Stalin полностью

On November 7, as elite units of the Red Army massed near Red Square, dignitaries assembled on the reviewing stand. To the right of the Mausoleum stood the foreign diplomatic corps, in fur hats and fur-lined coats; to the left, Soviet high officialdom; on the Mausoleum itself, at the last minute, Stalin emerged, accompanied by the retinue. When the Savior’s Tower chimes struck 10:00 a.m., Voroshilov, on a white horse, rode to the assembled troops and administered the oath of allegiance to each unit in turn. The formations, as they passed, turned sharply rightward toward the Mausoleum in unison. “It was extremely moving, regardless of where one stood politically,” remarked an American observer. “I had heard the most cynical diplomats admit that this was ‘stark drama.’”²⁰²

That night, in the privacy of Voroshilov’s Kremlin apartment, two dozen or so regime intimates gathered, as per custom. Some thirty-odd toasts had already been pronounced by the time Stalin rose, and he rambled at length. “The Russian tsars did a great deal that was bad,” he began his toast. “They robbed and enslaved the people. They waged wars and seized territories in the interests of landowners. But they did one thing that was good: they amassed an enormous state, all the way to Kamchatka. We have inherited that state.” Here was an awesome responsibility—and an evidently inebriated Stalin added a warning. “Whoever attempts to destroy that unity of the socialist state, whoever seeks the separation of any of its parts or nationalities—that man is an enemy. . . . And we will destroy each and every such enemy; even if he was an old Bolshevik, we shall destroy all his kin, his family.”²⁰³

Interrupted by shouts “To the great Stalin,” he continued impatiently (“I have not finished my toast”) and turned once more to the decisiveness of the middle cadres, over the objections of those present—try to stay silent—that his leadership was decisive: “A great deal is said about great leaders. But a cause is never won unless the right conditions exist. And the main thing here is the middle cadres—party, economic, military. They’re the ones who choose the leader, explain our positions to the masses, and ensure the success of our cause. They don’t try to climb above their station; you don’t even notice them.” Dimitrov again tried to object that Stalin was nonetheless more important, prompting him to insist yet again, “The fundamental thing is the middle cadres. That must be noted, and it must never be forgotten that, other conditions being equal, the middle cadres decide the outcome of our cause.”²⁰⁴

Stalin then broached the most taboo of subjects. “Why did we prevail over Trotsky and the rest?” he asked. “Trotsky, as we know, was the most popular man in our country after Lenin.” Trotsky—the number two! “Bukharin, Zinoviev, Rykov, Tomsky were all popular. We were little known—yours truly, Molotov, Voroshilov, and Kalinin—then.”²⁰⁵ Stalin went on to explain, however, that Trotsky had committed the fatal mistake of ignoring the middle cadres. “The party itself had wanted” the triumph of the lesser-knowns.

In yet another revealing gesture that tipsy night, Stalin indulged his man-of-the-borderlands persona, stating, “Comrade Dimitrov, I apologize for interrupting you; I am not a European, but a Russified Georgian-Asiatic.”²⁰⁶ We can only guess how émigré press portrayals of him rankled: a kinto (Georgian thug), a snitch for the tsarist okhranka, a nonentity, a usurper, an Asiatic.

Stalin in his toast referred to himself as just a “practical type” (praktik), unlike those famous personages. “Whom did we have?” he asked, answering, “Well, I led the organizational work in the Central Committee,” as if it were the most humdrum, shoulder-to-the-wheel post. “But what was I in comparison with Ilich [Lenin]? A feeble specimen.” He named his faction: “There were Molotov, Kalinin, Kaganovich, Voroshilov—all of whom were unknown. . . .” But, Stalin continued, “the people advance those who lead them to victory, personalities in history come and go, but the people remain, and the people do not make mistakes.” The unerring folk: that was how the hardworking faction of “feeble specimens” had triumphed over the famous personages like Trotsky. “I remind you of the following,” Stalin added, with evident pride. “In 1927, 700,000 party members voted for the Central Committee’s line; such was the core who voted for us feeble specimens. Some 4,000 to 6,000 voted for Trotsky, and 20,000 abstained.”²⁰⁷ In closing, he recalled Kirov’s death, a wake-up call: “Kirov, with his blood, opened the eyes of us idiots (excuse the blunt expression).”²⁰⁸ After the toasts ran their course, they repaired to the Kremlin cinema for another viewing of Romm’s Lenin in October.

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