Stalin: A Biography

matters such as helping to lead the Central Committee, edit Pravda and plan the manoeuvres of the Bolsheviks in Petrograd. The unpleasantness of his reception by the Russian Bureau in March was far behind him; he was solidly established in the central party leadership. He worked madly. His jobs in the Central Committee and at Pravda involved so much writing with pen or pencil that calluses appeared on the fingers of his right hand.³⁰ With the work came authority. Lenin and Zinoviev were fugitives. Trotski, Kamenev and Kollontai were in prison. The party leadership fell into the hands of Stalin and Sverdlov since they were the only members of the inner core of the Central Committee who were still at liberty. Such a situation would have disconcerted many. But Stalin and Sverdlov overbrimmed with confidence as they sought to repair the damage caused to the party by the July Days — and Stalin relished the chance to show that he had political skills which few in the party had as yet detected in him.

By the start of the clandestine Sixth Party Congress in late July there was no doubt about Stalin’s eminence among Bolsheviks. He was chosen by the Central Committee to give its official report as well as another ‘on the political situation’. Frissons of past mutual hostility no longer bothered Stalin and Sverdlov. As Central Committee Secretary, Sverdlov did not represent a proper rival to Stalin. Indeed Sverdlov was an administrator par excellence and although could also be called upon to give rousing speeches in his booming bass voice, he had no aspirations to an independent political persona: he left it to others to think up policies. This was a partner after Stalin’s own heart as he sought the limelight in the Bolshevik party.

The July Days in Petrograd had had a damaging impact on the party in the provinces, and delegates from the provinces grumbled that the Central Committee had mishandled affairs in the capital and overlooked the needs of the rest of the party. Stalin stood up undaunted. The criticism, he noted:

comes down to the comments that the Central Committee kept no contact with the provinces and concentrated its activity in Petrograd. The charge of isolation from the provinces is not without foundation. But there was no chance of covering the entire provincial network. The charge that the Central Committee really turned into a Petersburg Committee has partial validity. That’s how it was. But it was here in Petrograd that Russia’s politics were swirling.

Having dealt with the objections, he insisted that the Congress should focus on future strategy. At present the soviets remained under the control of the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, and Lenin — still hiding in Finland — wanted to drop the slogan of ‘All Power to the Soviets!’ Stalin quietly resisted this move. He understood that if the party was going to gain popularity it needed to project itself as the eager agent of the ‘mass organisations’.

Stalin also made a notable contribution to the debate ‘on the political situation’. Yevgeni Preobrazhenski, a promising young delegate (who was to join the Central Committee in 1919), wanted a greater emphasis on the need for revolutions elsewhere in Europe. Stalin disagreed:³¹

The possibility is not excluded that Russia may prove to be the very country that paves the way to socialism. Until now not a single country enjoys such freedom as Russia and has tried to establish workers’ control of production. Moreover, the base of our revolution is wider than in Western Europe where the proletariat directly confront the bourgeoisie in complete isolation. Here the workers are supported by the poorest strata of the peasantry. Finally, the apparatus of state power in Germany functions incomparably better than the imperfect apparatus of our bourgeoisie which is a dependency of European capital. We must reject the outmoded idea that only Europe can show us the way. There is dogmatic Marxism and there is creative Marxism. I stand on the ground of the latter.

This statement acquired significance several years later when Stalin, by then the Party General Secretary, demanded that the focus of party policies should be directed at constructing ‘socialism in a single country’.³²

Politics were changing fast outside the Bolshevik party. Alexander Kerenski, who became premier after the July Days, sought to restore political order. He held a State Conference to rally support from parties and other public organisations. Among those who were well received at the State Conference in right-wing political circles was Kerenski’s Commander-in-Chief Lavr Kornilov. Kerenski and Kornilov hatched a plan to transfer frontline units to Petrograd (where the troops in the garrisons were notoriously unreliable). At the last moment, on 28 August, Kerenski unjustifiably suspected Kornilov of plotting a coup d’etat. Kornilov was ordered to keep his forces at the front. This convinced Kornilov that Kerenski was no longer fit to govern the country at war, and he decided to overthrow him. Panic ensued in Petrograd. Kerenski’s military resources were weak and he relied on socialist agitators to meet the trains and dissuade the troops from obeying Kornilov. Among the much-needed agitators were Bolsheviks as well as Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries. Kornilov was arrested. Kerenski survived, but already his days looked numbered.

And Bolshevism grew again as an open political force. Yet it did not do this any longer under the dual leadership of Stalin and Sverdlov. On 30 August the Central Committee considered a confidential request from Zinoviev to return to work. There were risks in this. Not only might Zinoviev be arrested but also his restoration to the Central Committee might provoke a renewed attack on the party by the authorities. Zinoviev was told that the Central Committee was ‘making every effort for him to be as close as possible to party and newspaper work’.³³ This did not put off Zinoviev, and he attended the meeting of the Central Committee the very next day.³⁴ The Central Committee recognised it needed a revolutionary leader of his talent. The same was true of Trotski even if many Bolsheviks continued to regard him with hostility. Released from prison, he was itching to have a public impact. On 6 September the Central Committee made fresh dispositions of personnel. The Pravda editorial board, previously led by Stalin, was expanded to include Trotski, Kamenev, Sokolnikov and a Petersburg Committee representative. Trotski was also assigned to help edit Prosveshchenie and to join the Central Executive Committee of the Congress of Soviets. Although Stalin too was assigned to the Central Executive Committee, his deficiencies as an orator meant that Trotski would be the party’s leading figure on it.³⁵

Stalin’s weeks in the political sun were over. The next task for the Central Committee was to organise the Bolsheviks for the Democratic Conference convoked by Alexander Kerenski. This was set to occur in the Alexandrinski Theatre on 14 September and Kamenev was selected as the main Bolshevik speaker. Stalin joined Trotski, Kamenev, Milyutin and Rykov on the commission which drew up the party’s declaration.³⁶ The Democratic State Conference brought together the socialist parties from across the former empire. Among Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries there was rising discontent about the Provisional Government’s incapacity to alleviate social distress and refusal to intensify reform. Alexander Kerenski was becoming almost as much their bete noire as he already was for the Bolsheviks. The Central Committee’s strategy was to persuade delegates to the Democratic State Conference that Kerenski needed to be replaced by a socialist government. The Mensheviks and the Socialist-Revolutionaries remained in charge of most soviets in urban Russia even though both the Petrograd Soviet and Moscow Soviet had fallen into the hands of the Bolsheviks. The declaration therefore called on all socialists, including Bolsheviks, to unite their forces in pursuit of common objectives. This was agreed on the assumption that it was in line with the strategic compromise accepted by Lenin in Finland.

The specific demands of the Bolsheviks were comprehensive, and these would inevitably lead to disputes with the Mensheviks and the Socialist-Revolutionaries. While aiming to set up an all-socialist administration, the Bolshevik Central Committee insisted that the policies should be radical. The landed gentry needed to be expropriated. Workers’ control should be introduced and large-scale industry nationalised. A ‘universal democratic peace’ should be offered to the peoples of the world. National self-determination had to be proclaimed. A system of comprehensive social insurance should be established.³⁷

What the Central Committee had not bargained for was that Lenin had ceased to believe — if ever he had believed — in the possibility of peaceful revolutionary development. On 15 September the Central Committee discussed a letter from him demanding the start of preparations for armed insurrection.³⁸ He said nothing about an all-socialist coalition. The thing for him was to overthrow Kerenski and set up a revolutionary administration. His frustrations in hiding were poured into writing. Articles flowed from his pen in Helsinki, each stipulating that the Bolshevik caucus should make no compromise at the Democratic State Conference: the time for