Stalin: A Biography полностью

Lenin died of a heart attack on 21 January 1924. Stalin, who was given the honour of organising the funeral, gained further security in his post. The Politburo had decided on extraordinary treatment of the corpse. It was to be embalmed and put on permanent display in a mausoleum to be erected on Red Square. Krupskaya objected in vain to the quasi-religious implications. Stalin was determined upon the ‘mausoleumisa-tion’ of the founder of Bolshevism. Several scientists volunteered their services and the race was joined to find a chemical process to do the job. Trotski enquired whether he should come back from Tbilisi, where he had arrived en route for Sukhum on the Black Sea to convalesce from a severe bout of influenza. Stalin telegraphed that his return was neither necessary nor possible since the funeral would be held on 26 January. The advice had hostile intent: Stalin knew Trotski would attract all the attention if he appeared in Moscow for the ceremony. Trotski travelled on to Sukhum, where Stalin’s supporter Nestor Lakoba welcomed him. Dzierżyński, who had taken Stalin’s side in the Georgian Affair, had already sent instructions that nobody should bother Trotski during his stay at the state dacha.¹

Much has been made of Stalin and Dzierżyń ski’s wish to keep Trotski out of the way. Purportedly Trotski’s absence from the funeral ruined his chances of succeeding Lenin as supreme party leader whereas Stalin’s leadership of the funeral commission put him at a crucial advantage. This is unconvincing. Although Trotski years later was to complain about Stalin’s trickery, he did not claim it had made much difference. Placing his premium on his own convalescence, Trotski stayed in Sukhum for weeks before making the train journey back to Moscow.

In fact the funeral took place on 27 January, and Stalin was a pallbearer with Kamenev, Zinoviev, Bukharin, Molotov, Dzierżyński, Tomski and Rudzutak. He turned out in his quasi-military tunic. Along with others he gave a speech. It included a series of oaths ending with the words:²

He was not alone in using religious imagery³ and his delivery was still not that of a polished orator. The significance of the speech lay elsewhere. Stalin was at last talking like someone who could speak to the party as a whole. Indeed he spoke as if on the party’s behalf. He was emerging on to centre-stage — and he had the nerve to drape himself in a flag of loyalty to the man who had wished to shatter his career. Few had imagined he would act with such aplomb.

The Central Committee put aside its disputes, at least in public. Bolsheviks had often talked about the threat posed by other political parties. This was an exaggerated fear after the Civil War; organised opposition to Bolshevism was at its nadir. Yet GPU head Felix Dzierżyń-ski and Stalin did not drop their guard, believing that Mensheviks, Socialist-Revolutionaries or even ‘Black Hundreds’ (who had organised anti-semitic pogroms before the Great War) might arrange ‘counterrevolutionary’ outbreaks against the Bolsheviks.⁴ Their attitude mirrored the beleaguered, suspicious outlook of the communist leaders. They had surprised their opponents by seizing power in the October Revolution and were concerned lest something similar might happen to themselves.