An Appraisal of the Man and His Influence

308 Pages·2015·7.96 MB·English

STALIN
AN APPRAISAL OF THE MAN
AND HIS INFLUENCE * BY LEON
TROTSKY
EDITED AND TRANSLATED FROM
THE RUSSIAN BY CHARLES
MALAMUTH
The Universal Library
GROSSET & OUNLAP • NEW YORK
STAXJN
Copyright, 1941, by Harper & Brothers
Printed in the United States of America
All rights in this book are reserved.
No part of the book may be reproduced in any
manner whatsoever without written permission
except in the case of brief quotations embodied
in critical articles and reviews. For information
address Harper & Brothers
By arrangement with Harper & Brothers
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Editor's Note
vs.
Introduction ad
Chapter I: FAMILY AND SCHOOL I
Chapter II: PROFESSIONAL REVOLUTIONIST 24
Chapter III: THE FIRST REVOLUTION 55
Chapter IV: THE PERIOD OF REACTION 85,
Chapter V: THE NEW RESURGENCE 126
Chapter VI: WAR AND EXILE 162
Chapter VII: THE YEAR 1917 185
Chapter VIII: PEOPLE'S COMMISSAR 239
Chapter IX: THE CIVIL WAR 269
Chapter X: THE CIVIL WAR {continued) 306
Chapter XI: FROM OBSCURITY TO THE TRIUMVIRATE 335
Chapter XII: THE ROAD TO POWER 365
Supplement I: THE THERMIDORIAN REACTION 384
Supplement II: .KYnto IN POWER 411
Appendix: THREE CONCEPTS OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION 422
Chronological Guide, 435
Stalin's Aliases and Pseudonyms 475
Communist Party Congresses 476
Books and Pamphlets by Leon Trotsky Available in English 477
Glossary 479
Index 487

EDITOR'S NOTE
JL/EON TROTSKY wrote and revised in the original Russian the first seven
chapters and the appendix of this book. He checked in the English translation
the first six chapters and the appendix but not the seventh chapter. The first
seven chapters were to have been cut and condensed after the writing of the book
had been completed. Like most authors, Trotsky was more optimistic than accu
rate about the expected date of completion, and his case was aggravated not only
by the excessive optimism of the revolutionist and the military leader but by
continual harassments and attempts on his life. The date of completion was
therefore deferred from time to time. Finally, he set August, 1940 as the "dead
line," to use his own expression. But his manuscript was not complete on the
twentieth of August, when he was struck down by his assassin. Two days later
he died. The editor therefore left the first seven chapters and the appendix un-
revised, except for a few deletions of repetitious material.
Some of the manuscript of the unfinished portion was in Trotsky's study,
strung out in enormously long strips of many sheets pasted end to end, at the time
of the murderous attack upon him, and in the struggle with the assassin portions
of the manuscript were not only spattered with blood but utterly destroyed.
Moreover, no part of this posthumous manuscript had been put in final form
by the author. It was made up of notes to be more fully developed, of excerpts
from the works of other writers, of various documents, of dictated material not
yet corrected by the author, all tentatively grouped for further use. Some of
it was roughly blocked out under tentative chapter headings. Most of it was
undigested material filed under eighty-one subheadings in more than twice that
many folders. Out of this largely raw material the Introduction, the chapters from
eight to twelve inclusive, and the two supplements have been edited.
Under the circumstances, extensive interpolations by the editor were unavoid
able but were, nevertheless, kept down to a minimum consistent with achieving
the maximum of clarity and fluency. In every case, including the editor's intro
duction of single words, these are set off from the author's text by brackets.
Of course, the lists of Stalin's aliases, of Communist Party Congresses, the glos
sary and chronological guide are entirely the work of the editor. Portions of the
author's notes summarized by the editor are distinguished from the main body
of the text by closer printing. Wherever quoted material found in Trotsky's
portfolio on the Stalin biography is not a component part of Trotsky's text, such
quoted material is marked by a star. In many cases that material bore identifying
notations in Trotsky's handwriting,
ix
x EDITOR'S NOTE
The editorial policy in regard to the unfinished portion of the manuscript was
to publish Trotsky's text entire except for repetitious and utterly extraneous
material which he obviously would have cut had he survived. Many of ihe docu
ments are published here for the first time, without benefit of censorship either
by Trotskyists or by Stalinists.
The editor wishes to thank the author's widow, Natalia Iva.novim Sedoff-
Trotsky, for her contribution to this book. He desires also to acknowledge the
assistance of Leon Trotsky's principal secretary, M. Jean Van Heijinoort; the
Director of the Harvard University Library, Mr. Kcyes I). Metcalf; the Regis
trar of the Harvard Library, Mr. Edward L. Gookin, and his staff; the Curator
of Rare Books in the Treasure Room of the Widener library at Harvard, Mr.
William A. Jackson, Mr. W. H. McCarthy, and the Misses Fritzi Oldaeh and
Rita Fitzpatrick. Their generous co-operation and unfailing patience facilitated
the editor's access to Trotsky's posthumous manuscript. Although the editor did
not always follow their advice, his very special appreciation is reserved for
Marguerite Hoyle Munson, Alexandre Barmine and Max Eastman, who read
the book before publication and offered extremely valuable critical comments.
C. M.
INTRODUCTION
X. HE reader will note that I have dwelt with considerably more detail on the
development of Stalin during the preparatory period than on his more recent
political activities. The facts of the latter period are known to every literate
person. Moreover, my criticisms of Stalin's political behavior since 1923 are to
be found in various works. The purpose of this political biography is to show
how a personality of this sort was formed, and how it came to power by
usurpation of the right to such an exceptional role. That is why, in describing
the life and development of Stalin during the period when nothing, or almost
nothing, was known about him, the author has concerned himself with a thor
oughgoing analysis of isolated facts and details and the testimony of witnesses;
whereas, in appraising the latter period, he has limited himself to a synthetic
exposition, presupposing that the facts—at least, the principal ones—are suffi
ciently well known to the reader.
Critics in the service of the Kremlin will declare this time, even as they
declared with reference to my History of the Russian Revolution, that the
absence of bibliographical references renders a verification of the author's asser
tions impossible. As a matter of fact, bibliographical references to hundreds
and thousands of Russian newspapers, magazines, memoirs, anthologies and
the like would give the foreign critical reader very little and would only burden
the text. As for Russian critics, they have at their disposal whatever is available
of the Soviet archives and libraries. Had there been factual errors, misquota
tions, or any other improper use of material in any of my works, that would
have been pointed out long ago. As a matter of fact, I do not know of a single
instance of any anti-Trotskyist writings that contain a single reference to incor
rect use of source material by me. I venture to think that this fact alone is
sufficient guarantee of authenticity for the foreign reader.
In writing my History [of the Russian Revolution] I avoided personal
reminiscences and relied chiefly on data already published and therefore subject
to verification, including only such of my own testimony, previously published,
as had not been controverted by anyone in the past. In this biography I ventured
a departure from this too stringent method. Here, too, the basic warp of the
narrative is made up of documents, memoirs and other objective sources. But
in those instances where nothing can take the place of the testimony of the
author's own memories, I felt that I had the right to interpolate one or another
episode from my personal reminiscences, many of them hitherto unpublished,
clearly indicating each time that in the given case I appear not only as the;
xi
xii INTRODUCTION
author but also as a witness. Otherwise, I have followed here the same method
as in my History of the Russian Revolution.
Numerous of my opponents have conceded that the latter book is made up of
facts arranged in a scholarly way. True, a reviewer in the New York Times
rejected that book as prejudiced. But every line of his essay showed that he
was indignant with the Russian Revolution and was transferring his indignation
to its historian. This is the usual aberration of all sorts of liberal subjectivists
who carry on a perpetual quarrel with the course of the class struggle. Embit
tered by the results of some historical process, they vent their spleen on the
scientific analysis that discloses the inevitability of those results. In the final
reckoning, the judgment passed on the author's method is far more pertinent
than whether all or only a part of the author's conclusions will be acknowledged
to be objective. And on that score this author has no fear of criticism. This
work is built of facts and is solidly grounded in documents. It stands to reason
that here and there partial and minor errors or trivial offenses in emphasis and
misinterpretation may be found. But what no one will find in this work is an
unconscientious attitude toward facts, the deliberate disregard of documentary
evidence or arbitrary conclusions based only on personal prejudices. The author
did not overlook a single fact, document, or bit of testimony redounding to the
benefit of the hero of this book. If a painstaking, thoroughgoing and conscien
tious gathering of facts, even of minor episodes, the verification of the testimony
of witnesses with the aid of the methods of historical and biographical criticism,
and finally the inclusion of facts of personal life in their relation to our hero's
role in the historical process—if all of this is not objectivity, then, I ask, What
is objectivity?
Again new times have brought a new political morality. And, strangely enough,
the [swing of the pendulum of history has] returned us in many respects to
the epoch of the Renaissance, even exceeding it in the extent and depth of its
cruelties and bestialities. Again we have political condottieri, again the struggle
for power has assumed a grandiose character, its task—to achieve the most that
is feasible for the time being by securing governmental power for one person, a
power denuded to a merciless degree [of all restraints previously formulated
and hitherto deemed necessary]. There was a time when the laws of political
mechanics painstakingly formulated by Machiavelli were considered the height
of cynicism. To Machiavelli the struggle for power was a chess theorem. Ques
tions of morality did not exist for him, as they do not exist for a chess player,
as they do not exist for a bookkeeper. His task consisted in determining the
most practicable policy to be followed in regard to a given situation and in
explaining how to carry that policy through in a nakedly ruthless manner, on
the basis of experiences tested in the political crucibles of two continents. This
approach is explained not only by the task itself but also by the character of
the epoch during which this task was posed. It proceeded essentially from the
I N T R O D U C T I ON xiii
state of development of feudalism and in accordance with the crucial struggle
for power between the masters of two epochs—dying feudalism and the bour
geois society which was being born.
But throughout the nineteenth century, which was the age of parliamentarism,
liberalism and social reform (if you close your eyes to a few international wars
and civil wars), Machiavelli was considered absurdly old-fashioned. Political
ambition was confined within the parliamentary framework, and by the same
token its excessively venturesome trends were curbed. It was no longer a matter
of outright seizure of power by one person and his henchmen but of capturing
mandates in as many electoral districts as possible. In the epoch of the struggle
for ministerial portfolios Machiavelli seemed to be the quaint ideologist of a
dimly distant past. The advent of new times had brought a new and a higher
political morality. But, amazing thing, the twentieth century—that promised
dream of a new age for which the nineteenth had so hopefully striven—has
returned us in many respects to the ways and methods of the Renaissance!
This throw-back to the most cruel Machiavellism seems incomprehensible to
one who until yesterday abided in the comforting confidence that human history
moves along a rising line of material and cultural progress. [Nothing of course
is further from the truth. That is too clearly apparent today to require verbal
proof. But whatever our qualifications or disagreements on this] score, all of
us, I think, can say now: No epoch of the past was so cruel, so ruthless, so
cynical as our epoch. Politically, morality has not improved at all by comparison
with the standards of the Renaissance and with other even more distant epochs.
[No social order dies gently and willingly when the day of its usefulness passes.
All epochs of transition have been epochs of violent social struggles free of
traditional moral restraints, epochs of life and death struggles.] The epoch of
the Renaissance was an epoch of struggles between two worlds. Social antago
nisms reached extreme intensity. Hence the intensity of the political struggle.
By the second half of the nineteenth century political morality had sup
planted materialism (at least, in the imagination of certain politicians) only
because social antagonisms had softened for a time and the political struggle
had become petty. The basis of this was a general growth in the well-being of
the nation and certain improvements in the situation of the upper layers of the
working class. But our period, our epoch, resembles the epoch of the Renaissance
in the sense that we are living on the verge of two worlds: the bourgeois-
capitalistic, which is suffering agony, and that new world which is going to
replace it. Social contradictions have again achieved exceptional sharpness.
Political power, like morality, by no means develops uninterruptedly toward
a state of perfection, as was thought at the end of the last century and during
the first decade of the present century. Politics and morals suffer and have to
pass through a highly complex and paradoxical orbit. Politics, like morality, is
directly dependent on the class struggle. As a general rule, it may be said that
xiv I N T R O D U C T I ON
the sharper and more intense the class struggle, the deeper the social crisis, and
the more intense the character acquired by politics, the more concentrated and
more ruthless becomes the power of the State and the more frankly [does it
cast off the garments of morality].
Some of my friends have remarked that too much space in this book is
occupied by references to sources and my criticism of these sources. I fully
realize the inconveniences of such a method of exposition. But I have no choice.
No one is obliged to take on faith the assertions of an author as closely con
cerned and as directly involved as I have been in the struggle with the person
whose biography he has been obliged to write. Our epoch is above all an epoch
of lies. I do not therewith mean to imply that other epochs of humanity were
distinguished by greater truthfulness. The lie is the fruit of contradictions, of
struggle, of the clash of classes, of the suppression of personality, of the social
order. In that sense it is an attribute of all human history. There are periods
when social contradictions become exceptionally sharp, when the lie rises above
the average, when the lie becomes an attribute of the very acuteness of social
contradictions. Such is our epoch. I do not think that in all of human history
anything could be found even remotely resembling the gigantic factory of lies
which was organized by the Kremlin under the leadership of Stalin. And one
of the principal purposes of this factory is to manufacture a new biography for
Stalin . . . Some of these sources were fabricated by Stalin himself . . . With
out subjecting to criticism the details of progressively accumulating falsifications,
it would be impossible to prepare the reader for such a phenomenon, for ex
ample, as the Moscow trials . . .
Hitler is especially insistent that only the vivid oral word marks the leader.
Never, according to him, can any writing influence the masses like a speech.
At any rate, it cannot generate the firm and living bond between the leader and
his millions of followers. Hitler's judgment is doubtless determined in large
measure by the fact that he cannot write. Marx and Engels acquired millions of
followers without resorting throughout their life to the art of oratory. True,
it took them many years to secure influence. The writer's art ranks higher in
the final reckoning, for it makes possible the union of depth with height of
form. Political leaders who are nothing but orators are invariably superficial.
An orator does not generate writers. On the contrary, a great writer may inspire
thousands of orators. Yet it is true that for direct contact with the masses living
speech is indispensable. Lenin became the head of a powerful and influential party
|iefore he had the opportunity to turn to the masses with the living word. His
giib'lic appearances in 1905 were few and passed unnoticed. As a mass orator
JP$$H did not appear on the scene until 1917, and then only for a short period, in
S$jie,course of April, May and July. He came to power not as an orator, but above
|1| as a writer, as an instructor of the propagandists who had trained his cadres,
lauding also the cadres of orators.