Despite his masterful handling of this situation, Stalin found himself in a vulnerable position. His virtues and shortcomings were a matter of public discussion. The very fact that such conversations could take place and that verdicts were being reached, however favorable, threatened to diminish his political authority. Rather than feeling gratitude toward those colleagues who had defended him before the congress’s delegates, he seemed to respond with festering resentment. Their sympathy was demeaning; it looked too much like condescension, and their support felt like a favor that would have to be returned in kind. Stalin had no intention of paying off any political debts or allowing himself to be turned into a junior partner. Several weeks after the end of the congress he started biting the hands that fed him. In June 1924, Pravda published a speech by Stalin in which he found fault with some rather innocuous statements by Kamenev and Zinoviev.
This outrageous breach of the anti-Trotsky leadership’s united front caused consternation among top party ranks. Historians have uncovered no documents to shed light on what prompted Stalin’s public scolding of Kamenev and Zinoviev, but it appears that this incident was discussed among a close circle of party leaders during the Central Committee plenum of August 1924, and Stalin found himself outnumbered. It is hard to find another explanation for Stalin’s 19 August 1924 letter of resignation, a copy of which is preserved in his archive. In this remarkable document, Stalin stated that his collaboration with Kamenev and Zinoviev in the Politburo after Lenin’s retirement had yielded deplorable results, demonstrating the “impossibility of an honest and sincere political collaboration with these comrades within the framework of a single, close collegium.” In light of this, he submitted his resignation from the Politburo and, accordingly, from the post of general secretary. He requested a two-month medical leave, after which he asked to be “assigned to some minor post either in Turukhansky Krai, Yakutsk Oblast, or abroad.”84
This manipulative passive-aggressive outburst could hardly have been taken seriously. Nobody would have believed that Stalin actually intended to endure another Siberian exile, this time as a low-level paper-pusher! The full membership of the Central Committee, to whom the letter of resignation was addressed, never saw it. The matter was dealt with by a close-knit group of “friends” and allies, probably on 19 August, the day the letter appeared, or the following day. One can only assume that the establishment of an informal majority within the Central Committee took place in conjunction with the discussion of Stalin’s letter. Later testimony by Zinoviev suggests that this all occurred between sessions of the Central Committee plenum, which concluded on 20 August. The majority faction, made up of the most influential anti-Trotsky members of the Central Committee, elected a semerka, a group of seven, to serve as its governing body. The Seven included the chairman of the Central Control Commission and all the members of the Politburo except for Trotsky and functioned as a sort of shadow Politburo.85 Historians most often describe the establishment of this Central Committee majority faction and the Seven as an anti-Trotsky effort. This is partially true, but as Stalin’s letter of resignation shows, the new unofficial body’s primary task was to work behind the scenes to consolidate a majority within the Politburo and overcome internal disagreements. The Seven replaced the troika, which had not succeeded in this role.
This pivotal episode in the party’s internal struggles reflects the balance of power in the Politburo during the summer of 1924. Stalin was apparently intentionally inciting conflict with Kamenev and Zinoviev, even though he could not yet be certain that other Politburo members, who were concerned with unity, would take his side. The letter of resignation was not only an obvious test of his own strength, but also a sign that he was still relatively weak. This incident was an important step toward Stalin’s break with Kamenev and Zinoviev and his gradual alliance with Bukharin and Rykov. Having freed himself from the confines of the troika and now having the Seven to work with, he gained maneuverability.
Whatever personal intentions and calculations were at play in forming the anti-Trotsky coalition in 1924–1925, it gave rise to a curious system of collective leadership that has been little studied as a force shaping the system of government that developed after Lenin’s death. This collective leadership involved the interaction of politically equal Soviet leaders and the relatively autonomous government agencies they headed. It featured a rather well-developed division of functions between party and governmental apparats. Government policy, shaped by compromises among the competing interests represented by these leaders and agencies, became flexible and well balanced.
The period of collective leadership was a time of productive decision making and the flourishing of the NEP. The Seven overcame the crises the NEP was designed to address and adjusted the country’s economic course while avoiding measures that would have caused systemic damage. Oligarchic government lent itself to relatively moderate political and economic policies. But collective leadership began to disintegrate when the government turned to a more hard-line, radical course. As historians have long believed and as recent archival research has confirmed, the seeds of conflict that put an end to collective leadership were intentionally sown by Stalin.
Ultimately, the viability of the collective leadership depended on its top leaders’ willingness to adhere to the rules of their unique system of government. This system, which faced no threats beyond the personal ambitions of individual Politburo members, had marked advantages over an individual dictatorship. Whether it would survive after Lenin’s demise had everything to do with the personal qualities of the three Bolshevik oligarchs: Trotsky, Zinoviev, and Stalin (in theory, these names could be given in any order—their standing was supposed to be equal). These personal qualities, however, undermined collective leadership, and intrigues among these three figures inevitably drew other highly placed Bolsheviks into the fray, destabilizing the entire collective decision-making process.
Lacking a system for resolving personal conflicts, the collective leadership resorted to rather boorish methods to isolate Trotsky and exclude him from power. In so doing, it launched a process that destroyed the last shreds of relative democracy within the Bolshevik party. In January 1925, Trotsky was removed from his post as people’s commissar for military and naval affairs, ending his hold on any real power. Zinoviev proposed that he also be removed from the Politburo. This proposal made perfect sense since Trotsky had already been excluded from the Politburo’s work (as well as the unofficial deliberations of the Seven). But most members of the Politburo and Central Committee did not relish such changes, which always carried unpredictable consequences, and stood firmly under the banner of “unity.” Zinoviev’s proposal seemed a bit bloodthirsty. The jokester Bukharin even made up an aphorism inspired by Zinoviev’s anti-Trotsky zeaclass="underline" “If you see that the name Othello has been replaced with ‘Grigory’ [Zinoviev’s first name], believe your eyes.”86