As has often been described and analyzed, the struggle for power that followed Lenin's death was decided by Stalin's superior control of the Party membership. Acting behind the scenes as the general secretary of the Party, Stalin managed to build up a following strong enough to overcome Trots-
ky's magnificent rhetoric and great prestige, as well as Kamenev's Party organization in Moscow and Zinoviev's in Petrograd - named Leningrad after Lenin's death. Stalin intrigued skillfully, first allying himself with Kamenev and Zinoviev against Trotsky, whom they envied and considered their rival for Party leadership; then with the Right group against the Left; and eventually, when sufficiently strong, suppressing the Right as well. He kept accusing his opponents of factionalism, of disobeying the established Party line and splitting the Party. Final victory came at the Fifteenth All-Union Congress of the Communist party, which on December 27, 1927, condemned all "deviation from the general Party line" as interpreted by Stalin. The general secretary's rivals and opponents recanted or were exiled; in any case, they lost their former importance. Trotsky himself was expelled from the Soviet Union in January 1929 and was eventually murdered in exile in Mexico in 1940, almost certainly on Stalin's orders.
Still, although Stalin's rise to supreme authority can well be considered an impressive, if gruesome, study in power politics, its ideological aspect should not be forgotten. After all, of the three alternate views present in the Party, the general secretary's possessed the greatest attraction by far for Soviet Communists. The Right, in effect, simply admitted defeat: in spite of the tremendous struggle and all the efforts, socialism could not succeed in the Soviet Union until the uncertain coming of world revolution. Trotsky's Left position, while more sanguine, also tied the Soviet future to world revolution and thus made Bolshevik activity of limited importance and effectiveness at best. Only Stalin offered a sweeping program and a majestic goal to be achieved by Soviet efforts alone. Only he proposed to advance Marxism in the Soviet Union without dependence on problematic developments elsewhere. The same Party congress that condemned all deviations from Stalin's line enthusiastically adopted measures that signified the end of the New Economic Policy and the beginning of the First Five-Year Plan.
XXXVII
THE FIRST THREE FIVE-YEAR PLANS, 1928-41
Enough of living by the law
Given by Adam and Eve.
The jade of history we will ride to death.
Left!
Left!
Left!
It [the First Five-Year Plan] asked no less than a complete transformation from backward agricultural individualism to mechanized collectivism, from hothouse subsidized industry to self-sufficient industry on the greatest, most modern scale, from the mentality of feudalism, far behind the Western industrial age, to socialism still ahead of it.
"When a forest is cut down, splinters fly." Of course, it is unfortunate to be a splinter.
THE REMARK OF A SOVIET CITIZEN TO THE AUTHOR IN THE SUMMER OF 1958
Stalin's sweeping victory at the Fifteenth All-Union Congress of the Communist Party in December 1927 marked the inauguration of the era of Stalin and his five-year plans. The general secretary was to direct the destinies of the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics and of world Communism for twenty-five eventful years, becoming in the course of that quarter of a century perhaps the most totalitarian, powerful, and feared dictator of all time.
Stalin
Stalin began his life and career humbly enough. In fact, it has often been mentioned that he was one of the few Bolshevik leaders of more or less proletarian origin. Born a son of a shoemaker in 1879 in the little town of Gori near the Georgian capital of Tiflis - or Tbilisi - Joseph Dzhugashvili attended a Church school in Gori until 1894 and then went to the theological seminary in Tiflis. In 1899, however, he was expelled from the seminary for reasons that are not entirely clear. By that time, apparently, Stalin had become acquainted with some radical writers and in particular with Marx and Lenin. He joined the Social Democratic party and when it
split in 1903 sided firmly with the Bolsheviks. Between 1902 and 1913 Dzhugashvili, or rather Stalin as he came to be known, engaged in a variety of conspiratorial and revolutionary activities, suffering arrest and exile several times. He managed to escape repeatedly from exile, which has suggested police collusion to certain specialists. Stalin's last exile, however, continued from 1913 until the February Revolution. Apparently the Georgian Bolshevik first attracted Lenin's attention when he organized a daring raid to seize funds for the Party. Stalin's revolutionary activity developed in such Transcaucasian centers as Tiflis, Batum, and Baku, as well as in St. Petersburg. In contrast to many other Bolshevik leaders, Stalin never lived abroad, leaving the Russian empire only to attend a few meetings. Because of Stalin's Bolshevik orthodoxy and Georgian origin, the Party welcomed him as an expert on the problem of nationalities, a subject to which he devoted some of his early writings.
One of the first prominent Bolsheviks to arrive in Petrograd, Stalin participated in the historic events of 1917, and after the October Revolution he became the first commissar for national minorities. As a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Southern Front he played a role in the Civil War, for example, in the defense of Tsaritsyn against the Whites. Incidentally, Tsaritsyn was renamed Stalingrad in 1925 and Volgograd in 1961. It might be noted that in the course of executing his duties he quarreled repeatedly with Trotsky. But Stalin's real bid for power began in 1922 with his appointment as general secretary of the Party, a position that gave him broad authority in matters of personnel. The long-time official Soviet view of Stalin as Lenin's anointed successor distorts reality, for, in fact, the ailing Bolshevik leader came to resent the general secretary's rigidity and rudeness and in his so-called testament warned the Party leadership against Stalin. But Stalin's rivals failed to heed Lenin's late forebodings, and, before too long, Stalin's Party machine rolled over all opponents. The complete personal dictatorship which began in 1928 was to last until the dictator's death in 1953.
The amount of time that has elapsed since Stalin's death has not been nearly enough for historians to pass a definitive judgment on the Soviet dictator and his historical role. Views of Stalin have ranged from the utterly fantastic eulogy of him as a universal genius, expounded for many years by the propaganda machine of Russian and world communism, to the extremely hostile impression that he was a blood-soaked, man-devouring, oriental monster. Many commentators have made interesting attempts to explain the general secretary, his importance, and his work. Stalin has been credited, for example, with "inflexible will, unwillingness to yield, realistic statesmanship and high organizing abilities." Hardheaded realism and common sense have been mentioned frequently as the dictator's outstanding traits. Deutscher's well-known book presents him as a hard-