To the release of volume 16 of the edition “ Stalin Works "

(Needs editing from Russian)

Author: Sergey Rychenkov

To the release of volume 16 of the edition “ Stalin Works "

The study and systematization of thousands of archival documents in the process of preparing for the publication of Stalinist texts allows filling the milestones in the biography of I.V. Stalin and key stages in the history of socialism in Russia. This work began in the 30-40s within the walls of the Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute, but its results were not destined to be embodied in scientific works and become the property of the general public. In addition to objective obstacles (first of all, the inability to publish many of the state, diplomatic, military documents), there were also subjective obstacles: the author's indifference to such works and the apparatus and bureaucratic motives of the persons on whom the work of researchers depended not least.

Nowadays, these barriers do not exist. But there is no Soviet Union either. And the need for large-scale documentary coverage of the activities of I.V. Stalin only grew up. Studying the transcripts of meetings, rough notes, draft decisions, manuscripts, resolutions, you discover, to put it mildly, a figure far from being fully studied - thinking, seeking, fighting, indignant. And at the same time - a lot of questions. The search for answers leads to new findings and new questions, revealing the complexity of the era and the depth of personality. And this complexity and depth is in no way combined with a dry, static, abstract scheme devoid of living features, given once and for all, ideal for creating an idol... And it doesn't matter - white or black. Both then and now, the cultivation of the idol made it possible to associate responsibility for everything in the world with one sonorous name, unattainable in the imaginary unearthly omnipotence. And to create a new religion, whether it be the infallibility of the party or the inhumanity of communism - whoever benefits from it.

In the Stalinist fund of the Russian State Archive of Social and Political History, many documents of the early 1920s that have not yet been published have been deposited. Meanwhile, the year 1920 became a landmark for both the country and the future secretary general. On the shrinking and dying fronts of the Civil War, the defeat of internal and external enemies ended, demonstrating the naturalness and inviolability of Soviet power. Which was not prevented either by the disaster near Warsaw, or by the completely undermined national economy. But having managed to mobilize at a time when there was a question of life and death, it was necessary to prepare to live and build for centuries. And this required a redrawing of all work - ideological, national, economic, and personnel. Returning from the front, Stalin plunges headlong into the abyss of problems requiring urgent solutions.

The involvement of whole complexes of archival sources makes it possible to analyze in dynamics the style and qualities of Stalin as a politician and leader, to explore the process of accumulating experience and mastering new skills . And in his texts and speeches there are obvious references to this. Here are some typical examples of frontline work.

"I would like to point out an experience that cannot be passed over in silence"

Speaking at the IV conference of the CP (b) U in March 1920 with a report on the immediate tasks of economic development, Stalin drew an unexpected parallel: “ I find that it is necessary to introduce, instead of military courses, economic higher, middle and lower; if we tried to create our own non-commissioned officers, who at the same time beat the enemy and built an army, now we will have to nominate our non-commissioned officers from the workers from the bottom up, who will teach and kill devastation, and build a new economy " [1 ] .

Here the Stalinist view of the construction of the Red Army (taking into account the “sore” topic of military experts) and the modernization of the social structure of society were combined. Later, he would return more than once or twice to the strategic stake on the education of representatives of the working classes to fully replace the representatives of the possessing classes in all places.

In November 1923, at a meeting of the Military Scientific Society, speaking among the first cavalrymen (Stalin was the initiator and direct participant in the creation of the First Cavalry, this is documented), he described the role of cavalry on the fronts of the Civil War and innovative methods of its use as Red. In contrast to the White Guard cavalry, ours was "a riding artillery and a riding machine-gun team", which the Whites "subsequently began to teach their cavalry leaders like Mamontov, Pokrovsky and others." At the same time, without infantry support, the cavalry unleashed to be drawn into an unusual positional battle. “There are cases, ” Stalin said, - when the cavalry attacks the enemy, breaks him, then the enemy receives help, the cavalry needs to withdraw, and there is nothing to cover it, here it is necessary to have infantry as an auxiliary unit . " In addition, the war gave rise to new types of weapons, among them - aviation. “ I would like, comrades, to conclude my speech and point to one experience that cannot be ignored. I mean the experience that we were able to gain in battles with the whites, who had many airplanes, with which they were catching up on terror. " Relying on air support "it would be possible to carry out reconnaissance", to keep "communication between the advanced ranks and the headquarters of the cavalry", to be "able to deliver strong blows to the enemy, ... to gather our cavalry into a fist, driving off enemy airplanes" [2] .

So, the use of the speed of the cavalry for maneuvering fire on the battlefield and the close interconnection of all types and types of weapons both in the offensive and in defense. Obviously, the operational thinking noted by Stalin two decades later by Zhukov and Vasilevsky did not arise from scratch.

In July 1924, during the discussion at the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee of the principle of one-man command in the Red Army, Stalin firsthand described typical situations of command leadership: “ Dual power in the army must not be allowed. Yes, it never happened in practice. The matter usually boiled down to the fact that either the commander subjugated the commissar, thereby carrying out autocracy, or the commissar subordinated the commander, becoming himself in fact an autocratic commander. Where this did not happen, we had a chronic splinter and paralysis in the command . "

The question arises: to which of the two categories does Stalin classify his own "commissarism"? The answer is right there: “ If Com. Belov speaks so calmly about the commissar, it is, apparently, because he subdued the commissar, or God helped him, giving him a good commissar, tactful, intelligent, experienced, with whom it is easy to work ” [3] . As you know, the principle of one-man command was introduced in the Red Army in March 1925.

Stalin turned to the operational principles of planning and conducting hostilities when preparing a brochure on the strategy and tactics of the Bolsheviks in the summer of 1921. The results of these developments have been embodied in a number of articles and speeches. For the first time it will be possible to get acquainted with these Stalinist materials in the forthcoming volume 17 of the edition “Stalin. Proceedings ".

"Comrade. Trotsky does not know the party "

But that was already the past. It became real for Stalin to participate in the conceived and carried out by V.I. Lenin radical reform of the party apparatus. A careful study of the documents of 1921-22 shows that the creation of the Secretariat of the Central Committee and the appointment of Stalin to the post of general secretary of the party was carried out not simply with the consent of Vladimir Ilyich, but was actually done by himself, consistently and purposefully. In August 1922, Amayak Nazaretyan, who worked under the direct Stalinist leadership, wrote to Sergo Ordzhonikidze: “Koba trains me well. I am going through a large, but boring school ... Ilyich has in him, of course, the most reliable Cerberus, fearlessly standing guard at the gates of the Central Committee of the RCP. Now the work of the Central Committee has significantly changed. What we found here is indescribably bad. And what were our views on the Central Committee apparatus at our local level? Now everything has been shaken up. You will come in autumn, you will see ... "

Why Lenin's choice fell on Stalin today is anyone's guess. Their business and personal relationships, reflected in the preserved documents, hardly give a complete picture of this, too much has been left behind the scenes. But proceeding from the tasks of establishing a rigid order in the party apparatus and creating an unconditional ideological and organizational center of gravity in the Central Committee and Politburo around Lenin's plan for building socialism, Lenin hit the bull's eye. Correspondence with regional committees, regional bureaus and national Central Committees of 1921 shows how sloppy and sometimes irresponsible affairs were conducted on the whole, starting with confusion in working with secret documents and ending with direct disregard by local workers of the Central Committee's instructions on recalling and new appointments. In a number of republican Central Committees and regional bureaus, a national deviation was raised.

Stalin's new responsible position demanded from him not only efficiency, endurance and tact. These qualities, multiplied by the authority of the Central Committee, would have been enough for a leader with less acumen when communicating with party committees. Meanwhile, the key problem emerged in the Center and consisted in the oppositional Leninist views on the future of the party and the RSFSR.

The source of such opposition was L.D. Trotsky, who incessantly criticized both Lenin's concepts and the ways of their implementation. At the same time, Lev Davydovich himself, exploiting the authority gained since 1917, on the one hand, claimed a second (at least) role in the party and the state, on the other, he diligently avoided immersion in practical economic activity. The tactics chosen by Stalin is to ensure the equality of all figures before the law in the face of the procedure, i.e. compliance with the procedure for discussing and raising questions in the Central Committee and the Politburo and the obligatory nature of voted decisions, gave the expected effect. Such equality, with an obvious preponderance of forces in favor of Ilyich, systematically left the Trotskyists in the overwhelming minority and deprived this trend of any prospects in the struggle for influence in the party.

Lenin found the success of this tactic while still “in the ranks,” there is no reason to speak of any “Stalinist arbitrariness,” etc. In general, the disagreements between Lenin and Stalin, diligently pushed out by certain forces, turned into a kind of bogey, are not just exaggerated, but downright exaggerated. This is especially noticeable if the same disputes around the monopoly of foreign trade and the principles of unification of the republics are viewed in the context of dozens of other, no less fundamental topics on which these two were quite unanimous in their daily exchange of views. The same could not be said about Trotsky, whose opinions and actions had long caused Ilyich's undisguised irritation.

Could Stalin not do it? Probably he could, like any person. His predecessor, V.M. Molotov, also a supporter of Lenin, simply lacked the political weight and toughness in making decisions. Trotsky was not a very simple opponent; now everything looks smooth. However, in the end, the endurance was not enough for him. Stalin, on the other hand, demonstrated exemplary impartiality and indestructible logic, acting strictly on the basis of the charter and decisions made and constantly appealing to the party masses.... His speeches in open polemics with the Trotskyists of that time evoke associations with the speeches of brilliant jurists, who over and over again leave no stone unturned from their opponents, only the party acts as a judge here. And over and over again to the public invitation to Stalin's opponents to refute his words, to defend their case, to explain his next turn 180 on dispassionate transcript of record silence in the hall, that is surrender. (Unfortunately, many of Stalin's speeches of the early 1920s, primarily at the plenums of the Central Committee, have not yet been published. They will certainly be included in the next volumes of Stalin. Trudy.)

If this invulnerability pushed the expansive critics of the Leninist line to take non-party steps that directly violated not only the party procedure, but also party ethics (instead of the difficult, daily, systematic work to defend and promote his ideas in the party), what has Stalin got to do with it?

"A practitioner should definitely study theory as well"

This is a phrase from Stalin's unpublished letter to Demyan Bedny on August 27, 1924. The attitude towards Stalin theorist is now more than restrained. Even in the left milieu, it is customary to qualify his theoretical contribution as just as decorative as it is an empty attribute of a cult, incomparable in quality with Lenin's heritage. It seems that only practitioners will be able to give it a real assessment, because theory for the sake of theory, beyond its verification by real experience, has no chance to go beyond the framework of speculative exercises. In the end, the strength of Marx's teaching was proved precisely by evidence-based practice that outweighed a century ago and still outweighs the megatons of its "convincing" overthrowing.

Stalin's turn to theory was caused precisely by practice and stemmed from the entire Bolshevik tradition, since Marxism for Lenin and his associates was not a beautiful wrapper for personal aspirations, but a guide to solving the global task of liberating workers. And if a revolutionary cannot explain the goal and how to achieve it in the most unprepared working class audience, something is wrong here. It is funny to read from the opponents of the Bolsheviks about the "rally infection" and "swindling" by Leninists of "simpletons". We know firsthand about cheating, watching zombies. And the crushing defeat of the anti-Soviet forces in 1917 speaks in favor of the content of Lenin's slogans that were in the real interests of the people. The loser, of course, can only make excuses. However, we are deviating from the topic.

If in 1920 and 1921 Stalin did not go beyond the analysis of the historical experience of the strategy and tactics of the Bolsheviks in attempts to generalize, then Lenin's sudden withdrawal from business and the need to defend his concept at the highest level compel Stalin to take theory seriously. Unlike Trotsky, Stalin clearly distinguished the scale of Lenin's figure and the level of his followers. “ What does Preobrazhensky want to say by this? - asks Stalin from the rostrum of the XIII Party Conference a few hours before Lenin's death. -That Ilyich is superior to his students? But does anyone doubt this? Does anyone have any doubt that Ilyich looks like Goliath in comparison with his students? If we are talking about the leader of the party, not about the newspaper leader with a bunch of greetings, but about the real leader, then we have one leader - Comrade Lenin. That is why we have said more than once that under the present conditions of the temporary absence of Comrade. Lenin - you need to keep a course for the college . " 

" Lenin was able to prevent any kink sticks and any inaccuracy, - Stalin wrote six months later, in the above-mentioned letter to Demyan, - for he had the opportunity, if necessary, with a gesture to rectify any and all excesses as unquestioned authority ... Now that we have Lenin, from we need exceptional accuracy of slogans and directives ” [4] .

Defending the Leninist course on the key role of the alliance of the working class with the peasantry, defining the exact relationship between the party, the working class and Soviet power and the principles of resolving national problems in a single multinational proletarian state, Stalin, in his characteristic manner, carefully develops the foundations of the guiding theory - Leninism . Following the Leninist tradition, he formulates basic provisions in speeches on practical issues, feeling for a scientific basis, devoid of subjectivity and voluntarism, for decisions made here and now. The number of performances is growing from month to month, this side of his activity is becoming more and more intense. What is this, an attempt to make up for Lenin's absence? Far from it, Stalin constantly emphasizes the irreplaceability of this loss. But in the partythere is no other way to explain, prove, popularize the principles that should eventually become a party policy, a work plan, the basis of ideological unity. And the "opposition" is losing here on all counts.

* * *

In the most interesting period of the early 1920s, as a result of colossal daily leadership practice and work on himself, Stalin became a statesman and political figure of a new scale. An attempt to independently consider him as a reorganizer of the party apparatus, as a theoretician, as an architect of the USSR, as a specialist in national and international issues, as a fighter for the unity of the party is not historical, because we are talking about the interrelated aspects of a single activity and a single personality... The mechanical isolation of this or that thematic section from the general picture deprives the phenomenon of context, opens up opportunities for thinking out and arbitrary interpretations. How many of them have already been, voluntary and involuntary! (A striking example of this is an even more vulgar concept that subordinates all Stalinist actions to the "struggle for power"). As part of the publication of Stalinist texts, it becomes possible to study the issue on the basis of a consolidated documentary complex, a unique chance arises to identify unrevealed organic ties that permeate various aspects of Stalinist activity, isolate its key attitudes, analyze the successes and failures in the formation of the world's first state of workers and peasants ...

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