Another view of Stalin (31 page)

Stalin, Report and Speech in Reply to Debate at the Plenum of the Central Committee of the C.P.S.U., p. 241.

From these remarks, Stalin drew two conclusions.

First, political credulity and naпvetй had to be eliminated and revolutionary vigilance had to be reinforced. The remnants of the defeated exploiting classes would resort to sharper forms of class struggle and would clutch at the most desperate forms of struggle as the last resort of the doomed.

 .

Ibid. , p. 264.

In 1956, in his Secret Report, Khrushchev  referred to this passage. He claimed that Stalin justified `mass terror' by putting forth the formulation that `as we march forward toward socialism class war must ... sharpen'.

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Khrushchev,  op. cit. , p. S24.

This is a patent falsehood. The most `intense' class struggle was the generalized civil war that drew great masses against each other, as in 1918--1920. Stalin talked about the remnants of the old classes that, in a desperate situation, would resort to the sharpest forms of struggle: attacks, assassinations, sabotage.

Stalin's second conclusion was that to reinforce vigilance, the political education of Party cadres had to be improved. He proposed a political education system of four to eight months for all cadres, from cell leaders all the way to the highest leaders.

Stalin's first report, presented on March 3, focused on the ideological struggle so that members of the Central Committee could take note of the gravity of the situation and understand the scope of subversive work that had taken place within the Party. His speech on March 5 focused on other forms of deviation, particularly leftism and bureaucracy.

Stalin began by explicitly warning against the tendency to arbitrarily extend the purge and repression.

`Does that mean that we must strike at and uproot, not only real Trotskyites,  but also those who at some time or other wavered in the direction of Trotskyism  and then, long ago, abandoned Trotskyism;  not only those who, at some time or other, had occasion to walk down a street through which some Trotskyite  had passed? At all events, such voices were heard at this Plenum .... You cannot measure everyone with the same yardstick. Such a wholesale approach can only hinder the fight against the real Trotskyite  wreckers and spies.'

 .

Stalin, op. cit. , p. 278.

In preparation for the war, the Party certainly had to be purged of infiltrated enemies; nevertheless, Stalin warned against an arbitrary extension of the purge, which would harm the struggle against the real enemies.

The Party was not just menaced by the subversive work of infiltrated enemies, but also by serious deviations by cadres, in particular the tendency to form closed cliques of friends and to cut oneself off from militants and from the masses through bureaucratic methods.

First, Stalin attacked the `family atmosphere', in which `there can be no place for criticism of defects in the work, or for self-criticism by leaders of the work'.

 .

Ibid. , p. 280.

`Most often, workers are not chosen for objective reasons, but for causal, subjective, philistine, petty-bourgeois reasons. Most often, so-called acquaintances, friends, fellow-townsmen, personally devoted people, masters in the art of praising their chiefs are chosen.'

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Ibid. , pp. 279--280.

Finally, Stalin criticized bureaucracy, which, on certain questions, was `positively unprecedented'.

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Ibid. , p. 296.

During investigations, many ordinary workers were excluded from the Party for `passivity'. Most of these expulsions were not justified and should have been annuled a long time ago. Yet, many leaders held a bureaucratic attitude towards these unjustly expelled Communists.

 .

Ibid. , p. 294.

`(S)ome of our Party leaders suffer from a lack of concern for people, for members of the Party, for workers .... because they have no individual approach in appraising Party members and Party workers they usually act in a haphazard way .... only those who are in fact profoundly anti-Party can have such an approach to members of the Party.'

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Ibid. , pp. 292--293.

Bureucracy also prevented Party leaders from learning from the masses. Nevertheless, to correctly lead the Party and the country, Communist leaders had to base themselves on the experiences of the masses.

Finally, bureaucracy made the control of leaders by Party masses impossible. Leaders had to report on their work at conferences and listen to criticisms from their base. During elections, several candidates had to be presented and, after a discussion of each, the vote should take place with a secret ballot.

 .

Ibid. , pp. 282--283.

The Riutin affair

During 1928--1930, Bukharin  was bitterly criticized for his social-democratic ideas, particularly for his opposition to the collectivization, his policy of `social peace' with the kulaks and his attempt to slow down the industrialization efforts.

Pushing even further than Bukharin,  Mikhail Riutin  formed an openly counter-revolutionary group in 1931--1932. Riutin,  a former substitute member of the Central Committee, was Party Secretary for a Moscow district until 1932. He was surrounded by several well-known young Bukharinists,  including Slepkov,  Maretsky  and Petrovsky. 

 .

Stephen F. Cohen.  Bukharin  and the Bolshevik Revolution: A Political Biography, 1888--1938 (New York: Vintage Books, 1975), p. 343.

In 1931, Riutin  wrote up a 200-page document, a real program for the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie. Here are a few passages:

`Already in 1924--1925, Stalin was planning to organize his `Eighteenth Brumaire'. Just as Louis Bonaparte  swore in front of the house his faithfulness to the constitution, while at the same time preparing his proclamation as emperor .... Stalin was preparing his `bloodless' Eighteenth Brumaire by amputating one group after another .... Those who do not know how to think in a Marxist  manner think that the elimination of Stalin would at the same time mean the reversal of Soviet power .... The dictatorship of the proletariat will inevitably perish because of Stalin and his clique. By eliminating Stalin, we will have many chances to save it.

`What should be done?

`The Party.

`1. Liquidate the dictatorship by Stalin and his clique.

`2. Replace the entire leadership of the Party apparatus.

`3. Immediately convoke an extraordinary congress of the Party.

`The Soviets.

`1. New elections excluding nomination.

`2. Replacing the judicial machine and introduction of a rigorous legality.

`3. Replacement and purge of the Ogpu apparatus.

`Agriculture.

`1. Dissolution of all kolkhozes created by force.

`2. Liquidation of all unprofitable sovkhozes.

`3. Immediate halt to the pillage of the peasants.

`4. Rules allowing the exploitation of land by private owners and the return of land to these owners for an extended period.'

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Nouvelles de Moscou 21, 27 May 1990.

Riutin's  `communist' program in no way differed from that of the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie: liquidate the Party leadership, dismantle the state security apparatus and re-establish private farms and the kulaks. All counter-revolutionaries, from Khrushchev  to Gorbachev  and Yeltsin,  would adhere to this program. But in 1931, Riutin,  like Trotsky,  was forced to hide this program in `leftist' rhetoric: he wanted the restoration of capitalism, you see, to save the dictatorship of the proletariat and to stop the counter-revolution, i.e. the `Eighteenth Brumaire' or the `Thermidor'.

During his 1938 trial, Bukharin  stated that the young Bukharinists,  with the accord and initiative of Slepkov,  organized a conference at the end of the summer of 1932 in which Riutin's  platform was approved.

`I fully agreed with this platform and I bear full responsibility for it.'

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People's Commissariat of Justice of the U.S.S.R. Report of Court Proceedings in the Case of the Anti-Soviet ``Bloc of Rights and Trotskyites''  (Moscow, 1938), p. 390.

Bukharin's revisionism

Starting from 1931, Bukharin  played a leading rфle in the Party work among intellectuals. He had great influence in the Soviet scientific community and in the Academy of Sciences.

 .

Cohen,  op. cit. , p. 352.

As the chief editor of the government newspaper Isvestiia, Bukharin  was able to promote his political and ideological line.

 .

Ibid. , p. 355.

At the Inaugural Congress of Soviet Writers in 1934, Bukharin  praised at length the `defiantly apolitical' Boris Pasternak. 

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Ibid. , p. 356.

Bukharin  remained the idol of the rich peasants and also became the standard bearer for the technocrats. Stephen F. Cohen,  author of the biography Bukharin  and the Bolshevik Revolution, claimed that Bukharin  supported Stalin's leadership to better struggle against it:

`It was evident to Bukharin  that the party and the country were entering a new period of uncertainty but also of possible changes in Soviet domestic and foreign policy. To participate in and influence these events, he, too, had to adhere to the facade of unanimity and uncritical acceptance of Stalin's past leadership behind which the muted struggle over the country's future course was to be waged.'

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Ibid. , p. 354.

In 1934--1936, Bukharin  often wrote about the fascist danger and about the inevitable war with Nazism. Speaking of measures that had to be taken to prepare the country for a future war, Bukharin  defined a program that brought his old right-opportunist and social-democratic ideas up-to-date. He said that the `enormous discontent among the population', primarily among the peasantry, had to be eliminated. Here was the new version of his old call for reconciliaton with the kulaks --- the only really `discontent' class in the countryside, during those years. To attack the collectivization experience, Bukharin  developed propaganda around the theme of `socialist humanism', where the `criterion is the freedom of maximal development of the maximum number of people'.

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Ibid. , p. 362.

In the name of `humanism', Bukharin  preached class conciliation and `freedom of maximal development' for old and new bourgeois elements. To fight fascism, `democratic reforms' had to be introduced to offer a `prosperous life' to the masses. At this time, the country was being menaced by the Nazis and, given the necessity of great sacrifices to prepare resistance, the promise of a `prosperous life' was sheer demagoguery. Nevertheless, in this relatively underdeveloped country, the technocrats and the bureaucrats wanted `democracy' for their nascent bourgeois tendency and a `prosperous life' at the expense of the working masses. Bukharin  was their spokesperson.

The basis of the Bukharinist  program was halting the class struggle, ending political vigilance against anti-socialist forces, demagogically promising an immediate improvement in the standard of living, and democracy for opportunist and social-democratic tendencies.

Cohen,  a militant anti-Communist, is not mistaken when he calls this program a precursor of Khrushchev's. 

 .

Ibid. , pp. 361, 363.

Bukharin and the enemies of Bolshevism

Bukharin  was sent to Paris to meet the Menshevik Nikolayevsky,  who had some manuscripts of Marx  and Engels.  The Soviet Union wanted to buy them. Nikolayevsky  reported on his discussions with Bukharin. 

`Bukharin  seemed to be longing for calm, far from the fatigue imposed on him by his life in Moscow. He was tired'.

 .

Yannick Blanc  and David Kaisergruber,  L'affaire Boukharine  ou Le recours de la mйmoire (Paris: Franзois Maspйro, 1979), p. 64.

`Bukharin  let me know indirectly that he had acquired a great pessimism in Central Asia and had lost the will to live. However, he did not want to commit suicide'.

 .

Ibid. , p. 79.

The Menshevik Nikolayevsky  continued: `I knew the Party order preventing Communists from talking to non-members about relationships within the Party, so I did not broach the subject. However, we did have several conversations about the internal situation in the Party. Bukharin  wanted to talk'.

 .

Ibid. , p. 65.

Bukharin  the `old Bolshevik' had violated the most elementary rules of a Communist party, faced with a political enemy.

`Fanny Yezerskaya  ... tried to persuade him to stay abroad. She told him that it was necessary to form an opposition newspaper abroad, a newspaper that would be truly informed about what was happening in Russia and that could have great influence. She claimed that Bukharin  was the only one with the right qualifications. But she gave me Bukharin's  answer, ``I don't think that I could live without Russia. We are all used to what is going on and to the tension that reigns.'' '