You’re simply letting Stalin make a mockery of us.
Facts? Examples?
Allow me!
… Stalin makes the appointment of the Central Committee plenipotentiaries (instructors)
2) The Gulf Convention. Why not consult the two of us and Trotski about this important question?
3) Comintern…
V.I. [Lenin] dedicated a good 10 per cent of his time to the Comintern… And Stalin turns up, takes a quick look and makes a decision. And Bukh[arin] and I are ‘dead souls’: we’re not asked about anything.
This morning — and it was the last straw — Bukharin learned from Dubrovski’s personal telegram that the ed[itorial] board had been replaced without informing him or asking Bukh[arin]…
We won’t tolerate this any longer.
If the party is doomed to go through a period (probably
According to Zinoviev, the time to act was overdue.
He exaggerated the power of the General Secretary. A simple vote in the Politburo, chaired by Kamenev, could still restrain Stalin; and when Zinoviev was unable to attend sessions, it would not have been difficult to insist on preliminary consultation of his opinions. Yet he was right about Stalin’s growing desire to get his way without reference to fellow Politburo members. Stalin saw the need for tactical retreat. He agreed to — and indeed appeared to encourage — changes in the composition of central party bodies. His critics had seen how often he had placed his supporters in posts of authority outside Moscow. He sat through Orgburo meetings which decided such matters. The solution was obvious. Trotski, Zinoviev and Bukharin were appointed to the Orgburo. They could oppose Stalin’s schemes whenever they wanted.18
It made little difference. The reason usually given is that Trotski and Zinoviev failed to appreciate the importance of attending the Orgburo whereas Stalin was a contented participant. Yet the basic question is why Trotski and Zinoviev, having identified the source of Stalin’s bureaucratic power and demanded Orgburo membership for themselves, failed to follow through with their action against him. This question, though, raises yet another one. Was Stalin’s willingness to sit through meeting after meeting the most important reason for his capacity to defeat them? The answer must surely be no. It was not as if Trotski, Kamenev and Zinoviev spent their time untroubled by the duty to attend bureaucratic meetings. The entire Soviet order was bureaucratic, and meetings of administrative officials were the norm. The leading organs of the Central Committee had been recomposed mainly with a view towards administering a shock to the General Secretary. His fellow Politburo members thought they could get on with their individual campaigns to succeed Lenin. Each expected to run his administrative hierarchy without interference from the others. Stalin’s career had not been extinguished but his political capital had been reduced to a minimum.
He was helped by events. All Politburo members, including Trotski, wanted to keep unity in the central party leadership. Isolated and resented across the country outside the party, they eagerly presented a front of agreement in public. Lenin was not yet dead even though leaders in the Kremlin knew that his chances of recovery were remote. Stalin’s adversaries in the Politburo did not want to rock the communist party boat by trying to throw Stalin overboard.
