Stalin: A new world seen through one man

Table of contents :
I. A Revolutionary Under the Tsar
II. The Giant
III. The Mailed Fist
IV. The National Constellation
V. 1917-1927. The First Stones
VI. The Parasitic War
VII. The Great Watch-Words, 1928-1934
VIII. The Peasantry
IX. What of To-Morrow?
X. The Two Worlds
XI. The Man at the Wheel

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TH E MACMILLAN COMPANY

NE W YO RK • BO STO N • CH ICA GO • DA LI- AS AT LA NT A • SA N FRA NC ISC O

one man

by

HENRI BARBUSSE Translated by V YVYAN

HOLLAND

with 16 illustrations

NEW YORK

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1935

This book is the author ised English transla tion of the French volume 'Stalin e' by Henri Barbus se

Cop~right,

1935, by THE MAC MILL AN COM PANY . Alt rights reserv ed-no part of this book may be reerod uced in any form withou t permis sion 1n writing from the publish er except by a review er who wishes to quote briel passaB es i~ con~ection wi.th a review written for inclusi on 1n magazine• or newspa per.

Set up and electrotyped.

PRINTE D IN THB UNITED STATES OF AMERIC A BY THB STRATFORD PRESS, INC., NEW YORK

FOREWORD n ea op ur E st va of d an w co os M of re TH E Red Square, cent ed R e th of re nt ce , um le so au M he T a. and Asiatic Russi ch hi w of hs pt de e th in , um le so au M e th Square. O n top of ope x si or e fiv d an st d, te ec rr su re gh ou th Lenin sleeps, as t os m al , ce an st di s' rd ya w fe a at g, in ok lo ple in a row, exactly alike. A o. fr d an to s ay sw e ud tit ul m t All around, a grea e th h ug ro th , lly ca pi co os id le ka e, ac pl ceremony is taking rte ut fl le ab in 11 r1 te in an ; re ua Sq e th of h length and breadt tle ith w d re ve co lk si d re d an as nv ca d re ing procession of it as , ic br fa ng ri ou am cl of s se ra ph d an et ab ph ters of the al , es nc va ad it as , ch hi w de ra pa ts or sp ic were. O r else a gigant 111 ar sw e th n, ai ag r, O s. rn tte pa t en er keeps on farming diff rs ie ld so e th , ld or w e th in y m ar s ou m or ing of the most en . es gl an ct re ge hu to in d pe ou gr y, rm A ed R e of th at en se be n ca y on m re ce e th of ils ta de e er th H er e and , by g in fil ts ne yo ba of e ad lis pa g in er itt gl a s: close quaner e os cl s ce fa r ei th st ju or , en om w d an or a line of young men : ss ne ht ig br d an er ht ug la of ll fu y, pp ha d together, proud an e th d an s, ur ho r fo st la ch hi w s de ra pa ul tf These though er ti d se as m d ow cr e th y b d te ec fl re is ch hi enthusiasm w d te la el en cr d, re e th re fo be d te ec er ds upon tier in the stan ar ro d an ng ri te ut m of ex rt vo a 1n or f l, wall of the Kremlil a es m su as r ou am cl he T t. in po le ng si a' ing centred around of ne O !'' in al St de ra om C e liv g on ''L !'' lin ta human form: ''S to nd ha s hi es is ra t en um on m 's in en L on ng the men standi s hi of d en e th at nd ha s hi es av w or p ca s hi th e peak of ng lo a rs ea w e H . w bo el e th at e gl an t gh ri a an n be nt into v

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FOR EWO RD

milit ary cloak, but this does not distinguish him in any

way from the people with him. That man is the centre, the heart of everything that radiates from Moscow on the surrounding world. His portrait, either in the form of sculpture ~r as a drawing, or as a photograph, is to be found everywhere throughout the Soviet conti nent, like that of Leni n and beside that of Leni n. Ther e is hardly a com er of any factory, military barracks, office or shop window in which it does not appear on a red -background, between a list of striking. socialist statistics (a sort of anti-religious ikon) and the emblem of the crossed hammer and sickle. Latterly, a poste r of enormous dimensions has been put up on the walls, all over Russia and the Soviet Republics, representing the superimposed profiles of two dead men and one living: Karl Marx, Lenin and Stalin. And we may multiply these a. thousand£old; for there are not many rooms, whether occupied by working men or by intellectuals, in which Stali n does not figure. Whether you love or hate this natio n whic h occupies one-sixth of the world's surface, that is the man who is at the head of it. And in this country, if the cobbles in the streets coul d talk, they would say: Stalin. Some hours later comes the luncheon hour. (This is variable in Russia: among the large number of the. ''respon" sible peop le'' every thing is subservient to the work in hand .) On this day, let us say, it is two o'clock. The Kremlin is a brightly coloured, fortified enclosure, a ~umptuous little city, which rises out of the centre ·of Moscow in one solid block. Inside the high. wall, with its barbarian towers, painted red and green, stands a whole

FOREWORD

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Vil

city composed of ancient churches with gilded domes and of old palaces (and even one large palace built in the nineteenth century by a rich landowner of the Romanoff family, which looks like a huge modem hotel). In this Kremlin which makes one think of an exhibition of churches and palaces, at the foot of one of the latter, stands a little three-storeyed house. This insignificant edifice, which would probably escape your notice if it were not pointed out to you, was forn1erly part of the outbuildings of one of the palaces, and was inhabited by some servant of the Tsar. One goes up to the first floor, where white linen curtains hang over vthree of the windows. These three windows are Stalin's home. In the tiny hall a long military. cloak hangs on a peg beneath a cap. In addition to this hall there are three bedrooms and a dirting-room. The bedrooms are as simply furnished as those of a respectable secondclass ho~el. The dining-room is oval in shape; the meal has been sent in from a neighbouring restaurant. In! a capitalist country a junior office clerk would tum up his nose at the bedrooms and would complain about the fare. A little boy is playing about the place. The eldest son, Jasheka, sleeps at night in the dining-room, on a divan which is converted into a bed, the younger sleeps in a tiny recess, a sort of alcove opening out of it. The man has finished his meal and is smoking his pipe by the window, sitting in an arm-chair. He is always dressed in exactly the same way. In unifom1? That would be saying too much. It is more a suggestion of a uniforn1,.. the outfit of a private soldier still further simplified: top-boots, khaki trousers and a high-necked khaki tunic. No one can ever remember him being dressed in any other way, except, in the summer, in white linen. Each month he earns the

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FOREWORD

few hundred. 11.roubles which constitute the meagre maximum salary of officials of the Communist Patty (amounting to between £20 and £25 in English money). Perhaps it is the exotic, slightly Asiatic eyes of the man smoking the pipe which give his rather rough workman's face an ironic expression. Something ~in his features and in h~ look make him seem to be perpetually smiling. Or, rather, as . though he were just about to laugh. Lenin used to look like that, too. It is not so much that his expr~ssion is a little wild as that there seems to he a perpetual twinkle in his eye. It is not so much the wrinkling of the lion's face (although there is something of that too), as the shrewdness and cunning of the peasant. Actually he does smile and laugh very readily. He does not talk much, although he can discourse to you for three hours on some casual question you may put to him, without leaving a single side of it unexamined. He laughs, often uproariously, much more easily than he talks. He is the most important of all our contemporaries, He is the le~der of 170,000,000• human beings distributed ove~ nearly 8,000,000 square miles. ~e has a large number of associates who are in close touch with him. But these men love him and believe in him, and they form a group which supports him and throws him into relief. He rises high above both Europe and Asia, both now and in the future. He is the m9st conspicuous man in the world, and yet he is one of the least known. The biography of Stalin, says Kalinin, is an extremely important part of the Russian's worker's revolutionary movement. It is an integral part of it. And all~those who know anything about it, wherever they may . . be, will tell you the same thing in the same terms.

FOREWOR D

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It is a very serious undertaking to try to give a clear idea of a man mixed up to such an extent with the work of a whole contn1ent; of a political fighter through whom one can see whole worlds and epochs. In foil owing him one sets one's foot into the realm of history; one strides along untrodden paths, and one encounters new situations in the sacred annals of humanityjj9 Documents crowd in upon one another and accumulate. There are too many of them, because of all that is contained in this resurrected land. One has to hew one's way, stroke by stroke, through this impassioned, still living and appealing encyclopredia qf events. And this brings us .to the heart of· what is not only the burning question of the hour, but is also the burning question of all time, namely, what is to be the future of the human race, so martyred hitherto by history, and what is the amount of comfort and the amount of earthly justice to which it may aspire? To sum up, to what have 2,000,000,000 human beings to look forward. This question has come froth the lowest strata of humanity: and has been lifted out, ad justed and presented to the world by a few contemporary inventors, who clai1n that everything can be altered here below by upheavals. And the man with whom we are dealing is their representative. 4

CONI'ENTS PAGE

FOREWORD

v

CHAP.

I. A REVOLUTIONARY UNDER THE TSAR

II. THE GIANT

1

29

III. THE MAILED FIST

61

IV. THE NATIONAL CONSTELLATION

88

V. 1917-1927. THE FIRST STONES VI. THE PARASITIC WAR

VII. THE GREAT WATCH-WORDS, 1928-1934

VIII. THE PEASANTRY IX. WHAT OF TO-MORROW?

X. THE TWO WORLDS

XI.. THE MAN AT THE WHEEL INDEX

110

157 192

217

242

249 275

285

ILLUSTRATIONS Frontispiece

Stalin in 1931

FACING PAGE

The House Where Stalin Was Born at Gori in Georgia

2

Stalin as a Boy

8

Koba at the Head of a Deµionst ration at Batum,

1902

14

Photogra ph of Stalin Ta.ken in a Group of Political Deportees in the District of Tourouc hansk in 1903

10

l{oba, 1902-3

26

A Group Taken in Prison

30

From the Police Files, Koba Djougac hvili,

1910

42

Lenin and Stalin

54

Enoukid ze, Vorochil ov, Kaganovich, Kuibishev, Ordjonik idze, Stalin, Molotov , . . . . • .

62

Egorov and Stalin

74

Stalin in His Room at the Kremlin

126

Stalin While Watchin g Beside Lenin's Body, 1924 Stalin Addressi ng a Congress Stalin's Secret Library, Now in Tiflis Museum

206

Enoukid ze, Stalin and Maxim Gorky, 1931

132

ST A LI N

Chapter One l\ .A TS E TH ER D N 'U Y AR ON TI LU VO A RE

no ly al re as w ch hi w ia rg eo G in n w to at Gori, a

IT W A S , 79 18 in o, ag y ur nt ce a lf ha er ov , at th more than a village, d an s er m co se ho w l ve ho a in rn bo as w ph a bo y named Jose a d an ls al w r be m ti h it w , ks ic br foundations were made of e th d an de si e on n o or do t on fr e th plank roof and with ry ve t o n e er w gs in nd ou rr su e 4 T r. cellar door 9 n the othe h ug ro h it w d ve pa y le al an n ra e us ho e luxurious. Before th s tie an sh f o w ro a d oo st ch hi w f o de si r stones, on the fa . es ip ep ov st h it w ed tl is br d an s he tc which were a mass o f pa . am re st l al sm a n ra y le al e th f o e dl id m e Jth T h ro u g h d an ce fa r ! . s ou ri se l, fu ti au be a d ha , ne ri fl is mother, Cathe rk da to in ow fl er ov to ed em se ey th at th k black eyes, so blac us w ho ~s • s it ra rt po t en ec R . em th nd bruises on the skin arou e th in il, ve k ac bl a y b ed am fr ly re ua . . her regular features sq is H e. ag n ai rt ce a f o en om w an si ca aµ C oldlsevere manner of f o ~ ag ll vi e th in rn o b as w li, vi sh ga ju D father, Vissarion rd ha d ke or w e H e. ad tr y b er ak m Didi-Eilo and was a shoe l ta pi ca e th s, li il T at e, er th om fr r fa in a boot factory not pe ro n ea m e th n ow sh is s m eu us m e th f o f Geo!gia. In one o t. gh ei w s hi h at ne be t u o e or w y ll ua ad gr seated stool which a as w he F hu n; io at uc ed le tt li ry ve H e 'was a poor man, o f a , ol ho sc i or G \ e" th to t rs fi , ph se Jo nt se good man and he rm fa a f o ce an ar pe ap e th h it w s ee tr y b little house shaded he y sa to is t a rh s. li if T at y ar in em .S e~ th to house, and then . m hi . r fo do d ul co ly ib ss po he ng hi yt er did really ev y ar on ti lu vo re e th ed in jo ''I : ds or w n T he n, to use his ,ow '

J

I

2

STALIN

movement at the age of fifteen, when I found myself in sympathy with the secret groups of Russian Marxists existing in Transcaucasia. These groups exercised a strong influence over me and gave me a taste for clandestine literature..••''

Joseph Vissarionovitch looked around him. Among human beings the majority accepts constituted authority, keeps its counsel and carries on. This is the herd of which Tacitus speaks when he says that it is thanks to such dumb citizens that ''anything can be done.'' There are others, a tiny minority, who find fault with it and refuse to accept it. · So he looked and listened. , Georgia f or1ns, with Armenia and Azerbaijan, the district of Transcaucasia south of the Caucasus, between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. After a long and very gallant history Georgia (the last bulwark of Christianity against the Turk) lost her independence and, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, was included within the boundaries of the Russian Empire. Central Russia, lording it at St. Petersburg, strove to denationalize the country and to Russianize it, as it was her policy to do with all the incongruous elements of the enormous imperial agglomeration, and according to the traditional procedure of all large countries in dealing with their colonies or with the regions they have annexed. The central power first of all devours and then tries to assimilate by all kinds of artificial means, especially by cruelty and persecution. (So far as Russia is concerned, the Tsar was content to deprive them of all liberty and of as much education as poss~ble.) To govern foreign nationals, like the Georgians, meant, to de~l severely with them. It has been said that in those days ''the Caucasian populations had no right save that of being tried.'' The only thing they were free to do was to. groan provided that they did

A REVOLUTIONARY

_,ER TH E TSAR

3

so in Russian. As a resu lt of this stat e of a.ffairs, ther e gre w up, in this col9ny dire ctly adjoining the ruling terr itor y, a cert ain nationalist mov eme nt whi ch had as its ideal the liberat ion of Georgia. The question was complicated by the fact tha t a ver y large num ber of diff~rent races swarmed, not onl y in Transcaucasia, but also in Geo rgia . The re wer e Georgians, Armenians, Tur ks, Jews, Kurds and some dozens of oth er races, and all this mot ley her d of subjects, equ ally ill-t reat ed by the Russian, lived at daggers dra wn among themselves. Had the y bee n able to do so, they wou ld have hur led themselves, not onl y on thei r warders from St. Pete rsbu rg but, even more violently, upo n eac h othe r. Side by side wit h this old separatist tend enc y, whi ch was gradually consolidating itself into a·'fairly stro ng ''Federal. ist'' Par ty, ther e was also the Socialist movement. All the strong curr ents of collective libe rati on whi ch had re-e cho ed thro ugh Russia had also re-echoed, afte r a fairly rapi d development, in the Caucasus. Aft er the disaster of the Crim ean Wa r of 1854-56 (wars always stir the people to thei r ver y dep ths) , a reac tion too k place against the despotism whi ch kep t Russia in a special and privileged state of barbarism as com pare d wit h oth er gre at nations. A wel l-in tent ione d refo rmi st middle class had its eyes fixed on the light that shone from the We st. Between 1860 and 1869 a certain number of reformS kep t these tendencies satisfied; suc h as the abolition of serfdom, the crea tion of zemstvos (aut ono mou s municipalities) ··and judicial refon11. But, how eve r sensational these reforms wer e in appearance, it was observed that they did not really alte r the situation muc h. The abolition of serfdom, for instance, had not bee n decided upo n from equitable mo ... tives, but , primarily, from purely financial ones, secondly,

ST AL IN

4

in the interest of the big landowners, and thirdly, for political reasons, ''so that the liberation of the peasants should not come from themselves, from below, as it were'' (actual words of the 'Tsar). Ou t of this failure, ou t of this disillusionment, was born the violent movement of the Populists (narodniki). Wi th them it was no longer a question of hypnotizing oneself by gazing towards the We st but, on the contrary, of ret11r11ing to specifically Russian traditions such as the mir '(rural commune) and the artel (workmen's association),., by which road the Russian people would ~rrive at Socialism ''without having to pass through the torment o{ Capitalism.'' Th e great period of Populism, whose leagues were called ''Land and Liberty,'' ''T he Liberty of the People,'' etc., was from 1870 to 1881, during ~ which the 'Populists, whom the rest of Europe called Nihilists, hurled themselves with bombs and terrorism against the regime of the potentates at the Wi nte r Palace. Th en the repression fallowing the murder of Alexander IT in 1881 destroyed the Populist organizations and nothing remained but the literary theorists. In his extreme you th ben in frequented Populist circles. His elder brother, Alexander, wets mixed up with ''T he Liberty of the People'' and was, for this reason, hanged in 1887. Maria Uli_~nova, Lenin'stSister, tells us that, when the Ulianotf family heard the sad news of the execution, Vladimir llitch~ then aged seventeen, murmured, with a far-away look on his face: ''N o, we must follow a different path. Th at is no t the one that we must take.'' This different path was that of scientific Socialism, the improved successor of the old ideal ·o f political liberty, of the suppression of privileges, of equality and of universal brotherhood, brought to perfection by Karl Marx in the middle of the nineteenth century. One of the fundamental JC.

A REVOLUTIONARY U N D ER TH E TSAR

s

features of the Marxist doctrine, which pruned the older s wa , ies lit eri pu us tro as dis d an es iti rd su ab its Socialism of ~ th wi m lis cia So of d an , ics lit po th wi ics om on ec of n the unio ay m s ion un ch su r fo ity ss ce ne e Th nt. me ve mo s' er the work so s ay alw t no s wa it t bu , ys da wa no us to us vio ob ar appe d lle ve ra un be tb d ha ng hi yt er ev en wh t en om and at a m of al de od go a en tak d ha a ul rm fo s thi s, rd wo to in t and pu finding. Socialism had constituted an international network. Th e ls, ge En d an rx a ' M by y ctl re di d de un fo l, na tio First Interna eol pr e th of ns tio da un fo al gic olo ide e th id ''la d ha which ter In nd co Se e th by d de ee cc su en be d ha ' e,' gl ug tarian str d an ng lu r-f fa e th r fo nd ou gr e th d re pa re ''p ich wh l, na natio comprehensive deve_~opme~t of th e workers' movement.'' y ar on ~i lu vo Re e th to sed P.o op as tslis cia So an Th e Marxi ll sti t bu rs be m nu in d ce du re h uc m re we o wh ts, lis Socia d in bl e es Th . ge tra ou or m ris ro ter in ve lie be t no did t en viol surgical methods which, fo r th e most part, we nt savagely re we g, on wr g in go s ay alw re we d an t jec ob beyond their e th e niz ga or to s wa s es sin bu r ei Th . irs the of s es no busin d, se es pr op d an ted oi pl ex g in be re we o wh se tho of e tid t grea by showing them where their interests lay, by conscious discipline and by the positive-soundness of a practical doctrine. th ru e th of e us ca be ss re og pr d pi ra y irl fa de ma Marxism e us ca be d an m lis pu Po of n io pt ru" dis l ica an ch me less and e th g rin du a ssi Ru of n tio iza ial str du in e th in se rea inc e of th lf se him w re tb n ni Le y. ur nt ce h nt ee et rin e th of ars ye last wholeheartedly inco it. W e see him launching out on a wide e th d an r de or ist irx M e th of r ou av f t in n aig mp and bitter ca i~ nt ma ro ed er rd so di e th st ain ag s, sse ma e th of n organizatio m. lis pu Po of ms ea dr ry na tio ac re y all tic ac pr e cism and th nco y er ''v d an et cr se ry ve a of us ls tel s es An eye-witn , 93 18 in w co os M in e ac pl ok to ich wh g tin ee m l'' spiratoria

6

STA LIN

at whi ch everyone's ('lips wer e unsealed.'' Witnesses tell us that ther e ''thi s you ng, slig htly bald man, a stra nge figure and alre ady a pers on of imp orta nce amo ng the Marxists'' (Le nin was then onl y twe nty -thr ee) vict orio usly opposed the famous populist theo rist V. P. Vor onts off. It was, how eve r, in 1884 that the first pro gram me of the Russian Social-Democrats was laun che d by tl1e gro up calling itself ''Th e Lib erat ion of Lab our .'' At that tim e nea rly all the members of this gro up lived toge ther on . one of the Swiss lakes. Thi s gro up was, to beg in wit h, an almost exclusively intellectual one, like Populism. The great famine of 1891 bro ugh t the intellectual pioneers, suc h as Plek han off and Axelrod, into con tact wit h the wor kin g classes, and man y circles and leagues wer e formed. An initial con gress at Min sk in 1898, unit ed the gro ups and elec ted a Cen tral Committee, but the arre st of mos t of the members of this Congress prev ente d its resolutions bein g carr ied into effect. Cer tain splits wer e alre ady app eari ng in the mid st of the you ng part y, not ably on the question of the line of dem arcati on that should be established, acc ord ing to some of them , betw een the ecoI).omic stru ggle (dev olvi ng on the wor kers ) and the political stru ggle (devolving upo n the who le dem ocr acy ). Len in set out to consolidate this Social-Democratic Par ty whi ch had onl y existed stri ctly since 1898, and to give it pro per constitution. By hard wor k he succeeded in his obje ct, at the heig ht of reaction, at the heig ht of the slavery of the bov ine people of all the Russias, at the heig ht of the bestial rule of the Rom ano ffs, at the heig ht of the fantastic pilf erin g of the pub lic fun ds by the gold-laced war ders of the people, whe ther situ ated at the top or at the b.ottom of the ladd er.

7 R SA T E H T R E D N U Y R A N O TI LU O A REV sdi to e en ~c e th on ~e ~a sm xi M~ ch hi w T he period at nd te y ar on tt lu vo r~ an s1 R~ a: tr ex d an n ia cipline both Russ on up e on e, th h .it w s de c1 m co t os m al encies and forces as w it ce sin o, ag le hi w tle lit a ed fix es ey r ou which we had ad le as w li vi sh ga ju D h tc vi no io ar iss V ph se in 1897 th at Jo ng 1i rn fo ns tra ,_ ry na ~i S~ s l.i !il e th at le rc ci st ing the Marxi nd co se a to m , ys sa li vi sh bi ira M ro nd Sa the dormitory, as Seminary. tho ial fic of an as w ~, ri na mi Se l al e lik y, ar in m This Se be g, in be , ia yx ph as d an m tis an ur sc ob l na tio di tra bed of sides, in the hands of treacherous directors. t os m e th to d te ec bj su e er w e W .. .. '' : ys sa lf se H e him e. er th ds ho et m ic ot sp de t os m e th d an e m gi re g in humiliat e th k oc cl o' ne ni t A t. en m ish bl ta es is th in Spying was rife d an y, or ct fe re e th to in t en w e W t. as kf ea br to bell called us at e er w e w le hi w , at th ed er ov sc di e w ed rn tu re when we up ed rn tu d an ed ch ar se en be d ha s rd oa pb cu r table, all ou side down.'' m Se e th at th of e us ca be at th of ite sp All th e same, in bta es e th , lly ni yill w r, Fo ' s.' ea id of ry se ur inary was a ''n t es ot pr of d an nt te on sc di of s eu cl nu a d re te el lishment sh e m sa e th of rs he ot y an m t ns ai ag d an gs in th e es th against ed rm fo e er w s le rc ci e siv er bv su d an t is m or sort. Nonconf s; er sp hi w (in s er rn co in s ea id r ei th d se es pr ex th er e which ill w n he (w le rc ci t lis na io at N a as w e er Th naturally). le rc ci t lis pu Po a , ) n? tio na t en nd pe de in an be Georgia rci t lis na io at rn te In st xi ar M a d an ) y! nn (down w ith tyra o ss So , er th ra , or ph se Jo at th st la is th cle. It was into . ul so of ity fin af e ns te in an by lf se m hi w re Djugashvili th at m hi et m I s a : li, vi sh ga ju D o ss So g un yo e se ll ''I can sti first at Tiflis in 1900,'' says Enukidze. , m sli d an l al sm as w he ild ch a s A e? lik he as w t W ha s hi ld he s ay w al d an n, sio es pr ex en az br t os m al , ld bo with a

8

STA LIN

head proudly erect . Late r, when he grew taller, he was rathe r frail in appearance; his features were very delicate and he had an intellectual head with abun dant thick hair, as black as ink. The slimness of yout h acce ntuat ed the Geor gian oval of his face and the some what langu id eye of his race. At the time of whic h Enuk idze speaks, this youn g milit ant prese nted a mixture, curio us enou gh because it was almost perfe ct, of the intellectual and the work er. Not very tall, narro w-sh ould ered, with a long face, a small beard, rathe r heav y eyes and a thin straig ht nose, and with his fl.at cap worn a little to one side on his plent iful black hair that is what he was like then, this conq uero r of mult itudes, this upse tter of worlds. Since .t hen Stalin's face has grow n stron ger, and especially to-da y when his hair, still thick but worn en brosse, is grey ing slightly, one is temp ted to believe that his f eatures have beco me more prole taria n and even more military- partl y, possibly, because of the suggestion of his dress. But he cann ot be said to have chan ged great ly. At most one can say that the ener gy and combative pow er whic h this face indic ated in those days is more appa rent now, for if any man has not chan ged fundamentally, it is he. One could alrea dy recog nize in him, from the temp erance of his speech, the man who m Ketskoveli described thirty -five years ago as ''a good sort. '' This youn g man had a stran ge dislike of florid phraseology. He was the comp lete oppo site of the peop le who try to get their effects by the sonorousness of their utter ance s and the aerial designs of their gestures. ''Bre vity, clearness and accu racy were his main characteristics.'' Unfo rtuna tely for his tranq uillit y he secre tly studied, at the Tiflis Seminary, book s on the natur al sciences and on sociology. He intro duce d into this well- orde red house the

A REVOLUTIONARY UNDER TH E TSAR

9

written poison of positive knowledge. Th is scandal was discovered by the authorities of the p,ace. Th e need for genuine self-instruc~ion being inc~mpatible with the pure tradition of the Semmary, young Sosso w.as expelled on the ground that he display-ed a lack 6f ''political balance.'' ''H e went, wit hou t a backward glance, straight over to the workers.'' In 1898 he joined the Tif lis 'branch of the··Russian SocialDemocratic W qrkers' Party~ This, as we have already seen, was the same yea r as that of the official birth of this Russian section of the ?ecqnd International. So we see him launched upon his course. He had lost no time in finding it. He had reached it immediately by ·the sho rte st route. Th is intellectual, the son of a peasant worker, embraced the calling of ''prbfessional rev olu tionary,'' first among the Tiflis railway workers and late r among the tobacco workers and the workers in the boot factories, and, later still, among the workers at the meteorogolical observatory a little everywhere, in fac t: a workman in the workers' cause. Enukidze, one of the earliest wo rke rs in the cause of the Revolution in the Caucasus and qow ada ys an im por tan t leader, saw a great deal of Sosso Djugashvili in those days, and he tells us how successful he was in ''talking to the workers.'' Th is gift of being accessible to everyone,. was also a characteristic of Lenin, his senior oy ten years, who was working, at tha t time, in the princip~l;: centres of the Russian Socialist movement. Lenin, wh,p foresaw the electrification of half the old world, at a time when the whole· of Russia was nothing bu t a heap of ruins and dust attacked from within and from without, the~ visionary who could visualize to their fullest extent, dot tin g all the i's, the most vast temporal schemes tha t have eve r bee n con-

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ceived by the hum an brain , also knew how to talk to the worker~ even individually. With his cap pulle d dow n over his roun d, bald skull, a twin kle in his eye, ills hand s in his pock ets and the gene ral air of an hone st tradesman, dogg ed and astute, he woul d loite r aboµ t at factory gates. He woul d appr oach a work er, spea k to him in a frien dly way, and attac h him to hi111self for ever. He woul d make a malcont ent of one who was apathetic, and a revo lutio nary of a malcontent. And the peasant said of him: ''Do you know, that red-head is an ordin ary man like you and me. He migh t just have left his plou gh.'' Josep h Vissarionovitch was a man of the same sort, and that is why these two silhouettes come toge ther in one's mind's eye out of so man y thousands of others. ''Sosso's natur al simplicity, his complete indif feren ce to the cond ition s of perso nal life, his stren gth of chara cter and his know ledge , whic h even at that time was rema rkable, gave him autho rity, called people's atten tion to him and kept it there . The Tifli s work ers called him 'our Soss o.''' This sort of genius of his for putti ng himself on a level with his audience is the real reason for the confi denc e whic h he inspired in the peop le and for the part which has been given him to play. Let us make no mistake, however; putti ng oneself on a level does not mean lowe ring oneself or humb ling oneself or beco ming stupi dly familiar. Very far from; it. Orakhelashvili, who was Sosso's companio n at that time, puts the matt er in a nutshell: ''He was neither peda ntic nor vulgar.'' He looked upon the militant Socialist as an interpreter who said the same thing s as the wisest theorist, but adap ted them to tHe intelligence and degree of educ ation of his listeners. How did he do this? By imag ery and by givin g vivid examples.

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A REVOLUTIONARY UNDER THE TSAR

11

•

''We,'' explains Orakhelashvili, ''who formed a group of propagandists with him, were unable to rid ourselves of a certain amount of terminology. We were haunted by thesis, antith.esis and synthesis and by other pivots of logic. And ail this paraphernalia crept much too much into our speeches to workers and peasants. Not so Stalin's speeches. He . approached matters from another side, from the angle of life. For instance, he would take the idea of middle-class Democracy and would show, as clear as daylight, why it was good compared with Tsarism, and why it was not good compared with Socialism. And everyone would understand that Democracy, although it was quite capable of sweeping away the Empire, might itself one day constitute a barrier against Socialism which would have to be broken down....'' Again, he was naturally very gay, but only out of working hours. The two things must not be mixed. ''One day,'' goes on Orakhelashvili, ''we all met in the house of an important Caucasian comrade. (We always met in someone's house because it was almost impossible to meet anywhere else.) During dinner the young son of the master of the house came and sat on his father's knee, and the father petted him and tried to calm .the impatience of the child, who was too young to be interested in the serious discussion. Then Stalin rose, took the child gently by the hand and led him to the door, saying: 'My young friend, you're not on the agenda to-day.''' ''He never abused an opponent,'' adds the same eyewitness. ''We suffered so much from the Mensheviks that when we found ourselves addressing one of them in a speech we could not prevent ourselves from going for him hammer and tongs and lashing him with our tongues. Stalin never liked this form of attack. Violent language was for hirn a prohibited weapon. At the very most, when he

12

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•

had nonplussed and reduced an opponent to silence by concise argument and the said opponent was speechlessly trying to ~scape, he would fling after him some current Transcaucasian remark, such as: ''You're such a fine fellow, I wonder you are afraid of people as unimportant as us.'' The vocation of secret agitator' and professional Revolutionary, which attracted him in the wake of so many others, is a terrible vocation. One becomes an outlaw, spied upon by all the machinery o(_ the State, hounded by the police; the quarry of the Tsar and of his countless and wellnourished underlings, all armed to the teeth and huge of fist. One is like an exile whose temporary liberty hangs by a mere thread and who hides himself and watches. One is the tiny Revolutionary, a1most 'alone in the crowd, swamped by the immense fotces of Capitalism which have the nations in their grip from pole to pole-not only the 180,000,000 subjects of the Tsar but everyone else in the world and one is the man who, with a few friends, wants to alter all that. One appears now here, now there, to 'arouse resentment and to excite people to action, and one's only weapons are 'one's own convictions and the power of one's words. To follow that calling in which, clearly silhouetted on the horizon, no matter what path one takes, stand prison, Siberia and the gallow~, it is not sufficient merely to have a vocation. One must have iron health at the service of ·indomitable energy, and an almost limitless capacity for work. One must be in the championship class for doing without sleep and one must be able to throw oneself from one task into another at a .moment's notice, to fast and to freeze, to avoid capture and to know how to escape if one is captured. One must prefer to have one's skin seared with a red-hot iron or one's teeth smashed sooner than blurt out a name or an

'

13 R A TS E H T R E D N U Y R A N O TI LU O A R EV e; us ca e th to d ~e vo de be t us m t ar he le ho w address. One's e on r fo , ct je ob r he ot y an r ou rb ha to it r fo le ib ss po it is itp s ha r ve ne e on d an h rt ea e th of ce fa e th is a wanderer on . either leisure or money~ im ly m fir so pe ho ve ha t us m ne O . all t no And that is d ce fa n he w d an ts en om m t es rk da e th in at th e on planted in in ve lie be to e as ce r ve ne t us m e on ts ea f de st re tte bi by the • victory. e on e els ng hi yt er ev e ov Ab . gh ou en t no is at And even th of e dg le ow kn t ec rf pe a d an n sio vi of ity ar must have cl s m ar lly ia ec sp sm xi ar M at th is th in is It ts. an w what one of p as gr a ch su en m w ne e es th s ve gi d an s rie na tio Revolu ch su em th ed w lo al s ha d an s, ow all nd circumstances (a extraordinary foresight!). in e av br be to t en ci ffi su ite qu be to ed ~s Formerly it y ril ra po m te n, io at er op ry na tio lu vo re a in d ee cc order to su m co e or m h µc m a is ce en an rm pe e ev hi ac to r fo tat le as e bl ia am at th z, i~ af lb co as Bl y, da ne O : . . y. or st plicated it d sa w ho h sig ep de a ith w e m ld to , an m bu t bogus great as w it , er w po p ur us to n, he w st pa e er w ys was th at the da ry ve t bu all sm a ith w et re st e th to in n w do go enough to e rar e er th s, ay ad ow N s. er w llo fo of p ou gr ed in determ of ly on e ad m er ng lo no e ar s de ca rri ba d an s un -g machine ens co in , as w he d an d le oi sp is n sio es of cardboard. T he pr quence, disgusted with it. y el er m t no is it ut B s. un -g ne hi ac m ' e ar e O f course ther , ch hi w io ar en sc ry na tio lu vo re d ol e th at fth for that reason r fo fit ly on is , tic an m ro e m co be s ha , ic ist al from being re fdi e lit q\ a of e ar ns tio lu vo re s, ay ad ow N . the scrap-heap lit po e os th an th irs fa af er gg bi h uc m e ar d an re ferent natu ed ut tit bs su , to er th hi n, te of so ve ha ch lli w es ish irm ical sk t ou ith w , ce la pa l ra nt ce a in r he ot l m r fo le op pe of one lot t ha W . els lab w fe a pt ce ex l, al at ng hi yt an g rin te thereby al •

STA LIN the down trodd en classes of the worl d are wear ily waiti ng for in their own inter est is some thing quite diffe rent. Marx ism illuminates the depth s and necessities, boun d one to the other , of these grea t..logic al upheavals of prese ntday socie ty, and lays dow n hard and fast rules for their elabo ratio n. Marx ism is not, as one migh t be temp ted to think , if one know s noth ing abou t it, a colle ction of complica ted princ iples or of comm andm ents to be learn ed by heart , like a gram mar or like the Kora n. It is a syste m, and it is quite a simple one. It is the syste m of comp lete achie vement . It is the conc entra tion of all ideas, the grop ing of one's way towa rds a firm basis, a conc rete foun datio n, a fram ewor k cutti ng across religious or abstr act mysticisms, processions of phan toms and othe r sidet racks leadi ng nowher e. Ther e are no ideas or f ormulre suspe nded in the air, as thou gh they could stay there of their own acco rd. Karl Marx was the one mod em think er who was grea t enou gh to blow the clouds away from the firma ment of thought. The Marx ist syste m enco urage s one to retur n constant ly to first causes and to follo w matt ers to their logic al conc lusio n with out ever losin g sight of the end in view , and to comb ine theo ry as close ly as possible with pract ice: truth , realit y, life. From that poin t Socialism ceases to be a nebu lous or senti ment al dream , in whic h one neve r come s across anything subst antia l exce pt to run one's head against it, but it becomes the doctr ine whic h calcu lates the logical need s of every one in advance and which every one ought to work loyal ly to realize by the simp lest meth ods. It implies a modi ficati on of the existing state of affairs. It clears thing s away and show s them up and allows one to see the prese nt and the future. It is solid wisdom whic h tends natur ally towa rds the doub le task of demo lition and cons truct ion.

•

A REVOLUTIONARY UNDE R THE TSAR 15 The Marxist conception is a scientific one. It becomes confused with the scientific conception. The Revolutionary always remains an apostle and a soldier, but he is, above all, a scholar who goes out into the highways and byways. Moreover, all the scholars in the world practise Marxism withou t being aware of it, in the same way as Monsieur Jourdain, in Moliere's Bourgeois Gentilhomme, spoke in prose. It is by careful and critical judgment of society that the ordinary man becomes a Revolutionary, not by a sudden outburst of hatred, fury or generosity or rather, not only by that. It is a calculated outburst. Social injustice is like a spelling mistake. Every kind of error tends tQ rectify itself in time but tl1e human mind must hasten this organic rectification, by foresight and by putting things in order. The human mind first. Sentiment a valuable incentive-must not come until after the intellect, and must obey it. Sentiment must only be the servant of the clearest evidence, for left to itself it may easily become the servant of f oily. It made me smile to hear the German writer Emil Ludwig ask Stalin, as he did two years ago: ''Perhaps you were ill-treated by your parents in your childhood, to have become such a Revolutionary?'' The excellent Emil Ludwig still firmly believed in the old adage of thf wisdom of nations, which lays it down that, in order to be a Revolutionary, ,one must be vicious or embittered, and, from one's earliest youth, have been beaten by one's parents. A poor arg11men~, too paltry to be har111ful. No doubt individuals and the masses are egged on by misfortune, but Revolutionaries are far beyond any small personal grievances on the road to collective progress. Stalin replied patiently to Ludwig: ''Not at all. My parents did not maltreat me. The reason that I became a

STAL IN

16

Revolutionary is simply because I thought the Marxists were right.'' ''Politics based on principles are the only honest ones,'' said Stalin, repeating Lenin. That is the declaration of basic principle, the major precept which, as Stalin again says, ''enables one to stor1n impregnable positions.'' And the great incentive, for those who are trying to bring about social progress, is faith in the masses. This faith in the great mass of the workers is the watch-word, the battle-cry which .Stalin has uttered most often in the course of his career. ''The most unseemly malady which can attack a leader,'' he tells us, ''is fear of the masses.'' The leader needs them more th~n they need him. He learns more from them than they learn from him. As soon as a leader begins to make his plans withou t taking~ the ma5ses into his confidence, he is damned, as regards both victory and the •

cause.

So this practical agitator, armed roughly with realism, and ~ith a hatred of catch-phrases and abstractions, began to fight. Let us note here the influence of Kumatovski, Lenin's companion in ?wrms and a pioneer of his ideas in T ra~­ caucasia. He was the liaison agent between J. V. Djugashvili ~nd Leninism. Marxism, according to Adoratski's striking formula, ''enables us to. take advantage of the circumstances of any ·particular moment,'' apd Leninism was Marxism already largely adapted to the situation created by the period and surroundings. Our m_an assumed all sorts of different names: David, Koba, Nijeradte, Tschijikon. By this shrewd intuitio n of his he preven ted the :Baku workers, countin g on the sympathy of a certain regime nt (this was a trap), from trying to free the demon strators who had been thrown into prison as a sequel to a brush with the Black Hundr ed * carrying the portrait of the ''Adore d 0ne.'' But if the Revolu tionary was losing more and more ground in his native land, he a.cquired a solid suppor t on the interna tional basis in the shape of the paper which Lenin succeeded in establishing abroad, Iskra (The Spark), a centre of doctrin e and, as it were, of public cortspiracy, and whose first numbe r, printed in Munich in Jan~ary, 1901, ended its first leading article with the assertion: ''We must capture the enemy fortress, and we will succeed in doing so if we unite all the forces of the awaken ing proleta riat.'' Howev er, he did not always hide himself. There w_ere momen ts careful ly chosen -·when he came out into the ope·n. For instance, on the occ.asion when, thanks to himMay-day was celebrated for the lirst time in the Caucasus

was

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. •An u~tra-~onservative tsarist org~nization which operated through dll'ect acnon and terror. (Transla tor.)

A REVOLUTIONARY UNDER TH E TSAR 19 ( 1901 ). Or else when, advancing at th~ head of a crowd of Tiflis rail way strikers fwho wer e thre aten ed by the officer of police wit h being shot if the>:" did not disperse,. he ~eplied in thei r name: ''Yo u do not f righ~en us. We will dISperse whe n our demands have bee n satisfied.'' (Tp e cha rge which fall owe d did not overcome th.e strik~rs.) He wen t to Batum, Adjaristan, in sou ther n Geo rgia , and established a committee there. This, as Lac oba says, ''co nstitu tes a fresh page in the grea t Bio grap hy.' ' Fro m his hea dqu arte rs in the mar shy sub urb of Chaoba, Sosso created discontent amo ng the wor kers at tlte Mantascheff and Rot hsc hild wor ks. He was chased awa y by the police and fled to Gor odo k. His movements wer e complicated by the presence of the secr et printing-press whicl,i he carr ied wit h him and whi ch was his loud-speaker (in a whi spe r). Aft er the rst of Ma rch dem ons trat ion, at the hea d of whi ch he plac ed himself like a targ et and on whi ch occ a- . sion ther e wer e 14 killed, 40 wou nde d and 450 arrests, the printing-press and its moving spir it had to move agajn. In the neig hbo urh ood ther e was a cemetery; (tha t of Su- Uk- Su) who se grav e-di gge r was a frie nd of his. Sec ret meetings wer e held in this cem eter y ( whe ti ;rthey wer e over, the ciga rett e ends had to be care full y concealed amo ng the jumble of Moslem tombs! ) . One day the printing-press was bro ugh t ther e in haste. The grav e-di gge r too k cha rge of it and of a large jar con tain ing the type . !Je was carr yin g his load tow ards the neig hbo urin g maize-field whe n he had sud den ly to lie flat on his face because a par ty of police cam e by;, .£ollo wed by a par ty of Cossacks, actu ally look ing for the press. So that another place had to be fou nd to house the press

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an d its manager. Th ey hit up on the house of a certain Khashim. Khashim was an old ma n wh o ha d suddenly, in the deptl1s of his simple Moslem peasant's heart, be gu n to un de rst an d and to rev ere Sosso. On e da y he ha d said to him: ''I am the mo st insignificant an d the most persecuted of men, an d I have ne ve r spoken to the chief, bu t I recognize yo u.' ' La ter on, wh en he had heard him speak a little more, he said to him: ''I see quite we ll wh at yo u are; yo u are an afir katza (an Abkhasian he ro) ; yo u seem to have been bo rn of thu nd er an d lightning; yo u are supple an d yo u have a gre at he art an d a gre at soul." Th e old peasant an d his so n moved the press to the ir home, an d Sosso lived the re too. An d wo me n wi th lon g Moslem veils wh o seemed, at close quarters, rat he r heavily o wh rs nte pri the re we e ies Tl: e. lag vil the in d are pe ap built, ha d to tak e precautions be for e en ter ing the improvised workshop. Fr om ~hat ti1ne on wa rd, Khashim could be seen leaving ite wh his d an n ba tur his th wi , ng rni mo h eac me ho his beard, ca rry ing a basket full of vegetables an d fruit. Bu t beneath the fru it wo uld be a pile of tra cts an d proclamations. He wo uld go up to fac tor y gates selling the fru it an d k loo the ed lik or rs ase rch pu the ew kn he If . les tab ge ve the of them, he wo uld wr ap his wares up in the tracts. Ho we ve r, the continuous bustle tha t we nt on in the wo rkr oo m, and the noise of the printing-machine, led the neighbouring peasants to believe tha t Sosso, Khashim's guest, was making co un ter fei t money. Th ey we re no t quite certain wh at to thi nk of this pr ohtec of al de at gre a ed nd ma de y ntl ide ev ich wh n, fessio sso So see to e cam ey Th le. ab ion est qu ry ve s wa t bu , ue niq one evening an d said to him: ''Y ou 're making co un ter fei t I

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A REVOLUTIONARY UN DE R TH E TSAR

21

mon ey and , afte r all, perh aps it isn' t suc h a bad business for us, b~cause, poo r as we are, we don 't thin k we run any risk of suff erin g from it. Wh en are yo~ put ting you r · mon ey into circ ulat ion? '' ''I'ffi not making cou nter feit mon ey,' ' repl ied Sosso. ''I'm prin ting trac ts telli ng of you r mis ery. '' . ''So muc h the bett er!' ' exclai111ed the peasants. ''Because we cdu ld not hav e help ed you to imi ;ate roubles, since we don 't ~ kriow how to. But this is our business. We und erstan d, we' re grat eful to you, and we' ll help you.'' . . . And , di~regarding chro nolo gica l ord er for a moment;• let us mak e a sho rt exc ursi on into the future. ·Th e same place, the same gard en of Khashi111's, but in 1917. The old peasant, afte r the ·Rev olut ion was ove r, retu rned hom e and examined his gard en. He had bur ied the secr et prin ting -pre ss ther e, many mon ths befor,e, whe n he had to leave hom e hurriedly. The hou se had bee n occ upie d by soldiers ·wh o, in the cou rse of thei r rum mag ings , had uneart hed the prin ting -app arat us and had scat tere d it all ~ver the garden~' Kha shim fou nd all the pieces and whe n he had put them care full y toge ther , he said to his son: ''Lo ok, it is wit h tha t that the Rev olut ion was mad e.'' . . . .{\nd now let us retu rn to Apr il, 190 2. One day Sosso was talking to Kan dela ki, smo king a ciga rett e; he was, at the time, a ver y dark you ng man, ver y slim, wearing a nec kclo th wit h red squares on it. He wor e a blac k bea rd like a rom anti c art- stud ent, wit h his coa l-bl ack hait ''which seemed to . be blq wn bac k by the win d," ''his small mou stac he, lon g face and intr epid gaiety.'' No w the Okhr.ana (the Poli ce Service) was again taki ng an inte rest in him, and at that ver y mom ent poli ce wer e filling the basement of Darachvilidze's house whe re he was, and wer e also surr oun ding:' it. Sosso was cau ght in a trap . He mer ely

22

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said: ''It's nothing,'' and went on smoking. The sound of lteavy boots and· .t he clanking of·· arms mounted the stairs. The police came in and the inevitable happened. Sosso was arrested, imprisoned at Batum and theri transferred to Kutais (where he organized a successful strike of prisoners). Afte r this he was deported to the province of Irkutsk, in Siberia. Tsarism, which had been unable and unwilling to govern Siberia economically, had ruled it politically by endowing it with a chain of concentration camps or convict settlements, in which its prisoners were shut up, and submerged in the vastness of the country. But one day a man appeared at Batum dressed as a soldier. It was Koba, who had unceremoniously left the custody of the police and returned from Central Asia at his own expense. This meant the loss of a great deal of time not; how ever, so much as one might think, because the revolutionary remains a revolutionary even in prison. Simon V ereshtchak, a Revolutionary Socialist and a :fierce political enemy of his (''no thing about Stalin pleases him,'' Damian Biedny tells us, ''neither his nose QOr the colour of his hair, nor his voice nothing at all!'' ), informs us that in 1903 he was in the same prison as Stalin, in Baku -a prison, made to hold four hundred prisoners, into which .fifteen hundred were crowded. ''One day a new face appeared in the cell containing the Bplsheviks. Someone said: 'It's Kob a.''' Wha t did Koba do. in prison? He educated people. ''Edu~ational circles were formed, ,and the Marxist Koba stood out prominently among· the professors. Marxism was his subject and he was undefeata.ple on it... .'' And V ereshtchak describes this young man, ''wearing a blue, open-necked, satinet blouse, no belt or hat, a cloak

A REVOLUTIONARY UNDER THE TSAR 23 thrown over his shoulder, and always carrying a book in his hand,'' arranging big organized debates. (Koba always preferred these to individual discussions.) At one of these debates, on the peasant problem, Serge Ord jonekidze exchanged first arguments and then blows with one of the chief speakers, the Revolutionary Socialist Kartsevadze, and finally Ordjonekidze was half killed by the Revolutionary Socialists. Later, when V ereshtchak met Stalin in prison, what struck him most was the impressive f aitn which this Bolshevik prisoner had in the u]timate triumph of Bolshevism. A little later, when he occupied cell No. 3 in·the Bailoff prison, Koba again organized courses of study. Imprisonment only succeeded in altering his activities in a relative

way. Constant overwork and terrible hardships began to sow disease among the militants. Koba began to observe the first signs of tuberculosis in himself. It was the Okhrana that cured him-in such circumstances, however, that he had nothing for which to be grateful to it. He was in Siberia, in the open steppes, when suddenly that terrible icy blizzard known as the Purga or Buran started to blow. The only means people have of sheltering from it is to lie down and dig themselves into the snow. But Koba kept his course which was along a frozen river. It· took l1inl hours to walk the couple of miles that separated him from the nearest hut. When at last he crossed the threshold, people took him for a ghost: he was nothing but an icicle from head to foot. They thawed him out, and .,he collapsed and slept for eighteen consecutive hours. As( a result of his

adventure, his t~berculosis disappeared for ~ver. Siberia .is like that: if it does not kill consun1ptives, it cures them per-

STALIN manently. There· is no middle course: the cold either carries off the man or the malady (rather haphazardly). He was in prison, in 1903, when he heard a great piece of news: At the Second Congress~ of the Russian SocialDemocratic,Party, a split began to appear, on 'Lenin's initiative, between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks. The Bolsheviks were the extremists, the wagers of uncompromi~ing class warfare, the iron militants. The Mensheviks were "the reformers, the adapters, the arrangers, the technicians of compromise and combination. The Mensheviks were irritated with the Bolsheviks, who appeared to them to increase their demands whenever they felt inclined to do so; (What an idea! The vanquished crying for the moon!) The split grew wider. Th.ere came a definite parting of the ways. Even. though the question was not as seriousat the height of Tsarist power and persecution, at the height of the prosperity ?f., capitalist evil-doing and ruin as it became later, Stalin did not hesitate. He chose Bolshevism, and decided for Lenin. A moment always arrives at which a man of action must make ,.a decision of this sort which is destined to affect the whole future course of his life. One is reminded of the old Greek myth, impressive because of its antiquity, of Hercules being con1Relled to choose, at the begihning of his divine and sportive career, between Vice and Virtue. But were there. not, ih this case, reasons for and against? Reform is very tempting. It has an atmospher~ of wisdom and prudence, and seems to avoid the shedding of blood. But far-seeing people; ~ho understand the great principles of logic and social arithmetic and, in an ever-increasing degree, ·historical experience, know that on the path of .opportuni~t resig-nation 'and reformist vassalage lie first n1irages,

A RE VO LU TIO NA RY UN DE R TH E TSA R 25 then snares and finally betrayal and that it is the path of des truc tion and of massacre. Peo ple may _say that it is only a question of degree. But no, it is a. c~ci:11 questi~n, a. question of life and death, because m1n1mal1sm (which IS also called the ''least evil'') is really conservatism. So Kobi (which was another of his names) made his first escape. And from that moment, detachments of police here, ther e and everywhere tracked him tiown periodically, found hi1n, reca ptur ed hitn and then tried to find him again. Thi s occurred six times, neither more nor less. Aft er his sixth escape, Kobi carried on a cam paig n against the Georgian Mensheviks. ''From 1904 to l90 5," writes Ord jonekidze, ''Kobi was, for the Mensheviks, the most hated of the Caucasian Bolsheviks, whose recognized leader he became.'' One day an Olibadze workman addressed him: ''Anyway, damn it, Comrade Sosso, the Mensheviks have got a maj orit y in the Party, after all!'' And this workma.n remembers quite well to-day that Sosso answered him: ''Majority? No t as regards quality. Onl y wait a few years and you will see who was right and who was wrong.'! The militant members of the Par ty who were in the Caucasus at that time, still remember the out cry made by the Menshevik authorities, like Noa h Ramishvili or Seide Devdariani, when they got wind of the fact that Koba, ''a professional Bolshevik,'' was coming to debate witb them, or, in other words, ''to disorganize their peaceful existence.'' Wh at Bubnoff wrote recently is ver y accurate and very illuminating: ''Th e Russian Bolsheviks were very lucky in the fact that for fifteen years the y were able to carr y on a systematic and intensive fight against all deviations in any direction, long before the Revolution.'' It meant so much 1

STALIN groping which had not to be gone through later, and revolutionary progress benefited by the fact that the Party had already tried out its strength, and had been able early to establisl1 and verify the reasonable point of view, the true point of view, in the study of theory and especially in tactical organization. We are quite aware of the fact that Napoleon said that ''if one is in the wrong, one must persist, and one will end by being in the right." The phrase is amusing and ilas a certain picturesque and even artistic and literary turn about it. But (I beg the artist's pardon), it is utterly false. Nothing can subsist which is not in harmony with reality and the march of events. To proclaim the contrary is to propagate one of those encyclopredic errors on which capitalist morality battens; it 'vill eventually die of indigestion caused by them (as, for instance, V ersaillcs did in the old days) . Thus it was that, at the same time that they were fighting the Anarchists and the Revolutionary -Socialists (who are much the same as Anarchists) and the Nationalists who could see no further than their national noses, they had also to fight, and did indeed fight, against the i\1ensheviks at Tiflis, at Batum, at Cl1iaturi, at Kuta1s and at Baku. In 190 5, among his other activities, Stalin edited the illegal Bolshevik newspaper T/1e Struggle of the Proletariat, and \vrote a work in the Georgian language entitled Sonze Re111arks on the Differences in the Party. ''Oh! How stolidly the author stands upon his feet!'' was the remark made by Theophil Chichua at Donidze, after a public reading of the work; Chichua remembers the remarks to this day. Under the influence of Stalin the worl{ers' movement developed. Their methods changed. They no longer went in for revolutionary propaganda by stages and through tl1e ii1termediary of a few very carefully chosen workers.

A REVOLUTIONARY UNDER T H E TSAR 27 ....

T h e ir infectious faith in th e masses st ro n g ly impelle d the militants to g o to w o rk in a m o re d ir ec t an d m o re palpable m an n er , b o th w it h in d iv id u al m en an d in st re et o ra to ry . U n d er th e n ew le ad er sh ip th e sy st em o f ac ti v e offe nsive tr iu m p h ed , consisting o f p u b li c d em o n st ra ti q n s, im p ro v ed m ee ti n g s an d th e b o ld d is tr ib u ti o n o f tr ac ts an d leaf lets. Y ea rs w e n t b y in in d o m it ab le an d p at ie n t la b o u r. ''C o m ra d e K o b a h ad n ei th er h o m e n o r fa m il y ; h e li v ed an d th o u g h t exclusively fo r th e R ev o lu ti o n ," says V az ek . A n d h e n ev er missed an o p p o rt u n it y fo r a d em o n st ra ti o n . V az ek relates h o w , a t th e b u ri al o f th e ap p re n ti ce K h an la r, killed b y o rd er o f th e m an ag em en t o f th e fa ct o ry in w h ic h h e w o rk ed a t Baku, an o rc h es tr a p la y ed a fu n er al m ar ch in fr o n t o f tP.e mosque. T h e Chief o f Police forbade it to play. ''T h e n Comr;itde Koba o rg an iz ed tw o choirs am o n g th e w o rk er s, o n e ,.o f w h ic h m ar ch ed in fr o n t o f th e coffin, w h il e th e o th er m ar ch ed b eh in d it .' ' T h es e ch o ir s sa n g re v olutionary dirges in full v ie w an d h ea ri n g o f th e poijce . T h e p o li ce su cc ee d ed in silencing th em to o . T h e n Koba m ad e th e w o rk er s whis~e-long, n;iournful whistles. T h is fresh ch o ir sw el le d w it h o u t an y th in g b ei n g ab le to st op it an d th e m o u rn in g d em o n st ra ti o n became v er y impres sive. T h e re p o rt s w h ic h th e se cr et ag en ts o f thell. Okhra na made to th e M o st N o b le th e C h ie f o f P o li ce o f Tiflis o n ''a S o ci al -D em o cr at ic re v o lu ti o n ar y o rg an iz at io n w h ic h comes w it h in th e te rm s o f Article 2 50,'' declared th at this o rg an iz at io n consisted o f ''t h o se w h o ar e called th e W o rk ers' A d v an ce -G u ar d ,' ' and o f in te ll ec tu al s su ch as Iossip D ju g as h v il i. T h is la tt er , said o n e o f th es e re p o rt s, st ro v e ''t o re v iv e th e m o ra le o f dishear~ened w o rk er s, b y means o f ag it at io n an d th e dissemination o f illegal li te ra tu re ''; he ''r ec o m m en d ed th e u n io n o f all n at io n s, '' an d u rg ed th e

STALIN commo n people to mainta in a secret fund destined for ''the struggl e against Capitalism and Autocr acy.'' Elsewh ere, the Chief of the Baku section of the Okhrana inform ed His Honou r the Archbi shop of Detecti ves that ''the peasant lossip Djugas hvili'' was the leading spirit in a meetin g having as its object the foundin g of a secret printing-press. Elsewhere, again, an agent infarmed his revered superior that the self-styled Kaisom Nijeradze, who was at that moment in gaol, was none other than the peasan t Djugas hvili and that, in additio n, this individual had the effrontery ''not to recognize his guilt." Danilo.ff tells us of one of these interro gations , conduc ted by one of the chiefs of that police force which was charged, above all, as were then and are still all the police forces of the world- with one excepti on which proves the rule-to keep the people on the move with trunche ons. This satrap, ''clad in turquoise blue, a cigar in his moutl1 and diffusing an aroma of opopon ax, gave free rein to 11is talents as a psycho logist." This is what he said afterwa rds in his report on the person interro gated: ''Djuga shvili, Iossip Vissari onovitc h . . . stoutish . . . deep voice . . . small birthm ark on left ear ... shape of head normal . . . gives one the impression of an ordinary man." As one can

see, nothing escaped this keen observer. A complete report on Stalin: ''Small birthm ark on left ear!''

Chapter Tw o TH E GIA NT

So TH ER E was, somewhere in Russia (an d also travelling to an d fro fro m time to time in Eu ro pe ), a gre at guide, a giant bro the r of all the Revolutionaries an d we have alrea dy ca ug ht a glimpse of him. Le nin ha d to fight, no t on ly against the pu bli c authorities, bu t also against a large pro po rti on of the me n of his ow n Pa rty . He ins ist ed -an d this was his gre at co nc ep tio n an d his gre at wo rk, wh ich em braced ev ery thi ng else on an ou t-a nd -ou t Re vo lut ion ary Pa rty , pu re, sh arp ly de.fined an d homogeneous, unsusceptible of an y so rt of compromise. He used to say tha t this Pa rty could on ly fulfil its mission of ch an gin g the face of the wo rld on this express co nd itio n, an d tha t it was the first an d mo st im po rta nt question.. An d it is in this sense tha t he remodelled Socialism wit11in Socialism. W e have already seen tha t Stalin, ke pt inf orm ed of ho w matters we re progressing, by his comrades wh ils t he was in prison, identified himself co mp let ely wi th the position adopted by Le nin at the Se co nd Congress of the Party. At this assembly, Vl ad im ir Ili tch ha d do gg ed ly an d firmly em phasized the difference wh ich was appearing, fro m the tactical po int of view, be tw ee n the Mensheviks an d the Bolsheviks, an d he deliberately wi de ne d the bre ach be tw ee n the tw o ten de nc ies -w hic h was, on the pa rt of this lover of un ity , a ter rib ly grave step to take. Bu t his reasons for do ing so we re no less grave. Un ity be tw ee n tw o ten dencies wl1ich cliffer too mu ch fro m ea ch oth er can ne ve r 19

30

STAL IN

be more than appare nt and fictitious. It can only exist on paper. It is a misleading form of union. Stalin approv ed. Moreov er, this move was in accord ance with his own temperame nt and his own mental ity, and one might say that he had already chosen before choosing. There was never, at any time, any differen ce of opinion betwee n Lenin and Stalin. On the other hand, they both had bitter oppone nts in the Party itself, especia lly Trotsk y, an obstina te and verbose Menshevil{, who conside red that the inflexibility of the Bolsheviks afflicted the Party with sterility . Trotsk y conside red that Lenin broke up the workin g classes and divided them against themselves. Lenin, agitato r and world statesman, and almost superhuman in the infallib ility with which, in every circum stance, he was comple tely successful in combin ing revolutionary theory and practic e, never swerve d from l\tlarxism. Leninis m is synony mous with Marxism. It is a new chapte r in Marxism, it is not an amendm ent, an adaptat ion of Marxism to a given situatio n .. Stalin wrote: ''Lenin ism is the Marxism of the era of Imperialism and of the proleta rian Revolu tion.'' ''A laconic and clean-c ut definiti on," writes Manuil sky. Leninis m is the proper response of Marxis m to the times. Lenin never made any alterati ons in the great basic socialist creed as it was set out in the 1847 Manifesto. Lenin and Marx are two colossal concen tric personalities, moving in the compas s established by the older of the two. Lenin's creativ e genius applied itself to transfo rming socialist doctrin e into Revolu tion (and then into revolut ionary govern ment). All realist theory is supple, since it ad justs itself to life. But it is supple at its extrem ity, not at its founda tions; on the side of circumstances, not on that of princip les (which

T H E G IA N T

31

). es iti al re of s si he nt sy y ar in ag im an are, in de ed , or ig in al ly de r ei th d an , es pl ci in pr e es th of g in ld T he ri go ro us up ho e on as w n, io at ic if od m at pt m te at t es ht ig sl e fe nc e against th s. sk ta g in itt m re un d an g tin ac ex t os m 's in al St of ite sp in , m is ev sh ol B at th od to rs de un L et it be th or ou gh ly to us l pe m co t no es do e, rc fo e iv ss re of its in te ns e pr og n. tio lu so d ie dr d an t cu a , re he yw er ev d an ch oo se , al w ay s ng yi pl ap y b , ch hi w in s ce an st um rc ci n ai T he re ar e ce rt er ov l{ ris ld ou w e on , ss ce ex to ds ho su ch m ec ha ni ca l m et lts su re e th ng lli ri pe im d an es iv ct je re ac hi ng on e' s ob uol ev R of k or w e th ck ba g in tt se t, or sh ac hi ev ed an d, in ti on in st ea d of ad va nc in g it. d he is bl ta es epr l ua et rp pe a to on si is bm su no n: C on cl us io e, in tr oc D g. in th no ns ea m ' d' ea ah e rg fo Li be ra lis m . ''T o t us m it, y pl ap to ve ha ho w e os th of s nd w hi ch is in th e ha csu d an s, ce an st um rc ci ng gi an ch ly nt ta ns confor111 to co ad l ua in nt co of r te at m a e or ef er th is 1t e1 em cessful achiev ju st m en t and of co nt in ua l creation. ex l ca pi ty a ve gi l il w I r, re ea cl is th e In or de r to m ak n, io ex nn co e th of ss ne le pp su c ni ga or is th e at am pl e to ill us tr d an ry eo th st xi ar M n ee tw be e, er w it as ft ha this ca rd an -s it at th ea id e th y b ed ss se ob as w in M ar xi st pr ac tic e. L en in s er l{ or w e th to d lie al be to ts an as pe e w as essential fo r th n io ut ol ev R n ia ar et ol pr a at th r de or in , le th e social st ru gg us R e lik y tr un co al ur lt cu ri ag an to in f el its t m ig ht im pl an ts an as pe e th on d se es pr im d ha he 4, 89 1 in , gh sia; bu t al th ou an ri ra ag e th on m is al ci So of es iv ct je ob th e fu nd am en ta l e rg la of n io at liz na tio na d an n tio ca is nf pl an (n am el y, co ad he n he w is th as r fa so ly ar ne go t no es ta te s) , he di d ne ni e th of g in nn gi be e th at r, te la s ar ye x si , dressed th em n io ut ol ev R e th of ea id e th , al rv te in e th In y. te en th ce nt ur t an as pe e tl1 d an ) 05 19 in e ac pl ke ta to ha d m at ur ed (i t w as as m d an nd ou of pr a e ad m d ha in en pr ob le m , of w hi ch L

32

STALIN •

terly study, and in which the Social-Democrats took no interest (a major and unpardonable error, a vital 1nistake in policy, according to Lenin), became one of the greatest urgency so far as the co-operation or neutrality of 2 5,000,000 rural families in the revolutionary movement was concerned. In 1900, Lenin drew up a new agrarian programme in which he only took into account the fact that the Russian peasant class, very backward historically, and even backward when compared with the rest of Russia, was even more the victim of the feudal system than of the capitalist system; for the feudal system still pr~vailed in the country districts, in spite of the sinister farce of the abolition of serfdom (and was even strengtheneq by the ruinous and restrictive measures of that tdemagogic gesture of Alexander II). So Lenin's 1900 peasant programme confined itself to demanding the abolition of those feudal laws and customs under whjch the peasantry were still labouring the situation having become aggravated as a result of the feudal reaction under Alexander III and the restitution of all the s11ms extorted from the peasants who had been forced to buy their land at a scandalously inflated valuation~ So here Lenin, driven by immediate tactical necessity, employed immediate arguments capable of jmpressing the peasantry ast directly and as widely as pos~il}le, to obtain the maximum amount of combination and the maximum possibility of eventual co-operation between the peasants and the workers in the first act of the revolutibn3fY drama, namely the seizure of power. In those days he considered, so far as the rural districts were t;concemed, only the first act, and not the last which was the organization of the new society, which would be dealt with after.

33 So m uc h fo r Marxism. Th e wh ol e pr mc ip le of it is to lo ok fa r en ou gh ahead, to fo re se e an d to ac t in tirne, no t to lose sig ht of all th e various co nd iti on s wh ic h m ay arise an d wh ic h of te n seem to clash wi th on e an ot he r; in sh or t, to possess th at sense of essentials wh ic h enables a fa ct to be do mi na ted as if it we re a hu m an be in g, an d wh ic h is th e ch ar ac ter ist ic all th os e wh o cr ea te so me th in k ne w, wh et he r they be scientists, ar tis ts or people be nt up on alter in g th e str uc tu re of so cie ty . Th is ex am pl e of an im po na tit reserv;.ation to uc hi ng th e mo st im po rta nt re vo lu tio na ry ob jec tiv es , on th e eve of a ris in g wh ic h m ig ht only to o easily be co m e m er el y a middle-class re vo lu tio n, gives us an in sig ht in to th e ge ni us fo r in iti ati ve wh ic h on e m us t ha ve m er el y in or de r to be a ''d isc ip le of M ar x, '' lik e Le ni n, or a disciple of Le ni n, like Stalin. 1

of

Th e me eti ng be tw ee n Le ni n an d Stalin, in Stalin's ow n wo rd s: ''I first ma de Le ni n's ac qu ain tan ce in 1903. I di d no t m ee t hi m th en , bu t w e co rre sp on de d. I ha ve re tai ne d an un fo rg ett ab le m em or y of th at first ep ist ol ar y me eti ng . I wa s an exile in Siberia at ,the time. In· studying Le ni n's re vo lu tio na ry activities fro m th e en d of th e last ce nt ur y, an d pa rti cu lar ly af te r th e ap pe ar an ce of Iskra (T he Spark), in 1901, I ha d ar riv ed at th e co nv ict io n ,th at in Le ni n we possessed no or di na ry ma n. To m y inin