Stalin: A Biography

Central bodies were not the only problem. Each institution had its internal discrepancies. The centre vied with its local adjuncts. Leaders in Moscow tried to increase their authority by introducing their personal supporters to posts at lower levels. Patronage was normalised as a political phenomenon. Stalin could weaken its effect by placing rivals in particular institutions; but he could not eliminate it entirely, and since the end of the Great Terror had not made it his business to try. He could also insert his own chosen appointees into the provincial tiers. Yet for all this a great deal of energy was necessary. Stalin had possessed it in the 1930s even if he made choices based more on guesswork than on acquaintance with functionaries — he had ceased to meet provincial delegations as a matter of course in the late 1920s. In fact he rarely intervened in the huge process of non-central appointments after 1945. He was too old and exhausted and other things were on his mind: grand foreign and economic policy, the Korean War, the world communist movement and his political supremacy.

Stalinist governance stayed as contradictory as ever. Enormous power accrued to Stalin and his subordinates in the Politburo, and only saints or fools criticised the right to rule or the contents of their policies. Elections were a sham. Consultation of popular opinion never occurred. The obligation of Soviet citizens was to listen to orders and accede to doctrines. Hierarchical command had become a normal and prime aspect of governance and anyone challenging this development of the Soviet order — and even many who did not dare to challenge it — was certain to end up against a wall or in a labour camp. The immense, active power of the state was irresistible and few made the attempt to resist. Just a handful of brave Russian students got together in universities and discussed schemes for a reversion of ideology and practice to true Leninism. Religious dissenters too continued to hold secret meetings. Some intellectuals went on writing despite there being no prospect of publication. The armed partisan groups in Ukraine and the Baltic states, though diminished, had not yet been eliminated. But across the face of the USSR the forces of resistance to Stalinism were weak. On the back of that mighty state sat Joseph Stalin — Soso to his ageing school friends, Joseph to the Alliluevs, the Boss to the Politburo and Father of the Peoples to his citizen subjects. The despot’s hands retained their tight grip on the levers of power; and as long as he drew breath, he could not be budged.

Appearances did not deceive: he was the unchallengeable despot. But those appearances so dazzled that they occluded his weaknesses from view. At the lower levels of state and society the infringements of the hierarchical principle were systemic. Not only in politics but throughout the administrative stratum of the USSR there was theft, corruption, nepotism, informal patronage, misreporting and general disorder. Regional, institutional and local interests were defended. The Soviet order paid workers and kolkhozniks a pittance but failed to impose a pattern of labour compliance conventional in the West. At the tasks of micromanagement this totalitarian system was an abject failure.

Stalin gave no sign that he knew this. Not once after the Second World War did he visit a factory, farm or even administrative office. He ruled by his wits. Seeing his fellow politicians, he tried to prise out of them such information as they contrived to keep from him. He held his dinner parties. He kept regular contacts with his organs of surveillance. He gave his orders and sent threatening telegrams. He closed off channels for the propagation of doctrine and opinions different from his own. He arranged arrests. Yet his ‘omnipotence’ did not permit him to perfect the pyramidal order. The lowest levels of the structure were constantly found out of place by his inspectors, but they had long ago ceased to tell him the full truth. When defects were announced to him, it was de rigueur to suggest that saboteurs, diversionists or foreign agents had been at work. No one dared insist that the trouble was inherent in the Soviet order and in the policies introduced and implemented by Stalin. It was the ultimate vicious circle. Stalin knew only what he wanted to know. His subordinates tried to tell him only what he wanted or what they wanted him to know. The Leader with the most penetrative power of any contemporary ruler was walled off from the modalities of the Soviet order at its lower levels. Master of all he surveyed, he saw only a small part of his country’s realities and controlled even less.

50. EMPEROR WORSHIP