Stalin: A Biography

proclaimed and Revolution was going to spread across Russia and would soon break out in Europe.

The events of 25 October 1917 were historic by any standard. Acting through the Military-Revolutionary Committee of the Petrograd Soviet, Trotski and other Bolshevik leaders controlled the garrisons of the capital and directed troops loyal to them to seize post and telegraph offices, government buildings and the Winter Palace. In the night of the 24th– 25th Lenin returned to the Smolny Institute to resume command of the Central Committee. It was he who coaxed and ordered Bolsheviks to stick to the agreed purpose. Power had to be seized without delay. Across the capital the Military-Revolutionary Committee secured important buildings of administration and communications. Meanwhile hundreds of delegates had gathered for the opening of the Second Congress of Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies. At Lenin’s insistence the overthrow of the Provisional Government was brought forward. He sensed there might be trouble at the Congress if the seizure of power were not a fait accompli, and he continued to cajole his Central Committee comrades into action. The Provisional Government was no more. Although the Bolsheviks were not an absolute majority at the Congress, they were easily the largest party — and the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries were so annoyed by the night’s events that they walked out. Power fell comfortably into the hand of the Bolshevik party.

Stalin had no role visible to the public eye. He did not speak at the Congress. He did not direct the Military- Revolutionary Committee. He did not move around Petrograd. Much as he had enjoyed the politics of revolution in earlier months, he was little to be seen on that historic night. Characteristically he got on with his assignments and did not poke his nose into the business of others. Here is the testimony of Fedor Alliluev:²⁷

At the time of the October [seizure of power] comrade Stalin didn’t sleep for five days. Crushed by tiredness, he finally fell asleep while sitting in a chair behind his table. The enraptured Lunacharski tiptoed up to him as he slept and planted a kiss on his forehead. Comrade Stalin woke up and jovially laughed at A. V. Lunacharski for a long time.

Such joviality seems odd only if the later myths about him are believed. When he came back from Siberia, acquaintances had warned of the unpleasant features in his character, and these had been discussed at the April Party Conference. But he had gained a better reputation in following months. Not once did he come to notice for bad temper, insensitivity or egocentricity. If anything was held against him, it was that he was too supportive towards Lenin on the national question.

He had done his jobs — important party jobs — with diligence and efficiency. With Sverdlov he had run the Central Committee in July and August. He had edited the central party newspaper through to the seizure of power in October. Since April he had helped to bring about the pragmatic adjustment of party policy to popular demands. He felt at home in the environment of revolutionary Russia; and when he came back to the Alliluev flat he was greeted by admirers. He wrote, edited, discussed and planned with eagerness.

The composition of the new revolutionary authority reflected this. The Council of People’s Commissars — or Sovnarkom in its Russian acronymic form — was announced on 26 October. The title was a joint idea of Lenin and Trotski. Lenin was delighted: ‘That’s wonderful: it has the terrible smell of revolution!’²⁸ The Bolsheviks wanted to avoid associating themselves with ‘capitalist’ political culture with its cabinets, ministers and portfolios. There would not be a premier but a chairman. This would be Lenin. The People’s Commissar for External Affairs would be Trotski. Rykov, Shlyapnikov, Lunacharski, Milyutin and Nogin were other original members. Stalin too was on the list. His post was newly invented and had no precedent under Nicholas II or Kerenski. Stalin was to be People’s Commissar for Nationalities’ Affairs. Although his functions and powers were yet to be defined, the basic objective was to set up an institution with a view towards winning over the non-Russians in the former empire to the side of Sovnarkom. When Pravda resumed publication, Stalin was relieved of the editorship. His energies had to be reserved for the Central Committee, Sovnarkom and his own People’s Commissariat. Stalin’s position at the centre of revolutionary politics was confirmed.

Initially it had been Lenin’s hope to share posts with the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, who were impressed by the determination of the Bolsheviks to impose immediate agrarian reform benefiting the peasantry. But negotiations quickly stalled. Lenin was less eager to have a coalition with the Mensheviks and the other Socialist- Revolutionaries. But many in the Bolshevik Central Committee felt otherwise; indeed most Bolsheviks in Petrograd as well as in the provinces assumed that the overthrow of the Provisional Government had been made in the cause of establishing a revolutionary government uniting all socialist parties. For several days the Bolshevik Central Committee engaged in talks with them. Lenin and Trotski wanted them to break down; and when this duly occurred, several People’s Commissars indicated their disgust by resigning from Sovnarkom. These included Rykov, Milyutin and Nogin. All this occurred against a background of political and military emergency. The Menshevik-led railwaymen’s union threatened to strike until such time as a broad coalition was formed. Kerenski, having escaped from the Winter Palace, rallied a force of Cossacks and moved on Petrograd. In the provincial cities there was armed conflict as Bolsheviks seeking to support Sovnarkom confronted their adversaries.

The railwaymen failed to show the required determination, and Kerenski was defeated on the Pulkovo Heights. The collapse of the coalition talks, however much he himself had been to blame, gave Lenin the pretext to consolidate a purely Bolshevik central government. In November the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries recognised the practical situation and agreed to join Sovnarkom as the junior partner in a two-party coalition. Lenin came to see Stalin in an ever brighter light. Stalin never wavered. Lenin asked him to explain the official party line to Bolsheviks who had come to Petrograd for the Second Congress of Soviets.²⁹ He also got him to co-sign Sovnarkom decrees confirming the closure of newspapers hostile to the revolutionary government.³⁰ Stalin had resisted the calls to walk out of Sovnarkom when the Bolsheviks attained a monopoly of power. Such individuals were not legion in the Bolshevik Central Committee. Lenin needed all the available talent; and being keen to dominate Sovnarkom, he did not find it disadvantageous to have Stalin and others as a counterweight to the charismatic Trotski.

14. PEOPLE’S COMMISSAR

The decree announcing his appointment as People’s Commissar for Nationalities’ Affairs gave his surname as Dzughashvili-Stalin. The publicity gratified a man as yet unknown to most citizens. Lenin and Trotski were the outstanding figures in Sovnarkom and the Bolshevik Central Committee; Zinoviev, Kamenev, Bukharin and Lunacharski were also famous. Despite his newly achieved prominence, however, Stalin continued to work in the shadow of the other leaders. Fedor Alliluev, who was his first personal assistant, was to recall:¹

In those days comrade Stalin was genuinely known only to the small circle of people who had come across him in work in the political underground or had succeeded — after October [1917] — in distinguishing real work and real devotion to the cause from chatter, noise, meaningless babble and self-advertisement.

Stalin acknowledged that others had gained greater acclaim between the February and October Revolutions. He admitted he was not much of an orator. But he turned this into a scalpel to cut his rivals. In his estimation, he did not boast or show off but concentrated on practical deeds.² But Stalin liked to say such things about himself rather than hear them from other people, and Fedor’s writing was consigned to the archives unpublished.

Stalin needed his cunning. His institution not only lacked personnel: it did not even have finance or its own offices. Its staff had to work from rooms in the Smolny Institute for want of anything more spacious. Funds remained short because all the bank workers were on strike. Stalin sent his deputy Stanislaw Pestkowski to plead for a subvention from Trotski, who had got hold of the banknotes from the main safe at the former Ministry of Foreign Affairs. When Stalin and Pestkowski at last sequestered a suitable building, they pinned a crude notice on the wall to claim it for the People’s Commissariat of Nationalities’ Affairs.³

Things were no better after the Soviet government transferred itself to Moscow in March 1918 in order to move out of the range of Germany’s immediate military menace. Offices were assigned to the People’s Commissariat in two separate buildings on different streets despite Stalin’s protest. He resorted to the desperate measure of commandeering the Great Siberian Hotel on Zlatoustinskaya Street. But the Supreme Council of the