Yet he could not fail to see the difference between Kamenev and Lenin. Kamenev had been Stalin’s senior Bolshevik, his friend and his ally. But Lenin was a real leader. From April 1917 until Lenin’s medical incapacitation in 1922 Stalin gave him allegiance. It was often a troubled relationship. They had disputes every year through to Lenin’s death. But they got on well between February and October; and Lenin took Stalin under his patronage and promoted his career in Bolshevism.
PART TWO
Leader for the Party
12. THE YEAR 1917
The months between the February and October Revolutions were momentous for Russia. Politics became free and visible. Petrograd was festooned with red flags and devoid of police. Its festivals were those of the socialist leadership of the capital’s Workers’ and Soldiers’ Soviet. The ‘Internationale’ was sung on ceremonial occasions. There was bravado everywhere and socialism was at a peak of popularity. The Provisional Government under the liberal Georgi Lvov ruled only by leave of the Petrograd Soviet. The political far right vanished after the fall of the monarchy. Order on the streets was maintained by ‘mass organisations’ such as the Red Guard. Military officers learned to consult their troops. Public life was dedicated to the service of the people. Camaraderie was demanded on all official occasions. If decisions had to be taken, the assumption was that they would be preceded by debate and that workers, peasants and soldiers should have influence over what was resolved. Soviets sprang up in towns across the country. Elected by the lower social orders, they intervened in public affairs whenever their leaders — the Mensheviks and the Social-Revolutionaries — felt that the bodies of central or local government contravened the agreement with the Provisional Government on universal civil freedom and defensive war.
Stalin worked with Lenin to prepare a conference of Bolsheviks later in April. He was one of many leading Bolsheviks in Petrograd and the provinces shifting their opinions under the impact of the debate started by Lenin. They were joining those other Bolsheviks who had always resented giving the slightest support to the Provisional Government. Several Mensheviks even converted to Bolshevism in disdain for their official leadership’s policy, and the entire Inter-District Organisation, which had previously been anti-Bolshevik, joined the Bolsheviks in May.1 The gap between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks had always been wide but the original émigré split in 1903 had been followed by several attempts at reunification; and although the Prague Conference of 1912 had divided the Russian Social-Democratic Workers’ Party yet again, Bolsheviks and Mensheviks in many Russian cities continued to co-operate with each other for many weeks after the February Revolution. But steadily the radical difference in policies counted and the Bolshevik and Menshevik factions definitively became entirely separate parties.
Stalin, even after accepting Lenin’s April Theses, did not adopt all the leader’s policies. Lenin demanded state ownership of the land. Stalin continued to argue that it would alienate the peasants who wished to have total control over the countryside.2 The land, he insisted, should be transferred to the peasantry without conditions,3 and perhaps he thought that once Lenin gained direct experience of Russian conditions he would see the point. Stalin also shunned the more provocative of Lenin’s slogans on the war. Like Kamenev, Stalin omitted to call on soldiers and workers to turn the existing ‘imperialist war’ into a ‘European civil war’ between Europe’s proletariats and its bourgeoisies.4 Kamenev and Stalin understood that if the Bolsheviks were to increase their popularity, they had to stress that they were the only party in Russia which could bring about peace. Equally noteworthy was Stalin’s avoidance of terms such as ‘the dictatorship of the proletariat’.5 He had his ears open to attitudes in society. Workers and soldiers saw the downfall of the monarchy as inaugurating an order of freedom and democracy. Ideas of dictatorship were regarded as characteristic of the monarchy overthrown in February 1917. Stalin defended his ideas — and it was not he but Lenin who eventually had to amend his position.6
Meanwhile the Provisional Government plunged into difficulties. The war dragged on and Russia’s armies appeared increasingly inferior to their German enemy. The dislocation of the economy worsened. Food supplies fell. Factories faced closures as metal, oil and other raw materials failed to be delivered. Banks ceased to bail out industrial enterprises. The civilian administrative system, which was already creaking under wartime strains, started to collapse. Transport and communication became unreliable. At the same time the demands of popular opinion intensified. Workers called for higher pay and secure employment. Soldiers in the garrisons supported a peace policy: they were horrified by the possibility of being transferred to the front line. Peasants wanted higher prices for their harvest; they also insisted on possession of all agricultural land and an end to the war. Shopkeepers and artisans demanded protection against the interests of big business. Ukrainians, Finns and Georgians wanted proof that the authorities in Petrograd were not putting them at a disadvantage. The Provisional Government made concessions. It introduced arbitration tribunals to industrial disputes. It increased prices paid for grain. It overlooked the insubordination of the garrisons. It granted massive autonomy to local organs of self-rule. It promised to hold elections to a constituent assembly at the earliest opportunity.
Ministers refused to sanction further reforms until after the defeat of the Central Powers. The problem manifest since the February Revolution was that the Provisional Government lacked the capacity to restrain those groups in society which demanded that reforms be introduced immediately. The Petrograd Soviet’s permission had been crucial in the establishment of the first cabinet, and the soviets, factory–workshop committees, army committees and village land communes proceeded to restrict the capacity of ministers to govern. The armed forces were disabled from enforcing the Provisional Government’s will by the insistence of garrison soldiers on ignoring orders they disliked. The police had always been useless at confronting civil disobedience — and anyway they had virtually disbanded themselves on the Imperial monarchy’s overthrow.
If Stalin had any doubts about following Lenin, they were dispelled by events in Petrograd. Minister of External Affairs Pavel Milyukov had sent a diplomatic note to London and Paris affirming that Russian war aims remained what they had been under Nicholas II. Since these aims included territorial expansion at the expense of the Ottoman Empire there was much popular revulsion among the workers and soldiers of the capital. The Provisional Government had come to power with the Petrograd Soviet’s support on the clear understanding that the war would be fought defensively and that expansionism had been disavowed. On 20–21 April a political demonstration against the cabinet was held by the Menshevik and Socialist-Revolutionary leadership of the Petrograd Soviet. Similar demonstrations occurred in cities across the country. Some Bolsheviks in Petrograd called for armed uprising against the Provisional Government, and Lenin had to disown them as his party’s representatives. All the same the whole Milyukov affair played into Lenin’s hands. To many as yet unpersuaded Bolsheviks as well as to a rising number of workers and soldiers it appeared that he had been proved right and that the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries were to blame for having trusted the Provisional Government.