On Hidden Motive of Revolutions of 1917
But to see this, it is necessary to understand how the interests of various heterogeneous inner ant outer political forces collided in Russia in revolutions of 1917. These forces were characterized by different degrees of orderliness and understanding of the current events, understanding of probability of realization of their interests (moreover, not all of them were aware of these), and, above all, which were characterized by interpenetration.
Let us start with the interior of the empire. Life of the major part of the population in Russia left much to be desired notwithstanding how it is idealized nowadays by the «patriots» of biblical-«Orthodox Church» monarchic persuasion. On the eve of the revolution of 1905, the life of Russia was characterized by the following factors: lack of land among the peasants of the European part of the country and decline of the soil fertility due to low culture of aeromechanics; stratification of rural population into kulaks and field-hands, caused not by exceptional diligence of ones and laziness of the others, but by economical and moral-and-psychological legacy of serfdom and by free market self-regulation in the epoch after the serfdom cancellation; 12 — 14-hour working day in industry without social security in old age, without the system of operational safety, health insurance and occupational accident insurance; under conditions of Mason-filled bureaucracy’s sabotage and misinterpretation of governmental measures of relaxation interclass tension and resolution of interclass contradictions[209]; the majority of population was unable to provide education for their children, and, sometimes, the adults did not understand the necessity of education; infringement of the God-given rights of the majority of population of the country due to the legislation peculiar to estate-and-caste structure, and economical circumstances that accompanied it; as consequence of low educational standard of the majority of population, technical-and-technological dependence of Russia on other countries and foreign private and mob-and-corporative capital.
In other words, the potential for riot in Russia was created by centuries-old policy of the ruling class — Russian nobility, which was the personnel basis for formation of state administrative machine and command staff of army and navy. Besides that, previously created potential of riot was developed by long-tern activity of various «new Russians» of those days, «nouveau riches», upper bourgeoisie of Russia, which grew rich without God, who grew by leaps and bounds in the epoch after serfdom cancellation, when there appeared the market of cheap manpower because the poor from the village started out for the town in search of a job.
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The «world backstage», performing the biblical project of the total enslavement, differs from the overwhelming majority of those malcontent with it: it is quite a good estimator of the God’s connivance in respect of its opponents. And in overwhelming majority of cases known in the History, its opponents could not oppose it anything besides their arrogant complacency, ignorance, and unwillingness to think independently instead of «reasoning by authority» of some writ or chieftain. Therefore they could not solve the imminent problems (which could happen in any society) beforehand in accordance with their own political scenarios; this cleared the way for resolution or aggravation of these problems according to the scenarios introduced in collective psyche of the society by the «world backstage».
In contrast to the national ruling “elites”, which lived under these problems comfortably and in social-and-political activities limited themselves to parlor conversations and exposure of vices in their works of art, the «world backstage» was active. Performing the biblical project of total enslavement, it always interpreted national “elites” with autocratic arrogance as the competitors in exploitation of the resources of the planet and demotic population of these countries. Therefore it purposefully nurtured in Russia potential for future distemper by hands of the Russian ruling classes.
Besides that, the «world backstage» by the middle of 19th century was discontented with the social processes in the «advanced» Western countries. There bourgeois-democratic revolutions already had initiated development of capitalism on the basis of freedom of private entrepreneurship, market self-regulation. Which had resulted in consumption race, useless squandering of social and nature resources. And also had resulted in utmost degree of society polarization into super-rich minority and destitute; economically-dependent majority, which was essentially deprived of civil rights in spite of all legal declarations of bourgeois revolutions about freedom and equal protection of the law. Consequently, the potential of riot and future global biosphere-and-ecological crisis was also growing up spontaneously in the «advanced» countries.
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In addition to these inner problems of the «advanced» countries, there was the global problem of colonialism, because national self-consciousness was growing in the colonies, and early national liberation riots and wars shown that the problem of global power establishment and maintenance should not be generally solved by military methods, and military methods should be of subordinate nature.
According to these circumstances, the «world backstage» while organizing the revolution in Russia tried to solve two tasks:
· regional — to eliminate the local ruling “elite” and, along with it, the multinational “elitist” state autocracy[210] of Russia with the purpose of integration of its common people as the labor force into the Western regional civilization;
· global — development of infinitely dependent, i.e. conceptually powerless social-and-economic formation, which would be free of defects of western-type capitalism which had historically developed by that time (which H. Ford and many others wrote about).
Because the internal revolutions of the XIX century under the slogans of socialism were not a success in the «advanced» European countries, and global problems continued to accrue, the global scenario had been changed. In new global scenario, Russia was to serve as the starting point for global transformations and the exporter of the revolution. Russia would convert all the mother countries of Western regional civilization, their colonies and «retarded» countries, which retained state independence to the norms of life of artificially created formation alternative to the historically developed western-type capitalism. In those years this project was called «world socialist revolution». And in the course of its fulfillment, revolutions in Russia and Germany[211] were to initiate creation of military-and-economic and cultural-and-ideological «base» for further expansion of the new regime to the other regions of the world.
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To solve these interrelated problems, the «world backstage» needed cardinal, or, at least, revolutionary reconstruction of relation between the power and the property rights in Russia in its favor. Therefore, it was necessary to change the political course of Russia so that its state autocracy would come to political and economical failure. This was accomplished by hands of arrogant ruling “elite” which plunged Russia into Russian-Japanese[212], and, ten years later, into World War I of the 20th century without having prepared the country for the victory in both wars.
By that time, Marxism and other corresponding scenarios of seizure and retention of power by the periphery of the «world backstage» had already been introduced in Russia. And in the form of the theory of permanent revolution (which presupposed during the revolution and performance of transformations armed seizure of state power and merciless suppression of opponents of the new regime), started by A.L. Gelfand[213] (Parvus) and developed by L.D. Bronstein (Trotsky), political scenarios of the «world backstage» assumed the most complete appearance. In the theory of permanent revolution, everything was already scheduled as early as in 1905: from repressions towards the ruling classes (who were assessed as the incorrigible enemies of revolution) to transfer of the revolution to the village and forced establishment of socialist production relations in the village. Also, the export of revolution to other countries (where internal revolutionary forces were too weak to perform revolution and social-and-economic transformations by themselves) was motivated[214].
So the revolution, which happened in 1917, and was called the Great October Socialist revolution, occurred due to ideological fertility of Russian “elite” and feverish activity of the «world backstage» periphery in the country. However, Russia differed from the advanced capitalist countries of that epoch: in Russia, there was Bolshevism (as this notion was defined in Part 6.1).
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Bolshevism is the social moral-and-psychological phenomenon, tracing its roots back to pre-bylina[215] antiquity of regional civilization of Russia. So-called «Serpent’s Mounds» (earth-and-wood fortifications that stretch for thousands kilometers across the Ukrainian steppes southward of Kiev, and date back to the first millennium B.C.) are the evidence of pre-bylina antiquity of Bolshevism: first, there construction was not possible under conditions of tribal fragmentation and predominance of petty psychology of individualism and clannishness; second, true history of their creation is forgotten, and bylinas gave the fabulous version[216].
The spirit of Bolshevism, even if not realized by the individuals who support it with their efforts and actions, is the most powerful force in history of modern global civilization, although not everyone sees its direct manifestations and actions. As a matter of fact, that is what distinguished the church of Russia from Catholicism, Protestantism of every stripe that appeared later on, and also from all other autonomic landed churches, which called themselves «Orthodox», too. When Russia had been christened, the power of Bolshevism (under conditions of development level of people’s culture and world understanding of those days) was not enough to prevent invasion of biblical project under the guise of Christianity; however, the power of spontaneous Bolshevism was enough to make this project get stuck desperately, to start comprehension and development of global Russian project, which was its alternative.
In 19th century, Bolshevism left Russian Orthodox Church, having exhausted facility of development on the basis of its dogma and organizational structures. And, trying Marxism on as the lexical shell, Bolshevism penetrated into Marxism exactly the same way as it penetrated 900 years before into the biblical church that came to Russia from the mendacious Byzantium. Then, Russian church (owing to penetration of the spirit of Bolshevism in it) acquired originality, which distinguished it from the origins and foreign analogues. The same way, on the boundary of 19th — 20th centuries Marxism in Russia acquired inner originality of purport of life implied by the Bolsheviks, which distinguished it from the version, affirmed by the «world backstage». This fact doomed internazi Marxian project of «world socialist revolution» to failure.
The failure happened practically immediately after the Soviet regime was established in Russia, although initially it looked as malfunction, which allowed changes in scenario of further actions. The project of «world socialist revolution» failed because V.I. Lenin had insisted on making obscene (his estimation) peace with Germany and its allies.
True Marxist-Internazi L.D. Bronstein (Trotsky) stood against that: at first, in open inner-party polemics, and then, being the chief of Soviet delegation at peace negotiations with Germany in Brest-Litovsk (today, city of Brest in Byelorussia on the border with Poland), tried to ruin the resolution adopted in Moscow. Despite direct instructions given by V.I. Lenin, he proclaimed truly Marxian revolutionary policy «neither war nor peace». Essentially, it called Germany and its allies to continue the war and condemned Russia (which was disorganized by revolution) to involuntary resistance to aggression. However, the peace was made despite Trotskyists’ activities. An attempt to recommence the war by assassinating German ambassador, Count Mirbach (which occurred after a time on July 6, 1918 in Moscow), by the hands of left-wing socialist-revolutionaries did not result in recommencement of military operations.
6.3. New Line of the «World Backstage»:
Socialism at an Individual Country
Such actions of L.D. Bronstein and politically myopic left-wing social-revolutionaries considered within Russia at first sight seem hysterically-senseless. But if we consider the situation in global scale, this is not so by far. Brest peace treaty slowed down forcing of revolutionary situation in Germany and Austro-Hungary. Due to its influence on the course of events[217], revolutions in these countries under slogans of socialism started, but as Marxian internazi revolutions they failed; they created multitude of bourgeois republics and Yugoslavian monarchy out of two Central European monarchies.
In Russia by spring of 1918 aversion to the new power and sabotage of its undertakings by the part of population (first of all, by the representatives of former ruling classes and variegated «middle class») began to develop into Civil War. This put a question before the «world backstage», which it should support in the Civil War: either Marxian Soviet power, which developed during the revolution (even though contaminated with Bolshevism), or counter-revolution?
The victory of counter-revolution would inevitably result in firm establishment of nazi fascist regime in Russia (the history of Germany confirmed this later on). Though the «world backstage» had time to give Germany its protégé as the Fuhrer, curing Germany from fascism was the waste of time in the global project of replacement of capitalism with different social system with the lower level of intrasocial tension and more harmonious relations between society and biosphere. But it is quite difficult to promote the protégé for the position of Fuhrer under conditions of Civil War. And in case of the counter-revolution’s victory, multinational “elitist” imperial Nazism would incinerate not only the hateful Bolsheviks, misinterpreters of Marxism, but also the staff of professional Internazi revolutionaries. This would make the project of «world socialist revolution» in 20th century unrealizable. Therefore the «world backstage» decided to assist the Internazi Marxian power (though infected with multinational Bolshevism) in winning the victory in the Civil War, planning to solve the problem of Bolshevism suppression later on depending on circumstances.
The «world backstage» exercises its power by means different from those used by the rulers of the states and which are perceived by the men of the crowd as the means of execution of power in the life of the society. The governments issue the laws that concern all citizens (subjects), and directives that are addressed to the chiefs of certain state structures personally, whereas the «world backstage» participates, through its periphery in the society, in the activity of State machinery and social institutions, by either supporting their independent activities or by sabotaging them, but supporting at the same time other activities, activities of other structures both within the society and in other countries.
This power is executed on the basis of moulding the worldview of certain groups within the crowd-“elitist” society in a pre-emptive (anticipatory) manner. Due to the worldview moulded in this way whole social groups and classes act as if on their own accord but in a manner which is necessary for the «world backstage». This allows getting by with a minimal number of non-documentary directives (this is a sort of «pre-telephone right» existing from times immemorial). In each country those directives are addressed specifically to a very narrow circle of the «world backstage’s» periphery co-coordinators who are initiated into its activities.[218]
In accordance with this customary practice «world backstage» permitted the bourgeois regimes of Europe and America with Japan’s complicity to start an intervention into Soviet Russia in order to split and colonize it with support lent by local counter-revolutionary forces.
But as the global history studies on the Civil War and intervention indicate, counter-revolution was being defeated on the battlefield because it was being let down by its foreign allies. Under the pressure of their internal movements who put forward slogans like «Keep your hands off Soviet Russia!» military deliveries were being called off shortly before decisive battles.[219] Admiral A. Kolchak, (who was the potential head of the multinational “elitist” imperial Nazism if the counter-revolution had got the upper hand), was betrayed by the interventionists following a direct order from their masonry superiors. He was handed over to the revolutionary authorities that did not hesitate in doing away with him quickly.
The Civil War’s last front in Russia was actually the Crimean front fought against baron P. Vrangel. M. Frunze gave his word of honor to preserve the life of those who would yield themselves prisoner. After P.Vrangel fled abroad the Crimean formation stopped resisting and surrendered in an organized way. Immediately after that M. Frunze by order of the high command was transferred to a new appointment. In his absence the internazis (it was exactly internazis who organized that military crime: Sklyansky, Zalkind (Zemlyachka), Bella Kun) killed 50,000 imprisoned White army officers in the Crimea. They broke the promises of preserving the life of prisoners of war thereby depriving Bolsheviks of potential managerial personnel whose effort would be directed to the nation’s benefit.[220] This incident is nothing exceptional. It is among the last in a whole series of similar incidents that took place in the course of the Civil war. In the course of war mass destruction, in some places amounting to complete destruction, of the former ruling “elite’s” representatives together with their families (including children) was a customary phenomenon. The victims of such massacres engaged in no anti-Soviet activities whatsoever. Along with that there were so many Hebrews among the VChK’s (National Emergency and Security Committee) executive staff, both in central and peripheral divisions (especially in the Ukraine), that the VChK of the time could be considered as a prototype of Hitler’s Gestapo only in its Hebrewish variant.
Such purposeful policy of eliminating the former ruling “elite’s” representatives which the internazi revolutionaries executed in the course of revolution and the Civil War resulted in the Hebrews’ having an overwhelming majority in the party and government bodies and in the mass media. This has a twofold explanation. First, it was an effect of the internazi’s personnel policy proper: promoting their own kin to key posts. Second, it resulted from the fact that at the end of the 19th century it was the Hebrews who became the best-educated part of the diverse people populating the Russian empire. They were ahead of all other ethnic groups according to statistics on education[221], and working in government bodies required a certain minimal educational level that the rest of the country’s population did not possess.
Yet in the very first years of peaceful life the «world backstage» and its RSFSR-USSR local representatives discovered the fact that most workers and peasants were loyal to the Soviet regime and many of them, especially young people, actively supported it on their own accord.[222] At the same time there was a growth in a certain phenomenon which internazis call anti-Semitism occurring throughout the entire society.[223] Under the social conditions existing at the time individuals like L. Bronstein (Trotsky), L. Rosenfeld (Kamenev), G. Apfelbaum (Zinovyev) and others of their kinship — at the time the cult leaders of the revolution and the «working people» who have won the Civil War — could not personify state power during the long period of building a new social order which then lay yet ahead.[224]
One should also understand that there is one kind of attitude to a revolution and the new power which follows in its wake if the revolution takes place while an imperialist war is going on and while everyone is tired of that war (except the “elite” who make fortunes on it). But there is a completely different attitude to a revolution if the new power arises as a result of a victory won by an aggressor who has started a «revolutionary fight for the sake of liberating fellow workers of another country from the yoke of capital» while those workers themselves have not yet become inspired with the thought of a revolution and a new power.[225] It is equally so if the new power arises through a coup d’etat organized in a country living a peaceful life.[226] Psychic Trotskyites and Marxists in the USSR did not regard those circumstances of great political momentum[227] as a political reality.[228]
Besides, while Russia fought the Civil War the revolutionary situation in European countries came to naught.
Due to these circumstances the «world backstage» had to agree with V. Lenin’s point of view: first establish socialism in a separate individual country, then transition to socialism in all other countries. V. Lenin expressed this point of view in as early as 1915. Among the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) top officials this point of view was shared by J. Stalin.
As noted by some biographers of J. Stalin, in the pre-Revolutionary and the early post-revolutionary years he was among the last to join the (party) majority that had already been formed before. This defined the way he made his party career. His works were written in a language befitting common people (see his Collected works). On the one hand, it made them easily accessible for the understanding of the common working people who were semiliterate and poorly educated. On the other hand, it convinced the intelligentsia who took up the ruling role in the party of J. Stalin’s own illiteracy because he seemed not to be able of mastering that «highly scientific» argot which was used by the party intelligentsia in their oral and written word and which the common people could not understand (e.g., immanent, permanent, fideism, gnoseology and similar words used in the literature of Marxist intelligentsia). Therefore for party leaders of Trotsky’s type Stalin was neither an outstanding party philosopher, economist and publicist writer[229] nor an outstanding orator capable of enticing the crowd towards the feats of revolution by word of mouth. The intelligentsia leaders and their supporters believed him to be an ill-bred (having no good manners), rude, poorly educated (a half-educated seminarian[230]), lazy (has written nothing during his last exile) man and therefore a man incapable of thinking independently.
This created a false impression that J.V. Stalin could be controlled by cleverer and better-educated leaders even if he did become the top party executive. That is why Stalin’s promotions to higher and higher levels of power inside the party produced no objection or opposition of the «world backstage».
Besides, J.V. Stalin was a member of a national minority like the majority of revolution leaders, namely, a Georgian, which seemed to guarantee that he would suppress any threat of «Great Russian» nationalism or Nazism.
All those factors resulted in that the «world backstage» found it plausible to entrust the task of personifying the success of socialism in a separate individual country to J. Stalin.
Bolsheviks, on their part, were also pondering who was to succeed and continue their cause as V. Lenin’s illness resulting from his injury[231] was deteriorating and making him less and less capable of leading the party and the state.
In this connection we shall turn to a document known as «The address to the convention» which is reported by the CPSU’s historic tradition as having been written down from V. Lenin’s words by several of his secretaries and at different times between December 1922 and January 1923.
The letter concerns the ways to avoid a party split in future and to ensure the Central Committee’s stability through formal means but not through achieving a unity of opinions on all the issues of party activity, this unity being based on the common methodology of cognition and world understanding shared by the party members.[232]
«I think that the most important people as far as this kind of stability is concerned are such CC[233] members as Stalin and Trotsky. The terms they are on in my opinion comprise the greater half of the danger posed by that kind of split which could be avoided. In my judgment it can be avoided through increasing the number of CC members up to 50 or 100 people among other things.[234]
Having taken the post of general secretary Comrade Stalin has concentrated in his hands a power of limitless authority, and I am not sure whether he will always be able to use that power with enough caution or not. On the other hand, comrade Trotsky is distinguished not only by his outstanding abilities[235], as his opposition to the CC in regard to the issue of NKPS[236] has demonstrated.[237] Personally he seems to be the most able man in the current CC, yet he carries it too far with his self-confidence and caring too much for the purely administrative side of our cause.
The above-mentioned two qualities of the two outstanding leaders in our current CC can accidentally lead to a split, and if our party does not take measures to counter it, the split can occur unexpectedly.
I shall not speak any more about the personal qualities of other CC members. I should only like to remind you that the incident with Zinovyev and Kamenev was of course caused not by chance, yet they personally can be hardly blamed for it, just like Trotsky can be hardly blamed for his non-bolshevism» (V. Lenin, Collected works, issue 5, volume 45, the notes of December 24, 1922 continued, dictated by V. Lenin on December 25, 1922).
J. Stalin’s qualities are described further in the addition to the notes of December 25, 1922. This is what was written down by another secretary of V. Lenin, L. Fotiyeva (1881 — 1975) on January 4, 1923:
«Stalin is too rude, and this drawback which is tolerable among ourselves, the communists, becomes intolerable for a man in the office of the general secretary. That is why I suggest the comrades to think of a way to remove Stalin from this post and appoint a different man to it. In all the other respects this man should differ from comrade Stalin in only one way — having the advantage of being more tolerable, loyal, polite and attentive towards comrades, less whimsical, etc. This circumstance might seem to be trivial. But I think that in respect to avoiding a split and to what I said above about the relationship between Stalin and Trotsky this is not trivial or this is a trifle which could prove to be decisive».
Psychic Trotskyite writers have commented upon the “Address to the convention” by V. Lenin over and over again, making special emphasis on the addition to the address of January 4, 1923. They implied that it contained a Lenin’s warning that nobody listened to. Yet almost the only thing that escaped their understanding is exactly what V. Lenin really warned Bolsheviks from, as well as the fact that in this letter V. Lenin actually recommends J.V. Stalin to the party of Bolsheviks as his successor.
In order to understand what V. Lenin really warned the party from in his «Address to the convention» let us consider the testimonial V. Lenin gave to the members of ACP (B) Central Committee unbiased by turbulent emotions. V. Lenin openly describes all the candidates for the post of party leader (no matter what this post is called) apart from J.V. Stalin as non-Bolsheviks (Trotsky), as people unreliable in business (Kamenev, Zinovyev, Trotsky whom V. Lenin called «little Judas» in one of his works), as bureaucrats who can forget about the true cause carried away by administrative formalism (Trotsky, Buharin[238], Pyatakov[239]).
Thus, only J.V. Stalin remains. He has already concentrated in his hands an enormous power on the post of the general secretary [240]which speaks of his professional qualities as an administrator, of his ability to maintain a certain balance between form (administrative issues) and content (i.e. the cause itself) and of his capabilities as a leader. Yet along with that he is sometimes rude, intolerant, capricious.
Given the testimonies of all the other «leaders» the addition to the «Address» of January 4, 1923 is nothing but empty rhetoric: «We should have appointed somebody else instead of Stalin: someone equal to Stalin professionally but who would not be so rude and intolerant. Do you know someone like that? — I don’t». And at the same time this is a hint to Stalin: «Learn to be tolerant, my dear comrade, or it will cost you your head notwithstanding your good professional qualities. You will end the same way as I did: they will destroy you before you will be able to finish our cause. You see for yourself, there are no bolshevist people capable of being in charge among the party «leaders» … yet we must continue with the cause of bolshevism, otherwise masons and empty talkers from among intelligentsia carried along by them will walk all over the common people».
Following these meditations let us comment in greater detail the following phrase of V. Lenin: «the October incident[241] with Zinovyev and Kamenev was of course caused not by chance, yet they personally can be hardly blamed for it, just like Trotsky can be hardly blamed for his non-bolshevism»
The way V. Lenin characterized L.Rosenfeld (Kamenev), G. Apfelbaum (Zinovyev) and L. Bronstein (Trotsky) leads us to compare it with the legal status of slaves in a slave-owning society:
A slave cannot be held responsible for anything by the society of free people. For any damage inflicted by a slave his owner is held responsible. And only the owner has a right of punishing the slave in a way he himself chooses. Nobody from among the free people has a right to impede him in executing that right.[242]
Therefore the testimonial he gave to Bronstein, Rosenfeld, Apfelbaum is synonymous to a definition given to a slave’s legal status, simply in a different wording. Taking this into account and taking into account the knowledge we now have of that era, the above-mentioned testimonial given to that «trio» by V. Lenin can be only understood as a hint that the party «leaders» he mentions are actually puppets, slaves of masonry masters, executive periphery of the «world backstage». And one should not think that this conclusion is a far-fetched one while what V. Lenin meant is something completely different: V. Lenin was a lawyer, he knew legal history starting from the ancient times, and when speaking at the IV Comintern congress in December 1922 he demanded of Communist party members to leave Masonic lodges.[243]
If we attempt to describe how different people not aware of the backstage hidden motives perceive the testimonials of CC members given by V. Lenin in his «Address to the convention» we shall see that they see completely different things as being significant in that address.
That J.V. Stalin is sometimes rude, has the guts not to follow «high society manners» was significant (and is still significant) for representatives of the carelessly babbling intelligentsia among the party ranks and of the leaders who have an intellectual background or have joined intelligentsia while working as professional revolutionaries. They prefer the party leaders to be intelligent talkers like themselves.
But among the common people who are busy doing real vital work (i.e. among the party masses) rudeness was not considered to be a serious vice at the time, like it was the case among the refined intelligentsia. The common people have not paid and do not pay much attention to a man’s rudeness if this man possesses professional qualities useful for the society. The common people are usually intolerant not to rude people but to those who bully others misusing their social status or talents, and one can do this while being at the same time exquisitely polite. Had Lenin written that Stalin mocked and bullied his party comrades, people would have regarded such a warning with an utterly different degree of concern.
Bolshevist party members from among the common people paid attention to the fact that J.V. Stalin had concentrated power in his hands, i.e. he was not afraid of taking the responsibility for their common cause, that he had the qualities of a leader and administrator capable of real work. And rude words and actions do not always reflect spite, and even if they are the case, they have no serious effect… Besides, for a person to lose his temper and start being rude it takes those around him to bring the person into this condition.
One should also bear in mind that the knowledge we have of what Stalin was like in intercourse is based on the reminiscences of his contemporaries. And remember that they were often written down from third persons and were carefully selected by anti-Stalinists later. But in those years not only V. Lenin, N. Krupskaya and other party leaders had a real experience of communicating with Stalin. Therefore there could be opinions on J. Stalin’s «politeness» which were different from the view V. Lenin expressed in his «Address to the convention» and which did not become a part of the cult at the time of the 20th Convention for that very reason.
In the years of Perestroika the «fight against Stalinism» livened up, and the TV broadcast a documentary shot at the place of Stalin’s last exile in the Turukhansky territory. There was nothing underneath the concrete framework of the glass «aquarium» which once protected Stalin’s museum from rough weather. The walls were covered with writings: both condemning Stalin and asking for forgiveness for having not been able to preserve the USSR — the first bolshevist state — after he passed away.
Then they interviewed an old woman, an inhabitant of that village, who remembered Stalin’s living there in exile. She was asked, «What do you remember?» When she heard the question, youth lit up her eyes, and she answered: «He was a kind man. He treated ill people with herbs…»
Thus it seems that J.V. Stalin behaved differently with different people, depending on what those people were like, what their inside was like, and what J.V. Stalin himself thought them to be…
As a result, the Bolsheviks of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) seconded J.V. Stalin and not anyone else as the party leader, judging from the testimonials given to the «leaders» by V. Lenin and from their personal experience of speaking and working with leaders.
Thus both the «world backstage» and Bolsheviks in Russia itself concurred that comrade Joseph Stalin could be entrusted the task of leadership in the cause of building socialism in a separate country. Yet under socialism the «world backstage» and Bolsheviks meant completely different, mutually exclusive ways of socially organizing people’s life. The result of those coinciding social and political processes was J. Stalin’s coming to personify bolshevist statehood in the 20th century.
6.4. Unpreparedness of Russia
for Socialism and its Consequences
Russia was economically, culturally and morally not ready for the socialist mode of life neither in 1917 nor after the Civil War. Everyone knew it[244]: both opponents and advocates of socialism. After the Revolution the camp of advocates of socialism split during the Civil War.
Understanding that Russia is not ready for socialism, some public figures proposed it would transfer to multi-party bourgeois democracy for the culture and economy to have enough time for development and for the objective and subjective precondition of transferring to socialist to appear.
Others — the Bolsheviks headed by Vladimir Lenin and the Trotskyists headed by Leon D. Bronstein — also shared the view that Russia was not ready for socialism in respect of culture and economy. What they insisted on was that only under the guidance of the Bolsheviks’ Party and the Soviets of Workers and Peasants’ deputies is it possible to develop the culture and economy and to build the real socialism. Only under these circumstances will the working class and the peasants be able to escape exploitation by internal and foreign private capital, which will otherwise set in for at least several decades. It was very likely to happen under the conditions of bourgeois democracy civil liberties and private enterprise permissiveness, wherein inter-industry proportions and gross industries’ capacities[245] are determined by the law of value due to the market self-regulation. To ground the above statement we are drawing Lenin’s opinion here:
«…infinitely stereotyped, for instance, is the argument they learned by rote during the development of West-European Social-Democracy, namely, that we are not yet ripe for socialism, but as certain “learned” gentleman among them put it, the objective economic premises for socialism do not exist in our country. Does it not occur to any of them to ask: what about the people that found itself in a revolutionary situation such as that created during the first imperialist war? Might it not, influenced by the hopelessness of its situation, fling itself into a struggle that would offer it at least some chance of securing conditions for the further development of civilization that were somewhat unusual?
«The development of the productive forces of Russia has not yet attained the level that makes socialism possible». All the heroes of the Second International, including of course Sukhanov, beat the drums about this proposition. They keep harping on this incontrovertible proposition in a thousand different keys and make it the decisive criterion of our revolution.
(…)
If a definite level of culture is required for the building of socialism (although nobody can say just what that definite “level of culture” is, for it differs in every Western European country), why can we not begin by first achieving the prerequisites for that definite level of culture in a revolutionary way, and then, with the aid of the workers’ and peasants’ government and Soviet system, proceed to overtake the other nations?
(…)
You say that civilization is necessary for the building of socialism. Very well. But why could we not first create such prerequisites of civilization in our country by the expulsion of the landowners and the Russian capitalists and then start moving toward socialism? Where, in what books, have you read that such variations of the customary historical sequence of events are impermissible or impossible?
Napoleon, I remember, wrote: “On s’engage et puis... on voit”. Rendered freely this means: “First engage in a serious battle and then see what happens.” Well, we did first engage in a serious battle in October 1917 and then saw such details of development (from the standpoint of world history they were certainly details) as the Brest peace, the New Economic Policy, and so forth. And now there can be no doubt that in the main we have been victorious. (V.I. Lenin. “Our Revolution (Apropos of N. Sukhanov’s Notes)”, Lenin, Collected Works, 5th edition, volume 45, p. 378 — 382).
J.V. Stalin wrote on the same issue, but 35 years after the Great October Socialist Revolution:
«The answer to this question was given by Lenin in his writings on the “tax in kind” and in his celebrated «cooperative plan».
Lenin’s answer may be briefly summed up as follows:
a) Favorable conditions for the assumption of power should not be missed — the proletariat should assume power without waiting until capitalism has succeeded in ruining the millions of small and medium individual producers;
b) The means of production in industry should be expropriated and converted into public property;
c) As to the small and medium individual producers, they should be gradually united in producers’ cooperatives, i.e., in large agricultural enterprises, collective farms;
d) Industry should be developed to the utmost and the collective farms should be placed on the modern technical basis of large-scale production, not expropriating them, but on the contrary generously supplying them with first-class tractors and other machines;
e) In order to ensure an economic bond between town and country, between industry and agriculture, commodity production (exchange through purchase and sale) should be preserved for a certain period, it being the form of economic tie with the town which is alone acceptable to the peasants, and Soviet trade — state, cooperative, and collective-farm — should be developed to the fullest and the capitalists of all types and descriptions ousted from trading activity.
The history of socialist construction in our country has shown that this path of development, mapped out by Lenin, has fully justified itself. (“Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R.”, “Remarks on Economic Questions Connected with the November 1951 Discussion”, Ch. 2. “Commodity Production under Socialism”).
In fact such policy was initially bound to cause more than one interpretation and to create internal conflicts. Firstly, it implied that the government and party would render support to those implicating the ideals of socialism and the doctrine of its construction according to their own worldview and to the Party leaders’ understanding of it (i.e. in the way it was presented in the official propaganda). Secondly, it implied forcing of the ideologically uncommitted layers of the society to join the socialist mode of life. It concerned the layers who didn’t have any particular ideas about the ideal social order in their minds, whose actions were guided by individualistic interests of a replete and comfortable life for themselves and their families and who would be loyal to any government that could provide acceptable labor conditions and consumers’ well-being. Thirdly, it implies investigating and suppressing anti-socialist activity — in the understanding of the top party leaders.
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