That Stalin had been obstreperous when reacting to the change in strategy is indisputable. But he was soon accused of something more serious. It came to be said that an obsession with military glory had caused him to withhold forces from Tukhachevski. He therefore appeared to be the culprit for the defeat of the Reds. This is too strong a verdict. In fact he did not block the transfer of troops: he simply refused to give his personal counter-signature. Certainly he was not guiltless. On 12 August he had supported the deployment of the Cavalry Army against Lwów despite knowing about the Politburo’s intention to divide the South-Western Front’s forces between a Western Front and a Southern Front. Even so, it is hardly likely that the forces reassigned to the Western Front would have reached Warsaw in time for the battle even if Stalin had not approved the Lwów operation.34 Yet without acting insubordinately, he undoubtedly did much — and must have done it knowingly — to make it next to impossible for Kamenev and Tukhachevski to carry out any further redeployments of the South-Western Front’s forces. To that extent he acted as he had done throughout the Civil War. He behaved as though he had a monopoly on military judgement and that those who opposed him were either fools or knaves.
By the time the siege of Lwów was lifted, Stalin was far away. Returning to Moscow for the Politburo meeting on 19 August, he was raging to justify himself. Both Lenin and Trotski were present. The fighting before Warsaw was continuing; Wrangel was moving north from the Crimea. At the same time there was an opening for the Red units on the Caucasian Front to push down through Azerbaijan into Persia. The entire military situation was in flux in three directions. Item number one, however, was the strategic confusion left behind at Lwów. Stalin decided that political attack was the best form of defence: he castigated the entire campaign. He stressed the neglect suffered by the armies facing Wrangel, and noted that the result could be a resumption of the Civil War in Russia. His blistering onslaught produced a result; for despite a counter-report from Trotski, the Politburo decided ‘to recognise the Wrangel Front as the main one’.35 In a week when the fate of the Polish campaign was in the balance, this was extraordinary phrasing. To outward appearances Stalin had trounced his enemy Trotski at the Politburo and secured the strategic reorientation he favoured.
Yet his triumph was not what it seemed. There was no acknowledgement in the Politburo that Stalin’s plans and behaviour in the Soviet–Polish War had been appropriate. Lenin and Trotski continued to blame him. A clue to the intensity of the dispute was given by an item further down the agenda sheet, which related to Stalin’s position. After some discussion he was formally awarded a fortnight’s holiday.36 Yet again he was claiming exhaustion and, no doubt, was feeling under-appreciated. This was the pattern of behaviour established in the Civil War whenever he failed to get his way.37
Stalin’s anger went on simmering. He neither took his holiday38 nor dropped his case against the Supreme Command and its patron Trotski. He felt humiliated, and when he went back to the Politburo on 1 September he demanded his own demission from ‘military activity’. No one seriously expected him to serve in the Red Army after the end of armed hostilities in Poland; but the plea was granted and Stalin left the Revolutionary-Military Council of the Republic.39 He had craved to be a member since its creation. But he would no longer serve on it if his counsel was going to be overridden. He refused to forget what he took to be the slights he had suffered. At the same Politburo session there had been hurried discussion about foreign policy, and Trotski had successfully proposed a ‘policy of compromise peace with Poland’.40 For Stalin, this was hard to bear. Trotski and the Supreme Command were in his eyes co-responsible for the war’s mismanagement. Now Trotski apparently wanted to enjoy the plaudits of peacetime. Stalin had warned against the whole Polish campaign. He had sounded the alarm about Wrangel. He had been asked to deal with two military fronts as if they had been one and then been asked to cope with yet another front.
For some days he buried himself in those affairs for which he had been most respected before the Civil War. The Politburo at his instigation was planning to appeal to the indigenous peoples of the Caucasus at the expense of the Cossacks. The decision was taken in principle, and Stalin was asked to supervise implementation on Moscow’s behalf.41 He also took charge of the complex Bashkirian affair. The Bashkirian Revolutionary Committee had behaved disloyally to the Soviet state and several members had been arrested. Stalin proposed to transfer them to Moscow for interrogation.42 This was important political work. Yet at the same time Stalin did not want to be known as a Georgian who specialised in the national question. He belonged to the Central Committee and Sovnarkom in his own right, and he wanted this recognised. He had opinions about general policy. He felt he knew as much as anyone about politics and society in the provinces. Resentment grew like rust on an iron nail. Like everyone in the Politburo, he was also feeling the physical and emotional impact of his exertions of the past few years. Unlike the others, he felt under-appreciated. Nothing indicated that his feelings were going to be spared as the Ninth Party Conference approached.
Lenin arrived at the Conference on 22 September and showed unwonted contrition. Reality had to be faced: it was ‘a deep defeat, a catastrophic situation’. The secret project for the ‘Sovietization of Poland’ had been disastrous. The Red Army, instead of being greeted by Polish workers and peasants, had been repulsed by a ‘patriotic upsurge’. So how had the miscalculation occurred? Lenin admitted that he had thought that Germany was on the boil and that Poland would be a mere bridgehead towards Berlin. He also admitted: ‘I absolutely do not pretend in the slightest fashion to knowledge of military science.’ The Red Army, he conceded, had been set an impossible task. Probably the Politburo should have accepted Curzon’s proposal and parleyed for peace. The best option was to sue for a treaty and wait for a turn of events ‘at the first convenient opportunity’.43
Stalin’s latest resignation was one too many for the stressed Lenin. Stalin’s imperiousness and volatility appeared excessive; Trotski by contrast seemed at least dependable in a crisis. Trotski took his chance and bluntly criticised Stalin’s record in the Soviet–Polish War and accused him of ‘strategic mistakes’.44 Information from returning political commissars confirmed this accusation and Lenin repeated it in the early sessions.45 The Politburo was revealed as a nest of jealousies and criticisms. Several in the audience were aware that Lenin had been less than frank about his own part in the débâcle. The fundamental blunder had been to invade Poland at all and this was primarily Lenin’s error. Indeed he had been warned of the likely consequences by Trotski and Stalin. Trotski had argued that the Red Army was already exhausted, Stalin that the Poles would rise up against the invasion.46 Some Conference delegates indeed castigated Lenin directly and the session ended in an angry dispute. When proceedings were resumed next day, Stalin insisted on the right of reply. It was a brief speech. Having pointed out that he had expressed early doubts about the invasion, he made no defence of his behaviour on campaign, and the Conference moved on to other business.47