, “some-thing like a pharmacy, it is no longer a matter of pure callosity. Callosity is athing of the past.” He repeated that no class could “keep power and lead thestate if it is unable to create its own intelligentsia.” But this intelligentsia hadalready been created. After all, “what is our Soviet intelligentsia?” Stalinanswered: “On the one hand it is us, old bolsheviks, …and on the other 9/10youth, people from the workers and the peasants, and also from the smalltoiling intelligentsia.”72 A few days later, he again turned against the“stupid, disdainful attitude towards the intelligentsia”:

The intelligentsia work in our apparatus, they are former workers,former peasants, our people, who became educated, who after all alsorule the country together with us…. They carry out our decisions, i.e.they govern, but we don’t appreciate them, we treat them disdainfully,we consider them alien. Yesterday he was a worker at the bench, acapable man, a Stakhanovite whom we trusted. He need only go toschool and receive an education, and we begin to spit on him.73

At the Eighteenth Party Congress the following year, the Soviet leaderpresented it solemnly as a “question of theory” that the Soviet intelligentsiawere no longer “second-class people.”74 The congress abolished stipulationsmaking it more difficult for intellectuals to enter the party than for workersor peasants.75 The policy of proletarianisation of the apparatus was aban-doned for good.76

However, Stalin continued to recognise the importance of periodicalrenewal of the composition of cadres. His policy of creating a new prole-tarian intelligentsia had not been motivated only by the desire to change theclass composition of his officials but also by a strong belief in the promotionof young people as such – irrespective of class. A healthy organisation shouldbe subjected to permanent overhaul of its cadre stock. This was usuallyexplained by the organic metaphor. In 1927, Stalin told the party congress:

Our party is a living organism. As in any organism, a metabolism takesplace in it: the old, obsolete falls off [applause]; the new and growingthings live and develop [applause]. Some leave the stage, at the top andat the lower levels. New forces grow up, at the top and at the lowerlevels, and carry forward the work. This is how our party grew. This ishow it will continue to grow in the future.77

In July 1929, he described it as a “feudal” (barskii) habit to promote only“lords” and to forget the “hundreds and thousands of capable youngpeople” anxious to get ahead.78 He often treated the problem of new cadresfrom the perspective of a gardener. In a December 1934 speech to a meetingof metallurgists, discussing the need for qualified people to work with thenew technology, he noted that one had to “cultivate people with care and

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attention, like a gardener cultivates a beloved fruit tree.” To educate people,to help them “grow,” to transfer and promote them in time, was the way tocreate a new body of cadres.79 In a speech in September 1940, he madeanother characteristic plea for the promotion of new people:

How did Lenin forge cadres? If he had only seen those who worked in aparty environment in leading positions and so on for 10–15 years, andhadn’t noticed those young but capable people, who grow like mush-rooms, if Lenin had not…broken with the traditions of seniority, hewould have failed. The party, literature, the army – they are all organ-isms, of which some cells should be renewed without waiting for the oldones to die.80

To create upward mobility in the apparatus was the second aspect, next tomass mobilisation, of Stalinist “democracy.” And there was a third aspect,namely the establishment of formal equality of rights under the 1936Constitution. During the latter part of the 1930s, the working class lost itsprivileges in terms of suffrage and entrance conditions for educational facili-ties and the party, changes that, whatever their social significance, increasedformal equality. The peasantry remained discriminated against. They didnot obtain internal passports, which drastically restricted their freedom ofmovement. Then, the party and state elite had at their disposal a network ofspecial shops, schools, hospitals and other institutions, providing privilegedaccess to goods and services. At the other end of the social pyramid, theexiles and prisoners were denied normal human living conditions.Nevertheless, at the formal legal level, it is fair to say that the Soviet statecame more or less to represent a homogeneous “toiling people.” Lenin’sdecision, unprecedented in the international Marxist movement, to abolishuniversal and equal suffrage and formal equality of rights was undone.

In summing up, Stalin’s etatism expressed his determination to have apowerful machine available for the ongoing international class struggle andfor the administration of the whole economy of the country. He continuedthe Russian etatist tradition, but he found Marxist arguments for the infla-tion of the state. Moreover, for him the discontinuity with the tsarist pastwas more striking than the continuity. It struck him that the class struggleand socialist ambition demanded a stronger rather than a weaker statecompared with the imperial one. During the 1930s and 1940s, Stalin’s senseof affinity with the state-building work of Ivan and Peter grew, but hecontinued to evaluate their work from a perspective of historical progressseen in terms of centralisation and bureaucratisation. His analysis synthe-sised classical Marxism with the recognition in the Second International(adopted by Lenin) that, contrary to Marx’s views, bureaucracy was after alla mark of modernity. Finally, to strengthen his party dictatorship, Stalinpreserved some democratic rudiments – citizen participation, cadre mobilityand formal equality before the law.

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One of the main characteristics that Stalinism became notorious for was thecult of the leader’s personality. Stalin was presented in books, journals andnewspapers, in prose and poetry, in song, painting and sculpture, as a flaw-less genius and hero, on a par with similar extraordinary historicalpersonalities like Karl Marx and Vladimir Il’ich. The cult reflected the dicta-torial power that its object established in real life. Stalin established thispersonal dictatorship by crusading against all informal centres of powerwith a degree of autonomy, in the party, in the regions and in state institu-tions. He waged this crusade under the banner of struggle against the old“family traditions,” which he denounced even before the revolution. Thestruggle against entrenched “families” (autonomous groups based onpersonal relations, friendship and mutual protection) reflected his harshviews of how a party should function as well as his strategy for personalrule.

At the party congress in 1927, the leader complained that problems wereoften solved “in a family way, as if at home.” When Ivan Ivanovich makes amistake, his friend Ivan Fedorovich “does not want to criticise him, bring tolight his mistakes, correct his mistakes.” The latter Ivan hoped that hisleniency would be rewarded in the future when he was in trouble. Was it notironic, Stalin asked, that the bolsheviks, who were out, in Marx’s words, tostorm the heavens, were not prepared to storm each other? They shouldunderstand that bad things do not disappear from themselves. “That whichdies, does not simply want to die, but it struggles for its existence, defends itslost [otzhivshee] cause.” And conversely, that which is newly born mustshriek and cry out to defend its right to exist. Correspondingly, true leader-ship was to combat, to spare no one irrespective of friendship, and to rejectthe tendency to “swim with the current.”1 This was the irreconcilable spiritin which Stalin waged the factional struggle. When in 1929 Bukharinmentioned his personal friendship with him as a matter alleviating theirmutual problems, he answered:

I think that all these lamentations and screams aren’t worth a penny.We don’t have a family circle, no collective of personal friends, but a

12 The cult of personality

political party of the working class. We can’t allow interests of personalfriendship to be put above the interests of the cause.2

The atmosphere of mutual protection to the detriment of the organisationwas also what Stalin referred to when he attacked bureaucratism. In hisletters to Molotov and Kaganovich of the early 1930s, he complainedendlessly about state “bureaucrats” who did a weak, routine job and, insteadof bringing in real results, merely spent money to “preserve the peace of theeconomic apparatus.” Such people shielded themselves from party controland placed their own group interests above those of the state. The solutionwas to bring in “new people, who believe in our cause and who can replacethe bureaucrats successfully.” But, nominating their own “protégé-fools,” thewell-entrenched bureaucrats prevented the promotion of fresh, healthycadres.3

During the Great Terror, the themes of struggle against “familism”and “bureaucracy” merged. At the Central Committee plenum ofFebruary–March 1937, Stalin compared the communist party to a huge army,with a ranked staff of officers. But he was not content with the way this corpsfunctioned. Fresh forces waited to be promoted. There were tens of thousandsof talented people just for the picking. “You only have to know them and topromote them in time, so that they wouldn’t stay at the old place too long andbegin to rot.” But many bureaucrats did not care for the ordinary partymembers; “they don’t know how [chem] they live and how they grow.” Heattributed this lack of concern typically to the fact that local party leadersconstructed “tails” of “‘their own’ people,” “personally dedicated” but inca-pable followers. One would then get

a little family of close friends, an artel’, the members of which try to livein peace, not to insult each other, not to air their dirty laundry, to praiseeach other and from time to time to send empty and nauseating reportsabout their successes to the centre.

Such leaders hoped to create “a situation of a certain independence in rela-tion to the local people as well as in relation to the CC.” Stalin wasdetermined to end this state of affairs.4 In the two years of the Great Terror,his hatred of “family traditions” became so extreme that he began to take itliterally. In November 1937, he gave a speech to Politburo members and afew other people, including Comintern leader Dimitrov. The latter notedStalin’s words in his diary. Among other things, the leader said that he wouldmercilessly destroy “any such enemy, even if he would be an Old Bolshevik,we’ll destroy his whole kin, his family.”5

Stalin’s organisational ideal was the fully integrated bureaucracy.Directives should be swiftly transmitted downwards and carried out withoutfailure. Conversely, new cadres should be promoted and be able to risequickly to the top. This should create an organisation with a maximally vital

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and empowered centre. It would find no obstacle in its way and could mouldthe flexible organisation at will, while the apparatus would be kept fresh by asteady influx of new blood. This ideal could only be achieved by destroyingentrenched cliques, the autonomous “families” closing themselves off inboth directions. To protect their own positions, they would not agree topromote capable people, and they would also try to defend themselvesagainst the directives of the centre. “Familism” prevented the party fromfunctioning as an unbroken whole. It blocked the vertical flow, up anddownwards, of directives and cadres.

Stalin’s organisation of cliques of his own suggests that his abhorrence of“familism” was less than sincere. Was he only against the other person’sfamily in the name of his own? However, that would be a rash conclusion.Stalin’s own cliques were no “families” in which one was protected whatevermistakes one made and where one was sure not to be replaced by anewcomer. His cliques were no circles of mutual protection. One’s positionin them was conditional upon the fulfilment of the job; even one’s life was atstake. Moreover, to refresh his own cliques all the time with young peoplefrom below was one of Stalin’s lifelong preoccupations.

Next to improving the functioning of the party and state bureaucracy, thepurpose of Stalin’s campaign against autonomous circles was to make hisown personal power total. Many years earlier, it had been predicted thatbolshevism contained an inner logic leading to personal rule. In 1904,Trotskii had warned that, once the Leninist principle of dictatorship wasaccepted, the process of “substitutionism” might continue until the CentralCommittee handed over its power to one dictator.6 Once one takes theconcentration of power as the most effective organisational model, there isno obvious reason to stop the process of concentration. Bolshevism sufferedfrom a paradox. On the one hand, it propagated the concentration of poweras a healthy principle – the stronger and more united the better. But on theother hand, there was the dogma that, for an unexplained reason, thisconcentration should stop just short of the leader. Not surprisingly, that didnot happen.

However, even after he had achieved complete centralisation of power inhis hands, Stalin continued to speak up against personal rule in the party.This is more surprising than it might seem. Under Lenin, it had beenaccepted that the principle of kollegial’nost’, i.e. of leadership by electedboards, was often inapplicable in the state apparatus, in particular ineconomic enterprises. One-man management (edinonachalie) was defendedas a more effective form of administration. On occasion, Lenin suggestedthat there was really no difference between a dictatorship of a class, of aparty or even of single leaders.7 Such remarks and practices could well havebeen used in the Stalin era to create a theory of the leader. But the commu-nist party never produced such a theory. According to its official tenets, notrevoked by Stalin, power should be properly concentrated at the level of theCentral Committee – not above it.

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To have a “party leader” in a formal sense would have meant to have theparty congress elect him, and then to endow him with the same plenipoten-tiary powers of which the Central Committee made use. This would haveintroduced edinonachalie into the party. The establishment of the post ofGeneral Secretary in 1922 could have been a starting point for such a devel-opment. The General Secretary was elected by the Central Committee, notby the Secretariat. Therefore he was in fact of higher rank than his fellowsecretaries. To have the General Secretary elected by the congress wouldhave been the next step. But developments went in the opposite direction.

At the first plenary session of the new Central Committee after the 1927Party Congress Stalin proposed to abolish the institution of GeneralSecretary. It was superfluous after the defeat of the Left Opposition, and he,Stalin, was anyway “equal” to the other four members of the Secretariat. Hedid not have “any special rights or special obligations. There has not been acase when the Gensek gave any order on his own [edinolichno] whatsoever,without the sanction of the Secretariat.” There was “only a collegium.” Theproposal was not accepted, though.8 But in 1931 Stalin told Emil Ludwigthat the “power of one person” would never be tolerated in the party:

one cannot decide on one’s own [edinolichno]. Personal decisions arealways or almost always one-sided decisions…. In our leading organ, inthe Central Committee…in this araeopagus the wisdom of our party isconcentrated. Everyone has the possibility to correct any personalopinion or proposal at all. Everyone has the possibility to contribute hisown experience. If that weren’t the case, if the decisions were taken byindividuals, we’d have very serious mistakes in our work.9

At the first CC plenum after the Seventeenth Party Congress in 1934 Stalinwas at last not reconfirmed as General Secretary. The post simply vanished.10

Subsequently, he was elected “first secretary” by the Secretariat.11 In otherwords, on paper “collegial” leadership in the Secretariat was restored.

In terms of real power, the development went the other way. Increasingly,the leader came to be treated with special respect. At the January 1933plenum, Ian Rudzutak praised Stalin for his ruthlessness. He never hesitatedand was “capable of cutting away and destroying that which is really subjectto annihilation, that which began to rot, that which hinders us from movingforward.” This trait made him the leader (vozhd’ i rukovoditel’) of the party,followed by all. He concluded that Stalin was “the strongest locus [mesto] ofour party; he is that focus, where all our party thoughts are concentrated, hecatches them and unites them and gives them a correct direction.”12 Thisconstituted an argument for edinonachalie. Rudzutak transferred thefamiliar argument for dictatorial powers of the Central Committee to thehigher level of that of a leader. The leader should be duly elected, but onceelected he became an embodiment of the will of the members and shouldact as he saw fit. This opinion was widely shared in leading party circles,

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where it was believed that without Stalin’s titanic personality their collectiverule was in danger.

Nevertheless, although in practice “substitutionism” ran its full course, intheory it did not. Stalin did not formalise his position as a dictator. Anattempt to have himself elected as General Secretary by a party congress,with a parallel transformation of the Politburo and other organs intoconsultative bodies, might have been successful after the Great Terror. Anofficially established personal dictatorship would not per se have violated thefundamentals of bolshevik doctrine. Stalin could have referred to extraordi-nary threats which demanded extraordinary unity of leadership. As long asthe leader was elected by the congress, it would not have been contrary to“democratic centralism” to raise him and move up dictatorial power onelevel – from a board, the Central Committee, to a single leader. But theleader did not take this step.

Even more surprising was the way Stalin handled the leading organs ofthe party. After the Great Terror, the Central Committee and the Politburono longer met regularly. The latter organ was in practice replaced by ad hoccommissions, convened by Stalin at his will: “quartets,” “septets,’’ “nonets”and others. However, even then, at the height of his power, the leader tookcare to have the various commissions formally established by the Politburoand to have important decisions taken by the bureau through a system ofopros, by a poll. Thus on paper the kollegial’nost’ of the leading partyorgans was preserved. To make his decisions legitimate, Stalin demandedformal confirmation by his colleagues. That he bothered to have decisionsformalised, the existence of which nobody but these closest colleagues evenknew about, suggests that he hoped to preserve a rudimentary aspect of“collective leadership.”

The Great Terror gave Stalin the power of life and death over hiscolleagues. He became a personal dictator for all practical purposes. But hedid not formalise his position and change the party rules accordingly. Whatis more, there is no indication that he ever contemplated taking such a stepor regretted being unable to take it. The simplest explanation for Stalin’sholding back is that he was satisfied with his real power and that he believedthe formal structure of the party should remain as it was. We have an indica-tion that he did indeed believe that, as a formal principle, edinonachalie wasunsuitable for the party. In a 1922 Lenin volume, he commented as followson the passage holding that there was no fundamental difference between aparty dictatorship and one of single leaders: “But from this it follows thatone may not mix up one-man dictatorship in particular labour processes inthe executive field with a dictatorship in politics.”13 What was all right for afactory or the army did not go for the party.

Similar reservations show in Stalin’s remarks on the tsarist form ofgovernment. On one occasion, the leader noted that the ovations for himproved that “the people need a tsar, i.e. someone whom they can revere andin the name of whom they can live and work.” On another occasion, he said:

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“Bear in mind that in Russia the people were under the tsar for centuries, theRussian people are tsarist, the Russian people are used to having one singleindividual over them.” But he added: “Of course, this man should carry outthe will of the collective.” And there was a note of disdain for those whodesired to have a single individual in charge. He called this desire the“fetishism of the popular psychology.”14 Altogether, it seems that Stalindefinitely set out to establish his undivided personal power, but that heremained sufficiently trapped in the Leninist party ideology to decide thatthe party’s formal structure should remain untouched.

This conclusion gains perspective if we broaden our horizon andcompare Stalin with later communist rulers of equally unlimited powers. Inhis Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, Mao Zedong not only decimatedthe party leadership. He also took the step that Stalin refrained from,namely to destroy much of the underlying structure of the leading partyorgans. Moreover, it was not unusual for leaders like Mao to begin to set upsomething of a dynasty. He and Ceaușescu, for example, brought their wivesinto the Politburo, while Kim Il-Sung prepared his son as his successor.Stalin, again, did nothing of the sort. The hereditary principle epitomised anobscurantist form of administration, the “familism” that he battled againstall his life. Stalin was not out to become an actual tsar, the father of a newdynasty. Tsarism appealed greatly to him, but only in one of its aspects,namely that it was a form of one-man rule. For the rest, he remained contentto be dictator over an intact party.

This matter has a further fundamental aspect to it. To return to Mao, theChinese leader not only dismantled much of the internal party structure. Heeven partly dismantled party control over the state. This was something thatStalin was even less prepared to do. Kaganovich insisted that Stalin remainedonly a “dictator on behalf of the party [ot partii].”15 And he was right in thischaracterisation in the sense that, in contrast to Mao, Stalin did not use hisdictatorial powers over the party to undermine party rule over the Sovietstate and society but to stabilise it. The main mechanism of communist rule,the nomenklatura system, was preserved by him even when after the SecondWorld War the relative weight of the state in comparison to the party grew.

The question is not only whether or not Stalin wanted to curtail partypower over society but also whether he could have done so had he wantedto. He probably could not have. Stalin’s dictatorial power over individualparty comrades was almost absolute. He could assign any of them to thefiring squad. But the point is that he never attempted to remove the partyfrom its position of power over the state. Had he, for example, set out todismantle the primary party organisations in state and economic institu-tions, to abolish the nomenklatura system and turn the Council of Ministersinto a body of non-party officials, things would have looked different.Stalin’s legitimacy in the eyes of his fellow party leaders rested on what theysaw as his role of guarantor of their collective power over the state. To moveagainst the party would have instantly deprived him of that legitimacy. The

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chances are great that the Politburo would have collected its courage andunseated him. The paradox is that, whereas Stalin’s power over the partyleaders and party organs was absolute, his power over the party as an insti-tution was not only not absolute – it did not even exist. The USSR remaineda party dictatorship. If we define autocracy as unlimited rule bound by noother institution, then Stalin was no autocrat.

The cult

If there was never a Stalinist “theory of the leader,” we are interested todiscover Stalin’s ideas about the cult of his personality. The cult of socialistleaders was not Russian but a Western European invention. To idolise theirleaders was common enough among European social democratic parties.Portraits of Marx and Lassalle adorned posters and banners. These menwere revered as the prophets of a new age. From the perspective of thehistory of Marxism, the reverence for revolutionary leaders can be under-stood as an unexpected corollary of the doctrine of “scientific socialism.”For Marxists, the discovery that history answered to laws did not show thefutility of individual heroism but, on the contrary, provided real scope for itfor the first time. The fact that society could be mastered through a knowl-edge of its laws made the person armed with that knowledge capable ofextraordinary feats. He or she could push history forward to its certainfulfilment. A cult of genius and heroism is precisely what one would expectin a movement combining violent struggle for socialism with scientificinsight into the process leading to that goal.

Among Russian Marxists, the most important man to spell out explicitlythat the Marxist concept of history implied the acceptance of heroism wasGeorgii Plekhanov. In his days, Plekhanov had fiercely attacked the populistinterpretation of the phenomenon – not to deny it but to put it on a firm foun-dation. The historical hero did exist, but he was no self-sufficient actor. A“great man” was he who understood the scientific laws of social life and actedin accordance with the direction these laws predicted society was taking. Thisis how he could exert enormous influence on the course of history.16

The main new thing about the cult of the bolshevik leaders after Octoberwas that, for the first time, such a cult was backed up by a state and couldtherefore be systematically organised and forced upon a whole citizenry.Furthermore, the cultic implications of Marxism were strengthened byLenin’s concept of the revolutionary vanguard, which implied that there wasa body of men and women who were divided from the ordinary populationby unusual insight and bravery. They were therefore entitled to the greatestrespect.17 After 1917, a monumental cult of revolutionary heroes was imme-diately started up. Even in his lifetime, Lenin’s own cult took extraordinaryproportions. Although not yet dominating public life, many of the speeches,poems and other writings about him were as extravagant as those laterproduced in honour of his successor.18

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This was the heritage that Stalin found. His own pronouncements onheroism are relatively scarce, but we do know that he based his belief in thehero-genius, the man or woman whose extraordinary freedom and powerwas based on an understanding of necessity, on Plekhanov’s Marxist argu-ment. In 1931 he said, paraphrasing Plekhanov:

Marxism does not at all deny the role of eminent personalities or thefact that history is made by people…. But, of course, people makehistory not in such a way as any kind of phantasy inspires them to….Every new generation finds certain conditions…. And great people areworth anything only in so far as they are able to understand these condi-tions correctly, to understand how to change them…. Marxism hasnever denied the role of heroes. On the contrary, it recognises this role asconsiderable, but with those reservations about which I just spoke.19

According to Stalin, Marxism provided a theoretical justification of the cultof heroes, including of himself. The cult rested importantly on hagiographies,the first being the Pravda of 21 December 1929, which contained celebratoryarticles on the occasion of the leader’s alleged fiftieth birthday. The cultreceived a boost in 1934 when history education at Soviet schools began to beaccused of suffering from abstractness and omitting the role of living“personalities.” This concerned mainly the tsarist past, but party historyshould also show the “titanic figure of Stalin.”20 The first result was Beriia’s1935 book on the history of trans-Caucasian bolshevism.21 The 1938 Kratkiikurs also served as a major vehicle of the cult. But the main text was IosifVissarionovich Stalin (Kratkaia biografiia), appearing the next year. Duringthe 1930s, various people were involved in other biographical attempts, butonly one individual project among them, Emel’ian Iaroslavskii’s, wascrowned with success.22 The Short Biography appeared on the occasion of thealleged sixtieth birthday of the leader. An updated second edition appearedin 1947 on the occasion of his seventieth, two years early.23

Stalin probably did not take a direct hand in the final editing of the 1939edition.24 The second edition was closely commented on by him. InDecember 1946, he explained to two of the authors that his own and Lenin’sworks were beyond the grasp of many toilers. Uneducated ordinary peopleshould begin their studies of Marxism–Leninism with biographies. Heproposed to produce a new Lenin biography and summarised the correc-tions he hoped to see in the second edition of his own, of which he hadreceived the maket.25 All of these texts, from 1929 to 1947, told essentiallythe same story of the magnificent project of class struggle and the buildingof communism in Russia since the late nineteenth century. Until 1924, thegreat Lenin stood at the head of the movement, with Stalin at his side as hisclosest comrade. After the founder’s death the latter took over. Everysuccessful mission of the Russian communist party had since then beenguided by this extraordinarily talented leader.

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For all the evident humbug, Stalin was presented in a carefully thoughtout way. The qualities attributed to him were excessive, but because theywere complementary among themselves an impression of balance wascreated. The first qualities of his leadership were his strength of characterand his powerful intellect. Stalin was an irreconcilable man, hard as stone,with an iron hand and a steel will, and his words were cut from marble. Hewas fearless in battle, free of every kind of panic, ruthless towards theenemies of the people – a giant and a titan. Next to this, the leader wasknown for his wisdom, his huge theoretical powers, the crystal clarity of hismind and the crushing force of his logic. His thinking was scientific andcreatively original. His writings were known for their clarity and extraordi-nary depth. The two aspects of Stalin’s leadership, his genius and hisheroism, were reflected in the double title of “leader and teacher.”

This characterisation was held in balance by the leader’s tremendousmodesty. Stalin did not allow even a shadow of arrogance. He was only themost loyal continuer of Lenin’s cause. “I am only Lenin’s pupil.” And he wasmodest enough “not only to teach the workers and the peasants, but also tolearn from them.” For all his greatness, Stalin remained the representative ofthe proletariat. It was the great party of the working class which “gave birthto me and educated me in its image and likeness.” The leader contributed hisstrength and ability to the cause of the proletariat. His greatest merit was his“selfless service to the Soviet Motherland.”26 The Stalin myth was at a closelook paradoxical. Next to being a leader and a teacher, he was also a pupiland a servant – of Lenin, of the class and the party, and of the motherland.What is more, he was a great teacher because he was a loyal pupil; a greatleader because a modest servant. The leader derived his legitimacy from hisloyalty to his predecessor and from his services to those he led.

Throughout his life, Stalin took extreme care to keep the balance in hiscult intact. A classic occasion was his address to Tbilisi railway workers in1926. In the old days, the workers of this city had been his “teachers.” Undertheir care he received his baptism as a revolutionary “pupil.” Subsequently,the oil workers of Baku educated him to become a “journeyman” of therevolution. And, finally, it was the St Petersburg workers and Lenin whoturned him into a revolutionary “master.”27 Another occasion for Stalin toexpress his modesty was his November 1937 speech. The dictator explainedthat, compared with people like Trotskii and Bukharin, he had been an“unimpressive fellow.” But the oppositionists “didn’t reckon with the party,especially with its middle element.” He, Stalin, had placed himself at thehead of a group of “unknown people” who were prepared “to learn to workfrom the masses, from the middle people.”

Personality isn’t the crux. It’s very hard to say who educated me. You meor I you? You’ll say that I’m an outstanding man, it isn’t so. Holy fear ofnot justifying the trust that the masses and the people placed in you inthe fight with those figures – that’s what proved decisive, fear of failure,

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and we emerged as leaders. Comrades Molotov, Voroshilov, Kalinin,Kaganovich, Mikoyan, and others worked hard…. To the middleelement, to the officer stratum in the economy, party, and military, tothe masses of people who acquire experience and promote even unim-pressive ones!28

Stalin never stopped calling himself a pupil of Lenin.29 In 1941, he spoke toa group of Tajik officials characteristically of the man “who educated us,taught us, sometimes scolded us, sometimes praised us, [the man] who madeus into people.” He concluded that “we are his shadow, his young pupils[ptentsy i ucheniki]…. I say it in the Eastern way: we are his shadow on theearth and lighten up by reflecting his light.”30 As late as the October 1952plenum of the Central Committee, Stalin interrupted someone who had saidthat he was a “dedicated pupil of comrade Stalin” with the words: “We areall pupils of Lenin.”31 This was a formula he never departed from.

This is the perspective from which to make sense of Stalin’s occasionalobjections to the cult of his personality. In a 1930 letter to a comradepledging his dedication to him, he rejected the “‘principle’ of dedication toindividuals.” One should only serve the working class, the party and thestate.32 We find similar remarks in private notes. In 1933, Stalin scrappedreferences from a play by A.N. Afinogenov to the “Leader” and replaced itby “the Central Committee.” In an accompanying note to the author, hewrote: “The point is not ‘the leader’ [vozhd’], but the collective leader[rukovoditel’], the CC of the party.”33 And in a 1935 History of the VKP(b),Stalin wrote in the margin next to a reference to himself as the wise leader ofall toilers: “An apotheosis of individuals? What happened to Marxism?”34

On occasion he objected to public praise. In 1933, he refused permission toorganise an exhibition of materials relating to him “because such enterpriseslead to a strengthening of the ‘cult of personalities,’ which is harmful andnot in accordance with the spirit of our party.”35 The clearest example is his1938 objection to the publication of a book with stories on his youth.

the little book has the tendency to introduce a cult of personalities, ofleaders, of infallible heroes into the consciousness of Soviet children(and people in general). That’s dangerous, harmful. The theory of“heroes” and the “crowd” is not a bolshevik but an SR theory. Heroescreate the people, transform it from a crowd into a people – say theSR’s. The people create heroes – the bolsheviks answer to the SR’s.36

Ironically, Stalin in fact confirmed that he was a hero. But even heroesshould be presented in a correct light. A hero of Marxism was a person whoknew how to act as a willing instrument of the laws of history. These lawswere embodied in the working class and the communist party. ThereforeStalin demanded to be portrayed as a hero and genius with the strict provi-sion that the toiling masses and the party were recognised as his sources of

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inspiration and legitimacy. As a child, he had not yet been a hero in thatsense. Little Soso had no relation to the popular struggles. What would bethe point, then, in portraying his youth? The boy meant nothing whatsoever.To praise him could only undermine the present Stalin’s authority becauseof the obvious lack of seriousness of such an undertaking from a correctpolitical perspective.

Stalin intervened on several occasions to keep his cult within its properboundaries. In the final maket of the Short Course he removed the mostexcessive praise for him.37 Most importantly, in his December 1946 discus-sion with two authors of his biography he criticised the previous edition forits “incorrect, SR tone.” It was a book for “idol worshippers.” “One has toinculcate love for the party (which is immortal).” The leader noted that atleast ten “teachings” had been attributed to him. But his originality hadbeen exaggerated. “There is only one teaching of Marx–Lenin.” The newedition of the Short Biography should be corrected accordingly.38

The main thing that Stalin did in correcting his biography was to reducehis role as a “teacher.” He changed the formula of his own “having elabo-rated [razrabotav] Marxist–Leninist teaching” into his “having made moreconcrete the Marxist–Leninist theory.” The new edition still claimed that hecreated a complete teaching on the socialist state. “But what Lenin failed toaccomplish in the questions of the theory of the state, Stalin did accom-plish!” But the other “teachings” he had developed according to the 1939text were now called “thesis,” “theory” or “conclusion” and presented aselaborating Lenin’s thought.39 Importantly, Stalin also objected toKaganovich’s proposals to introduce the term “Stalinism.”40 That wouldhave upset the balance in the myth of his leadership, according to which hislegitimacy was derived from loyalty to Lenin and the party. For all histowering genius and heroism, Stalin was and remained at the same time amodest instrument of the laws of history, embodied in Leninism, the partyand the working class. To suggest that his personality stood by itself meantto spoil the cult.

If Stalin could become the heroic instrument of history, so could others.Other party leaders and revolutionary workers were entitled to cults of theirown. The phenomenon reached down from the leader through his colleaguesin the Politburo to “labour heroes” at the bottom of society.41 Stalin sawhimself as the most outstanding example of a whole class of people in theservice of Marxism and history. In his speech in memory of Lenin inJanuary 1924, he said: “Comrades, we, communists, are people of a specialkind. We are constructed from a special material.”42 The USSR was ruled bya complete elite of heroes. Heroes were everywhere. In November 1935,Stalin told shock workers and Stakhanovites that they were “new people” –well schooled and at the same time free from conservativism. They destroyednumerous “icons” and “fetishes” on their bold march forward and couldonly be compared to a Ptolemy or to the great biologists who destroyed thebiblical legends of creation. Nevertheless, they remained “ordinary and

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modest people, without any pretences whatsoever.”43 These were basicallythe same merits that Stalin attributed to himself.

At a reception in March 1938 to commemorate the recent rescue ofparticipants of a polar expedition, Stalin gave an extraordinary account ofthe USSR as a society of heroes. In the West, where money was the onlything that counted, heroes were neither created nor appreciated. But in theUSSR they were valued above anything. “A little known person, but a hero,who explodes the quiet atmosphere and turns over everything, nobodyknows [how much he is worth].” Such heroes were priceless: “they’re worthbillions.” This exposé turned into an almost surrealistic scene when Stalinadded that the pilot Chkalov should not have said that he was prepared todie for him. The leader insisted that, on his own, he meant nothing:

Stalin: ...dying is something every fool can do…I drink to those who wantto live….

Chkalov: Nobody present here wants to outlive Stalin…we won’t allowanybody to take Stalin away from us. We can say bravely: we musthand over our lungs, let’s hand over our lungs to Stalin, hand overour heart – let’s hand over our heart to Stalin, hand over our leg,let’s hand over our leg to Stalin….

Stalin: Dear comrades, …don’t set yourselves the task to die for some-body…. Don’t die, but live, live and strike down the enemies.44

In Soviet mythology, Stalin compared with other party leaders, explorersand labour heroes like the sun compares with the stars. He outshone themall easily. Nevertheless, Stalin saw himself as only the most shining represen-tative of the coming “new man.”

Stalin’s cult elegantly reflected the fact that its object was no autocrat buta dictator using his powers to fortify party rule. For this was not the myth ofa ruler in splendid isolation but of one who, for all his towering talents andpower, considered himself merely a humble pupil and servant of his party.The cult differed greatly from that of the tsars, who had been presented asrulers deeply solicitous about the fate of the Russian people and protectingthem against the forces of evil, but never as the representatives of thatpeople. Nevertheless, the fact that Russia had known a cult of the tsars obvi-ously contributed to the rise of the Stalinist phenomenon. Stalin’s remarks,quoted above, on the Russian tradition of veneration of the tsars prove thathe was aware of the use of this tradition for his strategy of personal power.It must have convinced him that organising a cult of his own stood a fairchance of success. Then again, as we saw, he mainly understood his own cultas a legitimate tribute to a Marxist historical hero.

According to Isaac Deutscher, Stalin turned Western European Marxisminto an atheistic creed by absorbing elements of the Orthodox Christiantradition. The cult of personality, including phenomena like Lenin’sembalming, are eminent cases in point of the continuing influence of

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Orthodox Christianity on Stalinist Russia.45 Many scholars have repeatedthis analysis since Deutscher. This model of understanding the cult has theobvious drawback that Deutscher overstates the contrast between WesternEurope and Russia. In their own ways, Western Marxist movements werealso influenced by Christian traditions. To mention one typical example –the hall of the SPD Erfurt Congress of 1891 was draped with a majesticbanner, reading “The workers are the rocks on which the church of thefuture will be built!” Kautsky, the pillar of Western European Marxism,wanted the proletariat to establish “the ‘kingdom of God’ on earth,” and hecalled socialism “a new gospel” and the workers’ movement an “ecclesiamilitans.”46

But the fact that Kautsky was willing to speak in such terms does notmake it any less significant that Stalin was too. Stalin was particularly proneto pepper his discourse with religious phrases. “Here I stand,” he said in1920, “paraphrasing the famous words of Luther.” Standing on theboundary line between the capitalist and socialist worlds, he hoped to unitethe Western proletariat and the Eastern peasantry. “May the god of historyhelp me.”47 His memorial speech to Lenin in January 1924 mentioned a“Kingdom of Labour” to be established on earth.48 He warned that theworld revolution might come unexpectedly – in Jesus’s words: “‘we do notknow that day or hour’ when ‘the bridegroom arrives.’ ”49 And for Stalin,the Communist Manifesto was the “Song of Songs of Marxism.”50

The Soviet dictator’s use of this language was more than a mere figure ofspeech, which he may have liked because it reminded him of his days as aseminarian, or because he could expect the Russian public to recognise it.Underlying it was his conviction that there existed a real historical parallelbetween early Christianity and the Marxism of his own days. In his pre-revolutionary days he had often compared social democratic leaders andrevolutionary workers to the old prophets and apostles of Christianity.51

The significance of this for Stalin came into the open in 1923, when he wrotethat present-day socialism served as the banner of liberation of the toilers inthe same way that Christianity had once been the lifebuoy of the slaves ofthe Roman Empire.52 For Stalin, Marxism repeated the old performance ofChristianity, both of them being ideological systems inspiring the masses towork towards liberation from a decadent world.53

We may plausibly assume that Stalin’s belief that Marxism in somerespects repeated the triumphant march of early Christianity helped him toconclude that it was justified for the Marxists to revere their leaders. Thefact that the Christians had had their apostles and prophets must havestrengthened his idea that the veneration of leaders was a common thing inrevolutionary movements. Moreover, the fact that Russia knew a livingtradition of worship of saints must have further strengthened his confidencethat his own cult could work, just as he hoped that the veneration of thetsars made his own cult more acceptable to the population.

Nevertheless, as far as one can ascertain on the basis of what Stalin said

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and wrote, the comparison with the prophets and saints remained no morethan a sideline in his setting up of the cults of revolutionary leaders. Therelative marginality of the “Orthodox” motive is confirmed by the actualform the Stalinist cult took. Taking a closer look, the similarities betweenthe Orthodox and Stalinist cults were rather limited.

Take the most “Orthodox” element of Stalinist ritual: Lenin’s embalming.In October 1923, Stalin proposed that the leader be buried rather thancremated, that being usual in Russia. Moreover, his body might be preservedlong enough to get used to the idea of Lenin’s absence.54 After the leader’sdeath, decisions were taken to embalm the body until the funeral. In March,it was decided to preserve it indefinitely.55 According to Molotov, it wasStalin who insisted on this.56 But Lenin’s bodily remains were no relics withalleged miraculous powers. The body was a statue without intrinsic value.The enormous respect shown to it expressed only the respect for thedeceased leader.57 The Orthodox believer addresses icons and relics in orderto reach the respective saint through prayer. The ritual is a form of commu-nication. This element was completely lacking in Stalinism, even in its mostexcessive forms. For the Stalinist, statues and posters served only to publiclyunderscore loyalty to those depicted. It would be meaningless for a Stalinistto perform a private ritual in relation to a statue, or even to Lenin’s body. Inessence, the parallel between the two cults consisted in the fact that theywere cults.

In summing up, one way to look at the rise of the Stalin cult is to under-stand it against the background of tsarist and Orthodox traditions in thecountry. The cult was furthermore a conscious instrument of Stalin’s powerstrategies. But observed from the point of view of his own understanding ofit, the Marxist component remained overriding. Stalin was convinced thathe was a true historical hero. He not only hoped to be venerated to under-score his power. He also deserved to be venerated because he had anextraordinary understanding of the Marxist laws of history and the courageto act ruthlessly upon them. Nothing in what he said or wrote indicates thathe had any doubts about the legitimacy of his cult. It would be contrary tohis whole understanding of history to refuse the proletarian leaders theveneration they deserved.

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In Marx and Engels’s communist society the capitalist divisions of labourwere overcome. Mental and physical labour were fused and so were city andcountryside. The family as a separate unit was replaced by a wider form ofcommunity. Communism promised to be an undifferentiated, homogeneousentity. During the so-called Cultural Revolution of the years 1928 to 1931,the Marxist ideal was translated into a struggle between “bourgeois andproletarian culture.” The goal was to abolish separate institutions like theschool, written law, the big city and the family. These should be swallowedup by society. Stalin was never comfortable with this impractical ideal oftotal homogeneity. Having provided the radicals with some space for a fewyears, he gave short shrift to them in the early 1930s. The subsequent “GreatRetreat” ushered in Stalinist society in the strict sense of the word.1

Stalin ridiculed the fusion of mental and physical labour and of city andcountryside. At a plenum of the Central Committee in 1931, Kaganovichcalled abolishing big cities “nonsense.” Stalin confirmed the “leading role ofthe socialist city vis-à-vis the petit bourgeois village.”2 At a conference onthe reconstruction of Moscow in July 1934, he noted his disagreement withthe extreme urbanists, who wished to create a city “on the capitalist model,with its excessive density of population.” Nevertheless:

History shows us that the city is the most efficient [ekonomnyi] type ofsettlement in industrial districts. It makes canalisations, waterworks,[electric] lighting, heating etc. possible in an efficient way. Thereforethose are wrong, who propose to spread out the city over 70–100 kilo-metres, i.e. to transform it into a village and strip it of all advantages ofcommunal services and the cultural life of the city.3

In that same month, the leader rejected out of hand the suggestion of estab-lishing supporting industries at collective farms. “If you want to openfactories, plants, then that’s crazy according to me…. For industry we haveindustrial centres, for agriculture we have kolkhozy.”4 The leadercommented in the same spirit on the question of mental and physical labour.In November 1935, he noted at the first All-Union Conference of

13 Stalin on society, culture andscience

Stakhanovites that the movement represented the beginning of the over-coming of that division of labour. But he did not envision this as a fusionbut as raising the standards of work and knowledge of the workers:

Some think that the abolition of the contradiction between mental andphysical labour can be brought about by some kind of cultural-technicallevelling out of toilers of mental and physical labour…. As a matter offact, the abolition of the contradiction between mental and physicallabour can be brought about only on the basis of an upsurge of thecultural-technical level of the working class to the level of toilersperforming technical-engineering labour.5

In 1952, Stalin spelled out in Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSRthat, although the “contradiction” between city and countryside had disap-peared in socialist Russia, Engels’s hope of a “ruin of the big cities” wasmisinformed. The big cultural and industrial centres should flourish. Only the“essential difference” between city and countryside – differences in culturallevel and between state and collective property – should disappear. Thecontradiction between mental and physical labour had already disappeared,because the manual workers were no longer discriminated against. The“essential difference” between the two kinds of toilers – again in the sense of ahigher cultural and technical level of engineering and staff personnel – shoulddisappear too. But differences would remain, for the “conditions of work ofthe leading staff of enterprises are not identical with the conditions of workof the workers.”6 Under complete communism, Soviet citizens would still livein cities and villages, and there would be workers and peasants, officials andintellectuals.

That Stalin expected the divisions of labour to continue to exist even inthe highest stage of communism also appears implicitly from his limitedviews concerning the conditions of transition to that stage. He mentionedonly three: an “uninterrupted growth of the whole of social production”;the transition of the kolkhoz to a form of property of the whole people, withthe related gradual replacement of “commodity circulation” by “productexchange”; and finally a degree of cultural progress and polytechnicaleducation enabling Soviet citizens to switch professions in the course of theirworking lives if they so wished. The working day should be reduced to fivehours and wages at least doubled. Only then would labour be a real joyinstead of a burden.7 Nothing was said on the divisions of labour.

The exposé on the merger of the kolkhoz and state sectors even containedthe suggestion that the distinction between collective and nationalised prop-erty might be preserved under full communism. Stalin predicted theestablishment of a “unified economic organ of the whole people” (with repre-sentation of industry and the kolkhozes) as a joint planning organ for thetwo sectors.8 The definition of the joint organ as one “of the whole people”might be interpreted as making nationalisation superfluous. Until now only

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state property had been defined as “of the whole people.” But if the collec-tives too might become part of a system “of the whole people” – withoutbeing nationalised – did not the theoretical need for their nationalisationthereby disappear? Full communism might avoid complete homogeneity ofproperty.

The reasons for Stalin to preserve the social divisions of labour are nothard to discover. They were exactly the same as those that persuaded himagainst abolishing money. To try to reform Soviet society into a huge homo-geneous mass was utterly impracticable and could only lead to chaos.Formulated more positively, Stalin believed in the value of efficiency. Thedivisions of labour promoted the overall efficiency of the social organism.The Stalinist reformulation of the Marxist ideal had an ironic side to it. Onemight interpret the Soviet dictator’s reduction of its utopian element assignifying his lessening revolutionary fervour. But one could as well, andfrom a sociological point of view with more justification, make a case thathe purged Marxism of an archaic ideal. By insisting that the social divisionsof labour could not be undone, he adapted the ideal of the communistsociety to the modern world.

Stalin’s cultural policies are notoriously hard to interpret. In importantrespects he restored the continuity with the tsarist past, while also preservingnew communist elements. A good example is the policy towards women. Asin the old days, motherhood was restored as woman’s honourable mission,culminating in a veritable cult with medals and other decorations. Freedomof abortion and easy divorce were among the casualties of the new policy.At the same time, there was no restoration of the man as the head of thefamily. The Stalinists rejected male leadership as an obscurantist principle.Nor was the woman pushed back out of the workplace into the house. Incontrast to the old days, women were in the ideal case expected to be bothproductive workers and mothers.9 This is a typical example of a case where,as I discussed in the introduction to the present book, one can endlessly tryto strike a balance between the elements of continuity and discontinuitywithout ever being able to provide a definitive answer.

However, we can say something about the underlying motive of Stalinistfamily policies. The motive integrating them into one whole was to mobiliseto a maximum all citizens for the state – in and outside the house. As womenare naturally fit to be producers in two different ways – of material goodsand progeny – they were naturally expected to perform both roles. Theyshould be Stakhanovites as well as producing as many new citizens aspossible. I should add that, likewise, the children’s primary responsibilitywas not to their parents but also to the state – as the glorification of PavlikMorozov epitomised. Although in practice leading to a new continuity withthe tsarist past in many respects, the motive of the Stalinist policies was notreally traditionalist but a form of patriotic etatism.

The same goes for the educational reforms. In the 1920s, Soviet schoolsexperimented with the Dalton Plan and other forms of free education. The

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pupil’s autonomy was the central value. During the next decade libertarianexperiments were stopped. Stalin restored the broken link with the past byreturning to the authoritarian, classical model – except for corporal punish-ment, which was considered a mark of the old regime. But the motive wasnot to return to the good old days but the same patriotic etatism.Libertarianism was held to be incompatible with the education of citizens ina spirit of dedication to the state. After his death in 1939, A.S. Makarenkowas officially proclaimed the “father of Soviet pedagogy.” He rejected “freeeducation” as bourgeois individualism, bound to produce antisocial person-alities. The school was a disciplined collective, teaching the pupil first of allhis or her duties towards the state.10 The Stalinists were overridinglyconcerned with civic patriotism. Through the school, the young generationshould be educated into a body of active citizens, motivated by a spirit ofservice to the state.

Nineteenth-century anciens régimes like imperial Russia had not beenimmune from the new nationalism, including its self-imposed duty toeducate the population. As the century proceeded, popular education hadbegun to spread. But the mobilisational motive made the Stalinist educa-tional program more ambitious. As a matter of fact, it was not only moreambitious than the old tsarist system but also more ambitious than theearlier bolshevik one. Prior to the mid-1930s, Soviet education proceededfrom the assumption that the school should take each child’s limitations interms of heredity and environment into account. The child was the point ofdeparture in terms not only of its autonomy but also of its limitations. In1936, this was condemned as overly pessimistic. Children were infinitelymalleable. All could in principle be completely re-educated, politically andprofessionally.11 Although tuition fees were reintroduced, the goal of theStalinists remained to provide all children with higher education eventually.This was reflected in Stalin’s remarks that the workers should be raised tothe cultural and technical level of engineers and staff personnel.

Although in practice digging up many old policies and institutions,Stalin’s cultural policies as they took shape in the 1930s did not originatefrom a conservative backlash. The Soviet leader hoped to reorganise institu-tions such as the family and the school in such a way as to make thepopulation contribute in the most all-round way to the efforts of the state.Re-education, organisation and mobilisation of the citizenry – patrioticetatism – was the overriding goal of the Great Retreat. All citizens should bemade to, as it were, forget that they were separate individuals with privatelongings of their own. They had to be taught to, paraphrasing Stalin,“merge their wishes with the wishes of the state” – and to live by that prin-ciple. The practical policies were chosen in a pragmatic way. If it was helduseful for patriotic purposes to restore a tsarist institution, that was donewithout any revolutionary pangs of conscience. The past was made use ofshamelessly, but it had little if anything to do with conservative nostalgia.

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“Socialist realism”

Let us now turn to Stalin’s views on art. Lenin had been disgusted by artisticexperimentation. Under his inspiration, the Central Committee condemned“decadents” for injecting “twisted tastes” into the working class.12 But duringthe 1920s, realism was not yet enforced. Initially, Stalin did not show muchinterest in art policies – not counting the question of culture in the nationalrepublics, to be discussed later. But from the start he was never sympatheticto the experimental avant-garde and supported the cause of proletarianrealist art, although warning against sectarianism. In 1922, he proposed tothe Politburo to establish a “society for the development of Russian culture.”The new “Soviet culture” should not be formed in the way “some ‘proletarianideologues’ [Bogdanov and others]” envisaged it but through a strugglebetween all “Soviet-inclined” writers and counter-revolutionary tendencies.13

Stalin rejected a completely new, exclusively proletarian culture as toosectarian. Although the political partisanship of art should never be in doubt,artists should be collected on a wider “Soviet” platform. During the years ofthe Cultural Revolution, the Russian Association of Proletarian Writers(RAPP) deployed a fierce campaign for “proletarian hegemony” in art. Thecampaign was supported by the Stalin leadership, but not unconditionally. In1928, RAPP objected to a government decision to allow the staging of playssuch as Bulgakov’s Flight. In the summer of the same year the famousMeierkhol’d left the country. The leader of the group Proletarian Theatre,Bill’-Belotserkovskii, publicly celebrated his departure as no loss for the prole-tarian cause. RAPP leader Averbakh thought that Bill’-Belotserkovskii wenttoo far and called him a “class enemy.”14 This infighting between revolution-aries led to Stalin’s intervention.

In February 1929, he wrote a letter to Bill’-Belotserkovskii, objecting tohis use of the terms “left” and “right” in his discussion of literature. Thiswas party terminology. In literature, other criteria were needed – concepts ofa class nature, or even the “concepts ‘Soviet’, ‘anti-Soviet’, ‘revolutionary’,‘anti-revolutionary’ etc.” Stalin objected to a witch hunt against Meierkhol’dand Bulgakov. It was easy to ban non-proletarian literature, but the mainpoint was to produce interesting replacements. Only under the condition ofcompetition was a “crystallisation of our proletarian artistic literature”feasible.15 In the same month, at a meeting with Ukrainian writers, Stalinturned against the demand that literary products be communist. It wasenough for them to have a revolutionary or proletarian spirit.16 In a letter toRAPP he confirmed that, despite certain negative characteristics,Meierkhol’d remained linked to Soviet public life. But to condemn Bill’-Belotserkovskii as a class enemy was unbalanced. Instead of creating“cacophony” on the literary front, one should seek a common language withall proletarian writers.17

Stalin supported the creation of a “proletarian art,” realistic in form andproletarian in content. But at the same time he felt that it might be too divisive

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to demand that art be strictly “proletarian,” whatever that meant. Could itnot be more broadly defined as “Soviet,” a formula to prevent too manyartists becoming estranged from the new society? In April 1932, the CentralCommittee decided to abolish the “special proletarian organisations” such asRAPP as too narrow. A broad Union of Soviet Writers (and correspondingorganisations for the other arts) should be formed, uniting all supporters ofthe “platform of Soviet power.”18

In October 1932, a company of writers were summoned to MaksimGor’kii’s town house, where they were joined by Stalin, Molotov, Voroshilovand Kaganovich. Stalin’s speech counts as the founding statement of“socialist realism.” The General Secretary confirmed that RAPP followed asectarian policy and proceeded to explain his own views on literature.Writings were as vital to society as artillery, automobiles and lorries. Thewriters were the ones to take care of the health of the producers’ minds. In away, writers were the producers of the people’s minds: “You are engineers ofhuman souls.” Art needed wide popular appeal and accessibility as well asan educative tone. Plays were the most suitable form of art. They were easyto understand. Workers were too busy to read long novels. It was no coinci-dence that the bourgeoisie, when it was “more popular in contrast tofeudalism,” produced some of its greatest geniuses in drama, people likeShakespeare and Molière. And “we in our republic are now a more popularrepublic in contrast to the bourgeoisie.” The leader continued:

the writer cannot sit still, he must get to know the life of the country….Men are transforming life. …it is well and good if [a writer] will be adialectical materialist. But…you mustn’t stuff an artist’s head withabstract theses. He must know the theories of Marx and Lenin…. Andif he shows our life truthfully, on its way to socialism, that will besocialist art, that will be socialist realism.19

The formula that life should be portrayed “truthfully, on its way tosocialism,” captures socialist realism well. It should be truthful, i.e. realisticin style, but with a definite message. Reality should be shown not simply asit is but in the light of the future goal. The history of the term “socialistrealism” is interesting in itself. It was first used publicly in May 1932, inLiteraturnaia gazeta, by Izvestiia editor Gronskii, who later claimed that heproposed the term “proletarian, socialist realism” to Stalin. The leader hadapproved of it, provided that the “proletarian” was omitted.20 The latterprovision expressed his suspicions of exclusively “proletarian” art, but the“socialist” left no doubt about the need of political tendentiousness.21

For Stalin, art was socialist propaganda. In 1935, he noted typically that“having extraordinary possibilities of spiritually influencing the masses, the[Soviet] cinema helps the working class and its party to educate the toilers inthe spirit of socialism.”22 Propagandistic art demanded a convincing style. Itshould be as lively and truthful as possible, provided the truth did not

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contradict the message. Stalin could be angry when heroes were portrayed ina negative light, or class enemies positively.23 But he might also object toschematic portraits. Primitive idealisation and demonisation carried thedanger of a loss of conviction. One of his statements on the subject wasmade in September 1940, during a discussion of the film The Law of Life.The leader noted that writing did not work like a camera. Objectivity“should not be without passion, but living.” He demanded a “truthfulnessand objectivity which serves some particular class.” Literature should loveand hate. But this did not require “that the works show us the enemy only inhis main, negative aspect.” That was how Gogol’ and Shakespeare did it, butStalin wanted it otherwise:

I’d prefer another way of writing – the way of Chekhov, with whomthere are no outstanding heroes, but “grey” people, but who express afundamental stream of life…. I’d prefer that our literature showed ourenemies not as monsters, but as people hostile to our society, but notwithout some human traits…. Why shouldn’t we show that Bukharin,however horrible he was, had some human traits too? Trotskii was anenemy, but he was a capable man.24

In March 1950 Stalin noted, once again, that to have only ideal, positiveheroes in Soviet literature was a “neo-RAPP” point of view. Great artistslike Gogol’ and Tolstoi never used this schematic style.25

Whether one defines socialist realism as a “modern” art form depends onone’s definitions. If modernism is confined to twentieth-century experimen-talism, Stalinist art was its nemesis. If definitions include the whole complexof post-medieval bourgeois realistic art, socialist realism remains part ofmodernism. What interests me is Stalin’s understanding of the matter. It hasbeen argued that, in its inspiration, socialist realism was a perverted avant-garde phenomenon. The avant-garde demanded a fusion of art and society.So did socialist realism, with its insistence on political tendentiousness andits demand of accessibility for a wide public. Like the avant-garde, socialistrealism demanded an “art for society’s sake.” Stalin concluded only that toseriously reject “art for art’s sake” implied rejecting experimentalism. If artreally should serve society, then one should shed any elitist preferences anddevelop a popular art mobilising the toiling masses.26 In any case, thesocialist content was the point of departure for Stalin’s thinking on art. Hisopting for realistic conservativism was pragmatically inspired, derived fromthe socialist goal of art. Socialism was a mass phenomenon – art shouldtherefore aim for the masses.

Stalin was careful to construct a progressive pedigree of socialist realism.For him, the most inspiring art of pre-revolutionary Russia was nineteenth-century “critical realism.” In his discussion with Gronskii about thedefinition of the new style, he said that the term “socialist realism” referredto a historical continuity: “at the stage of the proletarian socialist move-

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ment, the literature of critical realism, which arose at the stage of the bour-geois-democratic social movement, turns into, grows over into the literatureof socialist realism.”27 When the doctrine of socialist realism obtained itsauthoritative form in the years 1932–34, its ideological prehistory was offi-cially determined. Next to Marx, Engels and Lenin, Russian radicaldemocrats of the nineteenth century such as Belinskii and Chernyshevskiiwere officially recognised as precursors. Chernyshevskii pleaded for unity ofart and life, for the identity of the beautiful and the politically correct.28

From its inception, socialist realist ideology contained a patriotic compo-nent. In painting, critical realism had been represented by the so-calledperedvizhniki, of whom Il’ia Repin was the main exponent. They wereknown for portraying the horrors of contemporary society, but also forpatriotic themes. Their ideologue Vladimir Stasov argued that art should berooted in the life of the common people, giving it a realistic form as well as anational colour. He rejected “cosmopolitanism” as destructive of authen-ticity and true popularity. Similar views had been nurtured by theWesterniser Vissarion Belinskii, whose views on art now received publicpraise in Stalinist Russia.

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Figure 9 N.G. Chernyshevskii: socially useful art

Belinskii had been horrified by the old Russia, which in his view had beena country living as a mere narod. People had been part of a closely knit,more or less undifferentiated community, from which the rational citizenhad not yet emerged. Only Peter the Great turned Russia from narod to arational natsiia. Belinskii used the latter, originally French, word to show hisaffinity with the goals of the French Revolution. But Peter’s reform hadbeen a partial one. Only the elite had been upgraded. The common peoplewere still enserfed and continued to live as a mere narod. The resulting riftbetween these two sections of society should be closed by incorporating thepeasantry into the rational nation, so that a modern community of equalcitizens came about. Somewhat like Rousseau and the Jacobins, Belinskiifurther believed that nations might only be successfully formed if theyallowed themselves to be marked off from each other in specific nationalcolours:

Nationalities are the individualities of mankind. Without nationsmankind would be a lifeless abstraction, a word without content, ameaningless sound. In this respect I would rather join the Slavophilesthan stay with the humanist cosmopolitans because even if the formermake mistakes they err like living human beings, whereas the lattermake even the truth sound like the embodiment of some abstract logic.

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Figure 10 V.G. Belinskii: healthy patriotism

The culture of a new Russia should rest on a universalist and rationalistbasis, which it had in common with all modern nations. But it should alsohave a specific Russian colour of its own. And it was the common people –who were after all the real nation – who had, despite their backwardness anddegradation, preserved national traditions against the Westernised elite. Aprogressive nationalist should recognise that if the common people wereindeed constituted as the nation, they should also be allowed to put theircultural mark on the new nation. To be really democratic, culture should bemarked by narodnost’, popularity.29 With Stasov and Belinskii, patriotismwas injected into socialist realism.

Belinskii and Chernyshevskii had also been greatly admired by Plekhanovand Lenin.30 In that light, Stalin’s adoption of them as Russian revolu-tionary heroes was not surprising. There is indirect evidence that thememory of the Chavchavadze movement contributed to Stalin’s appreciationof their particular mix of popularity and patriotism. On 12 September 1937,Pravda published an unsigned article on the occasion of the thirtiethanniversary of Chavchavadze’s death. The piece was written by Stalin.31 Thewriter was described as a fighter against serfdom and autocracy and for the

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Figure 11 Peter the Great: “good ideas, but there came in too many Germans”

national liberation of Georgia. He dreamed of “national regeneration of hismuch suffering motherland.” During his stay at St Petersburg University,Chavchavadze came under the influence of “the leaders of the Russian revo-lutionary democratic movement – Belinskii, Dobroliubov, Chernyshevskii,Gertsen.” Through their ideas, “his hatred for the exploiting system becamestronger, and his views of literature and art were formed.” Chavchavadzefounded the realist school of Georgian literature.

A burning love for his own people was always the source ofChavchavadze’s poetic inspirations. He strongly believed that the daywould come when, having overthrown the oppressors, his motherlandwould deploy its powerful forces and would flourish with a tempestuousblossom.

Stalin placed Chavchavadze and the nineteenth-century Russian revolu-tionary realists in one democratic camp, which he admired for its combinedorientation towards the toiling masses against the ruling class, and patrio-tism. The anti-cosmopolitan principle of love for one’s own peoplesynthesised these two concerns. Stalin recognised in Chavchavadze andBelinskii and company a healthy ideology of revolutionary patriotism, theidea of reinvigoration of the motherland through struggle against the oldreactionary system, which holds it down. If we can attach significance tothis Pravda article, we may surmise that during the 1930s Stalin began toremember his experiences as a youth in the Chavchavadze movement andthat he found a new appreciation of it. Realising the similarities between thisdemocratic Georgian patriotism and the ideas of men like Belinskii andChernyshevskii helped him decide to adopt the latter.

The adoption of Belinskii and Stasov in Stalinist Russia in the early1930s marks an important moment. The original Marxism of Marx andEngels had known its patriotic element. In one of its aspects, the proletarianrevolution was a force of patriotic regeneration. Lenin and Stalin inheritedthis concern as part of their socialist orientation. But now Stalin injected thepatriotic theme into his Marxism in a more explicit way, as a separateconcern. In the course of the 1930s and 1940s its implications became evermore significant.

Patriotism found its way into the Stalinist vocabulary gradually, in stages.Early in 1936, Pravda published four articles attacking Soviet opera, ballet,architecture and painting.32 They rejected “formalism,” the formal experi-ments with their fake originality and “petit bourgeois ‘innovation.’ ” Pravdademanded “natural, human music” and “real art”: tuneful music, true-to-lifecostumes, proper usage of folklore and the classicist tradition. These articlesdid not expound a Russian patriotic theme but merely reiterated the princi-ples of mass orientation and educational tone. Yet the class theme was treatedhere in a new and looser way. “Popular” art no longer expressed the ideals ofthe proletariat but embodied an unspecified popular community. Popular art

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expressed real humanity. In that sense, the class theme was receding in favourof a “patriotic” approach of the people as a unified community.

Then again, the class theme did not disappear from Stalinist vocabulary.The hostility towards the tsarist ruling classes continued unabated. Duringthe great Pushkin celebrations of 1937, the poet was praised as a genius ofthe Russian people and Russia’s national pride, together with other“talented sons of the people” like the scientists Lomonosov and Mendeleev.No attempt was made to provide his work with a specific class analysis. Hesimply represented the “best that was created by the people.” But Pushkinwas not turned into a representative of a great tsarist past. On the contrary,it was emphasised that the tsarist autocracy and reactionary circles hadhated his progressive, anti-aristocratic sentiments. The poet was as it wereannexed, lifted out of an era that remained as gloomy as it had ever been inthe eyes of the Stalinists.33 Pushkin represented an undifferentiated Russianpeople, without class attachment. But the tsarist ruling classes were excludedfrom that popular community; they did not belong to the people.34

After the Great Patriotic War, a new campaign of cultural orthodoxyshook artistic circles. Stalin initiated it at a session of the Orgbureau on 9August 1946. The Soviet leader compared sloppy Soviet films negatively withChaplin’s conscientious work (“and take Goethe, he worked for 30 years onFaust”). In the film A Great Life, there were plenty of gypsy and restaurantscenes, but the process of reconstruction of the Donbass was scarcely paidattention to. And why were our “golden people,” our “heroes,” shown livingin primitive circumstances and working without modern machinery? Heattacked the journal Zvezda for its acceptance of Zoshchensko’s TheAdventures of a Monkey. The story mocked Soviet reality: “nonsense, neithergood for the mind nor for the heart…. We didn’t construct the Soviet systemto teach people on small stuff.” Next to this, Stalin elaborated on the patri-otic theme in a sharper way than ever before:

You walk on your toes for foreign writers. Is it not beneath a Soviet manto walk on his toes for the world abroad? Thereby you stimulate feelingsof crawling, which is a big sin. [By printing many works in translation]you inject a taste of extraordinary respect for foreigners. You inject thefeeling that we are people of the second rank, and over there you havepeople of the first rank…. You are pupils, they are the teachers. That isfundamentally wrong.35

The Soviet people were no longer allowed to be pupils to foreign teachers.This raised national self-reliance to a dogma and a value in itself. To demandthat the socialist system serve to uplift the fatherland, as the leader hadalways demanded, is one thing. To demand that this will be done without, orwithout much, learning from other countries goes a step further. The prac-tical consequences were profound. From now on, the Soviet state might castout foreign art not because it was bourgeois but for the simple reason that it

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was foreign. Stalin’s idea did not imply that there was necessarily anythingwrong with foreign art. It might well be admitted that a foreign work wasprogressive. In April 1948, Stalin told a Finnish state delegation:

every nation – irrespective of whether it is big or small – has its ownqualitative particularities, its own specific nature [spetsifika], whichbelongs to it alone and which is not found among the other nations.These particularities represent the contribution which each nationmakes to the common treasure-house of world culture and supplementsit, enriches it. In that sense…each nation is identical [ravnoznachna] toany other nation.36

For Stalin, national cultures remained instances of a universal world culture.He put himself in Belinskii’s tradition – not that of the pan-Slavic ideologistNikolai Danilevskii. Like Stalin, Danilevskii had divided the world intoseparate national cultures with their own specific characters. But for him,each culture was unique. A universal human culture simply did not exist.But, then again, the fact that Stalin continued to recognise the basic univer-sality of human culture was no longer the decisive point. As the Sovietpeople should develop their own art, they were expected not to borrow fromothers – whatever the qualities of their work. To adopt foreign ways, evenhealthy ones, was wrong because it prevented people from relying on them-selves. The basis of Stalin’s argument was not that other cultures weredetestable but that the Soviet Union should not copy their examples. Butthis opened the door to xenophobia just as surely. With this new doctrine ofautarky and authenticity, which at last brought out the full consequences ofthe embracing of Belinskii and Stasov’s “anti-cosmopolitanism,” Stalininjected an element alien to Marxism into his thinking. Although not imme-diately, his ban on “crawling” came to dominate the Soviet artistic world.

Shortly after Stalin’s speech at the Orgbureau, Zhdanov gave two speeches,which again showed that the new patriotism, although diverging ever furtherfrom original Marxism, did not imply any admiration for the tsarist pasteither. He accused the erring artists whom he attacked of being in love withthe old world. The poet Akhmatova was dreaming of the old Russia of thenobility and the Middle Ages instead of nurturing the revolutionary demo-cratic traditions of Belinskii and Plekhanov. The party secretary alsocriticised those who looked up to the bourgeois writers of the West. “Wheredoes one find such a people and such a country as ours?” he asked. But hisexplanation for Russian superiority was characteristic: “We are no longer thesame Russians we were before 1917, and our Russia is no longer the same,and our character is not the same. We changed.”37 Stalin received an abbrevi-ated version of the two speeches compressed into one, which heenthusiastically endorsed for publication with only minor changes.38

The 1946 campaign did not yet put the patriotic theme in the centre butfocused on the demand for socialist tendentiousness and the public

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commitment of art. Only the following year did Stalin make the theme of“crawling” the focus of cultural policy. In his conversation with film makerEizenshtein and actor Cherkasov in February of that year he noted thatIvan the Terrible had been “a more national, more prudent tsar” than Peterthe Great. The former’s wisdom consisted of his championing the “nationalpoint of view. He did not let foreigners in – he safeguarded the countryagainst penetration by foreign influences.”

Peter I was also a great sovereign, but he was too liberal in relation toforeigners, opened the gates too wide and let foreign influence into thecountry, having allowed Russia to become Germanized. Catherineallowed this to an even greater extent. Was Alexander I’s court a Russiancourt? Was Nicholas I’s court a Russian court? No. Those were Germancourts. Ivan the Terrible was the first to introduce a monopoly on foreigntrade – an excellent move. Lenin was the second to introduce a monopoly.39

Ironically, at this time when Stalin was raising patriotism to unprecedentedheights, it became all the more clear how little he identified with his tsaristpredecessors. His criticisms of the old order became more stinging. His newpatriotism did not grow from increased appreciation of the past but addedreasons for hating it. Not only had the tsars kept the country backward andexploited the people, but they had also betrayed Russia, saddling it with aspirit of self-humiliation. In the second half of the 1930s, Stalin concludedthat Peter had been relatively progressive because of his efforts at stateconstruction. Now his appreciation of him weakened again. Only Ivan theTerrible remained as the lone exception among the tsars in promotingnational development. In May of the same year, Stalin told the writersSimonov and Fadeev that the intelligentsia had been insufficiently educatedas Soviet patriots.

They have an unjustified adoration of foreign culture. They still feelthemselves minors, not one hundred percent, they’ve got used to consid-ering themselves in a situation of eternal pupils. This is a backwardtradition, it goes back to Peter. Peter had good ideas, but soon therecame in too many Germans…. Look, how difficult it was to breathe,how difficult it was to work for Lomonosov, for instance. First theGermans, then the French, there was an adoration of foreigners.

Despite the new socialist system, Stalin complained, many people stillthought as in the old days, when lack of self-confidence towards foreignershad been the rule. But “why are we worse?” This point would be rubbed infor years. Here we would have, for instance, a good man, “not the least man,…and he adores some foreign bastard, a scholar who is three heads shorterthan he. He loses his dignity.” It was high time to start fighting the “spirit ofself-belittlement” prevalent among intellectuals.40

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These words determined the new direction of Soviet cultural policies. InJanuary 1948, Zhdanov addressed a conference of musicians. He widenedthe company of artists that were allowed to be annexed from the tsarist pastto include all those working in the proper classical realistic style. The officialacademic tsarist painter Briullov was now also a popular artist, because hisworks were accessible to the masses. Conversely, phoney modernist artshould be rejected, because it did not aspire to public service but danced tothe tunes of the individualistic wishes of a “small group of selectedaesthetes.” It served an “elite.” Zhdanov further quoted Stasov to the effectthat European culture should be respected, but without any “crawling.”Russian and Soviet music grew “precisely because it succeeded to stand onits own feet.” He concluded that real internationalism could only flourish ifone was true to one’s own national character. One could not respect otherpeoples “without respect and love for one’s own people.”41

When the doctrine of “socialist realism” was complete, it represented afull fusion of socialism and patriotism. The coherence of the idea waspreserved because it was felt that the socialist as well as the patriotic motivedemanded a realistic, “popular” style. This, again, implied that, for all thegradual widening of the scope of acceptable art from the tsarist era, socialistrealism remained selective in its models from the past. The main focus ofinterest remained the nineteenth century, and the Russian traditional art parexcellence, the iconic style, was not integrated on any significant scale. Ishould add that the fact that for Stalin national arts remained at bottominstances of a universal world culture was not without practical significance.Because of it, the demand for self-reliance was never made total. Foreigninfluences were not excluded completely. In a supreme irony, the classiciststyle, which so many Soviet architects, sculptors and painters applied astheir model, was in fact foreign – delivered from Greece and Rome, throughRenaissance Italy to eighteenth-century Russia.

“Practical” science

The last field to be discussed in the present chapter is that of the naturalsciences. The Soviet dictator ridiculed the idea that these sciences had a classcharacter. They formed a “fortress” to be captured – not somethingcompletely new and proletarian. Students should learn from everybody, “inparticular from our enemies.” But the proletarian regime was more able todevelop science than the old one had been. The Soviet state could unshacklescience:

with its revolutionary habits and traditions, with its struggle againstrigidity and stagnation of thought, our country provides the mostfavourable condition for the flourishing of the sciences. …the petitbourgeois narrowness and routine, characteristic of the old professorsof the capitalist school, are a dead weight on the feet of science.42

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Although the sciences had no class character, they should be revolutionised.Above all, science should be made more practical. This demand hadprofound consequences. First, Stalin insisted that, to be worthy of the name,theory must give “the praktiki the strength of an orientation, a clarity ofperspective, assurance in work.”43 Formulated broadly, the demand forscience to be practical is shared by all scientists. Scientific conclusions muststand empirical testing. However, the scientific criterion of practice shouldmean scientific practice, i.e. the controlled experiment and other forms ofsystematic observation. Stalin’s demand that theory give an orientation topractical workers cut off a large part of the body of science as irrelevant.Second, he followed Engels in claiming that practice as the criterion of truthreferred to “the experiment” and “industry.”44 To mention industry as a sepa-rate criterion next to the experiment allowed accepting theories as true thatseemed to work in production but were not subjected to systematic testing.

Stalin did not draw a sharp line between scientists and practical innova-tors. He respected the latter’s contribution to science more than thescientists’ own. In 1935, he praised the brave Stakhanovites, who overthrewobsolete technical norms and were “free from the conservatism and stagnantmentality of some engineers, technical and economic specialists.” They werenot prepared to “adore our backwardness and make an icon, a fetish, fromit.” The Soviet leader called on the scientists to follow their example and beas brave as Ptolemy in his day. Science was only worthy of its name if it was“not afraid to raise its hand against the obsolete, the old, and sharply listensto the voice of experience, of practice.” He explained:

People…say that the data of science, the data of the technical hand-books and instructions, contradict the demands of the Stakhanovitesconcerning new, higher technical norms. But…the data of science havealways been tested in practice, by experience. A science which has lostthe link with practice, with experience – what kind of science is that?45

Apparently, the results of scientific experiments, as laid down in handbooks,should be overturned not by new experiments and analysis but directly bythe collected productive experience of the toilers, without separate scientificverification. In May 1938, Stalin explained that one should not respect the“traditions established in science” slavishly but break them up in the spirit ofcoryphei like Darwin, Galileo and Lenin. Scientific innovation came espe-cially from ordinary toilers. New roads in science were often opened up bypeople “completely unknown in the scientific world, simple people, praktiki,innovators of the deed.” Aleksei Stakhanov and the Arctic traveller Papaninwere such “innovators in science, people of our advanced science.” He raiseda toast to that science which was prepared to “serve the people.”46

In Stalin’s view, the natural sciences were not the specific property of theproletariat but part of the general stock of knowledge of mankind.However, although at root no class issue, class did have a powerful influence

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on science. The scholars of the obsolete bourgeoisie locked themselves up intheir ivory towers and made science rigid and ossified, putting the brakes onits development. The practical Stalinist approach infused dynamism intoscience. Rather than forming a closed universe of its own – with its own kindof “practice” – science should, first, draw its conclusions from the work ofordinary people engaged in non-scientific practice and, second, accept onlyresults that could immediately serve these people in their productive work.In order to make it flourish, science should become the concern of thetoiling masses.

In some sciences, the “practical” approach had disastrous results, as whenthe crackpots Ivan Michurin, Vasilii Vil’iams and Trofim Lysenko – plantbreeders who hoped to create new species by homegrown methods – werehonoured as founding fathers of a new biology. In the previous century,Charles Darwin had shown that life forms were subject to a process ofgradual evolution. Individual plants and animals with stronger hereditarycharacteristics had the greater chance of survival. Consequently, thesehereditary characteristics gradually became dominant, which resulted in achange of the species. Inherently competitive, nature functioned like a spon-taneous breeding farm. What Darwin had not pretended to understand washow the differences in the hereditary material between individuals arose inthe first place. Before him, Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck had provided onepossible answer when he surmised that the changes that individual plantsand animals underwent during their lives under the influence of the environ-ment were somehow transmitted to their hereditary material.

During the twentieth century, it was finally shown that acquired charac-teristics could not put a stamp on heredity. Changes were due tospontaneous “mutations.” But Stalinist biology stubbornly held on toLamarckism. The adherents of this pseudo-science, typically called “agrobi-ology,” did not accept that the hereditary material of plants could changeonly by chance. It simply had to be that the hereditary material could bemanipulated through manipulation of the environment. Stalin had been aLamarckist from his youth.47 During the 1930s, he expressed support for thepractical approach of the Lysenkoites on several occasions.48 In that decade,the “agrobiologists” did not yet reign supreme. They were still criticised byproper geneticists, but after the war Lysenko triumphed. In October 1947, acampaign was started “For Creative Darwinism, against Malthusianism.”49

On 31 October, Stalin sent Lysenko a letter to express his support. TheMichurinite thesis was the only scientific one, and those “who deny theinheritance of acquired characteristics are not worth giving much attentionto.”50

In a discussion with Iurii Zhdanov, head of the party secretariat’s ScienceDepartment, in the autumn of 1947 Stalin rejected the assumption of an“immutable substance of heredity, which is not subject to the influence ofexternal nature.” He acknowledged that most of the new plant speciesallegedly developed by Lysenko perished, but “that’s what the books teach.”

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One had to focus on the surviving five percent. Men of science shouldproceed from practical life and not be afraid to break established norms. Butinstead of taking the bold course of “innovators,” most Soviet scientists were“conservative, bookish, routine people.” Copying foreign work, theyproduced no discoveries of their own.51 In April 1948, the young Zhdanovcriticised some aspects of the Lysenko school.52 Stalin wrote angry commentson a copy of the speech.53 Attacking Iurii at a meeting of the Politburo inJune, the leader divided biology into two schools, the one “based on mysti-cism – a mystery on a mystery. The other materialist.”54

The geneticists were finally crushed at a conference of the Academy ofAgricultural Sciences in August 1948. Lysenko sent his proposed report toStalin in advance. In his marginal notes, the leader ridiculed the remark thatevery science had a class character: “Ha-ha-ha…And mathematics? AndDarwinism?” He changed references to bourgeois, anti-Marxist science into“idealist,” “unscientific” or “reactionary.” Proletarian science became“progressive” or “scientific.”55 Obviously, Stalin had not accepted the divi-sion of the natural sciences into bourgeois and proletarian branches.56 Onlythe social sciences had a class character.57 But the effect of Stalin’s “practi-cism” on biology was serious enough.

Other sciences were also harmed.58 Physiology was a case in point. InJune–July 1950, a conference was organised to root out everything divergingfrom Ivan Pavlov’s teachings. In contrast to the Lysenkoites, Pavlov hadbeen a genuine scholar, but his work was received in a Stalinist interpreta-tion. The main address by Konstantin Bykov, published in Pravda on 29 and30 June, was edited by Stalin in advance.59 It claimed that in the capitalistworld physiologists operated with the concept of “the conservatism of theforces of nature, thereby putting the brakes on the development of the allpenetrating force of the human mind.” Pavlov’s theory of conditionedreflexes, provoked by external conditions, explained all reactions of animalsand man, from the most primitive to human language. It proved the falsityof the idea that living beings were “predetermined once and for all.” Theexternal environment had a dominant influence on the inner world ofanimals.

The inclusion of language in the range of the external stimuli deter-mining behaviour was especially relevant. It expressed the hope ofdeveloping all-powerful methods of propaganda. In his own imagination,Pavlovian physiology provided Stalin with a scientific instrument of totali-tarian control over human beings. Stalin’s Pavlov provided an instrument totransform the human world comparable to the one Lysenko provided totransform that of plants.

For Stalin, the natural sciences could flourish only when two demandswere met. First, they should have an anti-elitist, “mass” orientation. Stalinrejected the class approach, but not completely. Soviet science should berevolutionised by giving the ordinary, “toiling” people a role in its develop-ment and orienting it towards the demands of production. Second, in a loud

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echo of Enlightenment beliefs, it should be recognised that objects devel-oped mainly under the influence of education and the environment. Thisprovided science with the power to control objects without recognisinginherent limitations. Tucker aptly calls this approach “transformism.”60 Thetwo aspects were interrelated. Practically oriented science was moredynamic. With his narrow theoretical method, the bourgeois scholar onlyskimmed the surface of reality, never getting a real grasp of it. In contrast,the style of direct intervention allowed the praktik to mould the object at hiswill. That, again, allowed the Soviet state to make maximum use of science –or so it was hoped.

Like art, science was swamped by patriotism. During the 1930s, a kind offounding father had been “nominated” for the various sciences – most ofthem “bourgeois” scientists working from a healthy materialist perspective.They were mostly Russians – Mendeleev, Lobachevskii, Pavlov and others.The real breakthrough of xenophobic patriotism came after the GreatPatriotic War, with the “case of Kliueva and Roskin,” two medicalresearchers who in 1946 provided American colleagues with information ona new cancer therapy. This was considered a treasonous act.61 A drive forthe so-called “priority” of Soviet science was initiated – to make that scienceleading in the world. Soviet scientists were forbidden to share their resultswith foreign colleagues. If they did, they were accused of betraying theirmotherland and turning into spies. Conversely, to make Soviet sciencedependent on foreign borrowings was considered an insult to nationaldignity. Belief in the country’s own potential was the key.62 Scientificexchange was limited to marginal levels.

In February 1947, Zhdanov and Stalin received the two unfortunatescientists. According to the former’s notes, they told them that the exagger-ated prestige of America and England should be destroyed, and that theRussian peasant had a greater sense of his own dignity than they had.63 InJuly, the Central Committee wrote in a secret letter to the party that, bygiving away their discovery, Kliueva and Roskin deprived Soviet science ofits “priority.” Their anti-patriotism was a rudiment of the “accursed past oftsarist Russia.” The revolution had made Russia an independent state for thefirst time. But the sense of inferiority towards the West, inculcated by theformer ruling classes, persisted within the “powerful Soviet organism.” Fromthe eighteenth century onwards, the Russian nobility had lost its “nationalmentality and traditions.” Forgetting the Russian language, they began tospeak French. Cut off from the Russian people, they no longer believed inits creative powers and did not allow for the possibility of Russia arisingfrom backwardness by its own forces. They neglected the national scientificeffort. People like Lomonosov and Popov had been ignored, their discov-eries being attributed to foreigners like Lavoisier and Marconi.64

Stalinist patriotism had a somewhat paradoxical quality. The rift betweenthe Westernised elite and the Russian masses had been part of the life of thecountry since Peter the Great. It had been deplored by Slavophiles and

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Westernisers alike – but appreciated differently. The Slavophiles rejectedWesternisation as a matter of principle. The elite should return to theRussian fold. For a man like Belinskii, however, the process had been two-directional. The elite should allow its culture to be Russified, but the countryshould be reorganised politically, technologically, scientifically and economi-cally on Western lines. That was the position that Zhdanov and Stalin took:Russian culture should be expressed in the Russian language and painted inRussian colours. But in a paradox, they believed that the servile attitudetowards the West adopted by the Russian elite had mainly hindered thecountry’s technological and scientific development, i.e. its Westernisation.

In 1948, the drive for priority of Soviet science turned into an aggressivecampaign against “cosmopolitanism,” defined as a nihilistic attitude towardsthe phenomenon of the nation. It was insisted in Soviet publications that,like culture as a whole, science did not develop in the form of “faceless[bezlikie], ‘universally human’ ideas and concepts without nationality, but ina specific national form.” Nevertheless, patriotism was not developed intototal national exclusivity, denying every international common ground. Asin the case of art, it was grudgingly acknowledged that, in its content,science remained international and often even based on class principles.Accordingly, some exchange of scientific achievements could be wholesome,provided that the USSR did everything to become self-reliant and the domi-nant scientific power in the world.65

As in the Belinskii original, Stalinist anti-cosmopolitanism combined adominant notion that art and the sciences assumed national forms with arecognition that these endeavours still rested on a universal basis. The twoaspects expressed a policy of self-reliance mitigated by limited internationalexchange. I should add that art and the sciences were treated somewhatdifferently. The Stalinists could afford to put foreign works of art in thebasements of their museums. Western sociology and psychology could bebanned. But for industrial and military reasons they could not afford toignore the Western natural sciences. The Soviet dictator put much effort intostealing information on the atomic bomb from the Americans. Stalin did notallow his anti-cosmopolitanism to prevent him laying his hands on anyuseful Western knowledge he could get. Nevertheless, the basic approachwas the same as in the case of art. Even though foreign natural sciences weresecretly welcomed with open arms, every effort was made to ensure thatSoviet science developed so powerfully that it became self-reliant. Scientificautarky was the goal.

Stalin had come a long way. The young Marxist Koba Dzhugashvili hadtaken the standpoint he now decried as “national nihilism” and “cosmopoli-tanism”: the nation was an irrelevant and harmful phenomenon; only theculture of international modernity mattered. In 1913, he had includedcultural identity in his definition of nations. This made it easier for him torecognise the desirability of cultural autonomy for the non-Russianrepublics when he became Commissar of Nationalities. After the Great

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Patriotic War he turned full circle as he set himself the task of protectingRussian culture and science against dilution by the world abroad. Afraidthat Russian public opinion might open up to influences from the West, andunder the influence of the Cold War, he launched an attack on “cosmopo-lites” in the name of patriotic self-reliance. The Russian people wereinculcated with blind belief in their own capabilities. However, although hedrove out much of foreign culture, and sometimes even foreign science,Stalin never denied that, in the final instance, Russian culture remained partof a global whole. Correspondingly, international exchange was nevercompletely cut off.

The axis of the older Stalin’s thinking became the notion of the popularcommunity. It was this community, organised into a state, to which all indi-viduals, all art and all science should dedicate themselves. It was thiscommunity that was expected to operate as a self-reliant, more or less closedunit in the world at large. As a concept, the popular community can be usedto distinguish Stalin’s political analysis from Marxism and conservatism.The community of the “toilers” was no longer pure Marxism. The centralityof the proletariat was lost. Stalin accepted that communism would neverturn into a proletarianised society but would always know various strata,separated from each other by the great divisions of labour. In most respects,positive discrimination in favour of the proletariat was abolished.Furthermore, Stalin rejected ideas of pure proletarian arts and sciences. ButMarxism remained a powerful component in Stalin’s thought. Capitalistproperty was not restored. The capitalist classes remained excluded from thepopular community. Correspondingly, Stalin’s patriotism was not informedby conservative nostalgia. The tsarist past was decried in shrill tones as anera when the great Russian popular community was covered in shame.

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At the time when he was People’s Commissar of Nationalities under Lenin,Stalin treated the Great Russians as the most modern, leading nation of theempire. As a historic nation, they overcame “feudal fragmentation” mostsuccessfully. The Russians had first drawn their territories together andformed a centralised state.1 Economic unification further provided Russiaproper with a relatively advanced industrialisation and urbanisation. And,last but not least, in Russia the “medieval” fragmentation of people intoseparate cultural-linguistic communities was overcome more fully than else-where. It was nationally the most homogeneous territory. However, thecommissar understood that one could not force non-Russian nations tosubject themselves to assimilation into Russian modernity. They should beallowed a degree of cultural and administrative autonomy.

Two stages can be distinguished in Stalin’s nationality policies. Until themid-1930s, the autonomy of the non-Russian nations was respected to asignificant degree. The policy was called “nationalisation” or “indigenisa-tion” (korenizatsiia). Local cadres were expected to dominate the localgovernment and party apparatus, and the press and schools should operatemainly in local languages. Subsequently, the Russian stamp on the republicsbecame heavier, although Stalin never turned to complete Russification.From a Marxist perspective, the first stage was dominated by the insight,derived from the Austro-Marxists, of the tenacity of national cultural identi-ties. During the second, the old approach, originally connected with Engels,of leaning on the leading historic nation reasserted itself, although Russianculture was now treated not only in terms of abstract modernity but asspecifically Russian culture with an identity of its own.

Lenin had not left behind a simple formula to capture nationality policy.In May 1925, the new leader provided it in a speech to students of theCommunist University of Toilers of the East about the policy of culturalautonomy for the non-Russian republics:

But what is national culture? How can we combine it with proletarianculture? Didn’t Lenin say…that the slogan of national culture is a reac-tionary slogan of the bourgeoisie…? …proletarian culture, socialist by

14 Socialist in content, national in form

its content, assumes different forms and ways of expression amongdifferent peoples…, dependent on the difference of language, way of lifeetc. Proletarian in content, national in form – such is the universal[obshchechelovecheskaia] culture to which socialism strives. Proletarianculture does not abolish national culture, but provides it with itscontent.

Stalin added that he hardly believed in Kautsky’s “theory of a unified all-encompassing language.” The Soviet state hoped to awaken the many“forgotten peoples and nationalities” to a new life. Some might disappearthrough assimilation, but most would strengthen their independent existenceunder socialism.2 In 1927, Stalin acknowledged that the fusion of nationsremained the ultimate goal of Soviet policy. But this could only be accom-plished after the victory of socialism in all countries. Prior to that, thenational differences between the peoples of the USSR would stay.3

In February 1929, Stalin confirmed to a group of Ukrainian writers thathe favoured a “protective” policy of “maximum development” of nationalcultures. This was comparable to the notion of preparing the abolition of thestate through an “unprecedented expansion of the functions of this state.”4

The following month, Stalin reaffirmed that nations were formations typicalof modernity. “Elements of the nation – language, territory, cultural commu-nity etc.” did develop in the pre-capitalist era, but only in a rudimentary,potential way. Modern nations were created when the bourgeoisie, destroyingfeudal fragmentation, “collected the nation into one and cemented it.” Stalinacknowledged that with the fall of capitalism “bourgeois nations” weredoomed, but “new, Soviet nations,” “socialist nations,” survived the demiseof capitalism. Being free of irreconcilable class contradictions, they wereeven “much more welded and viable than any bourgeois nation.”

The Soviet leader accused Kautsky, who supported German assimilationof the Czechs, of not appreciating the “colossal strength of the stability ofnations.” Assimilation was “unconditionally excluded from the arsenal ofMarxism–Leninism, as an anti-popular, counter-revolutionary policy.” Theassimilatory policy of the Turks, the Russian tsars and the Germans showedits ineffectiveness well enough. Only after the establishment of worldsocialism would there arise, first, “zonal economic centres” with corre-sponding zonal languages. Finally, the whole world would fuse into one“unified system of global socialist economy” with a corresponding worldlanguage.5 At the Sixteenth Party Congress in 1930, the leader laid it downauthoritatively that the period of construction of socialism in the USSR wasa period of “flourishing of national cultures, socialist in content and nationalin form.”6 The thesis of flourishing nations under socialism probably camestraight from Otto Bauer’s work, with which Stalin was well acquainted.

However, this policy was not without ambivalence. The idea was tocentralise political and economic power in Moscow, leaving the republicsculturally autonomous. But that autonomy was never understood as separate

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from Russian culture, which was after all the most advanced one. Even in theyears of korenizatsiia, conflicts in the republics occurred. For example, inUkraine the urban working class was mainly Russian, whereas Ukrainianwas the peasant tongue and might therefore be considered as reflecting alower culture. In April 1926, Stalin notified the Ukrainian Politburo thatRussian workers should not be forced to abandon the Russian language andculture. Ukrainisation of the republican proletariat could only come aboutby a gradual influx of peasants into the factories. Furthermore, it should betaken into account that there were not enough Ukrainian Marxist cadresaround. Therefore, the tempo of Ukrainisation should not be forced. Finally,he warned that there should be no struggle “against Russian culture and itshighest achievement – Leninism.”7 By identifying Russian culture withLeninism, Stalin fixed Russian cultural leadership.

Russification

During the late 1930s, Russian leadership was intensified over a wide front.Until 1936, the right to secession still stood for all nationalities,theoretically.8 However, in his speech on the new constitution Stalin notedthat, whereas union republics had a right to secession, autonomous

192 Socialist in content, national in form

Figure 12 Otto Bauer: flourishing nations under socialism

republics did not. For secession to be an option, three conditions had to bemet. The respective territory should be bordering a foreign state; the name-giving nationality should form a compact majority in the territory; and itspopulation should be large enough to be able to form a viable independentstate.9 The paper right to secession was at one stroke withdrawn from thegreat majority of Soviet nationalities. Privately, Stalin confirmed that theright to secession of union republics, included in the new constitution,remained suspended. In his November 1937 speech at Voroshilov’s he notedthat the Soviet state was “colossal” and more “closely integrated” than thetsarist state had ever been. He threatened anyone striving for “separation ofa separate part and nationality” from the Soviet state with destruction.

The Russian tsars did many bad things. They plundered and subjectedthe people. They waged wars and conquered territories in the interestsof the landlords. But they did one good thing – they collected a hugestate – up to Kamchatka. We received this state as a heritage. And forthe first time we, bolsheviks, collected and strengthened this state, as aunified, indivisible state, not in the interests of the landlords and capi-talists but for the benefit of the toilers, of all great peoples making upthis state.10

This makes it clear enough that Stalin did in retrospect welcome the indivis-ible character of the tsarist state. He was aware that, in denying thenon-Russian peoples the possibility of secession, he was restoring continuitywith the pre-revolutionary era. On the other hand, it is also clear from thedictator’s remarks, made to a small circle of comrades, that he thought hewas building a different kind of state from the one his imperial predecessorshad built. His unitarism benefited other classes than theirs had. Stalin didnot support unitarism out of admiration for the work of the tsars but,conversely, admired that work because he nurtured the unitarist ideal. Ishould add that, in terms of its effect, Stalin’s adoption of the “one andindivisible” amounted to restoring a formula that had, prior to Lenin’s theo-retical adoption of the right to separation, been part of the Marxist stateideal, inherited from the French Revolution.

With the new constitution, the powers of the centre, numerically domi-nated by the RSFSR, increased further. The number of independentcommissariats under republican authority was reduced from six to four.11

Thereby Soviet federalism was further undermined, to the point of turningthe USSR into an almost unitary state. Unitarism remained Stalin’s real ideal.In January 1941, he told Malyshev that, from an economic point of view,the Soviet state was still “no unified whole, but consists of separate chunks.”He hoped that the railroads might serve to unify Soviet Russia, in the sameway as the fleet had served the “world empires” of Britain and France.12

Russification was introduced in cadre policies as well as in the culturalsphere. In the last twenty years of Stalin’s rule, the Russians strengthened

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their over-representation among the personnel of the political, technical-economic and military ruling stratum of Soviet society.13 In 1938, Russianwas introduced as an obligatory subject in all Soviet schools. It was arguedthat a multinational state needed a common means of communication.Furthermore, a knowledge of Russian was needed to enable national cadresto study science and technology. Finally, without a knowledge of Russianone could not serve in the Red Army.14 In the same year, Russian becamethe only language used in the armed forces. Furthermore, in most republics,Russian became the language of education in institutions of higher(although not of primary and secondary) learning.15 Thus Russian wasestablished as the language of communication between the bureaucracies ofthe republics, in the army as well as in the world of science and technology.There was no turn to complete Russification, though. No attempt was madeat wholesale replacement of local cadres and specialists by Russians; norwas it Stalin’s intention to root out non-Russian cultures or languages.16

The new line is best treated as a synthesis of Russification and nationali-sation, the former element becoming increasingly dominant. We areinterested to find out in what terms Stalin understood this turn. The term“Soviet patriotism” referred to the strong coherence of the Soviet nations inone state. It appeared in the media in 1934.17 Ironically, from the momentpartial Russification became state policy a few years later, Stalin becameless rather than more inclined to mention the need for Russian leadership.During the war he praised the Russians more profusely than other nations,but generally he did not mention their leading role. He omitted it from hisclassical definition of November 1944, holding that Soviet patriotism didnot have “racial or nationalist prejudices for its basis, but the profounddedication and loyalty of the people to their Soviet Motherland.”

In Soviet patriotism we have a harmonious combination of the nationaltraditions of the peoples with the common, essential interests of alltoilers of the Soviet Union. Soviet patriotism does not divide up, but onthe contrary welds together all nations and nationalities of our countryinto a unified, brotherly family.18

In the Soviet press, the leading role of the Russians was routinelymentioned, before and after the war. Stalin undoubtedly continued to seethe Russians as the leading nation. His famous May 1945 toast, mentioningthem as the “most eminent” among Soviet nations and as the “leadingforce” of the country, says enough.19 But it was never claimed that Russianleadership integrated the population of the USSR to the point of turning itinto a new “Soviet nation.” The old formula of flourishing national cultureswas not abandoned. Bol’shevik noted in 1947 that the Soviet Union was no“conglomerate of tribes or of assimilating national minorities” likeAustria–Hungary or the United States.

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The multinational Soviet Union represents a union of compact nations,each of which has its own culture and national traditions, its ownlanguage, its own Soviet statehood…. The Soviet peoples live in friend-ship, welded together into a brotherly family around the Russian people,which has earned general recognition as the leading force among allpeoples of our country.20

Stalin did use the new term of the “Soviet people” (narod),21 but it was neverclearly defined.22 The leader denied to the end of his days that the Sovietnations were assimilating. His intervention in the debate on linguistics in1950 is typical. The object of the dictator’s wrath was the deceased linguistNikolai Marr, who believed that languages were closely determined by theeconomic and class structure of society. New languages came about through“crossing,” i.e. through the mixing of two existing languages, eachcontributing substantially to the resulting new one. In the end, one singleworld language would be the result.23 In early 1950, the Georgian linguistArnol’d Chikobava complained to Stalin about Marr’s misconceptions. Theleader agreed and asked him to write an article about the matter, whichStalin corrected before it appeared in Pravda on 9 May.24 Among otherpoints, Chikobava took issue with a remark by Marr that the state shouldtake artificial measures to speed up the process of formation of one worldlanguage. He quoted Stalin on assimilation as a reactionary policy and onthe flourishing of nations under socialism.

In the summer of 1950, Pravda published no less than five contributionsto the debate written by Stalin.25 Alleging that languages survived the revo-lution basically intact, he insisted that only the content of the new socialistculture was transformed. But it remained “national in form, i.e. inlanguage.” Languages like Ukrainian and White Russian were not expectedto disappear in the foreseeable future. History proved the “great stability andcolossal capacity of language to resist violent assimilation.” The Sovietpeople continued to consist of separate “Soviet nations,” and only a “mutualenrichment” of the Soviet languages was now feasible.26

This latter formula of “mutual enrichment” was the only new element,showing that, compared with the 1920s, Stalin’s thinking about the nation-ality question had shifted. The formula allowed for an influencing of thenon-Russian languages by Russian. And this is how the matter was treatedin the Soviet press. In 1951, Bol’shevik wrote that the identity of the Sovietlanguages should not be touched, but “the leading role of the great Russiannation” contributed to the “rapprochement [sblizhenie] of the nationalcultures and the mutual enrichment of the languages of the peoples of theUSSR.”27 In 1952, Stalin’s secretary Poskrebyshev wrote that the “greatRussian people, the first among equal Soviet peoples,” was the “cementingforce, strengthening the friendship of the peoples.” The Russian languageserved “most efficiently” as the “means of inter-national communication.”

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What is more, the Russian language “enriches the national culture of thepeoples and their national languages.”28 Such articles suggested a partialtransformation of the non-Russian languages and cultures by the Russian.

In Marxism and Questions of Linguistics, Stalin referred the stage ofsblizhenie of nations to the future of global socialist victory.29 But we havean intriguing indication that he did consider sblizhenie part of the formula ofSoviet socialism. In a 1940 edition of his early “How does social democracyunderstand the national question?” he read back his own words “How todestroy the national barriers erected between the nations…in order to bringabout a rapprochement of [sblizit’ drug s drugom] the proletarians of theRussian empire.” He underlined the conclusion immediately following uponthis: “Such is the content of the ‘national question’ in social democracy.”30

The elder Stalin did not return to the assimilatory ideals of his youth. Thefusion of the Soviet nations, their sliianie, was not on the agenda.Nevertheless, his earlier concern for bringing the non-Russian peoples closerto Russian culture re-emerged. Although assimilation remained too ambi-tious, the leading Russian nation should try to enforce a more limitedprocess of sblizhenie – to bring the other nations nearer to its own languageand culture.

The question is what were Stalin’s motives for his new policy of partialRussification. It is highly doubtful whether the tsarist state model can haveprovided much inspiration. Although the Russian leading role was strength-ened, the Stalinist state remained a typically multinational one, its unitsbeing separately organised nations. Pre-revolutionary Russia was organisedas a supranational rather than a multinational state. Theoretically, imperialRussia did not define itself as the representative body of either the Russiannation or the united nations making up the empire, but as an extension ofthe tsar. Correspondingly, it was a purely unitary state, its provincial bordersbeing drawn without attention to the national composition of the popula-tion. No attempt was made to organise the peoples of the empire, Russiansas well as non-Russians, into separate, modern nations. As to tsaristattempts at cultural assimilation, Alexander III’s late nineteenth-centurypolicy of Russification remained condemned as strongly as ever in lateStalinist publications. Tsarist Russia continued to be presented as a “prisonof peoples.”31

The main reason for Stalin’s change of policy was probably pragmatism.In the course of time, it became harder to reconcile the culturally multina-tional character of the Soviet state with its aspiration to function as a single,integrated whole in the military, political and economic spheres. It is difficultfor a strongly integrated state to function without a common state languageat many levels of its structure. A choice had to be made between giving upsomething of the unitary ideal or sacrificing something of the linguisticmultinationalism. In the course of the 1930s, Stalin made up his mind thatthe centralised integration of the state was more important than the culturalsensitivities of the non-Russian nations, but in doing so, he did not revert to

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the tsarist supranational model or embrace complete Russification. Thegroundwork of the multinational state remained intact.

Stalin’s decision to give up korenizatsiia and rely more on Russian cadreswas obviously rooted in his appreciation of the Russian nation of statebuilders. He admired the Russian character. It is unlikely that the dictatorsaw national character as an inherited characteristic. In 1933, he repeatedthat nations could not be considered “from a racial point of view.” This was“not a biological question, not a question of heredity, but a question oftime.”32 In time, racialist notions did enter his thinking. For example, in 1944he told a Polish delegation that the Slavic peoples were close to each other in“kin, blood, language, character, deep humanity and an understanding ofthe idea of progress.”33 This suggested some racial basis of national char-acter. But Stalin never elaborated on this. There was no correspondingredefinition of the nation.34 His campaigns for Lysenkoism and “Pavlovism”show that, if he saw national character as hereditary at all, he must have beenconvinced that it could nevertheless be changed by re-education.35

Although no racist, Stalin’s appreciation of the Russian character was realenough. His classical statement on it was made in the 1924 On the Foundationsof Leninism, where he mentioned the “Russian revolutionary sweep” as thecounterpoint to “American efficiency.” It was an “antidote against rigidity,routine, conservatism, stagnation of thought, against a slavish attitudetowards the traditions of our grandfathers.” The Russian revolutionary sweeparoused the mind, “drives forward, crushes the past, gives perspective.”36 Thisreturns us once again to one of the main theses of the present book, namelythat Stalin was a patriot but no conservative. He found the most admirabletrait of the Russians their hatred of traditions and the past.

When Dem’ian Bednyi accused the Russian people of laziness, the leaderretorted that the Russian working class, the vanguard of the Soviet workers,occupied the centre of the world revolution. Revolutionaries were well awarethat “next to reactionary Russia, there existed also a revolutionary Russia –the Russia of the Radishchevs and Chernyshevskiis, of the Zheliabovs andUl’ianovs.” This filled the heart of the Russian workers with a “feeling ofrevolutionary national pride, which is capable of moving mountains, capableof accomplishing miracles.”37 In the early years, Stalin’s positive commentson the Russian character referred more or less exclusively to its revolu-tionary and anti-conservative ethos.38

After the second half of the 1930s, Stalin reconsidered the matter. Hisattention shifted to the Russian sense of active dedication to the state. In histoast of May 1945, the triumphant leader famously praised the Russians fortheir “clear mind, firm character and patience.” He referred to the Russianloyalty to the state. In the days of terrible Red Army setbacks, the peoplecould have abandoned the government and guaranteed “tranquillity”through a peace with Germany. But the Russian people made all the neces-sary sacrifices to guarantee the victory of the Soviet state.39 Turning toRussian history, Stalin, correspondingly, judged tsarist officials on whether

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they had allowed people to be mobilised for the state. His treatment ofSuvorov is a good example. In June 1940, he commented on a scenarioabout the generalissimus that it was silly to show him all the time saying“Russian, Russian.” His merit was tactical insight, maintaining strict disci-pline and the capacity to “bravely promote to important positions those whohad distinguished themselves, contrary to the demands of ‘rules of rank,’taking little account of official seniority and descent.”40 In September 1940,Stalin commented as follows on Suvorov:

He was a monarchist, a feudalist, a nobleman, a count, but practicesuggested to him the need to demolish some principles, and hepromoted people who had distinguished themselves in battles. …heviolated the traditions of narrow professionalism…. Suvorov promotedlittle known people…. They didn’t like him for that, but he created agroup of capable people, good generals, around him.41

The feudalist was praised for his lack of respect for the feudal tradition.Suvorov had been prepared to ignore aristocratic niceties and promotepeople from the popular classes to contribute to the cause of the state.42 InStalin’s later years, the theme of the revolutionary nature of the Russiancharacter receded, the accent shifting to its patriotism. But the change wasnot total, for Stalin saw popular patriotism as a revolutionary trait. Thefeudal principle of hereditary rank, which kept people from dedicating theirlives to the state, was rejected.

From the late 1930s onwards, the Soviet press attributed two prominenttraits to the Russian national character: patriotism and popularity. They wereformed because from late medieval times until the nineteenth century theRussians had had to consolidate their existence as a nation and a people intwo endless fights: against foreign usurpers – beginning with AleksandrNevskii’s thirteenth-century war against the Teutonic Knights – and againsttheir own exploiting classes.43 When after the Great Patriotic War Stalinistpatriotism grew to a climax, the Russian national character was glorified inever starker terms. The Russian genius was held responsible for the fact thatthe country had in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries produced much ofthe world’s most outstanding art and science. Again, this was not attributedto the merits of the tsarist system but, indirectly, to its obsolescence. In moredeveloped Western Europe, capitalist individualism had spoiled the nationalcharacter. The bourgeoisie dominated philosophy, science and art. In reac-tionary Russia, however, the toiling peasantry and other oppressed strata hadremained unpolluted, preserving their “popular” character. As a result, revo-lutionary democratic movements against monarchy and serfdom wereunusually strong, and it was that which inspired scientists and artists to theirgreat achievements.44

In summary, Stalin’s decision in the 1930s to rely more on Russian cadreswas motivated by his appreciation of the Russians as the most patriotic

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nation and the most reliable pillar of the Soviet state. In taking this decision,though, he did not believe he was returning to tsarist policies. On thecontrary, under the tsars the patriotism of the ordinary Russian people hadalways been blocked. The feudal principles of dynasticism, hereditary rankand serfdom, which Stalin rejected, had provided serious obstacles for ordi-nary people of merit to participate in the state. Only farsighted men likeSuvorov had had the courage to remove those obstacles. Stalin continued tosee his own patriotic etatism as a revolutionary policy, breaking with obso-lete traditions.

Meanwhile, the fact that the Russian character was now defined in termsof patriotism and popularity was new and significant. Although Stalin hadalways recognised the historic merit of the Russian nation as state builders,he had earlier described their character and cultural identity in the generalterms of being revolutionary and modern. The formula that culture shouldbe “socialist in content and national in form” was developed in the 1920s toprotect the cultural autonomy of the non-Russian republics. It had notreferred to a cultural identity of Russia proper. Within the USSR, Russiaembodied the cosmopolitan element. In the 1920s, Stalin found Russia suit-able for a leading role because of its abstract modernity, its relative lack of aseparate cultural identity in the strict sense of the word. However, by the1940s, the Russian nation had, like the non-Russian nations, been endowedwith a well-defined cultural identity of its own. “Socialist in content,national in form” came to apply to the Russians as much, or more, as to theother nations of the USSR.

“Bourgeois nationalism” and “cosmopolitanism” condemned

The counterpart to partial Russification was the partial degradation of thecultures of the other Soviet nations. An important element in this processwas a re-appreciation of tsarist colonialism. In March 1934, Stalin told thePolitburo that textbooks should present the history of the country as aunited whole. “The Russian people in the past gathered other peoplestogether and have begun that sort of gathering again now.”45 In theircomment on the draft of a new “History of the USSR” of August of thatyear, Stalin, Kirov and Zhdanov complained that it only treated Rus’. Thehistory of other peoples such as the Ukrainians, Finns and Tatars wasforgotten. This made tsarist colonialism look too positive: “No stress is laidin the draft on the annexationist-colonial role of Russian tsarism…(‘tsarismwas a prison of peoples’).” The draft also failed to discuss the “nationalliberation struggle of the peoples of Russia subjugated by tsarism.”46

Stalin saw tsarist colonialism in an ambivalent way – as the constructionof an extended, centralised state, and as a project of oppression andexploitation. During the Second World War, his treatment of tsarist nation-ality policy remained ambivalent. In his speeches in July and November1941, Stalin praised the “great Russian nation,” providing a list of heroic

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revolutionaries – Belinskii, Chernyshevskii, Plekhanov and Lenin – and greatartists and military leaders such as Pushkin and Tolstoi, Glinka andChaikovskii, Chekhov and Repin, Aleksandr Nevskii and Dmitrii Donskoi,Suvorov and Kutuzov. Significantly, he did not honour the other Sovietnations with heroes of their own. But he did accuse Hitler of wanting todestroy the “national culture and national statehood” of all other Sovietnations too. Moreover, he called Hitlerism a “copy of that reactionaryregime which existed in Russia under tsarism.” The Hitlerites trampled downthe rights of the peoples just like the tsar had, organising medieval pogromsagainst the Jews.47 To call tsarist national policy Hitlerite was the worstpossible condemnation in the circumstances of the day.

The ambivalence did not disappear. In 1937, it had been laid downauthoritatively that the establishment of a Moscow protectorate overUkraine in the seventeenth century had been the “lesser evil” for theUkrainian people. The only alternative had been Polish Catholic or Turkishrule. The Russian annexation of Georgia had also been the best thing underthe circumstances.48 During the war, the non-Russian nations were allowedto write their own histories more freely. A new 1943 history of Kazakhstanroundly condemned the tsarist conquest of that land as colonialist, treatingnational rebellions against Russian rule as progressive. Soon, however, the“lesser evil” was restored. In 1944, a conference of historians was called bythe Central Committee. The immediate cause was a letter by one editor of theKazakhstan history, Anna Pankratova, accusing a group of historiansheaded by Evgenii Tarle of ignoring the “class approach to questions ofhistory.”49

The Central Committee apparatus formulated its position in a note. Theeighteenth-century Kazakhs had been threatened by “barbarian” Chineseconquerors. Moreover, the feudal Kazakhs had been unable to create astable political community and launch modern capitalist development.Engels was quoted in support of Russia’s civilising role in Central Asia. Theunion of Kazakhstan with Russia, “a country incomparably more civilizedthan the Asian states and with a developed, strong, centralised state,” repre-sented the “lesser evil” for the Kazakh people. But it was also acknowledgedthat the union occurred in the form of a subjugation to the Russian rulingclass. This naturally provoked resistance. National liberation movementshad been progressive as far as they “fused with the struggle of the toilingmasses of the Russian people against the system of autocracy and serfdom.”Non-separatist Kazakh resistance movements against tsarist rule should betreated favourably. Tarle failed to understand this, defending as he did thereactionary policy of the tsars and slandering the revolutionary struggle ofthe peoples of Russia.50 During the conference, the party leaders remainedsilent. No conclusions were drawn.51 But the Central Committee of theKazakh party soon adopted a decision in the spirit of the above note.52

Stalin did not rehabilitate tsarist colonialism as such. The ambivalent wayhe, and those who represented his views, treated it shows that he continued

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to think about this matter in the terms that Marx and Engels had defined.Colonialism was condemned as brutal and exploitative but was neverthelesssupported for its progressive role. It represented a deplorable way to civilisethe barbarian parts of the globe. Stalin’s ambivalent attitude towards tsaristcolonialism was most reminiscent of the position the Luxemburgists hadtaken in their days. The tsarist rulers had been condemned by them as brutalexpansionists and exploiters. But they should be overthrown by thecombined revolutionary efforts of the oppressed peoples. Separatism and theright to separation from Russia, of Poland for instance, was rejected as apetit bourgeois nationalist deviation that could only sow division among theoppressed nations.

In 1946, the VKP(b) Central Committee began a campaign against“bourgeois nationalism” in the republics. It was spearheaded against worksof literature, art and history glorifying local feudal rulers who had foughtRussian domination. Considering the relatively advanced nature of theRussian state, the struggles of these rulers had been reactionary. Only strug-gles of the local popular masses for liberation together with the Russianmasses had been legitimate.53

One of the “bourgeois nationalisms” under attack in 1946 was the Jewish.Stalin was opposed to anti-Semitism in its racist variety. He did not see theJews as a community of genetically bad stock. In January 1931, he wrotethat anti-Semitism was particularly dangerous because it turned the toilersagainst each other instead of against the exploiters. “Anti-Semitism, as anextreme form of racial chauvinism, is the most dangerous rudiment ofcannibalism.”54 Nevertheless, before the revolution Stalin had treated theJews as a backward group rooted in an obscurantist religion. Moreover, asindustrialists, traders and intellectuals – instead of workers and toiling peas-ants – they had a petit bourgeois and capitalist mark upon them. Finally,they had failed to integrate themselves into a real, modern nation with acommon language, territory and economy of their own.

Stalin was never reconciled to the idea that religion could be the focus ofnationality.55 After 1917, he also continued to believe that the Jews were“natural traders” and “middlemen, profiteers and parasites.” They liked onlythe city, loathed agricultural work and were too cowardly to be goodsoldiers.56 Kaganovich confirmed that his boss, although “no anti-Semite,”was afraid that there were “many petit bourgeois elements among theJews.”57 Molotov too acknowledged that Stalin was “on his guard in rela-tion to the Jews,” although he added that the leader recognised “manyqualities in the Jewish people: diligence, mutual harmony [spaiannost’], polit-ical activeness.”58 The latter fact sounds plausible enough. Stalin engagedmany Jews in important positions in the party and state hierarchy.

Before the Great Patriotic War, the Jews were not treated worse thanother national minorities. Although not recognised as a nation, they werenot forced to assimilate. There was no “Jewish operation” during the GreatTerror. This is not difficult to explain. These operations were generally

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directed against nationals suspected of treasonous communications with“their” bourgeois states abroad – Poles with Poland, Greeks with Greece,Germans with Germany, and so on. The Jews had no such state. Theirloyalty could not be under suspicion from this angle. Compared to theirshare in the population, Jews were still considerably over-represented in thehigher party and state echelons in the late 1930s.59 There was a certain ironyto this. One of the reasons for Stalin’s mistrust of the Jews was that they hadnever transformed themselves into a modern nation-state. But those nationsthat had done so and had a state of their own outside the Soviet sphere wereconsidered even more dangerous. The very characteristic that made the Jewsan oddity for Stalin saved them from the Great Terror.60

During the Great Patriotic War, hostility towards the Jews grew in theSoviet apparatus. A 1942 report by G.F. Aleksandrov, responsible for theAgitation and Propaganda Department of the party secretariat, found the“Jewish dominance” in many cultural institutions unacceptable. Many ofthem had “non-Russians (mainly Jews)” for their chiefs, who were “notseldom foreign to Russian art.” After this report, Jews began to be facedwith quota and other restrictive measures in cultural, educational, economicand foreign policy institutions. Their situation gradually deteriorated.61 Theproblems experienced by the so-called Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee weresymptomatic. Its official purpose was to organise Jewish support for the wareffort. Soon it took up more general representative functions for the SovietJews to defend Jewish interests against encroachments by the state and thepublic. The Soviet authorities retorted that the committee was not created asa “kind of sovereign state” or a “Commissariat for Jewish affairs.” The JACwas also accused of showing life in the USSR “through a prism of Jewishlife” and of glorifying military exploits by Jews in the Red Army, whileneglecting Russian, Ukrainian and other heroism.62

During the war, the Soviet authorities began to object to political repre-sentation of Jewish interests. This was remarkable, because no similarobjections were made against, for instance, Ukrainian or Armenian efforts.These nations had their own republics, which to a certain extent wereallowed to operate in their name. Significantly, the 1946 campaign against“bourgeois nationalism” struck the Jews harder than the other nations. Thebasic model was the same as that applied to the Kazakhs. Jewish writerswere attacked for their own variety of nationalism. It was pointed out thatthey idealised their own reactionary national past. Biblical motives werecondemned as reactionary archaisms. The Star of David was declaredanathema. There were accusations of neglecting the leading role of the greatRussian people. But there was a difference with the treatment of othernations. The Jewish culture of the past was condemned more or less in toto.It was no longer clear that any kind of Jewish tradition could be legitimatelytaken pride in.

This fact can be partly understood in the context of the Stalinist doctrineof nationalities. Territorially integrated peoples like the Ukrainians and

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Uzbeks were recognised as nations. But the Jews, with their tradition ofdiaspora, were not a nation at all. Therefore, in contrast to the former thelatter simply did not have any cultural tradition worthy of being nurtured.There was no “national form” to be preserved. Therefore any expression ofJewish cultural identity would automatically be bourgeois nationalism.Whereas the other non-Russians were expected to express their identity in a“correct” way, the Jews were expected not to express it at all. As Stalin hadwritten in 1913, assimilation was the only acceptable option for them.

Nevertheless, before the war assimilation was not demanded by the Sovietauthorities. Therefore the question remains what triggered the urge to takethe Jews’ collective identity away from them during the war. One of theaccusations against the JAC was that it insulted the other Soviet nations bypaying too much attention to the Holocaust. The same Aleksandrov wroteto Zhdanov in February 1947 that it was wrong to focus on Jewish sufferingduring the war – as if the Nazis had had an “order of priorities.” In fact,Hitler’s slaughters were carried out equally against Russians, Jews and theother peoples of the Soviet Union.63 This suggests a perverse motive for thenew Russian anti-Semitism. By targeting their main destructive hatred onthe Jews instead of on the Russians, the Nazis had, as it were, perverselyhonoured the former. They found them most worthy of annihilation. In acruel way, the war gave the Jews a central role; and from a Russian nation-alist perspective this was a wrong to be righted. The Russians were theleading nation in the Soviet Union, and the war should be presented in sucha way as to show that the Germans had acknowledged that fact.

The matter was soon mixed up with another theme of more directly polit-ical relevance. In a number of reports circulating among the Soviet politicalelite during the years 1946 to 1948 (written by Mikhail Suslov, Aleksandrovand Minister of State Security Abakumov), Zionism was attacked forupholding the “reactionary idea of a single Jewish nation.” In fact, acommon culture or territory of the Jews did not exist; nor did there exist anyproblems common to world Jewry as a whole, regardless of class and “actualnationality.” The authors found this a matter of particular relevance becauseof the efforts to reunite the Jews of the world in an “independent bourgeoisJewish state” in Palestine.64

Even more than the Holocaust, the establishment of the state of Israel,creating a possible focus of loyalty for Soviet Jews, brought the old doctrineof assimilation back to life.65 The situation was now turned aroundcompared with that before the war. At the time, the Jews were among thefew small nations of the USSR without a “bourgeois” state of their own.But after Eastern Europe fell into the Soviet sphere and Israel was estab-lished, the Jews became one of the few Soviet nations to have one. It wastime for the “Jewish operation” forgotten in 1937–38.

For diplomatic reasons, the USSR supported the establishment of Israel,but it was denied that this state represented world Jewry. It was a safe havenonly for one group of Jews, the survivors of the war drifting through

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Western Europe. The Jews in general did not exist as a community and hadnothing to do with this state. As Il’ia Erenburg wrote in September 1948,“the Jewish toilers, like all others, are strongly linked to the land on whichthey were born and grew up.” This was especially the case for the SovietJews, for whom the USSR was the true “socialist motherland.”66 Stalin’ssuspicions concerning the loyalty of Soviet Jews were further aroused by theproposal made in 1944 by the JAC to establish a Jewish Union Republic onthe Crimea. According to Khrushchev, he saw behind it the “hand of theAmerican Zionists,” who hoped to wrest the peninsula from the SovietUnion and to “establish an outpost of American imperialism on ourshores.”67

In 1948, an anti-Jewish campaign began, providing the campaign against“cosmopolitanism” with a new focus. In January 1949, Pravda published anarticle against an “anti-patriotic group of theatre critics,” written by GeorgiiMalenkov and Petr Pospelov and edited by Stalin. Explicitly referring toBelinskii, the article reiterated the familiar theme that good art should bepatriotic as well as popular and close to the people. Unfortunately, though, agroup of bourgeois critics, filled with “cold estheticism and formalism” anda lack of “national Soviet pride,” had discredited the healthy, new Soviet art.They represented “homeless cosmopolitanism,” a tendency “harmful likethose parasites in the plant world, which eat into the shoots of the usefulvegetation.”68

The biological metaphor captured the essence of the “cosmopolitan”theme. Ordinary plants have roots in the earth. They have their own terri-tory, where they are at home. Parasites, though, are creatures without roots,living spread out across the body of other organisms, on which they prey.They have no territory of their own but invade that of others. Stalinistnations were like ordinary plants. They had a consolidated existence on afixed territory. But there were those who did not belong to any consolidatednation of their own, wandering nationless across the world, settling amongothers and profiting from them. Who were these people without home androots? Generally speaking, all those lacking in patriotic identification withthe Soviet state. But most of those mentioned in the article were Jews.69

Cosmopolitanism was not synonymous with Jewishness, but Stalin appar-ently considered the Jews most susceptible to the cosmopolitan complex. Asan “uprooted” people of the diaspora, the Jews were the ideal-typical para-sites. Because of their “cosmopolitan” tradition, which prevented themnurturing true feelings of state loyalty, Stalin did not trust the Jewishcommitment as Soviet citizens.

The 1949 campaign had no exclusively anti-Semitic direction. Discussingthe “street vendors of homeless cosmopolitanism,” Bol’shevik identified twohistorical sources. The first were the ruling classes of tsarist Russia, who hadlacked patriotism and crawled before the West. The second was capitalism.The bourgeoisie followed “the principle that money does not have a mother-land, and there where you can ‘make money,’ there where you can ‘make a

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profitable business,’ there is also your fatherland.” Blinded by profit, the“homeless bourgeois businessman, the petty dealer and travelling salesman”did not understand anything of the concept of duty towards people andfatherland.70 We may assume that the authors of these words partly referredto the Jews. Fundamentally, though, this “anti-cosmopolitanism” rested onpatriotic etatism and anti-capitalism. The focus of the campaign was anti-Semitic, but it was the focus of a larger ideological whole. Stalin must havebeen influenced by the traditional Russian anti-Semitism. But the fact thatthe campaign attacked the Russian tsarist tradition as one of the mainsources of cosmopolitanism makes it, again, unlikely that this was his mainsource of inspiration.

Stalin’s anti-Semitism always contained a note of hesitation. In 1947, hetold Romanian party leader Gheorghiu-Dej that it was unacceptable toremove his colleague Pauker from high positions in the party merely becauseshe was Jewish:

In Russia there was also a strong anti-Semitic movement…. But thebolsheviks did not give up their positions on the national question.Zinov’ev, Kamenev and Trotskii were not removed because they were ofJewish descent…. The bolsheviks removed Russians also: Bukharin,Rykov and others…. If a person is all right, you must give him opportu-nities…the Romanian communists…must remember that, if their partywill be class based, social, then it will grow, if it will be racial, then itwill perish, for racism leads to fascism.71

When the anti-Semitic campaign of 1949 came on stream, Stalin brought ina note of caution. It became common in derogatory articles to mentionJewish surnames in brackets, after the Russian pseudonyms used by thepeople under attack. According to the writer Fadeev, after a few months theleader noted that the divulging of literary pseudonyms smelled of anti-Semitism.72 His colleague Simonov overheard Stalin saying:

Why Mal’tsev, and then Rovinskii between brackets? What’s the matterhere? How long will this continue…? If a man chose a literarypseudonym for himself, it’s his right…. But apparently someone is gladto emphasise that this person has a double surname, to emphasise thathe is a Jew…. Why create anti-Semitism?73

Thereafter, the practice of revealing Jewish names stopped.74 Stalin alsorejected Suslov’s proposal according to which “nationality” might be used asthe official reason for dismissal from one’s work place.75 Although hedespised the Jewish tradition and suspected the Jews collectively of disloy-alty, Stalin did not accept that being Jewish would make a person bydefinition unreliable. He demanded Jewish assimilation, but he found itfoolish to reject an assimilated Jew simply for his background.

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In 1950, the focus of the campaign turned from “cosmopolitanism” toZionism. Molotov later confirmed that Stalin saw the elder members of thePolitburo as part of a Zionist conspiracy, suspecting them of colluding withBritish and American imperialism.76 According to the account of BorisPonomarev, at the first session of the Central Committee after theNineteenth Party Congress Stalin said that Molotov informed his Jewishwife of what happened in the Politburo and that she transmitted it to theIsraeli ambassador, Golda Meir. “We tell him that he should not act in thisway. But he does not believe us. He believes her.”77 Stalin even suspectedmembers of his own family of being involved in the “Zionist plot.” He toldhis daughter that “the Zionists have also set you up with your firsthusband…the whole older generation is infected with Zionism.”78

The Zionist conspiracy included a number of physicians. On 13 January1953, Pravda reported the arrest of a “group of doctors–saboteurs,” whowere after the life of Soviet leaders and were linked with an “internationalJewish bourgeois-nationalist organisation.” The case was again not exclu-sively directed against Jews, but they were the main focus.79 In theparaphrase of Viacheslav Malyshev, Stalin formulated his thoughts on thematter as follows at a meeting of the party Presidium in December 1952:

The more successes we have, the more the enemies will attempt to sabo-tage our work. Our people have forgotten about that under the influenceof our great successes; there appeared carelessness, muffishness, arro-gance…. All Jews are nationalists, agents of the American intelligenceservice. The Jewish nationalists believe that the USA saved their nation(there you can become rich, bourgeois etc.). They consider themselves inthe debt of the Americans. There are many Jewish nationalists amongthe doctors.80

Aleksandra Kollontai reported the following remarks by Stalin about theextraordinary dangers of Zionism:

Zionism, which craves for world domination, will take cruel revenge onus for our successes and achievements. It still looks at Russia as abarbarian country, as a source of raw materials…. World Zionism willstrive with all its forces to destroy our Union, so that Russia could neverrise again. The strength of the USSR lies in the friendship of thepeoples. The spearpoint of the struggle will be aimed above all atuprooting this friendship, at severing the borderlands from Russia.81

It seems that in the last period of his life, Stalin’s anti-Semitism spiralledever further out of control. He began to observe a conflict between Sovietpatriotism and Jewish patriotism, i.e. Zionism, supported by Americanimperialism, as the axis of world politics. Common sense tells us that theSoviet dictator must have been influenced by traditional Russian anti-

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Semitism. But the evidence shown here suggests that his anti-Semitism wasmainly rooted in another ideological complex, an odd mixture of anti-capi-talism and patriotic etatism, with the latter element ever more dominant.Stalin took the anti-capitalism from Marx and Lenin, and the patriotismcame from Belinskii, as he interpreted him. This revolutionary patriotismwas directed not only against the Jews but also against the tsarist tradition,which he interpreted as national betrayal. Tragically, revolutionary patrio-tism fed Stalin’s anti-Semitism in two ways: it made him suspicious of theJews as “traders” and as people lacking in patriotic commitment.

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The first important event in Soviet foreign policy was the war withGermany, in which the new state was engaged when it was established. Lenindid not believe that Russia could survive the war. He desperately wantedpeace. In contrast to the leftists, he believed that, provided peace wasachieved, Soviet Russia could survive for some time in the absence of aworld revolution. He concluded that, after the creation of the Russian SovietRepublic, “for us as well as from the international socialist point of view thepreservation of this republic is the most important thing [vyshe vsego].”1

These momentous words served as a foundation for Soviet foreign policy.The main world revolutionary task was to guarantee the survival of SovietRussia. Further revolutionary expansion was desirable – in the long run evencrucial – but the existing revolutionary bulwark should not be gambledaway.

Despite the resistance of the Left Opposition, the Peace of Brest-Litovskwas signed in March 1918. In the heated debates preceding the peace agree-ment, Stalin supported Lenin. He agreed that the Russian soldiers could notsurvive the German assault. Likening Trotskii’s stand to one taken “in litera-ture,” he noted that one should not put the existence of Soviet Russia atstake in the name of a revolutionary movement in the West that did not yetexist. Furthermore, the preservation of a state carrying out socialist reformscould be expected to inspire the Western workers. He only hesitated whenthe Germans demanded the abandoning of Ukraine. But he let himself beconvinced by Lenin that the loss should be accepted.2

The loss of Ukraine remained a problem for Stalin. When the Germansoverthrew the Ukrainian government, he hesitatingly supported CentralCommittee member Sokol’nikov, who, against Lenin, proposed to resumepreparations for war against Germany.3 By early 1920, the Civil War seemedto have been won by the Red side. But in the spring the Polish army attackedRussia. This was the occasion for plans of offensive revolutionary war to berevived. Lenin believed the time ripe for a war against imperialism to spreadthe Soviet system.4 Not all communist leaders were so confident. From Mayto July Stalin argued that the feeling of national unity in the Polish armywas too strong. It would be difficult to fight it on Polish soil. Mocking

15 Did Stalin “betray the worldrevolution?”

comrades who were only content with a “red Soviet Warsaw,” he insistedthat before marching to Warsaw the White danger to Ukraine should first beliquidated.5

In the end, Stalin supported Lenin in the decision to cross the “ethnicborder” of Poland.6 Nevertheless, we observe an interesting pattern in theformer’s positions. Stalin seems to have been more concerned than Lenin topreserve Ukraine, which had always been closely integrated with Russia; butless inclined to make offensive attempts into Poland, where he believed theRed Army would face strong national resistance. We recognise the same lineof thinking in Stalin’s general views on the international state community.Like all bolsheviks, he believed that new proletarian states should join SovietRussia, which might gradually expand into a world soviet republic.7 But heand Lenin did not see completely eye to eye on the matter. In 1920, the latterwrote that new Soviet states, like Hungary, should enter into federal rela-tions with Soviet Russia.8 In a comment, Stalin found this acceptable fornations that had once been part of old Russia, but

We cannot say the same of those nationalities which were no part of oldRussia, which existed as independent formations…. For instance thefuture Soviet Germany, Poland, Hungary, Finland. These peoples, whohave their own statehood, their own army, their finances, will, afterhaving become Soviet, hardly agree to enter immediately into a federativelink with Soviet Russia…for these nationalities the most acceptable formof approach would be a confederation (a union of independent states).9

Stalin believed in the national principle as the basis of state formation. Itcould not be avoided that, for the time being, nations with a strong traditionof independence preserved a separate state existence. One could only divergefrom this model in cases where nations had lived together long and closely inone integrated state, such as the Russians and Ukrainians. In that case everyeffort should be made to preserve the multinational structure.

Stalin’s belief in the strength of the existing international state system didnot make him forget about world revolution. Soviet Russia formed a “bridgebetween the socialist West and the enslaved East.” The country was ideallylocated between the Western centres of proletarian revolution and the Asiancountries of national liberation struggle. It was the “standard bearer of theworld revolution.” The October Revolution had “disturbed the eternalwinter sleep of the toiling masses of the oppressed peoples of the East” andinspired the workers and peasants of Persia, China and India to form sovietsof their own. For the workers and soldiers in the West, the Russian revolu-tion served as a “living, saving example,” as was shown by the uprisings inAustro-Hungary and Germany. The world was divided into two camps –imperialism and socialism – and Russia, the “citadel of the revolution,which by its very existence revolutionises the working class and thecolonies,” headed the second camp.10

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Stalin observed a historical shifting of the centre of the world revolutionfrom France through Germany to Russia. “Formerly,” he wrote in 1927,“people danced to the tune of the French revolution of the XVIIIth century,using its traditions and spreading its system. Now people dance to the tuneof the October Revolution.” The bolsheviks were the successors to theJacobins in spreading world revolution. Just as once “the word ‘Jacobin’aroused terror and disgust among the aristocrats of all countries,” likewisenow “the word ‘bolshevik’ arouses terror and disgust among the bourgeoisieof all countries.” As Paris was once a place of refuge and a school of bour-geois revolutionaries, present-day Moscow served the same function for theglobal proletariat.11 The question arises of what remained the significanceof world revolution for Stalin. What was the relation between his statenationalism and his drive for the socialist transformation of the world? Thisis the question I will address in the present chapter.

Stalin’s foreign policy doctrine

Trotskii argued that the logic of “socialism in one country” forced Stalininto betraying the world revolution. If socialism could only be threatened byintervention, then Soviet foreign policy could limit itself to preventing inter-vention, a goal best achieved by co-operating with the bourgeois world.12

However, Robert Tucker argued that, as long as the “capitalist encirclement”existed, the danger of intervention remained. Therefore, to recognise thepossibility of an isolated socialism did not make world revolution super-fluous. According to Tucker, Stalin followed a line of “To revolutionthrough war.” World revolution meant sending the Red Army into the coun-tries surrounding the USSR in order to establish a protective glacis againstintervention. To create the best conditions for Soviet intervention, Stalinhoped to facilitate the outbreak of war between the capitalist powers.13

However, Tucker’s model suffers from the same flaw as Trotskii’s. The RedArmy might well occupy a protective ring around Russia, but Stalin couldnever expect his troops to conquer the whole world and thereby finally liqui-date the danger of intervention by world capitalism. The “real” worldrevolution could not be avoided.

Stalin never explicitly spelled out how far the world revolutionary processwould have to progress in order to make the victory of socialism in SovietRussia “final.” But he did give some indications. In 1924, he wrote that heexpected the establishment of various “epicentres [ochagi] of socialism inseparate Soviet countries and a system of these epicentres in the wholeworld.”14 This suggested the rise of new socialist centres, comparable inpower and significance to Soviet Russia. In any case, world revolutiondemanded victory in the “fundamental” countries of capitalism.15 In 1926,Stalin said that the victory of socialism in Russia was no “goal in itself,”because it could only be finally victorious if the present capitalist encir-clement was replaced by a “socialist encirclement.”16 He did not elaborate

210 Did Stalin “betray the world revolution?”

on what this should amount to, but in 1930 he explained that the capitalistencirclement did not signify a simple geographical concept but the fact thatthe USSR was surrounded by hostile states that could blockade it economi-cally and organise military intervention.17 This would imply, as in a mirror,that the socialist world would have to become strong enough to be able tocrush the capitalist world by financial and military means.

Stalin probably believed that, to make the USSR finally secure, the maincapitalist bulwarks should be taken out. The socialist camp should becomeeconomically and militarily stronger than the capitalist. After the SecondWorld War, when a protective glacis was created, Stalin was at first opti-mistic. In 1946, he noted that Great Britain and the United States could nolonger create a capitalist encirclement of the Soviet Union.18 But the nextyear he warned that a “capitalist encirclement and the danger of an attackon the USSR” still existed. He envied the extremely secure situation of theUnited States, defended by two oceans and bordering on weak Canada andMexico.19 In 1950, he insisted that world revolution demanded victory in the“majority of the countries.”20 Stalin did not believe that the protective glaciscreated by the Red Army had secured Soviet Russia. The world revolu-tionary process was not yet completed. As he was realistic enough tounderstand that he could not send in the Soviet army to conquer the UnitedStates and other centres of capitalism, he had to accept revolutionaryattempts by other communist parties worldwide.

“Socialism in one country” made world revolution less urgent but notsuperfluous. Stalin’s foreign policy had three directions. Its first and over-riding goal was to preserve the Soviet state and prevent the imperialistsjoining up against it. This goal of peaceful co-existence with the capitalistpowers was complemented by a second one – to set the imperialists againsteach other and engage them in a fraternal war. This created opportunitiesfor Soviet military intervention to establish or expand a protective glacisaround Russia. Soviet military expansion should never be attempted whenthe imperialists were at peace among themselves, for that would create aunited front against Russia, which it was Stalin’s first goal to prevent. Thethird goal was to assist the communist parties of other nations to make theirrevolutions. This was, again, only considered a valid goal provided that it didnot provoke the imperialists against the Soviet Union or prevent Soviethegemony in the countries adjacent to it.

Patriotism, in the sense of the preservation of the Soviet state, was Stalin’smain foreign policy goal. But it remained part of a world revolutionaryprocess, without which the preservation of this state lost its significance. Thisis what Stalin said in his classical formulation of August 1927:

He is a revolutionary who is prepared to defend, to protect the USSRwithout reservations, unconditionally…, for the USSR is the first prole-tarian revolutionary state in the world, building socialism. He is aninternationalist who is prepared to defend the USSR unreservedly,

Did Stalin “betray the world revolution?” 211

without hesitations, without conditions, because the USSR is the basisof the world revolutionary movement, and defending, moving forwardthis revolutionary movement is impossible without defending theUSSR.21

At the party congresses in 1925 and 1927, Stalin noted that safeguardingnormal relations with the capitalist countries and the idea of peace formedthe “foundation” of Soviet foreign policy. Russia’s relations with the capi-talist world were based on “co-existence of the two opposing systems,” on“peaceful co-existence.” But his desire for peace was conditional. He hopedto postpone the inevitable war between the capitalist world and SovietRussia “either until the time when the proletarian revolution will ripen inEurope, or until the time when the colonial revolutions will fully ripen, or,finally, until the time when the capitalists will clash among themselvesbecause of the division of their colonies.”22 In other words, there would be agood time for a war between Soviet Russia and imperialism after all.

In Stalin’s view, imperialist war was the crowbar of the revolution. In Onthe Foundations of Leninism, he discussed three major contradictions ofimperialism: between labour and capital; between various capitalist groupsand powers; and between the handful of ruling “‘civilised’ nations” and thecolonial peoples of the world. The first contradiction brought about revolu-tion in Europe, the third the national liberation struggle in Asia. The secondwas strategically the most interesting one, decisively sharpening the othertwo. The struggle between the imperialists among themselves produced“wars as an inevitable element” of the modern world. These led to themutual weakening of the imperialists, bringing revolutions nearer. Theconflicts and wars among the capitalist states had sometimes a “primarysignificance for the course of the revolution.” Had not the first imperialistwar been of “colossal” significance for the Russian revolution? A new impe-rialist war would have even greater revolutionary potential.23

In December 1924, Stalin explained that the world war had been the mainagent to provoke the October Revolution. It had made the Russian peopleanxious for a change; subsequently, the continuing war had preventedsuccessful intervention against bolshevik power by the imperialists; and,finally, the war had also given rise to a solidarity movement of the Europeanproletariat for Soviet Russia.24 Imperialist war had kicked open the door forthe Russian proletariat and had kept it open. This idea of war as the revolu-tionary crowbar never left Stalin. The struggle between the imperialist enemieswas his “greatest ally.”25 At the XVIIth and XVIIIth party congresses, heassured his audience that a new imperialist war would inevitably give riseto successful proletarian revolutions in a number of countries.26

Imperialist war would also create the best opportunities for offensivemilitary actions by the Red Army. An attack on a neighbouring state underthe condition of world peace would be suicidal, because the capitalist worldwould probably come to the aid of the victim of proletarian aggression. But

212 Did Stalin “betray the world revolution?”

when the imperialists were at each other’s throats, conditions would be morefavourable. In 1925, the Soviet leader explained to the Central Committeethat a new imperialist war would provide the Red Army with extraordinaryopportunities:

As of old, our banner remains the banner of peace. But if war begins,then we must not sit with folded arms – we must act, but act as last.And we will act in order to throw the decisive weight on the scales, aweight that might be dominant. Hence my conclusion: to be ready foreverything, to prepare our army.27

Stalin wanted peace with as many capitalist states as possible, but at thesame time he wanted war between them. That would create opportunities forhimself to eventually break the peace and enter the conflict to expand Sovietpower. But Stalin did not see the actions of the Red Army as the only instru-ment for expanding the socialist system. Provided that it did not harm theinterests of the USSR, other communist parties should make their ownrevolutions. Violence was the main revolutionary instrument. In 1924, Stalinwrote that the fundamental questions of the workers’ movement were“decided by force, by the direct struggle of the proletarian masses, by theirjoint strike, by their uprising.”28 Only revolution could bring socialism.“Parliament, the constitution, the king and the other attributes of bourgeoispower are nothing but a shield of the class of the capitalists, directed againstthe proletariat.”29 In private, Stalin was no less insistent on the need forrevolution than in public. The following comment on the Labour govern-ment, made in a personal letter to Molotov in 1929, is typical:

our position…unleashes the revol[utionary] criticism of the ‘work[ers’]gov[ernme]nt’ from the side of the prol[etaria]t, it makes the cause of theproletarian education of the workers of all countries (and especially ofBritain) more easy, it helps the communists of all countries to educatethe workers in the spirit of anti-reformism.30

Capitalism could not be reformed. The social democratic idea of a “peacefultransition to socialism” through “bourgeois parliamentarianism” was a lie.31

We have personal notes of the leader from the early 1930s to confirm hisconvictions on this point.32 In 1934, Stalin explained to writer H.G. Wellsthat politicians like Roosevelt might achieve “some bridling of the mostunbridled representatives of capitalist profit, some strengthening of theregulating principle in the economy.” But once they touched the “founda-tions of capitalism,” the owners of the banks and industries would defeatthem – they could do this because they controlled the state. Revolutionaryviolence remained necessary.33 During his January 1941 discussion of thedraft of the textbook of political economy, Stalin returned to the same issue,this time applying the argument to the fascists:

Did Stalin “betray the world revolution?” 213

We have to criticise the fascist philosophy. The Italians have begun tosay: “Our proletarian revolution.” Hitler appears to be a “proletarian”too. We have to criticise this, to link it to the question of attempts atplanning, unification of the economy…. The utopians attempt todestroy the classes only with words, the fascists with the help of terror.

And he then reminded his audience that, when Wells visited him, the writersaid that he wanted a government not of workers or capitalists but of engi-neers. Roosevelt might defend the interests of the workers. He, Stalin, didnot believe it.34

For revolution in any country to become a serious option, imperialistwar was a condition. Stalin did not believe in revolutions in countries atpeace. Only war created the necessary upheaval and insecurity among theruling classes. During the mid-1920s, he claimed that capitalism had entereda period of relative stabilisation. The “revolutionary upsurge” was over, theproletariat was in a period of “accumulation of forces.”35 Stalin feltstrongly about this. In a letter of June 1926 to Molotov, he defended the“work of the communists in the reactionary trade unions with the purposeof their internal transformation and their capture by them.” This was thebest tactic in this slack period in the class struggle, with an eye to newoffensives in the future:

we do not have a new period of tumultuous pressure of the revolu-tion, but a continuing stabilisation…. Our task consists in actuallycontinuing the policy of collecting forces and of united front, andpreparing the working class for defence against new attacks of capitaland for the transformation of the defence into a broad, revolutionaryattack of the proletariat on capital, for the transition to the strugglefor power.36

But with the end of capitalist stabilisation in the latter years of the decade,Stalin still wanted the European proletarians merely to prepare themselvesfor the real “class battles” to come.37 After Hitler’s accession to power, theSoviet dictator saw the ruling classes of the capitalist world destroying “thelast rudiments of parliamentarianism and bourgeois democracy.” Fascismbecame the “most fashionable commodity among militant bourgeois politi-cians.” Hitler’s triumph was a sign of weakness of a bourgeoisie no longerable to uphold its rule by respectable methods. However, again, the time wasnot ripe for revolution. Stalin noted only that “the revolutionary crisis isripening and fascism is not at all long-living.”38 For successful revolutionaryattempts, it was essential to bring the imperialist powers to a state of waramong themselves. In the absence of that, revolutionary attempts should beprevented as dangerous adventures.

214 Did Stalin “betray the world revolution?”

Democracy and revolution

Stalin did not believe in peaceful, parliamentary transition to socialism. Butthe revolution in the European countries of democracy created a problemfor him. Marx’s idea of revolutionary violence was aimed at breaking eitheran oligarchic or an absolutist state in order to establish a democracy; or atdefending proletarian democracy against bourgeois and aristocratic rebels.He never envisioned a revolution to overthrow democracy. By the time thebolsheviks had established the Communist International in 1919, manyWestern European states had become parliamentary democracies. In theirown country, the bolsheviks dissolved the Constituent Assembly, making theincompatibility of democratic republicanism with proletarian dictatorshippart of their dogma. But could one organise a revolution against a parlia-ment in states where democracy had begun to strike roots?

In 1920, Lenin concluded that it was acceptable for communists to givetactical support to social democratic governments under certain condi-tions.39 At the Fourth Congress of the Comintern in 1922, the communistswere allowed to join with the social democrats in a so-called “workers’government” or “worker–peasant government,” resting on a parliamentarymajority. This should be a radical government, though, arming the workersand disarming “bourgeois counter-revolutionary organisations,” introducingcontrol over production, and heavily taxing the rich. The result would becivil war and armed resistance by the bourgeoisie, which would have to becrushed. In that way, this government would serve as the stepping stone tothe revolution and proletarian dictatorship.40 Although unacknowledged,direct revolution against parliamentary governments was abandoned.

Stalin publicly supported the idea of united front governments ofworkers’ parties.41 He had a remarkably high opinion of the strength ofdemocratic states. Recognition of the ability of democracies to win theloyalty of the working class runs like a red thread through his tacticalthinking from the early 1920s until his death. A frontal assault on a demo-cratic state was a futile exercise. When in the summer of 1923 theCommunist Party of Germany concluded that the time was ripening for arevolution, Stalin characteristically hesitated. He argued in a letter toZinov’ev and Bukharin that the German communists did not have the samesupport of the workers and peasants as the Russian party had had in 1917,which he attributed to international peace and to the fact that the peasantsdid not lack land. He further argued:

Of course, the fascists are not sleeping, but it’s more favourable for usthat the fascists attack first – that’ll bring the whole working classtogether…. Moreover, according to all information, the fascists areweak in Germany…. I think we should hold the Germans back and notstimulate them.42

Did Stalin “betray the world revolution?” 215

He soon became more optimistic, but the problem remained that a revolu-tion in Germany would provoke French and Polish intervention. Russiawould then be obliged to come to the assistance of the German comrades.Stalin concluded that “if we really want to assist the Germans – and wewant that and must assist them – then we must prepare for war.”43 At aconference of the Executive Committee of the Comintern (ECCI) inSeptember 1923, it was proposed that the KPD attempt to take power on itsown, openly, in a direct assault. Stalin disagreed. The communists shouldfirst form a coalition government with the leftist social democrats.44

The attempt at revolution ended in miserable failure, but Stalin’s remarkscontained important clues to his views on revolution. To begin with, therewas the point that revolution in times of peace had little chance of success.The imperialists would combine their forces to crush it. That would againforce the Soviet Union to intervene. Revolution in times of peace was there-fore only acceptable in the event that Moscow was ready to come to itsassistance. Furthermore, there was the power of democracy over the mindsof the proletariat. The workers could not be expected to enter into a revolu-tionary confrontation with a parliamentary regime. Proletarian discontentcould only be mobilised under the banner of defence of democracy. Thatcould be done either by lining up in a democratic government with socialdemocrats or by provoking the fascists to attack democracy.

In a 1923 copy of a book by G. Safarov on bolshevik tactics, the Sovietleader commented in the margin that, in his day, Marx had been justified inspeaking of a revolutionary bourgeois democracy, but now there was an“exhaustion of bourg. democracy.” A “peaceful revolution” was onlypossible in exceptionally favourable international circumstances, if a countrywas “encircled by several soc. countries.” Stalin also realised that it was easyfor the enemy to gain the workers’ loyalty towards democracy. The prole-tarian revolution had broken out in Russia and not in Western Europebecause “in the West reformism supported the parliament, the republic,…which did not exist in Russia.”45 The proletariat could only come topower through revolutionary violence, but it should present its violence as ameasure to defend democracy against the bourgeoisie and the fascists.

These tactical considerations did not make Stalin more appreciative ofdemocratic politicians. After the defeat of the German revolution, thecommunists accused social democracy of treason. In January 1924, Zinov’evcalled social democracy a wing of fascism. Stalin too abandoned the idea ofcoalition with the moderate socialists. He agreed with Zinov’ev that onecould observe a “shift of the petit bourgeois social democratic forces…intothe camp of fascism.”46 Social democracy was the main force reconciling theworkers with imperialism. The communists should direct their “main blow”against them.47 In September 1924, he wrote:

Fascism is the fighting organisation of the bourgeoisie, leaning on theactive support of social democracy. Social democracy is objectively the

216 Did Stalin “betray the world revolution?”

moderate wing of fascism…. These organisations do not negate butcomplement each other. They are no antipodes but twins. Fascism is aninformal political bloc of these two basic organisations, which arose inthe situation of the post-war crisis of imperialism and is intended forthe struggle against the proletarian revolution.48

With an interlude in the years 1925–28, Stalin adhered to this position untilthe mid-1930s. In 1929, the characterisation of social democracy as “socialfascism” was officially adopted by the ECCI.49 This effectively prevented theGerman communists from co-operating with the social democrats againstthe Nazi menace. But there is no reason to assume that Stalin supported thisexcessive characterisation because it prevented communist/social democraticco-operation, in order to assist Hitler’s rise to power. The problem was thatno German government, including a Nazi one, was acceptable for him. Asocial democratic Germany was aligned closely with the great imperialistpowers of Britain and France. A Nazi government was expected to bringGermany into conflict with the other capitalist powers – which is what Stalindesired – but it might just as well conclude an agreement with those powersand focus its aggression on Soviet Russia.50 Finally, a communist govern-ment would provoke British and French intervention, forcing the USSR tointervene on the side of its comrades.

All the main options carried the threat of drawing the USSR prematurelyinto a military conflict with the imperialist world. The Soviet dilemma waswell expressed at an ECCI session in 1931 by Russian Comintern representa-tive Manuil’skii. He attacked excessive “revolutionary impatience” with afamiliar argument:

Could we consider the perspective of the popular revolution inGermany outside the complicated international complex and especiallyoutside the question of the USSR, or couldn’t we? Can we imagine evenfor a moment that any big revolutionary movement in Central Europewould not produce consequences in the form of a big internationalstruggle?

A German revolution would provoke British and French intervention,forcing Russia to send the Red Army to prevent the communists beingslaughtered. It was not the time for this. But Manuil’skii also rejected theidea that fascism was “in its own way an objective ‘ally’ of the communists,exploding the stability of the capitalist system.” A fascist government mightprovoke a successful proletarian revolution, but it might just as well lead toproletarian defeat. It was by no means certain that fascism could be easilyoverthrown once established. Its establishment should therefore be avoided.“When the old Guesde said, when he was still a Marxist, that war is themother of the revolution, we must say nevertheless, that fascism is not thefather of the revolution.”51

Did Stalin “betray the world revolution?” 217

Stalin insisted that social democracy was a fascist force long after Hitlercame to power. In April 1933, he ordered the Comintern “to emphasise thetransition of the German social democracy into the camp of fascism.”52

That same month, he made some interesting editorial changes in an articleby F. Heckert on the situation in Germany. When the latter wrote that itshould be explained why social democracy had gone over to fascism, Stalinadded: “and why the communists call the social democrats social fascists.” Itshould be explained how the proletariat should fight “against the bour-geoisie and its chain dogs.” Stalin was only more pessimistic than Heckert.He did not believe that only some of the workers were deceived by the socialdemocrats. Its “greatest part” was duped.53

The shocking developments in Germany proved the foolishness of Stalin’sobsessive fighting against social democracy. In February 1934, social demo-cratic and communist workers in France and Austria jointly engaged inmajor struggles against the right-wing threat. Bulgarian Comintern leaderDimitrov thereupon tried but failed to convince Stalin of the need for a newcourse.54 The dictator was less enthusiastic about the armed rebellion ofworkers in Vienna and Linz against the Dolfuss government than Dimitrov.He did not believe that it had been a full-blown uprising. As always, Stalinwould not believe something like that possible under ordinary, peacefulinternational circumstances. He told his comrade:

You see the struggle in Austria as an uprising. We, bolsheviks, havealways understood an uprising as an armed struggle for power. The goalin Austria was not to take power, therefore we can refer to that as armedresistance or armed struggle, but not as an uprising.55

Dimitrov’s diaries confirm that Stalin remained committed to the prole-tarian revolution, but that he believed it would be hardly possible to launchone against a democracy. In April 1934, the leader told him that the commu-nists should explain to the European worker “why parliamentary democracycan no longer have value for the working class.” Formerly, when it wasfighting feudalism, the bourgeoisie could “draw along the working massesthrough democracy.” Now parliamentarianism no longer sufficed; the bour-geoisie opted for fascism. However, Comintern officials were foolish totransfer Russian experiences directly to Europe. “They don’t understandthat we had in fact no parliamentarianism.” The Duma was nothing. Thingswere different in Europe. “If our bourgeoisie had remained in power foranother 30 years, it could have linked itself with the masses through parlia-mentarianism, and then it would have been much more difficult for us tooverthrow it.” One should not simply “abuse parliamentary democracy” butexplain its worthlessness. According to Dimitrov, the reason why the workersfollowed the social democrats instead of the communists was the latter’s badpropaganda work. Stalin disagreed:

218 Did Stalin “betray the world revolution?”

The main reason lies in the historical development – the historical linksof the European masses with bourgeois democracy. And then also in thespecific situation of Europe – the European countries…count on theircolonies. Without colonies they cannot exist. The workers know this andfear the loss of the colonies. In that respect too they tend to join up withtheir own bourgeoisie…. We cannot immediately and very easily drawthe millions of workers in Europe to our side.

One of the reasons for the unfortunate attachment of the workers to theirsocial democratic leaders was their slavish psychology. “The people,” Stalinconcluded regretfully in an unusual outburst of neo-conservative sentiment,“do not make a Marxist analysis.” The broad masses had a “herdpsychology.” They “act only through their elect, through their leaders.”Masses were naturally afraid to lose their leaders. Without them, “they feelthemselves powerless and lost.” That was the reason why the social demo-cratic workers followed their leaders “against their own dissatisfaction withthem.” Manuil’skii did not understand this: “Every year he predicts theproletarian revolution, but it doesn’t come.”56

In May 1934, Stalin finally allowed the French communists to propose ananti-fascist united front with the social democratic party.57 When asked inJuly by Dimitrov, he reconfirmed that the leadership of social democracywas social fascist; that in the main capitalist countries social democracy wasthe “fundamental social mainstay of the bourgeoisie”; and that, objectively,the left wing of social democracy remained the “main danger under allcircumstances.” Yet he gave his permission for a change of tactic. From nowon, it was allowed to carry out a united front policy not “exclusively as amanoeuvre to unmask social democracy” but in order to create a “real unityof the workers” in the struggle against fascism.58 Around this time, Stalinreconfirmed his commitment to a revolutionary road to socialism in hisdiscussion with H.G. Wells. But his formulation suggests that he was notthinking of a direct assault on the parliamentary state but of a governmentdefending itself against bourgeois rebels:

No, revolution, a replacement of one social system by another, hasalways been a struggle, a life and death struggle. And each time whenpeople of the new world came to power, they had to defend themselvesfrom attempts of the old world to bring the old order back by force; thepeople of the new world always had to be on their guard, to be ready tobeat off the onslaughts of the old world on the new order.59

Later that year, the French communist leader Thorez proposed to extend theunited front to a “popular front,” including “petit bourgeois” parties.According to his memoirs, Stalin supported his initiative as bold andLeninist: “You have found a new key to open the windows of the future.”60

Did Stalin “betray the world revolution?” 219

The new policy was laid down at the Seventh Congress of the Comintern in1935. The decisions of the congress, which were supported by Stalin,61 werenot so spectacular. The anti-fascist popular front should embrace all sectionsof the toilers threatened by monopoly capital. Agreement on the need tooverthrow capitalism was no condition for co-operation, but “class collabo-ration with the bourgeoisie” should be avoided. The communists were onlypermitted to join with parties prepared to wage an irreconcilable struggleagainst the whole reactionary offensive of the capitalist class. What is more,a government of the popular front could only be established when the capi-talist ruling classes could no longer cope with the mass movement and thestate apparatus was paralysed. The popular government, in which thecommunists might take a part, should carry out decisive measures such ascontrol of production and abolishing the police. It should arm the workersand turn itself into a form of transition to the proletarian revolution.62

The main new point consisted of allowing co-operation with the socialdemocratic parties. From now on, fascism was considered the main enemy.The anti-fascist popular front remained firmly embedded in the tactics ofrevolutionary struggle. However, communist parties participating in popularfronts followed more moderate policies than had been laid down at thecongress. The Communist Party of Spain entered the Popular Front govern-ment besieged by the Franco rebels.63 Contrary to the decisions of thecongress, it did not take anti-capitalist measures. From a Marxist class anal-ysis, the government represented a coalition with bourgeois parties. TheCommunist Party of France did not enter the new Popular Front govern-ment but did support it, although it was not arming the workers orpreparing proletarian revolution. The Comintern began defending ordinary“democratic republics” even when they were not directly threatened byfascism.

In the Popular Front period, communist parties switched from “prole-tarian” to “popular” rhetoric, reflecting the fact that they now co-operatedwith “bourgeois” anti-fascist parties in somewhat undetermined coalitions.Anti-capitalism was, as an immediate aim, replaced by defence of democ-racy. His hatred of social democracy being as deep as it was, Stalin had longhesitated to abandon the sectarianism of 1929. What helped him make theturn was that the Popular Front was in tune with his conviction that, in itsmarch to socialism, the proletariat could not bypass democracy. It should,as it were, march through it – strengthening its positions in the bourgeoisstate, so as to have the best position in the coming armed confrontation withthe bourgeoisie.

Next to the question of European democracy, national independence inAsia was of strategic importance for Stalin.64 Lenin had concluded that thefirst goal in Asia was to establish independent democratic republics. Allnational revolutionary forces should be mobilised against imperialist rule.Most likely, bourgeois nationalist parties would put their mark on the newrepublics, although under favourable conditions they might take the form of

220 Did Stalin “betray the world revolution?”

peasant soviet republics. The role of the proletariat and the communistswould be modest.65 This strategy was analogous to the bolshevik approachbefore the February Revolution, although not identical to it. Lenin hadhoped for a provisional government of socialist parties, a “dictatorship ofthe proletariat and the peasantry.” That government, which he concluded in1906 might be based on soviets, should organise elections for a constituentassembly that would usher in a democratic republic.66 Only after the polit-ical takeover by the “bourgeoisie” in March 1917 did he set course forsocialism.

The common underlying thought of the bolshevik strategy prior toMarch 1917 and the bolshevik strategy in Asia was that, where there was noindependent democratic republic, the first communist goal should always beto establish it. Everything else came later – after the “democratic revolu-tion.” In 1920, Stalin wrote characteristically in a telegram to the CentralCommittee that in Persia there existed only “the possibility of a bourgeoisrevolution, leaning on the middle classes.” The slogan should be: “drivingout the British from Persia, formation of a unified republican Persian state.”A constituent assembly should be convoked, and Persia’s present fragmenta-tion into separate khanates with numerous customs boundaries should beovercome.67 The telegram referred to another important aspect of the demo-cratic republic, namely that its authority should be confirmed uniformlyover the whole territory of the state.

That the Asian communists should postpone the struggle for socialismwas not a question of socio-economic backwardness. Had not the bolshe-viks established their proletarian dictatorship in a predominantly peasantcountry? In On the Foundations of Leninism, Stalin confirmed that aminority proletariat might make revolution if it was able to unite thepeasant masses due to favourable circumstances like “war, an agrarian crisisetc.” There was no Chinese wall, no “more or less prolonged interval, duringwhich the bourgeoisie which has come to power develops capitalism,” sepa-rating the democratic revolution from the proletarian. The “dictatorship ofthe proletariat and the peasantry” might provide a quick stepping stone tofull proletarian rule.68 The grounds for Stalin to insist on initial democraticself-limitation were political rather than economic. The proletariat of depen-dent countries should first unite all anti-imperialist forces for “the formationof an independent national state.” Even enemies of democracy like the emirof Afghanistan should be supported, provided they were sincere anti-colo-nialists.69

The first stage of Stalin’s Asian revolution was to establish an indepen-dent democratic republic – not to bring about prolonged capitalistdevelopment to make the proletariat the numerically dominant class. In1926, Stalin urged an Indonesian communist delegation to form a bloc withall national revolutionary elements for a “revolutionary-democraticnational” struggle to achieve a national parliament, freedom and socialimprovements for the peasants and workers. “That’s how it was also in the

Did Stalin “betray the world revolution?” 221

Russian revolutions of 1905 and February 1917.” The reason why thecommunists should not yet speak about “the dictatorship of the proletariat,i.e. about the capture of power by the comparty” and about the confiscationof the factories was not that Indonesia was economically unripe forsocialism. The point was, first, that the peasant masses did not yet under-stand the concept of socialism, and, second, the danger of imperialistintervention. Socialist slogans would make the imperialists join up behindthe Dutch government:

in order to avoid unification of the imperialists…, you should for thetime being, in the present international situation, not put forward theslogan of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the confiscation of thecapitalists…. In October 1917 the international conditions were extraor-dinarily favourable for the Russian revolution…. Such conditions do notexist now, there is no imperialist war, there is no split between the impe-rialists…therefore you must begin with revolutionary-democraticdemands.70

By far the most important revolutionary struggle in Asia during the 1920swas the Chinese. At the time, China was divided into the nationalist republicof the Guomindang, concentrated in an area around Guangzhou, and therest of the country controlled by various warlords, who were seen as agentsof imperialism by the Soviet government. The Communist Party of China(CPC) was urged by Moscow to enter into a united front arrangement as aconstituent party of the Guomindang. In March 1925, Stalin sent a tele-gram to the Guomindang on the occasion of the death of its leader, SunYatsen. He praised Sun’s work for “the freedom and independence of theChinese people, for the unity and independence of the Chinese state.”71

When Guomindang general Chiang Kai-shek began his so-calledNorthern Expedition in July 1926, a crusade against the warlords to reunifyChina, Stalin explained that, whereas the northern governments representedthe imperialists, Guangzhou fought for the liberation of the country. Given“hegemony of the proletariat” in the revolution, the Guomindang republicmight in due course develop into something “reminiscent in its character ofthe kind of power about which was spoken in our country in 1905, i.e. some-thing like the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry.”The Guomindang might even turn out to be a “transitional power to…asocialist development of China.”72 The Guomindang leadership representedthe nationalist, anti-imperialist bourgeoisie. Through a proper coalitionpolicy, the communist party might gradually come to occupy ever strongerpositions of power in the southern government. After its military victory, itcould hopefully outflank the Guomindang leadership and put China on theroad to socialism.

However, in April 1927 Chiang’s army entered Shanghai and massacredthousands of communists. Stalin interpreted this as a betrayal of the

222 Did Stalin “betray the world revolution?”

national revolution by the Chinese bourgeoisie. Initially, his policies did notchange much. He set his hopes on the left wing of the Guomindang, whichhad established a rival government in Wuhan, and of which the CPC wasagain a part. For Stalin, the leaders of Wuhan represented the petit bour-geoisie, or in his own words the “revolutionary narodniki of China.” Theirgovernment should overthrow the pro-imperialist government of ChiangKai-shek and expropriate the landlords. Capitalist and foreign propertyshould be left untouched so as not to provoke imperialist intervention. If thecommunists managed to manoeuvre themselves into strategic positions, theWuhan government might develop into a “revolutionary-democratic dicta-torship of the proletariat and the peasantry.” But Stalin insisted that, for thepresent, no soviets should be formed. To create them would amount toinsurrection, which was inadmissible as long as the united front held.73

Stalin admitted that the moment would come when the Wuhan leadershipwould turn their backs on the revolution. That should be the moment toorganise soviets, which he identified as a “new proletarian type of state organi-sation.” Their organisation announced the “preparation to the transitionfrom the bourgeois-democratic revolution to the proletarian revolution, to thesocialist revolution.”74 But first Chiang’s regime in Nanchang should bedefeated to unite China in one republic. Stalin was aware that it was problem-atic to identify soviets exclusively with a proletarian socialist state. In May1927, he noted that soviets had been formed in 1905: “didn’t we then live in theperiod of bourgeois-democratic revolution?” But these soviets had not beenviable precisely because there were no “favourable conditions for the directtransition from the bourgeois-democratic to the proletarian revolution.”75

Stalin was reformulating the bolshevik doctrine of the democratic revolution.Whereas Lenin had recognised the role of soviets in democratic revolutions,his successor eliminated them from the ideal of the democratic republic.Soviets were an exclusive characteristic of the proletarian socialist state.76

The bloc of communists and left-wing Guomindang did not last either.Almost immediately, the Wuhan government acted against its communistpartners. Stalin commented angrily: “If the Kuomintangists do not learn to berevolutionary Jacobins they will be lost both to the people and to the revolu-tion.” By August 1927, the second united front was a thing of the past.77

Stalin wrote to Molotov and Bukharin that, to lose Wuhan meant to losethe possibility of open organisation of the proletariat and the revolution. Hehoped the Chinese communist party survived the arrests and shootings, but,in an analogy with the Russian interval between 1905 and February 1917, hewas afraid that the Chinese comrades would have a long wait before the nextround of bourgeois revolution.78

A strategic change became unavoidable. The goals of the Chinese revolu-tion remained the same – independence, unification and agrarian revolution.But Stalin now agreed that there was no reason any longer to resist theestablishment of soviets.79 The organisation of soviets was after allwarranted in the period of national democratic revolution. Stalin’s policy

Did Stalin “betray the world revolution?” 223

towards the Asian communists now entered a leftist phase.80 For the timebeing, the bourgeoisie was lost for the national revolution.81 Only at the1935 Comintern congress were the national bourgeoisie of the colonialcountries again accepted as potential partners in the anti-imperialist revolu-tion. The slogan of soviets was again abandoned – except in China, wherean autonomous Red–soviet territory was in existence.82 But the Cominterndid expect the Chinese communists to engage in a new united front with theGuomindang for a government of national defence against the Japanese. Itdid not take long for the ECCI to call on the CPC to abandon its soviets infavour of a unified “democratic republic.”83 The strategy of the mid-1920swas restored.

Revolutionary war

As the 1930s drew to a close, Stalin’s communist policy, in Europe as well asin Asia, was “democratic revolution.” The communists should support, oreven take part in, anti-fascist governments organised on a platform ofdemocracy and independence. Proletarian revolution was postponed.Meanwhile, Stalin dreamt of a great Red Army crusade to unleash thatrevolution. In his speech on the Kratkii kurs to a group of party propagan-dists in October 1938, he quoted Lenin to the effect that the victoriousproletariat, having taken power in one country and organised socialistproduction, would be forced “to undertake a crusade against the other back-ward, reactionary capitalist countries in order to assist the proletariat ofthese countries to liberate themselves from the bourgeoisie.” The bolshevikswere

no mere pacifists, who long for peace and only take to arms in case theyare being attacked…. There are circumstances when the bolsheviks willthemselves attack, when the war is just, when the situation is fitting,when conditions are favourable, they’ll begin the attack themselves….Our present shouts about defence are a veil, a veil. All states put up amask.84

In September 1939, his dream came true. The imperialist world was at war.We would now expect the Soviet dictator to order the Comintern to makepreparations for the proletarian revolution in Europe and to prepare the RedArmy for revolutionary war. In August, the USSR and Germany had signeda pact of non-aggression. It embodied Stalin’s dual policy of keeping theUSSR out of war and at the same time of provoking it between others.After Chamberlain’s guarantees to Poland in March 1939, the chance thatHitler would, after Poland, immediately move on to Russia had anywaybecome small. But the pact certainly helped to provoke war betweenGermany and Great Britain, for it enabled Hitler to attack Poland withoutfear of Russian involvement.

224 Did Stalin “betray the world revolution?”

We have strong indications that it was Stalin’s intention with the pact tounleash war. To begin with, there are Andrei Zhdanov’s cryptic notes, prob-ably written in 1939, before the concluding of the pact. He noted that theBritish political leaders hoped to save their skin and turn Hitler against theUSSR. However, a Soviet understanding with Germany was possible. Thenotes read: “The tigres and their masters. The masters hook the tigres ontothe East. Syphilitic Europe. To turn the cage around to the side of theEnglish…. To turn the tigres around against England.”85 We must assumethat the tigres were the Nazis and their masters the British. Zhdanov hopedthat the Germans could be turned against Britain.

In 1994, the text of a speech allegedly made by Stalin at a meeting of thePolitburo on 19 August 1939 was published. The leader explained that hewanted the pact to make sure that Hitler attacked Poland and thereby madeworld war inevitable. The Soviet government should do everything in itspower to make the war last long enough to let both parties exhaust them-selves, so that it could intervene in the war at a favourable moment.Experience had shown that proletarian revolution in Europe was onlypossible during a great war. Whoever won – Germany or France – revolu-tion would break out in the defeated country in any case. Moscow shouldonly make sure that the war lasted long enough for even the winning side tobe too exhausted to crush the revolution. The best tactic was to remainneutral for the time being but to provide sufficient assistance to Hitler toenable him to carry on the war as long as possible.86 Unfortunately, theauthenticity of the text is highly doubtful.87 Nevertheless, what it said isstrikingly confirmed by other sources.

On 24 August, Russian Comintern leader Manuil’skii, who must havebeen among the best informed, told a Spanish communist: “When the capi-talists want to cut each other down, they’re welcome to do so. At a definitemoment, when they show the first signs of exhaustion, we’ll be certainlyapproached by both sides. Our decision will then depend on what’s best forus.”88 On 7 September, Stalin explained the pact to Dimitrov as follows, asthe latter recorded in his diary:

This war is going on between two groups of capitalist countries…forworld domination! We have no problem with it when they fight eachother well and weaken each other. It is not bad if the position of thewealthiest capitalist countries (especially England) will be underminedby Germany. Though he doesn’t understand it himself and doesn’t wantit, Hitler is throwing the capitalist system into chaos, undermining it….We can manoeuvre, incite one side against the other, so that they wouldfight better. The pact of non-aggression helps Germany to a certainextent. The next moment we will incite the other side.

The division of capitalist states into fascist and democratic ones had lost itsmeaning. The time of united struggle against the fascist camp was over. The

Did Stalin “betray the world revolution?” 225

communists should come out “against the war and those responsible for it.”Even Poland should no longer be defended. This had once been a “nationalstate,” supported by all revolutionaries. Now this “fascist state” oppressedthe Ukrainians and White Russians. “The destruction of this state wouldunder the present circumstances mean one bourgeois fascist state less! …as aresult of the crushing of Poland, we’ll spread the socialist system to newterritories and populations.” The Comintern tactic should be radicalised,bringing the idea of socialist revolution back into focus:

Yesterday’s popular united front served to alleviate the situation of theslaves under the capitalist regime. Under the conditions of imperialistwar there arises the question of the destruction of slavery! To standtoday on yesterday’s position (the popular united front, the unity ofnations) means to assume positions of the bourgeoisie.89

Stalin’s strategy of war was part of a perspective of destabilising and over-throwing the capitalist system. But capitalism would only be ripe forrevolution after the war had exhausted both sides. Therefore the Germanside should be supported long enough in order to extend the war and makethat exhaustion come about. Although there was war at last, revolutionshould be postponed once again.

Stalin did not want the German communists to undermine Hitler’s wareffort. On 25 October, he had a discussion with Dimitrov on the draft of“War and the working class,” the latter’s programmatic article on the newinternational situation. Stalin urged him to “soften” (priglushit’) the classstruggle. The political line should not be too radical. “To put the question ofpeace now on the basis of the destruction of capital means to helpChamberlain, the warmongers, means to isolate yourself from the masses!”Instead of immediate revolution, the motto should be: “Down with theimperialist war!” Stalin added that during the First World War the bolshe-viks had been “precipitate, we made mistakes.” The two warring sidesshould not be put on a par. In the present stage, “we will not come outagainst governments which are for peace.” He proposed the slogan: “oustthe governments which are for war!”90 Whom Stalin referred to wasanybody’s guess. On 30 November, he wrote in Pravda that France andEngland had attacked Germany, not the other way around. The former twopowers did not accept the German peace proposals, which the USSR“openly supported.”91 Dimitrov corrected the article, and in that form Stalinallowed its publication.92

In the territories newly acquired by the Soviet Union as a consequence ofthe Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, the Soviet socialist system was quickly intro-duced. Stalin saw expansion not merely as an extension of the Russianborders but as part of the development of the world socialist system. In aJanuary 1940 comment on the Finnish campaign, the dictator toldDimitrov: “World revolution in one act is nonsense. It proceeds in different

226 Did Stalin “betray the world revolution?”

countries at different times. The actions of the Red Army are also a matterof the world revolution.”93 In September 1940, at a conference of theCentral Committee, he said:

We are widening the front of socialist construction, that’s favourable formankind. Don’t the Lithuanians, Western White Russians, Moldavians,whom we liberated from the yoke of the landlords, capitalists and policeand other scoundrels consider themselves happy? That’s from the pointof view of the peoples. And from the point of view of the struggle offorces on a world scale, between socialism and capitalism, this is a bigplus, because we are widening the front of socialism and narrowing thefront of capitalism.94

The question arises of whether Stalin seriously intended to “widen the frontof socialism” still further by entering the war at a proper moment.95 ThatSoviet leaders dreamed of a Red Army offensive is a fact. In May 1940, LevMekhlis, chief of the Main Political Directorate of the Red Army, told aconference in the Commissariat of Defence that his army might “come outas the initiator of the just war” against the capitalist world.96 In July of thatyear, Molotov told the Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs that Lenincorrectly predicted that “a second world war will allow us to take power inthe whole of Europe.” The Kremlin supported Germany “just enough so asto prevent it from accepting peace proposals until the time when thehungering masses of the warring nations lose their illusions and rise upagainst their leaders.” Revolution in Germany would lead to reconciliationbetween the German and the French and British bourgeoisie, but “at thatmoment we’ll come to its aid, we’ll arrive with fresh forces, well prepared,and on the territory of Western Europe, I think somewhere near the Rhine,there will take place the decisive battle between the proletariat and therotting bourgeoisie.”97

In February 1941, Walter Ulbricht was told at the highest level inMoscow that the German communists should aim for “int[ernational] frater-nisation – revolution with the assistance of the SU.” Final victory by eitherside, or an armistice, might prevent such a favourable outcome but was notthought probable.98 In April of that year, the writer V. Vishnevskii wrote inhis diary that, according to Voroshilov, the pact with Germany had beensigned to set the imperialist powers against each other, adding: “we will clev-erly incite them…and under the right conditions we will go over to the attackourselves according to the Leninist formula.” Vishnevskii concluded that thetime “of the ‘holy’ battles (according to an expression of Molotov in arecent talk) comes ever closer!”99 All this could not have been more clear.

On 5 May 1941, Stalin gave a speech to a group of officers graduatingfrom the Academy of the Red Amy. The leader assured them that theWehrmacht was not invincible. The French army had only been beatenbecause it had not observed a proper regime within its own ranks. It was too

Did Stalin “betray the world revolution?” 227

elitist. “Our great generals were always closely connected with the soldiers.We must act in the Suvorov way.” France had forgotten to care for its army.The people looked down on commanders “as on lame ducks, losers, whowere obliged to go into the army because they had no factories, plants,banks, shops.” But the German perspectives now turned bleak. Germanybegan the war under the sympathetic slogan of “liberation from the yoke ofthe Versailles peace.”

Now the German army…changed its slogans from liberation fromVersailles to those of conquest…. As long as he carried on the warunder the slogan of liberation from serfdom, Napoleon I receivedsupport, he had sympathy, he had allies, he had success. WhenNapoleon I turned to wars of conquest, he got many enemies and hesuffered defeat.

After the official part of the occasion, a major-general of the tank forcesproposed a toast to the “peaceful Stalinist foreign policy.” The leader inter-rupted him:

Allow me to make a correction. The peaceful policy guaranteed peacefor our country…. As long as it lasted, we carried out a line of defence –until the moment when we had re-armed our army, supplied our armywith modern weaponry. And now, …when we have become strong, nowwe must make the transition from defence to attack. In defending ourcountry, we are obliged to act in an offensive way. [We must] make thetransition from defence to a military policy of offensive operations.100

Stalin did not say that the Red Army might take the initiative to attack. Butthe only other interpretation of his toast would be that it referred to themilitary doctrine to answer a hostile attack not with defensive operationsbut with a counterattack. But in that case, the plea for a transition from onetype of strategy to another would have made no sense, for the doctrine ofcounterattack had been in place for years.

It is one thing to draw a general perspective, and quite another to decide.Later that month, the Soviet military leadership presented an operationalplan to Stalin for a pre-emptive strike against the Wehrmacht in response tothe deployment of German troops along the Soviet border. Molotov latertold Feliks Chuev that Stalin wanted no first strike. He feared that a Sovietattack might seduce the United States, England and France into linking upwith Germany against Russia.101 To another writer, I. Stadniuk, Molotovsaid that the possibility of a pre-emptive strike was discussed in May 1941,but it had been decided “to postpone [povremenit’] the strike.” Stalin fearedthat a Soviet attack would provoke London to make peace with Berlin.102

This sounds plausible enough. The Soviet dictator always focused on thedegree of conflict and unity between the imperialist states. Now that war

228 Did Stalin “betray the world revolution?”

had broken out between the imperialists, the Red Army should prepare tolaunch a surprise attack. But it should be undertaken only when Europeancapitalism was cracking up. To attack prematurely would be as foolish as toattempt revolution prematurely.

In May and June 1941, other high-ranking Soviet officials repeated thatthe Red Army was preparing for a “holy war.” It might “take the initiativeon itself of offensive military operations against the capitalist encirclementwith the aim of widening the front of socialism.” This was even possible “ina situation when there is not yet a revolutionary crisis in the capitalist coun-tries,” when the security of the USSR was under immediate threat. Often,the comparison was made with the Soviet–Finnish war, which had also beeninitiated by the Soviet side.103 There is no reason to assume that thisexpressed immediate preparations. But it seems clear enough that the long-term prospect of a Soviet attack was accepted. Moreover, it is also clear thatStalin saw the expansion of Soviet territory as part of a larger revolutionaryprocess of destruction of capitalism and triumph of the socialist system inEurope.

To sum up, Stalin found proletarian revolutions possible and desirableonly under strict conditions. Peaceful Soviet relations with the capitalistworld should not be endangered. Allowing the USSR to be drawn prema-turely into armed conflict was to be avoided. Moreover, successfulproletarian revolution depended on war in the imperialist camp. Only thatmight weaken the capitalist elite sufficiently and prevent the imperialistsjoining up. Finally, proletarian revolution was not envisaged by Stalin as adirect assault on the state. He deeply hated the social democrats and the“national bourgeoisie” in the colonial world but demanded of the Europeanand Asian communist parties that they focus on creating or preserving inde-pendent democratic republics and gaining influence in them. All this beingsaid, though, Stalin did not lose sight of the ultimate prospect of communisttakeover. Ironically, during the years of friendship with Hitler the hope of acollapse of European capitalism became real for the first time since the early1920s.

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When the Wehrmacht attacked the Soviet Union in June 1941, Stalin’s opti-mistic expectations were shattered. One of the purposes of theMolotov–Ribbentrop Pact had been to fortify the security of the Sovietstate. National security was one of the foundation stones of Stalin’s foreignpolicy. A secret protocol to the pact delimited a boundary between Germanand Soviet “spheres of interest” running right through Poland, withFinland, Estonia, Latvia and Bessarabia in the Soviet zone.1 When the RedArmy crossed the Polish border, Stalin was elated by the return of the ethni-cally Ukrainian and White Russian territories, but he was glad to lose theland inhabited mainly by ethnic Poles. In September 1939, he told vonRibbentrop that dividing up the area with a purely Polish population was nowise thing to do. “History had proved that the Polish population strovealways for reunification.”2 Stalin traded his share of ethnic Poland forLithuania.

In October 1939, Stalin told Dimitrov that he wanted pacts of mutualassistance with the Baltic and other states to bring them into the Soviet“orbit of influence.” For now, sovietisation should not be attempted. “Thetime will come when they will do that themselves!”3 Stalin was especiallyinterested in “naval bases which don’t freeze over,” as Molotov bluntly told aLithuanian government delegation in Stalin’s presence earlier that month.“Peter the Great was already concerned about an exit to the sea. …we can’tallow small states to be used against the USSR. Neutral Baltic states are notsufficiently reliable,” he added. The next summer, Moscow accused thegovernments of the three Baltic states of a “disloyal” attitude towards theUSSR and demanded the establishment of “pro-Soviet” governments.4 Soonthey were annexed. One territory was taken that had never been part of theRussian empire, namely Bukovina. Molotov told von Ribbentrop that it was“the last missing part of a unified Ukraine.”5

Problems were only experienced in the case of Finland. Stalin was deter-mined to obtain a strip of land that was needed for the security ofLeningrad. When the Finns did not comply, he ordered the Red Army toattack. In January 1940, he told Dimitrov that he did not want to conquerFinland – it should be only a “friendly” state.6 In April, the Soviet dictator

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summed up the results of the costly war at a meeting of military cadres.Security had been the real issue. To allow an enemy ever to break through toLeningrad to establish a “bourgeois, White Guard government” would havebeen unacceptable. He had not attempted to capture the whole of Finland,though, because war in that country was too difficult. “We knew that Peter Ifought for 21 years, to cut off the whole of Finland from Sweden.”Subsequent emperors had been equally occupied for years with the Finns.7

The Finnish sense of independence was too strong.Stalin hoped to turn Soviet Russia into the dominant power of Eastern

Europe. In July 1940, he admitted to the British ambassador that he wantedjoint control of all Black Sea powers over the Bosporus and Dardanelles. Hehoped to change the “old balance of forces [ravnovesie] in Europe,” whichwas to the detriment of the USSR.8 The Soviet dictator set his hopes mainlyon his new friends. In November 1940, Molotov visited Berlin. According toStalin’s directives,9 the purpose of the trip was “to prepare a first design ofthe sphere of interests of the USSR in Europe, as well as in the Near andMiddle East.” Stalin was prepared for a joint statement with Germany, Italyand Japan concerning a peace arrangement with Great Britain, according towhich the British Empire remained intact but kept out of the affairs of theEuropean continent.10 In a telegram to Berlin, he gave his commissar finaldirectives concerning the Black Sea:

All events from the Crimean war of the previous century until thelanding of foreign troops on the Crimea and Odessa in 1918 and 1919show that the security of the Black Sea areas of the USSR cannot beconsidered guaranteed without a settlement of the question of theStraits [Bosporus/Dardanelles].11

After Molotov’s return to Moscow, the Soviet government reported to itsGerman counterpart that it was prepared to participate in a new “pact offour powers.” Among the conditions was a pact of mutual assistancebetween the USSR and Bulgaria. Russia would also have the right to estab-lish military and naval bases in the area of the Bosporus and Dardanelles.Furthermore, the “area to the south of Batum and Baku in the generaldirection of the Persian Gulf” would have to be recognised as “the centre ofgravity of the aspirations of the USSR.”12 The war seemed finally to giveStalin his long-desired chance to expand the Soviet sphere.

With the German invasion, these beautiful dreams came crashing down.But Stalin did not forget them. In a discussion with Anthony Eden inDecember 1941, he suggested that, after the war, the British might organisea system of military alliances and bases in Western Europe. Russia shouldobtain favourable conditions of passage through the Baltic Sea and the rightto establish military bases in Rumania and Finland. Its June 1941 bordersshould be restored.13 At the Tehran conference in 1943, Stalin not onlydemanded those borders but also the “ice-free harbours Königsberg and

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Memel and a corresponding part of East Prussia.”14 In 1944, the division ofEurope came a small step closer to reality when Churchill proposed todivide the Balkans between Western and Soviet spheres of influence. TheRussian side accepted the division with minor changes.15

Stalin succeeded in dividing Europe at the bayonets of the Red Army.How he visualised the new Soviet position appears indirectly but strikinglyfrom a dispatch he sent to Molotov at a conference of foreign ministers inLondon in the autumn of 1945. The leader was angered by the fact that theAmericans wanted the Soviet side to agree “that the USA play the samerole in the affairs of Europe as the USSR, in order to subsequently take thefate of Europe in their hands in a bloc with Britain.”16 Stalin was satisfiedwith the results of the war. Molotov recounts how the leader commentedthat in the north, where the borders had been moved up from Leningrad,everything was in order. The Baltic countries, which were “Russian lands”of old, were retrieved. All White Russians, Ukrainians and Moldavians now“live together with us.” In the east, the Kurile Islands and Sakhalin wereRussian. Soviet positions in China had been strengthened. Only the bordersin the area south of the Caucasus were not to Stalin’s liking.17

Taking all this into consideration, the question arises again of whetherStalin took his clues from tsarist policies. Was he looking back to discoverwhich course to take? According to Stalin, proper state borders roughlycoincided with national lines. As his actions to complete Ukraine and WhiteRussia show, irredentism was an important urge in his foreign policy. Afterthe war, the trans-Carpathian part of Ukraine was taken fromCzechoslovakia. In May 1949, Malyshev visited Stalin at his dacha. Theleader told him:

In their times, in the thirteenth century, the Russians lost the trans-Carpathian Ukraine and from that time they always dreamt ofrecovering it. Thanks to our correct policy, we succeeded in recoveringall Slavic – Ukrainian and White Russian – lands and to realise the age-old dreams of the Russian, Ukrainian and White Russian peoples.18

According to Molotov, the goal of the Soviet activities in northern Iran in1945–46 was to annex the Iranian part of Azerbaijan to Soviet Azerbaijan.19

In November 1941, Stalin had indirectly admitted to his support for the irre-dentist principle when he remarked that, as long as the Nazis had occupiedthemselves with “collecting German lands,” one could “with some justifica-tion consider them nationalists.” But since they began to occupy otherpeoples’ land they were “no nationalists, but imperialists.”20

For reasons of state security, Soviet borders were occasionally drawnoverstepping national lines, as the Finnish operation showed. But even insuch cases the national principle was not forgotten. If the border could notconform to the nation, the opposite should if possible be made the case. TheGermans were driven from Königsberg. The expulsion of Germans from

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Czechoslovakia and Poland were other cases in point. Stalin accepted popu-lation movements to further national homogeneity as good policy. In April1946, a Hungarian delegation complained about the treatment of theHungarian minority in Czechoslovakia. The Soviet leader agreed that it wasan injustice not to provide them with rights and schools of their own. Toprevent the Hungarians being “denationalised,” he proposed an “exchangeof populations,” analogous to the one carried out between Poland andLithuania.21

In determining the borders of Soviet Russia, Stalin took the nationalprinciple as his guideline, amended by considerations of state security. Hisgoal was not to restore the borders of the Russian empire but to annex allnations that had formerly been fully integrated into that empire – which isnot the same thing. In choosing this goal, Stalin restored an importantelement of continuity with tsarist policies. And he particularly admired whatIvan and Peter had done for Russia’s expansion and security. Nevertheless,his national principle led to different results. On the one hand, he wentfurther than the tsars, annexing segments of nations like the Ukrainians thathad never been under tsarist rule.22 On the other hand, deeply convinced ofnationalism’s strength, Stalin refused to annex nations, such as the Finnsand Poles, which had been part of the Russian empire but had preserved ameasure of autonomy and national spirit. They should be allowed an inde-pendent state existence.23 Although Stalin often repeated tsarist annexations,that was not his guideline. He only followed the tsars’ example when hisnational principle overlapped with their exploits.

Meanwhile, neighbouring states that were allowed to preserve their inde-pendence should recognise Soviet hegemony and be content to fall into theSoviet sphere of influence. In the 1920s, the Soviet leader had denied that heaimed for a delimitation of spheres of influence with the imperialist powers.24

But this was exactly what he wanted, although it would not hinder him fromfurthering revolution in the other spheres under favourable conditions. Nextto the creation of secure and nationally satisfactory Soviet borders, the estab-lishment of a Soviet sphere of influence was the second goal of Stalin’s statepolicy. He encircled the USSR with a protective glacis of devoted satellitestates, which he hoped provided Russia with added security.25

On occasion, Stalin attempted to widen the Soviet sphere. His attempt todrive his former allies out of West Berlin is a case in point. The NorthKorean attack in June 1950 is another. But Stalin’s fear of provoking warwith the imperialist camp did not leave him. In 1949, he refused to give KimIl-Sung permission for an invasion. He was afraid the Americans mightintervene.26 When Kim tried again in January 1950, Stalin informed himthat, because of the great risks involved, the matter should be wellprepared.27 During Kim’s visit to Moscow in March–April, he gave hispermission. The American announcement placing South Korea outside theAmerican defence perimeter may have allayed the leader’s fears. He was notconcerned about whether the South Korean population might accept

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northern victory. People were like sheep: “they would follow the leading ramwherever he might go.” But if the Americans intervened after all, the Sovietarmy would not come to Kim’s aid: “If you should get kicked in the teeth, Ishall not lift a finger.”28 The North Korean attack was carried out withStalin’s permission, but not at his initiative.29

There is one indication that Stalin considered invading Western Europe.At a January 1951 conference attended by the communist party FirstSecretaries and Ministers of Defence of the European socialist camp, Sovietgeneral Shtemenko proposed to expand the armies of the camp. He expectedthe North Atlantic Treaty Organisation to be prepared for war by late 1953.It was necessary to “create a balance.”30 According to an account of theformer Czechoslovak Minister of Defence, Stalin said on this occasion thatonly for the next three or four years would the balance of forces befavourable for the socialist side. He expected his partners to prepare for aninvasion of Western Europe before the situation reversed itself.31 Even if thisaccount can be confirmed, we need more evidence to conclude that Stalinwas considering a first strike. It would have gone against his cherishedtactical dogma never to attack a unified imperialist camp not exhausted bymutual warfare.

The victory in the Great Patriotic War had not made Stalin more proneto military recklessness. Perhaps even the contrary. On 23 February 1942,the Soviet leader wrote in one of his orders in his capacity as Commissar ofDefence:

Today the outcome of a war will not be decided by such a non-essential[privkhodiashchii] factor as the factor of surprise, but by the perma-nently operating factors: the stability of the rear, the morale of thearmy, the quantity and quality of the divisions, the armament of thearmy, the organisational capacities of the commanding personnel of thearmy.32

Plainly put, Russia had a greater war potential than Germany. It wasenough, however damaged, to survive the first shock of the Blitzkrieg, forthe underlying Russian superiority to make itself felt. These few wordsabout the balance of forces in wars written in 1942 remained the basis forSoviet military assessments until Stalin’s death. After the war, they were cele-brated as the leader’s “thesis about the significance of the permanentlyoperating factors in a war as the decisive factors” and as a “creative develop-ment of the Marxist–Leninist science.”33 Stalin was at least as impressed byGermany’s defeat as by his own victory. The course of the war warned himagainst recklessness. It convinced him of the enormous risk of a surpriseattack on other powerful states. If the initial momentum was somehow lost,everything was lost.34 Taking into account the basic relation of forcesbetween the Soviet and Western camps, Stalin can hardly have beenconvinced that a Soviet surprise attack would pay off.

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Nuclear weapons did not change this assessment. Publicly, Stalin took alow view of the atomic bomb. In September 1946, he told Sunday Timescorrespondent Alexander Werth that atomic bombs were not such a “seriousforce” as some people thought. They were meant to scare people with weaknerves, “but they cannot decide the outcome of a war.” The Americanmonopoly formed a threat, but the monopoly would not exist long.Moreover, use of the bomb would be forbidden.35 Stalin’s public indifferencetowards the American monopoly of the bomb was faked. He tried his bestnot to show his nervousness. In 1951, when the USSR was in the possessionof a bomb itself, Stalin said that the Americans had hoped to use theirmonopoly for blackmail purposes. Only now that their monopoly wasbroken, might a ban on the bomb have a chance.36

The dictator was not such a fool as to believe that the atomic bomb didnot represent a serious force. Early in 1943, he ordered the development of aSoviet bomb.37 After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the atomic project became apriority task.38 Stalin commented: “Hiroshima has shaken the whole world.The balance has been destroyed.”39 In January 1946, Stalin promised theresponsible physicist Kurchatov the most extensive state assistance andordered him to carry out the project “broadly, with Russian scope.”40

Although he was uninterested in the technical details, Stalin kept himselfinformed of the progress of the project.41 In January 1948, he told MilovanDjilas about the bomb: “That is a powerful thing, pow-er-ful!”42 When astruggle against ideologically harmful tendencies in physics, comparable tothe Lysenkoite movement, threatened to harm the atomic project, Stalin didnot hesitate to stop the struggle.43

Yet the Soviet leader’s remark that atomic bombs could not decide theoutcome of wars was not window dressing. In July 1952, he told Italiansocialist Petro Nenni that the United States was strong on technology, aero-planes and atomic bombs but lacking in manpower. “It is not enough forAmerica to destroy Moscow, just as it is not enough for us to destroy NewYork. We want armies to occupy Moscow and to occupy New York.”44

David Holloway concludes that the atomic bomb did not make Stalinchange his mind on the “permanently operating factors.” The bomb wasimmensely important but not decisive. Before Stalin’s death, Soviet militarystrategists did not expect the atomic weapon to be used on the battlefield. Itwas a weapon to destroy cities. Its effect was comparable to that of thegreat air strikes inflicted on Germany during the war. They had donetremendous damage but not inflicted defeat. Because the atomic bombcould not be used on the battlefield, where wars are decided, it could notdecide wars.45

In the light of this, a surprise nuclear attack on enemy cities was a uselessundertaking. After the first blow had been inflicted, other factors wouldassert themselves and decide the outcome of the war. This told Stalin notonly that he would be a fool to prepare a Soviet nuclear strike but also thatthe chances of the Americans preparing one were small. Therefore, again, a

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preventive Soviet nuclear strike to forestall an American one was also super-fluous and could only do harm.

From Stalin’s perspective, it would have been good policy to attack theWest to forestall an expected imperialist attack. But he seems not to havebelieved that the Western camp was seriously preparing for war. Until theend of his life, Stalin publicly insisted that the threat of war would onlymaterialise after a considerable period of “peaceful co-existence.”46 Heconsistently claimed that the chances of war between the USSR and worldimperialism remained small. In November 1945, he told his Polish comradeGomulka that there would be no war. The American and British armieswere “disarmed by agitation for peace.” Perhaps in thirty years Americawould start a war, which would bring it great profit. Situated beyond theoceans, it couldn’t care less about the effects of war.47 When the Cold Warwas in full swing, Stalin became more apprehensive. Publicly, he said onoccasion that the West hoped to unleash a new war.48 But among comradeshe spoke differently. He believed that the imperialists could be held incheck. At a meeting of military leaders and rocket scientists in April 1947,he said:

Do you realise the tremendous strategic importance of machines of thissort? They could be an effective straitjacket for that noisy shopkeeperHarry Truman. We must go ahead with it, comrades. The problem ofthe creation of transatlantic rockets is of extreme importance to us.49

Stalin had confidence in the deterrent force of the Soviet army. In June 1949,he told Malyshev: “We have tanks, we are not planning to go to war, we havetime, let the industrialists work and give us a flawless tank.”50 In 1949, hetold Liu Shaoqi and Mao Zedong on two occasions that a third world warwas improbable. America was “afraid of war more than anything.”Ultimately, war with the United States was inevitable, but it should take theimperialists at least twenty years to prepare for it. Only if “madmenappeared on the scene” might the situation unexpectedly change.51

After the Korean War began, Stalin telegraphed Mao in October 1950that Chinese intervention was unlikely to provoke the Americans intostarting a big war. If it did after all, it was better to have it now rather than afew years later.52 When the Chinese intervention did not trigger a major war,the Soviet dictator became convinced that the Korean War was conducive toworld peace. It tied down the enemy.53 When Zhou Enlai told Stalin inAugust 1952 that continuation of the war was advantageous, as Americanforces remained bogged down and Washington was prevented frompreparing a new world war, Stalin agreed. “This war is getting on America’snerves.” The Americans were not “capable of waging a large-scale war.”Their strength lay in air power and the atomic bomb, but to win a war “oneneeds infantry, and they don’t have much infantry.” The American peopledid not have a warlike spirit:

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Americans are merchants. Every American soldier is a speculator, occu-pied with buying and selling. Germans conquered France in 20 days. It’sbeen already two years, and USA has still not subdued little Korea.What kind of strength is that? America’s primary weapons…are stock-ings, cigarettes, and other merchandise. They want to subjugate theworld, yet they cannot subdue little Korea…. They are fighting withlittle Korea, and already people are weeping in the USA. What willhappen if they start a large-scale war? Then, perhaps, everyone willweep.54

To the end of his days, Stalin remained convinced that some time in thefuture a military conflict between imperialism and socialism was bound tooccur. But he did not believe that the enemy was actually preparing for anattack on the USSR. This makes it highly improbable that he nurtured aserious plan to invade Western Europe.

Caution was wise from another point of view. Stalin was convinced thatimperialism would in time again produce internecine war. The dictatorinsisted that “theoretically” the contradictions between the socialist andcapitalist camps were stronger than those between the capitalist countries.America had put Western Europe and Japan “on rations.” But these coun-tries would certainly “attempt to tear loose from American slavery and enterthe road of independent development.” That would end in a new armedconflict within the capitalist camp. A new imperialist world war could bepostponed, but “to remove the inevitability of wars, one has to destroyimperialism.” Stalin also observed a “deepening of the general crisis of theworld capitalist system in connection with the disintegration of the worldmarket.” The loss of Russia, China and other socialist countries was hardon capitalism. Lenin’s thesis that, despite its crisis, capitalism could stillundergo sustained economic growth was now obsolete.55 Better wait forimperialist war and crisis than act rashly.

Stalin and tsarist foreign policy

More needs to be said about Stalin’s views on pre-revolutionary Russianforeign policy principles and ideologies. From the last years of the war untilhis break with Tito in 1948, Stalin followed a policy of “Slav solidarity.”56 In1944, he discussed Slav co-operation with Polish representatives on variousoccasions. The dictator observed centuries of German expansion to the detri-ment of the Slavs. He wanted a new “union of Slav states, oriented againstGermany.” He referred to the 1410 Battle of Grunwald, “in which there tookplace a unification of the Slav peoples against the German Swordbearers.”But his union of Slav peoples differed fundamentally from the “pan-Slavismof tsarist Russia.” He, Stalin, would respect the equality between thesepeoples. The “foolish policy of struggle and mistrust,” which Russians andPoles had carried on for centuries, had only benefited “the age-old enemy of

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the Slavs – the Germans.”57 Stalin was even more forthcoming when he metanother Polish delegation in August 1946:

Mistrust of Poles to Russians and the other way around is still there….The ruling circles of tsarist Russia are, of course, more guilty than thePolish ruling circles. They did not only participate in the divisions ofPoland, but were sometimes even the initiators of these divisions. Butyou must take into account that the advanced democratic, revolutionarycircles of Russia, beginning with Chernyshevskii, …and then Plekhanovand Lenin, considered the independence of Poland an inalienable rightof the Poles.58

Stalin’s commitment to the cause of Slav unity was real enough. When theYugoslav communist Djilas mentioned the tsars’ lack of interest in the liber-ation of the south Slavs, Stalin answered: “Yes, the Russian tsars lackedhorizons.”59 He also insisted that the Slavs should not feel culturally infe-rior. The Bulgarians were no less developed than the Germans: “when theancestors of the Germans still lived in the woods, the Bulgarians hadalready a high culture.”60 It angered the Soviet leader that the EasternEuropean nations, including those not in the Slav group, were looked downupon. In October 1945, he told a Finnish delegation that the Belgians sawthe Finns as a “semi-peasant people without culture.” But the Belgians,considering themselves “one of the most cultured peoples of Europe,” capit-ulated shamefully during the war. The Finns would never have done that.61

But, whatever his sympathies with Slav unity, Stalin always emphasised thathis ideal differed from that of the old pan-Slavists.

Most interesting in this respect was a speech that the dictator made inMarch 1945, which was written down by People’s Commissar V.A.Malyshev. The leader noted that many people compared his policies withthose of “the old Slavophiles, for instance Aksakov and others,” who haddemanded “unification of all Slavs under the Russian tsar.” But this hadbeen “a harmful and unrealisable idea.” The various Slav peoples had“different social ways of life and ethnographic structures. The geographicalsituation of the Slav peoples also hinders unification.”

We, the new Leninist Slavophiles, bolshevik Slavophiles, communists, donot favour unification but a union of Slav peoples. We are of theopinion that, despite the difference in political and social situation,despite the differences in way of life and ethnographically, all Slavs mustlive jointly in a union against our common enemy – the Germans.

The Slavs had suffered much more during the war than the WesternEuropean nations. “I hate the Germans,” Stalin admitted, “but hatredshould not prevent us from objectively appreciating the Germans. TheGermans are a great people.” Precisely for that reason, one should recognise

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the danger that they would one day become a threat to the Slavs again. Thenagain, a Slav union served only to provide mutual economic and militaryassistance, not to force the Soviet order onto the other nations. A Sovietorder could only be established if the respective people wished it, not onorders from Moscow.62

Mentioning Slavophilism was a little odd. Stalin really referred to pan-Slavism. Nevertheless, the drift of his words is clear enough. That he wantedequality between Soviet Russia and Poland was a lie. The USSR would bethe hegemonic power. But he was serious in emphasising that the Slavs werenot a compact entity but consisted of different nations. Those with a strongtradition of state independence could not be deprived of that. To do so, asthe pan-Slavists had demanded and the tsars had in the Polish case realised,was counterproductive. It alienated the Slav peoples from Russia. Stalin didnot annex the other Slav states after the war. What we have here is a fineexample of the dictator’s indebtedness and lack of indebtedness to theRussian tradition. That he found much to be appreciated in pan-Slavism isobvious enough. His interest in it was provoked when most Slav nations(Bulgaria excepted) were on the Russian side in the war, whereas Germanyheaded a coalition of non-Slav nations, including Rumania, Hungary andFinland.63 But although Stalin came to appreciate pan-Slavism, he stuck tohis own interpretation of the national principle and took a critical view ofpan-Slavism from that perspective.

Stalin judged not only pan-Slavism but tsarist foreign policy in generalfrom the perspective of this national principle, as he interpreted it. In hisview, the Russian state had in its early modern history been justified inabsorbing nations such as the Ukrainians, the White Russians and the Balticpeoples. This had been unavoidable to make Russia powerful and strong.Moreover, these peoples had been prepared for a close union with Russia.But Russia should neither make the mistake of overextending itself,attempting to annex more freedom-loving nations, nor the opposite one offorgetting its own state interests.

From early on, the Soviet leader emphasised the weakness of theRussian state in its last period. In 1921, he wrote that the 1905 revolutionhad weakened Russian imperialism to such a degree that it could no longerplay the role of gendarme of Europe. The “centre of gravity of theEuropean counter-revolution” had shifted to Britain and France.64 In July1934, he famously commented on an article by Engels about the foreignpolicy of Russian tsarism. Contrary to what Engels seemed to think,aggression was not a Russian monopoly but characteristic of all Europeangreat powers. Moreover, after the Crimean War, the independent role oftsarism in European foreign policy began to decrease significantly. By thetime of the First World War, Russia had turned into a “reserve of themain powers of Europe.” Engels had further been mistaken when heexplained the policy of conquest of Russian tsarism as the product of abunch of foreign adventurers at the Russian court. In reality, it was

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produced by a “‘need’ of the military–feudal–trading elite of Russia forexits to the seas” and by their wish “to expand foreign trade and occupystrategic points.”65

Two points can be distinguished in this note. First, although the tsarsserved the interests of the feudalists and capitalists, the reference to the needfor exits to the sea and other interests suggests that these goals were in them-selves justified. Second, after the Crimean War, Russia was too weakened toremain an important threat to the European revolution.66 In August 1934,Stalin, Zhdanov and Kirov criticised the draft of a new textbook of thehistory of the USSR for not paying sufficient attention to the “counter-revo-lutionary role of Russian tsarism in foreign policy from the time ofEkaterina II until the 50s of the XIXth century and onwards,” i.e. to theconcept of “tsarism as an international gendarme.” The draft also failed tonote the role of tsarism in the First World War “as a reserve for the WesternEuropean imperialist powers” and the dependence of Russian capitalism onWestern European capital. The significance of the October Revolution asthe “liberator of Russia from a semi-colonial status” remained unmen-tioned.67

Stalin seems to have distinguished three stages in Russian foreign policy.The first – until the time of Peter – was a relatively progressive one. Duringthe second half of the 1930s it was acknowledged that the early tsars servedthe emerging Russian nation and its fortification within secure borders.Ivan’s policy of Baltic conquest had been necessary from a strategic andeconomic point of view. Minin and Pozharskii, seventeenth-centurydefenders of Russia against the Poles, and Peter the Great were praised fortheir patriotic efforts.68 In his February 1947 discussion with Eizenshtein,Stalin confirmed this. When the director told him that his film would showIvan IV standing by the shore saying “We stand on the seas, and stand weshall,” Stalin commented: “That’s how it happened. And even a little more.”He added:

When we moved the Monument to Minin and Pozharsky closer to St.Basil’s Cathedral, Demyan Bedny protested and wrote me…that monu-ments should be thrown out and we must forget all about Minin andPozharsky. In reply to this letter, I called him “Ivan who doesn’tremember his kith and kin.” We cannot throw out history.69

During the second stage – from Catherine the Great until the Crimean War– Russia was Europe’s reactionary policeman. It was engaged in exaggeratedexpansionism, unnecessarily hurting the dignity of the Poles and otherpeoples. Only colonial ventures into Muslim areas were relatively progressivefor their civilising role. During the war, this assessment did not change. Thenote of the party apparatus for the 1944 historical conference glorified the“eminent representatives [deiateli] of the Russian people” like DmitriiDonskii, Aleksandr Nevskii, Ivan IV, Minin and Pozharskii – and also

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Suvorov and Kutuzov, defenders of Russia against France. But the thesis oftsarist Russia as the gendarme of Europe was confirmed. Alexander I andNicholas I were reactionary monarchs. The suppression of the Poles in1830–31 was unjustified.70 Stalin never withdrew his negative appreciation oftsarist expansionism into Europe. In 1948, he told a Hungarian delegation:“The Russia of the tsars was guilty. In 1848 the Russian tsar assisted theHabsburg monarchy to suppress the Hungarian revolution. We rememberthat.”71 In 1951, he inserted a passage against the “national enslavementimposed by the Prussian, Austrian and Russian conquerors and colonisers”in the draft of the new Polish constitution.72

Finally, during its third stage after the 1850s, Russian foreign policyremained counter-revolutionary, but in another way. The tsars forgot abouttheir own country and turned it into an assistant of Western Europeanimperialism. Instead of arrogance, they showed timidity and a shameful lackof pride. The October Revolution saved Russia from this humiliating weak-ness. This is the background for Stalin’s famous statement in September1945 about the treacherous Japanese attack on the Russian fleet in 1904.Using “the weakness of the tsarist government,” Japan defeated Russia andsucceeded in locking up all Russian exits to the ocean. Soviet Russia set therecord straight. “We, people of the old generation, waited for this day forforty years.”73 Stalin did not model his foreign policy on that of the tsars. Itwas the other way around; he measured tsarist foreign policy in its variousstages against the standard of his own goal of a strong multinational SovietUnion, unifying a number of nations under Russian leadership, but with alimit set on further expansion of Soviet borders arising from the samenational principle.

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All this leaves us with the unanswered question of whether the protectionand expansion of the Soviet state and its sphere of influence remained forStalin after 1941 part of a larger plan of revolutionary transformation ofthe world. Did he continue to believe in world revolution and the globaltriumph of communism?

The best starting point for this part of my discussion is the dissolution ofthe Comintern, seemingly the ultimate in the abandonment of world revolu-tion. In March 1936, Stalin told Roy Howard that the bolsheviks neverintended to carry out a world revolution. Revolutions would occur in theother countries too, but only when the local revolutionaries found this neces-sary. “Export of revolution is nonsense.”74 Stalin was lying in so far as hehoped to export revolution in the backyard of the USSR. A few years later,he did export the socialist system to the Baltic and other states. But, ingeneral, he certainly believed that national revolutions could not be orderedfrom abroad. To believe otherwise would militate against his instincts aboutthe strength of national sentiment.75 Revolutions were mainly products of

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the national soil. Stalin concluded that the Comintern was useless. In April1941, he told Dimitrov that “national communist parties” should be inde-pendent. They should make a Marxist analysis, but

they should independently solve the concrete tasks in the given countrythat stand before them, without looking to Moscow. And the situationand tasks in the various countries are very different. In England they aresuch, in Germany they are so, etc. When the comparties have gotstronger in this way, then we’ll resurrect the international organisation.The International was created under Marx in expectation of a quickinternational revolution. The Comintern was created under Lenin insuch a period as well. Now for each country the national tasks obtainprimary significance.76

In May 1941, Stalin ordered Zhdanov to tell Dimitrov that the Cominternshould be disbanded. He explained:

It is necessary to develop the idea of the combination of a healthy,correctly understood nationalism with proletarian internationalism….Rootless cosmopolitanism, which denies national feelings, the idea ofthe fatherland, has nothing in common with proletarian internation-alism. This cosmopolitanism prepares the soil for the recruitment ofspies, of enemy agents.77

The outbreak of the war intervened, but on 11 May 1943 Stalin returned tothe matter. He told Dimitrov and Manuil’skii that one could not have an“international leading centre for all countries. This became clear underMarx, under Lenin and now.”78 Four days later, the ECCI proposed todissolve the Comintern. On 21 May, Stalin explained to a company of partyleaders: “We overestimated our own forces when we created the CI andthought that we could lead the movement in all countries. That was ourmistake.” Dissolving the Comintern would also set an end to accusationsthat the communist parties served Moscow. The dissolution might actuallystrengthen “the internationalism of the popular masses, the base of which isthe Soviet Union.”79

The point in dissolving the Comintern was not to give up the world revo-lution but to give it up as a co-ordinated process. On paper, the revolution ina given country became the exclusive responsibility of the respective party.Communist parties should focus on their own revolutions without botheringtoo much about what happened abroad. In practice, the situation changedless drastically. The communist parties did become more exclusively orientedtowards their specific national tasks, but that was not the case for the Sovietparty. The Comintern apparatus was not dissolved but transferred under adifferent name to the All-Union Communist Party (bolsheviks), which tookover the co-ordinating role of the Comintern. But the Soviet communists

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could now limit their interference in the life of other parties to those occa-sions when they found such interference desirable. The new internationalcentre was no longer engaged in the details of the work of the communistparties as in Comintern days. In that sense, the national disentanglementwas real.

Stalin’s prescriptions of international communist strategy during theGreat Patriotic War turned on anti-fascist co-operation. On the first day ofthe German invasion, he told Dimitrov: “Don’t put the question of thesocialist revolution.”80 Once again, proletarian revolution was deferred. Thecommunist parties should aim for the overthrow of fascist domination andco-operate closely with all states, classes and parties prepared to make acontribution. Stalin was proud of the coalition he achieved. In January1945, he told his Yugoslavian comrade Hebrang that “Lenin did not dreamof the kind of relation of forces which we achieved in this war.” Lenin“didn’t think that one could keep up a union with one wing of the bour-geoisie and fight the other. We managed this.”81 Nevertheless, Stalin saw thewar in class terms. In January 1944, he accused a film director of not under-standing that “the present patriotic war is also a class war, for the mostpredatory and exploitative imperialists attacked our socialist country.”82

Stalin did not link his fate to the bourgeoisie for ever. In January 1945, hetold Dimitrov:

The crisis of capitalism revealed itself in the division of capitalists intotwo factions – one fascist, the other democratic. A union was formedbetween us and the democratic faction of the capitalists, because thelatter was interested in preventing Hitler’s rule, because this brutal rulewould carry the working class to extremes and to the overthrow of capi-talism. Now we side with one faction against the other, and in the future[we will also turn] against this faction of capitalists.83

Stalin’s commitment to the socialist system showed most clearly in occupiedEastern Europe. Publicly, he insisted that he would not impose it.Governments in the region should only be “friendly” towards the USSR andhave a “loyal attitude.”84 But the dictator did not believe that a bourgeoisgovernment could be truly loyal and friendly to a socialist great power. In1945, he told Tito that this war was not as in the past: “whoever occupies aterritory also imposes on it his own social system. Everyone imposes his ownsystem as far as his army has the power to do so.”85 The intention of asocialist transformation of occupied Eastern Europe was there from thebeginning. Stalin only developed new perspectives on how it could beachieved.

In a discussion with the Polish communist Bierut in May 1946, he saidthat on both occasions when a dictatorship of the proletariat had comeabout – in France in 1871 and in Russia in 1917 – it had been under condi-tions of war. Moreover, the Russian tsar, landlords and capitalists were so

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strong that to overcome them demanded “a power resting on violence, i.e. adictatorship.” The situation in Poland was different. The big capitalists andlandlords had shown so little patriotism during the war that they had beeneasily overthrown. Their property had been nationalised. The Red Army“assisted” in the process. As a result, the present Polish system represented a“new type of democracy,” without a class of big capitalists. A relativelylenient style of government sufficed. “You will approach socialism without abloody struggle.” This concerned not only Poland:

The democracy that has been established with you in Poland, inYugoslavia and for a part in Czechoslovakia is a democracy whichbrings you close to socialism without the need of the establishment ofthe dictatorship of the proletariat and the Soviet system. Lenin did notat all say that there are no other roads for the construction of socialismexcept the dictatorship of the proletariat; on the contrary, he allowed forthe possibility of arriving at socialism by using institutions of the bour-geois democratic system like the parliament.86

The Soviet dictator told Dimitrov in August and September 1946 that he didnot want the Bulgarian comrades to imitate the Soviet system. He wantedBulgaria to be a “popular republican state with a parliamentary regime.”The communists should reorganise themselves into a broad “Labour” or“popular” party.

You should unite the working class with the other layers of the toilerson the basis of a minimum program. The time of the maximumprogram will come later…. In essence it will be a communist party, butit will receive a broader basis and a fitting mask for the present period.Thus you will contribute to the transition to socialism along a way ofyour own – without the dictatorship of the proletariat.87

Many years earlier, Stalin had acknowledged the possibility of a peacefultransition to socialism when a country was encircled by socialist states. Thatsituation had now arrived, in the sense that the Soviet army was an over-whelming presence in Eastern Europe. The bourgeois class was powerless toresist socialist reforms. As violent resistance was hopeless, proletarian massterror was unnecessary. There was more to it. In Leninist jargon, “prole-tarian dictatorship” did signify a state with non-universal and unequalsuffrage and a unitary organisational model with a form of representationof the soviet rather than of the parliamentary type. In claiming thatsocialism could be reached without proletarian dictatorship, Stalinsuggested that the state could preserve universal and equal suffrage as wellas its ordinary parliamentary form. He had apparently concluded that,backed by the Soviet army, the local communist parties could force their

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hegemony onto an ordinary parliamentary state no less than onto one ofthe Soviet type.

After the communist coup d’état in Prague in February 1948, Stalin refor-mulated the question of proletarian dictatorship once again. In December ofthat year, he told a Bulgarian party delegation that it was an “axiom” thatsocialism could only be achieved through proletarian dictatorship. Until the“antagonistic classes” were abolished, as was the case in the USSR, onecould not do without it. It was only that Marxism recognised “two forms ofthe dictatorship of the proletariat.”

One form is the democratic republic, which Marx and Engels recognisedin the Paris Commune, …not a democratic republic such as in Americaor Switzerland, but a republic in which the working class has predomi-nant influence [bol’shoi ves]. Subsequently Lenin discovered the Sovietform of the dictatorship of the proletariat as the most fitting and appro-priate under our conditions.

In Bulgaria, the first form sufficed because “the assumption of power by theworking class was realised not through an internal uprising, but throughassistance from outside, by the Soviet troops, i.e. easily, without specialeffort.” Under such conditions, the old state need not be destroyed as thor-oughly as it had been in the bloody Russian revolution. In Bulgaria, thedestruction of the classes and the establishment of socialism could as well berealised under a “popular democratic parliamentary” state. It was unneces-sary to abolish universal suffrage, because the capitalists and landlords hadcapitulated and fled.88 In a discussion with Chinese leader Liu Shaoqi thenext year, Stalin said that the Eastern European states were “not proletariandictatorships but people’s democracies – parliaments and people’s fronts arethe organs running them.” Then he corrected himself: in Eastern Europe theproletarian dictatorship “manifests itself in the form of people’s democ-racy.”89

Historically speaking, Stalin was mixing things up. For Marx andEngels the Paris Commune was indeed the ideal democratic republic, butprecisely because it was in their interpretation not a “parliamentary”regime but a unitary state based on direct democracy. Stalin’s final inter-pretation of people’s democracy as a form of proletarian dictatorshipmeant that he envisaged a state in which universal suffrage and otherelements of the parliamentary structure were preserved, but in which thecommunist party was nevertheless the dictator. Throughout these variousreformulations, the one constant factor remained Stalin’s determination toliquidate capitalist property and establish the socialist economic system inEastern Europe.

Stalin’s strategy for the communists in Western Europe was to shore upthe democratic capitalist states, gradually strengthening their position in

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them, in preparation for a later showdown. In March 1944, he advisedTogliatti to let the Italian communists enter the Badoglio government andnot to demand the immediate abdication of the king. Italy should have astrong army. The main thing was “the unity of the Italian people in thestruggle against the Germans for an independent, strong Italy.” Disunitybetween Badoglio and the king and the anti-fascist parties was onlyfavourable to the British, who wanted a weak Italy in the Mediterranean.90

Similarly, Stalin told French communist leader Thorez in November 1944that the British and Americans wanted a “reactionary government” inFrance, with the help of de Gaulle. The PCF should create a “left bloc,”including the socialists, who were the “left wing of the bourgeoisie.” Theyshould organise a movement for the “reconstruction of a strong France andthe strengthening of democracy.” The movement, in which the Frenchbourgeoisie should participate, included the aim of restoring the warindustry.

This platform must include the reconstruction of industry, providing theunemployed with work, the defence of democracy, punishment of thosewho strangled democracy…. Formerly the point was to liberate thecountry, and now you face its reconstruction.

According to Thorez, the workers wanted to contribute to industrialrecovery, but the central authorities hindered them. His interlocutor calledthis “sabotage.” “The British and Americans want that only they would havean industry, and that the whole world would buy their commodities.” Franceshould get back on its feet and create a “big army.” The communists should“have their own people in the army.” They should not preserve parallelarmed forces next to French government troops. Stalin advised Thorez “totransform the armed detachments into another organisation, into a politicalorganisation, but you must hide the weapons.” The communist party “mustaccumulate forces and look for allies.” It should become so strong that “incase of an attack by the reaction, the communists will have a reliable defenceand can say that the reaction attacks not the communists but the people.” Ifthe situation were to change for the better, the forces united around theparty could be used for “the attack.”91

Germany was a special case. Stalin saw this country as a potential threatto the USSR. He did not hope that it would obtain a strong army, but he didaim for reunification and reconstruction of his defeated enemy to avoidrevanchism. In April 1945, he told Dimitrov that “at the present time, theroad for introducing the Soviet system into Germany is wrong, it is neces-sary to establish an anti-fascist, democratic, parliamentary regime.”92

During 1945 and 1946, he repeatedly told German communists thatsocialism was not on the agenda. The democratic revolution should first becompleted – in order to abolish the rudiments of feudalism and reunify theGerman state. British and American influence in the Western zones should

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be undermined with a view to creating a unified Germany, “friendly”towards the Soviet Union.93

In January 1947, Stalin complained to German comrades that GreatBritain and the USA sabotaged German reunification and favoured “feder-alism and separatism” because they were afraid that Germany might developinto a powerful economic competitor. Stalin favoured “democratisation” ofa unified Germany, including co-operation with “patriotic elements, whohad been among the Nazis.” Moreover, federalism was a “method with thehelp of which the reactionary classes strive to…save themselves fromsocialism.” Throughout Germany, a “liquidation of the concerns, the largebanks and fascist companies, as well as a confiscation of the lands of the biglandlords” should be carried out. A unified socialist party in the whole ofGermany should make it “more easy for many elements among the toilers tocome nearer to socialism.”94 Just as in the case of France and Italy, Stalinhoped for a strong, unified, democratic capitalist Germany, allied to Russiaand a counterweight to the Anglo-Americans. This prepared the conditionsfor a later breakthrough to socialism.95

In a country like Iran, similar policies were proposed. In late 1945, theRed Army allowed the Democratic Party of Azerbaijan (DPA) to begin aprocess of reform in the northern part of Iran. When the Soviet army with-drew, the embryonic revolutionary state collapsed. In a letter of May 1946 toa leader of the Democratic Party, Stalin explained that he had no choice.Otherwise, the British and Americans could argue that they had a right to bein Egypt, Indonesia, Greece and China. For the Red Army to stay on in Iranwould harm the “liberation movement in the colonies.” The DPA should co-operate with the Iranian government for “democratic reforms” and againstthe “Anglophile circles.” There was no revolutionary situation in Iran. Leninhad advanced immediate revolutionary demands only under the conditionof a “strong revolutionary crisis within the country, deepened by an unsuc-cessful war with a foreign enemy.” But “Iran does not now carry out a warwith a foreign enemy that might weaken the reactionary circles…. Thusthere is no situation in Iran that might allow the tactic of Lenin of 1905 and1917 to be carried out.”96

In the second half of the 1930s, it became Comintern policy to supportdemocratic governments on a platform of anti-fascism and social improve-ment. But, although not excluded, communist government participation, thehigh point of “class collaboration,” remained problematic. In the 1940s, anyhesitation about entering “bourgeois” governments was abandoned. Thecommunists were expected to participate in such governments under ordi-nary circumstances, when there was no chance of a revolutionarybreakthrough. The French and Italian parties entered the government onnon-revolutionary programs. Stalin demanded a strategy of long-term,gradual building up of power in the “bourgeois” states. The communistparties should turn into constructive national parties, taking responsibilityfor the capitalist economy and army. The workers should contribute to the

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reconstruction of “strong and independent” states in an alliance with theSoviet Union and resisting Anglo-American domination.

These were striking turns compared with the days of the Popular Front.Stalin’s conviction that the working class was attracted to democracy deter-mined tactics more than ever. Yet the national democratic coalitionremained a stepping stone, a period of “accumulating forces.” Stalin still sawthe bourgeoisie as a reactionary class, hostile to the interests of the“people.” At some point, the communists would have to shed their caution,make their grab for complete power and proceed to liquidate the capitalistclasses. Socialism was not forgotten. It should only be reached after a stageof national reformism. The expected violent conflict with the bourgeoisiewould break out on the occasion of a provocation by the “reactionaryforces.” The communists could then present their anti-capitalist offensive asa measure to defend a threatened democracy.

There are indications that Stalin believed that even in Western Europe,where there was no Soviet army to remove the capitalists, socialism could beachieved without violent class confrontation. In April 1945, he told Tito thatsocialism was now possible even under the English monarchy. Revolutionwas no longer necessary everywhere.97 Early the next year, he told WalterUlbricht that the parliamentary traditions of the West allowed a “democrat.road to workers’ power/no dictatorship.”98 In a discussion with Polish repre-sentatives in August 1946, Stalin noted that “the face of the communistparties changed, their programs changed. The sharp boundary formerlyexisting between the communists and socialists is gradually fading away.” Hementioned the fact that the dictatorship of the proletariat did not figure inthe program of the united socialist party of Germany.99 But, although hemay have hoped that socialism could be reached peacefully, Stalin neverindicated that, if this proved impossible, the communists should set asidetheir goal rather than resort to violence. To be on the safe side, they shouldhide their weapons.

It did not take long for Stalin to harden his thinking again.100 During1947, he concluded that the United States was out to establish a globalPax Americana. The expulsion of the PCF and PCI from the French andItalian governments, respectively, was unnerving.101 In September 1947,the so-called Information Bureau of Communist Parties, the Cominform,was founded at a conference in Polish Szklarska Poremba. This organisa-tion of European communist parties (from Western Europe only theFrench and Italians participated) had no power of binding decisions overits members. In 1946, Stalin had warned Hungarian, Yugoslav andBulgarian communist leaders against a restoration of the Comintern. Thatorganisation had been created “with the example provided by Marx, whoexpected that revolution would take place concurrently in all countries.However, this does not correspond to our current ideology.” Central direc-tives tied the hands of the parties unduly. The Soviet dictator did suggest

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establishing a new international communist organisation to exchangeinformation and experiences.102

The main speech at the founding conference, with the well-known thesisof the “two camps,” was made by Andrei Zhdanov. It expressed Stalin’sthinking.103 Despite his fierce rhetoric, Zhdanov did not return to a divisionof the world into capitalist and socialist camps, as had been normal prior to1935, but spoke of more vaguely defined democratic and reactionary forces.The “imperialist and anti-democratic camp” had the United States as itsleading force. The “anti-imperialist and democratic camp” had the USSRand the countries of “new democracy” as its mainstay. Although not on theroad to socialism, countries like Finland, Indonesia and India were close tothis camp. The main criterion of whether a state, class or politicianbelonged to either camp was whether they co-operated with the Americanoppressors or patriotically resisted the enslavement of their country. Thecommunists should “head the resistance to the American plan for theenslavement of Europe,” courageously exposing all accomplices ofAmerican imperialism.

the Communists must support all truly patriotic elements who do notwant their country dishonoured, and who want to fight against theenslavement of their motherland by foreign capital…. They must takeup the banner of defence of the national independence and sovereigntyof their countries…[and] stand on guard for a lasting peace and forpeople’s democracy.104

The defence of national honour became the main task of the communistparties of the world.105 Zhdanov treated the defence of democracy as apatriotic duty. In his speech he never attacked the bourgeoisie wholesale, asa class, but only “imperialist circles” or “ruling circles” among them. Thatsection of the bourgeoisie willing to support national independence anddemocracy, on terms as Stalin understood them, remained a welcomepartner for the communists. Characteristically, the party secretary analysedthe ousting of the PCF from the government as an onslaught on Frenchsovereignty. The Americans had demanded it. He reproached the Frenchcomrades that by complying they, the “only patriotic force in France,” hadharmed not only the “forces of democracy” but also the “fundamentalnational rights and interests of their countries”:

How did the French CP react to this shameful act of France’s rulingcircles in selling off the country’s national sovereignty? Instead ofholding up to shame, as a betrayal of the defence of the motherland’shonour and independence, the conduct of the other parties, includingthe Socialists, the Communist Party of France reduced the matter tocomplaints about a violation of democratic practice.106

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Zhdanov did not reproach the French and Italians for having participated ina coalition government with bourgeois parties but, on the contrary, forhaving been so foolish as to let themselves be kicked out. When Luigi Longodefended himself, an angry Zhdanov shouted from the hall that the Italiancommunists retreated in the face of reaction instead of going over to theoffensive. “They threw you out of the government. You offered no resis-tance.” The PCF and the PCI should do their best to return to thegovernment. “Is it not clear,” Zhdanov asked, “that France can become anindependent, strong and sovereign power only under the leadership of theworking class and its vanguard, the communist party?”107

The Cominform conference did not demand a return to pre-war Leninisttactics. Almost the opposite was the case. The conference did not criticisethe French and Italian comrades for having engaged in class co-operationbut for letting themselves be removed from the bourgeois government. Thisis confirmed by the discussions that Stalin had with French and Italianparty leaders at the end of the year. In November 1947, he told Thorez thatif the PCF had attempted an uprising at the end of the war, the “Anglo-American troops” would have crushed them. Stalin predicted furtherpolarisation between the forces of “peace and war” – the communists and deGaulle. The social democratic leaders “sell their motherland.” But he agreedwith Thorez on the need for co-operation with French entrepreneurs in theautomobile and aviation industries. An effort should be made “to unite allelements who will struggle for the independence of the national industry.”Thorez’ proposal to defend the French film industry against Americancultural encroachments was also correct. The French bourgeoisie should notbe frightened unduly by strikes. France needed a war industry and army toprotect its independence. Stalin was aware that this was a far cry fromComintern days:

it is interesting to see how things turned around. Two decades ago thecommunists were called enemies of the fatherland, but now only thecommunists defend the fatherland. The slogan of an independentcountry lies in the hands of the communists, and only in theirs…. Thecommunists can declare that only they defend the honour of the nationand the power of the nation. …there rolls a great patriotic wave throughFrance. The ruling circles of France killed the state, left it without anarmy, a fleet and a war industry.

Stalin’s “French patriotism” was no fake. Of course, he hoped to seduceFrance into allying itself with Russia and opposing America. But to demandthat the French communists support their army, industry and films meant tofill the patriotic slogans with real content. Then again, despite all this, theSoviet leader insisted that the French communists should prepare for thefinal class battles in the long run: “you must have arms and organisation, soas not to be left disarmed in the face of the enemy. They can attack the

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communists, and then it will be necessary to beat them back.” He offeredSoviet weapons to Thorez.108 Similarly, he told PCI Deputy GeneralSecretary Pietro Secchia in December 1947:

We are of the opinion that you should not set course on an uprisingright now, but you have to be prepared for it, if the opponent attacks. Itwould be good to strengthen the organisation of the Italian partisans, tostore more arms…. You have to bring some of your own people into thestaffs and leading organs of the opponent. …you have to have your ownguard, a small guard of experienced people…. If necessary you can laterturn the guard into an army. Moreover, you must have your own peopleamong the government troops and police.109

After the establishment of the Cominform, strategy remained basically thesame. The main change was that the patriotic theme became more domi-nant. Speaking with foreign comrades, Stalin began to refer more often tothe “nation” and the “fatherland” than to the “people.” He also remainedconvinced that the time of the great confrontation between bourgeoisie andproletariat in Western Europe was far away.110 But he did not doubt that, inthe end, confrontation with the bourgeoisie was unavoidable.

Stalin’s careful tactics were partly motivated by his fear of imperialistintervention against revolutions. For example, he doubted whether the impe-rialists would allow a victorious Greek revolution. In February 1948, theSoviet dictator told Yugoslav and Bulgarian party leaders that “one shouldassist Greece if there are hopes of winning, and if not, then we shouldrethink and terminate the guerrilla movement.” The Anglo-Americanswould spare no effort to keep Greece in their sphere. They were simply toointerested in the Mediterranean. This discussion gives a fine insight intoStalin’s reasoning:

You are under the impression of a “moral obligation.” If you cannot liftthe weight which you have hoisted upon yourselves, you must admit it.You must not be afraid of some kind of a “categorical imperative” ofmoral obligation. We do not have such categorical imperatives. Theentire question rests in the balance of forces. We go into battle not whenthe enemy wants us to, but when it’s in our interests.111

It did not take long for Stalin to reach the conclusion that the partisanmovement stood no chance. Nevertheless, his words leave no doubt that hewould have favoured a Greek communist victory. He abandoned the Greekrevolution because he no longer believed in it, not because the final socialistperspective was lost on him.

Stalin’s commitment to the Chinese revolution was even more clear.According to Mao, the Soviet dictator insisted on peace with Chiang Kai-shek in 1947.112 But in early 1948 he acknowledged his mistake. He told

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Yugoslavian and Bulgarian comrades that after the war he had invited theChinese comrades to reach a modus vivendi with Chiang. But they “musteredtheir forces and struck. It has been shown that they were right, and we werenot.”113 In June 1948, Stalin told a Soviet adviser to Mao that Russia wouldspare no effort to assist the Chinese communists. “If socialism is victoriousin China and other countries follow the same road, we can consider thevictory of socialism throughout the world to be guaranteed.”114

In April 1949, Stalin warned Mao that the “Anglo-Franco-Americans”might resort to military intervention to prevent communist victory. Herecommended serious preparation for the offensive in the south.115 In thesummer of 1949, he urged the visiting Liu Shaoqi to hurry with establishinga new government. In the absence of it, the imperialists had better opportu-nities for intervention. He further noted that “because of the arrogance ofthe leaders of the European revolutionary movements after the death ofMarx and Engels, the social democratic movement in Europe began to lagbehind.” The centre of revolution shifted to the East, “and now it hasshifted to China and East Asia.” Stalin did advise Liu, though, not to liqui-date the national bourgeoisie immediately upon the victory of therevolution. The Eastern European bourgeoisie had been unpatriotic, but theChinese had not surrendered to the Japanese or the Americans. So thecommunists had “no grounds” to act against it. For the time being, theyshould stick to the “united national front.”116

Patriotic co-operation with part of the bourgeoisie was good policy notonly before the revolution but even for some time after it. However, one daythe bells would toll for the bourgeoisie. In March 1949, Stalin told Albanianleader Enver Hoxha that it was a mistake to have completely expropriatedthe Albanian bourgeoisie. “They could help you, as long as the state is notstrong enough. And in particular if among them there are people who valuethe independence and freedom of their country.” People should bepermitted to open shops and small enterprises. The Russian bolshevikscould not carry out such a policy because the national bourgeoisie was irrec-oncilable. They even turned for help to the French. But he concluded: “Youshould use them in the interests of the development of the country. Whenyou are stronger, then you can put the question of the bourgeoisie onceagain.”117

Combining co-operation with “patriotic” bourgeois forces with a long-term revolutionary perspective remained characteristic of Stalin’scommunist foreign policy until the end. In October 1948, he formulated thegoal of a peace movement unifying all “social forces standing for peace.”118

The movement followed the dual aim of keeping the imperialists fromattacking the USSR and setting them against each other. The key to bothgoals was to call on other countries to resist American domination and toform an alternative alliance with Soviet Russia. But, again, despite its wide“patriotic” scope, the peace movement would hopefully in the long run alsocontribute to destabilising capitalism. Stalin wrote in his 1952 Economic

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Problems of Socialism in the USSR that the present peace movement did notaim for the overthrow of capitalism. It “distinguishes itself from the move-ment in the period of the First World War for the transformation of theimperialist war into a civil war.” But it was possible that, under favourablecircumstances, “somewhere the struggle for peace will develop into astruggle for socialism.”119

Stalin did not lose sight of the socialist perspective. It was only that histactical views gradually changed. In the mid-1930s, he accepted communistco-operation with bourgeois parties in the Popular Front. His experiencewith the Allied coalition during the war made him more sensitive to the useof the patriotic factor. After 1946, he embraced a very broad policy of apatriotic united front that allowed even for temporary co-operation withparts of the bourgeoisie. But all this was in preparation for the final show-down with that hostile class. Patriotic class co-operation remained a meretactic serving the goal of communist world revolution.

We could also turn this logic around and surmise that over the yearsStalin became a patriot in a more fundamental sense. He came to realise theoverriding significance of the concept of a fatherland. In his post-wardiatribes against the despicable forces of aggression, it was “the nations”that he routinely held up as the forces of hope.120 In his speech at theNineteenth Party Congress in October 1952, he concluded that the bour-geoisie, which he characteristically called “the main enemy of the liberationmovement,” had changed fundamentally. It had become “more reactionary,it has lost its links with the people and therewith weakened itself.” Formerly,the bourgeoisie had been a force of liberalism, but now the “principle ofequal rights for [individual] people and nations” had been completelydiscarded in favour of the “exploiting minority”:

The banner of bourgeois-democratic freedoms has been cast overboard.I think you, representatives of the communist and democratic parties,must raise this banner and carry it forward, if you want to collect themajority of the people around you. There’s no one else to raise it…. Thebanner of national independence and national sovereignty has been castoverboard. There is no doubt that you…must raise this banner andcarry it forward, if you want to be patriots of your country, if you wantto become the leading force of the nation.121

If this should be considered a classical formulation of Stalin’s revolutionarypatriotism, then the national principle had replaced class as the leader’smain focus. The “principle of equal rights for individuals and nations” wasshorthand for a world of nations with formal state independence andregimes upholding formal equality before the law. The people or the nation,i.e. the popular or national community, had, then, become Stalin’s very un-Marxist point of departure. But he grafted a Marxist class theme onto thisby insisting that the bourgeoisie with its capitalist system betrayed the patri-

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otic ideal, whereas the communist working class upheld it. If this becameStalin’s logic, then he was fundamentally converted to patriotism.Nevertheless, from that perspective too, Marxism remained a firm part ofhis outlook. For even if true communists should start out as patriots, therewas no escape from ending up with world revolution. Socialism remainedthe only authentically patriotic system, guaranteeing, in Stalin’s opinion, thepower and strength of the fatherlands.

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The question of the intellectual sources of Stalin’s political thought is noteasily answered. From early on, he covered up his tracks. However, we have inthe course of this study met a number of Marxists whose work was reflectedin Stalin’s, including the Georgian Marxists Zhordaniia, Makharadze andShaumian; the Austro-Marxists Bauer and Renner; the “collectivist”Aleksandr Bogdanov; the “father of Russian Marxism” Plekhanov; andStalin’s despised opponents Bukharin, Preobrazhenskii and Trotskii. ButStalin never admitted to having had any “teachers” other than Marx, Engelsand Lenin. Furthermore, we saw that he did on occasion mention the Georgiannationalist Chavchavadze and the Russian “revolutionary democrats”Belinskii and Chernyshevskii as representatives of healthy popularity andpatriotism. Then again, although he was flattering, such references remainedsporadic. Stalin did not admit to having learned or borrowed anything fromthem. He did not acknowledge personal debts.

Stalin’s own analysis of the development of “Marxism–Leninism,” whichis what he called his system, is remarkable for its closedness. That he did notconsider Lenin’s doctrine to be Marxism pure and simple was symbolised bythe fact of the sanctification of the term “Leninism” after the leader’sdeath.1 But in On the Foundations of Leninism, he emphasised that Leninwas a pupil of Marx and Engels who, in the struggle against the obsoletetheories of the Second International, resurrected the revolutionary contentof Marxism. Marxism remained the foundation of Lenin’s views. He onlyadded a new element to it. The result was Leninism – the “Marxism of theepoch of imperialism and proletarian revolution.”2 At this time, Stalin didnot explicitly clarify what distinguished the new Leninist Marxism from theold Marxist Marxism.

In 1927, he mentioned the new elements to a delegation of Americanworkers. Lenin did not add any new principles to Marxism or abolishany of the old, but he did make some original points: the analysis ofmonopolistic, imperialist capitalism; the idea of soviets and the prole-tarian alliance with the peasantry; socialism in one country throughpeasant co-operation; proletarian hegemony in the democratic revolution

17 The philosophy of revolutionarypatriotism

through a peasant alliance; the national–colonial question; and, finally,the centrality of the communist party.3

In time, Stalin began to prefer the term “Marxism–Leninism” to thesingle “Leninism.”4 The combined term appeared in Comintern documentsin the summer of 1924. Soviet leaders Zinov’ev and Bukharin objected to it,for the suggestion it carried that Leninism was itself not Marxist.5 The firstoccasion I found when Stalin used the term “Marxists–Leninists” was in aspeech to the Central Committee in November 1928.6 The timing suggeststhat he adopted the term on the occasion of his parting with Bukharin, i.e.at the time when he was definitely going his own way. In any case, it cameinto regular use in party publications in this period.

Only in the 1938 Kratkii kurs was the bolshevik doctrine unequivocallybaptised Marxism–Leninism.7 The decision to make the prefix “Marxism”obligatory had to do with Stalin’s dissatisfaction with the low theoreticallevel of the party. The Marxist theoretical background of Leninism hadbeen neglected. In his speech of 1 October 1938, Stalin said that with theKratkii kurs he intended “to liquidate the rift between Marxism andLeninism created during the past years.” It had been almost forgotten thatLenin stood “on the shoulders of Marx and Engels.” Communists shouldhave a good understanding of materialism and political economy. Theyshould study not only the Communist Manifesto, the “Song of Songs of

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Figure 13 G.V. Plekhanov: influenced Stalin’s understanding of history

Marxism,” but also Das Kapital. “Therefore,” Stalin concluded, “it will bebetter and scientifically sounder to speak of Marxism–Leninism, so thatthere would not open up a rift between the old, representing the foundationsof Leninism, and the new, representing the continuation of these founda-tions.”8 The term “Marxism–Leninism” was intended to emphasise Lenin’sMarxist orthodoxy.

In the same speech, Stalin also explained the great advantage that RussianMarxists had over the German archfathers. “After all, how did theorydevelop? On the basis of a generalisation of experience. How does experienceoriginate? Either in practice in a laboratory or in practice under the masses.People are also a laboratory.” Compare Marx and Engels, who had only twomonths of experience with the proletarian dictatorship (the ParisCommune), with the Russian Marxists, who had twenty years!9 This compar-ison allowed Stalin to underscore not only Lenin’s originality but also hisown. He took the occasion to expound the theory of the persistence of thestate under socialism under the condition of capitalist encirclement. As wehave seen, he claimed that this was his contribution to Marxist–Leninism.10

Then again, this was the only original contribution he claimed.The impression of closedness of the Marxist universe was further

strengthened by the curious fact that in most cases when Stalin changedexisting doctrine he pointed only to Engels as the source of obsoletedoctrine to be removed. He was, as it were, only setting the Marxist–Leninist

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Figure 14 Friedrich Engels: “only idiots can doubt that Engels remains our teacher”

record straight by purging it of Engels’s transgressions. In the course of thisbook, we have come across many instances when Engels was singled out.Stalin attributed the concept of simultaneous world revolution mainly tohim. At the time of collectivisation, he mentioned Engels as havingpresented the goal of peasant collectivisation in an exaggeratedly cautiousway. He accused him of having been soft on the rich peasants.11 Only Engelswas criticised for too one-sidedly attacking tsarist imperialism.12 It wasagain Engels, not Marx, who thought too lightly of the withering away ofthe state. Engels was reproached for the muddled idea of equal pay for qual-ified and unqualified labour. He was also the father of the mistaken ideathat communism should abolish the big cities. Stalin again criticised Engelswhen he explained that the full demise of commodity production was as yetimpossible in the USSR. He even slighted his version of historical materi-alism as less orthodox than Marx’s.13

The Soviet dictator was careful not to go too far. In an August 1934 letterto the Politburo, he wrote: “Only idiots can doubt that Engels was andremains our teacher. But it does not follow from this at all, that we mustcover up Engels’s shortcomings.”14 The pattern of Stalin’s specific distastefor him is unmistakable. It was also reflected in the leader’s notes in hisbooks, which become the more striking if we compare them with his privatetreatment of Marx and Lenin. I did not find a single critical comment in anyof Marx’s works.15 In Engels’s works we do find them.16 He was the onlyone of the three “classics” whom Stalin felt free to slight.17 One does findoccasional critical remarks in Lenin’s writings, but they are few, and mostturn on one question, namely that of the state. Stalin’s general treatment ofLenin is revealing for its reverential quality. Often his notes took the form ofoutlining short passages with brackets, while marking such texts with a diag-onal line through them. He marked the respective passage with a word suchas “party,” “dictatorship,” “peasantry,” etc.18 He was seeking out theprecious Leninist formulas, carefully isolating them from the rest of the text.

The impression one gets from the notes in the books in Stalin’s library isthat he genuinely admired Marx and Lenin, considering himself their“pupil.” Where he diverged from the orthodox doctrine, he was onlyprotecting the heritage of these two greatest teachers – purgingMarxism–Leninism of the misunderstandings introduced into it by Engels.To conclude, not only do we have an absence of references in Stalin’sspeeches and writings admitting a debt to others than Marx, Engels andLenin, but his analysis of the development of Marxism–Leninism did notadmit to any influence on this system by anyone except these three and, verymodestly, himself.

Stalin, the Marxist and the non-Marxist tradition

We do not know much of Stalin’s reading as a young man at the Tbilisiseminary. Soviet publications from the 1930s claim that, as a member of a

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socialist student circle, he read translations of, among other authors,Spinoza, Feuerbach, Adam Smith, Charles Letourneau and Darwin.19 Someof these he must have read. The school authorities caught him with illegalliterature, books by Victor Hugo and a title of Letourneau’s.20 But the list asa whole does not sound credible. It does not show in his later writings thatthe Soviet dictator was acquainted with the work of these authors in anyserious way. We can only say that these were the kind of works read byradical Georgian students of the day.

At the time, socialist students were interested in the pantheist Spinoza, aforerunner of materialism. As political economists of the new capitalist eraand forerunners of Marx’s economic theories, Ricardo and Smith wereworth reading. Marx and Engels themselves were on any socialist list, whichalso contained authors like Letourneau, Buckle, Lippert, Flammarion andLyell, popularisers of the new scientific view of the world. The list wouldalso have “revolutionary democrats” and Westernisers like Belinskii,Chernyshevskii and Pisarev, and the Marxist Plekhanov. In 1893, theGeorgian socialist Ninoshvili described what his generation found worthreading in an article for Kvali. He mentioned the “materialist thought” ofBüchner, Moleschott and Vogt, the “positive philosophy” of Auguste Comte,Darwin’s path-breaking work and Marx’s political economy.21

This mixture of radical and scientific thinking from the West andWesternising thinking from Russia provided the intellectual environment inwhich Stalin received his Marxist education. When Noi Zhordaniia met himin 1898, he had the impression that his knowledge of socialism rested on arti-cles from Kvali and Kautsky’s Erfurter Programm.22 Koba’s “Anarchism orsocialism?” (written in 1906–07) shows his reading of some Marx and Engels.He mainly quoted from the latter’s Anti-Dühring and Ludwig Feuerbach undder Ausgang der klassischen deutschen Philosophie, characteristically Engels’stwo most influential philosophical works and forming, more than Marx’swritings, the standard of orthodox Marxism among Russian socialdemocrats. He also quoted from some of Marx’s works, like the preface toZur Kritik der politischen Oekonomie. All of these were in Russian transla-tions.23 Stalin also read other European Marxists. In 1907, he wrote a prefaceto the Georgian edition of Kautsky’s The Motive Forces and Perspectives ofthe Russian Revolution.24 He read the Austro-Marxists in translation for his1913 article on the national question.

Stalin’s library provides information about which political writers inter-ested him later in life.25 The random collecting of books began after 1917.According to Leonid Spirin’s estimate, the library contained around 19,500titles at the dictator’s death, 14,000 of which were later handed over tovarious libraries: a huge collection of Russian and world literature, bookson art and science, and pamphlets, albums and atlases. The cards for theremaining 5,500 titles are at present in the former library of the Instituteof Marxism–Leninism. As mainly literary works and books of referencewere taken out, what remains gives an impression of what Stalin was

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interested in reading in the field of “non-fiction.” Most interesting are the390 titles with his handwritten notes. These books have been preserved inthe former Institute of Marxism–Leninism. From the thematic point ofview, roughly three-quarters of them concern communist ideology andtactics. The majority of the remaining titles concern history, economicsand war.

In 1925, Stalin composed a systematic classification for his library. Hewanted twelve authors to be listed separately.26 They were Marx and Engels,three other foreign Marxists (Kautsky, Lafargue and Luxemburg) andPlekhanov, Lenin, Trotskii, Radek, Zinov’ev, Kamenev and Bukharin. Thechoice expressed an exclusive focus on Marxism. This is confirmed by thecomposition of the 390 titles referred to above. There are sixty-nine works byLenin and twelve by Marx. Other important Marxists are represented asfollows: Trotskii (8), Kautsky (7), Bogdanov (5), Bukharin and Engels (4),and one each by Kamenev, Luxemburg, Plekhanov, Radek and Zinov’ev.27

Among works of political or philosophical thinkers of some status, we findonly two titles about non-Marxists: Kamenev’s Chernyshevskii andAleksandrov’s Filosofskie predshestvenniki marksizma. And not one by such aperson.28

The group of 5,500 books without notes mitigates the impression ofMarxist one-sidedness only marginally. The library of the leader containedone or two books about the following Russian non-Marxists: Nechaev,Gertsen, Chernyshevskii, Belinskii, Lavrov and Kliuchevskii. I found one ortwo titles about the following non-Russians: Democritus, Spinoza, Hobbes,d’Holbach, de la Mettrie, Ricardo, Marat, Hegel, Darwin, Lassalle andSpengler. This is a more or less complete list, not counting works on literaryfigures. The library further contained some of the writings of the followingnon-Marxist Russian political thinkers: Bakunin, Belinskii, Gertsen andKropotkin. Foreigners were represented by a few translations from theWebbs, Hegel, Feuerbach, de la Mettrie, Lassalle, Weber, Sombart andSpengler. This is a very meagre harvest in a library of so many titles. And itis doubtful whether Stalin read any of these works, because he had the habitof making notes.

Most of these thinkers can be put into the broad category of materialists,socialists and “forerunners of Marxism.” Strikingly, the collection of bookscontained nothing written by Slavophiles, pan-Slavists or other Russianconservatives (other than literary figures and historians). For all his admira-tion of Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great, Stalin seems to have beenuninterested in the systems of thought that old Russia produced. The librarybetrays no serious interest in French revolutionary thought either. The onlynon-Marxist political thinkers more or less visible in the library as a kind ofgroup were Russian “revolutionary democrats” such as Belinskii, Gertsen,Chernyshevskii and Bakunin. But even their presence was negligiblecompared with that of the Marxists. The library reflects a serious lack ofinterest in traditions other than Marxism.

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Within the Marxist tradition, Stalin’s interest was focused on the fathersof “Marxism–Leninism.” Lenin and Marx were the two best-representedauthors in the library. Stalin’s notes in the works of other Marxists – as, forinstance, Trotskii, Bogdanov, Plekhanov, Bukharin, Luxemburg andKautsky – are relatively uninteresting. In any case, they do not allow us toconclude that he felt inspired by them. The pattern is clear enough. In thecourse of the present book, we found several examples of Stalin being influ-enced by Marxists other than Marx and Lenin. His formulation of thenational question owed much to Georgian and Austrian Marxists. Onerecognises the Bogdanovite ideal of total absorption of the “I” in the partyorganism. Plekhanov’s influence is reflected in Stalin’s views of the inevitabledespair of the class enemy in the face of defeat and of the role of historicalheroes. His economic views were importantly influenced by Trotskii andBukharin. His treatment of Russian colonialism was somewhat reminiscentof Luxemburg. But the influence of such authors on Stalin was mainly amatter of him picking up some of their generally known ideas. His interestin their works was not strong enough to make him study them persistently. Imight add that, although Stalin’s treatment of the leading Russian nationwas reminiscent of Engels’s historic nations, this does not show in marginalnotes in his works either.

In several important instances, Stalin seemed to continue on suggestionspresent in Kautsky’s works. The main ones were the concept of socialism inone country, pioneered by Vollmar, and the continued existence of bureau-cratic apparatuses, commodity and money relations, and wide wagedifferentials under socialism. We may assume that his reading of the ErfurterProgramm and others of Kautsky’s works was of some influence here. Butmost likely Stalin absorbed mainstream Second International thinking indi-rectly. It was Lenin who preserved or reintegrated Kautskyan elements.Stalin needed only to take his lead and follow up on it boldly.

In the course of the 1930s and 1940s, Stalin gradually removed himselffrom pure Marxism, but this process was never completed. Marxism in thesense of anti-capitalism remained a foundation stone of Stalin’s thinking.His faith in a closed Marxist system remained strong – perhaps even againsthis own better judgement. This stubborn faith showed, for example, in atypical comment on an article in the April 1946 issue of Voennaia mysl’,where it was suggested that will-power was decisive in war: “Not true. Themain thing is a knowledge of Marxism.”29 Nevertheless, we have seen thatthe concepts of “popularity” and “patriotism” acquired contents no longerfully understandable in a Marxist context.

But what goes for the influence on Stalin of Marxists other than Marxand Lenin goes even more for that of non-Marxists. Looking for the ideo-logical background of the changes in the later Stalin’s thinking, one observesa striking similarity in his communist patriotism with the ideas of the earlyHamburg communists, the “national bolsheviks” of the early 1920s. Partlycontinuing the work of Lassalle, Heinrich Laufenberg and Fritz Wolffheim

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developed a brand of communism that attributed a central role to militarypatriotism, recognised the non-class functions of the state and proceededfrom an organic national popular community from which the bourgeoisiewas excluded.30 However, I found no evidence that Stalin was influenced bythese heretical communists – or by Lassalle’s concept of the state for thatmatter.

While indifferent to Laufenberg and Wolffheim, whose ideas he musthave known about, Stalin did obviously attach great importance toChernyshevskii and Belinskii. They were Russian revolutionaries.Chernyshevskii formulated the principle of popularity of art in terms highlyattractive to Stalin. Belinskii defended notions of patriotism and anti-cosmopolitanism that Stalin felt at home with. The prominence given to thememory of these two men marks the development of Stalin’s revolutionarypatriotism. But I found no evidence of him seriously studying their works. Itwas again a case of him picking up their generally known ideas. Using thefact that Lenin too had commented favourably on them, Stalin gave them aplace in the gallery of revolutionary predecessors.

The increasing weight of the patriotic component in Stalin’s thinkingcannot be attributed to increasing influence of conservative Russian thoughton the leader. Positive appreciation of the Russian philosophical traditionremained highly selective. In 1942, there appeared a textbook on the historyof Russian materialism. Characterising the views of Belinskii, Gertsen,Chernyshevskii, Ogarev and Dobroliubov as “the philosophy of revolu-tionary democratism,” it claimed that the native Russian materialism, whichwas “indissolubly linked with the ideas of socialism and people’s revolu-tion,” represented the “highest form of pre-Marxist philosophicalmaterialism.”31 Prior to Marx and Engels, Western European philosophyhad been inferior to Russian. But only the radical, Westernising tendency innineteenth-century Russian thought was praised.

In 1945–46, there appeared Aleksandrov’s History of Western EuropeanPhilosophy, treating the period before the rise of mature Marxism in 1848.Stalin agreed to award the author a Stalin Prize, but he soon subjected thebook to a discussion for serious mistakes.32 Reportedly, the leader laid outthe basis for the discussion in a telephone conversation with the chief editorof Pravda, Pospelov. He was dissatisfied with the apolitical tone of thebook. It was lacking in Leninist “militant party spirit.” Bourgeois philos-ophy was treated too leniently, especially Hegel. His philosophy had notonly been “conservative,” as Aleksandrov had it, but “reactionary, calledforth by fear of the French Revolution and directed against the Frenchmaterialists.” Marxism should have been shown as a true “revolution inphilosophy.”33

In June 1947, Zhdanov made a speech against Aleksandrov’s book. Stalinread and corrected it in advance.34 Zhdanov was again unhappy with thebook’s lack of “tendentiousness.” The author lauded bourgeois philosophersto the skies and presented Marxism as a “simple successor to the develop-

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ment of the preceding progressive teachings.” But Marxism differed funda-mentally from those preceding systems. The old philosophy was “theproperty of a few elect – of an aristocracy of the spirit,” whereas Marxismwas “a scientific instrument in the hands of the proletarian masses, strug-gling for their liberation from capitalism.” The issue of an alleged lack ofrespect for Russian philosophy in the book was briefly touched upon whenZhdanov criticised it for exclusively treating Western European philosophy.To exclude Russian philosophy meant to belittle its role. This perpetuated“the bourgeois division into a ‘western’ and ‘eastern’ culture, looks atMarxism as a regional, ‘western’ tendency.”35

Subsequently, patriotism became the main theme on the “philosophicalfront.” In September 1947, Zhdanov told Shepilov that the millions of soldierswho had seen life abroad were positively impressed by it. Stalin had insistedthat apolitical moods were a danger to the country. The “gentlemen who longfor the ‘Western way of life’ ’’ represented a “humiliation of our nationaldignity.” Furthermore, Stalin was angry with “all these Aleksandrovs” failingto support healthy ideology. They were “neither revolutionaries nor Marxists.They are the petit bourgeoisie. In reality, they are very far from the people andmost of all concerned with arranging their own private affairs.”36 Here we seethe theme of “national dignity” emerging, the emphasis switching from adefence of Marxism to the question of Russian “priority.”

But even in the darkest days of late Stalinism, when Russian superioritybecame the overriding theme of public life, the Soviet press did not carryeulogies of “reactionary” philosophers such as Vladimir Solov’ev andNikolai Danilevskii.37 Shepilov recalls a meeting with Zhdanov a few yearsafter the war. The latter informed him that, according to Stalin,Dostoevskii’s views were treated incorrectly in Soviet publications.According to Stalin, his writings served to blacken the revolution, “toportray the people of the revolution in an angry and dirty way as criminals,tyrants, murderers”:

According to Dostoevskii, there is a “demon” in every person, the prin-ciple of “Sodom.” And if a person is a materialist, if he doesn’t believein God, if he is (terrible!) a socialist, then the demonic principle in himbecomes dominant, and he turns into a criminal. What a horrible andmean philosophy!38

“Ideologists of the exploiting classes” like Solov’ev and the Slavophiles werenot, like the “revolutionary democrats,” rehabilitated as “national thinkers”and “patriots.”39 The Slavophile doctrine of the originality of Russianhistorical development, embodied in pre-Petrine, patriarchal Russia,remained a reactionary fantasy. There was no such thing as a “mystical‘spirit of the people.’” Russia’s hope lay in the Western principles of “indus-trialism” and “rationalism” rejected by the Slavophiles. Nineteenth-centuryWesternisers had only been mistaken if they chose a wrong weapon from

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the Western arsenal, namely capitalism.40 The Soviet dictator insisted thatthe “revolutionary democrats” should continue to be presented as revolu-tionaries. For example, Stalinist studies of the leader’s final years claimed,rightly or wrongly, that Belinskii had been an admirer of the Jacobins. Helearned from them that the road to socialism did not lie in the peacefulreform of the Gironde but in revolutionary “Robespierrism.”41

At first sight, Stalinist thought resembled the Slavophile idea of a specialRussian road. But Stalin did not believe in that. He was no principled oppo-nent of Westernism, even in his views of early history. Characteristically, inmeasuring the work of tsars and emperors against the standard of the“national” principle in his February 1947 discussion with Eizenshtein, thedictator called the christening of Russia a progressive event. It “markedRussia’s shift toward the West, instead of toward the East.”42 The Stalinistsbelieved that, because of its strong revolutionary democratic tradition andsubsequent socialist revolution, Russian culture had been and was moreadvanced than the Western with its capitalist bias. Furthermore, every greatnation and state should reach socialist modernity by relying mainly on itsown forces, and in that sense follow its own road. Nevertheless, Russia’ssalvation lay in the Western principles of rationalism, industrialism andsocialism. Fundamentally, Stalinism remained part of the “Westernising”camp.

Stalinist “historical materialism”

For all his insistence on Marxist orthodoxy, and although in his library wefind only few indications of interest in historical materialism,43 Stalin diddevelop a philosophy of society of his own. The role of individuals and theconcept of “society” as such were prominent in it. Stalin’s historical materi-alism represented a reaction to the so-called “Pokrovskii school.” Thishistorian was accused of simplifying economic materialism and of nullifyingthe role of individual actors in favour of anonymous forces of history. InMay 1934, the Council of People’s Commissars and the party CentralCommittee adopted a resolution to condemn the teaching of history basedon abstract socio-economic definitions and sociological schemes. Coursesshould present chronologically ordered facts and take the role of historicalpersonalities into account.44 The resolution was part of a campaign to re-establish history as a separate specialism. Under Pokrovskii’s influence, ithad tended to dissolve into sociology and economics.45

In December 1931, Stalin had indicated to Emil Ludwig that only“vulgarisers of Marxism” could deny the role of “eminent personalities” inhistory.46 Not surprisingly, then, he was the guiding spirit behind the 1934decree. In March of that year, the leader complained at a meeting at theCommunist Academy, in A.I. Stetskii’s paraphrase, that “sociology is substi-tuted for history.”

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What generally results is some kind of odd scenario for Marxists – asort of bashful relationship [in which] they attempt not to mention tsarsand attempt not to mention prominent representatives of the bour-geoisie…. We cannot write history in this way! Peter was Peter,Catherine was Catherine. They relied on specific classes and representedtheir mood and interests, but all the same they took action – these werehistorical individuals – they were not ours, but we must give an impres-sion of this epoch.47

In the same month, the Politburo took up the issue and Stalin spoke again.According to the diary of one historian present, he said:

What the heck is “the feudal epoch,” “the epoch of industrial capi-talism,” “the epoch of formations” – it’s all epochs and no facts, noevents, no people, no concrete information, not a name, not a title, andnot even any content itself. It isn’t good for anything…. History must behistory.48

In 1936, the campaign against the Pokrovskii school was continued at ahigher pitch. Next to the question of the role of individuals, another mootpoint was the latter’s interpretation of the principle of partiinost’. Accordingto Stalin, to view history from the standpoint of the proletariat did notrequire a priori denial of the progressive role of other ideologies and classesin the past. What was reactionary now might once have been progressive. InOctober 1938, he said that history must be truthful: “you must write it as itis, without adding anything to it.”

With us it has come to it now, that the world of 500 years back is beingcriticised from the point of view of the present. Is that the way to judgethe past? Religion had a positive significance in the times of Vladimirthe Saint. Then you had paganism, and Christianity was a stepforward. Now our wise men say from the point of view of the new situ-ation, in the twentieth century, that Vladimir was a crook and thepagans were crooks, and religion was a matter of crooks, i.e. they don’twant to evaluate events dialectically. Everything has its time and itsplace.49

In summary, Stalin criticised the Pokrovskii school as “vulgar” from twoangles. First, it overlooked the role of individual personalities in history inthe name of a primitive economic materialism. Second, historical epochsshould not be evaluated only from the point of view of the present. Thesetwo issues were closely related: history should not be discussed exclusively interms of class. The work of historical personalities had a significance of itsown, and on occasion representatives of the exploiting classes played a

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historically progressive role. This created a context in which the relativemerits of Russian emperors and other representatives of the pre-revolu-tionary era could be discussed.

In the late 1930s, Stalin developed an interpretation of historical materi-alism to accommodate the prominent role of individuals in history. Tounderstand it, we should first return to the young Iosif Dzhugashvili of“Anarchism or socialism?” The part of this text treating the theory ofhistory was constructed around two abstract arguments. It was, first, spear-headed against “idealism.” Social consciousness is the product of economicrelations, which are again the product of the technologies that peopledevelop in their struggle with nature. The economic side of society makes upits content, whereas the juridical, political and other such phenomena consti-tute only its form. “Material” changes always precede “ideal” ones. There isno such thing as “parallelism” between the two. Consciousness lags behind.Consequently, the “superstructure” never fully conforms to the “materialbasis” of society: “a new content is ‘forced’ to dress itself up in an oldform.” But “in the final instance,” i.e. eventually, it will always come to corre-spond to the new economic relations.

The second object of Koba’s wrath was “dualism.” Dualists were the sortof heretics who did not understand that consciousness and being are only“two different forms of one and the same phenomenon.” There is only one“unified and indivisible social life, expressing itself in two different forms – amaterial and an ideal one.”

monism proceeds from one principle – nature or being, having materialand ideal forms; whereas dualism proceeds from two principles – mate-rial and ideal, which according to dualism deny each other.50

Koba’s monist materialism was incoherent. On the one hand, the economymakes up society’s content and the political superstructure its form. But onthe other, society is, as it were, its own content, whereas the economic basisand the superstructure are its two forms.

This being said, Koba’s system had some interesting consequences forunderstanding the role and origin of the superstructure. To begin with, heinsisted that the superstructure could never “deny” the economic system.Consciousness may “lag behind” the economic basis, but it never fails toreflect it. At first sight, this suggests that Dzhugashvili could not seriouslytake the political initiative of individual historical actors into account. Butin a letter in 1904 he defended Lenin’s extreme interpretation of thevanguard concept against a critique by Plekhanov, who had accused Leninof violating Marx’s materialism. According to Stalin, Lenin understood aswell as anybody that Marx’s socialism would not be possible in the age ofserfdom, but only after the rise of capitalism. He did stick to Marx’s“thesis concerning the origin of consciousness.”51 This intriguing remarksuggests that once economic developments had given rise to new ideologies,

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and put their mark on them, these ideologies might subsequently play animportant role.

Ironically, it was Plekhanov’s own works of the late nineteenth and earlytwentieth centuries that provide the framework for understanding why thismight be the case. Dzhugashvili’s concepts were obviously modelled onthese works, which were widely read by the Russian Marxists. Plekhanovacknowledged that political factors play a “significant role” in the develop-ment of society, but that they “must be created by the economicdevelopment before they can act on them.” One should carefully distinguishbetween “the origin and the influence” of the non-economic factor.52 Thuspolitical action could be influential after all. One should only rememberthat, with its roots, it was invariably buried in economic ground. In hisdebate with the populists, Plekhanov acknowledged that historical heroesdid exist – only not as self-sufficient actors. The “great man” was a histor-ical reality. It was only that his greatness consisted in understanding thefixed scientific laws of societal life, which paradoxically allowed him toaccelerate inevitable processes.53

The idea of the superstructure “lagging behind” the economic basis camefrom Plekhanov. It was his thesis that the fact that consciousness alwaysfollowed “real relations” implied that it reflected them as well as that it“usually more or less lags behind” them.54 And it was, again, paradoxicallythis notion of lagging behind that provided the explanation of why politicsmight sometimes appear in advance of economics, as an accelerating factor.The main example that Plekhanov gave was the relative slowness of prole-tarian consciousness. Precisely because the working class adapted so slowlyto the revolutionary tasks arising from its state of economic exploitedness,there was a need for “the superstructure – the social democratic intelligentsia”to “speed up” the process of formation of proletarian self-consciousness.55

From a theoretical point of view, this argument had a certain logic to it. Ifthe superstructure lags behind the economic basis, there should be somekind of accelerating factor within the superstructure to ensure that the gapis closed at some point.56

A second point of interest in Dzhugashvili’s work concerned the origin ofthe superstructure. Although unacknowledged, his “monism” was alsoinspired by Plekhanov, on whose most influential philosophical work, Onthe Question of the Development of the Monist View of History (1895), inLenin’s words, a whole generation of Russian Marxists was educated.57 Onejust has to read it to see that this is where Koba drew his monism from.Plekhanov adhered to the camp of the materialists, but he also opposed“dualist systems.” Instead, he supported “monism, …the explanation of thephenomena with the help of some single fundamental principle.” Mind andmatter were of one, common substance. Applied to society, Plekhanov main-tained that man was what “society” made him. Society was the unifyingprinciple, of which the economic basis and the psychological superstructurewere expressions:

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According to [Marx], the economy of a society and its psychology formthe two sides of one and the same phenomenon, “the production oflife” of the people, their struggle for existence, in which they organisethemselves in a certain way, thanks to the given state of the productiveforces. The struggle for existence creates their economy; and on the basisof that also grows its psychology. The economy itself is somethingsecondary, like the psychology.58

Plekhanov’s scheme, obviously adopted by Dzhugashvili, has an unex-pected corollary. According to Marx, the forces of production determinethe nature of the relations of production (the economic system), and thelatter again the superstructure. However, in the monist scheme, not onlydoes the economic system determine the superstructure of society; it isalso the case that technology determines both this economic system andthe superstructure. In other words, in Plekhanov’s model the “superstruc-ture” is only partly determined by the economic system. It is in partdirectly determined by the technological demands of society, without theintervening factor of the economic system. Consequently, it is possible forsome of the superstructural phenomena in a class society to have no classnature.59

Stalin’s pre-revolutionary brand of historical materialism, most probablyderived from Plekhanov, contained two interesting notions, albeit in rudi-mentary form. First, although marked by technology and class, thesuperstructure could on occasion play an accelerating role in the develop-ment of society. Second, it allowed for the superstructure to have elementswithout class marks and which arise directly from the need for technologicalprogress of society as a whole.

Years later, both elements returned in Stalin’s theoretical work. In “Ondialectical and historical materialism” of 1938 he explained that the mode ofproduction of material goods determined “in the last resort” the phys-ionomy of society. Production technology changed first, to be followed bythe production system, to be followed by ideas. But Stalin also insisted onthe “enormous role of new social ideas, new political institutions, a newpolitical power, which are called to abolish by force the old productive rela-tions.” Such ideas and institutions had a “very great organising, mobilisingand transforming significance.” He elaborated:

It does not follow from Marx’s words that social ideas…do not producea reverse influence on social being…. We have been speaking so farabout the source of social ideas…, about their origin, about the fact thatthe spiritual life of society constitutes a reflection of the conditions ofits material life. As regards the significance of social ideas…, as regardstheir role in history, historical materialism not only does not deny but,on the contrary, emphasises their serious role.

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Whereas old ideas “slow down” the development of society, new ideas“facilitate” it. They are instrumental in the breakthrough to a new order.60

In his October 1938 speech, the dictator complained that the role of theoryhad been put under a cloud, and “by simplifying this matter, people slippedinto a line of economic materialism or vulgar materialism.” Lenin had beenthe first Marxist to “work out the question of the role of the advancedidea.” A new idea arises only “on the basis of an economic tendency[napravlenie]” but is nevertheless of crucial significance. It “organises people,mobilises them and leads to the transformation of an old society into a newone.”61

According to Gustav Wetter and Anton Donoso, Stalin made an originalcontribution to historical materialism with the above thesis.62 But as ourdiscussion suggests, Plekhanov’s work foreshadows Stalin’s thesiscompletely. Moreover, in his day Lenin had also insisted that “politics is theconcentrated expression of economics…. Politics must have the primacyover economics.”63 This referred to the economic liberation of the workingclass being critically dependent on the establishment and preservation of theproletarian dictatorship.

What was relatively new, though, was that Stalin raised the thought of theoccasional primacy of politics to a general characteristic of socialist society.In 1927, he had argued that, under the condition of working-class power,“consciousness is a huge driving force in the cause of developing andperfecting our industry.”64 In his speech to the Eighteenth Party Congress in1939, the dictator explained that, because of the establishment of a harmo-nious socialist system, a favourable situation had arisen for the deploymentof the force of ideas. On the basis of the “community” of socialist society,there were deployed “such driving forces as the moral–political unity ofSoviet society, the friendship of the peoples of the USSR, Soviet patrio-tism.”65 For Stalin, socialist society was driven by the force of organisedideology. This thesis obviously reflected the reality of communist minoritydictatorship.

In 1950, Stalin basically completed his formula of historical materialism.In his collection of articles on language he criticised Nikolai Marr, whoheld that languages change fundamentally under the influence of revolu-tions in the socio-economic system. Stalin easily proved that this was notnecessarily the case. The Russian language had not changed much since1917. This is hardly spectacular, but some theoretical observations deserveattention.

The point of departure of Stalin’s analysis was the concept of “society,”otherwise called “the people.” Society was a productive organism, and itsdisintegration should be avoided at all costs – even if this involved sacri-ficing some of the workers’ direct interests in the interest of their country. Toterminate all economic relations of the proletariat with the bourgeoisiemeant to terminate all production. This leads to the ruin of society and of

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the classes themselves. Understandably, no class wants to subject itself todestruction. Therefore, however fierce the class struggle might become, itmust never be allowed to lead to the disintegration of society. Languageshould be seen in this context. Society needs it as a stable instrument ofcommunication to regulate production. It cannot after a revolution bechanged at will without endangering the survival of society. And aslanguage is not fundamentally influenced by changes in the socio-economicsystem, it is no part of the superstructure. Language, the “form of nationalculture,” shows a “kind of indifference to classes.”

Language, though differing fundamentally from the superstructure, doesnot however differ from the instruments of production, let’s saymachines, which can also serve the capitalist and socialist systemsequally…. Language is one of a number of social phenomena that areactive during the whole period of existence of a society. It is born anddevelops with the birth and development of society. It dies together withthe death of society.

Language, like production technology, is no product of class or of a partic-ular economic system but of society as a whole. Stalin did repeat thatsociety’s economic system serves as the basis upon which rests the super-structure. He also repeated his old thesis of the active role of thesuperstructure. A basis “lives and acts” and a superstructure, reflecting thatbasis, does not have an “indifferent attitude towards the fate of its basis.” Onthe contrary, once it comes into being, it “contributes actively to the forma-tion and strengthening of its basis, takes all measures in order to help thenew system ruin and liquidate the old basis and the old classes.” Stalinsynthesised the two parts of his model (language as a product of society as awhole; and the superstructure as a product of the economic basis) into oneformula:

The superstructure is not linked directly with production…. It is linkedwith production only indirectly, through the economy, through the basis.Therefore the superstructure reflects the changes in the level of develop-ment of the productive forces not immediately and directly, but afterchanges in the basis…. But, in contrast, language is directly linked withthe productive activity of man.66

For Stalin, “society” as a whole became the primary category. He visualisedit as an organism engaged in a productive struggle for survival. Societydevelops various instruments – such as production technology, a classsystem of property, and language – attuned to the need of increasing its ownviability. Although not denied, class was reduced from the primary categoryto an element derived from the social whole. In the classical terms of histor-ical materialism, this gives us a model in which forces of production are still

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the primary factor, creating a corresponding economic system (the basis, therelations of production) which is in general of a class nature. This systemagain produces a corresponding ideological and political superstructure. Butthere is also a group of phenomena, like language, which are direct creationsof the productive forces and not of the productive relations, and whichtherefore do not bear the stamp of class.67

We see here the resurfacing of the old Plekhanovist monism. It is onlythat those parts of the superstructure directly determined by the productiveforces were now redefined into a separate category outside the superstruc-ture.68 In 1952, Stalin took a further theoretical step when in effect heremoved part of the relations of production from the class sphere too. It wasa law of the development of socialism that “the old” was “not simplycompletely abolished, but changes its nature as applied to the new,preserving only its form.”

That is how matters stand not only with commodities, but also withmoney…, as well as with banks…from the old categories of capitalismwe preserved mainly the form, the external outlook. But in essence wechanged them fundamentally as applied to the needs of the develop-ment of the socialist economy.69

Whereas in 1950 language – the “form of culture” – was removed from thesphere determined by the economic system, two years later the “form” of therelations of production – commodity and money relations – was also madeindependent of the system of property. All such “forms” were directly deter-mined by the forces of production, which meant in practice that they werepreserved for efficiency’s sake. Stalin was in the process of formulating amodel in which the “form” of cultural, political and economic life wasremoved in toto from the class sphere and absorbed by “society,” which was,again, another word for the national popular community. That this reformu-lation closely expressed the shift in Stalin’s policies from “proletarian” to“popular” and “patriotic” is clear enough.

Finally, the matter returns us to the question of whether Stalin’s thoughtrested on traditionalist nostalgia. The dictator noted that the Russianlanguage was essentially unchanged since Pushkin’s day. Languages wereproduced by “the whole course of the history of a society.” It took centuriesand millennia for them to develop.70 Did the Soviet dictator, then, finallydevelop a romantic attachment to the Russian language in its primordial,medieval forms? That was not the case. Languages developed from tribalbeginnings, through a stage of “nationalities,” to the decisive moment when,“with the liquidation of feudal fragmentation and the formation of anational market,” unified national languages arise.71 Although the process offormation of languages goes back deep in time, the early languages had beenunsuitable as instruments of communication for “society as a whole.” Onlymodern languages, crystallised in the early capitalist era, served that

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common purpose. The point was that only in the capitalist era did real soci-eties arise: territorially, economically, culturally and linguistically unifiedcommunities. When Stalin spoke of “society,” he referred to modern inte-grated nations and states.

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In his study of Marxism, Leszek Kolakowski asserts that Stalinismcontained scarcely anything new to distinguish it from Leninism. The excep-tions were the thesis of socialism in one country; the notion of increasingfierceness of class struggle as socialism was approached; and the idea that,before withering away, the state developed to its maximum strength.1 Forstudents of Stalinism, the question of the continuity with Leninism isunavoidable. Until the mid-1930s, Stalin remained the great “codifier” ofLeninism. He was mainly concerned with moulding his predecessor’s ideasinto fixed formulas. The case for his lack of originality can be stated evenmore sharply than Kolakowski does. The three points mentioned by himwere not completely new departures but rather restatements of Lenin’sthought.

Nevertheless, codification inevitably entails change. Even early Stalinismcan be distinguished from Leninism. It was, as it were, a pumped-up varietyof it. Perhaps this is what Kolakowski refers to when he calls it a bald, prim-itive version of Leninism. What Stalin essentially did was to drive Leninismto its radical conclusions. “Socialism in one country” is a good example. Itwas implicit in Lenin’s writings, but, together with Bukharin, Stalin turned itinto a principle. In doing so, he continued a tradition established by theGerman social democrats Vollmar and, a little less explicitly, Kautsky.Likewise, the policy of allowing the non-Russian peoples to preserve theirown cultures – “socialist in content, national in form” – was not a newdeparture compared with Lenin’s policy of cultural autonomy. But Stalinhardened it by capturing it in a solemn formula. He was helped on his wayin this by his acquaintance with the works of Georgian and AustrianMarxists, for whom cultural identity was part of the definition of nations.

Something like this was the case with the notion of the “sharpening ofthe class struggle.” As we saw, the idea of the class struggle becoming everfiercer because of the desperation of the defeated ruling classes came fromPlekhanov. Lenin too saw the events of the Civil War in this light. But Stalinmade it, again, a central focus of his policies. He applied it even inside thecommunist party. Lenin accused the socialist revolutionaries of having beenin league with the imperialist counter-revolution and put them on trial; but

Conclusion

he would probably not have had Zinov’ev and Bukharin shot as traitors.Although Lenin interpreted the Kronstadt rising as a White Guardist opera-tion planned in Paris and London, he would probably not have accusedTrotskii of planning imperialist intervention. It is doubtful whether Leninwould have been prepared to deliberately let millions of peasants starve orhave almost a million people executed in less than two years. Stalin appliedLenin’s schemes, but in a bold, excessive way. One additional factor drivinghim to his extremes was his adoption of Bogdanov’s totalitarian ideal of theabsorption of the “I” into the collective. This provided him with a formulaof total intolerance to all divergence. Again, we saw that it was Lenin whopioneered the notion of preserving the state under socialism, but it wasStalin who insisted that the socialist state should get ever stronger.

The cult of personality had this kind of ideological pedigree too. It wasPlekhanov who gave a Marxist formulation of the role of the “great man”heroically accelerating history. Lenin also believed in the phenomenon ofthe historical hero. His whole idea of a vanguard party embodied it. ButStalin drove the cult of the personality of the historical hero to heights thatLenin would probably not have found acceptable.

Finally, coming to Stalin’s economic model, collectivisation was alsoimplicit in Lenin’s writings. Only co-operatives operating with means ofproduction owned by the state deserved the name “completely socialist.”One way or another, collectivisation of production had to take place, other-wise there would never be a socialist Russia. Nevertheless, Stalin not Leninrealised the plan, ruthlessly forcing the peasantry to go along. Lenin hadbeen no less hostile towards the kulaks than his successor, considering themspiders and vampires. But it was Stalin who “liquidated them as a class.”Whereas Lenin too favoured priority development of the production ofcapital goods, Stalin formulated the primacy of heavy industry as a prin-ciple. As we saw, Stalin synthesised components of Trotskii’s andBukharin’s economic models. But his particular mix combined elementsthat, according to them, could not be combined. Stalin wanted industrialautarky and collectivisation combined with high-speed development. Theresult was a disastrous campaign ending in blood and hunger on anunprecedented scale.

Stalin enhanced not only the violent components of Leninism but alsoits neo-Kautskyan elements. Lenin accepted the state bureaucracy and wideincome diversification, as well as a new economic policy with money andmarket elements. Stalin agreed. His contribution was to formulate it so thatsuch elements were to be preserved not only in the stage of transition tosocialism, but even under socialism. The socialist state bureaucracy was bynature colossal. Under socialism, the toilers received according to the“quantity and quality” of their work. The “law of value” was not completelyovercome under socialism. Furthermore, Stalin concluded that the greatsocial divisions of labour would be preserved. As a result, the MarxistUtopia was stripped to its skeleton of planned, nationalised production.

274 Conclusion

Early Stalinism developed Leninism in a paradoxical way. Its radical aswell as its moderate elements were accentuated. Stalin turned up the “classstruggle” to climactic heights. Millions were starved or shot. But he alsomade fun of those radicals who hoped to abolish the state or money undersocialism. There is no evidence to support the idea that treating Leninism inthis paradoxical way involved a conscious plan on Stalin’s part. Rather, itexpressed his political instinct. By accentuating Leninism in both directions,he made the Soviet system more viable in the long run. By abandoningutopian elements from original Marxism, he created a socio-economicsystem unburdened by costly experiments that would severely harm its effi-ciency. By turning up the terror, state power was increased dramatically. Thepopulation was impressed by the hopelessness of resistance against the neworder.

During the 1930s, Stalin’s doctrine gradually began to diverge from clas-sical Leninism, although Marxist anti-capitalism always remained one of itsfoundation stones. He introduced a notion of “popularity” to characterisethe USSR as an anti-capitalist but no longer specifically proletarian society.Socialism was redefined as a “truly popular system, which grew up fromwithin the people.”2 The characterisation of the Soviet system as “popular”rather than “proletarian” reflected the abolition of unequal suffrage andpositive discrimination of workers, as well as the abandonment of the goalof fusing intellectuals and peasants with the proletariat. Three conditionscontributed to the turn to “popularity.” First, the policy of anti-fascist unityfrom 1935 onwards made it propagandistically desirable to establish theprinciple of equality in the Soviet constitution. Second, when the elite hadbeen sufficiently purged from remnants of the tsarist past and replenishedwith new people from among the proletariat, it was no longer relevant forStalin to continue to give workers preferential educational treatment. Third,the “remnants of the old classes” were destroyed. The party dictatorship wasstrong enough to do without laws formally discriminating against specificstrata of the population. There was a parallel shift to “popularity” in theComintern, signifying the acceptance of communist co-operation with bour-geois parties.

Subsequently, the policy of cultural autonomy for the non-Russiannations was undermined by a new line of partial Russification, althoughStalin never aimed for total assimilation. Called forth by the practical needto have a single state language in the multinational USSR, partialRussification represented a downgrading of the Austro-Marxist componentof Stalinism. Stalin rediscovered the notion of the leading state nation, anotion that in the history of Marxist thought had been mainly worked outby Friedrich Engels. In the 1940s, the dictator became obsessed with thepreservation of “national dignity.” In the era of “anti-cosmopolitanism,”internationalism was reduced to no more than a footnote to “patriotism.”National and state self-reliance became foundation stones of cultural andscientific policy. This xenophobic turn was stimulated by the patriotic

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upsurge during the Second World War and by the outbreak of the ColdWar. The counterpart to all this in the international communist movementwas the patriotic united front, which included all segments of the bour-geoisie prepared to co-operate with the communists for nationalindependence – on the terms as Stalin understood that.

“Popularity” and “patriotism” provided Stalinism with a nationalistcomponent not present in that pronounced form in Leninism. The anti-Semitic direction given to “anti-cosmopolitanism” was not present in Lenin’sdays either, although Kautsky and Lenin’s claim that the Jews formed nonation was part of the theoretical heritage that Stalin used. The Sovietdictator believed that his “popularity” and “patriotism” were close in spirit tothe work of the Georgian nationalist Chavchavadze and the much admirednineteenth-century Russian “revolutionary democrats” Chernyshevskii andBelinskii. The thesis that, prior to Marx and Engels, Russian “revolutionarydemocratic” philosophy was superior to Western European formalised thestatus of the Westernising radicals as legitimate sources of inspiration inStalin’s Russia.

I have argued throughout the present book that, in the development ofStalin’s political thought, conservative nostalgia for tsarist Russia played arelatively minor role. Although in contrast to Marx he appreciated bureau-cracy as a progressive model of organisation and was prepared toacknowledge a certain continuity between tsarist Russia and his own as hier-archical states of officials, Stalin evaluated Ivan and Peter in terms of aMarxist scheme of historical progress. His appreciation of Peter decreasedafter the 1930s. Stalin was aware that, in defending the Soviet state’s indivis-ible integrity, he continued the work of the emperors. But he believed that, indoing so, he was defending a new kind of socialist state. He made thenational principle into a foundation stone of his internal and foreign policiesin ways totally different from the tsarist tradition. Stalin further continuedto see the Soviet state as a bulwark of the world revolution. “Reactionary”Russian thinkers never gained his respect. His sympathy for the Orthodoxtradition was mainly confined to his realisation that Christianity had oncebeen a revolutionary movement comparable to present-day Marxism.

Power, efficiency and ideology

Reduced to its bare essentials, the intellectual history of Stalinism is not avery deep one. It remained a relatively simple construct, mainly a synthesisof Lenin with a patriotism in the style of Belinskii – as Stalin interpretedhim. The question then arises of the significance of Stalinist doctrine onSoviet Russia’s development.

In the course of the present book, we have met two motives in Stalin’sthinking – efficiency and power. The dictator was concerned with statepower and the efficient functioning of the Soviet state and economy. That isnot to say that his policies always contributed to these goals, only that he

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expected they would. The murder of Tukhachevskii and his colleaguescontributed importantly to the initial setbacks of the Red Army in 1941, butin 1937 Stalin believed he was destroying traitors to the state. Nationalisedand planned industry often functioned dismally, but the dictator believedthat these were juvenile diseases, or the work of saboteurs, and that, poten-tially, no other economic system could serve state power as well as this one.Stalin often chose a policy harmful in terms of efficiency and power, but henever willingly offered up his power or the state interest to his doctrines.

These two motives – power and efficiency, not power alone – were upper-most in Stalin’s mind. In most areas, one can recognise them as two polesaround which policy was constructed. The clearest case is the economicmodel, combining state planning with limited elements of markets andmoney. The efficiency motive was also visible in Stalin’s abandonment of theMarxist Utopia of the completely homogeneous society. In the party andthe state the same combination was again visible – totalitarian control andenforced unanimity on the one hand and extended bureaucratic division oflabour and specialisation of tasks on the other. Stalin’s Marxism wasmoulded in such a way as to serve, in his mind, these twin purposes ofpower and efficiency.

Yet the leader’s Marxism was not a logical outcome of these pragmaticmotives. The dictator could, for example, have postponed collectivisation toa faraway future. He could have believed, like Trotskii, that the country wasnot ripe for it and that premature collectivisation would therefore only makeagriculture, and thereby the security of the USSR, suffer. He could havebelieved, again like Trotskii, that precisely the survival of the USSR made itvital to increase the profitability of its industry and to focus on lightindustry. He could have believed that, for state power to remain secure, thestate bureaucracy should be curbed, as Lenin wanted in 1922, and thenetwork of Soviets should be strengthened instead of weakened, as actuallyhappened in the course of the decades. He could have believed that, for theefficient functioning of the Soviet state, a policy of consistent Russificationwas unavoidable; that the expected resistance of the national republicsshould be met, like the resistance of the peasants against collectivisation wasmet.

As a believer in the Marxist scheme of history, Stalin understood thatonly communism had the future. The communist system was bound tospread across the globe. To stick with the world revolution was, then, theonly safe policy. To abandon it meant to allow capitalism to strengthen itsposition and in the long run to become a deadly threat to the USSR. Stalin’sMarxist beliefs forced him not to break with the world revolution, preciselybecause of the overriding importance he gave to state power. But had he nolonger believed in Marxism, he would have readily given up on worldcommunism in the name of the same state power.

Stalin could have made just about all important policy decisions in quitea different way, and yet from the same perspective of power politics. The

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denial of the significance of doctrine by reference to the power motive is, toput it disrespectfully, unthinking nonsense. It proceeds from the untenableassumption that, to increase power, dictators have only limited options avail-able, whereas in fact they have a great number to choose from. The dictatorsmake their choices from their understanding of the situation, coloured bytheir doctrine. Despite the fact that in all of Stalin’s decisions – collectivisa-tion and industrialisation; the cultural Great Retreat; the strengthening ofthe class struggle; the turn to patriotism and anti-cosmopolitanism; and soon – the power motive is discernible, these decisions can in no way bereduced to that motive. Stalin’s political thought, shared as it was by mostother members of the Soviet elite, was an important factor in shaping thecourse of development of the Soviet state.

Stalinism as Marxist Jacobinism

In the introduction to the present book, I noted that the question of conti-nuity and discontinuity between tsarism and Stalinism is hard to resolve inany definitive way as long as one restricts oneself to a comparison betweenthe two systems. The similarities and differences are both significant. Thereis no objective way to decide which aspect is of greater weight. I haveattempted to circumvent this problem by focusing on Stalin’s own motivesand sources of inspiration. My conclusion has been that the Soviet leaderwas much more, and more directly, inspired by the revolutionary traditionthan by the Russian tradition in the strict sense. Most of his ideas camefrom the world of Marxism, some from Westernising Russian “revolu-tionary democrats.” Having discussed the sources of Stalin’s thinking, thequestion remains of how one must characterise the result. What wasStalinism?

By far the most important Marxist influence on Stalin was Lenin. Withits concept of a vanguard dictatorship, Leninism was powerfully influencedby the revolutionary elitism of the Jacobins and Blanquists. The other pointof reference of late Stalinism, nineteenth-century Russian revolutionarydemocracy, was also close to the “patriotism” and “anti-cosmopolitanism”of Rousseau and the Jacobins. Indirectly, through Lenin and revolutionarydemocratism, Stalinism absorbed two important Jacobin notions, namelythat of revolutionary minority dictatorship and that of revolutionary patrio-tism, the idea that the fatherland is only really served by revolutionarychange.

This is not to say that Stalin borrowed anything directly from the FrenchJacobins, or even that he was particularly interested in them. He did shareLenin’s appreciation of them. He felt comfortable with the latter’s definitionof the revolutionary social democrat as a proletarian Jacobin. He under-stood that Lenin’s appreciation of Jacobinism had to do with the idea of theorganisation of revolutionaries.3 We came across a number of favourablereferences to these French revolutionaries by Stalin. But they were all made

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prior to 1928.4 From that year onwards, such references disappear from theSochineniia. I found no new ones in recently published or archival docu-ments. Stalin’s library does not betray serious interest in Jacobin politicaldoctrine either. Stalin treated the Jacobins sympathetically, but apparentlythe Marxists had nothing to learn from them. The Jacobins had been theFrench revolutionary democrats, the most irreconcilable force among therevolutionary petit bourgeoisie. That was all there was to it.

Nevertheless, as a synthesis of Leninism and a perverted Russian revolu-tionary democratism, Stalinism assumed the contours of a synthesis ofMarxism and Jacobinism. For its Marxist component, it had the economicsystem with planned state property instead of private ownership of themeans of production. For its Jacobin component, it had the party dictator-ship and the centrality of the fatherland. Many of the secondary features ofStalinism had a Jacobin flavour as well: government by revolutionary terror,a centralised state, organised citizen participation and the fact that the stateformed a community of citizens with formal equality before the law. As wesaw, these features also fitted into the original Marxist tradition. They werepart of the complex Western revolutionary tradition, comprising Jacobinismas well as Marxism.

The political ethos governing revolutionary France and Stalinist Russiawas strikingly similar. The term “unity of will” was already in use byRobespierre. Babeuf and Buonarotti carried it into early communism. Intheir interpretation, it referred to the close unity of purpose of the popularcommunity. Citizens were committed to total, self-denying dedication to thepublic cause.5 Stalin’s totalitarian interpretation of the united popular willsignifying complete self-abnegation was practically indistinguishable fromthe Jacobin ethic of virtue.

The fundamental difference between Stalinism and Jacobinism was theMarxist economy. Whereas the Jacobins declared only priests and aristocratsto be outside the pale, Stalin added the bourgeoisie to the excluded category.Yet their approach was, again, strikingly similar. Let us remember Sieyès’answer to the question: “What is the third estate?” He answered that thethird estate – the bourgeoisie, the citizenry – was the nation. The Frenchrevolutionary nation was composed of the population of France minus thepriests and aristocrats, who were considered inherently alien to the principleof civic equality, the defining characteristic of the nation. Likewise, Stalindefined the bourgeoisie as the enemy of the nation, the class preventing thenation or popular community from coming into its own. Jacobins andStalinists associated in strikingly similar ways the class elite with rootlesscosmopolitans, and the common people with the true national heritage.

In its foreign policy, the Soviet state strove for borders coinciding withthe boundaries of national communities inhabiting that state. Nationallyhomogeneous states – or federations of such units – were considered thenatural form for states to take. Stalin hoped to enhance the Soviet stateinterest through secure natural borders and by bringing neighbouring states

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into a hegemonic Soviet sphere of influence. Finally, he promoted revolu-tionary replication of his own system of state ownership throughout theglobe to achieve the final goal of eradication of capitalism. All of thesefeatures had again been typical of French–Jacobin foreign policy, althoughthe exported revolutionary system was in their case not Marxist state owner-ship.

But if we are drawing historical parallels, did Stalinism not represent atwentieth-century “Thermidor” or a “Bonapartist” aberration rather than aJacobin repeat performance? With his terrorist campaigns, Stalin followed inRobespierre’s footsteps. He consolidated the revolutionary dictatorshipinstead of undermining it. Ironically, especially the campaign of terror inthe party’s ranks brought the Soviet system nearer to the Robespierre orig-inal than it had been under Lenin, when the revolution had not yet devouredits children. Stalin’s motives for the terror were also remarkably similar toRobespierre’s, namely to establish total, unconditional unity of the state androot out all alleged traitors to the nation. Contrary to what Trotskiibelieved, precisely the Stalinist terror proves that there was no “Thermidor”in the USSR.

Although there were important parallels, Stalin was no RussianBonaparte either. In fundamental respects, Napoleon did not restore theancien régime. He did not reintroduce feudal privileges but confirmedequality of rights as the basis of the French political system. Likewise, Stalinheld fast to the new system of nationalised, planned production. Also, underboth regimes the position of the new revolutionary elite was strengthenedand stabilised. The bureaucrats profited under Stalin, to the detriment ofordinary workers and peasants, just like the capitalist nouveaux riches werethe ones to profit most from the rule of Napoleon. But there was a signifi-cant difference between the two rulers. Napoleon came to Paris as the leaderof a family clan. And, although originally a Jacobin, he was alwaysprimarily a soldier and an adventurer. Finally, he turned himself intoemperor. Although not restoring the ancien régime as such, this did amountto the restoration of an important element of it. Together with the Churchand feudal privilege, the monarchy was the cardinal evil for the revolu-tionary patriots.

Stalin never took this step. He came from a society in some respectscomparable to the one that Napoleon was born into. Corsica and Georgiawere marginal to the larger states of France and Russia and still knew thesystem of the family clan. But the two men reacted in opposite ways totheir background. Both became nationalists, but whereas Napoleonremained faithful to the Corsican “familism” and restored the hereditaryprinciple of rule, Stalin drew the conclusions of the purer, radical nation-alist, deciding as he did to root out “familism” wherever he observed it,almost in the spirit of the modern African nationalist leader doing his bestto root out tribalism. Correspondingly, he did not turn himself into a newautocrat but remained faithful to the bolshevik party, which he was content

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to rule as its dictator. While Napoleon to a significant extent “betrayed”Jacobinism, Stalin did not.

To define Stalinism as a system of Marxist Jacobinism returns us to thequestion of continuity with imperial Russia. The main characteristics ofEurope’s old regimes were their Christian ideology, dynastic politicalsystems and “feudal” systems of legal inequality, serfdom being the mostextreme case. Stalinism left all this behind. With its secular ideology, itsgovernment by political party and formal equality of rights it was a part,albeit totalitarian, of modernity. From the point of view of the nationalprinciple, Stalinism was a typical phenomenon of the modern world too.Instead of being supranational like its imperial predecessor, the Soviet statewas a multinational one, consisting as it did of separate, consolidatednations within their own borders and with their own languages and cultures.Stalin’s modernising spirit expressed itself most obviously in his ambitiousindustrialisation and urbanisation projects.

My point is not to deny the element of continuity between the Stalinistsystem and the Russian tradition, but only to note that, however strong thiselement may have been, that system remained part of modernity. Forexample, the extended Stalinist state bureaucracy represented a significantelement of continuity with the imperial past. But as all elements of heredi-tary position were removed from the Stalinist bureaucracy, it was a purelymodern system. For another example, below the formal equality of StalinistRussia there existed a graded system of privilege and discrimination, inwhich party leaders and officials, intellectuals, workers, kolkhozniks, pris-oners and the deported saw their freedom of movement and access toconsumption goods and services sharply differentiated. In practice, thetradition of estates powerfully reaffirmed itself. Nevertheless, these were notestates categorising a person whatever his present position. The fact thatStalinism more or less upheld formal legal equality marked it further as amodern system. Stalin absorbed institutions and practices from the imperialpast, but only such as fitted into his own modern political system, theoutlines of which were defined by Marxism and Jacobinism.

If the Soviet system under Stalin did assume the form of MarxistJacobinism, this leaves us, finally, with the question of its predominantaspect. If Stalin’s revolutionary patriotism combined Marxist and patrioticthemes, how were these at root joined? Was the older Stalin a patriot whoconsidered communism the best way to strengthen the fatherland? Or was hea Marxist who recognised patriotism as the best instrument of popularmobilisation?

If we should assume that Stalin was fundamentally a patriot, then whydid he preserve the class perspective at all? Why liquidate the capitalistclasses? In May 1946, the dictator noted that the “popular masses” of theworld could not “entrust the fate of states to reactionary governmentspursuing narrow caste-like and greedy anti-popular goals.”6 The later Stalindid not accuse the old classes of simply being exploiters in the Marxist

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sense, but in morally loaded terms. They formed an extravagant, immoral“plutocracy” of “billionaires and millionaires.”7 In contrast, the proletariatwas a broad-minded class, not “limited by the boundaries of their narrowclass interests.” The workers had the good sense to subject their interests tothe interests of the majority of society.8 Stalin found the capitalists an “anti-popular” class, who refused to put themselves at the service of thecommunity but let their greed get the upper hand.

Stalin’s goal of overcoming feudal fragmentation and creating a strong,unified fatherland provided a standard to evaluate historical forces. Thefeudal classes represented the ultimate in fragmentation. Under feudalism,even the political and legal spheres were fragmented. Only autocratic rulerslike Ivan and Peter deserved credit for courageously attempting to create anintegrated state. The bourgeois classes were more acceptable. They foundedcentralised states based on legal unification and with a high degree ofcultural homogeneity. Stalin was impressed by leaders of capitalist statesshowing a strong hand. Anastas Mikoian recalls, for example, his admira-tion for Hitler’s courage in acting against Röhm.9 But the capitalist systemof private property remained a fragmented one. Only socialist plannedownership completely overcame fragmentation. Only socialism produced atruly unified community. From Stalin’s patriotic perspective, capitalismweakened the fatherland morally as well as organisationally. Communismwas imperative because of the immoral egoism of the capitalist classes andthe fragmented nature of the capitalist system.

This would explain why the patriot Joseph Stalin clung to Marxism. Butthere is another side to this, preventing us from rashly concluding that patri-otism was his most fundamental concern. As a Marxist, Stalin believed inthe internationalisation of the forces of production. In the long run,national states were bound to merge into a global whole – a world commu-nity based on a unified economy. From this deeper perspective, patriotismcan never have been the foundation stone of Stalin’s ideology. He realised alltoo well that the nation was a historically fleeting phenomenon. The devel-opment of the forces of production would in the end make it obsolete. Thenational state itself would in time turn into an element of fragmentation.Stalin’s patriotism remained embedded in a Marxist perspective of an ulti-mately cosmopolitan world.10

We might perhaps conclude that in the older Stalin’s thinking commu-nism and patriotism were complementary elements of more or less equalsignificance. They could both be understood from a high goal of unificationand overcoming of fragmentation of the human community. Then again,although this logic is implicit in Stalin’s political thought, he did not explic-itly work this out. A more sober answer to our question of whether the oldStalin was mainly a patriot or mainly a communist is that he did not knowthe answer to this question any more than we do. In the last years of his life,Stalin’s thinking was shifting rapidly. The patriotic component steadilyincreased its relative weight in comparison with the Marxist. At the time of

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his death in March 1953, Stalin’s thinking was still in motion. Had thedictator lived for another decade, it is impossible to say where the synthesismight have come to rest.

Stalin and the Enlightenment

By defining Stalinism as Marxist Jacobinism, it is defined as a system in thetradition of the Western European Enlightenment. Marxism and Jacobinismwere, after all, important branches of that tradition. At first sight, thissounds wrong on a very basic level. Most of us (including the presentauthor) consider the Enlightenment to have been a generally wholesomeproject. We cannot very well imagine how something as gruesome asStalinism might have been an outgrowth of it. Perhaps it found its ultimateorigins in enlightened thought. But that Stalinism remained a legitimatebranch of it as it grew and was overlaid with a practice of chauvinism,bureaucracy and terror would be stretching the point too far.

Our mind almost instinctively recoils from the association of a systemhostile to individual freedom on every level with the Western tradition.However, an identification of the concepts of “Europe,” “the West” and “theEnlightenment” on the one hand with that of individual freedom on theother is involved here. In other words, there is a silent reduction of theWestern tradition to one of its branches – liberalism. The unfortunate resultis that we tend to associate the opposite of freedom loosely with a conceptof the “East” or with “Asia.” A quick glance at the history of the twentiethcentury suggests that there is something deeply wrong about this way oflooking at the modern world. Three of the main representatives of moderntotalitarianism – its Italian, German and Russian branches – originated inEurope, two of them in the western part of the continent. This fact alonesuggests that there is something inherently repressive in the European tradi-tion, as fundamental to it as its liberalism.

The Enlightenment ideals can be interpreted in such a way as to turnthem into a moloch consuming individual freedom. To demand the transfor-mation of the world according to the lines of reason may result in arelentless drive for order, against all elements of individuality, which areassociated with irrationality and chaos. There is nothing new about this. Imentioned the work of Talmon. And a wide range of scholars – psycholo-gists, philosophers and sociologists – who explain the process of growth ofWestern civilisation not primarily in terms of growing freedom but of agradual increase in control over the individual. I need only mention nameslike Freud, Elias, Foucault, Bauman and Bataille to make this point.

Max Weber’s analysis of modernity in terms of rational order andbureaucracy seems particularly to the point in creating an ideal-typicalmodel of the essential logic of Stalinism. Stalinism represented the ideal oftotal rationality, of rational order gone wild. What Stalin basically had inmind was to transform society into a closely integrated, efficient productive

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organism. The basis of this structure was the Marxist concept of expropria-tion of capital and the subsequent welding together of the whole economyinto one scientifically managed, planned whole. In this new regulated order,the chaos of the capitalist market was overcome and total predictabilityachieved. In contrast to Marx, Stalin understood that the organisationalmodel best adapted to rational order was the professional bureaucracy,which became the basic model of Soviet society.

The desire to reconstruct society on the basis of a scientific plan carriedthe implication of replacing democracy by minority dictatorship. To declaresocialism a science means that the way society should be structured is nolonger a matter of personal choice but fixed. It cannot be chosen but mustbe found. To subject society to allegedly scientific standards makes demo-cratic decision making a harmful luxury. The point is that, although sciencecan only flourish under the circumstance of free debate, one does not take avote on which hypothesis represents the truth. It is as odd to let the publicdecide the political course of the country as it would be to let it decide on anissue in quantum mechanics. One must leave it to the experts to decide. Ruleby a party of political experts is the only reasonable option.

What is more, to remake society into a totally planned organism requiresits members to be committed to an extraordinary degree. For this is nolonger a society of trial and error but one operating like a clock. A mostmeticulous performance of duty, without which the planned whole degener-ates into the old chaos, is demanded of everyone. Ideally, everyone shouldperform consciously and willingly, because that is the only way humanbeings perform really well. Consequently, the system demands the establish-ment of a major propaganda effort, intruding into the personal lives ofindividual citizens – to convince them of the need to carry out state deci-sions unreservedly. Despite its ambitiousness, totalitarianism becomes, as itwere, the most practical option.

Furthermore, a society of total bureaucracy is known for an interestingparadox. On the one hand, it is based on subordination, but on the otherhand it also knows equality of opportunity. In a rational order, efficiencydemands that everyone performing well can rise to the very top. Formalinequality of rights is condemned, because it condemns society to stagna-tion. It lets creative forces wither away without realising their potential. Thepopularity in Stalinist society of the uniform as a form of dress epitomisesthis. A uniform expresses hierarchy and equality at the same time.Furthermore, bureaucratic order demands the active participation of alldown to the lowest end of the social pyramid. In an organism aimed atincreasing its own productive performance all should be mobilised for thecommon effort. A state based on this principle will know a high degree ofcivic participation.

Stalin created a society loaded with violence and terror. But this did notrepresent an alien element in the rational order. The class enemies were thefeudalists and capitalists, those historically representing chaos and fragmen-

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tation. They were liquidated in the name of the rational, planned order. Andfor all the magnitude of the terror he poured out over Soviet society, Stalinwas no lover of violence like Hitler. For him, it was only a necessary means,an instrument to achieve his goal. For Stalin, the fascist cult of violence ascharacter building was childish nonsense, typical of the petit bourgeoisie. Inthe cult of his own personality – which turned around ruthless courage andgenius – we see, despite its flamboyance, the values of rational orderreturning. Stalin was the captain of class struggle and the first expert in theparty of scientific socialism.

Bureaucratic order is also a splendid model for understanding theambivalent way in which Stalin treated the problem of homogeneity. On theone hand, he stood a firm distance from Marx’s romantic ideal of fullhomogenisation of society, rejecting as he did wild notions of mergingmental and physical labour and city and countryside, and of abolishingseparate institutions such as the family and the school. He also preservedelements of money and market. This can be understood as part of the drivefor efficiency of the social organism. The principle of division of labour isfundamental to any bureaucracy. But on the other hand, for a bureaucraticorganisation to function perfectly, its members should be part of anunbroken linguistic and cultural universe, without which communication isimpaired. This accounts for Stalin’s embracing of national homogeneity asan ideal. His appreciation of Russia’s national past was not inspired byromantic nostalgia. He admired only those elements of that past thatpointed forward to his own present: bureaucratic centralism, mass participa-tion and national homogeneity.

Finally, Stalin’s patriotism too was not informed by nostalgia but waspart of his general interpretation of society as an efficient productiveorganism. The point is that, in his opinion, under the present level of devel-opment of the productive forces an integrated world economy wasimpossible to realise. To attempt it nevertheless could only result in chaosand stagnation. Under the existing technological conditions, the nationalstate and the multinational federation remained the only frameworks inwhich production could be organised in a viable way. The final integrationof humankind into one immense productive organism was a matter of thefaraway future. In the present world economy, patriotism was the only real-istic option.

This model of Stalinism as the ultimate attempt to create a rational orderhas some obvious problematic sides. The Stalinist system did often not func-tion “rationally” at all but very inefficiently and in chaos. But this wasprecisely a corollary of the naive belief in rational planning and the powerof bureaucratic order. Driven to extremes, such projects become extremelycounterproductive. Stalinism contained, furthermore, an importantromantic element. It celebrated the order that it hoped to create. Sovietsociety and its elements – the leader, the party, the state, the people – wereglorified in everyday life and in organised mass ceremonies. Its enemies – the

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hostile classes and states – were demonised. It was a society filled with high-pitched emotions of pride and hatred. Then again, however twisted theywere and however apparently irrational the forms they took, these emotionsstill served the essentially rationalist project.

To make sense of Stalinist doctrine is not only a complex intellectualexercise but it also provides us with a psychological problem of identity.Stalinism is about our own origins. And that goes not only for those whohave a sympathy for revolutionary Marxism. Those in that latter categoryhave a particularly hard time coming to terms with what Stalin did. They areonly too happy to follow Trotskii’s assumption that Stalin “betrayed” therevolution. Believers in Marx’s good intentions find it hard to acknowledgethat this man’s hatred of capitalist exploitation was so intense that he calledfor dictatorship and terror to root it out. His teachings are reinterpretedagain and again to take the aggressive sting out of them, so that the linkbetween Marxist doctrine and Stalinist practice is cut as far as possible.

But there is no way to avoid the conclusion that Stalin carried out Marx’sdictum to “expropriate the expropriators.” The uncomfortable fact remainsthat the reason why Stalin waded knee deep through rivers of blood was thathe intended to abolish capitalist property and keep the world safe from it forever. Those accusing the Soviet dictator of having “betrayed” the worldrevolution are simply wrong. George Orwell’s Animal Farm is a wonderfulstory, testifying to a deep insight into the nature of Stalinism. His “Some aremore equal than others” is unsurpassable. But the real Stalin was not like thepig Napoleon, who turned into a friend of the farmers. This pig neverbefriended the farmers. Until his death, Stalin hated the capitalists and theirorder. As he sat at one table drinking with them, he was only preparing tosink a knife into their backs at a more suitable moment.

Stalinism is not only a problem for the friend of Karl Marx. For theenlightened citizens of Western society in general, Stalinism represents anuncomfortable reality. It confronts us with our own roots in a way we wouldlike to avoid. Whose demon was Stalin? We wonder. After the final disclo-sure of the magnitude of Stalinist crimes, Nazism still remainspsychologically more detestable to most citizens in Western society thanStalinism. We know that the ideal of equality may lead to it, that the higherthan average are decapitated and the small put on the rack. Nevertheless, wedo recognise that ideal as our own. In inequality as an ideal we recogniseonly an ominous void.

Many will deny that they make this difference, but there are few peoplearound who find it equally problematic to be personal friends with someonewho was ever a communist as with someone who was once a Nazi. Thebottom line is that, while Hitler is the gangster next door, Stalin is our ownflesh and blood, our own son turned serial killer. We know full well that heis no better than the killer next door, but can we ever completely disavowhim? There is a solution – to prove that this serial killer is in fact not ourson. He was a traitor to our cause. We hope that it will one day be proved

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that he had nothing to do with the Western tradition, and that his corpsecan be safely placed in a Russian or Asian cupboard to rot. Unfortunately,this is impossible to prove.

Stalinism was not the end of the Enlightenment Utopia of Reason but itsfulfilment. The Soviet dictator did mankind one great service. By his prac-tical example he showed us that rationalism, for all its immense value, maynever be set in isolation from other enlightened values that the Westerntradition has also produced. If it is, in particular, not balanced by individualliberty, then this liberating doctrine turns into madness.

Conclusion 287

Introduction1 Chuev, 1992: 101.2 Pipes, 1990.3 Tucker, 1990.4 Malia, 1994; Kotkin, 1995.5 Talmon, 1986.

1 Jacobinism1 Rousseau, 1982: 60–1, 66–9, 72, 101.2 See Sabine and Thorson, 1981: 535, 538; Smith, 1991: 75.3 See Leerssen, 1999: 54f.4 Talmon, 1986: 114–16; Sabine and Thorson, 1981: 543.5 Hobsbawm, 1995: 87.6 Nimni, 1991: 19–20.7 Leerssen, 1999: 50.8 See Talmon, 1986: 215, 241; Lovell, 1984: 66.9 Spitzer, 1957: 13, 25, 117–21; see also Bernstein, 1971: 284.

2 Marxism, Leninism and the state1 MEW, vol. 4: 473, 475, 481–2; see also vol. 4: 372.2 For texts supporting this summary, see MEW, vol. 3: 33; vol. 4: 370, 478–9, 481;

vol. 18: 243, 280; vol. 19: 18–22; vol. 20: 182–7, 278f.3 MEW, vol. 19: 28.4 MEW, vol. 20: 262.5 Kautsky, 1919: 25.6 Draper, 1986; Hunt, 1974: 284–336; see also Ehrenberg, 1992.7 MEW, vol. 7: 33, 89.8 See Draper, 1986: 385–6.9 MEW, vol. 5: 14, 41, 195, 402.

10 MEW, vol. 8: 196–7.11 MEW, vol. 17: 336, 339–42, 625.12 Lovell, 1984.13 MEW, vol. 2: 128–30; vol. 33: 53.14 MEW, vol. 6: 107; vol. 4: 339.15 MEW, vol. 5: 457; vol. 7: 249.16 See, for example, MEW, vol. 18: 308, 630; Draper, 1986: 112, 369.

Notes

17 MEW, vol. 17: 546; Gilbert, 1981: 238.18 Kautsky, 1974: 124–5, 151–5, 212, 216–17; Kautsky, 1902: 17.19 Kautsky, 1902: 16; Kautsky, 1912: 725, 727, 732.20 Cited in Gilbert, 1981: 273.21 MEW, vol. 7: 252.22 MEW, vol. 17: 339–41; see also vol. 7: 252–3n.23 MEW, vol. 22: 235–6.24 PSS, vol. 33: 72–3.25 PSS, vol. 33: 50, 97.26 PSS, vol. 34: 306–7.27 PSS, vol. 33: 70–1, 89.28 PSS., pp. 147, 154–5.29 Bucharin and Preobraschensky, 1921: 160.30 PSS, vol. 12: 321.31 PSS, vol. 33: 26.32 See PSS, vol. 39: 134; vol. 41: 24, 30–1, 236f. According to Draper (1987: espe-

cially pp. 64f), it was not Lenin who first reinterpreted Marxism in a Blanquistway but Plekhanov. Lenin only followed his example. This analysis has beenrejected by Robert Mayer (1993).

33 See Hardy, 1970: 718; Theen, 1972: 387–8; Lovell, 1984: 128–9.34 See Mayer, 1999.35 Cited in Spitzer, 1957: 17.36 PSS, vol. 8: 370. In identifying himself with the Jacobins, and his menshevik

adversaries with the Girondins, Lenin followed the example of GeorgiiPlekhanov, who noted in 1901 that the division in the international socialdemocrats between moderate and radical wings paralleled that between theJacobins and Girondins. See Mayer, 1999.

3 Proletarian revolution in a backward country1 Gilbert, 1981: 219; see also Hunt, 1974: chapters 5–7.2 MEW, vol. 4: 493.3 MEW, vol. 7: 248, 250, 253; see also vol. 4: 379–80.4 Cited in: Draper, 1978: 78; see also 605. For similar remarks by Engels in 1850,

see MEW, vol. 7: 400–1.5 MEW, vol. 29: 47.6 See Draper, 1978: 391; Gilbert, 1981: 227.7 MEW, vol. 17: 329, 341–2, 551, 625.8 Cited in Hunt, 1974: 322.9 MEW, vol. 4: 372–4.

10 MEW, vol. 4: 481.11 Draper, 1978: 187, 193.12 MEW, vol. 18: 630–1; see also vol. 17: 551–2.13 MEW, vol. 22: 499; see also vol. 16: 399–400.14 MEW, vol. 22: 512–17; quotation: 515.15 See, for instance, Marx in 1859 (MEW, vol. 12: 682) and Engels in 1875 (ibid.,

vol. 18: 566–7).16 See MEW, vol. 18: 565; vol. 19: 107f, 296; vol. 22: 428–9, 435; Shanin, 1983: 99f;

for a discussion about Marx and the Russian commune, see Shanin (1983) andNaarden (1992: 56f).

17 PSS, vol. 10: 26, 28; vol. 11: 34–6, 40, 44, 74.18 PSS, vol. 11: 222.19 PSS, vol. 13: 17.

Notes 289

20 Trotsky, 1978: 80, 104–5, 115.21 MEW, vol. 3: 35; vol. 4: 374–5.22 See MEW, vol. 1: 391; vol. 6: 149–50; vol. 7: 19, 79; Agursky, 1987: 19, 63.23 Vollmar, 1878: 4. See also Agursky, 1987: 138; Goodman, 1960: 4–5.24 Kautsky, 1974: 115–16, 118n.25 This was written in an unpublished article in August 1916. Cited in Pospelov et

al., 1966: 530.26 PSS, vol. 26: 353–5.27 I did not have the original article available. These quotations are from Trotskii,

1993: 116; Sochineniia, vol. 6: 373–4.28 PSS, vol. 30: 133.29 See XV konferentsiia vsesoiuznoi…, 1927: 474f; Sochineniia, vol. 8: 316f.30 PSS, vol. 31: 91–3; see also vol. 27: 80–1.31 PSS, vol. 31: 114–16.32 See also PSS, vol. 31: 133–8, 303.33 Sed’maia (aprel’skaia) vserossiiskaia…, 1958: 76, 79, 107, 112, 235–6.34 Some time later, Lenin explained that the Jacobins could not gain “complete

victory” because they were surrounded by too backward countries and becausein France the “material conditions for socialism” were absent. There were nobanks, syndicates, industry or railways. But the new “Jacobinism” of Russiacould use the “availability of the material foundations for the movement towardssocialism” and could thus lead to a durable, global victory of the working class.See PSS, vol. 32: 374. It is interesting to compare this with a similar comparisonthat Lenin made in 1906, which sounded almost identical, except that theremarks concerning the “material” conditions for socialism in France and Russiawere lacking (vol. 13: 17–18).

35 Sed’moi ekstrennyi s”ezd…, 1962: 11–13, 16, 22, 24, 105, 113–14; see also PSS,vol. 36: 291.

36 See, for example, PSS, vol. 38: 139; vol. 41: 356; vol. 42: 22, 43–4.37 PSS, vol. 44: 35–6.38 PSS, vol. 44: 293.39 The last occasion I found that could be interpreted as predicting complete

collapse of socialism from internal weakness was when Lenin said in March 1918that the banner of socialism was in “weak hands” and that “the workers of themost backward country will not hold it, if the workers of all advanced countriesdon’t come to their aid.” See PSS, vol. 36: 109.

40 For a list of such quotes running from January 1918 to February 1922, see PSS,vol. 35: 245, 277; vol. 36: 234, 529; vol. 37: 153; vol. 38: 42; vol. 40: 169; vol. 42:311; vol. 43: 58; vol. 44: 417–8.

41 PSS, vol. 37: 153. As a matter of fact, advanced countries also needed the co-operation of others to complete their socialist revolution. In May 1918, Leninhad noted that even if a country was “much less backward than Russia,” “onecannot fully complete the socialist revolution in one country with one’s ownforces.” See PSS, vol. 36: 382.

42 Bucharin and Preobraschensky, 1921: 153–4.43 Trotsky, 1923: 4; see also Sochineniia, vol. 6: 366–7.44 Cited in Sochineniia, vol. 6: 376.45 See Vos’moi s”ezd RKP(b)…, 1959: 354; Desiatyi s”ezd RKP(b)…, 1963: 35;

PSS, vol. 37: 356; vol. 39: 372–3.46 PSS, vol. 43: 130, 225.47 PSS, vol. 45: 309. Already in April 1921 he had written that a “direct transition

from this condition which is dominant in Russia to socialism” was conceivablethrough the electrification of the country, but without the proletarian revolution

290 Notes

in the developed countries only its initial stage would already take at least tenyears. See PSS, vol. 43: 228–9. See also ibid., vol. 42: 159. In March 1922, he saidthat the economic strength in the hands of the proletarian state was “completelysufficient to guarantee the transition to communism.” See Odinnadtsatyi s”ezdRKP(b)…, 1961: 29.

48 PSS, vol. 45: 370, 375–6.

4 Marxist nationalism1 MEW, vol. 4: 479.2 MEW, vol. 4: 518.3 MEW, vol. 17: 330, 341.4 Szporluk, 1988.5 See Szporluk, 1988: 68.6 Szporluk, 1988: 171f.7 Rosdolsky, 1986.8 Cited in Rosdolsky, 1986: 86.9 Cited in Rosdolsky, 1986: 125, 127.

10 Cited in Rosdolsky, 1986: 127.11 MEW, vol. 5: 202, 395.12 Cited in Davis, 1967: 61.13 MEW, vol. 22: 252–4; see also Agursky, 1987: 66.14 MEW, vol. 33: 5.15 MEW, vol. 19: 4, 24, 544; vol. 22: 255; vol. 36: 231.16 MEW, vol. 19: 296; see also vol. 18: 567.17 Cited in Agursky, 1987: 71; see also Donald, 1993: 70f.18 PSS, vol. 6: 28.19 Rosdolsky, 1986: especially chapter 8.20 Davis, 1967: 74–5, 79–82.21 Nimni, 1991: 17–43.22 For Luxemburg’s position on the national question, see Nimni, 1991: 50–7;

Smith, 1999: 12–14.23 Kautsky, 1887: 398, 402, 404, 448; Kautsky 1908: 8–9, 12–13, 16; see also his

contribution to Medem and Kautskii, 1906.24 Springer, 1909: 24, 37, 43, 67. The work was originally published under the

pseudonym Rudolf Springer. I have used the Russian translation.25 Bauer, 1907: see pp. 2–135 (in particular 105–8) and 367–74.26 PSS, vol. 6: 25.27 PSS, vol. 24: 120–1, 123–4, 129.28 PSS, vol. 41: 77.29 PSS, vol. 34: 195, 198.30 PSS, vol. 36: 78–80.31 PSS, vol. 36: 301.

5 Stalin: the years before October1 Sed’moi ekstrennyi s”ezd…, 1962: 163. In 1923, Stalin was still generally

perceived in the party as an organiser rather than as a theoretician. See Mikoian,1999: 370.

2 Gaprindashvili, 1977: 135; Parsons, 1987: 248, 268–9, chapter 4 (in particular, pp.271f); Lang, 1962: 109; Suny, 1989: 133.

3 “Neopublikovannye materialy iz…,” 1939: 20; Zhukov, 1939: 144; Kaminskii andVereshchagin, 1939: 36, 39–40, 51–3, 55–6.

Notes 291

4 For the translations, see Rayfield, 1984.5 See Suny, 1989: 159; Gugushvili, 1963: 219–23; Beriia, 1948: 13, 15–16; Parsons,

1987: 319–20.6 See Makharadze, 1960: 36.7 Shaumian, 1957: in particular, 135–9.8 Sochineniia, vol. 1: 37, 40, 42, 49, 52–3; as to the original version: fond 558, opis'

1, delo 7.9 Fond 71, op.10, d.169, listy 220–2.

10 F.71, op.10, d.169, l.325.11 F.71, op.10, d.183, ll.106–8. For Stalin’s probable authorship, see ll.109–14.12 Sochineniia, vol. 2: 49–51.13 One of them, “On the road to nationalism,” was published in Sochineniia

(vol. 2: 285f). The other two, “Nationalist Decay” and “The Question of‘Cultural–National Autonomy’ in Our Programme (Some NecessaryInformation),” were not included in Sochineniia. On Stalin’s probable authorship,see f.71, op.10, d.20, ll.313–16, 324–6.

14 F.71, op.10, d.20, ll.295–6, 318; Sochineniia, vol. 2: 286.15 For the complex history of the writing of this article, see van Ree, “Stalin and

the…,” 1994.16 Sochineniia, vol. 2: 292, 310–12, 327–31, 348–51, 362–4.17 Sochineniia, vol. 2: 299–300, 302, 333–4.18 Sochineniia, vol. 2: 304.19 Stalin, 1913, no. 3: 54.20 See also Pipes, 1964: 39–40; Tucker, 1974: 153f. Parts of the first chapter of

Stalin’s article seem to be a paraphrase of a Russian-language article by Kautskyfrom 1906. See Medem (1906) and Kautskii, 1906: in particular 58–60. Stalinprobably obtained the idea of providing a formal definition of nations consistingof a list of “characteristics” from a passage in Bauer’s book (1907: 130), wherethe author pointed out earlier efforts of that kind by Italian sociologists. Haupt,Löwy and Weill (1974: 60n, 307, 386) suggested that, apart from the obviousKautsky and Bauer–Renner, Vladimir Medem and Josef Strasser may have influ-enced Stalin. This is doubtful. I do not recognise Medem’s concept of the nationas “colour” in Stalin’s 1913 article (see Medem and Kautskii, 1906: 3–57, inparticular 15). The radical Austrian social democrat Strasser’s (1912: 15, 20, 23,32f) book is noteworthy for its insistent denial of any community of interestbetween the working class and the bourgeoisie, even when it comes to protectingone’s culture, language or territory. There was no such thing as a national char-acter in any relevant sense. In this, Strasser went further than Stalin in 1913.

21 Sochineniia, vol. 2: 294, 296, 301, 323.22 Pannekoek (1912). For Lenin’s comments, see Adoratskii et al., 1937: 27n; PSS,

vol. 48: 162.23 Sochineniia, vol. 2: 293, 296, 300.24 Sochineniia, vol. 2: 295–7, 303.25 F.71, op.10, d.183, l.111; see also d.180, ll.141–8.26 See Sochineniia, vol. 1: 248–9; f. 71, op.10, d.181, ll.492–3.27 F.71, op.10, d.183, ll.105–06. For a discussion of Stalin’s authorship of the rele-

vant article in Akhali tskhovreba, see ll.109–14.28 Sochineniia, vol. 3: 178.29 Sochineniia, vol. 3: 4–5; see also vol. 1: 247–9; vol. 9: 324–5.30 Sochineniia, vol. 1: 139–40, 150–1, 154, 255, 257; vol. 2: 10f; see also 60f. For

similar arguments, see “The liberal bourgeoisie in the Russian revolution” inChveni tskhovreba, February and March 1907 (f.71, op.10, d.184, ll.232–45).

31 See also Shestoi s”ezd RSDRP (bol’shevikov)…, 1958: 128, 134–5.

292 Notes

32 Shestoi s”ezd RSDRP(bol’shevikov)…, 1958: 14, 111–12, 114.33 Shestoi s”ezd RSDRP(bol’shevikov)…, 1958: 138, 142–3.34 Shestoi s”ezd RSDRP(bol’shevikov),…, 1958: 250, 257, 283, 285.

6 The years under Lenin1 Sochineniia, vol. 1: 296, 367, 371.2 Sochineniia, vol. 4: 365–7.3 Sochineniia, vol. 5: 207–10.4 F.558, op.1, d.56.5 Sed’maia (aprel’skaia) vserossiiskaia…, 1958: 211.6 Sochineniia, vol. 3: 206, 208.7 Sochineniia, vol. 4: 7–8.8 Sochineniia, vol. 4: 30–2.9 Vos’moi s”ezd RKP(b)…, 1959: 47, 79–81.

10 PSS, vol. 38: 160–2.11 See PSS, vol. 40: 99–100; see also vol. 41: 164.12 Sochineniia, vol. 4: 351–4; see also 396, 402.13 Sochineniia, vol. 4: 75–6.14 Sochineniia, vol. 4: 89, 91.15 Sochineniia, vol. 4: 285–7.16 Sochineniia, vol. 4: 395.17 Sochineniia, vol. 5: 34, 46.18 Sochineniia, vol. 5: 139, 141–2.19 “Iz istorii obrazovaniia…,” 1989: 198–200.20 “Iz istorii obrazovaniia…,” 1989: 206–7.21 “Iz istorii obrazovaniia…,” 1989: 214–16.22 Lenin, 1950: 335.23 See also Smith, 1997: 81.24 See PSS, vol. 45: 356–61.25 Iakubovskaia, 1959: 197–8; “Iz istorii obrazovaniia…,” 1991, no. 4: 170.26 Iakubovskaia, 1959: 198–9; Akhmedov, 1962: 33; “Iz istorii obrazovaniia…,”

1991, no. 5: 164–5.27 Sochineniia, vol. 5: 240–1, 245–6, 248, 257–8, 265, 277.28 Tucker, 1974: 245–8.

7 Socialism in one country1 Sochineniia, vol. 4: 374–6, 378, 380. In a 1920 copy of Zinov’ev’s War and the

Crisis of Socialism in Stalin’s library we find four question marks next to aquoted passage by Engels to the effect that the revolution could only come in allcivilised countries simultaneously. Stalin also underlined Engels’s words that therevolution would come more easily in developed Britain than in the less devel-oped Germany. And he wrote next to it: “in backward Russia (coming[nastupivshie] earlier than something like that in Britain, France etc.).” See f.558,op.3, d.68, p.104.

2 Sochineniia, vol. 5: 117–18.3 Sochineniia, vol. 5: 83, 90.4 “‘Naznachit’ revoliutsiiu v…,” 1995: 124. But, then again, in a 1924 copy of the

stenographic report of the Thirteenth Party Congress of that year, Stalin addedan irritated “Who we?” next to a remark by Zinov’ev that “we” had once believedthat the Russian revolution would collapse without parallel revolutions in theWest. See f.558, op.3, d.355, p.42.

Notes 293

5 Koen, 1988: 181–2.6 Smirnov et al., 1988: 78–9, 82–3.7 Sochineniia, vol. 5: 322.8 Sochineniia, vol. 5: 344, 346.9 Sochineniia, vol. 6: 132, 135–6, 138. In a book by G. Safarov against

“Trotskyism” (published in 1924) in Stalin’s library he scribbled that the authorwas “completely right” when he noted that through the co-operative the peasanteconomy would experience a “growing over…into socialism.” See f.558, op.3,d.310, p.10. In a 1919 copy of Kautsky’s Terrorism and Communism, Stalincommented on Kautsky’s statement that the small artisans had been no realfriends of the Paris Commune, and that small proprietors were no better friendsof socialism than the capitalists. This was Stalin’s comment in the margins:“With Kautsky statics overwhelm dynamics. He does not understand that underthe rule of the pr-t things must be different.” See ibid., d.91, pp.27, 70.

10 See Sochineniia, vol. 8: 61.11 Koritskii, 1990: 61, 65–6, 78, 88–90, 104, 108, 112–13; Preobrazhensky, 1965:

220–3, 234–7; see also Gusev, 1996: 88.12 See, for instance, Trotskii, 1990: 196–7; Wolter, 1976, vol. 3: 93–9, 118–19;

Fel’shtinskii, 1990, vol. 1: 155–6, 160, 162, 164–5, 207–8, 212–14, 215f; vol. 2: 58,72–3, 84–5.

13 See Trotskii, 1991: 232; Smirnov et al., 1988: 88.14 Later an extended version received the new name “The October revolution and

the tactic of the Russian communists.” See Carr, 1959: 40; Sochineniia, vol. 6:401, 416.

15 Sochineniia, vol. 6: 366–74, 376.16 XIV s”ezd vsesoiuznoi…, 1926: 136.17 KPSS, vol. 2: 49.18 Sochineniia, vol. 7: 110–12, 118, 121, 125.19 Sochineniia, vol. 7: 232.20 Sochineniia, vol. 8: 60–75. For another extensive account of Stalin’s position,

including his public treatment of the “Engels problem,” see ibid.: 245f; vol. 9:100f. See also vol. 9: 21–3.

21 Bukharin, 1925: 9–11; Smirnov et al., 1988: 227–30.22 I found one fascinating testimony to Stalin’s cheating in his library. In a 1921

copy of a volume of Lenin writings he read the leader’s speech at the FourthParty Congress of 1906. He carefully enclosed in brackets the parts where thespeaker acknowledged that, in the absence of a socialist revolution in WesternEurope, a capitalist restoration in a revolutionary Russia was inevitable. Seef.558, op.3, d.116, p.156. So he did remember that this had been Lenin’s opinionat the time.

23 See Zinoviev, 1926: 248, 271–3, 275–7, 283; see also 286–7.24 XIV s”ezd vsesoiuznoi…, 1926: 98, 429–30.25 Fel’shtinskii, 1990, vol. 2: 142, 202–3; Wolter, 1976, vol. 1: 219, 226–7; vol. 3:

107–8, 126, 145, 164–5; see also Trotskii, 1990: 197.26 See Day, 1973: 105f, 136f, 147. See also Gorinov and Tsakunov, 1992: 86; Erlich,

1960: 46; Koritskii, 1990: 29.27 XV konferentsiia vsesoiuznoi…, 1927: 469–72; for Zinov’ev’s remarks on the

subject, see 570–1, 576.28 See Wolter, 1976, vol. 3: 93, 97, 99.29 XV konferentsiia vsesoiuznoi…, 1927: 512–13, 515.30 Sochineniia, vol. 8: 275; see also ibid.: 206–8.31 Wolter, 1976, vol. 3: 169.32 See, for example, Fel’shtinskii, 1990, vol. 2: 142.33 Day, 1973: 136; see also 4, 124.

294 Notes

34 XV konferentsiia vsesoiuznoi…, 1927: 531–3. See also Fel’shtinskii, 1990, vol. 2:142–4.

35 For a similar critique of Day’s thesis, see Knei-Paz, 1979: 333n.36 Trotsky, 1978: 133; see also 129 146. See also Trotskii, 1993: 104–8, 113.37 Stalin, 1994: 13.38 See Sochineniia, vol. 3[XVI]: 163–4.39 Sochineniia, vol. 1[XIV]: 395.40 Sochineniia, vol. 3[XVI]: 56. Until he reached old age, Stalin did not lose interest

in the theory, which filled him with pride. He continued to go over the relevantquotations. In a 1949 copy of one of Lenin’s volumes, the remark of his teacherto the effect that socialism could not be victorious in all countries simultaneouslywas carefully underlined with a green pencil. See f.558, op.3, d.154, p.67. Inanother Lenin volume of 1950, which contained a 1921 speech, he underlinedthose sentences where the author claimed that it would be impossible for theproletariat to remain in power without allowing the capitalists economic conces-sions. Stalin put quotations marks next to this uncomfortable passage. See ibid.,d.155, p.201.

41 See Maksimenkov, 1993: 35.42 Sochineniia, vol. 10: 95–6.43 Fel’shtinskii, 1990, vol. 3: 101.44 See Evzerov, 1995: 61.45 There is an annotated 1904 copy of the book in Stalin’s library; see f.558, op.3,

d.92. The passages on economic autarky have not been marked, though. In 1936,Noi Zhordaniia noted that when he met Koba in 1898 he had gained the impres-sion that his idea of socialism rested only on articles from Kvali and Kautsky’sErfurt Programm. See Vakar, 1936.

46 See Adibekov et al., 1998: 425, 428–9, 438.47 Sochineniia, vol. 7: 299.

8 Stalin’s economic thought1 Drabkin et al., 1998: 664–5.2 Sochineniia, vol. 6: 240–5.3 Sochineniia, vol. 7: 130, 195f, 198, 298, 301, 315.4 Sochineniia, vol. 8: 287–8.5 Sochineniia, vol. 8: 117, 122; vol. 9: 137.6 Sochineniia, vol. 10: 228–9; 309–12.7 Sochineniia, vol. 11: 161.8 Sochineniia, vol. 12: 159–60.9 Stalin also noted that, in the absence of private ownership of land, Soviet farms

need not pay an “absolute ground rent.” This lowered costs and createdfavourable conditions for collectivised agricultural units; Sochineniia, vol. 11:192–3. The fact that the Soviet peasant did not need to pay absolute ground rentwas a matter Stalin apparently deemed of great significance. In his library, thereis a 1923 copy of Kautsky’s The Agrarian Question with a foreword by P.Stuchka. The latter quoted Marx to the effect that under the condition of nation-alisation of the land absolute ground rent could be abolished, which allowed fora reduction in the price of agricultural products. Perhaps this gave Stalin the ideato use this as an argument in defence of his policy on agricultural prices andfuture collectivisation. Next to this passage he wrote the following critique of,probably, Bukharin: “Precisely so! And now they want to bring the grain pricesto pre-war levels when private property was not abolished!” See f.558, op.3, d.86,p.viii. The library also contained two (1924 and 1928) copies of the third volume

Notes 295

of Das Kapital and another 1927 book on rent, in which passages on the effect ofnationalisation of the land on ground rent were underlined or marked. See ibid.,d.194, pp.336f; d.205, pp.232f; d.204, pp.283f.

10 Sochineniia, vol. 12: 121, 123, 171, 269, 274, 331, 347.11 Sochineniia, vol. 13: 80.12 Sochineniia, vol. 13: 184–6; see also ibid., vol. 1[XIV]: 352–3.13 Kvashonkin et al, 1999: 294.14 Sochineniia, vol. 11: 170–1.15 PSS, vol. 45: 371–2, 376.16 Sochineniia, vol. 12: 161–3, 166, 169.17 Sochineniia, vol. 12: 143–5.18 Sochineniia, vol. 12: 147–9.19 Sochineniia, vol. 12: 149, 151–3.20 Sochineniia, vol. 12: 192, 194.21 Sochineniia, vol. 12: 203–5, 222–3.22 In a letter to Molotov in October 1930, Stalin happily noted a new “growing

upsurge in the kolkhoz movement.” He warned against any slackening of atten-tion on the collective farms. See Kosheleva et al., 1995: 212.

23 Zelenin, 1993: 40–1.24 See Sochineniia, vol. 12: 196.25 Sochineniia, vol. 1[XIV]: 54.26 Istoriia Vsesoiuznoi kommunisticheskoi…, 1938: 291–2.27 See, for example, Daniels, 1991: 40.28 See Cohen, 1985: 60–1; Nove, 1993: 20–1, 27.29 Tucker, 1990: 9, 39f.30 Sochineniia, vol. 13: 39.31 PSS, vol. 36: 78. See also Sochineniia, vol. 11: 250.32 Sochineniia, vol. 8: 120.33 Sochineniia, vol. 11: 248–9.34 He also refused to see any analogy between himself and peasant rebels Razin and

Pugachev, whose uprisings had failed because a modern working class was stilllacking. With their hopes for a “good tsar” they remained trapped in the systemagainst which they rebelled. Sochineniia, vol. 13: 104–5, 112–13.

35 Dubinskaia-Dzhalilova and Chernev, 1997: 183.36 Sochineniia, vol. 13: 38–40.37 Sochineniia, vol. 11: 58.38 Sochineniia, vol. 13: 37, 41.39 Sochineniia, vol. 1[XIV]: 61–4; see also 49.40 Sochineniia, vol. 12: 161–3.41 XIV s”ezd Vsesoiuznoi…, 1926: 259, 102, 106.42 Sochineniia, vol. 7: 304f, 369–70.43 See also Sochineniia, vol. 10: 228.44 Cited in Davies, 1989: 167. In the relevant volume of Sochineniia, published in

1949, Stalin changed this to the effect that NEP would be abolished when thepossibility existed of arranging the links between town and countryside “throughour trading organisations” instead of through “private trade.” See Sochineniia,vol. 12: 187.

45 XVI s”ezd Vsesoiuznoi…, 1930: 37. In Sochineniia (vol. 12: 307), this was again“improved.”

46 Davies, 1989: 171.47 XVII s”ezd Vsesoiuznoi…, 1975: 26.48 F.558, op.1, d.5324, pp.48–9; see also Khlevniuk, 1996: 126–7.49 Chuev, 1991: 288.

296 Notes

50 For earlier signs of this, see Sochineniia, vol. 13: 118–19. In Stalin’s library thereis a 1931 collection of articles on Leninism, which includes one on “petit bour-geois levelling.” Stalin commented in his own hand: “i.e. not equality of(economic) classes, that’s absurd, but destruction of classes. But this is not thedestruct. of personal inequality,” and: “i.e. the destr. of class inequality is not thedestruct. of person. inequ. in the sense of acquiring products for personalconsumption.” See f.558, op.3, d.182, p.44.

51 Sochineniia, vol. 13: 343, 351, 354–5, 357, 359–60. See also 245f; vol. 1[XIV]: 57,61, 127; and Stalin’s November 1934 speech about the interests of the“consumer”: f.558, op.1, d.5324, p.48. In a typical letter to Molotov of July 1935,Stalin wrote that “we must strengthen from year to year everything whichincreases the production of products of mass consumption. At the time we donot have the possibility to advance without this.” See Kosheleva et al., 1995: 251.See also Khlevniuk, 1996: 155–6.

52 In July 1934, Stalin remarked bluntly that the kolkhozniki should not be providedwith a “completely sufficient standard of living,” because in that case they wouldrefuse ever to go to the factories. Cited in Rogovin, 1992: 25.

53 Sochineniia, vol. 1[XIV]: 81, 89; see also 53–4.54 Sochineniia, vol. 1[XIV]: 17.55 Sochineniia, vol. 1[XIV]: 89.56 Sochineniia, vol. 1[XIV]: 127. Emphasis added.57 F.558, op.1, d.5380, l.7.58 Sochineniia, vol. 1[XIV]: 140, 149.59 See f.558, op.3, dd.257–63. These are manuscripts of 1938, 1939, April, October

and December 1940 and March (?) 1941. Dela 262 and 263 are copies of thesame manuscript of December 1940. See also Openkin, 1991: 115–16; Solov’ev,1996: 9; Dzokaeva, 1988. In Stalin’s library there are also no less than five copiesof Bogdanov’s old handbook of political economy (ranging from 1879 to 1923)with his notes: ibid., dd.13–17.

60 F.558, op.3, d.263, pp.357–8, 396, 417, 424, 439.61 F.558, op.1, d.5380, pp.2, 6, 8; see also p.3. See also Openkin, 1991: 115.62 F.558, op.1, d.5380, pp.5–6.63 In 1943, an authoritative article in Pod znamenem marksizma repeated Stalin’s

1941 thesis that under socialism the law of value remained active. The moneyform was needed to remunerate the different kinds of labour, and the differentkinds of toilers in nationalised and collectivised enterprises; and also to stimulategood work by individuals and enterprises. See Harrison, 1985: 226.

64 Openkin, 1991: 116.65 XXII s”ezd Kommunisticheskoi…, 1962, vol. 2: 184; Harrison, 1985: 230.66 See Shepilov, 1998, no. 3: 6, 18–20; no. 7: 6.67 Openkin, 1991: 116–17; Shepilov, 1998, no.7: 3–4, 6–10, 13.68 It was expected at first that Stalin would speak at the conference, but, although

he received abstracts of the debates, he did not show up. See Openkin, 1991: 116;Bolotin, 1987. He wrote a reaction to the debate, which he first made available toa few Politburo members at his dacha. See Chuev, 1991: 289, 491. In February1952, the leader presented an extensive analysis of the debates to the CentralCommittee and the participants in the discussion. At a small meeting two weekslater Stalin refused to have it published because the whole conference had been aclosed affair. In the next months he added three more articles to it, reacting tothe views of some individual participants in the discussion. See Openkin, 1991:122–3; Sochineniia, vol. 3[XVI]: 188–9n. According to Molotov, Stalin wasworking on a further part, which never appeared. See Chuev, 1991: 328, 491.

69 Sochineniia, vol. 3[XVI]: 205, 209–10, 214, 252.

Notes 297

70 Sochineniia, vol. 3[XVI]: 199, 202–3, 205–7, 238, 295f. However, according toMikoian (1999: 569), Stalin did state in 1952 that it was now time to begin thetransition to direct product exchange.

71 See also Harrison, 1985: 232–3. Possibly a rereading of Marx made Stalin moreaware of the unorthodoxy of his former views on the matter. In a 1951 copy ofthe former’s critique of the Gotha program in the leader’s personal library wefind passages underlined which hold that the communist system is not based onexchange value but on a directly social form of labour. On the relevant pageStalin wrote “For the third chapter.” That chapter of Economic Problems…concerned the law of value. See f.558, op.3, d.207, p.13. In a 1935 copy of thesame work, we also find passages underlined concerning the communist princi-ples of distribution, and the division of labour and individual psychology undercommunism. See f.558, op.3, d.201, pp.273–5. Molotov suggested that Stalinchanged his mind on the matter after discussions with him (Chuev, 1991: 491–2).

72 Sochineniia, vol. 13: 192–3. Stalin confirmed to Mikoian (1999: 520) that, despitetheir temporary lack of profits, the sovkhozes should be supported by the state,because as a “new social formation” it was inevitable that they were still weak.

73 F.558, op.1, d.5380, ll.2–5.74 Cited in Harrison, 1985: 227; see also 228.75 See Koritskii, 1990: 224–6, 229, 233; Smirnov et al., 1988: 405–6.76 See Voznesenskii, 1948: 28, 45, 47, 54, 64, 75–6, 141, 144, 147–8, 151, 175, 178,

180–1.77 Voznesenskii, 1948: 145–8.78 Interestingly, Stalin may have been temporarily won over to this point of view.

According to Mikoian (1999: 521–2), he proposed in 1948 that the sovkhozesshould be liquidated, as they were still unprofitable. Moreover, kolkhozes were“more socialist.” The leader received no support from his fellow Politburomembers however.

79 Voznesenskii, 1948: 121–3.80 Openkin, 1991: 117–21, 126; see also Solov’ev, 1996: 9. For Voznesenskii’s

“voluntaristic” thesis and some related matters, see Voznesenskii, 1979: 118–19,161, 229–34, 237, 241, 254.

81 Sochineniia, vol. 3[XVI]: 190–3, 196.82 Sochineniia, vol. 3[XVI]: 236–7.83 Perhaps even more ironically, his law was a paraphrase of the main principle of

socialism formulated in a 1928 Bukharinist handbook: Lapidus andOstrovityanov, 1929: 478. In March 1952, L.D. Iaroshenko wrote a letter to thePolitburo in which he criticised, among other points, Stalin’s definition of themain law as consumption instead of production oriented (see Sochineniia, vol.3[XVI]: 280). This is probably a mistake, because “the needs of society” do notnecessarily refer to consumption goods, and Stalin certainly had not intended theconcept to be used in that way.

84 Sochineniia, vol. 3[XVI]: 204, 207–8, 210, 214, 251, 286–7. Mark Harrison (1985:233) interprets Stalin’s thesis of the inability of the socialist state to changeeconomic laws as a dissociation from the old voluntaristic ideology of earlyStalinism. In my opinion, this is only partly true.

85 Cited in Harrison, 1985: 233; see also Hahn, 1982: 152f.86 See also Davies in Nove, 1993: 56–7, 62; Timasheff, 1946: 133f, 146, 148.

9 The sharpening of the class struggle1 Sochineniia, vol. 11: 171–2.2 Sochineniia, vol. 12: 34, 38.

298 Notes

3 See, for instance, PSS, vol. 36: 382; vol. 38: 386–7; vol. 39: 13, 280; vol. 40: 302;vol. 41: 6, 54–5.

4 In Concerning the Role of the Individual in History, Plekhanov explained that therealisation that one’s cause was historically doomed might not weaken the“energy of resistance” in everybody; “in some the understanding of itsinevitability will only make it grow and turn it into an energy of despair”(Plechanow, 1946: 21). The notion that the more successful the party the more itsopponents will be forced into illegal action can probably be traced back evenfurther to Kautsky, as can so many other allegedly original ideas of the bolshe-viks. See Steenson, 1978: 118–19.

5 PSS, vol. 44: 10, 42.6 Sochineniia, vol. 11: 6–7, 226–8. This had always been a matter of grave concern

for him. In a 1920 copy of Trotskii’s Terrorism and Communism, he wrote in themargin that an unlimited dictatorship was necessary in Soviet Russia because“attempts at restoration are inevitable.” This was the case for two reasons: “thebourgeoisie of all remaining countries” nurtured hopes of intervention, and theRussian petit bourgeoisie gave birth to new capitalists. See f.558, op.3, d.364, l.28.

7 Sochineniia, vol. 12: 37, 170, 183, 310; vol. 13: 111.8 Sochineniia, vol. 13: 204, 207–12. In March 1935, he repeated that new “capitalist

elements” could originate from the “artisan industry” and the “so-called indi-vidual peasant economy.” See f.71, op.10, d.130, l.20.

9 Sochineniia, vol. 13: 349.10 Sochineniia, vol. 1[XIV]: 142, 147.11 Sochineniia, vol. 1[XIV]: 190–1, 197, 197–9, 201–2, 210, 213–15.12 See Getty, Rittersporn and Zemskov, 1993: 1023; Wheatcroft, 1996: 1336.13 Volkogonov, 1989, vol. I.2: 241–2; Tucker, 1990: 444. See also “‘Massovye

repressii opravdany…,” 1995: 124; Chuev, 1991: 439–40, 463.14 “Rasstrel po raznariadke…,” 1992. See also Shearer, 1998; Hagenloh in

Fitzpatrick, 2000: 286–308.15 Vyltsan, 1997.16 Gevorkian, 1992: 19; Geworkjan, 1992: 227; Khlevniuk, 1996: 190–1.17 Daniel’ et al., 1997: 33.18 Kostyrchenko and Khazanov, 1992: 125–6.19 Sochineniia, vol. 1[XIV]: 271, 346, 366–7, 394; Istoriia Vsesoiuznoi kommunistich-

eskoi…, 1938: 292, 327–8.20 F.558, op.1, d.5380, l.4.21 Sochineniia, vol. 3[XVI]: 204, 301.22 Already in 1927 Stalin had told the French writer Henri Barbusse that internally

the Soviet regime was stable enough. It only needed capital punishment forterrorists sent by the capitalist powers abroad. See: “‘U nas malo…,” 1999: 103.

23 Kosheleva et al., 1995: 187–8; see also 192–3, 198.24 Kosheleva et al.., 1995: 216–17. In another letter of January 1930, Stalin asked

Ukrainian party leaders Kosior and Chubar’ when some “counter-revolutionarybastards” would be tried. The “sins of our enemies” should not be hidden fromthe workers. The people should be shown the “cases of the accused, concerningrebellion and terrorism” and also the “medical tricks, which have for its purposethe murder of responsible officials.” Repression against people “who attempt topoison and stab communist patients” was fully justified. See “Iosif Stalin:‘vinovnykh…,’ ” 1992.

25 Khlevniuk, 1996: 193–4, 198, 211, 215, 220.26 Kosheleva et al., 1995: 231–2; Khlevniuk, 1996: 36–7, 39.27 Kosheleva et al., 1995: 231.28 Kvashonkin et al., 1999: 196.

Notes 299

29 See Cohen, 1997: 318–19, 327, 336–7; see also 329; Khlevniuk, 1996: 96. For letterto Kaganovich of 11 August 1932, see also “Iz neizdannoi perepiski…,” 2000.

30 “‘Tysiachi liudei vidiat…,” 1996: 147.31 F.71, op.10, d.130, ll.29–30.32 F.71, op.10, d.130, ll.20, 24–5. See also ll.43–4. In an undated letter of 1934–35 to

Kaganovich, Stalin wrote characteristically about the questioning of a particularprisoner: “He must be grabbed by the throat, made to talk, made to tell thewhole truth, and then he must be condemned with all severity. He is undoubtedlya Polish–German (or Japanese) agent.” See Cohen, 1997: 339.

33 In the Vyshinskii papers, there are notes of what Stalin told him in a privateconservation in January 1937: Piatakov and his comrades were a gang of crimi-nals who had fought against Lenin all their lives (“O tak nazyvaemom…,” 1989:39, 42). Volkogonov (1995, vol. 1: 263) looked through Stalin’s “blocnotes,” noteshe made of Politburo meetings in the 1930s and which are at present in the presi-dential archive. Even in such purely personal notes, the dictator wrote about“agents of Pilsudski” and “sabotage.”

34 “Fragmenty stenogrammy dekabr’skogo…,” 1995: 6, 8–9, 18; and f.17, op.2,d.575, ll.50–1, 57–8, 72, 80–1, 100, 112–13, 159, 161, 170. For parts of the samespeech, see Getty and Naumov, 1999: 321–2.

35 Murin, “‘Nevol’niki v rukakh…,” 1994: 73–8.36 Typically, on a letter from prison by Commander Iakir, Stalin wrote “Scoundrel

and prostitute,” which suggests genuine rage (“Delo o tak…,” 1989: 56). Stalinwas even suspicious of his close comrade Kaganovich’s friendly relations withIakir. See Chuev, 1992: 45–6, 80.

37 Piatnitskii, 1998: 132–3. See also Stalin’s remark to Dimitrov in February 1937:“all of you in the Comintern are serving the enemy” (Dallin and Firsov, 2000:32). See also Ushakov and Stukalov, 2000: 71.

38 “Bol’shoi iubilei terrora,” 1997.39 Kurilov and Mikhailov, 1990.40 Khlevniuk, 1996: 240.41 Chuev, 1992: 77; see also 79. Mikoian (1999: 319, 321, 323–4, 553) quotes Stalin

in a similar way on a number of occasions.42 Cited in Radzinsky, 1996: 422–3. See also Mikoian (1999: 358–9) for Stalin’s

comments on Aleksandr Svanidze as a spy, recruited by the Germans during theFirst World War.

43 Poliakova and Khorunzhii, 1988; Golovkov, 1988: 27; Grekhov, 1990: 136–9.44 Grekhov, 1990: 142–3; see also Ovchinnikova and Strokanov, 1989; Poliakova

and Khorunzhii, 1988; Golovkov, 1988: 27–8.45 For another example, in 1937 Stalin told Dimitrov privately that Comintern

leaders Knorin, Rakovskii, Kun and Piatnitskii were Polish, German and Britishspies as well as Trotskyites. See Mar’ina, 2000: 35–6. In the leader’s library toowe find indications that he believed the enemy was plotting against him. Thisappears, for instance, from his notes in a 1948 Russian publication of anAmerican defector, called The Truth about American Diplomats. The book namesa large number of American “spies” among diplomats, journalists and scientists.Stalin underlined their names, including people like George Kennan and CharlesBowlen, and he gave them numbers. He also underlined sentences like “TheAmerican diplomatic service is in its totality an intelligence organisation.” Seef.558, op.3, d.32, ll.14–15, 17–18, 20–1, 27, 31, 39, 49–57, 120, 135. Stalin’s fear oftreason and his belief in the need for rulers to strike against possible conspiratorsalso betray themselves in his notes in historical writings. In a 1941 novel onPugachev, he put marks next to a quotation by a Russian prince who explainedRussian defeats in war by espionage and treason; see ibid., d.388, l.42. In a 1908book on Roman history, he put a vnimanie mark next to a passage describing

300 Notes

how successful opposition to Roman rule originated from the co-operation ofinternal and external enemies of the state. He also heavily underlined a part onthe “famous organiser of ‘conspiracies’ Catilina”; see ibid., d.38, ll.29, 189. In a1916 book on Russian history, he underlined an alleged quotation by GenghisKhan: “The death of the defeated is necessary for the peace of mind of thevictors”; see ibid., d.11, ll.15, 33. For a final example: in a 1923 history of Greeceand Rome, Stalin underlined a passage which held that under Sulla’s dictatorshipthere were published lists of people condemned to death without trial; ibid.,d.188, l.130.

46 This was written on a 1931 letter from Trotskii. See Volkogonov, 1996: 439.47 There exists a characteristic note from Stalin to Beriia, quoted by Volkogonov

(1995, vol. 1: 310), concerning some people who had complained of beingunjustly condemned: “Take a look at this. If they write the truth – set them free.”

48 Perhaps Tucker (1990: 474f) was the first to argue that Stalin believed his owncharges. See also Thurston, 1996: 84f; G.T. Rittersporn in Getty and Manning,1993: 99–115.

10 Total unity1 Sochineniia, vol. 1: 59–61.2 Sochineniia, vol. 1: 64–7, 70–1. At every place where the original version of the

article had “centralistic” Stalin later put “centralised” before the piece waspublished in his Sochineniia; see f.558, op.1, d.8.

3 See Walicki, 1975: 257.4 See Walicki, 1977: 9.5 See Ware, 1983: 243f, 245, 252, 319.6 Williams, 1986: 4.7 Bogdanov, Iz psikhologii obshchestva, 1904: 6, 98–9; “Sobiranie cheloveka,” 1904:

162, 168.8 See van Ree, “Stalin’s bolshevism:…,” 1994.9 Sochineniia, vol. 1: 120, 123–5, 129.

10 F.71, op.10, d.169, l.274.11 See van Ree, “Stalin’s bolshevism:…,” 1994.12 See Desiatyi s”ezd RKP(b)…, 1963: 2–3, 35, 113, 118, 123, 521, 523, 571, 573, 576.13 Sochineniia, vol. 5: 71–2; see also vol. 4: 309–10.14 PSS, vol. 45: 344–6, 387–8.15 Sochineniia, vol. 5: 224–6.16 See Sochineniia, vol. 5: 197–8, 214, 224–5, 357–64, 368–79, 370, 382; vol. 6: 1–2,

7, 9–11, 15, 23, 39–40, 181–5, 226.17 See, for example, Sochineniia, vol. 2: 147, 149, 248.18 Sochineniia, vol. 8: 210, 212, 224–5, 231, 233.19 Sochineniia, vol. 10: 327, 351, 358–60. In 1936, Stalin gave a classical formulation

of this active, totalitarian concept of unity: “You might say that silence is no crit-icism. But this is not true. As a special way of ignoring, the method of silence isalso a form of criticism, albeit a stupid and laughable one, but nevertheless aform of criticism”; see vol. 1[XIV]: 156.

20 F.558, op.1, d.2889, ll.40, 42, 145–6.21 Cited in Wolter, 1977: 591, 593. To treat societies like huge “living organisms”

was not uncommon among socialists. In several books and articles, Kautsky(1883; 1884; 1887: 399, 402, 443; 1902; 1980: 45, 60–1) pointed out that humansociety was an organism in its highest form. The purposefulness of the socialorganism would be strengthened when specially appointed functionaries “subjectthe social forces to a united will [ein einheitlicher Wille].” The more united thewill, the more effectively society competed against nature in the struggle for exis-

Notes 301

tence. All these writings of the late years of the nineteenth century and the earlyyears of the twentieth were translated into Russian and circulated widely amongRussian Marxists. See Blumenberg, 1960: 32, 34, 40, 64, 75.

22 Cited in Schapiro, 1971: 384–5. See also Walicki, 1995: 460–1.23 Sochineniia, vol. 13: 8, 11–12, 15–16.24 F.17, op.2, d.514, ll.50, 58–60.25 Sochineniia, vol. 13: 381.26 “O dele tak…,” 1989: 70, 75–6, 80.27 Latyshev, 1992. Volkogonov (1989, vol. I.2: 202) reported the following statement

attributed to Stalin by Beriia: “An enemy of the people is not only he whocommits sabotage, but also he who doubts the correctness of the party line.” Inthe context of a discussion on Lysenkoism in 1948, Stalin said: “in our party wehave no personal opinions nor personal points of view; there are only the viewsof the party” (Malyshev, 1997: 135).

28 Sochineniia, vol. 13: 128.29 See Beriia, 1948. For the background and production of the book, see Sukharev,

1990; Popov and Oppokov, 1989; Knight, 1991.30 Istoriia Vsesoiuznoi kommunisticheskoi…, 1938. For the prehistory and history of

the book, see Illeritskaia, 1987; Maslov, 1988; Man’kovskaia and Sharapov,1988; Sukharev, 1991. In a letter from early in 1937, Stalin provided the authorsKnorin, Iaroslavskii and Pospelov with detailed instructions. See f.558, op.1,d.3212, l.18. Stalin checked the final maket closely and made extensive changesand insertions on some points. The last maket with Stalin’s remarks can be foundin f.558, op.1, d.5300. For a summary of Stalin’s interventions in the text, seeMaslov, 1988: 56–61. Stalin also wrote further comments in a 1938 version of thebook; see f.558, op.3, d.77. It contains remarks such as “Right and left in thefinal instance = one essence” (p.249; see also p.251). For other examples, hewrote the word “spy” next to Dan’s name (p.310), and next to the report of the1938 trial he put “A part of them were former tsarist okhranniki” (p.312).

31 See Maslov, 1994: 7–8, 14, 26–7.32 Istoriia Vsesoiuznoi kommunisticheskoi…, 1938: 329; see also Sochineniia, vol.

1[XIV]: 344, 346, 367; KPSS, vol. 2: 910.33 See a speech of 4 May 1935: f.71, op.10, d.218, l.18. See also Sochineniia, vol.

1[XIV]: 65–6. See also Stalin in March 1938: “‘P’iu za tekh…,” 1998: 86.34 Sochineniia, vol. 3[XVI]: 21.

11 Stalin and the state1 Already, in a 1919 copy of State and Revolution he had noted next to a reference

to Marx’s concept of the Commune without a standing army and officialdom:“But for the time being we can’t destroy either the one or the other” (f.558, op.3,d.156, p.41).

2 Sochineniia, vol. 13: 211. See also 350.3 F.558, op.3, d.143, pp.384, 386.4 PSS, vol. 33: 94–5, 97, 99.5 F.558, op.3, d.270, p.21. In a 1923 copy of The State and the Revolution, Stalin

marked a passage where Lenin quoted Engels to the effect that every state was aninstrument of class oppression and therefore unfree and unpopular. He under-lined “every,” put quotation marks in the margin and added: “and the dict-shipof the pr-iat?” See ibid., d.157, p.23.

6 F.558, op.3, d.202, p.21.7 He also rejected Engels’s idea that the state was at best a “necessary evil” (f.558,

op.3, d.143, pp.372, 382, 424, 438).

302 Notes

8 Maslov, 1994: 18, 20–2; f.17, op.120, d.313, l.12. See also Sochineniia, vol.3[XVI]: 165.

9 Sochineniia, vol. 1[XIV]: 394.10 In a discussion with Mongolian leaders in November 1934, the Soviet leader said

“An army is, firstly, an instrument of defence, secondly, a nursery garden ofculture, thirdly an epicentre of the spread of the idea of statehood [gosudarstven-nost’]; the army educates cadres.” See f.89, op.63, d.14, l.6. In another discussionwith Mongolian leaders in the 1930s, Stalin again showed that his appreciation ofstate centralisation was a general one and that it also applied to the work doneby autocrats in the past. He commented on the autonomous status of theBuddhist monks, the lamas: “This is a state in the state. Genghis Khan wouldn’thave allowed it. He might have slit their throats, all of them. You have to bringabout a split among the lamas.” And then he explained that this is what thebolsheviks did with the orthodox priests. See ibid., d.10, l.2.

11 F.71, op.10, d.130, ll.122–5. A few days later, in his next speech on the ShortCourse, Stalin called the intelligentsia the “salt of the earth.” See Maslov, 1994:28; see also f.17, op.120, d.313, l.14. And in his 1952 Economic Problems ofSocialism in the USSR, he again spoke in one breath of “people of mentallabour” and of the “leading personnel.” See Sochineniia, vol. 3[XVI]: 219.

12 Malyshev, 1997: 111.13 Cited in Walicki, 1995: 144.14 Sochineniia, vol. 8: 26; vol. 9: 82; see also vol. 9: 153. In a 1920 copy of Trotskii’s

Terrorism and Communism, Stalin wrote in the margin: “B [vnimanie-attention].The dict-ship of the pr-at is the political monocracy [edinovlastie] of the prole-tariat”; see f.558, op.3, d.364, l.20. In a 1922 copy of writings by Lenin, Stalinagain wrote “The power of one class” next to a passage on the proletarian dicta-torship and the peasantry; see ibid., d.129, p.227. Characteristically, he wrote in a1919 copy of Lenin’s State and Revolution that the “organisation of force” wasthe “foundation” of the second aspect of the proletarian dictatorship, the leader-ship of the toilers in the construction of socialism (f.558, op.3, d.156, p.25).

15 Studenikina, 1957: 729.16 Sochineniia, vol. 1[XIV]: 142–4, 146, 152–3, 163–5, 181. For the article in the

constitution, see Studenikina, 1957: 744.17 Studenikina, 1957: 744.18 See Chuev, 1991: 289.19 Maslov, 1994: 18, 20–1.20 KPSS, vol. 2: 923–4. In September 1940, he characterised the Soviet state as a

“dictatorship of the working class” to Malyshev (1997: 113).21 Murashko et al., 1997: 457–9. In 1947, he wrote that in the USSR capitalist rule

had been replaced by the “rule of labour [trud],” a general term referring to alltoilers; Sochineniia, vol. 3[XVI]: 94.

22 KPSS, vol. 2: 1121–2.23 Sochineniia, vol. 1[XIV]: 395. In a summary of his speech of 1 October 1938, we

find the following passage: “As long as the capitalist encirclement exists. Thestate under communism”; see f.17, op.120, d.313, p.12.

24 According to Nikolai Simonov (1990: 72), Stalin wrote on the front flap of a1923 issue of State and Revolution: “The theory of the overcoming [izzhivanie] isa dangerous [giblaia] theory.” Simonov thought that Stalin was referring to theabolition of the state. However, this is undoubtedly a misrepresentation. First,the word giblaia is in fact practically illegible. It could also read gnilaia. Thesentence quoted is the first in an argument demonstrating why it is good that thebolsheviks expelled the mensheviks from the party. The sentence had nothing todo with the state. Stalin was saying here that the theory of overcoming contradic-tions within the party should be rejected. In “On the foundations of Leninism”

Notes 303

(Sochineniia, vol. 6: 184), we find practically the same sentence in that context:“the theory of ‘overcoming [izzhivanie]’ these [opportunist] elements in the cadreof one party is a rotten [gnilaia] and dangerous theory.” Stalin marked passagesin the book itself where Lenin had said that under communism the state withersaway, with pencil lines and a # sign, but without critical implications, as far asone can now ascertain. See f.558, op.3, d.157, p.87.

25 Sochineniia, vol. 1: 335–6.26 Sochineniia, vol. 5: 360; vol. 7: 159–60; vol. 10: 134.27 F.558, op.3, d.143, pp.427, 440. In a 1935 copy of Marx’s critique of the Gotha

program, Stalin underlined the passage, which he apparently found intriguing,about the “future statehood of communist society”; see ibid., d.201, p.283. Untilthe end of his life, Stalin did not lose interest in these questions. In a 1951 copyof Marx’s comments on the Gotha program we find his markings and underlin-ings of the passage describing the proletarian dictatorship as a period oftransition from capitalism to communism; see f.558, op.3, d.207, p.25.

28 Sochineniia, vol. 3[XVI]: 295.29 Sochineniia, vol. 1[XIV]: 37–8.30 See Perrie, 1992: 82; Artizov, “V ugodu vzgliadam…,” 1991: 129.31 See Artizov, “V ugodu vzgliadam…,” 1991: 125, 129–31; Brandenberger and

Dubrovsky, 1998: 878–9.32 Cited in Tucker, 1990: 282.33 See Perrie, 1992: 85–6.34 Grekov et al., 1939: 55, 155. According to Maureen Perrie (1992: 85), there is no

real evidence that in the mid-1930s Stalin was already a great admirer of Ivanand Peter. However, some of his notes are noteworthy. In a 1937 Russian historytextbook he proposed to replace the story of peasant uprisings “againstMoscow” with “against the boyars.” He criticised a passage where the streltsyseemed to be supported in their conflict with Peter the Great. He also deletedpassages to the effect that Razin and Pugachev were positively remembered bythe people; see f.558, op.3, d.63, pp.88, 107, 116, 138–9. In another elementarycourse on Russian history from 1937, he deleted a painting of Ivan IV killing hisson; see ibid., d.374, p.198.

35 Kozlov, 1992. In his library, there is a 1944 copy of Aleksei Tolstoi’s IvanGroznyi, in which Stalin underlined many passages, for instance one in whichIvan himself speaks and complains about those who “want to live in the old way– each one sitting on his own patrimony, with his own army, as under the Tataryoke.” Such “princes and boyars” were “enemies of the state,” for if onecontinued to live in the old way Russia would soon be trampled by the foreignpowers surrounding it. See f.558, op.3, d.351, p.57. In October 1940, Stalincommented on the seventeenth-century Georgian military chief GeorgiiSaakadze, who had attempted to unite his country under a centralised royalpower. His hopes for Georgia’s “unification into one state through the establish-ment of [Georgian, E.v.R.] tsarist absolutism and of the liquidation of the powerof the princes” had been “progressive.” See ibid., op.1, d.5324, p.399.

36 “O kinofil’me ‘Bol’shaia’…,” 1946: 52.37 F.558, op.1, d.5325, l.60. See also Kozlov, 1992.38 “Formidable shadows of…,” 1988: 8. See also Mikoian (1999: 534), quoting

Stalin on Ivan as working towards a “really unified strong Russian state” againstthe unruly boyars.

39 Malyshev, 1997: 136. Taking Paris as an example, Stalin hoped that he could turnMoscow into the “capital of all capitals.” “A capital strengthens a state.” See alsoTaranova, 2001: 111.

40 Sochineniia, vol. 3[XVI]: 93–4.41 See, for instance, MEW, vol. 21: 400–1; see also vol. 16: 160.

304 Notes

42 See MEW, vol. 12: 682; vol. 16: 31, 203; vol. 18: 524, 563, vol. 22: 19.43 Korzhikhina and Figatner, 1993: 30.44 Leushin, 1996.45 Gromyko, 1988: 207.46 See PSS, vol. 42: 138–9, 203–5, 206, 222–3, 226, 247, 249, 270.47 F.71, op.10, d.193, l.76; see also Beriia, 1948: 79–80.48 In a 1919 copy of State and Revolution, Stalin wrote in the margin that the Paris

Commune was an “imperfect dictatorship” because it was led by several parties.“Dictatorship in a perfect form means the power of the proletariat led by oneparty” (f.558, op.3, d.156, p.18). See also similar comments in a 1919 copy ofKautsky’s Terrorism and Communism: ibid., d.91, pp.63, 70.

49 This was written in a 1922 copy of Lenin’s works (f.558, op.3, d.129, p.44). Foryet another example of the organic metaphor, see Stalin’s October 1918 charac-terisation of the Red Army as a “unified disciplined organism” (Sochineniia, vol.4: 150).

50 In a 1918 collection of Lenin articles, he commented as follows on a passagedescribing the soviets as a higher and more democratic form of state: “Precisely:a new type of state apparatus”; see f.558, op.3, d.176, p.20. In a 1922 copy ofKautsky’s The Proletarian Revolution and its Program, he commented: “Fool,under the bourg. rev. the matter remained limited to putting the final touches onthe already existing form of st-te, under the prolet…polit. rev. one must create abasically new type of state”; see ibid., d.88, p.224. On the front flap of the book,Stalin wrote that “the soviets as a form of administration are crucial” and thatunder this system the legislative and executive powers were one. According toStalin, village soviets not only involve the peasants in the governing of thecountry but also served as a “barometer” of the mood of the peasants. SeeSochineniia, vol. 6: 304, 306, 318–9; see also vol. 7: 77f.

51 Sochineniia, vol. 5: 4–10. In a speech on 17 or 18 January, he repeated: “Themethod of compulsion stays, it must play a supportive role”; see f.558, op.1,d.2038, l.68. In July 1921, Stalin was working on a pamphlet, which he did notpublish in this form. It contained the intriguing note: “The com[munist] party asa sort of Order of Swordbearers within the Soviet state, directing the latter’sorgans and inspiring its activity”; see Sochineniia, vol. 5: 71. Robert Tucker(1990: 7) commented on this mentioning of an ancient order of warrior monks:“Who but Stalin among the Bolsheviks would have thought of using such ametaphor for the Communist Party?” In my opinion, the metaphor is not soextraordinary. It referred to the typical combination of military and dictatorialpower which was based on a faith that could inspire people to follow. It was aromantic but rather apt translation of the new dual policy of “compulsion andpersuasion.”

52 Sochineniia, vol. 5: 197–8, 205–6; vol. 6: 112, 119–20, 172, 179. In a 1919 copy ofThe State and the Revolution, Stalin wrote in the margin: “The pr-t cannot establishits dictatorship without a vanguard, without a party, as the single leading force.Therefore the party realises the dict. of the pr-t, but…it can realise it only throughthe state organisations of the prol-t, in the given case through the Soviet appa-ratus…. Why? Because the party can neither replace the state apparatus, nor thearmy, nor the trade unions…. He who identifies the party with these organs doesnot see the complexity of the system of dict-ship.” See f.558, op.3, d.156, p.28.

53 Sochineniia, vol. 7: 162–3, 186–7; vol. 10: 320. In the 1920s, Stalin still held thatthe state would wither away with the arrival of the first, socialist, stage ofcommunism. See also vol. 6: 108–9, 111–12, 181, 249; vol. 7: 159; vol. 9: 183; vol.10: 134.

54 A wise party should even “not only teach the masses, but also learn from them”(Sochineniia, vol. 8: 32, 37, 40–44; see also vol. 6: 258).

Notes 305

55 Sochineniia, vol. 8: 49–52. See also ibid.: 55; vol. 9: 79–80; vol. 10: 100–03. On thetitle page of a 1919 copy of The State and the Revolution, Stalin wrote:

The party as a leader. That does not mean that it is only a teacher, no. Itmeans that it is next to that a power, but not a self-sufficient power…, apower through the will of the pr-at. Can the party take power against thewill of the proletariat? No, it cannot and must not. …Can the party bevictorious, consolidate its victory without the support of the pr-at? No.…The party should not transform itself into a military detachment.

See f.558, op.3, d.156.56 F.558, op.3, d.156. In a 1920 volume of Comintern decisions, Stalin wrote next to

a passage which held that the party was an instrument of the proletariat that, ifthere was a dictatorship of the party, “then the party wouldn’t be an instrument,but the work. class would be an instrument of the party” (ibid., d.306, p.52). In a1920 copy of Trotskii’s Terrorism and Communism, Stalin commented: “A ‘dicta-torship of the party’ – not exact” (ibid., d.364, p.103).

57 F.558, op.3, d.126, pp.218, 224. In a 1922 copy of Kautsky’s The ProletarianRevolution and its Program, Stalin wrote in the margin: “Only he can mix up thedictatorship of the pr-at with a dic-ip of a ‘clique,’ who mixes up the form of thestate with the form of the government or of administration” (ibid., d.88, p.169).

58 In the same text, Stalin scribbled: “Under the dictatorship of the party we under-stand its leadership” (f.558, op.3, d.131, pp.233, 270–1). In a 1924 collection ofLenin quotations, Stalin read a passage concerning the proletarian dictatorshipas a class union with the peasantry. He wrote in the margin: “That’s one morereason why the dictatorship of the proletariat is not a dictatorship of the party,which is a workers’ party and does not embody a union of the proletariat and thepea-try, but the primacy of the pr-at”; see f.558, op.3, d.295, p.153. On page 160of the same book, he wrote: “Dictatorship and leadership are not one and thesame thing.” In a 1924 copy of a book by Vladimir Sorin, Stalin wrote that theparty gained the “trust of the proletariat…by the correctness of its positions andnot by ‘dictatorship’ ”; and he commented on the thesis of the author that theproletarian dictatorship was a party dictatorship: “Not exact,” “Weak”; see ibid.,d.322, p.95. See also Sochineniia, vol. 8: 38.

59 In his 1934 discussion with Wells, Stalin repeated once more that even the mostdetermined “leading revolutionary minority” would be helpless without “at leastthe passive support of millions of people”; see Sochineniia, vol. 1[XIV]: 25.

60 See also Walicki, 1995: 442.61 Already in 1926 Stalin had pleaded for a revival of the production conferences

and for making them discuss not only minor points but also the “fundamentalquestions of the construction of industry.” It was “necessary that everyworker…helps the party and the government to realise the regime of efficiency.”The conferences might serve that purpose well. See Sochineniia, vol. 8: 140–1.

62 Sochineniia, vol. 11: 29–34, 37.63 Sochineniia, vol. 11: 72–4.64 Sochineniia, vol. 11: 128, 132–3; see also 99; vol. 12: 109–10; 312–14, 327.65 Sochineniia, vol. 1[XIV]: 254.66 See Sochineniia, vol. 6: 178.67 Sochineniia, vol. 1[XIV]: 207, 232–3, 238–42.68 F.558, op.3, d.143, pp.399, 404, 437, 440.69 Sochineniia, vol. 2[XV]: 206.70 Sochineniia, vol. 11: 37, 59; 13: 66–67. See also vol. 11: 215; vol. 12: 11, 229, 313.71 Sochineniia, vol. 1[XIV]: 145, 169. From a theoretical point of view, the thesis of

the intelligentsia being no class was somewhat odd. If recruitment from other

306 Notes

groups of the population was the criterion, the workers, largely recruited fromthe peasantry, would not constitute a class either. In a discussion with theEnglish writer H.G Wells in 1934, Stalin explained in another way why the tech-nical intelligentsia could not play an “independent historical role.” Only theworking class could play such a role, the reason being that “to transform theworld is a big, complex and painful process. For that big cause we need a bigclass”; see ibid.: 23.

72 F.71, op.10, d.130, ll.121, 143–4.73 Maslov, 1994: 28; f.17, op.120, d.313, l.15.74 Sochineniia, vol. 1[XIV]: 396, 398–9.75 KPSS, vol. 2: 910.76 In September 1940, Stalin once again lashed out against people of working-class

descent who believed they were better than others simply because of thatdescent. See Gromov, 1998: 257.

77 Sochineniia, vol. 10: 371; see also vol. 7: 43.78 Sochineniia, vol. 12: 114. Stalin expected added dynamism from the youth. In a

letter to Maksim Gor’kii of January 1930, Stalin wrote that not all young peoplewere politically healthy, but there were many who identified with the “grandiosebreaking of the old and the feverish building of the new.” One should rely onthem. Sochineniia, vol. 12: 174.

79 Sochineniia, vol. 1[XIV]: 49–50; see also 62–3, 377–9.80 F.558, op.1, d.5324, p.394; see also Senokosov, 1989: 502; Malyshev, 1997: 132;

Romanovskii, 2000: 68. In February 1941, Stalin told Dimitrov that in Franceand England young people are kept in a back seat for twenty to twenty-fiveyears, but in Soviet Russia young cadres are vigorously promoted: “We like togive them a position, we even do it joyfully. The old stick to what is old. Theyoung march forward.” To fail to promote young people meant to doom thecountry (Bayerlein, 2000: 341).

12 The cult of personality1 Sochineniia, vol. 10: 329–33.2 Sochineniia, vol. 12: 1–2.3 Khlevniuk, 1996: 93, 96; Cohen, 1997: 329–30, 335–6; Kosheleva et al., 1995:

164, 222–3.4 Sochineniia, vol. 1[XIV]: 220–1, 230–1, 240, 242–3.5 Latyshev, 1992. Robert Tucker (1990: 482–5) was provided with a full report of

the speech, written by general R.P. Khmelnitskii.6 Trotskii, 1904: 54.7 PSS, vol. 41: 24; see also 30.8 Cherniavskii, 1994: 68–9; Murin and Legostaev, 1992.9 Sochineniia, vol. 13: 107, 111.

10 See Murin, “Eshche raz ob…,” 1994: 73; Murin and Legostaev, 1992.11 See Khlevniuk et al., 1995: 34.12 F.17, op.2, d.514, ll.42, 45.13 F.558, op.3, d.126, pp.218, 224.14 See Medvedev, 1989: 586; Radzinsky, 1996: 333; Murin and Denisov, 1993:

176–7. See also Brandenberger and Dubrovsky, 1998: 873, 884n.15 These are Kaganovich’s words. Chuev, 1992: 150, 185.16 Plechanow, 1946: 18, 61–3.17 For an analysis of the Stalin cult as an outgrowth of Lenin’s vanguardism, see

Tucker, 1974: 279–88.18 Lenin’s face was adorning newspapers, conference halls and posters. At times he

was described as the “Supreme Leader of the People,” an “invincible giant,” the

Notes 307

“greatest human being of our revolutionary epoch,” the “chosen one of themillions,” a “leader such as is born once in 500 years” and an “enlightenedgenius” even by people like Zinov’ev and Trotskii. His works were publiclyconsidered by them as “gospel” and the “Holy Bible” of the proletariat. Leninwas a unique hero, an “apostle of world communism,” and he was applaudedwith endless hurrahs and standing ovations. Poetry of the most abject sort waspublished about him. See Tumarkin, 1983: 66–7, 79–89, 95–8, 107. See also PSS,vol. 37: 111; vol. 40: 299; Kogan, 1991; Trotskii, 1947: 260; Gimpel’son, 1995:113. On the Lenin cult, see also Enker, 1992.

19 Sochineniia, vol. 13: 106. In his discussion with Wells in 1934, he said:“Important personalities like you are no ‘ordinary people.’ ” But he added that,“of course, only history will be able to show how eminent some particular impor-tant personality is.” See ibid., vol. 1[XIV]: 11.

20 See Sukharev, 1991: 115–16; Artizov, “V ugodu vzgliadam…,” 1991: 125;Amiantov and Tikhonova, 1996, no.2: 48; Man’kovskaia and Sharapov, 1988: 66.

21 Beriia, 1948. In 1932, a Stalin Institute was established in Tbilisi with the specialassignment of studying the revolutionary career of the leader. Under the leader-ship of its director, Erik Bediia, materials were collected. They were used by firstsecretary of the Georgian party Beriia to compose his June 1935 speech for partyactivists, published as the book. Circumstantial evidence makes Stalin’s personalinvolvement probable. In 1934, Stalin proposed to the Politburo that the Tbilisiinstitute be made part of the Moscow Marx–Engels–Lenin Institute. IvanTovstukha was its deputy director. He was not only Stalin’s first biographer butalso had long been his personal assistant. Moreover, the definitive version of themanuscript was edited by the special sectors of the trans-Caucasian districtcommittees and of the secretariat of the Georgian party. See Sukharev, 1990:103–6; 112–14. See also Popov and Oppokov, 1989; Rybin, 1988: 88;Man’kovskaia and Sharapov, 1988: 61; Brandenberger, 1997: 143–4, 149.

22 After 1929, only one small biographical article on Stalin appeared, in 1930,written by M.V. Vol’fson (Brandenberger, 1997: 142–3, 145–6). Iaroslavskii’s Otovarishche Staline appeared in 1939. See Yaroslavsky, 1942. In 1935, HenriBarbusse’s biography also appeared, but it was soon taken out of Soviet libraries(Brandenberger, 1997: 144).

23 “I.V. Stalin sam…,” 1990: 113; Brandenberger, “Sostavlenie i publikatsiia…,”1997: 147. The Marx–Engels–Lenin Institute had begun a systematic collectionof materials concerning Stalin, and of those written by him, from archives allover the country in 1933. In 1935, preparations were started for the writing of anofficial biography and selected works. Stalin had been personally involved in bothprojects. See Man’kovskaia and Sharapov, 1988: 66; Brandenberger, “Sostavleniei publikatsiia…,” 1997: 143, 146. The first edition was published anonymously,but it was written by a team of authors, among whom were M.B. Mitin, G.F.Aleksandrov, P.N. Pospelov and I.I. Mints. See Brandenberger, “Sostavlenie ipublikatsiia…,” 1997: 146; Maksimenkov, 1993: 34. The revised edition appearedunder the names of six authors, among whom were Aleksandrov, Mitin andPospelov. See Aleksandrov et al., 1993; Maksimenkov, 1993: 34.

24 He was too involved in the Finnish war. Mitin and Pospelov sent him the finalmaket, but he refused to look at it. See Maksimenkov, 1993: 33; Brandenberger,“Sostavlenie i publikatsiia…,” 1997: 146.

25 Maksimenkov, 1993: 34–5; Maslov, 1990: 107n. The first volume of the selectedStalin works appeared in 1946.

26 See Aleksandrov et al., 1993: 25, 93f, 105, 154, 219, 225, 235, 240.27 Sochineniia, vol. 8: 173–5.28 I quote from Robert Tucker’s paraphrase of the speech (1990: 483–4). In

Dimitrov’s version of the speech, Stalin said: “People speak a lot about great

308 Notes

leaders. But the cause will not be victorious if the conditions for it are lacking.Therefore the middle cadres are the main thing…. They elect the leader, theyexplain the positions to the masses, they guarantee the success of the cause.” SeeMar’ina, 2000: 36.

29 In a letter of December 1926 to a certain Ksenofontov, he objected to the mancalling himself a “pupil of Lenin and Stalin.” “I have no pupils,” Stalincommented, “call yourself a pupil of Lenin.” See Sochineniia, vol. 9: 152. InOctober 1927, at the CC–CCC plenum, he said: “About Stalin, Stalin is a smallman. Take Lenin…,” and so on. Comrade Stalin was only “one of the manypupils of Lenin.” See ibid., vol. 10: 172–3. In his conversation with ColonelRobins in 1933, he repeated that he could not be compared to Lenin. See ibid.,vol. 13: 260. In a collection of writings called “Lenin, the great founder of thesocialist state,” collected in 1934 by the Marx–Engels–Lenin Institute, Stalinwrote in red pencil on the cover: “I don’t object against this, however with thatcorrection that the words ‘The party of Lenin and Stalin’, ‘The teaching ofLenin and Stalin’ will be replaced by the words ‘The party of Lenin’ and ‘Theteaching of Lenin.’ ” See f.558, op.1, d.3118.

30 F.558, op.1, d.5324, pp.401–2. For a similar characterisation of Lenin in 1941,see Malyshev, 1997: 114–15.

31 Simonov, 1988, no. 4: 96. On occasion, Stalin himself used the term “the party ofLenin–Stalin.” See, for instance, Sochineniia, vol. 2[XV]: 10.

32 Sochineniia, vol. 13: 19. For similar examples, see Zen’kovich, 1999.33 In January 1937, he made similar corrections in the scenario of a screenplay by

F.M. Ermler. See f.558, op.1, d.5088; Maksimenkov, 1993: 28. In May 1934,Stalin told Dimitrov and others that leaders “have no value without…assistants,collaborators.” And, commenting on a chapter concerning himself in a book onthe Leipzig trial, he added: “I don’t agree that people write about me in thisway…. Such language between equals is inappropriate.” See Denchev andMeshcheriakov, 1991: 71–2.

34 F.558, op.3, d.74, p.5. In a 1936 copy of a biographical essay aboutOrdzhonikidze, edited by M.D. Orakhelashvili, Stalin read two passages whereOrdzhonikidze’s work under Stalin’s leadership was hailed. He added: “And theCC? And the party?” “And where is the CC?” See f.558, op.3, d.317, pp.33, 109.See also Maksimenkov, 1993: 28. In a 1919 copy of Kautsky’s Terrorism andCommunism, Marx was quoted to the effect that the German workers followed“a saviour (like Lassalle), who promised to help them reach the promised land inone jump.” Stalin commented in the margin: “the old sin.” See f.558, op.3, d.91,p.156.

35 F.558, op.1, d.4572.36 Sochineniia, vol. 1[XIV]: 274. For another example of Stalin objecting to his

public praise in April 1939, see Mar’ina, 2000: 37–8.37 He also scrapped an enumeration of all his arrests and exiles, as well as a whole

paragraph on the beginning of his revolutionary activity. See Maslov, 1988: 57.For an occasion when Stalin demanded of Lev Mekhlis that he omit his beingmentioned as the “leader of the party” in a Pravda article in 1930, see Rubtsov,1999: 60. In 1934, he told Dimitrov: “I don’t agree that I am written about in thisway. It also harms your good name. Such a language between equals serves nopurpose” (Bayerlein, 2000: 106).

38 Maksimenkov, 1993: 35.39 He also reduced the number of references to his “genius” and “leadership.” See

“I.V. Stalin sam…,” 1990: 117–18, 120, 122–3, 126; Aleksandrov et al., 1993: 71,100, 107, 129, 133, 139, 143, 149, 164, 170, 195. In his 1956 speech, Khrushchev(1989: 157–9) gave some examples of what Stalin had inserted into the secondedition of the Short Biography. However, many of the insertions do not prove

Notes 309

what Khrushchev wanted them to prove. One of them mentioned Stalin as theleader of the “leading nucleus of our party” and “the leading force of the partyand the state.” Another said that he had “complete support of the whole Sovietpeople” and showed no arrogance of any kind. Yet another insertion: to theexpression “Stalin is the Lenin of today,” he prefixed that he was only “theworthy continuer of Lenin’s cause.” According to Khrushchev, Stalin alsoinserted remarks on his own “genius” in developing further the “advanced Sovietmilitary science.” What such insertions show is not only that Stalin made outra-geous claims for himself but also that he wanted to be shown as representative ofa larger group of leaders, of scientists, of the party, the class, the state. OnKhrushchev’s tendentiousness, see Maksimenkov, 1993: 32–3, 36–7.

40 Chuev, 1991: 254; Talbott, 1970: 47. See also Mikoian, 1999: 318.41 See McNeal, 1988: 152; Davies, Popular Opinion in…, 1997: 153.42 Sochineniia, vol. 6: 46.43 Sochineniia, vol. 1[XIV]: 74–6; 84–5, 88, 92–4; see also 132.44 “P’iu za tekh…,” 1998: 85–7. See also f.71, op.10, d.130, ll.105–8.45 Deutscher, 1949: 269–70.46 Steenson, 1978: 80, 98; Kautsky, 1974: 207, 222.47 Sochineniia, vol. 4: 393.48 Sochineniia, vol. 6: 46, 48.49 Sochineniia, vol. 7: 68.50 F.17, op.120, d.313, l.13.51 See, for example, Sochineniia, vol. 1: 350–1; vol. 2: 30–1, 201.52 Sochineniia, vol. 5: 347.53 This is how we should probably understand why, in a discussion with P.N.

Pospelov, Stalin once called Marxism “the religion of a class, its creed”; seeMaslov, 1990: 100. However, this was less straightforward than it seemed. In theleader’s library there is a January 1952 issue of Voprosy istorii in which Leninwas quoted as attacking those who turned Marxism into a “petrified orthodoxy”and into “a creed instead of a guide for action.” Stalin underlined the passageand put “Yes!” next to it. See f.558, op.3, d.41, p.87.

54 Valentinov, 1971: 90–2.55 Tumarkin, 1983: 176, 181f; Valentinov, 1971: 92; Maksimova, 1993.56 Chuev, 1991: 235.57 For a discussion on this matter between Voroshilov, Enukidze and Dzerzhinskii

in the commission handling Lenin’s body, see Maksimova, 1993.

13 Stalin on society, culture and science1 See Timasheff, 1946.2 Cited by S. Frederick Starr in Fitzpatrick, 1978: 238.3 F.71, op.10, d.130, ll.10–11; Tarkhanov and Kavtarazde, 1992: 84; see also

Sochineniia, vol. 13: 334f.4 F.71, op.10, d.130, ll.187–8. When discussing the future of Moscow with

Malyshev (1997: 137) in 1949, Stalin rejected the concept of the “garden city.”Instead, the people should have complexes of dachas available to them 30 to 40kilometres from the city.

5 Sochineniia, vol. 1[XIV]: 83–4.6 Sochineniia, vol. 3[XVI]: 217–23. In 1950–51, Nikita Khrushchev proposed to

amalgamate small kolkhozy into bigger ones, each covering more than onevillage. The villages should be regrouped into larger settlements. According toMolotov, one of the reasons why Stalin objected to the plan was that it smelledof utopianism. He sneered: “My little Marx!” See Chuev, 1991: 362.

310 Notes

7 Sochineniia, vol. 3[XVI]: 269–73. At the Eighteenth Party Congress in 1939, hehad noted that, after the capitalist countries had been overtaken economically,the country would be so “completely saturated” with consumption goods thatthe transition to communism’s second stage could be made. See ibid., vol. 1[XIV]:351–2.

8 Sochineniia, vol. 3[XVI]: 207, 269, 294–5, 303.9 See Buckley, 1989: chapter 3.

10 See Rüttenauer, 1965: 127f.11 See Shore, 1947: 176f, 223f.12 Kommunisticheskaia partiia Sovetskogo…, 1970: 197–8.13 “Eta podderzhka vyrazhalas’…,” 1995: 133–4; see also Kemp-Welch, 1991: 26.14 Kemp-Welch, 1991: 53–6. See also Ninov, 1990; Faiman, “Naznachentsy…,”

1996; Dubinskaia-Dzhalilovaia and Chernev, 1997: 168n; “Polozhenie egodeistvitel’no…,” 1996: 110–15.

15 Sochineniia, vol. 11: 326, 328. For the manuscript of the letter from which Stalindeleted some passages, see Faiman, “Naznachentsy…,” 1996.

16 Artizov and Naumov, 1999: 105.17 Faiman, “Naznachentsy…,” 1996; Ninov, 1990: 198–200. For a similar letter, see

Sochineniia, vol. 12: 112; Belova, 1989; see also Kemp-Welch, 1991: 101. In early1930, Stalin defended the work of playwright Bezymenskii, who headed a lefttendency in RAPP. In a letter, he assured him that, although he saw “some rudi-ments of Komsomol avant-gardism” in his work, he saw nothing “petitbourgeois” or “anti-party” in it. His The Shot was even a model of “revolu-tionary proletarian art.” See Sochineniia, vol. 12: 200.

18 Kommunisticheskaia partiia Sovetskogo…, vol. 5, 1971: 44–5.19 Kemp-Welch, 1991: 128–31. See also Gromov, 1998: 155.20 Kemp-Welch, 1991: 132.21 Another basic text of socialist realism was Andrei Zhdanov’s speech at the First

All-Union Congress of Soviet Writers in August 1934. See Luppol, Rozental’and Tret’iakov, 1934: 3–5. The speech was approved by Stalin in advance. SeeGromov, 1998: 301.

22 Artizov and Naumov, 1999: 251–2.23 In 1929, he commented on a story about The 26 Commissars that it did not show

due to what mistakes the bolsheviks had lost power in Baku during the CivilWar. These mistakes should have been shown. And to show the Caspian sailorsas one undifferentiated gang of drunks was not realistic. But why this absence of“the working class as a subject?” Stalin asked. And that in the proletarian city ofBaku! He found the characters pale. See “Drama utopicheskogo soznaniia,”1997; Dubinskaia-Dzhalilovaia and Chernev, 1997: 168. In 1931, Stalin criticisedSholokhov in a personal conversation that he had portrayed Kornilov too posi-tively in his The Quiet Don: “What do you mean … honest?! He went against thepeople! A forest of gallows and a sea of blood!” See Osipov, 1991. In April 1933,the Soviet leader wrote a letter to A.N. Afinogenov concerning his play The Lie:“Why did all your party people come out as monsters, physical, ethical, or polit.monsters?” The only attractive person in the play was a negative character, hecomplained, adding: “it would be necessary to contrast [him] with another,honest worker, flawlessly and boundlessly dedicated to the cause (open your eyesand observe that we have such workers in the party).” See f.558, op.1, d.5088. Seealso Artizov and Naumov, 1999: 192; Kemp-Welch, 1991: 248f; Kumanev, 1989.In July 1934, Stalin had a few conversations with B.Z. Shumiatskii, chief of theMain Directorate of Film Industry, of which minutes were taken. It showed whatkind of atmosphere Stalin wanted films to radiate. What he liked about them waswhen they were “forcefully” and “culturedly” composed and radiated an “active”and “happy” atmosphere. See Murin, 1995: 91–2. See also Sochineniia, vol.

Notes 311

1[XIV]: 51. In 1943, he objected to a comparison in a poem of peasants to “wiserooks” as insulting towards the Soviet peasantry. See Pashnev, 1997.

24 Senokosov, 1989: 501; see also f.558, op.1, d.5324, pp.391–3. Years after the war,he told Simonov (1988: 93) that socialist society knew its “conflicts” and its “evil”and that an art that would cover them up would be sterile. For one more letter ofStalin of February 1952 defending a novel by V. Latsis against exaggerated criti-cism see Artizov and Naumov, 1999: 671–3. See also Dunmore, 1984: 135.

25 Gromov, 1998: 442.26 The term “engineers of human souls” came straight from avant-garde vocabulary.

See Kemp-Welch, 1991: 70; Groys, 1992: 29; Bowlt, 1971: 575; Golomstock, 1990:26, 85. See also Groys in Günther, 1990: 139; Aleksandr Flaker in ibid.: 101.

27 Gromov, 1998: 158.28 See Kemp-Welch, 1991: 124–5, 142, 151–75.29 For the quotation, see Walicki, 1979: 143; see also 121–7, 135–46; Walicki, 1977:

11–12.30 See Agursky, 1987: 74, 79, 126, 144.31 We know this because it was considered for inclusion in the fourteenth volume of

the Sochineniia. See f.71, op.10, d.130, ll.313–15.32 They appeared in the issues of 28 January, 6 and 20 February, and 1 March 1936,

respectively.33 Kirpotin, 1937: 57–60, 63; “Pushkinskie dni – smotr…,” 1937: 3–5. Like

Pushkin, Lermontov was known for “love of the motherland, hatred of theexploiters and struggle for the happiness of mankind”; see Egolin, 1939: 43.

34 Cf. Rees, 1998: 100.35 Artizov and Naumov, 1999: 568, 570, 582–4. Zhdanov confirmed in a speech on

15 August that Stalin had personally taken the initiative for the campaign againstZvezda and Leningrad. See Faiman, “Ispolniteli…,” 1996.

36 Sochineniia, vol. 3[XVI]: 100–1. The editorial of Bol’shevik of 15 May 1948quoted this passage of Stalin’s speech and subsequently defined “Great Russianchauvinism” as the tendency to deny small nations “the capacity to make theirown contribution to the common treasure-house of culture.” See “Sovetskaiapolitika ravnopraviia…,” 1948: 2. This was a clever formulation, because it didnot demand the recognition of an equal contribution to world culture. A Russianchauvinist was only he who denied other nations any independent contribution.Thus this definition of Russian chauvinism was compatible with a demand torecognise Russian cultural leadership.

37 “Doklad t. Zhdanova…,” 1946: 4–5, 7–8, 10, 12, 16, 18. For the uncorrectedversion of the 15 August speech, see Faiman, “Ispolniteli…,” 1996; parts of theuncorrected version of the 16 August speech have been published in Faiman,“Okonchanie,” 1996. Zhdanov stuck to the same position that he had taken in hisspeech to the First All-Union Congress of Soviet Writers in 1934, where he haddefended Soviet literature against the West not as Russian, but as socialist. SeeLuppol, Rozental’ and Tret’iakov, 1934: 3–5.

38 The garbled version was published in Pravda of 21 September 1946. See Artizovand Naumov, 1999: 787. When Akhmatova met Isaiah Berlin in 1945, Stalincommented privately that she was now visited by “foreign spies.” SeeKostyrchenko, 2000: 88.

39 “Formidable shadows of…,” 1988: 8–9. See also Artizov and Naumov, 1999: 613,618.

40 Simonov, 1988, no.3: 59–61; see also 51, 57. Stalin’s remarks to the pilot Chkalovand others in March 1938 already contained similar sentiments. He repeatedagain and again that “no European or American” could understand the Sovietrespect for heroes, because they only thought in terms of money. “Let us, Soviet

312 Notes

people, not crawl for the Westerners, for the French, for the British, and not tryto win their favour!” See “P’iu za tekh…,” 1998: 85–6.

41 “Vystuplenie tov. A.A…,” 1948: 17–21. The published text of Zhdanov’s speechwas checked by Stalin. See Gromov, 1998: 398.

42 Sochineniia, vol. 7: 88–9; vol. 11: 76–7.43 Sochineniia, vol. 12: 141–2.44 Sochineniia, vol. 1[XIV]: 293.45 Sochineniia, vol. 1[XIV]: 80, 84–5, 92–4.46 Sochineniia, vol. 1[XIV]: 275–7.47 Before the revolution, he expected that “neo-Darwinism” was about to be

replaced by “neo-Lamarckism” because the latter took better account of qualita-tive change in nature (Sochineniia, vol. 1: 301). In 1930, he admitted that from hisyouth he had been “captivated by neo-Lamarckism” (cited in Krementsov, 1997:165.

48 At a congress in February 1935, Lysenko apologised in his speech that he hadnot explained the finer details of genetics and selection better, because he was noorator, only a “vernaliser.” Stalin interrupted him: “Bravo, comr. Lysenko,bravo!” See Izvestiia, 15 February 1935. Later that year, Stalin told another agro-biologist, who had failed to produce a good hybrid: “Experiment more boldly.We will support you.” And he had this message printed in Pravda (cited inJoravsky, 1970: 82). Then again, in February 1936, Stalin intervened at a confer-ence of beacon-light stockbreeders. Against someone who had defended the useof experimental crosses of domestic and wild animals, the leader said: “You’vefallen for exotica, while we need an institute that serves production” (cited inibid.: 98).

49 See Krementsov, 1997: 150f; Medvedev, 1969: 107.50 F.558, op.1, d.5325, pp.66–7. In Stalin’s library there are further traces of the

same viewpoint. In a March 1948 issue of Novyi mir, in which the great role ofRussian scholars in the development of world science was explained, Stalinunderlined passages such as “the works of Michurin, the transformer of nature,”as well as parts lauding Lysenko and Michurin for having shown that hereditywas not fixed like “fate in antiquity” and that plants could be “changed underthe hands of the scholar.” Heredity could be “subjected to the guiding force ofscience.” Summer wheat could be turned into winter wheat and back. See f.558,op.3, d.234, pp.182–5. For another example, we could take a 1950 copy ofEngels’s Anti-Dühring. In this book, Engels defended Darwin against the chargethat the concept “struggle for existence” was inapplicable to nature because ithad been artificially transplanted from Malthus’s population theory. Stalinunderlined a passage in which Engels stressed that Darwin’s theory onlyaccounted for the way selection made some hereditary changes predominantwithin a species and not for how these changes arose in the first place. He alsounderlined Engels’s expression “Lamarck’s merits” used in this context. See ibid.,d.377, p.70. See also MEW, vol. 20: 62–70.

51 Zhdanov, 1993: 69–71.52 For excerpts from the text, see Zhdanov, 1993: 74f; see also Krementsov, 1997: 153.53 Krementsov (1997: 165–6) saw Stalin’s comments, mostly “Ha-ha-ha,”

“Nonsense,” “Get out!” and so on. In his speech, the young Zhdanov made theinsightful remarks that “we communists are by nature more sympathetic to adoctrine that establishes the possibility of the reconstruction, rebuilding of theorganic world, without waiting for sudden, incomprehensible, accidental changesof some mysterious hereditary plasma. It is this aspect of the neo-Lamarckistdoctrine that was emphasised and valued by Comrade Stalin in ‘Anarchism orSocialism.’ ” Stalin commented: “Not only ‘this aspect,’ mister.”

Notes 313

54 This is suggested by Andrei Zhdanov’s notes. Zhdanov, 1993: 82–3; Krementsov,1997: 166–7; “Iz istorii bor’by…,” 1991: 112. For Shepilov on the matter, see“Problemy istorii i…,” 1989: 53–4. See also Kostyrchenko, 2000: 91; Malyshev,1997: 135.

55 “Iz istorii bor’by…,” 1991: 119–21; see also Rossianov, 1994: 53, 57–60;Rossiianov, 1993: 65–6; Krementsov, 1997: 180.

56 In a letter of February 1946 concerning the “question of the partiality [parti-inost’] of military science,” Stalin warned that things should not be put “tooprimitively.” See Sochineniia, vol. 3[XVI]: 33. For Stalin, this problem also hadthe aspect that to divide science too strictly into bourgeois and proletarian cate-gories suggested a strict division between scientists who were party members andthose who were not. In 1951, he told Iurii Zhdanov (1993: 88) that it was wrongto treat being outside the party as an insult. “New relations between partymembers and non-party people have formed in our country.” And he pointed outthat among the “advanced scholars” were non-party people like Michurin,Lysenko and Pavlov. “Party members and non-party people work equally for thegood of the people.” The only precondition was their support for “materialism”and some “communist ideological content.”

57 In May 1950, Stalin told Shepilov that at present there “does not exist a unifiedpolitical economy for all classes of society, but there exist several politicaleconomies: bourgeois political economy, proletarian political economy.” Politicaleconomy was no “neutral, unpartisan science” that might exist “independentfrom the struggle of the classes in society.” The point was only that the classinterest of the proletariat made it face the truth, with the result that its politicaleconomy, in contrast to the bourgeois, was nevertheless “objective.” See Shepilov,1998, no.7: 9–10.

58 The case of the “materialist and innovator” Ol’ga Lepeshinskaia, who refutedexisting cytology and claimed to have found a way of producing cells fromnoncellular living matter, was among the most ludicrous. See Krementsov, 1997:210–11, 221, 280; Joravsky, 1970: 132. In her book, which appeared when Stalinwas still alive, she wrote that the leader had read and approved it. See Medvedev,1969: 135.

59 Krementsov, 1997: 272–5; Karpinsky, 1987; Rossianov, 1994: 61; Kojevnikov,1998: 27, 45; Tolz, 1997: 137.

60 Tucker, 1972: 143, 146–7.61 See Esakov and Levina, 1994, no.2: 56–61; Krementsov, 1997: 131f. For an

earlier complaint by Stalin in February 1946 that Russian military men,following Engels but without reason, looked up to German military science, seeSochineniia, vol. 3[XVI]: 31–2, 34.

62 According to the notes of D.T. Shepilov (1998, no. 5: 25), Stalin called the “inter-nationalisation of science” an “idea of spies” at a Politburo session in June 1948.

63 Rapoport, 1988: 103–4; Esakov and Levina, 1994, no.2: 62–3.64 Esakov and Levina, 1994, no.2: 66–9. See also Gromov, 1998: 423.65 See “Protiv burzhuaznoi ideologii…,” 1948: 14, 22–4; see also Zvorykin, 1948:

23; “Bor’ba bol’shevistskoi partii…,” 1948: 4–5; Rozental’, 1948: 57–8; Frantsev,1948: 46–8. In 1950, Stalin told Malyshev (1997: 139) that Soviet ships shouldnot be “blindly” copied from American and British types, because the probableconditions of battle were different.

14 Socialist in content, national in form1 Stalin repeated this once again in 1927, making a distinction between the forma-

tion of the “autocratic system” in Russia and of the “centralised multinationalstates.” See Sochineniia, vol. 9: 176.

314 Notes

2 Sochineniia, vol. 7: 136–42. At the Twelfth Party Congress, Stalin had concludedsimilarly: “A specific national life must stay in the republics and it will stay. Themore we go forward, the more nationalities there will come.” See “Iz istorii obra-zovaniia…,” 1991, no.5: 165.

3 Sochineniia, vol. 10: 150–1.4 Artizov and Naumov, 1999: 102.5 Sochineniia, vol. 11: 333, 336, 338–9, 343–5, 347–9. Stalin’s library contains a

1906 collection of some of Marx’s writings. It has a small piece by Kautsky, witha remark that another revolutionary crisis in Austria–Hungary would havedoomed the Czech nation to Germanisation. Stalin commented: “Nonsense!Rubbish! Revolutionary explosions do not kill but awaken nations, arouse themto life.” Kautsky’s further statement that four million Czechs could never main-tain their national identity among 40 million Germans provoked Stalin’s:“Nonsense!” See f.558, op.3, d.208, pp.446–8. In 1950, Stalin repeated thatnations grew from more primitive narodnosti, nationalities, during the liquidationof feudal fragmentation and the appearance of capitalism (Sochineniia, vol.3[XVI]: 122–3).

6 Stalin further explained that one of the reasons why languages in the USSRcould not fuse prior to the arrival of world socialism was that substantialsections of the Ukrainian, White Russian and other populations lived in territo-ries not held by the Soviet authority. He also noted that the unified worldlanguage of the future “will, of course, not be Great Russian, or German, butsomething new.” See Sochineniia, vol. 12: 362f, 368, 371; vol. 13: 3–7. See alsoArtizov and Naumov, 1999: 102; “U nas malo…,” 1991: 102.

7 Sochineniia, vol. 8: 151–3.8 Union republics could theoretically withdraw from the USSR, and autonomous

republics from the union republics. In the course of the years, Stalin theoreticallyconfirmed more than once that the right to secession remained valid for allpeoples of the USSR, although he was adamantly opposed to its actual use. See,for instance, Sochineniia, vol. 5: 242–3; vol. 6: 49, 139–44; vol. 10: 125.

9 Sochineniia, vol. 1[XIV]: 172–4.10 Latyshev, 1992; see also Tucker, 1990: 482.11 Studenikina, 1957: 472–3, 737–9.12 Malyshev, 1997: 114.13 See Simon, 1986: 46–9, 71–3, 145–52, 178; Löwenhardt, Ozinga and van Ree,

1992: 136. See also Chuev, 1991: 276; Talbott, 1970: 106.14 See Baranova and Rozyeva, 1977: 116, 119; Shapoval, 1999: 122. For many

Soviet languages, the Cyrillic alphabet was substituted for the Latin for “reasonsof economic and political efficiency.” It would enable people to learn Russianmore easily. See Simon, 1986: 60–2, 178–9; Vdovin, 1992: 31.

15 Simon, 1986: 175–8.16 On 21 February 1936, Stalin addressed a letter to the Politburo in which he

objected to the use in the press of the term konkurs instead of the originalRussian sorevnovanie for competition; see f.71, op.10, d.130, ll.88–9.

17 See Simon, 1986: 106, 171; see also Khoroshkevich, 1991: 88.18 Sochineniia, vol. 2[XV]: 161–2. See also vol. 1[XIV]: 114–15, 367. In December

1935, he condemned all efforts to “make one people – the Russian people – hege-monic, and all other peoples – subjugated, suppressed.” He called this a “brutal,wolfish policy” and proclaimed himself in favour of a “policy of friendship, apolicy of brotherhood between the peoples of our country.” See Sochineniia, vol.1[XIV]: 114–15. The interesting point about this is that he failed to mentionRussian leadership at all.

19 Sochineniia, vol. 2[XV]: 203. In his famous February 1946 speech, when Stalinnoted proudly that the multinational Soviet state had succeeded where

Notes 315

Austria–Hungary had failed, he again attributed this only to the “brotherly co-operation between the peoples of our state” without mentioning Russianleadership; see ibid., vol. 3[XVI]: 7–8. Perhaps Stalin failed on many occasions tomention Russian leadership because that leadership could only be justified by thecontinuing backwardness of the other Soviet nations – which reflected badly onStalin’s own leadership. See Vdovin, 1992: 29–33; Simon, 1986: 172–3.

20 Vyshinksii, 1947: 29–30.21 To my knowledge, Stalin used it for the first time in February 1938. See

Sochineniia, vol. 1[XIV]: 271.22 In one of his conversations with Djilas (1969: 122), Stalin explained that

“people” signified “the workers of a given nation, that is, workers of the samelanguage, culture, customs.” He must have said “toilers,” which also covered thepeasants and intellectuals. But in any case Stalin used the term “people” here assignifying the population of a nation minus its exploiting class. It did not refer toa specific type or nationality.

23 See Clark, 1995: 204–23; Tolz, 1997: 89–107; Medvedev, 1997: 110–12;Kojevnikov, 1998: 45–7; Chikobava, 1950; Gorbanevskii, 1988.

24 Medvedev, 1997: 112–13; Gorbanevskii, 1988; Tolz, 1997: 106; Kojevnikov, 1998:48.

25 It has been noted that Stalin’s critique of Marr’s concept of the class determina-tion of language and of the development of new languages through “crossing”was not new compared with conclusions that Chikobava and others had reachedbefore him; see Gorbanevskii, 1988. But although he was helped by Chikobavaand academician Vinogradov, the leader wrote the articles himself. Themanuscript has been found. See Rossianov, 1994: 55, 61–62. See also Medvedev,1997: 113–4; Radzinsky, 1996: 547–8. Moreover, Stalin’s library still shows somesigns of his work on the subject. It contains a volume of the Bol’shaia sovetskaiaentsiklopediia of 1931 in which articles dedicated to “Language,” “Linguistics”and “Japhetic theory” are heavily underlined. See f.558, op.3, d.19, pp.378–416,810–27. He also marked a passage in a Russian translation of The GermanIdeology to the effect that some languages, like English, had come about through“crossing [skrechivanie] and mixing of nations.” See ibid.: d.210, p.414. Alreadyin 1898 Filipp Makharadze had polemicised in Kvali against Marr’s thesis of theorigin of languages in equal mixtures of two earlier ones. See Makharadze, 1960:29–30. We do not know whether Stalin remembered this.

26 In the faraway future of world socialism the crossing of languages would beresumed, but not through the capitalist mechanism of assimilation but through areal fusion of tongues – through zonal languages to one world language, whichwould not be Russian but a new one (Sochineniia, vol. 3[XVI]: 118, 131–3, 138,142–3, 168–9). According to Molotov, Stalin thought that with the worldwidevictory of communism Russian would become the “main language on the planet,the language of inter-national [mezhnatsional’noe] communication.” See Chuev,1991: 269. But this probably means that Russian would become initially the mainzonal language, with some kind of global function.

27 Mordinov and Sanzheev, 1951: 38–9.28 Poskrebyshev, 1952.29 Sochineniia, vol. 3[XVI]: 169.30 He also underlined a passage to the effect that the party comprised proletarians

of “all nationalities of Russia” and that “it will take all measures for the destruc-tion of the national barriers erected between them.” Furthermore, he marked apassage to the effect that “taken by themselves the so-called ‘national interests’and ‘national demands’ have no particular value” and were only interesting in sofar as they furthered class consciousness. See f.558, op.3, d.330, pp.7, 12; see alsoSochineniia, vol. 1: 37, 42.

316 Notes

31 The 1946 edition of the Kratkii kurs mentioned it as deplorable that in thenational regions of tsarist Russia “all or almost all state positions were taken byRussian officials” and that Russian had been the language used for “all matters”in the courts and other institutions. It had been forbidden to publish books andnewspapers in the national languages, and in schools it had been forbidden toteach in the native language. The tsarist government had tried to strangle“national culture” and had carried out a “policy of violent ‘Russification’ of thenon-Russian nationalities.” See Istoriia kommunisticheskoi partii…, 1946: 6.

32 Sochineniia, vol. 13: 264–5.33 F.558, op.4, d.612, ll.4–6.34 See Frantsev, 1948: 45; Blagoi, 1951: 34; Tsamerian, 1951: 58.35 In the 1950 speech by Bykov, edited by Stalin, it was suggested that conditioned

reflexes might in time turn into unconditional, hereditary ones. But even if thiswere the case, new environmental stimuli would again change heredity. Thetheory can never end up with fixed hereditary racial traits.

36 Sochineniia, vol. 6: 186.37 To show his orthodoxy, Stalin quoted from Lenin’s article “On the national pride

of the Great Russians,” which had said the same thing (Sochineniia, vol. 13:24–6). See also ibid.: 110–11. When in 1936 Bukharin called the pre-revolu-tionary Russians a “nation of Oblomovs,” Pravda immediately rebuked him. SeeVdovin, 1992: 28.

38 In his speech on the Kratkii kurs of September 1938, he told his audience that hehad read Franz Mehring’s history of German social democracy. He concludedthat there was little to write about in that history. The German social democratshad their “moments of pathos,” but it did not amount to much. “Compare thishistorical material…with the material of our party” (f.71, op.10, d.130, l.113).

39 Sochineniia, vol. 2[XV]: 203–4.40 Artizov and Naumov, 1999: 445–6.41 Senokosov, 1989: 502. In May 1940, Stalin had reproached his officers that they

had shown less concern for the well-being of their men in the Finnish war thanCount Kutuzov, who visited his soldiers to see how they were doing and what theyhad to eat (Malyshev, 1997: 110). But soldiers could not avoid suffering. As Stalinnoted in 1952: “Jesus Christ also suffered, and even carried his cross, and then herose up to heaven. You, then, have to suffer too, in order to rise up to heaven”(ibid.: 138). In 1950, he wrote the following angry comment in a book on Lenin:“For Pospelov. What is this: Lenin was a patriot and Suvorov was a patriot andPeter the First was a patriot – wasn’t there a difference?” See f.558, op.1, d.5166.

42 In 1946, Stalin reminded Malyshev (1997: 131) that, in his days as an under-ground worker in Baku, he had known an engineer who after his studies workedas a worker for some time and became dirty like them. That was the real spirit.

43 See a 1938 Bol’shevik article, quoted by Terry Martin in Fitzpatrick, 2000: 349;Blagoi, 1951: 36–7. Martin (pp.348f) sees the late Stalinist analysis of the“primordial” Russian character as breaking with the older notion that nationswere modern constructs. However, the battles against foreign enemies from thethirteenth century onwards were part of the historical process of creation of themodern nation, a process that had its roots in this period in Western Europe too.

44 See Fadeev, 1947: 20, 22, 24, 27, 30, 32; Golomstock, 1990: 142–43; Zvorykin, 1948:24, 40; “Za bol’shevistskuiu partiinost’…,”1948: 3–4, 6; Iovchuk, 1948: 201, 204–6.

45 Cited in Brandenberger and Dubrovsky, 1998: 875.46 Sochineniia, vol. 1[XIV]: 37–8.47 Sochineniia, vol. 2[XV]: 5–6, 22, 24, 35.48 See Artizov, “V ugodu vzgliadam…,” 1991: 125, 130–1; Khoroshkevich, 1991:

88–89; Il’ina, 1991: 197–8; see also Simon, 1986: 209.49 Ivanov, 1988: 54–5.

Notes 317

50 Il’ina, 1991: 198–200, 202–3.51 See Ivanov, 1988; Il’ina, 1991; Amiantov and Tikhonova, 1996.52 See Il’ina, 1991: 189. See also Morozov, 1945: 74, 79–80.53 See Zhukov, 1995: 27; “O sotsialisticheskom soderzhanii…,” 1946: 6. See also

Simon, 1986: 235–9; Barghoorn, 1956: 62–4; Conquest, 1967: 66–7, 82–3;Marples, 1992: 88.

54 Sochineniia, vol. 13: 28. These words were made public at the VIIIth All-UnionCongress of Soviets in November 1936 by Molotov. See Izvestiia, 30 November1936. In Knorin’s and Iaroslavskii’s 1935 History of the VKP(b) it was written thatthe tsars organised Jewish pogroms to make the nationalities fight among them-selves. Stalin commented in the margin: “Correct” (tak); see f.558, op.3, d.74, p.8.

55 In 1949, he told Enver Hoxha (1979: 121): “Religion has nothing to do withnationality and statehood.”

56 See Stalin’s meeting in December 1941 with Polish leaders and a later one withRoosevelt. Pinkus, 1988: 140, 341; Bohlen, 1973: 203.

57 Chuev, 1992: 106, 128, 174–5.58 Chuev, 1991: 274. See also Baschanow, 1977: 70; Allilueva, 1967: 150, 174–5; 1969:

133; Talbott, 1970: 263, 269, 292–3. See also Kirillova and Shepeleva, 1992: 76.59 See Simon, 1986: 46, 50; Vaksberg, 1995: 83; Pinkus, 1988: 81–3.60 When he made friends with Hitler in August 1939, Stalin no longer trusted Jews

to carry out his foreign policy. He ordered Molotov: “Remove the Jews from thenarkomat.” See Chuev, 1991: 274; see also Korey, 1972: 117.

61 Pinkus, 1988: 140–1; Luks, 1997: 23–4; Korey, 1972: 117–18; Vaksberg, 1995:134–8; Iakovlev, 1998: 49; Liuks, 1999: 45; Gromov, 1998: 349f.

62 Redlich, 1995: 65, 214, 248–9, 285–6, 290–1, 296, 298–300; Korey, 1972: 117.63 Redlich, 1995: 366, 368.64 Redlich, 1995: 422, 424–9, 433, 451f (especially 454, 456–9).65 For official Soviet definitions of the Jews as a community in a process of assimi-

lation, see Pinkus, 1988: 57; BSE, second edition, vol. 15: 377.66 Erenburg, 1948.67 Talbott, 1970: 260.68 “Ob odnoi antipatrioticheskoi…,” 1949. Stalin scrapped the term “bourgeois”

from the heading and retained only “anti-patriotic.” See Kostyrchenko, 1994:52–3; Zhukov, 1995: 33. For the prehistory of the article, see also Dunmore,1984: 135–6; Simonov, 1956: 251; Ehrenburg, 1966: 133; Vaksberg, 1995: 204–5.

69 See Pinkus, 1988: 155; Vaksberg, 1995: 204.70 “Razvivat’ i kul’tivirovat’…,” 1949: 6, 8, 11; Chernov, 1949: 34–6.71 Murashko et al., 1997: 565, 582.72 Ehrenburg, 1966: 133.73 Simonov, 1988, no. 4: 85; see also Vaksberg, 1995: 207; Gromov, 1998: 347–8.74 Luks, 1997: 38; Pinkus, 1988: 156, 159.75 Subkowa, 1998: 228.76 Chuev, 1991: 189, 331, 473, 475.77 Krzhishtalovich, 1992: 103.78 Allilueva, 1967: 182–3; see also ibid., 1969: 134–5.79 See Pinkus, 1988: 179; Vaksberg, 1995: 242–7; Kostyrchenko, 1994: 71.80 Bezymenskii, “Zaveshchanie Stalina?” 1998.81 “‘Ego lichnost’ govorila…,” 1999: 188. This quotation of Stalin’s words by

Kollontai is taken from Pravda, 2–4 June 1998, which I did not have available.

15 Did Stalin “betray the world revolution?”1 PSS, vol. 35: 245, 248, 251, 254.2 Protokoly Tsentral’nogo komiteta…, 1958: 171–2, 199, 202–4, 212–13, 215–17, 224.

318 Notes

3 “Deiatel’nost’ Tsentral’nogo komiteta…,” 1989, no.4: 142–4.4 See “‘Ia proshu zapisyvat’…,” 1992: 15–16.5 Socheinenia, vol. 4: 324, 333, 339–41.6 Trotskii, 1947: 328; Tucker, 1974: 203; Service, 1995: 120, 137; Mints, 1989: 43;

Deviataia konferentsiia RKP(b)…, 1972: 61, 77, 79, 82; “‘Ia proshuzapisyvat’…,” 1992: 27; Service, 1995: 141.

7 A passage on the future “World Soviet Republic” in a 1920 copy of a work byKarl Radek on world revolution apparently appealed to him, because hecommented in the margin: “A unified world economy.” See f.558, op.3, d.299,p.19. See also Sochineniia, vol. 5: 158, 273; vol. 6: 148; vol. 10: 244; vol. 11: 203,343; vol. 13: 105.

8 PSS, vol. 41: 164.9 Lenin, Sochineniia, vol. XXV: 287, 624. In April 1923, Stalin said that in

response to his reaction “comr. Lenin sent a threatening letter – this is chau-vinism, nationalism, we need a central[ised] world economy, administered fromone organ.” This letter has not been found. See “Iz istorii obrazovanii…,” 1991,no.4: 171, 175.

10 Sochineniia, vol. 4: 160, 163–6, 168, 171–3, 177–8, 181, 232, 280, 395; vol. 7: 95;vol. 8: 109, 184; vol. 9: 28; vol. 11: 151; vol. 12: 255. See also Stalin, November1918. Paraphrasing Kautsky’s remarks of 1902, he wrote in July 1921 that theroles of Russia and Europe had reversed. No longer was the former a bulwark ofreaction and the latter of revolution – it was now rather the other way around.Because of the October Revolution, the Russian workers had turned from a meredetachment of the international proletariat into its “advance guard.” See ibid.,vol. 5: 73, 82–3. See also 106, 178–80.

11 Sochineniia, vol. 6: 78–9; vol. 10: 169, 247. In a 1920 copy of Zinov’ev’s War andthe Crisis of Socialism, Stalin read that the foreign wars of France had turned the1789 revolution into a national movement. Stalin commented: “The same mustand can be said in the chapter about the civil war of Soviet Russia.” See f.558,op.3, d.68, p.19.

12 See, for instance, Trotskii, 1993: 109–10; Drabkin et al., 1998: 682.13 See Tucker, 1990: 45–9.14 Sochineniia, vol. 6: 396, 399–400.15 Sochineniia, vol. 7: 91–2; vol. 8: 97.16 Sochineniia, vol. 8: 263.17 Sochineniia, vol. 12: 303.18 Sochineniia, vol. 3[XVI]: 54.19 Sochineniia, vol. 3[XVI]: 77, 86.20 Sochineniia, vol. 3[XVI]: 166. Bol’shevik wrote explicitly that the capitalist encir-

clement still existed because the danger of intervention was still there. SeeMikheev, 1951: 61.

21 Sochineniia, vol. 10: 51. See also Stalin’s remarks in May 1928 (Vatlin, 1999: 104).22 Sochineniia, vol. 7: 296; vol. 10: 288–91; see also vol. 6: 239; vol. 12: 260; vol. 13:

299. The term “peaceful co-existence” was an old one. Chicherin used it in 1920when he hailed the Soviet–Estonian peace treaty. See Goodman, 1960: 166.

23 Sochineniia, vol. 6: 72–6, 95, 156–7. See also vol. 7: 262–3.24 Sochineniia, vol. 6: 359, 369–70, 398. In a 1920 work of Radek, Stalin wrote the

following explanation of the respective success and failure of the Russian 1917and German 1919 revolutions: “In Russia the workers and soldiers joined up(because peace had not been achieved), but in Germany they did not becausethere peace had already been reached.” See f.558, op.3, d.299, p.55. In a 1920copy of Zinov’ev’s War and the Crisis of Socialism, Stalin commented “Withoutthis defeat [of Russia against Japan in 1905] there would not have been a RussianRevolution either.” See f.558, op.3, d.68, p.47.

Notes 319

25 Sochineniia, vol. 7: 26–7. See also vol. 10: 47f.26 Sochineniia, vol. 13: 294, 297–8; vol. 1[XIV]: 338; see also vol. 9: 106–8.27 Sochineniia, vol. 7: 13–14.28 Sochineniia, vol. 6: 71–2, 80, 84–5. In a 1906 collection of writings of Marx,

Stalin read that, since 1789, the working class was time and again defeated. Hecommented: “Because of their disarmament.” See f.558, op.3, d.208, p.5.

29 Sochineniia, vol. 8: 161, 164–5.30 Kosheleva et al., 1995: 155; see also 140.31 Sochineniia, vol. 10: 241.32 In a 1930 copy of an article by Engels, in which the latter wrote that he could

imagine a peaceful development of socialism in France and the United States,although not in Germany, Stalin commented in the margin: “Can we imaginethat? No, that’s incorrect!” See f.558, op.3, d.211, p.64. In April 1933, the leaderread an article by F. Heckert, “What is happening in Germany?” The authorwrote that the bourgeoisie “had started shooting first,” which had brought “allquestions of the revolutionary class struggle” to the attention of the workers.Stalin found this formulation not strong enough. He deleted it and wrote that thefascist onslaught “reduces to dust the social democratic illusions on the possi-bility of a peaceful development and once again shows that violence is the main‘argument’ of the bourgeoisie.” See ibid., op.1, d.4010, l.1. Also among Stalin’spersonal notes, scribbled in his “blocnotes” in the 1930s, Volkogonov (1995, vol.1: 187, 264) found the sentence: “Reformism means to forget the final goal andthe fundamental means for reaching the final goal, i.e. the dictatorship of theproletariat.”

33 Sochineniia, vol. 1[XIV]: 15–6, 34.34 F.558, op.1, d.5380, l.8. In a 1940 draft of the textbook of political economy,

Stalin wrote the following comment: “under capitalism [v nedrakh kapitalizma]there can arise and develop only elements of the socialist mode of production,subjective and objective.” See f.558, op.3, d.263, p.278.

35 See Sochineniia, vol. 7: 35, 52–3, 56, 91, 93–4, 96. In a 1924 copy of the steno-graphic report of the Thirteenth Party Congress, he made extensive notes inZinov’ev’s speech. The latter noted that the recent uprisings in Hamburg, Cracowand Sofia were signs of a new wave of international revolution. Stalin wrote ahesitant “Mda…” next to it. Later, Zinov’ev noted that the period was fastapproaching when the Comintern would be stronger than the SecondInternational had been during its heyday. To this Stalin commented: “At themoment this is not true: we entered a period of collecting forces.” See f.558, op.3,d.355, pp.39, 63.

36 Kosheleva et al., 1995: 63–4.37 Sochineniia, vol. 11: 298–9; vol. 12: 21, 254.38 Sochineniia, vol. 13: 283, 293.39 See PSS, vol. 41: 35–6, 71–3, 77, 95–6.40 Kun, 1933: 299–302.41 Sochineniia, vol. 5: 118–19.42 Babichenko, 1994: 129–30; see also Claudin, 1975: 135–6.43 “‘Naznachit’ revoliutsiiu v…,” 1995: 117–18, 124, 126.44 Firsov, 1987: 118–19; Babichenko, 1994: 132, 134.45 Furthermore, “reforms are only a means and a stage to the main goal” and “the

reforms themselves are realised and become durable only in that case when thestruggle for the main goal is not only waged, but is also the main element of themovement” (f.558, op.3, d.309, inside front page, title page, pp.18, 44, back page).

46 Firsov, 1987: 121–3; see also McDermott and Agnew, 1996: 50.47 Sochineniia, vol. 6: 153. See also vol. 7: 36; vol. 10: 249–50.48 Sochineniia, vol. 6: 282.

320 Notes

49 Degras, 1971: 44. See also Sochineniia, vol. 12: 252. Stalin attached particularimportance to the term “social fascism.” On several occasions, he added it toComintern statements. For example, he added in his own hand a passage to thetheses of the ECCI plenum of July 1929 to the effect that particular attentionshould be paid to the struggle against the “‘left’ wing of social democracy”because that wing held up the disintegration of social democracy while in factsupporting the “policy of soc. fascism in all possible ways.” He also added apassage to Manuil’skii’s speech for the ECCI plenum of March 1931 to the effectthat “the liberation of the masses of the workers from the influence of socialdemocracy” was the immediate task of the communist parties, “without the reali-sation of which the successful struggle of the proletariat for its liberation fromthe chains of capitalism is impossible.” See Firsov, 1989, no.9: 7.

50 No direct evidence exists that Stalin ever wanted a Nazi government, but in 1931he said to German communist leader Heinz Neumann: “Don’t you believe,Neumann, that if the Nationalists seize power in Germany they will be socompletely preoccupied with the West that we’ll be able to build up socialism inpeace?” (cited in Tucker, 1990: 231).

51 Weingartner, 1970: 53–9; Carr, 1982: 32–3, 37.52 Firsov, 1989, no.9: 9–10; McDermott and Agnew, 1996: 122; Carr, 1982: 85–6.53 F.558, op.1, d.4010, ll.1–2; see also Smirnov, 1989.54 See Firsov, 1989, no. 9: 11.55 Denchev and Meshcheriakov, 1991: 65.56 And not only the people were found wanting. “Neumann doesn’t understand

Marxism,” Stalin told Dimitrov. This “political degenerate” had once asked himwhat to read to become a good Marxist. Stalin had advised him Das Kapital, buthe had found that too long and “boring.” And Thälmann “doesn’t understandthe national question. I spoke with him already in 1930. He didn’t understandit.” What he did not understand was “proletarian internationalism”: “nationalindependence through social liberation.” See Denchev and Meshcheriakov, 1991:67–8, 72.

57 On 20 May, Dimitrov noted in his diary: “A talk with Stalin on the French ques-tion (very discontented). In France the united front also ‘from above.’ ” SeeDenchev and Meshcheriakov, 1991: 70–2; see also Firsov, 1989, no. 9: 11;McDermott and Agnew, 1996: 125; Claudin, 1975: 175; Carr, 1982: 126–7;Kosheleva et al., 1995: 252.

58 Firsov, 1989, no. 9: 12; Dallin and Firsov, 2000: 13–14. See also Shirinia, 1979:41–2; McDermott and Agnew, 1996: 126; Haslam, 1984: 55–6; Hochman, 1984:83–4; Carr, 1982: 128.

59 Sochineniia, vol. 1[XIV]: 26.60 See McDermott and Agnew, 1996: 126–7; Haslam, 1984: 56–7; Carr, 1982: 145;

Tucker, 1990: 339.61 Stalin discussed the main report in advance with Manuil’skii and Dimitrov. See

Firsov, 1989, no. 9: 13. During the congress, he wrote to Molotov that it wasproceeding well, and that it would become even more interesting after Dimitrov’sand Togliatti’s speeches. The draft resolutions were also fine in his opinion. SeeKosheleva et al., 1995: 252.

62 Degras, 1971: 361–5; see also 356. VII Kongress der…, 1939: 174, 177–8.63 In March 1937, Stalin told Dimitrov that a Spanish proletarian revolution was

for now impossible. There was no war between the capitalist states and no majordifferences among the bourgeoisie as there had been in Russia in 1917. To defendthe “democratic republic” was the task of the day (Bayerlein, 2000: 155).

64 The strategic place he assigned to Asia is suggested in notes he made in a 1924copy of Trotskii’s Tasks in the East. In this work, the latter wrote that there couldbe no full liberation of the eastern colonies without a prior proletarian revolu-

Notes 321

tion in Europe. Stalin had his doubts. He wrote a hesitating “Mda…” in themargin. But Trotskii also wrote that, if opportunism remained dominant in theEuropean revolutionary movement, Asia would teach Europe a lesson. The revo-lutionary centre of the world would move to Asia. Stalin did not agree. Hecommented: “Fool! With the existence of the Sov. Union the centre cannot be inthe East.” See f.558, op.3, d.358, pp.II, 38.

65 See PSS, vol. 41: 166, 243–4; Kun, 1933: 317–23.66 See PSS, vol. 10: 11, 13, 18, 137–8; vol. 11: 47, 64; vol. 12: 317–18, 320. See also

KPSS, vol. 1: 77–8.67 Drabkin et al., 1998: 215–16.68 Sochineniia, vol. 6: 82–3, 99, 101.69 Sochineniia, vol. 6: 142–4, 146.70 F.558, op.4, d.598, ll.5–8.71 Sochineniia, vol. 7: 50.72 Sochineniia, vol. 8: 358–61, 365–7.73 Sochineniia, vol. 9: 226, 229, 237, 242, 244–8, 250–2, 259, 262, 265, 267, 294.74 Sochineniia, vol. 9: 237, 250; see also 253, 264, 303–5, 308.75 Sochineniia, vol. 9: 301.76 One sees this element appearing earlier. For example, in the draft outline for

Stalin’s series of speeches on Leninism in March 1924 one finds the followingunder the heading “Dictatorship of the proletariat”: “b) Dictatorship of theproletariat and the peasantry, its class content, its organisational form (provi-sional government); c) dictatorship of the proletariat, its class content, itsorganisational form (soviets).” See f.558, op.1, d.2609, l.2.

77 See McDermott and Agnew, 1996: 174–9.78 Kosheleva et al., 1995: 104, 111–14, 116; see also 108, 117.79 Sochineniia, vol. 9: 333, 340–4, 357; vol. 10: 12, 14, 156–7.80 In August 1929, Stalin wrote to Molotov that Moscow should “undermine the

authority of the government of Chiang Kai-shek, as a government of lackeys ofimperialism.” To unmask Chiang was important for the “cause of the revolu-tionary education of the colonial workers.” See Kosheleva et al., 1995: 155–6.

81 Stalin scribbled the following comment on a December 1933 letter by Emel’ianIaroslavskii: “Now, after the appearance of Sov. power under the conditions…ofmonopoly capitalism the bourgeoisie can play a certain rev. role only in rare cases(for inst. in some colonies) and that not for long.” See f.558, op.1, d.5090.

82 Shirinia, 1979: 105; Shirinia, Sobolev and Firsov, 1975: 205, 377–8; Sobolev etal., 1972: 276, 278.

83 Sobolev et al., 1972: 277–85; Degras, 1971: 348; Shirinia, 1979: 102, 253–60;Haslam, 1992: 59, 64–6, 70–87. In November 1936, Stalin told Dimitrov thatnothing would come of the Chinese soviets. It was now time to create a “nationalrevolutionary government…, a government of national defence” (Bayerlein,2000: 135).

84 Maslov, 1994: 13. Stalin referred to Lenin’s remarks from 1915. In 1918, thelatter scribbled the following note: “First conquer the bourgeoisie in Russia, thenfight with the external, foreign, outside bourgeoisie” (cited in Tucker, 1990: 225).

85 Bezymenskii, “Sekretnyi pakt s…,” 1998: 31.86 Bushueva, 1994: 232–3.87 See Bushueva, 1994: 232–3; Bezymenskii, “Sovetsko–germanskie dogovory…,”

1998: 3–4; Volkogonov, 1993; Jäckel, 1958; Bonvech, 1998: 22; Afanas’ev, 1996:63. See also Sochineniia, vol. 1[XIV]: 404; “Posetiteli Kremlevskogo kabineta…,”1995: 48; Khlevniuk et al., 1995: 252; Leonhard, 1986: 23; Bondarenko et al.,1990: 276; Sontag and Beddie, 1948: 64–5.

88 Leonhard, 1986: 27.

322 Notes

89 Firsov, 1992: 18–19. On 9 September, Stalin told Dimitrov that he was happywith the position of “an observer in a war between two imperialist groupings.”See Bezymenskii, 1995: 128–9.

90 Cited in Firsov, 1992: 24–6; “Komintern i sovetsko–germanskii dogovor…,”1989: 210; Narinskii, “Kreml’ i Komintern…,” 1995: 16; Sirkov, 1995: 60. On 7November 1939, Stalin told Dimitrov that the bolshevik slogan to transformthe First World War into a civil war had been fitting only for Russia, “where theworkers were linked with the peasants and, under the conditions of tsarism,could undertake an attack by storm against the bourgeoisie.” The Europeanworkers could never have accepted the slogan of civil war, because they “hadreceived some democratic reforms from the bourgeoisie and were attached tothese.” See Mar’ina, 2000: 39–40.

91 See Sochineniia, vol. 1[XIV]: 404.92 Firsov, 1992: 26; Lebedeva et al., 1994: 171. For the article, see Degras, 1971:

448f.93 Firsov, 1992: 28.94 Senokosov, 1989: 503.95 In the first period after signing the pact he may have considered taking his bets

on the German side. At this time he had a higher appreciation of the abilities ofthe Nazis than of their adversaries. On 7 November, he told Dimitrov: “Thepetit bourgeois nationalists of Germany are capable of [making] a sharp turn.They are flexible, not linked to capitalist traditions – in contrast to bourgeoisleaders of the type of Chamberlain etc.” See Firsov, 1992: 26. During theCentral Committee plenum of March 1940 on the Finnish war according toDimitrov’s notes, Stalin said: “We will not only bring the White Finns to theirknees, but also their teachers – the French, the British, the Italians, theGermans!” (Mar’ina, 2000: 41).

96 Brandenberger, “Lozhnye ustanovki v…,” 1997: 87, 92–3; see also Bordiugov,1995: 154–5.

97 Dongarov, 1991: 39; see also Mel’tiukhov, 1994: 9; Raack, 1995: 24, 26. See alsoZhdanov’s remarks in October 1940: Nekrich, 1997: 230; Nevezhin, 1993: 26;Bordiugov, 1995: 157.

98 Raack, 1995: 73; Raak, 1996: 42–3.99 Nevezhin, “Sobiralsia li Stalin…,” 1995: 81; Nevezhin, “Rech’ Stalina 5…,”

1995: 65. For similar remarks by the economist Varga a few days later, seeVolkogonov, 1989, book 2, vol. 1: 127–8.

100 Pechenkin, 1995: 27–8, 30. This version of the speech and the toast were made byan official of the Commissariat of Defence who was, presumably, present at theoccasion. For other versions, see Enver Muratov 1993; Vishlev, 1998: 85–9;Nevezhin, “Rech’Stalina 5…,”1995: 55–6; Khoffman, 1993: 22–3; Vishlev, 1999.

101 Chuev, 1991: 45.102 Gorianin, 1997: 9.103 Mel’tiukhov, 1995: 70–1, 76, 79–81; Nevezhin, “Rech’ Stalina 5…,” 1995: 58,

61, 63, 67; Nevezhin, “Sobiralsia li Stalin…,” 1995: 80, 82; Mel’tiukhov, 1995:76–7, 79–80, 82; “Upriamye fakty nachala…,” 1992: 15; Bordiugov, 1995: 68,78; Nevezhin, 1996: 66–7, 69; Nekrich, 1997: 232. For a complete overview ofsuch statements, see Nevezhin, 1997: 186f.

16 Revolutionary patriotism1 Bondarenko et al., 1990: 321.2 Brügel, 1973: 136; see also Bezymenskii, 1999.3 Cited in Narinskii, “Kreml’ i Komintern…,” 1995: 16–7; 1998: 83.

Notes 323

4 Gorlov, 1990: 40; Komplektov et al., 1990: 76–7, 144, 353–4; see also 140; Orlov,1990: 48.

5 Narinskii, 1998: 83.6 Firsov, 1992: 28.7 Stalin emphasised that the decision to start the war last winter had not been a

rash one. He had been afraid that the war in the West would soon be over:

It would be a big stupidity, political shortsightedness, to let the momentpass and not to attempt as quickly as possible, when war is still going onthere in the West, to put the matter of the security of Leningrad and resolveit. To postpone this matter a month or two would mean to postpone thismatter for perhaps 20 years…. They are doing some fighting of a kind overthere, but it is a kind of weak war: are they making war or playing cards?

See Stalin, 1996.8 Mamedov et al., 1995: 395; see also 578. For the discussions with Cripps, see also

Sipols, 1992.9 The directives of 9 November were written in Molotov’s own hand, but Lev

Bezymenskii (1995: 132) argues that they seem to have been dictated, in whichcase only Stalin could have been doing the dictating.

10 Mamedov et al., 1998, part 1: 30–2.11 Gorlov, “Perepiska V.M. Molotova…,” 1992: 20. For Molotov in Berlin, see

Gorlov, “Peregovory V.M. Molotova…,” 1992; Volkov, 1997; Sevost’ianov, 1993;Bezymenskii, 1995.

12 Mamedov et al., 1998: 136–7. For Stalin’s comments on this to Dimitrov, seeBezymenskii, 1995: 142.

13 Rzheshevskii, 1994: 91–2. See also N.I. Egorova in Chubar’ian et al., 1997: 294–5.14 Narinskii, 1998: 86–7.15 Narinskii, 1998: 89; Kennedy-Pipe, 1995: 46. See also Berezhkov, 1998.16 Pechatnov, 1999: 75. Stalin also became afraid that the diplomatic contact with

the Western powers would create undesirable respect for foreign statesmen. Hecomplained that many responsible officials were gratified when they were praisedby Churchill or Truman. “I consider such moods dangerous, because they helpdevelop a crawling attitude towards foreigners among us. We must carry out afierce struggle against the crawling attitude towards foreigners.” See ibid.: 82.

17 According to Molotov, they had also been day-dreaming about Alaska, but “thetime for such tasks had not yet arrived.” See Chuev, 1991: 14, 100.

18 Malyshev, 1997: 136.19 See Narinskii, 1998: 91–2; Chuev, 1991: 103–4; see also Zubok and Pleshakov,

1996: 92–3, 96.20 Sochineniia, vol. 2[XV]: 21.21 Murashko et al., 1997: 413–14; see also Bela Zhelitski in Naimark and

Gibianskii, 1997: 80–2.22 In July 1924, Stalin wrote a letter to Manuil’skii commenting on one of the draft

resolutions of the Fifth Congress of the Comintern. He advised the latter not tospeak of a “joining of Ukrainian and White Russian territories to the USSR,”but of a “reunification of Ukraine and White Russia, which have been torn topieces by the imperialist powers.” Otherwise it would seem as if Russia wanted toenlarge its territories. “In fact we won’t lose anything from such a correction, forall these torn off parts will join the USSR anyhow in due course.” See f.558, op.1,d.2633, l.1.

23 In November 1945, Stalin told his Polish comrade Gomulka that Lenin’s attemptto impose the Soviet order on Poland, “which for so many years was underforeign rule,” had been a mistake. See Werblan, 1998: 138.

324 Notes

24 In 1925, Stalin discussed the concept of “spheres of influence” in a speech atSverdlov University. He insisted that it was and remained the duty of the Sovietgovernment to support the “liberation movement” in China and Germany, andto entertain friendly relations with Persia, Turkey and Afghanistan, even if thissoured relations with the great powers. The alternative policy of agreeing withthe latter to delimit “spheres of influence” would constitute a case of nationalistdegeneration of Soviet foreign policy. See Sochineniia, vol. 7: 168.

25 In a report of September 1945 from Moscow to Molotov, at the London confer-ence of foreign ministers, Stalin spoke of “our satellites.” See G.S. Agafonova inChubar’ian et al., 1998: 75.

26 Bajanov, 1995 and 1996: 54; see also Weathersby, 1995: 6–8.27 Weathersby, 1995: 8–9.28 Goncharov, Lewis and Xue, 1993: 143–5.29 Khrushchev wrote in his memoirs: “[Kim] told Stalin that he was absolutely

certain of success. I remember Stalin had his doubts. He was worried that theAmericans would jump in, but we were inclined to think that if the war werefought swiftly…then intervention by the USA could be avoided.” See Talbott,1970: 368.

30 Rakoshi, 1997: 7–8. See also Holloway, 1994: 286–7; N.I. Egorova in Gaiduk, etal., 1999: 72; A.M. Filitov in ibid.: 85, 95.

31 See Mastny, 1996: 113–14; Holloway, 1994: 430. According to Simonov, inSeptember 1945 Stalin said: “For the next 10–12–15 years our squadrons willdefend themselves. It is another matter if you intend to go to America. Then youwill have to have another mix [sootnoshenie] of classes of ships. We will not over-stress our industry because it is useless to go to America” (cited by I.V. Bystrovain Chubar’ian et al., 1997: 231.

32 Sochineniia, vol. 2[XV]: 39.33 Aleksandrov et al., 1993: 195; see also 231. Other theoretical contributions that

Stalin made to the Marxist–Leninist science of war are listed here.34 In February 1946, Stalin wrote that German military science, from Clausewitz to

Keitel, was outmoded. Engels, too, had not always been correct in his militaryanalyses (Sochineniia, vol. 3[XVI]: 29–34). In July 1951, he complained to agroup of naval officers that “you have old traditions on your fleet. They are stillfrom the times when the Russians learned from Holland” (Kostev andKuzivanov, 1996: 85).

35 Sochineniia, vol. 3[XVI]: 56; see also 62.36 Sochineniia, vol. 3[XVI]: 184–5.37 Medvedev, “Kak sozdavalas’ atomnaia…,” 2000: 106–7; Holloway, 1994: 88f.38 Medvedev, “Kak sozdavalas’ atomnaia…,” 2000: 110–11.39 Holloway, 1994: 132. See also 117, 126.40 Medvedev, “Kak sozdavalas’ atomnaia…,” 2000: 112; Holloway, 1994: 148.41 Holloway, 1994: 201; Nikishin, 1989; Pestov, 1994.42 Cited in Holloway, 1994: 261.43 Holloway, 1994: 211. See also Sonin, 1990.44 Holloway, 1994: 242.45 Holloway, 1994: 225, 237–40, 250; see also N.I. Egorova in Gaiduk et al., 1999: 67.46 See Sochineniia, vol. 3[XVI]: 55, 65, 76, 179, 305–6. Stalin realised that the

Germans and Japanese were strong peoples with highly developed industries. Butit should take them anywhere between ten and twenty-five years to get on theirfeet again. See Kennedy-Pipe, 1995: 42; Murashko et al., 1997: 38; Loth, 1996:14; Sochineniia, vol. 2[XV]: 167; Djilas, 1969: 90–91; Holloway, 1994: 124.

47 Werblan, 1998: 136. In May 1946, he repeated the same assessment to a Polishgovernment delegation. See Murashko et al., 1997: 456–7. Stalin told AlexanderWerth in September 1946: “I don’t believe in the real danger of a ‘new war.’ ”

Notes 325

The spectre of war was only revived to frighten naive people and increase mili-tary budgets. See also Sochineniia, vol. 3[XVI]: 53, 68–9.

48 Sochineniia, vol. 3[XVI]: 107.49 Cited in Holloway, 1994: 247.50 Cited by N.I. Egorova in Gaiduk et al., 1999: 67.51 See Holloway, 1994: 264; “Stalin’s conversations with…,” 1995 and 1996: 5;

Goncharov, Lewis and Xue, 1993: 108; Goncharov and Morozov, 1991.52 Bajanov, 1995 and 1996: 89.53 In June 1951, Stalin notified Mao that the war should not be speeded up, “since

drawn out war…shakes up the Truman regime in America.” See Weathersby,1995 and 1996: 59; see also 72. See also Mastny, 1996: 103.

54 “Stalin’s conversations with…,” 1995 and 1996: 12–13.55 Sochineniia, vol. 3[XVI]: 225–9, 231, 257. Cf. ibid., vol. 13: 18. In September

1952, Zhou Enlai told Stalin that if the Americans rearmed Germany and Japan,these countries might turn their new armies against America. Stalin agreed thatthis was “completely possible, especially if Nazis, Hitlerites will be in charge ofGermany” (cited by A.M. Filitov in Gaiduk et al., 1999: 92.

56 Stalin took up the Slav theme early in the war. He began to use formulas singlingout the Slavs for special mention, such as “the Slav and other enslaved peoples ofEurope.” See Sochineniia, vol. 2[XV]: 23, 29, 103. In December 1943, he toldEduard Beneš that the Germans should not be allowed to divide the Slavs anylonger. He was “not at all a pan-Slavist, I am and remain a Leninist.” But Slavunity against the Germans was necessary (“Peregovory E.Benesha…,” 2001:19–20). Already in 1925 the Politburo had received a proposal to co-operate withthe pan-Slavic movement on the Balkans in the interest of the revolution in thatregion. The document, preserved in Stalin’s personal archive, has “Correct”written in the margin. See Piatnitskii, 1998: 337–8. Stalin also used the Slav argu-ment for territorial reasons. In Teheran in 1943, he told his allies that he wantedpart of East Prussia not only for its harbours but also because “these were origi-nally Slav lands.” See Narinskii, 1998: 87. In September 1941, he had told thesame thing to Dimitrov (Bayerlein, 2000: 424).

57 See Murashko et al., 1997: 38–9; I.S. Iazhborovskaia in Chubar’ian et al., 1998:90; f.558, op.4, d.612, ll.4–6. See also Sochineniia, vol. 2[XV]: 184–6, 198.

58 Murashko et al., 1997: 512. Stalin told Tito several times that the Slavs should“unite in a single front” with the Soviet Union. If they did, nobody would daremove a finger. See Djilas, 1969: 90–1; Gibianskii, 1998: 123. Stalin and Molotovalso told their Yugoslav comrade Hebrang in January 1945 that aYugoslav–Bulgarian federation might be formed along the “principle of Slavsolidarity” – on the lines of the Austro-Hungarian model but without its draw-backs. See Vladimir Volkov in Naimark and Gibianskii, 1997: 65.

59 Djilas, 1969: 65.60 Gromyko, 1988: 201.61 F.558, op.1, d.5379, ll.1, 8.62 “Shum vremeni, 1945–1953…,” 1999. It is recorded in Dimitrov’s diary that in

January 1945 Stalin had discussed the same point of his own “Slavophilism” in ameeting with a Yugoslavian and Bulgarian delegation (Mar’ina, 2000: 46). InJanuary 1943, Stalin told Dimitrov that the majority of the German workingclass enjoyed being a “ruling nation” (Bayerlein, 2000: 641). In December of thatyear, he told Eduard Beneš that the German people “finds itself under the influ-ence of state fetishism.” See “Peregovory E.Benesha… ,” 2001: 15.

63 In December 1943, Stalin told Beneš that “the Hungarians must be severelypunished” (“Peregovory E.Benesha…,” 2001: 15).

64 Sochineniia, vol. 5: 72–3.

326 Notes

65 Sochineniia, vol. 1[XIV]: 3, 5, 8, 10. For Engels’s article, see MEW, vol. 22:11–48. In December 1930, Stalin made the same critique of Engels. See f.17,op.120, d.24, l.2.

66 The following month, Stalin elaborated on this matter in another letter to thePolitburo concerning Engels’s position. Bol’shevik had written that the latter haddefended a defeatist policy line, similar to Lenin’s, but Stalin violently denied that.Engels hoped for a German victory in a coming war against Russia and France.As far as he had been a defeatist at all, his defeatism had been “passive.” Leninelaborated a “fundamentally new and uniquely correct thesis in the question of thecharacter of war as well as in the question of the policy of the Marxists in relationto war.” See f.558, op.1, d.5324, p.35; See also Latyshev, 1992.

67 Sochineniia, vol. 1[XIV]: 37, 39.68 See Maureen Perrie in Hosking and Service, 1998: 108–9; Khoroshkevich, 1991:

89. In 1940, Proletarskaia revoliutsiia quoted Marx to the effect that Peteradmired Ivan for his persistence “in his attempts against Livonia: their consciousaim was to give Russia an exit to the Baltic Sea and open the way to communica-tion with Europe” (cited by Perrie in Hosking and Service, 1998: 114; see alsoKhoroshkevich, 1991: 93–4; and Kaganovich on the matter in Chuev, 1992: 149.

69 “Formidable shadows of…,” 1988: 8.70 Il’ina, 1991: 194–5, 202–3.71 F.558, op.1, d.5325, l.32. In October 1945, he told a Finnish delegation that he

understood the “anti-Soviet moods” of the intelligentsia of that country as,partly, a product of the “policy of the tsarist autocracy towards Finland.” Seeibid., d.5379, l.2.

72 Persak, 1998: 151.73 Sochineniia, vol. 2[XV]: 213–14.74 Sochineniia, vol. 1[XIV]: 121.75 Stalin found the centralistic structure of the Comintern as a single unified world

party unworkable. The program of the Soviet communist party, adopted in 1919,spoke of an “international communist party.” In a 1934 copy of this program,Stalin marked the “party” in this quotation and added “not so” (ne to). See f.558,op.3, d.270, p.12. Similarly, in the program of the Comintern this organisationdescribed itself as a “unified and centralised international party of the prole-tariat.” In a 1936 copy of the program, Stalin again marked “party” and added“not so.” See ibid., d.271, p.7. In July and October 1934, Dimitrov alerted him tothe fact that the leading organs of the Comintern were so involved in petty prob-lems of the sections that they had no time left to work on the major ones.Furthermore, the initiative of the sections was hampered. Dimitrov proposedthat the ECCI should concentrate on the broad lines of policy. Stalin notified theComintern leader of his agreement. See Firsov, 1989, no. 9: 14; Firsov, 1991:43–4; Dallin and Firsov, 2000: 22.

76 Firsov, 1992: 34.77 Mar’ina, 2000: 42.78 See Adibekov, 1997: 31; Adibekov, 1994: 6.79 Firsov, 1992: 34–5; Adibekov, 1994: 8; McDermott and Agnew, 1996: 209.80 Firsov, 1992: 34. In August 1941, he told Dimitrov, while discussing the re-estab-

lishment of a Polish communist party: “Better create a Workers’ Party of Polandwith a Com[munist] program: [Calling it] a communist party frightens not onlythe outsiders but even some of our people. At this stage the task is to struggle fornational liberation” (Dallin and Firsov, 2000: 197).

81 Murashko et al., 1997: 132–3.82 Gromov, 1998: 327. Also see here for a discussion of Stalin’s authorship of the

relevant speech.

Notes 327

83 Cited in Narinskii, “Berlinskii krizis 1948–1949…,” 1995: 17.84 In April 1944, Stalin informed a Polish priest from the United States that his

government was uninterested in the social system of Poland. He only wanted aPolish government “which understood and appreciated good relations with itseastern neighbour.” See Murashko et al., 1997: 38. In October 1944, he toldChurchill that he needed “a Poland not only friendly but also strong.” See“Zaniat’sia podgotovkoi budushchego…,” 1995: 147. In answer to Churchill’sFulton speech in March 1946, he noted that his country, “wishing to make itselfsecure for the future,” merely attempted to achieve “that in these [EasternEuropean] countries there exist governments with a loyal attitude towards theSoviet Union.” See Sochineniia, vol. 3[XVI]: 39.

85 Djilas, 1969: 90. When Molotov showed him the Yalta declaration on free elec-tions in liberated Europe, Stalin commented: “When the time comes we can fulfilit in our own way. The real point is the balance of forces” (Chuev, 1991: 76). InMay 1946, Hungarian communist leader Rákosi reported at a meeting of hisCentral Committee about his recent visit to Moscow, where he had met Stalin:“whenever a country achieves the conditions for the liberation of the proletariator for socialism, this will be carried out, with no regard for whether the respec-tive country is in a capitalist environment or not.” See Békés, 1998: 135–6.

86 Murashko et al., 1997: 457–9. In another discussion with Polish representativesin August 1946, he repeated the same thesis; see Murashko et al., 1997: 511. InSeptember 1946, Czech communist leader Gottwald reported to his party that hehad spoken to Stalin on his last visit to Moscow. The leader had told him that inparticular circumstances there were other roads to socialism than soviets andproletarian dictatorship; see Spriano, 1985: 275–6. See also Muraschko,Noskowa and Wolokitina, 1994: 11; Murashko, 1998: 52; Claudin, 1975: 461. Seealso V.V. Mar’ina in Chubar’ian, 1998: 129–30.

87 Mar’ina, 2000: 49.88 Mar’ina, 2000: 53–4.89 Goncharov, Lewis and Xue, 1993: 72, 232–3; see also Shi, 1989: 127–8;

Rakhmanin, 1998: 89.90 Narinskii, “I.V. Stalin i…Novye materialy,” 1996: 20.91 “Zaniat’sia podgotovkoi budushchego…,” 1995: 153–7.92 Mar’ina, 2000: 47.93 Zubok and Pleshakov, 1996: 48; Loth, 1996: 21, 23–4, 28–9, 31, 53.94 Bonvech et al., 1994: 36–7, 39–40; see also Loth, 1996: 80.95 Stalin often warned his East German comrades not to proceed against capitalism

too quickly so as not to endanger the chances of German reunification. InDecember 1948, he warned Pieck, Grotewohl and the others that a transition toa “people’s democracy” and a program of expropriation was premature. Thereason was that there was “not yet a unif[ied] state – you are not close to power.”Stalin added that the ancestors of the present Germans, the Teutons, had alwaysbattled openly. That was brave but foolish, he warned them severely: “The roadto socialism is a zigzag.” See Loth, 1996: 143, 145–7.

96 Egorova, 1994: 41.97 Djilas, 1969: 90. This remark suggests that Stalin obtained his clues from

Kautsky and Engels. The latter had written in 1891 that in countries likeGermany, where the executive had all the power, socialism could not be estab-lished peacefully. But “one can imagine that the old society might growpeacefully into the new in countries where all power is concentrated in thepopular representation.” Examples were “democratic republics like France andAmerica” and “monarchies like in Britain.” See MEW, vol. 22: 234. In his DasErfurter Programm, Kautsky (1974: 212) had written that, whether or not in a“parliamentary republic” the monarchy was retained as “decoration…like the

328 Notes

English do” was of no consequence. In January 1945, Stalin told a Yugoslavianand Bulgarian delegation that “the Soviet form” was the best but not the onlyform leading to socialism. Under certain conditions, even a “constitutionalmonarchy” could serve the purpose (Mar’ina, 2000: 46).

98 This is according to the notes of Wilhelm Pieck; see Loth, 1996: 32. In August1946, he told Harold Laski of the British Labour Party that Britain too couldavoid proletarian dictatorship and “repression of the bourgeois class” (cited inLoth, 1996: 33).

99 Murashko et al., 1997: 511.100 In April 1947, Stalin told Harold Stassen that only a “very strong government,

filled with great resolve” could bring an element of regulation into the capitalisteconomy, but he doubted whether the business community would obey at all;see Sochineniia, vol. 3[XVI]: 87, 89–90. But even this was too much. When theinterview was published in the American press, Radio Moscow broadcast areport that Stalin had said nothing about the possibility of “regulation” undercapitalism, only about “control”; see Ra’anan, 1983: 126–7. The matter wasrelated to a debate about a book by the economist Varga (1946). See Diskussiapo knige…, 1947; Nordahl, 1974; Hahn, 1982: 84–93.

101 Because of such developments, Stalin definitely gave up on the possibility ofpeaceful transition to socialism in the part of the world outside the Soviet zone.An article about the American workers’ movement was published in the firstissue of Voprosy istorii in 1952. It discussed the belief that in the USA, as anexception to the rule, the “violent revolution of the proletariat” could beavoided. The author characterised this hope as a case of “dogmatism.” It heldfast to Marx’s thesis concerning the possibility of a peaceful transition in GreatBritain and the United States, which was obsolete “in the situation of imperi-alism.” Stalin underlined the phrase that Marx had only “conditionally”mentioned this possibility and added in the margin: “precisely dogmatism.” Seef.558, op.3, d.41, p.86.

102 Adibekov, 1994: 22; Gibianskii, 1998: 127; Békés, 1998; Gibianskii, 1993:134–6. In July 1949, Stalin told Liu Shaoqi that the two parties shouldexchange opinions, “but our opinion should absolutely not be taken as a direc-tive.” See Rakhmanin, 1998: 83. In a report of the Communist Party of Chinain the same month and in which Stalin made private notes, he underlinedsentences to the effect that, although the Comintern had been abolished, theCPC would submit to the decisions of the Soviet party, even when it disagreed.Stalin added a firm “No!” twice in the margins. See Ledovsky, 1996: 84.

103 Prior to the conference, Zhdanov sent Stalin summaries of the points heintended to address. Stalin probably read and corrected the speech itself. Theleader was in any case constantly informed of proceedings during the confer-ence by Zhdanov and Malenkov, and later he also adapted the minutes to histastes. See Zubok and Pleshakov, 1996: 130–1, 133; Gibianskii, 1993: 146–8;Adibekov, 1994: 49–51, 72–3. Already in November 1946 Zhdanov had wantedto use the term “Anglo-American bloc” in a speech, but then Stalin deleted it.See V.O. Pechatnov in Chubar’ian et al., 1998: 192.

104 Procacci et al., 1994: 225, 227, 229, 251.105 Mikoian (1999: 548) recalls that Stalin hoped to export grain to India in order

to weaken the relations of that country with the imperialist world, and that heappreciated Perón for his independent position.

106 Procacci et al., 1994: 453, 455.107 Procacci et al., 1994: 195, 353. Cf. Stalin’s own remarks in August 1947

(Mar’ina, 2000: 50).108 Narinskii, “I.V. Stalin i …Zapis’ besedy,” 1996: 7–10, 14–15, 19–21.109 “I. Stalin: ‘Mozhet…,” 1993: : 124–5.

Notes 329

110 According to M.S. Kapitsa, Stalin once complained to Mao that “Europe isstill not ready for socialism.” See Goncharov, Lewis and Xue, 1993: 72. Stalinadvised the same policy of a combination of broad anti-American patrioticunity and long-term socialist perspectives and violent revolution to theJapanese communists. See “Stalin’s meetings with…,” 1990: 127–8; Mastny,1996: 91, 121. See also Sochineniia, vol. 3[XVI]: 186–7.

111 Gibianskii, 1998: 130, 133. See also Djilas, 1969: 140–1; Mar’ina, 2000: 46.112 Grigoriev and Zazerskaya, 1994: 137–8.113 Djilas, 1969: 141; see also Gibianskii, 1998: 133.114 Cited in Goncharov, Lewis and Xue, 1993: 31. See also “Stalin’s conversations

with…,” 1995 and 1996: 7, 27f; Tikhvinskii, 1994.115 See Goncharov, Lewis and Xue, 1993: 38–44; Goncharov and Morozov, 1991.116 Goncharov, Lewis and Xue, 1993: 71–2, 232–3; Shi, 1989: 126–8; Rakhmanin,

1998: 83, 89. See also Ledovskii, 1997: 26; Ledovskii, 1999: 81–2. In a report ofthe CPC Central Committee of July 1949, sent to Stalin in preparation for thediscussions with Liu, the Soviet leader made private notes. The report explainedthat the “people’s democratic dictatorship” represented a class alliance of theworkers and the peasants, but that the “liberal bourgeoisie” was allowed to co-operate with it. The new state was neither a proletarian nor a bourgeoisdictatorship, but political representatives of the bourgeoisie were encompassedby it, and that was the difference with Lenin’s model of 1905–7. And in form itwas also between bourgeois parliamentarianism and a Soviet system. It wouldbe a “dangerous adventurist policy” to mount a full-scale attack on the bour-geoisie right now, because that class would be driven to the imperialists in thatway. Stalin commented on these analyses with five times a firm “Yes!” SeeLedovsky, 1996: 74–6.

117 Chuvakhin, 1995: 130; see also Hoxha, 1979: 101–2.118 Sochineniia, vol. 3[XVI]: 107; see also 95.119 Sochineniia, vol. 3[XVI]: 230–1. At the first plenary session of the Central

Committee after the 1952 party congress, Stalin said, in Simonov’s (1988, no. 4:97) paraphrase, that he expected a “difficult struggle with the capitalist camp.”The most dangerous thing to do now would be “to shiver, get afraid, to with-draw, to capitulate.” He called for “courage” and “resolve.” As late as February1953, he wrote to Mao that the Western European communist parties needed“much more assistance than until now.” See Volkogonov, 1995, vol. 1: 267.

120 See Sochineniia, vol. 3[XVI]: 46, 107.121 Sochineniia, vol. 3[XVI]: 312–14; see also 94. In a 1931 copy of a book on

Leninist education, Stalin scribbled in the margin: “1) civic, juridical, polit.equality = bourgeois. 2) soc., econom. equ.-ty = proletariat”; see f.558, op.3,d.182, p.46. In later years, he no longer believed in the dichotomy in this sense.It would be bourgeois to confine equality to the juridical sphere, but juridicalequality was no longer considered bourgeois.

17 The philosophy of revolutionary patriotism1 The term “Leninism” arose after the split between the bolsheviks and the

mensheviks in 1903. It was introduced by the mensheviks to suggest that bolshe-vism was a leader-oriented cult to be distinguished from Marxism. Lenin did notuse the term. In the early years he considered himself an “orthodox Marxist” inthe Kautskyan sense. However, the bolsheviks gradually adopted the term. By1923, it had come into regular use. See Shcherbakov, 1990.

2 Sochineniia, vol. 6: 69–71, 78–82, 88–91; see also vol. 8: 13–15.3 Sochineniia, vol. 10: 92.

330 Notes

4 The first occurrence that I found for the combined term was by Voroshilov, whospoke of “Marxists–Leninists” in a session of Lenin’s funeral commission on 23January 1924. See Maksimova, 1993.

5 Shcherbakov, 1990.6 Sochineniia, vol. 11: 280. In his speech of December 1929, where he discussed

various rightist “theories,” he mentioned the “Marxist–Leninist theory.” See vol.12: 142.

7 See Shcherbakov, 1990.8 Maslov, 1994: 9–10, 25; see also f.17, op.120, d.313, ll.4–5. Stalin stressed that

Marx had written the manifesto, and not Engels (Maslov, 1994: 24–5).9 Maslov, 1994: 11–12, 18, 25; see also f.17, op.120, d.313, ll.10, 13.

10 See also KPSS, vol. 2: 859–60; Sochineniia, vol. 1[XIV]: 384f.11 In late 1930, Stalin told a group of Soviet philosophers that “with Engels too not

everything is all right.” In his comments on the Erfurt Program there was “a littleplace concerning ingrowing into socialism. Bukharin tried to use this…. It is nota bad thing if, for example, we’ll hurt Engels somewhere in this work.” See f.17,op.120, d.24, l.2.

12 And in 1946 he wrote in a letter (which was published in Bol’shevik 1947, no. 3)that Engels had had too negative an appraisal of the tsar’s generals. SeeSochineniia, vol. 3[XVI]: 32.

13 In his speech of October 1938, he attacked Engels’s thesis of the equal impor-tance of human sexual reproduction and material production in the developmentof society as an unjustified dilution of orthodox materialism. According toStalin, Marx did not agree; see Maslov, 1994: 15–16. See also f.17, op.120, d.313,l.8. In the 1937 copy of Der Ursprung…, Stalin commented on Engels’s use ofthe term “group marriage”: “And on what basis did the group marriage arise?”See f.558, op.3, d.378, ll.46, 217. See also remarks against Engels’s historicalmaterialism in his January 1941 speech (Latyshev, 1992).

14 Latyshev, 1992. For similar remarks in a letter to Kaganovich of 1934, see: “Izneizdannoi perepiski…,” 2000.

15 On rare occasions, Stalin targeted Marx in public. In 1926, he said that Leninhad been correct to point out that Marx’s hope for a peaceful transition tosocialism in some countries had now become obsolete. See Sochineniia, vol. 8:251. On one occasion, he even admitted that Engels had improved upon Marxwhen he allegedly abandoned the latter’s thesis that a European revolution wasimpossible without one in Great Britain. See vol. 9: 97.

16 For example, in a 1930 collection of articles Stalin rejected Engels’s remark thatthe democratic republic was the “specific form for the dictatorship of the prole-tariat.” He commented: “And the Par. commune! Today this is no longer true.Today we have to speak of soviets.” See f.558, op.3, d.211, pp.64–5.

17 A 1937 copy of Der Ursprung… is full of “Ha-ha,” “Not very convincing” and“So what.” When Engels wrote that in a class society every advance in produc-tion signified a “regress in the situation of the oppressed class,” Stalincommented: “Not completely” (f.558, op.3, d.378, pp.157, 207, 234). In a 1951copy of one of Marx’s works, the Soviet leader added an ironic “Well, well [Ish’-ty]…Why?” to Engels’s remark in the introduction to the essay that he omittedMarx’s sharp personal attacks (ibid., d.207).

18 See, for example, f.558, op.3, d.114, pp.442, 455.19 Other authors mentioned were Belinskii, Tolstoi, Ricardo, N. Ziber,

Chernyshevskii, Pisarev, Dobroliubov, Struve, Tugan-Baranovskii, Plekhanov,Lenin, Marx, Engels, C. Letourneau, H.T. Buckle, Julius Lippert, CamilleFlammarion and Charles Lyell (Kaminskii and Vereshchagin, 1939: 50, 68–71,73); Stalin. K shestidesiatiletiiu…, 1940: 22, 24–6, 29; Rasskazy starykh

Notes 331

rabochikh…, 1937: 36). For a catalogue of the library “comr. STALIN’s Marxistcircle of seminarists,” see f.71, op.10, d.275, ll.1–15. The list was typed out at thetime of Stalin’s rule, and there is no original in the delo. See also Iremaschwili,1932: 17–23, 25; Enukidze, 1925: 5.

20 F.558, op.4, d.32, 53, 55. See also Kaminskii and Vereshchagin, 1939: 71.21 Cited in Gugushvili, 1963: 216.22 See Vakar, 1936.23 See Tucker, 1974; 118.24 Sochineniia, vol. 2: 1f.25 For the history of the library, see Spirin, 1993. See also Ilizarov, 2000, no. 3: 200f;

Medvedev, “‘Luchshe pust’ boiat’sia…,” 2000. For additional information on thefate of Stalin’s personal archive, see Ilizarov, 2000, no. 4: 152–8.

26 F.558, op.1, d.2510. See also Volkogonov, vol. I.2, 1989: 119–20.27 Stalin read at least parts of Marx’s Das Kapital. The fond Stalina contains

several copies of volumes or parts of volumes, but the nature of the notes hemade in them does not suggest an intense effort or creative reading. A 1929 copyof the first volume contains sporadic lines of “B” (vnimanie) marks. See F.558,op.3, d.203. Remarks added in the book seem to be in handwriting that was notStalin’s. In a 1934 copy of the first volume of Das Kapital (d.206), Stalin madenotes only in the introduction. There is no copy of the second volume of thework. The fond Stalina does contain two copies of the second part of the thirdvolume, in both of which the notes are concentrated in the chapter on the “abso-lute ground rent,” which was intensely read. See f.558, op.3, dd.204, 205. Finally,there is a copy of the part on David Ricardo in the second volume of Theorienüber den Mehrwert (which is considered to be the fourth volume of Das Kapital).In some chapters Stalin put many lines, although hardly any words. See d.209.

28 F.558, op.3, dd.1, 84. There is a report that, during his years in exile, Stalin readMachiavelli’s The Prince. See Tucker, 1974: 212. There are indications that therewere more books with marginal notes in the library, which disappeared. SeeMedvedev and Medvedev, 2001: 35f.

29 F.558, op.3, d.46, p.15.30 See Dupeux, 1985: 82f.31 van der Zweerde, 1994: 359–61.32 Esakov, 1993: 84–7; Plimak, 1997: 10–11; van der Zweerde, 1994: 364.33 Kuleshov et al., 1991: 349. No source is given for this conversation. See also

Plimak, 1997: 11; van der Zweerde 1994: 362, 364.34 The corrections amount to nothing of significance. The one exception is that he

wrote “Not so” next to a characterisation of Marxism as a “teaching of themasses.” He added that it was an instrument in the hands of the “proletarian”masses. See Esakov, 1993: 90–2.

35 The party secretary was also unhappy that, in his introduction, Aleksandrov hadquoted “great Russian scholars and philosophers” like Chernyshevskii,Dobroliubov and Lomonosov in support of a tolerant style of scientific debate,which was not in conformity with Marxist–Leninist militancy. See Zhdanov,1947: 8–13, 15, 18–20.

36 Shepilov, 1998, no. 5: 11–12. On Suslov and Shepilov, see also Kojevnikov, 1998: 37.37 See, for example, “Protiv burzhuaznoi ideologii…,” 1948: 17, 20, 28.38 Shepilov, 1998, no. 5: 13–14.39 Iovchuk, 1948: 193–4.40 I.Ia. Shchipanov in Pavelkin, 1951: 254–5, 298; Illeritskii, 1953: 56–8, 60, 62.41 Illeritskii, 1953: 122–4; I.Ia. Shchipanov in Pavelkin, 1951: 251–2.42 “Formidable shadows of…,” 1988: 8; see also Artizov and Naumov, 1999: 613. In

1945, Stalin had acknowledged that Polish workers were more cultured thanRussian because Poland was closer to the West (Malyshev, 1997: 129). One of the

332 Notes

arguments why the Politburo should ban Dem’ian Bednyi’s Bogatyri in 1936 wasthat the play failed to acknowledge that the Russian conversion to Christianityhad been a “positive stage in the history of the Russian people, because itcontributed to the rapprochement of the Slavic peoples with the peoples of higherculture” (Maksimenkov, 1997: 221).

43 A 1945 book on the economies of pre-capitalist formations was read by Stalin inpart, but he did not make any notes; see f.558, op.3, d.244. The same goes for anundated Foundations of Historical Materialism, in which he underlined forinstance a passage by Engels on the influence of ideas on the economy; see d.242,p.713. A 1938 copy of Plekhanov’s book on the “monist” interpretation ofhistory contains sporadic comments, for instance: “Ideas lag behind being, theyarise with a delay, they are secondary, produced”; see d.251, pp.67, 90. In a 1938textbook on political economy, Stalin wrote: “‘being determines consciousness’,or: the ‘material’ (the basis), as the foundation, and the ‘ideal’ as the superstruc-ture (the materialist understanding of history)”; see d.257, p.218. The onlysubstantial piece of writing I found is a long, handwritten note on the “slaveowners’ society,” which Stalin inserted in this 1938 textbook on politicaleconomy; see d.257, inserted papers. He seems to have had a special interest inthis type of society. In his memoirs, Shepilov (1998, no. 7: 9–10) quotes anotherlong exposé written by the leader in 1950 in another version of the textbook. Seealso Tolz, 1997: 80. In his October 1938 speech, Stalin insisted that proper defini-tions of concepts like the “productive forces” should be used. See Maslov, 1994:23–4; see also f.17, op.120, d.313, ll.12–13.

44 Izvestiia, 16 May 1934; see also Artizov, “Kritika M.N. Pokrovskogo…,”1991: 106.45 See Chapkevich, 1990: 46; Asher, 1972: 50–3; Barber, 1981: 62, also 26.46 Sochineniia, vol. 13: 106.47 Cited in Brandenberger and Dubrovsky, 1998: 874.48 Cited in Brandenberger and Dubrovsky, 1998: 875.49 Maslov, 1994: 14.50 Sochineniia, vol. 1: 312–19, 318, 326–7.51 Sochineniia, vol. 1: 57, 60.52 Plechanow, 1929: 63.53 Plechanow, 1946: 18, 61–4.54 Plekhanov, 1948: 29.55 Riazanov, 1924: 15.56 Marx and Engels also recognised that economics had their way only “in the last

resort.” See, for example, Engels: MEW, vol. 20: 25; vol. 21: 300; vol. 37: 436, 463.57 Cited in Plekhanov, 1938: 3.58 Plekhanov, 1938: 6–8, 98; see also Plekhanov, 1948: 7–11.59 When the Italian Marxist Antonio Labriola claimed that the state was always an

organisation of the economically ruling class, Plekhanov denied this. In countrieslike China and Egypt, the state arose due to the need to control the great rivers,i.e. due to the “direct influence of the needs of the social productive process”(Plekhanov, 1948: 19).

60 Sochineniia, vol. 1[XIV]: 298–9, 301, 304–11, 318–19, 324.61 Maslov, 1994: 14.62 See Donoso, 1979: 113f; Wetter, 1958: 252f, 403–4.63 PSS, vol. 42: 278.64 See Sochineniia, vol. 10: 119.65 Sochineniia, vol. 1[XIV]: 367.66 Sochineniia, vol. 3[XVI]: 114–18, 120–1, 129–30, 133–5, 151.67 Although Marr was his target, Stalin was in fact again criticising Pokrovskii. He

called Marr a “vulgariser of Marxism, in the style of the ‘Proletkultists’ ’’(Sochineniia, vol. 3[XVI]: 146). The term “vulgar Marxism” was standard usage

Notes 333

to decry Pokrovskii. And he apparently associated Marr’s idea that revolutionsproduced new languages with the Proletkult efforts to create a new proletarianart. This contained another reference to Pokrovskii, for Proletkult had been thebrainchild of Bogdanov, of whom Pokrovskii had once been a follower. Stalin’sthesis was also negatively inspired by Bukharin. In The Theory of HistoricalMaterialism, the latter wrote that language was part of the “ideological super-structure” and that it was “erected on the economic basis.” The “dependence oflanguage on the technique of production” was now an “indirect dependence; thecausal chain now runs through the dependence of the various superstructuralforms on the process of production.” See Bukharin, 1969: 203–5, 208. Stalin’spassage on direct and indirect causation sounds like a direct denial of Bukharin’s.

68 Stalin’s odd treatment of the superstructure as a thinking and acting entity waspart of his habit of treating society in organicist terms. It has similarities with theway Bogdanov treated society and its separate institutions in his early works. Butthere is no indication that Stalin was inspired by him in this respect. It is moredirectly reminiscent of Plekhanov’s old identification of the superstructure withthe social democratic intelligentsia, which I discussed above. Discussing thesuperstructure of Soviet society, Stalin obviously thought of the state officialsand communist party, concrete political actors who were able to take initiativesand, in case of treason, might even refuse to protect the socialist economic basisof society. In my “Stalin and the national question,” I did not yet identify thePlekhanovist origin of Stalin’s theory of society. See van Ree, “Stalin and the…,” 1994: 214–38.

69 Sochineniia, vol. 3[XVI]: 252–3.70 Sochineniia, vol. 3[XVI]: 117–20.71 Sochineniia, vol. 3[XVI]: 122–3.

Conclusion1 See Kolakowski, 1981, vol. 3: 100–1, 142–3.2 Sochineniia, vol. 3[XVI]: 6; see also 94.3 PSS, vol. 8: 370. In Stalin’s library there is a 1923 copy of One Step Forward,

Two Steps Back, in which this formula has been marked by brackets and theword “party” is added in the margin. See f.558, op.3, d.114, p.455.

4 As late as 1927, he noted that the Cheka played the same role as the Committeeof Public Safety had played in France. See Sochineniia, vol. 10: 234.

5 See Talmon, 1986: 114–16, 215, 241; Sabine and Thorson, 1981: 543; Lovell,1984: 66.

6 Sochineniia, vol. 3[XVI]: 49.7 Sochineniia, vol. 3[XVI]: 94, 105, 179.8 Sochineniia, vol. 3[XVI]: 248; see also Shepilov, 1998, no.7: 9–10.9 Mikoian, 1999: 534.

10 There is some reason to doubt whether Stalin continued to believe in this unitarygoal to the very end. In the early 1950s, he scribbled the following comment in aproposed new party program: “The theory of ‘cosmopolitanism’ and the estab-lishment of a Unit. States and Europe with a unified gov-t. ‘World government’ ”(Popov, 2001: 65). But this probably referred only to world government idealsemerging from the capitalist world.

334 Notes

The materials mentioned in the list have been divided into two categories, primaryand secondary. The primary materials concern mainly archival documents, eitherthose I have collected myself or those published in books or articles. The divisioninto primary and secondary materials is somewhat artificial. Many Soviet andRussian books and articles mentioned here under the heading of secondary materialscontain fragments of newly discovered archival documents. I have listed them in theprimary category only if it concerns true source publications of complete documents.

Two further points need to be mentioned. First, I have included memoirsconcerning the years 1878–1953 in the primary category. Second, the reader may besurprised to find, for instance, Rousseau listed in the primary category and Weber inthe secondary. E. Yaroslavsky’s Landmarks in the Life of Stalin can be found in theprimary category but Robert McNeal’s Stalin in the secondary. My criterion has beenwhether I used the work in question as an object of study in its own right or merelyas reference material. Rousseau is part of the story, but Weber is not. Yaroslavsky’sbook was a Stalinist cult text, while McNeal’s work was used for reference.

Primary materials

Archives

Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History (RGASPI).Fondy:17 Central Committee of the CPSU (1898, 1903–91).71 Institute of Marxism–Leninism of the CC of the CPSU (1931–1991).558 Stalin, I.V.

Centre for the Preservation of Contemporary Documentation (TsKhSD).89 collection of declassified documents

Books

Adibekov, G.M., et al. (eds) (1998) Soveshchaniia Kominforma. 1947, 1948, 1949.Dokumenty i materialy, Moscow: Rosspen.

Adoratskii, V.V., et al. (eds) (1937) Leninskii sbornik XXX, Leningrad: Partizdat TsKVKP(b).

Aleksandrov, G.F., et al. (1993) Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin. Kratkaia biografiia.Vtoroe izdanie, izpravlennoe i dopolnennoe, Moscow: TSOO “Nippur.”

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358 Bibliography

Abakumov, V.S. 203Afinogenov, A.N. 164, 311agriculture, countryside see peasantryAkhmatova, A.A. 181, 312Aksakov, I.S. 238Aksakov, K.S. 127Aksel’rod, P.B. 126Aleksandr Nevskii 198, 200, 240Aleksandrov, G.F. 93, 202–03, 260,

262–63, 308, 332Alexander I 182, 241Alexander II 52Alexander III 196antisemitism see Jewsassimilation see cultural-linguistic

homogeneityAustro-Marxism 54–56, 61, 63–64,

66–69, 78–80, 83, 190–91, 255, 275Averbakh, L.L. 173

Babeuf, F.N. 23, 35, 279Badoglio, P. 246Bakunin, M.A. 38, 260Barbusse, H. 299, 308Bataille, G. 283Bauer, O. 54–55, 64, 66–67, 83, 191, 255,

292Bauman, Z. 283Bediia, E. 308Bednyi, D. 197, 240, 333Belinskii, V.G. 16–17, 56, 176–79, 181,

188, 200, 204, 207, 255, 259–60, 262,264, 276, 331

Beneš, E. 326Beriia, L.P. 123, 134, 162, 301–02, 308Berlin, I. 312Bezymenskii, A.I. 311Bezymenskii, L.A. 324Bierut, B. 141, 243

Bill’-Belotserkovskii, V.N. 173biological ethnicity 67–68, 197Blanqui, L. 23–24, 35Blanquism 14, 23–24, 27, 34–35, 73, 278Bogdanov, A.A. 128, 173, 255, 261, 274,

297, 334Bonapartism 280–81“bourgeois democracy” and the working

class see proletarian revolution“bourgeois nationalism” 94, 201–03Bowlen, Ch. 300Briullov, K.P. 183Bubnov, A.S. 143Buckle, H.T. 259, 331Büchner, G. 259Bukharin, N.I. 34, 47, 70–71, 77, 85,

87–93, 96, 98–99, 102, 110, 113, 118,120–22, 124, 143, 155, 163, 175, 205,215, 223, 255–56, 260–61, 273–74,295, 317, 331, 334

Bulgakov, M.A. 173Buonarotti, F.M. 23, 35, 279bureaucratic state centralism: according

to Kautsky 31–32; according toLenin 33–34; according to Marx andEngels 25, 28–29, 145–46; accordingto Rousseau 20; according to Stalin73–75, 138–42, 155–57, 146–47; thebureaucratic order, total bureaucracy283–86

Bykov, KM. 186, 317

cadres see intelligentsia“capitalist encirclement” 43–44, 47,

84–85, 87, 89–95, 115–18, 135,138–39, 141, 191, 196, 210–12, 216,224, 226–27, 252

Catherine the Great 10, 182, 240, 265Catilina 301

Index

Ceaușescu, N. 160Chaikovskii, P.I. 200Chamberlain, N. 224, 226, 323Chaplin, Ch. 180Chavchavadze, I.G. 58–59, 62, 67,

178–79, 255, 276Chekhov, A.P. 175, 200Cherkasov, N.K. 144, 182Chernyshevskii, N.G. 16, 56, 176,

178–79, 197, 200, 238, 255, 259–60,262, 276, 331–32

Chiang Kai-shek 222–23, 251–52, 322Chicherin, G.V. 319Chikobava, A.S. 195, 316Chkalov, V.P. 166, 312Chubar’, V.I. 299Churchill, W. 6, 232, 324, 328classes, class struggle: class struggle and

national unity in the capitalist world61–62, 64, 219–20, 226, 243, 245–54,269–70; “continuation andsharpening of the class struggle” 99,114–20, 138–39, 206, 243; destructionof the exploiting classes, “liquidatingthe kulaks as a class” 99–101, 114–17,136–37, 140, 245; divisions of labourand classes under socialism, the“toilers”, “toiling people” 138–41,152–53, 169–71, 189, 245; Stalin’sappreciation of various classes281–83; Stalin’s belief in class enemyresistance 117–25; Stalin’sreformulation of class principle, thenational, popular community 179–80,189, 220, 248, 251–54, 275

Clausewitz, C. von 325Cohen, S. 85collectivisation 7–9, 12, 98–101, 104–06,

109–10, 154, 170–71, 274, 277“collectivism,” merger of the “I” 126–35communism in its two stages 25–26, 93,

96, 104–10, 128, 137–38, 141–42,169–71

communism on a world scale: fusion ofnations, states and economies 42–44,49, 55–56, 64–68, 95, 138, 191,195–96, 282; world soviet republic209

Communist International (Comintern),Soviet and other communist parties132, 215–20, 224–26, 241–48

communist party, inner life of (”as

organism and apparatus”) 126–35,147–48

“complete socialism” 44–48, 85–91, 93“compulsion and persuasion” 147–48Comte, A. 259Constituent Assembly, national

parliament 28–32, 34, 215, 221co-operatives, co-operativisation 39–40,

47–48, 85–88, 93–94, 99, 274cosmopolitanism vs. patriotism 20–22,

61–66, 83, 173, 176–83, 187–89,198–99, 201–07, 204–05, 242, 262–64,275–76

Cripps, R.S. 324cult of personality 161–68cultural-linguistic homogeneity 22, 51,

53–54, 58–60, 62, 64–69, 79, 191,193–97, 285

d’Alembert, J. 21Dan, F.I. 302Danilevskii, N.I. 181, 263Danton, G.J. 23–24Darwin, Ch. 184–85, 259–60, 313Davies, R.W. 105Davis, H. 53Day, R. 92, 295de Gaulle, Ch. 246, 250de la Mettrie, J.O. 260democracy (Jacobin, Marxist, Leninist)

19–22, 27–31, 33–35, 75, 147“democracy for the toilers” see Soviet

democracy according to Stalindemocratic centralism see communist

party“democratic republic” 25, 28–29, 34,

38–41, 220–21, 224, 245democratic revolution: in Asia 220–24,

247, 251–52; Jacobin and pre-Stalinist Marxist concepts of 21–22,37–39; in Russia 40–41, 220–21

Democritus 260Deutscher, I. 166–67d’Holbach, P.H.T. 260dictatorship: of the party, revolutionary

minority 21–23, 27, 34–35, 134–35,140–41, 147–50, 160–61; personal,and autocracy 157–61; “of theproletariat” 27–31, 34–35, 37–40, 56,73, 114–15, 138, 140–41, 221, 243–45,248; “of the proletariat and thepeasantry” 221–23

Diderot, D. 21

360 Index

Dimitrov, G. 122, 156, 218–19, 225–26,230, 242–44, 246, 300, 307–09,321–24, 326–27

“direct product exchange” see socialisteconomic system

Djilas, M. 235, 238, 316Dmitrii Donskoi 200, 240Dobroliubov, N.A. 179, 262, 331–32Dolfuss, E. 218Donoso, A. 269Dostoevskii, F.M. 263Draper, H. 27–30, 39, 289Dzerzhinskii, F.E. 310

Eden, A. 231education 162, 172–73Eismont, N.B. 119, 133Eizenshtein, S.M. 144, 182, 240, 264Elias, N. 283Engels, F. 13–16, 25–30, 32–34, 37–40,

42–43, 49–54, 56, 62, 66, 68–69, 72,80, 90, 93, 100–01, 107, 109, 121,136–38, 140, 142, 145–46, 169–70,176, 179, 184, 190, 200–01, 239, 245,252, 255–62, 275–76, 289, 293–94,302, 313, 320, 327–28, 331, 333

Enukidze, A.S. 122, 310Erenburg, I.G. 204Eristavi, R.D. 59–60Ermler, F.M. 309“export of revolution” see revolutionary

warEzhov, N.I. 120, 123

factionalism see communist partyFadeev, A.A. 182, 205“familism” 126–27, 155–57, 280–81family, relations between men and

women 26, 169, 171fascism 200, 203, 205, 214–20, 224–29,

243, 247, 282, 285–86federalism, confederalism see state

unitarism“feudal fragmentation” and its

overcoming 18–19, 22, 55, 60–61,64–65, 68, 80, 103, 142–47, 181, 198,265, 271–72, 282, 190–91

Feuerbach, L. 259–60Flammarion, C. 259, 331foreign policy: doctrine 8–9, 208,

210–14; national security, stateborders, spheres of influence 23,208–09, 227, 230–34, 279–80

Foucault, M. 283French Revolution see JacobinismFreud, S. 283

Galileo 184General Will see “unity of will and of

action”Genghis Khan 301, 303Georgian nationalism 58–64, 67–69,

80–81, 178–79, 200German–Soviet/Russian relations 116,

121–22, 208–09, 215–18, 224–32, 234,237–38, 243, 246–47

Gertsen, A.I. 56, 179, 260, 262Gheorghiu-Dej, G. 205Gilbert, A. 37Glinka, M.I. 200Goethe, J.W. 21, 180Gogol’, N.V. 175Gomulka, W. 236, 324Gor’kii, M. 103, 174, 307Gottwald, K. 328Gromyko, A.A. 146Gronskii, I.M. 174–75Grotewohl, O. 328Guesde, J. 217

Harrison, M. 298Haupt, G., M. Löwy, C. Weill 292Hebrang, A. 243, 326Heckert, F. 218, 320Hegel, G.W.F. 21, 25, 51, 260, 262herd psychology 219, 233–34Herder, J.G. 21historical hero, theory of see historical

materialism; cult of personalityhistorical materialism, Stalin’s version of

106, 115–16, 161–62, 195, 264–72Hitler, A. 6–7, 200, 214, 217–18, 224–26,

229, 243, 282, 285–86, 318Hobbes, T. 9, 260Hobsbawm, E. 22Holloway, D. 235Hoxha, E. 252, 318Howard, R. 241Hugo, V. 259Hunt, R. 27–30, 38

Iagoda, G.G. 121–22Iakir, I.E. 300Iaroshenko, L.D. 298Iaroslavskii, E.M. 162, 302, 308, 318,

322

Index 361

Information Bureau of CommunistParties (Cominform), Soviet andother communist parties 94, 248–54

intelligentsia 74–75, 104, 114–15,138–40, 150–57, 163–66, 169–71, 174,183–85, 187–88, 190–94, 202

Ivan III 145Ivan IV the Terrible 10, 13, 16–17, 102,

142–45, 154, 182, 233, 240, 260, 276,282, 304, 327

Jacobinism 18–24, 30, 32–33, 35–36, 43,49–50, 53–54, 56–57, 69–70, 78, 193,223, 264, 278–81

Jesus Christ 4, 167, 317Jews 62–66, 68, 201–07

Kaganovich, L.M. 1, 119, 123, 156, 160,164–65, 169, 174, 201, 300, 307, 327,331

Kaganovich, M.M. 123Kalinin, M.I. 164Kamenev, L.B. 44–45, 75, 89, 92–93,

105, 120–21, 132, 205, 260Kapitsa, M.S. 330Karakhan, L.M. 122Kautsky, K. 27, 31, 33, 43–44, 48, 52,

55–56, 61, 65–66, 94, 113, 126, 167,191, 259–61, 273, 276, 292, 294–95,299, 301, 305–06, 309, 315, 319, 328

Kazbegi, A. 59Keitel, W. 325Kennan, G. 300Khomiakov, A.S. 127Khrushchev, N.S. 204, 309–10, 325Kim Il-Sung 160, 233–34, 325Kirov, S.M. 119–20, 124, 142, 199, 240Kliuchevskii, V.O. 260Kliueva, N.G. 187Knei-Paz, B. 295Knorin, V.G. 300, 302, 318Kolakowski, L. 273kolkhozy see collectivisationKollontai, A.M. 132, 206Kondrat’ev, N.D. 118Korean War 233–34, 236–37korenizatsiia, “nationalisation” 190–92Kornilov, L.G. 311Kosarev, A.V. 123–24Kosior, S.V. 119, 123, 299Kostov, T. 95Kotkin, S. 10–11Kropotkin, P.A. 260

Kun, B. 300Kurchatov, I.V. 235Kutuzov, M.I. 200, 241, 317

Labriola, A. 333Lafargue, P. 260Lamarck, J. 185, 313language(s), linguistics, policies on

language 22, 53, 55, 58–59, 61, 66, 78,80, 82, 186, 190–92, 194–96, 269–72

Laski, H. 329Lassalle, F. 130, 161, 260–62, 309Latsis, V. 312Laufenberg, H. 261–62Lavoisier, A. 187Lavrov, P.L. 260“law of value” see socialist economic

systemLeerssen, J. 22Lenin, V.I. 10, 13–16, 26–27, 33–37,

41–48, 52–57, 63, 65–67, 69–75,77–78, 80–82, 84–86, 89–91, 93–95,99, 101–02, 104, 106, 113–15, 121,125–26, 129–31, 134–40, 142,146–49, 154–55, 157, 159, 161–68,173–74, 176, 178–79, 182, 184, 190,193, 197, 200, 207–09, 215, 220–21,223–24, 227, 237–38, 242–45, 247,255–58, 260–62, 266–67, 269,273–74, 276–78, 280, 289–90, 292,294–95, 300, 302–10, 317, 319, 322,324, 327, 330

Leont’ev, L.A. 108Lepeshinskaia, O.B. 314Lermontov, M.I. 312Letourneau, Ch. 259, 331Lippert, J. 259, 331List, F. 50Liu Shaoqi 236, 245, 252, 329–30Lobachevskii, N.I. 187Lominadze, V.V. 119Lomonosov, M.V. 180, 182, 187, 332Longo, L. 250Louis XI 144Louis XIV 144Louis Napoleon III 28, 148Lovell, D. 30Ludwig, E. 103, 158, 264Luther, M. 167Luxemburg, R. 54, 69, 126, 260–61, 291Lyell, Ch. 259, 331Lysenko, T.D. 185–86, 313–14

362 Index

Machaiski, J.W. 152Machiavelli, N. 332Makarenko, A.S. 172Makharadze, F.I. 61–62, 67, 255, 316Malenkov, G.M. 204, 329Malia, M. 10–11Malthus, T. 313Malyshev, V.A. 140, 144, 193, 206, 232,

236, 238, 303, 310, 314, 317Manuil’skii, D.Z. 217, 219, 225, 242,

321, 324Mao Zedong 160, 236, 251–52, 326, 330Marat, J. 260Marconi, G. 187Marr, N.I. 195, 269, 316, 333–34Martin, T. 317Martov, Iu.O. 126, 129Marx, K. 13–16, 25–35, 37–45, 49–54,

56, 62, 72, 78, 85, 93–94, 101, 104,106, 108, 112, 119, 136–38, 142,145–47, 154–55, 161, 165, 169, 174,176, 179, 201, 207, 215–16, 242, 245,248, 252, 255–62, 266, 268, 276,284–86, 289, 295, 298, 302, 304,309–10, 315, 320, 327, 329, 331–33

“Marxism–Leninism” 255–58Mayer, R. 289Medem, V. 292Mehring, F. 317Meierkhold, V.E. 173Meir, G. 206Mekhlis, L.Z. 227, 309Mendeleev, D.I. 180, 187Menzhinskii, V.R. 118Michurin, I.V. 185, 313–14Mikoian, A.I. 164, 282, 298, 300, 304,

329military intervention against USSR,

danger of see warMinin, K.M. 240Mints, I.I. 308Mitin, M.B. 308Moleschott, J. 259Molière 174Molotov, V.M. 16, 106, 117–19, 141,

144, 156, 164, 168, 174, 201, 206,213–14, 223, 226–28, 230–32, 296–98,310, 316, 318, 321–22, 324–26, 328

Montesquieu 28“moral-political unity of society”

134–35, 140, 149, 194, 269Morozov, P. 171

Naarden, B. 289Napoleon Bonaparte 23, 43, 228, 280–81“National Bolshevism” 261–62national cultural autonomy 54–56, 63,

78–80, 82–83“national nihilism” see cosmopolitanism

vs. patriotismnational self-determination 54–55, 61,

64, 68–69, 75–77, 192–93nationalisation of the economy 25–26,

37–39, 47–50, 105, 109, 170–71, 213,244, 247, 252, 274, 279–82

nations: civilised and barbaric, historicand nonhistoric, progressive andbackward 50–54, 62–66, 68–69,78–80, 82, 180–83, 191–92, 195–201,263–64; definition, origin of 20–22,53, 55–56, 60–62, 64–68, 80, 191, 198,238; socialist nations 43–44, 55, 95,190–91, 194–96, 202–03

nazism see fascismNechaev, S.G. 260Nenni, P. 235Neumann, H. 321New Economic Policy 85–88, 91–92,

96–99, 102, 104–05, 113Nicholas I 182, 241Nimni, E. 53Ninoshvili, E.F. 259“non-party bolsheviks” 135nuclear weapons see warfare

Ogarev, N.P. 262“one and indivisible republic” see state

unitarismOrakhelashvili, M.D. 309Ordzhonikidze, G.K. (Sergo) 3–4, 94,

118, 309Orthodox tradition 58, 60, 127, 166–68,

263Orwell, G. 286

Pankratova, A.M. 200Pannekoek, A. 31, 67pan-Slavic, Slavophile philosophy 50–53,

62, 66, 68, 80, 127, 181, 232, 237–39,260, 263–64

Papanin, I.D. 184“patriotic united front”, as line of

communist world movement 245–54patriotism: in Marx, Engels and Lenin

32–33, 43–45, 49–57, 81–82, 102, 179;of the Soviet state 56–57, 91, 102–04,

Index 363

110, 117, 138–39, 187–88, 194–95,208–12, 230–34; see alsocosmopolitanism vs. patriotism

Pauker, A. 205Pavlov, I.P. 186–87, 314peace movement 252–53“peaceful coexistence” 212–13, 224–29,

233–37peasantry 7–8, 12, 37–41, 44–48, 51,

58–60, 65, 70–72, 82, 85–91, 97–102,106, 109, 115, 140–41, 147, 154,169–71, 187, 192, 215, 221–23

pedagogy see education“people’s democracy” 95, 243–45“permanent, uninterrupted revolution”

37–41, 44–47, 70–72, 85, 88–89,92–93, 221–22

“permanently operating factors” seewarfare

Perón, J.D. 329Perrie, M. 304Peter the Great 10, 12, 13, 16, 17, 57,

102–04, 142–46, 154, 177, 182, 187,230–31, 233, 240, 260, 265, 276, 282,304, 317, 327

Piatakov, G.L. 43, 118, 120–21, 132, 300Piatnitskii, I.A. 300Pieck, W. 328–29Pilsudski, J. 119, 300Pipes, R. 9–10Pisarev, D.I. 259, 331Plekhanov, G.V. 56, 115, 126, 129,

161–62, 178, 181, 200, 238, 255,259–61, 266–69, 273–74, 289, 299,331, 333–34

Pokrovskii, M.N. 143–44, 264–65,333–34

Pol Pot 105Polish–Soviet/Russian relations 116, 119,

208–09, 224–27, 230, 232–33, 237–39,241, 243–44

Ponomarev, B.N. 206Popov, A.S. 187Popular Front 8, 219–20, 226, 247–48,

275“popularity” 22, 174–79, 183, 189,

198–99, 204, 244, 262–63, 275,281–82

Poskrebyshev, A.N. 195Pospelov, P.N. 204, 262, 302, 308, 310,

317Pozharskii, D.M. 240

Preobrazhenskii, E.A. 34, 47, 71, 87–88,97–98, 100, 255

“primitive socialist accumulation” 88Prokopovich, F. 16“proletarian internationalism” 94, 242proletarian revolution: in a backward

country 37–46, 70–72, 84–85, 220–24;in democratic states 31, 213–20,226–27, 243, 245–51, 253–54

Ptolemy 165, 184Pugachev, E.I. 296, 300, 304Pushkin, A.S. 180, 200, 271, 312

racism see biological ethnicityRadek, K.B. 120–21, 260, 319Radishchev, A.N. 197Rákosi, M. 328Rakovskii, Kh.G. 300Ramzin, L.K. 118rapprochement of languages and cultures

see cultural-linguistic homogeneityRazin, S.T. 296, 304Redens, S.F. 123Renner, K. 54–55, 64, 67, 83, 255, 292Repin, I.E. 176, 200“revolution from above” 38–39, 41,

97–104, 136“revolutionary democrats” 16, 35, 56,

175–79, 200, 255, 259–60, 262–64,276

revolutionary war 23, 42–44, 51–52,208–13, 216–17, 224–29, 230–37,241–42

Ribbentrop, J. von 8, 226, 230Ricardo, D. 259–60, 331–32right to secession see national self-

determinationRobespierre, M.M.I. 21–23, 30, 33,

279–80Röhm, E., 282Rolland, R. 119Roosevelt, F.D. 213–14, 318Rosdolsky, R. 50–51, 53Roskin, G.I. 187Rousseau, J.-J. 19–22, 25, 28, 147, 177,

278Rudzutak, Ia.E. 121–22, 158Russian character, its leading role in

relation to other Soviet nations62–66, 68–69, 78–80, 82, 192, 194–99,263–64

“Russian priority” see Russian

364 Index

revolutionary, cultural and scientificworld leadership

“Russian red patriotism” 82Russian revolutionary, cultural and

scientific world leadership 45, 52–53,62–63, 69–72, 84, 181, 187–88,197–98, 208–10, 262–64

Russification see cultural-linguistichomogeneity

Rykov, A.I. 45, 118–21, 205

Saakadze, G. 304Safarov, G.I. 216, 294St. Paul 5, 127sciences (natural and other) 99–100,

107–13, 134, 152–53, 162, 183–88,195, 262–72

Secchia, P. 251“self-criticism” 131–34, 150–51Shakespeare, W. 174–75Shanin, T. 289Shaumian, S.G. 61–62, 67–68, 255Shepilov, D.T. 108, 263, 314, 332–33Shkiriatov, M.F. 123, 133Sholokhov, M.A. 311Shtemenko, S.M. 234Shumiatskii, B.Z. 311Sieyès, E.J. 279Simonov, K.M. 182, 205, 312, 325, 330Simonov, N. 303“Slav solidarity” see pan-Slavic,

Slavophile philosophy;German–Soviet/Russian relations

Smirnov, A.P. 119, 133Smirnov, I.N. 121Smith, A. 259social democracy, “social fascism” 8,

213–220, 246–50socialism see communism in its two

stages“socialism in one country” 8, 42–48,

84–97, 110, 210–14, 273“socialist in content, national in form”

55–56, 188, 190–92, 199, 202–03socialist economic system (plan and

market, income and investmentpolicies) 25–26, 31, 33, 87–88, 91,96–113, 170

“socialist realism” 173–83Sokol’nikov, G.Ia. 120–21, 208Solov’ev, V.S. 263Sombart, W. 260Sorin, V. 306

Soviet democracy according to Stalin:equality before the law, positivediscrimination, universal suffrage 12,140–41, 154, 275; popularparticipation, mass mobilisation73–75, 147–52, 245; social, cadremobility, promotion of workers andyouth 152–54, unity of legislative andexecutive powers 74–75, 244–45

“Soviet patriotism” 194, 269“Soviet people,” the 195–96sovkhozy see collectivisationSpengler, O. 260Spinoza, B. 259–60Spirin, L. 259Stakhanov, A.G. 150, 184Stalin, V.I. 123Stalin’s private library, his reading

258–61Stasov, V.V. 176, 178–79, 181, 183Stassen, H. 329“state capitalism” 47–48, 105state, the: Stalin’s views concerning its

preservation, strengthening,functions, class character andwithering away 93, 136–42

state unitarism 21–22, 32–33, 53–54, 61,64–65, 68–69, 75–83, 192–93

Strasser, J. 292Struve, P.B. 331Stuchka, P.I. 295“substitutionism” 157, 159Sukhanov, N.N. 118Sulla 301Sun Yatsen 222Suslov, M.A. 113, 203, 205, 332Suvorov, A.V. 198–200, 228, 241, 317Svanidze, A.S. 300Syrtsov, S.I. 119Szporluk, R. 50

Talmon, J.L. 15, 18–19, 283Tarle, E.V. 200terror 21–22, 30–31, 51, 99–101, 114–17,

280Thaelmann, E. 321Thermidor 280Thorez, M. 219, 246, 250–51Tito, J.B. 94, 237, 243, 248, 326Tkachev, P.N. 35Togliatti, P. 94, 246, 321Tolmachev, V.N. 119, 133Tolstoi, A.N. 304

Index 365

Tolstoi, L.N. 175, 200, 331Tomskii, M.P. 119–20, 133Tovstukha, I.P. 308“tribute” 97–98Trotskii, L.D. 8, 41, 44, 47, 71, 87–94,

97–98, 100, 102, 108, 118, 121, 124,130, 157, 163, 175, 205, 208, 210, 255,260–61, 274, 277, 280, 286, 299, 301,303, 306, 308, 321–22

Truman, H. 236, 324, 326tsarist tradition, Stalin on: art and

science policies 180–83, 187–88;colonialism 59–66, 68–69, 199–201;conservative Russian philosophy seepan-Slavic, Slavophile philosophy;foreign policy 62, 231–33, 237–41;heroes from the Russian past197–200; nationality policies andstate unitarism 59–66, 68, 191, 193,196, 199–201; Peter the Great’s“revolution from above” 102–04; ruleby a tsar 159–60; state bureaucracyand centralism 74–75, 142–47

Tsereteli, G.E. 58Tucker, R.C. 10, 16, 82, 102, 145, 187,

210, 301, 305, 307Tugan-Baranovskii, M.I. 331Tukhachevskii, M.N. 118–19, 121, 277“two camps” 209, 225–26, 243, 249

Ulbricht, W. 227, 248“unity of will and of action” 19–20,

126–35, 279, 284

vanguard theory 34–35, 134–35, 157,161, 266–69

Varga, E.S. 323, 329Vazha-Pshavela 59Vil’iams, V.R. 185Vinogradov, V.V. 316violent and peaceful transition to

socialism see proletarian revolutionVishnevskii, V.V. 227Vladimir the Saint 265Vogt, K. 259

Vol’fson, M.V. 308Volkogonov, D.A. 300, 320Vollmar, G. 43–44, 48, 94, 261, 273Voltaire 145Voroshilov, K.E. 119, 164, 174, 193, 227,

310, 331Voznesenskii, N.A. 108, 111–13, 298Vyshinskii, A.Ia. 300

Walicki, A. 140“war communism” 96war as a condition of revolution 45, 70,

212–15, 217–18, 222, 225, 247war, danger and inevitability of 44,

46–47, 71, 89–90, 92, 116, 123,138–39, 211–13, 217, 235–37, 250,252–53

warfare 234–37Webb, B.P. and S.J. 260Weber, M. 260, 283Wells, H.G. 213–14, 219, 306–08Werth, A. 235, 325Wetter, G. 269Williams, R. 128–29Wolffheim, F. 261–62world revolution 23, 42–44, 47, 71–72,

86–87, 89–90, 93, 208–14, 224–29,241–54

world war 6, 42–43, 45–47, 52, 70, 94,180, 187, 194, 197–203, 208–09,211–14, 224–29, 231–32, 234–37,243–44, 247, 263, 275–76

Zasulich, V.I. 126Zhdanov, A.A. 142–44, 181, 183,

187–88, 199, 203, 225, 240, 242,249–50, 262–63, 311–14, 323, 329

Zhdanov, Iu.A. 185–86, 313–14Zheliabov, A.I. 197Zhordaniia, N.N. 60–62, 67–68, 255,

259, 295Zhou Enlai 236, 326Ziber, N.I. 331Zinov’ev, G.E. 88–91, 93, 105, 118,

120–21, 124, 133–34, 205, 215–16,256, 260, 274, 293–94, 308, 319–20

Zoshchenko, M.M. 180

366 Index