I am prepared to state that I think that two factors that caused the process of the Great Purges to expand significantly as they unfolded were: the appointment of N.I. Yezhov as head of the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD), the secret political police, to conduct the purges; and the increasing threat of Nazi Germany and the desire of the Soviet leadership to remove any possible fifth column from their midst in the event of a war with Germany.
The period of the purges during which Yezhov led the NKVD is referred to as Yezhovshchina. In reading J. Arch Getty's books on the Great Purges, I found that he tended to apply this term not just to Yezhov's leadership but specifically to the period in late 1937 during which the purge took on its most devastating character for the population in general. In part, the Purges spread most widely and affected the largest number of people in the second half of 1937 because of Yezhov's style in prosecuting the purge itself. In particular, Yezhov pursued every "lead" provided by prisoner interrogations, and prisoners tended to incriminate others readily -- particularly given the ready application of physical and psychological torture -- so it stands to reason that the circle would spread ever more widely.
As Getty writes, the Purges spread downward after having been ordered from above, and regional and local party leaders "tried to protect themselves by ordering mass expulsions and arrests of rank-and-file party members. In turn, the rank and file denounced their party bosses as enemies. It was a war of all against all, with intraparty class and status overtones."[180] What's notable here is the extent to which the process got out of the control of Yezhov, not to mention Stalin. While Stalin maintained the power and control to stop the process by removing Yezhov, while the process itself raged, it seemed to defy any sort of management. Because Stalin allowed Yezhov to continue the process, the Purges during Yezhovshchina began to take on a life of their own.
On the matter of Nazi Germany, while the beginning of the Great Purges is often identified as coinciding with the murder of Kirov, many of Stalin's considerations in the period between January 1933, when Hitler took office as Reichskanzler, and the end of the Great Purges were undertaken with an eye toward Germany's growing power, increasing rearmament, and budding strategic alliances. While I think that the Kirov assassination provided a convenient excuse to step up repression (if not directly ordered by Stalin himself), I find it difficult to ignore any number of international events during the period that posed a direct threat to Soviet power; three of the most important events took place in 1936, the same year of the first Moscow Trial: remilitarization of the Rhineland (March), eruption of the Spanish Civil War (July), and the signing of the Anti-Comintern Pact (November). Moreover, the winding down of the Great Purges coincided more or less with the signing of the Munich Agreement and the seeming containment of Hitler.
Here, Stalin seems to have been of a mindset rather similar to most of the other key Soviet leaders. As Marxists, while they believed that fascism represented the final death throes of capitalism, they feared the openly violent rhetoric of the Nazi against communism. It was further known that, like themselves, foreign governments, including the Nazis, were engaging in espionage. Again, Getty makes a key point on this matter, here that even those people that Stalin eliminated as potential threats in the Purges were fearful of the international threat and would have handled it similarly if in power: "Bukharin had mentioned the necessity of clearing the political decks before a war."[141] Therefore, while Stalin was perhaps overly open to suggestion by Yezhov of conspiracies brewing among unlikely bedfellows like Trotskyists and Nazis, the threat of the latter was real, and Stalin's actions in this regard were perhaps not as unusual as we might think.
=====
[1] J. Arch Getty and Oleg Naumov, The Road to Terror: Stalin and the Self-Destruction of the Bolsheviks, 1932-1939 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale UP, 2010), 180.
[2] Ibid, 144.
Thursday, May 12, 2016
Monday, May 9, 2016
Source Analysis: Justifying Stalin's Great Turn
The rule of Stalin over the Soviet Union
was enormously costly in terms of lives lost, but with the exception of the war
against Germany from 1941 to 1945, perhaps no period was as deadly for the
Soviet people as the collectivization of agriculture and industrialization of
the economy launched in 1928 with the first Five-Year Plan. Two texts from
1929, the end of the first year of the plan -- "A Year of Great
Change," from the November 7 edition of Pravda[1] and
"Problems of Agrarian Policy in the USSR,"[2] presented
as a lecture to Marxist students on December 27 -- provide the opportunity to
determine Stalin's justification for the swiftness and brutality of the
program. In particular, Stalin had to thread a difficult needle, having
previously opposed radical action represented by the Left Opposition and now
having eliminated the Right Opposition that all along had opposed such
measures, in addition to having to justify the new program as one of which
Lenin would have approved.
Because the Right Opposition had only
recently been eliminated, it was its arguments that required the most attention
from Stalin in late 1929, particularly given the extent to which the warnings
of the Right Opposition had proved true. One way of attacking the Right
Opposition for Stalin is to lump them together with other enemies of the
Communist Party. For instance, in the November 7 article, Stalin writes that
the "great turn" was being achieved despite "the desperate
retrograde forces of every kind, from kulaks and priests to philistines and
Right opportunists."[3]
Later in the same article, Bukharin is attacked by name, with Stalin stating
that the "assertions of the Right opportunists" have "collapsed
and crumbled to dust."[4]
The December 27 speech is even more direct, with the first part of the excerpt
dedicated to attacking the Right-affiliated notion of "equilibrium,"
which Stalin attributes to "Right deviators."[5] Stalin
suggests that there is no middle ground between a full-blown return to
capitalism and the route undertaken with the "great turn."
Despite its offering the most recent and
vociferous voice against rapid collectivization and industrialization, the
Right Opposition nevertheless had the least actual ability to mount a
significant counteroffensive. Not only had Stalin already eliminated the Right
Oppositionists from the Politburo, but they also recanted publicly in a
statement published three weeks after Stalin's November 7 article.[6] More
difficult to address than the arguments of the Right Opposition were those of
the Left Opposition, the positions of which Stalin was now essentially adopting
with the "great turn." Here, Stalin had not to justify his actions
but to clarify for his audiences why it was he who should implement the
"great turn" and why the Left Opposition remained enemies.
To accomplish this goal, rather than
focusing on the key issues of abandoning the NEP or collectivization and
industrialization, Stalin chooses the matter of peasant-worker cooperation. In
the November 7 article, he accuses Trotsky of Menshevism and states that the
"conception that the working class is incapable of securing the following
of the main mass of the peasantry in the wok of socialist construction is
collapsing and being smashed to smithereens."[7] Given that
the Bolshevik-Menshevik split had been based mainly on the issue of the
Leninist concept of a party vanguard, it seems an odd epithet for Stalin to use
for the Trotskyists, although Trotsky had been a Menshevik before the spring of
1917. Moreover, Menshevism had traditionally been more conciliatory toward the
peasantry, while the "great turn" targeted the peasantry perhaps more
than any other sector of Soviet society.
Here, Stalin's attack seems to be
primarily one of guilt by association. Because the Mensheviks (like all
opposition political parties) had been banned, Stalin's attack on them via
conflation with Trotskyists accomplished two goals. First, given that Trotsky,
by November 1929, had already been expelled from the country, the key figure in
the Left Opposition could evoke images for readers of the probable fate of
those who opposed Stalin's policies. In addition, with the Mensheviks, Stalin
suggests that the Trotskyists are a far greater enemy than Bukharin's group
who, despite its opposition to the "great turn," still was among the
party elites. The Mensheviks, in contrast, were banned outright. Left
Oppositionism, by extension, was not only wrong but illegal to boot.
Last but not least, Stalin had to
justify the "great turn" in the same way that he would justify most
of his actions -- as the heir to Lenin. This task was perhaps the most
difficult to accomplish because Lenin had championed the NEP that Stalin had
now eliminated. In the December 22 speech, reference to Lenin is embedded
within the attack on the Right Opposition, with Stalin stating, "It is not
difficult to see that this theory has nothing in common with Leninism."[8] In the
November 7 article, Stalin is better able to identify the "great
turn" with Lenin by citing Lenin's writings liberally throughout the
article. This evocation is particularly masterful when used to justify where
the "great turn" has so far had its least success, i.e., in the
development of heavy industry.[9]
In addition, at the opening of the essay, Stalin reminds readers that Lenin saw
the NEP as a strategic retreat and not a quasi-permanent policy.[10]
However, perhaps the most clever
evocation of Lenin comes in the title of the November 7 article itself. Stalin
biographer Robert C. Tucker writes, "The key Russian word in Stalin's
manifesto is perelom, here translated as ‘turn.’ […] Figuratively it
means a fundamental shirt of direction, a turning point. Lenin's writings of
1917 often used it in that sense."[11]
In using a term readily identified by party members with Lenin, Stalin is able
to promote an association of his policy with the deceased leader without even
needing to state that leader’s name.
In conclusion, in his Pravda
article of November 7, 1929, and his lecture of December 27 of the same year,
Stalin defends his “great turn” from his political enemies and justifies it in
the context of the Soviet Union’s key founder, Lenin. An easy target at the
time, the Right Opposition of Bukharin provides an easy punching bag, but the
Left Opposition and Trotskyists are more difficult to smear, so Stalin relies
on insinuation and name-calling. Finally, Stalin quotes liberally from Lenin
and uses the latter’s turns of phrases to sell the “great turn” to his
audiences. Because Stalin felt compelled to pump the brakes on the program in
the coming year, it is clear that his attempts were unsuccessful, but at the
time, Stalin used the available ammunition and his traditional targets to
justify his “great turn.”
[1] I.V. Stalin, “A
Year of Great Change: On the Occasion of the Twelfth Anniversary of the October
Revolution,” Pravda, accessed May 1, 2016, https://snhu-media.snhu.edu/files/course_repository/undergraduate/
his/his235/extra_stalin_a_year_of_great_change.pdf
his/his235/extra_stalin_a_year_of_great_change.pdf
[2] I.V. Stalin, “Problems
of Agrarian Policy in the USSR,” accessed May 1, 2016, https://snhu-media.snhu.edu/files/course_repository/undergraduate/his/his235/lecture8_stalin_problems_of_agrarian_policy.pdf
[3] Stalin, “Great
Change,” page 3.
[4] Ibid, page 5.
[5] Stalin,
“Problems,” Ibid, page 1.
[6] Stephen F.
Cohen, Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution: A Political Biography,
1888-1938 (New York: Vintage, 1975), 334-35.
[7] Stalin, “Great
Change,” page 6.
[8] Stalin,
“Problems,” page 1.
[9] Stalin, ”Great
Change,” page 3.
[10] Ibid, page 1.
[11] Robert C.
Tucker, Stalin in Power: The Revolution From Above, 1928-1941 (New York:
Norton, 1990), 92.
Monday, May 2, 2016
Succession to Lenin: Trotsky v. Stalin
There were several factors that contributed to Stalin's victory over Trotsky in the power struggle that followed Lenin's death. Among the factors that were central, and would continue to be central as Stalin consolidated his power and moved toward collectivization of agriculture and mass industrialization of the USSR was the New Economic Policy (NEP). Although Kamenev and Zinoviev would eventually side with Trotsky against the NEP in the Left Opposition, they initially sided with Stalin and the right wing within the Politburo in supporting it. With the support of a clear majority of the Politburo favoring the NEP, including the formation of a troika with Kamenev and Zinoviev, marginalizing Trotsky on the basis of his opposition to the NEP became easy. Once Kamenev and Zinoviev changed sides against the NEP, Trotsky was already critically wounded.
While the NEP, competing ideologies of permanent revolution vs. socialism in one country, and Lenin's testament all had roles to play in the power struggle, I ultimately believe that Stalin won the battle because of his superior strategic positioning of allies to form an effective power base. Before I began reading for the final project in this course, I believed that Stalin was a simpleton who accomplished his goals through thuggery and brute force. Now, I have a more nuanced view of him, and I can see how methodical his actions were and how informed by long-range planning. Trotsky, in comparison, while clearly of singular intelligence, was often too rash, particularly in his public criticisms of other party leaders.
Two passages from my reading inform my updated view of Stalin and his ability to out-maneuver Trotsky. The first comes from the prominent revisionist J. Arch Getty:
======
[1] J. Arch Getty and Oleg Naumov, The Road to Terror: Stalin and the Self-Destruction of the Bolsheviks, 1932-1939 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale UP, 2010), 25.
[2] Robert Conquest, The Great Terror: A Reassessment (New York: Oxford UP, 2007), 414.
While the NEP, competing ideologies of permanent revolution vs. socialism in one country, and Lenin's testament all had roles to play in the power struggle, I ultimately believe that Stalin won the battle because of his superior strategic positioning of allies to form an effective power base. Before I began reading for the final project in this course, I believed that Stalin was a simpleton who accomplished his goals through thuggery and brute force. Now, I have a more nuanced view of him, and I can see how methodical his actions were and how informed by long-range planning. Trotsky, in comparison, while clearly of singular intelligence, was often too rash, particularly in his public criticisms of other party leaders.
Two passages from my reading inform my updated view of Stalin and his ability to out-maneuver Trotsky. The first comes from the prominent revisionist J. Arch Getty:
And he was an attractive leader for many reasons. Unlike the other top leaders, Stalin was not an intellectual or theoretician. He spoke a simple and unpretentious language appealing to a party increasingly made up of workers and peasants. His style contrasted sharply with that of his Politburo comrades, whose complicated theories and pompous demeanor won them few friends among the plebeian rank and file. He also had an uncanny way of projecting what appeared to be moderate solutions to complicated problems. Unlike his colleagues, who seemed shrill in their warnings of fatal crises, Stalin frequently put himself forward as the calm man of the golden mean with moderate, compromise solutions.[1]The second, shorter quote is from the totalitarian Robert Conquest, a harsh critic of Stalin and the USSR: "Trotsky was a polished zircon; Stalin was a rough diamond."[2] In terms of organizational talent, Trotsky was all style and no substance; Stalin, in contrast, was unpolished but highly effective. Like a Soviet version of Lyndon Johnson, Stalin seemed like a rube but was a master of backroom deals.
======
[1] J. Arch Getty and Oleg Naumov, The Road to Terror: Stalin and the Self-Destruction of the Bolsheviks, 1932-1939 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale UP, 2010), 25.
[2] Robert Conquest, The Great Terror: A Reassessment (New York: Oxford UP, 2007), 414.
Thursday, April 28, 2016
Red Victory in the Russian Civil War
It would be disastrously reductive to assume that any single factor contributed more than any other to the Red Army winning the Russian Civil War. Different historians with different ideologies will necessarily take different views regarding this question. However, if the war was most bitterly fought and for the longest time in the westernmost reaches of the Russian Empire, particularly in Ukraine and Poland, then ultimately I think a combination of military, ethnic, and terroristic factors contributed most to Soviet victory.
On the first point, the textbook makes the point well that fighting on widely separated fronts made it difficult for the White Armies to mount offensives with long-term results.[1] On the other side of the battlefield(s), that the Soviets were encircled within the great Russian heartland actually facilitated a more successful defense earlier in the war, with a smaller, constrained theater of operations allowing for greater maneuverability. As M.K. Dziewanowski points out, many Red Army veterans were deployed several times.[2]
Related to this first point is the second point of ethnic factors. Again, as noted in the textbook, the White Army generals, being generally insensitive to the feelings and concerns of non-Russian ethnic groups, lost vital support as a result of vocally assuring Russian supremacy in the event of a White victory.[3] Given the importance of the most ethnically diverse areas of the Empire to a White victory, such rhetoric was a crucial mistake, although it bears mentioning here that the Soviets did not have anything better to offer non-Russians besides the notion of an end to repression as the result of a society rid of religious and ethnic division on the basis of socialism.
Finally, the use of terror was important to both sides, although with different end results. On the one hand, the infliction of ethnic violence by White Armies, particularly in the form of pogroms against Jews residing in the old Pale of Settlement, guaranteed that the sympathies of some minorities would fall to the Bolsheviks, at least in the short term.[4] On the other hand, the pervasive use of terror by the Red Army no doubt played a role in obtaining compliance from the population at large in areas under its control.
Regarding the factors emphasized by different schools of thought, totalitarians have typically been fond of emphasizing the Red Terror as a key factor in Soviet victory. Given the totalitarian emphasis on the most negative aspects of Soviet rule, not to mention Daniel Pipes's de-emphasis of the agency of workers and peasants in the rise of Soviet rule,[5] it is unsurprising that this extremely negative policy of the Red Army should receive attention, although it bears mention that the Soviets were not alone in employing terror. In contrast, being far more likely to consider workers and peasants as fundamentally important actors in the revolutionary process, the revisionists are more likely to emphasize economic matters, making the argument that the Soviets' promise of economic equality motivated and mobilized support for the Red Army. Again, the truth likely lies somewhere between these beliefs.
On the first point, the textbook makes the point well that fighting on widely separated fronts made it difficult for the White Armies to mount offensives with long-term results.[1] On the other side of the battlefield(s), that the Soviets were encircled within the great Russian heartland actually facilitated a more successful defense earlier in the war, with a smaller, constrained theater of operations allowing for greater maneuverability. As M.K. Dziewanowski points out, many Red Army veterans were deployed several times.[2]
Related to this first point is the second point of ethnic factors. Again, as noted in the textbook, the White Army generals, being generally insensitive to the feelings and concerns of non-Russian ethnic groups, lost vital support as a result of vocally assuring Russian supremacy in the event of a White victory.[3] Given the importance of the most ethnically diverse areas of the Empire to a White victory, such rhetoric was a crucial mistake, although it bears mentioning here that the Soviets did not have anything better to offer non-Russians besides the notion of an end to repression as the result of a society rid of religious and ethnic division on the basis of socialism.
Finally, the use of terror was important to both sides, although with different end results. On the one hand, the infliction of ethnic violence by White Armies, particularly in the form of pogroms against Jews residing in the old Pale of Settlement, guaranteed that the sympathies of some minorities would fall to the Bolsheviks, at least in the short term.[4] On the other hand, the pervasive use of terror by the Red Army no doubt played a role in obtaining compliance from the population at large in areas under its control.
Regarding the factors emphasized by different schools of thought, totalitarians have typically been fond of emphasizing the Red Terror as a key factor in Soviet victory. Given the totalitarian emphasis on the most negative aspects of Soviet rule, not to mention Daniel Pipes's de-emphasis of the agency of workers and peasants in the rise of Soviet rule,[5] it is unsurprising that this extremely negative policy of the Red Army should receive attention, although it bears mention that the Soviets were not alone in employing terror. In contrast, being far more likely to consider workers and peasants as fundamentally important actors in the revolutionary process, the revisionists are more likely to emphasize economic matters, making the argument that the Soviets' promise of economic equality motivated and mobilized support for the Red Army. Again, the truth likely lies somewhere between these beliefs.
=====
[1] M.K. Dziewanowski, Russia in the Twentieth Century, 6th ed. (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson, 2003), 107-08.
[2] Ibid, 114.
[3] Ibid, 108.
[4] The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe, online edition, s.v. "Russian Civil war," accessed April 21, 2016,http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/russian_civil_war, para. 3 ff.
[5] Richard Pipes, "Reflections on the Russian Revolution," Alexander Palace Time Machine, accessed April 10, 2016,http://www.alexanderpalace.org/palace/pipesrevolution.html, paras. 13 and 14.
[1] M.K. Dziewanowski, Russia in the Twentieth Century, 6th ed. (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson, 2003), 107-08.
[2] Ibid, 114.
[3] Ibid, 108.
[4] The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe, online edition, s.v. "Russian Civil war," accessed April 21, 2016,http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/russian_civil_war, para. 3 ff.
[5] Richard Pipes, "Reflections on the Russian Revolution," Alexander Palace Time Machine, accessed April 10, 2016,http://www.alexanderpalace.org/palace/pipesrevolution.html, paras. 13 and 14.
Monday, April 25, 2016
Source Analysis: Lenin's Rise to Power
That V.I. Lenin left behind volumes of
his own writings is helpful in determining his justifications for his historic
actions. For example, two of his essays, "The Tasks of the Proletariat in
the Present Revolution," from April 1917, also known as the "April
Theses,"[1]
and "Theses on the Constituent Assembly"[2] from six
months later, help to determine Lenin's thinking in the period from the March
Revolution that removed the tsar and established a parliamentary republic and
the Bolshevik seizure of power in November. By examining the two texts in
juxtaposition with each other, it is possible to determine the reasons for
Lenin's decision to embrace extremism by eliminating parliamentary democracy
during the first few months of Soviet rule, including the continuing war, the
difficulties inherent in minority status, and his observations of the Marxist
theory of revolution unfolding at an expedited pace.
In the "April Thesis," Lenin
writes, "I attacked the Provisional Government for not having appointed an
early date or any date at all, for the convocation of the Constituent Assembly,
and for confining itself to promises."[3]
He goes on to remind his reader that he merely argued that such an assembly
would not work in the absence of workers' councils (i.e., Soviets) to represent
workers and soldiers. In offering his argument for such a position, the first
topic he broaches is the ongoing war against the Central Powers. In Lenin's
view, the continuation of the "predatory imperialist war"[4] was being
undertaken the provisional government. Because the parties that would
participate in elections to the Constituent Assembly would be bourgeois
parties, Lenin emphasizes the need to counterbalance the assembly with Soviets
that represent the proletariat.
However, once the Bolsheviks have seized
power and he promulgates his "Theses on the Constituent Assembly,"
Lenin is satisfied to nullify the results of the election to the Constituent
Assembly, arguing, "Only now are the broad sections of the people actually
receiving a chance fully and openly to observe the policy of revolutionary
struggle for peace and to study its results."[5] Because the
"mass of the people" did not realize this possibility at the time of
the elections, he argues, the Bolsheviks must be given the opportunity to
express the will of the people. In explaining Lenin's point of view, Orlando
Figes seizes on Point 13 of the "Theses on the Constituent Assembly,"
which argues that the October Revolution had "shifted mass opinion to the
left since the election."[6]
Ironically, the Bolsheviks would resort to using force to impose this
"mass opinion."
Lenin also argued at first for the
combined presence of a Constituent Assembly and People's Soviets in recognition
that the Bolsheviks were a minority party, even within the Soviets themselves.
In the "April Theses," he writes, "in most of the Soviets of
Workers’ Deputies our Party is in a minority, so far a small minority, as
against a bloc of all the petty-bourgeois opportunist elements."[7] He concedes
that, as a minority, the Bolsheviks must focus their efforts on propagandizing
the working class "so that the people may overcome their mistakes by experience."[8] All the
while, Lenin makes it clear in the "April Theses" that the long-term
goal would not be a parliamentary democracy but a Soviet republic.
Once he had seized power, however, Lenin
was happy to impose minority rule. Robert Mayer writes that, at least in part,
Lenin was willing to take revolutionary action only once the Bolsheviks had
gained majority control over the soviets in Petrograd and Moscow. He
"claimed a majority mandate within the proletariat for the October
Revolution, and he justified
Bolshevik rule thereafter on [that] basis."[9] To Mayer,
this decision amounts to a rejection of previous denunciations by Lenin of
Blanquism,[10]
at least on a national level, as well as the expression of his willingness to
impose a Tocqueville-esque "tyranny of the majority" on the Soviets
themselves.[11]
Finally, in accepting the calls for a
Constituent Assembly in the "April Theses," Lenin seems to embrace
the orthodox Marxist notion of a two-stage revolution, according to which a
bourgeois-democratic revolution must precede the proletarian revolution that
seizes power for the working classes. In the "Theses on the Constituent
Assembly," however, Lenin argues that the bourgeois-democratic state must
be smashed a mere six months into its life cycle and mere weeks after elections
to its parliament. To many readers, this shift represents the greatest
transformation in Lenin's thinking, if not outright hypocrisy.
Jonathan Frankel has argued, however,
that assuming a radical shift in theory or hypocrisy on Lenin's part is too
hasty. Rather, at least from Lenin's other writings, Frankel summarizes Lenin's
view as one that "the revolution had gone much farther than anticipated
and control of the state had already passed from the feudal to the bourgeois
class (in the form of the Provisional Government."[12] In short,
even before elections to the Constituent Assembly had been called, Russia had
already achieved bourgeois-democratic status. Once "the actual power of
the Soviets was so immense that they in fact constituted (albeit in passive
form) the long-awaited dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry,"[13] presumably
on the basis of Bolshevik majorities, at least in Petrograd and Moscow, it
would be a betrayal of the revolution to revert to a parliamentary state.
In conclusion, reading the two sets of
theses by Lenin provides an opportunity for insight into his decisions during
1917. The continuation of World War I by the Provisional Government was a major
reason for Lenin’s rejection thereof, and he feared the Bolsheviks had not been
able to mobilize public opinion against the war before the elections to the
Constituent Assembly occurred. Moreover, the Bolsheviks remains a minority
party throughout 1917, despite gains in the Petrograd and Moscow Soviets.
Although Lenin’s decision to dismiss the Constituent Assembly and establish a
Soviet dictatorship can appear hypocritical, it was also the pace of events
over the course of the year that large affected his change in tactics.
Bibliography
Figes,
Orlando. Revolutionary Russia. Accessed April 15, 2016. http://www. revolutionaryrussia.com/
Frankel,
Jonathan. “Lenin’s Doctrinal Revolution of April 1917.” Contemporary History,
4,
no. 2 (1969): 117-142.
Lenin,
V.I. "The Tasks of the Proletariat in the Present Revolution."
Translated by Isaacs
Bernard.
Accessed April 15, 2016. https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/
1917/apr/04.htm
1917/apr/04.htm
Lenin,
V.I. "Theses on the Constituent Assembly." Translated by Yuri
Sdobnikov and
George Hanna.
Accessed April 15, 2016. https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/
works/1917/dec/11a.htm
works/1917/dec/11a.htm
Mayer,
Robert. “Lenin, the Proletariat, and the Legitimation of Dictatorship.” Journal
of
Political
Ideologies,
2, no. 1 (1997): 99-115. doi: 10.1080/13569319708420752.
[1] V.I. Lenin,
"The Tasks of the Proletariat in the Present Revolution," trans.
Isaacs Bernard, accessed April 15, 2016,
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/apr/04.htm
[2] V.I. Lenin,
"Theses on the Constituent Assembly," trans. Yuri Sdobnikov and
George Hanna, accessed April 15, 2016, https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/dec/11a.htm
[3] Lenin, “Tasks,”
point 10, para. 9.
[4] Ibid, point 1,
para. 1.
[5] Lenin, “Theses,”
point 15, para. 2.
[6] Orlando Figes,
“Section 6: The October Revolution 1917,” Revolutionary Russia, accessed
April 15, 2016, http://www.revolutionaryrussia.com/section6_TheOctoberRevolution1917/TheConstituentAssembly.php,
para. 5.
[7] Lenin, “Tasks,”
point 4, para. 1.
[8] Ibid, point 4,
para. 3.
[9] Robert Mayer,
“Lenin, the Proletariat, and the Legitimation of Dictatorship,” Journal of
Political Ideologies, 2, no. 1 (1997): para. 18, doi: 10.1080/13569319708420752
[10] Ibid, para. 17.
[11] Ibid, para. 15.
[12] Jonathan
Frankel, “Lenin’s Doctrinal Revolution of April 1917,” Contemporary History,
4, no. 2 (1969): 127.
[13] Ibid.
Tuesday, April 19, 2016
Russian Historiography: Totalitarianism vs Revisionism
Back to school! Here's my first discussion post for my Modern Russia class.
====
Having read the textbook chapters for the week and the readings by Alice Gomstyn and Richard Pipes, as well as having very recently read J. Arch Getty's two books on the Great Purges, I have come to the conclusion that both the totalitarian and revisionist schools of thought on Soviet history have strengths, but they are both more characterized by weaknesses. Like many cases in which schools of thought operate at odds with each other, it is more likely that the truth lies somewhere between their respective versions.
The chief strength of the totalitarian school is its authority. As the older of the two schools, it benefits from the greater longevity of the narrative that it has established. Its primary weakness, in my opinion, is that it owes too much to the "Great Man" theory of history of Thomas Carlyle,[1] with the man in question in this case being Stalin. While it is attractive to see Stalin as exercising complete control over the fate of the Soviet Union during his rule, it is also likely overly simplistic. The chief strength of the revisionist school is its recognition of the contributions of complex forces in the unfolding of historical events. Its primary weakness, perhaps unsurprisingly, is the extent to which it de-emphasizes Stalin's historical role, highlighting instead the contributions of regional party leaders and local elites in processes of repression, for instance.
Those things said, there does remain some relevance for both schools of thought. For instance, the totalitarians have been largely vindicated by the publication of the Venona project decrypts having revealed the extent of Soviet espionage. Additionally, as Gomstyn points out, much of the material from the archives has largely their suspicions that repression in the USSR was widespread and deeply resented by the people. The totalitarian viewpoint thus remains valid for largely moral reasons, although as Gomstyn also notes, this moralizing can be reductive, e.g., the labeling of Getty by Martin Malia as engaging in a form of denial.[2] In contrast, the emphasis by the revisionists of Soviet scientific achievement, avoids throwing out the baby with the bath water, so to speak, although it does run firmly up against the totalitarian view that the ends do not justify the means. Thus, the revisionist viewpoint remains relevant in part for the same reason why we do not avoid building divided highways, although it was the Nazis that introduced them.
Regarding the article by Pipes, it become clear relatively early in reading it that he comes from the totalitarian school. He chalks up the weaknesses of Nicholas II's reign to the tsar's inability to adjust to the economic growth of the country and the social changes they wrought.[3] In emphasizing the tsar's role in his own downfall, Pipes simultaneously de-emphasizes the role of the people, choosing instead to hang blame on a radical intelligentsia and a peasantry unable and unwilling to adapt to industrialization. In this way, Pipes evokes a "great man" theory based on Nicholas II, while dismissing or denying more complex social-historical forces.
The counter-arguments against Pipes are offered at least in part in the textbook. For instance, Dziewanowski is able to substantiate the claim of an angry and alienated peasantry by emphasizing, as Pipes does not, that with emancipation of the serfs came a series of new problems not the least of which was binding them to the village commune and to land captains. While Pipes is satisfied to dismiss the peasants' desire for further reforms are greed for land,[5] Dziewanowski is more willing to entertain a more nuanced interpretation of the peasants' situation that fueled their concerns. While I do not whether Dziewanowski would consider herself a revisionist, it is clear, at least from this week's readings, that she is not a totalitarian.
-----
[1] Thomas Carlyle, On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History (London: Chapman and Hall, 1840),https://books.google.com/books?id=kCo-AAAAYAAJ
[2] Alice Gomstyn, "Where the Cold War Still Rages," Chronicle of Higher Education 50, no. 22 (2004): para. 7,http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.snhu.edu/docview/214684560?accountid=3783
[3] Richard Pipes, "Reflections on the Russian Revolution," Alexander Palace Time Machine, accessed April 10, 2016,http://www.alexanderpalace.org/palace/pipesrevolution.html, para. 23.
[4] M.K. Dziewanowski, Russia in the Twentieth Century, 6th ed. (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson, 2003), 43-44.
[5] Pipes, ibid, para. 10.
Monday, March 7, 2016
Appeal to All Members of the KPR(b)
What appears below is my translation from German of a translation from Russian of the so-called Ryutin Appeal, which is essentially a condensed version of the Ryutin Platform of two years earlier. Given that it's a translation of a translation, all the standard caveats apply.
The party and proletarian dictatorship have been led by Stalin and his clique into an impasse of the worst possible extent, and they are currently experiencing a deadly dangerous crisis. With the help of misdirection, slander, and duping of party members, with the help of extraordinary force and terror, flying the flag of struggle and of purity of Bolshevik principles and party unity, based on a powerful, centralized party apparatus, Stalin has over the last five years removed from leadership and isolated the best and most sincere Bolshevik cadres. He has, in the KPR(b) and in the whole country established a person dictatorship, broken with Leninism, and gone on a course of unbridled adventurism and wild personal despotism. Therewith he has driven the Soviet Union to the brink of disaster.
If in the first decade of Soviet power, under the collective leadership of the Central Committee and the entire party of the working class under the heroic efforts of their powers, could undertake the greatest achievements in the issue of the development of socialist organization, the improvement of all working people and the consolidation of proletarian dictatorship, so it was the opposite that Stalin worsened the situation in the Soviet Union with every year systemically and at a rapid pace. Chaos and disorganization of the economy of the country, regardless of the establishment of a dozen major enterprises, assumed an unprecedented level. The faith of the masses in the cause of socialism was undermined, their preparedness, selfless defending the proletariat revolution against all enemies, weakens from year to year.
The pace of industrialization brings a colossal reduction in the wages of laborers and workers, unsustainably high overt and covert taxes, inflation, price increases and the deflation of the ruble with it. The means of incredible acts of violence and terror aimed at collectivization and de-kulakization, primarily targeting the masses of rural small and medium-size farmers, and at long last leading, with expropriation of villages by any means necessary and compulsory levies on the whole country, to the deepest crisis to date. It has led in the village, as in the cities, to egregious impoverishment of the masses and to starvation.
Industry works with only half the capacity of the machines and also to significant extent with surrogates (substitutes). The result of the quest to meet the exaggeratedly fast pace is an extraordinarily low quality of the products. The labor productivity of hungry workers have fallen sharply. In the country, the wages might not be paid for a few months,<156> it is difficult to squeeze taxes from the impoverished population; reduction of the numbers of laborers and workers began. Before the proletariat lies the specter of approaching massive unemployment of the fullest extent; the raw materials base is essentially undermined.
Perspective threatens further paralysis of industry and shrinking of capital construction, as well as the deterioration of the financial resources of industry with each passing day. In the future, it will come to further impoverishment of the proletariat and an increase in hunger.
Even gloomier and more complicated is the picture in the villages. The plunder of the rural population and the forced collectivization lead to not more than 30% of the livestock remaining from 1927, of which the remainder, in the kolkhozes and sovkhozes, will also die because of the food shortage. New rural establishments cannot be built or the older ones conserved, and a large number are being plundered. The agricultural inventory has been smashed and destroyed. The farmers have only half the seeds they need, the soil is bad and frequently not worked at all; there are not enough draft animals.
Any personal interest in the management of agriculture is smashed, the work is only be carried out through force and pressure, forcibly created kolkhozes are destroyed. All youth and health flees the village, millions of people, who have been turned away from production activities, roam through the country, the cities flood. The population remaining on the land is hungry and eats substitutes.
Epidemics begin to spread. There will be in the future in the country a further impoverishment, destitution and migration. In the coming year, the greatest famine yet threatens.
Domestic trade finds itself as well in chaotic condition: the ruble is worthless, the unprincipled price policy changes hands helplessly; the prices increase. On the basis of missing goods, hunger and disruption of the country's economy drives speculation in all regions and rampant counterfeiting.
The foreign trade balance has an enormous deficit; exports are basically undermined and indeed are only maintained at the expense of the impoverishment of the masses. The plan policy has generally transformed into swindles and deceit; everywhere yawn unpaid debts, for which the Stalinist leadership makes the employees responsible; the plans are only 60 to 70 percent fulfilled, the possibility of forward movement and controllability of the economy approaches zero. The rural economy is disorganized, and any possibility of development has been left to the power of elemental forces.
At the same time, at the 17th All Union Party Conference of the Stalinist<157>officials, the party, the proletariat and all working people are shamelessly and cynically mocked, it is explained, that we have reached the stage of socialist society and that "with us, the national incomes of the capitalist states are growing at an uncontrollably fast pace, unemployment and poverty are eliminated, the 'price cuts' as well as the distinction between city and country is disappearing, from year to year the prosperity and the cultural level of the workers and toiling peasants are growing."
The whole country is muzzled, injustice, despotism, and violence hover as a permanent danger over the head of every worker and farmer. Any revolutionary justification is trampled! Any belief in tomorrow will be lost! The working class and the working people of the country are driven to the brink of despair by the Stalinist policies.
Hatred, malice, and disgust of the masses cooks and seethes under the firmly bolted lid of terror. The rebellion of the farmers, among them the party members and Komsomol, poured in past years in unstoppable waves over the whole Soviet Union. Worker strikes, regardless of the raging terror, arrests, dismissals, and provocations, burn sometimes here, sometimes there.
***
The teachings of Marx and Lenin are shamelessly distorted and falsified under Stalin and his clique. Science, literature, art have been reduced the level of a lower servant and prop of the Stalinist leadership. The struggle against opportunism is trivialized and turned into a caricature, by means of slander and terror, and proceeds against the independently thinking party members. The rights of the party are usurped by a tiny clique of unprincipled politicians. Democratic centralism are exchanged for the personal discretion of the leader and the collective leadership and for a system of representatives. The Central Committee becomes the advisory body to an "infallible" dictator, the regional committees appendages without rights, under the management of regional party secretaries. The Politburo, the central committee of the Komsomol, the secretariat of the regional committees transform as the result of changes in party life and "Stalin's 18th of Brumaire" into a gang of unprincipled, mendacious, and cowardly politicians. Stalin, however, transforms into an unrestricted and irremovable dictator -- compared with any arbitrary absolute monarch -- which comes in his ten times more mindless arbitrariness, his despotism, and his criminal violence exerted on the masses.
Through the system of threats, terror, and fraud, the party is forced into the role of a mute, blind tool of Stalin to achieve his personally ambitious plans. The masses of party members are set in the overwhelming majority against the Stalinist policies; however, the party apparatus is used to intimidate and incite them.<157>Every lively Bolshevik party idea is threatened through exclusion from the party threatened, as well as strangled with dismissal from work and withdrawal of all necessarily existing means. All Leninist ideas are driven underground, unadulterated pure Leninism has been significantly affected by prohibition, thus becoming illegal ideology. The party apparatus transforms itself, in cycles of development of inner party struggles and the expulsion of one leading group after another, into a self-sufficient power standing above the party and ruling over it, with conscious and violently oppressive will. In the area of party work dominate instead of the most confident, most honest, most true to principles, instead of those who are ready to defend anybody and everybody and their views to defensive, dishonest, cunning, unprincipled party members, who are ready, on order of the leadership, a dozen times to change their convictions -- careerists, submissives, toadies.
The appearance and essence of proletarian dictatorship are falsified. The workers councils are lately repurposed as a miserable appendage of the party apparatus, from which the nearby masses and related organs an unscrupulously bureaucratic machine was created. The unions, schools of communism in which the workers continue their education, in the spirit of a conscious relationship with the socialist enterprise and to achieve the defense of corruption and, at the same time, must defend the bureaucratic corruption of the worker state, are turned into an auxiliary organ that the places the workers under duress and penalizes dissenters.
The press, the enormous instrument of communist education and weapon of Leninism becomes, in the hands of Stalin and his clique, an insane factory of lies, deception, and terrorization of the masses.
The anti-Leninist policies of the party leadership is supplemented by an anti-Leninist leadership of the Communist International. The Comintern, the staff of world revolution, becomes a primitive office of Stalin's, in which cowardly officials sit, who, obedient to the will of their leaders, carry out the affairs of that communist parties are not qualified to handle. The crisis of the KPR(b) leads to the crisis of the Comintern. All communist parties, except for the German party, are not larger but smaller. Their influence decreases, as the examples of the election to the English Parliament and the Reichstag election in Germany show. The central committees of the communist parties are forced to lie to the masses regarding the factual situation in the KPR(b), as well as the situation in the Soviet Union over all. This deceit, which comes to light in this or that way, brings schism and disappointment to the masses.
The unprincipled, adventurist policies within the USSR are lately also accompanied by unprincipled sleight-of-hand in solving international problems. The position of the KPR(b) and the Comintern regarding the behavior of Japan in Manchuria and Shanghai was obviously<158>marked by opportunism. Regarding the currently growing threat of war, there are no suitable means to bring about a mobilization of the awareness of the masses to the solution of this problem. The apparat-implemented measures and restrictions evoke a senses of disappointment among the workers. For Stalin and his clique, it no longer possible to return to the true Leninist path, for them there is no way out, they are hopelessly entangled in lies and have run into an impasse. They furthermore waver helplessly from side to side and are always more entangled and otherwise confused, they do not allow the will of the party to be exercised, further complicating and aggravating the situation. They defend their rule over the party and country with lies and deception, executions and arrests, guns and rifles, with all possibilities and means, because they consider all of this their domain. Objectively considered, Stalin's role is that of Azef to the party and proletarian dictatorship and socialist organization are equated. Not even the most daring and ingenious provocateur, who worked for the end of proletarian dictatorship and the discrediting of Leninism, could have worked out better than the leadership under Stalin and his clique.
The masses of the party and the labor force are obliged to salvage the cause of Bolshevism, they are obliged to take their fate into their own hands. Stalin and his clique will not yield and will not leave their offices by their own free will; therefore, they must be eliminated with all available force. It would be shameful and disgraceful for the proletarian revolutionaries to endure further the Stalinist yoke, his arbitrariness and mockery of the party and the toiling masses. Whoever does not recognize this yoke and does not feel this despotism and the urgency, in whom no outrage is triggered, make themselves into slaves and not into Leninists; into serfs and not into revolutionaries.
We, the members of the KPR(b), who have come together at this All Union Conference, have decided to fight against Stalinism, to restore the rights of the party and proletarian dictatorship, to return the party to the proven Leninist course of socialist organization, to found a "Union of Marxist-Leninists." This "union," a union for the defense of Leninism, part of the KPR(b), has no intention to split off from the interests of the party masses and the working class. On the contrary, it will more consistently and energetically express and defend those interests. It is not against the party, only Stalin and his clique.
The "Union of Marxist-Leninists" represents the viewpoint of urgent and systematic development of the industrialization of the country, on the basis of an actual improvement in the material situation of the proletariat and the working people. Currently, its concerns itself primarily with the task of fighting implacably against the methods and the pace of industrialization,<160>upon which the desolation, misery, and famine of the whole country is based. Because this industrialization is not truly socialist and accordingly cannot lead to a socialist society.
The "Union of Marxist-Leninists" represents the intention that the efforts of all of the powers for truly voluntary collectivization by simultaneously systematic support of the development of the industrial-scale organization of poor and middle-class peasant economy must be enforced. Immediately, however, it has as its primary goal to fight against the violent Stalinist collectivization because it contradicts the program of the party and the Comintern and so is suffering a complete bankruptcy.
The "Union of Marxists-Leninists" represents the viewpoint of the incompatibility of class interests between the proletariat and the capitalist elements on behalf of the USSR. The Union is firmly opposed to the cover-up of class contradictions between the working-class masses in the city and country, but it currently faces the task of systematically and dispassionately leading the fight against the anti-Leninist character of the unleashing of class struggle and civil war under the conditions of proletariat dictatorship. Because such a wildfire usurps and disorganizes the worker state and socialist organization.
The "Union of Marxists-Leninists" will resist any opportunist appearance as an enemy, but it is the currently the chief task to proceed unsparingly against the Stalinist trivialization of Leninist teachings about the struggle against opportunism and their transformation into a caricature with the help of deception, lies, and terror, because it discredits Leninism, demoralizes the party, strengthens and increases opportunism.
To achieve the above tasks, everyone must defend Bolshevism, everyone must experience Leninism, everyone must coordinate righteous proletarian revolution. In the light of the events we have experienced, the old inner-party groupings behave hopelessly and lose their importance. History has not asked us the question of the examination of this or that mistake or nuances in understanding individual problems of Leninism, only the existence of the Bolshevik party and the worker state itself. The dividing line in the party today runs not along the line of "for or against Trotsky," "for or against Bukharin," only for the continuation of the Stalinist leadership and the inexorable case of the Leninist party and Soviet power, or for the liquidation of Stalinism, the salvation of the KPR(b) and proletarian dictatorship. The concern of Lenin regarding the disloyalty, dishonesty, and unreliability of Stalin, his incompetence to use power has materialized entirely and completely: Stalin and his clique smother the cause of communism, Stalin's leadership must be ended as quickly as possible.
<161>
We call on all sincere Leninists everywhere to organize cells of a union in defense of Leninism and to band together under its flag to liquidate the Stalinist dictatorship.
Get to work immediately! It's time to finish with the state of confusion and fear of reprisals of the brazen, unprincipled politicians and traitors to the cause of Leninism, to end the feeble grousing and grumbling and to begin the selfless struggle. It is pointless to await the beginning of the battle from above, it must begin from below. Bravery and commitment to the great legitimacy of our cause is to oppose terror. Every party member who holds dear the achievements of October and the cause of socialism must, as an organizing core, must unite around himself devoted, honest, hopeful comrades. Every Leninist must everywhere possible, in the shortest possible time, address the challenges propagating before us because events do not wait. Our main slogan must passed on from comrade to comrade, from group to group, from city to city: Away with the dictatorship of Stalin and his clique, away with the gangs of unprincipled politicians and political con men! Away with the usurper of the rights of the party! Long live the KPR(b)! Love live Leninism!
All-Union Conference of "Union of Marxist-Leninists"
June 1932
Read, pass on. Duplicate and share.
Translation of appeal by A. Vogt. Reprinted in: M.N. Ryutin, Na koleni ne vstanu. Moscow 1992, S. 252-259.
The source is: Annette Vogt, "Eine bestechende Analyse, eine fundierte Kritik, aber ... -- die Tragik des Martemjan Nikititsch Rjutin," in Ketzer im Kommunismus: 23 biographische Essays, eds. Theodor Bergmann and Maria Kessler (Hamburg: VSA Verlag, 2000), 140-61.
To all members of the Communist Party of Russia (Bolsheviks) [KPR(b)]
To all members of the Communist Party of Russia (Bolsheviks) [KPR(b)]
Comrades!
The party and proletarian dictatorship have been led by Stalin and his clique into an impasse of the worst possible extent, and they are currently experiencing a deadly dangerous crisis. With the help of misdirection, slander, and duping of party members, with the help of extraordinary force and terror, flying the flag of struggle and of purity of Bolshevik principles and party unity, based on a powerful, centralized party apparatus, Stalin has over the last five years removed from leadership and isolated the best and most sincere Bolshevik cadres. He has, in the KPR(b) and in the whole country established a person dictatorship, broken with Leninism, and gone on a course of unbridled adventurism and wild personal despotism. Therewith he has driven the Soviet Union to the brink of disaster.
If in the first decade of Soviet power, under the collective leadership of the Central Committee and the entire party of the working class under the heroic efforts of their powers, could undertake the greatest achievements in the issue of the development of socialist organization, the improvement of all working people and the consolidation of proletarian dictatorship, so it was the opposite that Stalin worsened the situation in the Soviet Union with every year systemically and at a rapid pace. Chaos and disorganization of the economy of the country, regardless of the establishment of a dozen major enterprises, assumed an unprecedented level. The faith of the masses in the cause of socialism was undermined, their preparedness, selfless defending the proletariat revolution against all enemies, weakens from year to year.
The pace of industrialization brings a colossal reduction in the wages of laborers and workers, unsustainably high overt and covert taxes, inflation, price increases and the deflation of the ruble with it. The means of incredible acts of violence and terror aimed at collectivization and de-kulakization, primarily targeting the masses of rural small and medium-size farmers, and at long last leading, with expropriation of villages by any means necessary and compulsory levies on the whole country, to the deepest crisis to date. It has led in the village, as in the cities, to egregious impoverishment of the masses and to starvation.
Industry works with only half the capacity of the machines and also to significant extent with surrogates (substitutes). The result of the quest to meet the exaggeratedly fast pace is an extraordinarily low quality of the products. The labor productivity of hungry workers have fallen sharply. In the country, the wages might not be paid for a few months,<156> it is difficult to squeeze taxes from the impoverished population; reduction of the numbers of laborers and workers began. Before the proletariat lies the specter of approaching massive unemployment of the fullest extent; the raw materials base is essentially undermined.
Perspective threatens further paralysis of industry and shrinking of capital construction, as well as the deterioration of the financial resources of industry with each passing day. In the future, it will come to further impoverishment of the proletariat and an increase in hunger.
Even gloomier and more complicated is the picture in the villages. The plunder of the rural population and the forced collectivization lead to not more than 30% of the livestock remaining from 1927, of which the remainder, in the kolkhozes and sovkhozes, will also die because of the food shortage. New rural establishments cannot be built or the older ones conserved, and a large number are being plundered. The agricultural inventory has been smashed and destroyed. The farmers have only half the seeds they need, the soil is bad and frequently not worked at all; there are not enough draft animals.
Any personal interest in the management of agriculture is smashed, the work is only be carried out through force and pressure, forcibly created kolkhozes are destroyed. All youth and health flees the village, millions of people, who have been turned away from production activities, roam through the country, the cities flood. The population remaining on the land is hungry and eats substitutes.
Epidemics begin to spread. There will be in the future in the country a further impoverishment, destitution and migration. In the coming year, the greatest famine yet threatens.
Domestic trade finds itself as well in chaotic condition: the ruble is worthless, the unprincipled price policy changes hands helplessly; the prices increase. On the basis of missing goods, hunger and disruption of the country's economy drives speculation in all regions and rampant counterfeiting.
The foreign trade balance has an enormous deficit; exports are basically undermined and indeed are only maintained at the expense of the impoverishment of the masses. The plan policy has generally transformed into swindles and deceit; everywhere yawn unpaid debts, for which the Stalinist leadership makes the employees responsible; the plans are only 60 to 70 percent fulfilled, the possibility of forward movement and controllability of the economy approaches zero. The rural economy is disorganized, and any possibility of development has been left to the power of elemental forces.
At the same time, at the 17th All Union Party Conference of the Stalinist<157>officials, the party, the proletariat and all working people are shamelessly and cynically mocked, it is explained, that we have reached the stage of socialist society and that "with us, the national incomes of the capitalist states are growing at an uncontrollably fast pace, unemployment and poverty are eliminated, the 'price cuts' as well as the distinction between city and country is disappearing, from year to year the prosperity and the cultural level of the workers and toiling peasants are growing."
The whole country is muzzled, injustice, despotism, and violence hover as a permanent danger over the head of every worker and farmer. Any revolutionary justification is trampled! Any belief in tomorrow will be lost! The working class and the working people of the country are driven to the brink of despair by the Stalinist policies.
Hatred, malice, and disgust of the masses cooks and seethes under the firmly bolted lid of terror. The rebellion of the farmers, among them the party members and Komsomol, poured in past years in unstoppable waves over the whole Soviet Union. Worker strikes, regardless of the raging terror, arrests, dismissals, and provocations, burn sometimes here, sometimes there.
***
The teachings of Marx and Lenin are shamelessly distorted and falsified under Stalin and his clique. Science, literature, art have been reduced the level of a lower servant and prop of the Stalinist leadership. The struggle against opportunism is trivialized and turned into a caricature, by means of slander and terror, and proceeds against the independently thinking party members. The rights of the party are usurped by a tiny clique of unprincipled politicians. Democratic centralism are exchanged for the personal discretion of the leader and the collective leadership and for a system of representatives. The Central Committee becomes the advisory body to an "infallible" dictator, the regional committees appendages without rights, under the management of regional party secretaries. The Politburo, the central committee of the Komsomol, the secretariat of the regional committees transform as the result of changes in party life and "Stalin's 18th of Brumaire" into a gang of unprincipled, mendacious, and cowardly politicians. Stalin, however, transforms into an unrestricted and irremovable dictator -- compared with any arbitrary absolute monarch -- which comes in his ten times more mindless arbitrariness, his despotism, and his criminal violence exerted on the masses.
Through the system of threats, terror, and fraud, the party is forced into the role of a mute, blind tool of Stalin to achieve his personally ambitious plans. The masses of party members are set in the overwhelming majority against the Stalinist policies; however, the party apparatus is used to intimidate and incite them.<157>Every lively Bolshevik party idea is threatened through exclusion from the party threatened, as well as strangled with dismissal from work and withdrawal of all necessarily existing means. All Leninist ideas are driven underground, unadulterated pure Leninism has been significantly affected by prohibition, thus becoming illegal ideology. The party apparatus transforms itself, in cycles of development of inner party struggles and the expulsion of one leading group after another, into a self-sufficient power standing above the party and ruling over it, with conscious and violently oppressive will. In the area of party work dominate instead of the most confident, most honest, most true to principles, instead of those who are ready to defend anybody and everybody and their views to defensive, dishonest, cunning, unprincipled party members, who are ready, on order of the leadership, a dozen times to change their convictions -- careerists, submissives, toadies.
The appearance and essence of proletarian dictatorship are falsified. The workers councils are lately repurposed as a miserable appendage of the party apparatus, from which the nearby masses and related organs an unscrupulously bureaucratic machine was created. The unions, schools of communism in which the workers continue their education, in the spirit of a conscious relationship with the socialist enterprise and to achieve the defense of corruption and, at the same time, must defend the bureaucratic corruption of the worker state, are turned into an auxiliary organ that the places the workers under duress and penalizes dissenters.
The press, the enormous instrument of communist education and weapon of Leninism becomes, in the hands of Stalin and his clique, an insane factory of lies, deception, and terrorization of the masses.
The anti-Leninist policies of the party leadership is supplemented by an anti-Leninist leadership of the Communist International. The Comintern, the staff of world revolution, becomes a primitive office of Stalin's, in which cowardly officials sit, who, obedient to the will of their leaders, carry out the affairs of that communist parties are not qualified to handle. The crisis of the KPR(b) leads to the crisis of the Comintern. All communist parties, except for the German party, are not larger but smaller. Their influence decreases, as the examples of the election to the English Parliament and the Reichstag election in Germany show. The central committees of the communist parties are forced to lie to the masses regarding the factual situation in the KPR(b), as well as the situation in the Soviet Union over all. This deceit, which comes to light in this or that way, brings schism and disappointment to the masses.
The unprincipled, adventurist policies within the USSR are lately also accompanied by unprincipled sleight-of-hand in solving international problems. The position of the KPR(b) and the Comintern regarding the behavior of Japan in Manchuria and Shanghai was obviously<158>marked by opportunism. Regarding the currently growing threat of war, there are no suitable means to bring about a mobilization of the awareness of the masses to the solution of this problem. The apparat-implemented measures and restrictions evoke a senses of disappointment among the workers. For Stalin and his clique, it no longer possible to return to the true Leninist path, for them there is no way out, they are hopelessly entangled in lies and have run into an impasse. They furthermore waver helplessly from side to side and are always more entangled and otherwise confused, they do not allow the will of the party to be exercised, further complicating and aggravating the situation. They defend their rule over the party and country with lies and deception, executions and arrests, guns and rifles, with all possibilities and means, because they consider all of this their domain. Objectively considered, Stalin's role is that of Azef to the party and proletarian dictatorship and socialist organization are equated. Not even the most daring and ingenious provocateur, who worked for the end of proletarian dictatorship and the discrediting of Leninism, could have worked out better than the leadership under Stalin and his clique.
The masses of the party and the labor force are obliged to salvage the cause of Bolshevism, they are obliged to take their fate into their own hands. Stalin and his clique will not yield and will not leave their offices by their own free will; therefore, they must be eliminated with all available force. It would be shameful and disgraceful for the proletarian revolutionaries to endure further the Stalinist yoke, his arbitrariness and mockery of the party and the toiling masses. Whoever does not recognize this yoke and does not feel this despotism and the urgency, in whom no outrage is triggered, make themselves into slaves and not into Leninists; into serfs and not into revolutionaries.
We, the members of the KPR(b), who have come together at this All Union Conference, have decided to fight against Stalinism, to restore the rights of the party and proletarian dictatorship, to return the party to the proven Leninist course of socialist organization, to found a "Union of Marxist-Leninists." This "union," a union for the defense of Leninism, part of the KPR(b), has no intention to split off from the interests of the party masses and the working class. On the contrary, it will more consistently and energetically express and defend those interests. It is not against the party, only Stalin and his clique.
The "Union of Marxist-Leninists" represents the viewpoint of urgent and systematic development of the industrialization of the country, on the basis of an actual improvement in the material situation of the proletariat and the working people. Currently, its concerns itself primarily with the task of fighting implacably against the methods and the pace of industrialization,<160>upon which the desolation, misery, and famine of the whole country is based. Because this industrialization is not truly socialist and accordingly cannot lead to a socialist society.
The "Union of Marxist-Leninists" represents the intention that the efforts of all of the powers for truly voluntary collectivization by simultaneously systematic support of the development of the industrial-scale organization of poor and middle-class peasant economy must be enforced. Immediately, however, it has as its primary goal to fight against the violent Stalinist collectivization because it contradicts the program of the party and the Comintern and so is suffering a complete bankruptcy.
The "Union of Marxists-Leninists" represents the viewpoint of the incompatibility of class interests between the proletariat and the capitalist elements on behalf of the USSR. The Union is firmly opposed to the cover-up of class contradictions between the working-class masses in the city and country, but it currently faces the task of systematically and dispassionately leading the fight against the anti-Leninist character of the unleashing of class struggle and civil war under the conditions of proletariat dictatorship. Because such a wildfire usurps and disorganizes the worker state and socialist organization.
The "Union of Marxists-Leninists" will resist any opportunist appearance as an enemy, but it is the currently the chief task to proceed unsparingly against the Stalinist trivialization of Leninist teachings about the struggle against opportunism and their transformation into a caricature with the help of deception, lies, and terror, because it discredits Leninism, demoralizes the party, strengthens and increases opportunism.
To achieve the above tasks, everyone must defend Bolshevism, everyone must experience Leninism, everyone must coordinate righteous proletarian revolution. In the light of the events we have experienced, the old inner-party groupings behave hopelessly and lose their importance. History has not asked us the question of the examination of this or that mistake or nuances in understanding individual problems of Leninism, only the existence of the Bolshevik party and the worker state itself. The dividing line in the party today runs not along the line of "for or against Trotsky," "for or against Bukharin," only for the continuation of the Stalinist leadership and the inexorable case of the Leninist party and Soviet power, or for the liquidation of Stalinism, the salvation of the KPR(b) and proletarian dictatorship. The concern of Lenin regarding the disloyalty, dishonesty, and unreliability of Stalin, his incompetence to use power has materialized entirely and completely: Stalin and his clique smother the cause of communism, Stalin's leadership must be ended as quickly as possible.
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We call on all sincere Leninists everywhere to organize cells of a union in defense of Leninism and to band together under its flag to liquidate the Stalinist dictatorship.
Get to work immediately! It's time to finish with the state of confusion and fear of reprisals of the brazen, unprincipled politicians and traitors to the cause of Leninism, to end the feeble grousing and grumbling and to begin the selfless struggle. It is pointless to await the beginning of the battle from above, it must begin from below. Bravery and commitment to the great legitimacy of our cause is to oppose terror. Every party member who holds dear the achievements of October and the cause of socialism must, as an organizing core, must unite around himself devoted, honest, hopeful comrades. Every Leninist must everywhere possible, in the shortest possible time, address the challenges propagating before us because events do not wait. Our main slogan must passed on from comrade to comrade, from group to group, from city to city: Away with the dictatorship of Stalin and his clique, away with the gangs of unprincipled politicians and political con men! Away with the usurper of the rights of the party! Long live the KPR(b)! Love live Leninism!
All-Union Conference of "Union of Marxist-Leninists"
June 1932
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Translation of appeal by A. Vogt. Reprinted in: M.N. Ryutin, Na koleni ne vstanu. Moscow 1992, S. 252-259.
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