Stalin: A Biography полностью

When he was in Moscow, too, Stalin devolved much responsibility to Molotov and Kaganovich. He bothered ever less frequently to convoke the Politburo. From seventy-five sessions in 1924 the number declined to fifty-three in 1928 and down again to twenty-four in 1933. Decisions were taken by polling the members by telephone, and this facilitated his ability to manipulate and control.⁷ It was usually Kaganovich who chaired the Orgburo and Secretariat. In September 1930 Stalin wrote to Molotov about the need to get rid of Rykov and for Molotov to take his place.⁸ Others in Stalin’s entourage felt unhappy — and perhaps also jealous — about the plan for Molotov’s promotion, and Voroshilov suggested that Stalin himself should take over Sovnarkom so as to bring about the ‘unification of leadership’. Molotov lacked ‘the gifts of a strategist’.⁹ Having enjoyed the praise, Stalin rejected the advice and gave the post to Molotov. He wanted to concentrate his own energies on the party and on the Comintern while knowing that Molotov would loyally carry out the tasks given to him.

The Orgburo, Secretariat and Sovnarkom dealt with matters which had to be referred to the Politburo if internal dispute arose. Stalin was kept informed about everything impinging on general policy or his personal interests. The three leaders anyway had to stick together. The Soviet economy had been exposed to the maelstrom of forced-rate industrialisation and forcible mass collectivisation. Popular disturbances were commonplace. The internal party opposition had been crushed but not liquidated, and the concern remained that Zinoviev, Kamenev, Bukharin or even Trotski might return to exploit the situation.

Stalin’s supporters also ran the various People’s Commissariats and other state institutions. No room was allowed for half-heartedness. If supporters wished to keep their posts they had to comply to the full. In September 1929 his Chekist brother-in-law Stanisław Redens brought the news to Stalin’s attention that OGPU chief Vladimir Menzhinski had disciplined his officials for ‘diseased phenomena’ in their work. This was an attempt to put a brake on the implementation of official policies. Stalin wanted zeal and results, not procedural regularity. He wrote to Menzhinski indicating the ‘evil’ of his ways.¹⁰ Menzhinski’s deputy Genrikh Yagoda risked similar reproof a year later when he wrote to Stalin about the ‘crude compulsion of poor and middling peasants to enter the kolkhozes’.¹¹ Stalin also kept up the pressure on the Party Central Control Commission. This was the body which adjudicated cases of disobedience to party policies; it was also meant to protect Bolsheviks against an over-mighty central party apparatus but this function had passed into desuetude. Stalin used the Central Control Commission under Ordzhonikidze to bully the oppositionist groups out of existence — and he was not slow to upbraid his ally Ordzhonikidze for lack of zeal in prosecuting troublemakers.¹²

Joint meetings of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission were also used as a means of getting Stalin’s favoured policies validated. He pulled this trick whenever he thought he might meet with criticism in the Central Committee. The result was satisfactory for him. The OGPU, Central Control Commission and Central Committee were bodies which supervised all Soviet public life, and they were held under the authority of Stalin and his leading group.

Having defeated the Left Opposition and Right Deviation, Stalin allowed individual oppositionists back into public life on strict terms. If they petitioned for rehabilitation he demanded that they should recant like an accused heretic before the Spanish Inquisition. Abject public self-criticism was demanded and, often enough, obtained. Many Trotskyists in particular were attracted by the high priority accorded to fast industrial growth; never having been principled democrats, they forgot their demands for the restoration of democracy to party and soviets and joined the Stalin group. Pyatakov and Preobrazhenski were among them. Not that Stalin was going to trust them regardless of what they said in public. In September 1930 he wrote to Molotov:¹³