Stalin’s USSR: Nationalism and Marxist Internationalism

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Stalin’s SSSR

session iii-the Nationalities Question and succession; 1912-1928

this session’s major topics

I. Introduction: Nationalism and Marxist Internationalism

II.Stalin becomes Narkom for National Affairs

III.Formation of the USSR; 1917-1923

IV.Lenin’s successors

V.Stalin and Trotsky

VI.Becoming the Vozhd

Nationalism and Marxist Internationalism

Nationalism and Marxist Internationalism

PROLETARIANS
OF EVERY LAND
UNITE

PROLETARII VSEH STRAN SOEDINYAITES

The Russian Empire, as it appeared in 1917, was the product of
nearly four centuries of continuous expansion. Unlike other European
nations, Russia...knew relatively few geographic deterrents to
aggrandizement. This geographically favorable situation by the
political weakness of Russia’s neighbors….Hence Russia, somewhat
like the United States, found outlets for expansive tendencies along
its own borders instead of overseas. It has been estimated that the
growth of the Russian Empire, [1500-1900], proceded at the rate of
…50 square miles a day.

Richard Pipes. The Formation of the Soviet Union, p. 1

the National Problem in Imperial Russia
Imperial Census of 1897--Nationalities are identiﬁed by native language

Slavs
Great Russians 44%
Ukrainians 18%
Poles 6%
Byelorussians 5%
Turkic peoples 11%
Jews 4%
Finnish peoples 3%
Lithuanians and Latvians 2%
Germans 1.42%

Caucasian mountain people (gortsy) 1.34%

Georgians 1.07%

Armenians 0.93%

Iranian people 0.62%

Mongolians 0.38%

Others 1.03%

Pipes, p. 2

nationalities in a 1941 school map

()*()+
(KAVKAZ)
KEY

GEORGIANS

AZERBAIDJANS

ARMENIANS

OSSETIANS

, CHECHENS

The Caucasian population is extraordinarily heterogeneous. It may
safely be said that no other territory of equal size anywhere in the
world displays a comparable diversity of languages and races….In
1916 the Caucasus had 12,266,000 inhabitants, divided into the
following principal groups:

Russians, Ukrainians, Byelorussians 4,023,000

Azerbaijanis and other Moslems 2,455,000

Armenians 1,860,000

Georgians 1,791,000

Caucasian Mountain peoples (gortsy) 1,519,000

Other European peoples 140,000

Other indigenous peoples 478,000

Pipes, p. 16

The Caucasus therefore had not one but several national movements
developing side by side. Of unity, there was none. The Georgians had
their eyes turned toward Russia, to Europe, and to socialism; the
chief concern of the [Christian] Armenians was the Turk, on both
sides of the frontier; the Azerbaijanis participated in the All-Russian
Moslem movement; and the inhabitants of the mountains had
developed as yet no deﬁnite political orientation.

Pipes, p. 20

Marx and Engels left their followers little guidance
in matters of nationality and nationalism. In
Western Europe, [the focus of most of their
studies], the minority problem presented no
serious issue: most of the states were nationally
homogeneous…

The natural tendency of the capitalist era, in the
opinion of Engels, was to form large national
states….

Marx and Engels shared some assumptions prevalent among liberal thinkers of their day,
including the faith in the capacity of capitalism and democracy, with their free trade and
opportunities for the expression of popular will, to level national differences, and to bring into
being a world-wide international civilization….

Ethnic isolation and petty states as typical of the feudal era; nationalism and the national state
as characteristic of the capitalist era; internationalism and the disappearance of national
animosities as proper to the socialist era--such were in bare outline the views of Marx and
Engels on the nationality question.

Pipes, pp. 21-22

review

• state

• sovereignty

• nation state

• unitary state

• federation

The principal exponent of the orthodox
Marxist views on the nationality question in
the early twentieth century was the Polish
socialist Rosa Luxemburg….her researches
led her to the conclusion that Poland’s striving
for independence had become illusory and
retrogressive because economic forces...had
tied that country ﬁrmly to Russia….Poland
should satisfy herself, consequently, with
autonomy within a democratic Russian
state….in Eastern European socialist circles,
“Luxemburgism”came to be used, in effect, as
synonymous with uncompromising hostility
towards all national movements in general.

Pipes, pp. 22-23 1871-1919

The Hapsburg monarchy, the first multi-national empire to develop a strong
socialist movement, had within its borders several large minority groups...with
a developed sense of national consciousness. The Social-Democrat there
was forced to face the national problem:

• whether the party was to be organized as one for the whole empire or to be
divided along territorial or national lines

• how to conduct socialist propaganda among the groups of the population
which did not speak German

• how to reconcile the different and often conflicting economic interests of
the various nationalities

• and, finally, he was required to formulate a constitutional system,
satisfactory to all the inhabitants of the empire

Pipes, p. 24

The Brünn Congress of the Austrian Social Democratic Party
1899

Two solutions were suggested:

• the empire was to be divided into provinces, each corresponding as closely as
possible to the ethnographic limits of each nationality. Within these provinces the
numerically dominant group receive full authority over cultural and linguistic affairs.
territorial national-cultural autonomy

The Brünn Congress of the
Austrian Social Democratic
Party, 1899

Otto Bauer

Two solutions were suggested:

• the empire was to be divided into provinces, each
corresponding as closely as possible to the ethnographic limits
Karl Renner
of each nationality. Within these provinces the numerically
dominant group receive full authority over cultural and linguistic
affairs. territorial national-cultural autonomy

• extraterritorial national-cultural autonomy Every national group was to have self-
rule in linguistic and cultural matters throughout the entire empire regardless of territorial
divisions. The state was to be divided not into territories but into nations...a more
practical solution of the national problem in areas where the population was ethnically
too mixed to make the customary territorial division possible.

Pipes, p. 24

This much appeared certain to [Renner and Bauer]: nationalism had to be
faced directly and the nation had to be recognized as a valuable and
enduring form of social organization:

Social Democracy proceeds not from the existing states but from live nations. It
neither denies nor ignores the existence of the nation but on the contrary, it
accepts it as the carrier of the new order, which is visualized not as a union of
states but as a community of peoples, as nations… Social Democracy
considers the nation both indestructible and unworthy of destruction...far from
being unnational or antinational it places nations at the foundation of its world
structure.

O. Bauer, Die Nationalitaetenfrage und die Socialdemokratie (Vienna, 1907)

quoted in Pipes, p. 25

the views of the two Austrian socialists--unprecedented and revolutionary in
modern socialism--required that Social Democracy ﬁnd a scheme capable of
utilizing what was valuable and permanent in the national movement, and
neutralizing what was harmful. In the ﬁrst category were the linguistic and
cultural aspects of nationalism; in the latter, the political.

Pipes, p. 25

Julius Martov & the Jewish Bund

• the son of Jewish middle class socialist political exiles

• originally, their faction worked for exclusively economic goals
(i.e., trade unionism) among the growing Jewish proletariat

• 1900-inﬂuenced by the “Austrian solution” of the Brünn
Congress, the factions united under the Yiddish name of the
Bund (confederation)

born Yuli Osipovich Zederbaum in
Istanbul, 1873-died in Berlin, 1923

• established by Catherine the Great in
the 18th century and continued to 1917

• the Pale of Settlement was the territory
in the western empire to which Russia’s
Jews were deported, some in chains

• here they lived in greater or lesser
density, among their Christian
neighbors, as indicated by the shades
of color on the map

• such geographically-interspersed
nationality made labor or political
organization tricky and was a perfect
ground for the “Austrian solution”

The Jewish Encyclopedia (1901-1906)

Julius Martov & the Jewish Bund
• the son of Jewish middle class socialist political exiles

• originally, their faction worked for exclusively economic goals among the
growing Jewish proletariat

• 1900-inﬂuenced by the “Austrian solution” of the Brünn Congress, the
factions united under the Yiddish name of the Bund (confederation)

• Martov introduced the extraterritorial national-cultural autonomy principle
as the solution to the Jewish question in Russian Marxist politics

• 1903-as part of the famous RSDLP Second Congress, Martov led the
Bund in the walkout that produced the Bolshevik-Menshevik split

• he became the most famous leader of the Mensheviks

born Yuli Osipovich Zederbaum in
• 1907-at the London Congress which Stalin attended it was Martov who Istanbul, 1873-died in Berlin, 1923
introduced the resolution condemning “exes,” bank robberies

In 1903, at [the] Second Congress, the Social Democrats included in their
program the following requests:

3. Broad local self-rule; regional self-rule for those localities which distinguish themselves bu
separate living conditions and the composition of the population.

7. Destruction of social orders and full equality for all citizens, regardless of sex, religion, race,
and nationality.

8. The right of the population to receive education in its native tongue, secured by the
establishment of schools...and of organs of self-rule; the right of every citizen to use his native
tongue at gatherings; the introduction of native languages on a basis of equality with the state
language in all local social and governmental institutions.

9. The right of all nations (natsii) in the state to self-determination.

The ninth point ... later became an object of heated controversy.

Pipes, pp. 32-33

Lenin and the National Question before 1913
Lenin’s changing attitudes toward the national question reflected very clearly the growing
importance of this problem in Russian political life: he became more and more aware of
national emotions and alive to the need for an acceptable solution….Once he realized the
value of the national movement as a weapon for fighting the established order, he stopped
at nothing to employ it for his own ends….

By late 1912 it became necessary for the Bolsheviks to issue a more specific
programmatic statement. All the other major parties in Russia had adopted definite
programs for the solution of the minority question. In August of that year, even the
Mensheviks...began to advocate national-cultural autonomy. Lenin had moved in the
summer to Cracow, and there had the opportunity to witness personally the extent to
which the national question had interfered with the development of the socialist movement
in the Austrian Empire and in the neighboring provinces of Russian Poland. He now read
Bauer’s chief work…, and then several books dealing with the minorities in Russia. He
also compiled population statistics and economic data. Before long he realized that the
nationality problem played a much more important role in the life of Russia in general, and
of socialism in particular, than he had until then supposed.

Pipes, pp. 34-37

nationalism--the problem communism couldn’t solve


Can you name the “hot spots?


Can you name the “hot spots?
all three “hot spots” are ethnic gortsi (mountain peoples)

Narkom for
Stalin becomes
National Affairs

a visit to the -./0&' (khozyain--Boss)

...December 10, 1912, a Georgian Menshevik deputy…
made a speech in the Duma in which he demanded “the
creation of institutions necessary for the free development
of every nationality.” This declaration greatly angered Lenin.
He considered it a breech of party discipline, and brought
up the subject at a conference of his followers [the Central
committee, 1(] held in Cracow in January, 1913, at which
Stalin was present….Lenin suggested a formal
condemnation of [the] speech, and, to provide an
immediate answer to the Bundists and Caucasian
socialists who had by now become the chief exponents of
the Renner-Bauer formula in the Russian Social democratic
movement, he commissioned Stalin to write an article on
this topic.
the apartment where
Pipes, p. 37 Stalin met with the 1(

the “job interview”

• Oct 1912-after organizing the campaign which elected 6 Bolsheviks to the Fourth Duma, Stalin had
received orders from “the Old Man” to join him and Krupskaya in Galicia for a !" meeting

• Dec 1912-there Lenin drew his Georgian Praktik (Practical Man) out on the Nationalities Question.
he wanted both to learn and to evaluate this 34 year-old. Although Stalin had written nothing on
the subject, he had huge experience of the ethnic stew of the Caucasus where the Austrian
doctrine had taken hold

• indeed, much more qualiﬁed was Stalin’s Armenian friend, Stepan Shaumian. He had written a
lengthy work in 1906 attacking nationalist sentiment in Transcaucasia, but he was unavailable for
Lenin’s project

• “Lenin may well have turned over to Stalin the...notes on the reading he had done since the
summer, and probably gave other suggestions as well.” --Pipes

• he directed him to prepare a theoretical piece for the Party’s “solid sociological journal,”
Prosveschenia (Enlightenment). Next, he sent him to Vienna, heart of Austria-Hungary’s multi-
national empire

Koba goes to Vienna--January, 1913
• since his Knowledge of German was slim to none, Stalin
relied on Bolshevik émigrés to translate for him

• this partially explains the errors in his article which Pipes
savages (pp. 37-41)

• “This essay represented no advance over discussion
held by Russian Social Democrats previous to 1913, but
rather a not too intelligent restatement of old arguments,
replete with errors of fact and of reasoning.”

• “...Stalin’s article...would long ago have been relegated
to total oblivion, were it not for its author’s subsequent
career”
the Viennese apartment where he
spent six weeks. The plaque with
his silhouette dates from the post-
WW II Soviet occupation • nevertheless, the article marks Stalin’s beginning as the
Party’s expert on the Nationalities Question

Second National Bolshevik Congress; April 1917

• elects a new 9 man !" including Lenin, Kamenev, Zinoviev, Stalin and Sverdlov, the first
time Stalin is confirmed in leadership by a large vote in a direct open election

• at the conference he was the rapporteur on the problem of nationalities

• at that time the Finns were breaking away from the Provisional Government’s grasp

• “It is unthinkable” said Stalin, “that we should acquiesce in the forceable keeping of any nation within
the framework of any state.” If we did that, “we ourselves would be the continuers of Tsarist policy.”

• further, to support the aspirations of colonial peoples would be to “cast a bridge between
East and West” and to secure a vast Asiatic backing for the Revolution in Europe

• the editor of Pravda was confirming his reputation as the Party’s foremost expert on
these matters

November, 1917--First at Smolny,
then in the Kremlin (March 1918),
Stalin served as Narkom for
Nationalities Affairs in the Council
of People’s Commissars, the
Bolshevik “cabinet.” The
appointment had been Lenin’s and
the Party “organs” simply
conﬁrmed it.

Apart from the Ukraine...the Commissariat of Nationalities faced primarily
Russia’s vast, inert, oriental fringe. None of the leaders who had spent
most of their adult life in Western Europe was as fit to head the
Commissariat as Stalin. His first-hand knowledge of the customs and
habits of his clients was unsurpassed. So was his capacity to deal with
their “politics”, in which blood feuds and oriental intrigue mixed with a
genuine urge towards modern civilization. His attitude was just that
mixture of patience, patriarchal firmness, and slyness that was needed.
The Politburo relied on this and refrained from interfering.

Deutscher, Stalin, p. 228

crisis at the Tenth Party Congress; 8-21 March 1921

• party factionalism grew after the Polish defeat and failure of the European Revolution

• at the same time, there was a domestic crisis:

• Green Civil War--Tambov province, the “war against the village” was won by Tukashevsky’s use of poison
gas!

• there were strikes in the major cities

• 28 Feb-the Kronstadt sailors’ rebellion was the most shocking of several military mutinies

• Lenin demanded and got Party unity in the face of domestic danger

• “War Communism” was dropped in favor of a New Economic Policy without a
dissenting vote

2.3.4. 2.5$0 36.'.7,&86$0 4.%&#&6$ (Novaya Ekonomicheskaya Politika) NEP

• it was clear that the attempt to move directly to communism (1917-1921) was
producing economic collapse

• 21 March 1921-formally promulgated by the decree, “On the replacement of
Prodrazvyorstka (foodstuffs requisitions) by Prodnalog (fixed foodstuffs tax)

• the decree ended the hated War against the Village by the Food Battalions and required farmers to give the
government a specified amount of raw agricultural product as a tax in kind

• further decrees refined the policy and expanded it to include some industries

• small businesses and shops were allowed to reopen for private profit, i.e., limited reintroduction of capitalism

• “the commanding heights” of the economy: large industry, banks, foreign trade,
remained under state control

• the NEP remained in effect until Stalin’s first Five Year Plan in 1929

Stalin’s many “hats”

• he had been People’s Commissar (Narkom) for Nationalities Affairs since the first
Sovnarkom (Council of People’s Commissars) in November 1917

• he performed his duties both in Moscow at bureaucratic meetings and on special
missions to the borderlands, before during and after his work in the Civil War

• in 1919, at Zinoviev’s suggestion, he had been appointed Commissar of Rabkrin
(Workers [rabochi] and Peasants [krestyan] Inspectorate). It was a bizarre system of
worker and peasant committees intended to keep the Bolshevik administration “honest”
by oversight

• he was de jure a member of the Politburo and the !"

• 3 April 1922-after the Eleventh Party Congress, Lenin had him confirmed as General
Secretary of the Party, a job that Molotov had botched after the first General
Secretary, Iakob Sverdlov, died in 1919. This job he would hold until he died!

Formation of the USSR; 1917-1923

"!9!"
Росси́йская Сове́тская Федерати́вная
Социалисти́ческая Респу́блика
Rossiyskaya Sovetskaya Federativnaya
Sotsialisticheskaya Respublika [RSFSR])

air•ess•eff•ess•air

State Seal Territory within the Soviet Union
(borders after 1945)

TRANSCAUCASIAN SOVIET
FEDERATIVE SOCIALIST
REPUBLIC

Закавказская Советская Федеративная
Социалистическая Республика – ЗСФСР,
Zakavkazskaya Sovetskaya Federativnaya
Sotsalisticheskaya Respublika – ZSFSR)

1920 map with optimistic borders
(at Persia’s and Turkey’s expense)

note the nod to Islam

BASHKIR
AUTONOMOUS
NO SEAL SOVIET SOCIALIST
REPUBLIC

NO FLAG

map of the RSFSR only
with Bashkiria in red

This major battleground in the Civil
War was the ﬁrst of the Autonomous
SSRs, created in 1919. It is located in
the southeast corner of European
Russia. It was Stalin’s attempt to allow
limited cultural autonomy in order to
channel ethnic energy into a useful and
apolitical acceptance of central rule
t h ro u g h t h e i n s t r u m e n t o f t h e
Communist Party in the RSFSR. The
strategy was called “autonomization.”
au•TON•O•MI•ZA•SHUN

Defanging nationalism; Bashkiria, a case study

• summer 1919-during the height of the Civil War, Stalin made a generous agreement with the
Bashrevkom, a national separatist group, to switch from White to Red sides

• this Muslim region, once part of the Mongol Golden Horde, was developing from nomadism
to settled cattle agriculture. In addition to Bashkirs there were Russian and Tatar colonists
with the beginnings of industrialization-urbanization in a few cities

• January 1920-with the end of the local White threat, the local Communist Party organization
began to challenge the Bashkir-majority Bashrevkom government. This Obkom was
dominated by the Russian-Tatar minority and coveted the Bashkir lands and cattle

• the Obkom increased local Communist membership ﬁvefold by forming local committees of
the poor to receive famine and medical aid based on party loyalty. The threatened
Bashrevkom government ordered the arrest of several Tatar members of the Obkom.

• The Obkom retaliated by appealing to the Red Army to occupy Bashkiria. Both groups
appealed to Moscow for support

Defanging nationalism; Bashkiria, a case study

• March 1920-Moscow tried to be an honest broker. Called the leadership of both rival groups to a
conference conducted by a troika: Trotsky (chair), Stalin and Kamenev. Both groups seemed satisfied

• Lenin and Trotsky had proven themselves friendly to the Bashkirs and if Stalin favored the Tatars, he
at least wanted the Bashkirs to retain their autonomy. But, as the Civil War wound down, Moscow
decided it needed more centralization and the promises to the Bashkirs were “inoperative”

• 22 May 1920-Moscow published a new decree on Bashkir autonomy without consulting either party.
The Bashkirs were left “with nothing but minor administrative powers”

• June-infuriated, the rebelling Bashkir leaders took to the Ural Mountains to fight. The Russian and
Tatar colonists formed “punitive detachments” to seize the land and cattle of the Bashkir “rebels”

• late 1920-the Bashkir Republic when formally organized had no natives in its government

• the suppression of the rebellion was only a matter of time. Its leaders fled abroad. Autonomy was
made hollow by Communist Party control over native nationalists.

The Bolsheviks’ adoption of the principle of federalism upon their
accession to power in no way signiﬁed an abandonment of the
traditional Marxist hostility to the decentralized state. In the ﬁrst
place, under the circumstances in which it had been adopted,
federalism was a step in the direction of centralization, since it gave
an opportunity of bringing together once more borderland areas
which during the Revolution had acquired the status of
independent republics. In the second place, the existence of the
Communist Party, with its unique internal organization and
extraordinary rights with regard to the institutions of the state,
made it possible for the rulers of the Soviet republic to retain all the
important features of a unitary state in a state which was formally
decentralized.
Pipes, p. 242

Lenin’s attitude toward the nationality question

Nationalism was a transitional, historical
phenomenon associated with the era of
capitalism and bound to dissolve in the
heat of intense class struggle

Pipes, p. 276

Eleventh Party Congress; March 1922

• Mykola Skrypnik, a Ukrainian Communist
leader who was also a nationalist challenged
the new bureaucracy under Stalin which was
riding roughshod

• “The one and indivisible Russia is not our
slogan”

• the Communists will only be able to liberate the
oppressed peoples of the world if they begin to
do so at home

• the proper way to eliminate “nationalist
deviations” was to destroy the inequalities and
injustices present in the Soviet system
1872-purged & committed suicide, 1933

constitutional question: real federalism or
“autonomization”--summer 1922

• to Lenin it seemed crucial that the Soviet republics formed since 1918 be
joined on equal terms in a federal structure

• the impression had to be given that, although the state would be run from Moscow, the
communist rulers rejected all tendencies of “Great Russian chauvinism”

• he wanted the new state to be called the Union of Soviet Republics of Europe and Asia

• Stalin, however, wanted to expand the RSFSR over the entire territory and
provide Ukraine, Byelorussia and the Transcaucasus with the same status as
the existing ‘autonomous republics’ of the RSFSR such as Bashkiria

• he regarded Lenin’s demand for a formal federal structure as having the potential to
undermine the whole state order. With characteristic brusqueness he dismissed it as
‘liberalism’

constitutional question: real federalism or
“autonomization”--fall 1922
• Sept 1922-Sergei Kirov and Sergo Ordzhonikidze push Stalin’s plan in the
Transcaucasian SFSR

• Armenia and Azerbaijan agree but the Georgian Central Committee object and complain to
Lenin (the so-called Georgian Problem)

• 23 September--Stalin pushes his version for Transcaucasia through a commission of the
Moscow Party Orgburo

• Lenin and Stalin meet and agree on a compromise

• Lenin agreed that the Transcaucasian federation was necessary to tame nationalism in that
region and Stalin agreed to abandon his demand for ‘autonomization’ of the SFSRs

• the agreed name for the state would be Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)

Lenin and Stalin ﬁght over the “Georgian Problem”

• Lenin believed that the Georgian Menshevik government should be won over
by the “carrot” rather than the “stick”

• Stalin, familiar with his homeland, conﬁdent as Lenin’s “expert,” urged his
Tsaritsyn pals, Sergo, Mikoyan, Kirov, to use the Red Army and the Cheka

Lenin and Stalin ﬁght over the “Georgian Problem”

• Lenin believed that the Georgian Menshevik government should be won over
by the “carrot” rather than the “stick”

• Stalin, familiar with his homeland, conﬁdent as Lenin’s “expert,” urged his
Tsaritsyn pals, Sergo, Mikoyan, Kirov, to use the Red Army and the Cheka

• Trotsky and his followers saw just another example of “Comrade Stalin’s”
preference for “bureaucratic centralism” rather than “proletarian democracy”

• Lenin agreed with Trotsky that Stalin was too “rude” and “harsh”

• 1922-1923-this “back-and-forth” over Georgia and the shape of the USSR
constitution would darken their relationship during Lenin’s last year of life

The matters dividing them were not of primary importance despite what
was said by Lenin at the time (and despite what was written by
historians ever after). Stalin and Lenin agreed about basic politics.
Neither questioned the desirability of the one-party state, its ideological
monopoly or its right to use dictatorial or terrorist methods. They
concurred on the provisional need for the NEP. They had also reached
an implicit agreement that Stalin had an important job in the central
party apparatus to block the advance of Trotskyists and tighten the
whole administrative order….Whenever toughness or underhandedness
was needed, Lenin had turned to him.

Service, pp.195-196

Communist Party Structure
KPSS=
Kommunistecheskaya Partiya Sovetskovo Soyuza
Theoretical (as conceived by Lenin in the
beginning) Actual (by mid-1930s)

Party Congress
General Secretary
ELECTS P DETERMINES ALL
O
W
Central Committee ( !" )

Politburo Orgburo
ELECTS E
R
Politburo Orgburo
Central Committee (! " )

ELECTS
General Secretary
Party Congress

Proletarian Democracy Bureaucratic Centralism

On December 28, 1922, a conference of plenipotentiary delegations from the Russian SFSR, the Transcaucasian
SFSR, the Ukrainian SSR and the Byelorussian SSR approved the Treaty of Creation of the USSR and the
Declaration of the Creation of the USSR, forming the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. These two documents
were conﬁrmed by the 1st Congress of Soviets of the USSR and signed by heads of delegations – Mikhail Kalinin,
Mikha Tskhakaya, Mikhail Frunze and Grigory Petrovsky, Aleksandr Chervyakov respectively on December 30,
1922.

This is the day of the triumph of the new Russia over the old one,
over the Russia that was the gendarme of Europe and the hangman
of Asia….Let this congress demonstrate to those who have not yet
lost the capacity to understand that Communists are as good at
building new things as they are at destroying old ones.

Joseph Stalin
quoted in Deutscher, Stalin, p. 250

New Planet, 1920 by Konstantin Yuon

Lenin’s successors

“So many mourned his death. Better they should have mourned his birth.”
Marc Aldanov

Then I pointed to the tomb...before which we used to see every day an
interminable procession of poor ragged peasants slowly ﬁling.

“I presume you love Lenin,” I said to him. “I knew him too and have a
very vivid recollection of him. You must admit with me that this
superstitious cult of his mummy is an insult to his memory and to a
revolutionary city like Moscow.”

Ignazio Silone, quoted in the god that failed, pp. 102-103

Few important developments in history are so inconspicuous and
seem so inconsequential to their contemporaries as did the
amazing accumulation of power in the hands of Stalin, which
took place while Lenin was still alive. Two years after the end of
the civil war Russian society already lived under Stalin’s virtual
rule, without being aware of the ruler’s name. More strangely still,
he was voted and moved into all his positions of power by his
rivals. There was to be an abundance of somber drama in his
later fight against these rivals. But the fight began only after he
had firmly gripped all the levers of power….then they found him
immovable.

Deutscher, p.228

the Politburo & the Orgburo

• throughout the civil war the Politburo had consisted of ﬁve men only: Lenin,
Trotsky, Stalin, Kamenev and Bukharin

• Lenin was the acknowledged leader of both Party and government, Trotsky was responsible for the conduct
of the war, Kamenev was Lenin’s deputy for various matters, Bukharin managed propaganda and the press,
the day-to-day management of the Party was Stalin’s job

• the Politburo discussed high policy

• the Orgburo, like the Politburo, was elected by the Central Committee (!"). Its
job was to direct the Party’s personnel

• to call up, to direct to work and distribute them throughout the civil service and the army according to the
demands of the civil war

• from 1919 Stalin was the liaison ofﬁcer between the Politburo and the Orgburo

the Politburo, the Orgburo & the General Secretariat
• Stalin ensured the unity of policy (Politburo) and organization (Orgburo)

• that is, he marshaled the forces of the Party according to the Politburo’s directives. Like none of
his colleagues, he was immersed in the Party’s daily drudgery and in all its kitchen cabals

• 3 April 1922-the position of General Secretary was added in addition to this
already extensive power

• the General Secretariat was nominally subordinate to the exalted Politburo

• but the dependence of the Politburo on the Secretariat was great: it (1) supplied the agenda (2) prepared
the documentation for each point under debate (3) transmitted the decisions of the Politburo to the
lower grades (4) was in daily contact with the many thousands of functionaries in the capital and the
provinces, and most important (5) was responsible for their appointments, promotions, and demotions

• the personal ambition of the General Secretary lent tremendous weight to this
ofﬁce

the Politburo, the Orgburo, the General Secretariat &
the Central Control Commission (CCC)
• the CCC in the Party was analogous to the Rabkrin in the government, that is, it audited the
Party’s morals

• it had been formed by Tenth Congress in 1921 to be in charge of the so-called purges. These were
much milder than in later years, punishments extended only to reprimands or expulsion from the Party

• it was intended to purge the Party of careerists or opportunists who had climbed on the bandwagon in
great numbers after 1917, of Communists who had developed a taste for bourgeois perks, and of
commissars who had become power hungry. It was one of Lenin’s puritanical attempts to keep the
Party pure and in touch with the masses

• purges were to serve as a substitute for real elections; they were to remove corrupted members
without removing the Party from power

• originally, the commissions worked on the local level and any citizen could appear with
grievances against any Party member. Cases could be appealed upward until the CCC in
Moscow was the ﬁnal court of appeal. The General Secretary served as coordinator between
the CCC and the Politburo, thus he became, unofﬁcially, chief conductor of the purges

Lenin’s Illness
• 1921-at age 51, Lenin’s health deteriorated, largely as
a result of the 1918 assassination attempt and his
grueling, self-imposed work load, or, as some argue,
tertiary syphilis

• 24 April 1922-a German surgeon removed the bullet
from his neck

• 26 May 1922- the ﬁrst of three strokes which caused
increasing paralysis and loss of speech

• Stalin used his position as General Secretary to
become the intermediary between Lenin and the rest of
the top Party leaders

• he struggled with Krupskaya to become the chief
determiner of Lenin’s work schedule
at his dacha in Gorky, 1923

The impact of Lenin’s illness on the Bolshevik leadership can hardly
be exaggerated. The whole constellation ceased, almost at once, to
shine with the reflected light of its master mind or to move in the
familiar orbits….Stalin was in a sense less dependent on Lenin than
were his colleagues; his intellectual needs were more limited than
theirs. He was interested in the practical use of the Leninist
gadgets, not in the Leninist laboratory of thought….His political
philosophy boiled down to securing dominance of [the Party]
machine by the handiest and most convenient means….The
Politburo may have been thrown into disarray by Lenin’s
disappearance; the General Secretariat was not. On the contrary,
since it no longer had to account for what it did to the vigilant and
astute supervisor, it acted with greater firmness and self
confidence.


Tensions between Lenin and Stalin went on
rising in autumn 1922. Stalin was not in a
conciliating mood…[Lenin] became agitated
about leaving the communist party to Stalin. As
his hope of physical recovery slipped away, he
dictated a series of notes to be made public in
the event of his death. They were headed ‘Letter
to Congress’ because he wanted them to be
read out to the next Party Congress. These are
the notes known to history as Lenin’s
Testament.

Service, p.208

The Testament

• he commented upon fellow party leaders Stalin, Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev,
Bukharin, and Pyatakov:

• “Comrade Stalin, having become General Secretary, has concentrated boundless power in his hands and I
am not convinced he will always use this power with adequate care.”

• “On the other hand, Comrade Trotsky...is distinguished not merely by his outstanding talents. He surely is
personally the most able individual in the current Central Committee but he has an excessive self-conﬁdence
and an excessive preoccupation with the purely administrative side of affairs.”

• Lenin dwelt on the rivalry between Stalin and Trotsky:

• “these two qualities of the two outstanding leaders of the present Central Committee have the capacity to
bring about an unintended split [in the party], and unless the party takes measures to prevent this, a split
could happen unexpectedly…”

• A split in the party, he argued, would imperil the Soviet regime

the dispute between Stalin and Krupskaya

• 22 December 1922-Stalin “directed verbal
obscenities at her” over the telephone after
learning she had violated Politburo rules about
Lenin’s recuperative conﬁnement

the dispute between Stalin and Krupskaya

• 22 December 1922-Stalin “directed verbal
obscenities at her” over the telephone after
learning she had violated Politburo rules about
Lenin’s recuperative conﬁnement

• she wrote complaining to Kamenev but didn’t
tell Lenin, fearing to upset him

• 5 March 1923-Lenin learned of the episode and
dictated a sharp letter to Stalin, demanding an
apology

• 10 March-while Stalin was mulling his
response, Lenin suffered a heart attack and
was taken back to Gorky, never to return alive

Lenin and Krupskaya
at Gorky

Lenin’s dictated thoughts , however, remained a
threat. The dying leader had had them typed up in
multiple copies and their existence was known to
Politburo members….What counted in Stalin’s
favor, though, was that Kamenev, Zinoviev and
others anticipated a strong bid from Trotsky for
supreme power. Stalin was a valuable accomplice
whom they were disinclined to remove from the
General Secretaryship. They knew his defects as
well as Lenin did; but they were less aware of his
capacities and ambition than Lenin had become:
Stalin, followed by Rykov, Kamenev and Zinoviev

they therefore underestimated the difﬁculty they might have in handling him in the
years ahead. This meant that if Stalin played his hand skillfully, he might yet survive the
storm ahead.

Service, p. 212

At the very pinnacle of power [1921] Trotsky, like the protagonist of a
classical tragedy, stumbled. He acted against his own principle and in
disregard of a most solemn moral commitment. Circumstances, the
preservation of the revolution, and his own pride drove him into this
predicament. Placed as he was he could hardly have avoided it….Yet in
acting as he did he shattered the ground on which he stood….

Deutscher, The Prophet Armed; Trotsky: 1879-1921.,
“Victory into Defeat,” p. 486

Civil War and the Militarization of the Proletariat
• the pressure of war, 1914-1920, had reduced the Soviet railroads to near exhaustion

• Lenin asked his successful Voykom (Commissar for War) to take over the Transportation Commissariat

• Trotsky told the Transportation Union that they were under military discipline. This naturally produced a push-
back

• Trotsky saw the failure of War Communism through his “military spectacles.” If only he could
demand the discipline of the battleﬁeld to solve economic problems

• As Voykom , he did have a “back door” to the strategy, troops which were no longer needed to
defeat the White Guards. He made them into labor battalions.

• First in the Urals, then in the Ukraine, he put soldiers to work in forestry, road mending, mining and
farming work

• this was his ﬁrst step towards bringing the entire proletariat under military discipline

‘Substitution’: The Tenth Party Congress; March 1921
• at the depth of the economic failure of “War Communism” party unity was threatened
by division over the effort to compel labor:

• Workers Opposition (Left): Shlyapnikov & Kollontai-denounced the party’s tyranny over the unions

• (Right): Trotsky & Bukharin-wanted the trade unions to be deprived of their autonomy and absorbed into the
machinery of government

• in the midst of this dispute the Kronstadt rebellion gave the forces of authority the upper
hand over those arguing for more “proletarian democracy”

• Trotsky, in order to save the Revolution, took the stand that the Party should act “in the
interest of the proletariat” even if it were against its will. The so-called “Substitution” of
Party for Proletariat--something that he had accused Lenin of before 1917!

• Trotsky and the congress voted to outlaw all political opposition parties and factions
within the party itself. A victory for “bureaucratic centralism” over “proletarian
democracy”

At the very pinnacle of power [1921] Trotsky, like the protagonist of a
classical tragedy, stumbled. He acted against his own principle and in
disregard of a most solemn moral commitment. Circumstances, the
preservation of the revolution, and his own pride drove him into this
predicament. Placed as he was he could hardly have avoided it….Yet in
acting as he did he shattered the ground on which he stood….

When Trotsky now urged the Bolshevik party to ‘substitute’ itself for the
working classes, he did not, in the rush of work and controversy, think of
the next phases of the process, although he had long since predicted
them with uncanny clear-sightedness. ‘The party organization would
then substitute itself for the party as a whole; then the Central
Committee would substitute itself for the organization; and ﬁnally a single
dictator would substitute himself for the Central Committee.’

The dictator was already waiting in the wings.

Deutscher, The Prophet Armed; Trotsky: 1879-1921.,
“Victory into Defeat,” pp. 486 & 522.

1923; the triumvirate (from the Latin triumvires - three man rule) or, more
appropriately, the troika (from the Russian for a three-horse team)

Lev Kamenev Grigori Zinoviev

It was at about this time [1923] that a triumvirate, composed of Stalin,
Zinoviev, and Kamenev, formed itself within the Politburo. What made
for the solidarity of the three men was their determination to prevent
Trotsky from succeeding to the leadership of the party. Separately,
neither could measure up to Trotsky. Jointly, they represented a
powerful combination of talent and inﬂuence. Zinoviev was the
politician, the orator, the demagogue with popular appeal. Kamenev
was the strategist…, its solid brain, trained in matters of doctrine….
Stalin was the tactician of the triumvirate and its organizing force.
Between them, the three men virtually controlled the whole party and
through it, the Government….

Finally, the three men represented, as it were, the party’s tradition….
they held seniority of leadership….The three men refused now to follow
that ‘ex-Menshevik’ Trotsky, who, after an association with the party of
only ﬁve years, had come to be commonly regarded as Lenin’s
successor.

Deutscher, Stalin, pp. 255-256

Crisis: The Twelfth Party Congress; April 1923

• the Politburo was eager to show that the Party could function without the ill Lenin

• Zinoviev, Kamenev and Stalin arranged the agenda:

• they neutralized the reforms of the !" and the CCC which Lenin had intended

• they suppressed the Testament which Lenin had intended the delegates to hear

• Stalin had to accept some amendments to his plans for Transcaucasia which he disliked

• but for a man in danger of losing the General Secretaryship, he had dodged the bullet

• because Trotsky had supported the “substitution” he felt limited in how he could express
opposition. Thus he didn’t attack Stalin’s mismanagement of the Georgian situation or
ﬁght to bring out Lenin’s criticism of the General Secretary in the Testament

Crisis: The Twelfth Party Congress; April 1923

• Trotsky later explained his silence by saying that he hoped for Lenin’s recovery and that
the two of them could better combat Stalin together

• Stalin replied to another critic who demanded more freedom of discussion within the
party that the party was no debating society:

• Russia was “surrounded by the wolves of imperialism; and to discuss all important matters in
20,000 party cells would mean to lay all one’s cards before the enemy.”

• at no other congress had Stalin spoken with his present self conﬁdence

• the malcontents, leaderless and helpless, were defeated at the congress

The Purges Begin in earnest; August 1923

• economic recovery since the NEP had begun in 1921 was still slow and painful

• the trade unions, now part of the party machinery, refused to take up the workers’
demands

• the result was a series of ‘unofficial strikes’ and consternation in the Politburo

• malcontents within the Party demanded more opportunities to criticize policy

• some of the dissenters were expelled from the Party, others imprisoned

• this was the first example of clandestine opposition among Communists and the troika
was anxious that there might develop a link up between their rivals and the discontented
rank-and-file

Trotsky ﬁghts back, but only in the Politburo

What had happened, he stated, was symptomatic of
the party’s state of mind, its sense of frustration, and
its distrust of its leaders. Even during the civil war
‘the system of appointment [from above] did not
have one tenth of the extent that it has now.
Appointment of the secretaries of provincial
committees is now the rule.’ He granted that there
was a grain of demagogy in the demands for a
workers’ democracy, ‘in view of the incompatibility of
a fully developed workers’ democracy with the
regime of the dictatorship’. But the discipline of the
civil war ought to have given place to ‘a more lively
and broader party responsibility’. Instead, ‘the
bureaucratization of the party machine had
developed to unheard of proportions; and criticism
and discontent, the open expression of which was
stiﬂed, were driven underground, assuming
uncontrollable and dangerous forms’.


the controversy goes public

A few weeks after Zinoviev had ofﬁcially opened the
public debate [7 November 1923] Stalin addressed the
Communists of Krasnaya Presnya, a working-class
district in Moscow, on the meaning of the New Course.
He frankly admitted that the party was in a state of
ferment and that it had lost touch with the mood of the
country. ‘What is needed to free the state from
bureaucratic elements...is a high degree of civilization in
the people, a completely secure, peaceful condition all
around, so that we should not need large military
cadres’ There was to be freedom of expression, but the
previously imposed limitations must still apply. Some
critics, Stalin said, quoted Trotsky in their support.


He more or less challenged Trotsky to state his position
publicly

Open Letter to the Communists of Krasnaya Presnya 5 December 1923

“Certain conservatively disposed comrades [he did
not mention names] incline to overestimate the role
of the machine and underestimate the self-activity
of the party, take a critical attitude to the resolution
of the Politburo. They say the Central Committee is
undertaking an impossible task, the resolution will
only spread false illusions and lead to negative
results….The party shall subordinate to itself its
machine, not for one instant ceasing to be a
centralized organization….The New Course ought
to begin with this, that in the machine all should
feel, from top to bottom, that nobody dares to
terrorize the party.”

Deutscher, Stalin, pp. 263-264

It was from this letter that the public got its
ﬁrst inkling of the cleavage in the Politburo

Stalin’s “Gang” in the 1( (Central Committee); 1924

Andrey Andreev Sergei Kirov Sergo Ordzhonikidze Klim Voroshilov Semyon Budyonny

He demanded efﬁciency as well as loyalty from the gang members. He also selected them for
their individual qualities. He wanted no one near him who outranked him intellectually. He
selected men with a revolutionary commitment like his own, and he set the style with his
ruthless policies….He created an ambience of conspiracy, companionship and crude
masculine humor. In return for their services he looked after their interests. He was solicitous
about their health. He overlooked their foibles so long as their work remained unaffected and
they recognized his word as law.

Service, p. 225

1924; after Lenin’s death, Trotsky’s downfall

• January-Trotsky, ill, was absent from the ornate funeral which Stalin directed

• his control over the military was undermined by Stalin’s appointment of his
man, Mikhail Frunze, who was groomed to replace Trotsky

• May-the XIII Party Congress, Trotsky makes a conciliatory speech, offers to
accept party discipline. His health weakened (psychosomatically?)

• the troika criticizes Trotsky’s policy of “Permanent Revolution” and Stalin
begins to advance his alternative, “Socialism in One Country”

• October-the beginning of the ideological conﬂict known as the “literary
discussion”

after Lenin’s death, Trotsky’s downfall

• the “literary discussion” was a series of dueling pamphlets

• Trotsky’s The Lessons of October, reminded the public that Kamenev and Zinoviev had opposed the revolution

• the troika responded by criticizing Trotsky’s:

• disagreements and conﬂicts with Lenin and the Bolsheviks prior to 1917

• alleged distortion of the events of 1917 in order to emphasize his role and diminish the roles played by other
Bolsheviks

• harsh treatment of his subordinates and other alleged mistakes during the Russian Civil War

• 6 January 1925-they damaged Trotskyʼs reputation so much that he resigned as Peopleʼs
Commissar of Army and Fleet Affairs and Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council

1925; the troika breaks up

Lev Kamenev Grigori Zinoviev

Becoming the Vozhd

POD VODITEL’STVOM VELIKOVO STALINA-VPERYOD K KOMMOONIZMOO

UNDER THE LEADERSHIP OF THE GREAT STALIN--FORWARD TO COMMUNISM!

poster from the 1930s

Under the title “The Sorrow of all Peoples,”
the Lenin Biographical Atlas reproduces
the route of the funeral cortege from
Lenin’s dacha in Gorky to the Moscow
House of the Union and then to the
temporary mausoleum by the Kremlin wall.
Also featured are reproductions of the
worldwide leftist newspapers with grieving
tributes.

Stalin planned and directed the quasi-
religious ceremony and the creation of
“Lenin-as-relic,” both over the objection of
Krupskaya

The Cult of Lenin

Soviets and electriﬁcation
are the foundation of a new
world

The Cult of Lenin

ALL FORCES TO THE DEFENSE
OF THE CITY
OF LENIN!

The Cult of Lenin and Stalin

THE SPIRIT OF GREAT LENIN AND HIS VICTORIOUS BANNER LEAD
US NOW IN THE PATRIOTIC WAR… (J. STALIN)

Politburo, after April 1924--7 members
Left Wing

Kamenev Zinoviev Trotsky

Right Wing

Bukharin Rykov Tomsky

Attacks on the NEP; Fall 1925

• factionalism in the Politburo comes to a head, over:

• the party’s internal organization, especially Stalin’s increasing power

• foreign policy, how hard to push for the World Revolution through the Comintern

• agrarian policy--to spur grain production, Bukharin had encouraged the peasants “Enrich yourselves!”

• Kamenev and Zinoviev broke openly with Stalin and Bukharin. They argued that Lenin
had envisaged a steady movement toward collectivization, NOT MORE KULAKS!

• Stalin and Bukharin pushed back, survival of the NEP was at stake

• Kamenev and Zinoviev enlisted Krupskaya and Narkom of Finances Sokolnikov

Stalin’s new ally

• born in Moscow, two school teacher parents

• 1905-participated in the revolution as a student at
Moscow University

• 1906-became a member RSDLP(b)

• 1907-convened a youth conference, later
considered the founding of the Komsomol

• author, editor of Pravda and Isvestia, economist,
botanist, Renaissance man

• 1917-”Golden Boy of the Revolution”--Lenin
Nikolai Bukharin
Никола́й Буха́рин
1888-1938

Bukharin as artist;“Forget about politics. There is no future in politics for you.
Painting is your real calling."--renowned Soviet artist Konstantin Yuon

XIV Party Congress; December 1925--the crisis erupts

Stalin...decided to attack them openly….He did this deftly by revealing
that [Kamenev and Zinoviev] had once tried to get him to agree to
Trotski’s expulsion from the party. Sanctimoniously disclaiming his
own propensity for butchery, Stalin announced:
We are for unity, we’re against chopping. The policy of chopping is repugnant
to us. The party wants unity, and it will achieve this together with comrades
Kamenev and Zinoviev if this is what they want -- and without them if they
don’t want it.

...he contrived to suggest that the menace of a party split was
embodied by what was becoming known as the Leningrad
Opposition.

Service, pp. 240-241

Kamenev responds:

We’re against creating a theory of “the Leader” [vozhd]; we’re
against making anyone into “the Leader”. We’re against the
Secretariat...standing above the political body….there should exist a
truly omnipotent Politburo...the Secretariat should be subordinate to
it ….Personally I suggest that our General Secretary is not the kind of
ﬁgure who can unite the old Bolshevik high command around
him….I repeat it at the Congress: I have come to the
conclusion that comrade Stalin is incapable of performing the
role of uniﬁer of the Bolshevik high command [emphasis added,
JBP]

Service, p. 241

the stenographic record indicates how delegates
reacted:

‘Untrue.’ ‘Nonsense.’ ‘So that’s what they’re up to!’ ‘Now
they’ve shown their hand.’ ‘We won’t surrender the
command posts to you.’ ‘Stalin! Stalin!’ The delegates rise
and salute Comrade Stalin. Stormy applause. Cries of ‘Here’s
where the party’s united’ and ‘The Bolshevik general staff
must be united.’ ‘Long live Comrade Stalin!’ Prolonged
stormy applause. Shouts of ‘Hurrah.’ General Commotion

Roi Medvedev, Let History Judge, quoted in
Gellatley, Lenin, Stalin and Hitler, p. 158

XIV Congress; the conflict resolved

• the delegates were more impressed by Stalin’s pose as a unifier than the shrill attacks
by Kamenev and Zinoviev

• The Leningrad Opposition seemed only to offer complaints. Stalin and Bukharin had
policies to deal with the fear of isolation which the Party was feeling:

• workers outside the Bolshevik ranks were overwhelmingly hostile to “the System”

• peasants were far from grateful to the Bolsheviks for the NEP. The attacks on religion were another sore spot

• many non-Russian nationals were chafing under the U.S.S.R.

• kulaks and the so-called ‘Nepmen’ wanted more capitalism

• so the Congress sent more allies for Stalin and Bukharin to the Politburo

Politburo, December 1925--10 members
Left Wing

Kamenev Zinoviev Trotsky

Molotov Voroshilov Kalinin
Right Wing


Stalin had power over the formulation of policy and the choice
of personnel; he had managed to trounce his main individual
enemies in the party. He had not yet turned the Soviet order into
a system of power enshrining pervasive obedience and
enthusiasm.

Service, p. 243

On his death bed, twenty-two years later, the “All Union State
Peasant” (Stalin’s nickname for President Mikhail Kalinin) wrote
to Stalin:

“In the year after Lenin’s death, after the row with Trotsky, Bukharin invited
me to his ﬂat to admire his hunting trophies and asked--would I consider
‘ruling without Stalin?’; I replied I couldn’t contemplate such a thing. Any
combination without Stalin was incomprehensible...After the death of Lenin I
believed in Stalin’s policy...I thought Zinoviev was most dangerous.”

Monteﬁore, Stalin;The Court of the Red Tsar, p. 555

This shows the dangerous conspiracies which riddled the Politburo
during this period

the final showdown

• mid-1926-a United Opposition including Krupskaya was formed against Stalin
and Bukharin

• Stalin decided that Zinoviev should be picked off first. Trotsky should be saved
for later

• the stress of the infighting began to wear Stalin down, but he fought on

• spring 1927-Trotsky drew up a ‘declaration’ signed by 84 Oppositionists
accusing the leadership of ruining everything Lenin had stood for

• as the foreign scene darkened, Stalin prepared to challenge his critics in a
party forum

...the date of the ﬁfteenth congress was approaching; and with it
Trotsky’s and Zinoviev’s opportunity to state their case. The whole
country would listen. It would be impossible to suppress
speeches made at a congress in the way that criticisms uttered at
the Central Committee were concealed. At any cost Stalin had to
deprive them of this opportunity.

Deutscher, The Prophet Unarmed, p. 292.

The joint plenum [of the !" and the CCC] met in October, 1927.
[Stalin’s] handling...was a masterpiece of persuasion. He reminded the
Opposition that previously he had rejected calls for the expulsion of
Trotski and Zinoviev from the Central Committee. ‘Perhaps,’ he
waspishly suggested, ‘I overdid the “kindness” and made a mistake.’

The joint plenum excluded Trotski, Zinoviev and Kamenev from the
Central Committee. On 14 November 1927 Trotski and Zinoviev were
expelled from the party entirely, and this decision was ratiﬁed by the
Fifteenth Party Congress in December. The Stalin-Bukharin axis had
triumphed….Bukharin maintained friendly relations with his defeated
adversaries. But Stalin refused to compromise. At the Fifteenth Party
Congress the further exclusion of seventy-ﬁve oppositionists, including
Kamenev, was announced. Stalin and Bukharin had seen off the acute
threat to the NEP. No one imagined that within a month the political
settlement would be destroyed and that the two victors would become
enemies. In January 1928 the New Economic Policy was about to be
torn apart by the Party General Secretary.

Service, pp. 249-250

Undecided

New members
Voroshilov Kalinin

Rudzutak Kuibyshev Molotov
Right Wing



New members
Kalinin

Right Wing



New members

Right Wing


Stalin at the 1927 Congress: unshaven,
pockmarked, sardonic, sarcastic and utterly
vigilant, the supreme politician, the
messianic egotist, fanatical Marxist, and
superlative mass murderer, in his prime

Montefiore, caption for his last picture

Stalin’s strength has always lain in the machine, not in
himself...Severed from the machine….Stalin...represents nothing….It
is time to part with the Stalin myth….You wish to proceed along the
[Stalinist] road any further? But there is no road further. Stalin has
brought you to an impasse….It is time to bring under review the
whole Soviet system and cleanse it ruthlessly from all the ﬁlth with
which it has overgrown. It is time to carry out at last Lenin’s insistent
advice : ‘Remove Stalin!”

Leon Trotsky, Bulletin Oppozitsii, March 1932
quoted in Deutscher, The Prophet Outcast, pp. 167-168

Stalin’s USSR: Nationalism and Marxist Internationalism

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