RUSSIA, 1905-1939

Chapter 9.  STALIN AND THE USSR, 1924-39

9.1 HOW DID STALIN MANAGE TO GET TO SUPREME POWER? 

Joseph Djugashvili (he took the name 'Stalin' - man of steel - some time after joining the Bolsheviks in 1904) was born in 1879 in the small town of Gori in the province of Georgia; his parents were poor peasants; in fact his father, a shoemaker, had been born a serf.  Joseph's mother wanted him to become a priest and he was educated for four years at Tiflis Theological Seminary, but he hated its repressive atmosphere and was expelled in 1899 for expounding socialist principles.  He became a Bolshevik about 1904 and after 1917, thanks to his brilliance as an administrator, he was quietly able to build up his own position under Lenin.  When Lenin died in 1924 Stalin was Secretary-General of the communist party and a member of the seven-man Politburo, the commit-tee which decided government policy.  At first it seemed unlikely that Stalin would become the dominant figure; Trotsky called him 'the party's most eminent mediocrity', and Lenin thought him stubborn and rude, and suggested in his will that Stalin be removed from his post.  The most obvious successor to Lenin was Trotsky, an inspired orator, an intellectual, and the organiser of the Red Armies.  However, circumstances arose which Stalin was able to use to eliminate his rivals:

(a)   Trotsky's brilliance worked against him by arousing envy and resentment among the other Politburo members who combined to prevent his becoming leader: collective action was better than a one-man show. 

(b)   The Politburo members underestimated Stalin, seeing him as nothing more than a competent administrator; they ignored Lenin's advice. 

(c)   As Secretary-General of the party, Stalin had full powers of appointment and promotion, which he used to place his own supporters in key positions while at the same time removing the supporters of odic is to distant parts of the country. 

(d)   Stalin used the disagreements in the Politburo over policy to his own advantage.  These arose partly because Marx had never described in detail exactly how the new communist society should be organised and even Lenin was vague about it, except that 'the dictatorship of the proletariat' would be established - that is, workers would run the state and the economy in their own interests.  When all opposition had been crushed, the ultimate goal of a classless society would be achieved in which, according to Marx, the ruling principle would be: 'from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs'.  With NEP (the New Economic Policy: see Section 3.3(d)) Lenin had departed from socialist principles, though this would only be a temporary measure until the crisis passed.  Now the right, led by Bukharin, and the left, whose views were most strongly put by Trotsky, fell out about what to do next:

(i) Bukharin wanted to continue NEP, even though it was causing an increase in numbers of kulaks.  His opponents wanted to abandon NEP and concentrate on rapid industrialisation at the expense of the peasants. 

(ii) Bukharin thought it important to consolidate soviet power in Russia, based on a prosperous peasantry and with a very gradual industrialisation - 'socialism in one country', as it became known.  Trotsky believed that they must work for revolution outside Russia - `permanent revolution'; when this was achieved the industrialised states of western Europe would help Russia with her industrialisation. 

Stalin, quietly ambitious, apparently had no strong views either way at first, but he supported the right simply to isolate Trotsky.  Later, when a split occurred between Bukharin and two other Politburo members, Zinoviev and Kamenev, who were feeling unhappy about NEP, Stalin supported Bukharin, and one by one Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev were voted off the Politburo by Stalin's yes-men and expelled from the party (1927).  The following year Stalin decided that NEP must go - the kulaks were holding up agricultural progress; when Bukharin protested, he too was expelled (1929) and Stalin was left supreme.  Having reached the pinnacle, Stalin attacked the many problems facing Russia, which fell into three categories: economic, political and social.  and foreign (see Section 13.3).